Border Incident (1949)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Border Incident (1949) – A. Mann

Director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton teamed up for a number of classic films noir (T-Men, Raw Deal, He Walked By Night), including this one.  Ricardo Montalban stars as a Mexican federal police official who goes undercover to break up an illegal human trafficking ring (smuggling farmworkers, braceros, across the border to work them illegally below the minimum wage without visas and then killing them when they return to Mexico with their earnings). Montalban teams up with George Murphy, an American immigration official, who also goes undercover, as a wanted man who has stolen 400 blank visa documents.  Together they try to take down Howard Da Silva and Charles McGraw but it’s a dangerous job – indeed, this 1948 noir contains some shocking violence for its time.  Mann frames the story with a faux documentary style (popular for many noirs) and Alton offers some perfectly framed shots mixing darkness and light.  Seventy years later the issues in focus here are still topical but the film rightly focuses on the plight of the poor braceros caught in the middle.

 

Kubrick by Kubrick (2020)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Kubrick by Kubrick (2020) – G. Monro

This documentary is entirely based on archival audio recordings of Stanley Kubrick being interviewed by French critic Michel Ciment -- with some extra video footage from other sources (and clips from the films, of course) garnishing the central find. In between, we find ourselves in the 18^th century room at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where director Gregory Monro has added film posters or occasionally an old TV (showing the archival footage).  Each major film gets only 10 or so minutes of discussion, so expect at most some interesting trivia, if not some amazingly revelatory comments.  That said, there are still enough insights into Kubrick’s way of working and his philosophy about filmmaking to make this worth a look for the director’s fans.  For example, he speaks of the importance of his training in photography to his art. He discusses how difficult the work is, if you want to get it right (and others testify to his exacting perfectionist style, including Sterling Hayden, Jack Nicholson). He talks about the necessity of conflict for a screenplay as a reflection on why he made so many war films. Ciment concludes that Kubrick was more of an 18^th century artist, although I am still pondering on this.   

 

Death Race 2000 (1975)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Death Race 2000 (1975) – P. Bartel

Paul Bartel’s low budget cult films don’t usually attract name actors (unless Mary Woronov counts!), so it is a surprise to see David Carradine (post-Kung Fu) and Sylvester Stallone (pre-Rocky) here. Of course, the film is in bad taste:  it’s the future and the biggest entertainment on TV is a cross-country car race where participants score bonus points by killing innocent bystanders (more points for kids and the elderly). The cars and costumes are Seventiestastic! But there’s a twist this year – a group of resistance fighters is sabotaging cars and trying to capture the favourite, Frankenstein (Carradine); they’ve even planted one of their own in his car, as the navigator (Simone Griffeth).  The rebels want to end the reign of the lifetime president. But, hey, no one watches this film for the plot – instead, they want jokes in bad taste (with nudity and phony violence) that probably seemed pretty outrageous for 1975.  In the end, it’s nowhere near as great as the director’s amazing Eating Raoul but it’s certainly passable, if you’re looking for this sort of film.

 

Long Weekend (1978)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Long Weekend (1978) – C. Eggleston

It’s the 1970s in Australia.  John Hargreaves and Briony Behets are a married couple on the rocks. He thinks going camping for the long weekend will help matters; she thinks not.  They go anyway – it’s a long dark journey to get there (from Melbourne to a rural beach).  On the way, they hit a kangaroo.  As they near the beach, driving in circles perhaps, nature seems to close in on them, ominously.  In the morning, they set up camp and continue to have run-ins with nature on the first day; attacks include an eagle, a possum, possibly a shark.  All the while, the couple shows no care for their natural surroundings: littering, chopping down trees aimlessly, shooting a gun (and/or spear gun) randomly into the air or at fauna.  Things get spooky and their relationship does not improve.  As a horror film, it may be called Ozploitation but it also played the Cannes Film Festival and its ambiguity takes it beyond the usual genre flick (see also Hitch’s The Birds).    

The Heist of the Century (2020)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The Heist of the Century (2020) – A. Winograd

Commercial film-making Argentina-style – which is to say, not all that different from Hollywood film-making (or that’s clearly the goal).  Sure, this heist caper is based on a true story, the biggest bank robbery in Buenos Aires circa 2006 and it’s somewhat wacky – but not nearly enough – instead, the film follows the usual genre formula.  First, we see dope-smoking martial arts instructor Fernando (Diego Peretti) come up with his plan (to access Banco Rio’s safety deposit boxes via a tunnel dug upward from a storm drain).  Then, we see him get his team together – chiefly, professional thief Luis Mario (Guillermo Francella), who doesn’t want to put up with Fernando’s loopiness, and a few other guys with smaller speaking parts.  Most of the running time is taken up with the actual heist and it’s handled well by director Ariel Winograd.  Luis Mario keeps the hostage negotiator busy while the rest of the team executes the theft. Of course, there’s fallout after the robbery, but you expect that.  In fact, there’s nothing really unexpected about this film at all – but it’s perfectly acceptable as light entertainment.  

 

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938) – E. Lubitsch

Although not rivalling Lubitsch’s masterpieces and filmed immediately before two of them (Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner), Bluebeard still has enough of the director’s sly “touch” to bring a smile to these lips and even some chortles.  Gary Cooper is a multimillionaire used to getting his way who decides that he’d like to have Claudette Colbert as his wife (and her hustler father, Edward Everett Horton is certainly keen). However, when she finds out she is to be the 8^th wife (and he is rather cavalier about it), she forces Cooper to boost the pre-nup agreement to give her a healthy annual pay-out upon divorce.  And then she proceeds to torment him by partying and carrying on and ignoring him (particularly in the boudoir).  A very young David Niven plays her supposed love interest and it’s a good comic turn from him.  Of course, Colbert is sparkling and even Cooper (who can be stodgy) is able to bring laughs. Perhaps the battle of the sexes doesn’t quite soar but it’s refreshing to see the topic broached (as Lubitsch has done before).  Worth a watch (after you watch the director’s 4 or 5 even funnier films). 

 

The Bigamist (1953)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Bigamist (1953) – I. Lupino

More of a melodrama than a film noir, as directed by Ida Lupino who also takes one of the three key roles – that of the “other woman”.  Edmond O’Brien (who featured in many noirs: The Killers, D. O. A., White Heat) stars as Harry Graham who seeks to adopt a child with wife, Eve (Joan Fontaine). This leads to an investigation into his background by fussbudget Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn, who gets a few in-jokes referencing his earlier role as Kris Kringle here). The investigation uncovers Graham’s double life – and we learn in flashback how he ended up also married to Phyllis (Lupino) while still married to Eve.  Possibly the film encourages us to have sympathy for Graham who winds up in this plight because he tries to be a nice guy – but Jordan and later the judge (and Lupino) never let us forget that Graham’s own behaviour, a serious moral transgression and betrayal, initiated the calamity that ensnared all three. Lupino is a steady hand behind the camera and should have had more opportunities to direct.