Twelve movies

[Four sentences each. No spoilers.]

Nancy Drew, Detective (dir. William Clemens, 1938). Well, it was on TCM. Silly nonsense, but Bonita Granville as Nancy shows luck, pluck, quick thinking, and comedic skills. Her boyfriend Ted (Frankie Thomas) is just a second banana, even if he can rig an X-ray machine to send a message in Morse code to the River Heights radio station. “Ted Nickerson, what are you doing in my flower bed?”

*

Nightfall (dir. Jacques Tourneur, 1957). On the run from murderous bad guys (Brian Keith, Rudy Bond), innocent James Vanning (Aldo Ray) teams up with Marie Gardner (Anne Bancroft) to form an unlikely couple. Stirling Silliphant’s screenplay and Burnett Guffey’s cinematography make for a superior chase movie. I suspect the fashion-show scene as an influence on North by Northwest, other elements as an influence on the Coens’ Fargo. “Why me?”

*

Wonderstruck (dir. Todd Haynes, 2017). Two stories, one set in 1927, the other in 1977, of a child searching for a parent. Deafness, a bookstore, the American Museum of Natural History, and parallel lines converging. A kids’ movie that should also appeal to grown-ups. “How do you know my name?”

*

RBG (dir. Julie Cohen and Betsy West, 2018). A lively, quick-moving documentary. Did you know that when Ruth Bader Ginsburg began her studies at Harvard Law School she was the mother of a fourteen-month-old child? Ginsburg’s intelligence, determination, good humor, and loyalty to conscience make her a model human being. “She changed everything.”

*

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (dir. Alexandra Dean 2017). She was the actress typecast as “the Ecstasy Girl.” And she was an inventor, who, with George Antheil, developed and patented a “Secret Communications System” that made use of frequency hopping. “The brains of people are more interesting than the looks, I think,” Hedy Lamarr told an interviewer. Alas, this routine documentary is not equal to its subject.

*

The Hitch-Hiker (dir. Ida Lupino, 1953). There was a lot more to William Talman than his work as Perry Mason’s adversary Hamilton Burger. In this film, his finest hour, he plays a psychokiller who hitches a ride, pulls a gun, and takes the car’s occupants (Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy) on a days-long drive through Mexico to escape the law. “Loco,” says a local. Modestly made and relentlessly compelling.

*

Darkest Hour (dir. Joe Wright, 2017). Gary Oldman gives an extraordinary performance as Winston Churchill. But a ridiculously contrived (and wholly fictional) scene of Churchill going to the Underground to sample public opinion made me suspicious of other contrivances, starting with the blue and brown palette that signifies The Past. “It must be late there.” “In more ways than you could possibly know.”

*

The Invisible Man (dir. James Whale, 1933). The special effects are nifty, but the human stuff is more interesting, particularly the conflict between two scientists (invisible Claude Rains and William Harrigan) as rivals for the hand of the white-goddess daughter (Gloria Stuart) of their scientist boss (Henry Travers). Remarkable to find oneself rooting for the pointlessly destructive and utterly murderous Invisible One. “The drugs I took seemed to light up my brain.” Thank goodness this movie was pre-Code.

*

The Unknown Girl (dir. Luc Dardenne and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, 2016). As in Two Days, One Night (the only other film I’ve seen by these directors), the emphasis is on work and moral responsibilities. A young doctor (Adèle Haenel), still in her clinic an hour past closing time, refuses to answer the door and later discovers that the young woman who had been seeking admission has been found dead. Figuring out the unknown girl’s identity and story becomes the doctor’s purpose. “If she was dead, she wouldn’t be in our heads.”

*

White Material (dir. Claire Denis, 2009). Colonialism and its discontents, with Isabelle Hupert as Maria Vail, whose family owns and lives on a coffee plantation in an African nation. Civil war breaks out; the French military flees; bands of child soldiers roam the countryside; and Maria is determined to finish the harvest, whatever the danger, whatever the cost. I thought of this sometimes confusing film as a variation on Brecht’s Mother Courage. “How could I show courage in France?”

*

The Other Side of Hope (dir. Aki Kaurismäki, 2017). Like Le Havre (2011), it’s a film about exile: a Syrian refugee, trying to make a new life in Helsinki, meets up with the owner and employees of an unlucky little restaurant. Lots of Kaurismäki’s deadpan comedy, lots of human goodness and hospitality. Kaurismäki has said that his intention in telling this story was to change Finland first, then the world: no film could be more timely. “I was lost, but good people helped me.”

*

Oleanna (dir. David Mamet, 1994). A professor (William H. Macy), a student (Debra Eisenstadt), conversations behind a closed door, a charge of sexual harassment. Stagy dialogue, improbability, and sheer human ugliness abounding. And who would ever refer to their tenure committee as “good men and true”? This nightmare just doesn’t ring true.

Related reading
All OCA film posts (Pinboard)