Son of Paleface (1952)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Son of Paleface (1952) – F. Tashlin

It’s a cartoon come to life, with Bob Hope’s one-liners not that far from Daffy Duck’s similarly witty repartee.  Hope also finds himself subjected to a variety of slapstick situations and even drinks a cocktail that makes his head spin around and steam come out of his ears.  Although this is a sequel to Paleface and features some of the same cast (outlaw Jane Russell, for example), director (formerly writer) Frank Tashlin takes things one step beyond (or more than one step beyond) the earlier film by making it insane.  Roy Rogers and Trigger are along for the ride and somehow (in between all of the singing cowboy stuff), they supply a good deal of comedy – particularly Trigger.  Do not take it lightly when I suggest that this is funny (in a Looney Tunes way) because I am sure you can easily imagine how crap this formula could be (a funny horse and Bob Hope – yeah right!).  Hope plays the son of his former character (Painless “Paleface” Potter) who has returned to the West to seek his inheritance.  But who cares about plot when absurdity rules?

  

Night Moves (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Night Moves (2014) – K. Reichardt

Director Kelly Reichardt’s latest film is strikingly photographed in the Pacific Northwest and hypnotic in its droney-rhythms (Reichardt is her own editor).  Jesse Eisenberg’s inhibited performance maintains the minimal approach -- we never really get inside his character, an eco-terrorist.  The same is true of Dakota Fanning’s rich kid – what are her motives for taking part in the destruction of the dam?  Organizer Peter Sarsgaard’s role is a bit more defined and he helps to move the movie (and the other two) along into an almost thriller.  Moral questions abound and despite a few bum notes (would that person actually say/do that?) the film lays them out there for us to consider without much editorializing.  In the end, this seems a movie about a place in space and time (at a certain point in the Earth’s history and in a certain geographical and cultural location).  Reichardt charts things well but the plot seems almost beside the point and the glorious cinematography, artful shots and intriguing directorial decisions captivated me more.

 

  

42nd Street (1933)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

42^nd Street (1933) – L. Bacon

Come and meet those dancing feet!  The original “backstage musical”  where the whole plot is about putting on a show, from auditions for the chorus girls (including naïve Ruby Keeler) to the out-of-town opening (Philadelphia) and everything in between.  Sure, the harried director, sugar-daddy money man, nervous producers, the juvenile lead (Dick Powell) and wise-cracking performers (including Ginger Rogers) have become stock characters, but this film set them up.  More importantly, it was the first smash hit to showcase the choreography of Busby Berkeley, in which the chorus girls are often filmed in abstract geometric formations. Although 42^nd Street was the major hit, I might prefer Gold Diggers of 1933 (more freaky) or Footlight Parade (with Cagney) – also from 1933.  Great fun!

  

Boomerang! (1947)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Boomerang! (1947) – E. Kazan

From the producer of “The March of Time” comes this police procedural cum courtroom drama cum righteous social justice proclamation, directed by Elia Kazan.  Kazan famously named names to McCarthy’s HUAC, so he knew a thing or two about moral decision-making and the stresses upon it.  But here in the mid-to-late ‘40s, he can’t make up his mind about whether we the people need to be protected from the government (corrupt) or the mob (able to be galvanized to hate).  Indeed, it falls to local District Attorney Dana Andrews to choose whether to indict a possibly innocent man (for the murder of a beloved priest) and score political points that might put him in the governor’s office or to do the right thing by him.  Richard Murphy’s Oscar-nominated screenplay succeeds in showing the political context surrounding the work of both the police and the D. A.’s office and heaps as much pressure as possible on Andrews (who is good at showing this kind of stress – see his work in Fritz Lang’s films).  Lee J. Cobb glowers in support and Arthur Kennedy is good as the accused. This all leads to a theatrical and very sudden conclusion that makes you feel better about justice than you should be feeling given the state of the world in 2015.

  

Marketa Lazarova (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Marketa Lazarova (1967) – F. Vlacil

Whoever said that life in the Middle Ages was nasty, brutish, and short could have been thinking of Marketa Lazarova.  Director Frantisek Vlacil evokes the same dank world as Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev with the kind of stunning black and white cinematography favoured by Bergman or Bela Tarr.  Evoking these masters is not out of line, given that the film was voted the best Czech movie of all time. Two neighbouring families take to waylaying travellers as they journey past their land, but when one gang accidentally attacks the King’s men, trouble unfolds.  The families (Christian and pagan respectively) are set upon by the Captain of the King’s troops and also have cause to fight each other -- until all or most are dead.  Marketa Lazarova herself is abducted from her family on the eve of becoming a nun, finding a more difficult fate in store for her. The plot here (though discernible) is less the point than the creation of the context through the piling on of episodes and anecdotes and even symbols (one suspects).  Enthralling throughout its necessarily epic length.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – S. Kubrick

Kubrick’s take on sci-fi is a masterwork of technical achievement.  Just think:  all of the special photographic effects are pre-digital, done with models, matte paintings, trick shots, etcetera.  It boggles the mind and more so since these effects hold up even in the face of today’s easier digital manipulation where the laws of physics no longer apply.  Kubrick’s notorious perfectionist streak and obsessive attention to detail really pay off.  However, the film is also a cracked take on evolutionary theory (involving the intervention of intelligent alien life, one supposes) that loses coherence as the film proceeds to its concluding “Jupiter and Beyond” (stargate) hallucination sequence.  But the two middle sections, involving, first, Dr. Heywood Floyd’s trip to the moon and, then, Dave and Frank’s mission to Jupiter with paranoid supercomputer HAL-9000 are really the heart of the movie. Watching again, it is impressive that very little actually happens despite the film’s 140 minute length.  The plot is glued together with hypnotic scenes of outer space movement (space ships and astronauts drifting), set to classical music (by Strauss, by Strauss) and scenes with the black monolith, eerily (and illegally) scored by Ligeti.  So, the “space between” means almost as much as the narrative elements do and somehow this makes the film pass quickly.  In a word: timeless. 

The Steel Helmet (1951)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Steel Helmet (1951) – S. Fuller

Tough and uncompromising, Sam Fuller’s first war film (enlivened by his own experiences in WWII) shows gutsy G.I’s in Korea coping as best they can with the situation (which involves  a potential enemy behind (or up in) every tree). Jumping right into the action from the word go, we follow a few soldiers who have survived when their patrols are killed as they hook up with another group and take refuge in a Buddhist temple.  Among the soldiers are a Japanese-American lugging a bazooka, an African-American medic, and a cigar-chewing no-nonsense Sargent who has befriended a Korean boy.  Fuller’s script doesn’t hold back from criticizing America’s actions toward its own people (segregation of African-Americans, internment of Japanese Americans during WWII) even as it defends democracy as better than communism. We even see an American commit a war crime, which apparently got Fuller into hot water with the FBI, given that the Korean War was still ongoing when the film was released (and the terrible realities of war were apparently not ready to be acknowledged). I found the film gripping from start to finish; despite its low budget, it feels realistic and its stock characters are somehow made fresh. Packs a wallop.