KLAUS (2019)

Well-received*, Oscar nom’d, deeply disappointing. Animator Sergio Pablos’ directing debut is a Santa ‘Klaus’ origin story, told from the POV of a slacker Prince of Postmasters. The young man, exiled by Dad to a dank, dark, frozen little town on an isolated island up North, is tasked with convincing the feuding inhabitants to increase their postal usage. Naturally, there’s a sad old gent, widowed & childless, who hoards a stash of toys for the family he never had. And for romance? The obligatory local frenemy, a disappointed schoolmarm turned fishmonger. Wha? (This really is the story, folks.) Tarted up with mismatched stylization in characters & architecture; played at a pace fit for an ADHD convention; heck, even the voice acting comes up short of the mark. Things settle down for much of the last act, though the climax is a frenetic mess, with sentiment working a bit better than logic. But any pleasures are fleeting.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Stick with the classic Dr. Seuss/Chuck Jones half-hour animated GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS/’66 which this liberally lifts from.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Just how ‘well-received’ something of a mystery since these NetFlix films get, at best, a token theatrical release with actual viewing numbers kept an ‘in-house’ secret.

RHYTHM ON THE RANGE (1936)

Bing Crosby may take equal-sized under-the-title credit with co-stars Frances Farmer, Bob Burns & debuting Martha Raye in this ramshackle comedy-with-songs from Paramount. But it’s Bing, and only Bing, who made this one of the year’s top grossing films. A hit-and-miss mess, loaded with forced comic routines as society gal Farmer runs hot & cold for Bing’s ranch hand (and prize heifer) on a train heading West. Halfway in, a remarkably annoying Raye shows up to literally throw herself at Burns’ hayseed sidekick and mug her way thru her big novelty hit ‘Mr. Paganini.’* Other songs, mostly for Bing, are a mediocre lot, till we finally get to the ranch where Johnny Mercer’s ‘I’m an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)’ livens things up considerably. Everybody joins for a line or two; look fast to see young Roy Rogers and jazzer Louis Prima. Even director Norman Taurog rouses himself. Such spontaneous fun! Or so it seems. (Was the music recorded live?) It must have sent Depression Era audiences out with a spring in their step . . . and helped them forget the rest of the pic.

DOUBLE-BILL: Crosby waited thirty years for his next Western, an unnecessary remake of STAGECOACH. He did record many traditional Western songs and had one of biggest hits (with the Andrew Sisters) on that atypical Cole Porter song ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ in 1944.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Martha Raye: unacknowledged love child of Mickey Rooney and Jerry Lewis?

THE SELL OUT (1952)

As fat as he is corrupt, Sheriff Thomas Gomez runs his district just outside the city limit as a personal fiefdom, with fraudulent charges, lockups & prison goons pulling in a steady flow of income in shakedowns & kickbacks. And most of the police force, local judges & elected officials in for a cut. But tonight, one of his men has arrested the wrong man: crusading newspaper editor Walter Pidgeon, and at just the wrong time since Asst. Attorney-General John Hodiak is investigating for the State. At last, an irreproachable witness against Gomez to put on the stand in court. Or maybe not. Pidgeon turns out to be Gomez’s pigeon and refuses to testify. What’s the sheriff got on him? Even with Audrey Totter, Karl Malden, Cameron Mitchell, Whit Bissell & Everett Sloane in support, this B+ programmer does next to nothing with the situation. Dramatically flat, with windy speechifying substituting for character & action; the M-G-M factory system in ‘50s decline, grinding to a halt.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Director Gerald Mayer hasn’t the flair for B-pic violence. Anthony Mann would have gotten the job done but had just left the studio. See BORDER INCIDENT/’49 to get the idea. Even closer to the mark, Phil Karlson’s fine low-budget indie THE PHENIX CITY STORY/’55.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Imagine this one updated for Arizona’s former tough-guy Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

STEP LIVELY (1944)

Innocuous musical expansion of ROOM SERVICE, a one-room farce about a hustling producer fighting to keep his hotel room/office while he raises cash for a play. A big B’way hit under George Abbott in ‘36 with Eddie Albert, Sam Levene & Betty Field; converted into a so-so Marx Bros. vehicle in ‘38, now studded with a few tunes as Frank Sinatra’s second feature. The real leading role goes to George Murphy as the hassled play producer, while a wafer-thin Sinatra (positively swimming in a double-breasted suit*) plays the novice, but not so dumb playwright who winds up singing his way onto a B’way stage. Loud & fast when it means to be funny, its saving grace lies in a brace of pleasant, if not quite memorable Jule Styne/Sammy Cahn tunes. (Best are Sinatra’s ‘As Long as There’s Music’ and an off-the-wall Arabian Nights production ‘numbo’ for Murphy, ‘Ask the Madame.’) R.K.O.’s desperate tagline, ‘It’s Fun!,’ tells you all you need to know. (Presumably from the same R.K.O. publicity genius whose tagline for CITIZEN KANE was ‘It’s Terrific!’)

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Sinatra skedaddled to M-G-M after this, co-starring with Gene Kelly in ANCHORS AWEIGH/’45, a big commercial hit that camouflaged his bag-of-bones bod in a spiffy sailor uniform and applied ‘symmetricals’ to give him the illusion of a tush.

MADELEINE (1950)

For an actor with a Passion Project, it must be nice to be married to David Lean. Like Ann Todd, newly married to the master director and obsessed with this famously unresolved Glasgow murder.* She’s Madeleine Smith, finally afianced to a fine upstanding, if slightly dull, gentleman, now needing to bury her longstanding relationship to a debt-ridden French roué and retrieve all those incriminating love letters. The cad refuses, then turns up dead, unquestionably poisoned by cyanide. But by whose hand? Was it suicide or murder? Posh, meticulous and a wee bit dull. Something Lean tries to circumnavigate with tricky flashbacks of court testimony loaded into final summations. It’s nicely done, but not enough to really care about. Fitting into the Lean oeuvre much as THE PARADINE CASE does for Alfred Hitchcock. A film which also featured Ann Todd, but as loyal wife rather than possible murderer.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL: *Todd even did a play on the subject in London the year before. And the famous case was used (loosely) as source material for DISHONORED LADY on B’way. A property M-G-M bid on, but balked at the 50G price tag, instead buying a novelization of the case for a tenth the amount: LETTY LYNTON/’32 with Joan Crawford. Wildly Pre-Code with Joan’s mom, mother-in-law to be and bridegroom Robert Montgomery lying thru their teeth to help Joan get away with murder. Playwrights Ned Sheldon & Margaret Ayer Barnes sued for plagiarism and won half a mill mid-1930s dollars, then finally sold the play in 1947: DISHONORED LADY with Hedy Lamarr. In this version, strict Production Code enforcement forced a new character in as surprise killer. And still plenty of plagiarism! Now in settings & characters which were lifted from, of all things, the Moss Hart/Ira Gershwin/Kurt Weill musical LADY IN THE DARK’44. One day, someone may actually make that play.

LA ROMANA / WOMAN OF ROME (1954)

With a script by Alberto Moravia (CONFORMIST) and Giorgio Bassani (GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS); well-known leads (Gina Lollobrigida, Daniel Gélin, Franco Fabrizi); and a strong film noir edge to its Rome locations (lenser Enzo Serafin fresh off a career award; helmer Luigi Zampa still showing Neo-Realist form), this melodramatic character study ought to be better known. Set in the mid-‘30s, Lollobrigida is on her first day as a nude artist’s model, properly escorted by a suspicious mother. Quickly making friends with another model, they are soon double dating, though only Gina takes it seriously. Before long, a ring from her regular date seals the deal, or does before she finds out the guy’s married with kid. Maybe she should have stuck with that government official who’s so crazy about her. By now, her mother’s written her off as a fallen woman, and worse after a friend takes her the next step down . . . all the way to the street. And it’s on another ‘double date’ that she meets Gélin, an idealistic student, part of an anti-fascist cell and not looking for a quick sexual encounter. This is where the film bumps up in interest, politically & emotionally, with the group’s activities attracting police attention, chases, arrests & cowardly informers. But it’s also where Moravia & Bassani get into story trouble, forcing a murderous thug into the action to provide some too convenient violence and tragedy that doesn’t feel organic. The film still comes off, but on a lower plane than it might have.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: One more example of the general strength of so many Italian films of the period. As if everyone in the industry, not just the great talents, knew how to put a movie together for most of the ‘50s.

LINK: Watch a good print free at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCxdDRCbQko

RIVER OF NO RETURN (1954)

CinemaScope got director Otto Preminger halfway to his signature ‘imperial’ style, what with the long takes and reliance on master shots so typical of early WideScreen. (Later that year, CARMEN JONES completed his visual transformation with an uncredited assist from B’way’s Herbert Ross, long before he turned film director, whose input in dance & group movement added contrapuntal fluidity.) Here, in Preminger’s sole Western, the simple story has Robert Mitchum (after singing the title track under the credits) hitting a Gold Rush Tent City to pick up motherless Tommy Rettig, the kid he left behind. These two are off to a new life as frontier farmers, but wind up involved with saloon singer Marilyn Monroe and her charming if black-hearted ne’er-do-well pal Rory Calhoun who soon rushes off to make a gold claim, leaving Mitchum, Monroe & Rettig unprotected against hostile Indians, forced to raft their way down the rapids of the River of No Return. Lenser Joseph LaShelle lays out some handsome location footage, but studio mockups and poorly judged process work hurt more than usual since so much depends on the action scenes. Nice to see Monroe relax in her song numbers, but those line readings! She always sounds as if she’s trying to get her money’s worth for the elocution lessons. (The long takes Preminger preferred must have terrified her.) But the film goes down smoothly with Mitchum & Rettig surprisingly right as father & son, and a neat bonding-thru-violence twist ending.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Note the flotation devices on our Euro-poster. Yikes!

THE RING (1952)

Conventional, slightly amateurish, this sweet-natured little boxing pic holds interest less as drama than as ‘50s L.A. social marker. Lalo Rios, very winning, is the featherweight fighter discovered by Gerald Mohr’s manager as he dukes it out on the sidewalk with a pair of white toughs. The kid’s got something. With Dad out of work and money tight, why not go for the ring? But can he summon a boxer’s discipline before taking on too much and losing it all? Irving Shulman’s script, which could have been all clichés, keeps taking smart turns, finding legit problems to tackle even when folks do right by the kid. Like a local cop, called in to march the boy & his noisy pals out of an unwelcoming Beverly Hills diner, surprises by sticking around to make sure they all get served. And it doesn’t hurt to have young Rita Moreno as the nice girlfriend (at the time, a ringer for her latter WEST SIDE STORY co-star Natalie Wood) nor classy lenser Harlan Russell on a film with such a modest budget. Under Kurt Neumann’s direction, the boxing scenes really pop without being overdone. Even when our featherweight hero goes against a welterweight at the climax. There's real social history in every location shot & cultural attitude. With a narrator to explain that in some neighborhoods, Spanish is the only language you’ll hear. Imagine that!

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The poster is all hype. No one calls the kid ’a dirty Mex,’ his nom de la ring is Tommy Kansas! And not a single white guy goes chasing after his girl.

RAW DEAL (1948)

Film noir heaven. Glistening wet pavement: √. Wavy electronic tones from a theremin on the soundtrack: √. Frame within frame compositions: √. Nihilistic protagonist forgoing parole for a prison break to Nowheresville: √. Fatalistic voice-over narration: √. Getaway car running out of gas: √. Innocent collateral victims and/or unlucky cop to seal your fate: √. A threatening police posse coming after . . . someone else: √. Mr. Big promising a share of the loot just as he's sending a hitman your way: √. A bowl of cherries jubilee, brandied, lit & tossed at some dame: √. Even on a tight budget, director Anthony Mann & lighting cameraman John (‘Prince of Darkness’) Alton don’t miss a trick*. (Especially nice on a new restoration out on Classic Flix.) With Dennis O’Keefe as the impatient jail-breaker; Claire Trevor as the loyal gal he takes for granted; Marsha Hunt’s legal aide who wants to help; heavy Raymond Burr flaming up like that bowl of cherries jubilee; John Ireland losing the upper hand; and a host of well cast stooges, crooks & three-time losers. Plus city detectives working thru the night with only a high-key desk lamp for company. √√√ At a tight 80 minutes, Raw Deal is the real deal.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Mann & Alton teamed up regularly in the late ‘40s. Try REIGN OF TERROR, a last indie and BORDER INCIDENT, their surprisingly fierce B-pic debut at M-G-M, as chaser (both 1949).

OF HUMAN HEARTS (1938)

It took three years and a dozen films, but M-G-M finally figured out what to do with the gangly potential hiding in plain sight under young James Stewart’s thick head of hair.   Or maybe it was just underrated director Clarence Brown getting hold of him.*  Whomever it was, Stewart lands, fully formed at last. This story of a hardscrabble life for preacher Walter Huston, wife Beulah Bondi and grown son Stewart in the pioneer days of a small town in pre-Civil War Ohio is first-rate Americana.   Exceptional in the first act where debuting Gene Reynolds has the Stewart role as a 12-yr-old.   Starkly drawn, with Huston both admirable & unyielding, faith & religion more cudgel than comfort, feelings & affection kept under wraps; his behavior accepted & feared rather than explained.   The film becomes more conventional as it goes along, as Stewart, unaware his survivor instincts toward a close-minded town & father have curdled into an excuse for selfish, hurtful behavior toward his beloved mother.  Running off to medical school, then to the Civil War as an army surgeon, the second & third acts seem a bit rushed compared to the first.  But with a wealth of town characters, and stellar character actors to play them (John Carradine a surprising success as Pres. Lincoln), this superb production, strong in lively location shooting, shows Brown’s work standing comparison to the best in this field (think John Ford, King Vidor, Henry King).  It deserves far more visibility than it gets these days.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Frank Capra usually gets credit for putting Stewart’s career on track in YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU (with Jean Arthur).  But that was after HEARTS; VIVACIOUS LADY (w/ Ginger Rogers) and SHOPWORN ANGEL (w/ Margaret Sullavan).

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Brown’s best-known films don’t show him at his best.  Those famous Early Talkies with Greta Garbo, hopelessly slow & stiff, they seriously hold down his rep.  He did finally loosen up with Garbo for ANNA KARENINA/’35, in spite of disemboweling censorship issues, but Brown made many better sound films and, of course, classic Garbo silents.

A DANDY IN ASPIC (1968)

Another ‘60s Cold War spy thriller, very John Le Carré SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, adapted by Derek Marlowe from his own novel, tries to get by on atmosphere, an air of dread, and a nearly abstract plot as Laurence Harvey’s double-agent hunts up a Communist mole in the British service . . . himself. Yikes! Since producer/director Anthony Mann died toward the end of the shoot, and Harvey took over, it’s hard to know how effective it could have been. As it stands, pretty murky stuff much of the way, and a subplot involving Mia Farrow (is it romance or set up?) that goes absolutely nowhere. What works best is the chrome-plated sheen cinematographer Christopher Challis manages on location (London; Berlin) and in cool, modular public spaces (so different from the Nouveau Vague chic he just gave Stanley Donen on TWO FOR THE ROAD). And what’s intriguing, if not quite fulfilled (Mann has the devil of a time maintaining tone), are odd comic grace notes sent at the most unlikely moments by a slightly eccentric cast (Tom Courtenay, Peter Cook, Lionel Stander). Were they intended? Some obviously, others hard to tell with Harvey, or whomever took charge of ‘post’ after Mann died, running scared of the possibilities. Too bad, on screen, the spy genre had splintered into 007 extravaganzas, broad parody or hushed grey bureaucratic pencil pushers. A remix was in order. Faults and all, as a SPY vs. SPY ‘Fixer-Upper,’ DANDY is pleasingly off-balance.

DAYS OF GLORY (1944)

After coming thru on a trio of cost-conscious poetic shockers for producer Val Lewton @ R.K.O. (CAT PEOPLE the first), director Jacques Tourneur got a budget bump and a whole cast of debuting actors working for writer/producer Casey Robinson on this flag-waving WWII story. That flag sported a hammer & sickle, but Allied friendship was the order of the day, as shown here by a motley gang of mixed-sex Russian Partisans, living together in a glorified bunker when they’re not out on guerrilla raids & skirmishes against Nazi occupation. Mere prologue to the big push coming soon to drive the enemy out of the country whatever the cost. Tourneur has few problems adapting to a studio soundstage Russia, much of the war action still lands with a punch, especially the final battle sequence. But proves less comfortable camouflaging Casey’s soundstage dramatics which feel a little too neat & canned; and shared too evenly between partisans, each one with a specialty to act out. Gregory Peck. almost ridiculously handsome, an above-the-title star from his first entrance, is the tough commander who can’t help but fall for ‘useless’ ballerina Tamara Toumanova who’s wandered in to their little fort after her dance troop broke up. But she soon gets in the swing of things, killing a Nazi intruder and joining on offence when not cocking that Greta Garbo-like eyebrow. So too the film, good agit-prop when not cocking its melodramatic eyebrows.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Peck, none too happy with this debut, established himself in his next film, THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM/’44, even got an Oscar nom. In hindsight, he probably comes off better in GLORY with its less ambitious one-note role.

DOUBLE-BILL: For Hollywood style Nazi resistance of the period, try the Norwegian-set EDGE OF DARKNESS/’43 (Lewis Milestone; Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan). For something more realistic, Andrei Tarkovsky’s stunning debut pic IVAN’S CHILDHOOD/’62.

BLIND SPOT (1947)

Micro-budgeted film noir really knows what’s it’s about. And why not? The sharp-eyed script is from Martin Goldsmith who did DETOUR/’45 and NARROW MARGIN/’52.* Penny-ante actor Robert Gordon makes a smooth transition to directing here, with plenty of help from vet lenser George Meehan in one of his last credits. Plus a considerable cast to carry it off, starting with Chester Morris as a soused novelist, acclaimed but uncommercial, trying to get an advance on a murder mystery he’s just cooked up, a sure bestseller. The old chestnut about a dead man in a room locked from the inside? Solved it. But his hard-ass publisher ain’t buying. Worse, Morris can’t remember the solution when sober. And he needs to, since his publisher has just been found murdered in his office, exactly as Morris described in his book proposal. Maybe he did it and was too drunk to remember. Yikes! But wait; two people were at the office and may have heard his solution to the ‘locked-room’ scenario. Successful mystery author Steven Geray and secretary/ receptionist Constance Dowling. Meanwhile, Detective James Bell figures he’s got an easy case to make on Morris. Neat stuff, with Morris serving up running commentary (sub-Raymond Chandler, but that’s okay) and a bit of zippy action at the inevitable showdown. Morris plays drunk for the first half of the pic, usually a pain, but he manages a neat trick when he gets all tongue-tied, clearing confusion by puckering up and giving off with a whistle to reset his head. He’s adorable.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Scripter Goldsmith hit the Grade-Z auteur jackpot when Edgar G. Ulmer came on to direct DETOUR. Who knew that masterful nihilistic nightmare started out as a novel?

THE BIG NIGHT (1951)

Between a splashy debut directing THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR/’48 @ R.K.O. and self-exile in Europe post-HUAC & Communist BlackList, Joseph Losey, no doubt already ‘GreyListed,’ made four interesting low-budget indies (‘50-‘51). First & best, THE LAWLESS, a harrowing look at race-hysteria on the U.S./Mexico border. While this one, last of the four, an early entry in the Boomer Generation/misunderstood-youth cycle, feels stale in spite of its fresh subject matter. John Barrymore Jr. blows hot-and-cold in what ought to have been a star-making turn, as the wimpy son of Preston Foster’s ‘dive bar’ proprietor. But after watching helplessly as Pop is beaten in front of him, the kid grows an inch-and-a-half of spine and sets out on a long night to seek revenge. What he finds, in addition to the ‘perp,’ is a philosophizing new friend; putative romance with the man’s intellectually inclined daughter; a reason behind the violence; deep, dark family secrets; and long lost Dorothy Comingore, mysterious drop-out co-star of CITIZEN KANE where she played the second Mrs. Kane then all but disappeared from the screen. (She soon would again.) Best elements here: Hal Mohr’s rapturous, dark cinematography (though some cheap city-street sets stump even him); and fun in seeing Philip Bourneuf, Junior’s new pal, take on the spirit of John Barrymore Sr. when tipsy. Did Junior, ten when his famous father died, notice?

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, THE LAWLESS/’50, which should be much better known.

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY (1944)

Loosely derived from a 1939 Somerset Maugham novel, this darkly fatalistic romance is a feast of sharp-witted misdirection under Robert Siodmak and scripter Herman J. Mankiewicz: title, cast, incidental opening storyline, each of them wrong-footing us. Apparently initiated by chubby-cheeked ingenue/soprano Deanna Durbin, Universal’s biggest box-office draw, looking for a stark change-of-pace, the film unexpectedly opens without her as newly commissioned army officer Dean Harens receives a ‘Dear John’ telegram (from a fiancée we never meet) that sends him to San Francisco. Waylaid by bad weather in New Orleans, we pick up a new storyline & a new gal in floosie chanteusie Deanna Durbin. Unusual story construction for an unusual story, told largely in flashback by Durbin to the sympathetic young officer, all about her doomed marriage to sophisticated sociopath Gene Kelly, scion of a faded New Orleans dynasty, a man she fell hard for and married before discovering he’s a debt-ridden gambling addict with lethal charm . . . that’s literally lethal. Yikes! Loaded with swank & atmosphere (quite the lux production for Universal, with stellar support from Gale Sondergaard, Gladys George & Richard Whorf). And while the tone may not be perfectly sustained, the film is always compelling. Particularly in its use of music. From Durbin, who sings at a swanky pickup joint, getting a swell Frank Loesser original (‘Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year’), and doing even better with Irving Berlin’s ’Always.’ And from Kelly with Durbin, bonding over Wagner at Symphony Hall as they swoon to TRISTAN UND ISOLDE. Later, startling us as Beethoven’s EGMONT Overture shockingly jump-cuts to Berlin’s ‘Always’ back at the club. Quite a trick, that! Note how peripheral Officer Harens is to all this. Lots of pre-noir touches in here, but the film, like Fritz Lang’s SCARLET STREET/’45 next year, is more Hollywood-meets-German Expressionism than anything else.

DOUBLE-BILL/ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Two years later, TRISTAN UND ISOLDE would chart a similar path of romantic destruction for Joan Crawford & John Garfield under Jean Negelusco in HUMORESQUE/’46. OR: As mentioned above, SCARLET STREET.

THE LAST FLIGHT (1931)

Another post-WWI ‘Lost Generation’ tale, this one patterned closely on Hemingway’s THE SUN ALSO RISES in John Monk Saunders script from his story collection THE SINGLE LADY. And while no masterpiece, director William Dieterle (in a first English language assignment, still sorting out Early Talkie jitters) makes a far stronger impression than Hemingway’s ill-served classic did in either 1957 or '84. Here, a quartet of physically/emotionally wounded American fliers put off going home and stay abroad to drink & carouse from Paris to Portugal with a rich, flighty gal pal they’ve picked up, more mascot than love interest. Helen Chandler can’t quite put over this character, coming across as dumb rather carefree hedonist, but the male side of things is exceptionally well drawn & strongly particularized by Johnny Mack Brown (loud, overly confident); Elliot Nugent (secretive, deadly); Richard Barthelmess (wounded in hand & heart); and David Manners (in the performance of his career) clear sighted in spite of injured eyes. Flaws and all, a remarkable, haunting achievement.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The story template may be Hemingway, but the tone is more F. Scott Fitzgerald.

DOUBLE-BILL: Barthelmess in another John Monk Saunders WWI aviation piece from the year before, THE DAWN PATROL/'30, a big hit for Howard Hawks.

EL PASO (1949)

‘Brand New HD Master from a 4K Scan of the 35mm Original 2-Color Negative & Positive Separations!,’ is the copy on Kino-Lorber’s DVD packaging. So, presumably about as close as we can get to what this CineColor Western looked like on release. With colors ranging from tawny orange to tawny blue (better in the great outdoors), and just occasionally showing the technical limitations inherent in the CineColor process working for the image. Check out a museum-worthy portrait shot (at 1'14") with John Payne comforting a grieving boy: mottled blue sky, orange kerchief, cobalt blue shirt; and the kid with auburn hair & buff ragweed shirt. Stunning. Later, action in a dust storm where dampened colors add to the drama. But curiosity in the color is the only reason to watch. An insufferable Western, overplayed in acting, plot & comic relief under journeyman megger Lewis Foster. John Payne, bouncing around studios after ankling 20th/Fox, stars as a Confederate vet/lawyer who heads to El Paso to see client (Henry Hull) and old flame (Gail Russell) in a lawless town run by corrupt Sheriff Sterling Hayden & henchman Dick Foran. After failing to clean up the town legally, Payne goes rogue, turning as corrupt & vicious as his opponents. Everyone’s practicing hanging justice. Payne’s ‘good guys’ lynching anyone ‘fingered’ as an enemy, even stringing up a preacher by mistake. Naturally, he comes ‘round at the end, but a lot of murders go unpunished. Where’s the Hollywood Production Code when you need them?

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL: Compared to the old 2-strip TechniColor process (1922 - 1933), CineColor comes up short. Note how every Ladies’ Accessory the same damn orange tint. When restored with original film elements, early TechniColor was capable of sharper images & cleaner colors. See Criterion’s new KING OF JAZZ/’30 DVD which, at its best, looks amazing.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: From penny-pinching indie producers Pine-Thomas for Paramount release, this hardly lives up to the Pressbook promise (see above) of: The New Production Policy of “Big Pictures Only!” Paramount’s response to the frightening post-war downturn in attendance.

RED SUN (1971)

Remembered for good early James Bond (DR. NO; FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE) and legendary late-career stinkers (THE KLANSMAN; INCHON - plenty others nearly as bad), it’s a happy surprise to find so much fun in this Terence Young ‘International’ Spaghetti Western. Exceptionally well shot by vet cinematographer Henri Alekan and amusingly scored by Maurice Jarre (each teasing out genre tropes), the film does stumble toward the end (50 years on someone may still be rewriting the finale), but not enough to spoil things. With nods at U.S., Euro & Asian markets, the film has Charles Bronson, Alain Delon & a gang of cutthroats robbing a train and finding a bonus in a Japanese ceremonial sword under escort by Toshirô Mifune, guarding it on its way from the Mikado to President Grant. But when Bronson is double-crossed and left for dead, he switches sides, chasing for revenge, stolen cash, and that ceremonial sword with new frenemy Mifune. The film gets its mojo observing East vs West differences in elaborate action set pieces which hit a slightly absurd high when Mifune uses Samurai techniques against the inevitable Indian attack. (Managing the neat trick of being PC and non-PC!) Ursula Andress looks a bit ghostly as Delon’s untrustworthy gal pal, but Capucine is smashing in bed with Bronson, showing an impeccable jawline.

DOUBLE-BILL: Bronson & Delon had recently co-starred in FAREWELL, FRIEND/’68. Not seen here, but apparently to good effect.

BACK STREET (1941)

Only Kleenex Tissues got more out of teary-eyed women (and men) than sob-sister Fannie Hurst. This typical three-hankie novel, while not reaching the rapt heights of IMITATION OF LIFE/’34 nor the soulful depths of HUMOURESQUE/’20* or YOUNGER GENERATION/’29, had three major filmings: 1932; 1941; 1961. (Fine period flavor in ‘32, but with dull, dull John Boles. And the 1961 updating lends a moldy feel.) Here, Margaret Sullavan plays modern working gal in turn-of-the-last-century Cincinnati, flirting with the fellas (like nice automobile inventor Richard Carlson), but holding out for transfiguring love. Enter devastating charmer Charles Boyer, an equally smitten out-of-town banker, extending his stay until he realizes he’ll just have to break his engagement to that fiancée back in New Orleans. But when a definitive meeting for the lovers is missed, they go their separate ways until fate has them accidentally meet in NYC five long years later. He: now married with kid (and one on the way). She: living alone & designing ladies wear. But true love cannot die, even if it must be maintained on the side; in a Back Street apartment; as a ‘kept’ woman. If only Boyer’s pesky kids hadn’t picked up on the gossip as young adults! Smoothly directed by Robert Stevenson, it’s mercifully brisk, with cinematographer Williams Daniels glamming up Sullavan when he gets the right angle. But the film only comes fully alive when old pal Frank McHugh puts two-and-two together in a little railroad station scene with Boyer & Sullavan (talk about a lesson in film acting!) and in a pair of standoffs with Boyer’s son Tim Holt (arrogant/repentant) which in hindsight look like an audition for his role next year in Orson Welles’ MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL: Sullavan debuted with another ‘fallen woman’ role in ONLY YESTERDAY/’33, against John Boles from BACK STREET 1932. (YESTERDAY’s main sudsy tale is okay, but the film touches greatness dramatizing the 1929 Wall Street Crash in its opening two reels.) And in 1939, Boyer missed another life-altering meeting in LOVE AFFAIR, with Irene Dunne, who had starred against Boles in the 1932 BACK STREET, as the no-show.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *The better-known 1946 version of HUMORESQUE (Joan Crawford, John Garfield) is more Clifford Odets/George Gershwin Rhapsody than Fannie Hurst.

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM (2019)

Chapter 3, and Keanu Reeves’ nihilistic Assassinate-the-Assassin John Wick saga hits the law of diminishing returns . . . except at the box-office. Trying to top himself, director Chad Stahelski and his writers go for bloat: more footage (er, digital data*); more bespoke black suits; more choreographed killings; more showy guest stars (an amusing Anjelica Huston; a disastrously serious Halle Berry). This time, Wick’s on the run with a 14 mill price on his head for breaking House Rules at the Hit Man’s Hilton run by Ian McShane . . . and everybody wants to collect. Fortunately, the film is at its (negligible) best in its opening and closing 20 minutes; it’s that middle hour & a half that gets you down. Especially an irritating enforcer character named the Adjudicator, she’s a drag. Worse, the martial arts set pieces go on and on . . . and on, looking more like one of those trick pool shots carefully designed to sink all the balls with a tap, than like a kinetic action sequence. Maybe skip the center (the yucky nougat in a chocolate cordial) and just watch the ‘top’ and ‘tail,’ while hoping for rejuvenated revenge from a cool, rather than bedraggled Keanu in the inevitable Chapter 4 all but announced here.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: -- *Chapter 1 - 101 minutes; Chapter 2 - 122; Chapter 3 - 131.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Golden Age Hollywood sequels were progressively downsized (see THE THIN MAN series), but James Bond changed the equation when lean/mean GOLDFINGER/’64 led to the longer, more expensive, generally inferior THUNDERBALL/’65. (Which then significantly out-grossed all its predecessors.)

FURY AT FURNACE CREEK (1948)

A raft of journeyman talent turns this exceptionally promising story into standard-issue Western fare. Not bad, but could have been so much better. Victor Mature, showing good form, stars as the gambling ‘black sheep’ brother of straight-arrow army man Glenn Langan, each coming separately to Furnace Creek in hopes of clearing their disgraced father’s name, a General blamed for the Apache massacre of an entire wagon train and of Fort Furnace Creek. No love lost between the brothers, with Mature working so far undercover he’s raising suspicions on all sides, but finding out the secrets of a land grab to claim a fortune in silver mineral rights buried on Apache Reservation land. Albert Dekker’s the prime bad guy in the scheme, but the most interesting character is Reginald Gardiner, in a rare tragic break from his usual comedy roles, as the compromised army man who may not live to tell what he knows. Director Bruce Humberstone keeps the storyline bracingly clear, but shortchanges on relationships & characterization. A problem as both Langan & Coleen Gray (love interest to Mature) are very bland players. Fortunately, cinematographer Harry Wild loads on shadowy atmosphere and the second-unit directors outdo themselves on location. Check out a parallel tracking shot during a horse chase with pursuers atop a ridge and the hunted brothers in the ravine below. Stellar action footage. And that’s Jay Silverheels (of ‘Tonto’ fame) as the revenging Apache ‘Little Dog’ getting away with murder at the end. Hollywood Production Code be damned.

DOUBLE-BILL: Just Mature’s second Western, after MY DARLING CLEMENTINE/’46 for John Ford. No more till ‘55 with Anthony Mann’s THE LAST FRONTIER after going Native American as CHIEF CRAZY HORSE.

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT / aka NIGHT AMBUSH (1957)

A decade after this film, Michael Powell would direct two more scripts by long time writing partner Emeric Pressburger*, but this fact-based WWII ‘Mission’ story turned out to be the last film Written, Produced & Directed by them as The ARCHERS. A lesser-known work (and just plain lesser), it ended an 18-yr. run of filmmaking excitement & daring not with a bang or a whimper, but with ill-fitting conventionality. A Crete-set fact-inspired tale about a pair of planted British officers (lighthearted Dirk Bogarde and overacting David Oxley) working with countryside partisans to kidnap the occupation’s top Nazi (a threat-free Marius Goring), this straightforward adventure of pluck, luck & logistics would have been just the thing for J. Lee Thompson or John Sturges. But for The Archers? Other than the outbursts of jolly Cretan song by hardscrabble hillside guerrilla fighters, there's not a speck of fancy or perversity in the whole thing. And Powell, to judge by his auto-bio, knew it.**

DOUBLE-BILL: *The late, rarely screened titles are THEY’RE A WEIRD MOB/’66 and THE BOY WHO TURNED YELLOW/’72.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: **Powell died before finishing Part Two of his auto-bio, MILLION DOLLAR MOVIE. Compared to Part One (the excellent A LIFE IN THE MOVIES) it’s a mess, but the pages covering ILL MET are worth a look.

THEY WON'T BELIEVE ME (1947)

After moving up from secretarial to screenplay work for Alfred Hitchcock in the ‘30s & early ‘40s, and before producing his eponymous tv show (‘50s - ‘60s), Joan Harrison became one of the pioneer woman producers in Hollywood. A species you could count on the fingers of one hand. And this twisty murder tale, told in flashback from the witness box at a courtroom trial, is fairly typical of her mid-range output. Pretty good, too. Robert Young (slightly miscast*) stars as a serial philanderer on trial for murder . . . but whose? His wife’s dead; the mistress he left her for is dead; an earlier mistress is living, but staring daggers; defendant Young has a lot of explaining to do. But will the jury believe him? Will you? Susan Hayward, Jane Greer & Rita Johnson are the women in the case, nicely cast as common lover; work place sympathizer; and rich, controlling wife. Johnson’s particularly good as the wife, pulling up stakes and taking Young to an isolated home to keep him by her side. He still manages to get away, only to find tragedy & betrayal waiting for him. All now exposed in court after an inconvenient body turns up. Jack-of-all-Hollywood-trades/journeyman director Irving Pichel keeps the plotty action clear enough, but hasn’t the flair or personality to jolt things to life. Watch for a great camera move pushing in on Young when he receives a phone call in the middle of a massage to see what’s missing elsewhere. Still fun though, with a neat ‘have your cake and eat it too’ tag ending someone deserved a bonus for.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL: *The part needs an amoral vibe Young can’t provide. At R.K.O., where this was made, that’d be more Robert Mitchum’s line. Something you can see in the film Jane Greer made right after this with Mitchum, film noir pinnacle OUT OF THE PAST/’47.

DINOSAURUS! (1960)

Endearingly silly Stop-Motion Dino-Horror, from schlock-meister BLOB producer Jack H. Harris, opens underwater as a pair of dinosaurs (plus a side order of Neanderthal Man) are discovered in the frozen ocean deep and hauled out to defrost on the beach. Great idea! They’ll keep better thawed. Hit by lightning, the prehistoric beasts come back to life and are soon terrifying the little island community. Only the film’s entrepreneurial baddie thinks otherwise, hoping to turn Mr. Neanderthal into a money-making freak show. Stop-motion legend Ray Harryhausen had nothing to fear from the light/rubbery articulated dino-beasts used here. But since this one mostly plays for comedy, it’s not a problem. Pretty good comedy, too, not the painfully unfunny stuff usually passed as comic relief in these bargain basement terror travesties. (Like the Irish drunk in this one.) Most of the gags work, even have a bit of charm to them. Especially Gregg Martell’s Neanderthal Man, inspired playing whether he’s meeting a middle-aged gal in a hideously frightening ‘beauty-mask,’ discovering the joys of modern refrigeration, investigating a full-length mirror or riding a Brontosaurus with the film’s cute-as-a-button local smart-ass kid. The guy’s really funny! And somehow, producer Harris got the great Stanley Cortez (of MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER) as D.P. And he seems to be enjoying himself with odd tint-like washes of color on bare bones soundstage sets. But then, everyone's in on the joke. Including director Irvin Yeaworth, who did THE BLOB, and manages a legit scare or two via shock cuts. No doubt 12-yr-olds raised on JURASSIC PARK will be too sophisticated to enjoy this. But smaller tykes and their irony-wise high school brothers should like it, bad acting and all. Ironic adults, too.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Exploitation producer Jack H. Harris may have received the biggest scare of all when he saw the U.K. poster slapped with a Not Suitable For Children rating. Yikes! Who the hell did they think this was made for?

SOAK THE RICH (1936)

Fourth and last of the small independent films Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur wrote, produced & directed for Paramount release; all parties happy to put an end to the series. You can see what the boys were aiming at* (targeting Commies & Capitalists; Wealth & Academia; Romance & the Modern Woman), but by now it was painfully clear that the team hadn’t the patience, self-discipline or respect for filmcraft needed. Walter Connelly stars, in typical dyspeptic form, as a financial titan harried over left-wing protests at ‘Connelly U’ led by radical student John Howard. And things just get worse when daughter Mary Taylor (a Kate Hepburn wannabe) runs off to join the student crowd only to wind up kidnaped by anarchist Lionel Stander (who else?). The possibilities for Screwball comedy are obvious, along with a fair share of good lines (‘He’s a brokenhearted Bolshevik . . . and they’re the worst kind.’), even a bit of pace in the third of four acts. But hit-and-miss execution keeps the film from coming together. Monogram turned out a slicker product. MacArthur never megged again, but Hecht did, three more times, scoring on his next, ANGELS OVER BROADWAY/’40, co-directed with cinematographer Lee Garmes who shot all his films except SOAK, lensed by Leon Shamroy.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Playwrighting partners George S. Kauffman & Moss Hart definitely saw what Hecht was aiming at, and made it work in the hugely successful YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU, opening later that year on B’way. Frank Capra ‘Capra-fied’ it for film in 1938, earning Best Pic & Director Oscars. OR: The original play in various broadcast revivals; best with Jason Robards who taped his hit B’way revival for PBS in 1984.

FOXFIRE (1955)

Eye-popping restoration of William Daniels’ TechniColor cinematography (last Hollywood feature to use the classic 3-strip process*) makes this KINO-Lorber DVD worth a look. Shot in a ‘flat’ 35mm format, then masked (or framed via projector aperture) to yield a 2:1 ratio WideScreen picture, it threw a near grain-free image almost matching VistaVision clarity. Too bad they couldn’t do a restoration for the plot & Joseph Pevney’s direction! Tame stuff about rich Eastern gal Jane Russell (very hubba-hubba as long as she’s not acting) who meets-cute with mine engineer Jeff Chandler after getting a flat tire. He’s half Apache, a taciturn type not prone to sharing; she’s an outgoing gal always putting her foot in it. So, no surprise after an impulsive wedding things quickly go bad. He puts work first, hoping to reopen an old Indian gold mine his Apache granddad told him about. But it’s Jane who raises the working capital, rubbing Mr. Money Bags the right way at a party. The chalk & cheese relationship between Jane & Jeff is meant to heat things up, but you only believe it when these two are on the outs. On the other hand, our wary couple do share a Queen-sized bed. A big deal in 1955 Hollywood! Dan Duryea tags along as a heavy-drinking doctor pal, but his also-ran lover act, like the rest of the pic, goes nowhere.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *While the TechniColor three-strip negative system was quickly put to bed, their legendary dye-transfer printing process lived on for decades. Finally giving up the ghost some time in the 1990s in, of all places, Mainland China.

OUR HOSPITALITY (1923)

After testing feature-length waters with THREE AGES/’23, a interrelated trio of shorts set in Pre-Historic, Roman & Modern eras*, Buster Keaton took the plunge into feature-length stories with this variation on the deadly Hatfield & McCoy feud (here McKay & Canfield), with LOL comic gloss added to deadly (and dead earnest) melodrama. An astonishment as debut, it's as near perfect as the American cinema gets. Keaton makes a statement of intent right at the start, with straight Appalachian melodrama (like echt D. W. Griffth or Henry King) in a prologue to set up the cycle-of-hatred backstory before jumping ahead twenty years to the 1830s where Keaton, now a young man, learns the family history before taking a comical ‘carriage’ train-ride down from New York to claim his Southern inheritance. On the way, along with his tagalong dog, Buster meets-cute and falls for a young lady, unaware she’s his ancestral enemy’s daughter. From then on, Keaton’s a walking target to her family, staying alive thru a quirky combination on the rules of Southern Hospitality, his own mental & physical dexterity, and timely help from the natural forces of wind & weather, pluck and pure Keatonian ingenuity. With three generations of Keatons in the cast (Buster Jr in the prologue, Pop as train engineer, wife Natalie Talmadge as object of affection), the film tends to surprise audiences since it’s not all slapstick, stunts and adventure, but a fully rounded story that places those elements naturally in the mix (thrillingly at climaxes), fully integrated in drama, suspense, rounded characterizations and infinite charm. In a new highly successful restoration from Lobster Films, out on KINO with Robert Israel’s fine score, the film is an essential treat.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *You'll also find a reasonably well restored 3 AGES on KINO. Great fun; yet what a filmmaking leap between the two!   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/02/three-ages-1923.html

THE SATAN BUG (1965)

Dandy little bio-tech thriller, John Sturges producing/directing off an Alistair MacLean novel, and no doubt welcoming a break from bigger if not better projects. (His next MacLean adaptation the mammoth fiasco ICE STATION ZEBRA/’68, a fave of aging Howard Hughes, if few others.) George Maharis missed his shot at film stardom when this underperformed, but he’s very appealing as a government agent called in to investigate two strains of germ warfare stolen from an isolated desert lab. Both lethal: one with an eight-hour life span, the other a self-perpetuating doomsday weapon. Assisted by General Dana Andrews & daughter Anne Francis, Maharis figures there must be an insider involved, but which scientist went rogue bio-terrorist? (Hint: Richard Basehart does have a foreign accent.) And there’s a whole crew of villains on the outside to deal with, including a young, menacing Ed Asner. A few narrative hiccups aside, this is awfully well handled/well staged (check out Maharis’s escape from some baddies in a car); while Sturges has his location scout & production designer give the film great ‘60s mod appeal not only in scientific lab settings & sleek office furniture, but in finding futuristic looking buildings to shoot. (Jean-Luc Godard did much the same on ALPHAVILLE and got all sorts of kudos for it. Sturges beat him to the idea by two years and got ignored.) Maybe Sturges’s later pics might have stayed more buoyant if this little film had clicked at the box-office. Maharis’s career certainly would have.

DOUBLE-BILL: The next mainstream Hollywood bio-germ thriller, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN/’71, found producer/director Robert Wise also attempting to downsize from production bloat.

KNIVES OUT (2019)

With the surprise successes of DOWNTON ABBEY and this newfangled/old-fashioned whodunit, what was once called civilized entertainment may still hold a spot in the theatrical film market. Writer/director Rian Johnson, wearing his cleverness on his sleeve, tries for that Agatha Christie MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS* sweet spot of twisty murder mystery & glam All-Star cast, but lands closer to ‘70s Christie-wannabees like Ira Levin’s DEATHTRAP or Anthony Shaffer’s SLEUTH. (You could play SLEUTH on the set, and all three involve mystery authors.) It makes for good, if modest fun, though the twists are awfully easy to guess. (This from someone regularly stumped by MURDER, SHE WROTE.) And what weak pillars Johnson sets it all on: Truth Test (a protagonist who throws up if she lies); Unlikely ‘Meds’ Mix-Up (a once-in-a-blue-moon goof); Guilty Confession to the least sympathetic ear in the cast. There’s a decent amount of fun in this painless little puzzle figuring out the ‘suicide’ of Christopher Plummer, paterfamilias to a family of greedy little foxes, but the story misses the belief in humanity’s evil that gives the best of the form staying power.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Sidney Lumet’s version of ORIENT EXPRESS/’74 holds up nicely. OR: One of the many French adaptations of Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret books, starting with Julien Duvivier’s LA TÊTE D'UN HOMME/’33.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: As the brilliantly intuitive private investigator mysteriously hired to work the case, Daniel Craig chews on a most peculiar Southern accent. Is it Ken Burns’ Civil War historian Shelby Foote he’s drawling on?

THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN (1944)

Subpar adaptation of minor Somerset Maugham: Pacifist British teacher in WWII England marries Austrian war refugee, unaware the ‘enemy alien’ he’s saved from internment is a secret Nazi spy! Yikes! Actually, while the book sounds like a crock (late commercial pap that did Maugham’s rep no favors), as movie plot, it's not so bad. Franchot Tone is the main saving grace as Conscientious Objector, his Mid-Atlantic purr far more acceptable than the starchy uppercrust accents heard elsewhere in the pic from the Hollywood British Colony. But a real career wreck hits Veronica Lake as the alluring Fifth Columnist, gargled Austrian accent more twisted than the blonde braids supplanting her famous ‘peekaboo’ hairdo. Director Frank Tuttle offers her little help, his staging equally disinterested. A distressing debut for producer William Dozier, moving up from Story Department. Did he look at the ‘dailies?’ A pity, as hiding in plain sight are a few well-handled scenes: a nicely argued Pacifist plea to the local Draft Board; some impressive exploding pyrotechnics at the climax, presumably second-unit work. Just not enough to make up for the rest.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: A month later, Maugham had better luck in Robert Siodmak’s adaptation of CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY/’44, a dark change of pace for Deanna Durbin & Gene Kelly.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/01/christmas-holiday-1944.html