Review older films here: 1979 and earlier - Page 11

There's Always Tomorrow (1956), directed by Douglas Sirk.

I've neglected the 1950s weepie genre (melodramatic overwrought things-just-keep-getting-worse tear-jerkers) so far, but now have several Douglas Sirk titles in the queue. Sirk was the master of the form, which reminds me of an old quote by David Cronenberg: asked how it felt to be the king of venereal horror, he said "Venereal horror may be a small genre, but at least I'm king of it!"

The value of a weepie has been recognized since ancient times: when you are oppressed by ill fortune and the injustice of life, go see a tragedy and cry it out. (Similarly, when romantically disappointed, see a sex farce and laugh it out).

Fred MacMurray has a fine wife in Joan Bennet and three great kids, but feels in a rut. The family doesn't have much time for him and he thinks the kids are pushing him aside. When old flame Barbara Stanwyck shows up they spend a lot of time together talking about the old days and he feels young again. They never get around to adultery but it is headed that way. The kids figure out something is up and put an end to it.

I wouldn't have watched this sort of soap opera when I was young and wouldn't have understood it, but now I do. "I'm not ready to be old yet" is a terrible feeling but time doesn't wait for you to figure out what to do. Hence the famous midlife crisis. In the end Stanwyck gives him the weepie moral straight up: you can't be young again, there is no going back, you need to shoulder your burden and just grow old without complaining. He does so, but looks like a broken man to me.

Third and last pairing of MacMurray and Stanwyck. Sirk's All I Desire (1953), also with Stanwyck, is on the same disc.



-Bill

Dr. Strangelove (1964), directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Endlessly quotable dark satire filled with images that have become cultural icons. Pretty damn funny still, ranging from the very dry to the slapstick. It was more forceful at the time before the gut-wrenching fear of imminent nuclear war had faded. It's amazing what Kubrick can fit into 94 minutes.

The fine cast includes Peter Sellers times three (great in each role -- I love the way Group Capt Mandrake's accent develops under stress), George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden and Slim Pickens, who would all be famous now for this movie alone.

This time the bomber interior seemed a technocratic blizzard of switches, dials, indicator lights and mysterious self-destructing controls. I recall this being very important in the 1960s, all wrapped up with the space race and early computers -- the notion that we were finally getting some control over nature and could build clever electronic gizmos for any purpose.

The missile attack on the bomber is very exciting and we have the disorienting impulse to cheer the crew and root for them as they struggle to complete their mission to start WW3.

In a famous inadvertent bit you can see the Russian ambassador (Peter Bull) cracking up while watching Strangelove struggle with his limbs.

Laurie Johnson score.

Available on Blu-ray. This is the first time I have noticed that the centerfold in Maj Kong's "Playboy" has an issue of "Foreign Affairs" draped across her backside.

The Blu-ray has several history of the Cold War extras which I did not have time to watch. Hell, boy, I was there.



-Bill

Storm Warning (1951), directed by Stuart Heisler.

Ginger Rogers stops in a town terrified of the Klan and witnesses a jailbreak and murder. Her life is further complicated when she discovers her sister's husband is one of the gang. Ronald Reagan is rather good as the prosecutor who wants her to testify.

A seriously toned and earnest drama on a little-seen subject. A bit overblown and and a bit heavy on the message, but the tension builds nicely, first to the inquest and then to a confrontation with the brother-in-law and the assembled Klan.

I did not recognize Doris Day as the sister. It's supposed to be in the South but the accents are all generic middle American and there are only a scattering of black faces in the crowd.

The Klan is portrayed as a racket benefiting a few leaders. In the story they are mostly concerned with "outsiders"; there is a hint of racial animus: "it wouldn't be safe for a woman to walk the streets without us..." The prosecutor knows who is under the sheets and calls them by name: "Am I supposed to be afraid of you because you're wearing a mask?"



-Bill

Incubus (1965), written and directed by Leslie Stevens.

A beautiful young devil worshiper wants to test her seductive powers on a saint. She picks a virtuous soldier but he responds with love which is too strong for her. She invokes a demon for assistance, but wavers in her resolve and we have a battle for two souls.

It's a fable of good and evil set in no particular place or time, beautifully filmed with very little construction or props at Big Sur. All the dialogue is in Esperanto, which adds an exotic other-worldly slant.

Leslie Stevens used his Outer Limits crew and it looks like an extended episode as if filmed by Ingmar Bergman. I think some of the musical cues are borrowed from the series.

This is well worth seeking out if you like the idea of a low budget experimental fable, although I like the setup more than the second half. Satanists are often portrayed as misfits and outsiders, but here they have a parallel loveless society of their own and are cautious when dealing with the godly. William Shatner later became a big name; I think he's fine.

To get permission to shoot at a mission church, Stevens produced a fake full-length alternative script: "Religious Legends of Old Monterey". The wikipedia has details on the history of the film, including its "curse". It was lost for over 30 years until a well-worn print was found in Paris. The restoration is rather good considering the source.

A note on the subtitles: the disc contains English and French versions, but these are burned into the image, not selectable. The sole surviving print had fixed French subtitles and there is no way to remove them; the English version just overlays that area with black stripes and text. This is unfortunate as the lettering is rather high up on the image and distracting.

The IMDB has the OAR at 1.85:1. The DVD is 1.33.

We have two commentary tracks, the first with a historian and crew, including cinematographer Conrad L. Hall who did many fine films later. They are all fond of the movie, although hint that the second half goes on a bit long (and the whole thing is only 76 minutes).

The second commentary is by Shatner, giving a bunch of tall tales in a matter of fact tone. Many silent sections and he doesn't say goodbye.



-Bill

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), directed by Sergio Leone.

In my memory, Leone westerns are all about style and sadism: looking mean, dressing sinister, callously causing a lot of pain. The start of this film justifies that prejudice: it's all about gold and revenge and whatever it takes to get both.

As it progresses, new unremembered sentiments appear: glimpses of kindness, family, even a bit of camaraderie. We also have more humor than I recall, mostly provided by Eli Wallach. It's largely his film. He gets much more camera time than anyone else and his character has a broader range. Lee Van Cleef vanishes entirely for over an hour.

It must be an epic. The plot could have been covered in a shorter film, but this is the Leone style. Long shots and wide vistas, lots of incidental episodes.

About the big three-way shootout at the end: it's masterfully done, but there is just something wrong about the whole notion of grandiose operatic ritualized dueling. It's like taking bullfighting too seriously. Also: Clint Eastwood cheats, knowing he faces only one man, not two. Doesn't that drain some of the machismo from the scene?

Dubbing is inevitable in a film like this and I would not ordinarily complain, but the minor characters all sound like Mel Blanc doing Western voices.

Famous score by Ennio Morricone.

Available on Blu-ray. This is the first time I have seen the 178 minute cut. The case incorrectly says 161 minutes, which was the length of the American theatrical release.



-Bill

All I Desire (1953), directed by Douglas Sirk.

A minor costume melodrama set around 1910. Years after deserting her husband and children, tough vaudevillian Barbara Stanwyck returns to Riverside WI to see them again. Some love her, others not. She has a chance for happiness but old ghosts can still ruin all of their lives.

Not very weepie. Stanwyck dominates her scenes; those without her are pretty ordinary. The IMDB 7.0 rating is generous.

Spot young Guy Williams and Stuart Whitman. Billy Gray must have been the hardest working child actor of that era.

Sirk's There's Always Tomorrow (1956), also with Stanwyck, is on the same disc.

-Bill

Barefoot in the Park (1967), directed by Gene Saks.

Newlywed Robert Redford is lucky in that he has Jane Fonda for a sexually voracious bride. He is less lucky in that she is a childish "free spirit" whose main entertainment is embarrassing him in public. She seems to have no idea that he has to work. Ever. Guess what? They fight. They make up again after he becomes a sick drunken bum. That's entertainment.

Well, it's not all dismal. Fixing up the mom (Mildred Natwick) with the eccentric neighbor (Charles Boyer) is a nice bit. Fonda's short skirts and pajama tops are prominently featured.

This was during that long period when Broadway and Hollywood's mission was to shock the button-downed normal stiffs out of their conformist complacency and make them celebrate the alternative and bohemian.

I've never watched a Neil Simon film or play that I wanted to see again. It's weak comedy. The bit with the five flights of stairs: once or twice would have been enough, yes?



-Bill

Shame (1968), written and directed by Ingmar Bergman.

A bitter tale of civilians caught in the chaos of civil war. A couple, formally musicians, now live on a remote farm. Max Von Sydow is sensitive, Liv Ullmann is the dominant and decisive partner. When the war reaches their area they are senselessly brutalized by both sides. They need the protection and patronage of a politician, but his price is sex with the wife. The husband gets his revenge and toughens up, but it is all shameful. Heroism, honor, dignity: all gone, not even possible in the circumstances. In the end they are refugees, drifting in an open boat with strangers.

We have no notion of which side is which or what they are fighting about. The scariest part is the prospect of getting ground up in the bureaucratic machine: grey little men who exercise arbitrary power of life and death. Normally we could ignore such characters, but in wartime their inhibitions drop and they can commit all sorts of savagery.

In a touching early scene the couple sit in an antique store, listen to a musical figurine, look at the mementos of earlier times and think about better days.

A continuing theme is "children". She wants them but it isn't happening. When the war starts she says "I'm glad we don't have any and never will." After the affair with the politician who knows what might happen? But by then all hope is gone.

Liv Ullmann's face is featured throughout; it is worth studying.

Neither the IMDB nor dvdcompare give the OAR. The DVD is 1.33:1.

Photographed by Sven Nykvist.



-Bill

Nashville (1975), directed by Robert Altman.

Thirty-five years later I've finally seen Nashville. I must not be an Altman fan.

It's a chore to get through, obviously made by people with little love for Nashville, country music or flyover country in general. To be fair, the contingent from California (Shelley Duvall) and Britain (Geraldine Chaplin) don't fare very well either.

Dozens of characters, most with fragmentary and unresolved story lines. Choppy editing with lots of bits that don't contribute anything. Now and then a song rises above the clownish and some of the background musicians take their work seriously.

A few threads are good:

• the decline and fall of superstar Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley)
• Linnea (Lily Tomlin) with her deaf children
• the sad fate of no-talent Sueleen, stripping at a fundraiser

In a bitterly comic scene, when Keith Carradine sings his big song (I'm Easy) several women in the audience think it is for them. Lily Tomlin is the one he's after that night and it works for him.

Casting Tomlin and Henry Gibson was pretty bold given the years they had spent on the pitiful Laugh-In series.

IMDB: 7.7. Rotten Tomatoes: 95% (Top Critics: 100%). Huge number of nominations and awards. People say it grows on you with repeated viewings.



-Bill

School for Scoundrels (1960), directed by Robert Hamer and Cyril Frankel.

Another entry in the genre of mild and inoffensive British comedies that were popular in the decades after WW2. Eccentric characters muddling through. Very silly.

Dapper Ian Carmichael is interested in pretty Janette Scott but is frustrated at every turn by smooth operator Terry-Thomas. Our hero attends Alistair Sim's school for cads and learns the techniques of one-upmanship and seduction. It all works well, but you need something more than tricks to win the lady.

We have skits on fancy restaurants and car dealers, and lots of tennis.

There were two directors because one was always drunk.



-Bill

Black Narcissus (1947), written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

Powell and Pressburger's most famous title. It's always described as a masterpiece and I've seen it called the most beautiful color film ever. Neither statement can be much of an exaggeration.

Nuns reopen a mission school at 8000 feet in the mountains of India. It doesn't work out. The air is too clear, the wind is always blowing, the building is an old royal brothel and the walls are covered with erotic paintings. The local English agent, manly and often half dressed, provokes them from the outset and flirts with the weakest of the Sisters, the crazy one. He attends Christmas services drunk.

The women begin recalling their previous lives. The Sister Superior has vivid, wrenching flashbacks of her life in Ireland before the Order, when she hunted and fished with her young man, now long gone. It's as if their devotions have cut them off from reality which now comes roaring back in this remote, exotic location.

Outstanding cast, particularly in Deborah Kerr as the Sister Superior who is cracking and Kathleen Byron as the Sister who cracks. Also with Jean Simmons, Sabu, Flora Robson and David Farrar.

Photographed by Jack Cardiff.

Criterion Blu-ray. Just stunning.

(My thumbnails are always taken from DVD editions, by the way).



-Bill

Passage to Marseille (1944), directed by Michael Curtiz.

The movie has several aspects, none really outstanding and together kind of confusing. Mostly it is beating the drum for the Free French allies during WW2. It also wants to tell the history of several characters, particularly Jean Matrac (Humphrey Bogart), a French journalist imprisoned before the War for opposing appeasement of the Nazis. But it has a serious (if very earnest) tone and explores the dilemma of the French, divided and conflicted during the War in ways that the other allies were not.

It is structured oddly, as a series of nested flashbacks:

• We start with a hidden airfield in England used by the Free French Air Squadron. The commander (Claude Rains) tells how he and some of the men came there.
  
• Flash back to a tramp steamer during the early part of the war. They pick up some dying men in a canoe who have escaped from Devil's Island.
  
• Flash back to the prison and we get the stories of the men and their escape.
  
• Flash back to their leader and his wife before the war. This is Bogart the journalist.
  

After each segment they pop the stack and return to the prior level until we are back at the beginning/end again.

(An aside: Stanislaw Lem had a short story with this repeated stacking motif which ends before the levels are fully unwound, which is disorienting. Shakespeare did the same in one of his plays; I will leave which one as an exercise for the reader).

The production uses much model work. There is an exciting climax where the steamer is attacked by a bomber. Bogart scandalously machine-guns downed German fliers in the water.

In a romantic bit he drops messages to his wife when he flies over her village. The final scene is especially cloying.

In some ways it is a Casablanca reunion: Curtiz, Bogart, Rains, Lorre, Greenstreet. And another Max Steiner score.

Written by Nordhoff & Hall, more famous for Mutiny on the Bounty.



-Bill

Alexander the Great (1968), directed by Phil Karlson.

Charismatic Alexander is maneuvering for a big battle with King Darius in Persia (which looks just like Utah). He's trapped, missing and thought dead for a while but shows up again without explanation how. Festivities, bathing, dancing girls, much forced hearty laughter. Problem: they have a traitor in the camp, have to sort that out during the big battle.

I list this for others who, from time to time, may enjoy a William Shatner film festival as much as I do. It's pretty bad but is only 50 minutes long and the bad-TV nostalgia rush of my youth was strong in this one. I always described it as Rat Patrol in ancient Persia. In retrospect, Rat Patrol was better. I remember when this was first broadcast and it has been on my want-list for a long time.

It was made as a series pilot episode around 1964 but not shown until several years later when Shatner had become famous for Star Trek and Adam West for Batman. Also with John Cassavetes, Joseph Cotten, Simon Oakland, and very familiar character actor John Doucette.

What if it had been a successful series? Trek with a different Kirk? The mind boggles.

Amazon has a cheap DVD. The image is poor.

Repeat: it's bad.



-Bill

Contraband (1940), directed by Michael Powell.

Aka Blackout.

It's Conrad Veidt week!

In early WW2 a Danish freighter is taken to a British port for inspection. When secret agent Valerie Hobson steals a pass and goes to London, the ship's captain (Veidt) chases her and gets tangled up in a German spy ring. With the aid of Danish restaurant workers he rescues her and saves the day.

We have a bizarre climactic shootout in a dark room full of plaster busts of Neville Chamberlain. That must mean something.

It's not as polished as later romantic comedy thrillers. It's dark, taking place mostly at night during the blackout and in cellars. Without subtitles the dialogue was sometimes hard to follow so parts of the plot are obscure to me.

The shipboard locations are real and I don't recall any other movie actually filmed on the streets during the blackout.

Veidt is a curious romantic lead. Stiff and formal with a wry twinkle.

Netflix doesn't have this. I rented it from http://www.classicflix.com/.



-Bill

Captain Blood (1935), directed by Michael Curtiz.

Errol Flynn's first Hollywood picture, first starring role, first teaming with Curtiz and Olivia de Havilland. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's first film score. Nominated for best picture, and Curtiz, Korngold and the screenwriter all received a load of write-in votes in their categories.

George MacDonald Fraser's review from his The Hollywood History of the World:


You can see Flynn (cherubic without a mustache) still learning his craft in a few spots, but he has talent and charisma to spare, as well as comic timing:


He does not move like a big man and I tend to forget how tall and big-chested he is. Fraser tells a story in another book: Oliver Reed fancied himself a hard-drinking, hard-fighting actor. When he had Flynn's role in a remake of The Prince and the Pauper, he insisted in getting Flynn's original shirt out of storage and was astonished to find it too big for him.

Fraser's The Pyrates (unrelated to a screenplay of the same name) is the funniest thing I have read in years. A comic novel set in the Hollywood pirate universe, he gives music and casting cues, including Flynn, de Havilland, Rathbone, etc.

Finally, I've heard of a law professor who opens every term with a question to the class: "What famous film features the Bloody Assizes?" Now you know.



-Bill

Bela Lugosi Double Feature

White Zombie (1932), directed by Victor Halperin.

In Haiti a bride is given a zombification drug on her wedding night. Her body is stolen from the tomb and she is taken to a mansion to be the love slave of a rich man. He soon realizes this was an error but zombie master Lugosi won't let him out of the deal. A missionary and the somewhat feckless husband mount a difficult rescue effort.

Said to be the first zombie film. Much of it has a really effective atmosphere, but the connecting and explanatory scenes drag. The music is not very appropriate. The acting is stiff and the camera work pretty static. But I might try to find a better copy anyway.

Lugosi had amazing hands, with fingers so long they look unnatural.



The Devil Bat, directed by Jean Yarbrough.

Mad scientist grows plus-sized attack bats in his secret lab. He tells people he is developing a new after shave lotion, but little do they know...

Entirely different from the first film, more of a comedy thriller. It's strangely watchable for such a cheesy, low budget effort.



-Bill

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), directed by Peter Weir.

Everything begins and ends at the exactly right time and place. -- Miranda.

Australia, Valentine's Day, 1900. A girl's school where the curriculum is "how to be properly English". The first 35 minutes are slow like a picnic on a summer's day. We have a class outing to an intricate volcanic hill in the area. But hints of strangeness appear: the birds and horses are unsettled, the watches stop at noon. Zamfir's pan pipe score gives an eerie, dreamlike quality to the day. When several girls ascend the Rock we have a Lynchian bass undertone denoting magic at higher elevations. Hypnotically, three of them tie their shoes and stockings around their waists and (it seems to me) ascend to another plane out of sight.

Suppressed sexual tensions and subtle suggestive imagery? Oh, yes.

The girls and one of the teachers have vanished without trace. Intensive searching of the rock reveals no clues. After a week a young man obsessed with the mystery endures a magical ordeal on the Rock and soon one of the girls is recovered. She is suffering from exposure and loss of memory and is missing her shoes, stockings, and corset, but otherwise, as the doctor says, "is quite intact."

Since we are used to mystery stories we immediately try to solve it. Lost in a cave? Abduction? Sex crime? Runaways? Flying saucers? But then there comes a moment, as in Hitchcock's The Birds, when we realize that the mystery is not going to be solved. We might hate this or we might love it because it seems to be the poignant essence of the Unexplained and Uncanny. As the school gardener says: "There's some questions got answers and some haven't."

Another plot line takes over: the school is struggling and the dragon lady headmistress begins to drink. We have hysteria in the town and among the girls, and eventually murder or suicide. In another sad bit, brother and sister orphans, separated for many years, live close to each other without ever knowing.

I think this is great filmmaking. Contrary to some rumors, the story is all fiction, not based on any real events.

Criterion DVD, 4:3 letterboxed. Subtitles, but no subtitle selection on the menu. Use the subtitle button on the remote.

Anamorphic PAL DVDs are available, although dvdcompare says "The R0 Criterion edition is the only release that presents The Director's Cut in 1.66:1". The others are apparently 1.78:1. Blu-ray imports are available, but I am hoping for a nice Criterion region A disc.

The Director's Cut is about 7 minutes shorter than the theatrical release.



-Bill

The Masque of the Red Death (1964), produced and directed by Roger Corman.

When a virulent plague ravages the countryside, accomplished satanist Prince Prospero seals off his castle and revels with his noble guests, staging sadistic and degrading entertainments. He has a pure young Christian woman from the village who he intends to debase, defile, corrupt and perhaps convert to his side.

He has made one terrible miscalculation: he believes that his dark worship gives him power over death, but as it turns out Death does not work for the Devil...

This must be Corman's most ambitious and colorful Poe adaptation. It has some good scenes and a quality of dark fable about it. A memorable setup is a sequence of differently colored rooms used in several scenes.

And yet: it was better in memory and seemed much more ominous in my youth. Vincent Price is very broad; I don't remember many subtle performances from him after he became a horror specialist. The revelers seem contemporary and cardboard. And yet I rewatch it from time to time.

Patrick Magee is always reliably sinister and is good at these maliciously decadent roles (A Clockwork Orange: "Food good? Try the wine!")

Photographed by Nicolas Roeg. Made in the UK.

The plot is a combination of the title story and Hop-Frog, both by Poe.



-Bill

Edge of Darkness (1943), directed by Lewis Milestone.

German relief forces arrive at a Norwegian fishing village to find a deserted town and bodies everywhere. The garrison has been wiped out and many civilians are also dead; obviously there has been a violent insurrection by the locals. Most of the film is a flashback to see how it came about.

The British are supplying arms to towns on the coast, telling everyone to wait for the right time. It is Our Town goes to war as the villagers discuss whether to be involved, how to do it, who can be trusted? In the end they hash it all out in a quiet church meeting.

Errol Flynn says "We must be like steel" to make this work, but Ann Sheridan is the really tough one. She denounces her own brother as a quisling and even after being raped (in the church!) she advises restraint until the whole coast is ready.

The climactic battle is very exciting but with terrible losses on both sides. The townspeople charge heavy machine guns with horse-drawn wagons and grenades. Most of the Germans are deep baddies, although one who is sweet on Judith Anderson is trying to be nice. No mercy for him, though. Die, Germans, die!

Also with Walter Houston and Ruth Gordon. Nancy Coleman is affecting as a Polish girl in a jam: she was brought to Norway as a "comfort woman" for the officers and now can't get away.

The film is dialogue heavy and a bit long at nearly two hours. As was the fashion at the time, people who are supposed to be speaking foreign languages use stilted formal English instead. It's meant to be a realistic war drama by the standards of the time, but there is a lot of speechifying.

Franz Waxman score. I heard bits from Siegfried's funeral march when the commandant shot himself: a wry statement on Wagner, Aryan supermen, that stuff. Helmut Dantine is a great villain; in life he was an active anti-Nazi and spent months in a concentration camp.



That final pane is after the big battle. Ann Sheridan is welcoming the enemy relief force.

-Bill

Jamaica Inn (1939), directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

A tale of wreckers on the Cornwall coast: men who lure ships onto the rocks, murder the crew and plunder the cargo. It's a familiar setting in Regency romances.

It opens with an exciting storm and shipwreck. The movie takes place almost entirely at night and the gloomy tumbledown stone buildings are good. The main attractions are Maureen O'Hara (age 19) in her first film role as a fiery Irish lass, and Charles Laughton who hams it up without any restraint. He's the squire and local magistrate who is secretly the head of the gang. At first he seems strangely mannered, then very eccentric, but finally just nuts.

Otherwise it is neither funny enough nor serious enough to be of much interest. The plot doesn't move very forcefully. A police spy has infiltrated the gang and we have his discovery, people being tied up, escape, recapture, more tying up, more escape, etc.

It was Hitchcock's last British picture and he was never happy with it. His mind was probably on his move to Hollywood.

From a book by Daphne Du Maurier, who also wrote the novels for Rebecca and The Birds. I recall from a Hitchcock biography that it was more or less an accident that he made films from three of her books. They weren't friends and didn't work together.





(That's Robert Newton, not Charles Laughton, in the second photo).

-Bill