The death penalty has always been controversial, the debate over whether society and laws have the moral and ethical right to take another person’s life. There are a large number of countries where the death penalty no longer exists, with the major nations where the death penalty still holds being Russia, China, India, United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia (and other Islamic countries), Singapore, etc. In the United States, the debate has been a long one, with many people being strong proponents of the death penalty, and others arguing against it (this is getting more heated now that DNA testing is revealing wrongful convictions, link to Innocence Project).
Dead Man Walking is based on a book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun, a passionate advocate of abolition of the death penalty in the US. The title of the book and the movie comes from the traditional saying by guards walking the condemned man to his execution, “Dead man walking, dead man walking here”.

The movie (directed by Tim Robbins) won great critical acclaim, and was nominated for a number of Academy Awards. It deals with the story of Matthew Poncele (played by Sean Penn – and based on 2 different characters whom Sister Helen Prejean counselled, both of whom were on death row. In the movie, Matthew has been in prison for 6 years now, awaiting his execution for the crime of having killed a teenage couple (after having raped the girl); his accomplice Vitello was sentenced to a lighter prison sentence due to a better lawyer.
Matthew appeals to the Sister to help him in his final appeal; and he is not the image of a repentant person – instead he comes across as both arrogant and sexist, and with not the slightest tinge of remorse. Instead he claims to be innocent. While visiting him over a period of time, she gets to know his mother, as well as the family members of his victims (who cannot understand her motives for trying to save a convicted murderer). Poncele does not get remission, his appeal for denial of execution is denied, and his date for death is set. Sister Prejean will finally hope to save his soul, for him to confess his deeds. In the end, Matthew does indeed do so, confessing his crimes and pleading for forgiveness from the family members of his victims (just before his execution).

Oscars:
Susan Sarandon won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role.
Sean Penn was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Tim Robbins was nominated for Best Director
Main track, “Dead Man Walkin” by Bruce Springsteen nominated for Best Song

The Marx Brothers were very famous for their films during the earlier part of the 20th century, and ‘Duck Soup’ was the last movie with Paramount where the Marx Brothers starred (there were a total of 5 such movies with Paramount). During the making of Duck Soup, contract disputes became paramount in the relationship, and both the Marx Brothers and Paramount decided to part ways after the making of the movie. In addition, this was the last movie where Zeppo had starred, and hence can be considered worth seeing just for that particular reason.
The movie did not do so well at the box office, almost being considered a failure, yet, as always happens, the movie was re-evaluated over a period of time, and was seen as a classic, a great comedy and designated for preservation in the National Film Registry (wikipedia) of the United States.

The Marx Brothers specialized in comedy, and this movie was no different, with several comic scenes that would have you enjoying the movie. One of the iconic scenes from this movie is the mirror scene – where Harpo Marx copies the action of Groucho Marx to the last detail to avoid detection and to make the character of Groucho Marx believe that he is seeing himself in a mirror. Although this was not the first time that this type of scene has been depicted, the sequence in ‘Duck Soup’ is probably the best known instance of this scene in a movie.
The movie is a comedy depicting activies on a national level, where a country, Freedonia, wants assistance from a wealthy lady Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont). She in turn insists that Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) be made the leader of the country. At the same time, since Freedonia is in such a bad state, the neighboring country Sylvania wants to take advantage and take over Freedonia. To that purpose, Sylvania’s ambassador Trentino (Louis Calhern) stirs up trouble, trying to create a revolution in Freedonia; he also woos Mrs. Teasdale, and sends in Chicolini (Chico Marx) and Pinky (Harpo Marx) to spy on Firefly.
Firefly spots Chicolini as a vendor on the street and appoints him Secretary of the War, and tries to insult Trentino so that Trentino can attack Firefly and thus be forced to leave the country. However, the plan reverses and Firefly instead slaps Trentino and this brings the 2 countries to the brink of war. There are further comic scenes, and eventually the 2 countries go to war, with lots of song and dance involved. In the final battle scenes, in order to provide another great comic effect, Firefly keeps on changing his costume almost in every scene, wearing uniforms belonging to different armies, and even the Boy Scout Scoutmaster uniform.

One of the most brutal revolutions in Europe in recent times has been the French Revolution; it had many phases and can be taken to mean the period between 1789 and 1799, when the army finally took over in the form of its leader, Napoleon Bonaparte. In the interim period, there were many struggles, many twists and turns. A new instrument of murder, the guillotine, was the main execution tool. People condemned to death for anti-revolution fervor, for their thoughts, and because getting them condemned to death removed them from the scene, all would be brought to the public squares where they would be executed with the guillotine.
‘A tale of 2 cities’ was published in 1859, and is set during the time period of the French Revolution. It shows the sheer terror of those times, where you could be condemned to death for even sympathizing with the fate of an earlier executed ‘enemy’ of the revolution, where a person could be condemned based on the written statement of a person (even if the person wants to take the statement back). The terror of the French Revolution evolved during a complex stage in which the excesses of the nobility and the church had crushed the poorer part of the population (Wikipedia), and this was almost pay-back time.

The book led to a very remembered opening statement, starting with these incredible words, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness”. The book covers the conflicting story of many people, including arrogant aristocrats who were condemned, humble and good aristocrats who were also condemned, people taking revenge using the medium of the revolution, and how the revolution eventually also condemns those who were its proponents earlier. The book has been used as the base for a number of movies over the years, and was itself based on the book ‘The French Revolution: A History’ by Thomas Carlyle.
The novel covers the story of the following main characters:
- Dr Alexandre Manette: A prisoner in the Bastille for 18 years, and the father of the lady who is one of the main characters
- Lucie Manette: Young lady loved by both Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, and also the daughter of Dr. Manette
- Charles Darnay: A young, and good-natured French nobel. He never liked the cruelty of his family towards the peasantry and abandons the family name (Evrémonde), and fled to England after assuming his mother’s maiden name
- Sydney Carton: A complex, but depressed English barrister. Loves Lucie, and promises her that he will do whatever he can for her and her family. Eventually does so in the end with a supreme act of self-sacrifice.
- Monsieur Ernest Defarge: Took care of Dr. Manette, also a closet revolutionary
- Madame Therese Defarge: A dark-natured closet revolutionary and wife of Ernest. She is also bent of taking revenge for the extermination of her family at the hands of Darnay’s uncle

This is another great movie by Frank Capra; one that is not so famous right now, but very famous and controversial in its time. Because it was about corruption in Washington, in the seat of Government and in the legislature, the Washington Press and Congress members labeled the movie as a movie pandering to Communist interests and against American interest. This was not only a US politician reaction, with the other dictatorships (Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, Fascist Italy and Spain under Franco) all banning the movie as well. Other countries took liberties in the dubbing of the movie to alter the tone of the script and the dialog.
The movie was well-received (it got 11 Academy nominations after all – not a small number by any standard, although it did not win any of the major ones, and in fact won only one Academy award, for Best Screenplay).

The movie was released in 1939, and starred James Stewart in the lead role (the movie also had the effect of giving a major filip to his career); it had some well know stars of that era such as Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Guy Kibbee, Charles Lane, and Thomas Mitchell. The movie was based on a novel called ‘The Gentleman from Montana’ (by author Lewis R. Foster), with the script of the movie written by Sidney Buchman.
The movie is about a guy called Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), who is the head of the Boy Rangers and seen as a non-corrupt guy. When a senator for a US state (the state is not specified in the movie) dies, the Governor, Hubert “Happy” Hopper (Guy Kibbee), has to balance between the public demand for a honest person to be the next Senator vs. the demand from the political chain to have another corrupt and connected politician. Eventually, the Governor decides to select Smith to be the next Senator; soon, he is condemned by the Washington Press as not being like a Senator, more of a bumpkin.
Goaded into making a name for himself, Smith decides to float legislation for getting Government money to buy land for a boy’s camp, with the money coming in from donations by kids all over America. Unknown to him, politics and corruption is already involved in this bill. Soon, things are manipulated such that Smith is soon shown to be owning the land, and Smith decides to run away. However, he is beseeched by his formerly cynical aide / secretary to try and do a legislative tactic called a ‘filibuster’ (wikipedia) to stall the vote to expel him. He tries to stay the course, and starts drawing support while he is talking non-stop (and the political opposition clamps down on the media to prevent his statements from being displayed). His tactic is to continue speaking, and he does so to the point of exhaustion; when he faints, the Senator who had manipulated him, Senator Paine, has remorse and confesses all.