TÓNGNIÁN WANGSHÌ / THE TIME TO LIVE AND THE TIME TO DIE (1985)

Though his international rep came a bit later, Taiwanese filmmaker Hsiao-Hsien Hou may have been at his best in the 1980s, as in this filled-to-the-brim semi-autobiographical family drama.* Something more than a coming-of-age story, it focuses on the bumpy path of an adopted son in a large family, the film split between his playful youth (at about 10) and a more troubled adolescence (near 20), dramatically punctuated with the loss of his health-plagued father in the first half and his mother & grandmother in the second. Hsiao-Hsien Hou paces the informal patterns of life beautifully, without pointing things out for us, not even detailing the many children in the family. Who’s that? You may exclaim at times. The idea is too give in to the flow of life in this lower-class household as fortunes ebb and flow around them. By the end, you’ll find you're completely absorbed in incidents ranging from a small turf war between rival street gangs to a mother’s declining health, or something as simple as a solitary stand-up bath. A unique, moving, and unexpectedly welcoming family journey.

DOUBLE-BILL: With a more traditional narrative structure (young couple moves to the city and find themselves lost), DUST IN THE WIND/’86 may be a better Hsiao-Hsien Hou starting point even though it’s something of a followup to this film. Before, A SUMMER AT GRANDPA’S/’84 (not seen here) is first of the trilogy.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Just how autobiographical? In real life, Hsiao-Hsien Hou seems a little too young for the mostly ‘50s time frame. Closer to the age of the kid brother.

PLUNDER ROAD (1957)

Jules Dassin’s RIFIFI/’55, the classic French caper with the dialogue-free/real-time burglary, is all over the opening of this minor league crime pic as five masked men grab $10 mill in gold bullion off a train they’ve tricked into stopping. With cinematographer Ernest Haller laying on rain-soaked atmosphere, we can just barely piece together what’s going on in the extended opening action sequence as ill-gotten gains are loaded onto three separate trucks and driven away for a rendezvous in California. Director Hubert Cornfield makes good work of it, getting strong perfs out of little remembered second leads like Gene Raymond & Wayne Morris. The sticking point is Steven Ritch’s by-the-numbers story & script which settles for only the most obvious everyday errors to trip them up one-by-one/truck-by-truck and dies a quotidian death, not helped by an overblown score. Even a clever twist on getting all that gold across the border can’t get things back on track. Maybe the script just needed a relentless cop in pursuit, the missing element in its construction. As it stands, this starts to feel like a double episode of the old HIGHWAY PATROL tv series, but without a Broderick Crawford figure rattling off lines as he investigates and arrests.*

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Assuming RIFIFI’s been seen, why not give HIGHWAY PATROL/’55-‘59 a watch. Easy to find (and free) on various youtube platforms and holding up surprisingly well. All those old rural towns, roads, mom & pop cafes and small industrial factories now period document as PATROL a rare show of the period to shoot on rural locations. And while an occasional star-of-the-future shows up (Clint Eastwood, Leonard Nimoy), most of the actors have a pleasing non-professional feel about them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsbLnFBa-6Q&list=PL-aJSrEGIGy4Muhw4lhuYII5kDrBlUqrv

EYE OF THE CAT (1969)

Lame kitty-cat horror, but worth a look, less for its murder plot (eccentric invalid aunt Eleanor Parker is stalked in her cat infested mansion by feline-phobic/fortune-hunting nephew Michael Sarrazin & girlfriend Gayle Hunnicutt) or its suspense elements (runaway wheelchair; kitty shock cuts) than for its hideous interior design (an all-fuchsia Hall-of-Infamy worthy grand foyer merely a taste of the tastelessness) and for Sarrazin’s positively alarming shaggy head of hair (check out his intro shot). Yikes! Everything in here reeks of Lew Wasserman’s Universal house-style, circa ‘60s Movie-of-the-Week regardless of budget, with under-cooked plots and over-lit sets to match faceless functionary house directors like Jack Smight and (as here) David Lowell Rich. The lone surprise is the amount of flesh on display. Presumably, an attempt to seem ‘with it.’ Today’s crop of ultra-buff young actors would be well-advised to have a look at Sarrazin’s willowy frame before tackling that next ‘60s period piece. 'Scrawny defined' might sum it up.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: From Hungary, FEHÉR ISTEN (WHITE GOD)/’14 shows what can be done with dogs rather than cats in this sort of thing.

THE LATE GEORGE APLEY (1947)

After a decade writing @ Paramount & a decade producing for M-G-M, Joseph L. Mankiewicz added directing to his shingle moving to 20th/Fox, learning on the job helming three Philip Dunne screenplays in a row: GEORGE APLEY; THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR; ESCAPE.* Dunne’s adaptation significantly softening an already coarsened B’way play of John P. Marquand's Pulitzer prize winning novel about a Boston-centric eccentric, a turn-of-the-last century father holding fast to dying traditions while his children move past a stultifying tradition that rejects anything too far removed from Beacon Hill. Percy Waram, the sole holdover from the B’way production, almost steals the pic as Apley’s sceptical, open-minded brother-in-law (Waram, a stage vet who made few films, showing a precision that’s something to wonder at). But the film was obviously designed to showcase Ronald Colman, charming, bemused & befuddled in one of his last roles as the eponymous Apley who gets less a comeuppance from his family on changing times than a gentle tutorial. It’s pleasant, low-wattage entertainment, the play and film designed to ride on the commercial backdraft of the phenomenally successful, broader domestic comedy of LIFE WITH FATHER, still running on B’way and opening as a film the same year as this. You’ll note a few weak links in the cast, and the odd editing bump, but Mankiewicz was always more interesting as a director working on other people’s screenplays than he was of his own scripts which he treated with kid gloves as sacrosanct text.

DOUBLE-BILL: *As noted above, the other Dunne projects are quite good with ESCAPE not quite hitting its potential, but MRS. MUIR a modest masterpiece with exceptional perfs, awesome Bernard Herrmann score and an uncredited Mankiewicz secretly rewriting all the scenes with George Sanders, giving hints of their work together in ALL ABOUT EVE.

THE STRANGER'S RETURN (1933)

Celebrated for impressive if flawed epics (THE BIG PARADE/’25; NORTHWEST PASSAGE/’40; WAR AND PEACE/’56) and ambitious, if too merit-worthy artfilms (THE CROWD/’28; OUR DAILY BREAD/’34*), King Vidor is truly at his best in this largely over-looked, small-scale romance, a rural pastorale that stands comparison with some of the best observed work in the American cinematic canon. Even it’s title a beaut, perfectly capturing its lead character and unique spell. Miriam Hopkins (right between TROUBLE IN PARADISE and DESIGN FOR LIVING for Lubitsch) is at her least arch/most natural as a sophisticated East Coast divorcée, come for the first time to the MidWest family farm run by curmudgeonly 85 yr-old grandpa Lionel Barrymore, living with a passel of in-laws he barely tolerates. Might this delicate looking young woman, a free-spirited blood relative be the one to take over from him? Instinctively drawn to the place, and to country life (depicted in a good-natured harvest hazing rite Hopkins triumphs over), she’s equally drawn to neighboring farmer Franchot Tone, a college-educated/natural intellectual type, married (with kid) to the sweet gal he grew up with. Instant rapport for Tone & Hopkins undeniable, only their decency holding them back. Especially after a brief kiss in a running car that traces their growing passion in a brief unbidden roll thru the wheat fields. This short segment, one of the great erotic moments in film, a touchstone of visual & narrative economy; and dare one say it . . . taste. (A ‘privileged’ moment, partly stemming from novelist/co-scripter Philip Strong whose STATE FAIR, recently out earlier this year from Fox under Henry King, holds similar rural bona fides.) The film is not without a touch of blather to help round off the narrative (Barrymore has a spell of dementia to reveal all secrets), but not enough to mind, quickly pulling itself up to realize its sad, abrupt ending with clear eyes; grown-up and quietly devastating. Seasons flow on; the land must be turned.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Vidor’s next, the independently produced farmers’ commune story, OUR DAILY BREAD, with Soviet-style montage & left-wing politics, gets all the critical attention. Easier to write a deep-think academically acceptable thesis on.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/11/our-daily-bread-1933.html

ABANDON SHIP! (1957)

(AKA: SEVEN DAYS FROM NOW; SEVEN WAVES AWAY) Tidy survival-of-the-fittest lifeboat drama with a rejuvenated Tyrone Power* triaging from 26 desperate souls to a mere dozen on a small craft designed for nine. Even with brutal life-or-death decisions, getting down to an overloaded 12 requires steely/heartless resolve, but how else to save any of them? Especially with a storm rising, no S.O.S. sent from the ship and land 1500 miles away? Journeyman director Richard Sale husbands his modest budget with the same sort of brutal tactics Power uses, getting fine work from his cast (Marie Lohr as a retired opera singer & Stephen Boyd as a compassionate ship officer particularly good) and not dwelling too longingly on necessary cruelties. But are they necessary? That’s the question being asked as Power works thru Nietzchean superman challenges. Heroic necessity or self-preservating villain? You decide.

DOUBLE-BILL: Hitchcock brings similar ideas & filming techniques, plus far more enjoyable dramatic fillips, to LIFEBOAT/’44, a WWII allegory with Walter Slezak’s Nazi villain in the Nietzchean superman spot. What a difference a decade makes! OR: Andrew Stone is all about the sinking and nothing else in his shipshape THE LAST VOYAGE/’60.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Dead at 44, a year after this film, Power’s youthful dazzle waned alarmingly in the ‘50s. But he seems to have dropped a decade here. Swimming for his life in the ocean, you presume it’s no trick of makeup, nor helpful b&w lensing. He’s dreary & worn in WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION later this year and a Color by Deluxe blank in THE SUN ALSO RISES. Here, his puppyish revival a mystery, but a happy one.

THE KEY (1934)

1934 brought signature roles for William Powell (M-G-M’s THE THIN MAN) and Edna Best (Alfred Hitchcock’s THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH), but just before, this forgotten little gem at Warners for Powell to finish off his contract. A love triangle set in the middle of the 1914 ‘Irish Troubles,’ with Best married to British officer Colin Clive but still carrying a torch for ex-lover (and Clive’s fellow officer) Powell. Balanced between romantic conflict & street conflict (a hunt for rebel leader Donald Crisp), the fog-bound action takes a while to hit its stride, coming into dramatic focus when director Michael Curtiz launches a technically tricky visual flashback reigniting the old affair. After this, the two conflicts intertwine in a series of renunciation scenes and sacrifices where, for a change, you can’t be sure who Edna will end up with. Some of the early scenes now look awkwardly played (that clipped diction!), but they soon find their footing with unusually satisfying story beats along with some exceptionally strong supporting actors. A real find.

DOUBLE-BILL: Soundstage Hollywood Dublin returned next year on the R.K.O. lot in John Ford’s THE INFORMER/’35; different P.O.V., same fog.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Most Golden Age Hollywood stars needed to land at the ‘right’ studio to find their true cinematic selves. Not William Powell, perfectly in tune with himself whether at Paramount, Warners or M-G-M.

THE PUBLIC EYE (1972)

Last call for the classy craftsmanship of British director Carol Reed is piffle, but no disgrace. Expanding from his own one-act play, Peter Shaffer (of AMADEUS/’84 and EQUUS/’77 fame) stretches his little idea beyond its limits with circular dialogue as buttoned-up British tax advisor Michael Jayston hires a quiet private detective to check up on free-spirited American wife Mia Farrow, only to wind up with Topol’s eccentrically enthusiastic gumshoe on the job. Turns out, Farrow isn’t having an affair, but is starting a life-affirming flirtation with a mysterious, irrepressible, if non-verbal, man in a white trench coat who always seems to be following her. Guess who. Fortunately, these three make for such an odd triangle, initial awkwardness starts to spark surprising emotional ricochets, if you can wait for the third act to kick in. Unexpectedly boyish and off-beat handsome, Topol is so much younger than expected after aging up to play Tevye in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF/’71, he has a gauche quality that explodes Shaffer’s format in a goofy, appealing way. Not really much to this one, but a lovely London look from Christopher Challis and an unusually blissed out score from John Barry. No one went to see it, and Reed never worked again, but in spite of its stagy talk, talk, talk, it’s a rather pleasant lark.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Much like George Cukor, whose late-career Oscar for MY FAIR LADY/’64 seemed to stall rather than start projects; so too with Reed, whose well-deserved comeback & awards on OLIVER!/’68 led to nothing but Anthony Quinn in FLAP/’70 (not seen here) and this.

THE OUTLAW (1943)

Jane Russell made her busty film debut in a cantilevered bra designed by producer/director Howard Hughes. Cleavage & censorship delayed wide release for a few years, but also created lots of buzz, if not enough to earn out wildly inflated costs on this slightly deranged, seriously inept Western. Begun by Howard Hawks as a tricked out Billy the Kid fable, scripter Jules Furthman added Doc Holliday to the usual mix (Walter Huston guying every line) to join Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell having fits of jealousy toward both) and a surprise ‘happy’ ending. Hawks, after discovering fresh leads: Russell as well as Jack Buetel, his willowy, young Billy (pretty as the slim hipped gals Hawks tended to marry or cast in his pics), left after a week’s shooting, handing it over to the interfering Hughes. And take over he did, on his second, and mercifully last, directing gig. Slathering Tchaikovsky over every longing glance when he wasn’t forcing composer Victor Young to Mickey Mouse every tiny gag. Luring cinematographer Gregg Toland into frame-breaking push-in close ups of youthful lust; amid his general all-thumbs staging of the risible action & dialogue as Russell, Huston & Mitchell preen for Billy’s ‘attentions.’ Berserk or betraying Hughes’ true callings? It might be campy fun at half the length, but at nearly two hours, it drags something awful. Russell eventually figured out how to come across on screen, after her features firmed up, but poor Jack Buetel was a goner from the start.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Lines like ‘Best you gotta cut his clothes off,’ as Russell moves in on sickly, supine Billy or ‘Shall we pull on the last cuckoo,’ before pistols are drawn must have been added to help get this one banned in Boston for the sake of publicity.

DOUBLE-BILL: Hughes' only other directing gig was the WWI aviation epic HELL’S ANGELS/’30, with Edmund Goulding & James Whale handling most of the Early Talkie dialogue scenes & Jean Harlow getting the sexy dish career push treatment.