HA-SHOTER / POLICEMAN (2011)

Currently on something of a roll after KINDERGARTEN TEACHER/’14 and SYNONYMS/’19, this earlier award-winner from Israeli writer/director Nadav Lapid does him few favors. Shot DOGME style, in an unattractive, washed out digital image that offers collateral damage on subtitle legibility, it doggedly follows an elite team of anti-terrorist alpha-types thru various male bonding rituals (even at a backyard BBQ), tiptoeing thru workplace events when not entirely avoiding them. Instead, team player Yiftach Klein worries about a very pregnant wife when not hitting on a 15 yr-old waitress (horny is as horny does!), or tries to get a sick colleague to sign off for full responsibility on a case of excessive force. Hey, the guy’s got a brain tumor. He’s likely to die before the case reaches court, letting his brother warriors off the hook. Then, two-thirds of the way in, we switch P.O.V. to watch the unfolding drama of a small group of arrogant kid anarchists, radicals planning to take some billionaires hostage at a wedding reception so they can grab media attention and read their People’s Manifesto over the air. (Awfully hard to root for the billionaire class these days, but these spoiled brat revolutionaries make it easy.) This action, naturally, brings our elite anti-terrorist unit back into the picture for a reasonably well-executed take-out operation*, but a distinct lack of sympathy in any direction keeps possible complex feelings muted. Or was the missing empathy intended?

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Structurally, the film seems much influenced by Kurosawa’s masterly hostage drama HIGH AND LOW/’62. But only structurally.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Slight Spoiler: *On the other hand, how hard can it be to stage a shoot out in the dark?

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (2014)

We’re well past the ‘use by’ date on ‘Mockumentaries.’ (And probably best not to revisit ones you once thought a hoot.) That said, Taika Waititi’s goofball vampire entry in the form is nasty good fun, often sidesplittingly so, and doesn’t even overstay its welcome. Co-written & co-directed with Jemaine Clement, who along with Waititi also takes on a leading role, we follow a happy communal coven of vampires, living to party & hunt up fresh victims. And they’re not alone, it seems other outlier communities of Werewolves, Zombies and Other Living-Dead types, all wary of each other, are navigating amongst us tempting Earthlings, looking for new friends and/or victims. A couple of these fresh faces necks give the film just enough of a narrative drive, along with a yearly gala event, a mixer for all the monsters as a climax/goal. The direction stays true to the tag-along documentary formula, moving easily when necessary into simple, but well-handled action mode: offbeat angles, pulley-based special effects shots and paranormal rotations, seemingly done without CGI and all the better for it. The effect is mostly for laughs, but here & there, a bit of a scary jolt. Great deadpan comic gore all the way thru.

DOUBLE-BILL: Before moving on to bigger, more commercial projects (THOR: RAGNAROK/’17; JOJO RABBIT/’19), Waititi already showed daring in small, personal fare like BOY/’10.

EXCUSE MY DUST (1951)

Good-natured semi-musical, a modest charmer for Red Skelton as a turn-of-the-last century* automobile enthusiast who tinkers the days away when he could easily be in the horse stable business with gruff William Demerest as father-in-law, married to girl-of-his-dreams Sally Forrest. Macdonald Carey has dastardly fun as his slick, college-educated rival, showing off a fine baritone on some pleasing Howard Schwartz/Dorothy Fields songs, with second female lead Monica Lewis getting the splashier tunes. And in a nice touch, the film jumps ahead for three little futuristic fantasy scenes. Funny stuff. Everything comes to a head at a big auto rally with a gaggle of splendid vintage vehicles, based on real models they look brand spanking new and downright eccentric, all vying for a five thousand dollar racing prize. Enough to set up Red with a wife and his own car company. Skelton tamps down his wild side here, playing straight with the slapstick & physical comedy gags director Roy Rowland & producer Jack Cummings got Buster Keaton (underused comedy advisor at M-G-M at the time) to develop. At one point in the car race, Buster looks set to restage the classic rolling rock avalanche from SEVEN CHANCES/’25, now with watermelons & pumpkins as Skelton’s car careens thru a field, but someone got cold feet. (No doubt, shooting it would have cost as much as the rest of the film.) Too bad, it could have been the big moment this little film needed.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: A big serving of Hollywood nepotism on this one as director Roy Rowland was a nephew of Louis B. Mayer by marriage and producer Jack Cummings a nephew by blood.

THE SUSPECT (1944)

Neatly handled Edwardian thriller, a very British case of domestic murder, with an unusually restrained Charles Laughton driven over the edge by his termagant of a wife (and later a blackmailing neighbor) when the old gal threatens to ruin him, his business and the sweet-natured young thing (Ella Raines) he’s taken under his protective wing. Those who thrill at Laughton’s full-on histrionics, the thrill/fear factor of wondering if (or when) he’ll cross the line from self-loathing revelation into embarrassing self-parody, may wish he and director Robert Siodmak had been a bit bolder. While those who find Laughton always too much, may be pleasantly surprised. Excellent production values for a Universal pic with a B+ budget, atmospherically shot by Paul Ivano and well cast (especially Henry Daniell's hangdog-faced blackmailer), except for Ella Raines, unconvincing as Brit or as spousal material for Laughton.

DOUBLE-BILL: Over at 20th/Fox, in HANGOVER SQUARE/'45 and THE LODGER/’44, director John Brahm, with Laird Cregar & George Sanders, triumphed with a more stylized touch on similar terrain.

THE MACOMBER AFFAIR (1947)

This Ernst Hemingway adaptation, one of the better ones, has always flown a bit under the radar. First of two Hemingways with Gregory Peck, it’s less known but far better than his second (SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO/’52, bloated & glossy), holding fairly close to the original short story, THE SHORT HAPPY LIFE OF FRANCIS MACOMBER, about a failing marriage and a safari hunt gone wrong. Peck, playing guide to Robert Preston & Joan Bennett’s miserable couple, was justly pleased with it, doubling as unofficial co-producer and getting Zoltan Korda to direct. Smart move. The hire made all the difference starting with Korda’s strong feel for untamed places, here smoothly matching various location shoots together (only the second-unit went to Africa) in relatively seamless manner, and getting unusually striking, even unpleasant, perfs from everyone. The script is blunt, occasionally sounding like it has yet to leave the page, but Bennett & Preston’s essential bitterness & lack of compatibility, added to her panicked depression once he starts to find his lost macho bearings after initial failure on the hunt (hey!, Hemingway, ya know), remains strikingly raw. Peck gets across how she might be speaking for him, hence half the attraction (looks make up the rest), but elsewise keeps things too close to the vest, missing the edge Trevor Howard might have brought or the mythic quality of a Gary Cooper (Hemingway’s preferred stand-in). With strong work from cinematographer Karl Struss and Miklós Rózsa’s tangy score, the film’s lack of reputation is a puzzle.*

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *An indie from producer Benedict Bogeaus, released by United Artists, it’s possible that film rights complications have kept this from getting proper video distribution.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: A more than decent 5'3", Joan Bennet looks positively tiny next to Peck’s 6'3".

MEN WITHOUT WOMEN (1930)

Impressive, if overlooked early John Ford sound film survives only as a ‘Part Talkie’ work print, but enjoys fine visual quality in the MoMA conservation print. Loaded with special interest for Ford mavens, but not for specialists only, it mainly deals with a submarine crash and the unfolding drama as the crew waits for rescue from above (they can only get out via torpedo tube!) or slow death as the ship runs out of oxygen. Ford seemed unusually pleased with this one; rightly so (though in discussing it with Peter Bogdanovich*, he conflates it with his follow up sub pic, SEAS BENEATH). Proud of filming inside a real sub, Ford gains just as much verisimilitude thru the relative youth of the 'acting company regulars’ he was already recycling in his casts. But the film’s main draw comes less from the tragic underwater countdown than in its prologue, a set piece with the crew on a quick leave in Shanghai, cramming in as much drinking and whoring as they can in a couple of hours. Mostly at a famous local joint with ‘the Longest Bar in the World.’ It’s all character comedy, sentimental homesickness, barroom ballads, and bartering over sex. Much of it exceedingly raw even by Pre-Code standards. (You could cuss like a real tar in the silents!) Held together with little but Ford’s eye for composition (cinematography by Joseph August) and easy command of pace. Much of his technique a leftover from the silent era with which this all but closes the book. The only plot element in this part a touch of narrative foreshadowing to set up a Mystery Man With A Past on the sub crew, an officer whose secret will wrap things up with a satisfyingly noble sacrifice.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: During the rescue scenes, keep an eye out for John Wayne as a radio operator. He’d soon run afoul of Ford, banished for nearly a decade (until STAGECOACH/’39) after showing disloyalty (by Ford’s book) taking the lead in Raoul Walsh’s THE BIG TRAIL/’30.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: *See Bogdanovich’s early interview book: JOHN FORD: UoCal Press/1968.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, SEAS BENEATH/’31.

TOYS IN THE ATTIC (1963)

Adding a note of Tennessee Williams style sexual hysteria (spinsterhood division) to her own specialty of iffy finances disrupting a dysfunctional Southern family, got Lillian Hellman a hit on her penultimate B’way play.* With a stellar cast (Jason Robards Jr., Irene Worth, Maureen Stapleton, all Tony nominated; Anne Revere winning) and Arthur Penn directing, it must have seemed a plum property for film adaptation, but winds up feeling labored and obvious on screen. George Roy Hill, just off a debut directing Tennessee Williams’ lightweight PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT/’62) can’t find the key to play this one in, as Dean Martin (in a last shot at a ‘serious’ role) returns home with new bride Yvette Mimieux flush with money from a secret deal he’s just put thru. Happy days for all, including older sisters Geraldine Page & Wendy Hiller, until a bad case of familial sexual jealousy wrecks havoc on all plans. Some good acting in here, Martin surprisingly strong and Wendy Hiller superb. But Mimieux’s needy panic feels under-motivated (two sentences could have covered it), and Page’s force-of-malignant-nature act too much right from the start. Her clinging neuroticism sold with the pushy false enthusiasm of a door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesperson. There’s some nicely shot location stuff from lenser Joseph Biroc, and a nifty credit sequence with titles appearing like marque lights on various building facades in the Old Quarter New Orleans, but the story feels awfully thin.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *No surprise to find that James Poe, who wrote the play-to-screen adaption, also did two for Tennessee Williams: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF/’58; SUMMER AND SMOKE/’61.

WITNESS (1985)

Not till he hit the ripe old age of 43, after three STAR WARS and two INDIANA JONES, did Harrison Ford become the sort of movie star who didn’t need a blockbuster franchise behind him to ‘open’ a film. Previous tries (FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE; HANOVER STREET) went nowhere, even cult phenom BLADE RUNNER didn’t work at the time. And you can pinpoint the exact moment it came together for Ford, dancing flirtatiously in a barn loft (with co-star Kelly McGillis, the young Amish widow whose son accidentally witnessed a murder) to an ‘oldie’ pop tune in this finely observed Peter Weir policier. Ford must have known it, too, coming thru with a sincerity, sensitivity & serious sexiness he’d not previously shown on screen, while letting Weir’s calm storytelling style chart the flow of his growing relationship with this strange Amish farming community & with McGillis as he protects her and hides from a dirty trio of big city cops he’s exposed them all to. Sparingly dialogued, sensationally well-cast (first timers, non-pros, actors from other disciplines like opera & ballet), with cinematographer John Seale’s Vermeer-like interior lighting schemes, the film casts a romantic spell as strong as its well-honed suspense elements.

DOUBLE-BILL: John Wayne’s ANGEL AND THE BADMAN/’47 is usually cited as a big influence, but the film is much closer in spirit to BRIEF ENCOUNTER/’45 or ROMAN HOLIDAY/’53.

DANTE'S INFERNO (1935)

Painfully misguided super-spectacle from Fox, made just as Darryl F. Zanuck’s 20th Century outfit was taking over and leading man Spencer Tracy was taking off. (Spence sobered up and soon landed at M-G-M.) Better known for B-pics, producer Sol M. Wurtzel & director Harry Lachman camouflage an intractable story & unappealing characters with ‘production value,’ including three trips into Dante’s Inferno, first as H. B. Warner’s rundown carny attraction, then spiffed up thru Tracy’s showmanship, and finally as a dreamscape of Dante’s Hell running almost a full reel. It’s a quite a show, but never feels organic or tied to Tracy’s fast-rise from bum to entrepreneur & society crasher as he runs roughshod thru partners, friends, even family, breaking rules of decorum & public safety on his race to the top. Twice causing disaster: on land when his expansion collapses at a benefit and then out at sea when his gambling ship goes up in flames. Oddly for a film made under full Production Code enforcement, he goes largely unpunished for all his misdeeds, reforming just in time to earn a happy finish, reunited with wife Claire Trevor & kid Scotty Beckett. Terrible as it is, and Tracy quite rightly loathed the film, it’s a rather entertaining watch. So much going on!

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Even with visual flair of phantasmagoric sets & Rudolph Maté’s chiseled lensing, along with an early screen appearance for ballroom dancer Rita (Casino) Hayworth, the film remains little scene. Possibly because Tracy spends half a reel in BlackFace as part of a carny job where he gets baseballs thrown at him.

DOUBLE-BILL: Tracy had earned kudos playing another obsessive businessman in THE POWER AND THE GLORY/’33, with William K. Howard directing a much admired Preston Sturges script. The film, vastly over-praised then & now, no doubt helped this disaster get made.

THE TAMARIND SEED (1974)

Accomplished and consistently compelling as it is, Blake Edwards hurt himself on this spy-trimmed romance, getting off on the wrong foot with an overproduced credit sequence (John Barry score; glossy Maurice Binder graphics) that sets up James Bond expectations of action he had no intention of pursuing.  Sure enough, commercially & critically the film was D.O.A.; its rep still an on-going recovery project.  What is going on is an opening bid for romance on a Barbados vacation from Omar Sharif (Russian agent/Soviet #2 man in London) to Julie Andrews (British Home Office assistant still processing grief from a husband’s death and emotional debris from a misguided affair).  The question: Is he flirting or recruiting?  A date or apostasy?  The early scenes have a slightly ‘off’ tone to them, the dialogue too direct, while behind the scenes each side closely monitors the situation for possible East vs. West motives.  And with good cause as somebody’s defecting . . . da?  Edward’s script just keeps taking smart turns with all the talk of love, commitment & politics turning out to be self-directed, Sharif desperate to convince himself he’s falling in love, not falling away from core beliefs; Andrews confronting a tragic relationship based on lies.  And all the while, the eternal game of Spy vs Spy is playing out behind the reticent lovers by their agency superiors, wonderfully characterized by Anthony Quayle for the Brits, and the always alarming Oscar Homolka, a visual reminder of Leonid Brezhnev, USSR chairman at the time.  Even these nefarious doings upended by another spy master, Dan O’Herlihy as a ‘Cambridge Five’ turncoat (Kim Philby?, Guy Burgess?*).  Flawed, yet surprisingly moving & memorable, it also gets better as it goes along.  With snazzy location shooting from Freddie Young (though the DVD image needs a bit of taming to do it justice); he also does wonders for Mrs. Edwards.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Alan Bates had a stunning turn as Guy Burgess in Russian exile (one of the real Cambridge Five) in Alan Bennett/John Schlesinger’s AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD/’83  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/09/an-englishman-abroad-1983-question-of.html

CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL (1957)

A corrupt waterfront union, an informer pushed to his death, a carefully coached court witness pointing the crime away from guilty labor bosses: Delusions of ON THE WATERFRONT/’54 from tv director Sidney Salkow on this one; and three years too late to catch any wake. It does start well, with glistening afternoon & nighttime urban Chicago locations as a ‘white collar’ informer is trapped by mob guys before he can drop those incriminating ledgers on the lap of State’s Attorney Brian Keith. Too bad the rest of the film can’t stay in the dirty streets where someone (second-unit director Milton Carter?, soon after working NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and THE KILLING) manages to put out film noir images rather than the compressed grey-scale of apartment & office interiors seen in most of the rest of the film. Dull, dull, dull . . . when the plot doesn’t strain credulity.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: See low-budget stylist Joseph Lewis pull off this sort of thing in THE BIG COMBO/’55. Lewis makes it look easy, but as CONFIDENTIAL shows, it ain’t. And Sam Fuller might have given the exciting paperback cover (see above) a run for its money.

BATTLING BUTLER (1926)

One of Buster Keaton’s biggest hits on release, this mistaken-identity boxing farce stood somewhat in the shade of his other features during the big Keaton revival of the ‘60s & ‘70s. And while it is more conventional then the great masterpieces (it’s just possible to imagine another silent comedian in it), that’s hardly reason not to dig in and enjoy. It’s one of his Incompetent Weakling-to-Inspired Hero stories (like THE NAVIGATOR or STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.), here a noodle of a man, ordered by wealthy Dad to toughen up with a camping trip in rough country. A task arranged for Buster by efficient valet Snitz Edwards who manages to pack every comfort under the sun in their caravan. Life is easy. And once Buster stumbles upon charming local Sally O’Neill, it’s also an instant love match. Too bad her brutish father & brother don’t approve. Once more, Snitz saves the day, noticing in the paper that the current lightweight boxing champion happens to share Buster’s name. Why not play the part to impress those putative in-laws? But when the real boxer shows up, circumstances twist Buster into either losing his girl or taking on a real fight against a real contender, The Alabama Murderer!! With most of the action concentrated in the second half, the earlier parts work on character gags and sheer charm. Something Buster, who takes solo directing credit, has zero problem pulling off. In fact, the only problem he has is hiding what terrific physical shape he’s in for the comic boxing routines. Working with regular cinematographer Bert Haines (who seems to have no non-Keaton credits), Buster shows sheer compositional mastery even beyond his usual standard. (Is there a bad camera placement in any of his features?) Some ringside action, especially a melancholy shot of Buster & Snitz in an empty stadium, have an almost tactile beauty. And what in most films would be a throwaway set piece of Buster training out in the countryside, becomes a jaw-droppingly lovely pastorale. Including a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot right after a car crash, as Buster’s trainer jogs up a long dusty road while far in the background a tree stands in silhouette. About as gorgeous a shot as exists on film. Nearly equaled right at the climax in an inexplicably haunting shot of Buster, in a surprise boxing victory after the official fight, devastated at the thought that he’s won the battle, but lost Sally. Wearing nothing but boxing trunks and bearing his weight by leaning his head against the wall, he’s framed on the right by his own top hat and cane, tokens of the identity he believes will doom the relationship. Simple, moving, basic, loaded with emotional content, it’s awe-inspiring filmmaking.

DOUBLE-BILL: Easy to see how this influenced the boxing scenes in Harold Lloyd’s THE MILKY WAY/’36, one of his better sound films, made under the sharp, comic eye of Leo McCarey.

DOUBLE DANGER (1938)

A doubly good gimmick goes to waste in this lighthearted drama about Dueling Jewel Thieves, a B-pic sorely missing the high style & class players needed to pull it off. Director Lew Landers keeps the storyline clear enough, but hasn’t the time, budget or inclination to make things sparkle when two sets of diamonds (one fake, one real) are stolen. Police Commissioner Samuel S. Hinds sets a trap for his two prime suspects (and their partners), but a series of double crosses threaten to trip him up. Preston Foster, an author of witty crime novels, largely controls the action as Prime Suspect #1, along with comic valet Cecil Kellaway (making like Eric Blore in an early Hollywood appearance); all the while romancing Prime Suspect #2 Whitney Bourne, there with her thuggish partner in crime Paul Guilfoyle. Fortunately, June Johnson & Arthur Lake as a young couple thrilled to be at the scene of a crime, hang around as comic relief. Johnson, who’d soon make a fast fade, is a pain, but Lake, just months before he started playing Dagwood in the long-running BLONDIE series, is an adorable hoot, a real comic find who could have gone on to much better things. Pity.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Director William Dieterle got a lot closer to the Ernst Lubitsch mark on these things in his little known JEWEL ROBBERY/’32 (Kay Francis; William Powell) even though it pulls the plug somewhere in the middle of Act Two.

THE COWBOYS (1972)

This late John Wayne Western, best of his post TRUE GRIT work*, gives its ‘can’t-miss’ idea (Wayne is forced to use school boys on a cattle drive) a classy production*, with just enough sentiment & coming-of-age clichés to sustain an extended RoadShow running time, plus some unexpectedly tough action and John William’s superb score (now a regular on the concert circuit). Aimed at the Family Market, it was thought too violent on release, but time has desensitized that audience, mainstreaming the gore and revenge elements. Mark Rydell, an uneven director, is less coarse than usual, showing patience and care in setting up his scenes, thanks to a smartly structured script by Martin Ritt favorites Irving Ravetch & Harriet Frank, along with Robert Surtees’ stunning location cinematography and a well-judged walking pace from William Wyler’s pet editor Robert Swink. Wayne hadn’t been as handsomely cosseted on a film in years, and never would be again. The boys are a winning lot, with problems simplified for easy confrontations & solutions; Bruce Dern’s villain vicious enough to earn the sadistic ending the boys dish out; and Roscoe Lee Browne a prince of a camp cook. (The script misses a trick by not developing a split between Wayne & Brown as surrogate father figures to the boys.) And it gives Wayne the memorable career wrap he may not have known he was looking for.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Later came rote Westerns; Dirty Harry wannabees; an embarrassing sequel to TRUE GRIT; and THE SHOOTIST/’76, a misfire career sum-up for Wayne from Don Siegel.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Well, classy except for Wayne’s typically over-optimistic toupée.

US (2019)

Always tough following up on a breakout pic. Especially after the commercial, critical, award-winning success writer Jordan Peele had surfing the Zeitgeist in his directing debut, GET OUT/’17. Pic #2 tries adding family values to a standard-issue doppelgänger creepathon, offering a variation on INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS that feels less reimagined by Peele than co-opted from something M. Night Shyamalan passed on, missing the technical polish & kinetic feel for action Night is able to deliver before throwing a wet blanket over his big, empty ideas. Peele does manage a cheap Shymalanian you-saw-it-coming twist ending that makes mincemeat of everything we've already seen, as well as employing an increasingly comic tone in the third act after noticing that the film isn’t working as planned. Hardly a decent scare in the pic, with the appearance and attack of all those soulless underworld doubles less mysterious than the abundant box-office and largely favorable reviews. Sophomore jinx, anyone?

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Stick with GET OUT before this sours it for you. OR: The original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS/’56, still causing nightmares 60+ years on.

THE SHINING HOUR (1938)

Joan Crawford initiated this project, but there’s plenty of blame to go around. Starting with moving Keith Winter’s British play (city gal weds wealthy country farmer, then falls for his married brother) from Yorkshire to Wisconsin. The whole class & culture concept something of a dramatic stretch for the MidWest (or needing a rethink), while the shifting relationships between Joan & new husband Melvyn Douglas versus saintly sister-in-law Margaret Sullavan & her husband, dissatisfied younger brother Robert Young, wax & wane without motivation or warning. (The film's short running time hinting at missing pieces from the play.) Add on older sister, Fay Bainter, a termagant of a spinster who conveniently goes mad for a fiery second act climax only to show up in the very next scene sane as a bell, benevolently pouring tea for everyone. Producer Joseph Mankiewicz and director Frank Borzage, each with better Crawford outings before & after, seem to have thrown in the towel on this one. How else to explain them not reshooting Margaret Sullavan’s parting close-up, wrapped like a mummy as she recovers from Bainter’s blaze. A 'bad laugh' cut for the ages.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Crawford juggled similar ideas on the moving tides of love & marriage to slightly better effect working against Robert Taylor, Greer Garson & Herbert Marshall in WHEN LADIES MEET/’44. (Anita Loos script from the Rachel Crothers play.) Though far more effective in 1933 with Ann Harding, Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy & Frank Morgan. (both versions squibbed below)

PAID IN FULL (1950)

Director William Dieterle and cinematographer Leo Tover give a film noir edge and an undertone of L.A. atmosphere & design to this melodramatic psychological thriller about a pair of orphaned sisters, sacrificing Lizabeth Scott and selfish Diana Lynn, with Robert Cummings playing man in the middle. As mother hen to a younger/needy sis, Scott pushes Cummings, who’s both a pal and her boss, Lynn’s way, making excuses for the kid’s bad behavior even when Lynn grows disturbingly possessive after marriage & a baby girl. (Lynn perhaps relishing her role as evil temptress a bit too much.) But even at its most psychologically obvious, the film pulls you into its downward spiral with uncompromising plot twists, neatly setup from an opening flashback that has pregnant Scott barely reaching the hospital for a problematic, possibly deadly delivery. Effective & compelling up & down the line, with even the always lightweight Cummings finding good use for his typically shallow demeanor. Plus some really nice side delights, starting with Scott’s workmate Eve Arden, in the mix for a bit of grownup sass; and Frank McHugh running a cosy steak house that features producer Hal Wallis’s latest discovery Dean Martin on the jukebox.

DOUBLE-BILL: More co-dependent sisters, and another deathbed flashback, in THE HARD WAY/’43, with outstanding work from Ida Lupino, Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson & director Vincent Sherman.

NIGHT SONG (1947)

Slushy but fun. As leading lady Merle Oberon puts it two-thirds of the way in, ‘Like a bad novel you can’t put down.’ Here’s what she means: Dana Andrews, blind, embittered, self-pitying pianist/composer gigs light jazz in a noisy joint with live-in pal Hoagy Carmichael when he really ought to be finishing that promising piano concerto. Enter rich society type Oberon who falls for the music and the guy. If only she could nudge him past his creative funk. I know, pretend to be a blind amateur pianist, meet-cute and lead him by the nose into entering a concerto contest you’ve just endowed out of your very own trust fund. And since you’re also the contest judge, he’s sure to win that Carnegie Hall debut (Arthur Rubinstein with Eugene Ormandy & the NYPhil!) and still have enough dough to afford that pricey eye operation. Wait, there’s more! Hie thee to NYC for the debut and introduce yourself. He used to be blind, remember! He’ll never know you were his ‘blind’ lady friend. Then watch as he falls in love with his beautiful benefactor, unaware that the ‘blind’ gal he left behind is . . . you! Director John Cromwell’s straightforward style works well in taming this overripe story, though it’s possible to imagine a melodrama specialist (John Stahl; Douglas Sirk) really taking off into the stratosphere without breaking a pact with the material. The concerto, an eight minute job by Leith Stevens (Rachmaninoff meets Gershwin*) is neatly dispatched, all much helped by Lucien Ballard’s elegant b&w cinematography. Add a splash of vinegar from Ethel Barrymore as Merle’s wise old aunt, and the film is something of a trashy triumph.

DOUBLE-BILL: *The '40s fad for ‘classy’ original quasi-classical mini-concertos started in England with Richard Addinsell’s ‘Warsaw’ Concerto in DANGEROUS MOONLIGHT/’41. And here, Stevens’ 8-minute running time, a perfect fit for a single two-sided 12" 78rpm disc.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: A sign at the Carnegie Hall box office informs that the concert is Sold Out: Standing Room Only. Oops, Carnegie Hall has no Standing Room.

THE BLACK HOLE (1979)

Desperate to rejoin ‘the conversation’ in post-STAR WARS Hollywood, Disney producer (later President & CEO) Ron Miller, a son-in-law-also-rises hack, went full bore Space Opera with this compromised product that pleased few.* (He’d do much the same for the animation side of things with THE BLACK CALDRON/’84, shortly before he was forced out.) Encased in an impossibly elegant physical production, the film is brought down by just about everything else, starting with an oddly uneventful story that plops a small research space ship at the gravitational cusp of an all-engulfing Black Hole where an immense, long-lost observation station hovers and Maximilian Schell, the 'lost' ship’s sole surviving crew member, plays Captain Nemo to a robotic army. Dark secrets will be revealed, but the narrative builds little pull or tension under functional tv director Gary Nelson while a typical Disney cast of worn or disinterested actors (Anthony Perkins, Yvette Mimieux, Ernest Borgnine, Joseph Bottoms, Robert Forster) labor in front of visual backgrounds yet to be ‘matted’ in. Or cringing every time that little vacuum-cleaner shaped robot assistant appears, a cute replicant of R2D2 but with the prissy vocals of C3PO (courtesy of Roddy McDowall). With the exception of an unexpectedly abrupt killing (a shockingly effective bit), moments of action are few and far between until the usual last act shoot-outs & chases before the film’s ambiguous ‘deep-think’ punt of a finale. After special events like this, the changing of the guard couldn’t happen fast enough with Miller ankling just as SPLASH and new CEO Michael Eisner came aboard in 1984.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Miller’s two previous credits: THE APPLE DUMPLING GANG STRIKES AGAIN and UNIDENTIFIED FLYING ODDBALL, typical kiddie fodder for Disney at the time.

GUILTY AS HELL (1932)

First partnered as army frenemies in Raoul Walsh’s WWI dramedy WHAT PRICE GLORY/’26, one of the biggest hits of the late silent era, Edmund Lowe & Victor McLaglen not only revisited their characters in three sequels, but continued the relationship out of uniform in other films. The comic battling grew forced & repetitive over time, but this clever murder mystery, the first non-army teaming, is still pretty sharp. A sort of Pre-Code COLUMBO, it opens with a surprisingly gruesome strangulation before showing the trick used by Henry Stephenson’s husband/killer to get away with the crime. Enter chief detective McLaglen & cocksure crime reporter Lowe who run this murder procedural between one-upmanships & comic bickering as they work to clear Richard Arlen of the crime. McLaglen, still looking great, a mass of power behind the glinty grin, is mostly straight man on this one, letting Lowe’s wily schemer get the best bits. Appallingly cynical & self-assured, this newsman deftly steps over a fresh corpse, taps cigarette ash on the body, even sits in the lap of a dead man only to then obstruct the camera (and our view) by putting his feet up! Someone (director Erle C. Kenton?; cinematographer Karl Struss?) had a scabrous view of life and a few camera tricks up their sleeve to liven things up. Check out the distorted closeups used at critical moments with near 3D effect. Not a technique for everyday use, but it does add a dollop of naughty fun and a modern vibe to a conventional story.

DOUBLE-BILL: Would love to put WHAT PRICE GLORY here, but haven’t found an edition that uses a print worthy of the film.  And John Ford’s lamentable remake from 1952 (planned for James Cagney & Dan Dailey as a semi-musical) is an embarrassment for all.  (One good scene though as Cagney bemoans his new, baby-faced recruits.)

EVERYTHING I HAVE IS YOURS (1952)

After specialty turns for top producer Arthur Freed in SHOW BOAT/’51 and LOVELY TO LOOK AT/’52, M-G-M advanced peppy dance partners Marge & Gower Champion as leads on two forgettable chamber musicals definitely not from the Freed Unit. This one, first of the pair*, wastes a good idea with disposable songs & a drab production as Opening Night ends with Marge in a faint; pregnant, and advised to take it easy. Gower continues the run with understudy Monica Lewis while Marge becomes reluctant/resentful stay-at-home mom. Four years on she returns with a show of her own, playing right across the street from Gower & Lewis. Neither Champion has ever had eyes for anyone else, yet they seem stuck with a divorce till his show goes flat and hers needs a lift only Gower can provide. Happy Ending! With pinch-penny look and weirdly unattractive color schemes, this needn’t have proved fatal given more memorable numbers. But the only real spark comes in a little solo for Gower, danced with stuffed animals to amuse his newborn girl. Vet helmer Robert Z. Leonard brings little to the party (dance numbers were probably handled by choreographers Nick Castle & Gower), and the film ends with a waltzing reconciliation that must have been designed to segue into a stage show finale no one had the budget or inclination to film.

DOUBLE-BILL: *The second film, GIVE A GIRL A BREAK/’53, is another backstager involving recasting the girl in a show. Livelier, what with Stanley Donen directing & a youthful turn from a sunny Bob Fosse against glowing Gower, it’s ultimately not much more memorable.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Keep an eye out for the storefront windows seen the same year in SINGING IN THE RAIN and for the train platform used the following year for THE BAND WAGON.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Marge & Gower seem less compatible on screen then they must have been in their stage act. She’s the quiet mouse type (one of the models used by Disney for SNOW WHITE) while Gower’s the complete dazzler. And with musicals quickly going out of fashion, their last shot came quickly with THREE FOR THE SHOW/’55 at Columbia. Yet another variation on ENOCH ARDEN. Pretty good, too, with Betty Grable & Jack Lemmon.

THE MULE (2018)

Only 88, but here passing for 90, Clint Eastwood (in his leading man swansong?) has made a rather lovely, unexpectedly conventional film out of a decidedly unconventional ‘true’ story. Big ‘quote marks’ on ‘true’ as Nick Schenk’s script is all ‘story beats’ in arranging the plot of a newly broke, elderly flower farmer, reinventing himself as a small-time drug runner for a Mexican cartel family. Turns out, he’s good at the job. Who’s stopping a 90-yr old guy in a beat up truck? Maybe too good. Soon, he’s Top Mule, earning too much cash to stop before he finds himself mired in lethally dangerous below-the-border family politics. It’s a tossup whether the FEDS, led by a bemused Bradley Cooper, or new violent drug dealing bosses will take him out first. And that’s just when a crisis long brewing in his own, largely ignored (and resentful) family, turns the drama in a different direction. The film moseys along in the first half, but you don’t much mind the extra 20 minutes: everyone such good company (daughter Alison Eastwood especially so as his daughter), the craft impeccable, the details so bizarre. You do wonder whether or not this might work with less of a well-made Hollywood story structure pointing every plot turn at us. Still, an unusual item. Call it gentlemanly moviemaking. Something we’ll miss when it’s gone from our screens.

DOUBLE-BILL: Art Carney had a hit as an old man turned to crime with two senior pals in GOING IN STYLE/’79. But the tone of Paul Mazursky’s HARRY AND TONTO/’74, a flaky road pic for Carney & his cat after retirement better matches Clint's melancholy vibe.

THE MAN WHO FOUND HIMSELF (1937)

Silly, make that downright goofy, programmer from prolific hack Lew Landers follows the unlikely career path of John Beal, a resentful doctor/risk-taking sky pilot who loses a plane, the life of a lady passenger and his engagement to a society dame when he goes down in a storm and wakes up to scandal. Tramping his way west, he lands in Cali, meets old flying bud Philip Huston* and gets a fresh start as plane mechanic, pilot and, before long, resentful doctor (again) of a flying ambulance. Toss in a last minute train wreck for some heroic action in the field, alongside reconciliation with Dad, and you’ve got your big, corny wrap. It wouldn’t be worth half a look if not for new leading lady Joan Fontaine getting a star-making push from RKO after a handful of pics. You can really see how the studio system takes charge here: a star’s delayed entrance for Joan after a reel & a half; an eye-catching title card after the final credits telling us she’s someone to watch; a complete facial makeup change from her intro (all harsh angles & hard lines) to something much softer thereafter. Too bad they didn't give the same attention to her acting! Even with that lovely, cultured voice, she's pretty bad up there. A couple of years on, the one-two punch of George Cukor (THE WOMEN/’39) and Alfred Hitchcock (REBECCA/’40) would fix that, too.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Solidly built, handsome, charming, little known Philip Huston as John Beal's aviator pal was a regular on B’way for decades, but only worked on and off in Hollywood. Whatever happened to the guy? He seems as likely a discovery as Fontaine.

HER KIND OF MAN (1946)

Warner Bros. was still testing out short/solid Dane Clark & long/lean Zachary Scott for post-WWII stardom in this neat, formulaic programmer. Debuting Janis Paige, also getting the star-in-the-making treatment, is the nightclub singer the boys tangle over: Scott a mob-connected gaming house owner, Clark a nightlife news columnist.* Paige loves ‘em both, but leans toward Scott even after he gets involved in a murder. The film runs pretty well for the first two acts, but takes a bad turn forcing its last act climax into place with a poorly staged raid at Scott’s newly opened boíte & backroom betting hot spot. Frederick De Cordova (long time Johnny Carson TONIGHT SHOW producer & infamous director of Ronald Reagan’s BEDTIME FOR BONZO/’51) really stinking up the joint in this laughable moment before straightening up for a pretty good race-to-the-hideout finale. All told, a ‘close-but-no-cigar’ time waster if not for Zachary Scott, one of the more interesting actors Hollywood ever wasted. (And for the decidedly weird homoerotic/masochistic overtones going between Scott & Harry Lewis his lapdog of a bodyguard. Who thought up this relationship, and how'd it get past the censors at the Breen Office?)

DOUBLE-BILL: *None of these three quite made the leap from ‘leading player’ to star, but you can best see the possibilities from Scott in Jean Renoir’s THE SOUTHERNER/’45; Clark in Frank Borzage’s MOONRISE/’48; and Paige showing her comic chops in Rouben Mamoulian/Cole Porter’s SILK STOCKINGS/57 against Fred Astaire.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Unless my ears lie, Paige only does her own vocals on the intro to her opening number. Everything else taken over by some unnamed in-house studio soprano.

DEVIL-MAY-CARE (1929)

M-G-M romantic heartthrob Ramon Novarro waited till the end of 1929 for his first Talkie. (Even Garbo, last of the big stars to take the plunge, ‘spoke’ on screen only three months later.) The transition seemed to go fine, but was followed, as with so many silent stars, by rapid decline. By the mid-30s, interest had waned and he was on his way out. And while he does well here (singing pleasantly in a silly semi-musical about a Napoleon loyalist hiding as a servant in a Royalist household where he falls for the engaged cousin of a Countess), the seeds of his fall have been planted. As an actor, his ‘attack’ pitched at extremes, manly action or generically dreamy; his youthful beauty turning soft to the touch; the songs (by dull Herbert Stothart) unmemorable. Sadly, once all these problems were fixed on THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE/’34, it was too late to turn the tide. Dorothy Jordan makes a pretty, if pitch challenged, cousin/love interest, while Countess Marion Harris sings well but proves impossible to photograph, never making another feature. Technically, Douglas Shearer’s sound work is uncommonly fine (all the singing ‘live’) while director Sidney Franklin shows unexpectedly deft camera moves for the period and keeps a lively pace. But going with a moth-eaten theater piece by opera librettist Eugène Scribe (who died in the mid-1800s) is anyone’s guess.

DOUBLE-BILL: Earlier this year, Novarro had a final silent hit with THE PAGAN/’29. (not seen here)

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Note the Spanish-language poster. It was common before subtitles & dubbing to shoot foreign language versions in tandem with the original. Did that happen here?

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Just before the end, a short 2-strip TechniColor ballet (a mess in turquoise & orange) scored by Dmitri Tiomkin in his first Hollywood gig.

GRUPPO DI FAMIGLIA IN UN INTERNO / CONVERSATION PIECE (1974)

You’d be hard pressed to afford the bath towels that generously wrap around a tantalizingly nude Helmut Berger as he steps out of Burt Lancaster’s curtainless shower in Luchino Visconti’s penultimate film. Couldn’t afford Helmut, either, which all but sums up the plot of this bewitching oddity, a sort of DEATH IN VENICE-Lite with the repressed Aschenbach character remade as Lancaster’s retired scientist/art collector; Berger as grown Tadzio, objet d’art of sexual opportunity; and the endless interiors of Lancaster’s Rome home standing in for Venice. (No canals, but there is a water overflow upstairs.) Visually stunning, almost shockingly so, it was shot entirely in studio by Pasqualino De Santis. The film, life affirming and more than a bit gaga, follows a small clan of the ‘beautiful people,’ hideously rich & so appallingly entitled there’s something funny in their excess, who ‘move in’ on Lancaster’s recluse, taking over & redoing the musty apartment above him in an attempt to retain Helmut . . . and his ‘services.’ And the man seems to be ‘serving’ everyone! Silvana Mangano’s married Marchesa (the lady with the checkbook and the chic pallor); flighty daughter Claudi Marsani; and her architect fiancé Stefano Patrizi. (Anyone for a threesome?) Berger may also be taking in a bit of ‘rough trade’ though the plot (such as it is) would have us believe he gets beat up by dissed drug dealers. More plot barely touched on involves Berger informing on Mangano’s (fascist?) industrial powerhouse of a husband. Visconti making these things so vague, the film’s tragic ending all but evaporates from memory, leaving, instead, positive feelings from Lancaster finding something in life beyond books & exquisite paintings. A moral we might believe if only the decor & backgrounds weren’t so all consuming they become main characters! And it’s this push-me/pull-you struggle over æsthetics & philosophy that help make this sui generis film such a compelling, puzzle-completing work in the Visconti canon.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Filmed and released in three or four ‘original’ languages, the film had a disastrous opening in its English-Language version at The New York Film Fest where laughs at Marxist Italian Communism and acres of stiff, formal dialogue caused a festival of ‘bad’ laughs. The film plays infinitely better in Italian (though you lose Lancaster’s own voice) with English subtitles and only three of four whoppers.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Visconti’s DEATH IN VENICE/’71.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/08/death-in-venice-1971.html

GEORGY GIRL (1966)

With its irresistibly catchy tune and British New Wave trimmings, this off-beat Cinderella story (or is it an anti-Cinderella story?) remains smashing entertainment. Neatly handled, without rubbing our faces in ‘mod’ style or overplaying the whimsical tweaks of conventional mores, director Silvio Narizzano gets the tone just right for sexual roundelay as sentimental farce. Lynn Redgrave is plumply delicious as Georgy, eternal third-wheel, a frump who triumphs thru niceness when the hip couple she rooms with (Charlotte Rampling & Alan Bates) fall apart after marriage & a new baby. Unexpectedly, love is redirected her way. Or rather, comes to her once more as she’s long been the object of affection of her parents’ wealthy/randy employer James Mason. The twists in the plot complicated by the fact that at the time Alan Bates was just about the most appealing fellow on the planet.  Everything is deftly handled in Peter Nichols’ extra-sharp script, tucking in character corners like a well-made bed, and nimbly skipping over any trouble spots. Working with book author Margaret Forster, you can’t help but notice echoes from ‘50s classics like GIGI and SABRINA (her teen faves?), but with satisfying flips. A feel-good film without any nasty aftertaste.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Did any classic Hollywood star move as effortlessly and confidently thru changing post-studio era cinematic styles as James Mason?

DOUBLE-BILL: From the same year, MORGAN!, a more iconoclastic tear-down-the-walls piece of rom-com 60s political anarchy (British New Wave division), now looking uncomfortably pushed.

CONTEST: Actor (and HARRY POTTER audio book giant) Jim Dale co-wrote that fab title tune. What’s his other major connection to co-scripter Peter Nichols?

LARCENY INC.

After Columbia Pictures mined Edward G. Robinson’s gangster character for laughs in THE WHOLE TOWN’S TALKING/’35, home studio Warner Bros. took over the act with A SLIGHT CASE OF MURDER/’38 (prohibition brewer must upgrade product); BROTHER ORCHID/’40 (convent hideout goes more than skin deep); and this adaptation of S. J. Perelman’s flop play A NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS* on how a crook’s plan to tunnel into a neighboring bank from a luggage shop is foiled by his unexpected success as a retailer. No doubt, the idea would have worked best as one of Perelman’s many New Yorker short stories. Instead, it becomes the runt of the litter in Eddie G.’s trio of gangster yuck-fests @ Warners. It does manage a few decent laughs, mostly around the edges from supporting players Broderick Crawford as a dense strongman and a very young Jackie Gleason’s soda jerk; while wasting Jack Carson & Jane Wyman in a nothing romance. It's not bad, but too much in here feels pretty obvious, with director Lloyd Bacon falling back on a rat-a-tat-tat delivery when gags fall flat. Bacon, who made all three of these, had the best luck with BROTHER ORCHID, the least promising of the trio. Go figure.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Woody Allen, who idolized Perelman, refashioned the basic idea to modest result in SMALL TIME CROOKS/’00. (Not that Perelman gets any credit on it.)

STRANGERS ALL 1935)

Early credit for Charles Vidor, a journeyman helmer with some standout credits (LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME/’55; GILDA/’46) amid much dross. Here working an intriguing family setup that wastes its potential in overloaded characters & situations. (To say nothing of ham-fisted acting.) Two years back, Frank Capra’s superb LADY FOR A DAY bumped elderly character actress May Robson into some ill-suited starring roles; and in this one, they try her out in Marie Dressler territory as a tough, but sentimental mom tragically blind to the faults of her ungrateful brood.* Preston Foster, the one decent child, needs a bailout for his failing haberdashery. Number Two’s coasting thru life, playing the part of a radical, revolutionary rabble-rouser while Number Three’s an effete snob and would-be thespian. There’s a daughter, too, but she ran off from her fiancé only to return home unexpectedly married to some new fellow. The film story is the only known work from (unproduced?) playwright Marie Bercovici, and trying awfully hard to be the sort of proletariat family drama Clifford Odets was just hitting B’way with in his smash play AWAKE AND SING. Alas, this bargain basement version, if not without social interest as a period Depression piece, is, when not crude & cretinous, unintentionally funny.

DOUBLE-BILL: Odets’ AWAKE AND SING was too left-wing radical for Hollywood. They waited, and got a less controversial play from him in GOLDEN BOY/39, for Barbara Stanwyck & William Holden. OR: *As mentioned above, Dressler in EMMA/’32, one of her big, hokey, sentimental hits. (see below)