Film Critic Kenneth Turan Picks 54 Films That Are 'Not To Be Missed'

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: We have movie recommendations next from a man who has seen a lot of them. Kenneth Turan reviews new films on MORNING EDITION. His true love however is old films, which became clear when he wrote a book about them. It's called "Not To Be Messed: Fifty-Four Favorites From A Lifetime Of Film." Turan breaks them down by decades and decades like the 1930s and '40s are filled with his recommendations. We asked Turan to talk about a few movies on his list.

INSKEEP: And I want to start with this - you describe movies as your friends, which is a great line and I totally understand it. What do your friends have in common?

KENNETH TURAN: They speak to me. No, what they have in common is that they move me in ways that almost are beyond language. That go into you so deeply, that it almost feels like when a film really works, it changes your life.

INSKEEP: OK, let's pick a film off the list. It's from 1941. It's called "The Lady Eve." Who's in it, what's it about?

TURAN: I do love this film. This is with Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck. It's Preston Sturges comedy. Preston Sturges was, for a brief period of time, the king of Hollywood. He made these really witty films. These racy films, a lot of great dialogue, a lot of great repartee. Barbara Stanwyck plays a con woman, and Henry Fonda plays the heir to a great brewery fortune who has just been, for a year, up the Amazon studying snakes.

INSKEEP: And now she wants to pick him up, along with his fortune I guess.

TURAN: Exactly.

INSKEEP: Let's play a clip from this film, "The Lady Eve." And in this scene, Barbara Stanwyck has persuaded Henry Fonda that he really needs to be the one who puts on her fresh pair of shoe, which gets him down at her knees, at her feet there. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE LADY EVE")

HENRY FONDA: (As Charles Pike) It's funny to be kneeling here at your feet, talking about beer. You see, where I've been, I mean, up the Amazon, you kind of forget how, I mean, when you haven't seen a girl in a long time. I mean, something about that perfume that...

BARBARA STANWYCK: (As Jean Harrington) Don't you like my perfume?

FONDA: (As Charles Pike) Like it? I'm cockeyed on it.

STANWYCK: (As Jean Harrington) Why hopsy (ph), you ought to be kept in a cage.

INSKEEP: And having drawn him in, she then pushes him away. There's a lot of, let's say, energy in that scene given that actually nothing happens.

TURAN: It's wonderful. It's a kind of comedy we almost don't see anymore. It's deft, it's sophisticated. Because of censorship, because so much couldn't be said explicitly, they had to go to lengths to make stuff funny, and to make their points.

INSKEEP: Now, you also have on your list a movie from 1950, "Sunset Boulevard." The only film that I know of that begins with the narrator dead in a swimming pool.

TURAN: Yes, this is a very unusual choice for an opening. And it's still kind of shocking when you see it. I like inside Hollywood films, and "Sunset Boulevard" I think is the bleakest one of these. It stars Gloria Swanson as a silent film star who can't make her peace with the fact that she's not a big star anymore. And the thing about the film, the more I watched it, Gloria Swanson's performance, it fascinated me how sympathetic she makes this character. This is a very desperate character. This is in many ways an unpleasant character.

INSKEEP: Self-deluded.

TURAN: Yes, you shouldn't really like her, but you really - your heart goes out to her as crazed as she is. It's just a marvelous performance and even though everyone else - William Holden is quite good. This is the performance that holds the film together.

INSKEEP: You feel what she has lost as the movies have changed. Let's listen to one of the many famous lines from Sunset Boulevard.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SUNSET BOULEVARD")

WILLIAM HOLDEN: (As Joe Gillis) Wait a minute, haven't I seen you before? I know your face.

GLORIA SWANSON: (As Norma Desmond) Get out, or shall I call my servant?

HOLDEN: (As Joe Gillis) You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.

SWANSON: (As Norma Desmond) I am big. It's the pictures that got small.

(LAUGHING)

INSKEEP: Later of course, she's ready for her close-up. I don't think we're giving away the ending to say that much.

TURAN: No. I mean, that's an amazing line. You know, and it's a line that resonates today when people are watching things on cell phones.

INSKEEP: And I'm still big and the pictures have gotten small.

TURAN: (Laughing) That's right.

INSKEEP: You have also sent us a historical epic that is part of your list here, from 1962, I believe, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." Awesome movie - Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, and Lee Marvin.

TURAN: This is a wonderful Western. It's almost an anti-Western. This uses some of the biggest stars of the time and it puts them in a story that's very emotional, that's elegiac. It's just very moving. I mean, I find myself, when I watched it again, that partly because I know what's coming, there's certain moments were I start to tear up because you just can feel the emotion coursing through these characters.

INSKEEP: John Ford is trying to capture the winning of the West and the violence that underlays the spread of what was seen then as civilization. You have Jimmy Stewart who's, you know, he's an educator, he's a lawyer, but he can't defend himself and he needs a brutal man in John Wayne to defend him on the rough frontier.

TURAN: Yeah, it's a subversive film in many ways. It's really a film about what is heroic and what is truth and how what is received as truth maybe didn't happen.

INSKEEP: And without giving away the entire ending, let's play a bit from the ending of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." This is a newspaperman who's finally found out the true story of what happened in this film, nd having taken all the notes down, he tears it up.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE"

INSKEEP: (As Dutton Peabody) Well, you're not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?

CARLETON YOUNG: (As Maxwell Scott) No, sir. This is the West sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

INSKEEP: Also true in film reviewing, right?

TURAN: (Laughing) I try to print the facts. I do my best.

INSKEEP: You have also sent us a film from 2001. We're in the 21st century now. The movie is called "Spirited Away." What is it?

TURAN: This is probably the master work of the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. It's a strange story, it's a product of a really fearless imagination. It's about a young girl, who kind of gets trapped in a spirit world and all the strange spirits she has to interact with. It's got nothing in common with Disney animation. It's a kind of animation that looks and sounds completely like it's own world. And it'll just blow you away.

INSKEEP: So, let me ask you - animation is better, computer generation is much better, all the technology of film is better - are the movies better?

TURAN: Oh, gosh, the movies, no, they're not better. I mean, I hope that they stay the same. You know, there's so many economic pressures that are keeping Hollywood for making the kind of intelligent, adult entertainment, that used to be its birthright. That I'm just, you know, grateful that there's still some left and I'm hopeful that we can stay the course.

INSKEEP: Is smart TV going to kill the movies?

TURAN: I don't think so. You know, the big dark room, the big screen - there's nothing to replace that. You know, I was really heartened when George R.R. Martin, who wrote the books "Game of Thrones," huge TV hit - once the money started pouring in, what did he do? He bought a movie theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico because for him as well, nothing can replace the theatrical experience. When a great film comes on, it just takes you away. It sweeps you off your feet. I wouldn't have it any other way.

INSKEEP: Kenneth Turan is a regular critic for MORNING EDITION and The Los Angeles Times. And his new book is called "Not To Be Missed: Fifty-Four Favorites From a Lifetime Of Film." Good talking with you.

TURAN: Good to talk to you, Steve.

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