Sunday, January 18, 2015

"Far From the Madding Crowd" (1967)

The 1960's It Girl Julie Christie has a star turn in this very fine adaptation of Thomas Hardy's proto-feminist 19th century novel. She's a headstrong young woman who comes into a substantial inheritance, her wealthy uncle's working farm. In good time she manages to beguile three different suitors all at once, making her the Goldilocks of the English countryside. One is too cold, the older and stuffy land baron next door (Peter Finch); one is too hot, the smoldering army sergeant (Terence Stamp) who, ahem, makes good use of his broadsword; and the last, the earthy farmhand (Alan Bates) may be just right. It's all set in the achingly beautiful English countryside of Dorset and Wiltshire and the film feels as if it's looking ahead to the style of the best '70s cinema, it has a modern sensibility despite being a period costumer. Richard Rodney Bennett's score is a big plus too.


Wednesday, January 14, 2015

"Mister Roberts" (1955)


When Henry Fonda played the good guy his characters weren't just exemplars of honor--which in the wrong hands could veer to the treacly and pious--they were a tangible image of what we hoped we could be if faced with the same circumstances.  Here he's a frustrated WWII Navy lieutenant stationed on a mind-numbingly boring supply ship far from any real action in the Pacific Theatre. All he wants is some form of military purpose and meaning to his naval service. But make no mistake, this is no existential mood piece. It's a cleverly funny and poignant take on the toll war can take on the serviceman's psyche, clearly laying the foundation for "M*A*S*H" fifteen years later. Fonda's surrounded by a stellar cast of shipmates: a bafoonish martinet of a commander (James Cagney), the ship's wise doctor (William Powell), and the sex-starved Ensign Pulver (Jack Lemmon, who almost steals the movie in an Oscar winning turn). Fonda played this role for two years on Broadway, fitting it like hand in glove. Watch as he makes it all seem so effortless, even ultimately as he--damn him!--makes us care so much when a gut-punch ending breaks our hearts.


Monday, January 12, 2015

"The Naked Spur" (1953)

One of the five great adult-themed westerns Jimmy Stewart made in the 1950's with director Anthony Mann. We often think of him as the honest and affable American Everyman but when you delve deeper into his output as an actor you realize he was at his best with characters who were battling really big inner demons. Here he's an ex-rancher on the hunt for an outlaw murderer, a smarmy smiling Robert Ryan with a big bounty on his head. It's unsettling to see him pursue this lout just to get the filthy lucre, you root for him but it leaves a sour taste. On top of that he's suffering from PTSD after his time in the Civil War AND he has to contend with some other ne'er-do-wells he meets along the way--a dishonorably discharged calvary officer (Ralph Meeker) and an opportunistic panhandler (Millard Mitchell)--who want to split this questionable windfall three ways. Leave it to Stewart to win our sympathies (and the heart of love interest Janet Leigh) despite the anti-hero baggage. It's all played out against the stunning Technicolor vistas of the Rocky Mountains. The juxtaposition of nasty people and beautiful scenery makes for fascinating viewing.


Wednesday, January 7, 2015

"David Copperfield" (1935)


You might think it folly to undertake the filming of Charles Dickens' beloved Bildungsroman, but this adaptation comes about as close to getting it absolutely right as anyone could hope. As young David, Freddie Bartholomew is scarily good; there's a reason boy-wise he was almost as popular as Shirley Temple in the '30s. Yet as good as he is, it's the rest of the cast that really shine as all those deliciously eccentric Dickensian characters with names like Peggotty, Chillip, Murdstone, and Gummidge. Best of all, W.C. Fields practically steals the entire picture as Mr. Micawber. He eschews his trademark child-hating boozer act and probably gives the most sincere and charming performance of his career. Classic storytelling with that expert MGM gloss.


"Carrie" (1952)


This is not the telekinetic frightfest of the '70s but a very fine adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's turn-of-the-century novel "Sister Carrie", starring Jennifer Jones as the put-upon title character and Laurence Olivier in a master class of heartbreakingly restrained acting. She's a midwestern farmgirl who finds nothing but tribulations when she moves to the big city. When she falls for Olivier, the manager of a plush restaurant, things start looking up but there's one big problem: he's married to über-bitch Miriam Hopkins and she's not letting him go that easy. This being Dreiser material it's not only depressing, it's slit-your-wrists-stick-your-head-in-the-oven bleakness. It's all saved from teetering into soapland by that canny old pro, director William Wyler. There's not a false note in the perfect storytelling and period detail, plus there's David Raksin's moltenly beautiful score. 


"The Set-Up" (1949)


Sometimes you discover a movie and afterward you say to yourself, "Omigosh, where has this film BEEN all my life?" This little gem is not merely one of the the best boxing films ever, it's one of the best films in the whole film noir canon. Period. Robert Ryan is a sincere palooka, a decent boxer who never quite broke thru to title status and who's now getting just a little too old...but there's one more fight. Trouble is, his smarmy manager has told the local mob boss Ryan is gonna throw the bout, they just haven't told him. Given this is a nasty noir world, you know the tragedy's coming, you just don't know how bad it will be. Brace yourself, it's heartbreaking. Every boxing flick since owes a BIG debt to the way this film is expertly shot and edited (Mr. Scorcese, i'm looking at you). At a swift real-time of only 73 minutes, it's fast, filmic, punchy, and perfect. Don't miss it. 


"Up the Down Staircase" (1967)


It's a plot that never fails: a callow school teacher enters their first job with high idealistic hopes of shaping young minds, but they run head long into belligerent students and apathetic faculty. Somehow they pour their heart and soul into the calling and win over the whole school (see "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", "The Blackboard Jungle", "To Sir With Love", etc). The twist in this fine entry is that it's a young female English teacher, Sandy Dennis doing her patented Method-Acting winsomeness, all mumbles and hesitant stuttering. She's the fish out of water in a tough, dirty inner city NY high school. Episodic with all the clichés in tact (a gym dance, the sad quiet student, the class clown, the ugly duckling, a flirtation with a handsome teacher, the inevitable pulled switchblade), the best reason to see it is the Time Capsule peek into that simpler time. No smartphones, laptops, or internet to be found in the mid-'60s, unbelievable how teachers taught with only a book, a piece of chalk and a blackboard. 


"Night Nurse" (1931)


Equal parts woman's picture, crime drama, and social commentary, this tough pre-Code story goes for the jugular. The first half follows star Barbara Stanwyck as a novitiate nurse learning the ropes in a big city municipal hospital. With her best friend cracking wise beside her (the great Joan Blondell), they traverse the joys of the maternity ward and the horrors of the surgical theatre, all the while dodging passes from the leering residents. In the second half Babs gets employed by a wealthy family to be the nurse to their two young daughters. When she begins to suspect someone's out to kill the children for their inheritance, she turns from Florence Nightingale to Nancy Drew. That's when Clark Gable shows up as the smoldering chauffeur who may the the baddie at the heart of the scheme. Fast, fiesty, and fun. 


"Strangers When We Meet" (1960)


Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak make a striking couple in this nuanced 'Mad Men' era love story. The problem is that they're both stuck in loveless marriages to other people, he to a starchy wife (a surprisingly good Barbara Rush), and she to a limp passionless husband (John Bryant). Everything's fine in their secret tryst til a smarmy Walter Matthau shows up as the buttinsky neighbor who wants to blow their cover. For it's time, the screenplay is mature and frank, capturing the restless extra-marital urges of the WWII generation on the brink of the Free Love '60s. And for all you Mid-Century Modern lovers, the suburban sets and decor are to-die-for eye candy. 


"The Ghost Ship" (1943)


One of those paranoid thrillers where a young innocent is held captive by a psycho killer...it's usually a girl in an old house (see "Die, Die My Darling", "You'll Like My Mother"). The twist here is that it's a young man, Russell Wade, who signs on as 3rd officer on a merchant cargo ship with a kindly captain (Richard Dix). But when crewmen start dying under mysterious circumstances Wade starts to suspect his boss is the real loco en la cabeza killer. Some scary set pieces and a moody fogbound setting on the high seas make for some tense viewing. 


"Born to Kill" (1947)

The French have a phrase for it, 'amour fou', a kind of insane obsessive love, one that in most film noir almost always ends in tragedy. Bad for the characters, good for us...because it's such fun to watch. Here, Claire Trevor and Lawrence Tierney play two nasty lovers so cold and venal you can't decide if they're gonna kiss or kill each other. He's a ne'er-do-well grifter after her sister's millions; she knows he's a murderer but with his looks who cares? Even the private detective who's hot on their trail (Walter Slezak) is a slimeball, selling his services to the highest bidder. The whole hard-boiled stew is served up with a deft hand by director Robert Wise. A cult film must-watch. 


"Paper Moon" (1973)

"Paper Moon" (1973) If you took a Walker Evans photograph or an Edward Hopper painting, made them come to life and added laughs, you'd have this nearly perfect film. It's the Great Depression and a wandering con man and his (maybe) 8 year old daughter scam, scheme, and grift their way across the hardscrabbly flat midwest. Little whiskey voiced Tatum O'Neal is so dead-on right it's scary, no wonder she's the youngest actor to ever win an Oscar (she peaked here and was never better). Blessedly free of corny sentimentality and shot in glorious black and white, I can think of no picture that equally captures the essence of that period. DO. NOT. MISS. THIS. ONE. 



"Women's Prison" (1955)

High camp B-movie heaven. This one has it all: wisecrackin' broads and dames behind bars, a goon squad of hatchet faced prison guards, a vulpine Ida Lupino as the viciously sadistic warden, and for the finale, a plot by the inmates to take over the whole joint. Add in Howard Duff as the kindly prison doctor who wants to help these wayward ladies and some howlingly good/bad dialogue and you've got an even better "Orange is the New Black"...only in black and white. 


"Rain" (1932)

In the 80 years since this flop was released, time has been good to it. The message of religious zealotry run amok and the damage it's hypocrisy can cause have never been more timely. Joan Crawford is the cheap floozy prostitute Sadie Thompson who runs headlong into confrontation with priggish missionary Walter Huston on a South Seas island during the incessant rainy season. And boy, is there rain...symbolically cleansing a lot of souls but not before they're painfully laid bare. This is Joan at her best (she was always good when she played 'bad') and the direction by director Lewis Milestone looks fresher than ever. The sparks fly despite all that deluge. 


"Love Story" (1970)

Not to fault "The Fault in Our Stars" but THIS is the weepy cancer romance to beat them all. After the tumultuous '60s--three political assassinations, Vietnam, race riots, Manson, Altamont--the country needed a big collective cry. And this soapy bathos served the bill, thank you very much. Two impossibly attractive Harvard students (she's working class, he's super wealthy), meet and fall in love until, DA DUM, the Big C harshes everyone's mellow. That's about it but it really works because the leads had beaucoup chemistry in some memorable romantic moments--touch football in the snow!--a syrupy love theme, and oh, and don't forget one of the most famous lines in film history. Added points for some great wardrobe styling...McGraw's knit caps and preppy skirts hold up and i'd kill for O'Neals shearling coat. 


"Jeremiah Johnson" (1972)

With a full beard,  perfectly coiffed straw blonde locks (did anyone in movies ever have better hair?), and boho chic western garb, Robert Redford would be right at home on the streets of Bushwick, but he's an 1840's mountain man in this laconic western. All he wants is to be left alone to wander and hunt, trapping animals for pelts to trade--he's the Greta Garbo of the Old West. But it isn't meant to be, both the white man and the Indian encroach on his edenic wishes. Slow and rambley, see it for the stunning widescreen vistas shot mostly on national parkland (thank God for preservation), and oh, that hair…


"Drive a Crooked Road" (1954)

The late Mickey Rooney is firmly ensconced in the public's mind as either the "hey let's put on a show!" pal of Judy Garland or the execrable Mr. Yunioshi from "Breakfast at Tiffany's". This small somber noir is evidence he deserves a reassessment. He's a lonely, friendless auto mechanic with pipe dreams of becoming a bigtime race car driver, but ends up the patsy to a suave gang of bank robbers who need him to drive their getaway car. They use their sultry moll, Dianne Foster as bait. Rooney gives a very fine performance, maybe his best. Heartbreaking and downbeat...but isn't that what noir is all about?


"Nana" (1934)

A sumptuous adaptation of Emile Zola's novel. Touted as "the next Garbo", Russian actress Anna Sten makes her American film debut as a dirt poor guttersnipe who uses her feminine wiles on any man she meets to rise and become the toast of Belle Epoche Paris. She ends up in a tragic love triangle torn between two military officer brothers (Lionel Atwill and Phillips Holmes). Of interest is that this story of such a strong female character was directed by one of old Hollywoods few female directors, Dorothy Arzner who does a fine job of helming the handsome production. Sten even gets to sing a Dietrich-esque original song by Rodgers and Hart (!) 


"Captain Horatio Hornblower" (1951)

Gregory Peck was the movies' master of stoic. With brooding good looks and baritone voice, his taciturn delivery created many a thoughtful and honorable hero. Here he's the famous British Naval officer of the early 19th century. While it doesn't boast the swagger of some swashbucklers--like say, those of Errol Flynn from the '30s and '40s--the fun is seeing Peck use his military smarts to outmaneuver his French and Spanish enemies in warship 'chess' on the high seas. The history lesson is illuminating, the battle sequences are exciting, and the love interest, Virginia Mayo, is luminous. Top notch entertainment. 


"Night Train to Munich" (1940)

A very fine WWII thriller. When the Nazis goose step into Prague they covet a learned industrial scientist who'd be valuable to the German military. He goes on the lam with his daughter, Margaret Lockwood, and they're helped by undercover British agent, Rex Harrison, posing as a monacled Gestapo officer. At turns tense and funny, this  could almost be a sequel to Hitchcock's famous "The Lady Vanishes": same screenwriters, leading lady, espionage twists and derring-do aboard a moving train. Hang on for the exciting finale, a chase on cable cars 60,000 feet over the Swiss Alps.


"Lillian Russell" (1940)

Alice Faye does a commendable job in this engaging biopic of the famous chanteuse. While it's a glossy sanitized version of her life, you get a lot of sumptuous Old New York period detail and Alice, bejeweled head to toe in Travis Banton gowns, singing all those pre-1900 songs like "And the Band Played On" and "After the Ball". A subdued but charming Henry Fonda is the love interest (did anyone ever do 'earnest' better?) and Edward Arnold does a gregarious Diamond Jim Brady, Russell's fatcat suitor.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

"If You Could Only Cook" (1935)


A charming Depression-era screwball comedy. Down on her luck, Jean Arthur meets the always debonair Herbert Marshall on a park bench. She badly needs a job and they hatch a plan to answer a want ad for a maid/butler at a Long Island mansion. His secret? He's really the billionaire owner of a  major automobile company searching for that ineffable 'something different' that only characters in the movies seek. Wanna bet by the last reel he finds it in her arms? Some genuine laughs and the star turn romantic chemistry carry this cream puff premise over the  finish line. 


"Bedlam" (1946)


What if you're committed to an mental asylum and you keep insisting you're sane...but no one believes you? That scary old premise is given a good turn in this literate and moody horror drama. Anna Lee is the crusading do-gooder who wants to reform the inhuman conditions of Bedlam, the infamous 18th century London madhouse. But the cruel director of the joint, lispy Boris Karloff, catches wind of her scheme and has her thrown in with all the 'loonies' through some political sleight of hand. How she plots to keep her wits about her and escape the spooky place is satisfying fun. And if the actress sounds familiar it's because she went on to become the kindly matriarch Lila Quartermaine 35 years later on the soap "General Hospital".



"The Andromeda Strain" (1971)


If you're a germaphobe then you should avoid this film like the, er....plague. A US satellite has returned to Earth carrying a nasty creepy crawlie virus. It hyper-coagulates human blood in seconds and it could wipe out the entire planet unless a team of military scientists can figure out how to disarm it in record time. Adapted from Michael Crighton's first big techno-thriller, this taut sci-fi nail biter (emphasis on the sci part), delivers the shudders with not-so-dated special effects (given the picture is over 40 years old) and an excruciatingly tense finale. 


"The Long, Hot Summer" (1958)


If you like your family dramas overheated and Southern fried, do see this steamy story of repressed sexuality set in a moss covered Mississippi town. Orson Welles is the overbearing Big Daddy Pollitt-like patriarch growling and mumbling like he's got a mouth full of grits and cornpone. All he wants is a house full of "granchillin" and his repressed school teacher daughter (Joanne Woodward) and shiftless son (Tony Franciosa) aren't breeding fast enough for his boorish patience. Enter sexpot drifter Paul Newman to shake up everyone's libidos and tempers. The Woodward/Newman chemistry is great and the fine cast, including Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury,  all putting on those fake Southun' accents is a hoot. Bonus fun: a gorgeous Samy Cahn title tune sung by Jimmie Rodgers. 




"House on Telegraph Hill" (1951)


A fine mashup of the 'woman in peril' genre and film noir. Valentina Cortesa is a concentration camp survivor who assumes the identity of her deceased best friend. See, the friend sent her baby to live with a long lost rich aunt in America. When the aunt turns up dead she can inherit the fortune and the titular mansion, right? Not so fast. The creepy lawyer who's the executor of the estate (Richard Basehart) has other ideas...like, um, murder. Some great thriller set-pieces and the on-location photography of early '50s San Francisco make this an engrossing watch. 


"Theodora Goes Wild" (1936)


In this charming screwball rom-com lovely Irene Dunne is the secret authoress of a torrid novel that's burning up the country's bestseller list and no one in her provincial New England town suspects her quiet Miss Prim self is the scandalmonger. Easygoing, dashing Melvyn Douglas is the book's cover illustrator who wants to melt her reserve (and her heart) and the clucking town biddies are led by chief bluenose Spring Byington. An entertaining  romp. 


"Dead Reckoning" (1947)

Humphrey Bogart fits into film noir like hand in glove in this by-the-numbers thriller, but that's not a bad thing. Just because it ticks off all the genre boxes, the viewing pleasures are about  watching all the conventions fall into place and enjoying the ride. Here he's a WWII vet, newly stateside, and his best army pal ends up dead. Playing amateur gumshoe he takes matters into his own hands, plunging into the nocturnal netherworld of the mob, murder, and the arms of a slinky Bacall-like blonde, Lizabeth Scott. No one does it like Bogie. 



"The Facts of Life" (1960)

The post-War marital malaise was at full tilt by 1960, the year of "The Apartment" and this amiable adult dramedy. Bob Hope and Lucille Ball are middle aged suburbanites who fall in love despite--and maybe because of--each being stuck in a humdrum marriage to other people. An affair to remember it's not, as real-life commitments and guilty consciences get in the way of consummating the tryst. Happily, both stars move beyond their usual performing personas, Hope tamps down his 'Road' picture hamminess and Ball keeps her Lucy Ricardo bit in check, to deliver a nice mixed bag of sophisticated laughs both broad and bittersweet. Added bonus: a fine credit sequence by the master, Saul Bass, and a nifty Johnny Mercer title tune sung by Steve & Eydie! 




"Designing Woman" (1957)

"Designing Woman" (1957) You might dismiss this rom-com as warmed over Tracy/Hepburn territory, the kind of plot where two people with wildly divergent careers (and personalities) meet cute, spar, fall in love, spar some more, and then, well, cue the Hollywood ending. And it IS all that, but when you have the classy combo of Lauren Bacall and Gregory Peck giving it their best shot as a high fashion designer and newspaper sports columnist, all under the deft direction of Vincent Minnelli supplying his usual  glossy panache, then you forgive the familiar plot line. Added bonus for any clothes whores out there: oodles of mid-century New Look gowns and frocks in eye-popping Technicolor by costumer Helen Rose...simply scrumptious. 


"Three Little Words" (1950)

Another of those MGM songwriter biopics, but this one has much to recommend. This time it's the story of Tin Pan Alley tunesmiths Burt Kalmar (Fred Astaire) and Harry Ruby (Red Skelton) who wrote umpteen great standards from the great American songbook. Astaire, as usual, makes the goings-on of the duo's creative ups and downs seem effortless. And Skelton tamps down his usual hammy mugging to deliver a real performance. Oodles of great musical set-pieces with those hummable tunes--"Who's Sorry Now?", "Nevertheless", "I Wanna Be Loved By You", etc--and some crackerjack hoofing by lovely Vera Ellen as Astaire's supportive wife. Highly entertaining. 




"The Mob" (1952)

Unlikely leading man Broderick Crawford does a fine job in this waterfront film noir. He witnesses a cop killing and must go undercover among mob infiltrated dock workers to ferret out the crooked leader of the syndicate who did the dirty deed. There's a lot of heavy drinking, gunplay, and rat-a-tat tough guy dialog before the surprise unveiling of the mob boss, and it's well worth the time. 




"The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964)

Despite a literate script and a game international all-star cast, this sword and sandals epic is a mite tepid. There's a nifty chariot duel down the side of an Italian alp (shades of Ben-Hur) and Sophia Loren brings her regal beauty to heat things up, but the real reason to see this picture is the jaw dropping Roman Forum set in the last third of the picture. It was so gargantuan that it still holds the record for being the biggest outdoor set of all time. And it's a doozy. You keep thinking "this has got to be a matte painting or CGI" but then you realize they didn't have FX like that in 1963! Take a good look; you're never gonna see the likes of this kind of film craft again. A film buff's treat. 


"Three on a Match" (1932)

There's an old superstition that if three people light their cigarette off a single match then one of them will soon die. So when three grade school friends meet by chance years later and have that fateful puff the wheels of fate are set in motion in this fast-paced pre-Code melodrama. Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, and Bette Davis are the The Wayward One, The Society Lady, and The Working Girl respectively. And just when you think you've figured out the plot, things twist and turn unexpectedly (hey, just like life). 




"Hanover Street" (1979)


Schmaltz among the blitzkrieg. This WWII romance was an attempt to "make 'em like they used to". A Yank airman (Harrison Ford) meets and falls in love with a British nurse (Lesley-Anne Down) as the bombs fall on London. But the catch is that she's married to secret agent Christopher Plummer. When both men get enlisted into a perilous mission behind Nazi lines, this sudser turns into a fine action thriller. It's good to see Ford before he became so humorless, plus the nice period detail and a lush John Barry score laid on thick heighten the drama. Wallow and enjoy.


"The Blue Gardenia" (1953)

When working gal Anne Baxter gets a Dear Jane letter from her overseas soldier boy she drowns her sorrows in too many rum punches with louche lothario Raymond Burr at the titular L.A. nightclub. They retire to his bachelor pad and let's just say bad things happen. She has to hide from the cops and the only person who can help is ace reporter Richard Conte...or is he only out for The Big Story? Fritz Land directs this nifty film noir with a sure touch and a satisfying twist ending. And you even get Nat 'King' Cole singing the beautiful title song in a musical interlude, it's one of the best movie love songs ever written.




"Les Diaboliques" (1955)

A superb French horror-thriller. It's a simple premise: two women plot to kill a sadistic headmaster of a boys' school; one is his wife, the other his mistress. There isn't a moment without palpable suspense as the director, Henri-Georges Clouzot, has total command of the storytelling, twists piling upon twists, all ending in a shocko ending. This movie does for baths what "Psycho" did for showers. Your screaming will feel so good, catharsis can do that. 



"The Conqueror Worm" (1968)

On the surface this looks like another one of those overought '60s Edgar Allen Poe pictures where Vincent Price hammed it up amongst the pits and the pendulums. But look again, it's a thoughtful meditation on pervasive corruption in religion and government. Here he's Matthew Hopkins--a character loosely base on fact-- a lawyer in 17th century England who's a self appointed 'witchhunter', going from village to village executing anyone being suspected of witchcraft or satanism. For the right price. Bleak and unflinching, there are some gruesome scenes of torture and violence so be prepared. But Price is the very picture of smug malevolence in the name of religion, (he considered it his best performance), a baddie with haunting echoes of current events...Ted Cruz ring a bell? So it's worth the time if you can stomach the horror. 



"Leave Her to Heaven" (1945)

Implausible trash, essential viewing. This technicolor noir (a rarity in itself) features the alluring Gene Tierney in the second of her great femme fatale roles of the '40s, "Laura" being the other. Here she's the ultimate icy psychobitch, a venal murderess with the daddy of all Electra Complexes. When she sets her sights on hapless patsy Cornel Wilde, she mows down anybody in her path to maintain his ardor. Prepare yourself for one of the most famous--and disturbing--murder scenes in cinema. The Oscar winning cinematography wraps the whole thing in colors so sumptuous and florid it's borderline kitsch, high art on a velvet canvas. And if that's not enough, the architecture porn will leave you agog: two stunning houses, one a Taos hacienda, the other a cabin on a Maine lake. Don't miss this one.




"Lullaby of Broadway" (1951)

Doris Day couldn't give an unlikable performance. Here she's in a paper thin plot about a cruise ship performer coming back to NYC to reunite with her long lost mother who she believes is a famous broadway actress, but who is really a two-bit saloon singer. Despite too many coincidences and contrivances the piece sails along because of the star's gosh-darn-happy-go-lucky infectiousness, and the musical numbers where she pairs with impressive hoofer Gene Nelson as the romantic lead. It's Technicolor fluff but still fun. 


"Black Widow" (1954)

"Black Widow" (1954) What if all the back biting denizens of the New York theatre world in "All About Eve" were suspects in a murder mystery and the victim turned out to be little Miss Eve herself? That's essentially the plot of this watchable whodunnit. Was the nasty opportunistic victim (Peggy Ann Garner) strangled by the bigtime producer (Van Heflin)? Or was it the always ravishing Gene Tierney as his famous actress wife? Maybe it was Ginger Rogers as the bitchy Queen Bee diva? It's up to George Raft playing the detective to figure it all out. A classy cast, witty dialog and some sumptuous '50s penthouse sets make for a winning diversion. 


"Fantastic Voyage" (1966)

Preposterous yet diverting, this sci-fi '60s epic has some moments of real tension. The hokey premise: a team of military scientists are shrunk down to mite size and injected into the body of a Russian who knows Big State Secrets. To save him they must find their way to his brain and zap a blood clot before he dies. Oh, and they have just one hour to get in and out. The Oscar winning special effects are a little creaky by today's standards but c'mon, this was 50 years ago. As their 'spaceship' encounters corpuscles and hemoglobin, you feel like you're in a scary lava lamp. And for laughs you get Raquel Welch as one of scientists(!) in a low-cut neoprene spacesuit. What more do you need? 



Monday, January 5, 2015

"Faces" (1968)


At times uncomfortable and fascinating, this cinema verité film is like being at a cocktail party where everyone has had  too much to drink. You want to get up and leave but you know something embarrassingly dishy is just around the corner. Director John Cassavetes most emblematic work, it's the story of an upper middle class couple's unraveling marriage. He turns to a young prostitute (a smashing Gena Rowlands in big false eyelashes and sequins), and she picks up a hippie at a go-go club. And even though suburban soul baring anomie has been done to death, it's the telling that's the draw here. Grainy black and white photography finding all those searching angst ridden faces, it's beautiful sadness and a must-see. 


"The Fallen Idol" (1948)



One of the best Hitchcock films Hitchcock never directed. The young son of the French ambassador to England thinks he's witnessed a murder. And the culprit is his beloved friend and idol, the household's head butler. Scenes of their sweet friendship alternate with nail-biting suspense as the police try to ensnare the lead suspect with the testimony of the impressionable kid. Great storytelling and fine subtle performance by Ralph Richardson as the servant make this a must-see. 


"Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954)


Yes, it's just a stuntman in a rubber lizard suit, but this atmospheric frightfest has more to offer than it's (well-deserved) shocks. A team of paleontologists take a tramp steamer deep into the Amazon jungle searching for the remains of prehistoric 'gill man' and surprise, he still around to wreak havoc on their mission. Take it all at kitschy face value or look closer and see the real 'creature' here is the male ego of the two lead scientists (Richard Carlson, Richard Denning) who vie for the attention of their female cohort (Julie Adams). It's monster as symbolic sexual frustration. When the big reptile ogles her in a famous underwater pas de deux, the chills are sexy AND spine tingling. 




"State Fair" (1945)


Rodgers and Hammerstein musicalized this homespun story of an Iowa farm family's trip to the titular Big Event (it was previously a book and '30s movie). Will Ma win a blue ribbon for her pickles and mincemeat? Will Pa's prize hog come home a champion? And will the son and daughter each find true romance? You know the answer. Corny and too pretty perfect by a mile, it's like watching a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. The idealized version of America was not the way it was, but what we wished it to be...and at the time that's probably what was needed on the WWII homefront. Just don't look for a person of color in the whole damn thing!


"Wagon Master" (1950)


The great John Ford said this was his favorite of all the westerns he directed. That's saying a lot but it's easy to see why. A deceptively simple story of two roaming horse traders (Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr.) who sign on to lead a westward bound wagon train of Mormons to their settlement in Utah. Along the way they encounter Indians, outlaws, and medicine show performers, but more importantly issues of tolerance, faith, love, duty, and vengeance. Beautifully filmed in an almost documentary-like fashion (against the stunning Monument Valley backdrop), you get a palpable appreciation for how hard this this way of life must have been.


"National Velvet" (1944)


So often relegated to that damned-with-faint-praise moniker 'family picture', this female Bildungsroman deserves a reappraisal. A young English country girl (Elizabeth Taylor) wants desperately to enter her horse in the Grand National Steeplechase. She's helped by her kindly parents and an ex-jockey (Mickey Rooney). Taylor's performance (she was 12) is scarily pitch perfect, and the lovely, cozy art direction of 1920s Sussex life, all tweeds, chintz, and green valleys is comforting eyecandy. Yes, you can read deeper meaning into her fanatical love of horses and her budding womanhood, but just enjoy the sincere storytelling. And the final race is a nailbiter.


"Arsenic and Old Lace" (1944)


Frank Capra directs this fun, not-too-stagey filming of the classic comedy thriller play. Cary Grant discovers that his two dotty old aunts have been mercy killing old bachelors that they take in as boarders. His exasperated double takes and flustered whinnies almost veer into parody. Almost. It's Cary Grant after all. Dewey Priscilla Lane is the love interest along with Raymond Massey and bug-eyed Peter Lorre as Grant's scary brother and henchman. The creep factor and laughs escalate apace, as does the body count (count them 13!) before the denouement.