Twelve movies

[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers.]

The Reckless Moment (dir. Max Ophüls, 1949). Unlike so many YouTube offerings labeled film noir, this film really is one, with a mother, Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett), front and center, protecting her daughter Bea (Geraldine Brooks) from a shady older man. After that man falls to his death (an accident), Harper must contend with a blackmailer (James Mason) who threatens to pin the death on Bea. Kids! With no one but herself to rely on, Bennett’s character is as indefatigable as a mother bear protecting a cub. ★★★★

*

The Whole Town’s Talking (dir. John Ford, 1935). One swell comedy, a tour de force for Edward G. Robinson, who plays bank robber Killer Manion and mild-mannered clerk Arthur F. Jones, who looks just like Manion. The scenes with both characters are just wonderful. Jean Arthur is Jones’s co-worker: do you think they could possibly fall in love? A bonus: Etienne Girardot and Donald Meek play a pair of fussy little men — near-doubles. ★★★★

*

New York Confidential (dir. Russell Rouse, 1955). To paraphrase Rick Wilson’s comment on another mob boss: everything Lupo touches dies. The film stars Broderick Crawford as mob boss Charlie Lupo and Richard Conte as his new hit man Nick Magellan, improbably included in discussions of strategy at the highest levels (even with respectable politicians). Anne Bancroft plays the boss’s daughter Kathy, trying to make a life away from the father whose criminal enterprise fills her with shame. Mike Mazurki adds appropriate atmosphere. ★★★★

*

Storm Center (dir. Daniel Taradash, 1956). “I’ve often said, ‘A librarian is a peninsula surrounded on three sides by a city council’”: thus Alicia Hull (Bette Davis), librarian. This modest cautionary tale, shot on location in Santa Rosa, California, weaves together the love of reading, small-town friendships, political opportunism, a family in conflict (bookish son, “cultured” mother, tough-guy father), censorship, groupthink, and the Red Scare. With good performances from Kevin Coughlin, Kim Hunter, Brian Keith, and Paul Kelly. Look closely: the library is Santa Rosa’s, just as in Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt. ★★★★

*

The Slender Thread (dir. Sydney Pollack, 1965). Extraordinary aerial views of Seattle begin the story of a telephone call to a crisis center, with Sidney Poitier as a student volunteer trying to keep Anne Bancroft’s desperate housewife awake and on the line (she’s taken pills) while her call is traced (and flashbacks show us recent events in her life). Phone fanatics will appreciate the details of the trace (collected in this YouTube clip); non-fanatics will appreciate the acting, though Poitier sometimes goes a bit overboard. Everyone will appreciate the utterly awkward discotheque scene. The screenplay is by Sterling Silliphant, so any Naked City or Route 66 fan already has a reason to watch. ★★★★

[The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255 (TALK).]

*

Walk on the Wild Side (dir. Edward Dmytryk, 1962). From the Nelson Algren novel, though I can’t say how faithful the adaptation is. Life in a New Orleans bordello, with Laurence Harvey as Dove, a drifter in search of Hallie (Capucine), an artist who now works (why?) in the bordello, which is run by Barbara Stanwyck’s Jo, who wants Hallie for herself. With Anne Baxter as a Mexican café owner and Jane Fonda as a drifter and novice prostitute. Over-the-top dialogue, rampant improbability (Dove and Hallie?), and great titles by Saul Bass. ★★★

*

The Blue Gardenia (dir. Fritz Lang, 1953). Telephone operator Norah (Anne Baxter) goes on a last-minute date with a pin-up artist (Raymond Burr), resists his advances, swings a fireplace poker, and fears she’s committed murder. Many familiar actors here: Richard Conte, as a newspaper columnist looking to monetize the story; Ann Sothern and Jeff Donnell, as Norah’s sassy and nerdy apartment-mates; George Reeves, as a mustache-wearing police detective; and Nat “King” Cole, as himself, singing “Blue Gardenia.” Two of the more interesting elements of the movie: its depiction of three women sharing an apartment in post-war Los Angeles and its depiction of grownups on a “date” — with plenty of alcohol and risk. Plot-wise though, things are pretty thin. ★★★

*

Bonjour Tristesse (dir. Otto Preminger, 1958). Raymond (David Niven) is an indolent playboy; Cécile (Jean Seberg) is his indolent daughter, who calls him Raymond and kisses him on the lips, often; Elsa (Mylène Demongeot) is his young lover; Anne (Deborah Kerr) is a friend of his late wife, and a new, more serious presence in his life, one Cécile does not appreciate. Seberg’s Cécile, almost always in shorts or swimsuit, is a dazzling, soulless figure on screen. Glorious cinematography on the French Riviera (Georges Périnal), in black and white and color, but the film amounts to little more than its beautiful surfaces. My favorite moment: Juliette Gréco singing “Bonjour Tristesse.” ★★★

*

Hell’s House (dir. Howard Higgin, 1932). Bette Davis and Pat O’Brien are the nominal stars, but the film belongs to two actors nicknamed Junior: Durkin and Coghlan, as Jimmy and Shorty, prisoners and best pals in a reformatory. See, Matt — that’s Pat O’Brien — he’s a flashy bootlegger, a pretty slick guy, only Jimmy — that’s Junior Durkin — he don’t know about the bootleggin’, so when the cops find liquor at Matt’s place, Jimmy takes the rap, thinkin’ Matt’s been set up, and guess what? — Matt lets him do it, the dirty bum. That don’t sit well with Bette Davis — I mean with Peggy, she’s Matt’s girl — and, boy, what a dish. Okay, I’m done: socially conscious and surprisingly good, with the actors mostly unstilted. ★★★

*

Red Light (dir. Roy Del Ruth, 1949). George Raft — such a gifted dancer, but such a wooden actor. Here he’s the head of a trucking company, searching for the hotel-room Bible that holds the secret that will enable him to exact vengeance for — wait, no spoilers. I l enjoyed the cheap, grimy interiors — not just a bowling alley but the bowling alley’s men’s room! — and the parade of familiar faces: Raymond Burr, Gene Lockhart, Virginia Mayo, Harry Morgan. Two moments that make the movie worth watching: the truck, the neon sign. ★★

*

And when I die, I won't stay dead (dir. Billy Woodberry, 2015). A documentary about the Beat poet Bob Kaufman (1925–1986), famed for taking a ten-year vow of silence after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The film is marred by carelessness (typos in the intertitles) and a lack of narrative coherence, shifting, halfway in, to the story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and then to Kaufman’s earliest years. It’s exciting to see archival footage of beatniks in San Francisco (Kaufman is said to have coined the word beatnik). But the poetry, to my ear, is just not enough: “Mulberry-eyed girls in black stockings, / Smelling vaguely of mint jelly and last night’s bongo drummer.” ★★

*

Little Fugitive (dir. Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin, 1953). An affecting bittersweet comedy, with a cast of almost all non-professional actors, filmed in a stellar low-budget semi-documentary style. A mother leaves her sons for a day to care for her ailing mother, and a cruel prank prompts younger son Joey to run off and hide out at Coney Island. For a Brooklynite of a certain age, the scenes on the beach and on and under the boardwalk will be beyond evocative. With a musical score for chromatic harmonica, composed and performed by Eddy Manson. ★★★★


[Joey (Richie Andrusco), collecting and turning in empties to finance more pony rides. You should really see Little Fugitive. Click for a larger view.]

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“This is an awful man”

Two of my fellow bloggers — Daughter Number Three and Dreamers Rise — have shared it, and I’ll share it too. It’s from Robert Hendrickson, rector at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, Tucson, Arizona, and it’s about the man posing on television yesterday, holding a Bible and standing in front of an Episcopal church. This statement appeared in the form of two tweets:

This is an awful man, waving a book he hasn’t read, in front of a church he doesn’t attend, invoking laws he doesn’t understand, against fellow Americans he sees as enemies, wielding a military he dodged serving, to protect power he gained via accepting foreign interference[,] exploiting fear and anger he loves to stoke, after failing to address a pandemic he was warned about, and building it all on a bed of constant lies and childish inanity. This is not partisan. It is simply about recognizing the moral vacuum that is now pretending to lead.

I’ll add a statement from Marian Budde, Episocopal bishop for the diocese of Washington, D.C. This statement appeared in the form of five tweets: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5:

Tonight [the] President just used a Bible and a church of my diocese as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our church stands for. To do so, he sanctioned the use of tear gas by police officers in riot gear to clear the church yard.

The President did not come to pray; he did not lament the death of George Floyd or acknowledge the collective agony of people of color in our nation. He did not attempt to heal or bring calm to our troubled land.

The Bible teaches us to love God and our neighbor; that all people are beloved children of God; that we are to do justice and love kindness. The President used our sacred text as a symbol of division.

We are followers of Jesus. In no way do we support the President’s incendiary response to a wounded, grieving nation. We stand with those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd through the sacred act of peaceful protest.

“Will History Stop Repeating Itself?”

This short film hit me very hard.

3 Brothers-Radio Raheem, Eric Garner And George Floyd. pic.twitter.com/EB0cXQELzE

— Spike Lee (@SpikeLeeJoint) June 1, 2020

[It will play in Safari only if you clear all browsing data or temporarily block all cookies, but other browsers work.]

“With a cheap cigarette”

Fernando Pessoa, from text 400, The Book of Disquiet, trans. from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith (New York: Penguin, 2003).

Perhaps the most dangerous passage in The Book of Disquiet, at least if you’re an ex-smoker subject to moments of nostalgia for a filthy habit you’d never return to, not even for one cigarette, not even for one puff.

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Auto detailing

Thirsty: “You should get a new car.”

Hi: “What’s wrong with this one?”


[Hi and Lois, June 2, 2020. Click either image for a larger view.]

Also: the seat belt is broken, kinda like a pencil in a glass of water. Or a pencil going through a car’s front pillar and then into a glass of water. Or if it’s Thirsty, a glass of something other than water.

Also, the sky needs more blue and less white. And less seat belt. But I do like the straw.

It was cars and seat belts that got me started close-reading Hi and Lois.

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Trump* the dom(inator)

In light of Donald Trump*’s words today to governors — “You have to dominate” — this observation from Tony Schwartz seems even more to the point:

Like many other Trump critics, I believed that he was driven by an insatiable narcissistic hunger to be loved, accepted, admired, and praised. That remains prima facie true, but it deflects attention from what drives Trump more deeply: the need to dominate. His primary goal is to win at any cost and the end always justifies the means.

If one thinks, only for a moment, about the language of sexual dominance and submission, Trump*’s already weird anecdotes in which men address him as “sir” get even weirder.

Did I just think about that? Yes, for the briefest instant. Pass the bleach.

[Weird and weirder: those are characterizations of Trump*’s anecdotes. I make no judgment on anyone’s sexual practices. If you have no idea what I’m writing about, try a quick search for dominance, submission, and sir. You won’t even need to click on a link.]

Rant? Tirade? Harangue?

You decide. It’s Donald Trump*’s conference call with governors.

The scariest thing to me about this call: Trump*’s idea of what’s happening in American cities comes from cable news. He saw something throw a brick. He saw someone stealing from a store. And so on.

A president speaks

No, not him. Another one: “How to Make This Moment the Turning Point for Real Change” (Medium). An excerpt:

If we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both. We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.

And:

the more specific we can make demands for criminal justice and police reform, the harder it will be for elected officials to just offer lip service to the cause and then fall back into business as usual once protests have gone away.

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“A headache and the universe”

Fernando Pessoa, from text 331, The Book of Disquiet, trans. from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith (New York: Penguin, 2003).

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“Art is Cinderalla”

Fernando Pessoa, from text 303, The Book of Disquiet, trans. from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith (New York: Penguin, 2003).

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