Twelve movies

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

Alabama Snake (dir. Theo Love, 2020). A true-crime saga that creeps along at a snail’s, not snake’s, pace. Long story short: in 1991, a preacher from the Pentecostal Holiness tradition of “signs following” — signs that include handling poisonous snakes and drinking strychnine — was charged with attempting to murder his wife by snakebite. This documentary could do much more to give greater context for the history of these religious traditions — who, what, when, where. During one lull in the story, I began reciting William Carlos Williams: “The pure products of America / go crazy.” ★★ (M)

[Holy Ghost People would be a better introduction to this world.]

*

F for Fake (dir. Orson Welles, Gary Graver, Oja Kodar, 1973). Fraudsters on parade: the art fraudster Elmyr de Hory and the literary hoaxer Clifford Irving (who wrote a biography of de Hory), both found among the beautiful people of Ibiza. I liked seeing Joseph Cotten in a brief appearance, but the overall ethos — forgery and fraud as charming magic tricks — leaves me cold. This documentary is a bit of a shambles, or a real mish-mash, as my dad would have called it. A ridiculous amount of time goes to looking at Oja Kodar, Welles’s lover at the time, who even gets a directing credit. ★★ (CC)

*

‌ Almost True: The Noble Art of Forgery (dir. Knut W. Jorfald, 1997). A short documentary about de Hory, who made money not by copying originals but by creating drawings and paintings to be sold as Matisses, Modiglianis, Picassos. His life, recounted here by Clifford Irving, among others, is clouded in mystery, the principal one being how he acquired the technique to make persuasive fakes. I think that every documentary I’ve seen about visual art in recent years has been about the conversion of art into money — sigh. ★★★ (CC)

[See also Brillo Box (3¢ off) and Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art.]

*

Deported (dir. Robert Siodmak, 1950). Jeff Chandler plays “Vic Smith,” or Vittorio Sparducci, an American gangster deported to Italy. He left a hundred thousand dollars behind in the States, and when he’s not being taken in by one woman (Marina Berti) or wooing another (Märta Torén), he’s working out a scheme to get the money. There’s not much of Italy (where the movie was filmed) on view, and a final showdown in a warehouse does little to redeem the proceedings. Not Robert Siodmak’s finest ninety minutes. ★★ (YT)

*

The Circus (dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1928). Chaplin as a tramp, the tramp, who flees the law, ends up in a circus, works there as a handyman, and, finally, becomes the star of the show — though not forever. As Jan Brady might say, Chaplin, Chaplin, Chaplin: Chaplin as an automaton, Chaplin in a funhouse room of mirrors (an inspiration for The Lady from Shanghai ), Chaplin in a lion’s cage, Chaplin on the highwire, where is tormented by monkeys. With Merna Kennedy as a circus ingenue and Harry Crocker as an aerialist. In 1969 Chaplin rereleased the movie with a new musical score and his own latter-day vocal rendition of “Swing Little Girl” playing over the opening credits. ★★★★ (CC)

*

State and Main (dir. David Mamet, 2000). Watching again with friends, I better appreciated how carefully constructed this movie is, with countless elements whose significance only comes through on a second viewing. And I appreciated once again, though no better, what a great actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was. For fans only: a website, now archived, about The Old Mill, the movie within the movie. Go Huskies! ★★★★ (CC)

*

Shadows (dir. John Cassavetes, 1959). Love and friendship among hipsters in New York City. I know that I’m supposed to like the movie, but, well, you see, uhm, no. The acting is either clumsy or overblown (and not improv, though the credits say it is) and the plot is beyond thin. To me, the movie’s value is documentary: a chance to hear Shafi Hadi and Charles Mingus and to see the city streets as they looked in the late 1950s. ★★ (CC)

*

Doubt (dir. John Patrick Shanley, 2008). Four people in conflict: an authoritarian nun, Sister Aloysius Brauvier (Meryl Streep); a deeply inward, kindly priest, Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman); a young but not too perky nun, Sister James (Amy Adams); and a student’s mother, Mrs. Miller (Viola Davis). I don’t want to reveal too much: suffice it to say that an accusation is made. How it’s treated might surprise you. And the ending, which must have been a shocker on the stage, is a shocker on the screen too. ★★★★ (TCM)

*

Walk Softly, Stranger (dir. Robert Stevenson, 1950). Shelved by Howard Hughes, and then brought out to capitalize on the success of The Third Man. Joseph Cotten is a ne’er-do-well who enters into the life of a small town, boarding with an elderly widow (Spring Byington) and wooing the paraplegic daughter of a shoe manufacturer. But in comes a figure from Hale’s past (Paul Stewart), and things begin to go awry. As for an ending, The Third Man got it right. ★★★ (TCM)

*

Fly by Night (dir. Robert Siodmak, 1942). Robert Siodmak’s second American movie, and a definite obscurity, something of a cross between The 39 Steps and a screwball comedy. A young doctor (Richard Carlson) is the Hitchcockian wrong man, accused of murdering an asylum escapee who wasn’t crazy and was — in fact — the prisoner of a Nazi spy ring seeking the secret plans for G-32. The doctor lams it with a young sketch artist (Nancy Kelly) who becomes an instantly trusting sidekick. I’d like to see a better print of this movie, which takes place mostly at night and deserves better-looking darkness. ★★★ (YT)

*

The Man Who Watched Trains Go By (dir. Harold French, 1952). “He’s got no future, and he doesn’t seem to have had much of a past”: that’s Kees Popinga (Claude Rains), for eighteen years the staid chief clerk in a Dutch trading company whose owner (Herbert Lom) is now suspected of funny stuff with company funds. An unexpected turn of events leave Popinga with a suitcase full of the boss’s money, and with it, he travels to Paris, where he meets and becomes smitten with his boss’s lover, Michele Rozier (Märta Torén). Meanwhlle, he’s being pursued by a French police inspector (Marius Goring). Technicolor noir, from a novel by George Simenon. ★★★ (T)

*

Joe MacBeth (dir. Ken Hughes, 1955). “Don’t let the Duke push you around so much, Joe”: Paul Douglas is Joe MacBeth, a mobster whose wife Lily (Ruth Roman) pushes him to climb higher and higher in the hierarchy by any (bloody) means necessary. But success is short-lived, and it comes to an end in a darkened mansion where Joe has taken, as they say, to the mattresses. Best scenes: the chestnut-vendor/fortune teller (Minerva Pious) standing in for Shakespeare’s witches, the appearance of Banky’s ghost (Sidney James), and the grim ending. An ingenious translation of the Shake into gangsterese. ★★★★ (YT)

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