CHINA PASSAGE (1937)

Lowball programmer from R.K.O. tries to split the diff between M-G-M’s high-ticket/All-Star CHINA SEAS/’35* and some low-rent CHARLIE CHAN mystery, all while giving blowsy Aussie gal Constance Worth a career breakthru that didn’t take. She’s an undercover custom’s inspector chasing a diamond stolen in Shanghai, now on a ship headed to San Fran. With plenty of suspicious characters on board and even the two hired guards who lost the gem in the first place (one comic/one romantic) there’s no lack of suspects. And the opening reel offers surprisingly strong production values, presumably from some standing ‘Generic Oriental City’ set. But under journeyman megger Edward Killy things go very flat very fast once we’re at sea. So poorly, the film develops a perverse interest from watching the script boldly take one wrong step after another at almost every turn. A script writing lesson in what not to do. Anyone not currently working on a screenplay should pass.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Lacking the cachet of the M-G-M All-Star vehicles preceding it (GRAND HOTEL/’32; DINNER AT EIGHT/’33), CHINA SEAS is still great fun. (see below)

KEDI (2016)

Pleasingly eccentric Portrait-of-a-City documentary on the street cats of Istanbul and the people who care for them. Ceyda Torun, Alp Korfali & Charlie Wuppermann (director & co-lensers) no doubt had the devil of a time filming the half-wild felines on their daily rounds of cafes, hideaways & seafront hangouts (low-angles/tight corners/human obstacles), following them with a commitment (and lack of commentary) Frederick Wiseman would approve of. The variety of cats (a port town, Istanbul’s cats come from around the world to mix & mate) and of kindly humans who care for them (most visiting rather than adopted), provide a unique (if specialized) view of the teeming city. One that probably offers a better, more nuanced view than any traditional architectural/cultural highlight reel could. And there’s a bonus in the rare chance to roam the region without having to tackle weighty political/religious/territorial issues. (Well, other than cat territorial issues.) Though one serious subject does glare out at us: Procreation! Every other cat we meet seems to be tending a new litter of kittens. No neuter-boosting Bob Barker of Turkey? 

p.s. That’s ‘Smokey’ on our poster. A restaurant cat with manners. Never begging for food, but waiting for the kitchen to provide a daily sampling of soft cheeses & smoked turkey upon his signal.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Streamed on KANOPY, free in many areas thru your local library. Worth checking out.

NOSFERATU (1922)

You can get mental whiplash watching F. W. Murnau’s famous (and famously unauthorized) free-adaptation of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA brusquely pivot from primitive to sophisticated in ideas & film technique. Yet, in spite of gaffes, missing narrative segues & subfusc visuals (even in the best available 2006 restoration), enough sticks to make a memorable and oddly unsettling experience. Made viable by a general knowledge of the Dracula Myth, we can follow continuity jumps without losing the thread of action or mix up character relationships. And while UFA-style Expressionistic Acting, and typically unattractive German leads can be off-putting, as soon as the rat-like features of Max Schreck’s Graf Orlok (the Dracula figure) hit the screen, you’re instantly reeled in. A mesmerizing presence as is, Murnau adds on simple camera tricks, cantered angles & artfully positioned framing to creep us out, making him even more daemonic. And by the time we set sail on a death ship to Germany, Murnau is able to match conception with execution. Any lingering laughs suddenly stick in your throat.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As a silent film that plays outside its niche market to HORROR fans, NOSFERATU holds the unintended consequence of misrepresenting the high technical level of 1922 German film. For a taste of how advanced the state of the art then was, try Fritz Lang’s stunning DR. MABUSE THE GAMBLER of the same year.     https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/02/dr-mabuse-1922-2nd-writeup.html

LA FRUSTA E IL CORPO / THE WHIP AND THE BODY (1963)

Modestly effective Gothic shocker from the prime of cult Italian director Mario Bava shows off his best qualities (atmosphere, mood, color), but remains wanting as ever in all other departments. Christopher Lee (straight of nose/crooked of character) plays ‘bad seed’ brother to a family that hoped to have permanently seen the back of him. Hence, his neurotic fiancée (Daliah Lavi) forced by Lee’s disapproving father into marrying the younger brother even though this second son loves another. All a technicality to Lee who moves in anyway, whipping & wooing his ex before turning up murdered. And there’s worse to come since the buried body may have come back to life, seeking revenge on . . . well, just about everyone: Dad, brother, ex. Just about everyone who had a reason to kill him. Alas, it all sounds better than it plays, bumping along in predictable fashion with Bava unable to resist a colorful composition just when he needs to cut to the chase and falling back over and over on having a mystery hand come from behind to ‘scare tap’ someone on the shoulder. But a good sampling of his wares.

DOUBLE-BILL: The film is more in line with one of those PathéColor Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe/American International pics than with the TechiniColor Hammer Horror films. But any of them from this period would match up nicely.

UNDER THE RED ROBE (1937)

A onetime stage perennial, filmed silently twice (1915; 1923 - both lost) now speaks in this deluxe British production. Technically impressive, with two legendary cinematographers (James Wong Howe; Georges Périnal), a rousing Arthur Benjamin score, tasty supporting cast and handsome mounting . . . it’s everything else that comes up short! Raymond Massey is the treacherous Cardinal Richelieu, saving inveterate dueler Conrad Veidt (Gil de Berault) from execution to capture that religious rebel leader the Duke of Flox. (The old Catholics vs Huguenots battle.) But his mission gets complicated as soon as Veidt espies the Duke’s kid sister, lovely Annabella, Lady Marguerite of Flox! (The fancy names and international accents something of an obstacle.) All more confusing then it need be under director Victor (Seastrom) Sjöström, the great actor/director of silent days, here megging his final pic, one of his few in English, and turning out a very choppy piece of work. (He’d famously continue acting back in his native Sweden for Ingmar Bergman, among others, but never directed again.) And then there’s Veidt; a compelling screen presence (see THE MAN WHO LAUGHS/’28; THE SPY IN BLACK/’39; CASABLANCA/’42), but far too saturnine for even this flawed hero. (He’s also made up to resemble Nosferatu.) And showing less chemistry with Annabella then with helpmate (and pint-sized delight) Romney Brent. The film’s a miss, but an interesting one.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: You can see how this might have worked watching next year’s French romantic historical adventure IF I WERE KING/’38, rather stiffly directed by Frank Lloyd, but with Ronald Colman, Basil Rathbone & Frances Dee reveling in the Preston Sturges script. OR: For livelier Richelieu, try CARDINAL RICHELIEU/’35, with director Rowland V. Lee whipping George Arliss, Maureen O’Sullivan & Cesar Romero into shape. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/05/if-i-were-king-1938.html   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/03/cardinal-richelieu-1935.html

THE NAKED PREY (1965)

Grimly compelling even at its most awkward, Cornel Wilde stars & directs this ethnological chase pic as the leader of an African Safari (late 1800s?) who must run for his life after the ‘Great White’ elephant/ ivory hunter who hired him refuses to pay token tribute to the native tribe who live on the territory. A decision he quickly regrets as the hunting party is soon captured, tortured & killed (in gruesomely imaginative ways; one becomes a clay cooking vessel), with only Wilde (singularly fit & suitable for sport @ 53) given the honor to act as naked human prey for the bravest tribesmen to hunt. It’s not quite an African version of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, but pretty close; with Wilde mostly getting away with this film's far more realistic tone and sustaining atmosphere & a consistent level of acting from his largely amateur cast. One superb sequence stops running to watch in horror as a small village is attacked by a band of local slavers (fellow Africans?). And if Wilde occasionally drops the ball technically, as in a fumbled firewall sequence, no one can say he didn’t put it all on the line here.

DOUBLE-BILL: Filmed multiple times, the 1932 version of DANGEROUS GAME, filmed on sets also used for KING KONG/’33, remains the one to go for.

CRY TERROR! (1958)

Indie writer/director Andrew Stone, with his co-producer/editor wife Virginia Stone, made two of their signature frugally budgeted ‘suspensers’ with James Mason in ‘58. THE DECKS RAN RED, an unusual story, with documentary leanings, about a ship’s captain fighting to keep control of his boat, and before it, this far less unusual hostage drama. Rod Steiger, overwrought but effective, is the sadistic, controlling blackmailer (backed by Neville Brand, Angie Dickinson & Jack Klugman) who dupes Mason into making a small but powerful bomb which is then planted on a commercial airplane. Holding Mason, wife Inger Stevens & child as hostage, the air-carrier has to pony up half a mill to Steiger & Co. or one of their planes will explode in the sky. The cast certainly comes thru (Dickinson particularly vicious & cold-blooded), but the storyline is by-the-numbers stuff. And Stone's storyline has no place for the clever cost-free production value items he often uses to bump up slim budgets into something that might pass for an A-pic.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, DECKS, probably Stone’s best, with its surprising cast (Mason; Dorothy Dandridge; Broderick Crawford; Stuart Whitman) and real ‘Down Under’ Aussie flavor.

STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. (1928)

Buster Keaton’s last independent feature* is built on the double frame of feuding families (rival steamboat owners trying to stop a romance between the rich man’s daughter and Buster, the poor man’s son) and the budding relationship between pint-sized Buster and the father he never knew, jumbo-sized Ernest Torrence, the struggling steamboat man. The comedy comes in a series of gently hilarious set pieces, stand-outs include a haberdashery visit and a jail sequence where Buster demonstrates unexpected baking skills. But the film is legend for its climax, a one-reel astonishment as Buster, largely alone, confronts a hurricane as it surrealistically blasts thru town, yet still manages to save the day: both fathers, his girl and one steamboat. Complete with jaw-dropping effects that haven’t dated a bit because . . . well, because they really aren’t ‘effects,’ Buster is really doing everything. Compared to Buster’s ‘props’ and wind machines, CGI effects look bogus. And Buster goes even deeper, diving into his real-life past as a child-star vaudeville headliner when he enters a theater for a few memory turns before it self-destructs around him. (Look for his actual dad, Joseph Keaton, as a barber early in the film. Buster's ‘dive’ into the stage canvas backdrop a variation on his dad tossing him into it when he was a child as part of the act.) Buster’s feel for underlying psychology as extraordinary as it is inexplicable, like his preternatural gift for gags, stunting, narrative structure & directing technique. For nitpickers, the girl in the pic, debuting Marion Byron, doesn’t quite rate, but it’s hard to find anything else to beef about. And what a superb new score Tim Brock brings to the latest KINO DVD release, he really ‘gets’ the comedy, pointing up gags yet knowing when to be still. Essential viewing.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Buster’s last independent film, but not his last masterpiece which would be his first under contract at M-G-M, THE CAMERAMAN/’28. (With one of his best co-stars in Marceline Day.) After that, the decline was swift, accelerated by The Talkies, his drinking and (oddly enough) the financial success of those slow moving/slow-witted early sound films. Hard for Buster to argue with a slate of features that consistently outperformed his best work, like the money losing STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Attention to your disc player since this ‘Academy Ratio’ film (4:3) is mastered on the KINO release to play correctly in the 16x9/‘Enhanced for WideScreen’ setting.

THE BIG SLEEP (1946)

Howard Hawks’ classic pass at Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is one of the true champs of Hollywood detective pics, giving no sign of the two year struggle to get it on the screen. Dense & twisty in its details, it feels completely logical as you watch, and almost ridiculously entertaining with smart scenes & sassy dialogue constantly moving the characters and plot forward.* Humphrey Bogart, at his most resourceful & confident as Marlowe, solves the case between fending off passes from every attractive woman he comes into contact with; winding up (of course) with Lauren Bacall, the only one to give him any grief. (Off-screen, restarting their affair as Bogie’s first marriage died; wedded before reshoots.*) It’s hard to think of a crime Chandler missed sticking in here, and the film is unexpectedly violent, with corpses and compromised morals all over the place. Plus, many unexpected faces for a Warners supporting cast, all perfect . . . pretty much like the film.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman & an uncredited Philip Epstein (on the re-shoots) in what must be the all-time All-Star writers line-up.

DOUBLE-BILL/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Coming on the heels of Bacall’s smash debut (with Hawks & Bogart in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT/’44), Jack Warner precipitously threw Bacall into CONFIDENTIAL AGENT/’45 and nearly killed her career before it got going. (It did kill the film career of B’way director Herman Shumlin on just his second pic.) Hence, reshoots to bump up the Bogie/Bacall relationship. (The drier early release now also available.)

40 POUNDS OF TROUBLE (1962)

The third (of four) version of Damon Runyon’s LITTLE MISS MARKER* keeps the basic 'Kid as Gambler’s I.O.U.' framework, but drops the gags & repercussions of having a bookie (and associates) forced into the role of foster parent. Instead, scripter Marion Hargrove gins up some nonsense involving State Lines of jurisdiction & alimony while placing the action inside a posh Lake Tahoe Hotel/Casino (managed by producer/star Tony Curtis) perfectly equipped to handle a kid’s every wish. No wonder they don’t list Runyon in the opening credits. Considering the missed opportunities, director Norman Jewison turns out one slick product, offering a nostalgic look at the human-scaled gambling scene of early ‘60s Nevada and, as climax, a dash thru the surprisingly bucolic DisneyLand of the era. Curtis, Suzanne Pleshette & Phil Silvers are all pleasant company (even without a single good line, Silvers gets his laughs), but the little girl is something of a drag. Rate it . . . ‘meh.’

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *The first LITTLE MISS MARKER, 1934-Paramount: Adolphe Menjou & six-yr-old Shirley Temple (phenomenal in her breakthru pic) is by far the best; laughs, tears & unexpectedly serious overtones. SORROWFUL JONES/’49 has a Damon Runyon dream-team in Bob Hope & Lucille Ball (see below); and the most recent MISS/’80 boasts an amusingly sour turn from Walter Matthau, holding back on the cream at the top of the milk bottle.

WINE, WOMEN AND HORSES (1937)

Burly supporting player Barton MacLane gets a rare lead (a romantic lead yet!) in this low-rent rethink of DARK HAZARD/’34, an offbeat Edward G. Robinson gambling pic centered on dog racing. With MacLane, Ann Sheridan & Peggy Bates in for Eddie G., Glenda Farrell & Genevieve Tobin, this little programmer loses a lot of interest swapping out greyhounds for thoroughbred horses. It also misses the Pre-Code naughtiness of the earlier film. The basic idea is the same: MacLane, whose fortunes are always going up and down at the track, at gambling tables, even pitching horseshoes, tries going straight with a regular job when he falls for disapproving small town gal Bates, but keeps falling into bad old habits, egged on by Sheridan’s lowdown racetrack broad. Not a lot of chemistry going on here, Sheridan in the midst of a star-building work-up (seven pics in ‘37) far too fresh for the part (or MacLane) while Bates is a complete non-starter. But it did give uncredited producer Bryan Foy, Warners’ King of the ‘Bs’, a chance to hire kid brother Charley Foy (two of vaudeville’s 'Seven Little Foys') as a bargain basement horse owner.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: In spite of that irresistible title, not a drop of wine in the pic.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Stick with DARK HAZARD. (see below)

THE BIG COMBO (1955)

Atmosphere trumps plot in this one. B-pic specialist Joseph H. Lewis neatly handles the mob story tropes & chores (adding a few daring sexual touches along the way) as obsessed police Lieutenant Cornel Wilde (with those big, brown puppy-dog eyes) goes over budget and over-the-top on a one-man mission to take down Richard Conte’s Mr. Big mob guy.* Wilde's just as obsessed with Conte’s sleepy-eyed gal Jean Wallace, a fading glamour-puss who loathes, but can’t leave her lover. (And what a lover with Lewis filming Conte in a manner to suggest oral pleasures never before seen on Stateside screens.) Brian Donlevy has a memorable turn as Conte’s hard-of-hearing aide, while Lee Van Cleef & Earl Holliman find a gay angle to their pair of enforcers. But what really makes this one sing is cinematographer John (‘Prince of Darkness’) Alton who simply tears the film noir joint apart with darkly etched low-key/contrasty lighting. Talk about thru a glass darkly!

LINK: A glistening print (from TCM) is currently on youtube. Grab it while it lasts! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIkCXF9Y4ow

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Actually, a two-man mission with Wilde’s right-hand man, sad sack character actor Jay Adler, in one of his best roles.

SORCERER (1977)

Few things screw up a hot, young director’s career like having a major success with a lousy pic or (far worse) a major critical/ commercial flop on your best. And few director’s fell harder or more permanently than William Friedkin after THE FRENCH CONNECTION/’71 and then THE EXORCIST/’73 briefly made him Hollywood’s most bankable helmer.* Friedkin made a lot of films after SORCERER spectacularly tanked, but never fully recovered his mojo after this undeserved comeuppance. A thrilling reimagining of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s famous, existential truck-hauling, nitroclycerine nail-biter THE WAGES OF FEAR/’53, this film opens up the front-story with four brilliantly concise backgrounders on four disparate, desperate men (hitman; terrorist; embezzler; low-level Jersey mob man) who will run the dangerous mission. Self-exiled in some Godforsaken South American oil-producing compound, they gamble everything on an impossible drive thru overgrown jungle territory for a paycheck big enough to restart their lives someplace else. With grimly, terrifying, how’d-they-do-that location shooting, the stunt work is gasp-worthy, yet the film doesn’t scrimp on fascinating character and devious plot construction. The ending, in particular, bests Clouzot at his own game. Roy Scheider, who worked with Friedkin on CONNECTION, is phenomenally good in a role Friedkin wanted, and commercially needed Steve McQueen for, but all the lesser known foreign players are just as effective. (The terrorist, Amidou, especially fine.) Friedkin even got publicly whacked for an end credit dedication to Clouzot. Yet, the film fully earns it. And no one’s stopping you from watching both.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Stateside distributors Paramount and Universal, blindsided at the lack of audience response, put out this absurd poster to let action fans know this wasn’t some damn foreign film with subtitles.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *After a big hit on a piece of crap, you stop listening to anyone; after a flop with your best stuff, you won’t listen to yourself. Over-confidence vs. constant second-guessing.

SURVIVING PICASSO (1996)

Misbegotten bio-pic on the artist and the women in his life, with everyone in front and behind the camera hopelessly miscast. Where’s the passion, where’s the danger . . . where’s the art? (Though since this is mostly post-WWII Picasso, the lackluster art is as much Picasso’s fault as the filmmakers’.) Constructed around the memories of Françoise Gilot, for a decade muse, mistress & childbearer, the film manages to touch on all the major women he loved and/or married . . . and then came to hate, yet reveal nothing other than Picasso as an alarmingly self-centered prick who usually got his way in the end. Heck, he was paying the bills. The usual Merchant/Ivory gang (director James Ivory; producer Ismail Merchant; script Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, from an Arianna Huffington bio of Gilot; lenser Tony Pierce-Roberts; score Richard Robbins) all painfully out of their fach. So too most of a ‘veddy’ British cast. With Anthony Hopkins’ clipped consonants a particular distraction. (Exception: Dominic West, excellent as Pablo’s wastrel son Paulo.) Proof that nothing is more boring than watching paint dry . . . even when it’s Picasso’s paint.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Not seen here, but surely Antonio Banderas made more contact with the Picasso life-force on the recent GENIUS series. (Javier Bardem might have been even better.)

LE MERAVIGLIE / THE WONDERS (2014)

Big award-winner for writer/director Alice Rohrwacher (Cannes et al.) is fascinating, yet so stingy with info, also frustratingly opaque. At heart, it's a bread-and-butter girl’s coming-of-age story, tricked out by a Tuscany setting and the beekeeping farm where she and her family live & work. Eldest of four girls, Gelsomina is treated as an adult by her demanding, depressive father (Mom holds mostly to domestic tasks) and gets the brunt of his complaints as their artisan honey-making operation starts to break down physically, culturally & economically. Further complications arrive with a German boy, about her age, coming to work; and when a tv crew picks them as contestants for a program on ancient Etruscan traditions not quite lost to time. But in trying to add variety, Rohrwacher needlessly pushes her material, making the boy silent and the television contest a gaudy costumed variety show when the drama of simply keeping the farm alive and in seeing how the young girl handles herself would have been more than enough. And if Rohrwacher doesn’t trust her material, why should we? Still, many good things in here when the film focuses on family, land and labor.

THE MORTAL STORM (1940)

M-G-M got on the anti-Nazi bandwagon in 1940 with two films: the fluffy gloss & fake grit of ESCAPE (Mervyn LeRoy/Robert Taylor/Norma Shearer) and this unbearably moving, tough yet romantic, torn-apart family drama. Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart, in their fourth and final pairing, are the last decent couple standing when their tightly interwoven German town celebrates Hitler’s rise with a series of restrictive measures that tempt away her original fiancé (Robert Young) and her two step-brothers. Her father, ere the town’s most beloved professor (Frank Morgan, in a beautiful ‘straight’ perf) is proscribed as Non-Aryan (Hollywood code for Jewish); while the couple’s only hope, as the town turns rabid with Nationalist Fever, is to escape to pre-Anschluss Austria (it’s 1933) skiing a dangerous mountain pass. Fatalistic romantic melodrama, usually with a religious theme, was director Frank Borzage’s specialty, but only rarely in his sound films was he able to balance so many story elements & characters this well. Even certain dated features of studio production at the time, like the scale-model town miniatures, help to dramatize a fairy tale land destroyed by modern politics & intolerance. With fabulous casting on all sides (young Dan Dailey as a fervid Nazi and, of all people, Maria Ouspenskya, showing remarkable range as Stewart’s proud mother) putting over its fearless ending. Devastating, beautiful stuff.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Concerned over the prospects of a war-themed pic, M-G-M’s trailer emphasizes this as ‘A story of love and sacrifice, NOT WAR!’

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Stewart won his Oscar® this year for THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, supposedly in belated tribute to Frank Capra’s MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON from the year before. Maybe . . . but with this film, STORY and Lubitsch’s SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (also with Sullavan & Morgan) all in 1940, who could have deserved it more?

DOUBLE-BILL: Two years back, Sullavan, tackling WWI war-torn romance, was pulled in three directions by Robert Taylor, this film’s Robert Young and Franchot Tone (stealing the pic) in Borzage’s THREE COMRADES/’38, the only film to boast an F. Scott Fitzgerald script credit.

DESTINATION MURDER (1950)

Dunderheaded Grade Z film noir from journeyman megger Edward L. Cahn (128 credits!) tags along as revenge-minded daughter Joyce Mackenzie works around slow-footed police to find her father’s murderer on her own. Spotting the likely shooter in a line-up, she declines to finger the guy and decides to date him (!) hoping to find the man behind this trigger-pulling weasel, the Mr. Big who ordered the hit! It all leads to a swanky nightclub/gambling joint run by Albert Dekker & Hurd Hatfield. (How’d these legit film actors get in here?) Blackmail, a signed confession, more murder, and gangster moll Myrna Dell complicate Mackenzie’s amateur sleuthing, but not nearly as much as a romance with one of the likely suspects. Don Martin’s original screenplay ticks off all the proper noir boxes, but it’s too ineptly played to come off. And only Bad Girl Myrna Dell (coiffed a la Lana Turner; vicious & nasty as film noir queen Marie Windsor) gets any sort of rhythm going.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: After this, it’s hard to work up much interest for more Edward L. Cahn. But LAUGHTER IN HELL/’33, a Pre-Code Southern-Fried prison chain-gang meller with Pat O’Brien (riding the backdraft of I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG/’32), though plenty uneven, has its eye-popping moments, especially in some location shooting.

THE SEA HAWK (1940)

Classic Golden Age Hollywood swashbuckler has aged with uncommon grace. A huge production, bigger than you may recall, director Michael Curtiz maintains continuous excitement while folding in deft comic interplay on lush sets repurposed from last year’s ELIZABETH AND ESSEX and delivering sea-faring effects that have hardly dated. While the Seton Miller/Howard Koch script doubles the emotional tug with a period storyline that echoes contemporary war events in Europe. (Philip II’s 16th Century Spain standing in for Nazi Germany and Elizabeth I’s England for Churchill’s United Kingdom.) Little more than the title remains from Rafael Sabatini’s SEA HAWK novel, faithfully filmed in 1924,* instead, Errol Flynn as Britain’s top pirateer, raids Spanish galleons while trying to warn a skeptical Queen of Philip’s war plans. Flora Robson is a standout Elizabeth; Henry Daniell a stealthy court villain (his total lack of fencing skills brilliantly finessed with doubles, edits & shadows on the wall); the usual stellar Warners supporting players; and, as love interest, Brenda Marshall, fine, if no Olivia de Havilland. Compared to CAPTAIN BLOOD/’35, the first of the series with Flynn, Curtiz and composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold*, there’s more expertise & filmmaking confidence, the Hollywood Studio Factory at its zenith. Perhaps, almost too perfected, missing the sense of boundless discovery in the looser, less ‘well-made’ earlier film. And showing just a hint of the airless quality that would steadily increase over the decade.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *A galley slave rebellion, played like a silent film, is unthinkable without Korngold’s score, ending with a near operatic chorale as the men exalt upon heading home. No wonder Korngold gets a remarkable solo card in the opening credits, second only to director Curtiz.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Frank Lloyd’s silent SEA HAWK, with striking perfs from manly Milton Sills and the alternately dastardly & likeable Wallace Beery, is also quite a show. And in great shape on the Warners DVD.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/06/sea-hawk-1924.html

EARLY MAN (2018)

When you’ve got WALLACE & GROMIT, CHICKEN RUN and SHAUN THE SHEEP on your Stop-Motion Animation resumé, the bar’s set awfully high. And that’s a problem for director Nick Park and the Aardman Animations crew on this allegorical tale of indigenous peoples (here ‘backward’ Cave Men) fighting the Conquering Horde (Bronze Age Roman Empire types) in hopes getting off the reservation and back to Happy Valley. Lovable characters, clever settings & devices, with plenty of kid-friendly physical gags, but something’s missing in the basic set up. And making the whole second half a winner-take-all football/soccer match proves less comically productive than hoped; and far less period specific than it ought to be. Did story development take place in some Aardman echo chamber with no one noticing the Emperor was wearing no clothes. Where’s that truth-telling little kid when you need him?

DOUBLE-BILL: It’s got a lousy rep, but Ringo Starr, Dennis Quaid & Shelley Long give good, dumb fun in CAVEMAN/’81. OR: Buster Keaton intercuts THREE AGES (Cave Man; Roman Era; Modern Times) in his wonderful first feature from 1923. Here, the gags are specific to each period, though there’s a touch of Pre-Historic Baseball, and even some Stop-Motion animation for Buster and a ‘commuter’ dinosaur. Best on KINO or try this youtube LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e468Z0tplFI

A CHRISTMAS CAROL / SCROOGE (1951)

Rightly acclaimed version of the Dickens classic is not so much A CHRISTMAS CAROL as THE CHRISTMAS CAROL. And now, for the generations who grew up with third-generation subfusc Public Domain ‘dupes’ (Colorized!), here it is in a shockingly improved, fine grain print (available on YouTube*) that sweeps the board cleaner than ever. (Hence this second Write-Up, joining a previous assessment of various iterations.) Comic actor Alastair Sim is as grimly serious (and ultimately joyous/grateful/hilarious) a Scrooge as you’ll find. So too the entire production, now handsome as a deluxe David Lean Dickens adaptation. And, like Dickens at his best, turning cheek-by-jowl from frightful to comic to tearful, though mostly a far scarier ride than you may recall. Darkly shot & claustrophobically designed, it’s all held together by Brian Desmond-Hurst’s concise, moving direction. (Mentored by John Ford, which shows especially in his staging of tight interiors.) Everyone’s caught up in the spirit of the thing as Scrooge slowly warms up from the haggard, vicious soul we first meet, thru ghostly lessons of self-knowledge into a different, better man. And what smart story construction choices, right from the revised opening; plus a few additions to round off some storylines, mainly in the Ghost of Christmas Past section. Even the casting of a slightly older, not so Tiny Tim makes a telling difference: sentiment rather than sentimentality. By the time those two orphans, ‘Ignorance’ & ‘Want,’ appear under the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present, you’ll be a goner.

LINK:*https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2c1woo

DOUBLE-BILL: Second best CHRISTMAS CAROL? Probably the most unlikely, MISTER MAGOO’S CHRISTMAS CAROL/’62. Even better, Sir John Gielgud’s abridged audio of the book. (See joint review below)

TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT (1972)

Something of a doomed project. Bought as a vehicle for Katharine Hepburn in the wake of GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER/’67 and LION IN WINTER/’68, hopes of molding Graham Greene’s 1969 novella into a sort of senior citizen Auntie Mame died in development. Nixing a Jay Presson Allen/Hugh Wheeler script, Kate’s own revised version was turned down.* But maybe Kate got it right. As made, the Allen/Wheeler script became one of those films where cast & crew have a grand time that never makes its way to the viewer. And with no one locating a proper style or tone to play in, everyone winds up pressing too hard. None more than Maggie Smith, in for Hepburn as the aging Aunt, urging Alec McCowen’s middle-aged Bartleby character to ‘live, live, live’ while they cross international borders on a picaresque cash-smuggling adventure. Meant to be ‘fun, fun, fun,’ it’s just tiresome. Worse, you can see exactly how this might have worked every time the film flashes back to Smith in earlier days, going from innocent schoolgirl to sophisticated woman-of-the-demi-world. Like one of those musicals where you go out humming the scenery instead of a tune, there's plenty of surface charm (immaculate tech work: Doug Slocombe lensing; John Box design; Anthony Powell costume) with director George Cukor moving it briskly along. Yet it ultimately manages the unusual trick of being half-baked and over-cooked.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Two years later, the musical MAME/’74 was an even bigger flop. (An underwhelming Auntie Mame, Lucille Ball might have been just right here.) While in-between, Smith redeemed herself mentoring Timothy Bottom’s boy/man playing a lonely, melancholy eccentric in LOVE AND PAIN AND THE WHOLE DAMN THING/’73.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK: *That’s the accepted story. More likely the project, made while James Aubrey ran M-G-M, got taken away from Hepburn after her major flop with a similar OTT character in THE MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT/’69. Enter Maggie Smith whose last lead, THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE/’69, from a script by this film’s Jay Presson Allen, was Oscar’d.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-madwoman-of-chaillot-1969.html

JUNIOR BONNER (1972)

Sam Peckinpah shows a gentler side in this character study of Steve McQueen’s hardcore rodeo champ, now in decline and dealing with family issues over a week’s worth of bigtime riding events as he passes thru his old Arizona hometown. One of the best works of SouthWest Americana ever filmed (and beautifully by Lucien Ballard), the depth of subject empathy, for a class and way of life, is in such striking contrast to what’s usually offered in this area, tough, loving, without condescension, the slight story rushes up on your emotions without seeming to make a play for them. Often very funny, too. Even a barroom brawl with signature Peckinpah slow-mo lensing laid against Robert Wolfe’s rapid-fire/splintered editing, feels freshly thought out. A truly great film, miraculously cast with Ida Lupino & Robert Preston, both off the big screen for a decade or more, perfect as the estranged parents (each only 12 years older than McQueen in real life); and Joe Don Baker as the big wheel sell-out younger brother. Note our second poster, with the sexy babe tacked on in the hope of bringing out the regular McQueen fans who gave this work of art (for that’s what it is) the cold shoulder. They never did show up, but don’t let that stop you.

DOUBLE-BILL: Only Nick Ray’s THE LUSTY MEN/’52 (with Robert Mitchum & Susan Hayward, a great alternate choice for McQueen’s parents, no?) and Carroll Ballard's calling-card documentary RODEO/’69 (available as an extra on some editions of his THE BLACK STALLION/’79) compare.

SWING YOUR LADY (1938)

Other than getting bumped off by James Cagney & Edward G. Robinson in showy supporting roles, 1938 was something of a step back from 1937 for Humphrey Bogart.* And this little hayseed comedy must have seemed the nadir. It’s really not so bad: Bogie’s a boxing manager who goes to the Ozarks with hefty prospect Nat Pendleton to promote an easy fight. Turns out the local Hillbillies are game, but Pendleton gets stars in his eyes for putative opponent Louise Fazenda and won’t fight her! Hardy, har-har. It’s less weirdly amusing than amusingly weird, with some HEE HAW atmosphere and a couple of musicales for the locals, a well-staged song and square-dance number for Bogie gal Penny Singleton (less irritating than usual), and a surprise appearance by a young, glowing & tall Ronald Reagan as a newsman. Only his third credit. The film’s no more than harmless fluff, but Bogie made far worse pics.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Best of those ‘37 pics; MARKED WOMAN: excellent in support of Bette Davis as a crusading D.A., and one his best early leads as the resentful laborer losing out to immigrants and joining a KKK-like group in BLACK LEGION.

THE SHEIK (1921)

Rudolph Valentino opened his breakthru year tangoing to stardom in Rex Ingram’s FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, and ended it sealing his place in movie mythology as a sheik in Araby, abducting a headstrong English adventuress to his desert compound. A sensation in 1921, and looking swell, after a scratchy first reel, on a new KINO DVD, its basic appeal not far removed from FIFTY SHADES . . . and nearly as ridiculous. Something of a double rape fantasy, with Rudi holding back when the lady’s fair flesh adds pity to passion, arousing tender, lust-taming love before a ride to the rescue when an Arab bandit abducts the abductee for less allegorical rape. Popular as this was at the time, it was also derided (especially with its cop-out ‘reveal’ ending), so that its sequel (Rudi’s posthumously released final film, SON OF THE SHEIK/’26) was a winking riff on it. First-billed Agnes Ayres hardly seems worth all the bother, but the rest of the cast does well enough, with Adolphe Menjou, two years before A WOMAN OF PARIS/’23 for Chaplin, making something touching out his nonsensical role as a French novelist visiting The Sheik in the desert. Puerile stuff, with director George Melford organizing some impressive horseback charges over the sand, but unable to keep Ayres from chewing the scenery or Valentino from popping his eyes with lusty passion. And yet, in full face close-up, the charm and magnetism still come thru. But best perhaps to start elsewhere.*

DOUBLE-BILL: *In 1921, ‘elsewhere’ offers up two Rex Ingram pics, HORSEMEN and THE CONQUERING POWER, or Nazimova’s odd, fascinating CAMILLE.

HOOPER (1978)

Certainly best of the Burt Reynolds’ Good Ol’ Boy pics, such as they are, HOOPER applies the classic storyline of Aging Ace vs Up-and-Coming Kid (a Paul Newman favorite at the time) with Reynolds’ top-of-the-heap 42 yr-old movie stuntman taking on Jan-Michael Vincent’s 34 yr-old hotshot newbie. A mere eight-year difference where a two-decade generation gap is needed. To its credit, the script picks up on the gaffe and smartly turns the rivals into fast friends, then partners for the big stunt finale. Add in Sally Field as Burt’s worrying girlfriend; Brian Keith as her legendary stuntman dad; a very funny Robert Klein as the self-centered Hollywood director asking for impossible stunts*, and a rather too lovable mix of on-set production regulars and you should have an easy winner. (As it was commercially.) But with Hal Needham megging, it now seems barely tolerable. A truly terrible director (early gigs stunting for hack directors like Andrew McLaglen left their mark), even that stuntman background doesn’t protect him here. Physically, he knows how to plan a car crash, but as for effectively filming it? Not so much. And non-action scenes are far, far worse. An early scene with Reynolds & Field talking over each other in a manner meant to establish their tight, yet wary relationship is amateurish. (Field seems to lose interest in the film, and the film in her, after it.) Even the big car-jump finale dies on screen. Like so many stunts in the film, Needham can’t be bothered to lay out the working logistics so we can participate. He phones it in, faked in four or five grainy shots, even missing the big ‘rev up.’ Endemic of so much missing here.

DOUBLE-BILL: Two years on, Richard Rush (with Peter O’Toole & Steve Railsback) took a wild Nietzchean stab at the same subject in the messy, if entertaining THE STUNT MAN/’80.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *So what successful/pretentious/film-buff director is Klein supposed to be? Best guess is William Friedkin. While he’d just had a Hollywood comeuppance in SORCERER/’77, Needham worked for him back on the dauntingly dangerous FRENCH CONNECTION/’71.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The nicely judged opening credit sequence is a smoothly handled montage with two decades of stuntman injuries carefully wrapped & bandaged, a daily routine. Shot in near anonymous close-up (you know it’s Reynolds), it shows just the sort of film this could have been.  Did someone else direct it?  Burt?

MAIGRET TEND UN PIÈGE / MAIGRET SETS A TRAP (1958)

Gleefully maligned by the pre-Nouveau Vague gang in their Cahiers du Cinéma days, the so-called ‘Quality French Cinema’ was rarely as bad as they claimed . . . except when it was. As in this exasperatingly dull Jean Delannoy film, taken from an oft-adapted Georges Simenon Inspector Maigret policier. (Michael Gambon & Rowan Atkinson did it for their respective Maigret tv series.) In theory, Jean Gabin, now well into belt and suspenders mode, should have easily followed the likes of Pierre Renoir, Michel Simon & Charles Laughton as the sedate, pipe-smoking detective. But the script tries for misplaced dynamism, with Maigret verbally browbeating suspects like Perry Mason coming down hard on a recalcitrant witness. Even that wouldn’t matter if Delannoy came up with more than a handful of atmospheric shots to set the tone. But there’s not enough back street alley scenes to liven things up. The film huffs & puffs, but even with a rich cast (Annie Giradot; Lino Ventura; many more with little to do), never takes off.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Gabin did a couple more Maigrets, with and without Delannoy. Instead, try another great actor, Harry Baur, as Maigret in Julien Duvivier’s far superior LA TÊTE D'UN HOMME/’33. (See below)

MYSTERY ROAD (2015)

Location, location, location. In Real Estate . . . and Detective Fiction? Well, that’s the case here, where the Australian Outback is the standout element in an otherwise standard issue ‘lone wolf’ detective story. That and the extreme caesuras between each line of dialogue. Maybe Ivan Sen needed someone on the set telling him to pick up the pace as he wrote, directed, lensed, scored & edited the pic. And maybe some help in casting, too, as Aaron Pederson is less compelling than Sen thinks he is as the indigenous detective on his first murder case, coming up against a web of local intrigue (guns, drugs, ‘grog,’ teen prostitution, police indifference/involvement) as he runs down clues he gets largely from an eccentric uncle who seems to cover the whole town. And he's got an estranged wife & teen daughter in the mix, too. In a good, if depressive cast, Hugo Weaving is exceptional as a fellow officer, transferred from another territory, who may be working both sides of the fence. (Check him out choking up a bit of Chinese food.) And there’s a neatly handled shootout finale for a cinematic lift to the ending. Elsewise, the stale taste of reheated noir.

DOUBLE-BILL: Generally well received with a quick sequel, GOLDSTONE/’16, and a MYSTERY ROAD mini-series out this year.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Pederson also shows on the excellent JACK IRISH series, with Guy Pearce in the lead as a Private Dick.

GRAN HOTEL (1944)

Typically modest, lively Mario Moreno/'Cantinflas’ pic, from back in his early prime; with Miguel Delgado, for decades his regular writer/director in charge. Here, Cantinflas’ everyman character (street-smart/less sentimental than later), two years behind on his rent, goes job hunting. He lands briefly at a fancy nightclub/ restaurant, and when that inevitably blows up, goes for a Bellboy position at the Grand Hotel, recommended by his girlfriend/fiancée who works there. Once on the job, he’s mistaken for a Duke (known to be slumming in disguise) by an American heiress just crazy to be a Duchess! But then her emerald necklace goes missing and only Cantinflas knows who stole it and where he hid it. If only he hadn’t been clunked on the head and developed amnesia! These farcical doings can be tough to maintain in the best of films . . . and this ain’t the best of films. But you can easily see the huge appeal watching Moreno screw up one task after another in the nightclub/restaurant scene. Superbly sustained, it’s a one-reel comedy short serving up a series of well performed gags for Cantinflas as waiter, host and eventually accidental ‘Apache’ dance partner. It makes up for the verbal jokes you’ll miss, unless you speak Spanish, in his signature double-talk monologues.

DOUBLE-BILL: Cantinflas tried Hollywood twice, succeeding spectacularly in AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS/’56 (a new, much needed restoration recently out) before falling flat on his face in the disastrous PEPE/’60, a habitual candidate for Worst Film Ever.

LUCI DEL VARIETÀ / VARIETY LIGHTS (1950)

After a score of writing credits over a decade, Federico Fellini finally took to the director’s chair, sharing writing & directing duties with the more experienced Alberto Lattuada. Yet in story, character & most especially tone, it’s already all Fellini; and like so much early Fellini, wonderfully human & inventive. The story isn’t particularly fresh: Third-rate vaudeville troupe adds pretty young thing to their line-up and watch helplessly as her ambition & sheer star wattage upset relationships & a well-established pecking order. Eventually, she’ll move onward & upward, while the old declining pros regroup just in time for their manager to spot another fresh young thing and close the narrative circle. But in atmosphere; in eccentric, but believable characterizations; in its view of a fast changing Italian society; it’s freshly felt, witty & emotionally involving; and technically immaculate. Was there ever a more natural moviemaker? Fellini’s wife, Giulietta Masina, is just about perfect as the temporarily spurned wife of the manager, while Lattauda (no slouch himself*) also brings relatives onto the payroll in producer/brother Bianca and composer/father Felice Lattuada. Fellini’s composer-for-life, Nino Rota, will show on his next, THE WHITE SHEIK/’52.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Since Fellini gets all the attention, why not try Lattuada? At his best in MAFIOSA/’62.