THE WHITE REINDEER / VALKOINEN PEURA (1952)

A rare Finnish Art House perennial from the’50s, unjustly forgotten.  Shot, directed & edited by Erik Blomberg who also co-wrote with wife/star Mirjami Kuosmanen, a ringer for Dorothy McGuire.  Here she’s a chaste newlywed hoping to boost her husband’s libido with a visit to the local spell thrower.  (Maybe it’s all those layers of clothes needed even in bed.)  But the groom is only thinking about the reindeer drive, thousands of the beasts needing constant attention thru the snowy landscape.  But if her husband hasn’t taken notice of her charms, other men have.  He does make a mid-drive pit-stop to gift his bride with a small white reindeer, but it can only provide so much satisfaction even as it possesses her.  And worse to come as the spell (or is it simply the witch already within?) unbalances the settlement and the animals.  Only a deadly metal-tipped lance aimed by the husband at the white reindeer can alter this cursed course.  And that shot can still send a shock wave thru any audience willing to accept a folktale.  Shot silent on magnificent locations, with all sound elements added in ‘post’ (including a full bore symphonic score from Einar Englund), what’s more important is that the film is æsthetically silent in technique and narrative logic. So if every turn isn’t laid out on a plate, the tone of the piece makes its effect.  The film, appropriately enough, is bewitching.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Restored a while back, not all available restored editions are equally sharp.  Something even more important with silents than for synch-sound pics.  Sample first.

THE RIP (2026)

Well-received commercial filler from NetFlix (keeping that pipeline loaded), ludicrously tagged as ‘based on true events,’ but really a tricked out caper pic with an All-Star cast.  (Well, Two-Stars; Five Featured Players.)  A prologue details a Miami drug bust gone wrong,  ‘Cartel’ involvement, female Police Captain left dead.  Later, back at Police Headquarters, Feds, Top Brass, Investigating Lieutenant and Detectives in-fighting to beat the band.  Who pulled the trigger?  Who fumbled the ball among the force?  Hardly the best time to receive a CrimeStoppers tip on thousands in illegal drug money stashed in some ‘drop house.’  That’s when the twists start to show up as Lt. Matt Damon and longtime second Ben Affleck take very different approaches in dealing with the discovered cash; not thousands but 20 million.  Tempting, no?  Mob/cartel money?  Connected to the Captain’s murder?  Suddenly, every action has a double meaning.  Someone going rogue?  Innocent renter cuffed as possible accomplice.  Neighborhood gone mysteriously dead.  And is that a getaway vehicle waiting in the garage?  So many questions!  Not only who’s telling the truth, but what is the truth?  Co-writer/director Joe Carnahan is something of an action specialist, not that you’d notice from the staging here.  Lots of stuff playing in the dark.  (To protect his reputation?)  So when the explanations arrive, it’s hard to understand what happened . . . or care.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  With movies like this, it’s easy to see why NetFlix shies from theatrical release.  Going straight to home platform makes this look like a hit.  And, by the numbers, it is.

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1920)

James Fenimore Cooper’s novel has been lucky in its movie adaptations; more than a half dozen so far.  (No eight-part streamer?)  Main contenders out in 1920, 1936 & 1992, all respectable.  Surprisingly, it’s this silent version, at about 75", that sticks closest to the novel, keeping its largely tragic ending and daring racial mix-and-match coupling.  It also lays out the story best: two sisters visiting from Europe, caught in a war between French & British territorial claims while Native Tribes ally with opposing sides.  Since our POV lies with the Brits, their Native allies are the ‘good’ Indians (including that Last Mohican) and Hurons the Baddies.  The main action a journey for the sisters thru a No Man’s Land Forest to reunite with their father.  The small group led by an Indian Scout they, and their British escorts, don’t fully trust.  (Great White Scout Hawkeye more a supporting character here.)  Easy to tell French and Brits apart by their uniforms, while different war paint does the same for Native Peoples.  (Good thing too since the whole cast is White.  That’s Wallace Beery as the film’s Indigenous villain.)  Co-directed by image-oriented Maurice Tourneur (mostly on interiors) and future M-G-M stalwart Clarence Brown* (mostly locations), the film’s much admired visuals hard to judge in the just acceptable available editions.  Good elements are said to exist, but have they ever come out?  Meanwhile, various meh copies on line, some of the best looking accompanied by hopelessly inappropriate canned classical music cues.  But you can still get a pretty good feel for the film.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Best known sound versions.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-last-of-mohicans-1936.html   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-last-of-mohicans-1992.html

READ ALL ABOUT IT:  *Long overdue bio by Gwenda Young in CLARENCE BROWN - Hollywood’s Forgotten Master.

THE DIRTIES (2013)

Early sighting of talented Canadian writer/director Matt Johnson (of the excellent workplace dramedy BLACKBERRY/’23* and current well-received Portrait of A Chef as a Young Man pic TONY/’26 - not seen here) is worth a look, but has aged rapidly.  Pushing thirty at the time, Johnson plays a film nerd high school senior (hyperventilating over classic film like Quentin Tarantino having a celluloid orgasm), alpha-male to a gang of two, himself and BFF Owen Williams, who’s starting to find the act a bit jejune, even creepy.  Their class project a film takedown of the school hall bullies needling them, ‘The Dirties.’  Told as a revenge fantasy, Owen worries that Matt (they both use their real names) is leaning into the scenario as if they were plotting a real shooting.  Some of this extremely well observed; unusually for these things, the girls, if less active than re-active, at least are allowed independent thought not about boys.  But after a while, you notice that the hand-held, slash & dash style of our filmmaking buds covers not only what they shoot, but also how the film shoots them.  It begs the Brechtian question, by whom?   The  basic conceit of narrative filmmaking, here pulling you out of the story..  Yet it could have worked dramatically if Johnson tied this destabilizing style to Matt’s deteriorating mental state.  A psychopathic loss of control accelerated as Owen starts turning away.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  As mentioned, BLACKBERRY.  (If TONY shows equal growth, it must be all the critics say.)  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/07/blackberry-2023.html

LOVESICK (1983)

Woody Allen was known to complain (or perhaps puzzle is the word) on why a Dudley Moore rom-com like ARTHUR/’81 commercially buried even his most successful work.  And though we (and Woody) can only guess at the reasons, we can know how Moore would fare in a Woody Allen film by looking at LOVESICK, written and directed by Allen collaborator Marshall Brickman, co-writer of ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN, SLEEPER and MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY.  Loaded with Allen tropes, characters, locations, social milieu, NYC-centric supporting actors, couplings with participants separated by decades, etc.  And, wouldn’t you know it, LOVESICK grossed about a third of next year’s Dudley Moore mid-life crisis pic MICKI + MAUDE/’84, which covered similar territory.  Brickman, who only directed a handful of films, has a great cast and crew on paper, but the comic doings of an indulgent psychiatrist for rich Upper East Side Manhattan neurotics isn’t much more interesting than one of the 45 minute sessions boring Dr. Moore to tears.  And that includes his latest couch sitter, playwright Elizabeth McGovern, whom he barely hears but instantly falls for.*  '80s attitudes & sexual politics being what they are, what once might have been considered charmingly romantic behavior by Moore now looks like stalking.  And the laugh lines that do come off only make the situation feel more uncomfortable.  The one thing that still plays is a sort of corporal ghost of Freud giving sage professional & personal advice, not of the patient but of the good doctor.  Underplayed to perfection by Alec Guinness who doesn’t miss a beat or a laugh, he seems to float above the film, coming off as the only modern (or is it timeless?) character in the movie.  While Brickman, back among the living, cheats by letting everyone off the hook with conflicts resolved by fiat.  Woody would never have let him get away with it.  He’d also have put the kibosh on the bouffant comb-out on Dudley’s hair.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  *As mentioned, Blake Edward’s MICKI & MAUDE, every bit as blinkered in passé Freudian methodology and ‘80s sexual attitudes, but playing out (hilariously) as a period piece rather than dated/objectionable.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/05/micki-maude-1984.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Even a cinematographer as gifted as Gerry Fisher is flummoxed by the McGovern face.  Something about the square jaw and the luminescent blue eyes make her always look disconcertingly out of focus.

WINDS OF CHANCE (1925)

The Alaskan Gold Rushes at the turn-of-the-last-century (four or five major runs) held more space in America’s collective conscious than we can imagine.  Two major silents in 1925: Charles Chaplin’s ever popular THE GOLD RUSH (though only a few establishing shots made on location) and this sprawling adventure with exteriors largely shot in the Canadian Yukon, even at Dawson City where much of the story is set.  A genial mix of drama, romance, thrills and comedy from a Rex Beach novel, more Henry Hathaway/John Wayne NORTH TO ALASKA/’60 romp than a truly great & terrifying look at  the scene as found in Clarence Brown’s astonishing TRAIL OF ‘98.*   The two leads: strong/stately adventurer Ben Lyons, honestly working up a stake to make a claim, and slightly used Dawson City hall owner Anna Q. Nilsson.  (Yep, the same Nilsson who’s one of the bridge-playing ‘Waxworks’ in SUNSET BOULEVARD/’50.)  These two pair up on the way to Dawson City*, but their dalliance ends when her cheatin’ husband shows up.  Also on the journey, fragile Dana Viola, left alone after her father falls off the wagon and gets shot.  She’s taken under the wing of hearty, river hauler Victor McLaglen playing a Frenchman!  No matter, these two easily steal the pic.  (And our poster knew it.)  Also tops, the thrill-sequence down the rapids with everyone's belongings.  (The real deal, no tricks.  Note Buster Keaton’s ‘props’ genius Fred Gabourie, just off THE NAVIGATOR/’24, in the credits.)  Plus cunning villainess Dorothy Sebastian (later Buster Keaton’s co-star on and off-camera), along with a pair of bickering old-timers for comic relief.  It’s all a little pokey, a little corny, but looser than director Frank Lloyd was in his prestigious sound films.  Available for free on TUBI (one reel missing, but elsewise, other than faint ‘blasting,’ in good shape.)

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Dawson City history, along with some preserved films from their end-of-the-line film exchange (a landfill), on view in DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME.  Also a link to THE TRAIL OF ‘98.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-trail-of-98-1928.html    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/06/dawson-city-frozen-time.html

ORPHÉE / ORPHEUS (1950)

Jack-of-all Arts Jean Cocteau (gadfly dabbler to agnostics) made just a handful of feature films.  BEAUTY AND THE BEAST/’46 the most popular while this update of the Orpheus myth usually considered his best.  That’s debatable.  Better to claim it as the most ‘Cocteau-ean, a Greatest Hits compilation.  You know the basics: Lyric poet Orpheus/Orphée (Jean Marais) loses beloved wife Eurydice (Marie Déa) to Death (here Princess of Death Maria Casares), but wiles his way across the River Styx to bring her back to the living IF he can keep from looking at her till they’ve safely returned.  Usually things don’t end well.  (Here, more have your cake and eat it, too.)  Cocteau has devilish fun updating visual aspects; those motorcyclist Death Aides a leather fetishistic delight.  But too often he settles for vamping before plunging into his simple signature, clear-eyed F/X (mirrors of water to step into; Upside-Down Anti-Gravity tricks, reverse motion to wake the dead) and not one but two of his lovers in the same film.*  The good stuff (those effects) are tight & tidy as ever (even tv’s BATMAN picked up on one), while important themes in ethics, decor, æsthetics, poetry & eternal love sound hollow when tapped.  Philosophical metaphysics 101.  Head- scratching surrealism and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST's sturdy emotionalism were more satisfying as film.  Even George Auric’s score falls back on Gluck’s operatic masterpiece for something memorable.  (The built-in distancing of opera or ballet a better match for this story.)  Still essential, but time has taken its toll.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *In his mid-30s, Jean Marais’s big, square, noble head certainly fit for The Classics, but Roman rather than Greek.   At 25, Edouard Dermithe’s Cégeste is the one to model for a Greek bust.  Cocteau covering all bases.

THE MAN WHO SHOT THE GREAT WAR (2014)

Belfast volunteer George Hackney, Royal Irish Rifles, 14th Division, took his camera along to France in the Great War.  (A ‘pocket’ camera that needed a very large pocket.)  Unusual for the time, especially at the front where he served from 1915 to '16 (Hackney about 30 at the time) as amateur photography was strictly banned.  (There’s not an amateur composition in his work.)  He got around detection largely by shooting on plates rather than film. It allowed him to process in the field, each plate holding multiple images.  Unsurprisingly, he came back a changed man, many friends lost, his religious beliefs in question, though he long remained an elder in the Presbyterian Church.  Carefully made into prints for albums, the collection went largely unseen before albums, prints, negatives, accompanying diaries were donated to an Ulster Museum.  Rediscovered in time for the WWI centenary, this BBC documentary gave them new circulation.  This film, though filled with too much supposition and not enough detail on his process (dir. Brian Henry Martin/script Ian McElhinney), brings some remarkable images, sharp in clarity and in Hackney’s choice in subject matter, to light.  Probably at its most revealing in the visible changes that appear before-and-after the 1916 Battle of the Somme.  And it’s thru these casual portraits of men, including many who were lost, and their grave sites, that Hackney  best captured his temporary world.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: The film uses a technique that pans, scans and lifts certain elements to create a 3D effect.  Peter Jackson did something different with restoration and color on his digital revamp of WWI archival motion pictures in THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD/’18.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2025/03/they-shall-not-grow-old-2018.html

THE MAN WITH A CLOAK (1951)

Don’t be fooled by a few ‘name’ stars and some top-line tech, this is basically an M-G-M programmer with a bit more polish than usual.  It’s mid-1800s New York (actually M-G-M’s backlot Londontown) and young French gal Leslie Caron (in her second film) is new in town, lost in the big city till friendly stranger Joseph Cotten points out the creepy mansion she’d passed by as too unsavory a place for the rich grandfather of her fiancé, currently in Paris fighting for the Republic.  Naturally, Grandpa Louis Calhern is a Monarchist with no intention of helping out his sole living relative.  Chances are he couldn’t anyway as respectable houseguest Barbara Stanwyck (who runs his life and debaucheries) along with venal butler Joe De Santis are planning on inheriting everything . . . and soon.  Only diff?  Babs willing to wait for the apoplectic old man to die naturally while De Santis wants to speed things along.  No doubt some studio exec thought this could be worked up as a period suspenser along the lines of GASLIGHT/’44.  (This guy couldn’t even come up with a decent title.)  Cotten the dead giveaway as he plays nearly the same character and has the exact same structural function as he did in the earlier classic.*  (They did give him a meaningless identity twist which you’ll guess easily.)  In ways large & small, the film feels like an expanded episode from some high quality tv anthology show; all pedestal and no statue.  Just where director  Fletcher Markle would soon be headed.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  *As mentioned, GASLIGHT/’44.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/05/gaslight-1944.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Impeccable dubbing by Harriet Lee for Stanwyck's throaty vocal.