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Reviews
Trade Winds (1938)
abjectly stupid
Surely this is a film as profoundly stupid as most of the films being foisted on us today. I think it was meant to be a screwball comedy -- a genre that flourished with enjoyable results in the late 30s -- but it develops into (spoiler!!) a flicker about whether the beautiful woman will go to chair, or gas chamber, or gallows (whichever was in use back then). March is playing an impossible game in which he knows that the pursuer will somehow show up at the unknown island and miss with his .38, knows Bennett will be convicted, and knows he can (spoiler!!) spot the real culprit with a (spoiler!!) phony radio newscast. Then the murderer (spoiler!!) is instantly plugged in a version of Dodge City justice. And no blood spills on the rugs! This is really awful, and one wonders why an actor as good as the great March agreed to take the script on. Bennett is a beauty though, so the thing to do is turn the sound off and just watch her whilst she is on-screen. Shame on TCM for not heading this one off before it disgraced the screen.
Gangs of New York (2002)
too long by 45 minutes
This one has some powerful shots -- the crane shot after the opening battle is pure Breughel and the final series of dissolves (spoiler!) in which the City rises across the river as the graveyard where 'Butcher' is buried becomes a vacant lot is potent. But Amsterdam, unlike Hamlet, is not given enough to do. Hamlet, we recall, puts on a play in which he gives himself away, then decides not to kill Claudius at prayer. Amsterdam just drifts and Leonardo is the victim of many motiveless feet of film. The film, then, is only intermittently telling a story of revenge. Is it telling the story of Tweed's and "Butcher's" alternative views of politics? Now-and-then. Is it telling the story of the buildup to the Draft Riots? That narrative begins somewhere during the second half, and there's a nice juxtaposition between Irish soldiers going to Shiloh and the coffins lined up on the dock. Is it telling the story of Amsterdam's conversion back to Catholicism? That seems to happen, but why? And, of course, Diaz drifts across the landscape, also with a bundle of vaguely conflicting motives. So -- the film, like so much current filmmaking, is incoherent. And for all of post-modernism's embrace of disjunction as a value, that does not make for a satisfying artistic experience.
The Cry of the Owl (2009)
awful
A work of art must have some coherence, even if its gaps and lacunae challenge an auditor. This one is a mess. The girl "inexplicably" becomes attracted to her stalker (as the summary says). He rejects her because he prefers to see her happily washing the dishes. His rival hides out in Chicago with the connivance of his ex-wife (how did they hook up?) and, instead of concocting a clever revenge, the rival just shoots through a window, mortally wounding the young man's neighbor and nicking him. (He later wanders through the hospital, untreated in his blood-stained shirt). The stalkee "inexplicably" commits a ritual suicide (why? -- she doesn't really say). Then the shooter is released (!), albeit when his deadbeat father "inexplicably" pulls in the local power structure. The ex-wife begs for the ex-husband to exculpate her. How could he, even if he wanted to? Styles must have been really puzzled by her character, who is, finally, just plain nuts. But "inexplicably" -- there's no basis for her bizarre behavior. I would not wish this flick on anyone. The final sequence is macabre and unbelievable and, don't worry, the film has no ending. It just stops. But an hour and a half too late. Fantasy demands that we accept the rule of the world the writer creates. Live drama demands that we suspend our disbelief. This one asks that we keep believing in things that both could not happen and cannot be believed when they do.
Knowing (2009)
awful
This one is awful. It begins from a completely unbelievable premise and gets less credible from there. It serves as a vehicle for Cage to show his single expression -- a cross between bewilderment and rage. I give it a 4 because a couple of special effects -- the plane crash and the ending in the city (which I won't give away)-- are well done. The attempts at family values are mawkish clichés. The effort to construct an allegory from fragments of Revelation that will somehow move a contemporary audience into a recognition of relevance is laughable. The directors thought that life would be re-propagated from the neo-Eden of the films' final shot, where two adorable, white bunnies are permitted to survive. That is a final insult the film lays on its helpless audience.
The Taming of the Shrew (1923)
okay version
This version concentrates on the contest between Petruchio and Katerina, as it should. The Biance subplot is used only to set up the Shrew story. When the subplot is resolved, its intrusion comes almost as a surprise, but I suppose the director felt he had to tie up lose ends. Maitland's primary mode of dealing with Kate is to laugh hilariously (and we perceive one advantage of silent film!). But a neat parallelism occurs between Kate's sweeping books off the table in her father's library and Petruchio's sweeping food and drink off of his table in his country house. His behavior physically mirrors hers. They reconcile at the table after she thanks him, so the big final scene of the script is not included in this two reeler. Titles are occasionally placements and transitions but usually lines from the play. That technique works better than it usually does in a silent Shakespeare since here it's cued carefully to the visual action. This film is a reasonable condensation, not the best of the silent filmed Shakespeares by any means (see the Italian 'Romeo and Juliet,' for example), but not bad. Perhaps British Film Institute can be encouraged to include this film in a 'Silent Shakespeare II' as a follow-up of the valuable first version of the silent films in their collection.
Street Angel (1928)
good silent
This one has the strengths and weaknesses of the late silent films. It is not as good as 'Sunrise,' but it has some wonderful b/w deep field shots, with a distant town down a mountainside and a busy harbor for a background. Also -- some fine Monet-like fogbound portside shots with the characters walking in silhouette toward each other. Some of the scenes are too long and too sentimental -- to show off Janet Gaynor's skill at pathos, and the theme music and whistling is badly overused. But the portrait, which becomes "Madonnaized" as an old master does capture Gaynor's pure character. It is taken from the lovers as her purity is (for the time being) stolen from her, but then in the final scene the image and reality are reunited. In a sense the Madonna blesses the two reunited lovers. That's well done and is reminiscent of the use of portraits in Poe's "Oval Portrait" and Wilde's "Picture of Doran Grey." I wonder how the young artist realized that it was his picture or, if he did, registered no surprise at finding it over the altar of a church. But the use of the picture as a kind of psychic energy was carried through nicely.
The Bravados (1958)
Great western
Westerns at their best do represent American allegories. "Broken Lance" (1956) comes to mind. This one, apparently an attack on McCarthyism, embodies relentless wrong-headed revenge (somewhat like the cruel teaparties, sponsored by very rich patrons who get addled followers to rally against their own interests). If this film opposed McCarthyism, it confused its message by showing that the culprits are guilty enough, even if not of the crimes for which Peck pursues them. But a wonderful performance by a stern Peck and a compassionate Silva (who, we assume, is the least guilty of the four condemned escapees). A too-convenient former lover (Collins) perhaps, but a convincing chase and a sudden revelation that casts a huge shadow over the chase and summary justice meted out. But great camera work and a nicely underplayed laconicism by Peck. Also -- as noted -- good movement beyond clichés in depicting the Mexican Indios. Finally, good pace. The film wanders but never gets boring.
Lucky Jordan (1942)
travesty
This film would have been a serious satire of gangster films were it not that it is a deadly serious piece of patriotic propaganda. Even a tough crook like Ladd believes in his country and decides to get rich digging a ditch. The film is so full of improbabilities -- top secret documents being handled like seventh grade valentine's cards, a Nazi espionage cell masquerading as a flower-growing business, a young woman assuring a deserter that he won't be prosecuted, a deserter wandering around New York in broad daylight -- that the plot itself loses all tension early on. The saving grace is a wonderful performance by Mable Paige, whom Ladd leaves to recover by herself after having been severely beaten by some hoods (who are, unnoticed by Ladd, lurking in the hallway to kidnap him). Paige's performance brings this one up from negative numbers. It is awful. To say that Ladd's performance is wooden is an insult to oak trees.
The Skeptic (2009)
rushed/contrived ending
This one was interesting until the company apparently ran out of money and had to rush the ending. You knew something was wrong when the protagonist's para-normal friend couldn't make it on the fatal night. Then his shrink tells him he was locked in a closet on the day of his mother's "accident." This revelation, we are told, emerged because the protagonist was in a 'crisis stage.' Then he says I'm going to a hotel, but first I'm going back to get my things. The shrink says, good idea! Come on -- the writers are getting desperate. Then the para-normal friend's black car is parked outside. But it isn't! That defies credulity and consistency. And so -- the ending. The finale, which has been discussed, is clearly a final wish-fulfillment, the long-held wish from the five year old for the idyllic picnic he was denied so many years before. Other problems -- the doll. Why? Why not the roller-skate (or whatever it was) that propelled Mama down those stairs? And -- what was the protagonist's mental state? Did he finally/gradually go crazy? His development was not well charted. But, basically, the rushed ending defeated a promising film.