MICKEY ONE (1965)

Warren Beatty was coming off three flops and megger Arthur Penn had just been fired by Burt Lancaster when they came together on this dark, but soggy tale. It’s a riff on THE HUSTLER/’61, with Beatty playing nightclub comic rather than tortured pool shark. (And don’t think Beatty didn’t spot the similarities; he’d just finished a miserable shoot with HUSTLER’s writer/director Robert Rosson.*) It’s sure looks swanky, glistening with shiny b&w city-scapes & rainy reflections, as it follows a wary Beatty, on the lam from the mob and trying to earn a buck without exposing himself. (He really shouldn’t worry, he must have the least compelling act in town.) What makes the film both fun and aggravating is seeing Penn work like mad to incorporate all those new, cool French New Wave attitudes & film techniques. Truffaut’s the main influence, specifically SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER/’60, but Godard, Malle, et al. also come into play. It’s like a weirdly professional student project. But, in trying to be wildly ‘filmic,’ Penn’s borrowed stylings never rise past applique to organic. So, for example, when he tries something with a bit of comic-tinged slapstick violence, he’s quoting Truffaut & Co. whereas those guys would have been quoting from originals like Mack Sennett & the Lumière Bros. Maybe a less self-conscious approach would have worked. The leads (Beatty & Alexandra Stewart) are certainly gorgeous, and there are nifty, eccentric choices in the supporting cast (Franchot Tone, Hurd Hatfield, Teddy Hart). Oh well, Beatty & Penn would have better luck next time with BONNIE AND CLYDE/’67.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: As mentioned above, Truffaut’s SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER is what Penn was aiming at, but see Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard’s BREATHLESS/’60 for an idea of what Beatty thinks he's up to. Elsewise, if you want to see a mainstream commercial Hollywood director truly engage with the French New Wave, try Stanley Donen’s enchanting, heartfelt dramedy TWO FOR THE ROAD/’67.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Oddly enough, Beatty’s co-star in Rosson’s poorly received LILITH was that muse to the French New Wave, Jean Seberg.

BOMBSHELL (1933)

Everybody talks a mile-a-minute in this behind-the-scenes Hollywood comedy about a big sexy star (Jean Harlow in her prime) and the studio P.R. guy who keeps her constantly in the news (Lee Tracy). Harlow doesn’t get much credit for acting chops, she’s a rank amateur in some early roles, but not here. Under the strong hand of Victor Fleming, who had coaxed an earlier bombshell, Clara Bow, to her best work*, Harlow builds on the sweet, funny tart Fleming helped her create in RED DUST/’32. Changing voices & emotional gears for every occasion, spewing out tour-de-force speeches in one-takes, Fleming exults in her confidence, letting her take down family, staff & studio in a single-shot second act curtain speech that can still bring down the house. Even when the comic doings go wide of the mark, there’s usually enough speed, noise & pseudo-sentiment to carry us along. And when Franchot Tone shows up in the third act as a posh gent who woos Harlow with upper-crust tosh & charm**, true comic bliss breaks out, setting us up for a triple-reverse ending that can still fake you out. (**John Lee Mahin & Norman Krasna each worked on the script, but the quotable stuff shows the hand of the great Jules Furthman.) NOTE: Our poster is taken from an ad for a bio by gossip columnist Louella Parsons, who is lightly skewered in the pic. And below, a shot from the set with Harlow & its handsome-as-a-movie-star director.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Pat O’Brien’s supporting role as director/romantic interest must have lost scenes to the cutting room floor since he drops out in the pic’s second half. Still, there’s enough left to compare the styles of the two original FRONT PAGE Hildy Johnsons, B’way’s Tracy & O’Brien from Lewis Milestone’s 1931 movie.

READ ALL ABOUT IT/DOUBLE-BILL: Hard to believe that the director of THE WIZARD OF OZ and GONE WITH THE WIND didn’t get a proper bio until Michael Sragow’s celebratory VICTOR FLEMING in 2008. *See Fleming getting the best out of Clara Bow in MANTRAP/’26, finally out in fine shape (hurrah!) on a 2011 DVD set, TREASURES 5, from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

THE SCAPEGOAT (1959)

The problem with this Daphne du Maurier doppelgänger murder mystery is less in its preposterous story than in its unbelievably dull execution. Alec Guinness is the British everyman who runs into his exact double while on holiday in France. Drugged and planted at the double’s estate, he can’t get a soul to believe his odd tale (hmm, wonder why?) and soon falls pleasantly into his new role as husband & father, with a mistress on the side. But when someone dies, and Guinness seems the likely suspect, he knows his mysteriously disappearing double has set him up. Robert Hamer seems a spent force on this one, far off his stylish megging on KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS/’49. He does pull off a couple of neat camera tricks for Guinness’s double-act, but the Gore Vidal adaptation can’t make a case for the story or for the all-neurotic cast of characters. Pamela Brown & Bette Davis flail about hopefully, but to little effect, and while it’s always a treat to see a rare appearance from the great Irene Worth, playing Guinness’s unhappy wife, this is quite a drop from T. S. Eliot’s THE COCKTAIL PARTY which they had recently done on B’way!

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Guinness had much better luck pulling off a fake double act in THE CAPTAIN’S PARADISE/’53 where’s he’s a single man trying to keep up with two wives, one in each of his regular ports. But for double-trouble, why not give Bette Davis her due with her second shot at the Good Gal/Bad Gal routine in the drekky, but fun DEAD RINGER/’64.

DIE AUGEN DER MUMIE MA / THE EYES OF THE MUMMY MA (1918)

This German silent, the first (and least) of four collaborations between Ernst Lubitsch & Pola Negri is newly available in reasonable shape, along with three non-Lubitsch titles in POLA NEGRI: THE ICONIC COLLECTION from Bright Shining City. The first two titles, THE POLISH DANCER/’17, made shortly before, and THE DEVIL’S PAWN/’18 (aka THE YELLOW TICKET) made soon after, are mainly of interest for the light they shed in comparison to the remarkably advanced technique Lubitsch shows with dynamic composition, editing within scenes and aptly varied shot distance for psychological impact. All the more striking since Lubitsch really didn’t hit his cinematic stride till ANNA BOLEYN in 1920. And the stories? DANCER has Pola running away from her restrictive parents, using a lover or two on her way to dance stardom, then falling for a married man. (We’re not far off from ZAZA/’10; ‘13; ‘15; ‘23; ‘38; ‘44.) YELLOW TICKET sounds more interesting with Pola as a Jewess who goes to study in St. Peterburg after her father dies. There, anti-Semitic attitudes stop both her promising career & a romance till she discovers her true (non-Jewish) parentage. (Dickens would have blushed at the coincidences . . . and at the cop-out.) EYES OF THE MUMMY MA is equally silly. Pola is cruelly used by her master (a nearly trim Emil Jannings) to run a con in an ancient Egyptian Temple. But when she’s rescued by a brave & kindly German scholar, Jannings vows revenge, following her trail all the way to Berlin! Jannings, Negri & Lubitsch would all quickly top their work here, in scope & sophistication, but the historical interest is compelling.

DOUBLE-BILL: Lubitsch would soon deliver the Egyptian epic this title only promises with THE LOVES OF PHARAOH/’22, his final German production before being called to Hollywood by Mary Pickford.

MAKE MINE MUSIC (1946)

After countering runaway costs on PINOCCHIO/’40 and BAMBI/’42 with DUMBO/’41 (magical and cost-effective), Disney tried to repeat the trick with this downsized animated potpourri, a sort of low-rent/Pop-oriented FANTASIA/’40. But lightning didn’t strike twice. The sole classical item, in the prestigious second to last spot, is Prokofiev’s PETER AND THE WOLF. Running twice the length of the preceding 7-minute segments, it’s unexpectedly dazzling in a faux Folk-Russian picture-book manner, but its story & famous score have been culturally Bowdlerized, neutered in Disney’s post-WWII family manner. (And dumbed-down with a cloying narration from Sterling Holloway to coax the kids along.*) The best piece comes early, as some clever animating pencils, along with Benny Goodman & his Band lead a gang of bobbysoxers & their Jitterbugging dates thru Alec Wilder’s ALL THE CATS JOIN IN. Nothing else in here matches it for style & spirit, not even a second number with Goodman playing in his quartet. The rest is pleasant enough, but tame, sorely missing the awe-inspiring risks & ambitions of Walt giving his full attention.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY-I: You can see the FANTASIA connection most clearly by comparing this film’s wan BLUE BAYOU fantasy with the splendiferous original conception (at double the length) that pairs it with Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’ in Leopold Stokowski’s impossibly lush orchestration. (Disney keeps pulling links to this stunner off the internet, but it keeps popping back up. So give it a Google.)

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY-II: CASEY AT THE BAT and THE WHALE WHO WANTED TO SING AT THE MET should both work better than they do. Swapping the vocal talents of CASEY’s big-mouth comic Jerry Colonna and WHALE’s operetta-inclined Nelson Eddy could have made all the diff.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY-III: The current DVD edition lops off the original opening short, a goofy hillbilly feud number called THE MARTINS & THE COYS, for elusive reasons. Too violent? Too low-brow? Too HEE-HAW?

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY-IV: *Giving and Taking Away Department: While the rude original segment has gone missing, the DVD does include a 1935 Disney masterpiece, THE BAND CONCERT with Mickey Mouse in early anarchic mode. This is the Disney that Prokofiev & Sergei Eisenstein were so excited to meet when they visited the studio in the early ‘30s. It’s Walt & Co. without the filters on as musical cues crash into each other like something out of Charles Ives** and gags that retain a crude, rude, lewd barnyard bluntness. Mickey actually takes a ‘dump’ of strawberry ice cream (gross!) and a couple of horny goat musicians accidentally ‘play’ each others’ flutes! Or is it clarinets? Even worse! **Ives would have loved the ‘Turkey in the Straw’ vs Rossini’s Wm. Tell‘ overture routine. And so might have Shostakovich who does something similar in his final Symphony (#15), tossing in bits of Rossini’s overture at odd moments. Dmitri did a fair share of film composition, even an animated feature. Had he seen this?

CONTEST: Nelson Eddy sings all the parts (male & female) in the Singing Whale segment, but there’s something obvious missing in his excerpt from LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR. Spot it to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of any NetFlix DVD.

FATHER BROWN (1974)

Before the BBC begins their new series of G. K. Chesterton Father Brown murder mysteries (with DR. WHO’s Mark Williams as the cross-bearing sleuth), you can bone up on the 13 trimly-made episodes from the mid-‘70s. Much in their favor is Kenneth More who plays the title role with a light touch and just the right blend of scepticism & personal reserve. He can’t do much about the tinny production values & the surprisingly hit-and-miss casts (some of the foreign accents are downright alarming), but he was lucky enough to have playwright Hugh Leonard (DA; A LIFE; a fine tv NICHOLAS NICKLEBY/’77) on board for about half of them. The stories work best when the good Father merely clears a path to the solution and then lets others figure things out; and some even dare to end without full resolutions. Two of the most intriguing come right at the end. One, features an American billionaire killed in a fortress-like bunker. Leonard didn’t write this one though, and it’s just too ambitious (and oddly acted) to fulfill the set-up. But Leonard was hired for the finale, which does much better with a similar claustrophobic angle. Set in France, with a beheading or two, it has a dandy resolution and even a nice character arc for a couple of ex-lovers. Throughout the series, there’s some fun in spotting guest stars like James Bond’s M (Bernard Lee) and a young Charles Dance, but after so much dreary lighting & sets, you do start to wish that radio drama was still an option.

THERE BE DRAGONS (2011)

Roland Joffé’s latest directorial overreach may, as advertised, be ‘fact-inspired,’ but there’s not a single believable frame in it. Supposedly the story of the saintly founder of the controversial Catholic Opus Dei institution (the Good Works Priests), it plays out some pretty dusty Hollywood tropes as boyhood ‘frenemies’ grow up to find themselves on opposing sides of (in this case) the Spanish Civil War in the ‘30s. Told in flashback as a son tries to make peace with his aging dad (the one who took a secular path), Joffé overindulges at every turn with lush compositions, romantic melodrama, corny touchstone memories, useless star cameos (Charles Dance, Derek Jacobi, Geraldine Chaplin) and Rachmaninov’s ‘Vocalise’ quivering on the soundtrack of their lives. It’s an appalling suck up/cop out ‘take’ on some of the more important political & religious tides of the last century as Joffé, who also scripted, uses buckets of hair-splitting narration to pardon characters who literally get away with murder. The real miracle on display is how Joffé manages to keep getting projects. You’d have thought that the deadly run of FAT MAN AND LITTLE BOY/’89; CITY OF JOY/’92 and THE SCARLET LETTER/’95 would have done the job long ago, but it seems nothing less than a silver bullet or a stake in the heart will do the trick.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Ken Loach deserved a bigger Stateside audience for LAND AND FREEDOM/’95, an unusually clear-eyed Spanish Civil War pic, though from a foreign perspective.

AKASEN CHITAI / STREET OF SHAME (1956)

Kenji Mizoguchi’s final work follows the pattern of life at a legal brothel where cash, not sex or companionship, is the main object of desire. It’s a difficult time for the girls as they poach clients and worry about family issues & debts to the house while the world outside debates a national bill that will shut them down for good. Typically, Mizoguchi finds nothing to be sentimental about. There’s the boss, always giving advise & letting the girls know how lucky they have it; the no-nonsense house manager who keeps them wedded to their jobs with easy loans they’ll never repay; and ‘the house regulars’ the working girls clutch tightly while ripping them off for all they’re worth when they're not lying in comforting tones.. Mizoguchi seems to hold these lives in his hand as he guides us around five complicated women in a mere hour & a half as they toughen up or break in half. Equally tender and merciless, he leads us toward a double climax that features one of his signature harrowing emotional scenes as a sacrificing mother is rejected by her ashamed son and then back to the work house where mental & physical violence seeps thru the cracks of this sexual commodities market. Only 58 when he died, it’s hard to imagine Mizoguchi going much farther than he takes us here.

DOUBLE-BILL: The perfect double-bill would be ADUA E LE COMPAGNE/60, a post-Neo-Realist Italian pic from Antonio Pietrangeli with Simone Signoret & Marcello Mastrioanni staying up late on the last night of legal brothels in Italy. It’s never been out Stateside, but YOUTUBE has the whole thing for those who can stand compressed video and the UK has it on a Region 2 DVD for those who’ve got the right player. (And speaking of things Italian, look at the guy in this Italian poster. Asian-Italian? Whatever he is, you won't find his like in the film.)

JUNGLE BOOK (1942)

Long available in crummy Public Domain editions taken from beat-up prints, or passed over for Disney’s happy animated version from ‘67 (Walt’s last hurrah), this recent Criterion restoration is something of a revelation. First off, it’s flat out gorgeous! The TechniColor is as vivid as a museum lithograph, with animal footage of startling color density & sharpness. Second, where Disney covered Mowgli’s jungle education; here, that’s skipped to focus on Mowgli’s return to civilization after a brief prologue shows him getting lost as a child. At 18, Sabu is about as definitive a Mowgli as you could wish for. (In the ‘94 remake, Jason Scott Lee was nearing 30.) Slight, but well-built, Sabu’s jungle-boy is as naturally graceful as his animal friends. And wonderfully unself-conscious when speaking to them. But what really makes this work, assuming you can swallow its otherwise all-Caucasian cast*, is in how comfortably it keeps one foot in reality and the other foot in storybook land. Of course, Kipling had something to do with that, but TechniColor plays a large role, too. The heightened hues lend themselves to painterly textures and helps the clever matte drawings & trick shots do their part in the lush landscape. (Only the silly stuffed snakes disappoint though they might work dubbed into parseltongue.) Credit Vincent Korda’s art design & cinematographer Lee Garmes’ matchless matching of studio work with W. Howard Greene’s location footage, too. Scripter Laurence Stallings gets into structural troubles with a story that has two last acts, but he never goes soft & cute, and doesn’t turn away from grim doings. Composer Miklos Rosza, now a regular on the Korda team, with producer Alexander, designer Vincent & helmer Zoltan, are all at their outstanding best here. And the film, far less celebrated than it’s cousin, THE THIEF OF BAGDAD/’40, now seems the better project.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Lots of blue eyes in this Indian village! And none bluer than Rosemary DeCamp as Mowgli’s mom. Her next role also had her playing mother, but swapped out Sabu for James Cagney’s George M. Cohan in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY! Hey, works for me.

DOUBLE-BILL: While Disney’s JUNGLE BOOK is the obvious pick, why not try another story about a man of the wild who tries to live in the city, Akira Kurosawa’s DERSU UZALA/’75.