Twelve movies

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

The Reckless Moment (dir. Max Ophüls, 1949). Unlike so many YouTube offerings labeled film noir, this film really is one, with a mother, Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett), front and center, protecting her daughter Bea (Geraldine Brooks) from a shady older man. After that man falls to his death (an accident), Harper must contend with a blackmailer (James Mason) who threatens to pin the death on Bea. Kids! With no one but herself to rely on, Bennett’s character is as indefatigable as a mother bear protecting a cub. ★★★★

*

The Whole Town’s Talking (dir. John Ford, 1935). One swell comedy, a tour de force for Edward G. Robinson, who plays bank robber Killer Manion and mild-mannered clerk Arthur F. Jones, who looks just like Manion. The scenes with both characters are just wonderful. Jean Arthur is Jones’s co-worker: do you think they could possibly fall in love? A bonus: Etienne Girardot and Donald Meek play a pair of fussy little men — near-doubles. ★★★★

*

New York Confidential (dir. Russell Rouse, 1955). To paraphrase Rick Wilson’s comment on another mob boss: everything Lupo touches dies. The film stars Broderick Crawford as mob boss Charlie Lupo and Richard Conte as his new hit man Nick Magellan, improbably included in discussions of strategy at the highest levels (even with respectable politicians). Anne Bancroft plays the boss’s daughter Kathy, trying to make a life away from the father whose criminal enterprise fills her with shame. Mike Mazurki adds appropriate atmosphere. ★★★★

*

Storm Center (dir. Daniel Taradash, 1956). “I’ve often said, ‘A librarian is a peninsula surrounded on three sides by a city council’”: thus Alicia Hull (Bette Davis), librarian. This modest cautionary tale, shot on location in Santa Rosa, California, weaves together the love of reading, small-town friendships, political opportunism, a family in conflict (bookish son, “cultured” mother, tough-guy father), censorship, groupthink, and the Red Scare. With good performances from Kevin Coughlin, Kim Hunter, Brian Keith, and Paul Kelly. Look closely: the library is Santa Rosa’s, just as in Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt. ★★★★

*

The Slender Thread (dir. Sydney Pollack, 1965). Extraordinary aerial views of Seattle begin the story of a telephone call to a crisis center, with Sidney Poitier as a student volunteer trying to keep Anne Bancroft’s desperate housewife awake and on the line (she’s taken pills) while her call is traced (and flashbacks show us recent events in her life). Phone fanatics will appreciate the details of the trace (collected in this YouTube clip); non-fanatics will appreciate the acting, though Poitier sometimes goes a bit overboard. Everyone will appreciate the utterly awkward discotheque scene. The screenplay is by Sterling Silliphant, so any Naked City or Route 66 fan already has a reason to watch. ★★★★

[The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255 (TALK).]

*

Walk on the Wild Side (dir. Edward Dmytryk, 1962). From the Nelson Algren novel, though I can’t say how faithful the adaptation is. Life in a New Orleans bordello, with Laurence Harvey as Dove, a drifter in search of Hallie (Capucine), an artist who now works (why?) in the bordello, which is run by Barbara Stanwyck’s Jo, who wants Hallie for herself. With Anne Baxter as a Mexican café owner and Jane Fonda as a drifter and novice prostitute. Over-the-top dialogue, rampant improbability (Dove and Hallie?), and great titles by Saul Bass. ★★★

*

The Blue Gardenia (dir. Fritz Lang, 1953). Telephone operator Norah (Anne Baxter) goes on a last-minute date with a pin-up artist (Raymond Burr), resists his advances, swings a fireplace poker, and fears she’s committed murder. Many familiar actors here: Richard Conte, as a newspaper columnist looking to monetize the story; Ann Sothern and Jeff Donnell, as Norah’s sassy and nerdy apartment-mates; George Reeves, as a mustache-wearing police detective; and Nat “King” Cole, as himself, singing “Blue Gardenia.” Two of the more interesting elements of the movie: its depiction of three women sharing an apartment in post-war Los Angeles and its depiction of grownups on a “date” — with plenty of alcohol and risk. Plot-wise though, things are pretty thin. ★★★

*

Bonjour Tristesse (dir. Otto Preminger, 1958). Raymond (David Niven) is an indolent playboy; Cécile (Jean Seberg) is his indolent daughter, who calls him Raymond and kisses him on the lips, often; Elsa (Mylène Demongeot) is his young lover; Anne (Deborah Kerr) is a friend of his late wife, and a new, more serious presence in his life, one Cécile does not appreciate. Seberg’s Cécile, almost always in shorts or swimsuit, is a dazzling, soulless figure on screen. Glorious cinematography on the French Riviera (Georges Périnal), in black and white and color, but the film amounts to little more than its beautiful surfaces. My favorite moment: Juliette Gréco singing “Bonjour Tristesse.” ★★★

*

Hell’s House (dir. Howard Higgin, 1932). Bette Davis and Pat O’Brien are the nominal stars, but the film belongs to two actors nicknamed Junior: Durkin and Coghlan, as Jimmy and Shorty, prisoners and best pals in a reformatory. See, Matt — that’s Pat O’Brien — he’s a flashy bootlegger, a pretty slick guy, only Jimmy — that’s Junior Durkin — he don’t know about the bootleggin’, so when the cops find liquor at Matt’s place, Jimmy takes the rap, thinkin’ Matt’s been set up, and guess what? — Matt lets him do it, the dirty bum. That don’t sit well with Bette Davis — I mean with Peggy, she’s Matt’s girl — and, boy, what a dish. Okay, I’m done: socially conscious and surprisingly good, with the actors mostly unstilted. ★★★

*

Red Light (dir. Roy Del Ruth, 1949). George Raft — such a gifted dancer, but such a wooden actor. Here he’s the head of a trucking company, searching for the hotel-room Bible that holds the secret that will enable him to exact vengeance for — wait, no spoilers. I l enjoyed the cheap, grimy interiors — not just a bowling alley but the bowling alley’s men’s room! — and the parade of familiar faces: Raymond Burr, Gene Lockhart, Virginia Mayo, Harry Morgan. Two moments that make the movie worth watching: the truck, the neon sign. ★★

*

And when I die, I won't stay dead (dir. Billy Woodberry, 2015). A documentary about the Beat poet Bob Kaufman (1925–1986), famed for taking a ten-year vow of silence after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The film is marred by carelessness (typos in the intertitles) and a lack of narrative coherence, shifting, halfway in, to the story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and then to Kaufman’s earliest years. It’s exciting to see archival footage of beatniks in San Francisco (Kaufman is said to have coined the word beatnik). But the poetry, to my ear, is just not enough: “Mulberry-eyed girls in black stockings, / Smelling vaguely of mint jelly and last night’s bongo drummer.” ★★

*

Little Fugitive (dir. Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin, 1953). An affecting bittersweet comedy, with a cast of almost all non-professional actors, filmed in a stellar low-budget semi-documentary style. A mother leaves her sons for a day to care for her ailing mother, and a cruel prank prompts younger son Joey to run off and hide out at Coney Island. For a Brooklynite of a certain age, the scenes on the beach and on and under the boardwalk will be beyond evocative. With a musical score for chromatic harmonica, composed and performed by Eddy Manson. ★★★★


[Joey (Richie Andrusco), collecting and turning in empties to finance more pony rides. You should really see Little Fugitive. Click for a larger view.]

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All OCA film posts (Pinboard)