Well, there goes June. Wish I could say the same about Covid 19 but that sucker’s sticking around like Nicholas Cage and Dominc Cummings, two blokes I’d be quite happy never seeing or hearing of again. At least they stopped that strange daily late-afternoon serial about politics and viruses and horrible statistics, although I’m mildly concerned we’ll be getting a reboot or surprise second series.
Moving away from television (although I did manage two series and a three-part drama) I went back to basics this month with a return to watching movies, and eleven of those were black and white, a result of consciously leaning towards films of the 1940s/1950s. Tellingly, on the whole those older films were better than the newer, more recent films (although honourable mention to Spring there, which was great (and still due a Blu-ray release in September, just hope they include the extras from the international release)) – as usual, the new films may be more colourful and more spectacular, but they often lack stuff like powerful drama and demanding performances thanks to their lacklustre, often suspiciously ticking-the-boxes scripts that give actors little to do other than join us in gawping at the visual effects. Yeah, Gemini Man. I spent so much time gawping at the awesome CGI creation of a young Will Smith that I found myself missing the important plot-points (only to realise later that there were no important plot points, and little by way of plot, really). I’d post a review of that one if I could think of something to write about other than those effects.
So what sent me scurrying to Talking Pictures and catalogue films on disc? Undoubtedly Killers Anonymous, which is without doubt the worst film of the month and what I hope will prove to be the worst film I shall see all year. Actually, I’m pretty certain it is the worst film of the year, because the next time I realise I’ve sat down with such a foul-smelling celluloid turkey I’ve got the option of the Abort Button; life is just too short (and getting shorter) to be wasted on rubbish like that.
Overall, though, June was a pretty strong month- I even managed to watch 4K UHD’s of Jaws and The Empire Strikes Back, after all, to demonstrate that the format is still going strong, particularly with catalogue titles (indeed it seems Universal are bringing us 4K discs of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Rear Window and Psycho in September, which will be great).
Next month: The Criterion Six, The Invisible Man, and hopefully some nice surprises, perhaps even the return of the Shelf of Shame (got my eye at long last on Betty Blue- its been seven years since I bought that darned thing). I’ve also got the prospect of the 4K UHD of Stanley Kubrick’s Kirk Douglas’ Spartacus if the release schedule holds.
TV Shows
103) Curb Your Enthusiasm Season Ten
106) Killing Eve Season Three
108) The Salisbury Poisonings
Movies
88) Spring
89) Tolkien
90) Crawl
92) Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
93) Les Miserables- The Staged Concert (2019)
96) The Strange World of Planet X
97) The Whole Truth
100) Night of the Eagle
101) Waterfront
102) Gemini Man
104) Laura
105) The Price of Silence
107) Anatomy of a Murder
The Abort Button
none! (so I must have chose wisely, per the Grail Knight in a certain film)
I don’t really write much about disc purchases too often of late. Its true that I’ve even tried to limit those purchases, mainly because I’ve so many discs now, too many double-dips across so many formats over the years (even for a film-lover that can be wearing) and too many on the shelf still unwatched. There’s only one thing worse than spending too much money on films I only watch once, and that’s films I still haven’t gotten around to watching at all.
The Cranes Are Flying
Kiss Me Deadly
Klute: I’ve heard about this one but never seen it. I’m a big fan of 1970s American Cinema and love the frequent sense of paranoia that infects so many films of that era (The Conversation, Three Days of the Condor etc). I’ve never really had much time for Jane Fonda in films, no doubt one of the reasons I’ve never seen this before, so I’d be pleasantly surprised if her turn here impresses me, but I am a fan of Donald Sutherland so hopefully worth the punt at the price being asked. I’m reminded however that I never bought Three Days of the Condor on Blu-ray, so if this reignites my penchant for 1970s American Cinema it could turn out be more expensive a purchase than initially thought.
Fail Safe
I had intended to post on Thursday (June 25th) about a number of things- firstly the fact that it was the 38th Anniversary of the release of both Blade Runner and The Thing in America. Just imagining those two classic films being released on the same day is pretty wild- studios seem much more cautious these days about releasing tent-pole films at the same time, preferring to allow each other at least a week or two for each such release to dominate screens/recoup costs before the next big release comes along. Just imagining genre fans over in America being able to go to the cinema and watch both films on that opening weekend, or even on the same day, rather blows mind. Just imagining it was 38 years ago blows my mind too, but for all the wrong reasons.
Some twenty years ago, I was on holiday in America, on the West Coast, and it was late at night. We were somewhere near Santa Barbara I think, stopping in a motel overnight, and we went across the road to a supermarket- I think it may have been a Walmart, I’m not sure. We’d gone away with Claire’s folks, and she was with them, looking around, and I’d gone off looking at the electronics/home entertainment section by myself. I walked past some televisions and heard John Williams music for Cloud City. The televisions were showing The Empire Strikes Back (possibly another boxset just recently released on VHS) and it was the scene with Han Solo calling to the pesky Cloud City security that he was looking for Lando Calrissian, and the music swept up as the Falcon flew through those beautiful skies of Bespin and landed. I could have wept. I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling of homesickness. It was so strange. I was in a strange town in a rather odd country on the other side of the world, and while I was enjoying myself greatly, suddenly I was in the midst of the familiar, the comforting- Empire the film felt like home. Nowadays whenever I see/hear that scene, it always throws me into that oddly lonely ‘space’ on holiday in America, go figure.
Its curious, the circuitous routes that steer us to certain films. I was impressed last month by the performance of June Thorburn in Hammer’s 
Moving backwards in time from 1965’s Bunny Lake is Missing, my delve into the directing work of Otto Preminger now turns to 1944’s film noir Laura, a tale of romantic obsession. In some ways it seems an unlikely film noir: its high society setting of affluent people seems a strange milieu for a film noir, however, and I must confess that I think its a curious entry in that genre. Sure, we have the hard-boiled, world-weary detective and visually many staples of the genre in its expressionistic cinematography, some of the iconography of the film, etc. In some ways, though, the film straddles two, if not more, genres- a mid-film twist that pulls the rug from film noir tradition and settles into romantic melodrama, if anything. Its a little unsettling and not entirely successful; a romance between detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) and Laura (Gene Tierney) feels too sudden, too melodramatic- not so much McPherson’s fascination with the enigmatic subject of his murder investigation, but rather how Laura suddenly seems to fall head over heels for this cold man she finds in her apartment. Its something that doesn’t really work that feels something more of an idealistic romance picture than a dark foreboding noir. Its the weak element in an otherwise strong picture, for me, and whenever the swooning Laura calls him “Mark” I always felt like it was coming out of nowhere, something that isn’t earned. something almost absurd.
I suspect that the strange incongruities of logic within the film, may actually make the film more rewarding on subsequent viewings: indeed, I gather the film has become only more successful and highly-regarded over the decades. We are told the story of Laura through a number of different viewpoints, and perhaps all of them prove to be unreliable narrators. Certainly there seems obvious parallels between Laura Hunt and Laura Palmer of Twin Peaks, a wholesome cheerleader to some but someone quite different and darker to others, facets revealed over time as that tv series ran its course. Is the ‘real’ story, or truth of the film, something we discover for ourselves, or is it just the viewer managing the films shortcomings? Maybe I’ll have an opinion on this in a few years time.
I’ve a sneaking feeling that Kathleen Harrison could be the face of 2020 for me, how bizarre is that? Well, here she is again in Waterfront, from 1950. As is quickly becoming usual, Harrison is (apparently) effortless here- she’s clearly one of those character actors that have this natural ease with the camera and makes it all seem so simple, and yet remain so convincing. She clearly wasn’t cast against type, which helps her no end, playing the slightly befuddled but well-meaning matriarch of a struggling single-parent family in times when such things were frowned upon.
Waterfront is one of those great, old-fashioned human dramas that used to be popular in film but later became ‘relegated’ to television movies and soaps, I suppose, as films themselves turned towards the spectacular in order to distance themselves from the home entertainment on the smaller-screen. Partly a morality play showing good people with very little struggling to do the right thing, and those around them with lesser scruples, its a simple story about the human condition that is well told. The cast is excellent, really (Avis Scott really impressing as adult Nora), making the story really involving, and from the vantage point of 2020, the setting is utterly fascinating albeit that’s a particular quality unguessed back in 1950. This is a Liverpool that might have been familiar, I suppose, to the boys that became The Beatles when they were growing up, and is a clear reminder of how living conditions for the working-class have improved in the post-war years.
Quick post regards what I’ve been up to. By weird coincidence (its funny how these things happen) I’ve watched two films that share the word ‘Night’ in their titles: Night and the City, an outstanding film noir set in postwar London starring Richard Widmark and Night of the Eagle, a really effective horror film starring Peter Wyngarde. Both films really were very impressive (Night of the Eagle evoking -yes there’s THAT word ‘Night’ again- the classic Night of the Demon– so much so it’s sent me to the shelf for my copy of that film for a timely re-watch). Although I’d heard of Night and the City a few years ago I hadn’t gotten around to buying the Blu-ray until now (nothing like a sale price to finally swing it), but I don’t believe I’d ever heard of Night of the Eagle before, so that film (another catch on Talking Pictures) proved to be a very welcome surprise. Its just a pity that film hasn’t been released on Blu-ray over here; again, one has to wonder how many of these genuinely great old films fall through the cracks, never get a disc release and seldom get aired on mainstream channels.
As for Night of the Eagle– what a cracking horror movie. Soon as I noticed that the screenplay featured the work of Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont I guessed that I would be in for a treat. Its a finely wrought script that balances reason with the inexplicable and the film confidently suggests more than it shows (and to be honest, even when it ‘shows’ it does so surprisingly well). The cast, too, are uniformly excellent, I think; Peter Wyngarde is very good but I was particularly impressed by Janet Blair, who played his wife. Yet again, however, I find myself chagrined by being greatly impressed by an actress only to find her subsequent career destined for ill- in Blair’s case, one removed from film pretty much entirely, instead languishing in television guest-star spots.
This was a strange, weird film – vaguely like Hitchcock, or certainly more Vertigo-like Hitchcock, in that on the surface it seems a psychological thriller but there’s always a feeling (for me, at least) of some murkier subtext underneath, in this case the vaguely incestuous implications of the brother/sister relationship that proves the centre-point of the film. Maybe I’m ‘seeing’ too much into it, can’t tell if the 1960s were more daring or more innocent than now (I suspect the former, it certainly seems of late that you could oddly ‘get away’ with more years ago now than today).
In what is clearly the genius positioning of the film, the opening sequences are framed and edited so that when Anne is at the school dropping off her daughter, we never actually see her daughter (and to be honest, dumping a girl at a new school without finally saying a goodbye prior to leaving did seem odd) so that when suggestions arise that she ever existed, as a viewer it does seem to become a growing possibility. A few Hitchcockian misdirection’s are scattered through the film- Noel Coward’s mesmerising performance as the frankly unhinged landlord Horacio Wilson offers a few tantalising possibilities, from the supernatural (the spooky African masks on the apartment walls) to the frankly obscene (his frequent touching of Anne, overtures to her and his own flat with objects referencing the Marquis de Sade and torture fetishes etc) and the knowledge that its his apartment that Anne is renting so he has access to it makes him an area of suspicion. Comments from forensic scientists going through Anne’s flat remind us of the grislier possibilities of what happened to Bunny, and there is a frankly batty old lady living above the school full of odd possibilities herself.
My first comment regards The Whole Truth is my surprise when I saw the directors credit come up on the screen: John Guillermin, who later directed such notable films as The Blue Max, The Towering Inferno and the 1976 remake of King Kong (and, later, its regrettable sequel, King Kong Lives). I assumed, wrongly, that perhaps this 1958 whodunit was one of his first features, but looking it up later, I saw he’d done several before, the first dating back to 1949. Guillermin has a bit of a footnote in my film affections, as a paperback tie-in about the making of the 1976 King Kong that I bought from my local newsagents proved to be my first real discovery regards all the machinations behind the scenes of movies and set me off on the path that leads to, well, me here posting on an obscure blog about films and ‘stuff’. I remember picking it up off the rack 44 years ago, fascinated by the text and the b&w pictures detailing that troubled production (even at the age of ten I reasoned they could never get away with that fake full-size ape and a man in an ape suit, but I guess those were innocent times just before Star Wars shook up the visual effects game). Reading about Guillerman’s tribulations making that film was my first appreciation of the role of directors in film.
Its a bit of a shame- there is a good cast in the film. George Sanders as the victim’s cunning husband proves a slimy scene-stealer, and Granger is perfectly fine albeit largely unsympathetic (which damages the film somewhat). Reed is given little to do in an underwritten role that depends on her wholesome screen persona to carry her through. The film shows all the hallmarks of a rushed, low-budget production, not helped by some pretty poor sets, particularly the street exteriors (‘Murder on the Riviera!‘ proclaimed the films posters, but its as far from the Riviera as a beachfront in North Wales).
the ghost of 82 