Blonde Venus (1932)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Blonde Venus (1932) – J. von Sternberg

Marlene Dietrich is bad again, as she often was for Josef von Sternberg.  This time, however, we see that she starts out good -- in a pre-code skinny-dipping scene where she meets future husband Herbert Marshall.  When Marshall grows ill with radiation poisoning (he is a chemist), she goes back to the stage from whence she came to raise money for his treatment in Europe.  But instead the money comes from millionaire Cary Grant who “occupies” her when Marshall is overseas.  And helps to take care of her son, Jonny, too.  Because yes, not only is Dietrich bad, but she is a bad mother, dragging Jonny all over the USA after Marshall returns early and finds her with Grant (who quickly departs for Europe).  With the police after her, and presumed prostitution the only way to raise any cash during the Depression, Dietrich is soon at the end of the road.  And then she is the jaded emotionless Dietrich dressed in white tails and top hat back in Paris crooning as we knew she would.  Until the ending which rings false (yes, Marshall takes her back).  Sternberg keeps things moving at a good clip but can’t help a bit of a jarring clash between the scenes with young Dickie Moore and the decadence and degradation found elsewhere (including the notorious “Hot Voodoo” number). 

A Most Violent Year (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆

A Most Violent Year (2014) – J. C. Chandor

Grim, somewhat turgid, tale of a heating oil executive contending with a variety of stresses in early ‘80s NYC.  Oscar Isaac is subdued in the lead, perhaps because he plays an extremely controlled guy who is motivated to overcome the obstacles against all odds (which include robbers hijacking his trucks, the district attorney bringing down corruption charges, and a risky business play that starts to go sour).  Jessica Chastain is his crass wife, daughter of the previous company president who ran the company as a gangster rather than in the upstanding way Isaac wishes to pursue, and she is a piece of work (but doesn’t always feel as though she is in the same film with the others).  So, it’s an unusual story – about a business man, his wife, his banker, and his lawyer (played by an unrecognizable Albert Brooks…except for his voice) – that threatened not to hold my interest.  I mean, who cares about business guys? Although there are elements of a thriller embedded in the story, they feel tacked on to the plot in order to stop the anaemia.  The grimy New York locations and sad old cars only add to the effect.

  

Police Story 2 (1988)

☆ ☆ ☆

Police Story 2 (1988) – J. Chan

Almost anything would be a let-down after the exciting thrills of Jackie Chan’s Police Story (1985) but I have to admit that Police Story 2 is pretty lacklustre.  But never fear, because Police Story 3: Supercop (1992) would soon redeem the series with even more breathtaking stunts than before.  It is worth noting that Jackie was also making the Project A and Armour of God/Operation Condor series at the same time.  So, the fact that Police Story 2 contains proportionally less exciting stunts than other films from the same time doesn’t really reduce the Jackie Chan awesomeness quotient.  And if you only know Jackie from later efforts such as Rush Hour or beyond, then you are really missing out.  After starting in Bruce Lee’s shadow as an extra, Jackie worked his way up to the top of the Hong Kong industry, starting with gems like Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master (more or less straight kung fu) and then hitting his stride in the 1980s and early 1990s with the different series mentioned above that made him a true action star focused not just on fighting but on daring stunts which he always always performed himself (and put the accidents and mistakes into the end credits reel).  Here in Police Story 2, he is again taunted by evil bad guys Mr. Chu and John Ko, variously supported or fired by Uncle Bill and Raymond (his superiors on the force), and in danger of being dumped by lovely May (played by a young Maggie Cheung).  Of course, in the end, Jackie triumphs over all the obstacles – but he does get pretty beat up in the process.  The big stunt is a fireworks factory getting blown up!

99 River Street (1953)

☆ ☆ ☆

99 River Street (1953) – P. Karlson

John Payne plays a washed-up boxer driving a cab who catches his wannabe gold-digger wife with another guy.  This sets the wheels in motion and the screws gradually tighten on Payne in true noir style.  Turns out the other guy is a diamond thief who has trouble with his fence and the fence’s tough guy assistant (played by noir stalwart Jack Lambert) over Payne’s wife’s involvement in the heist.  When she turns up dead, the cops come looking for Payne.  After having reality literally ripped away from him in one crazy scene, he has to use his knuckles to fight his way to the truth.  Director Phil Karlson knows his noir sets (see also Dark Alibi, Kansas City Confidential, or The Phenix City Story) and he lays them all out for us here (late night drug store, boxing ring, all-night café, waterfront, expensive upper class apartment, neon lit or darkened streets of New York, and unusually the Broadway footlights).  Perhaps there isn’t as much a sense of dread as in other 1950s noirs and perhaps Payne is a little too wooden in the lead but for solid genre fare, look no further.

Final Episode (1974)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Final Episode (1974) – K. Fukasaku

Yes, the final episode in the five-film Yakuza Papers series (aka Jingi Naki Tatakai) is called Final Episode.  However, it is far from final, leaving things wide open for further yakuza actions in Hiroshima and Kure even as the older generation finally retires and lets the young upstarts have their way.  As with the previous sequels (also all directed by Fukasaku), this one adds new characters to the plot (particularly Jo Shishido as a hot-head who doesn’t want to follow the new corporate business methods of the family), who then interact with the characters that have been followed from earlier films.  Only Bunta Sugiwara and Nobuo Kaneko seem to have made it through all five films alive.  The typical pattern is for central characters to get offed, violently.  All told, this was a complex, sometimes confusing (some say Shakespearean), always tense and very exciting set of films that I recommend for those willing to withstand the brutality.

One-Eyed Jacks (1961)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

One-Eyed Jacks (1961) – M. Brando

Marlon Brando’s only directorial effort is a long-ish Western that holds up pretty well.  Brando mumbles his way through it as Rio, a bank robber, who is betrayed by partner Dad Longworth (Karl Malden) right at the start of the picture.  After five years in a Mexican jail, Rio makes his way up to Monterrey with a couple of dodgy outlaws to have a show-down with Longworth, who is now the sheriff there.  He falls in love with Longworth’s stepdaughter.  Apparently in Brando’s original five hour cut, things ended rather badly but a conventional Hollywood ending was forced upon him.  Slim Pickens is here in support.  One review I read wondered whether there was a competition among actors to see who could deliver the thickest drawl.  Brando’s is reminiscent of Elvis but you can’t deny Pickens.  The Monterrey vistas are very pretty as backdrop.  Again, the whole thing does hang together, pretty well, charting some classical Western themes in a leisurely laid back way.

Babel (2006)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Babel (2006) – A. G. Iñárritu

Iñárritu weaves together four seemingly disparate stories that link somewhat incidentally (but also consequentially).  Each tale is filled with tension as characters engage in actions that you know they should not – that could and sometimes will end badly.  Beginning in Morocco, we see two kids playing with a high powered rifle.  Enough said.  Then, in San Diego, a Mexican nanny needs to go to her son’s wedding but her employers forbade her to go, leading her to take their kids to Mexico with her.  Uh-oh. Back in Morocco, tourist Cate Blanchett is accidentally shot through the window of the bus she and Brad Pitt are travelling in.   Damn. Finally, deaf-mute Rinko Kikuchi gradually unravels in Tokyo trying to cope with the suicide of her mother and just plain being a teenage girl.  Hmmmm.  Although each tale on its own is rather gripping, well shot, and well acted, the sum of the parts does not entirely cohere.  Sure, you could draw parallels if you made the effort, but it shouldn’t be this unclear. Drawing from the title, one could probably conclude that the message of the film is that communication between humans is inevitably problematic, both across and within cultures.  No kidding.

Night Creatures (1962)

☆ ☆ ☆

Night Creatures (1962) – P. G. Scott

Hammer tries their hand at the oft-told tale of Dr. Syn (here renamed Dr. Blyss), who defies the King’s men and their taxes to smuggle brandy and gin and deliver the proceeds to the poor.  Disney’s film starring Patrick McGoohan is perhaps better known but with Peter Cushing in the lead, the Hammer version is solid enough with some creepy moments out on the marsh (where the smugglers pretend to be phantoms) added to up the horror quotient.  Probably there is more bustling about than true action here but things still feel adventuresome and suitably enticing with secret passages and men in scarecrow costumes and all that.  For only 81 minutes, what more can you ask?

Christmas Holiday (1944)

☆ ☆ ☆

Christmas Holiday (1944) – R. Siodmak

Unusual ingredients make up this strange pudding that wants to be a film noir but lands closer to melodrama, of a particularly bleak variety.  Perhaps it doesn’t feel quite like noir because the central protagonist, the narrator of the flashbacks, is female (played by teen actress Deanna Durbin in a grown up role).  Watching women suffer the cruel twists of fate that the noir deals out doesn’t create so much darkness as pity, especially when the woman is steadfast in her commitment to the wrong guy, the guy who caused her so much pain and misery.  That guy is Gene Kelly in an early role – he always seemed to have a sinister problematic quality and he plays it up here.  He is believable although Durbin (whose character has sunk to presumed prostitution) is not.  Director Robert Siodmak (The Killers, Phantom Lady, etc.) lays all the noir trappings out but the underlying story by Somerset Maugham (The Razor’s Edge), written for the screen by Herman J. Mankiewicz (Citizen Kane), is missing some edge.  An odd framing device involving a soldier on Christmas furlough doesn’t quite fit.  As I said, it is a strange pudding that might have tasted better if it weren’t a Deanna Durbin vehicle (albeit one designed to remake her image).

Treasure Island (1950)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Treasure Island (1950) – B. Haskin

Family fare from Disney that I recall fondly from my youth and have now had a chance to watch with my two sons (aged 6 and 3).  I’ve not read the Robert Louis Stevenson novel but its adventures would seem to be made for the screen.  Young Jim Hawkins receives a map to the titular island from dying Captain Billy Bones and turns it over to Squire Trelawney who funds a voyage.  However, he relies on ship’s cook, Long John Silver, to hire the crew.  Robert Newton owns the role with his pirate’s brogue (and some argue that he is the originator of all that “arrr, matey!” talk you can’t resist).  Silver is a very ambiguous character.  On the one hand, he is a notorious pirate and might be quick to slit a throat, especially amongst his own men, if they be getting out of line (see, it can’t be helped).  On the other hand, he seems to have a soft spot for Jim Hawkins (with whom we identify), even saving his life once or twice.  Of course, things are generally pretty tame, though vigorous at times.  The kids couldn’t quite hold on to the plot, which advances through talk that was over their heads (and laced with new pirate words) but I explained things and the older one was glued to the screen (though worried at times for our hero).  Enjoyable if you accept it for what it is.

Marie Antoinette (2006)

☆ ☆ ½

Marie Antoinette (2006) – S. Coppola

Stylishly shot and lavish in production values but empty and too long, this biopic of Marie Antoinette is a bit of a dud.  Too bad, because I really want to like Sofia Coppola’s movies! We should be simpatico and not just because we are from the same generation – she also likes indie rock.  Plus, I don’t mind style over substance – in fact, excessive style can be a plus (a la Orson Welles).  Yet, after The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, I haven’t enjoyed any of her subsequent features.  Perhaps they are too dull (Somewhere), insipid (The Bling Ring), or awkward (the mash-up of indie rock and American teen behaviour with Versailles in the 18^th century found here).  Nevertheless, Kirsten Dunst does have presence and valiantly uses her charm to give the film some spark – but it can’t be sustained.  Jason Schwartzman is vacuous (presumably on purpose) and Steve Coogan is unfathomably here in a straight role.  But there are some great looking shots, sets, and locations.  

Coogan’s Bluff (1968)

☆ ☆ ☆

Coogan’s Bluff (1968) – D. Siegel

In a sort of prelude to Dirty Harry (1971), Don Siegel directs Clint Eastwood as a steely Arizona deputy sheriff come to the Big Apple to extradite a killer.  As was his m. o., Eastwood breaks all the rules, roughing up suspects (and others) and using whatever means were available (including sex) to get his way.  The expected fish-out-of-water gags are soon dispensed with in favour of straightforward action (fights and chases).  Siegel’s direction is no frills but it is effective and concise.  Lee J. Cobb is good in support as a harried NYC precinct chief (with other acting here just ordinary), but basically Eastwood’s star quality holds the film together.  Somehow, though, I just can’t find it in my heart to root for a reactionary hero.

HE Who Gets Slapped (1924)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

HE Who Gets Slapped (1924) – V. Sjöström

Lon Chaney is absorbing and creepy as a wronged and humiliated scientist turned masochistic circus clown (yes, you read that correctly) in this early silent film from new studio MGM.  Even behind his make-up Chaney burns with an intensity that lifts the movie beyond its revenge/love triangle plot.  Swedish director Victor Sjöström (later the star of Bergman’s Wild Strawberries) keeps things moving with deft editing and some odd set-pieces.  For example, there is a recurring motif of a clown spinning a globe, no doubt reflecting the fickle vagaries of fate. Although things drag when Chaney is not on-screen and the movie shifts to Norma Shearer and John Gilbert professing their love (even while her father sells her to the wicked Baron, ironically the man who stole Chaney’s scientific ideas and slapped him in the first place, in front of the Academy no less), the conclusion is effectively downbeat.  If only the weird business of the slaps was foregrounded a bit more, this could have achieved greater cult status.

Scream of Fear (1961)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Scream of Fear (1961) – S. Holt

Susan Strasberg keeps seeing her dead father around the estate after having been away for 10 years – except he is supposed to be very much alive according to her stepmother!  With the aid of her father’s chauffeur, Strasberg tries to solve the mystery, even as those around her indicate that they are concerned for her sanity.  Of course, if her father is really dead, then Strasberg is set to inherit his millions.  This provides a motive for doing her in – and her father too – or so she begins to think.  It is hard to separate the paranoia from the reality at times in this weird tale from Hammer studios.  Director Seth Holt allows stillness and silence to create suspense and absorb the viewer in the potential horror before her or him.  Yet something is not quite right in this solid spooky chiller!

The Black Swan (1942)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Black Swan (1942) – H. King

Although it won an Oscar for best color cinematography, The Black Swan is a rather lacklustre swashbuckler.  Perhaps the genre was worn out after the 1930s and the era of Errol Flynn and all those Alexandre Dumas stories.  Indeed, this film shares strong similarities with Flynn’s Captain Blood (1935) which is much better.  Tyrone Power is good here, but although he was known for adventure films, I liked him better in later darker films such as The Razor’s Edge (1946) or Nightmare Alley (1947).  Also, there are some funny character turns here:  Laird Cregar as a mountainous Captain Morgan (yes, of the rum) and George Sanders unrecognizable in a wild red hair and beard as Captain Billy Leach.  Maureen O’Hara is fine as Powers’ love interest but her scenes are rather static.  All told, this is fine Saturday afternoon fare but look to the earlier decade for the good stuff.