by Dean | Sep 25, 2015 | General
Beware if a man in a film noir complains about his humdrum life, as Dick Powell does in Pitfall (1948). He’s destined to have his life stimulated by violence and, possibly, the kiss of a woman who’s not his wife. The said woman is played by Lizabeth Scott, whose boyfriend is in the clink. A nerdy aggressor (Raymond Burr) wishes to take advantage of this imprisonment by running away with lovely Scott, but Powell, the would-be adulterer, remains in the way. . . Whatever Jay Dratler’s novel is like, presumably it was good material for a movie, for a very involving story—solidly directed by Andre de Toth—gets underway. The casting alone is very involving.
Pitfall (1948 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Powell and Scott aren’t perfect—indeed, they’re superficial (for more nuance, there’s Jane Wyatt)—but they still fit noir material like a glove. I only wish Pitfall was on DVD: I had to watch it on YouTube.
by Dean | Sep 23, 2015 | General
At bottom Margarethe von Trotta’s German film, Marianne and Juliane, is a bore, just ultra-leftist or radical enough not to condemn a woman who has gone from activism to terrorism in the (figurative) war to end Third World agony, and even in 1981, the year of the film’s release, was such ultra-leftism ludicrous. The terrorist in question is Marianne (Barbara Sukowa), and although von Trotta probably prefers the merely social, not terrorist, activism of Marianne’s sister Juliane (Jutta Lamp), it is abhorrent that she seems little bothered by Marianne’s bombs. How boring this is; we’ve lived with such sentiments for many years now. And it doesn’t improve matters that Marianne is such a bland character.
(In German with English subtitles)
by Dean | Sep 21, 2015 | General
Jake, a black pastor in The Second Chance (2006), is abrasive and insulting, although at other times he is too good to be true. Not a well-drawn character.
Ethan, a white associate pastor, is poorly acted by Michael W. Smith. Steve Taylor’s Christian movie doesn’t work. It has a good feel for inner city life, but is sometimes less than credible: e.g. Ethan doesn’t seem to be secretly hoping other people are watching him give alms in the ‘hood, and yet this is what mean Jake repeatedly accuses him of.
Cover of The Second Chance
by Dean | Sep 17, 2015 | General
The Great McGinty (1940) is not a great movie but it’s pure Preston Sturges, which means it’s fanciful and personal. “It has mainly to do with the rise through city politics from soup line to Governor’s mansion of a toughie (Brian Donlevy) who learns very fast” (Otis Ferguson, who describes the premise better than I could). The film tells us a number of things: 1) if crooked people in a democracy want political power, they will get it; 2) cynicism is rife enough in American politics to crowd out idealism; and 3) unscrupulous men are frequently tamed by marriage and family.
Written, of course, by Sturges, as well as his first directorial effort, what McGinty is is Ring Lardner with heart and a bit of slapstick. Not much heart, though, because the film is darkly acerbic. Yet, too, it is “quite a lot of fun” (Ferguson again).
The Great McGinty (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
by Dean | Sep 15, 2015 | General
On Gabrielle (2006):
From France, this Patrice Chereau picture borrows Joseph Conrad’s fine 1897 story, “The Return,” for cinematic treatment. A wife, Gabrielle, leaves her home to run off with a recent lover, but abruptly changes her mind and returns to her husband. It does Jean the spouse no good at all. Self-confidence goes; the expected confusion and wrath arrive. The film has to do with desiccated lives and not merely a desiccated marriage. What happens when marriage is the only thing a person can fall back on? Nothing.
Isabelle Huppert plays Gabrielle in a performance perfect and great: the core of a person, of a broken aristocrat, is captured. Equally powerful, emotionally wrenching, is Pascal Greggory as Jean. The actors are superior to the director’s style, what with the occasional unnecessary music and the transitions from color to black-and-white. Even worse are the arty intertitles. But Gabrielle is no letdown, searing and meaningful as it is. Huppert and Greggory are not its only strengths.
(In French with English subtitles)
Cover of Gabrielle
by Dean | Sep 9, 2015 | General
The only good thing about No Escape (2015) is that it is wildly suspenseful. Critics who have called it trashy—trashy in the sense of sloppily dumb—are right. The film stars Owen Wilson and Lake Bell (acceptable). Sterling Jerins, the young girl who plays one of their daughters, is a talented cutie, but the two brothers who made this thing are talented exploiters.
