markwood272 Reviews

Prince Regent (1979)

Superior television from long ago and far away

[10/10 · 13 November 2022]

The YouTube algorithm delivered this series to me last week. While the reign of George IV may not be remembered as one of the high points in the history of British monarchy, this vain, gluttonous, intelligent man lived at a consequential time. Just take a look at his contemporaries - Byron, Keats, Shelley, Jenner, Faraday, George Sand, Turner, Napoleon - the list is much longer.

Virtue has its good points, but its presentation on screen can be a bit boring. Nothing boring here about the behavior of our Prince Regent. Even if the passage of time has softened attitudes toward his many vices, those vices still make for an involving several nights in front of the tv screen.

The episode scripts are strong. Actors Peter Egan, Nigel Davenport, Frances White - they portray quite a family. By itself Susannah York's performance as Maria Fitzherbert makes the series worth watching. Although the video is nearly a half century old and consequently a little blurry, "Prince Regent" has held up well.

The creators of this series were obviously not the first to spot the dramatic possibilities for George IV. Interestingly, the series does not mention the king's odd friendship with George Bryan "Beau" Brummell. This aspect of the story is presented in several films, among them a personal favorite, MGM's "Beau Brummell" (1954) with Peter Ustinov as George and Stewart Granger as the legendary clothes horse of the Regency era.

Chameleon Street (1989)

This guy can write

[7/10 · 17 June 2022]

I saw this movie after it was recommended by The Criterion Channel. The premise of "Chameleon Street" is simple: a guy needs money, so he impersonates people in order to get money.

Titular William Douglas Street's morality is vintage confidence man, as is his technique. The film's narrative is uncomplicated, a by the numbers imposter flick in the tradition of "The Great Imposter (1961) or "Catch Me If You Can" (2002) with a hint of "Hollywood Shuffle" (1987).

"Chameleon Street" appears to have had a low but decent budget, unlike some other Sundance successes. At times the camera and lighting techniques reminded me of Robert Florey's "The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra" (1928).

If the movie has a problem, it resides with Street himself. An imposter only after money, a point Harris emphasizes in addressing the camera, falls a little flat, at least in relation to, say, the Will Smith character of Paul, in "Six Degrees of Separation" (1993). Street displays only the mundane pathology of straitened circumstances with a little greed thrown in. There is hardly any dark side to his character, unlike Ferdinand Waldo Demara's great imposter or DiCaprio's Frank Abagnale.

Actor Wendell Harris gives an adequate, if less than brilliant, rendition of his subject. I would have appreciated a little less of his overbroad, wink-wink approach to some of Street's "roles". But writer Harris is good, very good. The dialog is often witty, eloquent, even garnished with butchered French in one of Street's "roles". According to this website, this movie is Harris' only writing credit, a shame. This guy can write.

If you want to hear well crafted dialog composed with wit, verve, and all those other things that have been missing from your screens, this is the movie for you.

Fear (1946)

Inspired by Dostoevsky, but... inspiring Michael O'Donoghue?

[5/10 · 7 June 2022]

The celebrated novel is condensed and reshaped into a 68-minute noir from Monogram. Raskolnikov becomes student Larry Crain (Peter Cookson), who, as in the novel, murders his pawnbroker. The police characters are the good cop/bad cop duo of Warren William and Nestor Paiva. Crain falls in love with the pretty but impecunious Eileen Stevens, played by Anne Gwynne.

Cookson's approach to playing Crain reminded me of Hurd Hatfield in the title role in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945), flat, affectless, but somehow managing to remain "there" as the character. With effective cinematography and lighting, the whole thing rocks along well, especially by poverty row standards... until the last few minutes. The final stretch has two (2) ingredients (a truck or similar motor vehicle, then a dream) that would appear in Michael O'Donoghue's "How to Write Good", which appeared in National Lampoon around 1970. "Fear" ends sappily in the manner of the best (or worst) productions of eighteenth century literary mutilator Colley Cibber. Or W. C. Fields' "The Bank Dick" (1940).

What could director Alfred Zeisler and his Monogram colleagues have done with (or to) "War and Peace"?

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021)

Driest martini

[10/10 · 25 April 2022]

Three stories:

The plot ingredients of the first - the problem of exes - material for a good farce or romantic comedy, but the segment here is complex, serious, hurt feelings instead of laughs. In other words, director Hamaguchi and actors treat the topic realistically. The second tale reminded me of the few pages of Murasaki I once managed to get through. And it is dark. The last story, my favorite, could have been inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Three Hours Between Planes" (1941), only here the tale is more complex, the characters' emotional intensity heightened.

For all three I had to remind myself that I was watching actors performing scripted roles. Just about every moment is believable. That credibility, combined with the demands of relating to the emotions presented on screen, make this a kind of "action" movie. In place of explosions and crashes, we get a strong, unadulterated presentation of the real lives of ordinary, flawed human beings, potentially the most frightening subject matter that can be put on a screen.

This is cinema's equivalent of the dry martini, strong and unadorned. Maybe not for everyone, but certainly deserves more of an audience.

To explain my vote a little: I knew nothing about Ryusuke Hamaguchi until I decided to see at least one 2021 Oscar-nominated movie and happened to choose "Drive My Car" at random. The experience sent me to this work, also released in 2021. Since seeing "Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy" I have seen "Asako I & II" (2018) and most recently, "Happy Hour" (2015). All told I think I have seen over twelve hours of movies from this director.

Time well spent.

UFO: Target Earth (1974)

Film as dream

[8/10 · 15 May 2020]

Not all "good" movies are especially interesting. They may simply have been made competently enough to be called "good" And not all interesting movies are really very good, at least in terms of technical competence. For me UFO: Target Earth is an example of a "bad (very) but interesting" (also very) movie. My rating reflects how much this movie interests me.

Yes, this one is cheap. But not all movies are cheap in the same way. This movie seem to have its own peculiar kind of cheapness that for me produces a unique effect, a state of (what is left of my) mind that I will not easily forget.

Reactions online are pretty much either "like it for what it is" or expressions of deep contempt usually shading into ridicule and hatred. One of the more favorable comments describes the movie's effect as "hypnotic". I agree and will go well beyond that: After the first few minutes with "UFO: Target Earth" I was close to being convinced I was having a dream. The dream was the movie.

Other viewers have supplied the storyline/plot/whatever it is, so here I will list a few points about the dream that is "UFO: Target Earth":

1. "UFO..." begins with documentary-ish interviews with witnesses claiming to have encountered UFO's and extraterrestrial beings. The drab footage is typical of 70's local news cinematography (that also may have been left on the cutting room floor, ok). And then right after that the loopy, trippy, mesmerizing music and opening credits.

Start dream.

2. With the music overlapping to a very leisurely fade, there follows what for me has been a classic dream motif, eavesdropping. Protagonist Alan Grimes accidentally listens to a secret, mistakenly unscrambled communication between military personnel somehow related to the movie's title.

3. In that sequence and throughout the film the dialog, both as written and as performed, is bad, but bad in a consistent way, the lines exhibiting a relentless dream logic. In dreams people converse in just the manner of the colloquies between Professor Wheeler and Grimes, or Grimes and Dr. Mansfield. Some movies achieve a dream like effect through manipulation of image, sound, post production pyrotechnics. This is the first movie I've seen in which of the characters actually talk in the manner that you would expect people to talk in a dream. This is the dialogue that you hear (at least I hear) while dreaming. The effect deepens during the "seizure" sequence with Grimes and Vivian, where the dream's dialog, music, and cinematography combine.

4. I cannot believe that the movie produces this mental state by design. Like the entire film, the effect on this viewer's mind is probably from inadvertence. Still, it is interesting to consider how powerful that effect is, how consistently it is done.

5. Maybe the movie's unintended dream logic is best illustrated by the clear, prolonged presence of mic boom during the veranda interview sequence. An accident, an error - right? Well, the overall quality of film making on display seems to support that explanation. But then again, equipment intrusions that I have seen in other movies are usually fleeting, ashamed moments. Here the boom doesn't merely make an appearance - it stays as part of the shot (according to a note on this website the shot lasts over a minute!). Okay, the intrusion probably remained in the final print because there wasn't money to re-shoot. Or maybe not. Whatever - the effect is consistent with the mental state produced by the dialog, the acting, the direction, the trippy music. A movie intended for distribution, commercial or otherwise, avoids the boom. A dream will just as easily make sure the boom is there.

6. Maybe it is time to take "UFO..." more seriously, at least as long as the influence of dreams remains cinematically important. After seeing works by surrealist and avant garde film makers - Brakhage, Kubelka, Deren, and others, recognized dream-explorers all - I can only say that compared to "UFO: Target Earth" Bunuel's "L'Age D'or" is an exercise.

7. For comparison, here are other examples of film as dream experience:

"Invaders from Mars" (1953) "House (aka Hausu", 1977) "Nothing Lasts Forever" (1984) "Zentropa" (1991) "Brand Upon the Brain" (2006)

8. The movie made me aware of this unique property of the medium. No other art form I know have has ever done this to me. I'd be interested to read other comments from viewers of this film, which I can only hope will reassure me that I am not losing my mind.

Sunday in August (1950)

A kinder and gentler neorealism

[9/10 · 5 August 2019]

Saw on YouTube August 4, 2019, i.e., a Sunday in August. I had never heard of this movie before YouTube announced it, and other than Marcello Mastroianni, the personnel, including director Luciano Emmer, all unfamiliar to me.

The camera work and cutting are superb. The YouTube print with subtitles was crystal clear.

The movie simply serves up a day at the beach, a day made up of multiple stories of the assorted beach goers. Emmer's direction may be described as neorealistic but accomplished with a touch considerably lighter than what is seen movies such as the nearby Umberto D (1951). This movie proves that neorealism does not reside entirely on the dark side.

It may be kinder and gentler, but the believability of the action is maintained at all times. I especially enjoyed the boy-meets-girl story featuring Anna Baldini, offering moments touching and plausible in about equal measure. Who knows, maybe some of the relatives of the Roman beach goers were on Coney Island during the time of the film's action, and if they were, the stories would have been hardly different, except for a forced detour around the minefield in "Domenica".

The movie's ancestors include "People on Sunday" (1930, original title Menschen am Sontag) directed by Siodmak, Ulmer, et al., as well as the many early silent films shot with the camera planted on the beach as people clothed from head to toe frolicked in grainy waves.

Strong recommendation.

Outrageous! (1977)

Don't forget Robin Turner

[8/10 · 9 July 2019]

I saw this on YouTube 6/8/2019 and found it a very enjoyable film that even made me laugh at times. Craig Russell is the lead "drag queen" in the movie. Russell was a man possessing an obvious, albeit eccentric, talent. His female impersonations in "Outrageous" come across as cinematic versions of Al Hirschfeld prints. Hollis McLaren effectively portrays furloughed mental patient Lisa. I was even surprised to hear some memorable lines in the scripted dialog. Russell deserves the praise he received for all those spot-on caricatures of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Carol Channing and many others. But Robin Turner may be his best "impersonation" of them all. I came away very much believing his portrayal of an interesting, likable human being possessed of considerable complexity. A strange, low-budget, high quality movie. Glad I found it.

The Lollipop Cover (1965)

Beware of 60's lollipop movies

[5/10 · 16 December 2018]

I don't think it's a good idea to use the word "lollipop" in a title. Call me mean, cynical, whatever, but lollipop movies have two strikes against them before the opening credits are done rolling. OK, Morris Engel made it work anyway ("Lovers and Lollipops' from 1956) but maybe in spite of, not because of, that menacingly precious title.

With "The Lollipop Cover" the grating begins in earnest with the first lines spoken by little Felicity, played by future TV veteran Carol Anne Seflinger. The script is the movie's principal weakness. The writing follows conventions of the time that have not aged well. One convention was to use little children as sources of profound wisdom about life, as in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962). Similar sources of wisdom could also be found among patients of mental institutions, for example, "David and Lisa"(1962) and "King of Hearts" (1966). So keep watching for when Ms. Seflinger explains the title. It would have been more interesting if the title had related more to some aspect of Don Gordon's Nick character, but what do I know...?

Another convention encouraged lengthy speechifying. And the more "intense", the more "deeply felt" and "emotional" the speech the better. Nick holds forth feelingly on several occasions to recount the life story of his ex-boxer character, describing things already covered in flashback. Felicity tells her story, too, and with a narrative polish unusual for a nine year old. The other characters in this road picture orate, as well, so much so that by the time the movie gets around to Felicity's alcoholic uncle I might as well have been watching a compilation of monologue-saturated last acts from the 60's era TV series "Route 66". I would have been worn out after all the emoting if any of it has remained even marginally credible after a half century, which it has not.

Interesting to see David White in a small, homosexual role, a role that becomes even smaller as soon as White's monologue leads Nick to conclude that White's "Richard" is indeed a homosexual. By the year of this movie's release White was already ensconced on "Bewitched" as Larry Tate. Maybe White or his agent wanted him to display more of his acting talent after having shown what he could do as sleazy Otis Elwell in "Sweet Smell of Success" (1957)

This lollipop movie was apparently a work of love by Gordon and others, including some Cassavetes people: John Marley ("Faces", 1968) ; the credits also mention a contribution to the effort by "assistant to producer" Seymour Cassel ("Faces", also "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie", 1976). It may have been inspired by "Sundays and Cybele" (1962), an infinitely superior movie that achieves near perfection, and without lollipops as I remember.

Atomic War Bride (1960)

Few laughs or tears

[15 December 2018]

Saw 12/14/2018. The film follows the adventures of a nearly married couple as the bombs start falling. After their interrupted wedding, here and there attempts at humor, but the point of the "jokes" is so predictable as to doom any comedic effect . And while not funny enough to make me laugh, those unsuccessful efforts come at the cost of any intended tears as we contemplate the nuclear annihilation of John Johnson, his titular inchoate spouse, and the world. Only marginally interesting because of the time of release, before the real life nuclear crises of Berlin in 1961 and Cuba the year after that. Much better: 1963's "Ladybug Ladybug" because it carries has the real sting of truth about it; and from 1962, "This Is Not a Test", offering a Sartrean take on nuclear war.

From Morning to Midnight (1920)

Interesting but a disappointment

[4/10 · 3 October 2018]

Saw this early Weimar-era curiosity via YouTube 9/30/2018 in a lovingly restored version. OK, so "Caligari" was not alone; it never was. Robert Reinert had arrived earlier with his "Nerven" (1919) and "Homunculus" (1916). "Von morgens bis mitternachts" tries very hard to make an artistic statement but does not succeed. The cheap, "expressionistic" set design just looked like a bad day with "H.R. Pufnstuf" done in monochrome. From the Pete the Pup makeup stylings to a narrrative always stuck in second gear, the entire production seems out of joint, sloppy, futile. The newly composed music track, consisting of a drum set and xylophone, sounds like Lionel Hampton and Gene Krupa sharing a mental meltdown.

Footsteps in the Night (1957)

You'll be entertained

[6/10 · 14 September 2018]

Saw via YouTube 9/13/2018. Just about the best-looking print ever seen on YouTube - picture and sound clearer than many a movie done years later.

Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives played by oater icon Bill Elliott and "Asphalt Jungle"'s Don Haggerty right away believe they know who killed Fred Horner (played in flashback by "Superman"'s Robert Shayne). They zero in on Henry Johnson (Douglas Dick), Horner's neighbor who is also a shakily recovering gambler permanently engaged to Mary Raiken (the beautiful Eleanor Tanin).

But Elliott's Lt. Doyle senses they've jumped to a conclusion - they've missed something. And so the plot changes, even if it doesn't quite "thicken" in an entirely convincing way.

Famous for his work in westerns, Elliott's amiably slow, drawling performance as a cop was something that I found very realistic and believable. I think people in his line of work were probably more like him than SFPD's Frank Bullitt or Harry Callahan. Loved the location shots (presented as West Hollywood and maybe they were), the script not quite so much. Still, I spent a very entertaining 62 minutes watching "Footsteps in the Night." I could not have asked for more than that.

The Sin of Nora Moran (1933)

Unjustly neglected work of cinematic art

[9/10 · 11 September 2018]

Two viewings, the first on 9/3/2018 at the suggestion of YouTube. The initial experience was such that I revisited the film on the tenth. "The Sin of Nora Moran" is one of those not-quite-of-its time (or place) movies, with its use of layered flashbacks, contrasting first person narratives, and use of fantasy. In a little over an hour the movie delivers the narrative fullness expected from a much longer work. The contrasting stories, told in Rashomon-like fashion, deepen the reality of a paradoxically realistic (melo-)drama. A major artistic work, with techniques to be seen in "Citizen Kane" (1941), "Wild Strawberries" (1957) and even "Zentropa" (1991 - e.g., the two-scene featuring what appears to be a projected head of the heroine conversing with her governor-paramour). Apparently the film fared poorly with audiences at the time of its release. While its reputation has grown over the years, I must confess I had never heard of it before YouTube suggested it, and I'll guess that it remains unjustly obscure. If the film were from Europe it would probably be better regarded today, perhaps belonging on a double bill with Joe May's "Asphalt" (1929). This was one of many important cinematic discoveries I've made in the last few years on YouTube. I may see this again.

Sunny Side Up (1929)

Still great entertainment after almost ninety years

[9/10 · 5 June 2018]

Saw this June 3, 2018. An early Hollywood movie musical from the Fox Film Corporation. It remains very entertaining in the 21st century, the earliest sound film I know of that is still engaging, believable, watchable. Sound technology has not frozen the camera or actors, and the movie makes the point with its opening overhead shot that (almost) could have been done with a drone. After nearly nine decades the songs are still pleasant to listen to. The plot offers few surprises, but the cast under David Butler's direction keeps it interesting, with Janet Gaynor at her Betty Boop-ish best. Film history enthusiasts will not be the only ones enjoying the two hours spent with "Sunny Side Up".

Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)

For the canon of important cinema

[10/10 · 19 May 2018]

A few random ideas after multiple viewings: 1. The movie belongs in any canon or compilation of important cinema. 2. I found the movie very involving, even though it was done nearly a half century ago, halfway around the world, and concerns the lives of people I know little about - male transvestites, or using the Japanese term from the film, "gay boys". 3. Maybe the mind behind this project, Toshio Matsumoto, decided to try everything. And that he does. You can pick your own resonances and allusions and whatever. Here's what comes to mind for me: documentary/interview/wall-breaking (Vilgot Sjoman's "I am Curious (Yellow)" (1967), also Pasolini's "Comizi d'amore" (1964)); political diatribe (e.g., Godard's "Le Week-End" (1967)); poetic, arresting cinematography (Antonioni, such as "L'Eclisse" (1962)), absurd, comedic digressions and intrusions (cf. William Castle's "Mr. Sardonicus" (1961)), undercranking ("A Hard Days' Night" (1964) or "Tom Jones" (1963)); pure experimental/avant garde (cf. the films of Maya Deren or Dimitri Kirsanoff or Luis Bunuel). Anticipations include the cinema of Guy Madden ("Brand upon the Brain" (2006) or Hirokazu Kore'eda ("After Life" (1998)) 4. Shakespeare inserted the silly scene with the porter in Macbeth for comic relief in the midst of a clearly tragic story. I had never seen a film before this one that so effectively manages to mix serious with sad, realism with fantasy, and any of the other antithetical pairings whose boundaries more conventional movies treat far more scrupulously. "Funeral Parade of Roses" summons tears and laughter and just about everything else indifferently. The same indifference extends to the presentation of plot elements, when scenes are repeated. It works. 5. The music seems to have been provided in large part by a 50's-60's era home electric organ, i.e., one instrument. Sometimes a single note is all that is needed. 6. Editing is not strictly logical, but always plausible. Some of the transitions between scenes seemed to me to have been perfect. Why or how I cannot explain. 7. The people in the movie are amazing. I never doubted a single frame of this movie. This was the first film for the lead performer, an actor known as "Peter" or "Pita". In the role of Eddie he resembles Ida Lupino. His femininity was credible throughout, but just as credible was his reality as a human being. The entire cast imparted that sense of being really there. 8. This is, yes, an "art movie" ,but more specifically, a modern art movie. Even though the movie is from 1969 it has a stronger sense of "now" than any movie I had seen before. 9. Many favorite scenes, but one is the elevator ascent of Eddie and Guevara with out of frame dialog and music. Unforgettable. 10. To say the movie is "a Japanese version of Oedipus Rex" describes very little, but I suppose such identifiable labeling helped in marketing. 11. Not a mainstream movie but a classic of the "underground", I suppose - but after seeing this film several times, who needs categories? Some movies succeed by engaging our emotions in a story or subject, a character. I was captivated by this film's freedom. Why hasn't the audience become more adventurous, experimental, tentative? Why do people keep watching variations on the same movie over and over again only to complain of the monotony? 12. Simple: more people should see this movie. It reminds the viewer that you can do just about anything with the medium if you're willing to write your own rule book or maybe even do without one. That's the power of that man with a camera. He just needs an audience. Us.

The Gay Deceivers (1969)

An entertaining, dated farce

[6/10 · 16 May 2018]

I saw this via YouTube May 12, 2018. Not great, but also not as bad as some people say. It's a mildly diverting farce offering comedic bits of average cleverness that must have seemed more clever in 1969. "Stereotype" cannot begin to capture the degree of subtlety on offer here. Michael Greer's portrayal of the guys' landlord, Malcolm, just seems crazy today, but everyone else in the movie, whether straight or gay, male or female, old or young, civilian or military, is similarly broadbrushed. A farce will do that. The story ingredients combine the response of Vietnam era young men facing the military draft with the status of gay people as not "normal". This farcical recipe had the misfortune of being overtaken by events only a few years later. Centuries old customs and understandings, thought permanent without even having to think about them, changed very fast. The movie was released in the year of Stonewall. The draft ended January 1, 1973, the United States' involvement in the Vietnam war a few weeks after that. Later that year the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its catalogue of mental disorders. Gone in less than four years was the movie's gay vs. "normal" dialectic . Gone as well was the story's premise of a military draft. The focus of conflict between gays and the military shifted to that of barring gays wanting to serve in the armed forces. There is a limit to how much blame attaches to making what was at the time, strangely enough, a mainstream, financially successful R-rated movie. It's hard enough to make any movie, let alone one that can anticipate sudden changes in what plausibly appeared at the time of filming to be the established patterns of life, law, and thinking, however much things needed to change. And did.

La La Land (2016)

What the end of cinema may look like

[3/10 · 15 December 2017]

Saw this via HBO on demand 12/9/17.

I found myself watching the clock after Emma Stone's first audition scene. The word "insipid" could have been invented with this over-praised movie in mind. If "La La Land" contains any harvestable celluloid --or even Mylar - let it be recycled for ukulele picks at the earliest opportunity.

All of the no-dance dance numbers, the prole-music songs, the mediocre scene-study acting add up to an excellent reason to stick with YouTube, public library DVD collections, and any remaining used book stores. With their many improbable finds, all of the latter are superior ways to find entertainment, intellectual stimulation, or simply the inducement of sleep. Even sitting in a corner doing nothing is a less expensive way to waste two hours and eight minutes. There is better production design and more imaginative cinematography to be found in your average halftime television commercial.

And yet: Six (6) Oscars: Emma Stone (actress); Damien Chazelle (director) as well as cinematography, music, song, and production design. Even more Golden Globes. If La La Land is what it looks like these days to be in contention for a Best Motion Picture award, the end of cinema is upon us.

Murder by Natural Causes (1979 TV Movie)

Convoluted -- and good

[9/10 · 28 October 2017]

Possibly the most convoluted plot in TV movie history. After all the twists – more than a barrel of pretzels, no, more than a mile of DNA – still watchable throughout. Success due to well crafted production, precise casting, and direction that never forgets what the movie is about. The puzzle is so well crafted that awareness of the artifice is superseded by a fascination with all the moving parts. A movie meant to be "followed" in much the same way you "follow" an M.C. Escher lithograph or Ralph Steiner's "Mechanical Principles" (1930). The people are real enough through it all (who could be more real than Richard Anderson?) to keep the plot-heavy story from becoming just a game. Interesting to see Anderson, Barry Bostwick, and Katharine Ross playing bad people. Hal Holbrook outstanding in the role of Arthur Sinclair, a Joseph Dunninger-esque mentalist. Those who found Holbrook's character interesting might enjoy seeing his fellow mentalists do their thing in "Hanussen" (1988), "Nightmare Alley" (1947), and even "8½" (1963).

Love Meetings (1964)

Interesting document of time and place

[7/10 · 25 October 2017]

Saw this beautifully preserved/restored print, with subtitles, via YouTube. Pasolini, with his reputation for political and every other form of radicalism, seems inhibited here, even in the discussion segments with Alberto Moravia and Cesare Musatti. The man-and-woman (and children, students)-in-the-street-and-on-the-farm interviews seem dated, probably since the interviews were conducted on the cusp of major changes in marital and family laws, policies, sexual attitudes in Italy and elsewhere. While no groundbreaking documentary, it's still a fascinating document of the time and place. A more daring and cinematically imaginative treatment of similar themes is found in, of course, "I am Curious (Yellow)"(1967) and "I am Curious(Blue)"(1968), directed by Vilgot Sjoman (a former UCLA film student). In those days there were things you could do in Sweden, albeit with censorship problems, that were simply impossible in Italy, period.

Wicked Woman (1953)

Low budget, but strong script and cast

[7/10 · 29 July 2017]

Saw this 7/28/17 on a watchable version via YouTube. Not bad at all, does not try to push the budgetary limits. Rouse has a good script, and he keeps it moving. The leads, Beverly Michaels (a stick-limbed Mamie Van Doren), Richard Egan, Evelyn Scott, and Percy Helton all perform well. Scott, appearing as a boozy version of Rosemary DeCamp, gives a layered, believable performance as the wife of the Egan character. A larger than usual role for the reliably arachnoid Helton. The film hints, mercifully without showing, that Michaels yields to his sexual advances, a unique, unsettling milestone in a long career deserving of a Motion Picture Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement as a Homunculus. OK – maybe "Wicked Woman" does not strictly follow some "noir" rule book." But who cares about categories, other than just "movie"? And this is a pretty good one for the money! Seventy-seven minutes, and hard to find a second wasted.

The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll (1964)

A Franco movie not to be missed

[8/10 · 26 July 2017]

Saw via DVD 7/23/17. One of Franco's best works, in a class with the best of Mario Bava or Dario Argento. The film is his distinctly personal take on the myth of the animated (or re-animated) as homunculus (cf. Caligari, Golem, Frankenstein). The movie achieves strong pathos when the young heiress encounters the monster, a Freudian moment combining the beauty of Agnes Spaak with the terror of a vintage Lon Chaney reveal. The cinematic technique is assured, with especially masterful use of lighting and camera angles. The black and white photography is as visually striking as Franco's Eastmancolor "Vampyros Lesbos" (1971). Anticipates Lynch while looking back at Franju's "Eyes Without A Face"(1959) with maybe some Antonioni thrown in here and there – who knows? As in the other Franco movies I've enjoyed, great soundtrack and music, with the master himself in a keyboard cameo in a jazz dive. Essential film for Francophiles, but maybe also a good starter work for viewers simply wanting a break from Bunuel (yes, they met, according to this website).

Good-for-Nothing (1960)

More lecture than movie

[5/10 · 24 June 2017]

Saw this 6/22/17. More or less picks up where "Crazed Fruit" (1956) left off, even using an actor or two from that earlier "Sun Tribe" work directed by Ko Nakahira. While I never quite got into the polemics about a "lost" generation in postwar Japan, the earlier movie had a genuinely cinematic story to tell. Here just about everything of substance in this 1960 movie is word-delivered. The result was that I spent most of my viewing time looking at the bottom of the screen grabbing subtitles, not able to focus on the frame itself. I don't think a good movie – even, or especially, one about ideas – should rely so heavily on talking (and here, reading!). At some point what is happening on the screen ceases to be a movie. In spite of several wordy scenes, Nakahira's similarly "taiyozoku" ("sun tribe") - themed work had action. "Good for Nothing" ("Rokudenashi") is all talk. And as far as I could tell from reading the English translation of what amounted to multiple lectures, what the characters said wasn't terribly interesting. At least "My Dinner with Andre" (1981) didn't require subtitle-reading.

Wanda (1970)

Bresson comes to Scranton

[7/10 · 13 March 2017]

Saw 3/13/17, TCM on demand. Robert Bresson/Chantal Akerman/Frederick Wiseman come to the Pennsylvania coal country. "Wanda" prophetically showcases a world inhabited by a class of people Charles Murray would write about forty years later, as neglected and marginalized then as now. Maybe it's not a film for everybody, but I found myself involved in Wanda's story, a tale of drabness set in a world in a state of persistent, low-energy panic. Loden placed supreme confidence in camera, microphone, story, and her people. And the movie worked for me. The film TCM showed had been lovingly restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive in 2010.

Air Patrol (1962)

So far Maury Dexter's best

[6/10 · 4 February 2017]

Saw this 2/3/17 thanks to cable on demand. Over the years I've become something of a connoisseur of Maury Dexter movies, with "Air Patrol" the latest after having seen (or endured) "Wild on the Beach" (1965), "Surf Party" (1964), and "The Day Mars Invaded Earth" (1963). "Air Patrol" is without question the best on that list, keeping in mind that it is a distinction based strictly on the level of play in Dexter's single-A cinematic league.

In "Air Patrol" a thief steals a Fragonard, helicoptering off with it from a Wilshire Boulevard rooftop. Apparently choppers were still exotic and relatively rare for the 1962 audience, during the time between the end of the series "Whirlybirds" and the Alcatraz operation depicted in "Point Blank" (1967).

The thief threatens to destroy the purloined Rococo masterpiece unless a $100,000 "ransom" is paid. The art buyer's secretary is played by Merry Anders, who, in spite of the limited acting demands of her role, is both effective and beautiful in the tradition of Beverly Garland. Robert Dix narrates as he performs in a first-person styling of Jack Webb's Sgt. Joe Friday, only Dix' cop character not only carries a badge but also flies an LAPD helicopter to catch the thief. The cast includes Willard Parker and Dexter regular Russ Bender as detectives, with Parker's Lt. Vern Taylor sharing with us his knowledge of art history.

The final act resembles last acts in "The Third Man"(1949), "He Walked by Night"(1949) and "711 Ocean Drive" (1950). Only here an agile senior citizen leads the cops on a daylight chase through a partially filled Los Angeles River. Douglass Dumbrille gives us an unconventional-looking thief who reminded me of East bloc chieftans Walter Ulbricht or Gomulka in their final days. He seems to inhabit Del Webb's Leisure World, not Jack Webb's police world.

Unlike the virtual house arrest of the action in "Wild on the Beach", "Air Patrol" makes extensive use of location photography, giving us clear, just-made-yesterday looks at Los Angeles at the beginning of the 1960's, with views of the Miracle Mile along Wilshire Boulevard, the Sepulveda Dam, Los Angeles River, Hollywood (101) Freeway, and the Cahuenga Pass.

In spite of the movie's obvious limitations, which include a strange, ill-fitting score, it all kinda works. Weird, but it works. Never let admiration for Ford, Hawks, Welles and others make us forget their fellow auteurs Dexter, Arch Hall, Sr., Ray Dennis Steckler, William Witney, and the recently departed Ted V. Mikels.

They all made movies.

Montreal Main (1974)

Glad I did not hit "stop" at 35 minutes

[8/10 · 4 July 2016]

Saw 7/2/16 by chance on YouTube, knowing nothing about it. Wanted to see a Canadian film after a good experience watching "The Luck of Ginger Coffey" (1964). "Montreal Main" relates what happens when Frank, part of a group of Montreal bohemians, forms a too-close attachment to a 12 year-old boy from the suburbs.

The material was handled in a mercifully oblique manner, but still, I was about to bail on what to me had been nothing more than Warholesque sloppiness – and then, after minute 35, as what might be called the film's second act began, I saw and heard the best matching of music, sound, and image since Hitchcock met Bernard Hermann. In just two and a half minutes, movie music perfection from Beverly Glenn Copeland, and achieved for a tiny fraction of the budget for one of today's banal scores. Rarely has a kid running away from home been presented on screen so effectively.

The movie imagined by Frank Vitale, Allan Moyle, and Stephen Lack fell into place at that point. There have been other movies that feature memorable musical moments, but in, for example, "La Noia" (1962), "Crazy Westerners" (1967), or "Wild on the Beach" (1965), they remain moments only and fail to breathe life into their movies the way Ms. Copeland's score does.

John Sutherland as the boy gives a very believable performance. There appears to have been little scripted dialog. The confrontation between Johnny's father and Frank works well enough to make it possible to forget the scenes where the improv shows too much.

The subject matter, low budget, and art house movie diction and grammar of "Montreal Main" will probably confine its audience to the purest of cinephiles. That is too bad for a film that for all its strangeness I found more involving than much of what floats along the motion picture mainstream.

Those who found "Montreal Main" rewarding may enjoy Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep"(1978), or "Adieu Philippine" (1962) directed by Jacques Rozier – if they haven't seen these movies already, of course.

Multiple SIDosis (1970)

Great art, great fun

[10/10 · 13 June 2016]

I recently saw this Sid Laverents masterpiece on TCM and then had to watch a few more times on YouTube.

"Multiple SIDosis" may have been inspired by Melies' "L'homme Orchestre" (1900). Whatever. Laverents'creation is the most amusing, energetic celluloid self-cloning between that film and all those Klumps in "The Nutty Professor" (1996). A few decades ago movie theaters would show short subjects before the main feature, and "Multiple SIDosis" would have made a delightful addition to the bill back then. His work has deservedly been added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. If fun is itself an art form, "Multiple SIDosis" is great art.

Laverents is cinema's Simon Rodia and the Melies of home movies.