[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, DVDs, Hulu, TCM, YouTube.]
The Breaking Point (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1950). Another reimagining of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not, truer to the novel than the Bogart–Bacall picture. A fishing-boat captain goes in with criminals hoping to get money for his family: it’s a grim story, with brilliant acting. John Garfield and Phyllis Thaxter are the captain and his wife; Juano Hernandez is the captain’s partner; Patricia Neal is a promiscuous married woman who pursues the captain; Wallace Ford is a crooked lawyer who weaves in and out of events. I think Key Largo must have had something, or almost everything, to do with the ending. ★★★★ (YT)
*
Christmas Eve (dir. Edward L. Marin, 1947). Weird and strangely enjoyable: wealthy old Aunt Matilda (Ann Harding), determined to resist her no-good nephew’s effort to take control of her estate, issues a public call for her long-lost three wards to come to her aid. And they do: a debt-shedding playboy (George Brent), a broken-down rodeo rider (Randolph Scott!), and a criminal who’s fled to South America (George Raft). Many obstacles, and several good deeds along the way. I think that Aunt Matilda, paying city kids for dead rats and running model trains (holding cream and sugar) around her dining-room table, must have had something to do with the creation of the eccentric oldster played by Donald O’Connor in an episode of Frasier . ★★★ (CC)
*
Pain and Glory (dir. Pedro Almodóvar, 2019). A second viewing of a film I first watched in early 2020 — which now seems a lifetime ago. It remains one of best films I’ve seen. It’s undoubtedly the most Proustian. Here is a master filmmaker showing what it might be like to make sense of one’s life in time and figure out how to go on. ★★★★ (DVD)
*
Smilla’s Sense of Snow (dir. Bille August, 1997). Smilla (Julia Ormond) is a Greenlander in Copenhagen, a solitary, beautiful student of ice and snow who grows increasingly curious about the death of a six-year-old neighbor. But she cannot get good answers to her questions. Her curiosity leads to an ever-stranger mystery and ever-greater danger. When the boat sails (literally), the movie jumps a shark (figuratively), loses its dark, menacing atmosphere, and turns into a semi-ridiculous thriller. ★★★ (DVD)
*
Kiss of Death (dir. Henry Hathaway, 1947). Our household’s favorite year comes through once again. Victor Mature plays a Nick Bianco, a convict who becomes an informant, wins parole, makes a new life with his daughters and second wife Nettie (Coleen Gray), but is required to continue informing. And — uh-oh — he has to get the goods on gangster, giggler, and psychokiller Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark, in his first film). Great NYC location shots, and unnerving scenes in a house, an apartment, a restaurant, and on a staircase. ★★★★ (YT)
*
The Sleeping City (dir. George Sherman, 1950). An improbable premise: when a Bellevue intern is murdered, a detective with some medical experience (Richard Conte) goes undercover as an intern to investigate. Coleen Gray is here as a nurse and love interest, and Richard Taber is a decrepit elevator operator who takes bets on the side. Filmed on location, with considerable inspiration from The Naked City. A prologue spoken by Conte makes clear that nothing like what happens here ever happened at Bellevue or any other New York City hospital — that’s reassuring. ★★★★ (YT)
*
The Story of Three Loves (dir. Vincente Minnelli and Gottfried Reinhardt, 1953). Three stories, told in flashbacks as a ship’s passengers reminisce. “The Jealous Lover” is a predictable story of a ballerina and impresario (Moira Shearer and James Mason). “Mademoiselle” moves to fantasy, with a boy (Ricky Nelson) turning into a man (Farley Granger) and seeing his tutor (Leslie Caron) in a new light. Best of all is “Equilibrium” with Kirk Douglas and Pier Angeli as haunted trapeze artists. ★★★★ (TCM)
*
Suspense (dir. Frank Tuttle, 1946). Believe it: a film noir with ice skating. An itinerant ne’er-do-well (Barry Sullivan) joins an ice show as a peanut vendor, becomes the boss’s (Albert Dekker) right-hand man, and makes a play for the boss’s wife, skating star Roberta (Belita). The over-the-top ice sequences put Sonja Henje to shame, and Karl Struss’s cinematography in the delirious final forty-five minutes gives any film noir a run for its shadows. Eugene Pallette’s last film. ★★★★ (YT)
*
Shadow of a Doubt (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1943). Watching for the umpteenth time, I listened for what might be Our Town touches in Thornton Wilder’s screenplay. The brief conversation about coffee — Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) can’t face the morning without it — made me think of Our Town. The corny, gentle humor about Joe (Henry Travers) and Herb (Hume Cronyn) — “They’re literary critics” — made me think of Our Town. Uncle Charlie’s venom — “You’re just an ordinary little girl living in an ordinary little town” — made me think of some dark spirit coming to visit Grover’s Corners. ★★★★ (CC)
*
Finger Man (dir. Harold D. Schuster, 1955). As in Kiss of Death, a criminal, Casey Martin (the everymannish Frank Lovejoy), is given the chance to go undercover. Casey is to inform on the doings of narcotics and prostitution boss Dutch Becker (Forrest Tucker!), who turned Casey’s sister into an addict. Swank surroundings and the sinister Timothy Carey add value. The voiceover narration by the protagonist makes this movie feel more like a radio drama than a semi-documentary — and gives it away that Casey lived to tell the tale. ★★★ (YT)
*
Nightmare Alley (dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2021).
Not nearly as good as the 1947 movie (dir. Edmund Goulding), whose fleet pace suited the cautionary tale of Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power), a grinning conman who doesn’t know when he’s being had. This adaptation meanders (two and a half hours), with an invented backstory not in William Lindsay Greshman’s novel (and perhaps inspired by Double Indemnity). This Stan (Bradley Cooper) is merely mean, without that 1947 Dunning-Kruger confidence; his relationship with Molly (Rooney Mara) is nearly non-existent; and Cate Blanchett’s Lilith Ritter is almost a parody of a noir spiderwoman (such cringe-making dialogue). And there’s an awful lot of computer-generated reality here: just stick around for the credits. ★★★ (H)
*
Lili (dir. Charles Walters, 1953). Consider it a chaser for Nightmare Alley — one circus following another. Or consider it just plain weird: Lili (Leslie Caron), a sixteen-year-old orphan, talks to puppets; Paul (Mel Ferrer), a former dancer, now puppeteer (he has a war injury), talks to Lili through puppets. And there’s a magician (Jean-Pierre Aumont) on the make. Best scene: the dance on the road. ★★★ (TCM)
Related reading
All OCA movie posts (Pinboard)
Monday, February 7, 2022
Twelve movies
Hi and Lois watch
As another comic strip would say, Good grief!
Lois, here’s a recipe for Coppola/“Godfather” sauce. Even Chip will enjoy it. You’re welcome.
Related reading
All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)
“Selfie Stick”
“Selfie Stick,” a cartoon by Mark Stivers. Perhaps the best kind of selfie stick.
Thanks, Steven.
Sunday, February 6, 2022
Outtakes (1)
The outtakes from the WPA’s New York City tax photographs, available from 1940s NYC, capture some remarkable moments. Sometimes kids get in the act, gathered together and peering into the camera: “Hey, mister, willya take our picture?” A wise photographer would likely oblige and be permitted to work in peace. Sometimes, as in the first of these three photographs, a kid seems to be photobombing (or whatever they called it c. 1939–1941). Notice the hole punched through: unusable. And sometimes the photographer seems to have wanted to take a striking picture. The second and third of these photographs appear to be posed.
The background for this third photograph (yes, of course, I had to try to track it down): the Pacific Street side of the 23rd Regiment Armory, in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Here, look.
These kids could be ninety or nearing ninety today. I wonder if they ever got to see themselves in these photographs.
More outtakes to come.
Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives
Saturday, February 5, 2022
Jason Epstein (1928–2022)
Editor and publisher. He created or helped to create Doubleday’s Anchor Books, The New York Review of Books, the Library of America, and The Reader’s Catalog. The short-lived Reader’s Catalog (where’s my copy now?) gave rise to New York Review Books.
The New York Times has an obituary.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by S.N., Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor. It’s an easier Stumper: though 1-A, eight letters, “Step-saving route” might start the solver off on the wrong foot, the clue is not a sign of things to come.
Some clue-and-answer pairs of interest:
4D, six letters, “Minimalist furniture maker of old.” My first thoughts were of Charles and Ray Eames.
33-A, fifteen letters, “Best female character of all time, per a Hollywood Reporter poll (2016).” Of all time? The only fifteen-letter response I can think of is the more plausible ELIZABETHBENNET.
33-D, eight letters, “Diner descriptor misnomer.” Heh.
48-A, four letters, “Stall starter.” I thought of horses and cars.
54-A, eight letters, “Long tubes of war.” Their descendants are part of today’s news.
60-A, eight letters, “It started as a playing-card seller (1889).” I’m not a fan of factoid clues, but it’s surprising to know.
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
Friday, February 4, 2022
Separated at birth
I found a photograph of Cyndi Lauper that bears an even stronger resemblance, but it’d cost me.
Also separated at birth
Claude Akins and Simon Oakland : Ernest Angley and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán : Nicholson Baker and Lawrence Ferlinghetti : William Barr and Edward Chapman : Bérénice Bejo and Paula Beer : Ted Berrigan and C. Everett Koop : David Bowie and Karl Held : Victor Buono and Dan Seymour : Ernie Bushmiller and Red Rodney : John Davis Chandler and Steve Buscemi : Ray Collins and Mississippi John Hurt : Broderick Crawford and Vladimir Nabokov : Ted Cruz and Joe McCarthy : Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Gough : Henry Daniell and Anthony Wiener : Jacques Derrida, Peter Falk, and William Hopper : Adam Driver and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska : Charles Grassley and Abraham Jebediah Simpson II : Elaine Hansen (of Davey and Goliath) and Blanche Lincoln : Barbara Hale and Vivien Leigh : Pat Harrington Jr. and Marcel Herrand : Harriet Sansom Harris and Phoebe Nicholls : Steven Isserlis and Pat Metheny : Colonel Wilhelm Klink and Rudy Giuliani : Ton Koopman and Oliver Sacks : Steve Lacy and Myron McCormick : Don Lake and Andrew Tombes : Markku Luolajan-Mikkola and John Malkovich : William H. Macy and Michael A. Monahan : Fredric March and Tobey Maguire : Jean Renoir and Steve Wozniak : Molly Ringwald and Victoria Zinny
Lunch plans
I had lunch early this morning in a restaurant on Fordham Road. The good ol’ Bronx! I found the restaurant by looking at tax photos, c. 1939–1941, in the NYC Municipal Archives Collections.
I don’t know what I ate.
Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)
Thursday, February 3, 2022
Jeff Zucker’s legacy
In The Washington Post, Margaret Sullivan considers the legacy of CNN president Jeff Zucker:
Zucker, as much as any other person in the world, created and burnished the Trump persona — first as a reality-TV star who morphed into a worldwide celebrity, then as a candidate for president who was given large amounts of free publicity.I remember what I think of as an infamous CNN moment from May 2016, when the network devoted screentime to a parked plane: “We’ll continue to monitor the takeoff of that plane.” As I wrote back then, any complaint
The through line? Nothing nobler than TV ratings, which always were Zucker’s guiding light, his be-all and end-all and, ultimately, his fatal flaw.
about the failure of “elites” to protect democracy from the likes of Donald Trump misses the point that Trump’s candidacy is itself the product of an elite — not a political elite but a media elite, one that has kept Trump (and even his parked plane) front and center for months now.Good riddance to Jeff Zucker.
Domestic comedy
Elaine and I were admiring a handsome Carhartt chore coat: cotton duck with water-repellent coating, quilted nylon lining, corduroy-trimmed collar, and rivet-reinforced pockets. In black, brown, orange, and army green.
The catch: it was a chore coat for dogs.
“But what kinds of chores would a dog do? Herding? That’s not a chore. It’s a lifestyle!”
“It’s a profession!”
Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard) : Good going, Carhartt
