Night Flights, May 2010 Edition « Screaming Blue Reviews
Our regular reviews are like entrees. This recurring feature is like the sampler plate.
There are literally more movies already made than there exists time to watch them. That’s even true – in some ways more so - if you’re insomniac and rely on movies to help lull you to sleep. Movie channels, especially our favorites Turner Classic Movies and Fox Movie Channel, show films virtually around the clock, all year long. most of their programming is worth watching, too, and a good chunk of it is, for us anyway, pretty much irresistable.
The happy consequence of all this plenty is that we also see more movies than we have time to write about. This recurring feature offers smaller-sized reviews and commentary on films we saw that, for one reason another, didn’t get a full blog posting. The opinions are our own, of course. they may differ from yours. That’s okay.
Journey into Fear (1943) - One of the lesser-known efforts from Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre collaborators, this espionage drama casts Joseph Cotten as an American advisor to the Turkish Navy marked for death by a Nazi spy (Eustace Wyatt) and his henchman (Jack Moss). a Turkish police chief (Welles) puts the panicked American onto a tramp steamer crossing the Black Sea between Istanbul and Georgia, but the enemy agents follow him aboard, stalking out his movements.
Directing credit is given to Norman Foster, but the Welles touch is ever present, especially in the sumptuous ennui of an early scene set within an Istanbul nightclub. Cotten also wrote the script, adapting it from Eric Ambler’s novel, giving him his only screenwriting credit. The film itself ultimately plays not as well as it could, and often drags despite its brief 68-minute run time. still, fans of Welles’ early work, or of exotic film noirs such as The Mask of Demitrios or The Shanghai Gesture, will most likely want to check it out.
Junior Bonner (1972) – another minor entry in the careers of all involved, Sam Peckinpah’s first team up with Steve McQueen displays a family of rodeo riders approaching the end of their era. Favorite son J.R. (McQueen) is a former but unbowed bull riding champion in the mold of his legendary father Ace (Robert Preston), while younger brother Curly (Joe Don Baker) has plans to convert the family ranch into a housing community. Ace, long past any of his primes, has plans to mine for silver in Australia, even though matriarch Elvira (Ida Lupino) has left him in frustration and impatience.
Peckinpah works the films themes of family loyalty and encroaching commercialization of the West so subtly it’s sometimes hard to see the text for the implied subtext. The director never seems to nail the pace or the texture of Jeb Rosebrook’s relaxed screenplay, with an unfortunate lack of drama left for the audience to absorb. In the end, the payoff with its too-pat conclusion and treacly sentimentality feels almost smug. Preston and Lupino are both wonderful, however, giving lived-in and understated performances.
Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip (1982) – Representing something of a comeback following his well-publicized self-immolation, this concert film shows Pryor actually and triumphantly at the height of his legendary craft. Merging his observational humor with a series of one-man, one-act character performances, his monologues and diatribes – always funny and acerbic, but often surprisingly reflective and melancholy, as well – show the comic’s gift for understanding human nature.
Pryor’s legacy has been over-simplified by modern audiences, who too often remember his scathing vulgarity but not the smart rhythmic and observational purposes lying within it. seeing this film again reminds us of his versatility, including his gift for nuanced and intelligent storytelling. The following clip is aggressively NSFW.
In Country (1989) – Adapted from Bobbie Ann Mason’s period-classic novel, Norman Jewison’s disappointing film nevertheless contains several impressive performances but gets hampered by a miscast lead and TV movie-of-the-week pacing and texture. Kentucky teenager Samantha Hughes (Emily Lloyd) longs to connect with the memory of her father, a soldier killed in Vietnam years before. all the men of her town, including her roommate and uncle Emmett (Bruce Willis), bear scars psychic and physical from their war service but won’t discuss them. her mother (Joan Allen) isn’t talking either, especially since Emmett’s behavior grows increasingly erratic by the day.
Arriving near the end of the decade’s brief mania for Vietnam reconciliation, the movie skims the surface of its material thanks to often clumsy pacing and a weird mid-plot set piece that goes nowhere. Willis gained serious critical notice for his subdued turn as the war-scarred loner, yet the film rises and falls on Lloyd’s coming-of-age performance. Unfortunately she’s too earnest by half, and seems distanced and at times uninterested in the story’s setting and context. The novel was a good read that deserved better.
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) – Author James M. Cain’s thriller novels provided the source material for a trio of classic film noirs, including Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce and this slow burning erotica starring James Garfield and Lana Turner. Garfield’s the drifter who falls to the elusive charms of the unhappily married Turner, and the two conspire to kill her husband (Cecil Kellaway) to gain control of the roadside diner he’s managed with cold-hearted miserliness. Of course the murder doesn’t go as planned, and a shrewd district attorney (Leon Ames) begins circling the doomed lovers.
Director Tay Garnett (Bataan) can’t match the edgy cynicism of Billy Wilder’s spin on Double Indemnity or Curtiz’s posh, jaded take on Mildred Pierce. As a result the film walks when it could saunter, with an undercooked and procedural pace that sometimes works against the palpable chemistry of its stars. Ames, who judging by his filmography didn’t sleep in the late 1940s, is reliably upright as the DA who knows something is up; more entertaining still is Hume Cronyn, playing against his screen image as a shifty, amoral defense attorney who masterminds his clients’ acquittals despite them. Overall, however, it’s themes and barely restrained sexuality make it archetypal film noir, among the best examples of its genre.
We’ll be back next week with our review of Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood. thanks for reading.
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