Pretty fall foliage pictures of New England and a really great Herrmann score may have made this film worth my time... but I'm having a hard time convincing myself of that. It did make me add yet another damn score to my wishlist, though.

Bottom line, this is a tedious film. I thought the humor in this Hitchcock "dark comedy" was nearly non-existant. Add with that zero chemistry between the John Forsythe and Shirley MacLaine characters and the film becomes even more uninteresting. Those two supposedly fall in love and want to marry each other in a few hours? Ick.

Caught a RKO short from the late 40s, Let's Go To The Movies, which was about the behind-the-scenes elements of filmmaking. It was the first of a series and one of the shorts was to be devoted to "The Music Director" (i.e., the composer) which I'd love to see some time.

While basically an Extreme Sport version of James Bond, it is also bland and dull. Take away the first 30 mins and you basically have a Bond film. There is nothing even special about the stunts as well and Vin Diesel's monotone acting is enough to warrant the mute button after the first 5 minutes. As usual Sam Jackson delivers but his performance is wasted in this film.

I could go on and on about how ridiculous the plot was and major holes, weak acting, bad use of music, etc. etc. that were presented but the less I remind myself of this film, the better off I am.

In the end when Diesel's very cool car is totaled by the truck, if you watch carefuly the car defies the laws of gravity...

How? It crashes to the ground twice!

--Brian

one thing recently caught on TV:

Decasia, a heavy-handed 2002 documentary about nothing really. It's a display of mostly decaying stock footage set to a f***ing awful music score by someone named Michael Gordon. I'm all for atonality, but this thing was bloody atrocious.
If you see it on Sundance in the next few weeks, steer clear, or just turn the volume down.

Joy Ride

Candy Cane! Candy Cane!

One would think this a typical atudid teen slasher horror film, but it's REALLY well done with a halfway plausible plot. Also highly recommended.

Also caught the Pre-Code EMPLOYEES' ENTRANCE with Warren William and a hot hot hot 20 yr old Loretta Young. Pre-Code films are so great. We can do anything we want to on screen today but can't seem to capture the spirit of this fast-talking Urban cynicism. William is a stop-at-nothing one man capitalist system dynamo. He makes Ayn Rand characters look like ants. And ruthless as he fires people left and right and takes huge financial risks in the middle of the Depression. He's always right but surrounded by pompous mediocrity. At one point a guy who loses his job jumps to his death. When William hears about it, he only hopes he'll have the guts to jump when he's washed up himself. Then, there's all the sexual innuendo and pre and extra marital sex. At one point William just says, "Love, that's Hooey." This would be unthinkable in a main character today unless it were Jack Nicholson. And then there's an absolutely great moment where William dares the guy whose wife he slept with to shoot him telling him he hasn't got what it takes. The guy fires and hits him in the arm and William chews him out for being a bad shot! And the whole thing zips by in 70 minutes. Compared to today's bloated running times with no where near as much fun, sex, and thrills to be found, I'll take EE over most of the movies people rave about.

First, is this what Hollywood thinks people in New England sound like? Oh my, nobody could get the accent right. I couldn't tell if they were supposed to be Maine accents, Bostonians, or mentally disabled people. I guess we're all retards up here, but please, humor us a little. Diane Lane is a hottie, but when you force her to sound so... stupid... with that 'accent,' it's just so sad!

All of the computer graphics (CG) were a total joke. The CG just looked too fake, as it often does in this "lets do it with CG or not do it at all" way of thinking.

Then there were the two ships that had no reason for being in the picture. One was captained by Mary E. Mastrantonio, which seems to only be in the picture so that the character can give a eulogy at the end of the film. Then there is the "Shawshank Prison Warden's" (Bob Gunton) ship. That one seems to be there so that we could have more CG helicopter action and introduce the "low fuel/abandoned Air Force people we must rescue" scenario which must slurp up at least twenty minutes of the film.

There is more I could complain about regarding this film, but let me close by blasting the score. Why was there such wall-to-wall loud music? I swear the music never stopped in this film. If the score wasn't playing then we had some source music in its place. Typical Horner music here, with an annoying little trumpet ditty and that crashing piano thing he's used way too much.

The Perfect Storm was a perfect disjoint mess. It felt like an extended advertisement for John Deere and Caterpillar.

Today was Melville's first film, LE SILENCE DE LA MER [The Silence of the Sea], which is available on VHS. It's a very non-filmic idea: just a guy spouting monologues to people who don't answer without any other kind of action, but it really works as a film nonetheless.

An old French guy and his younger niece live in a big house in the country. It's WW2 and the Nazis are occupying the town and they forceably billet their commander in this house. But the guy is cultured and loves France and speaks French. Nonetheless, the old man and the girl refuse to utter a single word to him. So he just talks to them about his dreams and aspirations for a united Germany-France not expecting them to ever reply. Still, they get emotionally caught up with the guy even if they never speak to him. Finally, on a trip to Paris, the Nazi realizes that his colleagues have been running concentration camps and plan to supress French culture and the French national soul. This destroys him. He applies for combat to leave France and to die. On his way out the niece and old man say goodbye.

Shot very low budget, it looks like nothing, but in terms of its script and direction, it's totally engrossing. There are a few shots which look arty, but this was Melville's first film and he's allowed those I suppose. Especially in a film shot mostly in a couple of rooms.

QUAND TU LIRAS CETTE LETTRE (1953) is an odd film for Melville since it's really a woman's picture, or should I say 3 women's picture. A womanizer gets involved with a rich divorcee, an underage girl and a former nun. He inadvertantly gets the divorcee into a car wreck (she doesn't die), he rapes the minor, and falls in love with the nun who can't forgive him the other two incidents. Just when he seems to have won her over, he gets hit by a train and she goes back to being a nun. Ugh. All the possible romanticism defeated by the moralism of the day. The score was full of pointing too, sometimes to non-intended hilarious effect. And yet, despite the over-baked nature of the story, the look and direction were still good. Melville had made the film because he felt his first two films were too arty and intellectual and he wanted to show the public he could do a straight drama. He was disappointed with the final results, but the film has its merits, including a brief Melvillian scene with the police. They interrogate the womanizer about the car crash and after he leaves, one cop says to the other: "So, is he guilty?" And the other replies: "No, unfortunately."

The second Melville was L'AINE DES FERCHAUX (1963) from a novel by George Simenon and with a good score by Georges Delerue. An 8 minute suite from this score was released but it includes the odd cues relating to the US countryside rather than other prettier cues and the good action cues. Jean-Paul Belmondo is a boxer but he's no good at it and decides to go for another job. He gets a job as driver and secretary for Ferchaux, played by Charles Vanel, an old banker whose embezlements have caught up to him. Ferchaux hires Belmondo to come to NYC with him to get cash before Ferchaux can be arrested. Belmondo drives with the old guy but secretly hopes to kill him and take the money. At one point they pick up a woman hitchhiker who becomes Belmondo's girlfriend but who later steals the money. The two men chase her down and get it back (no one can be trusted in this film it seems). Finally, they arrive in New Orleans, where the old guy gets ill. Belmondo thinks he's faking it to play on his sympathies and leaves the old guys and makes friends at the local bar. Belmondo returns to the old guy to steal the money and leave. The men from the bar go to kill the old guy thinking he still has the money. Oddly, Belmondo has a change of heart and returns with the money just as his "friends" from the bar are robbing the place. Ferchaux is stabbed and dies. Just as he's dying he starts to tell Belmondo where the key to more cash in Caracas is but he dies before he can get out the info. The end (or because the film is French: FIN). And the point of the whole climax is that if the two guys had gotten along better maybe Belmondo would come out more ahead. The two men's basic solitude and bad attitudes cost them both friendship and riches. C'est la vie selon Melville. I liked this film more than QTLCL. In color and widescreen it's more accomplished and it has some really great shots of US cities and countryside and then it has this odd relationship between the old crook and the young punk at its center.

Neither film was prime Melville which might explain their unavailability in the US. Still, because of their status, they are the least known and commented on of Melville's works and for that reason alone the rare screening was worth all the effort it took to mount.

Well, I caught another one. THE UNFAITHFUL (1947) directed by Vincent Sherman with Ann Sheridan, Lew Ayres, Zachery Scott, and Eve Arden. The score was by Steiner (not bad, worked with the film but wouldn't be that great to listen to on its own) and the script by David Goodis. I've written about Goodis in the Junkyard Forum. He's one the best noir authors there is but this film seems to be missing something. Perhaps the problem is that it's a partial remake of THE LETTER rather than something original. Goodis tried to write originals for Warners but they didn't take them, preferring him to adapt his best-selling novel in one case and working on already tried-out material in this case. The film suffers from a lot of moralizing talk that the basic situation kind of required to offset the sensationalism of the theme. And lastly, as much as I can love Ann Sheridan, she just didn't seem right for this role, which she also seems to woodenly walk through. The story is simple. Wife kills a guy in self-defense but neglects to tell her husband and the police that she was sleeping around with the guy a couple years before when the hubby was overseas in WW2. She tries to cover it all up but winds up on trial for murder as a result. If she'd been more honest she could have avoided that but she didn't want to hurt the hubby with the news. In THE LETTER, Bette Davis is still in love with the guy she kills and gets offed by that guy's wife, but here, Sheridan sees the whole affair as a mistake and is much more sympathetic. In fact the whole film seems to aim at protecting the American Home and for ex-GIs to realize the loneliness of their women while they were gone and to forgive them any transgressions. It's the lawyer who helps out played by Lew Ayers and the society gossip played by Eve Arden (kind of reprising her role from MILDRED PIERCE) that steal the film from the main couple and that's a bad sign too. In a way, I can see that Warners was trying to make a MILDRED PIERCE for Sheridan with this picture but it doesn't come off as any of the things PIERCE was: an actor's showcase, a woman's melodrama, or a film noir. Sherman's direction is pedestrian in comparison to the fun Curtiz had with Pierce. I suppose all we can be thankful for is that his restraint kept this from becoming another DECEPTION where the same basic idea of Bette Davis having been someone's mistress while her husband was in a camp during the war led to the most ridiculous histrionics of her 40s career. Both films make women appear in a bad light since they are willing to pay any money or kill anybody to keep from being found out, losing their guy, or being talked about.

quote:

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
Gee, am I the only guy watching movies at this board?

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Maybe we're not as eloquent as you. I know I'm not.

I watched Chicken Run yesterday. Better than going outside in the cold, wind, and snow.

Well another Sunday, another Melville.

This time LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES (1950) with the wonderful Nicole Stephane leading a much lesser cast. For 2/3 of the film there really isn't any story, just the brother and sister bickering at each other. But they are so commanding, so legendary, so regal, so in-timid-ating, that the can push around the people who worship them to extraordinary levels. This is Fassbinder years before, a world divided into only superiors and subordinates. The brother and sister live in a hermetically sealed fantasy world of their own which is why people are attracted to their space. But real life is bound to intrude as they grow older. And finally, the sister goes over the edge in trying to preserve things as they are. Oddly, in the last third when there is some actual story rather than vignettes and things start to happen, that's when it seems to lose the wind because all the comic bits have stopped to make room for the machinations of the climax. Still, when you have characters as great as the brother and sister and the heroic rebel Dargelos who tells off the school principal and throws pepper in his face, it's hard to fault the film for its weaknesses. There are a few brutal moments like the business with the pepper, the moment when the brother and sister arrange for a little girl to be slapped by her mom, and a moment where the sister slaps her friend and goes on as if it's nothing while the guy just rubs his cheek. The film has a tough climax, but this still isn't LAST SUMMER. Or perhaps it's just LAST SUMMER 1950 with the final violence being self-inflicted rather than directed out towards others. And, as in LAST SUMMER, the earlier hi-jinks divert you so the final apocalypse at the conclusion comes as a complete surprise. Like LE SILENCE DE LA MER, this is a film that takes place in a room, but the room is partly a fantasy space which is why it can be re-created in different locations as the film progresses. I understand Melville's desire to back away from the tremendous advances he was doing in these first two films and try a more conventional subject like QUAND TU LIRAS CETTE LETTRE but it was wrong and even Melville realized that later. When you can take a simple room and turn it into everything and in a film and not just on stage then you have a talent you shouldn't deviate from. When you position QUAND after ENFANTS it's like, "what happened to the guy it can't be the same director," as most of his touches are gone. But only for that one film. Next Sunday Melville is back on track in BOB LE FLAMBEUR......

I also saw The Unfaithful on TMC. Agree that Ann Sheridan really did deliver a rather
wooden performance. (Steiner’s main theme was great.) Compare that movie with the
current Unfaithful and what a difference in terms of graphic sexuality. Still, as said in a
previous review, Unfaithful sported a dynamite performance by Diane Lane and certainly
gave us an update of the old theme, “The wages of sin are death.”

Catch Me If You Can. I thought this film would be funny, entertaining and whimsical.
Instead, I found it rather dull and very trite. It wasted the talents of Hanks. Di Caprio
was pretty good, and Christopher Walken as Di Caprio’s father, was wonderful. I’ve
always admired Walken and wish he had been given bigger and better parts in movies.

Two Weeks Notice: Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock. Grant always plays a great cad.
Bullock is our updated version of Doris Day in comedies. These two just repeated
previous roles, but their charm manages to entertain in spite of a plot full of clichés.

As for The Unfaithful, I thought that Steiner motif that repeats worked well in the Main Title (and right after the credits it picks up the pace a bit which was also neat) and in the scene where the husband goes to meet the blackmailer in the park, but I didn't know if I would like it to listen to away from the film.

Since the whole film rests on the performance of the main actress, to have her seem like such a cipher doesn't do the film one bit of good. It was also a big mistake to make her a society lady in various gowns by Travilla because they seem to straight-jacket her where you need a livelier woman to play this role and looser clothes might have helped get the impression across that this was a lady who could be lonely, sleep around, feel regret, etc. etc. All wrapped up in fur coats and hats with veils and floor-length dresses just killed things. I mean when Eve Arden comes off sexier than the main girl you know things are off-kilter.

Perhaps they were trying to get across the idea that this was a mannered woman who was ultimately to be admired, but it cost the film. Somehow you can't reach her and so you have no sympathy for her one way or the other. Which is interesting since she does appear on trial (both in the film and to the audience). Maybe the point was to make her cold in a way so that you'd have to judge her actions rather than her person. Still, I can't imagine a Hollywood film that is trying not to involve you in order to make some other point. Only a few directors have the intelligence to pull it off anyway and it would be seriously frowned on by the studio. In this case, we just have to assume that it was a mistake, that the film fails to involve us emotionally.

Plus, this is not a film that is really going against the grain. It only seems to go against the grain in that it's a film aiming at forgiveness of adultery but the adultery causes so much pain that it is ultimately being frowned on. The only reason why the film takes its stance has to do with the preservation of American values not anything involving these individual people.

The opening shot is of the house. The camera pans away to the street where a narrator says that the problem depicted is "part of our times" and then the camera pans back to the house. That in a nutshell is the whole film. As long as you preserve the home and don't go outside its boundaries, the horrors of the outside world can't get to you. Once you leave the home, trouble begins. It's not by accident that the husband is building homes, that's the whole point of the film. Post-war family values and production can only get on by overcoming people's weaker tendencies. There are two ways to get past your weaknesses and becoming a civic: one is to bury the past, the other is to come clean and move beyond it, which is the position the film takes. But the ultimate goal of the film is the preservation of the couple, the house, the society, and the system. Which is why this isn't a film noir. The Noir was critical--so this is what the world is like, so this is what people are, so this is the system we fought to preserve, and it's all a crock. But this film is saying something entirely different--get past human frailty, the tendency to lie, to cover up, to extort, to gossip, and you can have the happiness of a home and the good life. That David Goodis of all people has his name on this thing is beyond me since his fiction is usually about how unreachable such things are.

There are some cracks in the glass: one great motif is the fact that the home was invaded--they just keep coming back to that spot on the floor where the guy winds up dead. She might be forgiven, you might take her back, she may get off on trial, and Eve Arden may defend her to the husband, but...there's always that spot on the floor. Your wife has killed her ex-lover, can you ever really trust her or anyone again? But while this could be the stamp of noir, it's diluted in the film into simple moralizing: she was wrong to screw around and if she'd only been stronger about her appetites that the Shakespeare quote refers to, no one would be in this mess. [In terms of noir, Shakespeare comes off with a darker point of view than any of them.] And the film probably had to take this position because they couldn't just come out and say adulterty is fine, as they might have if this were pre-code Lubitsch of 1932.

Just the same, the film has this strain of "adultery is ok" if the woman confesses and preserves the house and if the husband can be forgiving. The husband gets criticized too in this for being a moralist, for marrying the girl before taking off to war and forcing her to be tied down. So, the blame gets spread equally around, which seems fair.

It's an interesting balancing act where the film upholds certain basic ideas while bending them but not breaking them. The film has two screenwriters which might account for this: the studio hack reining Goodis in.

When Ann Sheridan firsts enters the house to get the phone call from her husband in the opening of the film, there is a shot of the living room taken from the back wall with a lamp fixure hanging down into the frame in the very center. This same set up repeats far into the film after the husband discovers the truth and confronts her. It suggests that there is hope of things returning to the normalcy of the opening before the drama was set into motion.

Her initial instincts were right though in a way--once the husband learns the truth he has a hard time coming around to where he can take the wife back in again. He pretty much has to be talked into it by a lawyer and his cousin. So you can see where she would want to cover up. Interestingly, when he finds out, he wants to cover it up by buying the statue even when she feels it's time to go to the police. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the wind has been knocked from his sails, why build homes for people who aren't families, who betray each other. Second, he doesn't want the betrayal made public. Third, he may want to protect her. Fourth, he may unconcsiously want her to be caught by the cops (and note during the trial he doesn't help things by looking so mournful until a point when he starts to realize that she might actually care for him a little). In any case, the truth or a proper solution to the criminal aspect isn't anything these people really care about that much, which is why they keep getting into deeper and deeper trouble. In a way they are only a notch above the other couples in the film like the cousin and her divorced husband or the sculptor's wife and the art dealer who untimately see hurting the wife as a more worthwhile payment than the $10,000 they were going to get originally. They are lucky to have their lives and the house by the film's end and it only happens because the truth comes out.

But as I said, this is a bury the hatchet film. In The Letter, the wife is still in love with her victim so morality dictates she goes down. But here, because the wife is willing to preserve the house, she gets to. And the last shot of the film is the house just as it was at the beginning, except that the angle is reversed and it's now night instead of day. Despite the changes, the house will protect you into the night. This night a guy won't break in to a husband-less house as happened before.

So, even though it's a story of transgression, the whole thing couldn't be more conservative despite the fact that the woman doesn't seem to be too punished for her "sins of the flesh." The only reason why she isn't punished is that society requires her. The film says this: Ok, you screwed around when you shouldn't have and you lied about it which compounds the wrong, but we need you women to be in the home as R&R for the male workforce and for the creation of future workers so we're not sending you to the chair but back into the home for a modicum of happiness which you will stick to because you can see what can happen to you if you don't behave. That may look like forgiveness, but we're only overlooking your transgressions so we can get on with business.

I guess that's about as far as they'd come in 1947 from stoning.

One way this film avoided real controversy is to have the Sheridan character childless at
this point. A different twist may have occurred had she been a mother. Also, I’m trying
to remember some films in that era where hubby was the adulterer. Can’t think of any yet.
I think, however, he’d be forgiven a wee bit faster as “boys will be boys” was more
accepted then.

Today the screen is nothing but sex (thank you god), but I wonder if that isn't another falsification. Does the average girl like and pursue sex like her cinematic cousin, or is she still all about home and money? Obviously, one guy can do better than another, but from my experience and that of my friends, the US is a sexual wet blanket overall and that the only thing a girl finds sexy is having a camera turned on her.

As for The Unfaithful, compared to the sophisticated views of a Coward or Lubitsch, this is just ponderous. I've been re-thinking something I said earlier. It is possible that the film doesn't want you to identify or sympathize with the wife, that she remains cold, visually and otherwise, so that you look at her in judgment rather than "be" her. It could be deliberate. But that puts the burden on the story to carry the thing. You can get involved in a news story or a moral question but it's not quite the same thing as getting caught up with people you care about. The film might have been trying to be a morality tale meant to address a "problem of our times," but that problem has always been with us, always will, and maybe the only problem is that people expect it to be otherwise or insist on it. I support Polyamory (epecially if it's two girls in bed with me!) and hedonistic pleasure in general and I'm against marriage, home, and (god forbid) rugrats, so you can imagine how I felt about this thing.

Darn my luck. I only caught the last hour of the movie. I think it will play again in a few
weeks on TCM. I could tell that I had missed all the childhood and young teen episodes
that contributed to the adult characters. Cinematography(JWHowe!) and sets were fascinating.
Certainly, living above or below the railroad tracks was an obvious impetus for actions
and behaviors, and the settings reinforced one’s social status. Good grief, this really was a
melodrama or a complete soap opera. Yet, I was really drawn to this movie even though
its portrayals of psycho therapy and mental illness are totally archaic by today’s standards.
Sheridan was just fine although her character was just too good to be true. I thought
Ronald Reagan did a great job of acting; I usually find him trite, but he was good in this.

Mainly I want to see the whole movie before making any real judgment. I was VERY
impressed with the music. Some of the themes were bone-melting lovely, but I didn’t
really hear enough of the main title to judge its similarity to Star Wars. I’ve got to see this
movie in its entirety and maybe look for the score.

(Hey, Lou, your views on sex are very interesting but I love home, marriage and rugrats, so I'm NEVER introducing you to my lovely adult twin daughters even if you do love film music. )

[Message edited by joan hue on 01-24-2003]

Both fun, although meaningless is the sense of being "serious" films. I remember a friend of mine having to point out most of the "inside jokes" in Volcano. BB was just pure comedic fun (although I really don't like Tea Leoni), and I hope the sequel will be just as good (fun-wise, not the other way).

And Joan -- mommy - you could always introduce me to your daughters. I'm what the original unedited version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy said about Earth: Harmless.

quote:

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
I'm running a series of Jean-Pierre Melville films on Sunday afternoons to a group of people so there'll be a number of postings about Melville films for the next few months.

Today was Melville's first film, LE SILENCE DE LA MER [The Silence of the Sea], which is available on VHS. It's a very non-filmic idea: just a guy spouting monologues to people who don't answer without any other kind of action, but it really works as a film nonetheless.

An old French guy and his younger niece live in a big house in the country. It's WW2 and the Nazis are occupying the town and they forceably billet their commander in this house. But the guy is cultured and loves France and speaks French. Nonetheless, the old man and the girl refuse to utter a single word to him. So he just talks to them about his dreams and aspirations for a united Germany-France not expecting them to ever reply. Still, they get emotionally caught up with the guy even if they never speak to him. Finally, on a trip to Paris, the Nazi realizes that his colleagues have been running concentration camps and plan to supress French culture and the French national soul. This destroys him. He applies for combat to leave France and to die. On his way out the niece and old man say goodbye.

Shot very low budget, it looks like nothing, but in terms of its script and direction, it's totally engrossing. There are a few shots which look arty, but this was Melville's first film and he's allowed those I suppose. Especially in a film shot mostly in a couple of rooms.

The score by Edgar Bishoff was good and interesting. It's a huge score but mixed in at a very low level. On a re-record it would sound like Bruckner or Strauss and it seems totally wrong for a film set mainly in a living room but the low mix allows it to comment on everything without overwhelming the low key setting.

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quote:

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Originally posted by joan hue:
"Harmless," Yeah, Kevin, that's the best adjective to give to moms and dads!!

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Yeah, but beware of revisions.

Gosh, I've seen tons of movies this month...I'll have to think of them. Lets see: Birdman of Alcatraz, The Graduate (in lbx), From Here to Eternity, The Asphalt Jungle, Maltese Falcon, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (in lbx), and several others. All for the first time (I'm 16). I loved them all, just excellent.

I also saw Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, I laughed many times (having seen many, many film noirs these past few months, I got every joke there was to get), though it wasn't perfect. The best part of the film, for me, was Miklos Rozsa's score. I love Spellbound very, very much, and I got some of the same vibes while listening to his stunning romantic theme here. I need to get the promo cd of this score sometime soon, I can't wait to enjoy it apart from the film.

Last night, I watched Martin Scorsese's documentary "My Voyage to Italy: Part One," a marvelous and critical account of Italian cinema. I've loved Fellini since I discovered his work last summer, and I've seen a couple other Italian films, but this was a real door opener into this area of film, and I'm so immensely glad I was able to catch it. Marty talked about how when he was a child, many nights during the week, the Scorsese family and people from around the neighborhood would cramp in the living room and watch TV. This was in New York, in an area populated by a grand amount of Italians, so they would show Italian films at night with English subtitles. He talked passionately about these films, and I was touched. It went over the neo-realist movement, focusing on the directors Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini. I must check out many, many of the films shown here: "Paisan," "Germany: Year Zero," "Shoeshine," "Stromboli," "Europa 51," etc. I could've cried while watching some of these clips, I can't wait to watch these films. A film I have been wanting to see for a long time, "The Bicycle Theif," was also covered (and it was shown afterwards on the channel, Turner Movie Classics, but it was so late that I couldn't make it past the first 10 minutes....LOVED what I saw though). Part 2 of "My Voyage to Italy" will be on next Friday and I can't wait. Federico Fellini will be a main focus, since all that was mentioned of him was his involvement in the Rossellini films, and I'm assuming it's going to cover from the early 50's to today in Italian cinema. Anyway, yes, I loved it, and I loved being introduced to so much that I'll love. Did anybody else catch this documentary?

Well, I better get going. Take care.

I watched part of Scorsese's doc on Italian film (This isn't the first time TCM has shown it). A good companion to his series on American film. A friend of mine said that he liked Scorsese talking about Antonioni better than he liked Antonioni himself. And I've often commented that Scorsese is a better film prof than he is a director and that he should spend the rest of his days making documentaries and commentaries for DVDs than make another gangster movie.

Joan--Did you say lovely TWINS?!! No, I don't think you'd better introduce me to them as I definately have plans you wouldn't approve of.

Actually, I'm not against home and hearth, love and children. But lust and sexuality are still major concerns for me. I wish I had an off switch for it as my stance often leads to more disappointment and frustration than pleasure. I thought as I got older, I'd get tired of it all and the sight of a twentysomething would have no effect on me. But alas, my neck is still a swivel on a spring day down on campus.

And although Ann Sheridan is too good to be true in King's Row, if she'd played that girl as the adulteress in The Unfaithful, that film might have worked better. KR is a big soap opera and it's hard to believe that Reagan would take things so calmly. If I'd learned that I lost my legs when I didn't have to because the doctor was a sadist, I'd be spending the rest of my life in jail for that guy's murder. On the other hand, it must be nice to be so accepting and acquiescent. I wish I had that state of calm down.

Raven--Yes I plan to show Le Samourai in March. But all the Melville films have something of merit, even the two weaker ones I mentioned in an earlier post. It'll be interesting to see how Rialto does with their re-releases of Le Cercle Rouge and L'Armee Des Ombres as the films make it around the country and out onto DVD.

Ha! Thanks for the response Lou. I've always had a love for black and white since I was very young, (when I was about 8 my favorite films were old sci-fi and monster films...around that time, I also discovered stop-motion animation, which has become a passion), but it wasn't until I saw Conrad Hall's Outer Limits work one year ago (especially The Forms of Things Unknown) that I became an absolute fiend for black and white. I prefer it to color. Since then, I've discovered Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Truffaut, Welles (and I love all of Welles' work, not just Kane and Ambersons, but since I mentioned those, I love and cheerish both immensely, and they are both on my top ten favorites), film noirs, Hitchcock (should've seen me after watching Vertigo, I really did think it was a beautiful film when it ended), an extended love for silent films (especially what I've seen of Murnau, I have to see Sunrise soon), I've fallen in endless love with Herrmann and Rota, etc (gosh, I know I left out many of my fine discoveries, but that's good).

Yes, you are correct in assuming that I am at odds with other kids at my school. But that's nothing new, that's just what you have to deal with if your into creative things that appeal to very few people. Though I suppose if your passions include Bernard Herrmann, black and white, and stop-motion it's a little more difficult.

"watched part of Scorsese's doc on Italian film (This isn't the first time TCM has shown it). A good companion to his series on American film. A friend of mine said that he liked Scorsese talking about Antonioni better than he liked Antonioni himself. And I've often commented that Scorsese is a better film prof than he is a director and that he should spend the rest of his days making documentaries and commentaries for DVDs than make another gangster movie."

I also very much like Scorsese as a film connoisseur and historian. I can't say I agree, but I can hear what you're saying: many people have said that he should just concentrate on restoring old films, etc. I certainly do love My Voyage to Italy...I want to see the "Personal Journey through American Cinema," which I know was showing on TCM, but since it's only in the living room, it's not always accessable.

I forgot to mention that I also saw "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the first time this month. I couldn't stop crying when it ended, and that doesn't happen to me very often at all (in the last year or so, it's only happened one other time with "Obsession," as it's my all time favorite score, and seeing a film accompanied by this score, with such gorgeous 2.35:1 photography, was a lot to take in- just a beautiful film as well, I loved it very much...I guess I very well could've cried after "In Cold Blood," but I didn't). Bernstein's score for Mockingbird was incredible and beautiful, I've become a big fan of Elmer's since (I've actually known who he was for most of my life, but I am a new fan of his, and I'm new to most of his best music).

Best Regards,
Dylan

NP: just now putting on, "Purple Noon- suite"- Nino Rota....ah, beautiful.

Your profile says you live in Washington. Is that Washington as in near Seattle or Washington as in DC? Because I'm sure there are college campus screenings of things in those areas. Do you have any funds? I mean at 16 do you have a job so you can buy VHS and DVD or do you just see what's on TV and fight with your parents over your allowance? The reason is that I could put together a pretty good list of things that are available that are "must see" kinds of films. But then you'd have to work on your end to find them.

I really entered this film blind, besides the fact that I knew it starred Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant and had been directed by "the guy that did Singin' in the Rain." It's a great looking film with all of the French locations, and the amusing screenplay did allow Cary Grant to do some of that humor that he did quite well. Walter Matthau was well cast in his role as a quirky fellow from the CIA. "Is that an airline?"

Hepburn plays Mrs. Lampert, a recent widow whose late husband stole $250k and she doesn't know where the money went. A bunch of bad guys are chasing her around for that money, and it's up to Grant's character to protect her. There is a cute little romance thrown in there as well, but I'm getting a bit tired of seeing these young beauties fall for a 60 year old man in two days with no explanation.

The Criterion DVD is out of print, but I highly recommend it if you can find a copy resting in your local store. I found a new copy locally for less than some used copies are going for online. I've read that all other DVD releases of this film look and sound worse than VHS releases, so watch out. Outside of the first shot of the film, which is grainy as hell, the non-anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer looks great. This is a very clean print with only a few white specks here and there and a 'normal' amount of grain.

The sound is 1.0 mono and the dialog comes across fine. Mancini's score is good but sounds pinched. Most noticeably the percussion parts are begging for a better quality recording, but I guess this is all we've got.

The commentary recorded in 1999 for the Criterion DVD is a riot. Director Stanley Donen and writer Peter Stone get along fine, though Stanley is worried not to give away the ending of the film as if those listening to the commentary were watching the film for the first time. The most hilarious part is when they brought up the story of how they kept the violence and dead bodies in the film, but I'll leave that for them to tell. They also go on about how two instances of "assassinated" were changed to "eliminated" because of the JFK assassination. The writer thought that the assassination word would probably be re-instated for this DVD release, but Donen said they shouldn't be messing with what he released into theaters in 1963. In the end, this release does have the A word, but after listening to the commentary I don't know if Donen was pleased with this decision or not.

It was an enjoyable film... Nice humor (though not gut-busting) and fine suspense.

Oh and other thing, Stanley Donen acts in the commentary as if he didn't know that North by Northwest came out years before Charade. Please Mr. Donen, you're not fooling anybody.

The movie was okay, but too formulaic in certain aspects, but the cinematography of the surfing footage was really good. It won't be up there with Endless Summer in my book though.

And the music? I don't know who did the score, but I'm gonna rant somewhere (either in this forum or the other one), about the crap songs.

Thank you for your words.

"It's a shame you're doing a lot of this on television though instead of on a bigger screen somewhere but I realize that's not as possible to do unless you live in NY or LA or Chicago where revival theaters still thrive."

That's true, that's why it was so amazing to see some Conrad Hall work on the big screen. I do live in Washington, as in Seattle, though I live out in the Spokane area, where this sort of film thing is non-existant (also seems to be the place where hardcore film fans my age are non-existant). There used to be some theaters here in the 70's through the 90's that would show foreign films, animation, etc. but these places went out of business way before I got into all of this. Someday I hope to live somewhere where interest in film is more immense.

"Do you have any funds? I mean at 16 do you have a job so you can buy VHS and DVD or do you just see what's on TV and fight with your parents over your allowance?"

Ha! Well, I don't have a job (will in the summer...with school and 'life', things have been too hectic to have one, but that will change soon)...my parents have greatly and generously supported and encourage my interest (of course, I have to help out a lot). I rent a ton of movies every month, and try to buy maybe one every month.

"The reason is that I could put together a pretty good list of things that are available that are "must see" kinds of films."

Oh, please provide me with that list, I'd be greatly interested in what you have to recommend. I haven't seen Truffaut's "Two English Girls," which you mentioned above, but it certainly sounded excellent when I read about it. I've greatly enjoyed the Truffaut I have seen (Jules and Jim, Shoot the Piano Player, The Green Room, Confidentially Yours), and absolutely adored "The 400 Blows," which is one of my favorite films now. Foreign films and old movies are wonderful things to be into.

Mein Schulfreund (1960) directed by Robert Siodmak. I'm not sure why Siodmak left Hollywood after making The Crimson Pirate, but he returned to Europe where he made films into the late 60s. He was just one of a number of German filmmakers who came to the US to escape the Nazis who later returned to Germany after the war. Peter Lorre returned briefly to direct a film in Germany. Fritz Lang left Hollywood for Germany to make his last films. And, at the height of his Hollywood career, Douglas Sirk, who could have written his own ticket after directing the highest-grossing film in Universal Pictures' history (the 1959 Imitation of Life), just walked away from it all to return to Germany and direct theater. In any case, Siodmak's film is just wonderful.

Heinz Ruhmann plays a postman who writes his old school friend Herman Goring during the war asking him to sue for peace as there has been too much killing. This letter is intercepted, considered treason, and the result is that the postman is going to be executed. Goring hears of the case and asks there be something done about it. Well, if the postman is certified as crazy, he can't be executed. He is, the war ends, but after the war, none of the people who know he is actually sane are willing to come forward to testify to that for one reason or another which means the postman can't get his job back or leave the country to the US with his daughter.

This is an amazing condemnation of red tape, one of the best in film history. Life under the Nazis, but also in postwar Germany, can only exist through loopholes or fabrications. I kept wanting to say to all the characters, well, at least you're alive, but that's little satisfaction when you can't work or have to break up your family.

Finally, when every legal course is exhausted and every witness is either dead or refuses to get involved, the sane postman has to go a little crazy in order to get around the system. He breaks up a post office, is arrested, confronts the court saying he's insane according to documents, is ordered to be re-evaluated, is officially determined to be sane, but is now a criminal for breaking up the post office!! Kafka couldn't have written this better.

The lengths the guy has to go through still lead him to a somewhat no-win situation, even if his being determined sane means he gets back pay from his job going back some 14 years. Those 14 years can't be returned to him. [The story begins in 1944 and ends in 1958--14 years, which just over the length Germany was under National Socialism, 1933 to 1945.] And even if Germany experiences its "economic miracle" in that time, symbolized by the back pay and the lawyer's re-modeled offices, the way of governing society hasn't really changed and one still has to scam and fabricate in order to get around the authorities.

To Germany this is a warning that it hasn't regained its own sanity as it would like to think. And also, if the "insanity" of the war years is indeed over, the charge of criminality will take longer to dissolve.

And, of course, another Sunday means another Jean-Pierre Melville film, this time Bob Le Flambeur. As a lover of film music, it's tough to say this, but the score, which was a neat combination of jazz and straight scoring, was just way too much for this film. That may have been the point, but it calls attention to itself throughout. It would be great to listen to on its own, but I felt it hurt the film itself.

As if anything could hurt such a wonderful movie. It's just so great to hang out with old Bob as he goes from one gambling den to another, keeping his young thug friend in line, while being equally concerned for the hot hot Isabelle Corey. Just as Les Enfants Terribles was 2/3 bickering and the 1/3 actual story in the third act, Bob is 2/3 gambling and just hanging out and then 1/3 story with the planning of the casino robbery. Melville just feels either a) he can take his time getting around to the kernal or b) he'd better have some story in there so it isn't all atmosphere. But in Bob the transition to the story part was seamless. Melville says he isn't a mysogynist, but it would be tough to tell from this film, where the very hot Isabelle Corey is so amoral, just drifting from bed to bed without a second thought, hurting the people who care about her because she's so cold inside and only cares for wealth and a good time. But she's a queen compared to the Croupier's domineering wife who tips off the police when she can't find Bob to ask for 10 million francs instead of the 500,000 the Croupier has already accepted for his part in the casino robbery.

I won't give away the ending, having already spoiled Mein Schulfreund (chances are you'll be able to see Bob a lot easier than the Siodmak). But the film ends with a wonderful ironic touch.

Melville is still doing odd camera angles, some of them really great, but this is the last time a film by him will seem so un-classical. Also, set at night amongst the bars and nightclubs of Paris, this is practically neo-realism, since nearly everything is shot in some actual location rather than in a studio. This is why the French New Wave directors hailed this film so much--it was the film they themselves wanted to make. Also, the influence of The Asphalt Jungle on Melville is here: just as in the Huston film, the crooks go to a wealthy man to get backing for the crime. Another Asphalt touch is that that man owns a horse farm in the country, succeeding where Sterling Hayden failed.

NP: Gosho The Cellist (Akira Ifukube)

Re-watched ANGELA'S ASHES - Still impressive visually, in fact I liked it a bit more than I did first time round. The episodic structure kind of seems to make it a bit superficial though.

LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS - Didn't like it. As in the later STAR WARS movies (and FELLOWSHIP), I felt excluded for not knowing enough about these characters beforehand. In fact, my reaction to this film is as I imagine everybody's grannies' reaction would be.

Saw ROSEMARY'S BABY for about the tenth time. Two hours-plus and it still doesn't drag for me! I'm amazed every time by this movie. Acting, writing, but particularly Polanski's wicked attention to detail are just brilliant.

Pleasantly surprised by THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER (70s Robert Redford thing). I thought it might be blandly charming at best. Well, you can see it as just another colourful crowd-pleaser of course - the flying scenes are nice - but there's a really interesting undercurrent to it all too. The Myth meets Reality idea is fascinating, especially in the latter part, with Redford's barnstorming bullshitter facing up to "reality" ... as a stuntman in Hollywood, the dream factory.

Great to see this thread well attended to in my absence. I hope to be back to normal in a day or two, ready to fill the February thread with insufferable pedantry.