Talk to Me (2022).

Review #2065: Talk to Me.

Cast: 

Sophie Wilde (Mia), Alexandra Jensen (Jade), Joe Bird (Riley), Otis Dhanji (Daniel), Miranda Otto (Sue), Zoe Terakes (Hayley), Chris Alosio (Joss), Marcus Johnson (Max), Alexandria Steffensen (Rhea), Ari McCarthy (Cole), and Sunny Johnson (Duckett) Directed by Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou.

Review: 

What better way to close out the month than with a debut feature from a couple of Australians? Well, actually, the story is more interesting when you consider that these two directors originally started on YouTube. They grew up in Adelaide in South Australia and actually got into filming each other at a young age with backyard wrestling. Eventually,  after uploading some stuff involving "fake fails", the channel RackaRacka was created in 2013. I have not actually viewed the videos of the channel, but I'm sure that the description of videos with stunts and practical effects is accurate. The film was written by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman, and it serves as the debut feature for the Philippous, who plan to shoot any film they can in their native Australia, and judging by the preview screenings in 2022 that got itself right into a bidding war at Sundance the following year that fit for (successful) distribution in the States by A24, one might want to inquire further about where these folks can go from here. 

One thing that can be said is that it is an effectively paced film for a debut, one that doesn't go for cheap scares in 95 minutes. It makes a modern tale of possession through a ceramic hand that is basically done as if one was going through peer pressure (oh if only folks tried out weird hands rather than things such, as, say whippets). So yes, it starts out involving folks trying out a hand and being recorded when evidently letting the spirit in for about 90 seconds. Of course, one little hiccup can throw all of the fun (or "content", to be wry) out the window when the dread of seeing something hit closer to home looms. For that, it will strike as a dividing line between folks who will really appreciate the character-driven horror that isn't reliant on too much gore and goes for selective moments to twist the knife...and folks who react in their own ways to folks believing films are really "unsettling". I appreciate the effort the film takes to deliver surprises, but for me, the best aspect may very well be the fact that the film muddles through a foundation of the increasingly weird situations that come from "nay, don't slam the ceramic hand into pieces" for a dutiful ending above all. Well, that, and those select shock moments with effects that don't betray the ambitions set out by the filmmakers. Simply put, it is a decent effort, and it invites the curiosity for what other type of scares could come from the filmmakers (well, I don't mean it sequel-baits itself, but God only knows). As such, the group of fresh faces (read: Australians who are more familiar in their country moreso than ours, to their credit) fit the tone set put in making a feature that doesn't seem adrift enough for an American to stumble away from, which makes it pretty quick to go with these folks. Wilde carries the film about to where you might hope to see in a distinct manner that comes from the dilemma of bewitched terror. The other performances are fine, but it really is more her story rather than one to set folks up to be picked off, at least for the most part. It is a story about grief and the human element in reaction to that for which the film bases its self. Of course, there are those moments where I found a bit dark amusement eithin the plight of such weird befuddlement, so your milage may vary. I don't know, maybe I am just am the kind of person who favors the visceral timing of other horror movies, or maybe it merits further viewing, but I found it just fine, perhaps not the surprise I thought but more of an adequate burn rather than a straight burner of horror. The dread is around, I just found it moderately present rather thar a great terror to erase the little doubts that arise from thinking about horror films (at least this is one that tries to rely on phones rather than shying away from it). Going into it cold will help with expectations that one might have. As a whole, Talk to Me is a solid effort, one that merits curiosity for the people behind it within perspective and ambition to make their Australian identity more than just a filming ground that I can give a good deal of respect to.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Well, well, here we are at the end of July at 38 reviews. In my book, it is a modern record worth mentioning in the history of Movie Night, since the only other big month of 38 was June 2012, part of the old era. This is the first month ever with a review for every day (which I thought would be fun to do after realizing the pattern around the 10th), and I hope you enjoyed the quality of the reviews for such a historic month. August obviously will have its own sort of normal post rate for useful reviews that will be part of a theme, as was the case the last two Augusts. Stay tuned.

Skippy.

Review #2064: Skippy.

Cast: 

Jackie Cooper (Skippy Skinner), Robert Coogan (Sooky Wayne), Mitzi Green (Eloise), Jackie Searl (Sidney), Willard Robertson (Dr. Herbert Skinner), Enid Bennett (Mrs. Ellen Skinner), Donald Haines (Harley Nubbins), Jack Rube Clifford (Mr. Nubbins, Dog-Catcher), Helen Jerome Eddy (Mrs. Wayne), and Guy Oliver (Dad Burkey) Directed by Norman Taurog (#421 - Palm Springs Weekend, #523 - It Happened at the World's Fair, and #1174 - Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine)

Review: 

The career of Norman Taurog really is a double-edged sword if you think about it. He was familiar with performances from a child as he entered that realm on the stage while being raised in his native Chicago. He appeared in off-Broadway for a number of years before he entered the film industry in collaboration with Larry Semon that saw him direct for the first time in 1920. He eventually graduated from shorts to features by the end of the decade with Lucky Boy (1929), which actually had a few portions of dialogue. By the time of Skippy (1931), Taurog was already a veteran of half-a-dozen films that clearly would serve him well as a recipent of an Academy Award. Yes, well, here we are with the film that saw him awarded one for Best Director that happened in the year of such films as Cimarron, The Front Page and Morocco (well, it only was the fourth ceremony held). As such, the film starred his nephew in Jackie Cooper for the title role after he had started appearing (read: dragged by his grandmother) in films at the age of 3, which resulted in a spell spent with Our Gang before Paramount borrowed him here. If you ever want to see just what kind of differences exist between the past and now when it comes to treating actors, Cooper shared just Taurog got him to cry, as related by his autobiography years later. When one sequence couldn't get the right amount of tears, Taurog chewed him out as a ham and called for the spare costume to be put on Robert Coogan. The next time that a scene was needed in tears, now again incurring the wrath of Taurog in not being able to cry on cue, decided to have someone take away Cooper's dog that he had with him on set. But that isn't all, he proceeded to have a security guard come up with a gun and make it seem like the guard shot the dog, which naturally led Cooper into hysterics; of course, if Cooper did the scene the way Taurog wanted in calmness, he could go see if the dog was possibly alive (well, the dog wasn't shot, but of course the real key to getting Cooper to cry a third time was far simpler: his mother talked him through the scene in why he would need to cry). Of course, Cooper has also stated that Taurog essentially was a contradiction: he called him both an effective director among the ones he could compare in making films but he also was a tough figure for a kid that basically suffered abuse from their grandmother. One would say, however, that Cooper thankfully ended up more fortunate than others of his time, which included a lengthy run on television, both as actor and director (coincidentally, Glamour Boy, made a decade after this film, saw him star as a has-been child star that even referred to "Skippy" for its promos). As for Taurog, by the time he retired in 1968, he had directed roughly 180 feature films, which included directing for stars such as Spencer Tracy, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, and beyond.

Amidst all of that is the fact that this was based on the comic strip of the same name, as created by Percy Crosby in 1923, which served as an inspiration for Charles Schultz's Peanuts (if you would like to fall down the rabbit hole of where Crosby ended up, well, try this out) As such, the film was written by Norman Z. McLeod and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (both future directors) in screenplay, while Don Marquis provides additional dialogue, and Sam Mintz provided the story. There was a sequel with many of the same people returning in Sooky in the winter of 1931. What it all boils down to for this film is a a film threatening to choke in schmaltz that thankfully is at least endearing enough in the overall result to make it more than just a dated feature. It packs a bit of a punch in melodrama that will at least make one not have to spring a defense of a silly children's movie being, well, "made exclusively for children".  It is Cooper who holds his own, a testament to solid timing and, well, the aforementioned treatment during production; the last crying scene (the one that wasn't conjured up with tricks) might actually be the most effective, showing just what really matters to a kid when they think about life that seems like it could go forever. Crosby once described the character as "the child in my soul", and it isn't hard to see how Cooper makes that seem engaging and useful for child adventure. A weaker presence would've been the last straw in an otherwise okay movie with characters that possess the amount of dimensions expected for such a simple-to-the-point story.  Coogan (brother of the noted Jackie) is, well, I can give slack for a six-year-old, so go with that (Green does some sort of goofy yodel on occasion that is, well, embarrassing for any teen). The adults are about what you'd expect in mild-mannered foils, so there's that. As a whole, what does one expect from a film about kids trying to deal with shantytown shutdowns and trying to raise $6 (adjusted for inflation, that's about $100 today) to buy a windshield and save a dog from death? Well, you will get a film that shows its age along with a heart on its sleeve with an ideal (if not semi-coerced) performance from Cooper to make it all worth a viewing for those into curiosity for this sort of film.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle.

Review #2063: The Friends of Eddie Coyle.

Cast: 

Robert Mitchum (Eddie Coyle), Peter Boyle (Dillon), Richard Jordan (Dave Foley), Steven Keats (Jackie Brown), Alex Rocco (Jimmy Scalise), Joe Santos (Artie Van), Mitchell Ryan (Waters), Helena Carroll (Sheila Coyle), Jack Kehoe (The Beard), Margaret Ladd (Andrea), and James Tolkan (The Man's Contact Man) Directed by Peter Yates (#506 - Bullitt, #927 - Krull, and #1197 - The Deep)

Review: 

In 1970, George V. Higgins saw his first novel in The Friends of Eddie Coyle become published. Formerly, he had served his native Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a deputy assistant attorney general alongside as an Assistant United State Attorney. Higgins dabbled as a novelist when not involved in private practice in law that distilled the words that he would hear from gangsters and made them the kind of thing you would hear in a great potboiler. Better writers than me can lend you some context within the scene of Boston and gangs (as presented here). It made some sense to have Peter Yates as director, as his third effort with Robbery (1967) had given him a chance to direct Bullitt (1968), a movie packed with a car chase so notable that I'm sure those who view it now will talk about with fanfare; Yates directed a variety of genres besides crime of course, but, well, we are here to talk about a film that was underappreciated by audiences in its time. This is the first of only two adaptations of a Higgins book, with the only other one being Killing Them Softly (2012). Paul Monash wrote the screenplay while serving as producer. Of the films that Yates made, he stated that the three films he was most proud of was Breaking Away (1979), The Dresser (1983), and this film.

When it comes to the grimy classics of a decade as ideal for grimy films as the 1970s were, you can't really go wrong with this one. Life is hard, but it sure is harder if you are stupid, as is reflected within the dialogue that is told with such dedicated efficiency. Before you get to films of the region such as The Town (2010) or The Departed (2006), you might want to consider this one when it comes to looking at the people that dwell in the corners of crime. This isn't merely just the big-timers or two-bit hustlers, it involves folks wrapped firmly in the middle, the kind that are referred to with irony as having friends. It rewards those who value character presences such as Boyle or Keats to serve in the lines behind the immeasurable Mitchum. One of the cast members actually was formerly involved in organized crime within the East in Rocco, who was linked loosely with the Winter Hill Gang in the Boston area that had seen him accused of being involved in an assault on a diner owner. Apparently, when Mitchum had asked to see a local gangster for research, Rocco tapped him to see Howie Winter, who was still part of the gang. Of course, Mitchum having an accent that has been looked upon favorably among select folks in the region is not a surprise given the veteran actor's immense talent that relies heavily on seeing this one man in the time he has remaining in such a weary existence that knows his strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the life put upon him. This includes moments spent with Carroll to remind oneself of just what is really at stake when it comes to playing information or not (it isn't a movie built on overt violence, basically). Only Mitchum could waltz right into a role like this with such natural skill that it seems that nobody could have done it better. He may be a hustler of guns, but he is our hustler and his dilemma matters more than anything to us, particularly since we know the game that comes in Boyle, who provides such a worthy mobster presence in subtlety on the level of a snake. Jordan is the leading authority (with pretty good results) to watch upon these distinct elements of crime that is thoroughly unglamourous. Violent or not, you know what kind of underworld you are in with this film in folks such as Keats and Rocco that obviously accomplish what is required in the shades of laying out plans in their own scope that can only go the way things go with the unending world of crime moving on with or without the best laid-out plans working right. The robbing aren't the most important part, because it is a slow boiler all about seeing what happens to Mitchum as a battle of pride, one that works out to effective drama with no sense of false note moral by its end. In that sense, it is a worthwhile crime film wrapped firmly in its Boston surroundings for a worthwhile time of grime. Bleak and unflinching, it stands worthy of its time rather than one that flinches away.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

A Canterbury Tale.

Review #2062: A Canterbury Tale.

Cast: 

Eric Portman (Thomas Colpeper), John Sweet (Acting Sgt. Bob Johnson), Dennis Price (Sgt Peter Gibbs), Sheila Sim (Alison Smith), Charles Hawtrey (Thomas Duckett), Esmond Knight (Narrator/Seven-Sisters Soldier/Village Idiot), George Merritt (Ned Horton), Edward Rigby (Jim Horton), Hay Petrie (Woodcock), Freda Jackson (Mrs Prudence Honeywood), Eliot Makeham (Church Organist), and Betty Jardine (Fee Baker) Directed, Written, and Produced by Michael Powell (#400 - The Thief of Bagdad and #1367 - A Matter of Life and Death) and Emeric Pressburger (#1367)

Review: 

A Canterbury Tale was the seventh feature film made under the company of The Archers, who I'm sure you remember is the combination of two worthy talents in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger that had started collaborating with each other that took place mostly in the 1940s, with both of them first being credited as director with One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942), after Pressburger had first written for a number of previous Powell productions. They had followed that up with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), which is often called one of the best British films made. Among the first couple of films by the two, this one was known as being just modestly successful with audiences (the next three years after 1944 were as follows: I Know Where I'm Going!, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus). Title or not, the film did accomplish one thing more than anything else in reminding me of the varied experience I had in having to talk about the Canterbury Tales in college. If you remember, those were a collection of tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 14th century that were presented as being told by a group of pilgrims travelling from London to Canterbury on their way to a shrine. The prologue of the tales even is read for the opening of the film right before one cuts from a falcon right to a spitfire. The American release apparently had 20 minutes (of a two-hour feature) cut while including narration by Raymond Massey alongside sequences with Kim Hunter. Of course, some of the tales I remember were at least amusing such as the Miller's Tale (which involves the backside), but I'm sure you know that when it comes to films of the countryside, sometimes the past really does haunt the present.

It is a three-pronged story within people of the countryside that involves folks trying to figure out just who is spraying glue on the hair of women that isn't really a mystery or really any sort of genre film. One does, however, think more of the English landscape rather than any sort of mystery about glue or where the story really will go, which is likely a testament to Erwin Hillier and his cinematography (supposedly the only thing that bugged Powell about his cinematographer was an obsession for clouds to break up a clear sky in order to start shooting). The black-and-white photography (done because of war shortages) is quite engaging to look at when it comes to this pilgrimage of ordinary folks that involve two sergeants and a member of the Women's Land Army. In their trip of circumstance and curiosity is figuring out what really matters most when looking upon the countryside in a time of need: clarity. Portman is the uniting force between the three pilgrims in mysterious graciousness that (culprit or not) reminds one of what really matters when it comes to knowledge of history and people in the countryside. Each of the key three travelers in Sweet, Sim, and Price represent the weariness that comes with travelers that perhaps need reminding of life in the countryside rather than just passing through life. Sweet was actually not an actor but instead a sergeant in the U.S. Army during the ongoing war, for which he was selected over the original idea of Burgess Meredith (who instead served as script editor). While he did try his hand at acting with the theater after the war, Sweet eventually went back to his real passion in teaching (while donating his $2,000 salary for the film to the NAACP). As such, what comes out is what you would expect for a one-time actor in terms of stiff curiosity that is about on par for what the film is asking for anyway. This proves about right for Sim and Price (each making their film debuts) when it comes to building these people up for their eventual fate in warmth, mostly for the latter, since the sequence at the Canterbury Cathedral involving the organ is probably the highlight to listen and view to. From the battle of kids playing pretend, I'm sure you can tell that this is a local passion project. Powell was from Kent, England (specifically the village of Bekesbourne), and it is evident that he made a passion project that loves the region, even if he couldn't quite shoot in the famous Canterbury Cathedral (due to bombings and preparations made in reaction to it that saw the stained-glass windows be removed), which therefore required a mix of set-work and miniature replicas. As a whole, its attempt at morale boosting may have rung a bit hollow when it first came out, but the film has endured nonetheless because of its spirit for the countryside that makes for an intimate accomplishment.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Health.

Review #2061: Health.

Cast: 

Carol Burnett (Gloria Burbank), Glenda Jackson (Isabella Garnell), James Garner (Harry Wolff), Lauren Bacall (Esther Brill), Paul Dooley (Dr. Gil Gainey), Donald Moffat (Colonel Cody), Henry Gibson Bobby Hammer), Diane Stilwell (Willow Wertz), MacIntyre Dixon (Fred Munson), Alfre Woodard (Sally Benbow), and Dick Cavett (Himself) Directed by Robert Altman (#900 - Nashville, #1433 - M*A*S*H, and #1890 - The Delinquents)

Review: 

"HealtH could have only been made when it was made, and that was the end of the Carter era."

Somehow, at the end of this little blurb about talking about a film that did not get a proper release is a joke. But I'm sure you already came into that with a film made by a director as noted as Robert Altman that has the dubious achievement of having never received a proper home video release. You may or may not already know that Altman was an interesting presence amongst filmmakers you could say have their own style of filming. He may not have had the best of times with his initial feature efforts such as The Delinquents (1957), but his lengthy time spent in television work would shine well when he got to do regular film work after the massive hit of M*A*S*H (1970). Over the next ten years he would direct in a variety of genres that went from the Western (McCabe & Mrs. Miller) to horror (Images) to psychological drama (3 Women). Some films ended up better than others, as evidenced by Quintet (1979). Altman had at least one film released from the year of 1969 to 1980 that went from That Cold Day in the Park (1969) to Popeye. Now back to this film (sometimes referred to as HealtH or H.E.A.L.T.H.): it was shot in the Don CeSar Beach hotel in St Petersburg Beach, Florida for a number of months in 1979. He rushed the film to production just to make sure that it could be done for 20th Century Fox while Alan Ladd Jr was still around. He wrote the script in collaboration with Frank Barhydt and Paul Dooley. It was planned for a released in the winter of 1979, but changeover at the studio led to shuffling for test previews in the spring of 1980 with ideas of getting it seen in full by the summer (the aforementioned Popeye film somehow went better despite being filmed in 1980 for release in the winter, incidentally). It did not end well, and Altman had a falling out with personnel, particularly with one that didn't return his calls for weeks on end that led to being labeled as "scum" by the director. Long story short, there was no public release of the film until New York’s Film Forum showed in 1982, but there were enough film festival showings to account for a knowing of it. It certainly did not come from 20th Century Fox, who had decided the film was not commercially viable enough for release in 1980. So, what did they decide was a better candidate for release than an Altman film? Oh! Heavenly Dog.

I can't promise you a good punchline for the end of this review, but I thought it tickled me. There are two sides that can come with talking about a film not appreciated in its time: the part where you call it a hidden gem that deserves your attention or one that you believe was best left to rest in the dustbin. This is a film that at least one person liked watching on the Fox Movie Channel enough to record it and try to put it online. As for me, I enjoyed it about as much as I thought would happen for an attempt at a satire of politics of the time that is a frenzied hodgepodge of observations that come from looking at a health food convention that really is looking at the conventions that come with America. In other words: showmanship has run amok, and one can still see the carnival atmosphere that we call politics now more than ever. Granted, it isn't exactly packed with a developed story, and it definitely isn't on the same level as, say, Nashville (1975), but it really did deserve an audience to judge it for themselves rather than letting it being thrust into the shadows (for the decade of the 1980s, Altman was left with making films on small-scale budgets, with varying respect). To me, the movie stumbles around two timelines to make light of: the end of the Jimmy Carter era (beaten in a landslide by Reagan in the fall of 1980) and the Dwight Eisenhower-Adlai Stevenson elections of the 1950s that incidentally saw the candidate with vast media drawing Powe win each time. Life is messy, and Altman made a whole movie about the odd carnival of hucksters in health and beyond. The film isn't really wrapped in an involving plot of note, so it really does verge its entertainment on just how much you like the people involved in said film. This namely involves folks who can be pegged to sentence-descriptions such as Garner and his general huckster observer persona or Jackson in a spry and uptight impersonation of Stevenson right down to the speeches. Of course, those 50s elections didn't have a third-party worth mentioning, so Dooley is more just there as the ignored option, but I like Dooley and his huckster self that seems too much for these fellow hucksters, so it shouldn't surprise me that he had a hand in writing this. Woodard is probably the only sane observer of said proceedings, which includes a man of great bluster in Moffat or the always enduring presence of Gibson. Burnett is basically there as the wishy-washy presence that is mildly funny in tension, but one wonders if there was more one could do with this role (this reflects perhaps most on Cavett, who might as well be trying out a mild sedative). At least Bacall and her slogan-happy presence of feeling oneself is amusing in just how much of a puppet one can be with slogans (in being used and using others). It is interesting to make a film about two women running for president and have one of them go on to win to form a new leadership of sexless strength. As a whole, the movie is merely fine, but 20th Century Fox should have known better than to think that it was going to work out nicely to skip over releasing this film (one that cost $6 million!). It isn't a great sort of missing gem or far from easy to ignore, instead falling along the middle with a few amusing moments that with a proper release would've nurtured a possible cult favorite. As it stands now, the only way to enjoy it is for those who enjoy digging further into Altman films or for those who like to watch bootlegs.  But hey, don't take my word for how the film worked when it came to satire and its targets, take it from Ronald Reagan, who was reported to have seen the film in 1982 and called it "the world's worst movie". That I think tells you all you need to know about Health.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Bringing Up Baby.

Review #2060: Bringing Up Baby.

Cast: 

Katharine Hepburn (Susan Vance), Cary Grant (Dr. David Huxley), May Robson (Elizabeth Carlton Random), Charles Ruggles (Major Horace Applegate), Walter Catlett (Constable Slocum), Barry Fitzgerald (Aloysius Gogarty), Fritz Feld (Dr. Fritz Lehman), Virginia Walker (Alice Swallow), George Irving (Alexander Peabody), Leona Roberts (Hannah Gogarty), Tala Birell (Mrs. Lehman), and John Kelly (Elmer) Directed by Howard Hawks (#951 - The Big Sleep, #1352 - His Girl Friday, #1399 - Rio Bravo, #1687 - O. Henry's Full House and #1773 - Red River)

Review: 

"I think the picture had a great fault and I learned an awful lot from that. There were no normal people in it. Everyone you met was a screwball and since that time I have learned my lesson and I don’t intend ever again to make everybody crazy."

In 1937, Howard Hawks read a short story in the magazine Collier's that had been written by Hagar Wilde. He laughed so much that he wanted to make a film of the story, which I'm sure you know was called Bringing Up Baby. He had time to spare, considering that he was being stalled out in making "Gunga Din" (which was worked out eventually by George Stevens). Wilde wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Dudley Nichols (known for his structure work with films such as The Informer three years earlier) that retained a chase for a docile cat (panther in the story, leopard in the movie) in the wilderness of Connecticut. Look, sometimes you have to say audiences don't always know what the hell they want. This is especially true here for a film that only would make a small profit upon subsequent re-release. Perhaps most famously, Hepburn would be referred to as "box office poison" by the Independent Theatre Owners of America a couple of months after the release of this film in 1938, who referred her as having an excellent performance but also referring to it and another film in Stage Door as flops when closing out by saying "Sound judgment and good business sense are valuable assets in an industry that is far from being an art." Believe it or not, Hawks actually had Harold Lloyd in mind first for the lead role played by Grant. The studio rejected that suggestion and offered the role to a handful of others that rejected it. Lloyd apparently told Hawks that the film was the "best constructed comedy" he ever saw, which I'm sure has something to do with Grant and his portrayal that surely was modeled after Lloyd (right down to the glasses). Walter Catlett (a veteran of vaudeville and a number of films since the early 20th century) was brought in to help out Hepburn and her early jitters with doing comedy and ended up having a key role in the film as well. This was the second of four films with Grant and Hepburn after Sylvia Scarlett (1935), Holiday (1938) and The Philadelphia Story (1940), and it was her work in the latter of the four that resulted in Hepburn's first of four Academy Award wins, proving the old lesson that sometimes words on print really are worth less than toilet paper.

It is a profoundly silly movie, the screwiest kind of screwball movies that could only be done by a craftsman of energetic filmmaking. Hawks may have thought that the film had a few too many zany characters, but the main thing that is told here is that at the end of the day, it is better to enjoy life with free-spirited energy rather than try to stick with dignity. Hawks later stated that the way he achieved such vast pace is by pacing the actors "quickly within the frame rather than cross cutting fast". This results in a zany film filled with consistent energy from beginning to end that delivers everything you would think comes in these types of films without failing in the goal of worthwhile comedy. The 102-minute runtime is the ideal time to try and wrap these odd little characters for one wholly watchable feature that never plods in how it presents these two main people and the winding road they are tied to in amusing predicaments, complete with a select handful of ad-libs. Grant was already a comedic name on the rise with The Awful Truth (1937), because he really was quite the charmer who could hold his own with any kind of material and any kind of requirement, which in this case involves flustered panic. You can see pretty easily from the first sequence involving old bones and where his energies have to lie with such vaunted people. Hepburn is a free spirit of the highest order in impulse, one who has such a great chemistry with Grant that never leaves our mind from the very get-go. They make for such a great pair together, one zigging where the other is zagging without a false note detected among their interactions or ones where Grant is left trying to spin out of a spinning top of absurd situations, one of which involves a torn dress and a hat and another involving waiting to be heard in the middle of a convoluted explanation. They make a quality pair in both timing and, eventually, romance. Robson (a veteran of the stage who became a noted film presence at the ripe age of her seventies) amuses as the dignified straight one among the proceedings to be accompanied by Ruggles and his befuddled attitude among would-be hunters. They are swept up into probably the most interesting of all confounding situations when it comes to Catlett and the belief of just who is really who and the case of one (or two? or none?) leopard. It is the kind of film with quality animal performances (Nissa, the leopard who is used to play both the docile and circus leopard and Skippy, already familiar from The Thin Man) to go with quality timing that practically is as timeless as one would hope to expect in a comedy of screwy manners. The only real debate is just how damn good it is within the career of Howard Hawks and his immeasurable qualities in filmmaking.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Movie Movie.

Review #2059: Movie Movie.

Cast: 

"Dynamite Hands"

George C. Scott ("Gloves" Malloy), Trish Van Devere (Betsy McGuire), Red Buttons ("Peanuts"). Eli Wallach (Vince Marlow / Pop), Harry Hamlin (Joey Popchik), Ann Reinking ("Troubles" Moran), Jocelyn Brando (Mama Popchik), Michael Kidd (Pop Popchik), Kathleen Beller (Angie Popchik), Art Carney (Dr. Blaine / Dr. Bowers), and Barry Bostwick (Johnny Danko)

"Baxter's Beauties of 1933"

George C. Scott ("Spats" Baxter), Barbara Harris (Trixie Lane), Barry Bostwick (Dick Cummings), Trish Van Devere (Isobel Stuart), Red Buttons ("Jinks" Murphy), Eli Wallach (Pop), Rebecca York (Kitty), Art Carney (Dr. Bowers), Maidie Norman (Gussie), Jocelyn Brando (Mrs. Updike), and Charles Lane (Mr. Pennington)

Produced and Directed by Stanley Donen (#137 - Bedazzled (1967), #227 - Singin' in the Rain, #346 - On the Town, #1029 - Charade, and #1194 - Saturn 3)

Cast:

So, here we are with a package deal: two films in one for 105 minutes, which features "Dynamite Hands", a boxing drama and morality tale presented in black-and-white and "Baxter's Beauties of 1933", a musical comedy presented in color. The opening features George Burns in an introduction to the double feature, while in the middle of the two films features a trailer for "Zero Hour", a flying ace short. Both of the main features have a few actors playing roles in both films, with Scott being the main star of both with varying support from traditional names and newer names. For example, Van Devere, Buttons and Wallach are present around a newcomer in both Hamlin and Reinking (each making their screen debut). In the second one, Scott is the star with a mix of familiar names (Harris, who despite being a Tony Award-nominated actress, doesn't sing) with a few newcomers in Bostwick (well, actually he was in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but does that really count?) and York. The film was written by Larry Gelbart and Sheldon Keller. Older viewers might know the first name as the writer for television such as for Sid Caesar or his part in the creation in the TV show M*A*S*H or his work on Broadway with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. For film, though, he had just finished work with Oh God! (1977) but was later the co-collaborator for Tootsie (1982). Keller was also a writer for Caesar and M*A*S*H for a time, but this was the third of three film credits (the one before was Cleopatra Jones). They wrote the initial script in six weeks after months spent by Gelbart proposing the idea to studios. To serve as the production company was Lew Grade and his ITC Entertainment for distribution by Warner Bros., while Stanley Donen was tapped to direct. Donen did work in various genres besides the musical he is perhaps most famous for directing with Singin' in the Rain (1952). This was his second-to-last feature film as a director for features, for which he closed out his career with noted features (read: me being nice) in Saturn 3 (1980) and Blame it on Rio (1984). Plans for a sequel were thought of early because of Grade's liking of the material that would have seen Gelbert and Donen return, but the lack of audience returns (blamed on distribution) scuttled those plans.

Within its structure is attempts to make light of two (technically three) genres big in the old days. The first one would probably be right at home for folks already familiar with boxing films of yesteryear such as Golden Boy (1939), Two-Fisted Gentleman (1936), or, well, The Champ (1931). It goes okay, but it is only the bare minimum when it comes to boxing, because, well, it tries to be a silly morality play with a hodgepodge of cheap jokes. How seriously can you take a film that ends with a boxer seeing his manager get shot and immediately study as hard as possible in law school so they could serve as the prosecutor of said murderer? Scott apparently stated about the script that "Gelbart is such a good writer and the picture was so much fun I was almost ashamed to take the money." This could apply as both a sign of goodwill from Scott but also a possible sign of things to come with acting that is hit-and-miss, specifically with the first segment. Somehow, he seems more at home with the second segment in impending death rather than the middling spry manager played here. Hamlin does okay with the material, but one can only handle the mix of moments meant to played for boxing cliches and cliches about falling in and out of the influence of fame so far. By the time he gets to do corny lines for the climax, it almost seems like a punchline of an outstretched TV episode. At least Wallach leans into the hammy nature required from corrupt-doers, but I'm sure there was meant to be something more to having Van Devere (an established actor who happened to be a spouse to Scott) in both segments beyond making me wish to see them in other things with more time such as The Day of the Dolphin (1973). As for the musical, one perhaps thinks of 42nd Street (1933), which also happens to involve a director trying to make a big hit under the pressure of health (in a case of total coincidence, two years after the release of the film, the director behind the Broadway adaptation of 42nd Street would die on the day the show premiered). It is perhaps more musical in song rather than big, choreographed numbers, but it ends up just fine in light entertaining neatness, as evidenced by the free spirit in Bostwick, with him and York making a passable duo. One can only wonder if Harris not being involved in songs or dance was meant to play against type given her Tony Award-nominated background, but whatever. As a whole, you will get a few chuckles from what was meant as an "affectionate satire", one packed with plenty of familiar beats and a decent closer to overcome a few bumpy moments that is handled with the usual qualities presented by Donen and company for a decent recommendation.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Strange Illusion.

Review #2058: Strange Illusion.

Cast: 

Jimmy Lydon (Paul Cartwright), Warren William (Brett Curtis), Sally Eilers (Virginia Cartwright), Regis Toomey (Dr. Martin Vincent), Charles Arnt (Prof. Muhlbach), George Reed (Benjamin, the butler), and Jayne Hazard (Dorothy Cartwright) Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (#797 - People on Sunday, #803 - Detour, #943 - The Man from Planet X, and #1364 - Bluebeard)

Review: 

The basis for the film is two-fold: Adele Comandini wrote the screenplay based on a story by Fritz Rotter that the studio bought the rights to. Of course, there is a tiny little nugget of inspiration with William Shakespeare's Hamlet, as evidenced by the dreams that the lead character experiences that may or may not give him an inkling into figuring out the death of his father as murder rather than the accident people believe that just happens to coincide with his mother about to re-marry a certain man. Incidentally, the play featured its title character doing an act of going mad while the film features a lead character midway through the film voluntarily going into a sanatorium for psychiatric evaluation (of course, there is no Ophelia in this film, but I'm sure you figured that or didn't really ask). So, who ended up being the director of such an odd little film that seems right for the king of the cheapies in Producers Releasing Corporation? Well, who better but Edgar G. Ulmer? I picked this film for one particular reason: it happens to have been the film released between two other distinct Ulmer features: Bluebeard (1944) and Detour (1945). So that is what you get here for an 87-minute feature that is readily available in the public domain, although obviously seeing the film with the best quality is advisable. 

I think you can tell that the film will live and die on just how much you roll with its young star in the 22-year-old Lydon, who had broken into acting eight years earlier (most notably starring in a film series called Henry Aldrich for nine films). He can only go so far with such, uh, let's say "youthful spirit", but the dream sequences that occasionally come through undoubtedly do the best job in keeping the film as watchable as possible (so one rolls their eyes at the kid for a bit, but he at least makes a useful effort in not being a miserable presence). That part draws the most attention because it talks about the unconscious mind and just what the hell lurks in one mind that seems right and less than right in reality-shifting times. Ulmer takes it about as seriously as one should expect, which thankfully doesn't strain itself too hard in the mystery of just what the fuss is all about with this random man present in the here and now. Besides, I don't think you need a really-dragged out process to figuring out just who is actually making sense when we are talking about a quick-paced film. With that in mind, William (once called "King of the Pre-Code" in his third-to-last film appearance before his death in 1948) is probably the most effective choice to play it both ways, one who can be engaging on the one foot and slimy on the other side that probably could have made a quality King Claudius if he had the chance on the stage. Eilers is wrapped in the middle, ordinary but useful. Toomey and Arnt are the standard character presence that you would see in films like this, and that is totally fine when one is meant to be playing a second-fiddle to canoodling crime. As a whole, the film never really rises above what one's expectations are when it comes to cheap-rate noirs based on happenstance and murky foundations, but Ulmer is the right guy to move things around to satisfactory results in spending time broadening the horizons of picking films beyond the usual suspects. PRC, Eagle-Lion, whatever floats your boat, you will do just fine with this film.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Blind Adventure.

Review #2057: Blind Adventure.

Cast: 

Robert Armstrong (Richard Bruce), Helen Mack (Rose Thorne), Roland Young (Holmes the Burglar), Ralph Bellamy (Jim Steele), John Miljan (Regan, Gang Leader), Beryl Mercer (Elsie, the Maid), Tyrell Davis (Gerald Fairfax), Henry Stephenson (Major Archer Thorne), and Laura Hope Crews (Lady Rockingham) Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack (#283 - King Kong, #604 - Mighty Joe Young, #709 - The Most Dangerous Game, and #914 - Son of Kong)

Review: 

Okay, so remember Son of Kong (1933)? That was the rushed sequel to King Kong that retained the uses of Ernest B. Schoedsack as director/producer while featuring Robert Armstrong and Helen Mack (replacing Fay Wray from the original film) as the stars to basically be second-nature to the big effect (the film itself, well, was pretty disappointing, but that was a long time ago). Of course, there was one other aspect retained from the original Kong in Ruth Rose (familiar to Schoedsack, because she was his wife) as screenwriter. You may wonder just what does this have to do with Blind Adventure? Well, that was the other 1933 movie released by RKO Radio Pictures that had Armstrong and Mack as stars with Schoedsack as director, and Rose as a writer (Robert Benchley delivered uncredited work for the film); oddly enough, Cooper didn't produce the Kong sequel but did produce Blind Adventure. Schoedsack was a most curious filmmaker, as one would expect from somebody that honed their skills in the Signal Corps in World War I. He directed various films with a good chunk in collaboration with Merian C. Cooper (they met in Europe in 1918 and coincidentally were both pilots during the war), whether that involved producing films spent in the wilderness such as Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927) or dramas such as The Last Days of Pompeii (1935) or effects-driven features such as Dr. Cyclops (1940) and his last key effort in Mighty Joe Young (yet another movie with Armstrong, Rose, and Cooper). Schoedsack died in 1979 at the age of 86.

The movie is perhaps too fitting for B-movie status within its 65-minute runtime and a premise involving "An American in foggy England all by himself". The enjoyment of the film depends on just how much you can take the film at face value with such little time to allow it to coat in interest. But B-movies were a dime a dozen, so those familiar with hazy surroundings will probably just be fine with what the film is selling, and I did eventually go with it, perhaps because sometimes one really does just go with the flow. So here we are with a plot about wrong houses wrapped in pea soup fog, incriminating cigarette cases, and friendly burglars. Armstrong I think is confident enough to hold the ship together with being thrust into such a strange time, which mostly means competent timing that is played for a bit of contrast with everyone that isn't about bluster with the previous Schoedsack ventures. Mack makes a casual lead to get thrust into the proceedings that mainly involves a bit of going along with whatever is happening and a bit of relief when it comes to "trifles". Of course, Young makes for a pleasant bundle of chuckles as the sly fox in the middle of pursuers and bumblers. This includes a minor adversary in Bellamy, who at least seems game within the mild diversion that comes when packed with other minor heavies that see one of them get bonked on the head at one point. As a whole, the enjoyment of the film depends on just how much a diversion one finds within such a short and measurable time, and I think it works out just alright, so take that for what it is worth.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Repeat Performance.

Review #2056: Repeat Performance.

Cast: 

Louis Hayward (Barney Page), Joan Leslie (Sheila Page), Richard Basehart (William Williams), Virginia Field (Paula Costello), Tom Conway (John Friday), Natalie Schafer (Eloise Shaw), Benay Venuta (Bess Michaels), and Ilka Grüning (Mattle) Directed by Alfred L. Werker #676 - Shock, #721 - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and #947 - He Walked by Night)

Review: 

Admittedly, some film directors stay anonymous when it comes to directing, even if there is some sort of promise with select film assignments. But Alfred L. Werker had a consistent career to give himself credit for, because it spanned four decades from his work as an assistant director in the silent era all the way to becoming a director by the time the 1920s ended. He even got to direct within the more noted studios such as 20th Century Fox for a time, and he was the one who directed the second of the Rathbone-Bruce series of Sherlock Holmes films in 1938. Strangely enough, his career saw him on both sides of the coin when it came to directors replacing directors without credit: he was brought into doing a re-shoot and re-editing on Erich von Stroheim's troubled Hello, Sister! (1933) and he was given credit for He Walked by Night (1949) although Anthony Mann contributed a certain amount of input as director. For this film, oddly enough, Werker was brought in by Eagle-Lion Films to do it over Jules Dassin (don't worry about Dassin, he got to direct useful efforts in that time with Brute Force (1947) and The Naked City (1948), so there's that). The film is based on the 1942 novel of the same name by William O'Farrell, with a screenplay by Walter Bullock that reversed the character traits of the lead characters (the man was the troubled shooter while the woman was an alcoholic, but the poet character was, well, a crossdresser); this change was done apparently because when they casted Leslie, they thought she would be more suited for a not-alcoholic role. It was one of the first releases from the studio of Eagle-Lion, who released a considerable number of films that year (no need for coincidences, but one of those features...was T-Men, by Mann), one that would not be a mere cheapie to be paired on package films. 

Okay, here's a film noir that could throw you for a loop: a movie that takes place over the course of 1946 where the lead character is reliving that year all over again after killing their husband on New Years Eve. It may very well be one of the first films to feature a time loop, although obviously it is certainly something to try and make an act out of one person trying to avoid destiny with twelve months to plan that happens to involve her as a stage actor. Apparently, there exists a restoration (as done in the mid-2000s, because it nearly languished in complete obscurity) of the film out there in the markets, which is possibly more intriguing than trying to search for it on the Internet, where at least one version has a "Nick at Nite" bumper at times or happens to have burned-in subtitles (TCM, if you were curious, only showed it first in 2019). The 92-minute runtime is perhaps a bit too long to truly hold up its premise, but it is a curious achievement. Hell, I suppose there are more stories and films about time loops than I thought there would be, aside from that one time you could see it on The Twilight Zone. It begs for some sort of suspense here, but instead it mostly goes about with the air of inevitability more than anything, which is only mildly involving. But one can at least see why Leslie, in the first of two films she did with Eagle-Lion (Northwest Stampede was done the following year), is a worthy presence to set the table in trying to avert a fait accompli. Try as she might in a knowing sense of vulnerability, her realization in the gut-churning countdown to December 31. Hayward is perhaps a bit overextended in trying to play this raving man of drunken bitterness, which results in a bit of hammy acting when it comes to the final setup of a guy doomed to be shot. So confident was Eagle-Lion with the audience reviews about Basehart was that they gave him better billing, which is pretty impressive for a guy going from stage work to his film debut. There is an alluring quality to him as the only one who goes with this idea of destiny, albeit as an eccentric (so yes, instead of cross-dressing, he just gets roped into the asylum because of a girl). The rest of the players do just fine in routines as the film eventually makes its way around what can and perhaps cannot be changed when it comes to thinking about looking at the past a certain way twice. As a whole, it is more curious than anything, but it makes at least some use of its premise with a few decent performances to make a useful recommendation. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

The General Died at Dawn.

Review #2055: The General Died at Dawn.

Cast: 

Gary Cooper (O'Hara), Madeleine Carroll (Judy Perrie), Akim Tamiroff (General Yang), Dudley Digges (Mr. Wu), Porter Hall (Peter Perrie/Peter Martin), William Frawley (Brighton), J.M. Kerrigan (Leach), Philip Ahn (Oxford), Lee Tung Foo (Mr. Chen), and Leonid Kinskey (Stewart) Directed by Lewis Milestone (#901 - The Racket, #1336 - The Front Page, #1709 - Ocean's 11)

Review: 

Okay, it might sound a bit odd to pick this film out in the middle of a career, but Lewis Milestone is a pretty good one to spotlight again. If you can do films such as Two Arabian Knights (1927) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), one wouldn't be surprised to see him here with a melodrama action film. Of course, anyone was a student of Columbia University's School of Military Cinematography within the Signal Corps would have a good knowledge of photography. He started in comedy but took on various genres, one of which included adventure-melodrama. He needed it after his last two films (both musicals) in Paris in Spring (1935) and Anything Goes (1936) flopped. While he later considered The General Died at Dawn a film "of little consequence", it ended up being a pretty noted feature in his lengthy career. The film was written by Charles G. Booth and Clifford Odets. Odets was a noted playwright for his social dramas who did a handful of scripts (some without credit) while Booth was just starting out as a screenwriter (one of his future stories with The House on 92nd Street (1942) would win him an Academy Award).

So, we have a tale of a man who likes to root for the underdog and therefore has decided to help people from their oppression. In that sense, it reminds one of the real-life figure Two-Gun Cohen, a British/Canadian adventure with Jewish roots that basically became a soldier of fortune for Chinese-related efforts (such as the National Revolutionary Army). Some of this plays out pretty well in cynicism in the portrayal laid out by Cooper more so than anybody else for a film made in a time where Armenian actors are put out in latex to play Asian characters. If you enjoyed the exploits of train adventure involving warlords with Shanghai Express (1932), you will find plenty to partake here, although obviously they don't have the same dynamics. Cooper and Carroll make an adequate pair together, mostly since the latter isn't given as much to do despite being quite engaging, but their last scenes together around the climax do the job. Tamiroff, Hall, and Kerrigan are the general adversaries, although obviously attention is focused on the first one (since he was the one actor to receive an Academy Award nomination here). Tamiroff accomplishes the main goal with worthy timing and edge, while Hall makes a quality fool and Kerrigan makes a most useful sinister toady. This is basically a "wham-bam and figure the plot eventually ma'am" kind of movie, where you kind of just have to go with whatever the film is laying out and hope things play out to satisfaction. Like other adventures for others to identify, it is the kind of movie where one might as well be asking, "why not just shoot him?". Aside from its final conclusion, the movie does work out to expectations. And what I mean by that is the part where the lead character has to convince the villain to save their lives...so that they can tell others about the General's exploits due to their impending death. And, well, since you already read this, the General then orders his men to kill each other for the honor. No, really. If you can take the film seriously enough for most of its 98-minute runtime, even an ending that may verge on "convenient" may work fine enough to not ruin the general experience. I will go with what the movie is running with its attempts in the general sense of romances and adventure at dawn and call it a pleasant one to recommend. With a director like Milestone, it is a quality mission for one to accept.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

A Lady to Love.

Review #2054: A Lady to Love.

Cast: 

Vilma Bánky (Lena Shultz), Edward G. Robinson (Tony), Robert Ames (Buck), Richard Carle (Postman), Lloyd Ingraham (Father McKee), Anderson Lawler (Doctor), Gum Chin (Ab Gee), Henry Armetta (Angelo), and George Davis (Giorgio) Produced and Directed by Victor Sjöström (#1327 - The Wind, #1731 - The Phantom Carriage, and #1771 - He Who Gets Slapped)

Review: 

Well, the foundation is tempting for this Pre-Code film. It is based on the 1924 play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard. The play won him a Pulitzer Prize for Drama that year while the production ran on Broadway for nearly 200 performances that featured Richard Bennett, Pauline Lord, and Glenn Anders as the key stars. There has been various restaging of the play since, at least when one isn't busy trying to stage The Most Happy Fella, a musical first done in 1956 based on the Howard play. There are two other film adaptations of the play with The Secret Hour (1928) and They Knew What They Wanted (1940). Die Sehnsucht Jeder Frau, a German-language version of this film, was produced and directed by Sjöström with Robinson and Banky retained. This was the penultimate film appearance for its star in Banky, but The Rebel (1933) is obscure enough to not even have its own Wikipedia page, so keep that in mind when talking about Banky and her varying surviving films (which is just a bit over a half dozen, and her one previous effort in sound were sequences in This Is Heaven, which has yet to be found). As for Robinson, this was his third major appearance in a film after The Hole in the Wall (1929) and Outside the Law (1930). Lastly, let us talk about Victor Sjöström. This was the first sound film for the director, who you might already recognize from his silent classics such as The Phantom Carriage (1921) and The Wind (1928). He would go on to direct two further films: Father and Son (1930) and Under the Red Robe (1937) before he retired to back to his native Sweden to act within the theater again.

You may be a bit confused when it comes to this film on the idea that a director like Sjöström could be constrained so hard with the standards that come with making a sound film. Banky apparently left film not because of anything to do with her Hungarian accent but instead to focus on spending time with her new husband, whom she married a couple of years prior. I can only imagine that the result of this film probably did not help matters, and this isn't to say she has a bad time here (the accent is obviously fit for films). It just so happens that in a film with two actors playing folks with distinct roots (one Italian), Robinson chews the scenery away from everything. There is probably supposed to be some sort of tragedy within her being trapped within this triangle of affection, but maybe it actually fit better when packed for a stage rather than what is presented here, because it just seems hollow. Robinson can only carry so far when playing to the seats with whatever is meant to play in this blustery act that is spent two-ways: before and after he is put in bedrest (yes not only is it a film about a woman discovering her soon-to-be husband looks different from the picture, but she also first sees him after he suffers an injury where he broke both legs). Ames (who died the following year from "delirium tremens" at the age of 42) happens to be in the middle as the "American" in the middle of this certain triangle, but he might as well be playing a block of wood with his lack of drawing power, no matter how much they try to make the eventual wooing of Banky seem inevitable. By the time the actual resolution happens, one can only throw up their hands. The attempt at cultivating a romance that starts with deception (heh, let's get a mail-order bride by showing my handsome buddy) only results a long and winding road of middling meandering. The fact that the film seems bound to stay firmly in the same place you usually see things only results in a very drawn out 92-minute runtime. Asking oneself "how does one go from The Wind to this?" is not a promising statement when trying to assess the quality of a very average movie, and yet here we are. As a whole, since this is a movie you can only find online rather than home video, the best way to enjoy it is for those who like to seek out these kinds of things and hopefully enjoy what they see, because I can't call it anything other than just a bit too average. It has a future star and a future retired star to go with a director who had seen better days, so take that for what it is worth.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Regeneration (1915).

Review #2053: Regeneration.

Cast: 

Rockliffe Fellowes (Owen Conway), James A. Marcus (Jim Conway), Anna Q. Nilsson (Marie "Mamie Rose" Deering), Maggie Weston (Maggie Conway), Willam Sheer (Skinny), Carl Harbaugh (District Attorney Ames), John McCann (Owen Conway - 10 years old), and Harry McCoy (Owen Conway - 17 years old) Directed by Raoul Walsh (#399 - The Thief of Bagdad (1924), #907 - White Heat, #1333 - The Big Trail)

Review: 

The funny thing about the gangster film is that there really can't just be any one "first" of the genre. But you can still find curious examples in the days of the 1910s and the directors who were assigned to make them. In 1915, Fox Film Corporation was created with the merger of the Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attraction Company. Regeneration was one of a handful of films released in that year with the Fox moniker (as named for William Fox), but more importantly, it is the first film directed by Raoul Walsh. He had been an actor since 1909 and eventually found himself in the company of D.W. Griffith as an assistant. He would appear in various films as an actor, such as the now-lost The Life of General Villa (made in 1914, which actually featured the real Pancho Villa) along with the infamous The Birth of a Nation (1915) as actor/assistant director. He directed a handful of one-reel and two-reel films for the Biograph studio. In 1915, Walsh was 28 but asked to serve as director for this film, which would be filmed in Manhattan's Bowery district with real gangsters and prostitutes as extras. For the next couple of decades, Walsh would serve as a director in both silent and sound features. Walsh and Carl Harbaugh wrote the film based on the 1903 memoir My Mamie Rose by Owen Frawley Kildare (once called the "Kipling of the Bowery"), which had in turn been adapted into a 1908 play The Regeneration by Kildare and Walter C. Hackett (tragically, when Kildare saw the interpretation of the lead character, he became angry, and he later suffered a mental breakdown after a fall in the subway before he later died in a psychiatric center in 1911). 

So yes, to get to the road to films such as Underworld (1927), you have to consider films like this first. It probably isn't the most surprising thing that Walsh became the most enduring aspect of the film when compared to the cast (one of them in Sheer wears an eyepatch), because there is obviously promise within him as a director of cutting-edge drama. Granted, it isn't the most solid piece of social dramas when you think about the various films of the 1910s and 1920s, but Walsh makes a gritty feature of conscious atmosphere with promise of action to come. Fellowes actually was making his debut here in features (at the age of 31), and it ranks as his most noted of his appearances in dozens of films. He plays it okay, with a little bit of camera bulging but he does just fine in keeping this lingering tale of would-be redemption from falling off the rails. His desperation matters to us when it comes to a life learned of using fists to claw out of the bottom. Nilsson had moved from Sweden to the States just a couple of years prior in the early 1900s, and her silent film works are what she is most known for. This works out to probably the most noted performance of this film, which involves warm presence and curiosity for all that comes with willingly looking at both sides of the city. The path to beating out those bad habits of hard life in the streets (which just happens to involve finding love with a woman who is on her own journey in the street) is a gradual one, but it is an interesting one presented with useful curiosity, whether that involves a ship fire (one that evidently resembles the one that happened in 1904 on the General Slocum that saw many people die) or the lurid details of city life or the inevitable conclusion that comes in sacrifice. It is the curiosity of what could come from gangster films in later years that prove a key aspect in watchability for 72 minutes, since the key to getting people more curious about narrative drama is to give them a nice first taste of what could be done further. The drama comes out with enough conviction to make for a useful recommendation now, one that shows the potential of its director in dependability that would be accomplished in more ways than once. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Compulsion (1959).

Review #2052: Compulsion.

Cast: 

Orson Welles (Jonathan Wilk), Diane Varsi (Ruth Evans), Dean Stockwell (Judd Steiner), Bradford Dillman (Artie Strauss), E.G. Marshall (District Attorney Harold Horn), Martin Milner (Sid Brooks), Richard Anderson (Max Steiner), Robert F. Simon (Police Lt. Johnson), Edward Binns (Tom Daly), Robert Burton (Charles Straus), Wilton Graff (Mr. Steiner), and Louise Lorimer (Strauss's mother) Directed by Richard Fleischer (#453 - Soylent Green, #460 - Doctor Dolittle, #624 - Conan the Destroyer, #829 - Red Sonja, #870 - The Narrow Margin, and #881 - Fantastic Voyage)

Review: 

If you had a career that involved being awarded an Academy Award for your work as a director and included doing plenty of genres in multiple decades of film work, one would probably think that such a name would be fondly remembered for their work. But alas, it isn't always the case to give every director their due, as is the case with Richard Fleischer. Fleischer had directed a handful of films from his debut in 1946 for RKO Radio Pictures (along with the documentary Design for Death, which as producer earned him an Oscar in 1947), which resulted in a few noted releases such as The Narrow Margin (1952). But he shifted his focus to work with other studios as well, such The Happy Time (1952) being for Columbia or Disney with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). But with Violent Sunday (1955), the resulting success led to a contract to direct further with 20th Century Fox. With some exceptions, he would direct there for the next fifteen years, and one of his most noted films made there was Compulsion. It is an adaptation of the 1956 novel of the same name by Meyer Levin (who studied at the University of Chicago in the 1920s while also becoming a news reporter at the same time) that was inspired by the real-life events of what was called "the trial of the century" with the court case of Nathan Leopold Jr and Richard Loeb (two students at the University of Chicago) that saw them put on trial for murder after they tried to commit the "perfect crime" in the murder of Bobby Franks (with a chisel and gag), with one of them having been a firm believer in the concept introduced by Frederick Nietzsche in the "superman".  And yes, the first inkling in catching them involved finding a certain pair of glasses near the scene of the crime. Clarence Darrow, hired to defend the two, went for a criticism of capital punishment in terms of what kind of justice it was that resulted in Leopold and Loeb be sentenced to life in prison rather than death (he had them plead guilty to start, so that he could play this out to a judge rather than leave it to a jury). One year after his famed defense, Darrow would be asked to serve on the side of John T. Scopes for a trial involving evolution (deliberately staged for publicity), which would inspire its own play and film. Incidentally, the Leopold and Loeb case also inspired Rope, a 1929 play turned into a film in 1948 by Alfred Hitchcock. In 1958, the surviving Leopold (Loeb was killed in prison in 1936) was granted parole. A year later, he tried to sue the filmmakers on various counts that included "defamation" from the book that tried to block production of the film; incidentally, when he had written and published his own memoir in 1958, it only talked the aftermath of the crime with no childhood mentions or the crime itself; his response to Levin when asked about writing a book together was to ask if Levin would want to help write the memoir, which obviously Levin rejected (incidentally, the film doesn't show the actual killing portrayed on screen). The lawsuit went on for over a decade, for which I'm sure you can see how Leopold lost the lawsuit. 

The novel had been turned into a play that ran from 1957 to 1958 that had Dean Stockwell and Roddy McDowall star in the lead two roles. It is a devilishly good time in terms of the queasy murder-thriller that shows one thing above all else: give a rich person time and ideas and they could go crazy. Well, that isn't really the goal by Fleischer, because he really aims to make a solid gripping film with no rest for showing the wicked in all of their pathetic habits that would feel right at home for future films such as In Cold Blood (1967) when it comes to brutal turning-the-screws atmosphere. Of course, the fact that the film was done in CinemaScope probably helps in that regard, giving a scope to such a murky feeling where one is watching Dillman and Stockwell try to go along their way in the aftermath of such brutality to, well, no avail. Welles is given top billing because, well, who says no to Welles? Actually, he only appears after the first hour of a 103-minute film, and I'm sure you know that he will have at least ten minutes to employ a long monologue meant to evoke the actual Darrow and his defense at the trial, which if you did not know, was a closing argument that lasted twelve hours. Apparently, Welles was a grouch for the time he was on set because he wasn't asked to direct the film, which resulted in tantrums on set (the final speech needed a bit of cobbling together because he had to leave right afterwards). Regardless of all that, he does rein in a worthy performance fit for what the film requires as the knight of eloquence that does not overstate the matter at hand. It is about the nature of justice that matters rather than his obviously guilty clients. Of course, Dillman and Stockwell are no slouches when tasked to hold their part of the film, with the latter in particular being a tremendous presence. Stockwell has the challenge of presenting a killer with a varying level of brilliance (as one expects when basically playing Leopold, an intellectual and ornithologist) that is fascinating to view regardless of the amount of pity that can be driven from such a situation. Dillman maneuvers his way around with pronounced confidence that obviously believes in the acts of superior men getting to commit such wanton acts without remorse that makes for such a watchable pair of scoundrels. They make for quite the pair in terms of such deluded belief in superiority that they pretty much overshadow the others, although the recognizable nature of the faces (except for Varsi, who is mostly known for her Academy Award-nominated debut in Peyton Place that appeared in eleven total films) that includes the sharp timing of Marshall or the attempts at making the Milner-Varsi dynamic anything other than just a footnote (look I don't really think about them in a film that sounds more like a Columbo prototype, so...). At any rate, what matters most in such queasy drama is the conviction laid out by Fleischer and company to make the drama matter as much as possible when it comes to making a dark act of murder come out to such a useful piece of fascination. It ranks well among the films of Fleischer and his varying skills for whatever genre he was sent out to do that makes for a useful film to watch today, whether one has a compulsion for the classics or not.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.