THE BROKEN STAR (1956)

B-pic vets Lesley Selander, director, and John C. Higgins, writer, bring their A-game to this Western programmer with unexpectedly tasty results.  It’s a character study, but with most of its cast of characters working against type and story expectations.  The effect downright destabilizing.  Check out the opening: a dirt poor sharecropper is short on back payments; the Mexican collection agent working for the Great White Land-owner, cleans him out, secretly watched by top-billed Deputy Marshall Howard Duff.  He moves in, chats up the oddly reasonable Mexican before calmly shooting him dead and grabbing the eight thou hidden in the office.*  All stealthily watched by a silent Apache who hides from Duff before running to town.  Other than the farmer, every person on screen is acting against type.  And so it goes all thru the story, even that White Land-Owner not such a bad guy; the do-nothing Chief Marshall does something; the Mexicali girlfriend (her theme song, ‘I Hate You.’) engaged to Deputy #2 (Bill Williams, pleasantly plain) who’s Duff’s BFF and who gets the big heroic two-on-one fight sequence you expect Duff to handle.  The more you think about this one, the odder it becomes.  Alas, other than in character development, it’s a drab looking thing with minimal action outside a pair of fights, but nuanced story beats and characters refresh the old Western tropes.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *See Duff work more typical/more congenial dramatic territory while also meeting future wife Ida Lupino on set in WOMAN IN HIDING/’50.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/05/woman-in-hiding-1950.html

THE HISTORY OF SOUND (2025)

Though slightly overshadowed by award-winning co-stars, Jessie Buckley in HAMNET; Josh O’Connor here, Paul Mescal deserves some kind of special recognition for inducing more well-earned/high-toned tears with those two films than any other actor achieved in 2025.  SOUND, lesser seen of the two, is, in its own distinctively hushed manner, just as moving, just as well-played.  The script, Ben Shattuck’s debut from his own short story, covers three time periods (in chronological order for a change!): the WWI era; a decade later; and the mid-60s, as it follows the relationship of O’Connor & Mescal after leaving a Massachusetts music conservatory when academic-minded O’Connor all but orders Mescal, a more musically gifted new acquaintance, to join him on a foot tour of rural New England recording folk tunes on wax cylinders before the traditional music is lost to modernity.  (A real thing that happened in many countries; Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s work in the field probably best known.)  The two men fall into friendship, fall into the rhythm of their subject, fall into bed; a relationship only strengthened by the occasional disagreement.  But the war and their differing levels of ambition & talent will amicably separate them.  O’Connor off to war, but insisting Mescal follow up on his natural musical skills on the world stage.  A decade’s separation from Mescal’s blooming career, and marriage for O’Connor, complicated by echoes of the war, will dissolve (too late) in a flash of recognition on what’s been lost.  And not repeatable on a wax cylinder.  It will be decades before full understanding brings emotional epiphany.  (And not just on screen.)  Director Oliver Hermanus, working closely with D.P. Alexander Dynan, plays his story in grace notes rather than in main themes, emotion inferred rather than underlined.  It can feel like a mannerism at times, but, like the folk song mordants flourished at the end of most melodic lines, things that can sound like blemishes may be part of a precious package.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Similarities to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN/’05 have been noted, but O’Connor’s earlier coming-of-age film, GOD’S OWN COUNTRY/’17, hits closer to the mark.     https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2026/01/gods-own-country-2017.html

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948)

Public demand for low-down comedy wih a high silly factor during WWII helped journeymen comedy team Bud Abbott (straight-man) and Lou Costello (butt) over-perform at the box-office, especially in the early 1940s.  Limited talents, they caught a second wind in the late ‘40s, when someone at their home studio thought to combine them with Universal’s signature monsters.  (Five MEETs in total, the fourth over at Warners.*)  FRANKENSTEIN, first & best of the lot, churning out pots of money, even with few good notions on what to do with this can’t-miss set-up.  Raspy-voiced Abbott keeps the pace up (always his strong suit) while Costello holds to his usual too-scared-to-get-the-words-out shtick, but played against the Frankenstein monster, Dracula and Wolfman, he generates pretty decent laughs.  But that’s about it for comic ideas; the rest boilerplate A&C.  For some amusement, note that Wolfman (still Lon Chaney Jr.) grows fur under four full moons over five or six days.  A Full Moon record!  (And does so in unusually smooth Man-to-Wolf dissolve transitions.)  That Bela Lugosi is Dracula for only the second time.  It’s also his last major studio pic.  And that  Bud Westmore’s simplified monster makeups (based on masks), aren’t a patch on Jack P. Pierce’s built-from-scratch every day originals.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK:  *Least if not last, it was . . . MEETS CAPTAIN KIDD/’53.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/09/abbott-and-costello-meet-captain-kidd.html

PILLION (2025)

With nebbishy demeanor, wilted physique and close-set eyes, Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley in the HARRY POTTER films) comes on screen singing high tenor in a Barbershop Quartet, then wandering thru the pub, collecting tips in a straw hat.  Think you couldn’t get more masochist than that?  Think again!  Melling’s about to be picked up (well, picked out) for special service by leather-clad biker Alexander Skarsgård (even at 50, the guy Adonis was modeled after).  Naturally, it’s an arrangement, with Melling chosen as submissive (sexually & domestically), to Skarsgård’s laconic dominator.  An instant kinky cult item (rating-wise, a hard ‘R’), co-writer/director Harry Lighton’s film quickly lost whatever buzz-worthy qualities it seemed to possess.  Pop Psychology contents settling down to half-full in packaging & delivery.  Third-act reverses particularly obvious, not to say dog-eared, leaving us with way too much time to think about the relationship’s far-fetched gestation.  Lighton not helping his case by filming & lighting Melling as if he were screen testing to play Renfield in a new Dracula film.  One of those films where you had to have been there in the opening weekend for the buzz to trick you.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Not strictly comparable (to put it mildly), but Harold Pinter’s THE SERVANT/’63 (Joseph Losey’s 1963 film with Dirk Bogarde and James Fox) works its way thru some similar, creepy ideas on submissive/dominate bad behavior.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  In our never-ending quest to find cooking faux pas in film, check out Melling at a party with many of  Skarsgård’s biker pals, scouring a ridged cast-iron pan with dish soap.  The one thing he deserves to be punished for, and no one says ‘boo.’

MADAME X (1929; 1937)

Alexandre Bisson was a turn-of-the-last-century French playwright best known for Madame X/’29, Madame X/’37 and Madame X/’66.  And that’s just in Hollywood.  Another dozen or so international iterations 1916 to 1981.  (From our writeup of Lana Turner’s remake: ‘Unfairly tagged for her lover’s accidental death, a rich young wife & mother disappears to protect her family from social disgrace, hiding for twenty years as Madame X, sinking into absinthe & despair until being spotted by a lowlife blackmailer she does kill.  Now, on trial for murder, she’s unaware that the young defense lawyer working his first case is . . . (gasp) the son she abandoned as a child!’  Oft filmed, and you’ll see why, it’s prime hokum for bravura acting, no less than Sarah Bernhardt brought excerpts of this irresistible trash to B’way when she was pushing 70.*’  (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/08/madame-x-1966.html)    The only major plot alteration is that the lover’s death ain’t ‘accidental’ in the two earlier, infinitely preferable Hollywood versions: Lionel Barrymore’s primitive Early Talkie from 1929 and Sam Wood’s polished example of 1937 Golden Age Hollywood.  No question, 1937's the best as film.  Gladys George’s whiskey bruised voice a perfect match for Mme., especially on the lam, combined with John Meehan’s streamlined script (two reels trimmed), plus John F. Sietz’s lighting (as the wronged husband, William Warren never looked this good).  The problem is, in sensibly taming the old stage chestnut, the emotional craziness no longer runs the drama.  Barrymore, who tried directing for a few years before returning to acting, doesn’t seem to have much feel for the job (even factoring in Early Talkie technical limitations), but he does have a feel for ‘the theatre.’  So, if you can get thru the first two unbearably stiff acts, the third act's trial scenes, with their big arioso speeches for Ruth Chatterton’s Mother and Raymond Hackett’s son, gain cumulative power from the buildup, detonating just as they must have when this first was staged.  For anyone who’s wondered what acting was like at the time, and what all the bother was about, this is essential stuff.*

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *And for reigning stage divas, not only a plum role of indeterminate age with a twenty-year time span, but also offering the chance to play off-stage as well as on with their much younger lover playing the son.  So, the big climax where Mme. X gives the boy a ‘mother’s’ kiss’ is loaded with kink & suspense.  (On the cheek in ‘37; cheeks and mouth in ‘29.)

DOUBLE-BILL:  *But genius acting it ain’t.  For that sort of window into theatre of the past, look to Somerset Maugham’s THE LETTER/’29, with doomed Jeanne Eagels in the lead.

LIFE OF CRIME (2013)

As to feature films, Elmore Leonard, master of the cockeyed contemporary crime novel, went out at the age of 83, not with a bang or a whimper, but with a ‘Lite.’  Specifically, as one of twenty-nine (!) producers on this modest, but appealing adaptation of his 1978 novel THE SWITCH.  (Leonard’s RUM PUNCH, which became JACKIE BROWN/’97 on screen, kept the pair of low-life criminals Ordell Robbie & Louis Gara, casually played here by yasiin bey & John Hawkes; less casually played in JACKIE BROWN by Samuel L. Jackson & Robert De Niro.)  Yet another riff on O’Henry’s THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF, here unredeemed hostage Jennifer Aniston, as straying suburban housewife whose straying developer husband, Tim Robbins won’t put up the million bucks ransom.  The well worn tropes can be greeted either with a yawn or as a welcome friend, depending on your mood, but writer/director  Daniel Schechter, along with his cast, wisely lay back and don’t push.  Only Will Forte’s wardrobe: too tight suits with long pointy shirt collars, shriek late-1980s fashion to forced comic effect.  (And the Maryland locations don’t look anything like suburban Detroit or Woodward Ave.)  But think of the film as a good common-denominator group choice.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:   As mentioned above, JACKIE BROWN, by general consensus the best of all Elmore Leonard adaptations.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/04/jackie-brown-1997.html

LE DERNIER MILLIARDAIRE* (1934)

French writer/director René Clair had something of a charmed career from his first silents to his early sound features (late ‘20s thru 1933).  Everyone has their own favorite.  (SOUS LES TOITS DE PARIS/’30, anyone? https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/04/sous-les-tois-de-paris-under-roofs-of.html)  But his luck ran out (or was it his talent?; he never quite regained his standing) on this mega-flop satire on money & international finance.  Playing like an aria-free operetta, it’s a reverse-image MERRY WIDOW; here THE MERRY BACHELOR.  That’s middle-aged Max Dearly, the richest man in the world, called to return (with checkbook) to his country of birth as financial savior and proposed spouse of the country’s much younger princess.  Only this Native Son has stipulations: citizens must become a productive labor force, not the casino freeloaders they’d been before recent bankruptcies at the country’s gambling palaces shut off the easy money spigot.  Meanwhile, the Princess already has a young lover, a secret baby, too.  Over-dressed funny sets & funny costumes combined with over-eager funny playing hardly help.  Most painfully unfunny.  Clair imagining that everything is even funnier when repeated a dozen times.  Yikes!  Film scholars tell us that the film failed from Political Party Line critical response: for the LEFT a betrayal; for the RIGHT, a false prediction.  But even centrists bailed on this one.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  The year before, The Marx Brothers’ DUCK SOUP/’33, took on WAR instead of ECONOMICS, and hit all the marks Clair missed.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *MILLIARDAIRE = BILLIONAIRE.

EAGLES OF THE REPUBLIC (2025)

Another unmissable collaboration from exiled-Egyptian writer/director Tarik Saleh and frequent lead Fares Fares.  Third of his Egyptian Trilogy*, this one an Actor’s Tale in three parts: Comic Vanity, Ironic Seduction, Horrified Political Pawn.  It begins when iconic film star Fares gets an offer he can’t refuse to portray (in the best possible light) the rise to power of dictatorial Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.  Totally wrong physically (tall, lean, hawk-like face), but he’s not in a career position to say no.  He’s also too proud of his reputation to phone it in, especially when being coddled with encouragement & favors by El-Sisi’s military yes-men hovering about.  Inducement or threat?  Soon, he’s taking advantage of perks, asking favors for friends, family and assorted lovers old & new.  A discreet phone-call from these strangely obsequious uniformed men all that’s needed to ‘fix’ all sorts of things.  A living get out of jail free card.  Seductive indeed.  And if this section feels a bit less original, you’ve likely fallen for Saleh’s setup; a fake-out for a leading man who doesn’t know he’s in way over his head on a three-sided political power struggle.  Or which side he’s on, or supposed to be on, to help his rebellious son, resentful ex-wife, recent lover or reckless current lover all in possible danger of arrest or worse.  Saleh juggling characters & narrative lines of action without confusion for us or easy choices, let alone answers, for our likeable protagonist.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *THE HILTON INCIDENT/’17 followed by THE CAIRO CONSPIRACY/’19 (not yet seen here).  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-nile-hilton-incident-2017.html

GIVE US THIS NIGHT (1936)

This slight & silly operetta from Paramount, made to introduce popular Polish tenor Jan Kiepura, along with Metropolitan mezzo Gladys Swarthout, didn’t come off.  (Kiepura’s glamorous soprano wife Mártha Eggerth had much better luck stealing Gene Kelly away from Judy Garland in FOR ME AND MY GAL/’42.)  Yet, forgotten and hard-to-find, it holds a lot of interest in the career of iconic Golden Age Hollywood composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, to say nothing of five original numbers written for the film with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein.  Korngold, brought from Austria to Warner Bros. to handle the mishmosh of Mendelssohn used in scoring Max Reinhardt’s version of Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM/’35 (an enormous hit at the Hollywood Bowl/a money pit on film), Korngold then pit-stopped at Paramount to write & record NIGHT just as Warners desperately needed a score for the pricey CAPTAIN BLOOD/’35, first of the Errol Flynn/Michael Curtiz swashbucklers.  So, while finishing ‘post’ on his film operetta, Korngold had exactly three weeks to compose BLOOD.  As things turned out, NIGHT came out after BLOOD hit big (very big), and Korngold never had another chance on a full blown Hollywood operetta.*  This one, under Alexander Hall’s direction is okay (though what a voice Kiepura had, perfect for Korngold’s operatic triumph DIE TOTE START),  but feels awfully truncated at 1'17", including 40 minutes for song with quite a lot of plot to get thru.  Kiepura’s a happy Italian fisherman (yes, with a Polish accent) who sings to his catch (heck, the whole village sings).  Heard by an opera composer who wants to replace ageing tenor Alan Mowbray (very funny) he’s offered a job.  Only Momma; Momma she wants him to stay at-a home.  While fetching soprano Swarthout sees a new stage partner (maybe more).  Little does she know that her composer wants to propose with a just written love song sung to her by Kiepura!  Well, it’s that sort of thing.  But as a Hollywood road not taken, there’s considerable ‘what-if’ musical interest.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *While never doing full-fledged lyric theater on film, Korngold was able to put plenty of vocal elements in his scores.  Check out the sailors bursting into song as they finally head for home in the middle of THE SEA HAWK/’40.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:   *M-G-M’s delirious operetta THE GREAT WALTZ/’38 doesn’t credit Korngold for putting all the Johann Strauss, Jr. music together which he did for the original B’way run in 1935.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-great-waltz-1938.html