CANNON FOR CORDOBA (1970)

Downsized just before production?  That might explain the impressive/expensive battle sequences (asst. director/action-specialist José María Ochoa wholly responsible?) while script, cast & character development more in line with a ‘Spaghetti Western’ wannabe.  Whatever Mirisch Production Company was shooting for, they settled for journeymen types on both sides of the camera on this 1916 Mexican border story that sees General Pershing send fast-fading/fair-haired star George Peppard across-the-border undercover to neutralize six stolen US cannons and bring back the Revolutionary bandito who stole them (heavily Italian-accented Raf Vallone).  Other non-first-choices include journeyman director Paul Wendkos and most of cast.  One of whom, devilishly handsome Pete Duel, in a last feature before committing suicide at 31 (still something of mystery) and also a final gig for Mexican cinematographer Antonio Macasoli.  Only Hollywood composer Elmer Bernstein (using Brazil’s Heitor Villa-Lobos for Mexican inspiration) along with that super-charged second-unit were likely first-choice.  Easy to see how this one might have worked better*, but as it is, the sum far less than its imbalanced parts.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  *Sergio Leone shows what this might have been in his final, and still underappreciated, DUCK YOU SUCKER!/’72.  Another filmed-in-Mexico  ‘Spaghetti Western.’ https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/09/duck-you-sucker-1972.html

AMERICAN ANIMALS (2018)

Blech.  Remarkably unappealing true-crime* story about four Kentucky college students who come together on a botched heist of rare books.  The gimmick is that the 20-something quartet of would-be crooks play out this real life scenario as if it were a ‘high concept’ pitch meeting for a proposed movie.  (Note brief sequence imagining the crime perfectly playing out, a la GAMBIT/’66.)  Though not particularly wealthy, the sense of youthful entitlement is overwhelming for this quartet of under-achieving Raskolnikovs*, while preparation and execution are missing.  They might be watching themselves on a darkly comic adventure they are unable to stop as it turns progressively grim.  (Could all four be this collectively dumb?)  Even when they initially abort mid-mission, they don’t take the hint to call it off for good.  At which point, the film tries to turn serious, but can't get past rancid as writer/director Bart Layton, with a background in documentary, continues to look for sympathy and understanding long after we stop caring.  (Though note that one of the lead actors, Barry Keoghan, is head & shoulders above the rest.)  Layton even has the real-life counterparts show up in sporadic sound bite interviews to plead their case.  No dice.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: If only these guys had watched a heist film with fuck-ups, like BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET/’58, instead of ones with a cooler-than-thou vibe.  Maybe they’d have had thought twice and let the fantasy die.  (*They definitely hadn’t read CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Paid by your blog poster who initially typed ‘rue-crime’ instead of ‘true-crime.’  Sort of a Freudian typo, an accurate one.

MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL (1984)

In possibly the saddest of Disney’s occasional attempts to reestablish Mickey Mouse as a working animated character and not just a safe corporate logo or the domesticated suburban Dad he was in the ‘50s (his Fred MacMurray period), the company ‘imagineers’ done him wrong by casting the former ‘30s anarchist as ‘mousey’ Bob Crachit in this ‘tab show’ version of the Dickens’ classic running about half an hour.  With ‘Scrooge’ McDuck as Ebenezer Scrooge (shouldn’t he be playing Jacob Marley with Mickey taking a shot at the lead, so the transformation would actually be touching?), and a host of cross-plugs for Disney regulars to fill out the rest of the cast.  (Admittedly, Mole and Water Rat from WIND AND THE WILLOWS as the two men asking for donations an inspired touch.  But you can’t even begin to make a decent CHRISTMAS CAROL if you skip those personificating youngsters ‘Ignorance’ and ‘Want.’)  And technically, note how the animators open the film with a wan repeat of the stupendous multi-plane shot from PINOCCHIO/’40 moving from on high down into the town, here done sans multi-plane technical daring.  No doubt too expensive for a short originally shown on tv as part of a holiday package.  Needless to say, Mickey returned to glad-handing duties like some old boxer in Las Vegas used as a greeter to bring customers into various Disney park properties around the world.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  See our Christmas Carol Write-Ups via this LINK, including the one most like this, the remarkable MR. MAGOO version from 1962.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/search?q=dickens+christmas+carol

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Dickens’ original story, when properly caught in a dramatization, should be as scary as one of the classic early Disney animated features.

CITY HEAT (1984)

Called in to take over direction from Blake Edwards after ‘creative differences,’* Richard Benjamin (in just his third film) can’t find a rhythm to make this featherweight 1930s period piece play.  Clint Eastwood & Burt Reynolds (working under his own hair), cop and P.I. in a glossy if never-named Kansas City*, were the commercial impetus for making the film, but Clint comes off primus inter pares.  And while everyone works to keep this from becoming too cute for words, they only fitfully succeed in resuscitating the hoary tropes.  You can see what they were up against: jazz clubs and book-keeping swindles; an unsolved murder and romance starved dames (Madeline Kahn & Jane Alexander, both underused); machine-gun rubouts & boxing action.  Slick & watchable at a quick 93", you can spot the stars using their pull behind the scenes: Burt gets a favored cinematographer; Clint gets his preferred composer and a final rewrite.  You can also spot something going on with Reynolds’ weight.  Whenever he takes off the raincoat, he seems to drop twenty pounds.  (Apparently, the result of a stunt injury early in the shoot.) 

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Working similar terrain, Robert Altman’s KANSAS CITY/’96 is a less light-hearted 1930s jazz-infused underworld drama.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/04/kansas-city-1996.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK:  *Edwards’ pseudonym is Sam O. Brown (S.O.B.).  But he got an even better last laugh, since ankling this freed up his schedule for one of the rare films he directed but didn’t write, MICKI & MAUDE/’84, one of his best late works.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/05/micki-maude-1984.html  On the other hand, Edwards repurposed ideas from here into the slapdash SUNSET/’88.

CONVICTS 4 (1962)

With a cast list that reads like the MidNite Movie from Hell (or is it Heaven?), Ben Gazzara, Sammy Davis Jr., Stuart Whitman, Broderick Crawford, Vincent Price, Rod Steiger (as Tiptoes!), Ray Walston, Timothy Carey (even more florid than usual), and Jacks Kruschen & Albertson, this fact-inspired prisoner’s reformation tale ought to be better . . . or at least more entertaining.  Instead, enfeebled direction by well-regarded scripter Millard Kaufman (he never tried again) keeps this from getting off the ground.  (Distributor Allied Artists hoping to catch back-draft from classy, just released prison redemption drama THE BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ; Burt Lancaster/John Frankenheimer.  That one straying even farther from the facts.)  Here, Gazzara gets a last minute reprieve from Death Row and finds a champion in warden-to-be Stuart Whitman.  Or will if he survives tough wardens Crawford & Steiger.  Though Gazzara proves hardly worthy of second chances (or third or fourth), Whitman proves just as stubborn to find the good hiding inside.  (How?  Why?)  But after three decades of bad moves, Gazzara finally finds a way out thru painting.  Turns out prison commissioner Vincent Price is also an art expert!  It’s a one-minute scene, likely filmed in an afternoon.  Also the likely shooting schedule for Steiger & Crawford.  (Someone calling in a few favors?)  But neither the weirdly strong acting contingent, nor top talent like Oscar-winners composer Leonard Rosenman* and lenser Joseph F. Biroc able to prop up Kaufman’s missing mise-en-scène.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *How did the Gazzara character end up on Death Row for murder without ‘malice aforethought?’  Would it even have been considered Murder One?  Not pre-planned; not even his gun.  Get this man an appeal and a new lawyer!

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Note that Rosenman, whose top scores came early (EAST OF EDEN; THE COBWEB; REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE - all 1955) was Oscar’d on BOUND FOR GLORY/’77 and BARRY LYNDON/’76.  Academy voters undoubtedly confusing him with Woody Guthrie and Franz Schubert.

SLUZOBNÍCI / SERVANTS (2020)

Writer/director Ivan Ostrochovský’s award-winner looks back in anger and sorrow at the hemorrhaging barriers between Church and State in Communist Yugoslavia, circa 1980.  The situations & current crisis (a liberal priest instructor dead under unexplained circumstances) seen mostly, but not exclusively, thru the eyes of two 20-something seminarians who ought to be conjugating their theological ABCs.  (Twelve years after the ‘velvet revolution’ was brutally ended, it feels as if the country has regressed a decade or two.)  Filmed in squarish b&w Academy Ratio, you may initially be reminded of Pawel Pawlikowski’s superb IDA/’13, but this film never hits the same level of technical control.  In his second feature, Ostrochovský’ goes for the long slow boil and sometimes lets the flame go out altogether as religious elders on staff try to justify moral compromises between religious and secular authorities just to keep the order from closing down entirely.  A dilemma that has them attempting to enlist students as informers to help find out who’s coordinating the circulation of banned books or instigating a hunger strike.  But Ostrochovský lets too many pivotal moments slip by in an unvaried atmosphere of discontent.  One priest goes so far as to break his confessional vows of silence.  A real shock when he tells us, but did we see it happen?  Beautifully shot, austere in design, and well acted, the relationship between the two friends as they start to keep secrets from each other (both in their film debut) very compelling.  But it's easy to imagine this being more effective with another film or two under Ostrochovský’s belt.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  As mentioned, IDA.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/11/ida-2013.html

BLUE'S BIG CITY ADVENTURE (2022)

From Nickelodeon, a BLUE’S CLUES Live-Action/Animation mix musical too enjoyable to be entirely wasted on youth.  Not that the target audience (toddlers to twelve?) won’t enjoy the fast-paced silliness & fourth-wall breakage as puppy-dog Blue and puppyish pal Joshua Dela Cruz head to NYC for his big B’way audition.  But without remembering to bring the theater address, how will they ever find it?  Moving steadily forward via fun visual effects, a simple goal, good friends trying to help (local New Yorkers & lively inanimate objects on a rescue mission from home), and a pure heart, they sing & dance their way thru a brightly lit city with special attention paid to the Main Public Library at 42nd & Fifth (the one with lions Patience & Fortitude), Food Cart pretzels, and the pathways & public spaces of Central Park.  Looking spectacularly crisp, sunny & clean (wait till the kids get Mom & Dad to take them to the real locations!), with pauses for intimate asides to ask viewers for help spotting those ‘clues,’ the film misses a trick by sticking to all production numbers all the time, even when the show’s big finale seems to call for a quiet, thoughtful change-of-pace solo for Josh.  But wait, the creatives think so too, swapping bold & brassy hip-hop for a lovely little solo encore for him back at home.*  (Worry not, the credits bring on one more up-tempo number.)  Sweet-natured stuff, without being saccharine.  Writer/producer Angela Santomero has been ‘Blue Cluing’ forever, but newbie director Matt Stawski already fits right in.

ATTENTON MUST BE PAID/LINK:  *Adorable enough to steal focus from an animated blue puppy, ultra-high energy Joshua Dela Cruz could easily turn Tommy Steele (HALF A SIXPENCE/’67) cringey, but instead is more like Donald O’Connor at his SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN/'52 best.   He even does an O’Connor signature move using a wooden chair as a ‘dance prop’ tip-over step.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/08/half-sixpence-1967.html

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: It’s been a long time since Tim Burton saw similar breakout potential for a kids’ film appealing to grownups in PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE/’85.  (Note similar titles.)  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/pee-wees-big-adventure-1985.html

THREE CAME HOME (1950)

Underseen & undersung, this WWII drama about the British colony in Borneo, sent to Japanese prison camps as enemy aliens ‘for the duration,’ is also unexpectedly fine and unexpectedly tough.  (Decades of lousy ‘duped’ Public Domain editions didn’t help its rep.  Decent ones available if you look.)  Director Jean Negulesco, in his pre-CinemaScope period at 20th/Fox, doesn’t need to ramp up the stakes on this true story, written by the sole American in the group, Agnes Newton Keith, beautifully played by Claudette Colbert in something of a career pivot toward character roles after a series of popular post-war domestic comedies.  Going well beyond the usual Hollywood deglamorized look*, she and Sussue Hayakawa, as the conflicted/semi-sympathetic Japanese Colonel in charge of all the prison camps, pull off some tricky scenes of grudging respect unusual for the period.  Even Patric Knowles as the husband sent to ‘men’s camp’ God-knows-where has a rare good part.  But the cast is all good here, not too noble/not too hysterical, with some scenes far more brutal than you expect for 1950.  One involving some female-starved Australian prisoners flips from comic relief to death trap with the speed of a master.  On the other hand, Negulsco misses a trick by sticking with the same young actor as Colbert’s little boy over three and a half years of growth.  Elsewise, top creative people all ‘round: script Nunnally Johnson, a Hugo Friedhofer score, lensing Milton Krasner.  The film should be much better known.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK/DOUBLE-BILL:  *The most self-aware of actors, Colbert gave the okay for all sorts of ’wrong’ angles on a face she normally only allowed to be shot from her ‘good’ side.   A privilege she certainly didn’t waive on her previous war-themed project, SO PROUDLY WE HAIL/’43.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/so-proudly-we-hail-1943.html

IKI SAFAK ARASINDA / BETWEEN TWO DAWNS (2021)

From Turkey, a modest but impressive debut for writer/director Selman Nacar.  Deceptively simple, it largely holds to unadorned DOGME filmmaking principles on its story about avoidable & unavoidable consequences after an industrial accident at a textile factory.  You expect a lot of the yin and yang tropes that follow (inevitable accident or possible safety code violations; looking the other way on a rush job at the factory or worker’s fault; a cover up by the owners about equipment problems or a worker with a history of drinking?).  On-going backstories over family relationships come into play, especially for the manager’s kid brother (second son of the plant owner) who’s due that night to formally meet the parents of the woman he’s all but engaged to.   And when he tries to do the right thing by all parties, lies are uncovered and he’ll learn more than he’d like to know about his place in the family hierarchy as ‘second son,’ less backup scion than expendable commodity.  Thoughtfully somber and deliberately paced, you only realize how much has been packed into the straightforward narrative when you look back.  Impressive stuff.  Perfectly cast; dismayingly believable.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Technically & structurally, Nacar has a lot of Asghar Farhadi in his cinematic DNA.  Best known for A SEPARATION/’11, try his excellent followup, THE PAST/’14.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/11/le-passe-past-2014.html   Thematically, it’s more what James Gray (WE OWN THE NIGHT/’07; THE YARDS/’00) thinks he’s doing.