Return to bedrock

As indicated before, I’ve adopted a change in voice.  From hectoring “you” with friendly viewing advice, I’ve switched to talking to myself, mainly as a diaristic aide-mémoire, which is how I started out two decades ago.  Perhaps I should change this blog’s name to Cinema Soliloquy?  Now I address my remarks to nobody, because that is likely my readership.  Nonetheless, I invite intrepid souls with time on their hands to listen in.  So this is a quick whirl through several months of film viewing.
 
Though I have sometimes gone months without watching anything on the Criterion Channel, I’ve always considered my charter subscription not just a fee for service but an act of cultural patronage, because the Criterion organization is so important to the preservation of the history and diversity of cinema.  In a hard assessment of value for money in various streaming subscriptions, I recently converted to an annual subscription for Criterion, (amounting to $8.33 per month), while adopting an intermittent approach to Netflix and Hulu, as well as more specialized channels.
 
Having thus returned to basics, I actively looked for films to watch on the channel, and found much of novelty and interest.  Criterion has a massive back catalogue of Janus Films, the distributor of so many mid-century international classics, which formed the core curriculum of my education in film, but they also rotate in a lot of old Hollywood TCM-type titles, which fill in gaps in my viewing history.  They rotate thematic collections, and also have some streaming premieres of more recent films.
 
For another in my series of periodic diaries of Criterion Collection viewing (e.g. here, here, and here), click on “Read more.”

 
This binge of Criterion films began with one that resonated immediately and encouraged further exploration: Twelve O’Clock High (1949, Wiki).  Henry King’s film moves beyond jingoistic WWII  movies by focusing on the stress of American bomber pilots doing daylight runs over Germany, its realism accented by use of actual Air Force footage in battle scenes.  Gregory Peck is excellent as the hard-ass general brought in to restore discipline when Gary Merrill proves too soft on his men, only to fall prey to psychological consequences himself.  Dean Jagger is the old-hand major with perspective on both men.  Well worth seeing.
 
On a Samantha Morton kick, I caught up with her portrayal of Jane Eyre (1997, Wiki), which unsurprisingly ranks with the very best, nicely matched by Ciaran Hinds as Rochester, in this pared-down British tv movie.
 
My obsession with the decades leading up to the Civil War inclined me to Walker (1987, Wiki), with Ed Harris as William Walker, an historical American filibuster (in the original sense), who led an insurrection and installed himself as president of Nicaragua.  Alex Cox’s film was shot in Nicaragua during the Contra War, and is an unapologetic piece of agitprop, containing many anachronisms to drive home the contemporary relevance of the historical example of American interference in Latin America.
 
A Myrna Loy collection led me to After the Thin Man (1936, Wiki), reputedly a better film after the surprise success of the original, and before the descent into formula.  It was okay, but unmemorable, and did not lead me into the rest of the series.   But it did induce me to watch Love Crazy (1941, Wiki), one of the non-Thin Man pairings of Myrna Loy with William Powell, in a straight-up screwball comedy that goes from marital bedroom farce to mental hospital shenanigans, without the murder mystery.
 
I’d heard about Niagara (1953, Wiki) as Marilyn Monroe’s breakout film, but otherwise did not know what to expect, so I was surprised to see Henry Hathaway’s noir suspense film in widescreen Technicolor, the better to show off two majestic pieces of scenery, Niagara Falls and MM’s behind.  She’s the requisite femme fatale, with Joseph Cotton as her shell-shocked and jealous husband.  They encounter another honeymooning couple at their motel perched above the Falls; mayhem and murder ensue.
 
At the time, Criterion was featuring several overlapping collections of noir films from the Forties, including ones starring John Garfield and Veronica Lake.  Force of Evil (1948, Wiki) stars Garfield as a mob lawyer scheming to take over the numbers racket while also trying to protect his bookmaking brother.  Adapted and directed by soon-to-be-blacklisted Abraham Polonsky, with both documentary and literary inflections, this film has realism and resonance that propels it beyond genre boundaries.
 
Garfield is a hardboiled thug in Out of the Fog (1941, Wiki), extorting protection money out of an atmospheric wharfside community.  Intended as an anti-Fascist parable, directed by Anatole Litvak and co-starring Ida Lupino, the film does not really emerge from the fog of the past.
 
Veronica Lake was often paired with Alan Ladd, and while her persona retains piquancy, his slick stiff demeanor has not worn well.  The Glass Key (1942, Wiki) is an adaptation of a Dashiell Hammett novel.
The Blue Dahlia (1946, Wiki) was scripted by Raymond Chandler.  Both were watchable, but instantly forgettable.
 
Call Northside 777 (1948, Wiki) was the find that stood out for me from these collections, less noir and more what we’d now call docudrama.  James Stewart stars as a hard-boiled Chicago reporter, who is reluctantly drawn into a human interest story about a Polish immigrant mother campaigning for the release of her son, wrongly convicted of murder.  Henry Hathaway’s film is based on a true story and largely shot on the actual locations where the events occurred, taking a real interest in the genuine operation of a newspaper, and technological advances such as wire transfer of photos, or the lie detector test as administered and explained by the actual inventor of the polygraph.  Definitely recommended viewing.
 
I didn’t feel any particular urge to re-view the titles in the “British New Wave” collection, but one I’d missed was the star-making role for Alan Bates, who’s long been a particular favorite of mine.  A Kind of Loving (1962, Wiki) definitely was the revelation of the program.  Like many pre-Pill kitchen-sink dramas, John Schlesinger’s film revolves around an unexpected pregnancy.  Bates is draughtsman at a Manchester factory who hooks up with a secretary there, and surprisingly “does the right thing,” with unsurprisingly mixed results.  I appreciated the gritty realism of setting and story.
 
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960, Wiki) was similarly star-making for Albert Finney, as another of the famously “angry young men,” with the same dilemma in the equally gritty precincts of Nottingham, as directed by Karel Reisz.
 
Tony Richardson’s A Taste of Honey (1961, Wiki) varied the formula by taking the perspective of an angry young woman, memorably embodied by Rita Tushingham, a 17-year-old girl who seeks emancipation from a neglectful mother.  She finds and loses a sailor boyfriend, sure enough winds up pregnant, but gets a helpful gay roommate, before another ambivalent resolution.
 
Schlesinger turned to comedy with Billy Liar (1963, Wiki), with Tom Courtenay as the title character, a powerless clerk who elaborately fantasizes about being the beloved dictator of an imaginary country, while in real life proposing to two different girls, with the very same ring, before falling back under the spell of a returning former girl friend who actually lives out her fantasies, Julie Christie in her first major role. 
 
And Richardson turned to comical literary adaptation with Tom Jones (1963, Wiki), with a different sort of turn for Albert Finney.  The big commercial success was nominated for ten Oscars, winning for Best Picture, Director, Script, and Score.  To the best of my recollection, I was tickled seeing it back then as a 16-year-old, somewhat more dubious after having read the book as an English major, and at this distance not all that impressed.  
 
In a change of pace, I took in a couple of Ingmar Bergman films, from different points in his long career.  I’d never seen The Touch (1971, Wiki), his first English language film, probably because of poor reviews and distribution.  Certainly Elliott Gould seems miscast as the American archaeologist (and stand-in for Bergman’s own tortured psyche).  While working on a medieval church in Sweden, he meets and develops a passion for Bibi Andersson (understandably so, it must be said).  She’s married to a doctor (Max von Sydow), and the affair is difficult on both sides, and ultimately unresolved.  So is the film.
 
On the other hand, I had a very positive recollection of Summer of Monica (1953, Wiki), though it must be fifty years since I saw it.  Harriet Andersson is certainly memorable as the title character, and not just for the then-rare nude scenes.  She’s a restless girl, who finds a boy to dote on her, and they run away to a remote island for a summer idyll.  The inevitable pregnancy and dutiful marriage follow, to mutual dissatisfaction back in the real world.  But what struck me at this distance was how neorealist Bergman was toward the start of his career.
 
As I’m wrapping up this post, the Criterion Channel’s recent line-up of collections is outstanding.  One of them included more than 50 of the all-time top 100 films on the latest decennial Sight & Sound critics poll.  A “Cinema Verite” collection includes many great documentaries starting with Primary in 1960, and ending with the delightful Kings of Pastry from 2009, which was likely one of the inspirations for The Great British Bake Off.  “Mike Leigh at the BBC” reclaims the early work of the great British director (I’ve already watched Grown-Ups from 1980, with a very young Lesley Manville, and Four Days in July from 1984, an intimate domestic look at The Troubles in Belfast at the time).  And “Starring Joan Bennett” showcases a Hollywood Golden Age actress I’m not very familiar with, notably including a Douglas Sirk-Barbara Stanwyck film that I’d long been doubly looking-for:
 
There’s Always Tomorrow (1955, Wiki) was a real find, Sirk at the peak of his powers in this black & white melodrama, the director of “women’s pictures” unusually focused on a man’s romantic travail.  Fred Macmurray is a successful California toy manufacturer and family man, who feels ignored by his wife (Joan Bennett) and three children.  When they’ve left him to a solitary dinner, who should turn up at his door but Barbara Stanwyck, who had a crush on him in high school, and then worked for him as he was building his business.  Now she’s a successful designer in NYC, come to LA on business and looking up her old boss.  Circumstances conspiring, the old flame kindles to life, innocently at first, but despite her deference to his wife and family, he becomes increasingly obsessed with a mid-life crisis of desire.  Beautifully designed and photographed, with an intelligent script, subtle subtexts and social critique, the film is very much of its time but also timeless in its appeal.  One of several superb Macmurray-Stanwyck pairings (cf. Double Indemnity).
 
In February, Criterion followed up with a collection of “Douglas Sirk Rarities” that included another Stanwyck film I’d been looking for, All I Desire (1953, Wiki), which retains the skill of both Sirk and Stanwyck without coming close to the best of either.  She’s a vaudeville showgirl who abandoned her Wisconsin family around the turn of the century with hopes of an acting career, and now returns when her high school daughter invites her to the graduation play in which she stars.  Her husband is stunned by her return, and her elder daughter is resentful, but everyone makes difficult accommodations.  Sirk’s direction gives off a real Magnificent Ambersons vibe, but the producer insisted on a happy ending that betrays his more truthful melodramatic instincts.  Nonetheless, I can add these two films to my Barbara Stanwyck career summary.
 
For Valentine’s Day, Criterion offered “All You Need Is Love,” an 80-year survey of romantic comedies, of which I’ve so far re-watched three, with differing responses.  For eye candy, I watched the Merchant-Ivory A Room with a View (1985, Wiki) for the first time since making it one of my first reviews on this site, and definitely renewed my initial enthusiasm.  On the other hand, I watched Mississippi Masala (1991, Wiki) with leaking enthusiasm, which made me reconsider my evaluation of Mira Nair as a director, despite the attractiveness of the performers (Denzel between Glory and Malcolm X) and the multicultural appeal of the setting.  In the same collection, I took the opportunity to refresh my pleasant memories of It Happened One Night (1934, Wiki), Frank Capra’s multi-Oscar-winner with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.
 
To end on a high note, and to underline how many films on the Criterion Channel are not just worth watching but worth re-watching, let me celebrate the enduring charm of several old favorites: Bill Forsyth’s Scottish teen rom-com Gregory’s Girl (1980, Wiki), Parker Posey in the librarians’ favorite Party Girl (1995, Wiki), and McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971, Wiki), Robert Altman’s masterpiece starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie.