Post by mikef6 on Oct 23, 2017 18:43:26 GMT
Criss Cross (1949, Robert Siodmak)
blu ray
Robert Siodmak made quite a few film noirs such as The Killers, The Suspect, Dark Mirror and make this one the same year as his best noir, Cry of the City. Criss Cross is not his best nor worst noir, it sees Burt Lancaster (Sweet Smell of Success) playing an armored truck driver who is drawn into a plot with a gang to have his own truck robbed on route. It has all the elements, nice cinematography, great music and a top cast but the plot and character moments are a bit too thin to push it to the next level. It dies have a great set piece near the end that's worth the wait for though.
6/10
East of Eden (1955, Elia Kazan)
tv
This was the first of the three big James Dean (revel Without a Cause) films made before his early demise. It is also my least favourite, although it has been a long time since I have seen Giant (1956) so that may change. Dean is still pretty raw here as a willful young man who contends against his brother for the attention of their religious father while reconnecting with his estranged mother and falling for his brother's girlfriend A lot of the dialogue is a little too over-wrought for my taste and from a production standpoint, their is terrible looping that stands out even more because of the poor job mixing them in, especially early in the film. However it does have quite a few striking scenes that have stood the test of time.
5.5/10
Just got home three weeks ago from a northern California coast vacation. We spent a week near the picturesque city of Mendocino. Mendocino has been a location favorite for movie and TV filming for decades now. It stands in for a Maine fishing village in "Murder She Wrote." Opening titles and scenes for East Of Eden were shot there. The bank building where Jo Van Fleet walks to in the first sequence really was a bank. The building now houses a business selling educational toys. From main street you can look across the bay for the same view that you get under the titles. It was such fun being there. We also drove down the coast to Bodaga Bay and Bodaga to track down The Birds locations.
Now, my week's viewing:
The Breaking Point / Michael Curtiz (1950). Just released on DVD by Criterion, I got a chance to see it again after many many moons. Although there are naturally some changes for the movies, this film in most of its essentials represents what Hemingway wrote. (I read the 1937 source novel, “To Have and Have Not,” in anticipation of seeing this film.) The setting has been moved from Key West and Cuba to the southern California coast and Mexico. John Garfield stars as Harry Morgan and is just about perfect. Like his novelistic counterpart, he is married (Phyllis Thaxter) with two young daughters (Sherry Jackson and Donna Jo Boyce). Three years later, Jackson would become a TV celebrity as Danny Thomas’ daughter on “Make Room For Daddy.” A new character added for the film is the blond-bombshell, Leona (Patricia Neal), who throws herself at Harry, adding more tension to Morgan’s marriage. Neal gives us a much more layered characterization than many other actresses would, showing small signs that Leona is not happy with the way her life has gone. Basically, Curtiz has directed a screenplay that is a very close approximation to what Ernest Hemingway wrote, plotwise. It is also a fine movie on its own, with several noir touches and some very tense scenes. The ending of this film is ambiguous (a cop-out?) while Papa Hemingway’s is not. The final shoot-out on the boat (from film and book) may also remind you of the gunfight that wraps up John Huston’s “Key Largo” from 1948.
The Raven / Roger Corman (1963). When I was in high school in the Swingin’ Sixties, one of the old 1930s movie palaces in my city had turned more than a little seedy. They showed the juvenile delinquency movies (“Dragstrip Riot”) and cheap horrors. All our parents gave strict orders never to go there. When my friends and I saw that the new Poe movie, advertised as the ultimate in suspense, was opening that weekend at the forbidden theater, we caught the bus downtown and made a bee-line for gaudy color, Vincent Price, and Roger Corman. I got a little hint that we were going to see something we did not expect when, about seven minutes in, the raven flew through a window and landed on a but of Pallas. The following dialog took place:
Price: “Who sent you to me? Are you some dark-winged messenger from beyond? Answer me, monster. Tell me truly. Shall I ever hold again that radiant maiden whom the angels call Lenore?”
Raven: “How the hell should I know? What am I, a fortune teller?”
What follows is a straight faced comedy about good wizards, bad wizards, magic spells within spells, and a face-to-face duel of magic between good and evil. Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Hazel Court and Jack Nicholson (still five years from his breakthrough in “Easy Rider”) as Lorre’s son and the romantic hero. Highly recommended for a genial and good-hearted romp.
Tiempo De Morir (Time To Die) / Arturo Ripstein (1966). This Mexican western, hard to find for many years, has been restored. The restoration was given its premiere last month, and is now in a limited release. It is the debut of director Ripstein with a script by the Colombian Nobel Prize winner-to-be Gabriel García Márquez with Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes brought in to doctor the dialog to sound more Mexican. The plot is, like so many great westerns, filled with the elemental tropes and conflicts of cowboy movies since the beginning. Juan Sáyago (Jorge Martínez de Hoyos) returns to his village home after 18 years in prison for a killing. He greets all of his old friends and his former love, Meriana (Marga López), who warmly welcome him back, then urge him to leave at once. The two sons of the man he killed, the fanatical Julián (Alfredo Leal) and younger brother Pedro (Enrique Rocha) who was too young to remember his father, have taken an oath to kill Sáyago. Julián plans to carry out his oath the first day. Pedro, who has a fiancé and plans for the future, isn’t so sure. As in films like “High Noon,” a sense of inevitability, a movement toward a foreordained conclusion, produces a mounting tension. Canadian cinematographer Alex Phillips (who spent most of his career in Mexico) moves his camera creatively. In two scenes in Mariana’s home, she is tracked by the camera down hallways and through rooms in long takes that amaze from the years before Steadicam. This is just one of the ways in which, although a bedrock western, “Time To Die” also falls into the revisionist camp. It pleases in every way. An almost lost gem is revived.
Bela Lugosi: Hollywood's Dark Prince / Kevin Burns (1995). Produced for the long-running cable TV series “Biography.” This almost-hour long trip through Lugosi’s life hits all the high (and low) points of his acting career. What is amazing is how good an actor he must have been during his stage career in Europe. After he came to Hollywood – and was unable to completely shake his Hungarian accent – the types of roles he thought he was suited for (romantic leading man) were not open to him. When the Dracula lead was offered, he turned it down at first but later relented, a decision he both embraced because it brought him instant movie stardom, but also deeply regretted because of the typecasting that resulted. The doc is narrated by Richard Kiley. Only a handful of Talking Heads are included, mainly the valuable contribution of Bela Lugosi, Jr., the Dracula star’s only child from his fourth (of five) wives. Lugosi, Jr., an attorney, is a quiet spoken but articulate defender of his father’s reputation. We also hear from Ray Walston who acted with Bela on stage in a Dracula production, Martin Landau who played Bela to an Oscar, and, briefly, Robert Wise.
By Sidney Lumet / Nancy Buirski (2015). Don’t be expecting another typical biography. You know, childhood, first break, a run-through of all his greatest hits with comments from critics, actors, and co-workers. This is a 90-minute interview with Sidney Lumet with clips from his films shown as he talks about them. His is the only voice heard. The discussion doesn’t go in chronological order and never in depth about the films. Lumet talks about directorial philosophy and working methods rather than the nuts and bolts of film making. He says, for example, that he never starts out with the intention of teaching a Moral Message. If he concentrates on the script and acting then the moral message will come through. This is a bold and unusual approach but it doesn’t quite work, mainly, I think, because ultimately it doesn’t give us what we want to really learn from a non-fiction film about the life and work of a major American film director. Still, Lumet gives up plenty to think about.
…A watch straight through the 10 seasons of Doctor Who: New Series in anticipation of this year’s Christmas Special which will introduce us to the 13th Doctor:
Christmas Special. “The Christmas Invasion” December 25, 2005. The new (10th) Doctor, now played by David Tennant, gets his first full episode, even though he sleeps through about half of it while recovering from the effects of his regeneration. Unfortunately, the energy The Doctor gave off during his change attracted the attention of the Sycorax, a warlike race who move in to harvest Earth. Rose and Mickey (Noel Clarke), the boyfriend she left behind to travel with The Doctor, have to figure out What Would The Doctor Do when facing this peril. This episode, more comic than scary or suspenseful, is full of deadpan humor.
S.2 Ep. 1 “New Earth” April 15, 2006. The Doctor takes Rose to visit the planet of New Earth and the city of New New York. There, inside a hospital run by cat people nurses, they uncover a deadly secret and thousands of human clones who have never experienced the company of another human and have been infected with all known diseases, come out of their cubicles looking for hugs, but their touch is instant death.
S.2 Ep. 2 “Tooth And Claw” April 22, 2006. The Doctor, aiming the land the TARDIS in 1979 for a rock concert, arrive instead in 1879 Scotland where he and Rose meet Queen Victoria. She is on her way to a remote castle which has already been taken over by a religious brotherhood whose mission is to put their master, a powerful werewolf, on the throne of England. After about 15 minutes of exposition and set-up, the adventure goes into high gear. The breathless action never slows down until the very end when The Doctor puts all the pieces of the puzzle together and can face the deadly wolfman.
S.2 Ep. 3 “School Reunion” April 29, 2006. The Doctor reunites with Sarah Jane Smith (played by Elizabeth Sladen), one of the most popular companions from the Classic Era. Sarah Jane, a journalist, was the first independent New Woman to be a regular companion. Her tenure spanned the third and fourth Doctors in the 1970s. In the new episode, she and the Doctor are investigating a mysterious new headmaster at a high school. He and the new teachers are, of course, evil monsters from space who want to conquer the universe. Anthony Head from “Buffy” guest stars as Mr. Finch, leader of the invaders. It is all great fun with tongue firmly in cheek. Nominated for a Hugo Award.
S.2 Ep. 4 “The Girl In The Fireplace” May 6, 2006. The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey discover a deserted space ship from the 51st century with a time portal that opens onto 18th century France on Earth. The Doctor passes through the portal leaving Rose and Mickey to get into a world of trouble back on the ship. A fan favorite with a great script by the to-be showrunner and head writer (beginning with season 5) Steven Moffat. This won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, winning over “School Reunion.”