The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) – T. Fisher

Although Peter Cushing makes a fine Holmes and Andre Morell is solid as Watson, it is impossible not to compare this version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novella to the 1939 version starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Intriguingly, the 50s version has some different aspects to the plot (most obviously, Stapleton has a daughter who attracts Sir Henry’s romantic interest rather than a sister) – a quick look at my Complete Sherlock Holmes suggests it is the 30s version that is more faithful. The story is simple: Sir Henry’s father, Sir Charles, has died, potentially killed by a “hound from hell” in line with a curse that was placed on his family due to a very evil ancestor, Sir Hugo (his evil acts shown in detail and colour in this Hammer Studios version). Of course, Holmes will have none of this line of deduction and sets out to solve the mystery on the Moors and to save Sir Henry from suffering the same fate. Cue some red herrings. Too bad Hammer did not pursue further Holmes films but this one is certainly solid enough, if not exactly horror nor as fun as the more famous film.   

The Silent Partner (1978)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Silent Partner (1978) – D. Duke

Elliott Gould plays Miles Cullen, the head teller at a Toronto bank who figures out in advance that his branch is about to be the target of a stick-up. Opportunistically, he puts most of the bank’s cash in his own bag, letting the thief, Reikle (Christopher Plummer), get away with only a paltry sum. Soon however Reikle rings up demanding the rest of the loot from his “silent partner”. Although seemingly mild-mannered, Cullen outsmarts the sadistic Reikle every step of the way. At the same time, he romances co-worker Julie (Susannah York) as well as his late father’s young nurse (Celine Lomez). In fact, everyone seems to underestimate Miles. Of course, suspense builds from the cat-and-mouse game between him and Reikle – and it isn’t all fun-and-games: there’s a shockingly violent scene suitable for an exploitation flick to cap it off. Apparently the film won a number of awards in Canada (John Candy also works at the bank) and it holds up fine as a middle of the range seventies thriller. If you appreciate Gould, check it out.

Symptoms (1974)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Symptoms (1974) – J. R. Larraz

With only the rain and a big old country house in rural England, director José Ramón Larraz establishes that very spooky mood that is so well-known from haunted house films in this period (early ‘70s). There are enough shots outdoors, in the nearby pond or the lush overgrown yard, that this might even qualify as folk horror. Helen (Angela Pleasance, daughter of Donald) lives alone in this house but the film begins as a friend, Ann (Lorna Heilbrun), arrives to stay for a few days – it isn’t quite clear how well the two women know each other. Pictures of another female friend who visited earlier are placed prominently around the house. The only other person on the grounds is the handyman, Brady (Peter Vaughan), who seems to be snickering or leering at Helen who steadfastly ignores him. But we can see that something is not quite right with Helen (beyond the headaches she complains about) and after she spies Ann talking with Brady from a window, she sinks into a nearly catatonic depression. Ann wants to help but she is also getting creeped out, thinking there is some other presence in the house. The film proceeds to play out as it probably should (although not perhaps how viewers may have hoped), leaving us with feelings of sympathy amidst the horror.

 

Under the Silver Lake (2018)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Under the Silver Lake (2018) – D. R. Mitchell

Really, the only interpretation that explains this unusual movie is that Andrew Garfield’s Sam is having a psychotic break from reality!  But it takes a while to come to this conclusion. At first, he might be just a little lost, not unreasonably attracted to Riley Keough’s mysterious Sara, who invites him for a tryst and then suddenly disappears. He turns detective -- and the film echoes other wacked out L. A. neo-noirs, such as The Long Goodbye (complete with topless neighbour out on the balcony) or The Big Lebowski. However, the clues that Sam uncovers begin to take on some serious conspiracy theory overtones: mysterious messages embedded in the lyrics of songs by a local rock band, someone sending signals via hobo codes, the strange beliefs of a zine artist (played by Patrick Fischler, seen previously at David Lynch’s Winkie’s diner) that prophesise events that may come to pass. Then, David Yow (from the Jesus Lizard) appears as the Homeless King and Sam stumbles on clues that make no objective sense which are nevertheless co-opted into the growing narrative and incomprehensibly validated by what the camera shows us. Given a bizarro solution that fails to add up or to reveal any deeper themes (except to Sam, perhaps), some reviewers complained that this makes the film essentially meaningless. That may be true but if you are willing to follow Garfield’s slacker anti-hero from party to party, “random” encounter to encounter, you may enjoy the film, even if you end up discovering that you’ve just wasted your time trying to figure it out.  Intriguingly, a quick google search suggests that director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows, 2014) has embedded some hidden messages in the film itself – but chasing these may lead you down rabbit holes not far from those entered into by those slipping into the netherworld of psychosis.   

 

Body Double (1984)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Body Double (1984) – B. De Palma

Brian De Palma’s obsession with Hitchcock reaches its logical conclusion in this extremely lurid pastiche of both Rear Window and Vertigo. Whereas Hitch managed to get us to identify with Jimmy Stewart’s “Scottie” (Vertigo) and “Jeff” (Rear Window) despite their unsavoury behaviours, De Palma makes these problems more explicit so that Craig Wasson’s Jake is more obviously a peeping tom and a stalker. Thus, even as we come to suspect that Jake is a pawn in somebody else’s plot (a la Vertigo), being encouraged to witness a murder and to draw the wrong conclusions, we can’t really feel as much sympathy for him. Sure, his weakness (claustrophobia in this case) makes him the perfect dupe but De Palma lets Jake cross so many conceivable lines of propriety (um, even becoming a porn star?) that the plot mechanics borrowed from the Master lose some of their effect in the trashiness of it all.  De Palma does a good job with the camera, using tracking shots to elicit a dream-like state as Jake trails Gloria around Hollywood (including stealing the 360 degree kiss from Vertigo), but Wasson is a bland everyman who seems to have never been relied on to carry another film after this. In contrast, Melanie Griffith does show a spark of charisma (in the final minutes of the film), despite being objectified for most of the film. Truly, De Palma’s films always seem to go too far in the direction of bad taste but Body Double is ultimately less enjoyable than Blow Out, Sisters, Obsession, and even Dressed to Kill (if I am remembering them correctly). I did not remember the music video for Frankie Goes to Hollywood embedded in the film but I did see them in concert around this time!

 

Night Moves (1975)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Night Moves (1975) – A. Penn

Gene Hackman is pretty soulful as private eye Harry Moseby who has problems of his own (his wife is cheating on him) that may cloud his judgment as he works on what should be a perfunctory missing daughter case. The daughter in question turns out to be a very young Melanie Griffith who has fled to the Florida Keys to escape her washed-up actress mother in Hollywood, as well as ex-boyfriend mechanic James Woods and recent fling stuntman Marv. She is shacked up with her stepfather (and his girlfriend Jennifer Warren). So Harry flies down there to bring her back. Initially, she doesn’t want to return but after they discover a downed plane underwater with a corpse in it, suddenly she is ready to go back. Harry isn’t quite satisfied to let the case drop at this point, but things aren’t very clear. He suspects Woods but is he missing the big picture? The title refers to a famous chess game where a grandmaster made a spectacular blunder when he could have won – this may also be Harry’s fate.  Neo-noir but loose and often seemingly directionless (probably by design) but it doesn’t rise to the level of something like The Long Goodbye (1973), which could be the difference between an Altman and a Penn, I guess.

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005) – G. Lucas

I had other things to do 16 years ago, so I am only just getting around to watching this third film in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (thanks to my kids). Once again, it’s a bit disorienting to jump into the action after a lacuna between Episode II and III – who is this General Grievous anyway? Wait, the Chancellor has been kidnapped? By Count Dooku? I thought they were on the same side (assuming that we all know that Palpatine is really the future Emperor/Darth Sidious)? Eventually, however, the confusion settled down and amidst the various light sabre battles, we awaited the “facts” that would solve the various mysteries that explain how things in Episode IV (due to take place 16 to 18 years later?) ended up the way they did.  So, how does Anakin turn into Darth Vader – what makes him so angry at the Jedi? And, of course, how does he end up in that mechanical suit? And what about the Jedi – we know that Obi-Wan and Yoda make it to the next trilogy – but what about Master Windu or those other unnamed Jedi? Or Count Dooku for that matter? Or Luke and Leia’s mum? Yup, you guessed it.  So, basically, there’s no suspense and you just watch in a numb sort of way as the various pieces fall into place (and a lot of hands are sliced off – is there some symbology that I’m missing?). As Aito (aged 11) pointed out, we already know that the Sith win, so where’s the fun in that?

The Deadly Affair (1967)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Deadly Affair (1967) – S. Lumet

Based on John Le Carré’s first novel, James Mason stars as George Smiley (renamed here Charles Dobbs, for copyright reasons), the Mi6 spy who is more bureaucrat than Bond. Although Alec Guinness later embodied the character in two TV miniseries, Mason is no slouch and more than holds his own, portraying Dobbs/Smiley as at the end of his tether, as his wife, Anne (Harriet Andersson, of Bergman fame), has been cheating on him. What’s more, a man he had just interviewed (who had been dubbed a communist in an anonymous letter) has gone and committed suicide – or has he? Smiley is not so sure and when his boss urges him to close the case, he chooses to resign and pursue the truth outside the political constraints of the agency (with help from retired “just the facts” Inspector Mendel, played well by Harry Andrews, and agent Bill Appleby, played by Kenneth Haigh). Simone Signoret and Maximillian Schell round out the international cast.  Director Sidney Lumet and cinematographer Freddie Young purposefully washed out the colour stock to give the proceedings a suitably grey tone. I thought it held together pretty well (unlike so many spy stories) although I’ll admit that beyond Mason’s Smiley no one gets too much of a chance to develop their characters.

 

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) – G. Lucas

I am pretty sure I fell asleep when watching this a couple of decades ago but there was no chance of that this time, as the kids howled and booed whenever a romantic scene (between Natalie Portman’s Senator Amidala and Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker) came on. In truth, these did slow the movie down. Aside from this, I still found it difficult to get my mind around the unfolding transition between the Republic, with the Jedi as its police force, and the evil Empire, now composed of the Trade Federation and a growing number of Separatist planets – led by Christopher Lee’s Count Dooku (really a stand-in for Darth Sidious who I think we can agree is also Chancellor Palpatine and later the Emperor). We were stunned when Jar Jar Binks entered a motion to allow the Chancellor to have unprecedented authoritarian powers – what a moron!  As for the Jedi, Ewan McGregor tries his best as Obi-Wan (left to keep the action going in scenes that alternate with the romance plot), Samuel L. Jackson still has nothing to do as Windu – or at least nothing that capitalises on his usual bad-ass charms, and Yoda is left to get the audience back on board (would have loved to hear a Christopher Lee commentary on that final battle – surely he was bemused to see this turn in his career). Now who ordered the army of clones and whether Yoda commandeered them for the big battle remain obscure for us. Not sure what to make of his suggestion that the Clone Wars have begun (did we need to do some background reading?). Boba Fett’s origin story is pretty confusing too.  At any rate, we are expecting that all will be resolved in Episode III, which has to be better than this, right?

The Great Train Robbery (1978)

 ☆ ☆ ½

The Great Train Robbery (1978) – M. Crichton

I had never heard of this Sean Connery-Donald Sutherland vehicle directed by Michael Crichton from his novel (and also starring Lesley Anne Down). And now I know why – it is deadly dull. It’s hard to say what went wrong – it must have looked great on paper. Crichton had already directed Westworld (1973) and Coma (also 1978), which were hits. Connery was done with Bond and making some odd films (Zardoz!) but still a big star. Sutherland was already very esteemed after MASH (in a number of foreign films and in the concurrent Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake). But despite the high production values (the film takes place in London in 1855) and a plot with numerous twists, as Connery (already a gentleman but also a thief) strategizes how to rob a moving train containing gold destined for Crimea (or perhaps coming from there), the film just doesn’t feel exciting. Even Connery doing his own stunts – walking on top of the train and ducking when it went under bridges – doesn’t add any zing. I’m sure this is only one of the many expected blockbusters cast by the wayside along the road to fame and fortune – I hope I don’t run into too many more.

 

Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace (1999)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace (1999) – G. Lucas

I saw this (and dismissed it) twenty years ago but Amon (aged 9) was ready to check it out (after already watching eps 4 through 9).  We are deposited very quickly into a seemingly complicated dispute between the Trade Federation (run by some lizards) and the Planet Naboo (led by Queen Amidala/Natalie Portman). Two Jedi Knights (Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn and Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi) are dispatched to Naboo to stop what turns out to be a plot by the Federation (in conjunction with The Sith) to take over the planet, including its underwater minority group, the Gungans. In order to escape and regroup, the jedis take the Queen and a random accident-prone Gungan (Jar Jar Binks) to Tatooine where they meet slave kid, Annakin Skywalker, who wins a pod race to earn money to get them parts to fly their ship back to uh, I forgot, back to Naboo where they have to make a last stand against the Sith (and their main fighter, Darth Maul, who we were calling Darth Small last night) and an army of robots.  Annakin is strong with the force but Yoda and Samuel L. Jackson (a jedi master, so not just good at foot massage) are worried about what they sense is the possibility of the dark side in him (no duh). In the midst of this confusing plot, there is some razzle dazzle, a lot of CGI creatures, and some obvious and not-so-obvious foreshadowing.  But really, not much suspense because we know who can die and who cannot.  Liam Neeson is rather boring. I hope we don’t have to watch Episode 2 now because I fell asleep the last time.

 

Castle of Blood (1964)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Castle of Blood (1964) – A. Margheriti

As Mondo Digital suggests, this film may only be 10% plot as compared to 90% atmosphere – but the gothic atmosphere is well worth the price of admission. Alan Foster (Georges Riviere) accepts a wager to spend a night in a haunted castle on All Souls Eve, when the spirits of the dead are due to return and none who accepted the wager in the past escaped the castle’s evil spell.  I was genuinely creeped out when he got dropped off in front of the dark decrepit place, entered the gate, found an old torch, and opened the old wooden door. I wouldn’t want to be him!  Inside, things were just as spooky – shadows reflected in old mirrors, cobwebs on everything, paintings that seem ready to come alive. And then suddenly, Barbara Steele shows up, claiming to have been living in the castle all these years and putting the moves on Foster in a way he can’t (or doesn’t want to) resist.  Of course, it comes as no surprise that she’s no longer living – and we meet a number of other similarly dead residents of the castle who show Foster glimpses of how they met their fate.  Obviously, we know it will soon be his turn…  Beautifully shot in B&W and on par with the Hammer or Bava entries in the horror canon of this period. Check it out if this is your genre.

 

The Big Easy (1986)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Big Easy (1986) – J. McBride

I think it was Roger Ebert who said that he’d seen so many thrillers that he just didn’t care about the plots anymore – and it’s true that the (ludicrous) plot of The Big Easy does seem quite beside the point in terms of enjoyment of the film. Instead, its pleasures are found in the New Orleans locale and the sexual tension between Ellen Barkin’s district attorney’s office investigator and police detective Dennis Quaid (showboating with a broad and sometimes incomprehensible Nawlins accent). There may or may not be a gang war and the force may or may not be corrupt (including Quaid’s Remy McSwain) but it is definitely true that both McSwain and Barkin’s Anne Osborne are not really keeping their minds on their work.  Sure, his colleagues, including John Goodman and Ned Beatty, tease him about this but we come to believe that McSwain may be sincere in his feelings. In between the crime scenes, we get some New Orleans music (including Beausoleil, The Neville Brothers, Buckwheat Zydeco, and Professor Longhair), restaurants (Tipitina’s), and locales (not much French Quarter, really). Better than I expected.

Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Farewell, My Lovely (1975) – D. Richards

This third version of Chandler’s 1940 novel stars Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe, private detective, hired by Moose Malloy to find his lost love, Velma, who stopped keeping in touch while he spent 6 years in the can.  Although the Marlowe of the book is in his 30s, Mitchum was 59 and plays the character as world-weary – which is quite a contrast to the 1944 version starring Dick Powell (called Murder, My Sweet to avoid audiences thinking it was a musical, Powell’s original forté) where Marlowe is portrayed as a bit more full of zing, although still sardonic and cynical about human nature. I’ve practically memorised the 1944 noir, so I started to note the changes in this later version – until there were a bit too many (Florian’s is an African American establishment now, Amthor is a madame in a house of ill-repute, etc.). Later, I checked the book to confirm that although some of the changes made the ’75 film truer to Chandler, the majority did not and the ’44 film remains a more faithful rendition.  The plot is, as usual, complicated – Marlowe gets tricked into chasing the wrong Velma, kidnapped and held prisoner (all drugged up), and pursued by the law for murders that he did not commit. Young Charlotte Rampling has a brief turn as Velma. All told, this is a rather ordinary outing that feels like a made-for-TV movie with that awkward 70s doing the 30s falseness that rings hollow throughout (despite the presence of a genuine film noir star in the lead). Probably OK if you haven’t seen the superior 1944 film.    

 

The Hit (1984)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Hit (1984) – S. Frears

Stephen Frears’ first film of the ‘80s is a stylish “noir” shot beautifully in broad daylight in Spain where two hitmen, John Hurt and Tim Roth, finally catch up with Terrence Stamp who ratted out his bank robbing colleagues 10 years before. It’s also a road movie as we follow these three (plus hostage Laura del Sol) as they trek toward France where the gang leader, previously betrayed, awaits. (Deliciously, they are trailed by the cops led by Fernando Rey, of all people). Finally, it’s a mediation on death: Stamp declares that he is ready for it (reading a sonnet by John Donne to prove it) but others do not believe him. I guess it is a sort of existential threat to a hitman’s sense of meaning if death is not feared and John Hurt does seem to gradually lose his bearings across the film. Frears to his credit manages to keep the tension high even though the vibe is often “family vacation”. This is also essentially Roth’s debut (with blond hair) and you can see why Tarantino (a fan of this film) chose him for subsequent projects. Definitely worth a look.