The Kid Detective (2020)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Kid Detective (2020) – E. Morgan

As a big fan of the private detective genre, I love a film that knowingly tweaks genre conventions.  There are a lot of misfires out there but fortunately The Kid Detective is a winner. Even if, in the story, he’s actually a bit of a loser.  Adam Brody (who I did not know because I did not watch the O. C.) is all grown up, early 30s, but still living with the repercussions of his successful childhood role as a self-styled “kid detective” who solved crimes for the principal and other local adults, not to mention other kids.  However, he couldn’t solve the mystery of the abducted girl from his class – and this is where the movie proves to be a dark comedy.  Abe Applebaum (Brody) is giving it a go as a private detective, but in reality, he’s not very good and his life is sort of falling apart.  He’s haunted by the signs of his earlier and current failure.  So, when a teen girl shows up asking him to solve the murder of her boyfriend, an actual murder, he takes the case and is forced to go back to his high school (and his high school memories) to try to crack the case.  His methods prove unfortunate (including an arrest) but it is all played for comedy, but unsettling comedy (not for kids) even if you guffaw.  Remarkably, writer-director Evan Morgan (who hasn’t done anything since), manages to keep the story going and even drops hints that would allow you to solve the case (or not, but in retrospect, these are cool).  And there’s a pay-off at the end and some emotional release.  Not a masterpiece but a fun genre film (by someone who loves the form) with something extra for the fans.

 

The Serpent’s Egg (1977)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The Serpent’s Egg (1977) – I. Bergman

Ingmar Bergman’s first film shot outside of Sweden (and second in English, after 1971’s The Touch).  This stars David Carradine (selected based on his work on the Woody Guthrie biopic Bound for Glory, 1976) and Bergman’s muse Liv Ullmann. It takes place in 1923 Berlin where inflation has made the Deutschmark completely worthless. Carradine is a former trapeze artist now out of work and a Jew.  The latter is significant because Bergman seems to want to say something about the factors that led to Hitler’s rise and the Holocaust. But he takes a long time to get to the point (and to reveal the meaning of the title).  So, for most of the film, we are treated to Carradine (as Abel Rosenberg) wandering Berlin, often drunk, in and out of the cabaret where his ex-sister-in-law (played by Ullmann) works.  He is frequently interviewed by the police (led by Goldfinger’s Gert Fröbe) who seem supportive but overly interested in his whereabouts and doings (based on his brother’s suicide and his proximity to other recent victims, murders or suicides).  It seems as though we may get a murder mystery from Bergman but it doesn’t really end up that way – instead, we are treated to a sort of twist ending, meant to foreshadow later Nazi experimentation on humans (even as Hitler’s short-lived Munich Putsch is ironically used to suggest he has no future as a leader in Germany).  Bergman does establish a compelling time and place here (with his biggest budget yet) but Carradine is an odd fit for the role and the looseness of the screenplay leaves viewers wondering too much of the time.      

The Hot Spot (1990)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The Hot Spot (1990) – D. Hopper

Apparently, this neo-noir was actually made from a script originally written for Robert Mitchum and you can imagine his sullen cool working perfectly for the amoral drifter who idles into town, finds himself caught between two women (one bad, one good), and thinks himself up an easy bank robbery.  But instead, director Dennis Hopper wound up with Miami Vice star Don Johnson. He isn’t bad and he isn’t good – but he’s not Mitchum.  Virginia Madsen plays the bad girl, wife of the boss (when Johnson takes a gig selling cars or mostly loafing), and she chews the scenery wildly but is the best thing about the picture. Jennifer Connelly is the good girl but isn’t given much to do.  Hopper manages to create a good deal of atmosphere here in this dead-end Texas town. It feels noir and it feels hot and, yes, steamy (Madsen seems to spend much of the picture nude).  Think they were aiming for The Postman Always Rings Twice (and this might actually be better than Rafelson’s remake). Once the plot decides to get going, it meanders its way to the finish line, where everyone gets what they deserve, even if it isn’t exactly what they want.

 

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) – M. Scorsese

I stayed away from this film for a decade, perhaps because of its 3-hour length or maybe because of my general disinterest in Leonardo DiCaprio.  Also, I’m not a big fan of 1980s-styled greedy power-hungry capitalist jerks (I would say Gordon Gekko but I’ve never watched Wall Street).  But with time on my hands and a director like Scorsese, I decided to give it a try. And right out of the gates, I’m getting a very strong Goodfellas vibe (from the voiceover) – but perhaps just those scenes where Ray Liotta starts getting into drugs?  But wait, is Wolf actually a comedy?  Leo and stockbroker partner Jonah Hill are going way over the top – and so is Scorsese.  This could be a self-parody. The story echoes Goodfellas too: true story, life of crime, busted by the FBI, turn in your friends and write a book. We accepted the moral ambivalence of the gangsters in the earlier movie but never really identified with them because they were scary and violent.  Here, as I said, these guys are jerks – hard partying drug-users who use women for sex (cheating on their wives, even when chosen as trophies alone, such as Margot Robbie) and screwing over everyone who will trust them with a dollar. These are the kind of bros that we could do without.  But Scorsese pumps up the adrenalin, makes it all larger than life – and doesn’t quite indict us (or Leo) for finding it fun.  In the end, I’m not sure we should fault a director for repeating himself (particularly one like Scorsese whose output is so varied already) when it takes amazing technique to pull something like this off.  I just was just hoping for a bit of a message here rather than an anthem to bad boys (that is probably celebrated by today’s bad boys).

Razzia sur la Chnouf (1955)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Razzia sur la Chnouf (1955) – H. Decoin

As I understand it, after all of his successes for Renoir and Carné & Prévert in the 1930s (not to mention Pepe le Moko), Jean Gabin had a bit of a lull in his career until his comeback as a world-weary gangster in Touchez Pas au Grisbi (1954) for Jacques Becker (a masterpiece).  Then began a spate of French noir or gangster films where he was equally likely to play a cop or a criminal. In Razzia (the title translates as “Raid on Drugs”), he is another aging gangster returning to France after a decade spent overseas, largely in the US.  He is hired as an enforcer for boss Marcel Dalio, charged with applying some discipline to his drug racket, while acting as the proprietor of a bar/restaurant.  So, Gabin (playing Henri Ferré from Nantes) begins making the rounds, meeting the chemist, the delivery men, and the dealers, pressuring them to pick up their game and increase sales. As viewers, we are treated to some pretty lurid scenes (as far as 1955 goes) and director Henri Decoin doesn’t pull his punches when showing the negative effects of heroin on the customers and crooks. Lino Ventura (later a star in Jean-Paul Melville’s Sixties French noirs) and Albert Rémy are two gunmen paid by Dalio to assist Gabin but they also don’t really trust him.  Indeed, we also feel that Gabin might be looking after his own interests as much as (or more than) Dalio’s. Yet even after getting beat up by the cops, Gabin plays everything cool and methodical (including his no-nonsense seduction of bar hostess Magali Noël). Perhaps you’ll see the end of the film coming and perhaps you won’t.  It doesn’t surprise.  But what is essential about this film is its mood – the noir vibe. I wouldn’t rank it with the best of the genre (such as Rififi which came out the same year) – but it is a welcome invitation back to the smoky underworld of Paris.

 

The Suspect (1944)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Suspect (1944) – R. Siodmak

Charles Laughton is a kindly businessman with a shrewish wife in early 20^th century London. When young jobseeker Ella Raines chances into his office, they strike up a friendship which blossoms into affection.  Eventually, Laughton decides to ask his wife for a divorce, but she refuses. He tells Raines that they can’t meet again but it is too late because his wife has found out and threatens to tell everyone about his suspected infidelity.  The next thing we know, she is dead and a police inspector is nosing around Laughton’s place.  We never feel anything but sympathy for Laughton, even as the police start tightening the screws upon finding a “motive” (his relationship with Raines).  But they can’t pin anything on Laughton – that is, until his drunken rotter of a neighbour (Henry Daniell) claims to have heard the murder through the walls. Now Laughton is really cornered and the usual fate of the film noir protagonist awaits him.  Yet he is willing to try one last gambit (and still remarkably retains audience sympathy).  This is not the typical noir, but a character driven piece with Laughton more subtle than his later scenery chewing years would suggest and fine direction from noir stalwart Robert Siodmak (The Killers, Criss Cross, etc.). 

 

Horror Castle (1963)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Horror Castle (1963) – A. Margheriti

Another atmospheric Gothic chiller from director Antonio Margheriti (see also Castle of Blood, 1964), here credited as Anthony Dawson.  Originally entitled “The Virgin of Nuremberg”, here we find married (not virginal) Rosanna Podesta moving to a spooky medieval castle in Germany with her husband whose ancestors lived there. The castle is also home to a museum full of ancient torture devices (‘natch) that were once wielded by ancient patriarch The Punisher.  There is a statue of him in a hooded masked outfit with barbaric mace. On her first night, Mary (Podesta) awakens to find her husband Max (Georges Riviere) missing – she wanders downstairs, through the lonely castle (full of shadows and bumps in the night) and into the museum. Following a trail of blood, she finds a dead woman inside the legendary iron maiden. Of course, no one believes her the next day.  Once we see someone roaming the halls dressed as the Punisher, we are led to suspect that anyone could be the killer, including husband Max, loyal (but disfigured) aide Erich (Christopher Lee), and possibly even the cryptic old housekeeper Martha (Laura Nucci).  Although much of the film is Podesta wandering the castle in her dressing gown, there are enough suspenseful events to hold your interest – and the unexpected twist at the end is worth the wait.  Beautifully gruesome.  

 

The House on 92nd Street (1945)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The House on 92^nd Street (1945) – H. Hathaway

Using the documentary style for which Dragnet later became famous on TV, Henry Hathaway’s war-time noir includes voice-over narration, real location shooting, found footage (of Nazi spies, J. Edgar Hoover, etc.) mixed with actors (Lloyd Nolan and Leo G. Carroll, most noticeably) and a torn-from-the-headlines plot (Nazi spies are trying to smuggle secrets of the atomic bomb out of the US).  Bill Dietrich (William Eythe) is a college student recruited by the Germans to spy for them but he quickly tells the FBI and works as a double agent for them.  We see how he makes contact with the Nazi spy ring and attempts to earn their confidence while still passing along details of their actions and communications back to the FBI.  With this information, FBI Inspector Briggs (Nolan) hopes to find the local kingpin, Herr Christopher, and break up the ring before it’s too late.  Apparently, references to the bomb were added just before this was rushed into release in September 1945.  Not bad but a bit of a programmer.