George Sanders

I wasn't joking when I wrote last time that my Olympics viewing was really cutting into my film viewing. However, now that it is all fading into several many happy memories, I can get back to the business at hand. Looking at what I did manage to view over the last fortnight, there is not a lot that deserves anything but the briefest of comments.  I was surprisingly rather taken with a Ted Danson-Mary Steenburgen TV two-parter from 2002 called "Talking to Heaven", where he convincingly played a reluctant psychic helping to solve a series of youth killings, but there's not much to add to that summary. Then there was a rather nasty British 'horror' that I skipped at Frightfest a few years back called "Panic Button" that proved that it was indeed a missable movie.  Zoe Saldana was certainly watchable playing a dedicated assassin in the preposterous "Columbiana", but it was one of those movies that painlessly fills the time and can then safely be forgotten.

What got me thinking about George Sanders is the fact that BBC2 has been filling its daytime schedules during the past fortnight with a selection of films from RKO's 'Saint' and 'Falcon' series from the early 1940s.  Although I have seen them all before, I thought I would like to take copies of some of them which starred Sanders, an actor for whom I have always had a soft spot.  He was never a leading man in A-films, but lent a certain indelible suavity and sophistication to all of his supporting roles. He had a distinctive, slightly disdainful, voice and never lost his clipped English tones (despite being born in St. Petersburg -- Russia, not Florida-- to English parents).  Unlike the current crop of Brit actors who have 'gone Hollywood', he never made any effort to disguise his origins and therefore was a natural choice for the roles of cads, Nazis, and miscellaneous villains.  He started as a chorus boy in London, but swiftly moved to Hollywood where he appeared in more than 100 films peaking with a best supporting-actor Oscar for "All About Eve" (1950).  His numerous subsequent appearances were in a number of not so memorable movies, but he was certainly the best choice for voicing Shere-Khan in 1967's "Jungle Book" and his turn as a cross-dresser in one of his last roles, "The Kremlin Letter", must be seen to be believed. In the end he committed suicide, leaving a note reading "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored.  I feel that I have lived long enough,  I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool.  Good Luck."  A rather sad and flip ending for a famous, oft-married womaniser and romantic.

Anyhow getting back to these shortish 1940's films, they were great fun, well-written, and rather jokey mysteries in which Sanders is undoubtedly the best thing in them.   He did not actually originate the Saint role in films -- that honour was Louis Hayward's -- but took over from the second in the series, for a total of five films before he moved to the first Falcon film "The Gay Falcon" (not a title that could be used on the marquee today!) On many levels the two series seem indistinguishable, especially since the same RKO supporting actors could be seen playing different supporting roles in the next release. Most notable amongst the regulars are Wendy Barrie as his most frequent love interest, James Gleason (not fat Jackie G) as a dim-witted inspector (shades of Sherlock Holmes), and  Alan Jenkins as sidekick "Goldy" Locke; but the films are redolent with familiar faces.  And long before James Bond became known for his clever comebacks, Sanders' gentleman detective was chucking these about with dry wit.

The most interesting movie in the two series is "The Falcon Takes Over" (1942) which is based on Raymond Chandler's "Farewell My Lovely", remade a mere three years later as an A-list production starring Dick Powell in his first non-musical role.  In the Sanders version, Moose Malloy (later a memorable Mike Mazurki) is played by John Ford regular Ward Bond and he cuts an equally menacing presence.  The film also provides meaty roles for Anne Revere, George Cleveland, Edward Gargan, Hans Conreid, and Turhan Bey (naturally playing a turbaned mystic.) Eventually the jaded Sanders, who seemed to become easily bored, became fed up with playing Gay Lawrence and was written out of the series by gifting the role to his real-life brother Tom Conway in "The Falcon's Brother".  Conway isn't a patch on Sanders but proved surprisingly popular, going on to don the Falcon suit for another nine movies.  He continued appearing in a variety of minor films until drinking himself to death some years before brother George decided that he'd had it with the world and found his answer in an overdose of barbituates. All very sad, if you ask me. 

Visions of Eight (1973)

In case you've not noticed (or have been visiting outer space over the past few days), the Olympics are taking place in London. Most of the population here appears to have gone bling-mad as we crow over each new gold medal, but it's not altogether surprising considering this country's investment in the Games and the boost that home crowd support can give athletes. I too have been watching with interest, cutting into the time that I would normally be watching films, although some of the disciplines have yet to entice me -- handball, archery, shooting to name a few.  Still there are enough other awe-inspiring sports on offer to keep me glued to the set.

With all the Olympic hype that has been on display here, I am rather surprised that the television programmers -- especially those not involved in the BBC's wall-to-wall coverage, have not siezed the opportunity to screen one of the many Olympic-themed films in their back catalogues.  It is of course too much to hope for the best and grand-daddy (or grandma) of them all, Leni Riefenstahl's "The Olympiad" (1936), to be shown, since she has become persona-non-grata because of her Hitler connection; but if truth be told, it is one of cinema's landmark films.  However other possibilities were similarly ignored.  I found a showing of the above movie, which I have seen previously a long, long time ago, on German television, and I set it to refresh my pretty favourable memory.

It is a compendium film with eight different directors of eight nationalities giving their impressions of various facets of the Munich 1972 Olympics -- the one that is best remembered now for the murder of eleven Israeli participants.  This is perhaps not the legacy for which the Munich city-fathers would wish to be remembered, but seven of the eight manage to ignore this event completely. The film opens with Russian Yuri Ozerov's "The Beginning", which gives a brief overview of the setting and the athletes, with tantalisingly brief glimpses of legend Olga Korbut and the oft-seen image of multi-medalled swimmer Mark Spitz. The next section by Swedish actress-turned-director Mai Zetterling is titled "The Strongest" and focuses on the heavyweight category of male weightlifters.  I too find their feats amazing -- this is well illustrated by a shot of five German soldiers straining together to move the fully-loaded apparatus off the floor -- but the contrast between then and now is really noticeable.  Then they were a bunch of burly, sweaty mammoths in their singlets and shorts, letting it all hang out as it were; now, in their one-piece body suits and belts they seem nearly svelte in comparison. 

Rapidly going through the next five contributions, Arthur Penn's "The Highest" (concentrating on the pole vault) and Kon Ichikawa's "The Fastest" (the short sprint runners) show the Riefenstahl legacy by deconstructing the athletes' movements into a slo-mo medley.  Never before or since has the 10-second 100 metres (even faster now) become a seemingly endless fifteen-minute ballet, using 34 cameras and an original 20,000 feet of film. (Incidentally Ichikawa also directed "Tokyo Olympiad" glorifying the 1964 games, another film not broadcast this year.) Michael Pfleghar (a German TV director unknown to me) contributes "The Women" with a flattering look at some of the beauteous ladies on display (mainly the Germans let it be said) and captures the grace of one of the Russian gymnasts -- not ironically Korbut with her perfect 10 scores. We then move to Milos Forman's "The Decathlon" which has little to do with this event, but which takes a jokey and pretty irreverent approach by intercutting the athletics with kitschy images of buxom bell-ringers, beefy yodellers, an oompah-pah band, and a full-fledged symphony orchestra pounding out their 'Ode to Joy'. Claude Lelouch ("A Man and a Woman") follows with "The Losers" focussing on the heartbreak of not winning, which occasionally became a display of bad-losing.  Once upon a time we're told, it was the taking part that mattered.  Try telling that to the various jingoistic nations today -- we know who you are!

It was left to John Schlesinger's "The Longest" to create the most meaningful and heartfelt section.  Ostensibly he was concentrating on an English marathon runner, showing his lonely ritual in training on empty English roads for a race that he would not ultimately win. When asked about the Israeli team, he appeared totally indifferent (or focussed one might allow), complaining that to him it only meant a 24-hour postponement of his Olympic marathon participation. The director then cuts to the closing ceremony with a quick shot of the jubilant Israeli team marching in at the opening and another of a Jewish group mourning, while Avery Brundage rabbits on about good will and brotherhood being the Olympic tradition.  He also includes a shot of a single African runner, still plodding Munich's streets in the pouring rain, some hours after the other athletes have finished, to finally arrive exhausted into the stadium.  This was a lovely image, reinforcing the original Olympic ideal that participation and doing one's best are the hallmarks of success.

While fascinating to revisit this film, I must admit that it is actually something of a parson's egg with no coherent overall flow or success.  Still it was an interesting time capsule between then and now.  Minor observations, once one gets over seventies' afros and whiskers, are the streamlining of team uniforms to the extent that most of the female athletes now seem to be racing in bikinis (!), the growing preponderance of tattoos, and the virtual disappearance of hairy armpits amongst all of the female participants and a surprising number of the male participants as well.  

The Help (2011)

You'd think by now that I wouldn't decide in advance whether a film is really worth seeing, especially when I normally end up viewing all of them -- the good and the dross -- anyhow.  It is true that I was in no hurry to view the above movie, despite the generally good notices it received. I decided -- unfairly as it happens -- that it would be too worthy and preachy for words.  I also thought that having a virtually all female cast (the male roles are minor at best) that it would have only chick-flick appeal.  Well, folks, I was wrong on both counts. This is a largely marvellous, intelligent, and engrossing film.


Set in Mississippi in 1963 when the civil rights movement was beginning to gather steam, especially after the murder of Medgar Evans, the cast is mainly made up of the rich, spoiled, vapid, and bigoted women of the town and their downtrodden black maids, and what a cast!  While the entire ensemble deserves credit, among the stand-out 'white' performances are: Bryce Dallas Howard as the ringleader rich bitch, crusading for separate toilets in each house for the maids to use to avoid contaminating the family with all their well-known diseases (!); Jessica Chastain (Oscar-nominated) as the white-trash gal who has dared to wed one of the local good-old-boys that Howard once fancied; Sissy Spacek as Howard's outspoken and slightly senile mother whom she dumps in a nursing home; Emma Stone, proving her non-rom-com skills as the local bachelorette who wants to tell the maids' true story, with her mother, Allison Janney, harping at her full-time to get a boyfriend and flying the flag for the traditional values.  The black cast is led by a feisty Viola Davis (also nominated) as the first to begin to tell her tale to Stone, Octavia Spencer (a deservedly-memorable Oscar winner) as the force of nature falsely fired and accused by Howard when she stands up to her and finally hired by outcast Chastain, and a small but memorable part for veteran actress Cicely Tyson, who tells us more with a single heart-broken glance then could be conveyed in a hundred words.  In fact all of the female casting was nothing short of first rate, down to the smallest part.


The director and screenplay writer Tate Taylor has little in his background as a minor actor and would-be director (only one previous little-seen big screen outing) to suggest that he could put together so skilful a film.   It turns out that he was a childhood friend of the original novel's author, Kathryn Stockett, which may explain why he was chosen to give form to her story.  At any rate, he has done so masterfully.  While one might carp that the basic premise is slightly simplistic, given the advances that blacks have made over the last fifty years, it is undeniably beautifully done with believable drama and a strong streak of humour.  Witness the recurring theme of Spencer and her fabled chocolate pie! Davis who partially narrates the action drives home the point of how a caring woman can raise even the homeliest child of an uncaring mother to believe in herself ("you is kind, you is smart, you is important") yet be mystified how the same loving children can morph into intolerant adults. Stone may be the catalyst that ultimately shakes up the community, with even her mother finally won over and admitting that "courage sometimes skips a generation", but one is aware that her primary motivation is to prove herself to publisher Mary Steenburgen in New York and to swan off to a career in the Big Apple. Meanwhile,the black 'help' who have given her this opportunity by reluctantly confiding their stories have little in the way of new opportunities and possibly only reciprocal hostility to anticipate in the short term.


Yes, I was impressed.  The film was nominated for a best picture Oscar, which it did not win, but it certainly deserved to be considered among the best of its year.  

The Big Picture (1989)

My original intention for today was to write about Spaghetti Westerns, having just watched a weird example -- unfortunately and badly dubbed as usual -- called "Deaf Smith and Johnny Ears" (1972) starring the charismatic Franco Nero (star of one of the most violent of the genre, "Django"), Anthony Quinn playing a deaf-mute, and an ageing Pamela Tiffin as one of the town whores.  However, not only was it not terribly good or stylish, with rather poor continuity, I decided in the end that I really don't have much to say about these films in general. Obviously the ones by Sergio Leone are in a class of their own, but most of the others I've seen have morphed into an inseparable vague morass.  As in this film, out-of-work or down-on-their-luck American stars regularly found work in these largely forgettable movies. Were I a little more enthusiastic, it might make an interesting article, but it would require a heap of mind-refreshing.


So I shall comment on the above title which I've not seen for the best part of twenty years and I note from my rating on IMDb that I wasn't all that taken with it the first time around.  Well, either I've mellowed or the film has legs, since this time it struck me as a gentle and largely good-natured satire on the fiendish ins and outs of the Hollywood scene.  It was the first directorial effort from Christopher Guest, whose subsequent mockumentaries have all had a certain charm.  Co-written with Michael McKean and producer Michael Vartel, it traces the early career of would-be director Nick Chapman, as portrayed by the fresh-faced and eager Kevin Bacon.  Bacon was actually over thirty when this was made, but he captures the enthusiasm and naivete of a recent film school graduate whose prize-winning short has garnered some fawning attention from various Hollywood bigwigs.


He acquires an agent in the hilarious shape of an uncredited Martin Short, with unreal dyed red hair and a camp manner, and is taken up by a ruthless producer brilliantly played by the late, great J.T. Walsh.  He has firm ideas about the black-and-white film he dreams of making, but his concepts are gradually whittled away by Walsh and his yes-men.  Instead of the intimate tale of three 40-year-olds, he reluctantly agrees to a younger cast, a completely different story, a score full of pop tunes (rather than a film without any music), and of course technicolor.  As Walsh tells him, a black-and-white movie would get colorized for TV anyhow -- and a background clip from the wonderful "It's a Wonderful Life" proves his point. However the idea of becoming a Hollywood success completely turns his head.  He ignores his best friend and earlier cinematographer McKean, dumps his live-in girlfriend, a charming Emily Longstreth, for the siren charms of an OTT-sexpot Teri Hatcher, and over-extends himself financially.  Then Walsh's producer falls out of favour with his studio, and the entire project and hangers-on disappear in a flash.  Nick is no longer the flavour of the moment and can get nowhere with the power hierarchy, despite grovelling at their feet with increasingly unworkable concepts.  He is reduced to making a living with a series of menial jobs, until his video for kooky pal Jennifer Jason Leigh's pop-group goes viral and he is again in unbelievable demand by the same folk who previously wouldn't give him the time of day.


The producers deny that the movie is based on actual Hollywood players, although it is tempting to put real names to some of the characters, but it is certainly based on actual Hollywood stereotypes. While possibly not as full of in-jokes as "The Player", this film still manages to portray the grasping nature of the Hollywood scene where cut-throat behaviour may well be the norm of the day.  The movie features special cameo appearances from the likes of Eddie Albert, Fran Drescher, June Lockhart, John Cleese, Roddy McDowell, and an uncredited Elliot Gould and manages to remain largely good-humoured despite the excesses on display.  One wonders whatever became of Longstreth, who only made TV movies before and after this film and who has disappeared from the scene since 1994. Maybe she found a real life outside Hollywood!

Same old...

Well it looks like another one of those all too frequent weeks where I have sat through -- rather than enjoyed -- a depressing number of films and there has been no single one crying out for its own review. It's probably just as well that I'm not a newspaper or magazine film critic -- although I probably would have loved the idea once upon a time -- since I would find it increasingly difficult to write several hundred words or more on a movie that has left me cold.  For example, last night we watched a French sci-fi flick that has been gathering dust amongst our DVD backlog, "Eden Log" (2007), and I thought to myself 'Great, there's tomorrow's subject'.  Wrong! A more boring and less coherent waste of 97 minutes can not be imagined: a washed-out colour, virtually black and white, apocalyptic future where our hero, the totally uncharismatic Clovis Cornillac, awakes in a darkened industrial maze and must work out not only where he is but how to get the hell out of there.  I know the feeling!  Nearly unwatchable with constant fades to black, it has now gone into the 'discard' pile.


OK, it hasn't been all bad.  I did see three properly black and white films from the 50s that were new to me: "Imitation General" (1958) with Glenn Ford pretending to be a slaughtered general to inspire his fellow soldiers, "The Blue Gardenia" (1953) an earlyish-noir and probably one of Fritz Lang's least impressive films with Anne Baxter convinced that she has murdered masher Raymond Burr whilst in a drunken stupor, and "Backfire" (1951) with the rather weird cast of Virginia Mayo and Gordon Macrae (in a non-musical) trying to clear buddy Edmund O'Brien of a murder charge.  While I was pleased to catch up with these films, particularly the last two, none of them were sufficiently stylish or involving to warrant repeat viewings.


Then there was this week's dire premieres from Sky.  While I admit that at least two of them could boast some pretensions, I remained unimpressed.  Firstly there was Rachel Weisz in "The Whistleblower" (2010) as a peace-keeper in Bosnia exposing the trade in cross-border prostitution to the indifference of just about everyone else with vested interests (ho hum).  Then there was the third in the "Paranormal Activity" series which I believe was a box-office winner Stateside;  I was singularly bored by the first two films with their video-eye footage and the third had at best two minor scares, lost in the middle of its rather humdrum proceedings. A TV movie "Cupid Inc" (2012) was impossibly obvious in its heroine's coy quest for Mr. Right, having ignored the obvious contender in her own office, and something called "Formosa Betrayal" (2009) put me to sleep ( it must have since I can recall nothing about it).  Finally what should have been the gem of the week, the Iranian film "A Separation" (2011) which took home the best foreign film Oscar this year left me mystified as to why it won this trophy.  I think I have seen just about all of the highly-thought of Iranian films that have made it to the West and can't think of a single one that I would wish to add to my own collection.  Perhaps that says more about me than about the films in question.  In this one a couple have separated since she wishes to immigrate with their 11-year old daughter and he refuses to leave his Alzheimer-suffering father.  He hires a pregnant day-carer and is accused of causing her to miscarry; he therefore faces a murder charge unless he pays the necessary blood money.  We know that he may have pushed her, but that other circumstances are the culprit.  As yet another insight into a culture alien to us, this film was little more than 'worthy' and like so many similar movies, I was annoyed by the too open ending.  The film just stopped at the moment that we began to care whether the family could indeed be reconciled.


What else?  A two-part miniseries from 1995 "Love and Betrayal" with Mia Farrow and Woody Allen clones acting out their ten-year relationship and ultimately bitter split, complete with Andre Previn and Frank Sinatra clones in the back-story.  A television movie from 1979 "Champions, a Love Story" -- yet another tale of a female figure-skater finding a male ice hockey wannabe to partner her to the championship.  The only difference between this and umpteen other similar tales is that he is killed in an airplane crash before that goal can be reached.  Finally, there was the old stand-by: re-watching favourites from the past.  This week included "Things Change" (1988), a sweet yet slightly strained story of elderly shoe-shine man Don Ameche being hired by the mob to take the fall in a murder case and being baby-sat for the weekend by Joe Mantegna in Lake Tahoe, where the simple, Italianate Ameche is taken for a Mafia bigwig. Then there was another outing for "Absurdistan" (2008) which I have favourably reviewed previously, an enchanting peasant fable shot in Russia (and in Russian) by a German director.  Finally I am having a mini Josef von Sternberg season (formerly known as Joe Sternberg) re-watching his three great silents.  I've viewed "The Last Command" (1928) a major success starring Emil Jannings,  and"Underworld" (1927) with his pet actor George Bancroft -- considered the first film to look at crime from the criminal's point of view. That leaves "The Docks of New York" (1928) to complete the trio which is on today's programme.


I sometimes think I should restrict myself to only watching old favourites together with the best of the current crop and those oddities languishing on my 'must-see' list, but that wouldn't be PPP. I have this weird compunction to watch anything I've not seen previously and therefore find myself with' blah' results like some of the above.  I don't suppose I'll ever learn! What's the saying about old dogs and new tricks? 

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

I wasn't able to schedule a cinema visit when this sweet movie was released some six weeks ago, but managed to catch up with it in repertory at the Prince Charles.  Although his output has hardly been prolific, I have really liked the films (with the possible exception of "The Darjeeling Limited" which was just a bit too twee, even for me) of the Texas-born auteur Wes Anderson -- not to be confused with the Newcastle-born hack Paul W. S. Anderson.  His output is quite probably insufficiently action-filled for contemporary tastes, but his individuality and sly humour shine in films like "The Royal Tenenbaums", "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou", and even the stop-motion "Fantastic Mr. Fox".


This fable of childhood is set on the mythical Cape Cod island of New Penzance in 1965, some four years before Anderson himself was actually born; yet it is intended, I am sure, to recapture the feelings and emotions of adolescence as he himself remembers it. The main protagonists, young teens Sam and Suzy, portrayed by Jared Gilman and Kaya Hayward, both making their big screen debuts, carry the picture and the A-list supporting cast are not actually given a great deal to do.  Sam is an orphan being raised by a foster family and is spending his second summer camping on the island with the 'Khaki Scouts'.  Suzy, whom he first saw at a church performance of "Noye's Fludde" a year before, is the eldest child of Bill Murray and Frances McDormand, an intellectual but unloving couple.  Suzy rattles around in their big house, alienated from her three much-younger close and clone-like brothers, and listens to Francoise Hardy while reading gothic literature.  She and Sam decide they are in love and arrange to run away together.  They follow an old Indian trail and find the idyllic, untrodden Moonrise cove of the title, where they establish their camp for the three days they are on the run. Suzy's parents insist that she must have been abducted and the search is on led by lonely local police chief Bruce Willis and scout-leader Edward Norton with his pack of young charges (none of whom can stand Sam).  However when the young lovers are caught and separated, the scouts decide to support the pair's escapade, just as a mighty storm approaches the island, along with 'Social Services' in the form of Tilda Swinton who is flying in to take Sam to an orphanage (after his anti-social behaviour has alienated his foster family).  Needless to say, all eventually ends satisfactorily, even after the young couple go through an illegal marriage ceremony performed by another scout-leader on a neighbouring island.  All of this may sound a little convoluted and contrived, but believe me when I tell you, that it all falls sweetly into place, without over-stretching one's credibility.  I could however have done without Anderson's killing off a cute little dog in the melee.


Despite the high-powered cast names mentioned above, there are also roles for Harvey Keitel, Bob Balaban, and Jason Schwarzman. However none of them, with the possible exceptions of Willis and Norton -- both very likeable here -- make much impact.  No doubt Bill Murray is in the cast as Anderson's 'lucky charm' since he has been a 'given' since 1998's "Rushmore"; however he is not asked to demonstrate much other than his usual laid-back charm.  Harking back to the trauma in his own life when his parents divorced, Anderson seems to be trying to recapture both the innocence and passions of childish dreams and possibly his own remembered formative years; his two young leads do all the work for him.  


The film is quirky and poignant, mercifully short and very bittersweet -- a slight trifle full of yearning and nostalgia.  Anderson's regular composer Alexandre Desplat makes good use both of "Noye's Fludde" (forecasting the impending storm) and "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" in creating the compelling background score to this fantasy of a child's memories.

Shirley Temple....again!

I know I've written about child-star Shirley Temple several times previously, usually when I need a speedy antidote to an attack of the blues.  Her ability to cast a ray of sunshine into people's drab existence is what made her the top-grossing movie-star in the dark days of the l930s Depression.  However it was not a sudden case of the glumps that inspired me to write about the two following films from 1934, but rather the unusual fact (for me) that I had not previously viewed either of them.  Because they were both made on loan-outs from her home studio Fox (a situation never again repeated when her financial worth was realised), they tended not to be as readily available for television, video, or DVD viewing as her other films until relatively recently.  Both movies are fascinating, both in their own right and in contrast to her other pictures from the period:


Now and Forever:  One of Shirley's least-known films, it is unusual for its starry leads -- Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard.  Cooper in particular is atypically cast as a weak-willed grifter, living the high-life abroad with Lombard, relying on his wits and speedy evasive action to avoid their creditors.  In passing he mentions a daughter from a previous marriage -- conveniently never mentioned earlier -- whom he hopes to flog for $75,000 to the stuffy relatives that have been looking after her since his first wife's death.  When he goes back to Connecticut to get the dough, he finds himself charmed by the tyke, who obviously is not exactly having much fun or much of a life in her cloistered environment -- and off he goes with her to meet up with Lombard in Paris, raising the cash by selling a mythical gold mine to an old duffer, played by Sir Guy Standing, who turns out to be as big a con-man as Cooper.  Temple is rapturous about having a Daddy and fond of Standing's Uncle Felix who is escaping the law on the same ship, but wary about Lombard's sharing her father's affections.  She gradually warms to her, especially when she sees her new mother encouraging her father to take a job and live a more sedate life like real families.


However, thirty-five dollars a week from a real estate company doesn't go far in maintaining their lifestyle, especially when they want to send Shirley to a posh school; Cooper is soon reduced to stealing a necklace for Uncle Felix to fence from a wealthy dowager who has taken an interest in the winsome child.  Things end badly with Felix shot, Cooper wounded, and the old lady agreeing to take over responsibility for the child.  This is not the sort of happy scenario which usually forms the centre of a Temple film, although director Henry Hathaway manages to hold our interest in the brief 79 minute running time.  Shirley has no dance numbers and only one song "The World Owes Me a Living" (shades of Cooper's philosophy here) which while cute, is rather less fetching than her usual 'Good Ship Lollipop' repertoire.


Little Miss Marker:  Although I hadn't seen this version of Damon Runyon's tale before, it felt as if I had, since I have certainly seen the later versions: Bob Hope's 1949 "Sorrowful Jones", Tony Curtis' 1962 "Forty Pounds of Trouble", and Walter Matthau's 1980 take on the Sorrowful character (back to the original title and also featuring Curtis in a different role).  The basic story is therefore well-known and is clear from the alternate title "Girl in Pawn".  Here the usually dapper Adolph Menjou plays bookie Sorrowful Jones, known by his lowlife associates as a shabby tightwad.  When a little girl's father, desperate to place a bet, leaves his daughter as security, Menjou reluctantly agrees.  The 'sure-to-win' horse (a con initiated by Charles Bickford's Big Steve Halloway and agreed to by Menjou and the mob) loses, and the distraught father commits suicide, lumbering Sorrowful with little 'Marky'. Bickford skips town for a while leaving Menjou to register the horse in question in Marky's name before their plans to dope him and probably kill him in his next outing.  He also leaves his girl friend, a torch singer (Dorothy Dell) for Menjou to keep an eye on.  Her supposedly hard surface is touched by the youngster and she grows fonder of both the child and Menjou, finally smartening him up.


Several things make this version of the story rather different than the subsequent ones and again substantially different from Shirley's other 30s films.  Again this is not an all-singing, all-dancing role for the youngster, and while she starts off the film as a little sweetie, charming all in sight, full of fairy tales and magic, she soon becomes a tough-talking little cookie under the influence of the Runyonesque supporting cast.  In an attempt to recapture her innocence, Dell and Menjou get all of the gang to dress up as characters from King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and bring in her faithful 'charger' (the horse in question).  I must say I don't recall anything like this in the later versions!  Anyhow, Bickford returns to the scene, causing Shirley to fall from the horse gravely injured.  Move to the hospital where a renowned surgeon is press-ganged from his wedding to operate on the tyke, but none of the mob have the right type blood for the necessary transfusion.  That is until Bickford is tested and complimented on his 'strong blood', saving the day.


Point of interest: like me you have probably never heard of Dorothy Dell.  It's not surprising since she made only a few films before dying in a car crash at the age of nineteen.  Her character 'Bangles' Carson comes across as a lot older with her trampy dress, torch singing, and the fancy apartment of a kept-woman complete with the requisite black maid.  She's excellent here and probably would have continued with great success, but we'll never know.  Talking about token roles for black actors in early Hollywood, amongst the support in this film is friendly, jivey janitor Willie Best, keeping a watchful eye on little Shirley.


Finally it is probably worth noting that both of these Temple vehicles just about fall into the pre-code period and are therefore somewhat blacker than the movies that would later rake in the big bucks for 20th Century Fox.

Bellissima (1951)

As no doubt I've written previously and as no doubt I shall write again, there is always the danger of some disappointment when catching up with a film that has previously eluded me.  I have wanted to see this third feature from the rather baroque Italian director Luchino Visconti for yonks and while I am more than happy to have finally cornered it, it wasn't at all quite what I was expecting. Yes, it was very good in many ways, but something of an anomaly in the director's oeuvre. His earliest films "Ossessione" (1943) -- the first movie version of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" -- and "Terra Trema" (1948) are rooted in the Italian neo-realistic renaissance, but his later films like "Senso", "The Leopard" and "Death in Venice" display the dramatic flair that this aristocratic scion brought to his famous operatic productions. "Bellissima" on the other hand is something of a transition, a story that is rooted in reality and poverty, but which also makes room for both satire and humour -- not notable qualities of his later sensuous outings.


The Italian superstar and 'earth-mother' Anna Magnani plays a would-be stage-mother, a slave to the empty dreams of movie unreality, desperate, nay obsessed, to push her young daughter into the world of comfort and riches that a screen career would provide. Set in the post-war poverty of Rome, Magnani becomes a force of nature when she goes to Cinecitta, along with hundreds of other pushy mothers, answering an open casting call for a six- to eight-year old girl to star in director Alessandro Blasetti's next film.  In this mob scene, she loses sight of her daughter Maria, a remarkable Tina Apicella in her only film appearance, who has wandered off to play by a pool.  Dishevelled and dirty, she drags the wee mite into the tail end of the auditions, where she recites the 19th Century poem 'Addio a Venezia' in her little-girl voice, contrasting rather notably with the over-trained singing, dancing, and Betty Grable-impersonating of the competition.  The director notices that she is rather small for a six to eight-year old (in fact the actress was only five at the time), but Magnani counters this observation by insisting that her dress makes her look smaller than she is and manages to win a call-back for the lass.


Despite her husband's objections that they can hardly find money for their rent, Magnani squanders her savings on dramatic lessons, photography, special dresses, and bribes to ensure Maria's success. The bribes -- flowers for the director's wife and other nonsenses -- are suggested to her by con-man Walter Chiari who pretends to take a genuine interest in the mother and child, but who in fact wants the money to buy a motor-scooter.  Magnani is not stupid enough to be unaware of his self-interest, but is convinced that she must do whatever is necessary for young Maria's future.  When she sneaks into the screening of the test footage for Blasetti and his minions, the cruelty of the industry is rammed home; the child is unable to blow out the candles on a prop birthday cake, can't quite remember her poem or speak out, and finally bursts into heart-breaking tears.  This reduces the executives into uncontrollable fits of giggles and Magnani's dreams are shattered.  Even when the studio subsequently offers a contract and an unreal salary, Magnani's only concern  is to protect her innocent daughter from the scorn and heartbreak that can follow.


Magnani played an earthy dynamo in nearly all of her films, from "Rome Open City" (1945) through "Mamma Roma" (1962), but is at her best when acting in her own language.  Although she did win an Oscar for her English-speaking role in "The Rose Tattoo" (1955) and has made her mark in other American films, the full force of her personality is slightly stifled when she tries to overcome her language handicap.  In this movie, she is passionate, unbridled and riveting.  Although 43 at the time and looking every year of it and while never one of the screen's great beauties, she looks magnificent here, roping the viewer initially into her determination and ultimately into her realisation and defeat.  Both on stage and on film, Visconti was famed for supporting his actors in every possible way, for always highlighting their talent; the respect in which he holds his star here is manifest and manifold.


With a screenplay from the celebrated female writer Suso Cecchi D'Amico, a frequent Visconti collaborator, who also worked extensively with Zeffirelli and Antonioni, this film has the legs to linger long in the memory.  It was fascinating to watch, yet managed to leave a slightly sour after-taste which I must admit I was not expecting.  Somehow I thought it would all be jollier than in fact it was, as mothers screamed 'bellissima' to get a director's attention, in the vain attempt to point out how very beautiful their generally ungainly daughters were.
     

Revisiting the 'Classics'

It's just under a year ago that I saw and reviewed "Bridesmaids" (see June 23 '11) which has just made it appearance on Sky Premiere. Since I keep seeing references to the film as 'a modern comedy classic', I thought I should have another look and did not read my blog in preparation.  I really didn't enjoy the re-visit, finding the overall tone bitter, managing only the occasional chuckle, subsequently reading that  I accused myself of having a "humour bypass" the first time 'round. In other words it seems to take very little to land the 'classic' mantle nowadays.  Yes, it was possibly the first time that a largely female cast proved that they could be as raunchy as the lads, and yes both Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy give memorable turns, and yes there is the odd smart line or situation, but on balance it remains an over-long, episodic, hit-or-miss production.  Sorry, fans!


On the other hand I have just watched "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959) for probably the fifth or sixth time and enjoyed all two and a half hours of this courtroom classic -- and I use the word 'classic' advisedly.  It is long because it remains possibly overly faithful to the original novel by John D. Volker, aka Robert Travers, based on an actual case and court records in his part of Northern Michigan where he was County Prosecutor, and little of the Court procedure is omitted in the telling.  The trial is that of a soldier (Ben Gazzara) who is accused of killing the man who purportedly raped his wife (Lee Remick).  For the defence is country lawyer James Stewart's Paul Biegler and for the prosecution is another local lawyer assisted by a hotshot mouthpiece from the State capitol (George C. Scott). Sitting on the bench is real-life lawyer Joseph N. Welch whose moment of glory occurred when he defended the Army in the McCarthy hearings.  Rounding out Stewart's team are his faithful, sardonic secretary Eve Arden, whose salary is well in arrears, and his somewhat drunken legal pal -- a brilliant Arthur O'Connell, one of several Academy nominees for this film and the second or third best thing in it (in a movie where even the minor cast members were excellent: John Qualen, Murray Hamilton, and Kathryn Grant -- later Mrs. Bing Crosby -- among others).  Finally add a fine jazz score for the jazz-loving Biegler from the great Duke Ellington, who appears in a brief cameo as 'Pie Eye', and all of the ingredients are in place for a viewing treat.


The film is probably director Otto Preminger's masterpiece (some people think it was Stewart's as well, although I maintain that he is nearly always marvellous in all of his roles.)  The film was infamous in its day for its frank discussion of rape, provocative behaviour, and whether it is right to wear 'panties' rather than a girdle. (The very young and extremely nubile Remick knows how to wiggle her wares here).  However controversy was nothing new for Preminger whose 1953 movie "The Moon is Blue" (not a film that has held up well) shocked the Censors' Office with its use of language like 'virgin' and 'mistress'.  It may take a lot less to shock the modern viewer, but this film remains something special because of its wonderful cast and extremely adept script. While a contemporary of two other courtroom dramas "12 Angry Men" and "Witness for the Prosecution", both masterly films and personal favourites, "Anatomy of a Murder" has the master mix of courtroom cleverness married to well-rounded and cleverly played characters.  In his traditionally laid-back style, Biegler is well aware that information and questions subsequently over-ruled by the Judge, can not really be forgotten by a jury who know what they have just heard.


Spoilers are probably less relevant when writing about older films (but look away now if you've never seen this beauty).  Having tutored his client in claiming his innocence by pleading temporary insanity -- a fleeting irresistible impulse -- Biegler is hoist with his own petard at the film's end when the cleared Gazzara and his sexy wife use the same excuse to decamp without paying their legal bills.  "Never mind" thinks the easy-going Stewart and his now more sober sidekick O'Connell, there's the dead man's estate to manage.  Now that's classic film-making however you slice it!

Red (2010)

Let's face it tastes do change.  One can go right off film stars once treasured -- Meg Ryan comes to mind with her latter day trout-pout and gratuitous nudity.  On the other hand, bete noires can morph into favourites -- like good old baldy Bruce Willis.  When he first came to the fore in the television series "Moonlighting", I couldn't stand the bumptious twit.  I also saw him again recently with a full head of hair in 1987's "Blind Date" with an out-of-control Kim Basinger, and didn't much reckon him there either.  But he has certainly mellowed with age -- as I suppose I have.


I can't say better about the above film other than it is great fun -- not particularly wonderful film-making, logically constructed, or even believable, but one doesn't worry about little things like that when one is enjoying a great cast who seem to be enjoying themselves as well.  Willis plays a retired CIA agent whose file is listed as "RED" (Retired, Extremely Dangerous) and his even older ex-cohorts and adversaries include Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, and Brian Glover (as an ex-Russian spy still besotted with Mirren.) Willis and the first three find themselves on the current Vice-President's 'hit list', as he needs to cover up some naughtiness from their joint past before announcing his presidential ambitions.  So they find themselves on the run from young CIA operatives Karl Urban and Rebecca Pidgeon and their armed hordes.  Add to the equation Willis' new love interest, Mary-Louise Parker, with whom he has, in his loneliness, struck up a telephone flirtation, unwittingly including her in the would-be purge.  Introduce to the ensemble a treacherous Richard Dreyfuss, a cameo from the now 95-year old Ernest Borgnine, and a blink-and-you-might-miss-it appearance by James Remar (Dexter's ghost-dad!) and the veteran casting is a delight.

Where to start?  Firstly it was great to see Parker again; I know she has been doing well in the TV series "Weeds" which isn't shown here, but it's been a while since I've seen her on the big screen.  I always think of her as one of the many 'double-barrelled' starlets that graced the 1990s: Mary-Stuart Masterton, Catherine-Mary Stewart, Penelope-Ann Miller, and even Sarah-Jessica Parker, whom I used to muddle one with the other, but she holds her own with the superb cast in this movie.  The film is full of shoot-outs and double-dealing, and it is enormous fun to see 'The Queen'  Mirren handling a sub-machine gun.  However greatest praise must be reserved for Malkovich who plays a goofy brain-fried die-hard and who is far more relaxed here than he was in his more serious, early 'actorly' roles.  Finally, Willis remains good value as he marshals his cohorts and bristles when Urban refers to him as 'Grandpa'; there's plenty of spunk in the old guy yet.  It's a geriatric romp to savour.


The film is far from an award-seeking candidate, but it certainly makes for a grand evening out! 

Culture Vulture

Oh how we suffer for our art! One hears about suffering artists, but one can also 'suffer' for one's enthusiasms. Every so often I am tempted to book tickets for a film about which I know absolutely nothing but which sounds like something very special.  So was the case with:

The Tale of Genji (1951):  The hook for this Japanese film is that it is based on "the world's first true novel", written over l000 years ago by Murasaki Shikibu ('Lady Murasaki'), a court lady of the Heian Era. Both the original work and the film derived from it consist of episodes from the life of a bastard son of the Mikado who has been raised as a nobleman, the Genji of the title.  These episodes are largely an account of his erotic adventures at court and beyond -- a sort of Japanese Casanova if you will.  It starts with his pregnant courtesan mother being driven away by the hostility of the Mikado's jealous older official wife, and continues with his country childhood until his mother's early death (presumably from grief), his recall to court, and his seduction of a number of comely wenches, despite having officially married his own jealous wife.  His behaviour continues to anger the original old shrew, and he is temporarily and tactfully exiled to the back of beyond after he manages to impregnate both his wife and his favourite mistress.  There he faces assassins sent by political rivals and falls in love with a local noble monk's daughter, who in fact is in love with another -- not that this stops her licking the blood from his wounds in a notable scene.


Directed by Kozabura Yoshimura of whom I know nothing, Genji is played by Kazuo Hasegura, purportedly a matinee idol of the day. He was meant to be beautiful, graceful, and generally irresistible, but rising 43 years at the time and tending to run to fat, I found the actor decidedly ill-cast.  Nevertheless, this movie was apparently the top-grossing Japanese film to date, as schoolteachers brought students by the busload to view this classic, historical drama.  At well over two hours, all this hothouse romance became a little tedious, especially since all of the women (to my Western eye) looked virtually identical with their formal dress, pale make-up, and incredibly long hair tumbling nearly to the ground.  However as each episode faded to black, the framing scenery emerged beautifully, with each new image resembling a fine artistic print.  Had the film been made in colour, it probably would have been even more remarkable, but the formal artistry of the photography did help to compensate for the melodrama of the story.


Moving literally to the other side of the world, Film Four recently held a mini-African season and I still have several left to watch among my backlog.  However, two of these films are worth mentioning, if only in the briefest detail:


Xala (1975):  The title translates as "The Curse" and is one of the first African films to receive international attention.  Written and directed by Sengalese auteur Ousmane Sembene, it is a sharp satire on the country of the day.  Newly independent from France, the new rulers are shown to be every bit as greedy and corrupt as their predecessors, leaving their first official meeting with an attache case full of crisp, new notes.  We follow the story of one of them who is about to take on his third wife -- completely acceptable in his 'religion' -- who is financing the lavish wedding festivities by selling government-aid wheat to a shady dealer -- not unlike the equal corruption of his cohorts.  However, on his wedding night, he is unable to 'perform' and word soon spreads that he has been lumbered with the Xala of the title.  After insisting that the street near his office be cleared of all of its heart-breaking and crippled beggars, his life goes from bad to worse, especially after the cheque he has given a local shaman to restore his manhood bounces.  By the end of the movie he has lost nearly everything -- he is dismissed from the ruling Council and both his second and third wives decamp -- and he is standing naked enduring the disdain and spit of the beggars who have now camped in his house. The cleverness of this film rests in demonstrating how the new bigwigs are as pretentious as the old, both in their formal garb and by their insistence of carrying on their meetings in French, rather than in their native Wolof language.


"Johnny Mad Dog" (2008): I nearly gave up on this one as the subject matter was so distasteful, especially as told in its documentary-style format.  In an unnamed African country, young boys are  forced into the rebel army, given the choice to kill their fathers or themselves be killed, and taught the ways of looting, murder, rape, mayhem, and intimidation.  Their leader's mantra is "You don't want to die, don't be born" and the youngsters, with their new nicknames, have lost their original identities and follow blindly.  Although played by actors, some of the cast were once such 'soldiers' themselves and it is hard to watch the cruelty that they were taught.  The Johnny of the title eventually sees his own world and promise of riches collapse, as his 'General' is happy to revert to being a supporting lower officer in the new regime, and he is reduced to acting as a guard at a local refugee camp.  There he is brought down even lower by a spunky girl of his own age who has spent the film trying to save her young brother and legless wounded father.  Very strong stuff and far from an easy watch.      

La Traversee de Paris (1956)

I shall never forget the first time I saw this film, also known as "Pig Across Paris" or "Four Bags Full" as it was titled at the repertory cinema called The Juliet just off campus from my rather select girls' college.  However it wasn't this remarkable (and now classic) movie that stayed in my memory, but the second feature (those were the days) shown with it -- Sacha Guitry's "Pearls of the Crown" (1937). That weird confection haunted me for years and you can read about it in my archives: http://prettypinkpattyspictures.blogspot.co.uk/2006/01/pearls-of-crown-1937.html


While I have managed to watch "Pearls" several many times over the years and at long last have my own copy complete with subtitles courtesy of the Criterion Guitry box set, a visit to the BFI last week provided only my third viewing of the above film and I must confess I had forgotten how grand a flick it is. It draws in its black and white cinematography, especially effective in portraying Paris by Night, a warts-and-all portrait of life in the city during the German occupation of World War II.  On its release it was reviled by many Frenchmen since it neglected to show a population made up of heroic and patriotic resistance fighters, but rather a subdued people trying to make the best of rationing and the bleak conditions of life.  The tale concerns an out-of-work taxi driver, cunningly played by the French comic actor Bourvil.  (Parenthetically here, I have always been fascinated by the vast number of French cinema actors and actresses who forged a career using a single name;  originally a music hall entertainer, Bourvil chose his stage name from the region of Normandy where he was raised).  Struggling to make ends meet and to look after his jealously-guarded wife, his character, Martin, contracts with a black market grocer to transport four suitcases containing a freshly-slaughtered pig to a restaurateur across the city. With his usual accomplice nicked by the gendarmes, he hones in on a scruffy chap in the local bistro to take his place. This chap Grandgil, played by the magnificent Jean Gabin, describes himself as a painter -- and Martin assumes him to be a down-and-out house-painter.  Grandgil agrees to the expedition and proceeds to bully the miserly pig-provider -- a small but telling role for another classic French comic actor Louis de Funes -- into paying over the odds as he casually begins to destroy his hoarded stock of groceries.


And so their six-mile trek begins as they are harassed by nosy policeman, a growing number of sniffing mongrels, and the German patrols, a journey initially told jocularly but eventually becoming more serious as their actual liberty becomes threatened.  Towards the end of the evening they call by Grandgil's rather luxurious flat, where Martin discovers that his companion is actually a very successful artist -- although I personally thought that most of the paintings cluttering his studio resembled a selection of forgeries, done in a variety of recognizable styles.  It becomes clear that while the weasly Martin is smuggling the pig meat for much-needed money, Grandgil is doing it for kicks and has no qualms at savagely attacking wherever he senses hypocrisy.  This role is something of a revelation for Gabin, who throughout his career played larger than life characters and who always brings a daunting presence; however he could never be described as a comic actor.  His treatment of the finally fraught situation here, after the pair are picked up by the Germans, makes one feel sorry for the half-cringing, half-cocky Martin, and less sympathetic to Gabin's unsympathetic toughness. Before its final coda, the film appears to end with Martin's being rounded up for a concentration camp together with other locals after an officer is murdered, while Grandgil's fame saves him from the same fate courtesy of a fawning German commandant.  A final scene is tacked on to show that Martin luckily did survive the war, but the class distinction between him and Grandgil is more obvious than ever.


Nicely directed by the prolific Claude Autant-Lara from an original novel by Marcel Ayme, I have only recently discovered that the director and his screenwriters drastically changed the tale's ending. In the original, Martin apparently kills Grandgil in his studio, fed up with Gabin's arrogance and swagger, and is subsequently arrested for his murder.  I do prefer the version on display here, with its not-so-faint air of vinegar, anger, and desperation.

Dark Shadows (2012)

Being a fan of both Johnny Depp and his frequent director Tim Burton, I had high hopes that, despite the lukewarm notices their new collaboration has received, I would be charmed by the above film. Well, 'charmed' is far too strong a word, and while this movie certainly had its moments, it is unfortunately deeply flawed and poorly constructed.  Based on the cult 'soap' of the same name, which ran in the States between 1966 and 1970, one would have thought that this tale of a family-oriented vampire who has lain buried for two hundred years before returning to a new and different world might have been right up Burton's Gothic alley and would elicit yet another highly-stylized performance from Depp.  Instead, we have something of a dog's dinner.


Although I have never viewed the TV series, I have seen one or both of the television movie spin-offs ("House of Dark Shadows", "Night of Dark Shadows") and had an idea what to expect. The film starts off OK with the background story leading to Depp's 200-year burial (some folderol about losing his one true love after spurning the advances of a local witch who placed a spell upon him) and morphs neatly into his coffin being disinterred by local workmen.  He returns to the ancestral pile to the strains of a 70s pop track and meets the current remnants of his family (their fortune faltering). He is also taken aback by the technological changes during his absence. Unfortunately none of this is as camp or as broadly played as the story demands and Burton's disastrous attempt to include virtually all of the series' plot-strands into a single story falls well-short of producing a coherent film.  The fault lies squarely with the script which is lazily put together and muddled by pointless twists.


The movie is neither funny enough nor gory enough with Depp's unchained blood-lust rearing its ugly head gratuitously at the least appropriate moments.  He not only tears out the throats of the workmen who find his coffin, but also feels obliged to eat some hippy campers that befriend him.  Most of the best gags have been over-exposed in the trailers, and the only line that really made me laugh was when Depp describes Alice Cooper as the ugliest woman he has ever seen.  (Mind you why the singer was even featured in the film at all is something of a mystery).   As for the rest of the cast, it is all again a mixed bag.  Michelle Pfeiffer (apparently a fan of the original series) registers strongly as the matriarch of the modern-day family and Eva Green is appropriately sexy and malicious as the 1970's personification of the original witch.  However the obligatory part for Helena Bonham Carter -- looking horrendous with bright red hair -- is a non-starter as the family's resident psychiatrist who craves Depp's immortality.  Jackie Earle Haley as a drunken retainer under Depp's spell, Johnny Lee Miller as a thieving relation, and especially Chloe Grace Moretz as a teen-aged werewolf (don't ask) are all pretty wasted as events unfold.  There is even a completely pointless cameo from genre hero Christopher Lee. Finally Bella Heathcote, an obscure Australian ingenue, as the current reincarnation of his lost love is appropriately fey-looking but given rather little to do, despite the ghost from the past that hovers by her.


Some of the special effects are mildly amusing as Depp re-explores the creepy mansion and as he has literally off-the-walls sex with Green, but these do not serve to pull together what is basically a poorly directed and often incomprehensible story.  Depp strives to give us yet another of his rather weird character creations, but often looks as bemused by the mechanics of the plot as we the viewer.  I just wish that both he and Burton could have had rather more fun with this movie; they obviously both set out to capture the spirit of the original, but seem to have lost their way in the process. Incidentally, the original lead Jonathan Frid, who died a few days ago, can be glimpsed briefly among the guests at the Collins family 'ball'.  The movie ends with a hook for a possible sequel, but on the strength of this showing, that is hopefully unlikely.


In closing let me tell you about another film I saw immediately after the above with the unlikely title of "Nude Nuns with Big Guns" (2010), a stupid piece of Mexican (I think) crapdoodle.  It would be tempting to write that I enjoyed it rather more than the Depp/Burton farrago, but that would be a big, fat, unbelievable lie!

Surprise, Surprise...

Since I now average only one new entry per week, I have rather more films to choose from, compared to the early days when, in my initial enthusiasm, I was blogging nearly every day.  One advantage of this increased choice is that it allows me to select from the available candidates the best of the bunch or the most esoteric or occasionally the most pleasant surprises.  The past week has been one of those fortuitous ones where the box office big hitters left me either cold or indifferent, but where I found some pleasure amongst the least likely candidates. Let's look at two of them:


Sister Mary Explains it All (2001): This cable movie distributed by Showtime was a complete unknown to me, but certainly the sort of film that one either loves or hates.  Directed by Marshall Brickman (responsible for the classic Woody Allen scripts for "Sleeper", "Annie Hall", and "Manhattan" amongst others) and starring Allen's erstwhile muse Diane Keaton, it is a viciously satiric look at traditional Catholic doctrines written by the author of the original stage play.  Keaton plays a bigoted, by-the-book nun, who has given the same (more or less) lecture every Christmas Eve to a congregation of brainwashed ex-students and current students.  She stridently outlines the meaning of heaven, hell, and limbo and keeps a record-book of those bound for damnation, including Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger, and many more.  She uses a cherubic seven-year old student to fetch her water and cookies and to parrot out his catechism when instructed, for which she may occasionally reward him with one of her half-eaten cookies like some kind of pet monkey. 


Into this year's 25th anniversary lecture come four former students in costume; we first met them as youngsters performing a nativity play -- Mary, Joseph, and a two-humped camel.  Now in their thirties, they need to return to let Sister Mary discover just how messed up their lives have been as a result of her strict teachings and her sadistic meanness.  The two men are played by TV actors Brian Benben and Wallace Langham, an unhappily married father of two and a open but happy homosexual respectively.  The two women are Laura San Giacomo who has had two abortions and Jennifer Tilly an unmarried mother.  As they paraphrase Sister Mary's teachings and how these have left them unfit to cope with life by her inflexible standards, Keaton reacts with horror and the four of them begin to regress into the children they once were. The audience does not at first understand the damage she has inflicted, not only on these four and but on them themselves.  Without giving too much away, the movie finishes with two of the four dead and Sister Mary lost in the throes of religious ecstasy.


While this film is probably more likely to be of interest to those who 'suffered' a parochial education themselves, it is definitely worth seeing for Keaton's amazing turn.  Her performance verges on being well over the top, but she creates such a horrible gargoyle of a character that her every word and movement is transfixing.  In a long and varied career, this is surely one of her most accomplished roles.


Everything Must Go (2010):  I won't go on at the same length about this movie, except to say that as a Will Ferrell starrer I was expecting to hate it, since I have had little tolerance for most of his films that many people find hilarious. However to draw an analogy with those people who say they like Woody Allen's 'early funny' films, I must confess that I personally prefer Ferrell in a serious mode.  I thought he was wonderful in "Melinda and Melinda" (2004) and especially in "Stranger than Fiction" (2006).  In both of these and in the movie in question, he proves that he is a versatile actor -- not just a clown.  Here he plays a relapsed alcoholic who, on the day that he is fired from his lucrative job, returns home to find his wife decamped, the locks changed, and all of his possessions dumped on the front lawn. How he copes with the loss of status, money (his credit cards have been stopped and his bank account frozen), home life, and ultimately his material possessions, is the meat of this movie.  It is a surprisingly sour and depressing scenario, but is certainly not the comedy that one associates with this actor, despite its eventual hopeful and upbeat ending.  Ferrell is well supported by Rebecca Hall as a new neighbour, Laura Dern as a long-lost high school friend, and young black actor Christopher C.J. Wallace, as the 'fat' kid that helps him pick up the pieces of his fractured life.


There was one other 'surprise' that I would like to mention briefly, although I doubt that it is widely available: "Sita Sings the Blues" (2008) is a brilliant, colourful, psychedelic piece of animation from Nina Paley, based on the Indian saga "The Ramayana" and featuring jazz vocals by Annette Hanshaw. If ever it comes your way, don't miss this unique treat. 


Finally in closing I must report that I re-watched Sidney Lumet's "The Group" for the umpteenth time.  Although it is based on a different generation of Vassar graduates than my own, there was so much that resonated.  As my 'brother' Oli wrote on the flyleaf when he gave me a copy of Mary McCarthy's novel: "When I saw the pennant on the wall I asked her 'If you went to Vassar what are you doing in a whorehouse?' 'Just lucky I guess' she replied."  Cheers, Oli   

The Berkleys of Broadway (1949)

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers left an indelible mark on 1930s cinema with the nine films they did together, from their unforgettable second billing in 1933's "Flying Down to Rio" through "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle" (1939).  In fact Fred only appeared in one other movie during their six-year collaboration, 1937's rather jolly "A Damsel in Distress" (a far more entertaining confection than Whit Stillman's new "Damsels in Distress"). While rumours abounded that they didn't really get on together, they managed to create some truly magical moments still remembered by many.   The partnership broke up when Fred's financial demands were considered over-excessive by RKO and Ginger craved the opportunity to prove that she could make it as a 'serious' dramatic actress.  She actually won a best actress Oscar in 1940, but I have never been too keen on her in most of her subsequent roles, whereas Fred appeared in a variety of OK musicals with a selection of different partners, some memorable, some not.


By the mid 1940s, Fred was just about ready to retire from the film business when he was asked to replace an ailing Gene Kelly in "Easter Parade" with Judy Garland in 1948.  That pairing was so successful that plans were made for them to star together again in the above movie.  However, as luck would have it, her own health problems precluded her taking the role of Mrs. Berkley, and Fred and Ginger ended up together again, their tenth and final film together, after a gap of ten years.  Produced by the Arthur Freed Unit at MGM, it was their first film in colour and proved an enormous hit with the public, largely because of their accrued good will.  However I must disagree with the movie's many fans and mark it as something of a disaster -- or perhaps something of a 'Parson's Egg', with a few tasty bits outweighed by some embarrassing business.


In an occasionally witty script from ace writers Comden and Greene, they begin the film as a rather mature and highly successful married couple (something they never were initially in their 30s' films) top of the pecking order in their musical comedy stardom.  However Dinah Berkley always feels that Josh Berkley is too much of a perfectionist and occasionally too critical of her prowess.  When she meets a French playwright-director played by Jacques Francois (an actor with a long but not particularly distinguished career in French cinema), he encourages her dramatic aspirations in his new play about young Sarah Bernhardt and the couple split.. Now part of the problem with this movie is that Rogers is no longer the fresh-faced ingenue from their original films and she is certainly too old to play the young Sarah.  Also pairing the now slightly hard-faced actress as a peppy dancer slightly strains credibility; Astaire on the other hand always looked older than his years, but remained lithe and dapper with it, and although 50 here to Rogers' 38 he is definitely the more likeable.


Freed places this pair in a overly-contrived and fluffy tale which amounts to 'boy' loses 'girl', 'boy' gets 'girl' back, as Fred pretends to be the Frenchman over the 'phone, coaching Ginger to give the performance that he knows her to be capable of.  A significant part of this movie's lack of charm lies with the musical score from Harry Warren and Ira Gershwin, which is not a patch on the previous nine films with scores from the like of Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin.  In fact their only successful duet together, capturing a remnant of the old magic, is a reprise of "They Can't Take That Away from Me" from 1937's "Shall We Dance".  They 'treat' us to an absolutely horrendous pseudo-accented Scottish "Highland Fling" number which is little short of embarrassing, although nowhere near as cringe-making as Rogers' emoting at her young Sarah audition in the play, where she begins with Juliet's potion speech and segues into an OTT recitation of "La Marseillaise" (in French no less!)  Astaire does have one wonderful number in this film -- let it be said without Rogers: "I've Got Shoes with Wings On". Through the skill of trick photography and Astaire's own imagination, we are treated to a turn where it really does seem that a pair of self-dancing shoes are actually controlling Fred's own feet when he tries them on.  Enchanting! 


The cast is rounded out with Oscar Levant's usual smart-ass turn as the pair's friend and confidante, much like his role in "An American in Paris", and he helps to pad out the film's running time with two of his very able piano performances.  Billy Burke as a flighty society type and would-be patron of the arts is as hard to take as ever.  Gale Robbins as Dinah's understudy looking to usurp her stage role and her role as Mrs. Josh only proves that she is no Ann Baxter from "All About Eve".


Like I said, something of a Parson's Egg. 

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

I said a few entries back that the cinema-going choice was to see "Headhunters" or the above film; the slick Norwegian contender won the day, but as suspected I have now caught up with "Cabin" which seems to have horror buffs (and I must count myself among them) wetting their pants with joy. The movie was actually made in 2009 as a collaboration between Joss Whedon (with his "Buffy", "Angel", and "Firefly"cult following) and his writing partner Drew Goddard (best known for "Cloverfield" which I must confess left me cold). It then sat on a shelf while MGM went into meltdown, until Lionsgate rescued it for a festival premiere at the end of 2011.  Now that it has finally had its widespread release, it had the fans chomping at the bit in anticipation and is being hyped as the ultimate horror experience.


Well, not quite!  Co-written by the pair, produced by Whedon, and directed by Goddard, they themselves have described the film as their 'loving hate letter' to horror movies.  Despite an unusual beginning which introduces jobsworths Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford in their high-tech laboratory jokily overseeing some technological experiments, the film soon morphs into stereotypical horror film territory and we temporarily forget these two boffins.  We are introduced to the five college students who might have migrated from any number of horror genre films into this movie -- the slightly promiscuous co-ed (the whore), the jock, the student, the joker, and the good-girl (the virgin) -- although none of them completely fit into the category into which they've been slotted, and guess what?, they are off to the proverbial cabin in the woods for a weekend of fun and games.  We even have them encountering the standard red-neck gas station attendant en route who prophesises their doom. All of the cliches seem to be in place right through to a game of 'truth or dare' leading the friends into the cabin's spooky cellar.  However, all of a sudden we are back in Jenkins' and Whitford's gleaming lab, with their co-workers betting on which monsters might appear, and we know that we are in the middle of a different sort of horror experience.


Whedon and Goddard are out to play havoc with pulp horror conventions turning expectations on their heads and throwing in just about everything but the proverbial kitchen sink, leaving the viewer with the sort of overkill that can only be reconciled by the totally unexpected denouement. Reviewers have been careful about not letting spoilers mar new viewers potential enjoyment of this confection and I, of course, must do the same, since the finale when it comes is nearly, if not entirely, out of left field. The film's creators are having fun at our willing expense and have given us a thoroughly entertaining movie, as long as we have remembered to park all logic and rational expectations at the door.  References are made to numerous other films from the genre, and at times it feels as if one is sitting some sort of college entrance exam on horror history. This of course makes the film fun, if not particularly consistently great film-making.  It is largely a mixture of self-aware laughter cushioned by oh-my-god goofiness, the only scary part being not knowing what to expect before the you-must-be-kidding ending.


Apart from a star cameo appearance towards the end (which I won't spoil), the cast are a pretty mixed bunch.  Jenkins and Whitford, as puppet-masters going through their usual boring paces, make the film continuously watchable as a kind of ghoulish Greek chorus, watching gleefully as all possible horror antagonists are unleashed.  Others in the cast will be immediately recognised by Whedon groupies, but only Chris Hemsworth, by his subsequent Thor incarnation, is now well known. However both Kristen Connolly as the spunky (maybe) heroine and Fran Kranz as the stoner fighting zombies with his bong deserve special mention.


This film's eventual release coincides with Whedon's personal journey into the stratosphere with his new Avengers movie, but he has not let down his acolytes in the process. 




  

Kid Creole (1958)

Elvis Presley goes to the Movies might have been a better heading. Between 1956 and 1969 "The King" made (or was forced to make) an incredible 31 movies, pushed on ruthlessly by his so-called 'Colonel' manager.  I would not like to claim that I have actually seen all of them, although I may have, since the cheap-jack plots are pretty interchangeable. They were churned out relentlessly to coin pots of money, based on Elvis' fame and appeal to pubescent females and other gullible ladies.  It must have been a soul-destroying exercise for the young man.


His first few movies were actually pretty decent, featuring able supporting actors and a sprinkling of classic tunes: "Love Me Tender", "Loving You", and "Jailhouse Rock".  "Kid Creole" was his fourth film and quite possibly his very best -- it was certainly his own favourite among the dreck that the studio vomited forth with their colourful locations, interchangeable leading ladies, and a star that was obviously not enjoying himself.  While one would be hard-pressed to claim that "Kid" is anything more than a competent piece of film making, it is one of the few films in his filmography which suggest that Elvis could actually act and emote, given the chance -- rather than just playing a troubled juvenile who could wiggle his hips and sing.  For a start it was directed by the more-than-able Michael Curtiz of "Casablanca" fame and it boasts probably the best cast of any Elvis flick: Walter Matthau in full-on villain mode (he didn't begin his film career as a comic actor), TV's Morticia Addams, Carolyn Jones as Matthau's troubled mistress and an unsuitable love interest, a very young Vic Morrow as a street tough, Dean Jagger as his pathetic father, Paul Stewart as a seedy nightclub owner who gives the youngster a break, and Dolores Hart (with whom he co-starred in two movies and subsequently a convent Mother Superior) as his more innocent love interest.


The film is based on Harold Robbins' novel "A Stone for Danny Fisher", once considered as a suitable vehicle for James Dean, reset on the mean streets of New Orleans.  Elvis is no Jimmy Dean, but he does throw himself into the story of a young man who rebels against authority, who reluctantly gets involved with Morrow's street gang, who wants to earn money to save his family, and who challenges Matthau's iron grip on both the nightclub scene and sassy Jones. Elvis was 21 when he made his first film and 23 here, but still playing a high school student. However the mixture of a fairly solid screenplay, crisp black and white photography, and the chance to spotlight some of his best-loved tunes make this film a winner and Elvis' character rather more believable than was often the case.  Too often in the later movies he comes across as a surly thug, and when the attempt was made to soften this image, he seems to morph into something of a soppy lunk.  While the later films have their occasional pleasures, if one wants to remember Elvis for his musical talent, one is far better off searching out his various late concert films, rather than sitting through the technicolor glories and insipid storylines of the likes of "Blue Hawaii", "Girls Girls Girls", or "Fun in Acapulco".


"Kid Creole" reminds us that he just might have had a respectable film career had he been given something of a real chance, rather than just funnelled into the next available production-line fancy.

Headhunters (2011)

Having decided to go to the movies, the choice was between the above Norwegian film which has been attracting rave reviews and the new modern horror "Cabin in the Woods".  For various reasons "Headhunters" won the toss, since I have a sneaking feeling that "Cabin" will prove to be less 'smart' than it thinks it is.  Anyhow, being the newer release, we can probably catch up with it next week if we still feel so inclined.


Scandinavian mysteries and dramas have been having a good run here, starting with "Wallander" and of course the Stieg Larsson trilogy, and taking in "The Killing" (not the U.S. remake), "Borgen", and the new "Bridge".  I must confess to not yet having read anything by the author Jo Nesbo on whose thriller the above film is based, but if his writing is anything near as exciting as this film version, it seems well worth pursuing.  The hero of the tale, with the very English-sounding name of Roger Brown, is a corporate head-hunter, played by Aksel Hennie -- a slightly weaselly-looking young Christopher Walken.  He suffers from something of a Napoleon complex by being over-sensitive about his less than average height and compensates by spoiling his extremely tall, blonde Amazon of a wife Diana.  To supplement his earnings from the employment agency, he indulges in a sideline of art thefts to subsidise their extravagant life style. All she really wants from him is a baby, but he procrastinates fearing that she would love any child more than him.


Into their lives comes corporate big-shot Clas Greve, played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (the spitting image of Aaron Eckhart), a Dane who has sold his Dutch-based surveillance corporation and who has inherited his grandmother's Oslo flat.  He tells Brown's wife that his inheritance includes a missing Rubens stolen by the Nazis during World War II and given to granny by an old lover  This is far too big a temptation for Brown and his  low-life accomplice, thinking that one big score will set them up permanently -- and so a trap is set, since Greve, it transpires, has other fish to fry.  Add to the equation evidence that the Dane has also been enjoying sexual trysts with Diana.  Brown's paranoia escalates when he finds his sidekick 'dead' in his car, pierced by a poisoned syringe obviously intended for him; however when he tries to dispose of the body in a nearby lake, the live 'corpse' bounces back to the surface.  From this point to the film's final denouement we are treated to 'edge-of-one's-seat' excitement, as the crafty Greve murderously pursues his prey.  Meanwhile our poor anti-hero Brown is subjected to a variety of degradations including being covered all over by the contents of a disgusting outhouse, being savaged by a scary dog, being framed for a murder he did not commit, and surviving a crash off a cliff engineered by the wily Dane.  Greve seems to be everywhere he turns and he no longer knows whom to trust.  The fascinating part of this chase is that one reluctantly begins rooting for the little worm to win; dislike becomes sympathy.


The story is full of unexpected twists and turns and the viewer, like Brown, does not know whom to trust.  Is Diana in cahoots with her lover?  Is Brown's own rejected mistress part of the plot?  Can one determined man outwit a highly-trained and resourceful villain?  While one could argue that one or two bits of the plot don't quite hold together, the film that directer Morten Tyldum has crafted is a tightly-knit entertainment and one well worth viewing.  But do it fast before the inevitable Hollywood remake; Mark Wahlberg has bought the rights and like "The Killing", I fear it will be a very different animal   

Law and Disorder (1940)

I have always had an extremely soft spot for the eccentric Scottish character actor Alastair Sim.  Although he appeared in more than 60 films, less than half of these are classics. However, his lugubrious presence, with his great bald head, lidded eyes, and gangling gait added a memorable presence to even the worst of his movies -- nearly making each of them worth watching just for his turn.  His best years known as his 'green period' were bookended by "Green for Danger" (1946) and "The Green Man" (1956); he also made his mark during these years in "Geordie", "Laughter in Paradise", "Hue and Cry", "The Happiest Days of Your Life", the unflappable Miss Frinton in the original "The Belles of St. Trinian's", and of course as the absolutely definitive Scrooge. Early indelible roles included the incompetent police sergeant in the "Inspector Hornleigh" films and he was still a wonder to behold as the batty bishop in 1972's "The Ruling Class".


When I noticed that the National Film Theatre had unearthed the above little-known film from its archives for a single showing, I immediately booked tickets. The movie is so obscure that the Halliwell film guide cross-references it to the 1939 B-flick "Spies in the Air", which has the same writer and director and much the same cast, but in which Sim definitely does not appear.  We were surprised to find that the largest of the NFT's three screens was jam-packed (mainly, let it be said, with a rather elderly audience -- who obviously hold Sim in as much affection as we do). Pity that the film wasn't better!!!  Despite the fact that his name was prominently above the title (the film was re-released in 1951 when Sim's was a name to reckon), he is only a supporting player here.  The main lead is one Barry K. Barnes, a 30s' matinee idol, with whom Sim had appeared earlier in "This Man is News" (1936).  Barnes plays the junior partner in Sim's law firm. He and his wife (Diana Churchill) have a joshing relationship, with is very sub-Nick and Nora Charles, as he tries to unmask a nest of German spies by representing them in court appearances.  Sim only gets to act flustered,  be flirtatious with a dumpy female client, and protestingly land up behind bars on trumped up charges (Barnes believes his partner's life is in danger and has done this to protect him -- none of which made much sense.)


The film was directed by David Macdonald, known only for the so-called 'quota quickies' with nothing terribly distinguished in his filmography.  The screenplay by Roger MacDougall was also not much cop, although he did go on to scribe "The Man in the White Suit" (1951) and "The Mouse that Roared" (1959). The playing of most of the cast was both dated and stilted, and without Sim's support the movie would have been a complete waste of time, although the actor playing police inspector Edward Chapman's side-kick was mildly amusing (not that I have any idea who he was) and one of the spies provided an early role for Leo Genn who went on to a much more distinguished career.  This is a film that only completists need seek out.


The evening, however, was not a complete waste of time since the showing was preceded by a fifteen minute short from the BBC's archives from a series called "Speaking Personally".  Here Sim delivers a monologue to the camera concerning the difficulties of delivering a monologue to camera.  We were regaled with fifteen minutes of his wonderful body language, his array of wry faces as he demonstrated camera poses, and his absolutely deadpan humour.  Wonderful!

Ping please

Best of the Bunch

As seems to happen more and more frequently, I find that no single film watched within the last week manages to ascend to the top of the list and demand its day in the sun review-wise and that most of the week's so-called attractions have been disappointments at best. However rather than my commenting on a bunch of feeble (and now largely forgotten) movies, let me delight you with three winners:


Gribiche (1925):  I missed the first showing of this restored silent on the French/German arts channel Arte last August and they have at long last programmed it again.  It's an interesting, if not dazzling, offering from the Belgian director, Jacques Feyder, who worked largely in France, but who also had productive employment in the States (the Garbo vehicles "The Kiss" and "Anna Christie" -- 1929 and 1931)) and Britain (the rather strange anti-revolutionary drama "Knight without Armour" pairing Robert Donat and Marlene Dietrich in 1937).  He is probably best-known for the Foreign Legion flick "Le Grand Jeu" (1934) and especially the period romp "Carnival in Flanders" (1935). There is nothing particularly special about "Gribiche", but it is a competent and involving drama which doesn't seem over-long even at two hours plus.  Like most of Feyder's films it stars his wife Francoise Rosay as a war-widow, scraping a living to look after her growing son known as Gribiche, and putting off any commitment to her latest suitor.  A chance meeting in a department store brings the boy to the attention of an American-born do-gooder, now acting the role of Lady Bountiful in Paris, when he returns her lost purse and refuses a cash reward.  She decides that she will adopt the lad and tutor him in the knowledge and manners of a gentleman.


His mother is horrified at the suggestion that she 'give away' her son, but the boy readily agrees, both as a way of bettering his lot and also to allow his mother to find some happiness with her beau.  He is introduced into the hothouse atmosphere of the grande dame's mansion, and given a non-stop timetable of lessons, sport, grooming, and etiquette.  As her new pet project, the lady brags to her friends about her largesse, and each time she tells the tale, the boy's background poverty and deprivation become more and more exaggerated.  Finally the lad rebels and craves a night out -- having fun, as boys will -- at a local carnival, but the lady resents this sign of independence and decides to forego the experiment.  Ultimately it all works out with both mother and benefactress satisfied and the boy's return to his bourgeois milieu is symbolised by his tucking into a plate of snails with his napkin tucked firmly into his collar -- 'like what' the lower classes do!


Millionaire Tour (2011): I will probably never stop complaining at the dearth of interesting movies that come to the Sky Premiere Channel each week.  Especially annoying is when they cut back from five new films to four on the dubious grounds that one of these is so very good that it deserves to be shown twice a day.  This week's 'gem' was the barely watchable "Honey 2" (2011) which was exactly like every other dance competition film ever shot and didn't even cameo the delectable star of the first "Honey" (Jessica Alba). On the other hand, every so often, a dark horse sneaks into the line-up and produces an interesting treat.  "Millionaire Tour" is so very new that it is not even yet rated on IMFb (which suggests that it did not get a Stateside cinema release).  It is the first feature from writer-director Inon Shampanier and is co-produced by and stars Dominic Monaghan of hobbit and "Lost" fame.  The supposedly simple story revolves around businessman Jordan Belfi (very good in his first non-TV role) who accepts a cut-price offer from taxi driver Rick Gomez at the airport.  The vehicle is soon hijacked by Monaghan and his sidekick Agnes Bruckner, who decide to take Belfi on a tour of cash-points, forcing him to draw the maximum that each of his credit cards can provide, before delivering him to a gangster known as 'The Roman' who wants revenge on the renegade businessman.  The trouble is that they have picked up the wrong fellow (Belfi claims to be a holy water salesman, believe it or not) and the taxi-driver comes across as too much of a coward to help him escape. Bruce Davison has second billing as Mr. Big and his screen time amounts to about ten seconds and one line of dialogue! However, the film snakes on with a satisfying combination of twists and turns and an unexpectedly happy -- if not just -- ending.


Time of Your Life (1948);  Finally a few words about this James Cagney starrer which was a treat for me insofar as it is one of very few of his movies that I had not seen previously.  It was the first feature from his own production company, run with his brother, and it was also their first box-office flop.  Based on a wordy script taken from a play by William Saroyan, it features Cagney in an atypical role as a good-natured Joe who holds court in a local tavern run by William Bendix.  There he gets involved in being some sort of 'deus ex machina' to the bar's regulars, including Wayne Morris as his sidekick cum stooge who pines after a local lovely (played by sister Jean Cagney).  The film also gives meaty parts to cops Broderick Crawford and Ward Bond, lovelorn youth Jimmy Lydon, and Tom Powers as a menacing tough.  Although Cagney finally uses his fists to sort out the latter, his is primarily a very gentle and whimsical role here.  I understand that he was very proud of the production, even if the general public chose to ignore it.