In a Lonely Place (1950)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

In a Lonely Place (1950) – N. Ray

Humphrey Bogart stars as deeply flawed screenwriter, Dixon Steele, who starts the film as a murder suspect after convincing a hat-check girl to come home with him to tell him the story of the novel he has agreed to translate to the screen, which she has read but he can’t be bothered to.  She turns up dead later, after leaving his bungalow. When the cops pick him up, he’s flip and disinterested. Luckily, his new next door neighbour Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) saw the girl leave Dix’s apartment and offers him an alibi.  Having been brought together in this way, Dix and Laurel fall in love – and she supports him as he gets down to the business of screenwriting, looking for his first hit in many years. But he’s a temperamental character with a quick fuse and Bogart knows how to turn off the charm, showing Dix’s neurotic, ugly, and bullying side. The police continue to treat him as a suspect and even Laurel starts to worry about him. Director Nicholas Ray manages this ambiguity beautifully, drawing out believably complex portrayals from Bogart and Grahame (Ray’s soon-to-be ex-wife) as their characters’ emotions become dysregulated, potentially due to the pressure of the police investigation on them. But deep down, the audience (and all the characters in the film) realises that there is something not right about Dix Steele – even if he didn’t murder the girl, he probably could have and maybe he might even have enjoyed it. Gray is probably right to be concerned. Yet we want things to work out for them, for love to triumph despite personal defects. Apparently, the original novel and screenplay ended very differently from the version that we see on the screen; both would have been dark noir conclusions but the deeply sad ending that we do get probably lingers longer and has more reverberating implications for real people then the crime that would have ended the picture. Instead, we’re left to contemplate people stuck “in a lonely place” and what factors, controllable or uncontrollable, have lead them there. A masterpiece.

 

Nightmare Alley (1947)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Nightmare Alley (1947) – E. Goulding

After watching Guillermo del Toro’s remake earlier this year, I decided to revisit Edmund Goulding’s original 1947 version for Noirvember. The surprising thing is just how quickly the film moves and how many ellipses there are in the plot relative to the newer version (which spells out everything rather emphatically). In some ways I feel a bit tainted by del Toro’s version which intruded on this viewing by unnecessarily filling in the gaps (although having read William Lindsay Gresham’s novel probably does the same)! Tyrone Power tried to change his swashbuckling image by portraying Stanton Carlisle who is only looking out for number one. We meet him after he is already working at the carnival, helping Zeena (Joan Blondell) with her mind-reading act and covering for her drunk husband, Pete. Soon, circumstances allow Stan to take over the act, with Bruno the strong man’s partner Molly (Colleen Gray) in tow, using the special code that allows them to communicate from the audience even as Stan is blindfolded. They move their show to fancy nightclubs and attract a much wealthier clientele, including psychiatrist Lillian Ritter (Helen Walker). When Stan discovers that Ritter has been keeping records of her rich patients’ personal secrets, he hatches another plan to bilk them out of their money as a spiritualist. But this being film noir, Carlisle’s hubris eventually brings him down. But how low can he go? The plot takes us full circle back to the carnival. And here things differ again from the remake which was able to end in a much darker spot then the original (which was forced to tack on an unlikely but hollow “happy” ending).  If looked at as a parable about human ambition, or the American dream even, Nightmare Alley is very bleak indeed, positing a world where there are suckers and those who don’t give them an even break. But if everyone is trying to rip everyone else off, it’s only a matter of time before even the swindlers find themselves down and out again.

 

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) – D. Kwan & D. Scheinert

Whoa! I heard the buzz (plus who can go past Michelle Yeoh in a starring role?), so I checked this out (of the library). Starting with the quotidian scenario of a small business owner, Evelyn Wang (Yeoh), doing her taxes (for IRS agent Jamie Lee Curtis), but quickly becoming ridiculous (sublimely ridiculous or ridiculously sublime) when her heretofore meek husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan, previously famous in The Goonies & Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) begins channelling an action hero from another universe (one of the many universes created whenever we make a choice). Soon, Evelyn herself learns to “verse jump”, finding versions of herself in parallel universes across the meta-verse that she can draw on for different strengths (including kung fu skills). It seems that she must do battle with another verse-jumping master, Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu), in order to save the uni-meta-verse as we know it (or don’t know it). Taking cues or paying homage to The Matrix (with its slo-mo or sped up fight scenes) as well as Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love (!!!) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (!!!!), the film soon spins from ridiculous to downright insane. Directorial team Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert) don’t hold back and admittedly it might all get a bit much. But at its heart, this is also a family drama about a stressed-out immigrant woman’s relationships with her strict Chinese father (James Wong, now 90+ and in his 8^th decade of film roles), her alienated Americanised daughter (Hsu), and her neglected husband (Quan), not to mention the IRS. Yeoh is amazeballs in the lead role. The film careens from sentimental heart-string pulling (which moved me) to philosophical explorations of the meaning (or lack of meaning) of life to full-strength action, all with a giant dose of absurdity (hot-dog fingers?) and blink-and-you-miss-em jokes and references.  In the end, black bagels are pitted against white googly eyes. You’ll have to watch it to understand. It’s a trip.

 

Time Bandits (1981)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Time Bandits (1981) – T. Gilliam

Early outing by director Terry Gilliam (fresh from Monty Python) that holds up surprisingly well.  Young Kevin’s life with his boorish consumerist parents is disrupted by six time-travelling dwarves who have stolen a map from the Supreme Being that shows all of the holes in space-time, allowing them to steal treasures from various epochs. Unfortunately, the Evil Genius, who has been imprisoned in the Fortress of Darkness by the Supreme Being also wants the map in order to escape and refigure the world. Kevin and the little people meet Napoleon (Ian Holm), Robin Hood (John Cleese), and King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) before entering the Land of Legends where things get weirder. The special effects are pretty cool (for the time period) and although things get dark, it seems appropriate for kids.  At least until the end, when Kevin’s parents are turned into lumps of coal – Amon (aged 10) did not appreciate this and thought it spoiled the film.  So much for black comedy.

The Wicker Man (1973)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Wicker Man (1973) – R. Hardy

Classic folk-horror with Christopher Lee as the Lord of Summerisle, off the coast of Scotland, where the old Pagan traditions are valued. So, there’s a culture clash when Edward Woodward (as Sargeant Howie), a devout Catholic, shows up to investigate a missing girl about whom his department has been tipped off. But no one seems to recollect the missing girl (Rowan) or else they are hiding something! Howie struggles to understand the locals who have a very free approach to sexuality that upsets his prudish nature. Moreover, the May-Day festival is soon approaching and the island is preparing for a big celebration that will include animal costumes and a parade – plus, as Howie discovers at the library, the possibility of a virgin (Rowan?) being sacrificed!  He is determined to thwart anything horrible that might occur -- but he is entangled in a mystery that he can’t quite solve. Director Robin Hardy apparently released a director’s cut that is a bit longer (and with some scenes in a different order) than the 88 min theatrical cut I watched. Probably best not to forget that this is a horror film (and the end is certainly shocking) but the film certainly pushes you to appreciate the old ways, don’t you think?

 

Dead of Night (1945)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Dead of Night (1945) – A. Cavalcanti, C. Crichton, B. Dearden, & R. Hamer

Classic spooky horror omnibus film from Ealing Studios with contributions from four notable directors from their famed team. Basil Dearden handles the framing story, which is remarkable in its own right, with architect Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) arriving at Pilgrim’s Farm but feeling a pronounced sense of dejá vu which only increases when he goes inside and sees a small group gathered. Soon, he realises that he is remembering a dream and goes on to prognosticate about events that will soon happen (and, of course, they do). One of the group is a psychiatrist who plays the role of Doubting Thomas throwing cold water on the idea of premonitions. But each of the characters then proceeds to tell a story about their own brush with the supernatural (each story showcased by a different director).  Dearden begins with a short story about a race car driver who receives a warning about his own death (“room for one more inside, sir!”) which allows him to avoid it. Then, with Calvacanti in the director’s chair, young Sally tells of her encounter with a young boy (while playing hide-and-seek) who turns out to be a murdered ghost. Next, Googie Withers stars in Robert Hamer’s tale of a haunted mirror that curses her husband. After this rather harrowing tale, a bit of light relief: Charles Crichton directs Naughton & Wayne (famous for their roles in Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, 1938) as a pair of golfers who use 18-holes match-play do decide who will win the lady they both adore. The loser commits suicide and becomes a ghost who ineptly haunts his former friend. And then the most famous of tales (by Calvacanti again) features Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist at odds with his dummy.  This might be the one to give you nightmares, if you are small.  Finally, we return again to the framing story and its haunting conclusion. If you love the sort of uncanny horror that leaves you with a weird suspicion that the world is far stranger than we think, then I highly recommend this masterpiece.   

 

The Birds (1963)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Birds (1963) – A. Hitchcock

Whenever I revisit The Birds, I find myself somewhat genuinely surprised again that it is much weirder and slower than I remembered. This isn’t a movie where the heroes successfully battle a creature that may attack at any time but instead it features an ominous change in the world where nature has turned against humans.  But why? Seemingly the birds have turned against us at random, although many writers point at Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) as potentially responsible. After all, her wayward prank – lying to Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) and then bringing him lovebirds (in a cage, of course) – seems to have set something off (although gulls were amassing in the San Francisco skies even before this incident).  She is also wounded somehow, abandoned by her mother and in need of love – from Mitch or from _his_ mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy) who is distant and suspicious. Poor Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), Mitch’s former flame, is sidelined but doesn’t seem to hold any animosity toward the others (that might be the source of any negative energy riling up the birds). Hitch himself provided a hint when he suggested the film was about “complacency” (according to Robin Wood). Have humans cordoned themselves off from nature, creating comfortable safe routines and habitats for ourselves? Or worse, have our practices compromised nature itself, such that it needs to fight back? I’m not suggesting Hitch was an environmentalist but, seen today, the selfish preoccupations of Melanie, Mitch, Lydia, and Annie clearly pale in comparison to the wider problems the world faces.  It’s no wonder the birds are pissed off.  And, yes, if you are looking to see birds swoop down on children, tear at people’s flesh with their beaks, and gouge out their eyes, you’ll find it here too.