THE MONUMENTS MEN (2014)

George Clooney’s big old-fashioned WWII adventure pic is pretty lousy. Not because it’s old-fashioned moviemaking, but because it’s bad old-fashioned moviemaking.* The motivating idea isn’t so much its fascinating story of art experts buddied up as a military unit and going off to Europe to search out & defend Western art treasures at war’s end. No, it’s more like Clooney ‘jonesing’ to direct & star in a middle-aged THE GREAT ESCAPE/’64. But like so much of his work, as actor as well as director, everyone on screen is having all the fun while the audience never gets past the celebrity rope line. Poor composer Alexander Desplat, charged with finding a jaunty theme to match Elmer Bernstein’s famous GREAT ESCAPE tag, at least has the decency to let some embarrassment show. Something you can’t say about Bill Murray’s distracting self-indulgence; the disposable use of top-billed foreign-born co-stars; camera set-ups you can't edit into a simple apartment conversation; or Clooney’s galling filch from the end of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN/’98 so he can give his pop a cornball cameo.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Burt Lancaster & Paul Scofield burn up the screen covering similar terroir in John Frankenheimer’s assured WWII nail-biter THE TRAIN/’64.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Clooney’s other directorial efforts (IDES OF MARCH/’11; LEATHERHEADS/’08; GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK/’05; CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND/’02), display lots of ambition & good intentions, but who grades on effort & Hollywood Glamour? (LOL)

STARS IN MY CROWN (1950)

A slice of pastoral Americana from an unlikely source, noir and psychological-horror master Jacques Tourneur (OUT OF THE PAST/’47; CAT PEOPLE/’42). In truth, folksy backwoods bucolic stumps him at first, but the film gathers interest as it goes along, smoothly building up dramatic angles without overselling the small town epiphanies. Joel McCrea’s the new preacher in town, an ex-Civil War soldier not ashamed to flaunt a gun or dirty his hands to get the job done. Before long, he’s found a no-nonsense match in Ellen Drew and informally adopted her orphaned nephew (Dean Stockwell). Over the course of a hazy summer, a new Doc tries to fill his father’s beloved shoes (James Mitchell angry & off-key); an outbreak of typhoid will test the conflicting beliefs of Doctor & Pastor; and the town’s favorite black ‘uncle’ (Juano Hernandez) will be under pressure to sell his property for a new mineral mine. Tourneur finds his groove in the second half, when the mood darkens with sickness running thru town and that kindly cracker-barrel crowd turning up in costume as the KKK, fixin’ for a lynching. The big showdown is at once inspiring, patronizing, powerful & all too happy to let villains off the hook. Oh, those charitable Christians, what won’t they forgive next. It’s really an awfully nice film. Now, on to the next hymn.

DOUBLE-BILL: This is really John Ford or Henry King territory. Specifically Ford, with an opening that might be a MidWest HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY/’41, then quickly turning to a couple of pics Ford made with Will Rogers: DR. BULL/’33, for the typhoid outbreak, and the Irwin Cobb adaptation, JUDGE PRIEST/’34, which Ford loosely remade as THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT/'53 largely to include its anti-lynching climax. Though that film's Charles Winniger, no more than this film's Joel McCrea, gets close to Rogers’ slo-mo populist magic.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: With Amanda Blake as the new doc’s love interest and James Arness as Alan Hale's oldest son, STARS is a veritable GUNSMOKE ‘pre-union.’

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1947)

Comedian & B’way performer Danny Kaye spent his first three pics making retrofit Eddie Cantor vehicles for Samuel Goldwyn, the indie producer who brought them both to Hollywood almost two decades apart. Wildly successful at the time, the films now look awfully forced, surviving on a thread of specialty routines featuring Kaye’s musical mimicry. But this fourth film, an adaptation/expansion of James Thurber’s famous short-short story, is a good deal better. Or is until they work up a real-life adventure to augment Mitty’s fanciful daydreams. The basic idea makes Mitty a pulp fiction writer at a big publishing house where his overactive imagination finds good use; a nifty idea, and one that Thurber didn’t seem to object to.* But once they wedge Mitty into a spy/assassination tale, the whole point of the story gets lost. Worse, the plotting turns dumb & lazy. Still, the outline is there and the dream sequences are a gorgeous hoot, filmed in demonstration-worthy TechniColor by Lee Garmes, along with some amazingly convincing process/backscreen trick shots from John Fulton. And Kaye’s mastery of solfeggio (all that musical tongue-twisting) is quite astounding. Was it shot ‘live?’

DOUBLE-BILL: Ben Stiller’s recent MITTY/’13 (not seen here; a $100 mill vanity project?) didn’t catch on, instead try John Schlesinger’s BILLY LIAR/’63 (with Tom Courtenay & Julie Christie). No official connection to the Thurber, but much closer in spirit. And look for BOOK REVUE/’46 (in various Looney Tunes collections) to see a faux ‘40s animated Kaye in excelsis.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: *You can read up on scripter Ken Englund’s collaboration with Thurber in Max Wilk’s compendium, THE WIT AND WISDOM OF HOLLYWOOD. Thurber was particularly unhappy about losing two dream sequences. One involving Mitty’s death by firing squad(!) and a sort of Irish INFORMER tale with Kaye singing ‘Molly Malone’ straight. (He also recorded it ‘straight,’ and very nicely done.) Both segments apparently survive in the Goldwyn vault.

NAVRAT ZTRACENEHO SYNA / RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON (1967)

A sanatorium tale from Evald Schorm, very Czech New Wave, made during the run up to the brief Prague Spring of 1968, until Alexander Dubček’s reforms were crushed by Soviet tanks. Yet, even before that smothering political put-down, there’s no sense of freedom, only modern angst-ridden worries, and the film plays out as one more all-too familiar allegorical mental hospital drama. Here, a young man tries to recover from a suicide attempt, an act presented as a self-indulgence for someone who has so much: wife, child, helpful parents, good job. But each time he gains early release from the facility, something sets him off and it’s back for more treatment from his decidedly nonchalant shrink, plus extra attention from his (nymphomaniacal?) wife. So . . . um . . . er, the message is . . . Czech Society chomping at democracy’s bit, but not quite ready for freedom? Alas, that really does seem to be the idea. And while Schrom has a fine eye for strong compositions (lots of frames within frames within frames) the grainy realism and natural lighting become something of a drag after a while. And, with so much repetitive behavior, you long to shake somebody up just to see what might happen.

DOUBLE-BILL: Everybody seemed to be in mental institutions in the mid-‘60s. You might try Jean Seberg & Warren Beatty in Robert Rossen’s LILITH/’64 though any decent cinema shrink would advise against it.

RICH AND STRANGE (EAST OF SHANGHAI) (1931)

After a striking Talkie debut on BLACKMAIL/’29, Alfred Hitchcock took some odd turns before finding his voice with THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH/’34. (Credit producer Michael Balcom with the course correction.) But from that brief wilderness period, this rather intriguing mess of a film seems to have caught Hitch’s imagination. RICH shows up via an early inheritance that lets a bored married couple take off on a world cruise where they soon become STRANGE to each other. HE falling under the spell of a venal adventuress who says she’s a Princess. SHE turning a confirmed, old bachelor into a lovesick pup. You keep expecting to hear someone singing Cole Porter’s ‘At Long Last Love,’ the one that asks if it’s ‘the good turtle soup, or merely the mock?’ Then, in something of a structural coup, the story draws down to a fourth act that dumps shipboard romance with a return focus on the warily reunited couple. Technically, the film is unexpectedly shabby, yet full of imaginative touches, especially when Hitch ignores early sound technology and simply shoots silent. The opening half-reel might be a UFA Expressionist piece. Largely written by Hitchcock’s wife, Alma Reville, the film easily rewards looking past a lot of awkwardly staged moments, especially for Joan Barry as the wife. A near ringer for Madeleine Carroll of THE 39 STEPS/’35, she dubbed the vocals for Anny Ondra in BLACKMAIL and might be considered the first classic Hitchcock blonde, if this weren’t such atypical Hitchcock. (For a change, most Public Domain DVDs are pretty watchable.)

MR. LUCKY (1943)

As an ex-pat Cockney gambling ‘promoter’ Damon Runyon might have recognized in this wartime dramedy, Cary Grant runs a double scam: dodging the draft with a dead man’s I.D.; and seducing a society dame to fleece the gambling den at her charity ball. Two things get in the way: the dead guy turns out to be overdue on a jail term; and then Cary goes all patriotic with the society loot, turning good-guy against his wiseguy pals. It’s a neat set-up, with imaginative megging from H. C. Potter and ultra-swank lensing from George Barnes. What keeps the film from having a higher profile is its leading lady, Laraine Day. She’s pleasant enough, shiny & wholesome, but, without a trace of glamour or mystery, no match for Cary. Worse, she knows it and overcompensates by trying too hard. It makes some of the already alarming tie/castration gags even more uncomfortable. (As Grant’s comic sidekick, Alan Carney is equally weak.) A pity since the film has a lot going for it, especially when Grant, almost impossibly attractive here, demonstrates a bit of beginner’s Cockney rhyming slang. (Real Cockney slang is much harder to figure out since they drop the rhyming word.)

DOUBLE-BILL: Grant must have enjoyed working with Potter since they reteamed on the smoothly funny MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE/’48 with Myrna Loy a fine match as Mrs. Blandings.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The catchy but uncredited tune Grant’s always whistling is the Dietz/Schwartz classic ‘Something to Remember You By,’ familiar to fans of THE BAND WAGON/’53 as a background chorale at that film's classic post-debacle cast party.

LOST HORIZON (1937)

Inundated by digital restorations, director’s cuts and instant access, movie mavens never had it so good. (Certainly never better at home. Back at the Multi-Plex, a less attractive universe.) And for those who look more to the past, the birth of the preservation revolution can be pegged to three high profile reconstructions, curated in the ‘70s & ‘80s out of compromised, hard-won sources: Abel Gance’s NAPOLEON/’27; George Cukor’s A STAR IS BORN/’54 and Frank Capra’s LOST HORIZON/’37. Each mutilated by their own panicked producers after commercially disappointing initial runs with 20 or more minutes of trimmed material purposefully destroyed to avoid any artistic second guessing. More resurrection than restoration, their second-coming premieres were very big deals in a way now hard to imagine. NAPOLEON and STAR selling out Radio City Music Hall and HORIZON @ the then Graumann’s Chinese Theater. So, huzzahs to the restoration pioneers. (And to the hardy audiences who bought the tix!) Of the three, Capra’s pic is the most problematic both as a film and as a restoration.* A woozy anti-war fable that plants a motley group of Caucasian stragglers from strife-torn China into Shangri-La, a timeless paradise that plays out like a White Man’s Burden fantasy, set in a sort of International Style Hollywood estate meant for the Barcelona World’s Fair. With a society that’s like a benevolent Mini-British Raj where culturally advanced Euro-types wisely rule over happy, laboring Asiatic Peasants. How Capra, with his Sicilian chip-on-the-shoulder/underdog background, failed to pick up on author James Hilton’s paean to class-divided purgatory is the one true mystery in the film. Fortunately, he manages some excitement, especially in the prologue and, with a magnificent understated perf from Ronald Colman, staves off self-destruction from sheer silliness. (Not so of the far more disastrous ‘73 musical remake.  (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/02/lost-horizon-1973.html)  Or does until the wrap, a Hail Mary pass even Capra couldn’t make. (Hey! It's another unintentional double-take review! Check out our thoughts from six years back.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/07/lost-horizon-1937.html)

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Ronald Colman’s second go at James Hilton was in RANDOM HARVEST/’42, a gasp-worthy amnesia weepie. Absurd as it is, the cast, direction and plush, studio-bound M-G-M æsthetic are so all-of-a-piece, the damn thing is positively irresistible.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/09/random-harvest-1942.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *While the soundtrack for the original 132 minute running time was intact, visual gaps remain, filled in with pan-and-scanned production stills. That’s okay, as are the grain variations sourced from different surviving prints. But restoration techniques have come a long way since chief restorer Robert Gitt worked his wonders. Hopefully, the inevitable Blu-Ray release will take a fresh look at everything.

ORLACS HANDE / THE HANDS OF ORLAC (1924)

Robert Weine’s directing credit on THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI/‘20, that paradigm of German Cinematic Expressionism, has long seemed its most expendable creative element. An idea largely confirmed by his work on this oft-made, irresistible story about a famed concert pianist who loses his hands in a train crash, has experimental surgery to graft on a couple of replacements, than finds himself fighting for digital control only to discover that the matched pair came from a freshly executed murderer! And that the little darlings at the end of his arms have somehow retained a mind & a will of their own. Talk about muscle memory! But Weine makes everyone sleepwalk thru the story as if he were filming CALIGARI II. But without that film’s abstract designs & weird 2-dimensional scenery flats, along with its grotesque carnival air, his painfully stiff staging quickly turns soporific. The film might have been made in 1918. Things pick up a bit toward the end when a fresh murder leads to a series of shocking confessions & explanations (Hercule Poiret might have been stumped), but even Conrad Veidt’s onanistic wrist-wrestling and a recent film restoration out on KINO can’t bring this one to life.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Instead, try MAD LOVE/’35, where German cinema exiles Karl Freund & Peter Lorre do their bit for the Orlac story. It’s an uneven, but memorable pic, with Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) as an overwrought Orlac and striking visual intimations of CITIZEN KANE/’41.

RIO GRANDE (1950)

The last entry in John Ford’s Cavalry Trilogy is often considered a bit of a weak sister next to the formal beauties of FORT APACHE/’48 and SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON/’49. But its looser, less structured form holds different pleasures and it’s probably more helpful to think of it as companion piece to its immediate predecessor, the amiable WAGON MASTER/’50, another under-appreciated Ford Western.* John Wayne, still long, lean & handsome working under his own thinning hair, is the Army Colonel trying to put down an Indian revolt near the Mexican border. His son (a very fine 16-yr-old Claude Jarman) has joined the regiment after flunking out of West Point, and now Wayne’s estranged wife, a perfectly cast Maureen O’Hara, shows up to try and buy their son out of his enlistment. While the action simmers on the back burner, the film spends most of its time & energy on horsemanship, comic army routines and a heckuva lot of singing. (Four-part harmony from the Sons of the Pioneers.) Sometimes Ford can feel as if he’s treading water with these asides, dawdling for his own amusement, but here, the gags, stunts & songs take on the natural rhythm of army life. (The neatly-paced comic stuff is LOL funny.) And the same unforced quality holds when the action kicks in for the last act. With a surprisingly strong emotional pull from the double family dynamic of home life & army life, it makes for a lovely film. (NOTE: South of the Border, the Rio Grande River is called Rio Bravo, as per our poster. No connection with the John Wayne/Howard Hawks film from 1959.)

DOUBLE-BILL: *Ben Johnson, back in support here and offering some breathtaking horsemanship nearly matched by Harry Carey, Jr and a game Claude Jarman, got a rare leading role in WAGON MASTER.