Ragtime (1981)

"I want my car cleaned!"

Director
Miloš Forman

Cast
James Cagney - Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo
Howard Rollins - Coalhouse Walker Jr.

Elizabeth McGovern - Evelyn Nesbit
Kenneth McMillan - Fire Chief Willie Conklin
Pat O'Brien - Delmas
James Olson - Father

Mary Steenburgen - Mother

Brad Dourif - Younger Brother

Edwin Cooper - Grandfather
Mandy Patinkin - Tateh
Moses Gunn - Booker T. Washington
Debbie Allen - Sarah
Jeffrey DeMunn - Harry Houdini
Robert Joy - Harry Kendall Thaw
Norman Mailer - Stanford White
Jeff Daniels - P.C. O'Donnell
Fran Drescher - Mameh

The 1984 film "Amadeus" is certainly among my top five favorite movies of all time. Honestly, I don't know with absolute certainty what the other four of my top five movies are. I just know "Amadeus," directed by Milos Forman, is among them. 

The only other of Forman's films I've seen is his 1975 movie, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." I need to watch that again as it has been over 20 years since I've seen it. Anyways, both pictures won several Academy Awards including best picture. 

Not only did the 1981 film "Ragtime" catch my attention because it's another Milos Forman movie, but the 1920s is my favorite era. I have an affinity for the music and films of the 1920s. Scott Joplin. Charlie Chaplin. George and Ira. Bowler hats. All that jazz! The best of times, and the worst of times. Prohibition. Speak-easies. Side cars. Gin Rickeys. Singapore Slings. Flappers. The bee's knees. The cat's meow. The Roaring twenties! My apologies to Charlie Dickens for the bad paraphrase. 

By the way, write this down. One ounce of sloe gin, one ounce of apricot liqueur (look for Rothman & Winter brand), and one ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice, shaken well, will make you a Charlie Chaplin cocktail! It's a real thing, concocted at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York around the 1920s. 

And among all those period pieces I just mentioned, I have a fondness for ragtime music. 

The movie is based on E.L. Doctorow's 1975 novel "Ragtime." Somewhere I read that the movie is faithful to Doctorow's novel, but I forgot where I read that. I haven't read the book so I can't (yet) confirm that myself.  

"Ragtime" takes place as America is still basking in the young 20th century and reveling at the end of the first World War. 

As the figurative cherry on top of this roaring era, Americans have the automobile to symbolize their prosperity before 1929 reared its ugly head and yucked everyone's yum.
Famed architect, Stanford White (Norman Mailer), has unveiled a new statue of a nude woman placed on top of Madison Square Garden. He used model Evelyn Nesbit (Elizabeth McGovern) to create this statue, much to the disdain and disgust of Nesbit's husband, Harry Kendall Thaw (Robert Joy). 

Thaw is an heir to a multimillion-dollar fortune through his father, William Thaw Sr., the famous railroad baron. 

Howard Rollins (center) as Coalhouse Walker Jr.

The hatred and loathing Thaw develops for White intensifies to the point where he shoots him in the head in front of hundreds of witnesses. 

Meanwhile, the story shifts focus on a wealth family in New Rochelle, New York. The father (James Olson) owns a factory. His wife (Mary Steenburgen) keeps up appearances at her husband's wishes. And her younger brother (Brad Dourif) lives in the huge house with them and works at a fireworks manufacturing plant. 

Their maid discovers an abandoned black newborn out in the family garden. 

Police find the baby's possible mother - a woman named Sarah (Debbie Allen) - and doctors confirm she is, in fact, the mom. 

The cops plan on charging her with child abandonment and attempted murder, but the wife (Mary Steenburgen's character) takes pity on her and allows her and the baby to stay. The family patriarch doesn't care for this invitation, but matriarch insists. 

A ragtime piano player named Coalhouse Walker (Howard Rollins) turns up at the house to see Sarah.  He's beside himself with joy when he's told he's the father.

Meanwhile, as the younger brother witnesses White's murder, he becomes infatuated with Evelyn. He waits for the perfect time to introduce himself.

Thaw's attorney tries to entice Evelyn with a divorce settlement worth millions if she'll remain silent about Thaw's mental instability while falsely claiming that White sexually abused her. 

She later strolls through Manhattan's Lower East Side where she witnesses a street artist named Tateh (Mandy Patinkin) catching his wife cheating on him, and then toss her out into the street. 

The story then follows Tateh as he moves out of Manhattan with his daughter and try to market an animated flip book. Later in the movie, while working as a movie director, Tateh meets the mother (again, Mary Steenburgen) and her young son while they watch him out in public directing a movie. There's clear sparks at their introduction. 

The young brother finally manages to introduce himself to Evelyn, and they soon become lovers. The brother has it in his head that they'll for sure get married. 

Evelyn, meanwhile, plans to return to the stage. 

Elsewhere, Coalhouse feels like he's on top of the world. While driving his new Ford Model T somewhere around New Rochelle, he's stopped by bigoted fire chief, Willie Conklin (Kenneth McMillan), and his bunch of sidekick fire fighter volunteers. 

They trap Coalhouse in the middle of the road. While he goes to find a cop, they vandalize his car and leave a pile of horse manure in the driver's seat. 

James Cagney in his final film role as Rhinelander Waldo.

He demands the officer, played by Jeffrey Daniels, make them clean his car. But the cop thinks he should just clean it himself and move along so as to avoid a scene. Plus, the cop knows the fire chief and doesn't want to step on anyone's toes. Since Coalhouse adamantly refuses and demands the cop do his job, he arrests him and tosses him in jail. 

The father bails him out, and they find his car has been destroyed even more. 

Coalhouse won't be brushed off so easily. He tries to seek legal action but is hard-pressed to find a lawyer who will represent him. It doesn't end there as he takes the matter into his own hands to find and obtain some justice.

Sarah tries to help Coalhouse by attending an appearance by President Theodore Roosevelt. She pushes her way through the crowd in an attempt to get his attention and appeal to him for Coalhouse's sake. 

But police and guards end up beating her, think she's going to attack the president. Sarah succumbs to her injuries and dies. 

After her funeral, Coalhouse and some associates of his murder several of the firefighters who initially vandalized his car and harassed him. 

Coalhouse threatens to attack other fire houses unless someone restore his car, and he gets some justice. That justice entails getting his hands on Conklin himself. 

It all leads up to Coalhouse and his crew taking over the Pierpont Morgon Library and holding the building hostage with explosives. 

Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo (James Cagney) takes over the negotiation process and is infuriated with Conklin for initially creating this problem in the first place because of his irrational prejudice. Booker T. Washington (Moses Gunn) is called upon to persuade Coalhouse to surrender, but to no avail. 

There's a lot happening in this story that I wasn't sure if I should try to explain the plot or not. 

Though I haven't read Doctorow's book, it seems to be a tapestry of different characters with interwoven subplots. 

Forman's 1981 movie is certainly not much different in that regard with all its characters crossing paths at some point, and in such a way as to leave a permanent imprint in the lives whose paths were crossed. 

And there's a lot of crossed paths, in fact. So much so, I struggled to figure out which of these characters this movie is focusing on. It's really focusing on all of them just when their respective lives are impacted by another one of the characters. 

Brad Dourif and Elizabeth McGovern

"Ragtime" is a challenging movie. And I wouldn't be surprised if it was challenging for Forman and the writers behind the movie. Despite this collection of characters and their stories under one title, every single one of them is distinct. Every single one has motives and intentions that are crystal clear. Their thoughts and motivations are distinct. They're all beautifully acted out. 

Watching James Cagney, in his final film performance, berate the racist fire chief for both his unjustified prejudice and the for the monumental mess it has caused is carried on the shoulders of his own legendary status. This is James Cagney, for cryin' out loud! He came out of a twenty-year retirement for this role. I kept trying to see him through this character of his, and all I could see was the character. He has both an immensely intimidating and sharp presence on screen, especially when he confronts and deals with McMillan's racist character. 
"People tell me you're slime," he says upon meeting McMillan for the first time. 

The performances across the picture are stunning and delicate. It collectively glistens amidst the solid details of the sets and atmosphere. 
The interwoven stories all culminate to Coalhouse Walker and his gang barricading themselves in the Pierpont Morgan Library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, N.Y. Even in the golden erastatus of the period, the turn of the century had its tumultuous problems despite America's prosperity.  

I think the biggest issue with this movie is the number of characters the audience is expected to follow. Halfway through the movie, I worried the various stories wouldn't tie together in the end. Thankfully, they do but in an organic way. In other words, it's not forced nor as satisfying as audiences might expect or desire. Still, there's a lot going on in this picture. There's much to follow among all the characters. It's difficult to pin down who the main character is supposed to be. It gravitates, again organically, to Coalhouse Walker Jr.

The biggest accomplishment in "Ragtime" starts with the fantastic period atmosphere and set design. Alongside that, the cast and its performances are the stuff of cinema legend. 

The cast includes the phenomenal talent of Brad Dourif who puts every ounce of talent he has in his performances. His role in "Ragtime" is no exception. I have yet to see a movie with Brad Dourif that I didn't like. He even managed to make "The Exorcist III" the only decent sequel in "The Exorcist" franchise. 

Elizabeth McGovern as model, artist, chorus girl and famed actress, Evelyn Nesbit, personifies the decade this story takes place in amazingly well. The 1920s were roaring, alright!

Howard Rollins and Jeff Daniels

Mary Steenbergen portrays her character whose face clearly speaks one thing, while her words say what she's expected to say. She clearly does what's expected of her as a wife and mother, but she clearly isn't happy about it.
Howard E. Rollins, Jr's character development with his being a young hopeful in love and at the zenith of his happiness as he finds out he has a baby son. That gradually shifts once he encounters the fire chief. The encounter is followed by one corrupt or callous official after another. Rollins puts a perfect balance of emotion in his performance. 

"Ragtime" is a story of real injustice and bigotry that hasn't been tarnished by modern leftist ideologs in desperate need of supply when it comes to racism and racist acts just to keep their false narrative that modern American society is saturated with systemic racism and bigotry. So much so, they have to constantly manufacture racist acts again and again just to keep the claim going. Isn't that right, Jussie Smollett! This mentality is an insult to those Americans who really suffered in the past and still worked hard and strived to be outstanding and upright citizens regardless. 

The 1920s were a different time in America, and we're all fallen creatures. When it comes to sins and imperfect pasts, what matters is how we deal and correct those sins of ours, whether individually or as a society. And America has been a shining example of how a nation can overcome past vices. No other nation on Earth has done what America has done when it comes to eliminating systemic racism.  

Still, we're a fallen species and no society has a perfect past. That doesn't negate greatness.

There is an extended nude scene which takes place when Evelyn Nesbit is speaking with Thaw's attorney about a divorce settlement in her apartment. She talks to this attorney with no clothes on. Take that as you will.  

It took me a long time to find a copy of "Ragtime" out in the wild. I was forced to do something I really don't care to do when it comes to movies I haven't seen before. I broke down and bought a copy. 

Milos Forman doesn't make his movies obvious. At least not the ones I've seen. He doesn't seem to use much exposition. He shows the audience what's happening because he clearly understands they're smart enough to figure out what's going on. "Ragtime" is a great example of that.