THE CARETAKERS (1963)

Unlike Bette Davis, who parleyed her WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?/’62 comeback into a twenty-five year ‘third act,’ co-star Joan Crawford couldn’t stop a fast slide into B-pics and progressively trivial tv gigs.  Yet you might not have seen a fast fade from this follow-up, a forgotten medical drama crammed with acting personaly (Robert Stack, Polly Bergen, Robert Vaughn, Herbert Marshall, Janis Paige!), top-tier below-the-line talent (lenser Lucien Ballard; composer Elmer Bernstein), and stop-the-show supporting villainy from a surprisingly comely Crawford.  (Late Crawford always a gamble in the looks department.)  Even dud director Hall Bartlett (of the unintentionally hilarious ZERO HOUR/’57, inspiration for AIRPLANE!/’80) can’t kill an interesting setup that has Crawford as stern head nurse at an insane asylum, fighting the newfangled ideas of kindly doc Robert Stack.  He’s trying to bring a psychological approach to ‘borderline’ mental patients he thinks can still be ‘helped’ rather than merely ‘held.’  Electroshock Therapy meets Group Therapy; an idea odd enough to somehow ring true.  The film at its best during those group sessions, with a lens-hogging cast of loonies offering up various stages of Method Acting distress, and director Bartlett unable to keep comic angles from breaking out.  In the juiciest role, Polly Bergen is off her head right from the start, losing it at a second-run showing of WEST SIDE STORY*, and apt to go off at any moment all thru the pic.  You never do figure out how this large facility works, Bartlett taking little interest in quotidian activities, no meals, no showers, no lock-downs, no mail call.  Just a bit of suspense on whether Dr. Stack will win support for his Day Care program.  Next year, saw Crawford strapped in William Castle’s STRAIT-JACKET, a career move she never quite got out it.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:   *The theater Bergen goes to is the Regency Bruin Theatre, the same venue Quentin Tarantino memorably used in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD/’19.

FLAME IN THE STREETS (1961)

Like dairy products, progressive, socially conscious, issue-oriented films don’t have a long shelf life.  (Also like dairy, only slightly-longer when Ultra-Pasturized.)  So credit this British working class GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER precursor for largely holding up after sixty years.  Scripter Ted Willis over-stuffs with four or five stories running over the course of a single Guy Fawkes Day as Union Shop Steward John Mills fights any casual racist tendencies among his membership to win a confidence vote on the company’s first Black foreman.  But Mills has a comeuppance waiting at home where his schoolteacher daughter (Sylvia Sims) is getting (too) serious about Black fellow teacher Johnny Sekka.  Mills hides knee-jerk racism with excuses about how difficult her life would be, but wife Brenda de Banzie barely can hide her loathing, sickened by what the neighbors will think and at the thought of her daughter in bed with . . . you guessed it, we get the ‘N’ word.  Though the derogatory term of choice at the time appears to be ‘Spade,’ used openly by all.  Meanwhile, another mixed race couple, the husband is the union man Mills puts up for the foreman position, deal with their choices and what’s happening in the street as the neighborhood explodes with Guy Fawkes’ fireworks & bonfires just as a gang of ‘Teddy Boy’ hoodlums tries to instigate a race riot.  (Were these punks & thugs still called Teddy Boys in ‘61?)  So, plenty going on, and most of it pretty good, cleanly worked out & dramatically playable under director Roy Ward Baker’s inactive WideScreen style.  Would it have been better ‘hotted up’ or just felt overcooked?   Worth seeing as is.  Though one brief moment, where the pregnant White wife speaks on how she and her Black husband can’t even get a look at decent housing in better neighborhoods puts most of the film’s big dramatic gestures in the shade.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: For another look at Big City all-white unions dealing with an influx of new Black workers (WWI era/Chicago meat-packers/Southern Newcomers) with a side of social mobility, see Bill Duke’s unjustly neglected THE KILLING FLOOR/’84.  Made for American Playhouse on PBS, it had been hard to track down but is now more readily available.  OR: Stick with de Banzie (in her signature role) and Mills as they chart their own upward social mobility in David Lean’s brilliantly observed comedy HOBSON’S CHOICE/’54.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/01/hobsons-choice-1954.html

THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)

After winning Oscars for producing & directing WEST SIDE STORY in 1961, Robert Wise doubled up with two more here.  And it’s often been noted that these two very different B’way musical transfers open in much the same manner, steadily moving in from the heavens down to the action; the urban slums of WSS; the Alps in SoM.  Less noted is that one of these two acclaimed films has dated badly, the other barely touched by the years.  Just not the ones you’d expect.  These days STORY makes a pretty tough watch, painfully miscast where it counts (especially in its two leads), unacceptably dubbed* and awkwardly color stylized.  As lyric theater goes, STORY may be the project with all the critical caché, but MUSIC the one that works on the screen.  (Steven Spielberg’s recent redo not seen here.)  Exceptionally well-crafted by Wise and cleverly revamped from its theatrical roots by scripter Ernest Lehman, who also did STORY, he makes wizardly smart plot alterations, song swaps and outright deletions.*  The modest amount of vocal-dubbing (really only two numbers) is perfectly accomplished, with Julie Andrews (spectacularly right here) still launching hundreds of future sopranos on the top note that caps ‘Do-Re-Mi.’  (Surprising that a seemingly corny song like ‘My Favorite Things’ is a favorite in jazz circles.)  The basic story, rich widower with seven tykes falls for his temp nanny; leaves his society fiancée; nanny leaves the convent; then the whole family leaves Austria when the Nazis come in.  There’s even a reasonable amount of truth behind this.  Christopher Plummer, as the widower, may not have meant to come across in quite so sour a fashion, but his miscalculation helps keep the film from sinking in schmaltz.  (Some of the dialogue for the kids is a bit much even for the late 1930s let alone the mid-‘60s.)  And do we really need those professional puppets?  (That mansion must have Mary Poppins’ carpetbag stowed in the basement.)  Phenomenally well shot (and lit!) largely on location by Ted McCord, pulled out of retirement for the job.  With stunningly staged and edited set pieces on every other corner, it's a semester’s-worth of film-school lessons in pro craftsmanship.  Even for someone without the sweet tooth to fall for the story whole, this is an unexpectedly guilt-free pleasure, particularly for Boomers who haven’t seen it since they were teens.

DOUBLE-BILL: Off-the-chart grosses brewed an orgy of failed Hollywood copycatting as one overblown musical after another tanked, nearly bringing down studios and all but offing the genre for decades.  Carol Reed’s OLIVER!/’68 a rare exception, the one musical of this period to beat MUSIC in sheer craftmanship.  (And as with SoM, a recent restoration proves revelatory.)

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *George Chakiris alone does his own singing, but there’s not much of it.  Really the only thing that holds up in WSS/’61 are the three or four dance-oriented numbers largely handled by choreographer/co-director Jerome Robbins before he was canned for too much  ‘perfectionism.'

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  * Typical of Lehman’s major, invisible script improvements, on B’way the ‘Lonely Goatherd’ sung with the kids in Maria’s room is replaced by ‘My Favorite Things’ which had been a duet for Maria & Mother Superior.

THE MAN IN THE HAT (2020)

Perhaps unaware that comedy is hard (and sophisticated physical comedy even harder), writer/directors John-Paul Davidson (mainly tv) & Stephen Warbeck (mainly composer) aim for needless whimsy . . . and miss.  (Nary a laugh, barely a smile in 95".)  Needing a Buster Keaton*, a Peter Sellers, a Rowan Atkinson to pull off this near dialogue-free picaresque, they make do with Ciarán Hinds, a fine character leading-man with the clobberingly big head of a Fernandel and, like that great film comedian, more reactor than generator.  So even after starting off with a steal from SOME LIKE IT HOT (innocent witness to a mob rub-out hits the road to save his life), the following series of mini-adventures, half comic/half magical-realism (runaway priest; outdoor production of MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM; being mistaken for a guest-speaker, a la THE 39 STEPS; etc.) lack the connective tissue needed to build audience involvement, especially needed when the gags don't land.  (And the makers seem to know it, adding a few repeating bits & recurring characters meant to get us over weak spots.)  Prettily photographed (by Kanamé Onoyama) and imaginatively scored by its co-director (note a well-known Song of the Auvergne), it’s a type of near-pantomime comedy more popular in Europe than Stateside.  (See grosses on Atkinson’s MR. BEAN for confirmation.)  This film unlikely to change that.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  *Made for the Canadian Tourist Board, Buster Keaton’s late two-reeler, THE RAILRODDER/’65, charting a solo trip across the continent on a mini-train, shows what HAT must have been going for.  That twenty-minute charmer usual shows with its even better one-hr ‘Making Of’ companion, BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN.  (Watching the documentary first makes the gags in the short really POP.)

LITTLE FUGITIVE (1953)

Seventy years after an unheralded appearance, the little film that kick-started the New York School of independent filmmaking has lost none of its charm or sense of mischief.  A sort of outgrowth from Italian Neo-Realism, but shot thru with American optimism and ‘Noo Yawk’ attitude*, prime mover Morris Engel (along with Ruth Orkin & Ray Ashley) spins a childhood summer’s idyll about a runaway nine-yr-old who thinks he’s shot his big brother.  It’s really a prank by his brother & some friends, played out while their single-mother has left them on their own for a day and a half to check on ailing G’ma.  Richie Andrusco’s a revelatory non-Hollywood tyke (so too the rest of the discovered cast), hiding in plain sight among a sea of beach-goers at nearby Coney Island, eating one sugary treat after another, and generally having the time of his life once he discovers how to get a nickle deposit back from every empty soda bottle you nip.  (70 years on and the deposit STILL a nickel!)  And what a kindly world Engel paints for us; the boy never feels under serious threat (even alone overnight); he doesn’t even get sick from a diet of corn-on-the-cob and junk food.  And while it takes a minute or two to adjust to some fairly primitive looped dialogue, Engel’s photo-journalism background serves him well with truly lovely, atmospheric, now wonderfully nostalgic compositions of oceanfront hoi polloi and ‘Carny’ atmosphere at '50s Coney Island.  Early work by Cassavetes, Scorsese, Spike Lee impossible to imagine without this as precursor.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Think of it as slaphappy Neo-Realism.  And while indie NY style evolved out of this, the film is probably closer to the two great tragic childhood fables of Albert Lamorisse, RED BALLOON/’56 and WHITE MANE out the same year.  But here shot thru with Brooklyn, New York resilience.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/02/crin-blanc-le-cheval-sauvage-white-mane.html

CONTEST: Engel drops the ball when brother & pals return from play but no one notices what they forgot to bring back with them after the ‘accident’ that sends young Joey running off to Coney Island.  What did the boys forget to bring back?  Win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choice with the correct answer.

ANCHORS AWEIGH (1945)

A huge hit from Hollywood’s ‘hugest’ year (just before the post-war contraction signaled the beginning of the end to the old studio system), this big, dopey, unconscionably long (2' 20") M-G-M musical, from top lowbrow producer Joe Pasternak & kid director George Sidney, tags along as two sailors on a four-day pass (top-billed Frank Sinatra; third-billed Gene Kelly) meet-cute with nine-yr-old Dean Stockwell to talk him out of joining the Navy.  Taking him home they meet-cute yet again!  Now with guardian Aunt Kathryn Grayson and proceed to waste their leave slowly figuring out that shy Frankie really prefers that hash slinging Bkln gal (an over-parted Pamela Britton*) while wolfish ladies’ man Gene likes the Aunt, a nice girl with the screechiest coloratura soprano on the M-G-M lot.  (Her vocal adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings a particular horror.)  Classical musician José Iturbi is around to play Fairy Godfather and keyboards on various deconstructed pianos.  But those who stick it out will be rewarded every half-hour or so with 1): a swell song-and-dance duet for the boys (‘I Begged Her’); 2): a first-rate Jule Styne/Sammy Cain ballad for Frankie (‘I Fall in Love Too Easily’); 3): two showoff specialty dances for Gene (one balletic; one saccharine with sad little girl); and 4): an animated novelty ‘Numbo’ for Gene and Jerry (of Tom & Jerry) Mouse.  (Live-action & post-production largely supervised by uncredited 19-yr-old Stanley Donen.)

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK/DOUBLE-BILL:  *Britton’s spot in these kind of roles @ M-G-M would soon be taken over (and much improved) for the rest of the decade by Betty Garrett.  They’d also improve in handling Sinatra’s sunken cheeks and TechniColor-reddened cheek bones.  (And that’s not the only thing they filled out, TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME/’49 added ‘symetricals’ to the concave Sinatra tuchus.)  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/04/take-me-out-to-ball-game-1949.html)

CONSTANTINE (2005)

It took nearly twenty years to announce a sequel to this comic book adaptation.  Why the wait?  Or is it, why bother?  The story, as configured on screen, comes across as THE EXORCIST meets JOHN WICK meets ROSEMARY’S BABY, with Keanu Reeves playing a half-dead/half-immortal soul who’s been to hell and back (literally), now charged with keeping a balance on Earth between Satan’s forces and the Better Angels (also literally).  But he gets mixed up with a side drama when police detective Rachel Weisz’s twin sister suicides and he starts discovering her secrets.  Or something like that.  The story plays like a Special Edition/Out-of-Series Deluxe keepsake print run.  Higher price; larger format; squared edge; heavy-gauge/high-gloss cover; a Comic Book aiming for Graphic Novel gravitas.  Director Francis Lawrence keeps it in a constant state of CGI motion.  So much so, often the film plays better if you don’t pay attention.  But generally fun to watch.  And, good Lord, Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz were astonishingly beautiful people in 2005.  On the other hand, what’s with having the one major Black character in the film named Midnite, as if this were 1937.  Sheesh.  (Let’s assume the name’s a holdover from source material.)  The one actual surprise here may be Shia LaBeouf as a likeable sidekick.  Whatever happened to this winning lad?  Less welcome is that every single person swallows all their lines.  Dialogue harder to understand than a British Crime show set in Wales.  (Hurrah for subtitles.)  And if you’re looking for an answer to the question posed at the top, you only need check out the expanding, chart-topping grosses on JOHN WICK.  This one will play to the same crowd.

DOUBLE-BILL: There’s something of THE CROW/’94 to this.  A character also on its way back to the big screen.

MAGNUM FORCE (1973)

Two years after DIRTY HARRY commercially, critically, culturally & politically shook up the police procedural, Clint Eastwood returned (sans director Don Siegel) for MAGNUM FORCE, the second of five films as the iconoclastic San Fran Detective Inspector.  And while he doesn't drop the ball (you still feel he’d shoot first/ask questions later), the John Milius/Michael Cimino script finds a way to place him to the political left of the main villains.*  Director Ted Post, though largely confined to tv work, keeps a sense of big screen scale as Eastwood fights crime and bureaucracy (not necessarily in that order), but the story (‘fake’ cops are offing hard-to-convict bad guys) grows progressively obvious, even silly.  A Milius trait.  He also tries too hard to deliver another quotable tough guy line.  (Not found till SUDDEN IMPACT/’83 with ‘Go ahead, make my day.’)  Still, it’s probably the best of the DH sequels, though one of them (which one?) has a particularly dandy opening involving too much sugar in a cup of coffee.  Just be sure to watch DIRTY HARRY first.  And maybe go back rather than forward for your DOUBLE-BILL with Eastwood & Siegel starting their professional bromance in COOGAN’S BLUFF/’68.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Casting director Nessa Hyams (or someone) was on fire spotting future stars with three or this film’s four sharpshooting rookie cops going on to major careers: Robert Urich, Tim Matheson, David Soul.  That’s a .750 batting average.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Eastwood must have liked Cimino’s take on the character as he kept him on to write & direct next year’s THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT/’74.  A superb film that gave no indication of Cimino’s incipient self-destructive gigantism.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/08/thunderbolt-and-lightfoot-1974.html

THE RED BALL EXPRESS (1952)

By-the-numbers, fact-inspired WWII story, a Universal programmer that leaves a lot of drama on the table.  An outlier for Western specialist Budd Boetticher, a first feature for scripter John Michael Hayes (Hitchcock classics in his future), it’s not a bad little ‘B’ pic as long as they stick to the main task (supplying the fast-moving General Patton & his troops in their unprecedented dash across Europe); less so covering comic soldierly adventures on the side and in some cliché character building.  A shame since everything about the operation is fascinating; from the speed of putting a huge truck convoy together;  to the danger of enemy attack while overcoming impossible road and weather conditions.  Most of all, with military resources already stretched to the limit, the necessity of running a color-blind integrated unit in a still officially segregated U.S. Army.  The film seriously downplaying this angle.  Cautious of being labeled a Race Pic?  An unforced error with such a fine company of young Black actors involved, including Sidney Poitier.  (But nice touch from Hayes in having these guys get together to hash out their situation always referring to C.O. Jeff Chandler as ‘Boy.’)   Not that they ignore the issue (one fight breaks out so we get to see the signature Poitier ‘seeth’ stare), but this aspect of the mission was an awfully big deal at the time and must have been a constant issue under the stress of three-day non-stop hauls.*

LINK:  *Famous enough to gain a featured spot in the post-war B’way revue CALL ME MISTER.  A hit in 1946 for composer Harold Rome and co-producer Melvyn Douglas.  Here’s original cast member Lawrence Winters singing ‘The Red Ball Express.’  (Note the album cover features Irving Berlin’s THIS IS THE ARMY (the only truly integrated unit during WWII) as the two albums were issued together in CD format.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0NUFJ8JpIA  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2009/05/this-is-army-1943.html

CONFESS, FLETCH (2022)

Fondly remembered, if not really very good, the two Chevy Chase films made from Gregory McDonald’s Fletch character, only emphasized the snide ‘I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not’ side of his personality.  So the bar isn’t all that high for Greg Mottola's Fletch reboot with the far more appealing Jon Hamm taking on the investigating reporter, reveling in his slip from corporate executive hunk to middle-age future as he haphazardly solves a tricky case of kidnapping, art theft and murder pointing in his direction.  The sticker on the poster, ‘Now A Major Motion Picture!,’ gets it completely wrong.  Rather, ‘Now A Minor Motion Picture!’ and happy to be that way.  Alas, that don’t-give-a-fuck attitude is the best thing about the film, along with Hamm’s vanity-free perf and his unwelcomed tag-team relationship with police detective Roy Wood Jr.  Elsewhere, the plotting is a hot mess; the eccentric characters played a bit too broadly (what accent was Marcia Gay Harden aiming at?), the central mystery/murder suspense-free.*  Still, 60% of the way to breezy not bad for a first try.  Hopefully, an already announced sequel will build on what works and fix what doesn’t.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: The early THIN MAN movies with William Powell & Myrna Loy show how to do these things.  Here’s the second in the series.  Maybe that’s what they should have rebooted. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/11/after-thin-man-1936.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Perhaps this would have played better set in the ‘70s when the book was published.  It also would have cost twice as much to produce.

NEVER SAY GOODBYE (1956)

Regrettably sensible remake of William Dieterle’s inane ‘Women’s Weepie’ THIS LOVE OF OURS/’45.  Prepped for Douglas Sirk, he apparently dealt it off to impersonal journeyman director Jerry Hopper, one of five films in ‘56.  (Cinematographer Maury Gertsman even busier with eight.)  What likely put Sirk off the project is that ‘sensible’ factor, inadvertently flattening the absurdities without gaining much in credibility.  Rock Hudson’s a single father to a little girl with a morbid fixation on her late mother.  But when Hudson manages to tear himself away from this clinging vine to attend a doctor’s conference, a rare night out with the boys brings him face-to-face with . . . the supposedly dead wife.  Yikes!  Worse, in a fit of shame she immediately dashes in front of a car and he must operate to save her life.  Waking, she now lives only to return to the daughter she hasn’t seen in seven years.  But what to tell the child?  In the original, a false scandal caused the rift; now it’s exacerbated by having Mom get stuck behind the Iron Curtain, unable to cross over and explain it all to Rock.  (Apparently, she also doesn’t know how to write a letter.)  Hudson quite the unattractive character in this one: jealous, controlling, self-centered.  But the main trouble stems from that sensible Iron Curtain angle which only highlights the artificiality everywhere else.  Especially in her work as background pianist to nightclub ‘insult’ illustrator George Sanders, adding a touch of sexual threat Claude Rains didn’t bring to the role in the earlier film.  He's the best thing in the film.  The first film is perhaps more ridiculous, but the pieces go together.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Failed star push for Euro-male lead Charles Korvin in 1945 mirrored by this film’s failed star push for Euro-female lead (and Ingrid Bergman wannabee) Cornell Borchers.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/01/this-love-of-ours-1945.html

I USED TO BE FAMOUS (2022)

Expanding his 2015 short as feature film debut*, writer/director Eddie Sternberg is running-in-place on this high-concept idea; aiming for likable he settles for harmless.  Ed Skrein is twenty years past his boy band prime, stuck in a creative ditch and half-heartedly working on a much delayed solo album.  Malaise & writer’s block caused not by drugs or too-much-too-soon syndrome (or even by aging out of cuteness), but from personal guilt, unable to forgive himself for putting career ahead of family back when he was fab.  Meanwhile, his old band mate still a major rock star; at forty, planning a farewell tour.  That’s when the big plot hook shows up in the form of (extremely high-functioning) autistic teen Leo Long who ad-libs a drum kit & accompaniment while Skrein works out some ideas for that phantom album riffing on a portable keyboard in the town mall.  A small crowd gathers, listens, applauds, uploads to Instagram/Tik-Tok, the clip goes viral . . . you’ll guess the rest.  Credit to Sternberg for figuring out a way to make the beginning and the end credible & satisfying.  It’s the stuff that comes in-between the meet-cute and the finale that plays as thrift-store dramatics.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *That original short, a two-reeler with a different cast, doesn’t seem to be available.  At least, not on-line.  But you can find a very short trailer for it which hints at a rougher sensibility in casting and execution.  Just what’s missing here.

THE RIVER'S EDGE (1957)

Allan Dwan had three films to go in his 50 year directing career, but this may be his last substantial offering.  A tough, economically built suspenser, it’s a modern chamber Western in CinemaScope & shiny Deluxe color, following unhappily married Anthony Quinn & Debra Paget who are failing to make a go of it on his small, scrubby cattle ranch.  She’s a city gal, skipping out on parole with Quinn’s man-of-the-land, but secretly pining for Ray Milland, her older partner-in-crime who let her take the rap for their last job.  Now he’s hunting her up in a pink Thunderbird convertible and a case of cash with a plan to cross the Mexican border with Quinn as expert guide to avoid those pesky Customs Agents.  If only Paget seemed worth the devotion, especially in the first act setup.  Once they head out, her acting improves, the story compresses into a survivalist tale, tension ratchets up.  The pivot point is a casual border partol stop in the middle of nowhere that turns deadly and shows Milland as more pathological than either we or Paget assumed.  Three or four more doozy moments supply perfectly staged action & excitement to fill in the rest: a truck tumbling into a canyon; a prospector’s murder; a hunt in a field of corn.  Milland very good as the amoral killer, handy with facile explanations.  Quinn, pulling back from his usual everyman act to find a specific response to each situation.  Plus nice supporting turns in town and on the road.  Even Paget finds her form.  She certainly looks striking; all legs and red hair.  It’s not just the color processing that’s Deluxe.  Makes you want to check on those last three Dwan pics (not seen here).

DOUBLE-BILL: Over at Columbia, Don Siegel’s little seen EDGE OF ETERNITY/’59 has a similar feel, look and muscular bluntness to it.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/04/edge-of-eternity-1959.html

ROOM FOR ONE MORE (1953)

In 1950s Hollywood, even Cary Grant got domesticated.*  Never more so than when paired with spark-free Betsy Drake, his little grey wren of a wife.  (From 1949 to 1962, less time out for Sophia Loren.)  Based on real-life serial foster-child adopter Anna Perrot Rose, the film reduces the troubled family additions she took in from four to two, added to the Rose’s own gaggle of three.  And what casual affairs getting homeless orphanage kids after they had aged passed the cute baby stage seemed to have been at the time, like a Drive-Thru pick up.  A night or two of difficult behavior, a few fits of crying, then a hug from your new ‘mom’ (or a spanking) to make it all better.  Even for a light comedy, this is pretty abbreviated.  Wise dad (that’s Grant) may try to put his foot down (how to afford this on a civil servant’s salary?), but he can’t even stop Mom from taking in a stray dog.  To his credit, kid specialist director Norman Taurog gets some warmth out of the package, and treats foghorn-voiced George Winslow like a child rather than a freak of nature.  (More than you can say about the NINE Elvis Presley pics he made after this.)  But half the time, the situations & relationships make you wonder if anyone involved here ever met a child . . . or an adult.  Little life lessons substituting for plot.  And what gives at the beach between Drake and that obstinate polio-weakened foster kid she drags toward the water without first removing those forty-pound metal braces.  Is she planning on drowning him?  Sure, he’s a pain, but still . . . 

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Not that Grant can’t do light-hearted domestic comedy; see MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE/’48.  

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The big climax at Boy Scout Honors Night is seriously creepy.  All those pledges!  Listen up to the Pledge of Allegiance which in 1952 had yet to add ‘Under God’ to the phrase ‘One Nation, Under God, Indivisible.‘  President Eisenhower allowed it to be added on a few years later as a sop to the anti-Commie Joseph McCarthy crowd. 

SCREWY THOUGHT OF HE DAY:  *Grant knew something had gone wrong and took a couple years of semi-retirement before Alfred Hitchcock tempted him back to the big screen (and his career Indian Summer) with TO CATCH A THIEF/’55.

9 (2009)

A CGI animated marvel of invention (that's ‘marvel’ with a small ‘m’), visual effects whiz Shane Acker expands on his 2005 short (also called 9) to fine effect, elaborating without losing the dense sense of threat, wonder and comradery in a dystopian world where humanity’s soul is on the line.  Or someone’s soul as the battle is waged by small rag dolls with expressive spot-light units for eyes and bodies of burlap.  (Our hero keeps his garment zipped up the front with a pull-tag functioning as stylish tie.  Quite the inspired sartorial touch.)  More action than narrative with only some general lines of conflict and little explanation till late in the pic).  The gigantic rampaging enemy (think metallic dragon dinosaurs) met again & again with defensive & offensive contraptions Rube Goldberg might have designed.  And once the backstory does begin to filter in, you’ll note similarities with contemporaneous titles WALL-E and DISTRICT9 as well as old friends like 1960's THE TIME MACHINE.  The reveal turns out to be a basic A.I. cautionary, not the best idea in here.  But no matter, this is simply a riveting watch.  And what a great vocal cast Acker got.  Thanks to producer Tim Burton?  Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer, Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, many more stellar names, presumably, unaware of the participation of fellow producer Timur Bekmambetov who finally gets his name on a film you can watch all the way thru.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned, WALL-E/’08, DISTRICT 9/’09, THE TIME MACHINE/’60.

RUE DE L’ESTRAPADE (1953)

Put in the shade by abutting classics (CASQUE D’OR/’52; TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI/’54), this lighter domestic piece from Jacques Becker gets little notice.  Another look at love & marriage, after ANTOINE ET ANTOINETTE/’47 and ÉDOUARD ET CAROLINE/’51*, and not quite their equal, it begins as conventional boulevard comedy (Louis Jourdan & Anne Vernon’s rocky marriage hits a crisis just as Jourdan ends a meaningless dalliance), before Becker goes to his long suit, quotidian observation & Paris-specific verisimilitude when the wife rents garret space for a room of her own next to bohemian songster (and Dustin Hoffman lookalike) Daniel Gélin who's quickly besotted by this chic figure of grace, class & beauty just down the hall.*  Becker has these three play out the usual misunderstandings and missed opportunities of sex farce, yet avoids dropping the narrative ball or playing dumb to keep things moving.  Instead, smart characterizations from everyone and a unique milieu to play in.  Such a cool little apartment Mme. Vernon rents.  Once servants’ quarters four flights up in a 300 yr-old mansion, her small space was a maid’s room, her kitchen across the hall, water (et bain?) down the corridor.  A delightful comedown from her airy apartment with race car operator Jourdan and live-in housekeeper on le Rive Droite.  The film, just as small and charming, with a special kick for Stateside audiences able to see Jourdan work in French, sans M-G-M glacé, but with quite the burly, exposed chest.  Plus loads of Hollywood censorable touches: a single bed for the married couple, a randy gay boss at a favored boutique and dress designer/boyfriend jealous of the attention he’s giving Madame, a general acceptance of amorality.  And note that while Gélin 'reads' a generation younger than Jourdan, they were both born in 1921.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Scripter Annette Wademant’s other 1953 credit also keeps this sleeper in the shade: Max Ophüls THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE . . . 

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned, the superior ANTOINE ET ANTOINETTE or ÉDOUARD ET CAROLINE, also with Gélin.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/08/antoine-et-antoinette-1947.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/05/edouard-et-caroline-edward-and-caroline.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *She likes him too.  But when he forces the issue . . . well, even in France, attitudes have changed radically since 1953.

WILLOW (1988)

Even worse then you remember.  George Lucas, from his ‘where’d the Zeitgeist go’ period, stole only from the best coming up with this ‘original’ story: Tolkien’s Hobbits for the brave little man on a mission to save the world; Jehovah for that Moses in the rushes escapade; endangered Princess on the lam from Evil Queen straight out of SNOW WHITE; why he even steals from himself with facsimiles of C-3PO and R2-D2 transformed as teeny-tiny chattering comic helpmates.  More STAR WARS fingerprints forced on director Ron Howard with those old-fashioned ‘wipe-edits.’  Too bad this does nothing to camouflage what’s missing in story, character or poorly executed set pieces.  Or is that second unit stuff, with even the simplest cause-and-effect edits consistently blown?  But there’s no mistaking the Howard touch in over-indulged reaction shots to cue audience response.  Even that little baby gets the treatment.  Meanwhile barely adequate special effects land only a half step up from Disney house-style of the period, and James Horner’s distinctive composing voice settles for copycat John Williams.  A major disappointment at the time, the film is now getting a reboot as a streaming series Coming Soon to Disney+.  Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Strikingly bad acting, especially from the ‘little people.’  Though as our vain-glorious hero Val Kilmer may be equally bad, prancing about in an attempt at comic effect, but such a striking physical presence at the time, it hardly matters.  Up there with Brad Pitt & Keanu Reeves, and, shockingly, barely four years older than either.  He’s the only reason to watch.

SPUD (2010)

Pubescent POV from an elite boarding school in the changing world of 1990 South Africa is largely interested in what’s not changing.  Not in the country, but in our protagonists’s gonads where not enough is going on.  Nicknamed ‘Spud’ to tag him as late to the puberty party, the film comes loaded with all the expected hijinks and steep learning curves for a new boy in a ward of horny 15-yr-olds who physically run the gamut from twice-daily shavers to experienced Romeos; fatties & destructive Geeks, humiliators, punch-bags & punchers and captains of secret midnight swims.  A few Black kids seem fully integrated in the mix but oddly no bromantic relationships cross the line.  (In a British styled all-boys school?  Hmm.)  With social & political issues of the day ignored, attention concentrates entirely on Spud’s budding relationships: Childless mentor/teacher with a drinking problem (John Cleese); Slow-to-build friendship with a fellow ‘spud’ wasting away from a fragile constitution; Growing self-esteem from winning the lead in the school play and attention from a couple of girls (one at home/one at a ‘sister’ school) . . . you get the idea.  Some of this is well-observed & fun, but much is glossed over, given a decidedly secondhand feel, as if the experiences were transliterated from a different alphabet into English.  Troye Sivan helps as the kid, rarely pushing for effect and singing sweetly as called for.  But too much that could have made this distinctive has been papered over into generic call-and-response comic tropes.  Followed by two lower rated sequels (not seen here).

EASTER PARADE (1948)

Though not as stylish or sophisticated as later Arthur Freed/Fred Astaire musicals (see Minnelli’s THE BAND WAGON/’53; Mamoulian’s SILK STOCKINGS/’57), this Irving Berlin compendium makes for square but powerhouse entertainment on its own ultra-professional terms.  Especially once past its set-up (dumped by dancing stage partner Ann Miller, Fred initially flops with impulsively chosen replacement Judy Garland till he sees what she does excel at) and kicks off Act Two with a medley that moves plot and relationship in a vaudeville oriented combo that seamlessly joins four Berlin oldies (‘I Love A Piano’; ‘Snooky Ookums’; ‘Ragtime Violin’; ‘When the Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam’‘) into an unbeatable highlight reel.  Berlin, as usual, plugging his catalog for two-thirds of a score and coming up with five or six new songs, including gems ‘It Only Happens When I Dance With You’; ‘Steppin’ Out With My Baby’; A Couple of Swells,’; ‘Better Luck Next Time.’*  Garland and then husband Vincente Minnelli had just been thru the wringer on THE PIRATE (still in retakes), so Charles Walters got his second directing assignment (after the adorable GOOD NEWS) and was lucky to find Garland on her very best behavior.  (Afraid to rock the boat next to Astaire’s legendary professionalism?  Him: a take after take guy; Her: a one-and-done phenom.  How’d this ever work out?)  He also brought out something fresh in her acting.  Watch her right after the Ziegfeld audition, suddenly figuring out his romantic past with Miller.  It’s exactly the sort of comic clarity she was unable to muster in THE PIRATE.  Joyous stuff, and Garland’s biggest hit after MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS/'44, deservedly so.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK:  *Berlin used to say that he had about seven or eight templates for many songs, and you can hear exactly how that worked comparing this film’s ‘Better Luck Next Time,’ with ‘Now It Can Be Told’ in ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND/’38.  (Skip to the 1'50" mark to hear a carbon-copy cadence used in both songs.)   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO3teEN54rA

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  People make fun of the ‘novelty’ number Berlin came up with for Peter Lawford, ‘A Fella with an Umbrella’ when he meets-cute with Garland.  But behind the silly lyric is a damn good tune.  Have a listen when Garland takes the verse.

THE SPY IN BLACK (1939)

Don’t bother looking for a Spy in Black, the black dressed minister of the novel disappeared when director Michael Powell, charged with a dud script, was saved by exec-producer Alex Korda setting him up with dream collaborator Emeric Pressburger who kept only the WWI naval background and leading roles for Valerie Hobson & Conrad Veidt.  These two play German spies (she’s a Brit turncoat) meeting blind under assumed identities in the North of Scotland where half the British Fleet is a sitting duck for destruction once Veidt gets coordinates & timings.  These to be supplied by Hobson & fellow agent Sebastian Shaw on a small island post.  Then, back to the U-Boat* that snuck him in for Veidt to complete his mission.  Short & economical, made with Powell’s signature abrupt pacing and his unique editing style.  (Something  hand-made/artisanal about it.)  It 's a tremendous early effort; Powell hitting the A-list after a score of ‘quota-quickies.’  With good studio trickery for the tight budget (only a phony model boat at the climax seriously disappoints); great atmospheric sets from Vincent Korda and cinematography from lenser Bernard Browne.  (Too little known as he died early in the war.)  Plus an excellent Miklós Rózsa score and loads of character actors you’ll recognize from many Korda & Powell films ahead.  A great start to one of film’s greatest partnerships, already irresistibly good.  Look for the fine BFI restoration; many lousy Public Domain editions still out there.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Powell & Pressburger had a thing for wartime adventures told from the enemy POV.  SPY something of a test run for their first masterpiece, 49TH PARALLEL/’41 which follows a German U-Boat crew crossing Canada.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/49th-parallel-1941.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Hence titled U-BOAT 29  in the States.

THE PRESIDENT'S LADY (1953)

This pleasingly modest bio-pic, at its best covering YOUNG ANDREW JACKSON (our alternate title), is told from the POV of much beloved/much maligned wife Rachel Donaldson Robards Jackson.  It’s also Charlton Heston’s ‘other’ adapted Irving Stone ‘pop’ biography, before his Michelangelo meets Sistine Chapel in THE AGONY AND THE ECSTACY/’65.*)  And while it does take Jackson all the way to the White House, the main focus is star-crossed romance with Susan Hayward’s Rachel, a feisty spirit already unhappily married when met.  Accused of wrong doing by her philandering husband, alternately repentant & vindictive, she finally gets word of her divorce and immediately weds now rising political force Jackson only to discover news of divorce was premature.  Branded a fallen woman, Jackson stays fiercely loyal to his near outcast of a wife yet still goes on to military & political glory.  It’s a strong story, relatively factual as these things go, with Hayward in especially good form and Heston fascinating to watch as his easy charm and fluid acting style progressively stiffen as he turns into a great man of destiny.  A paradigm of Heston’s problematic on-screen work.  Sooner or later, he’s gonna start acting.  Or is without William Wyler to keep him honest, as here under Henry Levin’s laissez-faire handling.  (But credit Levin, and a tight budget, for the film’s human scale.)  It also holds interest as few presidents have seen such a precipitous drop in reputation.  In many ways our first truly popularly elected President, Jackson’s first claim to national fame came from all but wiping out the Cree Indian Nation who’d aligned with the British (Jackson’s other great hate).  A hero at the time, no longer easily celebrated.  Yet what a fascinating holy terror of a man he was.  Heston, in a supporting role, had another go at him in THE BUCCANEER/’58*, but something more complete/more complex is needed.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Heston's return to the role in Anthony Quinn’s 1958 remake of C. B. DeMille’s THE BUCCANEER.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-buccaneer-1958.html  OR: That second Irving Stone book, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTACY/’65.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/06/agony-and-ecstasy-1965.html

CHIP 'N DALE: RESCUE RANGERS (2022)

Barely holding onto a place in the classic animated pantheon, chattering chipmunks Chip ‘n Dale made their mark pestering Donald Duck in the ‘40s, had their own series of shorts in the ‘50s, then, seriously past their prime, a late-‘80 tv run as Rescue Rangers.  The latter apparently retaining affection for the 40-somethings involved in this reboot.  (They probably grew up with them in syndication.)  The point is, no one’s going to object to nearly anything director Akiva Schaffer (with a SNL background) and writers Dan Gregor & Doug Mand (lots of HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER) come up with for them.  And what they wanted to do was a sort of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?/’88 meta-adventure, with the chipmunks on the comeback trail.  One gets the CGI treatment and the mix of techniques include Live Action combined with hand-drawn color and b&w, digital, Stop-Motion, sock puppet, Muppets and a welcome diss at Motion Capture avatar creepiness.  (What?  No love for CLUTCH CARGO's cut-outs and living mouths?)  Good fun at first as the boys bond in 3rd grade, pal along into showbiz, then bicker their way out of tv success.  But by the twenty minute mark, it all starts to feel relentlessly inventive & self-congratulatory, cleverness unable to cover a lack of involvement or charm.  (It really is like ROGER RABBIT.)  A very long 97 minute sit.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?/’88 which suffers in remarkably similar ways.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/12/who-framed-roger-rabbot-1988.html

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  Youtube is loaded with Chip ‘n Dale surveys.  (Resolution levels vary, but they do seem to stay online, which goes to show how little Disney thinks of their commercial value.)  Many of the shorts still very funny, a throwback to the anarchism of early ‘30s Mickey Mouse.  And all up to Disney animation standards of their period.  (The tv series only slightly above Hanna-Barbera limited animation drek.)  Best are probably the first Duck-free shorts of the early ‘50s.  Look for a super Christmas-themed one.

CAPERNAUM (2018)

Brutal Dickensian lost-childhood saga from writer/director Nadine Labaki made with jangly Neo-Realistic edge in the shanty-towns of Lebanon, plays out in flashback from a courtroom where 12-yr-old Zain is suing his parents for neglect.  The boy, imprisoned for stabbing the man who ‘bought’ his 11-yr-old sister for a bride, has already run away from home (to the circus!), and was living a precarious life helping an Ethiopian ‘illegal’ raise her toddler when the mother was picked up by authorities.  Zain, left completely on his own, loses everything.  Appearing young for his age, Zain may look like an Oliver Twist, but he’s all Artful Dodger underneath: street scams, lies, stubborn survival tactics.  Yet it proves not enough, and when he briefly stops at his home to find some I.D. to sneak out of the country, he finds out about his beloved sister and his life spirals down from there.  Stunningly well made with a cast plucked from the streets (in roles not far from their real situations*), Labaki pulls back from complete devastation at the end, offering a bit of hope for a few.  Something that did come to pass for Zain Al Rafeea and his actual family, now settled in Norway.  Dark as this is, there’s something uplifting amid the bare existence and the will to go on.  (Labeled Family Friendly but no Kiddie film.)

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: You need to go back to Mira Nair’s SALAAM BOMBAY/’88 to find its equal.  Hopefully, Labaki has as much to say beyond this as Nair has shown.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/02/salaam-bombay-1988.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Yet still matching up to the Dickens cast list, a Nancy, a Fagin, Oliver & Dodger in one, a Bill Sykes.  Though this Judge is no drunk, but wise & decent.

GREMLINS (1984)

Well-liked, fondly remembered, and a massive hit, this comic horror about the evil spawn of a cute mystery pet brought home from Chinatown, asexually reproducing at exponentially alarming rates (think The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) holds up darn well.  And unlike other Steven Spielberg entrepreneured films of the period (POLTERGEIST; GOONIES) it doesn’t feels like warmed-over Spielberg, taking its anarchistic tone from director Joe Dante, a man with his own distinctive voice.  Pretty dark, too, as kid-friendly 1984 films go, the weirdness baked in, boasting many felicitous film geek touches presumably stemming from Dante’s bag of memories and not from scripter Chris Columbus.  The best idea is a set of never explained arbitrary rules that must be followed to keep the little beastie in line.  No Bright Lights; No Water; and NEVER Feed After Midnight.  Naturally, things quickly go haywire in this retro-Bedford Falls of a town.  (Many film influences, but IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and WIZARD OF OZ get the most attention. Not in the usual ‘spot my film I.Q.’ manner, but imaginatively used to inform the storyline.*)  On the other hand, what doesn’t stand up so well is the acting.  Just compare Zach Galligan & Phoebe Cates (chemistry-free blanks) with Matthew Broderick & Ally Sheedy in next year’s WAR GAMES to see what’s missing.  But then, just about everyone is nearly as bad, winking, indicating, yucking it up.  With show-offy cameos by film VIPs and a major fail from Hoyt Axton’s inventor dad, trying for Jonathan Winters . . . and missing badly.  Worse, racist horror conventions of the day mean the first serious casualty is the film’s sole Black character.  Worser, the poor guy is done in with the one non-stylized murder in the whole pic.  Others may be shot off like a cannon or exploded in a microwave.  But bearing these faults in mind, the film is not only good fun, but a bracing blast of bitters next to family-friendly fantasies of the day like BACK TO THE FUTURE whose outdoor sets were apparently repurposed here.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Avoid the GREMLIN sequels, instead Bob Clampett’s glorious Merrie Melodies short GREMLINS FROM THE KREMLIN (aka RUSSIAN RHAPSODY)/’44.   (Scroll down on link.)    https://www.supercartoons.net/cartoon/960/russian-rhapsody.html

CONTEST:  *As producer, Spielberg presumably okayed the iconic visual ‘quote’ from E.T./’82.  Name the lifted gag to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choosing.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  While most of the beasts come to life via puppetry and mini-motors, there’s a brief, glorious shot of hundreds of the little devils pouring out of a building in Stop-Motion animation.  A screamingly funny moment all but impossible to imagine happening today where CGI would get the assignment and lose the effect.

CLOSED CIRCUIT (2013)

A non-starter in every way (at the box-office, too), this paranoid political thriller feels like a ‘70s throwback (corrupt wheels of government & world conspiracy inside corrupt wheels of government & world conspiracy) in a bad way; dated and surprise-free.  A poor showing for director John Crowley* and writer Steven Knight who manage to make this uncomplicated London terrorist bombing case (enough casualties to be called the Crime of the Century) pointlessly confusing.  Former lovers Eric Bana (working up the poshest of accents) and Rebecca Hall hide a past relationship to take on independent wings of the defense without letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing since Hall is handling the ultra-top-secret side of the case.  Lying to get the assignment, do they truly imagine their past love life won't be dug up by the British tabloid press covering the Crime of the Century?  Plausibility only degrades from there, as Britain’s MI-5 tries to bury their own involvement via hardball tactics & murder.  You know something’s gone seriously wrong when actors like Jim Broadbent and Ciarán Hinds (devious boss; untrustworthy partner) can’t work up believable characterizations.  Too tame & polished to make fun of, this one’s a yawner.  The sort of film slipping star players accept when they’re still on the A-list, but no longer anyone’s first choice.  Ouch!

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: *Yet working in the far less forgiving genre of Sentimental Education Memory Piece, Crowley scored on BROOKLYN/’15.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/02/brooklyn-2015.html

THE WHITE BUFFALO (1977)

Charles Bronson never quite recovered from the alarming commercial success of DEATH WISH in 1974.  But 1977 saw him, possibly for the last time, looking for a way around this profitable professional trap in two off beat vehicles: TELEFON, an international spy thriller from Don Siegel (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/10/telefon-1977.html), and this mythical beast of a Western directed by the maddeningly inconsistent J. Lee Thompson.  (His big run TIGER BAY/’59, GUNS OF NAVARONE/’61, CAPE FEAR/’62.)  Bronson’s Wild Bill Hickock, aging and heading West under an assumed name to search for gold and quash the very real beast that lives in his dreams as an avatar.  Teaming up with old pal Jack Warden, they shoot down scores of Hickock’s enemies along the way, and are eventually joined by another man in search of peace, redemption & a white buffalo carcass, Will Sampson’s Crazy Horse, racially charged mutual hatred held back by grudging, if temporary respect.  With Carlo Rambaldi of E.T. fame as visual consultant on the White Buffalo attacks, the effect more mystical/poetic (THE BEAST OF THE BASKERVILLES?) than tough Western survival tale.  Whatever did contemporary audiences make of it?  With loads of guest apperances by fading players of a certain age (Stuart Whitman, Clint Walker, Kim Novak, Cara Williams!!, John Carradine), as old-school Hollywood as the jarringly artificial snow and soundstage caves.  Yet the film is simply too weird and involving to shake off.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: More Hickock in Walter Hill’s unjustly ignored WILD BILL/’95 starring Jeff Bridges; something of an accidental pilot for the cable series DEADWOOD which Hill worked on.  OR: Probably Bronson’s last really good film, HARD TIMES/’75, made right after DEATH WISH, written by the very same Walter Hill in his directing debut.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/hard-times-1975.html