The Play's the Thing Act 3 French, Godless Jimmy Stewart?

Seventh Heaven (1937)
Films often rely on a suspension of disbelief -- a giant ape, a twister carrying a house to a magical land, or a man that can fly… But Jimmy Stewart as a Parisian sewer worker in 1937’s Seventh Heaven? That’s really stretching it.

Seventh Heaven was a Broadway hit early in the Roaring Twenties. There was a 1927 silent film, but we watched the second version directed by Henry King. A title card introduces the setting, making it clear that this will be an apt subject for Movie Churches:

“Paris, 1914. On the lower slope of Montmartre hill lies a sinister square called “The Sock.” Its wretched inhabitants crowded like rats, live between heaven and hell, for their evil street is stopped suddenly by a church.”

The film has an international cast with an interesting assortment of accents (supposedly all found in France). While Simone Simon who plays the heroine, Diane, is French, Gale Sondergaard who plays her sister, Nana, is American born. Others in the neighborhood are Aristide the Astrologer (played by J. Edward Bromberg from Romania) and Durand (played by Sig Ruman of Germany). And the priest, Father Chevillion, is played by a Dane, Jean Hersholt.

So I guess Jimmy Stewart’s Chico, though a Yankee, fits right in with this multicultural neighborhood. Chico considers himself “a most remarkable fellow.” One of the things that Chico considers remarkable about himself is his atheism, of which he proudly boasts. When asked why he doesn’t believe in God, he says, “Everything made me an atheist.” He explains he prayed for two things. First of all, he prayed for promotion from sewer worker to street sweep. He paid 6 francs for the biggest candle he could find and prayed in church. “I have prayed so long and so loud, that even if God was deaf he would have heard me,” he says. But no promotion came. Then he bought a candle to pray for a wife with yellow hair. “A remarkable fellow like me should have a remarkable wife.” That prayer wasn’t answered either. “God owes me 12 francs” (for the candles).

One of Chico's friends hides in the church when the police are chasing him for stealing a watch. The Gendarmarie won't enter the church, but one officer says to the other, "He's got to come out sometime."

As the thief skulks in the church, other people are in the pews, and the priest is conversing with the altar boys. The priest sees the thief hiding behind a pillar and says to him, “Well my son, have you come back to Mother Church? I have the whole evening, time enough to confess.” He does return the stolen watch to the priest, and ruckus outside allows him to escape by dropping down a manhole -- where he is confronted by Chico in the sewer.

Chico knows where the thief's been, saying, “If you need help, come here, not a church. Priests are crafty. Sometimes all they need is a minute.” Chico is quite concerned his friend will fall under ecclesiastical influence, saying, “If you’re going to hide, hide down here, where you have to work for help, not pray for it.”

But Chico soon encounters that same priest, Father Chevillion. Diane, a young woman wearing a plain dress and a cross necklace, is at a table in her sister’s “cafe” with a man. She refuses the attentions of the lecherous older man and throws wine in the man’s face. Her sister is angry and drives Diane to the street and beats her. Chico steps between them, throwing Nana in the sewer.

This leads to a conversation with a friend about God. To prove God doesn’t exist, Chico says he’ll walk into the church and dare God to strike him dead. There he meets Father Chevillion, who had also seen the incident with Chico, Nana, and Diane. Chico says, “There’s nothing between you and me, Citizen Priest.”

But the priest says to him, “I’ve longed to get my hands on a real atheist. We should talk on neutral ground.” So they go out on the street, where Chico tells the priest he doesn’t believe in God because of mistreated creatures like Diane. He then tells the priest that God didn’t answer his prayers for promotion or for a wife.

The priest takes out a piece of paper and writes out a note for the city commissioner to promote Chico from sewer man to street sweeper. He also asks Chico to care for Diane. Obviously, the priest is taking it upon himself to answer Chico’s prayers. Father Chevillion also gives Chico two saints' medals. When Chico inspects them, he notices their price. Each is worth 6 francs.

Chico becomes. When Diane is accused of vagrancy, he tells the police officer she is his wife. Most of the rest of the film focuses on the growing romance between Chico and Diane. The great obstacle to their love comes when Chico is drafted to serve in World War I, but he goes with faith. Diane had faith in God but has come to have faith in Chico as well. Chico has come to have faith in God through his relationship with Diane.

The priest and the church play another role toward the end of the film. The church is a hospital for wounded soldiers, and Father Chevillion serves as their chaplain. In time, one of the men he must care for is a badly wounded Chico -- and eventually, Chico and Diane are reunited.

It could be argued that Father Chevillion manipulates events to lead men to God. Or it could be said that the priest serves as God’s hand in the lives of others. Because I believe the latter, Father Chevillion and his church receive our highest Movie Churches rating of 4 Steeples.

On the Small Screen in Oregon

There is a generation that grew to grew up in fear of dysentery because they spent hour after hour in computer labs playing The Oregon Trail. They tried to get those poor pioneers to the Beaver State but sometimes the wagon wheels just wouldn’t stay on. There is a film that doesn’t quite capture the excitement of that game,  2010’s Meek’s Cutoff. Settlers find themselves lost with a dubious guide in the high desert of Oregon, battling thirst and hopelessness. Despite some familiar faces in the cast such as Paul Dano and Michelle Williams, the film feels like an independent film, at times like a student film, with a glacial pace.

Though there is no church in the film, the settlers are heard reading the Bible (Genesis 3) and they do pray. But they differ greatly on how Christians should behave, particularly on the issue of how Native Americans should be treated. Should they be treated as pagans without moral standing or as human beings? The right answer seems clear to us, but it’s a little fuzzy to the characters in the film. The film, set in Oregon, used filming locations in Burns and Hines, Oregon.

A much more lively tale of the Old West is found in 1952’s Bend of the River, one of several classic Jimmy Stewart Westerns directed by Anthony Mann. Stewart plays a homesteader whose supplies are stolen by an land baron, and Stewart fights to get them back. The Oregon locations were filmed in Mount Hood, Timberline, Columbia River, and Sandy River.

If someone went into 1989’s Drugstore Cowboy hoping to see a Western, that person may well have been sorely disappointed. Gus Van Sant directed this oddly moving drama about drug addicts who rob from drugstores to get their fixes. Portland and Beacon Rock residents must have hoped to see stars Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch filming.

Speaking of those players of the Oregon Trail computer game, many of them spent hours at home watching video tapes of beloved cult classics set in the state. 1985’s The Goonies, based on a story (credited to Steven Spielberg) about kids hunting for treasure, was set in Oregon and filmed in Astoria and Cannon Beach. 1990’s Kindergarten Cop used those same cities for location filming, but told the story of a policeman (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who must go undercover as a teacher. Really, both of these films are models of credibility compared to 1986’s Short Circuit in which Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy come to the aid of a robot that miraculously becomes alive. It was also filmed in Astoria, as well as Cascade Locks and Columbia River Gorge.

From the same era, beloved by the same generation -- but a much better film -- is 1986’s Stand By Me. Child actors Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Cory Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell played friends making a journey to find a missing boy. The film was directed by Rob Reiner during his streak of amazing films (a little after This is Spinal Tap and just before The Princess Bride) and is based on a Stephen King story. The author considered it the first successful adaptation of his work (which came as a surprise to Brian DePalma, director of Carrie). Oregon locations used for shooting included Brownsville, Cottage Grove, Franklin, Eugene, Junction City, and Veneta.

A couple of generations before the computer nerds, in the days of flower power, writer Ken Kesey was a hero to the hippies. In 1970, the movie Sometimes a Great Notion was made, based on Kesey’s novel of the same name. The story of Oregon loggers struggling to keep their family business alive starred Henry Fonda and Paul Newman. It was filmed in the Columbia River Gorge, Newport, and Toledo, Oregon.

But the iconic novel of the 1960’s was Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, made into a film in 1975. The film took the Oscars for Best Director (Milos Forman), Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Screenplay (Bo Goldman), and Best Picture. Only one other picture has ever earned all five of those major awards: 1934’s It Happened One Night. Cuckoo, the story of a rebel in an insane asylum, is widely beloved as an anthem to the human spirit, and it is an Oregon film, with location shooting in Depoe Bay and Salem.

Unlike many states we’ve visited, there are so many more films set and shot in the state that I can’t begin to cover them all. Next week’s state, the last state of the year, has quite a few more.

Michigan films on the small screen

In the Ben Rector song, “Brand New,” the lyrics include, “I feel like a young John Cusack, like making big mistakes, I feel like the first time in a long time I am not afraid, I feel like a kid, never thought I’d feel like this.” There was a time, in the last decade and a half of the previous century, when it seemed John Cusack could do no wrong. Guys of a certain age wanted to be the guy in Better off Dead and Say Anything because he expressed our doubts and insecurities in such a charming way that he would win the girl. That's what movie stars do, they make you want to be them, even if it's just for a couple of hours. 

Sadly, age happens, and Cusack couldn’t keep that boyish charm forever, but he still had it -- even playing a contract killer* in the Michigan film, 1997’s Grosse Pointe Blank. This film was made toward the end of Cusack’s golden age. It’s like Lloyd Dobler of Say Anything made a tragic turn, say, killed someone kick boxing, and didn’t know how to turn back.

The film is set at Martin Blank’s (Cusack’s) high school reunion in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Though the film is violent and full of dark humor, it’s ultimately about whether God offers redemption to the worst of sinners, which is not a bad theme for Movies Churches. Like all of the films discussed later in this post, Grosse Pointe Blank was chiefly filmed in MIchigan. (A recurring joke in the film is people driving foreign cars in the nation’s car capital.)

There are some movie stars who keep their charisma as they age, perhaps even add to their appeal. John Wayne was like that. Clint Eastwood is certainly like that. In 2008’s Gran Torino, Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a cranky, charming, but bigoted old man who befriends a Hmong neighbor boy. A classic American car plays a key role in this Michigan film, but so does a priest and a church (the film deserves a post of its own someday).

Like Eastwood, Jack Nicholson managed a long starring career until his apparent retirement in 2010. For nearly half a century, he was considered one of the greatest actors on the screen. In 1992’s Hoffa, Nicholson played the notorious labor union leader, Jimmy Hoffa, whose career and disappearance had a great impact on the Detroit automobile industry.

Eddie Murphy’s heights of stardom were more short lived. Like Cusack, his best regarded films were in the 1980’s and 1990’s. But for a time, people went to his films sure they would laugh and spend time with a very fun guy. Perhaps he reached his peak in 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop, which you might guess from the title, doesn’t all take place in Michigan. But the opening scenes are in Detroit, and the whole point of the film is what a fish out of water a Detroit cop is in the posh world of Beverly Hills.

The woefully uneducated might not realize that Peter Weller is one of our great movie stars, but he played the hero of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, one of the greatest films ever made, so I rest my case. Weller’s great Michigan film is 1987’s Robocop, in which he plays a Detroit cop of the future who is almost killed in the line of duty. What is left of his mind and body after a shooting is made into a robotic police officer. There is an ongoing campaign to place a Robocop statue in Detroit.

Weller might be considered more of a cult star than some, and the same can be said of Gary Oldman and Christopher Walken. Both of actors appear in the 1993 noir film, True Romance, along with an actor whose career was just beginning, Brad Pitt. The violent and darkly humorous film was written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. It begins in Detroit but moves on to Los Angeles.

Richard Pryor was one of the most influential stand-up comics of all time, but he was also a box office power for a time (particularly for his films with the late Gene Wilder). 1978’s Blue Collar is a film about a car factory worker who, with friends, robs the local union. Written and directed by Paul Schrader, it was filmed in Detroit and Kalamazoo.

Also written and directed by Paul Schrader is 1979’s Hardcore starring Oscar winner (for Patton) George C. Scott as a businessman looking for his daughter. He becomes entangled in the world of pornography. Schrader fought to get Scott in the film, calling him “one of the greatest actors in the world.” The film begins in Grand Rapids but moves to California (where some church locations were used).

George Clooney is one of the few actors currently working that fits Hollywood’s old standards of movie stardom. 1998’s Out of Sight is based on an Elmore Leonard novel and won that year’s best film award from the National Society of Film Critics. Locations in a number of states were used for filming, including Detroit and Bloomfield Hills in Michigan.

Finally, one of my all time favorite film actors was Jimmy Stewart, who starred in 1959’s Anatomy of a Murder. The film was based on a novel by Michigan Supreme Court Justice John Voelker which was based on a case he argued as a defense attorney. Stewart plays a defense attorney battling (in court) against a prosecutor played by George C. Scott. Most of the film was shot in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, using such locations as Ishpeming, Marquette, and Big Bay. The film pushed boundaries of the time, especially the language used to discuss sex and rape.

*I look over this list and see that none of these films would be first picks for family viewing. Maybe there is a reason that Detroit is called the “Dirty D.”