Twelve movies

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

Festival (dir. Murray Lerner, 1967). Scenes fom the Newport Folk Festival, 1963 to 1966. The crowds are young, earnest, and almost entirely white. The greatest shares of screen time go to the big names: Joan Baez (relentless vibrato), Bob Dylan (wheezy harmonica and raggedy going-electric), and Peter, Paul, and Mary (guitars hoisted high in a choreographed gesture as songs end). The most exciting moments for me: Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, and Mississippi Fred McDowell, seen in truncated performances. ★★★★

The Window (dir. Ted Tetzlaff, 1949). A boy given to telling tall tales sees a murder through a apartment window — and no one, not even his father or his mother, believes him. Bobby Driscoll is brave and resourceful. Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman are the unsavory people one flight up. An unanswered question that hints at the sordidness upstairs: what was the victim doing in that apartment anyway? ★★★★

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (dir. Fritz Lang, 1956). A newspaper editor opposed to capital punishment cooks up a scheme with his future son-in-law (Dana Andrews) to have said son-in-law convicted of murder on specious circumstantial evidence, after which all will be revealed. And things begin to go wrong. The bizarre plot — bizarre in a good way — is helped by the lack of chemistry between Andrews and Joan Fontaine. My favorite line: “That’s a weird, crazy idea, but maybe that’s the reason it intrigues me.” ★★★

Night Editor (dir. Henry Levin, 1946). A perfect B picture, with an atmospheric frame story — newspapermen in near darkness, smoking, playing cards, and listening to the editor’s tale — and a satisfying twist that joins the tale to its frame. William Gargan is credible as a cop who witnesses a murder that he cannot talk about, but Janis Carter, with her booze and ice pick (shades of Basic Instinct), steals the show. This movie, which was to be the first in a series, is based on a long-running radio serial that became the basis for a short-lived television series. I wish there had been more movies. ★★★★

Art and Craft (dir. Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, and Mark Becker, 2014). A documentary about Mark Landis, a forger and self-styled philanthropist who travels to museums (on “philanthropic binges”) to donate his creations and share backstories of imaginary dead relations and their art collections. Landis, who looks like a ghostlier John Malkovich, works with the television on (often TCM), in a house that he shared and, one might say, still shares with his mother. In his self-knowledge and self-deprecation (and mental illness), Landis reminded me at many points of R. Crumb’s brother Charles. But Landis appears to be flourishing, filled with purpose and engaged in the world, making a wholly original life by means of imitation, and now by making original portraits from photographs. ★★★★

The Green Glove (dir. Rudolph Maté, 1952). Mix one part The Maltese Falcon to three or four parts The 39 Steps to get what happens here. Glenn Ford plays an ex-GI searching for a lost religious relic; George Macready is the Nazi collaborator after the same relic. The real treasure here is Geraldine Brooks, a smart, saucy partner to Ford — and it’s not surprising to learn that they had an affair while making this movie. I wonder if the dizzying footchase on mountains might have helped inspire the ending of North by Northwest. ★★★

Never Trust a Gambler (dir. Ralph Murphy, 1951). An ex-husband shows up at his ex-wife’s house, looking for a place to hide so that he won’t have to implicate his best friend and employer by testifying in a murder trial. When a lecherous cop barges in with a bottle in his pocket, complications ensue. Dane Clark and Cathy O’Donnell are credible as mismatched exes finding, at least for a while, common cause. With a great final sequence at the Los Angeles shipyards, wherever they are. ★★★★

Bunny Lake Is Missing (dir. Otto Preminger, 1965). I’ve now seen Carol Lynley in two films — Once You Kiss a Stranger. . . and this one. Yes, she was beautiful, or beyond beautiful, but she was also a eminently capable actress. Here, by turns fierce, fragile, desperate, and resolved, she plays a young mother whose daughter goes missing — but there’s some doubt about whether that daughter in fact exists. This exceedingly disturbing family romance also stars Keir Dullea and Laurence Olivier. ★★★★

Bombardier (dir. Richard Wallace, 1943). In childhood, Elaine watched this movie with friends again and again on Saturday afternoons — even singing along to “Song of the Bombardiers.” So we had to watch, and we were impressed by some edge-of-seat aerial sequences. But a wealth of acting talent (Pat O’Brien, Randolph Scott, Anne Shirley, Robert Ryan) is herein used for little more than propaganda. I suppose this movie could serve our president’s newfound cause of “patriotic education.” ★★

Cry of the City (dir. Robert Siodmak, 1948). Two guys from the same neighborhood: Marty Rome (Richard Conte), a cocky hood who slips through the hands of the law, and Lieutenant Candella (Victor Mature), determined to grab him back. The movie is surprisingly inert, as there seems to be nothing between Rome and Candella but mutual contempt. I liked the seedy streets, the all-night diner, and Mama Rome’s kitchen. The best scenes: Rome’s encounters with a crooked lawyer (Barry Kroeger) and a murderous masseuse (Hope Emerson). ★★

Coney Island (dir. Valentine Shevy, 1952). A perfect prelude to follow-up to Little Fugitive: Henry Morgan narrates a short documentary of a day and night at Coney Island. Crowds, a freak show, rides, and some remarkable abstractions made of lights in the dark. The real star of the movie: Albert Hague’s score, which to my ears suggests Gershwin and Poulenc. As a one-time regular at Coney Island, I can’t help realizing in retrospect how squalid it all was — all those bodies, all that sand, yuck. ★★★★

Nightmare Alley (dir. Edmund Goulding, 1947). A weird and wonderful film from William Lindsay Gresham’s weird and wonderful novel. Tyrone Power captures the clueless hubris of Stanton Carlisle, carny and aspiring showman. Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, and Helen Walker are the women he takes or is taken by (and/or with). Ian Keith has a brilliant turn as a gentleman carny turned hapless alcoholic: watch his body language; when he collapses, he looks as if his body is missing a skeleton. The best scene: “Dory!” ★★★★

Related reading
All OCA film posts (Pinboard)