Backfire (1950)

☆ ☆ ☆

Backfire (1950) – V. Sherman

Average film noir that has some of the usual trappings (flashbacks, twisty plot, chiaroscuro lighting) but doesn’t really distinguish itself.  Perhaps this is because the lead is played by ho-hum Gordon MacRae who is flat on his back in the hospital for most of the picture, wondering where his ex-Army buddy and future ranch partner, Edmond O’Brien, has disappeared to.  O’Brien, a noir veteran (he shot this one between White Heat and D.O.A.) is always a treat to watch but he has less to do here.  Virginia Mayo is the helpful nurse who helps MacRae to unfurl the plot whereas Viveca Lindfors is the (faux femme fatale) lounge singer who drives the plot mechanics.  Ed Begley (Sr.) makes a solid police captain investigating the homicide of the gambler for which O’Brien is the principal suspect.  You get the point: this is the usual man-trying-to-solve-crime-before-the-police plot with a variety of red herrings and generic settings and situations.  So, in that regard, this is solid viewing – it just isn’t the cream of the crop.

  

The Man from U. N. C. L. E. (2015)

☆ ☆

The Man from U. N. C. L. E. (2015) – G. Ritchie

Slick but pointless, calculated yet somehow flaccid, and of course cynically setting up a franchise (that may never happen) – these may be the trademarks of Guy Ritchie who once seemed interesting (when he made Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998 but that turned out to be just a Tarantino hangover).  Here, we have a few up-and-coming stars who I didn’t recognise upon first glance (Henry Cavill, Alicia Vikander, Armie Hammer) and a glorified cameo by Hugh Grant to hold them together.  No one embarrasses themselves but proceedings feel hollow.  I never saw the original TV show but somehow I doubt that this matters – it wasn’t too hard to grasp the schema upon which the film rests.  Not worth your time.

  

Sicario (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆

Sicario (2015) – D. Villaneuve

Grim-as-all-hell look at the drug wars, as FBI agent Emily Blunt gets co-opted into Josh Brolin’s operation in Mexico.  It’s not quite clear who Brolin works for but he’s accompanied by brooding Benicio del Toro who we come to understand represents the title character, a veteran of the brutal and sickening war between the cartels.  Canadian director Denis Villaneuve handles action well and the bloody violence here feels less gratuitous than just a matter-of-course for this plot and probably the real thing.  But there is a lot of violence and the dusty desert locations and forboding soundtrack don’t brighten things up at all.  The intrigue lies in trying to understand what is going on but there is little cheerful pay-off in finding out.  Blunt is solid in her role but mostly left clueless and frustrated.  Viewers may feel similarly but the film does move quickly and hits that sad cynical spot.

  

Wrong Move (1975)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Wrong Move (1975) – W. Wenders

The second film in Wim Wenders’ Road Trilogy, after Alice in the Cities and before Kings of the Road, also starring Rudiger Vogler.  Here, he fashions himself to be a writer but has nothing to say.  Venturing away from his home by train to Bonn, he picks up several travelling companions, similarly aimless (including Hanna Schygulla as an actress, and teen Nastassja Kinski as a circus performer). The script by Peter Handke is artificial and didactic, focusing on alienation but also referring to (or laying blame upon) Germany’s wartime past and the complicity (or active engagement) by some in the atrocities.  The characters may allegorically symbolise different subsections of Germany’s population (youth, older generation, etc.).  Naturalistic, this is not.  Yet somehow Wenders’ directorial choices, aided immensely by Robby Mueller’s cinematography, keep things fresh.  Tracking shots abound and the countryside is green and the city dotted with bright colours.  Vogler and his companions drift along and we note the things that happen but nothing seems to affect him.  Instead, he is alone and unable to find purpose and meaning.  The other films in the trilogy seem less fully depressed.

Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947)

☆ ☆ ½

Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947) – J. Rawlins

Low budget serial that was soon to move to TV, featuring Ralph Byrd as the fabled detective.  Here, he comes face-to-face with Boris Karloff as Gruesome, a nasty thug who gets his hands on a scientist’s new chemical that has the power to freeze people in their tracks, virtually unconscious (but actually freeze-framed).  This enables a major bank robbery but fortunately Dick’s girlfriend Tess is in the phone booth at the bank, impervious to the gas and able to call the cops.  The comic book action is writ large and fairly silly but not so much as Batman the 1960’s TV series (for example).  So, things might be a bit dull if the proceedings weren’t lifted by Karloff’s special touch.  Somehow I thought Tracy would be a bit sterner but he seems a fun-loving joe here.  No gadgets anywhere in sight.

  

Virgin Witch (1972)

☆ ☆

Virgin Witch (1972) – R. Austin

I should have known better.  But in my never-ending quest to find spooky supernatural films (without gore, if possible), I descended into the realm of sub-Hammer sexploitation.  Apparently filmed just as Britain was opening itself up to T&A, that’s about all that is on offer here.  The acting is rather somnambulant and the plot (which sees two young girls runaway to London to become models but get mixed up in a witches coven) is far inferior to The Devil Rides Out (1968) or even The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), two of its peers (the latter if you add sexuality to the mix, although that is more of a spoof of The Old Dark House, 1932).  (If anything good can be said for the plot here, it's that the women have all the power, including the supposed victim.)  At any rate, all I can say is “look elsewhere”.  I’ll tell you if I find something good in this genre (Suspiria, 1977, and Rosemary’s Baby, 1968, are still at the top of the heap).

  

Jedda (1955)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Jedda (1955) – C. Chauvel

The first colour film in Australia is dazzling to look at but very problematic in content.  Jedda is a young aboriginal girl whose mother died in childbirth leading her to be adopted by a white woman who had recently lost her own infant. This situation puts Jedda into a similar predicament to those indigenous children who were part of the “stolen generations” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations), children who were forcibly removed from their families and raised by whites, possibly in order to assimilate the oldest culture on Earth into the invading Western one. On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologised for the Australian government’s role in removing indigenous children from their families and placing them with white families. The effects of their removal on these indigenous people have been drastic:  loss of culture and identity resulting in alienation from both indigenous and white cultures.  There are a number of contentious beliefs on display in the film:  1) the white mother believes that she is “civilizing” Jedda and must protect her from contact with her tribe; 2) the white father believes that indigenous peoples have their own ways and they need to be allowed to live according to their own customs but he implies that they are more animalistic (the filmmakers seem to share these views); 3) the half-caste boy, also raised by the whites, who becomes the head of the jackaroos is seen as a more suitable romantic partner for Jedda than any of the members of her own tribe. As she grows up, Jedda is shown to be fascinated by the indigenous culture around her and aching to take part in the corroboree and to go on walkabout but she is always prevented.  When a rebellious young aborigine from another tribe shows up and shows an interest in Jedda, the attraction seems mutual and sexual tension is aroused.  However, against her will, this young man (fleeing from a prison sentence, it turns out) kidnaps her and heads off into the bush, dragging her along.  Their flight (across amazing terrain) takes up the latter half of the film and ends in doom.