"A Place in the Sun" (1951)

Film noir can be hardbitten and cynical or lushly romantic, but there's one rule characters in the genre must live by: the deterministic, inexorable power of Fate. In this haunting effort, an streamlined updating of Theodor Dreiser's dense novel "An American Tragedy", Montgomery Clift is an eager but poor young man who travels cross country to work in his rich uncle's clothing factory. He can see before him all the possibility of what wealth can bring, clothes, cars, big homes, and most importantly, a girl. And what a girl this is. Elizabeth Taylor in her first adult role ("Before that, all my leading men were either dogs or horses."). Her Angela Vickers is the embodiment of everything post WWII American men wanted and what women wanted to be. It wasn't an easy role, she's aspirational but not haughty, flirty but not off-putting, sexual but still innocent. No wonder Clift falls hard for her. But of course, there's a problem: he's gotten his previous girlfriend pregnant, a drab and dowdy scene-stealing Shelley Winters. If only this Debbie Downer were out of the way, and that's when things turn sinister. Director George Stevens alternates between the two worlds tearing at Clift, the working class dead-end life with Winters, and the glamorous enviable world of Taylor, with languorous overlapping dissolves. And effective way of juxtaposing the dichotomies. And was there ever a more attractive screen pairing than Taylor and Clift? Their famous kissing close-ups are rapturously beautiful. And as added eye candy you get Edith Head's much-copied ball gown, the one with a spray of white lilacs showcasing Taylor's bosom. One look at her in that get-up and he's a goner for sure. Just like us the audience.

"Jamaica Inn" (1939)

Alfred Hitchcock only made three costume pictures in his entire career, it wasn't a genre he was entirely comfortable with, "I'm always thinking 'where do they go to the bathroom?'" Much maligned (even by the master himself), a fresh look proves there's a lot to like about this moody tale of early 19th Century coastal scalawags. Adapted from Daphne DuMaurier's atmospheric but somewhat plodding bestseller, the plot was smartly re-structured to align with one of the director's laws of suspense: give the audience more information than the characters. We learn quickly who the bad guy is, when will the heroine? Therein lies the tension. A winsome Maureen O'Hara, just a teenager and making her solid film debut, is a young English lass who comes to live with her long lost aunt and uncle in the title establishment, a place of nefarious reputation. See, Uncle, a craggy Leslie Banks, is the leader of a band of "wreckers", land pirates who lure unsuspecting ships to their doom on the treacherous Cornish rocks and then scoop up the booty killing all aboard. Headstrong O'Hara will have none of it, and she enlists the nearby kindly squire, Charles Laughton, to help undo the deadly dealings. The whole affair is filled with little Hitchcockian touches, you can't tamp down pure talent, but the most fascinating realization when watching is that the entire picture was shot on studio sets. Shipwrecks. Crashing waves. Rocky coasts. Horse drawn carriages traipsing up and down the desolate English moors. All created in a controlled environment and it looks superb. Unbelievable  film craftsmanship that deserves a viewing.

"M" (1931)

This justifiably famous proto-noir broke so much cinematic ground upon it’s first release that it still looks fresh all these umpteen years later. A serial killer preying on young little girls is terrorizing a large German city. Taking the form of a police procedural, the film follows detectives and departmental brass methodically pursuing the psychopath before he can kill again. What gives this basic premise more stylistic heft is the concurrent effort of the city’s underworld denizens as they also hunt down the culprit. With so much police presence on the streets it’s cutting into their livelihood, this sicko is bad for business. Exacting director Fritz Lang cross cuts both groups’ efforts with the murderer, the “M”, as he creepily stalks more children. But by portraying the villain (a career defining performance by Peter Lorre) as a victim himself to psychological inner demons and not purely a monster, Lang broke new territory. Wrap it all in a pervasive depiction of a festering, fear filled German society and you get a uneasy glimpse into how this Depression saddled era could bring rise to something as pernicious as Nazism. A must for Film History 101 students of any age. 

Encore review: "Blowout" (1981)

MoviefiedNYC is running my capsule review of Brian DePalma's '80s thriller "Blow Out" this week.
You can read the full review here.

"Stagecoach" (1939)

This was the western that started it all, that legitimized the genre as more than just horses, guns, shootouts, and Injuns, that it could be about Bigger Themes. What is the role of the individual vs. society? What's morally right and wrong, and who defines it? And a biggie, What is man's place in this world? Heady stuff. But don't worry, this oater is still chock full of horses, guns, shootouts, and Injuns, and despite it's age holds up extremely well as a piece of pop culture entertainment. On initial release the simple premise was dubbed "Grand Hotel on wheels", a group of disparate travelers are just trying to get from Point A to Point B in a Wells Fargo wagon, but it's their journey of self-discovery that's gives the story resonance. The familiar types, a prostitute being run out of town (Claire Trevor), a gambler (John Carradine), a shady businessman (Berton Churchill ), the alcoholic doctor (Thomas Mitchell), the prim and pregnant army wife (Louis Platt), the milquetoast whiskey salesman (Donald Meek), and the outlaw (John Wayne in a star making performance as The Ringo Kid) are a perfect cast. The human stories are compelling but the picture really delivers on the action. The final chase thru Apache territory is still one of the most thrilling sequences in movie history. The stunts are jaw dropping. And of course, attention must be paid to director John Ford's masterful use of what would become his favorite location, Utah's Monument Valley. All those eerie, majestic rock formations and mesas as a backdrop for the small human drama that unfolds in front of it.

Moviefied review: "Let's Make Love" (1960)

My recent review of "Let's Make Love" with Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand from 1960 was picked up by the nifty movie site MoviefiedNYC.com where I've done some contributing. You can read it here. Enjoy.

www.moviefiednyc.com

"Suddenly, Last Summer" (1959)

Just another one of those Tennessee Williams family dramas involving murder, incest, blackmail, psychosis, and cannibalism. A musical it ain't. But if you're in the mood for two of the great screen divas going for the jugular and for broke, this vehicle does nicely, thank you. Katherine Hepburn is an ultra-rich dowager still mourning the death of her mannered, aesthete, and clearly gay son, Sebastien, from a year prior. She wants to enlist a brain surgeon who specializes in lobotomies (Montgomery Clift) to work his special scalpel skills on her niece (Elizabeth Taylor) who was with her son at the time of his mysterious death. Mute the niece and you mute the Terrible Secrets that will surely be spilled by the final act. Screenwriter Gore Vidal does an admirable job of expanding Williams small one-act play. This being the late 1950's, a lot of the Gran Guignol aspects of the plot are merely hinted at, but enough of the playwright's purple dialog and lurid shocks still pack a wallop. Audiences went to it in droves and for good reason. Hepburn is chillingly frightening as the gorgon of all mothers who had one creepy relationship with that son. Clift is merely passable (this was a charity role from his post-accident career phase gifted to him by Taylor), but she shines as the hysterical ingenue on the brink of mental collapse. And who can forget her now iconic presence in that white bathing suit on the beach right before the final horrific denouement?