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Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
The title is ironic...
... since part of the allure is the mystery as to whether or not a true murder has been committed in the first place. There is a killing - but is it murder? That is what this courtroom drama is trying to determine.
Paul Biegler (James Stewart) is a country lawyer in Michigan who was once the local DA but must have lost reelection at some point. He seems to consider himself pseudo-retired, as he stays in just enough contract work to finance his true love - fishing. But then a lieutenant in the army (Ben Gazzara as Fred Manion) kills the man who raped his wife (Lee Remick as Laura Manion), is charged with murder, and Biegler has a big case on his hands.
Manion is a bit shifty - At first claiming he has the "unwritten law" on his side. But then when Biegler tells him there really is no such thing, Manion adjusts his story such that temporary insanity could be a plausible defense.
The truth is, it never is clear which was true - Did Manion truly temporarily lose it when he saw his wife brutalized by a rapist, or did Laura Manion get cold busted by her husband stepping out with another man with the result being that Lt. Manion lost his temper and killed the other man? What keeps it interesting are the characters, the emphasis on process, and the question I just posed that hangs over the entire proceedings.
James Stewart was supposed to star in "North By Northwest" in 1959, but Hitchcock was angry at him because Vertigo had been a commercial failure, calling Stewart too old. He then dumped Stewart for Cary Grant so that Stewart was available to do this film. In the end, everything worked out. All three films are now recognized classics, and I can't see anybody but Stewart with his folksy charm playing the lead in this film.
Seinfeld: The Red Dot (1991)
George simply can't leave well enough alone...
... He has to take any good situation he's in and push the envelope until he's destroyed that good situation. This episode established George for all time as the kind of person who just doesn't feel like he's progressing in life unless he is pulling some kind of ridiculous scam versus just the cynic and skeptic of the group he's been up to now.
George and Jerry show up at Pendant Publishing, Elaine's employer, where they are having their annual Christmas party. One of the readers has quit, so Elaine offers George the job - She's been put in charge of hiring for this position.
But George tries in his usual fumbling way to take advantage. First he buys a 600 dollar cashmere sweater that has been marked down to 85 dollars because it has a single red dot. He figures nobody will see it and he can pretend to be the generous guy by giving Elaine this sweater as a gift. Second, he has sex with the cleaning lady on his desk at his new job. Both of these little scams of his don't turn out the way he'd like.
In a separate thread, guest star David Naughton, who is a recovering alcoholic, gets his own cranberry juice mixed up with Elaine's cranberry and vodka drink and falls off the wagon. This caused Larry David to decide that the show couldn't leave the guy a raging alcoholic and thus had the show "invade" Jerry's closing stand-up to show that Naughton's character had regained his sobriety.
I did feel sorry for George when the head of the publishing company meets him and has an impromptu interview asking George what he reads. If you have ever been caught in such a situation it's always a temptation to lie. George claims he has read the obscure writings of that acclaimed author, Art Vandelay.
Payment on Demand (1951)
Sophisticated analysis of a marriage and divorce
Joyce Ramsey (Bette Davis) and David Ramsey (Barry Sullivan) have been married about 25 years, looking at the approximate ages of their two grown daughters. The oldest is about to get married to someone in society. The youngest (Betty Lynn) is in college and is dating a chemistry major with a Czech immigrant working class background - and seven brothers and sisters! Joyce's reaction to this situation exposes her snobbery.
David comes home from work and begins to dress for a society party he really doesn't want to go to. Joyce keeps quizzing him about what's bothering him, until he finally blurts out that he wants a divorce. Joyce is stunned and hurt. And no, he doesn't want to try and work it out. He packs a bag and moves into his athletic club. What are these athletic clubs that men always move into in the middle of the night on no notice and that always have room? I don't think they exist anymore. But I digress.
The rest of the movie both looks forward at what happens during the separation and divorce and looks back at scenes from David and Joyce's relationship from the time they were kids until present day. The key for David should have been at their wedding where Joyce toasts to wealth and David to happiness. I like how these flashbacks are done - the stage gets dark and then is reilluminated on some scene in the past. It's like a play in that regard.
But it's not a simplistic one-sided examination where all blame is laid at Joyce's feet. The worst thing she ever did was when they were starting out. A client with a big idea comes into the law office David shares with a friend, asking for the friend. Joyce convinces the new client that her husband is the better lawyer for what he wants. It's the difference between sending David on his way to the top and David continuing to dig ditches for a living. The truth of this doesn't come out until about a year later, and it ends the partnership between David and his friend, but it's just the beginning. Joyce continues to push and climb for David, even past the point that they need to worry about money at all. It's an obsession with her it seems. At a time when women could really have no career of their own, the very ambitious ones like Joyce were limited to advancing the careers of their husbands. The problem is that David is being pushed and shoved up this ladder to the point where there is deep resentment on his part.
The worst thing David does is to hide his unhappiness for years but wait until he has found an understanding girlfriend (Frances Dee) to dump his wife. He doesn't even admit this is going on until he is caught in the act by a PI after the separation.
Post divorce, Joyce takes a cruise and visits an old friend who is divorced herself and gets a glimpse of what true loneliness is. That and an apparent gigolo who becomes her shadow and is quite open about what he's up to and him being a married man with kids has her seeing her future and she does not like the view.
Joyce returns early from the cruise because her youngest daughter has decided to get married immediately to her now college graduate boyfriend. And, of course, David is also at the wedding. How will this work out? Watch and find out.
I'd recommend this one. It was a good later career role for Bette Davis, and she and Barry Sullivan had surprising chemistry. Also it was good to see Betty Lynn in something besides the Andy Griffith Show, which is the only other role I've seen her in.
La noia (1963)
a rather fascinating Italian film ...
...produced by Carlo Ponti, directed by Damiano Damiani, and starring Horst Buchholz as an untalented painter who gives up his "art" to pursue an elusive free spirit of a girl (Catherine Spaak) while sponging money from his mother, a wealthy countess.
The rather aimless plot simply shows the lovers at various locations and follows their constant bickerings and separations. He never paints again, and she refuses to get tied down by marriage or any formal relationships. Stars aside, the other interesting thing about this film is that the countess is played by Bette Davis in her follow-up film to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. Davis wears a blonde or gray wig and seemingly borrowed her eyebrows from Joan Crawford.
Down Three Dark Streets (1954)
pseudo-documentary style noir...
...that shows how the FBI handles cases in addition to profiling three particular cases. In the process, it also shows some of the technology used by the FBI at the time.
Agent Zach Stewart (Kenneth Tobey) is assigned to these three cases. One case has to do with a known hijacker, robber and murderer named Joe Walpo who may be headed for Los Angeles. Another is the case of a young man who got caught stealing cars but refuses to give up the guys he works for because of a misplaced sense of loyalty plus the guys are scary and he's rightfully afraid of them. The third case has to do with a widow (Ruth Roman) who is being extorted for the ten thousand dollars in insurance money she got for her husband's death in a traffic accident. The unknown person who calls using a disguised voice is threatening her daughter's life if she doesn't cough up the cash.
When a woman calls saying she has information about one of Stewart's cases, Stewart and agent John Ripley (Broderick Crawford) show up to talk to the woman. When someone disappears out the back door, Stewart gives chase and is shot and killed by that person. The woman refuses to talk further. So now Ripley must solve Stewart's three cases - the titular "three dark streets" - to solve his colleague's murder.
Broderick Crawford plays the FBI agent in his usual TV style of acting, but he's fine for the role and the film is quite engaging. Highlights include Martha Hyer as Joe Walpo's girlfriend who isn't shy and isn't talking. She seems to be doing her best Shelley Winters imitation, but just lacks that "all of the brashness and va va voom that heaven and the production code allows" quality that Winters had.
Then there is Claude Akins as a big galoot who pushes around the spunky blind wife of the car thief and Jay Adler looking almost unrecognizable as the creepy uncle of the widowed extortion victim. William Schallert is a gas station attendant in Barstow who, for some reason that turns out to be a fatal mistake, does not wait until Joe Walpo pulls away from the gas station to try and notify the police in the opening sequence.
And just one more thing - In the extortion segment, Crawford's character tells Ruth Roman that extortionists say things to panic and isolate the victim and make them feel alone and that nobody can help them because that is how they make the victim more compliant with their demands. That's actually good advice when dealing with today's extortionists - otherwise known as internet scammers. Never do anything in a panic. Always think things through and ask yourself if what is being said to you makes sense. Would the sheriff's department REALLY call ahead and let you know they are coming to arrest you and then tell you that the whole thing could be cleared up with 1000 dollars worth of Apple gift cards?
Cowboy from Brooklyn (1938)
Make it a 5.5!
Elly Jordan (Dick Powell) is a musician from Brooklyn on his way out west. But he and the other two in his trio get caught riding in a boxcar for free and are tossed off the train somewhere in Wyoming. They come upon a dude ranch - a working ranch that also functions as a hotel/resort for "tenderfoots" seeking the western ranch experience. At first the daughter in the family, Jane Hardy (Priscilla Lane) thinks Elly is just another tramp and refuses his offer of working for food. Then she has second thoughts and hires Elly and his trio as musical entertainment.
Because the ranch is catering to easterners looking for that western authenticity, Jane teaches Elly how to talk, walk, and act like a genuine westerner. It works so well that when an agent on the verge of a nervous breakdown (Pat O'Brien) and his assistant (Ronald Reagan) show up for a relaxing stay at the ranch, they are completely taken in by Elly's act and sign him to a radio contract as Wyoming Steve Gibson, a genuine singing cowboy who can also rope and ride.
Complicating factors include the fact that Elly has a phobia of all animals - from the big ones you should be afraid of like bulls, to the tiniest creatures like gophers and canaries. Also, an actual singing cowboy at the ranch resents how well Elly is doing both career-wise and with Jane and knows that Elly is a city slicker. Complications ensue.
This is passable entertainment, but it seems like Warner Brothers was struggling for a reason to make this movie in the first place. It's like they realized they wanted a Dick Powell film so there would have to be a musical theme of course, but had to strain to come up with anything past that. So they added a Western theme - Powell had never done one of those before - and then strained to fill 75 minutes with .... something. As a result it has dull stretches and pointless stretches. 15 minutes could have been cut and it would have lost nothing.
Naughty But Nice (1939)
From haughty to naughty - Dick Powell at Warner Brothers
Professor Donald Hardwick (Dick Powell) only teaches about "serious music" even though his students are crazy for swing. While in New York he decides to stop by and see his aunt Martha (Helen Broderick) even though his other three aunts are outraged by the idea because years ago, when young, she eloped with a saxophone player. They consider this to be a scandal.
While visiting, Hardwick visits a music publisher and plays one of the songs he has written, which the publisher buys. Bu Hardwick is horrified when he hears his song as it has been reworked by the publisher into "Hooray for Spinach!" as a popular rather than classical song. This gets Hardwicke caught up in the music publishing industry with people who are shrewder than he and ultimately ends up in court with Hardwick falsely accused of plagiarizing the music of an early 20th century composer.
This was passable entertainment, and not as inane as most production code B comedy films from Warner Brothers in the 1930s. On the plus side, you have veteran comedienne Zasu Pitts as one of Dick Powell's aunts and Ann Sheridan as a conniving chanteuse early in her career. Because it IS early in her career, Gale Page is the love interest for Powell's character in this one, and unfortunately she just doesn't leave much of an impression. Allen Jenkins, usually a sign that a low-brow extravaganza is going to ensue, doesn't do that much damage here but instead does something that makes his character out to be not only an ignoramus, but a real heel to boot. And what's worse the plot has him paying no price for his behavior. I'm being intentionally vague here.
Dick Powell started his film career in 1932 with the WB hit "Blessed Event" where he played radio star Bunny Harmon as a practically mute character other than for his singing. All through his seven years at Warner Brothers, the studio leaned in on Powell's singing ability and put him in light musical properties. This, his last film at Warner Brothers, was no exception and caused him to leave the studio in search of more serious roles that he probably correctly assumed that he would never get at WB.
Mirage (1965)
It started out with such promise
David Stillwell (Gregory Peck) is in a high rise ofiice building where the power has gone out unexpectedly. He goes into a stairwell headed for the street when he meets a woman in the stairwell who greets him as though she knows him just from his voice. He's never seen her before. When they reach the street level and she can see his face she is insulted that he says he doesn't know her, because obviously they have been involved in the past. She then takes off down the basement stairs where he loses her.
Once Stillwell emerges outside, everybody he recognizes says that it's good to see him again after such a long time. He has no idea what they mean as he hasn't gone anywhere - He has always lived and worked in New York. He goes to his apartment and is accosted by an obnoxious little man with a gun who says "the major" wants to see him. He has no idea who that is. His refrigerator is completely empty like he really hasn't been in town for a long time. He manages to overtake the gunman, but things just get worse.
Stillwell realizes that, although he says he is a cost accountant, he has no idea how he became one and that he has spent the entire past two years alone - no friends, no loves, no family - at least in his memory. Plus he has no memory at all of what happened before the two years he's spent in his current job. And people keep showing up either trying to kill him or frame him for some serious crime. At this point I would normally say that complications ensue, but what I've described ARE the complications.
This film started out with such promise, given the fascinating circumstances I described. But then it gets bogged down. The transition point is a prolonged chase scene that goes on too long to the point that it becomes tedious where two hired gunmen - one of them being an alleged senior citizen who apparently can still do long distance running and does not LOOK like a senior citizen - chase Stillwell all over Manhattan.
The conclusion is ridiculous, and reminded me of the 1971 TV movie "Vanished" in that it started out with a great premise that resulted in a preposterous conclusion. I lay part of the blame on the year in which it was made - 1965 - midpoint of the 60s, with part of the film in the traditional mystery style - that would be the good part - and part of it stuck in the 60s peacenik, "get involved or you're a nowhere man" style of writing that doomed it. Being good at the former kind of movie-making doesn't mean you are capable of the latter. As for Diane Baker as the mystery woman - she should have sued over the dialogue she was given. It was gibberish.
With George Kennedy in a small but memorable role as a lean mean killing machine, Walter Matthau as a sardonic yet conscientious private detective, and Robert H. Harris as a psychiatrist with the worst bedside manner in the history of the world, I was disappointed, since Edward Dmytryk in the director's chair is usually the mark of quality. I gave this one a 5/10, because it was on its way to being an 8/10 until the last third of the film undermined the rest of it.
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
Well-crafted and well-acted but very depressing
A couple (Victor Moore and Beaulah Bondi), married for 50 years, are losing their home because they can't make the payments on their mortgage. They are 70, and apparently the husband was still working as a bookkeeper until he lost his job, and nobody is going to hire somebody who is 70, especially during the Depression. They have not been able to save any money, so they call their children to the house days before they lose it to the bank to figure out living arrangements. None of the children has room to keep more than one of the two, so the couple ends up separated by 300 miles in homes where they are not really wanted in the first place. And it just goes downhill from there.
The only bright spot in the film is the absolute love the couple has for one another. Through raising five children and what must have been hard times for them to get to the end of their lives and have nothing, back before medical bills could easily break you like they can today, they don't blame each other for their predicament, but instead blame themselves. If you've been lucky enough to be married for decades to somebody you not only love but like, you will appreciate the tenderness and authenticity in the performances of Beulah Bondi and Victor Moore. I actually never cared much for Victor Moore, but this was his finest hour.
As for the couple's children - Yes, for the most part they were truly awful, feeling "stuck" with their parents when they themselves are at middle age. I felt like Beaulah Bondi's character could have done more to get along with her oldest son's family and I wonder why she didn't realize that their friends did not come over to socialize with her and have her monopolize every conversation. I guess that comes from being old myself, not having any children, and realizing at this point in my life that, for the most part, I am just in the way. I think being childless you understand that more than if you have children of your own.
Ozu's Tokyo Story was inspired by Make Way For Tomorrow, and it oddly seems to have become more well known than its source material. Leo McCarey won the Best Director Oscar for "The Awful Truth", which was made the same year as he directed this film. Upon receiving the award he said: "Thank you, but you gave it to me for the wrong film." I would tend to agree. Thanks to Criterion for taking this obscure film out of mothballs and giving it the attention it deserves.
The Andy Griffith Show: The Shoplifters (1964)
Mayberry - where shoplifting is a major crime
Jim Weaver discovers his store is being robbed. He's not sure of the mechanism though. For sure it's not a man with a gun, but merchandise is disappearing. So is it burglary in the middle of the night or shoplifting? Andy surmises it must be shoplifting since a burglar would clean out the store in one fell swoop, not take things in drips and drabs.
So Barney decides to stake out the department store dressed like a mannequin in a hunting jacket and cap. It makes for some great fun in the store when a heavy smoker decides to look over the hunting jacket and when Leon - a mute five year old - recognizes Barney and offers him a sandwich.
The thing is, this time Barney's instincts are correct, but he just can't help himself from overreacting. Andy is there, though, to guide the arrest to its proper conclusion.
Recommended, with some great physical comedy from Don Knotts.
The Andy Griffith Show: The Song Festers (1964)
Good hearted Gomer
There is a show being planned by the local Mayberry choir, and it contains a solo. Barney has that part currently, but choir director Jim Masters lets Andy know that he isn't really satisfied with Barney's performance and would replace him if a better tenor came along. Andy gently lets Barney know this, so he can be emotionally prepared if it happens. And then one day Gomer is changing a tire in front of the building where the choir is practicing and casually joins them in song - with a magnificent tenor voice. Complication ensue.
Seasons three and four are peak Andy Griffith Show years in my humble opinion, because these are the years that both Barney Fife (Don Knotts) and Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) are characters on the show. They played wonderfully off of each other. Barney is a guy without confidence but with tremendous bluster. As a result he overreacts to everything. If you praise him he inflates to twice his actual size - about 200 pounds. If he gets criticized by someone with authority he takes it very much to heart. And Don Knotts is wonderful at physical comedy - indicating Barney's inner turmoil with his gait, posture, and facial expressions.
Jim Nabors as Gomer is a different kind of guy. He has a good bead on where he is in life, and he's happy with his lot. He likes being a mechanic and doesn't aspire to more. As a result he is a ripe target for Barney's version of bullying, which is really just him trying to assert his authority. But Gomer is also very childlike, and though he accepts Barney's authority he has a way of asking questions and drawing conclusions that infuriate Barney.
It was always fun to see these two interact.
Under Suspicion (1937)
Square -jawed Jack Holt from his company wants to bolt
Robert Bailiey (Jack Holt) is planning to give his company to his employees versus selling it because he says he has plenty of money AND he has this egalitarian streak in him that would have gotten him in trouble with that little gang called HUAC 15 years from now, but I digress.
Everybody in the executive suite dislikes what Bailey is doing - all of his executives, some femme fatale character who might have been an old flame, and a couple of the wives of the executives. They are all afraid of how the stock might tank if the employees fumble running the company or the employees might decide they want a new group of executives. Plus there is a nephew of Bailey's who wants five thousand dollars. For the first time in their mutual lives, Bailey tells his nephew the kitchen is closed.
But then on his way to his hunting lodge Bailey is almost killed in an auto accident, then his private plane crashes with his pilot test driving and warming up the plane, and finally a bullet barely misses Bailey when he is inside his apartment. Bailey comes up with the idea of inviting everybody who has a motive for killing him to come to his hunting lodge for a few days. With the help of a recommended private eye (Purnell Pratt) and the PI's men disguised as servants, he plans to "smoke out" the person who is trying to kill him by giving each one an opportunity to finish the job.
This was a pretty engaging B mystery at just under an hour in length. It did keep me guessing and, in spite of the fact that only a couple of the actors including Holt were people I'd ever heard of before, it was pretty well acted. The only thing that got a bit tiresome was the bit about the chef who was proud of his cooking but whipped up food that was just awful. He was aiming at being the comic relief but just fell flat and the joke got old in a hurry.
Why didn't Bailey just have the PI guard him day and night until the papers giving the company to the employees were ready for him to sign, at which point killing him would have accomplished nothing? Because then we'd have no film! Still I'd recommend it, especially if you are a fan of 1930s Columbia stalwart Jack Holt.
Go Into Your Dance (1935)
The only film with both Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler
Broadway headliner Al Howard (Al Jolson) is known for taking off in the middle of a show and going on a bender, maybe not to return for days or weeks later. He does it one time too often and the Broadway producers get together and agree to never hire him again for causing so much financial loss over time.
His sister. Molly (Glenda Farrell) finds Al in Mexico, sobers him up, and gives him the news. He doesn't take it seriously at first, but then when he can't get another job he sees the direness of the situation. His sister gets him a partner - dancer Dot Wayne (Ruby Keeler) and he is able to get a spot in a revue based on the good reputation of Dot.
But then Al decides he wants to headline once again, so he gets the financial backing for his own Broadway show. Unfortunately, the only place he can get that money is from gangster Duke Hutchinson (Barton McLane). Even more unfortunately, the Duke's wife (Helen Morgan) and Al start playing around under the Duke's nose. Meanwhile, Dot has started to fall for Al, but he thinks of her as a kid. Complications ensue.
This turned out to be better than I at first anticipated, with lots of good numbers by Jolson with the standout being "A Quarter To Nine" and subplots that include a gangster angle and even a murder mystery involving someone who is wrongfully accused. There's also a short number that may have inspired Buster Keaton a year later. In it, Al is testing Dot's assertion that she can dance to any music. He plays a highland fling, a Russian song, and other international tunes in rapid succession as she tries to keep up. Keaton did something similar in one of his best sound shorts "Grand Slam Opera" in 1936.
With Patsy Kelly as a vaudevillian who keeps popping up and who badly wants to team with Al, and with baddy Barton McLane and Glenda Farrell in their first film together but not interacting at all, this is worth your time if you appreciate the Warner musicals of the 30s. And it's not even hampered that much by the onset of the production code.
Le deuxième souffle (1966)
One of the finest heist films I've seen...
... from France and French director Jean-Pierre Melville
An aging criminal, Gustave "Gu" Minde, breaks out of prison after having been there for ten years and is therefore being searched for by the police. He wanted to hide out in another country, but has insufficient funds to do so. He signs on to one last caper so he can retire - the heist of 800 million francs worth of platinum from an armored car. This will require the killing of the two motorcycle cops accompanying the armored car, and the killing of one of them is Gu's part in the crime. He doesn't like the idea of doing this, but ultimately looks upon it as just business, not personal - like he's firing some long time employee because of business conditions. Gu's attempt at staying free is complicated by Commissaire Blot, who is hot on his trail. Complications ensue.
This film at over 150 minutes in length did not drag at all, even though the heist doesn't occur until about 90 minutes into the film, because the characters are fascinating, even though there is a dearth of dialogue, maybe BECAUSE there is a dearth of dialogue. What these characters do speaks for themselves.
Gu is very interesting - A real antihero. We learn he has killed before the events in this film, and as I mentioned before he is not a psychopath who enjoys killing but does it when he considers it necessary. But what really bothers him is if his reputation for never talking to the authorities and giving up associates is impugned. For that reputation he will do most anything to restore his "honor", and that leads to the interesting conclusion.
The little things are very important in this film - the shot of the ants at work on the ground as the robbers wait for the armored car to appear on the desolate road, and a scene of Gu enjoying a good meal after having been in prison for so long.
I'd recommend this one. It was one of the most interesting heist films I've seen made in any nation. Kudos to Eddie Muller for showing this on Turner Classic Movie's Noir Alley.
Sisters (1972)
What a unique little film
If this movie was a birthday cake it would be a Shock Corridor cake with a Rear Window filling and a Giallo icing decorated with Zulawski's Possession. There are things I could pick apart from the final act in terms of how it abruptly ends, but honestly this is a near perfect movie. I love the way De Palma puts this together.
We meet Margot Kidder as a sweet young single woman, Danielle, who ends up on a very random date with a young man. They have a good time that ends abruptly when her ex-husband interrupts their dinner and gets thrown out of the restaurant by management. They end up going back to her place for a memorable night. She loses some important pills in the morning and asks this gentleman to go pick up extra. When he comes back he's brutally murdered. This is all in the first 15 minutes of the movie. I was hooked with this amazing intro. The way Kidder played her part and switched between light and breezy and then frenetic and a killer was excellent.
A neighbor in a building across the way sees the crime. She's a local journalist who jumps right in to help the victim and gets into way more trouble than she could have imagined. There are parts of this film that border on experimental, but De Palma does an excellent job of staying within the confines of the genre and making both a solid genre movie as well as a standalone work of art.
About the characters- The writer/neighbor who sees the crime seems straight out of an early 70s counterculture movie. She wants to write pieces that matter and have a real career in journalism, but her mother can only yammer on about how she isn't getting any younger and she should marry a nice doctor, or at least a veterinarian!. As for the police, when they show up after she reports the murder, they are far more suspicious of her than they are of anything going on in Danielle's apartment, all because she wrote some articles critical of the police. Then there is Danielle's ex-husband. He seems obsessed with her, maybe he really loves her. But it sure seemed that initially he was taking advantage of a sad situation where he had access to an innocent young woman who wasn't in a position to know much about the wide world and who didn't have any real options.
I've heard people joke that DePalma just exists as a Hitchcock cover band, but this movie is awesome and he really created something of his very own.
The High Cost of Loving (1958)
More TV stars than are in the heavens...
... to put a spin on that old MGM slogan, plus this film is oddly prescient.
Jim Fry (Jose Ferrer who also directs) and his wife Ginny (Gena Rowlands in her film debut) discover that after nine years of marriage they are expecting a child. This is good news for them. But at work, Jim's company has just been bought by a larger firm. Jim is all swaggering and confident with his "law of the jungle" talk about how the larger firm may axe less productive employees until he finds out that perhaps the new owners think he is one of those less productive employees! He gets this idea initially because all of the other employees who have a supervisory role are invited to a luncheon being held by the new owners and he is not. This gets the wheels - and his imagination - turning.
From that point forward he walks in on this or that conversation and hears rumors about possible terminations and thinks this all about him. The audience knows better - we see what happens in every case where Jim does not. In fact the new management intends to promote Jim, but they haven't bothered to tell Jim yet. Not knowing this, he is worried about how he is going to support a wife and now a child if he loses a job at age 40 - too young to retire, too old to find an equivalent position somewhere else.
I don't know how this was received in 1958, but in 2024 it all looks oddly prescient. Layoffs today are a fact of life. If you are over a certain age, it can be hard to find work. Unlike in 1958, it is now illegal to fire someone or not hire them because of their age, so you'll get the excuse that "it's just not a good fit for the organization." Which can mean anything, but it actually means they think you are too old.
The cast has many stars of 60s TV right before they become recognizable faces - Jim Backus of Gilligan's Island, Bobby Troup of Emergency, Werner Klemperer of Hogan's Heroes, Edward Platt of Get Smart, Richard Deacon of The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Nancy Kulp of The Beverly Hillbillies. Several of these folks are not even in credited roles, but skilled performers make the production. Joanne Gilbert is the well-meaning yet shrewish wife of Jim's colleague. Gena Rowlands plays the supportive wife to the point of being almost ridiculous.
With the cast of future TV stars that I mentioned, this thing has more of the feel of a made for TV movie than a theatrical production, but that's not necessarily bad. With the audience being in on Jim's situation it's more of a comedy from the audience perspective and a drama from Jim's. I'd recommend it.
Strictly Unconventional (1930)
Never before have I rooted so hard for the cheating spouse in such a tale
This is a sound remake of the silent film "The Circle" from 1925 that is mainly remembered for being Joan Crawford's screen debut, which in turn was an adaptation of Somerset Maugham's play.
Elizabeth (Catherine Dale Owen) is married to Arnold (Tyrell Davis), but she's fallen in love with the visiting Canadian farmer Ted (Paul Cavanagh). From the start Catherine had my sympathy because Arnold is insufferable. He's stiff, rude to the servants, and is only interested in his career in Parliament. He goes on and on about a Chippendale chair that has just arrived but tells his wife when she complains that they've grown apart that, after three years of marriage, they should consider their romantic days behind them! Compliments to Tyrell Davis, because he manages to play Arnold as the most unattractive and unsympathetic man imaginable.
Arnold's mother, Lady Catherine, left his father thirty years ago for another man, Lord Porteous, and they have been visiting England, so Elizabeth invites them over. She does this because Arnold hasn't seen his mother since he was five, but she's also curious as to how this arrangement has worked out since she is entertaining doing the same to Arnold. She only did this because Arnold's father (Lewis Stone) is in Paris and thus the three won't inadvertently run into one another. But then, moments before Arnold's mother and Lord Porteous are to arrive, Arnold's father unexpectedly returns. Complications ensue.
For an early sound film missing about seventeen minutes of what was originally shot, I thought this was a pretty good early talkie effort. For sure the plot kept me engaged as to what choice Elizabeth would make - To stay because of morality and duty or leave because of love? For sure the older generation is making a case for her staying. Arnold's mother herself talks about how she has no security in her relationship with Lord Porteous (Ernest Torrence) because they are not married, and how she has had to endure affairs on his part and having no financial security.
The cast is marvelous. Catherine Dale Owen could be as stiff as a board - It's why she didn't last past the very early days of talking film once more lively actresses arrived on the scene. But here she is very authentic. Ernest Torrence is marvelous as Lord Porteous, Lady Catherine's longtime lover who has turned into the original grumpy old man with bad dentures. What confused me is what part Mary Forbes was playing in all of this. If not for the major plot point of Arnold's mother having abandoned him when he was five, I would have guessed her to be his mother. She certainly feels confident that it's her place to tell him to stand up straight and stop whining. An aunt perhaps who filled the void after Arnold's mother left? It's never said.
Technically speaking it's a bit dialogue heavy given there is really only one thread to the plot, and I liked the way the title music segues into the opening horse-riding scene and the scene with photo album come-to-life.
It never drags and there are much worse ways to spend an hour.
Police Academy (1984)
The first of a successful 80s franchise
The mayor of a large city decides that weight, sex, education, and fitness will no longer be a barrier to joining the police force. As a result the latest crop of recruits at the police academy are interesting to say the least. Some of the faculty at the academy, such as the Commandant (George Gaynes), are OK with the new arrangement. Others, such as the lieutenant who actually does the training (G. W. Bailey as Thaddeus Harris) have a personal dislike to this new arrangement and want these new recruits to quit. Complications ensue.
And one further complication - Carey Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg) is at the police academy only because the choice was either attend the academy for the duration of training in order to learn some discipline or go to jail. The catch is that he can't quit. He can only leave if he is thrown out. Given that Harris wants all of the undesirables to quit, and that Harris considers Mahoney to be one of those undesirables, you have the set up for a running battle between these two characters.
These aren't people we are supposed to want to be. They are cartoons. Thats basically it. All of the individual jokes are not supposed to be taken seriously, and it's not supposed to be something you run out and do to anybody you know.
The characters made it the success that it was. Every single character in that movie was loved. And they would all go on to take the franchise forward for a decade. Even when the writing wasn't as good, people still loved those characters. Even After Steve Guttenberg quit the rest of the cast carried the franchise with ease.
Monk (2002)
The sum is greater than its parts...
... since lots of Monk episodes got 8/10 from me as a rating, and some got 7/10, but ratings for individual episodes rarely reached a nine or ten out of ten.
Monk is the story of former SFPD detective Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub). Monk is a man with a remarkable mind who is able to collate odd bits of information such that he is practically a "homicide detective savant". He notices things that no other detective on the force notices and solves the hardest and coldest cases. And then his wife, Trudy, was murdered by a car bomb, and his world imploded. The compulsions and fears that were in the background in his life take him over. He is taken off the force due to his mental state. The series is about Monk working as a private consultant for the SFPD as he tries to prove that he is well enough to wear a badge once again. And it's also about him searching for Trudy's killer, as that is the one case he has not been able to solve.
So Monk is a person who "sees everything". While that is a great boon to solving crimes, it is a handicap when you see every speck of dirt. It tends to lead you to see everything in the wide world as scary. The show is an odd combination of comedy, drama, and mystery. The comedy and drama mainly come from Monk trying to live each day with all of his compulsions. The mystery comes from the "case of the week". But do realize that, at its root, Monk is a comedy, not a crime drama. So if you go into this trying to shoot holes into every mystery you will often wind up with swiss cheese.
One matter of casting was by necessity, but IMHO it worked out. Midway through season three, Bitty Schramm left the show as Monk's nurse. Her replacement was an assistant rather than a nurse - Natalie. This worked, because Monk was well to the point that he really didn't need a nurse anymore, and it helped move the plot along.
The series finale was probably the best done series finale of any TV series I've ever seen. It wrapped up the storylines of every character in a very satisfying and touching way.
What did I not like about the show? Probably two things. For one, Andy Disher, is gradually turned into the comic relief. They do have him solving a couple of crimes and coming to the rescue, but largely he plays Laurel to Stottlemeyer's Hardy.
The second thing I didn't like? Consistently you see ordinary people sometimes accidentally killing someone and then covering it up. But as the episode progresses that ordinary person will become a homicidal maniac killing without compunction until they are finally caught.
I'd definitely recommend this show as it is completely original in its concept and shows off Tony Shalhoub as a national treasure.
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
A fun movie with a great cast!...
And speaking of the cast, James Cagney was originally cast as Robin Hood. The only thing that changed that was the fact that Cagney was fighting with Warner Brothers over his contract at the time and Jack Warner decided to punish him. I love James Cagney. In some cases he was the only thing that made a mediocre production passable, particularly towards the end of his career. But the only thing more ridiculous is the idea of Humphrey Bogart as Prince John. Can you visualize those two verbally sparring while chomping gangster sized cigars? But I digress.
I've seen the movie at least ten times in my life. If I live long enough, I might see it ten times more. I love it for the amount of love and hard work that went into every little detail spoken and shown, from the historical (Richard the Lionheart did indeed become imprisoned by Leopold of Austria, and his family drained England to the point of depression to free him), to the more folkloric details such as robin's recruitment of friar tuck and little john, and his winning the archery contest, to the surprising little touches that show just how much research was done for this movie. For example, the feast scene is reminiscent of a mayday festival where games and stage plays were often held way back when.
And then there is the romance. Besides Errol Flynn being the definitive Robin Hood with his humorous dash and heroism jumping off the screen, Flynn and Olivia DeHavilland as Marian had great chemistry. Did you know Anita Louise almost got the part of Marian? I love how Marian comes to see that she's been on the side of injustice without realizing it and comes to love Robin because he is trying to right the wrongs done to the common people. Plus he's not hard on the eyes either.
If I were to make any criticism at all it is that the Sheriff of Nottingham has such a small role. He's practically played as a sidekick to Rathbone's Gisbourne.
The film had two directors. The non-action scenes were directed by WIlliam Keighley, but all of the action scenes were directed by Michael Curtiz. Oddly enough, the only reason Curtiz did not direct the entire film was because Errol Flynn specifically asked that Curtiz NOT be the director!
The film is in eye-catching Technicolor - probably the first film ever produced by WB worthy of the color treatment. If you ever want to just escape for 90 minutes into a world of adventure, swashbuckling, and romance, and people feasting with no regard for cholesterol content, I can't recommend this film highly enough.
10 (1979)
You have to understand this in the context of the time it was made....
... 45 years ago, Bo Derek and Dudley Moore weren't well known. They had both been in American films before, but not prominently and not in an A list property. It was AFTER this film that they both littered the screen with some real stinkers in separate career paths. So given that Derek and Moore were "fresh faces" at the time, I was not that surprised to go back and view Siskel and Ebert's positive review of this film in 1979 and see that they both gave it a thumbs up. But I digress.
George Webber (Dudley Moore) is a successful award winning song writer in a relationship with singer Samantha Taylor (Julie Andrews). He's just had a birthday, and as a man in his early 40s he's starting to feel old. In the midst of this middle aged angst he's driving down the road when he sees, in the car next to him, the most beautiful girl he's ever seen before. The complicating factor is that she's in her wedding dress. He follows her to the church and sees where she's getting married. He uses that information to figure out her name and where she is honeymooning. In the meantime, he is treating his actual age-appropriate girlfriend like rubbish.
Webber does manage to meet the girl of his dreams - on her honeymoon no less - but she turns out to be personality wise not exactly what he was expecting. Let me reword that - at no point do you see he was fantasizing about what she would SAY - just what she looked like and what it would be like to embrace her. But he was still slapped in the face by the reality of what she was like. What he really wants, after all, is the mind and personality of his 40 something girlfriend in the body of this 20-something "10".
The film does have its moments, but I've always found that Moore's brand of humor can get tedious. A standout is Dee Wallace, who laments the fact that, as they age, men become distinguished and women get old. Also look for Brian Dennehy as a sympathetic and philosophical bartender.
Thirteen Women (1932)
Malevolent Myrna
Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy) is a half-white, half-Indian girl who a missionary sends to an exclusive finishing school so that she can learn to "pass" as white. But the 13 women in a particular exclusive sorority learn that Ursula is "half caste'", expose her, and as a result she is expelled from the school. If these racial attitudes all sound very archaic it's because they are, but then this film is over 90 years old. So bear with me.
So Ursula has apparently been itching for revenge ever since. And 15 years later she puts her plan into action. One of the girls asks for horoscopes for all 13 from the imminent Swami Yogadachi. His lover happens to be Ursula who has hypnotic powers of her own. Yogadachi casts the horoscopes, which seem at least semi positive. Ursula then puts the Swami in a deep sleep and replaces the horoscopes with her own for each woman, warning of death, prison, insanity, etc. With Yogadachi's usefulness to her finished , she then hypnotizes him so that he runs into the path of a moving train. This woman is NOT a nice person!
But Ursula never seems to finish what she starts. She disposes of only three of the 13 women when they read the horoscopes, become obsessed with the inevitability of their predicted fates, and actually cause their horoscopes to come true. Ursula then becomes oddly focused on Laura Stanhope (Irene Dunne) who is urging the others to ignore these horoscopes as so much hogwash. She seems determined to break Laura, not because she was particularly cruel to her, but because she is resisting her little game. Complications ensue.
The film does have something to say about the power of the mind over situations. And Ursula is not in the least bit a sympathetic character given that she has no natural affection towards anyone. She has enemies and men she uses to get revenge on those enemies - Those are the only two kinds of relationships she seems to have as an adult.
I'd say the one hokey thing that the film does consists of the special effects. For some reason a bright star appears in the center of the screen every time a sorority sister fulfills her face or Ursula hypnotizes someone to do her bidding. It's short at just under an hour and pretty entertaining.
Kanko no machi (1944)
an intimate drama of families in a Tokyo neighborhood...
... who must relocate because the government will be demolishing it. The war is ever-present, but overt propaganda is rare until the bittersweet but patriotic final scene.
This film deals with the clash of the younger and older generations, and familiar tradition with the new, although in this case it's mostly the reluctance to leave home, career, and friends to start over in a new place with a new job. There's a romance threatened by parents refusing to give their blessing, as well as a subplot of a broken family whose patriarch deserted his wife and little boy a decade earlier and whose son is now a test pilot.
This film has some truly touching scenes of how neighbors care for each other in adversity and how everyday people are adversely affected by the war, to the point that the rousing finale may seem more ironic than uplifting, at least in retrospect.
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
You won't find any actual bad guys in this film...
... but you won't find any truly good guys either. It's the charm and sophistication of Lubitsch to deny these things to the audience.
Thieves Lily (Miriam Hopkins) and Gascon Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meet and fall in love in Venice. They then thieve their way across Europe until they hit Paris. They have no compunction about stealing anything from anybody. Part of what turns them on about one another is the stealing. Mariette Colet is the owner of Colet cosmetics. She has apparently inherited this firm from her late husband. She has no real interest in running the place and prefers to spend extravagantly on clothes, furs, and cars. She has no compunction about doing so in hard times. Lily and Monescu decide to steal from Madame Colet since she likes to delegate all of the number crunching work to secretaries, and Monescu charms her into giving him the position. He doesn't intend to embezzle from her. He's just going to clean her out of cash like the conventional thief that he is before he exits the premises.
But during the weeks they are working together Monescu and Madame Colet begin to fall for one another. They are both people of taste and refinement, so they have much in common. So now there is this triangle of which Monescu is painfully aware. Will he stay with Colet and abandon Lily? Will he perhaps spend one night with Colet AND leave with Lily? Colet seems like the type that if it was just one night of passion she wouldn't be upset by that either. Watch and find out.
It's all very sophisticated, and the dialogue is clever from beginning to end. You can feel the sexual tension in the air. Charles Ruggles and Edward Everett Horton play romantic rivals for Colet who weren't getting anywhere with her before Monescu hit town, and now that he's here they blame him for their failure . C. Aubrey Smith is a member of Colet's board of directors who is more than a little suspicious of Monescu.
If you want to see romance played out realistically in an adult fashion, give this film a try.
While the City Sleeps (1928)
A late silent crime film and melodrama with Chaney as a cop
Dan Coghlin (Lon Chaney) is a hard, tough as nails Irish American NYC cop with bad feet. Today we'd call him a detective versus a uniformed cop. He's ready to quit the force until a jewelry store robbery occurs and the store clerk is killed in the process. The suspect is Mile-Away Skeeter Carlson (Wheeler Oakman), who is so named because he always claims he was a mile away when something happened. Carlson claims he is at the scene because of his undertaking business. Coghlin sees Carlson as his "great white whale" and decides to stay on the force.
So Coghlin is sure Carlson has something to do with this murder/robbery, and so he is on his trail, even plying Carlson's cast off mistress for information. In a parallel plot, Coghlin is trying - not so successfully - to keep Myrtle Sullivan on the straight and narrow. She is the daughter of a dead friend, maybe even a fallen cop. He's known her since childhood, but now he's starting to be attracted to her and he is frightened by that feeling. Myrtle likes hanging out at the dance hall where all of the gangsters congregate and she has developed feelings for a young guy who Carlson has taken under his wing, Marty, but Carlson has the hots for Myrtle himself and needs to get Marty out of the way. And to a gangster there is only one way to get somebody out of your way. Complications ensue.
There's lots to like about this late silent gangster film. It is title card heavy since there is much cop and gangster slang getting tossed about. It's always good to see Chaney as an ordinary guy like he was in "Tell It To The Marines" with ordinary problems. Polly Moran is good as Lon Chaney's dowdy landlady who very badly wants to make him her next late husband. Anita Page is the incorrigible teen jazz baby Myrtle who isn't nearly as smart as she thinks she is.
Wheeler Oakman, as the villain is wonderfully hissable and contemptible, but I have to wonder how he managed to live this long always double-crossing associates, bumping off witnesses, and boldly taking pot shots at cops. He's been cheating death a long time at this point.
The condition of the film is watchable, but about five minutes are missing, although that doesn't render the plot incomprehensible. If the film was restored it would be a true visual treat as a look at New York City at the end of the roaring twenties with its skyscrapers and subway.
I'd say it's worth putting up with the condition of the film if you are a Lon Chaney fan.