What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Trenchfriend]

Allied (2016).

It was really "haunting" to me.

 

[Fading Fast]

Havana Widows (1933) with Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell


The comedic pairing of Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell by Warner Bros was ahead of its time, as the women played smart, wise-cracking ladies who succeeded on wits and fortitude while delivering sharp one-liners that often made men the b*tt of their jokes.

Sure, the end state might be marriage to a rich guy, but the magic in these films is the chemistry that the two girls share. They sharp-elbow each other now and then, but their mutual affection is never in doubt, and without a modern need for a s*xual undertone.

These women like each other as family, but they are also one-hundred-percent heteros*xual; it can happen. In Havana Widows, down and out Blondell and Farrell, unemployed since the burlesque theater where they worked closed, hit on a wild and stupid scheme to get rich.

First, a former coworker returns from Cuba with a bankroll cadged from a rich guy for a breach-of-promise claim. This prompts Farrell to prod a reluctant Blondell into borrowing money from her quasi boyfriend, played by Allen Jenkins, so that the would-be gold diggers can go to Havana.

Having a plan to meet and sc*m a rich guy is one thing; finding that rich guy is another, as the girls soon discover when they are in Havana running up a large hotel bill they can't afford. Sc*mming successfully is hard to do, like any other, legal or illegal, profitable enterprise is.

Most of this is played with a comedic, even lightly screwball, tone involving an almost always inebriated lawyer, played by Frank McHugh, a befuddled old rich guy, played by Guy Kibbee, and a genuinely nice young man – Kibbee's son – played by Lyle Talbot.

The girls, with McHugh's help, want to get Kibbee in a compromising position to blackmail him, but Blondell is falling for Talbot. Farrell, meanwhile, has got her hands full trying to keep, one, McHugh somewhat sober and focused and, two, Blondell from abandoning the plan altogether.

There's a bit more involving Jenkins' bookie boss back in New York and the local Cuban police, but the above is basically the plot. These are girls the studio wants you to like, so you know they'll win, and it won't be with mean-spirited corruption, just a little good-hearted sc*mming.

Even though the girls play different characters in their movie pairings, their dynamic is usually the same: they are broke; Farrell is the smarter and more cynical one; and Blondell is the sweeter one, but she too has an acerbic edge when needed.

Farrell comes up with the get-rich plan; she badgers Blondell into agreeing; then things go haywire. The real fun is the girls' chemistry as Farrell fires off a lot of wisecracks; Blondell, some wisecracks; while as a team, they fight to survive.

These movies were made during the Depression when people were truly struggling in a way – with our large, modern social welfare net – few experience today. In most of these movies, one of the girls will sarcastically note how annoying it is that they expect to eat every day.

The only thing that makes these low-budget but not glaringly cheap movies work is the pairing of Blondell and Farrell. Either woman could be your neighbor: both are cute, but neither is a Hollywood beauty, which gives these pictures a realistic feel.

Farrell's sarcasm comes in so many one-liners and quick asides that you can't catch them all the first time. Try to be most alert in the scenes that are just Farrell and Blondell, as that's where the writers tucked in the fastest and sharpest dialogue and barbs.

With the two girls plus Kibbee, Talbot, Jenkins, and Ruth Donnelly as Kibbee's displeased wife, it's like old home week at Warner Bros. The studio knew how to churn out good, short, and inexpensive movies that capitalized on the depth of its acting roster.

Blondell and Farrell had success away from each other, but for four or so years in the middle of the 1930s, Warners turned these two "regular" girls into a pair of relatable comedic Depression heroes that, with just a little perspective, are still enjoyable all these years later.

Modern scolds are never happy, but for those of us with an ability to see context and period, in Havana Widows, Farrell and Blondell are surprisingly modern women who'll remind you of the many talented female stand-up comedians today, just without their modern potty mouths.

 

[Harp]

^ Just what I needed, a lovely film clip of adorable Joan to remind that there are other things in life
besides West Texas Intermediate five minutes ago at $83.85 to concentrate on. She was demonstrably more alluring with maturity like fine wine. And she held the camera focus in The Cincinnati Kid, eclipsing *** kitten Ann Margaret hands down as luscious ''Lady Fingers,'' a bankrupted gambler opposite Edward G and Steverino.

 

[Fading Fast]

^ Just what I needed, a lovely film clip of adorable Joan to remind that there are other things in life
besides West Texas Intermediate five minutes ago at $83.85 to concentrate on. She was demonstrably more alluring with maturity like fine wine. And she held the camera focus in The Cincinnati Kid, eclipsing *** kitten Ann Margaret hands down as luscious ''Lady Fingers,'' a bankrupted gambler opposite Edward G and Steverino.

And you didn't even mention the wonderfully named Tuesday Weld.

 

[Harp]

^ I can't forget her in Because They're Young opposite American Bandstand's **** Clark, but Tuesday
never did much for me. Joan, though absolutely struck lightning.

 

[Edward]

View attachment 781856
Quick Change (1990) with Bill Murray, Geena Davis, Jason Robards, and Randy Quaid


Quick Change is an early 1990s heist-comedy mashup that works because it feels like a movie, not a video game, not a wannabe work of art, and not a political message. It's the Shakespeare of movies: "To thine own self be true."

Bill Murray stars as a bank robber dressed as a clown who, very early on, holds up a Manhattan bank, takes hostages, and negotiates for his escape in a reasonably tense heist scene. Jason Robards plays the chief of the NYPD taking charge of the hostage crisis.

Robards is about to retire from the force and run for political office, but having failed to capture a mob boss he's chased for years, his otherwise admirable record is marred. But right now, he's got hostages to rescue and a clown to catch or he risks becoming a joke – and unelectable.

Murray, along with his accomplices, played by Geena Davis and Randy Quaid, in a nifty move you'll want to see fresh, makes it out of the bank with the money, but now they have to get out of the city, with Robards putting much of the force behind stopping them.

The real obstacle to getting out proves not to be Robards as much as 1990s New York City itself, which in parts is still an all-but-lawless wasteland of burned-out buildings, roving gangs, and crumbling infrastructure.

Murray and his crew encounter everything from road crews to street violence to mob hangouts, which make getting to the airport with the money a series of frustrations that range from the absurd to the outright deadly.

Eventually, it all comes down to what these movies always come down to: the last-second mad dash by the good and bad guys to the airport, where Murray and crew will either escape, or Robards will rescue his career...or a deus ex machina will reshuffle the deck.

All of this exaggerated chaos works because Murray and his supporting cast are just that good. Born in improv and comedy sketches, Murray's comedic skills are on full display, especially his understated reaction to total chaos and his talent for lying on the fly.

Look for Murray's response to the tenant with a g*n or the mob boss questioning his gangster bonafides for Murray at his low-key, cool best. The same can be said of Davis, as when called upon, she is calm in a crisis. Watch for the scene when she exits the plane's lavatory.

Quaid is here more for comic relief as the guy is really too nervous to be a criminal, so Murray and Davis each spend a lot of time bucking him up. While Quaid overplays it a few times, in general, his buffoonery is fun, not grating.

Robards is equally impressive and shows you why his career spanned seven decades. Lesser actors fade in scenes opposite Murray, but if anything, both he and Murray seem better when acting opposite each other.

The other star in all this is New York City itself. Manhattan is a cleaner post-1970s collage of business power and street energy, but the outer boroughs – where much of Murray's attempted getaway takes place – still have one foot in the decay, chaos, and abandonment of the 1970s.

There is also a secondary story about Murray and Davis, who plan to live on a tropical island with the money, starting to see cracks in their romantic relationship as the getaway encounters one problem after another.

Davis, more than Murray, owns these romantic scenes. He's oblivious to her concerns because he's fully focused on getting away with the money. She is more into him than the money, until she realizes he might be more into excitement than her. It's a bit forced but an okay conflict.

Escaping to live on a tropical island with the bank's money is a MacGuffin that you're not even sure Murray and crew really believe in. It's the 1990s equivalent of one out of every two 1940s film noir criminal trying to "get to Mexico with the money." It's the same silly escape MacGuffin.

If Hollywood's vaunted studio system, which fully died somewhere in the second half of the 1960s, had survived and evolved with the times, it would have produced a movie like this: one happy to just be an engaging and entertaining film made on a reasonable, not insane budget.

It's fun to watch a movie like Quick Change and realize that it is closer in kinship to the movies of the 1950s than the 2020s because movies have become over-engineered, over-directed, and special-effects extravaganzas that forgot what a movie at its core is (or should be): a good story.

I remember seeing this picture. More to the point... I remember seeing the trailers for it in the cinema. 1990 was an era when the world was very different from me. A combination of things - a long period of depression in cinemas with most of our locals having closed by then, the nearest in Belfast, still scarred by the (in retrospect winding down, but still very much present) 'Troubles' era, meant that the cinema was a rare enough event, maybe something we'd do two or three times a year. Special enough that I have clear memories of seeing trailers for films, some of which I later saw on television, or (after our first family VHS player arrived at Christmas 1990) home video. It must have been a year or two later I saw it on video, or maybe TV. Geena Davis' more recent recollections suggest it was a difficult company behind the scenes, but on screen the chemistry did come across as wonderful.



I was involved with a movie last night. Can't honestly say I watched it, but... London's West End (the Dominion Theatre, no less) was last night graced by the touring 50th Anniversary celebration of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with an absolutely beautiful, new, remastered high-definition print. The film itself remains the joy it always has been. A 1975 release, so vintage after a fashion in and of it self now, it pays homage to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 30s, 40s and 50s, along with its own, special brand of decadence that retains a cuddly charm these five decades on, long after (for at least some of the world) that has long ceased to be controversial. I did get to see a small portion of the screen from the wings, and these new prints are just beautiful. I was, however, preoccupied as one of two performers sharing the shadowcasting role of Riff Raff. It's been nearly a decade since my last shadowcasting opportunity, and twenty years since I last lurched onto the stage as riff, but it was a blast. (Probably moreso in retrospect, given show nerves.) But if you'd asked me at eighteen what I foresaw myself doing in my early fifties, performing the TimeWarp on a West end stage to an audience that size, and with Little Nell Campbell stepping in to shadowcast her younger self, I'd have thought you mad. Growing old gracefully?? Not as long as my knees can keep taking this! The tour continues in the UK for another couple of weeks - alas, I can't logistically join on other dates, but the Denton Deviants shadowcast (based in Glasgow, Scotland) and various guest performers will be giving it hell if you're around any of the dates and fancy it. "Lovely Party", as the saying goes.

 

[Worf]

I remember seeing this picture. More to the point... I remember seeing the trailers for it in the cinema. 1990 was an era when the world was very different from me. A combination of things - a long period of depression in cinemas with most of our locals having closed by then, the nearest in Belfast, still scarred by the (in retrospect winding down, but still very much present) 'Troubles' era, meant that the cinema was a rare enough event, maybe something we'd do two or three times a year. Special enough that I have clear memories of seeing trailers for films, some of which I later saw on television, or (after our first family VHS player arrived at Christmas 1990) home video. It must have been a year or two later I saw it on video, or maybe TV. Geena Davis' more recent recollections suggest it was a difficult company behind the scenes, but on screen the chemistry did come across as wonderful.



I was involved with a movie last night. Can't honestly say I watched it, but... London's West End (the Dominion Theatre, no less) was last night graced by the touring 50th Anniversary celebration of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with an absolutely beautiful, new, remastered high-definition print. The film itself remains the joy it always has been. A 1975 release, so vintage after a fashion in and of it self now, it pays homage to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 30s, 40s and 50s, along with its own, special brand of decadence that retains a cuddly charm these five decades on, long after (for at least some of the world) that has long ceased to be controversial. I did get to see a small portion of the screen from the wings, and these new prints are just beautiful. I was, however, preoccupied as one of two performers sharing the shadowcasting role of Riff Raff. It's been nearly a decade since my last shadowcasting opportunity, and twenty years since I last lurched onto the stage as riff, but it was a blast. (Probably moreso in retrospect, given show nerves.) But if you'd asked me at eighteen what I foresaw myself doing in my early fifties, performing the TimeWarp on a West end stage to an audience that size, and with Little Nell Campbell stepping in to shadowcast her younger self, I'd have thought you mad. Growing old gracefully?? Not as long as my knees can keep taking this! The tour continues in the UK for another couple of weeks - alas, I can't logistically join on other dates, but the Denton Deviants shadowcast (based in Glasgow, Scotland) and various guest performers will be giving it hell if you're around any of the dates and fancy it. "Lovely Party", as the saying goes.

Hmmmm interesting. I've only seen TRHPS once on streaming. When I was attending College, The College of Forestry at Syracuse, the film seemed to play almost weekly somewhere. Perhaps I should've seen it on a big screen. Kinda like "The Big Lebowski" the film left me wondering what the hub bub was all about. I certainly was in no mood to be splashed with any detritus for my troubles either so.... clue me in!!!!!

 

[Harp]

Fury, starring Brad Pitt and Pendulum, Shief La Bouef, and a few other odds and ends.

A combat veteran, I normally eschew war genre; however, Pitt's character and the choices he makes
has drawn me twice here. And, no doubt for further exam the man and his moment.

Pitt is a staff sergeant US Army tank corps, drives a Sherman dubbed furious, and rides herd three
other men with a dead ***ner at beginning. A replacement, drawn clerical staff pool is slated to Fury's
.30 machine *** but first must clean his area within the tank. And this includes removal of human remains;
specifically the deceased ***ner's face that reposes upon Fury's iron floor. The kid vomits outside, and begins
what all combat soldiers endure, the cruel epiphany of becoming a killer.

Pitt is in his fifties, carries a custom revolver sidearm, and at film's start slays a German officer riding
a white horse past Fury with a trench knife. His boots aren't standard issue but civilian manufacture high top
laced that travels higher up limb than do paratrooper Corcoran jump boots. He stands out, age and dress
connotate a professional, and probably a First World War veteran. He speaks German, perhaps attributed
family, perhaps not. He later makes educated comment to the kid that history is violent. Surprising, since
his philosophical read is more lower case than collegian. An enigma, drawn tightly within himself, but a rattlesnake predator without mercy.

The remainder odd lot tank crew are scalawag and scum, two of which are sociopathic personalities
arguably Section 8 candidates suitable for medical discharge but for immediate wartime need.
Together they form a core nucleus Pitt and kid encircle like atomic neutrons.

Pitt makes it all work a functioning cohesive whole as Fury drives towards destiny.
Recommended for its epic Melville cast across the turbulent last year sea of the Second World War.

 

[Fading Fast]

Thief (1981) with James Caan, Tuesday Weld, and Robert Prosky


Humans think in terms of categories: a 1970s movie or a 1980s movie means different things stylistically, philosophically, and even in casting, but the real world doesn't divide so neatly. So a movie like Thief, released in 1981, can really be a 1970s movie in all but name.

The 1970s was a decade of despair, drugs, organized crime, crooked cops, dirty streets, and everything coming apart at the seams; this is exactly what happens in Thief. By the 1980s, cute mermaids were falling in love with humans; in the 1970s, mobsters were killing each other.

James Caan isn't a mobster, and that's the point and the entire pivot of the movie: he's a lone criminal who just wants to quietly make a good living stealing jewels while also running a couple of legitimate (ish) businesses – a bar and a used car dealership – in his hometown of Chicago.

He's too good at stealing, though, so he attracts the attention of Chicago's mob boss, played by Robert Prosky. Prosky talks Caan into doing one job for him, with Caan making it clear he'll do one job and then he's out. Remember what Michael Corleone said about getting out.

After opening with an excellent scene of Caan doing a solo heist, the movie moves to Caan on the West Coast, where he pulls a huge bank job with Prosky's extensive resources. Days later, when it's time to do the split, Prosky makes it clear that there's no getting out, but Caan doesn't want in.

The scene where Caan and Prosky do this dance is gripping. The audience can see that an immovable object and an irresistible force are colliding even before the two characters fully get it. The action scenes are exciting, but it's these "quietly" tense moments that make the movie.

The action scenes deserve note, though, as this is about the last era when they would feel somewhat realistic. Soon, exaggerated special effects and, later, CGI would turn action movies into video games that now serve no purpose as everyone knows it's all just zeroes and ones.

As all this is going on, Caan has crooked cops trying to shake him down for "payments" – the dirty detectives act like their own mob, just with badges, making them much worse. The last piece of the puzzle is a diner cashier played by Tuesday Weld who catches Caan's eye.

Caan romances Weld with the truth. He honestly tells her what he does, why he wants a family, that he wants a final big score, and then he's out. Here's the thing: she goes for it. It's a life from hell, but for her, so is being a cashier in a diner. She just chooses the better hell for herself.

By Act III, the walls are closing in: the police are trying to shake Caan down hard, and Prosky has dropped the nice-guy mask – threatening to turn wife Weld into a wh*re and take the kid he got for them – they couldn't conceive – away. It's tough going it alone in Chi-Town.

Director Michael Mann, in his first major theatrical release, puts a firm neo-noir mark on his movie, with Chicago looking like a smaller but equally crime-ridden and degraded New York City of the 1970s.

There's grime and menace in the streets even in the daytime. At night, it is worse, with crooked cops, mobsters, and a general anomie reigning; the honest people have gone home to the suburbs or bolted their city apartment doors tight.

None of this would work, though, if Caan wasn't outstanding, playing a very smart and very scary man – like most successful violent criminals, he's a functioning psychopath. Only by force of will is he even able to carve out a temporary niche as an independent criminal.

Caan's career-defining character – Sonny from The Godfather movies – wouldn't survive for ten minutes in this world as Caan in Thief has to control his temper and move in between the gaps, something hot-tempered and not overly smart Sonny could never do.

It's that complex survival skill that keeps the movie interesting. It's watching Caan trying to remain independent by navigating his way around the police and the mob with cunning, smarts, and an incredible threshold for taking physical punishment that would break most men.

Today, Thief is a cultural time capsule: a moment in America when its big cities were failing, its police departments were on the take, and organized crime was at one of its zenith. Amazingly, America self-corrected, with movies like Thief now remaining as cinematic markers of a dark era.

 

[Edward]

Hmmmm interesting. I've only seen TRHPS once on streaming. When I was attending College, The College of Forestry at Syracuse, the film seemed to play almost weekly somewhere. Perhaps I should've seen it on a big screen. Kinda like "The Big Lebowski" the film left me wondering what the hub bub was all about. I certainly was in no mood to be splashed with any detritus for my troubles either so.... clue me in!!!!!

I think for me, the initial draw was how it pulled together and satirised so many of the things from my childhood. I was of a generation that at a formative stage had only three TV channels. (You remember that reference in National Lampoon's European Vacation when they're in London, right? That was true of the UK at the time.) When I was six, I didn't care for the news on BBC1 or ITV, so I'd flip over to BBC2 and watch what they had on. Usually old Doctor Who (my first experiences of the pre-Tom Baker era), or Laurel and Hardy, or a version of Harold Lloyd that I adored, which overlaid the original silents with a fast-talking, comic narration doubtless influenced by Groucho Marx, and certainly the reason I adored the Marx brother much later on. Often there would follow one of the old Universal horrors, or a science fiction picture. Old B&W movies were very common on BBC2 back in those days, though they're a rarity now on UK mainstream broadcast TV, sadly. By the time I finally caught up with RHPS in the 90s, I'd already seen most of the source material (including even Wizard of Oz and The Night of the Living Dead), so it all made sense. I was also already familiar with some of the key players - I'd seen Tim Curry in a few things, Richard O'Brien had of course had a mainstream TV success as the original host of The Crystal Maze, his eccentricities and humour appealing to a lot of kids my age; Biggins (who has a cameo role) had been in a lot of kid's TV in the 80s, and Patricia Quinn, now Lady Stephens, was in The Box of Delights, an early 80s kids' TV Christmas classic I still watch annually. I was a young, teenage Meatloaf fan. In fact, I think that's how I first heard of Rocky... and The Time Warp (albeit through a poor cover) was a hit in the UK again around 1989.... So I suppose all told I was prime fodder for it.

It definitely didn't hurt that I had developed a taste for punk rock and classic rock and roll either.... (the original stage production of the Rocky Horror Show in 1973 was much admired by, and influential upon, Vivienne Westwood and Malcom Maclaren and their coterie who would go on to influence the aesthetics of punk rock to such a degree).

It's a fun show with a great sound track, bottom line. Although there are those for whom it's all about the participation experience, for me it keeps coming back to the quality of the songs in and of themselves, something most new musicals these days (at least those who even make the effort to produce original songs, rather than cobbling together a jukebox show from the back catalogue of one or more artists) would do well to learn.

There is really no substitute, though, for seeing a nice print (and the new, high definition prints are lovely; the ballroom sequences are practically tedchnicolour in their look) on the big screen.

Doubtless what has given it much of its longevity is the audience participation cult. A few other pictures have been used commercially to play with this, but they've never quite 'got' the lightning in a bottle of the RHPS cult, which of course happened organically. Even when Fox put out the sequel Shock Treatment (a curio in itself; messy - the stage reworking in 2016 trimmed a lot of fat - but with a soundtrack to equal the quality of Rocky, every one a gem) having attempted to create a cult picture by design, well... let's just say it remains a cult within a cult. Shocky is fun in and of itself, but I think a lot of why it failed originally was that it satirised reality TV before reality tv was ever a thing... But for Rocky itself, the experience is transformed by the communal experience, a costumed audience and a shadowcast, the talkback to the picture... The whole breaking of the fourth wall in that regard was something that came from the US, but was embraced (and fed back into the stage show, which is the much bigger of the two in the UK this last thirty years) in the UK, largely I suspect as it fit with that long tradition of pantomime. It's not to everyone's tastes, but worth experiencing at least once. On a good night, with some strong voices in the audience who are creative with their lines and good with their timing it can be truly hilarious, especially when a classic line is delivered well, or developed or even replaced entirely with a new, topical reference.

If you're ever curious and get the chance, the documentary "A Strange Journey" (Directed by Linus O'Brien, Richard's son, with great access to all the surviving key players) is worth seeing - I believe it's streaming widely.

 

[Harp]

View attachment 782903
Thief (1981) with James Caan, Tuesday Weld, and Robert Prosky


Humans think in terms of categories: a 1970s movie or a 1980s movie means different things stylistically, philosophically, and even in casting, but the real world doesn't divide so neatly. So a movie like Thief, released in 1981, can really be a 1970s movie in all but name.

The 1970s was a decade of despair, drugs, organized crime, crooked cops, dirty streets, and everything coming apart at the seams; this is exactly what happens in Thief. By the 1980s, cute mermaids were falling in love with humans; in the 1970s, mobsters were killing each other.

James Caan isn't a mobster, and that's the point and the entire pivot of the movie: he's a lone criminal who just wants to quietly make a good living stealing jewels while also running a couple of legitimate (ish) businesses – a bar and a used car dealership – in his hometown of Chicago.

He's too good at stealing, though, so he attracts the attention of Chicago's mob boss, played by Robert Prosky. Prosky talks Caan into doing one job for him, with Caan making it clear he'll do one job and then he's out. Remember what Michael Corleone said about getting out.

After opening with an excellent scene of Caan doing a solo heist, the movie moves to Caan on the West Coast, where he pulls a huge bank job with Prosky's extensive resources. Days later, when it's time to do the split, Prosky makes it clear that there's no getting out, but Caan doesn't want in.

The scene where Caan and Prosky do this dance is gripping. The audience can see that an immovable object and an irresistible force are colliding even before the two characters fully get it. The action scenes are exciting, but it's these "quietly" tense moments that make the movie.

The action scenes deserve note, though, as this is about the last era when they would feel somewhat realistic. Soon, exaggerated special effects and, later, CGI would turn action movies into video games that now serve no purpose as everyone knows it's all just zeroes and ones.

As all this is going on, Caan has crooked cops trying to shake him down for "payments" – the dirty detectives act like their own mob, just with badges, making them much worse. The last piece of the puzzle is a diner cashier played by Tuesday Weld who catches Caan's eye.

Caan romances Weld with the truth. He honestly tells her what he does, why he wants a family, that he wants a final big score, and then he's out. Here's the thing: she goes for it. It's a life from hell, but for her, so is being a cashier in a diner. She just chooses the better hell for herself.

By Act III, the walls are closing in: the police are trying to shake Caan down hard, and Prosky has dropped the nice-guy mask – threatening to turn wife Weld into a wh*re and take the kid he got for them – they couldn't conceive – away. It's tough going it alone in Chi-Town.

Director Michael Mann, in his first major theatrical release, puts a firm neo-noir mark on his movie, with Chicago looking like a smaller but equally crime-ridden and degraded New York City of the 1970s.

There's grime and menace in the streets even in the daytime. At night, it is worse, with crooked cops, mobsters, and a general anomie reigning; the honest people have gone home to the suburbs or bolted their city apartment doors tight.

None of this would work, though, if Caan wasn't outstanding, playing a very smart and very scary man – like most successful violent criminals, he's a functioning psychopath. Only by force of will is he even able to carve out a temporary niche as an independent criminal.

Caan's career-defining character – Sonny from The Godfather movies – wouldn't survive for ten minutes in this world as Caan in Thief has to control his temper and move in between the gaps, something hot-tempered and not overly smart Sonny could never do.

It's that complex survival skill that keeps the movie interesting. It's watching Caan trying to remain independent by navigating his way around the police and the mob with cunning, smarts, and an incredible threshold for taking physical punishment that would break most men.

Today, Thief is a cultural time capsule: a moment in America when its big cities were failing, its police departments were on the take, and organized crime was at one of its zenith. Amazingly, America self-corrected, with movies like Thief now remaining as cinematic markers of a dark era.

I am a Chicagoan and recall the hubub that arose Thief filming because its demolition usage blew a gasket within a local community governing board.

A thief, prison trained craft by hard boiled men 1920-1950s schooled, feels time intrusiveness put paid tuition, and attempts to break free, but is held a meretricious fence blind present moment. Such setting seems inconceivable present day film; wherein disadvantaged societal inequity
cast similar astigmatism.

Must see film.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Devil Is Driving (1932) with Edmund Lowe, Wynne Gibson, James Gleason, Alan Dinehart, and George Rosener


Every studio in the precode era (early 1930s) liked to show that it could do a crime movie as gritty as Warner Bros. – but most couldn't. In The Devil is Driving, Paramount takes its turn at the wheel (groan) in this crime-drama / family story / romance triple smash-up (double groan).

Edmund Lowe plays a pleasant gadabout who, when he periodically runs low on funds (meaning he lost money gambling), takes a job in a garage fixing cars where his brother-in-law, played by James Gleason, works as a mechanic and will always take him in.

This is no ordinary garage, though, as it's a front for a car-theft ring. The setup is crazy: located right in Manhattan, in a building with a parking garage in the center, there's also a speakeasy, a full repair shop, a paint shop, and corporate offices scattered throughout the building.

Stolen cars are raced in, quickly get repaired, repainted, and "re-papered" so they can be turned around and sold.

Gleason turns a blind eye to the corruption as he needs the money to support his wife and child, the latter played by Dickie Moore. Lowe would probably turn a blind eye too, but then he gets pulled in when he starts dating the big boss' girlfriend, played by Wynne Gibson.

As a fun aside, look for the scene in which Gibson tries to seduce Lowe. If you've ever wanted to see a woman being the one all but begging for s*x and the man playing it aloof, this is your chance as Gibson comes on hard, practically panting, while Lowe starts out with a firm no.

Back in the plot, the big boss, played by Alan Dinehart, is just a figurehead, as the business is actually run by a (using a term of the day) mute, played by George Rosener, who communicates with Dinehart via a pantograph. This, as noted, is no ordinary garage.

Things heat up when, during a high-speed car theft, the car that two of the garage thugs are driving hits Moore, sending him to the hospital for an emergency operation. Gleason is grief stricken, but Lowe slowly starts to tie the evidence back to Dinehart and the garage.

From here, it's Lowe pushing for the truth, Dinehart scrambling to cover up, and Gleason finally getting wise. Naturally, for this movie, the bonkers climax includes a carbon monoxide poisoning, a fake accident, a high-speed head-on, and a wedding, all racing by at warp speed.

If you let it, it all works in a crazy precode B-movie way, especially with its talented cast adroitly executing many leaps of faith. Lowe, a non-demonstrative leading man, is an odd choice, though, to play an auto mechanic since his entire bearing reads "to the manner born."

He pulls it off, however, as the key quality the role calls for is integrity and Lowe's mien says that. Gleason, too, is miscast as he seems off as a family man looking the other way at arrant dishonesty: his regular screen persona would usually risk it all to stop the corruption.

Dinehart is perfect as the figurehead boss as he often plays puffed up men and there's no category for Rosener playing a mute (again, the term of that era), but he does manage to convey cunning and menace without, owing to his disability, ever saying a word.

On the distaff side, it's really just Gibson, who was sort of Paramount's rougher-edged answer to Warners Joan Blondell. Gibson, more presence than pretty, looks like a "guy's girl" ready to throw back a drink, give you a tumble, and then dust herself off and just carry on with the day.

Other than some stock establishing sequences, the entire effort is shot on sets that won't fool you but are pretty good, especially that wacky garage setup that seems like it's in a trick building, as it has so many things going on at once.

You won't care deeply about the characters, but for the short time you're watching the movie, you want the good guys to win and the bad guys to get what's coming to them. All in all, that's not a terrible summary of what a B-crime movie should do.

Did Paramount manage to equal Warner Bros. for grit with The Devil is Driving? Not quite, as there's still something too polished and safe (like an MGM crime drama from the era), but you have to respect Paramount for giving it a sincere effort and for creating an off-the-wall garage.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Grump (2022), yesterday on Arte.

 

[Fading Fast]

Indiscreet (1958) with Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, David Kossoff and Megs Jenkins


Indiscreet is obviously and completely reversed engineered to make you smile while watching a romcom with two of Hollywood's most attractive stars ever. Kudos to the writers, director, Stanley Donen, and actors for constructing it so well.

Only twelve years after Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman sizzled on screen as young antagonistic lovers in Hitchcock's outstanding spy thriller Notorious (1946), they are back as incredibly attractive middle-aged lovers – successful, confident, but one isn't single.

Grant is a wealthy businessman and diplomat considering a posting in London where he meets Bergman, playing a popular stage actress tired of men and their games. Grant tells Bergman he's married, but she agrees to an affair anyway – it is Cary Grant, after all.

The first part of the movie is competently entertaining, as all the above takes time to set up properly. Then things pick up as the two start dating, but there is a sword of Damocles hanging over the affair that starts to swing when Grant has to go back to America for a time.

All that happens from here should be experienced fresh, but there are a bunch of romcom twists that are fun, as nothing in this movie was ever meant to hurt anyone. Even the few sad moments are experienced as waystations between the upcoming nice ones – it's that type of movie.

It's also the type of movie where the stars look and dress nicer than anyone in real life ever has. Grant appears as if he floated down from heaven in a well-tailored suit, crisp white shirt, and silk tie, while Bergman wears couture designs with the nonchalance of a casual house dress.

It's also a time when the rich live in a world of pretty things and affable servants, in movies anyway. Bergman's small staff, played by David Kossoff and Megs Jenkins, is so efficiently nice and desirous to please that you understand how she has all that time to buy clothes.

While we rightfully focus on the stars, pay attention to these two "servants" as they do some serious comedic lifting of their own, especially when Bergman starts conniving and asks Kossoff to role-play. The talent is impressive in nearly every actor in the cast.

The magic, though, is the Grant-Bergman chemistry whose hard edge from Notorious has been filed down to a light abrasion here. Sure they have obstacles and misunderstandings – or there's no movie – but it is all so pleasant that it's really a safe-space movie for romantics.

Even in the climactic "fight" scene, you are never really worried that the two most beautiful people on earth who clearly love each other won't find a way to work it out. If not, what hope is there for the rest of us mere mortals with real-world problems and rumpled wardrobes?

Shot on location in London and in Bergman's charming old-world apartment set, the movie is a universe free of grime, crime, and all the bad things that can hurt you. Instead, it's a world of chauffeurs, attentive head waiters, and clerks who magically appear to make life easier.

Grant and Bergman are both outstanding actors, but to be fair, this movie is in Grant's sweet spot – the lead in a romantic comedy. Donen knew what he had in Grant and let the star be his most charming self. You don't mess with a winning formula.

For Bergman, the role proved she could match Grant in comedy and romance. Listen even for just the inflections in her voice-overs to hear her comedic skill. Watch also at the end when she's "rehearsing" how she'll fool Grant – she drives a very busy scene with a professional ease.

You don't come to Indiscreet to be challenged; you come to be pleasantly entertained watching two Hollywood icons fall in love on screen, twelve years after they first fell in love on screen. It's a box of thoughtfully wrapped chocolates for their fans.

Some romcoms were getting more realistic by the late 1950s, following a road paved by film noir and crime dramas. In a few short years, some would even become hard edged, but in Indiscreet, Hollywood showed it could still sprinkle romantic pixie dust when it wanted to.

 

[Harp]

^ It's been awhile since I last saw Notorious, far and away too long. And, of course, as film fans do, I've learned some facts about both Crash n' Cary; Ingrid's tempestuous private life, and Grant's double indemnity ***ual orientation. However, human nature is beyond convenient stereotype; so psychoanalysis is best left psychiatry.
Yet what remains mature perspective is, perhaps, greater appreciation for what approach or craft there is, may or might be, all things considered. I always believed Grant had more in the acting can than he ever was given chance to show. And lovely Ingrid's personal demons never denied her extraordinary depth. Her range was considerably more than mere physical beauty allowance dollop dole token charisma but suggestive blunt tornadic subtle strength spake deafening silence. And when she did speak, she spoke thunderous measure.
Even her eyes penetrate scene, heart, and most definitely soul.

There are books the Nuns assigned school that have never left me.
And some women seen pubescent adolescence film screen whom left indelible impress heart and mind.
Ingrid Bergman leads this heartfelt harem.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Sleeping Tiger (1954) Dirk Bogarde, Alexis Smith, Alexander Knox, Maxine Audley, and Hugh Griffith


The implicit contract almost every movie makes with its viewers is "give us a little leeway with the truth and we'll tell you a good story," which has viewers suspending disbelief as long as the tale entertains, engages, or enlightens. But it has to be a fair trade.

The Sleeping Tiger holds the line on that agreement for most of the movie, but then collapses at the end. It's still entertaining overall, but instead of leaving the picture feeling satisfied, you feel a teeny-tiny bit cheated – a bit like the rug got pulled out from under you right at the end.

Set in England, it starts with the tables being turned on a mugger, played by Dirk Bogarde, by his victim, a psychiatrist played by Alexander Knox. Knox then makes a deal with the police to let him take responsibility for Bogarde, because he believes he can rehabilitate the man.

It ramps up from there when Alexis Smith, playing Knox's wife, comes home from Paris to find young, handsome, and cocky Bogarde lounging around her house like he owns it. Knox explains to her what he's doing; Smith (rightfully) thinks it's idiotic, but shrugs and accepts it.

That's the setup that has Knox, who works from his big old English house, trying to find the Freudian key to "fix" Bogarde, as Bogarde assaults the family's housekeeper (she leaves) while making repeated plays for Smith, who aloofly dismisses them – but does she?

Soon enough, Smith and Bogarde are banging away behind the good doctor's back while Knox searches for the key to Bogarde's antisocial behavior. Even Knox' devoted assistant, played by Maxine Audley, warns the doctor that his efforts are folly and that his household is in disarray.

Knox, who seems like a sincerely well-intentioned man, is also extremely confident in his own opinions, so, of course, in his mind, he isn't wasting his time with Bogarde, and "don't be ridiculous," as he knows his wife.

There are also a few visits from a smart Scotland Yard inspector, played by Hugh Griffith, after Bogarde pulls a smash-and-grab and later a daylight holdup. But without enough evidence and with the eminent doctor defending Bogarde, the inspector just lurks as a threat.

The premise behind Smith and Bogarde's affair is that Smith feels bored with her nice but neglectful older husband, so Bogarde – young, handsome, and potent – boosts her ego. For Bogarde, it's also a nice way to, umm, stick it to the doctor behind his back.

Unafraid of clichés, Bogarde and Smith "bond" while riding horses, which is her world. But they also visit a "down and dirty" jazz club, which is his world, where Smith is aroused by the feral s*xual atmosphere. They also picnic on neutral ground and get it on. It's a full-force affair.

All of Smith's scenes with her husband are the opposite: intellectual and all but as*xual (more on her part than on his). Their one-on-one meetings are like two business partners making plans as they arrange their schedules or discuss household issues. The contrast is not subtle.

A few big twists happen fast and furiously in Act III that you'll want to see fresh, but know that the doctor proves half right. Unfortunately, though, it all becomes very hard to believe. It's a letdown in a movie that was holding up its end of the bargain until then.

Helping hold up that bargain is the acting, starting with the talented but miscast Bogarde, who reads posh and well-educated, but is supposed to be a rough kid from a modest background who didn't have the advantages of a stable and comfortable upbringing.

He plays it, instead, like a spoiled rich kid who went on a rumspringa from an elite boys' school and simply never stopped. Knox, though, perfectly fits the over-intellectual psychiatrist who believes all antisocial behavior can be explained by one's childhood.

It's a thought that was in vogue in egghead circles back then until a few real-life experiments, like the good doctor's fictional one, went awry. Which brings us to Smith who gives a strong performance as the cold English wife with deeply buried ***ual passions. In a way, this is really her movie.

She is, however, forced like everyone else to twist her character too hard in Act III. Audley, too, deserves a brief mention for her small role as the single voice of reason in the house – other than when the inspector stops by. You only wish Audley had more screen time.

Shot mainly in the studio and mostly in the doctor's house, the beautiful black-and-white cinematography gives the movie realism and a psychological-thriller style that helps push the story over some of its bumps. Look for the wonderful camera work in the jazz-club scenes.

The Sleeping Tiger is worth watching for the actors alone – just go in knowing that the movie will not so much lose energy but integrity as it gets to the climax. The mistake is the story writers went for maximum drama where a quieter fade would have been more satisfying.

 

[Harp]

The Thomas Crown Affair. Steverino, Faye, and some odds and ends. Jewison directed as recalled.

McQueen didn't go to college. A reform school then straight to the Marine Corps, where there were continued disciplinary problems, supposedly cashiered bad conduct discharge. He drove a truck with odd jobs to put himself through a California acting school; which might have been Pasadena. However, lad found himself, or, something within himself that he could run on. In Thomas Crown, he played a Princeton Phi Beta Kappa Harvard Biz grad with considerable assurance. McQueen wears a suit and also a clean drape neutered trench around Boston with characteristic aplomb. The script set in a less politically correct time, his antagonist competitor Dunaway, the insurance investigator after him for brilliant criminal planning massive thievery, is played down the line fair ball baseball. And equally so Steve's extraordinary counters; which ultimately climax with a final last push before disappearing out of her life-and love. Today's chick flicks try far beyond correctness pay grade to make meaningful films but are hamstrung societal code, which condemns all realism for wokist disregard, resulting dross ineptitude. I know women who've pilgrimaged Boston cemetery scene locus where Dunaway read McQueen's dismissal note like a religious odyssey full of heartfelt desire.

The modern Thomas Crown remake starred Pierce Brosnan and Renee Russo. Has its moments; but the woke bug bit, and the final countdown is anticlimactic woke jibberish, ruining what otherwise might have proved a strong challenge to the earlier McQueen-Dunaway fair-not-equitable product. And I rather doubt its ridiculous last chapter conclusion will spur female odyssey search pilgrimages.

 

[Fading Fast]

What! No Beer? (1933) with Buster Keaton, Jimmy Durante, Phyllis Barry, and Edward Brophy


Despite what your expectations might be going in, put MGM, Buster Keaton, and Jimmy Durante together and you get a bad movie, albeit with a few good moments because the talent is so strong it can occasionally break through the awfulness of the script.

It's cinematic lore – and it's reasonably accurate – that Buster Keaton moving to MGM was not a good career move for him, in any way, as his talents seem cuffed, yet his movies mainly made money, so it wasn't horrible for the studio.

What brain trust ever thought to pair Keaton's low-key nuanced deadpan with Jimmy Durante's "turn everything in the world up to a Spinal Tap eleven" is unknown (probably some overpaid executives at MGM), but rarely have two comedic styles blended worse than they do here.

Because it was mainly a Keaton movie with Durante coming and going, their pairing in The Passionate Plumber (1932) is, well, not good, but less bad. In What! No Beer?, though, they are often glued at the hip in scene after scene with Durante practically dragging Keaton along.

That's not a knock on either comedian – just a recognition that their styles didn't in any way gel. In fairness to Durante, he often looks like he's trying to help get Keaton through a scene. The "word" at the time was that Keaton was drinking heavily, so maybe that's part of the issue.

As to the movie itself, to appreciate it at all today, one must know that it was made when Prohibition was in an interregnum: the country had voted to repeal it, but repeal hadn't taken legal effect everywhere yet, so selling alcohol was still a crime, but it soon wouldn't be.

The "plot" has Durante's character, a barber, hitting on the idea to buy a brewery to be the first to the market with beer to sell after repeal. Dear God, that is an idiotic idea. He then brings his friend, played by Keaton, in on the plan, which Keaton finances.

Since they are in that "gap" between repeal and the law changing, the cops want to shut the brewery down as do the local bootleggers trying to squeeze the last illegal dollar they can out of prohibition.

Wrapped into this story is Keaton's desire to make a lot of money to impress a pretty woman, played by Phyllis Barry, who is the girlfriend of one of the big-time bootleggers. All of this – the beer, the gangsters, and the girlfriend – are just props for Keaton and Durante to play off of.

The entire effort is a loud slapstick farce. If grown men stumbling into each other, disrupting a polling place, falling off ladders, flooding a factory, slipping on a wet floor and knocking "respectable" people over is your kind of humor, then this is the movie for you.

Amidst all the "zany" antics that mainly fall flat, there is a funny scene or exchange now and then. When Keaton reads a book on big business and then explains modern price theory to one of the “up from the street” bootleggers, it's a little Keaton magic sneaking in.

It helps that the bootlegger in that scene is played by Edward Brophy, a first-rate character actor who intuits exactly how to play off Keaton's particular brand of deadpan. Unfortunately, there's just not enough of that.

Barry is the other oasis in this one, as she too knows how to play off Keaton. She, often contrived to be in her underwear, goes from thinking him a fool to falling for him in a believable way, in a movie in which little even tries to be believable. But again, there's just not enough of it.

There is also the occasional double entendre played out in dialogue that is surprisingly subversively funny. Listen for the conversation that Keaton and Durante have when Durante comes back from fishing. It's polite on the surface but viciously rude in its underlying meaning.

Durante, a talented comedian and actor, played fully to his on-screen brand here, which is dated for today, but had a sort of manic energy that Depression-era audiences appreciated. Still, Durante does better when he's in a supporting role as he's too much for a full movie.

Look for his breeze-in-breeze-out performance in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941) to see how his energy boost can work in lifting up a few scenes in a good movie without overwhelming the effort.

What! No Beer? is only an hour long, but it feels longer because some of the slapstick is painful to sit through. For Keaton and Durante completists, there are a few moments where their talent peeks through – yet you can’t help wondering how so much ability smashed up so badly.

 

[The Connector]

Waking Life by Richard Linklater, 2001. I saw it yesterday night.
A very sparkling for your mind animated movie. A philosophical exploration.
From the description...
''A man shuffles through a dream meeting various people and discussing the meanings and purposes of the universe''.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Pain & Glory (2019), now on Arte.