BLACK WIDOW (1954)

After two decades as a favored writer/producer @ 20th/Fox, Nunnally Johnson began directing his own stuff. NIGHT PEOPLE/’54 with Greg Peck & a fast-talking Broderick Crawford came first and then this odd conflation of a swanky/bitchy NYC murder mystery like LAURA/’44 with a swanky/bitchy NYC backstager like ALL ABOUT EVE/’50. The attempt at high-style falls flat, even laughable, yet it’s quite watchable in a weird artificial way. Ginger Rogers, in B’way diva mode, is married to the weak, but likeable Reginald Gardiner and they live one floor above her producer, Van Heflin & his heiress wife Gene Tierney. Life gets complicated when scheming vixen Peggy Ann Garner is found dead in Heflin’s apartment. Then, when the investigating detective turns up, it’s a phlegmatic George Raft! That's more acting styles than even CinemaScope can hold, even on those football-sized drawing room sets designed for the depth-of-field problems inherent in those early CinemaScope lenses. The film is catnip for parodists, but why settle for a 'camp' knock-off when you can enjoy the real McCoy?

L’IMBALSAMATORE / THE EMBALMER (2002)

A creepy taxidermist (a ringer for Rumpelstiltskin) mentors a handsome young stud, overpays him with money borrowed from the Mafioso and plies him with wine, women & song. But the hunk is too dense & too straight to tumble into sex or enlightenment. It’s a neat set up for a perverse/erotic thriller, but megger Matteo Garrone doesn’t bother to connect the dots in his story. And, trained as a painter, he’s so busy ladling on his visual palette that he smothers everything in super-saturated color, posterized imaging and high contrast lighting.* No doubt, he’s trying to cover all the holes in his narrative, but noirs that can only move from plot point to plot point via character stupidity & contrivance quickly lose their power to take us over to the dark side. *Damned if it wasn't arty enough to earn a handful of Italian Film Awards & Nominations.

OHAYO / GOOD MORNING (1959)

Jasujiro Ozu, Japanese master of the quietly devastating domestic drama, is probably not the first name that comes to mind when you think fart jokes. But this deliciously funny sit-com (about kid brothers who refuse to speak until Dad buys a tv set) revels in them, getting insightful laughs from the very same themes Ozu typically treats with respectful melancholy. (It’s not unlike the relationship between Eugene O’Neill’s AH, WILDERNESS, with it’s proto-‘Father Know Best’ format and his devastating reworking of the same basic materials in his masterful LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT.) Set in the suburban tracts of tight single-unit homes, gossipy neighbors, and impossibly stubborn modern kids; all the narrative & stylistic ingredients you’d expect to find in late Ozu are here. Low camera position, splashes of red in every shot, those mysterious contemplative interstitial shots, glancing movement within the stillness of boxed compositions: now all subtly re-timed into comic mode. A formal etiquette designed to create misunderstandings, men who escape home to drink a bit too much in bars, disrespectful kids, fathers worried about their unmarried daughters, perfectly matched couples who won’t admit they’ve fallen in love: all repositioned for rueful comedy. But don’t hold in the laughs, the film is also LOL funny with lovely perfs from many Ozu regulars and exceptional kid performers. And, yes, farts; lots & lots of farts

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DON JUAN (1934)

Douglas Fairbanks last film ought to work better than it does.  The story idea both sound and well-suited for a middle-aged swashbuckler: Riddled with debt, Don Juan tries living incognito when a Don Juan imposter dies in a duel.  For a while, he enjoys some rare peace & quiet, but when he attempts to resume his true identity as the great lover, no one believes this aging gent could be the real Don Juan . . . and maybe that’s for the best.  Production designer Vincent Korda and lighting cameraman Georges Perinal turn in stellar work, and playwright Frederick Lonsdale’s script is literate & fun.  Best of all, Doug appears comfortable acting his age in a Talkie.  If only producer Alex Korda had let someone with a bit of directorial panache take over the reins on set.  Still, a pleasant & graceful final bow for Doug and, in its stiff way, looking pretty gorgeous in a Criterion DVD edition.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: That’s Australian baritone John Brownlee singing the opening number.  He’d play the Mozart/Da Ponte Don Giovanni in the legendary opening production at Glyndebourne Opera next year and make a recording that’s never left the classical catalogues.

NE LE DIS A PERSONNE / TELL NO ONE (2006)

In only his second film as director, French actor Guillaume Canet scores, weaving an innocent-man-on-the-run thriller with an ultra-twisty murder mystery detective story in a manner not seen since THE FUGITIVE/’93. It begins like this: Eight years after his wife’s violent disappearance, a still mournful husband receives an e-mail . . . from his ‘dead’ wife. Working from his own adaptation of Harlan Coben’s novel, Canet’s emphasis is less on the chase than on solving the multiple mysteries, which lends a more intellectual (perhaps French?) tone to the story line, especially in the film’s second half. Multiple layers of deceit necessitate an extended confessional finale to clear everything up, but it’s a small price to pay for all the beautifully handled episodes as deftly planted characters reappear for a turn in the plot. It’s beautifully structured stuff. As the husband on the run, François Cluzet heads a superb cast which deservedly won ensemble acing awards. But it’s Canet, who gives himself a small role, who’s the real hero here. Classic narrative cinema lives . . . at least, in France.

THE PEARL OF DEATH (1944)

There’s a pleasant zip to this Sherlock Holmes pic, one of twelve made during WWII @ Universal w/ Basil Rathbone & Nigel Bruce, which makes it a particularly good entry point for newbies. The Holmes/Watson relationship is particularly well-balanced here with Bruce getting a neat solo comic turn that also works as a plot point in the story line. And, this time out, that story line is taken from an actual Conan Doyle Holmes tale, THE SIX NAPOLEONS, the one about the fabulous stolen pearl with a deadly curse on it. As usual, the lack of depth in Universal contract players is regrettable, but the strong narrative elements and Roy William Neill ‘s efficient, yet atmospheric helming, make it less noticeable. So does the truly startling presence of Rondo Hattan as ‘The Creeper.’ Just for the record, this guy is not wearing any fright make-up. Yikes!

SOMETHING OF VALUE (1956)

No doubt, the relentlessly grim news out of Africa adds dramatic weight to Richard Brooks’ typically ham-fisted adaptation of Robert Ruark’s novel on Kenya & the Mau Mau uprising. But on its own terms, the film holds a fair amount of interest. Rock Hudson, with his California physique & accent, is surprisingly convincing as the scion of white Kenyan settlers. He and Sidney Poitier were raised like brothers, but now they are grown men and Poitier, rebelling at his reduced status in a colonial state, joins the Mau Mau terrorist revolutionaries. Brooks isn’t able to pull off the big emotional & action sequences, but he does nicely working the middle ground and in handling the domestic dramas. It doesn’t hurt to have Wendy Hiller in your cast, even if she’s playing Rock Hudson’s sister! With excellent tech work and a suitably African score overseen by the great Miklos Rozsa, this must have been a tough sell for producer Pandro Berman*, but the film outstrips many better known African films from the time.

*Note the title change on the Re-release poster. Always a sign of commercial desperation.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Brooks made CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF the following year and watching this film it's hard not to imagine what a great role Brick would have made for Hudson . . . and (pace Paul Newman) how good he might have been.  (Poitier also ideal for Brick.)

THE STRATTON STORY (1949)

This well-liked baseball bio (a tru-life tale of the Chicago pitcher who lost a leg in a hunting accident, but returned to play again) is boilerplate inspirational stuff that only comes fitfully to life in the overloaded last act. No doubt, megger Sam Wood got the gig because he had made THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES back in ’42, but the film feels & looks tired & routine; even the grey scale is compressed on the print and the studio lot exteriors haven’t a breath of air to them. Perhaps Wood was too ill to follow thru and get what he wanted; he died in ‘49 and the film was his penultimate release. James Stewart & June Allyson may have picked up on the general sense of lethargy since they overcompensate, laying on their worst mannerisms with a trowel. They’d do better together for Anthony Mann in THE GLENN MILLER STORY/’54. What James should have been working on was his pitching. He’s no major leaguer! But, as the has-been professional who stumbles upon Stratton & coaches him up to the majors, Frank Morgan, like Wood making his penultimate film, but still at the top of his scene-stealing form, shows how you do it with some nice snap-of-the-wrist motion on the ball. It’s the only believable thing in the pic.

EXCELLENT CADAVERS (2005)

An excellent, largely straightforward documentary into the workings of the Sicilian Mafia, focusing on the city of Palermo where so many bodies accumulated in the 1970s & 80s. The film, helmed by Marco Turco with a bit more embellishment than needed, is based on the investigative journalism of Alexander Stille who managed to sort out the three-sided war between rival Mafia families; the colluding political parties (local & national); and the twisted response from prosecuting magistrates who were not always fighting for the cause of truth & justice. Two who were, Giovanni Falcone & Paolo Borsellino, are the doomed heroes of the story, men who gave the government all the pieces needed to shut down the mob, but didn’t live to see the way in which indifference & a more subtle manner of influence peddling would erode the progress they had fought so hard for.

NOTE: Don’t confuse this FRF-DVD with the HBO docu-drama, also called EXCELLENT CADAVERS, which stars Chazz Palmenteri & F. Murray Abraham.