Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

Review #2331: Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

Cast: 

Bette Davis (Charlotte Hollis), Olivia de Havilland (Miriam Deering), Joseph Cotten (Doctor Drew Bayliss), Agnes Moorehead (Velma Cruther), Cecil Kellaway (Harry Willis), Mary Astor (Jewel Mayhew), Victor Buono (Big Sam Hollis), Wesley Addy (Sheriff Luke Standish), William Campbell (Paul Merchand), and Bruce Dern (John Mayhew) Produced and Directed by Robert Aldrich (#105 - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, #778 - The Longest Yard, #1014 - The Dirty Dozen, #1389 - Kiss Me Deadly)

Review: 

If you remember, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) was a hit with audiences, so naturally one might want to capture on that success and make a quick follow-up. Robert Aldrich decided to use an unpublished short story written by Henry Farrell called "What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?". Lukas Heller, who had adapted Farrell's Baby Jane novel, would write the screenplay with Farrell (incidentally, Farrell wrote one other screenplay with What's the Matter with Helen? [1971]). Of course, he ran into a small problem: Joan Crawford and Bette Davis did not really want to work with each other again. Crawford (as cast in a role that wasn't exactly a role to chew on when compared to Davis, who had influenced the title change) wound up in the hospital with a respiratory ailment, but Aldrich was skeptical enough to actually hire a P.I. to track her. Incidentally, Crawford happened to star in a different type of psychological horror movie in 1964 with Strait-Jacket (both movies feature a person spooked by a memory of head-rolling death that may or may not be coming back to haunt them back home). At any rate, demands by the insurance company led him to either trash the movie or fire Crawford, for which Alrich went with the latter decision in August of 1964. After a handful of actresses rejected Aldrich's offers (such as Vivien Leigh), he eventually replaced her with a good friend of Davis with Olivia de Havilland. Others did return to be involved with the film from Jane such as editor Michael Luciano and composer Frank De Vol to go along with appearances by Victor Buono and Wesley Addy. While not quite as popular as the aforementioned Aldrich film, the movie was a relative success with audiences when it first came out in late 1964 and even received a few award nominations (in interviews, Aldrich liked making the movie just fine, although he had wished he could've spread out the time in making two similar films with Baby Jane and Charlotte for "my personal taste" while also arguing that Davis gave a better performance in the latter). In 1969, Aldrich produced What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, which while not related to Charlotte or Baby Jane is at least interesting for being about an aging old woman (played by Geraldine Page) dealing with murder and mayhem.

Creepy and creaky with a runtime at 133 minutes, this is the kind of movie that plays right at home for those who like drawn out thrillers (it reminds me to consider Les Diaboliques [1955], incidentally), albeit ones that play with bits of gore here and there. One particularly has some fun with the opening sequence (which features the ever-effective Buono to go along with a young Dern getting to be a part of, well, head-rolling) to draw out the scenarios of Southern Gothic mayhem that does eventually circle back to what it believes will be fun turns of the screw. Of course, it helps to have an actress like Davis at the helm to give the whole thing a sense of interested dignity in making this more than just goofy hysterics (hey, we don't judge anyway, particularly since  there are people who thought Baby Jane had some sort of camp aspect to it, as if scene-chewery isn't merely just part of just making some thrillers). Her entrapment in the past for the character is handled with the usual Davis standard of approaching the role with straight-to-the-point grace, managing to handle the tightrope of not merely being consumed or embarrassed by the macabre aspects. She plays the great creature that comes with a psyche that can only see things through the prism of the place that might as well be a mark on her soul, one that traps her soul that can be seen even when she is brandishing a shotgun (as seen early in the movie). de Havilland apparently wasn't too keen on making the movie but elected to do it because of the desire by Davis to work with her, which she did with relative success (after this, she appeared in five further films over the next 15 years to go along with a few television appearances prior to her death in 2020 at the age of 104). But she plays it as it if was a tight-rope to glitter in facades just as interesting as the one presented by what one would assume is just a nut (maybe it's a spoiler to say to beware of nice-presenting strangers), and it goes just as well with Cotten (incidentally, he also happened to play a key role in a movie about a woman possibly being on the nutty side with 1944's Gaslight), who has that conniving nicety to play the part one needs to play in triangular mayhem with composure to make it stick. Of course, Moorehead inspires a few quizzical in amusement that lends support to both the unravelling curiosity along with generally being warm to follow in terms of devotion with an accent to match (hey, the accents are fine for me). Of course, Kellaway is the civil one for enjoyment on the level of a usual character actor that could just inhabit a role with a few choice sentences. Undeniably, the movie is so worthwhile to see in all of the shadows and angles (as shot by Joseph Biroc), which is gorgeously appropriate when it comes to crafting a tawdry tale (complete with carefully composed angles for such a suitable set (which come to a head in one eerie scene) with game actors and at least one rug-pull moment that will surely make a worthy dark joke. Sure, the movie wraps its strings quite a few times around itself to make a knot, but the game is worth playing nonetheless. Aldrich was a craftsman director worth following along with in his attempts at chasing the audience to entertain with whatever he felt like doing at the time. As such, there is a few good moments in suspense to justify a watch for those who love seeing a few familiar actors play along in Gothic strangeness for lively execution that endures after six decades because of the commitment behind it.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

167 reviews later, here we are at yet another New Year's Eve. Sure, last year was a bit busier, but October 2024 was a month to be proud of regardless. Since 2011, we've managed to review a movie on December 31st a total of 17 times, with only 2015 and 2017 being exceptions, and it was nice to try a double-header once again to try and top how things went from last year.

As a treat, I'd like to close off Season 14 by showing off a few concept ideas I had come up with MS Paint before settling on the final format in what accompanied each review in 2024. We shall see what Season XV brings in 2025. It will be a short wait for the next review.

Kiss Me Deadly.

Review #1389: Kiss Me Deadly.

Cast: 
Ralph Meeker (Mike Hammer), Albert Dekker (Dr. G.E. Soberin), Paul Stewart (Carl Evello), Juano Hernandez (Eddie Yeager), Wesley Addy (Lt. Pat Murphy), Maxine Cooper (Velda), Cloris Leachman (Christina Bailey), Gaby Rodgers (Gabrielle/Lilly Carver), Nick Dennis (Nick), Jack Lambert (Sugar Smallhouse), and Jack Elam (Charlie Max) Produced and Directed by Robert Aldrich (#105 - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and #778 - The Longest Yard, and #1014 - The Dirty Dozen)

Review: 
"The power is for the director to do what he wants to do. To achieve that he needs his own cutter, he needs his cameraman, he needs his own assistant and a strong voice in his choice of writer; a very, very strong voice on who's the actor. He needs the power not to be interfered with and the power to make the movie as he sees it."

A director can come from anywhere if their heart is set on it. The descendant of prominent family members of wealth and society, Robert Aldrich found himself with plenty of pressure to succeed in the line of other Aldriches before him, with his father being a newspaper publisher while others had served in office or in war. He attended both Yale and the University of Virginia, but he found himself at odds with his family when it came to his beliefs that were less focused on wealth and money than his family was, particularly with the advent of the New Deal in lieu of the Great Depression. He dropped out of studying economics for a chance at working at RKO Radio Pictures as a production clerk at the age of 23, which resulted in him being disinherited. From this, he would work his way up to positions higher up such as associate directing and producing to writing and directing for television (which he viewed as a crash course for directors in terms of rushed schedules). He worked for a variety of directors for a decade such as Lewis Milestone, Robert Rossen, Charlie Chaplin, and Jean Renoir, learning from their strengths and weaknesses about the fundamentals of filmmaking. In 1953, at the age of 35, Aldrich made his directorial feature debut with Big Leaguer, a low-budget baseball movie that he felt was good, but not what he wanted to express in the film medium. Aldrich found his next effort more to his interest with World for Ransom the following year, and he soon found himself hired by Burt Lancaster for two Westerns in Apache and Vera Cruz (1954), with the relative success of those films helping in him forming his own company in The Associates and Aldrich. In total, the fiercely independent and rambunctious Aldrich would direct 29 total films before his death in 1983 at the age of 65, having a rapid work pace that was equaled with his constant use of crew members like editor Michael Luciano or composer Frank De Vol for several of his films.

It probably isn't a surprise that certain types of people felt this film was a menace to juveniles in terms of delinquency, which was the case of one government commission. Of course the material the film was adapted from attracted its own kind of attention for its violent content (which led to trouble in adapting the generally cold-blooded killer detective to the screen acceptable for the standards of the time) for its hardboiled character of Mike Hammer, which Mickey Spillane featured in thirteen novels over the course of 49 years. The film was an adaptation of the novel of the same name, which was the sixth of thirteen novels (with the series continuing after the author's death in 2006). This was the second of three Spillane novels to be turned into a film in this decade (the other two being I, the Jury and My Gun is Quick). The writing for the film was done by A.I. Bezzerides, who changed the novel's adversary of Mafia gangsters while also adding the nuclear suitcase aspect (as opposed to the pursuit of certain substances in the book) along with changing the occupation of the private eye to divorce case P.I, with Bezzerides noting that he wrote the script with contempt and quickness, which apparently did not sit well with Spillane. In any case, this is a wonderful film noir, filled with plenty of intrigue and tension with a dynamite cast and execution from Aldrich and cinematographer Ernest Laszlo. Meeker leads the film with cynical conviction, a blunt instrument of macho nature that fits the film's maze of brutality. The rest of the cast follow along in varying levels of principle that range from the cleverly understated Rodgers to the hard-line authority in Addy to the careful menace of Dekker. Of note is the debut of Broadway-turned-television actress Cloris Leachman, who appears for the first couple of minutes in a key role that sticks out in panic. In any case, one finds themselves swept up in the film in its path, whether that means having our lead break a record or hurt someone's fingers or even when it comes to explaining the mysterious glowing whatsit. By the time one has spent 106 minutes with the film, you will find yourself electrified by a film that lands most of its punches with precision and paranoia that makes for an explosive climax, which has thankfully been restored in recent years (for decades, the film abruptly ended on a shot of the burning house that made it look like the lead had died looking around the house as opposed to ending on the beach). On the whole, this is a fine gem in Aldrich's body of work that stands today as a neat noir for a prime decade of thrills and paranoia for audiences to gaze upon.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

The Dirty Dozen.

Review #1014: The Dirty Dozen.

Cast: 
Lee Marvin (Maj. John Reisman), Ernest Borgnine (Maj. Gen. Sam Worden), Charles Bronson (Joseph Wladislaw), Jim Brown (Robert T. Jefferson), John Cassavetes (Victor R. Franko), Richard Jaeckel (Sgt. Clyde Bowren), George Kennedy (Maj. Max Armbruster), Trini Lopez (Pedro Jiminez), Ralph Meeker (Capt. Stuart Kinder), Robert Ryan (Col. Everett Dasher Breed), Telly Savalas (Archer J. Maggott), Donald Sutherland (Vernon L. Pinkley), Clint Walker (Samson Posey), Robert Webber (Brig. Gen. James Denton), Tom Busby (Milo Vladek), Ben Carruthers (S. Glenn Gilpin), Stuart Cooper (Roscoe Lever), Robert Phillips (Cpl. Morgan), Colin Maitland (Seth K. Sawyer), and Al Mancini (Tassos R. Bravos) Directed by Robert Aldrich (#105 - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and #778 - The Longest Yard)

Review: 
Admittedly, war films are not exactly my preference when it comes to what I try to watch for films, but from time to time there can be ones that pique my interest, and this is certainly one that garnered a look. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by E. M. Nathanson, which was inspired by a real-life group called the "Filthy Thirteen". The film has a big cast (as the title suggests) along with a considerable length of 150 minutes, not so much due to the action but the training of the group, although the last parts of the film contains plenty of action. It is evident to say that of the twelve members, six stand out the clearest: Bronson, Brown, Cassavetes, Savalas, Sutherland, and Walker. They have distinct characteristics that they apply well to their roles that just clicks. Marvin is fairly entertaining, having a great sense of gravitas, which could also apply to Borgnine. My favorites of the group are Brown and Sutherland, the former due to him being easily watchable and the latter due to his charm. The film has its share of amusing moments along with its scenes of fellowship with these hard-edged (but watchable) people. I especially like the sequence with Marvin and Sutherland in which the latter has to help fool a general. The war game part is also fairly commendable in its execution as well. Admittedly, the cast is perhaps a bit old to be playing soldiers (the youngest of the group is Cooper and Maitland, both born in 1942 for a film released in 1967), but it isn't too much of a detraction. It's not a movie that relies heavily on a big spectacle action scene, in part because the film isn't meant to be like that. The last sequence (with the château) is a fairly thrilling sequence, but it is one that you can also dwell on due to the characters that we have watched prior to that point. It's a gritty movie that has its shares of bleakness, but it is a well-paced and well thought-out film. Whether the film achieves its goals or not, it is at the very least a fine piece of entertainment.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

The Longest Yard (1974).

Review #778: The Longest Yard.

Cast
Burt Reynolds (Paul "Wrecking" Crewe), Eddie Albert (Warden Rudolph Hazen), Ed Lauter (Captain Wilhelm Knauer), Michael Conrad (Nate Scarborough), James Hampton (Caretaker), Harry Caesar ("Granny" Granville), John Steadman (Pop), Charles Tyner (Unger), Mike Henry (Rasmussen), Jim Nicholson (Ice Man), Bernadette Peters (Miss Toot), Pepper Martin (Shop steward), Robert Tessier (Connie Shokner), Richard Kiel (Samson), Anitra Ford (Melissa), and Ray Nitschke (Bogdanski) Directed by Robert Aldrich (#105- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?)

Review
Yes, I'm aware of the timing to be back. In any case, The Longest Yard is a movie I had wanted to review, but I only had recently got the chance to finally watch the film, and what better way to do it on Sunday? In any case, The Longest Yard has a gallery of characters that generate a good deal of laughs, especially Reynolds, who seems to be perfectly at home with this character, filled with that expressionist grin. It's a movie that pulls all the punches, having a good deal of fun, with its own edge of football violence that anyone can associate with the sport. One of my favorite scenes is where Reynolds and another inmate exchange pleasantries (if you'd call it that) of stacking mud onto their pants, with the two getting into a mud-fight. Somehow, seeing the Captain coming out of the car gets them all laughing (even the guards laugh), and I can't help but crack up at everybody having a good laugh in the middle of a swamp. I do love the introduction to the football game, complete with split images of multiple shots. This is a movie for anyone looking for a good time with Burt Reynolds and a bunch of inmates who while being pretty criminal (including at least one murderer), are at least interesting to watch try to play some football, which is fine by me. It's a brutal film, but it is a movie that knows what its doing, and it knows how to make you laugh.

Football players in this movie (because why not?): Joe Kapp, Ray Nitschke, Mike Henry, Pervis Atkins, Ernie Wheelwright and Ray Ogden.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Review #105: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Cast
Bette Davis (Jane Hudson), Joan Crawford (Blanche Hudson), Victor Buono (Edwin Flagg), Maidie Norman (Elvira Stitt), Anna Lee (Mrs. Bates), B. D. Merrill (Liza Bates), Marjorie Bennett (Dehlia Flagg), and Dave Willock (Ray Hudson) Directed by Robert Aldrich.

Review
The film is a thriller and an excellent drama with Bette Davis doing a great job as the twisted Baby Jane (even if she looks like Betty White...). Anyway, the film delivers slight chills (Not like a horror film...A good one anyway) It's stunning, it's madness, and it's wonderful for it. The mystery develops over the film, and at the end it delivers it with a twist that's not so Shamalyan at all in the sense that it makes a good end for a good film. Hard to believe this is the first film I've seen on Davis or Crawford's. And I didn't regret seeing it one bit.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.