WILD WILD WEST (1999)

After MEN IN BLACK/’97 hit, star Will Smith & director Barry Sonnenfeld must have received the proverbial blank check (twice the budget*; End Credits song for Smith) to make this long aborning/franchise-ready project, an over-stuffed reboot of the Old West meets MISSION IMPOSSIBLE ‘60s tv series.  It got a bad rap from young ‘Boomers,’ unwilling to accept any change in tone (and in color?), hating its ADHD plotting and can-you-top-this stunts, earning a mere third MiB’s revenue and bearing no sequel.  Just results, but also something of a shame since you can see the film this might have been in a pleasingly meandering reel midway along that finds leads Smith and quick-change brainiac partner Kevin Kline, Special Agents to President Grant, lost in the desert and trying to get back in the action.  Momentarily, the film drops the snark, the relentless pace & elaborate effects for bromantic bonding that advances the plot while adding character notes.  Then, it’s back to mad scientist Kenneth Branagh (almost as short as ‘little person’ Michael Dunn was in these roles on tv) and his noisy power grab for the whole U.S. of A.  The film swept two of those Worst Film Award Shows, yet except for some misconceived race/lynching gags, it’s not nearly as bad as rumored.  For that, there’s Johnny Depp’s LONE RANGER/’13 which is also 40 minutes longer.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Good looking/good sounding thanks to cinematographer Michael Ballhaus on his one & only Western and composer Elmer Bernstein on his umpteenth.   Cool professionalism (in a good way) in the midst of chaos.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Here's another film that would have almost certainly have been better with one-fifth the budget.

RHAPSODY IN BLUE (1945)

Rule-of-thumb on Hollywood bio-pics, Great American Songbook division: the better the composer, the worse the film.  Passable tunesmiths Kalmar & Ruby delight in THREE LITTLE WORDS/’50 and Sigmund Romberg’s lush corn thrives on the vaudeville polish of Stanley Donen’s DEEP IN MY HEART/’54.  Conversely, musical luminaries Cole Porter & Jerome Kern dealt stinkers in ‘46, NIGHT AND DAY and TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY.  (Porter slammed again with IT’S DE-LOVELY/’04.*)  Might this big George Gershwin bio be the exception that proves the rule?  Not quite.  But, just as his composing life was divided between Pop & Classical (both great, of course), so too this film, good on family matters & that split career track (reasonably factual by Hollywood bio standards, too), and bad on the fictional romantic crap with loyal B’way wren Joan Leslie vs Alexis Smith’s chilly American-in-Paris sophisticate.  Happily, the musical side of things is very good throughout with real-life pal Oscar Levant on piano as himself and dubbing for bland, debuting Robert Alda (Alan’s pop) as Gershwin.  Plus half a set from jazz stylist Hazel Scott; a witty balletic montage to accompany ‘An American in Paris’; and a chance to see original Bess Anne Brown sing ‘Summertime’ from PORGY AND BESS on a recreation of the original stage set.*  All told, nearly an hour of music; good stuff, most with LeRoy Prinz calling the shots, upstaging Irving Rapper’s handling of the drama.  And while no one was able to finesse the sad ending, Warners’ effects department sends us all the way up to heaven via matte shots, angles & nifty optical printing tricks.

DOUBLE-BILL: Clifford Odets’ rejected first-script for RHAPSODY got repurposed as HUMORESQUE/’46 with John Garfield & Joan Crawford picking up the relationship between Alda & Smith.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Irving Berlin, the song writer with the most dramatic personal story, wouldn’t let anyone touch it.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Brown doesn’t sing the ‘Summertime’ reprise she had on stage as Bess, but does its first statement in the opera, as written for Clara.  ALSO: BlackFace Warning!!  It comes when Al Jolson (who else?) intros ‘Swanee.’  Note that someone @ Warners ordered Jolie to tone down his traditional ‘darky’ makeup; no ‘nappy’ hairpiece and a less exaggerated white mouth.  The times were a’changin’ . . . just not enough.

DR. COOK'S GARDEN (1971)

For Ira Levin, 1967 meant a hit pop novel in ROSEMARY’S BABY and a one week run of DR. COOK’S GARDEN on B’way with Burl Ives & Keir Dullea.  (see poster)  The novel famously filmed in ’68; the play, significantly improved, made into this unjustly forgotten TV Movie-of-the-Week.  Bing Crosby, in his last acting role, has an alarming change of pace as the ‘good’ doctor of a small New England town where bad folk & hopeless cases tend to quickly/quietly die after a house call or two.  In spite of his skills . . . or because of them?  Enter Frank Converse, a young doctor Cook helped put thru med school, now called back to town, possibly to take over the practice from his aging, overworked mentor.  Blythe Danner’s there, too, in an early role as a local nurse whose father has recently, and unexpectedly, died.  A suspicious death to Converse who quickly and uncomfortably starts seeing Dr. Cook’s hand in a lot of convenient deaths.  You’ll guess the rest, and even if you don’t, the revelations & plot are largely telegraphed.  Yet this turns out not to matter, since the real conflict isn’t in discovery, but in philosophy & intent, with a doctor who believes he’s doing good with this human ‘culling,’ tending his town as if it were his garden.  And there’s something deeply upsetting seeing Der Bingle going in for this Dr. Kervorkian routine. (It's really worse, euthanasia on steroids, since it’s Doc who's making life-or-death decisions for his patients.)  And once Converse lets him know it’s got to stop, the ‘good’ doctor sees only one way out.  Neatly handled to fit an hour-and-a-half time slot, director Mike Post brings exceptional control to almost everything he touches.  (Though he's unable to do much with the generic music score or Bing’s unfortunate toupée.*)  Ending with a devious antithetical twist from Levin nearly as jarring as Rosemary 'accepting' her devil baby.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Post spent much of his career in series tv, but also had a couple of Clint Eastwood features and his remarkably fine early Vietnam War drama, GO TELL THE SPARTANS/’78 with Burt Lancaster, to his credit.

ONE MORE RIVER (1934)

Ex-pat Brit-in-Hollywood director James Whale, best known for horror straight & off-kilter (FRANKENSTEIN; INVISIBLE MAN; BRIDE OF . . . ), here shows a depth of feeling & sincerity rare in his output.  (Other than JOURNEY’S END/’30 and THE ROAD BACK/’37.)  Adapted from John Galsworthy’s last novel (part of his FORSYTHE Saga), its narrative an excuse to advocate liberalization of England’s ludicrous divorce laws.  Diana Wynyard, remarkably unfussy & modern at the end of her prestigious three year/seven film Hollywood run, is sued by physically abusive husband Colin Clive whom she refuses to live with while insisting on her right to see (on strict platonic terms) charming new man in her life Frank Lawton.  One of the first films made under newly strict Hollywood Production Code enforcement, Whale & scripter R.C. Sheriff still infer all that’s needed to make their case (even spousal rape, a concept barely admitted to at the time - inadmissable in court?), put over with exceptionally strong support for Universal: debuting Jane Wyatt, Reginald Denny, C. Aubrey Smith, Henry Stephenson, E. E. Clive and in a superb courtroom sequence, opposing barristers Lionel Atwill & Alan Mowbray.  Plus, the infamous Mrs. Patrick Campbell, G.B. Shaw stage favorite & correspondent.  (Terrible, BTW.  Everyone else, superb.)  An all but lost film, it did little biz, and still shows Whale fighting shy of Hollywood’s evolving editing techniques.  But, perhaps because the draconian U.K. divorce laws of the time mirrored his own experience with U.K. criminal law as an all but open homosexual, he brings a heightened emotional commitment which carries the film well past expectations.

DOUBLE-BILL: Colin Clive revisited this characterization, against Jean Arthur & Charles Boyer, in Frank Borzage’s slightly batty romance HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT/’37.

WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART (1990)

When a non-fatal heart attack kept James Agee from completing the script he and John Huston were adapting from C.S. Forester’s THE AFRICAN QUEEN/’51, Peter Viertel (a child of Hollywood Huston had worked with on WE WERE STRANGERS/’49 and would work with again) came on to polish as necessary and rework the hasty ending Huston had made a stab at.  Hard to know just how much of the final script was Viertel’s (only Agee is credited), but probably a fair amount.  On the other hand, Viertel’s lightly fictionalized behind-the-scenes novel of his experience, largely during pre-production with Huston avoiding prep & rewrites to go off on safari in Africa, specifically to ‘bag’ an elephant, became a minor classic of cinema literature.  Obsessed like some modern day Captain Ahab on pursuing this ill-advised/inauspicious hunt, Viertel’s portrait of Huston (here called John Wilson) is one-third admirable, one third bewildering, one-third self-centered, terrifying stubbornness and one-third glory-seeking despicable.  (Correct, for a man of Huston’s size & self-destructive fever you need four thirds . . . as long as others are paying, and not just in time & money.)  A great theme for a Hollywood-on-location story, but Clint Eastwood’s film, a major flop in its day, can’t get a handle on the man.  In spite of solid directoral craftsmanship, Eastwood’s acting misses the expansive quality Huston played on to get away with bad behavior, and it consistently stops the film cold.  Eastwood's effectiveness with a minimalist approach & narrowed focus lost when he tries to play large.  Not that he doesn’t try, he does . . . that’s the problem.*

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *You only have to imagine 1990 Sean Connery in the part.  He wouldn’t have had to try.

DOUBLE-BILL/READ ALL ABOUT IT: For a grand portrait of Huston at the time (irreplaceable filmmaker/impossible man) try Katharine Hepburn’s charmingly eccentric memoir THE MAKING OF THE AFRICAN QUEEN.  Then watch the movie.

THREE CASES OF MURDER (1955)

The British omnibus film, commercially goosed when DEAD OF NIGHT/’45 and Somerset Maugham’s QUARTET/’48 hit big Stateside, was still a going concern when this modestly budgeted trio of spooky tales came out.  With two of the three leaning toward the fantastic, ‘In The Picture’ comes with a proto-TWILIGHT ZONE vibe as an incorrigible museum painting keeps busting its glass-fronted frame to entice guards & visitors in for a one-way tour.  Twee stuff, though technically, the move from 2D to 3D upon entering, handled with imaginative understatement.  Then, it’s tit-for-tat murder accusations between frenemies in love & business, with a double-twist ending that plays like a medium-good Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode as written by Agatha Christie.  But the third story, Somerset Maugham in wraithful mode, disrupts the genteel tone & proper manners for Parliamentarian revenge after Alan Badel’s hapless member of the opposition is publically crucified in the House thru a cruel, lacerating speech by Cabinet Member Lord Mountdrago, Orson Welles in barnstorming form, complete with posher-than-thou British accent.  Badel’s political career may have been destroyed by the ridicule, but the man has gotten into Mountdrago’s head, planting nightmare seeds of humiliation & loss that show up for real the next day.  Soon, Mountdrago is unable to function, face party members, his wife or even the psychiatrist he reluctantly seeks out.  If only he could murder Badel in one of those ghastly dreams, mightn’t he wake up to find it’s all over?  A major work from Welles, totally unknown, unsubtle & terrifying, shaking up an orderly little film.  Jobber director George More O’Ferrall credited, but Welles’ hand is all over this, in direction and in (re)writing.  Hiding in plain sight for 65 years, long past time to bring it out in the open!

DOUBLE-BILL: No doubt, the Welles paycheck went directly into production costs on his troubled CONFIDENTIAL AGENT/MR. ARKADIN/’55, write-up below.

THE IRON PETTICOAT (1956)

After three years touring on stage (Shakespeare & Shaw), Katharine Hepburn returned to the screen in four overwrought spinster roles, banking on continuing the success of THE AFRICAN QUEEN/’52.  David Lean kept her on form in SUMMERTIME, but desperation seeped into her playing under journeyman Ralph Thomas’s coarse direction here, and under novice helmer Joseph Anthony in THE RAINMAKER before long time co-star Spencer Tracy clamped down, saving the ultra-conventional DESK SET/’57.  A lumpy, none too funny Cold War farce, PETTICOAT was a Bob Hope indie production (his Paramount days all but over), a late original screenplay from the great Ben Hecht, hoping to improve on his NINOTCHKA rip-off, COMRADE X/’40.  And it does . . . a little bit, in spite of its dreadful reputation modestly coming to life about halfway thru, largely on its solid farce structure.  (Though incessantly broad playing & lame jokes may keep you from getting that far; Hepburn in particular playing to the back of the house as if still on tour.)  The plot has disappointed Soviet pilot Hepburn defecting (or not) to ‘our side,’ with U.S. flyer Hope ordered to win her over.  A Red, White & Blue convert and a propaganda victory . . . or vice versa if Hepburn gets her way.  But the main laughs come in seeing how much Hecht’s script plays like JET PILOT meets ONE, TWO, THREE, a pair of Cold War items not yet released, placing Janet Leigh & John Wayne from JET and Horst Buchholz & James Cagney in Billy Wilder’s 1,2,3, in the Hepburn/Hope spots, respectively.  Things don’t get much weirder than that.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned, Josef von Sternberg’s vaguely ridiculous JET PILOT/’57, held back till it was an anachronism by over-controlling producer Howard Hughes, and ONE, TWO, THREE/’61 which, like PETTICOAT, finds comedy behind stale gags largely in pace & structure.

MURDER IN A SMALL TOWN / THE LADY IN QUESTION (1991)

Still impish and good company at 66, Gene Wilder called it a day after writing & starring in this pair of not-quite-good-enough murder mysteries.*  Director/manager of a modest Rep Co in late-1930s Connecticut (he left a big B’way career after his wife was murdered), his unusual knack for spotting TRUTH in his actors make him invaluable to local homicide dick Mike Starr, the two a sort of Odd Couple investigating team.  A nifty setup, no doubt meant to serve a longer series of cable movies.  (Hence holding the unsolved murder of Wilder’s wife in reserve.)  Easy going to a fault, we haphazardly bump into clues & relationships till Wilder randomly pulls everything together with the big revelation.  TOWN has one of those richest-guy-in-town bastards as victim, everyone wants to bump him off; LADY (better of the two) poisons Claire Bloom before she can give her fortune to an anti-Nazi fund.  In both, director Joyce Chopra keeps too steady a pace, smoothing out any chance for tension or suspense, but does get decent perfs from her cast, other than portly co-star Mike Starr whose ‘gumba-goodfella’ cop act is tired & overplayed, his buddy/buddy working routine with Wilder never adequately explained.  It’s watchable, and looks pretty good for a cable pic of the day (classy cinematographer Bruce Surtees shot both), but Wilder mostly unable to correct the long-running descent from his mid-‘70s prime.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Excluding two guest turns on the WILL & GRACE sit-com.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: In the second film, Wilder must have gotten a request to stick in one of his signature audience-pleasing panic attacks.  It certainly perks things up!

THE TAILOR OF PANAMA (2001)

After a decade off the screen (big or little), spymaster novelist John le Carré reactivated the brand using the comically off-kilter template of Graham Greene’s OUR MAN IN HAVANA/’59 only to find similar problems balancing the funny against the serious.*  Again, an ex-pat Brit businessman settled in a Latin country is pressured into working as a spy for the home team.  But finding little info to peddle, he starts making up conspiracies to have something to sell.  Hey, it's a business, give the customer what they want.  In both cases, it’s news on the revolution, and in both cases, things grow out of hand and people start dying for real.  In PANAMA, the tone is considerably darker which does make it easier to pull off, though nothing in here hits the comic heights of watching Alec Guinness get recruited by Noël Coward between stalls in ‘The Gents.’  But with Geoffrey Rush, Pierce Brosnan, Brendan Gleeson & Jamie Lee Curtis, there’s little to complain about in the acting department.  And if director Jon Boorman can’t quite make all the details clear, the basic arc of selling a non-existent coup to force the U.S. into ordering a takeover of the Canal comes across well enough between suit alterations.  (Rush’s tailoring skills a Chaplinesque tour de force even a bit of undercranking can't kill; while Brosnan’s slightly past-prime form defangs any nasty edge from his constant womanizing.)  Exceptionally well shot by Phillipe Rousselot and amusingly scored (with borrowed Spanish flair) by Shaun Davey, it’s a kind of ironic civilized entertainment not much encountered these days.  Even with shortcomings, worth the trip.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned, OUR MAN IN HAVANA.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Le Carré jealous of Greene’s rep & range as writer & film enthusiast?