by Dean | Jan 21, 2018 | General
The Hanging Tree (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I hope the novel The Hanging Tree, by Dorothy M. Johnson, is better than the Delmer Daves movie adapted from it, for the flick, a Western, is frequently quite dumb. For example, the Montana townspeople here are willing to execute their only doctor (Gary Cooper) for a killing they know absolutely nothing about (it was done, in fact, in self-defense).
Yes, it is entertaining—it is gripping that Cooper gets rough with a sexual harasser (Karl Malden) who becomes a sexual assaulter (let this be a warning to YOU, Al Franken)—and Nile, Washington, where the film was shot, must be a gorgeous place. But it’s a wonder The Hanging Tree, available on TV, DVD and Blu-Ray, is still hanging around.
by Dean | Jan 17, 2018 | General
Lafayette Escadrille Memorial Arch, 1928 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the 1957 Lafayette Escadrille, a punk kid (Tab Hunter) at the time of the Great War travels to France to join (with other Americans) an elite air force corp—the Lafayette Escadrille. The corp is training to fight before the U.S. has entered the war. In Paris, the young rebel falls in love with a French prostitute (Etchika Choureau) but he also aggressively strikes his drill sergeant and, after being sprung from jail by his Yank buddies, runs away. He is now a deserter until he is given a second chance.
A personal project for Hollywood’s William Wellman, this is not one of the director’s better movies. Not only does it seem partly dishonest, it is also rather imperfectly directed and Tab Hunter’s acting is utterly by-the-numbers. Further, for a long time it makes French men, soldiers and otherwise, look like fools. By the time it reaches midpoint, however, it gets a bit better. Its anodyne love story, though it receives too much screen time, assuredly has its moments; and there is some nifty stuff involving the old WWI fighter planes. But it’s a shame for Lafayette Escadrille to have to be a half-enticing failure.
by Dean | Jan 14, 2018 | General
The Aviator’s Wife (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The 20-year-old college student, Francois, in Eric Rohmer‘s French film, The Aviator’s Wife (1981), needs to find himself a woman other than Anne, the one he is obsessed with. Anne is generally indifferent and rude to him, even after her married lover (an aviator) goes back to his wife. It ought to be driven home to Francois that he is essentially empty-handed. Lucie, an intelligent 15-year-old girl—the actress who plays her looks much older than fifteen—gradually tells him the truth about Anne (based on Francois’s information); but Lucie behaves as though she is attracted to Francois. Is she? And should this mean anything to the young man? Is there still empty-handedness?
The first picture in Rohmer’s Comedies et Proverbes series, this has another impressively written script by Monsieur Eric, notwithstanding I recommend seeing half of it, on disk, at one time and the other half at another time. There is so much talk I don’t see how boredom can be prevented otherwise. The film lacks the whimsy and crispness of Rohmer’s best work (e.g. A Tale of Winter), but I do think it’s a smart success.
Marie Riviere (Anne), Philippe Marlaud (Francois) and Anne-Laure Meury (Lucie) are acting and yet not acting; they’re embodying people in a screenplay and it’s magnificent. Contrast this with the performance of Mathieu Carriere as Anne’s ex-lover, which is less natural, less interesting.
(In French with English subtitles)
by Dean | Jan 13, 2018 | General
Cover of Jubal
Western time again. In the beautiful Jubal (1956), properly in color and directed by Delmore Daves, Glenn Ford stars as a cow hand made near-aimless and solitary by life. Hired to work at Shep Horgan’s ranch, he—Jubal Troop by name—is the Joseph to the Potiphar’s wife of Mae Horgan, who is the boss man’s missus. Mae tries vigorously to coax Jubal into a sexual relationship, but the cow hand will have none of it. He isn’t like the odious, hypocritical Pinky (Rod Steiger), who often gets fresh with the dissatisfied Mae and who turns into Jubal’s most dangerous foe. Fact is, Jubal has eyes for a young female member of a Mormon-like sect that moseys onto Shep’s land and that Pinky callously wants to stomp on and Jubal is nice to.
Kindness meets bullying, amorous desire meets wounded vengefulness: this is the riveting Jubal. Valerie French plaays Mae and Felicia Farr plays Jubal’s eventual girlfriend, and both are exquisite-looking. Ford is ever the Westerner, as he was in 3:10 to Yuma, and Ernest Borgnine is forcefully enjoyable, and believable, as Shep the ranch owner.
by Dean | Jan 8, 2018 | General
Cover of 3:10 to Yuma (Special Edition)
A big sky above a stagecoach moving across the plain in a true long shot—now this is a title sequence for a Western—and this particular Western is the original 3:10 to Yuma (1957), not the Aughts remake. This is the good one, adeptly directed by Delmer Daves and starring Glenn Ford as the robber-killer who must be escorted to the 3:10 train to judgment-seat Yuma.
The man escorting him is a financially strapped rancher (Van Heflin), doing it for money. The train can be caught in tiny Contention City, appropriately named because, for sure, contention is coming from reprobate underlings who wish to rescue Ford. . . Arising in the film is an interesting interaction between lawful people (Heflin and many others) and unlawful people. They’re thrown together enough that Ford necessarily eats dinner at Heflin’s home and gets intimate with the female bartender (Felicia Farr) oblivious to the robber-killer’s awful doings.
Adapting an Elmore Leonard story, Halsted Welles did some bang-up writing, despite the limited realism. At the end it is VERY limited, and all in all Ford’s character receives a bit more sympathy than he deserves. But what a decent Western this is!
