THE SLEEPING CITY (1950)

Not exactly air-tight, but darn effective, a memorable film noir progammer, served up with dank locations off the streets of Manhattan and fetid atmosphere from the bowels of Bellvue Hospital. (Plus lunch at a Horn & Hardart automat.) A surprise from vet B-Western megger George Sherman, charged up by the unexpected assignment. Stuck for fresh leads after a Bellvue interne gets murdered near the hospital, Richard Conte, a detective with a medical past, is called in to go undercover and scope out the situation as a new interne. (This sure sounds like a malpractice suit waiting to happen, but you buy it.) From there, it’s all suspense & procedural as Conte tries to keep his role hidden while paling up to the victim’s circle of co-workers, supervising doctors, gal-pal Coleen Gray, and non-medical hospital staffers. Not that this stops a second interne from getting killed . . . or was it suicide? There’s some awkward acting here and there, but Sherman runs a smart package, getting the most out of Jo Eisinger’s nasty original screenplay and on economical setups from cinematographer William Miller. A real find this. 

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Look fast to see debuting Robert Strauss, a year before he played ‘Animal’ on B’way & film in STALAG 17. He’s a detective with the wrong idea about the killer. And check out the eccentric buttoning (outside bottom only) on his Inspector’s double-breasted suit coat.

DOUBLE-BILL: The meaningless title was meant to make this look like a follow-up to Jules Dassin’s THE NAKED CITY/’48 (see ad copy on poster) which started a raft of police procedurals filmed (at least partly) on-location.

THE WAR LORD (1965)

Charlton Heston really needs to get laid in this Medieval actioner. Charged by Ducal Authority with holding a defensive tower in Normandy; vanquishing Frisian raiders; and controlling the border territory, Chuck suddenly goes all aflame for a fair local bride. No problem, droit du seigneur and all that. But when his screw of convenience blossoms into mutual love, something’s gotta give! And before Heston can even get his clothes back on, local peasants unite with those temporarily defeated Frisian warriors to play capture the castle, leaving Chas fighting for his life wearing nothing but Medieval BVDs. Yikes! Something of a clanging follow up to his big success in EL CID/'61 (no doubt, hoping to reclaim some box-office mojo after a six-pic run of the blahs), this unevenly directed historical from Franklin Schaffner, trying on action chops after his talky debut in THE BEST MAN, has its moments, mostly in the second half.* But is held back by Universal Studio’s glossy, over-lit ‘60s house-style; a script that makes the story feel more diffuse than it is; and too many poorly dubbed bad actors in prominent roles. Not Richard Boone though! Protector to Heston since childhood, his puppy-dog devotion the purest/weirdest love match in the pic. Growling with affection, you keep expecting him to lick his master.

DOUBLE-BILL: *On action, Schaffner proved a fast learner with PATTON in 1970 after reuniting with Heston (and Maurice Evans, up from Top Priest to Top Chimp) for PLANET OF THE APES/’68.

DEN SKYLDIGE / THE GUILTY (2018)

Deservedly cleaning up at awards season, this exceptional Danish thriller earns bonus points by showing how ‘cinematic’ nothing more than a couple of interior office spaces, fluorescent lighting & a man tethered to his computer phone system can be. Superbly written & paced by Gustav Möller, this talking-head/near monologue has no problem holding our attention as it builds layers of mystery & tension. Jakob Cedergren (think ‘80s Kevin Costner) is a patrol cop grudgingly working the phones at Emergency Services while he waits for his case on an unnecessary shooting to come up. Rude and unsympathetic on calls, his default manner is put to the test when an abducted mother comes on his line. Piecing the situation together (violent ex-husband, taken at knife point, two kids home alone), Cedergren’s instincts as patrolman play against his current job description which limit him to passing on accurate info to the proper outfit. Instead, he starts working the case, trying to save the situation before time runs out. Heroic, unless he’s misread everything that’s going on. Fabulous stuff here, perfectly played, all done thru Cedergren and his phone conversations. With a great twist, and a great wrap-up. The only mystery left is why no one has snapped up this actor’s bait for a Hollywood remake. Maybe just as well. Easy to see some major player turning this into a vanity production.*

DOUBLE-BILL: Sydney Pollack moved from tv to features on THE SLENDER THREAD/’65, a similar idea given a timely racial twist with Anne Bancroft getting Sidney Poitier on the crisis hotline.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:   *Just released Fall 2021, Antoine Fuqua directing Jake Gyllenhaal in a well-reviewed remake (not seen here), scoring a 6.2 IMdB rating compared to the original’s 7.5.

ALTERED STATES (1980)

With debuts for 30-yr-old William Hurt and 3-yr-old Drew Barrymore, this was also the Hollywood debut (and farewell) for hit-and-miss/iconoclastic Brit director Ken Russell. His outre style proving too much for Paddy Chayefsky who took his name off the script, but retained credit for the source novel. The basic idea is a sort of New Age Jekyll & Hyde with hallucinatory Mexican mushrooms & a water-logged deprivation chamber regressing William Hurt’s God-denying/ origin-seeking research scientist back a couple of hirsute evolutionary steps. And not only in his mind. More fun than you may recall, the film, a pricey flop at the time, has Russell amping up a crazed buzz to help bury much of Chayefsky’s windbag philosophizing, emphasizing its possibilities as sound-and-light-show. He also got Hurt and Blair Brown, as his equally intellectual wife, to bare a helluva lot o’ skin for the period. Very nice skin it is, too. (Brown usually with a reason for stripping down; Hurt a nudist for all seasons.) As college colleagues, Bob Balaban & Charles Haid vie for Most Annoying Supporting Performer (Haid wins), but the story has enough momentum to get past them. Or does until the script cops out with a love-will-conquer-all finish. Kudos to cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth who followed this showy display with grungy naturalism in CUTTER’S WAY/’81 before the glitzy futurism of BLADE RUNNER/’82; and to John Corigliano for his discomforting music score.

DOUBLE-BILL: Ken Russell’s best work was in the late-‘60s and ‘70s, but he nearly returned to form and caught something impressively mad with THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM/’88.

BLACKMAIL (1939)

Bookended by two strong roles @ Warners (CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY; DR. EHRLICH’S MAGIC BULLET*), Edward G. Robinson tucked in this B+ programmer on loan-out to M-G-M. Decent enough, but so much like a disposable Warners pic, why bother? Nine years after escaping from a Southern chain gang, Eddie G.’s in danger of losing home, family & oil-field firefighting business when Gene Lockhart’s man-from-his-past shows up at his doorstep to blackmail him. That’s rich! Lockhart’s the guy who did the robbery Robinson served time for. Worse, Lockhart manipulates their payoff arrangement to trap Robinson in a web of half-truths; and it’s back to shackles & swamps for Eddie. Known for helming lighter fare, this is a rare serious outing for the underrated H.C. Potter and he pulls off some nice effects on the big oil fires, but too much comes across as farfetched or a bit tired. Hard to believe Eddie G. in some of the physical action, too, his short, chubby legs would get stuck in the muck. Ruth Hussey seems bemused to find herself romantically attached to Robinson, and crybaby Bobs Watson, as their little boy, is always a pain, tearing up on cue. On the other hand, Lockhart is plenty creepy while Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams earns legit laughs as Eddie G.’s easy-going partner. Okay, but largely a time waster.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Check out the two bookends mentioned above. Definitely not time wasters. OR: Robinson and Lockhart in peak form in THE SEA WOLF/'41.

THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION (1976)

As producer, director Herbert Ross corralled an All-Star/All-Talent cast for this elaborate Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud mash-up, adapted by Nicholas Meyer* from his own best-selling speculative novel. Stuck in drug-addled, paranoid meltdown, Holmes finds a lifeline in Vienna where a certain Dr. Freud awaits, the only man in Europe Dr. Watson thinks might be able to help. It’s tough going, but then a fresh case, calling on the expertise of both men in ratiocination and psychology gets Holmes back on his feet while also revealing Freud’s own powers of deduction. Beautifully made on every level, the story is organized in a series of exceptional set pieces (standouts include an attack of white Lipizzaner stallions and an indoor tennis match challenge) with memorable production design from Ken Adams (of the James Bond pics) and atmospheric lensing by longtime John Huston fave Oswald Morris. In the rich supporting cast, Robert Duvall’s sweet Watson is undercut by a fake, plummy accent, but nothing else misses. Laurence Olivier’s Uriah Heep of a Moriarty, Vanessa Redgrave batting her eyes as a mezzo in distress, a dastardly Jeremy Kemp, with Joel Grey & Samantha Eggar only just getting a turn at bat. But it’s Alan Arkin’s gemütlich take on Freud that pretty much steals the pic, while Nicol Williamson’s brutalist dare of a Holmes in the film’s first half, gentles down into something unexpectedly touching and nearly romantic by its satisfying end. A real treat this.

DOUBLE-BILL: Meyer’s untraditional Holmes was preceded by Billy Wilder’s iconoclastic PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES/’70; sadly butchered, sadly neglected, utterly superb. OR: *Myth tweaking a Nicholas Meyer speciality, most famously in writing & directing STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN/’82.

LOYALTIES (1933)

Slightly stiff, but powerful adaptation of John Galsworthy’s play on anti-Semitism and the British ruling class, a big London & B’way success in the 1920s. With echoes of the Dreyfus Affair & MERCHANT OF VENICE not so far in the background, Galsworthy sets Basil Rathbone’s well-heeled, if barely accepted Jew amongst an upper-crust Christian throng at a posh estate for the weekend. But when a recently collected £1000 debt goes missing from his bedroom, Rathbone isn’t the type to sit back and play gentleman to avoid discomforting others. (BTW: £1000 = $5000, a very considerable sum in 1923.) Especially when he quickly figures out that Miles Mander, a fellow guest in financial crisis, is the thief. A libel action proceeds and ‘class’ closes ranks against the ‘Hebrew’ interloper. Galsworthy’s plotting can be a bit basic (a foreshadowing bet on an athletic feat; a last-minute discovery of a numbered £100 note), but the class conscious characterizations hold, even if many of the actors bring stage ticks along with them. (Alan Napier, as a Modern Major General who knows more than he lets on clears his throat every time he speaks.) Rathbone, also rather stage-bound, does get his effects across; and without softening his prideful, arrogant character. He definitely had Shylock in mind. A brave and unusual film for the period.

DOUBLE-BILL: Basil Dean directs in a choppy manner, seasoning with occasional visual flair to signify cinematic bona fides. (He’d steadily improve.) Too bad film editor Thorold Dickinson or Asst. Director Carol Reed (both master directors of the future) weren’t in charge. See Reed confront, and overcome, similar stage-to-screen issues on J. M. Priestley’s LABURNUM GROVE/’36.

THE NEW FRONTIER (1935)

Atypical B-Western from John Wayne’s Poverty Row ‘galley years’* (post Raoul Walsh BIG TRAIL/’30 flop; pre John Ford STAGECOACH/’39 career rescue) holds unlikely interest in the unlikeliest of places: film technique. In most ways, a standard program ‘Oater’: Wayne’s dad murdered in town by crooked saloon owners while Wayne is off working as trail guide. He comes back and cleans things up. Minimal production values offset by good locations, and a rough-and-ready pace that can now be better seen (and appreciated) in a fine Olive Films DVD after decades of subfusc Public Domain copies. (On the other hand, you can hear all those amateurish line-readings even more clearly.) But who was responsible for the sophisticated character shadings of Al Bridges ‘good’ bad guy? (Bridges later a stock player for Preston Sturges.) And who the heck is director Carl Pierson? A vet journeyman film editor, for some unknown reason, he made all his three films as director in 1935 (two Wayne quickies, one Gene Autry), all for Republic, and he seems determined to make something of the opportunity. With surprising camera moves, a daring nightime climax (a holocaust of fire-bearing renegades on horseback), unexpected tracking shots, quick swish-pans in place of regular edits (the sort of thing William K. Howard might have tried), and ultra-screen-filing closer-than-close-ups to prefigure Sergio Leone. None of it quite integrated into a film style, but just the attempt is worth noting. No wonder the execs at Republic pics put a quick stop to his directing; this guy was far too imaginative for their production line.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Pierson’s attempts at style must have been even harder to spot, and easy to ignore, in lousy Public Domain VHS dupe prints.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: In a saloon fight, when Wayne gets knocked out by a lead pipe, note the big black ten-gallon hat. Hard to imagine any blow making it thru all that shock-absorbing felt.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Wayne ended his galley years with NEW FRONTIER/’39. Familiar title, no? This one standard doings in his lighthearted ‘Three Mesquiteers’ series.

A MESSAGE TO GARCIA (1936)

Now a forgotten catch phrase (What message?; Who’s Garcia?), this potted historical about an impossible mission during the Spanish-American War to find swamp-bound Cuban patriot General Garcia is misconceived from start to finish. Personally produced by Darryl F. Zanuck just as his Twentieth Century Pictures was absorbing FOX, he’d been okaying big bio-pics since he was at Warners. And many more to come, often as not with Tyrone Power, hosing down the great Chicago fire, digging the Suez Canal, insuring the British Navy, whatever. Thrills & romantic adventure, pegged on a little bit of history. No Tyrone here, instead, bland John Boles taking orders directly from President McKinley to get thru the invading Spanish forces in Cuba to give Garcia a chance to meet up with American troop ships coming to join him and quickly end the war. Wallace Beery gets the best of it playing his usual coarse but likable rogue, an American deserter working both sides of the conflict for fun & profit. But poor Barbara Stanwyck is a lost case from her first line of Berlitz Spanish, daughter of Cuban nobility who joins Boles for love & country on his dangerous search.* Cinematographer Rudoph Maté does what he can, lighting & composing to suggest he’s seen (and admired) Goya’s ‘Third of May’ firing squad execution, but elsewise, director George Marshall, already a 20-yr industry vet, has little feel for suggesting period action or war strategy, with atmosphere that’s strictly Hollywood & Vine. Zanuck must have known it, too, cutting his losses at a mere 77 minutes.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Beery had more to work with as Pancho Villa in the uneven, but interesting VIVA VILLA!/’34. OR: *See Stanwyck and Boles redeem themselves in next year’s ‘mother-love’ classic, STELLA DALLAS/’37.

QUARTET (1948)

Somerset Maugham subdues his stammer to introduce four of his short stories in this highly entertaining, strikingly successful*, portmanteau pic. Ken Annakin best known of the four directors, but you’d be hard pressed to find much difference between them, largely because R. C. Sherriff’s adaptations do so well at capturing Maugham’s supremely objective house-style. Laid out like a fine meal, ‘The Facts of Life’ is the amuse bouche, a young man’s first trip to the Continent where he ignores Dad’s advice on Casinos, Lending & L’amour to his regret. That is, to father’s regret. Next, scion to a stuffy family Dirk Bogarde (very young here) shocks mater & pater in ‘Alien Corn’ with his artistic bent; he wants to be a classical pianist. Oh, dear! Sadly, unofficial fiancée Honor Blackman contrives to give him his shot. Enough tragedy, time to rub elbows with the hoi polloi as Maugham reports in ‘The Kite’ and finds snickers & snobbery (plus a whiff of authorial condescension) within intricate layers of working-class pecking order. Returning to the well-to-do for our main entrée, the sort of boulevard drama Maugham once made his own on The West End as Retired Colonel Cecil Parker tries to live down his wife’s literary success with a scandalous book of all too personal poems detailing a possible past love affair. Think how he’d feel if only he could make out the poetry! And how fortunate to have a lady friend on the side to explain it all to him. Yikes! Four courses; something less than a meal, but a satisfying nosh.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Two sequels followed: TRIO/’50 (best for ‘The Sanatorium’ with Michael Rennie & Jean Simmons) and ENCORE/’51 (not seen here).

NO GREATER GLORY (1934)

Superb, if streamlined adaptation of Ferenc Molnár’s much-loved/oft-filmed 1906 novel about a neighborhood turf war between ‘Pre’ and ‘Post’ pubescent gangs (The Boys of St. Paul Street and the Red Shirts) over a vacant lot used as a playground. Moved up in time to play out with the Great War just behind them, the boys have absorbed all the ideals & flaws of military sacrifice, honor and battle, then play them out in reduced scale, deadly, heartrending, serious. Stunningly designed and shot (by Joseph August), only R. H. Bassett’s ‘too-on-the-nose’ music score disappoints. And the boys are all wonderful, a motley corp of unruly, clever, obstreperous kids up for adventure. Stubborn leaders, blind followers, brave fools and losers who’ll tragically prove loyal to a fault. (Ironically, two of the cast would die in WWII.) An unusual film, and very special.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Hard to imagine, but this anti-war parable won something called The Fascist Cup at the 1934 Venice Film Festival.  First prize, the Mussolini Cup, went to Greta Garbo’s ANNA KARENINA, and the documentary prize to Leni Riefenstahl/TRIUMPH OF THE WILL.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Covering the same period, but more typical of Borzage, THREE COMRADES/’38, a moody romance of tested friendship in post WWI Germany.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/12/three-comrades-1938.html

GUEST WIFE (1945)

Without the Depression looming in the background, Screwball Comedies lost the dramatic ballast needed to detonate the laughs. A seesaw act with no counterweight, unmoored in the rise of WWII prosperity.* That said, this little number from director Sam Wood, is a reasonable facsimile of the form if you can blink your way past its strained setup. Claudette Colbert, who all but started Screwball in THREE-CORNERED MOON/’33, is happily married to MidWest exec Dick Foran, a butter-and-egg man whose main fault is getting starry-eyed & playing second-fiddle to old college pal/world-famous foreign correspondent Don Ameche. Now, after years of Ameche crises throwing wrenches into their plans, Colbert’s finally going to meet the great man only to wind up bailing him out yet again. This time by masquerading as his wife at Foran’s insistence! It’s just for a day, play along and he’ll follow them into NYC and sort it all out. Wacky misunderstandings to ensue. Some of this is nearly funny, or at least has the shape of comedy. One nice touch lets Foran partially in on Claudette’s deceitful act, so he doesn’t have to go thru the jealousy routine. He’s good, too, a career best for Foran. Not bad, but the genre was starting to look tired . . . and tiresome.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL: *Preston Sturges usual gets credit for keeping the form going during the war years, but his films aren’t so much Screwball as sui generis Sturges. See him with Colbert on hand for one of his peaks, THE PALM BEACH STORY/’42. OR: For true Colbert/Ameche enchantment, MIDNIGHT/’39, from an early Billy Wilder script.

THE LONG RIDERS (1980)

Every decade or so, a film comes out claiming to be ‘the true story’ of those post-Civil War bank-robbing James Brothers (and their Confederate confederates: Brothers Younger, Miller & Ford). Only Billy the Kid and Frankenstein have seen more ‘true’ iterations. But with ‘truth’ more debatable than ever (what the hell is the ‘true’ story of Frankenstein, anyway), it’s probably best to view these films as reflecting their times rather than historical times. Less ‘PRINT the legend,’ as THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE/’62 would have it (while doing quite the opposite), than ‘USE the legend.’ Here, with Philip Kaufman’s star-crossed mismatch of Old & New Hollywood in THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID/'72 a mere eight years back, Walter Hill, directing but not writing, goes all revisionist vision, heavy on the Sam Peckinpah slo-mo action & violence. You can feel the ‘pull wires’ under stunt doubles’ costumes thru the earthtone palette & autumnal color design, that litmus taste-test of ‘80s cinema. What ultimately sells the film is a gimmick (yeah, but a great gimmick) in having real acting brothers as the felonious boys on the run from the relentless Pinkerton office: James & Stacy Keach, Randy & Dennis Quaid, Christopher & Nicholas Guest, and best of all those Carradine half-brothers, David, Keith & Robert Carradine. What was that family Thanksgiving like?

DOUBLE-BILL: Hill’s best Western, which he wrote & directed, was WILD BILL/’95, with a staggeringly fine Jeff Bridges. Poorly received/largely unseen, it was partially redeemed when it became the unacknowledged pilot to that overrated series DEADWOOD/’04.

THE COURT JESTER (1955)

Wicked clever, tuneful, beautifully produced (in VistaVision), with legit Brits blissing out in comic support, this sly Robin Hood pastiche from Norman Panama/Melvin Frank gets big laughs from tiny details & firm construction. Possibly Danny Kaye’s best film, it's certainly his funniest. Camp clown to the rebellious Black Fox, Kaye gets his chance to play hero when he goes undercover as Court Jester to Usurper King Cecil Parker, unaware treacherous henchman Basil Rathbone is expecting him for his abilities as assassin. Meanwhile, Kaye, in love with lovely captain Glynis Johns, is charged at court with wooing fair Princess Angela Lansbury, which he does under a spell of derring-do by attendant Mildred Natwick. Quite nicely, too, as long as he doesn’t snap out of it. That’s about a third of the riotous plot, all bright, clear & colorful in Ray June’s fairy tale appropriate cinematography. And if Panama/Frank underwhelm in action sequences (they might be Mel Brooks’ progenitors), they do keep Kaye & Co. from pressing the gags beyond their limit, wrapping things up with miraculous speed thanks to a baby bottom birthmark. Really funny, surprisingly charming, memorably dialogued (‘the poisoned pellet in the vessel with a pestle’), with some fine, no-kiddin’ fencing for Danny & Basil, and downright hummable (that catchy credit number!), what starts as a scary tale ends as a fairy tale.

THE MURDER MAN (1935)

Fired from FOX after going on one too many alcoholic benders, Spencer Tracy immediately landed @ M-G-M for this modest programmer where he plays a top newsman prone to disappearing . . . on alcoholic benders!* Type casting . . . or warning from the staid studio? And he’s not the only newbie on set, playing his backup man, James Stewart, remarkably assured & funny in a sixth-billed Hollywood debut. Not much else to note here, standard doings as director/co-writer Tim Whelan dutifully lays out the murder of a bank manager who’s been robbing Peter to pay Paul on a Ponzi scheme with help from another banker. Banker #2 is a crook, alright; in fact, he’s one of the people who swindled Tracy’s late mom out of her savings. But a murderer? Tracy knows the real culprit, but embittered by his mother’s death, he just might let the guy smoke in the electric chair. A big confession scene toward the end gives a peak into Tracy’s potential, but the rest of the film is strictly dullsville, with Tracy & love interest Virginia Bruce getting nowhere.

DOUBLE-BILL: Tracy & Stewart reteamed as co-stars, supplying rubber for the war effort in a by-the-numbers WWII adventure, MALAYA/’49.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *If it seems odd to welcome Tracy with a throwaway programmer, the original plan at the studio called for something splashier with Spence backing Jean Harlow in RIFFRAFF. Delayed by ‘scheduling’ conflicts, the film’s script is such a mess, it was likely pushed back for rewrites.

THE STEEL HELMET (1951)

After a disposable Western (I SHOT JESSE JAMES/’49) and a comic-tinged period adventure outside his range (THE BARON OF ARIZONA/’50), third time proved the charm (if that’s the word) for writer/ director Sam Fuller, finding his signature tone of pulp nihilism producing this tough, low-budget Korean War drama. Character actor Gene Evans gets a rare lead as a gruff ‘immortal’ sergeant type, left for dead with the rest of his unit, he’s helped by a plucky South Korean kid who he slowly warms up to. Lost in the featureless terrain, they’re soon joined by a black medic and later a lost infantry platoon. Holding out at a Buddhist Monastery as the enemy closes in, they’re picked off from without and within while working on a busted transmitter and waiting for relief. Plenty of time for social issues (race relations, communist ideals, the efficacy of hair tonics) to come into play. Grim and gritty, if unevenly played, Fuller is largely successful at camouflaging his Poverty Row budget, less so at fitting in politics and philosophy among this motley crew. Fierce for the era, but often too on-the-nose, it's Korean War meets the High School Debating Society.

DOUBLE-BILL: Fuller’s personal war was WWII, but by the time he got around to it, his cult had outrun his current abilities. THE BIG RED ONE disappointed in a 1980 two-hour studio cut and not much improved by 40 minutes in the posthumous 2005 Director’s Cut. But worth seeing.

THE BEST MAN (1964)

Gore Vidal’s seriously square (if entertaining) film adaptation of his own seriously square (if entertaining) political play follows two contrasting Presidential frontrunners duking it out at their party convention. (A Lillian Hellman melodrama looks unstructured & spontaneous in comparison.) Tilted toward Henry Fonda’s intellectual man-of-principle (think Adlai Stevenson) over Cliff Robertson’s unprincipled trench-fighter (think 1950s Bobby Kennedy), the film is stolen, in a phenomenal return to the A-list after a ban of thirty years*, by Ex-Prez Lee Tracy (think Harry Truman), there to anoint his pick. The gimmick (and this really is right out of Lillian Hellman) is that each candidate holds dirt on his rival. The suspense: who’ll stoop to conquer. But the main event comes watching Tracy debate himself on whether the end justifies the means. Vidal’s resolution sidesteps any heavy lifting, but in a pleasingly commercial way. And with a rich gaggle of supporting players to carry us there even if director Franklin Schaffner has yet to shed the cramped style of a decade’s worth of work in live tv.

DOUBLE-BILL: Otto Preminger’s far more sophisticated ADVISE & CONSENT/’62 is like a grown up version of this, contract bridge to a game of hearts. So a surprise to note that the B’way play of ADVISE was directed by none other than Franklin Schaffner.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Lee Tracy, the one holdover from the B’way cast, lost the Tony Award that year to Melvyn Douglas who originated Henry Fonda’s role. But Tracy nabbed the film’s sole Oscar nom. as Supporting Actor. No doubt in recognition of his return to the big leagues after M-G-M fired him from VIVA VILLA!/’34, and exiled him to minor studios when he got drunk and peed off his Mexico City balcony onto a passing parade of military cadets!

ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE (1958)

After going big with THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN/’57*, hack writer/director Bert I. Gordon goes small on a no-budget American-International release less shocker than shlocker. With that title and that poster, you expect something offbeat, even a little ‘out-there,’ but Gordon hasn’t the will, energy or imagination to do anything with his silly concept about puppet-master/doll-maker John Hoyt shrinking people he fears will leave him; packing them in vacuum tubes (for freshness?) so he’ll always have them around to ward off loneliness. With possibilities for sick kinky fun & violence largely ignored, there's only a little people hootenanny and a coffee-can bubble-bath for giggles. Poor John Agar must have questioned the sanity of his agent after this ‘small’ role.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Presumably inspired by Jack Arnold’s wickedly clever THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN/’57. OR: Surprisingly tasty horror from M-G-M and director Tod Browning (in a rare good sound film) as Lionel Barrymore takes his revenge on society in THE DEVIL-DOLL/’36. Actually, a whole bunch of Devil Dolls.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Gordon shamelessly cross-plugs, showing a clip from COLOSSAL MAN at a Drive-In.

SUBMARINE (1928)

After WHAT PRICE GLORY/’26 took off at the box-office, dramedies about two service buds, rivals in love & war, went from popular to ubiquitous. Even little Columbia Studios got in on the action with this big budget ship-to-shore story of navy diver Jack Holt & shipmate/BFF Ralph Graves. Rough hewn Holt has a beef, though, he always loses his gal-of-the-moment to his handsome, younger pal. So, when a new assignment splits the boys up, Holt falls for, then quickly marries, dance hall hostess Dorothy Revier. But even without Graves around, Revier soon grows bored with domestic life, and takes advantage of Holt’s absence at sea to hit her old club, hooking up with (of all people) Graves. He’s in town to see his old pal and is unaware of any connection. But when Holt returns, all is revealed at a glance. Pals no more, Holt won’t even don his old diving suit to rescue Graves (and crew) when their sub goes down. Yikes! A big break for director Frank Capra after a year of light programmers @ Columbia, studio head Harry Cohn moved him up to replace failing vet megger Irwin Willat. The film ‘made’ Capra; deservedly so. Smartly paced, wonderfully shot by Joseph Walker, with lots of free production value from cooperating Navy ships & sailors; plus clever use of fish tanks and toy subs as needed. Supposedly, Holt is covered in one shot by a deep-sea diving figure Capra fished out of a drugstore novelty machine for a nickle. Great characterizations all thru, the death watch as they run out of oxygen still effective. Originally shown with Columbia’s first synched music & effects soundtrack, even fired director Willat had to admit, ‘it’s a hell of a picture.’

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Unusually misogynist even as service buddy/buddy pics go, with Revier’s character perfectly willing to let Graves & crew perish at the bottom of the sea rather than admit her guilt and Graves’ innocence in the affair. Dames!

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Capra got his real Hollywood start working for comedy mogul Hal Roach as a ‘gag man,’ specializing in ‘toppers,’ the final extra spin to a physical joke. A good example of the form seen here when Graves lights up inside the sub; is chastised by the Captain who grabs the cigarette, turns his back and takes a mighty drag before tossing it on a tray. And the topper: a punk sailor picks it up off the tray to finish.

DOUBLE-BILL: The Holt/Graves rivalry continued in the air with FLIGHT/’29 and DIRIGIBLE/’31.

REMBRANDT (1936)

One of the better artist bio-pics of the period (it’s a low bar), this posh Alexander Korda pic gets an unusually effective Holland-specific look from Vincent Korda’s not-quite realistic production design (clubby interiors, forced-perspective streetscapes), an imagined 17th century Amsterdam captured in ‘Northern Light’ by cinematographer Georges Perinal. Nothing else quite lives up to it, but the basic story of the great painter, opening with the death of beloved wife Saskia when his rep was at its peak, then thru his financially difficult second act, much helped by loyal son Titus and housemaid/lover Hendrickje, becomes quite moving in spite of a script with many missing pieces and Alex Korda’s typically uninflected direction. He largely gets away with this highlights-from-a-life approach thanks to a very good cast with Charles Laughton memorable in restraint and a remarkably pleasing, naturalistic Elsa Lancaster, Laughton’s much put-upon real-life wife, as the bewitchingly clever Hendrickje. They must have been going thru a particularly happy interlude in their personal lives, their affection contagious on a film that's more than the sum of its parts.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: That’s stage goddess Gertrude Lawrence (the subject of Julie Andrews/Robert Wise’s intriguing musical misfire, STAR/’68) in a rare screen appearance as Rembrandt’s scourge of a housekeeper, a role largely at odds with her sophisticated, fun-loving, modern stage persona in thinking-man’s social comedies and adventurous musicals. No looker, Lawrence could hardly hold pitch, yet for three decades the toast of London and B’way, introducing more standards by the likes of Gershwin, Porter, Weill, Coward, Rodgers & Hammerstein than anyone besides Astaire, Crosby & Merman.

DOUBLE-BILL: A financial disappointment, any troubles making REMBRANDT paled in comparison to the next Korda/Laughton venture, Robert Graves’ I, CLAUDIUS, Josef von Sternberg directing. A jinxed production from the start, Korda was only too glad to pull the plug when co-star Merle Oberon’s involvement in a car accident offered a chance to claim a financially tidy insurance settlement. See the remnants and get the whole story in THE EPIC THAT NEVER WAS/’65.

NAPOLEON (1955)

Late in his career, after decades writing, directing, often starring in dozens of ‘boulevard’ dramedies, farce & sex balanced between witty & catty, the irrepressible Sacha Guitry developed an unlikely taste for the monumental. A two-fisted historical tour of Versailles & Paris (ROYAL AFFAIRS IN VERSAILLES/’54; IF PARIS WERE TOLD TO US/’56) and this three-hour All-Star spectacular on Napoleon Bonaparte. A strange choice for Guitry’s disruptive mirth, mocking absurdity and delight in tweaking the obvious proving a stretch for his humorless subject. And technically, his presentational, proscenium style inappropriate with battle scenes & exterior pomp handed off to assistants. Impressive, but jarring, as if another film had been spliced in. Yet, in its way, the waxworks are pretty entertaining, as Guitry rattles away, telling the tale in flashback as Talleyrand, setting up scenes & generously interpreting Bonaparte’s next outrage with a perfectly placed aperçu. (‘My friends, this was worse than a crime; it was a mistake!’) Now and then, the vast canvas suddenly looks like a real film as when a song longing for home, peace and a kiss from maman is passed between officers (including a glorious Yves Montand) in front of thousands of soldiers. A Cliff Notes of a pageant; a corny twilight Son et Lumiere show, with colored lights & echoing speakers; watched on a folding chair in front of Les Invalides. You go since it was included as part of a package deal and have a surprisingly good time.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Out in various cuts for various markets, a Stateside edit of under 2 hours, attempting to sell the film on cameos by Erich Von Stroheim (as Beethoven!) and Orson Welles (as Napoleon’s final jailer) is a travesty.

DOUBLE-BILL: Abel Gance’s 1927 NAPOLEON remains untouchable on the subject, but only covers the first third of the story and loses much on a home screen.

THE FURY (1978)

After CARRIE hit big, Brian De Palma catapulted into A-pics (ex-studio head producer, tripled budget, ‘name’ stars), but did himself no favors in reusing telekinesis, bloody eruptions & paranormal violence in his plot. Reception, mixed at the time, now looks unduly harsh, the film has aged nicely. Kirk Douglas, in arguably his last good film*, an agent for some top-secret anti-terrorism organization, is left for dead after a surprise Mid-East attack covertly setup by fellow agent John Cassavetes. Turns out Kirk’s kid, Andrew Stevens (sporting a cleft chin, natch) is loaded with ESP potential and wanted for study/development. Meanwhile, in a parallel story track, Amy Irving, another natural psychic talent, is found by Douglas before she too is spirited away by the agency. Hoping he can use the girl to locate his missing son, Douglas goes into action. And that’s where the fun begins as De Palma sets up a series of dandy action sequences with added Pop-Art surface sizzle from lenser Richard H. Kline. The best sequences run like Rube Goldberg contraptions (very Blake Edwards/PINK PANTHER), with Kirk on the run in tenement buildings wearing nothing but his skivvies or forcing himself on a couple of woebegone cops (Dennis Franz, Jack Callahan) in a car just itching to be destroyed. The rest of the film can’t live up to this kinetic cluster bomb, but has just enough plums in the pie to give De Palma the wiggle-room he needs. Fun, with less directorial homages than usual. De Palma left that side of things to composer John Williams whose score glances toward the recently deceased Bernard Hermann who’d worked with De Palma on SISTERS/’72 and OBSESSION/’76.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Douglas stuck with De Palma for next year’s largely ignored comedy HOME MOVIES (not seen here). With a painfully low IMDb score, it’s probably worth a look.

THE JOURNEY (1959)

Three years after singing thru sublimated sexual tensions between a British lady and a controlling authoritarian ruler in THE KING AND I, Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner reunited to confront subliminal sexual tensions between a British Lady (capital ‘L’) and a controlling authoritarian USSR commander in Hungary. Once again, a steely lady’s civilizing influence and bottled-up passion bring mixed results. Even odder, this ripped-from-the-headlines tale about a motley group of travelers desperate to leave Communist Hungary amid an erupting partisan uprising, but stuck on the wrong side of the Austrian border, finds its character template in (of all the cast lists in all the world) CASABLANCA/’42! With Kerr, Brynner & debuting Jason Robards* making like Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart & Paul Henreid. Copycat support, too, with Robert Morley doing double-duty as Claude Rains and Sydney Greenstreet while Kurt Kasnar goes all S. Z. Sakall. (No CASABLANCA connection, but Anouk Aimée makes a heck of an impression as a resistance fighter.) Anatole Litvak, fresh from directing Brynner in ANASTASIA/’56, is far less assured in this more realistic environment, but comes thru with something less artificial as suspense & action tropes kick in for the third act. Implausible & disingenuous, but watchable if you stick with it.

DOUBLE-BILL: Elia Kazan got a bit closer to the mark, but still came up short, fleeing Communist Czechoslovakia in MAN ON A TIGHTROPE/’53.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Actually two major acting debuts in here: 37-yr-old Robards and five-yr-old Ronny Howard!

PAPRIKA (2006)

Dead at 46 in 2010, anime-tor Satoshi Kon touched prime in his last completed feature, a fantastic, if occasionally overwrought tale of ‘dream machines’ able to record, display and share our sleeping fantasies. But when the apparatus is stolen from a research lab, it’s soon being dangerously misused with results causing dreams to invade reality with unpredictable effect. (Shades of Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION/’10, if slightly less difficult to follow.) On the case, a police detective with his own troubling dreams, the machine’s obese inventor & the female research coordinator whose alter-ego appears inside of dream world as the eponymous Paprika. And if plot turns and colorful characters sometimes threaten to overwhelm narrative, multiple viewings or better immersion in Japanese culture would likely help make sense of things. Even so, a sense of visual drama and confident juxtapositions in color, composition & pacing (swinging wildly from overstuffed street fiestas to event rewinds & sedate contemplation) show the hand of a formalist master at ease working within Pop sensibilities. Faults and all, with its appealing surface and pulsating, award-winning Susumu Hirasawa score, the film represents a substantial loss of a still evolving talent.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: A posthumous Satoshi Kon project, DREAMING MACHINE, has been announced. Presumably a sequel of some sort taken from unused sketches/ideas.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, INCEPTION/’10.

SONG OF LOVE (1947)

The bar is set pretty low on musical bio-pics/classical division. With Schubert & Beethoven getting the brunt of it, Hollywood & abroad. And on those terms, this plush number from M-G-M, about Robert Schumann, future wife Clara Wieck and live-in student Johannes Brahms, less fictionalized than highly romanticized, has a lot going for it.* Especially in the music, with twice what you’d usually get, most performed at a blistering pace by pianist Arthur Rubinstein, and William Steinberg conducting in the generous concerto excerpts (Liszt #1 as well as an abruptly edited Schumann). Not at its best in the opening, Katharine Hepburn at 40 too old for Clara, but rapidly improving. And, in spite of a few too many cute scenes in the Schumann domicile (Clara had eight children between concert engagements!), Paul Henreid as the increasingly mentally distressed Schumann (nicely signaled via audible breakdown) and an unusually solid Robert Walker as a youthful Brahms, are unexpectedly convincing. Even emotionally moving in back-to-back love declaration scenes late in the film. (Though some third act lifts straight out of A STAR IS BORN/’37 give pause.) Good support, too, Henry Daniell a standout Liszt. Director Clarence Brown, working closely with cinematographer Harry Stradling, creates a dark, dramatic atmosphere, beautifully paced. The film has less a bad rep, than no rep; perhaps a plus in letting its better qualities shine.

DOUBLE-BILL: *For comparison, the deeply embarrassing Chopin bio-pic A SONG TO REMEMBER/’45. OR: From France, ‘acclaimed’ high-toned rubbish like TOUS LES MATINS DU MONDE/‘91. INSTEAD: To see that it can be done, Ken Russell’s made-for-tv SONG OF SUMMER/’68 on Frederick Delius.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Paul Henreid was having a classical music moment: just before this, DECEPTION’s cuckold cellist in 1946, premiering Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s mini-concerto; and right after, Bartok in HOLLOW TRIUMPH/’48. (Well, someone named Dr. Bartok, not the composer.)

THE STAR WITNESS (1931) THE MAN WHO DARED (1939)

From those frugal Warner Brothers: First-Class and Coach iterations of the same tale. A regular ruse at the studio, optimizing story use; pay once, make again & again. Often to diminishing returns, but this time, sporting some unusually interesting adjustments to match changing times. Three generations are in the middle of family dinner when a cold-blooded murder interrupts the meal. Scary enough just watching out the window, worse when the killers evade the police by dashing thru the house. Yikes! What’s the country coming to? Eager to do their civic duty, the whole family saw the men and are ready to testify. Or are till Dad is roughed up by gangster confederates & the second youngest son kidnapped to insure silence in court. Only irascible Gramps refuses to be cowed. And he’s got an idea on where to find the boy. In William Wellman’s 1931 version, the bad guys are machine-gunning mobsters, and top-billed Walter Huston gets major screen time as the hard-charging District Attorney who puts Public Good over Private Concerns. (It’s also Wellman’s best period, fresh from THE PUBLIC ENEMY.) On to 1939, where the story turns from mobsters to civic corruption in a more suburban environment. Here, connections go straight to the Mayor and the story has an allegorical anti-fascist tone. (Hitler and Mussolini get a mention and the family’s eldest son spouts Communist rhetoric to answer all questions.) Simply put, 1931 is the better-made/more violent version while the remake holds more historical interest. Together they make a nice lesson in social history and in studio A-pic/B-pic æsthetics.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Charley Grapewin, Gramps in ‘39, a vet who charged up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt, 70 when he made this. While Charles ‘Chic’ Sale, who had the role in 1931 and plays a Civil War vet, specialized in oldsters and was only 46. ALSO check out the case of the two ‘Dickies.’ Little Dickie Moore, adorable as the youngest son/’31; and charmer Dickie Jones in ‘39 as the second youngest. Jones made ten pics that year, three classics: DESTRY RIDES AGAIN; MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON; YOUNG MR. LINCOLN; as well as laying down vocal tracks for PINOCCHIO/'40.

DOUBLE-BILL: Self-evident, no?

THE MUGGER (1958)

Prolific novelist Evan Hunter, whose film credits in 1963 alone range from Alfred Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS to Akira Kurosawa’s HIGH AND LOW, published his pulpier fare as Ed McBain (see poster). Mostly his long-running 87th Precinct series, but also this similar, out-of-series serial slasher police procedural. He worked up a dandy plot here, as police piece together a psychological profile to catch the slasher before he attacks again; even using a female cop as slash bait; only to be baffled when the unknown prep breaks the pattern with a murder. Are they back to square one or is the crime unrelated? Maybe just meant to seem unrelated. Standard, but neat. If only the filmmakers met McBain’s conception halfway. But William Berke megs without an ounce of style, unable to camouflage his starvation budget or get the best out of a pretty good cast. Ken Smith, as the profiler cop in charge, an old hand at slasher B-pics from CAT PEOPLE/’42, maintains an odd lighthearted demeanor throughout, while James Franciscus tries a bit too hard to make an impression as a victim’s brother-in-law. As if he were auditioning for a tv show. Look fast to see Renée Taylor in a quick debut as a nosy neighbor type and for B’way actress Sandra Church, making a rare film appearance as that victim before heading back to the stage as Gypsy Rose Lee against Ethel Merman’s legendary Mama Rose in the Jules Styne/Stephen Sondheim musical GYPSY.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: See Fritz Lang struggle with similar, grubby elements to uneven, but interesting effect in WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS/’56.