by ·Comments Off on The Big Knife (1955, Robert Aldrich)

Dour noirish plotty Hollywood blackmail thing, mostly valuable for getting to watch Ida Lupino’s eyes for half the movie. She’s the estranged wife of Jack Palance, back at their fancy house to try convincing him to reclaim his art and not sign a lucrative long-term contract with a crap producer. Various friends and gangsters and agents get themselves involved, but Palance signs to make the bad guys go away, then goes upstairs and kills himself. Just six months after Kiss Me Deadly, with fancier lighting – not the kind of drama I go for, but very nicely shot and acted.

Rod “Run of the Arrow” Steiger as the producer, getting overexcited:

Singin’ in the Rain lipsyncer Lina Lamont knows everyone’s secrets:

Shelley Winters (shortnin’ bread in The Visitor) knows too much:

Welles fave Everett Sloane as the agent, with a naked Palance:

by ·Comments Off on On Dangerous Ground (1951, Nicholas Ray)

“Nobody likes a cop.” A woman picks up her husband’s gun in the first second of the movie post-credits, what would Chekhov say about that? Robert Ryan (between The Set-Up and Clash by Night) is very tame for a supposedly short-tempered, violent officer on the trail of two cop killers. His team catches the guys, but Ryan is sent away to the country to cool off, where Ward Bond is on a rampage, promising to kill his daughter’s murderer without a trial. The suspect’s sister is blind Ida Lupino, so the movie stops its killer pursuits to hang out while these two assholes torment her. Her brother surfaces and spares the two men from having to kill him by falling off a cliff while running away.

Ryan in the country with Ward:

Ryan is good, at least, relative to the rest of the movie. Country and city folk have perfect diction, nothing feels authentic or lived-in – a couple shots of great truth and intensity, but a phony movie. The title always reminds me of crap 90s Steven Seagal social-issues actioner On Deadly Ground, but it turns out there was also a crap 90s Rob Lowe social-issues actioner called On Dangerous Ground.

Ryan in the city with his jittery informant, Welles regular Gus Schilling:

by ·Comments Off on El (1953, Luis Buñuel)

Mustache Man/Land Baron Francisco spots hot girl Gloria during foot-fetish church and chases her relentlessly, firing everyone in his path, breaking up her engagement with construction guy Raul, winning the girl through sheer force.

Soon he’s going off on Gloria in jealous rages, while fighting for some property he claims was stolen from his ancestors. When they meet hunky Ricardo on their honeymoon he goes insane and attacks the guy. Back home, he gets a conspiracy against his wife between her mother and servant and priest, then shoots her with blanks as a threat to stop talking. She finds Raul and flashbacks half the movie, while Francisco finally loses his mind completely in public.

I’m surprised Bunuel worked with this cinematographer again – he appears to have lit the scenes with a searchlight positioned behind the camera, so everyone has a shadow right behind them. Also surprised the letterboxd crowd hasn’t declared this and The River and Death and Archibaldo de la Cruz a trilogy since Carlos Baena plays priests in all three. Don F is best known for The Skeleton of Mrs. Morales, Gloria was an Argentine film star, and the servant was a work boss in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

by ·Comments Off on 3:10 to Yuma (1957, Delmer Daves)

Butterfield’s stagecoach and a nearby cattle farmer’s horses get robbed by Glenn Ford’s gang, then Glenn hangs out casually in Bisbee falling for bartender Felicia Farr (Jubal) while the posse runs away from town searching for him. The sheriff tries to enlist the cattle farmer Cowboy Dan (Van Heflin: a major player on the cowboy scene) in a scheme to capture Glenn – he refuses until Butterfield offers more cash than a drought-ruined farmer can pass up.

The plan: they arrest Glenn knowing his murder-gang will try to rescue him, and pull a switcheroo at the farm so the gang won’t know they’re holding Glenn at the hotel. Then simply wait for the 3:10 train and put Glenn aboard, easy peasy. But the gang has spies and once they find the hotel, they kill Drunk Alex (the only other guy who’d take the money for this assignment), Butterfield walks out, and nobody thinks Van/Dan can get Glenn onboard to the train alive (he can). Glenn is terrific at playing the overconfident villain, should’ve done that more often. I have not much interest in the remake, despite Alan Tudyk playing the drunk.

by ·Comments Off on The River and Death (1955, Luis Buñuel)

Simple fable of a violent vendetta town cluttered up with twenty characters and a flashback structure so it seems more complex than it is. Hunky doctor Gerardo, recovering from polio in the big city, is being challenged by Romulo to a duel back in his hometown. He explains that the men of his family and another have been killing each other for generations, each killer hiding out on a nearby island for a penance period afterwards. Gerardo goes home at his mom’s request, agrees to meet Romulo on the island but refuses to shoot him – an anti-macho softie ending as the two men hug it out.

Romulo is Friday in the Robinson Crusoe movie, the town priest also played priests in Archibaldo de la Cruz and El, and peacekeeping elder Don Nemesio plays the title role in the as-seen-on-MST3K Santa Claus.

by ·Comments Off on The Big Night (1951, Joseph Losey)

Georgie (John “Drew’s dad” Barrymore) is a 17yo nerd, his dad (Preston Foster of The Informer) a bartender, both of them getting shaken down by every tough guy in town – particularly big man Howard St. John (Strait-Jacket and Shockproof). Revenge on his mind, Georgie puts on a suit, grabs his dad’s gun, and goes out to find St. John.

Along the way he gets confused by liquor… has a nightmare flashback during a drum solo at a club… mortifyingly tries to condescendingly compliment a Black singer… makes out with Joan Lorring (The Verdict)… tries to pick up a baby while holding a gun… meets a poodle… learns some harsh truths about his pop and the world. The kid does try to kill St. John, but “just creased him” according to the cops, then decides “nothing matters to me anymore, and there’s nobody I matter to.” Dark little movie, with the sound recording quality of a ’30s film. Losey made this the same year as M, and fled to Europe before editing was finished to escape the anti-communist brigade.

by ·Comments Off on The Music Room (1958, Satyajit Ray)

Movie about an unemployed homeowner who burns through his savings to watch live music – I cannot relate. Spends a fortune inviting musicians to play living room shows, and throwing parties to one-up the neighbors. Insists his family come back from an overseas trip to attend, then they die in a cyclone, so he spends four years in mourning/seclusion. When neighbor Gangapada Basu comes to invite him to a show at his own house, our guy Roy (Chhabi Biswas, also of Devi) suddenly reopens his own house, hires away the neighbor’s musician and steals his party. Roy gets to gloat one last time with the remains of his fortune, then having lived the dream, dies suddenly.

The song and dance scenes are especially good – here’s beardy Ujir Khan guy getting jazzy:

Roy smoking with the neighbor on his last day alive:

by ·Comments Off on The Big Combo (1955, Joseph H. Lewis)

Handsome noir about a clunky police investigation. If you can watch it like a film critic, for pure light and sound, it’s a keeper. If you care about writing and plot, it’s iffy.

Donlevy in conference with the thugs:

Villain Richard Conte looked familiar (I guess from The Blue Gardenia or Thieves’ Highway), lead cop Cornel Wilde not so much (of Shockproof). Jean Wallace was best known as Wilde’s wife. The villain’s wife-in-hiding is Helen Walker of Nightmare Alley. The villain’s pathetic hanger-on was Brian Donlevy, who is both Quatermass and McGinty, and thugs Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman were both later in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The Swedish antiquer played a general in Merrill’s Marauders, and Bettini is Ted de Corsia, who must’ve had a noirish face, appearing in The Killing, Lady From Shanghai, and Naked City.

Cornel pays a visit to Bettini:

Conte shows Jean Wallace his closet:

by ·Comments Off on Fear and Desire (1953, Stanley Kubrick)

Very Twilight Zone opening narration, four soldiers crashed in enemy territory, in a forest of the mind. The lieutenant with his cocky officer’s hat suggests they build a raft and ride the river home. But first a bit of action: assault on some nazis eating dinner, they die clutching fistfuls of stew. The Lt is calm, stands around composing philosophy on the nature of war while his men are in a hurry to get to safety.

They kidnap a girl who spots them (she’s best known as the disembodied head in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die) and leave her tied up in the care of young Sidney. He immediately starts freaking out and crying, then does an unfunny improv routine and is upset that she doesn’t chuckle. Sid is extremely insecure, paws and kisses at her then releases her and shoots her dead when she runs, then he rants that the river is blood and runs off cackling. Meanwhile Mac (Frank Silvera of Dassin’s Uptight) spots an enemy general and figures they can assassinate him on the way home. The plan works out: Mac gets blasted riding the raft as a distraction while the two others storm the general’s cabin then steal his plane.

You’ll never guess who half-dead Mac meets downriver:

“I wish I could want what I wanted before.” A real tortured screenplay, overwritten but nice looking – the writer later worked on Saint Jack with P-Bog, and Kubrick disowned this film to the point of trying to destroy all copies. Why does the annoyingly wordy lieutenant also play the annoyingly wordy enemy general?