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Poll

What's the best film by John Ford?

The Iron Horse
0 (0%)
3 Bad Men
0 (0%)
Four Sons
0 (0%)
Up the River
0 (0%)
Pilgrimage
0 (0%)
Judge Priest
0 (0%)
The Informer
0 (0%)
Steamboat Round the Bend
0 (0%)
The Prisoner of Shark Island
0 (0%)
Wee Willie Winkie
0 (0%)
Stagecoach
3 (6.4%)
Young Mr. Lincoln
5 (10.6%)
Drums Along the Mohawk
0 (0%)
Grapes of Wrath
4 (8.5%)
The Long Voyage Home
0 (0%)
How Green Was My Valley
5 (10.6%)
The Battle of Midway
0 (0%)
They Were Expendable
0 (0%)
My Darling Clementine
5 (10.6%)
The Fugitive
0 (0%)
Fort Apache
1 (2.1%)
3 Godfathers
0 (0%)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
1 (2.1%)
Wagon Master
1 (2.1%)
Rio Grande
0 (0%)
The Quiet Man
1 (2.1%)
The Sun Shines Bright
0 (0%)
Mogambo
0 (0%)
The Long Gray Line
0 (0%)
The Searchers
13 (27.7%)
The Wings of Eagles
0 (0%)
The Last Hurrah
0 (0%)
The Horse Soldiers
0 (0%)
Sergeant Rutledge
0 (0%)
Two Rode Together
0 (0%)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
6 (12.8%)
Donovan's Reef
0 (0%)
Cheyenne Autumn
0 (0%)
7 Women
0 (0%)
haven't seen any
0 (0%)
don't like any
2 (4.3%)
other
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 46

Author Topic: Ford, John  (Read 27351 times)

1SO

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Re: Ford, John
« Reply #130 on: January 10, 2017, 11:17:28 PM »
I didn't think I posted about Iron Horse and was going to comment that you express my own thoughts perfectly.

Then I found it.

Quote
The Iron Horse features Madge Bellamy as Miriam Marsh. It also has a hell of a Mr. Lincoln look-alike. Except for one close-up, you'd swear this was archival footage. Ford does what Greengrass did so brilliantly with United 93, bypass character and plot, recreating the events as if they were actually happening. The meticulous attention to detail is exciting and the non-narrative framework allows for a broader canvas encompassing a wider variety of characters from various races and social classes. Things become more story focused in the back half and the lengthy action finale isn't nearly as exciting as it should be, but this is still easily...

I would give it a B-

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Ford, John
« Reply #131 on: January 11, 2017, 04:09:10 AM »
pixote, did you watch the movie on your laptop and take the screenshots as you were watching or is there an easier way to do that?
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Re: Ford, John
« Reply #132 on: January 11, 2017, 07:57:59 AM »
I was swept away by the spectacle.
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

pixote

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Re: Ford, John
« Reply #133 on: January 11, 2017, 11:36:59 AM »
pixote, did you watch the movie on your laptop and take the screenshots as you were watching or is there an easier way to do that?

I used to do that, but it'd end up distracting me from the movie and result in way too many screenshots to deal with. Nowadays, if I want a series of screenshots, I run through the movie quickly after watching and grab shots from the timestamps I made a mental note of, plus whatever else catches my eye.

I was swept away by the spectacle.

I know! I'm jealous of your experience. I really think it would have helped me to watch The Covered Wagon first.

pixote
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pixote

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Re: Ford, John
« Reply #134 on: February 07, 2017, 05:19:34 AM »








































3 Bad Men  (John Ford, 1926)

3 Bad Men shows Ford blending the pleasant charms he displayed in Just Pals with the epic reach of The Iron Horse, resulting in a thoroughly entertaining motion picture. The credits suggest that the film is "suggested by" the novel Over the Border by Herman Whitaker, but it perhaps owes just as much to Peter B. Kyne's novelette 3 Godfathers (which Ford had already adapted in 1919, as Marked Men), except with the infant of that story replaced by the beautifully grown-up Olive Borden. Her character, Lee Carlton, is heading to the South Dakota land rush with her pops, but he's killed by horse thieves en route. Lee is saved from the same fate by a second band of horse thieves, the film's title characters, whose intentions are no more honorable — until they see that not only is Lee a woman but a very pretty one at that.

In probably every other movie ever made with a similar setup, the rest of the story would involve the three bad men competing lustily for Lee's affections, only to have some other stud swoop in and try to steal her away. That's not this movie at all, to its great benefit. Instead, our titular anti-heroes are overcome with paternal affection for the girl, wanting only to keep her safe and happy — so much so that they themselves seek out a suitable male companion for her, eventually landing on George O'Brien.

There's more to the story than that — that's really just a small aspect — but it provides a sense of how 3 Bad Men explores familiar territory in an interesting way. The first half of the film is almost more concerned with atmosphere than with story — the town setting on the outskirts of the imminent land rush and its colorful inhabitants — and it's surprisingly funny. The second half consists largely of two highly impressive and exciting action sequences: a terroristic house fire and the land rush sequence itself.

Ford films both halves well, though he continues to more adept with long shots and thus a bit more comfortable in the grand action sequences. He's got a talent for landscapes and portraiture — those shots that can stand on their own, like paintings. But he's less cinematic than many of his contemporaries when it comes to filming in space, where multiple shots are needed to make up the complete image. In most simple dialogue scenes, for example, he often resorts to filming the characters in a medium two-shot, always always always perpendicular to them, and then editing in a few closeups, with the same framing repeated time and again. The result is very pedestrian, especially in the context of the other more painterly moments.

The finale of 3 Bad Men showcases these visual strengths and weaknesses of Ford in perfect counterpoint. The start of the land rush, with the mass of people and horses streaming across the field, is Ford at his silent-era best. But when the finale turns into a series of shootouts, with the drama scaled back from the mob to individuals, the staging and filming of the action suddenly turns a bit rote and stagy, in B-western fashion. I'll be curious to see if his next western improves on this element, but that's another thirteen years away in his filmography (Stagecoach).

George O'Brien gets top billing here, followed by Olive Borden, but they're really secondary characters. This is Tom Santschi's movie, and, as the leader of the three bad men, he's something of a revelation. The whole ensemble gives really strong performances, with surprising nuance for a 1926 film (except in the death scenes), and it starts with Santschi. It helps that he so looks the part of an 1876 horse thief with a tender side, but he's really, really good in the role, carrying the film. I wish more of his movies were readily available, including his directorial efforts from the early 1910s.

O'Brien has maybe a fifth of the screen time, but he makes a good impression as well, with his on-screen charisma seeming to have tripled in the two years since The Iron Horse. J. Farrell MacDonald, another Iron Horse veteran, is also a more welcome presence in 3 Bad Men. Looking at his filmography, he's poised to become my favorite 'that guy' in movie history. I had no idea the ''My great-grandfather planted this tree!"-guy from It's a Wonderful Life had such a long and varied career in the movies dating back in 1911.

I watched the DVD with the score that Dana Kaproff recorded for it in 2007, and I have conflicted feelings about that. It's a decent score, occasionally doing a lot to enhance the movie, but it's definitely modern in its sensibilities, making little effort to feel like a film score from the period. I'm again wary of having my experience of a 1926 film influenced by a 21st century score, but my experience was a good one, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Grade: B+

Up next: Four Sons

pixote
« Last Edit: July 05, 2017, 11:31:27 PM by pixote »
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Corndog

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Re: Ford, John
« Reply #135 on: February 07, 2017, 07:24:21 AM »
That baby in the land rush bit is incredible.

I'm again wary of having my experience of a 1926 film influenced by a 21st century score, but my experience was a good one, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

pixote

Seeing Metropolis for the first time, set to a live, industrial style music score is precisely why the film worked as well as it did for me, precisely why it's in my Top 100 (for other reasons too obviously), and precisely why I know I'll never be able to experience the film the same way ever again. Embrace it!
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

Sandy

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Re: Ford, John
« Reply #136 on: February 08, 2017, 09:10:57 AM »
3 Bad Men  (John Ford, 1926)

gosh, I want to see this.

Thanks for the gorgeous screenshots and for the review, pixote!

pixote

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Re: Ford, John
« Reply #137 on: July 05, 2017, 11:32:09 PM »






































Four Sons  (John Ford, 1928)

My mild recommendation of Four Sons stems almost entirely from the film's visuals. It represents a great leap forward for Ford, and it's impossible to imagine that he wasn't highly influenced by F.W. Murnau, who filmed Sunrise at the same studio the year before. (Four Sons reportedly even reused some sets from that film.) The screenshots above don't do justice to the many lovely tracking shots and the use of layers of action within the frame, but they at least provide a sense of the general dreaminess of the movie, the lavish, extremely impressive art direction, the wonderful use of shadows, and the multitude of memorable faces. There's one shot (not pictured) of a pebble thrown into the reflection of a church that really sums up the whole mood of the film.

The story, a somewhat familiar tale of a matriarch seeing her sons go off to war, fighting on both sides, feels like an abbreviated version of an imagined epic. The three acts feel rather disparate, and even at ninety-eight minutes the film feels long. It's overly sentimental, with too much reliance on caricature and ill-advised comic detours that mistake quaintness for humor. The acting is a bit broad (my initial batch of screenshots had way too many exaggerated gestures), but Margaret Mann and Albert Gran each have some very nice moments, and June Collyer lights up the screen with her beauty. I'm excited to see more of her in the next Ford film on my schedule.

Grade: B-

Up next: Hangman's House

pixote
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1SO

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Re: Ford, John
« Reply #138 on: July 06, 2017, 01:09:21 AM »


I'd recognize Jack Pennick's face anywhere. I remember him best as Buck from a brief moment in Young Mr. Lincoln. He's appeared in 145 features including 45 for John Ford

pixote

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Re: Ford, John
« Reply #139 on: July 08, 2017, 03:43:51 AM »






























Hangman's House  (John Ford, 1928)

John Ford's improved visual sense, evidenced in Four Sons, continues in Hangman's House — but pretty pictures and appealing Irish atmosphere can't rescue the movie from its muddled and unfocused screenplay. Hangman's House begins as a promising revenge tale, with Victor MacLagen returning to Ireland (despite a price on his head there) to kill a man. It's another forty-five minutes until it's clear who that man is and what McLagen's motivations are — a definite problem in a film that runs only seventy minutes. That whole arc is becomes relegated to a subplot, secondary to the love story between June Collyer (whose effervescence is largely wasted here) and Larry Kent — a love story thwarted as Collyer's dying father (the eponymous and odious hangman) guilts her into marrying the more worldly and douchey Earle Foxe (who admittedly makes a perfect villain). But that story has the aura of a subplot as well. No single character in the movie commandeer our attention, yet the film nevers coheres as an ensemble piece either. It's the crumbs of trite melodrama swept into a pile and nicely photographed.

The first half of Hangman's House has a ponderousness that doesn't befit the subject matter — almost as if the editor had to pad each shot to reach a minimum run time. The second half is a bit more brisk, aided by two action set pieces (a horse race and a house fire), but it's a case of too-little-too-late (plus I was too concerned about the safety of those horses). The last two seconds of the film are sublime, however, adding a sudden burst of nuanced beauty right before the last fade to black. The single moment underscores what a good film this might have been.

John Wayne could totally pass for McLagen's younger brother here. It's no wonder Ford liked him.

Grade: C

Up next: Born Reckless

pixote
« Last Edit: July 08, 2017, 03:46:43 AM by pixote »
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