Convict's Code (1939), Lambert Hillyer.

Classic disheveled, droopy-boobed Poverty Row landlady.

These Monogram prison pics!  So tantalizing!  There's always a tiny grain of a good story buried deep within a dull, dull casing.  Dave Tyler is released on parole after having served time for a crime he swears he was innocent of - the robbery of a bank.  He finds employment with an investment firm; turns out the company's owners were the men that framed Tyler in the first place, and they've charitably offered to hire an ex-con just to keep tabs on him.  Two leads (Robert Kent as Tyler and Anne Nagel as his lady friend Julie Warren) are pleasant enough, but the overall effect is pancake flat.

The Sniper (1952), Edward Dmytryk.

Proto-Dirty Harry from the killer's POV (complete with city officials telling cops they are loose cannons)!  Loser Eddie Miller lives in a bedsit and drives a laundry truck throughout San Francisco, sizing up potential targets as he delivers their duds.  Like another one of our Columbia Film Noir Classics box set anti-heroes, he hates women, too: the sight of one sets off a tug of war between his mind and his demented hands that want to assemble his rifle & get shooting!  The Sniper is quickly paced and punctuated with brilliant scenes, like the one pictured above where he gets his hate on by throwing balls in an aggressive frenzy and dunks the lady in the tank over and over. 

This film, a "Stanely Kramer Production" is dressed up as a message movie advocating for help for  mentally deranged violent offenders.  Whether Kramer believed that it was high time a movie seriously addressed this subject, I don't know (he was responsible for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and Judgment at Nuremberg, films so humorless I'm tempted to think he did).  Luckily though this one was directed by a man who knew a few things about directing, Edward Dmytryk.   I had been thinking I was glad to not live in the 50s when good old fashioned crime flicks were dressed up as being educational but then I thought about how most films publicly lauded in barf-fests like the Oscars openly embrace this kind of schlock (hello Blind Side, Crazy Heart, Invictus, etc), hammering audiences relentlessly with social messages.  Alcohol is wrong!  Racism is bad!  So thank God that at least The Sniper only gives us a lecture before and after but lets us revel in a well-crafted pulp flick for the remaining 85 minutes! 

Eddie is cheered on by a crowd of goons.

My Darling Clementine (1946) John Ford.

A little thread of smoke floated through the foreground of this scene in which Doc Holliday meets Wyatt Earp.  Its three-dimensional effect startled me.  This film is full of beautifully composed shots, many dramatically backlit.  A great instance of a filmmaker saying, "screw the facts!" and coming up with something magnificent.  I'm completely entranced by Fonda:  how does a half-shaved guy with a shaky voice kick so much ass?

Crazy Heart (2009), Scott Cooper.

I'm attracted to those actors that are off centre; if they were action figures and you stood them on the record player, they'd fly right off, hit the wallpaper.  Bruce Dern, love him.  Went through a Dern streak which resulted in a couple freaky westerns too many.  (And Silent Running:  if you ever want to witness the euthanasia of a cute anthropomorphic robot, check that one out)!  Walter Matthau - ohhh I'd need some time and a coupla drinks to get going on him; we fondly remember the Winter of Matthau in our house (2007) where we watched anything he was in that we could get our hands on, back to back to back to back.  Of course Jeff Bridges is on this list.

Went to the local half-price theatre to see Crazy Heart, and it happened to be Closed Caption Night (wtf) so I really caught all the dialogue.  Tell me, when you see a guy on screen playing the piano, do you really need the little musical notes to indicate what is going on?  I mean, they're not deaf and blind, just deaf. 

Anyway, back to Bridges.  The first twenty minutes is just Bridges,  playing crappy gigs and hanging out in the Land of Enchantment motel watching Hispanic women-in-prison flicks in picturesque Pig Sweat, New Mexico.   It was a little strange to see Bad Blake at his first gig: a very Lebowskiesque bowling alley.  Even sidles up to the bar and is shot front and centre just like when he was talking with The Stranger.  Not sure if you'd want to reference that character, especially when the barfing in the y-fronts and crawling on the tile floor is supposed to elicit pathos/disgust.  But I thought I'd just hang in there & see where it was all heading.

Soon enough the story started to take shape, and it dawned on me:  this is The goddamn Wrestler all over again!  MAN!  Let me see... minor celebrity whose best years may be behind him, he's an absentee father, struggling to regain his former glory, he endures a rivalry with young up & comer...  (and what a let down Colin Farrell's nervy, intense Tommy Sweet turns out to be, after so much foreshadowing).  Yes, it's pretty much The Wrestler, with some Jerry McGuire thrown in for good measure:  single mom with perfect four-year-old as redemptive device?  I mean, please!  When I saw the hot air balloon scene I darn near puked - I thought I was in a commercial for maxi pads.  Crazy Heart tells a story that has been told umpteen times in mainstream American cinema about actual living musicians - why now with a fictional one?  Terrible, terrible script sincerely exploring all the hackneyed old music biopic cliches that were fully busted by Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story!

Good tunes, though.

Murder by Contract (1958), Irving Lerner.

Claude, played by Vincent Edwards, is a gorgeous, impeccably dressed young man who pitches his respectable day job (seventy-six twenty before taxes) to become a contract killer.  He's smart.  "A real genius, like I said!"  repeats a flunky.  Claude's got ability, talent. I got lulled into thinking this way too until Claude drops some intense misogyny about halfway through the film; suddenly he's the real evil in this picture and we start to truly fear for his mark.  Amazing little script, acted by very few players.  Shot in a week but scenes are nicely staged.  This flick is part of the Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics (Vol. I) I picked up recently.  If only Martin Scorsese, who has described many of these films as ones that played a key part of his informal film education (he also appears in the extra features on many disks), would only show the stunning economy found in these films in his own.  An innocuous little electric guitar riff adds to the anxious atmosphere of being lead into dangerous ground by a lunatic. 

The Immoral Mr Teas (1959), Russ Meyer.

Crumpled chump, lost in a sea of melons. 

I was curious!  Was it really funny?  

Extremely low-budget looking, shot in four days, it's called the "first authentic American nudie" by Roger Ebert in Kings of the Bs: Working Within the Hollywood System (1975).  Felt to me like a couple of kids running around with a super 8: there's colour but no dialogue, only the Voice of God narration dubbed over some time later (doing a kind of nature-documentary shtick).   Exposition, little that there is, was a bit shaky.  That, or I am a complete idiot -- I couldn't figure out why is there this guy in a faded red jumpsuit and straw hat cycling around with a leather suitcase that contains a dental contraption (what the hell is that thing)!  Obviously, I am not the target audience but here goes.  The point of this film is not what he's selling, it's the fact that there's an off chance that you might catch sight of a boob!  Mr Teas spends his time peeping on women, many of whom are not very carefully dressed.  Culminates in a big daydream involving nekkid ladies enjoying a sunny afternoon, rowing an old boat (splinters?), sitting in the grass (scratchy!) and splashing in one of the dirtiest-looking, algae-covered oxygen deprived ponds ever. 

So, was it funny?  Erm...   This will sound wrong in the head, but I want to compare this film with Jacques Tati's Les Vacances de M. Hulot (1953).  They both feature a pathetic everyman in a hat who runs into silly little situations involving women.  There's visual gags.  They are both gently funny.

Stella Dallas (1937), King Vidor.

Before and after.

I'm sorry, I just didn't like it.  All the characters are flat, and the story is full of ridiculous coincidences. 

"A Critic's Place, Thumb and All," AO Scott, NYTimes April 4, 2010.

In today's New York Times, AO Scott has a strange, flaccid column lamenting (I think) the death of real movie criticism and the dissolution of what used to be an intelligent "reasoned" debate into "a nattering gaggle of bloggers."  I struggled to understand the point of his column; I found it hugely aggravating and symptomatic of a generational mindset.  Before going further, I'd like to point out that I do not consider myself a critic.  I realize that I'm a hobbyist.  I don't have formal education in anything related to filmmaking, scriptwriting, film criticism.  I have a day job and degrees in another field.  So I'm counting myself out of this conversation.  However, I do find that some of the more intelligent writing about film is happening online and yes, sometimes on blogs.  "There used to be James Agee," Scott writes, "and now there is Rotten Tomatoes."  I mean, is this the only web content this guy knows about?  And does he not realize it's an amalgamation of film criticism, pulling from hundreds of excellent (and yes, technically professional) writers from hundreds of print publications? (Including HIS!)  I realize it's sad to see the slow death of a medium, especially if it's one that cuts his cheques.  I myself cling to the Times:  I have a paid subscription and wait for the Sunday edition, coffee cup in hand.  I anticipate this cozy ritual more than is healthy.  I hope the paper never fully disappears!   But the migration of print to online content does not to me mean the death of criticism, not even "big man" criticism.

The second portion of his piece relates to "At the Movies" being yanked off the air (I only realized that by reading this today that Scott was actually one of the more recent hosts).  Yeah, I know it's a pop culture landmark but frankly, since Gene Siskel died prematurely (over ten years ago, in 1999) and was replaced by Richard Roeper, I kinda tuned out after years of watching.   (It was when Roeper gave a hearty thumbs up to Life or Something Like It in 2002 that I officially gave up).  Scott quotes some Coleridge and some TS Eliot on the so-called art of criticism: ("upon giving the matter a little attention, we perceive that criticism, far from being a simple and orderly field of beneficent activity, from which impostors can be readily ejected, is no better than a Sunday park of contending and contentious orators, who have not even arrived at the articulation of their differences") and then concludes by saying that criticism is what it always was and will be: "miserable, and full of possibility."  No discussion of magazine criticism (either online or in print), film school developments, international criticism or any insight into wonderful voices online, either alone brilliant (I will refer again to http://acidemic.blogspot.com or http://netravaillezjamais.com to start with just two) or the beautiful cacophony gleaned by reading multiple blogs that together do indeed form a debate.   Oh, well!  Sad to see the Times dismissing 2.0 with tired old hands (and you're only 43, if I have that correct, not even a boomer - guess I'm wrong and age is irrelevant) and uninteresting cliches.  How much more rewarding it would have been to shine a light on the new or less well known in this ever-evolving discussion of a beloved medium!

The Violent Men (1955), Rudolph Mate.

Trying to placate her daughter, Barbara Stanwyck demonstrates fake affection for her crippled husband (Edward G Robinson).

It's DALLAS circa the mid-50s!  Very sharp script and tough performances!  Typical western plot about ruthless land grabs by powerful men-- this time it's Edward G Robinson who plays a successful rancher who has promised the entire valley in the region to his demanding wife (Barbara Stanwyck).  This one's more unique because their presumed victim, Glenn Ford, is completely disinterested in their manipulation.  He's ready to hand everything over and could care less about their piddly offers - he just wants to get back to the city.  After Ford hears the low-ball offer, Robinson's hired hands whip one of his men to death in an effort to stir up outrage but their act of violence is unnecessary (and all the more detestable).  Tension builds as Ford continues to maintain a laconic attitude even after the death of his man; one of his hands even wonders aloud if he's human.  What can bring this guy to retaliate!?  No minute drags by in this economical, 96-minute film, and the action is punctuated by a number of short but fierce monologues by some pretty wild women.  Barbara Stanwyck is fantastic as a kind of of lady Macbeth, stirring up more and more hatred - a delightfully loathsome character all around.  Directed by Rudolph Mate, who also did D.O.A.  I detected noir elements throughout this.  A real underrated western. 

Rewatching: Reservoir Dogs (1992), Quentin Tarantino.

Is this the longest death scene in film history?

Could be a play!  Has this ever been done?  You just need buckets of blood, a 70s funk tape and a warehouse.  Parts of this are pointedly 90s, like the slightly slow fade on the white font and the two-handed shooting.  But it's a smart package, intelligently written (if completely a dude movie).  There's just one woman character: she gets her car jacked and flashes across the screen in about 3 seconds.  And of course, we have one of my favourite plot mechanisms, the psychopathic wild card character.  (Is Vic Vega not the coolest character name to date?  C'mon).  I felt slightly cheated not seeing a jewelry store interior scene:  what happened exactly?  What kind of loot were they after?  Instead, Tarantino has the characters talk it out, describing how Vic Vega went apeshit.  OK, I admit it:  I did not remember how the torture scene ended and started to get nauseous.  That plus Tim Roth slipping around in his own guck for 99 minutes: is it all too much?  What about the neverending birth in A Cock and Bull Story (2005), is that the female equivalent? 

A far worthier tribute to The Taking of Pelham One Two Three than literal, brain-dead remake done last year.  Wonder where they got the elephant tusks from.  Are those things for real?

Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth (1982), Lana Turner.

This autobiography is as gripping and concisely written as a drugstore paperback!  Did she have any help?  Who knows.  Before reading this, the only role I could connect Lana Turner to was Cora, the bored young wife of an older man in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), so I had her firmly planted in the studio era, which was wrong, wrong, wrong.  She was a mink-wearing, Las Vegas-loving rat pack babe, friends (?) with Ava Gardner (or at least with Frank).  Technicolor, not so much black and white.  She tells a good story about being an MGM star during the disintegration of the system into sword and sandal pics, and how the studio's once bustling "main street" became a ghost town and Clark Gable simply slipped out the gates with no fanfare, never to return.

Of course the meat of the book is her description of her relationship with gutter rat and minor sleazebag Johnny Stampanato, who was stabbed with a kitchen knife by her teenaged daughter in 1958.  She married seven different men including two who were simply fans that mailed her gifts (Johnny's in this category) and a number of guys with no real income.  One was a nightclub hypnotist, another was famous for playing beefcake roles in foreign Tarzan/Hercules productions, another was always RUSHING her while she was getting ready to go out for the evening, which was the LAST STRAW! All of this leaves you thinking Lana was a hyper-narcissist without a lot of common sense and there were several moments where I didn't quite buy the ending to some of her yarns, which invariably cast her in an angelic light.  But this is a fun, breezy read, and she's fairly honest about her flaws even if she refuses to admit to specific errors of judgment.