mundsen Reviews

Play for Today: Traitor (1971) Season 2, Episode 1

unforgettable and i never forgot it

[10/10 · 23 June 2010]

This is one of the most memorable single acting performances I have seen in 50 years of watching the box.

Le Mesurier is simply outstanding. Dennis Potter's script certainly gives le Mesurier something decent to do, of course: it's a gift to an actor. But this particular actor makes a meal of it, breaking down before our eyes. Such an apparently mannered performer, so familiar to us all from "Dad's Army" -in this, he simply does familiar things in a slightly different way, to devastating effect. Manners and breeding, and he's somehow so SEEDY. One would never say that le Mesurier was 'wasted' in comedy, but it's splendid to see just how deep-beneath-the-skin he can go, and with such total control. Technique working in service of insight. He KNOWS this guy, and he's merciless.

I suspect that this was made 'as live' - it has that intensity you got with long-take scenes shot in slightly constricted sets. There is a real feeling - SO rare in television - of watching a performance rather than a paste-up.

To See Such Fun (1977)

That's Bleedin' Entertainment

[10/10 · 31 August 2007]

Rather than a documentary, this is a sort of free-association of British film comedy right back to the beginning of the sound era.

For anyone interested in showbiz history, this is a simply invaluable compilation - like a Brit version of "That's Entertainment". All star cast? Lumme! People like Jack Train and Old Mother Reilly and Will Hay and George Formby... much of it culled from newsreels and what the Brits used to call 'quota quickies'. It gives a wonderful sense of the "tatty" world of film-making in Britain: tiny sets, stolid camera-work etc.

The graphic in the credits at the front (an animation of a huge fat woman from a typical British 'saucy postcard') captures the tone perfectly.

Frank Muir provides just enough commentary: mainly, the acts are given the space to do their thing. (God, this is a funny movie.) I confess, I saw this only once, quite by accident, on afternoon TV. If I recall correctly, this is where I saw George Formby singing "Imagine me sitting on the Maginot Line"... one of those things which, once seen, is never forgotten...

Oh, and "Wilson Keppel and Betty's" 'Egyptian Dance': picture two scrawny British bank-clerks in fezzes doing a totally glum-faced sand-dance... one of the greatest eccentric dance numbers ever filmed...

I'll See You in My Dreams (1951)

makin' whoopee on the cheap

[7/10 · 6 July 2007]

When we look back on musicals, I guess we tend to remember the 'epics'. Big productions like "Footlight Parades" and "Singin' in the Rain" and "West Side Story".

But there was also a whole long-lived genre of 'chamber musicals' - little cheapies, one step up from the B-list, and sometimes - in the case of the singing cowboys - one step up from the C-list! The scale is smaller, but that's no reason for them all to slip off into obscurity. "Two weeks with love" is fun; "My gal sal" is fun; "For me and my gal" is lots of fun.

And if you ask me "I'll see you in my dreams" is a real charmer. It's an interesting story, even in the flossied up version: because it deals with relatively 'unknown' songwriter, Gus Kahn, it probably gives a better idea of Tin Pan Alley history than the various Gerswhin and Porter and Kern projects. The low-budget production values probably help, too: the whole thing has a pleasantly domestic scale.

Kahn's lyrics help things out considerably, too. Compare this movie with "Words and Music" - the Kalmar and Ruby songbook is spread pretty thin to fill a whole movie. No such problem with Gus: it's a pleasant ongoing surprise to discover that he wrote the lyrics to so many familiar standards.

Neither Danny nor Doris exactly "chews the scenery", but this is a fine showcase for them; there's little sexual chemistry, but there's a kind of professional rapport that makes the characters' relationship seem very believable and deep and adult. (And you can't say that about a lot of musicals.) Doris is such a credible actor in what's basically a dramatic role; the later comedies are fun, but she had more range than people give her credit for. And she's one of the best singers in the history of the movies: give her a couple of great songs, and the show's worth the price of admission already.

I like Danny Thomas in this. Because of where I live, I never saw Danny on TV: his shows weren't broadcast here. So whenever I've seen him since, I've thought he was overacting heinously. Here, he's very charming and dignified - a sort of Wallace Beery / Ernest Borgnine type.

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

thalberg-itis

[7/10 · 30 June 2007]

The fun thing about this for me is the total vulgarity of the whole enterprise. Somehow it's absolutely right for the 'Ziegfeld Story' to be told by people whose idea of 'class' is girls dancing the minuet to Dvorak's "Humoresque". I suspect that this skewers the ethos of both Ziegfeld and MGM as thoroughly as any auteur could do! It's a long three hours' worth, but there are so many interesting things to watch. William Powell is an impeccable and charismatic anchorman; he's so skillful to watch, always fresh and inventive. Frank Morgan is also excellent.

Luise Rainer is just plain INTERESTING. The 'received wisdom' is that she got the Oscar for the famous 'telephone conversation', but I don't think that's fair. She works her butt off, working to steal every scene with the subtlety of Mae West; her technique is really superb, and somehow the epitome of Viennese style. And she gets her chops around pages of heinous dialogue that would have given Katherine Hepburn pause. She's also an outstanding beauty. Was Garbo robbed? Well yes, of course. But it's not like "Sweet Leilani" beating "They Can't Take That Away From Me".

Ray Bolger is excellent, and Fanny Brice damn near steals the movie. (I'm interested by comments here about the cutting of the "my man" number. One of the early MGM soundies featured a full performance; maybe it was felt that the number had been thrashed already. Anyway, I wouldn't want to be without the burlesque chorus number that we get instead.) But what really amazes me about this movie is the technical aspect. The lighting cameramen really had their work cut out for them getting light into those huge sets. They nearly manage it (though notice how a shadow from the apparatus inside Ray Bolger's follow-spot obscures his feet during his solo tap number).

And a final, adoring word for the chorus dancers. It's amazing to see what's demanded of Hollywood dancers by 1936 (particularly if you've just watched "Broadway Melody of 1929"). Those girls on the mammoth staircase wearing the black art deco 'bird' costumes: they've got no sightlines at all. And the girls doing high kicks on the fast-moving trucks during the "You" number: that is so DANGEROUS.

Sisters, or The Balance of Happiness (1979)

harrowing and intense

[10/10 · 17 November 2006]

German film of the seventies. More fun than... well actually, no fun at all.

A glib analysis would state that all the war babies and boomers came of age, and began to express their neuroses on film. People talk about "war guilt" - that was part of it, but also a phenomenal feeling of sadness and melancholy. It pervades this film; there's a feeling of the events taking place just after something appalling. The war and its aftermath are 'the two-hundred-pound gorilla in the corner': unmentioned, unpictured, and undeniable.

I suppose, in a way, this movie is a distant Teutonic cousin of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" - a simple domestic story of sisters going mad in their own ways. You could almost describe the scenario as 'banal', but it's delivered with such intensity and integrity that the results are genuinely tragic.

The acting is outrageously good. Unlike the Davis / Crawford epic, this one doesn't shy away from lesbian sexual energy between the two siblings, which adds another layer of creepiness.

Hammett (1982)

kiss me deadly

[6/10 · 16 November 2006]

There is nothing more irritating than a high-concept art film. Except, perhaps, a botched one.

You need to have a very good reason to make a movie featuring Dashiell Hammett as a 'real detective'. It is a twee and obvious idea. (It was called Murder She Wrote and it ran for years on the telly, where it worked perfectly.) But a serious 'A' feature, with a star director? Presumably the point would be to show the 'real' people on whom Dash Hammett based his fictional characters.

But instead, here we see Hammett surrounded by people doing largely uninspired impersonations of characters from old Hammett movies. A decrepit Elijah Cook Jr. drives a cab to the same apartment building he inhabited in 'The Maltese Falcon', where another twitchy gunsel waits with a fake Sydney Greenstreet. The fake sets look like fake sets from the Warner's backlot.

Because it's all a copy of a copy, everything seems pallid: Roy Kinnear simply reminds us how depraved and scary Greenstreet originally was. The only way for this film to be viable was to find someone even scarier than Greenstreet: to show us how Hammett 'tidied reality up' in his fiction. Instead, we get a pointless pastiche.

What might conceivably have saved this is a performance of blistering charisma in the title role. I suspect Frederic Forest is absolute dynamite in the live theatre; here, he comes across as miscast. (Imagine Sam Spade played by Tom Hanks, and you'll be in the right ballpark). What an odd person to choose to replace Brian Keith. (And wasn't Brian Keith a weird person to choose in the first place?) There's a short tantalising 'dream sequence' at the end as Hammett converts his recent experiences into a completely different plot from the one we have just seen. Wonder if these are clippings from the 'lost version'? Anyway, it's the nicest piece of whimsy in the whole film. Otherwise, it feels flat and style-free, and it simply lacks elan. Fassbinder used to knock out things like this over a weekend; this feels arduous. (God it would be tiresome for all concerned to reshoot a whole movie. Particularly if it's for Yankee bankers who presumably want it all 'dumbed down'...) Wim Wenders. If you've seen 'Burden of Dreams', you'll know he looked a lot like his title character when this was made. Does it mean anything?

Naqoyqatsi (2002)

there is less to this than meets the eye

[2/10 · 29 October 2006]

The trouble with this sort of lyrical film-making is that you either make a masterpiece, or a lemon: there's little middle ground. Putting it gently, this is not "Berlin - symphony of a city" or "Man with a Movie Camera". Unfortunately, it's not much to look at, either.

The problem with this one is that it's glib and half-baked, as if Michael Moore had come on board. It doesn't really have anything to say, or rather, to show us with pictures and sounds. Koyanisqatsi uses images cumulatively to propound a thesis. This is just a patchwork in search of a point. (Though, quite inadvertently, the movie tells us more about the mind of Uncle Sam than it intends. There is something profoundly paradoxical about an anti-technology, anti-civilisation, anti-media movie that is so profoundly souped up with technology. 'Do as I say, and not as I do'. You just gotta love the Yanks, eh.) Tonally, there's something sour and misanthropic about this episode. Both the prior episodes had moments of lyricism and exhilaration; this time the tone is consistently glum. It simply doesn't work over this duration, as Gustav Mahler will tell you.

Stylistically, Naqoyqatsi is a mess. The whizzy digital stuff is particularly misguided. It gives the whole thing a totally fussy, overprocessed look, and it also undermines the 'realist' nature of the analogue 'found footage'. (I mean, I pity the guys. Part of the joy of Koyanisqaatsi was that it was a homage to the use of optical film. But now optical film's an historical artifact, they have to 'take on board' the digital domain; but I don't think they bring it off. The digital stuff often looks like video links from CNN or BBC World.) And with the "found footage", well, the digital manipulation is often ugly, and usually just silly, and the false colour and solarisation kept me thinking of...

...ahem...

James Bond title sequences.

Ahem. Odd as it may seem, there is also the possibility that the movie has been simply stolen by Yo Yo Ma's performance; it's about as unobtrusive as a Lawrence Olivier voice-over. The images would have to be jolly compelling to stack up against all that charisma.

Philip Glass himself is on odd form; never expected him to knock off the Verdi requiem! (Made me laugh, which, of course, is not the desired response to any part of this movie). There's even one piece of music that sounds like Brahms. (?) Perhaps they've changed his pills.

From our 'idle questions' department: is Geoffrey Reggio actually a Hopi Indian at all? Or did he just do a sweatlodge in Hollywood Hills? Oh, and are the various snippets bits of footage from earlier 'episodes' in the trilogy a commentary on the way these movies, too, are part of the global media slushy?

Ain't Misbehavin' (1974)

all in the best possible taste

[7/10 · 19 October 2006]

As I recall, this is a whole lot of fun.

The movie is a paste-up of various "suggestive" film items from the 1930s and 40's, presented without commentary.

A large proportion of the film consists of "soundies" - short black & white films made for an early kind of "video jukebox". So we get to see Fats Waller doing the title song, for instance. But there are also pieces from sound shorts, and features - an eclectic collection, from both sides of the Atlantic.

What sticks in my mind is Sophie Tucker in a night-club in about 1930: splendidly sharp images, and excellent sound from the stage p.a. Because most footage of 20's dancebands comes from silent films, it's often 'souped up' with montage. This crisp footage, from one camera, with excellent sound, gives a sense of a real event.

OK, so far, so good.

For the next part, I may well be imagining this. But I seem to recall that the U.S.P. of this film was that, interspersed between the musical numbers were rather tame and clumsy vintage porn films...

The result is, in fact, very 70s: the baby-boomers' exciting discovery that there was actually sex before the Second World War.

But with the passage of time, I suspect that the material contained within this movie has become more and more Martian (like Al Jolson movies). In 1974, the culture that produced the various soundies and the pornies was still familiar; we all knew lots of people who had been young back then.

But I suspect modern audiences might find it all totally, totally surreal.

Hercules Returns (1993)

don't call me shirl

[10/10 · 5 October 2006]

If laughing matters to you, you owe it to yourself to acquire this movie by any means.

We all have our pet oddities. Things we are ashamed of liking, maybe (Spielberg's "1941"). Things we know only anoraks find funny (Tati's "Playtime"). I'm not going to stand on a soap-box and rant at the world for not sharing these predilections with me. You probably won't like them; don't let me waste your time! But I guess I have a bit of the boring-old-crank about me, because I feel moved to assert that "Hercules Returns" is the most neglected great comedy of all.

It is worth making an effort to see. It is worth searching for on e-bay. It is worth downloading on dial-up. That good.

Measured in terms of laughs-per-minute, and quality of jokes, "Hercules Returns" is simply without peer in the English language: only the Marxes at their best come close. It should be on every hot-hundred list of comedies, and well up there, too.

There are quite a few comedies that overdub "source footage" brilliantly: "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" is one of Steve Martin's finest hours. Woody Allen's 'What's Up, Tiger Lily' has an almost identical premise, the victim-movie being a terrific Japanese James Bond film, strangely intercut with an appalling Lovin' Spoonful track (I'm not making this up, you know.) But "Hercules Returns" is the apotheosis of the idea. It fulfils the premise impeccably.

The juxtaposition of inherently ludicrous images from an old Italian muscle-epic with a cartoonish Australian voice-track would be funny anyway.

But the writing! If you ask me, good jokes are enough to make a great comedy movie: a sit-com like "The Philadelphia Story" is not inherently better than "The Pawnshop", and "Singing in the Rain" isn't better than "Hellzapoppin".

There are more good jokes in "Hercules Returns" than in Mel Brooks's entire career; only 'Airplane' is in the same league. Indeed, the 'chicken-who-missed-his-cue' gag mentioned by another reviewer is one of the greatest unexpected jokes in the history of cinema; up there with the Janet Leigh shower scene.

(For antipodeans, there's an added layer of funny: this was done at a time when Oz comedy was embracing local ethnic stereotypes, and there's a hilarious subtext where the Italian characters seem to behave like upwardly-mobile Mediterranean immigrants. Italian faces are Aussie faces; the nymphs who bathe in the sea early in the movie could just as well be a group of Aussie girls: so OF COURSE they'll do some synchronised swimming!) There are comedies that make you chuckle knowingly ("Kind Hearts and Coronets") There are comedies that make you smile happily (Tati). There are comedies that make you cheer ("Safety Last").

But read the other comments here, and be warned. There are also comedies that have the capacity to render you incontinent.

Tosca's Kiss (1984)

Italian opera from the inside

[10/10 · 13 August 2006]

This is a delight; worth seeking out if you have the chance and the inclination.

The Casa Verdi is a retirement home for aging and impecunious Italian opera singers. This is a documentary about the institution and some of its denizens in the early eighties.

Most documentaries about artists end up being a bit 'precious'. This is about a pack of old hams who know they're hams: they play to the camera, they 'find their lights' like old pros. There's a pecking order in the place, from the lowly chorus member sculling soup ("the chorus is the most important part of the opera company", she opines) right up to the near-star Sara Scuderi.

These people all have music and performing in their blood; it's a total part of their identities. Somehow it's a wonderful demonstration of how music gets under the skin of its performers, and never leaves them, even when the ability to perform it diminishes.

In the opera, "Tosca's Kiss" is the kiss of death; but this is a film about living.

Around the World in 80 Days (2004)

I travelled on when hope was gone

[7/10 · 9 August 2006]

Well this was much less risible than I'd anticipated. (I recently tried to watch the Todd travelogue on a pan and scan VCR, and I've got to say that peeved me infinitely more.) But I certainly can't see $80 million on the screen. The scale seems small, somehow. To me, this is very much in the spirit of the Disney live action movies of the 60's (I'm thinking 'Three Lives of Thomasina'). Over time, it will hold up quite well. Very sensibly it doesn't try to compete with the Mike Todd version. I find that the cameos are a nice nod to jokiness of the 'original'.

Coogan is very good in an underwritten role. He plays the script very well "as written", but the version of Fogg presented to David Niven was simply much superior. Cecile de France is lit and dressed badly, but there's a nice feeling of ensemble amongst the cast - unfortunately, it feels like the kind of ensemble you get when the director is a bit at sea.

Jackie Chan is one of the great comedians of all time: the only one to hold a candle to Keaton and Lloyd. Though this movie is patchy, it's the right SORT of crossover vehicle for him. I just wish someone would cast him in a remake of "The General" or "Safety Last"; or that he'd get together with Scorsese, or Woody Allen, or Peter Jackson.

But then again, who needs 'crossover vehicles' anyway? Chan's genius is apparent in everything he does.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

Smart, Utterly Impeccable Fantasy

[10/10 · 15 July 2006]

This is one of my favourite kidult action films; one of the few worthy successors to the Indiana Jones movies.

It's a genre piece. The plot is an incredibly daffy string of adventures, which is, after all, what we paid our two dollars for. The characters and relationships are "what we've all seen before", but impeccably done by both writers and actors. Law and Paltrow are right into what they're doing: having fun in a fun movie. The dialogue gives them all the right opportunities in the right order, and it's so nice to hear actors wisecracking so intelligently. It SEEMS like we've heard and seen it all before; and yet, it's not really possible to say that Paltrow and Law are regurgitating other people's work ("he's Errol Flynn, and she's Torchy Blaine") Rather, they're giving their own original spin to a classic set-up: excellent work. Giovanni Ribisi is superb as Dex, the 'loyal offsider'.

The score is excellent (though it's interesting to see how big a committee is required to replicate what John Williams can do on his own).

As a piece of "eye candy", this is just a delight. The visual conceit of the movie (using historical stills and collages to fake backgrounds) is a delight. The action setpieces feel sumptuous. And above all, "Sky Captain" is film-literate in a consistently amusing and intelligent fashion - with nods to every sci-fi movie from "Things to Come" to "Thunderbirds".

Surprisingly, this is also one of the great visual homages to "Citizen Kane". The crew delights in all aspects of image manipulation, using computer techniques to replicate Orson Welles' great orgy of optical printing. And like Welles, Kerry Conran manages to produce what feels like a total jeux d'esprit (while using a technical crew of several hundred).

No sequel required or expected.

The High Chaparral (1967–1971)

about as good as television gets

[10/10 · 29 June 2006]

'Bonanza' was a soap. "Chapparal" was a great period drama, telling us as much about its own times as the times it portrays.

In hindsight, this is the grand-daddy of American ensemble drama: the prototype from which all subsequent triumphs have flowed - Hill Street, NYPD Blue, St. Elsewhere, even 'Lost'.

It's very difficult for me to think of a prior US drama series such real GRUNT in the writing. The characters are splendidly rounded; the relationships are excellent and interesting. Hell, the POLITICS are interesting. (Leif Erikson vs. Linda Cristal. Cor. It's like the 60's zeitgeist in a bottle. But not nearly as clonky as 'Star Trek').

The acting was, as I recall, pretty much impeccable (within the conventions of the time). The Mitchell / Darrow double act is simply iconic.

Reading the headings of the other messages posted here, it's interesting to see what a respectful, affectionate international audience this has.

Great theme-tune. GREAT, GREAT theme.

The World of Beachcomber (1968–1969)

just before spike got his q

[10/10 · 24 June 2006]

This Spike Milligan vehicle was adapted from a long-running column in a British paper, the Daily Express. Though it's vintage Milligan in every way, it's also very true to the style and spirit of JB Morton's original columns. (These, in turn, are very akin to the Cruiskeen Lawn columns published by Flan O'Brien in the Irish Times).

Both Morton and Milligan are, of course, precursors of the Pythons. (Honestly. People go on about the Pythons as if they had invented the wheel. They're brilliant geniuses, but they're strictly on a continuum of eccentric British comedy going back to the King Alfred and the cakes.) Spike appeared in a smoking-jacket as Dr. Strabismus (whom god preserve), linking the sketches.

The nice thing about Britain is that everyone expects to be underpaid, and they all actually LIKE their work. Consequently, you can frequently round up an all-star cast (most of whom turn up for the fun of working with each other). Look at that lineup: no make-weights there.

I think this was one of the first shows to feature bogus commercials (viz "the goodies). Products included all-purpose liquid Snibbo, and Threadgold's Thoroughgrip Garterettes.

My favourite memories are of Patricia Hayes as the landlady of the "Casa Mcgurgle", a particularly seedy private hotel. Unfortunately, memories are just about all that remain: as I understand it, the BBC wiped most of this.

But a lot of audio survives and has been released on tape.

Grasshopper Island (1971)

a charming pastorale

[7/10 · 30 May 2006]

Famous Five meets Arthur Ransome - that sort of thing. Not zany like the "Double Deckers"; in fact, probably the sort of thing that the Comic Strip sent up in the 80's.

But I was obviously the target demographic for this; I remember looking forward to it. Gentle, dreamy, and mysterious somehow. If I saw a copy, I'd buy it.

I confess I can't remember much about it, except Julian Orchard and Patricia Hayes - which should be enough of a recommendation. Also very early work from Tim Brooke-Taylor.

Never saw the last ep.

Never saw the last ep of "Danger Island", either.

De-Lovely (2004)

let's misconceive

[1/10 · 22 April 2006]

Let's make a glum musical.

Let's remake "Night and Day", but let's Rip the Veil of Hypocrisy from Porter's Alternative Lifestyle Choices. Let's use Cole Porter's music to Comment Wisely on his Life, and Show how Tortured he Really was. (viz "Lilac Time" etc.) This is not glib. This is deep.

Let's cross the script of the original "Night and Day" with "All that Jazz". Instead of Bob Fosse, let's have Irwin Winkler. Instead of Ben Vereen as the Angel of Death, let's have Jonathan Pryce, as the Angel Gabriel (!) Let's give Gabe some clever self-referential dialogue DRAWING ATTENTION TO HOW NAFF THE DEVICE IS.

Let's set the framing narrative in the first theatre Cole Porter ever saw - but let's NOT tell the audience this crucial (?) interpretative point. To make it even more Brechtian, let's make the Big Numbers look like a dispirited amateur dramatic society dress rehearsal - under-rehearsed dancers trying desperately to remember their steps.

And just like in the original movie (?), let's spend the budget by having a star turn for Every Demographic and Every Pop Music market. (The Eminem version of "Brush Up your Shakespeare" was sadly discarded during development. Ditto Dolly Parton doing "Don't Fence Me In". Maybe in the sequel, folks).

Oops. Budget is now gone. No costume fittings, some appalling hair, 20 extras, ten vintage cars, and a 'supporting cast' drawn from the b-team at the National Theatre of Burquitlam.

More good ideas: since he's supposed to be playing a man who had the physical features of a toad, let's give handsome Kevin Kline a joke about not being as handsome as Cary Grant! (And let's wheel on Robbie Williams, who physically is a dead ringer for a young CP, fish eyes and all. Though, of course, without the ambivalent sexuality.) Since CP couldn't sing, let Kev pretend he can't sing. (It'll make a nice contrast to all those guest stars who receive the full weight of audio production when THEY get to warble.) Let's have a Venice set like the one in "Top Hat". Because we can.

Let's do "What a swell party this is", in the first reel. Let's go head-to-head with two iconic prior performances: Bing and Frankie, and Iggy and Debbie. (We can do WAY better.) Let's get George Lucas to ghost-write the dialogue (uncredited, but you can't fool us just by leaving out "I have a bad feeling about this"...) Let's shoot the whole thing so it will work on TV in case it goes 'direct to HBO'.

(A good idea at last.)

The Polar Express (2004)

happy holidays from galaxy quest

[2/10 · 12 April 2006]

This is deeply odd. it's like space aliens have recorded earth television for fifty years, and have attempted to make their own sentimental television classic.

The results are like those creepy un-Xmas cards you get from insurance agents that say "happy holidays" rather than "merry Christmas".

As far as I can tell, the Betazoids who wrote the script seem to believe that Santa Claus is a religious figure, and the centre of Christmas. (Indeed, the whole Christ thing is so embarrassing that the Betazoids are very careful to avoid it: so no carols on the soundtrack, just "seasonal" hits).

Somehow Santa elides into a kind of all-seeing, ever-present Jehovah, with a thousand faces, all of them Tom Hanks. Finally, he morphs into a type of giant embalmed Stalin figure, complete with Soviet star on the Christmas tree, and the orchestra blazing the melody of "The Red Flag".

(As Anna Russell would say, 'I'm not making this up, you know') Apparently the message of the picture is that if we all just BELIEVE in this wonderful deity, we shall all receive train-sets on Christmas morning. (That's all that's at stake for the leading character, apparently. There's no 'redeemer' or 'forgiver' character in this plot, but that's OK, because no-one needs one.)

Portrait of Jennie (1948)

even funnier than 'ben hur'; even deeper than 'titanic'

[3/10 · 15 January 2006]

There are some movies where you just sit there wondering how to cover both your eyes and your ears as one affront to taste follows another. "No: they can't possibly..." But yes. A plot that is a succession of utterly preposterous devices constructed to allow the producer's g.f. to age conspicuously and emote. Awful, pompous dialogue, the kind that actors wade through: notice the glassy eyes of anyone on-screen who has had to listen to the stuff for fifty takes. An unerring eye for visual kitsch. All with a score from Claude Debussy.

Poor Jennifer Jones. The story was a dumb idea in the first place, she's miscast, the words are duff, and to cap it all she's been directed into the ground. "Be more winsome!" She looks like a kind of desperate ventriloquist's dummy. She's just awful.

Joseph Cotten as a romantic fruitcake painter is deeply, deeply unconvincing. The script doesn't help, but he's just not romantic lead material.

But still, I bet this was Liberace's favourite movie. Just the thing to watch while a candelabra rotates on your grand piano.

Ray (I) (2004)

A "Lady Sings The Blues" for our time

[3/10 · 2 January 2006]

Well, if biopics are your thing, I suppose this is perfect. It's a worthy bore, the 'importance' of the subject and Themes (with a capital 'T') justifying a dull TV-movie presentation. Taylor Hackford couldn't direct traffic.

'Ray' plods through the motions, leaving no cliché of the genre unrepeated. A classic Hollywood musical biopic from the 1940's, but with an all-black cast.

In other words, it's a highly manipulative soap, with incidental music. Very like "The Glenn Miller Story", actually. Plays the "mom" card a lot. Really it's a women's pic, and the women are great.

Jamie Foxx... hmmm. Think Dustin Hoffman in 'Rain Man', but with pecs. The man works very hard; does all the lip-synching and fake piano-playing, does his own singing some of the time, all very efficient. In fact, he's kept so busy there's no time for any actual acting. (The Oscar always goes to the actor playing the afflicted genius. Ray Charles was a black blind junkie; Foxx couldn't lose.) As always with musical bio-pics, the banality of the treatment is overwhelmed by the brilliance of the music.

Sahara (2005)

Finally: an adventure film that's actually fun

[8/10 · 25 December 2005]

Genre movies are harder to make than art films; in a year of dull turkeys (Batman Begins, War of the Worlds), this one's quite a goodie. Cheerful, amusing, good-humoured, and with a feel all its own.

The nice thing is that it's not really that campy: it's profoundly implausible, but quite straight-faced, tho' most of the characters have senses of humour.

Above all, it looks good. This is one of the best-photographed actioners I've ever seen, a superb advertisement for location shooting. Beautiful, beautiful places, and excellent art-design. And how refreshing to get away from the claustrophobic worlds of CGI (why do CGI movies seem so damned airless?) The script is damned good (not so much for plot, but for dialogue). This director is obviously an actor's best friend: just watch the extras and stunt-persons. The rapport between the two male leads rivals Hope and Crosby; you could probably enjoy watching these guys strip paint.

Downers: Penelope Cruz is pure mahogany, though the script doesn't help her at all (the character is a bit of a worthy bore - where's Ingrid Bergman when you need her?). The part really needed someone as verbally quick as the guys; Cruz just can't compete. It's Anna Sten all over again...

The music is a bit sucky. The African music is fine. The original score is full of John Barryisms, which put us in a very odd headspace at times - particularly as the plot gets very Bondish. The 70's panel-head source music ("Sweet Home Alabama" et al) gives weird flashbacks to "Apocalypse Now", which is presumably the intention; but I'm not sure the 'ugly American' comparison is something that necessarily works for the film-makers.

Still, I hope this heralds a franchise. And that the budgets don't get any bigger.

Playtime (1967)

the funniest movie of them all

[10/10 · 26 September 2005]

Magritte, the movie. Very, very special indeed.

This is an intellectual comedy - certainly not as much slapstick as, say, Mon Oncle. The structure is fugal, intercutting between two visitors to Paris (M. Hulot, who has come for a business meeting, and a young tourist named Barbara). After glimpsing each other several times, finally they meet, and he discovers she is married. It's a Picaresque comedy, in other words: 'journeys end in lovers meeting'. In fact, it's a true epic in every sense...

On their journey, Hulot and Barbara run into - the greatest ensemble of bit part actors you will ever see anywhere. Compare this with 'It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World' - fifty celebrities given no material, and screaming at each other for three hours. Here, fifty nobodies are given the best jokes, and all the screen-time they need to deliver hilarious performances. And largely without dialogue.

The tempo is impeccable and slow - at least until the great set-piece restaurant sequence at the end (which from a technical standpoint is one of the most exhausting pieces of ensemble comedy you will ever see).

It's really rare in a movie to see individual funny shots. Not so much the "lubitsch touches" using cutaways, but, rather individual images that are funny or grotesque in themselves. Some of the compositions and angles simply make me laugh out loud. There are also sound gags.

The huge Tativille sets are an hilarious parody of the 'International style', and so much of the humour comes from the human inability to live up to our sleek, glamorous surroundings. The characters are just delightful - the self-made German businessman desperately selling doors you can slam 'in total silence'; Hulot's old war-buddy; the elderly concierge with the cigar; the nuns; the Yank with the Benzedrine inhalor...

The Party Line on this movie is that it's "anti-technology". Personally, I find it to be intensely worldly: a film made by someone who loves the world, and enjoys the bizarre interaction between human beings and their things. There's no malice in it, no villains; it's not a nightmare at all (like, say, 'Brazil'). Ultimately, it's just a little wistful. Hulot is a gauche loser who knows he's a gauche loser. Barbara - well, what is it with Tati and these sad, lonesome, slightly mysterious leading ladies? They're as interesting in their own way as Hitchcock's blondes...

Finally, a plug for this if you like epics. Epic comedies are a suspect genre; in some ways, it's all been downhill since "The General" and "Steamboat Bill Jr.". But, love it or hate it, you can see every franc in this film; quite apart from the sets and costumes, the rehearsals and set-ups are exhaustive. As a piece of technique, it's breathtaking on every front.

The weird thing is that, as with Chaplin and Keaton, only an insane control-freak could have made this gentle, lovable movie.

Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)

blake edwards, where are you?

[3/10 · 14 May 2005]

Ah, the great failed quest of the 60's: find a vehicle for Julie Andrews. This ain't it.

Julie works her butt off in this, but she's heinously miscast. It's obvious that Ross Hunter wanted to make "The Boy Friend", and this probably captures a lot of Julie's stage schtick as Polly. The dialogue tries to catch the whimsy of Sandy Wilson's show, but Hill plays the verbal parodies and catch-phrase stuff too "straight". So often, it comes across as a musical comedy WITHOUT actual comedy. Nobody is having any FUN; it has the look of something shot on a very tight budget, with no room for rehearsal or retakes. So everyone plays it very "safe".

In fact, the ideas here are often very amusing, but one gets the impression that director George Roy Hill simply had no sense of humour or style. He has no real sense of the silly or the ridiculous, and it all feels "under-directed". The "Harold Lloyd" sequence in particular is a complete waste of opportunity. Again and again, Hill gives people nothing to do. He also botches the exposition (Millie doesn't have enough back-story; she just 'arrives' and starts acting in a strange, unmotivated fashion. The character is simply too thin.) Hill has no idea of how to tell a story with musical numbers. They almost all stop the plot. The "Tapioca" is simply a lousy song, and the ensemble looks joyless in the number - not helped by the fact that neither of the leads are good dancers. The interpelated numbers ("Poor Butterfly"; "Do it again") make one wonder what's coming next. ("Any Old Iron?!!!") The Jewish wedding is - spectacularly misguided in every way - which I suppose makes it one of the few undeniably unmissable sequences in the movie. The chase sequences are really cursory.

Visually, this often feels tawdry. It's partly the lack of background action: Hill has no idea of how to use bit-parts and extras. The lighting is heinously un-atmospheric, and the art-design seems pointless and misguided (the 'tapioca' scene in yellow and grey is particularly ugly). Jean Louis's frocks are very good - but many of them don't FIT!

The racial politics are really naff. There's nothing inherently "wrong" with the idea of Chinese villains, but Hill under develops the characters of the Jack Soo / Pat Norita in the early stages. They're neither grotesque heavies, nor stooges: just faces with nothing to do. Hill finally gets the tone right in their little soft-shoe moments. (But Chinese villains dancing to "The Japanese Sandman"??? It's like the Rape of Nanking never happened.) That's what vindicates and humanises this movie: the occasional moment of splendid whimsy. The elevator tapdancing gag gives the movie its whole identity: nothing else is quite crazy enough to live up to this. As Mrs. Mears, Bea Lillie is splendidly dotty. The Carol Channing character is a under-written and over-exposed - but the idea is inherently funny.

I seem to recall that "Millie" got revived on stage a few years ago; with a good director, the right leads, and a few new numbers, I suspect it deserved another go-round.

School for Scoundrels (1960)

a neglected gem

[10/10 · 17 April 2005]

Don't hesitate: this jolly little movie is pretty much impeccable.

An excellent script, which never falters. And a BOFFO cast of British actors. The quintessential role for Terry-Thomas (tho' "Magnificent Men" is a close second).

But also fine turns from Alistair Sim, John Le Mesurier, Hugh Paddick, Peter Jones. Hattie Jacques does an hilarious voice-parody of Joan Greenwood. Janette Scott is VERY good in a thankless "skirt" role; what a charming personality.

Old car fans will love this. The sport-cars and the mocked-up vintage "Swiftmobile" are worth the price of admission alone. (Sadly, the production designer / props chaps are as yet uncredited at IMDb: perhaps the information is lost.) Very nice camera-setups. Amusingly cheesy sets. A really excellent score from John Addison that is up to Georges Auric's standard.

This has a very jolly, intimate ambiance: a sense of small scale. Feels rather like the b&w Tati movies.

Ahem. Unlike many British comedies, I can really see the attraction of remaking this: the material is so damned good that it could use another go-round, without necessarily insulting the original.

Dive Bomber (1941)

dauntless aviators

[1 November 2004]

As a snapshot of the US military on the eve of Pearl Harbor, this has a poignancy that it didn't have on original release. The "Enterprise" has a starring role, just two years before Midway (and incidentally, notice how SMALL the carriers are: I guess jet fighters needed vastly bigger ships).

And look at the aircraft: innumerable biplanes, and the rest of them already obsolete. No combat (- and, in fact, no bombs, which is odd, tho' i guess in 1941 the idea of Americans actually dropping nasty weapons like bombs was still a controversial notion.) Lots of formation flying: (this is Warners, after all, the home of Busby Berkeley!) Almost every outdoor scene has a flight of real aircraft zooming through it: the effect is sumptuous, and makes even "The Battle of Britain" look very small beer. Much credit to Michael Curtiz and crew for stage-managing all this.

There are no real surprises in the plot, though it moves through the clichés at an agreeable pace; nonetheless, it's an interesting commentary on the days when flying was not a "routine" activity.

But the reason to watch this is the photography. This is a Technicolor show-piece. The aerial footage is downright glamorous, and many of the interior scenes are filled with interest (though interior lighting problems are apparent, particularly in Flynn's make-up).

Plot-wise, the focus wanders back and forth from Flynn to MacMurray, which leaves both characters slightly unfinished. Flynn was obviously very difficult for Americans to write for: this actually sounds like Bogart dialogue. Flynn looks embarrassed and diffident throughout(he's very good though, and his voice is beautiful). Alexis Smith is fun; possibly the only interesting twist in the script is that the women are both unredeemed ratbags: the slush component is, hence, lower than it would be once hostilities commenced. Ralph Bellamy is good, doing the transition from "guy who doesn't get the girl" to "gruff character actor".

Modern viewers will laugh at the chain-smoking doctors (especially the one with the heart problem).

Max Steiner's score doesn't grab me particularly, but there are some nifty musical effects during the "blackout" sequences.

The Jolson Story (1946)

shalom yowzah

[2/10 · 16 August 2004]

Obviously, from the other comments here, lots of other people adore this movie, and you should probably take their word for it. But I'm partly left thinking - good gravy, what are these people ON?

OK, so it's a biography - except that it completely rewrites the guy's life. He wasn't married to Ruby Keeler (et al). He didn't save Warner Brothers. So you know less about Jolson when it ends than you did when it started.

I guess your response to this depends on how you can take Larry Parks. He's like Robert Downey as Chaplin: he works very very hard, but the essence is simply wrong. Parks has no grandeur or real assurance: 'on-stage', he looks like a low-wattage Jolson impersonator, and 'off-stage' his character development is uninspired. There is no real roguery in him; in the later scenes, he seems like a Jaycee pretending to be Jimmy Cagney.

Basically, I don't think Parks is a very inspired actor, and he's a very gauche mover: Jolson gestures, Parks throws his arms about on cue. (Tho' the poor guy had Jolson himself breathing down the back of his neck, so the shoot must have been pretty uncomfortable.) (And draughty) I never, for a minute, thought that I was watching the real Jolson - except in those famous longshots, where apparently it IS the real Jolson Star quality, eh!

If you ask me, as so often in musicals, it's the supporting cast that makes this work. Demarest is very good, and I like the Joelsen parents (tho' they remind me a little of the parents in "take the money and run").

I'm Generation X, so a lot of the sentimental / nostalgic stuff goes right past me. The lip-synched blackface stuff goes on and on in tight close-up; to me, it seems like some kind of surreal nightmare vision rather than light entertainment. Like drag, only much, much weirder. (I'm trying to imagine a movie about a black entertainer who makes his living by parodying violent, ignorant, superstitious, and venal orthodox Jews.)

I can't imagine watching it again; I'd probably watch a real Jolson movie for preference. For a backstage musical, I think I prefer "Me and my Gal" or "My Gal Sal" or "I'll see you in my dreams".