The 13 Best Films of 2013
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 2013. These are not my complete reviews, instead they are excerpts and links to the complete reviews are included if you want to read the complete review. 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.
Night and the city 1950
Scurrying across the streets and alleys of post war London
Noir nights like a rat is Harry Fabian played by Richard Widmark who is always
on the run from hoods and creditors he owes money to. Based on a Gerald Kersh
novel Night and the City was directed by the black listed and also on the run,
the hunted and haunted Jules Dassin. Widmark plays a two bit schemer always on
the make and always on the look out for his 2nd act, which of course
never comes. Everything he touches instead of turning to gold turns to shit
including his one sided romance with his naive girlfriend played by an unlikely
Gene Tierney. Set among the seamy underworld
of dives, dumps and sewers with bars in them and peopled by a wide assortment
of colorful low lives, the best one being Philip Nosseross played by the great
Frances L. Sullivan who brings a
feeling of Dickens to the film because of the several films he did that were
based on his works. Dassin also brings to the film a big helping of Fritz Lang
and Brecht, think of M and The Three Penny Opera.
The Rise and Fall Of Legs
Diamond 1960
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http://wwwirajoelcinemagebooks.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-rise-and-fall-of-legs-diamond-1960.html
Made on the cheap this is
an entertaining if somewhat
fictionalized look at the life of Legs Diamond that was directed by Budd
Boetticher who is best known for his minimal elegiac westerns that he made with
Randolph Scott. As I said it was made cheaply and it shows in the back lot sets
and the on again off again look of the period, which takes place in the 1920’s
but has the look and feel of the late 50’s in style, sets and costumes. Cast as Diamond the nasty and unfeeling
gangster is the very handsome but wooden Ray Danton who does the best he can
with the role considering his limitations as an actor. There are a couple of memorable sequences
in the movie especially the one where Diamond mows down 3 would be assassins
from a tenement window and Boetticher shows them laid out in the street which
makes for a well known still that usually pops up in books on the gangster
crime genre. The other well known sequence is a clever montage like series of
scenes of Diamond and Steele (who he finally married not out of love but to
prevent her from testifying against him) on a vacation in Europe to avoid the
heat coming down on him that consists of the two of them bored watching movie
newsreels in various capitals that show the changes in the criminal underworld
including the downfall of Mayor Jimmy Walker and the imprisonment of Al Capone
for tax evasion. Diamond who shows more and more discomfort watching these
newsreels realizes that it’s time to get back home but its too late as the
crime world has changed and Legs is a now a relic of the past with a price on
his head.
Heavens Gate 1980
I finally saw this film the other night, and although not a
masterpiece (though it comes very close to being one) it’s hardly the piece of
shit that many have said it is. Thanks to the beautiful new Criterion
restoration the complete film and vision of its director Michael Cimino is now
available for us to watch and ponder. Spanning time from 1870 to 1903 the film
opens with a leisurely wonderful and beautiful sequence of a late and running
Kris Kristofferson rushing to his graduation ceremony at Harvard that ends with
an intoxicating swirling waltz on a lawn to the music of Strauss. This opening
alone is enough to make one sit up and take notice, to maybe even swoon a
little. I think one reason that it
never found its audience is that many were expecting an old fashioned western
and this is not what Heaven’s Gate is dressed up for. There are of course good
guys and bad guys but they are not wearing black and white hats and the
characters are all flawed and somewhat unlikeable to a degree. It simply does
not do what we want and expect our Westerns and indeed our movies to do. It’s
not linear and there are too many ands and ifs and moral fussiness lurking
among all those grand and magnificent vistas.
Johnny Guitar. 1954
Ostensibly a western, but looking
and feeling more like a fevered Freudian bad dream, a high pitch operatic
frenzy that at times you expect the actors to break out in song. Directed by
lefty Nicholas Ray at the height of the UHAC
witch hunt and blacklisting, the film can be seen as a political statement
against this right wing Washington D.C. government nightmare if you know where
to look. Bathed in rich paint box colors (in Tricolor no less) the plot pushes
3 chunks of characters against each other in intense confrontations. In fact
the film is pretty much all about confrontations, physical and
psychological. Taking place at the
end of the 19th century the visual look of the film is quite beautiful in this
newly restored print, with the main action taking place in Vienna’s saloon that
is very 50’s moderne looking with slick wooden floors, big beams and a rock
wall, the whole place would not be out of place in Aspen. Also the costumes
tell a lot about the characters moods and personas with Emma and her men all in
black while Johnny and the gang of thieves are usually costumed in light pastel
colors. There are some really out of breath running up the stairs scenes including
Joan dressed up in a virginal white gown which accidently catches on fire, a
mob lynching, the burning down of her saloon, an ecstatic (almost sexual) look
of pleasure on the face of McCambridge as she takes her revenge out on Joan,
and the final gunfight between two of the characters
Forty guns 1957
I’m not a big fan of westerns, but occasionally one will
come along that will knock me for a loop, and send me out into the night
howling at the moon. Forty Guns directed by Sam Fuller is one of those westerns
(it’s actually more than just a “western”, it transcends the genre) that makes
me holler and scream This film is memorable and startling, full of erotic
innuendos, double entendres and phallic metaphors and
imagery some of which are very much in our faces, and is full of rich visual
sentences helped by the wonderful cinematography by Joseph Biroc whose palette
is made up of noirish blacks and greys. The film has many memorable scenes including a dinner scene
with Stanwyck at a huge table
surrounded by all her 40 men, a wedding that becomes a funeral in a matter of
minutes (Truffaut pays homage to this scene in The Bride Wore Black), a sudden
suicide by hanging and one of the most poetic death scenes in the history of
cinema, “I’m Killed” the villain of the movie cries as he is taken out by one
of the brothers in a heated state of revenge.
Phantom Lady 1944
The film opens on a steamy 1944 July New York City night
(its seems all film noirs are set on steamy summer New York City nights) the
film covers all the usual Noir territory, innocent man accused of a crime he
didn’t commit, loyal attractive young woman out to prove his innocence, tough
but likeable detectives, psychotic behavior unexplained and deep sexual
undertones. Based on a William Irish (Cornell Woolrich) novel and directed with
strong German expressionist style by Robert Siodmak with a big helping hand
from the great cinematographer Woody Bredell, master of B movies, and made by
Universal on the cheap but looking hard, sharp and beautiful with great
economic touches including murders and deaths unseen. Some of the great set pieces of the film includes a scene set on
a deserted 3rd ave el platform, where we only know that a train is
arriving by the wind blowing a woman’s dress and a late night jam session with
Cook on drums working himself into an orgasmic
frenzy as his pickup for the night does a great sexual come on that leaves
little to the imagination, (how this bit got by the censors is beyond me). Also
memorable is a man being hit by a car again unseen by us, as his hat flies in
the air and winds in a puddle by the curb, and a trial that is seen through the
eyes of the spectators with all of the testimony heard off screen. This is good
stuff. There are wet patent leather streets,
the ubiquitous Yiddishe Mama candy store owner, shadows
that have shadows and wonderful sleazy bars and high toned apartments full of
late deco furnishings and sculptures along with small details such as Van
Gogh’s self portrait after he cut off his ear that is clearly hanging in the
murderer’s abode. With the gorgeous but limited Ella Raines, the gorgeous but
very limited Alan Curtis, Franchot Tone & Thomas Gomez. The film is
available in a pristine print for viewing on YouTube. I wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes. 1948
I discovered all these b movies and Noirs on youtube last
night and its a goldmine an absolute goldmine. The first one I watched was this
little rhinestone "I Wouldn't Be In Your Shoes" based on a novel by
the great Cornell Woolrich with a screenplay by the well known pulp writer
Steve Fisher who is probably best known for his novel "I Wake Up
Screaming" (and don't we all). The film stars Don Castle, an attractive
lump of a guy who when the film opens is sitting on death row for a crime he
says he didn't commit. Flashback to a hot steamy B movie back lot July New York
City where Don who is an out of work dancer lives in a tiny room with his very
pretty wife who is also a dancer and is working as an instructor at a sleazy
dance school. Don is irritable over not having a job, a wife who is working
around guys who hit on her all the time, the heat (tell me about it Don)
and the two cats outside his window going at it hot and heavy. So what does Don
do? Why he throws his only good pair of shoes out the window at them, and this
sets up the plot involving the murder and robbery of a reclusive man who lives
in a basement apartment next door. The Movie is cramped and crowded with lots
of good cheap details as any good B Noir should be, and has lots of familiar
character actors playing cops, lawyers and a woman candy store owner with a
vivid Yiddish accent and her heart on her smudgy sleeve. Directed with verve
and imagination by someone named William Nigh who began making movies in 1914
and some of his other films listed here sound fabu. "Beauty and The
Bandit", "The Gay Cavalier", "Allotment Wives",
"Are These Our Parents?" "Lady From Chunking", "Zis
Boom Bah" and "Dizzy Dames". I don't know about you but I would
love to see them all.
All That Heaven Allows. 1955
Sitting somewhere between a woman’s melodrama and Planet
Debbie is this masterpiece of angst and longing from one of the great stylists
of mid- 20th century cinema Douglas Sirk. The story is plain and simple. Jane
Wyman plays a tidy and nice widow living in a pretty little town somewhere but
she’s lonely and longs for romance and maybe a little sex. She has two grown up
children (more about these two ingrates later) a very nice home and a really
nice gardener played by the very beautiful Rock Hudson, who was a much better
actor than given credit Now this is not a tidy little woman’s weepy, because
Douglas Sirk directed it, and it’s simply gorgeous to look at. He uses colors
like a painter to indicate moods so there will be a slash of red or blue light
crossing over the faces of the characters or dark rooms with light casting
unnatural shadows and reflections of sad Jane on the oddest of surfaces. He
also knew how to dress a set and women, so at first Jane is in dark clothes
until she meets Rock then she’s bright and colorful until she’s back in black
when the romance comes to a crossroad and her dour daughter who was all in dark
colors is now in bright red because she’s going to marry her beau played by the
unaccredited David Janssen and Gloria and her brother have talked Jane out of
being happy. A lot they care that Jane has broken off her marriage to Rock and
is once again lonely and sad and sits at home with her new television that the
kids gave her for Christmas. Thanks a lot. This is an important film, a
shimmering feast of color and texture, mood and décor that influenced two other
movies that are pretty much homage’s to this film and to Sirk. Fassbinder’s
1973 classic film “Ali, Fear Eats The Soul”, and the more recent and also very
good Todd Haynes film “Far From Heaven.” I love this film a lot.
Les Girls. 1957
One of the great sissy movies of the late 50’s is this sort
of backstage musical with a
Rashomon slant about three young women who are performing in
a cut rate (you’d never know this from the lavish look of the show.) musical
revue in Paris. Taking place in the years right after the war, the revue is run
by Gene Kelly who wears an unfortunate toupee and was coming to his end as a
big M.G.M. musical star at the same time the Hollywood original movie musical
was breathing its last breath. The “girls” are played by Mitzi Gaynor,
Kay Kendall and Taina Elg and all three are fun to watch, but it’s especially
wonderful to see Kay Kendall who died very young cut up the screen in song,
dance and comedy, she pretty much walks off with the movie. The plot light and
slim as Kay waist concerns a libel suit brought by one of the “girls” years
later and their conflicting stories which are told in flashback as they testify
in London against one another. Directed by George Cukor with style and flair
and featuring an original score, his last for a movie by Cole Porter. Cukor ah
George had a fantastic eye for color, space and decor and he used the difficult
CinemaScope space brilliantly with the great help of his frequent collaborator, the color specialist George Hoyningen-Huene.
Each scene in the film is a visual delight, with deep saturated colors, lots of
movement, (the backstage moments are simply glorious) and telling objects and
details. Also great are the wonderful costumes and clothes by Orry- Kelly who
won an Oscar for his designs..
The Uninvited 1944
The real ghost, the haunted and sad spirit hovering over and
in this elegant and atmospheric haunted house movie is Gail Russell who in her
first big role played Stella of the starlight and who in real life didn’t make
it past her 36th birthday, dying alone, broke & alcoholic in
some Hollywood dump after having a terrible time of it. Russell who was very
pretty was married for a short 5 years to the gay-bi closeted and supremely handsome
Guy Madison, and there are many stories of Russell being gay herself which if
true would have no doubt added to her conflicted and troubled self even though
the usual reason given for her problems was her lack of confidence in her
acting skills which some say led her to start drinking during the making of
this film and began her downward spiral of despair. The movie like all good
ghost stories has a sadness and unease about it, even though this one ends on
an upbeat and somewhat abrupt note. The haunting start with terrible mournful
crying that fills the house and soon candles go out, doors close by themselves
and the scent of Mimosa fills the cold and drafty rooms.. Directed by Lewis
Allen who went on to do a few other films, none of which matched the directness
and ambience of The Uninvited and spent most of his career directing for
television. The film looks A list with handsome process shot, matt paintings
and glittering shadowy cinematography (Oscar nominated) by Charles Lang whose
remarkable career behind the camera spanned nearly 50 years
His Girl Friday. 1940
Hysterical hysteria. Howard Hawk’s
topsy turvy slap happy gender bending adaption of the old chestnut “The Front
Page” stars Cary Grant (who was never more delectable, he’s like a rich piece
of chocolate cake) as Walter Burns a big
city newspaper editor who will do anything including extortion, kidnapping,
passing counterfeit money, and lying to get what he wants, which includes
getting his ex-wife and his ex star reporter played by Rosalind Russell back to
writing for the paper, and maybe back into his bed. The film begins with Roz
decked out in a pin stripe suit and hat looking like a moving early Frank Stella
painting visiting her old newspaper where she once worked to let Grant know
that she is going to get married again. Russell brings just the right mix of
feminine-masculine traits to the part that is a good match for Grant’s
masculine-feminine traits, a tactic that Hawks would use in film after film
during his long and great career. Hawks loved using Grant in his movies and
went so far as to put him in drag in two of the films that they did together,
“Bringing Up Baby” and “I Was a Male War Bride.” The screenplay by Ben Hecht,
Charles MacArthur and Charles Lederer based on Hecht and MacArthur’s play is
fast, loose and tart with over lapping dialog with the two leads crossing and
double crossing each other with Grant doing most of the crossing, as a pending
execution of a sad Earl Williams played by John Qualen plays in the background.
The Naked City 1948
There are eight million stories in The Naked City, and this
here movie directed by Jules Dassin is probably the most famous of those
stories. The title is taken from the seminal book of photographs of New York
City by the great Weegee and in a way one can say that the film is like a
flipbook of the Weegee. Mostly
neo-realist with a touch of Noir, (the opening murder seen through a window)
the film is startling even for today. It was new in its look, and it brought
post war audiences right into the most famous city of the world and rubbed
their faces in the grit and grime and crime of it, along with the glitter and
glamour. We know right off the bat who did the murder, but there are
connections to the crime that slowly come out of the woodwork including fancy
fashion dames, high society matrons, doctors, wrestlers and all sorts of urban
stereotypes and low lives. This movie is fun in spite of its nasty crusty
top. Also in the cast is an oily Howard
Duff, Ted de Cosica and a slew of unaccredited familiar faces in bit parts
including David Opatoshu,, Paul Ford, Arthur O’Connell, Kathleen Freeman, James
Gregory, Nehemiah Persoff and John Randolph. The great cinematography is by
William Daniels who won the Oscar for it. The Outsiders 1983
Lush, dreamlike and adolescent in story and look this 1983
film directed it seems on a feverish whim, a pipedream by Francis Ford Coppola
is a hot house kiss to build a wet dream on of a movie. Three brothers,
motherless and fatherless, whose parents were killed in a car stuck on a
railroad track accident, are living in a last picture show 60’s Oklahoma town
in a rundown house without the Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, simply trying to
get along without much of much. There’s no “Oh What A Beautiful Morning” here.
We meet the youngest of these lost boys of the prairie Ponyboy who opens the
film writing in his composition book about coming out of the movies into the
sunlight thinking only of Paul Newman who he just saw in “The Hustler” and
getting home. This is a beautiful opening to begin this movie with. They are
poor and they are the “Greasers” of the town who along with their fellow buds
are in constant motion and combat with the “Socials” who are the jocks and
privileged boys living on the right side of town. But we never see the right
side only the wrong. There is a rumble in the rain that is beautifully done and
photographed by the great cinematographer Stephen H. Burum who uses lots of
yellows and oranges and browns throughout this movie highlighted by sunsets
never before seen, shot on backstage and in front of blue screens. The one girl
in the film is played by the pretty Diane Lane who is called Cherry because of
her red hair and is one of the privileged kids, but is drawn to the “Greasers”
especially to the sensitive Ponyboy who pines for her, but this one sided June
Moon goes nowhere. 
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