REILLY: ACE OF SPIES (1983)

Where has this British mini-series been hiding? A hair-raising tru-life adventure, it’s the reasonably fact-based story of Sidney Reilly: International Spy for King & Country . . . and Himself. Starring a commanding Sam Neill, with a touch of young Sean Connery about him* (something about the mouth, and that slash for a dimple), who carries the ball into 'enemy' camp over the first quarter of the last century, taking down foreign governments & fleets of war ships when he’s not filching top-secret security info or ladies’ hearts. The final two chapters (of twelve) lose a bit of momentum parsing early Soviet Union internecine Bolshevik battles, but the script is, in general, about as clear as these things can be. And without the padding that’s now so common. Bonus points for the host of famous faces floating by in supporting roles large & small (Alfred Molina, Leo McKern, John Castle, David Suchet, Bill Nighy, John Rhys-Davies, many more) and demerits for an unnecessary meta-physical/occult element, that horrid wig on Stalin, and for the Freemantle/Thames’ DVD which needs an upgrade. (But don’t let that stop you.)

READ ALL ABOUT IT/LINK/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Ridley, né Shlomo Rosenblum, was supposedly one of the role models for Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Ironic considering Fleming’s anti-Semitism. Here’s a review (lousy with SPOILERS) of a recent bio: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/sep/07/russia.artsandhumanities

L’ARMÉE DU SALUT / SALVATION ARMY (2013)

A rare gay-themed autobiographical coming-of-age novel from Morocco, it marks the writing-directing debut of author Abdellah Taia. A character piece built from small incident, its teenage protagonist glides uncomfortably thru family life (cramped living conditions, admired older brother, bickering parents) and the streets of his working-class Casablanca neighborhood where he willingly (?) trades sex with older men for favor & affection. Ten years later, now a young man, Abdellah has moved on to European tourists, gaining a college scholarship in Geneva in trade. Taia is at his best in matter-of-fact observation, the congested homelife is striking and a surge of unexpected threat on a rented boat unsettling. But when the tension runs down, the texture grows thin, and Taia hurts his case with a serious casting error on his two Abdellahs. No way could the soft-featured, wide-eyed teen grow into that wary, sharp-featured young man.

FLIGHT FOR FREEDOM (1943)

R.K.O.’s second whack at a fictionalized Amelia Earhart bio-vehicle (CHRISTOPHER STRONG/’33 came first*) grafts on a bit of WWII heroics in its search for a satisfying conclusion. As if that’s the problem. Playing substitute Earhart, Rosalind Russell wears her hair down as pilot-in-training to fatherly mentor Herbert Marshall, and up (in that extreme ‘40s sausage-roll style) as rival to studly flying ace Fred MacMurray. Engaged to Marshall, fated to MacMurray, some better coordinated flying schedules could have solved everyone’s problems. Or maybe if Roz weren’t so much more comfortable with the older guy. Director Lothar Mendes, nearing the early end of an uneven career, is hamstrung by the stop-and-start romance as well as from wartime budget restrictions that hurt the airborne camera trickery. Nice dramatic ‘backtrack’ farewell crane shot for Marshall, though. And check out Roz during a neat little scene after she’s just lost her first cross-country air race. Dropping her usual manner of landing every quip for maximum effect, she tries on a softer attack, looks softer, too, sounding much like (of all people) Barbara Stanwyck. What a difference it makes . . . for about half a minute. Then, back to rat-a-tat-tat.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Dorothy Arzner’s CHRISTOPHER STRONG remains a faintly ridiculous, if fascinating folly, whereas Hilary Swank has yet to recover from her unfascinating AMELIA/’09 bio-pic.

THE KNACK . . . AND HOW TO GET IT (1965)

Another Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod World of British Sex Comedy from the ‘60s, this one about three London blokes (Ray Brooks, Michael Crawford, Donal Donnelly) vying over new-girl-in-town Rita Tushingham. Brooks, the smoothy with a knack for getting past the knickers; Crawford, the naïf hoping to learn how; Donnelly, there for ballast. Director Richard Lester, fresh off A HARD DAY’S NIGHT/’64, carries his distinctive, disjunctive camera style to its limit, helped (if that’s the word) by lenser David Watkin’s over-exposed/white-ash backgrounds and a knockabout slapstick silliness that leaves realism & gravity behind. All well and good. If only the sexual politics of Ann Jellicoe’s play hadn’t turned rancid with time. (A putative rape supplies the comic engine for the entire third act!) Or if Rita Tushingham still had some of the tough quirky charm that briefly made her seem a major screen presence in her TASTE OF HONEY/’61 debut. Social/cultural history mavens will have a field day (we really have come a long way, baby!), and it’s good to see how effective Michael Crawford’s horny virgin act was before it got broadened for Lester’s A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM/’66, then regressed to annoyingly fey for Gene Kelly in HELLO, DOLLY!/’69. (Here, he’s a ridiculously bony delight, but with intimations of the powerhouse performer he’d become on stage in BARNUM and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.) Others viewers, proceed with caution.

DEAD END (1937)

When producer Samuel Goldwyn bought Sidney Kingsley’s social(ist) drama for Hollywood, he insisted on keeping the two sensational elements that made it such a hit at the Belasco Theatre: the teenage Dead End Kid delinquents, and the show’s ultra-realistic city street set. Together, they pretty much stop the film in its tracks. Director William Wyler lost his battle to shoot on location, but does manages to vivify action whenever he detours off that big set. Along with lenser Gregg Toland, some tenement interiors really make their mark. But much of the dramaturgy is turgid & dated: the Dead Enders over-rehearsed; Humphrey Bogart’s killer-come-home stagy, with Marjorie Main’s Ma turning away & ex-gal Claire Trevor now a diseased prostie. Allen Jenkins does better as Bogie’s gangster pal; so too Joel McCrea’s struggling architect, torn between rich gal Wendy Barrie and tough-luck union waïf Sylvia Sidney. There’s nothing wrong, or even untrue, about having NYC ‘Haves’ bump up against ‘Have-Nots’ (it’s Proletariat Agit-Prop drama 101), but this guided tour of a play feels like it’s been on the road too long.

DOUBLE-BILL: It was DEAD END’s bad luck to fall between two superior cinematic stools. Specifically, King Vidor’s early Talkie STREET SCENE/’31 (also from Goldwyn, also with Sylvia Sidney), a little stiff in places, but capturing something fresh & vital out of similar urban slum environmental drama; and the sheer Hollywood virtuosity of Michael Curtiz’s ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES/’38 (with the Dead End Kids caught between neighborhood pals Killer James Cagney’s & Father Pat O’Brien).

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Goldwyn hated all the atmospheric dirt on his big, beautiful city street set. Late at night, you’d find him with a broom, sweeping it clean.

WAR ARROW (1953)

This B+ Western from Universal comes with a good cast and square helming from George Sherman, but it’s main lure may be as John Michael Hayes’ final script credit before starting his run of Hitchcock classics (REAR WINDOW/’54; TO CATCH A THIEF/’55; THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY/’55; THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH/’56). (Though you’ll have to look hard to find intimations of Hitchcockian themes & obsessions.) Not bad in itself, with a neat set-up that has Army Major Jeff Chandler going over the head of fort commander John McIntire to recruit & train a band of defeated Seminole Indians to use as a guerrilla brigade against a larger force of marauding Kiowas. Their easy success brings out the worst in McIntire, while a couple of headstrong women (Suzan Ball’s forward thinking Seminole and army widow Maureen O’Hara) take aim at the handsome new Major. Noah Beery, Jr. and Charles Drake do surprisingly well as comic relief aides to Chandler* and lenser William Daniels does justice to the beauteous Ms O’Hara once he figures out her bone structure. He’s even better shooting action out on the flatlands. But everyone’s defeated by a couple of lousy nighttime (Day-for-Night) soundstage exteriors. Yikes!, who dressed that set? Still, those who can deal with Dennis Weaver as an Indian Brave, and some painfully generic Western movie music, will find a thoughtful/inventive side to this one.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Hayes really had a great touch with comic seasoning. The Hitch we all think we know from those tv show intros largely comes out of the tone Hayes found for Thelma Ritter’s character in REAR WINDOW and from just about everything in TROUBLE WITH HARRY.

THE PASSWORD IS COURAGE (1962)

Fact-inspired, yet standard-issue WWII prison-of-war drama has much the same storyline as THE GREAT ESCAPE/’63. But without those pesky, scene-stealing Yanks getting credit for British derring-do or adding an hour’s running time. A bigger difference comes in a rollicking tone that makes this something of a missing link between STALAG 17/’53 and HOGAN’S HEROES/’65. Too bad indie director Andrew Stone’s can’t quite accommodate ‘rollicking.’ Fast changes from suspense to slapstick, and officious German officers hoist on their own petard need smoother clutch work. Here, it’s pleasant, but harmless. Too polite by half, so you never feel a real threat. Somebody needs to let loose with a big, fat raspberry . . . and get shot for it. The most interesting thing in here is barely touched on: the bromantic puppy-dog devotion of Alfred Lynch’s Corporal toward Dirk Bogarde’s heroically conniving Sergeant-Major which plays out as closeted subtext.

DOUBLE-BILL: Bogarde’s role gets split up in THE GREAT ESCAPE between Richard Atttenborough, Steve McQueen & James Coburn.

SHOW THEM NO MERCY (1935)

Unexpectedly tough little hostage drama, the last release from 20th Century before merging with larger, but struggling FOX Corp., is a modest, but dandy suspenser. The film starts as a kidnapping drama (worried relatives, cops, Feds, an early name drop for J. Edgar Hoover), but it’s just set up for the main story of a young couple, their baby & their dog, forced by a storm to take shelter in an abandoned rural house. And guess who’s using that house as a hideout? The four kidnappers have already dropped off the kid and picked up the loot when they return, find the little family, then fight over what to do with them. Rochelle Hudson & Edward Norris are calm & believable as the parents, and the four henchmen (Cesar Romero, Bruce Cabot, Edward Brophy, Warren Hyman) make up a well-seasoned quartet of mismatched thugs. Cabot, the most sadistic of the bunch, gives an exceptional perf, and the film comes up with lots of smart twists to keep everyone busy before a shock of a finale. Journeyman director George Marshall makes good use of some real location shooting, but the standout craftsman is cinematographer Bert Glennon whose daringly minimal lighting schemes, with hardly any ‘fill’ in sight, would never have been allowed at most major studios.

DOUBLE-BILL: Next year’s classic hostage drama, THE PETRIFIED FOREST/’36, looks hopelessly stagebound next to this, though it has its own strengths.

ESTHER AND THE KING (1960)

From Hollywood: Aging lion Raoul Walsh as producer-director-co-scripter; and a pair of B-Listers (Joan Collins, Richard Egan) for box-office insurance. From Italy: Everything else. It’s the ingredients for a CineCittá sword-and-sandal spectacular. But this Biblical drama, where the male tunics are cut very high and the women’s bodices very low (not actually made @ CineCittá), manages to lift itself a step and a half up from those bump-slash-and-grind spectacles. Maybe two and a half steps up. It’s actually quite watchable on it’s own period terms. Just keep in mind that 'period' refers not to 420 B.C.E., but to late ‘50s/early ‘60s CinemaScope holy pics. Still celebrated as Purim, the giddiest of major Jewish holidays, it’s an uncommonly interesting story with the noble Esther playing court sexual politics to bring down Haman, a sort of proto-Hitler politician in ancient Persia. The plot twist, at least as presented here, is that Esther falls for her ‘mark,’ who just happens to be the King, and uses her ex-fiancé to reveal Haman’s treachery. (With relationships nicely, if unintentionally complicated since Collins has so much more chemistry with her ‘Ex’ then she does with the King.) Walsh, whose late films grew progressively slack, returns to energetic form, with impressive numbers of extras filling his large canvas even if they have little to do. It’s likely that cinematographer Mario Bava, just starting his own directing career as a sort of one-man Italian Hammer Horror studio, shot a lot of the location/second-unit stuff. The best thing in here, two scenes made on some real ancient ruins, are almost certainly his. Too bad no one came up with much of a climax. Just another battle scene when we need a catastrophe or a miracle. Hey!, maybe Esther could have invented the recipe for hamantaschen?

LINK: http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-hamantaschen-dessert-recipes-from-the-kitchn-45645