S.O.B., 10, THAT'S LIFEThree Blake Edwards triumphs
Life on Mars (2007)Is Policeman Sam Tyler in another time or out of his mind?
BRIDGE TO TERABITHA (2007)
Orson Welles: The Commercial Years
Click here to hear the Great Orson Welles, reduced in later years to voicing badly written commercials about peas and prairie-fed chopped beef, mouthing off to his British directors during a recording session.
DODSWORTH (1936)Love has got to stop some place short of suicide
AMERICAN MADNESS (1932)Haven't we learned anything about the economy in 77 years?
The first of director Frank Capra's dramas dealing with tough social issues, AMERICAN MADNESS takes us inside a mid-size bank during the Depression years. Wonderful Walter Huston (the grizzled prospector in THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE 16 years later) is the amiable, deeply caring bank president with a lot on his plate including a hostile Board trying to stop his making loans to customers whom they consider to be bad risks, a dishonest employee who steals and an honest one with a record for stealing (Pat O’Brien), a robbery, a bored wife who appears to be having an affair, and a massive run on his bank that threatens to wipe out his 25 years of faithful service to his bank and community. You'll see echoes of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, which Capra made more than a decade later. Dated as it may look, it raises banking and economic issues eerily similar to current ones. Click here for an excellent overview/review. (Trivia note: Capra was a well-known stickler for detail. Example: in several scenes, his camera treats us to an inside look at the mechanics of locking and unlocking a giant valut, and how cash was hand-delivered and allocated among the tellers. I found this stuff quite interesting.)
GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE (1933)
In GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE, set during the Great Depression, Walter Huston plays newly elected president "Judd" Hammond, an affable but apathetic and mildly corrupt party hack with little else on his agenda besides coddling his nephew, romancing his secretary, and ignoring the plight of the unemployed. But when he is seriously injured in an auto accident and wakes from a coma, Hammond has been totally transformed by the angel Gabriel. The president becomes an outspoken advocate of integrity and economic justice and is regarded as a hero by some, a dictator by others. Unilaterally enacting strong measures, he makes powerful enemies, yet manages to right many wrongs before abruptly dying. To this day GABRIEL is controversial for its frank acknowledgment of political policies based on scripture and its association of policies too "liberal" by some and with religious beliefs too "conservative" for others (sound familiar?). Nonetheless, the film is astonishingly prophetic in its portrayal of the failures of Wall Street and government, and its sincere commitment to Biblical principles is fresh and interesting. (Trivia notes: Remember the dying sea captain in MALTESE FALCON who brings the Black Bird to Sam Spade? That was Walter in an unbilled cameo in his son John's first directorial effort. He was also the grandfather of actress Angelica. Walter, John, Angelica Huston – three generations of Oscar winners of whose contributions to American cinema no critic ever said, "Hustons, we've got a problem!").
FALLEN (1989)Demon-strably unsettling
Immediately after a sadistic serial killer named Reese is executed, the cop who captured him, John Hobbes (Denzil Washington), is tasked with finding a killer who seems to be copycatting Reese. But this is no copycat, Hobbes discovers; it's the concentrated evil that escaped Reese after his death – a demon called Azazel that is now hopping from one body to another to continue killing, and to terrorize Hobbes and his family. Some reviewers called this thriller less than thrilling, but Popcorn Boy had to sleep with the light on after he saw it.
FEARLESS (1993)Surviving life after near-death
Architect Max Klein (Jeff Bridges), one of the few survivors of a terrible air crash and dubbed by the media “The Good Samaritan” for having led others to safety, has emerged feeling godlike and invulnerable. Disconnected from his wife (Isabella Rosselini) and son, he feels close only to another survivor, Carla (Rosie Perez), a young mother immobilized with grief and guilt over the death of her infant son. Their struggle to survive the survival is intricately set up in the first 111 minutes of the film; the final 10 pays it all off: in flashback, as Max lies suffocating from an allergic reaction to a strawberry, we see him moments before the crash walking in slow-motion through the rapidly descending plane, comforting terrified passengers with a smile, a nod, a few words. He then takes the seat next to a frightened young boy who is traveling alone, promising him that all will be well. This exquisite final sequence, its masterfully edited visuals perfectly underscored by a passage from Gorecki’s painfully beautiful “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,” culminates with Max’s jolt back to breath and sanity. Popcorn Boy tears up every time I see it.
JOSEPH WISEMAN (1918 - 2009)NO better Bond villain!
Yes, Dr. No was filmdom's first Bond super-villain, unforgettably played by Joseph Wiseman. I first became aware of the actor’s indelible screen presence in DETECTIVE STORY (1951) in which he portrayed a crazed druggie who, arrested for a robbery, shoots and kills a tough-as-nails cop (Kirk Douglas). In addition to many film and stage appearances, Wiseman was a familiar face on TV, appearing in such series as Law & Order, The Streets of San Francisco, and The Untouchables. In a must-be-seen episode of The Twilight Zone called “One More Pallbearer," he played an unscrupulous, revenge-seeking multi-millionaire who invites three people from his past to his custom-built A-bomb shelter, demanding a groveling apology from each for supposedly humiliating him during the course of his deceitful life. The ending features a Serling-style double-twist.
SHUTTER (2004)Shudder
Until its final scene, SHUTTER is a mostly predictable, albeit pretty good, revenge tale about a professional photographer and his new bride who, after accidentally hitting a woman with their car, discover mysterious shadows in their photos. You'll spot most of the scary moments a mile away, but the film's closing image, the ghost's revenge on the last of three characters, will haunt you. I promise.
ANGELS IN AMERICA (2003):A Gay Fantasia on National Themes
This Mike Nichols-directed HBO film based on Tony Kushner's prize-winning play is an astonishing mix of philosophy, politics, and gay soap opera. Various plotlines weave around a gay couple, Prior (Justin Kirk) and Louis (Ben Shenkman), whose relationship crumbles when Prior contracts AIDS and starts having fever-fueled religious visions of an angel (Emma Thompson) proclaiming Prior to be a prophet. Unable to cope, Louis flees and starts a relationship with Joe (Patrick Wilson), a closeted Mormon who works for Roy Cohn (Al Pacino), the venomous right-wing lawyer notorious for his ruthless behind-the-scenes machinations and gay-bashing, himself deeply closeted. Other characters include Joe's depressed and hallucinating wife (Mary Louise Parker) and stern but open-minded mother (Meryl Streep), a caustic drag queen/nurse (Jeffrey Wright) friends with both Prior and Louis, and the gloating ghost of Ethel Rosenberg (also Streep), whose conviction of spying and subsequent execution, and her husband's, resulted from Cohn's prosecution. Be prepared: ANGELS is a complex, dialogue-heavy tale that requires rapt attention and perhaps a second viewing to fully appreciate its breadth and depth. For me, it was a moving experience worth it every minute of the six hours.
TIN MEN (1987)Tin-acious one-upsmanship
Aluminum-siding salesmen ("tin men") care about basically two things in life: making sales (legal and otherwise) and owning the latest model Cadillac. Baltimore 1963. Two of these guys (Danny DeVito and Richard Dreyfus, perfectly cast), who work at competing companies, have a minor collision (Dreyfus’ Caddy is fresh off the lot with 1/16th of a mile on it!). This triggers a major war of one-upmanship starting with DeVito busting out Dreyfus’ car windows and quickly escalating to Dreyfus seducing DeVito’s beautiful, bored wife (Barbara Hershey). Written and directed by Barry Levinson, TIN MEN is both funny and poignant (Dreyfus and Hershey fall in love). Watch for several of Levinson’s signature coffee shop scenes replete with hilarious dialogue, and check out these quotes from the movie.
ROUTE 66Revisited
When the ‘60s TV series Route 66 came out on DVD recently, I was first in line. As a teen, I loved it – two guys tooling around the U.S.A in a ‘Vette, what’s not to love? – and amazingly, it still holds up pretty well. Sure, some of the episodes are dated, corny or downright silly, but many are quite good and feature sharp writing (by Stirling Sillophant) strong themes, and excellent acting.
Sponsored by Chevrolet, the series debuted on October 7 (my birthday), 1960, appearing after the second debate between Nixon and Kennedy. Starring Martin Milner as youthful, Yale-educated Todd Stiles, and George Maharis as brooding New York-born orphan Buz Murdock, it was initially judged by most critics as just another adventure serial, but quickly the weekly travelogue became a hit and is now a TV classic.
The series begins when Tod's father dies and leaves him his beloved Corvette. Seeking adventure and funds, the two friends hit the road, along the way meeting and telling the stories of various loners, outcasts, and dreamers. By the end of its four-season run, the Route 66 production caravan had traveled to 25 states and Toronto. Guest roles were filled by character actors ranging from fading stars like Joan Crawford and Buster Keaton, to up-and-comers including Suzanne Pleshette, Robert Duvall, Burt Reynolds and Robert Redford.
This was the first TV show shot entirely on location. The early episodes were politically charged and dealt with deep issues mirroring the problems of the times. The first episode, for example, told the story of a wealthy businessman who, learning that his son had been killed in action, murdered two German POWs as his neighbors watched. Subsequent shows featured a variety of characters including a heroin addict, a washed-up prizefighter, migrant farm workers, a small-time beauty contest promoter, a recent ex-con (female and framed), a Nazi-hunter, a blind dance instructor, and a dying blues singer – each facing some secret pain or personal crisis. Despite its offbeat personality, the series gained a loyal audience.
Nonetheless, ever-meddling CBS executives, concerned about the seriousness of the series and its political undertones, ordered more "broads, bosoms and fun." The producers eventually conceded to network demands and shoe-horned in young female guest stars such as Tuesday Weld and Suzanne Pleshette to provide more romance for the boys. The result, of course was that Route 66 grew predictable and mostly boring.
Maharis left the show in 1963 and was replaced by Glen Corbett as a newly retuned Vietnam vet. But viewers never bonded with the character Linc, and the show’s ratings foundered. It was canceled in September 1964.
Milner continued to work in TV and appeared in another successful buddy series, Adam 12. Maharis continued to work on TV and make movies and records, but his career faded fast. Both actors are now in the 80s and retired, neither in good health.
Copyright © 2006 Your Company. All rights reserved.
Happy 50th Anniversary, Twilight ZoneThere is a fifth dimension...
"...beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call 'The Twilight Zone.'"
We've been hearing Rod Serling intone this (and several other versions of the "Twilighty Zone" episodes) since 1959. Never gets old. Read More
Cosmos Remixed High-tech tribute to two titans of physics that turns talk to tune
The video A GLORIOUS DAWN is a musical tribute to writer-astronomer Carl Sagan. It’s worth watching not just because of the clever audio manipulation that makes Sagan's spoken words sound like singing, but also because it manages to distill in three minutes the essence Sagan's message with his 1980 13-hour TV series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, from which the video's stunning visuals are extracted. Physicist Stephen Hawking makes a cameo appearance.
The message: Earth is just a tiny speck of a limitless cosmos. (You can grab all the lyrics here.)
FETCHING CODY (2005)There's always time to help someone you love
This is a classic “what-if” time travel, romantic love story in the tradition of BUTTERFLY EFFECT. A young street hustler seeks to save his drug addicted-girlfriend from an overdose by visiting key moments in her past (his time machine is a La-Z-Boy recliner festooned with Christmas tree lights). After a number of failed rescue missions, he realizes the only way to fix her life is for them never to meet. FETCHING CODY is an inventive and emotionally engaging little film that I highly recommend, especially if you're into tales about time travel.
TAP (1989)
Wanna see some real dancing? Skip Michael Jackson videos and catch TAP, a lovely homage to the world of traditional tap starring such aging but still then-energetic legends as Jimmy Slyde, Sandman Sims, Henry LeTang, and Harold Nicholas (one half of the incredible team, the Nicholas Brothers), plus three contemporary tappers: Gergory Hines, Sammy Davis, Jr. and a young Savion Glover. The movie centers on an oft-recycled plot, “Will the hero (Hines) go straight or stay crooked” and is packed with sometimes totally illogical excuses to dance. But who cares? Once these pros start tapping, logic be damned. Sadly, most of the cast is now gone, including Davis and Hines, but a grown-up Savion Glover carries on the tradition, and thank goodness for celluloid.
PASSAGE TO MARSEILLE (1944)
A follow-up to the enormously successful CASABLANCA (1943), PASSAGE TO MARSEILLE capitalizes on the considerable talents of many of the same cast (Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet) and crew. Told in a flashbacks-within-flashback structure, the story centers on Matrac (Bogart), a freedom-loving French journalist who sacrifices his happiness and security to battle Nazi tyranny. The film opens as a French liaison officer (Rains) tells Mantrac's story to a British reporter. Years earlier, Mantrac was married and deliriously happy, but he was framed by pro-fascists and sentenced to Devil's Island. After escaping to sea with several others, the group was picked up by a French vessel that was then commandeered by one of its passengers, a pro-fascist (Greenstreet). With the help of the prisoners, the ship's patriotic captain defeated the mutiny, enabling Mantrac to enlist in the R.A. F. and battle against Nazism. (Sounds confusing, but it's really not.) Okay, so by modern standards, PASSAGE is over-produced, over-directed, over-acted and over-scored (by Max Steiner); but overall, it's a pretty good film and darned fun to watch with popcorn. Incidentally, Bogart makes absolutely no attempt to speak with a French accent. But who cares – it's Bogart.
LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1973)Bertolucci. Brando. Butter.
In the many years since I first saw LAST TANGO IN PARIS, Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial film about a middle-aged American (Marlon Brando) who, mourning his wife’s death, takes up a wild sexual relationship with a free-spirited Parisian girl (Maria Schneider) in an empty flat, I remembered only random scenes: Brando weeping on a Paris street corner, Brando cursing his wife's corpse, and of course, Brando using butter in a way Julia Childs never imagined. In the U.S., TANGO was X-rated and branded pornographic, and to see it was to brave picket lines and police wrath, which I did. I didn’t get much of the story at the time, but I loved Brando speaking French, the music (Gato Barbieri), and the painfully realistic acting and dialogue, much of it either improvised or, to accommodate Brando’s inability (or unwillingness) to memorize lines, scribbled on bits of paper stuck outside camera range. Watching and understanding more now, I am in awe of the power of the Bertolucci’s masterpiece. Brando, perhaps the most inventive of all American actors and one my idols, makes even the tiniest bit of business (like unraveling a paper lampshade) fascinating to watch, and Schneider, then a newcomer, more than holds her own (especially in the nude!). Do the TANGO if you haven’t seen it; see it again if it’s been a long time since you did. The music, photography, and Brando dancing dead-drunk will blow you away.
MICHAEL CLAYTON (2007)The truth can be adjusted
An impressively acted and highly suspenseful man-vs.-system drama produced by Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, both of whom passed away shortly after the movie was released. George Clooney stars in the title role as a perpetually disheveled Mr. Fix-It for a major law firm. A lawyer and former D.A., Clayton uses his contacts in the police and the criminal justice system to bail the firm's wealthy corporate clients out of legal messes. When one of the firm's senior partners and Clayton’s close friend Arthur (Tom Wilkinson) appears to have suffered a nervous breakdown while preparing a lawsuit for his firm's most lucrative client, Clayton is ordered by his boss (Pollack) to rein him in. Though juggling the increasing pressures of personal and job problems, Clayton investigates, and learns that Arthur has uncovered evidence of corruption against the client he’s supposed to be representing. This, gets him killed and Clayton fingered to be next. Clayton's boss then starts pressuring him to look the other way lest he jeopardize a cash-infusing international merger for the firm. How does Clayton "fix" the mess and win back his self-respect? You’ll have to stick it out till the final scene to see the surprise. After this highly dramatic scene, you’ll be tempted to go “Whew!” and turn off the movie, but hang in.: as the final credit roll, we watch an amazing two-minute long closing shot Clooney in the back seat of a cab, his face slowly and subtly morphing from sadness, anger and disgust to an ever-so faint glint of satisfaction for having vindicated his dead friend.
HAPPY ACCIDENTS (2000)
Ruby and Sam meet cute and fall in love hard. All goes well until he (Vincent D'Onofrio) confides to her (Marisa Tomei) that he’s from the distant future. GREAT, just what Ruby needs – another loser. As a matter of fact, she’s currently seeing a therapist (Holland Taylor) for help with this very issue. Yet weird as Sam is, he seems to be the best thing that's ever happened to her ... and she to him. Ah, but what about this time traveler thing? HAPPY ACCIDENTS manages to keep Ruby and us guessing until the end. Hint: keep your eye on the therapist!
KARL MALDEN (1912 - 2009)
Karl Malden, highly respected film and TV actor who played everything from priests to cops - even a sadistic sheriff who mashed Brando's gun hand to pulp with the butt of a rifle - has passed away at the ripe old age of 97. Son of a Czech mother and a Serbian father, Malden (nee Mladen Sekulovich) made his screen debut in the 1940 movie "They Knew What They Wanted" and a decade later won an Oscar for his role as Mitch in the classic A STREETCAR NAME DESIRE (1951), which also starred fellow method actor Marlon Brando. He worked again with Brando in ON WATERFFRONT (1954) and the quirky and fascinating western ONE-EYED JACKS (1961). His greatest fame came on '70s TV series "The Streets of San Francisco," in which he co-starred with novice actor Michael Douglas. For 20 years Malden also was a pitchman for American Express commercials in which he sternly admonished, "Don't leave home without it!"
FROST/NIXON (2008)
FROST/NIXON, based on the play by Peter Morgan and directed on film by Ron "Opie" Howard, dramatizes the historic David Frost-Richard Nixon TV interviews of 1977. At heart, it’s a David-Goliath tale with Frost as the modern-day David. A popular TV personality abroad who craved success in America, Frost got the big idea to conduct a paid interview with the disgraced president. Nixon agreed to do it, thinking the exposure would boost both his image and bank account. The interviews are dramatized as boxing rounds, with Nixon scoring point after point with his self-serving answers and diatribe-like jabs. But in the final interview, David manages to sling a fatal rock in the form of a query about the Watergate cover-up. Flummoxed, Nixon breaks down and does a pseudo-mea culpa, admitting to letting down the American people and "probably" having broken the law. The hour or so leading up to that dramatic moment is both intense and entertaining. Michael Sheen is dynamic as the fiercely driven Frost who rose above his “just an entertainer” status to ferret out a confession and apology that no accredited journalist had been able to extract. As Nixon, Frank Langella, who had done the role on stage, shows us the disgraced President's multiple sides brilliantly. And all the supporting actors are equally fine, including Kevin Bacon as Nixon's loyal aide, Sam Rockwell as one of Frost's researchers (and conscience), and in a riveting cameo, Patty McCormick as ghostly Pat Nixon. (Movie trivia: Aging movie lovers may remember Ms. McCormick as the evil 10-year old Rhonda Penmark in the 1956 shocker, THE BAD SEED.)
ED MCMAHON (1926 - 2009)
Ed McMahon appeared in several movies, which earns him a spot on my movie blog. I met Ed twice. The first time was in the '70s, when he recorded one of my Frito-Lay Bean Dip commercials backstage during the TONIGHT show. He liked my copy and told me so. The second time was in the ‘90s. I spotted him in an L.A. bookstore signing his autobiography. He looked frail, but that so-familiar voice was mostly intact. I reminded him of our first meeting decades earlier, and being the showman he'd been for so long, he said of course he remembered. Of course he didn’t, but I was flattered nonetheless. In recent years I was saddened by his public decline, both physical and financial. As long and hard as he had worked, he deserved a far better exit. R.I.P, Ed.
DOUBT (2008)
Set in a Bronx Catholic elementary school in 1964, DOUBT centers on a fierce war of wills between an iron-gloved nun (Meryl Streep) and a popular priest she accuses of sexually abusing a black student. He vehemently denies the charge and has a logical answer for every piece of the nun's circumstantial evidence, but nothing sways her; she's absolutely convinced the priest is guilty. Much of the film’s emotional dialogue tackles themes of religion, morality, and authority, but the basic question comes down to, did he or did he not molest the boy? Clues to both points of view abound, which of course is why the movie is titled DOUBT, but without talking with the author, there’s no way to know for sure. Here's what I think: any movie that provokes so much debate about such an important topic is a movie worth seeing. And this one happens also to offer performances and dialogue as good as they get.
W. (2008)
The movie trailer led me to expect a pot-shotting parody, but in fact, W. is a serious, sad, scary and damned entertaining (if necessarily simplified) look at George W. Bush the son, the man and the president, and obviously the product of exhaustive research. Josh Brolin is Oscar-worthy as the Dubya we may at least think we know, acting the role rather than merely impersonating his way through it. The same is true for the other actors, including Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney, James Cromwell as Bush Sr., Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush, Toby Jones as Rove, and Scott Glenn as Rumsfield. Only Thandie Newton as Condie comes off as a caricature. Her facial and body "business" is silly and distracting. I watched the film twice in a row, the second time with Director Oliver Stone's engaging and literate commentary turned on. He concludes it by saying, "To me, W. feels like Bush. It may not be Bush, but it feels like him." I totally agree. Whatever your take on Bush, don’t miss this brilliantly written, directed, acted, photographed and edited film. Then re-watch it with Stone’s commentary!
Thanks for the Memories
Reading that Dolores Hope had reached her 100th birthday made me think about her husband Bob, who passed away in 2003 at the same age. And that made me long for his good-natured humor and those of his ilk like Red Skelton, George Burns and so many others now long gone and now replaced mostly by smut and snark peddlers.
STAR TREK (2009) Star dreck
Kids, graying Trekkers and movie critics are going gaga over the reboot of STAR TREK. But I, who consider myself all three, hereby declare that four decades after it first blasted off into the final frontier, Gene Roddenberry's "Wagon Train to the stars" has finally gone where no one should care.
JACK CARDIFF (1915 - 2009) Color master
Legendary Director of Photography Jack Cardiff has passed away at 95. A lovely, generous man, he was a very talented director who made several pictures - including SONS AND LOVERS, YOUNG CASSIDY, and DARK OF THE SUN. But as a camera operator and then as a director of photography, he was a truly revolutionary figure in the history of movies. THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, BLACK NARCISSUS, THE RED SHOES, UNDER CAPRICORN, THE AFRICAN QUEEN, THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA, WAR AND PEACE - that's an extraordinary list, because those are the movies in which film color came into its own.
In collaboration with such directors as Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, King Vidor and, perhaps above all, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Cardiff made color into a genuinely and dynamically expressive element in filmmaking. The flames shooting from the burning engine of David Niven's plane, Ava Gardner in a yellow dress against a midnight-blue sky, the red shoes themselves - they vibrate with color, and once seen, they're never forgotten. To witness Cardiff's work on those pictures is to find yourself in the presence of a master craftsman and a great artist. Jack never lost his love for cinema, his enthusiasm, his willingness to share the secrets of his craft or his sense of wonder at the form he himself had helped create. Martin Scorsese, Time Magazine, May 11, 2009
RON SILVER (1946 - 2009)
Ron Silver has passed away at the young age of 62. One of my favorite Silver movies is the pretty awful yet entertaining TIMECOP (1994) in which he plays the same character, Aaron McComb, in two different decades - a diabotical senator-presidential candidate in the present and a naive congressman in the past. Favorite line: "How about laying off the sweets?" says the older, heavier McComb when he meets his younger self face to face.
BREAKING AND ENTERING
Will (returning home late): “Hi. I'm sorry.”
Liv: “You smell of perfume.”
Will: “Well, I don't know how I do.”
Liv: “Nor do I.”
Will: “I love you.”
Liv: “Is that an answer?”
Will: “It's the truth. I feel as if I'm tapping on a window. You're somewhere behind the glass but you can't hear me. Even when you're angry, like now, it's like someone a long long way away is angry with me.”
BREAKING AND ENTERING (2006)
Jude Law is an inventive and appealing young British actor skilled in drama, romance and light comedy. In BREAKING AND ENTERING, a bit of all three, he plays an architect named Will who professionally is a success, but on the home front, rapidly losing touch with his longtime partner (Robin Wright Penn) and her autistic daughter. Will and his partner's state-of-the-art architectural studio is burgled by a local gang. Staking out the property after the second break-in, he foils a third attempt and chases a teenage thief back to a tiny flat, which serves as a home and tailoring business. Returning the next day on the pretext of needing a jacket sewn, Will meets the boy's seamstress mother (Juliette Binoche), a lonely Bosnian refugee, who is clueless about her son’s nefarious activities. Initially intending to expose the boy, Will instead initiates an affair, which leads to self discovery and hard choices for the conflicted but basically decent man. With a smart script and interesting performances by Law, Penn, Binoche and several quirky, quickly fleeing characters, B&E is fresh and fun and for sure worth your time.
SNEAKERS
Cosmo (Ben Kingsley): The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It's all just electrons.
SNEAKERS (1992)
When a highly skilled if unorthodox team of corporate security experts termed "sneakers" is hired by two government agents (whose government, we're not immediately sure) to retrieve a universal code-breaker – the code-breaker, as one of them calls it – there ensues a lighthearted thriller about computers, cryptography, espionage, secrets, deception and betrayal. Robert Redford is the grungy group's guru, a middle-aged techno-anarchist on the lam from the Feds since college because of a computer prank. His merry band includes a goofy electronics specialist and conspiracy nut (Dan Aykroyd), a cheerful blind hacker (David Strathairn), a stern ex-CIA operative (Sidney Poitier), and a young and randy break-and-enter expert (River Phoenix). Their nemesis: an unbalanced computer genius (Ben Kingsley), the old college chum of Redford's who got caught for the prank and is now out to dominate all the world's 1's and 0's and to get even for being the one who went to jail. The gizmo everybody wants, which can decode any encrypted message, isn't a plausible invention, but it's for sure the perfect "McGuffin" (Alfred Hitchcock's word for any thingamajig upon which a plot hangs). SNEAKERS is lots of fun – I sneak a re-look about twice a year.
JAMES WHITMORE (1921 - 2009)
James Whitmore, a familiar face in films, TV and on stage for almost secen decades, has died at 87. A TV pitchman for Miracle-Gro plant food in his later years, Whitmore started both his stage and movie career with numerous acclaimed performances. I'd been a fan since he starred in a movie called BLACK LIKE ME (1964) about an amazing man named John Howard Griffin, whom my mother went to school with. In the ' 80s I saw him in person lecturing on "The Art of Acting." And what an acting lesson it turned out to be. Shortly after starting his talk, he flinched, then resumed speaking somewhat haltingly for another few minutes, and then apologetically excused himself from the stage, saying he felt ill. The audience gasped – then roared in pleasure when, after a short pause, he came bounding back onto the stage. "You just saw an example of acting," he laughed, and then continued his marvelous talk on the topic he had so beautifully demonstrated. (Remember him as the kindly little librarian who couldn't survive on the outside in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION?)
THE TENANTS (2005)
THE TENANTS, based on a Bernard Malamud novel, examines the animus between Jews and African Americans in the incendiary atmosphere of 70s’ Brooklyn. Harry Lesser (Dylan McDermott) is a Jewish novelist laboring to finish a novel 10 years into the writing. Convinced that he must complete it in the same environment where it was started, Harry is the sole tenant in a condemned Brooklyn tenement. Enter another writer – a Black militant anti-Semite named Willie Spearmint (Snoop Dogg). The two form a tenuous relationship based on Harry’s offer to help the nascent writer, but his well intentioned critiques of the Willie's stories about death to all white people create escalating conflict. And then when Harry starts an affair with Willie's white Jewish girlfriend (Rose Byrne, currently co-starring with Glenn Close in a terrific TV series, “Damages”), all hell breaks loose. The explosive, inevitable end to all this reveals the slippery nature of the human condition, and the human capacity for violence and undoing.
PATRICK MCGOOHAN (1929 - 2009) Six succumbs
Patrick McGoohan, the British actor with a somewhat aloof demeanor whose lucky number was definitely Six, has died at 80. McGoohan won two Emmys for his directorial and acting work on the Peter Falk TV detective drama "Columbo," and more recently appeared in the 1995 Mel Gibson film BRAVEHEART. But it's TV's Kafkaesque cult classic “The Prisoner” that won him lasting fame. In it he played a former government spy kidnapped, held captive, pumped for information, and referred to only as "Number Six" in a small seaside enclave called The Village. The concept was McGoohan’s. He sold producers on the really surreal and cerebral concept after growing bored playing a straightforward spy in “Danger Man” (retitled “Secret Agent”) for four seasons. “The Prisoner” ran for 17 episodes in 1967. In the finale, Number Six finally confronts Number One, who is in a face mask. When it's yanked off, a monkey mask is revealed, and when that too is off, the face of Number Six himself is seen (draw your own conclusions). The short-lived but seminal series explored issues of privacy, individualism and mind control. A precursor to many of today’s TV shows and movies, it still has a loyal cult following in the U.S. and abroad, and in fact is reportedly being remade. In the movies, McGoohan played such indelible characters as the villain in the 1976 Wilder-Pyror classic, SILVER STREAK; as a sadistic warden in the 1979 Clint Eastwood film ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ; and as a judge in the 1996 John Grisham courtroom drama A TIME TO KILL. But he will always be best remembered for being "just a number."
RICARDO MONTALBAN (1921 - 2009) Farewell, Khan and Roarke
Ricard Gonzalo Montalban, the charming Latino actor whose long career spanned decades and multiple notable roles in film, theater and TV, has died at 88. In the '40s, he played singing and dancing Latin lovers in lavish MGM musicals. During the late ‘70s, he served as spokesperson for the Chrysler Cordoba, in which he famously extolled the "Corinthian leather" used for its interior. In 1967, Montalban played ("hammed" is a better word) the deliciously villainous Khan Noonien Singh in a first season episode of the original “Star Trek" series. In the late '70s/early '80s, he donned the persona and white suit of the mysterious Mr. Roarke in the popular TV series "Fantasy Island." And in 1982 he Khan-ed his way into the blockbuster movie STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF YOU-KNOW-WHO, even badder and hammier than the first time. Even into his eighties and confined to a wheelchair (due to an old bullfighting injury), Montalban continued to perform, often providing voices for animated films and commercials.
JEKYLL
Dr. Jackman (talking to the Hyde in his head): “Just once —seriously, just bloody once — could you tell me where you parked?!"
JEKYLL (2007) Classic tale deliciously modernized
British TV's "JEKYLL" is an inventive and exquisitely entertaining updating of Stevenson's classic, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” available on two DVDs at Netflix. In modern-day London, Dr. Jackman and Mr. Hyde (James Nesbitt, playing both brilliantly) coexist in an uneasy relationship predicated on an agreement that if Hyde kills anyone, Jackman will turn himself in – and if Jackman tries to find a cure, Hyde will put a bullet in his brain. The two "change" potionlessly at more or less designated times and communicate through a pocket recorder. Sane, somber, slightly boring Jackman is married with children, and spends much of his time away from the family he adores, trying to keep them safe from the fiendish yet funny, furiously flamboyant Hyde. Jackman constantly wakes up to find blood on himself (rarely his own), yet his alter ego never seems quite to murder anybody, just occasionally snatch body parts. To complicate matters, there's a shadowy agency intent on capturing Hyde for its own reasaons. Prepare yourself for shocking visual jolts, plot twists, flashbacks and forwards, and lots of wickedly humorous repartee in this darkly funny, sometimes violent and always surprising 6-episode series. The final episode provides several big surprises and ties up some loose ends – but also leaves behind a few threads that might portend future episodes. (Trivia note: Jackman’s wife is played by the lovely and talented Gina Bellman, who is currently co-starring in an excellent TNT series called “Leverage.”)Trailer
IN HER SHOES (2005)
Maggie and Rose are sisters and best friends, yet polar opposites in their values, goals and personal styles. Sexy Maggie (Cameron Diaz) is a party girl who barely made it through high school, can’t hold a job, and attracts men like flies. Dowdy Rose (Toni Collette) is Princeton-educated attorney at a top law firm in Philadelphia who suffers from rock-bottom self-esteem, has no social life, and consoles herself by buying shoes that she never wears. After a calamitous falling out, the sisters travel a bumpy road toward true appreciation for one another – aided by the tough love of their recently discovered maternal grandmother Ella (Shirley MacLaine) whom they thought was long dead. Through that re-connection, Maggie and Rose learn how to make peace with themselves and with each other. A pleasant little chick flick even a man can enjoy. Diaz, Collette and McClain are marvels.
THE LAST HIT MAN (2008)
After veteran assassin Harry Tremayne (Joe Mantegna) bungles a hit, life deals him another blow when he learns that he has inoperable brain cancer. Though he manages to temporarily conceal his illness from his getaway driver – who happens to be his daughter – they (and we) are in for some surprises when a young contract killer is sent in to mop up Harry’s mess. Not your ordinary hit man movie, THE LAST HIT MAN is a low-key drama about the interactions of people, with a great script, top-caliber acting and entertaining touches of black comedy.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1951) The mellowing of a miserly misanthrope
Charles Dickens' 19th century Victorian morality tale about the redemption of bitter old Ebenezer Scrooge has been filmed many times, many ways – drama, musical, parody – including a saccharine-laced 1938 version by MGM. But the adaptation that best captures the dark spirit of the original novella is the 1951 British one – and for us baby boomers, none other quite measures up, least of all the silly variations on the theme that Hollywood and TV churn out each year. Of all the actors who have portrayed the miser-turned-mensch – including Reginald Owen, Albert Finney, George C. Scott, Patrick Stewart, Bill Murray, and even, G*d help us, Vanessa Williams – none equals Alastair Sim for breathing life into the character of Scrooge and making him a three-dimensional personality. For me, A CHRISTMAS CAROL is the best yuletide story of all time – Christmas Past, Present and Future included. It's 165 years old, but its lessons on love, forgiveness and social consciousness are timeless.
CITY BY THE SEA (2002)
Robert De Niro plays a veteran NYC cop who, having overcome the stigma of being the son of an executed killer, has forged a long and distinguished career on the force. Intensely committed to his work, he now finds himself investigating his own homeless and drug-addicted son (James Franco) for the killing of his partner. The father has long been estranged from the boy since walking out on his family years earlier, and now he must choose whether to be a cop or a father. De Niro, older, heavier and slower in late middle age, still commands the screen. But the star of the show is Franco, whose lined and tortured face makes us feel every ounce of his pain and dispair as he races from one crisis to another, digging himself into an ever-deeper hole.
VAN JOHNSON (1925 - 2008)
Van Johnson, the handsome and affable screen star, has died at 92. Red-haired, blue-eyed, tall and preternaturally wholesome – and he continued looking that way decades past middle age – the former Broadway chorus boy skyrocketed to fame during the years of World War II. On the strength of his innocent, all-American looks and charm, and roles in a string of light comedies and dramas, he was mobbed by bobby-soxers wherever he went. In 1945, he was the second biggest box office draw in the nation, behind Bing Crosby. His big break was in a 1943 war movie called A GUY NAMED JOE, a film almost derailed by auto accident that left Johnson with a metal plate in his forehead. He is best-remembered today for a series of movie musicals, in which he played opposite some equally all-American female stars, such as June Allyson, Esther Williams, Judy Garland, and Cyd Charisse. While never known as an actor of particular depth, he nonetheless ventured into more serious films as he grew older. He played a version of F. Scott Fitzgerald opposite Elizabeth Taylor in THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS (1954) and had a significant role in THE CAINE MUTINEY the same year. In the ‘60s and '70s, when the film roles dried up, Johnson did TV and summer-stock, touring for three decades. He also accepted a two-year contract to star in “The Music Man” in London. In 1985 he was well used by Woody Allen as one of the old-time Hollywood stars trapped in a frozen black-and-white film in THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO.
From a review by Robert Simonson, 12 Dec 2008
THE SENSATION OF SIGHT (2006)
THE SENSATION OF SIGHT is an offbeat drama about the search for meaning in a world of why’s. Finn (David Straithairn), an introspective English teacher, is suffering through a crisis of guilt triggered by the suicide of one of his students. Having voluntarily exiled himself from family and career to "work things out," he's currently living on the streets. Day after day, he drags a wagon through his small town selling encyclopedias to the town locals, each of whom is suffering his or her own crisis, each connected to another character in a way not immediately apparent to us. The film is a mesmerizing, funny, moving, frightening and exhilarating. But be forewarned, you must be willing to take the time to let it draw you in – it’s a jigsaw puzzle, and it takes awhile to see the whole picture. Straithairn, one of our finest and most versatile American actors, gives a remarkable performance. Every conceivable emotion, thought, confusion, amusement, and pain registers in his worn face. His story is the focus of the film, but around him is a marvelous, amusing, touching gallery of characters and performances – male and female, old, young, children, even a sad, mute ghost who, like the living characters he follows around, carry a burden that only Finn’s direct or peripheral assistance can help lighten as he struggles to heal his own withered soul.
THE CHASE
Randy housewife (Janice Rule): "Hiya Sheriff. Wanna join our party? All you need is a pistol (looking him up down), and you surely got one."
Sheriff (Brando): "With so many pistols around here already, it don't look like you'd have room for mine."
THE CHASE (1966) Worth catching
THE CHASE invites into a small Texas town filled with prejudice, violence, and frustrated love. The A-list cast includes Marlon Brando, E.G. Marshall, Robert Duvall, James Fox, Jane Fonda, Janice Rule, and Robert Redford. Local bad-but-not-really-bad-boy Bubber Reeves (Redford) escapes from prison, and the news he’s headed home throws the townsfolk into mob mode. The straight-arrow sheriff (Brando) sets out to round up Bubber before things get out of hand. Meanwhile, an oversexed housewife (Rule) cheats in public on her cowardly husband (Duvall); Bubber’s overwrought mother runs around town in hysterics; an over-protective father (Marshall) schemes to bust up the affair between his son (Fox) and Bubber's wife (Fonda); middle-aged men lust after teen girls and racists run rampant; and the sheriff has a fight off not only the town baddies, but Janice Rule as well - and director Arthur Penn skillfully weaves these and other subplots together, setting up a finale both tragic and inevitable. A social critique of the late 1960s, THE CHASE touches on gun control, abuse of power, sexual promiscuity, jealousy, greed, justice, and mob mentality. Plus, there’s the bloody "crucifixion-by-beating" scene that had been S.O.P. in Brando films ever since ON THE WATERFRONT. This is considered one of Marlon's last great performances (the others being, LAST TANGO IN PARIS and THE GODFATHER) and makes THE CHASE worth catching.
THE ASSIGNMENT (1997)
A ruthless CIA agent (Donald Sutherland) and hard-as-nails Israeli counter-terrorist (Ben Kingsley), allied only in their common obsession with catching an international terrorist (Aidan Quinn), train and deploy a lookalike American Navy man (also Quinn) to trick the vicious mercenary's employers to believe that their man is also working for the CIA. This violent psychological thriller moves at break-neck speed – and the keen characterizations by these three compelling actors, especially Quinn who is so different in each role you think he’s two different actors, make THE ASSIGNMENT assigned viewing. Based on a true story.
INNOCENCE (2000)
After more than 40 years and one marriage each to others, two childhood lovers reunite in their 70s, their passion picking up right where it left off. Filled with flashbacks-and-forths that allow us to observe the affair in both the past and present, this quiet, slow-paced film is a calm and bittersweet reflection on love and mortality – a poignant pronoucement that youth and love are not wasted on the young.
THE GAMBLER (1974) and THIEF (1981) Caan men
In real life, James Caan is an itsy bitsy guy, but in reel life, he often plays the roughest of tough guys. Everybody remembers him as the hot-tempered Sonny in THE GODFATHER (1972), but in two smaller films he wears equally tough skins. In THE GAMBLER, he’s a college prof who bets on the side. Actually, teaching is what he does on the side – gambling is his life and his addiction. He lays huge bets on anything, no matter how long the shot, and he just keeps getting in deeper and deeper until no one can save him – not his mother, girlfriend, bookie or wealthy uncle.
In THIEF, Caan's character is also addicted – to mining diamonds from safes (on the side, he owns a used car lot and bar). Life is good – until he gets himself wedged between the Mob and the Law and is forced to take drastic action that includes bullets, bombs, and in the end, the will to walk away from his cushy life.
Watch these two films back to back for an evening of highly Caan-centrated entertainment. (Trivia note: Is the never-explained scar on Can’s cheek in THIEF perhaps homage to the face-slashing he got in THE GAMBLER?)
WE OWN THE NIGHT (2007)
In WE OWN THE NIGHT, Joaquin Phoenix plays a nightclub manager who walks a thin line between the blood family he disavows (a long line of committed police officers) and his chosen family of friends and business partners (international drug dealers). Aware if his son's connections, his father (Robert Duvall) and brother (Mark Wahlberg) ask his help in their investigation, but the wayward son resists – until the conflict takes a tragic turn and forces him to make a choice. The familiarity of the cops and crooks tale dilutes its impact – and it's hard to suspend the disbelief that Wahlberg, Duvall and Phoenix are blood relations – yet the suspenseful plot takes surprising turns, and the gritty performances and moody visual style are powerful. Phoenix is superb in his role, sifting through layers of guilt and familial resentment, and Wahlberg and Duvall, though playing parts they've played before, are interesting and believable.
PAUL NEWMAN (1925 - 2008) R.I.P. Hud, Butch and Basil
You needn’t be a cinephile to easily picture Paul Newman as Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy, and Basil. Wait! Who the heck is Basil ??? Basil was the fictional Greek slave and silversmith in the story about the making of the silver cup that held the Holy Grail. And the role of Basil was Paul Newman’s Holy Grail: his first studio role.
THE SILVER CHALICE (1954) was a toga epic – pretty much an epic stinker – which Newman oncetook out an ad in Variety to apologize for – yet the classically handsome, blue-eyed actor went on to play major roles in 50 films. He played cowboys and Indians (BUTCH CASSIDY, THE LEFT-HANDED GUN, HOMBRE); cops, detectives and convicts (FORT APACHE THE BRONX, HARPER, THE DROWNING POOL, COOL HAND LUKE); lawyers and hustlers (THE VERDICT, FROM THE TERRACE, THE HUSTLER, THE STING); heroes and anti-heroes (EXODUS, HUD); and in dramas and comedies (THE LONG HOT SUMMER, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, A NEW KIND OF LOVE, NOBODY'S FOOL). He even played a jazz musician (PARIS BLUES) and a few real-life guys (SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME, FAT MAN AND LITTLE BOY). Along the way Newman became one of the world's most popular and enduring film stars. Admired by his peers and fans alike, he was nominated for Oscars 10 times, winning one regular award and two honoraries. Over the years, he also found time to do a “little” work on the side as a political activist, race car driver, food peddler, major philanthropist, and, for 50 years, husband to actress Joanne Woodward, who co-starred with him in several films.
ROAD HOUSE (1948)
Jefty Robbins (Richard Widmark), owner of a popular road house, hires a sulky chanteuse named Lily (Ida Lupino), clearly to entertain him as well as his customers. Jefty's manager and best friend Pete (Cornel Wilde) is reluctant to add yet another of “Jefty's girls” to the payroll, but is told in no uncertain terms, "this one is different." This creates instant mutual hostility between him and Lily. But when she actually does make a big hit with the customers, repulsion turns to mutual attraction, and the two fall in love. Jefty is enraged and devises a maniacal plan of revenge. First he frames Pete and gets him convicted of grand theft. Then he convinces the judge to parole Pete into his custody. Finally, Jefty engineers a series of sadistic mind games, pushing the lovers to the breaking point, which naturally leads to a noir-style movie climax. All three actors are terrific, and Lupino, who went on to become one of filmdom's first female film directors (she directed, among others, the nour classic THE HITCH-HIKER), sings passably, and looks a whole lot better than passable!
MARRIED LIFE (2007)
A married man in love with a younger woman decides to kill his wife because he doesn’t have the heart to hurt her (she has her own lover, by the way). Foolishly, the man (Chris Cooper) introduces his lover (Rachel McAdams) to his best friend (Pierce Brosnan), those two start an affair, and when he finds out he goes back to his wife (Patricia Clarkson) and saves her just in time from the poison he's mixed with her stomach medicine. At the end, we see all the characters years later at a party playing (tellingly) Charades, all fences apparently long mended. Though I mostly liked MARRIED LIFE – it is full of suspense and dotted with black humor – I felt the ending was weak. The three alternate endings on the DVD are more interesting – and one of them is perfect, wrapping the story up on just the right ironic note. I just don't get why they didn't choose that ending.
GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (1992) Unreal estate
GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS is about the machinations of a real estate office. It's also an allegory in which two land developments – one that never got off the ground (Glen Ross) and one that probably never will (Glengarry) – represent the failed dreams of men who peddle them and the suckers who buy in. When a yuppie asshole from the home office (Alex Baldwin, in a brief scene that was written for him) appears in the seedy sales office late one rainy night to berate and humiliate the salesmen, it's clear that in David Mamet’s bleak world, even the winners are losers. You'll never see better acting by a better ensemble cast, including Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon. Watch them closely in the scene when Lemmon tells Pacino about his big sale (which turns out to be a bust). It’s some of the best acting by one actor and listening by another you'll ever see.
HARRISON FORD
Like other contemporary actors whose careers were built on youth and media hype rather than on strong and evolving acting skills, Harrison Ford has apparently hit the wall in late midlife. He’s only 63 but looks worn-out, and worse, bored. In the past, aging leading men often re-invented themselves and worked into their ‘70s and even ‘80s, maintaining their onscreen energy by tackling new acting challenges. But despite several such attempts, Ford keeps making "action" films. I recently saw him in two movies separated by a decade, and what a difference that decade made. The less said of the movies themselves the better (THE DEVIL'S OWN is pretty good; FIREWALL is atrocious), but here's what I thought of Ford. In THE DEVIL’S OWN (1997), playing a righteous NY cop, he actually does some acting. He's no Olivier or Gielgud, mind you, but he does show some emotional range – even smiles once in a while. But in FIREWALL (2006), he plays a bank security specialist blackmailed by baddies into making a large cyber-withdrawal. Now in a situation like that, who would smile, but all Ford does in every scene is scowl. And it's a scowl that doesn't say, "Boy, am I worried about my family;" it's more like, "What the hell am I doing in this awful movie." It was said that Katharine Hepburn's acting ran "the gamut of emotions from A to B” – in FIREWALL, Ford's range is even narrower! INDIANA JONES? I refuse to see it. I prefer to remember the earlier ones. I’ve never been much of a Ford fan – always thought he was a mediocre actor at best. And now that he’s in a sixties, whatever talent he once had (yes, I know we all the big movies he’s starred in over the years) seems to have disappeared.
HEAT (1995) Pacino and DeNiro, mano y mano
It has that uniquely stylish Michael Mann look, and the two big stars' wardrobing, make-up and haircuts were never cooler - but otherwise, HEAT is mostly a fairly predictable cops and robbers flick. But ... after one hour, 28 minutes and 49 seconds, there is one unforgettable scene, moviedom's first shared screen appearance by DeNiro and Pacino. It takes place in a coffee shop for seven minutes, and every second is electrifying: a larger-than-life cop and a larger-than-life criminal on opposite sides of a small table and the Law, each with obvious respect for the other, each dedicated his chosen life, each knowing that to survive he may have to kill the other. More interestingly, the scene showcases the larger-than-life charisma and talents of two of America’s greatest living actors, each with obvious great respect for the other, and each knowing that he can – and at any moment almost does – blow the other right off the screen. It's like watching an acting class. (Trivia note: Pacino and DeNiro were filmed in the same scene but with separate cameras, so that the entire conversation could unfold in real time with minimal editing. It took about a dozen retakes.)BTW, you might want to avoid their latest movie, together, RIGHTEOUS KILL. It's a righteous disaster.
WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART Clint Eastwood delivers the Mother of all putdowns
John Wilson, a movie director patterned on John Huston, artfully insulting an anti-semitic woman ...
Wilson (Clint Eastwood): “I would like to tell you a little story.”
Mrs. MacGregor: “Oh, I love stories.”
Wilson: “Well, you mustn't interrupt now, because you're way too beautiful to interrupt people. When I was in London in the early ‘40s, I was dining one evening at the Savoy with a rather select group of people, and sitting next to me was a very beautiful lady, much like yourself.”
Mrs. MacGregor: “Now you're pulling my leg.”
Wilson: “Now, just listen, dear. Well, we were dining and the bombs were falling, and we were all talking about Hitler and comparing him with Napoleon, and we were all being really brilliant. And then, suddenly, this beautiful lady, she spoke up and said that was the thing she didn't mind about Hitler, was the way he was treating the Jews. Well, we all started arguing with her, of course. Though, mind you, no one at the table was Jewish. But she persisted. Are you listening, honey?”
MacGregor: “Mustn't interrupt Daddy/”
Wilson: “That's right. You're way too beautiful for that. Anyway, she went on to say that that's how she felt about it, that if she had her way, she would kill them all, burn them in ovens, like Hitler. Well, we all sat there in silence. Then finally, I leaned over to her and I said, ‘Madam, I have dined with some of the ugliest goddamn bitches in my time. And I have dined with some of the goddamndest ugly bitches in this world. But you, my dear, are the ugliest bitch of them all.’ Well, anyway, she got up to leave and she tripped over a chair and fell on the floor. And we all just sat there. No one raised a hand to help her. And finally when she picked herself up I said to her one more time: 'You, my dear, are the ugliest goddamn bitch I have ever dined with.' Well, you know what happened? The very next day, she reported me to the American Embassy. And they brought me in for reprimand. And then when they investigated it, they found out she was a German agent. And they locked her up. [smiles] “Isn't that amazing?”
Mrs. MacGregor: "Why did you tell me that story?"
Wilson: “Oh, I don't know. It wasn't because I thought you were a German agent, honey. But I was tempted tonight to say the very same thing to you. I didn't want you to think I had never said it before. You, madam, are the … well, you know the rest.”
The scene
THE BANK (2001)
THE BANK is a thinking man’s bank heist tale. A math whiz (David Wenham) invents an algorithm that can forecast with near-absolute certainty the ups and downs of global financial markets. He pitches it to a mega-bank, whose corrupt manager (Anthony LaPaglia) hires him to perfect, then implement the software to manipulate the market for profit, regardless of the consequences for investors. The software winds up working like gangbusters, but the result turns out to be far different from the manager's expectation. This suspenseful Australian thriller features several mysterious subplots including one about the true identity and intentions of the math guy, all of which come together neatly with the punch of a keyboard key. LaPaglia, whose face can turn from calm to fierce on a dime, is powerful as a banker you most certainly don't want tending your account.
REDBELT (2008)
In David Mamet’s latest film, Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a small-time jujitsu instructor with an unyielding sense of honor that kicks in when a jittery lawyer (Emily Mortimer) inadvertently causes a ruckus at his street-front dojo. From there, the plot unfolds in several directions, with an oppressive sense of inevitability overriding a clear, linear plotline. Mike's business is failing, as his wife (Alice Braga) curtly informs him, and the problems caused by the dojo incident puts the redbelt into deep red. A chance encounter with a drunken, slumming Hollywood star (Tim Allen, in a surprisingly fine dramtic performance) brings financial relief, but unfortunately, that turns out to be only a brief allusion. The instructor's brother-in-law, a sleazy fight promoter, tries to get Mike involved in a pro mixed-martial-arts tournament, but Mike's scruples again come into play. As with the best of Mamet's scripts, it’s initially unclear where any of this is going, but then all the threads suddenly, thunderously collide. The film unravels a bit in the last few moments amid unanswered story questions and a simplistic, ROCKY-style climax. But until that moment, REDBELT is Mamet's richest film of the decade and worth a look, whether you're into martial arts or not.
ALEXANDRA'S PROJECT (2003)
Directed by Aussie auteur Rolf de Heer, this psychological thriller takes place on what begins a very good day for Steve. It's his birthday, and later he gets both an office party and a big promotion. In high spirits, he arrives home expecting a surprise party, but what's waiting for him in the dark, deserted house is gift-wrapped videotape. Making himself comfortable in his easy chair, he plays it. It starts out pleasantly enough with his wife offering a toast and doing a strip. Steve is pleasantly surprised and titillated at first. But when his naked wife abruptly switches to a bitter diatribe about how desperately unhappy she is, and suddenly points a gun first toward him and then at her own temple, Steve's hopes for a fun evening turn to shock and fear, especially when he discovers all the light bulbs are missing, and all the locks have been changed, trapping him inside the inside-locking, burglar-proof house. And those are just the first in a series of jolts, revelations and mind games Steve is subjected to as his wife as she ennerates in her ever-nastier TV monologue all the sins he's committed during their marriage and which have driven her to this revenge. Basically one long real-time scene between a woman on a TV screen and her husband watching her, this is not a particularly good movie, but its intensity will hold your attention and make you think twice about cheating on your spouse and surprise birthday parties.
REVERSIBLE ERROR (2004)
A well-made TV movie based on Scott Turow's novel about an attorney who is handed a death row case in the 11th hour and then discovers his client, a semi-retarded man accused of a triple homicide, is innocent. The film story is lengthy and complex but never boring. But engaging as the plot is, it's the characters and their relationships that keep us interested. The four main characters are totally different, non-stereotypical personalities: the inexperienced but overly ambitious prosecuting attorney (Monica Potter), the introverted and ethical defending attorney (William H. Macy), the erratic but well-intentioned ex-judge (Felicity Huffman, Macy's real-life wife), and the experienced, well-intentioned but not totally ethical cop (Tom Selleck). We get to know each character in depth as they interact each plot twist and with each other in a complex and evil web. (Trivia note: A reversible error in law is an error by the trier of law (judge) or the trier of fact (the jury or the judge if it is a bench trial), or malfeasance by one of the trying attorneys, which results in an unfair trial.)
YOU KILL ME
Tom (Luke Wilson), commenting on Frank's admission to his AA group that he is an alcoholic and a career hit man: “Actually, it went better than you think.”
Laurel (Tea Leoni): “How do you know they won't tell the police?”
Frank (Ben Kingsley): “It's Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Tom: “Somehow I don't really feel that's what they had in mind when they came up with the name. But you never know.”
_____
Stef (Marcus Thomas), Frank’s cousin: “Look, I know you think you know Frank pretty well, but there's probably a few things you're not gonna wanna hear.”
Laurel (Leoni): “Like that he came back to Buffalo to kill Edward O'Leary so he could stop him and the rest of the Irish from getting into bed with some Chinese sugar daddy and wiping your family off the map? Oh, and he's a really big drunk.”
Stef: “Wow! He's really opening up.”
YOU KILL ME (2007)
Movies about hit men who grow on you are as easy to find these days as an unregistered gun. In YOU KILL ME, Frank (Ben Kingsley) is a grumpy, Buffalo-based contract killer with a taste for gin as well as whacking for dollars. Tapped to make a hit that will ensure the power of Mob his boss-uncle (Philip Baker Hall, the hyper library cop in "Seinfeld"), he winds up falling asleep on the job. Displeased, to say the least, his boss sends Frank to San Francisco with orders to join AA and get sober, or risk getting fired permanently. Frank goes, but not gracefully. At first it's rough going, but over the course of his "vacation" he finds a sponsor who becomes a friend (Luke Wilson), stops drinking (most of the time), excels in a respectable job (sort of – preparing corpses in a funeral home), and falls in love with another AA-er (Lea Teoni) who learns to overlook his peccadilloes and even helps him fix the mess he created back in Buffalo – none of it without complications, of course.
IN BRUGES (2008)
Novice hit man Ray (Colin Farrell) bungles his first job in the worst possible way. As punishment, Ray's high-strung, foul-mouthed boss Harry banishes him and his senior partner Ken (Brendan Gleeson) to the quaint Belgian city of Bruges, ordering them to wait for further instructions (which shall not be revealed here). For Ken, Bruges is a quaint place for sight-seeing and R&R. But for Ray, it's just 'fucking' Bruges, the last place on earth he wants to be. Morose, withdrawn and guilt-ridden, Ray contemplates suicide, but then he meets a beautiful young woman ... but that's another subplot. Bruges is the capital and largest city in the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, but it’s far too small to contain all the problems these two schlubs create for the locals and for themselves. This well- acted, dark comedy-tragedy is a treat to eyes and ears, but be prepared to hear the f-word and its derivatives 126 times, an average of 1.18 times per minute!
NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950) Noir place to hide
Film noir is often about guys who are dead – they just don’t know it yet. Take Hary Fabian, the poor doomed schnook in Jules Dassin’s classic.
FORCE OF EVIL (1948)
John Garfield (born Jacob Julius Garfinkle), who died of heart failure at 39, was one of America’s great stage and film actors. He's especially good in this highly literate exposé of the New York City numbers racket written and directed by Abraham Polonsky. Joe Morse (Garfield) is a Mob lawyer working for a crime boss hell-bent on consolidating the city's numbers rackets into one large "legal" lottery. Defying the big boss’s wishes is Joe's older brother Leo (Thomas Gomez), an "honest" small-time, independent bookie who cares more about his employees than profits and refuses to sell out to the Mob. What follows are tragic events that force Joe, a man with a buried conscience, to realize just how low he's fallen. It's noir as good as it gets. (Trivia notes: Be sure to check out the wonderful performances of Garfield in in BETWEEN TWO WORDS, GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT, and BODY AND SOUL.)
NIGHT AND THE CITY (1992) Good. But noir way good as the original
As remakes of classic noir films go – and for my taste, most of them can’t go away fast enough – Hollywood's version of NIGHT AND THE CITY is entertaining enough, due mainly to snappy acting by veterans Jack Warden, Cliff Gorman and Alan King (sadly, now all deceased) and some role shuffling and plot simplification. But it ain’t noir or even particularly noirish. Jules Dassin’s 42-year old version hit the noir nail right on the head in mood and setting, but this version's director, Irwin Winkler, clearly toadied to '90s tastes and probably committee pressure by turning Harry Fabian, originally played by Richard Widmark and in this version by Robert De Niro, from a rat into a likable and well-meaning rascal, and switching the original ending from tragedy to just this side of comedy. The black-and-white original you'll never forget – the Technicolor remake, fuhgetaboutit!
THE HITCH-HIKER (1953)
Two average Joes (Edmond O’Brien, Frank Lovejoy) on weekend R&R make the mistake of their lives when they pick up a psychotic hitch-hiker (William Talman), who takes over their car and their lives at gunpoint. In a creepy noir touch, the creep's right eye doesn't close – even when he sleeps! – so the guys never know for sure whether their abductor is watching them, which makes escape rather dicey. Family men at home, the hostages are forced to make some hard decisions on the road. All three actors are excellent, and the suspense runs high from start to finish. (Trivia note: William Talman, with both his eyes intact, later starred as District Attorney Hamilton Burger on the long-running TV series Perry Mason.)
SECONDS (1966) Rock rocks!
Famous for breezy ‘50/'60s comedies, Rock Hudson gives the best dramatic performance of his career in this Twilight Zone-ish parable about man's search for identity. A bored banker (character actor John Randolph) buys a totally new identity from a mysterious organization (headed by '40s noir star, Jeff Corey). After various surgeries and procedures, middle-aged Randolph turns to a youthful-looking Rock. Enthusiastically plunging into his new existence, he falls for a beautiful, free-spirited woman; takes up painting; and starts partying. All seems well. But then he finds he has no talent for painting, misses his wife, goes around blabbing his secret to others. The final blow comes when he discovers that his youthful lover has secrets of her own. which forces the "organization" to get rid of Hudson in a most horrifying and depressing way. Though not billed as a film noir, SECONDS certainly feels like one with its stark black and white lighting, off-kilter camera angles, and an average Joe duped by Fate and his own weaknesses. Not to be missed. (Trivia note: Watch for the party scene when Rock and others are drunkenly stomping grapes in a large wine barrel. Hudson, an extremely fastidious man, strongly resisted doing this scene but was persuaded by director John Frankenheimer to do it for the integrity of the story. In the first part of the scene, Hudson is obviously uncomfortable, but soon you can see him really getting into it. And according to reports on the set, he really did.)
SCARLET STREET (1945)
Fritz Lang’s SCARLET STREET is classic noir laced with patches of black humor. Retired and retiring bank clerk Chris Cross (Edward G. Robinson) has a gold watch and little else to show for his 25 years of dutiful service. Unappreciated by his shrewish wife, he falls for an enticing woman named Kitty (Joan Bennett) and leads her to believe he's a wealthy artist, though actually he's only an amateur painter. Kitty's sleazy boyfriend Johnny (Dan Duryea) gets her to maneuver lovesick Cross into setting her up in an apartment (with his wife's money). There, away from dull married life and fueled by his passion for Kitty, he begins to paint masterpieces, which unbeknownst to him, Johnny sells to galleries under Kitty's name. The results are both disastrous and ironic – in other words, totally noirish. Robinson, famous for playing sadistic hoodlums throughout the ‘30s and ‘40s, is fine as the cultured Chris Cross – and beautiful Joan Bennett, who had co-starred with Robinson and Duryea the year before in another noir thriller directed by Lang, THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW, makes a fetching femme fatale.
LIGHT AND SHADOW
Film noir is characterized by chiaroscuro lighting (the dramatic use of light and shade); night scenes, sometimes in glistening wet streets, blocks of shadow on the face hinting at an unrevealed “dark side”) and bars of shadow from Venetian blinds or windows, conveying a sense of being trapped; and claustrophobic or unbalanced camera framing.
SUDDEN FEAR (1952)
In SUDDEN FEAR, Joan Crawford is Myra Hudson, a wealthy heiress-playwright who at first rejects the advances of the romantic lead in her latest play, then falls in love with him. They marry, and all seems cozy … until a sexpot (Gloria Grahame) shows up, the actor's ex-partner in crime and under the covers. Resuming their affair, the two plot to get hold of Myra's money (which, ironically, Myra has already bequeathed him). Myra remains blissfully unaware of this … until she discovers a recording on her dictation machine of the pair's plans. This scene is both fascinating and painful to watch. We see Crawford's Myra, often in extreme close-up, reacting first in disbelief, then confusion, then grief, all of which culminates with her running to the bathroom to throw up. Imagine the skill and bravery required for such nakedness! Requiring a similar range of emotions is a breakfast scene between Myra and and her faithless husband after she has laid awake all night planning revenge. It starts with duplicitous, lovingly inane "good mornings," and then he asks, "Aren't you going to kiss me?" Myra does, and then says, the irony perhaps lost on him but not us: "I was just wondering what I'd done to deserve you." She then smiles at him, and as she turns and walks toward the camera, out of his view, her smile fades to grim disgust. It's a classic Crawford moment. What makes this film ultimately so memorable is not necessarily the plot (which can occasionally seem implausible) nor the camera tricks (which, especially in the fantasy sequence, looks dated today), but rather Joan Crawford's performance. And as a well-deserved acknowledgment of her acting talents, she was nominated for her third, and final, Oscar for FEAR, a movie which almost makes me the Crawford fan I never was.
WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS (1950) ...trouble begins. Noir-turally
Otto Preminger directed four noir films at Fox, all terrific. Setting aside the peerless LAURA as more psychological mystery-romance than noir, there's plenty of evidence for judging WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS the best of the lot (the other two being FALLEN ANGEL and WHIRLPOOL). This is a hard-edged tale of a borderline-vicious New York police detective, Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews), with tortuous personal reasons for overzealousness in pursuing the bad guys. Much of the story unfolds in one night, when the murder of a high-roller from out of town precipitates a string of events that lead to Dixon's becoming an accidental murderer. True to noir tradition, an innocent man is implicated, and Dixon's moral and psychological torment kicks in. Tightly scripted by Ben Hecht, who provided noir scripts for many directors, Preminger's film isn't up to the quality of Nicholas Ray's ON DANGEROUS GROUND, another 1950 noir about a cop (Robert Ryan) addicted to ultraviolence, but it's first-rate. Tight-lipped and taciturn, Andrews is a sort older and rougher version of the cop he played in LAURA. In fact he's reunited with his co-star from LAURA, Gene Tierney, who plays a woman caught in the sidewash of sordid goings-on, and LAURA cameraman Joseph La Shelle, whose gives the film a luster beyond the accustomed semidocumentary look of Fox noirs. Gary Merrill, usually a bland nice-guy, chews scenery as as Dixon's nasty gangland foe Tommy Scalise, a homoerotic villain with a menthol inhaler as fetish object. Their encounters are brutal and fun to watch. The ending is pure Hollywood, but with a nice noirish twist.
IN BRUGES (2008)
Ray (Colin Farrell), in the movie's opening voiceover:
“After I killed him, I dropped the gun in the Thames, washed the residue off me hands in the bathroom of a Burger King, and walked home to await instructions. Shortly thereafter the instructions came through – ‘Get the fuck out of London, you dumb fucks. Get to Bruges.’ I didn't even know where Bruges fucking was. [pause] It's in Belgium.”
"I was misinformed." CASABLANCA
Renault (Claude Rains): "What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?"
Rick (Bogart): "My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters."
Renault: "Waters? What waters? We're in the desert."
Rick: "I was misinformed."
PANIC
Sammy (Alex’s son): “Dad... When can I get a guitar?”
Alex (William H. Macy): “When you've mastered the harmonica.”
Sammy: “When can I get an electric guitar?”
Alex: “When you've got your own house.”
PANIC (2000)
How many times have we heard a midlife crisis-sufferer say he'd kill for a better job? In PANIC, Alex (William H. Macy) really means it. He's a contract killer indentured to the man who taught him the business, his dad! (Donald Sutherland). Trying to work up the nerve to quit, Alex starts seeing a psychologist (John Ritter). Of course, in Alex's line of work, spilling one's guts to outsiders is drastically career-limiting, so now Alex has been ordered to bump off the hapless therapist. PANIC treats us to a few smiley face moments such as when Alex and the young son he adores share bedtime bonding time, and when Alex, seeking a bit of excitement outside his dull marriage, falls for a young fellow therapy patient (Neve Campbell). But when Alex’s father, looking to add future head count to the family business, gives his six-year old grandson his first lesson in killing (a squirrel) – the same lesson Alex got at the same tender age – things turn very, very dark. Macy, portraying a man struggling with 40 years' worth of suppressed rage, and the patrician-looking Sutherland, seemingly the perfect Grandfather until we see him violently lose his temper over some spilt model plane glue, make each of their characters too real for comfort.
THE CHEYENNE SOCIAL CLUB (1970)
Harley (Henry Fonda): “Did I ever tell ya how my Uncle Charlie got stoved up?"
John (Jimmy Stewart), sighing: “No, Harley.”
Harley: “His home set right out in the prairie. One day he went in the outhouse and got caught right in the middle of a stampede. When he went in there wasn't a cow in sight. A few minutes later, 365 longhorns ran over him. Broke him up something terrrible. That was 19 years ago and he's still constipated.”
__________
Harley: “I've eaten mighty good food in my life, but this weren't part of it.”
Cook: “Yeah, well, I ain't heard no complaints from none of the others.”
Harley: “Yeah, well, they ain't as well-bred as I am.”
TWO RODE TOGETHER
Jesus: “Senor, the widow Gomez has delivered a son this morning, a boy.”
Marshal Guthrie McCabe (Jimmy Stewart): “Bully for the widow Gomez!”
Jesus: “But senor, it has been more than a year ago since Senor Antonio Gomez has been buried in the church house.”
McCabe: “Well, there are some men you just can't trust to stay where you put 'em.”
"I don't want you to kill him, Jack, I just want you to bury him. If he dies in the process, that's his problem."
Mona, tossing a shovel to Jack, in ROMEO IS BLEEDING.
THE THIRD MAN The famous ferris wheel scene
Lime (Orson Welles): "In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. S' long, Holly."
ROMEO IS BLEEDING
Jack Grimaldi (Gary Oldman), talking to Mona in his rear-view mirror: “So you're the big hoodlum? Personally, I don't see it.”
Mona Demarkov (Lena Olin): “Keep lookin'.”
ROMEO IS BLEEDING (1993) Quentin Tarantino meets Raymond Chandler
In '40s noir flicks, you don't often see blood, both because they were shot in black and white and because of Code restrictions. But in the colorful neo-noir ROMEO IS BLEEDING, you get lots of the red stuff. You also get lots of Chandler-esque twists as in, say, THE BIG SLEEP (1946), with Bogart playing private eye Philip Marlowe. In ROMEO, Jack Gramaldi (Gary Oldman) is no straight-up dick; he's a corrupt cop who splits his time between guarding state witnesses and ratting out their secret whereabouts to the Mob on their secret whereabouts, while building a sizable nestegg and keeping his double life hidden from his wife and teenage mistress. It all begins to unravel when Jack is blackmailed to displatch Mona Demarkov (Lena Olin), a statuesque female Russian assassin who oozes sex, danger, and more than her share of testoserone. Trouble is, he can’t decide whether to kill her ... or drill her. Oldman and Olin are terrific in their roles, and it's dandy fun watching a bad cop you can't help but like trying to survive (though we know from scene one that he will).
THE GENE KRUPA STORY (1959)
In the otherwise bio-degradable bioflick THE GENE KRUPA STORY, Sal Mineo’s energetic portrayal of the iconic, gum-chewing drummer is noteworthy, especially for his drumming, which the 20-year old actor learned for the film! Look at the clips below, and see how Krupa-like Mineo is – from his mouthing of the beats as he bangs, to hair flying and face blurring during his solos, right down to the little twirls he gives his sticks high in the air. It's Krupa on the soundtrack, but Mineo is channeling his style. (Trivia notes: In the early '60s I saw Krupa in person playing at Birdland in Times Square. As far away as I was from the aging star, I was dazzled. Sadly, the man who captured that energy in THE GENE KRUPA STORY was killed in a 1976 robbery gone bad. Mineo was only 37.)
Mineo playing Krupa playing
The real Krupa playing
THE 4th DIMENSION (2006)
The big question in THE 4TH DIMENSION is – what's up with Jack? Is the eccentric, OC-disordered young man a genius headed toward solving the mystery of time – or – is his head simply rattling with loose screws? The answer comes in the final, frenzied 10 minutes when, a la WIZARD OF OZ, the film morphs from black and white to color (though the landscape Jack enters is no place for Dorothy and Toto!). You'll need stamina to stick through the often confusing narrative with its repeated flashbacks to Jack's traumatic childhood, but if you're up for German Expressionist-like cinematography and intense acting, it's worth your time.
LARS AND THE REAL GIRL
Lars (Ryan Gosling): “You don't care.”
Karin (Emily Mortimer): “That is just not true! God! Every person in this town bends over backward to make Bianca feel at home. Why do you think she has so many places to go and so much to do? Huh? Huh? Because of you! Because - all these people - love you! We push her wheelchair. We drive her to work. We drive her home. We wash her. We dress her. We get her up, and put her to bed. We carry her. And she is not petite, Lars. Bianca is a big, big girl! None of this is easy - for any of us - but we do it... Oh! We do it for you! So don't you dare tell me how we don't care.” [walks into house and slams door]
LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (2007)
Lonely and emotionally stunted Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling) develops a close, loving relationship with a beautiful young woman from South America, with one small hitch: she’s a life-sized plastic doll! His sympathetic doctor soon figures out that “Bianca,” whom Lars takes everywhere in a wheel chair, is a substitute for a real girl that he both yearns and fears opening up to. The plot of LARS AND THE REAL GIRL could have been played for sleaze or cheap laughs, but thanks to a sensitive script and fine direction and acting, it's a sweet, gently humorous journey of self discovery for our repressed hero, as well as for his friends, family, and most notably, a young co-worker, a real doll, who adores him from afar, idiosyncrasies and all, and whom we knew right from the start was a far better match for him than the inflated one.
THE FUGITIVE KIND
Carol (Joanne Woodward), mischievously: “Jukin'? Oh! Well, that's when you get in a car, which is preferably open in any kind of weather. And then you drink a little bit and you drive a little bit, and then you stop and you dance a little bit with a jukebox. And then you drink a little bit more and you drive a little bit more, you stop and you dance a little bit more to another juke box! And then you stop dancing and you just drink and you drive. And then, you stop driving.”
THE FUGITIVE KIND (1959)
THE FUGITIVE KIND, based on the Tennessee Williams play, takes patience to get through the often molasses-slow pacing and soliloquy-tinged dialogue. But the high-calibre of acting rewards your patience. Drifter Val(entine) 'Snakeskin' Xavier (Brando) lands in a hick country town where the sadistic sheriff (R.G. Armstrong) takes an instant dislike to him upon learning that his wife (Maureen Stapleton) has helped the stranger get a job. Val’s new boss lady is Lady Torrance (Anna Magnani), who is tending the general goods store while her tyrannical husband Jabe (Victor Jory) lies dying upstairs. Town tramp (Joanne Woodward) lusts for virile Val, but rejects her in favor of lonely Lady, who then becomes pregnant. The outcome of all this is, to say the least, quite unpleasant. Never was there a better cast. Brando. At 35, was starting to show a bit of the extra weight that would eventually get out of control. But if he wasn't quite so lean as he had been in his film debut 10 years earlier in THE MEN, in no way does this detract from his weighty performance as the sexy, sultry, moody, macho Val. Woodward, as the wayward woman, delivers an incredibly sensual performance without ever taking off a stitch! Jory plays the snake to a tee. And Stapelton, the original Lady on Broadway, is touching in the less flashy part of the sheriff's bedraggled wife. Only Magnani, magnificent actor as she is, is a problem. Her gravy-thick Italian accent is difficult to understand, and in fact, sometimes sounds looped. Fortunately, her expressive face tells us all we need to know.
BEYOND SUSPICION, aka AUGIE ROSE (2000)
BEYOND SUSPICION (originally titled AUGIE ROSE but nonsensically retitled for video release) is an exploration of one man's external and internal journey into a new and wildly different lifestyle. John Nolan (Jeff Goldblum), a well-off yuppie insurance salesman, witnesses the death by gunshot of a deli clerk, an ex-con named Augie Rose, and then fixates on learning all he can about the man's life. Bit by bit, Nolan assumes identity, even to the point of falling for the young woman (Anne Heche) who had corresponded with him while he was in prison and now is in town to hook up. Nolan's new life becomes increasingly complicated, but increasingly we understand his obsession. This is thanks to both the script and Goldblum's sensitive. And Heche strikes just the right note as a sweet, kind, but not altogether naive woman who loves the man she believes is Augie. They, and an excellent supporting cast of quirky characters, make this a intresting film.
STEEL TOES (2006) Sparks fly when Jewish attorney defends neo-Nazi murderer
None too gingerly, STEEL TOES explores the clash of wills and ideals between a court-appointed Jewish attorney and the heavily tatted prisoner he reluctantly agrees to defend, a neo-Nazi Skinhead on trial for a racially motivated murder. Confronting religious and racial intolerance, the conflicted Jewish liberal humanist and the fanatical racist struggle to form an alliance despite their wildly opposing beliefs and sensibilities in this thought-provoking exploration of hatred and forgiveness. As the lawyer, David Strathairn, an exceptional but undervalued actor, once again demonstrates his remarkable talent. Andrew Walker fills the lethal steel-tipped boots of the Skinhead role superbly. Like another film on the same brutal subject, AMERICAN HISTORY X, (1998), STEEL TOES should be required viewing in schools, for as the Skinhead tells the judge at his trial, not only is he to blame, but also society. Trailer
THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN (2005)
After more than 100 movies, plus stage roles and TV appearances too numerous to count, Anthony Hopkins, like that energetic battery hare, just keeps goin’ and goin’. One of his most pleasant recent roles is Burt Munro (1899-1978), the legendary speed bike racer from New Zealand who also kept goin’ and goin'. THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN tells how, in the early '50s, the likeable if eccentric 67-year old finally realized his lifelong goal of speed-testing his then-46 year old “Indian” motorcycle at the Bonneville Salt Flats – and wound up setting an under-1000 cc world motorcycle land speed record, unbeaten to this day. Sure, the film is syrupy enough for pancakes, the number of lucky breaks and coincidences an assault on credulity, but who cares? – it's inspirational as all get-out. Munro defies the sour sentiment of Bette Davis' quote, "Old age isn't for sissies;" likewise, Hopkins, now older than Munro was when he clocked 200-plus mph at the Salt Flats, is still blessing us with one lovely performance after another. In this, he's simply wonderful, as is the large supporting cast of colorful characters Munro meets and who befriend him in his quest to be the best, although the script makes it clear, for this speed demon, speed was less important than never stopping – a lesson for all of us.
EASTERN PROMISES (2007) You don't want to f**k with the Russian Mafia
If throat slicing leaves you cold, skip David Cronenberg's crime drama/mystery thriller, EASTERN PROMISES (2007), about life, death, debauchery and betrayal in the treacherous world of the Russian Mafia. But if you admire fine acting, promise you'll see it for Viggo Mortensen's tightly coiled portrayal of a mob boss’s driver, an enigmatic man with both a hidden agenda and many tattoos. Naomi Watts co-stars as a British midwife who crosses paths with Mortensen's character. (Trivia note: Ms. Watts gets her genes from Miv and Peter Watts, she an antiques dealer and costume and set designer; he, a road manager and sound engineer who worked with the Brit group Pink Floyd. That's Peter's maniacal laugh and Miv's line, "Cruisin' for a bruisin,'" that you hear in the group’s classic “The Dark Side of the Moon.”)
BLAST OF SILENCE (1961) Worthy heir to classic noir
Somewhere between classic film noir of the '40s/'50s and "The Sopranos" lies BLAST OF SILENCE, a lean and compelling psychological portrait of a hit man, shot on a shoestring budget and now considered "a rediscovered masterpiece." Accompanied by an avant-jazz soundtrack and hard-boiled, second-person narration, Frankie Bono wanders the cold streets of Manhatten at Christmastime, repelled by human contact, though briefly attracted to a girl he once knew. Writer/director Allen Baron stepped into the lead when his pal Peter Falk took another film, and while not an experienced actor, Baron brought just the right mix of defensiveness and yearning to the role. BLAST OF SILENCE features stylishly framed and lit images and sharp, staccato editing, combined with a documentary feel to the settings and performances. If you're a noir buff, you're in for a blast. (Trivia notes: Baron wrote the script but not the gritty narration that thrusts us so neatly into the mind of the recicent killer; that was penned by Oscar-winning Waldo Salt, the once-blacklisted author of such hyper-dramatic films as MIDNIGHT COWBOY, SERPICO, and COMING HOME. The voiceover was supplied by an uncredited character actor, gravel-voiced Lionel Stander, who had also been blacklisted. Oh, and check the insert above – Baron looked enough like actor George C. Scott to be his brother.) More on BLAST
“I'm the only man in the world with a marriage license made out to whom it may concern" Down the aisle with Mickey Rooney
1. Ava Gardner (1942-1943) (divorced)
2. Betty Jane Rase (1944-1948) (divorced)
3. Martha Vickers (1948-1951) (divorced)
4. Elaine Mahnken (1952-1958) (divorced)
5. Barbara Ann Thomason (1958-1966) (murdered)
6. Marge Lane (1967-1967) (divorced after only 100 days)
7. Carolyn Hockett (1969-1974) (divorced)
8. Jan Chamberlin (1978-present)
THE COMEDIAN (1957) Pint-sized führer fomates constant furor
THE COMEDIAN, written by Rod Serling and directed by John Frankenheimer for Playhouse 90, is a searing, behind-the-camera look at the grubby side of TV. Exhilarating to both eye and ear, it's a testament to the power and creativity television had in the '50s to tell stories as forcefully as theatrical films – a capability which commercialism has steadily chipped away over the years. NETWORK (1976), which tells that story, was also scripted in blood by Serling). Mickey Rooney, quite possibly giving the best performance of his long and still extant career, plays Sammy Hogarth, short of statue, long of wind – an egomaniacal TV comedian who demands perfection from everyone who knows or works for him. His main targets are his spineless brother (singer Mel Torme), indentured for life as Sammy's personal toady; and his head writer (Edmond O'Brien), who in desperation to please his ravenous boss has plagiarized material from a dead comic. The story is told mainly from O'Brien's point of view, and we honestly feel for him as he digs himself into an ever-deeper hole trying to hold on to his job and his self-respect. Rooney portrays Sammy in grand, scenery-chewing style as a pitiless powerhouse so frantic to win the undying love of his fans that he'll do anything to achieve that end. Yet, s.o.b. that he is, he still manages to come off as a three-dimensional human being, thanks to the brilliance of Serling's writing and Rooney's acting. The entire cast is remarkable, including Torme, O’Brien, Kim Hunter and King Donovan, all obviously so well tuned to their roles that they seem to move past mere acting and create gestures and expressions that make you feel you're watching real people, not just great line-readers. And get this: they were filmed live – no retakes. This is drama as good as it gets. (Trivia note: Rooney, a famously fanatical philanderer, purportedly brought many ladies to the casting sessions and had them cast as dancers and extras. Sammy would approved.) Available at Netflix.
WALK THE LINE (2005) 20 years in the colorful life of The Man in Black
Hollywood "biopics" unreel on thin ice. The star playing the star too often merely goes for impersonation, which, good as that may be, tends to draw attention to the mechanics of the performance rather than the truth of the character. Also, true-life events depicted on the big screen, necessarily dramatized, often play like fiction even when based on fact. WALK THE LINE mostly avoids those pitfalls. Chronicling country music legend Johnny Cash's life from his early days on an Arkansas cotton farm to his emergence as the Man in Black and marriage to June Carter, it's a big, bold, truth-ringing film that left me wanting it not to end. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, as Cash and June, respectively, are remarkable. Phoenix totally immerses himself into the big man's skin, channeling his deep baritone and such Cashisms as slinging the guitar onto his back, talking and singing out of the side of his mouth, his hunched-up style of strumming and leaning into the microphone, and his big-footed gait. More significantly, he makes us feel what we can believe Cash was feeling through all the ups and downs. Equally impressive is Witherspoon, who, like Phoenix, does her own singing (their duets are a joy). Her energetic, touching performance earned an Oscar. I enjoyed WALK THE LINE enough to watch it twice in a row. It reminded me of how much a fan of Cash I had been growing up. View this video. The song is called "Hurt," and trust me, it'll nick your soul.
SHADOWLANDS (1985) The place where real life hasn't begun
This BBC-TV production version chronicles the profound and painful love affair of British author C.S. Lewis and American poet Joy Gresham – but with more walking and talking, and greater depth, than the '93 film (see below). Claire Bloom is the cancer-stricken Joy, better cast and a better actress than Debra Winger in the later version, and the basso-throated Joss Ackland is "Jack," portraying him as more outgoing and outspoken than does Anthony Hopkins. Ackland and Bloom and the superb supporting cast make this 73 of the most rewarding minutes you’ll ever spend in front of a TV screen. (Trivia note: The title is taken from the final chapter of the final book in Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" and refers to what the author called "The place where real life –i.e., love, pain, and suffering – hasn't begun.")
CASHBACK
Ben: “I've always wanted to be a painter, maybe have my work hung in a gallery one day.”
Sharon: “I've always wanted to meet a painter.”
Ben: “Why?”
Sharon: “I think it might have something to do with their ability to see beauty in everything.”
CASHBACK (2006) Time for love
A sweet, quirky lesson on the timeless magic of love. When art student Ben Willis gets dumped by his girlfriend, he develops insomnia. To pass the long nights, he goes to work at the local supermarket, in effect getting cash back for his extra waking hours. There he meets a crew of colorful characters, each with his or her own way of handling the boredom of working at night. Ben does it by imagining himself able to stop time, and thus linger between seconds to appreciate and capture on drawing paper the artistic beauty of the frozen world and the people in it. His favorite model is Sharon, the quiet checkout girl in whose company he discovers true love. British.
SHADOWLANDS (1993)
Directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, SHADOWLANDS is a fiction-sprinkled biographical film, the screenplay of which is based on William Nicholson’s own 1985 TV production and 1989 stage adaptation. Set in Cambridge and London in the '50s, the film focuses on reserved, middle aged bachelor C. S. “Jack” Lewis, an Oxford University academic and author of Narnia" books, and his relationship with divorced American poet Joy Gresham and her young son. What begins as a formal meeting of two very different minds slowly develops into intense feelings of connection and love, with each providing the other new ways of viewing the world. Initially, their marriage is one of convenience, a platonic union designed to allow Joy to remain in England. But when she becomes gravely ill, deeper feelings surface, and Lewis' faith is tested as his wife works to prepare him for the pain to come. Debra Winger is very good as the outgoing Joy, and as the repressed Lewis, Anthony Hopkins once again demonstrates his power as one of the greatest actors our time. (Trivia note: The title is taken from the final chapter of the final book in "The Chronicles of Narnia" and is, says Lewis, "The place where real life hasn't begun.") More
MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY
Captain Bligh (Charles Laughton), talking to a seaman about to be flogged for a minor infraction: “What's your name?”
Seaman Thomas Ellison: “Thomas Ellison, sir. Pressed into service. I've got a wife, a baby!”
Captain Bligh: “I asked your name, not the history of your misfortunes.”
MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1936) Christian vs. Bligh on seas high
Was ever a tale better fitted for film – the real-life 1789 mutiny aboard the Royal Navy ship Bounty led by Fletcher Christian against the ship's captain, William Bligh, as were ever two actors better fitted for their roles: Charles Laughton as the sadistic Bligh, and Clark Gable the heroic Christian? MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY was one of the biggest hits of its time and remains a classic today. Its historical accuracy is in question, but there's no question among critics that this is the best of five films based on the event. A 1962 remake, starring Marlon Brando as Christian and Trevor Howard as Bligh, sunk in critical and financial waters at the time, but has come to be reevaluated by critics. A lavish remake in 1984 titled simply THE BOUNTY starred Mel Gibson as Christian opposite Anthony Hopkins as Bligh. It is considered to be the closest to historical events and gives a far more sympathetic view of Bligh. But in this reviewer’s opinion, while both remakes are well worth seeing (especially Brando’s in which he plays Christian as a total fop), neither tops the Gable-Laughton version, which itself was preceded by two films based on the novel (1916, 1933). (Trivia note: In the '36 film, actors James Cagney and David Niven, and singer Dick Haymes, appeared briefly as uncredited extras.)
THE FRESHMAN
Clark Kellogg (Matthew Broderick), nervously: "Is that a picture of Mussolini over there on the wall?"
Carmine Sabatini (Marlon Brando), chuckling: "It ain't Tony Bennett."
RED BUTTONS (1919 - 2006) Missing Buttons
During at least its first season in 1952, “The Red Buttons Show” was a Tuesday night must-see for us first-generation TV viewers; in fact, a line from a comic bit RED BUTTONS performed weekly – “Strange things are happening!” – became a national catch-phrase. I can still see my dad guffawing when the diminutive red-headed comic cupped his hand to his right ear, did a little shuffle, and made goofy observations. But starting in its second season, ratings started to sag, and three years from its debut, the show was cancelled. But thankfully, we didn’t lose our Buttons. Red made a smooth leap to the big screen, and an Oscar in 1957 cemented his character actor status.
Red's career began long before TV, of course. Born Aaron Chwatt in New York City in 1919, he performed on street corners when he was a kid. Burlesque theater owners discovered him and made him the youngest comedian on the comedy circuit. Playing in the Catskills and on Broadway before being drafted in 1943, Red made his film debut in WINGED VICTORY (1944). Billed as "Cpl. Red Buttons," he recreated a part he originated on Broadway alongside other budding stars, including Karl Malden, Judy Holliday and Lee J. Cobb. He returned to show business in 1946, performing mainly on Broadway before landing on TV.
Red's chance to prove himself as a dramatic actor came in 1957 when famed director Joshua Logan cast him SAYONARA, starrring Marlon Brando. He delivered an achingly sensitive performance as a soldier in post-World War II Japan who enters into a tragic marriage with a Japanese woman, played by Miyoshi Umeki. The role earned him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (co-star Umeki also won an Oscar, the first Asian to do so). SAYONARA is dated today, but it's Red's performance, not Brando's, that holds up.
In the years that followed, Red appeared in (and brightened) such films as THE LONGEST DAY, HARLOW, THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY? (the latter two earned him Golden Globe nominations), and the cult favorite and commercial hit THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, in which he was one of five Oscar-winning cast members. In HATARI (1962), he was a joy to watch, more than holding his own against no less than bigger-than-life John Wayne.
Red’s film career lost steam in the ‘70s, but he continued to work non-stop in TV, appearing in the '70s (“The Love Boat,” “Fantasy Island”), '80s (“The Cosby Show”,” Knots Landing”)), and into the '90s in sitcoms and dramas. His recurring character in ER, Jules Rubadoux, earned him an Emmy nomination in 2005, but sadly would be his final role.
PRIMER (2004) Past and present tense
In PRIMER, two young engineers accidentally create a device that permits them to travel backwards in time for short periods. At first, Aaron and Abe use it only to benefit from the stock market, but the more they meddle with yesterdays, the messier grow their todays. Not an easy film to follow, but worth the effort for its unusual plot structure, complex (and overlapping) dialogue, and for not dumbing down its "hard" sci-fi premise about time travel and the paradoxes and problems that result. (Trivia notes: Filmed with a crew of five in only five weeks near Dallas, the film was produced for only $7,000. Shane Carruth, a former mathematician and engineer, served as writer, director, producer and cinematographer, as well as editor and music composer (using his home computer). He also stars as Aaron. While writing the script, he studied physics in order to make the technical jargon authentic.)
AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE (1962) and THE ENCOUNTER (1964) So you thought you'd seen every "Twilight Zone" episode, eh?
Rod Serling's original Zone intro
For your consideration ... two rare "Twilight Zone" episodes ... both well written and produced, both withheld from circulation for decades but now available.
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” - Based on a story by Ambrose Bierce – famous for his surprise endings – this is a harrowing tale about a man about to be hung for sabotage during the Civil War. Saved when the rope breaks, he escapes and makes his way through hazardous country, desperate to reach home and family. This isn't just a Southern state, it's Twilight Zone territory, so his journey's end turns out to be someplace very different. The film's somber mood is emphasized by the slow-motion movements of the soldiers, extreme close-ups of the man with the rope tight around his neck, black-and-white camerawork moving slowly between the noose, the water, trees, insects – and a haunting gospel song called "Living Man." This was the only episode ever produced abroad and outside the TZ production company, and it won a number of awards.
“The Encounter” - A caustic diatribe against war and dehumanizing military propaganda. It begins as WWII veteran (Neville Brand of STALAG 17, BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ, and TV’s “The Untouchables”), a racial bigot, reluctantly hires a Nisei handyman (George Takei of "Star Trek"). In the course of an emotional day, each man is strangely affected by the Japanese samurai sword that the vet keeps stored in his attic. Primal wounds and guilts surface, with deadly consequences. Almost totally absent of the usual Twilight Zone twists and turns, “The Encounter” is nonetheless riveting for its intense acting (Brand is uncomfortably convincing) and timeless/timely message. Interesting as the episode is, it was vaulted after only one telecast because everal Japanese-American organizations objected to Takei's character.)
HATARI! (1962)Wayne's world in Africa
Hatari means "danger" in Swahili, but danger mostly takes a back seat to fun and big game in Howard Hawks' good-humored African romp about a group of trappers, led by a hot-tempered but marshmallow-hearted Irishman (John Wayne), who round up hippos, elephants, giraffes, monkeys and whatnot and sell them to zoos. Life in the bush gets complicated when a beautiful woman photog shows up (Elsa Martinelli) and falls for confirmed bachelor Sean (Wayne), and what follows is safarifest of drinking, joshing, fisticuffs, and romantic sparring, and best of all, remarkable scenes of wild animal trapping filmed on location. Red Buttons (here called “Pockets”) is delightful as a Brooklyn cabbie in exile who serves as Wayne’s comic foil and periodic whipping boy. Martinelli is lovely, and Wayne is Wayne, and together, he Tarzan, she Jane. Safari as it goes, HATARI! is fine entertainment. (Bonus: a very cool soundtrack by Henry Mancini. The main theme is based around African drums under jazzy trumpets, with big band flourishes. Great!)
SYDNEY POLLACK (1934 - 2008) Credits where credits are due
(As an Oscar-winning director and producer)
"Out of Africa" "Tootsie," "Absence of Malice," "The Firm," "This Property Is Condemned," "Jeremiah Johnson," "Three Days of the Condor," "The Way We Were," "They Shoot Horses, Don't They," The Electric Horseman," "The Swimmer," and more.
(As a movie-TV actor)
"Tootsie," "Eyes Wide Shut," "Michael Clayton," "Husbands and Wives," "The Player," "Death Becomes Her," "Will & Grace, "The Sopranos," "Frasier," and "Mad About You," and more. His last screen appearance was in 2008's "Made of Honor."
YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH (2007) A narrative mess, but well Roth watching
The novella YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH is a love story laced with Jungian transcendentalism, mind/body dualism, time and origins, and destiny. Thanks to potent direction and acting by Frances Coppola and Tim Roth, respectively, it survives adaption for the screen ... barely. The action begins in 1938 Romania, where a 70-year old professor of language and philosophy, Dominic Matei (Roth) is contemplating suicide. The love of his youth is dead, and he knows he has neither the will nor time to complete his life's work on the origins of language. Ka-pow! – lightning strikes. Literally. Miraculously, Matei survives … then begins to grow younger … and then develops special abilities like being able to learn Chinese in days, read dreams, and perform telekinesis. But now he has to outrun Nazis who want to study him, so he flees the country and changes his identity. Decades pass. Now it's the ‘50s in America, and Matei meets a young woman whom he mentors through her own passage in time following a lightning storm. Not only does he rediscover love, he finds the key to his research through his lover's new abilities. Matei's dilemma: Should he surrender to the earthly pleasures of love and ethos, or use this second life to complete his magnum opus on the origins of human language? Romanian actress Alexandra Maria Lara plays both his lost love and his new one (who alternates between reincarnation and regression). Roth, playing dual roles as himself and himself, is superb. I strongly suggest you invest two hours to wade through this beautiful mess.
HOLE IN THE HEAD (1959)
With the right role and strong direction, Frank Sinatra could do fine acting, and in the schmaltzy comedy HOLE IN THE HEAD, he gets both: a plum part (a constantly broke wannabe big shot) and a legendary director (Frank Capra of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE). Plus, he gets to warble what became one of his signature songs, “High Hopes." Tony (Sinatra) is flat broke and not above a little scamming to get the cash to fund his high hopes. But more than making up for his deficiency of scruples is his love for a son (Eddie Hodges) who worships him. His high-minded big brother Mario (Edward G. Robinson) disapproves of Tony's swinging lifestyle but agrees to back him on the condition he settle down or give him custody of the boy. Does Tony give in to his brother’s tough terms? You have a hole in your head if you’re not willing to find out for yourself. Director Capra was smart. In scenes when Sinatra has to express intense emotion, we see him only from the back with his head bowed, or partially hidden by a door or tree. It's effective and touching. (Trivia note: Sinatra's best comedic role is the lovable hood Robbo in ROBIN AND THE 7 HOODS. I still debate which is his best dramatic performance: the would-be presidential assassin in SUDDENLY, the dope-plagued card shark in MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM, or the brainwashed captain in MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. )
PAL JOEY (1957)
Linda (Kim Novak): “ What did I do last night?”
Joey (Frank Sinatra): “You kissed me.”
Linda: “I wasn't myself.”
Joey: “Whoever you were, you were great!”
PAL JOEY (1957)
PAL JOEY was originally born in the pages of The New Yorker and then translated into a hit Rodgers and Hart Broadway musical. By the time it reached the big screen, the callous heel dancer (Gene Kelly) had been replaced by a naughty scamp singer (Frank Sinatra). Despite the drastic Hollywoodization of the title character – or perhaps because of it – PAL is worth getting acquainted with, thanks to a dynamite song score and an explosion of talent and glittering star power. Sinatra, at the apex of his cocky, world-on-a-string popularity, glides through the film with breezy nonchalance, romancing showgirl Kim Novak (Columbia Pictures' then-new sex symbol) and wealthy widow Rita Hayworth (Columbia Pictures' former sex symbol). The film also benefits from location shooting in San Francisco, caught in the moonlight-and-supper-club glow of the late '50s. Sinatra croons Rodgers and Hart classics like "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" and "I Could Write a Book," and his performance of "The Lady Is a Tramp" is flat-out genius. In short, PAL JOEY fits Frankie like a fedora. (Trivia notes: When Sinatra is singing "Tramp" to a first insulted, then flattered Hayworth, he replaces the lyrics “but it’s oke” after “She’s broke” with a mere shrug; pure Sinatra, pure cool!. This was Hayworth's final film for Columbia; Sinatra insisted she go out in style with top billing.)
THE RAINMAKER (1956) Elmer Gantry + Music Man + Oklahoma = Magic
In the opening shot of THE RAINMAKER, we think we see Elmer Gantry preaching right at us. It’s the same magnetic actor – Burt Lancaster – but here he's con man-rainmaker Bill Starbuck, not the con man-preacher he would play four years later. Like Gantry (as well as another noted flim-flammer, MUSIC MAN Harold Hill), Starbuck is a charleton with a streak of angel who makes a very big promise in exchange for money: to bring rain (rather than trombones) to the drought-ravaged prairie town in 24 hours. A kindly rancher takes him up on it, but his spinster daughter (Katharine Hepburn) refuses to buy in – until Starbuck makes lightning strike her heart. Lancaster is charismatic and funny, and Hepburn pitch-perfect as a "plain-looking" middle-ager with a beautiful soul and the dreams of a young girl. Earl Holliman plays Hepburn's comical younger brother; Lloyd Bridges is her sternly realistic elder brother, and they, along with Lancaster, Hepburn and the rest of the cast, are superb. It’s been said that nearly all of the actors were too old to comfortably inhabit their roles, but I say nonsense. Hepburn was well preserved at 49 and plays much younger. But age is beside the point; the lesson is that no matter what your age or station, dreams can infuse you with beauty and purpose and should never be abandoned.
THE SAVAGES (2007)
Wendy Savage (Laura Linney), visting her father in nursing home: “Are you Simone?”
Simone (Old woman in wheel chair): “I am. “
Wendy: (Staring at the pilfered pillow in woman's lap): “I'm Lenny Savage's daughter in B26. He has a big red pillow. It's missing.”
Simone (Clutching pillow): “Did he have his name on it?”
Wendy: “Yes. And his room number. “
Simone: “What's it look like?”
Wendy (Exasperated): “Big. Red. Pillow.”
THE SAVAGES (2007)
Despite its grim subject matter (death, dementia, family dysfunction), THE SAVAGES is engaging, enjoyable and often funny. Two unhappy siblings – Wendy (Laura Linney) and Jon Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman) – are forced to engage with their dying father (Philip Bosco) as he slips into dementia. Linney and Hoffman vividly portray the kind of cluttered, precarious relationship that siblings can have, thick with past grievances, but also unspoken affections and connections that can't even be articulated. Writer-director Tamara Jenkins finds honest emotion and sly, sideways humor in the starkness of mortality, She doesn't force any easy epiphanies on her story, but rathr, lets the characters find solace through their own clumsy efforts. Anyone who appreciates the messiness of humanity – the territory that Hollywood movies seem to have surrendered to smart indie films – will find THE SAVAGES a smart, genuine, and empathic portrait of life.
2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY (1996) 48 hours of life, death, and a bad hairpiece in San Fernando Valley
A detailed description of 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY would take at least two days, yet a brief synopsis – chaotic and intersecting goings-on in an L.A.-based, comedic crime drama featuring a murderous insurance scam perpetrated by sadistic double-crossers; a dog-hating, love-struck hit man; a snotty, kidney stone-wracked art dealer; a washed-up, suicidal screenwriter, a grungy, deranged vice cop partnered with an earnest rookie – does it no justice. Credit sharp writing and a cool cast headed by the under-appreciated Danny Aiello as Dosmo Pizzo, the most inept and tenuously toupeed hit man you'll ever saw on film; Glenne Headley as his loopy-wise hostage-turned-girlfriend, and James Spader as a very bad dude with a stopwatch. A raft of other terrific actors round out the large cast, including Marsha Mason, Eric Stolz, Jeff Daniels, Keith Carradine, Louise Fletcher, Paul Mazursky, pre-Desperate Housewife Terri Hatcher, and in only her second big screen appearance – and it's a lulu! – luscious Charlize Theron. Each inhabits his or her character's skin with gusto. Cool music, too. View Clip
TRAPEZE (1956) High entertainment
I was a young kid when I first saw the circus drama TRAPEZE, and naturally taken with the acrobatics. All these years later I can still appreciate the quality of the stunts, which, though primitive today, manage to combine editing and stunt doubling to excellent effect. But more than that, I appreciate the film’s old-fashioned movie-ness. It’s just plain fun to watch. Burt Lancaster portrays a cane-toting “catcher” previously crippled while performing a dangerous triple mid-air somersault, and Tony Curtis is a young, aspiring "flyer" who begs Lancaster to teach it to him. Their partnership and friendship are undermined by the arrival of beautiful, ambitious circus tumbler (zaftig Gina Lollobridgida), and quickly we have both a love triangle and a contest as to which of the three looks best in spangled tights. Lancaster, a former circus aerialist, does much of his own trapeze work. Others in the cast include Thomas Gomez as the dollar-hungry circus owner; Katy Jurado as a bareback rider and Lancaster's friend and former flame; and Johnny Puleo, a sweet, harmonica-playing dwarf. Directed by Carol Reed (THE THIRD MAN), TRAPEZE is a reminder of a long gone era when movies starred stars. (Trivia note: Lancaster and Curtis co-starred again the following year in the gritty, noirish SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, of which film critic Anthony Lane wrote: Burt Lancaster, wearing the scariest spectacles in the history of cinema – they appear before he does, on the side of a truck – plays a Broadway columnist (based on Walter Winchill) and Tony Curtis is a scurrying press agent, 'the boy with the ice-cream face.' This is a great New York riff in which the quality of malice is not strained.)
CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR (2007) Talent triumphs!
The collaboration of extraordinarily talented people does not a winning film necessarily make, but CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR wins big. Written by Aaron Sorkin (“West Wing”), directed by Mike Nichols (THE GRADUATE), and starring Tom Hanks as the title character, it's based on the true but until now largely unknown story of the Democratic Texas Congressman who conspired in the '70s and '80s with a CIA operative (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and a Houston socialite (julia Roberts) to fund and execute a covert military operation to help the Afghan mujahedeen resist and ultimately defeat the Soviet Union's military occupation of the nation. Given what's happening in the Middle East today and how the U.S. is mishandling it, this film is a must-see. Hanks, Roberts and Hoffman are all splendid.
88 MINUTES (2008) Feels like 88 hours
I don't just love writing about good movies; I enjoy doing so about stinkers like 88 MINUTES. Pacino is one of my acting heroes, but the man should be ashamed of himself for signing onto this ghastly mess about rape, murder, guilt, and cell phones. I won't waste further words on this Al-bortion except to quote a line that should be entombed in the Bad Dialog Catalog:
Pacino (to his lesbian assistant after she apologizes for a misdeed too convoluted to explain): "If I can't forgive you, I don't deserve you."
88 MINUTES is 88 light years away from such Pacino classics as DOG DAY AFTERNOON, SERPICO, GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, and LOOKING FOR RICHARD. Skip it ... or ... see it and join me in dissing it.
IDAHO TRANSFER (1973) For sci-fi lovers only
The acting is amateurish and the direction (by Peter Fonda) plodding. But the story is interesting if sometimes confusing, and in light of today's global warming and energy woes, timely. Young scientists travel from the present time to 2044 to discover that an ecological disaster has de-populated the area around their lab in rural Idaho and probably everywhere else. They also find that time travel causes sterility - hardly a promising start to building a new civilization! One of the researchers travels further into the future, spots a futuristic automobile, and hitches a ride - and not exactly as a passenger! The surprise ending suggests that humankind has recovered from the disaster, as well as found a new energy source that doesn't require pumping. Look for a baby-faced Keith Carradine as Arthur, a character with neither personality nor much screen time, but don’t look for much logic or cohesion in IDAHO TRANSFER … just go along for the ride. Wikipedia info
THE NAKED CITY (1948) There are 8 million stories in the naked city. This is one of them
In an era of Hollywood sets and back lots, director Jules Dassin's NAKED CITY was nakedly different and daring – and in fact became the template for the TV cop show genre, starting with its own critically acclaimed TV spinoff in the ‘50s. Shot on Manhattan streets using passersby as extras (sometimes unknowingly), the grittiness and realism are palpable. The story concerns the investigation of the murder of a young woman, and though tame and utterly familiar by today's standards, is absorbing. Barry Fitzgerald and Howard Duff, the leads, are excellent, and are well supported in small, unbilled roles by character actors James Gregory, Molly Picon (a giant of Yiddish theatre), Paul Ford, Arthur O'Connell, and as the beefy villain, Ted de Corsia, a a familiar film noir face. The engaging narration is by writer-producer Mark Hellinger. In 2007, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Criterion Collection Review
RAWHIDE (1950) What hostages in the old West get trying to escape
Bad guys holding good guys hostage as they wait for a big cash payoff is a familiar plot (KEY LARGO, THE DESPERATE HOURS), but always an arresting one. In RAWHIDE – a taut and character-driven film that blends the leathery trappings of an oater with the claustrophobic atmosphere and intensity of a noir-suspense film – the action unfolds at a remote swing station for the trans-continental stagecoach. Routine life and work are disrupted by the arrival of a gang of baddies who, while waiting to get their hands on a shipment of gold, find their hands full instead with wily hostages. The suspense is intense, even after repeated viewings, and the acting is fine. Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward handle the heroics with minimal melodramatics. Hugh Marlowe has a field day playing type as the head villain Zimmerman (although one wonders how such an articulate, obviously well-educated man would run with homicidal idiots, let alone have a Jewish name). And a young, one blind-eyed Jack Elam is, as he usually was in Westerns, vicious and deliciously smarmy.
Homage to a great director, a great actor and the great film they made together
In my introduction to this blog, I say: A movie is an amalgam of story, script, casting, direction, acting, cinematography, music and editing, any of which can make it worth watching. One movie that combines all these into one uniquely watchable noir film is NIGHT AND THE CITY (reviewed here). Its star Richard Widmark and director Jules Dassin passed away this year within weeks of each other, but a great film like NIGHT AND THE CITY will never die.
TEACHER'S PET (1958) A learning experience
The movie starring Clark Gable and Doris Day, TEACHER’S PET, is better than you'd think. A “romantic comedy,” it was originally scripted as a drama, which shows in several well written and acted dramatic scenes that offset the silly ones. Gable plays a school-of-hard-knocks newspaperman who belittles journalism schools ... until he meets an idealistic instructor (Day) in whose class he enrolls as a novice. What ensues is a learning experience for student and teacher alike. Gable's bluff masculinity is key to the storyline and appeal of the movie, to such a degree that even in his Evening stage of life (57) he somehow doesn't seem too old for Day (33). They’re good together, and in fact, Day agreed to work in the movie during a rough patch in her life (her brother had just died) because of Gable. The film is often talky and runs too long, but it’s fun to watch and good to see these two old-fashioned movie stars so completely at ease within their established personas. The film co-stars Gig Young, playing his familiar charming, know-it-all Gig Young character (the same as in YOUNG AT HEART, in which he and Day co-starred five years earlier). As an ex-newsman, I got a kick out of the scenes in the city room, which looks and operates pretty much like the city room I worked in years ago.
THE MAN FROM EARTH (2007) Funny, he doesn't look a day over 12,000!
On a cold night in a remote cabin, college professor John Oldman (David Lee Smith of “CSI Miami”) gathers his colleagues to announce that he is an immortal who has migrated through 14 centuries of evolution, and must now move on (once again) to create a new identity before it's noticed he doesn't age past 35. Is Oldman (Old man! Get it?) really a stone age man or simply a man with rocks in the head? Either way, his revelation makes tempers flare and emotions flow among these scientists and scholars in anthropology, biology, religion and philosophy, forcing them to confront their own notions of history, religion and humanity. The well written screenplay is by the late sci-fi author Jerome Bixby, who years earlier had written for “The Twilight Zone” and “Star Trek.” This was his final work. If you don’t like talk, talk and almost nothing but talk in your movies, skip MAN FROM EARTH. But I found it engaging and thought-provoking.
KISS OF DEATH (1947)
Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark) to old lady in wheelchair (Mildred Dunnock): "I'm askin' ya, where's that squealin' son of yours? [weird giggle] You think a squealer can get away from me? Huh? [crazy giggle] You know what I do to squealers? I let 'em have it in the belly, so they can roll around for a long time thinkin' it over. You're worse than him, tellin' me he's comin' back? Ya lyin' old hag!”
RICHARD WIDMARK (1914 - 2008) Farewell to a noir superstar
One of film noirdom's classic yikes! moments is when psycho killer Tommy Udo pushes an elderly woman tied to her wheelchair down a flight of stairs - giggling creepily as he watches her tumble to her death. Twenty-six year old RICHARD WIDMARK created the Udo giggle for his film debut, a small role that made a huge impression in KISS OF DEATH (1947). In the ensuing years, he played good guys and bad guys with equal aplomb, gracing some 40 other films in his long career, including two other classic film noirs, NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950) and Sam Fuller's PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953), both reviewed on my Film Noir site here.
About that weird giggle Widmark once remarked: “For two years after that picture, you couldn't get me to smile. I played the part the way I did because the script struck me as funny, and the part I played made me laugh. The guy was such a ridiculous beast." Read the Time Magazine Rememberance and Hear Richard Widmark Speak
HOW TO BE AN ACTOR by Norah Jones, singer
"I learned on the set. It was sort of fly by the seat of your pants. I was really nervous the first few days. I just sort of watched Jude Law and Natalie Portman and copied them."(Thank goodness she wasn't making a movie with barnyard animals!)
METEOR (1979) Mostly craters
So why would I recommend this near-disaster of a disaster movie? Not for the special effects (cheesy). Not for the Love Boat-type "all star" cast (grim Henry Fonda, sleazily mustachioed Sean Connery, clown-nosed and comb-overed Karl Malden, super-hammy Martin Landau, waxworky Trevor Howard, etc.). Not for the predictable script (a precursor to every "nature vs. earth" movie that followed) or acting (runs the gamut from cardboardy to overwrought). Not even for the plot (five-foot mile wide meteor threatens to obliterate a few continents, preceded by meteor "splinters" that trigger avalanches, tidal waves, running and screaming Japanese people, even a POSEIDON ADVENTURE-style escape). And yet ... there are at least two reasons to go METEOR watching: one, to see what a subtle actress and lovely a woman child star Natalie Wood had become at 40 (two years before her death) ... and two, to enjoy the exquisitely entertaining scenery-chewing of Brian Keith as a charming, effusive Russian astrophysicist. He rattles Russian off like a Cossack, and oddly enough, he's the most credible character in the film. Most of Keith's Russian was probably dubbed, but that of Ms. Wood, who plays his assistant and translator, looks undubbed and sounds spot on. And why not? She was born Natalia Zakharenko, the daughter of Russian immigrants. Oh, and there's one more reason to discover METEOR ... it's kinda fun even if it is full of holes.
DEAN STOCKWELL (1936 - ) Curly head to hologram in six decades
You may only know DEAN STOCKWELL as Al, the cigar chomping, dry-witted hologram in TV’s “Quantum Leap” (1989-93). But his career and range go far beyond that - and 60 years back!
Stockwell's first public appearance was in a play called THE INNOCENT VOYAGE. He was seven. His reading of his big line "I won't be damned!" caught the ear of a talent scout in the audience and soon the curley headed lad was working in movies - first as the son of Jessica Tandy and Gregory Peck in THE VALLEY OF DECISION (1945), and then as Kathryn Grayson's nephew in the musical ANCHORS AWAY (1945) with Gene Kelly Frank Sinatra.
Stockwell had rare skill for seeming like the kid next door while delivering scripted lines on camera, so over the next few years he became MGM's go-to lad in almost two dozen movies, including GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT (1947) with Gregory Peck; THE BOY WITH THE GREEN HAIR (1948) with Pat O'Brien and Robert Ryan, and THE SECRET GARDEN (1949) with Margaret O'Brien.
But as Stockwell grew, he grew disenchanted with Hollywood. Upon finishing high school, he enrolled at U-Cal Berkeley. But then he dropped out after two semesters and spent several years as a drifter. Managing to elude the draft, he worked as a spike driver on the railroad, a baker's helper, even a prune inspector.
Stockwell resurfaced in Hollywood five years later as a handsome, brooding 20-year-old and began specializing in playing introverts and sensitive souls in roles ranging from a wild, young cowboy in GUN FOR A COWARD (1957), to a murderous homosexual in COMPULSION (1958), to an aspiring artist trapped by his domineering mother in SONS AND LOVERS (1960). He topped off this phase of his career portraying the tubercular Eugene O'Neill in LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1962) with Katherine Hepburn and Ralph Richardson.
And then he split the movie scene again, taking on a bohemian lifestyle in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury.
But by 1968, he was back in Hollywood again, playing the attic-dwelling mystery man in PSYCH-OUT (1968) with Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern. And in in the decades since, with only occasional absences, he has worked steadily in films and TV. He played Harry Dean Stanton's brother in PARIS, TEXAS, the deranged maniac in BLUE VELVET with Kyle MacLachlan and Dennis Hopper, the Mafia boss in MARRIED TO THE MOB with Michelle Pfeiffer, and the pushy producer in Robert Altman's THE PLAYER. TV roles in "JAG," the new "Battlestar Galactia" and the aforementioned "Quantum Leap" were a far cry from the charming ones of his pre-teen career, but watching him in any of his adult roles, you can always see little curly-headed Dean peeking through.
PAUL SCOFIELD (1921 - 2008) An actor for all times
His soul-stirring, Oscar-winning performance as Sir Thomas More in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (1966) will convince you there will never be another PAUL SCOFIELD.
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A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (1966)
William Roper (Corin Redgrave): "So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!"
Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield): "Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?"
Roper: "Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!"
More: "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down – and you're just the man to do it – do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes! I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!"
A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (1966)
Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) to his smarmy accuser, Richard Rich: "Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?"
THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (1948) Meet Bowie and Keechie, a kinder, gentler Bonnie and Clyde
Cult Director Nicholas Ray's THEY LIVE BY NIGHT is an expressionistic blend of melodrama and film noir. Based on the novel "Thieves Like Us," it’s about violent bank robbers and tragic destiny, about flight and pursuit across the Midwestern roads and farmland, permeated with a sweetness and vulnerability unusual for any crime movie. (Sound like Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE?) At its center are Bowie (Farley Granger) and Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell), naive young lovers who are almost childlike in their gravity and grace, and whose entanglement in a web of hardened criminals (Howard Da Silva and J.C. Flippin) pre-ordains them for tragedy. From the startling pre-credit sequence on, it is clear that Ray is speaking in a striking new cinematic voice. Unfortunately the story is derivative and not even all that interesting, but the way it's told must have astonished audiences back then. From unusual aerial shots, to brilliant extreme close-ups, to great shots inside cars, Ray takes us on a new type of film journey. He also lovingly films his two attractive young leads and extracts strong performances from them. The film's greatest scene is their wedding: a two-dollar affair in an unfamiliar city. In this hastily concocted ceremony, a near-travesty, we can see the couple desperately reaching for normality that we viewers have already figured is totally beyond their reach. (Film note: Produced by RKO, the film wasn't released for almost two years because the studio's owner, Howard Hughes, believed it to be a dud. Today, it's a cult classic.)
BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (1965) Or is she?
BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING, a British thriller directed by Otto Preminger, is about a young American single mom (Carol Lynley) who has moved to London with her daughter Bunny. We never see the girl, even when she is supposedly left at a nursery school – and when she goes missing, we begin to wonder whether Bunny exists at all. On a desperate search around London, the increasingly hysterical mother has to deal with some peculiar types, not least, her own brother (Keir Duella). This black-and-white film has a surreal feel, and Preminger's Hitchcock-like approach leads to a gripping, if not unexpected, climax. No great acting by the American actors Lynley and Duella, who are pretty, but pretty bland compared to Brits Lawrence Oliver (as the suave police inspector) and Noel Coward (as, well, Noel Coward). Watching these two lions ply their considerable skills is a joy. Also wonderfully watchable are British actress Ada Ford, who plays an odd but knowing school owner, and in his final screen appearance, Scottish actor Finlay Currie, as a sweet old doll maker. Praise and positive notices failed to multiply when BUNNY came out, but today it's something of a cult film. (Movie note: Coward’s many bon mots belie his tiny part. For example, trying to seduce Lynley’s character and rebuffed, he utters smarmy-ingly, “Why return the bottle till you’ve had a taste of the wine?” *wink* *wink*.)
CHINESE COFFEE (2000)
In the dead of a freezing New York night, down and almost out novelist Harry (Al Pacino) comes pounding on the apartment door of his best friend, photographer Jake (Jerry Orbach). Harry is flat broke and begs his friend to repay $500. But all Jake has is a jar of pennies. Worse, he has not, he declares, read the draft of Harry's latest novel, a work on which Harry's last hope is pitched. A long, sometimes funny, mostly intensely dramatic dialogue ensues. Relentlessly, obsessively, the desperate Harry probes his sardonic, world-weary friend until it’s revealed that not only has Jake read the work and found it to be a thinly disguised account of their lives, loves and failures - which enrages him - but he suspects it to have true commercial promise and perhaps genuine artistic merit. Fiercely jealous, believing himself to have potentially been the writer Harry has indeed become, Jake attempts to destroy Harry’s confidence and his one chance to succeed. In the end, Harry loses a friend but gains the courage to finish his book – for while Jake wants to be a writer, Harry has to be one. Pacino also directed CHINESE COFFEE, and the screenplay is by Ira Lewis, who based it on his own play, which in turn is based on his own life. Talky, but great talk. Clip
p.s. (2004) Anti-supernatural ‘supernatural romancer’
In the quirky and surprising if sometimes sappy p.s. (lower case), a divorced 39-year old art school administrator Louise Harrington (Laura Linney) falls for a 24-year old student-artist (TV's Topher Grace) and appears to be the reincarnation of her long-dead high school lover. The spiky, knowing screenplay, adapted from a novel by Helen Shulman, contains many subtle delights, insights and superb dialog on the nature of truth, perspective, aging, humiliation, betrayal and addiction. Peripheral characters include Louise’s self-involved ex (Gabriel Byrne), her neurotic mother, a quirky brother, and her jealous best friend (Marcia Gay Hardin). All the performance are fine, but it's Linney's that really sticks with you - remarkable for its abundance of skill and lack of vanity. For my money, Linney is one of the very best actresses working in films today.
THE WHISPERERS (1966) Old-age life in very un-merry old England
In the Brit flick THE WHISPERERS, Edith Evans plays a lonely old woman living in a dirty, cluttered flat. Dementia- touched, she imagines voices coming from her faucets and radio, and also suspects her neighbors are spying on her. Also, she believes herself to be an heiress waiting for her inheritance to come through. It's painful to see the old woman begging for a new pair of shoes or a pound for food, and as the story develops, you find yourself worrying about her welfare as though she were your own relative. Known for her flamboyant Restoration comedy stage and occasional screen performances, Dame Edith in this role gives a small, finely detailed performance, completely unsentimental and without vanity. Nominated for an Oscar, she lost to Katherine Hepburn for GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER.
BEDLAM (1946) St. Elsewhere it ain't
After seeing an excellent documentary on cult producer Val Lewton, I watched one of his movies, BEDLAM, directed by Mark Robson and starring Boris Karloff. This low-budget flick is generally described as a horror movie, which the title certainly suggests, but it's really more of a melodrama with scattered thrills – plus some marvelously witty dialog. A woman (Anna Lee) investigating conditions in the notorious St. Mary's of Bethlehem Asylum – aka Bedlam – is committed on a trumped up charge by its sadistic head (Karloff). Initially, she is repulsed by the horrors of her surroundings. But soon she befriends many of the inmates, which leads to a downright Poe-ish climax. The entire cast is excellent, but Karloff steals the show as the creepy, albeit intelligent and witty Master Sims. Other famous and more successful Lewton-Robson collaborations include CAT PEOPLE and its sequel, CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE.
ARSÈNE LUPIN (1932) Grandfather of the Pink Panther, Barrymore or less
Brothers John and Lionel Barrymore acted together on film for the first time in ARSÈNE LUPIN, a thoroughly delightful if dated and stagy-looking heist romp about a charming and daring thief preying on the wealthy of Paris. John plays Duke of Chamerace, who may or may not be the title character, and Lionel is Guerchard, the detective hellbent on identifying and arresting him. Alike and yet so different, the Barrymores are the perfect counterpoint to each other; John plays his role with suave sophistication, while Lionel is earthy and common, and each is obviously having a high time trying to out-chew the scenery. Listen carefully when John reacts to a squeaking door with a totally off-the-wall “OY!", and notice distinct character and plot similarities between LUPIN and much later heist films like THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR and THE PINK PANTHER.
LA STRADA (1954) On the road, Fellini style
I hadn’t seen LA STRADA for many years and about all I could recall was how brutishly cruel Anthony Quinn's character was. Now, through adult's eyes, I can see Fellini's vision – basically about three different ways of being human, three different ways of interacting with others, and thus three different ways of finding meaning in human existence. LA STRADA (The Road) is indeed a journey for the two main characters, the insensitive strongman Zampano (Quinn) and his simple-minded, all-too-sensitive assistant Gelsomina (Giuletta Masina), who peddle their silly carnival act town to town. We know from the start these two are doomed - as is a third character known as The Fool (Richard Basehart), a carefree clown-aerialis: Zampano, doomed to guilt; Gelsomina, to lovelessness; and The Fool, to Fate. Yet, even these characters whose lives have been so misshaped by cruelty and sadness find fleeting moments of the best that life has to offer: love, compassion and joy. Among many, many magical moments Felini captures is when Chaplineque Masina (whose rubber face conveys everything) mimes the graceful shape of a small tree as a laughing child looks on. (Trivia notes: Masina, Fellini's wife, gives a performance considered to be one of the finest in all of filmdom. La Strada received an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and a nomination for Best Original Screenplay.)
STAGE STRUCK (1958)
STAGE STRUCK is a remake of MORNING GLORY (1933), the film that won Katharine Hepburn an Oscar for only her third screen appearance. This time out, the role of an aspiring actress who'll give up anything (including love) to become a star went to another actress making her third screen appearance, Susan Strasberg, daughter of legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg (the writers even inserted a few lines about Lee’s Actors Studio into their script). Strasberg plays Eva Lovelace, an aspiring Broadway actress whose persistence and personality capture the attention of a boyish playwright (Christopher Plummer, in his debut screen role), an aging actor (Herbert Marshall), and a suave producer (Henry Fonda). Strasberg's performance makes yet at times almost breaks this picture, managing both to be captivating and annoying, often simultaneously. But when she delivers Juliet's lines on the stairway of the producer's swank townhome in front of a party of theater luminaries after drinking many glasses of champagne, she breaks your heart. In other scenes, her delivery is so artificial that you want to strangle her. Nonetheless, if you love movies, theater and lots of sentimentality and are willing to overlook Strasberg's uneven performance, get a front row seat for this one. Marshall, a wonderful actor who had been making films for three decades, is superb in every scene, as are both Fonda and Plummer. Sydney Lumet directed.
RANDOLPH SCOTT
As a leading man for all but the first three years of his film career starting in 1931, Randolph Scott (1898-87) appeared in a variety of genres, including social dramas, crime dramas, comedies, musicals (although not in singing or dancing roles), adventure tales, war pictures, and even a few horror and fantasy films. But by the time I discovered him in my pre-teens, he had already settled into his most enduring image: the taciturn, tall-in-the-saddle, Western hero in the Gary Cooper mold. Out of his 100+ films, more than 60 were in Oaters, many of them now cult favorites. Every time I see one of his '50s or early '60s Budd Boetticher-directed Westerns like SEVEN MEN FROM NOW (1956), or RIDE LONESOME (1959), I'm reminded how much of a hero he was to me ... and still is. In his last film, Sam Peckinpah's RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (1962), he co-starred with Joel McCrea, another actor who had transitioned into Oaters later in his career. As a young boy I saw Randy in person in Fort Worth and thought I had gone to cowboy heaven.
GREGORY HINES (1946 - 2003) Taps for a great tapper
Five years after his death from cancer at 57, I can never watch Gregory Hines (1946-03) in a movie or TV rerun without missing him. It's common knowledge that he was one of the top tap dancers of his generation, but how many appreciate what a talented actor he was – how natural and funny and cool? I admired him tremendously for both his dancing and acting, but also simply by the warm, open personality he radiated. Every movie with Hines in the cast benefited from his warm and open personality, including the creepy WOLFEN (1981), the witty and action-packed RUNNING SCARED (1986), the colorfully textured THE COTTON CLUB (1984), and the lovingly crafted homage TAP (1989). In the first two he plays a wisecracking sidekick; in the second two, he dances – gloriously! – alongside other giants of tap including Sammy Davis, Jr., Harold Nicholas and Howard "Sandman" Sims. Hines made his movie debut in Mel Brooks’ goofy HISTORY OF THE WORLD, PART ONE (1981) as a last-minute replacement for Richard Pryor. He played the anachronistically hip Roman slave Josephus.
Auctioneer: "Where are you from, slave?"
Josephus: "Ethiopia."
Auctioneer: "What part?"
Josephus: "125th Street."
LA JETÉE (1962) Past, present and future collide
In this riveting 28-minute long sci-fi film – composed entirely of black and white photographs linked together by quick dissolves and direct cuts and narrated by an Orson Welles soundalike – a nameless man witnesses the past, present and future of his own life. Be prepared: several viewings may be necessary to take in all that LA JETÉE offers.
THE OXBOW INCIDENT (1943)Frontier injustice
Westerns can be film noirs. too, and this one is a dilly. Ever wonder how it feels to be strung up in the Old West for a crime you didn't commit? See THE OXBOW INCIDENT with Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews, and partner, will you ever find out!
PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953)
Either you love Sam Fuller's work or wonder what the fuss is about. I'm in the latter group. But I do like his PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET. Richard Widmark, at his low-rent best, is a petty pickpocket who inadvertently steals a strip of microfilm intended for communist spies. His beautiful but tough mark, played by Jean Peters (playing against type) is carrying for her sleazy boyfriend. Forced by him to retrieve the film, Peters locates Widmark through stool pigeon Thelma Ritter, which leads to a series of double-crosses. But soon, Widmark and Peters are gaga for each other, which softens his edges a bit and switches her loyalties. In one swell scene, the cops tries to get Widmark to give up information by appealing to his sense of patriotic duty. His sneering reply is, "Are you wavin' the flag at me?" Widmark delivers the line in a tone that virtually defines the word "snark" 40 years before its first reference anywhere else. That scene and many others make PICKUP STREET wonderfully watchable and, according to many critics, among the best noir films of the ‘50s. (Tivia note: Shot in just 20 days, PICKUP is about espionage, but the French version was retitled LE PORT DE LA DROGUE, and all dialog referring to the spying was replaced by that about drug dealing.)
THE STRANGER (1946) Nazi what he seems
Midway into THE STRANGER, pipe-smoking Nazi hunter Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) bolts awake in the middle of the night realizing that "Who but a Nazi would deny that Karl Marx was a German ... because he was a Jew?” Of course, we viewers have known from the start of the movie that Professor Charles Rankin (Orson Welles), the man who made the thinly veiled anti-Semitic remark that led to
MALTESE FALCON (1941) The stuff dreams are made of
THE MALTESE FALCON is considered by many to be the first true American film noir, but first or not, it's a true classic. No matter how many times I see this tale about a cynical private dick on the hunt for both a murderer and a valuable black bird (“The stuff dreams are made of”) while trying to stay alive and out of jail, I'm always delighted by every scene, every word of dialogue, and every twitch of Bogart’s upper lip (someone once wrote that Bogie made dialing the phone look exhausting). He was, is and always will be Dashielle Hammett's Sam Spade, whose murdered partner he coldly memorializes as “a guy who had ten thousand in insurance, no children, and a wife that didn't like him.” (Trivia note: Dash's story had been filmed twice before - a 1931 version with the same title, character names and dialog, and a 1936 version based on, but in many ways different, from the original, called SATAN MET A WOMAN. It starred Bette Davis and did little to advance her career.)
WHITE HEAT (1949) Cagney goes out in a blaze
Toward the end of WHITE HEAT, mama's boy + psychopath Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) makes one one of the great - and most explosive - exits in all of film noirdom. One of the great exit lines, too: 'TOP OF THE WORLD, MA!" This rapid-paced prison breakout movie is basically a B movie with a couple of great A movie performances by Cagney and the underrated Virginia Mayo. Watch for “Ouch!” scene when Cagney kicks the chair she's perched on right out from under her - and another, when he empties his rod to ventilate both a car trunk and the hoodlum locked inside, while munching on a fried chicken leg.
ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1952) Dead-eyed cop hunts dead woman's killer in dead of winter
Noir-and-a-half ON DANGEROUS GROUND is about believable people and emotions rather than shady dicks and stolen black falcons. In a striking performance, Robert Ryan is a hardened, withdrawn street NYC cop, whose hair-trigger temper is close to losing him his badge. Banished upstate in icy winter to help the local police find a young woman's killer, he meets a lonely, blind woman (Ida Lupino, also superb), who turns out to be the sister of the young, unbalanced killer. Study Ryan’s face. He has the look of a man running on empty, totally disgusted with the world – and later, when he meets a woman he cares about, the look turns to a flicker of hope. In one suspenseful scene, Lupino feels her way in the snow to the outside cellar where she's hidden her brother. As she gently tries talking him into turning himself in, we see the boy's face only in shadow or turned down - and the glint of a knife. It’s an effective way to telegraph his fear and shame and state of mind. Great acting by all, including Sumner Williams, who plays the young killer; and Ward Bond, as the distraught father who's out to shotgun him down the second he finds him. (Trivia note: Director Nicholas Ray, who also directed REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, abandoned ON DANGEROUS GROUND when he couldn't get the studio to buy his downbeat ending in which the cop and the woman part, with the cop returning to the city, still disillusioned. In the released version, the two wind up in romance - a false note in an otherwise fine film - rumored to have been created and directed by the co-stars, themselves.)
GUN CRAZY aka DEADLY IS THE FEMALE (1940) Ab-noir-mal love affair
GUN CRAZY stars B actors Peggy Cummins and John Dall, who give A+ performances as Bonnie and Clyde wanabees. Annie, a carnival sharp-shooter, loves to kill, while Bart, an out-of-work vet, loathes killing but has a fetish for guns. When the two first meet at the carnival where Annie works and compete for best shot, sparks fly – and not just from their pistols. This is a remarkably erotic scene in which only body language and seductive looks communicate the pure lust each is feeling. Despite an minuscule budget, every scene is inventive in its dialog, sets, and especially camera work, which swings from documentary style to impressionist. One sequence, a bank heist, was shot on location in one long take, and no one but the principal actors and people inside the bank aware that a movie was being filmed. The dialog was improvised as the couple actually drives toward the bank (the cameraman sat in the back seat on a specially rigged saddle that allowed him to pivot), and when Dall as Bart says, "I hope we find a parking space," he really meant it. An uninformed bystander actually screams, “There's been a bank robbery!” I could list many scenes and moments that will surprise and delight you, but I urge you to get the DVD from Netflix, which includes a terrific special feature narrative, and experience it yourself. GUN CRAZY was written by Millard Kaufman, a pseudonym for famously blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, later famously hired by Kirk Douglas to write SPARTUCUS. (Trivia note: Bart as a young teenager, whose attempted theft of a pistol launches the story, is sensitively portrayed by 15-year old Rusty (later Russ) Tamblyn, who years later acted and danced in WEST SIDE STORY.)
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957) Power of the press
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS reeks. It reeks of greed, cynicism, power abuse, and oh yes, more than a hint of sibling incest. It's about a cruel and controlling New York columnist named J.J. Hunsecker (based on columnist Walter Winchell and played to perfection by Burt Lancaster) and an amoral, sycophantic press agent named Sydney Falco (perfect name for this sleazy character, surprisingly well acted by Tony Curtis). Hunsecker wants Falco to break up his sister's romance with a jazz trumpeter named Dallas (Martin Milner, also excellent). The outcome isn't pretty. Filmed in black and white on the streets of New York, this is a modern film noir that you won't soon forget.
SHANE (1953) Great western - great noir to boot
SHANE is a gun-toting stranger with a mysterious past and no future, walking in the footprints of a long line of noir men – only in this case, he walks in boots. Alan Ladd, who portrays him magnificently, was no stranger to noir films, nor were other members of the cast, including Van Heflin and Elisha Cook. This is a rip-roaring good shoot-'em-up about a war between sod-busters and cattlemen, but it's also a tender tale of friendship, love and sacrifice, set in the most beautiful, Wyoming scenery you'll ever see on the silver screen and worth seeing again and again. It also contains many of the elements that make good noir, including a doomed anti-hero.
CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948)
Advertising pays even in film noir. A tiny classified notice appears in a Chicago newspaper, placed by an elderly scrubwoman claiming her son is innocent of the murder for which he has already served years of a life sentence, and offering a reward to anyone who can offer proof of his innocence. Smelling a human interest story, the paper’s city editor (Lee J. Cobb) assigns ace reporter P.J. McNeal (James Stewart) to check it out. Initially, the cynical reporter refuses, convinced after reading the trial records that Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte) got what he deserved. But as his investigation warms up, so does the reporter to the con's plight. Eventually, McNeal finds new evidence in Wiecek's favor (though of course not without bumps along the way), but it's all circumstantial. But then the single piece of hard proof needed to prove Wiecek innocent is revealed through a laborious photographic enlargement process (considered high-tech at the time, but today easily accomplished on any laptop). Based on a true case and shot in semi-documentary style on location, CALL NORTHSIDE 777 is well acted by all (especially the stalwart Stewart) and is still engaging and suspenseful.
THE KILLING (1956)
In film noir, the best laid plans of rats and cons oft goes awry, as in Stanley Kubrick’s THE KILLING. Fresh out of prison, Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) masterminds a brilliant and complex scheme to heist $2 million from a local racetrace. He and his cohorts make off with a duffle of bag of money, but Fate intervenes in some nasty guises including one shrewish wife (Marie Windsor) and her ruthless boyfriend (a pre-Dr. Ben Casey Vince Edwards); an immutable airport regulation, and one small dog. Result: a hotel room littered with bodies and a runway littered with fives, tens and twenties. This is a really interesting plot, complex but thoroughly engaging. Watch for some familiar noir faces, including Elisha Cook (Sydney Greenstreet's wormy gunsel in THE MALTESE FALCON).
Hat's off!
TWO RODE TOGETHER (1962) was the last film in which James Stewart wore the brown, sweat-stained cowboy hat he'd worn in all but one of his ‘50’s westerns starting with WINCHESTER 73 (BROKEN ARROW was the exception). This was Stewart's first film with John Ford, who didn’t want him to wear the hat, pronouncing it the worst looking one he'd ever seen. The famously crusty director finally relented – but in their next film together, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE, Stewart went hatless.
THE WHISTLER (1944) He knows many things, for he walks by night
THE WHISTLER was the first of an eight-film series (1944-48) based on one of radio's most popular mystery drama shows (1942-55). All but one starred Richard Dix, who had started out in silent Westerns and is perhaps best-remembered for DeMille's silent version of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1923). Dix is not “The Whistler," who is an unbilled narrator seen only in shadow; rather, he plays a principal character in each story, sometimes a good guy, sometimes not. In this first entry, he’s a despondent industrialist who, believing his wife dead, hires a professional killer (J. Carroll Naish) to put him out of his misery. When he learns that his wife is still alive (or is she?), he tries to disemploy his assassin. THE WHISTLER is a great example of how, with clever direction (William Castle) and strong if not highly well-known players, a B-grade picture from a poverty row studio can rise above its budgetary limitations. Don't get me wrong. THE WHISTLER is only a few cuts above Saturday matinée fare. But I love the economy with which the story is told, without needless lines or scenes but with lots of great bits - for example, in his spare time the assassin reads from a book on necrophobia (fear of death). (Trivia notes: Each film begins with The Whistler ominously intoning: “I am the Whistler ... and I know many things, for I walk by night." Dix retired from acting after making the second to last movie in the Whistler series, THE THIRTEENTH HOUR. He died two years later.)
OLEANNA (1994) Teacher gets taught a lesson
My introduction to David Mamet's unique style of writing and direction was a very cool flick about the art of the con called HOUSE OF GAMES (1987). If you like plots with twists and turns, you gotta see this movie! My next Mamet experience was OLEANNA, based on the director’s own two-character play. I love dramatic pieces in which characters reveal themselves through dialogue, and nobody’s dialogue is more revealing, and at the same time enigmatic, than Mamet’s, especially in OLEANNA. It’s about tha battle of wit and intellect between a university professor John (William H. Macy) and a female student Carol (Debra Eisenstadt), who is failing his class. Following a series of conversations in the professor’s office which go from harmless to brutal, Carol files charges against John, including sexual harassment, thus wrecking his chance for tenure. This forces the distraught professor to make a choice on how to handle the situation, and the results lead to a shattering finale. The final six-word exchange is pure Mamet: (John) “Oh, my God.” (Carol) “Yes, that's right.” (Trivia note: The woman singing over the end credits is Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, who originated the role of Carol on stage alongside Macy, and who co-stars in several of her spouse's films, including HOMICIDE, THE SPANISH PRISONER and Samuel Beckett's CATASTROPHE.)
DEAD END (1937) MEAN STREETS, Depression era-style
DEAD END is about class, poverty and dead-ended lives and loves on
Mother Nature pays homage to Dorothy
The big scary twister in THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) was actually a 35-foot long muslin stocking, photographed with miniatures of a
Song plug
In a bar scene in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946), young WWII vet Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) asks his uncle Butch to play 'Lazy River' on the piano. It's a song the actor/songwriter portraying Butch, Hoagy Carmichael, knew well - he composed it 14 years earlier.
A rose(bud) by any other name
CITIZEN KANE (1941) was based partially on the life of media magnate William Randolph Hearst, who despised what he called the blasphemous depiction and wouldn't let the movie be advertised in any of his newspapers. One reason for the publisher's pique: Kane's dying word, "Rosebud," is widely reputed to have been Hearst's private name for mistress Marion Davies' private parts.
THE INFORMER (1935)
Living in 1920s Ireland, flat-broke Gypo Nolan (Victor McLaglen) is part of an underground rebellion against the oppressive Brits. His childhood friend, a fellow rebel wanted by the English for murder, arrives back into town secretly. He thinks he can trust his friend Gypo, but to the latter, the £20 reward proves too tempting. Gypo gets his friend killed and sinks into despair and drunkenness. Meanwhile, the other Irish rebels are searching for the informer. Gypo, spending money left and right, is their main suspect, but they, who are his friends, don't want to believe it. The story is simple in plot, but complex in moral and emotional issues. What Gypo did was wrong, but we can understand his motives. We also understand his sorry character, and we feel sympathy – up the point. We're pretty sure how everything will end up, so all we can do is grit our teeth and bear along with it. The acting is remarkable. Victor McLaglen, who acted in many of Ford's films, probably gave his best performance here (and won an Oscar for it). THE INFORMER is one of John Ford's most expressionistic films and well worth look. (Trivia note: The day before shooting Gypo's trial scene, Ford told McLaglen that he wouldn't be needed the next day so he could take a break, enjoy himself, not worry about his lines. McLaglen proceeded to go on a bender, which the director knew he would do, and the next day was forced to film the scene with a terrible hangover - precisely the effect Ford wanted.)
LITTLE CAESAR (1930) Godfather of the Godfather movies
The first big-time gangster talkies, Mervyn LeRoy's LITTLE CAESAR is still considered the model for all crime movies, dated though it looks and sounds today. In fact, watch Pacino in the GODFATHER series or in SCARFACE (1983) and you see shades of Edward G. Robinson's mini-monster Rico Massara, alternately seething and raging and prophetically and nicknamed Little Caesar by the gang leader whose power Rico grabs for himself. “Grab” is the operative word in all of LC’s dealings, and he never stops grabbing until a policeman's machine gun puts an end to Rico. The film's violence is tame by today’s standards, but in '30 it must have brought moviegoers out of their seats. (Trivia note: Director LeRoy, whose final film was THE GREEN BERETS in 1967, filmed two versions of Rico's famous final words: "Mother of God, is this the end of Rico?" and "Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?" Although "God" comes directly from the novel, "mercy" was used to avoid offending moviegoing churchgoers.)
THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931) The rise and fall of a badboy bootlegger
Only four years after silent movies became talkies, James Cagney hit the screen in THE PUBLIC ENEMY talking faster than the machine gun his character totes. The film traces the short, violent career of Roaring Twenties gangster Tom Powers (Cagney), who powers his way to the top as a bootleg kingpin only to fall face forward, wrapped like a mummy and dead as one, in his mummy’s doorway. Lots of great scenes, as when Cagney famously pushes a grapefruit half into Mae Clark’s face. But it's that final one you remember - as powerful today as it surely was 75 years ago.
If it works once
In John Ford’s YOUNG MR. LINCOLN (1939), starring Henry Fonda, Abe's boyhood sweetheart Ann Rutledge is accompanied on-screen by a lovely musical theme, which reprises when
CASINO ROYALE (2006) Craig, Daniel Craig.
There's a new James Bond in town. Not just a new actor playing the famous character - a whole new character. Pre-Bond, as it were. And, despite months of silly speculation to the contrary, Daniel Craig's bonding with 007 is solid. And more than that, right. CASINO ROYALE, the third filmed version of Ian Fleming's first Bond book, is more faithful to the plot than its predecessors (see below). The film gives us the British spy in 2006, but as a licensed-to-kill frosh, but notably absent are a world domination scheme (the villain just wants money), silly gadgets (the only ones are cell phones and laptops - oh, and a mini-defribulater), the usual Bond-mots, even the familiar musical themes (until the end). There’s also less Bond than Bond-in-the-making - and if in this first Craig film we only begin to get acquainted with him, we are assured after hearing him utter for the first time the final three words in the movie - "Bond, James Bond" - that he will be back. (Trivia note: CASINO ROYALE first appeared as a teleplay in 1954, with Barry Nelson playing "Jimmy Bond," an Americanized 007; and as a movie spoof in 1967, with several actors playing 007, including David Niven and Woody Allen.)
HENRI LANGLOIS: CINEMATHEQUE (2005) Saving Cinema on the Seine
With videos and DVDs available from so many sources nowadays, we take for granted our ability to find and see any movie anytime from anywhere. Thank goodness for that! And thank Henri Langlois (1914-77), who in 1936 founded the Cinémathèque Française, a Paris-based film preservation theater and museum whose inventory grew from 10 films to more than 60,000 films by the early '70s, thus creating both French film heritage and a model for film preservation for the U.S. and entire world. Operating with a minuscule budget, staff and government support, Langlois located saved, restored, showed and lectured on countless films that otherise would have been destroyed by men and nature - including Marlene Dietrich's THE BLUE ANGEL. How he did it – and was undone doing it – is the subject of the fascinating, English-subtitled documentary HENRI LANGLOIS: CINEMATHEQUE. If you've never heard of the godfather to modern film preservation, this is an absolute must-see for cinema lovers.
KILLER BAIT (1949) Money - the root of all film noir
KILLER BAIT (aka TOO LATE FOR TEARS) is about money, greed and murder - the stuff film noir is made of. Driving one night on a lonely stretch of highway, a bickering married couple passes a speeding motorist, who dumps a satchel full of cash intended for somebody else into their back seat. A debate ensues. The goody two-shoed husband (Arthur Kennedy) wants to turn the 60 grand over to the cops, while his money-starved spouse (Lizabeth Scott) considers it rightfully hers and stakes her claim with a bullet, i.e., instant divorce. Promising start, but alas, a combination of bad direction, bad acting, bad dialogue and goofy storyline sinks KILLER BAIT. But even stinker noirs can be fun. Watch for a revealing exchange between the greedy wife and the sleazy hoodlum (Dan Duryea): After searching her apartment for his lost dough, he asks her, “You haven't anything to hide, have you?” As she sits down and crosses her legs, he answers his own question. “No, I can see you haven't.” HehHehHeh.
JACK PALANCE (1919 - 2006) "I crap bigger than you!"
If you’ve heard JACK PALANCE growl that famous funny-scary line to Billy Crystal in CITY SLICKERS (1991) and then watched then 73-year old do one-armed push-ups when he won the Oscar for the role of Curly, you can believe it! From his debut in a TV drama in 1950 to the 2004 movie BACK WHEN WE WERE GROWNUPS. laying a variety of roles but excelling as villains like the satanic gunslinger in black in SHANE (1953), Palance's bogyman face and sandpaper voice graced us for over half a century. He'll be missed.
Fun to see a familiar face
I love spotting familiar actors in early screen appearances. In the first 10 minutes of HERE COMES MR. JORDON (1941), the original version of Warren Beatty’s HEAVEN CAN WAIT (1978) about a man prematurely taken from his body by an over-zealous angel, a young airman leans out of a heavenly airplane and delivers a few lines of dialog. It’s Lloyd Bridges (1913-98), then 27. It was his seventh movie - his first was in 1936.
MAN OF THE WEST (1958) The white sheep of the Tobin family
James Stewart and director Anthony Mann made five classic "adult" Westerns together in the ‘50s. But after a quarrel they never teamed again, and the plum role of Link Jones went to Gary Cooper, another of Mann's trademark flawed heroes, in MAN OF THE WEST. I can't imagine better casting. A respectable husband and father with a checkered past, Link is headed to Fort Worth (my home town!) toting the town's savings to hire a school teacher. His train is held up by the Dock Tobin gang, and though Link temporarily alludes them, he and his two fellow passengers later run into the outlaws holed up in a cabin. The unsavory quintet turn out to be his former compatriots in crime – and not just that, his family. From Link’s bellowing, half-mad uncle Dock (Lee J. Cobb) to his mute, murdering cousin Trout (Dano Royal), the Tobins are the Bizarro World opposites of Bonanza's Cartwights, and despite Dock's best efforts to draw Link back in, the latter resists - gently at first, later with necessary violence. The film is littered with memorable scenes and images, as when Jones whups one of his cousins and then forces him to strip down to his longjohns, humiliating him back for having done similar to the woman he's taken under his wing, Billie (the splendidly endowed Julie London); and when Trout, after being plugged by Link in self defense, staggers along a dusty street, mortally wounded and howling like an animal. By film's end, Link's black sheep uncle and cousins are all dead, and as he and Billie ride toward the sunset in a covered wagon, she declares both her love for him and resignation that he belongs to another. As stories go, a downer; as a noir Western, a great film, with stunning widescreen landscape photography (also a Mann trademark) such as when Uncle Dock, standing on a peak above the gang's camp watching for Link, is silhouetted against the sky.
"I SAW MRS. CLAYPOOL FIRST. OF COURSE, HER MOTHER REALLY SAW HER FIRST, BUT THERE'S NO POINT BRINGING THE CIVIL WAR INTO THIS."
Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho Marx) in NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935)
JANE WYATT (1910 - 2006)
Only two days after I wrote in "All About Me" about my lifelong affection for the film LOST HORIZON, the last of its cast, Jane Wyatt, passed away at 96. She was 26 when she played Ronald Coleman’s love interest, a woman who, thanks to the preservative powers of Shangri-la, looks about a century younger than she actually is. The actress herself continued to look youthful and lovely throughout her long career, which included both movies and TV. The two roles for which she’s best remembered are Margaret Anderson, the wise and patient mother who always knew best in the ‘50s TV series, “Father Knows Best” – and as Amanda Grayson, Mr. Spock's Earthling mother on Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. (Trivia note: Jane appeared in 207 half-hour episodes of "Father Knows Best" from 1954 to 1960 and won three Emmys as best actress in a dramatic series in the years 1958 to 1960.)
"MARRY ME, EMILY, AND I'LL NEVER LOOK AT ANOTHER HORSE."
Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush (Groucho Marx)
to Emily Upjohn (Margaret Dumont) in
A DAY AT THE RACES (1937).
THEY ALL LAUGHED (1981)
A shoestring outfit called Odyssey Detective Agency (“We Never Sleep”) specializes in philandering wife cases, and the three gumshoes in its employ are about as different from one another as men can be: a middle-aged divorced father and babe magnet (Ben Gazarra); a young, sweet-natured bumbler (John Ritter); and a roller-skating hipster whose shades come off and long curly locks come out from under his hat at night (Blaine Novak). But what they do have in common is a warm camaraderie, plus a not-overly-professional propensity for falling in love with the women they’ve been paid by wealthy husbands to shadow. Gazarra falls quick and hard and for an elegant, unhappy trophy wife (Audrey Hepburn), while Ritter sets his horn-rimmed sights on a sweet young thing in the last throes of divorce (Dorothy Stratten, in her final film). Charmer Novak hits on everybody in a skirt. One detective wins then loses his lady, while another wins then marries his. And along the way, they cross and crisscross paths and plotlines with a variety of lively characters, including a kooky C&W singer (Colleen Camp), a hack-driving free spirit (model Patty Hansen), and a young English-impaired Latin lover (Sean Ferrer, Audrey's real-life son). Skillfully directed - nay, choreographed - by Peter Bogdanovich, THEY ALL LAUGHED is rapid-fire romantic romp that mixes screwball comedy and old-fashioned sentiment. Watch for an early scene when John Ritter, gloriously high on pot, roller skates in a public rink, trying to keep up with Stratten, to the pounding drums of Gene Krupa in Benny Goodman's "Swing, Swing, Swing." I think this film is the best thing Ritter ever did.
SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (1960) Quintessential Existential Man
A famous classical pianist drives his wife to suicide, loses his career, is chased by two thugs, kills his boss, rescues his kidnapped brother, dumps his girlfriend, and winds up alone and forlorn playing silly ditties in a bar – and that doesn’t begin to describe SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, François Truffaut’s classic French New Wave mélange of drama, tragedy, comedy, mystery, film noir, slapstick and film homage. You just gotta love the playful dialogue and editing, the music, and all the loopy characters, especially poor little Edouard Saroyan /Charlie Kohler, the quintessential Existential Piano Man, played wonderfully by the “French Sinatra,” Charles Aznavour. French New Wave cinema was all about experimentation, and in the case of of this film, the experiment was a total success! Be sure to watch for all the nuggets of nonsense, as when one of the goofy hoodlums swears that if he's lying, may his own mother drop dead - and suddenly we see a silent movie-styled clip of an old woman clutching her heart and collapsing on the floor. Be sure to catch this New Wave masterpiece.
THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION (1984) No matter where you go, there you are
In all of eight dimensions you won’t find an odder sci-fi movie - or character. BUCKAROO BANZAI (Peter Weller) is a physicist, philosopher, marshal artist, speed freak, and rock musician. And, with the help his posse, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, he's out ridding the world of aliens from the 8th dimension. Co-starring an Einstein-wigged, scene-chomping John Lithgow as Lord John Whorfin/Dr. Emilio Lizardo, Ellen Barkin as Penny Priddy, and Jeff Goldblum (in a cowboy outfit) as New Jersey, this is one cult film not to be missed – or taken too seriously. My favorite quote:
Buckaroo Banzai: "Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are."
FARGO (1996) A winter wonderland of black humor
Virtually everything about FARGO is cold: the cold, cruel plan concocted by a sleazy, in-debt car salesman (William H. Macy) to have his wife kidnapped for ransom; the cold-hearted treatment by his boss/father-in-law (Harve Prenell); the cold, senseless killings by the two not-too-bright kidnappers (Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare); and of course, the cold, relentless winter of North Dakota where the tale takes place. Only the warmth of the indomitable (and pregnant) policewoman Madge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) and her loving, supportive relationship with husband Norm manage to peek through the cold, ugly gray -- that, and random moments of macabre humor, including the famous wood chipper scene.
LANTANA (2001) Entanglements
Under the opening credits of LANTANA we watch a long, slow tracking shot through a grove of tangled, thorny lantana vines that ends on the crumpled body of a woman. The lantana is a metaphor for the prickly, intertwined relationships we are about to discover in this low-key Australian mystery-thriller. Its central plot is a flashback to the disappearace of the woman, and our cinematic journey to the resolution of that mystery and the revelations it produces, is, like the lantana vines in the opening shot, full of twists and turns. Engaging plot and superb acting by Anthony LaPaglia, Barbara Hershey, Geoffrey Rush and others.
THE DAY AFTER (1983) / TESTAMENT (1983) / THREADS (1984) Two films about nuclear war you don't want to watch - but must
1983 was the year of World War III – but thankfully, only on TV. In THE DAY AFTER, destruction, illness and death in the aftermath of a nuclear war rain down upon small-town residents in Missouri (portrayed by, among others, Jason Robards, John Lithgow and Steve Guttenberg). One of the most chilling images in the film – besides the flame-tailed, nuclear warheaded missiles rocketing from silos up over houses, churches and a baseball field – is the simple disclaimer at the end warning that the events depicted in the film, terrible as they are, are far less severe than would be the real thing. TESTAMENT also deals with the effects of A-war in a small suburban town outside San Francisco. The focus is on a widowed woman (Jane Alexander) struggling to take care of her children. Th