Queen of Hearts (Jon Amiel, 1989)
Read
this.
Third Man on the Mountain (Ken Annakin, 1959)
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Realistic, suspenseful Disney flick about a young man (James MacArthur) who wants to climb the Citadel (think the Matterhorn), a dangerous mountain in the Swiss Alps. Various friends, family members and visiting climbers try to go with the boy or try to keep him from climbing. This was made back when Disney was making solid family entertainment almost every time out, and this one ranks with the concurrent
Swiss Family Robinson and
Darby O'Gill and the Little People.
Tyson (James Toback, 2008)
I discussed this at the
Movie Club.
[•rec] (Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza)
Pretty scary subjective video camera tale works better than most such films but highlights part of the problem with the "genre". This time a late night TV show interviews and travels with a firetruck when it goes on what turns out to be a deadly call. The entire film is seen from the videocam perspective. One of the flaws with these type of films is that even though they're mostly around 80 minutes long, they're still overlong, and partly it's because they have difficulty in building any kind of character development. So whenever things aren't scary, they tend to get rather boring. This one gets pretty scary, especially near the end, but then there is only one way these films can scare you, and that's to have something come at you from out of nowhere or the dark, so once again, that lessens just how scary the film can be because with only one camera, the "thing" can only come from one place.
The Lion Has Wings (Adrien Brunel, Brian Desmond Hurst & Michael Powell, 1939)
Outrageously hokey propaganda flick has a couple of very good action scenes utilizing Ralph Richardson and his Special Forces unit using huge maps and model planes to surround the attacking Nazi aircraft. Then the actual dogfights are shown in the sky. I'd bet my life that these scenes were directed by Michael Powell because they contain a visual wit and polish which far more resemble his work than the co-directors listed. As far as the other hour or so goes, you've been warned.
A Zed & Two Noughts (Peter Greenaway, 1985)
Greenaway uses his rich visual pallette to present some case about decay, fate, and perhaps retribution, but as is often the case, it's unclear whether he's trying to intellectualize the physical or physicalize the intellectual. I guess he could be considered the art house (or is it out house?) version of David Cronenberg, but Greenaway makes Cronenberg seem more like Walt Disney. This film involves people who lose body parts, people who used to share the same body (?), zoo animals who live or die and some rather strange obsessions which most of the characters seem to partake in. I liked it a little less this time than I liked it last time, and there are about 50 people in the world I'd ever suggest this one to; otherwise, I'd tell people to steer clear.
Ida Lupino Festival:
Out of the Fog (Anatole Litvak, 1941)
On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952)
The Hard Way (Vincent Sherman, 1943)
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Ladies in Retirement (Charles Vidor, 1941)
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High Sierra (Raoul Walsh, 1941)
I watched five Ida Lupino flicks yesterday.
Out of the Fog is an OK but terribly hokey film which plays exactly like a cramped theatrical adaptation, and yes, it's based on a play by Irwin Shaw. The only reason to watch it is for the cast which includes Ida, John Garfield, Thomas Mitchell, and John Qualen.
On Dangerous Ground has a much-better reputation and is now considered a cult film, even if I don't think all that much of it. Robert Ryan is good as a roughneck city cop and Ida is good as a blind woman who cools him down when he's assigned to a special case out of town. The flick is appropriately dark and moody but the plot is just undernourished and the always-reliable Ward Bond gives one of his lousiest performances, at least to me.
The Hard Way is an intense and almost insane melodrama, but it's much more entertaining and thought-provoking. Ida runs the personal life and budding show biz career of kid sister Joan Leslie, and she walks all over everybody, especially the two most important men (Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan) in the women's lives. (It turns out that this flick was really based on Ginger Rogers and her mother).
Ladies in Retirement is also based on a play, but it starts out a little more along the lines of
Arsenic and Old Lace. Ida is the thoughtful housekeeper of a wealthy woman (Isobel Elsom), but when she receives word that her two sisters (Elsa Lanchester and Edith Barrett) will be permanently sent to live in a London insane asylum if she cannot care for them, she brings them to live with her. It doesn't take long for the sisters to wear out their welcome, but Ida just cannot let them leave. Added into the mix are Ida's visiting "nephew" (Louis Hayward) and another maid (Evelyn Keyes) who find out some suspicious things when the old lady owner goes away on an unexpected trip.
High Sierra is my fave of the five films. It's also the last film that Bogart made where he didn't receive top billing. Ida got that as a sensitive woman who waits for Bogie while he's busy trying to pull off a heist and have a girl's (Joan Leslie's, again) clubfoot repaired as a form of courtship. The film has several interesting characters and an exciting finale, so yeah, I even like all the stuff with the unlucky dog too. Go ahead, shoot me!
The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976)
Well,
The Tenant did seem a bit more interesting than I recalled, but it doesn't really seem any less maddening. I realize that Polanski's Trelkovsky character never explains why he wants the apartment. Supposedly, he already has some place to live in the city when he shows up at the beginning of the film asking about an apartment, but we never see him move out of any other place. He claims he learned about the apartment from a friend, but this could actually be Stella (Isabelle Adjani) whom he allegedly meets in the hospital after he moves in. It's true that there are clues here and there which connect the dead woman to Egyptology and that appears to be a subject of interest in Trelkovsky's floor's bathroom, but after a while, it's really unclear if anything he sees is actually happening. The whole thing is reminiscent of
Rosemary's Baby but with no payoff. Actually, the payoff could be that
The Tenant is an unnecessary prequel to the earlier movie, but in just as many ways,
The Tenant seems to be a circular ghost story
a la The Shining. Thinking about what it may mean after the fact seems much more entertaining than the experience of watching the film which gives no answers and goes off the deep end at times by making the sound level drastically low involving a certain character and then having some central characters dubbed.
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) where the kid playing McMurphy has had one too many cans of Fanta before going on.
