I Want to Live! (1958)

With 'I Want to Live!" Susan Hayward finally won her Oscar (on her 5th nomination) for playing Barbara Graham (1923-1955), the 3rd woman executed by gas chamber in California. Graham, whose criminal history included prostituton, check fraud, parole violation and perjury, but previously never anything violent, was convicted of first degree murder in the death of Mabel Monohan, a widow who Graham and three others were attempting home invasion robbery upon. 

Graham always maintained her innocence on the murder charge. Edward S. Montgomery, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who covered the case, and on whose work this film is partiality based (though in some areas the film takes great liberties) at first thought her gulity, then changed his mind and became an advocate for commuting her death sentence. Interestingly Ms. Hayward, who gave Ms. Graham a rather sympathetic performance in the film, gave an interview late in life where she acknowledged that her personal research on the matter lead her to conclude that Barbara was in fact guilty of the murder.

The film itself takes no position on Graham's guilt or innocence, but rather presents her as largely a victim of circumstance who was done wrong by the legal system on procedural grounds. The film is capably directed by Robert Wise in the semi-documemtary style of many a 'serious' film of the 40's and 50's, which is not a style I love. Hayward is strong, she makes the film, though shout out to Theodore Bikel who steals his scenes in a small role as a terminally ill psychologist who believes Graham innocent. ***

Three Women (1977)

 I went into 'Three Women' with very limited foreknowledge on what it was about, I think that really benefited the viewing experience for me. It's a Robert Altman film staring Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek and with noticably less screen time (though there is a purpose to this) Janice Rule. It is a movie that starts out as one kind of thing and becomes something else. Excellently handled, it is grounded, realistic, understated yet also surreal. I was really blown away by this, I think I am going to need to get a personal copy. Just wow. ****

On Dangerous Ground (1951)

 Robert Ryan is a mad cop. He's mad because his once promising athletic career didn't work out; he's mad that he's a city cop, working nights with the dregs of humanity and two weeks ago two of his fellow cops were murdered and the killers are still at large. So he's taken to being a little rougher with suspects the he ought to, a little losser with the law, his fellow officers are beginning to find him unpleasant to work with. His boss decides he needs some airing out, loans him to a small community "up state" that needs some help with a murder investigation.

Up in the wintery mountans a young girl has been killed, the local force is short handed and the girls father (Ward Bond) is openly threatening to hunt down and kill the man who did it. The man (Sumner Williams, director Nic Ray's nephew) is a kid really, not right in the head; he's got a blind sister (Ida Lupino) who Ryan tries to work to get the kid to turn himself in. Ryan is attracted to Lupino, she invokes in him an empathy he thought long dead in himself. She makes him think that maybe he could not be mad, maybe he could find peace with her in the mountains. First however he's got to bring her brother in and keep a grief stricken father from taking the law into his own hands.

This is two movies really, a gritty city based noir at first, a sort of extended prolog to bring context to Ryan's character, to provide contrast. It's about 30 minutes into this 81 minute movie before Ryan makes it out to the country, there things open up both physically and emotionally and the film becomes sort of a western. Ryan and Lupino are both good, while Bond gives one of the better performances of his career. Sumner Williams is a little weak, a napo hire, and the Bernard Herman score is a great addition to the piece. 

That first half hour has such a seamy energy to it, you really feel dropped into this world, there's a sense that all these characters have stories of their own and you kind of want to know them; so when the gear shifts to the mountains, even though that stuff is good you kind of miss what came before. Ray shows himself at home both on studio sets and in the mountain locations. This movie has an ending that might not have worked, but Ray forces it to come together. ***

Run for Cover (1955)

 A James Cagney western, that sounds like a bad idea but turns out it's not, also turns out he made three of them over the course of his career. In 'Run for Cover' Cagney and a young man he meets on the trail (John Derek) are mistaken for train robbers, the young man is shot in the leg by an over anxious sheriff and his possse. The kid almost dies but Cagney and a Swedish immigrant father (Jean Hersholt) / daughter (Viveca Lindfors) pair nurse him back to health. For keeping his head the town makes Cagney the new sheriff, Cagney takes the kid on as deputy but his injury lessens his usefulness when real outlaws come to town.

So the film contains a conventional outlaw plot, father/surragate son stuff, a sweet romance between Cagney and Lindfors and also the matter of the Cagney characters mysterious past. On the surface this should all be largely generic, throw away stuff, but Nicholas Ray elevates the hell out of this material. It's emotionally involving, with vivid characters, and beautiful color location shooting in Colorado and New Mexico. At times this film is down right gripping, the emotional stuff is handled extremely well. I am truly shocked how good this was.

James Cagney loved the experience of filming with Ray. It had been a long time since a director really took him seriously as an actor, Ray wanted to talk technique with him, character motivation. Making this movie was a real rejuvenating experience for Cagney who would call Ray one of his favorite people he ever meet in Hollywood. The supporting cast is solid, Derek is a little weak but he does fine, Hersholt makes the most of his screen time and Lindfors is charming. This movie took me by surprise in terms of its quality and consistency, I took a bit of a risk renting it but it really paid off. ***1/2

The Two Jakes (1990)

 Writer Robert Towne had conceived of 'Chinatown' as the first part of a trilogy that would use a film noir formate to explore how buisness interests subverted the public good in the Los Angeles area of the 1930s to 1950s. 'Chinatown' was a big hit both critically and comerically in 1974 but it's sequel languished in development hell, in part due to director Roman Polanski's legal exile in Europe. 'The Two Jakes' would finally hit cinemas in 1990, with star Jack Nicholson directing, the film garned mixed critical notices and did poor at the box office, taking in $10 million off a $25 million budget (whereas 'Chinatown' had a theatrical return of almost 5 times what it cost to make).

It's now 1948, 11 years after the events of the first film. The "Two Jakes" of the title are returning P.I. Jake Gittes (Nicholson) and his client Jake Berman (Harvey Keitel) who has hired him to investigate his wife's infidelity (an inverse of the wife hires Jake to investigate husband's infidelity plot of the first film). Like with the original movie a seemingly minor case serves as a doorway into larger corrupt doings. This film is very much a sequel not just in some returning characters and the tackeling of similar themes, but Gittes stumbles onto things directly related to the events of the first film, which reignite his guilt over how that case ended.

The story is actually very strong, the cast good and there are some fine performances, most unexpectedly from Meg Tilly, though Robert Farnsworth has a nice monoluge. The film is no 'Chinatown' however, that lighting in a bottle could not be replicated, at least not without Polanski. It's still a good film however and it was neat to see the changes in Gittes and Los Angeles, the two central characters of this saga. ***

Man Bait (1952)

 A 20 year old Diana Dors gets an "Introducing" credit in a film released in the UK under the less titillating title 'The Last Page'. 'Man Bait' Dors is a clerk forced by her manipulative boyfriend into black mailing her boss, a good guy London bookseller with an invalid wife. Dors sure helps to make this not so good film watchable, but she dies half way through and the film never recovers. **

Holiday (1930)

 1930's 'Holiday' is the first film adaptation of the 1928 Philip Barry stage play of the same name, which was a sort of comedy of manners come drama. I can't not compare it to the better known 1938 remake helmed by George Cukor and staring Kathrine Hepburn and Carey Grant, that latter film is a certified classic. This earlier film version hues closer the stage play and let's you better appricate the extent of the remodel Cukor did on the source material, changes that even playwrite Barry concended improved on his story. 

Still the bones remain good on this Edward H. Griffin version. It's less fluid and lose then Cukor's take, but the story is solid. Ann Harding was I think deservedly Oscar nominated for what would go on to be the Katherine Hepburn role and Edward Everett Horton, who would reprise his part in the 38 version, manages to give us two different takes on the same character. The ending here is less focussed and the movie rambles too much in its last third, but it does have a wedding rehearsal scene that is pretty funny and not in the 38 version. This movie is good but decidedly not great and comparing the two film versions shows much about the importance of casting and adaptation. ***

Turkish Superman (1979)

Commonly known as "Turkish Superman" though it's title translates as "Superman Returns", which is funny both because it predates the American film of the same name by 27 years and because Superman is not returning in this film he is arriving. A notorious curiosity this is a non licenced Superman movie releassed in Turkey in 1979.

 Filmed in one week without sound and later dubbed. This is one of the worst looking films I have ever seen, in terms of special effects, sets and cinemntography. It feels like portions of connective story tissue are just missing and the subtitles on the version I saw routinely garbeled the tense of words.

The acting is community theater level, portions of the score are directly stolen both from John Williams 'Superman' theme and from James Bond movies. The story of Superman fighting the Turkish mob who want to use "krypton stone" to turn lead into gold is just silly. All that being said this was a joy to watch at just 67 minutes. 

Almost sublimely odd it easily kept my attention with its ridiculousness. This is the kind of movie that really messes with a traditional rating scale because it's glaringly bad, just awful but also loads of fun. I'm gonna give it *1/2 but it also warrants a thumbs up. This is the best disaster I've seen since 'Aline'.

Slither (2006)

 James Gunn wrote, directed and imparted his signature touches to 'Slither', the story of alien parasites laying siege to a small South Carolina town. Film is a science fiction/horror pastich, the influences of 'Night of the Creeps', 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' and Cronenbergian body horror can all be felt. I don't know if the whole thing truly comes together but it gets pretty darn close. Staring Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks and Micheal Rooker, Jenna Fischer plays another receptionist. **1/2 

The Celluloid Closet (1996)

 Documentary on the history of the portrayal of homosexuals in American film (often coded) from the 1890's (yes they have an example from that far back) to the 1990's. Pretty significant film, I remember when this came out and the backlash to just making a movie that talked about the subject. I remember being offended at the time, thinking this a movie trying to insert homosexuality into classic Hollywood films, when in fact it was their the whole time. (Turns out there is a whole seperat documentary on gays in films just during the code era of the mid 30's to 1950's.) Looking at where Hollywood was in the 1990's to now, remarkable change in just a quarter century, though more so I think on television then movies. Lily Tomlin narrates, ironically she had not come out yet. ***1/2

Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb (2022)

 Documentary on the very fruitful but sometimes combative half century collaboration between the political biographer Robert Caro and his editor Robert Gottlieb. Both giants in their field this balanced joint biography is illuminaring and surprisingly gripping. You come to really like both men as well as understand what it is about each man that bothers the other. This is kind of a nitch film but the personalities of the two have charms and eccentricities that transcend the literary and political worlds they inhabited. This was a real treat, much big grinning throughout. Directed by Gottlieb's daughter Lizzie. ****

Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1986)

 'Howling 2' is the sequel to the 1981 classic 'The Howling'. It's a rather down rent sequel. We exchange Joe Dante's distinctive vision for something more generic and less interesting. Whereas before we had a bunch of distinguished character actors here we just have Christopher Lee, and we are grateful to have him, he plays an occult expert and werewolf hunter.

Dee Wallace's reporter character of course died at the end of the first film, in addition to Lee her mantel is taken up by the characters brother (Reb Brown) and a work colleague (Anne McEnroe), they are both abysmal actors. After werewolfs lay siege to LA's punk rock scene (arguably a public service), our hero's follow the pack leader to Transylvania (werewolves and vampires pretty much interchangeable I guess). The Queen of the Werewolves (Sybell Danning) is up to no good and there are both werewolf and human sex scenes (these movies are really horny), plus there's violence.

Like in 'The Man With The Golden Gun' Lee has a little person assistant. This may be the only horror movie to feature a keytar. The wolf effects a step down from the original. Lee is the only soul in this who can act, overall the performances are painful. Has Christopher Lee and trace amounts of camp value but that's about it. Reb Brown is stand out bad. *

You Light Up My Life (1977)

'You Light Up My Life' is a great song, an Oscar winner, I've loved it for a long time. The Debby Boone version was #1 on the Billboard popular charts for 10 weeks in 1977. On screen Didi Conn is just adorable as (Kasey Cisyk dubbing) she belts it out with that orchestra, movie magic. That and one other musical number excepted 'You Light Up My Life' is a terrible movie.

The film is just awful. Trit, cliche, dull as hell, unfunny, at times just uncomfortable. Conn plays a struggling actor/singer/comic about to marry a boring tennis instructer, when she has a one night stand with a man who turns out to be an important film director; her personal and professional life is about to take a dramatic turn and then he flakes out on her. Didi is going to have to seize her dreams on her own, regardless of what her vaudeville comic dad or any of the dreadfully uncharsmatic men in this film have to say about it. This may be the worst movie to ever win an Oscar, it is staggeringly flat. I'm just amazed how bad this was. I finished watching it mostly out of spite. I hated this. Dreadful. *

Creed III (2023)

 I came out of 'Creed II' about 5 years back thinking there was really no need for another of these, give it a rest for at least 10 years. Well they came back in half that time, so I went in a little reluctantly, not a lot of options and good notices propelling me into the theater. 'Creed III' is a perfectly fine movie, the story just different enough, our returning characters still likable and Jonathan Majors charismic and nuenced enough of a performer to keep the inevitable beats of the story interesting. It felt a little inconsistent on the chronology and its hard to believe the Rocky character wouldn't try to lend his support in some way, I guess we can pretend they talked on the phone since the studio couldn't land Stallone for a cameo (I know right where it would have gone too). This looked great in IMAX, but as could be expected it's nothing that special though satisfying. ***

Lovelace (2013)

 'Lovelace' is a bio-pic of the legendary 1970's porn starlet of 'Deep Throat' fame, Linda Lovelace. Born Linda Susan Boreman in the Bronx in 1949, she had a child out of wedlock at age of 20, so her very Catholic family put the baby up for adaption and relocated to Flordia. It was there that Linda meet her first husband Chuck Traynor, a struggling local businessman who would get his wife into the porn industry, beat her and pimp her out. Linda would eventually escape from Traynor, divorce him, remarry, have a family, and become an anti pornography activist before dieing from injuries sustained in a car crash at age 53 in 2002.

Amanda Seyfried gives a sympathetic performance as Linda, naive at first, you feel for her she went through hell. Peter Sarsgaard plays Traynor, Chris Noth, Bobby Cannavle and Hank Azara play pornographers while an unrecognizable Sharon Stone plays Linda's mother (I didn't know it was her until the credits). The film is dispointingly slight, is edited a little oddly and is largely unpleasant to watch. It feels like a dirty TV movie, 'Blond' without the arty pretense. **

The Sound of 007 (2022)

 'The Sound of 007' is a documentary on the history of the music, score but espically the theme songs, in James Bond movies from 'Dr. No' to 'No Time to Die'. It's fairly survey course, it dosen't examine all of the songs but gets the big ones. It's interesting to see the development over time and there's lots of good anecdotes. **1/2

The Delinquents (1957)

'The Delinquents' is legendary filmmaker Robert Altman's first feature, written, produced and directed by him. Independently financed and filmed in and around his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, the cast mostly non professionals. The film was made for only $68,000 but brought in a box office of $1,000,000 when released by United Artists, mostly for the drive-in circuit.

As the title suggests this is a juvenile delinquency movie. A fundamentally good kid gets mixed up with hoodlum types, sort of 'Rebel Without A Cause' explotation. Not much too it, pretty weak story wise and plays long at just 72 minutes, but  competently made on a technical level.

 Altman gives his roughly 9 year old daughter a supporting part as the leads kid sister; the lead by the way is played by Tom Laughlin who would go on to B movie immortality as Billy Jack in 5 Billy Jack pictures. I wish there had been a little more local flavor, but Altman was able to make his proper home town homage film 4 decades later with 'Kansas City'. **

Scream 6 (2023)

 The 'Scream' franchise goes where others have gone before and "takes Manhattan", on Halloween no less. Actually relocating to an urban setting shakes things up a little and gives this IP a much needed shot in the arm. The extreme meta nature of these films can be as limiting as it is freeing, but I thought they struck a nice balance here. The new characters continue to develop nicely and I feel like I have a sense of where they plan on taking things in the future, if they do it right I will be pleased. I enjoyed this and with surprisingly few reservations, best 'Scream' of the 21st century. ***

Penny Serenade (1941)

Spoilers and a longish digression

Tear jerker directed by George Stevens, while he would later direct my favorite film 'Giant', at this point in his career he was known mainly for comedies and the adventure film 'Gunga Din'.

Circa 1929, Brooklyn newspaper reporter Cary Grant spots Irene Dunne through the window of the music store where she works, he makes a large purchase he dosen't need as an excuse to meet her. The couple date for some time but Grant won't commit and Dunne starts to despair that he will never ask her to marry him. An opportunity to be his papers correspondent in Japan makes Cary face the prospect of life without Irene, so he proposes, they marry quickly and three months later he sends for her to join him.

The couple are happy together in Japan, the locals are portraid positivity in a film that would be released in April of 1941. Irene gets pregnate but a 1933 earthquake results in her having a miscarge. They move back to America and using an inheritance of Dunne's, Grant buys a small town Califorina newspaper and struggles to make it work. 

Unable to have children the couple take in a six week old girl through the local orphanage and love her dearly. They are almost unable to finalize the adoption when the newspaper folds, but a determined Cary manages to talk a skeptical judge into signing the final papers.

Years pass, Grant has got his paper running again with help of right hand man/ old Brooklyn friend "Appeljack" Carney (Edger Buchanan). There is a sentimental Christmas pagent sequence with the adorable fiveish year old daughter. Just under a year later Trina dies after a brief illness. Irene is devistaed but Cary sinks into an alcoholic void of despair. The couple conclude their marriage can not be saved and plan on a separation, until the woman who runs the orphange (Beulah Bondi, in one of the few film roles in which she is not playing somebody's mother) calls to let them know she has a two year old boy who needs a home. Hope is restored, fade to black.

Man this movie is sad, but it's also very sweet. Cary Grant is a known quantity, but he stretches a few more acting muscles then usual for the emotional stuff. Irene Dunne is an actress I keep telling myself I need to see more of, she's very good but I feel like I haven't fully figured her out, she dosen't seem to fit neatly into an easy catagory but is a consistently endearing presence on screen.

Dunne was Oscar nominated 5 times but never won. She likely took this role in part because she and her husband Dennis adopted their only child, a daughter after 9 years of marriage. Dennis by the way was a dentist, the kind of detail I love. The couple was married 38 years before Dennis died, Irene would out live him by a quarter century, passing away in 1990 at the age of 91. Devout Catholics the only celebrity to attend her small private funeral was the also very Catholic Lorreta Young, a family friend. Their daughter Mary Francis would die in 2020 at the age of 85.

'Penny Serenade' lays it on kind of thick, but Grant's good and Dunne impressively subtle. It looks to be about three actresses who play their daughter at different ages and they have a real run of luck in that department, even the 18 month old could act. A sincere film which deals rather frankly for its time with money troubles, adoption, loss of a child and depression. ***1/2

All Quite on the Western Front (2022)

 A previous film version of the storied 1929 German anti-war novel  'All Quite on the Western Front' won the Academy Award for best picture back in 1930; the new film adaption by director Edward Berger is the first German made movie version of the book (though Netflix's cut is heavily dubbed) and is up for the same award as it predecessor. My viewing of the film was not helped by watching it on a small screen over a series of days, it really should be seen on the big screen, a gory spectical of mud and blood.

The film has some compelling visuals, one which stood out to me and which I don't recall seeing on film before, is a depiction of being in a trench when tanks are rolling over it. There is also good work done by the capable cast in some of the slower/talkie scenes. The main narritive is about a group of young solders over roughly the last 18 months of the First World War, but this version counterpoints a large chunk of its running time with the Armistice negotations, the always welcome Daniel Brühl appears as real world German diplomat Matthais Erzberger (later assinated). An earnest, worthy enough film that just couldn't quite capture me. ***

Time to Kill (1942)

 'Time to Kill' is the final of Lloyd Nolan's, Micheal Shayne films, the reason it's the last is that Fox shut down their B movie unit at the end of 1942, presumably as a cost saving measure because of the war. The plot concerns the disapernce of a valuable old coin. The leading ladies are Heather Angel, best known for doing voice work for Disney in the 50's and Doris Merrick who lived to be 100 years old. While this is the shortest (59 minutes), seems the cheapest and most lazily put together of the Shayne films, likley because they were wraping up operations. it still has its charms. Shayne ends the film with yet another fiance.**

Just Off Broadway (1942)

 Nolan Shayne film #6 has the detective improbably on the jury of a high profile New York murder trial. After a witness is murdered mid testimony by a professional knife thrower, Shayne sneaks out of sequester and teams with an old flame lady reporter (Marjorie Reynolds in her third Shayne picture) to solve the case. A pre 'Sargent Bilko' Phil Silvers plays a newspaper photographer bent on getting a shot of Shayne on the lose. The only of Nolan's Shayne pictures to have an original screenplay, not be adapted from an existing novel or play, it's the weaker for it. Jurors asking questions in open court, I mean really. **

The Man Who Wouldn't Die (1942)

 Nolan's fifth Shayne film has us back on the east coast, rural New York this time, or maybe Connecticut. A millionaire's daughter hires Shayne to pretend to be her new husband after a "ghost" tries to kill her in her father's mansion. Marjorie Weaver returns from the first film and Helene Whitney from the fourth, both playing different characters of course. Supporting players include Henry Wilcoxon, Paul Harvey (not that Paul Harvey) and silent screen comedian Billy Bevan. Highlights include some mistaken identites, magicians tricks and Shayne pretending to be only an "amature enthusiast" when "assisting" a far less capable small town police chief. Plenty of humor, a cleaver plot and at a lean 64 minutes we are back in *** territory.

Blue, White and Perfect (1942)

 Lloyd Nolan's 'Micheal Shayne' # 4. Mary Beth Hughes is back, playing a different Shayne fiance, I'm affraid I don't see the chemistry the 20th Century Fox studio brass apparently saw. Shayne actually commits check fraud against his fiance in this film, he has about as good a reason you could have to do so, but still. Also Shayne's home location has apparently shifted back to California from New York.

The plot concerns Nazi's stealing and smuggling industrial diamond's, Shayne's employer in this film is an American defense contractor. Shayne pursues the smugglers aboard a passanger ship, meets later 50's Superman George Reeves who seems slimy at first but turns out to be an undercover FBI man, as well as another old flame, Helene Whitney.

This movie was released Janury 6th 1942, one month after Pearl Harbor, but was clearly made before because Shayne follows the smugglers to Honolulu and no reference to the attack is made. The film is crowded and feels longer then it's 74 minute running time. Highlights include a snipper who continually fails to hit Shayne and the detective pretending to be a stereotypically accented southern gentleman. **1/2

Dressed to Kill (1941)

 Sharing its title with a famous Brian De Palma erotic thriller from 1980, 1941's 'Dressed to Kill' is the third of movie in which Lloyd Nolan plays Micheal Shayne. Mary Beth Hughes, who played the endangered witness in the last Shayne film is back, only now she is playing a different character, a burlesque performer who is Shayne's fiance; ironically Shayne ended the last picture on the verge of engagement with Lynn Bari

Shayne goes to visit his fiance at her apartment in a building that caters to theater people (Shayne's place of reisdence seems to have been inexplicably moved from California to New York). While there he hears a shot and scream, rushes up a floor to their source and discovers a theatrically arranged murder scene. Shayne phones a newspaper before he calls the police, gets $100 for the early exclusive and an offer of a additional $400 if he solves the murder before the police. Micheal then proceeds to neglect his girl to concentrate on the case, he ends up kind of half solving it with the aid of Preston Sturges good luck charm William Demarest as a police detective, as a result however he ends up losing the girl.

I was not quite as captured by this as the previous two films and there are some rather dated black supporting characters so I'm giving this **1/2

On a side note it always throws me a bit when a character in a film uses the phrase "before the war" and means World War I.