michaelprescott-00547 Reviews

Ethan Frome (1992)

Interesting but flawed adaptation

[7/10 · 14 April 2024]

For some reason the filmmakers chose to make the character of Zeena Frome less unsympathetic than she is in the book. This change has consequences for the movie as a whole.

In Wharton's novel, Zeena is immediately established as a neurotic, spiteful, emotionally manipulative woman whose ever-shifting symptoms are probably psychosomatic. She subjects her long-suffering, good-natured husband to unending emotional abuse, belittling and guilt-tripping him while playing the victim.

In the movie, this side of Zeena is largely absent until the late stages of the story. All we know about her at first is that she's chronically ill. In Act 3 she becomes more openly malicious, but by that point she's figured out that Ethan has been unfaithful, so her bad behavior has some justification.

In making this change, the filmmakers may have hoped to avoid the stereotype of a shrewish wife, or perhaps they wanted a more balanced portrayal of the marriage. Whatever the intent, the result is that we have less sympathy for Ethan, who seems to be merely a bad husband who's forgotten the "in sickness and in health" phrase in his marriage vows. We also have less of a rooting interest in Ethan and Maddie's romance. All of which adds up to less emotional involvement for the viewer, or at least for me.

In other respects the movie is pretty good. Neeson was born to play Ethan Frome. The bleak winter atmosphere is effective. Period detail seems authentic. But the film just doesn't pack the punch of the book, because we don't have a strong enough reason to take Ethan's side.

The Bonnie Parker Story (1958)

Watchable but totally unhistorical programmer from AIP

[5/10 · 11 November 2023]

This no-budget take on Bonnie & Clyde interested me mainly in terms of the evolution of Bonnie Parker as pop culture figure.

In the 1930s, nobody imagined Bonnie as the top dog; it was always understood that Clyde Barrow ran the show. The roving band of bank robbers and cop killers was even known as the Barrow Gang. But by the '50s, the irresistible allure of a sexy lady gangster was turning Bonnie into a bad-girl icon, as also seen in Gun Crazy, a (far superior) film similarly inspired by the notorious pair.

Unlike the gun-toting Dorothy Provine, who expends more rounds than Rambo, the real Bonnie probably never fired a gun, though she did pose for her picture with one. She was no looker, either; in contrast to Dorothy's curvaceous charms, Clyde's Bonnie was a short, scrawny, tomboyish gal who, in the later stages of their frantic multi-state spree, was hampered by a busted leg that never properly healed, the result of a car smash-up. A less likely candidate for pinup status is hard to imagine.

But this movie isn't going for accuracy. Other than the title character, all the names are changed (Clyde Barrow becomes Guy Darrow, lawman Frank Hamer becomes Tom Steel, etc.). Most of the events, including the crimes, are pure fiction, although the final ambush isn't too far from reality. And the armored car heist, while completely made up, is handled with tension and skill.

What I like best about this unpretentious B pic is that it depicts Bonnie & company as ruthless, conscienceless thugs. A decade later, in a new phase of the story's pop culture evolution, they would become cool rebels - sexy, glamorous, and fun. That's probably how they're remembered today.

In that respect, at least, this forgettable outing actually tells the story straight.

No One Will Save You (2023)

Absolute junk

[1/10 · 3 November 2023]

First 20 minutes: half-decent setup.

Next 40 minutes: tedious, repetitive, unimaginative action.

Last 25 minutes: garbled, pretentious, incomprehensible third act.

Roll credits.

The scariest thing about this movie is that Stephen King liked it.

One thing Mr. King got right is that the film's premise is lifted from a dialogue-free Twilight Zone episode in which Agnes Moorhead battles mysterious aliens in an isolated farmhouse. The episode runs half an hour and has a satisfying twist at the end. This movie runs three times as long and the ending is garbage.

Nothing else you'll find here is original, either. The aliens are indistinguishable from many we've seen before. Images and tropes from the Alien franchise, War of the Worlds, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Signs, and even E. T. abound.

Avoid.

Stay (I) (2005)

Another way of looking at it

[8/10 · 16 August 2023]

Most of the reviews assume that there's no supernatural element in the story, and that Henry's experience is simply an extended hallucination. I'd like to suggest a different reading.

After regaining his sight, Henry's father says, "The Buddhists got it right. It's all an illusion." This could be taken as a reference to the Buddhist idea of Maya, but it could also be understood as a reference to the immediate postmortem state described in the Tibetan (Buddhist) Book of the Dead. In this state, we are told, the newly dead (or not quite dead) person inhabits a world of thought-forms. Unless he recognizes these forms as illusory, he will be trapped on the wheel of rebirth.

It's clear that the random persons gathered at the scene of Henry's accident are the inspiration for the thought-forms peopling his experience. But I'm not so sure the same applies to the three people Henry knew in life - mother, father, girlfriend. All of them died before Henry, and I suspect that when they appear in his story, they are not thought-forms but spirits sharing his dream in the bardo.

Each has a different level of awareness. Henry's father is entirely unaware. Like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense, he does not know he is dead. He does not even know his own identity. He is blind, literally and symbolically, until Henry opens his eyes, prompting him to say, "I see ... everything," as well as his words about Buddhism. Having seen through the illusion, he walks out of the shared dream experience and disappears.

Henry's mother is somewhat aware all along. She knows who she is, she knows something bad happened, but she is confused about the details and does not know she is dead. Her cloudy thinking is indicated by the scarf around her head, suggestive of brain trauma. Like an earthbound spirit, she haunts her own house (which she visualizes unfurnished, as it will be after the estate sale) and conjures up a long-dead pet for company. She recognizes Sam as Henry because all the thought-forms are projections of Henry's mind.

Finally, Henry's girlfriend appears to be fully aware of her circumstances. She is shown acting a role in a play, which is precisely what she is doing in Henry's experience. She places special emphasis on Hamlet's line, "I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams," an exact description of Henry's condition (spoken in Sam's presence, because, like the mother, she recognizes Sam as Henry's alter ego).

Her name is given only as Athena. I suspect this is an alias generated by Henry's mind; Athena was a goddess, and Henry was devoted to this woman. Even Henry's last name, Letham, appears to be an alias. It's an anagram of Hamlet, whose bad dreams disturbed the infinite space of his subjective prison, and who is the literary character most closely associated with pondering one's own mortality.

There are many possible interpretations, of course, but I think this one may come closest to the filmmakers' intentions. Then again, I might be completely wrong!

Trespass (2011)

Why all the hate?

[7/10 · 14 August 2023]

Somehow I knew this one would get a low rating on IMDb before I even checked. People can be very hard on modest thrillers that don't redefine the genre. But even a modest, somewhat formulaic thriller is no easy thing to pull off. "Trespass" is better than many, and it deserves better than its current 5.3 score.

That score is weighed down by ridiculous 1 and 2 star reviews. 1 star? Really? So this is among the worst movies ever made, right down there with "Glen or Glenda?" and "Robot Monster"?

The cast alone elevates it above that level. Kidman in particular is excellent. Cage resists his usual tendency to over-emote. The camerawork is fluid, the editing slick. Yes, there's too much yelling, people get shoved to the floor once or twice too often, and it goes on a bit longer than it probably should. More variations in tone would have helped, along with some touches of humor (which is entirely absent).

Is the story contrived? Are the efforts to tie together all the plot threads a little over the top? Sure. It's a movie.

Overall, "Trespass" is no masterpiece, but it's not an embarrassment either. It offers an hour and a half of good commercial filmmaking with moments of real intensity and a nice twist or two. It's a pleasant surprise if you're not expecting too much.

The Undying Monster (1942)

Style over substance

[6/10 · 26 June 2023]

Beautifully photographed B-picture with plenty of atmosphere, great sets, and a brisk pace. Had the story made any sense, it would be a near classic - "near," because there's no getting around the fatal miscasting of all-American Ellison as a Scotland Yard detective. Then again, Lon Chaney Jr didn't make a very convincing Englishman in The Wolf Man, yet somehow it worked.

The main problem with The Undying Monster is that it can't decide what it wants to be. Is it a supernatural horror film about a werewolf, or is it a crime thriller with a perfectly natural explanation? Is it The Wolf Man or The Hound of the Baskervilles? It tries to be both and ends up being neither.

Throughout the story, we're assured that there is a non-supernatural explanation for the events, and in the final scene, we're again informed that everything can be explained by medical science - specifically a psychological malady that runs in the family. But prior to this, we've seen unmistakable indications of supernatural goings-on.

The unknown assailant leaves genuine wolf hair at the scene of his crime. This evidence inexplicably vanishes from the laboratory while it's being examined. The culprit has hairy paws and a hairy wolflike face; after he is shot, this monstrous visage dissolves away, revealing his human features in the peaceful repose of death. None of this is consistent with the explanation offered - the "mania" of lycanthropy in which the patient erroneously believes himself to be a wolf.

I wish the writers, or the studio, had committed themselves to one interpretation or the other; either would have worked, but the combination defies logic.

And what possessed somebody to speed up the footage of the bad guy in the final chase? I assume the intention was to make the climactic action go faster, but the result is unintentionally comical. It's reminiscent of the Keystone Kops comedies of the silent era.

Still and all, The Undying Monster an entertaining enough 60 minutes if you can overlook its flaws.

FUBAR (2023– )

Why all the hate?

[8/10 · 26 June 2023]

I'm baffled by the number of really negative reviews (4 stars or lower). For me, the show was a lot of fun, a feel-good mix of action, comedy, and (not too serious) family drama.

I see a lot of people complaining about "political correctness" being forced on the viewer. Not sure what this is about. I didn't detect *anything* political, and I'm usually pretty well attuned to that kind of thing.

I also see complaints about the acting. Well, Arnold is Arnold; if you were expecting Laurence Olivier, you came to the wrong place. He's fine at doing what he does. The rest of the cast does a great job. Again, I just don't know what people are picking up on or what kind of performances they expect in a lighthearted spy series.

Some of the episodes in the middle of the season felt a little overburdened with "dramatic" issues at the expense of the CIA shenanigans. And the characters do have a tendency to choose the worst possible times to get into personality clashes - usually while the doomsday clock is ticking down. And, okay, I don't really buy the idea that Arnold's super-fit, super-hot daughter would be dating a dweeby guy who loves antiques and does crafts.

But, you know, it's a TV show. If you go into it expecting a good time and not looking for reasons to get ticked off, you'll probably enjoy it.

Based on a True Story (2023– )

Starts off strong but fades in the stretch

[6/10 · 12 June 2023]

I enjoyed the first half of this eight-episode season, though I had to put my moral scruples on hold to root for such terrible people. (And they are *all* terrible people.) Whatever its ethical implications, I liked the show enough that I recommended it to friends.

Then came the second half of the season, when things went downhill. The storyline got more far-fetched, the principal characters became even harder to forgive, the pop-culture references were cloying, and there were way, way too many fantasy sequences, all involving either sex or murder, or, for variety, sex and murder.

A lot of this felt like padding; episode 5, in particular, was overly drawn out, with slow-motion partying, the inevitable pointless fantasy scene, and interminable drunk dialogue that went nowhere.

By the end I was tired of the whole concept and hanging on just to see how the story would be resolved. Guess what - it's not! The last episode just ends, leaving everything up in the air.

So, for me ... watchable enough in general, good in the beginning, very inconsistent later, disappointing at the end. All the show's problems relate to the writing; the production values, acting, etc are uniformly fine, with Bateman a standout as the killer.

The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

Weak tea

[5/10 · 1 June 2023]

Hammer made some stylish and memorable films, but also turned out a lot of forgettable ones. Plague of the Zombies has been mostly forgotten, and it deserves to be.

The script probably read better than the movie plays. There were opportunities for action, suspense, and even a few chills, but most of these opportunities are wasted. Take the masked assailant's attack on the vicar. It's set at night but shot with filters (badly) in broad daylight, with none of the shadowy ambience that could have made it work. Or take the zombies themselves - the makeup looks like hunks of gray-green clay slapped onto the actors' faces. The climax, set in the zombies' underground lair, offers all the ingredients for a memorable scene, but the lighting is over-bright, the camerawork is indifferent, and somehow the makeup is worse than ever. It all looks like a cheaply made '60s TV show.

Andre Morell is the best thing in the film. A scene where a young woman is run to ground by men on horseback is effective. There's a dream sequence that works pretty well, except for that darn zombie makeup. That's about it.

And no, it's not "scary." I mean, come on.

Evelyn Prentice (1934)

Powell and Loy together again

[7/10 · 27 May 2023]

Entertaining mystery-drama with a very good cast and a pretty smart script. William Powell and Myrna Loy always work well together, and Powell was perhaps the most convincing high-society lawyer in movies of this era. (Or was that Warren William?)

By 1934, the Production Code was in effect, which explains why neither Powell nor Loy apparently consummates his or her extramarital affair. It seems likely that an earlier pre-Code story treatment (or the source novel) did involve affairs - real ones - and some extra-fancy footwork was required to keep the necessary plot points while ditching the amour.

The big climax is exceptionally well acted by all concerned, but (major spoiler here!) it's hard to believe that any defense attorney would object to the prosecutor's motion to dismiss the case against his client - much less that he would then put his client back on the stand and badger her into a confession. Grounds for disbarment, I'd say. The movie conveniently redeems him by having the jury vote for acquittal out of sympathy.

As long as you don't expect technical accuracy in the courtroom, or total plausibility with respect to the love affairs, "Evelyn Prentice" holds up well and is a worthy follow-up to "The Thin Man."

The Double (2013)

Very much like its source, for better or worse

[6/10 · 5 May 2023]

Unless I missed it, the credits don't acknowledge Dostoevsky's novella of the same name as the source of the story. This is odd, since the movie tracks the major plot points of the book pretty closely, almost up to the end. What's interesting is that the objections raised against the novella in 1840 are pretty much the same as the objections raised against the movie today.

1. The movie is overly derivative of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. In 1840, critics complained that The Double was overly derivative of Nikolai Gogol's stories, especially Diary of a Madman.

2. The story lacks variety and goes nowhere. Both book and movie were hit with this criticism. The book was also accused of being too long. (When Dostoyevsky reissued it, he made cuts - though maybe not enough.)

3. The plot makes no sense, because at times the doppelgänger appears to be a private hallucination and at other times he seems to interact with other people. This is true of both versions. If there's any way to make sense of the story, we must assume that the main character is hallucinating much of what happens, including the actions of the people around him (his boss, his coworkers, and in the case of the movie, his would-be girlfriend).

Finally, the consensus of opinion about both book and movie is pretty similar - an interesting but flawed effort that's too off-putting to completely hold the reader's or viewer's interest, but which shows enough talent to point the way to more successful work in the future. That's my opinion, too.

Even so, the movie is worth a look for those who've read the original story.

The Flame (1947)

Can style triumph over substance?

[6/10 · 2 May 2023]

The Flame is an interesting test of the theory that in cinematic art, style matters more than story. If it does, The Flame should be a near masterpiece. Graced with a generous budget despite its Poverty Row origins, the movie offers complex camera moves (starting with its impressive opening shot), elegant lighting, slick art design, and first-rate cinematography. So it's a winner, right?

Meh, not so much. All that eye candy can't make up for a slow-paced, listless, overly familiar story, which generates no dramatic tension and little emotion of any kind, other than a quasi-religious sentimentality that seems weirdly out of place in a film of this genre.

The performances are okay, with Crawford the standout and the much-maligned Vera Ralston doing a capable job. But given the decent cast, high production value, and stylistic razzle-dazzle, The Flame should be a lot better than it is.

Hollywood Story (1951)

Insomnia cure

[5/10 · 30 April 2023]

This sleep-inducing by-the-numbers programmer offers a few mildly interesting glimpses of Charlie Chaplin's old studio and pleasant cameos by some silent film stars, notably Francis X Bushman.

Other than that, there's just nothing here. The story is boring and predictable, the narration by Jim Backus is unnecessary and overdone, and there's zero suspense. The directing is particularly uninspired; for example, a scene where our hero gets conked on the head is filmed in the most boring way possible, as a static medium long shot with flat lighting. Even the old Perry Mason show would've come up with something better than that.

Richard Conte is always good, and it's interesting to see Julie Adams before she went swimming with the Creature from the Black Lagoon, but a decent cast can't save a movie that's so lifeless and dull. Sunset Boulevard it most definitely is not.

The Magnetic Monster (1953)

Much better than expected

[7/10 · 29 April 2023]

Given its current IMDb rating of 5.8, I expected The Magnetic Monster to be pretty bad. Instead I found it to be a slick little number with a smart script, a cast featuring a surprisingly large number of recognizable faces, and an exciting climax that makes excellent use of stock footage from an older German thriller.

Unlike most '50s SF pictures, The Magnetic Monster aims for a hard-science, semi-documentary feel. There is no actual monster in the usual sense. The title menace is a rare element that has acquired terrifying new properties as the result of a misguided experiment. It's small enough to fit inside a handheld canister, yet its unpredictable nature and relentless need to absorb electrical energy pose a deadly threat.

Though not a masterpiece by any means, the movie is better than a low-budget quickie has any right to be. Worth a look for fans of the Quatermass films, The Abominable Snowman, Village of the Damned, and similar efforts at modestly budgeted, relatively cerebral SF.

The Black Glove (1954)

Too many notes

[4/10 · 20 April 2023]

Before they reinvented the horror genre with lush, full-color reinterpretations of Dracula and Frankenstein, Hammer Studios churned out a series of low-budget noirs. The ones I've seen have ranged from a little better than mediocre to outright terrible. The Black Glove is at the lower end of the scale.

The pace is plodding, the plot convoluted, the performances serviceable at best. There's precious little atmosphere, even in the cheap dives and rathole flats which the film invites us to visit. There's also music, a lot of music, too much music. The main character is a trumpet player, and let's just say he blows. A lot.

Besides making a lot of noise, the guy is also kind of a jerk. He's supposed to be endearingly flippant, but he comes across as an arrogant creep. Strangely, the police give him free rein to investigate the murder while apparently doing nothing on their own.

Not enough happens for the first hour, and too much happens toward the end. The climax goes on forever and is deadly dull as our hero tediously explains the whole mystery while fighting off sleep (he's recovering from exposure to a poisoned trumpet mouthpiece, of all things).

Terence Fisher, who would go onto direct many of the best Hammer horror films with flair and panache, is uninspired here. But given the deficiencies of the script and the cast, you can't really blame him.

And by the way, there is no black glove in the movie.

The Gun Hawk (1963)

Deserves more respect

[8/10 · 10 March 2023]

As I write this, The Gun Hawk enjoys a meager 5.8 IMDb rating. As you can see from my own rating, I think this is way too low.

Sure, the movie has faults. It begins badly, with a cheesy title song, clumsy expositional dialogue in a sheriff's office, and a comedy-relief fight scene that's not funny. By that point I was thinking maybe I should turn it off. But soon after, it improved.

One thing that helps is the background score. Though others found it monotonous, I felt the slow, steady beat of low tones was extremely effective. It works especially well in a scene where Rory Calhoun comes upon the two men he's hunting and picks them off from the shadows.

Calhoun may not have been the greatest actor, but he knew how to deliver the goods as a jaded gunfighter. What makes the role unusually interesting is that after a certain point, Calhoun knows he's going to die. In fact, he knows it before we do, and once we figure it out, his actions - such as his seemingly unfeeling treatment of a longtime girlfriend - make sense.

There's also something fresh about the town of Sanctuary, where outlaws on the lam are safe from pursuit, as long as they keep their guns holstered. I'm not saying it's never been done before, but I've seen a lot of films in this genre, and the idea seemed new to me.

The movie's low budget undermines it in some respects. There are a couple of embarrassingly bad matte paintings, and some "outdoor" locations are obviously set on a soundstage. But as The Gun Hawk grinds remorselessly to its Greek-tragedy finale, it develops a surprising gravitas for such a small picture. And I think it'll stay with me after I've forgotten other, more expensive westerns with bigger stars.

Columbo: Murder in Malibu (1990) Season 9, Episode 6

"Perry Mason" did it better.

[6/10 · 2 March 2023]

No need to critique the acting; nearly everyone seems to agree that Andrew Stevens was (ahem) not entirely satisfactory as the suspect. I wasn't exactly bowled over by Janet Margolin's performance, either, but Brenda Vaccaro was good in a difficult role that required her to shift emotional gears in a highly implausible (okay, ridiculous) way.

The episode's basic gimmick was used three decades earlier on Perry Mason (*spoilers!*) in "The Case of the Double-Entry Mind." In each show, the suspect confesses to killing the victim, only for police to learn that the victim had been killed earlier by a different method. This clears the suspect, who cannot be charged with doing violence to a dead body. Later we find out that he intentionally "killed her twice" so he could confess to the second attack and be cleared of the first. Far-fetched, but the character on Perry Mason, with his calculating "double-entry mind," made it somewhat believable.

Unfortunately, the Andrew Stevens character here just doesn't seem bright enough to come up with such an elaborate scheme.

Five Came Back (1939)

Not really a B

[8/10 · 16 February 2023]

Solid, well-constructed and well-paced story of plane crash survivors in the jungle. An excellent cast gives life to characters that, on paper, only barely escape being stereotypes. The direction is assured, and the atmospheric photography and marvelous jungle sets lift the film well above its modest expectations. The social and political subtext is also interesting, though not always subtle.

I have one quibble with many of the other reviews. Five Came Back is not a B picture. No movie with impressive jungle ambience, with miniature sets and props specially built and filmed to order, and with throwaway scenes like the airline briefing dominated by an immense wall map, is a B. In a true B picture, the plane crash would be stock footage, the jungle sets would be leftovers from another movie, and the briefing would be delivered against a blank wall.

No, this one is an example of what was known as a "little A." The little A picture occupied a niche between true A pictures and B programmers. It was a low-budget production that could still play at the top of the bill in some markets, or could share top billing with another little A. Some little A movies broke through to become major box office hits (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, for instance). Most didn't, but they were expected to earn more money and get better reviews than the routine, interchangeable B pictures that invariably occupied the lower half of the bill.

Oscar Wilde (1960)

Superior to the 1997 biopic

[8/10 · 2 February 2023]

Recently I watched both this film and the 1997 biopic "Wilde." I was somewhat surprised to find that the earlier movie is both more accurate and, in my opinion, more dramatically effective.

The advantages of the newer version are obvious. It enjoyed a more ample budget, featured a star who resembled Wilde and was the right age, and was not hampered by censorship concerns. The older film was shot on a shoestring budget, with unimpressive sets and minimal evocation of the period. Robert Morley, who made a big splash in a 1936 theater production playing Wilde, was at least a decade too old for the part in 1960. And the movie had to tiptoe around the exact nature of Oscar's "unnatural" relations, although I doubt that the audience was in much doubt.

So you'd think the '97 version would carry the day. Unfortunately, that film tries a little too hard to whitewash its hero, in the process missing out on some of the most interesting facets of the actual case.

Example: In the libel trial, Wilde was parrying expertly with the defense attorney, Mr. Carson, until he made a fatal error, quipping that he certainly did not kiss a particular boy because he found the young man terribly unattractive. Carson jumped all over this, reducing Wilde to squirming evasions. In the 1960 film this exchange between Morley and Ralph Richardson is a dramatic highlight. The '97 film, not wanting to show Oscar wrong-footing himself, omits it.

Another example: After losing his libel suit, Wilde faced imminent arrest on charges of indecency. The authorities had no wish to prosecute if it could be avoided, so they gave Wilde plenty of time to flee to France. Regrettably, he was too paralyzed by indecision to do so. In the 1960 version, Wilde, upon leaving the courthouse, is told pointedly that he is currently free to go "wherever he wants to go," the emphasis making it clear that he's being advised to escape. It's a nice touch, and it's absent from the newer film, which wants us to see the authorities as mercilessly persecuting Wilde.

One more example: Wilde's real crime was consorting with underage boys, some as young as fourteen. (It's not just a Victorian thing. Even today, a person can be prosecuted for corrupting a minor.) The 1960 film waters this down a bit, establishing that most of Wilde's companions were about twenty years old, but it does include at least one who is described in court as being only sixteen. The 1997 film depicts all the young men as in their early to mid twenties and, as far as I recall, makes no suggestion that any of them were under the age of consent - even though this is what Wilde was actually convicted of.

There are other omissions and distortions in the newer film. The real Wilde was blackmailed over letters carelessly left lying around by his lover. (In fact, he was blackmailed by three different young men, and paid up all three times.) One successful blackmail attempt comes out at the trial in the 1960 film, and is a key part of Wilde's undoing. The '97 version also depicts this blackmail attempt, but in this sanitized version Oscar nobly refuses to pay, shaming his blackmailer into giving up the letter voluntarily.

In short, if you want color, nice sets, a younger Wilde, and a more politically correct treatment (along with some moderately explicit sex scenes), choose "Wilde" (1997). If you want a more historically accurate account, which presents Oscar in a less idealized way and doesn't push any particular agenda, go for "Oscar Wilde" (1960). Better yet, watch both. Each film is worth seeing, and the contrast between them is interesting in itself.

There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)

Powerful western with an ironic twist

[8/10 · 10 December 2022]

The brilliance of this movie is that it does to the audience exactly what Kirk Douglas does to his fellow inmates.

Douglas an incorrigible criminal, but he's also loaded with charm. In prison he comes across as easygoing, fun-loving, and amiable. The movie comes across the same way. The light tone, bright sunlight, bouncy score, and humorous byplay lull us into a sense of false security, just as surely as the inmates are lulled by the newcomer's flashy grin.

And then, when the escape begins, everything turns on a dime. What had been a romp becomes a bloodbath. Men are gunned down by the dozens; corpses litter the desert. Douglas sends his so-called friends to their deaths and laughs about it. He even kills one poor sucker himself. Both the facade of Douglas's character and the facade of the movie itself are simultaneously stripped away. Douglas's allies realize they've been duped. We the audience realize we've been duped.

It's a remarkably subtle, self-referential conception, executed with considerable skill (albeit with too many zoom shots for my taste). And it also offers a thematically appropriate comeuppance for Douglas's character and a nicely cynical denouement for Henry Fonda.

Good stuff.

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)

The 4K restoration is a miracle!

[8/10 · 3 December 2022]

I'd seen this film before and had come away pretty unimpressed. The three-camera Cinerama process did not translate well to TV, the vertical seams between the filmstrips were distracting, the images were often bleary or flickery, and the whole thing seemed like a chore to sit through.

But then I saw the newly restored version on TCM. It's a whole new experience.

The images are crisp, bright, and super-detailed. Thanks to digital magic, the seams and flicker are gone. In the curved "smile" format, the original effect of Cinerama in the theater is approximated. For good measure, some problems with the special effects (visible rigging wires in a few stop-motion shots, imperfect composites, etc.) have been cleaned up.

The result is a delightful, charming spectacle that doesn't wear out its welcome despite the long running time (made longer by an overture and intermission). No, the movie isn't perfect, but it's so greatly improved that quibbles about some of the performances or the (considerable) departures from historical fact seem irrelevant, if not ungrateful.

Restoration has rescued Brothers Grimm from seemingly deserved obscurity and given it a new lease on life. Young children - and the young at heart - will be enjoying this fanciful tale of "frogs and dogs, hags and dragons" for years to come.

Call of the Wild (1935)

Well produced outdoor saga. Too bad about the ending

[7/10 · 29 October 2022]

William Wellman almost always delivered well-crafted films that were a cut above the usual studio fare. Call of the Wild is no exception, with its meticulous recreation of mining towns, exceptional outdoor photography in rugged locations, and carefully developed relationship between Clark Gable and his dog, Buck.

I'll offer two caveats. One is in response to the numerous reviews citing Gable and Loretta Young's "torrid love affair" behind the scenes. In her later years, according to family members, Young said Gable had raped her. If this is true, and there seems no reason to doubt it, then the "torrid love affair" was actually an abusive situation. Perhaps Young's uneasiness in her early scenes with Gable reflects her offscreen feelings more accurately than her flirtation later on.

The other caveat involves the film's ending. It's abrupt, too upbeat for the rest of the picture, and offers a disappointing racial slur, as both Gable and Jack Oakie refer to an Indian woman as "it." ("I won it in a card game.") After a story arc that stresses Gable's gradual humanization, it's baffling that the character would revert to his old, shallow ways just to give the audience a cheap laugh.

I've read that this scene was filmed at the last minute after a preview audience rejected a more downbeat ending in which Oakie died, but I can't confirm this. I hope it's true, because I'd prefer to think the ending was forced on Wellman by the studio. It takes the movie down a notch, but Gable's Alaska adventure is still a trip worth taking.

The Smiling Ghost (1941)

Dead on arrival

[4/10 · 1 October 2022]

The Smiling Ghost is one of those haunted house pictures where the ghost turns out to be an insane killer making use of secret passageways that only he knows about. Nothing wrong with that, but there's a lot wrong with this stale low-budget concoction.

I would have said B-movie, but I don't think Ghost is a true B. It's ten to fifteen minutes longer than the typical B and boasts slightly better production values (check out that cemetery). On the other hand, it's clearly not a top-of-the-line production. I'd call it a "little A," a designation studios reserved for cheaply made features that could get top billing thanks to easily exploitable titles and subject matter.

As a little A, it features a decent cast, including up-and-coming actress Alexis Smith, veteran character actor Alan Hale, and leading man Wayne Morris, who may have been the best available choice given that so many bigger stars had already enlisted. (Morris himself would be drafted shortly after completing this movie.)

Unfortunately it also features Willie Best, known in earlier years as "Sleep 'n Eat," by virtue of a studio marketing ploy that claimed he worked only for room and board. This was, of course, untrue; Best was well compensated for taking roles that most other black actors declined. He was widely despised in the black community for perpetuating the stereotype of a goggle-eyed, knee-knocking simpleton. Even at this relatively late date, he's still doing his shtick, as he also would in High Sierra, providing the low point of that otherwise first-rate melodrama.

Best isn't all that's wrong with this movie, though he is what's most egregiously wrong. There's plenty of just plain bad writing. Example: Morris, our hero, approaches a lady he's mistaken for his faux fiancée and tells her the deal is off because "you're the homeliest woman I've ever seen." Wow, way to establish sympathy for the leading man.

The killer's identity is obvious from the get-go. The Ghost's all-too-corporeal nature is revealed too soon. At the cemetery the Ghost has an ideal opportunity to dispatch Morris, but inexplicably leaves him alive. A subplot involving an eccentric oldster with a passion for shrunken heads is resolved in a way that doesn't make sense.

Still, none of that would be fatal to Ghost if not for Best's painfully unwatchable antics. With Willie Best in such a prominent role, this movie never had a smiling ghost of a chance.

For All Mankind: Stranger in a Strange Land (2022) Season 3, Episode 10

Another disaster in space

[2/10 · 1 September 2022]

Season three puts a double exclamation point on its shocking decline in quality with a ridiculous finale that attempts to tie together an Oklahoma City-style terrorist attack, a pregnant astronaut, a stranded North Korean spacefarer, the coming-out of a gay US president, and the exposure of a high-level NASA spy. Any one of these plots would be hard to swallow; the combination is so laughably over-the-top.

Add a pretentious homage to "The Right Stuff" (Ed Baldwin walking away from a smoking crater) and the continuing idiocy of the Danny Stevens character (doesn't NASA do psych evaluations?), and you have one hot steaming mess of a show. Incredibly, it's been renewed for season four.

They really should have quit after the first two seasons, which were mostly excellent. Season three is when "For All Mankind" screwed the pooch.

For All Mankind: Polaris (2022) Season 3, Episode 1

Start of a major decline

[4/10 · 1 September 2022]

While seasons one and two were spotty at times, they were written at a generally high level. In season three, the series suffered what its characters might call a catastrophic failure. The first episode announces this dramatic decline in quality. No, I'm not talking about technical errors, which I'm not competent to judge. I'm talking about an overly familiar disaster-movie scenario, cheesy heroics, and soap opera cliches. It's "The Towering Inferno" in orbit, and that's not a good thing.

Having watched all of season three, I can say it only gets worse from here. The subplot involving Danny Stevens is particularly stupid, and the President Wilson story becomes outright laughable. Meanwhile the astronauts lurch from one idiotic, often self-imposed disaster to the next. Maybe they should spend less time drinking and more time reviewing their user manuals.

"For All Mankind" really should have ended after two seasons. It's outlived its welcome, yet reportedly it will return with season four. I'm hoping we'll get to see Afghanistan land the first humans on the moons of Jupiter. It's about as plausible as one of the later developments in season three.