The King and I (1956)

The King and I is a musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein based on the book Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. The plot comes from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became school teacher to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. Starring Yul Brynner, Rita Moreno and Deborah Kerr.

Mrs. Anna Leonowens (Deborah Kerr), a widow from Wales, arrives in Bangkok with her young son, Louis, to teach English to the children of the royal household of King Mongkut (Yul Brynner). She is escorted to the palace by the King's sinister right-hand man, the Kralahome, of whom she is very apprehensive - she and her son must disguise their fear ("Whistle A Happy Tune"). She is greeted, but told she will stay in the palace, although the king promised her she would have a house. She demands to see the King and does see him. The King is pleased with her, and takes her to meet his wives and his fifteen children that live in the palace (he has sixty-seven more). She is charmed by the children, and agrees to stay and teach them. Here she meets a new, young wife - a Burmese girl named Tuptim, who arrived shortly before Anna did. She is unhappy living at the castle, because she is in love with Lun Tha, the man who had brought her to Siam from Burma.

Watch Movie - The King and I

Part One

 

Part Two

The King's wives come to help Anna settle in to her new home, and discover a photo of her husband. Anna reminisces about her days with Tom, and gives her blessing to other young lovers, who are like they used to be, ("Hello Young Lovers").

The King is troubled - he craves truth, but how can he learn the truth when different cultures say different things? ("Is A Puzzlement")

As Anna teaches her lesson to the children, she explains that getting to know people is her favorite thing to "teach" ("Getting to Know You"). The lesson goes on and the children start to not believe in the things she is teaching them, such as snow and Siam's small size. The King intervenes and scolds his children for not believing her.

Late one night, the King summons Anna to talk to her about the Bible, and how Moses says the world was created in six days. The King of Siam thinks Moses is a fool - he thinks that the world took many centuries to create. They have a small argument about the Bible in which Anna stands above the King. Due to the Siamese custom that no one's head should be higher than the King's, Anna is forced to sit on the floor as the King has her write a letter to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, telling him he will send male elephants to America to help with the Civil War. Anna tries to tell him that the elephants will not last long if only male elephants are sent, but the King loses interest and tells her to finish the letter herself. Before this, Anna has to have her head lowered than the king, which she first refuses, until the king loses his temper, forcing her to kneel and lie on the floor. Anna goes outside, where she meets Lun Tha and learns that he and Tuptim have been meeting in secret. He asks Anna to fetch Tuptim. Anna refuses at first, afraid of the consequences if the lovers are caught, but, remembering her own happy days with her husband, Tom, she relents. The lovers meet ("We Kiss In A Shadow"), and Lun Tha promises that when he comes again, he and Tuptim will escape from Siam.

Later, the King is told that England thinks him a barbaric leader, so he and Anna plan an English style feast for many European officials. Anna helps to make some of the ladies' European dresses, and also orders food and teaches the orchestra European music. She is appalled to find that she only has one week to do this in, but the King reminds her that according to Moses, the whole world was created in one week.

Anna dresses the ladies up in English clothes, but forgets to give them undergarments. She is horrified on discovering her mistake, and entreats the ladies to keep their backs to the wall when presented to the Ambassador. But at the sight of the Ambassador's spyglass, the ladies flee in panic, exclaiming that he has the head of a goat. The Ambassador arrives, along with his aide Sir Edward Ramsey, with whom Anna was in love before she met Tom - in fact, Edward did once ask for her hand in marriage. He waylays Anna as she goes to help the King with the seating, and they reminisce and dance together, which the King walks in on and is highly jealous. The King offers his arm to her and leads her to dinner, where the guest are entertained by the King's intellectual observations, and Tuptim's theatrical version of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which she narrates. When the play is over, however, she escapes with her lover. Anna and the King talk after the feast, and he gives her one of his rings as a present. Anna is quite taken by this gesture. It is here that the movie seems to show that they have fallen in love with each other, even though the King rejects the idea. The king recites a poem, known as the "Song of the King" where he states that women are "blossoms" and that men are "like Honeybees", and declares that "honey bees must be free" to "Fly from Blossom to Blossom", however, "blossoms must not ever fly from bee,to bee to bee". Anna laughs at the poem, however, She then teaches him how to dance the polka ("Shall We Dance"). However, they are interrupted by the Kralahome, who explains that Tuptim has been found and the King is told of her lover. He decides to whip her, but Anna calls him a barbarian, and says that he has no heart. He is unable to beat Tuptim and runs off in humiliation, and Anna gives back the ring and decides to leave Siam. Tuptim is led off in tears after an official announces that the corpse of Lun Tha has been discovered in the river. She is not seen again in the film.

Anna, thinking that she can no longer be of any use, is just about to leave Siam when she is told that the King is dying. His health has steadily declined ever since Anna called him a barbarian, and he has refused any help. She goes to his bedside and he gives her back the ring, pleading with her to wear it and saying that she has always spoken the truth to him. She decides to stay in order to help his young son, the Crown Prince Chulalongkorn, rule the people. As the prince is making his first statements as King, declaring the end of slavery in Siam, and stating that the King's subjects will no longer bow down to him but rather stand at attention, the King dies, only Anna and the Kralahome noticing. The film ends with Anna laying her head on his hand.

 

The film makes Tuptim's ultimate fate more ambiguous. In the stage version, when she hears of Lun Tha's death, she exclaims "Then I shall join him soon", implying that the King's soldiers will execute her (which is what happens to her in the film Anna and the King of Siam and the 1999 Anna and the King). In the 1956 film version of The King and I, Tuptim, when hearing of Lun Tha's fate, exclaims "Dead! Oh, no!", and begins weeping uncontrollably as the soldiers drag her off.

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Prizzi's Honor

Prizzi's Honor - a Romantic Crime Comedy

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Robert Loggia

Prizzi's Honor is a 1985 American black comedy film that tells the story of a mob hit man and hit woman who fall in love, even though they have been hired to kill each other. It stars Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Robert Loggia and Anjelica Huston.

The movie was adapted by Richard Condon and Janet Roach from Condon's novel. It was directed by John Huston. Its score, composed by Alex North, adapts the music of Giacomo Puccini and Gioachino Rossini .

Pauline Kael wrote of it: "This John Huston picture has a ripe and daring comic tone. It revels voluptuously in the murderous finagling of the members of a Brooklyn Mafia family, and rejoices in their scams. It's like The Godfather acted out by The Munsters. Jack Nicholson's average-guyness as Charley, the clan's enforcer, is the film's touchstone: this is a baroque comedy about people who behave in ordinary ways in grotesque circumstances, and it has the juice of everyday family craziness in it."

It won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Anjelica Huston), and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Nicholson), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (William Hickey), Best Costume Design, Best Director, Best Film Editing (Kaja Fehr and Rudi Fehr), Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

 Cast;

* Jack Nicholson as Charley Partanna

* Kathleen Turner as Irene Walker

* Robert Loggia as Eduardo Prizzi

* Anjelica Huston as Maerose Prizzi

* William Hickey as Don Corrado Prizzi

* C. C. H. Pounder as Peaches Altamot

* John Randolph as Angelo "Pop" Partanna

* Lee Richardson as Dominic Prizzi

* Michael Lombard as Rosario Filangi "Finlay"

* George Santopietro as Plumber

* Ann Selepegno as Amalia Prizzi

* Lawrence Tierney as Lt. Hanley

* Vic Polizos as Phil Vittimizzare

* Dick O´Neil as Bluestone

* Sally Boyar as Casco Vasorne

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The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)

The Bridges at Toko Ri is Set during the Korean War, a Navy fighter pilot must come to terms with with his own ambivalence towards the war and the fear of having to bomb a set of highly defended bridges. The ending of this grim war drama is all tension.

The Bridges at Toko-Ri is a 1954 film based on a novel by James Michener about a naval aviator assigned to bomb a group of heavily defended bridges during the Korean War. It was made into a motion picture by Paramount Pictures and won the Special Effects Oscar at the 28th Academy Awards. It follows the book of the same title emphasizing the lives of the pilots and crew in the context of a war that seems remote to all except those who fight in it. The goal of the mission is set above everything else and the heroes perish as victims of fate. The novel and film are a composite of actual missions flown against bridges at Majon-ni and Changnim-Ni, North Korea, in the winter of 1951–1952, when Michener was a correspondent aboard the aircraft carriers Essex and Valley Forge, and with a pair of rescue missions on February 8, 1952, one of which involved the shoot-down of a plane off the Valley Forge. However, in the rescue incident referenced the downed airmen survived the crash and rescue attempt but were captured by North Korean soldiers. (At the time Michener believed the men to have been killed.)

Watch Movie Classic - The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Harry Brubaker (William Holden) is a pilot who previously fought during World War 2, went back to his civilian job as an attorney, and is now a recalled naval reservist further engaged in the Korean War flying jets from carriers. The film starts with him returning from a mission where his jet sustained battle damage and he has to ditch it into the bone chilling cold of the Sea of Japan.

Brubaker is about to freeze to death when a Navy rescue helicopter appears. The rescue helicopter that saves Brubaker is flown by an enlisted Naval Aviation Pilot (NAP), the eccentric Green top hat & green scarf wearing Chief Petty Officer Mike Forney (Mickey Rooney), with Forney's crewman AD2 Nestor Gamidge (Earl Holliman) jumping into the freezing water to hook Brubaker to the rescue harness.

Rear Admiral Tarrant (Fredric March), the carrier task force commander, lost his own son at the Battle of Midway during World War II and Brubaker’s manner and bearing brings back memories of his lost son. The admiral finds the pilot is tired of war and just wants to return to civilian life to be with his family and the legal career he left behind. Nevertheless, they both agree to the necessity of seeing this conflict through to its conclusion.


A new mission is set. The target is a group of bridges used by Communist forces. Commander Wayne Lee, the Commander of the Carrier Air Group ("CAG"), is dedicated to his men, but Tarrant would rather see him dedicated to his mission. He decides not to recommend promoting Lee to the rank of Captain for this reason.

Brubaker is told that his wife Nancy (Grace Kelly) and children arrived in Tokyo on an unexpected visit and he is given a three-day pass during a port visit. Their reunion is interrupted when Nestor shows up at their hotel asking Brubaker's help in bailing Forney out of the guardhouse after a brawl with another sailor. Nancy, anxious to have her husband back home, is terrified to discover the signs of a man ready to crack from combat fatigue. Nancy is deep into thoughts of being left a widow. Tarrant will try to support her, although he, too, remembers how his own daughter-in-law had almost turned insane after losing her husband, Tarrant's son.

Back to the carrier, Lee presents to his pilots the air photos taken from a low pass over Toko-Ri. The flak is extremely dense and the pilots have to fly very low into the banks of the river while receiving fire from all sides. Brubaker gets sick after this briefing and believes his days are numbered. He is ready to write a letter to Nancy predicting his own death. Lee tries to boost the pilot's morale by asking him to stay behind if he feels he cannot accomplish his mission. Brubaker vows to do his duty.

The initial attack is on a series of bridges. Lee organizes two formations, the second one to be led by Brubaker. The results from the first attack are incomplete, so he orders the second group led by Brubaker to attack. Brubaker's team dashes in low and completes the destruction of the last bridge. Lee then directs the air group to attack a secondary target, an ammunition dump. As Brubaker completes the run, his plane receives a hit that creates a fuel leak. Lee escorts Brubaker, guiding him back to the carrier, but the fuel loss will not allow Brubaker to overcome the last hill before the sea. He belly-lands onto a relatively flat area. The rescue helicopter and his faithful friends Mike and Nestor land close by to pick him up, but Chinese ground troops arrive and machine gun the helicopter, killing Nestor. Brubaker and Forney try to hide in a small ditch to defend themselves with carbines and pistols, but eventually are outnumbered and both are killed.

 

After getting confirmation from the US Army that the three Americans are killed, Admiral Tarrant is shattered by the news and demands an explanation. Lee retorts that despite the losses, the mission was a success. Tarrant sorrowfully must accept that Lee has "matured", recommending him for promotion. The film ends with Tarrant alone, wondering where Brubaker and all the others under his command could have found the bravery to do what is asked from them. The movie ends with a famous quote: "Where do we get such men?"

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