THE JAZZ AMBASSADORS (2018)

Originally on PBS, Hugo Berkeley’s Peabody Award-winning documentary does a solid, if unimaginative job on a fascinating sidebar to Cold War history as USA & USSR fought to influence hearts, minds and political philosophies in a post-WWII world.  And solving the permanent stain of Stateside racism (where one picture of police brutality was worth a thousand Party Line editorials) was a real problem for Yankee Influencers.  Enter the United States Information Agency, an unlikely sponsor for what became an eight-year run of Jazz Band Diplomacy with Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman & ‘Duke’ Ellington leading their racially integrated outfits to global hot spots, paths paved by the Voice of America.*  Some of the choices (band/countries) look arbitrary, others carefully thought out.  For example, the more traditional Big Band Jazz of Goodman sent to ultra-conservative Russia where not so long ago listening to jazz on a shortwave radio could have serious consequences.  This just the type of info the film skates past.  And, other than Armstrong’s  personal reception in Africa*, and Ellington’s ill-timed tour (the Birmingham. AL church bombing; JFK’s assassination), we don’t get enough sense of events at home and abroad as they were happening.  But enough gets across via archival footage and smart new interviews, to do some fresh justice to this adventure in Statecraft.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Very ‘hotspot’ in the case of Armstrong who’d never been to Africa, had no idea he was so popular there, even causing one country to put their deadly Civil War on pause so he could give a concert.  Talk about the power of music.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *In our current environment, maybe we should send a few integrated Jazz Bands Over Here.

TORRENT (1926)

The Great Swede, Greta Garbo, opened her Hollywood career playing two Latin louches from Vicente Blasco Ibáñez potboilers.  (M-G-M had a thing for the novelist, see FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE/’21 and MARE NOSTRUM/’26.)  Garbo would go on to more appropriate fare but the Spanish-set TORRENT and the even more enjoyable Argentinean TEMPTRESS* make for an irresistible, if trashy, introduction.  Here, Garbo’s penniless small-town gal with a natural gift for song, is all but affianced to Ricardo Cortez, the richest young man in town.  Then Mama Cortez forbids the relationship, sets her son up with a proper senorita, and forecloses on the Garbo family home.  Vowing to elope and marry in Madrid where Garbo hopes to become an operatic Prima Donna, the pledged pair split as Cortez breaks his promise and concedes to Mama’s reality.  Decades later, Garbo (looking not a day older) discovers great divas can only go home temporarily while Cortez (looking worn and bored from years with a loyal wife and gaggle of kids) falls hard all over again.  And what of the torrent?  More symbolic than real, as the ex-lovers ride waves of emotion while the actual floods promise more destruction than they deliver.  (Kinda like the movie.)  Garbo’s cinematographer for nearly all her work, William Daniels, is already on board, while journeyman director Monta Bell, often called on for sub-Lubitsch sex comedy, does well enough once he gets past the first act countryside pastorale.  Much happier in big city theatrical life and playing with model effects during the torrential rains.  Surviving print in reasonable condition.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Garbo’s dresser brings a regular menagerie with her wherever they go.  And Garbo gets a nice scene with ‘Jocko’ the monkey when she goes home to visit.  And that’s not just any Hollywood capuchin, but Harold Lloyd’s co-star in THE KID BROTHER/’27 and Buster Keaton’s adversary in THE SCARECROW/’20.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Garbo’s other Latina minx in THE TEMPTRESS.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/temptress-1926.html

MAN’S FAVORITE SPORT? (1964)

Howard Hawks got close to catching a break on his last comedy.  Too bad ‘close’ only counts in horseshoes and drama.  At first, Hawks works the phony expert angle, think Barbara Stanwyck’s clueless cookery columnist in CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT/’45, forced to prove she’s a regular Ina Garten over the holidays.  Here, it’s fishing, competitive fishing at that, with fishing manual author and salesman-of-the-year Rock Hudson having never cast a line in his life.  But Hawks upends expectations, giving away the big incompetence secret before Act One ends to shift into emasculated male territory.  More in the spirit of BRINGING UP BABY/’38 or I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE/’49 where Cary Grant suffers one indignity after another before he can marry Katharine Hepburn or Ann Sheridan.  More opportunities to reel in comic befuddlement than Hawks can get from rods, bait & hooks.  Even favored scripter Leigh Brackett (credits ranging from Hawks’ RIO BRAVO thru early STAR WARS) doing an uncredited rewrite.  So much for breaks.  Elsewise, Cary Grant chose to go with Stanley Donen & Audrey Hepburn on CHARADE; Hawks moved his unit from classy Paramount to Lew Wasserman’s production-line Universal (their ‘house style’ stuck cinematographer Russell Harlan on airless studio lots and processed everything bright enough for the early Drive-In show), a ludicrous 2.5' running time trimmed to a still unhelpful 2'; turgid comic support; and poor hard-working Rock Hudson, game, but no Cary Grant.*  One bright spot: costumer Edith Head’s form-fitting full-body rubberized scuba suits for Paula Prentiss’s* likeable pain-in-the-ass love-interest and for gal pal Maria Perschy.  (Nickname, Easy.  Yep, it's the '60s.)

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Henry Mancini’s score loaded with the same Hammond Organ he used last year in Hawks’ HATARI/’63.  It worked a lot better there.  ALSO:  *Before casting Prentiss, Hawks saw a pre-release screening of DR. NO/’62 and tried to get Ursala Andress for the part.  Damned if he doesn’t steal that film’s ending for this film!  Hawks usually stole from himself.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Gregory Peck joined the ‘He’s No Cary Grant Club’ in 1966 when Donen followed up CHARADE with ARABESQUE/’66.   ‘Peck confessed he was not always up to meeting the rigorous demands of the picture, be they stunts or comedic delivery.  His ongoing excuse off-camera, ‘But Stanley, their’s only one Cary Grant.’

I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING! (1945)

No doubt, the signature film of Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, the ‘written, produced and directed by’ team known as The Archers, remains THE RED SHOES/’48, their hit ballet backstager.  Though with 15 features (1941 - ‘57), P&P fantasists may look to A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH/’46 as ‘best,’ while those who lean exotica choose BLACK NARCISSUS/’47.  But all must agree the pair’s most perfect is this windblown enchantment.  A romance (no rom-com, more in the vein of late Shakespeare, think THE TEMPEST), at first view lighter than some of their major achievements, but growing in heart and mind over time.*  Their last WWII production, its distinctive stars, Wendy Hiller & Roger Livesey, meet cute (make that meet surrealistic, what a dream Hiller has!) on separate paths to an island in the Scottish Hebrides.  Indeed, his island as Livesey is ‘Laird’ and using his eight-day military leave to visit.  Hiller’s joining the wealthy, older industrialist who’s rented the entire island for their wedding.  Problem #1: a gale is rising at sea, making passage too dangerous.  Problem #2: Livesey & Hiller are falling in love.  Complications, characters and traditional Scottish customs bridge the personal divide (purposefully awkward) until their protective lies are finally cleared in a storm at sea that pushes the relationship as well as the technical limits of 1945 special effects.  (So much more convincing at the time in b&w than color.)  All leading to what must be the most satisfying finish of any P&P movie.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  The special handcrafted look & sound of so many Archers’ films on full display in this most British/Scottish of their films.  How ironic that nearly all the major creatives, other than Powell, were German/Hungarian Jewish exiles from the Nazis: Pressburger, composer Allan Gray, cinematographer Erwin Hillier, and production designer Alfred Junge.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *That delayed capitulation would include Powell.  In love with Deborah Kerr when he co-wrote the script with her in mind, it was decades before he realized he’d made a masterpiece with Hiller.  Hiller’s specialty being wonderful in every role she touched.

THE PHENIX CITY STORY (1955)

One of the great progressive muckraking films of the mid-‘50s, this B-pic by master of the form Phil Karlson (ironically, best known for his reactionary small town/vigilante-sheriff ‘70s hit WALKING TALL/’73*) looks better than ever.  Not only for how it captures period details of the customs & inbred corruption in small-town segregated South, but because so much of the social/civic culture it uncovers continues today in more sophisticated/less brazen style.  Shot to a considerable extent on the actual locations around Phenix City, AL, the true(ish) story is structured as a rabble-rousing thriller (note film noir scripter Daniel Mainwaring) as returning Army vet Richard Kiley (and family) goes to work in Dad’s law office.  That’s John McIntire as the flinty former State D.A., keeping his nose out of non-legal affairs as the town succumbs to the vice mob in booze, gambling & prostitution.  The whole city run as a Protection Racket by a small, vicious rabble.  But once the old man is drawn back into the fight after his son stands up to them, and a little Black girl is murdered as a warning, the town’s good governance committee of honest businessmen needs a winning candidate to run for D.A.  Far more violent than you imagine for a film of the period, Karlson gets the real flavor of the South (the Slow-Walk response by local police as infuriating as those missed calls by professional wrestling refs on tv), while the blanket racism of the town all the more effective for its casual acceptance on the side of the vice issues. Under Karlson, the film ain’t subtle, but neither is the story.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Even more ironic now after TALL’s ‘heroic’ Sheriff Buford Pusser was posthumously tagged with his wife’s ‘unsolved’ murder, the incident that started his violent clean-up.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK:  Famously a big fan of PHENIX, what a pity Martin Scorsese didn’t re-watch it before starting KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON/’24.  It might have helped.  The films less dissimilar than you’d think.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2026/04/killers-of-flower-moon-2024.html

LA MARSEILLAISE (1938)

Released between LA GRANDE ILLUSION/’37 and LA BÊTE HUMAINE/’38, Jean Renoir’s two biggest hits of the 1930s, this crowd-funded historical on the start of the French Revolution never found a crowd . . . in France or elsewhere.  And subsequent re-releases fared little better.  The recent, uneven 2018 restoration allows you to see why; yet also makes a case for the pic.  An ADHD first half pilots a series of vignettes, with stops at Louis XVI’s court when not arresting down-and-out poachers or listening to discontented army rebels in Marseillaise where a catchy tune with grisly lyrics is making the rounds.  (Look for a wine barrel acting as Trojan Horse and for principled foreign mercenaries.)  The film structure a pageant of pit stops played as political vaudeville alternately pleasing and annoying the left-wing Popular Front backers currently (if briefly) running France.  Our level of engagement interrupted by changing POVs of class, location and political philosophy; with dialogue taken as much as possible from public records.  Narrative traction missing till the hoards head North with the goal of taking the palace from King Louis.  The court's reaction?  Indifference.  Plenty of military drills promising safety.  Now, Renoir’s concept finds purpose and shape, while his use of massed force (unexpectedly monumental) grips us with inevitable clash and slaughter.  Plus powerhouse opposition coming from Pierre Renoir’s Louis XVI and from Louis Jouvet’s Revolutionary Committee Head.  The People United Will Never Be Divided.  Sure, but great acting tends to bend feelings at the Movies.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  The uneven quality of picture elements on the restoration must reflect editions at various lengths in failed attempts to recoup costs.

THE RETURN (2024)

Perhaps you’ve heard, there’s a new version of The Odyssey on screen.  Yet two years ago, this chamber version (just the last act, ‘Return to Ithaca’) flew by with a token theatrical release and nary a ripple on the cultural Zeitgeist.  Pity.  In its own way, it’s very good.  We open as Ralph Fiennes’ Odysseus washes ashore at his old stomping grounds, much worse for twenty-year’s wear and naked as the day he was born.  (Nearly naked & distressed the fashion in Ithaca so he fits right in.)  Rather than announce himself, the former leader, and already legendary victor at Troy, stealthily takes stock of the situation on his island.  Faithful wife Penelope (Juliette Binoche sporting Julia Roberts’ profile & considerably more acting chops) anxiously fending off hunky/premature/avaricious suitors; abandoned son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) having Daddy issues; the island at a standstill.  Situational baggage barely clearing the dramatic bar under inexperienced director Uberto Pasolini.*  But as Odysseus is successively recognized, complications (personal & public) kick in to move things along and cover a host of unforced filmmaking errors.  By climax, Fiennes has bulked up to rather amazing (and believable) action-figure form.  Return of the Trickster?  The film, no mere addendum, but a worthy thing of its own.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Director Uberto Pasolini (more active as producer) is related to a famous Italian director, just not the one you’re thinking of.  He’s Luchino Visconti’s nephew.  Though that other Pasolini’s take on ancient Greek tragedy in MEDEA would make an interesting followup.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/03/medea-1969.html

THE WARRIORS (1955)

Errol Flynn buckled his last swash in this low-budget period adventure.  The usual nonsense, but not bad, a tale from the French/English Hundred Years War (1400s) with Flynn (fleshier in face & figure at 45) as son & heir to Britain’s King Edward, going incognito to infiltrate the French Court as the unknown Black Prince.  He’s really on the hunt for battle plans from archenemy Comte De Ville (Peter Finch) and hoping to rescue kidnapped Lady Joan (Joanne Dru).  Director Henry Levin and producer Walter Mirisch, working in the U.K. on their way up the Hollywood ladder*, take advantage of two built-in obstacles.  ONE: By necessity, battles are small and ad-hoc, believably messy; and TWO: heavy period armor meant the aging Flynn wouldn’t be needed on camera during the tough physical action, but only after the main fighting and dangerous bits when he’d put his metal vizor up.  (Thousands of £s saved by using stunt doubles not only for stunts, but whenever possible.)  Diminished as a force on screen thru age, bankruptcy (the main reason he signed on), drugs, booze and hangers-on,  Flynn at half staff still better at this sort of thing than anyone other than 1920s' Douglas Fairbanks.  A natural in the genre’s unnatural poses.  How he’d fare in today’s gory iterations is anyone’s guess.  But since CAPTAIN BLOOD twenty years  ago, he was only challenged by his former self.*

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK:  *Henry Levin a journeyman director of B+ programmers made this shortly before his temporary career bump (late ‘50s - mid’‘60s) to A-list fare.  While already prolific producer Water Mirisch followed this with classic Bs (THE PHENIX CITY STORY/’55; INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS/’56) on his way to permanent Oscar’d A-lister.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/01/invasion-of-body-snatchers-1956.html

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Young Flynn certainly was a hard act to follow.  See CAPTAIN BLOOD/’35.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/captain-blood-1935.html

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.