GIDEON'S TRUMPET (1980)

Straight-forward & first-rate, this fact-based tv-movie on a consequential moment in legal history stemming from a small-timer’s court experience gets a lot of things right.  Clarence Earl Gideon, denied representation on a breaking & entering charge, forced to act as his own lawyer, winds up sentenced to five years for chump change because of his prior convictions.  From prison, he petitions the U.S. Supreme Court where his hand-written letter is pulled from the slush pile, voted on & assigned to future Associate Justice Abe Fortas for argument.  This could all have been dry as toast on screen, but David Rintels, who wrote the one-man Clarence Darrow play Henry Fonda performed on B’way (and around the country; his Tony winner) and John Houseman, who’d produced it, reunited to make this as a modest tv movie.  (Houseman also acts as Chief Justice; that’d be Earl Warren, not that Houseman does an impersonation.  Same for the line-up of famous old-codgers playing the Associate  Justices: Sam Jaffe, Dean Jaggar, William Prince, et al.)  The limited budget shows here & there, but much of the plainness built into the production works toward verisimilitude unusual for a 1980 tv pic.  With only a couple of grandiose uplift music cues to spoil the rough-hewn quality director Robert Collins is trying for.  Even José Ferrer, no shrinking violet when it comes to grabbing attention, makes an exemplary, fiercely intelligent Abe Fortas.  Though in looks & vocal cadence, he’s more a ringer for popular author Gerald Green (HOLOCAUST; LAST ANGRY MAN) then for Fortas.  No real surprises here, well none other than a final chance to see Fay Wray in a neat little part as Gideon’s landlady, but a remarkably good tv movie, something of an oxymoron at the time.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: If you wondered what the hell Southern accent Daniel Craig was shooting for in KNIVES OUT/’19, just listen to Lane Smith as the lawyer Gideon hires for his retrial.  Pure Tennessee Rotary Club from Lane, and just about perfect.  Somebody get Craig a tape before shooting on KNIVES II starts up.

DOUBLE-BILL: The last time Fonda had an ultra-realistic prison gig was in Alfred Hitchcock’s habitually underrated, masterfully sober-sided THE WRONG MAN/’56.

IN DEN GÄNGEN / IN THE AISLES (2018)

Superior workplace dramedy (minimalist Euro-Art House Division) that morphs into something considerably deeper, perhaps too deep, as a crew of overnight shelf stockers in a ‘Big Box’ warehouse grocery & dry goods store tend to their corner of the acreage before heading off after a long night of work to lives of quiet desperation.  A reunified post-East Germany where every man pretty much is an island, an archipelago of lonely souls.  Sounds like a downer, and much is, yet the film doesn’t play out that way.  Instead, writer/director Thomas Stuber locates the same vein of wry, nimble wit found in prime Aki Kaurismäki, sans AK’s distinctive use of color & composition if not without its own playful touches: forklifts dancing thru the aisles to a Strauss waltz, Pop-Up parties & rule breaking dares.  A working life held in place by the sort of low expectations you see in Ermanno Olmi (IL POSTO//’61).  Franz Rogowski is exceptional  as the new hire trying to straighten out his life with the regular routine of a regular job.  Pleasant in his uncommunicative way, he slowly warms to older partner (and forklift mentor) Peter Kurth while managing unexpectedly deft social flirtation with unhappily married Sandra Hüller.  Stuber eking out personal info thru surprisingly fast/reliable employee gossip and keeping things just odd enough to keep us off balance as he builds rooting interest.  With a great physical look as a hook, it’s awfully easy to get caught up in this small drama.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Take a brief lesson in the difference between Hollywood 101 screenwriting and small indie Euro-Art Films by noting what happens when a box-cutter, used to slice a little cake between Rogowski & Hüller, gets left behind after an awkward moment.  In Hollywood, the forgotten blade would have been a pivotal moment leading to a career or romantic crisis.  Here, it’s simply dropped.

THE RAID (1954)

Exceptional fact-inspired Civil War historical about an ad hoc unit of escaped Rebel POWs, hiding out in Canada while Major Van Heflin does advance work in Vermont, planning an attack to rob banks for the cash-starved South, steal horses, and cause enough death & destruction to force the Union Army into sending divisions up North.  Phenomenally well shot by Lucien Ballard in TechniColor (the restored print, please), it’s another fine Hollywood effort for Argentine director Hugo Fregonese, perplexingly released (or was it being buried?) under 20th/Fox’s ultra-budget Panoramic banner.  With Anne Bancroft & an exceptional Tommy Rettig as war widow & son, townies whose instant rapport with Heflin make his assignment unbearably tough to honor.  (THE MUSIC MAN/’62, of all things, follows the same score sheet.)  A rare good role from Bancroft’s unhappy first try at the movies, and very strong support from Lee Marvin (a particularly vicious Reb), Peter Graves, Claude Akins and a fascinating out-of-character Richard Boone as a one-armed Yankee coward.  And if the personal relationships & story arc are unusually complex in design & execution, the big set pieces are even more remarkable in color & logistical clarity, especially considering the film’s modest budget.  Depressing to think that Hollywood had nothing else to offer Fregonese after the mediocre BLACK TUESDAY later this year.

DOUBLE-BILL: Coming off a career high in SHANE/’53, somebody was finding great, undervalued directors with dark sensibilities & strong action chops for Van Heflin with Budd Boetticher’s WINGS OF THE HAWK/’53 and André De Toth’s TANGANYIKA/’54 immediately preceding.  (Neither seen here.)

JOURNEY TOGETHER (1945)

1945 was pretty late in the day for a wartime recruitment film.  But as an official offering from the Royal Air Force, made almost entirely with legit RAF talent, no doubt everyone had to jump thru bureaucratic hoops & circumnavigate red tape to have their superior’s superior sign off on the project.  That said, a decent enough exercise, the first joint effort from Boulting Brothers John & Roy, from a story idea by Terence Rattigan, not that you’d notice.  It’s the usual setup, three strangers at military camp becoming pals & rivals as they go thru pilot training under dashing instructor John Justin.  Jack Watling the toff everything comes easily to; middle-class David Tomlinson quietly washing out; Richard Attenborough the working-class striver who has to work harder just to stay in contention.  Fun to see them all looking like teenagers in early credits, with Attenborough taking the lead as he weathers a crisis when he has to switch from his dream position as a glam pilot and learn navigator skills at the tough, caring fatherly suggestion of (wait for it) Edward G. Robinson*, showing up for two reels as a Stateside instructor at a U.S. pilot finishing school.  (And that's silent/early Talkie star Bessie Love making a rare appearance as the wife.)  The Boultings make a pretty good show of it, within a limited budget & modest effects, getting good suspense out of Attenborough’s struggles in his new position.  But the film, though nicely showing the importance of all the plane positions, is expendable.

DOUBLE-BILL: Finding a twist on the Basic Training pic, Ruth Gordon followed screenwriter/husband Garson Kanin thru the process, writing a better late entry in the form, OVER 21, starring on B’way in ‘44, then with Irene Dunne taking over for the 1945 film.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *For less than 20 minutes screen-time, nice going by Eddie G. on this French poster.

LUCA (2021)

Enrico Casarosa, after two decades storyboard artist, now director on the sweet-natured short LA LUNA/’11 (look for it on-line) and just out with his first feature, an Italian Riviera fable about an adolescent fishboy testing the waters (er . . . out-of-waters) of a land-based life as a fully human kid in a small coastal town.  And just about the most sheerly charming, least pushy delight PIXAR has offered us in ages.  Wonderfully designed in look, characters & story, with a ‘60s commedia all'italiana throb to it, the initial goal for Luca and his slightly senior fishboy pal a shiny new Vespa (what could be more tempting?), but bumps along the way: a pretty girl needing partners for a local triathlon; a surrogate son finding a surrogate father; under-the-sea parents coming ashore to mutual embarrassment; a town tough who needs to be brought down.  Who runs a narrative with this much confidence (and competence) on their first feature?  Even a background with RATATOUILLE/’07; UP/'09 and COCO’17 can’t fully explain it.  Especially Casarosa’s openhanded approach to the usual PIXAR story beats & life-lessons tropes that elsewhere can often come off like orders (you WILL laugh; you WILL be scared; you WILL weep; you WILL learn tolerance), here allowed to sneak up on us.  The only downside that so few will experience this in Big Screen Joy Magnification.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The fishboys’ first ecstatic encounter with proper home-cooked Italian cuisine no exaggeration.  Ask any first-timer.  (Or just check out 'Pasta Grannies' on youtube.)

CONTEST: An early test run for the boys' copycat Vespa shows what great Italian actor in what great Italian comedy on a b&w still stuck in the handlebar?  A correct answer, placed in COMMENTS or sent via e-mail, wins a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up on the film of your choice.

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG (2009)

Coming up short in the memorability department, this much-anticipated hand-drawn Disney musical never finds much reason to sing beyond the distinction of being the first animated film from the Mouse House to crown a Black Princess.  Much misplaced fanfare on this variation of the old Frog Prince (or in this case Princess) story, set in 1920s New Orleans to spice up a tepid romance with jazz, voodoo & eccentric characters.  Hard-working Tiana, hoping to honor her late father’s wish by opening her own restaurant, is waylaid by a laid-back visiting Prince who stumbles into her life as a frog.  Yikes!  Desperate for a kiss of redemption after Voodoo Man tricked him out of his body; only problem . . . Tiani ain’t no Princess!  And her kiss has unfortunate consequences.  Writer/directors Ron Clements & John Musker seem to know something’s missing, over-compensating with too much of everything else: color, gags, speed, production numbers, rhymed plot reversals, much very good indeed, but too often merely hectic, camouflage for a thin storyline.*  And missing the natural theatricality of regular composer Alan Menken on the score, they’re unable to make Randy Newman’s swinging tunes generate plot momentum.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL:  *Feeling like hand-me-down plotting as well, with a lot of ‘song spotting’ from their own bettered paced/more freshly felt THE LITTLE MERMAID/’89.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *On the other hand, nice to see Disney willing to kill off a likable character when called for.  Something Disney’s fought shy of since THE FOX AND THE HOUND/‘81.

THREE SONGS ABOUT LENIN / TRI PESNI O LENINE (1934)

KINO-Eye documentarian Dziga Vertov’s tenth-year commemoration on the death of Bolshevik Revolution leader Vladimir (call me Ilyich) Lenin remains historically important, just not in the way intended.  Meant to celebrate cultural, industrial, agricultural & territorial advances inside the Soviet Republic (and out), Vertov uses three ‘anonymous’ odes to the man as a loose organizing principle.  (Not that you’d notice.)  But undoubtedly, the main purpose was to conflate the reputations of Lenin and current General Secretary Joseph Stalin.  It’s why this largely silent-with-added-sound film saves the lion’s share of its synch-sound footage for Stalin himself, letting us know Lenin’s preparatory work would be implemented by Stalin.  All previous actuality footage (much of it staged), as so often with Vertov, pulled together with little continuity, catch-as-catch-can montage bolstered by inter-titles giving whatever political slant approved by the current Party Line.*  Ergo the film’s true historical interest, as the original 1934 release needed to be re-edited in 1938 to remove any disgraced non-persons (goodbye Trotsky!) standing too close to Ilyich or Uncle Joe for (political) comfort.  Then, by the 1970s, a re-re-edit to downplay, if not totally eliminate the great eliminator himself, Stalin, now officially out of favor.  Finally, more recent glanost protocol necessitating a re-re-re-edit to put everything back in.  Watching all the various edits a priceless lesson in Soviet Realpolitik.   If anyone could only get thru it.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Without the magical last two reels of Vertov’s MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA/’29, where his usual agitation/propaganda on the New Workers’ Paradise gives way to pixilated filmmaking equipment coming alive on its own to make movies, his reputation might not even stand up in Academic Circles.  The real talent in the family was Dziga’s (real name Denis Abramovich Kaufman) kid brother, Boris Kaufman, regular cinematographer to Vigo, Kazan & Lumet among many others.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: For a surprisingly accurate, grimly hilarious look at Stalin & his gang of lethal incompetents, Armando Iannucci’s lauded/under-seen DEATH OF STALIN/’17 is hard to beat.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-death-of-stalin-2017.html

BITTER HARVEST (2017)

In a rare feature assignment, tv writer/director George Mendeluk (off the big screen since MEATBALLS III/’86) films a perversely misconceived romantic epic about young Ukrainian love surviving against all odds in the face of forced farm collectivization and weaponized famine ordered by General Secretary Joseph Stalin and his rubber-stamp Politburo.  Going for a David Lean/DOCTOR ZHIVAGO vibe (right down to naming the lead ‘Yuri’), the film too insanely out of touch with events to work on any level.  Appalling, more on the order of something like ESCAPE/’40, with Robert Taylor rescuing Norma Shearer from a German Concentration Camp.  And you know what you’re in for right from the start, once you get past the Ukrainian Happy Valley prologue (colorful customs, costumes, bounty & family pride), all destroyed when Iconoclastic Soviet Cossacks ride in to kill Kulaks & reorder society for the common good.  Mendeluk tipping his directorial hand from the very first funeral where he includes a corpse’s P.O.V. shot from inside a closed coffin.  (With ‘Golden Hour’ lighting!)  And things only gets worse from there.  A great tragic story lost in here*; if 10 million dead doesn’t count as some sort of genocide, what could?  But this ham-fisted atrocity on atrocities definitely isn’t it.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT /LINK: *Probably unwatchable from any but the greatest of story-oriented filmmakers.  Not truly comparable, but Kon Ichikawa’s BIRUMA NO TATEGOTO / THE BURMESE HARP/’56 shows one possible way in to the subject.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/07/biruma-no-tategoto-burmese-harp-1956.html

CONTEST: It seems beyond the pale to even mention, but Mendeluk steals a story beat from (of all places) the old caper pic, GAMBIT/’66.  E-mail us or use Comments Box to name the steal and win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choice.

THE BINGO LONG TRAVELING ALL-STARS AND MOTOR KINGS (1976)

Before making SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER/’77, director John Badham debuted on this look back in fondness at a breakaway team from the old Negro Baseball League.  Played more broadly than needed, with over-curated 1939 period detail (very Henry Ford/Greenfield Village), it’s irresistible all the same.  Billy Dee Williams, with star power to spare & a real spin on the ball, is the pitching ace grown tired of chump change from the league’s stingy Black owners who puts together a team of rivals to set off barnstorming town-to-town with little more than two fine automobiles, moxie & showmanship.  With James Earl Jones as the aging slugger (nicely toned down from his usual theatrical manner) and an inspired Richard Pryor as a outfield striver brushing up his Spanish in hopes of breaking into the White League as a Cuban.  And since the main antagonists are all wealthy Blacks, ball club owners trying to shut down renegades, the film never feels overloaded with importance & allegory.  Instead, race issues come on the side, neatly judged doses of civil injustice thru hostile white crowds, shut down with comic routines the Harlem Globetrotters might recognize; or from a white prostitute too tempting for Pryor to refuse.  Dry-eyed, too.  No crying in this baseball pic.  But lots of fun . . . and a smidgen of history.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Cinematographer Bill Butler at first uses a hazy, over-filtered look to emphasize the period setting, but quickly drops it for something much sharper in every way.  (Did they shoot in continuity, changing their minds for the better?)  And reveling in the chance to shoot an all-Black cast without lighting compromises typically seen in a multi-racial cast.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: An original song in here sounds like a discard from Kander & Ebb’s CHICAGO, one year old on B’way.  It’s even called RAZZLE DAZZLE, but credited to William Goldstein & Ronald Miller.  ALSO: Take a look at the size of those 1939 Baby Ruth candy bars!  Williams stuffs some in gas tanks to wreck a few cars.  Probably cost a nickel.