ODD MAN OUT (1947)

Carol Reed had been helming to fine effect for a decade when he upped the artistic ante and made his international rep on a trio of city-specific films* beginning with this Belfast thriller. Really more dirge than thriller, with James Mason’s escaped I.R.A. prisoner getting seriously wounded a reel & a half in during a botched robbery. The rest of the film finds a few loyal friends trying to locate him before the police & British authorities do, while Mason tries to last out a long night, passed about like a political hot potato who's too much trouble to turn in, even for a reward. In some ways, the film is something of a hybrid as Reed’s initially smooth mix of location & studio work yields to more stylized/subjective treatment in Robert Krasker’s glistening, high-contrast cinematography. Film noir & German Expressionism are obvious touchstones, especially as Mason’s condition deteriorates into hallucinations, but the spirit Reed evokes is closer to ‘30s French poetic realism. (Think Marcel Carné/Jacques Prévert/Jean Gabin: LE JOUR SE LEVE/’39; remade in Hollywood that year as THE LONG NIGHT/’47 from Henry Fonda/Anatole Litvak.) James Mason brings terrific glamour & melancholy to his doubting Irish nationalist, it tends to neutralize the politics, but Reed is more interested in the doomed romance with the underplaying Kathleen Ryan, anyway. And in laying on florid supporting players like Robert Newton who just gets away with his sodden, mythologizing portrait painter. Very memorable stuff.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *The other two, THE FALLEN IDOL/’48 and THE THIRD MAN/’49, were written by Graham Greene, but all three films might have shared the title: ODD MAN OUT - BELFAST; ODD MAN OUT - LONDON; ODD MAN OUT - VIENNA. For that matter, OLIVER/’68, Reed’s last great film, could have been called ODD BOY OUT.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, LE JOUR SE LEVE and/or THE LONG NIGHT..

PLACES IN THE HEART (1984)

Two things every director hopes to do: put their daughter in one of their films*; and make their own private AMARCORD/’73, Federico Fellini’s heightened childhood memory-pic. (Vincente Minnelli’s MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS/’44, while not autobiographical, is the Hollywood paradigm.) And if writer/director Robert Benton’s anger-free look back at his hardscrabble youth in small town Depression Era Texas comes up top-heavy with grace & goodness (Sally Field’s unsinkable young widow is Ma Joad, Mother Teresa, Mother Courage & Scarlett O’Hara in one cute indomitable package), he invests so much personal feeling & detail into each lovingly recreated incident (even the purloined ones**), it’s all but impossible to resist. Perhaps helped, rather than hindered, because Benton remains, at heart, more writer than visual stylist, with a lack of fuss from lenser Néstor Almendros’ work, held back from the swooning ‘money’ shots of his DAYS OF HEAVEN/’78. Beautifully cast, Danny Glover’s handyman/cotton planter exceptional; Ed Harris’s brother-in-law with a wandering eye spectacularly sexy, even when his secondary storyline (a love triangle) feels shoehorned in for its contrasting texture. But most of the film, which largely follows Fields’ attempt to bring a cotton crop in on time to pay the mortgage, draws exactly the cards needed to keep things flowing, occasionally exciting and emotionally moving when needed. With Benton managing a sort of Texan’s Magical Realism depth-charge of a blessing as tag ending.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: **Casual narrative swipes from great literary works are one thing, but Benton actually lifts ‘The Bishop's Candlesticks’ episode right out of Hugo’s LES MISÉRABLES.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Yes, it applies equally to male & female directors: put the daughter in the pic.

KUNG FU HUSTLE (2004)

Tremendous fun, and a huge international success (deservedly so), Stephen Chow’s roughhouse Martial Arts comedy piles on homage & parody without skimping on character or story. It’s balanced cinematic anarchy; damn handsome, too. He opens on the dark side, as warring gangs in ‘40s Shanghai fight it out and The Axe Gang slaughter their way to the top. (Laughs are triggered with just enough exaggeration to the stylized violence.) But the Axes don’t quite own the town, deep in the slums of Pig Sty Alley, landlord & landlady run the show. Or do until a couple of renegade Axe Boys try to shakedown the neighborhood. Bad idea since Pig Sty has a trio of tough guys hiding in plain sight; also because the intruders aren’t really Axe Gang members. By now, Chow, who also stars as one of the renegades, has tilted from realistic laws of gravity, mass & speed, and edged toward a cartoon universe Chuck Jones & Frank Tashlin might recognize. With action chops doubling on every set piece (though one with strumming instruments-of-death doesn’t come off), the film rethinks its heroes & alliances while it dazzles via stunts & expendable serried ranks assembled, set to a variety of music cues that range from traditional Chinese to Looney Tunes Classical ‘Pops.’ (Raymond Wong gets credit for the score.) Best of all, even without knowing any of the Martial Arts pics referenced or the film history of the great veteran actors in the cast, Chow manages to slip in a real emotional charge amidst the comic mayhem.

DOUBLE-BILL: Chow prominently features a big poster of TOP HAT/’35 behind the film’s mute, ice cream selling heroine. He must have been thinking of Fred Astaire’s iconic solo to Irving Berlin’s ‘Top Hat, White Tie & Tails,’ the one where he ‘guns’ down an entire chorus with nothing more than a polished cane for a rifle & ‘taps’ as ammo.

SUNRISE AT CAMPOBELLO (1960)

Stagebound & loaded with noble sound-bites, Dore Schary’s hagiographic B’way hit on FDR’s polio crisis comes across anyway, even when it seems that the Family Von Trapp is playing all those Roosevelts. (Not perhaps so surprising as Vincent J. Donehue helmed THE SOUND OF MUSIC on B’way between stage & film duties on CAMPOBELLO.) The play must have seemed awfully old-fashioned even when new, with Donehue sticking closely to proscenium staging whenever possible. Still, Schary’s sanitized view of a difficult marriage and FDR’s gain in empathy thru losses to a crippling disease, pretty much defined Franklin & Eleanor for Baby Boomers. That’s especially so for Ralph Bellamy’s FDR, in spite of an occasional resemblance to a Disney audio-animatronic mannequin. Needlessly long at 2½ hours, the story would be historically corrected in later attempts, but all have points uniquely in their favor.

DOUBLE-BILL: In HBO’s WARM SPRINGS/’05, Kenneth Branagh & Cynthia Nixon stick closer to the facts, gaining rather than losing empathy & emotional charge with a warts & all approach.

CONTEST: Win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choosing by guessing the connection between character actor Louis Calhern and Janine Grandel, this film’s French governess/housekeeper.

SAINT JACK (1979)

After making the Hollywood A-list on three early hits, Peter Bogdanovich found hubristic comeuppance (the sort charted by pal Orson Welles in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS/’42) with three career-cratering flops. Hence, after time off for bad behavior, this exotic, indie-flavored, low-budget character study (about a high-riding Singapore pimp) was something of a shot at cinematic redemption. Assuming you can swallow the bemused, if tone-deaf idea of a ‘good’ pimp (Rick in CASABLANCA, whom he’s drawn on, wasn’t half so noble*), this wised-up unsentimental education is a tremendously appealing entertainment. Ben Gazzara, more mobile & alert than usual, runs what you might call a ‘clean’ brothel, it’s the society around him that’s breaking down. All made even worse by the fast decline of U.S. military investment in Vietnam. And while there’s only so much bribery can cover, there’s also a limit to how low Saint Jack will stoop to survive. A fine contingent of British actors hover round the Singapore bars like leftovers from some Somerset Maugham story (with Denholm Elliott beyond praise as an accountant making once-a-year visits), but most of the cast are non-pros, a little tough to understand, but bringing verisimilitude with every patterned shirt. Bogdanovich’s simplified filming style, much aided by Robby Müller’s atmospheric/fuss-free lensing, is transformed from his Hollywood classicism, perfect for his subject. And if he never did go three-for-three again, Bogdanovich had some worthwhile stops in his uneven future projects. (Look for the restored edition of this on Scorpion.)

DOUBLE-BILL: *Also in ‘79, Sean Connery tried on the Rick Blaine/Humphrey Bogart/CASABLANCA/’42 mantle in Richard Lester’s CUBA.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: You don’t much see these ‘second line’ posters anymore.  (see above - click to enlarge)   The studios used to rush them out when films got critical raves but no biz.  Now, second runs (heck, second weeks!) are a thing of the past for underperformers.

ELLE S’EN VA / ON MY WAY (2013)

Looking blowsy & real at 70, Catherine Deneuve has triumphantly de-botoxed to play a 60-ish widow who suddenly drops out on her own overly complicated life in the middle of lunch service at the rural auberge she runs with her mother. Morphing from a late mid-life crisis tale to a road pic, it’s a kick just to see a woman take the lead in this sort of thing for a change. Deneuve’s messy life comes to a head as her mom’s restaurant slowly sinks into default, her long time lover finally leaves his wife . . . but not for her, and just as her estranged pain-in-the-neck daughter calls for emergency help with her son. Writer/director Emmanuelle Bercot tries for a Janus-faced response that has Deneuve both running away and running into her life, tripping over unlikely adventures and a new purpose with every wrong turn. Filmed in an interesting (unintentional?) manner that lets her scenes run a little too long or a little too short before coming up with sweet-natured surprises from unexpected sources: a pick up from a guy half her age in a bar; a lonely, uncomfortably aging farmer who does his bit to assuage her renewed nicotine addiction. Character-driven scenes as blissed-out and non-judgmental as early Jonathan Demme. But the film isn’t always at its best; and Bercot seems aware of it, pushing too hard just when she needs to ease off. It keeps easy scenes, like the growing relationship between Deneuve & her grandkid (she barely knows him; he’s acting out) from fully connecting, largely thru a lack of trust in her audience. The film is missing the missing pieces we should be filling in for ourselves.

DOUBLE-BILL: Nobody talks about Paul Mazursky’s HARRY AND TONTO/’74 anymore, but it remains a special treat with a retired Art Carney (and cat) finding adventure as they head West.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Why Oscar® hasn’t given Deneuve a lifetime achievement award (or two or three) is something of a mystery. (Same for Max von Sydow.)

HOUSE OF STRANGERS (1949)

After success as writer (mostly @ Paramount) and producer (mostly @ M-G-M), Joseph L. Mankiewicz went to 20th/Fox to teach himself direction, shooting five scripts he either hadn’t written or hadn’t initiated.* After that, strictly writer/ director until the very end of his career (with THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN/’70 and SLEUTH/’72), but never again showing the visual panache and energy he lavished on these ‘learning’ productions (with the possible exception of 5 FINGERS/’52). STRANGERS was the last of the five, a superb family drama (not the film noir it’s often called) about an Italian-American bank run by Edward G. Robinson, paterfamilias and immigrant striver, a force-of-nature type who runs roughshod over three seemingly docile sons, only to shower affection on independent lawyer son, Richard Conte. While that family dynamic plays out over the 1930s, a second, less involving storyline watches as society dame Susan Hayward & the already engaged Conte squabble their way thru a hot affair. (Hayward’s very good here, with a youthful plush tempering that hard exterior shell she wore over the fur coats.) The rest of the cast is (mostly) excellent, and Luther Adler a standout as the taken-for-granted eldest son. But it’s the general sweep of the film (in story & production, even without much in the way of period detail) that pulls you along, with superb high contrast lensing from Milton Krasner, back in NYC for some location shooting after doing the same on George Cukor's A DOUBLE LIFE/’48. Add in some intriguing premonitions of THE GODFATHER/’72 and you’ve got a film that deserves a lot more attention than it gets.

DOUBLE-BILL: Officially remade as a Western (BROKEN LANCE/’54); unofficially remade as a circus meller (THE BIG SHOW/’61). OR: See Susan Hayward play tough in another adaptation taken from a Jerome Weidman novel, I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE/’51.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Nice to see Edward G. Robinson’s Best Actor for this @ Cannes. Oscar® never even nominated the guy.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Mank also did an uncredited polish on THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR/’47, the best of the lot.

HITLER'S CHILDREN (1943)

Edward Dmytryk got a career boost, and his big Hollywood break, when he took over direction of this Nazi-atrocity exploitation B-pic. It opens with a real visual tour-de-force as well-drilled masses of Nazi Youth gather ‘round a sacred flame to pledge allegiance to the cult of Hitler. After that, the film turns conventional & far less imaginative (in spite of Russell Metty’s fine lensing) charting a youthful opposites-attract romance between Tim Holt’s true Aryan believer & Bonita Granville’s German-American school girl. Kent Smith, professor at an American Academy, is our guide to German degradation as he goes thru a maze of Nazi diplomatic channels trying to help the lovers. Highlights include: Forced Sterilization Labs; Unwed Mothers birthing for the Reich; Religious Harassment in and out of church; Work Camps & worse for protesters. Bijou’ers were agog! Not a subtle piece of work by any means, and not meant to be. Clunky, effective, and an enormous surprise hit in its day. Plus, Holt is very, very good.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Listen closely to the actor doing Hitler in English. Why it’s Hans Conried who’s also in here mit German accent as Dr. Graf.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Is there another actor with as low a profile as Tim Holt who appeared in so many classic pics? STELLA DALLAS/’37; STAGECOACH/’39; THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS/42; MY DARLING CLEMENTINE/’46 and THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE/’48. It’s quite a list. (And add HIS KIND OF WOMAN/’51 to this Screwy Thought repeat.)

SABOTAGE / THE WOMAN ALONE (1936)

Alfred Hitchcock’s modernized adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s THE SECRET AGENT is the outlier among his late ‘30s British suspense pics, somber & melancholy rather than fun.* But don’t let the difference in tone put you off. Perverse and inventive, it's also disconcertingly timely, an unsettling terrorist thriller with politics abstracted to fit just about any ideology. Sylvia Sidney, in the midst of a trio of Fritz Lang films, is more grey wren than Hitchcock blonde; and all the more effective for it in her unhappy marriage to Oskar Homolka’s neighborhood cinema manager and secret saboteur.

Fortunately, there’s a straight-arrow cop working undercover at the next door greengrocer (John Loder, faceless as Macdonald Carey in the same spot for SHADOW OF A DOUBT/43). Loaded with visual flair (aural flair, too), the film remains most famous (and controversial) for a big terrorist bomb incident which Hitchcock long rued. But was he right to? There’s really no story without it, and it leads directly into one of Hitchcock’s most stunning sequences, a sort of willed murder/revenge/absolution/suicide unlike anything in the Hitchcock canon. Remarkably lit, as is the entire film, especially in its close-up portraits, by cameraman Bernard Knowles. Not as perfect as some of the Hitchcock films surrounding it, but unmissable. (Note our extra poster with the Stateside title. The British poster comes from a trade ad.)

DOUBLE-BILL: *It’s also a source of confusion as Hitch’s previous film, from Somerset Maugham’s ASHENDEN spy stories, was called SECRET AGENT. A more faithful version of the Conrad made in 1996 kept it’s original title as THE SECRET AGENT.