Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954)

Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar

Cast: Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Scott Brady, Ward Bond, Ben Cooper, Ernest Borgnine, John Carradine, Royal Dano. Screenplay: Philip Yordan, based on a novel by Roy Chanslor. Cinematography: Harry Stradling Sr. Art direction: James W. Sullivan. Film editing: Richard L. Van Enger. Music: Victor Young.

Nicholas Ray's weird Western baffled critics and audiences at the time, but is now celebrated as a visionary triumph, even interpreted as a satire on McCarthyism. In 2008 it was added to the "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" films preserved in the Library of Congress's National Film Registry. I don't know about its cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance, but I do know that its performances by Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge are some of the most entertaining ever put on film, even if the actresses hated what they were doing at the time -- and hated each other. There's nothing else like it.

All the King's Men (Robert Rossen, 1949)

Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, and Mercedes McCambridge in All the King's Men

Willie Stark: Broderick Crawford
Jack Burden: John Ireland
Anne Stanton: Joanne Dru
Sadie Burke: Mercedes McCambridge
Tom Stark: John Derek
Adam Stanton: Shepperd Strudwick
Tiny Duffy: Ralph Dumke
Lucy Stark: Anne Seymour
Mrs. Burden: Katherine Warren
Judge Monte Stanton: Raymond Greenleaf
Sugar Boy: Walter Burke
Dolph Pillsbury: Will Wright
Floyd McEvoy: Grandon Rhodes

Director: Robert Rossen
Screenplay: Robert Rossen
Based on a novel by Robert Penn Warren
Cinematography: Burnett Guffey
Art direction: Sturges Carne
Film editing: Al Clark, Robert Parrish
Music: Louis Gruenberg

Where psychological realism is concerned, Robert Rossen's All the King's Men plays more like a temperance lecture than a political movie. One moment Willie Stark is a naive, teetotaling reformer, faithful to his wife, and the next he's a drunken, avaricious demagogue and womanizer. All it took was a bender and a hangover, along with a little bit of disillusionment about the reason he was being promoted as a gubernatorial candidate. It's possible, however, that some of the subtlety in the characterization of Willie Stark ended up on the editing floor. The first cut of the film was notoriously overlong -- over four hours -- until it was subjected to some ruthless editing from Robert Parrish, who was called in as "editorial adviser," receiving no screen credit but rewarded with an Oscar nomination. All the King's Men is still something of a ramshackle affair in its structure and character development. While it won the best picture Oscar, it's no masterpiece. What it is, however, is a moderately good entertainment, with some effective location filming by Burnett Guffey in various California settings, and a showcase for some good performances: Broderick Crawford as Willie and Mercedes McCambridge as his factotum (and sometimes mistress, if you know how to decode the censorship runarounds) won their own Oscars, and John Ireland was nominated. But the film falls apart where it comes to politics, never quite showing how Willie managed to con the voters into their avid support while stifling and even bumping off the opposition. Instead, we get sidetracked into the relationship between Jack Burden and Anne Stanton, the melodramatic suicide of her uncle, and her brother's transformation into an assassin. Maybe someday we'll get a solid portrayal of populist demagoguery in the movies, whether based on Huey P. Long or Donald J. Trump, but All the King's Men isn't it.

The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)

Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, and Jason Miller in The Exorcist

Chris McNeil: Ellen Burstyn
Father Damien Karras: Jason Miller
Regan McNeil: Linda Blair
Father Merrin: Max von Sydow
Lt. William Kinderman: Lee J. Cobb
Sharon: Kitty Winn
Burke Dennings: Jack MacGowran
Father Dyer: William O'Malley
Karl: Rudolf Schündler
Willi: Gina Petrushka
Karras's Mother: Vasiliki Maliaros
Demon's Voice: Mercedes McCambridge

Director: William Friedkin
Screenplay: William Peter Blatty
Based on a novel by William Peter Blatty
Cinematography: Owen Roizman
Production design: Bill Malley
Film editing: Norman Gay, Evan A. Lottman
Makeup: Dick Smith

From classic to claptrap, that's pretty much the range of critical opinion about The Exorcist. I tend toward the latter end of the spectrum, feeling that the novelty of the film has worn off over the 45 years of its existence, revealing a pretty threadbare and sometimes offensive premise. It was at the time a kind of breakthrough in the liberation from censorship that marked so much of American filmmaking in the early 1970s. Audiences gasped when Linda Blair growled "Your mother sucks cocks in hell" with Mercedes McCambridge's voice. Today it's little more than playground potty-mouth behavior. The pea soup-spewing and head spinning now draw laughs when they once had people fainting in the aisles. We can argue that there was something noble about those more innocent times, and that we've lost something valuable in an age when the president of the United States can brag about pussy-grabbing and denounce shithole countries and still retain the loyalty and admiration of a third of Americans. But isn't it also true that the move from a horror film based on religious superstition to a horror film like Jordan Peele's Get Out, nominated like The Exorcist for a best picture Oscar, represents an improvement in our taste in movies? Get Out at least has a keenly satiric take on something essential: our racial attitudes. The Exorcist makes no statement about the value of religious faith, unless it's to suggest that it's based on a desire to scare us into believing. To my eyes, The Exorcist is slick but ramshackle: William Peter Blatty's Oscar-winning screenplay never makes a clear connection between Regan's possession and Father Merrin's archaeological dig in Iraq. (The opening scenes of the film were actually shot in the environs of Mosul, which today has succumbed to a different kind of evil.) There are some scenes that make little sense: What's going on when the drunken film director taunts Chris's servant Karl with being a Nazi? What's the point of introducing the detective played by Lee J. Cobb with his usual self-absorption? Some of the plot devices, such as Father Karras's guilt over his mother's death, are pure cliché. And who the hell names a daughter Regan? Was Chris hoping for another kid she could name Goneril? For thousands of moviegoers, however, these objections are nitpicky. For me the flaws are the only thing that remain interesting about The Exorcist.