Of the 41 Alfred Hitchcock films I currently have under my belt, this is the one I rated the lowest, one rating point lower in my system than 1931's The Skin Game, the next worst. I saw it early on in my quest for more Hitch and so have often felt that I may just not have got it. I've thus been looking forward to a fresh viewing to reevaluate and see if I still feel that a film that currently has a rating of 8.0 out of 10 at IMDb is really just a minor entry in the master's filmography.
The technical achievements are certainly astounding. We pan towards a shaded window from the street scene background to the opening credits, then cut inside to a murder by strangulation and from then on the entire film appears to be very close to a single take. It isn't, as a reel of film in 1948 only ran to ten minutes, so every eight minutes or so Hitch panned onto something of a solid and consistent colour so as to make the cut unseen and preserve the illusion.
The murderers, for there are two, are Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan, as played respectively by John Dall and Farley Granger and based upon the real life murderers Leopold and Loeb. It's all an intellectual exercise, heightened by the pair hosting a dinner party for the victim's family in the very room where the murder was committed and the body still resides, within minutes of the act itself. Shaw is the driving force for the murder, arrogant and supremely confident; Morgan is far more nervous and reticent about the whole thing.
Perhaps this major difference is part of my problem with the film, which certainly goes beyond the atrocious fibreglass backdrop that pretends to be a cityscape with blinking lights in windows but stuningly immobile clouds. Dall plays his part just like Vincent Price would have done and I kept imagining that it was Price I was watching instead of Dall, except that perhaps Price wouldn't have managed the gay subtext quite so well. Granger, who I thought was perfect in Strangers on a Train, is just annoying here and to my mind gives the game away every couple of minutes, if only anyone was paying attention, which of course they are more and more as the evening progresses.
The script is by Hume Cronyn, regular Hitchcock collaborator, based on the Patrick Hamilton play, and of course given the way the film was shot it's very much a play, merely one we have the privilege of watching from the stage itself. I still find it heavyhanded but there are moments of genius and there are so many double meanings that it becomes a game to count them. James Stewart is by far the best thing on the screen, beyond even Joan Chandler and Sir Cedric Hardwicke, and he's given dialogue distinctive and memorable enough to be a gift to his acting style. He plays slyly with the dark humour and his timing is absolutely perfect. Simply moving his head sideways is artful and he's a joy to watch here.
Hitch does an awesome job, as he usually did, especially when there were intellectual games to play. He does a clever job of making an eighty minute movie seem like a hundred minutes long through clever speeding up of time, and there are some joyous scenes where he plays with the focus of affairs. My favourite is when the maid cleans up and we watch her going about her business, getting ever closer to opening the chest that contains the body, while all the conversation takes place off screen.
However all his work, admirable as it is, can't make up for a conclusion that still seems completely obvious ad inevitable to me. My conclusion is that I may well have judged it a little harshly on first viewing, but it still seems like a failed experiment. Technically it's a masterpiece but as an intellectual game it's clumsy, mostly through the acting of the pair playing the killers.
Monday, 31 December 2007
Crime School (1938) Lewis Seiler
The Dead End Kids are busy hanging out on the street, talking tough and stealing fig newtons from the corner store. They're also stealing on a larger scale, earning money at Junkie's store bringing in whatever they can carry but Junkie doesn't want to pay the sort of cash they want and the ensuing scuffle brings together a candlestick and Junkie's head and suddenly the boys are on the way to reformatory. Sitting quietly in the background while the judge talks to the boys is Deputy Commissioner Mark Braden and he's much of the point of the film.
The point seems to be to address the common concern that sending kids to reform school only introduces them to a harder criminal element who teach them to be even worse members of society than when they got in to start with. Certainly the reformatory they arrive at initially is brutal, run by the large and imposing Superintendent Morgan with deliberate and violent demonstrations of power. Braden has a very different approach and he discovers plenty at the reformatory.
Frankie Warren, one of the Dead End Kids who has only been at the reformatory for one night has already been hospitalised through being whipped. The food is indigestible slop. The reformatory doctor is a struck off drunk and many of the guards are army deserters or police officers drummed off the force. Sixty per cent of the 'inmates' turn out to be hardened criminals after they leave. Braden takes matters into his own hands and begins to clean the place up, starting by firing all the bad apples including the superintendent himself.
Braden is Humphrey Bogart, and this being 1938 he isn't a star yet but he's getting closer. This may not be the equal of Dead End, the film that gave the kids their original name, but it's a number of steps up over his previous movie, the amazing hillbilly wrestling musical comedy called Swing Your Lady. The story is not particularly surprising generally and certain parts of it are awesomely predictable but Bogart's up to the task, relishing the fact that he's not playing a gangster for a change, and the Dead End Kids were always better early on in their careers. Cy Kendall is also notably excellent as the tough former superintendent. It's worth watching for quite a few reasons, not least to see Bogie laugh.
The point seems to be to address the common concern that sending kids to reform school only introduces them to a harder criminal element who teach them to be even worse members of society than when they got in to start with. Certainly the reformatory they arrive at initially is brutal, run by the large and imposing Superintendent Morgan with deliberate and violent demonstrations of power. Braden has a very different approach and he discovers plenty at the reformatory.
Frankie Warren, one of the Dead End Kids who has only been at the reformatory for one night has already been hospitalised through being whipped. The food is indigestible slop. The reformatory doctor is a struck off drunk and many of the guards are army deserters or police officers drummed off the force. Sixty per cent of the 'inmates' turn out to be hardened criminals after they leave. Braden takes matters into his own hands and begins to clean the place up, starting by firing all the bad apples including the superintendent himself.
Braden is Humphrey Bogart, and this being 1938 he isn't a star yet but he's getting closer. This may not be the equal of Dead End, the film that gave the kids their original name, but it's a number of steps up over his previous movie, the amazing hillbilly wrestling musical comedy called Swing Your Lady. The story is not particularly surprising generally and certain parts of it are awesomely predictable but Bogart's up to the task, relishing the fact that he's not playing a gangster for a change, and the Dead End Kids were always better early on in their careers. Cy Kendall is also notably excellent as the tough former superintendent. It's worth watching for quite a few reasons, not least to see Bogie laugh.
Sunday, 30 December 2007
The Passionate Plumber (1932) Edward Sedgwick
Since I started paying attention to classic movies, 1932 has cropped up more than any other year. This is my 69th film from 1932 and they run the gamut from the godawful Strange Interlude to Freaks, one of my favourite precodes and favourite films from any year. Given that we're a few years into the sound era and everything I read about Buster Keaton's career suggests that it gets worse from the advent of sound onwards, this ought to be further down the quality list than most.
We're in Paris even though almost everyone speaks English except Jimmy Durante. He's Julius J McCracken, though he's as unmistakably Jimmy Durante as every character he's ever played, and he brings Keaton to the house of Patricia Alden, a young lady being pursued by an amorous married man called Tony Lagorce. Keaton is Elmer E Tuttle, the plumber of the title, but as that title would suggest he gets caught up in the whole rigmarole. Before you know it he's fighting duels for the lady's honour and falling for her in the process. To make matters worse she hires him to keep her away from Lagorce, even though she loves him.
There are signs of the career deterioration, but they're in the quality of the material and the filmmaking, not in Keaton's performance. The editing is particularly poor and many of the jokes are worse, but Keaton's stoneface is as great as ever. There are jokes that work and the fast pace of parts of the films plays well to his slapstick talents. The scenes alone with Patricia are generally good ones, as tiring as she gets, and we root for him all along.
At the end of the day though, this film fits into Keaton's career between Sidewalks of New York and Speak Easily, neither of which was particular great. Unfortunately it fits rather nicely. It's better than both but not by a lot. Irene Purcell is fine as Patricia but she's still annoying, and Jimmy Durante can only say things twice so much before he becomes just as annoying. It's a poor film that Keaton elevates to at least the levels of average.
We're in Paris even though almost everyone speaks English except Jimmy Durante. He's Julius J McCracken, though he's as unmistakably Jimmy Durante as every character he's ever played, and he brings Keaton to the house of Patricia Alden, a young lady being pursued by an amorous married man called Tony Lagorce. Keaton is Elmer E Tuttle, the plumber of the title, but as that title would suggest he gets caught up in the whole rigmarole. Before you know it he's fighting duels for the lady's honour and falling for her in the process. To make matters worse she hires him to keep her away from Lagorce, even though she loves him.
There are signs of the career deterioration, but they're in the quality of the material and the filmmaking, not in Keaton's performance. The editing is particularly poor and many of the jokes are worse, but Keaton's stoneface is as great as ever. There are jokes that work and the fast pace of parts of the films plays well to his slapstick talents. The scenes alone with Patricia are generally good ones, as tiring as she gets, and we root for him all along.
At the end of the day though, this film fits into Keaton's career between Sidewalks of New York and Speak Easily, neither of which was particular great. Unfortunately it fits rather nicely. It's better than both but not by a lot. Irene Purcell is fine as Patricia but she's still annoying, and Jimmy Durante can only say things twice so much before he becomes just as annoying. It's a poor film that Keaton elevates to at least the levels of average.
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)
In 1891 Sherlock Holmes was missing for three years and writer Nicholas Meyer came up with a story to explain it. In this star-studded translation to screen, we first meet him in the throes of cocaine addiction, raving about the Napoleon of Crime, Professor Moriarty. Robert Duvall plays Watson with a langurous voice that doesn't sound anything like Robert Duvall, and he has to bring Holmes back from the drug. Holmes is Nicol Williamson and Moriarty is no less than Sir Laurence Olivier, who quickly arrives in Watson's office with tales of persecution and hints of mystery.
What seems most surprising is that none of these major stars have either of the two lead credits. Top credited is Alan Arkin, playing a Viennese doctor who Watson consults to aid Holmes's recovery, a doctor called Sigmund Freud. Yes, that Freud. Between the two of them they investigate the kidnapping of Fraulein Lola Deveraux, as played by Vanessa Redgrave, the other name to outcredit the heroes.
Williamson is powerful as Holmes, the incisive and intelligent Holmes we know but a furiously agitated one in the throes of addiction. In comparison Arkin is quiet and subtle as Freud, with his formidable intelligence carrying the day in many scenes, similarly but not the same as that of Holmes. Duvall is fine and I can appreciate the effort he put into his accent but it's hardly a successful one or indeed one of his most memorable roles. Olivier is hardly a minor name to have as the villain of the piece but he gets very little screen time. Redgrave is delightful but again has very little opportunity to make much of a difference to the film as a whole.
The story has plenty to offer, especially as an intellectual exercise, but it ends up a victim of its own cleverness. While much of it fits very well indeed with the canon, there's plenty that makes no sense whatsoever and whole sections are pure Hollywood. Sabre fighting on top of a train, indeed.
What seems most surprising is that none of these major stars have either of the two lead credits. Top credited is Alan Arkin, playing a Viennese doctor who Watson consults to aid Holmes's recovery, a doctor called Sigmund Freud. Yes, that Freud. Between the two of them they investigate the kidnapping of Fraulein Lola Deveraux, as played by Vanessa Redgrave, the other name to outcredit the heroes.
Williamson is powerful as Holmes, the incisive and intelligent Holmes we know but a furiously agitated one in the throes of addiction. In comparison Arkin is quiet and subtle as Freud, with his formidable intelligence carrying the day in many scenes, similarly but not the same as that of Holmes. Duvall is fine and I can appreciate the effort he put into his accent but it's hardly a successful one or indeed one of his most memorable roles. Olivier is hardly a minor name to have as the villain of the piece but he gets very little screen time. Redgrave is delightful but again has very little opportunity to make much of a difference to the film as a whole.
The story has plenty to offer, especially as an intellectual exercise, but it ends up a victim of its own cleverness. While much of it fits very well indeed with the canon, there's plenty that makes no sense whatsoever and whole sections are pure Hollywood. Sabre fighting on top of a train, indeed.
Kentucky Kernels (1934) George Stevens
Rich young Jerry Bronson is despondent over his inability to marry the love of his life and so commits suicide by leaping off a bridge into a river. He doesn't end up dead though, he ends instead up in a net thrown out by Wheeler and Woolsey to catch fish. They're out of work magicians lamenting the demise of vaudeville, and they take it upon themselves to help out Jerry by adopting a child from the Children's Welfare League for him to look after. Enter George 'Spanky' McFarland, playing an orphan called Spanky Milford whose idea of a great time is to break any piece of glass he can find.
At the same time, exit Jerry Bronson, who finally manages to elope with his Joan thus leaving young Spanky with the Great Elmer and Company for safekeeping. In case that isn't enough story, Spanky comes into a fortune, inheriting a large Kentucky estate, so off they all run to Banesville unaware that there's a Hatfield and McCoy thing going on with the Milfords and the Wakefields. In fact they're more than unaware, Willie falls for Gloria on the train and Gloria is a Wakefield.
This is my second Wheeler and Woolsey, following Cracked Nuts which played to me like a Marx Brothers movie with only Groucho and Zeppo. This one cements that opinion but at least there are a couple of other talented comedians on board to improve things. Spanky was only six at the time but he already had two years of solid experience behind him as a member of Our Gang and he steals the show with aplomb. He was apparently trained by Stan Laurel but there's obvious influence from both Laurel and Hardy here. He even gets part of a song and it's the best bit.
The other is Willie Best, but given that this is 1934 he's still credited as Sleep 'n' Eat. Like his fellow early African American actor Stepin Fetchit, he always seemed to play a lazy good for nothing janitor or porter or servant, and it's often painful to watch his antics from the perspective of an ostensibly more civilised era. However he was as talented as anyone else in the cast and probably far more so. People who ought to know, like Hal Roach and Bob Hope, saw him as a huge talent.
At the same time, exit Jerry Bronson, who finally manages to elope with his Joan thus leaving young Spanky with the Great Elmer and Company for safekeeping. In case that isn't enough story, Spanky comes into a fortune, inheriting a large Kentucky estate, so off they all run to Banesville unaware that there's a Hatfield and McCoy thing going on with the Milfords and the Wakefields. In fact they're more than unaware, Willie falls for Gloria on the train and Gloria is a Wakefield.
This is my second Wheeler and Woolsey, following Cracked Nuts which played to me like a Marx Brothers movie with only Groucho and Zeppo. This one cements that opinion but at least there are a couple of other talented comedians on board to improve things. Spanky was only six at the time but he already had two years of solid experience behind him as a member of Our Gang and he steals the show with aplomb. He was apparently trained by Stan Laurel but there's obvious influence from both Laurel and Hardy here. He even gets part of a song and it's the best bit.
The other is Willie Best, but given that this is 1934 he's still credited as Sleep 'n' Eat. Like his fellow early African American actor Stepin Fetchit, he always seemed to play a lazy good for nothing janitor or porter or servant, and it's often painful to watch his antics from the perspective of an ostensibly more civilised era. However he was as talented as anyone else in the cast and probably far more so. People who ought to know, like Hal Roach and Bob Hope, saw him as a huge talent.
Touch the Sound (2004) Thomas Riedelsheimer
I'm a big fan of Evelyn Glennie from a musical standpoint. I'm a fan of pure percussion music and she's a justly word renowned virtuoso artiste and composer. And that's before you factor in the fact that she's effectively deaf and thus 'hears' everything in completely different ways to the rest of us. Add that into the mix and you have someone very special indeed. Because I have some background with Evelyn via CDs and broadcast concerts, this film has less impact for me as it would to someone completely new to her work. She's looking a little older than when I saw her last but she's as delightful as always.
For a film about sound, it's a very visual film. Director and cinematographer Thomas Riedelsheimer conjures up some powerful imagery. However it's the sound that we're here for and it's a varied journey for sure. We learn about how all sound can be music and anything can be an instrument. There are rhythms all around us if only we listen and we see Evelyn translate many of them into a more traditional format. That's not to say that she only plays instruments that look like instruments. We see her play buildings with Fred Frith, manipulate a radio receiver with her hands and even play plates and bottles like drums on stage in Japan.
I was fascinated by much of the film and though I already knew much about Evelyn I still learned more here. The music, as with pretty much all experimental music is variable. Some of it did nothing at all for me, but some was very special indeed. The guitar and marimba piece touched me closest. However the entire thing seemed a little long and meandering to work as a really cohesive whole. There's lots of greatness here but a lot falls well behind that too.
For a film about sound, it's a very visual film. Director and cinematographer Thomas Riedelsheimer conjures up some powerful imagery. However it's the sound that we're here for and it's a varied journey for sure. We learn about how all sound can be music and anything can be an instrument. There are rhythms all around us if only we listen and we see Evelyn translate many of them into a more traditional format. That's not to say that she only plays instruments that look like instruments. We see her play buildings with Fred Frith, manipulate a radio receiver with her hands and even play plates and bottles like drums on stage in Japan.
I was fascinated by much of the film and though I already knew much about Evelyn I still learned more here. The music, as with pretty much all experimental music is variable. Some of it did nothing at all for me, but some was very special indeed. The guitar and marimba piece touched me closest. However the entire thing seemed a little long and meandering to work as a really cohesive whole. There's lots of greatness here but a lot falls well behind that too.
Frisco Jenny (1932) William A Wellman
Just before William Wellman directed Ruth Chatterton in Lilly Turner, they teamed up for this film, another women's precode and they certainly start it off with a bang. Literally: we're in San Francisco in 1906 so it's one of the bigger bangs. More specifically we're on the Barbary Coast where the men are all drunk and the women all live in bars to feed off of them. We see the tricks early on: drink a glass of olive oil every day to protect your gut against the rotgut whiskey, give customers keys so that they'll wait for you and keep drinking all along, watch out for chalk marks on their shoulders to note that they've already been robbed.
Chatterton is the Jenny of the title. As we begin she's pregnant out of wedlock to piano player Dan McAllister, but they want to get married anyway. Her father who owns the bar she works at apparently has the power to stop the marriage and he's ready to do exactly that. And then the big one hits. It doesn't just take out the city, it takes out Jenny's bar, her father and her fiance and she has to start afresh with a new baby.
Chatterton is great for roles like this. She's as believably tough and strong as you'd need a leading lady to be in a women's precode, but she has a melancholy look to her face that works wonderfully. When she sets up in business as a high class madam and gets caught up in a murder scandal, she's forced to give her son up for three years to avoid the decency leagues. When it's time to get her back she finds she can't take him away from privilege and is so forced to watch him grow up from afar.
The catch, and this being a precode there has to be a catch, is that she becomes a major underworld force during prohibition and her son graduates from Stanford as a lawyer and is soon up for district attorney. Jenny makes the difference to get him elected but of course he's one of the good guys and she's a really good target for the good guys.
The great things about this film are mostly what made precodes great generally: the social issues, the irony, the brutal truth, the powerful roles for women. Chatterton is an excellent lead and she's ably supported here by a cast that includes people of the calibre of Louis Calhern and James Murray. The problems are typical ones too. It's too short, for one; Chatterton's character doesn't age enough, for another; and the worst one is that her loyal Chinese servant is about as Chinese as I am. There are real Chinese actors in the film, even speaking Chinese, but as always they aren't given real parts.
The weird thing is that in 1932 Ruth Chatterton was about to marry George Brent, and Brent was up for the part of her son in this movie! I'm sure she was very happy to see Donald Cook take the part instead and Brent become her love interest in her next film, Lilly Turner, instead.
Chatterton is the Jenny of the title. As we begin she's pregnant out of wedlock to piano player Dan McAllister, but they want to get married anyway. Her father who owns the bar she works at apparently has the power to stop the marriage and he's ready to do exactly that. And then the big one hits. It doesn't just take out the city, it takes out Jenny's bar, her father and her fiance and she has to start afresh with a new baby.
Chatterton is great for roles like this. She's as believably tough and strong as you'd need a leading lady to be in a women's precode, but she has a melancholy look to her face that works wonderfully. When she sets up in business as a high class madam and gets caught up in a murder scandal, she's forced to give her son up for three years to avoid the decency leagues. When it's time to get her back she finds she can't take him away from privilege and is so forced to watch him grow up from afar.
The catch, and this being a precode there has to be a catch, is that she becomes a major underworld force during prohibition and her son graduates from Stanford as a lawyer and is soon up for district attorney. Jenny makes the difference to get him elected but of course he's one of the good guys and she's a really good target for the good guys.
The great things about this film are mostly what made precodes great generally: the social issues, the irony, the brutal truth, the powerful roles for women. Chatterton is an excellent lead and she's ably supported here by a cast that includes people of the calibre of Louis Calhern and James Murray. The problems are typical ones too. It's too short, for one; Chatterton's character doesn't age enough, for another; and the worst one is that her loyal Chinese servant is about as Chinese as I am. There are real Chinese actors in the film, even speaking Chinese, but as always they aren't given real parts.
The weird thing is that in 1932 Ruth Chatterton was about to marry George Brent, and Brent was up for the part of her son in this movie! I'm sure she was very happy to see Donald Cook take the part instead and Brent become her love interest in her next film, Lilly Turner, instead.
Saturday, 29 December 2007
True Grit (1969) Henry Hathaway
Mattie Ross's father goes into town to buy Texas ponies but ends up dead at the hands of Tom Chaney, a man who works for him. No, that's not a spoiler, it's plain and obvious and right there on the screen a few minutes into the movie. Our film isn't a whodunit, it's a whereishe. Chaney escapes onto Indian territory where the local sheriff has no jurisdiction and so stubborn little Mattie enlists a stubborn old US marshal to go in and get him. Naturally the marshal is John Wayne's eye patched drunkard Rooster Cogburn. Add to the mix a Texas Ranger called Le Boeuf who's looking for Chaney for the murder of a Texan senator and you have a intriguing trio running a manhunt.
Mattie Ross is played by young Kim Darby, who was only 22 years old but got to share the top credits with her two far more well known co-stars. She comes off to my eyes as half Molly Ringwald and half Linda Blair, with maybe a little Carrie Fisher, which put together makes her joyously sassy and opinionated. She manages to walk a very fine line and she walks it well: she's very apparently nervous and out of her depth, but sucks it up and manages to meet up with people like John Wayne and Strother Martin and either order them around, insult them or haggle with them. That isn't an easy task but it's one that she's more than up to. She deserved a Oscar nomination for her work.
The Oscar of course went to John Wayne, who apparently wanted not just to act but produce and direct. He only got the lead role but he makes the most of it. It's a real treat of a role and he relished it and it's very likely the most memorable one of his career. Glen Campbell is Le Boeuf and the film's other Oscar nomination went to the title song that he sang. Of course the Oscar honour roll isn't where you go to find good music. This was his first leading role and he had fun with it, though he looks too much like a chipmunk and couldn't compete with Wayne to save his life. He gets a lot of scenes just standing there while Kim Darby and the Duke go at it.
There's a powerful supporting cast to my eyes, though they were mostly still up and coming at the time with major films right behind them. Dennis Hopper is a great victim here, fresh from Easy Rider which garnered him an Oscar nomination of his own as a writer. The bad guy everyone thinks Chaney is riding with is Robert Duvall, fresh from Bullitt. Mattie's laywer that she draws like a gun is John Fiedler, best known for being the voice of Disney's Piglet. The sheriff with the limited jurisdiction is John Doucette, western regular who apparently had the fastest draw in Hollywood.
Chaney himself is played by Jeff Corey, who took advantage of being blacklisted in Hollywood during the communist witchhunts after taking the stand and claiming the fifth to become the premier acting coach in the city. He taught everyone from James Dean to Jack Nicholson to Jane Fonda. He even taught Kirk Douglas in preparation for Spartacus, and it was Douglas's hiring of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo for Spartacus that effectively ended the blacklist. Corey is excellent here, as he was in The Killers but notably wasn't in Bagdad, even though he was about the best thing about that film.
Mattie Ross is played by young Kim Darby, who was only 22 years old but got to share the top credits with her two far more well known co-stars. She comes off to my eyes as half Molly Ringwald and half Linda Blair, with maybe a little Carrie Fisher, which put together makes her joyously sassy and opinionated. She manages to walk a very fine line and she walks it well: she's very apparently nervous and out of her depth, but sucks it up and manages to meet up with people like John Wayne and Strother Martin and either order them around, insult them or haggle with them. That isn't an easy task but it's one that she's more than up to. She deserved a Oscar nomination for her work.
The Oscar of course went to John Wayne, who apparently wanted not just to act but produce and direct. He only got the lead role but he makes the most of it. It's a real treat of a role and he relished it and it's very likely the most memorable one of his career. Glen Campbell is Le Boeuf and the film's other Oscar nomination went to the title song that he sang. Of course the Oscar honour roll isn't where you go to find good music. This was his first leading role and he had fun with it, though he looks too much like a chipmunk and couldn't compete with Wayne to save his life. He gets a lot of scenes just standing there while Kim Darby and the Duke go at it.
There's a powerful supporting cast to my eyes, though they were mostly still up and coming at the time with major films right behind them. Dennis Hopper is a great victim here, fresh from Easy Rider which garnered him an Oscar nomination of his own as a writer. The bad guy everyone thinks Chaney is riding with is Robert Duvall, fresh from Bullitt. Mattie's laywer that she draws like a gun is John Fiedler, best known for being the voice of Disney's Piglet. The sheriff with the limited jurisdiction is John Doucette, western regular who apparently had the fastest draw in Hollywood.
Chaney himself is played by Jeff Corey, who took advantage of being blacklisted in Hollywood during the communist witchhunts after taking the stand and claiming the fifth to become the premier acting coach in the city. He taught everyone from James Dean to Jack Nicholson to Jane Fonda. He even taught Kirk Douglas in preparation for Spartacus, and it was Douglas's hiring of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo for Spartacus that effectively ended the blacklist. Corey is excellent here, as he was in The Killers but notably wasn't in Bagdad, even though he was about the best thing about that film.
The Falcon in San Francisco (1945) Joseph H Lewis
Tom Lawrence, the Falcon, and Goldie Locke are on the San Franciscan heading to, well, San Francisco, talking about the tax benefits of getting married, when they bump into a young girl called Annie Marshall. Her maid is killed on the train, with a hatpin no less, so the Falcon starts to takes her home but quickly gets caught up in a mystery. Someone calls the cops and suggests a kidnapping, so he gets locked up but then released on already posted bail by a young lady who climbs all over him. Then the police want him back, but he wakes up from a drugged sleep to the lady he was having dinner with and a couple of fake cops with guns. If this wasn't the movies, you wouldn't believe a word of it.
Actually I believe it and for one good reason. While this is yet another film entry in a detective series, film number eleven of an eventual sixteen for the Falcon, the story isn't. It's a hard boiled film noir that would have worked far better for Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe than it ever did for Tom Conway as the Falcon. The story doesn't just unfold, it hits the face of the lead character with an impact and he spends the rest of the movie trying first to work out what is going on and only then to work out whodunit. Conway is fine, but he plays his usual gentleman detective in a story that isn't about gentlemen. He's out of place, or rather the story is out of place as Conway as the Falcon has worked well for seven films.
The cast is solid, but everyone plays second fiddle to the story. Edward Brophy is Goldie Locke this time out, taking a role that originated with his frequent thirties co-star Allen Jenkins, and of course he's there for the comic relief trying to find a wife for tax reasons. Rita Corday is a heroine pleasing to the eye, though she's outshone by her younger sister Annie played by Sharyn Moffett. Fay Helm is an excellent tough woman but Robert Armstrong doesn't get enough screen time to get his teeth into being a former bootlegger turned shipping line manager.
Actually I believe it and for one good reason. While this is yet another film entry in a detective series, film number eleven of an eventual sixteen for the Falcon, the story isn't. It's a hard boiled film noir that would have worked far better for Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe than it ever did for Tom Conway as the Falcon. The story doesn't just unfold, it hits the face of the lead character with an impact and he spends the rest of the movie trying first to work out what is going on and only then to work out whodunit. Conway is fine, but he plays his usual gentleman detective in a story that isn't about gentlemen. He's out of place, or rather the story is out of place as Conway as the Falcon has worked well for seven films.
The cast is solid, but everyone plays second fiddle to the story. Edward Brophy is Goldie Locke this time out, taking a role that originated with his frequent thirties co-star Allen Jenkins, and of course he's there for the comic relief trying to find a wife for tax reasons. Rita Corday is a heroine pleasing to the eye, though she's outshone by her younger sister Annie played by Sharyn Moffett. Fay Helm is an excellent tough woman but Robert Armstrong doesn't get enough screen time to get his teeth into being a former bootlegger turned shipping line manager.
Conan the Barbarian (1982) John Milius
It's been far too long since I last saw this little gem of the early 80s, especially as I'm a big fan of the original stories by Robert E Howard and others. To make it even more special, this time round I got to see it on the big screen in glorious 35mm courtesy of the Midnite Movie Mamacita, and preceded by an intriguing set of trailers of Arnie's entire filmography, including fascinating examples of dubbing into German and what sounded like Dutch.
The story is a simple one of revenge. Conan is a young boy whose parents and entire village are massacred by Thulsa Doom and his henchmen, who unfortunately look more than a little like members of Spinal Tap. In a long introductory segment, he's taken north into slavery, where he grows into the powerhouse of a barbarian we would expect. He learns to fight in a pit, travels east to learn language and the philosophy of the ancients, then comes back home complete, ready to live life as a free man.
The story proper begins when he teams up with a couple of thieves to get rich off the local serpent cult, then is hired by King Osric to rescue his daughter who the cult has corrupted. Of course the cult is run by the very same Thulsa Doom who massacred Conan's village so a well paid mission also becomes a personal vendetta. His cohorts want to get in, get the girl and get out but Conan wants vengeance and the head of Thulsa Doom.
Arnold Schwarzenegger certainly looked the part and his success in this film began a long string of successes in the eighties that saw him rapidly become less of an actor and more of an icon. Thulsa Doom is James Earl Jones, still best known for providing the voice of Darth Vader, but a powerful presence on screen too. He's very believable here as a thousand year old hypnotic snake god though he's saddled with a horrendous haircut that is seriously painful to watch.
The other main part for me is Sandahl Bergman as Valeria, Conan's lover and fellow thief. Bergman had her own career playing barbarians and she always always awesomely believable for me: more so than Arnie or Brigitte Nielsen who played Red Sonja opposite her. She's gorgeous but far from conventionally beautiful; she's athletic and powerful yet no bodybuilder; and she carries off the costumes like she grew up in them.
Beyond the leads there's Max von Sydow in a wonderful yet short part as King Osric; Mako as a wizard who also provides the narration and many others all the way down to a young lady called Nadiuska who has a memorable but silent role as Conan's mother. Apparently she was a softcore star in Italy during the seventies but whatever naked pics I found when googling her don't hold a candle to her entirely clothed look here while brandishing a sword and losing her head. The final real star is the Almerian countryside so admirably shot by director John Milius and cinematographer Duke Callaghan.
The film stands up today as a barbarian classic, one of the best of the American barbarian films. As much as it doesn't quite match the tone of the original stories, technical advisor and Howard follower L Sprague de Camp made sure that it comes as close as anything else that's been put to film. Certainly it's far less Hollywood than its sequel, Conan the Destroyer and other successors like Red Sonja. It was a pleasure to see on the big screen.
The story is a simple one of revenge. Conan is a young boy whose parents and entire village are massacred by Thulsa Doom and his henchmen, who unfortunately look more than a little like members of Spinal Tap. In a long introductory segment, he's taken north into slavery, where he grows into the powerhouse of a barbarian we would expect. He learns to fight in a pit, travels east to learn language and the philosophy of the ancients, then comes back home complete, ready to live life as a free man.
The story proper begins when he teams up with a couple of thieves to get rich off the local serpent cult, then is hired by King Osric to rescue his daughter who the cult has corrupted. Of course the cult is run by the very same Thulsa Doom who massacred Conan's village so a well paid mission also becomes a personal vendetta. His cohorts want to get in, get the girl and get out but Conan wants vengeance and the head of Thulsa Doom.
Arnold Schwarzenegger certainly looked the part and his success in this film began a long string of successes in the eighties that saw him rapidly become less of an actor and more of an icon. Thulsa Doom is James Earl Jones, still best known for providing the voice of Darth Vader, but a powerful presence on screen too. He's very believable here as a thousand year old hypnotic snake god though he's saddled with a horrendous haircut that is seriously painful to watch.
The other main part for me is Sandahl Bergman as Valeria, Conan's lover and fellow thief. Bergman had her own career playing barbarians and she always always awesomely believable for me: more so than Arnie or Brigitte Nielsen who played Red Sonja opposite her. She's gorgeous but far from conventionally beautiful; she's athletic and powerful yet no bodybuilder; and she carries off the costumes like she grew up in them.
Beyond the leads there's Max von Sydow in a wonderful yet short part as King Osric; Mako as a wizard who also provides the narration and many others all the way down to a young lady called Nadiuska who has a memorable but silent role as Conan's mother. Apparently she was a softcore star in Italy during the seventies but whatever naked pics I found when googling her don't hold a candle to her entirely clothed look here while brandishing a sword and losing her head. The final real star is the Almerian countryside so admirably shot by director John Milius and cinematographer Duke Callaghan.
The film stands up today as a barbarian classic, one of the best of the American barbarian films. As much as it doesn't quite match the tone of the original stories, technical advisor and Howard follower L Sprague de Camp made sure that it comes as close as anything else that's been put to film. Certainly it's far less Hollywood than its sequel, Conan the Destroyer and other successors like Red Sonja. It was a pleasure to see on the big screen.
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