ELVIS (2022)

What an odd film writer/director Baz Luhrman made of his Elvis Presley bio-pic.  Maximalist, as is his wont, prioritizing instant gratification and ignoring the long view.  Aware of missing structure, Luhrman uses creepy fabulist/manager Colonel Tom Parker to walk us thru a series of ellipses (as if  you'd stumbled into a World’s Fair Exhibit and couldn’t find a way out), a long picturized lecture on a rather short life.  Southern poverty, smothering mother-love, Gospel music & spirituality, a fast rise, but crucially skipping Elvis’s pre-Army Hollywood days and the three pics rushed thru production when producer Hal Wallis signed him up before the infamous Milton Berle ‘Hound Dog’ fiasco.  Dramatically, it means Army grooming, mother’s death, Colonel’s monetization all play unopposed as Elvis loses openness, rough edges and cultural threat.  As Elvis, Austin Butler seems just right . . . for Ricky Nelson.  (Those two boys did share the same lips.)  And Tom Hanks' Col. Parker?  Not for the first time in a role Michael Keaton should have played, belabors under Orson Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL makeup.*  While Luhrman, desperate to hold our attention, uses so many speedy 'push-in' fast-tracking shots, it becomes his all-purpose stylistic tick and a reflexive mental rope-a-dope kicks in to filter them out.  And when he does try to slow up, it doesn’t register.  Like Elvis at the end, he’s running on fumes.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  The early Elvis can still be glimpsed in KING CREOLE/’58.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/10/king-creole-1958.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *And speaking of Welles, Luhrman attempts a FunHouse mirror sequence a la LADY FROM SHANGHAI when the Colonel shows his hand as Mephistopheles to a young Elvis.

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951)

There are many fine examples of the distinctive, insular world of ‘Ealing Comedy’ in the decade after WWII, but only three lodestars: KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS/’49; THE LAVENDER HILL MOB, and two months later, THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT/’51.  That last one, perhaps best of all, sharpest of social comedies as it tackles class, labor, management, commerce, science, family; each hilariously taken apart and put back together.  With CORONETS the blackest & probably best known (thanks to a famous casting stunt), it leaves MOB, gentlest of the set, perhaps the best one to start with.  Naturally, it stars Alec Guinness, the one element common to all three, dropping his ‘r’s as a mild-mannered accountant in charge of getting gold bullion safely across town and delivered to the bank.  But when fate, in the form of souvenir trinket manufacturer Stanley Holloway, moves into his rooming house, it’s a case of irresistible force meets movable object.  That object?  Miniature Eiffel Towers for the tourist trade; perfect for smuggling out of the country.  Screenwriter T.E.B. Clarke works out near perfect obstacles to the caper that wind up helping rather than hurting the enterprise, as well as memorable side characters.  (And, pace Hollywood, no romantic element at all.)  Cleanly helmed by Charles Crichton, an Ealing regular who knew when to add a clever touch* and when to stay out of the way.  (No wonder, John Cleese pulled him out of retirement for A FISH CALLED WANDA/’88.)  Even a fun little bonus in the form of an early bit for a pre-ROMAN HOLIDAY Audrey Hepburn looking downright radiant under Douglas Slocombe’s lensing.  The film’s a peach.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *As mentioned: KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS; MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/02/kind-hearts-and-coronets-1949.html   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-man-in-white-suit-1951.html

CONTEST: *One of those clever bits echt Ernst Lubitsch, the sort of proper ‘Lubitsch Touch’ many try, but few pull off.  Post your answer in COMMENTS to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choosing.

THE EIGER SANCTION (1975)

Think of it as Clint Eastwood finishing his apprenticeship.  His next as director, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES/’76, a masterpiece.  Here, surprisingly uneven, especially in close-action and fight scenes: staging, camera positioning, editing, all amateur city.  Though who’ll notice as the big surprise is just how much Clint was jonesing to be James Bond!  Who knew?  Not the next Connery or Roger Moore, instead anticipating the style of yet-to-be Bond Timothy Dalton (THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS/’87; LICENCE TO KILL/’89.)  Tougher, more realistic, with Eastwood’s semi-retired agent/Art History Prof at some Euro-University when he’s called back in to do a hit after a secret formula is stolen.  Plus, a follow-up contract killing.  Working for a mystery agency run by an evil mastermind (more Blofeld than ‘M’), his target an unknown assassin who’s part of a mountain climbing team.  That’s the second/lesser half of the film, handsomely shot in the Alps, but a big bore, in spite of Clint doing his own stunts.  Yet the film’s no lost cause since the first half, more Bond-like and loaded with Clint’s ideas of sexy Bond babes; line-back built George Kennedy an unlikely mountain trainer; and a passel of delightful villains for Eastwood to take out.  No one more so than B’way Musical Comedy star Jack Cassidy in a rare good film role as a fey former comrade, now out to dispose of his old pal.  Walking off with every scene he’s in, Cassidy, a notorious Lothario in real life, seldom clicked on film, but he’s supremely gay and threatening here.  Whoever thought of using him?  Give that man a gold star.  Alas, when he disappears halfway in, chilly mountain climbing and a guessable twist tanks the rest of the film.

(And the studio knew it.  See second poster, designed to look like more Dirty Harry fare.*)

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Another reason this got a bit lost is that producers Richard Zanuck & David Brown had JAWS/’75 coming out the next month.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned, Eastwood’s follow up, JOSEY WALES.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-outlaw-josie-wales-1976.html

GRAND HOTEL (1932)

Churning romantic folly, delicious right from its snazzy opening credits laying out Hollywood star-pecking order, circa 1932.  (Check poster to see who tops whom).  Garbo is doubly lauded: first-billed/last to appear on screen.  (Not till reel three; backed by a swell of Rachmaninoff.)  Visually clever fugal opening with figures in telephone booths filling us in on the back-story.  (Edmund Goulding’s direction surprisingly peppy for M-G-M, heightened by William Daniels’ dark-toned portraiture & overhead views.)  Then, a half a dozen life-or-death stories playing out simultaneously, seamlessly moving from lobby to upper floor suites, with stops for character revelation at the cocktail lounge and the dance floor.  Garbo’s ballet diva on the edge of collapse.  John Barrymore’s charming, penniless Baron hoping to rob only to be robbed of his heart.  Brother Lionel’s dying clerk, a rube among swells, out for a final fling with his savings.  (Look sharp for a small acting miracle when John confesses to this new acquaintance that he has no friends.)  Modern gal Joan Crawford, a secretary for hire (with benefits) to coarse, flailing industrialist Wallace Beery.  Lewis Stone’s disfigured doctor, watching life from the sidelines.  And Jean Hersholt as the hotel manager worrying about a wife in hospital having a difficult delivery.  Much of the drama, as well as the acting, now looks faintly ridiculous, not at all like the beloved Golden Age Hollywood films that still ‘tell’ in remarkably up-to-date ways.  (Especially those, like this, from the early ‘30s Pre-Code era.)  But one of the glories of this film is how it somehow lets us rediscover for ourselves what audiences of the day felt about all these glamorous/fatalistic comings and goings.  Even lines that now make you giggle (or gasp) in disbelief manage to make their dramatic mark.  Almost in spite of itself, the film remains consistently compelling.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  To a large extent, the formula is repeated in next year’s DINNER AT EIGHT/’33.  But in a dramatic vehicle with a far more modern, even ironic edge.  The two films nicely summing up the difference between HOTEL producer Irving Thalberg and DINNER’s David O. Selznick.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/11/dinner-at-eight-1933.html

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.