My March movie-watching: a dark and stormy list
Apr 01 '05
The Bottom Line The most pleasant surprise was "Western Union"; there were more than a few disappointments.
Wracking my brain to try to recall all the movies that I saw in 2004 led to a resolve to list the ones I see in 2005, a resolve that has lasted three whole months!
Again, listing led to writing a few sentences and writing a few sentences led to some express reviews I never would have written had I not been compiling the list, and a few express reviews outgrew their containers. The list, like the one for January and February is in chronological order of the movies' making. Comments longer than a paragraph are set off by "---".
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Ever since watching "Captured on Film," the 2001 documentary on Marion Davies, I had wanted to see one of the movies of the mistress of San Simeon, who also was once a very popular comedienne. Considering the recent elevation of the reputation of playwright George S. Kaufman (enshrined in the Library of America) and that he wrote "Animal Crackers" and "A Night at the Opera" for the Marx Brothers, I expected to be amused by No So Dumb. (produced by Davies, directed by King Vidor, 1930, 1.2 stars). I was not (at all), leaving me unsure whether it was the vehicle or the star. Certainly, the plot and the lines are stupid (is the title supposed to refer to Kaufman's play, "Dulcy," coauthored with Marc Connelly, rather than to Dulcy, its heroine?). The main character is very annoying, her chatter heavily laden with contrived malapropisms. Although only running 76 minutes, the movie creaked and was painful to watch.
The campy 1934 version of Cleopatra directed by Cecil B. DeMille with Claudette Colbert woefully miscast in the title role alternates perfunctory story-telling with languorous, silly stretches of Orientalist kitsch. The montage battle sequence includes striking images (some recycled from the silent version of "The Ten Commandments"), though it's fairly astonishing that the cinematography (of Victor Milner) was honored with an Oscar (I'd have tapped "The Scarlet Empress" or "The Thin Man," but neither was even nominated). Colbert seems far too sensible and amiable to be a great seducer or a great lover. (She does get off a contemptuous final zinger at Octavius, though.) Warren William musters the greed, craft, bemusement, and hubris of Julius Caesar, if not very a Roman one, and the tall (6'4") Henry Wilcoxon flexes his manly thighs, sneers, rages, and grimaces as an easily manipulable Marc Antony. Although hardly free of kitsch, the 1963 version seems to me to have more convincing performances... although no one would accuse it of being perfunctory. 2.8 stars.
The offscreen romance between Clark Gable and Loretta Young on location on and around Mount Baker in Washington State produced an illegitimate daughter. The passion did not make it to the screen, however The unconvincing romance recorded on film provided a travesty of Jack London's short novel Call of the Wild (directed by William Wellman, 3 stars). There is still a dog feeling the call of the wild (and having a fruitful romance of its own with a wolf), though the dog is an unlupine Saint Bernard. I doubt that London would have approved of the comic subordinate played by Jack Oakie, but I found it a relief from the always perfectly coifed, glamorously lit, and dramatically deficient Loretta Young, who alternated clenched-jaw determination with looking adoringly at Clark Gable (who was doing his usual raffish lovable rogue thing). There are some good but very brief action sequences and some scenic vistas of Washington State passing for the Yukon. Wellman later. did better sticking closer to the novel The Ox-Bow Incident. He had already directed the classic (seminal?) gangster movie "The Public Enemy" and the first Oscar-winning movie (Wings) and would later make one of the first compelling WWII movies (The Story of G.I. Joe).
Western Union (directed by the estimable Fritz Lang in Technicolor, 1941, 4.8 stars) was better than I expected, putting Robert Young and Dean Jagger to good use, though the dramatic center is one of Randolph Scott's reluctant heroes. There's romance, comedy, exploration of (then-)new technology, a motley crew, striking Utah locations... all in 95 minutes.
The Southerner (adapted and directed by Jean Renoir, whom I consider an overrated auteur and most of whose films mix greatness and ploddingness;1945, 3.4 stars) begins very sentimentally and ends almost as sentimentally. In between, there are some surprisingly adept action scenes (two fights and braving a flooded river).
Till the End of Time (directed by Edward Dmytryk, 1946, 3 stars) is an uninspired melodrama about demobilized Marines, buddies from a VA hospital. The romantic hero is particular aw-shucks boy next door heart-throb/beefcake Cliff Harper (Guy Madison). Robert Mitchum plays William Tabeshaw, who was outfitted with a plate in his head, and tarries in southern California before returning home to Stinking Creek, New Mexico. The third case, a despairing paraplegic the other two try to cheer up is played by Bill Williams. Love interest (forced and chemistryless) for Cliff is supplied by a chain-smoking older woman who loved someone who did not come back from the war, tremulously played by Dorothy McGuire. There is a good anti-discrimination bar fight at the end. "The Best Years of Our Lives" was a vastly better movie from the same year on the readjustment to civilian life travails. (Dmytryk made a real noir in "Criss Cross" in which there was palpable chemistry between Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo. Cinematographer Harry Wild also shot "Murder, My Sweet" for Dmytryk.) A Chopin theme in various forms runs through "Till" and was apparently a jukebox hit of 1946.
Dishonored Lady (directed by Robert Stevenson, 1947, 2.4 stars) is of interest more as social history than as entertainment, but has Hedy Lamarr to showcase in high 1940s style and some stylish noirish cinematography by Lucien Andriot.
Desperate (directed by Anthony Mann, 1947, 4.2 stars) has even more flamboyantly stylish noir cinematography (by George E. Diskant) and a more formidable villain in Raymond Burr. The young couple on the run were, alas, played by the uncharismatic pair Steve Brodie and Audrey Long.
I was able to resist the invitation to identify with Farley Granger's multiple felon in They Live By Night (the first movie directed by Nicholas Ray, 1948, 3.6 stars), although he was certainly very attractive and although his criminal associates are so nasty that they make him look like a desperate angel in comparison. There's some stylish cinematography by George E. Diskant, and—especially given the title substituted for that of the novel, Thieves Like Us—a surprising amount of the movie occurs by day.
At the end of Where Danger Lives (1950. directed by John Farrow), I still didn't know where the film-makers thought that danger lived. The movie includes some striking scenes filmed at night in San Francisco and Nogales, Arizona, but I think that the location of danger is Woman... at least the femme fatale of this very implausible noir. It's one thing for an attempted suicide to become enamored with the emergency-room physician who saves her, and I know that many people make many dumb choices blinded by what they believe to be "love," but a seemingly well-grounded physician (Robert Mitchum) rushing to embrace such blatantly obvious Trouble (danger) in the form of Margo (Faith Domergue)? If that can be swallowed, the wild ride that includes an all-too-brief appearance of the rich, older husband (Claude Rains taking more lumps) is brisk and increasingly horrifying for the Mitchum character (especially in that he has an untreated concussion...). There are some excellent and eccentric supporting players, and the splendid noir cinematography was supplied by Nicholas Musuraca (who also shot "Cat People" and "Out of the Past" for Jacques Tourneur, "The Hitch-hiker" for Ida Lupino, and Blue Gardenia for Fritz Lang). 2- for plot plausibility, 5 for cinematography and location choices, 4 for acting.
Moonfleet (directed by Fritz Lang, 1955, 2.8 stars) has some interesting touches, but was shot on inferior film stock and looks quite murky. Stewart Granger is surprisingly good as the swashbuckling reluctant benefactor of a child seemingly out of Dickens (but just out of his century, imagined back to 1735 Cornwall).
The River's Edge (1957) was the 304th (of 307) movies directed by Alan Dwan (the only other one of which I've seen being "The Sands of Iwo Jima" with John Wayne). It is a modern-day western in which Debra Paget was frustrated by the hard work and lack of comforts of a marginal cattle ranch to which her husband, played by Anthony Quinn, was devoted. Out of her past comes former partner in crime Ray Milland, a very nasty piece of work. The three flee to Mexico with a million dollars in cash, throw around some mind-numbing dialog and have a few fights. My favorite scene involves a raven with a hundred-dollar bill. The most ludicrous involves Quinn literally biting bullets. The ending is even hokier than the beginning. Although Quinn turned in an interesting performance and Milland was a truly nasty villain, the plot and dialog keep the movie from rating as high as 2 stars.
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Based on a sprawling best-selling novel by John O'Hara, 10 North Frederick (adapted and directed by Phillip Dunne, 1958, 3.1 stars) was one of the series of 1950s movies in which a wounded and/or defeated and/or disgraced Gary Cooper sucked in the perception by others of his failure and ineptness. In this one, he played a prominent lawyer with political aspirations who wounds those whom he most loves through rigid adherence to convention/respectability, and is ruthlessly exploited by the most monstrously ambitious and cynical political wife to hit the screens before Angela Lansbury's turn in "The Manchurian Candidate." The usually sympathetic Geraldine Fitzgerald showed that she could do something other than nice and supportive. Cooper played the part of someone trying to do the right thing and perplexed at the results. I guess that how painful it is to watch shows he did it well.
As in his previous movie ("Love in the Afternoon, directed by Billy Wilder), Cooper romanced a woman young enough to be his daughter (and in that the once strikingly handsome actor looked older than his age (57), and older still than the man at his 50th birthday party, the age chasm seems even greater). Instead of Audrey Hepburn, it was 1950s supermodel Suzy Parker of the chiseled cheekbones. ( I recognized her from retrospectives of Richard Avedon photographs and from the most dreadful role in the Michael Anderson debacle "Flight from Ashiya" (1964).)
As the less reputable (indeed, relatively debauched) young men, Ray Stricklyn and Stuart Whitman are outstanding, as are all the sleazy machine political wheeler-dealers (officials and kingmakers). Diane Varsi is not quite as good (or more is demanded of her as the apple of her father's eye).
The exposition is very awkward. Most of the movie is supposed to be a flashback of the daughter's (in her drunken brother's room, upstairs from the reception after their father's funeral and which widow and politicos are reaching new depths of hypocrisy and sanctimony), but includes a great deal that she did not know and could not remember. There is nothing special about the cinematography, though the movie was shot by a master, Joseph MacDonald. (The movie was produced by Wilder's former writing partner, Charles Brackett. Either he failed to help with the adaptation or he was little more than a sounding board and copyeditor for Wilder in their memorable collaborations.)
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The film clips leading up to the honorary Oscar for director Sidney Lumet included reminders that he helmsed such hideously bad adaptations of plays as Equus, "The Sea Gull," and "The Wiz." Another disaster in his long and uneven career was the casting of Susan Strasberg (who was also a difficult to believe young Midwesternern in Picnic) at the center of Stage Struck, his ill-advised 1958 remake of "Morning Glory" (a not particularly good movie in which Katharine Hepburn won the first of her undeserved Oscars, and a movie there was no reason to remake). Although she was in fact (offscreen) an aspiring actress from a theatrical family, Strasberg could not manage the part of the aspiring actress. An interesting Alex North score is the one "pro."
Enjoying Gambit (directed by Ronald Neame, 1966, 3.8 stars) requires not finding Shirley MacLaine intrinsically annoying (some do). I find the smart-mouthed young MacLaine amusing. She does not speak for more than the first hour of the movie as Michael Caine plans the theft of an ancient Burmese statue from the world's richest man Herbert Lom, who owns a hotel in some unnamed Arab emirate and has his art collection in his gadget-filled penthouse apartment. MacLaine, playing a Eurasian dancer in Hong Kong, who looks like the billionaire's much-loved but short-lived wife, who looked like the ancient statue. Caine rightly believes that the resemblance will lead to an invitation from the recluse, which can get the heist underway. The ultra-rich man toys with the duo. The ending is predictable, but the audience is pressed to identify with the successful execution of a robbery less than in many other heist movies (and the long string of bank robbery movies, including "They Live By Night").
I enjoyed and admired The Long Goodbye (directed by Robert Altman, 1973, 4.8 stars) during its original theatrical release; Altman's and Elliot Gould's interviews included on the DVD further increased both. DVD extras also explained the distinctive look that cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond gave the movie.
Altman's Nashville (1975, 4.6 stars) remains an amazing movie. After listening to Altman's commentary tracks, I expect I'll write something about revisiting it (though I didn't write anything after refreshing my adoration for "McCabe and Mrs. Miller"). I think "Nashville" would be even better if it were 15-20 minutes shorter (specifically, shorn of some of the shots of the crowd at the end, Geraldine Chaplin's monologues, and some trimming of several songs).
I was more impressed by the last three parts of the (written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz and Krzysztof Kieslowski, directed by Kieslowski, 1988) than with the first three, though despite using different cinematographers for each, all look fairly gloomy and claustrophobic to me. I would rate VIII 3.4, IX 4.2, and X 4.5.
I found Claude Chabrol's 1992 adaptation of Georges Simenon's experiment in non-narrative novel, Betty somewhat frustrating. Although I could put together the life history of the title character, I was perplexed about what the older woman (played by Chabrol's former wife, the immortal Stéphane Audran) was up to, and was dismayed by the ending. (3.1 stars?)
The House of the Spirits ( directed by Bille August, 1993, 3.2 stars) is a mess filled with a cast that does not seem remotely Latino. Unlike August's directed by Bille August adaptation of Smilla's Sense of Snow, which fell apart after a brilliant first half, the last part of "House" seemed more compelling than the first two thirds.
"La fille sur le pont" (The Girl On the Bridge, directed by Patrice Leconte (Ridicule, M. Hire),1999, 3.6 stars) was difficult to get into. I almost didn't make it through Adele's (chanteuse/model Vanessa Paradis) monologue that occupies the first ten minutes or so. After that, there were knife act scenes that I found creepy. Perhaps I was supposed to, and also Daniel Auteuil's gloomy knife-thrower (Gabor). Eventually, I came to enjoy the more depressive than manic manic-depressive relationship between Adele and Gabor, and the black-and-white photography (by Jean-Marie Dreujou) of casinos, cabaret acts, Paris, Istanbul, and more, and the eclectic soundtrack (including Marianne Faithful's "Who Will Take My Dreams Away," Benny Goodman and Noro Morales tracks, and Brenda Lee singing "Sorry," which I'd just heard under the credits of "Tape"). The movie is not for faint-hearted romantics!
The Last Kiss ("L'Ultimo Bacio"—written and directed by Gabriele Muccino, 2001, 3.8 stars) of the title is the last kiss before settling down to the responsibilities of an expected child. The kiss is laid on an 18-year-old smitten with the soon-to-be-father who is in the midst of a 30s commitment crisis, amidst other Peter Pans turning 30, and some operatic explosions by the expectant mother and by her mother freaking out that she has to face being over the hill (a grandmother). I was less amused and less sympathetic at the antics of the large cast of characters than others have been. Gay 30s crises are different, and due to the elongation of my student days, I didn't have a 30s crisis. Those having or remembering them would probably enjoy the movie more and find it less exotic than I did.
I didn't find In America (directed by Jim Sheridan, 2002, 4 stars) particularly manipulative (as others have complained). The movie contains compelling performances by the five leads (a modern Irish immigrant family with two girls and a mysterious black artist neighbor, Mateo, played by Djimon Hounsou). My problem with it was not sentimentality or recourse to magic(al thinking), but the impossibility to make out some of what was said (audibility rather than accent was the problem). Also, I wish the whole movie had been told from the perspective of Christie (the older, camcord-wielding daughter).
Im Spiegel der Maya Deren (In the Mirror of Maya Deren), a 2002 documentary (directed by Martina Kudlácek for Austrian tv, 4.2 stars) about the Russian-émigré dancer turned avant-garde film-maker Maya Deren (1917-1961) includes footage from the seven studies of motion Deren made along with Haitian voudou(n) footage that was put together by her second husband, Teiji Ito, long after her death (released in 1985), various interviews, and some color footage shot in Haiti. The basic chronology of a short but tempestuous life is laid out in intertitles. There are also audiotapes of Deren speaking (she sounds remarkably like Lucille Ball!). I've read Deren's voudou(n) book Divine Horsemen and seen the movie given the same name by Ito, but had never seen any of her experimental films (I'd like to see all of the last two of them; her completed films are available on a single DVD from Mysticfire.com, as is "Divine Horsemen"). There are some good stories told by survivors (including Katherine Dunham, a dancer/choreographer who also did ethnographic/ethnomusical work in Haiti; Jonas Meeker and Stan Brakhage). John Zorn added music to that of Ito's and the sound (except for the silent Deren movies from the 1940s) is as interesting as the images in this documentary that (like Deren's films) deserves a wider audience.
Big Fish (directed by Tim Burton, 2003, 2.4 stars) is a curdled, long-winded, often mystifying, sentimental mix of tall tales of self-aggrandizement told by Albert Finney and justifiable impatience from Billy Crudup playing his son (though the point of view of the movie seems to suggest he should not by annoyed by his father's mythomania). There is lots of art direction with saturated colors—although to no particular purpose—alongside a waste of Jessica Lange et al.
I was in the right mood for a somewhat silly romance comedy when I saw Something's Gotta Give (2003, directed by Nancy Meyers, 3.6 stars). Although I thought it was too long, but was entertained by Diane Keaton (who must have had a lot of "work" done), Jack Nicholson, and (!) Keanu Reeves. In differing ways, it seems like all three have grown up, with Jack parodying his offscreen reputation. The movie requires considerable suspension of disbelief, but has some good lines.
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