by Dean | May 13, 2019 | General
Ray Enright‘s Albuquerque (1948), a Western, shows us the capitalist building of a town, as well as the selfishness of a business tycoon who does evil. When his nephew, Cole Armin (Randolph Scott), witnesses this evil, he goes to work for the tycoon’s competitor, who is drawn to the same kind of ore-hauling enterprise the tycoon has founded. Cole is a good man, which doesn’t matter to Mr. Big, who manages to get Cole arrested on a phony arson charge. It doesn’t stick, though, after which the tycoon (nicely played, by the way, by George Cleveland) wants blood. But a business venture must go on.
There was some fine material in this movie to work with, and Enright and his cast were essentially up to it. Why, it even has its own Charlotte Corday—she who killed the French Revolution’s Marat—in the person of Letty Tyler (Barbara Britten), an associate of the tycoon who, by and by, loves his rival. Albuquerque is in color (it works) and usually pleasurable in its action. It’s modest but involving.
by Dean | May 11, 2019 | General
I have not read any of Arthur C. Clarke‘s novels, but I am familiar with the reasonable mind behind such short stories as “Into the Comet,” “The Star,” “The Sentinel” and “Death and the Senator.” It is a probing mind too, an instrument for meaningful science fiction.
“Into the Comet” (1960) proves how entertainingly Clarke could write. Here, a spaceship is in peril within the very long tail of a comet. The crew rescues itself by turning to something primitive—or “primitive”—when something technologically intricate, a computer, fails it. How likely such a failure would be I don’t know, but it’s an agreeable story.
The 1955 “The Star” concerns a Jesuit astrophysicist afflicted with doubt about the existence of God after a world civilization is annihilated by a supernova. Clarke assumes there is intelligent life on other planets. There may not be. A pleasantly cerebral piece, it is nevertheless philosophically unremarkable enough to dissatisfy. It means little that Clarke found Belief either difficult or impossible. He did better when probing in other directions, as in his other stories.
by Dean | May 8, 2019 | General
The planet Metaluna will perish under the weapon blows of an alien race, but its inhabitants intend to get abundant help from unsuspecting Earth, especially its scientists. This Island Earth (1955) is, then, a tale of two planets, with all the sinister action emanating from Metaluna. Spoken here is a deceptive promise of peace between peoples, but, no, there is no peace, albeit a single alien (Jeff Morrow‘s Exeter) is decent enough to want to help the Earthlings.
Directed by Joseph Newman, this is standard apocalyptic sci-fi, and it’s not bad. No doubt like the story it’s based on, it is considerably unpredictable and it holds one’s attention from start to finish. I question why the Earth scientists are so naive, though.
by Dean | May 5, 2019 | General
The judge in Ted Bundy’s trial pronounced the serial murderer’s deeds Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, which is an inspired title for Joe Berlinger‘s new movie (2019) on Netflix.
As Bundy Zac Ephron is compelling, never phony, never trying for sympathy. Lily Collins is just right and just fine in a good role here: that of Bundy’s anguished girlfriend, Liz. The film partly deals with Liz’s love relationship with a morally worthless man. She herself is far from morally worthless, for, early on, she submits Bundy’s name to the police, afterward suffering long-lived guilt because she doesn’t know whether Bundy is, in truth, culpable for what he is being accused of.
Needless to say, the public-record information in this well-made film is appallingly ugly. I wonder about the pain and shock of all the parents (and other family members) of the daughters whose bodies Bundy treated as though they were foul manure. Again, morally worthless.
Extremely Wicked is recommendable. There are critics who dismissed it. I disagree with them.
by Dean | May 3, 2019 | General
The title character in the D.W. Griffith film, True Heart Susie (1919), is a gentle country girl who is supposedly plain, except that Lillian Gish, who plays her, is not at all plain. In love with a boy named William (Robert Harron), she sacrifices a great deal for him without his knowing it, but it is not Susie who receives William’s devotion. It is a flighty, self-seeking girl, Bettina (Clarine Seymour), whom William marries. . . Although obvious in its moral meaning, the film is terrific, especially if its story (as claimed) is thoroughly true.
Marian Fremont purveyed a sensitive, un-sanctimonious script, wisely directed by Griffith. Susie is a movie not a novel, but, with its rural setting, it is a purely American piece on the order of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Little Women (save for the motorcars in the film) and something like Edith Wharton’s 1917 book, Summer. It partakes of a tradition. And it pleases to see the subtle and touching performance of Gish and the trenchant acting of Seymour, who sadly died many, many years ago, at age 21, in 1920.
