kcfl-1 Reviews

The Holy Man (1965)

Too easy

[5/10 · 22 February 2024]

In 1910, "The Scarlet Letter" was first turned into a movie; many other versions followed. The Hawthorne novel concerned a hypocritical minister, Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, who fathered a child out of wedlock, and refused to take responsibility until the fadeout.

Many other films concerned hypocritical or fake preachers, such as "Miracle Woman," "Night of the Hunter," "Elmer Gantry," etc. So it's common, if not easy, to expose fake holy men.

This "Holy Man" appears to show a legitimate religious person, until jealous neighbors expose him as a fraud (in a rushed ending).

It's much harder to show a genuine holy person. This is what Claude Lelouch did in "Un + Une." It showcases a real woman convincingly portrayed as a living saint.

Lelouch may be our greatest living foreign-language director. S Ray's films are pleasant enough, but he never had the vision to attempt anything like what Lelouch did.

Son of the Gods (1930)

Another Jerk

[9/10 · 15 February 2023]

In "The Jerk" (79), Steve Martin plays a boy adopted by a black family who doesn't realize he's white.

In "Son of the Gods," Richard Barthelmess plays the son of a Chinese couple. No one (but the audience) notices he's obviously white. There's no attempt to make him look Oriental, as in his "Broken Blossoms" or many other films ("Hatchet Man," "Good Earth" etc.) where whites are made up to look Asian. So you have to be capable of suspension of disbelief to get into this movie.

What carries the film is Barthelmess' low-key brilliance and its treatment of issues. I think he was the best male movie star (though not best actor) of the Pre-Code era. And the film confronts anti-Chinese prejudice of the time, long forgotten until its revival in recent years.

It is sui generis. I can't think of another film of the time that deals with this issue.

Hula (1927)

Nobel

[10/10 · 25 October 2022]

My wife was reading news about the Nobel Prize while I was watching "Hula."

I said "Instead of reading about the Nobel, you should watch a film that deserves the equivalent of a Nobel Prize."

OK, Nobels are given to individuals, not works of art, but how about a lifetime achievement award for Clara Bow and director Victor Fleming? Fleming for.great films like Wet Parade, Captains Courageous, Test Pilot and Wizard of Oz.

Bow because every performance is a clinic on how to act in silents. She's on a par with the greatest actresses of her era, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford and Marion Davies.

In this film, Bow gets to swim, ride, dance, romance and cook. The film has a clever script that shows the lengths Bow will go to in order to win her man: risking life and limb via a waterfall, fall from a horse and dynamite. Notice small moments like her hanging up toothbrush to establish her new residence, and setting the table to claim her man.

I love Clara.

Goodbye Again (1961)

I can fix it

[4/10 · 30 September 2022]

OK, so Ingrid Bergman is a successful businesswoman, attractive, although personally insecure.

Two hopeless men are after her: Her long-time boyfriend (Montand) is a compulsive womanizer. Claims to love her, says the other partners "mean nothing" to him, but can never be faithful.

The other (Perkins) is a stalker and lazy scion of a rich woman, who's Ingrid's client. He's a budding lawyer, but too lazy to do much work.

They're both creeps and unworthy of her.

She ends up dumping the kid, ostensibly because at 25 he's too young for her at 40. Ends up marrying the philanderer, who continues his promiscuous ways.

She'd be better off leaving them both and entering the dating scene. But I have another solution: She should tell the lawyer to accept his assignment in NY (instead of quitting the firm), where he buckles down to work, becomes a successful attorney, and returns to claim her.

Can-Can (1960)

What makes it great?

[9/10 · 11 November 2021]

Sinatra and Porter.

Frank's best films have two other strong musical stars: Durante and Grayson in "It Happened in Brooklyn," Kelly and Grayson in "Anchors Aweigh," Kelly and the dancers in "On the Town," Brando and Simmons in "Guys and Dolls," and Crosby and Armstrong in "High Society."

Here he has young Shirley MacLaine and Maurice Chevalier to back him up, and his voice is at its peak. (Louis Jourdan isn't much of a match for Frank.)

And some of Cole Porter's best songs; the rest being used in "High Society," and then again in "Love's Labour's Lost," and "De-Lovely" equally great films.

Mr. North (1988)

Who's to blame?

[4/10 · 28 September 2021]

I finished reading "Theophilus North" today, and saw there was a film version, so I watched it.

I'm not sure whom to blame for the mess: Three screenwriters worked on this: Janet Roach & John Huston and James Costigan. I'm guessing that the original screenplay followed the book as much as possible of its 400 pages, then another scribbler came in to "punch it up" as a comedy. So we get snatches of the original, plus scenes not in the book (including a ridiculous boy-meets-girl at the very end). It doesn't work as it stands, a would-be riotous comedy about a man with "electric hands."

The rest of the blame must go to director Danny Huston. He lets Robert Mitchum do nothing but read his lines, HD Stanton get away with a poor British accent, and allows the likes of M Metcalf and T Grimes to overindulge.

I won't say "the book was better," because this movie mercifully changed the title, so it bears only passing relation to Wilder's book of a longer name.

To the Wonder (2012)

Rewrite

[10/10 · 24 February 2021]

Malick cements his standing as Greatest Living U.S. Director with this movie, which I saw after viewing his masterpieces "Tree of Life" and "New World." It made me want to go back and see "Knight of Cups" and "Song to Song," which I didn't appreciate at the time. Then it struck me: I saw "Knight" and "Song" on a small TV; I'll have to view them again in HD.

He has rewritten the Grammar of the Film. There's no use approaching him expecting a linear plot and other conventions. His movies are like no other.

I don't think I blinked during the entire film; I didn't want to miss a single frame. It's all about beauty, and kudos to Emmanuel Lubezki for his once again stunning cinematography.

Last of the Pagans (1935)

Richard Thorpe?

[10/10 · 14 June 2020]

I have seen 22 films directed by Richard Thorpe. None impressed me, and I felt his later efforts ("The Honeymoon Machine," "Fun in Acapulco") particularly meritless. So nothing prepared me for "Pagans." Star Mala appeared in a similar film, "Eskimo," with a superior director in WS Van Dyke, but this was even better.

It turned out to be a perfect film, in the top 1% of all I've seen.

Maybe credit should go to his cinematographer, Clyde De Vinna. Every shot is not only beautifully lit but artfully composed.

It's structure is highly unusual. The boy-meets-girl occurs when his raiding party kidnaps her. Boy-loses-girl happens when he is shanghaied. Boy-gets-girl, which takes place after she's already married to another, is more traditional but no less thrilling.

After seeing this, I'm going to boycott phosphate! All the whites in the film, who operate a phosphate mine, are villainous exploiters of the natives.

Old Wives for New (1918)

Perfect

[10/10 · 2 June 2020]

When I was a kid, I thought Cecil B. DeMille was just the director of big epics, like "The Greatest Show on Earth."

After seeing this and his pre-Code films, I realize he was one of the greatest directors. "The Godless Girl" and "Dynamite" are in the top 1% of the many films I've seen, and so is this.

"Old Wives for New" could be the model for the perfect ro-com. The boy-meets-girl is cute: they both shoot at the same bear, and examining Juliet's gun, Charles says, "If you'd hit him, you'd just make him mad."

The inevitable boy-loses-girl ensues, and finally the boy-gets-girl, a heart-warming scene.. Along the way it's quite funny: We see WW I-era high-tech weight-loss methodology: two technicians roll the client along the floor to reduce her fat. We learn what rich men did to get rid of inconvenient witnesses: give them money and send them on "the next boat to the Orient."

Netflix has a "DeMille package," and this perfect film is one of the silent offerings.

Men of the North (1930)

Brilliant performances

[7/10 · 15 February 2020]

Previous posters harped on the accents of Roland et al.

They sound Canadien enough to me.

That's not the take-away from the film.

Watch it for the real stars--the dogs. They're wonderful, and steal every scene they're in. Especially when Roland is hiding out from the Mounties overnight. He sleeps in the snow, and the dogs do too. In the morning he summons them, and one by one they climb out of the snow. Their heroics remind me of a real-life Iditerod.

And no one has mentioned the inspiration for the story: "Les Miserables." Roland is the Valjean character, pursued by an Inspector Jouvert. And like Valjean, he rescues his pursuer. The only difference is the ending; the inspector does not commit suicide.

Little White Lies (2010)

Needs a prequel

[3/10 · 30 December 2019]

Watching this is like being dropped into the middle of a weekend with strangers. They all have backstories, but we're not privileged to share them.

I see there's now a sequel. What it needs is a prequel to tell us who these people are. As is, there's no reason to care for them.

For example, two characters try to reignite old flames. Too bad we know nothing about their previous relationships.

Now to the stars: Two are Oscar-caliber, but given little to do. Marion Cotillard shows again that she's our greatest non-English-language actress, mainly through her re-actions, as she's not given enough to do. As for Jean Dujardin: he's mainly comatose in his few scenes.

The problem is capsulized in the final scene, where one character is eulogized. Nice of them to tell us about him, but they need to show us him in life.

Knives Out (2019)

Should be protested!

[6/10 · 6 December 2019]

When Vivien Leigh was chosen to portray Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind," some of the book's fans protested about a Brit playing a Southern lady. The casting was forgiven when she proved up to the task.

Not so forgiving were blacks and Asians when whites were cast as minorities. Al Jolson in blackface in the first talkie. Marlon Brando as Japanese in "Teahouse of the August Moon." Laurence Olivier as a Moor in "Othello."

Now we come to Daniel Craig, trying to be a Southerner in "Knives Out." It doesn't work. His New Orleans (?) accent is merely annoying. If there were a Southern Anti-Bias League, they would protest.

Oh, the film. Once you get past the absurdity of the premise, it works well enough to rate it a 6.

Divorce in the Family (1932)

Tour de force

[10/10 · 7 September 2019]

Other users have not appreciated this film, so I'll try to explain why I find it brilliant.

It all revolves around Jackie Cooper. In every situation, he reacts exactly as a 10-year old should. He is able to carry the film, as Mickey Rooney could when he got a little older.

I can imagine screenwriter Delmer Daves consulting with the young star to get realistic feedback on how he would be feeling in each scene. For example, what would a kid do if his outing with his brother were hijacked by his sib's girlfriend (see the canoe scene)?

The rest of the family are archetypes also. The stepfather is clueless, like someone who had never been a parent. The mom is passive, like someone grateful for a new husband accepting a ready-made family. The non-custodial father is indulgent, even willing to risk a kidnapping charge (a modern concept) for the good of his kids. And the older brother listens only to his hormones.

Un + Une (2015)

A LIving Saint

[10/10 · 11 July 2019]

The slogan for Lelouch's "A Man and a Woman" was "see it with someone you love." I didn't have a love when it was released in 1966, and failed to appreciate the film. Since then, I've grown to admire his opus as that of France's greatest living filmmaker.

You still have to b e a romantic to appreciate a film like this or his "Bolero," "And Now My Love" or "And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen."

We have no film of Jesus, Mohammed or Buddha performing their miracles. "Un. + Une" gives us a glimpse of Amma, a modern saint, displaying her love.

It's also the best outside film about India. See it with someone you love.

The Aftermath (2019)

The Code Returns

[6/10 · 26 April 2019]

If you don't want a "spoiler," avoid the coming attraction, which shows the course of the film (probably easily guessed).

This reminds me of a pre-Code film, "Uptown New York," (32) in which the heroine goes off with the man she really loves only to return to her husband at the last moment.

But if this were made in pre-Code days, the assassin would have gotten her husband so she would be able to go off with her true love. The film fails to prove the case that her husband deserves her.

Here's how I would have changed the film: The highlights are musical: the German plays a record of Marie Callas singing "Samson et Delilah" to entice the wife (though Callas' recording came 16 years later). And the wife melts thee daughter by playing "Clair de Lune" on the piano. Why not have the wife play "Samson" on the piano!?

I would cut the scene where the German tells the Intelligence Officer investigating him to stop "pounding" the piano (he isn't); no way.

Outcast Lady (1934)

What crime?

[4/10 · 8 April 2019]

In his review Hotangen wrote (1/30/15): "BTW, the secret Iris guarded is somewhat mysterious. Being referred to as Boy's "purity" has misled today's viewers, but the audience of 1934, especially the males, would have known that Boy had a disease, at that time incurable and considered so shameful that it was spoken of only in confidence with one's doctor."

But the gist of the film is the "unspeakable crime" Boy committed. Can't be murder; he served just a few years.

I haven't read the source book, but I'm speculating he was jailed for "unnatural acts." Homosexuality so shameful he self-defenestrated when his new wife found out.

In other words, this could be an Oscar Wilde situation (also used by Joyce Carol Oates in "The Falls.").

All in all a silly story.

Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941)

Bad idea

[3/10 · 14 March 2019]

This film reminded of the the days when local TV stations fit films into a time slot. If it didn't fit, they cut it down to size. Except that I saw the entire film. It was just so choppy. The writers tried to boil 50 years down into less than 100 minutes. They seemed afraid of leaving out any of the book's high points. So it veered from one big moment (boy-meets-girl, boy instantly loves girl) to another. It had already lost me when a professor assigned reading the Constitution and Declaration of Independence in one night. I doubt the writers ever read the Constitution. Ms B. finally accepts a dream job in NY. College president asks her not to. Never mind. As for spoilers: The title contains its own spoiler! From it we know that the heroine will be a success in her field...and that she will never get married.

West of Broadway (1931)

Close to a masterpiece

[8/10 · 24 November 2018]

There's only one factor keeping this from being a movie masterpiece: its length.

I'd like to read the original story or script. It has the kernel of a great screenplay, and is wonderfully enacted by Gilbert and Moran.But after four writers got through with it, and the editor cut it to 68 minutes, there are too many dangling threads:

-Moran first meets Gilbert who's alone in a room at a "party" he's hosting, but we're shown no party, just a nightclub.

-After their brief encounter and marriage, he flees to Arizona, where she somehow finds him and gains entry to his house.

-He says he has six months to live, but nothing more is made of this when they reach a happy ending.

-His ex-finacee has broken off her engagement to another man, but nothing comes of this.

-When she leaves AZ, she is said to be driving too fast in a car she's unfamiliar with, but no accident ensues.

This film was a hit with me because it left me begging for more.

Life Itself (2018)

American Lelouch

[9/10 · 27 September 2018]

I haven't seen anyone compare this to the work of the greatest living foreign-language director, Claude Lelouch. Lelouch's film sprawl over time and bring together disparate elements at the end. In films like "And Now My Love" and "And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen," the boy-meets-girl event doesn't happen til almost the end. I think that's what the creators are trying to do here, and they succeed marvelously.

They're Out of the Business (2011)

A Throwback

[6/10 · 11 September 2018]

I'm reminded of the films of William Haines c.1930 like "Speedway," "The Girl Said No" and "Just a Gigolo." In these movies the boy won over the girl mainly by stalking and annoying her. I wonder if generations of men were influenced by this genre to pursue women by being obnoxious.

In modern times, Henry Jaglom is an auteur who plays himself being obnoxious.

Auteur Schaeffer is extremely annoying in this film as he pursues "yoga girl." He interrupts her class twice to make his pitch. Instead of getting a restraining order, she seems to find this charming. Only in the movies.

After I saw "They're," I looked up my review on "My Life's in Turnaround," Schaeffer & Ward's first film. I had the same reaction: Effective dry humor, but some scenes go on too long.

-But the Flesh Is Weak (1932)

Obnoxiousness Does Not Equal Charm

[6/10 · 20 June 2018]

I wonder if a generation of men's romantic styles were influenced by films like this* where boy-gets-girl by stalking her and being obnoxious. "I didn't realize I loved you until you hit me," is the girl's final line. OK, some women are masochistic (See "Elle" 2016), but there's no charm in his pursuit of her. The film has two main problems: a. both girls want to marry the boy almost immediately. b. the rich girl is much more attractive and interesting than the poor one the boy chooses. The film is saved by supporting performances, especially C Aubrey Smith, portraying vulnerability, and F Kerr, as a cross between a bumbling Frank Morgan and a haughty...C A Smith.

* Others in this genre are Smart Set (29) Marianne (29) Speedway (29) Pagan (29) The Girl Said No (30) War Nurse (30) Just a Gigolo (31) Play Girl (32) Westward Passage (32)

Fast Workers (1933)

Unexpected

[10/10 · 6 June 2018]

The only way I can explain the film's brilliance is with total spoilers. The movie reaches the pantheon of the top 1% not just because of the dialogue but because it violates all expectations of the genre:

Situation 1: You have the smart, handsome guy fooling around with the girl that his dumb best friend really loves. Expectation 1: The smart guy will give up the girl so his buddy can have her.

Situation 2: Smart guy knows she's a tramp Expectation 2: He proves it to buddy before he gets married...OR they get married, and he keeps it to himself.

Situation 3: Tramp marries dumb guy Expectation 3: She reforms (or is killed)

NONE of my expectations (based o seeing over 9000 films) came to pass. The only Expectation that did was that when dumb guy finds out smart guy slept with his new wife, he tries to kill him (in obvious way since they're building a skyscraper).

Finally: the last scene is perfect. Smart guy plays the same trick he did on dumb guy earlier in the film to show she's OK with the attempted killing.

One More River (1934)

What's the deal with Tony?

[7/10 · 9 December 2017]

A previous reviewer described Claire Corven's "fellow passenger Tony Croom (as) a kind,caring man." Though he's a would-be boyfriend, Tony never seeks to have sex with her, confining himself to 3 chaste kisses over the course of their relationship.

When on the witness stand of her divorce proceedings, both firmly deny they ever did anything "improper." In the penultimate scene, when Claire's finally offers him sex, he flees in disgust (imagining her having sex with her estranged husband).

Does anyone else see Tony the way I do? In love with her, but eschewing sex, should we think of him as gay?

Dynamite (1929)

His year

[10/10 · 11 October 2017]

Cecil B. DeMille was the first to accomplish a feat achieved by only one subsequent director: make the two best films of the year. Sidney Lumet did it both in 1963 ("The Panwbroker" and "The Hill") and 1997 ("Night Falls on Manhattan" and "Critical Care').

CB did it in 1929 with this film and "The Godless Girl." Watching Kay Johnson's character trying to cook (in high heels) was the funniest kitchen scene I've seen; often imitated, never equaled.

The mine cave-in featured special effects as astounding as the fire scene in "Godless." If "a gun hung on the wall in act 1 must be fired in act 3,"a song sung in a jailhouse wedding must be heard again when the two leads first realize they're in love.

With its sparkling repartee, "I laughed I cried," may be a cliché, but I did watching this masterpiece.

Goldie Gets Along (1933)

say it isn't so

[7/10 · 19 September 2017]

A near-great film til the ending. A number of films of the pre-women's lib movement period have endings that negate all that comes before, like "Female" (1933). A woman drives to the top, then gives it up for marriage. I don't think this will stick here because a) she's under contract to a studio and b) her fiancé lied to get her to marry him. So I think she's going to continue on course instead of marrying the creep.

Goldie uses every wile to get to Hollywood: flirting outrageously, stealing, and participating in a con game. She's in command all the way.

Now I'm going to say something heretical: Lili Damita is as good as Greta Garbo! So please see this..