Twelve movies

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

Fingers at the Window (dir. Charles Lederer, 1942). Axe murderers — yes, plural, are terrorizing Chicago. Late one night, a top-hatted actor (Lew Ayres) saves a pedestrian (Laraine Day) from one of these killers, and our story begins. A low-budget thriller with many (too many) comic touches. And one or two surprising Joycean moments. ★★ (TCM)

*

The Unsuspected (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1947). I was happy to rewatch a murder mystery with a radio host as star — Claude Rains as Victor Gadison, “writer, art collector, and teller of strange tales,” and host of ‌The Unsuspected. I had forgotten though that most of the action develops in a big, dark house: what we have here is really Gothic noir, with a strong nod to Laura. As in, say, The Big Sleep, the plot is difficult to follow: atmosphere here is what counts. Also counting: Constance Bennett as an Eve Arden type, Audrey Totter as a snippy demon, and Woody Bredell’s cinematography. ★★★★ (TCM)

*

Shed No Tears (dir. Jean Yarborough, 1948). In this B-movie, June Vincent plays Edna Glover, who convinces her sad-sack husband Sam (Wallace Ford) to fake his death and hide out while she waits to collect on his life insurance. But Edna has a man on the side, and Sam has a son, and a long-winded private detective begins to look into this purportedly accidental death. Weirdest scene: Sam and Edna sleeping in separate beds, he with a revolver on his stomach. As the effete detective, Johnstone White provides added interest. ★★ (YT)

*

Christmas in Pine Valley (dir. Damián Romay, 2022). It’s a feeble imitation of Christmas in Connecticut (dir. Peter Godfrey, 1945) and a product of Candace Cameron Bure’s Great American Family network, which may explain why the dark cloud hanging over the reporter visiting Pine Valley Farm (Andrew Biernat) is his carelessness with facts for a story about “the college admissions scandal” (that’s payback, I think: recall that Bure’s fellow Full House actor Lori Loughlin was one of the parents snared in the 2019 real-world scandal). This movie is laughably bad, with dialogue that sounds like something from Duolingo exercises (“I’m very interested to learn more about your Pine Valley Family Farm”), and reporter Josh spending day after day after day at the farm for a magazine puff piece, only to discover the sordid truth that those who run this farm are trying to put one over on him. (There’s the Christmas in Connecticut connection.) We watched as a fambly and laughed until we choked for breath. ★/★★★★ (As a movie, one star; as a bad movie, four.) (H)

*

The Bishop’s Wife (dir. Henry Koster, 1947). Does Cary Grant really play the harp? Elaine wrote a post that gets a flurry of visits whenever the movie airs (he doesn’t), and her post and our recent appreciation of Loretta Young’s acting prompted me to suggest watching this movie again. Cozy, snowy, city stuff: Henry (David Niven), a newly appointed bishop, courts wealthy donors to fund the construction of a cathedral; his beautiful wife Julia (Young) is left to her own devices; and the angel Dudley (Cary Grant) arrives to set things right (while enjoying a Platonic affair with Julia). Loopiest scene: not the harp but the skating. ★★★★ (R)

*

Criterion shorts

One of the less obvious pleasures of the Criterion Channel is its collection of shorts.

N.U. (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1948). The title stands for nettezza urbana: or urban sanitation. A look at Italian street sweepers, an brigade at work with brooms and shovels. The voiceover makes the point that the viewer doesn’t know these men, and the film honors their privacy: there are no interviews, only glimpses of men starting their day, doing their work, and going home to what appears to be utter poverty. A grim postwar landscape, but still the streets get clean. ★★★★

The Bowery (dir. Sara Driver, 1994). A sad ten minutes on the boulevard of broken dreams. Lucy Sante is the occasional narrator, speaking of the street’s past of dime museums, tattoo parlors, and taverns. What we see of the Bowery’s present leans heavily to substance abuse and mental illness. By 2019, when Elaine and I walked the Bowery on our way to an art gallery, much of this world was already gone, and the gentrification vibe was strong, as the words art gallery already make clear. ★★★★

Stoney Knows How (dir. Pacho Lane, 1981). Tattoo artist Leonard L. “Stoney” St. Clair (1912–1980) could be a character out of a Tom Waits song. “Crippled up” from childhood by rheumatoid arthritis, Stoney drew incessantly while hospitalized in childhood, ran off with a circus at the age of fifteen, learned the art of sword swallowing, and came to tattooing not long after. Limited mobility (in both arms and legs) seems to have been no impediment to his artistry, which is amply on display here, along with his gift for storytelling. A visual and verbal treat (and dig all the signage in Stoney’s storefront shop). ★★★★ (CC)

[You can watch at Folkstream.]

Caring Cabin (dir. Chelsea McMullan and Douglas Nayler, Jr. 2025). It’s the pilot for a children’s television show, put on hold when its host, electronic music pioneer and transman Beverly Glenn-Copeland, here “Glenn,” was diagnosed with dementia. The pilot is eleven minutes of peaceful, happy music and talk, with film footage from nature, singing squirrel and flower puppets, and the host in the midst of it all. A charming cross between Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Pee-wee’s Playhouse. I think kids would have loved it. ★★★★

Carol & Joy (dir. Nathan Silver, 2025). A Criterion Channel premiere: a short documentary about Carol Kane and her mother Joy. Or, really, a documentary of the two, random snatches of conversation and musical performance in a small Upper West Side apartment, filmed with a handheld camera and the screen sometimes going blank when the film runs out. Some background info about Joy, perhaps in the form of intertitles, would be helpful: all I can gather from the movie itself is that she was ninety-eight at the time of filming, a vocal coach, and a former dancer (note: she has a website). Give Joy a full-length movie, and let her tell her story. ★★★ (CC)

*

In Our Time (dir. Vincent Sherman, 1944). Poland: the Second War has not yet begun when Jennifer Whittredge (Ida Lupino), an aide-de-camp to a wealthy English antiques buyer visiting Poland (Mary Boland), meets Count Stefan Orwid (Paul Henreid). Their romance plays out against a backdrop of war and intrafamily conflict. Henreid and Lupino shine: each is hesitant, shy, and finally, resolute. Michael Chekhov has a fine turn as a wise, cigarette-smoking uncle. ★★★★ (TCM)

*

‌The New Yorker at 100 (dir. Marshall Curry, 2025). A documentary that seems designed to pull in younger readers, while giving much the magazine’s history short or shorter shrift. Julianne Moore narrates; a series of actors and comedians talk about how wonderful The New Yorker is; David Remnick, the magazine’s editor, is especially prominent; a handful of current writers, cartoonists, editors, and staff get some time in front of the camera (Richard Brody and Roz Chast are fun); and the magazine’s social conscience is given place of prominence, with emphasis on contributions by James Baldwin, Rachel Carson, Ronan Farrow, and John Hersey. So much is missing: Jamaica Kincaid, J.D. Salinger, E.B. White, and other writers are names that float across the screen; there is no mention of Roger Angell, Whitney Balliett, Maeve Brennan, A.J. Liebling, John McPhee, Joseph Mitchell, S.J. Perelman, James Thurber, or Calvin Trillin; almost no mention of Pauline Kael; no mention of Eleanor Gould, “Miss Gould,” the magazine’s famed copy editor; no mention of Mary Norris, who can be seen for a moment in one staff meeting. The low point is hearing about and then seeing a telegram from Harold Ross, the magazine’s founder, to “a writer” who wanted to quit the magazine: that writer, left unidentified (save for his name on a telegram), was E.B. White. ★★ (N)

[Harold Ross to “a writer.” Click for a larger view.]

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