BALLADA O SOLDATE / BALLAD OF A SOLDIER (1959)

Grigoriy Chukhray’s award-winning humanistic wartime romance has dated badly; a Soviet love story that’s curdled into LOVE STORY/’70 (and just as uncritically beloved). We follow a brave, honest, noble, sweet-natured, tall, blond youth from the ranks who’s been granted a brief furlough after his panic-stricken shots take out a couple of enemy tanks. But the trip home to Mom (he’s hoping to fix the roof) is jerry-rigged with too much uplift from the great Soviet Peoples & a puppy-love meet-cute with a brave, noble, sweet-natured, short, blond young civilian which becomes strong & true when tested on the journey. How many times can you almost miss a train? It’s certainly handsome to look at, but as one beautifully lit, over-composed shot follows another, it’s hard to find many believable moments. We’re uncomfortably close to those WWII Hollywood romances with Private Robert Walker, like SINCE YOU WENT AWAY/’44 or THE CLOCK/’45, right down to the heart-rending train departures. Those films, made in the moment with studio-built environments on backlot sets are stylistically all-of-a-piece. Here, the real locations turn legitimate sentiment coy, even cloying, with every emotional surge getting a plush music cue & a glowering sky. And when a real shard of sorrow & terror comes thru, like the unforced sobs from a mother separated from her son, it feels like a slap in the face, a refreshing one.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Soviet-Block films like Poland’s KANAL/’57 or the Czech Republic’s CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS/’66 offer a lot more on similar subjects.

FRISCO JENNIE (1932)

Ruth Chatterton was still wrenching tears from her fans playing one more sacrificing mother in this variation on MADAME X/’29, the early-Talkie that (briefly) made her a star. There, her own secret son defends her on a murder rap. Here, her own secret son prosecutes her on a murder rap. Plus ça change! It all get a bit convoluted & silly, but there’s lots of tasty character support as megger William Wellman keeps the pace hopping thru 30 odd years of Barbary Coast politics & vice. During the big trial scene at the end, he shows off by sweeping the camera around instead of cutting, but the best part of the film is in the prologue. Here, a fresh-faced Chatterton runs a clip joint with her pop and tries to get his blessing for a quick wedding just as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake hits town. The quake is fine, but the atmosphere in the club is even better. Plus, we get a chance to see the great, tragic James Murray, the lead in King Vidor’s THE CROWD/’28, in one of his last decent roles as Chatterton’s prospective husband/lover. After that, it’s boilerplate Mother-Love stuff.

DOUBLE-BILL: Wellman’s MIDNIGHT MARY with Loretta Young, Franchot Tone & Ricardo Cortez, which comes on the same DVD in this Pre-Code ‘Forbidden Hollywood’ set, is a far better pic . . . with more sacrificial courtroom drama. This little film from M-G-M shows Wellman at his best with a rattling pace, a clever time-shifting structure & even more technical razzmatazz as lovely Loretta waits out an all-but-certain Guilty Verdict on yet another murder rap. (And don’t miss the pristine 2-strip TechniColor ‘Bosko’ cartoon in the disc’s EXTRAs.)

CHUGOKO NO CHOJIN / THE BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA (1998)

Japanese helmer Takashi Miike has built a substantial cult following in the West with his taboo-busting ultra-violent fare, but he shows a kinder, gentler (but still alarmingly rude & funny) side in this outstanding modern Shangra-La fable. Masahiro Motoki, recently seen in DEPARTURES/’08, is equally good here as an untested Japanese exec sent to investigate a rumored Jade deposit way off the beaten track in China. But he’s picked up an unwanted partner along the way, a seriously unhinged Yakuza (Renji Ishibashi) with a grudge against his company. Their guide (Mako) isn’t much more help, but somehow, after Miike puts them thru every possible traveling nightmare, they arrive. And find an enchantment; a lost utopian world that holds many secrets . . . and all the Jade they could wish for. Oddest of all is the local tradition of teaching their children how to fly like a bird. Allegory on civilization’s loss of innocence? Or the real deal? Miike’s not tipping his hand till the very end, if then. He’s too busy stirring things up with kicks in the face, a mysterious Scottish ballad, turtle-powered river rafts and sputtering doorless motor vans. The DVD doesn’t do full justice to the cinematography, but don’t let that hold you back.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Miike must have been tickled to have Mako in his cast, placing him (via THE SAND PEBBLES/’66) a mere two degrees away from Steve McQueen.

DOUBLE-BILL: Two more eccentric Shangra-Las in need of special protection - LOST HORIZON/’37; LOCAL HERO/’83.

S.O.S. EISBERG / S.O.S. ICEBERG (1933)

Switching gears from their ‘Mountain Films,’ those snow-clogged Alpine romantic thrillers, director Arnold Fanck & star Leni Reifenstahl found new frozen terrain to explore in their last dramatic vehicle: icebergs! Now, Leni’s a daring pilot who takes to the air in an attempt to the rescue her explorer husband, adrift on an iceberg off Greenland. And he’s not alone, an earlier rescue effort is also stranded on the icy float. Unsure if their position was transmitted before the radio gave out, they wait with dwindling supplies while one brave soul attempts to reach the nearest Eskimo encampment. As with their earlier films, the real locations & documentary shooting style (largely shot silent) create an awe-inspiring visual spectacular, but the dramatic thru-line suffers from Leni’s stable position as true-blue wife. And it's even weaker, if oddly fascinating, in the simultaneously-made English-language version (pieced together by Tay Garnett) which opens with some stuffy exposition instead of throwing us right into the action. To a surprising extent, it pretty much goes its own way, often using completely different location footage to fit its reconfigured story, along with a bit more studio fakery and Hollywood’s Rod La Rocque as the injured explorer-husband. (Leni’s few lines of English dialogue appear to be dubbed.) After this, Reifenstahl became even more famous/infamous as Hitler’s favorite documentarian with TRIUMPH OF THE WILL/’35 and OLYMPIA/’38. Now, that’s switching gears.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Yes, that’s Gibson Gowland, the unforgettable McTeague in Erich von Stroheim’s GREED/’24, as one of the would-be rescuers. What a surprise to hear his own voice in the English-language version, sounding rather like Edmund Gwenn, of all people.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Everybody should see one of Fanck’s Mountain Films - try THE HOLY MOUNTAIN/’ 26 or THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU/’29.

KARHOZAT / DAMNATION (1987)

Béla Tarr, Hungary’s best known helmer, made his move to the arthouse market/fest circuit with this probing slo-mo depiction of an end-of-the-line town with its end-of-the-line inhabitants & endless end-of-the-line iron ore cable buckets. It even climaxes with a joyless end-of-the-line line dance. The oblique storyline follows a despondent alcoholic ‘ex’ of the town’s glamour girl, such as they have one, a chanteuse with moveable morals & a dye job. She’s remarried, but not unswayable; not with a third guy already in the picture. Meantime, the owner of the ‘Titanik’ Bar is offering an ill-defined smuggling job to our risk-adverse ‘ex’ which gets passed off to a pal, possibly the previously mentioned third guy. (Tarr doesn’t like too much clarity, holding back on narrative detail & purposefully mucking up what info we do get with battering rain & mud.) Technically, the Tarr style could be described as slow creep, imperceptibly tracking his camera sideways or back. Just once, near the end, we get a diagonal move and you think all hell is going to break loose. (Don’t get your hopes up.) Most of his set ups begin as museum-worthy monochrome compositions (and with so few separate shots, they’d better), then, as we slowly drift, small apertures open between buildings allowing us to see something otherwise hidden or, reversing the pattern, hiding something from us. There’s certainly method in the madness, even a fascination. But Tarr makes Antonioni, Tarkovsky & Jarmusch look like speed demons. Perhaps there’s more meat on the bones in one of his later pics.*

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *There is, see WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES/’00 or TURIN HORSE/’11.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-torinoi-lo-turin-horse-2011.html

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ONE WAY PASSAGE (1932)

He’s fated to die on a bum rap. She’s fated to die from a bum ticker. But it’s love at first sight for William Powell & Kay Francis as the exquisite(ly) doomed couple in this heavenly piece of romantic nonsense. Oh, it’s easy enough for smooth William Powell to get around Warren Hymer’s San Francisco flatfoot, but when this ‘wanted man’ spots Francis, the ravishing creature who bumped him ‘mid-cocktail,’ on the very ship that’s supposed to carry him off (and please note the early use of a zoom-lens), he gallantly gives himself up. Once on board, phony Countess Aline MacMahon, an old pal, helps distract attention by making a play for the cop. And Frank McHugh, another crooked old pal, picks a few wealthy pockets & plays cupid to both couples. (Designer Orry-Kelly does her own kind of distracting with some daring decolletage that turns the Francis chest into a heart.) Director Tay Garnett doesn’t waste a shot on this one, keeping the sentiment brisk & getting stellar perfs out of his cast, including uncredited scene-stealers like Hugh Mundin & Roscoe Karns. With a French soundtrack, you’d swear it was a precursor to those classic Jean Gabin poetic-realism pics. Maybe that’s why Parlez-Moi d’Amour plays in the background.

DOUBLE-BILL: Barely remembered these days, and largely for her ‘twouble’ pronouncing ‘R,’ 1932 was Kay Francis’s big year. Seven titles, including two under William Dieterle & one each for King Vidor (CYNARA) & Ernst Lubitsch (TROUBLE IN PARADISE).

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: If the film’s gifted cinematographer Robert Kurrle isn’t as well known as Warners stalwarts Sol Polito, Arthur Edson, Tony Gaudio or Ernest Haller, he should be. And not just for the cool zoom shot. But he died the year this came out (he was only 42) and few of his 69 sound or silent titles are available or extant.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY II: Did Howard Hawks spot/swipe the swell opening gag with the coin dropping into the spittoon? He had Dean Martin use it in RIO BRAVO/’59.

ANYTHING GOES (1954)

The goofball plot that supports Cole Porter’s great score in ANYTHING GOES is sturdier than it’s usually given credit for. Boy Chases Engaged Girl. (Right onto an ocean liner!) Boy tells all to the Lovesick Evangelist who’s also sailing. Evangelist swallows her pride & helps Boy Get Girl. All under the watchful eye of harmless Public Enemy #13, who’s disguised as a minister! (Don’t ask.) A hit on B’way in ‘34; ‘87 & ‘11 (see Playbills), it died on-screen in ‘36; ‘54 & ’56. The B’way revivals largely kept the book & songs intact; the films & this tv version threw out three-fourths of the music, plot & characters. Hmm. Wonder why they suck? This one at least sounds like fun. It’s got Ethel Merman from the original production & the first film; plus Bert Lahr who co-starred with the Merm in Cole Porter’s DUBARRY WAS A LADY; even Frank Sinatra as the guy. In this chopped up version, Boy Gets Evangelist . . . and that’s about it. They cut out so much, the measly 53 minute broadcast runs five minutes short! So, they ad-lib a fourth (4th!) reprise of the title tune. (Just when we’d gotten that horrible musical arrangement out of our heads.) Oh well, try spotting the bowdlerizations of Porter’s lyrics: ‘Perfume from Spain’ in for ‘Cocaine’; ‘2-letter words’ instead of ‘4-letter words.' Or you could focus on what the fierce lighting & crude camera lenses do to Sinatra’s skin tone. Ah, the Golden Age of Television.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Cole Porter had much better luck in ‘58 when Hallmark hired much of the original B’way cast for a 90-minute production of KISS ME KATE that beat the pants off M-G-M‘s big screen version.

THE CARDINAL (1963)

Producer/director Otto Preminger’s red-jacket Bildungsroman is all downhill after Saul Bass’s sublime credit sequence. What wouldn’t be? There’s nothing fancy to Bass’s modest gem: Cardinal-in-waiting Tom Tryon goes for a walk. But what a walk! And over what grounds! The patterned pavement & monumental columns, the endless fights of stairs & public spaces of Vatican City. It’s mesmerizing stuff, beautifully composed: visually by Bass; musically by Jerome Moross. (The whole film is stunningly shot by Leon Shamroy, but it’s unclear if he did the opening.) Of the film proper, little more is remembered than John Huston’s wily turn as a no-nonsense Boston Cardinal in the first half. But that does the film few favors since it's only in the second half, when we move past Father Tryon’s personal struggles and start dealing with the Catholic response to issues like Civil Rights in the South or Nazis in Austria that the film gains interest. (Tryon is dutiful, but simply lacks the presence to hold our attention the way Paul Newman did for Preminger in EXODUS/’60. And painfully, both he & Preminger knew it.) Two scenes in the second half really stand out, showing just what’s been missing. A meeting between a black priest (Ossie Davis) and two Cardinals (idealistic Raf Vallone & realistic Tullio Carminati) on race relations & the Catholic Church in America brings out an intellectual debate that lifts the film as much as the magnificent pseudo-Vatican settings where the discussion takes place. And later, a terrifying street riot in Vienna between a Catholic youth group and a crowd of Nazi Brown Shirts & thugish sympathizers might have been worked up by Preminger’s old boss, the great master of massed stage movement, Max Reinhardt. And how bitterly ironic to be staging the very sort of demonstration that forced them both to leave the country they had given so much to. Little else rises to these levels, but a lot is worth seeing especially in the second half of this undervalued pic. And now that so many homes have decent-sized WideScreen monitors, it’s possible to get a sense of how Preminger’s reticence with close-ups & editing served his unusual style.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: Shamroy, who got inside the Vatican for real on THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY/’65, was up for 1963 Oscars on both this film and CLEOPATRA. Called up, he whispered to presenter James Stewart, "Which one did I win for?’ That’s from OSCAR 'A' TO 'Z'/Charles Matthews, a great reference book by a film expert who brings knowledge, critical faculties & taste to a subject that rarely gets any of them.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Beginning with THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM/'55 Preminger & Bass revolutionized graphic design for film posters, but apparently the message never got thru in Spain & Italy as per this gussied-up version.

LOS ABRAZOS ROTOS / BROKEN EMBRACES (2009)

Pulling back from recent dips into philosophy & metaphysics, Pedro Almodovar treats himself (and us) to a cinematic reverie, piecing together this melodramatic tale of a blinded filmmaker who can’t move forward until he figures out, reclaims & makes peace with his past. Lluís Homar is the wary writer who fell for a rich man’s mistress (Penélope Cruz) 16 years ago, and never got over it. But neither did the obsessed, revenge-seeking tycoon (in the past) nor, apparently, the man’s unstable son (in the present). But leaving behind the emotional residue of the romantic Liebestod-mystery his life turned into means integrating what he remembers of the past with what he can learn in the present. It's just the sort of tricky timeline structure Almodovar revels in; re-editing a life the way the movie re-edits a film-within-the-film. The story is probably too perfectly rounded to be taken seriously, but as a newfangled old-fashioned family drama, it’s more or less irresistible. And the locations! Check out those black landscapes on the drive to Golfo Beach. What a view!

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Perhaps because Homar works in the biz, Almodovar uses more cinematic reference points than he has in decades, from Rossellini to Kubrick; Hitchcock to . . . Almodovar! Yep, at the climax, he gets to self-reference himself, giddily recreating the look of his own international breakthrough, WOMEN ON THE VERGE/’88.)