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!  

Best Worst Movie (2009), Michael Stephenson.

Last night I got to meet one of the actors of the Worst Movies of All Time!  George Hardy runs a successful dental practice in eastern Alabama and also played the dad in Troll 2, a film made in 1990 and rated by IMDB as one of the "bottom 100" -- currently it's ranked #59 out of the 100 worst films ever made.  Last night he was invited to our local rep theatre to introduce Best Worst Movie, a kindly look at Troll 2, its cult fanbase and the whereabouts of its cast and makers.   George is used as the documentary's focus.  A personable ham, he wonders whether he could have been more - a true working actor -- heck, maybe a star.  The surprise latent popularity of Troll 2 seems to have given him just enough of a taste of fame to understand the tedium that comes along with it.  Spouting a silly catch phrase, "you don't piss on hospitality!" and spending hours on end at a booth at conventions talking to people he doesn't really "get," George reflects on his blessings.

George Hardy and Michael Stephenson in Troll 2.

Throughout this journey, he and Michael Stephenson, who played his son in Troll 2, track down all the cast members many of whom seem to be personally disillusioned with their own inability to find success in acting (at least George has his dental practice)!  Utah, despite the  majestic mountains,  looks shabby and downcast.   The most fascinating character might be Claudio Fragasso, the film's Italian director.  Unable to admit his movie was a low-budget bundle of confusion, he is completely unable to enjoy the ironic hilarity people get from his work.  He grumbles in the background, calling the actors dogs and the fans idiots!  So why is Troll 2 and not the original Troll a cult favourite?  You'll just have to see for yourself - because I completely agree with all the film's fans that praise its loveable oddness.  Best Worst Movie shows how the public is never just a passive recipient of mass-media products.  We sometimes derive great joy from these products in ways their creators could never have anticipated.

Loveable oddness:  a corn on the cob makeout scene! 

Get your hands off the classics! How modern technology is making my life as a classic movie fan hell.

I'm stuck in the Snake Pit of rights issues & feel like I'm going CRAZY!

OK, I like to think I am a somewhat informed citizen of the world, but I feel like I'm drowning in a world of unnecessarily complicated rights issues.  One huge beef I have as someone living north of 49 who just digs old movies is how difficult it is to see some films.  Without having to hire a 1-800 lawyer, I'd like to know why this is.  Suggestions welcome!

Problem #1:  HDTV without the HD or, Canadians Can Go Screw Themselves.
I'm a cheap bastard but we caved.  We got a lovely Sony flatscreen with HDTV.  OK, I theorized, now I could see the glistening globs of brylcreem in George Raft's hair, what's not to like.  But, wait.

TCM is obviously my channel of choice (though props to CHCH and TVO for filling the gaps with even more well chosen and uncut classics).  Yet I quickly noticed that while I do receive TCM in HD, I often get this on my screen:  Blackout in Effect.  Sure, the movie is on in non-HD, but if you switch to the HD channel - bupkis.  WHAT!  I am paying for HDTV and not even getting it?  I'm not the only one who's noticed this.  There's a few online discussions but none of them have been able to clearly explain who I should get angry with.  http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=117585  Should I be shaking my fist at my HD provider, or with TCM?  Is this not a sad world where we can't even figure out who we need to complain to?  At this point, I don't even understand if I should slowly tear up my Robert Osborne Fan Club card or be writing the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).  What is Radio-television, by the way?  It's 2010, man, do you think maybe Canada needs someone to help sort out digital issues rather than figure out which way to dial the AM/FM knob?

Problem #2:  I Want to Buy Your Product, But You Won't Let Me.
Over the summer I read a great article about services where film archives will create DVD-Rs on-demand-- they'll make you one off pressings of out-of-print films.  WOW!  You can either go directly to the company's site (as in Warner's shop:  http://www.wbshop.com).  Amazon also makes their products available, too (admittedly, Amazon buries these offerings pretty deeply, with extra long URLs like http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=2204702011).  MGM products are also available.   When I tried purchasing one of these items through the Warner shop, I was denied!  DENIED!  Again, they played the "foreigner" card. In their response to me, they wrote:

We are very sorry, but we cannot ship DVD or Blu Ray discs outside of the US due to licensing and distribution regulations. These products are also formatted differently for different regions of the world and the version that we sell would not play on DVD systems built for your region.


We apologize, but we do not have international release information. Please contact your local retailer for this information. Again, we are sorry for the inconvenience, but we hope you will look at the many other items that we have that are able to ship internationally.

OK - I realize I do live in a separate, sovereign nation (even if we put Canadian films in the "foreign" section in rental stores... we're kind of self-loathing).  What I don't really understand is the rights restrictions.  What licensing and distribution regulations?  (Citation?)  OK, so even if there's some truth in that statement, what do they mean "the version we sell would not play on DVD systems built for you region."  Really?  Do I live in North Korea?  Jeesh!

What I don't understand is the larger issue.  Is there an unwillingness to provide these products widely without further compensation?  Is it outdated copyright legislation?  Is it poorly written (industry-friendly) copyright legislation?  At the moment, bill C-32 is going through a second reading in the Canadian House of Commons  http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5439/135.  Balanced copyright advocates such as the author of that attached post (Michael Geist) do see major weaknesses in the proposed legislation, mainly because of the anti-circumvention provision that prohibits the breaking of digital locks.  I think that what this means is that the legislation is attempting to take away your right to alter a product you've fairly bought.  Like when my little sister recorded herself singing on top of her Dr Seuss cassette.  ILLEGAL!

Red (2010), Robert Schwentke.

When I moved out of Toronto it felt like a bit of a relief only because I had always felt adrift, unsettled and unfulfilled while living there.  Recognizing that it was not the city's fault, I made a mental inventory of everything about it that delighted me:  the Hungarian schnitzel, the rep theatres... and the Toronto Reference Library!  If you ask me, the Toronto Reference Library is Canada's unofficial national library: a funky 70s design by architect Raymond Moriyama lined in cozy orange carpeting and draped with spider plants (plants!), it features Logan's Run elevators and an infinite spots to sit and ogle.  The collection is massive and accessible.  For the most part, nobody has to go and get anything for you from behind closed doors (through it's also primarily non-circulating, so you can't take anything home).  It's a living cover spread of Architectural Digest from 1977, complete with anything you'd ever want to read -- and the air is fresh!    

 The Toronto Reference Library.  Photo by Scienceduck, 2007.

Red is a sweet-natured, fun, if slightly predictable adventure movie.  They also went out of their way (scenes were filmed on location in New Orleans, New York and Chicago) to shoot one weenie library scene in the Toronto Reference Library (which they needed to disguise as an American library - why would the CIA agents be looking for Bruce Willis in Canada?).  Clearly, these are location scouts that know their stuff!

Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Brian De Palma.

Total Corky St Clair brainwave today:  Bonfire of the Vanities, a stage production acted with just three people:  an African American, a Jew and a WASP!  OK, that might be a little too Springtime for Hitler for some people.  (Whatever, I'm so sure my community theatre company can pull this off!)

Bonfire of the Vanities was the first "adult" book I bought, at about age 14.  New York was about 3000 miles away, an imaginary place I knew about only through movies like Ghostbusters and Margaret Bourke White photographs.  I didn't get what fuggedaboutit was supposed to mean, and there were only two black families with kids in my high school so to say that I was culturally naive would be a huge understatement.  But Bonfire had a flashy cover, weighed about 2 pounds and looked pretty impressive to carry around, way cooler than It (for spazzes) or Les Miserables (for snotty rich kids who'd get to go out of town to see the musical and wear that obnoxious sweatshirt for months afterwards).  The Brian De Palma film (the production of which was documented in the brilliant book The Devil's Candy, by Julie Salamon) seemed to have been created with the same level of sophistication as the grade nine me.  It's also a complete hoot to watch now, as an adult.  What the HELL were they thinking!

First, let's talk bad casting and terrible performances.  Kim Cattrall's artificial but indeterminate "socialite" accent is nose wrinklingly bad.  But choosing Tom Hanks as the central character was probably one of the decisions that ensured that even if everything else went right about this movie, it would still be doomed to failure.  Hanks is completely unable to conjure arrogance, privilege or anything other than rubber-faced consternation.  The only exception to his one expression is found in one later scene, when his world collapses around him and he chases a crowd of ass-kissing guests from his apartment with a rifle.

 Tom Hanks expresses mild discomfort at being introduced to an HIV-positive poet.

LATER, Tom Hanks expresses complete shock when he realizes his mistress is talking with his wife!

THEN, Tom Hanks is reflective, as he hears the poet recite lines about Don Juan and realizes how he might actually be talking about him.

EVENTUALLY, Oscar moment! (?),  Tom Hanks goes batshit with a rifle.

Like a very low-budget production whose fake props or cheap sets betray the illusion of the medium, this film is anti-film:  I couldn't for one moment stop thinking that I was watching a film.  I couldn't hear the dialogue, I couldn't follow the story.  The music blared unsubtly.  Every camera shot is obtrusively a worm's eye view (WHY)?  Unrealistic details that you might normally not care about stood out like a sore thumb.  (Why is Kim Cattrall preparing appetizers on the tray in the kitchen, wouldn't her staff do that)? The only convincing scene in the entire film, the only time you forget you're watching a film and start listening to what some guy is talking about -- is when the lovely Alan King has his one brief scene talking about animals crapping on an airplane!  Why?  Because he's playing it like a comedy!

I'll be your trophy wife, Alan.  At least you have a damn personality (if, by the end of this scene, no pulse).

The ultimate act of cowardice is the casting of Morgan Freeman as the judge (it was supposed to be Alan Arkin, but De Palma thought that he would be too... Jewish.  You know, exactly like in the book, and that could have have potentially been offensive to African Americans).

Is this offensive to African Americans?  'S OK, we got Morgan Freeman.

Freeman wraps up everything up neatly by dismissing the case and lecturing everyone in the courtroom:  the sunglasses wearing community activist, the black community, the WASPs, the Jewish lawyers, the journalists, about dignity.

"Dignity is what your grandmother taught you!"  (Seriously, that's what he says).

FIN

Whoa!  I've never re-read Bonfire; as I got older I learned in school about Tom Wolfe and his place in contemporary fiction (and first-person journalism).  I heard the satire in I am Charlotte Simmons wasn't on target, and I gave it a pass.  Now that I'm older, I read a lot of great writing on filmmaking and other topics.  But there's one thing missing from my menu and that's some kind of analysis of failure.  Salamon's book never really answered that question for me -- or, she offered too many little reasons that this particular project failed.  Movies are massive undertakings but reflect what many of us are faced with in our adult lives.  Whether we are bosses, parents, teachers or chefs:  we get some cash together, find some people to help us out, and we execute projects.  How is it that movie missteps are catastrophes that manage to waste the equivalent of a small country's GDP and insult our intelligence?  

Le Cercle Rouge (1970), Jean-Pierre Melville.

Le Cercle Rouge struck me as strikingly close to Rififi (Du rififi chez les hommes) by Jules Dassin.  Le Cercle Rouge also has a jewelry heist as its climactic scene, and like Rififi, it is an extended scene filmed in near silence.  A beautiful neo-noir, it unfolds slowly and carefully.  Melville clearly delights in the planning and mechanics of the break and enter and justly so, as what is the point of such a film if executed unbelievably?  The strange tone, in part due to being filmed in isolated locations (the empty winter countryside, at night in an abandoned apartment, or along empty early morning streets) makes it seem as though the film's thieves are the only crooks in all of Paris - or France, for that matter.  Paris' top detective is on just one trail: theirs.  Our anti-hero Corey has a tendency to fondle standing racks of pool cues and offers a red rose to his partner in crime.  

Gangster's Boy (1938) William Nigh.

Sorry to break it to you, but Larry Kelly is an insufferable bore of a central character:  a do-gooder high schooler, class valedictorian and aspiring West Point scholar.  When his absentee dad settles back home and it's revealed he was in the can for running beer during Prohibition, Larry becomes a pariah with his square pals.  Another Monogram dud drenched in morose sanctimoniousness, with wimpy Irish caricatures like steadfast wife Molly Kelly (!), filmed in the style of your local public access cinematographer (aka The Tripod).  Good clean fun for dingbats!

Essanay rejection slip

Thought this Essanay Studios rejection slip was amusing (remember, this is what Louella Parsons used to do for a living!)  From Old Hollywood, a tumblr site: http://oldhollywood.tumblr.com/post/1374666427/the-rejection-slip-essanay-film-manufacturing

I Want to Live! (1958), Robert Wise.

"Masterpiece art," wrote Manny Farber in his essay "White Elephant Art VS. Termite Art", "reminiscent of the enameled tobacco humidors and wooden lawn ponies bought at white elephant auctions decades ago, has come to dominate the overpopulated arts of TV and movies. The three sins of white elephant art (1) frame the action with an all-over pattern, (2) install every event, character, situation in a frieze of continuities, and (3) treat every inch of the screen and film as a potential area for prizeworthy creativity."

I'm pretty confident Farber would call I Want to Live white elephant art. Susan Hayward's Oscar-winning performance was obnoxiously one-note. David Thompson hits it on the head when he says of Hayward, "If, as I feel, she is largely devoid of appeal, it is a credit to her determination and uncompromising directness that she lasted so long." I Want to Live almost taunts you with its A-film values. You like the nightclub scenes from shoddy B-noirs? Well, we hired Art Farmer! This film sucks the zest from a B-noir, jettisons the illicit fun that can be had from a pulp plot and crams middle class values down your throat. But to finish with Farber (this time from his essay "Underground Films": "this prize picture... has every reason to be successful. It has been made for that purpose. Thus, the year's winner is a perfect film made up of solely of holes and evasions, covered up by all types of padding and plush." Plus, they use a baseball bat to pound in life lessons that you learned in kindergarten. Beware of sanctimonious bullshit, friends!

L.A. Noir (2009), John Buntin.

In sketching the career of LA police chief William H Parker, John Buntin has written a history book that reveals that the real-life shenanigans of politicians, cops and crooks in LA would make most contemporary noir films appear as fake as a bowl of wax fruit.  Yes, with a cast of characters that includes strippers named Candy Barr, secret intelligence files full of juicy details and an indelible description of the killing of Bugsy Siegel, the material is instantly compelling.  But Buntin has constructed his book intelligently and with purpose; as he states in the acknowledgments section, his central figure Parker was "a controversial police chief whom criminologists associated with what they call 'the professional model' of policing" but was seen at the same time as "'an arrogant racist' who nearly destroyed the west's greatest city".  He delved deep into the original source material, even tracking down de-accessioned LAPD records in an effort to write an objective history of Parker's impact on the LAPD.  Interestingly, while the book's focus is on Parker's career and so offers more details about the years between the 20s and 60s, Buntin ultimately uses Parker's carefully crafted protection of the position of police chief (which he achieved by proposing changes to legislation) to illustrate the failure of the LAPD to contain the riots in 1992 after the beating of Rodney King.

L.A. Noir demonstrates the complex tug-of-war between empowering police with tougher tactics and striking down such measures to allow individuals greater personal freedoms.  What techniques were considered appropriate and inappropriate by society and towards what segment of the population?  In the 20s and 30s, "rousting," or continually arresting target groups as a form of short-term harassment was considered unlawful even when practiced against professional criminals such as run runners yet likely continues to this day as a legitimate tactic.  The knowledge of how to use some technologies (like wiretapping) grew quickly and the regulation of its appropriate use as a police tool lagged for years.

Always returning to Parker, the humourless hardass, the commie-paranoid honky, the staunchest anti-corruption cop on record, Buntin's narrative takes many on-topic detours.  The principle detour is that of the life of Mickey Cohen.  Buntin purposefully twinned colourful gangster's life story with that of the LA Police Chief Parker to give his story an antagonist.  Cohen's life, unknown to me, was continually surprising and highly entertaining.  I stopped tallying the number of hot-water heaters obsessive-compulsive Cohen had installed in his temporary lodgings to accommodate his habit of multiple showers.  How did this guy live so high off the hog for so long, a minor celebrity in his own right?  So many details about him are hilarious and fascinating (and many were captured by screenwriter Ben Hecht over a series of interviews that grew into what seems to be a somewhat close personal relationship).  

Despite its title, setting and its ability to churn up film imagery in the mind of the reader (for example, introducing real-life characters such as Nick "the Greek" Dandolos - a likely inspiration for Edward G Robinson's character in Smart Money), L.A. Noir doesn't delve into the entertainment industry until it's directly relevant to its theme of Parker's career arc.  Parker was proficient in honing the tools of his trade - statistics was one of them - but he also came to recognize the benefit of good PR.  In the 50s he partnered with the creators of Dragnet to see that the show came to act as the voice of the LAPD; certain episodes were even crafted to justify some of Parker's more questionable tactics.  

No book has even drawn a clear line between an exotic noir backdrop and events my own lifetime - for me, Buntin's book has made his history of the LAPD resonant and relevant.  The history of surveillance, wild and crazy southern preachers trying to convert Jewish gangsters-- OK, enough from me - just get out there and read this thing!