THE HUNTING PARTY (1971)

In this once trendy (now cluelessly dated) Western, Gene Hackman is on a happy hunting spree with a gaggle of millionaire pals when he hears that his wife has been kidnapped. Switching from bear & bison to badmen, they lay waste with the help of some newfangled telescopic rifles. This repellent mess of a movie opens by juxtaposing Oliver Reed’s outlaw slaughtering a cow while Hackman brutishly screws his young wife, Candice Bergen. So, ah, who’s the cow? Later, Reed forces his loving attentions on the beautiful Bergen, but since he also gives her a first orgasm & jarred peaches, all is forgiven. And it just goes downhill from there as Don Medford cribs undigested style tics from Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah & (honest to Pete) Erich Von Stroheim, while fake Ennio Morricone riffs glaze o’er the soundtrack. The film is useful as a gauge to the lows of Hollywood’s SOP in the late-60s/early 70s, but that hardly lets Hackman off the hook. He’s never been worse while, unbelievably, Reed & Bergen have.

THE TRAMP AND THE DICTATOR (2002)

This dual biography of Charles Chaplin and Adolph Hitler, focusing on the production of THE GREAT DICTATOR/’40, doesn’t have to force the fascinating parallels between these two icons. It steps back to simply organize and display them, brilliantly. It’s no surprise to find film maven Kevin Brownlow was in charge of the material . . . and what material he has found! Color footage of Chaplin at work taken by Charlie’s beloved older brother, Sydney, and some youthful shots of Hitler you’ve probably not seen. One crowd detail is a dilly. And, for a change, the interviews really add something. The DVD comes on a separate EXTRAs disc included in the M2K edition of THE GREAT DICTATOR and in this case watching the supplementary disc before seeing the feature presentation is the smart move.

THE GORGON (1964)

Better than average Hammer Studios horror pic about the last surviving Gorgon gal. You remember, the look that freezes, the snakes in the hair? Her spirit appears to have settled (if that’s the word) in one of those Mittel-Europa towns, taking possession of some unfortunate local whenever the moon is full. Wait, ain’t that werewolf lore? Peter Cushing stars as (what else?) a secretive man of science (he’s also the world’s most incurious coroner) while Christopher Lee actually gets to be the good guy. Terrence Fisher megs with lots of atmosphere, reasonable action work and disjointed transitions. But there’s rich lensing from Michael Reed, an oddly effective score from James Bernard and a pretty weird get-up for victims before they turn completely to stone. But these Hammer titles rarely live up to their potential; check out the remarkably scary trailer to see for yourself

CITY OF VICE (2008)

The idea is inspired, but the execution is only mezza-mezza in this 5-part British historical mini-series. Who knew that Henry Fielding (of TOM JONES fame) started a police force in crime plagued 18th century London? Who knew his blind step-brother seconded, took over for three decades & earned a knighthood after Henry’s death the following year? And who knew that London once made DEADWOOD look like a quiet paradise of justice? (The sex, language & violence are graphic, so beware.) The production beautifully navigates around a limited budget via inventive 3-D digital maps of the city and strikingly spare sets, but the scripts show wobbly story construction and, as the series progresses, a general sense of creative burn-out from the participants. Though not from the cast, especially Ian Glen, who’s particularly fine as the blind John Fielding. Still, anyone disappointed when Caleb Carr’s THE ALIENIST got lost to the vagaries of movie development hell could do worse than give this the once over.

SIMON OF THE DESERT (1965)

Luis Buñuel takes a mordant view of Saint Simon & his pillar, distilling the usual Buñuelian themes (sex, religion, modern mores & culture, food) into forty minutes of intellectual clarity and bewilderment. The film opens with Simon literally reaching the heights as he moves stations from his old pillar perch to a new, improved and significantly taller pillar. All the better to look down on all the souls who come for philosophical, moral, spiritual or physical fixes, accepted with po-faced certitude by the clerical & secular pilgrims who come & go. Meanwhile, Simon finds his own trials in dealing with a devil who keeps turning up in various tempting guises. Meant to take its place as one third of an unmade omnibus pic, the time restriction turns this into Buñuel’s most efficient major work while a production budget crunch necessitated a finale set in the hippest purgatory imaginable. A must-see.

CONTRABAND / aka: BLACKOUT (1940)

Just before they began working for themselves as ‘The Archers,’ Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger reteamed w/ Conrad Veidt & Valerie Hobson from THE SPY IN BLACK/’39 on a second twisty espionage tale. With its lighter tone & more fantastical plot (the war news was terribly grim in 1940), the film already shows much of the confidence, independence & eccentricities of later Powell/Pressburger pics. Veidt is great as the aggrieved Danish ship’s captain, forced to wait for his sailing papers while spoiled passenger Valerie Hobson sneaks off for a mysterious rendezvous on land. What begins as pursuit soon turns into admiration and shared adventure as these two uncover a spy ring right in the heart of London. Once it gets going, the plot moves at a fast & furious pace, aided by some of Powell’s typically abrupt editing, so precisely timed it can make you LOL. The film is certainly looser than SPY, for better & worse, but it rates awfully high as WWII propaganda entertainments go. And when the patriotic Danes come thru in the clutch & bid Veidt hail & farewell, the quick swell of emotion feels completely earned.

THE GREAT MAN VOTES (1939)

John Barrymore is charming in this modest political comedy, helmed by Garson Kanin before he switched to scripting, about the last registered voter in a swing district. He’s a widower gone to seed after his wife’s death, fallen from the heights of academia to night watchman. Now, his in-laws are after his two kids (in swell perfs from Virginia Weilder & Peter Holden) just as the party bosses discover his unlikely importance. It’s the sort of set up Preston Sturges might have taken on a wild spin, but this breezy, lightly sentimental ‘take’ on the material brings its own small pleasures. Especially, in watching how Barrymore moves from high dungeon, to fruity elocutionist, to defeated worker, to loving/proud father. Kanin was fairly inventive with his cameraman (Russell Metty), and if the film doesn’t have the consistent bloom of his best outings (BACHELOR MOTHER/’39 and TOM. DICK & HARRY/’41), it’s still a sweet 70 minutes. (And check out the name & logo on the dairy truck of this 1939 RKO film: ROSEBUD. Two years later, another RKO pic would find better use for it.)

NOTE: This title, seen here on VHS, is currently available only on a Public Domain DVD edition, so beware!

SADIE MCKEE (1934)

In this standard M-G-M vehicle, Joan Crawford may be a cook’s daughter, but that doesn’t stop three men (a wastrel & two millionaires) from chasing her right from the opening credits. It’s the usual shopgirl’s fantasy, and damned if the old formula doesn’t still work. Gene Raymond is the weakling who sings ‘All I Do The Whole Day Thru Is Dream Of You;’ Edward Arnold is the dipsomaniac fat-cat whom she marries out of spite (and then cures); and Franchot Tone is the ‘right’ man for her if she’d only let her guard down. Clarence Brown helms smoothly and gets an unusually natural perf out of Joan, she certainly looks her best here, even if the story plays out with all the depth & believability of the slick magazine fiction it’s adapted from. In two or three years, this sort of product would inevitably harden and become lacquered & lifeless (especially @ M-G-M), but try and get a copy of POSSESSED/’31* to see Crawford, Brown & lenser Oliver Marsh make a 14 carat beauty of this sort of thing.

DOUBLE-BILL: *As mentioned, POSSESSED.  But be careful, Joan made two films called POSSESSED - 1931 & 1947.  As is always the case with Crawford, go early!

PERFUME (2006)

Wispy Ben Whishaw, who stars as the young man with a genius for all things olfactory, just hasn’t the nose for this horror-filled fairy tale. (The young Gerard Depardieu would be more like it. Now, there’s a nose.) It’s the story of an orphan boy who grows up to be the world’s greatest perfumier, striving to capture an essence that will literally conquer wills at a waft. And if he must murder a few lovely girls in his quest, so be it. The look of Pre-Revolutionary France is extravagantly captured, but the story, so rapturous on the page, feels a bit preposterous under the realistic helming of Tom Twyker whose inability to find a visual equivalent for SCENT hobbles the marvelous conceit so wonderfully captured in Patrick Süskind’s novel. Playing the young sniffer’s mentor, Dustin Hoffman flails away in the style of eccentric British acting royalty that everyone else here (from Alan Rickman on down) wears as second nature. Did anyone bother to notice that the story takes place in France? Oh well, the gruesome fantasy of the basic material manages to hold your attention and the film improves even if it goes on too long, faithful to a fault. Author Patrick Süskind waited two decades to sell the much coveted rights to his acclaimed novel . . . maybe he should have waited a decade or two longer.