by ·Comments Off on Find Me Guilty (2006, Sidney Lumet)

One of those studio flops that nobody talked about except for Jonathan Rosenbaum, who called it Lumet’s most entertaining feature and rated it one of the top films of the year:

What makes it for me so timely and relevant a satire is what it demonstrates about our unacknowledged complicity with criminals — how much we enjoy them and how much we forgive them for their crimes, at least if they put on a good show for us, regardless of what we claim. Lumet, who coscripted this subversive tale himself, forces the issue by making this thug so likable and the forces of law and order so corrupt that we constantly have to reflect upon what we’re actually buying into.

Vin is very likable indeed, and goes around shooting down criminal conspiracy charges by saying gee-whiz stuff like “I guess if you’re Italian you should be in prison,” while a big jazz soundtrack keeps the energy high. The lighting looked made-for-TV but maybe that’s the sacrifice for setting your entire story in government buildings.

Vin constantly defends Big Boss Nick (Alex Rocco of The Godfather and Eddie Coyle) even though the others have disowned Vin and think he’s tanking their case. Peter Dinklage is Nick’s lawyer semi-collaborating with Vin, Annabella Sciorra (Cop Land) is Vin’s wife, Linus Roache (Nolan-Batman’s dad) the prosecutor, and Ron Silver (Heat Vision & Jack) the judge.

by ·Comments Off on Murder on the Orient Express (1974, Sidney Lumet)

Final tally:
Perkins > Bacall > Gielgud > Connery > Cassel > Balsam > Roberts > Bisset >
(good/bad frontier)
Widmark > Hiller > Quilley > York > Bergman > Finney

Richard Widmark wakes up dead on a train, after asking detective Poirot to protect him the day before. Widmark was the mastermind of a heinous kidnapping in prologue, also a huge asshole, and it turns out all of the suspects had motives, each of them affected by his crime, and conspired to kill him together.

Languorously paced, and centered around Finney’s Mike Myers-like appearance and accent, it’s a near-disaster of a movie kept sporadically afloat by a few good scenes and performances, and a touching ending. Anthony Perkins was Widmark’s assistant – nervous, of course… Bergman is a timid religious fanatic who says “little brown babies” pretty often… Vanessa Redgrave is cute and smiley, having an affair with Sean Connery… Wendy Hiller in weird makeup and weird accent plays a princess.

Lumet made a lotta movies, more than forty and this was about the midpoint. The only other of his movies I’ve written about are his very first and his very last. Obviously a weird year for the oscars – Finney was nominated, Bergman won, and the whole list looks like New Hollywood and Old Hollywood in an ugly clash, trading awards between The Godfather II and The Towering Inferno.

by ·Comments Off on 12 Angry Men (1957, Sidney Lumet)

I’ve probably seen this before, but most memory of it was long-gone. Entirely set in jury room, deliberating a murder charge for an 18-year-old accused of stabbing his father. Evidence sounded convincing enough to everyone in the jury except Henry Fonda, who calmly (not angrily – there are really only two or three angry men) expresses doubt in one detail at a time, gradually tearing apart the prosecution’s case and his fellow jurors’ prejudices.

TV director Lumet taking the original TV screenplay into theaters with Jean Vigo’s former cinematographer Boris Kaufman (Dziga Vertov’s brother). In order of their innocence vote: Juror #8 Fonda was in The Tin Star and The Wrong Man around the same time. #9 (old man with a cold): Joseph Sweeney, mostly did TV. #5 (nervous, says he grew up poor): The Odd Couple star Jack Klugman. #11 (watch maker, foreigner): George Voskovec of a version of Uncle Vany which nobody has seen. #2 (soft-spoken, glasses): John Fiedler, voice of Pooh’s friend Piglet. #6 (painter): Edward Binns, also of murder-trial films Compulsion and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. #7 (striped suit, didn’t want to be late for a ball game but it gets rained-out anyway): Jack Warden of Heaven Can Wait and All The President’s Men. #12 (you don’t hear from him much): Robert Webber of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. #1 (the foreman): Martin Balsam, detective in Psycho, Col. Cathcart in Catch-22. #10 (older racist angry guy): Ed Begley of Sweet Bird of Youth and Billion Dollar Brain. #4 (glasses): early TV star E.G. Marshall, later of the other one-man Creepshow segment, the guy with a cockroach phobia. #3 (lead angry man): Lee J. Cobb, lead baddie in Man of the West.

Cobb vs. Fonda:

Won the Golden Bear at Berlin Film Fest but the oscars preferred Bridge on the River Kwai.