Sunday, May 31, 2009

Benny & Joon

Benny & Joon. 1993 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Starring: Johnny Depp, Mary Stuart Masterson, Aidan Quinn, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, Oliver Platt, C.C.H. Pounder, Dan Dedaya, Joe Grifasi
Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik
Available from Amazon.

In a small town that looks remarkably like Spokane, an auto mechanic named Benny Pearl (Quinn) also has to look after his unbalanced sister Juniper (Masterson), better known as SweetieJoon. Joon is a very talented and sweet natured painter, but she's incapable of taking care of herself or independently functioning outside of her home. She also has a talent of wearing out hired "housekeepers" that look after her when Benny is at work, or out with his friends. After one too many resignations, Benny goes to see Joon's doctor (Pounder), who suggests that putting her in a group home would be the best option. While that's going on, Joon is wearing a snorkel, and is outside trying to direct traffic with a red ping pong paddle. Eventually, Benny decides that putting Joon in a home would be for the best.

But, there's still a poker game to be played, and Joon talks her way into the game, uping the ante with Mike (Grifasi) until he bets his cousin Sam (Depp). Joon loses the hand when Mike's full house beats her flush, and Sam joins the siblings the next day. It is decided that Sam will stick around for the time being as Joon's new housekeeper. He and Joon spend time together, and not surprisingly, fall in love. Sam isn't much of a conversationalist, but he can flawlessly perform Chaplin and Keaton routines, which he does in a park one afternoon to an appreciative audience.

Meanwhile, Benny finds himself entering a relationship with Ruthie (Moore), whose car he repaired at the beiginning of the movie. He still feels protective of his sister, and actually starts feeling jealousy of Sam and Joon's newly discovered love. There's also the matter of having to tell Sam that he is planning to put Joon in a group home.

Recommended. I thought it wasn't bad, but not extraordinarily great.

Sweetie

Sweetie (Criterion #356).
1989 Arenafilm & Janus Films.
Starring: Genevieve Lemon, Karen Colston, Tom Lycos, Jon Darling, Dorothy Barry, Michael Lake, Andre Pataczek
Director: Jane Campion
Buy Sweetie from Amazon.

Jane Campion's first feature film is a brilliant and sometimes disturbing look at a dysfunctional family centered around an emotionally disturbed sibling.

We open with Kay (Colston), a very superstitious young woman obsessed with fate to the expense of actual social interactions. After visiting a psychic, she sets her sights on a coworker, the recently engaged Louis (Lycos), who she has been told is the one she is destined to be with. The engagement lasts less than an hour, as Kay meets and seduces Louis in the parking garage.

Thirteen months later, the relationship has gone from hot to not, and both Kay and Louis are sleeping in different beds, with Louis bemoaning the loss of his sex life. As the unhappy couple is trying to work out their differences, they receive an unexpected visitor: Kay's sister Dawn, known as Sweetie (Lemon) to the family, who has literally broken into the house and moved in, along with her boyfriend and "manager" Bob (Lake). Sweetie says Bob is managing her music career, but he's essentially on another planet at this point, thanks to various illegal substances, or so it's implied.

Sweetie's reckless and childish behavior are largely the result of her father Gordon (Darling) giving her everything she demands. It could be argued that their relationship may be an incestuous one, particularly in the scene where Kay catches Dawn giving her dad a bath. During her stay at the house, Sweetie even tries to seduce Louis (who has a wandering eye when it comes to women, we learn) during a family trip to the beach.

Dawn's obvious issues prompt Kay to demand that her parents do something about her, but Gordon and Flo (Barry) are having their own problems. They temporarily split up, with Flo departing for the outback, and Gordon moves into Kay's house, where he continues to let Sweetie run amok. Later on, the family tricks Dawn so they can visit Flo in her new surroundings as a cook for a group of cowboys. When everyone comes back home, Sweetie is even more out of control, and everyone in the family must confront their own issues, in addition to what to do about Dawn.

However, a strange and unexpected tragedy awaits everyone.

Highly, highly, highly recommended movie, with stellar performances from all involved.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Man on the Flying Trapeze

Man on the Flying Trapeze.
1935 Paramount Pictures; now owned by Universal Pictures.
Starring: W.C. Fields, Mary Brian, Kathleen Howard, Grady Sutton, Vera Lewis, Walter Brennan
Director(s): Clyde Bruckman, W.C. Fields (uncredited)
Available from Amazon as part of the W.C. Fields Comedy Collection, Volume 2.

Note: this film has nothing to do with a trapeze, despite the title.

The Great Man plays Ambrose Wolfinger, a bank president's "memory expert" who keeps files of details about the people the bank president, Malloy (Oscar Apfel), meets so he doesn't find himself embarrassed about not remembering details while meeting with clients. At home, Ambrose lives with his nagging wife Leona (Howard), his daughter from a previous marriage Hope (Brian), and two freeloading in laws, brother-in-law Claude (Sutton) and mother-in-law Cordelia (Lewis). The movie begins with a long sequence about two would-be burglars breaking into the Wolfinger home, and getting drunk on Ambrose's homemade cider, while Leona henpecks her husband into doing something. Ambrose finds himself arrested for making cider without a license.

After getting out, Ambrose tells Malloy that his mother-in-law died from drinking poisoned liquor, and asks for the afternoon off to attend the funeral. This is a lie, as he has tickets to the wrestling matches happening that day. Malloy agrees, and the rest of Ambrose's coworkers are notified of the "tragedy" so they can pay their respects. The Wolfingers are then showered with various items of sympathy sent to the home, and Cordelia's obituary also appears in the newspaper. Ambrose never actually makes it to the arena, as he encounters policemen, cars parked too close to his, runaway tires, and finding out that Claude stole his tickets at the worst possible moment.

Ambrose comes home to find a furious Cordelia and Leona, and his immediate supervisor at work telephones to tell him that he's fired for his deception. Ambrose, who had been meek, mild and henpecked throughout the film, finally loses his temper. He punches out Claude and scares his wife and mother-in-law into hiding. Before too long, Malloy rehires Ambrose, as no one can figure out the filing system. Hope answers the call, and lies about Ambrose having a better offer from another firm, and successfully negotiates a huge raise in pay with four weeks' vacation for her dad. Leona comes back, realizing that she does love her husband. The family takes a ride in Ambrose's new car, with Claude and Cordelia riding in the rumble seat...during a heavy downpour.

Highly recommended.

In the Navy

In the Navy. 1941 Universal Pictures.
Starring: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Dick Powell, Claire Dodd, The Andrews Sisters, Shemp Howard
Director: Arthur Lubin
Currently available from Amazon as part of the Abbott & Costello: The Complete Universal Pictures Collection box set.

Russ Raymond (Powell) is America's most popular singer, but he decides to abandon his pop career at its peak, and joins the Navy using an alias, Tommy Halsted. He entrusts this knowledge only to Smoky (Abbott) and Pomeroy (Costello), but somehow, a disguised reporter named Dorothy Roberts (Dodd) discovers the ruse, and follows him in hopes of taking a picture and revealing his true identity to the world. The first time Russ found out that Dorothy was really a reporter, he literally spanked the girl as the camera snapped away.

Meanwhile, Pomeroy is in love with Patty from the Andrews Sisters, and spends most of the movie trying to win her affections, despite his setback when Patty learns that he really isn't who he claims to be in his letters to her.

The Navy, who was reluctant to allow the crew to film on an actual ship, prevented Universal from releasing the film after they objected to a scene where Pomeroy impersonates a captain and puts a battleship through hazardous maneuvers. Universal simply added new scenes explaining the stunt as a dream he has, which ultimately didn't make the Navy look bad.

Recommended movie. Look for Shemp Howard in between his stints in the Three Stooges as a sailor and cook named Dizzy who manages to pull one over on Pomeroy when the latter tries to scam money off of him.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Batman: The Movie

Batman: The Movie. 1966 20th Century Fox.
Starring: Adam West, Burt Ward, Cesar Romero, Frank Gorshin, Burgess Meredith, Lee Meriwether, Alan Napier, Neil Hamilton
Narration: William Dozier (uncredited)
Director: Leslie H. Martinson
A special edition DVD is available from Amazon.

The 1966 feature film spin-off of the popular, yet campy TV series, and the origin of a little something called "shark repellent bat-spray".

Commodore Schmidlapp (Reginald Denny, his final role) is in danger aboard his yacht, and it's up to Batman and Robin (West & Ward) to keep him safe from the plans and schemes of the alliance of the Joker (Romero), Penguin (Meredith), Riddler (Gorshin) and Catwoman (Meriwether), who are also intending to conquer the world by capturing the "United World Security Council" with a dehydrator that is capable of turning humans into dust.

Well...it is what it is, and as long as whatever issue is keeping the television series from being released to DVD, this is, for the most part, the only way anyone can experience the true campiness and unintended hilarity the original Batman series had. I heard a rumor that the settlement between Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox over who had the theatrical rights to Watchmen included clearances to finally get the show released to home video, but that seems to be an uncomfirmed one (at this time).

Recommended. It's not a great movie, but it's still great fun.

Wife vs. Secretary

Wife vs. Secretary. 1936 MGM/Turner Entertainment.
Starring: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, May Robson, James Stewart
Director: Clarence Brown
Available from Amazon as a single DVD or as part of the Clark Gable Signature Collection box set.

This movie was Clark Gable's fifth film appearance with Jean Harlow (they had appeared in Libeled Lady, which also came out in 1936), and the fourth time he worked with Myrna Loy. James Stewart also had one of his first memorable film roles here.

Gable is Van Stanhope, a magazine publisher celebrating a third wedding anniversary with his wife Linda (Loy), and he's given her a diamond bracelet. Van's secretary is the striking Helen "Whitey" Wilson (Harlow), who has Van's mother convinced that she will be a "temptation" to her son. Linda is not worried about it, since she trusts Van, whose relationship with Whitey is strictly business. Whitey is romantically linked with Dave (Stewart), who is also very uncomfortable with her relationship with Van (such as it is). Dave proposes to Whitey, but she refuses, preferring to throw herself into her job.

Van is planning to buy a weekly magazine from J.D. Underwood (George Barbier), which he keeps a secret from everyone except Whitey, which leads to the usual comic misunderstandings between the four main characters, as well as the expected tension between Linda and Whitey. As usual, things look bad, but those problems always resolve themselves by the end of the movie.

Wife vs. Secretary is definitely a star vehicle for Gable and company, as the plot is pretty lightweight, and variations of such would be endlessly recycled for movies and TV shows over the years.. The movie's transfer to DVD is as good as it can be for a movie made over seventy years ago, although there are definite and visable flaws that can be occasionally distracting. No matter though, as the viewer simply has to remember to watch the movie, and not watch the movie if you know what we mean. Recommended.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Trading Places

Trading Places. 1983 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliott, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: John Landis
Buy Trading Places (Special Collectors' Edition) from Amazon.

Two filthy rich and morally bankrupt brothers, Randolph and Mortimer Duke (Bellamy & Ameche), hold different beliefs when it comes to the issue of nature versus nurture. Mort thinks that any well-bred person can easily conquer any challenges presented to him, and a not-so well-bred person will fail even if he's given many advantages. Randolph believes that the former person will degenerate if taken out of his environment, but the so-called "disadvantaged" person will change for the better if given the opportunity. The brothers make a one dollar bet, and decide to ruin the life of one of their employees, Louis Winthorpe III (Aykroyd), taking away everything he has, while installing a street hustler named Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy) in his place in the office, and at home. To hasten Winthorpe's downfall (he's already been framed for theft), the brothers hire Ophelia (Curtis), a prostitute who turns out to have a heart of gold.

Over the course of the bet, it turns out that Randolph's belief is correct, as Billy Ray turns his back on his old associates after initially opening up Winthorpe's home for a party, while Louis at one point tries to plant illegal drugs near Billy Ray in an effort to get him hired, before attempting suicide twice.

Unknown to the Duke brothers, Billy Ray overhears them discussing the results of their bets in the washroom, along with their intention of getting rid of Valentine without reinstating Winthorpe to his stolen position at work. Randolph and Mortimer are disgusted at the idea of the idea of either one in charge of their Philadelphia-based office. Billy Ray is angry about being manipulated like this, and he seeks out Winthorpe to tell him what is going on. With the help of Ophelia and a friendly butler named Coleman (Elliott), the two of them swiftly decide that breaking the Dukes financially is the best plan for revenge.

Recommended film.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Criterion #475).
1973 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, Steven Keats, Alex Rocco
Director: Peter Yates
Available from Amazon.

Peter Yates directed this film adaptation of George V. Higgins' novel of the same name. It had long been unavailable on home video until just a couple of weeks ago, although iTunes had it available for sale in 2007, according to some quick research I just conducted.

Robert Mitchum is Eddie "Fingers" Coyle, an aging and weary Boston-based weapons dealer unwilling to serve a long sentence in prison for his role in a truck hijacking. So, he turns informant for the local police and the treasury department. Eddie is still unwilling to turn his back entirely on his life of crime, so he continues his illegal gun running operations.

In desperation, Coyle agrees to inform on a group of gun buyers who engage in home invasions and ransom/extortion, but to his surprise, the police tell him that those criminals were finally brought in earlier that day. Eddie's mob associates believe that Coyle snitched, and they assign his best friend, Dillion (Boyle), to rub him out. Dillon, before carrying out his orders, decides to take Eddie out for a night on the town, with dinner, and a Boston Bruins game.

What Eddie doesn't realize, though, is that he's not the only gangster trying to save his skin by turning informant.

This film was a flop in 1973, and vanished without a trace, which is a real shame. Criterion did a good job remastering the film for DVD release, and its best extras are contained within the 48-page booklet in the DVD case: two lengthy essays about the movie, including a feature on Mitchum from a 1973 issue of Rolling Stone.

Highly, highly recommended movie.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Sweet Smell of Success

Sweet Smell of Success.
1957 Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions & United Artists; distributed to DVD by MGM.
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner, Sam Levene
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Available from Amazon.

J.J. Hunsecker (Lancaster) is New York City's most influential newspaper columnist, and the press agent Sidney Falco (Curtis) wants very badly to get his clients mentioned in the column. Falco has been unable to fulfill his promise to break up the romance between Hunsecker's sister Susan (Harrison) and jazz guitarist Steve Dallas (Milner), who the columnist disapproves of. He comes up with a plan to spread false rumors about Dallas being a dope smoking Communist in someone else's newspaper column, and then encourages J.J. to defend Steve in his own column, which would see the guitarist having to choose between his integrity and owing a favor to Hunsecker, who he can't stand. Falco's plan works, in a way: Susan breaks it off with Steve after he insults her brother, but only to protect him from J.J. The columnist still decides to leave nothing to chance, and against Falco's wishes, orders the agent to plant marijuana on Dallas, and have him arrested and roughed up by the corrupt police officer Harry Kello (Emile Meyer).

This plan works, but Falco and Hunsecker will eventually have to face their own consequences.

Sweet Smell of Success was based on Ernest Lehman's novelette, which appeared in a 1950 issue of Cosmopolitan, well before its days as a women's magazine. Lehman was originally slated to produce and direct the film adaptation after Hecht-Hill-Lancaster acquired the rights, but the producers instead selected Alexander Mackendrick, a British director who had recently began entertaining offers from Hollywood after his original employers, Ealing Studios, were purchased by the BBC in 1954, and he feared getting fired. The actual filming was an ordeal for Mackendrick, who found himself shooting script pages just one or two hours after they had been written by playwright Clifford Odets. Mackendrick also had to deal with shooting on location in New York at rush hour on its busiest streets, as well as the crowds of young Tony Curtis fans, who occasionally got past police barriers. "We knew where we were going vaguely, but that's all," he later said. Regardless of the difficulties in bringing Lehman's story to the screen, the finished product is a great, great film that was selected for inclusion in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1993.

Highly, highly, highly recommended.

Angel Face

Angel Face.
1952 RKO Radio Pictures & Turner Entertainment.
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, Mona Freeman, Herbert Marshall, Barbara O'Neil, Leon Ames, Kenneth Tobey, Jim Backus
Director: Otto Preminger
Available from Amazon as part of the Robert Mitchum Signature Collection box set.

Otto Preminger was borrowed by RKO from 20th Century Fox to direct this one. In it, ambulance driver Frank Jessup (Mitchum) is lured into the web of Diane Tremayne (Simmons), a sweet-on-the-surface debutante and daddy's girl who is used to getting what she wants. However, ever since her mother died in France during a World War II bombing, and after her novelist father Charles (Marshall) remarried to a wealthy lady named Catherine (O'Neil), Diane hasn't exactly been herself. To aggravate the situation, Charles has stopped writing, and is now a henpecked husband dependent on Catherine's wealth. Diane also feels like her new stepmother is trying to control her.

First, Diane tries to poison her stepmother, but Frank and his partner Bill (Tobey) rush to the Tremayne estate in time to save Catherine's life. Diane becomes hysterical at finding out her stepmother will recover fully. Having set her sights on Frank, Diane manages to steal him away from his sweetheart Mary (Freeman), who had been trying to help Frank realize his dream of owning his own repair shop. Diane tells Frank that she talked to Catherine, saying that she is interested in investing in Frank's garage dream, and in the meantime, Frank accepts a job as the Tremaynes' personal chauffeur. Catherine ultimately decides not to bother with Frank's ambitions, and after Diane claims that her stepmother tried to kill her by gassing her, Frank decides to leave, wanting to return to Mary. A hysterical Diane begs him to not leave, and he relents, but just long enough to think things over. While Frank is gone for a day, Catherine and Charles are killed when their car goes over a cliff in a freak accident.

After an investigation, Frank and Diane are arrested for murder. Their lawyer, Fred Barrett, manages to get them acquitted despite evidence that the car's transmission and steering mechanism were tampered with prior to the accident. Despite the acquittal, it may be far too late for Frank to get out of Diane's emotional and psychological grip.

Recommended film.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

I Was a Male War Bride

I Was a Male War Bride. 1949 20th Century Fox.
Starring: Cary Grant, Ann Sheridan
Director: Howard Hawks
Available from Amazon.

Can love overcome strict military regulations?

After the end of World War II, a French officer, Captain Henri Rochard (Grant) is assigned to put an end to a black market operation orchestrated by a scientists known as Schindler (Martin Miller). Accompanying Rochard on his mission is an American WAC, Lt. Catherine Gates (Sheridan). Things do not go swimmingly at first, as Rochard finds himself having to ride in a motorcycle's side car (only Cathy was cleared to operate the vehicle), as they run into road blocks, waterfalls, and a lost container of lipstick at a railroad crossing just as a train is arriving.

Eventually, following a few mishaps at a hotel, and Henri's arrest over a misunderstanding due to strict orders, he and Cathy do fall in love and decide to get married. This isn't as simple as you would believe, and after the ceremony happens, Cathy is ordered to report to headquarters so she can be shipped back to America immediately. The only way Henri can get a visa to emigrate with her is under the War Bride Act, which is significantly different when a man is marrying a female member of the U.S. military. Henri does receive permission to sail to America with Cathy, but pure dumb luck and Army regulations work in tandem to keep them from spending a night together. Henri finally is pushed far enough to disguise himself as a WAC to go past Navy officers. He is swiftly arrested, but Cathy is able to straighten out the situation, and they eventually have their wedding night.

Good movie, although Cary Grant doesn't make much of an effort to portray a French character, and he usually speaks in his normal voice instead of using an accent. Recommended.

The Groove Tube

The Groove Tube.
1974 K.S. Productions; released to DVD by Hen's Tooth Video.
Starring: Ken Shapiro, Richard Belzer, Chevy Chase
Director: Ken Shapiro
Buy The Groove Tube at Amazon.

There once was a New York-based comedy group called Channel One who specialized in presenting short satirical sketches about television, and then in a unique twist, they performed them in front of genuine TV cameras while the audience watched on monitors placed throughout the theater. Ken Shapiro wrote, directed, and appeared in this compilation movie with Channel One's funniest and most censurable sketches, as well as their best TV show and commercial parodies. The Groove Tube also features Chevy Chase and Richard Belzer in their first feature film roles.

The film received an X rating upon release, thanks to the "Safety Sam" sketch, where a cheerfully talking puppet offers advice on how to avoid contacting venereal disease, and it slowly becomes apparent that the puppet is cleverly disguised male genitalia.

Recommended, although it won't be suitable for family audiences...or those who dislike sketch films.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Foul Play

Foul Play. 1978 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, Burgess Meredith, Brian Dennehy, Dudley Moore, Rachel Roberts, Eugene Roche, Billy Barty
Director: Colin Higgins
Available at Amazon as a single DVD, or part of a triple feature along with Planes, Trains and Automobiles & Summer Rental.

The Archbishop of San Francisco (Roche) is murdered right off the bat, by someone who looks and dresses identical to him.

Elsewhere, at a lavish afternoon party, we meet Gloria Mundy (Hawn) who after being talked up by an unidentified man (Chase), leaves to take a ride, and she picks up an attractive hitchhiker (Bruce Solomon). They hit it off well enough that they decide to go to the movies later. After Gloria drops him off, she fails to notice the man being chased by two men emerging from a limousine, and one's an albino. At the movies, the hitchhiker arrives late, having been shot, and he warns Gloria to "beware of the dwarf" before dying. While she's trying to find help, the body disappears, and no one believes her story. The next day, Gloria is confronted by the albino thug, but she escapes to safety with the help of Stanley, who she ran across at a bar, so he's obviously thinking she wants to go to bed with him.

At home, a man with a scar (Don Calfa) demands a pack of cigarettes that has a roll of film concealed within that the hitchhiker gave to her earlier. Suddenly, the albino appears to shoot "Scarface". Gloria faints, and when she comes to, all traces of what just happened are mysteriously gone. In her excited state, Gloria is unable to convey the events of the evening to two police officers, Fergy (Dennehy) and Tony (Chase), as well as her landlord Mr. Hennessy (Meredith). We now learn that Tony was the one at the party who unsuccessfully tried to pick her up. The day after this, Gloria is abducted by the albino and the limousine's chauffeur, but she escapes, and Tony takes her home. Tony knows something about this "Dwarf", who is an apparent contract killer, as well as the identity of the hitchhiker, who was a detective named Bob Scott who had been on Dwarf's trail prior to his demise.

Can Tony keep Gloria safe from the Dwarf and his surviving henchman? And what's this we hear about the Dwarf being hired to assassinate the Pope during his visit to San Francisco?

Recommended movie.

Car Wash

Car Wash. 1976 Universal Pictures.
Starring: Franklyn Ajaye, Ivan Dixon, Bill Duke, Antonio Fargas, Lorraine Gary, Garrett Morris, Irwin Corey, Otis Sistrunk, The Pointer Sisters
Billed as Starring on the DVD Cover: Richard Pryor, George Carlin
Written by Joel Schumacher
Director: Michael Schultz
Buy Car Wash from Amazon.

Universal's reissue of Car Wash is deliberately misleading, as the cover advertises George Carlin and Richard Pryor as the stars in the movie. They actually play relatively small roles: Carlin as a taxi driver trying to find a passenger who skipped paying the fare, and Pryor is a preaching "wonder man" called Daddy Rich who, with one notable exception, is loved by most people. Daddy Rich also has the Pointer Sisters with him, and they launch into an impromptu song in front of the gas pumps. Danny DeVito was also cast in the movie, but his scenes were deleted from the final cut.

On what appears to be a lovely Los Angeles day, we see the flamboyant and fun loving employees at the Dee-Lite Car Wash as they work with and encounter a variety of colorful and interesting customers. One gentleman causes a scare because he happens to fit the profile of an active terrorist, and it also appears that he's carrying something, but it turns out he is just an innocent man carrying his urine sample to the hospital.

Car Wash wasn't a box office success, but the soundtrack album, recorded by the disco singer Rose Royce, was a major smash hit, and the well known title track hit number one on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. Some of Michael Schultz's other notable projects are Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Krush Groove, and a mediocre ensemble comedy in the vein of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World called Scavenger Hunt.

Not bad. Recommended, but again, do not expect Carlin or Pryor to steal the show. It's really the music that holds this movie together.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

MST3K #515: The Wild World of Batwoman

Mystery Science Theater 3000 experiment #515: The Wild World of Batwoman (with short, Cheating).
Original airdate: November 11, 1993.
Available from Amazon.

The short Cheating was previously viewed here, and happily it hasn't changed since then. Still, we see student council John screw up his life forever when he's caught cheating on a math test, and the short ends up being the basis of most of the host segments that followed.

The main feature, such as it was, features Batwoman (Katherine Victor) leading a group of more attractive Batgirls going up against the villainous Rat Fink (Richard Banks), who is eager to gain revenge on Batwoman for foiling all of his previous schemes. So, he has his henchmen drug one of the Batgirls at a club, and they hold her hostage, promising to release her only if Batwoman helps him steal a new invention. And then, it all goes to incoherency, complete with stock footage from The Mole People being used for no discernable reason. The movie was retitled She Was a Hippy Vampire after DC Comics sued for copyright infringement. Regardless of title, it's still pretty damn bad.

The episode opens with Mike dealing blackjack to Crow and Tom with Gypsy as his beautiful arm candy. Tom suddenly withdraws from the game, while Crow insists that Mike "hit him" until there's an enormous pile of cards in front of him, and that's when Crow wants to double down. After the invention exchange (TV's Frank's 'Atomic Powered Hair Dryer' is demonstrated on Dr. Forrester; Mike shows up a large back shaving razor), most of the episode is parodying the Cheating short, where Mike and the robots discuss, then write essays about the negative aspects of cheating. But, it seems that Crow copied Gypsy's paper word for word, and something needs to be done. However, he apologizes as only he can at the end of the episode, and TV's Frank runs away from Dr. Forrester's new mushroom cloud hairstyle.

Recommended episode. "END!! END!!"

MST3K #507: I Accuse My Parents

Mystery Science Theater 3000 experiment #507: I Accuse My Parents (with short, The Truck Farmer).
Original airdate: September 4, 1993.
Available from Amazon.

First, there's an 11 minute short from Encyclopædia Britannica detailing the then-new and exciting method of farming involving trucks. Unfortunately, they never instructed anyone how to plant and grow trucks in a garden.

Jim Wilson (Robert Lowell) is a young man who finds himself on trial for serious felonies, and when he is asked to speak in his own defense, says "I accuse my parents" for not giving him the home life that everyone else seemed to have (with a drunken mother and indifferent father), which somehow led him to getting involved with some criminal activities after meeting a new girl named Kitty Reed (Mary Beth Hughes), who also happens to be involved with a mobster named Charles Blake (George Meeker). It's a pretty bad movie, actually, considering all of this started over an essay contest.

We open the show with Tom Servo painted naked, expressing his desire to be a "real live boy". An initially shocked Joel says Servo is exhibiting "Pinocchio syndrome". Later, after the invention exchange, Crow, Tom and Gypsy all draw their idealized families while Joel analyzes their secret desires. Gypsy soon takes center stage to lip-synch to a song in the movie, but Crow and Tom ruin it by spilling drinks all over the sound board. Close to the end, Joel and the 'bots attempt to analyze the roots of Jimmy's problems, concluding that "true Jimmy scale dementia is a complex phenomenon". Really? The show ends with the robots trying to hold up Joel looking for hamburgers, and Joel reads a postcard featuring something called a Barco-rammer. Down in Deep 13, after TV's Frank had accidentally baked the exotic dancer inside the cake, he and Dr. Forrester find him alive, and he immediately accosts a shy Dr. F looking for money.

Recommended, but not the best MST3K episode.

MST3K #402: The Giant Gila Monster

Mystery Science Theater 3000 experiment #402: The Giant Gila Monster.
Original airdate: June 13, 1992.
Part of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Volume 10.2. Do not forget the ".2", I repeat, do not forget it!

The Giant Gila Monster was officially Rhino's last MST3K home video release before Shout! Factory took over last year. Apparently, Rhino had released the tenth MST3K DVD collection with an episode featuring one movie (Godzilla vs. Megalon) that they apparently didn't have the rights to use after all, which meant that the tenth set had to be recalled, and then re-released with the replacement episode, #402. In the meantime, Rhino did sell the episode as a stand-alone single disc, in an attractive cardboard sleeve that fits perfectly in the original box set (which is where I keep mine), for those who didn't want to invest $59.99 for just one new disc. There is a bonus feature included on the set instructing the viewer to discard the Godzilla disc and replace it with The Giant Gila Monster, written and performed by Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, and Frank Conniff, who also voiced Tom Servo for an absent Kevin Murphy.

Anyway, somewhere in the American southwest, a small town is being plagued by the title character, and the locals only realize the scope of the danger when the monster attacks and derails a freight train, which looks suspiciously HO scale to me. After the creature makes an uninvited appearance at the local sock hop, it's up to a young mechanic and hot rod racer named Chase (played by Don Sullivan, who also appears in the disc's extra in interview segments) to figure a way out to destroy the beast.

Also, for those who saw Watchmen, this film, a public domain one, appeared on one of Ozymandias' monitors in his base of operations. Maybe there's an all bad movie network on his world?

To open the show, Joel has converted Crow and Tom Servo into the thing with two heads, but the fun is stopped when TV's Frank announces the unexpected demise of Dr. Clayton Forrester, who as it turns out, isn't really dead, and Frank is going to be punished for this. But first, the invention exchange (Renaissance Festival character punching bags, and Joel builds a radio that broadcasts only plot points for TV shows and plot specific programming). Inspired by the malt shop, Joel turns empty closet space into his own malt shop, with a carton of Breyer's next to the bleach. Later, he and the robots discuss their favorite drunks, and Tom Servo hosts a chat show about film director Ray Kellogg (who directed this one) before Joel and Crow take over. And finally, while Dr. F. punishes Frank, Joel and the 'bots form their band Hee-la, pledging to perform the songs they do know, and then, the songs they don't know.

Highly recommended episode, and by the way...I sing whenever I sing whenever I siiiiing...I sing whenever I siiiiing whenever I siiiiing...

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Wild Things

Wild Things.
1998 Columbia Pictures & Mandalay Entertainment.
Starring: Matt Dillon, Kevin Bacon, Neve Campbell, Theresa Russell, Denise Richards, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Robert Wagner, Bill Murray
Director: John McNaughton
Available at Amazon in an unrated version with seven extra minutes added. I do not own this version.

This was the first DVD I ever bought, back in late summer of 2008, when I was the biggest geek for this movie. It's safe to say that my tastes have broadened ever so slightly in the subsequent eleven years. Hell, I never once thought after stopping into the now-defunct Tower Records in Bloomingdale, Illinois one Wednesday evening after playing laser tag with my brother in law to buy this one that I would acquire over a thousand more titles since then, and almost none of them were similar to Wild Things. Unfortunately, this movie has two sequels, which from what I've read, are just remakes of the original with more emphasis on girls makin' out.

To sum it up in a few sentences: there's an ongoing plot to scam popular cheerleader Kelly Van Ryan's (Richards) mother Sandra (Russell) out of several million dollars, that involves alleged sexual misconduct between Kelly and popular guidance counselor Sam Lombardo (Dillon), and the plan also involves the outcast goth grrrl Suzie Toller (Campbell) who just happens to be romantically linked to Kelly behind the scenes, and in the swimming pool. Add the wisdom of Sam's storefront lawyer Kenneth Bowden (Murray), who's also involved, and you've got yourself $8.5 million dollars, or maybe not.

And then, as police sergeant Ray Duquette (Bacon) gets more suspicious of things, almost everyone involves starts screwing, screwing each other over, and then killing one another to get ahold of the money. Eventually, even Duquette gets caught up in the plan, and he pays for it. Lombardo also gets killed, and Suzie, who we thought was the first one knocked off after the settlement, is revealed as the true mastermind, although she had a little help from Mr. Bowden. Suzie plotted to get back at Ray for killing one of her friends, as well as Sandra (her stepsister) for being abandoned by their father. Seems like Sam was just the fall guy.

Okay. Eleven years ago, I would've easily said "YEAH, GREATEST MOVIE EVER!!!1!", but I'm not 22 years old anymore, and the idea of Neve Campbell and Denise Richards (who still can't act) kissing really does nothing for me now. Truth be told, this movie really isn't that good. Today's rating: ever so slightly recommended, largely thanks to Bill Murray, who I'm still amazed agreed to be in this film.

Instead, I'll just say "Yeah, Bill Murray is awesome!" and move on to the next review.

The Breakfast Club

This one really should have been watched and reviewed on March 24th, but it fell on a Tuesday this year, so nothing doing. At least I got it done on a Saturday...

The Breakfast Club. 1985 Universal Pictures.
Starring: Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Paul Gleason
Director: John Hughes
Buy The Breakfast Club at Amazon.

The well known story of the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, the criminal, and the hardass principal who has to watch over them one Saturday at Shermer High. Over the course of their nine hours in the library, they're ordered by Principal Vernon (Gleason) to write a thousand word essay about who they "think they are", but for Andrew Clark (Estevez), Claire Standish (Ringwald), John Bender (Nelson), Allison Reynolds (Sheedy), and Brian Johnson (Hall), five totally different kids, that time is one of self-discovery and revelation once the five of them get over their initial hostility towards one another.

Highly, highly, highly recommended. Oh, and that essay was much less than Vernon's assigned limit, but you already knew that.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Coup de Torchon

Coup de Torchon [Clean Slate] (Criterion #106).
1981 Janus Films & StudioCanal.
Starring: Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Eddy Mitchell, Guy Marchand, Irene Skobline
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Available at Amazon.

Coup de Torchon, or Clean Slate (English title) is Bertrand Tavernier's 1981 film adaptation of pulp novelist Jim Thompson's 1964 novel Pop. 1280. For the most part, it is a faithful translation to the screen, with one notable change: the story's setting has been moved from the American southwest to colonial French West Africa (Senegal to be precise) just before World War II breaks out.

Philippe Noiret is Lucien Cordier, the hapless, but well meaning police chief of a small outpost called Bourkasa. Lucien is frequently abused by two local pimps, but he good-naturedly accepts this. Meanwhile, his officers have no respect for him, and the townsfolk have to beg him to actually do something (Lucien is also easy to bribe). At home, things aren't much better. His wife Huguette (Audran) frequently shrugs off Lucien's sexual advances, and openly engages in an affair with a man who she claims is her brother (Mitchell). Lucien just happens to be having an affair with another woman, the ditzy Rose (Huppert), while also pursuing a newly arrived school teacher named Anne (Skobline).

One night, without warning, Lucien embarks on a very nonchalant killing spree, starting with the two pimps who have been hassling him, and lying about what really happened to them. Lucien's passive, almost clownish public image works to his advantage for once, as no one would ever suspect he was the one killing people who offended or humiliated him. He realizes this, and justifies his homicidal behavior as simply wiping the proverbial slate clean.

This movie was a shock. I didn't expect this to be any kind of comedy when I picked it up from Borders as a blind buy a long time ago, but I was pleasantly surprised. Despite its violent and dark turn when Lucien embarks on his murder spree, Coup de Torchon is quite a funny film, since it's trying very hard to be lighthearted about such dark and disturbing subject matter. Noiret's performance was absolutely amazing. Highly, highly recommended.

The Small Back Room

The Small Back Room [U.S. title: Hour of Glory] (Criterion #441).
1949 London Films, StudioCanal & Janus Films.
Starring: David Farrar, Kathleen Byron, Jack Hawkins, Cyril Cusack, Milton Rosmer
Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Buy The Small Back Room from Amazon.

Powell & Pressburger's first project for London Films. The Archers were released from their contracts from the Rank Organisation just after the completion of The Red Shoes, which the studio didn't think was going to be a hit.

Sammy Rice (Farrar) is a scientists employed with a special "back room" team of fellow eggheads during World War II, working on solving a problem with booby-trapped devices being dropped out of Nazi bombers, notably a children's toy that's really a dangerous bomb. Rice is a brilliant worker, but he has an artificial leg causing him chronic pain which he tries to drown with large quantities of alcohol, and the problem with the bottle is starting to interfere with his relationship with his girlfriend Susan (Byron).

Rice starts having disagreements with his superiors when a businessman named Waring (Hawkins) and his partner Professor Mair (Rosmer) begin lobbying the Army to invest in a new weapon that Rice feels is both ineffective and dangerous.

Recommended film.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Reds

Reds. 1981 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosinski, Jack Nicholson, Paul Sorvino, M. Emmet Walsh, Gene Hackman (uncredited)
Notable Witnesses: George Jessel, Henry Miller
Director: Warren Beatty
Buy Reds (25th Anniversary Edition) from Amazon.

Warren Beatty co-wrote, produced, directed and starred in this epic film ("epic" in this case meaning the size and ambition of the project, not meaning that it's a "must see this very second" film) about the life of the American journalist and communist activist John Reed. Reed chronicled the Russian Revolution in his 1919 book Ten Days That Shook the World, and is known as one of the very few Americans buried within the Kremlin. The movie also features testimony in between scenes from real life people who knew Reed and his companion Louise Bryant (Keaton), including appearances from George Jessel and Henry Miller.

Reds won three Academy Awards, including Best Director for Beatty (it was nominated for twelve Oscars).

Good movie, but I really do not believe it should have run over three hours, as it started to run out of steam after the intermission. Recommended.

Chinatown

Chinatown. 1974 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez, John Hillerman, Diane Ladd, Burt Young
Director: Roman Polanski
Available from Amazon (special collectors' edition).

Chinatown established Jack Nicholson as a true superstar in Hollywood, and it was also the last movie Roman Polanski directed in the United States before his arrest and conviction for statutory rape. The movie was part of a planned trilogy about corruption in the local government in Los Angeles. Nicholson himself directed the second part, The Two Jakes, which looked at the natural gas department in L.A., but its failure at the box office nixed plans for the third part, Cloverleaf, a movie about the development of the Los Angeles freeway system during the late 1940s.

The movie also won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (for Robert Towne), plus four Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture: Drama for producer Robert Evans, Best Director, and Best Actor in a Motion Picture: Drama for Nicholson.

J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Nicholson) is a detective specializing in "matrimonial work" hired by someone claiming to be Evelyn Mulwray (Ladd) to tail her "husband", Water Department engineer Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling). Gittes takes a picture of Hollis with a young blonde and assumes it's an open and shut case, but when the real Evelyn Mulwray (Dunaway) surfaces, the detective finds out that she never hired him in the first place. Hollis turns up dead, prompting Gittes to investigate further, running across a shady home for the elderly, corrupt L.A. bureaucrats, angry farmers upset at losing needed water to the city, and famously, a nostril-slicing attacker (Polanski in a cameo). By the time Gittes confronts water baron Noah Cross (Huston), who is also Evelyn's father and a former business partner of Hollis, Jake thinks he has the case solved, but nothing doing. Gittes is also stunned to learn about the true relationship between Evelyn, her father, and the young blonde seen with Hollis earlier.

"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." Highly, highly recommended.

Angels With Dirty Faces

Angels With Dirty Faces.
1938 Warner Bros. Pictures & Turner Entertainment.
Starring: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, George Bancroft, The Dead End Kids (Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Gabriel Dell, Huntz Hall, Bernard Punsly)
Director: Michael Curtiz
Available from Amazon as a single disc, or part of the Warner Gangsters Collection, Volume 1 set.

Two childhood friends, Rocky Sullivan (Cagney) and Jerry Connolly (O'Brien), rob a railroad car. Jerry is saved from being hit by a freight train by Rocky, but he is soon nabbed by the police. Jerry, who could run faster than Rocky, manages to elude the cops. Rocky grows up to become a notorious gangster, while Jerry has become a priest. He returns to the old neighborhood, where Jerry is running a home intending to keep young boys away frm a life of crime. Six of Jerry's charges (the Dead End Kids) idolize Rocky, and Jerry tries to keep his old chum from corrupting them.

However, Rocky may be undone by two of his newest associates, a crooked lawyer named Frazier (Bogart), and Keefer (Bancroft), a shady businessman and municipal contractor. Rocky foils an attempt on his life by finding Frazier and Keefer's record book with their lists of bribes to city officials. After Rocky ignores Jerry's advice to skip town before he informs the authorities, Jerry himself goes public with the information. Frazier and Keefer plot to kill Jerry, but Rocky protects his old friend by killing them both himself, which he is arrested, convicted, and sent to the electric chair for.

Before Rocky is to die, Jerry asks him to die pretending to be a screaming cowards, which would end the boys' idolization of him. Rocky refuses, but suddenly changes his mind when it's finally time to go, and needs to be dragged to the chair. The boys hear about this, and decide Rocky was a coward after all. Jerry asks them to say a prayer for him, "for a boy who couldn't run as fast" as he could.

Recommended old school gangster movie.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Secret Honor

Secret Honor (Criterion #257).
1984 Sandcastle 5 Productions & Janus Films.
Starring: Philip Baker Hall
Director: Robert Altman
Buy Secret Honor from Amazon.

Robert Altman directed a film adaptation, shot at the University of Michigan during the director's stint as a professor at that school, of Philip Baker Hall's one-man show, which was written by Donald Freed and Arnold Stone.

Hall is Richard Nixon, restlessly pacing in the study of his New Jersey home, sometime after resigning as President of the United States. He also has a loaded revolver, a bottle of Scotch, and a running tape recorder (which Nixon has great difficulty operating at first), and while he's surrounded by closed circuit television cameras, he spends the next hour and a half recording a long monologue about his life and career, his mood ranging from rage and suspicion to sadness and disappointment. Nixon often goes off onto long tangents, usually about family members, the people who helped him on the way up, and the people who helped take him down. Often, Nixon becomes frustrated enough that what he wants to say becomes disjointed, as his passion overwhelms his ability for words. Whenever Nixon gets too far off topic, he tells the person assigned to transcribe the tape to edit it out back to an earlier, calmer point.

Over the course of the movie, Nixon continually refers to himself as an innocent martyr, who was derailed by sinister and hypocritical forces, and prefers to blame other people instead of himself for his faults. These tangents usually happen after he begins discussing how he worked to make it to the top, overcoming early setbacks, or talking about his own ideas and accomplishments. Nixon also dismisses the relevance of Watergate, claiming he never committed a crime, and how he was never charged for anything, and did not need or deserve a pardon from Gerald Ford. He believes that this forever tainted him in the public eye, because to get pardoned, Nixon must have been guilty.

By the end of his long rant, Nixon admits he had willingly been manipulated by a political network alternately refered to as the "Bohemian Grove" or the "committee of 100". The alleged interest of this committee is the heroin trade with Asia, and Nixon said he followed them out of lust for power, with any belief of their willingness to bring liberal ideas into Asia as an afterthought. Things changed in 1972, when the committee ordered Nixon to continue the war in Vietnam at all cost, then attempt a run for a third term in office in 1976, just so the committee could continue their heroin deals with the President as a strawman. Nixon claimed he decided he didn't want to go down in history as the President who sacrificed thousands of American soldiers for drug money, so he staged the Watergate scandal, as that was the only way to get out of office against the massive public support.

In the end, Richard Nixon again put the blame on other people: the people who supported him, even though he is a scam artist and petty thief.

Highly, highly recommended.

Yellow Submarine

Yellow Submarine.
1968 Apple Films (UK) & United Artists (U.S.); now owned by MGM.
Vocal Talent: John Clive, Geoffrey Hughes, Peter Batten, Paul Angelis, Dick Emery, Lance Percival
Cameo Appearances: The Beatles
Directors: George Dunning & Dennis Abey
Amazon.com listing (discontinued).

Down in Pepperland, a colorful and happy music-loving paradise underneath the sea, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (given star billing in the credits) perform and protect the region. One day, the music hating Blue Meanies attack Pepperland, sealing Sgt. Pepper inside a music-proof bubble, turn the other citizens into statues, and drain the lands of color. Moments before his capture, the elderly Lord Mayor sends a soldier called Old Fred (or Young Fred, if you prefer) in a yellow submarine to recruit help. Not so coincidentally, Old Fred arrives in Liverpool, encounters a depressed and bored Ringo Starr (Angelis), and persuades him to come along. Ringo agrees, and goes to collect his fellow Beatles, John (Clive), Paul (Hughes), and George (Batten & Angelis).

Following a long journey through places like the Sea of Time, Sea of Monsters, and the Sea of Nothing where the lads meet Jeremy Hilary Boob Ph. D, our heroes encounter the Sea of Holes, which contains the Sea of Green, which is somehow the gateway into Pepperland. Jeremy is also abducted by a Blue Meanie. The Beatles disguise themselves as Sgt. Pepper's band, and they "rally the land to rebellion". In no time, Pepperland is back to its colorful, musical self, and the Blue Meanies retreat. John extends an offer of friendship, and the Chief Blue Meanie has a change of heart (thanks to some magic performed by Jeremy), and accepts.

An epilogue featuring the real life Beatles follows, and we hear "All Together Now" as a method to scare off the apparent Blue Meanies spotted in the vincinity of the theater, or your home, depending on wherever you're watching this film.

Erich Segal of Love Story fame was one of the four authors of the screenplay. Peter Batten, the voice for George, was arrested during production for deserting the British army, so Paul Angelis finished his part.

The Beatles weren't that enthusiastic about participating in the movie's production at the time, thanks to issues that came up during the filming of Help! and their self-produced Magical Mystery Tour. However, after seeing a rough cut of the film, they were impressed enough to agree to make a live action cameo at the end of the picture.

Yellow Submarine is once again out of print at this time, until the licensing fee issues can be resolved. These fees, pertaining to use of the music, kept the movie out of print for a long time during the heyday of VHS and laserdisc. In the meantime, if you can find a copy somewhere, by all means snatch it up.

(Apparently, if my math is correct, Yellow Submarine was the 400th DVD watched and reviewed for this site since I began this project last November.)

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Naked Prey

The Naked Prey (Criterion #415).
1966 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Cornel Wilde, Ken Gampu, Patrick Mynhardt, Bella Randels, Gert Van den Berg
Director: Cornel Wilde
Buy The Naked Prey from Amazon.

Cornel Wilde starred, produced and directed this tale loosely based on the life of explorer John Colter, who was pursued by Blackfoot warriors through frontier Wyoming in 1809. The initial script was set in the Old West, and would've matched Colter's life more closely, but financial reasons prompted Wilde to change the setting to Africa, and the production was filmed in South Africa's rural regions.

Wilde plays an unnamed character leading a white explorer (Van den Berg) and his entourage on an elephant hunt in southern Africa during its colonial era (yes, there is actual footage of elephants being killed, sadly). The group intrudes on a local tribe's territory, and some of the natives are friendly enough to make contact, expecting to be bought off with gifts. Wilde's character advises the explorer to be courteous to them, but the explorer insults the natives, sending them away with nothing. This proves to be a mistake, as the tribe attacks the group later, taking captives, and puts everyone to death with various cruel and unusual punishments. The explorer is trapped in a ring of fire with a poisonous snake for company.

Wilde, however, is spared for last, as there is some kind of respect and understanding between he and the native tribe. He is stripped naked, given a knife, and given a brief head start before some of the tribesman pursue him. He manages to stay alive for several days, killing several of the warriors, finding food and water, and eventually reaches a fort just moments ahead of his surviving pursuers. Wilde then salutes the tribe leader (Gampu).

This was definitely an interesting picture, with some beautiful footage of rural Africa. Highly recommended.

F.I.S.T.

F.I.S.T. 1978 United Artists; distributed to DVD by MGM.
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Rod Steiger, Peter Boyle, Melinda Dillon, David Huffman, Kevin Conway, Tony Lo Bianco, Ken Kercheval, Richard Herd
Director: Norman Jewison
Buy F.I.S.T. from Amazon.

Another story where the ultimate message is absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Sylvester Stallone is Johnny Kovak, who starts out in 1937 working on the dock unloading trucks for a trucking company, where a new employee is told by a supervisor that he will be paid for eight hours a day, regardless of how much overtime he might accumulate. If the new guy drops any merchandise, it also comes out of his paycheck. After the new employee does drop a cart of tomatoes, his pay is docked, and another coworker is fired for helping him pick it up. Kovak leads a brief uprising, which leads to the office of their superior, Boss Andrews. Kovak thinks that he's negotiated a favorable deal for he and his coworkers, which comes to naught as none of their demands are being met, and Kovak is invited to hit the bricks.

Johnny and his friend Abe (Huffman) are recruited into the Federation of Interstate Truckers (F.I.S.T.) by Mike Monahan (Herd), who witnessed Kovak lead that labor riot. At first, Johnny is more interested in pursuing a woman named Anna (Dillon), and after they become an item, Johnny gets serious about recruiting members into F.I.S.T., which gets him roughed up by toughs sent by the people running the labor businesses who feel a little threatened by Kovak. Johnny stands his ground, though, and continues to bring in new members. He also meets Max Graham (Boyle), another leader of the union, who doesn't respect Johnny or believe that he should be the most visable member of F.I.S.T. Kovak never forgets the disrespectful way Graham treated him.

After a failed strike at Consolidated Trucking that sees Mike killed after trying to ram the gates to the facility with a truck, Johnny strikes a deal with local gangster Vince Doyle (Conway), who provides his resources and men to show that F.I.S.T. means business. Kovak tells Graham to leave a meeting, hinting that the local members will handle the labor dispute. With help from Doyle's goons, Consolidated Trucking finally agrees to sign a labor agreement. After that, Johnny and Abe travel through the Midwest, recruiting more workers to join. Johnny also marries Anna, and allows another crime figure, Babe Milano (Lo Bianco) to work with him and Doyle, albeit reluctantly.

Twenty years later, F.I.S.T. is now a powerful union, and Johnny is now influential enough to finally force Graham out of the union. Enter Senator Andrew Madison (Steiger), who is targeting Kovak because he rightfully suspects he has ties to organized crime. Abe and Johnny, whose relationship has deteriorated over the years, fall out over Milano's involvement with F.I.S.T.; Abe wants him out, but Johnny refuses to accomodate that request. Doyle tells Johnny that Abe will testify against him, Milano, and everyone else in Madison's case, but Johnny wants Abe "untouched". At the hearing, Kovak is informed that Abe has been murdered, and Madison accuses Johnny of organizing it (Milano's men were responsible). As the accusations build up, Johnny breaks down emotionally and storms out. He returns home to find Anna and their children missing. After he gets his gun, Johnny is gunned down by Milano's men, since Milano feared that Kovak could cut his group out and testify against them. The film ends with a "Where's Johnny?" bumper sticker seen on a truck.

Highly, highly recommended film.

Monday, May 18, 2009

The Night of the Hunter

The Night of the Hunter.
1955 United Artists, released to DVD by MGM.
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Billy Chapin, Sally Jane Bruce, Lillian Gash, Peter Graves
Director: Charles Laughton
Amazon.com listing (discontinued).

Ben Harper takes part in a robbery where two men are killed. Before being caught, which leads to his sentence of death by hanging, Harper hides the money, and only informs his children John and Pearl (Chapin & Bruce) where the loot is hidden.

Harry Powell (Mitchum) is a serial killer and a self-appointed preacher with the words LOVE and HATE tattooed on his knuckles. Powell shares a cell with Harper and tries to get him to share the location of the money before he is executed, but the only clue Harper provides is a Biblical quote muttered during sleep: "And a child shall lead them".

After being released from prison, Powell seeks out, woos, and marries Harper's widow Willa (Winters), who is unaware of his motives, but is convinced that this marriage will lead to her salvation. Whenever the children are alone, Powell quizzes them over the location of the money, but they do not tell him. John is especially suspicious of his stepfather, and protective of Pearl. Once Willa overhears her new husband grilling the kids, she realizes the truth. That's also the night that Powell slits Willa's throat and dumps her body into a lake. He does find out the location of the stolen money, but the children beat him there first, taking it for themselves, and seeking refuge with Rachel Cooper (Gish). Rachel protects the children armed with a shotgun, but the confrontation never turns violent (she and Powell sing hymns throughout the night), and the would-be preacher is finally arrested.

The Night of the Hunter was one of the two films Charles Laughton directed, and its failure at the box office probably scared him off from directing anything else. However, thanks to the cinematographer Stanley Cortez, whoever did see it was probably impressed by his striking cinematography, which has been both praised and imitated for years afterwards. Highly, highly, highly recommended movie.

The Woman in Red

The Woman in Red.
1984 Orion Pictures, distributed to DVD by MGM.
Starring: Gene Wilder, Arthur Bailey, Charles Grodin, Joseph Bologna, Judith Ivey, Michael Huddleston, Kelly LeBrock, Gilda Radner
Director: Gene Wilder
Buy The Woman in Red at Amazon.

Gene Wilder co-wrote, directed, and starred in this 1984 remake of the 1976 French movie An Elephant Can Be Extremely Deceptive. In it, he stars as Teddy Pierce, your ordinary ad agency executive with a hairstyle that makes him stick out like a sore thumb, who finds himself captivated by the title character, a woman in red (LeBrock), who stops long enough while standing on a grate to have her skirt blown above her waist. Just one glimpse of this woman is enough to change Teddy's life, enough so that he's willing to risk his marriage and family just to sleep with the stranger

Teddy can never seem to get things going whenever he works up the nerve to try to instigate a tryst, and even his office buddies can't seem to help him. Teddy unwittingly gets a date with his secretary, Ms. Milner (Radner), who is not happy at all to know that she isn't the object of Teddy's desires.

This obviously isn't one of Gene Wilder's better films, but he does the best he can with what he's got. Slightly recommended. This movie also features Stevie Wonder's Academy Award winning "I Just Called to Say I Love You", which is probably the only thing people today remember about this movie. That'll happen.

Up the River

Up the River. 1930 Fox Films (20th Century Fox).
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Claire Luce, Warren Hymer, Humphrey Bogart, Gaylord Pendleton
Director: John Ford
Available from Amazon as a single DVD paired with When Willie Comes Marching Home, or as part of the Ford at Fox Collection: John Ford's American Comedies box set.

This movie is notable for being the only one that longtime friends Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart made together, and it is also their first credited appearances on film. There is also a disclaimer before the feature begins on DVD explaining that the movie was brought to disc using the best of the surviving materials still available. Henceforth, there are many scenes with noticable skips and lost dialogue, but most of the movie still looks as good as it can for one nearly 80 years old.

Two convicts, St. Louis and Dannemora Dan, (Tracy & Hymer) befriend a third named Steve (Bogart), who is in love with Judy (Luce), an inmate in a women's prison. After Steve and Judy are released, they get married and relocate to a small New England town where no one knows their shady pasts. The appearance of a shady salesman called Frosby (Pendleton) threatens to disrupt their new, quiet lives. Frosby had framed Judy, and he's threatening to expose Steve's record as a prisoner if he doesn't go along with a scheme to defraud his neighbors.

it's up to St. Louis and Dannemora Dam to escape jail and make their way to New England to help out Steve and Judy, and still have time to make it back for the prison's annual baseball game.

Recommended.

Smokey and the Bandit

Smokey and the Bandit. 1977 Universal Pictures.
Starring: Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Mike Henry
Director: Hal Needham
Available from Amazon.

Two Texas millionaires, Big Enos Burdette (Pat McCormick) and his son Little Enos (Paul Williams), are looking for a trucker willing to haul a large shipment of Coors beer to Georgia for their enjoyment. At the time, Coors was largely confined to the western U.S. thanks to federal liquor laws and state liquor tax regulations, so anyone trying to sell or ship the product east of the Mississippi River was considered a bootlegger. The first two truck drivers are pinched by the law enroute. The Burdettes simply get in touch with the legendary driver Bo "Bandit" Darville (Reynolds), offering him $80,000 to get the 400 cases of Coors from Texarkana to a truck rodeo in Georgia, if he can get the beer there in 28 hours. Bandit says he will, and he recruits a fellow trucker, Cletus "Snowman" Snow (Reed) to drive the truck, and Snowman brings along his Basset Hound named Fred for company. Bandit buys the now iconic black Pontiac Trans Am, which he drives himself as a distraction to deflect attention away from Snowman's truck containing the illegal cargo.

Bandit and Snowman get to Texas ahead of schedule, pick up the beer, and immediately double back towards Georgia. Bandit picks up a dancer and apparent runaway bride named Carrie (Field). This draws the ire of Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Gleason), whose son Junior (Henry) was to have married Carrie that day. Justice and Junior pursue Bandit, Snowman, Carrie (nicknamed "Frog") and Fred all the way to Georgia, slowly destroying their squad car enroute, and they're completely unaware of the Coors loaded into the truck; they just want Carrie handed over to them.

With ten minutes to spare, Bandit and company arrive at the truck rodeo, but immediately accept another assignment from the Burdettes: drive to Boston and bring back some clam chowder in 18 hours, double or nothing. They quickly depart, seeing Buford's wrecked squad car on the side of the road, and they taunt him over the CB radio. The sheriff, by now well out of his jurisdiction, vows that he isn't finished, and drives his smashed car after them, with Junior trying to catch up on foot.

All right, this is clearly no Citizen Kane, but it's still a hell of a good time. Highly recommended.

The Three Stooges Collection, Volume 2: 1937-1939 (Disc 2)

Available from Amazon.

Three Missing Links, directed by Jules White, 1938 (Wiki).
Mutts to You*, directed by Charley Chase, 1938 (Wiki).
Flat Foot Stooges, directed by Charley Chase, 1938 (Wiki).
Three Little Sew and Sews*, directed by Del Lord, 1939 (Wiki).
We Want Our Mummy*, directed by Del Lord, 1939 (Wiki).
A Ducking They Did Go, directed by Del Lord, 1939 (Wiki).
Yes, We Have No Bonanza, directed by Del Lord, 1939 (Wiki).
Saved by the Belle*, directed by Charley Chase, 1939 (Wiki).
Calling All Curs, directed by Jules White, 1939 (Wiki).
Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise*, directed by Jules White, 1939 (Wiki).
Three Sappy People*, directed by Jules White, 1939 (Wiki).

* Denotes the first appearance on DVD for this film.

Six short films new to DVD make their debut, fleshing out five other classic Stooges films. The boys are just reaching their prime here.

Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise, Calling All Curs and Three Sappy People are particular favorites, all three I really came to appreciate in my teenage years. Highly recommended disc.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

The Three Stooges Collection, Volume 2: 1937-1939 (Disc 1)

Available at Amazon.

Grips, Grunts and Groans, directed by Preston Black, 1937 (Wiki).
Dizzy Doctors, directed by Del Lord, 1937 (Wiki).
3 Dumb Clucks, directed by Del Lord, 1937 (Wiki).
Back to the Woods, directed by Preston Black, 1937 (Wiki).
Goofs and Saddles, directed by Del Lord, 1937 (Wiki).
Cash and Carry, directed by Del Lord, 1937 (Wiki).
Playing the Ponies, directed by Charles Lamont, 1937 (Wiki).
The Sitter Downers, directed by Del Lord, 1937 (Wiki).
Termites of 1938, directed by Del Lord, 1938 (Wiki).
Wee Wee Monsieur, directed by Del Lord, 1938 (Wiki).
Tassels in the Air, directed by Charley Chase, 1938 (Wiki).
Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb, directed by Del Lord, 1938 (Wiki).
Violent is the Word for Curly, directed by Charley Chase, 1938 (Wiki).

Two shorts, Cash and Curry and Tassels in the Air, are making their DVD debut with this set.

The definite highlight of the set is saved for the last film on the first disc, namely Violent is the Word for Curly, which features the boys teaching an all-girls college the song "Swinging the Alphabet" to improve their mental coordination (after being asked an nearly impossible to answer question by one student).

Back to the Woods is the first Stooges short to use stock footage from an earlier film, as the scene where Moe, Larry and Curly escape via a high speed canoe was recycled from 1936's Whoops, I'm an Indian!

I didn't count a single subpar film on this disc. Highly recommended. Disc 2 from the collection will be reviewed soon...

Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 2 (Disc 4)

Purchase it from Amazon.

Looney Tunes All-Stars: On Stage and Screen:

Back Alley Oproar, directed by Friz Freleng, 1948 (Wiki).
Book Revue, directed by Robert Clampett, 1946 (Wiki).
A Corny Concerto, directed by Robert Clampett, 1943 (Wiki).
Have You Got Any Castles?, directed by Frank Tashlin, 1938 (Wiki).
Hollywood Steps Out, directed by Tex Avery, 1941 (Wiki).
I Love to Singa, directed by Tex Avery, 1936 (Wiki).
Katnip Kollege, directed by Cal Danton & Cal Howard, 1938 (Wiki).
The Hep Cat, directed by Robert Clampett, 1942 Wiki).
Three Little Bops, directed by Friz Freleng, 1957 (Wiki).
One Froggy Evening*, directed by Chuck Jones, 1955 (Wiki).
Rhapsody Rabbit, directed by Friz Freleng, 1946 (Wiki).
Show Biz Bugs, directed by Friz Freleng, 1957 (Wiki).
Stage Door Cartoon, directed by Friz Freleng, 1944 (Wiki).
What's Opera, Doc?*, directed by Chuck Jones, 1957 (Wiki.
You Ought to Be in Pictures, directed by Friz Freleng, 1940 (Wiki).

Bonus Features:
So Much for So Little, directed by Chuck Jones, 1949 (Wiki).
Orange Blossoms for Violet, directed by Friz Freleng & Chuck Jones, 1952.

* Selected for inclusion by the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.

Obviously, the presence here of One Froggy Evening and What's Opera, Doc? automatically warrants a rating of Highly Recommended, although I'm not sure exactly why Warner Bros. picked Michigan J. Frog from the former as their mascot for the defunct WB network. We should also mention I Love to Singa, which many South Park fans will recognize as the song Eric Cartman uncontrollably sings during the very first episode back in 1997.

This disc also includes two of my old favorites with a common theme: literary characters coming to life and horsing around in both Book Revue and Have You Got Any Castles?

Actually, there's not a single dud on this disc. Get it as soon as humanly possible if you haven't already.

MST3K #414: Tormented

Mystery Science Theater 3000 experiment #414: Tormented.
Original airdate: September 26, 1992.
Available from Amazon as part of the eleventh MST3K collection.

Bert I. Gordon directed this turkey featuring Richard Carlson as jazz pianist Tom Stewart, resident of an island community, who plans to marry his fiancee Meg. However, if his old flame Vi has anything to say about it, the wedding will not take place, and Vi isn't above blackmail to end the engagement. They argue on top of a lighthouse, and Vi takes a tumble when the railing she's leaning on gives way. Tom simply watches her fall to her death. After finding her body in the water the following day, which quickly turns to seaweed, Tom tries to forget what happened, but all sorts of strange things start happening. Vi's ghost appears, and she tells Tom that she will haunt him for the rest of his life. She'll tell the world that Tom Stewart killed her.

Tom desperately tries to pretend all is normal in his life, but Vi is responsible for all sorts of weird things happening, including Tom accidentally killing a ferryman. Oh, and Meg's little sister Sandy seems to know a lot more about Tom's deepest secrets than he would like.

We open with Joel trying to coax Crow and Tom Servo to come down out of the ventilation duct where they've set up a fort, but they refuse until Servo needs to go to the bathroom, and then Gypsy shows up, wrecking the whole thing. Later on, Joel himself gets stuck in the ceiling, so his robots blackmail him. Everyone later suggests pop singers that they would like to see plummet from the top of a lighthouse, like Michael Bolton and Lionel Richie. Inspired by Vi's disembodied head, Crow and Servo remove their bodies and accuse Joel of killing them both, which he simply blows off. To end the show, Joel and the bots sing a happy song, and TV's Frank joins in, but gets blown up by a grenade courtesy of Dr. Forrester for his troubles.

This is one of my personal favorite episodes. Highly, highly recommended.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. 1958 MGM/Turner Entertainment.
Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Judith Anderson, Jack Carson, Madeleine Sherwood, Larry Gates, Vaughn Taylor
Director: Richard Brooks
Available from Amazon as a deluxe edition DVD, as part of the TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection, or part of the Tennessee Williams Film Collection.

The Academy Award nominated film based on Tennessee Williams' play of the same name. Williams despised the finished film, though.

Brick Pollitt (Newman) drunkenly gets involved in a pick-up football game late one night, which sees him hobbling around on crutches after he injures his ankle. He and his wife, Maggie "the cat" (Taylor), are also visiting his family in Mississippi, just in time for Big Daddy's (Ives) 65th birthday. However, Brick spends most of his time inside, boozing it up, and resisting Maggie's affections, who is teasing him about the inheritance of Big Daddy's wealth. Big Daddy, who just returned from the hospital, unaware that he's dying from cancer because neither his doctors or his family will tell him or Big Mama (Anderson).

Eventually, Brick's issues are finally brought out into the open, and it's revealed that Maggie was jealous of Brick's best friend Skipper, who had committed suicide a year earlier, sending Brick on a path of alcoholism. Maggie planned to end their friendship by seducing Skipper, but didn't go through with it, and Brick still believes they did have an affair. Henceforth, Brick blames his wife for his best friend's suicide. Pretty soon, Brick comes to terms with his problems, having been confronted with Big Daddy's mortality. It's decided that the bulk of his fortune will be left to Maggie, because she is "full of life".

For the movie, the relationship between Brick and Skipper, which suggested that Brick was in love with Skipper in the stage play, had to be toned down considerably. Regardless of the times, this film adaptation is highly recommended.

Somebody Up There Likes Me

Somebody Up There Likes Me. 1956 MGM/Turner Entertainment.
Starring: Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Everett Sloane, Eileen Heckardt, Sal Mineo, Ray Stricklyn
Director: Robert Wise
Currently available only as part of the Paul Newman Collection.

This film adaptation of boxing legend Rocky Graziano's autobiography was originally intended to star James Dean, but he died before production began, so Paul Newman was asked to take his place. This film was just his third role in Hollywood. Steve McQueen, Frank Campanella, Robert Loggia and Dean Jones all appear in bit parts.

Graziano has a difficult childhood, and is often beaten by his father. As he grows older, Rocky joins a gang and embarks on a life of petty crime, which ends in a prison sentence, where he isn't exactly a model prisoner. After being released, he is drafted into the Army, but he eventually goes AWOL after numerous scrapes with authority figures. Deciding the only way he could ever make an honest living is with his fists, Rocky decides to become a boxer, discovering his natural talent. After winning six matches in a row, Rocky is found by the Army, dishonorably discharged, and sent to Leavenworth for a year.

After his release, Graziano resumes his career, and meets his sister's friend Norma (Angeli), who he falls in love with and later marries. Norma helps Rocky, who carried his bad attitude into his boxing career, develop a conscience and some self-respect. Graziano eventually defeats Tony Zale for the middleweight championship, who had earlier beaten him. After losing to Zale the first time, Rocky is blackmailed by an old prison acquaintance, but he refuses to name his blackmailer, which briefly gets his license suspended.

Recommended film.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Hi, Mom!

Hi, Mom!
1970 Sigma III Productions & Orion Pictures; distributed to DVD by MGM.
Starring: Robert De Niro, Allen Garfield, Jennifer Salt, Lara Parker, Paul Bartel, Charles Durning, Gerrit Graham
Director: Brian De Palma
Buy Hi, Mom! at Amazon.

Robert De Niro reprises his character of Jon Rubin, which he first played in 1968's Greetings. Here, Rubin lives in New York City, and is an aspiring adult filmmaker whose grand idea is to post cameras at his windows and record the activities of his neighbors. This plan fails when Rubin doesn't shoot any usable footage for a project that producer Joe Banner (Garfield) plans to release, and he fails to seduce the widow Judy (Salt) to get what he wants. Instead, Jon teams up with his neighbor Gerrit Wood (Graham) for an avant garde presentation called "Be Black, Baby!", where African American actors invite caucasians to experience what it's like to be black, baby. The presentation breaks down into chaos, with the white audience members attacked and humiliated, but somehow, is a critical success.

MGM did a great job restoring the film for DVD. It's also unusual to watch Brian De Palma directing a straight comedy film with a young Robert De Niro in the lead role, doing a great job as the socially awkward peeping tom trying to turn his fetish into a filmmaking career. Recommended DVD.

Le Mans

Le Mans.
1971 Cinema Center Films; distributed to DVD by Paramount and CBS DVD.
Starring: Steve McQueen
Director: Lee H. Katzin
Buy Le Mans from Amazon.

Steve McQueen is Michael Delaney, a participant in the famous 24-hour race taking place in Le Mans, France. The year before, Delaney was involved in a crash during that year's race, which killed driver Piero Belgetti. Piero's widow Lisa (Elga Andersen) is attending this year's race, supporting another driver named Claude Aurac, but she is just cheering for him as a friend, and there's no romantic link. Not so coincidentally, both Aurac and Delaney have accidents in the thirteenth hour of the race, so close together that they appear to be linked.

Lisa finds herself drawn to Delaney, the very driver who was in the accident that killed her husband. She wishes Michael would quit racing because of the danger, but he's addicted to the rush that comes with it. Delaney re-enters the race after another driver is taken out by his team manager for not being "quick enough". This driver, Johann Ritter, is also grappling with the decision on whether to cease racing to please his wife.

This movie used a great deal of footage from the actual race in June of 1970, which McQueen is alleged to have secretly participated in after being denied permission by his producers (his car, a Porsche 908, finished ninth). One driver, David Piper, crashed while filming a stunt, losing a leg. He was thanked "for his sacrifice" in the credits.

Recommended, particularly for Steve McQueen fans.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Reality Bites

Reality Bites. 1994 Universal Pictures.
Starring: Winona Ryder, Ben Stiller, Ethan Hawke, Janeane Garofalo, Steve Zahn, Joe Don Baker
Director: Ben Stiller
Available at Amazon (10th Anniversary Edition).

The ongoing story of four twentysomethings living in Houston just after graduating college. Aspiring filmmaker Lelaina (Ryder), whose ongoing project is a documentary about her closest friends called "Reality Bites", and one of her closest friends, a coffee house guitarist and slacker named Troy (Hawke) are attracted to one another, but have never seriously pursued it, aside from one drunken night in the past that they both downplay. Troy can't seem to keep a job, and Lelania was valedictorian of her university, temporarily working as a production assistant to an abrasive television host.

But, Lelaina meets Michael quite by accident (car crash!) one day, and they start dating. Michael works at a cable channel similar to MTV, and is very interested in airing "Reality Bites" when Lelaina completes it. It must be assumed that if this network existed in the real world, it would be airing the film Reality Bites every other week. I digress.

Lelaina's roommate Vickie (Garofalo) engages in a series of one-night stands and brief relationships with many guys, mostly due to her fear of being alone compounded with the fear of rejection. Her promuscuity causes her to confront the very real risk of contracting AIDS. Vickie works at The Gap, and becomes store manager, which she is happy with. Fortunately, her AIDS test turns out negative. The fourth friend, Sammy (Zahn) is gay and celibate, and also too afraid to come out to his parents, although he does so by the end of the film without a problem.

Lelaina ends up losing her production assistant job, and Troy's father dies. They both have to reevaluate their lives, and decide to enter a relationship. Michael is cast out after he helps Lelaina sell her completed documentary to the network, but lets the network edit it in a way that Lelaina never wanted shown in the first place.

Recommended movie, if you like young adults talking almost nonstop with endless pop culture references thrown in. Oh, we won't even mention Lisa Loeb's connection to this film...

Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard. 1950 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough, Jack Webb
Also Starring: Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner, Ray Evans, Jack Livingston
Director: Billy Wilder
Available at Amazon.

A true Hollywood classic that won three Academy Awards (Best Art Director, Best Music, and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay).

An unsuccessful screenwriter is found floating face down in a swimming pool behind a Hollywood mansion. Fading into a flashback, a narrator, who turns out to be Joe Gillis (Holden), describes his own problems raising some quick cash to keep his car from being repossessed. Gillis is also trying to peddle a baseball script he wrote called Bases Loaded, which attracts some interest from Paramount Pictures at first, but is dismissed for being "mediocre". Gillis storms off the studio property and his agent does nothing to ease his money problems. Another run-in with the repossession agents sees Joe swerve into a residential driveway to what he assumes is a deserted mansion, but he is started to hear a woman's voice coming from upstairs, asking him to come inside.

Joe meets Max the stoic butler (von Stroheim), and discovers that the great silent film star Norma Desmond (Swanson) still occupies the dilapidated mansion. Norma has simply assumed that Joe is an undertaker dropping by to handle the funeral for her recently dead pet chimpanzee. After that misconception is cleared up, Norma is told that Joe is a screenwriter, so she offers him a job reading a script she has prepared for her planned comeback. Joe instantly accepts, and soon, working out of Norma's mansion, finds himself completely financially dependent on the actress, who buys him whatever he needs, but makes little effort to change the situation. Pretty soon, Norma reveals on New Year's Eve that she is in love with Joe.

Briefly leaving the mansion, Joe reconnects with Betty Schaefer (Olson), who is the Paramount employee that had rejected the script for Bases Loaded earlier. Betty has read some of Joe's other scripts, and says one in particular shows promise. His creativity rejuvenated with this news, Joe tries to move out of Norma's mansion, but Max tells him that the actress has attemped suicide. Joe stays as Norma continues her "comeback", sending off a finished script to Cecil B. DeMille (who appears as himself), who requests a meeting with her, but Joe and Max discovers that the director only wants to hire one of Norma's vintage cars for a film, and has no use for Norma's comeback script. The two keep this secret from Norma, and we learn that Max was Norma's first husband, and a former film director who had discovered her.

Joe and Betty are secretly working on a screenplay together, and they fall in love. Norma finds out and tries to derail the budding new romance by telling Betty what kind of person he is. Joe manages to diffuse the situation, and while Norma is grateful for turning Betty away, he still makes it clear that he is leaving the mansion. Norma threatens to shoot herself, which Joe simply disregards and walks away. Instead, Joe gets shot three times, and he falls into the pool, dead. Back in the present day, Norma is completely lost in her fantasy world, and as the media arrives, she thinks she is on the set of her new movie. Oh, Mr. DeMille, she's ready for her closeup.

Paramount embarked on a complete restoration project for Sunset Boulevard, digitally restoring the film after much of the original negative had deteriorated. The finished product looks GREAT. Highly, highly, highly recommended.