The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977)

Loosely structured around the question of what happened to the supposed "private files" (i.e. collection of really damning dirt on the powerful) upon the death of long time FBI Director (1924-1972) J. Edger Hoover (1895-1972). This movie is really more of a highlight reel of vinyets (the hunt for Dillinger, feud with Bobby Kennedy, spying on MLK) played against a not particularly probing account of the life of Bureaus notorious first director. The movie is pretty proud of its self in its perfect casting of Broderick Crawford as the mature Hoover, though James Wainright is pretty good as the "young" Hoover (the latter actor being almost forty, and looking older, when he played the role of a twenty something J. Edger). This movie is a perfect example of the kind of obvious, name dropping bio-pic which I find to be such a guilty pleasure. Coming out of dying B-movie production house American International only a few years before it closed up shop, it boasts some fairly impressive names in its cast including Celeste Holm, Jose Ferrer and Lloyd Nolan. Most of the actors playing well known political figures don't look that much like them (who is Raymond St. Jacques and why is he playing Martin Luther King?). Again this probably isn't the best place to get your history, but it's a kind of schlock I just can't resist. **1/2

Code of the Secret Service (1939)

The second of Ronald Reagan's Brass Bancroft Secret Service films for Warner Brothers. Again Brass must go south of the boarder, again not something I think the Secret Service is really allowed to do, though this time its just south of the Texas border, where as in the last film it was just south of California. Anyway another agent has had his cover blown so Brass is sent in to take over. A racket running a casino just south of El Paso is bleaching the money that comes in, then reprinting it as higher denominations with stolen plates, not a bad plan. Reagan goes to this casino, there is a fight and he's framed for murder, he goes on the run, and eventually he allows Mexican forces to apprehend him once the mobsters have caught on to his identity and his life is in imperilled. In Mexican custody he informs his captors that he's really a secret service agent, but its going to take a day for one of their men to get to a telegraph station and confirm with Washington. Not wanting to waist time Brass has his comic relief side kick Eddie Foy Jr. spring him from the slammer. And also there is a love interest that showes up at one point, a different love interest from the one Brass got engaged to at the end of the last film, because why care about continuity. Eventually the movie ends with a dynamiting of an old Spanish mission that peg-legged chief counterfeiter Moroni Olsen is using as his base of operations, disguised as a monk of course.

I was little surprised to hear that Reagen considered this to be the worse movie he ever made, and that he was once told by a ticket tacker at a theater playing this film that "You should be ashamed." This is not a good movie, not a lot of effort was put into the thing and in hindsight it looks even more absurd then it seemed when I watched it. I'm gonna have to give it * 1/2.

Another Earth (2011)

Seventeen year old Connecticut resident Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling) gets drunk at a party celebrating her acceptance to MIT, on the drive home Rhoda runs her car head on into the vehicle of composer/music professor John Burroughs (William Mapother) severely injuring him and killing his pregnant wife and five year old son. Her identity sealed because of her age Rhoda is sentenced to stay in a juvenile facility until she turns 21, when she is released into the care of her family. Profoundly effected by the lives she took the bright, once ambitious young women takes a job as a janitor at her old high school, and seems to be seeking some kind of penance. It is in this spirit that she visits the home of Professor Burroughs, with the intent of apologizing for the pain she caused him, but at the last minute she chickens out and pretends to be from a cleaning service. To her surprise Burroughs hires her to clean his place weekly, and the two emotionally wounded people find themselves growing increasing close, something that can not end will when Burroughs discovers Rhoda's role in the crash the killed his family.

All of this could be interesting enough to sustain a film on its own but director and co-writer (along with Marling) Mike Cahill adds a unique twist to this indie outing. The night of the fateful car accident Rhoda, whose love in life since early childhood has been astronomy, is distracted in her driving trying to make a out a new planet that the radio says has become visible in the night sky, this is why the intoxicated teen ended up crashing into the Burroughs car. This little blue dot turns out to be an earth like planet, in fact it turns out to be Another Earth, an exact replica of our planet that gets closer and closer to ours (yet the film never implies there is a danger of the two Earth's colliding, though I don't think two planets of such size could help but due so in such close proximity). This other Earth proves to be a duplicate of our Earth down to the people who inhabit it (a great scene has television showing the head of SETI making first radio contact with the other Earth, only to end up talking to herself at the other SETI). Some in the film theorize that the two Earths were in sync until the moment that they became visible to each other at which point variance became possible, this leaves Rhoda with the hope that her other self may have avoiding making the tragic mistake she did. When a private space tourism company offers a seat on a shuttle they intend to take to the other Earth to the winner of an essay contest, Rhoda of course has to enter.

Much credit to this film for its originality, as well as some fine tuned emotional poignancy. Though it started out just too indie for me, it grew on me and left me impressed. I hope to see more from director Cahill, and even more from Brit Marling who gives a crush inducing performance. ***

Secret Service of the Air (1939)

For those of you not in the know, from 1939-1940 future president Ronald Reagan stared in four Warner Brothers B-pictures playing the character of intrepid Secret Service agent "Brass" Bancroft. In this the first film in the series Reagan is pitted against an unscrupulous group of criminals smuggling illegal aliens into the country from Mexico, yes you heard that right, this is a tea party dream. Now today we mostly think of the Secret Service as a group that protects high profile government officials, but lets not forget that they are also charged with fighting counterfeiting, and that is the angle this film takes.

The movie starts with a group of aliens boarding a plane to sneak into the United States. Now these particular aliens aren't your average Mexicans seeking work, no they are a mostly white group of ner-do-wells, one of whom is involved in counterfeiting. There is an undercover Secret Service agent among them who is after the counterfeiter, once the plane takes off the agent tries to commender it, but the pilot knocks him from the cockpit back into the cabin and pulls a secret lever that releases a trap door dropping the agent and the six other passengers to there deaths (this scene kind of shocked me). Eventually the corpses are discovered in the desert, the agent identified and this information relayed back to Washington. Now the Secret Service is intent on busting this smuggling operation, not exactly something that agency does but oh well. The Service decides that they are going to need someone on this job who is a very good pilot, cue Bancroft. You see Lt. Bancroft had been a navy flier and now works in commercial  aviation doing taxing trans-pacific flights. Bancroft has long desired to enter the Secret Service (he has a friend who works for it) and now is his chance.

This friend recruits Bancroft into the Service, but he is not to tell anyone about his new position, this is because they need to give him a criminal record first. The Service plants evidence of counterfeiting on Bancroft, and quickly have him tried, found guilty, and sent to prison, where he is assigned to be the cell mate of a man who once flew for the smuggling racket. Bancroft befriends this man, they plot escape together, but Reagan stools to the warden who is of course aware of Brass's true mission. Bancroft's cell mate is sent to a more secure prison and Bancroft is released with a cover story that he got his sentence commuted when he agreed to revel the location of his printing plates to the Feds. Other incidents are subsequently arranged that ingratiate Bancroft in with the smugglers, now the only people that can blow his cover are his now recently escaped former cell mate and his good from the airline (Eddy Foy Jr.) who is convinced that Bancroft ain't no crook.

All in all a pretty good B picture, decent plot, surprisingly harsh in places. I enjoyed it and look forward to viewing the other entries in this series. **1/2

A Lonley Place to Die (2011)

Five friends, headlined by Melissa George, go on a mountain climbing trip to northern Scotland. While there they stumble upon and rescue a young Croatian girl who they find kept in a plywood box with an air pipe buried just below ground. After recovering the girl the group splits in two, with the most experienced climbers, Ms. George among them, taking the most direct rout to a nearby town to get help, with the other three and the girl going the longer but less dangerous way, or so they think. George's friend's rope is cut on a difficult cliff and he falls to his death, Melissa survives and is now fully aware that the young girls captors are after them, she races to rejoin the other group and arrives just in time to see one of her other friends shot and killed. The survivors flee together, tracked by two very determined kidnappers. You see the little girl is the child of a wealthy Croatian war criminal, that the villains are (unwisely) attempting to hold for ransom. But no girl, no ransom, so you see how it follows. The Croatian war criminal meanwhile has hired a group of professional kidnapping negotiators/rescuers, who are now of course pursuing the girl as well. Gradually members of each group are picked off as we head to a final confrontation in the town of Inverness during a local Celtic festival.

A pretty solid action/chase movie, Melissa George is one of the few actresses today who is really credible in a film like this. The rest of the supporting cast is adequate. Some nice shoots of the Scottish Highlands throughout, a refreshingly unique setting for a film of this type. **1/2

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The Way We Live Now (2001)

I elected to view this BBC adaption of the 1875 Anthony Trollope novel of the same name for two main reasons, 1) I read an article in Time magazine roughly 5 years ago that stated that the novel, despite being well over a century old and set in England , can be taken as an uncannily accurate critic of American society in the early 21st century, and 2) a kind of fascination with diminutive Scottish actress Shirley Henderson and her distinctively odd voice.

The story is a soap operatic tangle of plots lines, featuring much pettiness, avarice, and unrequited love, this thing is just loaded with love triangles. Everything centers around the character of Augustus Melmotte (David Suchet at his slimiest), and the effects his arrival in London has on the large cast of characters. Augustus Melmotte is an Austrian banker who has just fled the Continent with his wife (Helen Schlesinger), daughter Marie (Ms. Henderson) and faithful assistant Croll (Allan Corduner). They leave behind them much rumors and a failed bank. Augustus has decided to shed his old Continental ties and fully embrace becoming what he terms a 'true English genetlmen'. This pursuit entails banishing German from the home, cultivating powerful friends, and even aspiring to become a member of Parliament. While a corpulent, uncultured, rather disgusting person Melmotte does have two things going for him, all the money he brought over from Europe, and an extreme talent and telling people what they want to hear. It is these two advantages that bring much of London society into his orbit

There is Paul Montague (Cillian Murphy) a earnest and ambitious young man seeking funds to construct a railway in Mexico, about which he feels very passionate. There is lady Cardbury (Cheryl Campbell) a widowed writer just trying to maintain the appearance of long squandered wealth and her womanizing deadbeat sun Sir Felix (Matthew Macfadyen) and marriageable daughter Hetta (Paloma Baeza). Ms. Cardbury wants Hetta to marry her cousin Roger (Douglas Hodge) who has long been in love with her, but Hetta doesn't love him but instead loves his friend Paul, who loves Hetta but is pursuied from America by an ex-fiance the widowed Mrs. Hurttle (Miranda Otto). Felix meanwhile fixates on Marie for her money while continuing a side dalliance with the naive Ruby (Maxine Peake) whom Roger's longtime employee Miles Grendall (Angus Wright) pines for. Then there is the land rich but cash poor Longestaffs, Felix's friend Lord Nidderdal (Stuart McQuarrie), politically ambitious news paper publisher Mr. Alf (Rob Bydron), good hearted Jewish banker and widower Mr. Breghardt (Jim Carter) who loves Georgina Longestaffe (Anne-Marie Duff), who is desperate enough to get married she might just defy her father (Oliver Ford Davis) and marry outside the faith. As well as sundry other characters.

These stories highlight the chasms between what we want and what we have, between what the heart wants and what society deems proper, between expectation and reality. Mr. Melmotte promises easy money for all when he takes up Paul's railway scheme, but instead of putting money into the actual work he invests it elsewhere in what amounts to a pyramid scheme, always try to grow an illusionary stock bubble. One of the things I liked about this movie is nobody gets off entirely clean, though some of the characters do manage to redeem themselves, other don't, and those who do find there happiness at the end do so largely by the goodwill of others who actually stand there moral ground and defy societies expectations. This is a long production, four parts and five hours, it has to do a lot of setting up, but eventually it takes on a self propelling energy as imaginary castles fall and folks have to deal with the consequences. A solid, intriguing work, with a great cast, but not as good at generating interest in developments early on as I'd have hoped. ***

The Wasp Woman (1959)

No not a WASP  (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) Woman, though she's probably one of those, but a Wasp Woman. Roger Corman directs (and cameos briefly as a doctor) this movie about the quest for youth and beauty, and the undesirable side effects of too much wasp royal jelly. Michael Mark is Eric Zinthrop an eccentric scientist (is there any other kind in movies like these) hired by a cosmetics company to do research into the use of the royal jelly of honey bee's in beauty products. But Zinthrop is less interested in bee's and more interested in wasps, so a functionary from the cosmetics company fires him. In that Zinthrop's research shows that the royal jelly of wasps can actually, miraculously, incredulously, reverse the ageing process, though no one of course believes him, the good doctor ops to visit the president of the company and prove his worth.

The president of the Janice Starlin Cosmetics Company is perhaps predictably Janice Starlin (the ill fated actress Susan Cabot, who in the 1980's was beaten to death by her dwarf son). Starling started the company in her early twenties and for 16 years was the face of the business appearing in all its advertisements. That was up until a few months previous, when having now entered middle age Starlin consented to let younger models appear in her adverts. Unfortunately the company has now fallen on hard times, something a (kiss ass) board members tells her is because consumers felt comfortable with her face always on the advertisements, and are turning away now that that comfort is gone. When Dr. Zinthrop shows up,  Starlin in desperation agrees to see what he has to show her. He convinces her of the royal jelly power by turning guinea pigs into rats through injection, I guess guinea pigs are just old rats. Anyway now Ms. Starlin is convinced that wasp royal jelly treatments will be the salvation of her company, and sets Dr. Z up in a lab to perfect his treatment, and insists that she be his first human test subject, all the while keeping these developments largely secret from her employees, several of whom begin to see Dr. Zinthrop as a crack-pot or confidence man.

Well  the wasp royal jelly beauty treatments make Ms. Starlin look nearly twenty years younger (i.e. no more fake age wrinkle make-up), but as you've no doubt gathered from the title has the unfortunate side effect of turning her, on occasion, into a Wasp Woman. Starlin will get a bad headache, turn into the wasp women, kill someone, dispose of the body, and then return to normal, not quite remembering what she did. Unfortunately again for Ms. Starlin Dr. Zinthrop is hit by a car and laid up in bed, unable due to his concussion to remember to tell everyone the important secret he discovered shortly before wandering traumatized into traffic. Yes of course, to much wasp royal jelly is liable to turn a lady into a wasp women. This is of course a rather cheap movie, love the sets and the acting. Not quite engrossing enough to be a guilty pleasure, but competent enough to be watchable. Good to see for your B movie film literacy. *1/2