Monday, December 31, 2012

One More Train to Rob (1971)

Universal Pictures
Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Encore)

Bland, lifeless western with George Peppard as the leader of a group of outlaws who specialize in robbing trains. He is set up by one of the other members and sent to prison for 3 years. After his release, he sets out to get revenge and take back his girl. It feels like a made-for-TV movie, filmed entirely on the Universal back lot, and is filled with offensive Chinese stereotypes.

Backlash (1956)

Universal-International Pictures
Directed by John Sturges
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Encore)

Richard Widmark and Donna Reed make an unlikely team as they try to unravel a murder and find stolen gold in the desert southwest. Their search for answers leads them right into the middle of a range war between ranchers and outlaws. Widmark has a memorable shootout with a fast draw named Johnny Cool. He slaps around Donna, although they are really in love with each other. This uneasy mixture of melodrama and western action has its moments, but feels longer than its 84 minute running time.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Streets of Ghost Town (1950)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Ray Nazarro
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Charles Starrett and sidekick Smiley Burnette are in a ghost town looking for hidden gold. In a long flashback, we learn the gold was stashed by a gang of outlaws after homesteaders threatened their hideout. The juvenile antics of Burnette take over entire parts of the film. The Durango Kid doesn't appear until near the end, almost an afterthought.

Winnie the Pooh (2011)

Walt Disney Pictures
Directed by Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Starz)

Disney revisits the make-believe world of Christopher Robin in this imaginative, if breezy, film. The look of the classic Pooh movie and books is captured perfectly by the hand-drawn animation. A rather plotty and episodic story is the weak link: it starts off as a search for Eeyore's missing tail, then a note from Christopher Robin is misinterpreted, leading to the group's attempt to capture a fictional monster called the "backson". Pooh gives up a chance for honey to return Eeyore's tail, which provides the only "lesson" of the movie: putting his friend before his self, although he gets rewarded with a giant pot of honey afterwards. Pretty weak. Nonetheless, there are some fun moments: like the wordplay with piglet and his "knots", Pooh's honey fantasy sequence and the way the words from the story are incorporated into the setting.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Surf Party (1964)

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by Maury Dexter
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Fox Movie Channel)

Three teeny boppers arrive in southern California from Phoenix, determined to pick up surfers and learn how to surf. The brother of one of the girls is the local "king of the beach", running an invitation-only club where bands play and the teenagers dance. The girls waste no time in starting relationships with various beach bums, about which they sing sugary musical numbers. A stern cop tries to bust the club for selling alcohol but fails. A surfer hurts himself trying to "run the pier". The real attraction here, other than the girls, are the bands: The Astronauts three-pronged guitar attack performs "Firewater", and The Routers perform "Crack-Up", which are the only words to the song. Both are great.

Friday, December 28, 2012

The Left Hand of God (1955)

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by Edward Dmytryck
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

The sight of Humphrey Bogart as a priest in China is a bit too much, but it becomes apparent within the first few minutes that he is not really a priest. The way he flirts with Gene Tierney makes that obvious. However, his real identity is not revealed until nearly halfway through the movie in an awkward flashback. It's as if the screenwriters did not trust the viewers intelligence to figure things out. Well, now that we are back in familiar Bogie territory, a hard drinking, gambling downed flyer posing as a priest trying to get out of China, the movie is nearly over. Tierney disappears for way too long, only to show up towards the end to resolve her feelings for the priest. Dmytryck and Bogie fail to repeat the magic of the previous year's The Caine Mutiny.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Blood Tea and Red String (2006)

Directed by Christiane Cegavske
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Cinema Epoch)

Real stop-motion animation, all hand-made with no computer assistance, is quickly becoming a lost art, especially a feature length film such as this. Christiane Cegavske's dark tale starts in an idyllic forest, with a family of "crow creatures", small animals with bird beaks, who are asked by aristocratic white mice to create a doll based on a portrait they carry. They succeed, but like it so much they won't give it up, and hang it, Christ-like, in a place of honor on their oak tree. The mice steal it in the middle of the night, so some of the forest creatures go on a trek to get it back. They enlist the help of a magical frog, who apparently has the power to bring the dead back to life, not to mention his psychedelic treats. There is a spider with a human head that likes to barter. The mice play card games, overlooked by a menacing crow with a skull head. The symbolism is purposely vague, each viewer will have their own interpretation, but on my first viewing I sensed a theme of religious devotion and a struggle between the classes for possession, and control, of that religion. The next viewing, who knows? Very much in the style of Jan Svankmajer's Alice, one of my favorite movies of all-time.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Making It (1971)

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by John Erman
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Fox Movie Channel)

High schooler Kristoffer Tabori can only think about sex. He's sleeping with the basketball coach's wife while juggling teeny boppers from school. He has an intellectual bent and argues with a teacher about Catcher in the Rye. At home, his single mother is contemplating another marriage. Eventually, his sexual antics catch up to him, but in an ironic twist it is his mother who needs the most help. Innocuous film never lives up to its potential, dwelling too much on now-dated pop culture instead of its more universal themes, as pointed out by the English teacher.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas Eve (1947)

United Artists
Directed by Edwin L. Marin
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(AMC)

Confusing story of a wealthy old maid in New York City who plants newspaper headlines in order to bring home her three estranged sons for Christmas Eve and save her from a scheming nephew. The first son is George Brent, a philandering womanizer who has lost all of his money and is writing rubber checks. How Joan Blondell can be in love with such a heel is just one of many of the problems with the plot. The second son is George Raft, a crook who has fled to South America to escape the law. He tangles with a Nazi on a yacht. The third son is Randolph Scott, a washed up rodeo star in New York City who finds himself in the middle of the baby black market. None of the three stories are believable, the dialogue laughable and the characters unsympathetic. The wraparound story contains a bare minimum of Christmas atmosphere.

Monday, December 24, 2012

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

Warner Bros.
Directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, Warner Bros.)

Chevy Chase has a string of very bad luck leading up to Christmas while trying to keep his bickering family together. Chase's slapstick style is often hilarious, but can get a bit predictable. The best moments are at the Christmas dinner table, especially after the arrival of the forgetful Aunt Bethany and her cigar-chomping, toupee-wearing husband. It can be rather crude at times, but for the most part is able to balance it with authentic insights into the absurdity of family and holiday traditions.

A Christmas Story (1983)

MGM
Directed by Bob Clark
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, Warner Bros)

All Ralphie wants for Christmas is a BB gun, even if it does shoot his eye out. Nostalgic look at growing up in suburban Ohio in the 1940s. Ralphie's family consists of his "old man", Darren McGavin in a hilariously understated role, and his slightly overprotective mother, Melinda Dillon. Filled with many now-classic scenes, my favorites are with McGavin: fighting the furnace, the cursing that you never actually hear and of course the leg lamp. Ralphie's run-ins with the school bully, Scut Farkus, are pretty good as well. The film has deservedly earned its annual Christmastime showings and large following. Don't miss Bob Clark's other Christmas classic Black Christmas, one of the best Christmas-themed horror movies!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Twist of Fate (1954)

United Artists
Directed by David Miller
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Ginger Rogers is in love with a married wealthy French gentleman, who also happens to run a counterfeit ring. Disillusioned by his broken promises of divorce, she allows herself to fall in love with a young French hunk half her age. Meanwhile, her "friend" Herbert Lom is very good at convincing her to give him money under false pretenses, which he gambles away. An improbable series of mistaken identities leads to murder in this melodramatic mess.

Blazing the Western Trail (1945)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Vernon Keays
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Better-than-usual Durango Kid entry as two rival stagecoach lines vie for the coveted mail contract. One owner stoops to robbery and murder to win and it is up to the Durango Kid to infiltrate his gang and set things straight. There is an exciting stagecoach race with some great stunts for the ending. Musical relief by Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys is entertaining, but comedy relief by Dub Taylor as "Cannonball" is not.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Antonio Gaudí (1985)

Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

A Japanese documentary on the Spanish artist Antonio Gaudi. Presented with almost no narrative, but accompanied by an eclectic, moody soundtrack, everything you learn about Gaudi will be from admiring his works, and they are impressive. His distinctive, modern style is both playful and Gothic, with a childlike fascination for nature, but always skewed towards the grotesque. Teshigahara only occasionally breaks his obvious admiration with glimpses of people at work or play among the public art work, and even more rarely with some brief dialogue. The final scenes are of the famous Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona, still under construction at the time of filming, but its originality undeniable.

Second Chance (1953)

RKO Radio Pictures
Directed by Rudolph Mate
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Linda Darnell is stalked by Jack Palance in Mexico. She's scheduled to testify before Congress about his mob connections. He wants to stop her, but he is also madly in love with her. Luckily boxer Robert Mitchum is in town and has his eye on her as well, and steps in to protect her. It all ends with Palance and Mitchum duking it out on a high-wire cable car dangling above a gorge. The final scenes are somewhat enhanced by the 3D, but otherwise a rather routine drama filmed on Mexican locations.

Two Flags West (1950)

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by Robert Wise
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Fox Movie Channel)

Intriguing story of Confederate prisoners of war recruited by the Union to fight Indians as members of the Cavalry. Although they wear Yankee uniforms, the Rebels are reluctant to cooperate with their former enemies with whom they sleep and fight. At a remote outpost in New Mexico, they plan to escape to Texas, until they become part of a bigger plan to link the South to California. An Indian attack on the Fort changes those plans. Jeff Chandler is the post commander who makes a series of critical mistakes in his judgment of the men as well as the Indians. Joseph Cotten is the southern commander, respected by his men but mistrusted by the others. Linda Darnell is the woman caught up in the middle of it all. The final battle scenes at the Fort are very well done, including a haunting act of self-sacrifice by Chandler. However, the romantic subplots with Darnell are an unnecessary distraction, as Chandler has a limited emotional range that hurts his character.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Event Horizon (1997)

Paramount Pictures
Directed by Paul Anderson
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, Paramount)

Horror-science fiction hybrid starts out well but loses all credibility by the end. A group of military-types are sent on a mission to Neptune to rescue any survivors of a long-lost spacecraft that has suddenly reappeared after missing for seven years. They board the ship only to find it has been taken over by unseen forces which torment them with personal visions. Sam Neill is the scientist who invented the ship's "gravity drive", which creates a gateway to another dimension. Unfortunately that dimension is "hell" and Neill transforms into some kind of monster that seeks to destroy the ship and take everyone back home with him. It is dumb downed by action cliches like countdown clocks, last second escapes and "jump scares", all set to a bombastic soundtrack; subtle it is not.

Cry Wolf (1947)

Warner Bros.
Directed by Peter Godfrey
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Moody story of widow Stanwyck showing up at the mansion of her husband's family, tangling with brother Flynn who controls the household with a steel grip. Flynn, a doctor, keeps a secret laboratory in a closed wing, from which screams are heard in the middle of the night. Is it her supposedly dead husband? Stanwyck climbs rooftops, jumps through windows and climbs fences in her search for the truth. Flynn, cast against type, is cold, calculating and completely untrustworthy. The ending gives a somewhat unsatisfactory explanation, but it is still a fun ride.

Witness to Murder (1954)

United Artists
Directed by Roy Rowland
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Solid thriller released a few months before Hitchcock's Rear Window, with which it shares a similar plot. Barbara Stanwyck witnesses a murder through her apartment window late one night. The police write it off as a dream after visiting the supposed murderer, the debonair gentleman and author George Sanders, who appears beyond reproach, and finding no evidence. Stanwyck isn't convinced and turns amateur detective, which only gets her into more trouble. Sanders, an ex-Nazi, is smart, and manages to get her briefly put away in an insane asylum. However, Stanwyck has become friendly with one of the police detectives and he manages to get her out. Stanwyck and Sanders have a memorable showdown in a finale that would make Hitchcock proud.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

She Couldn't Say No (1954)

RKO Radio Pictures
Directed by Lloyd Bacon
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Forgettable fluff about a wealthy New York girl who shows up in a small Arkansas town to repay them for taking up a collection to get an operation when she was a baby. Her anonymous gifts backfire, causing grief for the recipients. The town is then overrun by people hoping to get their own slice of the pie. Robert Mitchum is miscast as a doctor trying to hold the town together while romancing confused Jean Simmons.

My Forbidden Past (1951)

RKO Radio Pictures
Directed by Robert Stevenson
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Turn-of-the-century New Orleans socialite Ava Gardner is jilted by her lover, university professor Robert Mitchum, and spends the rest of the movie trying to win him back. She pays her "cousin" to make Mitchum's wife fall in love with him, and since he's got money to burn it works. However, he accidentally kills her at one of their nightly trysts, leading to a trial where the truth finally comes out. Lurid melodrama enlivened only by the presence of the 29-year-old Ava near the prime of her beauty.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Undercurrent (1946)

MGM
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Katharine Hepburn marries a wealthy scientist with political connections in DC. Her easy going style and down home appearance clashes with the social elite. One night she catches her husband in a lie about his brother which leads her to uncover family skeletons, up to and including murder. Hepburn is miscast as the naive daughter of a scientist, Robert Mitchum is underutilized as the brother from the past and Robert Taylor, well is Robert Taylor, suave and debonair as the husband. An ending involving a horse is just plain ridiculous.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Both Barrels Blazing (1945)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Derwin Abrahams
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Silly Durango Kid entry with Starrett leaving his Texas Ranger job to track down outlaws in New Mexico. Too much time is spent on comic relief from sidekick personalities like "Grubstake", "Cannonball" and "Tex". Musical breaks by The Jesters are tiresome.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Carol for Another Christmas (1964)

American Broadcasting Company
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Sterling Hayden stands in for Ebenezer Scrooge, here he is Daniel Grudge, an aging, wealthy man living in a huge mansion with only a couple of servants to keep him company. A relative visits on Christmas Eve to talk to him about a cultural exchange program that Grudge had halted. The conversation quickly turns political with Grudge's conservative stance conflicting with the more liberal university professor. It turns out that Grudge's son was killed in war, leaving him bitter towards all of mankind. That night he is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, Dickens' familiar plot device, which is used to explore the themes of war and international politics. In the past, he relives a visit to Hiroshima after the bombing, including a particularly haunting sequence involving young children injured by the blast. In the present, he faces a concentration camp full of hungry prisoners, while the ghost taunts him from his own huge table full of food. In the future, a post apocalyptic society listens to a speech by Peter Sellers imploring them to kill themselves so he can be king. The screenplay by Rod Serling is a bit talky, and occasionally feels like an extended episode of the Twilight Zone, but there is no denying its powerful critique of war, and of the politics of isolation and hatred that lead to them. The film is just as relevant today as it was nearly 50 years ago.

Badman's Country (1958)

Warner Bros.
Directed by Fred F. Sears
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Encore)

George Montgomery vehicle in which he plays the reluctant sheriff of Abilene, Kansas, hired to protect the town from the "wild bunch". This features every major old west legend: Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, Sundance, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, even Buffalo Bill shows up. The large cast, short running time and low budget do not allow Sears much in the way of characterization, and most of that consists of terrible dialogue between Montgomery and his fiance. Still, just enough going on otherwise, a botched bank robbery and shootout on Main Street, to keep it from being a complete waste of time.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

The Deadly Companions (1961)

Pathe-America
Directed by Sam Peckinpah
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Sam Peckinpah's first directorial effort is a fascinating character study of flawed individuals in the wild west, a theme which he would explore the rest of his career. Brian Keith is a former Rebel officer who has taken up with a couple of gunslingers. They decide to go to a dusty western town with a "new bank and an old sheriff". Other robbers beat them to the bank, but Keith accidentally kills a young boy in the ensuing shootout. His mother is Maureen O'Hara, a saloon hall girl with a bad reputation. Keith tries to make amends by accompanying her across the dangerous countryside to bury the boy next to her husband's grave in another town. He also has to deal with his gunslinger pals, one of which is after O'Hara and the other with which he has a long-simmering personal vendetta. Filmed against a stark background, often at night, with a haunting, moody soundtrack by Marlin Skiles, it unfolds like a feverish dream. The spaghetti western genre was still a few years away, but this sure feels like one.

Friday, December 14, 2012

The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by Ronald Neame
My rating: 3.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, Fox)

The best of the disaster movies from the 1970s is still a riveting experience. It is the journey of a group of survivors in an upside-down luxury cruise ship overturned by a tidal wave on New Year's Eve. Each character has a story, but it is really Gene Hackman's film. He is a priest who has been reassigned to a new mission in Africa, apparently punishment for his free thinking approach to religion. In a sermon before the disaster strikes, he tells people not to ask God for help, but to help themselves, and puts those words to action when he assumes the leadership role after the wave hits. His antagonist is Rogo, played by Ernest Borgnine, who questions his authority and challenges his beliefs. Shelley Winters is the middle aged, overweight woman who believes in him despite all of her self-doubts, and because of it performs the ultimate act of heroism, fulfilling the promise of his sermon. And there is the final act of sacrifice by Hackman himself, accompanied by his direct questioning of God, and in reply he falls into a pit of flames as if being banished to Hell itself.

Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938)

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by Norman Foster
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Fox)

Moto is in London to uncover the "league of assassins", a dapper group who sell their services. An foreign executive of a steel corporation is their next target, but Moto is on to them via his disguise as the butler of one of the members. Moto keeps Scotland Yard in the loop, but it's mostly his case. The finale takes place in an art gallery and involves a falling chandelier. Moto displays some of his judo chops, or rather his stunt double does, as Lorre hardly looks physically fit enough to perform some of the fighting.

The Manchu Eagle Murder Caper Mystery (1975)

United Artists
Directed by Dean Hargrove
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, MGM Limited Edition Collection)

Entertaining spoof of The Maltese Falcon with Gabriel Dell perfectly cast as a middle aged amateur detective in a small California desert town. Normally a "poultry engineer", he gets a mail-order detective license and sends out flyers to the town's handful of residents. They come knocking down his door with personal problems, until one of them is shot by an arrow in his office. The clues revolve around several sexually frustrated women and a dead billy goat. Filled with wonderful character actors and shot on a shoestring budget that actually helps the atmosphere. A memorable finale drenched in blood is not to be missed.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Tokyo! (2008)

Liberation Entertainment
Directed by Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Joon-ho Bong
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, Liberation Entertainment)

Omnibus of three films by some of the more adventurous directors in world cinema, all set in Tokyo. In Michel Gondry's "Interior Design", a young couple stay in the one-room apartment of a friend while they try to find jobs and get their own apartment. The girlfriend becomes disillusioned with her filmmaker boyfriend and leaves him. There is only one catch: she turns into a chair, literally. One scene that will really stick with me is when the poor girl tries to walk down the street with her feet changing to wooden chair legs. In Leos Carax's "Merde",  a half-human, half-monster comes up from the Tokyo sewers. At first he is bothersome but not dangerous, but later he brings along hand grenades which results in a massacre. Put on trial, his equally heinous father is his lawyer. There are some subtexts about terrorism and xenophobia in Japan, but they are tough to see through all the histrionics, split screens and other distractions added by the director. In the last, and best, segment, Joon-ho Bong's "Shaking Tokyo", a "hikikomori", or recluse who has shunned all human contact, comes out of his shell when the pizza delivery girl catches his eye during an earthquake. All three stories are interesting, if not entirely successful, depictions of the lives, fears and desires of people living in the modern Tokyo urban jungle.

Coroner Creek (1948)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Ray Enright
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Outstanding western with Randolph Scott seeking revenge on the man who killed his fiance in a stagecoach hold-up. Scott travels the west in search of the man he only knows by a basic description, finally catching up to him in a typical dusty western town of the southwest. The man is trying to take over the ranch of a local girl, so Scott teams up with her, even though he's got his own personal agenda. There is a lot of talk about vengeance and hatred, but Scott seems to always be on the right side. Scott has several brawls which are unusually fast and brutal, and there is an ending which would make Hitchcock proud...all in glorious Cinecolor.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

L'Amore (1948)

Directed by Roberto Rossellini
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Anna Magnani stars in two stories connected only in theme. In the first, she has a phone conversation with a lover who is leaving her. She cries a lot, threatens suicide but eventually accepts it. There is no back story, and without context it is difficult to empathize with her situation. The second story is marginally better. Magnani is a goat herder who stumbles upon a man she believes is St. Joseph, played by Federico Fellini. He never says a word, but offers her plenty of wine, and possibly impregnates her, although she blacks out and can't remember a thing. She prefers to believe she has become "immaculately" conceived and is carrying the second coming of Jesus. The other peasants mock her, so she goes to a remote church to have the child.

A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Guy Green
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

A New York law professor and his wife take a year off so he can write a book in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. They rent a house from a free-spirited man who sets his eyes on the wife. She resists at first, but gradually gives in as she becomes disillusioned by her selfish husband. The biggest obstacle to enjoying this film may be accepting Anthony Quinn with a strong southern drawl sipping moonshine and frog hunting at night. Ingrid Bergman's transformation from big city wife to goat-raising country girl is equally improbable. Still, it works, mainly because of the charisma of its stars.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Autumn Leaves (1956)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Robert Aldrich
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Joan Crawford is a middle ages spinster typing manuscripts from her LA bungalow for a living. Cliff Robertson picks her up at a restaurant one night. Crawford is wary of his passes at first, rightfully so given their differences in age, but eventually gives in to thwart her own loneliness. They get a quickie marriage in Mexico, but back at home he is exposed as a pathological liar. Things get really bad when his other wife shows up, and hit rock bottom when that wife turns out to be his father's girlfriend. Cliff goes off the deep end and throws a typewriter at poor Joan, who must decide whether or not to have him committed. I suppose this was meant to be a serious examination of mental illness, but I found it to be a hilariously overwrought melodrama.

Monday, December 10, 2012

The Loves of Pharaoh (1922)

Paramount Pictures
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Early Lubitsch is an uneasy mixture of melodrama and spectacle. An Egyptian pharaoh falls in love with a slave girl, but she is in love with a young Egyptian. The pharaoh has his way, of course, and she becomes his wife in name only. Meanwhile, an Ethiopian king who offered his daughter in marriage only to be snubbed, waits outside the gates of the city with his massive barbarian army. Only in the final two acts, dominated by tragedy and battles, do things get more interesting. Jannings is too stiff in his portrayal of the tyrant pharaoh, until he returns as a disheveled shell of his former self after being thought dead. 

Sunday, December 9, 2012

The Return of the Durango Kid (1945)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Derwin Abrahams
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Charles Starrett is back, in the first of 64 Durango Kid movies in the next 7 years. He's in Texas dealing with a gang who steals payrolls from the stagecoach and run a gambling joint in town. There is a subplot about clearing his father's name. The Jesters provide the usual music and comedy relief.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Shadow of the Hawk (1976)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by George McCowan
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Sony Movie Channel)

Chief Dan George leaves his Indian reservation to find his grandson Jan-Michael Vincent in the big city. JMV is seeing ghosts and his grandfather might be able to explain it. They set off on a journey back to the reservation, along with a reporter who provides romantic interest for JMV. They are attacked by a mysterious car, JMV wrestles a bear, the ghost follows them, they cross a wooden bridge over a gorge, the old Indian is bitten by a snake then sets it afire, etc, but they finally reach the reservation. JMV is "born again" as a medicine man, but first must defeat evil spirits disguised as a wolf and Indian zombies. It's a rambling and unfocused film, but nicely photographed in the Canadian wilderness.

Friday, December 7, 2012

The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973)

United Artists
Directed by Ivan Dixon
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Monarch Home Video)

Lawrence Cook is recruited to become the first black CIA agent. He makes it through a rigorous training course and beats out 9 other men for the job. He spends the next 5 years making copies in a basement office. He resigns and heads home to Chicago, where he trains his ex-gang buddies to become urban guerrillas. They take over the streets of south Chicago while splinter sects rebel in other American cities. It plays out like a blaxploitation science fiction film, the final scene implying that they will soon be taking over the country. However, it is dramatically uneven and has too much talk, not enough action.

Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938)

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by Norman Foster
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Fox)

Hollywood hokum about a Japanese archaeologist who is really a spy trying to stop an uprising in an Asian country. He gets help from pretty aviator Rochelle Hudson, who also turns out to be a spy. There is an ancient temple with trap doors, death by poison dart, high priests from the Himalayas, and so forth, occasionally fun, but never credible.

Vigilante Force (1976)

United Artists
Directed by George Armitage
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(MGMHD)

When a California town is overrun with crime, they turn to Kris Kristofferson and his friends, all Vietnam vets, for help. The vigilante cops clean up the town, but at a price. Who will save the town from the vigilantes? How about Jan-Michael Vincent, his brother, and his working-class friends, who form their own vigilante force. The supporting cast is filled with too-familiar faces from TV like Victoria Principal, David Doyle, Andrew Stevens and even Loni Anderson in a bit part. Flat direction by Armitage only adds to the feel of a TV movie.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Logan's Run (1976)

MGM
Directed by Michael Anderson
My rating: 3.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, Warner Bros.)

In the 23rd century, people live in domed cities after a "catastrophe" destroys civilization. It's a completely hedonistic society in which age is regulated by a "life clock" in the palm of your hand. It starts blinking at age 30, at which time you go to "carousel" for a chance at renewal. Michael York is Logan, a "sandman" who chases down and kills those that would rather run than go to carousel. He pockets an ankh from one of his victims, which represents a place called "sanctuary" where runners go to escape. The computer which controls society alters his life clock and forces him to search for sanctuary and destroy it. He takes along the lovely Jenny Agutter, another believer in sanctuary. They get outside the domed city and find Peter Ustinov living in an empty Washington DC with a lot of cats. Ustinov quotes TS Eliot, they feel his wrinkled face, then head back to the domed city to tell everyone else about it. An exceptionally entertaining film which creates a fascinating world of the future, but also says a lot about the current one. The soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith is one of his best, the eerie synthesizers perfectly complementing the retro world of the future.

The Durango Kid (1940)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Lambert Hillyer
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Charles Starrett arrives at his father's ranch only to find him shot in the back by a gang who are trying to drive out the homesteaders. Little do they know that Starrett's alter ego is the Durango Kid, a bandit who takes up the cause of the homesteaders. He gets appointed deputy sheriff which gives him plenty of opportunities to discover his father's killer. Sons of the Pioneers provide musical and comedy relief. The first of 65 Durango Kid films by Starrett, although matinee kids would have to wait 5 years for the next one.

The Moonlighter (1953)

Warner Bros.
Directed by Roy Rowland
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Archive Collection)

Fred MacMurray is in jail for cattle rustling. He gets free when a lynch mob hangs the wrong man. He vows revenge on those responsible while giving the eulogy at his own funeral. While hiding out at his brother's ranch, an old accomplice shows up with a plan to rob the local bank. His brother gets involved, as well as his ex-girlfriend Barbara Stanwyck, who is now engaged to his brother. Tragedy and redemption follow in the predictable conclusion. The 3D is refreshingly free of gimmick shots, with natural landscapes and a waterfall providing the best depth effects.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)

Sony Pictures Classics
Directed by Ki-duk Kim
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Starz)

A Buddhist monk raises a kid on his floating temple in the mountains of Korea. The kid is a brat with a mean streak, torturing animals in his spare time. As a teenager, he manages to seduce a girl who shows up at the temple seeking a cure for some illness. The "wise teacher" may have made a mistake in leaving the two of them alone so much. Not surprisingly, the ungrateful student abandons the teacher, taking his Buddha statue with him. Years later he returns, only to be arrested by cops for murdering his girlfriend and take him away to prison. Finally, as a middle aged man, he returns yet again. The old monk is dead, having committed self-immolation, so he begins a regiment of physical training in the dead of winter, mostly with no shirt. A masked woman appears with a baby. She drowns, so he takes over raising the kid, who also likes to torture animals. Beautifully filmed, but there is no one to root for, other than the poor animals. A cat, taken care of by the older monk, is unharmed, unless you count using its tail for calligraphy.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Welcome to LA (1976)

United Artists
Directed by Alan Rudolph
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, MGM Limited Edition Collection)

Meditative mood piece on the empty lives of LA residents caught up in the pursuit of fame and fortune. The center of the story is Keith Carradine, just arrived in town to write songs for a new album by Richard Baskin, whose melancholy voice sets the mood for the entire film. Carradine goes to bed with just about the entire female cast, and most on the first day. However, the one he might really love is not coincidentally the one he didn't go to bed with: the romantic, slightly ditzy, Geraldine Chaplin. She's got a laundry list of problems, mostly involving her husband Harvey Keitel, but ironically may be the sanest one of them all. Other women in his life include Sally Kellerman, Sissy Spacek and Lauren Hutton, all with their own eccentricities. Told very much in the style of its producer Robert Altman, favoring mood over plot, it occasionally becomes aimless and lacks a compelling story, yet that in itself reflects the characters in the film.

Monday, December 3, 2012

White Line Fever (1975)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Jonathan Kaplan
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Sony Movie Channel)

Jan-Michael Vincent is a good-ole-boy who buys his own truck only to find the industry is run by a corrupt group of wealthy old men. His attempts to circumvent the system or organize the truckers is met with violence. Instead of a feel-good movie where one man perseveres against all odds, it's a cruel film where the only thing that gets results are fists, or better yet a rifle. There are some kinetic truck stunts filmed against the Arizona desert landscapes, but even the signature image of a big diesel rig crashing through a corporate sign rings hollow, what did he really accomplish other than destroying a sign? The final scene has Vincent emerging from the hospital as some kind of folk hero, but I just didn't buy it.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

The War in Space (1977)

Toho (Japan)
Directed by  Jun Fukuda
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Discotek Media)

Japanese sci-fi that borrows heavily from its American predecessors Stars Wars and 2001. It's hurt by a low budget, dated soundtrack and dumb dialogue, though that might be more the fault of the translation. Earth is being attacked by aliens who are using Venus as their base. The Japanese put together a team to go to Venus and destroy them. The finale is a complete rip-off from the Death Star attack scenes in Star Wars. Yuko Asano in her tight-fitting costumes is about the only reason to watch this.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

The Sea Is Watching (2002)

Nikkatsu (Japan)
Directed by Kei Kumai
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Starz)

A geisha girl falls in love with one of her customers, a young samurai on the run from a drunken brawl in which he might have killed someone. In order to make herself pure, she gives up her profession with the help of her friends, who take her customers yet give her the money. It's all a big misunderstanding, though, as one day the samurai shows up and announces he is getting married to someone else. However, she soon falls in love with another customer, who proves to be a little more dependable when he rescues her from a big flood in the disaster-movie ending. This is basically melodrama, lots of crying and screaming women, although it is beautifully filmed with rich colors and gorgeous cinematography.

Friday, November 30, 2012

The Fortune (1975)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Mike Nichols
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Sony Movie Channel)

Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson team-up to break the "Mann Act", a forgotten law from the 1920s which prohibits transporting an unmarried woman across state lines for "immoral" purposes. Warren, already married, convinces Jack to marry his girlfriend Stockard Channing, even though he is the one she is in love with, then they all move-in together in an LA apartment. What they really want is Stockard's money, who stands to inherit a fortune, so they plan to murder her and try to make it look like suicide. However, she is saved by their complete ineptitude. Jack gets the best scenes, but it's hard to shake the feeling you are watching a comedic version of his character from The Shining. Scatman Crothers even shows up to give it a feeling of deja vu.

Derby (1971)

Cinerama Releasing
Directed by Robert Kaylor
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Code Red)

Documentary about the life of a lower middle-class worker in a Dayton, Ohio, tire factory who dreams of leaving his job to become a roller derby star. This guy is a real winner: he wears sunglasses all the time, he cheats on his wife and brags about it on film, he skips work and lies about it, etc. His friends are not much better, mostly white trash who use pornography for wallpaper. And roller derby? A "sport" in which people watch solely for the numerous fights. Then-daring documentary approach to its subject saturates reality television today.