On Second Look

“THE STUNT MAN”- (1980) Dir-Richard Rush

2012-02-15T23:21:00.000-08:00

What I remember:

This was a well-reviewed movie that came out near the end of the era of Big Studios dabbling in Independent filmmaking. The Evans effect, as I call it, was wearing off. Studios were now starting to doubt the stylized film as a money maker, and Reaganomics was about to take over the business minds of America. Basically a very dark time in our country’s history, signaling a very dark time in the arts.
“The Stunt Man” was a late shining beacon, a last bastion of creative ingenuity coupled with great action, humor and pathos. Virtual unknown Steve Railsback was cast in the title role, with the main co-leads being the ever frenetic Peter O’Toole and the ever alluring Barbara Hershey (alluring, that is, until “Black Swan”---boy did THAT movie destroy a sexual icon for me!).

I saw this one in the cinema, and was completely into it from the opening sequence. The really effective part was that you are never sure if Cameron (Railsback) is in trouble or not. It always seems like the Director, Eli Cross (O’Toole) is out to get him, or that he doesn’t really care as much about the sanctity of life when compared to the importance of his movie. There is also a God as Director or Director as God thread that is constantly amusing and confusing. The fact that his name is “Cross” was not lost on me.

I always enjoy a film that keeps me guessing about whether we are watching something that is real or imagined, especially when it’s the characters AND the audience that are unsure of this. That is the case with “The Stunt Man”, you and Cameron are never really in control. We spend the entire film hanging on for dear life, and it’s about as much fun as you can have at the movies.

After Re-Watching

"Do you not know that King Kong the first was just three foot six inches tall? He only came up to Faye Wray's belly button! If God could do the tricks that we can do he'd be a happy man!"—Eli Cross

PLOT SUMMARY

Vietnam veteran Cameron (Steve Railsback) is running from the police when he stumbles onto the set of a rather large WWI film. He nearly gets run over by a stunt man in a Dusenberg, and in the process seems to cause the car to go off a bridge and into the water. It turns out that Bert, the stunt man in the car drowns, and Cameron is enlisted by the film’s director, Eli Cross (Peter O’Toole) to cover-up for the fatality by posing as Bert. This serves the double purpose of misdirecting the police from busting both of them. Cameron learns to do stunts, some of them quite dangerous. All the while he wonders if Eli is actually insane, and trying to kill another stunt man, namely Cameron, all in pursuit of the most realistic action.

STORY/THEME

Ella Fitzgerald scats a few notes, hits a high G, and a glass shatters in the adjacent studio. The ‘70’s TV ad then asks “Is it live, or is it Memorex”. For you young’uns, Memorex was a brand of cassette tape (oh GOD please don’t make me explain THAT), back in the days when a decent quality of tape made the difference between music sounding like it was recorded in a toilet or music sounding like it was drowning in a tub. Let’s just say that there are a lot of reasons why digitally compressed mp3’s sound pretty damn good to me. In any case, the ad’s point was, their tape was so good at reproducing sound that a high note that could break crystal live, could also do it after having been recorded on Memorex tape. Never mind that they probably had the tape playing at 2 million decibels, and that at that volume Ella’s high note could have broken the windshield on a Hummer.

Why do I bring up this little tidbit of forgotten trivia? You see, that’s the underlying current of “The Stunt Man”, probably the most reverent AND irreverent movie about the movies. Is it live? Is this really happening? Is our hero really dancing the Charleston on the wing of a Sopwith Camel at 1,000 feet? Is he really falling off the roof of a hotel and through a skylight into a brothel?

Or, is it Memorex? I mean, did the entire action sequence happen as an elaborate “gag” for the picture? Is the director of this movie so hell-bent on fooling around with his cast, that he will orchestrate the most complicated shenanigans just to get the most out of his cast and crew? My understanding about filmmaking is that most directors spend the film hanging on for dear life, and praying that their vision comes through unscathed by the vicissitudes of neurotic cast members, strange weather happenings, technical disasters and egomaniacal studio executives. It seems a tad ridiculous that he would have time to do all these extra machinations.

Thematically, there’s just not a whole lot going on here, other than the very obvious idea that it’s all make-believe in the moving pictures, dahling. There is a bit of moralizing on behalf of our Vietnam Vets, particularly when Cameron tells Nina (Barbara Hershey) of how he got into trouble with the cops. There’s no question that he’s a good guy, albeit not the sharpest knife in the kitchen. You are never led to believe that perhaps he might be a bloodthirsty killer who is really taking advantage of the situation. Cameron is definitely a hero, and the juxtaposition of his low-brow street smarts with Eli’s erudition makes for much of the fun and conflict in “The Stunt Man”.

I was right in my memory of the allegorical spin; Eli Cross--director, God. Cameron/Lucky-- everyman, stunt man, lovable loser. It’s a bit like the story of Job, except, this God is having much more fun with his whipping boy. God is also allowing his whipping boy to get his own kicks thanks to an affair with the comely leading lady, and some cash for his gags.

Profundity is not what “The Stunt Man” offers. What you get instead is a great amusement park ride with a lot of twists and turns, and some profoundly clever film styling to make it all the more memorable.

FILMMAKING

The opening sequence informs the audience immediately that this is no slapdash action/comedy thrown together without care. Nope, it’s as intricately laid out and complex as a Rube Goldberg contraption. Everything connects until finally you see the police enter a luncheonette wherein our hero is finishing a sandwich. It’s always fun trying to figure out where Director Richard Rush will spin you next, as he guides you through his carnival maze.
The look of the film is very much ‘70’s soft focus, and there are lots of candid shots of regular folks who look like regular folks, not unlike Michael Ritchie would do in a film like “Smile” or “Bad News Bears”. Strangely, only one scene, the beach attack, is shot so the public can witness. Everything else in our unnamed film within a film is closed set.
Rush has Eli constantly swooping in on people, especially Cameron. He seems to be constantly lurking somewhere and pops in and out of scenes like Endora (Agnes Moorhead) in TV’s “Bewitched”. You get the idea that he is in complete command, no matter how much he denies it. This is why you question if he really was responsible for Bert’s death.

Rush claims he was the inventor of the “rack focus” shot. This may or may not be true, but it is obvious that he can be expert at camera and editing hijinks. When Eli and Cameron first meet at the beach shoot, Rush uses a circle tracking shot wherein you can’t tell who is circling what. The camera tracks around, Eli moves counter to the camera motion, Cameron keeps his distance from Eli. It’s balletic, and must have taken hours to block. “The Stunt Man”, it’s said, took 9 years to get made, and at times it feels like 8 of those years were spent concocting the difficult setups, gags and designs of the film.

Just a few other fine filmic moments:
1) The Hitchcockian cut from Cameron yelling upon finishing a dangerous gag cuts to his scream during an orgasm as he makes love to Nina.
2) In the garage, as Cameron realizes he can just drive away in the Dusenberg rather than do the perilous stunt, Nina’s smiling face comes into the frame reflected by the car’s windows. It is a hall of mirrors moment, similar to the end of Welles’ “Lady From Shanghai”.
3) As his car sinks into the river, Cameron, frightened that Nina is in the trunk and will drown, sees Eli and Nina on the bridge just before he goes under.

Other efforts by Rush pale in comparison to this amazing piece. He also made the early ‘70’s counterculture anthem “Getting Straight”, which played at being a serious spin on the Kent State tragedy and other campus protests. “Getting Straight” was a mess when it was released, and has been subsequently forgotten. His attempt at a buddy movie, “Freebie and the Bean” was another misfire. Only “The Stunt Man” was a critical success. Generally when this happens, you must conclude that you are dealing with a lesser talent that just got lucky. But this is truly a case wherein luck was the residue of design, and “The Stunt Man” is designed like a great Italian sports car.

PERFORMANCES

Steve Railsback seems an odd choice for so prominent a role against such heavyweights as O’Toole and Hershey. Yet in a way he is perfect as the kind of good looking but lower class shlub, who really only has his youth and survival instinct to counter the predicament in which he finds himself. At times he is so natural, it is hard to think of him as acting, and he comes across as some guy they found and threw into the leading role. We know he had range, since he played Charles Manson in that lovely biopic “Helter Skelter”.

The other two leads, are nicely played by our well known stars. Peter O’Toole is typically the persona we all know; slightly effeminate, very erudite, charismatic, brilliantly funny, staggeringly British. He yells and laughs his way through the part of Eli Cross like he was born to play it. One of my favorite scenes comes when he is trying to elicit “shame” from Nina. He lets it drop in an obviously planned way that her parents (visiting the set on her birthday) were allowed to see rushes from the movie, and one of those scenes had her bare-assed naked in bed with the movie’s lead. You can see how upset she gets when she finds this out, and Eli simply goes, “Now….shame.”

As for Barbara Hershey, well, in this era she could be changing a tire dressed in a burlap sack, and I’d still love her. The first time we see her, she is in full old lady make-up, and succeeds in talking to the cast and crew without being recognized. She subsequently falls into the ocean, and Cameron rescues her. She begins tearing off her prostheses, revealing the beauty we all know and love. It is a great moment, and it amplifies her attractiveness. She has other fine moments, particularly a scene when you realize what a self-centered actress she is, and how intrinsic to this kind of person egotism can be. As I said in my piece about “In A Lonely Place”, it always helps when you are portraying something you know well.

Also worth mentioning is the performance by Alan Goorwitz (nee Garfield) who we all know from his great supporting turns in “The Conversation”, “The Candidate” and other classics. He is perfectly cast as Sam, the screenwriter. He is at times Eli’s conscience, at other times simply the voice of reason, and at other times the typical Hollywood lifer who would sell his firstborn for an option. I’m a fan, and always have been. Nobody delivers comedy or pathos as perfectly as Alan.

There are no stinkers in the cast, even Alex Rocco as the local police chief does the job very believably, even though it’s not a well-written part.

ON SECOND LOOK

It’s definitely not “The Tree of Life” in about every way possible. It isn’t very weighty. It isn’t slow and labored either. “The Stunt Man” accomplishes beautifully what it sets out to do: It shows the movie making process as a series of believable lies and tricks, and helps us to understand just how much energy, hardship and sheer elbow grease must go into making a good film. All the time, it is a fun joyride that keeps the audience constantly on their toes, with lots of eye candy on the icing.

1st Look- ★★★★ 2nd Look-★★★ 1/2

"THE THING" (1982) Dir- John Carpenter

2011-12-26T20:57:00.000-08:00

If you’ve been checking out this blog, then you know I am not a horror film devotee. It’s a genre I avoid as a rule, but as Leonard Bernstein once said, “It doesn’t matter what style of music you play, there is good and bad in all genres.” That is a paraphrase to be sure, but you get the point. I just feel that there are a lot less great films in the horror genre than in others. There sure is a lot of Drek-ula.

1982 was a huge year for me. I met my wife in 1982. I went on my first nationwide tour as a musician with the band “Skyy”, opening for Kool and the Gang, and sharing the stage with such legends as Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross, Rick James, The Time, Al Jarreau and many more. I played in places I’d only dreamed of, like Radio City Music Hall, Cincinatti’s Riverfront Stadium, The Cotton Bowl, the Greek Theater, Reunion Arena.

We spent a lot of time watching movies on the tour bus, because we spent a LOT of time on the tour bus. There were some movies we watched once or twice, and some we watched multiple times. “The Thing” was one that got a bunch of viewings. It was very popular, and rightfully so. For the time, the effects were quite impressive, even on a smaller than small screen. The tension was on such a high level, the pacing so measured that time flew by.

I’ve never been a big fan of John Carpenter. He made some films that were cartoonish, almost unintentionally satiric. I am thinking primarily of “Halloween”, “Escape From LA” and “The Fog”. Then there were those movies that showed exactly what the guy could do with the right plot and attitude, like “Big Trouble in Little China”, “Assault on Precinct 13” and “Starman”.

Leading this pack was “The Thing”. Supposedly a remake of the Howard Hawks classic starring “Gunsmoke”’s James Arness as a “kitenous alien being” discovered in the Arctic. The setting of extreme cold and isolation, and the presence of a malevolent extraterrestrial are the only two factors the original and Carpenter’s remake have in common. The films otherwise couldn’t be more different. Hawks’ movie is a talky, low tension detective story masquerading as a horror film. It does hold a role as the first scientist vs. monster movie that treats the scientists as scientists, not madmen.
Apparently much more true to the original story by John W. Campbell Jr., Carpenter’s is a tumultuous shape-shifter tale, with a high level of gross-out, mistrust, and general badass-ness in the person of Kurt Russell. Carpenter and Russell had a great relationship with “The Thing”, the 2 “Escape From..” films and “Big Trouble”. These movies changed Russell from the Disney nice guy to “Snake Plissken”—a wise-cracking charismatic tough guy in the mold of Bogart’s take on Phillip Marlowe. Russell’s R.J. McReady is a paranoid loner, the perfect hero for a story like this. The scientists want to analyze the situation, but he is all about action.

AFTER RE-WATCHING

“I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!”- Garry

PLOT SUMMARY

A U.S. scientific post in Antarctica is on the verge of winter. They witness a Norwegian helicopter in pursuit of a fleeing Siberian Husky, the passenger firing at the dog with a high-powered rifle. The dog makes it to the U.S. camp unharmed, and the chopper lands. It soon blows up by a mishap, killing the pilot. As the dog runs to the Americans, seemingly for protection, the Norse shooter fires and hits one of the Americans in his leg. A different American shoots and kills the armed Norwegian. The dog is rescued, the Americans assume the Norwegians had psychotic cabin fever, and head to their camp to find out what the situation is. The gruesome scene at the decimated camp includes a corpse with two heads that was burnt alive. Upon bringing the deformity back to their camp, they realize something is wrong with the dog, who in captivity with other huskies, has caused the other dogs to snarl and attack. The Norwegian dog begins to transform grotesquely and take over the other dogs. The Americans now realize that this is an alien life form that can transform itself into any other life form given enough time. They need to stop it, but have a huge problem. Some of them have already been infected, and they can’t tell whom.

STORY/THEME

Here’s the pitch—“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” meets “Ice Station Zebra”. That simply does not do this movie justice.
However, comparisons to “Body Snatchers” are inevitable, since the major cold war theme of an alien society coming over and stealing your soul, your individuality, your unique YOU-ness, and turning us all into walking automatons simply geared to do their bidding, is what “The Thing” is all about.

Or is it?
By 1982, this was not as fascinating and horrible a thought as it was in the ‘50’s. In the ‘50’s, they sold us a bill of goods that we, as capitalists, were all good and free cowboys, and that they, as commies, were all soulless and enchained bureaucrats. By the time the ‘80’s came around, we were no longer cowboys, that’s for sure. We were bureaucratic as HELL. We were capitalistic, warmongering, dictator supporting, hush money laundering LIARS. The only thing we had to fear was US ourselves.
Oh yeah, we also had to fear viruses, like AIDS, and our own incompetence, like Three Mile Island. Let’s not forget malevolent psycho serial killers like Son of Sam and the Green River Killer. NOW it seems like I’m getting somewhere.
John Carpenter’s version of “The Thing” was obviously a product of its time, not just in the available film technology, but also in the national ethos. The mutating alien obviously represents a disease that can take you over at any time. Our inability to identify and contain it is pure incompetence. Like a serial killer, it takes you over one at a time.
Disease, incompetence, violent psychosis. Ding, ding and ding.

The fact that the camp is isolated in Antarctica and yet still vulnerable, might just represent even more of the American ethos. We have always felt buffered by the oceans, our safety as a nation supported by the distances. The Cuban Missile Crisis ended that, and global trading, our involvement in foreign wars that had no bearing on our societal well-being, Iranian hostages and Central American revolutions began to shrink these distances.

Right now you’re saying, SHEEEEIT, Wayne. It’s just an alien horror movie! Stick to Hollywood, will ya? True. It IS just an alien horror movie, the template for which was set by Ridley Scott’s revolutionary Sci-Fi “Alien”. Unlike Scott’s horror masterpiece, which is totally a serial killer parable, “The Thing” tries (and succeeds) to speak to ALL of our fears during that strange era of cultural and political waste known as the ‘80’s.

FILMMAKING

The star of this movie is not Kurt Russell, although he does a fine job in his role of the tough chopper pilot. The stars are the effects, the make-up and the grossest of gross out images, concocted by Rob Bottin and Stan Winston. Apparently the workload was so heavy for Bottin that he had to be checked into a hospital for exhaustion at one point. The mutation scenes pre-date “Terminator 2” by 9 years! They are also much more disgusting than anything I think I have seen in any other horror film. There will be at least 4 times when you say “auggghh…no!” At one point, Palmer sees Norris’ disembodied head sprout King Crab legs and start to scuttle along the floor to escape the flamethrowers, and he says what we are all thinking; “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding.” All of the transformation sequences take the amazing make-up/animation concepts and techniques from the previous year’s “An American Werewolf in London”, and raise the ante.

There are tons of flammable and explosive moments, of course. The film is sometimes a bit of overkill in this way. After all, this is a quintessential “dick flick”. In fact, it is completely devoid of female presence whatsoever, with the single exception of the voice of McReady’s computer chess opponent, supplied by Carpenter’s then wife, Adrienne Barbeau.

Carpenter turns the Spielberg model (adding normal everyday life events to heighten the realism) a bit on its head with a few comic turns to lighten the unbearably tense atmosphere. One of my favorites is when Palmer is watching “Let’s Make a Deal”, and he runs up to the video console, turns it off, and declares “I know how this one ends”, ejecting the video tape. Boy did that moment hit home on the tour bus! Ironic that there was this dig at Spielberg, since “The Thing” can blame it’s box office futility on a far more benign story of aliens landing on Earth that was released at the same time—“E.T.”!

The decision by Carpenter, et al to not reveal whether either of the last two survivors are infected I found both courageous and fascinating. The film ends unresolved, like so many contemporary art house flicks. Think about it; there are so many ways they could have gone with the end of this film. 1) McReady and Childs both get rescued, but you don’t know if one of them is infected. 2) One of them kills the other, and it turns out that he was right, and the one he killed was infected. 3) One of them kills the other and it turns out he was wrong, the man was still human. 4) They decide to blow themselves up. 5) The alien wins and takes over the human. 6) The actual ending—we never know what happens. I like both 1 and 6 of these endings, which are pretty much the same. This lack of resolution probably hurt the movie at the Box Office, but I believe it will help the film have a long and happy life as a cult classic.

Ennio Morricone of Spaghetti Western fame supplied the score, and it is typical for a horror film. Lots of droning synth sounds are punctuated with a persistent low pitched heartbeat. There’s no great theme like his melodies for “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”, or both “Once Upon a Time…” films. Whatever—it’s about a million times better than that cheesy crap Carpenter wrote for “Halloween”!

PERFORMANCES

As stated earlier, Kurt Russell is the hero/anti-hero McReady, and despite apparently wearing eyeliner, he is a tough as nails, scotch swilling sonovabitch. If you identify with anyone in this film, it’s McReady. Most of us remember the shock when Russell, a Disney heartthrob, went WAY out of character to play Texas tower spree killer Charles Whitman in “The Deadly Tower”, a very well known made for TV movie. However, his real breakout role in the raunchy and hysterical comedy “Used Cars” gave us a clue of the future actor we had on our hands. Right on the heels of that was Russell’s first true actioner, and his first team-up with Carpenter, “Escape From New York”. At this point we knew there was a great male lead in Russell, and that he was someone you could count on for humor, toughness and range.

There is little to no character exposition in the film. You get the idea that Wilford Brimley’s character, Dr. Blair is the head of the science crew, and that Garry, played by Donald Moffat, is the main muscle guy, supported by Childs (Keith David) and Clark (Richard Masur). Windows (Thomas Waites) is communications, the other scientists are Dr. Copper, Norris, Fuchs and Bennings. Nauls is the cook, and Palmer—well, we just know he likes to get high. Brimley does a great job in trying to destroy everything when he realizes that the alien must be contained or else it might infest the entire planet. It’s probably the most real acting anyone does in the film, and he handles it as beautifully as he handled anything else he ever performed.

One other performance worth noting in the film is by Jed, the husky who plays the “dog thing”. So much of the tension and eeriness of the beginning of the film comes from watching Jed check things out. He watches the goings on from a window, far more interested than a typical dog. He goes in the cage with the other huskies and lies down in a very sentient manner, knowing they are going to be able to recognize his malevolence. It’s a great, bravura animal performance. No, seriously!

ON SECOND LOOK

Oh, man. Just go get a nice doobie, settle back and watch this movie again. It’s a wild trip, and something very different than your typical alien monster horror pic. Get (Mc)ready by listening to some tunes from “Thriller”, or maybe even better yet, Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone”. Get in that 1982 mindset. Oh, and don’t make the mistake I made and cuddle your dog while watching. In fact lock the dog in the other room. And definitely don’t eat rich food right beforehand. No red meat! Prepare to be grossed out, and to be scared and entertained by a great horror film—one of the best.

1st Look- ★★★1/2 2nd Look ★★★ 1/2

“A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH” (1946) Dir- Powell/Pressburger

2011-11-24T22:51:00.001-08:00

What I Remember:

Another of those great films from the Channel 13 WNET vault they used to play from time to time that I would make a point of watching if home. There were generally three studios that provided these films: Janus, J. Arthur Rank and Toho. If the film was Continental European, then it was Janus (the 2-faced Drama/Tragedy mask). If it was British, then it was Rank (the guy hitting a gigantic gong). If it was Japanese, then the Toho logo showed up (just the name and some Japanese writing). If I saw any of those openings, then I knew I was in for a treat.

One evening I was home and flipped over to 13. The gong guy came on. The titles started and it was a British film called “Stairway To Heaven”, starring David Niven and Kim Stanley. I knew Niven from “The Pink Panther” and “Casino Royale”, two very silly movies wherein he played a dashing, debonair character. Kim Stanley I only knew as Stella from “A Streetcar Named Desire”. The movie began and the most riveting scene ensued: an RAF pilot about to die in a burning plane is on the radio with an American WAC. She is trying to ascertain his situation and summon help for him, he is spouting poetry and hopeful fatalism. She is captivated by his bravery and erudition, he by her wholesomeness and earnest character.

He miraculously survives, but it turns out he cheated death. Unfortunately that’s pretty much all I can recall nowadays. I remember some very cool effects, especially this incredibly long stairway that seems to be the Roslyn Metro Escalator on steroids. Vaguely I remember a heavenly trial, and a very effeminate Frenchman from the 17th Century as this film’s version of Clarence the angel from “It’s a Wonderful Life”. The movie was very touching, and extremely poignant having been made just as the war ended.

After Re-watching:

“Don't be upset about the parachute, I'll have my wings soon anyway, big white ones. I hope it hasn't gone all modern, I'd hate to have a prop instead of wings!” – Peter Carter

PLOT SUMMARY

Peter Carter, an RAF pilot (David Niven) is going down in his disabled plane. He has no parachute, so his choice is to jump and die in the fall, or go up in a ball of fire with his aircraft. He is on the radio with a young WAC named June (Kim Stanley), who is trying desperately to help a no-win situation. The urgency of it all forges a bond between the two. When contact is lost, the WAC is obviously distraught. In heaven, his co-pilot waits for him, but he never shows up. You soon realize that this is a special wing of heaven, where only victims of the War are processed. We find Carter dragging onto a beach, apparently unharmed. He assumes it is heaven, but in actuality it is a beach very near where June is stationed. They meet, and fall in love. Meanwhile, heaven figures out that a foppish Frenchman/Angel from the 17th Century named Conductor 71 (Marius Goring) who was supposed to deliver Carter, lost him in the British fog. They must bring him back to heaven where he belongs, but he contends that his falling in love exempts him, especially since it was no fault of his own. Eventually a trial ensues, and his fate is decided.

STORY/THEME

Apparently the reason the film has two names is that the USA distributors felt that putting the word “Death” in the title would not be good for box-office so soon after the end of WWII. Pretty much everybody was related to, or friends with someone lost in that conflict. Therefore the change to “Stairway to Heaven”; which stuck until a recent restoration effort of all the Archer films. Their most well known effort is of course “The Red Shoes”, a monumental treatise on the subject of art vs. life. Interest in this film has recently been sparked by the success of “Black Swan”, which took so much from the Archer classic as to almost be a remake.

What superficially seems to be a story of love conquering all—even death, has some very interesting undercurrents. The most obvious and pervasive of these themes is the Anglo/American connection, so clearly strengthened by the Allied effort to defeat the Axis. The love affair in the film is between a British pilot and an American woman. It is somewhat symbolic of the gratitude the British felt to Americans for their help in subduing the Nazis. There is also a feeling of respect from the American side for the courage under fire the British showed during the war years. When an American revolutionary (Raymond Massey) is appointed to prosecute the case, his anti-British prejudices weaken the bond, but merely temporarily. The writing is down to earth (with the exception of the poetry recitations) and tautly paced.

Yet there are some plot issues which detract a bit from the film. As the story goes on, June’s friend, Doctor Reeves (Roger Livesay) has decided that maybe Peter has some kind of brain illness from a concussion that is causing him to see the messenger from heaven. He urges that surgery be performed, and the operation occurs on Earth concurrently with the trial in heaven. This is confusing, since the whole thing is a fantasy anyway. I mean, Carter survived plummeting thousands of feet into the sea. Why bring in Earthly matters into something so blatantly spiritual? You are never as invested in the surgery as you are in the trial, since none of it feels like reality.
When Reeves dies in a motorcycle crash trying to get to the ambulance which will take Carter to surgery, everybody feels bad, but life goes on. Why is Carter’s life so much more important than Reeves’? Because he’s in love? Wait—next we’re supposed to feel good that Reeves dies so he can be Carter’s defender in the heavenly trial? Nobody seems to care that this poor schmuck gave his life up just so Peter and June can be together.

FILMMAKING

“A Matter of Life and Death” is a fantasy, a romance and a war film all wrapped up together. There is also an element of science thrown in. The film starts with a narrator (God? Carl Sagan?) talking about the vastness of the universe (“the problems of two people don’t amount to a hill of beans…”). Look at that dust cloud, it’s space gas! Uh-oh, a super-nova is destroying a solar system. Maybe someone was playing with Uranium atoms. Considering what’s to come, the whole intro is a touch weird. To us in 2011, it’s rather quaint. However, when I think of it, the whole intro and all the very cool scientific trappings like the camera obscura scene must have been very cutting edge to those watching in 1946. It’s hard to hold that against the movie. It would be like making fun of “The Day The Earth Stood Still” because its all-powerful robot, who could stop the Earth’s rotation, can’t speak even rudimentary English.

One fascinating film choice was to exclude mention of the enemy from the halls of heaven. There are plenty of ethnicities there, but no Germans, no Spaniards, no Italians and no Japanese. I think the words that explain this are “TOO SOON”.

Probably the biggest filmmaking decision was Powell’s to make Earth beautifully Technicolor, and Heaven drably monochrome. When Conductor 71 appears on Earth to bring Carter back to heaven, he even comments about the Technicolor as he holds a flower in his hand. This anti-Oz treatment works beautifully. It makes the Earth a place you want to stay in, while heaven seems somewhat like the set from “Metropolis”. I guess if heaven was so great and amazing, why wouldn’t the lovers just both die so they can be in the better place together? Incidentally, when some Americans are entering heaven, they both look wide-eyed (you don’t see what they see) and one says, “This is nothing like home”. The other retorts, “It is like MY home.” Hmmm. The whole thing resembles a bureaucratic nightmare. The celestial courtroom looks like a colorless Rose Bowl. It’s certainly not the typical cinematic heaven. Whatever you may think about these set and camera choices, it keeps the film interesting.

The other great set piece is the giant, infinite stairway, festooned with huge statues of the great figures from mankind’s history. It’s an amazing effect, and it never gets old. When Carter feels he is being tricked into ascension, he turns and runs down the up escalator as fast as he can. This scene makes the climax in “Vertigo” seem like a step-aerobics class.

PERFORMANCES

Niven and Stanley are charming and perfectly cast. Their opening scene is unforgettable. Afterwards, the real heavy lifting is given to Livesay and Massey. Good old Dr. Gillespie (that was my into to Massey, in the Dr. Kildare series) had had some big time roles to that point, in particular “Abe Lincoln in Illinois”, which showcased his formidable trial lawyer chops. As the prosecutor in “A Matter of Life and Death”, he does ‘bombastic’ beautifully. Livesay, who is magnificent in the Archer classic “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp”, has a smaller but perfectly played part as the sacrificial doctor/ defense counsel. Goring is the perfect fop; he is concerned about his job, but those concerns are outweighed by his French respect for true love. As always in these Powell/Pressburger efforts, the acting and casting of all smaller roles are pitch perfect. When the writing is this good, it takes a real amateur to screw up the performances. Look for a VERY young Richard Attenborough in one of the early celestial scenes.

ON SECOND LOOK

“A Matter of Life and Death” or “Stairway to Heaven” is a moving and fun post-war effort, regardless of what you call it. It is a touching tribute to those who gave their lives in armed conflicts. It is a romantic fable of love conquers all, even when that love is between two war-tossed nations.

1st Look- ✭✭✭1/2 2nd Look- ✭✭✭1/2

“FREUD” (1962) Dir: John Huston

2011-09-04T16:22:00.000-07:00

What I remember:

“Freud” is the second film in this blog that was directed by John Huston. He obviously had no problems taking on big subjects, or disparate subjects, for that matter. A man who could direct “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”, “Asphalt Jungle”, “Moby Dick” and “Freud” is certainly no slave to genre, nor can he be classified as an Auteur.

I saw this on TV back during my high school years. The opening alone was on such a high level of writing and directing that I recall being simply stunned (I probably would have used the term “blown away” at the time). The camera focuses on some strange hypnotic drawings, while Huston’s voice-over describes man’s three great revelations/humiliations. “Before Copernicus, man thought he was at the center of the universe, Before Darwin he thought he was separate from the animals. Before Freud, he thought he could control his own mind”. Or something like that. So yes, maybe it was dime-store intellectualism, but I wasn’t even a college Freshman yet, so Sophomore-ism seemed pretty cool. Now, I’d probably think, why is Noah Cross talking about Freud? Shouldn’t he be saying something like “You've got a nasty reputation, Mr. Gittes. I like that.”

I vividly can recall the dream sequence from the Susannah York character’s hypnosis as being visually very different and compelling. This was years before I saw Hitchcock’s “Spellbound”, with dream sequences that are a direct antecedent to those in “Freud”. Salvador Dali designed the “Spellbound” sequences, so it’s possible that when I watch now, I will think that the “Freud” scenes pale by comparison. All I can say is that I thought it was brilliant as a pretentious, artsy fartsy teen.

Nonetheless, “Freud”’s subject matter was fascinating to me, and I still find mental illness one of the most misunderstood, misdiagnosed and misrepresented conditions of human existence. So little progress has been made since the period represented in this film. Maybe it’s time for a movie about THAT.

This film, listed as “Freud: The Secret Passion” (are you kidding me?) is unavailable on DVD. That galls me beyond words. Why the hell can you buy a piece of garbage like “Children of the Corn” on Blu-Ray for fuck sake and you can’t get “Freud” or “Porgy and Bess” on regular old DVD? I am forced to watch this on some very crappy transfer on YouTube. Looks like I am set up to be disappointed. Kee-rist, I hope not.

After re-watching:

“What a splendid thing to descend to Hell and light a torch from its fires!” Dr. Meynert

PLOT SUMMARY

Sigmund Freud (Montgomery Clift) is a young Viennese neurologist who is fascinated by neurosis and its main symptoms, hitherto categorized as “Hysteria”. Along with his colleague, Dr. Breuer (Larry Parks), he pursues the sources of neurosis, but eventually comes upon a theory which even Breuer, his closest ally, must reject.

STORY/THEME

As far as biopics go, “Freud” has many of the run-of-the-mill characteristics; it compresses much of the man’s story into a very small window, it hyper-dramatizes some of the key moments in his career, his personal life and relationships are trivialized, and the work that brought him his fame and notoriety is simplified into terms that most of us can understand. Think about some recent efforts like “Ray”, or “Pollock”. This is, sadly, the nature of the beast. No great person’s life/work/torment can be adequately captured in a two hour film. Also, thanks to the film being made in 1962, Freud’s addiction to cocaine, and his mistaken use of the drug as a treatment for his patients, is never even referenced in the slightest. You’ll need to find another missing masterpiece, “The Seven Percent Solution” to see that story.

Yet “Freud” does some things very differently than others in its genre. There is filmmaking of the highest order going on here, and parts of the script are as brilliant as anything you might read in the finest of novels. Supposedly, the first draft of the script was written by Jean-Paul Sartre, as commissioned by Huston. Jean-Paul Sartre! It is assumed that some of what he wrote survived the rewrite by Charles Kaufman (No, not THAT one. The man who brought us “Adaptation” was about 4 years old when this made).

The importance of this film has to do with our understanding of just how huge a breakthrough it was for mankind to discover the unconscious mind. Our knowledge of ourselves is paramount to our mental health. Our collective mental health is paramount to the health of our society. Should one, as the opening monologue insists, place Freud on the same pedestal as the great thinkers in history; akin to Galileo, DaVinci, Newton, Copernicus, Darwin, Einstein, Marx? Or is he simply just one of the cogs in the slowly turning machine of Psychiatry? Well, this film would have you believe, Freud was a man who bucked the system, who stood for what he believed regardless of the condemnation of his colleagues. A man who risked career and livelihood for the chance to destroy some myths about the human mind. I think he was a hero.

Apparently, so did John Huston.

FILMMAKING

As I stated earlier, what makes this better than the typical biopic is the filmmaking itself. The more I watch the films of John Huston, the more I am inclined to put him with the masters of the medium. This movie must have had some major obstacles- obstacles not unlike those Freud himself might have encountered. When your star is in the midst of committing a decade-long suicide (as Clift’s close friend Elizabeth Taylor described his last years) then you will probably have some trouble shooting your film. Universal Pictures sued Clift since his problems caused the film to go way over budget. More on this later.

Huston manages to overcome these problems, and he also manages to evoke the period with very few outdoor shots. The film was shot in Germany, but one would never know. Most of the “action” takes place in drawing rooms and lecture halls. The set designs are very impressive- all the décor looks like you’d imagine the 19th Century halls of wealth and learning to look. The dream and memory sequences have a soft focus blur, and much of the imagery is reminiscent of German Expressionism of the ’30’s. These sequences are great, but nowhere close to the brilliance of those in “Spellbound”. Perhaps the enlistment of a visual genius like Dali would have helped Huston reach that level.

In any case, the revelations in the dreams are beautifully realized, using camera, costume and set. One of Breuer’s and Freud’s patients, Cecily Koertner (Susannah York) tells of going to a hospital in Naples to identify the body of her father. She tells of how the nurses looked at her funnily. You see that the nurses in the dream lounging around in frilly skirts, some sitting suggestively. As the Doctors strip away the artificial layers with which her unconscious has shrouded this memory, you see that the nurses are really prostitutes, that the hospital is in reality a brothel, and that the doctors who came to get her were police.

John Huston’s great achievement was to make the plot of “Freud” a very elaborate, psychiatric whodunit. We want to understand exactly what causes Ms. Koertner’s paralysis and blindness as much as Freud and Breuer do. Did her father molest her? Did she seduce him? Did her mother reject her? As the layers of her past are revealed concurrently to Freud, the audience and Koertner herself, the film becomes as hypnotic as one of their spells.

Speaking of which, a major problem with the movie comes from the act of Hypnosis and how it is portrayed. There are some times when Freud simply waves a pencil in front of a patient’s eyes, says “You’re getting sleepy”, and the man falls unconscious in a manner of seconds. “Look at the candle”….and boom! Sometimes, that part is just laughable. How better it would have been for them to show the real process once, and then subsequently just said, “I’m going to put him under” and dissolve to the state of hypnosis.

Jerry Goldsmith wrote the score, and it is brilliant and haunting. There is not a moment where it calls attention to itself, and yet subtly it adds to the eeriness and tension of any scene. Interestingly, Ridley Scott borrowed the title music from “Freud” for use in “Alien”, a score written by Goldsmith too.

PERFORMANCES

In the ‘50’s, Montgomery Clift was as big a star as the movies had. He, like Marlon Brando, could have named his price in modern day Hollywood. By the time “Freud” was made, he had had a terrible car accident, which started an addiction to pills. There are times in this film when you wish he could have been more animated, more angry. His piercing eyes and soft-spoken delivery seem much better suited to a mysterious love interest, not an intellectual scientist.
It is an uneven portrayal. On one hand, he has some very fine moments. One scene, when he realizes that a patient of his is sexually obsessed with his own mother, he is repelled and his professional detachment is shattered. As he realizes what is happening, Clift perfectly embodies the disgust and ambivalence he feels. Yet in another scene where Cecily threatens suicide, his pleading with her seems almost half-hearted. The lines are well written; Clift just puts nothing into them.

Huston does all the voice-over, not just the prologue and epilogue. You have to wonder during those times when the voice-over is supposed to be Freud’s inner thoughts, if those lines were supposed to be spoken by Clift, but he was unavailable. It feels incongruous having the narrator’s voice come in and start speaking lines that should be coming from the character’s mouth.

Larry Parks, of “The Jolson Story” fame plays Dr. Breuer. This is also Larry Parks, of “Blacklist” infamy. He was one of the artists who testified against colleagues in the McCarthy hearings, admitting his involvement in the Communist party, and yet still found himself banned from work. This is probably his most famous role besides Jolson, and he is very good. When he realizes that Ms. Koertner is in love with him (psychiatrists call this symptom “transference”), he has to decide to stop treating her, or else ruin his marriage. His frustration is palpable. One wonders what he might have accomplished had he been allowed to freely pursue his career.

Susannah York as Cecily is beautiful and flirtatious. She shows remarkable range for a young actress. She was just 23 at the time of the film’s release, and she cold not look more luminous. Her energetic portrayal of the psychosomatically riddled woman is as hyperbolic as Clift’s Freud is static. When the two share the screen, particularly in the suicide attempt scene, the disparity is conspicuous. Ms. York is probably the “On Second Look” mascot; I will be writing about her in two upcoming blogs about “Tunes of Glory” and “The Silent Partner”. Talk about your underrated, underused actress. Sadly she just passed in 2011. I’m a fan.

As for the supporting cast, David McCallum (‘60’s heartthrob who played Ilya Kuryakin in “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”) takes a short turn as the young man with the Oedipal complex, and does a splendid job. Character actor Eric Portman as Dr. Meynert is a stand out. Ingenue Susan Kohner as Freud’s wife gets little to work with, and does less with it. Sigmund and Martha were supposed to have a very passionate relationship, and that is nowhere to be found here. Interestingly enough, she is the only Jewish actor in the film. Both Freud and Breuer were Jewish, as of course were Martha and Frau Freud, the mother of all mothers. Apparently Eli Wallach campaigned very hard to play Freud. He even went so far as to grow a Freudian beard for the audition. Rumor is he never got a chance. Considering Montgomery Clift’s problems, one wonders if Wallach could have made this film even better. Certainly his being Jewish would have helped the Waspy Huston understand that part of the story.

ON SECOND LOOK

I still love this film, despite the obvious central flaw of the casting of the lead. It is remarkably intelligent, and the writing is at times transcendent. Huston’s gothic/noir style is a perfect atmosphere for this story about the removal of shrouds of ignorance. This is a film that should be required viewing for anyone interested in mental illness, or simply the machinations of the mind. And by that I mean everybody. Sadly, the only way to see this is to either have it on tape, hope it comes on TCM, or watch it in pieces on YouTube. Criterion---are you listening?

1st Look-★★★★ 2nd Look-★★★1/2

“MIDNIGHT RUN” (1988) Dir- Martin Brest

2011-08-29T19:54:00.000-07:00

What I Remember:

Buddy movies were all the rage in the late ‘70’s. Then came the ‘80’s wave of Anti-Buddy movies, wherein two characters are thrust together who may or may not be alike, but who definitely have antipathy for each other. The ‘90’s developed the “Bromance” flick, which is a trend that continues, and has yet to evolve into something new.

“Midnight Run” was pretty much the apex of the “Anti-Buddy” film. Starring Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin, the movie derived much of its humor from the two stars’ discongruity. Ex-cop DeNiro was as tough as tough guys come. Mafia accountant Grodin was a typically fussy egg-head, neurotic but not pathetic. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby pioneered this pairing, but it was really developed by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Of course, Dino was not a tough guy, more like a “smooth” guy. That was the Crosby role too. DeNiro was probably the first pairing of a tough guy with the nudnik character.

Trying to recall what so underwhelmed me about “Midnight Run” is difficult. I know many consider it a masterpiece of comedy/action. My immediate recollection says, “Hmmm. Grodin. Not funny. Never funny. Bad timing. Deadpan delivery. Not good at physical comedy. Basically a no-talent”. Well, there you have it. I think DeNiro is a genius. I obviously don’t feel that way about Charles Grodin. He used to host SNL it seemed like all the damned time back in the ‘80’s, and I was always disappointed to see his name in the TV guide. I loved the show back then, and couldn’t wait to see Steve Martin or George Carlin host. But Grodin? Bleh.

It always seems to me that there are people in show biz who make it big, and you just scratch your head and wonder what is it that everybody else loves about this actor/band/comic/broadcaster? My short list: Neil Young, U2, Madonna, Rob Dibble, Charles Grodin, Dane Cook, Julia Roberts, Emeril, Gallagher, Kevin James.

I guess that tells the tale. A comedy starring a person who I don’t find funny. Can I get past my obvious prejudice, my being “Anti-Grodinic” and enjoy a film that Rotten Tomatoes critics give a 97? A film that has joined, amongst others, “The Godfather” and “Citizen Kane” in Filmspotting’s Pantheon? Damn good question.

After Re-Watching:

"You're OK, Jack. I think... under different circumstances… you and I probably still would have hated each other!"- Jonathan Mardukas

PLOT SUMMARY

Jack Walsh (Robert DeNiro) is an ex-cop who is now a very tough and bitter Bounty Hunter. He has been offered a big time bounty; track down Mob Accountant Jonathan “The Duke” Mardukas (Charles Grodin) and bring him back to LA within 4 days to collect $100,000. He has little trouble finding The Duke, but runs into a lot of interference from 3 sources; The FBI, the Mob boss and another Bounty Hunter, Marvin Dorfler (John Ashton). All the while, Mardukas tries to convince Walsh to let him go, but Walsh refuses to give in, obsessively trying to beat the clock and complete the task.

STORY/THEME

To say that “Midnight Run” has a few holes in its plot is like saying that Boy George occasionally indulged his feminine side. Just keepin’ the ‘80’s theme consistent, people.

Holes? The movie “Holes” has less. I’ve never seen it, but still, I am sure of this fact.
For starters; Mardukas has supposedly given the bulk of the money he embezzled from the mob to charity. So where exactly is the 4 million for the bond coming from?
Second- how is it that everyone in this movie can move instantaneously from place to place without any time lapsing, when it takes Walsh and Mardukas forever to do the same trip? Regardless of where they go, someone gets a tip and hundreds of people are waiting at the next bus station, train depot, airport, cow pasture.

Next, the bondsman (played by Joe Pantoliano) calls Marvin at his home, and the phone rings in what is obviously a hotel.

Wait, there’s more. In the climactic airport scene, Walsh has arranged to swap some discs that have all of the info Mardukas has on his ex-boss’ dirty business for Mardukas himself. The FBI has to wait till Jack hands over the discs before they can arrest the boss. Why? We already know that the discs are fake. Why couldn’t they just arrest the mob guy on a kidnapping charge when he brought Mardukas into the airport terminal?

But the most ridiculous plot point is that Jack finds The Duke in 24 hours, when the mob and the FBI have supposedly been searching for him for years. I don’t care how good he is, we are talking about THE MOB. Generally, they can find anybody anywhere. In fact, Mardukas spends a lot of time saying that witness protection is useless, that the mob will get him before he even makes it that far. Still, these crooks seem dumb as rocks. To make it look possible, they staff the henchmen with a couple of dodos. The boss, Jimmy Serrano (Dennis Farina) spends much of his time explaining what horrible thing he’s going to do to theses “morons” if they don’t get Mardukas. I think it’s supposed to be funny, but the result is violent and unimaginative. Direct quote from Serrano :

“You and that other dummy better start getting more personally involved in your work, or I'm gonna stab you through the heart with a fuckin' pencil. Do you understand me?”

Is that the best they could do? It feels like the Scorsese template is being satirized, but sadly not for laughs here. Like a Scorsese film, there’s a lot of profanity, but it never feels as edgy, and it never makes you laugh.

All this notwithstanding, the heart of the film is the two leads and their interaction. If you believe that these two characters could exist, and that they might communicate the way they do, and you find them funny and entertaining, then you will buy this film, holes and all. For me, it’s a swing and miss on all pitches.

FILMMAKING
Martin Brest had kind of a brief career in Hollywood considering the fact that he had some pretty huge successes in this film and it’s predecessor, “Beverly Hills Cop”. Maybe the quick end of his career can be attributed to his more recent efforts; “Scent of a Woman”, “Meet Joe Black”, and the ultimate career killer, “Gigli”. He almost took down Pacino, Affleck, J Lo, Brad Pitt and a ton of others with these horrific movies. Brest was the original director of “War Games”, an ‘80’s film I really enjoyed, but he was replaced by John Badham. Supposedly a tiff with the producers got him fired. Maybe they wanted it to be good.

In Brest’s defense, there are a lot of difficult action scenes in “Midnight Run” that are executed well. Standout scenes are a “Blues Brothers” like car chase, a shootout near a bus station and a boat-less trip through rapids. The action is well played and filmed throughout. Not so for the comedy.

Danny Elfman’s score sounds more like Bruce Springsteen than Oingo Boingo; lots of guitar and horn section stuff, very blues-rock influenced. Then it kind of deteriorates into an imitation of Harold Faltermeyer’s “Beverly Hills Cop” soundtrack, with pervasive little bits of the original theme tucked underneath any scene that has neither dialogue or action. I’m not a fan of this use of music. Can’t we just watch DeNiro walk around New York without his own personal E Street Band?

PERFORMANCES

DeNiro is typically himself, he rarely played a different role during that era. He’s not given a great bunch of lines to work with. It’s pretty much a lot of “shut the fuck up”. Still, he does a great job with his part physically, and is very convincingly emotional when forced to confront his ex-wife and estranged daughter at one point.
It’s a terribly written scene, but Bob does such a great job with his actions and face that you feel the emotions.

You might think that Mardukas gets the lion’s share of the laughs, but again, there’s that Grodin thing. He has his moments, for sure. There is a great scene when he cons a redneck bar out of some money, and you realize that he is both more courageous and resourceful than previously imagined. You can almost see how he has evaded the FBI and Mafia for so long. For the rest of the time, he’s kind of annoying. You can tell early on that there’s more to him than he’s showing. His little needling of Jack for his diet, smoking, and lonely life is supposed to come across as condescending, but it’s obvious he’s trying to get under Jack’s skin. Grodin doesn’t play this for laughs at all, he asks these questions, and the deadpan delivery just makes it all fall flat. I think the concept was to underplay it, make it more intellectual. Maybe in a different kind of film this could work, like “My Dinner With Grodin”. This is an action/comedy. The laughs need to equal the intensity of the suspense and the action scenes. “48 Hours” did this beautifully, and Brest’s own “Beverly Hills Cop” works well. The difference? Eddie Murphy instead of Charles Grodin. Big, broad comedy, not deadpan subtle snickers. Apparently Robin Williams was originally supposed to have the inside lane for the Mardukas role, but he never got a chance to audition, since Brest liked the Grodin/DeNiro matchup. Wait there’s my finger- pointing back in the same direction, Mr. Brest.

As for the supporting cast, Ashton’s burly bounty hunter is by the books, but not as meaty and interesting as his turns as Taggart in the “Beverly Hills Cop” films. Joey Pants is a bit one-note, lots of desperation and yelling. The really fun performance here is by Yaphet Kotto as FBI agent Mosley. His role is like Ronny Cox in “Beverly Hills Cop”, but he is much funnier and is a better foil for DeNiro than anyone else in the movie.

I feel the need to point out that, other than the brief appearance by Walsh’s estranged family, there is not one significant female role in this film. In fact there is not even the slightest hint of love/sex interest. At least in BHC they go to a strip bar!

ON SECOND LOOK

I still don’t get it. “Midnight Run” has its moments, and it’s not a BAD film at all. In fact, it’s entertaining, and has some pretty funny and suspenseful scenes. To me, “48 Hours” is by far the best of this genre, and it’s thanks to Eddie Murphy’s hysterical turn. Charles Grodin makes this movie second rate, in my opinion. I got more laughs from Yaphet Kotto. Hell, I got more laughs from the moron mobsters!

1st Look-★★ 2nd Look-★★

WHERE’S POPPA (1970) Dir. Carl Reiner

2011-07-28T08:47:00.001-07:00

What I remember:

Talk about your raunchy comedies, this was the pinnacle of raunch in the ‘60’s/’70’s. There are tons of senility jokes, almost more than in Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys”. This type of humor is probably considered in terrible taste now that we know about Alzheimer’s and other types of Dementia associated with old age.

Yet “Where’s Poppa”, has it’s comedy evenly distributed throughout. It attacks the elderly, the young and impetuous, the officious, the desperate. It’s another uproarious black comedy from the age of iconoclasm that brought us “Little Murders”, “Putney Swope”, “M*A*S*H”, “Harold and Maude” and “Brewster McCloud”.

As with many Mother-centric films, front and center is the put-upon son, usually Jewish, who must contend with the eccentricities and demands of his Mother to the detriment of his personal and professional life. George Segal, handsome but with a huge touch of nebbish, fits this bill to a tee. As the mother, our ultimate New York ptitsa is played by Ruth Gordon, who reprised this kind of character more than a few times. Ms. Gordon also played a demented mother in “Inside Daisy Clover”. As Mrs. Hocheiser in “Where’s Poppa”, she is both lovable and horrid.

What made “Where’s Poppa” special was the outrageous dialogue and premise that makes movies like “The Hangover” seem tame and mainstream. When I talk about how important it is for a comedy to actually make me laugh, then you know this one had to have that going for it. There were certainly no redeeming characteristics to be found.

AFTER RE-WATCHING

“He made a CACA in the bed”- Louise.
“That son of a BITCH!”- Gordon

PLOT SUMMARY

Gordon Hocheiser (George Segal) is a trial lawyer who lives at home with his widowed mother (Ruth Gordon), who is suffering from dementia. She is extremely difficult to take care of, and Gordon has struggled to find a nurse that will stay with her. During interviews with prospective caretakers, he meets the beautiful Louise (Trish Van Devere) and both are immediately smitten. She agrees to meet his mother, and finds out that their relationship is a little stranger and deeper than she thought. Gordon’s brother, Sidney (Ron Liebman) tries to help, but has his own issues. He also reminds Gordon that they promised to never put their mother in a home.

STORY/THEME

Yes, it’s another black comedy from the ‘70’s. What is it about this genre that I find/found so appealing? Maybe it’s just that the kind of fare we’d been fed in the ‘60’s was so happy, so uplifting, so “YAY LIFE”! My built in BS detector just couldn’t deal with watching “Dr. Doolittle” and “Mary Poppins”. I needed to see what seemed real to me. Now this movie is about as far from real as you get, but it was honest in exposing the reality of our inner minds. This is the stuff you can’t, shouldn’t EVER talk about. But you know it crosses your mind. You can’t help it. You are a sick bastard at heart. Your Id is the sickest of sick bastards. Thank goodness you have a Super-Ego to tell it to go stand in the corner. Howard Stern has made a billion being your unchained Id. Your Id can be damned funny.

The question is, is your Id funny all the time? Absolutely not. Sometimes it is just sick and repellant. I hate to say it, but now that I am getting older, “Where’s Poppa” has lost it’s appeal for me. Sure, there’s a lot of stuff that is still funny, but there is a ton of stuff that is uncomfortable and just plain awful. 15 year old Wayne and 56 year old Wayne are not on the same page here. When I rewatch “Little Murders” or “The Producers”, films that have a lot in common with this one, there is never a moment where I want it to end. There were a whole bunch of those moments watching “Where’s Poppa”. Scenes I remembered fondly seemed poorly drawn and not at all as uproarious as I thought.

When Sidney has to run through the park to help Gordon, he keeps being confronted by a gang of African-American muggers. The torments they devise for Sidney are clever and different, but not close to as funny as I had it in my mind. Amongst the muggers is Garrett Morris, I was surprised to discover. Also making his film debut later in the movie is Paul Sorvino. The Director’s son, Rob Reiner, is in his second movie, his first being Carl’s “Enter Laughing”.

Both the famous “Tush” scene and the monologue by Louise about her first husband’s incontinence are less funny than I thought, they are just plain weird. Maybe the problem is that the shock value just isn’t there anymore. We can thank Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow for that.

Interestingly enough, the parts that were funniest I had no memory of! A scene wherein Gordon is defending a young radical played by Rob Reiner (predicting his Mike Stivik character from “All In The Family), is made side-splitting by veteran character actor Barnard Hughes’ depiction of a profane, racist Army Colonel. Another great moment is when a New York cabbie passes by a black woman to give a ride to Sidney, dressed in a full-out ape costume.

At the heart of this movie is subject matter that we once considered funny, but now that so many of our parents and grandparents are victims of senile dementia and Alzheimer’s, it has lost it’s comic charm. I assume that this would be the same for “The Sunshine Boys”, but I was never a big enough fan of that film to watch it again.

FILMMAKING

Carl Reiner was known both for his writing and as a producer of the groundbreaking “Dick Van Dyke Show”. He was also the straight man to Mel Brooks’ classic “2,000 Year Old Man”, one of the funniest comedy teams to ever be on record. His best work as a director was probably his run of films starring Steve Martin in the ‘70’s; “The Jerk”, “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”, “The Man With Two Brains” and “All of Me” are all very funny comedies. “Dead Men..” really was a stand out if you are an aficionado of B&W films, and in particular film noir. Reiner seamlessly integrates his film and star into clips from old movies, and it’s just a whole lot of fun watching Martin interact with Bogie, etc.

Carl’s work with Mel Brooks and Sid Caesar probably prepped him well for the helm of “Where’s Poppa”. Watching it now, however, really exposes what a beginner he was at directing. There are some very strange choices being made, a lot of chances at huge laughs that are undercut by bad timing and strange shot choices. For example, the climax of the movie is shot from a great distance, what seems like hundreds of yards. You hear the dialogue, but you can’t see what’s happening to be in on the film’s punch line the way you would like.

The shock value of the opening, where you watch Gordon wake up, perform his ablutions, get dressed in the ape suit and try to scare his mother to death, is also not played up as drastically for the surprise as it could be. It is shown with a sort of filmic diffidence that is hard to comprehend. Brooks would have played the scene for huge laughs.

Yes, it was low budget. Yes it was 1970, and film technology was not what it has become. But again, this movie loses out to both “The Producers” and “Little Murders” in every way.

One great bit is the song for the opening credits. If I tried to describe it I would be doing it a disservice. Suffice it to say that it is a stream of consciousness lyric that sounds like a bunch of non sequitors that could be said by an old senile person. The lyric is put to a Burt Bachrach type track. I have found this on youtube, and there is a link to it in my clips box.

One great filmmaking decision was going with the ending that we see. On the DVD you can watch an alternate ending which continues on from the last scene. It is disturbing, and not funny or even ironic. “Sick, sick, sick”, is all I could think of, in the parlance of the period.

PERFORMANCES

The two leads, George Segal and Ruth Gordon are exceptional in their roles. Segal plays “harried” better than anyone except maybe Gene Wilder. Ruth Gordon has her character down, and she really gets going when Louise enters the story. When she realizes that Louise is not just a nurse, but a love interest for her son, she becomes sharp as a tack while still being addled. It’s amazing to watch her pull off this dichotomy. Trish VanDevere as Louise, is attractive, but not much of a comic source, even as a straight man/woman for the leads.

Ron Liebman provides a lot of the humor from his supporting roll. His funniest moment concerns his reaction to getting flowers from the undercover male cop in drag that he was forced to rape by the gang that keeps mugging him. Yeah…the comedy is THAT dark.

ON SECOND LOOK

With the passing of Amy Winehouse at age 27, there have been a lot of discussions about music stars that died at that age. A few of my 30-something friends all agree that Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain were all deserving of their stardom. However they single out Janis Joplin as someone who really wasn’t so good, and they can’t see why she was considered amazing by my generation. When I listen to her stuff now, I kind of see what they mean.

What they don’t understand is how different she was to all those who preceded her in pop music. For a white girl, hell -- for ANYONE to sing with that intensity and commitment, it was just unheard of. It wasn’t that her chops were so great, but that she was so raw and unfettered by artifice. They say that for success in the entertainment field, you have to be the best, the first or different. Janis was more than different….she was totally unique.

Well, at the time of its release, “Where’s Poppa” was different. Maybe that’s what I saw in it back then. It’s level of outrageousness was unprecedented. It was not the first sicko comedy, and certainly not the best. 40 years have reduced that edge to a dull razor, and now the film is simply abrasive.

1st Look-★★★1/2 2nd Look-★★

"In a Lonely Place" (1950) Dir: Nicholas Ray

2011-07-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

What I remember:

I believe the old adage amongst writers is, “When you’re stuck, write what you know.” And the one thing all writers know best is themselves.

This can apply to the autobiographical story based either on reality or fantasy. I always hear a little bell going off when I read a book or see a movie wherein the protagonist is a writer. Ahhh, I think, so you were stuck, and couldn’t come up with a REAL story. Often these stories take place in academia (see/read “Wonder Boys”, “Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf” or “The Human Stain”). These usually smack of some truth and reality. Then there are the more fantastic stories, like “Misery” by Stephen King, and “Deathtrap” by Ira Levin. These usually strike me as a tale invented from the imagination of some dreary life event, like King being harassed by some over-ardent fan, or Levin being brow-beaten by some older colleague.

In movies, there is the occasional screenwriter protagonist. Interestingly enough, three of my all-time favorite films have screenwriters at the center of them. Charlie Kaufman’s “Adaptation”, the Coen Brothers’ “Barton Fink” and Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard” are, to me, all masterpieces. A bit lower on my list comes “In a Lonely Place”. Nicholas Ray directed this very intense movie, and cast Humphrey Bogart in the lead role as tough guy writer Dixon Steele, a man with a violent streak who is under investigation for murder. The premise seems a bit unreal. Most writers you come across are intellectual, pacifist types. I guess there’s always the Hemingway prototype to lean on, although he seems the anomaly.
I remember it as a bravura performance by Bogie, maybe one of his best. That usual Bogie aplomb, the controlled fire we all know is not to be found. His Dixon Steele is all rage and impudence. Ray also cast his ex-wife Gloria Grahame in the role as the sexy neighbor who becomes Steele’s lover. Grahame is smoldering and for me, a real revelation when I saw this film. We all remember her as Violet in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and she is likeable and attractive in that classic. In this film, she is equal to any of Bogie’s most comely co-stars, even Bacall.

I was really very impressed with and absorbed by this movie, and found it’s slightly sketchy premise to be eclipsed by the powerful performances and Noir stylings of Ray’s direction.

After re-watching:

“I've been looking for someone a long time... I didn't know her name or where she lived - I'd never seen her before. A girl was killed, and because of that, I found what I was looking for. Now I know your name, where you live, and how you look.”- Dixon Steele

PLOT SUMMARY

Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is a screenwriter who has a serious temper, but who is obviously quite intelligent and talented. He gets into a lot of fights, and can be a lout, but his agent stands by him, and his friends put up with him because at the core he is a good guy. He is asked to adapt a trashy book, and rather than spend the energy reading it, he asks the coat-check girl at his favorite haunt to come to his apartment and tell him the story. She is a little ditzy and star-struck, so she agrees. At his building he runs into a new neighbor, the attractive Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame). Mildred, the girl from the restaurant, tells Dixon the flimsy story, then he sends her home with cab fare. Mildred is discovered murdered the next day, thrown from a car in the canyon. Dixon’s alibi is Laurel, who says she saw him send the girl on he way. Laurel soon becomes Dix’s lover, and helps him finish his screenplay. All the while, she sees the violent side of him, and begins to suspect that maybe she was wrong to give him an alibi. The investigation begins to fray their relationship, and soon the trust between them erodes to almost nothing.

STORY/THEME

There’s an expression I once heard back when I was in college about the sacrifice an artist makes, and it is quite simple:
“Perfect in life, or perfect in art.”
I immediately found that fascinating and haunting. Is it really true, I wondered. Does one have to give up all real relationships in order to be great? Or is it a fact that you need to have a personality disorder to have the single-minded dedication in order to achieve greatness? Bi-polar behavior seems prevalent amongst the geniuses in the arts. The list is long (though not proven): Pablo Picasso, W.A. Mozart, Charlie Parker, Vincent Van Gogh, Jaco Pastorius, Graham Greene, Edgar Allen Poe, Brian Wilson and Virginia Woolf were all said to be afflicted with this problem.
Though it’s never said, anyone who knows about this connection can see that this is the problem with Dixon Steele. He has manic episodes, and these are often hostile unless he focuses the mania on his work. Eventually what makes you great becomes your undoing, as it did for Van Gogh, Bird, Jaco, Mozart and Woolf. I originally thought in remembrance that this was a writer’s fantasy, but after watching again I realize that this is a portrait of the tortured artist, unable to harness the insanity. I’m sure both Ray and Bogart were thinking of people they knew in the business when drawing this portrait.

As for the movie itself, what starts out as a typical LA Noir whodunit, turns smoothly into a relationship and character study. It’s not simply a descent into madness, it becomes the tale of two people who can save each other, and how the mental illness of one is both the creation and destruction of this salvation.
To quote my old friend, “Mr. Bass Man” Ronnie Bright, “That’s some deep shit”. Unfortunately, he was referring to the lyrics of the song “If” by Bread, so maybe his estimation of “deep” might be a bit suspect.
Anyway, the turn from Noir to love story is paralleled by the turn from the audience’s identification with Dixon to its identification with Laurel. This is accomplished with maximum finesse by Nicholas Ray and writer Andrew Solt. At first, before the relationship really kicks in, you are completely with Steele. Then, as the two become lovers, you are with both as one unit. Then, as suspicion and lack of trust pulls them apart, you go with Laurel. I can’t remember another film, with the exception of “Psycho”, that does this so well.

One other theme in the film bears mentioning. You get the feeling while watching that you are getting a serious insider’s look at the movie business circa 1950 (and maybe always). It is a bit melodramatic in representation, but then again there seem to be elements of candor that I suspect were rare, and that we don’t really see back then except in “All About Eve” and “Sunset Boulevard”, both of which, coincidentally or not, were made that same year.

FILMMAKING

There is a symbiosis with Ray and Bogie, that you see only in the great works. It is on a level with Ford and Wayne, or Hitchcock and Grant, or Truffaut and Leaud, or Scorsese and DeNiro, or Kurosawa and Mifune. Director and Actor working together almost as one unit, creating a persona and atmosphere to make the movie take on it’s own life.
Normally I will discuss the acting of a lead in my next section, but because of what I just said, I think Bogart’s performance needs to be discussed now. In one very Hitchcock-like scene, Steele directs his friend Brub (who is also one of the investigators of the murder) and Brub’s wife Sylvia into reenacting how Dix thinks the murder was committed. As he orders them around, there is a light across Bogart’s eyes that illuminates them, adding to his manic look subtly, producing a hypnotic concoction that is horrifying and reassuring at the same time. What a delcate line they (Ray and Bogart) both walk during this scene.
There is also no care taken to make Bogart look good during the movie. Laurel says she likes his face, and acts like that is why she is attracted to him, but it is clear it is the kind of person he is that she falls in love with. His fire, his creativity, his artistry, and by proxy his edginess are the magnet. He is obviously much older than Laurel (in fact Bogie had 24 years on Grahame- he was 50 and she 26 during the filming). There is no attempt to play down or even acknowledge this gap. One is simply left to believe the moth and flame situation that we are proffered. I didn’t doubt it for a second.
As in all films about writing, the dialogue is snappy, and without cliché. At times it is a bit over the top and leaden. After one of his episodes, Steele says this line to Laurel: “I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.” He says he is putting that in the script. Probably at the time it’s a line that was a focal point and 1950 audiences might have needed the hook. Today, it plays heavy handed, to say the least.
Full disclosure--When I first saw the film, it inspired me to write a song entitled “I Lived For a Day”.
Guilty as charged, your honor.

The score by George Anthiel is way too pervasive; always there, always highlighting the emotions which need no help. I think it takes away from the power a bit, and would love to see this film with just a few touches of music instead.

PERFORMANCES

As I stated before re-watching, Gloria Grahame is a revelation in the film. She captures the character changes in Laurel so perfectly throughout. Her coolness to Dix early on is controlled fire, and very alluring. Then, when deeply in love with him, she embodies that high so captivatingly; you just can’t take your eyes off of her. Finally, as she begins to fear him, her apprehension is powerful and visceral. It’s bravura acting from start to finish, and one wonders where performances like this were in other films.
Both Ginger Rogers (!) and Betty Bacall were considered for Laurel, but Bacall was under contract, and Ray held out for Grahame, who not incidentally was his wife.
Fascinatingly, in real life, she and Nicholas Ray were in the midst of a divorce during the shooting of this movie! They kept this under wraps, which I guess was more great acting. It gets weirder; Grahame got remarried to Ray’s son from a previous marriage.
To quote the Dan- “Hollywood, I know your middle name”.

Frank Lovejoy and Jeff Donnell as Brub and Sylvia are very believable, but not standouts. As for the rest of the supporting cast, there is really only one role that is interesting- Martha, Laurel’s masseuse and confidant, played by Ruth Gillette. She plays it like a bastard offspring of two Hitchcock characters, Judith Anderson’s chilling turn as Mrs. Danvers in “Rebecca” and Thelma Ritter’s wisecracking Stella the physical therapist in “Rear Window”. Martha keeps calling Laurel “Angel”, and comes across with heavy lesbian overtones, which must have been a risky take in those days. She knows Dix is trouble for Laurel, but because of her persona it feels like she’s always saying, “you’d be much better off with me, Angel.”
Art Smith as Dix’s agent Mel is standard issue Jewish nebbish. The role could have been played for more comic relief, but thankfully was not. There is also a piano bar scene featuring Hadda Brooks singing the Ray Noble classic, “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You”. Fun trivia: Her contralto led her to a job as the first black woman to host a TV show.

ON SECOND LOOK

This is probably the first re-watched movie that went higher in my estimation than it was originally. For the performances, the difficult subject matter, the intense direction and crushing ending, it should be considered one of the masterpieces of American Cinema, and for certain a top 3 Bogart role, along with “African Queen” and “Casablanca”. You’ve probably never seen it. Change that as soon as possible.

1st Look-★★★1/2 2nd Look-★★★★

“A SLIGHT CASE OF MURDER” (1938)- Dir. Lloyd Bacon

2011-06-06T23:58:00.000-07:00

What I Remember

This was a true mash-up of a gangster movie and a screwball comedy. Edward G. Robinson plays a bootlegger who wants to go legit with his business once Prohibition is repealed, but doesn’t realize that the beer he has been selling is vile.

EGR did more than a bit of self-parody in this movie, and I recall that this "meta factor" really enhanced the comic elements. He carried the film almost single-handedly, although the premise itself, that I believe came from Damon Runyon, is funny enough. It’s a big cast for such a short film, and there are loads of sub-plots, including a Sopranos-like plot with his oblivious daughter and her boyfriend from college.

I have no memory of where and when I first saw this film. I am sure it was on television, and probably on broadcast in New York. That would mean commercial interruptions for things like crossplugs for The Joe Franklin Show , ads for Martin Paints, PC Richard, or Chock Full O’ Nuts coffee. A guess would be “Million Dollar Movie” on channel 9, WOR.

HAH! Million Dollar Movie. That used to mean the most expensive, big budget blockbusters of all time. Nowadays a million only covers the cost of George Clooney’s trailer.

Anyway, this movie struck me as original, and very funny. It was pretty much as if Preston Sturges had made a gangster flick.

After re-watching;

“I was gonna speak ta dem about it, but Boss—I don’t t’ink dem people are in a position ta listen too much. Dey don’t seem ta be alive.” – Mike

PLOT SUMMARY

It’s the evening that Prohibition is repealed, and bootlegger Remy Marko has decided to turn his illegal beer making business into a legitimate brewery. Nobody who works for him seems to have the heart to tell him straight out that his beer is undrinkable. Cut to four years later, and the once flush Marko is now on the verge of bankruptcy, with the bank about to take over his brewery unless he can come up with a half a million dollars. Meanwhile, Remy’s daughter, Mary comes home from being schooled in France, and announces that she is engaged to a blueblood scion. Even though he is wealthy, she wants her fiancée, Dick, to get a job. Dick decides to become a State Trooper, adding to the comedy and tension of the situation. Up in Saratoga, five gangsters have robbed the local Bookmaking establishment of, you guessed it, a half a million dollars. They plan to settle a score with Remy, too, but things go wrong. One of them overhears the others about to cut him out, so he kills all of them, but just as he is about to escape, the Marko’s show up at the house. Outnumbered, the lone gangster left hides in the guest room, which is soon to be occupied by an obnoxious orphan Remy has brought up for some clean air and relaxation.

Let’s see: a comedy that features a gangster going legit, class differential engagement, bad seed causing trouble, murder, revenge, theft. Whew. All this in about 85 minutes. And that riveting drama “Somewhere” was 97 minutes long. Go figure.

STORY/THEME

The first question I always ask of a comedy is, did it make me laugh out loud? I like to laugh, and I love a good comedy. But the humor has to hit me a certain way. “Bridesmaids” made me laugh a lot, and hard. “There’s Something About Mary” did not. That might actually be a good one for my “I Didn’t Get It” entries.

“A Slight Case of Murder” made me laugh more than a few times. Yes, there’s a lot of plot. But it never got in the way of the laughs to the point where you spent more time trying to figure out what was going on, than just enjoying what was up on the screen. The source of the comedy was mostly the one joke, of a bunch of people from the lower class putting on airs. This is a running gag in all of Damon Runyon’s work, in particular Apple Annie of “Pocketful of Miracles” posing as a member of New York’s elite class for her visiting daughter, and of course Sky Masterson romancing Sarah in “Guys and Dolls”. Putting bluebloods in proximity with lower class citizens (like this movie) or wack jobs (“You Can’t Take It With You”) was a big source of humor during the Depression. Often in these films, it’s not the central characters who do the heavy comic lifting, but the sidekicks.

This is true in “A Slight Case of Murder”, but the main character is also a major part of this levity. Remy is one of those people who think big, and use street smarts to get what they want and need. Bootleggers usually get a pass from depression era audiences. They were supplying a needed staple of life that the government had shut off. They were considered human, almost Robin Hood types. Bank robbers, on the other hand, were killers and stole our money. No comedies about them would be popular.

Of course the truth is, Al Capone and most of the really bad guys from gangster land did everything criminal, and bootlegging was a major part of their income. Bootleggers shot each other over territory, strong-armed (beat into submission) innkeepers and storeowners into selling just their brand. They were not nice guy, Robin Hood types at all. They were brutal criminals, making an illegal buck regardless of the consequences.

Geez….lighten up, Francis.

Regardless, they made good Hollywood stories, and I can only imagine how different “A Slight Case of Murder” was when it came out. Having a host of actors known for playing tough guys and criminals do it for laughs really makes this film a treat.

FILMMAKING

Director Lloyd Bacon may be most famous for directing movies wherein the only memorable elements are those with which he had minimal involvement. By that, I mean he directed a lot of the movies that included Busby Berkeley production numbers; those stunning dance and showpieces which included the camera as part of the experience. Bacon cranked out feature after feature, rolling up an unthinkable 130 credits as director over 32 years. He seems like the epitome of a studio director. He did comedies, musicals, sports films, gangster pics, war movies during WWII, jail epics, and even westerns. I think that makes him a good fit for a gangster/comedy/family drama like this movie. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m surprised there was no prize fight somewhere in here!

There are some well-timed shenanigans with the hold-up man who is hiding out, and a big party with a lot of action that is surprisingly easy to follow considering how much is going on. Otherwise, it’s typically Hollywood for the ‘30’s, the stars are really the dialogue, the acting and the pacing. Bacon handles all quite well, and never gets in the way of the laughs. To be sure, in Sturges’ hands, the movie could have risen much higher, but there are a lot of directors from the period that I think would have messed this little gem up with their imprimatur. Lloyd, you were a hard-working SOB, and someday you will get your props. Meantime---good job on this one.

PERFORMANCES

You probably think I am going to wax rhapsodic about Edward G. for the next three paragraphs, and I certainly could. A 5 foot 4 inch leading man, who could play a tough guy as good as anybody (Johnny Rocco in “Key Largo” for example), and also turn in moving performances like Christopher Cross (no not THAT one) in Fritz Lang’s “Scarlet Street”, or thoughtful, incisive characters like Barton Keyes in “Double Indemnity”—why, that’s an actor’s actor. EGR said that playing Remy Marko was one of his favorite experiences as an actor, and he sure seems to be having a great time. It’s a great role, and he is wonderful in it.

For me, the revelation is Ruth Donnelly, as Remy’s wife, Nora. She switches back and forth between aristocrat and moll effortlessly, and to great comic effect. You’ve probably seen her in many films; she too has over 100 titles in her resume. She acted on Broadway until the stock market crash, then moved out to Hollywood just in time for talkies. A good thing, since her skill at repartee is up to par with her great facial expressions.

Sidekicks Lefty (Edward Brophy), Mike (Allen Jenkins) and Guiseppe (Harold Huber) provide perfect foils for the Marko family members. One of the best moments comes when Remy is telling them about the bookies getting their take stolen, and while they are all saying things like “how terrible”, they are smiling and laughing and getting a huge kick out of it. Their interplay with orphan Douglas Fairbanks Rosenbloom (played by Bowery Boy veteran Bobby Jordan) is also a great source of humor throughout.

If there is a weakness in the movie’s performances it comes from Jane Bryan and Willard Parker as the daughter and fiancée, Mary and Dick. They feel like placeholders, and even at the climax when Dick has a chance to really do some slapstick, it’s Robinson that makes it work.

ON SECOND LOOK

If you have yet to see this great comedy, make a point of guide searching for it on Turner Movies or ordering from Netflix. I promise you one thing, you will not be bored, and I am sure you will get some huge laughs out of it. It holds up beautifully.

1st Look-★★★1/2 2nd Look-★★★1/2

“THE BRIDE WORE BLACK”- 1968 Dir: François Truffaut

2011-05-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

What I Remember:

I saw this on television, probably on PBS, in the ‘80’s. My guess is it was at least the partial inspiration for “Kill Bill”. The groom at a wedding gets assassinated on the chapel steps, to the horror of all in attendance. The bride proceeds to go about finding out who did it, then wooing each person involved, and finally killing them. As I’m sure you all know, all of Tarantino’s films are referential. Almost every idea he has had is derivative, and yet he puts an original spin to make it uniquely his own. In the case of “Kill Bill”, he even names his character “The Bride”. In case you’ve never seen “Bill”, she and her entire wedding party are shot at the ceremony, and she wakes in a hospital assuming that the baby she was carrying is among the dead as well. She then proceeds to track down each person she knows responsible for the melee, and murders them one at a time.

When a film aficionado (like me, for instance) thinks of Truffaut, he (me) is immediately mindful of the great classics of his early works; the Antoine Doinel series, and of course, the superb “Jules and Jim”. Other early classics include “The Soft Skin”, and “Shoot the Piano Player”. Truffaut’s involvement in the New Wave of French Cinema cannot be overstated; he was one of the driving forces along with Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Alain Resnais, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette. Truffaut seemed the most approachable to American tastes of this crew. His main influences were from American Cinema, in particular Alfred Hitchcock. But Truffaut did not imitate Hitchcock the auteur, he was most interested in how Hitchcock considered his audience and their reaction to every scene and bit of dialogue that his films proffered. With Hitch, the audience was paramount. This rubbed off on Truffaut.

Just as Hitchcock would have you identify with a Norman Bates, as he nervously watched and hoped that Marion Crane’s car (with her mutilated body in the trunk) would fully submerge in the pond, Truffaut asked us to identify with Jeanne Moreau’s bride, who avenges her groom’s death by seducing and killing those responsible, rather than let the law do its job. As I recall, you root as hard for this bride as you do for Tarantino’s.

As far as I can tell, this is a forgotten classic. I remember being totally bowled over, and wondering how it was that I missed seeing this film in theater, when I was so enamored of Truffaut and Moreau. I count “Jules and Jim” in my top 20 all time. It seems in the pantheon of French Cinema, you never hear or read about “The Bride Wore Black”. Let’s see if it deserves that fate.

After re-watching:

“I didn’t come here for love!” Julie Kohler

PLOT SUMMARY:

Prevented from suicide by her mother, a mysterious woman subsequently tracks down 5 men to murder, men whom she holds responsible for the murder of her newlywed groom on the steps of their nuptial church. She uses her feminine mystique, her cunning, her looks and her single-mindedness to trap and eventually kill her targets.

STORY/THEME

Truffaut freely admits that this is his homage to Hitchcock. Having just completed the famous coffee-table masterpiece Hitchcock/Truffaut, wherein the younger man probed in depth (via interviews) the entire canon of the elder’s work, Truffaut was suitably inspired to make this film. He went so far as to adapt a story from the same author who’s work was the foundation for “Rear Window”, his use of Eastmancolor resembles the Technicolor of Hitch, and for the final and most convincing touch, his score was composed by the great genius Bernard Herrmann.

The similarities don’t end there. Many shots and stylistic elements are direct references to the portly master of suspense. The POV shot of Julie pushing her 1st victim off a terrace is straight out of Raymond Burr attacking Grace Kelly in “Rear Window”. A leitmotif of pouring a glass of liquid into a plant or flowerpot becomes a plot device that helps a man remember where he saw our killer. Hitch was well known for these moments of revelation. Many of the scenes take place in open air, friendly environs, places you would never expect evil to be afoot. The schoolyard crow attack in “The Birds” and the Senator’s soiree where Bruno strangles a dowager in “Strangers on a Train” are prime examples of this juxtaposition that Hitchcock adored.

Be that as it may, there are so very many things in “The Bride Wore Black” that you would NEVER see in a Hitchcock movie. The bride does not ever reveal how she found out who these men are. Hitch would have found some clever way to explain this. Why does Julie Kohler know, and the Police don’t? More importantly, there is no real protagonist other than our bride. In a Hitchcock film, there would be someone with whom the audience can completely identify, someone whose humanity overcomes their desire for revenge. Exoneration is the driving force of Richard Hannay, of Roger Thornhill, of Barry Kane, of Guy Haines. Revenge is something for the bad guys.

Yet this is also French New Wave, and that movement’s disregard for Hollywood conventions developed a troop of anti-heroes. Our bride, Julie Kohler, is a standard-bearer. As I wrote before re-watching, you find yourself rooting for Julie to succeed, to not get caught, to continue. This theme is a twist from Hitchcock, who loved to manipulate his audiences in uncomfortable ways, but would always give them a more suitable target in which to invest their allegiances. It would take “Bonnie and Clyde” for American Cinema to finally give us anti-heroes akin to the French.

As for the suspense, it’s only important for Julie to stay at large until she finally gets all 5 men. You are only invested in this intellectually. You wonder how she is going to get away after pushing the first man off his terrace, but you don’t find yourself begging her to run, for God’s sake! You are fascinated why she doesn’t deface a painting of herself on the wall of the artist she has just killed, but you don’t find yourself yelling at her to wipe it out.

Why do I continue to harp upon this subject? It’s at the root of what I think makes this less of a classic than it could be. Hitchcock understood that unless the audience is emotionally tethered to a character, it is nearly impossible to create true tension and release. Therefore the audience’s experience at the cinema is one of lessened returns—a far less affecting film than “Notorious”, or “Spellbound” even. Check me out…defending Hollywood formula. Go figure. I guess it just got real cold down in hell.

FILMMAKING

I’ve already spent some time describing a number of the homages to Hitch, but there are some other elements that are worthy of discussion. Cinematically, there are some very fun moments provided by François. The final scene is a long static shot, and the action takes place off screen. Shakespeare would have been proud.

Julie’s first appearance in disguise is as an apparition, which symbolically shows her as the ghost she is, already dead inside. The billowing, white outfit is at once revealing and angelic. You can see why the men are fascinated with her, even though her target is at his own engagement party. Her scarf gets blown off the terrace and onto the awning, which allows the fiancée to go over the edge to grab it, and for her to push him off. Later after we watch her quickly walk away from the building, the camera follows the scarf as it wafts around the sea winds of the Cote D’Azur. It reminded me of “The Red Balloon” more than a bit. Eventually the scarf comes to rest in the fronds of a palm tree, and we see a jet taking off through those leaves. Of course, Julie is on that plane.

The music of Herrmann makes such a visceral connection to Hitchcock, almost in the way a song from your youth can bring a time and place physically to mind. Music can be a form of time travel, and when a composer references his own work on an earlier film, it’s almost like you’re watching both films at the same time. The score of “The Bride Wore Black” reminds me of Herrmann’s work on both “Vertigo” and “Psycho”. I rank “Vertigo” at the very top of my favorite; it is for me in a revolving door with “Chinatown”, “Citizen Kane” and “The Conversation” at the pinnacle of Cinema. Note: none of these films end happily. Just sayin’. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah- having the score bring to mind “Vertigo” and it’s near flawless majesty, probably went a long way towards pointing out just how “The Bride Wore Black” did not measure up. In fact, it helped me to realize what a thin line between homage and satire Truffaut walked while making this film.

PERFORMANCES

If you don’t fully identify with Julie Kohler and her quest to rub out her husband’s murderers, don’t blame Jeanne Moreau. I read some talk about how Truffaut should have used the typical icy blonde of Hitchcock, maybe Catherine Deneuve instead of Moreau. My contention is that Moreau’s performance alone places the movie in a different strata. She is so wonderfully oblique, then suddenly shows chinks in her wall, and even has a full on breakdown while describing marrying her childhood sweetheart only to watch him be gunned down on the chapel steps. At one point, she realizes that one of her victims-to-be has legitimately fallen in love with her, and her face registers the pain of knowing that this emotional connection could never derail her juggernaut of a revenge train. It is a masterful turn, and I believe she is perfectly cast.

The men all do a great job in their reduced roles as misogynists, womanizers and losers. You do almost feel bad for them..well not ALL of them. Certainly the guy who’s kind of a flop with chicks (to quote Jerry Lieber) is a tad sympathetic, as is the artist who falls in love with Julie. The family man is kind of a self-obsessed prick, and you don’t really mind that he gets locked in an airless cupboard. All the other roles are at most one-liners, so it’s really about the killer and her victims. There is a building clerk that does a bit something like Dennis Weaver’s motel clerk in “Touch of Evil”, but it’s totally for laughs.

ON SECOND LOOK

Hitchcock never did an homage to other filmmakers, and neither did Bergman, Kurosawa or Fellini. Woody Allen has a bunch, as well as Tarantino, and here we see Truffaut take a stab. You’d think when one master references another it would be a very special, magical moment. Ivan Lins did a full record of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s songs. Herbie Hancock did a full record of Joni Mitchell. I want to hear the masters do their own material. There are plenty of lesser lights out there that can do the job of homage to a master. Truffaut is at his best doing Truffaut. Don’t get me wrong here—it’s a fun and surprising suspenser with twists and turns and great movie moments. It just doesn’t reach the heights of “400 Blows”, “Love on the Run”, and particularly “Jules and Jim”.

1st Look-★★★★ 2nd Look-★★★

"TAMPOPO" 1985 Dir- Jûzô Itami

2011-05-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

What I Remember:

I have been a fan of Japanese Cinema since my first exposure to it, in the form of Akira Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai”. It seemed the more I saw, the more I liked Japanese made movies. I saw Mizoguchi’s ghost story “Ugetsu” and loved it. Next was the amazing MacBeth version by Kurosawa entitled “Throne of Blood”. Brilliant! Soon after, I saw “Ikiru”, “Rashomon”, “Sansho the Bailiff”, “Tokyo Story”, “Rashomon”. I was in love.

I am one of the few people in the United States who saw the Japanese versions of Spaghetti Westerns before ever seeing the Italian knock-offs. My disdain for the Leone catalogue is due to this order of viewings. It is probably unfounded, since many people adore his better efforts. “Once Upon a Time in America” is one that I found very appealing, maybe because there is no Japanese antecedent. I can tell you that if you see “A Fistful of Dollars” after seeing “Yojimbo”, it’s just not going to withstand the comparison.

When I heard that there was a new Japanese film out by a lesser known director, one that turned the Spaghetti Western back on it’s head, I knew I had to see it. It was a comedy, that basically took the plot of “Shane’, and transposed it to a modern day noodle shop. A stranger rides into town, and helps a poor lady restaurateur by supplying her with the greatest recipe for noodles in the known universe. It was like the Japanese were saying…you want Spaghetti? We’ll give you a Noodle Western!

My memory is that the film was original, funny, sexy and all about food. Comedy, Gluttony and Lust. What more could anyone want from a night at the movies?

After Re-watching:

“I'll kill you if you make that noise once the movie starts! Understand? And... I also don't like watch alarms going off. “ Man in the White Suit

PLOT SUMMARY

A trucker named Goro (Nobuko Miyamoto) and his sidekick, Gun (Ken Watanabe), stop late on a rainy night for noodles at a noodle shop. The proprietor is a nice-looking middle-aged widow named Tampopo (Tsutomu Yamazaki), who is struggling to keep her dead husband’s business afloat. Her food is sub-standard, and the trucker endeavors to help her learn how to make the best possible noodles. Throughout the film, there are short vignettes that all center around food in various ways; comic, tragic and ironic.

STORY/THEME

This is the 2nd of three movies directed by Jûzô Itami which stars Yamazaki and Miyamoto. The first, called “Ososhiki” (Funeral) I haven’t seen. The 3rd is called “A Taxing Woman”, which was another very funny and engaging film. “Tampopo”, is considered by most critics to be the best of the three.

The opening alone is worth the price of admission. A very handsome couple are sitting in a theater waiting for a movie to begin. The man, dressed in a white linen suit and panama hat, stands up and looks at the camera, observing that WE have come to see a movie too. He begins to complain about people who make a lot of noise eating during the movies, and threatens a guy right behind him. Then he complains about watch alarms, which puts you right back into the ‘80’s.

The noise of eating food is a major theme throughout “Tampopo”, particularly the slurping of noodles. In one very funny vignette, a very proper Miss Manners type is instructing her young female students about the proper way to eat pasta. She performs a soundless wrapping around her fork and ingestion, all the while there is a man across the dining room slurping his Linguine with gusto. The young women are overcome by the obviously amped up sounds, and respond in kind. Soon the soundtrack is a cacophony of eating noises accompanied by close-ups of young, proper women slurping their noodles with abandon..

This scene is in direct contrast to the opening of the main plot, wherein our truckers are driving through a deluge, the sidekick reading from a book that describes the proper way to eat noodles, Zen style. It’s ridiculously over the top; “Apologize to the pork so you can say, See you soon”. It reminded me of the “Honeymooner’s” golf episode where Ralph tells Norton to address the ball, and Norton looks down and exclaims, “Hello, ball!”

If “Tampopo” hails from any single film, it is of course “Shane”. Simply the idea of a Western influencing a Japanese film about noodles….well you get the joke on Spaghetti Westerns. In “Shane” the hero rides in and saves a widow and her young son from bad guys, then leaves, presumably to go help someone else. “Tampopo” riffs on this with the idea that helping the widow make a great bowl of noodles equates to rescuing a widow from bad men trying to steal her ranch. In true Western fashion, he drives off into the sunset, or rather the Tokyo freeway afternoon. It’s parody in its finest form. Goro is such a cowboy that his truck is festooned with longhorns, and he wears a Stetson even into his bath. When he first enters the noodle shop, he sits at the counter and orders in the misdst of some pretty nefarious looking guys. It is an exact reference to all those “stranger enters a saloon” scenes. Later there is a fight between Goro and the ruffian who fancies Tampopo. It starts stylistically in silhouette, then emerges into an all out donnybrook. At the end, the two men become friends, and team up to help the widow’s transformation. The whole sequence is straight out of a John Ford classic; the Japanese version of John Wayne and Victor McLaglen. When they say their goodbyes at the end of the movie, Goro says “So long, partner.”

The vignettes are all about food and some of them are laugh out loud funny. One of the first is at a fancy French restaurant, where there is a group of businessmen dining in a small private room. Most are older well-dressed men, and the youngest one comes in oafishly bumbling his books. When it’s time to order, they all order consommé and Sole meuniere. The young man then proceeds to order like a 4 star chef, asking about the Boudin and a particular wine vintage. Later on, a skit with a group of homeless guys who are all gourmands also points out that you don’t have to be wealthy or well-heeled to appreciate the glory of food. The disconnect makes for good comedy, but it also makes a point.

Food and its relationship to sex and death are also investigated, thanks to the Man in the White Suit and his quite attractive woman. They are involved in three separate vignettes besides the opening; the first is like a scene from “9 ½ Weeks”, where food is eaten off body parts, and it gets more and more absurd as the scene goes on. The second vignette has them transferring a raw egg yolk from mouth to mouth like an erotic camp game. The third has the man doing a death scene wherein he remembers hunting Wild Boar in winter, when all the Boars eat is yams. You cook their intestines to have yam sausage. It’s the strangest death scene in film history.

FILMMAKING

Itami’s camera has some very interesting tricks up its sleeve. Many scenes take place in a downpour, which is never the kind of atmosphere that you like for comedy. The silhouetted fistfight under an elevated highway is a real treat. However the interweaving of main plot and skits is where the film really shines. The transitions are subtle, but obviously thought out. One noodle shop seamlessly turns into a fine dining establishment for our Miss Manners moment. A man runs past our heroes as they return from a night out and we follow him into his house where his wife lays dying, and a new, quite tragic food vignette begins.
The score also plays a great role in the film’s comic delivery. When one of the “Haute Hobos” cooks a rice omelet for Tampopo’s son by sneaking into a restaurant’s kitchen, the score sounds like a silent film soundtrack. It’s fitting, because the cooking must get done before the night-watchman catches them.

PERFORMANCES

Nobuko Miyamoto embodies the tough guy with a heart of gold, and plays his role straight as can be, which is perfect for what the film needs. No winking at the camera, no over-the-top tough guy stuff. He is the quintessential strong, not so silent type. As for Tsutomu Yamazaki, her Tampopo is fetching, pliant but resilient, and shows some real cleverness when she gets a chef to spill his recipe for his noodles. Watanabe is there just to be a foil for Miyamoto’s character. He was quite young when “Tampopo” was made, and has become an international star with turns in “Inception” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” amongst others. Kôji Yakusho plays the Man in the White Suit, and is one of the main sources for laughs. His role is somewhat of the narrator/Greek chorus. Again, like Miyamoto he plays it seriously, which makes the absurdities of his actions that much funnier. The supporting cast are all letter perfect.

ON SECOND LOOK

If you love food, you need to see this film. It’s a very fun way to spend two hours, and I think a very original work. If you watch it when hungry, be forewarned; your appetite will be raging by the end. “Tampopo” is just as delicious and filling as I remembered it to be.

1st Look-★★★1/2 2nd Look-★★★1/2

THE ROCKING HORSE WINNER (1949) Dir: Anthony Pelissier

2011-04-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

What I Remember:

Based on a story by D.H. Lawrence, I recall this movie as a kind of Twilight Zone episode, only longer, more British, and without a major plot twist. It was kind of like the “Franklin” episode of the Zone, where a slot machine takes on a personality as it calls the newly gambling addict like a siren, luring him to a plunge from a Vegas high-rise hotel window.

In the case of “The Rocking Horse Winner”, a lower income English household is in trouble, and their child hears the house itself demanding money. He gets on his Rocking Horse, and suddenly finds that riding the horse very hard causes him to predict the winners at the local track. If that ever happened to me, my family would have probably taken me out of school on the spot, installed a TV on the horse’s nose, and had Lutece cater all my meals while I rocked away all day and night. “Sleep? There’s time for sleep later, Wayne. Now get on that damn horse and tell me the Exacta winners from the 4th at Aqueduct!”

So right now you’re thinking, “Oh, that Wayne. Exaggerating again for comic effect”. Not this time, bub.
Example 1; Most people have grandparents who break their hip in a fall, and that usually is their undoing. Sadly, this was true for my wonderful Grandma Pearl. However, Pearl slipped and fell running to the cashier at Belmont after she nailed a longshot in the 2nd race.
Example 2; The other side of my family lived at the track also. There is actually a room at Monmouth Racetrack in New Jersey named after my Grandfather. When told of this honor, he responded by saying, “All the money I lost at this track- they should name the whole damn place after me!”

Anyway, my college girlfriend and I were sitting at her place relaxing with the TV on, and this movie came on Public Televison. She literally jumped up, and said, “I love this movie. We have to watch it!”. Remember, I was a film major, and I went “Oh great. Some precious British kid’s film with a ‘40’s version of Hayley Mills and a rocking horse. Just how I want to spend my night. Aren’t the White Sox on or something?”

On the inside, of course.

On the outside it was, “Sounds great, baby.” Needless to say, the movie completely shocked and surprised me, in a very positive way. This was no Disney does Darby. It’s a serious film about child abuse and neglect, and an allegory about how parents can exploit a child with talent to the child’s detriment.

After re-watching:

“Don’t send me away till after the Darby! Please Mommy, please Mommy, please!” – Paul Grahame

PLOT SUMMARY

The Grahames are an Upper Middle Class family who are running out of money. Mrs. Grahame spends like there’s no tomorrow, and Mr. Grahame gambles at cards to try and generate enough to handle her needs. They have 3 children, the oldest of whom, Paul, is a happy young boy who strikes up a friendship with their landscaper/handyman, Bassett (John Mills). Mrs. Grahame’s brother, Oscar, is well off, and is also her trustee. He has helped them many times, but is running out of patience. Mrs. Grahame’s mantra, “we must get more money” becomes part of Paul’s unconscious, until he believes the house itself is saying it. His new Christmas present is a Rocking Horse that he rides with intensity, believing it will bring him the luck his parents don’t have. With Bassett, he begins to pick the winners at the track, and rides until the inspiration hits him. Uncle Oscar gets in on the deal, and takes his winnings to replenish his sister’s money, telling the family it’s trust disbursement. Soon the luck runs out and Paul becomes desperate, riding his rocking horse maniacally.

STORY/THEME

Wow, did I have this one wrong! The parents are not lower class, and they are totally in the dark about the boy’s special talent. They don’t even really know where the new money is coming from. It seems like they don’t care to know. They are simply ready to spend and live extravagantly without asking questions. Just now, it occurs to me that if there’s an allegory here, it’s to today’s USA. Spend, borrow, spend more. Live the high life, don’t ask questions until the collection agent shows up expecting a payback. Then the excrement hits the propeller. It’s an endorsement of the Protestant ethic, for sure.

Nobody realizes that Paul is destroying himself with his maniacal riding except maybe the nanny, who is worried initially, but later seems to lose track. The Mother is totally oblivious, then out of nowhere, gets this sixth sense that something is very wrong with Paul. It’s very hard to believe, and is a pretty huge flaw. The Father is a real nothing in this movie, he ignores the children, and is obviously a failure at providing for the family.

Is there a villain in “Rocking Horse Winner”? Maybe the horse itself, but it’s not Uncle Oscar, who despite being snarky and brusque, genuinely tries to help. It’s not Bassett, who is a lower class nice guy, with a real code of honor. The parents are products of their upbringing, spoiled, yes, but not malicious. The real enemy is greed, just like it is today in the good old U S of A.

The moral of the story? Greed kills. Money is the root of all evil. Check in on your kids once in a while.

To wit, there’s a great scene early on, where the mother puts her children to bed, and she remarks to the father that it was so easy, and she has no idea why Nanny complains about how hard it is all the time. Meanwhile, we cut upstairs to the previously placid bedrooms, now with mayhem breaking out. She has NO CLUE about her own children, because she is obviously so self-involved.

On a side note, there is an awful scene which I had no memory of, and it might have been cut from the version I saw. Trust me, if I’d seen it, I would have remembered it. Mrs. Grahame, faced with the prospect of having a bill collector stay in her home unless she produces 40£ to pay him off, goes to a ghetto neighborhood to sell some of her expensive clothes to a tailor. The tailor, a Mr. Tsaldouris, is obviously Jewish, despite the name. He has a Central European accent, acts and looks the part with coke bottle glasses, carrying a dog around in his dank tailor shop. And he’s a tailor. After they “hondel” (bargain) they settle on a price that gets her to the amount she needs, only if she throws in the expensive bag that she is carrying the clothes in. When he pays her, he asks, “Aren’t you going to count it?” She replies, “No, Mr. Tsaldouris, I trust you”. In that one sentence, she puts him down so thoroughly, and elevates herself. It is classic Brit Anti-Semitism. Only four years after the war. It made me almost as sick as Watto, that huge nosed flying Jew-bug in The Phantom Menace episode of Star Wars, who sells Annakin’s mother into the slave trade, explaining that “Business is business”, with a buggy shrug.

Fuck you, Lucas. You haven’t made a decent movie since “The Empire Strikes Back”. Man, that felt good.

FILMMAKING

I had never heard of Anthony Pelissier, and with good reason. Nothing else that shows up on IMDB is well known. Mr. Pelissier both directed and did the screenplay adaptation of “Rocking Horse Winner”. The screenplay has its moments, and I’m sure Mr. Lawrence supplied much of them. The Direction is ambitious, and often succeeds. There are great Noir-ish lighting stunts, and the horse itself looks exceptionally demonic at times.

Probably my favorite moments are;
1) The first time we see Paul on the horse, it cuts from the children cowering in the corner watching him, to Paul’s POV while riding. The camera tracks in and out very fast on a fuzzy, filtered vision of the mother and Nanny. You can see that he is in another world, and that the reality of his room is like a separate dimension. It’s very effective.
2) When Mrs. Grahame finally gets the mental idea that something is terribly wrong, and she rushes home to find Paul on the horse, she opens the door, and there is a remarkable shot of her head in the lower right corner of the screen, while the rest of the box is filled with the giant shadow of Paul on the rocking horse. Yes, I am sure Mr. Pelissier was familiar with the works of Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock.

Music is used very dramatically throughout the film, and the score by William Alwyn is powerful, indeed. Mr. Alwyn also wrote for the great wartime documentary “Fires Were Started”, and Carol Reed’s two lesser-known masterpieces “Odd Man Out” and “Fallen Idol”. This is interesting, since Pelissier’s ex-wife remarried Reed! The score is typical, but much of the tension in the movie is provided by its presence in scenes that otherwise would seem quite mundane.

PERFORMANCES

John Mills, who played Bassett, also produced the film, and he is very convincing in the role as the slightly dim but good-hearted handyman. Paul is played by John Howard Davies, a child actor who had two other quite meaty roles as Oliver Twist and Tom Brown in “Tom Brown’s Schooldays”. Davies had a short career as a young actor, but a very long one as a TV director, including helming many episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and more importantly, directing the greatest sitcom of ALL TIME, “Fawlty Towers”. When I read that little factoid, I decided not to trash him for being way over the top in “The Rocking Horse Winner”. Actually, he is only slightly over the top. The kid who plays Phillipe in “Fallen Idol” (Bobby Henrey) does a better job, but frankly that film is far superior to this one.

Ronald Squire as Uncle Oscar does a decent job of delivering his sarcastic dialogue, but he looks decades older than his sister. In fact, IMDB research revealed that he was indeed 30 years senior to co-star Valerie Hobson, who played Hester Grahame. Hobson had had two very big roles to her credit at the point this film was made; as the adult Estella in “Great Expectations”, and Edith D’Ascoyne in “Kind Hearts and Coronets”. Her performance in this film is fairly shallow, even at the end when she is transformed, the character lacks depth and personality. We take for granted how terrific British actors are, so when they are a bit substandard it really can undermine a film.

ON SECOND LOOK

This was not the film I remembered both in substance AND in quality. There are some fine moments in imagery and sound, but the poor acting and shallow characters take away from the power of the film. We’ve seen this kind of story many times in Twilight Zone, so the novelty of it, which must have been quite compelling in 1949, has little to no effect on us now. In any case, if I had been on the fence about “The Rocking Horse Winner”, that little trip to the London shtetl pushed me off of it.

1st Look-★★★1/2 2nd Look-★★

BRAZIL (1985) Dir. Terry Gilliam

2011-04-18T22:45:00.001-07:00

What I remember:

This is the first entry of my “I Didn’t Get It” section of this blog. These are movies that seem to have a life of their own, “legs” I think some people call it. Film freaks and critics alike adore these movies, which I found underwhelming at best, and in some cases just plain awful.

My credentials for loving “Brazil” are unassailable; I enjoy sci-fi, I am a huge proponent and performer of Brazilian music, I am a geeky Monty Python devotee, I adore off-beat and original movies. All bets should have been on a “two thumbs up” reaction to Gilliam’s opus. All bets would have made mad loot for the bookies.

About 25 minutes into the film I can recall wanting out of the theater. It was a cacophonous mess of dangling wires and poorly conceived stunts, devoid of humor or plot, with nasty sharp teeth and floppy ears and run away run away RUN AWAY!!!!! It was as if Dinsdale had nailed me head to the coffee table. I was pining for the fjords.

I did not, however, walk out on “Brazil”. I sat through the entire 132 minutes hoping against hope that the movie would give me a reason to like it. It did not. Most people feel that it is Gilliam’s greatest film. It is rated at 98% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. That’s higher than “Pulp Fiction” or “Goodfellas”!

So what the hell film was I watching? How could I be so absolutely off base about it? It’s not like I just don’t like Gilliam’s movies. I really enjoyed “Holy Grail”, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “Time Bandits”. You know how, in the great “Cheese Shop” skit from Python, Michael Palin says how clean the shop is, and John Cleese responds, “Well it’s certainly uncontaminated by any bits of cheese, isn’t it?” That describes my memory of “Brazil”. For a comedy, it is certainly uncontaminated by any bits of humor.

Isn’t it?

After re-watching

Kurtzmann: Information Retrieval has got him down as "inoperative." And there's another one - Security has got him down as "excised." Administration has got him down as "completed."

Sam Lowry: He's dead.

PLOT SUMMARY

In a dystopian society of the late 20th Century, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a mid-level bureaucrat from a rich and powerful family. He is obviously very intelligent, but without drive. He dreams constantly of being a flying avenger, and of a certain woman whom he can rescue from the clutches of an evil giant samurai. When he catches a glimpse of this woman in “reality”, he pursues her and begins to get in trouble with the Orwellian authorities. He takes a promotion he had earlier turned down, and uses his new level of information to find her and rescue her from the bureaucracy which has mistakenly targeted her and her neighbors.

STORY/THEME

Do you remember having a childhood friend who you used to have play-dates with, who was really creative and a bit hyperactive? We all knew those kids, right? The first hour with them was really cool. They had a lot of interesting shit to play with, and all these fun, manic things to do. Then, after about an hour, it started to get a little annoying. Soon, everything the kid did was irritating and why the hell doesn’t he just shut up and can’t we watch TV and don’t you have anything to EAT for God’s sake and can I call my folks to come get me now?

This is “Brazil” in a nutshell. The theme is nothing new, of course. “1984” had already covered this territory quite well, maybe with not as much humor. I will admit there are a few funny bits in the film. One of my favorite moments happens after freelance heating engineer Harry Tuttle (Robert DeNiro) fixes Lowry’s AC/Heater, and a couple of repairman show up from Central Services (Bob Hoskins and Derrick O’Connor) looking very suspicious and quite unofficial. It’s not what Hoskins says, but how he says it. The character is rife with smiling malevolence.

Yet so much of this movie is over the top, that whatever lingering pleasure one might get from the humor and creative vision is just swamped in noise for both your eyes and ears. One scene, where Lowry hand delivers a refund check to the widow of a wrongly arrested man, is beyond shrill- it is absolutely unwatchable. The movie keeps assailing your senses to make its point: We ignore the disaster we’ve created with our modern society so we can enjoy the fruits of technology. But these fruits are poisoned, and our future can only get worse as we let this beast take over.

In 1985 when “Brazil” was made, there was really no Internet as we know it now, nor was there anything close. Gilliam tried to predict this age of mis-information and his satire has a sharp edge. My issue is not with the film’s message, but with it’s methods.

FILMMAKING

A Terry Gilliam movie is a trip inside his head, one supposes. Whereas most of us have a barrier between subconscious and conscious mind, Gilliam’s is down like the Berlin Wall. The attic of our brain is kept at bay so we can actually concentrate on the important stuff at hand; What time is my next appointment? Where did I leave my keys? What should I buy Aunt Millie for her birthday? Gilliam’s attic is wide open and spewing vast amounts of mental sewage and diamonds constantly. Unfortunately we are left to wade through the muck to find the gems.

“Brazil” has a lot of references and influences. Besides “1984”, there is “Metropolis”, “Battleship Potemkin”, “Duck Soup” and “Things to Come”. Why did Gilliam make the overall style of the film 30’s and 40’s Art Deco? It could be that he just likes that look. Or it could be that it makes the technology running rampant even more discordant in comparison to the styles of a more simple time. I believe that it is an outright salute to the sci-fi movies of that era like “Metropolis” and “Things To Come”.

Michael Kamen’s score is perfect if you want to heap extra abuse on the ears of the audience. It is orchestral, with quotes from the title song “Aquarela do Brasil”, and other familiar themes that come and go with a freneticism that matches the movie. It is relentless.

Visually it is a unique and, at times, wonderful feast. The ducts and wires are everywhere; they are almost a character unto themselves. One of the earliest scenes in the Dickensian Ministry of Information is truly balletic in presentation. Workers weave amongst each other down a long crowded corridor with absurd precision. Another stunning bit happens when arresting officers come to claim the wrong man in his home. Like a Storm Trooper invasion, they bust in through the door, the ceiling and the windows at once, tie the man up in a burlap sack that covers him from head to toe, make his poor wife sign a receipt for him, and whisk him away, while she and her children cower. It is disturbing to say the least. It reminded me of the great nightmare scene in “An American Werewolf in London” when David has a vision of the Gestapo invading his suburban home. One moment you are enjoying a quiet evening at home, the next you are plunged into violence and chaos.

Lots of laughs, huh?

At this point you are probably saying, “Come on, man. You love “Little Murders” and there is no blacker comedy than that!” My response is….that movie is FUNNY. Repeatedly funny. Uproariously funny. Sarcastically funny. Not so for “Brazil”. It just doesn’t get me that way. The overall effect is like being at the Fun House. There are lots of weird and somewhat cool things, but a lot of the time it’s just annoying, like the wind jets, or the tilted room. Most Fun Houses are not fun. I sure wouldn’t want to buy a second ticket for this one. I am not really a Tim Burton fan, but I do love “Beetlejuice”. Now THERE’s a Fun House I would go back to!

PERFORMANCES

The cast is actually one of the strengths of “Brazil”. From top to bottom, everyone does what they are supposed to do. It’s exactly WHAT they have been told to do to which I take exception. Jonathan Pryce’s Sam Lowry is perfectly fine as the harried, daydreaming hero. Of course, putting one of Python’s standout comic talents in the role, such as John Cleese or Graham Chapman, would have dialed up the comedy and made the film far more tolerable.
Iam Holm, who is always wonderful, does a superb job as the incompetent boss, Kurtzmann. There are also very strong bits from veteran TV actress Katherine Helmond as Sam’s mother. Ms. Helmond was very well known at the time as Jessica Tate from the popular sitcom “Soap”, a role she reprised on the show “Benson”. I like character actor Jim Broadbent as Mrs. Lowry’s plastic surgeon, Michael Palin as the evil friend Jack Lint, and, as I already said, Bob Hoskins is hilarious. Kim Greist as Lowry’s dream girl, Jill Layton, does a nice job, but not a standout.

The big question is, why DeNiro? His Harry Tuttle is really the hero of our story, the guy who keeps rescuing Sam for no apparent reason. Don’t get me wrong, he turns in a good performance, but he is such a powerful presence on screen, and so recognizable, that it’s a bit of a distraction. Like having George Clooney show up on “Mad Men” as a janitor.

ON SECOND LOOK

Is “Brazil” as terrible as I remembered? No, not at all. It’s noisy and abrasive. It’s like having your brain in a pinball machine. The movie does take on some very important issues, particularly the way technology and industrialization are dehumanizing us all. It’s a harrowing vision, for certain. The satire, however, is not funny enough to help balance the film’s intensity and chaotic demeanor. NO WAY does this film warrant a place in the “Classics” of modern cinema.

1st Look-★★ 2nd Look-★★★

DEAD MAN- 1995 Dir. Jim Jarmusch

2011-04-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

What I remember:

Whether you like him or not, Jarmusch is one of the few true auteurs out there. I guess you could call the entire Pixar group an auteur, but after Jarmusch, is there any one person who’s body of work is so singular, so completely separate from the bulk of what else is being done, and yet so uniform to itself? Yes, there’s Almódovar, no argument here. Other names that come to mind are Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, The Coen Brothers, Tim Burton, Noah Baumbach, Ramin Bahrani, Tom McCarthy, Suzanne Biers. The first four each have a body of work that has similarities throughout, but there are also variances that keep me from proclaiming them auteurs. Woody’s serious side usually is imitative of other great directors; “Interiors” is his Bergman, “Stardust Memories” his Fellini, “Match Point” his Hitchcock. Tarantino, Anderson, the Coens and Burton each have enough of their own sideways trajectories to make them questionable for this nomenclature. As for the other four younger directors I mentioned, their oeuvre is still in formation. We shall see if they continue their very individual work.

Digression over. Jarmusch has such a strong hold on every film he makes that genre has no effect. You want a hitman flick? “Ghost Dog”. How about an episodic travelogue? “Night on Earth”. Relationship movie? “Broken Flowers”. All of these films have the trademark leisurely paced, quirky dialogue, stranger in a strange land narrative that has defined a Jarmusch film.

His western, “Dead Man” is no exception. I consider it his finest movie. I saw it over a year after it’s release and was very impressed. It had some of that great humor we associate with Jarmusch, but the title alone shows just how dark and intense the film is. The fact that it is shot in black and white adds to the general gloominess of the proceedings. Johnny Depp was fine in his role as William Blake, but he does come across a bit like Edward Scissorhands in bearskins. The real star of the film, besides Robby Müller’s cinematography, was Gary Farmer as the Indian, “Nobody”. Farmer is indeed a Native American (yes I know he’s Canadian- that is part of America), and his performance here is nothing short of astonishing.

“Dead Man” is all about atmosphere, hopelessness, disorientation, isolation. Other than that it’s a fun, light-hearted romp!

After re-watching:

William Blake- (holding up a gun) “Why do you have this?”
Thel Russell- “Because this is America.”

Nobody- “ I was then taken east, in a cage. I was taken to Toronto. Then Philadelphia. And then to New York. And each time I arrived at another city, somehow the white men had moved all their people there ahead of me. Each new city contained the same white people as the last, and I could not understand how a whole city of people could be moved so quickly.”

PLOT SUMMARY

Accountant William Blake (Johnny Depp) is traveling to the far west to take a job with Dickinson Metalworks in a town called Machine. When he arrives, he finds the position is already filled. Broke and alone, he drinks outside a bar, and assists a flower-selling woman named Thel Russell (Mili Avitel) who has been accosted. The two sleep together, and are surprised by Thel’s ex-lover Charlie in the morning. The man shoots Thel, then William, wounded by the bullet that has passed through Thel, shoots Charlie. He takes Charlie’s horse and escapes into the forest. In the forest he meets Nobody (Gary Farmer) who is a lone Indian. Nobody mistakes Blake for the poet of the same name, and befriends him. Meanwhile, bounty hunters and U.S. Marshalls are hired by Dickinson himself, who, it turns out, is Charlie’s father. While on the run, Blake becomes a legend like Billy the Kid, with Wanted Posters all over the area.

STORY/THEME

If the plot summary I just wrote gives you the impression that this is an action-packed oater, then I am sorry to say that you are mistaken. In fact, the pace of all the violent scenes in the film is 16 RPM. People even react to being shot with a 1,2,3 OUCH! Many times, characters that are drawn upon fumble with their weapon or don’t even move, simply awaiting their fate. Unlike the violence in “The Wild Bunch” or “Taxi Driver”, shown in slow motion to exaggerate the blood and guts, there is no gushing geyser of blood, usually just a minute bullet-hole appears, and seconds later a hand goes to the site of the wound. Languid pacing is what a Jarmusch film is about, and there are other hallmarks of his work in “Dead Man”. One I forgot to mention earlier is the juxtaposition of the strong, silent type with the guy who just won’t shut the fuck up. John Lurie and Roberto Benigni in “Down By Law” supply the archetypes, as do Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Cinque Lee in “Mystery Train”. In “Dead Man”, these roles are supplied by characters Cole Wilson (Lance Henriksen) and Conway Twill (Michael Wincott).

Much of the dialogue is mystical, especially when uttered by Nobody or the train fireman (Crispin Glover). The theme becomes about the transition from life to death, how the white man sees it and how the Indian sees it. In Jarmusch’s vision, the Old West is a place where life is cheap, death comes easy, early and often. It is not so much a land of opportunity, but a place where hope runs out. In this place, the rule of law is a rumor, a man is very close to his feral roots, the veneer of civilization is threadbare, like everyone’s clothing.

Makes for a lovely weekend trip.

I think Jarmusch has always been drawn to society’s marginal folk, the Jersey losers in “Stranger Than Paradise”, the Finnish alcoholics in “Night on Earth”, the hit man in “Ghost Dog”. It is that theme and also the “Stranger in a Strange Land” dichotomy that he continues to explore and expound upon in all of his movies. “Dead Man” is the film I would use to introduce a person to Jarmusch’s catalogue, simply because it is the best and most poignant. And, oh yeah, there are some VERY funny moments along the way. If you have been reading this blog, you know that humor is a necessity for me to enjoy a film. Depp plays the Barney Miller-like straight man, while the humor comes from various sources; Nobody, the Bounty Hunters, even Dickinson. Comic relief mitigates this otherwise dismally dark piece, and the two work beautifully together to make a very strong statement.

FILMMAKING

I guess 16 years is not so long a time that I couldn’t remember the best things about this movie. I was right that Robby Müller’s camera work is amongst the best you will ever see, and certainly the best in a film by Jim Jarmusch. There is a look to contemporary black and white films that transcends the old silver screen concept. The Coen’s “The Man Who Wasn’t There” has a luminous quality that only a few other films can muster. This one is in that group. I also remember seeing some restored prints from the classic years, especially “The Big Sleep” which are very special to watch in monochrome. So maybe it’s the condition of the old prints that have made them lose that lustrous quality. “Dead Man” has luster in spades. Don’t get me wrong, it is not a beautiful film. The imagery is quite bleak and often disturbing. The first time you see the town of Machine, you are introduced to the Coffin maker, and the skulls of dead animals are hung everywhere. The Indian fort near the end of the film is shot like a Nazi ghetto. There are times when you feel like you could smell the stench of where you are; the maneur, the burning animal flesh, the rotting corpses.

The opening sequence is truly memorable. As the tedious train-ride to the west progresses, both the landscape and the other passengers go from civilized and familiar to savage and strange. William Blake, in his ridiculously dapper get-up, notices this change between naps, making the movement towards the primitive starkly envisioned. Right before the credits, Glover’s soot-covered fireman (the coal shoveler) sits across from Blake, and talks of visions. At one point, when he finds out where Blake is headed, he responds with “The end of the line. Why would someone want to go to hell?” It’s a premonition for the entire film before the title rolls.

A quick note about the score: Neil Young plays both acoustic and distorted electric guitar throughout the film. Thank the Lord he doesn’t sing! At times it sounds like they rolled the film with a mic on his amp, and he just picked up his axe whenever it seemed like a good time to add some tension. At first I loved it, but as the film goes on it becomes repetitive, annoying and distracting.

PERFORMANCES

This is quite an ensemble that Jim put together. Iggy Pop is not only clothed, he is dressed as a woman in one very creepy segment, where he is reading Goldilocks to two other men, played by Billy Bob Thornton and Jared Harris. Other notables are Robert Mitchum as Dickinson, and Gabriel Byrne as Charlie. Everyone is perfect in their parts, but as I said earlier, the transcendent performance is from Gary Farmer as Nobody. It is a star-making turn, and I cannot figure out why he didn’t get a boatload of great parts after this. He did reprise this role in “Ghost Dog”, wherein he gets to say the signature line of Nobody- “Stupid fucking white man”. I also love a moment when he grabs Blake’s hat, puts it on and rapidly moves his lower jaw like he is a corporate bigwig talking to an underling. This is physically and verbally one of the most singular and indelible performances you will ever see.

As for Depp, he underplays the role so much, that it is hard to recognize the Johnny Depp we have all grown to know so well. No Jack Sparrow or Ed Wood here. His William Blake is simple, not very clever and truly without artifice. It’s just what the film needed out of him.

ON SECOND LOOK

“Dead Man” was my favorite film by Jim Jarmusch, and re-watching hasn’t changed that. “Dead Man” is Jarmusch’s “Annie Hall”, or “Strangers on a Train”, or “Fargo”. It’s the one movie in an auteur’s career where he gets it all right.

1st Look-★★★1/2 2nd Look-★★★1/2

NIGHT MOVES- 1975 Dir. Arthur Penn

2011-03-28T23:44:00.000-07:00

What I remember:

I saw this in the theater when it came out, and was a little befuddled. This was not your standard whodunit for certain. Arthur Penn, who had helped foment the New Hollywood revolution with his unforgettable “Bonnie and Clyde”, and, in my mind at least, cemented his role as a great auteur with one of my favorite films then and now, “Little Big Man”, would not be interested in making a standard private dick flick. Here was one of Hollywood’s guiding lights, directing one of filmdom’s hottest stars in Gene Hackman. It would seem to be a very easy sell to the moguls. Penn had been hot during the intervening period (spanning 1968-1974); “Alice’s Restaurant” was a charmer based on the Arlo Guthrie counter-culture anthem, and “Little Big Man” was a big hit with the hippies and a breakthrough in its depiction of the Native American.

Hackman was coming off a great run including his brilliant turn as Jimmy Doyle in both “French Connection” movies, his signature role as Harry Caul in the Coppola’s masterpiece “The Conversation”, and his great actor pair with Al Pacino in “Scarecrow”.

So what could possibly go wrong here? Penn was famous for being an autocrat both on the shoot and behind the scenes. I recall that I needed to see “Night Moves” a second time before I could really follow the story and understand the characters. Blame it on my youth, blame it on whatever 1975 had me indulging in. Possibly blame it on the film and it’s convoluted narrative line. I remember that the supporting cast was a tad weak, and there was a laugh-out-loud absurdist line when out of nowhere, Paula, Hackman’s love interest in the movie, blurts out, “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” Hackman replies, “Which Kennedy?”

Now you’re asking, why did you choose this movie for your blog? I guess it comes under the heading, “It’s so weird that it’s cool, maybe even great”. There was a lot of detective genre deconstruction in the ‘70’s. Heading the list was “Chinatown”, but there were also “The Long Goodbye”, “Klute”, “The Late Show”, and you could even include “Shaft” on this list. With “Night Moves”, I think the genre was imploded. Plus, the most deconstructed detective film of all time, “The Big Lebowski” references “Night Moves” in many ways. Let’s give it a chance, shall we?

After re-watching:

“Who’s winning?”
“Noone. One team’s losing slower than the other”. Ellen and Harry Moseby

PLOT SUMMARY

Ex NFL defensive back Harry Moseby is a private investigator who is called in to trace the runaway daughter of an aging ex Hollywood starlet. The runaway is well known for her promiscuity, as is the mother. The starlet needs her child back so that she can collect a trust owed her from her first husband. Otherwise, the two want nothing to do with each other. At the same time Moseby discovers his wife is having an affair. He runs from the emotional conflict headlong into his investigation, which takes him into the world of stuntmen, charter boating and eventually pre-Columbian artifact smuggling.

STORY/THEME

There’s a joke that goes;

A couple are lying in bed after sex. The girl turns to the guy and asks, “Does having sex with me make you a pedophile?” The guy responds, “Pedophile. Isn’t that a big word for an 8-year-old?”

Yeah, that’s pretty creepy, but damn funny too. Watching a supposedly 17-year-old Melanie Griffith get in and out of clothes for the better part of two hours makes you feel a little bit creepy, a little bit tingly (Hey, wasn’t that an Osmonds’ song title?). “Night Moves” overcomes this most prurient of situations 10-fold, with a densely plotted mystery and a very well developed character study of it’s protagonist. It’s not so much a “noir deconstruction”, as a rethinking of the classic Private Dick character, giving him a rounder, more corruptible and more faceted personality. At one point, the man Harry’s wife is having an affair with says, “C'mon take a swing at me Harry, the way Sam Spade would!” It’s a great moment, when you realize that this is the 70’s, not the 40’s, and things are not going to progress the way the standard detective fare would go. There is another fight later in the film, where Harry and the girl’s Step-father are in a tussle, all the while, Paula (Jennifer Warren), the woman both have slept with, is yelling at them about how stupid they are acting, how childish. In a Marlowe or Spade story, the girl would just be screaming her head off.

Harry is a new kind of person for the movies, the intellectual jock. He’s way too smart to be a head-banging NFL pro. He plays chess (hence the title; Night Moves= Knight Moves). He has a tortured childhood, which from of all people, you learn by dialogue given the wife’s lover. In fact, all the exposition in “Night Moves” comes from strange sources; the back-story of Delly the runaway and her mother is revealed on tape while Harry is driving around LA. Who supplied the info, we never know. Every time Harry tries to get back-story from the characters it is obscured; when supplied it’s surrounded by action (a bar fight or a stunt shot), and when it is withheld, it is done in the most arcane manor, especially in Paula’s non-sequitors (refer to the “Kennedy shot” question).

In fact, the red herrings in our mystery all equal the plot itself. What does that mean? Shit, I don’t know really. Where were YOU when Kennedy was shot? Did you know sharks have to keep swimming because they have no flotation sacs? I guess what I am getting at is, the story of why Delly eventually dies, and what the main stunt guy, Joey Ziegler (character actor Edward Binns) has to do with it, what her death has to do with this artifact smuggling, and how the step-father, stunt man, and even possibly the guy who first connected Harry in on the case are all tied together is never suitably explained.

When I first saw this movie, I was totally flummoxed, expecting a denouement wherein all this would be wrapped up in a nice little package, with Melanie Griffith’s oft-shedded halter-top as the bow.
NOW, I get it. I mean I really get it! Near the climax, Paula tells Harry that he’s asking the wrong questions. He isn’t of course, if he wants to figure out the mystery. But he is, if he wants to understand why he is forced to get to the WHY of everything. Paula says that Harry should be content, that he has solved the case. But surely he is not content. He needs to know “why”. He needs to know why his wife had an affair. Dammit, it’s not enough for a person to know where they are and what they are doing. We need to know why.

Not really a spoiler, but the film ends with Harry having made one more discovery in the case- not one that wraps it all up by a long shot, but another reveal. He is shot in the leg, and unable to control the boat he is on, which begins going in circles- and we cut to an overhead shot of this. Cue credits. That ending was probably enough to kill any chance this movie had of becoming a classic. I absolutely love it, and now think it is the best possible ending for this unique genre piece.

FILMMAKING

For a very theatrical director, Arthur Penn has always had an eye for the memorable image. There is a striking visual in “Left Handed Gun”, when the gang decides that Deputy Moon is their next target, and they shoot their guns at a reflection of the moon in a pond, scrambling the reflection with the pond’s ripples. The climactic massacre in “Bonnie and Clyde” is a sequence that could have no theatrical peer, as is the Chief’s death scene in “Little Big Man”. For some reason, “Night Moves” doesn’t have a visual lynchpin. Possibly the final shot of the boat circling, or the discovery of the corpse in the submerged plane, but as a rule, it is not a source of the great filmic moment.

However, there is one very unique stylistic element to the movie. There is no use of visual transition language separating scenes. No use of dissolves, no fade to black, no clue that we are now in another place or time. I am sure that this is by design. The resultant effect is one of temporary confusion and disorientation. It’s not unpleasant by any means, but it is unsettling as each new scene takes a few seconds to register. Since Harry is in virtually every sequence of the film, you can’t use his presence or lack thereof as an anchor. What is Penn trying to accomplish with this stylistic trope? Beats the hell out of me.
At about the same time, one of my personal loves in cinema history, “The Last Detail” came out. A much simpler film, to be sure, but Ashby’s beautiful little masterpiece has it’s own revolutionary play on film language; Ashby uses dissolves in a scene on a train, when two Navy non-coms are arguing about how to deal with their current predicament- how to handle a kleptomaniacal shlemiel they are escorting to the brig. The dissolves are used even though there is no time passing, no scene changing. It is very effective in showing the disconnect between the two sailors during that particular sequence. I think Penn was trying for something similar with his lack of transitional devices, but instead it just makes the film a bit more angular than necessary.

PERFORMANCES

Gene Hackman is a national treasure as far as I’m concerned. If you can show me a bad performance by him, I’ll buy you a steak dinner. It’s a good thing for “Night Moves” that he is in every scene. The supporting cast is not anywhere nearly as good, although the underused Jennifer Warren does a nice and memorable job with the part of Paula. She makes a pretty hard to believe character somewhat credible. She’s not terribly sexy, but you can see why Moseby likes her. Susan Clark as Harry’s wife Ellen, has her moments, especially during the couple’s confrontational scenes. You can tell her problem with Harry is a lack of emotional connection predicated by Harry’s obsession with “why”. Oh…and James Woods is in the movie! This is one of his earliest feature roles, pre-dating his breakthroughs in the TV mini-series “Holocaust” and the films “Choirboys” and “The Onion Field”. He plays one of the many tools who have had relations with Delly. He also spends a lot of time getting beat up in the movie. One performance that is shockingly bad is by Anthony Costello as stuntman Marv Ellman, who slept with both Delly and her mom Arlene. It’s laughably bad, and it’s not something you’d expect to see in an Arthur Penn film. Arlene, as played by Janet Ward, is a poorly drawn, single faceted character not worthy of the rest of the ensemble. The boozy, slutty, aging starlet has been done far better turns by the likes of Shelly Winters and Harvey Fierstein.

That’s a joke.

ON SECOND LOOK

Well, in this case it’s third, and I think I like “Night Moves” even more this time than the time I re-watched it back in the ‘80’s. Sure it’s complex, muddled and unresolved. To quote Cheech Marin after an incredibly cacophonous guitar solo, “What, you didn’t like that?” I think it tackles very interesting subject matter. What compels a man to find out the reason for everything? Does the world need to be explained? Should we destroy ourselves and all that surrounds us just to figure out the meaning of life, the universe and everything? Just as Harry shouldn’t destroy himself to find out whodunit and why, we shouldn’t kill ourselves trying to unravel the puzzle of life. Zen, baby. Chill, baby. It’s the ‘70’s

Oh yeah....to answer the question, on a short bus going home from school, somewhere on 2nd Avenue in Spanish Harlem.

1st Look-★★★ 2nd Look-★★★1/2

“THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING”- 1975 Dir- John Huston

2011-03-11T12:59:00.000-08:00

What I Remember:

From the ad campaign, the posters, the star power, this movie looked like everything I used to hate. A couple of Brits have a wild adventure in the sub-continent, carousing and fighting and living it up, little brown ignorant men get slain by the hundreds, etc., etc. Yet, you had to notice the director. Here was a man responsible for 3 of my favorite films; “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”, “Freud, The Secret Passion” (and WHY is this film not available ANYWHERE?), and “The Asphalt Jungle”. He also had just come off an unforgettable acting turn in “Chinatown”. Regardless, I was in film school at the time, and pretty much saw everything that came through.

How much did I underestimate this film? Memory holds this to be a masterpiece, an utter gem. Superficially it is an action picture, and also a progenitor of the then budding genre, the “buddy film”. Nowadays the term used is “bromance”, but it will always be “buddy” for me. At any rate, when you scratch the surface of “TMWWBK” (another long title I refuse to enter time and again), you end up with a story that is so much deeper. It’s a tale of arrogance, a tale of self-deception. It’s a fable about the corrupting force of absolute power. It’s an allegory of colonial conceit.

I also remember that my impressions of both stars, Michael Caine and Sean Connery, were changed forever in a positive manner. Don’t get me wrong, I had seen and liked both actors in previous films, yet I had never seen them so believable and so far out of their respective wheelhouses. This was no James Bond or Harry Palmer. Daniel and Peachy are two very unforgettable characters, and they owe that to Mr. Huston.

After re-watching:

“If we're going to make it stick that I'm a god, you ought to bow when you pass in front of me like everybody else.” – Daniel Dravot

PLOT SUMMARY

Peachy and Daniel, a pair of scoundrel ex-members of the British Army, are living in India and running a) various scams, b) guns and c) from the authorities. Peachy Carnahan (Michael Caine) runs into the Northern Star’s chief Indian correspondant, Rudyard Kipling (Christopher Plummer) in a train station. Peachy lifts Kiplings’ gold watch, and to his chagrin sees a Freemason medallion attached to the chain. Since Peachy is also a Freemason, he attempts to follow Kipling onto the train to return the watch. He then uses his Masonic connection to convince Kipling to pass a message to his comrade, Daniel Dravot. They plan a blackmail scheme that is thwarted by Kipling when they tell him that they will pose as correspondants for HIS paper! They then decide on their next scheme; go to remote Kafiristan and become Kings by using their British street smarts. After a grueling journey, they make it to Kafiristan, wherein Dravot is mistaken for the long lost son of Alexander the Great, and they discover riches beyond their wildest dreams.

STORY/THEME

I feel like this was a film that I really had right. There were few surprises, and many scenes were stuck in my brain with crystal clarity. It is a tribute to just how visually stunning “TMWWBK” is. Much of the location shooting was in Morocco, but some of the winter Himalayan scenes were shot in the French Alps. The stunning landscapes are a result of the “David Lean” effect- a large scale adventure or historical film made after 1965 needed to have the sweeping landscapes that equal “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Dr. Zhivago” in scope. Could the film have been as effective without this imagery? Maybe, but I think you get the idea that these men, while absolutely reprehensible in character, also possess a super-human amount of courage and bravado. Traversing the Himalayas seems impossible, and one of the best sequences comes when they are stuck at a crevasse, with no way to cross. Knowing that they are done for, they begin to recount their memories, and begin laughing loud and heartily. The laughter starts an avalanche, and soon the crevasse is filled.

As an adventure fable, it is amongst the best. Where it also succeeds is as allegory to the hubris of the British empire. Daniel and Peachy, though obviously of the lower rungs of British society, feel that they are so much smarter and civilized than the Kafiris, that they underestimate the people and their society. They cringe at the thought of the Kafiris playing polo with a dead man’s head in a sack as the ball, yet have no sense of guilt after throwing a perfectly nice Indian man from a moving train. The history of British Colonial rule has always been one of hypocrisies like these.

Interestingly enough, the film I believe “TMWWBK” resembles the most is Huston’s own “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”. Greed, of course is the motivational factor, but there is also the juxtaposition of cultures, and the Caucasian feeling of superiority and entitlement that is their undoing. I believe that Herzog’s “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo” also play into this theme. Adding the buddy film into this brew causes an interesting dichotomy; on one hand you are rooting for these bastards because they are so endearing, and obviously care for each other. On the other, you have to hate how completely awful they are to the Kafiris, Afghans and Indians.
Daniel’s and Peachy’s success in Kafiristan is sheer luck; an arrow hits Daniel in the heart, but actually gets stuck in his bandolier. This is how Daniel becomes God-like to the Kafiris. Then, when the high priest is about to shoot an arrow point blank at him to prove his immortality, Daniel’s exposed chest reveals the Masonic medallion Kipling gave him for good luck. It turns out that Alexander the Great used the same emblem, and for the holy men, that is enough to prove Daniel’s connection to the Gods. As always, luck runs out, as it must for our “heroes”. When it does, you realize that it’s not their superior intellect or cleverness that has been keeping them alive, but the acts of a bemused deity, simply waiting for the proper moment to knock them off their perch.

FILMMAKING

The story is beautifully told, both in imagery and in pacing. Visuals from the Khyber Pass and the Himalayas scenes are indelible, as are the initial shots of Zigandergul, or whatever it is they call the holy city. The matte paintings are amongst the most gorgeous I have ever seen, and they are utilized perfectly. There are lots of street market scenes early on in the movie, giving a sense of place and time. Huston always took great care with that part of his works. Placing a fable such as this in the most real of atmospheres can cause a disconnect, but not here. It gives you the feeling of veracity, and it helps you become invested in these characters and their less than believable exploits. The two British soldiers going into battle in their Beefeater red, leading a ragtag group of Kafiris also provides an image that is almost shocking. It reminded me of that great scene in “Interiors” when Maureen Stapleton enters a dining room in a bright red dress, where everyone else is in muted tans and grays.

Visuals aside, Huston works the pace of this film artfully. The story unfolds just right, and you are sucked in early. It’s an exciting world that these people populate, yet your seat in the theater is about as close as you’d ever want to get.
PERFORMANCES

As I stated above, both leads step out of their carefully developed images for this movie. Huston originally conceived this as a vehicle for Gable and Bogart in the ‘50’s, and how different a film this would have been with Americans in those parts? He later envisioned Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the lead roles, the two actors who invented the buddy film with “Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid”, and perfected it with “The Sting”. Again, I feel using American actors in these roles would have ruined the film. Caine was known for playing the humanistic spy Harry Palmer, and the cad Alfie, had never really played up his Cockney as much as he got to in this film. His take on Peachy is a bullseye. Connery also gets his Scotsman just right, and you get the sense that these performances were based on childhood memories of folks or relatives that they knew well. No American actor could possibly pull this off, just as a Brit could never really do a Woody Allen neurotic Jew (See Kenneth Branagh in “Celebrity”) or a Police chief in the deep south like Rod Steiger’s award winning turn as Gillespie in “In The Heat of the Night”.

Caine’s wife, Shakira, plays the part of Roxanne, whom Daniel attempts to marry in the film. She has no lines, but her beauty is incomparable. Christopher Plummer as Kipling does a very standard job, but this is what the film calls for. If he emoted in this role the way he does in some later performances, it would have been entirely out of place. Almost every other part except that of Billy Fish, the Indian translator, is played by locals and extras, again adding to the sense of realty in which Huston envelops the movie. The faces are striking, especially those of the high priest and the warlord they encounter early on in Kafiristan.

ON SECOND LOOK

If I had to sell this film with a Hollywood agent, it’d go like this: “Gunga Din” meets “Fitzcarraldo”, or…. Howard Hawks directs “A Passage to India”.
OK, now I’m just free-associating.

This film is every bit as good as I thought it was. It’s huge and sprawling, it’s visually without peer, it’s quite well acted, it’s comic and tragic, it’s enthralling and disturbing. I love it.

1st Look- ★★★★ 2nd Look-★★★★

"LONG GONE" 1987 Dir. Martin Davidson

2011-03-02T11:13:00.000-08:00

What I remember:

This was a made for HBO movie, back when that didn’t carry as much weight as it does now. In those days, “made for pay TV” was much like our “straight to DVD” is now. In other words, it’s not good enough or it doesn’t have enough star power to be in theatrical release. Was it really originally made for HBO, or was it picked up by them as a movie too good to be shelved? IMDB says it was an HBO production, so one must assume it truly was made for TV. IMDB also says that the film’s lead, William Peterson, turned down the Tom Berenger role in “Platoon” to be in “Long Gone”. Hmmm. Would he have done that for a film that he knew was only going to play on Pay TV?

Whatever the case, it would have been a success in theaters, I believe. It predates “Bull Durham”, and memory tells me that it was just about as good. I remember some great touches, like the casting of Teller (from Penn and Teller) as Henry Gibson’s son. It’s supposed to be the ‘50’s in the south, and they get a lot of the atmosphere right. It was very funny, with lots of well played baseball scenes, a blisteringly hot Virginia Madsen (as one of the best named characters in film history, Dixie Lee Boxx), Dermit Mulroney’s first major role, and Larry Riley playing the power hitting black player they try to pawn off as Latino. To this date, when listing our favorite baseball movies, both my wife and I have “Long Gone” in our top 3. We are both quite keen to watch it again.

After re-watching:

“Tell him this ain’t New York, Daddy. Tell him we got the Klan here, in case he ain’t noticed” – Hale Buchman Jr.

“Only words djoo got know een Beisbol: ‘Hamborger’, ‘I got it’, ‘Poossy’, ‘No Comprendo’ ”. – Paco Izquierdo

PLOT SUMMARY

It’s 1957, and the Tampico Stogies are a terrible low A level team, that may or may not be affiliated with a Major League franchise. Their player/manager is Stud Cantrell (William Peterson), who is a typical hard drinking, hard playing, hard loving man’s man. He meets an extremely hot to trot young woman, whom he intends to love and leave, but she becomes a bit more than he bargained for. He signs up two prospects, one an innocent rookie with a vacuum cleaner glove, and the other a black power hitter from the Josh Gibson mold. Together the three spearhead a revival of the perennial losing franchise, and guide them toward a league championship.

Q- Was my memory accurate?

STORY/THEME

Is it a baseball movie, or is it a movie about racism in the south? Is it a romantic comedy, or is it a period piece? Maybe it’s a coming of age movie. Or is it a Faustian fable? All of the above or none?

Well hell’s bells, boys, is all I gotta say. It’s a got-damn movie so just sit back and enjoy, you naval-staring Yankees!

What it really is, is the first movie about the Minor Leagues. The Minors have been a major part of my family’s life for the past 20 plus years, so I know a dadgum thing or two about them. When I first saw “Long Gone”, I had little to no knowledge of the Minor Leagues. Those 20 years have certainly put a spin on my perception of the film. “Long Gone” is definitely a fantasy. It was not trying for authenticity the way “Bull Durham” did. In fact, the film has more similarities to “Slap Shot” than it does to the great Ron Shelton work. For example, there is one plot device that is outright stolen from “Slap Shot”. Dusty Hoolihan is the Ogie Ogilthorpe of this movie, so if you’re an acolyte of that great hockey satire, that should give you enough to go on.

Primarily, “Long Gone” is an enjoyable romp that tries to be all things to all people. Maybe if it had focused a bit more on one of the factors dealt with, the film would be considered far better. Unfortunately, it is quite scatter-shot. The most compelling part of the film is the story of Joe Louis Brown, ex-Negro Leaguer without a job, who tries to get his career back by taking on with the Stogies. The fact that teams in the ‘50’s South were still segregated, is circumvented by having the announcer call him Jose Brown from Venezuela. One of the best moments in the film comes when Brown hits a pinch-hit walk-off homerun in his first at bat for Tampico. The team is still celebrating in the locker room when Brown approaches the showers, and quickly the room grows silent. As soon as he realizes what’s happening, he shouts, “I don’t want to shower with no white boys anyway!”

The two main relationships, Cantrell and Dixie, and the young, slick-fielding Jamie Weeks and his ultra-Christian girlfriend, Esther, are not the deepest of character studies. As a romantic comedy it falls a bit short. While no actual playing of baseball is quite as embarrassingly bad as Tim Robbins’ attempt at a fastball delivery in “Bull Durham”, the game itself is very trivial to the movie. As a baseball action (oxymoron?) movie it also falls quite short.

As for plot and character development, all three lead male roles are put to the test, Cantrell and Brown to the “temptation of greed test”, Weeks to the “maturity/responsibility” test. However these tests come almost at the end of the movie, so your motivational obstacles are quite diminished by the amount of time they are given.

FILMMAKING

Martin Davidson, I knew Sergei Eisenstein, and you sir…..

Let’s not be harsh, here. In other hands, this could have been a much better watch, no question. However, the comedy is quite well done here. The entire movie has a kind of soft-focus glow, like an ‘80’s SkinaMax soft-core, or a Breck ad from the ‘70’s. The feeling of being hot and sweaty runs through the entire proceedings, and most of the guys walk around in unbuttoned shirts and rolled up sleeves. The camera is certainly not the star, but when it focuses on a young Virginia Madsen, well, it becomes everybody’s friend. She is positively luminous throughout, and embodies the idea of a movie star.

There are no real standout visuals, nothing too interesting done sound or set-wise. It’s pretty much run–of-the-mill filmmaking on a limited budget. The soundtrack is nice with a lot of classic R&B and some old time Rock and Roll. There is also a great scene on the team bus, with Joe Louis Brown singing and playing on the harmonica an improvised song for the Stogies that endears him to the team.

PERFORMANCES

William Peterson does a fine job with his charming, folksy and charismatic part; his smile lights up the screen, and his befuddlement when cornered by Dixie is believable. Larry Riley as Brown has a convincing power swing, and he captures the fun-loving but world-weariness of the persecuted black man pre-Civil Rights Movement. Riley was also the big power hitter in “A Soldier’s Story”, the excellent baseball/military/whodunit of the ‘90’s. Sadly, Riley’s career was cut short by AIDS. Ms. Madsen was so undeniably gorgeous at this time, that she could have stuttered like King Bertie through the whole film and nobody would have cared. It happens that she is quite good with her less than meaty role. She has a couple of scenes where she gets to emote, and handles them well. Dermit Mulroney looks the part of a young phenom, and he is pretty solid. His opposite number, Katy Boyer is entirely forgettable as the Christian girl succumbing to her lust. One imagines a young Meg Ryan in the same role doing a much more humorous turn. Much of the funniest bits are Henry Gibson and Teller as the clone-ish father and son, Hale Buchman Sr. and Jr. Junior is always either telling his father to say things directly, or whispering the ideas to him. Senior subsequently repeats these things as if they were his own idea. Teller is sufficiently evil as Junior, and therefore very funny.

ON SECOND LOOK

You must remember that “Long Gone” was made in 1987, two years before “Bull Durham”. Is it better than Shelton’s masterpiece? Of course not. Does it deserve to be a top 3 baseball film? Maybe not. It’s damn funny, and I think if it had had a bit more focus, could have been really great. I will say this- the combination of comedy, irreverence, atmosphere and Ms. Madsen’s smokin’ hot face and body were enough to keep it in my mind for 24 years. There’s something to be said for that!

1st Look- ★★★★ 2nd Look-★★★

GREEN FOR DANGER: 1946 Dir. Sidney Gilliat

2011-02-21T22:13:00.000-08:00

What I remember:

Precious little, apparently. The years, they do take their toll. I have wracked my memory to recall the tiniest facts. This is what comes up. Alastair Sim plays an Inspector who is called in to investigate the accidental death of someone on the operating table. I believe this is a wartime O.R., and there are some nurses and surgeons having affaiars when they are not patching up the wounded. How very M*A*S*H- like! One of these nurses accuses someone, I don’t know, another nurse, a doctor, somebody-- of committing murder by purposefully not doing their job correctly. The Inspector comes to investigate, and he is a hoot! Sim, famous for his great portrayal of Scrooge in the best version of “A Christmas Carol”, made the film special, as I recall. The whole thing is like an Agatha Christie whodunit, but with a lot of humor and a really original construct.

After re-watching:

“In view of my failure - correction, comparative failure - I feel that I have no alternative but to offer you, sir, my resignation, in the sincere hope that you will not accept it”- Inspector Cockrill

PLOT SUMMARY

It is England in 1944. A small surgical operating theatre is busy with home-front casualties due to the incessant bombing raids of the Axis. The latest injury is a few broken bones suffered by a Postman in a bombed house. He is told by all that his surgery is routine, and yet he dies on the operating table due to asphyxiation from gaseous anesthetics. The investigation stays internal, until an obviously perturbed nurse interrupts a dance by announcing that she knows it was murder, and she knows where the evidence is. When she is killed herself, Scotland Yard steps in and begins their own inquest. All the while, a love triangle complicates the situation. The Inspector has figured that there are 5 people who could have been involved with both murders; the surgeon Mr. Eden (Leo Genn), the anesthetist Dr. Barnes (Trevor Howard), Nurse Linley (Sally Gray), Nurse Woods (Megs Jenkins) and Nurse Sanson (Rosamund John). Eden, Barnes and Linley are the points of the triangle.
Q- Was my memory accurate?

STORY/THEME

Actually I was pretty much on target. The whole thing plays like the love-child of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Murder She Wrote”. Obviously the tie-in to “M*A*S*H” is unavoidable. Anytime you have war-time surgeons having affairs, then it’s going to evoke that great comedy.
Is that like saying “anytime you have a Swedish Knight playing chess with Death then it’s going to evoke “The Seventh Seal””?

It’s a pretty good whodunit, there are a lot of red herrings slung about, and substituting a hospital for a mansion puts an entirely different spin on things. Primarily, these people’s jobs are about saving lives, not taking them. It seems very unlikely that you would find a murderer amongst these angels of mercy. There are moments where the war is evoked, especially in the ominous drone of planes, the sudden cut of engines signaling that a bomb is being dropped, and then the explosions. One has to think that in 1946 the memory of these horrors must have been quite fresh in the minds of the British audience. Also the sound of the German version of Tokyo Rose, “Germany Calling” is not only heard, but actually a plot device. Nevertheless, the mystery and love intrigue are front and center throughout the film. As earlier stated, the whole thing would be somewhat formulaic if not for the phenomenally drawn character of the Inspector, and the brilliantly comic portrayal by Alastair Sim.

FILMMAKING

There are some visually striking moments throughout this film. Very impressive is the scene in which the accusing nurse attempts to grab the evidence, and is confronted and killed. There are a lot of “Noir” images in this scene, one very memorable shot of the window opening and closing and the intermittent light exposing the murderer. Wilkie Cooper was the cinematographer, and though he is best known for his work with Ray Harryhausen on “Jason and the Argonauts” and “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad”, he had a long and varied career shooting in B&W, including “Stage Fright” for Alfred Hitchcock (a movie that also had Alastair Sim in the cast). Director Sidney Gilliat was known much more for his writing; among his credits are the Hitchcock masterpiece “The Lady Vanishes” and Hitch’s lesser known “Jamaica Inn”. Also he scripted the great “Night Train to Munich” by Carol Reed. Gilliat holds his own with this adapted screenplay from a book by Christianna Brand, the creator of Nanny McPhee. How much of the great comedy is Brand’s or Gilliat’s creation, and how much is Sim’s does not take a Scotland Yard Inspector to figure out. When only one character consistently gets you to laugh out loud, then you know it’s not just the script.

PERFORMANCES

What else can I say about Mr. Sim in this movie? The man is pure genius. He is at once disrespectful, self-effacing, witty, caustic and broad. In one great bit of comic timing, he interrupts Mr. Eden and Nurse Linley romancing under the stars. While the surgeon spouts some sappy poetry and the two snuggle up, you are thinking about how cornball it all seems, and in the nick of time, the Inspector continues the poem from where Mr. Eden paused. The romantic moment is ruined, much to Eden’s chagrin, and much to the audience’s delight. Only Groucho could have done it any better. The capper comes, when the Inspector walks away, grinning happily, stops and purposefully pushes aside a bush to expose Dr. Barnes, who has been snooping on his girlfriend and her new interest.

Sim carries the film, and thank heaven. Some of the supporting actors are outright terrible, especially Judy Campbell as Sister Bates. She is the nurse who gets murdered early on, and she spends most of her time on screen doing the Norma Desmond silent screen big eyes. It is a laughably overacted part, not worthy of the rest of the film. The two male leads, Genn and Howard do a creditable job, Genn is a bit smarmy and Howard a bit stodgy, and that’s fine for what the film needs. Sally Gray is very lovely as the desirable Linley, but she looks like she stepped right out of a beauty parlor after almost being gassed to death. Megs Jenkins as Nurse Woods is probably the standout in the supporting cast. She has a nice meaty role, and she does it no disservice. When she confronts Eden to chide him about breaking up Linley and Barnes, it comes across as very real.

ON SECOND LOOK

It’s on Netflix streaming, and is a quick hour and a half of fun diversion. There is no reason not to spend some time with this film. No, it’s not really a classic, but it’s worth watching for one reason in particular: a great comic actor at the very top of his game.

1st Look- ★★★1/2 2nd Look-★★★

“LITTLE MURDERS”- 1971 Dir: Alan Arkin

2011-02-16T23:26:00.001-08:00

What I remember

Ahhh, 1971. What a year! Along with a personal milestone of an intimate nature (TMI? My apologies.), I can remember so much of that period in my life. It was my coming of age in so many different ways, but in particular I grew into the fanatical film freak that still revels in his freakitude. The year of great classics like “The French Connection”, “A Clockwork Orange”, “Harold and Maude” and “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” probably helped this happen.

Naturally a small black comedy like “Little Murders” would get swallowed up in this torrent of brilliance. New Hollywood was at warp speed, the sexual revolution was giving us steamy fare like “Carnal Knowledge” and “Maid in Sweden”, the Black power movement was represented by “Shaft” and “Sweet Sweetback”. Who even noticed this gem of modern satire? Well, I did, for one. The great cartoonist Jules Feiffer was responsible for the original play and the screen adaptation. He also wrote the play upon which “Carnal Knowledge” was based. “Little Murders” was not really about sex, or all of the great themes of the era like the women’s movement, civil rights or anti-war. It was about random cruelty, violence, anti-social behavior, passivity, aggression, love, and the general degradation of modern society. It was also about the funniest movie I had ever seen. Director Arkin’s turn as the beleaguered detective and Vincent Gardenia’s New York tough guy Dad stood out in an ensemble of amazing performances. This is a movie that could NEVER be made now, not even by an independent. Today’s Indie films are much like the mainstream of that era, pushing the mainstream of our time into the infantile. “French Connection” won Best Picture? Have you seen THAT lately? The hero is a shoe fetishist? There’s not a note of score during the historic, unbelievably tense car chase scene? Wait…the bad guy gets AWAY? 2011 Indie houses wouldn’t even touch that.

“Little Murders” was so outside the realm of normal filmmaking, as to make it a genre unto itself. A psychological-crime-love-family- absurd-black-comedy. I absoloutely loved this movie, and have seen it about 3 times, but not in many, many years.

AFTER RE-WATCHING

“I want to be married to a big, strong, vital, virile, self-assured man…..that I can protect and take care of!” -Patsy Newquist

PLOT SUMMARY

It’s dystopian New York in the 70’s, aka “Fun City”, where muggings and murders are a daily event, brown-outs are hourly occurrences and the police are outwitted and outnumbered. Hyper-aggressive Patsy Newquist (Marcia Rodd) tries to save Alfred Chamberlain (Elliott Gould, at the height of his popularity) from being mugged by a small group of teens, as she fights them off, he walks away, moving on immediately. She confronts him, and quickly realizes his passivity is monumental. Opposites attract in the strangest way, and the two get engaged. Alfred meets Patsy’s highly eccentric family, and she tries to change Alfred into the man she wants him to be. His nihilism is hard to shake, but eventually she gets through to him. I will leave the plot there, for those who have never seen the film.

Q- Was my memory accurate?

STORY/THEME

Oh, this film is edgy all right. Feiffer’s satire of modern life in the ‘70’s still feels very current. Disaffection, cynicism, frustration with social services, random violence—what’s not 21st Century America about THAT? La plus ça change….

Elliott Gould was the driving force behind making the film, and he originally wanted Jean-Luc Godard to direct (!). One can only imagine how a Parisian would have handled these very New York characters and themes. Getting native New Yorker Alan Arkin to direct makes a hell of a lot more sense. Gould was coming off some spectacular successes with “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice”, and “M*A*S*H”, a couple of films that were so huge that they had societal repercussions. He was able to produce the film for about a million dollars, and kept some of the actors who had done the short run on Broadway with him to be in the film, if not in the same roles. I can’t overstate how funny the comedy is in the film; the family scenes in particular are side-splitting, and Arkin’s turn as the psychotic detective Lt. Practice, is a gem of over-the-top insanity. The film has 4 classic monologues: 1) Lew Jacobi doing Judge Stern’s hilarious son of an immigrant rant, 2) Lt. Practice’s paranoid freak-out, 3) Alfred Chamberlain’s tale of how he dismantled a government wog who was reading his mail, and 4) Donald Sutherland as the minister doing the worst ceremony in wedding history. One of my favorite moments happens when the happy couple and Patsy’s family begin to climb the “First Existentialist Church” steps and the church doors open with a huge donnybrook spilling out into the street. At this point you kind of figure things will not be going well for Alfred and Patsy’s nuptials.

Watching “Little Murders”, you can see how the Beatnik ethos transformed into the Hippie ethos. Feiffer was a standard bearer of the former, Gould of the latter. The combination of the two provided searing commentary on the hypocrisy of America in the ‘60’s and the nascent ‘70’s. For my generation, “Little Murders” hit the spot so expertly that it would take 3 decades until at last the Coen Brothers came along to rival that execution.

FILMMAKING

With the exception of “Little Murders”, Alan Arkin has never really directed a great film. His comic and acting chops are superb, of course. His Oscar turn in “Little Miss Sunshine”, his first big role in “The Russians Are Coming” and his amazing job as Freud in “The Seven Percent Solution” are all personal favorites. Arkin’s comic touch is just right for “Little Murders”; everything is over-the-top enough to be uncomfortable but hilarious, yet it never strays into outright slapstick. The great Gordon Willis did cinematography, and the visuals and sets are perfect ‘60’s kitsch.

There are a few moments of weirdness, like the much too lengthy walk in the park by Alfred near the end of the film, where he decides to change his photo subjects from dog poop to people. It has a place in the film symbolically, for sure, but it is way too slow, and there are some very strange encounters with random people, folks whom you have to wonder if they were owed a favor by Arkin, Gould or Feiffer. The scene is mollified by a lovely musical bed, provided by the Modern Jazz Quartet. Some of the scenes during the courtship at the Catskills, wherein Patsy tries to get Alfred to admit he’s having fun, are a little dated stylistically. I guess that’s bound to happen. After all, it’s hard to believe, but the film is 40 years old!

PERFORMANCES

The leads are fine, and Marcia Rodd, who was a complete unknown at the time, does a great job at capturing the stridently positive Patsy. Gould is also quite good, and his monologue stands out as one of the highlights of his career.

These actors are completely overshadowed by the supporting cast, especially the absolutely brilliant job by Elizabeth Wilson as Patsy’s mother, Marge. We all remember Ms. Wilson as Benjamin Braddock’s mother in “The Graduate”, but that only gave a hint of her comic genius in playing the waspy, clueless mom. In “Little Murders” she steals the film with a portrayal that is one for the ages. Not quite as amazing, but still tremendous and hysterical are the rest of the Newquist clan; Vincent Gardenia as the father and Jon Korkes as the brother keep the laughs coming. Korkes physical humor is strong, and Gardenia’s delivery of his mantras, “Sonofabitch refuses to open” and “What’s your pleasure, young man” are so memorable that they became my mantras after seeing this movie the first time.

Veteran character actors John Randolph and Doris Roberts appear as Alfred’s parents, hopelessly intellectual and without a shred of humanity. Randolph played Patsy's father in the play version, but I can’t imagine the casting could be any better that it is in the film. I’ve already discussed how much fun Sutherland, Jacobi and Arkin are in their bits; they round out a supporting cast that is second to none.

ON SECOND LOOK

It’s a classic, I tell you. If you have never seen this film, see it. If you hate it, I understand, but I am really sorry for you. Not only does it hold up after 40 years, but it gets better with age. The older I get, the more it speaks to my sense of the absurd, the hypocritical, the lunatic, but most of all to my sense of humor. If this writing exercise does nothing else for me, at least I can be happy in knowing that it got me to re-watch this movie.

1st Look- ★★★★ 2nd Look-★★★★

Who'll Stop The Rain- 1978 Dir. Karel Reisz

2011-02-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

What I remember:

The truth is I remember very little about this film except that I liked it very much. In fact, I had read the novel upon which it was based, “Dog Soldiers” written by ex-Merry Prankster Robert Stone. As a big fan of the novel, I was extremely pleased to see a film adaptation.
Director Reisz had done three other films I was familiar with at the time, “Morgan”, “Isidora” and “The Gambler”. I was unaware of his history as part of the “Angry Young Man” film movement in England. I also remember Nick Nolte being his usual intense self, and thinking that an older Tuesday Weld was MUCH hotter than I remembered from her days as Thalia in “Dobie Gillis”.
My memory was that the adaptation actually equaled, if not surpassed the book, something that rarely happens. The movie was part of a mini-wave of Vietnam Veteran films, which in that year alone included the brilliant “Coming Home” and “The Deer Hunter”. I loved all three films, the other two being considered classics nowadays. Sadly, this one has been forgotten. Let’s see if it deserves its fate.

AFTER RE-WATCHING

“In a world where elephants are pursued by flying men, people are going to naturally want to get high”. John Converse

PLOT SUMMARY

A journalist (John Converse, played by Michael Moriarty) in late ‘60’s Vietnam has seen so much horror, and is so disillusioned, that he decides to cut a heroin deal. A merchant marine friend of his (Ray Hicks, portrayed ny Nick Nolte) will smuggle 2 kilos of pure heroin back to the States, where Converse’s wife will pay off the sailor. Upon arriving in California, the sailor immediately sees that some people are already wise to the deal, and he and the journalist’s wife need to go on the lam with the dope. The members of the other group are either the dirtiest cops ever, or just simply bad guys masquerading as cops. The chase takes our couple from Berkeley to L.A., then to New Mexico, where a stand-off ensues that includes all the major stateside players.

Q- Was my memory accurate?

STORY/THEME

Does war turn you into a person without morals? Does it make you lose your ability to reason? Does it take a normal civilized person and turn him into a killer? Does it make a man question authority?

Well, duh. I mean, haven’t you watched any war movies since “The Green Berets”? The main theme of “Who’ll Stop The..…..Lord, I am going to need a shortened name for this movie. That is WAY too much typing to reenter again and again. Let’s just go with WSTR. Thanks. The main theme of WSTR is disillusionment. It’s kind of the asexual version of “Boogie Nights”. By that, I mean that it is all about how happy hippies become badass drug dealers, all because they and their buddies saw some nightmare in the shit. I am not trying to belittle this theme, even if it sounds that way. When WSTR was made, this was a fairly fresh concept in the movies. It spread like napalm fire, and soon, every film about the Vietnam War was alike in message. Even films about other wars had some form of this “end of civilization” leitmotif (see my On Second Look entry on “Breaker Morant”).

What is it that separates WSTR from some of these other movies? Robert Stone helped with the screenplay adaptation of his own novel, and the dialogue is priceless from the outset. Many of the lines sound like something from a James M. Cain hard-boiled novel of the 40’s. There is a real toughness in the fabric of these characters. Even Margie Converse (as played by Tuesday Weld) goes from bookstore clerk to drug dealer on the run with a sudden streak of courage and edge that reminds one of Vivien Rutledge from “The Big Sleep”. Ray’s own disillusionment differs from John’s; he is disillusioned with incompetent authority, and it’s a very concrete focus. John is simply done with life. Michael Moriarty plays John as if he were already dead, just ghosting around all these events with no real concern for his friend, or his wife and child, or even his money. Ray’s problem with the guys in charge doesn’t stop him from having morals; he is loyal to the Converses to a fault. He doesn’t want them getting screwed over, and takes as much umbrage as if he were the victim. Ray is like the child who realizes that his parents aren’t always right, and decides that the only people he can trust are his friends. Why he trusts a friend who talked him into this life-threatening pursuit for a measly grand, I can’t explain.

FILMMAKING

Karel Reisz was rescued from the holocaust in one of the kindertransports of the ‘30’s, and virtually raised British. He did lose both parents to the camps. In England he became part of the new cinema of the ‘50’s and ‘60’s with filmmakers like Lindsay Anderson and Tony Richardson, making the classic “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” starring Albert Finney. Whether a man of this background can have insight into the beat/hippie movement of ‘60’s America is moot. Robert Stone’s imprimatur is all over this picture, and I am sure he was an integral part of the filming. Much of the style is reminiscent of ‘70’s made for TV films. There’s somebody watching our hero from a distance…quick! Zoom in from behind our hero to see the guy up in the hills behind a bush. All we need is some blaring trumpets and a fuzzy guitar. Flashbacks to Converse’s trauma in Nam are clumsily handled and too brief to have impact. Hicks apparently travels on a ship with no crew or other passengers from Vietnam to Oakland.

Reisz is able to generate a lot of tension, however, and some scenes are quite memorable, particularly the final sequence and the standoff. What really makes the movie click is the great characters and dialogue. There are more than a few Tarantino type exchanges, which gives the script a very contemporary feel.

PERFORMANCES

Remember how I said Tuesday Weld was hot in this? Sorry, but this film has about as much sexuality as an episode of “Lassie”. She is neither hot, nor alluring. I have no clue where I got that notion. Nolte exposes more skin in 5 minutes of this movie than Weld does in the entire film. She spends most of her time doing her best Mia Farrow, which is actually quite appropriate for the role. If you want to see a hot, older Weld, check out her masochistic sexpot in “Once Upon a Time in America”. There is one scene in WSTR where she goes from strung out to high on heroin that is one of the most impressive bits of acting you’ll ever see. I mean, she physically changes; it is quite remarkable to watch. Nolte, who ironically 1st appears playing football--his next role will be as a wide receiver in the superb “North Dallas 40”—is a force to be reckoned with. His character was loosely based on beat writer Neal Cassady. He does not come across as an intellectual in any way, but that’s fine. We get the idea that he is a man-child, a free spirit. When they reach a place in the New Mexico mountains that is clearly based on Ken Kesey’s LSD commune, he bubbles over with the memories of the good times, recreational drugs and extended adolescence of the now abandoned retreat.

The bad guys are also quite unusual for the period. Richard Mazur (veteran character actor, known for “The Thing” and “Risky Business”) and Ray Sharkey (star of “Willie and Phil”, Mazursky’s awful take on “Jules and Jim”) play thugs who would have been just as at home in “Home Alone”. Mazur’s character is obviously Jewish, Sharkey’s is Italian. The two torture Converse, argue with each other and generally bumble about in a startling combination of terror and comedy. Anthony Zerbe, veteran TV and film bad guy, is the head of the fed/not fed group. His performance is pretty much one-note. There is also a great turn by Charles Haid (Renko from TV’s “Hill St. Blues”) as a Hollywood drug dealer, done with just the right amount of sinister smarminess. I’ve already discussed Michael Moriraty’s take on John Converse, it is a thankless role, but he pulls it off well.

ON SECOND LOOK

I’m not going to say that WSTR holds up, because there are ways in which it’s dated style and misused soundtrack really do not. Was it so important to use Creedence that they even renamed the film for one of their songs? Nowadays, the film would seem more relevant had they just kept with “Dog Soldiers” as the title, and used music by Hendrix or The Grateful Dead, music that represents that period better to our perspective in the 21st Century. The film still has a lot of power, and one must remember that it was part of a ground-breaking wave of post-war Vietnam themed movies. It should be watched for that, and it should be treasured for it’s brilliantly acerbic and humorous dialogue.

1st Look-★★★1/2 2nd Look-★★★1/2

"Ministry of Fear"- 1944 Dir. Fritz Lang

2011-02-01T00:20:00.000-08:00

What I remember:

This was a film I saw in college, I believe in one of my classes. 1944 was a year chock full of the earliest Film Noir offerings. Along with “Ministry of Fear”, two other favorites of mine that came out that year were Wilder’s classic “Double Indemnity”, and “Murder, My Sweet”, Edward Dmytryk’s poorly renamed yet stylish take on the Chandler masterpiece “Farewell, My Lovely” (I’ll be re-watching this film soon). Lang, who virtually invented Noir with the iconic “M”, was surely in his comfort zone in the nascent genre.

The Austrian born Lang emigrated to England, then to the USA before the war, and avoided Nazi persecution. He was eugenically Jewish, though his mother had converted long before Nazism and raised him as Roman Catholic. Supposedly Lang left Germany the day that Goebbels offered him a job as head of the German studio UFA. This film was shot in California, but takes place in England.

When I think of “Ministry of Fear”, two other films spring immediately to mind. The first is Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps”, obviously a huge influence on Lang. The plots are similar; wrongly accused men are fleeing authorities and running up against international spy rings. Of course the stakes are far higher with a wartime film, and Hitchcock’s movie was made in 1935. The other connection I make is with the Coen Brothers 1st feature, “Blood Simple”. At the end of this movie, the brothers steal a climactic image from Lang, gun shots through a wall into a darkened room, exposing shafts of light. Geek that I am, I literally jumped out of my seat and yelled “Ministry of Fear” in the theater, to which my date responded “Shut up!” I was very proud of myself, regardless, for catching this visual quote.
My memory of the film was that it was tense, funny and very stylized. I thought the leads were a bit thinly drawn, but when you are channeling Hitch, you don’t really spend too much time on character depth.

AFTER RE-WATCHING

“You wouldn’t kill your own brother, Karla?”-Willi Hilfe

PLOT SUMMARY:

A man (Stephen Neale, played by Ray Milland) is released from captivity in a mental asylum in Lembridge, England. As he waits for his train to London, he goes to a small fund-raising fair and innocently gets steered into winning a cake by guessing it’s weight. On his way to London, a man posing as blind knocks him out, steals the cake and subsequently gets blown up in an air raid. Once in London, our curious hero begins to ask about the organization that ran the fair, to find out what was so special about the cake. He meets a brother and sister pair of Austrian refugees who are running the organization, and begins to see that it is a cover for an international spy ring, whose tendrils reach into the Ministry of Home Security itself. He falls in love with the sister, and we find out that he was in the asylum for euthanizing his 1st wife, who was in great pain from an end stage fatal illness. Neale’s inquiries take him to a séance, where a man gets shot and killed, and Neale is the fall guy. Eventually Scotland Yard gets involved, and we find out that our cake/McGuffin had microfilm with pictures of sensitive war plans. The issue that remains is whether our Austrian siblings are involved or innocent.

Q- Was my memory accurate?

STORY/THEME

The story was adapted from a novel by the great Graham Greene, and it is right up Hitchcock’s alley. Seton I. Miler, a writer known for swashbucklers like “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and “The Sea Hawk” did the adaptation. I wonder if Hitch was offered the chance to film this, and either turned it down or was beaten out by Miller, Lang and company. There are so many elements from the Hitchcock oeuvre that it’s hard to tally, but of course I will attempt; bumbling gumshoes, a false accusation, scary cops, a McGuffin, friendly evildoers, and some great imagery. Motivation is a big problem with this film. Stephen Neale chases after the blind man who stole his cake, but it’s not clear why he cares. One feels that he must know there is evil afoot, but is it really the business of a man who has been told to keep his nose clean and stay as far from police involvement as possible? Richard Hannay in “The 39 Steps” is literally running for his life, but Neale has no reason to get involved. He could have just as easily continued to London, living his life as normal. Instead, he constantly puts himself in danger by confronting the very people that would do him harm. I guess in a wartime film, people had no problem with courage being a part of everyday life. It seems a bit far-fetched from this perspective.

FILMMAKING

There really are only a few visual moments that hail straight from the film noir genre. The séance features a beautiful head shot of the medium, played by Hillary Brooke (veteran of a number of Sherlock Holmes movies). In a darkened room, the circle of participants becomes illuminated by a globe, and her face has a haunting and sculpted look to it. As so often happens in film séances, a shot is fired after the lights go out, and someone is killed.

Dude, don’t EVER go to a movie séance!

Anyway, the best noir imagery is saved for the climax. Besides the aforementioned bullet hole in the door, there is also a stunning shootout on a rainy rooftop. This scene ends with a glorious moment when the bad guys, who are firing from a darkened stairwell, suddenly see the light turn back on, turn away and start firing below them instead of at our heroes. The silhouette of the once menacing Scotland Yard Inspector then comes out of the stairwell, and we know our heroes are safe.
Another fine moment straight out of the Hitchcock songbook comes when Neale confronts the man he supposedly killed at the séance. Dan Duryea plays Travers the Tailor, who was referred to as Cost earlier. Travers acts like he never saw Neale before in his life, then stops to make a phone call. He dials the phone with the biggest, sharpest scissors you will ever see. They almost resemble a prop from “Get Smart”. The suspense is powerful during this scene, and you know whoever is on the other line of that phone is a bad guy. Neale memorizes the number, and redials, and the sister answers!

I really enjoyed the air raid shelter scene; when the alarm sounds people go to the Underground in their pajamas, children bring their pets in baby-doll strollers, and it is all so very British and charming.

That’s the good stuff. There is a lot of bad stuff, too, unfortunately. The plot is extremely heavy when you think about it, and the film could have been very dark, indeed. But this element is kept at arm’s length throughout. A baboon’s arm! All emotions are ratcheted down so drastically, as to make you wonder whether the entire cast was on some early form of Ritalin. When it is clear that the sister (Karla, played by the gorgeous Marjorie Reynolds of “Holiday Inn” fame) is falling in love with our hero, her bubbly personality lightens up the obviously heavy situation that she might be infatuated with a killer. And when Neale confesses to Karla about the mercy-killing of his 1st wife, the lack of intensity is stunning.

There is also the issue of budget. Many of the sets look like they were barely decorated. I am sure wartime funds were thin as can be, but somehow other movies of the time look pretty well decked out. Certainly “Double Indemnity” had no problems with bare bones sets and costumes.

PERFORMANCES

This seems like a good time to discuss just how bland the acting is in “Ministry of Fear”. I really can’t think of a single performance in the film that stands out. Carl Esmond plays the brother Willi, and his is a one-note song of grinning ingenuousness. His delivery of the challenging line quoted above is almost comical.

The meatiest supporting parts could have been the Inspector, played by Percy Waram, or the gumshoe, played by Erskine Sanford (Mr. Carter in “Citizen Kane”- the bumbling Chronicle Editor). Waram is simply expressionless, there’s no “there” there. Sanford does bumbling very well, however his attempt at an English accent is laughable. As for Ray Milland, we all know the man can act. “Lost Weekend” and “The Uninvited” proved that. Of course he did also do “The Thing With Two Heads”, with Milland and Rosey Grier sharing a neck. In “Ministry of Fear”, Milland appears to be determined and a bit careless. Why women throw themselves at him is unclear. He doesn’t really exude charm, and as previously stated, his big emotional scene lacks any charge at all.

ON SECOND LOOK: “Ministry of Fear” is not considered a classic because it doesn’t deserve to be. It has some terrific, memorable shots and moments, but it cannot be compared to Lang’s great work in Germany, and it really does fade next to the brilliant Hitchcock works it resembles. It is too light-hearted and would have been much better if Lang had given it the same intensity and true noir feel of his masterpiece, “M.”

My guess is that he wanted to, but the studio heads at Paramount were afraid of terrorizing an already anxious American public, only a couple of months before D Day.

1st Look- ★★★1/2 2nd Look-★★1/2

“Breaker Morant” 1980 (Australia) Dir: Bruce Beresford

2011-01-24T15:21:00.000-08:00

What I Remember:

What I remember: This was a film that came out during the first real wave of films from down under, including such standouts as “Walkabout” from Nicolas Roeg, “Picnic at Hanging Rock” and “The Last Wave” from Peter Weir, and this director’s first work of international acclaim, “Don’s Party”.

What I loved about “Breaker Morant” was that it represented the holy trinity for my generation; 1) Authority questioned, 2) Anti-war and 3) Irreverent humor. Ahhh, you were expecting Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll, no? That is the UN-holy Trinity. I also remember a breakout performance by Brian Brown (of “F/X” fame), and the other lead being just as impressive, Edward Woodward as Morant. Both Brown and Jack Thompson, who played the defense counsel, had been in Fred Schepisi’s “The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith”, but neither really registered for me before this film.

Along with the theme and great acting, I recognized the film’s connection to one of my all-time favorites, Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory”, which, though released in 1957, was picked up as a bell-weather film for the Anti-Vietnam movement. These were both part of the micro-genre of court-martial dramas, which included “The Caine Mutiny” and subsequently the Reiner/Sorkin collaboration “A Few Good Men”.

AFTER RE-WATCHING

“It’s a new war for a new century”- ‘Breaker’ Morant.

PLOT SUMMARY:

Three Australian soldiers are being court-martialed for killing prisoners during the Boer war in South Africa. They were actually following direct orders from the high command, but are enduring a trial-for-show and will certainly be found guilty of murder. They are being scapegoated in order to mollify other nations with interests in South Africa, and hopefully in order to help end the war. Their defense is ably handled, but it is for naught. The titular character is actually British born, but lives in Australia and identifies with the Ozzies. He is somewhat of a Poet Warrior, extremely learned and cultured, yet quite courageous and soldierly.

Q-Was my memory accurate?

STORY/THEME: I remembered the obvious influence of “Paths of Glory” correctly. They are almost the same film, but there are subtle and important differences. In Kubrick’s film, it is Frenchmen court-martialing Frenchmen for following bad orders (firing on their own men to halt a retreat). In “Breaker Morant”, the men who are being court-martialed for killing Boer prisoners are Australian, but the judges are British. This provides a political/cultural element to the film that failed the memory test. The British wanted to settle the Boer war before the Germans entered on the side of the Boers. At one point, the commander of the British forces, Lord Kitchener explains that the Germans are interested in the gold and diamonds of South Africa, and an underling replies “They aren’t like us. Altruistic.” It is this hypocritical ethos of the British Empire that the film shines it’s harsh light upon. The Brits don’t mind sacrificing soldiers for political reason so long as they are colonials.

Interestingly enough, my wife pointed out that the book written by the defendant who was not executed (George Witten), “Scapegoats of the Empire”, was published long before “Paths of Glory”, and for all we know may have been an influence on Kubrick’s film!

Was there a reason for me to associate this film with the not yet moribund anti-war Vietnam movement? The Boers are described as guerrillas who will eviscerate a prisoner, and who are poorly armed and fighting for their land by any means possible. The British are an occupying force, who have been reduced to less civilized tactics in order to combat the enemy, and have infighting between the people being ordered to do so.
You’re damned right there’s a connection!

FILMMAKING: The opening has a ‘70’s cinema realite feel. It reminds me of something Michael Ritchie would do to make you feel like you are part of the events. Ritchie used candid shots of marching bands and the like, with extras that look like they were pulled out of the local high school and supermarket. Obviously in a period piece like “Breaker Morant” it is difficult to get that “you are there” feeling, but still, the style gives you the sensation that “This REALLY happened”. Although there are later shots of the band playing in a Gazebo right outside the prison walls, this style is pretty much abandoned after the open.
Beresford then takes a more standard approach, with the occasional eye-popping shot of the Transvaal, or some great close-ups. There is one point during the beginning of the trial when he shows Morant in 3 consecutive head shots: Right profile, directly in front, and left profile. It’s not clear what the purpose is, but it is nevertheless quite arresting. Some standout moments are 1) The shot after the death sentences have been handed out, showing the coffin builders right on the other side of the wall from the prison yard, 2) A wonderful cut from when a senior officer is told to perjure himself, to that same officer swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth etc., and 3) right after the defense’s summation, an overhead shot showing all the participants in the courtroom dissolves to the same shot with no people in it. It’s a brilliant way to show the emptiness of the proceedings.

There are a few false notes: one scene in which each prisoner has a dream/flashback to his home is a touch heavy-handed. For the most part, what could have been a simple courtroom drama like “12 Angry Men”, elevates from stage play thanks to the beautiful cinematography, and the extensive and well-placed use of flashbacks.

PERFORMANCES: Although I thought that Brown’s and Woodward’s were the standouts before re-watching, the two performances that really got me were Charles Tingwell as Lt. Col. Denny, the chief judge on the case, and, of course, Jack Thompson as the defense counsel. Tingwell does a superb job of showing that he knows this trial is a sham, but still he must do what is necessary. His conflict is physically palpable in a superb piece of support acting. Thompson’s Maj. Thomas is a cross between Columbo and Clarence Darrow. He looks distracted and confused, and then comes in for the kill with incredible force and conviction. His frustration and determination are rendered with an intensity that earned him awards from the Australian Film Institute and the Cannes Film Festival. It is a powerful, scene-stealing turn.

BEST QUOTE:
After their sentence, the prisoners are asked if they need religious representation at their executions.
Morant- I’m a Pagan.
Handcock- What’s a Pagan?
Morant- I don’t believe in a divine being going around and dispensing justice.
Handcock- Oh. Then I’m a Pagan too.

ON SECOND LOOK; “Breaker Morant” is a better film than I recalled. It is far more visually stunning than I remember, and it stands the test of time in style, performance and pertinence. It is not as funny as I thought, but there are some laugh out loud moments. It is on Netflix streaming, so there is no excuse not to go watch this.

1st Look- ★★★1/2 2nd Look- ★★★1/2

On Second Look

2011-01-21T08:22:00.000-08:00

You know how you remember your favorite stuff from childhood/young adulthood with a kind of hazy adoration? How when you think of these things, be they songs, TV shows, movies, sporting events you just know that nothing contemporary will ever compare?

Well, I love movies. I love thinking and writing about movies. A few months ago I decided to try and turn my college-aged daughter onto a film I loved when it came out, John Sayles' coming of age movie "Baby It's You". Sorry John, but it just did NOT hold up. As my daughter looked at me with questioning eyes, eyes that asked "What the hell were you smoking, Dad?", I had to admit that the movie just didn't equal my glowing memory of it.

An idea came to me, that it would be a fun project to list about 50 of these lesser known films that I had warm and fuzzies about, and to rewatch them now and see if the jaundiced eye is still able to appreciate them, or if there is a reason they have been forgotten, or at best only in a film geek's vocabulary.

What's in it for you? Well, you might get turned on to something special, a great, but lesser known film that stands the test of time. Don't get me wrong, these are not poorly reviewed pieces of junk that I latched on to....these are really good movies that just don't get recognition from AFI or the other top listers. I liked these movies a lot more than "Gone With The Wind", Ben Hur", "High Noon" or "Fellowship of The Ring", all of which appear on the AFI top 100.

Let's see if I still do.

I'll first write about what I remember, why I loved the movie, and what made it especially memorable. Then, I'll watch the film, and tell you what 2011 me thinks.

To quote the great Dylan, "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now".

My first rewatch will be "Breaker Morant", a 1980 Australian courtroom drama that has a great connection with Kubrick's "Paths of Glory".