ALIBI (1929)

‘The Talkies’ arrived not as you’ve been told in 1927 with THE JAZZ SINGER, but in 1929 when films with some sort of synch-sound capacity flipped from 1928's 20% sound/80% silent to 80% sound/20% silent.  (These figures about as rough as the recording quality at the time.)  Audiences, studios and critics picked up on the shift and knew things would never go back.  But much woe amongst film intelligencia who saw the change as either bad canned theater or canned bad theater; an art form immobilized.  Yet even in 1929, signs of life were appearing if you only looked.  Visually imaginative, fluidly shot, still enjoyable today.  Standouts holding on to camera mobility and personal style included Ernst Lubitsch’s THE LOVE PARADE (next year he’d invent the Music Videos in MONTE CARLO);  F. Richard Jones’s BULLDOG DRUMMOND (alas dead of T.B. the next year); and this film’s Roland West* who’d inexplicably fall out of the biz two films/two years later at 47.  Here, after a quick-step opening to get wise-guy mob man Chester Morris out of jail, West films a big single-take thru art director William Cameron Menzies’ Art Deco nightclub to establish antihero Chester Morris’s character with a tracking shot Martin Scorsese might envy.  And while the visual pizzazz comes & goes, it also leads to the film’s climax with a penthouse escape that can still cause a gasp or two.  The plot gimmick involves a five-minute gap in Morris’s alibi that would have given him time to kill a cop.  And it’s trusting fiancé Mae Busch, a cop’s daughter, no less, who trips him up.  Other than West’s sure hand, it’s Morris who makes the pic.  The ruthless gangster kept in reserve behind the romantic lead Busch falls for still packing a wallop.*

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK:  *Morris would slip to formula programmers, hamming it up in BOSTON BLACKIEs and the like.  But seen here, in THE BIG HOUSE/’30 and in RED-HEADED WOMAN/’32, he’s the real deal.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-big-house-1930.html    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/04/red-headed-woman-1932.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *The uptick in ‘Talkie’ quality so apparent, even Oscar® knew it, with these three films collecting eleven nominations.

LA CASA LOBO / THE WOLF HOUSE (2018)

Partners in animated shorts since 2007, Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León went feature-length with this vaguely political allegory, a well-reviewed, if little seen chiller that mixes various styles of animation (hand-drawn; puppetry; stop-motion).  It opens with a ‘restored’ faux ‘60s documentary on a discreet German Colony in Chile’s back-country, a happy land where  strong local honey, strong personal discipline and strong support for the fascist Pinochet government lead one freedom-loving woman to escape.  Now she’s living in a cabin of fear with a wolf at the door and fellow visiting victims.  Or something like that.  JC/CL none too clear on narrative detail; much more concerned with laying out overstuffed design elements amid constant washes of colors and animated movement in every corner.  All very 1970s avant garde in decor and technique.  (1973 when Pinochet took power, so . . . intentional?)  The animators’ visual idée fixe a deadly bleed out (seen in many of their earlier shorts) which turns into a spontaneous blood bath.  Less stop-motion animation than glop-motion animation as characters ooze away in front of your eyes.  No doubt, appealing to some.  It certainly got attention from Film Fest juries.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: Top notch animated/allegorical anti-Pinochet pic in EL CONDE.’23.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/09/el-conde-2023.html

COOGAN’S BLUFF (1969)

To New Yorkers, Coogan’s Bluff is a natural promontory by the Harlem River, think 150th to 160th St, then big apartment buildings West to St. Nicolas Ave.  Old timers remember the Polo Grounds in Washington Heights.  Not movie mavens.  For them, COOGAN’S BLUFF is where Don met Clint; that’s Don Siegel & Clint Eastwood.  Siegel becoming, along with Sergio Leone, one of Eastwood’s two directorial father-figures.  Leone for vision & ambition; Siegel for tools & efficiency.  Yet it almost didn’t happen when studio execs put up either DON Taylor or Alex SEGAL to direct Eastwood’s first Universal project.  Luckily, the memo split the difference and Don Siegel got the call.  Siegel claimed not to have even seen an Eastwood pic.  Together they worked up a shootable script from five drafts and got along fine.*   But how hard could it have been?  The story no more than a fish-out-of-water/bull-in-a-china-shop story about a lean/mean Arizona Sheriff Coogan losing his extradition in those tough Manhattan streets and overstepping his authority to get him back between stare downs with Lt. Lee J. Cobb (pleasingly reserved), pushy romantic passes at criminal psychologist Susan Clark (giving as good as she gets), and the general mayhem of Manhattan in its Fun City days.  Check out the Swingin’ Discotheque Club.  Boobs and LGTB action.  Neatly run, as expected by Siegel, though don’t look for the actual Coogan’s Bluff, the big action finale filmed in Fort Tryon Park below the Cloisters Museum far West of Coogan’s Bluff.

READ ALL ABOUT IT:  *This out of Don Siegel’s excellent auto-bio A SIEGEL FILM.

DOUBLE-BILL:  BLUFF not only an unplanned trial-run for Siegel/Eastwood’s era-defining DIRTY HARRY/’71, it also served as a stealth-pilot for tv’s McCLOUD, a six-yr run with Dennis Weaver, nicer/less sexy.

PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED (1986)

In spite of being a considerable hit (because of being a considerable hit?), this is the peak period Francis Ford Coppola film no one talks about.  It’s also the last time he worked as a  hired hand (replacing Penny Marshall after production started).  More importantly, it’s the only female driven film of his maturity.*  And if Magical Realism Americana in the suburbs ain’t in Coppola’s fach (a lesser talent who could believe in sentimental life-lessons via time-travel might have been better), enough comes thru when a gag touches a nerve to make the film play.  As when lead Kathleen Turner belts out ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ in front of her embarrassed High School classmates in 1960.  The unlikely situation possible because a story that opens in 1985 as Turner contemplates divorcing ‘High School steady’ husband Nicolas Cage (relentlessly pulling focus by over-egging his role), does a Fade-Out/Fade-In to 1960 after Turner faints at their 25th High School Reunion.  Structurally, we’re close to THE WIZARD OF OZ, but here Turner’s ‘Dorothy’ alternately tries to fit into her wised-up teenage self while offering advice to help her old gang prep for what she knows is coming.  Instead of Tin Man, Scarecrow, Lion, she dreams of a future with Cage (the one she got), nerdy Bill Gates type Barry Miller and dangerous literary Jack Kerouac wannabee Michael Fitzsimmons.  And barely giving a thought to her future children not showing up if she swaps.  Original scripters Jerry Leichtling & Arlene Sarner not bothered by the usual narrative rules of cinematic time-travel.  They also fudge her return to the present.  Things improve whenever the older generation shows up, including Mom Barbara Harris and especially a wonderful Leon Ames as Grandfather.  If only they had more to do.  Hard to care when Cage & Turner inevitably make nice.

DOUBLE- BILL/LINK: To see just how many opportunities are wasted here, go to PLEASANTVILLE/’98  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/10/pleasantville-1998.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Much the same could be said of Martin Scorsese’s ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE/’74.

THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER: RECOBBLED (1992 - 2013)

A Holy Grail for British animator Richard Williams (WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT/’88; sequences in A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM/’66; THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE/’68; various PINK PANTHERs), this never completed magnum opus was probably too ambitious from conception.  But what a conception!  And what an achievement as far as he got!  It’s THE LAST SUPPER for animation heads, a mess, but also the greatest painting ever made.  Basically, a standard ARABIAN NIGHTS story: beautiful princess pursued by an evil usurper is saved by a not-so-simple simpleton with a mouthful of tacks.  There hadn’t been an animated film this visually ambitious since Disney fell on his face with the stunning, but inert SLEEPING BEAUTY/’59. (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/12/sleeping-beauty-1959.html)  That too a financial disaster.  But Disney could weather the loss; Williams could not.  Far from finished when funds ran out and a Completion Bond Company took over, the eviscerated results (about 80") issued by MiramaX vultures to zero B.O. under a couple of titles.  Fortunately, Williams retained his work print.  (Seen here a decade ago with Williams in attendance.)  But while the work print proved invaluable, much better visual quality appeared on any number of fan edits that started to show up on the internet.  Best of the lot, Garrett Gilchrist’s long evolving ‘RECOBBLED Cut,’ dropping installments as it added chapters and refined as ever better elements appeared.  Where do these materials come from?  (The dates listed above reflect Williams’ work print and Gilchrist’s final (?) revision; running time 1'39".)  That’s the one to look for.  Hardly a perfect work, story sense never Williams’ forté, but being forced to see so much effort in such different stages of creative development isn’t just enlightening, but a backstage thrill into the wizard’s workshop.  With lovable characters (even Vincent Price’s villainous ZigZag with his rhymed couplets carries rooting interest), you’ll soon pick up on the hop, skip & jump rhythm of the narrative thread while you goggle at visual influences ranging from Chuck Jones to M.C. Escher, Aubrey Beardsley to Peter Max & Gahan Wilson.  Designed to play on the biggest, widest screen possible (Williams has the compositional eye of William Wyler), if you can’t make out the flies buzzing around The Thief’s head, you need a bigger screen.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  The ReCobbled Cut uses well-matched, if abruptly edited classical music, heavy on Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Scheherazade.’  But the repeating decor, designs and geometric floor patterns beg for an original Philip Glass score.  ReCobbled ReScored?

KING SOLOMON’S MINES (1937)

Originally published in 1885, H. Rider Haggard’s book was still showing up as major motion picture material every other decade a century later (1919; 1937; 1950; 1985).  To say nothing of once-removed second cousins for Tarzan & Maciste to visit; even a Son-Of iteration in WATUSI/’59.  And that’s before hitting the small screen via one-offs & series in spite of dated elements and attitudes: Darkest Africa clichés; Great White Hunter leading man.  M-G-M’s splashy version of 1950 (Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, African location backgrounds, TechniColor - https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/king-solomons-mines-1950.html) long considered the class act in a landfill of kitsch, usually given top rating.  But a look at this British production when seen in a good print, easily overtakes it.  With solid journeyman director Robert Stevenson* on U.K. studio work, producer Geoffrey Barkas shooting location footage in Africa and cinematographer Glen MacWilliams (he’d later do remarkably convincing water tank work for Hitchcock in LIFEBOAT/’44) getting it all to match up pretty well, the film holds up better than M-G-M’s.  Just don’t expect major studio Hollywood technical polish.  (Certainly no ‘invisible’ editing!)  But what really makes this version a standout is in how it follows the book and in how well it’s cast.  Cedric Hardwicke, Roland Young, John Loder and Anna Lee all dashing, amusing, romantic as needed.  And then there’s Paul Robeson as mysterious fellow traveler Umbopa; friend, foe or just out for himself?  Just shy of 40 and in terrific shape, still built like the former Rutger’s football star he’d been before stage & concert hall, it’s probably the best role of his curtailed film career.  Somehow making his aid to these White fortune hunters & adventurers believable in even the most ridiculous situations.  And when he opens his mouth to sing one of the pseudo African songs, especially when he lets his bass bottom loose, he’s simply undeniable on screen.  He also looks like he’s having a great time.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Yes, the same Robert Stevenson who directed Orson Welles in JANE EYRE/’43 and became Disney’s top house director in the ‘50s and ‘60s: MARY POPPINS/’64 and a host of Disney hits.  Considering his gross figures include half-price kids, it’s entirely possible Stevenson is the most commercially successful director in Hollywood history counting not by dollars but admissions.

LA CAPTURA / FACING EL CHAPO (2026)

If other Mexican tv-movies are this good, sign me up for a subscription.  Directed by Chava Cartas (script by Bernardo Esquinca from Héctor de Mauleón’s magazine series), a story too amazing to be anything but true.  Naturally well constructed, too.   (Who’d believe it as a piece of fiction?)  It opens as El Chapo, Mexico’s top-drug lord (Hector Kotsifakis) and top cartel second El Cholo (Juan Pablo Cruz García) wade to freedom thru one of his infamous escape tunnels.  Moving thru the watery muck in their underwear, they emerge (weapons intact) then steal a car after tossing its middle-aged driver & passengers out.  The incident, initially reported as a simple stolen vehicle, and the car quickly spotted by roadside Federal Policemen (Alfonso Herrera; Noé Hernández), patrol car partners just reassigned to night shift.  Family man Herrera and near retirement loner Hernández strangers without a known history to have built trust on.  And with bigtime drug money corruption so rampant, it’s naive to have trust between agencies; from one desk at headquarters to the next; let alone  to the guy sharing the front seat of your police vehicle.  Even more so with two of the most dangerous people in the world cuffed and wearing dirty underwear behind you.  (No wonder some crucial info gets ‘slow walked’ thru the system, there's always someone  on the take you've got to work around.)  Overtaking that stolen car, the pair immediately know who they’ve got and what the stakes, bribes and odds of survival are.  Plus, they’re running out of gas in unfriendly territory and a stop will surely expose the men in the back seat.  Sure enough, word inevitably leaks thru mobile phone pics and a hostage drama quickly ramps up as cops & criminals race not only to the scene, but also to Herrera’s family home.  All this honestly and cleanly handled without having to push the situation.  Yes, massed military-style standoffs in the mix, but at heart this is a chamber piece.  And all the more effective for it.  (NOTE:  Once again, for those on the Main Site who see our LABELS which don't show on e-phones, another Family Friendly listing, but definitely not kiddie fare,  Think Junior High and up.)

DOUBLE-BILL:  Instead of other drug cartel action/suspensers, go for a Western that works in similar fashion, 3:10 TO YUMA/’57, the Delmer Daves classic with Glenn Ford, Van Heflin, everyone at their peak.  Not the over-egged 2007 remake.

SON OF THE GODS (1930)

Fourth and last of the consecutive films silent star Richard Barthelmess and director Frank Lloyd made to ride thru the Silent to Talky transition (1929 to 1930).  Lloyd, by now, pretty much back on his feet technically, if anything, a bit ahead of the curve.  Barthelmess, on the other hand, never quite adjusting to ‘30s tempo, but holding on to stardom by moving into stories on controversial social issues.*  Here, it’s race prejudice.  Barthelmess who became a major star with his YellowFace turn in D.W. Griffith’s BROKEN BLOSSOMS/’19* (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/06/broken-blossoms-1919.html), again plays a Chinaman (as he’s pejoratively called here), but without YellowFace, since his Caucasian features are half the plot.  Sent into the White man’s world by proud, rich father Anders Randolf (very much in YellowFace), Barthelmess is not so much ‘passing’ as ‘not mentioning.’  And while he’s considered a great guy by his old college pals (always good for a loan), whenever his heritage leaks out to people who don’t know him, especially to hopeful young women, the reaction is vicious, as if getting a good table they’d never manage on their own was the equivalent of rape.  And the film doesn’t hold back on these attitudes.  Realizing he’ll never succeed, especially by living off his father’s largess, he tries Europe, finding a job and living on his own resources.  Once more, a white admirer, Constance Bennett, swears nothing could come between them, but a confession leads to a public flogging for being ‘deceptive,’ cunning as all Chinamen are!  Meanwhile, Dad is dying back in New York’s Chinatown (is that a set or a location shot on Doyers Street - looking much as it does today?).  You’ll know how the rest plays out, even the appalling cop-out for the censorship board to facilitate the ending.  That’s kinda fascinating, too; subject matter and rawness of presentation quite unexpected for 1930.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Unfortunately for Barthelmess, his series of socially engaged films (‘30 - ‘34), though often worthy as commentary and as film, never hit the way Paul Muni and Mervyn LeRoy did in I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG/’32.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/07/i-am-fugitive-from-chain-gang-1932.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *To Barthelmess's credit, YellowFace more in attitude than in makeup.

MOTOR CITY (2025)

Hard to know where to start on this one.  Writer Chad St. John brings action experience, director Potsy Ponciroli made the promising OLD HENRY/’21, so this feels like regression, a concept-driven film-school graduation project.  Let’s start with its title: hard to see anything Detroit here.  Not filmed there, worse it looks not filmed there.  Supposedly set in the '70s, post ‘67 race-riots, we might be in any Rust Belt town, not a majority Black city just hanging on to a million residents.  The generic look matching its generic storyline: mob moll Shailene Woodley falls between new XXXL lover boy Alan Ritchson (the actor who saved REACHER from pint-size Tom Cruise) and local heroin franchiser Ben Foster.  But when he’s framed out of the picture by Foster with a historically large drug bust that makes the police look good, Ritchson winds up in the clink where he’s soon plotting escape & revenge.  Eventually killing his way out with a pair of prison accomplices with blood, car chases & mayhem.  Standard action fare; though a penultimate fight in the confines of a moving elevator is vicious enough to match violent French provocateur Gaspar Noé in unintentional laughs.  And now, since we can’t avoid it any longer, we need to mention that high-concept . . . er, gimmick . . . er, mere gimmick;  St. John & Ponciroli give everything in here the silent treatment.  That is the Silent Film treatment.  Or think so.  What they actually do is go about 92% inaudible dialogue.   ‘Silent films’ actually had plenty of dialogue, just no way to record it.  Reading lips becoming something of a game for audiences.  (Is Victor McLaglen swearing?*)  Here, the dialogue is muffled behind glass or obscured by distance.  You might as well hire a mime to do complicated exposition.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *One of the biggest laughs Buster Keaton ever got came thru lip reading.  Right at the end of THE BOAT/’21, his richly comic/existential short, when lost at sea with his family in a sinking boat somewhere between sand & sea, he’s asked by rescuers for his location and, speaking in medium close-up, ‘mouths’ the name of his vessel.  This punchline entirely dependant on the audience reading his lips.  Damned if they don’t!