1958 - INDISCREET, a polished production of a very slight story

This should have been an entertaining romantic comedy.  The leads were Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.  The producer/director was Stanley Donen a man of taste and style.  The writer was Norman Krasna an old pro at this romantic comedy stuff.  The cinematographer was F.A. Young who was usually associated with David Lean's super epics, it looks very pretty in technicolor.  The end result of all this effort is a very mild film with lots and lots of talk.

Bergman plays what else, a world famous actress who enters into an affair with rich banker Cary Grant who is apparently married. The film's contrived plot hangs on the premise that Grant actually isn't married but is pretending to be married to avoid having to get married, well something like that.  

 

This film was made under the Cary Grant, Stanley Donen production company Grandon.  It was the first of their three films which included The Grass is Greener and Charade.  The idea seemed to be to film sophisticated and very glossy entertainments of "the privileged class enjoying their privileges" as they liked to say.

For all the good looking clothes and impressive London locations the film just doesn't really come off with it's dumb premise.  Grant and Bergman make a good looking couple but they don't really have any genuinely witty dialog to work with.  They are supported by English character actors Cecil Parker and Phyllis Calvert who are much better at delivering Krasna's lame dialog and frankly when they are off screen they are really missed.  I guess if you are a fan of classic Hollywood stars like Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman the film is sort of enertaining.

The running time is an overlong 100 minutes.   

1937 - UN CARNET DU BAL aka Life Dances On.

This drama about a woman trying to make sense of her life after her husband dies is considered a film classic.  It's a part of the traditional French main stream film industry that was to be eviscerated by Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Godard and the rest of the "New Wave" gang looking to make a name for themselves by attacking traditional film directors in the 1950's and 60's.

However Julien Duvivier the director who was making films in the 1930's was a superb director and had an understanding of how to use the camera to tell a story.  You could probably put Duvivier's filmography next to any of the "New Wave" directors and it would more than hold it's own.

Duvivier spent some time in Hollywood during World War II where he had a mixed career.  The interesting Flesh and Fantasy and Lydia used the same episodic story telling structure as Un Carnet Du Bal.  However the ridiculous The Great Waltz which was supposedly based on the life of Johann Strauss II The Waltz King and probably one of the silliest films ever made about a composer.

  

Un Carnet Du Bal is one of his best films.  Duvivier and his writers fashioned a story that revolves around a woman remembering her coming out ball when she was sixteen years old where she was pursued by seven suitors.  She decides to find out what happened to each of these men and begins a journey to locate them.  From the beginning of the film with it's impressive memory waltz scene of her first dance to her final realization of the reality of her life, the film is actually quite a moving portrait of one woman.  

This is certainly a high point of 1930's French film making and cinema. 

The film was written by Julien Duvivier, Henri Jeanson, Yves Mirande, Jean Sarment, Pierre Wolff, and Bernard Zimmer.  The running time is 144 minutes.

202 - NORMAL, another shoot em up with more of a sense of humor than usual

Normal is sort of the third part of a Bob Odenkirk action trilogy.  Odenkirk is an unlikely action hero for this stuff.  In a previous incarnation he was a comedian the first part of his career.  He hit his stride as sleazy attorney Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and it's spinoff  Better Call Saul.  Odenkirk pivoted into the action film franchisee with the Nobody series about a retired government hit man.

Normal finds Odenkirk as a a temporary sheriff in a small Minnesota town called Normal.  As it turns out the town of Normal is actually a holding area for gold and money that the Yakuza have been using to launder their ill gotten gains.  To make matters worse the entire town is in on the money laundering scheme and is armed to the teeth to keep their secret safe.  Let the shooting begin and there is a lot of shooting to be sure.

 

Odenkirk takes a producer credit on the film along with a story credit.  The director is Ben Wheatey a Brit who is an expert at staging shoot outs which he twists around with lots of bizarre violent humor.  He's found his perfect partner in Odenkirk who contributes his own brand of unconventional humor.  It's a match made in action movie heaven. 

The film is entertaining it does have a really warped sense of humor between all the gun play and body counts.  Odenkirk's wry sense of humor is definitely and asset.

The screenplay is by Derek Kolstad, the running time is 91 minutes.

1945 - A GAME OF DEATH, decent remake of "The Most Dangerous Game."

A Game of Death is a remake of The 1932 film The Most Dangerous Game which was in turn based on a short story by the author Richard Connell.  The story is a very entertaining melodrama about a famous hunter Don Rainsford stranded on a remote island who becomes they prey of a nutcase hunter Erich Kreiger who is bored with killing animals and has resorted to stalking and killing humans instead.  So the chase is on in this fast paced film.

Robert Wise directed this version after working with producer Val Lewton on his legendary series of horror films.  It's competent and decently made but I miss the flamboyance of the earlier film with it's over the top Max Steiner film music and it's really fast paced structure.  It's now a film making legend that The Most Dangerous Game was simultaneously filmed on the same jungle sets as King Kong with several of the King Kong actors primarily Faye Wray and Robert Armstrong in roles. English actor Leslie Banks in a very flamboyant performance was the crazy hunter who in this film is called Count Zaroff.  It's a very fun 1930's film.

 

The remake is not without it's merits, John Loder plays Rainsford and he gives a good competent performance.  Playing the madman hunter Erich Kreiger is the actor Edgar Barrier who was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury theater.  He may not have been as over the top as Leslie Banks but he gets the job done as a creepy menacing character.

 

This man hunting man plot has been so durable that it's been filmed many times.  I originally read this story in high school although I suppose it's not exactly a  P.C. kind of story anymore.

 The screenplay was by Norman Houston, the running time is an efficient 72 minutes.

1954 - THE MAGGIE, aka High and Dry aka Highland Fling

A production from the famous Ealing Studios in England made during their top period which ran from the late 1930's to the end of the 1950's.  Ealing was noted for it's modestly budgeted but well written and directed comedies primarily set in England.  The pictures they produced were usually at a very high standard technically and creatively.

 

The Maggie was one of their best pictures directed by one of their best directors Alexander Mackendrick.  Mackendrick was an American who as a child had being raised in Scotland by his grandfather.  He eventually ended up in the British film industry where he worked his way up to directing.  He had what I would call a humanistic approach in film making concentrating on the actors and the story.  He was apparently a perfectionist which caused him to be fired off of several projects towards the end of his career, he ended up in California teaching film.

 

The Maggie is an extremely charming  and cleverly written film.  It's the story of a small just about broken down cargo ship about to be repossessed.  The captain manages to trick a rich American business man into letting him transport his cargo to a castle he has purchased.  The ship named the Maggie is in such a dilapidated condition it may sink at any moment.  The American discovering he has been tricked by the captain pursues him.  This all ends up in a series of clever and humorous encounters.

 

The film was well cast with Paul Douglas as the American businessman.  Douglas was probably nobody's idea of a leading man but he was an excellent actor and knew his way around performing in dramas and comedies. The ship's captain was played by the Scottish actor Alex Mackenzie in full "old sea salt" mode.  The encounters between these two performers are very amusing.

The Maggie is an extremely enjoyable film and highly recommended.

The film was written by William Rose one of Ealing's top screenwriters, the running time is 92 minutes. 

1967 - THE CAPER OF THE GOLDEN BULLS, an entertaining heist film

This is a very decent heist film but it's no classic like Rififi, The Killing or Le Cercle Rouge.  The cast is a collection of  character actors and if the leads weren't exactly at the top of the movie star list they got the job done.

I.E. an American living in Spain since the end of World War II served as a bomber pilot.  During the war he and his crew accidentally blow up a cathedral.  To make amends this group robbed a number or banks to rebuild the cathedral.   Now operating a restaurant in Spain the American is blackmailed into performing one last robbery.  He reassembles his crew and we get the usual master planning, execution of the robbery and some close encounters with the police.  This is all pretty standard stuff for this genre.  

The cast had a lot of "seen them all before actors" who had shown up in many movies.  Vitto Sotti seemed like he was in about every movie and TV show from the 1940's on.  If you needed someone to pay a stereotypical Italian, Scotti was your guy.  Henry Beckman had also been working in movies and TV since the 1950s, he was the definition of a working actor, no part was too small for him.  Leon Askin is chiefly remembered as General Burkhalter on Hogan's Heroes.  Walter Slezak early in his career had worked for Hitchcock in his propaganda film Lifeboat.  Frankly in this film the list of character actors is endless.

The leads were Steven Boyd as the American and Yvette Mimieux as his girlfriend.  Boyd's career started out strong with Ben Hur, Billy Roses' Jumbo and The Fall of the Roman Empire but kind of petered out after awhile.  Still he was always a reliable performer for the most part.  Yvette Mimieux was an attractive blonde who was groomed to be a star in the studio system.  The problem was that the Hollywood studio system was falling apart in the late 1950's and early 60's so her career kind of drifted off into television .  

 The Caper Of The Golden Bulls was never going to win any awards but it does entertain and the gorgeous on location filming in Pamplona shot during the running of the bulls makes it a very good looking film.  The film is fun to watch because the makers were smart enough not to take this story seriously.  I'm sure everyone had a very nice vacation filming this picture in sunny Spain. 

The film was written by Ed Waters and David Moessinger, the running time is 106 minutes.    

1961 - THE GREEN ARCHER aka DER GRUNE BOGENSCHUTZE

This is a crime thriller set in a creepy old mansion which features a masked man dressed in green like Robin Hood running around a castle killing people with arrows.  The overly complicated plot involves a corrupt American businessman played by German actor Gert Frobe who when he isn't yelling at people he's holding people prisoner in a secret room, harassing his niece, planning to flee the country with his fortune and seeking revenge on his brother who took the woman he loved from him.  And that's just the beginning of this film. Where does The Green Archer fit into all of this?  I was never entirely sure, the archer is either trying to kill Frobe or is working for him.

To get an idea of the goofy nature of this film, one of the other characters in the film is a reporter who frequently breaks character by talking directly to the audience.  What soon becomes obvious during this film's running time is that the whole film has it's tongue firmly in it's cheek and the dead pan acting of the rest of the cast is really part of the joke.  The exception to playing it straight is Gert Frobe whose performance can only be described as so over the top I couldn't even figure out where the top is.  Frobe is chiefly remembered as the James Bond villain Goldfinger and that larger than life villain can't touch Frorbe's crazed bad guy performance in this film.  The female lead is played by Karin Dor another James Bond villain alumnus.  Dor was Helga Brandt in You Only Live Twice who ended up getting eaten by piranha's.

 

This film was based on a book by an English writer named Edgar Wallace who worked in the 1920's and 30's pumping out these overly complicated crime thrillers.  This story is clearly very dated and the filmmakers probably made the right decision to just spoof the crime/mystery aspect of this film.

 

The Green Archer entertains by virtue of it's absurd plot and Gert Frobe's crazed performance.  The film is set in London but it's a German production with German actors which gives it's a very surreal feeling.

Written by Wolfgang Schnitzier and Wolfgang Menge, the running time is 93 minutes. 

2026 - REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES - the talking octopus movie

In the great tradition of talking animal shows such as Francis the Talking Mule, Mr. Ed the talking horse and I suppose, My Mother The Car the talking 1928 car comes Remarkably Bright Creatures. It features a taking octopus as the narrator of this film.  I guess there is some precedent for this as Shakespeare had a narrative chorus in Henry the Fifth and Romeo and Juliet.  Into the Woods features a narrator as does The Big Lebowski.  Although there is only one voice in Remarkably Bright Creatures, I could have seen a chorus of octopuses (octopi?) telling this story.  The name of the octopus by the way is Marcellus.

The film follows people living in a small Pacific Northwest town with a particular emphasis on Tova Sullivan an old woman played by 79 year old Sally Field.  She is about to transition into a senior living facility and still dealing with the death of her son and husband.  She works at an aquarium where she pours out her troubles to Marcellus the octopus who listens attentively. 

Also featured in this film is Cameron Cassmore a young drifter who Tova meets and begins to form a bond with.  Cameron is played by Lewis Pullman the son of actor Bill Pullman.  Lewis Pullman gives a decent performance as a confused young man although this role is a big step up from his appearance in that Marvel film Thunderbolts where he played the idiot member of the team.

Frankly the drama and situations in this film are nothing you haven't seen in any other "relationship" film.  Let's bring a couple of very different people together and have them find things in common so they can "bond."  Secrets will be revealed and heartwarming lessons will be learned.  The talking octopus shtick is really just a gimmick and doesn't add anything to the story.  There's also a surprise twist towards the end of this film which as far as I'm concerned is also another plot gimmick.

 This film was based on a popular book and I guess Netflix should get some credit for making a film that doesn't feature aging action stars in some improbable "shoot em up" film.  Remarkably Bright Creatures is a nice safe and boring film to watch with grandma or an elderly aunt.

The film was written by Olivia Newman and John Whittington, the running time is 111 minutes. 

20126 - THEIR FINEST, there will always be an England especially during World War II

Their Finest is a film set in London during World War II.  Gemma Arteron is a woman who manages to get a job in the British Government's propaganda department as a secretary.  Being a bright young thing she works her way up as a screenwriter working on a film about the evacuation of Dunkirk. The film's plot involves the making of this Dunkirk film which is hampered by lots of story compromises and issues that arise from the British Government's interference in the film making.

 

Gemma Arterton is the main character the film focuses on as she manages her professional and personal life.  Bill Nighy is the hammy actor cast in the film, he gets all the funny stuff.  Richard E. Grant and Jeremy Irons play the usual stuffed shirt government officials trying to control the making of the film, you can't have an English film without them.  There's a love interest for Arterton and lots of amusing film making jokes for the movie nerds watching.  There's even a thinly disguised portrait of legendary Hungarian film producer Alexander Korda who relocated to England before the war.    

  

This is a modest and enjoyable film for the most part although I think the ending was kind of a mistake .  Gemma Arteron is really the glue that holds this film together with her understated and effective performance.  Arteron should really be a bigger star but her appearances in some big budgeted Hollywood films didn't seem to do it for her.  

 

Written by Gaby Chiappe, the running time is 117 minutes.

1963 - CHARADE, excellent romantic thriller

This is an excellent and very entertaining comedy thriller made by Hollywood professionals at the peak of their abilities.  It starred Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn and who ever had the inspired idea to team them up as a romantic couple should have gotten a big bonus.  Here are two stars who really deliver the goods.  Cary Grant had done enough Hitchcock films so he knew how to balance the comedic and suspense elements in this story.  Audrey Hepburn was no slouch either.  She had also performed in romantic comedies and dramas with great success.  These two performers were very experienced actors when it came to making films and they really knew how to deliver the romantic couple goods.

 

The director Stanley Donen had worked at MGM during it's peak period when they were producing stylish musicals.  Donen along with Gene Kelly had created an impressive body of work with films like On The Town, Singing In The Rain and the underrated It's Always Fair Weather.  On his own he directed Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and Funny Face.   As the musical genre wrapped up Donen focused on sophisticated comedies and in this case romantic thrillers.  Charade was one of his best films.

  

A big part of Charade's success is the screenplay by Peter Stone and Marc Behm which balanced the comedy, romance and suspense elements.  The cinematographer Charles Lang was one of Hollywood's top cameraman who had worked with John Sturges, Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang and Joseph L. Mankiewicz. With this kind of talent Charade could hardly miss.  It was a critical and commercial hit. 

 

The running time is 113 minutes.  

2013 - BEAUTIFUL CREATURES , gothic southern teen love story stuff

We're south of the Mason Dixon line in South Carolina where sensitive teenager Ethan Wate is about to fall in love.  How do we know he's sensitive?  Well he's reading Charles Bukowski and Kurt Vonnegut and it's not even on the assigned reading list for his high school English class.  Into his life comes transfer student Lena Duchannes from the far way land of New York City.  Ethan is immediately smitten with her and vice versa.  But Lena has a big secret she is secretly a "caster" (witch) who has magic powers.  When she turns 16 she will either become a good caster or an evil caster.  Can Mason stop Lena from turning into an evil caster?  He will have to fight the powers of darkness to keep this from happening.  I guess that means Mason needs to read more Charles Bukowski novels or something.

 

So what we have here is a variation on the Twilight series except this time it's a girl with supernatural powers instead of a boy.  The viewer has to sit through a lot of mumble jumble about casters, reincarnation, magic spell books and mysterious magic people who secretly co-exist with us mortals.  I am reluctant to say this film reminds me of the old Elizabeth Montgomery TV series Bewitched because that would be wrong.  However it does remind me of the spinoff to Bewitched, Tabatha who was Elizabeth Montgomery's witch daughter. 

 

The cast of this film is the usual bunch of actors in their 20's trying to pass for 15 year old teenagers.  Somehow Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson and Viola Davis also got roped into this foolishness and they really should have known better.   The writer/director Richard LaGravenese was the one responsible for this southern gothic young adult fiction nonsense.  He's usually a competent writer but in this case he should have known better.

 

Beautiful Creatures stumbles through it's contrived teenage love story trying to create it's magical world  but in the end the world building is just tiresome and dissatisfying.  Beautiful Creatures is part of a four book series and clearly the intention was to make another Twilight series.  But the movie was an under performer and that put an end to the studio's money making dreams.  My advice would be to dig out your copy of The Wizard of Oz and watch that again.

The running time of this film is 124 long minutes.  

1982 - WE OF THE NEVER NEVER, drama about living in the Australian Outback is really boring

Good intentions in a film about a do gooder do not a good movie make.  You actually have to have a compelling story to maintain a viewer's interest.   This is not one of these stories even though it is apparently true. We Of The Never Never was an acclaimed novel which was a thinly disguised true story which the author modified by replacing the names of the actual people with fictitious names.

In brief, this film follows the story of a woman named Jeannie Gunn who marries a man who is relocating to a cattle station (ranch) in the Australian Outback circa 1902.  After a difficult journey Jeannie is confronted by the drovers (cowboys) who work at the station and think that a woman has no place in the Outback.  Jeannie also decides to befriend the Aboriginals living at the station much to the disgust of the drovers who are a bunch of wouldn't you know it racists.  Will Jeannie win over the drovers and the Aboriginals at the station or is she setting herself up for failure?  Well it's fairly easy to guess which way this plot is heading if you've ever seen an episode of Little House On The Prairie. 

 

We Of The Never Never is actually decently acted.  The main role of Jeannie Gunn is performed by an Australian actor named Angela Punch McGregor who plays her like a regular down under version of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  She's basically the whole show as she struts around the cattle station doing good deed stuff.

 

This is frankly a very boring film.  It is so low key there's nothing actually dramatic that happens in it's very long running time.  The best thing the film has going for it is the cinematography.  The Australian Outback may be a hell hole but it is certainly a very photogenic hell hole. We Of The Never Never is available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure and is a great way to fall asleep for insomniac viewers.

The film was written by Peter Schreck, the running time is 134 minutes.  

1942 - YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, Cagney brillantly plays George M. Cohan

James Cagney usually remembered for gangster roles had been a "song and dance" man in his early days in show business.  He can be seen in the Busby Berkley film Footlight Parade performing with lead footed Ruby Keeler.  Yankee Doodle Dandy is the high point in the dancing part of his career.  This film is very loosely based story on the legendary Broadway performer George M. Cohan with Cohan's best songs integrated into the plot.

Made during World War II, Yankee Doodle Dandy is an extremely patriotic film with the emphasis on extremely.  As much as it spotlights Cagney's musical numbers there is an awful lot of cornball flag waving throughout the film which you kind of have to roll with.  Still Cagney dominates the film with his great performance and that kind of weird stiff dance style he had.

 

The film was directed by ace studio director Michael Curtiz. At his peak Curtiz could make a film in about every film genre be it swashbucklers, horror films, gangster films and in this case musicals.  Curtiz was aided by a superb production crew.  James Wong was a legendary cinematographer especially when working in black and white film.  The film was edited by George Amy.  Editors never get enough credit for pulling a film together.  But above all Michael Curtiz really moved this film along.  Each scene is very well paced.  It's nice to see a filmmaker who actually knows how to make a film.

 

The cast is from the familiar Warner Brother's stock company.  Walter Huston is Cagney's father, Joan Leslie (age 17) plays Cagney's wife, Rosemary DeCamp, George Tobias, S. Z. Sakall (aka Cuddles Sakall) and film director Richard Worfe as Cohen's business partner all show up.  This bunch was in a lot of Warner Brothers films in the 1930's and 40'a.  Yankee Doodle Dandy is certainly a high point in professional Hollywood film making.

The film was written by Robert Busckner and Edmund Joseph, the running time is 126 minutes.    

2026 - SHELTER, this year's Jason Statham film

With the inevitability of a returning season this is the yearly Jason Statham action film no better or no worse than any of his other films.  In Shelter, Statham is a man living alone on a deserted island with an abandoned lighthouse on it.  Washing up onto the beach is a teenage girl who has survived a ship sinking.  It turns out Statham is an ex special ops agent skilled at killing a lot of people all at once or one at a time.  His cover is now blown and so the chase is on.   Will Statham be able to stop the army of assassins sent out to kill before he can save the girl and get her to safety?  Have you guessed the very obvious answer to that question?

The teenage girl is played by somebody with a tongue twister of a name called Bodhi Rae Breathnach she interacts with Statham fairly well.  Award winning actor Bill Nighy (as in what am I doing in this film) is the leader of the assassins and since this a Jason Statham film you know he's going to get it.

 

The director Ric Roman Waugh was a former stuntman who had worked on The Last of the Mohicans, The Last Action Hero and the bizarre meta universe film The One, so he knew his way around staging the action scene stuff which is for the most part fairly well done. 

 

Shelter is the usual time killer of a film.  It keeps the viewers interest from beginning to the end or at least until the next Statham film comes rolling along in 2027.

The film was written by Ward Perry, the running time is 107 minutes.