Always

Always

On occasion, there are movies that touch you in some way, that stay with you and give you some of the vocabulary to understand your life. “A Guy Named Joe” must have been one of those movies for Steven Spielberg and Richard Dreyfuss. Released in 1944, it starred Spencer Tracy as a pilot who dies in combat and is sent back by heaven to earth to inspire the young pilot (Van Johnson) who will take his place. The catch is that Tracy also has to stand by helplessly while Johnson falls in love with Tracy’s girlfriend (Irene Dunne).

Dreyfuss says he has seen “A Guy Named Joe” at least 35 times.

Spielberg saw it repeatedly on the late show when he was a kid, and it was one of the films that made him want to be a director. When Spielberg and Dreyfuss were making “Jaws” in 1974, they quoted individual shots from the movie to each other and finally, in 1989, they got to make it themselves. The remake is called “Always,” and now takes place instead of then and has forest-fire-fighting pilots instead of enemy pilots but all the basic ideas are still there. Unfortunately they don’t add up to much; this is Spielberg’s weakest film since “1941.”

Dreyfuss stars as Pete, a guy who fights fires in the Pacific Northwest and spends his off-duty hours romancing an adorable forest service air traffic controller (Holly Hunter). Pete is a man who likes to take chances, and there are cliff-hanging scenes early in the movie where he runs out of gas and glides to a landing and nearly crashes into a burning forest fire.

His best friend is a pilot named Al (John Goodman), who also likes to take chances: One day Al crashes into some burning trees which set his plane on fire. Pete the daredevil goes into a dive and puts out the fire on Goodman’s plane by dumping chemicals all over it, but then Pete crashes and wakes up in a heavenly forest glade presided over by an angel (Audrey Hepburn).

That sets up the second act of the movie, in which poor Pete has to come back to earth and be an invisible inspiration for the kid (Brad Johnson) who has replaced him. And he has to watch, impotently, as the kid and his former girl fall in love. There is a lot of pathos to be wrung out here somewhere, but I didn’t feel much.

My response to “Always” was like James Agee’s of the 1944 movie, which he found unimpressive next to Spielberg and Dreyfuss. “Joe’s affability in the afterlife is enough to discredit the very idea that death in combat amounts to anything more than getting a freshly pressed uniform,” he wrote, adding that Tracy “is so unconcerned as he watches Van Johnson palpitate after Irene Dunne that he hardly bothers to take the gum out of his mouth.” One fault with “Always” is that the cause itself seems less urgent.

It’s easy to see why someone would willingly give up their life for a friend during war but it becomes questionable when people put themselves at unnecessary risk fighting forest fires. Another problem appears to arise from Spielberg’s affinity for special effects. The planes in this movie World War II surplus bombers, modified to dump chemicals on fires crash through acres of blazing treetops as if they were made of balsa wood. You’d think one tree would knock down an entire plane but not these firefighters; they mow through woods like airborne Lawnboys. The effects are good, but not good enough. All of these risks seem laughable.

The best casting in the film is Hunter as the air traffic controller who brings some of her same urgency and hard-bitten impatience from “Broadcast News.” She has no-nonsense approach that works better than Dreyfuss’ or Goodman’s daring do and unflappability. The scenes where the angelic Dreyfuss watches while Hunter and Johnson fall in love are the most awkward in the film; screenwriter Steve Tesich gives Dreyfuss flip lines like “That’s my girl, pal!” when maybe a hurt look or a silent turn away would have been more effective.

The oddest thing about a Spielberg-directed movie called “Always” is how little urgency there is in it. The feeling of the film is more 1940s than 1980s, which I’m sure Spielberg intended, but I’m not so sure it works. Even though pilots are flying into the jaws of hell, they have a devil may care attitude that does nothing for the drama. Some of the dialogue seems dated and a lot of it sounds “written” instead of “spoken” as if these guys learned to talk by reading old pulp magazines. It’s a curiosity: a remake that wasn’t remade enough.

Watch Always For Free On Gomovies.