JUVENILE COURT (1973)

From late/great documentarian Frederick Wiseman (dead last month at 96, his most recent film out in 2023), this early masterpiece in his favored fly-on-the-wall manner remains one of his best; certainly one of his most influential, inspiring thousands of syndicated hours of copycat courtroom tv drama.  Most of them spoiled by textbook melodrama; literally so thru underscored speech & action.  These offshoots quite a contrast to Wiseman’s slow-burn purity & effectiveness in his approach on a handful of cases, gray areas left intact.  Everyone given as much sympathy as Wiseman is able to generate.  With far more comfort & care, and a lack of jaded behavior from this Memphis, TN courthouse staff, than you’d expect.  More staff Blacks than you expect, too.   How different this might have looked ten years earlier.  Wiseman holds back the most complex case for the end (the film running about two and a half hours without a wasted minute).  Deeply empathetic with a thoughtful even-handed judge and an uncomprehending sacrifice to the system bringing the most emotional moments in the film.  But you’ll find your own case of special interest.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Some of the cases don’t finish, but are sent to continue in another court giving no closure after we’ve invested ourselves in some kind of outcome.  A commission from the Wiseman Estate on a Project Update to run as a coda to the film would be just the thing.

PENELOPE (1966)

Not yet 30, but with her career slipping (only one film of consequence ahead of her*), Natalie Wood couldn’t have been happy with the scripts on offer at the time.  Nor this cast & crew other than D.P. Harry Stradling, too many near novices on a major studio production.  But with Hollywood facing collapse and, as yet, no rebirth on the horizon, she grabbed this meager comedy that sees her playing a goofy, but glamorous kleptomaniac who’s trying to rejigger interest from workaholic bank executive husband Ian Bannen.  (His first & last conventional Hollywood lead.)  Maybe she’ll get his attention by robbing his new flagship bank?  That’s about it for plot, the rest is comic fashion show (did Howard Fast really co-write this?), complications coming via love-addled shrink Dick Shawn (fey & reasonably funny) and love-addled police investigator Peter Falk (in something of a trial run for Columbo two years off).  But don’t give up, what catches the eye is more than usual NYC location work (the city looking great in 1966, late ‘60s decline yet to appear; one long scene played in the MoMA Sculpture Garden a treat), plus the chemistry between Falk & Wood so obvious, you wonder why no one did anything with it.  But the oddest part of the film is that everyone involved, including faceless director Arthur Hiller, seems to think they’ve got another BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S/’61 in here.  With borrowed style, borrowed party scenes, borrowed kooks, even a Givenchy outfit as a major clue to the crime.  Maybe they borrowed it from #1 Givenchy client Audrey Hepburn?  And maybe that’s why they got ‘Johnny’ Williams to write a song for Natalie to sing.  ‘Moon River’ it ain’t.

DOUBLE-BILL:  *That would be BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE/’69.

HAMNET (2025)

Overpraised for an award-winning NOMADLAND/’20; then under-performing in her MARVEL misstep/’21, here Chloé Zhao fulfills the promise of THE RIDER/’17, her docu-flavored feature, with this Shakespeare & family re-imagining.  Collaborating on the script with original novelist Maggie O’Farrell, it’s a daring rethink of the young Latin tutor William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and older Anne (Agnes) Hathaway (Jessie Buckley), a forest-wise Earth Mother type); their courtship & marriage before a quick succession of children (two girls/one boy) and long separations as Will pursues theatrical opportunities in London.  Finding believable physical & mental spaces for this to play in (note the static one-shots during intense moments), Zhao carefully builds in period detail and still-modern emotion, refusing to overplay or nail everything in place for us.  Late 16th/early 17th century Stratford & London coming fully to life before Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), their enchanting young son, suddenly falls ill while Shakespeare is away (as he always seems to be) in London.  The feeling of desertion particularly acute for Agnes.  All of this superbly handled across the board, and all of it heartbreaking.  But the miracle of the film comes in what technically amounts to a long coda (it runs its own entire three act structure in about twenty minutes) when Agnes and her brother go to London to see their first play, the premiere of HAMLET at the Globe Theatre.  (That’s Jacobi’s real-life big brother Noah Jupe playing a college-age Hamlet.)  Scenes of rehearsal and then the opening* before a rapt crowd, knowing what we now know of the personal life . . . has HAMLET ever played in quite this raw a fashion?  Zhao showing nothing less than the purpose of art at its highest level, with tear-worthy emotional depth you rarely find in something you know so well.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  As mentioned above: THE RIDER/’17, still too little seen.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-rider-2017.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *The modern/thoughtful pace of stage acting we see used in the production of HAMLET works within the film.  But at this tempo, could HAMLET get to the finish line in the two-and-a-half hours of natural light available at The Globe?

THE ICEBREAKER / LEDOKOL (2016)

And you thinking Russia not know how to make CGI-loaded Bolshoi Blockbuster?  (Bolshoi Icebuster!)  Phooey!  We show.  Big ship taking on frozen Arctic Sea as well as frozen expeditionary science unit with dog.  But with ship Captain Pyotr Fyodorov, handsome, strong, stubble beard, 70 men safe on board.  (Two time winner of Russian Hero of the Year acting award!  Real thing.  Look up!)  But stopping boat when science man & dog go overboard in frigid waters bolshoi mistake.  Save doggie; lose man.  Puts rescue attempt ahead of mission.  Soon helicopter comes.  Replace fine Captain with no nonsense Captain.  Less handsome; no caring.  Crusty exterior hiding crusty interior.  Smashes sailor’s guitar to bits if deck not swabbed with anti-freeze.  Relieved Captain & new Captain like Burt Lancaster & Clark Gable in RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP/’58; Liam Neeson & Harrison Ford in K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER/’02.  Dozens others to choose from.  Yet, mean Captain wife back home having baby #1 at home.  Maybe he's not so bad.  But now, ship stuck in ice, with huge iceberg following.  Yikes!  Cracks below deck no one in Moscow takes responsibility for.  Now storage flooded, nothing to eat but cabbage soup.   (Inside info: is same cabbage soup as before flood.  Ironic, da?)  Almost forget; for film, no expense spared, English dub made by same team who did WHAT’S UP, TIGER LILY?/’66 for Woody Allen.  And since date of events is 1985, everyone calls everyone ‘dude.’   Plus takeaway motto: Shit Floats.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Look for some great sunshiny weather as a water truck spews out heavy rain showers on a Moscow sidewalk.  While on the English dub track, a clueless actor pronounces LeninGRAD as LeninGARD.  Even under perestroika , you could get shot for that.

JUNGLE HEAT (1957)

Howard Koch’s film career took him from NYC-based distribution office work to Hollywood production assistant before co-starting a production company for tv and small features led to running Paramount for a couple of years and then the Paramount production deal he’s remembered for.  Early Neal Simon pics (think THE ODD COUPLE/’68) and game changing Zucker Bros. comedies (think AIRPLANE!/’80).  Lost in the middle of his onwards & upwards trajectory are a few directing credits, mostly in the ‘50s for tv and low budget second-run features.  That’s what we’ve got here.  And what a deliciously trashy title to entice the curious: JUNGLE HEAT.  If only it lived down to it.  Alas, former Tarzan hunk Lex Barker is doctor on the lesser Hawaiian island of Kaua'i, a likable guy who’ll treat anyone, native or visitor, but has his good nature tested by new plantation overseer Glenn Langan whose racist tendencies are supported by big shot overseer James Westerfield.  Fortunately, Langan’s pretty wife, Mari Blanchard, has little in common with her husband, but lots in common with Barker.  Meanwhile, Japanese Fifth Columnists are threatening the whole damn island in the weeks before Dec. 7, 1941.  Not that we see them (budget too small?), instead, tepid interracial marriage issues and almost a kiss between a White Military Officer and his Island beauty bride.  Other than that, the film feels pointless.  What was Koch up to?  True they were shooting a second film on the island at the same time (VOODOO ISLAND/’57), but a more likely explanation is that the conscientious Koch was rounding out his Hollywood education by learning just what a director went thru before moving into the big time.  Smart, though not exactly showing much aptitude for directing.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Though shot in Academy Ratio (1.37:1), generous top & bottom framing suggests the film was designed to be cropped by the projectionist (via scrims or aperture plate) down to ‘flat’ (1.77 or 1.85:1).  A simple manual adjustment on older DVD players lets you watch it that way, but automatically adjusting BLU-Ray machines may not.

FRACTURE (2007)

Throwback to the bestseller legal-thriller adaptations of the ‘80s & ‘90S . . . and just as blandly unnecessary.  Those books great as Father’s Day gifts when Walter Isaacson didn’t have a new historical biography in stores.  Once upon a time, Hollywood would have bidding wars to option these prestigious-for-a-day tomes, targeting Sydney Pollack or Alan J. Pakula to overproduce them, always running two hours+ so we knew they were important.  Plus, multiple Oscar® noms which alas never won.  It's precisely how director Gregory Hoblit moved from quality tv cop shows to the Big Screen via PRIMAL FEAR/’96 a decade before doing this.  Here, Anthony Hopkins (who might have been given the same role back in the ‘80s) is the wealthy, older husband who bumps off his unfaithful wife with a How To Get Away With Murder Plan.  Enter prosecuting D.A. Ryan Gosling, taking on a final case before moving to commercial law and a better tax bracket.  But Hopkins has a trick in store, representing himself to set up a mistrial.  But this is Hollywood and the Postman Always Rings Twice.  Especially if you've got Goslng’s doe-like eyes.  Ultra slick and a millimeter deep, Hopkins phones in mini-me Hannibal Lector vocal tics, sweeping the floor on auto-pilot. Even Hoblit seems to know how pointless these things had become by 2007, dropping the non-stop camera moves once we get into court.  His surrender to mediocrity retroactively exposing those older films as equally empty vessels,

DOUBLE-BILL;   *Hard to believe films as dull, predictable and self-regarding as PRESUMED INNOCENT/’90 (that’s Pakula) and THE FIRM/’93 (Pollock) were taken seriously at the time.  Pollock paid a high price for it.  Only 59 when THE FIRM came out, he never made another good film.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Hopkins may have top-billing, but Gosling gets the showy star’s delayed entrance, not coming on screen till the third reel.

SUNDOWN (1941)

Snazzy independent producer Walter Wanger culled A-listers from all over Hollywood* for this nifty African adventure, released via United Artists, just before Pearl Harbor pulled America into the war.  It opens as Gene Tierney deplanes in the middle of Nowhere Kenya, only to be met by a caravan of goods and locals (men, mammals, merchandise) who welcome her like some sort of mercantile queen.  Not so far off the mark as her late caravan king father left her the family biz which sees her running multiple bazaars servicing rival tribes in the Kenyan interior.  Meanwhile, territory administrator Bruce Cabot (very winning here) coaxes peaceful tribal relations with a gentle touch that balances conflicting traditions.  But the current threat is something new, as one belligerent tribe, backed by the Nazis, threatens to take over the land using vast quantities of smuggled guns & ammo entering the country via caravan, including Tierney’s outfit.  At least that’s what by-the-book British Officer George Sanders thinks.  And because of the war, he has authority over Cabot.  War inflected international roundelays popular at the time, from IDIOT’S DELIGHT/’39 to next year’s CASABLANCA, and they all work to some extent.  Here, director Henry Hathaway does what he can to keep all the tangents clear; and when motivation sags, you simply put nationality to the fore as here with Joseph Calleia’s anti-fascist Italian or Carl Esmond’s faux Hollander patriot.  It’s all a bit hokey-pokey, but Tierney is ravishing enough to overlook many absurdities.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Nice to see a high class indie get three Oscar noms (D.P. Charles Lang; Interior Art Direction; Miklós Rózsa score).  If only a good print were around to show them off properly.

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1920)

On the cusp of revolutionizing Shakespearean acting in America with B’way openings of RICHARD III in 1920 and HAMLET in’21*, John Barrymore also got serious about film.  (Not something you could count on other than during his miraculous run of 1932 - 1934,)  The reason was likely his love of grotesquerie, a passion handsomely serviced by this more or less faithful adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novella.  Directed by John S. Robertson in stiff, poetic ‘prestige’ style as a series of romantic or ghastly tableaux vivants which can now make a proper effect thanks to an early 2000s restoration.  (Try the KINO edition.)  The story is much as you recall: brainy doctor tries to isolate man’s good side from his bad with a potent potion, then can’t find the OFF switch.  With a decent cast and standout perfs from BAD companion Louis Wolheim (in real life a ‘working man’ with a concave face Barrymore discovered and got into acting), and from BAD wench Nita Naldi.  Successfully pitiable.  But who are we kidding?  You’re here to watch Barrymore, still a youthful 38, transition au naturale, without camera tricks or makeup from handsome/saintly Jekyll into hideous villain Hyde.*  Makeup and camera dissolves will be used later, but the initial change remains both wild and impressive.   The later ones also have their charms; especially in a print where you don’t need to squint to see it happen.

READ ALL ABOUT IT:  *See Michael A. Morrison’s JOHN BARRYMORE: SHAKESPEAREAN ACTOR for details on Barrymore’s Bard influence.  Or simply watch Laurence Olivier’s HAMLET/’48, loaded with Barrymore touches as well as something like Barrymore’s highly Freudian ‘cut’ of the text.  Right down to what soliloquies were dropped.  (Olivier saw the Barrymore production in London 25 years before as an impressionable 16-yr-old.)

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:   *Barrymore repeated his one-shot transformation trick (now shown going in both directions) with better/closer framing in DON JUAN/’26.

THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY (2019)

Back-loaded adapted screenplay from Charles Willeford & Scott B. Smith puts a dark spin on an old standard, the one about the painter who fakes his own death, goes into hiding incognito and watches as his work soars in value now that he can’t produce anymore; suddenly a sellers’ market.  SPOILERS!  Here, it’s not the painter (Donald Sutherland) manipulating his output for profit, but art critic Claes Bang taking advantage of the painter’s age and frailty, especially as he’s famously already lost his old work to fire and only has a small cache of new canvases as his legacy.  The idea: win his trust; destroy all but one of his new canvases, and end up owning the only original painting left intact, now worth millions.  (It's as if Patricia Highsmith were doing an iteration for the Talented Mr. Ripley.)  Ultra-rich art collector Mick Jagger (of all people) might be behind the scheme, while recent pickup Elizabeth Debicki is an unknowing complication who can be used to entice Sutherland into opening his clam shell of a personality and locked up studio.  But once they get inside, they hardly find what they expect.  Without spur-of-the-moment murder and forgery, plans and profit certain to be forfeit.   It’s a clever idea, but director Giuseppe Capotondi can’t invigorate a script that lolls around over its first two acts, then does a poor job cramming in and explaining the caper mechanics toward the end.  He covers (or is it uncovers) with sex (some) and nudity (lots).  Until by the end, characters & events reduced to mere literary devices .

WATCH THS, NOT THAT/LINK: Imagine GAMBIT/’66 with all the fun sucked out of it.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/06/gambit-1966.html