Category: Drama

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Action/Adventure Drama Mystery/Noir

Bullitt

Steve McQueen had an incredible run of hits in the 1960s, which put him in position to start his own production company. Solar Production’s original six film deal with Warner Brothers eventually fell apart and only resulted in one film, but what a film: Bullitt.

The first time through, what stays with most people about this film is the legendary car chase. If you watch carefully, you will notice how cleverly and economically the sequence was filmed. The slow-driving green VW bug that keeps appearing is the tip-off: The same incredible driving stunt was filmed from many different angles and then seamlessly edited to look like a series of death-defying maneuvers.

But the thing to watch in the film is Steve McQueen, in one of his very best roles (the completely original Junior Bonner, which Solar Productions made later, is my other favorite). He is a man detached. With loud, free and colorful 1968 San Francisco all around him he is quiet, controlled and dark. Bullitt has closed himself off emotionally to cope with the horrible things he sees as a police officer. As a result he is almost completely alone in the world,

As a Senator hoping to make his political name as a crime buster, Robert Vaughn is also excellent and almost seems to compete with McQueen over who can underplay his part more. Vaughn, along with Simon Oakland as the police captain who supervises Bullitt, embody Hollywood’s traditional portrayal of the law enforcement establishment which McQueen can react against, allowing him to create something new in cinema: a left-wing coded police officer who was hip and counter-cultural. Jacqueline Bisset, in addition to being easy on the eyes, delivers the goods in her dramatic scenes as the one person to whom Bullitt is willing to be somewhat vulnerable. And the ambience of the film is magnificently enhanced by the visuals of the the City by the Bay and the super-cool score of Lalo Schifrin.

Director Peter Yates, then little known outside Britain, got the job of the strength of his breathtaking car chase sequence in the fine 1967 caper film Robbery. But he obviously had skills well beyond that, including the ability to sprinkle high-octane action sequences into crime films that are more often meditative and character driven. A trilogy of my recommendations, namely this film, Robbery, and The Friends of Eddie Coyle, which Yates made over a fruitful 5-year period, illustrate his talent for smoothly weaving high-key moments into fundamentally low-key movies.

Bullitt works as a detective story, as an action film, and as a character study all at once. And it holds up very well under repeated viewings, so even if you’ve seen it before you can treat yourself again to a classic piece of American cinema.

Categories
Action/Adventure British Drama

In Which We Serve

Pour yourself a small gin or a nice cup a tea, stiffen your upper lip, turn off the wireless (radio, that is) and watch one of the best films ever released in a time of war: 1942’s In Which We Serve. Made almost single-handed by Noël Coward (with some directorial assistance from the legendary David Lean), this is an unabashedly patriotic tribute to the Royal Navy, told as “the story of a ship”, the HMS Torrin. The primary purpose of the film is to encourage a nation facing annihilation, and it clearly succeeds in that respect. But it’s also — even today — moving, exciting and worthy of admiration as a piece of cinema.

The story telling style is reminiscent of Coward’s magnificent Cavalcade. Rather than following a strictly linear narrative, the film instead presents a series of recollections by different characters, all of whom are literally clinging to life after their ship has been torpedoed. In flashback scenes, they recall their families, their friends, and most of all their experiences on the H.M.S. Torrin. It’s stirring stuff. The Dunkirk rescue operation and the battles near Crete are brought vividly to life, using a well-edited mix of documentary footage and scenes shot for the film.

Noël Coward’s Mountbatten-esque performance (the two remarkable men were good friends) as Captain Kinross is probably a bit too mannered to be completely accessible to most viewers. The heart of the film is much more Bernard Miles as CPO Hardy and John Mills as his nephew by marriage, ordinary seaman Blake (Following this movie, Mills became a David Lean favorite, and won a best supporting actor Oscar under Lean’s Direction almost 30 years later). They and the other perfomers playing junior officers, ordinary seaman and family members back home are more vulnerable and therefore particularly sympathetic for the audience. We admire the formidable Kinross from an emotional distance but the “average” fighting men and their loved ones on the home front have more common humanity, particularly as we witness their courage, their fears and their loves.

In Which We Serve (1942) | From The Dam Busters to Dunkirk: the 31 ...

The film does not skimp on the horrors of war, including the terror of combat and the grief at losing loved ones. If you can’t shed a tear during the scene in which Blake tells CPO Hardy the latest news from home, call a cardiologist immediately because you are missing a vital organ from your chest.

The Brits and indeed the world were up against it when this film was made, so don’t expect cynicism, unhappy families or emotional breakdown by the characters (Even Richard Attenborough, as a coward, mans up in the end). A more realistic take on the war was possible after it was all over and people had the security to look back with a more gelid eye (see for example my recommendation of 1953’s The Cruel Sea). But none of that takes away from the power of this straight-faced tonic for the people of Britain at a time of unimaginable peril. It’s a triumph for Coward and the whole cast, who received a special and much deserved Academy Award for their efforts.

In Which We Serve is in the public domain and you can watch a high-quality copy for free by clicking here.

Categories
Drama Mystery/Noir

I Walk Alone

4 Movies Starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas

Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas had remarkably parallel careers. They both made their first film in 1946, quickly became huge international stars, and maintained their cinematic dominance for decades. Both were handsome, athletic men who were also intelligent enough to play parts with nuance and depth. Both ultimately broke away from the studio system to become independent producers. And last but not least, they made seven films together, the first of which is the 1948 crime melodrama I Walk Alone.

The story commences with Frankie Madison (Lancaster) getting out of the joint after a 14 year stretch. He was arrested for bootlegging with Noll “Dink” Taylor (Douglas), but Taylor eluded the cops, never did any hard time and indeed never even bothered to visit Frankie in prison. Frankie’s old friend Dave (Wendell Corey, in a quietly effective performance), who has stayed true to him, is under Dink’s thumb as the bookkeeper of his swanky nightclub. Frankie feels entitled to half of the club, but Dink isn’t feeling generous. Dink sends his moll, a singer in the club (Lizabeth Scott) to sweet-talk Frankie; he’s lost interest in her anyway because he wants to marry a blue blood (a sultry and perfectly bitchy Kristine Miller) who will secure his place among the posh people.

The emotional power of the film comes from the conflict between Frankie and Dink. Lancaster’s Frankie is a pacing, rough cut ex-con who would like nothing better than to slug it out. Douglas’ Dink is all suaveness and reassurance, an oleaginous modern businessman who claims to have left the world of guns and fists. This contrast produces the best scene in the movie, in which Lancaster shows up with some thugs to take over the club by force, and Douglas humiliates him by explaining that because of multiple holding companies and escrow agreements, there is nothing to take over (without a vote of the board and amendment of the by laws of course). As Dink himself says, Frankie is a dinosaur, unable to cope with the realities of the modern world. But Dink still fears him enough to commit a terrible crime and frame his former pal as the culprit.

There are some flaws in this film. It was Byron Haskin’s first directorial outing, and he doesn’t seem in full control of the material. He got much better later, for example in another of my recommendations, Treasure Island. This isn’t Lizabeth Scott’s best work either. She seems one-note off in I Walk Alone, for a reason I cannot guess (Bad direction from Haskin, maybe). Charles Schnee was a great script writer (The Bad and the Beautiful, starring Kirk Douglas, being one of his gems). His script here includes some pungent dialogue but the story drags at times, particularly in the second half. But no matter what slow spots intrude on the viewer’s enjoyment, the film always roars back to life as soon as the two lions of post-war cinema are tussling on the screen again.

As a note on the actors, this was the fourth film for both men and they apparently spent little time with each other off-screen. Their friendship/rivalry was to blossom much later during the making of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. About 10 years ago, I had the good fortune to hear from Douglas’ own lips that the rivalry was largely a studio and trade press invention, when in reality they had always been good friends. But who knows or cares? Whatever their personal relationship was like off screen, they were a terrific duo onscreen.

Categories
Drama Mystery/Noir

Strange Impersonation

Let’s get one thing out of the way up front: The only plot elements in Strange Impersonation that are not utterly predictable are completely preposterous. But everything else is right in the under-appreciated Anthony Mann’s 1946 noirish tale of two formidable women locked in intellectual and romantic combat.

The film was made just after the war, and could be interpreted in light of women’s changed roles and the desire of some people to change them back. Our heroine, Nora Goodrich (Brenda Marshall, in a multi-faceted performance) is an independent, brilliant researcher. When her suitor, Dr. Steven Lindstrom (William Gargan) tries to kiss her in the lab she withholds her lips and admonishes “Please dear, science.” Her able assistant, Arline Cole (Hillary Brooke, in her best film role other perhaps than Woman in Green), is a different sort of woman. Arline can’t understand how Nora is putting her career ahead of marrying Dr. Lindstrom. During a dangerous experiment, Arline proves to be the ultimate frenemy; disfigurement, murder, plastic surgery, stolen identity, and romantic double dealing ensue.

Lindstrom’s character is actually too dull for these powerhouse women to be fighting over, so forget him and enjoy the sparks between the female leads. Hillary Brooke was a much better actress than her appearances on the Abbott and Costello show let her demonstrate, and her malicious charm is in full flower here. The film’s budget looks to have been about 50 cents, but Mann makes the most of it by setting up some intriguing camera shots and keeping the pacing brisk. Props to the UCLA Film Restoration team for their work on the now sharp-looking print of this old movie.

A great film? No. A good film that is worth 68 minutes of your time? Absolutely yes.

Categories
Action/Adventure British Drama

The Long Good Friday

British film director John “Frenzy” Mackenzie directed another of my recommendations, Unman, Wittering and Zigo, but will be best remembered for the thrilling, brutal gangster classic, The Long Good Friday.

Many American viewers struggle with the opening scenes of this 1980 film because the slang comes fast and some of the Cockney accents are thick. Also, the film’s only significant flaw is that its opening scenes are confusing as characters and plot elements are thrown at the viewer one after the other in overly rapid succession. (Indeed, even at the end, as with The Big Sleep, it is hard to tie up every loose end in your mind).

But you will forget all that the moment that Bob Hoskins arrives — or rather, explodes — onto the scene accompanied by Francis Monkman’s pulsating score. As mobster Harold Shand, Hoskins dominates his scenes, projecting power, ambition and the ever-present threat of violence. And he’s far more interesting than the typical mobster in that he fantasizes about being a captain of legitimate industry. Seeing his speech about the planned development of the Canary Wharf area as his boat moves down the Thames, his head framed perfectly by the Tower Bridge in the background, is like watching James Cagney play Margaret Thatcher.

The other thing that makes Harold interesting is that his gun moll is no dim-witted tart, even though her part was written that way in the original script. Helen Mirren is at her very best as the smarter, classier half of the criminal couple at the center of the movie. Thankfully the filmmakers realized that casting Mirren just for her looks would have been a gross under utilization of her intelligence and acting skills. She has a meaty, fascinating part and she makes the most of it.

As the film opens, Harold is trying to launch a legitimate business empire but is thwarted when his criminal empire suddenly comes under attack. But by whom? He has already killed everyone who could take him on, right? Or has he somehow created a powerful new enemy?

This is the best British gangster film since Get Carter and it’s even better the second time through once you understand the labyrinthine plot. Note for trivia fans: this was Pierce Brosnan’s first film – he had no lines and didn’t even meet the stars (He’s looking at the camera in the back seat, not Hoskins, in those knockout final scenes).

p.s. Like Monty Python’s Life of Brian, this film only made it to theaters through the support of rock legend George Harrison!

Categories
Action/Adventure British Drama Mystery/Noir

Get Carter

How appealing an actor is Sir Michael Caine? Put it this way: While watching him play Colonel Steiner in The Eagle Has Landed, a lot of otherwise sensible film goers find themselves rooting for the Nazis.

In the classic 1971 Brit gangster film Get Carter, Caine’s likability and magnetism are in full flower, as he somehow makes us care about and even identify with Jack Carter, a thoroughly nasty mob enforcer bent on revenge. In the dreamlike opening of the film, we learn that Carter works for some sleazy, Kray-esque London crime lords who discourage him from investigating the death of his brother in Newcastle. Jack wasn’t close to his brother — indeed as the film progresses we find out he treated his brother horribly — yet something in Jack can’t accept his sibling’s mysterious death.

He heads to Newcastle on his own, a very risky proposition given the rough criminals who run the city (led by John Osborne — yes THAT John Osborne, in a quirkily effective performance). But it’s no more risky than seducing and planning to run off with his boss’ girlfriend (A stunning and believable Britt Ekland), which Carter is also doing as he tries to determine how and why his brother died. Indeed, Carter seems drawn to danger: The more threats he receives to drop his investigation the more determined he becomes to pursue it to its conclusion.

Carter also has to contend with an old rival named Eric (Ian Hendry). As a Newcastle criminal with “eyes like piss holes in the snow”, Hendry well portrays a mixture of fear and loathing of Carter, which is apparently what he felt for Caine. On the set, Hendry was sometimes drunk and openly bitter about Caine’s greater success as a star, and those emotions come out to advantage in the two men’s performances.

The other star of this film is the city of Newcastle, which is dear to me both because I lived there and because I grew up near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at a time when it too was a struggling industrial city on the skids. Newcastle is bleak and tough, but also has character and spirit. The feeling Geordies have for Get Carter is remarkable. A group of them even tried to stop the city from tearing down an old car park because it appeared in one of the movie’s many memorable confrontations (photo above) between Carter and the gangsters of Newcastle.

A young Mike Hodges came out of nowhere to brilliantly direct this gritty and involving film on a breathless 45 day shooting schedule. Hodges’ background in making television documentaries on location was of great use here. He chose Newcastle as the site of the story, personally scouted and picked the shooting locations, and gives the film a completely unglamorized, realistic feel. Many directors would have overdone the violent scenes, but Hodges understood that fewer and less graphic scenes (often coupled with quick cuts) have more impact, especially with a star like Michael Caine who can go from controlled cool to pure savagery and back at the drop of a hat.

The clip I am posting is not strictly speaking a trailer. Rather, it’s the great Roy Budd playing his super-cool theme music, accompanied with scenes from the movie. If you have seen the film before, look fast for an important co-passenger on the train with Carter as he heads north.

p.s. Hodges made another excellent gangster film many years later with Clive Owen, Croupier.

Categories
Action/Adventure British Drama

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

If I were BBC Director-General, and had been granted only 24 broadcast hours to make the case to the nation and its elected officials that my organisation was capable of greatness, I would immediately fill the first 315 minutes of my schedule with 1979’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

This is what a television mini-series can do that is virtually impossible in the movie theater: Tell a long, complex, intimate story over a series of episodes that hang together, and in which the audience being forced to wait for the resolution adds to the exquisite tension of the tale. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is also the apotheosis of what BBC can do better than any other organisation when it sets its mind to it: Trawl through the British theater for stage-trained, perfectly cast actors to play parts large and small, give them a quintessentially British script, and spend a TV-level budget in just the right way to get the sets and production that are “tailor made” (sorry, couldn’t pass that up) for the story. The result is BBC television magic.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy | From I, Claudius to This Country: the ...

The plot: The aging head of the British Secret Service, dogged by a series of espionage failures and declining health, sends out a trusted agent on a mission to Czechoslovakia that will help smoke out a high-level mole who is working for the Soviets. The mission goes horribly wrong, almost as if the enemy knew of it in advance. A different group of agents ascends to control of the service, and casts out along the way faithful, long-serving head of personnel George Smiley. But the politician who oversee the service believes the mole is still active, and recruits Smiley out of retirement to covertly investigate his former colleagues. With glum professionalism, and the aid of an embittered assassin who has been demoted, he slowly draws on the loose strings that he hopes will lead him to the mole’s identity.

I am no expert on John le Carré, but his passionate fans embraced this production as assiduously faithful to the book. Indeed, the man himself said that after viewing the mini-series, he could no longer think about Smiley without visualizing Alec Guinness.

Many people say Sir Alec was “born to play” spymaster George Smiley. But people said that about many of the parts he played in his career, a tribute to his genius as an actor. I love all the small things he does in this movie: Wiping his glasses on his tie, locking his flat door behind him without looking, wincing almost imperceptibly at the mention of his wayward wife. And he never commits the dramatic error of trying to make Smiley normal or likable. As his former wife says to him in the crucial final scene, he doesn’t understand life very well at all, he is strangely emotionally detached and not someone you’d want to have over to dinner. Unlike many of the people around him, he still seems to hold his country in some regard, but even that explanation doesn’t seem to fully explain why he takes on the difficult mission which he is assigned.

I frankly think this movie is no less enjoyable if you know in advance (from the book or from prior viewings) the mole’s identity. The story is about institutional rot, collective lassitude and endemic careerism. Yes, one man is particularly guilty but in various ways, every one of the key suspects has much of which to be ashamed.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979) - Ian Richardson - He Was Shot ...

Director John Irvin was at the peak of his skills in the late 1970s, helming this series and The Dogs of War immediately afterwards. His career became uneven after those two triumphs, but he certainly delivers the goods here. Irvin had a champagne cast with which to work, not just Guinness. The actors are so uniformly fine that it seems an injustice to single out particular performers, but I will nonetheless take the risk to applaud Ian Richardson as Deputy Director Bill Haydon, who defeats Smiley in bureaucratic battles and does something even more horrid to him on the home front. How in the name of The Queen, St. Michael and St. George was this magnificent actor never knighted? Perhaps it was the suddenness of his death when he seemed in rude health…if so that’s a case for honoring people when they deserve it rather than waiting until they are “old enough”.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a million miles from the fist fights, car chases, gorgeous locations, and gadgets of the heroic James Bond-sort of secret agent picture. Instead, there’s the gritty, slimy work of espionage, the grind of a meticulous investigation and the guessing and re-guessing of who can be trusted and who is a villain, all of it brought to us on grainy 16mm film. Yet even with a running time of more than 5 hours, it never loses the viewer’s interest. Indeed, I would not be surprised if some people who own it on DVD devour it in one or two sittings.

p.s. I am given to understand that the US rebroadcast version of this mini-series is shorter than the UK original and also makes some narrative changes. Not having viewed it, I do not know how it compares to the version I review here.

p.p.s. The 2011 film, which compresses le Carré’s story down to just over 2 hours, is a worthy effort even though not at the level of the mini-series.

p.p.p.s. Thank you to comedy legend John Cleese for making this one of the most read reviews on this website.

Categories
Action/Adventure Drama

The Claim

Mark Twain said that “A ‘classic’ is a book that everyone praises and nobody reads”. I suspect that Thomas Hardy’s novels fall into this category. Admittedly, I think that because my dear mother suggested that I read “The Return of the Native”. After I finished it, I asked her why she recommended such a lousy book and she sheepishly confessed that she’d actually never got round to opening the copy she’d bought 40 years ago in a fit of high-mindedness.

But, whatever you think of Hardy’s “classic” novels, it’s hard to deny that they have resulted in some fine film adaptations. One of these is Michael Winterbottom’s 2000 Western The Claim. Loosely based on “The Mayor of Casterbridge”, the film tells the story of the Mayor of the town of Kingdom Come (a glum, effective Peter Mullan) whose considerable fortune and power derives from one awful, hidden sin early in his life. Fate comes to call in the form of the woman from his past (Nastassja Kinski) and her daughter (Sarah Polley, in an award-winning performance). Meanwhile, the Mayor must handle his tempestuous mistress (Milla Jovovich, who has sex appeal to burn) and the railroad engineer (Wes Bentley) who will decide whether the new line will run through Kingdom Come or not.

The tragic story the film tells may play out a bit more slowly than some viewers would prefer, but this gives the time and space for the strong cast to show us the multiple facets of their characters. Some people are worse than others, but no one in this movie is one-dimensional, which adds real psychic weight to the proceedings. Moreover, this is a staggeringly beautiful film at which to look, thanks to the Alberta scenery and Alwin Kuchler’s cinematography. Michael Nyman’s rich musical score also adds to the sensual pleasure.

Indeed, I liked The Claim so much that I forgave my mother for her book recommendation and let her watch my copy. She liked it too, even though I am pretty sure she never read the Mayor of Casterbridge either.

Categories
Comedy Drama

Impromptu

Artistic stars of 1830s Paris are brought vividly to life in the high-spirited and entertaining 1991 film Impromptu. Directed by Tony-winning Sondheim collaborator James Lapine, the film stars Judy Davis in a bravura performance as George Sand. She spends the film avoiding prior lovers (including Mandy Patinkin as Alfred de Musset) and chasing a new one, Frederic Chopin (Hugh Grant, in the sort of gentle and innocent performance that he could credibly give before we all came to know more about him). Liszt (Julian Sands) and Delacroix (Ralph Brown) are also on hand for the frolic, most of which takes place at a French country home presided over by a culture-starved and rather daffy Duchess (Emma Thompson, who is very funny).

If you are one of those film goers who laments the lack of strong, intelligent woman characters in most Hollywood productions, you will find Judy Davis’ performance particularly enjoyable. The screen writer, Sarah Kernochan, is justly known for creating multi-faceted female characters. She and Davis give the audience a George Sand who is complicated, passionate, endearing and also at times maddening. (Not incidentally, in the art imitates life department, Sand here is a brilliant woman absolutely intoxicated by a man’s musical ability, and Kernochan is married to Lapine).

Partly a fictionalized look at high culture and fame and partly a romantic romp, this movie includes not a dull or unappealing moment. The wonderful music and art direction add further pleasure to Impromptu, making it a complete and satisfying piece of cinema.