Twelve movies

[One to four stars. Three sentences each. No spoilers.]

Pandora’s Box (dir. G.W. Pabst, 1929). Louise Brooks as Lulu, a woman of irresistible sexual allure and cheerfully amoral and destructive promiscuity. Did I mention Louise Brooks? Yes, of course I did, because she’s unforgettable. ★★★★

*

Diary of a Lost Girl (dir. G.W. Pabst, 1929). The flip side of Lulu: Louise Brooks as Thymian Henning, a woman exploited and misused by everyone around her, and who chooses, when she is finally able to make choices, generosity and mercy in return. A film of great pathos, and a much better example of Brooks’s range as an silent actor than Pandora’s Box. With great performances too from Andrews Engelmann and Edith Meinhard, and an appropriate and evocative piano accompaniment (Scriabin, Schumann, silent-film composers), performed by Javier Perez de Azpeitia. ★★★★

*

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (dir. Marielle Heller, 2018). Based on a true story: Melissa McCarthy as Lee Israel, a biographer of celebrities who turns to fabricating letters from dead writers. Highly entertaining for a movie founded on misanthropy and deception, of self and others. All set in a highly stylized 1990s Manhattan, with cozy bookstores, booksellers crazy about Fanny Brice and Noël Coward and “Miss Parker” (first name Dorothy), and Blossom Dearie and other singers providing the sophisticated extra-diegetic music. ★★★★

*

I Saw What You Did (dir. William Castle 1965). Home alone, two teenagers make prank telephone calls and just happen to reach the wrong person. Moments of genuine suspense and moments of bizarre comedy make for a movie that seems to meld Psycho, Rear Window, and The World of Henry Orient. Special bonus: Joan Crawford as a bonkers paramour. ★★★

*

Border Incident (dir. Anthony Mann, 1949). Suspense and brutal violence, in the semi-documentary style, as American and Mexican lawmen (George Murphy and Ricardo Montalban) team up to protect Mexican braceros from exploitation and worse at the hands of unscrupulous (and murderous) American ranchers. That Anthony Mann directed was reason enough to put this film in our queue. But also: the cinematography is by John Alton, with the deepest blacks, the brightest whites, and the most mysterious shadows. ★★★★

*

Victim (dir. Basil Dearden, 1961). “Somebody called this law against homosexuals the blackmailer’s charter”: life in an England in which sexual acts between men were still criminalized. Dirk Bogarde stars as Melville Farr, a married man and rising barrister threatened with blackmail. Will he pay, or out himself and fight? ★★★★

*

Marwencol (dir. Jeff Malmberg, 2010). I had this documentary on my Netflix “saved” list for years, and finally it’s available, no doubt because a major motion picture with Steve Carell, Welcome to Marwen, premieres this week. The story of Mark Hogancamp, for whom dolls and storytelling become a way to cope with trauma. Hogancamp’s imaginary town of Marwencol has strong overtones (for me, anyway) of Henry Darger’s Realms of the Unreal: each is the site of a battle between good and evil, with each creator a protagonist in battle. ★★★★

*

Double Lover (dir. François Ozon, 2017). A young woman (Marine Vacth) who suffers from what seem to be psychosomatic stomach pains receives a referral to a therapist (Jérémie Renier). What follows looks like a sometimes preposterous erotic thriller, but is — I think — a hallucinatory story about desire and doubles, with echoes of The Shining and Vertigo. I need to watch again to get a better sense of what’s happening, or isn’t. ★★★

*

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood (dir. Matt Tyrnauer, 2017). “It’s not a secret really — it may be a secret to some square that lives in Illinois.” A documentary about Scotty Bowers, who for many years supplied sexual partners (including himself) to closeted men and women in the Hollywood film industry. Astonishing because it seems at times as if everyone was in a closet, depressing because of Scotty’s capacity for self-deception: he was a friend, he insists, not a pimp! ★★★

*

The Monster and the Girl (dir. Stuart Heisler, 1941). A low-budget but exceptionally stylish film that’s insanely awful, or insanely great, or both. Begins as a story of gangsters, prostitution, and a man framed for murder; ends with a dog bereft after the loss of his ape companion. Add the middle and everything makes sense, sort of. ★★★★

*

Riot in Cell Block 11 (dir. Don Siegel, 1954). An often brutal but largely sympathetic depiction of a prison uprising, with both inmates and warden agreeing that conditions are intolerable. And a great chance to see a number of lesser-known actors shine: Whit Bissell, Neville Brand, Frank Faylen, Leo Gordon, and Emile Meyer, among others. Filmed in Folsom State Prison, with guards and prisoners as extras. ★★★★

*

The Blackboard Jungle (dir. Richard Brooks, 1955). For me it breaks apart into its small memorable bits: the grammar lesson, Morales and the tape recorder, the destruction of a record collection, the students gathered around the piano, New Year’s Eve in the hospital. As a rookie teacher at a vocational high school, Glenn Ford’s Mr. Dadier (or Daddy-O, as his students call him) makes every mistake imaginable — turning his back, picking out an antagonist, trying to curry another student’s favor — and yet he still figures out a way to reach his class (cartoons!). The real star of the film is Sidney Poitier as student Greg Miller, cynical, wary, and sane. ★★★★

 
[Louise Brooks as Lulu. Louise Brooks as Thymian. Click for larger views.]

Related reading
All OCA film posts (Pinboard)

[Whatever became of Edith Meinhard? An assidious blogger has tried to find out.]