john-morris43

A common fault made by contemporary critics of the early talkies is to contrast them with techniques that we have since become accustomed to. Audiences as well as actors once knew only stage productions. When films began to be shown in the same halls in which plays were performed, they conformed to the play format. The "drawing room" dramas were little else but filmed plays. Moreover, movable cameras did not always exist. Stage acting was highly stylized and preferred by audiences. For one, voices had to carry—and without the aid of microphones. Thus, diction had to be clipped and enunciation precise so that dialogue would not be muddled by the time it reached the ears of those in the back rows. This compensation remained a necessity in the early days of sound film as audio equipment had yet to be more developed. A later desire for "natural" acting was accommodated by more advanced sound techniques in movie making. Again, it was expected that actors "acted." Thespians were to be more emotive than ordinary people in ordinary conversation. Movie-goers did not pay to see—and later hear—people that they could see for nothing on any street corner. As to the plot of this drama, it had the elements wished for by the paying crowds. Movies then, like movies today, were and are a commodity. They either speak to their time or they go bust. Again to the plot: we have had exposure to nearly ninety years of filmmaking since "Inside the Lines" was released. Much that rings familiar now was new at that time. Plot devices we see coming were at this time novel. In defense of this production, it was well written, directed, and performed, according to one man's opinion.

This movie came out 63 years before the release of "Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism," by Ronald Rychlak and Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa. The same points in this film which anti anti-communists and religious skeptics and bigots resent or deny have been more than confirmed by Pacepa's detailed and carefully constructed memoir. Pacepa, former acting chief of communist Romania's espionage service and senior person in the Soviet Union's "Dezinformatsiya" campaign, reveals what Communist disinformation accomplished and wrought. His account of Mindszenty's plight only substantiates the entire plot and dialogue of this movie. In fact, what we learn in this production is fact, as opposed to the highly fictionalized accounts of Che Guevara.

Reviewers refer to the team of art rescuers in "The Monuments Men" as "charmingly quirky crew," and "misfits." Such descriptions may well describe the characters in the film version of this operation; but they misrepresent the authentic assemblage of talented men whose job it was to rescue the stolen art treasures of Europe by the Nazis, and to prevent further pillaging. George Clooney tried matching his directorial talents to his artistic ego, and failed. Perhaps Clooney gets an A for effort and for his heart being in the right place. And perhaps "The Monuments Men" is an enjoyable movie for some or for many; but it is a poor portrayal of serious persons as entertaining pantomimes. A problem shared by many that exist in the insularity of Hollywood is a breakdown along the lines that separate reality from entertainment. Moviegoers tend to be less-and-less patient with reading and less-and-less finical about authenticity. Even the wading through title of Robert M. Edsel's non-fiction work, "The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History and Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis," they would find exhausting. By this, Clooney's undertaking will survive; but not nearly as well as the treasures at the center of this story.