Twelve movies

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

The Woman in Green (dir. Roy Willian Neill, 1945). I always think these Sherlock Holmes movies will be more interesting than they turn out to be. Holmes’s (Basil Rathbone) deductions are often tenuous at best, which makes me wonder whether the detective keeps Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) around because he’s so easily impressed. The plot here involves random murders and the surgeon-like removal of fingers. I didn’t realize that we’d seen it before until the last few minutes of aerial adventure. ★★ (YT)

*

Criminal Court (dir. Robert Wise, 1946). A thrice-told tale: there’s The Man Who Talked Too Much (1940), this loose remake with Tom Conway and Martha O’Driscoll, and the later remake Illegal (1955) — which is by far the best of the three movies. This effort is ridiculously improbable. For instance: if your boyfriend is running to be district attorney, do not sing in a nightclub owned by a racketeer, do not flee the office in which you find the racketeer shot dead, and do not proceed to hide out from the police. And for instance: if you’re running for district attorney, do not flee the office in which you too find the racketeer shot to death. ★ (TCM)

*

Cunk on Life (dir. Al Campbell, 2024). Are cells worth having? What percentage of people have a human body? A spoof of BBC documentaries, with comedian Diane Morgan as Philomena Cunk, asking big questions of academics and scientists, all of whom keep astonishingly straight faces (though particle physicist Brian Cox gives as good as he gets). Morgan’s delivery is spot on, and the comedy is quick or quicker: let your attention lapse for a second or two and you’ll miss something. ★★★★ (N)

*

More Than a Secretary (dir. Alfred E. Green, 1936). Bespectacled Carol Baldwin (Jean Arthur) leaves the secretarial school she runs with another gal to land a man of her own: health nut and editor of Body and Brain Fred Gilbert (George Brent). But Carol finds that she has competition from a former student, the very dim, very blonde Maizie (not Mae) West (Dorothea Kent). Though the scenes of office life, with mandatory exercise led by the hulking Ernest (Lionel Stander), are fun, this comedy quickly runs out of energy. I’m not happy about giving any Jean Arthur movie fewer than four stars. ★★ (CC)

*

Anna Karenina (dir. Julien Duvivier, 1948). Shame on us: we watched three adaptations in 2022 after reading the novel but had forgotten all three. This one remains the best, with Vivien Leigh is a tormented Anna, Kieron Moore is a glamorous Count Vronsky, and Ralph Richardson is a wounded, vindictive Aleksey Karenin. But the novel is about families , and that emphasis is missing here. A lavish production, with a score by Constant Lambert and the eerie image of a bearded man checking a train’s wheels. ★★★★ (CC)

*

The Long Dark Hall (dir. Reginald Beck and Anthony Bushell, 1951). The frame story, with a writer and editor talking about the premise for a murder mystery, makes me think that the contrivances and stock elements in this story make it a meta spoof of the stuff a hack writer might work up — either that, or it’s kinda dumb. Rex Harrison plays a married businessman carrying on an affair with a showgirl. When she’s found dead, he’s accused of her murder, but his wife (Lilli Palmer) stands by him. That Harrison and Palmer were married when this movie was made is another point that makes me lean toward meta. ★★★★/★★ (YT)

[Four stars if it’s a spoof, two if it’s not.]

*

D.O.A. (dir. Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, 1988). We’d already given up on No Way Out (a remake of The Big Clock) when we decided to try this one from the Criterion Channel feature ’80 Remakes and Their Originals. I’m not a fan of the original D.O.A., with its goofy sound effects and awkward love story, but it stands far above this effort, a preposterous reimagining, with an novelist manqué English professor (Dennis Quaid) as the poisoned protagonist, an insanely cooperative freshman (Meg Ryan) as his sidekick, and a key plot device borrowed from Deathtrap. Ryan’s character: “You know, I don’t get off on this Rambo shit.” Me neither. ★ (CC)

*

Born to Kill (dir. Robert Wise, 1947). From our household’s favorite year in movies, with Lawrence Tierney as the aptly named Sam Wild, a fellow who’ll kill at the slightest hint of betrayal. And yes, he’s irresistible, to both Georgia Brent (Audrey Long) and her foster sister Helen (Claire Trevor), who proclaims, “You, you’re strength, excitement, and depravity!” Three grotesques — Sam’s queerish sidekick (Elisha Cook Jr.), a shabby private detective (Walter Slezak), and an alcoholic landlady looking to get the goods on Sam (Esther Howard) — add considerable value to the story. One of the darkest film noirs, and how did Robert Wise ever go from this movie to The Sound of Music? ★★★★

*

The Captive City (dir. Robert Wise, 1952). Based on the work of Alvin M. Josephy Jr., a reporter for Time and co-writer of the screenplay. Jim Austin, the editor of a small-town newspaper (John Forsythe), works to uncover the doings of a Mafia gambling operation, one in which the town’s prominent businessmen all have their shares. Shot on location in Reno, Nevada (of all places), with plenty of glimpses of mid-century life (I especially enjoyed seeing the book-crammed house of the Austins, Jim and Marge (Joan Camden), who has her own career as a syndicated gardening columnist). Some startling scenes: the murder by car of a crusty private detective (Hal K. Dawson), the beating of a young newspaper photographer (Martin Milner), and a cameo by Estes Kefauver. ★★★ (YT)

*

Diplomatic Courier (dir. Henry Hathaway, 1952). Mike Kells (Tyrone Power) thinks of himself as a mailman: he’s a diplomatic courier, whose mission is to travel to Salzburg and pick up a secret document from an American agent (an ex-Navy friend). But it gets complicated, with the agent killed, a wealthy American woman of means (Patricia Neal) pursuing him, and another woman, a “Red” agent (Hildegard Knef), pursuing him for a different purpose. Lots of atmosphere, and a great sequence on a train, but the story is fairly inert. The most interesting scene, with a female impersonator in a nightclub (Max Ralli), won’t make sense until much later. ★★★ (YT)

*

Two for the Seesaw (dir. Robert Wise, 1962). Robert Mitchum, a lawyer from Omaha awaiting a divorce, has come east to live in a Mulberry Street tenement and wander the big city. Shirley MacLaine is a dancer plugged into the hip world. Anyone interested in cringing at the sexual politics of a not distant past would do well to watch this dreadful movie (an adaptation of a play by William Gibson: this Gibson, not this one). Everything about this effort feels contrived, but it’s worth watching for at least two more reasons: to see how bad a movie with great actors can be, and to see mid-century Manhattan and a bit of the Bronx via Ted McCord’s black-and-white cinematography. ★ (A)

*

Remarkably Bright Creatures (dir. Olivia Newman, 2026). Set in Washington State, it’s a strange one, with Tova (Sally Field), an aquarium cleaning lady who lost her son many years ago; Cameron (Lewis Pullman), a musician who lives in his van, and Marcellus (Agnetha), an octopus (voiced by Alfred Molina) who comments on the doings of the humans whose lives he follows. Suspension of disbelief is easy when it comes to Marcellus’s ruminations. It’s more difficult with the human doings at open-mic night, a scene that drags things into Hallmark territory. But then the movie pulls itself together and moves toward a remarkable ending. ★★★★ (N)

[I lean toward three stars, but I’m adding a star for Sally Field, who’s just so good. And the music over the end credits, Mal Waldron’s “Warm Canto” deserves four stars on its own.]

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All OCA “twelve movies” posts (Pinboard)