I Vampiri (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

I Vampiri (1957) – R. Freda & M. Bava

Mario Bava took over the direction of this Cinemascope horror film from Riccardo Freda after first serving as cinematographer.  A persistent journalist seeks to find a serial killer that the police haven’t been able to identify; the killer’s trademark is that all of the blood is drained from the victim.  Less a vampire film and more of a mad scientist yarn with a close kinship to Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960), all of the victims are female and their disappearance is related to a duchess who refuses to grow old.  Enough said.  The film varies from plodding and stagey to a more gloriously creepy use of the widescreen with Halloween-esque sets visited in tracking shots.  Bava, the master stylist, may have still been learning the ropes (or we could blame Freda for the less fluid parts).  Worth a look for its first peek at Bava who would soon produce Black Sunday (1960), a more fully realized look at his talent. (Beware the shorter American print, I’m told).

Police Story 4: First Strike (1996)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Police Story 4: First Strike (1996) – S. Tong

I didn’t know there was a fourth installment to Jackie Chan’s Police Story series but First Strike is it (and I watched the full 107 minute version not the heavily cut US release).  Following his usual formula for blockbusters, Jackie travels to several different locations (Ukraine, Australia) and sets the action in some tough to navigate places (ski field, underwater with sharks). As usual, the plot is incidental to the action (a nuclear device has gone missing and Jackie has to get it back, because the Hong Kong police are working with the CIA and the replacement for the KGB, the FSB).  Jackie’s relationships also take a back seat here; even though Uncle Bill is still his boss (in a glorified cameo), sadly May is absent (Maggie Cheung had clearly moved on).  So, the full-on Jackie magic isn’t really present, but not for want of trying -- the major stunts are pretty tremendous (Jackie jumps from snowboard to helicopter and drives a car onto a boat).  However, I _was_ glad to see some hand-to-hand fighting (with a stepladder) to remind me of the old Jackie. And what more can you expect from Chan when he was already in his ‘40s (and still with his American breakthrough yet to come)? But if you are interested in Jackie, Police Story (1985) and Supercop (1992) are the better movies in this series; they are part of the reason Jackie deserves his stardom.

Scandal (1950)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Scandal (1950) – A. Kurosawa

Kurosawa brings his kinetic style to this still-current look at celebrities suing a magazine for some slanderous paparazzi photos.  It may be in bad taste to attack the media these days, but let’s face it, our journalists come in all shapes and sizes, from the most scrupulous to those willing to print unfounded gossip and, yes, “alternative facts”.  Toshiro Mifune (playing an artist) and Shirley Yamaguchi (playing a singer) are photographed at a spa after an accidental meeting and a magazine (“Amour”) plays this up into a love affair and scandal.  When they decide to sue, a lawyer (played by the great Takashi Shimura) pleads to take their case because of his heightened sense of justice.  However, he proves spineless and easily manipulated by the (evil) publisher.  Nevertheless, Mifune and Yamaguchi stick with him out of concern for his dying daughter (she has tuberculosis).   For a while, I thought this would be up there with Kurosawa’s best but the courtroom scenes allow some of the tension to dissipate.  Moreover, it is my problem but I couldn’t accept Shimura in this worm-like role after his sympathetic performances in Ikiru, Seven Samurai, and Stray Dog.  Still, there is much to enjoy here (particularly the style – and Mifune on that motorcycle!).

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) – E. Cline

Is it funny?  Or is it just bizarre?  Or is it funny because it is just plain bizarre?  If you walked into this film without knowing anything about W. C. Fields, how would you make sense of it?  Here we find Fields on the “Esoteric Films” lot, playing himself and pitching his next film project to a producer (played by Franklin Pangborn, also playing a version of himself).  So, we see what Fields does in Hollywood (e.g., he stands under a billboard for “The Bank Dick” trying to attract compliments, he eats at a greasy spoon) and we get to see a re-enactment of the script that he describes (which finds him chaperoning his niece, Gloria Jean, to Mexico but falling out of a plane and landing on top of a mountain owned by Margaret Dumont).  There isn’t really a plot to speak of but instead a series of set-ups that allows Fields to mumble his usual snide asides under his breath, to sneak a few drinks, to try to achieve maximum advantage for himself with minimum effort, to drive like a maniac, and so on.  In other words, this is the same Fields that audiences had grown to know and love.  Pure ridiculousness and with some very odd musical numbers (by young teen Gloria Jean) thrown in.  In some ways, the film is all reaction shots – odd things happen and everyone reacts - -with the chief one being the final word from Gloria: “My Uncle Bill….But I Still Love Him!”  This turned out to be Fields’ final picture as a star and despite his cantankerous, subversive, persona (or because of it), he remains one.

Miami Blues (1990)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Miami Blues (1990) – G. Armitage

Alec Baldwin seems different, younger, and, well, more psychotic, but it is possible to see his later comic swagger buried deep inside his character here, an ex-con on a murderous rampage who shacks up in an illusion of domestic tranquillity with hooker Jennifer Jason Leigh.  The film is an adaptation of Charles Willeford’s book (featuring homicide detective Hoke Moseley, played screwily by Fred Ward here), but as Jonathan Rosenbaum has pointed out, it also owes something to Godard’s Breathless, a film which also saw a man-on-the-run make the mistakes that end his life because of love.  Miami Blues is no Breathless but it does have a certain unpredictable charm – perhaps this is due to the inordinate amount of odd details.  For example, Moseley’s dentures play a prominent supporting role.  Perhaps though the central theme is about the power of cultural “ideals” to lend stability to a life that is falling apart?  Although they may be only illusions, Baldwin seems to want badly to experience a domestic partnership and a house with a white picket fence.  He also seems to believe that cops have power and command respect (at least this is how he acts when adopting the role, illicitly) even when Ward’s cop Moseley is doing it tough, living hand-to-mouth in a dingy hotel room.  All told, this is a film that looks like any number of early 90s thrillers but is far more eccentric, contains superior acting, and isn’t headed anyplace you expect.  

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) – A. Hall

Agreeable fantasy (later remade with Warren Beatty) that sees boxer Robert Montgomery (father of Elizabeth) mistakenly claimed for Heaven by Edward Everett Horton before his time.  So, Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains) promises to find him a replacement body and eventually deposits him inside a millionaire who has just been murdered by his wife and secretary.  Montgomery resists at first but when he sees the injustices fostered by the millionaire and falls in love with the daughter of one of his victims, he decides to stay in the body (despite wishing to fight for the world championship anyway).  Not exactly a laugh riot but genial and with some good performances (particularly by James Gleason as Montgomery’s manager in the ring).  Rains has not much to do but he is always a pleasure to watch.  Montgomery’s loutish New York mugging was a bit difficult for me to take but probably engaged the audiences of the time.  Also the idea that our fates are predestined didn’t quite jell with the notion that Montgomery has some control over the road he is on, but ah well.  Above average.

Seven Chances (1925)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Seven Chances (1925) – B. Keaton

Like many of Buster Keaton’s comedies this one starts off slowly and gradually takes off until it culminates in a frenzy.  Buster finds out that he will inherit 7 million dollars if he is married by 7 PM on the day of his 27^th birthday – which is, of course, today.  He offends his true love and thus must find someone else.  His initial efforts fail but when his business associates (who also stand to profit) place a story in the newspaper, all hell breaks loose.  The major set-piece here features Buster being chased by a horde of women dressed in wedding veils, including through the desert and down a mountainside (chased also by boulders).  I didn’t find this as riotously funny or as ingenious as some of Keaton’s other works but there are lots of good moments.  He really was a creative genius when it came to stunts/action/the camera.

Night of the Generals (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆

Night of the Generals (1967) – A. Litvak

Not quite as spectacular as it aims to be, especially with all these stars (O’Toole, Sharif, Pleasance, Courtenay), but this tale of the murder of a prostitute by a high-ranking Nazi general held my attention all the way through.  Director Anatole Litvak (a refugee from earlier golden days) wants to counterpoint the murder of masses that generals oversee with the individual pathology that leads to brutal personal murders (and which might self-justify both) but it doesn’t entirely hold together.  O’Toole is chilly and rather bizarre as one of the suspected generals, Sharif has too little to do but is charismatic doing it, Pleasance brings his character actor skills, but Courtenay more than holds his own with a naturalness that seems a little jarring amidst all this star power.  Philippe Noiret is solid in a bit part as an Interpol investigator who attempts to solve the murder decades later after Sharif has failed to do it (he plays a major in the “internal affairs” branch). Perhaps meant to compete or echo the David Lean epics of the era, Night of the Generals falls a bit short, feeling flatter despite its sweep across settings (Warsaw, Paris, Hamburg) and time. Perhaps it is a nagging sense of unreality, that the war and its grave consequences are being ignored (despite the focus on comparing large and small atrocities), that keeps this from hitting home?  Or perhaps it is all too pat, with a “twist” at the end returning to tie up all of the loose ends that was much too easily spotted? At any rate, it is what it is – a not unpleasant time-waster that wants to be more.

The Lady of Musashino (1951)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Lady of Musashino (1951) – K. Mizoguchi

A “modern” Mizoguchi that takes place in the immediately post-war years and shows the immense changes in Japanese society occurring at that time.  Mizoguchi favourite Kinuyo Tanaka plays the lady in question who honours the traditions of the past, sacrificing her own desires to support her professor husband even though he openly promotes philandering and tries to initiate an affair with her cousin’s wife.  Tanaka herself is in love with her other younger cousin, recently returned from the war and living a hedonistic life in Tokyo, but secretly yearning for the pastoral life back in Musashino.  Mizoguchi paints a wistful picture of the vanishing countryside around the city and its disappearing customs (and morals?).  The cinematography is often lyrical with long shots that find the characters embedded in their setting and quiet moments that let the viewer contemplate the plot.  The plot is ultimately depressing -- this is Mizoguchi after all and he gives Tanaka another chance to show a woman’s suffering, imposed by a society that allows men more freedom (even when they use it selfishly, as Masayuki Mori’s decadent husband does).  In the end, however, this film sees Mizoguchi not yet in his finest form – his classic tragedies (The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) would appear in the next few years.

Jafar Panahi’s Taxi (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Jafar Panahi’s Taxi (2015) – J. Panahi

Jafar Panahi is serving a twenty-year ban from making films in Iran due to his willingness to make films that offend the government.  Since the ban was imposed he has creatively continued to make films but without a crew and previously in the safety of his own home (e.g., This is Not a Film, 2011).  This time, he has installed cameras in his car and taken on the role of taxi driver to film on the streets of Tehran.  Taking his cues from Abbas Kiarostami (who passed away after a botched operation in 2016) who often filmed actors (or non-actors) in cars (e.g., Taste of Cherry, 1997; Ten, 2002), Panahi has filmed himself carting people around and their conversations and experiences make up the content of the film.  It is sometimes difficult to know whether the dialogue is scripted or not, and, if scripted, what its inclusion signifies.  But it is clear that this is an act of resistance, because the episodes clearly reveal the political intolerance and human rights violations that are present in Iranian society.  These problems are made explicit when Panahi’s young “niece” (the actors remain anonymous to protect them), under the pretense of a class assignment on film-making, lists all of the content that is forbidden from movies, including any discussion of economic or political problems as well as the inclusion of characters with Persian names wearing ties (!!!).  Naturally, such a character soon appears!  At the end, Panahi films a discussion with a presumed well-known actress or lawyer (hard to say) about the actual violations that the current film represents. An earlier discussion of the death penalty and its imposition for minor crimes now fits into place; let’s hope that Panahi’s high profile (and the wide circulation of this film) protects him from any further clampdown.  We should all be so brave in the case that resistance is necessary even in presumed “free” nations.