Nine movies, three mini-series

[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, Hulu, Momentu, Netflix, YouTube.]

‌ Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke (dir. Olly Lambert, 2025). A documentary mini-series tracking the dissolution of a family as Ruby Franke, a mommy vlogger with six children and a billion views on YouTube, sheds her (remarkably passive and clueless) husband, takes up with a counselor (so-called), and spirals into unimaginable child abuse. For better or for worse, I never find about such people until they become the stuff of a mini-series. The most telling line is an instruction to a child: “Fake being happy.” The glaring weakness of this series: as it nears its conclusion, the question of how and why things became so bad is never answered but, also, never asked. ★★★ (H)

*

Deadline at Dawn (dir. Harold Clurman, 1946). “Where’s the logic to it, where’s the logic?” asks one character, and I’m reminded of what Ted Berrigan said about a poem of his: that it had an inner logic that he tried to keep very inner. The plot (from a Cornell Woolrich story) is baffling: a murder, and an endless parade of suspects. At the center of things, Alex, a sailor on leave (Bill Williams), June, a taxi dancer (Susan Hayward), and Gus, a cab driver (Paul Lukas). Absolutely impossible to guess whodunit. ★★★ (Mo)

*

The Undercover Man (dir. Joseph H. Lewis, 1949). It has to be said: Glenn Ford is not an undercover man; he’s Frank Warren, a Treasury agent, always identified as such, looking to bring down a never-seen crime boss known only as the Big Fellow. As Frank’s wife Judith, Nina Foch has little to do but (as she says) darn his socks — squirreled away at a lonely farmhouse, she’s never even placed in danger. Barry Kelley does a great job as Edward O’Rourke, mob attorney. Look for Esther Minciotti (Marty Piletti’s mom in Marty) as the mother of a man killed by the mob. ★★ (YT)

*

From the Criterion Channel feature French Poetic Realism

La tête d’un homme (dir. Julien Duvivier, 1933). Harry Baur stars as Georges Simenon’s Inspector Jules Maigret, investigating a murder whose perpetrator seems obvious — to everyone but Maigret. He suspects Radek (Valéry Inkijinoff), a tubercular medical student whom we might type as an incel (and who bears an eerie resemblance to Elon Musk). Atmosphere is everything in this movie: shadows, dramatic camera angles, and some scenes playing out in near silence. And there are moments of grim comedy, when Maigret leans into a suspect’s face. ★★★★

The Lower Depths (dir. Jean Renoir, 1936). An adaptation — with strong comic touches — of Maxim Gorky’s play of life in a shabby boarding house. When a small-time thief, Pépel (Jean Gabin), comes face to face with the baron (Louis Jouvet) whom he’s planning to rob, the two become friends, and the baron, a bankrupt, moves into the boarding house with Pépel as his character reference. A mean landlord (Vladimir Sokoloff), his wife (Suzy Prim), who has eyes for Pépel, her sister (Junie Astor), for whom Pépel has eyes, and a tormented actor who’d be at home in a Dostoevsky novel (Robert Le Vigan) are among those on the premises. Pépel’s story is the heart of the film, but the Buster Keaton-like Jouvet is the real star for me. ★★★★

Remorques (dir. Jean Grémillon, 1941). A fable-like screenplay by Jacques Prévert about a tugboat captain, André (Jean Gabin), married for ten years to Yvonne (Madeleine Renaud). She’s devoted, secretly ailing, and wishing that her husband would forsake his dangerous line of work. Into André’s life comes Catherine (Michèle Morgan), a ship captain’s wife fleeing her loud, violent husband. And trouble follows. Ce film est trop tragique pour une autre phrase en anglais. ★★★★

Les portes de la nuit (dir. Marcel Carné, 1946). Postwar Paris, with Destiny (Jean Vilar) in the form of a ragged tramp roaming the streets. He meets a dashing Resistance fighter returning to the city (Yves Montand) and tells him his future, and lo: it comes to pass. It’s a film filled with types — young lovers, proud father, craven son, unhappily kept woman, rich keeper — with poetic realism turning into something like the allegory of The Fantasticks. And all through the story floats “Les Feuilles mortes,” music by Joseph Kosma, lyrics by Jacques Prévert, who wrote the screenplay. ★★★★

Such a Pretty Little Beach (dir. Yves Allégret, 1949). A man in a trenchcoat, Pierre (Gérard Philipe), appears out of nowhere and checks into a seaside inn — to rest, he says. It’s the off-season, and it’s raining incessantly: one mark of the bleak atmosphere is the way characters nonchalantly step out into the rain sans jackets, sans umbrellas. Who Pierre is, why he’s here, why a newly arrived guest is keeping tabs on his movements: those are questions to answer by watching. A great, great noir. ★★★★

*

From the Criterion Channel feature Douglas Sirk Noir

Lured (dir. Douglas Sirk, 1947). “There’s a homicidal maniac loose somewhere in the vast honeycomb of London”: so says Chief Inspector Harley Temple (Charles Coburn), and it’s up to taxi dancer Sandra Carpenter (Lucille Ball) to lure him into sight. Though it’s not one of the great movies of 1947 (our household’s favorite year in film), it’s more than adequate as a mystery with comic touches. But be on the lookout for plot holes. With Boris Karloff as a looney fashionista, George Sanders as a suave nightclub promoter, and Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Sanders’s live-in best friend (hmm). ★★★ (CC)

*

How to Become a Tyrant (dir. Greg Franklin, Ron Myrick, Harry Chaskin, and Emily Gerich, 2021). A how-to mini-series in six parts, narrated by Peter Dinklage. Begin by seizing power, then proceed to crush your rivals, reign through terror, control the truth (rewrite history, do away with science), remake society, and rule forever. Lessons come from the careers of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and the North Korean dynasty, presented with dark comedy in both text and images. We know that the First Felon doesn’t read books, but I can imagine him having watched this mini-series — whose overarching metaphor is a playbook — again and again after his 2020 defeat: indeed, it seems to be the playbook for his second term. ★★★★ (N)

*

Anora (dir. Sean Baker, 2024). I started looking over at Elaine after thirty minutes, and we reached a shared limit after another fifteen before fast-forwarding to the ending. It’s unfathomable to both of us that this movie won Best Picture. Lots of noise, lots of yelling, lots of sex scenes that look more like aerobics. Dark Comedy, Raunchy Comedy, Romantic Comedy, Steamy Romance: no, I don’t buy any of IMDb’s characterizations. ★ (H)

*

Adolescence (dir. Philip Barantini, 2025). One of the most harrowing dramas I’ve ever seen. In an unnamed English town, a thirteen-year-old boy is accused of an unspeakable crime that he swears he didn’t commit, and his story develops into a painful study of family dynamics, life at school, and the ways in which young people form their ideas about masculinity. Something you might not realize until you’re well into the story: each of the four episodes is shot in a single take, as the camera moves everywhere, while never calling attention to itself. Outstanding performances from all present, particularly Owen Cooper, Erin Doherty, and Stephen Graham. ★★★★ (N)

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