Romero (1989)

 Based on the real life events which culminated in the murder of an archbishop in El Salvador in 1980. The government neglected the miserable condition in which many lived, and there was a guerilla movement which aimed at deposing it. Some members of the Church took the side of the poor, which was seen -- in some cases correctly -- as taking the side of the guerilla. Romero was reputed as a socially conservative bishop but he moderated his views after the murder of priests and the occupation of churches.

Well-made political drama. What is missing in the film, apart from some excitement, is an answer to the question: why do countries like El Salvador are permitted to exist? But perhaps the answer is in the film after all, when we see Romero send a letter to the U.S. asking them to stop sending arms to El Salvador. So, I gather that El Salvador's purpose is (or was at the time, anyway) to enrich American arms makers. If self-determination of the peoples entail what we see in this movie, or what we are seeing now in, say, Brazil, it's not really something of great value.

Rating: 45

The Reluctant Astronaut (1967)

(spoilers) Roy works at a carnival entertaining kids on a simulated space ride; his father wants him to be an astronaut and sends an application for him to NASA. He receives a reply, but they misunderstand it, not realizing he was accepted for a job as janitor. The whole town thinks he is in a training program for astronauts, and he goes along with the lie while he can. It so happens that Russia is sending a layperson to space to prove that their automated spacecraft is capable of flying unattended; the U.S. does not want to lag behind its main competitor.

Space comedy. Its plot ideas are very conventional and formulaic, but it is passably well done and manages to entertain mildy. 

Rating: 43

Long John Silver (1954)

 Someone called Rod Crawford has provided an excellent plot summary for this film at the IMDB.com site:

"After the Treasure Island adventure, Long John Silver turns up on a British Caribbean island, where he hears that rival pirate Mendoza has taken the ship carrying the governor's daughter...and his young friend Jim Hawkins. Naturally, there's more to his rescue plan than meets the eye; he hopes to get a new ship and go back for more treasure..."—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

This is an unnecessary and mediocre sequel to a good film. It isn't particularly well plotted, and there are not many sequences which are really entertaining (the chase after Hawkins by Hands near the end is admittedly well done and exciting; I don't recall others, to be frank). Newton is the main attraction here, with his vigorous (though a little monotonic) performance.

Rating: 34

Treasure Island (1950)

Second viewing, probably; probable previous viewing was in the 1970s or in the 1980s before the end of 1986.

Based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in serial form in 1881 and 1882.

A boy comes into possession of a treasure map, and a man from his town assembles an expedition to a small island to search for it. Unfortunately, the ship's crew is comprised of pirates, brought by the cook, who is their chief.

This is a very well-made film where every detail seems to have been thought and taken care of. The story needs no introduction, as it has become hugely popular. Although everything about it screams perfection, I was left wondering why they didn't simplify the dialogue's wording just a little bit. Are children, or even adults, today or in 1950, supposed to understand phrases like "...and a boatswain what pipes man-o'-war fashions."? Or know that "fo'c'sle" is a contraction of "forecastle", which designates "the forward part of a ship below the deck, traditionally used as the crew's living quarters"? Well, perhaps they are. By almost every objective standard, this is a superior film to the 1934 black-and-white version, but why did I enjoy that earlier version more? Perhaps I didn't focus on those silly details when I watched it? Anyway I am left with more doubts than certainties regarding those questions. The story being told here, though wrapped in a children's tale format, allows for some deeper reading. Stevenson was obsessed with the problem of good and evil and the mutual conflict between those opposite poles, sometimes expressed by a "double" (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) or two opposing brothers (The Master of Ballantrae). Here he has concocted this ship allegory where evil enters unsuspected and plots to take over. The treasure hunt is an allegory for life itself, and how in every person's "ship" there enter evil elements which try to interfere with the success of our "trip". And there is the character of Long John Silver, who embodies the good-evil duality in a more nuanced way than Jekyll/Hyde or the Durie brothers: he can neither be categorized as pure evil nor as pure good. He may have been corrupted by an evil environment, but that did not destroy the spark of goodness that lived inside him. 

Rating: 65 (up from 56)

Madama Butterfly (1975)

 Based on the opera by Giacomo Puccini, with libreto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, which had its premiere in 1904. The origin of the story is given by Wikipedia as:

"It is based on the short story "Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Luther Long, which in turn was based on stories told to Long by his sister Jennie Correll and on the semi-autobiographical 1887 French novel Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti.[1][2][3] Long's version was dramatized by David Belasco as the one-act play Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan, which, after premiering in New York in 1900, moved to London, where Puccini saw it in the summer of that year."

(spoilers) An American Naval officer in Japan takes a Japanese geisha ("Butterfly") as his wife. Shortly after their wedding, he leaves Japan and his wife. She refuses to divorce him, hoping he will return to live with her and their son, born after he was gone. Three years later, he returns with a new wife from America. Butterfly commits suicide.

This is a TV production with the actors playing their roles in realistic settings and dubbing their pre-recorded singing. Musically, it is excellent in all aspects; the libretto is quite moving, though I do not like the opera format very much. As a visual spectacle, it has some nice indoor sets and a superb acting performance by the leading actress.

(I will not rate this, as I don't rate operas, though perhaps I could in this instance because it is not simply a filmed stage production.)

Why Worry? (1923)

 A hypochondriac takes a trip to a South American island where he intends to relax his nerves. His nurse is in love with him, but he can't take his mind from his imaginary afflictions and his countless pills. Unbeknownst to them, a revolution is being hatched at that island. His rest cure turns into a kind of shock therapy.

This is an endlessly inventive and consistently entertaining succession of gags. Bananas (1971) possibly had it as an inspiration for its premise.

Rating: 75

Knights of the Round Table (1953)

 Based on the narrative Le morte d'Arthur (tr. The Death of Arthur), by Thomas Malory, completed aroud 1470.

Around the 6th century, England has many local lords who battle each other. Arthur believes he is destined to unite England under his rule. His half-sister Morgan and her lover Modred are contenders for the throne. The knight Lancelot joins Arthur in his battle for the throne. Arthur and his supporters are victorious and peace is achieved. Modred and Morgan are pardoned, against Lancelot's advice. Lancelot is in love with Arthur's wife Guinevere and is loved back; Morgan and Modred plot to compromise them, aiming to sow the seeds of discord within the kingdom. There is also a wise old advisor to the king named Merlin. Finally, there are other knights (who sit around the titular table), amongst which one (Gareth) who is a troubador and another (Percival) who is a religious loon and wants to recover the chalice from which Jesus drank in the Last Supper and which collected his blood at the cross.

This is a quite well produced film, but also quite boring. There is little action and it is not very exciting. Most of the plot revolves around the platonic relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere, and the Holy Grail stuff is an add-on that does not make much sense in the context of the narrative.

Rating: 42

Ivanhoe (1952)

 Based on the novel by Walter Scott, first published in 1819.

In 12th-century England, a Saxon knight (Wilfrid) wants to restore King Richard, with whom Wilfrid had been to the Crusades, to the throne, which is now vacant, the ruler being Richard's brother John. Richard is considered dead by most in England, but Wilfrid locates him in an castle where he is being kept as a hostage by the Austrian ruler, the ransom payment having been denied by his brother. Wilfrid goes to the Jews for money and must fight many Norman knights in order to restore Richard's rule and save a fair Jewess from death (though his real love goes to his father's stepdaughter).

Basically bogus historically, but fairly entertaining as a narrative and spectacle, this is a film about which much could be written as analysis of its concepts and narrative devices, and of its historical distortions. For now, suffice it to say that it is visually pleasing and has enough internal coherence for fictional purposes.

Rating: 52

Sai de baixo (1956)

(spoilers) A group of circus artists enlist in the military parachutist team, and must go through training in the hands of a sadistic sergeant. The sergeant has his eyes on the girlfriend of one of the cadets. The latter goes to jail after a fist fight with the sergeant. Another cadet kidnaps the colonel's dog so as to pose as its rescuer and ask as reward the freeing of his comrade. The kidnapping is riddled with misfortunes, such as when the dog (inside a bag) gets trapped inside a meat freezer after they took hiding in there.

Extremely low-budget comedy which, much like the other films by this writer/director, manages to come up with something mildly entertaining despite the paucity of resources at his disposal. Unfortunately, I am not much of a fan of the leading comic actor, who was also a circus clown just like the character he plays.

Rating: 34

Un dollaro bucato (1965)

English titles: Blood for a Silver Dollar; One Silver Dollar

Faithful translation of the Italian title: A Punctured Dollar

 A man and his brother separate after the end of the American Civil War. One of them heads for a town named Yellowstone; his brother also heads for that town later. Yellowstone is riddled with corruption; there they see their fates decided in a violent and tragic manner.

As most Italian Westerns, it has a plot with many ridiculous turns and childish notions, and owes more to fairy tales than to anything related to the real American West. That being said, it has above-average production values and entertainment value compared to other films in its genre.

Rating: 44

Calmos (1976)

 U.S. title: Femmes Fatales

Paul and Albert leave their wives and vow to live without women henceforth. Their wives protest and demand their return. It turns out that men from all over are doing the same. Women will not take it sitting down.

This is a essentially a one-joke movie. Though it is never realistic in the full sense of the word, the first half has some amount of narrative logic; after that it escalates into fully oneiric territory. The Wikipedia article has totally misunderstood it by claiming "it satirises [...] the rise of feminism in France". The film is not about feminism at all. It's simply an absurdist take on the battle of the sexes, the first half being a male version of Thelma & Louise. The brotherhood-of-men themes it explores have been explored earlier, albeit in a different manner, in Wake in Fright (which I reviewed yesterday), and perhaps tangentially in Home Movies a few years later.

Rating: 45

Le Gendarme à New York (1965)

 English titles: The Troops in New York; The Gendarme in New York

The policemen from The Troops of St. Tropez are chosen to represent France in an international event to be held in New York. The police sergeant's daughter stows away in their ship. In New York, he keeps seeing her and everyone including himsel thinks he is going crazy.

This is a mostly mediocre comedy whose sole reason to exist was to cash in on the success of a previous film, but to be honest it has such a frantic pace and such beautiful cinematography over a variety of interesting locales that watching it is less of a pain than perhaps it should be. One sequence parodying West Side Story is mildly funny though.

Rating: 34

Wake in Fright (1971)

Initially released in the U.S. as: Outback

A school teacher at a minuscule village in Australia is leaving for the Christmas holidays, which he intends to spend in Sydney. He spends the night in a small town where he loses all his money through gambling and is thus prevented from traveling further to his destination. At that small town he gets involved with a bunch of heavy drinkers who enjoy hunting kangaroo.

This is not a bad film, and actually makes for a quite exciting watch; truth be told, it is comprised mostly of recurring cinematic tropes, many of which are commonly associated with small towns: the lonely, sex-starved woman (cf. The Last Picture Show), the disgraced educated man who lives in a sort of forced exile (cf. The Drunken Angel, Apocalypse Now), male bonding which conceals whatever degrees of homosexuality, Veneer Theory (cf. Deliverance, Straw Dogs, Apocalypse Now), places one cannot leave (cf. The Exterminating Angel, Groundhog Day), compulsive gambling (cf. The Gambler, the Dostoevsky miniseries), and possibly others. As critic Gillian Hanson, cited by Wikipedia, said, the main character's behavior is poorly explained, and I would add that it appears as if he is little more than a vehicle which the film uses in its goal to depict Australian small-town life.

Rating: 64

Adieu Philippine (1962)

"World-wide (English title) (informal English title): Farewell, Philippine" (IMDB)

A guy meets two girls. He dates both, together initially and later separately. He decides to take a vacation in Corsica before he is called up to fight in Algeria. The two girls appear there later, looking for him.

Love triangles are a fertile premise for fictional stories. The threesome is just a variation on this premise which became popular with the sexual liberation of the sixties (another French film, this time featuring a guy and two girls, came out a few days after this one, and is considerably more famous). Philippine (by the way, this is not the name of a character) is not a bad film, and has deservedly been praised for the extremely natural performances given by its actors, many of whom had little-to-no prior experience or subsequent career. There is not much in the way of a plot, and I guess most of the enjoyment is derived from seeing these people act naturally doing the things young people usually do (though I wouldn't vouch for the believability of these two young female characters, but what do I know about life, right?). I guess this is the kind of film the director character in Day for Night, which I have reviewed a few days ago, predicted as the future of cinema: no studio, no stars.

Rating: 57

Martes y 13 (1962)

It's Tuesday the 13th, a date which Spaniards think brings bad luck. A couple is about to be married but the groom delays himself because there's a fire in his building. He borrows the firemen's truck to get to the church, and is arrested after the wedding, along with an older man who has gotten married at the same time and church. Both men are released the next day, and both couples head to Portugal for the honeymoon. The first guy has a "twin cousin" who plays hockey in Portugal. Lots of trouble ensue.

Perhaps I'm not in such a good mood today, or perhaps this is actually an annoying comedy. The kind of humor it displays is vulgar and the plot is wholly uninspired. There are some nice shots of Lisbon and the seaside, and the dames are pretty, but I wonder whether that justified watching it.

Rating: 24

Rich and Strange (1931)

 An accountant is fed up with his mediocre life. He receives a sum of money from a rich uncle and decides to go on a trip through Europe and Asia with his wife. He gets seasick on the ship and stays in his room. His wife befriends a man and the two become romantically attracted. A few days later, her husband gets well and this time he is the one who has an extramarital affair -- with a woman who calls herself "the Princess".

Charming comedy-adventure-drama, magnificently well filmed. This is a talking picture which has many sequences made in a silent picture style. Although it is in essence just a comedy of marriage triumphant over various outside disturbances, it is done in a very artistic manner and is fully entertaining all the way through. For a detailed analysis of this film, you might want to read what Christopher Mulrooney wrote.

Rating: 75

La nuit américaine (1973)

Second viewing; previously viewed between 1983 and 1986

U.S. title: Day for Night

The shooting of a motion picture. The young male star is emotionally immature, his girlfriend the script-girl does not really want to commit to a serious relationship, the female young star has had an earlier nervous breakdown, the older female star is an alcoholic who cannot remember her lines, the director is overstressed about not meeting the deadline, and so on.

I enjoyed this film slightly more than the first time, but still think it's overrated. There's not much to say about it, it's a series of banal incidents, some entertaining, some not so much, some which ring true, some which do  not, though all arguably very well filmed. The director character ponders that the kind of film he is shooting, with stars and studios, had its days counted, but he was apparently wrong.

Rating: 43 (up from 33)

The Dome Doctor (1925)

 A hairdresser salon stands next door to a grocery store and the two respective owners are constantly getting into conflict. The salon's owner has a son and the store's owner has a daughter; son and daughter are in love with each other.

This is a superior slapstick comedy, with some unusual elements such as a stop-motion animation sequence and a surreal lightning chase in the final section. The title probably refers to the protagonist's hair-growing procedure, though that slang expression normally designates a psychiatrist.

Rating: 53

Dr. Jack (1922)

 A young woman is kept shut in her house by a quack physician. The title character has different therapeutic opinions; he is also enamored with the patient and thinks she has no health problem. A conflict between the two physicians arises.

Entertaining comedy which has a very good first half and a not so good second one. The film's plot is obviously dated, as Medicine is more regulated today, and quacks, though still around, are more easily detected. But the film can be enjoyed regardless of that, though a little less once Dr. Jack's bizarre impersonation is put in action as a means to unmask the phony doctor.

Rating: 56

Stalin (1992)

Previously, I had seen this film in its near entirety (missed the end), though in a dubbed copy, in February 11, 2001.

 Stalin is a young revolutionary. After Lenin's death, he takes his place. He is paranoid and orders the execution of most of his former revolutionary pals. His wife is disappointed in him and turns to hating him. Then comes World War II. Stalin kills some more people, then gets old and dies.

This "docudrama" avoids the usual boredom associated with this kind of production by having an archvillain as protagonist. Nothing especially interesting happens in it, but we somehow are drawn by the parade of atrocities. Much has been said about the location shooting in the Kremlin and elsewhere in Russia, but to be frank the production values are the usual in TV productions, that is, not very impressive. Historical events are just glossed over and shown as montages of old documentaries and fictional productions. Some liberties were taken in regard with real events. Yakov's youth love was in reality the daughter of an Orthodox priest, but in the film she was Jewish. Maybe the screenwriter -- who is Jewish, like the producer and the director -- wished to stress Stalin's anti-semitism, but that is forcing the hand a little, even though the producer has said "he fought his own prejudices to present a balanced portrait of the red dictator". Anti-semitism would play a bigger role in the end of the Stalinist era, with the so-called Doctors' Plot affair, about which the film says nothing. Now for other curious details. At a certain point in the movie, Nadezhda's mother warns her daughter about Stalin: "I know Georgian men. But you?" That is curious, because the historical character was also of partial Georgian ancestry, which, if she really said that, would make her a self-loather of sorts. By the way, the real Nadezhda was not exactly a beauty (to be polite), in stark contrast with the actress they chose to play her. In addition to that, she is portrayed as a very politically concerned person who argued with Stalin about his policies and killed herself presumably because of them. This is obviously one of the usual fictional liberties they take about women who must appear independent and righteous. As Wikipedia itself admits, there is hardly any evidence for that; it is much more likely she killed herself because Stalin had lovers, or mistreated her somehow. About the main actor's make-up, I prefer not to say anything. In fact, I regret bringing that to my memory.

Rating: 45 (down from 57)