I had an exceptionally good week of weekend movie watching. The constant rain and enveloping dampness in Chicago meant it was a good opportunity to hunker down with some good movie viewing.
“Anna and the King of Siam” (1946) is the non-musical version of the famous story made even more famous by the Broadway musical and film “The King and I.” This is a marvelous film, despite the politically incorrect casting of Rex Harrison, in his American film debut, as the King of Siam. It’s a hoot to hear the famous “etc., etc., etc.” lines uttered by someone other than Yul Brynner. Irene Dunne plays Anna, and her warm presence and gentle beauty make for a memorable Anna, every bit as good as later interpretations by Deborah Kerr and Jodie Foster. (It really is an unbeatable part. The worst actress in the world couldn’t screw it up.) Linda Darnell plays Tuptim, and she’s not nearly as sympathetic as I remember from earlier versions. She isn’t given much to do, but she’s fine. It’s eerie to watch her being burned at the stake because in real life she had a mortal fear of fire, and ironically, died in a burning house while visiting friends in Glenview, IL. She was only 41.
This is a wonderful film to look and listen to. The Oscar-nominated score by Bernard Herrmann is a treat to listen to and helps act as a guide to the exotic locales. The film deservedly won Academy Awards in the Art Direction/Black and White and Cinematography/Black and White categories.
It’s a little overlong, but packed with detail and story. It runs 128 minutes and when you consider that “The King and I” (1956) ran 133 minutes, and since much of that is devoted to musical numbers, you can see where “Anna and the King of Siam” is able to allow for more incidents.
Rating for “Anna and the King of Siam”: Three and a half stars.
One of my favorite films of 2005 was David Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence”, the dark, disturbing, graphic and morbidly funny saga of a small town diner owner Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) in Indiana who foils a robbery in his diner and becomes a mini celebrity. This attracts the attention of mobster Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris) who knows Stall is really Joey Cusack, former enforcer for the Philadelphia mob. The effects this, and other revelations this has on his family, are equal parts horrifying, funny and heartbreaking. The film’s final scene is wonderfully ambiguous. William Hurt was Oscar-nominated for his wonderfully nutty scenes as a gangster, but I think Ed Harris should have gotten the Supporting Actor nomination. His one eyed Carl Fogarty is one of the scariest villains I’ve ever seen.
Rating for “A History of Violence”: Four stars.
A glorious slice of cinematic cheese is “Snakes on a Plane” (2006). You see a movie with a title like that, and you get exactly what you pay for. A combination airplane disaster movie with hundreds of lethal snakes, this is a perfect movie to put your brain on hold, throw all logic out the window, and enjoy the show. I wish there had been more actual snakes used instead of the CGI variety, as the real thing is always more effective, but this is still stupid (in the best sense) Saturday night fodder. It’s fortunate that Samuel L. Jackson is on hand to lend his particular brand of charisma to the proceedings. If ever I’m in a situation where all hell is breaking loose, I want Sam on my side, especially now that Chuck Heston is no longer with us.
Rating for “Snakes on a Plane”: Three stars.
The best movie I’ve seen is ages is “Tokyo Story” (1953), an unforgettable experience that works on many levels. My foreign film viewing is not as strong as it should be, and I’ve never seen a film directed by Yasujiro Ozu, revered by many as one of the greatest directors of all time, and rivaling Akira Kurosawa as Japan’s greatest director.
TCM ran “Tokyo Story” several months ago, and because it’s considered Ozu’s masterpiece, I taped it for later viewing. I didn’t have the opportunity to watch it until Sunday night and when I did…Wow! What a revelation!
“Tokyo Story” runs 135 minutes and I was spellbound from beginning to end. Reading the plot description might make you think there could be no worst ways to spend 135 minutes but you’d be wrong.
The movie is about an elderly couple who decide to visit their grown children in Tokyo, but they are too busy with their own lives to make time for their parents.
Yep, no action, no mob, no snakes on a plane, just a human drama acted and shot to perfection. No fancy camera moves or effects, just watching the heartbreak of generational indifference. Because they’re Japanese, the characters are very stoic and don’t say what they mean, but what they don’t say, and their body language, speaks volumes.
This was a profoundly moving experience, and one that I actually dreamed about that night. It will be a long time before I forget “Tokyo Story” and I now look forward with the keenest of anticipations to seeing other Ozu films.
Rating for “Tokyo Story”: Four stars.
Showing posts with label Linda Darnell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linda Darnell. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Monday, October 22, 2007
Hangover Square
“Hangover Square” (1945) is a fine, fine film, boasting one of the great film music set pieces of all time. More on that later.
The film is a splendid example of the Studio System at its apex, in this case 20th Century Fox. The film takes place in Victorian England and concerns George Harvey Bone (Laird Cregar) a promising symphonic composer who is working on his piano concerto. When he hears discordant noises or sudden, jarring sounds, he blacks out and goes on a murderous rampage. (Not giving anything away here, as the opening scene shows him killing a pawnbroker. The camera takes the place of Bone as he approaches his screaming, cowering victims, pre-figuring the slasher films of the 1980s).
An essentially decent (though obviously troubled) person, Bone turns himself into the police when he finds a bloody knife and awakens in the neighborhood where the pawnbroker killing took place. But the evidence is not against him, so he is free to go though a police doctor (George Sanders) harbors suspicions against Bone.
Unwinding one night, Bone goes to a music hall one night and becomes smitten with one of the singers there, Netta (Linda Darnell). After successfully writing a song for her, she sees Bone as her ticket to fame and fortune, while being cruelly dismissive of him in public.
Unfortunately for Bone, his condition worsens as the film goes on, leading to a truly memorable climax featuring the premiere of his piano concerto. More than that I will not say, though the film’s final image is indeed a haunting one, one worthy of Poe.
The film’s score, including the concerto, was penned by the great Bernard Herrmann. The last 10 minutes is a performance of the concerto and a marvelous sequence it is, with the camera swinging through the orchestra to and fro and becoming more frenzied as the concerto increases in intensity (as does Bones’ dementia). Director John Brahm pulls out all the stops in filming the sequence, and matched to the brilliance of the music is a sequence I never get tired of watching. Herrmann later dubbed the piece “Concerto Macabre for Piano and Orchestra” and it’s a real showpiece, one that has been recorded several times.
The rest of the score is mainly drawn from themes later played in the concerto, though there’s other first-rate music not included in the concerto (love those screeching piccolos when Bone’s insanity kicks in).
I’ve always marveled at 20th Century Fox’s evocations of Victorian England, and “Hangover Square” is no exception. The square itself is a marvel of production design; it’s a beautifully designed set.
Laird Cregar was one of the great talents in movies, and this was unfortunately his last film. A giant talent, both in size and talent, at one time he weighed more than 300 pounds and was determined to lose weight and become a leading man. He went on a crash diet and lost more than 100 pounds and was going to have surgery to further reduce his stomach when he died after suffering multiple heart attacks. He was 31 years old.
Linda Darnell is a revelation as Netta. Darnell earned her stock in Hollywood playing sweet virginal heroines in films like “The Mark of Zorro (1940) and “Blood and Sand” (1941) and very appealing she was too, but here her Netta is a shrewish, destructive woman who plays up to George but despises him behind his back. It’s a marvelous portrayal.
Cregar, George Sanders and director Brahm had enjoyed a huge success the year before with “The Lodger” considered by many the best of the Jack the Ripper movies. Both movies, along with “The Undying Monster” (1942), a werewolf picture directed by Brahm, were recently released in a new DVD set called Fox Horror Classics. It’s a marvelous set, and I’m looking forward to re-discovering the other two movies.
Rating for “Hangover Square”: Three and a half stars.
The film is a splendid example of the Studio System at its apex, in this case 20th Century Fox. The film takes place in Victorian England and concerns George Harvey Bone (Laird Cregar) a promising symphonic composer who is working on his piano concerto. When he hears discordant noises or sudden, jarring sounds, he blacks out and goes on a murderous rampage. (Not giving anything away here, as the opening scene shows him killing a pawnbroker. The camera takes the place of Bone as he approaches his screaming, cowering victims, pre-figuring the slasher films of the 1980s).
An essentially decent (though obviously troubled) person, Bone turns himself into the police when he finds a bloody knife and awakens in the neighborhood where the pawnbroker killing took place. But the evidence is not against him, so he is free to go though a police doctor (George Sanders) harbors suspicions against Bone.
Unwinding one night, Bone goes to a music hall one night and becomes smitten with one of the singers there, Netta (Linda Darnell). After successfully writing a song for her, she sees Bone as her ticket to fame and fortune, while being cruelly dismissive of him in public.
Unfortunately for Bone, his condition worsens as the film goes on, leading to a truly memorable climax featuring the premiere of his piano concerto. More than that I will not say, though the film’s final image is indeed a haunting one, one worthy of Poe.
The film’s score, including the concerto, was penned by the great Bernard Herrmann. The last 10 minutes is a performance of the concerto and a marvelous sequence it is, with the camera swinging through the orchestra to and fro and becoming more frenzied as the concerto increases in intensity (as does Bones’ dementia). Director John Brahm pulls out all the stops in filming the sequence, and matched to the brilliance of the music is a sequence I never get tired of watching. Herrmann later dubbed the piece “Concerto Macabre for Piano and Orchestra” and it’s a real showpiece, one that has been recorded several times.
The rest of the score is mainly drawn from themes later played in the concerto, though there’s other first-rate music not included in the concerto (love those screeching piccolos when Bone’s insanity kicks in).
I’ve always marveled at 20th Century Fox’s evocations of Victorian England, and “Hangover Square” is no exception. The square itself is a marvel of production design; it’s a beautifully designed set.
Laird Cregar was one of the great talents in movies, and this was unfortunately his last film. A giant talent, both in size and talent, at one time he weighed more than 300 pounds and was determined to lose weight and become a leading man. He went on a crash diet and lost more than 100 pounds and was going to have surgery to further reduce his stomach when he died after suffering multiple heart attacks. He was 31 years old.
Linda Darnell is a revelation as Netta. Darnell earned her stock in Hollywood playing sweet virginal heroines in films like “The Mark of Zorro (1940) and “Blood and Sand” (1941) and very appealing she was too, but here her Netta is a shrewish, destructive woman who plays up to George but despises him behind his back. It’s a marvelous portrayal.
Cregar, George Sanders and director Brahm had enjoyed a huge success the year before with “The Lodger” considered by many the best of the Jack the Ripper movies. Both movies, along with “The Undying Monster” (1942), a werewolf picture directed by Brahm, were recently released in a new DVD set called Fox Horror Classics. It’s a marvelous set, and I’m looking forward to re-discovering the other two movies.
Rating for “Hangover Square”: Three and a half stars.
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