The Best Films Of 2012
The best films of 2012
This is not really a list of the best films of the year. Its
simply a list (in no order of preference of some really marvelous films that I
saw on dvd and that I wrote about in 2012. There were 100’s of
other films that I saw on dvd that I loved, liked or simply enjoyed that I
didn’t write about, and I also wrote reviews of many films that I hated or didn’t
like, but why dwell on those.
High and Low 1963
This 1963 Akira Kurosawa film opens on a widescreen tense
meeting taking place in the large modern living room of a mansion set high on a
hill over looking Yokohama. The men are executives in
National Shoe a successful company that manufactures woman’s footwear but is
having recent problems with profits. The discussion is getting heated between
the director played with Samurai like intensity by the great Toshiro Mifune and
the other top brass. They want to take over the the company from the old man
who owns most of the stock and they’re trying to convince Mifune to go in with
them add his shares to theirs so that a coup
can take place. Watching this scene take place you would think that this is going to be a corporate drama
and you would be right in thinking that. Kurosawa shoots this scene in long
takes, straight on and without much movement. His pictorial frame is mainly
made up of his characters in tight constricted groups with lots of space around
them, and an occasional extreme close-up, it’s almost like watching a play and
for a time nothing very dramatic happens. The men get testy with each other,
and Mifune finally throws them out with nothing settled between them. Sudenly a crime is commited, a kidnapping to
be exact, and the film changes course and becomes a taunt suspense thriller. I
don’t really want to give much plot because that will spoil the fun and enjoyment
of this terrific film. The original Japanese title was Heaven and Hell and
Kurosawa based the film on a pulp novel by Ed McBain called King’s Ransom. The
American title High and Low works better and can be seen as metaphors. The
house sits on a high hill while below people live in slums and poverty. Some of
the characters take the moral high ground while others sink to low standards.
For almost an hour into the films nearly 2 ½ hour running time, most of the
action is contained in the house, until the police enter the picture and the
game as they say is on. The film takes care of the kidnapping victim early on,
and the rest of this riveting film is a
manhunt to find the criminal. There are some great sequences and set pieces in
this film, one takes place on a speeding train, another is set in a crowded
interracial dance club and yet another places us in a drug alley with scary and
clawing junkies. The ending is also great, its abrupt, dramatic and perfect.
One of the 10 best films of the year.
erally and figuratively as Mifune
searches high and low for this stray dog. Looking through books of mug shots he
id’s a lady bad who was standing next to him in the bus reeking and stinking of
cheap perfume and follows her everywhere she goes until she can’t stand it any
longer and throws him a clue like a mercy fuck as to where he might find his
dog. Next up is a long audacious sequence that takes place in outdoor black
market that is photographed without dialogue as Mifune goes undercover,
(wearing an old army uniform no less) looking for black market gun dealers who
might give him a lead on the whereabouts of the criminal and his Colt.
Beautiful Mifune is so tired and depressed of the whole thing that he tries to
resign with a letter as big as one of the tablets that God threw at Moses, but
his superior rips it up and throws Mifune over to one of the old boys on the
homicide squad played by the great Takashi Shimura and they quickly bond and
start sweating together. Kurosawa throws another wonderful scene (There are
many of those in this great film) at us when Shimura takes Mifune home with him
for an evening of beer and deep conversation after visiting a Hoochie coochie
music hall full of very sweaty chorus girls in cheap costumes dancing in front
of a sad backdrop of hot shot New York City skyscrapers. They hope to get some
talk from one of the girls who is tangled up with the dog, but she ain’t
yapping, and once again Mifune stays on her case. This film is of course
influenced by American film noir and Italian Neo realistic films, but we never
lose sight of being in this stinking shit hole of a city shortly after it was
destroyed by all those bombs bursting in air. However Kurosawa doesn’t dwell on
the outer destruction, instead he hones in on the inner destruction that war
can have on the men who fought it and ties it up maybe too conveniently by
giving Mifune and the dog somewhat similar war experiences. A minor criticism
to be sure. If possible this film should be viewed on a hot humid August night
in a room without air conditioning so you can experience the new movie gimmick
that Kurosawa introduced to the world called sweat o vision. One of the ten
best films of 1949.
There’s No Business Like Show Business. 1954
This garish ,brash fun musical was made in the second year
of the cinemascope revolution and directed by 20th Century Fox’s in
house director Walter Lang. Lang who had a very long career that began with
silent films and went on directing
movies right up to 1961 with the
lowly and ludicrous Snow White and The
Three Stooges. He was a decent enough director and is mostly known for
directing Betty Grable and Alice Faye in all those interminable 1940’s
lavish musicals along with some Shirley Temple features. His biggest achievement to some was directing
The King And I for which he received his only Oscar nomination . No Biz as I shall refer to it is big in every
sense of the word and features a rousing cast, Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Mitzi
Gaynor, Donald O’Connor, Johnny Ray and Marilyn Monroe. The film chronicles the
life and career of a vaudeville couple played by Merman and Dailey who when the
film opens is singing and dancing their hearts out on the vaudeville circuit
circa 1919. They soon are having kids who also perform with them, and swiftly
grow up to become O’Connor, Gaynor and Ray. At first the look of the film
including the costumes tries to indicate the period but soon we are in a 1950’s
version of the 1920’s through the 1940’s. The film is cramped with movement and
color, and is lush with the wonderful music of Irving Berlin and a “sing out
Louise” Ethel Merman, who looks like an
over wrapped Christmas present. Lang’s use of the wide screen is rather
ordinary, a more
imaginative use of the process would have to wait for the likes of Nicholas
Ray, Sam Fuller and Vincente Minnelli to show us what could be done with it.
The costumes are also on the whole jaw dropping and look like they were
designed by Katy Keene the comic book fashionista of the 1950’s who by the way
I loved. The gals look like they were poured or sewed into them. There are the usual family trials and
tribulations that one associates with this kind of film, and it floats along
nicely but doesn’t really grab you until Monroe appears. She sizzles and shines
and does several great numbers including “After You Get What You Want You Don't
Want It” and the justly famous “Heat Wave” that was originally slated for
Merman, but was given to Monroe to entice her to come aboard the project. The finale with the entire cast singing
surrounded by lots of chorus boys and girls (every dancer worked that week in
Hollywood) is vividly colored and kinetic. The Two Mrs Carrolls. 1947
Somewhat creaky stage bound thriller starring Humphrey
Bogart as a psychopathic American painter living in England with his second
wife played by Barbara Stanwyck. Based on a play that had a decent run in the
early 40’s on Broadway, which explains its static boxed in look. Stanwyck
should have known better falling for Bogie but if she did then we wouldn’t have
a movie, so it’s all well and good. Short on logic and exposition, this Warner
Bros nearly B movie does have nice production values, and some good atmospheric
touches including lots of rain and windy nights. Stanwyck is a rich heiress,
(she’s British but Babs doesn’t even attempt an accent) who is madly in love
with Bogie, but who slowly realizes that he is completely nuts, (Don’t drink
that milk Babs) and that’s when the film picks up. Also on hand is a very
beautiful but nasty Alexis Smith who would like to become the third Mrs.
Carroll, Nigel Bruce as a country doctor, the marvelous Isobel Elsom as
Alexis’s bitchy mom and the lovely child actess Ann Carter, (you might recall
her as the haunted child in Curse of The Cat People) as Bogie’s daughter by the
first Mrs. Carroll. There are a few jolts near the end, which made me spill my
cranberry juice all over myself. Directed by the competent but
forgettable Peter Godfrey who was an in house B director at Warner Bros. In the
1940’s. Only available from the Warner Bros. Archive. Betrayed (when Strangers Marry) 1944
This is a really good and
cheap little Monogram thriller directed by of all people William Castle before
he became the gimmicky schlock master of Hollywood B's. The original title
"When Strangers Marry" was changed for some reason to Betrayed, and
this little thing is loaded with many nice touches. The story is about a very
sweet but naive young waitress played by Kim Hunter who comes to New York City to meet up with her mysterious husband who she
married after knowing him for only 3 days. A murder happens in Philadelphia
(why Philadelphia?) and her husband played by Dean Jagger in a rare romantic
lead is the main suspect. Kim spends most of the quick 67 minutes trying to
prove his innocence with the help of former boyfriend Robert Mitchum. As I said
its very cheap and somewhat sordid just they way I like my men and movies, so I
had a really good time with it. Influenced by Hitchcock and the films of Val
Lewton there are scenes set in movie theatres, an after hours jazz joint in
Harlem, various hotel rooms and paper thin New York Streets. The very young
Ronda Fleming has a tiny part at the end of the film Its available only through
the Warner bros. archive, and you might be able to get it from your library.
Point Blank 2011
No this is not a remake of the 1967 John Boorman classic,
but a trim fast and furious French thriller that comes in at a sparse 84
minutes and is without a dull moment. The film is about a nice youngish
couple, he’s a nurse’s aid in a big Paris hospital and she’s a stay at home
wife who is pregnant with the couple’s first child. Suddenly they find
themselves in a very dangerous situation that fuels the film, and that’s all
I’m going to say about the plot. Well directed by Fred Cavaye with smooth
camerawork by Alain Duplantier, and a good cast of actors, most of whom are
unknown to me, there is also a nice sly little homage to Diva near the end of
the film that brought a smile to my face. The film is violent, tough and tangy
and full of twists and surprises, this is the kind of thriller that Hollywood
should be making. One of the best films of 2011.
The Skin I Live In 2011
Smile 1975
Panic In The Streets 1950
is a tough tight, tangy exciting norish thriller about the
possibility of a plague hitting the city of New Orleans. The reason that this
is possible is because an illegal immigrant named Kochak brought it in via a
freighter and before he can actually die from it, he is shot down by some
criminal cronies of his who wants the money that he won in a card game. The
opening scene beautifully sets the action up and introduces us to the low lives
led by Walter Jack Palance in his movie debut as Blackie and his stooge played
by a bleating and sweating Zero Mostel. The two mensches of the film are a
police officer and a U.S. Public Health official played by Paul Douglas
and Richard Widmark ,who were two of Hollywood’s finest post war actors.
At first they are at each other’s throats over what to do about this
crisis, but they slowly come around to each other. They are both wrecks because
they have only 48 hours to find the trail and the infected parties who threated
the city, the country and the world with this Pneumonic plague. Directed with
beautiful style and assurance by Elia Kazan who had already won an Oscar in
1947 for Gentleman’s Agreement, and filmed mostly on location at night in a
dark and fetid New Orleans , this is not the city of and for tourists.
Everything looks wet, dirty and diseased. Blackie who has a rundown
Laundromat as a legitimate front (he should put his black soul in one of the
machines for a good cleaning) has it in his head that Kochak’s cousin Poldi who
is now also dying from the plague has something of value that Kochak passed on
to him, yeah it’s the plague moron, and pushes and pulls at him in order to
find out what the valuable merchandise might be. There is a shocking scene in
the film when Blackie who is trying to get the dying Poldi out of his house so
he can do terrible things to him to find out what he is hiding throws him down
a flight of stairs when he is confronted by Widmark. Kazan contrasts
these dark scenes with ones of light and softness between Widmark and his wife
played by the wonderful Barbara Bel Geddes and his young son played by Tommy
Rettig. Also of note is the final chase where the rat like Blackie tries to
escape his destiny and the beautiful inky black and white cinematography by Joseph
MacDonald and the pounding music score by Alfred Newman. Winner of best
original motion picture story Oscar . One of the ten best films of the year.
biographical
and complex in its characters and narrative. We see these big young Italian
calves hanging and acting out on the lower eastside of New York City with the
focus on J.R. played by an impossibly young Harvey Keitel who is between jobs
as he says, and is both sensitive and sterile in his emotions and feelings.
J.R. simply does not know how to handle relationships outside of his small
circle of all male friends even though we can see that he longs for something
more than what he has. This is expressed best when J.R. and two other friends
take a car ride upstate New York and are like fish out of water, but Keitel’s
reaction to seeing a beautiful landscape probably for the first time from the
top of a mountain seems to mesmerize him, it’s almost like he’s having an
epiphany. The film really begins when riding the Staten Island ferry one night
he meets the Madonna of his dreams Zina Bethune who is reading a French
magazine, even though she can’t read French. They strike up a conversation that
is awkward and real. Here Scorsese throws in a wonderful reference to “The
Searchers” and John Wayne, and later has the couple leaving the old Beacon
Theatre on the upper west side after seeing Rio Bravo. They fall in love, but
when Zina opens up about her scared past Keitel goes ballistic and ruins their
relationship. The themes, images and indeed characters presented here in stark
black and white will over the years show up over and over again in Scorsese’s
films. The movie is also notable for being film editor Thelma Schoonmaker’s
first film and the use of rock n roll songs for the soundtrack a technique that
Scorsese would use in some of his later films.
Kings Row 1942
Chances are good that if you mentioned the name of director
Sam Wood to someone, you would be met with a blank stare. But it turns out that Wood was responsible
for some big box office hits of Hollywood’s golden years not too mention some
of the most entertaining ones. Films of his included A Day At The Races,
Goodbye Mr. Chips, The Devil And Miss Jones, Pride of The Yankees, For Whom The
Bell Tolls, Our Town and 1942’s Kings
Row. Based on a big novel about small town life at the beginning of the 20th
century by Henry Bellamann, and I guess you could look at it as a precursor to
Peyton Place. It included all sorts of issues that one would think would make
it impossible to film in 1942. The novel included incest, insanity,
nymphomania, sadism and homosexuality all of which were taboo topics back in
1942 when Warner Bros. tackled the making of this film. Watered down somewhat, and with much of the
forbidden subjects either played down or totally eliminated, (the sadism
element is in the film), the movie still had enough implied hot and forbidden stuff behind its closed doors to hold 1940’s movie
goers in rapt attention. The film opens with a beautiful traveling shot of
children leaving school in the small town of Kings Row and we are soon introduced
to the four young leads who will later grow up and become the main characters
of the piece. Some of the dark secrets are also hinted at in this early part of
the film nestled among the bucolic setting of small town life which will later
hang in the air with dire consequences for all concerned. The cast was good,
and especially fine were Ronald Reagan, (yes Ronald Reagan) Ann Sheridan (ah Ann) and Betty Field all of
whom have strong, indelible moving moments and scenes including Reagan’s famous
where’s the rest of me bit. The only
actor who falls way too short is Robert Cummings who was not capable of
bringing much depth or shading to the lead role of Parris Mitchell. It’s a
shame that they didn’t cast an actor with more charisma in this part.
Originally Tyrone Power was talked about, but his home studio 20th
Century Fox balked at this idea and would not let him do it, a shame because he
would have been far more believable and infinitely more attractive in the role
than Cummings. The film is beautiful to
look at with great cinematography by James Wong Howe and classy set design by
the great William Cameron Menzies. Also of note is the brilliant and memorable
score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and I
couldn’t help picking out parts of the score that reminded me of John
Williams’s score for Star Wars, and made me think Mr. Williams was strongly
influenced by it. The marvelous supporting cast included Claude Raines, Charles Colburn, Judith
Anderson and Maria Ouspenskaya. The ending which is somewhat abrupt and hokey
doesn’t take away from this example of elegant Hollywood movie making at its
very best. Nominated for 3 Oscars
including one for best picture of 1942.
James Ellroy’s Feast
Of Death. 2001
Homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic, right winger and hater of the Kennedys and the Clintons,
he’s also one of the best writers working today in the crime detective genre.
This rabid pit bull bully can be intimidating and I honestly don’t know that I
would like him if I ever met him, but as a writer I generally do. That being
said and out of the way I can spend some time writing about this compelling
documentary about James Ellroy and his dark fascination with the horrible
murder of his mother when he was 10 and the Black Dahlia murder case that has
held his interest for many years. Both murders are capital letters L.A. crimes. Palm trees and cheap road
houses, booze, cars and Hollywood starlets fast and loose and both remain
unsolved to this day. Ellroy has been sparked
and goosed by these two murders and they have fueled several books by him and
made him a wealthy man. Good for him. Murder does pay. The movie shows him
giving bookstore readings, (he sure has his shtick down pat), having dinner
with L.A. detectives, revisiting his mother’s murder, and cruising by his past
checking and pointing out childhood landmarks of his youth in L.A. He was a bad
boy. He would sneak into homes when empty and smell the panties of the young
girls who lived there. Junkie and alcoholic at a young age and a champion
voyeur in his teens. This guy was brilliantly fucked up, and he survived all
this shit to tell us the story of his mother who he loved and hated and to
spell and spill out her tawdry life for us. The film is sometimes grisly as
when we are shown crime photos of his mom lying dead on the side of a road, and
especially those horrible photos of Elizabeth Short all chopped up in pieces
with the blood drained out of her and a sardonic smile carved into her once
pretty face. This stuff hurts, it’s a rolling bolder coming at us at high
speed, and believe me this documentary is not for everyone, hell it might not
be for anyone, but hey if you’re up for it and can handle your nightmares that
poke at you even during the day, then I say see this bitch of a movie but don’t
come crying to me afterwards.
Summertime. 1955
This is the one about a lonely spinster from Ohio who takes
a long planned trip to Venice and immediately falls in love not only with the
city but with a dashing and charming antiques dealer. The spinster is played
with charm and subtly by Katharine Hepburn who would be starting the vivid 2nd
half of her remarkable film career with the playing of this kind of role. One
can of course point to 1951’s The African Queen as the real starting point of
her spinster roles but as we all know that film turns out to have a happy fairy
tale ending, Summertime doesn’t. Her lover is played by the very appealing and
good looking Rossano Brazzi, and there is also a good small supporting
cast that adds to the charm of the film. Of course the other star of the film
is the city of Venice and David Lean and the great cinematographer Jack
Hildyard capture the beauty of this place in vivid and stunning color shots and
scenes. This film also marks the end of David Lean’s marvelous character driven
small chamber pieces (a good bookend to the film would be his great 1945 film
Brief Encounter which has a lot in common with Summertime, including that both
of these strong heterosexual love stories were penned by gay men, (but that’s a
whole other topic). After this film Lean would embark on his large
scale epics that would consume the rest of his brilliant career with mixed
results. I love this film and have made a point of seeing it at least once a
year, I simply never tire of it, and I’m always left sobbing uncontrollably at
the final scene. Hepburn is perfect in it, and her somewhat at times irritating
mannerisms tics and tocks have not fully made themselves at home in
her acting persona. Watching her deal with her loneliness and self- consciousness
as she sits by herself in a café in the Plaza San Marco is for me a gateway
into mine own sometimes sadness and loneliness that’s how good she is in this
role. There can be critiques made of the clichéd portrayals of the boring,
silly and overbearing American couple who dash about this remarkable city as if
they were in some department store, and the overly cute little street urchin
who takes Hepburn by surprise and charms and delights her, but these
criticisms are minor and some might even say that they are needed clichés
and who cares when you realize how glorious and captivating this film is. I’ve
mentioned the beautiful cinematography by Hildyard (the Criterion transfer is
breathtaking) and I would also like to point out the superb music score by
Alessandro Cicognini. Also in the cast are Darren McGavin as an American
painter and Isa Miranda as the owner of the pensione that Hepburn is staying
at. Based on Arthur Laurent’s play The Time Of The Cuckoo that was later turned
into the 1965 musical “Do I Hear A Waltz” with music by Richard Rodgers and
lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. It was a dismal failure and ran for only 220
performances. One of the ten best films of 1955. 
Delirious Delirium. On a streamlined Technicolor drenched
train going to New Mexico, a young author (played by the very handsome Cornel
Wilde) catches the very lovely Gene Tierney reading his latest novel, and
starts swooning and mooning all over the place. Gene looks up from her reading
and is mesmerized by the sheer beauty of Cornel Wilde and before you know it,
they are flirting wild and wooly 1945 style and Gene tells Cornel how much he
reminds her of her dear dead daddy, of course when her daddy was young and not
dead and acting as if she doesn’t realize that Cornel is the author of the
book. This is the pivotal line and scene
of this hot house woman’s movie with a blood red streak running through it, and
it warns us the audience that there is going to be a lot of trouble and plot
coming down the line. Off to a cute start the two realize that they are
visiting the same person in New Mexico played by Ray Collins and that Gene is
meeting her family there to spread around the desert the ashes of her father
who died a few years before, thus setting up one of the great camp scenes of
the entire decade. Gene early one
morning madly rides out on a horse to the desert throwing her father’s ashes
all over the place looking beautiful and possessed as she does the throwing.
Collins who is a lawyer friend of everyone (and who tells the story in a
flashback) lives in this fantastic house with a swimming pool carved what looks
like out of the side of a mountain that abuts the house, and looks like it just
goes on forever and ever. Water plays a big symbolic role in this movie. Gene
Quickly gets her shinny red fingernails into Cornell and within the hour she
dumps her boring fiancée played with over cooked hilarity by the hammy Vincent
Price and marries Cornel. Off to the side is her standoffish mother, who knows
more about her daughter than we do, and her sweet half sister played by Jeanne
Crain who of course is secretly in love with Cornel. Soon bad things start to
happen; all instigated by Gene who we finally realize is fucking nuts, and is
jealous of anyone who throws her lovely lovey dovey even a glance including her
innocent virginal half-sister and Cornel’s dependent sweet young disabled
brother played with earnest adulation for big brother Cornel by Darryl
Hickman. Gene is acting crazy jealous
and in another one of the great camp scenes of the 40’s, she lets little
brother drown one lazy afternoon while they are out rowing on a lake in Maine.
Tierney who got her only Oscar nomination for this film no doubt impressed the
academy with this scene in which she
dons her sunglasses to block out her eyes from us as she coldly watches little
Darryl get a cramp and disappear under the water. This ain’t no nice Laura from
the year before and more nasty and nutty behavior follows with Gene wearing
fabulous clothes, hats, robes, and shoes and I promised myself that I would not
give away any more of the plot of this
overripe tomato that ends in a ludicrous trial. This is a film that has to be
seen to be believed. Directed by John M. Stahl who was known for his women’s
movies including the original Imitation Of Life and Magnificent Obsession, both
later remade in the 1950’s by Douglas Sirk.
Winner of the Oscar for Color Cinematography. 
A masterpiece. Set in the 1950’s and early 60’s in a
teeming slum of Montreal (the film is in French with subtitles) this magical
yet realistic and poetic autobiographical film about childhood was directed by
Jean-Claude Lauzon who died in a plane crash in
1997, that he was piloting. This was only his 2nd film. By all accounts Lauzon
was a troubled and difficult man, and it is said that he lost his chance of
winning the Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Leolo because he made a
crude sexual advance towards Jamie Lee Curtis who was one of the judges that
year. That may be, but happily we still have this beautiful yet difficult film
to cherish. The movie concerns the troubled childhood of Leo Lauzon, who tells
everyone to call him Leolo Lozone because he has this wild idea that he is
Sicilian and was born when his mother became pregnant by a tomato filled with
the sperm of an Italian farmer, how the sperm got into the tomato is shown in a
scene that opens this fantastical film. The whole movie is a mixture of damp,
deep and dirty realism with large dollops of fantasy and magic and after all
weren’t all our childhoods somewhat like that? Leolo’s family has big mental
health and dysfunctional problems which at one point in heartbreaking scenes
lands the entire large family in the local mental hospital. Leolo who is a
brilliant and talented boy fills notebooks with his poetic writings about his
family, but has only one book to read, left by a mysterious old man called the
Word Tamer who lives in a strange house filled with books and objects of art
who encourages Leolo in his writings, and who comes and goes throughout the
film like a poetic ghost. Also living in the cramped apartment are Leolo’s two
troubled sisters one who is obese and tends to hang out in the basement
obsessively brushing her surrounded by her large collection of insects, and a
bullied older brother who takes up strenuous weight lifting in order to protect
himself from the neighborhood bully but as Leolo in voice over says when his
brother is once again beaten up "That day I understood that fear lived in
our deepest being, and that a mountain of muscles or a thousand soldiers
couldn't change a thing." There is also the randy grandfather who lusts
after the beautiful young Sicilian girl living next door, and who Leolo blames
for his family’s mental disorders. Both grandfather and grandson try to kill
each other off in several offbeat and somewhat shocking scenes. Then there is
the mother, overweight, a portable moving mountain, loving, warm and the only
member of the family who doesn’t fall into mental disarray, wonderfully played
by the great Ginette Reno. Some might find several of the scenes and images off
putting (there are a number of scatological sequences and some sexual episodes
including one with a piece of raw liver and another involving a cat, but as I
said this is a damp, deep and dirty film with large portions of humor and
sadness. The performances are all wonderful especially that of Maxime Collin
who fearlessly and endearingly plays Leolo. Also of note is the eclectic
musical soundtrack that includes Tibetan chants, Tom Waits and the Rolling
Stones. One of the ten best films of 1992.
Anatomy of a Murder 1959
Its 53 years ago this July that Anatomy Of A Murder opened
in New York City at The Criterion Theatre, and even though I was only 12 years
old, the film caught my attention. The main reason for this attention grabbing
was the bold logo for the film of a cut up body that was designed by the great
Saul Bass. I had no idea who he was, even though I had been seeing his designs
for titles and ads for a few years. But this one was different, it inspired me.
It made me want to be creative, to spend my life making things. I didn’t
understand really what graphic design was or for that matter what art really
was, but I knew that I wanted to do something with my imagination. I wanted to
be an artist. The film of course was taboo and out of bounds for me to see.
There was trouble with the censors over some words that Preminger refused to
change or take out, but in the end he did make one change using the word violation
instead of penetration. And then there was the big brouhaha over the
use of the words panties and bitch, hard to imagine so much controversy over
these words today. This was not going to be a Saturday afternoon movie
outing for me at my neighborhood Loew’s eating my popcorn and drinking my coke.
Just the year before at 11 years of age I was turned away from an afternoon
showing of “Some Came Running”, and I finally had to wait to until my Mom took
me to see it on a Friday night. I wanted to see “Anatomy” as I referred to it
when talking it up with my mother at the Criterion, but this didn’t happen and
I had to wait until it was on the 3rd run Neighborhood circuit at
the lousy run down Beverly Theatre on Church Avenue. I sat in the darken
balcony watching the movie in shock and awe with smoke from my mother’s Raleigh
cigarettes swirling all around me. This was an adult movie, a sleazy murder and
trial based on a real incident that took place in some backwoods small time
town in Michigan. We never see the actual murder nor the alleged rape, there
would be no movie if we did, but I was still engrossed by what was happening on
that screen. I finally repaid a visit to this childhood film of mine via
the beautiful Criterion transfer. Directed with assurance by Otto Preminger
(this is to my mind his last good film) and superbly acted by an impeccable
cast including James Stewart, Lee Remick, Eve Arden, Arthur O’Connell, Ben
Gazzar, George C. Scott and in an imaginative touch of casting Joseph N.
Welch as the presiding judge. Welch was the head counsel for the army
during the Army-McCarthy-Army hearings and scolded McCarthy with his statement
“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of
decency?” which was the beginning of the end for the evil senator from
Wisconsin. The film starts with the superb title sequence by Bass with the
great Duke Ellington score laid over it and pounding away. We are soon
introduced to James Stewart in a smooth tracking shot driving home after one of
his many fishing trips. Steward plays an ambiguous lawyer and bachelor Paul
Biegler, (Polly to his friends) who lives in a rundown smudged house (this was
the real life home of the author of the book John D. Voelker who was a sitting
judge and wrote novels under the pen name of Robert Traver). Soon we also meet
his much put upon and rarely paid secretary-assistant played by the great Eve
Arden, and his rummy ex-lawyer friend played perfectly by Arthur O’Connell who
rises to the occasion when asked by Stewart for his help. There is a message
waiting for Stewart asking him to call Laura Manion whose husband a
lieutenant in the army played by an intense Ben Gazzara is in jail awaiting
trial for the murder of a bar owner who allegedly raped his wife played by the
luminous and sexy Lee Remick. The film is lavish and leisurely with its
exposition and not very mobile with most of the second half of the film taking
place in the courtroom. The fun of the film, (and it is fun) comes from
watching the actors strut their stuff especially when Stewart goes up against
the big hot shot city prosecutor Claude Dancer played with oily presence by the
terrific George C. Scott in this his 2nd film, and watching Lee
Remick throw her sexual attractiveness around with loose abandonment as if she
is saying to us I know what I got, and I’m going to spend it while I can.
Filmed on location where the actual story took place with terrific black and
white cinematography by Sam Leavitt. The film is ambiguous and the ending
is swift, cynical and hard. One of the years 10 Best Films, Best Supporting
Actor Arthur O’Connell and Best Supporting Actress Lee Remick.
The Stranger 1946
Supposedly Orson Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead to play the
part of Wilson the Nazi hunter, but the studio balked at this idea and the role
went to Edward G. Robinson. Last night as I watched this very good thriller
visions of Agnes doing this part danced in my head. And as good as Robinson is
in it, I find the idea of Moorehead doing it is so tantalizing. The film
which I’ve seen many times (usually in bad public domain transfers) is
generally put down by critics and by Welles himself, as being lesser
Welles but I find it visually exciting (Its Orson Welles after all) and a
damn good thriller with some serious implications. Made right after the war,
the plot concerns Robinson’s search to bring to justice a Nazi war criminal
known as Franz Kindler who he traces (with the help of another Nazi who is
purposefully allowed to escape from prison so he can lead Robinson to him) to a
small bucolic town in Connecticut. It’s a sweet town with a church and a broken
clock that is really another a character in the film, and will in the end bring
Kindler literally to his fall from grace. Kindler is played by Welles who has assimilated
himself into the town’s fabric and life by getting a teaching job in a preppy
boy’s school and marrying the good looking daughter of a Supreme Court justice
who also lives in the town. Welles uses Christianity to counter the dark forces
of Nazism by the use of the church that looms over the town and by having
Kindler who is an expert on clocks work on repairing the broken medieval clock
in his spare time. Welles and his screenwriter even give Biblical names to
three of the main characters, and has the escaped Nazi Konrad Meinike who meets
a bad end at the hands of Kindler find spiritual rejuvenation by embracing
Jesus Christ. There are some memorable scenes including one in which Welles who
has killed Meinike in the woods frantically (watch how Welles moves in this
scene) tries to cover up his murder of him while some of his students are
running a paper chase and Welles desperately tries to pick up the tossed papers
and change the path that the runners are taking so they do not stumble on the
freshly murdered body. The cast is good. Besides Welles and Robinson the
duped daughter is played by a terrific Loretta Young, and her brother is played
by the young and handsome Richard Long who Robinson enlists in his plans to
bring Kindler to justice. Also terrific is the little known character actor
Billy House who plays the proprietor of the town’s drug store and soda fountain
who prefers to sit in his comfy chair hustling people to play chess with
him then wait on customers who are told to get what they need themselves
including food and drink at the lunch counter. The film is also notable for
being the first commercial film to use actual footage of the concentration
camps, and Russell Metty’s rich black and white nourish cinematography that has
been beautifully restored for this dvd release. One of the ten best films of
1946. Sudden Fear 1952
If
you can accept the premise of Joan Crawford as a very successful and rich
playwright and Jack Palance as a romantic lead, then you should be able to
enjoy this twisty but somewhat ludicrous femme jep movie from the early 50’s.
Joan who was 47 at the time and approaching her gorgon period plays as I said a
hot playwright who is also an heiress with a large home in San Francisco where
most of the movie takes place. The film opens with a rehearsal of her new play
in New York, with Jack Palance playing the lead. Joan has qualms about him not
being romantic enough (read handsome) to play the part and has him fired. So of course on the cross country train ride
that Joan is taking back home to San Francisco after the play opens to smash
reviews, who should also be on the train but none other than Jack. Joan is all
so sorry for firing him, and before you know it they’re playing poker and
having breakfast as the train speeds on to the city by the bay. Well Joan of
course falls madly in love with Jack and soon they’re in montages taking in the
sights, and dining and dancing in all the hot spots. And then they get married and its darling
this and darling that until Joan discovers by accident a devious plot Jack is
hatching with his old girlfriend played with hellish relish by Gloria Grahame,
all blonde and bad. Joan who has had many moments of over the top acting in her
career really soars in this one and I
swear at one point I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head. Palance who excelled at playing villains
throughout his long career simply gives away the show by being well Jack
Palance. What with his unattractive face that looks like a cubist portrait with
mud thrown on it, or a bruised boxer’s mug, and in fact one of his famous roles
was as the battered fighter in “Requiem For A Heavyweight” that he did on
Playhouse 90 in 1956 andh e does have a down and dirty animal magnetism that
works well in his scenes with Grahame (kiss me, kiss me hard she moans to
Palance). The film is a bit slow and
tedious in parts, because there’s so much plot but the last hour is good and
goosy with a beautifully done if improbable ending. Smoothly directed by David
Miller who began his career directing sports shorts like “Table Tennis”,
“Hurling,” “Racing Canines”, and “Aquatic Artistry” and went on to direct
feature films most notably “Lonely Are The Brave” in 1962. With a good thumping
score by Elmer Bernstein, and cinematography by the great Charles Lang who
received an Oscar nomination for his work.
Also Oscar nominations for costume, Actress and supporting actor. Surprisingly considering that this is a Kino
release both the sound and the transfer leave much to be desired.
The Eclipse 2009
This is a good little ghost story with a nice literary sub
plot thrown in for good measure. Set in a small beautiful coastal town in
Ireland during a literary festival where Ciaran Hinds lives and works as a
woodworking teacher. He also loves literature and has a secret passion to
become a writer himself, and does volunteer work for the festival every year
which usually includes driving the visiting authors around the town. His wife
has just died from Cancer a few months earlier and he is alone now with his two
pre-teen children. Into the mix comes two authors the well know and
insufferable Nicholas Holden played with
believable nastiness by Aidan Quinn and Iben Hjejle An attractive Danish actress who is new to me who plays an
author of supernatural books. There is a messy tangled old story involving the
married Quinn with Hjejle who appears to have had a one night stand a few years
back. Quinn wants to get back into her life, but she doesn’t want to have
anything to do with him, and who can blame her.
Ciaran who passes the time being spooked by spooks and driving Ms Hjejle
around the picturesque Irish landscape start to bond with her as they open up
with each other, and this drives the jealous Quinn up the wall, and finally one
night there is a rather nasty confrontation between the three of them. That’s
the romantic side of the film, and it paces itself nicely jogging along side by
side with the ghost story which by the way gave me a few jolts and isn’t this
what a good ghost story should do. I had never heard of the film, until it came
up as a recommendation on Netflix and I’m glad I took their word for it.
Directed and co written by the well known Irish playwright Conor McPherson the
performances are all very good. Hinds has long been a favorite actor of mine,
scraggly and built like a piece of granite rock and looking like a cross
between a Saul Steinberg and H..C. Westermann
drawing he won the best actor award at the Tribeca Film Fesival for his
performance. The movie itself is short but not so sweet running about 90
minutes.
Margaret 2011
Saw this film last week and I’m still thinking about it.
Directed and written by Kenneth Lonergan whose first film was “You Can Count on
Me,” which was a good small complex film about relationships.
Margaret is also complex and is also about relationships but is more ambitious
than YCCM, which can be seen as one of its flaws. The film had many
problems and several lawsuits on its long journey to fruition
mostly having to do with the editing process, and was finally taken over
with Lonergan’s blessing by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker before
getting a long delayed release and a running time of nearly 2 ½” hours. The
movie tells the story of a somewhat self centered spoiled upper west side
private school 17 year old played convincingly by Anna Panquin, who was 23 when
the film started shooting in 2005 and some might say she was pushing the age
envelope, but Anna pulls it off and delivers a very good performance. Her
character’s name is Lisa, not Margaret and she is flirty, flighty and furious;
usually with her mother who is an actress and is just about to open in an off
Broadway play. Along with her younger brother they share a surprisingly small
apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where most of the film takes
place. One day while behaving foolishly she witnesses a horrible accident
for which she is partly to blame and her life drastically changes. Her
dealings with practically everyone she comes into contact with are troublesome,
and because of this the film is layered with tension and dread. The film
sprawls and sometimes stalls across the city and is somewhat Operatic in tone
and style with opera itself playing an important supporting role. The cast is very
good and impressive including the great Allison Janney in a small crucial
heartbreaking scene, J. Cameron Smith as her much put upon mother, Mark Ruffalo
, Matt Damon, Jean Reno, Mathew Broderick, Rosemarie DeWitt and in what I
consider the best supporting female performance of 2011 Jeannie Berlin. And
just to clear something up because I kept waiting for this Margaret chick to
show up, the Margaret of the title comes from a poem “Spring and Fall,” by
Gerard Manley Hopkins, which was written to a young girl named Margaret and is
recited in Lisa’s English class . One of the ten best films of 2011.
Notorious 1946
If a film student asked me to
recommend a movie for them to watch to learn the rudiments of movie making I
would not hesitate to tell them to watch this classic Alfred Hitchcock film.
Everything about this mo vie, which by the way I saw again the other
night for maybe the 5th time is perfection, from the great Ben Hecht script, to
the cinematography and of course Hitchcock’s direction and the superb
performances by Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman both of whom were at the peak of
their beauty and talent. The plot is typical Hitchcock that touches on themes
that have occupied him for pretty much his entire impressive career, and I’ll
try to give away as little of the story as I can so that first time viewers of
the film can feast on it without knowing too much about the plot. The story
involves espionage and the efforts of a secret agency of the United States
(think O.S.S. ) to find out what a rogue group of Nazi’s are up to in Rio de
Janeiro. Its just after the war and this band of nasty Nazi’s is headed by
Claude Rains (brilliant and Oscar nominated) who lives in a very large mansion
with his mother from hell played with relish by Leopoldine Konstatin who gives
a marvelous scary performance and is the first of Hitchcock’s long list of
mommy horrors. Grant plays an agent who must get Ingrid Bergman to work with
them to find out what the Nazi’s are up to and he pushes her to come into the
mix because of her family ties, you see her father was a Nazi spy who she hated
and also at one time she had Rains eating out of the palm of her hand and
falling madly in love with her. Bergman of course is no Nazi but she is one
hell of a play girl and a nasty drunk (in the original story that the film is
based on she was actually a prostitute) who loves a good time and makes no
bones about it. Here is Madonna Bergman who just a year earlier was playing a
nun in The Bells of St. Mary and is now playing against type a bad girl (she
also played another bad girl in 1946 in Saratoga Trunk). In real life this
Madonna was a few years away from playing to some a real life bad girl, cast
away for more than a decade by Hollywood for her life choices but that’s
another story. Grant is also playing against type oh he’s still suave and
debonair but he’s also a cold son of a bitch who tosses Bergman left and right
to make sure she plays by his rules. The film has several famous sequences
including the long erotic kissing scene between Bergman and Grant that begins
on a balcony overlooking a process shot Rio and moves inside to answer a
ringing phone, the incredible crane tracking shot that begins high above an
elegant party and then swoops down to an important key prop and the very taunt
and suspenseful wine cellar scene with the Hitchcockian MacGuffin sitting on a
shelf. In the end of course Grant finally becomes Cary and Bergman Ingrid and
this very entertaining and smooth romantic thriller comes to a satisfying end.
Also with the always terrific Louis Calhern as the laid back boss of Grant’s
and the complex cinematography is by Ted Tetzlaff . One of the ten best films
of 1946.Deception 1946
The first thing we see
after the credits is a rain soaked (there is a lot of rain in this film) street
with a close up of a pair of woman’s gams rushing towards an imposing building.
The legs belong to Bette Davis, and the building is a Warner Bros. Back lot
concert hall. Bette is rushing to catch a concert by a long lost love of hers
who she thought long dead during the war in Europe and is shocked to find that
Paul Henreid is alive and kicking and playing his heart out on his cello “I
thought you were dead” Bette gushes and cries in that unique tone of hers to
Henreid in his dressing room after the concert. Thus starts this early post war
woman’s melodrama about love lost, found and then finally lost for good. I wish
the rest of the film that was directed by Irving Rapper was as good as the
opening scene, but it’s not, still there are pleasures to be found. The chief
one of course is Claude Rains who is his usually brilliant self as the
narcissistic overbearing and controlling composer named Alexander
Hollenius who Bette (she’s also a musician, I know I know) had a long
affair with and has been kept by him like a pet in a lavish loft in a big
midtown building. Bette tries to keep this secret from Henreid who she marries
in like 10 minutes after being reunited with him and of course this is what
pushes the plot and gives us title of the film. The director and his three
stars are reunited here from the much better film “Now Voyager” that they
did in 1942, but hey listen Deception is not all that bad with its mixture of
classical musical, deceit, lavish expressionistic sets , cinematography
and murder. Davis who was winding down her long career at Warner Bros. still
had a few great performances in her most notably of course “All About Eve” in
1950 but basically this film can be seen as her swan song as a glamorous
leading lady. The beautiful inky black and white noirish cinematography (even
the shadows have shadows) is by the great Ernest Haller, and the impressive
expressionistic art direction is by the equally great Anton Grot. Not a great
film but still fun for a gloomy rainy night.
Marwencol. 2010
Deeply moving documentary about a
man Mark Hogencamp who one night when leaving a bar in his upstate New York
town is beaten up by 5 cowards, and is thrown into a coma for 9 days and a
hospital stay of 40 days. His memory is pretty much gone, but he survives and
begins his own form of therapy by making up and building in his yard an
imaginary town in Belgium (the title of the film) which is a combination of his
first name and the names of two women who he has crushes on. The time for his
tableau non vivant is World War II and he peoples the town with action figure
and Barbie dolls and names some after friends and relatives which he then
places in provocative and sometimes violent scenes and then photographs them.
Mark is a sweet and gentle soul, who was alcoholic before his beating and has
lost all fondness for the booze but still has a strong lifelong inclination for
cross dressing which might have been the reason for his beating; it seems that
upstate bigots don’t care for guys who like to get dressed in woman’s clothes.
All indications given is that Mark is straight, loves women, but likes wearing
high heels and an occasional dress as he goes about playing with his dolls and
photographing them. I was very taken with this self-taught very outsider artist
and his make believe worlds, and like any good fairy tale it ends on a happy
note with Mark being discovered and having a show in a New York City gallery
where at the opening he happily dons a pair of heels and is gleefully and
figuratively embraced by the gallery patrons.The Crimson Kimono 1959
Pulp friction. Made in 1959 and running a tight 82 minutes,
film brut Sam Fuller’s The Crimson Kimono opens with an aerial nighttime shot
of Los Angles, with a caption telling us where we are that comes shooting at us
in bold letters like a newspaper headline. Fuller then puts us outside an
actual cheap Burlesque theatre on main street and soon we are inside watching a
somewhat zaftig over the hill stripper named Sugar Torch doing her act to some
loud jazzy jittery music. Fuller then
follows her off stage and as she opens her dressing room door we catch a
glimpse of a figure who fires shots at her, and this sets poor sugar off and
running down the street where her killer soon catches up with her and shoots
her down dead. This is a fabulous opening done without dialogue and shot on
location in a long tracking shot by the great Sam Levitt and sets the tone for
the rest of the movie. Much of the film of course concerns the hunt for
the killer but Fuller drapes this murder mystery over a story of interracial love that was way
ahead of it’s time.and peppers it with
an intense male bonding friendship between two cops played by the very good and
sensitive actor James Shigeta and an all American cute as a button Glenn
Corbett. The guys met in Korea where they shared a fox hole and some blood that
literally saved the life of one of them. Now in L.A. they share an apartment
and most of their free time together that has a lurking homoerotic touch to it.
In fact Curtis Hanson on the dvd supplement goes as far as to call it a love
story between the two of them. But let’s
not get too excited because although there is a love story sandwiched between
the murder plot, it’s a triangle between them and a woman artist who is a prime
key to the murder. The artist named Chris at one time painted a portrait of
Sugar wearing a kimono and might have some information on who put out Sugar’s
torch. Chris is played by the trim,
proper, attractive but dull late 50’s starlet Victoria Shaw who is the complete
opposite of another artist in the film Mac played by Anna Lee (very good) who
is Alcoholic and vibrant (she spits beer on her large abstract paintings),where
Shaw is cold and aloof. Its
Interestingly I guess that both females in the film have male names (this is
not the first time fuller has given his females characters male names or
nicknames) and the Lee character is
another strong but flawed motherly type that Fuller favors in many of his
films. Joe the James Shigeta character is smart and sensitive (he even plays
the piano) but has problems dealing with his Japanese American heritage and has
huge conflicts over his love for Chris and his perceived notions of hurting his
best friend who also has feelings for her. This is where the friction comes in.
It’s there between the two friends, and it’s there within Shigeta who has
self-doubts and feelings of persecution that threatens his relationships with
Chris and Corbett. Fuller fills his scenes with lots of good details, and the
on location shooting of a now gone L.A. also helps to give the film a good
tangy feel. As usual with many unappreciated B’s at the time, this one was
dumped on a double bill with “Battle of The Coral Sea” that starred Cliff
Robinson who would give what I consider to be his best performance two years
late in Fuller’s “Underworld U.S.A.
Thanks to the recent arrival of the film on dvd in a very nice transfer
audiences can now discover this little seen Sam Fuller film for themselves. One
of the ten best films of 1959
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