jgepperson Reviews

The Day the Fish Came Out (1967)

Not unwatchable

[5/10 · 25 November 2007]

This isn't a great movie, and not even really a good movie, but it is...well, something. It seems to be the wacky, 1960s, Greek bastard/child of "Dr. Strangelove" and "The Russians Are Coming". It popped up recently on the Fox Movie Channel. Tom Courtenay was playing very serious in "Doctor Zhivago" a couple of years earlier. Here he is trying for laughs and mostly in his underwear. In fact there are lots of pretty people wearing very little, and when they are wearing something it's often designed by the director/writer/producer himself, and it's beyond the valley of mod. In fact, the movie could use more mod and more Grecian scenery. Recommended if you like movies from the late 60s.

Women's Prison (1955)

hilarious, fun junk

[5/10 · 23 September 2007]

This movie is nirvana for trashy B-movie lovers. The cast is incredible. I believe Ida Lupino played a similar role in a 70s TV movie called "Women In Chains." In this one, "Women's Prison," one of the female inmates (there are male inmates, too) is a movie star impersonator, a trait that hilariously figures into the plot. Some of the actresses in this film also appeared in the earlier and much better "Caged": Gertrude Michael, Jan Sterling. There was another women's prison movie called "House of Women" soon to come. Don't miss this absurd movie! They showed it on Turner Classic Movies recently as part of their gay series. It will probably show up again.

Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)

Excellent!

[9/10 · 27 January 2007]

I've just finished re-watching this movie and Schlesinger's "Midnight Cowboy, "Marathon Man" and "Day of the Locust." Also I've been reading bits of Schlesinger's biography "Edge of Midnight." Some of his interests included homosexuality, Jewishness, and the ugliness of modern society, as well as attempts by humans to connect with one another. Although "Midnight Cowboy" may be his masterpiece, this movie "Sunday Bloody Sunday" manages to convey all those things and more. All four of the movies are worth seeing. "Marathon Man" was a hit and "Locust" was not, but I prefer the latter.

"Sunday Bloody Sunday" is the most restrained of the four. Its being set in England could account for that. Schlesinger was pretty much appalled (but fascinated) by America.

I've looked and looked for Daniel Day Lewis in this movie. He's not in the credits of the movie, but he's listed on this site as a "vandal." I finally realized he's one of the little boys seen briefly doing something to a car. (I won't give it away.) There is an adult vandal in the movie; don't confuse the two.

The acting in Schlesinger's movies is always excellent. Treat yourself. One could say that Vivian Pickles peaked in 1971, with this movie and "Harold and Maude." She was also in "Elizabeth R" with Glenda Jackson around the same time, and before this movie she played Isadora Duncan for Ken Russell. One doesn't hear about her in the States anymore.

Bessie Love who plays the answering service operator was a silent movie star, and also played Isadora Duncan's mother in the Vanessa Redgrave movie about Duncan. And speaking of Vanessa, I also recently saw for the first time Schlesinger's "Yanks" with her. It was okay.

The Pawnbroker (1964)

Definitely worth seeing

[7/10 · 3 September 2006]

Pauline Kael hated this movie. She called it "bad" and "terrible." Leonard Maltin gave it 4 stars, called it "important" and The New York Times also raved calling it "remarkable" and "brilliant." My opinion lies somewhere between. I don't think the movie really works. It's confusing, although I think the confusion is meant to be sort of impressionistic. There are some embarrassing moments and it is sometimes a tad arty. Ideas are suggested and not always clarified. Nevertheless, it's worth seeing. I live in Manhattan, where most of the movie was shot. I think anyone who lives in Manhattan will be entertained (the subway scene, the sequence filmed at Lincoln Square, a shot of Avery Fisher Hall, Nina Simone and Flip Wilson's names on the marquee at the Apollo) but it also makes New York and its environs seem like a depressing, claustrophobic hell. (I wish it still seemed that way to the tourists and yuppies that flock here.)

The main reason for seeing the movie, aside from the urban atmosphere, is the actors. Steiger is sometimes too intense, bordering on self-parody. But it's still a fascinating performance. All the other actors are equally fine. Kael and Crowther in The New York Times went out of their way to praise an actor they both called "old Juano Hernandez." He is heart-breaking.

The nudity must have been shocking at the time. There is an implication of evil homosexuality in the Brock Peters character. I must check Vito Russo's book "The Celluloid Closet" to see if he picked up on it.

Recommended!

The Kremlin Letter (1970)

nice turnout for this film at MoMA

[7/10 · 28 August 2006]

The Museum of Modern Art in NYC is having a "Huston family" festival and they showed this film last night. Big crowd to see this film that was a flop when originally released. I had been wanting to see it for some time out of curiosity: George Sanders appears in drag as a San Francisco gay bar pianist, and Barbara Parkins has a role, three years after "Valley of the Dolls." (I love Parkins not just for the "Valley" connection. I think she's talented and beautiful and I love her voice.) I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. So much better than the stuff Hollywood cranks out today, although sometimes just as difficult to follow. There's lots of verbal exposition in the movie, and at one point I think it's even implied that the Orson Welles character is a homosexual.

The sexual politics of the film are outdated, perhaps. But, then, the political correctness of today is even more numbing.

The movie pops up on the Fox Movie Channel occasionally. Be sure to see it in letterbox.

By the way, Pauline Kael hated the movie. Funny, bitchy review in her book "Deeper Into Movies." But just because Pauline hated it, doesn't mean you will. She complains about the sound, but I didn't notice a problem. She also complains about the look of the film, but I think the verite style was intentional.

One tiny thing I thought I noticed, the old lady who is the mother of the Russian thief Barbara Parkins lives with seems to have too nice a manicure! I could be wrong. The moment flew by.

Here's Lucy (1968–1974)

not as fun as "The Lucy Show," but still interesting

[22 December 2005]

I recently watched quite a bit of a 4-DVD set of "Here's Lucy!" episodes including extras such as rehearsal footage, syndication sales tapes, Thalians award show, commentary by Lucie and Desi, Jr., etc.

In spite of Lucy's neediness, bitterness, volume and high vocal pitch, I quite enjoyed her honed technique, especially in the Burton/Taylor episode where she seems to really give a damn.

Also, her clothes are very chic for the most part (nicer than all the other actors' costumes) and I especially loved the once-familiar "fallout shelter" sign in the hallway outside Uncle Harry's office! The dance number Ann-Margret does with Desi, Jr. is something to behold. The Wayne Newton episode, believe it or not, is fun. And Lucy, Lucie and Ginger Rogers dancing the Charleston is cute. Lucy loved a Charleston!

The animated Lucy puppet during the credits is adorable, but you get sick of it if you watch too many episodes!

What I really want to see are "The Lucy Show" (before "Here's Lucy!") episodes and extras, when Viv was Lucy's housemate and there were three kids living with them (not Lucy's own kids).

The Sergeant (1968)

Good film; slightly confusing

[6/10 · 25 October 2005]

After wanting to see this film for a long time, I finally tracked down a VHS copy taped off TV in Philadelphia (I found the copy in California). The performances are very good. And it's well made, until it gets close to THE BIG MOMENT, and then the editing goes awry, as if studio executives had gotten nervous about the subject matter and deleted whole sections, so that the time line of the behavior of the title character - played by Rod Steiger - is all off. One minute he's telling John Philip Law to get lost; the next minute he wants him near. I know people change their minds, and LOSE them when they're obsessive, but it feels choppy here, and glaring. And between THE BIG MOMENT and the denouement there is an odd black and white montage that seems to be some kind of memory device (could the copy I saw be missing something?), so that seemed like another obvious studio error. Still, the movie is worthing seeing and should be on a double bill with "Reflections In A Golden Eye," another well made, failed film from around the same time and on the same subject (repressed, lonely, older, closeted military man fascinated by a handsome younger guy).

Three in the Attic (1968)

What "The Graduate" hath wrought

[5/10 · 25 October 2005]

I was fascinated by the concept of this movie when it came out. I remember the poster and the trailer. But I didn't get to see it then because I was too young. (Somehow I did see "Barbarella" and "In Cold Blood." My parents must have been slipping.) Finally I have seen "Three In The Attic" and my expectations were no longer high. It was somewhat enjoyable and probably wouldn't have gotten made if "The Graduate" hadn't been a hit. (The finale even somewhat mirrors the earlier film.) Its ideas about gender conflicts, race, class, sex and death are interesting, but it's ultimately an exploitation movie with a Hollywood ending, cheaply made by American International who made a lot of fun trash.

The film (which stars Christopher Jones - in a nude scene showing his backside - square-jawed John Beck, Judy Pace, and top-billed Yvette Mimieux) takes place on a Vermont college campus and there are also brief shots of hippy-dippy 1960s Provincetown. There's not much to see in terms of Vermont scenery.

Myra Breckinridge (1970)

A fascinating, unhappy mess; but see it if you love movies

[6/10 · 15 September 2005]

The book "Myra Breckinridge" is marvelous, and so is its nutty sequel "Myron" (which takes place on the set during the making of the Maria Montez movie "Siren of Atlantis" and, in its original published version, is a diatribe against censorship and finds new ways to use the name Rehnquist). The movie, a big flop in 1970, is not marvelous, but starts intriguingly and still has an aura of the forbidden about it (it was rated X; in 1970 that wasn't a liability, it could be a marketing scheme). The Fox Movie Channel showed the film recently in widescreen and I watched it (the latest in several viewings ) and I failed to notice exactly when it begins to unravel.

In spite of its ultimately depressing and sleazy tone, the movie does have some lovely things in it: the winking girl who pops up in various scenes throughout, Raquel Welch's game, amusing performance, an intriguing visual style, the usage of old movie clips to comment on the action in a meta-cinematic manner (my favorite is the brief glimpse of Marilyn Monroe in the unfinished "Something's Got To Give," a glimpse that could have been furthered), a bizarre underused supporting cast of excellent Old Hollywood character actors (Jim Backus, Kathleen Freeman, Grady Sutton, Andy Devine, John Carradine, etc.) and a short appearance by Genevieve Waite, the star of the director's previous, and only, hit film "Joanna." Waite is also the mother of Bijou Phillips and the ex-wife of John Phillips, of The Mamas and The Papas. (John Phillips wrote the song "A Secret Place" that was used in the film.) I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when the movie was being made. Rex Reed, one of the stars in the film, WAS a fly on the wall and wrote about the fiasco in Playboy magazine. Then he went on The Mike Douglas Show and gave out his Christmas list. To everyone who saw the movie "Myra Breckinridge" he gave a case of amnesia.

I agree with another comment here that the movie has finally caught up with its audience, but only if you know a little something about Old Hollywood and really love cinema.

Hollywood Horror House (1970)

terrible but fascinating junk

[4/10 · 9 August 2005]

Every once in awhile I'll remember that I've actually seen this bizarre fiasco that's a cross between "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", "Sunset Boulevard," the Lana Turner LSD movie "The Big Cube" and the Manson murders, which also took place in 1969 but maybe before this so-called "movie" was made! There are some descriptions of the plot already here, so I won't go into it. But it's worth noting that Miriam Hopkins plays a parody of herself: a chattering, ego-maniacal, fading actress. Perhaps she thought she was making a movie that would be as successful as one of the Bette Davis horrors. The old gal Hopkins never stopped working, so you have to hand it to her. She shows a little too much flesh in this movie, something Davis and Crawford would never have done. And there's a scene with Miriam in the actual tacky Hollywood Boulevard Christmas parade, which must have been filmed Xmas, 1968.

Gale Sondergard is old, old, old. It's just shocking how wrinkled and awful she looks. John Garfield, Jr. looks a bit like his father, but not as interesting. I think one of the Three Stooges is the tour guide at the beginning. If it's not one of the Stooges, it's somebody.

I was astounded to come across this thing in the form of a commercial videotape given to me by a friend who knows all about junk like this. It's amazing!!!

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Still holds up in 2005

[8/10 · 27 June 2005]

Only flawed in minor ways, this movie doesn't seem dated in 2005. Slightly sentimental, slightly "European," this movie about life in small-town Texas in the 1950s has excellent performances. Ellen Burstyn, Jeff Bridges, Cloris Leachman, Ben Johnson are all fine.

Unfortunately, the story of Genevieve (an equally fine Eileen Brennan) the waitress, is not tied up. Why doesn't Sonny turn to her after the demise of his friend? And the sequence of the discovery of the body and the moving of the body is somehow awkward. The subsequent sequence of Sonny's attempt to leave town is made to be awkward as well.

I don't really think of these criticisms as spoilers, since I have read them elsewhere.

In spite of these flaws, the movie is very engaging and mournful. It ends on a hopeful note, which is a relief.

The thing that jumped out at me the last time I saw this movie (on DVD) is Cloris Leachman's very vague suggestion that her husband might be homosexual. The documentary on the DVD confirms that that was exactly the screenwriters' intention.

"The Last Picture Show" is not to be missed.

The Damned (1969)

HIstorically interesting

[5/10 · 27 June 2005]

It pains me to give a Visconti film such a low rating. But I have been reading film criticism of the early 70s (I think "The Damned" was released in Europe in 1969, but in the U.S. in 1971) and I have to agree with one of the critics that the movie is dismal. I keep returning to the movie (I think I've seen it twice before) hoping it will be great, but it isn't. The most recent time I have seen it, I watched with a friend who explained to me the difference between The Brown Shirts and The Nazis, but this knowledge didn't help to make the movie better.

The concept of Visconti combining the Krupp family story with Macbeth should have been great, but it isn't. The documentary with the DVD insists that Visconti was a perfectionist, but I have to say the special effects are very shabby, even by 1969 European standards. Maybe it's all meant to be "a state of mind," which people often argue about the effects in Hitchcock's "Marnie," but it just doesn't apply here.

Nevertheless, there are things to admire in the movie. The decor, the clothes. The physical beauty of Charlotte Rampling, Helmut Berger, Helmut Griem. The Maurice Jarre score. Ingrid Thulin's hat! Ingrid Thulin's vampire-ish makeup! But what a pity the movie isn't great, as it should have been.

I have a friend who has pointed out that Hitchcock and Wilder lost their touch once they had to no longer imply certain sensitive ideas and images after the end of censorship. And one could apply that to Visconti here. The incest, the drug addiction, the pedophilia, the homoeroticism, transvestism, etc. They're all there for the world to see. And they're dull, dull, dull.

However, if you're a film buff, you must see the movie. Visconti is Visconti, and there's no getting around that.

Women in Love (1969)

Definitely worth experiencing

[8/10 · 27 June 2005]

First, I have to say that I have never read the entire D.H. Lawrence novel "Women In Love." Maybe I read the first third of the book. I think this is important to note, because the film is an adaptation of the great novel. It's not based on a lesser work, for instance, "Midnight Cowboy" or "The Last Picture Show," both of which I admire, but they aren't classic works of fiction.

Now that that's out of the way, I think the film must be viewed in its chronological context. Ken Russell had directed only one feature before "Women In Love" ("Billion Dollar Brain" with Michael Caine) and some TV films. But "Women In Love" was a breakthrough for him in terms of world-wide recognition. And it was compelling in part because we had never seen anything like it before, in terms of his style which I call "subjective hysteria." In other words, when he feels he must get into the mindset of his characters, the camera moves in closer and the montage and the music start to swoon. Or the camera turns sideways and people run towards one another in slow motion. That kind of thing. This was all new in a widely released movie in 1969 and it was hot stuff.

Like I said, I haven't read the entire novel, but there's a fascinating sequence towards the end of the movie that I'm quite sure is not in the book: Glenda Jackson (we had never seen anything like her either!) paints up in heavy eye makeup and pretends with an artist friend (the delightfully strange Vladek Sheybal) that they are the homosexual Russian composer Tchaikovsky and his nymphomaniacal wife. This scene, no doubt conceived by writer/producer Larry Kramer (later a rather off-putting, despairing, angry gay/AIDS activist) foretells the subject of Russell's next movie, the outrageously purple "The Music Lovers," a fantasia/biography of Tchaikovsky starring Richard Chamberlain and Jackson. "The Music Lovers" shows no restraint and the critics and public turned against the movie and Russell's extravagant style was quickly perceived as self-parody. Now the self-parody seems merely dated - or wildly ahead of its time. (MTV music videos often seem like a combo of Russell and Russ Meyer.) Nevertheless, "Women In Love" is admirable because, like I said, we had never seen anything like it before. The photography is gorgeous (it should probably be seen in widescreen) and the performances are lovely. Glenda Jackson won The New York Film Critics Award and the Oscar. Even Joan Crawford was a Glenda fan! Jennie Linden (a Debbie Reynolds look-alike) is fine as Ursula, Gudrun's (Jackson) sister. Oliver Reed (during his "Oliver!" period) is stolid, tormented Gerald, and Alan Bates, as the Lawrence figure, is very good as always. He delivers the last line of the film which - no doubt thanks to Kramer - seems to be not so much about women in love, as it is about the difficult-to-obtain pleasure of bisexual love. There are also homoerotic suggestions in the film such as the famous nude wrestling match and Sheybal's relationship with a man seen nude in their bed.

Modern audiences (2005) may find some of the abstract musings about love in the film to be slow going. Bates' character, Rupert, speaks of what sounds to be an idyll of communal life. Perhaps this was put in the screenplay to appeal to the young, hippie audience at the time. And apparently, in the novel, one of the major male/female relationships ends ironically. We are not shown this denouement in the film.

A couple of years later Jackson appeared in Russell's post-modern masterpiece "The Boyfriend" along with Sheybal, Christopher Gable (a former ballet dancer who appears here as a tragic lover) and Catherin Willmer, the woman who plays Reed's demented mother. Eleanor Bron, playing Hermione, is marvelous, as a would-be Bohemian.

For all of its drawbacks, don't miss "Women In Love." It is important historically, especially if you are a true film buff.

All Fall Down (1962)

Worthwhile if only for the cast

[6/10 · 29 May 2005]

Evans Evans, Constance Ford, Barbara Baxley AND Madame Spivy! All in one movie. Wow! Okay, I know, they're not the stars. It's a Warren Beatty movie, and he's okay, in a sort of sub-James Dean way, and he's easy on the eyes. But the movie belongs to Brandon DeWilde who is an excellent actor and also adorable.

The script is not up to the level of another of William Inge's films starring Beatty: "Splendor in the Grass," in which Beatty is much better. But it's interesting, as Inge always is. Perhaps nobody does tormented, despairing MidWesterners better than Inge.

The movie also stars Angela Lansbury and Karl Malden as Beatty's parents, if you can believe that. Lansbury also worked with director Frankenheimer about the same time in "The Manchurian Candidate." Her relationship with her son in that film is not dissimilar to her relationship with Beatty here.

We're not really shown Beatty and Eva Marie Saint falling in love, which is the crux of the film. It's as if something's missing. There's also an awkward cut to Beatty waking DeWilde up from a bad dream, as if the dream were filmed, but cut from the release print.

The street that Lansbury and Malden live on seems to be the "Meet Me In St. Louis" street, which would have still been standing on the MGM backlot in 1962.

There's not nearly enough of Baxley, Evans, Constance Ford or Spivy (who was a tough cabaret owner in NYC and also appears in "Manchurian Candidate"), but they make the most of their moments. Baxley has a little more to do than the others. I don't think she appeared in a lot of films. She shines in "Nashville," of course as the Kennedy lover. And I think she's Sally Field's mother in "Norma Rae." What became of Brandon DeWilde? He's one of those child actors that could really act and seemed to be making the transition from child to adult actor beautifully.

Darling Lili (1970)

Surprised this isn't on tape or DVD

[6/10 · 29 May 2005]

After 35 years, I've seen this film again; the 136 minute version at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City's East Village. They also showed the 114 minute version which, according to their production notes, is darker in tone, since it's missing some of the comedy of the piece. Certainly some of the cutesy comedy, which Blake Edwards, the director/producer/writer, also seems to be enamored of in his Pink Panther movies, could be cut.

The film is an attempt to make a mature, romantic musical and was a big flop at the time. Edwards was married to Julie Andrews, the female star of the movie. Andrews had a great success with "Mary Poppins" a few years earlier, and a phenomenal success with "The Sound of Music." She tried repeating the success with the awful (but, perhaps, commercially successful) "Thoroughly Modern Millie," and had a stinker with "Star!", the Gertrude Lawrence story. "Star!" was an adult musical, but it didn't take, so "Darling Lili" was another try at breaking Andrews' goody-two-shoes image. She says "ass" in the movie twice and "bastard" once! The scenes I remember most from the first screening in 1970 are the striptease by Suzette (Gloria Paul) and the aerial sequences, which are pretty dazzling (except for the obvious process shots). In fact, the whole movie is quite lavish and Andrews is gowned and bejeweled beautifully. Edwards seems to have studied the films of Vincente Minnelli and is better at creating some of the Minnellian tone than George Cukor was with the dull "My Fair Lady." In fact, Minnelli was making a movie - "On A Clear Day..." - at Paramount the same time "Darling Lili" was being produced. "...Lili" went into major cost overruns, which could account for "...Clear Day..." being so lackluster in its modern scenes, since major money was being pumped into the Andrews/Edwards film.

The movie isn't terrible. In fact, it's quite charming, if a little long. But the movie-going public is fickle, and Julie Andrews musicals fell quickly out of favor. Rock Hudson is enormously likable as always, but has little to do. The production design is delightful, and it's fun to see Andrews do her striptease (which may not be in the shorter version, and I'm thinking that must have been the version I saw in 1970, because I think I would have remembered it).

Maybe the movie will come out on DVD now that they are showing two versions in NYC. The print was beautiful, by the way. It even included the overture. The audience was a poignant collection of solitary film nerds, not excluding myself!

An Unmarried Woman (1978)

This movie has finally become nostalgia.

[6/10 · 27 May 2005]

I recently saw for the second time the Paul Mazursky film "Willie and Phil" and wrote about it here. (The first time was when it came out in 1980.) I wrote that I found it less satisfying than "An Unmarried Woman." Now I've watched "An Unmarried Woman" for the first time in a few years - I've probably seen it five times - and I believe I've finally outgrown it. I think one of the reasons I didn't enjoy it so much any more is that I live in New York where the film is set and it's hard for me to get involved in a story about a WASP who went to Vassar and lives in a high-rise apartment on the Upper East Side.

The film is about that kind of traditional person whose life turns upside down and she discovers something more meaningful. She even (apparently) moves out of the apartment into what seems to be a townhouse on the ground level with a backyard. And she discovers her independence. But I still find the movie not as involving and satisfying as I did at one time. Maybe because the filmmaker doesn't allow her to go as deep into a non-traditional life as one would like.

Perhaps I was always excited about this movie because it was released the year I moved to New York, and I was charged about the move. Now, it's just nostalgia for a kind of New York that has disappeared. Certainly there are plenty of traditional bores on the Upper East Side, but SoHo hardly looks the same, since it's become a metrosexual shopping mall.

From a feminist point of view the movie seems to be about a woman who, through circumstances beyond her control, is brought down to her basics and survives. Hitchcock did this with Tallulah Bankhead in "Lifeboat" (Tallulah's hair comes down, literally and figuratively) but of course Hitch was a sadist and Mazursky is interested in something more wistful and human. I do believe Mazursky's heart is in the right place.

In spite of the movie's flaws, it has some memorable scenes and performances, and I got a little misty-eyed a couple of times. It was Jill Clayburgh's greatest professional moment.

Willie & Phil (1980)

Not as good as one would wish, but still interesting.

[6/10 · 15 May 2005]

After seeing this movie in 1980 when it was released, I watched it again recently, 25 years later. I wanted to enjoy it as much as I have always enjoyed Paul Mazursky's "An Unmarried Woman" and "Next Stop, Greenwich Village." But it is not as good as those films. It is interesting as a sort of time capsule: it starts in 1970. But it is ultimately unfulfilling. Perhaps that's because it is a sort of remake of "Jules and Jim." Mazursky did his own version of Fellini's "8 1/2" called "Alex in Wonderland," which was about his fears of not being able to top the success of "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice." "Alex..." is a disappointing film also, but it is more visually interesting than "Willie and Phil." Seems to me Mazursky was better with original material, instead of trying to pay homage to another director.

Somehow Jeannette (the Margot Kidder character) is not very interesting. And you think there's going to be some kind of pay-off regarding her mother's smoking, and her sister's relationship with Phil, but neither pay-off ever happens. Kidder's overly thick Southern accent is a little annoying also.

Still, there is something endearing and nostalgic about the movie in its depiction of liberated young people in the immediate pre-AIDS movie. This was the end of the party, folks.

I enjoyed the fact that the beginning of the movie takes place at the old Bleecker Street Cinema. Later the threesome try to enjoy some scenes in that theatre while watching "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls!" The movie also winds up at that location.

It's also worth pointing out that Jan Miner is good in the movie, as always, and it's loads of fun to see Helen Hanft as a car saleswoman. Hanft, an Off Broadway muse at one time, was also in "Next Stop, Greenwich Village" and several Woody Allen movies, most memorably "Stardust Memories." She and Ms. Miner pretty much steal the movie, along with the woman who plays Phil's mother. And, by the way, I think this is the only movie I ever saw Ray Sharkey in, and he's very likable. You do keep waiting for him and Ontkean to cement their relationship in a physical manner, but this is Hollywood, and they keep reminding you that the 2 men are strictly heterosexual, and homosexuals are mocked as flaming pansies. Shame on you, Mr. Mazursky.

The moment I remembered the most from my first viewing is the spotting of the famous movie star on Malibu Beach. The moment isn't nearly as interesting as I had remembered it, but it's still sort of lovely.

The Letter (1929)

Fascinating early talking picture with an equally fascinating star.

[26 March 2005]

This film has recently been restored to a 35mm print. I was fortunate enough to see it. A great deal is already said here about Jeanne Eagels' performance. The only thing I can add is that Bette Davis seems to not have so much modeled her performance in the remake, as to have modeled her own physical persona in general on Eagels, who has a subtle body twitch that Davis took to (delightful) extremes later on. Certainly Davis would have seen this original movie version, and may have even seen Eagels on stage in other properties.

The sound is very primitive in this early version. At first it seemed like the sound wasn't even working. But the problem is that there is no sound until the film gets to a scene that has dialogue. It would have been interesting to hear more ambient sound added so you would be less likely to notice the old-fashioned audio, but then purists might complain.

Nevertheless, the film is fascinating and so is Eagels. I saw the film with an Asian friend who liked the fact that the film doesn't shirk from racism. The sequence where the heroine delivers the letter to the dragon lady was fun to compare to the later version. The early version is a lot racier! Also, I must point out that Herbert Marshall, who appears in the later version as the heroine's husband, is very young and handsome as her murdered lover in this 1929 production.

Mr. Skeffington (1944)

Excellent Warner Brothers meller!

[9/10 · 12 February 2005]

"Mr. Skeffington" is one of the great Hollywood melodramas. Bette Davis has the showy role in this epic story of a troubled relationship, but it's Claude Rains as her Jewish husband who jerks the tears. Bette is all mannerisms and makeup - and there's nothing wrong with that! - but Rains gives a subtle, weighty performance that anchors the movie.

This is Warner Brothers at its most elegant. The Franz Waxman score is superb and the way he punctuates Bette's eye-blinking is hilarious.

The magnificent singer/actress Dolores Gray made her first film appearance in this film as a 1920s speakeasy chanteuse. Bette acknowledges what a beautiful voice she has in a moment that hasn't really anything to do with the scene, but the divine Dolores deserves the comment. In case you don't know who she is, check out her own film career 10 years later in her MGM films such as "It's Always Fair Weather."

Bette's aging makeup presages her work in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"

You won't want to miss "Mr. Skeffington." Bette's flamboyance and Rains' gravitas make this film totally enjoyable.

A Chorus Line (1985)

Has some interesting moments

[5/10 · 4 February 2005]

I saw "A Chorus Line" in 1975 when it was still in previews at the Schubert Theatre on Broadway. It was tremendously exciting.

Somehow I never saw the movie until recently (widescreen DVD). It probably isn't possible to translate this show to the screen. In order to give the movie some visual interest, the director and screenwriter move the story of Cassie backstage, so we're not onstage the whole time. It doesn't work. And it doesn't help that the actress playing Cassie has terrible hairstyles! In fact, one of the things that bugs me the most about the movie is the 80s styling. I know that seems superficial, but the 80s were so ugly.

On the plus side, the dancing in the movie is terrific (although the choreographer may not be as inventive as Michael Bennett who staged the original show) and there are some good performances and interesting set pieces.

The opening of the movie is exciting and your interest is held until the end of "At The Ballet" when the director totally misses the boat with the climax of the number. Next, the song "Goodbye 12, Hello 13" has been replaced with a new number called "Surprise, Surprise" and the original song is better. (The fellow who plays Richie is an excellent dancer). "The Music and the Mirror" is also replaced by a lackluster tune.

The girl who can't sing is obviously going to be the girl who does "Sing," but the number never appears. "What I Did For Love" has been given a new meaning in the movie which didn't bother me too much.

The movie is flawed but does have its point of interest. Parts of it were very involving, especially the end when the director makes his decision.

Stage Struck (1958)

a cliché of a cliché of a cliché

[4/10 · 23 January 2005]

Poor Susan Strasberg. She had not an easy life. She was so lovely. But her delivery in this movie - a remake of a Katharine Hepburn 30s vehicle called "Morning Glory" - is simply not good. It doesn't help that the script is a cliché of a cliché of a cliché, if there is such a thing. Henry Fonda does the best he can with the bad, hoary lines. The supporting cast of Joan Greenwood and Christopher Plummer are excellent and fascinating as usual, but they're stuck with bad lines. In Greenwood's case, bad lines complaining about bad lines!!! And even though Fonda is good, you can't believe Susan would really go for him.

The best thing about the movie is the scene backstage towards the end when the show that might make Strasberg a star, is just about to start. The movie's director shows the stagehands being called their cues by the stage manager, and you get the suspense of what it's like to be backstage just before the curtain goes up.

The stage manager by the way is played by Jack Weston, who played a stage manager the next year in Douglas Sirk's "Imitation of Life," which is also about "the theatuh," and in its complex phoniness and artificiality it rings truer than "Stage Struck." Beloved Herbert Marshall is also in this movie and you can see very easily that he is really walking on a wooden leg.

The street scenes of New York are interesting in this movie. Also interesting is the name of a Greenwich Village nightclub where Strasberg cringingly reads poetry and verse: The Village Voice!

Donkey Skin (1970)

Charming French nonsense

[8/10 · 3 January 2005]

With his bold use of color, and his fascination with objects and patterns, Jacques Demy is the Vincente Minnelli of France. I say this, even though I haven't seen all of Demy's films. I've only seen "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, "The Young Girls of Rochefort" and now "Donkey Skin." The fairy tale about a young princess who escapes from her (more than) somewhat wrong-headed father is charming, if slightly disturbing, nonsense. The disturbing part alludes to a suggestion of incestuousness. But, never mind. It's all so light-hearted and silly it hardly matters, and in intellectual France it probably matters even less.

Catherine Deneuve is divine as always. And she has some competition here from Delphine Seyrig, she of the throaty voice, as her fairy godmother.

I still prefer "Umbrellas...". "Donkey Skin" is not quite as lacquered. I even saw a few stray hairs on Deneuve's head in one shot! You would never see that in the other film. And "Donkey Skin" is obviously not shot on the same color stock that gives that deeply artificial saturated look (a problem I had with Todd Haynes' "Far From Heaven"). And even though both movies are wildly stylized, "Donkey Skin" is a fairy tale and "Umbrellas..." is about real people, so the latter is much more emotionally involving. Still, "Donkey Skin" is definitely worth seeing and I recommend it.

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)

A musing on Pauline Kael's review

[9/10 · 1 January 2005]

When I was in my teens people said that movies weren't what they used to be. As we look back on that period - between the censorship rules being loosened in the 1960s to the "Jaws"/"Star Wars" blockbuster mentality - it seems like a golden age of movie-making. It was also a period when "nostalgia" was gaining popularity. Nostalgia was big business and continued for several years with Bway successes like the revival "Irene" (w/Debbie Reynolds) and then the failure of the 1974 movies "Day of the Locust" and "The Great Gatsby" probably killed it (although "Chinatown" was an arty success and "Grease" was yet to come). There were the sunnier nostalgia trips like the Bway "No, No, Nanette," but there were also the bleaker projects. "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" was one of them, and 1969 was a good year to get it made. It's hard to imagine a studio deciding nowadays to make a movie about a 1930's dance marathon with a fatalistic lead character.

When "...Horses..." came out it was hot stuff and still packs a wallop. I recently re-watched it and then read Pauline Kael's review. She gave it a mixed to negative review and I agree with her a lot about several things. She found the flashbacks and flash-forwards potentially confusing. I totally understood them in 1969, and I was just a kid, so her concerns about the inter-cutting may be unwarranted. Now the flashes just seem unnecessary and the music under the opening flashback is annoying. Also, the horse doesn't seem really injured. (See "Marnie" for a devastating horse injury scene.) Kael said (amusingly but with vitriol) that Susannah York's big scene reminded her of old Isabel Jewell movies. I don't know what Isabel Jewell movies she had been seeing, but I wish I could! York, by the way, is excellent as always. She had such an interesting career for several years around that time.

Some people consider this Sydney Pollack's best film, and perhaps it is. He certainly has the touch with actors, although his sense of spectacle isn't quite as good. For instance, the pile-up at the end of the first "Derby" in the movie seems like a missed opportunity.

Kael doesn't mention some of the excellent actors such as Al Lewis (of TV's "The Munsters") in what I think is a completely silent role, Bruce Dern, Bonnie Bedelia (Macauley Culkin's aunt?), or Paul Mantee who is barely seen. And who's the bald-headed referee on skates? Is that Severn Darden as Susannah York's partner? And there's another couple, both with dark hair, and he's very handsome, she's short, whose names I wish I knew.

Jane Fonda is great in a role that is almost completely devoid of humor and tortured Gig Young had the part of his life. It's almost hard to believe that someone as beautiful as Fonda could be such a loser in a culture that worships beauty, but that's quibbling, especially since the marathon is presented as a metaphor for the rat race of life. Kael regarded the existential symbolism as Hollywood claptrap, and I get her point, but it is effective, especially nowadays when the public is even more fascinated by celebrity than it was in the 30s or the 60s (catch Fonda's glare at "Helen Twelvetrees" in the marathon audience. Twelvetrees is a now-forgotten 30s movie star) and also SEEMS to be fascinated by so-called "reality" TV shows that present people as spectacle (in reference to the movie's tag line).

Another quibble is that the hairstyles in the movie look almost too good. But they did have Sydney Guillaroff, the greatest Hollywood hairstylist of all time.

Porgy and Bess (1959)

This movie should have been great.

[5/10 · 26 December 2004]

With all the talented people behind this project it should have been great. Granted, I have not seen it on the big screen as it was intended. But I did find a bootleg widescreen copy of it on DVD at my video store and I have just finished it.

Super actors (Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier, Brock Peters, Diahann Carroll, Pearl Bailey, Sammy Davis, Jr.), excellent designers (Oliver Smith's sets and Irene Sharaff's costumes), George and Ira Gershwin's music and lyrics overseen by Andre Previn, a director who often knew what he was doing (Otto Preminger) and a producer who usually knew (Samuel Goldwyn). And, yet, the thing never really comes alive.

I think the problem is that they were scared of the wide, wide screen and the camera is kept at a distance, so you never experience any of the drama subjectively, only objectively. Everything is long or medium shots except for 2 or 3 brief moments where you can really see the actors' faces. Maybe it works better on a big screen. But even then, the camera seems to be face level the whole time, like the way a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers dance number was filmed: always tracking horizontal, as if filming a stage show. If Vincente Minnelli had directed it, that camera would have probably been all over the place.

Several of the scenes that are sung in the opera are spoken here. That's not so bad, but, if I remember correctly, one of the famous arias, "My Man's Gone Now," is missing. Of course it isn't meant to be sung by Bess, so maybe it made sense to delete it.

Still, I've wanted to see it for a long time and was excited to finally get the chance.

My Forbidden Past (1951)

Not thrilling

[4/10 · 26 December 2004]

This movie is not great. Just how many boring movies did Howard Hughes make? But it does have two of the beautiful and fascinating stars of the Hollywood Golden Age: Ava Gardner and Robert Mitchum. Melvyn Douglas (who doesn't look so good in this) plays Ava's fey playboy cousin. There are a couple of good lines. The plot is slim and the movie is not long. Only 71 minutes, for those with a short attention span.

We're never told exactly what Ava's forbidden past is, but it has to do with her grandmother. Was she a prostitute? Maybe it's supposed to be ambiguous.

The man who directed it made the 1940s "Jane Eyre" with Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine and also the Disney "Mary Poppins."