Papillon (1973)

☆ ☆ ☆

Papillon (1973) – F. J. Schaffner

Epic prison flick shot on location in Jamaica (substituting for Devil’s Island and surrounds in French Guyana) with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman doing it tough after their convictions for pimp-killing and counterfeiting, respectively (although McQueen claims to be innocent).  Focused primarily on action rather than on thoughts (apart from dreams of escape), the film lacks the depth I had hoped for (and you can see this in other films by the same director, Schaffner:  Planet of the Apes, Patton, Boys from Brazil).  McQueen does a nice job of transforming from a steely tough guy to an addled old fool with rotten teeth (still dreaming of escape) but Hoffman’s performance seems rather one-note (if dedicated). Based on a supposedly true story by Papillon himself (Henri Charriere), the film has that seventies blockbuster look and feel but it doesn’t rise to the status of the great classics. Still, if you can handle the length, there are enough struggles and setbacks for the prisoners to hold your interest and the scenery looks great.   

  

Jason Bourne (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆

Jason Bourne (2016) – P. Greengrass

Director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon return to the Bourne franchise.  They invest the proceedings with a definite amount of zing, as do Alicia Vikander and Tommy Lee Jones as (possibly) duplicitous leaders of the CIA.  However, at this point, it is hard not to see that what once used to be fresh (dynamic editing, pulsing music, non-stop action sequences) is now part of a (successful) formula.  Nevertheless, even when watched on the small screen on an airplane, the film feels exciting.  Vincent Cassel makes a solid evil villain (“the asset”) and his inclusion allows more of Bourne’s backstory to be explained.  Is he ready to come in from the cold?  Is he even more angry now that he knows more about the Treadstone program?  Still, even with a few additions to the Bourne story, the plot here is only skeletal with just enough to hang the action sequences on.   Much like a Chinese takeaway meal, after you are finished, you may feel hungry again. 

  

Thunder Road (1958)

☆ ☆ ☆

Thunder Road (1958) – A. Ripley

Robert Mitchum plays up his “bad boy” charm as a “transporter” running illegal moonshine across the South in a souped up 1950 Ford.  Mitchum also produced and co-wrote the title song (not the Bruce Springsteen song, which only stole its title from this film) and no doubt selected his son, James, to play his younger brother.  You’ll need to set aside the unusual move that sees Mitchum still playing a kid at 40 but that’s probably not all that requires suspension of disbelief here.  Yet the action sequences, with the Feds and some crooked mobsters chasing Mitchum, feel authentic and so too do some of the Southern locations (filmed in and around Asheville, North Carolina).  I hear this is a “cult classic” and I don’t think it warrants that status but it’s not bad.  If only the rest of the acting was on Mitchum (Senior)’s level. 

  

The Young Savages (1961)

☆ ☆ ½

The Young Savages (1961) – J. Frankenheimer

Sober social problem drama that tackles juvenile delinquency by pointing the finger directly at broken homes and the slum environment.  Burt Lancaster is the District Attorney, formerly from the slums himself, who wants to put three young hoods who killed a blind Puerto Rican boy into the electric chair.  His boss, aiming for the governor’s office, approves; his wife, a rich white liberal, disapproves.  Lancaster takes his time investigating both viewpoints, including the families of the victim and the accused murderers (with Shelley Winters as his former girlfriend, the mother of one of the accused) as well as other members of both the Italian and Puerto Rican gangs involved in the incident.  And then he basically throws the case in a quest for the truth, demonstrating to the jury how the killers came to be killers and why they should be treated with mercy – of course, the victim’s family is stunned and disappointed (especially because the truth involves a dose of victim-blaming).  If the film didn’t discuss the institutional racism present in America, one might worry that its conclusion itself smacks of bias.  But no one would disagree that Lancaster has done the right thing by showing mercy – it’s just that it’s all a bit preachy as directed by earnest young John Frankenheimer fresh from live TV and not yet up to the standards of his classic films (The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May).  Rather dated too.   

  

El Cuerpo (The Body) (2012)

☆ ☆ ☆

El Cuerpo (The Body) (2012) – O. Paulo

Slick Spanish thriller that takes the Hitchcockian path of revealing who the killer is from the start and then creating suspense as the police close in on him.  I can’t remember Hitch using flashbacks however (except perhaps in Vertigo) but here they add to the tension because we can see moments when even the victim may have discovered the plot to kill her.  This is a key part of the plot because, you see, the victim’s body has gone missing and all signs point to the possibility that she is still alive and leading the police to clues that identify her “killer” (and, of course, tormenting him psychologically along the way).  The whole film takes place in the morgue (more or less). Belen Rueda (from The Orphanage, 2007) plays the victim, a successful but emotionally cruel businesswoman, and Hugo Silva plays her younger husband with the incentive to kill his wife arising due to her large fortune and his much younger mistress (Aura Garrido) who wishes to have him all for herself.  Jose Coronado plays the stereotypic seedy police detective with problems of his own.  So, in many respects, El Cuerpo is straight genre film-making with no aim except to thrill and to entice viewers with a hard-to-anticipate twist ending.  The cinematic style is noirish (rainy nights, dark medical rooms) but nothing special.  Whether the ending is earned or not is up to viewers to judge – but, as with many pictures of this type, thinking back over the film after the ending is known does highlight its improbabilities.  But don’t let that spoil your fun. 

  

Safe in Hell (1931)

☆ ☆ ☆

Safe in Hell (1931) – W.  Wellman

Pre-Code (i.e., before censorship and enforced happy endings) Hollywood feature by William Wellman and starring Dorothy Mackaill (who is in every virtually scene).  She is a call girl (the only way she can make a living, she claims, and the woeful status of women might support it) who accidentally kills her former pimp.  When her true love, a sailor, returns just at that moment, he loyally helpls her to escape to a Caribbean isle with no extradition laws to the US.  She promises to be faithful and, despite the fact that alcohol is not banned, not to party either.  As you would expect, her new land is filled with dissipated criminals who are sex-starved for a white woman (the film is as racist as it is sexist, although the two black characters, who run the hotel, are not caricatured fortunately).  Eventually gives in but still keeps her chastity awaiting the return of her sailor; instead her pimp arrives seemingly back from the dead (but of course he was never really killed, just using the opportunity to score some insurance money).  But, lo and behold, when he makes a move on Gilda this time, she kills him for good.  The plot goes on – will she get the death penalty or not? And there are a few more twists and a fully downbeat conclusion (after only 73 minutes).  At the end, I thought, well that wasn’t much -- but somehow, over night, it haunted me a bit.  Mackaill is a charismatic figure and she evokes the desperation of her plight and the psychological issues (faithfulness vs. hedonism in the face of a cruel unjust world) pretty well. Director Wellman is better known for The Public Enemy (1931) and A Star is Born (1937).

  

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008)

☆ ☆ ☆

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008) – M. Zenovich

Even-handed review of the Polanski statutory rape case that manages to make relatively clear the legal shenanigans that have been involved while also making it clear that the director was guilty.  Just taking one look at the school photo of the 13-year-girl makes you realize how wrong he was – so young.  I don’t think it mitigates things to ponder the fact that Polanski’s parents died in the Holocaust and his wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Manson family. In archive interviews, Polanski himself seems to brush off the seriousness of the charges, as did the French, who received him when he fled the US.  However, this documentary does make it clear just how much Polanski was jerked around by the judge, a publicity-seeking knob (as suggested by both prosecution and defense lawyers in interviews), and why he decided to escape to avoid any further complications in the case and its resolution.  I didn’t realize that the film was 8 years ago and therefore omits the most recent moves by the U. S. to extradite Polanski again and their unwillingness to allow him to wrap things up with “time served” as even the victim and her family now think should happen.  I’m of two minds – 42 days isn’t much of a sentence (the time he actually spent in prison) – but 40 years in exile might be. As a parent (albeit of boys), it is hard not to see the ugly side of things and hard not to doubt the complicity of the victim at the time.  All told, this is a lot of talking heads to watch but director Marina Zenovich keeps things interesting.