What classics did you see last week, August 8 to August 14?
Aug 15, 2021 1:53:02 GMT
teleadm, wmcclain, and 4 more like this
Post by mikef6 on Aug 15, 2021 1:53:02 GMT
Belle Starr / Irving Cummings (1941). Twentieth Century Fox. Technicolor. A historically bogus story of some real life people. Belle Starr was mostly an unknown in her lifetime but the dime novels of the late 19th century and the popular magazine The National Police Gazette regaled the reading public with fictional tales of her outlaw adventures. This is the first movie about her. It stars 21-year-old Gene Tierney with a magnolia-dripping su’thun accent as the title character. Born Belle Shirley in Missouri, she turned rogue after the Civil War, operating mainly in Texas and Oklahoma until her shooting death with is still unsolved. The movie would have it that she becomes radicalized during Reconstruction, especially when her brother comes home from the war in a reconciling mood and a former beau (Dana Andrews) shows up in a Yankee uniform as part of the occupying force. Then she meets Sam Starr (Randolph Scott), a charismatic leader of men who still wants to fight the war. She joins Sam and his men in the mountains and marries him. I get the feeling that this picture about the Reconstruction South and a hot headed Southern belle (named Belle) with a Mammy (Louise Beavers standing in for Hattie McDaniel) wants to ride on the coattails of GWTW, just two years earlier. There is an under score that just won’t go away by Alfred Newman utilizing traditional Deep South tunes (“Dixie”) and Stephen Foster melodies. There is also quite a bit of the casual racism and sympathy with the Confederate cause without a trace of irony that is typical of the era. I couldn’t really enjoy it much even with the presence of Randolph Scott and Gene Tierney. Also with Chill Wills as Blue Duck, another actual By God historical character.
Belle Starr
Nude On The Moon / Doris Wishman (1961). This is a hilariously awful “nudie-cutie” from the legendary Bad Movie Maker Doris Wishman. How bad is it? It is so bad it makes Coleman Francis and Ed Wood look like Stanley Kubrick. A young hunk inherits a fortune and decides to spend it on a rocket to the moon (what a prophesy!). He takes an older scientist along. They have no tech crew. We see them climbing up some scaffolding, but never see the rocket. Once inside and having taken off, they converse with each by speaking into radio microphones even though they are sitting shoulder to shoulder. Once they land…somewhere…they exit the rocket wearing the silliest space suits imaginable and go exploring. They find a lovely garden occupied by topless women and a couple of muscle beach guys. The older scientist ignores all this and goes about collecting botany samples while mostly naked women frolic around him. The young guy only has eyes for the Queen (and doesn’t seem to have any trouble making eye contact). There is absolutely no sound synchronization in this film. The only time the lips are not going in the opposite direction of the words supposedly coming out of them is when the speaker has his/her back to the camera. Other production values are also abysmal. There is no sex. No erotic charge at all. Not even a hint. As one sarcastic wag wrote, “This is a nudie for the entire family.” This movie is almost the definition of “so bad it’s funny.” For a good time, call Doris Wishman.
The French Connection / William Friedkin (1971). If, after the end of the classic era, a film maker wanted to make a modern version of a film noir they ran into the problem of filming in brightly lit color. One of the substitutes for darkness they came up with was urban grittiness. We still see it today in films like “Drive” (2011). “The French Connection” was one of the pioneers in this regard and some might say that no one has done it better. They accomplish this in their use of older New York City neighborhoods caught in the depths of winter. Two NYC cops working narcotics, Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider), are working the streets rounding up low-level users and dealers. Sometime in the past they had royally messed up a large bust. When Doyle thinks he has wind of something big going down, his superior is reluctant to jump in. The movie is unrelenting as Doyle and Russo very slowly pick up the trail and methodically follow it. Though writer Ernest Tidyman won the Oscar for Best Writing Based On Other Material, his script was, as labeled by a member of the production crew, “a joke.” Most of the script was thrown. About 50% of the run time has no dialog at all. More than half of the existing dialog was improvised by the cast. Hackman greatly deserved his Academy Award (and should have won another in “The French Connection 2” four years later). Hackman gets excellent support from Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, and especially Spanish actor Fernando Rey as the French business man who will be seller of the narcotics. The scene when Doyle and police crew discover how the drugs are being smuggled into the country is exciting and will elicit a laugh or two. Also, the country learned what “rocker panels” are. Can’t close without mentioning the famous car chase and Popeye speeds through crowed city streets pursuing an elevated commuter train that has been hijacked by a hit man. Groundbreaking. Still being imitated. What cops and robbers thriller today doesn’t have a car chase? Important. Essential. Wildly engaging and entertaining.
The Late Show / Robert Benton (1977). Already a classic neo-noir (if there really is such a thing). Although set in contemporary 1970s Los Angeles, Art Carney plays Ira Wells, and elderly retired private investigator whose glory days were at least two decades ago, connecting with the noir years. He is hard of hearing, has a bad ulcer, and a bum leg from a long ago gunshot wound. As the movie opens, he gets a visit from his former partner Harry Regan (Howard Duff who gets a “and” credit) but Regan drops on the floor, fatally shot. Wells vows to find out who did it. Enter an old friend, Charlie Hatter (Bill Macy of “Maude”). Charlie introduces Margo Sterling (Lily Tomlin), a motor mouth former hippie girl aging into the emerging New Age culture. She wants Ira to find her cat. Ira considers this offer an insult until he learns that this was the case Regan was working on when he was killed. I won’t even try to cover the twisted tale that leads to a robbery of a major stamp collection, big business in selling stolen goods, and of course, plenty of juicy murders. Carney and Tomlin click as a team, each being the best they had been to that time and the rest of the cast is superior. In addition to Bill Macy there is Eugene Roche, Joanna Cassidy, and John Considine. A key movie of the Seventies. A must see.
Silverado / Lawrence Kasdan (1985). What Lawrence Kasdan did by succeeding in bringing a classic film noir to the screen (1981’s “Body Heat”), he attempted to do with the American western but with more mixed results. The script is not very tight. It is sprawling, if not slapdash. We first see Emmett (Scott Glenn) as he is being attacked by three men who he dispatches. Emmett then encounters Parden (Kevin Kline), the closed mouth loner, robbed and alone in the desert. Finally, after the two men stand up for Mal (Danny Glover), a black cowboy being bullied (and thrashing the bullies, busting up the saloon in the process), It was a pleasure to see John Cleese as the sheriff of the frontier town (“Came to the wrong town. I don't tolerate this sort of thing. It's hard on the peace, and it's hard on the furniture.”) After rescuing Emmett’s bother Jake (Kevin Costner in an early breakout role) from the jail, they move on to the title town to face Emmett’s enemies there. An old friend of Parden’s, Cobb (Brian Dennehy), is sheriff but in bed with Emmett’s foes. Linda Hunt is beyond great as the manager of Cobb’s saloon and who might find a soul mate in Parden. There’s lots and lots of gunplay and hard ridin’. Also with Rosanna Arquette, Jeff Goldblum, Lynn Whitfield, and Jeff Fahey.
Agatha And The Curse Of Ishtar / Sam Yates (2019). This 95-minute movie was filmed for the U.K.’s Channel 5 and has recently been released to PBS in the U.S. It is 1938 and Agatha Christie, still reeling from her divorce from Archibald Christie, accepts an invitation from near total strangers to visit them at an archeological site in Iraq. There, two things happen: murder raises its ugly head and she meets a young archeologist named Max who may be 13 years younger than she, but with whom she finds an affinity. Again, she finds that she is not only an expert in writing murder mysteries, but in solving them. Also, what she learns about emotion and romance enables her to write, under a non de plume, a series of dramatic melodramas. Ver-r-r-ry enjoyable.
Agatha And The Midnight Murders / Joe Stephenson (2020). The third and last (so far) of full feature film length TV mysteries with Agatha Christie in a fictional tale that utilizes her detective abilities. This one is by far the darkest, most disturbing of the three. Agatha is in London in 1940 during the time of the Blitz. She is there because she is broke: the Americans have stopped paying royalties and the Revenue people think she is cheating. So she is going to sell her latest manuscript, a novel that kills off Hercule Poirot, to a Chinese investor. But during negotiations at an almost deserted restaurant, an air raid siren goes off. A pushy cop enters to force all the customers into the cellar where, a ghost, it seems, is causing mischief and murder. Within a small confined space where movement is limited, things disappear and bodies start dropping. By the end, I was thinking that another “And Then There Were None” was underway. It doesn’t quite reach that limit but the deaths are many and Agatha herself has to pull of a pretty ruthless act to save her own life. With stand-out work from Helen Baxendale as Agatha, Alistair Petrie, Blake Harrison, and Elizabeth Tan. Excellent.
Belle Starr
Nude On The Moon / Doris Wishman (1961). This is a hilariously awful “nudie-cutie” from the legendary Bad Movie Maker Doris Wishman. How bad is it? It is so bad it makes Coleman Francis and Ed Wood look like Stanley Kubrick. A young hunk inherits a fortune and decides to spend it on a rocket to the moon (what a prophesy!). He takes an older scientist along. They have no tech crew. We see them climbing up some scaffolding, but never see the rocket. Once inside and having taken off, they converse with each by speaking into radio microphones even though they are sitting shoulder to shoulder. Once they land…somewhere…they exit the rocket wearing the silliest space suits imaginable and go exploring. They find a lovely garden occupied by topless women and a couple of muscle beach guys. The older scientist ignores all this and goes about collecting botany samples while mostly naked women frolic around him. The young guy only has eyes for the Queen (and doesn’t seem to have any trouble making eye contact). There is absolutely no sound synchronization in this film. The only time the lips are not going in the opposite direction of the words supposedly coming out of them is when the speaker has his/her back to the camera. Other production values are also abysmal. There is no sex. No erotic charge at all. Not even a hint. As one sarcastic wag wrote, “This is a nudie for the entire family.” This movie is almost the definition of “so bad it’s funny.” For a good time, call Doris Wishman.
The French Connection / William Friedkin (1971). If, after the end of the classic era, a film maker wanted to make a modern version of a film noir they ran into the problem of filming in brightly lit color. One of the substitutes for darkness they came up with was urban grittiness. We still see it today in films like “Drive” (2011). “The French Connection” was one of the pioneers in this regard and some might say that no one has done it better. They accomplish this in their use of older New York City neighborhoods caught in the depths of winter. Two NYC cops working narcotics, Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider), are working the streets rounding up low-level users and dealers. Sometime in the past they had royally messed up a large bust. When Doyle thinks he has wind of something big going down, his superior is reluctant to jump in. The movie is unrelenting as Doyle and Russo very slowly pick up the trail and methodically follow it. Though writer Ernest Tidyman won the Oscar for Best Writing Based On Other Material, his script was, as labeled by a member of the production crew, “a joke.” Most of the script was thrown. About 50% of the run time has no dialog at all. More than half of the existing dialog was improvised by the cast. Hackman greatly deserved his Academy Award (and should have won another in “The French Connection 2” four years later). Hackman gets excellent support from Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, and especially Spanish actor Fernando Rey as the French business man who will be seller of the narcotics. The scene when Doyle and police crew discover how the drugs are being smuggled into the country is exciting and will elicit a laugh or two. Also, the country learned what “rocker panels” are. Can’t close without mentioning the famous car chase and Popeye speeds through crowed city streets pursuing an elevated commuter train that has been hijacked by a hit man. Groundbreaking. Still being imitated. What cops and robbers thriller today doesn’t have a car chase? Important. Essential. Wildly engaging and entertaining.
The Late Show / Robert Benton (1977). Already a classic neo-noir (if there really is such a thing). Although set in contemporary 1970s Los Angeles, Art Carney plays Ira Wells, and elderly retired private investigator whose glory days were at least two decades ago, connecting with the noir years. He is hard of hearing, has a bad ulcer, and a bum leg from a long ago gunshot wound. As the movie opens, he gets a visit from his former partner Harry Regan (Howard Duff who gets a “and” credit) but Regan drops on the floor, fatally shot. Wells vows to find out who did it. Enter an old friend, Charlie Hatter (Bill Macy of “Maude”). Charlie introduces Margo Sterling (Lily Tomlin), a motor mouth former hippie girl aging into the emerging New Age culture. She wants Ira to find her cat. Ira considers this offer an insult until he learns that this was the case Regan was working on when he was killed. I won’t even try to cover the twisted tale that leads to a robbery of a major stamp collection, big business in selling stolen goods, and of course, plenty of juicy murders. Carney and Tomlin click as a team, each being the best they had been to that time and the rest of the cast is superior. In addition to Bill Macy there is Eugene Roche, Joanna Cassidy, and John Considine. A key movie of the Seventies. A must see.
Silverado / Lawrence Kasdan (1985). What Lawrence Kasdan did by succeeding in bringing a classic film noir to the screen (1981’s “Body Heat”), he attempted to do with the American western but with more mixed results. The script is not very tight. It is sprawling, if not slapdash. We first see Emmett (Scott Glenn) as he is being attacked by three men who he dispatches. Emmett then encounters Parden (Kevin Kline), the closed mouth loner, robbed and alone in the desert. Finally, after the two men stand up for Mal (Danny Glover), a black cowboy being bullied (and thrashing the bullies, busting up the saloon in the process), It was a pleasure to see John Cleese as the sheriff of the frontier town (“Came to the wrong town. I don't tolerate this sort of thing. It's hard on the peace, and it's hard on the furniture.”) After rescuing Emmett’s bother Jake (Kevin Costner in an early breakout role) from the jail, they move on to the title town to face Emmett’s enemies there. An old friend of Parden’s, Cobb (Brian Dennehy), is sheriff but in bed with Emmett’s foes. Linda Hunt is beyond great as the manager of Cobb’s saloon and who might find a soul mate in Parden. There’s lots and lots of gunplay and hard ridin’. Also with Rosanna Arquette, Jeff Goldblum, Lynn Whitfield, and Jeff Fahey.
Agatha And The Curse Of Ishtar / Sam Yates (2019). This 95-minute movie was filmed for the U.K.’s Channel 5 and has recently been released to PBS in the U.S. It is 1938 and Agatha Christie, still reeling from her divorce from Archibald Christie, accepts an invitation from near total strangers to visit them at an archeological site in Iraq. There, two things happen: murder raises its ugly head and she meets a young archeologist named Max who may be 13 years younger than she, but with whom she finds an affinity. Again, she finds that she is not only an expert in writing murder mysteries, but in solving them. Also, what she learns about emotion and romance enables her to write, under a non de plume, a series of dramatic melodramas. Ver-r-r-ry enjoyable.
Agatha And The Midnight Murders / Joe Stephenson (2020). The third and last (so far) of full feature film length TV mysteries with Agatha Christie in a fictional tale that utilizes her detective abilities. This one is by far the darkest, most disturbing of the three. Agatha is in London in 1940 during the time of the Blitz. She is there because she is broke: the Americans have stopped paying royalties and the Revenue people think she is cheating. So she is going to sell her latest manuscript, a novel that kills off Hercule Poirot, to a Chinese investor. But during negotiations at an almost deserted restaurant, an air raid siren goes off. A pushy cop enters to force all the customers into the cellar where, a ghost, it seems, is causing mischief and murder. Within a small confined space where movement is limited, things disappear and bodies start dropping. By the end, I was thinking that another “And Then There Were None” was underway. It doesn’t quite reach that limit but the deaths are many and Agatha herself has to pull of a pretty ruthless act to save her own life. With stand-out work from Helen Baxendale as Agatha, Alistair Petrie, Blake Harrison, and Elizabeth Tan. Excellent.