Suspicion (1941)

*may contain mild spoilers*

Second viewing; first seen between 1983 and 1986.

After a brief courting period, woman gets married to a playboy, only to find out he is not what she expected. As time passes, she comes to harbor terrible suspicions about him.

Narrative works dealing with doubt about a character tend to be fairly interesting. The object of that doubt usually expresses a prevailing concern of the audience at the time of the production of said work. For example, there is the late 19th-century novel Dom Casmurro, by Machado de Assis, about a suspected adultery that is kept unresolved (although some argue otherwise). Recently there was the film Doubt, about sexual abuse (not an extremely successful film, though). Regarding Suspicion, many viewers were left deeply dissatisfied with its resolution; some, however, see its ending as an open one, and I tend to align with them. The dramatic strength of Suspicion resides in the careful building up of a monstrous possibility. You may call it suspense if you like, but I was more interested in what the male protagonist was than in what the female protagonist would suffer. Although the ending appears to deflate our fears, a doubt persists, and, whatever the case is, one might ask oneself whether the relationship between the protagonist couple can ever return to its initial purity. The questions posed by the narrative are not as simple as they may appear on superficial analysis. There are several angles from which one might look at it. The wife's angle is mainly structured on the decision to marry someone, and, later, on the decision to leave one's husband. Also, there is a generic value problem which questions whether it is licit to establish a correlation between lax morals on issues like work and domestic finance to the capability to murder someone. There is a case to be made that these are merely accessory narrative devices that allow one to expose a more fundamental human question, summed up in an exchange at the dinner sequence at a mystery writer's house ("Do you suppose those murderers are happy, Johnny?/I don't know, dear. I don't see why they shouldn't be."). I believe this is the real dramatic core of the movie, the possibility of completely immoral behavior, which translates into the most absolute egotism. Can happiness stem from such a position? This is a modest yet interesting, well-made film.

Rating: 61 (up from 54)

The Set-Up (1949)

*contains spoilers, sort of*

Second viewing, probably. Previously seen between 1983 and 1986.

A boxing manager fixes a fight but does not tell it to his fighter so he does not have to share his fee with him (he thinks he will lose anyway). Things do not go as planned though.

Interesting film, with a good premise and a picturesque depiction of night-time city streets and of a boxing gymnasium before and during a fight. It seems no one has understood it, from the reviews I read. The major point of the film is a demonstration of the concept expressed in "in the heat of the battle". Simply put, it remains indeterminate whether the protagonist would or would not have thrown the fight had he been warned in advance. We know only that he did not throw it after having been notified of it at midfight. On the contrary, he seems to have fought even harder after that point, despite probably being aware of the tremendous risk he was taking. Fact is, his emotions spoke louder. The bottom line, a person's reaction to a stimulus is highly dependent on the conditions under which he receives it. The incidental elements and characters of the movie offer a complement to that central analysis, depicting several instances of emotional behavior and human apparent irrationality.

Rating: 65 (unchanged)

Clear History (2013)

After becoming financially ruined due to an impulsive decision, man moves to a small island city bearing a new physical appearance and a new name. His past, however, eventually revisits him in the person of his old partner, now a billionaire.

Moderately interesting collection of observations about human behavior in matters of money, sex, race, and electrical outlet placement, displaying the apparently irrational -- yet fairly typical -- component of that behavior. Not exactly great, but it carried me through it painlessly.

Rating: 53

Gloria (1999)

A woman who has just been released on parole pays a visit to her former boyfriend, right after the latter has ordered the execution of an entire family and got stuck with a boy of seven as the sole survivor of the massacre.

I cannot fathom the reason why they had to remake the 1980 film. And, unless I am severely deluded, they set it in the same era as the first, which is puzzling also. Anyway, I disliked this remake, and am beginning to have doubts whether the original was as good as I thought. I remember when I was a University student in the 1980s and for a very brief period (of approximately two weeks) was part of a group of students who showed films on campus (on video, I think), and I suggested the 1980 Gloria, against a colleague who suggested Rollerball. I won, chiefly because my pick had been easier to find, and after the exhibition this colleague (I do not remember his name, and barely knew him) called the film "cretinous", probably intending it to be heard by me. I am wondering now whether he was right after all. Anyway, what is obvious and nearly everybody has noticed is the lack of energy of this 1999 film. What is perhaps less obvious, and probably applies to the 1980 film as well, is that this is a curious case of liberal propaganda. It tries to pass off its protagonist's motivations as a belated case of motherhood instinct, which is a concept with universal appeal, including (and perhaps especially) among conservatives. But in the movie this motivation is very unconvincing, and might be seen as a flimsy disguise for its liberal message of whites taking care of "the other". If the film had taken a different turn at its midpoint, it might had made the excellent point that people who are in trouble should take care of themselves first. But that would be deemed insensitive, I guess.

Rating: 32

Red Rock West (1993)

*contains implicit spoilers*
 
Second viewing; first seen on February 13, 1994.

A penniless ex-military is looking for a job in a small town and comes across a risky way of getting rich when he is mistaken for a hired killer.

Neo-noir which at face level simply reworks a known formula. An alternative and admittedly wilder take on it might place it as a radical reworking of The Mechanic (1972). Whereas in that movie we see a young man going through the explicit apprenticeship process as a contract killer, here this process is subconscious and involuntary, and its very existence may be put into question depending on how one construes the film and its ending, and speculates about what follows it. The fact that both the 'Lyle' character and the protagonist are ex-marines is a hint that their interaction should entail consequences on the latter character that the film never openly shows. Furthermore, the structure of the film consists of constrasting a moral person with an immoral environment. After being exposed to Greed as personified in the corrupt sheriff and his wife, the hit man may have come off as a relatively more honest human being. At any rate, this is a very entertaining film which never lets the viewer down.

Rating: 71 (up from 69)

King Kong (1933)

Probably seen twice before; my latest previous viewing happened between 1983 and 1986.

A film crew and cast travel (by ship) to a remote island, where a fearful creature is said to inhabit.

Exceedingly entertaining and well-made tale about greed and stupidity, undoubtedly the two biggest problems of the world today. A fascinating subtheme is Masculinity, which, as embodied by the titular character, is shown in its simultaneously hyperbolic and ineffectual form.

Rating: 69 (down from 81)

Laura (1944)

Third viewing, if I am not mistaken; the first one was, I think, in 1983, and the second one was on February 14, 1988.

The investigation of the brutal murder of a young woman has as main suspects a middle-aged columnist who is famed for his arrogance and misanthropy, and a young man from an upper-class family who is in a sort of mutual dependency relationship with a middle-aged woman. The detective in charge gradually becomes emotionally entangled in a peculiar way.

I see I have certainly changed my taste in movies over all these years of film viewing; if I have become wiser or dumber (or neither) is, I suppose, undecidable. At any rate, I feel I have overrated this film on both my previous viewings. While it is engaging and interesting on many aspects, and hints at some marvelous ideas, they do not get satisfactorily developed. I think one of these ideas is that of falling in love with an absent person who is constructed in one's mind from a portrait and other people's testimony. I think this is the aspect of the movie that mostly caught my attention previously. On this present viewing, however, I focused on another angle, which better defines what the film is about. It may be seen as an exploration of the concept of masculinity, as it relates to a woman's needs. Two suitors are successively found lacking in this regard, and a third finally fits the bill.

Rating: 68 (down from 90)

El Dorado (1966)

Second viewing; first seen between 1983 and 1986.

A gunfighter helps a sheriff fight a rancher who threatens to dispossess another rancher in order to get his water supply.

So-so western, entertaining in a formulaic way. The quirky interplay among its characters and the overall deflated dramaticity reveal it could only have been written by a woman. That is no fault in itself, except its tricks just aren't successfully pulled off. By that time, audiences in search of more masculine emotions would turn to Italian productions.

Rating: 52 (unchanged)

Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

Second viewing, first viewing with original audio; first seen on February 5, 2000.

An unemployed black man in 1948 Los Angeles is hired to locate a missing woman, supposedly the sweetheart of a politician. He gets in a lot of trouble.

This is a decent black noir, in which white characters are depicted either as oppressive towards the black characters, or as otherwise repugnant. The farcical treatment of violence sets the film apart from most neonoir incursions. The cast is mostly impeccable, the exceptions being the lady who plays 'Daphne' (she is not very good, but not bad enough to ruin the movie), and the guy who plays 'Mouse', whose performance in this film has been vastly overrated. Of course, an exceptionally good director could improve such deficiencies, but that does not seem to be the case here. Now, consider this dialogue near the end:

[begin quote]
Easy: If you got a friend that you know does bad things -- I mean real bad things -- can you still keep him as a friend even though you know what he's like? You think that's wrong?
Odell: All you got is your friends.
[end quote]

This has interesting conceptual connections with the hue and cry over allegedly racial incidents in recent times. In a broader view, I am convinced that black films bring important matters for reflection to discerning white viewers.

Rating: 60 (up from 49)

Per qualche dollaro in più (1965)

Third viewing; latest previous viewing on July 10, 2006; first viewed on February 15, 1988.

English title: For a Few Dollars More.

Two bounty hunters team up against a bank robber and his gang.

My 2006 review of this movie on this blog went as follows:

[begin quote]
Synopsis: Two bounty hunters get involved with a bank robber and his gang.

Appraisal: It is my second viewing. The first time I saw it I must have been in a state of semi-conscience, because I gave it a very low rating. In fact, it is a good movie, and the first half hour is truly anthological. After that amazing half hour, the film shifts into a more conventional gear, but never becomes less than interesting.
[end quote]

I'm amazed at the near-identity of my synopses then and now. My appraisal has not changed much either, but I feel now that the film has a good one hour of anthological cinema (rather than just half). That makes up approximately half of the movie. The remainder of it is where plot takes over, and, while one can still sense the formal command of a young master director, I could not help the perception that indeed it had "shift[ed] into a more conventional gear". Also, I must grapple with the reasons I did not like it in 1988 in a more honest way than saying I was "in a state of semi-conscience". The main reason for my dislike probably has to do with a perceived artificiality of the movie. I was somewhat of a purist that disliked anything that was not "authentic", "true-to-life", etc. Also, I sensed some infantility to the whole proceedings, and I think I was right in that perception, but wrong in my reasons for disliking it. The film is very open about it, too, as made manifest in a line by one of the children about the behavior of the two protagonists, comparing it to the games the former liked to play. In order to make sense of this movie, and in fact of the whole non-American western genre, one has to understand that these works are a response to American cultural colonization of the rest of the world. "Serious" non-American films were either being politically confrontational about America, or else tried to depict local cultures away from American influence. Here, the tactic is completely different, akin to the concept of "anthropophagy" postulated by Oswald de Andrade. For a Few Dollars More (and many others) absorb the American culture and process it in such a way that it is robbed of its essence, displaying instead only a outward resemblance to its source. While the result may appear culturally alienated, it is in fact subtly charged with subversive cultural traits. For example, American cinema was gradually becoming more liberal in the 60s, and Westerns were no exception. Italian westerns completely ignored that trend, and turned out to be quite an influence on the subsequent American filmography.

Rating: 68 (up from 62)

Heaven Can Wait (1943)

Second viewing; first seen on January 11, 1990

A man dies and voluntarily heads towards Hell. At the entrance he meets the Devil and proceeds to tell him his life. The film then flashbacks to his early days and narrates his life, with emphasis on his amorous achievements.

A very good film on the preponderance of Nature over Nurture. Genetics is the mainstay of the whole structure, with abundant smart observations and a recurring catchphrase: "Where does he get it from?" We get to see a demonstration of how the human race gets aesthetically perfected from generation to generation, through the practice of free association between the sexes (rather than the old-fashioned marriages of convenience). Dramatic tension arises from recessiveness, which causes the dominant gene's phenotypical expression to skip one generation. This is implicitly shown as beneficial, as there is also need of conventional types with a strong work ethics and not much imagination. A good review by Ted Goranson may be read at the User Comments section on IMDB, or at his site (you must enter the film title on the search box). Here's a partial transcript:

[begin quote]
Out of the Barrel
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach
6 July 2005
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
A good story will charm even the devil.
Here's an uncharacteristically layered story. It has a thread of reality which we only peek. A man has been bad all his life. He's lied and cheated and as a result he's been sent to the anteroom to Hell where his case is reviewed.
He's given the option of telling his life and his version is what we see, a layer on top of that reality. In this layer, everyone loves him in spite of his lies, including his wife who ages little in 25 years. This version is rosy enough to convince the Devil to send him elsewhere.
The power of this story is reinforced just before it starts. A shrill woman with poor storytelling skills gets quickly sent through the floor to the flames.
Because this is somewhat formulaic, there's a small summary of the story embedded within, a well crafted comedy bit about the Katzenjammer Kids. Seems the week before, the Captain was entombed in an inescapable barrel. The comic this week (in a drawn out explanation) shows how he escaped. Something about a snake.
Casual viewers may wonder what this little play within the play is for. It is completely out of the mainstream of the story and is the only scene not directly concerned with our hero's life. Its there because the 20th Century rulebook said all big stories need a miniature version of itself within. Alert viewers will remember that everything we see is supposed to a remembrance of a life told to the Devil and everything except this would have been personally experienced by the narrator. So it really stands out because he cannot have recalled this.
Well, our hero escapes the barrel by telling the snake a story, and a good one (though the pacing is slow by today's standards).
Along the way, we get some of the lushest sets I've ever seen. It is as if all the cheap ornamentation of the dames in his memory have gone into decorating his imaginary barrel.
(...)
[end quote]

Regarding the "Captain in the Barrel" sequence, it provides a comment on the "marriage as a prison" theme, which is central to the movie; so, the sequence has indeed a lot to do with the "mainstream of the story".

Rating: 80 (up from 69)

Dead of Night (1945)

Third viewing; previous viewings: October 15, 1988 and December 19, 1994

The Hearse Driver is based on The Bus-Conductor, by E.F. Benson (1st publishing 1906).
The Christmas Party is apparently not based on an outside source; it does, however, reference a real-life crime.
The Haunted Mirror is loosely based on The Chippendale Mirror, by E.F. Benson (1st publishing 1915).
The Golfing Story is loosely based on The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost, by H.G. Wells (1st publishing 1902).
The Ventriloquist's Dummy is based on The Extraordinarily Horrible Dummy, by Gerald Kersh (1st published in 1939). Just for the record, the earliest story about a pathological relationship between a ventriloquist and his dummy seems to be The Rival Dummy, by Ben Hecht, first published in 1928 and filmed as The Great Gabbo in 1929.

An architect is hired to perform a renovation at a country house and, upon entering it, he recognizes the people assembled in the living room from a recurring dream of his. Each of them in turn then proceeds to tell a strange occurrence he or she has experienced or heard about. They involve, respectively, a premonition, an apparition, a hallucinatory mirror, a ghost, and a ventriloquist's dummy. The architect is increasingly overcome by fear of an impending catastrophe involving him and someone else at the house.

This collection of stories provides a sort of catalogue of fantastical motifs which have since become recurrent in the cinema. The underlying structure is an exploration of intrusion in its various forms. The main character enters a house for the first time and unleashes a series of narratives where Reality "cracks" allowing the Absurd or the Irrational to enter, a reflection of the War and the various kinds of invasion it entailed. We have such intrusions as the Dreamed upon the Consciously Perceived, the Future upon the Present, the Dead upon the Living, the Virtual upon the Real, Jealousy upon Love, the Role upon the Actor (or the Creature upon the Creator, or the Text upon the Writer/Reader), Impulse upon Reason (cf. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). The circular narrative provides a formal mirror of the structure as the beginning intrudes upon the ending; also, the lighter in tone The Golfing Story was seen by some viewers as an unwelcome intrusion rather than an agreeable interlude. From Christopher Mulrooney, I picked up (although, as usual, I am uncertain about the actual meaning of his words) the parallel between the reconstruction of a house and the reconstruction of a mind (both pointing allegorically to the reconstruction of a nation). I side with the majority in acknowledging the superiority of The Ventriloquist's Dummy over the other episodes, but all of them are good.

Rating: 75 (down from 88)

Le quai des brumes (1938)

Second viewing; first seen on November 15, 1994

English title: Port of Shadows

A soldier arrives at Le Havre, a French coastal city, probably after deserting from the army. He spends the night at a secluded café, to which he is led by a person he befriended on the street. He meets a few people there, among whom a young woman he takes a liking to. The place suffers an attempted raid by hoodlums, who are after a man who may know something about a missing friend of theirs. The following day brings many complications involving these characters.

Very bleak and with a dreamy atmosphere throughout, alternating extremely lyrical scenes with caricatural depictions of low-life criminals. A particularly hilarious moment is when the villain reencounters the hero in a carnival and gets slapped for the second time. I cannot give a proper account of all the good things in this film, the mise-en scene, the exquisite performances, the beauty of its female star, its musical score...

Rating: 75 (up from 68)

Private Benjamin (1980)

A woman who has just been through a devastating experience is coaxed into joining the army. She is not the soldier type, however.

I was more than willing to enjoy this film, for the reason that Paulo Francis once spoke very well of it. This is the kind of trap that adds the misfortune of spending two unpleasant hours of your life to the sadness of seeing one of your cultural icons be demoted from that position. Anyway, perhaps in part due to my favorable disposition, I rather enjoyed the first half hour or so, and then my annoyance grew gradually and steadily. To tell the truth, there was one sequence that I found moving, namely, when Judy is visited  by her parents at boot camp and suddenly revolts against them. Also, the movie's very last scene has a lyrical quality to it, although the situation that gave rise to it ranks among the most over-used cliches of cinema. Also, this film is a curious case of Jews "sticking their necks out", and I recall that the year before there was The Frisco Kid which also did that. In the case of Private Benjamin, however, the critique is bland to say the least. For the most part, this film is just another case of Hate the Men indoctrination, a favorite topic of recent cinema, and justly so, given that female audiences bring big bucks to the industry, and it has the added bonus of winning the minds of a few weakly-defined men in the process.

Rating: 40

Pot Bouille (1957)

Second viewing; first seen on December 23, 1994

Based on the novel by Émile Zola, first published in 1882.

U.S. title: Lovers of Paris
Approximate title translation: Stew Pot

A young man from a small town arriving in Paris for the first time takes a room with a relative at an apartment building and a job at a fabric shop. He is handsome and very interested in women; they reciprocate in various ways and degrees.

A light critique of the bourgeoisie, not badly done. It's hard to positively criticize this film, because I do not see faults in it, except if you consider it a fault the fact that it does not really go anywhere. But it is not unpleasant, apart perhaps from a certain monotony in its parade of adulteries and seductions.

Rating: 57 (down from 64)

Out of Rosenheim (1987)

Second viewing; first seen on April 30, 1994.

U.S. title (and also of the copy I've seen): Bagdad Cafe

A very fat German woman leaves her husband while they are vacationing in America. They happen to be in the middle of the Mojave desert at the moment. Seeking a place to stay, she finds a nearby Cafe and Motel the owner of which is a permanently furious black woman. The owner's initial reaction towards the new guest is one of bewilderment and irritation, but this German has a way of growing on people.

Bittersweet comedy. The film may be understood as a defense of tolerance, and it is interesting to point out the intrinsic contradictions involved in such a discourse. There is always a narrative 'scapegoat', someone towards whom intolerance must be directed, in order that islands of tolerance may be built. In this particular instance, males are the target of that intolerance, and when that happens they are actually intolerable as devised by the filmmakers, so that no fault falls on the female characters. This film was a big success in Brazil upon its release, one of those cases where the sole responsible for that was the film itself, instead of advertising and other extraneous factors. The film's aesthetical appeal has probably  greatly contributed to the film's success; images seem to have a precedency over words, and plot is next to non-existing; the theme song and soundtrack are also key to the creation of mood. It's also a timely film, even more so today when intolerance against whites is reaching intolerable proportions; and it offers a 'magic white' as a complement, if not an antidote, to the current 'magic negro' stereotype.

Rating: 69 (unchanged)

Hobson's Choice (1954)

Second viewing; first seen on January 6, 1995.

Based on the play by Harold Brighouse, first produced in 1915.

A widower with three daughters is thinking of marrying the two younger ones while keeping the eldest, who is 30, as his perpetual companion and as manager of the shoe shop he owns. But she has other plans.

"A Hobson's choice is a free choice where only one option is offered", explains Wikipedia. I guess here it refers to the eldest daughter's choice of husband. I could be wrong, of course. This is a serious candidate for becoming a cult classic and required viewing among the Gender Studies folks in all the good Universities. You see, it has a character who is a perfectly masculine woman, and another who is a perfectly feminine man. The film consists in these characters' personality shaping: first the woman educates the man to fit his sex, and, after this is accomplished, he can educate her to fit hers. I guess if this story were set in modern days, instead of 1880, they would be both undergoing a quite different process of adequating their bodies to fit their immature minds; probably, too, they would never become a couple. Alas, this was from a time when fathers were very egotistic and tyrannical (as they say in Sardinia, a padre padrone, which is another movie), unlike those of our times who are caring and liberal (sometimes they come in pairs). Wikipedia, speaking about the play, points out similarities to King Lear and Cinderella. The TV Guide review is well written and offers a just appreciation of the film's qualities.

Rating: 84 (up from 50)

Warlock (1959)

Second viewing; first seen on January 11, 1987.

The town of Warlock is suffering constant outlaw raids, with deaths, vandalism, and the latest deputy (somehow, the town is not qualified to have a marshal, so he is the top local law enforcement authority) being run out of town. Responding to that, a majority of townspeople hire a gunslinger to get rid of those troublemakers. The situation changes a bit when one of the outlaws defect from his bunch and becomes the town's new deputy. An important subplot involves the gunslinger's sidekick and a woman whose fiancé was shot by the gunslinger.

The theme of barbarism vs. civilization is one of the most important ones and has been frequently dealt with in fictional narratives. The Western genre has been quite amenable to it, and this film is one of the more successful works to deal with it. It is a perfectly structured one, which pivots on a character's physical handicap to develop its analysis. I wonder whether this would be considered acceptable by our present-day political-correctness police; at any rate, back in 1959 nobody raised any objections to the fictional assumption that physically handicapped persons might become morally handicapped as well.

Seen in pan-and-scan.

Rating: 76 (unchanged)

Love Field (1992)

Second viewing; first seen on June 30, 2002

A woman living in Dallas is moved by the assassination of President Kennedy, and decides to attend his funeral. Her husband vehemently objects to it, and she decides to go without him. On the bus, she befriends a man traveling with his daughter. A certain complexity is added to it by the fact that she is white and he is black.

Although not everyone would agree that this is a funny movie, technically it fits into the comedy genre, because it obeys its essential requirements -- characters with a low social standing, and a happy ending. A characteristic of comedies is their sympathy for liberal causes, as opposed to tragedies, which are conservative par excellence. A work of fiction, however, has always a degree of political ambivalence, and this is no exception. Thus, one of the tenets of conservative thinking is amply demonstrated here, namely, that a misguided act of charity often causes more harm than good. It is an interesting and engaging film, tautly written and competently directed.

Rating: 63 (up from 59)

Love Is on the Air (1937)

A radio show host is planning to do a story about an extorsion scheme led by a crooked club owner and involving members of the city administration; through pressure of the show's sponsor, who is a partner of the abovementioned gangster, our hero is demoted to the kiddie show. Meanwhile, the businessman who was going to expose the scheme is kidnapped and wrongly accused of disappearing after having embezzled company's money. Chance has it that one of the kids the radio host befriends while doing his show had a family member who was a victim of the same gang.

Low-budget thriller, not particularly noteworthy, although it has thematic elements which might be of interest to some.

Rating: 33

The Girl Can't Help It (1956)

Second viewing; first seen between 1983 and 1986.

A gangster wants to turn his girlfriend into a successful singer, and for that purpose hires a down-and-out agent. He and the girl fall in love with each other.

Uneven musical comedy, of historical importance due to the influence its rock-and-roll numbers had on the evolution of that genre. It's a multifaceted film which never reaches a unity among its parts. The plot itself is not that important, and seems to be aware of it. The movie is at its best when it does its satire on sex-symbols (its female star is "a parody of a parody", according to TV Guide's fine review); the musical performances, though impressive, have just a casual relation to the rest of the movie. The film's best line is featured in Dale Thomajan's book Great Movie Lines.

Rating: 51 (down from 58)

Pépé le Moko (1937)

Second viewing; first seen on October 10, 1994.

Title translation: Pépé the Toulon Man

Pépé is a French criminal hiding in the Algiers district known as the Casbah; he is continually hunted by the police who try to lure him into leaving the safe district. Pépé falls in love with a French tourist visiting Algiers, much to the chagrin of his Algerian lover.

The criminal as superhero, here with a twist, the European as a mythical being among third-worlders. He exerts endless fascination over women and the humble masses. Yet again, we learn that a criminal life has no future. As for the present, living with the colonials is hell on Earth, their men are treacherous and their women can be a real drag -- and vice versa! The Third World is not for the European, a recurrent theme. A hypnotic film, of dark beauties and even darker truths.

Rating: 77 (up from 70)

The Gunfighter (1950)

Second viewing; the date of my first viewing is under suspicion -- I have no record of having seen it since 1987, a fact which suggests I saw it between 1983 and 1986; on the other hand, I have a tape recording of it dating from the early 1990s, a fact which suggests the possibility of my having seen it then and having forgotten to write that event down.

A middle-aged gunfighter comes to a small Western town hoping to contact the woman with whom he had a relationship and a son with. He must deal with the town's curiosity about him, and some young men who keep bullying him to prove they are tough. Also some people are after him to avenge their relatives who were murdered.

The fascination with violence is an important theme, and one that resonates to this very day. An equally cogent theme is the need to escape an identity which no longer suits one. The general lines of the script seem to obey a predetermined template for a sort of Western elegy, and the result seems a bit strained at crucial moments. Also, the protagonist seems to be a very good guy, his shady past being somewhat toned down. This seems also to be the case with his friend the town marshal. In both cases, I cannot say I buy that concept. In spite of those problems, the film somehow flows well and there is even room for some great sequences.

Rating: 65 (unchanged)

Sea of Love (1989)

Second viewing; first seen on March 30, 1991

Two crimes featuring a man found dead in bed are probably linked to the same perpetrator; police detective Keller was on the first case and suspects the murderer is a woman the victim met through a newspaper ad. He and the cop from the second crime team up and decide on a risky strategy to catch the killer. A mighty complication ensues when the protagonist falls for a suspect.

The plot details do not resist a critical analysis, so we better skip that part. The film is just a series of excessively predictable situations which culminate in an excessively unpredictable one. Despite everything, it still manages to entertain, I guess sex and death make for an arousing combination. The film bears curious structural similarities with Tootsie, especially a nearly identical ending, but I would never have realized it, if it weren't for the discussion board at IMDB (see here and here).

Rating: 53 (down from 63)

Landru (1963)

Inspired by the final years of the life of Henri Désiré Landru (1869-1922), a famous French murderer-for-profit of women.

This film is well regarded for its historical rigor, but it seems to go against known facts by making its protagonist a conscientious paterfamilias. The real Landru was estranged from his wife when he committed his murders, and, on my Internet searches, I found no information implying that he supported her or his children with the money he obtained from his crimes. Whatever the truth is, I found the double life the protagonist leads rather implausible. Furthermore, he is played in a caricatural manner by the leading actor, and is made to recite Baudelaire at every imaginable occasion, coming across as quite a buffoon. The film's most sensible point seems to be that the war altered the populational equilibrium of Europe, leaving a surplus of unaccompanied women who were easy prey to unscrupled men. Despite being vaguely instructive about some facts of life (e.g. the psychology of women, cp. Les bonnes femmes), this is mostly a rather dull film.

Preceding the film, in the copy broadcast by TV5, one reads (as translated into English) that "The film you are about to see has received the Special Jury Prize at the International Film Festival at Cannes in 1962", a statement which is patently untrue and made me wonder whether I am living in a Twilight Zone episode.

Rating: 44

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

Second viewing; first seen on February 28, 1993

A small steamboat captain is being nearly put out of business by the local magnate and his big steamboat. The poor captain's son, with whom his father had parted ways when he was a baby, returns to meet him. Soon after his arrival, the young lad is pleasantly surprised to encounter his sweetheart, whose father is none other than the abovementioned magnate.

This capitalist updating of Romeo and Juliet is a glorious defense of education as a means of prevailing and even coming to the rescue of precisely those who despise it. The film is also a powerful indictment of the deleterious effect of the monopoly of economic power on democratic life.

Rating: 90 (unchanged)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Second viewing; first seen on September 12, 1992

A couple vacationing in Switzerland with their daughter witness the murder of an acquaintance who happens to be a spy; before he dies he delivers a message to the protagonist.

Entertaining thriller, with humorous touches. This is from a time political assassinations were rampant. They continued to be quite frequent until the end of the 1960s. From then on they seem to have become outmoded, or the exclusive realm of madmen, probably because security on politicians was tightened to a degree that such acts became impractical. Extremists have developed different tactics. In Brazil, where I happen to live, there does not seem to be a history of magnicide. The government, on the other hand, attempts against the lives of citizens on a daily basis by supporting very lenient punishment for violent crimes. This film tackles the old Athenian theme of the opposition between the private and the public good, as expressed by the protagonists' apparent dilemma of saving their child vs. saving a foreign statesman. Athenians put the public good above all else; by the 20th century the situation of the world had changed in such a way that the public good came to have a direct bearing on the private one, as the First World War demonstrated.

Rating: 52 (up from 43)

Sixteen Candles (1984)

Second viewing; first seen on July 8, 2006.

The film's action spans two days on the life of Samantha, a sixteen-year-old woman: her birthday and the day after that, which is her older sister's wedding day. The events in these days are those of normal teenagers: family life, school, parties, dates, and of course her sister's wedding.

Adolescence is a rather universally appealing subject in movies; childhood is too distant, and the mind then is too unformed, for adult viewers to remember it vividly; adulthood, on the oter hand, is when people go their different ways, so you can only viscerally relate to stories which coincide with your particular path in life. This cool comedy has enough inventiveness to keep anyone entertained, and an emotional side which is rather sensitively done. It aspires neither to satire nor to realistic drama, so you may rest assured things will have a way to work themselves out to everyone's contentment.

Here's my previous blog entry for this film, published upon my first viewing. It is rather anodyne (the present one is not much better, I am afraid):

[begin quote]
Synopsis: On her 16th birthday, girl seems to be experiencing a living hell.
Appraisal: This film is an account of adolescence's troubles centering on the feminine perspective. The film adopts a light, comic approach, and has generally intelligent dialogue and many interesting characters and situations. Adolescence is one of the most fertile subjects for films, and this is probably one of the better films about that interesting period in human existence. The performances by the leading actress and the boy who plays her rejected suitor are very convincing; also, an excellent actress in the beginning of her career makes a funny small part as a girl using a neck orthopedic device.
[end quote]

Rating: 68 (up from 66)

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

Reportedly this film loosely borrows from several sources directly or indirectly, namely, A Thief of Bagdad (1924), one or more tales from A Thousand and One Nights (though I do not know which one or ones), and a 1928 story by Robert E. Howard named The Tower of the Elephant.

A head-of-state is deceived by his Secretary of State, I mean, a KING is deceived by his VIZIER, and ends up in prison, where he befriends an adolescent thief, who helps both escape. Both the king and the vizier vie for the affection of a princess.

Entertaining oriental fantasy which deals with politically relevant themes of this day and age such as beheadings, Middle Eastern despotism, and the emancipation of women in the Third World. The hero here doesn't want to conquer the world, but to make people happy. Why wouldn't he conquer it so he could make all people happy beats me, but anyway a little after that he is ousted from power, and thus will have to at least conquer his own country back. Another important issue that the film tackles head-on is that of adolescent criminals, one that plagues some parts of the world (e.g., Brazil). It is heartwarming to hear King Ahmad's candid assessment of his sidekick's behavior: "You stole it because you enjoy stealing." Every scientifically-minded person should give this a thought or two. Ultimately, this kind of film thrives on the contradiction of being simultaneously repelled and attracted by the barbaric world it depicts.

Rating: 55

Airplane! (1980)

Second viewing; first seen on an unremembered date, certainly prior to 1987.

Based on the television movie Flight Into Danger (1956), written by Arthur Hailey, by way of its theatrical remake Zero Hour! (1957).

The pilot and most of the passengers and crew of an airplane suffer food poisoning, and the only person who might be able to fly it is a war pilot whose sole flying experience was with one-engine planes.

An analytical study the scope of which is ample, ranging from verbal play in the Marx Brothers' tradition to the semiotically-oriented taking apart of fully cinematic structures. It took guts to make a film like this; its success has made its innovations rather commonplace, yet beyond its groundbreaking role it stands as a solid work, with very smart casting decisions, and overall agreeable comicity. The general reaction of the critics reflects a certain zeitgeist acknowledging the exhaustion of cinematic formulas.

Rating: 73 (up from 66)

Dial M for Murder (1954)

Second viewing; first seen between 1983 and 1986.

A man devises a plan to murder his wife, in order to get her money. His plan makes use of her past adultery with a writer of crime novels.

This is not like John Lennon's narrow definition of life ("what happens to you while you are making plans"). Here, instead, life includes not only the planning itself but adapting to plans gone wrong. Well, trying to adapt anyway. Regarding the plot, some people on IMDB have protested that it would be preferrable to make a third copy of the key (and thus have the whole film aborted), but I think that would leave a track.

Rating: 59 (down from 60)

Stromboli (1950)

Second viewing; first seen on March 1, 1989.

A woman from Czechoslovakia who is interned at a Displaced Persons' Camp in Italy after World War II marries an Italian Prisoner of War in order to be released. Afterwards, however, she cannot adapt to the harsh living in the titular volcanic island.

This is a failed attempt at mixing documentary and fiction; rumor has it that there was no screenplay, a circumstance which does not always spell doom on a film, but in this case appears to have done so. The film manages to retain some residual artistic value because the location is splendid, and one is entranced by the sheer power of the imagery. Regarding the drama, on the other hand, one is forced to agree with Bosley Crowther's assessment about the shorter version, which suits perfectly the longer. His description of the movie seems to differ from the longer version only in the ending.

Rating: 44 (down from 61)

Child's Play (1988)

Second viewing; first seen on May 9, 1997.

A homicidal maniac is fatally wounded by a policeman but, before dying, manages to move his conscious self, along with all the psychological contents of his brain, to a toy doll. He then proceeds with his plan to exact revenge on both the partner who abandoned him and the cop who killed his former body.

Mostly a derivative, mediocre horror movie with some reasonably well-done set-pieces. I am sorry I cannot come up with something deeper and more intelligent than this; so that you do not consider this visit to my blog a complete waste of time, I direct you to a short review by Christopher Mulrooney which I found more accessible than his usual.

Rating: 42 (up from 29)

Skammen (1968)

English title: Shame

A childless couple living in a small farm is disturbed by a civil war.

"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you". This became a misquote of Trotsky, who really said an analogous sentence with 'dialectics' instead of 'war'. Replacing that with 'politics', it becomes a misquote of Pericles, who said "We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all". The man in this film is a pitiful specimen, just like the yuppie in the prologue to Idiocracy (wimps have no kids). Time rages war on us, all the time (cf. Scenes from a Marriage), this is only an allegory. Not that there are no real wars, look at Ukraine. Love is a very beautiful thing, but needs a material support to exist. Otherwise, it cannot survive its shameful nakedness.

Rating: 59

L'amore (1948)

Second viewing; first seen on June 23, 1994.

U.S. release title: Ways of Love
Title translation: Love

First episode is based on the play The Human Voice, by Jean Cocteau, first performed in 1930.
Second episode is loosely based on the novel Flower of Sanctity, by Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, first published in 1904.

(1) A woman speaks on the phone, presumably for the last time, with the lover she is parting with.
(2) A shepherdess meets a stranger whom she thinks is Saint Joseph, and he takes advantage of her.

(1) If you are not a recluse, you must have noticed how young people of today walk in the streets with their eyes on their smart phones. This segment, called A Human Voice (yes, with the indefinite article), provides a prehistory of sorts of the phenomena associated with the effects of technology on human relations. However, whereas today's youth seems benumbed by technology, here we see the reverse, namely, a woman turned hysterical by her telephone. It is a fine idea, well executed.

(2) Perhaps conscious that it would be impossible to continue on the same level of tension of the first episode, this second segment, named The Miracle, abandons hysteria in favor of madness, a much more amusing subject. I think one of the sure signs of civilization is how well mad persons are treated. Here she is not treated well enough, and the film shows this with art, although the narrative seems a little too terse at times, to the point of being a little vague.

Rating: 51 (up from 20)

Ladri di biciclette (1948)

Second viewing; first seen on June 13, 1994.

U.S. original release title: The Bicycle Thief.
U.K. release title, and correct translation: Bicycle Thieves.

A poor man is hired as a poster hanger. On his first day of work, his bicycle -- a necessary item for his job -- is stolen, sending him on a wild goose chase through the streets of Rome.

This is a very good film, although I am not sure I liked it for the exact same reasons as I did on my first viewing. First of all, let me say that most reviews I came across are just useless, with two exceptions, which I will mention later. If you get turned on by words like "heartbreaking", "devastating", "poetic" (this one is a real movie-criticism pest), and so on, you will probably disagree with me. Otherwise, there is a small chance you will find what I have to say interesting. The question of realism must be dealt with as swiftly as possible, so we can get down to the really important issues. This film is called 'neo-realist', and is considered as part of a movement with that name. In my humble opinion, this pertains exclusively to (1) film-making technique, especially location shooting in city streets; (2) subject matter, namely, poor people, who, for some reason, are considered more 'real' than rich ones -- good luck trying to make that label stick on a film dealing with aristocrats, for example. This summary takes care of all the people claiming that the plot and characters are not realistic and therefore the film is unworthy of its label. One particular review, posted on the Discussion Board on this film's IMDB page, falls into this category, but has some valid points, and is rather amusing, so I will partially transcribe it here:

[begin quote]
Pomposo Massimo
by
clayasbury» Mon Oct 14 2013 03:56:27 Flag ▼
IMDb member since May 2011
Post Edited:Mon Oct 14 2013 06:53:30
(...)
Yes, beautifully shot, impressive casting, charming gesticulations....But, if you intend to make gritty, unflinching social commentary through art (neo-realism), it must rest upon a narrative more credible and substantial than this.
The protagonist is surrounded by poverty, yet 1 million bicycles jam the streets of Rome as he searches for his with his son. Simple supply and demand principles undo this attempt at realism - fatally. Something so commonplace can't also be that which we are also intended to believe is so rare and valuable.
He is also surrounded by friends - friends with means, money, vehicles, etc... Yet, they spend all day and most of the night running/driving/fighting through Rome rather than loan him a bicycle for a week or the money (with interest!) to rent/buy one? Again, this is a bicycle, not the Hope Diamond.
Nitpicking? Suspension of disbelief?
No, let me remind you this is neo-realism.
[end quote]

With realism out of the way, let me get to what I think is this film's main point: a study on certain essential qualities for human survivability. The main character is obviously a fool, a man who, under any social conditions, would never amount to much, and under the harsh conditions depicted by the movie, will have a hard time simply surviving. He consistently does the wrong thing throughout the entire movie and does not show the least respect for a valuable possession -- his bicycle: right at the start he tells some footballing children to look after it, later goes out on his job without a simple protecting device such as a padlocked chain; in a later scene, he shows the same neglect for something much more valuable: his son, whom he leaves unguarded and then panics when he thinks something awful has happened to him. But you can see his helplessness in far more trivial things, such as his utter inability to do a decent job of hanging a poster. The film's genius consists in opposing him to his son, a much smarter and more resourceful person. A key scene is when the son scolds his father about some damage that was done to the bicycle at the pawnshop and is scornfully dismissed; obviously the father was both too careless to pay attention to such things and too weak-willed to assert himself to the pawnbroker. The son is neither, and thus must have taken after his mother, who also shows resourcefulness by deciding to pawn the bedsheet. All of which leads us to the polemic about this film's political message. I am convinced it is neither Marxist nor Nihilist, and in fact is not propaganda of any type. It sheds some light on social darwinism, not as a political system to be espoused, but as a fact of life which must be reckoned with. It is interesting to connect the film's content with its production history, something which I picked up (regardless of what was really meant) from Christopher Mulrooney's notes on this movie ("Out of nothingness, a career in the movies, a certain apparatus is needed for this.") and the movie's Wikipedia page's account of the difficulties its director went through ("had just made the controversial film Shoeshine and was unable to get financial backing from any major studio for the film, so he raised the money himself from friends.").

Rating: 83 (down from 90)

Les bonnes femmes (1960)

Second viewing; first seen on May 16, 1994.

USA title: The Good Time Girls
(God only knows the actual meaning of the French title, literally it means 'The Good Women', but there seems to be more to it than that)

A few days in the lives of four young women who work at the same shop. Jane is slutty and extroverted, Jacqueline is shy and dreamy, Ginette is secretive, Rita is conventional. A motorcyclist has been stalking them, apparently with romantic intentions towards Jacqueline. Two very debauched fellows also cross paths with the girls. The shop owner appears to be the weirdest of the lot, but is a quite harmless old man.

A delightful little film, quite unusual in its freedom to wander through established genres such as the comedy, the musical, the horror film, and the neorealist drama. Among the fine cast, the shining star is undoubtedly Lafont, who in this part is more than just a performer: she is a real force of nature.

Rating: 72 (up from 70)

The 39 Steps (1935)

Second viewing; first seen on October 19, 1992.

Based on the novel by John Buchan, first published in 1915.

A Canadian man visiting London is wrongly accused of murdering a woman. She was a secret agent, and was murdered by members of a secret spy organization who is trying to smuggle military secrets out of the country.

Entertaining thriller with overtly comic touches, and subtly dramatic ones as well. The ultimate meaning of the plot is not so easy to fathom; I vaguely suspect it to be a commentary about the Commonwealth, since you have a Canadian hero who tries to save England from an organization which operates out of Scotland. The thesis might be that Canada, although separated by an entire ocean, and not a part of the United Kingdom, may be a valuable ally against treacherous forces encroached in a neighboring nation who is a part of that Kingdom. Now that Scotland has decided to remain joined with England, instead of going its own way as an independent member of the (Afro-Asian-)European Union, this film may prove healthy food for meditation. Or not. Anyway, I had a jolly good time reading every single line of dialogue of it from a transcription in the internet, as I went along watching it. Thanks to the transcriber for a job well done, although I still think that the farmer's coat was not "his son's" but instead "his sunday best". TV Guide has a well-written review of this film. That reviewer is considerably more enthusiastic than I am, but that is just as well, maybe on my next viewing of The 39 Steps I will come to his senses.

Rating: 58 (up from 50)

The Breaking Point (1950)

*Spoilers below (sort of).

Second viewing; first seen on April 21, 1991.

Based on the novel To Have and Have Not, by Ernest Hemingway, first published in 1937.

Harry owns and operates a charter boat as a living. He has a wife and two little daughters. Business is low, and his financial situation is not very good. He takes a man and his alluring girlfriend to Mexico, but things get complicated over there. The upshot is that he is pushed into even more trouble.

The criminal developments in this film are very entertaining, and by themselves justify it. There is, however, a subterranean theme that runs through it -- its subconscious mind, so to speak -- and gives it just that extra mojo. It concerns a man with such an intense attractiveness that women are irresistibly drawn to him, and even men have trouble keeping apart. This may seem like a desirable quality, but, like most things in life that seem desirable at first, it turns into a problem in the long run. The movie consists in the difficult process of getting rid of that problem. It is a subconscious process, of course, which in the conscious surface takes the form of inescapable situations of financial and legal trouble. The ultimate goal is to restrain oneself to one's wife and family, and lead an orderly and quiet life. It is achieved eventually, yet at a very high price. The first, and possibly not the most painful, part of that price is getting his best friend killed; the latter's subservient attachment to the protagonist is the crux of the problem and ultimately his doom. The second part of the price is having his own arm amputated, so that women will not find him attractive anymore and thus will stop harassing him. This is a very realistic and honest film, and the camerawork impressed me very much as well. It is also fascinating to see how much trouble one could get into back then (according to the film) by smuggling a few foreigners into the United States of America.

Rating: 74 (up from 70)

Sabotage (1936)

Second viewing; first seen on August 15, 1992.
*Warning* Spoilers Below*

Loosely based on the novel The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad, first published in 1907.  

A London cinema owner executes acts of sabotage for a foreign terrorist organization. He lives with his wife and her schoolboy brother who do not suspect of his criminal activities. A Scotland Yard detective is investigating him while undercover as the next door grocer.

The plot is full of absurdities, as the review which I transcribe below hopefully will show. I took it from the User Review section on this film's IMDB page (filtered by the 'Hated It' option):

[begin quote]
Worst Hitchcock Film Ever!
Author: krdement from United States
8 June 2008
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I cannot imagine how people rate this film highly. Have you ever seen the brief bit on Hitchcock between movies on TCM? Andre de Toth lambastes Hitch as a lazy and sloppy film-maker. After seeing Sabotage for the first time, I now understand why.
I don't think Oscar Homolka is intended to be funny in this drama, he's dumb as a box of rocks! (In fact, every character in this movie is conveniently stupid!) In the aquarium scene, Homolka's contact informs him that he won't get paid until he accomplishes his job; Homolka's minor interruption of electric service did not do the trick! But Homolka just says, "Huh? I don't understand?" He is equally slow to catch on to the idea of bombing Picadilly Circus. HELLO! Then he stumbles into the wrong side of the exit turnstile, can't figure it out and struggles there until the next person to exit pulls him into the right side. (Otherwise, I guess he'd still be struggling like a wind-up toy spinning its wheels in futility against a wall!) Then he has to be fed constant reminders about "Saturday at 1:45." He is so incompetent and stupid that it is difficult to see his being used in a spy ring - even as a dupe.
The scene where Homolka goes to the bomb-maker's bird shop is totally inexplicable. In the spy game, contacts among agents are strictly minimized. Yet Homolka's visit serves no purpose. We meet the bomb-maker's family. We see his daughter's toys mixed up in his bomb-makings. We see that he keeps his ingredients in ketchup bottles and jam jars. But Homolka doesn't need to be there when the film-maker shows us these things. He risks going there just to be told that he will receive the bomb in a birdcage??? Why didn't the aquarium contact tell him that?
The undercover Scotland Yard man is equally dumb. We never hear him explain to either Sydney or Homolka who he is or show them any identification. He just launches into his interrogation of Sylvia Sydney in the open theater right under Homolka's nose. Now that's smart and discreet! He ends up revealing more to her than she reveals to him, even though she should logically still be under suspicion. He promptly interrogates Homolka in the same way. He doesn't ever identify himself, but just launches into an interrogation. But he ends up giving Homolka more information than he gets. It's a cinch that Scotland Yard didn't build its reputation on the likes of that agent!
When Sydney learns of her brother's death, things really start to fall apart. Thereafter nobody behaves in a logical way or in a way that I could identify with. Apparently convinced of Homolka's responsibility, Sydney doesn't go immediately to the undercover agent, like any rational person. Instead she exposes herself and invites her doom by directly confronting her husband - who she apparently believes is a ruthless murderer. For his part, Homolka just says,"Sure I was responsible, but, hey, it's no use crying over spilt milk; why can't the cook ever prepare green veggies." THAT whole scene between Sydney and Homolka is surreal - not a syllable of dialog that seems to ring true under the circumstances! Sydney cries, but she never seems to portray either real shock and/or grief or SUPPRESSION of shock and/or grief in order to maintain Homolka's trust. The little boy's death is an emotional footnote in this story. Even when Sydney awakens from fainting and envisions her brother's image among the faces peering at her, or when she stops the child wearing the identical tie during her flight after killing Homolka, there is negligible emotional impact.
When the bomb-maker's wife urges her husband to retrieve the birdcage from Homolka, we are left to ask,"Why???" What is so incriminating about a couple of birds in a cage that Homolka gave the boy? So, she shoves him out the door of their shop with his hat, coat and umbrella. No bomb. No time to make one. Does he just keep 'em lying around ready-made "just in case???" No bomb when he hails the cab. No bomb in the cab. No bomb when he goes up to Homolka's apartment. But - PRESTO, bomb! when he locks himself in the apartment and threatens the detectives banging on the door!
Then after the bomb goes off, the detective in charge just tells Sydney she is free to go. The good inspector knows enough to absolve the wife of a terrorist without any investigation! In fact it is NOT apparent to anybody in the film - ONLY to us the audience - that Sydney is innocent! Unless you assume some uncorroborated statements she has provided the investigator - which the audience didn't hear!
This is just a sampling of the holes in this movie that are so big and so numerous and so glaring that, like Andre de Toth, I am compelled to conclude that Hitchcock was a very sloppy and lazy filmmaker. Could Hitch have imparted missing information to both the audience and the characters in the film? You bet, easily! Could he have imparted it in scenes that were more credible in a supposed spy-story? Absolutely! Could he have created characters who didn't have to be dumb or defy professional standards in Scotland Yard to advance this story. DUH! One commentator characterized this story as "tightly written." He must have gotten this film confused with some other movie. This movie absolutely fails to hang together at all. ALL of Hitchcock's British films are vastly superior to this piece of swiss cheese.
I chuckled at this movie - just not at the parts that were intended to be funny. Mostly I just scratched my head. How could this mess have been directed by one of cinema's greatest?
[end quote]

Although I found the sharpness of the above observations delightful, I do not have as negative an opinion of Sabotage as this person. In particular, the main character is not without a certain fascinating repellence, especially as rendered by Homolka; the most shockingly outrageous scene is probably when, after having caused his wife's brother's death, he suggests they should have a child of their own. But it is true that overall this is not a successful film.

Rating: 37 (up from 35)

Marie Antoinette (1938)

Second viewing; first seen on May 21, 1992.

Fictional biography of the Austrian-born wife of Louis XVI of France.

Despite showing some respect (but not enough of it) for the victims of the Revolution, and depicting its perpetrators with acceptable accuracy, the screenplay is otherwise not very good, its weakest point being perhaps an ill-conceived love affair between the titular character and a Swedish nobleman. Overall, I found the film vaguely amusing, more watchable than it appeared to me when I first saw it (I was anti-monarchy then, I think).

Rating: 38 (up from 30)

Je t'aime je t'aime (1968)

Second viewing; first seen on November 22, 2005

Title's literal translation: I Love You I Love You

A failed suicide agrees to be the subject in an experiment involving time travel. He is expected to go back one year, during one minute, but there are complications and he gets trapped in a succession of snippets of his past. The main focus is his relationship with a depressed woman, for whose death he feels somewhat responsible.

As any art form gets older, the tendency to self-reference is inevitable. You see, film is by itself a time machine; what we see here is an allegory of cinema, and of the modern ability to watch films repeatedly (like I just did). The kind of play with repetition in which this film engages is somewhat derivative from works such as the novel The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares, and previous films from I Love You I Love You's director, especially Last Year in Marienbad, by Alain Robbe-Grillet. While not as bad as I first thought, I again failed to see what the big deal is with this film. Call me a conservative, but the formal apparatus was distracting and mostly perfunctory; a more direct exposition would perhaps have resulted in a better film, yet, alas, still not good enough, whence the need to worsen it so it could seem better to the impressionable ones. Anyway, it is curious as a sign of the times, and in the plotline too, with characters that reflect the post-modern age in its beginnings; and they surely hit a bull's eye with the casting of the female lead, judging from her biography.

Rating: 31 (up from 18)

The Farmer's Daughter (1947)

Second viewing; first seen on January 4, 1994.

The titular character leaves her parents' farm for nursing school in Capital City (I am guessing this is Washington, D.C.). She loses her money and thus has to work as a maid for a rich politician. She is very opinionated and makes an impression.

Liberal ideas aren't always aligned with populist ones. In fact, I suspect they are really on opposite ends of the political spectrum, most of the time. However, when it comes to selling liberal ideas, they must be coated with a populist veneer. See, for instance, how billionaires are trying to get Immigration Amnesty passed in the U.S.A. by appealing to humanitarian instincts and the like. The Farmer's Daughter is a good example of those tactics. It is based on a play by an Estonian-born Finnish authoress who was a spy for the Soviet Union (need I say more?). As for the screenwriters who adapted it, I do not know much about their political leanings, but could make an educated guess. Anyway, the movie's first half is about minimum wages and milk for schoolchildren, and then it becomes something about the Ku Klux Klan, of which the villain, a politician, is a high-ranking official. As a piece of political mythology this film is at least curious, and it works passably as a comedy (it has a very well-made brawling-and-mayhem sequence near the end). Also curious is that the female lead won an Oscar for it, and was a life-long Republican.

Rating: 43 (up from 30)

Caged (1950)

Second viewing; first seen on December 15, 1990.

Marie is sent to prison for being an accessory to armed robbery (committed by her husband, who died). Inside she will get in touch with a world of corruption, humiliation, and suffering.

An excellent movie where practically every scene has become a template for the imagination of the prison world, every frame a cultural icon. The film has some possible imperfections derived perhaps from a supposed liberal agenda of denunciation of the penal system. This is a screenplay problem which pales in face of the film's artistic strength, but let's get down to it anyway. One example of a detail which I found puzzling: when Marie tells the prison interviewer she and her husband tried to rob a convenience store and were about to steal forty dollars, the interviewer tells her that "Five bucks less, and it wouldn't be a felony". It seems to me that the screenwriter was trying to convey the idea that her punishment was too harsh for such a small amount, and how arbitrary the sentences are. Well, I can't help wondering if this has any base in reality; I mean, does the criminal categorization and the sentence really depend on how much is available in the cash register at the moment? Doesn't pointing a gun at the store clerk count as a felony by itself? Anyway, these are just doubts of a man with little or no knowledge of the law. The reception of this film is also a factor of puzzlement. In the reviews I read, Marie is invariably described as an innocent person when she enters the prison, and yet, when asked if that was the first and only time when she accompanied her husband in a crime, she answers: "I don't want to talk about it, please." And the fact that she is emotionally fragile does not imply that she is morally irreprehensible. The way she progressively hardens herself is interesting and may be seen as the thematic center of the movie. In that regard, prison may be seen as a liberating experience for her. A variation of that theme is found in Pickpocket, where mere imprisonment has an immediate releasing effect on the protagonist.

Rating: 72 (up from 69)

Pat and Mike (1952)

Second viewing; first seen on January 18, 1990.

A Physical Education teacher decides to get away from her boyfriend for a while, and try her luck as a sportswoman (in golf and tennis). She finds she has a better chemistry with her agent (who is also her coach) than she had with her boyfriend.

A comedy about the effect of being watched on the watched person, a topic which has been acquiring increasing relevance in our world of today. The film seems to imply that overt 24-hour monitoring and control is liberating (because it is caring) for the one being watched, but may have a subjugating effect on the watcher. On the other hand, a casual look, smile and remark may have an insidious effect on the object, perhaps because ambiguity is more menacing than certainty. There is a subtheme of beating oneself over beating your adversary, which I am not sure is properly developed. Some of the film's comicity is derived from the somewhat ridiculous outer aspects of golfing, which the non-initiated will probably "get" better than followers of that sport. The film seems also to be a satire of both the upper and lower classes, somehow implying that when they mingle it is good for both. The intrinsic dullness of tennis is masterfully upended in a hilariously delirious sequence which sums up much of the film. Overall, this film is consistently entertaining, with a nice flow and a well thought-out progression towards the untying of its plot's knots.

Rating: 72 (up from 69)

Gentleman Jim (1942)

Second viewing; first seen on February 4, 1990.

A fiction incorporating some biographical elements -- and the name -- of real prizefighter Jim Corbett, one of the first boxers who, in the late 19th century, fought by the Queensberry rules.

I have been reading about transgenic organisms, and, while thinking on something to write about this movie, realized that biopics, old Hollywood ones anyway, are a lot like them, or, if you prefer a more literary reference, like those creatures created by H. G. Wells' Dr. Moreau. In this case, the monster could be named Flynnbett or Corlynn. Of course films vary in how much of the subject's personality is brought to the screen; in this case, I doubt there is anything other than some superficial data (he lived in such time, fought such and such guys, had such boxing style, etc.). Be that as it may, as a generic picture of the beginnings of boxing, this is very convincing and exciting; as a vehicle for the flamboyant leading man, it is also highly satisfactory. The love interest appears to be fictionalized, and is consistent with the ideas the film is trying to convey about class mobility, self-confidence, and so on; the name 'Victoria Ware' is very funny, whether intended as a joke or not.

Rating: 77 (up from 70)

Big Jake (1971)

A ranch is raided by a gang, who kidnap the owner's eight-year-old grandson after killing and injuring several people. The woman who owns the ranch decides to summon her estranged husband, who has been away for several years, to lead the rescue team.

Routine Western, with some curious touches, fine cinematography, and acceptable action sequences. The curious touches are mostly related to it being set at a later date than usual for the genre, in 1909, which allows for the presence of motor vehicles in it.

Rating: 40

Madhouse (2004)

A new intern at a psychiatric institution is intrigued by several strange occurrences, and by some stories about the place.

There are similarities with Shutter Island. Neither is of any interest.

Rating: 11

What Price Glory (1952)

Based on the play by Maxwell Anderson, first performed in 1924.

During World War I, a Marine outfit is stationed in France. The Captain who commands the outfit has a rivalry with the top sergeant over the love of the innkeeper's daughter. When she talks about marriage, however...

The gorgeous Technicolor cinematography is the highlight of this otherwise mediocre sentimental comedy. What, a sentimental comedy about World War I? You bet! I guess if one is the sentimental type, it does not really matter what one is sentimental about.

Rating: 39

Sundown (1941)

Second viewing; first seen on February 4, 1989.

During World War II, a British outpost in Kenya gets a change in command with the arrival of a strict British officer. He brings bad news about natives getting guns from the Nazis, and an upcoming riot. The arrival of a beautiful woman who owns a trading chain adds to the complexity of situation. To complete the picture, there are three other characters, the outpost's Italian cook and two new arrivals: a mineralogist and a white hunter.

This film is an example of Hollywood fighting World War II before the U.S.A. entered it. Colonialism is also a factor, and the conjugation of European self-interest and African improvement provides the theoretical thrust; the central idea is, on the geopolitical angle, that the Axis is concentrating on land movements, and their success will render the Allies' control of the oceans "useless". On the African human angle, the notion they come up with is that the black man is like a plant that, properly watered, will bloom. The subtheme of Trust, which I discussed recently in my review of Saboteur, appears here too, in very similar terms: here too, "instinct" is a better guide than institutions. I guess this was a recurring dramatic motif. The film chooses to solve its particular political conundrums by revoking the separation of Church and State, in a touching dying speech. I will upgrade my rating a few points because, on one hand, I understand the dialogue better this time, and, on the other, because there are some visually arresting scenes (it was filmed in New Mexico).

Rating: 33 (up from 30)

The Ten Commandments (1956)

Second viewing; first seen on an unremembered date, before 1983.

Moses is a Hebrew man who was abandoned as an infant and was raised as a son by the Pharaoh's daughter. He becomes the following Pharaoh's favorite, arousing his brother's jealousy. His destiny, however, lies with his co-ethnics, whom he endeavors to free from captivity and into a new land.

Visually beautiful and expressive rendering of the ancient Biblical story. Drama-wise, however, it is unsatisfactory, due to all sorts of anachronistic concessions to liberal ideas, erotic appeal, and other melodramatic distortions.

Rating: 51 (down from 56)

Saboteur (1942)

Second viewing; first seen on February 5, 1989.

During World War II, a man is wrongfully accused of sabotage of a aeroplane factory. While hiding from the police, he tries to locate the real culprit and in the process uncovers a sabotage ring.

Entertaining thriller. Much of it is propaganda, but ultimately it sends the wrong message by implying that one should trust a suspect of sabotage just because one's "instinct" says he's innocent. Of course the correct message would be to simply hand matters over to the police. Perhaps the film reflects a mistrust of that institution at that time, or maybe they were only thinking on how to give some length to the plot. The film's patriotic speeches are mostly quite awkward or downright hilarious, such as when the opposing sides of the War are identified as, respectively, Love and Hate. Despite being marred by its simplistic politics, Saboteur does not do badly overall, and I had a fairly good time watching it. Taken as a cinematic dream, it is just an expression of subjectivity and thus obeys its logic, which is one of desire, fear, etc. As is sometimes the case with films, Saboteur's frequent incursions into absurdity are perhaps part of its oneiric charm.

Rating: 55 (up from 49)

The Egg and I (1947)

Second viewing; first seen on February 6, 1989.

A newlywed couple move to their recently bought rural property. The husband wants to set up a chicken farm. The place needs a lot of work. The city wife is not used to farm life. The neighborhood is full of odd types.

Most of it is rather tedious; some of it is mildly enjoyable.

Rating: 34 (up from 30)

Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

Second viewing; first seen on March 3, 1987.

In a society where books have been banned and houses are fireproof, the firemen's job is to find and burn books. One of them begins to question his work.

As a serious tale about a political dystopia, this movie is wrong on so many levels that the task of analyzing it is simply senseless. Suffice it to quote IMDB user reviewer Theo Robertson on perhaps its most basic assault on reason:

[begin quote]
A society where books are banned ! It's not a fantasy . Consider the likes of Nazi Germany , Stalin's Russia , Mao's China etc , but the flaw with FAHRENHEIT 451 lies in the idea that not certain books are banned but ALL books are banned . Think about that for a moment then ask yourself this question : How would a society be able to function under this law ? We're shown schools still exist but how do pupils learn without being able to read text , and if people can not read text then how will they be able to write ? It seems impossible that a society would still be able to function without books
[end quote]

As an absurdist comedy, on the other hand, it is not bad. Not having read the novel, I can only assume it was written (in the early 50s) as a kind of resentful apocalyptic rant against television by someone who took it upon himself to be the spokesman for the supposedly moribund class of fiction writers (even though he makes all class of books the victims of this fictitious law). I note also that the movie uses what is called a "straw man argument" in rhetoric: you take an obviously bad deed and condemn it energetically, thereby reviling the one whom you accused of that deed, in this case an authoritarian government. As a consequence, all authoritarian governments are now seen in a bad light, even though most of them would never do such a thing in the real world.

Rating: 51 (up from 37)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Second viewing; first seen between 1983 and 1986.

A man is vacationing in Morocco with his wife and nine-year-old son. They are befriended by a man on a bus, and get dragged into a political conspiracy.

Moderately entertaining thriller. It is very implausible, but the best sequence is probably the most implausible of all (it involves a church bell). It is not exactly suspenseful, although it supposedly intends to be; the sequence at the concert hall is rather awkward: you get to hear good music while you wait, and that is all. The featured song is puzzlingly out of place in a film like this: if "what will be, will be", why should I care what happens next?

Rating: 53 (down from 58)

The Decks Ran Red (1958)

The chief mechanic at a ship concocts a murderous plan to get rich. He has a faithful accomplice and a recalcitrant one. The new captain knows there's something fishy going on, but at first has no clue about who's pulling the strings. To complicate things further, the new cook comes aboard with his sexy wife.

Cheap thriller shot at a real ship, allegedly based on a 1905 incident about which nobody seems to know anything (perhaps this is a joke with the Potemkin revolt). The film is moderately enjoyable and well-made, although the plot is not very plausible.

Saw it dubbed in Portuguese.

Rating: 51

Ace in the Hole (1951)

Third viewing; first seen on October 18, 1987, then on April 8, 1994.

A down-and-out journalist gets a job in a small town, in the hopes of finding a story that will enable him to make a comeback in a big newspaper. He thinks he has found such a story when a man gets trapped inside a cave.

New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote a very sensible and down-to-earth review of this movie, stressing the improbability of the journalist's scheme. I would go even further than him in pointing out that the whole mob gathering and media circus has been exaggerated, and is more akin to surrealism than realism. But I also think that movie plots shouldn't necessarily be taken at face value, and sometimes exaggeration and implausibility are valid tools to make a point, as is the case here. In terms of social and political comment, I am under the impression that Ace in the Hole is a necessary complement to Ninotchka, which was written (or co-written, if you prefer) by the same man. While Ninotchka was a critique of communism, Ace in the Hole is a critique of capitalism. As for Crowther's objections, he is right of course that no journalist could pull such a plan through. But the point is that some of them wish they could. And the film has some important insights into the inherent duality of men's actions: a good deed needs the evil which it corrects in order to exist, and it is a natural tendency of people to perpetuate good things (which in turn would call for a perpetuation of bad ones).

Rating: 80 (down from 91)

La bandera (1935)

Second viewing; first seen on July 21, 1994.

U.S. title: Escape from Yesterday.
Literal translation (from the Spanish): The Flag.

A French man commits a crime while in Barcelona, and, fearing arrest, joins the Spanish Foreign Legion. He is sent to North Africa, where he is supposed to defend the Spanish colonies from riots and other disturbances.

Interesting colonial adventure on the theme of friendship forged in war. The performances are good, the film is entertaining. Several people in the User Review section on IMDB noticed the implausibility of buiding a fort far from the water well, when the rational thing to do would be to build the fort around the well.

Rating: 51 (up from 43)

55 Days at Peking (1963)

Second viewing; first seen on March 30, 1990.

In 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, Western citizens in China are constantly under threat, and the lack of troops and ammunitions make the situation even more ominous. An American major, working under the leadership of the English representative, tries to defend the Foreign Legations as best he can, while an attack is being prepared by the Boxers, with the half-disguised support of the Chinese Empress. In the midst of all this, the American major also gets romantically involved with a Russian baroness.

Entertaining and at times quite spectacular, this historical drama suffers somewhat due to an ill-advised sub-plot involving Russians. Perhaps it is a bit ironic that this film came out in a year when American involvement in Vietnam was rapidly escalating. The politics shown in the movie, although tackling several issues that are usual in Western affairs in foreign countries, is quite bland if compared to post-Vietnam films, either Vietnam-related or not. An excellent introduction to the origins of the situations described in the movie is provided by IMDB user trpdean in the User Reviews section (there is no way to link directly to his review, apparently).

Seen in pan-and-scan.

Rating: 51 (up from 37)

L'argent de poche (1976)

Second viewing; first seen on April 5, 1994.

U.S. title: Small Change.
Literal translation (and U.K. title): Pocket Money.

Several boys (and an infant), their occupations, interests, interactions among themselves, with girls and with adults; also how their parents and teachers treat them, think about them, educate them. A sort of axis for the narrative is a boy whose father is confined to a wheelchair; this boy has a crush on his friend's mother, and befriends a mysterious colleague who lives in a shabby house and seems to be neglected (or worse) at home.

A cleanness of thought pervades every frame of this film; it has been called 'didactic' and I confess this word has crossed my mind. But it somehow transcends that because of its commitment to frankness. In a nutshell, this is a no-nonsense approach to childhood, a period of life with its specificities, yet without any holiness about it. The sequence at the movie house with the two boys and two girls is possibly worth of special mention for being absolutely brilliant. Although there isn't exactly a plotline, the series of episodes are intelligently woven into a complete narrative. This film's reception has a interest in its own right. It's amazing (well, not really) how old cliches like 'poetic' (with the meaning of 'lyrical') and 'magical' have again been used; what is really amazing is how the filmmaker has somehow predicted this and scoffed at it in advance, in a scene where a parent or grandparent (not sure which) confesses she does not particularly like children and looks after hers because of a sense of duty alone. Nothing could be more un-poetic. On a more controversial note, there is that final speech by the teacher, calling for direct action in a world of rotten politics. Well, think what you will about this, what matters here is that this is exactly how most schoolteachers think. Vincent Canby's review for the New York Times is intelligent, and uses the word 'poetically' in a way some other famous critics do not seem capable of.

Rating: 72 (up from 70)

Castle on the Hudson (1940)

A hoodlum who took part in an arm robbery is sentenced to prison in Sing Sing, in New York State. He is used to having his way in every situation, but the warden is a tough guy.

An entertaining movie, well acted, and with a plot that's good to laugh at. It seems to be set in an alternate universe where ruthless criminals regenerate all of a sudden and can be relied upon to keep their "word of honor". This seems to be the same universe where most Brazilian legislators and court officials live.

Rating: 51

In Love and War (1996)

A nurse and her patient fall in love in Italy during World War One.

Very bland love story. It is not so hard to watch, but has nothing really distinguished that would earn it a place in one's memory. The story and characters are similar to those in A Farewell to Arms (1957) and Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962), but I remember having liked those films better.

Rating: 31

The Group (1966)

It follows the life of eight American college women friends, after they graduate in 1933. They are: the aristocratic lesbian (who assembled the group in college and moves to Europe after graduation); the introverted one, who has a tendency to take pity on people, her men included; the bitchy one who works for a publisher; the artistic type who marries a scumbag and is forced to work at a department store; the "sexless" one who cannot decide on an occupation; the politically liberal who marries a reactionary and keeps having babies; the sexually liberal who gets hurt and marries money; and another one who is a bit of an enigma and frankly seems totally superfluous to the film.

It took an extraordinary amount of energy for me to get into this film, and once I got that going, it was only modestly rewarding. I have to be frank about these women: their lives are not that interesting, especially as told in such a hurried, superficial fashion as it is done here. It seems to me that there is a certain misconception about it because this is not exactly a film about women; men make for a lot of the proceedings, and are just as interesting characters (often more so) as the female portion. Taken in isolation, there are several interesting situations or sequences in the film (the satire of psychoanalysis and marxism that is Polly's lover, for instance, is a highlight) and also many witty, and even laugh-out-loud funny lines of dialogue. The sum total of these parts, however, is a bit of a let-down. What interested me most was the opportunity to better understand some subtleties of the liberal mind, and the definitely feminine character that defines it. This is best seen in the 'Priss' character, a fragile woman who lives a contradiction and describes her husband's family resentfully as "all republicans" (he defines liberalism in a slightly crude but essentially correct way as concerning oneself with "the bread line"). This is not to say that women cannot be conservative, and we have good examples all over the world; perhaps we could say that women are just more easily led, more gullible than men.

Rating: 55

McLintock! (1963)

A big rancher faces a series of concomitant problems: his wife, from whom he was separated, comes to visit him about divorce and the custody of their daughter; there is a Comanche riot concerning the trial of some chiefs (he sides with the Comanche); the government has granted tracts of land to farmers in the neighboring area, who may have a negative political influence in the region, and also may have been misled by (in his opinion) economically unrealistic assumptions; and some other minor ones.

Western which constitutes a sort of overview of conservative tenets. Energetic handling of women, mistrust of government, sensible and fair economic principles, and some other minor ones, are themes which get woven into the comical plot. The film is well directed and mildly enjoyable, but somehow films with a clear political affiliation do not seem to be able to achieve great art. Perhaps this can only be done by transcending the division of the political spectrum into Left and Right. Anyway, my understanding of such matters is, at best, a work in progress.

Rating: 55

Le streghe (1967)

English title: The Witches.

Second viewing; previously seen on August 19, 1997.

Five segments, all with a thirty-five-ish woman as a protagonist. (1) A movie star makes an unexpected appearance at a party; (2) a woman in a car in a hurry is stopped due to a traffic accident on her way; (3) a widower and his son go on a quest to find a woman who would be their respective new wife and stepmother; (4) a woman who has been seduced and abandoned tells her father about what happened; (5) an executive's wife nags her tired husband about his lack of vitality and romanticism.

(2) and (4) are just short jokes, respectively superb and mildly funny. (1), (3) and (5) are longer, and provide each an angle of the woman's situation in modern, i.e. 60's society. (1) is very specific to show business, and pretty awesomely written and directed. (3) is extraordinary in its surreal slapstick, but its 6 final minutes are very hard to make sense of, unless one ventures into the realm of allegorical interpretation, in which case the "moral" is a statement about its female protagonist and exploited women in general. (5) is an amusing analysis of the dilemmas of the modern couple in a capitalist environment, with the woman still in a pre-feminist mindframe and wondering about "the emancipation of women". The film's idea of showcasing the lead actress's versatility is a success. Judging from the number and contents of the external reviews in the IMDB, this film was poorly received. Critic Dale Thomajan, on the other hand, placed it among his top tens for 1969, this being the reason I have decided to re-watch it once the opportunity came up.

Rating: 72 (up from 69)