ELVIS (2022)

What an odd film writer/director Baz Luhrman made of his Elvis Presley bio-pic.  Maximalist, as is his wont, prioritizing instant gratification and ignoring the long view.  Aware of missing structure, Luhrman uses creepy fabulist/manager Colonel Tom Parker to walk us thru a series of ellipses (as if  you'd stumbled into a World’s Fair Exhibit and couldn’t find a way out), a long picturized lecture on a rather short life.  Southern poverty, smothering mother-love, Gospel music & spirituality, a fast rise, but crucially skipping Elvis’s pre-Army Hollywood days and the three pics rushed thru production when producer Hal Wallis signed him up before the infamous Milton Berle ‘Hound Dog’ fiasco.  Dramatically, it means Army grooming, mother’s death, Colonel’s monetization all play unopposed as Elvis loses openness, rough edges and cultural threat.  As Elvis, Austin Butler seems just right . . . for Ricky Nelson.  (Those two boys did share the same lips.)  And Tom Hanks' Col. Parker?  Not for the first time in a role Michael Keaton should have played, belabors under Orson Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL makeup.*  While Luhrman, desperate to hold our attention, uses so many speedy 'push-in' fast-tracking shots, it becomes his all-purpose stylistic tick and a reflexive mental rope-a-dope kicks in to filter them out.  And when he does try to slow up, it doesn’t register.  Like Elvis at the end, he’s running on fumes.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  The early Elvis can still be glimpsed in KING CREOLE/’58.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/10/king-creole-1958.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *And speaking of Welles, Luhrman attempts a FunHouse mirror sequence a la LADY FROM SHANGHAI when the Colonel shows his hand as Mephistopheles to a young Elvis.

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951)

There are many fine examples of the distinctive, insular world of ‘Ealing Comedy’ in the decade after WWII, but only three lodestars: KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS/’49; THE LAVENDER HILL MOB, and two months later, THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT/’51.  That last one, perhaps best of all, sharpest of social comedies as it tackles class, labor, management, commerce, science, family; each hilariously taken apart and put back together.  With CORONETS the blackest & probably best known (thanks to a famous casting stunt), it leaves MOB, gentlest of the set, perhaps the best one to start with.  Naturally, it stars Alec Guinness, the one element common to all three, dropping his ‘r’s as a mild-mannered accountant in charge of getting gold bullion safely across town and delivered to the bank.  But when fate, in the form of souvenir trinket manufacturer Stanley Holloway, moves into his rooming house, it’s a case of irresistible force meets movable object.  That object?  Miniature Eiffel Towers for the tourist trade; perfect for smuggling out of the country.  Screenwriter T.E.B. Clarke works out near perfect obstacles to the caper that wind up helping rather than hurting the enterprise, as well as memorable side characters.  (And, pace Hollywood, no romantic element at all.)  Cleanly helmed by Charles Crichton, an Ealing regular who knew when to add a clever touch* and when to stay out of the way.  (No wonder, John Cleese pulled him out of retirement for A FISH CALLED WANDA/’88.)  Even a fun little bonus in the form of an early bit for a pre-ROMAN HOLIDAY Audrey Hepburn looking downright radiant under Douglas Slocombe’s lensing.  The film’s a peach.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *As mentioned: KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS; MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/02/kind-hearts-and-coronets-1949.html   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-man-in-white-suit-1951.html

CONTEST: *One of those clever bits echt Ernst Lubitsch, the sort of proper ‘Lubitsch Touch’ many try, but few pull off.  Post your answer in COMMENTS to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choosing.

THE EIGER SANCTION (1975)

Think of it as Clint Eastwood finishing his apprenticeship.  His next as director, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES/’76, a masterpiece.  Here, surprisingly uneven, especially in close-action and fight scenes: staging, camera positioning, editing, all amateur city.  Though who’ll notice as the big surprise is just how much Clint was jonesing to be James Bond!  Who knew?  Not the next Connery or Roger Moore, instead anticipating the style of yet-to-be Bond Timothy Dalton (THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS/’87; LICENCE TO KILL/’89.)  Tougher, more realistic, with Eastwood’s semi-retired agent/Art History Prof at some Euro-University when he’s called back in to do a hit after a secret formula is stolen.  Plus, a follow-up contract killing.  Working for a mystery agency run by an evil mastermind (more Blofeld than ‘M’), his target an unknown assassin who’s part of a mountain climbing team.  That’s the second/lesser half of the film, handsomely shot in the Alps, but a big bore, in spite of Clint doing his own stunts.  Yet the film’s no lost cause since the first half, more Bond-like and loaded with Clint’s ideas of sexy Bond babes; line-back built George Kennedy an unlikely mountain trainer; and a passel of delightful villains for Eastwood to take out.  No one more so than B’way Musical Comedy star Jack Cassidy in a rare good film role as a fey former comrade, now out to dispose of his old pal.  Walking off with every scene he’s in, Cassidy, a notorious Lothario in real life, seldom clicked on film, but he’s supremely gay and threatening here.  Whoever thought of using him?  Give that man a gold star.  Alas, when he disappears halfway in, chilly mountain climbing and a guessable twist tanks the rest of the film.

(And the studio knew it.  See second poster, designed to look like more Dirty Harry fare.*)

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Another reason this got a bit lost is that producers Richard Zanuck & David Brown had JAWS/’75 coming out the next month.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned, Eastwood’s follow up, JOSEY WALES.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-outlaw-josie-wales-1976.html

GRAND HOTEL (1932)

Churning romantic folly, delicious right from its snazzy opening credits laying out Hollywood star-pecking order, circa 1932.  (Check poster to see who tops whom).  Garbo is doubly lauded: first-billed/last to appear on screen.  (Not till reel three; backed by a swell of Rachmaninoff.)  Visually clever fugal opening with figures in telephone booths filling us in on the back-story.  (Edmund Goulding’s direction surprisingly peppy for M-G-M, heightened by William Daniels’ dark-toned portraiture & overhead views.)  Then, a half a dozen life-or-death stories playing out simultaneously, seamlessly moving from lobby to upper floor suites, with stops for character revelation at the cocktail lounge and the dance floor.  Garbo’s ballet diva on the edge of collapse.  John Barrymore’s charming, penniless Baron hoping to rob only to be robbed of his heart.  Brother Lionel’s dying clerk, a rube among swells, out for a final fling with his savings.  (Look sharp for a small acting miracle when John confesses to this new acquaintance that he has no friends.)  Modern gal Joan Crawford, a secretary for hire (with benefits) to coarse, flailing industrialist Wallace Beery.  Lewis Stone’s disfigured doctor, watching life from the sidelines.  And Jean Hersholt as the hotel manager worrying about a wife in hospital having a difficult delivery.  Much of the drama, as well as the acting, now looks faintly ridiculous, not at all like the beloved Golden Age Hollywood films that still ‘tell’ in remarkably up-to-date ways.  (Especially those, like this, from the early ‘30s Pre-Code era.)  But one of the glories of this film is how it somehow lets us rediscover for ourselves what audiences of the day felt about all these glamorous/fatalistic comings and goings.  Even lines that now make you giggle (or gasp) in disbelief manage to make their dramatic mark.  Almost in spite of itself, the film remains consistently compelling.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  To a large extent, the formula is repeated in next year’s DINNER AT EIGHT/’33.  But in a dramatic vehicle with a far more modern, even ironic edge.  The two films nicely summing up the difference between HOTEL producer Irving Thalberg and DINNER’s David O. Selznick.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/11/dinner-at-eight-1933.html

CANNON FOR CORDOBA (1970)

Downsized just before production?  That might explain the impressive/expensive battle sequences (asst. director/action-specialist José María Ochoa wholly responsible?) while script, cast & character development more in line with a ‘Spaghetti Western’ wannabe.  Whatever Mirisch Production Company was shooting for, they settled for journeymen types on both sides of the camera on this 1916 Mexican border story that sees General Pershing send fast-fading/fair-haired star George Peppard across-the-border undercover to neutralize six stolen US cannons and bring back the Revolutionary bandito who stole them (heavily Italian-accented Raf Vallone).  Other non-first-choices include journeyman director Paul Wendkos and most of cast.  One of whom, devilishly handsome Pete Duel, in a last feature before committing suicide at 31 (still something of mystery) and also a final gig for Mexican cinematographer Antonio Macasoli.  Only Hollywood composer Elmer Bernstein (using Brazil’s Heitor Villa-Lobos for Mexican inspiration) along with that super-charged second-unit were likely first-choice.  Easy to see how this one might have worked better*, but as it is, the sum far less than its imbalanced parts.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  *Sergio Leone shows what this might have been in his final, and still underappreciated, DUCK YOU SUCKER!/’72.  Another filmed-in-Mexico  ‘Spaghetti Western.’ https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/09/duck-you-sucker-1972.html

AMERICAN ANIMALS (2018)

Blech.  Remarkably unappealing true-crime* story about four Kentucky college students who come together on a botched heist of rare books.  The gimmick is that the 20-something quartet of would-be crooks play out this real life scenario as if it were a ‘high concept’ pitch meeting for a proposed movie.  (Note brief sequence imagining the crime perfectly playing out, a la GAMBIT/’66.)  Though not particularly wealthy, the sense of youthful entitlement is overwhelming for this quartet of under-achieving Raskolnikovs*, while preparation and execution are missing.  They might be watching themselves on a darkly comic adventure they are unable to stop as it turns progressively grim.  (Could all four be this collectively dumb?)  Even when they initially abort mid-mission, they don’t take the hint to call it off for good.  At which point, the film tries to turn serious, but can't get past rancid as writer/director Bart Layton, with a background in documentary, continues to look for sympathy and understanding long after we stop caring.  (Though note that one of the lead actors, Barry Keoghan, is head & shoulders above the rest.)  Layton even has the real-life counterparts show up in sporadic sound bite interviews to plead their case.  No dice.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: If only these guys had watched a heist film with fuck-ups, like BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET/’58, instead of ones with a cooler-than-thou vibe.  Maybe they’d have had thought twice and let the fantasy die.  (*They definitely hadn’t read CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Paid by your blog poster who initially typed ‘rue-crime’ instead of ‘true-crime.’  Sort of a Freudian typo, an accurate one.

MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL (1984)

In possibly the saddest of Disney’s occasional attempts to reestablish Mickey Mouse as a working animated character and not just a safe corporate logo or the domesticated suburban Dad he was in the ‘50s (his Fred MacMurray period), the company ‘imagineers’ done him wrong by casting the former ‘30s anarchist as ‘mousey’ Bob Crachit in this ‘tab show’ version of the Dickens’ classic running about half an hour.  With ‘Scrooge’ McDuck as Ebenezer Scrooge (shouldn’t he be playing Jacob Marley with Mickey taking a shot at the lead, so the transformation would actually be touching?), and a host of cross-plugs for Disney regulars to fill out the rest of the cast.  (Admittedly, Mole and Water Rat from WIND AND THE WILLOWS as the two men asking for donations an inspired touch.  But you can’t even begin to make a decent CHRISTMAS CAROL if you skip those personificating youngsters ‘Ignorance’ and ‘Want.’)  And technically, note how the animators open the film with a wan repeat of the stupendous multi-plane shot from PINOCCHIO/’40 moving from on high down into the town, here done sans multi-plane technical daring.  No doubt too expensive for a short originally shown on tv as part of a holiday package.  Needless to say, Mickey returned to glad-handing duties like some old boxer in Las Vegas used as a greeter to bring customers into various Disney park properties around the world.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  See our Christmas Carol Write-Ups via this LINK, including the one most like this, the remarkable MR. MAGOO version from 1962.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/search?q=dickens+christmas+carol

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Dickens’ original story, when properly caught in a dramatization, should be as scary as one of the classic early Disney animated features.

CITY HEAT (1984)

Called in to take over direction from Blake Edwards after ‘creative differences,’* Richard Benjamin (in just his third film) can’t find a rhythm to make this featherweight 1930s period piece play.  Clint Eastwood & Burt Reynolds (working under his own hair), cop and P.I. in a glossy if never-named Kansas City*, were the commercial impetus for making the film, but Clint comes off primus inter pares.  And while everyone works to keep this from becoming too cute for words, they only fitfully succeed in resuscitating the hoary tropes.  You can see what they were up against: jazz clubs and book-keeping swindles; an unsolved murder and romance starved dames (Madeline Kahn & Jane Alexander, both underused); machine-gun rubouts & boxing action.  Slick & watchable at a quick 93", you can spot the stars using their pull behind the scenes: Burt gets a favored cinematographer; Clint gets his preferred composer and a final rewrite.  You can also spot something going on with Reynolds’ weight.  Whenever he takes off the raincoat, he seems to drop twenty pounds.  (Apparently, the result of a stunt injury early in the shoot.) 

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Working similar terrain, Robert Altman’s KANSAS CITY/’96 is a less light-hearted 1930s jazz-infused underworld drama.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/04/kansas-city-1996.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK:  *Edwards’ pseudonym is Sam O. Brown (S.O.B.).  But he got an even better last laugh, since ankling this freed up his schedule for one of the rare films he directed but didn’t write, MICKI & MAUDE/’84, one of his best late works.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/05/micki-maude-1984.html  On the other hand, Edwards repurposed ideas from here into the slapdash SUNSET/’88.

CONVICTS 4 (1962)

With a cast list that reads like the MidNite Movie from Hell (or is it Heaven?), Ben Gazzara, Sammy Davis Jr., Stuart Whitman, Broderick Crawford, Vincent Price, Rod Steiger (as Tiptoes!), Ray Walston, Timothy Carey (even more florid than usual), and Jacks Kruschen & Albertson, this fact-inspired prisoner’s reformation tale ought to be better . . . or at least more entertaining.  Instead, enfeebled direction by well-regarded scripter Millard Kaufman (he never tried again) keeps this from getting off the ground.  (Distributor Allied Artists hoping to catch back-draft from classy, just released prison redemption drama THE BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ; Burt Lancaster/John Frankenheimer.  That one straying even farther from the facts.)  Here, Gazzara gets a last minute reprieve from Death Row and finds a champion in warden-to-be Stuart Whitman.  Or will if he survives tough wardens Crawford & Steiger.  Though Gazzara proves hardly worthy of second chances (or third or fourth), Whitman proves just as stubborn to find the good hiding inside.  (How?  Why?)  But after three decades of bad moves, Gazzara finally finds a way out thru painting.  Turns out prison commissioner Vincent Price is also an art expert!  It’s a one-minute scene, likely filmed in an afternoon.  Also the likely shooting schedule for Steiger & Crawford.  (Someone calling in a few favors?)  But neither the weirdly strong acting contingent, nor top talent like Oscar-winners composer Leonard Rosenman* and lenser Joseph F. Biroc able to prop up Kaufman’s missing mise-en-scène.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *How did the Gazzara character end up on Death Row for murder without ‘malice aforethought?’  Would it even have been considered Murder One?  Not pre-planned; not even his gun.  Get this man an appeal and a new lawyer!

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Note that Rosenman, whose top scores came early (EAST OF EDEN; THE COBWEB; REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE - all 1955) was Oscar’d on BOUND FOR GLORY/’77 and BARRY LYNDON/’76.  Academy voters undoubtedly confusing him with Woody Guthrie and Franz Schubert.

SLUZOBNÍCI / SERVANTS (2020)

Writer/director Ivan Ostrochovský’s award-winner looks back in anger and sorrow at the hemorrhaging barriers between Church and State in Communist Yugoslavia, circa 1980.  The situations & current crisis (a liberal priest instructor dead under unexplained circumstances) seen mostly, but not exclusively, thru the eyes of two 20-something seminarians who ought to be conjugating their theological ABCs.  (Twelve years after the ‘velvet revolution’ was brutally ended, it feels as if the country has regressed a decade or two.)  Filmed in squarish b&w Academy Ratio, you may initially be reminded of Pawel Pawlikowski’s superb IDA/’13, but this film never hits the same level of technical control.  In his second feature, Ostrochovský’ goes for the long slow boil and sometimes lets the flame go out altogether as religious elders on staff try to justify moral compromises between religious and secular authorities just to keep the order from closing down entirely.  A dilemma that has them attempting to enlist students as informers to help find out who’s coordinating the circulation of banned books or instigating a hunger strike.  But Ostrochovský lets too many pivotal moments slip by in an unvaried atmosphere of discontent.  One priest goes so far as to break his confessional vows of silence.  A real shock when he tells us, but did we see it happen?  Beautifully shot, austere in design, and well acted, the relationship between the two friends as they start to keep secrets from each other (both in their film debut) very compelling.  But it's easy to imagine this being more effective with another film or two under Ostrochovský’s belt.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  As mentioned, IDA.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/11/ida-2013.html

BLUE'S BIG CITY ADVENTURE (2022)

From Nickelodeon, a BLUE’S CLUES Live-Action/Animation mix musical too enjoyable to be entirely wasted on youth.  Not that the target audience (toddlers to twelve?) won’t enjoy the fast-paced silliness & fourth-wall breakage as puppy-dog Blue and puppyish pal Joshua Dela Cruz head to NYC for his big B’way audition.  But without remembering to bring the theater address, how will they ever find it?  Moving steadily forward via fun visual effects, a simple goal, good friends trying to help (local New Yorkers & lively inanimate objects on a rescue mission from home), and a pure heart, they sing & dance their way thru a brightly lit city with special attention paid to the Main Public Library at 42nd & Fifth (the one with lions Patience & Fortitude), Food Cart pretzels, and the pathways & public spaces of Central Park.  Looking spectacularly crisp, sunny & clean (wait till the kids get Mom & Dad to take them to the real locations!), with pauses for intimate asides to ask viewers for help spotting those ‘clues,’ the film misses a trick by sticking to all production numbers all the time, even when the show’s big finale seems to call for a quiet, thoughtful change-of-pace solo for Josh.  But wait, the creatives think so too, swapping bold & brassy hip-hop for a lovely little solo encore for him back at home.*  (Worry not, the credits bring on one more up-tempo number.)  Sweet-natured stuff, without being saccharine.  Writer/producer Angela Santomero has been ‘Blue Cluing’ forever, but newbie director Matt Stawski already fits right in.

ATTENTON MUST BE PAID/LINK:  *Adorable enough to steal focus from an animated blue puppy, ultra-high energy Joshua Dela Cruz could easily turn Tommy Steele (HALF A SIXPENCE/’67) cringey, but instead is more like Donald O’Connor at his SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN/'52 best.   He even does an O’Connor signature move using a wooden chair as a ‘dance prop’ tip-over step.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/08/half-sixpence-1967.html

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: It’s been a long time since Tim Burton saw similar breakout potential for a kids’ film appealing to grownups in PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE/’85.  (Note similar titles.)  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/pee-wees-big-adventure-1985.html

THREE CAME HOME (1950)

Underseen & undersung, this WWII drama about the British colony in Borneo, sent to Japanese prison camps as enemy aliens ‘for the duration,’ is also unexpectedly fine and unexpectedly tough.  (Decades of lousy ‘duped’ Public Domain editions didn’t help its rep.  Decent ones available if you look.)  Director Jean Negulesco, in his pre-CinemaScope period at 20th/Fox, doesn’t need to ramp up the stakes on this true story, written by the sole American in the group, Agnes Newton Keith, beautifully played by Claudette Colbert in something of a career pivot toward character roles after a series of popular post-war domestic comedies.  Going well beyond the usual Hollywood deglamorized look*, she and Sussue Hayakawa, as the conflicted/semi-sympathetic Japanese Colonel in charge of all the prison camps, pull off some tricky scenes of grudging respect unusual for the period.  Even Patric Knowles as the husband sent to ‘men’s camp’ God-knows-where has a rare good part.  But the cast is all good here, not too noble/not too hysterical, with some scenes far more brutal than you expect for 1950.  One involving some female-starved Australian prisoners flips from comic relief to death trap with the speed of a master.  On the other hand, Negulsco misses a trick by sticking with the same young actor as Colbert’s little boy over three and a half years of growth.  Elsewise, top creative people all ‘round: script Nunnally Johnson, a Hugo Friedhofer score, lensing Milton Krasner.  The film should be much better known.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK/DOUBLE-BILL:  *The most self-aware of actors, Colbert gave the okay for all sorts of ’wrong’ angles on a face she normally only allowed to be shot from her ‘good’ side.   A privilege she certainly didn’t waive on her previous war-themed project, SO PROUDLY WE HAIL/’43.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/so-proudly-we-hail-1943.html

IKI SAFAK ARASINDA / BETWEEN TWO DAWNS (2021)

From Turkey, a modest but impressive debut for writer/director Selman Nacar.  Deceptively simple, it largely holds to unadorned DOGME filmmaking principles on its story about avoidable & unavoidable consequences after an industrial accident at a textile factory.  You expect a lot of the yin and yang tropes that follow (inevitable accident or possible safety code violations; looking the other way on a rush job at the factory or worker’s fault; a cover up by the owners about equipment problems or a worker with a history of drinking?).  On-going backstories over family relationships come into play, especially for the manager’s kid brother (second son of the plant owner) who’s due that night to formally meet the parents of the woman he’s all but engaged to.   And when he tries to do the right thing by all parties, lies are uncovered and he’ll learn more than he’d like to know about his place in the family hierarchy as ‘second son,’ less backup scion than expendable commodity.  Thoughtfully somber and deliberately paced, you only realize how much has been packed into the straightforward narrative when you look back.  Impressive stuff.  Perfectly cast; dismayingly believable.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Technically & structurally, Nacar has a lot of Asghar Farhadi in his cinematic DNA.  Best known for A SEPARATION/’11, try his excellent followup, THE PAST/’14.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/11/le-passe-past-2014.html   Thematically, it’s more what James Gray (WE OWN THE NIGHT/’07; THE YARDS/’00) thinks he’s doing.

TORCH SONG (1953)

Coming off a late mid-career high in SUDDEN FEAR/’52, Joan Crawford turned from woman-in-jeopardy thriller to bitch-diva backstager in this miscalculated return to M-G-M after a decade away.  Working in TechniColor at 48, Joan looks different in every scene, but never right*; bulldozing her way past human & production obstacles as star of a singing/dancing B’way extravaganza.  It’s all star prerogative & my-way-or-the-highway on personal & professional matters, causing her to lose her long-time truth-telling accompanist then struggling with his independent-minded replacement in blind Michael Wilding.  Unused to feedback, she'd rather stick to her lonely life than try a suggested ritardando.  Can these two figure out their inevitable mutual attraction?  Originally developed for Lana Turner (though it might have been just the thing for Judy Garland if she hadn’t departed M-G-M), Crawford’s not the only one pressing too hard under Charles Walters’ bemused direction.  (He gives everyone enough rope to hang themselves.)  There's also an odd subplot involving Crawford's distinctly lower-middle-class mom (Oscar nom’d Marjorie Rambeau).  But let’s face it, the elephant in the room is Joan’s bizarre finale, a verison of Dietz & Schwartz’s ‘Two-Faced Woman’ (the track a leftover from THE BAND WAGON/’53) done in modified BlackFace.   Yikes!  (The makeup darker at big dramatic points.)  As if Crawford’s stage presence weren’t enough on its own.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  Skip Crawford in TechniColor for Crawford in TruColor the following year in JOHNNY GUITAR.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/02/johnny-guiter-1954.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Wilding shows his true feelings playing a faux-Lisztian arrangement of Crawford’s signature tune, ‘Tenderly,’ unaware she’s in the room.  His NYC bachelor’s apartment almost as lux and antiseptic as her never-left-the-sketch-board penthouse. 

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Only once, lip-synching on stage to India Adams singing ‘You Won’t Forget Me’ does Crawford finally get a decent look (dress, makeup, hair).  And what a difference!; suddenly, she looks downright sane.

THIS TIME FOR KEEPS (1947)

Puerile Esther Williams musical (one of her weakest, which is saying something!), is strictly for completists.  Not Williams completists; Stanley Donen completists.  Richard Thorpe megs the hokey, downright nonsensical Joe Pasternak production, while Donen, credited on screen for ‘Dances and Water Ballet,’ likely staged, choreographed and directed them.  The sort of busy work M-G-M assigned to him during what must have seemed a demotion after ‘assisting’ Gene Kelly on major set pieces in COVER GIRL/’44 and ANCHORS AWEIGH/’45.*  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/cover-girl-1944.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/09/anchors-aweigh-1945.html  There’s only so much Donen can do on a story that sees Williams’ water ballet gal running hot-and-cold for smooth, but bland singer Johnny Johnston, fresh out of the army.  HE: unaware of her family showbiz dynasty that sends him to Mackinac Island, MI for Grandma’s approval.  SHE: unaware his father is world-famous heldentenor Lauritz Melchoir.  Let the misunderstandings begin.  Friend of the family Jimmy Durante shows up to be jealous in a fatherly manner and perform one of his specialty songs (‘I’m the Man Who Found the Lost Chord’).  For Donen, the big water ballet comes rather early and is a bit puny.  Donen does get to tether his chorus of beauties underwater where they presumably drown, unseen by the audience above ground.  Sacrifice or waste?  Donen probably was thinking the same thing about what the studio was asking him to do.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK: Donen next worked with Williams on the far superior TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME/’49.  On that one, Williams felt dissed and refused to let Donen make his solo directing debut on her PAGAN LOVE SONG/’50.  A film so bad its director never megged again.  No wonder Donen credited Williams with saving his Hollywood career.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/04/take-me-out-to-ball-game-1949.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Per Donen on working with Kelly: Who assisted whom a point of contention.

QUINTET (1979)

Robert Altman was well into his post-NASHVILLE doldrums when he made this ill-conceived dystopian drama on the dwindling survivors of a new Ice Age, frittering away the time they have left playing everyone’s favorite lethal dice game ‘Quintet.’  A starry international cast (Vittorio Gassman, Fernando Rey, Bibi Andersson, UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS’ David Langton) drone out monotonous exposition & philosophical thoughts, but can’t make human dialogue out of Altman’s weighty pronouncements.  Paul Newman’s the Last Potent Man*, but rises to no more than a companionate sleep-over.  Mostly, he roams around the safe house, a brutalist bunker against wintry climate.  (With an interior like the exterior of the Georges Pompidou Center . . . if they’d stopped paying the electric bill.)  Those who stick around in spite of the blurred Vaseline-edged compositions get rewarded with a perplexed reaction shot for the ages from Newman after hearing Gassman’s big justification speech in the last act.  (The one laugh in the pic.)  Others may enjoy some percussive bits in a score reminiscent of Jack Buchanan’s production of OEDIPUS REX in Vincente Minnelli’s THE BAND WAGON/’53.  There it was intentionally OTT.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: *Sean Connery held Last Erection honors to far better effect in John Boorman’s wackadoodle oddity ZARDOZ/’74.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/03/zardoz-1974.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Newman had far more luck with ‘solid-craftsman’ directors than with legends.  Huston, Hitchcock, Altman all failed him . . . and vice versa.  (THE COLOR OF MONEY/’86, his Oscar winner with Scorsese has its champions . . . good luck finding them.)

BROTHERS OF THE WIND / L'AIGLE ET L'ENFANT (2015)

An aura of melancholy and wasted opportunity clings to ‘can’t miss’ films when they miss.  Like LEATHERHEADS/’08, George Clooney’s ‘rollicking’ flop on early pro football; George Lucas’s stillborn  passion-project RED TAILS/’12 about Black WWII pilots; WINDTALKERS/’02, a botched slam-dunk about Navajo Marines bamboozling code-breaking Nazis with their indecipherable native tongue.  And now, meeting all ‘can’t miss’ criteria, BROTHERS OF THE WIND, your basic boy and his dog story, but with an abandoned eaglet in the canine spot, comes up short.  With their documentary background, Gerardo Olivares & Otmar Penker manage some spectacular Alps footage as Eagle Abel (that’s what the kid calls him), slips from the nest and is found, fed & flown by the boy.  One astounding long take follows Abel on the back of a mountain goat as they tumble down half a mountain.  If only the plot weren’t a smorgasbörd of tropes from different cafeterias: mostly WHITE MANE/’53; BORN FREE/’66; and KES/’69.*  Or its characters decently motivated.  Boy and Dad’s relationship most mysterious; what are they doing alone in the Alps anyway?  And then there’s Johnny-on-the-Spot mountain ranger Jean Reno, our long-winded narrator.  Is he tracking the kid with a GPS monitor or what?  If only the boy were a more compelling camera presence.  Our filmmakers all too obviously jonesing for the effortlessly fashionable, yet naturalistic Alain Emery, the boy in Albert Lamorisse’s classic WHITE MANE.  In comparison, this feels patronizing of young and old.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: *WHITE MANE and KES, as mentioned above.  (BORN FREE hasn’t aged well.)  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/08/kes-1969.html            https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/02/crin-blanc-le-cheval-sauvage-white-mane.html

OR:  A closer match, in true documentary form, seen in THE EAGLE HUNTRESS/’16.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-eagle-huntress-2016.html

GOD'S LITTLE ACRE (1958)

Best-selling author Erskine Caldwell’s burgoo of Southern White Trash, sex, no ‘count morals, sex, perversion, greed, incest and did I forget sex (?), now comes across as something of a toxic mix.  TOBACCO ROAD, the longest B’way run of the ‘30s (eight years) and this book, one of the biggest of bestsellers, barely remembered beyond their titles.  As a film, TOBACCO just about the least revived of major John Ford films; ACRE a blip in Anthony Mann’s run of classic ‘50s Westerns.  A big cast (Robert Ryan, flustered & loud; Aldo Ray, beefy & hirsute; Tina Louise, delectably debuting; plus Jack Lord, Vic Morrow, Rex Ingram, Buddy Hackett, Michael Landon) is around to dig huge pits around the family manse, searching for rumored buried gold when they should be planting cotton and watching over their sharecroppers’ acreage.  Instead, everyone salivating over all those bosomy gals who just can’t decide which fella they should settle on.  Tiresome doings, and nothing to fix in the kitchen for meals but grits with a little bacon drippings.  All in all, dinner sounds more appetizing than anything else on display.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan in BABY DOLL/’56 cover the milieu in hilarious, steamy style.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/baby-doll-1956.html

HOUSE OF WOMEN (1962)

The spirit is willing but the flesh is meek in this women’s prison drama from scripter Crane Wilbur and fast fading ‘King of the ‘Bs’ producer Bryan Foy.  (His penultimate credit . . . out of 255!)  The pair missing the pulse & vigor they were still putting out as late as WOMEN’S PRISON/’55.*  A shame since the story has some unusual touches for the genre, especially in having kids living in prison dorms next to mom till they turn three.  (Is this fact-based?)  That’s the situation Shirley Knight finds herself in, unable to find a friend or relative to take her child while she waits for a favorable parole hearing.  But tough warden Andrew Duggan isn’t going for it.  Seems the tough guy who’s never led a women’s penitentiary before, has gone ‘soft’ on Knight and wants to keep her close by.  Parole denied, the inmates rise up in revolt and a hostage crisis prison riot.  Easy to imagine what producer Foy would have done with this set-up back in his mid-1930s to mid-1940s Warners’ heyday.  All those tasty contract players on board for a few days of shooting; high contrast process lab work adding  layers of chiaroscuro to edgy compositions; newspaper headlines to tighten the pace; unbearable tension & maudlin music to pump up the death of one of the cute kids . . .  No more.  Now, it’s all flat tv lighting and attempts at naturalistic acting.  Boo!

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: As mentioned, WOMEN’S PRISON/’55.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/09/womens-prison-1956.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  How did Shirley Knight, with Oscar nom’s for SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH/’61 and DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS/’62 book-ending, land as the lead in this bottom-of-the-bill programmer?  (Hope she got a new agent but pronto!)

KANKO NO MACHI / JUBILATION STREET (1944)

While Japanese director Keisuke Kinoshita came to regret his early work made during WWII, this summer of 1944 film must be about as far as you could get at the time from parroting war effort slogans & patriotic jingoism.  A gentle look at a small neighborhood, just a few blocks on Jubilation Street, due for demolition/redevelopment, and the remaining tenants putting their affairs in order before moving out.  A nervous husband with a pregnant wife.  A pair of romantic neighbors unable to convince either parents that they should marry.  He’s a rare catch since his military service as a test pilot keeps him in the city.  If only his father hadn’t split ten years ago her parents might give them the okay to wed.  A small business trying to finish all their back orders before closing up shop, bidding goodbye to an old workhorse of a tool & die machine as if it were a favorite uncle.  Small kindnesses, rueful reproaches, and rote promises to stay in touch, the formalities of civility.  Tragedy will strike, a missing relative will return too late, a new life will start, everything will go on/nothing will be the same.  Subtly and suitably handled by Kinoshita in a manner that recalls the mysterious manner Hollywood’s Leo McCarey held his sentimental/episodic films together.  Both getting us instantly involved in the hopes & troubles of their dramatis personae.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Kinoshita likes to end bitter arguments or misunderstandings by slamming shut one of those traditional Japanese sliding doors.  Less violent, noisy or satisfying than a hinged swinging door getting slammed.  A lesson in Japanese etiquette & custom built on domestic architecture.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: For more WWII Kinoshita Write-Ups: https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/search?q=kinoshita

GRAND SLAM (1967)

As generic as its title, this international caper pic rides on the long, powerful wake of Jules Dassin’s RIFIFI/’55, the game-changer that shook up the genre with violence and its ‘real-time’ robbery sequence.  Here, Edward G. Robinson’s retired professor thinks up the plan after teaching for thirty years across the street from Rio de Janiero’s diamond exchange.  His big idea: all those gems, sitting in the building for days rather than hours . . . but only when a delivery coincides with the Rio Carnival.  He’ll need four men to pull it off: a playboy to woo Janet Leigh’s keeper of the key; an acrobat to get around the laser-assisted alarm system; a lock-picker; and a tough guy enforcer.  That last is Klaus Kinski, overdoing it as usual, the other three journeymen actors.  It gives you an opportunity for wishful recasting during the robbery as Ennio Morricone’s Mardi Gras bossa novas play in an endless loop. Wile away the time over this paint-by-the-numbers robbery sequence imagining, say, Roger Moore, David Niven, Charles Bronson and Jack Palance as the four experts.*)  There’s a triple twist ending, but since you’ll guess all three, it’s not much of twist.  Next year, Eddie G. did this all over again, with a comic tilt, to even less effect in THE BIGGEST BUNDLE OF THEM ALL/’68. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-biggest-bundle-of-them-all-1968.html

WATCH THIS NOT THAT/LINK:   Comic-tinged caper a tactic Dassin hit upon three years before this to fine effect in TOPKAPI/’64.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/03/topkapi-1964.html  OR: *Blake Edwards begins THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER/’75 in fairly straight caper fashion, but with Christopher Plummer effectively playing all four criminal roles before Peter Sellers even shows up.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/return-of-pink-panther-1975.html

DOWNHILL (1927)

Alfred Hitchcock was generally dismissive of this unplanned follow up to THE LODGER, co-written by Ivor Novello who starred in both.*  A Poor Little Rich Boy tale for the 34-yr-old Ivor, playing a school boy who takes the blame for a pal’s indiscretion with a staff member.  Sent DOWN from school for the misdeed, Novello stumbles ever lower (bad marriage; cheap chorus boy; low class paid dancer at a chintzy French club; addiction; delirium on a boat home), every debasement announced by downward trajectory on: an escalator DOWN; an elevator DOWN; a ship’s ladder DOWN.  Subtle it ain’t.  But if script symbolism is a bit scrappy, execution, though rather slow paced in the first half, shows wild imagination, striking technical finish, a command of trick effects, and uncanny lens & lighting choices even for run-of-mill moments.  It also displays Hitchcockian misogyny ably supported by Novello and co-playwright Constant Collier.  (That's the same Collier who’d take a memorable role in Hitchcock’s ROPE/’48.)  The whole film worth seeing for the dance hall sequence alone, especially when the drapes open to sunlight, revealing the scuzzy truth beneath makeup & formal wear.  A hideous display of aging flesh, elegance tattered, shabby furnishings & morals, the very dregs of humanity.  And the  sole sympathetic ‘customer’ revealed as a transvestite.  Yikes!  (This in 1927.)  And while Hitchcock always called THE LODGER the first real Hitchcock film (the second not till BLACKMAIL/’29), this one, loaded with delectable detours & perversions, is just too weird to miss.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Released in the States as WHEN BOYS LEAVE HOME (minus three reels of footage), its best title may be in French as THAT’S LIFE . . .  (see poster)

DOUBLE-BILL:  *Noël Coward on Novello: ‘The two most beautiful things in the world are Ivor's profile and my mind.’   Two qualities missing in Hitch’s next film, a silent adaptation of Coward’s play EASY VIRTUE/’27 (not seen here) starring this film’s irresponsible wife, Isabel Jeans.

CRISTO SI È FERMATO A EBOLI / CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI (1978)

First, that mellifluous/evocative title, better known than the memoir or film.  The story set not in but south of Eboli, in one of the poorest/most forgotten areas of Italy.  The idea being that this region was too hard even for Christ (or his spirit) to reach.  And it’s where Mussolini’s 1930s government sent writer/painter Carlo Levi into ‘internal exile’ on vague charges, mostly for being a progressive intellectual Northerner from Turin.  A medical student who never practiced, but turned to painting and literature, he barely speaks the far south dialect.  But he can observe.  And this is what Francesco Rosi’s quietly patient, utterly compelling film does.  Here, in the full 4-part tv edition (on Criterion), nearly doubling the theatrical release in length and effectiveness.  (Ingmar Bergman’s nearly contemporary FANNY AND ALEXANDER benefits in much the same way when seen in its full 5-hour tv version.)  There is an overriding story arc dealing with Carlo Levi’s gradual acceptance of the need for his medical expertise in spite of being banned by local authorities from seeing patients, but that merely provides a bit of structure to the vignettes he finds around him as he grows more accustomed to the lifestyle balance that holds the community back from the modern world even as it bonds them.  Any idea that the state, and whatever political party is in power, could understand the issues remote.  Beautifully shot by Pasqualino De Santis (ROMEO AND JULIET; DEATH IN VENICE) and featuring more professional actors than you expect (Irene Papas, Alain Cuny) alongside non-professionals, the film is magnificently held together by Gian Maria Volonté’s Levi: guide, provocateur, artist, auditing student of humanity.  The real Levi, whose painting are featured in the film, seems politically near to the George Orwell, pro-proletariat non-communist left-wing, but living a particularly dangerous life as a Jew in the ‘30s who stayed in Italy.  Rosi never mentions his religion in a town where he may well have been the first Jew anyone had ever met.  But then, neither does Levi in his memoir of his year there.)  Sui generis stuff here.  Even more priceless now that the town, its cave dwellings, suspicious ways and primitive lifestyle, has morphed into a chic artistic colony.  Christ now unable to book a fall reservation.  (NOTE: Not thrilled by any of the the film posters.  That's a book cover above.)

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  The technique Rosi uses to present this unusual film owes something in its effect to classical Chinese landscape paintings.  The ones that use walking, rather than one-point, perspective.’  A focal point that seems to walk alongside the painter just as here we might be walking alongside the author.

THE TAKEOVER (2022)

Computer thriller from The Netherlands stars Holly Mae Brood as a natural teen hacker, now grown up and working for a systems safety company.  Taking care of an emergency threat with a ‘Trojan Horse’ patch, she’s off on a rare date night only to find both her temporary fix and her promising date blowing up in her face.  Turns out, the system she made the patch for, an auto-drive bus company, is connected to a bigger & dangerously lethal organization who can’t get around her ‘Trojan Horse’ temp solution and are busy tracking her down, forcing her and her lousy date to run for their lives.  The film covers familiar ground, think Hitchcock innocents-on-the-run (SPELLBOUND/’45; NORTH BY NORTHWEST/’59) plus a big lift from SPEED/’94, using slick computer graphic effects that happily are somewhat restricted by a non-Hollywood budget..  What makes it work anyway, in spite of too many problems solved with furious computer keyboard typing*, are good characterizations.  Lean mean murdering villain; pudgy tech mentor; ambiguous blonde bus company exec; and especially the initially disappointing date who sticks around and shows just how valuable a non-intellectual doofus can be in a pinch.  Played by 30-ish actor Geza Weisz, he pretty much steals the pic, clumsily backing into heroics with the puppy-like appeal of a young Mathieu Amalric.  Somebody grab this guy for Hollywood!

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Today’s furious computer typing analogous to those newspaper headlines used back in ‘30s.  And now, even this is being replaced by hard to read TEXT messaging.

MULAN (2020)

Delayed time & again for production or scheduling issues before becoming an early Covid casualty (‘mixed’ release with theatrical & ‘Pay Wall’ streaming), then a rushed home video rollout, its commercial buzz long dissipated.  Seen now plain after all the hand-ringing by company bean-counters, it proves a dutiful, but sadly uninspired Live-Action remake of the superior 1998 cartoon version.  (One of Disney’s last hand-drawn animated features.)  Director Niki Caro and the writing team don’t do a slavish copy, no need on such an oft-told tale, but can’t find (or hold) a proper tone that works for family comedy tropes and military action as Mulan, a country family’s eldest daughter disguised as a young man, spirits away to join the Emperor’s Army in place of her aged father.  (Actress Liu Yifei such a bland presence, you hardly note the gender identity flips.)  And no one seems to have figured out how to get in and out of the CGI ‘sweetened’ action moves, giving the film a stop/start quality at all the wrong times.  (They might be practicing fancy moves for the NBA All-Star slam-dunk competition.)  Some grand vistas and mass movements are handsomely brought off, downright frame-worthy as compositions, but the storyline feels emotionally impervious behind all the pageantry.  Right at the end, when Mulan comes home, things loosen up a bit, but all too late.  Same-O on the film’s botched release, all too late.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  If you’re looking for a Disney version of the story, stick with animated MULAN.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/09/mulan-1998.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  The final fight as Mulan fights off attack on shifting scaffolding might be out of a Harold Lloyd silent comedy ‘thrill’ sequence.

THE LAS VEGAS STORY (1952)

The early ‘50s found Jane Russell playing lady adventuress in films noir at Howard Hughes’ increasingly dysfunctional R.K.O.  Here, Victor Mature steps in for Robert Mitchum who did the one before (HIS KIND OF WOMAN/’51) and the one after (MACAO/’52).*  Director Robert Stevenson, about to start five years of tv fare before landing as Disney’s first-choice house-director, puts out a smoother, if less fun product than the two with Mitchum.  (Smoother because it doesn't suffer so much from Hughes’ micromanaging & reshoots; less fun because Mitchum is such a cooler cat than Mature.)  But decent enough; and better than that at the climax with a wild helicopter ride and a cleanly executed multi-floor chase between Mature & the film’s Mr. Baddie.  Vincent Price is unusually sympathetic as Russell’s caring husband, unexpectedly stopping at Russell’s old stomping ground for a bit of gambling.  Little does she know her wealthy hubby has gone bankrupt and is desperate to raise cash on her fabulous diamond necklace.  Little does he know that Russell has a troubled history here, chanteuse to Hoagy Carmichael’s piano man and main squeeze to detective Mature.  Neatly played most of the way, with a few songs for seasoning (Carmichael does one number ‘live’ and his classic ‘I Get Along Without You Very Well’ supplies the main background), but alas, not nearly enough location stuff from this early era in Las Vegas history.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *As mentioned, the two surrounding pics with Mitchum.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/his-kind-of-woman-1951.html   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/07/macao-1952.html

78/52: HITCHCOCK’S SHOWER SCENE (2017)

Manna for film nerds.  Not the usual talking-heads career encomium, but a well considered discussion/ deconstruction of the shower scene from PSYCHO/’60.  A dissection of a dissection; four minutes that changed Hollywood trajectory & Hollywood technique.  (The title refers to the 78 camera set ups and 52 cuts in the scene.)  And while a few celebrity ringers are in the mix, no one bloviates.  (Well, no one but Peter Bogdanovich who has to pull out his tired Hitchcock impersonation.  But then, he’d long earned the right.)  Yet what’s truly unique about the shower sequence, and something that gets short shrift amid the hows & whys of this or that detail, is how the horror in it remains shocking to this day.  After sixty years of escalating graphic gore & sadistic sensationalism, the abstract precision of light, sound, music & movement still the stuff of nightmares & artistic inspiration.  Nicely abetted here by contrasting John L. Russell’s crisp, Murnau-influenced b&w cinematography against the richly saturated TechniColor Robert Burks was shooting for Hitchcock before & after.  (Plus snippets showing how disastrously Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake combined the two looks.)  And if Hitch himself always stuck to his view of PSYCHO as a ‘fun’ film (or did so in public), fellow director George Cukor, an exact contemporary, both born in 1899, and great admirer, put it better than anyone does here when he said: ‘Oh, he’s so perverse!  He’d never tell you what he really thinks.  Never, never!  I have the greatest respect and admiration for him, but he will never tell you!  He’s absolutely impassive and says ridiculous things in this solemn way.’  That last idea largely avoided in this little thesis film.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  PSYCHO the obvious choice.  Along with Hitchcock’s underrated return to form in FRENZY.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/08/frenzy-1972.html

LAYER CAKE (2005)

Matthew Vaughn segued from producing mod British action fare . . . with attitude (LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS/’98) to directing them as well.  Here a chucklingly gory tale that pulls the rug out on rival drug dealers as they negotiate rubouts & payoffs.  No surprise for a producer adding a directing shingle, he’s stronger at casting his film than executing story & action, not yet able to parse tricky reverses in operations as swaggering wheeler-dealer Daniel Craig pursues early retirement with a deal too big to refuse and an add-on mission to find a rival’s missing daughter . . . or else.  The dual assignment playing out like McGuffins we barely care about.  So the Spy-vs-Spy confrontations between Craig and other operators suffocate rather than blossom in spite of visual overdrive.  Lots of up-and-coming actors to spot (Tom Hardy, Ben Whishaw, wonderful Burn Gorman who’d make a ‘Guppy’ for the ages in next year’s BLEAK HOUSE/’05); as well as top pros like Colm Meaney and Michael Gambon as friend & foe.  (Gambon, steals all his scenes as usual, but looks perfectly awful, as if he’d just come off radiation treatment).  Craig’s the main draw though.  Exceptionally fit, still lithe & youthful, coiled for action & looking downright pretty doing it.  Very James Bond ready.  (CASINO ROYALE out two years later.)  But Vaughn’s film just too cynical for its own good.  (The downbeat ending completely unjustified in something this larky.)  Later fare progressively successful commercially, and progressively unpleasant to watch.

ELIZABETH (1998)

Turns out, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE wasn’t the only award-winning Elizabethan pic of 1998 to date badly.  Director Shekhar Kapur & scripter Michael Hirst not far behind with this posh, deceptively traditional view of a young queen’s unsentimental on-the-job education.  Glamorously cast (note last calls for Richard Attenborough & John Gielgud) with Cate Blanchett retreating into Virgin Queen persona when public & private disappointments prove friends, lovers & statesmen all unworthy of her affection.  Merely using her to leapfrog to power or take her down; flip the Church back to Catholicism or form one-sided alliances; siphon royal funds or stay in the Royal Renaissance sexual closet.  (That’s a new one!)  Only loyal/clever statesman/diplomat Walsingham (actual three-years age difference with Eliz stretched to 30 by a good, if miscast Geoffrey Rush) around to act as truth-teller/mentor.  The film is handsome to look at, especially if you have a tolerance for swirling cameras and high-angle shots, but the plotting turns progressively turgid (and frankly hard to follow) as Hirst works too hard to pull off a fugual climax with more public & private executions & assassinations than THE GODFATHER.  Anachronistically underscored with a vocalize based on Elgar’s Enigma Variations (‘Nimrod’) and, appallingly, the Mozart Requiem.  A shame, since, faults & all, the first half is a damn good show.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Much the same crew got back together for the less well received ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE/’07 (not seen here), scuttling plans for a third helping.   OR: You could say Elizabeth Tudor ‘built’ Hollywood since it was Sarah Bernhardt’s British-made four-reeler on QEI that convinced the ‘respectable’ trade to go see a movie when Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players (later Paramount) distributed it in 1912.  Later, Golden Age Hollywood saw Flora Robson & Bette Davis each play her twice (try THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX/’39) while the most underrated is M-G-M’s YOUNG BESS/’53.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-private-lives-of-elizabeth-and.html   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/05/young-bess-1953.html