Knock on Any Door (1949)

 About a year ago when I was reading a biography of director Nicholas Ray,  I looked for this movie and couldn't find it anywhere. The other day I stumbled upon it, free on Prime.

This early Ray film was based on the novel of the same name by Willard Motley, who did not like Ray's version of his story. However, it is significant that 'Knock on Any Door' was only the second time (the first being Frank Yerby's 'The Foxes of Harrow' in 1947) that a Hollywood movie had been adapted from a novel by a black writer. Interestingly there is only one black character in the movie, I am uncertain about the racial make up in Motley's novel.

Here we have two protagonists, John Derek ( future husband of Bo) given an Introducing credit and effective as Nick Romano, a young man of the slums channeled into crime by his circumstances (despite being at hart a decent fellow), and Humphrey Bogart as Andrew Morton, a man who came from a similar background to Nick's but managed to pull himself up and become a lawyer. Andrew wants to help Nick get his life on track, an interest that intensifies after he marries Nick's former social worker (Susan Perry).

The film is of the sympathetic to hoodlums sort, befitting some psychological trends of the time and serving as a forerunner for Ray's most famous work 'Rebel Without A Cause'. There is a court room framing device for the backstory that consitues most of the picture, which then shifts to focus on the actual trial. Nick is accused of killing a cop and his guilt or innocence of the crime is kept uncertain till the end of the film, resulting in a strong monologe scene for Bogart.

The film moves from a middling social issues picture/ muted knock off of a Cagney movie, to a fairly impressive psychological character study, at least for it's time. Nick gains much audience sympathy through his relationship with a simple, sweet young woman from a similar economic background, Emma (played by Allene Roberts (who I knew from the mystery picture 'The Redhouse' (1947) where she is love interest to a character named Nate)), is the kind of girl who just brings out a man's protective instincts. Her fate proves very central to the story.

A solid film which ably keeps it ambitions suited to its glorified B movie status. Ray was very skilled at the casting of secondary parts and there are some great authentic faces on screen. Nic Ray's second picture made, and first released, it marked him early as a young artist to reckon with. ***

Red Rocket (2021)

 'Red Rocket' is a film by director Sean Baker, who made one of my favorite films of a couple of years back 'The Florida Project'. Like that film, 'Red Rocket' is about people living on the margins, which makes Baker something of an American equivalent of the English filmmaker Mike Leigh. 

Our lead character is "Mikey Saber" (Simon Rex) a has been pornstar who returns to his hometown on the Texas gulf course, presumably to reconcile with his estranged wife (Bree Elrod) but princably because he can't think of anything else to do. Effectively unemployable on account of his past line of work, Mikey becomes a drug dealer, another of his previous professions. Mikey is pretty good at this job, he now has a strong cash flow, his wife's coming around, he even has the admiring friendship and occasional free chauffer serives of his neighbor Ethan Darbone.

However, Mikey becomes smitten with the 17 year old redhead (Suzanna Son) who works the counter at the donut shop where he does much of his dealing. He charms her and slowly works to open her to the idea of doing porn, thinking this young beauty might be his ticket back to the adult film industry. Mikey is not honest with the girl, nicknamed "Strawberry" about his true circumstances, but he's not really honest with anybody, a perpetual fiber and exagertor. Mikey is living multiple lives and has a number of balls (schemes) in the air. He is simply not smart enough to pull all this off, so as the movie goes on you keep waiting to see which shoes will drop and drop they will. 

Made for around a million dollars and featuring a mix of professional actors and locals, this a grungy film about the displaced and the underclass. Set in the summer of 2016 against the backdrop of the presidential election, 'Red Rocket' is a subtlety rumative piece, almost a kind of folk filmmaking. These are the kinds of characters you don't see in film that often and there is something really true about them. ***