Year: 1973
Cast: Timothy Bottoms, Lindsay Wagner, John Houseman, Graham Beckel, James Naughton, Edward Herrmann, Craig Richard Nelson, Bob Lydiard, Lenny Baker, David Clennon, Regina Baff, Blaire Brown
Director: James Bridges
Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Houseman), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound
The career of Timothy Bottoms is an odd one to say the least. Rarely has an actor so early in his career taken the lead role in not one but two films that grabbed Academy notice and yet ultimately faded into obscurity, continuing to act, but hardly ever doing anything again that anyone remembers.
Well, he did play George W. Bush in three separate productions, and knowing this, I could easily see a young Bush when I watched him in this film and The Last Picture Show.
Here, he plays a young Harvard Law student, James Hart (pretty much only called by his last name), who thinks of himself as pretty smart, until he ends up in the classroom of the imperious Professor Charles Kingsfield (John Houseman) who seems to educate mainly by showing his students how little of what they think they know do they actually know.
He gives little in the way of lectures, but instead poses hypothetical law questions to the class, many based on actual cases, several based on potential situations, and hands out disdainful corrections to those students unfortunate enough to get the answer wrong, which they frequently do. On Hart's first day in the class, he makes the mistake of assuming Kingsfield will go over the course syllabus for the semester, and all he'll need to do is pay attention, only to find himself scrambling for an answer when called upon. It's a scene that most of us can probably relate to, almost like a bad dream.
He ends up in a study group with some colorful characters; the eager-to-impress Ford (Graham Beckel), nerdy older student Anderson (Edward Herrmann), prickly know-it-all Bell (Craig Richard Nelson), hapless O'Connor (Bob Lydiard) and Brooks (James Naughton), who made it into Harvard thanks to a photographic memory, but who has no ability to understand or apply the material.
Hart also meets a charming, attractive young lady named Susan, and the two hit it off, starting with her asking him to walk with her as she's afraid someone's following her and leading to a relationship. Susan doesn't understand why Hart is so devoted to his studies, and so determined to impress a professor that apparently doesn't have the capacity to be impressed.
Honestly, I was never all that invested in the relationship aspect, and if there's an element of the film I would remove, it's this one. There's even a twist to Susan's identity that I won't reveal here, because to be frank, I didn't buy it. It felt cheap, like something that would happen in a bad movie but never reality. As this isn't a bad movie, and is trying to reflect reality, the whole thing felt shoe-horned in, though I'm sure it was in the novel. Oh, yeah, it was based on a novel (hell, what nominee in this category isn't?) by Jay Osborn, Jr. that I sincerely doubt you've ever read. I haven't.
Bottoms does a fine job, but he's upstaged by, hell, the entire film is stolen by, John Houseman in what is commonly (falsely) believed to be his film debut, age 70, and hired only after the initial choice, Edward G. Robinson, fell ill with cancer, and the second choice, James Mason, turned it down. While Houseman had acted before, in the films Too Much Johnson (which he co-produced) and Seven Days in May, he was mostly known as a producer in film and theater, who had famously collaborated with Orson Welles on several projects, including The War of the Worlds. In fact, Orson Welles was the man who directed (and co-produced with Houseman) Too Much Johnson, which was a 1938 silent film paying homage to the silent film stars of old, including Buster Keaton and the Keystone Cops (one of which Houseman played).
Houseman is the main reason to watch this, as he's just so much dang fun to watch, holding court over his classroom like a regal emperor, imperious and cold, yet dropping one wry quip after another, and you feel like even if you'd hate to have this guy as your professor, you know if you had him, and you didn't do well in his class, you'd blame yourself instead of him. So far, I can see why he won that year. While I felt fondness for Randy Quaid in The Last Detail and feel that Jason Miller was the true lead (at least the second lead) in The Exorcist, this is a true supporting performance that carries the film, and it's satisfying to see that kind of thing result in a win. We'll talk more about it in the category write-up.
Final note; while Houseman stole the film, I couldn't help but get a chuckle out of the character of Bell, played by Craig Richard Nelson, and I don't understand why this is the only real role of note in his career. With a dry voice, deadpan stare and smug curl to his lip, Bell is utterly convinced he's the smartest man in the room. Any room. Even being shown up a couple of times by Kingsfield fails to wipe the pomposity out of his entire bearing. We've all worked with a Bell, and Nelson somehow manages to make him funny, even while being as grating as possible.
Later in the film each member of the study group produces their study outline, which the others in the group are supposed to evaluate. It's a composite of their characters; most produce something slim and workable, with poor Brooks (who by now has dropped out) submitting to Hart the only work on it he'd managed to get done; two pages, not even filled up all the way. Bell, however, has essentially produced a textbook in itself; several legal pads, all filled out, and he's so self-righteously impressed with it that he even says he's gonna have it published. No points for guessing the big prick gets what he deserves.
So while it's not a perfect movie, it's a pretty damn good one, and if it consisted of nothing but the study group and classroom scenes, it just about would be perfect. Watch it for Houseman primarily.
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