Emperor of the North (1973), Robert Aldrich.

 Nooooooooo!

The commentary track calls Emperor of the North "a larger archetypal battle between two men:  a force of evil and a force - well, maybe not so much of good, but of lesser evil."  (Record needle scritch).  Dude!  Give it up!  That's just a bunch of fifty dollar words for action movie.  I just came here to see Ernest Borgnine hunt hoboes with a hammer!  No analysis necessary!   

Marvin is “A Number 1,” king of the hoboes, and he takes up the challenge to ride the full route of the Number 19, a train captained by sadistic, hobo-hating Borgnine.  Keith Carradine plays "Cigaret," a young hobo who takes Marvin on for the title of Emperor of the North Pole, or toughest tramp.  The sentimental Marty Robbins soundtrack is a little incongruous and there's a couple of goofy hobo motivational speeches ("I'm gonna make you a jungle cat!") but otherwise this is just straight-shooting, no BS action movie.  The simplicity of this flick, which is basically two middle-aged guys fighting with their bare hands, is just beautiful.  

I’m not sure why everyone feels it’s necessary to abbreviate the already brief “hobo” to “’bo” but then again, I’m not up on my hobo lore. And if you do want to get all academic about it, check out Robert Ito's "An Occasional Hobo," a review of the strange but true life story of Josiah Flynt Willard, who transformed from hobo to hobo informant for the railways; it appears in this month's The Believer.   http://www.believermag.com/issues/201106/?read=article_ito

This is what I signed up for:  a bow-legged Ernest Borgnine laughing and taunting an axe-wielding Lee Marvin in a ten-minute fight scene.  

House of Strangers (1949), Joseph L Mankiewicz.

Joe Monetti (R, Luther Adler) asks Max Monetti (Richard Conte) if he can remind their father to follow through on that raise he promised.

House of Strangers is an ambitious and mostly successful family saga of  four first-generation Italian-American brothers and the expectations of their domineering Old World father.  Edward G Robinson plays the patriarch Gino Moretti, a banker who has grown rich providing loans to Mulberry Street immigrants.  Three of the four brothers migrate into the family business but Max Monetti (Richard Conte) has struck out on his own and practices law.  Luther Adler is a very natural performer as Joe Monetti, the eldest brother.  Although Joe is cowed by his father, he follows closely in his footsteps.  His self-perception as a dutiful, pious son leads him to resent his father's preference for Max who stays aloof and remains free from family obligations.  When Gino Moretti finds his business endangered by a legal scandal, the family begins to fracture, the underlying bitterness between the brothers threatening to destroy all relationships.  Another somewhat disconnected subplot involves the romance between Max Monetti and Irene Bennett, played by Susan Hayward.  The two are well-paired: both are sophisticated and charismatic and their brittle dialogue is very noir.  However, Hayward remains irrelevant to the Shakespearean plot.

Unfortunately, Robinson just about torpedoes the whole movie with his cringeworthy "Chef Boyardee" accent.  His performance is believable and even sympathetic in spots (I would argue Luther Adler is the film's true antagonist, not Robinson).  I was surprised that by 1949, it was still fine to play the ethnic role so broadly in a serious drama (Robinson was doing much the same thing as Portuguese fisherman Mike Mascarenhas way back in 1932, almost twenty years earlier).  But the cruder aspects of the characterization of both the mother and father in this Italian family didn't strike contemporary viewers as offbeat.  A New York Times review from 1949 describes the household as "a sizzling and picturesque exposure of a segment of nouveau-riche life within the Italian-American population" (Bosley Crowthers, July 2, 1949).  The vulgarity on display was to Crowthers apt and appropriate to the story - maybe comparable to a Paulie Walnuts type caricature pulled just little more out of shape?  I particularly enjoyed it when Joe Monetti's wife complains she doesn't like spaghetti, and Robinson mocks her. "Oh, it makes-a your stomach seeeeck, does it?" he says disgustedly.  

Now that's a plate of spaghetti!  Joe Monetti (Luther Adler) and his mangia-cake wife Elaine (Diana Douglas) look on.

The Lodger (1944), John Brahm.

While creatively photographed, I strongly disliked The Lodger.  I found it unbelievable and adolescent in the approach towards its subject matter.  In the words of David Thompson, lead actor Laird Cregar "had a short hour at the feast."  Dead of a heart attack at 31, he is much lamented as a talented actor whose burgeoning career seemed so promising.  Watching The Lodger, a relatively humourless film, I could see a bit of the young Vincent Price in Cregar - only in that Cregar was also willing to lend nobility to characters that are large and menacing (and more than a bit hammy).   Cregar seems the type who could have later turned his image on its head, played it campy and had a few good laughs.  The Lodger, however, didn't really add up in my books.  Its depiction of women is naive to the point of being insulting.  None of these women could sniff out that there was something not quite right about Mr Slate?  Why is the most beautiful stage actress in London drawn to a loner misfit?  Why does she want to comfort him?  The landlady simply offers him accommodations without references?  The film does depict Whitechapel as poor and riddled with prostitutes and thieves.  But by making the central female character a popular music-hall performer with perfect teeth, the "other" murders just become exotic backdrop rather than part of the story.  George Sanders' small role is delightful -- but how could we expect anything less from the adventuresome womanizer who married two Gabor sisters!  

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?

Dragonwyck (1946) Joseph L Mankiewicz.

 Fig 1. Scruffed up, possibly hopped up.

Personal favourite for unintentional hilarity.  Mustaches:  on some men it looks like they chose a peel-off from an East German disguise kit and for other men it is an indisputable part of their entire physical and psychic being.  The latter:  Vincent Price, who I contend is borderline unrecognizable without his.  Luckily, by the end of this movie, he is scruffed up enough (see fig. 1) to start to look familiar.  Price marries "farm-bred" dutifully religious Gene Tierney -- wait, sorry... I don't buy it.  Gene Tierney?  The gorgeous, urbane brunette of Laura?  Anywhat, she marries Price who has a phobia of the handicapped stemming from a tragedy experienced earlier in his life.  He's an elitist atheist landowner (check out the size of that crest on his smoking jacket!) harbouring general disgust for average folks.  In his own words: "I will not live by ordinary standards!  I will not run with the pack!  I will not be chained into a routine of living that is the same for others!  I will not look to the ground and move on the ground as the rest.  So long as there are mountaintops and clouds and limitless space."  OK, I guess that sounds a little Nietzschean although at least he has a vision.  Tierney does lacework, gossiping with Peggy her crip Irish maid about what is WITH this guy (her own husband) until she gets enough nerve up to see just what he is up to, keeping himself occupied in a small room in a tower of his (castle?).  When she breaks in, he confesses he has turned into "a DRUG ADDICT!" (As elitist atheism is prone to induce).  Well, instead of Tierney doing the Christian thing and perhaps trying to redeem her husband, she chastizes him.  The movie implies that there are just some dirtbags who are not worth it but luckily she has another potential love interest, tastes-like-cardboard Dr Jeff Turner, played by Glenn Langan.  You know, sometimes I throw my dog a piece of slimy grey deli meat that's been in the fridge too long and this is kind of similar.  We both love the rotten ham! 

Mr Moto's Last Warning (1939), Norman Foster.

 

This was okay, but I think it could have been better if an Asian guy played the part of the Port Commandant General!

Port Commandant General, whose dialogue ends in typically British mumbled grunts & nonsense.

Tales of Manhattan (1942), Julien Duvivier.

A beautifully tailored tailcoat, cursed by its maker to bring bad luck to any wearer, ties together several short stories in this film.   A lovely set of tales each very different in tone, from a kooky segment where WC Fields gets a lot of society folks loaded off "coconut milk" to a harrowing Cinderella story, in which a skid-row alcoholic, played by Edward G Robinson, gets one evening to don the tailcoat and one opportunity to pass himself off as a legitimate member of society to his successful university friends at a twenty-five year reunion.  Duvivier's gorgeous visions in black and white, shadow and smoke give this film a pictorial quality.  Followed a year later by Flesh and Fantasy, another Duvivier film that also takes the format of short stories tied together by a narrative device; it also uses some of the same actors.  It's a pity these films are difficult to locate because they are so lovely and unusual.

Heaven Can Wait (1943), Ernest Lubitsch.

A satirical movie made in 1943 that gently chides the sobriety of the social morés of a bygone era is pretty much destined to become completely dated by 2009. Though the concept of what is risqué has certainly changed and this story feels toothless by today's standards, it remains watchable because of its wonderfully witty dialogue and lovely performances. Don Ameche plays Henry Van Cleve, a well-to-do New Yorker who, though he marries the girl of his dreams, continues to dog around ceaselessly up to the point where he ends up explaining himself to some kind of maitre d' to the ante room of Hell. Ameche's playboy (whose minor sin is to love women too much) remains sympathetic - unlike many other characters who appear destined for a fiery afterlife.

I find Lubitsch's witty comedies of manners to be well crafted but ultimately weightless - real human emotion is either sparse or lacking. As well, I instinctively chafe at a little cast of characters for whom work is optional and money is no object. The beautifully composed colour (simply stunning Technicolor) is just another demonstration of its artificiality. I find I often walk away from these confections feeling amazed at the craftsmanship, yet underfed.

An unfortunate old biddy meets her end.