"Inferno" (1953)

A very fine and forgotten genre busting film. An adventure thriller, a quasi-western, and a Technicolor noir all rolled into one. Robert Ryan is a self-made millionaire who got there the hard way (and probably by bending the rules a little too). Before the credits finish rolling we learn that he's been left to die out in the desert mountains with a broken leg by his beautiful wife (Rhonda Fleming) and her lover, Ryan's business partner (William Lundigan). "It's not exactly murder if we just leave him there." What they don't count on is that Ryan is determined to survive this ordeal if it kills him. The whole film is a cross-cutting between the scheming couple, wringing their hands and dealing with the authorities who are starting to get suspicious, and Ryan keeping his wits and "MacGyvering" his way out of every scrap the unrelenting heat and landscape throw at him. What's fun is you get his voice-over commentary thoughts throughout, mostly about how he's gonna get revenge on those two who done him wrong. You don't really need it, but it gives Ryan double the acting challenge. The stunning Fleming and her mane of red hair are inferno enough, but add to it a gripping finale set amongst a blazing fire and the title more than pays off the whole filmic endeavor. Originally filmed for 3D, this must have been something, but it still plays well without a lot of hokey "Wax Museum" stuff thrown at the camera. Think of it as "Double Indemnity" in the Mojave. Solid entertainment.

"Cinderella Liberty" (1973)

The New Hollywood cinema of the late 1960's and '70's brought profound change to the high gloss perfectionism of the golden studio era that preceded it. The storytelling became grittier, more frank, closer to the honest messiness of real life. Language, sex, race, violence, were all depicted with a new openness. To wit, this small character study was the second adaptation of a Darryl Ponicson novel, the first being the highly successful "The Last Detail" with Jack Nicholson the year before. James Caan is an amiable sailor on shore leave in Seattle. He gets stuck in the town because the Navy has lost his papers, he's free to go as he pleases as long as he's back everyday by midnight (hence the title nickname given this kind of leave). He shacks up with a pool hustling hooker (Marsha Mason) who turns tricks in her fleabag hotel room. Her nine year old half black son sleeps on the couch in the other room while mom takes care of business. How's that for sordid realness? Caan and Mason have fine chemistry as they try to figure out what each of the want out of this tempestuous relationship. If the ending gets a little too pat and heartwarming, all's fine since you've come to care for these little people trying to eek out a life in the big bad world. Some fine atmospheric photography but Vilmos Zsigmond and contemporary score by John Williams add additional interest. There's even a love song penned by Paul Williams sung over a happy montage, what more do you need?

 

The Long, Long Trailer (1953)

What if you could watch an entirely new episode of "I Love Lucy" that was an hour and a half, in blazing Technicolor, and one that got Lucy and Ricky out of that cramped New York apartment set and out into the wide open spaces of the Rocky Mountains? Look no further, friend. What was surely an effort to cash in on the mega success of their TV show, this glossy MGM fluff piece gave fans more of what they loved from that screwball couple. Here they're newlyweds named Tacy and Nicky (rimshot!) on the cross country maiden voyage of their spanking new life on wheels, a 30 foot trailer home that's way, WAY too big for these neophytes. But this was no slouch production. They got Vincent Minelli to direct, who deftly handles some truly thigh slapping sequences. Yes, Miss Ball does her iconic slapstick and mugging (no one was better), but the surprise is that Desi Arnaz holds his own and has some good bits beyond is exasperated spitting mad Latin husband character. The movie's an innocent snapshot of a post-war America, flush with itself and enamored with it's cars, highways, and disposable income, too innocent to know of the all the turmoil that would show up in decades to come. Just laugh at the antics and funny cameos from scene stealers like Keenan Wynn and Marjorie Main, it's a DesiLu lovefest well worth the time.

"The Producers" (1968)

The film farce that spawned the mega-successful Broadway musical adaption (and subsequent movie remake). It all spins off a hare-brained scheme: two loser theatrical producers want to mount the worst play of all time so that they can reap all the investment money when it will most assuredly bomb. High jinx ensue when, of course, it's a smash success. Oops.  The gawdawful play is titled "Springtime for Hitler", complete with a hippie-dippie Hitler (Dick Shawn) cavorting with goosestepping scantily clad chorinnes forming Buzby Berkely swastikas. Coming only 20 odd years after the Holocaust, the audacious irreverence has lost the cultural sting it probably had when first introduced. The "Oh my Lord, is this really going there?" daring now only seems like tame borscht belt schtick. First time director Mel Brooks doesn't help either. Crudely paced, he has no clue where to put the camera. What still works though--and the only reason to watch--is the go-for-broke performances of the two leads played by Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. Their amped up baffoonish mugging is antic, grotesque...and hilarious. The best bits are the throw away lines and priceless asides. Great comic timing lasts forever. A dated relic good for more than a few belly laughs, see it.

"Side Street" (1949)

All the classic elements of noir reshuffled into a tight must-see delight. A little Everyman (mailman Farley Granger) is haplessly drawn deeper and deeper into a world of crime because of a two bit theft he knows he shouldn't have committed. All he wants is to squirrel away a little cash to take care of his pregnant wife (Cathy O'Donnell). But it's too late, he steals from the wrong bad guys. They want their money back and him dead. Oh, and the cops are hot on his trail too. Director Anthony Mann keeps the whole piece white knuckle taut and tense. It's like you're watching a poor mouse running for his life in a dangerous urban maze. The finale car chase literally takes a God's eye view of New York City, with all the players in a high speed chase through the steal and cement canyons. The soulless landscape is swallowing up humanity whole. Depressing? Yes. Superb movie watching? You bet.

"Dancing Lady" (1933)

This schizophrenic grab bag of a movie can't decide if it wants to be a romance, a backstage melodrama, a full-on musical, or a slapstick comedy. And if the sum of the parts don't add up to a cohesive whole, none's the pity. The mega-watt star power of the leads gets it across the finish line admirably. Joan Crawford is here doing her patented working class girl bit. She was always great in those roles where nothing is going to stop her from making something of herself through sheer hard work and determination (a sentiment that played well during the Great Depression no doubt). Mr. Park Avenue Rich Guy (Franchot Tone) takes one look at her on stage and is smitten, but she'll have none of it. She's got other plans, to be a 'star' in legit theatre, even if she has to railroad her demanding director (Clark Gable) to do it. Oh, and maybe she's falling for him in the offing too. You can feel Crawford working her damnedest in all the singing and dancing numbers, God Bless her, but there's a reason she was never a musical comedy actress. It's her chemistry with Gable that's the thing to watch. They are unbelievably magnetic and goshalmighty are they are stunning in their closeups, the very definition of  what movie stars of the Golden Era embody. And if that's not enough you get Fred Astaire in his movie debut doing an odd Bavarian fantasy number with Crawford in blonde pigtails and he in lederhosen. Plus the Three Stooges as nitwit stagehands, Nelson Eddy crooning a big production number, and a cameo of a young Eve Arden in Southern accent. Something to please everyone.

"A Free Soul" (1931)

It's the cast that make this a Hollywood melodrama of the finest order served thick and hammy. Just as they famously would eight years later in "Gone With the Wind", Clark Gable and Lesley Howard vie for the affection of a spoiled society girl. This time it's Adrian gowned and furred Norma Shearer who has to choose between the pantingly sexy mobster (Gable) and the wealthy--but somewhat stiff--WASP (Howard). But there's one more man in this boiling pot of emotions: Shearer's drunkard but brilliant trial lawyer, Lionel Barrymore. He won't accept his daughter slumming with the underworld cad Gable who's also his client. It all comes to a not-to-be-believed stunner of a courtroom scene with tensions and revelations galore. Barrymore probably won the Oscar for this canny bit of scene-stealing alone. Pre-code malarky but oh-so-watchable.