Interruption of Service...

The absence of reviews over recent days is accounted for by a death in the family -- my mother, a most remarkable lady -- and the need to be Stateside.  While I am currently back in London, I must return to the U.S. shortly, the first of a number of necessary trips in the weeks/months to come.

And although this will provide any number of in-flight movies which I would normally cast my beady eye upon, my head is just not sufficiently together to share my thoughts.  Maybe sometime soon I can resume the personal pleasure that this journal provides me.

Rest in peace, Mom; you will be remembered and missed...

Tags: Interruption of service

Good Morning Babylon (1987)

Although I had seen this film previously, I remembered little about it apart from an idyllic middle section which I recalled as enchanting.  Unfortunately while it indeed does retain some memorable sequences, I can't really say that I was overly taken with this second go.  It was the first English language movie from the Italian Taviani brothers, although the action was bookended by Italian-speaking sequences, but it didn't really work since most of the actors apart from native English-speakers Vincent Spano, Greta Scacchi, and Charles Dance -- playing the genteel Southern showman D.W. Griffiths -- seemed more than a little uncomfortable with their dialogue.  It also didn't help that the story which focused on the early days of Hollywood was filmed exclusively at Cinecitta and on location in Pisa.

None of this would matter enormously if the directors' fantasy about moviemaking worked, but the execution was unnecessarily convoluted.  The film opens in Italy with the seven sons of a master craftsman completing the restoration of a basilica only to be told by their father that he is winding up the business.  The two youngest and most gifted sons set off to make their fortune in America with the intention of returning to Italy to reinstate the family firm.  They have little joy finding work which utilises their talents until they meet up with a work force building the Italian pavilion at the San Francisco Expo.  Griffith is taken with the skill of the architect's vision and wants to use him to design the sets for his long-cherished project "Intolerance".  However the team leaders have returned to Italy and the two brothers can not get past the (for want of a better word) intolerance of the production manager and can only find menial work at the studio.  It is only after they construct a huge papier mache elephant in the forest (this was the so-called enchanting bit that I recalled) that they finally get their big break -- despite their creation having been destoyed by the aforesaid manager -- and are taken on by Griffith to help him realise his dream film set.

So far so good, but there is not enough focus on the mocked-up Hollywood scene.  The directors are trying to make the point that cinema can create its own monuments which are as concrete and long-lasting as those of a master painter or sculptor which would be fine if we hadn't already lost a big chunk of early films.  The "Intolerance" premier is the high point of this film, but it unfortunately then degenerates into melodrama with the death of one brother's wife in childbirth and some final scenes set in Italy during the Great War where the two estranged and wounded brothers, each fighting for a different army, finally reconcile.  SPOILER ALERT:  That they record their last moments on newsreel footage as a legacy to their sons is taking the directors' take on the power of film just a wee bit too far.

Tags: Good Morning Babylon, Taviani Brothers, early cinema

Man Hunt (1941)

It never ceases to amaze me that certain classic movies are not readily available to view and that all manner of garbage gets DVD releases.  This is a good case in point and is certainly one of German emigre Fritz Lang's best Hollywood movies.  It opens in Nazi Germany where huntsman Walter Pidgeon (far far less wooden than he often seemed in his film roles) has Hitler in his rifle sights and pulls the trigger of the unloaded gun.  Before he can reload and repeat the exercise he is apprehended and his argument that he was only intending to stalk his quarry rather than kill it bears no weight with his inquisitor George Sanders -- always an impeccable villain -- who wants him to sign a false confession that he was there at the British government's behest.  So we follow Pidgeon's torture, supposed death, and escape back to England with Sanders' minions in pursuit.  Foremost amongt these is the gaunt John Carradine who is only marginally less believably sinister.

Therein follows an intricate tale of cat and mouse in a Hollywood London that never was replete with swirling fog, chirpy pearly kings and queens, and an improbably Cockney-accented Joan Bennett as a "seamstress", i.e. prostitute.  The film is based on the Geoffrey Household novel later re-made for TV under its original title of "Rogue Male" with Peter O'Toole in the lead.  While I would choose the latter over Pidgeon any day of the week, I can still not dismiss the effectiveness and the thrills found in Lang's studio-bound version and can only wonder yet again why Fox have not re-released this gem.

Tags: Man Hunt, Fritz Lang, Walter Pidgeon, George Sanders

Fear in the Night (1947)

I've seen a number of interesting films in the days following the so-called mixed bag below, all of which deserve an airing here.  However preference must be given to the above B-movie since it has been on my famous lists for about as long as I've been keeping them.  It turns out that friend Richard actually has a pristine 16 mm. copy and I finally viewed it at a private showing yesterday.

While I have seen it described as a noir (probably because it is in black and white!), that is something of a misnomer since there is no femme fatale (or actually a very very minor one) which to our mind is an essential ingredient.  Written and directed by Maxwell Shane from a Cornell Woolrich story, it lifts itself from its low budget and amateurish acting by the vision with which it is produced, using all the camera tricks available to convey the terror of a man waking from a nightmare where he has dreamt that he has killed a man, only to discover that he actually has -- shaky camera, fade-in, fade-out, and a brilliant use of a mirrored room very reminiscent of Orson Welles' "Lady from Shanghai" which was made the same year.  I wouldn't like to say which of the two inspired the other or whether it was just a happy coincidence.

The lead is taken by a young DeForest Kelley, better known to the world in later years for his "Startrek" role, and his brother-in-law, a police detective whom he turns to for help is played by Paul Kelly, a familiar face from other B movies.  The rest of the cast is of little interest.

Shane seems to have had more of a career as a writer rather than as a director, but he was responsible for 1956's "Nightmare" with Edward G. Robinson which is effectively a speedy remake of this movie.  I'm delighted to have finally seen the original (so thanks again, Richard), and while it may deserve some cult status, it is when all is said and done something of the proverbial parson's egg.

Tags: Fear in the Night, Maxwell Shane, DeForest Kelley

Private Buckaroo (1942)

This extremely minor flagwaver from the war years is hardly an important or well-made movie but it certainly is a lot of fun, worth savouring for the enthusiasm of its cast and some very memorable musical numbers.  For a start we have Harry James and his big band with the perky harmonising Andrews Sisters as an added treat amongst some lesser names and not actually terribly amusing comedians of the period.  Plus there's an early role for Donald O'Connor where he's not given much to do and an annoying lead role for big lunk Dick Foran and his big tenor.

The story such as it was could be written on the head of a pin near enough as James is drafted and his whole band joins up as well.  I must confess that I thought the bandleader looked far too old to be a soldier, but on checking I discovered that he was actually only 26 when this film was made -- and even more amazingly he was already a well-known name at this relatively precocious age.  Most of the movie was comprised of army camp shows before the whole caboodle were shipped overseas, but what smiley fun it all was.  I have always had a soft spot for the Andrews Sisters who are so of their period, and must now try to find some of the other minor musicals that they made which also featured their cheery warbling.

Tags: Private Buckaroo, the Andrews Sisters, Harry James

Another Mixed Bag

Some days when I try to update this journal I have trouble deciding which of the various things I have watched deserves the pride of place.  This is a pretty easy decision if I have seen something unusual or a film which really moved me or one which I absolutely hated, but occasionally none of the recent candidates seems to fit the bill.  By rights I should be reviewing "Casque d'or", a Jacques Becker-directed, Simone Signoret-starrer from 1952.  It's probably some 20 years since I last viewed this film which is considered a classic, but this time around I found it heavy going to get involved in the turn of the century tale of gangster's moll Signoret becoming involved in an 'amour fou' with reformed convict turned carpenter Sergi Reggiani and ending with her watching his death on the guillotine.  It all seemed terribly French -- which of course it was, but it really wasn't terribly compelling as well.  The 'golden helmet' of the title refers to Signoret's blonde tresses, but I just kept on thinking what a huge head she had...

Then there were some freebie Romance DVDs from the backlog which needed clearing so they could be put away (probably never to be watched again).  I watched three of these, all of which fell into the mini-series category, but if any of them have actually been shown on television in the past, I must have missed the event.  The fun of these (if this is not too strong a word) came in discovering cast members who have either moved on to better things or who were taking an easy pay cheque in their late careers.  The one with the most strings to its bow was Rosamunde Pilcher's "Coming Home" from 1998.  This one boasted Keira Knightly playing a 16-year old schoolgirl who them morphed into the 18-year old Emily Mortimer (since there were only a few years between them in the storyline, I don't really see why Mortimer just couldn't play younger by a few  years) who gives herself to Paul Bettany who is then blinded in the war.  The action was set at a splendid country house, the home of Peter O'Toole and Joanna Lumley (which I gather features in a sequel which is also somewhere panting its turn to be watched) and other familiar faces came and went.  Then there was Danielle Steele's "Zoya" from 1995 which followed TV-stalwart Melissa Gilbert over seven decades from the Russian Revolution through her trials and tribulations in Paris and New York.  That one had Diana Rigg as her aristocratic grandma and David Warner as a would-be elderly suitor, but it was spotting Jennifer Garner (who I didn't even know had a career back then) as Gilbert's troublesome daughter that made my day.

In fact what I've probably been enjoying more than anything else are some shortish Spanish television scary movies from a 2005/6 series labelled 'Tales to Keep you Awake' or some such such and the first two "Spectre" and "A Christmas Tale" were so very creepy that I really am looking forward to seeing the remaining four.

Of course I've watched an assortment of other films over the last week or so, but that is a story to be told another time.

Tags: A Mixed Bag of Movies, Simone Signoret, Mini-series Romances