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Kanko no machi (1944)
an intimate drama of families in a Tokyo neighborhood...
... who must relocate because the government will be demolishing it. The war is ever-present, but overt propaganda is rare until the bittersweet but patriotic final scene.
This film deals with the clash of the younger and older generations, and familiar tradition with the new, although in this case it's mostly the reluctance to leave home, career, and friends to start over in a new place with a new job. There's a romance threatened by parents refusing to give their blessing, as well as a subplot of a broken family whose patriarch deserted his wife and little boy a decade earlier and whose son is now a test pilot.
This film has some truly touching scenes of how neighbors care for each other in adversity and how everyday people are adversely affected by the war, to the point that the rousing finale may seem more ironic than uplifting, at least in retrospect.
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
You won't find any actual bad guys in this film...
... but you won't find any truly good guys either. It's the charm and sophistication of Lubitsch to deny these things to the audience.
Thieves Lily (Miriam Hopkins) and Gascon Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meet and fall in love in Venice. They then thieve their way across Europe until they hit Paris. They have no compunction about stealing anything from anybody. Part of what turns them on about one another is the stealing. Mariette Colet is the owner of Colet cosmetics. She has apparently inherited this firm from her late husband. She has no real interest in running the place and prefers to spend extravagantly on clothes, furs, and cars. She has no compunction about doing so in hard times. Lily and Monescu decide to steal from Madame Colet since she likes to delegate all of the number crunching work to secretaries, and Monescu charms her into giving him the position. He doesn't intend to embezzle from her. He's just going to clean her out of cash like the conventional thief that he is before he exits the premises.
But during the weeks they are working together Monescu and Madame Colet begin to fall for one another. They are both people of taste and refinement, so they have much in common. So now there is this triangle of which Monescu is painfully aware. Will he stay with Colet and abandon Lily? Will he perhaps spend one night with Colet AND leave with Lily? Colet seems like the type that if it was just one night of passion she wouldn't be upset by that either. Watch and find out.
It's all very sophisticated, and the dialogue is clever from beginning to end. You can feel the sexual tension in the air. Charles Ruggles and Edward Everett Horton play romantic rivals for Colet who weren't getting anywhere with her before Monescu hit town, and now that he's here they blame him for their failure . C. Aubrey Smith is a member of Colet's board of directors who is more than a little suspicious of Monescu.
If you want to see romance played out realistically in an adult fashion, give this film a try.
While the City Sleeps (1928)
A late silent crime film and melodrama with Chaney as a cop
Dan Coghlin (Lon Chaney) is a hard, tough as nails Irish American NYC cop with bad feet. Today we'd call him a detective versus a uniformed cop. He's ready to quit the force until a jewelry store robbery occurs and the store clerk is killed in the process. The suspect is Mile-Away Skeeter Carlson (Wheeler Oakman), who is so named because he always claims he was a mile away when something happened. Carlson claims he is at the scene because of his undertaking business. Coghlin sees Carlson as his "great white whale" and decides to stay on the force.
So Coghlin is sure Carlson has something to do with this murder/robbery, and so he is on his trail, even plying Carlson's cast off mistress for information. In a parallel plot, Coghlin is trying - not so successfully - to keep Myrtle Sullivan on the straight and narrow. She is the daughter of a dead friend, maybe even a fallen cop. He's known her since childhood, but now he's starting to be attracted to her and he is frightened by that feeling. Myrtle likes hanging out at the dance hall where all of the gangsters congregate and she has developed feelings for a young guy who Carlson has taken under his wing, Marty, but Carlson has the hots for Myrtle himself and needs to get Marty out of the way. And to a gangster there is only one way to get somebody out of your way. Complications ensue.
There's lots to like about this late silent gangster film. It is title card heavy since there is much cop and gangster slang getting tossed about. It's always good to see Chaney as an ordinary guy like he was in "Tell It To The Marines" with ordinary problems. Polly Moran is good as Lon Chaney's dowdy landlady who very badly wants to make him her next late husband. Anita Page is the incorrigible teen jazz baby Myrtle who isn't nearly as smart as she thinks she is.
Wheeler Oakman, as the villain is wonderfully hissable and contemptible, but I have to wonder how he managed to live this long always double-crossing associates, bumping off witnesses, and boldly taking pot shots at cops. He's been cheating death a long time at this point.
The condition of the film is watchable, but about five minutes are missing, although that doesn't render the plot incomprehensible. If the film was restored it would be a true visual treat as a look at New York City at the end of the roaring twenties with its skyscrapers and subway.
I'd say it's worth putting up with the condition of the film if you are a Lon Chaney fan.
Corruption (1933)
A pretty good poverty row B crime drama...
... made so by a strong cast and a good script with a most unconventional conclusion.
Tim Butler (Preston Foster) is a newly-elected mayor who annoys the influential crook who helped him get
elected by being a crusader against corruption and cleaning house. He becomes involved with the crook's daughter Sylvia, played by Natalie Moorhead, who is her usual seductive but bad news persona. Of course, Butler is oblivious to the fact that his loyal secretary of five years, Ellen Manning (Evalyn Knapp), is in love with him. But Sylvia isn't oblivious to it, and the two exchange catty remarks every time they cross paths.
Tired of all of this housecleaning, local mobster Regan sets things up to look like Butler is visiting a lady of the evening, complete with photographs for the newspapers. He's tossed out of office and is back in private practice. But then Regan is killed by an unknown assassin's gun as he and Butler are arguing and the corrupt forces in the city use the opportunity to get Foster sent up for life for Regan's murder.
Complicating factors include the fact that the medical examiner can find no bullet in Regan's body and that the denouement includes a mad scientist angle. Mischa Auer is featured in a rare serious role.
In a truly precode moment, Butler's close friend and associate decides he can't give the crooked pol who first put Butler in office a hand, but can spare a single finger.
The cast in this film - Preston Foster, Evalyn Knapp, Natalie Moorehead, Tully Marshall - had seen better days, not so much because they were not good actors, but because the industry was in such flux in the early 30s. It often meant that some of the poorer studios could get good actors for their productions.
Monk: Mr. Monk and the End: Part 2 (2009)
the end that I wanted, but not the end that I expected
Without going into the details of HOW Monk gets to the end of this series ending episode, I can say I was satisfied. After solving Trudy's murder, Monk wakes up in the middle of his bed, not one side of it like Trudy is still alive. He gets up, dressed informally, and tells Natalie he is going to the movies with his stepdaughter. Natalie asks what he is going to see. He responds with "whatever is playing in theater 10". But then that gets disrupted when Stottlemeyer calls with a case. Monk does delay and checks the stove to make sure it's off before leaving. So his compulsions are still there, but they are now in the background, like they were when Trudy was alive. They no longer have a stranglehold on his life.
And the series ends with a montage of past scenes and present ones. The first scene of the past is the very first scene of the series - When Monk is just starting to work again after his breakdown. At that point he needed a nurse, not just an assistant. At the end are scenes of the present - Disher becoming a police chief in a small town in New Jersey, now living with Sharona. Stottlemeyer kissing his own Trudy goodbye and seeming to savor how life has turned out for him, and Natalie and Monk arriving at the scene of their latest case.
The emergence of a stepdaughter - Trudy's daughter - was indeed a surprise. But Molly was glad to have Monk appear in her life and tell her all about her mother. And Monk is glad to have a piece of Trudy that is still alive. This was an excellent end to an excellent series.
50 Million Frenchmen (1931)
An object lesson in what killed vaudeville
"Fifty Million Frenchmen" was a musical comedy play that Warner Brothers backed with the plan of turning it into a film. But by the time that it came for filming in 1930, musical films were landing with a thud as far as movie going audiences were concerned. So plans were made to strip out all of the songs and just add more Olsen and Johnson where the music had been. It was still filmed in Technicolor though, which has been lost. All that's left are the black and white copies, which explains its blurry appearance.
The basic thread of the story is not a bad one. A rich ne'er do well Ameican playboy in Paris, Jack Forbes (William Gaxton) well financed by his industrialist father to stay as far away from the family business as possible, sees Lu Lu Carroll (Claudia Dell) and falls instantly in love. Michael Cummins (John Halliday) says that he is also interested in her. He bets Forbes that he cannot win the girl's heart without any of his money as a means to impress her and take her places. If Forbes wins, Cummins will pay him 50 thousand dollars. If Cummins wins the bet, Forbes will pay him 50 thousand dollars. In the meantime, Forbes must make his living any way that he can, starting with no money or letters of credit in his pocket.
Warner Brothers, in just another year or two with better performers, could have made this work as a pretty decent precode. The main problem is the large part that Olsen and Johnson have in this film. Their part is that Cummins hires them to make sure that Forbes doesn't cheat and borrow money off of anyone. They're just not funny and Johnson's incessant hyena-like laughter gets old in a hurry. Show me you're funny, don't TELL me you're funny! Make this about Forbes and his creative attempts to survive and impress the girl given that he has no money and no contacts in a country that is foreign to him, and this could have been interesting. Instead the focus is Olsen and Johnson and their juvenile and archaic attempts at humor.
The few interesting spots include Helen Broderick as someone who hires Forbes as a guide and Bela Lugosi as a mystic.
King of the Arena (1933)
A Ken Maynard western with a horror angle?...
...and maybe that's not so unbelievable when you realize this was made at Universal as their foray into the horror genre was in full swing and you remember that Universal got its start as a producer of westerns with an occasional prestige picture. Maynard had been at Universal in the early sound years, had been fired when Universal decided to go full bore into horror, and then he was rehired when Universal decided that B westerns were still something with which they should be involved once sound technology advanced.
The story is that a bunch of robberies seem to be following one particular circus/rodeo as it goes from town to town. But following those robberies are a series of particularly gruesome murders - the victim dies by having their blood congealed, thus "blackening" their appearance. Yikes! As a result this is called the "black death".
Maynard plays a Texas Ranger, Ken Kenton, who is enlisted to help solve the crimes. He signs on as an attraction at the rodeo, thus giving Maynard a chance to show off his fancy riding along with his horse, Tarzan. There is a group of Russians that seem resentful that Ken has pushed them out of the headline spot in the rodeo, and they are acting suspiciously. Complications ensue.
This is an adequate B western, although sound technology is not really at the point yet where there can be adequate close-ups of Maynard's trick riding and roping. The horror/mad scientist angle does make it unique among westerns and therefore worth a look.
All That Money Can Buy (1941)
A uniquely American take on Faust
Set in 1840s New Hampshire, the story centers on a poor farmer Jabez Stone (James Craig) who's about to lose his farm to a money lender when one bad piece of luck after another has him saying that his bad fortunes are enough to cause a man to sell his soul to the devil. Of course, the devil (Walter Huston) instantly appears and tempts a very willing Stone to trade his soul in return for "all that money can buy". The contract they sign has the devil collecting his soul seven years from the date of their agreement.
The devil then uncovers a buried treasure of Hessian gold and from that moment on, Stone prospers (to the detriment of his friends and neighbors). Local politician Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold) is godfather to Stone's new baby and passes thru town regularly to socialize and imbibe with the locals. When the due date for reaping his soul arrives, it's to Webster that Stone turns to argue his way out of going to Hades for all eternity in a supernatural courtroom scene with famous disgraced and dishonored Americans - themselves in Hades - as the jury.
William Dieterle's nearly surrealistic settings and camera work (by Joseph August) add just the right touch of menace and fantasy to the stark New Hampshire settings. Simone Simon plays a seductive assistant of the devil whose purpose is to keep Stone's heart and attention away from his timid yet insightful wife who might somehow set him back on the right path.
Walter Huston was Oscar nominated for his performance as the devil and Edward Arnold plays Webster as big as all outdoors. New England is portrayed as a rural place halfway between its Puritan roots and its transformation into a center of industry and research.
Made in 1941, and dealing in themes of religion and patriotism, it might have been a shrill production had it been made any later once the war years had lots of films getting heavy handed when dealing with either of those subjects.
My Man Godfrey (1957)
If you are going to watch both versions...
...then watch this one first. Because IMHO the original 1936 version is just better. And then your opinion will not be colored by the comparison between the two. It's kind of like Son of Frankenstein versus Young Frankenstein. If you must watch both, watch Son of Frankenstein first, otherwise a serious movie will become unintentionally hilarious. But I digress.
This one has the same structure as the original - A scavenger hunt turns up the titular Godfrey (David Niven), who is given a job with the Bullock family as the butler. He's a bit mysterious and very urbane, but Irene Bullock (June Allyson), one of the daughters of the family, comes to love him. In the original, Godfrey's big secret was that he was from a rich family living among the city's forgotten men due to a love affair that ended badly. In this one, Godfrey is in the country illegally. Naturally they couldn't keep the original Great Depression centered plot - It would be ridiculous.
This film was well acted, well directed, and attractively shot. But other than being in color, I just could not see the point of this being remade. It's something that I watched once, found to be OK, but probably would not seek out again.
Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941)
A transitional Andy Hardy film
Andy Hardy has just graduated high school, and so he ponders what comes next. His father has dreams of him attending his own alma mater, Wainwright college, and going into law. Looking at the long journey that would be - seven years of college - he decides to break out on his own and see what life on his own would be like. So he drives to New York City in search of a job.
He gets a room in a kind of high-rise boarding house for guys, back when women were not allowed past the front desk. His search for a job, though, is arduous until he finally lands one as an office boy at a stock brokerage concern.
Before he gets the job though, he runs out of money, can't get his car out of hock in storage, and goes hungry for a few days. At one point, his roommate, unable to get a job in what he wants to do, even kills himself in the bathroom, with Andy discovering the body! So this is not your average Andy Hardy film.
There is one really odd scene between Andy and his father, the judge. Usually I can easily see the rather timeless lessons the judge is trying to teach, but this one seems mid Victorian. The judge has noticed the flirting going on between Andy and the woman a few years older - she's probably 25 or so - who also works at the brokerage. The judge says that people should be faithful to their spouses before they even meet them, because lots of casual "dating" - to be euphemistic about it - makes it hard to be faithful to a spouse once you have one. So much for sowing one's wild oats!
Shtikat haarchion (2010)
The subject matter is revolting and certainly could not be considered as entertainment.
This documentary discusses an unfinished Nazi propaganda film of the WW2 Warsaw Ghetto and does its best to dehumanize the helpless inhabitants to the level of vermin. The Nazi film exists as what appears a final cut but without sound or commentary and appears shown in full.
The 8 reels were found in a secret cave archive in East Germany. I have seen a lot of disturbing stuff in my time and thought I was quite desensitized to all of that. But this was quite sickening. The presentation of the documentary trying to explain or interpret what was happening without the sound is somewhat clumsy but the raw footage was extremely powerful and gut wrenching.
Chris Stuckmann Movie Reviews: I Have to Talk About This... (2024)
Except you didn't talk about this, Chris
Chris Stuckmann has had a youtube channel since January 2011. He started out doing reviews of movies that really showed his passion for film. Then, sometime during 2020, he decided that he couldn't give critical reviews anymore because he didn't want to trash filmmakers. From that point, to me, his reviews became bland because he refused to criticize films that he disliked. Maybe it was because of what he said - That he was now a filmmaker and, seeing how difficult it can be, he didn't want to trash other filmmakers. Or it could also be because he was fearful of being soundly criticized himself if his first film, Shelby Oaks, did not turn out to be very good. But I digress.
So the real test of Stuckmann's new philosophy reached a head with this episode. He clearly says it is NOT about Madame Web, when it is clear it absolutely IS about Madame Web. A bad film if there ever was one and soundly and globally panned, Chris launched into a criticism of Sony, saying - without actually saying it - that this film was all Sony's fault, not that of the director or writer. But how does he know that?
Directors, writers and actors play a huge part in the success of a movie. If Chris blames only the studio for a failure then he needs to credit them and only them for successes. It would be hypocritical to not do that. Also think of the potential good writers and directors who can't get a chance because bad films aren't being called out. If Chris cares about those folks getting a chance, he needs to honestly criticize poor performers in the industry and especially chronically poor performers.
So in the end Stuckmann did a deep dive on the topic of big studios being generally run by folks who came up through management rather than the creative rungs such as writing and directing when he discussed this film. His take is worth watching. But it doesn't mean you can't criticize the studio AND the film and keep your integrity in the process. I'd love to see the old Chris return.
Night Monster (1942)
One of the better Universal Bs from the 1940s
Forde Beebe was a longtime writer and director who doesn't get much love -- the Buck Rogers serials excepted; most of his sound work was in the serial and B westerns, which usually don't impress. However in 1942 he shot Night Monster in less than two weeks for Universal. And it's a fine creepy-crawly with a good slow build-up and some fine atmospheric lighting by Charles van Enger. Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill were top-billed for marquee value, though Lugosi has few lines as the servant of the house, Rolf, and Atwill is the first person killed inside the house, so there really is no truth in advertising here.
Three doctors are summoned by wealthy Kurt Ingston (Ralph Morgan) to spend a few days at his mansion for possible endowments for their research. That's odd since the three doctors could not stop Kurt from ending up in the state he is in now - an arm and both legs partially amputated. Kurt's sister has summoned a fourth doctor, Dr. Lynn Harper, for completely separate reasons. Harper is a psychiatrist. A mystic, Agor Singh (Nils Aster), is a resident of the Ingston home, helping Kurt deal with the reality of his condition. And then guests as well as some of the servants are found strangled, usually in their rooms but sometimes outside. So the search is on to discover who the murderer - the titular night monster - might be.
This is a well-done horror film that, despite not having any big names who have many lines or who are onscreen for very long, was quite engaging with an interesting and unusual angle. With Leif Ericson as a big galoot chauffeur who could be the poster boy for the Me Too movement 70 years ahead of schedule. 15 minutes in I was rooting for the Night Monster to get this creep he was so awful!
The Women in His Life (1933)
Otto Kruger has a not so magnificent obsession
Kent "Barry" Barringer (Otto Kruger) is a hard cynical lawyer. He gets clients acquitted he knows are guilty using cute "tricks" such as having the defendant's double sit in court being identified by witness after witness only to introduce the real defendant sitting out in the crowd, thus causing reasonable double.
Barringer has women betting a night with their bodies over a pinball game. He distrusts even "the women in his life" as cheating chiselers. You see, his wife ran out on him ten years before and something inside him died at the time, so he's spent his time becoming the world's best criminal law attorney and "hate bedding" women ever since.
Then one day an innocent appears at his office door - Her father is accused of killing her stepmother. When Barringer sees the dead woman's photo, he realizes that she is the wife who left him ten years ago. He breaks down - as long as there was life there was hope, but now she's dead. She'll never come back. Barringer abandons his practice and his clients and goes on a bender. But what of the girl's father and his trial? Watch and find out.
This is one of my favorite legal precodes. It has everything and its pacing and ability to seamlessly transition from one genre to another is excellent. At first, the film is a courtroom drama, by the end it is a gangster tale. It really has no big stars in it, and Otto Kruger is in rare form in a rare leading role.
Though made by MGM, it really doesn't seem like a film of the era or one that the studio cared very much about, and as a result of MGM's neglect it turned out to be something special. The best way I could describe it is as though MGM and WB had a child. And that child - this film - has the MGM class and WB's sass. I'd highly recommend it.
With Una Merkel as Barringer's unflappable secretary, Ben Lyon as Barringer's straight arrow junior partner, Isabel Jewell as the woman who loves Barringer but might as well be talking to a rock when it comes time to talk of love, and Roscoe Karns as the same kind of wise-cracking assistant he played in 20th Century the following year.
Monk: Mr. Monk Is the Best Man (2009)
Mr. Monk and the marrying man
The body of a murder victim is found that has been shot, but the body was also burned after death to prevent or at least slow identification.
Separately, Stottlemeyer pops the question to TK. She says yes, and a wedding is being planned in short order. But then creepy things start happening - first Stottlemeyer's place is vandalized, then TK gets a threatening phone call, then there is arson, and finally an explosion. This is not exactly a day in the life of a cop. But TK doesn't know that and is thinking of calling the wedding off. Is this related to the burned body of the murder victim? Of course it is! To find out how, watch and find out.
My title comes from the fact that Stottlemeyer sure seems to enjoy being a husband, regardless of circumstances. At Stotltlemeyer's bachelor party, Monk mentions some short-lived marriage that was probably something that happened in college. Then there was his wife of twenty years, Karen, who was a hippie consumed with making boring documentaries and who didn't seem to have anything in common with him, then there was his post-divorce girlfriend, Linda. Had she not turned out to be a murderer, he was planning on asking her to marry him!
This one was fully of both touching and hilarious Monk moments. The best part is Monk being asked to be Stottlemeyer's best man -touching - and then Monk giving his interpretation of what a bachelor party is supposed to be -hilarious.
Targets (1968)
Two kinds of horror from two different times
Horror star Byron Orlock (Boris Karloff) abruptly decides to retire from the screen while viewing the rushes of his latest horror film. He feels like he's an anachronism, a relic of a bygone era. While he's outside arguing with those who don't want him to retire, we see he's in the sights of a guy who has just bought a rifle, Bobby Thompson. At first you don't think much of it, but then Bobby opens the trunk and you can see the trunk is full of guns and ammunition.
Bobby goes home and you see that, though married and mid-20s, he still lives at home with his parents in a middle class neighborhood. There is no friction at home. From the conversation his parents seem understanding of the "nervous" troubles he's had since returning from Vietnam and readjusting to civilian life. His wife is affectionate and seems to have no problem working night shift at the phone company at a time when most women did not work. And yet amid this family support and kindness, Bobby feels inadequate and develops a desire to kill. The night before his spree starts he tries to bring up his urges to his wife. At that point he wants to be stopped. But then something in him breaks. Killing is not something he does with any malice. It's just something he feels compelled to do for reasons we are never given. He does seem to look on others as just "targets{".
So Bobby's story eventually coincides with that of Byron Orlock, who agrees to do just one more public appearance at a drive-in theater before retiring. This is where Bobby also decides to go for the final stage of his killing spree, since the police are now on to him and know his identity.
When he opens fire on the moviegoers that night from behind the movie screen, they have no idea why they are being shot and are in disbelief that something like this could be going on. Today people would immediately understand the threat because this sort of thing is much more common.
Bogdanovich got the idea for the film from the real-life sniper Charles Whitman, who killed 15 people and injured dozens more at the University of Texas in the worst mass shooting up to that time.
The whole thing is a kind of comparison of what constitutes horror in the old days when Orlock was making films versus this new modern kind of menace that Bobby Thompson poses. It came about because Bogdanovich had been pestering Roger Corman to let him direct. Corman discovered that Karloff owed him two days of work because a prior film had wrapped early; he told Bogdanovich to take 40 minutes of the earlier THE TERROR, the two days of Karloff's services, and $50,000, and to make whatever he wanted. Bogdanovich and his then-wife Louise Platt wrote the script (using very little of THE TERROR) and sent it to Karloff. It took five days to shoot Karloff's scenes, but he threw in the other three days gratis.
There are some minor questions I had - Why is Thompson constantly eating Baby Ruths and drinking Pepsis? Does he possibly have hypoglycemia, which can really mess with your ability to be rational? Why is the Thompson home a sickly green inside and out? The interior walls, the curtains, even the paper towels are this color.
Monk: Mr. Monk Goes Camping (2009)
Mr. Monk does the right thing for all of the wrong reasons
Monk has yet another hearing to determine if he should be reinstated as a San Francisco policeman. Two of the three people on the board seem positive towards the idea. But a third thinks that it would just be too dangerous to give Monk a badge and a gun at this time. He wants to defer the decision for awhile.
In the meantime, Monk learns that Disher is a volunteer for "Buddies in Blue" - a group of cops that take kids camping. One of the kids in Disher's next camping trip is the son of the doubting board member, so Monk volunteers to go with Disher thinking he'll befriend the son of the doubter, who will then put in a good word to his dad.
Of course, things don't quite work out on the camping trip. For one thing the kids - all of them - see right through Monk's schmoozing. Also, there are a couple of criminals who killed a bank guard in a robbery and they are trying to retrieve some evidence of their crime that is in the exact same place where Disher, Monk, and the kids are camping. Complications ensue.
This seemed like a filler episode of Monk, probably because it IS a filler episode of Monk. Four series ending episodes are coming up, and the writers can't hit every episode out of the park. I realize that Monk is a comedy at heart, but I just didn't like the idea of Monk using someone's kid to get what he wanted.
I did like Disher's philosophy of life being revealed - that happiness is a choice.
The Scarecrow (1920)
This largely has nothing to do with a scarecrow...
... as the scarecrow gag is just one gag in a two reel short that is full of them.
Buster and Big Joe Roberts are roommates and fellow farm hands. Probably the best part of this short are all of the gadget related gags at the beginning as the two farmhands eat breakfast and prepare to meet the workday. As the pair get ready to leave the house, one bed becomes a piano, the other a couch, and a phonograph doubles as a stove. Keaton always said he would have been an engineer if he hadn't become a comic and his mechanical bent shows in this short.
Keaton seldom used captions as he tended to show you not tell you what's going on. But there's one line here that is odd for a Keaton comedy - "I don't care how she votes - I'm going to marry her." This short was made the first year that women had the Constitutional right to vote. Also Prohibition went into effect this year. Thus the line ""My stomach's as empty as a saloon." It's rare that you need to know something about history to appreciate Keaton, after all, he was not Alice Guy-Blache.
Inflation (1943)
Whenever I think of inflation I think of Edward Arnold
Edward Arnold plays the devil here, sitting in a big office, often conversing by phone with Hitler on how to destroy morale on the American home front. The Devil decides the best idea is to ignite inflation and get people grousing about high prices and then working at cross purposes to undermine the war effort.
There are examples shown - A young couple making more money than they ever had before due to steady work in munitions factories and going on spending sprees. A chorus dancer who has a run in her last pair of nylons tempted to go on the black market and buy what she needs. A businessman cashing in his war bonds to buy something he thinks his business really needs.
In each case the short shows how much their focus on the present could be hurting the war effort and causing inflation. I was rather surprised - FDR really did understand how economics worked and how inflation was fueled. In that he's a step above politicians today. He realized that there being more money in circulation due to war spending and less supply due to manufacturing have a war focus would mean inflation. He also understood that his price controls could be circumvented by a black market for goods. His only weapon against it was shaming the public into not turning to that black market, which is what is happening in this short.
It's all very amusing, with Arnold as the Devil laughing maniacally at the idea of American women in bidding wars over luxury items like fur coats and talking to Hitler on the phone like he's a tedious colleague, but it gets its economic message across at the same time. Recommended for students of film history.
Lovesick (1983)
This hasn't aged well at all
It's rather like Arthur meets Woody Allen but manages to do neither well, which is surprising since the director wrote the script for Annie Hall. You'd think you'd at least have a decent rip-off of an Allen rom-com. But you would be wrong.
Dr. Saul Benjamin (Dudley Moore) is a well ordered and conscientious married psychiatrist in New York City. A colleague confesses that he has fallen in love with a patient (Elizabeth McGovern as Chloe) and then dies of a heart attack. As a result, Benjamin ends up taking on the object of his dead colleague's affection as a patient. Subsequently, he also falls in love with her, but wonders what she feels for him. So he does what any conscientious psychiatrist would do - He steals her keys, breaks into her apartment, reads her diary, and then hides in the bathroom - in the bathtub actually - which is where she discovers him.
Rather than finding this behavior over-the-top creepy and calling the police, she finds it endearing and they start a love affair. At least Benjamin is honest with his wife about all of this, and she doesn't mind in the least because she is having an affair too. Complications ensue.
The part that ages the worst - the stalking, the breaking and entering, and the diary reading - was actually the main part of the trailer for the film, which 41 years later is unbelievable. I know this, because I remember the ads for it in the theater so I remember the scene.
Peter Sellers was supposed to have the role of Dr. Benjamin, but died of a heart attack before filming began. I can't see it playing any better had he had the role, since the age difference between Moore and McGovern is part of what makes this thing not work, and Peter Sellers was even older than Moore.
Isle of the Dead (1945)
Tense psychological thriller but not really a horror film...
... probably not even for 1945.
Gen. Nikolas Pherides (Boris Karloff) has just successfully beat back invading troops in 1912 Greece. He is conversing with American war correspondent Oliver Davis about his philosophy of war, when Davis says he is going over to the small island near the battlefield to look around. The general mentions his wife is buried there and says that he will go over with him to visit her grave. When they get there they find the grave has been robbed.
They come across the home of retired Swiss archeologist Dr. Aubrecht (Jason Robards, Sr.), his Greek housekeeper Madame Kyra, British diplomat Mr. St. Aubyn (Alan Napier) and his pale and sickly wife, her youthful Greek companion Thea, and English tinsmith Andrew Robbins. Aubrecht explains that the graves were robbed by locals years ago, searching for antiquities. The general and Davis spend the night there, but the next morning the tinsmith is found dead of the plague. This means they must all stay on the island until the winds change and the disease - always fatal -runs its course among them.
What follows is a psychological thriller that gets a bit too chatty and claustrophobic for my taste, but it has its good points. The main focus is the general, and how his desire to protect through strict control, which works well in the aggregate when he is commanding troops, turns malignant and to madness when his normally logical mind is peppered with thoughts of a vorvolaka - a type of vampire - by the superstitious and rather malicious servant Madame Kyra. Kyra insinuates Thea is the vorvolaka and that she's the reason that Mrs. St. Aubyn's health is slowly fading. The general's imagination does the rest.
Monk: Mr. Monk and the Dog (2009)
Mr. Monk learns that there is power in the dog
Two of my favorite episodes of Monk were "Mr. Monk and the Kid" and "Mr. Monk and the Dog". In the first episode, the only possible witness to where a body has been buried is a two year old toddler who finds a finger and in the other, Monk takes on a dog whose owner had died and he doesn't want to send her to a kill shelter.
What makes these episodes so great in my opinion is Monk and the glimpses we get into his potential once he gets more control over his OCD. In the Kid, we see Monk is extremely great with the toddler, patient and thinking almost nothing about himself. He and the kid attach emotionally very quickly but we see his usual selfishness suppressed to care for the kid. In the Dog, Monk gets along well with the dog (after a few horrifying scenes, like the dog lapping water from his toilet!) and eventually Monk even removes his glove to touch the dog bare skinned.
With the toddler, Monk comes to a realization that as much as he might love the kid, he can't take care of him. He's got too many issues of his own and the boy being with him is not in the kid's best interest. With the dog, he gives her up because she's had puppies and Monk can't bring himself to break up a family, even a canine one, remembering how much he wanted and never had a real family of his own. He's willing to have a broken heart if it means that someone or something he cares about has their needs satisfied.
Does that not make him a tragic Shakespearean hero?
Also, this episode is a rare one in which the killer shows true remorse. There are several episodes of Monk where the death was an accidental one, just like in this episode. But the usual and rather unbelievable turn of events is that this ordinary person who has accidentally killed someone now turns into a homicidal maniac killing without compunction all that might get in their way, and that never rang true to me. In this episode the killer comes to Monk's apartment to kill the dog whose puppies are evidence and he can't go through with it. He's genuinely penitent.
Law of the Underworld (1938)
This wasn't a great film when it was first made in 1930...
... as "The Pay-Off" starring Lowell Sherman in which his usual insouciant persona was tempered by the dark purposes of crime and murder.
Two young people - Tommy and Annabelle - are planning to marry soon. So of course they flash their wad of cash - 136 dollars - to the point that a couple of hoods rob them at gunpoint. The hoods don't even bother to hide their faces, so Tommy recognizes one of the hoods and figures out where their hideout is. Their solution? Not to call the police, but to hold up the holdup men and their entire gang without hiding their faces. The gang leader, dapper Gene Fillmore (Chester Morris), captures the young couple before they can get away with the money. He then tells them that he can either call the police and get them arrested for armed robbery or they can agree to do some favor for him in the near future. The problem is that "favor" involves being a distraction during a jewelry store robbery in which a store salesman is killed. Now the two kids are technically as guilty of murder as the robbers themselves. Complications ensue.
Precode and even early sound films were often remade once sound technology got more advanced in the mid to late 30s, but they usually took advantage of those advancements to make a more sophisticated plot with a less claustrophobic and static setting. This film does neither of these things. And the film just shrieks "low budget". This is illustrated when the young couple is mixing it up on the dance floor in Fillmore's nightspot. They are shot from slightly below the waist up so you can't see that they cannot dance. The worst thing that this retread does is make the young couple as dense as the original couple was in the 1930 version. And dense does not automatically translate into likeable.
Young couple aside, the casting of the rest of the film was well done. Chester Morris was always a good choice when casting a gray yet sophisticated character. Lee Patrick is great as the sassy vengeful gun moll as opposed to the rather bland Helene Millard in the same role in the original. Then there is Eduardo Ciannelli as the hissing malevolent Rocky who wants to depose Fillmore as gang leader. Finally Walter Abel is a big improvement as the crusading prosecutor.
I'd recommend this one only for the very cinematically curious.
Monk: Happy Birthday, Mr. Monk (2009)
Mr. Monk and Natalie have a battle of wills
Mr. Monk has an episode-long running battle with Natalie over him not wanting a birthday party. He explains to Natalie that when he was ten he had the big birthday party, and that his mother even invited "Cowboy Hank", a local TV western figure, to come and do rope tricks and entertain the kids. Then, when Cowboy Hank left, all of the other kids left too. It was never about celebrating Monk's birthday for the other kids. It was about getting a chance to see Cowboy Hank in person for free.
Natalie, who is pretty bad about minimizing Monk's feelings, downplays his trauma once again and insists that she will manage to throw him a surprise birthday party regardless of what he wants. She says it's so he can see people really do care about him, but it seems to be more that Monk is challenging her intelligence when matched up against his own to sniff out a conspiracy, and she is accepting that challenge.
As for the mystery this week? There are two murders, both with no seeming connection to one another. In one, a janitor is shredded by an industrial trash compactor. In another, an attorney at a new product demo is poisoned by a drink that several others had a sip of who are unhurt.
Also, Stottlemeyer meets a woman he becomes instantly smitten with and who will not tell him her name, saying only that her initials are TK. Considering his last girlfriend was a murderer, maybe he should tap those brakes.
Sons of the Desert (1933)
The best of the Laurel and Hardy feature length films
Olly and Stan - always playing characters that have the same name - belong to a lodge named "Sons of the Desert". At one of the lodge's regular meetings they feel pressed upon to swear an oath that they will go to the upcoming Sons of the Desert convention in Chicago. But now comes the hard part of asking their wives. When Olly's wife turns him down flat the boys decide to have Olly fake a nervous breakdown and have a "doctor" - actually a veterinarian - say that only a long sea voyage can cure Olly's nerves. Since Olly's wife doesn't like the sea, Stan agrees to accompany Olly, and the boys will instead secretly go to the convention. But then the ship they were supposed to be returning on is wrecked. Complications ensue.
The casting is just perfect. Mae Busch is wonderful as Oliver's wife - Very brash and angry when Oliver tries to assert himself. She's holding a long kitchen knife for gesturing purposes when he first brings up the subject of the convention and it's effectively and comically threatening. Dorothy Christy is also stern and assertive as Stan's wife, but she's more subtle. From the moment she makes her entrance toting a rifle, boots, and the remains of several ducks she's just bagged on her latest hunting excursion, she shows she doesn't need to throw plates to have a firm grasp on Stan. It helps that the two wives are good friends and the two couples are next door neighbors. Then there's Charlie Chase as the obnoxious conventioneer. He hangs around just long enough. If he stayed too long he'd be a competing force and that's not his purpose here.
The gags are good but don't go on too long - Stan eating wax fruit and wondering what is wrong with this produce, the veterinarian pretending to be a doctor and treating Olly like he's one of his animal patients, and the boys trying to make their bed for the night in the attic without being heard by their wives below. All brief and hilarious. I'd recommend this one if you have any fondness for Laurel and Hardy at all.