HA-SHOTER / POLICEMAN (2011)

Currently on something of a roll after KINDERGARTEN TEACHER/’14 and SYNONYMS/’19, this earlier award-winner from Israeli writer/director Nadav Lapid does him few favors. Shot DOGME style, in an unattractive, washed out digital image that offers collateral damage on subtitle legibility, it doggedly follows an elite team of anti-terrorist alpha-types thru various male bonding rituals (even at a backyard BBQ), tiptoeing thru workplace events when not entirely avoiding them. Instead, team player Yiftach Klein worries about a very pregnant wife when not hitting on a 15 yr-old waitress (horny is as horny does!), or tries to get a sick colleague to sign off for full responsibility on a case of excessive force. Hey, the guy’s got a brain tumor. He’s likely to die before the case reaches court, letting his brother warriors off the hook. Then, two-thirds of the way in, we switch P.O.V. to watch the unfolding drama of a small group of arrogant kid anarchists, radicals planning to take some billionaires hostage at a wedding reception so they can grab media attention and read their People’s Manifesto over the air. (Awfully hard to root for the billionaire class these days, but these spoiled brat revolutionaries make it easy.) This action, naturally, brings our elite anti-terrorist unit back into the picture for a reasonably well-executed take-out operation*, but a distinct lack of sympathy in any direction keeps possible complex feelings muted. Or was the missing empathy intended?

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Structurally, the film seems much influenced by Kurosawa’s masterly hostage drama HIGH AND LOW/’62. But only structurally.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Slight Spoiler: *On the other hand, how hard can it be to stage a shoot out in the dark?

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (2014)

We’re well past the ‘use by’ date on ‘Mockumentaries.’ (And probably best not to revisit ones you once thought a hoot.) That said, Taika Waititi’s goofball vampire entry in the form is nasty good fun, often sidesplittingly so, and doesn’t even overstay its welcome. Co-written & co-directed with Jemaine Clement, who along with Waititi also takes on a leading role, we follow a happy communal coven of vampires, living to party & hunt up fresh victims. And they’re not alone, it seems other outlier communities of Werewolves, Zombies and Other Living-Dead types, all wary of each other, are navigating amongst us tempting Earthlings, looking for new friends and/or victims. A couple of these fresh faces necks give the film just enough of a narrative drive, along with a yearly gala event, a mixer for all the monsters as a climax/goal. The direction stays true to the tag-along documentary formula, moving easily when necessary into simple, but well-handled action mode: offbeat angles, pulley-based special effects shots and paranormal rotations, seemingly done without CGI and all the better for it. The effect is mostly for laughs, but here & there, a bit of a scary jolt. Great deadpan comic gore all the way thru.

DOUBLE-BILL: Before moving on to bigger, more commercial projects (THOR: RAGNAROK/’17; JOJO RABBIT/’19), Waititi already showed daring in small, personal fare like BOY/’10.

EXCUSE MY DUST (1951)

Good-natured semi-musical, a modest charmer for Red Skelton as a turn-of-the-last century* automobile enthusiast who tinkers the days away when he could easily be in the horse stable business with gruff William Demerest as father-in-law, married to girl-of-his-dreams Sally Forrest. Macdonald Carey has dastardly fun as his slick, college-educated rival, showing off a fine baritone on some pleasing Howard Schwartz/Dorothy Fields songs, with second female lead Monica Lewis getting the splashier tunes. And in a nice touch, the film jumps ahead for three little futuristic fantasy scenes. Funny stuff. Everything comes to a head at a big auto rally with a gaggle of splendid vintage vehicles, based on real models they look brand spanking new and downright eccentric, all vying for a five thousand dollar racing prize. Enough to set up Red with a wife and his own car company. Skelton tamps down his wild side here, playing straight with the slapstick & physical comedy gags director Roy Rowland & producer Jack Cummings got Buster Keaton (underused comedy advisor at M-G-M at the time) to develop. At one point in the car race, Buster looks set to restage the classic rolling rock avalanche from SEVEN CHANCES/’25, now with watermelons & pumpkins as Skelton’s car careens thru a field, but someone got cold feet. (No doubt, shooting it would have cost as much as the rest of the film.) Too bad, it could have been the big moment this little film needed.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: A big serving of Hollywood nepotism on this one as director Roy Rowland was a nephew of Louis B. Mayer by marriage and producer Jack Cummings a nephew by blood.

THE SUSPECT (1944)

Neatly handled Edwardian thriller, a very British case of domestic murder, with an unusually restrained Charles Laughton driven over the edge by his termagant of a wife (and later a blackmailing neighbor) when the old gal threatens to ruin him, his business and the sweet-natured young thing (Ella Raines) he’s taken under his protective wing. Those who thrill at Laughton’s full-on histrionics, the thrill/fear factor of wondering if (or when) he’ll cross the line from self-loathing revelation into embarrassing self-parody, may wish he and director Robert Siodmak had been a bit bolder. While those who find Laughton always too much, may be pleasantly surprised. Excellent production values for a Universal pic with a B+ budget, atmospherically shot by Paul Ivano and well cast (especially Henry Daniell's hangdog-faced blackmailer), except for Ella Raines, unconvincing as Brit or as spousal material for Laughton.

DOUBLE-BILL: Over at 20th/Fox, in HANGOVER SQUARE/'45 and THE LODGER/’44, director John Brahm, with Laird Cregar & George Sanders, triumphed with a more stylized touch on similar terrain.

THE MACOMBER AFFAIR (1947)

This Ernst Hemingway adaptation, one of the better ones, has always flown a bit under the radar. First of two Hemingways with Gregory Peck, it’s less known but far better than his second (SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO/’52, bloated & glossy), holding fairly close to the original short story, THE SHORT HAPPY LIFE OF FRANCIS MACOMBER, about a failing marriage and a safari hunt gone wrong. Peck, playing guide to Robert Preston & Joan Bennett’s miserable couple, was justly pleased with it, doubling as unofficial co-producer and getting Zoltan Korda to direct. Smart move. The hire made all the difference starting with Korda’s strong feel for untamed places, here smoothly matching various location shoots together (only the second-unit went to Africa) in relatively seamless manner, and getting unusually striking, even unpleasant, perfs from everyone. The script is blunt, occasionally sounding like it has yet to leave the page, but Bennett & Preston’s essential bitterness & lack of compatibility, added to her panicked depression once he starts to find his lost macho bearings after initial failure on the hunt (hey!, Hemingway, ya know), remains strikingly raw. Peck gets across how she might be speaking for him, hence half the attraction (looks make up the rest), but elsewise keeps things too close to the vest, missing the edge Trevor Howard might have brought or the mythic quality of a Gary Cooper (Hemingway’s preferred stand-in). With strong work from cinematographer Karl Struss and Miklós Rózsa’s tangy score, the film’s lack of reputation is a puzzle.*

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *An indie from producer Benedict Bogeaus, released by United Artists, it’s possible that film rights complications have kept this from getting proper video distribution.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: A more than decent 5'3", Joan Bennet looks positively tiny next to Peck’s 6'3".

MEN WITHOUT WOMEN (1930)

Impressive, if overlooked early John Ford sound film survives only as a ‘Part Talkie’ work print, but enjoys fine visual quality in the MoMA conservation print. Loaded with special interest for Ford mavens, but not for specialists only, it mainly deals with a submarine crash and the unfolding drama as the crew waits for rescue from above (they can only get out via torpedo tube!) or slow death as the ship runs out of oxygen. Ford seemed unusually pleased with this one; rightly so (though in discussing it with Peter Bogdanovich*, he conflates it with his follow up sub pic, SEAS BENEATH). Proud of filming inside a real sub, Ford gains just as much verisimilitude thru the relative youth of the 'acting company regulars’ he was already recycling in his casts. But the film’s main draw comes less from the tragic underwater countdown than in its prologue, a set piece with the crew on a quick leave in Shanghai, cramming in as much drinking and whoring as they can in a couple of hours. Mostly at a famous local joint with ‘the Longest Bar in the World.’ It’s all character comedy, sentimental homesickness, barroom ballads, and bartering over sex. Much of it exceedingly raw even by Pre-Code standards. (You could cuss like a real tar in the silents!) Held together with little but Ford’s eye for composition (cinematography by Joseph August) and easy command of pace. Much of his technique a leftover from the silent era with which this all but closes the book. The only plot element in this part a touch of narrative foreshadowing to set up a Mystery Man With A Past on the sub crew, an officer whose secret will wrap things up with a satisfyingly noble sacrifice.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: During the rescue scenes, keep an eye out for John Wayne as a radio operator. He’d soon run afoul of Ford, banished for nearly a decade (until STAGECOACH/’39) after showing disloyalty (by Ford’s book) taking the lead in Raoul Walsh’s THE BIG TRAIL/’30.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: *See Bogdanovich’s early interview book: JOHN FORD: UoCal Press/1968.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, SEAS BENEATH/’31.

TOYS IN THE ATTIC (1963)

Adding a note of Tennessee Williams style sexual hysteria (spinsterhood division) to her own specialty of iffy finances disrupting a dysfunctional Southern family, got Lillian Hellman a hit on her penultimate B’way play.* With a stellar cast (Jason Robards Jr., Irene Worth, Maureen Stapleton, all Tony nominated; Anne Revere winning) and Arthur Penn directing, it must have seemed a plum property for film adaptation, but winds up feeling labored and obvious on screen. George Roy Hill, just off a debut directing Tennessee Williams’ lightweight PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT/’62) can’t find the key to play this one in, as Dean Martin (in a last shot at a ‘serious’ role) returns home with new bride Yvette Mimieux flush with money from a secret deal he’s just put thru. Happy days for all, including older sisters Geraldine Page & Wendy Hiller, until a bad case of familial sexual jealousy wrecks havoc on all plans. Some good acting in here, Martin surprisingly strong and Wendy Hiller superb. But Mimieux’s needy panic feels under-motivated (two sentences could have covered it), and Page’s force-of-malignant-nature act too much right from the start. Her clinging neuroticism sold with the pushy false enthusiasm of a door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesperson. There’s some nicely shot location stuff from lenser Joseph Biroc, and a nifty credit sequence with titles appearing like marque lights on various building facades in the Old Quarter New Orleans, but the story feels awfully thin.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *No surprise to find that James Poe, who wrote the play-to-screen adaption, also did two for Tennessee Williams: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF/’58; SUMMER AND SMOKE/’61.

WITNESS (1985)

Not till he hit the ripe old age of 43, after three STAR WARS and two INDIANA JONES, did Harrison Ford become the sort of movie star who didn’t need a blockbuster franchise behind him to ‘open’ a film. Previous tries (FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE; HANOVER STREET) went nowhere, even cult phenom BLADE RUNNER didn’t work at the time. And you can pinpoint the exact moment it came together for Ford, dancing flirtatiously in a barn loft (with co-star Kelly McGillis, the young Amish widow whose son accidentally witnessed a murder) to an ‘oldie’ pop tune in this finely observed Peter Weir policier. Ford must have known it, too, coming thru with a sincerity, sensitivity & serious sexiness he’d not previously shown on screen, while letting Weir’s calm storytelling style chart the flow of his growing relationship with this strange Amish farming community & with McGillis as he protects her and hides from a dirty trio of big city cops he’s exposed them all to. Sparingly dialogued, sensationally well-cast (first timers, non-pros, actors from other disciplines like opera & ballet), with cinematographer John Seale’s Vermeer-like interior lighting schemes, the film casts a romantic spell as strong as its well-honed suspense elements.

DOUBLE-BILL: John Wayne’s ANGEL AND THE BADMAN/’47 is usually cited as a big influence, but the film is much closer in spirit to BRIEF ENCOUNTER/’45 or ROMAN HOLIDAY/’53.

DANTE'S INFERNO (1935)

Painfully misguided super-spectacle from Fox, made just as Darryl F. Zanuck’s 20th Century outfit was taking over and leading man Spencer Tracy was taking off. (Spence sobered up and soon landed at M-G-M.) Better known for B-pics, producer Sol M. Wurtzel & director Harry Lachman camouflage an intractable story & unappealing characters with ‘production value,’ including three trips into Dante’s Inferno, first as H. B. Warner’s rundown carny attraction, then spiffed up thru Tracy’s showmanship, and finally as a dreamscape of Dante’s Hell running almost a full reel. It’s a quite a show, but never feels organic or tied to Tracy’s fast-rise from bum to entrepreneur & society crasher as he runs roughshod thru partners, friends, even family, breaking rules of decorum & public safety on his race to the top. Twice causing disaster: on land when his expansion collapses at a benefit and then out at sea when his gambling ship goes up in flames. Oddly for a film made under full Production Code enforcement, he goes largely unpunished for all his misdeeds, reforming just in time to earn a happy finish, reunited with wife Claire Trevor & kid Scotty Beckett. Terrible as it is, and Tracy quite rightly loathed the film, it’s a rather entertaining watch. So much going on!

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Even with visual flair of phantasmagoric sets & Rudolph Maté’s chiseled lensing, along with an early screen appearance for ballroom dancer Rita (Casino) Hayworth, the film remains little scene. Possibly because Tracy spends half a reel in BlackFace as part of a carny job where he gets baseballs thrown at him.

DOUBLE-BILL: Tracy had earned kudos playing another obsessive businessman in THE POWER AND THE GLORY/’33, with William K. Howard directing a much admired Preston Sturges script. The film, vastly over-praised then & now, no doubt helped this disaster get made.