Twelve movies

[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, DVD, TCM, YouTube.]

The Hidden Hand (dir. Benjamin Stoloff, 1942). TCM promised a hunt for a serial killer, but what I got was a dippy comedy with racial stereotypes (Willie Best, Kam Tong) and murders. Briefly: a wealthy woman uses her asylum-escapee brother to do away with her money-grubbing relations. As the escapee John Channing, Milton Parsons alternates between crazed killer and staid butler in a genuinely comic performance. The only other reason I can think of to watch this movie: to see what happens when the ship’s wheel turns. ★★ (TCM)

*

Despair (dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978). An adaptation of the Nabokov novel, with a Tom Stoppard screenplay, Dirk Bogarde as Hermann Hermann (get it?), and Klaus Löwitsch as Felix, Hermann’s supposed doppelgänger. I will quote a young Hobart Shakespearean, Sol Ah: “Even if the movies they make are good, they won’t be as good as the book.” What’s missing from this movie is the self-conscious comedy of Nabokov’s narrator: Hermann here is a character among characters, minus everything that makes his narrative voice a loony delight. It’s like Lolita without Humbert Humbert narrating. ★★ (YT)

[Bonus: the YT version has Portuguese subtitles, so it’s possible to learn a bit of a new language while watching.]

*

San Quentin (dir. Gordon Douglas, 1946). The premise: Nick Taylor (Barton MacLane), a San Quentin inmate and (dirty no-good rotten) member of the Inmates’ Welfare League, escapes while at a prison-sponsored press event touting the League, a self-help group (first step: admit you belong in prison). So the warden (improbably, ridiculously) enlists Taylor’s paroled arch-enemy Jim Roland (Lawrence Tierney) to track the fugitive down. This movie affords the opportunity to see Raymond Burr in his screen debut and to see a real Sing Sing warden awkwardly read from cue cards, eyes moving, right, left, right, left. Still, that real warden is probably sharper than his movie counterpart. ★★ (TCM)

*

Mostly Martha (dir. Sandra Nettelbeck, 2001). I’d call it a feel-good movie with subtitles — which is not necessarily a bad thing. Martha Klein (Martina Gedeck) is a high-strung chef at a posh restaurant, the kind of chef who comes out from the kitchen to yell with a customer and insist that the meat is not undercooked. Everything begins to change when Martha is suddenly pressed into caring for her young niece Lina. And then a new chef, Mario (Sergio Castellitto), begins working at the restaurant, and I know I said no spoilers, but you can see where this is going. ★★★ (DVD)

*

The Harmonists (dir. Joseph Vilsmaier, 1997). The Comedian Harmonists, an extraordinary German vocal quintet with piano, flourished in the late 1920s and early ’30s before the Nazi regime banned them from performing (three members of the group were Jewish). This dramatization traces the group’s rise to popularity (audience-reaction shots suggest a Weimar version of Beatlemania), a romantic rivalry, and ever more ominous developments in German life. The only strike against the movie, to my mind: the final scene, in which “the movies” takes over as the music swells. If you’ve never heard the Comedian Harmonists, forget about the Barry Manilow musical based on their career (coming soon to Broadway); go here instead. ★★★ (DVD)

[The Harmonists appears to be unavailable to stream. Try a library.]

*

From the Criterion Channel’s Holiday Noir feature

I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes (dir. William Nigh, 1948). Don Castle and Elyse Knox are Tom and Alice Quinn, an out-of-work dance team whose lives are upended when footprints from Don’s “magic shoes” (his distinctive tap shoes, and his only shoes) are found at the scene of a murder. This movie must be Castle’s finest hour — he (minus the Clark Gable mustache) and Knox give compellingly understated performances, and the scene in which they talk through a prison visiting-room’s screen is genuinely affecting. Look for Regis Toomey (the soda jerk of Meet John Doe ) as a police detective, and Bill Walker (Reverend Sykes in To Kill a Mockingbird ) as one of the distinctive faces of death row. Despite heavy borrowing from a better-known movie (whose name would give away too much), I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes is a perfect B-picture, a Cornell Woolrich story told in flashback with true noir fatalism: “It could happen to anybody, what happened to me.” ★★★★ (CC)

*

Two from the Criterion Channel’s Hitchcock for the Holidays

Murder! (1930). Sir John Menier (Herbert Marshall) goes along with his fellow jurors but remains haunted by doubt: is Diana Baring (Norah Baring) really a murderess? As Diana’s execution date nears, Sir John sets out to solve the crime. Great atmosphere (a circus), a startling death, and sometimes-impenetrable dialogue. Was Herbert Marshall ever really that young? ★★★★ (CC)

Torn Curtain (1966). When an American physicist (Paul Newman) leaves a conference in Copenhagen for East Germany, his collaborator and wife-to-be (Julie Andrews) follows to figure out what’s going on. I don’t understand the lukewarm reception this movie received: though it’s hardly a novel story, it has all the pleasures of a Hitchcock film, with strong traces of The 39 Steps and North by Northwest. And it has one of the funniest and most gruesome on-screen murders I’ve seen. And it has Lila Kedrova, who steals the show as a countess looking to flee to the States. ★★★★

*

The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe (Buzzfeed Studios, 2021). I have lived my life with only a vague awareness of multi-level marketing. But I know it’s everywhere around me, with downstate-Illinois moms selling cosmetics, essential oils, nutritional supplements, and (way back when) Longaberger baskets to family and friends. This documentary looks at DeAnne Brady and Mark Stidham’s LuLaRoe, purveyors of women’s clothing, primarily “buttery soft” leggings in an endless variety of garish patterns, with an artificial scarcity-factor built in (all-black leggings are a “unicorn”). More importantly, the documentary looks at the lives of women (and one man) who bought into the dream, or, really, into a cult of belief: there’s even a conversation with Rick Ross. ★★★ (M)

*

Cop Hater (dir. William Berke, 1958). It’s Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain) territory: someone is killing cops, for no apparent reason, and it’s up to the 87th Precinct to figure it out. On the one hand, this movie has something of the flavor of Naked City (the series) in its depiction of cops and their relationships with wives or girlfriends. On the other hand, it’s ridiculously lurid (or lure id ), with men removing T-shirts and women removing skirts (it’s summer, and there’s a heat wave). Look for Vincent Gardenia and Jerry Orbach in their first credited screen roles. ★★★ (YT)

*

Naked Alibi (dir. Jerry Hopper, 1954). Someone else is killing cops, making for a chance double-feature. Sterling Hayden is Joseph Conroy, chief of detectives, fired for brutality (“I’m a psycho cop, that’s what they think”), but still determined to prove that hotheaded baker Al Willis (Gene Barry) is the killer. The movie takes an unexpected turn midway, shifting from a sedate California city to a border town and introducing Gloria Grahame as an ambiguous love interest. Nothing especially surprising here: the fun is in trying to figure out who’s the crazy one — Conroy, or Willis. ★★★ (TCM)

*

Vivacious Lady (dir. George Stevens, 1938). A college professor (Jimmy Stewart) marries nightclub singer (Ginger Rogers), but he’s afraid to tell his parents and pretends that she’s his friend’s girlfriend, and the newly marrieds can never get the time alone to do whatever. I should have realized from the premise: it’s a screwball comedy, the kind of comedy I often find mightily unfunny. Charles Coburn is the prof’s dad and college president; Beulah Bondi, is the long-suffering mom. Bondi dancing the Big Apple, Coburn’s monocle dropping from his face, a Murphy bed (named Walter) opening by itself: my, the laughs just keep coming, or not. ★★ (TCM)

Related reading
All OCA “twelve movies” posts (Pinboard)