1951 - Budd Boetticher's BULLFIGHTER AND THE LADY Extended Director's cut?

John Wayne produced Budd Boetticher's story about a young American played by Robert Stack who is taught "the ways of the bullfighter" by Gilbert Roland playing the old bullfighter pro. Stack falls in love with a Mexican senorita but violates her code of honor and has to redeem himself. You can pretty much write this story. This film has lots of entertaining macho bullshit about what it means to be a man, learning the code of the bullfighter and junk like that.

Boetticher delivered a 2 hour film which John Wayne thought was to long. Duke called in his old drinking buddy John Ford, who proceeded to help cut about 40 minutes out of it. The cuts were made with Boetticher's approval in order to increase the commercial viability of the film. The film has been restored to it's original length. It looks like most of the stuff that got cut out were the scenes involving the testing of the young bulls to see if they would be suitable for fighting. Interesting stuff but a little repetitive after a while.

The acting is pretty good, Robert Stack is Mr. Intense throughout the film and actually performs some of his own bullfighting stunts. In repeated scenes he gets knocked over a lot by some young but mean bulls. A lot of the film appears to have been photographed on location in Mexico and there is a genuine atmosphere of sleaziness throughout the film.

The movie reminds me of Hemingway's bullfighting book Death in the Afternoon.

 124 minutes.

1960 - THE 3 WORLDS OF GULLIVER is 1/3 of Johnathan Swift

  Ray Harryhausen and Charles Schneer didn't make films with social satire in them so doing a version of Gulliver's Travels seems like a weird idea for their next film after The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

Harryhausen's given interviews in which he stated that Columbia Studios was looking for a quick follow-up to The 7th Voyage of Sinbad to cash in on that film's success. Apparently the script for The 3 Worlds Of Gulliver was available. The other problem for Harryhausen and Schneer was that they also needed something that didn't require a lot of time consuming stop motion animation. The 3 Worlds Of Gulliver is a film full of a lot of optical effects.

The first part of the film which is about Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput actually sticks pretty closely to the book. Most of the plot is left intact. However one funny change from the book is the scene where Gulliver puts out the fire in the King's palace by peeing on it. In this film Gulliver spits wine all over the palace which was equally gross.

The movie start to fall apart when Gulliver ends up in Brobdingnag the land of the giants. From here the plot turns into a science vs ignorance thing with Gulliver matching wits with the king's sorcerer. Gulliver does battle with a giant stop motion alligator and he and his wife(?) end up escaping from the giants and returning to England.

Since this was a children's film nobody was going to film the last part of Gulliver's Travels where Gulliver cracks up and spends the rest of his life living by himself and talking to horses.

The film is just OK, the first part is clearly the best. The optical effects for a film made in 1959 still look pretty good.

Bernard Herrmann's music has to do a lot of work to keep the whimsical fantasy element of the film on track.

1949 - THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS David Lean reworks Brief Encounter

One of the few David Lean films that is not especially well known. Lean reworked the script and took over direction from Ronald Neame the future director of The Poseidon Adventure which pretty much finished off their long friendship. 

 

David Lean films himself in a bit part as the driver of a boat

 

Lean used a complex flashback structure to tell the story of a woman,  Ann Todd who cheats on her husband. The very British actor Ann Todd was a woman Lean eventually left his wife for and had a pretty intense relationship and marriage with.

Ann Todd looks good in any film I've ever seen her in.  But she always acts like she has a corn cob up her butt. Not a lot of fun at a party,  much less a woman to have a wild affair with. Claude Rains probably gives the best performance in the film as the pissed off husband, as pissed off as a husband can be in one of these "stiff upper lipped" British dramas.

 

The film is well made and good looking. David Lean always knew how to put a film together, but it's kind of a minor story compared to Great Expectations or Oliver Twist or even In Which We Serve,  Still an excellent example of superior film making from a superior director.

Running time 95 minutes. Written by Eric Ambler, Stanley Haynes, David Lean and H. G, Welles!

1924 - PARIS ASLEEP or THE CRAZY RAY or PARIS QUI DORT

Rene Clair's science fiction comedy is kind of a disappointment. The basic plot and themes have been copied to many times. A mad scientist has invented a device that puts Paris in a state of suspended animation. A group of people unaffected by this device run amock in Paris indulging their every whim. The scientist is convinced to shut the freeze ray off and things return to normal.

The views of Paris from the Eiffel tower are fun to look at and you get some good shots of 1920's Paris traffic. I enjoyed a couple of the scenes of the group ransacking Paris.

One joke shows the Mona Lisa shoved into the back of their car like it was just a cheap print from a Target superstore. 

Otherwise that's about it.

35 minutes.

1930 - DeMille's amazing sex musical MADAM SATAN

 A wife discovers her husband is cheating on her with a night club singer. She decides to humiliate him by dressing up as a character at a masquerade party known as Madam Satan.

 

The masquerade party happens to be on a dirigible which gets struck by lightening. The dirigible races out of control and breaks in two. The partiers in full costume, parachute out of the dirigible to save their lives and that's the normal stuff in this film.

Here is an excellent example of DeMille the filmmaker indulging his fantasies and fetishes in the very public forum of a film musical. The women are basically dressed in lingerie or strange bizarre costumes throughout the film. The musical numbers are dadaist in their conception and execution. The "Cats on the Catwalk" production number with the costumed party people hopping their way up a catwalk dressed as pussycats is a very very strange thing to see. Then there is the electric man production number (see above picture). Apparently this goofball doing his so called dance routine as a bolt of electricity was a major influence on Agnes DeMille who went on to choreograph Oklahoma.

It's easy to use the word "heightened reality" but is seems to fit a film like this.

I've seen a lot of DeMille films, but I've never seen a film like this one. A stunning film.

 116 minutes. Written by Jean MacPherson DeMille's mistress.

2009 - AWAY WE GO with this piece of s**t comedy

Smarmy piece of miserable self important junk about a couple of pathetic losers about to have a baby. They travel all over the United States to find friends or relatives that will support them after their baby is born. They should have taken the seven million dollar budget for this film and used it for toilet paper, it would have at least provided relief for a few people. I can't even begin to convey the facile tone and shallowness in these characters and their situations. This smug and supposedly funny but in reality unfunny film is borderline offensive in it's condescending attitude to almost every character these people visit. Their final revelation, "there's no place like home. " The filmmakers apparently needed to stoop to stealing from The Wizard of Oz for their homespun morale .

Written by two American writers who apparently lived in a part of the United States only seen in a Mary Worth comic (go ahead and google that reference). This film was directed by Sam Mendes, the British theatrical director who had previously made American Beauty, Jarhead, and Revolutionary Road. Mendes has absolutely no feeling for or any idea about what American culture is even about.

 98 minutes.

2009 - Woody Allen's WHATEVER WORKS

Preparing for the worst I watched the latest Woody Allen film last night. It's another comedy about an older man involved with an extremely younger girl and I expected the yuck factor to be extremely high. I was surprised to find this was one of his better recent comedies. Larry David plays Boris Yelnikoff, Allen's typical neurotic New York intellectual Jew who's full of lots of misanthropic opinions about the human race and generally a real downer to be around. David's character is an exaggeration of this typical Allen character and I have to believe this was intentional. Allen even has him talking at the audience with the people in the movie around him thinking he is very crazy. 

Into his life comes a southern beauty contestant, Melodie St. Ann Celestine who he gets involved with and eventually marries. Eventually Melodie's conservative christian parents show up to rescue her. By the end of the film the parents are embracing living in New York and Allen has weaved in various romantic complications with all of his characters to satisfying conclusions. 

 

A Woody Allen film with a rare happy ending. The Woody the old curmudgeon seems to be locating his sentimental streak as he gets older.

 

As usual Woody Allen wrote the film, the running time is 92 minutes.

1957 - Nigel Kneale's THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN is more interesting Science Fiction from an interesting writer

The writer of The Quartermass Experiment, Nigel Kneale updated his TV drama for Hammer films about an expedition in the Himalayas mountains looking for the Yeti or Abominable Snowman. This is not your typical Hammer horror film. The stars are Forrest Tucker from F Troop actually acting for a change and Peter Cushing as a British botanist. 

Probably to much dialogue in this film and the actors running around on studio sets, don't look very cold.   But this is a very interesting film. Nigel Kneale has a lot of intriguing ideas going on in this film.  Are the Yeti from outer space or are they part of a species that is slowly dying out and hiding from mankind?   The Yeti may possibly be the next evolutionary species to take over the planet after mankind has destroyed themselves.  Lots of interesting stuff to mull over.

 

A good example of a low budget film from Hammer films that actually has some interesting ideas for a change.  A very good film.

1961 - ONE TWO THREE the film that drove Cagney into retirement

Billy Wilder's follow up to The Apartment, was the very topical comedy for 1961 about the Cold War crisis in Berlin. One Two Three was James Cagney's final main starring performance excluding some supporting work he did towards the end of his life. Wilder and his writing partner I.A.L. Diamond packed a lot of jokes into the film some good, some bad, some funny and some mighty lame. Wilder kept the pace fast and ramped in up into a frenzy of verbal and physical action towards the end of the film.

 

James Cagney the old pro had to hold it together. Cagney liked the movie but didn't care for Wilder very much. Billy Wilder was a pretty exacting filmmaker, he never allowed any actor to deviate from the written word in his script. Actors were expected to show up say the words and not question the director. No creative contribution allowed from anyone else.

 

Most critics talk about the 1960's showing a hardening in Wilder's comedy technique and it's definitely here in One Two Three. Wilder's belief that human beings are basically scum combined with the now outdated topicality of the story and jokes with the exception of Cagney make, One Two Three somewhat of a disappointment.

 

 

115 minutes.

1957 - BEGINNING OF THE END as riffed by Mystery Science Theater 3000

My son dragged this up from the basement. This is the Mystery Science Theater version of Beginning of the End with the funny commentary. The comedians are funny but it was pretty easy to take shots at this little movie.

Anything made by Bert L Gordan would be fair game for this crowd. There is something funny and kind of touching about a low budget science fiction movie about giant grasshoppers where they stick a photo behind ordinary grasshoppers to make them look like they are giants hopping through Chicago. The stock footage of soldiers battling superimposed grasshoppers in a forrest does have a interesting surreal quality to it as well. Peter Graves is the scientist hero and you know that because he wears a white smock which was the calling card for all 1950's movie scientists. He has an assistant who is a deaf mute for some reason and you know that guy is going to be grasshopper food.

Cook a frozen pizza have a few beers and enjoy.

1974 - DAISY MILLER and who thought people were going to see this

Copying film making shots and styles from Howard Hawks and John Ford, Peter Bogdanovich tried to create a film centered around his girlfriend Cybill Shepherd. The film turned out to be another nail in the old career coffin.

Reviewers at the time complained that Cybill Shepherd didn't have the acting chops to pull off her part, but it would have taken a pretty special actor to make something of the character of Daisy Miller. Daisy Miller is either a free spirit or a bimbo or an airhead or just plain clueless. Having Cybill Shepherd race through her lines like Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby was probably a poor idea as well. Shepherd also looks more like a cocktail waitress then a rich American heiress and at times her face actually seems a little hard when she is photographed.  As much as Bogdanovich blew it with Shepherd, the rest of the cast is quite good, particularly Barry Brown as Winterbourn who is attracted to her but to worried about his social standing to get involved with her.

But who was the intended audience for this film? The film is about a silly young girl offending the morals and manners of conservative Americans living abroad in Europe. Not exactly an action packed theme for a film. This probably wasn't the kind of stuff that packed them in at the Drive-In in 1974.

Daisy Miller could have used a few car chases to liven things up.  A predictable disaster.

92 minutes, screenplay by Frederic Raphael.

1962 - TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN-is this how they really make movies?

This was the film I watched after Kwaidan?  

An expose on the making of movies? A Kirk Douglas overacting fest? A florid melodrama? A comedy? One of the most ridiculous films ever made?

The director Vincent Minnelli and the producer John Houseman apparently conceived this film as a riff on The Bad And The Beautiful with the level of hysteria ramped up to the nth degree.  Kirk Douglas is a washed up actor who has spent the last three years of his life on the funny farm recovering from a crack up that involved his incredibly trampy ex-wife Cyd Charisse and the movie going public who "wanted a piece of him." Offered a job by his equally washed up mentor/director Edward G Robinson, Douglas travels to Rome where Robinson is shooting a crappy film with temperamental method actor George Hamilton at Italy's famous Cinecitta studios the home of Fellini.   Kirk stutters and shakes as he tries to maintain his sanity and stay away from ex wife Cyd who is sleeping with anything that walks on two legs. Fortunately Kirk runs into a young woman who feels his pain and screws Kirk anytime he is about to crack up from the pressure. Naturally the young woman is the girlfriend of George Hamilton. 

If movies are made like this God help us all. Minnelli had been a studio director at MGM almost his entire career and Houseman had worked for the ego that was Orson Welles so they must have seen plenty of people behaving badly in Hollywood. Still it's hard to believe this kind of behavior would go on during the making of a movie on the other hand... 

 

 Kirk Douglas is using every over exaggerated Rich Little imitation of Kirk Douglas that I ever saw.   Edward G Robinson an actor who started out a star and moved to character parts, always seemed somewhat of a larger than life personality and he's really larger than life in this film. Claire Trevor plays Robinson's wife in the film and she is definitely a highlight. There is not a single scene where she doesn't scream out her lines as a shrewish harpy.  Minnelli's directorial advice to her must have been "go for it."  Daliah Lavi an Israeli actor played the sweet innocent young thing.  Lavi was a model in a previous career and apparently nobody spent money on acting or English lessons for her as she struggles mightily. 

George Hamilton plays a James Dean type with long hair and an attitude. As his character is supposed to be a shallow actor type who better to play a shallow actor than a shallow actor.  Cyd Charisse had worked for Minnelli particularly on his classic musical The Bandwagon . Cyd was a great dancer who Fred Astaire said was the best he ever worked with but it kind of stopped there.  She couldn't sing so she was usually dubbed in her musicals and she couldn't act, so the demands that Minnelli placed on her were way past her abilities. 

MGM cut 10 minutes out of the orgy scene towards the end of the film over Minnelli and Houseman's objections and who the hell could blame them. The editing was clearly an attempt by the studio to tone down an already crazed film. The final wild car ride completely sums up and restates everything this film is about, crazed acting and weird movie making. The scene ends with Kirk driving into a waterfall with the water splashing on his face to purge him of his demons.

The film is supposedly a favorite of Scorcese and Godard.

A very campy classic. Charles Schnee is the screenwriter.

107 minutes.

1964 - KWAIDAN the high art of the Japanese film

The stills on this post just can't do justice to the unique photography, set design and overall look of this outstanding Japanese film.

Directed by Masaki Kobayashi, the film tells four ghost/horror stories based on a book from a Greek writer named Lafcadio Hearn who lived in New Orleans for a while and finally ended up in Japan. You would never know it had such a hybrid origin, this film is completely Japanese in it's mood.

All four of the stories are good, but the second and third stories are outstanding. "The Woman of the Snow" and "Hoichi the Earless" mix horror and eeriness with a wide screen film making technique that creates a unique visual experience.

 

Masaki Kobayashi had directed a ten hour 3 part series of films about the Japanese treatment of prisoners during World War II. Kobayashi also directed Harakiri a film extremely critical of the Japanese notion of samurai honor. Kwaidan appears to be a complete departure for him.

183 minutes.

1943 - MUNCHAUSEN a forgotten version of the Baron's legendary life

A very expensive film about Baron Munchausen made in 1943 at UFA studios while Nazi Germany was going to hell in a hand basket. The production history behind this film is almost as interesting as the film. Written by Erich Kastner a Jewish writer working in the German film industry. The lead actor Hans Albers not much of a fan of the Third Reich, apparently had to do a careful dance around the Nazis to keep from being associated with them.

The film can easily stand up to the Terry Gilliam version of the Munchausen legend. It was an elaborate expensive color production with good 1940's special effects and an interesting soft look to the color photography. The production and costumes are on a large scale. Munchausen also has some remarkably risque stuff for a 1940's film.

Instead of just concentrating on the Baron's adventures and tall tales, the film attempts to put them in some sort of context to the human experience. The Baron goes from one wild adventure to another but not without some personal cost. The Baron's closest friends are affected by his adventures and not entirely for the best. Some even die because of their involvement with him. By the end of the film the Baron has become a pretty melancholy guy about his remarkable life.

For a large scale fantasy film, Munchausen has an unusual amount of attention devoted to it's character 's motivations. Terry Gilliam's film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was made 40 years later and had lots of wild scenes using all of the modern film tricks of 1988 but that movie came off pretty cold to the audience. This version is well worth watching.

 119 minutes.