UMIMACHI DIARY / OUR LITTLE SISTER (2015)

Hirokazu Kore-eda pays the sort of attention to life’s surface ripples most filmmakers reserve for high drama, getting you to adjust to his wavelength & rhythms. This time in a quiet, but deeply felt story about three sisters who invite their teenage half-sister to move in with them after meeting her at their estranged father’s funereal. The transition is a happy one, but cracks start showing up from various repressed resentments between the older sisters: romantic entanglements, career changes, possible loss of the family home. It’s as if their new half-sister were an inadvertent catalyst/agent of change. But it’s the nature of this film to calm the waters and have things work out; and a pleasant one to join in on, especially with such an attractive cast. (Sachi, the oldest sister played by Haruka Ayase, in particular.) Well-received (deservedly) and compared to the family-oriented dramas of Yasujirô Ozu (mistakenly), any story of four sisters (and cherry blossoms) can’t help but nod toward Kon Ichikawa’s fathoms deep & treasurable THE MAKIOKA SISTERS/’83, but this is very satisfying on its own terms.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned above, MAKIOKA SISTERS, masterful filmmaking that’s a tough act to follow. So, maybe see SISTER first.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/07/sasame-yuki-makioka-sisters-11983.html

99 RIVER STREET (1953)

Once a count or two away from being Heavyweight Champion, now a cabby with a damaged eye & a dissatisfied wife. It's John Payne in tough-guy mode, about to fall for a couple of scams that might take him out for good. One’s small & nasty: a sweetheart/actress pal (Evelyn Keyes) using him as a tool to get an acting job; the other’s even worse, with his slutty wife setting herself up for a permanent getaway with a violent jewel thief. But then, both plans blow up in everyone’s face, and Payne goes on the lam to try & untangle the multiple mess before he lands in jail . . . or gets dropped off a pier! Made in the wake of KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL/’52, Payne & director Phil Karlson lay on loads of glistening noir flavor (with what looks like a very tight budget) thanks to a major assist from lenser Franz Planer. (The dockside finale an exceptional display of trick matte effects.) But this second pairing for Karlson & Payne dials up all the acting & plot turns to ‘eleven,’ pushing the envelope past extreme. Just how much of this are we supposed to swallow? Then, about halfway in, the cast & crew seem to notice just how batty it all is and the film makes nodding acquaintance of its own absurdist noir sensibility, turning the corner from ridiculous to ridiculous fun. So, hang in there, and enjoy!

DOUBLE-BILL: Edward Dmytryk & Dick Powell made a similar escalation, upping the ante from the relatively straight MURDER, MY SWEET/’44 to the slightly delirious CORNERED/’45.

THE EAGLE HUNTRESS (2016)

A documentary that plays like a fable, think MULAN/’98, or even NATIONAL VELVET/ ’44, as a young girl triumphs in a role traditionally reserved for men. And this time without gender disguise. Aisholpan Nurgaiv is a 13-yr-old Mongolian schoolgirl determined to continue the family line of hunting for game with trained eagles. With her father’s remarkable support, she already knows the basics, practicing with his hunting eagle before heading out to find a 3-month old eaglet of her own.* Mission accomplished, the next step is months of training and entry in the national eagle competition. The first ever female participant and the youngest. The last section, in the frozen mountains, is the eagle’s first hunt rite-of-passage, Aisholpan’s too. Thrilling stuff, top to bottom, beautifully realized on a wisp of a budget, yet looking like a major production from director Otto Bell largely thanks to Simon Niblett’s staggering cinematography. (Somewhere, David Lean wants to get his hands on a drone camera for a few aerial passes.) The story could use a bit more expansion/ explanation in the middle training/competition section, and it’s hard to think of anything that could top the initial rocky capture in the bird’s craggy lair. But there’s plenty of wonder in the whole fascinating story.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *This section also covers home & school where we see less tomboy and more gossipy, nail-painting 13-yr-old girlfriend and star student. Just a super kid!

DOUBLE-BILL: Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack’s GRASS: A Nation’s Battle to Survive/’25 is an early, thrilling documentary about a nomadic tribe in (then) Persia moving with their herds over snow-covered mountain passes on a twice-annual drive for grazing land.

IT'S LOVE I'M AFTER (1937)

In dueling productions on B’way, Leslie Howard had just gone head-to-head against John Gielgud in HAMLET (and lost), and in Hollywood against Norma Shearer in ROMEO AND JULIET (and lost), when he got a chance to send up Shakespeareans on and off-stage co-starring with Bette Davis as a battling theatrical couple. (Think ‘the Lunts’ whose constant bickering in TAMING OF THE SHREW on and off-stage led to Cole Porter’s KISS ME, KATE.*) The gimmick here is super-fan Olivia de Havilland, engaged to Patrick Knowles, but carrying a torch for Howard that’s threatening both couples. Warners wasn’t exactly the studio for sophisticated continental comedy, you’re more likely to find sub-Ferenc Molnár confections @ Paramount. Yet how well this turned out! Funny & relaxed, with deft playing all ‘round, and hardly any pushing. (See next year’s BOY MEETS GIRL for a typical harsh & hasty Warners comedy.) Howard, not only hilarious & charming, but also getting to show some serious Shakespearean chops simply by not taking things too seriously. He & Davis as R&J, fighting sotto voce on-stage as they die; SHREW quotes over kippers at breakfast; tossing off a ‘7 Ages of Man’ as he packs. Just as good is Eric Blore, stealing all his scenes as Howard’s ultra-devoted valet. Disproving the idea that ‘no man’s a hero to his valet,’ Blore’s plainly in love with the guy. You’ll be too. And from ‘utility player’ helmer Archie Mayo who rarely got such congenial assignments over a long career.

DOUBLE-BILL: *While M-G-M’s KISS ME KATE/'53 is (ahem) uneven, most of the original B’way cast was captured to good effect in a reasonably complete 1958 tv abridgement.

NI LE CIEL NI LA TERRE / NEITHER HEAVEN NOR EARTH (2016)

Clément Cogitore’s debut feature is all eerie, suspense-ridden atmosphere, capturing the low-level thrum of war’s constant menace, ‘relieved’ only by outbursts of violence. We’re at some blasted Afghanistan military outpost where a small unit of French soldiers attempt to coordinate with locals (to little effect) and hold back Taliban fighters. An all but pointless exercise in an ill-defined mission. And things only get worse when some men (along with the company dog) go missing, as if vanished. A search leads to a meeting with enemy Taliban (uncannily staged to have them emerge out of rock & land). It’s no ambush, instead, a standoff as both groups blame the other for their own unexplained ‘vanishings.’ No captures, no kidnappings, no fatalities, and no explanation. Agreeing to a temporary truce to search for the missing, all they come up with are more mysteries involving ancient caves; tethered goats in remote locations (what could they signify?); and a local adolescent with the answer of a true-believer. Shot in an effective mix of grainy POV shots, scavenging hand-held work & dramatic lighting that conceals as much as it reveals, Cogitore manages to work all the way thru to an ending both tidy & unresolved.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Extra credit for dialing down the usual actorly intensity often seen in these stories. With no one busy auditioning for their next gig.

THE COBWEB (1955)

A psychiatric clinic where you can’t tell the patients from the doctors? An old gag, but a good one; likely a true one. And certainly the case in Vincente Minnelli’s slightly unhinged ‘50s meller. (It seems even more so with Leonard Rosenman’s largely atonal underscoring making even simple acts (opening the ‘fridge; driving a car; hanging up drapes) come over with near lunatic edge. Speaking of drapes . . . Well, that’s the story engine, a new set of drapes for the sanatorium library. Shall it be cost-conscious burlap to please long time accounts manager Lillian Gish? Something chic from a top Manhattan designer to give Gloria Grahame, wife of clinic head Richard Widmark, a bit of purpose in an empty life? Or something of/by/for the patients as part of the on-going treatment for mixed-up John Kerr (in his film debut) under the guidance of widowed art therapist Lauren Bacall? Add in doctor Charles Boyer as a soused roué who ignores wife Fay Wray; addled Oscar Levant with a hardcore mother-fixation; and scared of the world Susan Strasberg. All of them prowling around a series of chic curated furnished rooms you’d either die to move into or panic to flee from. (Leave it to Minnelli to equate decor not only with character & plot, but to destiny, fate & kismet.*) Undoubtedly a faintly ridiculous dramatic smorgasbörd, yet pretty irresistible; with a swank sense of composition that just won’t quit and keeps this from simply becoming a mere ‘guilty pleasure.’ (Minnelli, scoring with regular lenser George Folsey.) In the theater, these OTT ‘50s melodramas could crash & burn on a single ‘bad laugh’ from some insensitive clod, but hold up (and fascinate) seen at home on the couch in spite of the loss in sheer scale & sensory overload.

DOUBLE-BILL: Minnelli was able to relax Bacall into showing more range (and more technique) than she often mustered on screen. Check out her comic chops in their follow up DESIGNING WOMAN/’57.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Speaking of kismet, it’s hard to believe the book leaves Bacall in as abrupt a fashion as the film does. No doubt a Breen Office Production Code imperative.

CONTEST: When Kerr & Strasberg go to the movies, the exit music tells you what they’ve just seen. Tell us the title to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choice.

RAMROD (1947)

Dark, brooding, exceptional Western with Joel McCrea & Veronica Lake on the same side of a showdown between violent free-range cattlemen & sheep herders. Sheriff Donald Crisp, playing everything strictly by the book, just manages to keep order, but he’s losing control of Preston Foster & his ranchers. That’s when Lake, behind McCrea’s back, makes a dirty move of her own, ordering up a self-inflicted first strike then laying the blame on Foster & his men. But the dodge blows up in her face starting a new, even deadlier level of tit–for-tat violence with murders and a possible shooting war. Director André De Toth & lenser Russell Harlan get the most out of these conflicted characters, and even manage to make the usually lackluster Don DeFore shine as McCrea’s wrong-side-of-the-law pal. (Or is it just that DeFore looks trimmer & younger than remembered?)

DOUBLE-BILL: The Western took a turn toward greater complexity in ‘47, or did for famous one-eyed directors like De Toth & Raoul Walsh in the psychologically-minded PURSUED.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Joel McCrea really towers over petite Veronica Lake who looks frail, almost brittle, like a Dresden Porcelain figurine. That’d be fine is her acting weren’t equally frail.

THE SEA WOLF (1941)

The narrative confidence & sheer technical bravura of this film’s opening (at just over a reel) is so brilliantly handled by all hands (on deck & on set), you’ll want to hit pause for a round of applause. It’s classic Golden Age Hollywood at its most assured, spinning a complicated story into clear, continuously exciting entertainment; with leads, supporting players & crew all at the top of their game. And note the well-deserved solo credit card to composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, second only to director Michael Curtiz. Robert Rosson did the fine job on Jack London’s tricky tale of sadistic ship captain Edward G. Robinson & a cutthroat crew, as well as John Garfield’s anarchist-on-the-run. Add-in Ida Lupino’s desperate streetwalker & Alexander Knox’s literary intellectual, both plucked out of the sea.* The speed this gets put into place is thrilling, along with Anton Grot’s production design & Sol Polito’s fog-bound atmospherics. Told with a vicious, grown-up tone & nihilistic attitude that can still shock, there’s something to make you jump or gasp every few minutes as the ship reveals what the bloody hell is really going on. WOLF has taken ages to show on DVD, largely because of a re-release that clipped nearly a reel & a half off the original running time, with inestimable damage to Curtiz’s editing rhythms. Part of this was simply a trim for a double-bill with the similarly trimmed SEA HAWK/’40. But in WOLF’s case, there was also a bit of politically tinged ‘lefty’ speech-making to worry about from Rosson (an ‘admitted’ Communist who ‘named names’) and an acting line-up of Blacklisted & Grey-listed actors like Howard Da Silva, John Garfield & even Eddie G.  You really couldn’t trust Eddie.  Not only was he what was known as a ‘Premature-Anti-Fascist’ (meaning he supported various liberal/humanitarian causes before war broke out), but he also had a world-class collection of impressionist & modern art.  Obviously a danger to society.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Golden Year of the Golden Age of Hollywood is always awarded to 1939, a year where a single director (undervalued Victor Fleming) could turn out GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF OZ. But ‘41 has it champions, what with CITIZEN KANE; HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY; HOLD BACK THE DAWN; LITTLE FOXES, MALTESE FALCON; SERGEANT YORK; SUSPICION; HERE COMES MR. JORDAN; BALL OF FIRE; TOM, DICK AND HARRY; THE LADY EVE; NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH; MEET JOHN DOE; THAT HAMILTON WOMAN; STRAWBERRY BLONDE; SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS; 49TH PARALLEL; DUMBO; HIGH SIERRA; and yet another wolf, THE WOLF MAN; to name but a few. (And that’s only English-language pics.) Take that 1939!

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Knox & Lupino’s meeting is a neat gender reversed swipe from Robert Donat & Madeleine Carroll’s in Hitchcock’s THE 39 STEPS/’35.

HER CARDBOARD LOVER (1942)

The trailer crows ‘Grand New, Brand New,’ but it’s M-G-M’s third go at this puerile French Boulevard play, seen on B’way in 1927 with Jeanne Eagles & Leslie Howard in roles now inadequately taken by Norma Shearer (in something of a humiliation) and Robert Taylor (working too hard). The main gag has Shearer, in her screen swansong, stuck on caddish lover-boy George Sanders and hiring Taylor to keep her from acting on her worst instincts. The job fits Taylor fine since he’s already positively, if inexplicably, twitterpixed over M-G-M’s time-tarnished doyenne of original contract players. No surprise to find her coming ‘round to him in a slightly more action-oriented third act added to the sedate play script. It’s meant to be very ‘La-Di-Da’ (a first act all about evening clothes restrictions), and if you watch how Sanders throws his lines away rather than holding forth like the two leads, you can see how this just might have worked in ‘40s New England Summer Stock with Leading Ladies of a certain age and fascination. Kit Cornell? Ina Claire? Gertrude Lawrence? Tallulah? Heck, director George Cukor had over-seen a stage revival with none other than Laurette Taylor. So, he certainly knew the score, but maintained something of a soft spot for Shearer in what was their third film together. Perhaps he admired her sheer persistence & work ethic from time on ROMEO & JULIET/’36. Alas, traits largely unsuited to this gossamer material.

DOUBLE-BILL: Cukor was fresh off similar unhappy career-ending duties with Greta Garbo on the ill-fated TWO-FACED WOMAN/’41. He’d return to form (and then some) with GASLIGHT/’44.