Horror and Sci-Fi films old and new, weirdo trash, arthouse, forgotten gems, well loved classics, and I'm watching the original Dr Who from the beginning.
Despite being set in La Belle Époque, Casque d'Or is not a stuffy period drama. Director Jacques Becker creates a rich and believable world that is also vibrant and contemporary.
The story centres around Marie (Simone Signoret), the girlfriend of Roland, a gangster in a small French town. After a chance meeting, Marie she falls for Georges, a humble carpenter, and her boyfriend's jealousy leads to a fatal showdown.
The subdued tone means little or no histrionics or melodrama, even in the confrontation scene between Georges and Roland. There is no explicit violence, but the coldness and the closeup shots are chilling and uncomfortable. There is no music and glamorization of what is happening.
When Georges goes on the run there is also an interesting contrast between the dark, dense city, full of crime and death and the wide expansive and peaceful countryside.
The haunting finale mirrors the opening. This is a film with a bleak worldview. Georges is an honourable man in a dishonest world. Everyone does the decent thing, and nobody is happy.
One for the Bela Lugosi (or Mother Riley) completists,
Mother Riley meets the Vampire is a strange hybrid of English Music Hall and
American low budget mad scientist movies.
Arthur Lucan had been playing Mother Riley, an Irish washer
woman who gets herself into assorted scrapes and adventures, on stage and
screen since the 1930s, but, possibly due to the parochial nature of the
character, the films had not really caught on internationally had much success
outside of the UK. Enter Bela Lugosi, who had travelled to the UK for a stage
version of Dracula that flopped, leaving him penniless and desperately needing
money to get back to the US. Producer George Minter must have seen him, even in
the twilight of his career, as a big enough name to drum up some business at
the American box office.
The sinister Von Housen (Lugosi) has two notable character
traits: he is hellbent on seeks dominating the world with an army of 50,000
radar-controlled nuclear-powered robots. He also reckons he's a vampire and has
several young women abducted, including one who has a map to a uranium mine
that he needs for his robot army. Granted, his army is currently 49,999 short,
and to make matters worse, his only functioning robot has been shipped to
Mother Riley's store by mistake.
The result is two different film styles that don't really
gel together, but it's more entertaining than not. Lugosi seems to be enjoying
himself, and, as always, is great fun to watch. Lucan brings a sense of
knockabout slapstick and some well delivered occasional salty quips ("May
the saints shower you with sailors on shore leave!"), but his constantly
shrill delivery means a little goes a long way. Modern audiences may mostly be
reminded of comedy character Arthur Atkinson from the Fast Show, with
comparable baffling catchphrases and contemporary references.
Orson
Welles'take
on Shakespeare's Moor of Venice is a brave but flawed film. While
visually striking, the disjointed and distant feel of Othello
makes
it hard to connect with the story or characters.
Welles
sticks faithfully to the story, with the titular Venetian General
falling foul of the scheming of his supposedly faithful servant Iago,
and being tricked into doubting his wife’s fidelity, with tragic
and deadly consequences. However, trimming a three hour play in half
creates two problems. Firstly, the pacing becomes so frantic that the
story becomes confusing and garbled at times. Secondly, the cuts mean
we lose some of the characterisation and ambiguities that make the
play so rich. Subsequently, the characters are not as interesting,
and the scenario of a dignified intelligent person being destroyed by
mix of a devious scheme from a master plotter (and a fizzing
energetic bundle of evil) and his own insecurities, becomes a
slightly dim man being tricked by a slightly devious man.
Desdemona is similarly diminished as a personality, from the fiery,
independent woman of the text, defying her father to marry the man
she loves, to a simpering helpless, passive girl. Some of the shots
seem designed to put distance or a barrier between the audience and
the figures on screen, which, when combined with the two-dimensional
characters makes for uninvolving viewing, lacking the emotional core
that can make Othello so devastating.
Welles
plays Othello in “Blackface” make-up, which looks more silly and
distracting than offensive nowadays. There is little to read into
this in terms of racism as he was simply following the theatrical convention of the time, and indeed, race is one of several themes
left unexplored thanks to the copious chops made to the text.
Having
said all of that, Othello
looks magnificent, making full use of the locations in
Venice,Tuscany, Rome and Morocco where it was shot. Given the
nightmare Welles had making the film, with frequent lengthy breaks in
production, while he went off to make other films to raise money to
finish this one, it is obviously a labour of love, and he deserves
recognition and credit as someone who broke new ground in
transferring Shakespeare from the stage to the screen, and making good use of the medium along the way.
One
for Welles completists, and cinematic Shakespeare completists, but
this version of Othello may leave the more casual viewer cold.
Perhaps overlooked in the Film Noir genre, Angel Face has some interesting twists and turns, and a great cast. However, it never really transcends the genre clichés, and stretches a thin and familiar plot too far
Frank Jessup (played by Robert Mitchum) is a former soldier, now working as an ambulance driver while he tries to raise money to open a garage. One night he is called to a mansion in Beverly Hills where a millionairess has narrowly escaped being poisoned in a gas leak, and soon finds himself romantically involved with her stepdaughter, Diane (Jean Simmons). However, Diane has an all-consuming hatred of her stepmother, and with Frank finding himself drawn further into Diane's schemes, he finds himself fighting for his life.
Film Noir is a term where the precise meaning can be endlessly debated, but for me personally, pure Film Noir is inextricably tied to the time and place of post-World War Two USA. This is a time where the unity and patriotism of the war effort is breaking down into individualism, the optimism is turning sour, the victory is being superseded by another enemy, and the threat of another (this time potentially apocalyptic) war, and men and women no longer know their place. This still leaves room for a wide range of characters and themes, from cops and criminals (example), unhinged nuclear paranoia (Kiss Me Deadly), to loners and losers looking for a break, as we see here in Angel Face
Jean Simmons steals the show, bringing an intense and alluring energy to the role of cold calculating Diane, without being hysterical or hammy. Her character is completely self-absorbed, utterly without any remorse for her actions, and all the more unsettling for it.
This contrasts sharply with Frank, played by Mitchum in his usual laconic, self-confident, loner way, but with a hint of vulnerability. Jessup is a proud independent man, with a dry sense of humour (“Never be the innocent bystander. That’s the one that always gets hurt”), but he is also a man who lets his ambitions get in the way of his common sense.
The atmosphere and pace at the start of the film is almost as laid back and dreamy as Jessup, as we gradually learn about his character, his hopes and dreams, and his attitudes to women (he has a fear of commitment and an on/off girlfriend, both of which go out of the window when Diane gets her claws in). We also get to know Diane, and her version of her feud with her stepmother, and this character study is where the film is most successful.
However, the film suddenly jolts us awake with a sudden, violent incident, one that sees Frank and Diane involved in a very public court battle, teaming up with a wily attorney who will seemingly do anything to win the case. While the unexpected change of pace and direction works for a while, it eventually becomes apparent that many of the elements of the plot, such as the murder plot, the courtroom battle, and the man being led astray by a woman all feel like they have been done before, and better.
Just when the story has completely run out of steam we get one final shocker at the climax, one that is perhaps not surprising to anyone who is familiar with Film Noir, and will know that in these films there was never any chance of a happy ending.
Full of fun and energy, Singin’ in the Rain is a glorious celebration of film, both the history and the medium, and easily one of the best movie musicals ever made.
