genekim Reviews

Roar (1981)

Hark! I Hear the Lions Roar. (Is It the King Approaching? I Sure Hope Not...)

[3/10 · 5 July 2015]

"Roar" is a movie that manages to be nerve-wracking as well as tedious to sit through. Tedious because there's no story to speak of; nerve-wracking because of what the cast and crew reportedly went through to produce it.

"Roar" is about an American named Hank (Noel Marshall) who has gone to Africa where he can study lions up close - *really* close. To this end, he's constructed a private refuge and house where lions are free to wander about, inside and out. A *lot* of lions. And tigers. And leopards. And cougars. On this particular day, Hank is awaiting a visit from his estranged wife Madelaine (Tippi Hedren) and their grown children, who have traveled all the way from the States. But due to a lack of communications, Hank spends several hours headed to the airfield while his wife, sons and daughter make it to the refuge on their own. Once there, wife and kids are intimidated, when not downright terrified, by their close encounters with Hank's "friends" until they eventually decide the creatures aren't so bad after all. Dad finally shows up - and that's it, really. That's the whole movie, aside from a half-hearted subplot involving a couple of villainous big game poachers. You'd think that once the family settles down, "Roar" would start to tell a real story about something more substantial, but instead we get a cheerful, hopeful song accompanying a montage of the family interacting with the animals, and... the movie ends. (Just as well. At this point, I really didn't want it to keep going.)

Said to have been a pet project (you should forgive the term) of Tippi Hedren and her then- husband, Noel Marshall, "Roar" reportedly cost $17 million, much of it their own money, and earned back only a fraction of its cost. It's certainly a sincere and heartfelt plea for wildlife conservation. But as I sat there, the film's opening disclaimer about how only "untrained animals" were used kept rattling in my brain.

Untrained animals. It was alarming to see all these lovingly filmed scenes of lions playing (i.e. fighting) with each other. And seeing the actors let themselves be swarmed or pursued by the lions was downright heart-pounding. (I soon lost track of how many times I silently shouted, "Are you crazy?") "Roar" was a true family affair, with Noel Marshall's real-life sons and Tippi Hedren's real-life daughter, Melanie Griffith, playing the kids. (If I ever get to meet Melanie Griffith, who here plays a character named "Melanie," I must ask her about the scene in which she allowed one of the lions to pin her to the floor, face-down.)

"Roar" seems to tell you that lions are just a bunch of oversized pussycats with big, sharp claws - treat 'em right, don't let them sense fear, stand up to them when necessary, let them lick and paw you to their hearts' content, and everything will be just fine, the occasional bad scratch notwithstanding. The thing is, just about everyone connected with this production was injured by the animals at one point or another, including the actors. (By unhappy happenstance, I saw this film about a month after the death in South Africa of Hollywood visual effects editor Katherine Chappell, who'd made the awful mistake of rolling down a car window during a visit to a lion park to take a picture, and was attacked and fatally bitten by a lioness.)

Perhaps instead of making a "real" movie, Hedren and Marshall would have done better to have made a documentary about the wildlife they obviously admire so much. And speaking of documentary, if they had done a behind-the-scenes film about the making of this movie, that film could very well have been much more interesting than "Roar."

By the way, "Roar" was beautifully photographed in Metrocolor. As in MGM. As in... lion? (Coincidence? Of course, but I couldn't resist.)

Abdul the Bulbul Ameer (1941)

Abdul and Ivan the Terrible

[3/10 · 22 December 2014]

Watching this 1941 MGM cartoon is pretty pointless unless you're familiar with the Percy French-Frank Crumit song, "Abdul Abulbul Amir." And if you know the song, then what's the point of seeing this cartoon? I suppose the intent was to provide a comical illustration of what's described in the lyrics, but we only get fragments of the original text. Perhaps the animators would have done better to have done a more faithful visual accompaniment, one that stuck more closely to the song.

Said to have been a favorite of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's, the French-Crumit song "Abdul Abulbul Amir" is a very humorous if (by today's standards) politically incorrect ballad that tells the tale of two mighty warriors: Ivan from Russia, and Abdul, who is either an Arab, a Persian or a Turk. They get into the fight of their lives, and don't know when to quit (or how). My introduction to it was a tuneful rendition by country singer Hank Thompson. It made me chuckle a few times, and I actually laughed aloud the first time I heard the closing line, which provided a perfect ending.

Nothing about this cartoon (titled "Abdul the Bulbul-Ameer") made me chuckle; not the way the main characters are portrayed, not the standard animated slapstick, and certainly not the three-man American newsreel crew thrown in for added comic relief (one of them, a Groucho Marx lookalike, keeps pointlessly shouting, "What a fight!"). The whole thing makes for a Technicolorful, pointless mess. You'd do better to listen to the Thompson recording, which actually tells you a story.

(I saw an excellent quality copy of this cartoon uploaded onto YouTube - who knows how long it will remain there.)

Alice in Wonderland (1931)

Curiouser Curiosity

[5/10 · 20 March 2011]

The first "talking" movie version of "Alice in Wonderland," produced in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1931, two years before Paramount's all-star production. Ruth Gilbert stars as Lewis Carroll's heroine in this black and white featurette (running under an hour) directed by Bud Pollard.

I'd been casually searching for a copy for years, and finally managed to get ahold of a DVD copy of a pretty battered 16mm print.

Well. It's about what you'd expect for a 1931 talkie -- a creaky curiosity of a film with overly broad acting, awkward pauses, rudimentary costumes and sets and a primitive-sounding soundtrack.

I have a hard time imagining that anyone enjoyed watching this, even in 1931; it comes across as little more than a filmed community theater production of "Alice" without any real sense of Carroll's wit or whimsy. (Then again, that's how I also feel about the 1933 movie starring Charlotte Henry, despite its higher production values.) The climactic trial of the Knave of Hearts does boast a decidedly shocking twist not found in the book that probably had Lewis Carroll turning in his grave.

A heavily made-up Ruth Gilbert was about 18 when she played Alice; a little of her "little girl" routine goes a long way. Now and then she tries to affect what may have been a trans-Atlantic accent, but most of the time she carries on like a Broadway chorine. (When confronted by the other characters toward the end, this all-too-American Alice yells at them, "Come on, all of you! Who's afraid of a paltry pack of cards!")

Still, despite its shortcomings, this film remains interesting from a historical perspective, not only as the first sound "Alice," but also as a reminder of Fort Lee's prominent place in early film history.

Turn-on (1969– )

Tune In, Turn On, Look Out

[1/10 · 25 August 2010]

The show opens in a huge white void, with some kind of computer console sitting in the middle of said void. A pair of technicians, their backs always to the camera, walk in and sit down at the console. One of them says, "Well, Charlie, this is it: The first computerized TV show." Charlie says, "I never programmed a program before. What's first?" Technician #1 replies, "This week's guest star: Tim Conway." "Groovy," says Charlie. "Turn on!" Someone presses a button, whereupon Tim Conway magically appears just long enough to announce, "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to 'Peyton Re-place!'" before vanishing. Considering what's to come, Conway may have wanted to take a powder for the remainder of the show.

And with that, we're off and stumbling with the only episode of "Turn-On" to air on ABC, a show that lives on in legend as one of the worst things ever to grace (or disgrace) network television - a program deemed so bad, ABC canceled the rest of its run while this half-hour premiere was still in progress. (Tim Conway has claimed that an ABC affiliate in his home state of Ohio actually pulled the show off the air midway through.)

I'd missed out on "Turn-On's" first - and last - showing on Feb. 5, 1969. But thanks to the Paley Center for Media in midtown Manhattan, I was able to watch the program that inspired a May 17, 1969 TV Guide article, "The Show That Died After One Night" as well as a chapter in the book, "The Worst TV Shows Ever." More than 40 years and 29 mirthless minutes later, I agree: This was one awful show.

"Turn-On" was created by executive producers George Schlatter and Ed Friendly, the creators of "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In." Comparisons are inevitable, since both shows go in for the same kind of "hip" 60s humor. But it's obvious that "Turn-On" tried hard to be different. Instead of "Laugh-In's" psychedelic swirls and fully-dressed sets, "Turn-On" embraced a minimal look with its mostly white backgrounds and rudimentary decorations. Instead of videotape, "Turn-On" was shot on film. And instead of canned or real laughter, there's no laughter at all (and, for that matter, no laughs). In keeping with the premise that the show is being churned out by a computer, there are "computer sounds" that keep beeping away throughout the half-hour; sometimes they burst into a yadda-yadda-yadda transition melody.

Maybe Schlatter, Friendly & Co. Thought they were pioneering a new, postmodern show offering pure, distilled comedy, but the result is a visually empty, sterile-looking program that viewers probably found disquieting, if not disturbing, to watch. And what with some of the unfunniest material this side of Beautiful Downtown Burbank that the vaguely recognizable cast is given by a team of nine credited writers, the show didn't stand a chance.

Some examples:

A bikini-wearing Teresa Graves lounges on a bench surrounded by cardboard bushes. She exclaims, "I feel so guilty - I mean, lying here and all." Pause. "I should be out *shopping* somewhere!"

An armed hijacker tells an ersatz Superman: "OK buddy, take me to Cuba."

Chuck McCann, dressed as a cop, prowls around cardboard bushes with his flashlight while singing, "Hello, young lovers, wherever you are ..."

Blonde chick: "Do you love me?" Tim Conway: "Do I love you??? We just met a couple of minutes ago. For all I know, you might be a pot-smoking, jaded, wild-eyed, radical dropout." Blonde chick: "I *am* a pot-smoking, jaded, wild-eyed, radical dropout." Conway: "I love you."

Tim Conway, being booked in a police station on a variety of charges, demands to use the phone. He then orders a bucket of chicken (not a ham sandwich, as TV Guide would have it).

Sometimes things get downright embarrassing for the performers. The extremely attractive Maura McGiveney, decked out in a tastefully low-cut evening gown and half-reclining on a chaise, is repeatedly introduced with the words, "Ladies and gentlemen, the Body Politic." As the "Body Politic," a deadpan McGiveney gets to deliver such lines as, "Mr. Nixon, as president, now becomes the *titular* head of the Republican Party," and, "We *must* reorder our nation's priorities to resolve the *cleavages* that separate us."

Some of the jokes do attempt to be pointed and topical. There are two references to the then-raging Vietnam War. In one bit, we see a set of black tables arranged in the shape of a swastika. A voice declares, "You are now looking at the table at the Paris peace talks agreed to by General Ky," a slam at South Vietnam's Hitler-admiring vice president. In another scene, two cast members are perusing a large globe. One says to the other, "Tell me, where is the capital of South Vietnam?" The other cast member (Hamilton Camp, I do believe) moves the globe toward Europe and replies, "Mostly over here, in Swiss bank accounts."

Some viewers were apparently shocked and appalled by what they were seeing. People may have thought "Turn-On" was unfunny because it was in bad taste. I think the reverse is true - it was in bad taste because it wasn't funny. If a show is genuinely entertaining, viewers, then and now, can be very forgiving. If not ...

Footnote: The copy of "Turn-On" at the Paley Center included commercials. One was for Ban deodorant spray. In it, an actor and actress playing a Northern gentleman and a Southern belle stand against a mostly empty white background. Northern gentleman: "Melanie, I forgot to use New Dry Ban antiperspirant on my trip down South." Southern belle: "Oh! A damp Yankee!" How about that? A commercial that not only looked and sounded just like the show it was on - it was just as chillingly unfunny.

Juno (2007)

A Sitcom on Steroids

[6/10 · 23 February 2008]

I went to see "Juno" expecting a quirky comedy-drama about an unplanned teen pregnancy, but what I saw left me dumbfounded. This movie isn't just quirky; it's quirky to the nth degree. It quickly became apparent that "Juno" was not meant to be a "realistic" movie about a painful subject leavened by humor; instead, it's a film in which most of the main characters seem to be in some kind of competition to see who can spout the highest number of wisecracks in the shortest amount of time. Basically, it's a sitcom on steroids.

In this movie, Juno MacGuff is a 16-year-old girl living in Minnesota who discovers she's pregnant a few months after a one-night stand with a close friend (not exactly boyfriend) named Paulie. She contemplates getting an abortion, but ends up deciding to give the baby away to a well-to-do young couple named Mark and Vanessa.

The film gets off to an ominous start as Juno returns to a convenience store to give herself a pregnancy test for the third time in the same day. When she enters the store, the young man behind the counter calls out, "Well, well - if it isn't MacGuff the Crime Dog! Back for another test?" Juno says, "I think the last one was defective. The plus sign looked more like a division sign. I remain unconvinced." The young man replies, "This is your third test today, Mama Bear. Your Eggo is preggo, no doubt about it." After Juno tests herself again, and the result is again positive, she shakes the tester, prompting the clerk to remark, "That ain't no Etch-a- Sketch. This is one doodle that can't be un-did, Homeskillet."

It's a fairly jaw-dropping scene, what with all the forced hostility-laced banter, but then comes the real shocker: 90 percent of the entire movie's dialogue is like this. Juno and Paulie may have lost their virginity, and their innocence, but they and their friends are never, ever at a loss for words. Even Juno's father gets into the act; told about his daughter's pregnancy, he muses about being a grandfather - or, as he puts it, a "pop-pop." Later, when Vanessa asks a visibly upset Juno why she's crying, the distraught girl, without missing a beat, tells her, "I'm not crying, I'm just allergic to fine home furnishing." (Oy, vey.)

Juno is meant to be a smart, sassy girl who marches to her own drummer. She's also filled with a ton of pop culture references, both past and present. A lot of people have jumped on the fact that at one point, Juno sarcastically describes a female classmate as looking like "Soupy Sales." These critics wonder how a 16-year-old in this day and age would know who Soupy Sales is; others defend the reference, saying it shows how eclectic Juno's tastes are. My feeling is: Even if she knows who Soupy Sales, White Fang and Black Tooth were, what about the friend she's talking to?

Just as dishonest as the implausibly snappy, mile-a-minute dialogue is the way "Juno" treats the subject of teen pregnancy, making it seem like a minor inconvenience. We're supposed to believe Juno is so self-assured and resourceful, she never once displays panic over her situation; telling her father and stepmother turns out to be no big deal, either.

Ellen Page is a charming Juno, even if she's overstuffed with too-clever-by-half one-liners. I liked Jennifer Garner as the very nice, if slightly dense, Vanessa, and Jason Bateman is just right as her husband, Mark. Veteran TV performers J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney are also welcome as Juno's parents, despite some of the dialogue they're required to speak.

Ultimately, though, the film is glib, IMHO. Not just because of the way it lightly treats teenage pregnancy, but also because I didn't feel the least bit enlightened by it. I came away from "Juno" without the slightest new insight into current attitudes, or today's kids. As a middle- aged person who *does* remember Soupy Sales, I'm wondering how teenagers are reacting to this film. Do they listen to the hyped-up dialogue and think that it's only a mildly exaggerated form of today's kidspeak, one they wish they were better at? Or do they shake their heads and think, "Nobody I know talks like that!"?

The President's Last Bang (2005)

Going Out with a "Bang"

[9/10 · 29 October 2007]

The English-release title "The President's Last Bang" may sound like an artless literal translation of the original Korean, but I'm informed by those who speak the ancestral language (thanks, Mom and Dad) that "Geuddae geusaramdeul" actually means "The People of That Time," or, more concisely, "Those People, Then." It's a title that resonates deeply for South Koreans: On the night of October 26, 1979, shortly before he was assassinated, President Park Chung-hee was being entertained at dinner by a young singer named Shim Soo-bong, who had made a splash in a college singing contest with a song called "Geuddae geusaram" - literally, "That Person, Then." Shim reportedly sang that song to Park that fateful night; as a result, both she and the song became inextricably linked to the Park killing. Hence the movie title, "Those People, Then."

One of those "people then" was, of course, President Park, along with the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, Kim Jae-kyu, who led the assassins and who personally shot the president (and ended up being executed for it). As portrayed in this film, KCIA Director Kim is pent up with rage and frustration; his liver is shot to hell, he feels his country is shot to hell, and he's convinced that the president and his chief bodyguard both deserve to be shot to hell as well.

"The President's Last Bang" has been billed as a black comedy; some American reviewers have even likened it to Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," which kind of threw me. I would say, it's a very wry take on a deadly serious episode of recent Korean history. I suspect much of it comes across as absurd because the real-life events it was based on were so horrifyingly absurd.

Deliberately, deliciously absurd moments abound, like the schoolchildren who refuse to stand still for the playing of the national anthem, but maybe some critics saw signs of comedy where none really exist (oh, those crazy Koreans!). For example, one reviewer was highly amused by what he saw as Kim's bungling when he supposedly runs out of bullets at the start of the assassination and must run outside to fetch another gun. Actually, Kim has plenty of bullets; it's just that his gun jammed. That's not ineptitude, just bad luck on his part.

Although the main focus of the film is the president and the KCIA director, it's also worth noting characters like gum-chewing KCIA Chief Agent Ju, whose primary job consists of procuring young women for the president's personal entertainment; his disgust with the task, with the women who agree to be a party to it, and with himself is palpable. There's also Mr. Shim, the guesthouse caretaker who's as silent as a butler and seemingly privy to everything that's going on. There's the older woman who's seen at the beginning of the film, lodging a complaint about the way her daughter was treated by the president during a bedroom date; we hear her again at the end of the film, offering a sardonic post-assassination wrapup (shades of Costa-Gavras' "Z"). And then there are the two young women, brought together for the first time, who are destined to witness the assassination close-up; afterward, they end up lounging around in a side room, chatting like college roommates.

From my peculiar American point of view, one wickedly fun moment is when Park and his top aides, chatting over dinner, start bad-mouthing not only the American ambassador to Seoul, but also then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter; such scenes crackle with a you-are-there authenticity. It's also morbidly fascinating to listen to the movie's Park Chung-hee rationalize his authoritarian rule by noting that he tolerates a certain degree of political opposition (there's a direct reference to Kim Young-sam, who was fated to become president himself years later).

As for the president's "last bang," fans of the late President Park may actually admire the way he goes out in this film. He shows no fear; he meets his fate as the tough old bird he was reputed to be.

A passing note: Whenever Korean subtitles appear, it's because the characters are speaking in Japanese (one of the fringe benefits of Japanese colonial rule being coerced bilingualism).

Final thought: Could the fractured-English title "The President's Last Bang" be a deliberate Borat-like joke on the part of a Korean who speaks English all too well?

It's the Old Army Game (1926)

W.C. Fields, Lost and Found

[8/10 · 22 December 2005]

In his 1967 book "The Art of W.C. Fields," film historian William K. Everson bemoaned the apparent loss of much of Fields' early movie work. In a chapter devoted to eight silent films that Fields made for Paramount from 1926 to 1928, Everson wrote: "Of those eight features, not one is known to have survived." Stills from most of those films decorate Everson's book; they stare out from the pages as ghostly reminders of films believed gone for good.

That was then; since Everson's book was published, copies of three of those missing features have turned up: "So's Your Old Man," "Running Wild" - and "It's the Old Army Game." (The one film in the group of eight that film historians would really like to get their hands on is "That Royle Girl," which was the second feature Fields did with D.W. Griffith, the first being "Sally of the Sawdust.")

I got to see "Army Game" at the AFI Silver in Silver Spring, Maryland. As funny as the film was - and it was very funny - the experience of seeing it on the big screen was also surprisingly poignant, given its formerly lost status. Relying on contemporary reviews, Everson speculated that Fields' silent Paramount features, which were all produced by the company's New York studio, were done on the cheap and probably suffered from a "cramped 'East Coast look.'" As it turns out, "Army Game" is a very handsomely mounted production, and includes location filming in Florida and New York City (it was fairly amazing to see scenes of midtown Manhattan in 1926 and notice how much of it - the buildings, mainly - has barely changed in nearly eight decades). "Army Game" is so well produced, it was sad to think that, like Clementine, it was once thought "lost and gone forever."

Partly remade as "The Pharmacist" in 1933 and "It's a Gift" in 1934, "Army Game" stars Fields as Elmer Prettywillie, a small town druggist who suffers various indignities at the hands of his relatives (no wife here, but there is an obnoxious sister and her nephew), customers and neighbors. Can a silent Fields be as funny as the talking one we're all familiar with? This film says definitely. Of course, we all know what Fields sounded like, so this can simply be a case of filling in his voice with our imaginations. But our imaginations don't stop there. In one scene, when Fields is trying to sleep on a porch swing and a baby girl (who, I'm convinced, was played by an adult female midget) stands nearby and bawls, I could hear her crying rattling in my brain.

But perhaps we do miss Fields' voice, after all. One minor complaint I have about "Army Game" is that Fields' character seems to keep changing on us. In one scene, he's a milquetoast who can't bring himself to charge an overbearing woman for the two cents' worth of postage she's purchased; in another, he comes perilously close to maliciously dropping the above-mentioned baby off a balcony; in another, he's a sharpie who out-hustles a would-be hustler; in another, he's a buffoon who doesn't know the meaning of a "no trespassing" sign and calls a grandfather clock a "watch." I'm not saying a film character can't show different sides or can never surprise us with some hidden trait or ability, but Elmer Prettywillie seems to be suffering from multiple personality disorder. Had Fields been able to use his voice in this film, he might have brought all these seemingly disparate threads together, as he probably did in "It's a Gift" (which I don't remember well, it's been about 30 years since I've seen it - yipe!). "Army Game" also has an extraneous romantic subplot involving drugstore employee Louise Brooks and handsome con artist William Gaxton that threatens to split off into its own film.

This was the first time I'd seen Louise Brooks in a movie, and all I can say at first blush is: Wow. As Prettywillie's young assistant, Brooks positively radiates from the screen without even trying. OK, she does try in one scene: clad in a swimsuit, leaning against a tree, head tilted back, eyes closed and trying to look heartbroken, Brooks is so obviously posing (or being posed) for the camera, it's hard not to snicker. But she does it *so* well. (The director was Edward Sutherland, who married Brooks around the time this film was made; their marriage lasted all of about two years.)

In his Fields book, Everson said "Army Game" was "not remembered with any great enthusiasm" by Brooks. In her own book, "Lulu in Hollywood," Brooks, recalling her work with Gaxton, says with acerbic candor that she knew then that "our parts as the 'love interest' in a Fields comedy meant nothing." Did Brooks ever get to see "Army Game"? It's doubtful. In her 1982 book, published three years before her death, Brooks said she hadn't seen it. It's a shame - not only did she miss out on a truly funny W.C. Fields vehicle, she also missed out on seeing a delightful young actress with a pageboy-style haircut who lit up the screen every time she appeared. (Dear AFI: Could you schedule a screening of "Pandora's Box" real soon, please?)

A couple of footnotes: AFI's presentation of "Army Game" featured excellent live organ accompaniment by Ray Brubacher. Also, the film, when I saw it, ran about 90 minutes, considerably longer than the running time listed by IMDb - I suspect AFI ran the film as close to "natural speed" as possible, which was a definite plus in terms of presentation.

Alice in Wonderland (1966 TV Movie)

Alternative 'Alice'

[4 October 2004]

Beautifully filmed in a satiny black & white reminiscent of old photographs, this 1966 BBC adaptation of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" may displease purists for its less than conventional, as well as decidedly minimalist, approach. It's not a traditional rendering of Lewis Carroll, and doesn't pretend to be; there are no phantasmagoric sets or actors encased in over-sized costumes or big musical numbers or fancy photographic effects. The Alice of this production is a taciturn, stony-faced girl who is neither frightened nor fascinated by her experiences in Wonderland, which is mostly made up of the interiors and exteriors of old English mansions and houses. But in its unorthodox way, it brings Carroll's text to life in a way I don't recall experiencing in other adaptations of the Alice books.

It's apparent that in creating this alternative Alice, producer-director Jonathan Miller expects you to be already familiar with its source; he's evidently assuming you will recognize what he's chosen to leave in as well as leave out, as well as his re-imagined settings. Only a few of the actors are made to look anything like the characters in the Tenniel drawings, such as Leo McKern as the Duchess or Peter Cook as the Mad Hatter; you're basically on your own when it comes to spotting the White Rabbit or Caterpillar or Frog Footman, all of whom are dressed "normally" in period costumes. (Presenting the Carrollian characters as real people isn't a new idea; I recall a TV adaptation of Alice starring Kate Burton in which Humpty Dumpty was portrayed by an elderly man in a rocking chair.)

By tossing out entire scenes, characters and exchanges that were in the book, Miller gives us a sparer, edgier retelling of the Wonderland story, but doesn't stray too far from the original. Why such a sullen, passive Alice? My guess is, this is supposed to be an Alice who fully realizes that she's in a dream and treats her surroundings accordingly.

And so this Alice (played by a charming Anne-Marie Mallik) sits looking bored and disinterested during the Mad Tea Party. Other productions customarily play this scene with all kinds of manic energy, but in this film, the tea party is deliberately drawn out with long, open rhythms reminiscent of an Antonioni or Resnais film. (Alice's Adventures in Marienbad, anyone?) And seemingly for the first time, while I was listening to the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse prattle away, their nonsense started to make wonderful sense. It's easy enough for an actor to recite lines like, "What day of the month is it?," but here, the performers sound like they really mean what they say (and say what they mean).

That same emphasis on dialogue is apparent in the beach scene with the Mock Turtle, played by Sir John Gielgud, and the Gryphon, played by Malcolm Muggeridge. The Mock Turtle's words never sounded so delightful to me before, and thank goodness Gielgud didn't have to deliver them through some huge Mock Turtle mask. This scene also provides one of the movie's most striking images, of the Mock Turtle, the Gryphon and Alice walking barefoot along the shore, with Gielgud softly singing the "Lobster Quadrille" a cappella.

For those seeking a more conventional book-to-film translation of "Alice," I would suggest the 1972 British movie musical starring Fiona Fullerton, complete with elaborate sets and costumes and velvety color photography and songs. Although it was slammed by the relatively few reviewers who saw it, I thought it nicely conveyed a dreamlike quality of its own, especially in its transitions - I found it much more enjoyable than the 1933 Paramount movie or the 1951 Disney animated feature.

But if you think you've had your fill of Alice movies and TV shows, then I urge you to try this one - I think it makes Lewis Carroll sound fresh all over again. (There's very interesting musical accompaniment by Ravi Shankar.) And for a wonderfully acted movie about the real- life Alice Liddell Hargreaves and Lewis Carroll, I urge you to see "Dreamchild" - but that's another review.

The Wizard of Speed and Time (1988)

The 'Wizard' of Oohs and Ahs

[18 May 2004]

Some years ago, the USA cable network carried a late-night program called "Night Flight" which featured an assortment of entertainment, including rock videos and short films. Although I wasn't a regular viewer, I stumbled across "Night Flight" when it aired a live-action animated short called "The Wizard of Speed and Time." I was blown away by the film's ingenious use of stop-motion photography and other camera trickery as it told the story of a green-robed wizard who possesses the ability to run around the world in just a matter of minutes.

"The Wizard of Speed and Time," it turned out, began as a short subject made in 1979 by filmmaker Mike Jittlov. Some years after making the original film, Jittlov took his idea and expanded it into a low-budget feature, also called "The Wizard of Speed and Time," which tells the story of a young filmmaker named Mike Jittlov and his struggle to make a special-effects-laden short film for a TV special despite having few resources (i.e., money) while battling the Hollywood bureaucracy.

The five minutes or so of "Wizard" material in the feature are a triumph of shoestring ingenuity. We see a one-minute "work in progress" featuring marching tripods, dancing light stands and flying film cans as well as an infectiously catchy title tune (this was part of Jittlov's original short, with new music added). The film's climax is the finished product mentioned above (a remake and elaboration of the first part of the 1979 short - I think the remake is what I saw on USA). I marvel at Jittlov's ability to visualize in advance the dazzling images he's reaching for and his skill in achieving those images through frame-by-frame animation and undercranking. And notice how the camera refuses to stand still for the animations - other stop-motion films may seem rooted to the floor one set-up at a time, but Jittlov refuses to let his camera be tied down.

I just wish I could praise the rest of the movie as highly. It's friendly, it's likable, but when the Wizard isn't conjuring up his magic, the feature turns into what is, at best, only a mildly funny takeoff on Hollywood. I was hoping the ingenuity that Jittlov displayed in the Wizard sequences would also transform the surrounding story, which supposedly is based on his real-life experiences, but what we get is pretty thin stuff.

Jittlov's love of movie-making is much in evidence; there's at least one visual homage to the Walt Disney Company, and one of Disney's original "nine old men," animator Ward Kimball, makes a brief appearance as an examiner for the "Infernal Revenue Service." That's right, "infernal," and I'm afraid that's an indicator of the general level of verbal wit in "Wizard." We also get a studio head with a supposedly comic Jewish accent.

Still, Jittlov comes across as such an engagingly eccentric fellow - an animated character in his own right - that I wanted to believe in him and his house chock full of film-related gadgets and toys. Former Miss Virginia Paige Moore makes for a charming leading lady, both in the movie and the movie-within-the-movie. Philip Michael Thomas, the biggest name in the cast, plays a cop far removed from Miami. Fans of "Get Smart" may remember Angelique Pettyjohn, who was undercover agent Charlie Watkins in the 60s TV spy spoof; fans of the original "Star Trek" series will remember her from "The Gamesters of Triskelion."

Beat the Devil (1953)

"Devil's" Advocacy

[17 May 2004]

Do you like New Yorker cartoons? I ask because I've decided that's a pretty good way of predicting whether you will enjoy "Beat the Devil." If the wryly, dryly humorous cartoons in The New Yorker have a tendency to make you go "That's not funny," or "I don't get it," then chances are you will not "get" this Humphrey Bogart feature, nor will you think it's the least bit funny.

New Yorker cartoons make me smile - even laugh - and so does "Beat the Devil," which I think is a deliciously absurd spoof of the international intrigue movie genre. It didn't start out as a spoof, but that's how it turned out under John Huston's direction. Co-starring with Bogart are Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollabrigida, Peter Lorre and Robert Morley. The plot, such as it is, has to do with uranium-rich land in what was then called British East Africa and the efforts of an unsavory quartet of characters to get their hands on it. They've enlisted the help of Bogart, a mercenary type who lives in an Italian coastal village with his wife (Lollabrigida). Their names are Billy and Maria Dannreuther (yes, it sounds like people are saying "Dan Rather"). Bogart and his "associates" are waiting for a ship that will take them to Africa. Also hanging about, waiting for the ship to sail, is a British couple, the Chelms. Harry (Edward Underdown) is a fairly stuffy sort who appears to be a gentleman of means; Gwendolen (Jones) is a flighty character who "uses her imagination more than her memory." There is some major flirting between Billy and Gwendolen, while Maria has an eye on Harry.

Part of the fun is seeing the way the cast plays the droll Truman Capote-John Huston script almost straight. Also fun is watching how the characters react, usually with disbelief, to what the other characters are saying. Bogart plays the kind of character he does so well, the less than ethical, but still basically moral, world-weary rogue. Lollabrigida makes for a sexy wife; even more remarkable is how well she plays her part, considering that her English was extremely limited, forcing her to recite most of her lines by rote. Peter Lorre and Robert Morley make for a hilarious pair of crooks, but the real delight of "Beat the Devil" is blonde-wigged Jennifer Jones, playing a ditz who can't keep her lies straight - and doesn't even try to.

Still, the film's humor is at times elusive, and may be too slight for some (most?) people's tastes. Those who don't find "Beat the Devil" at all amusing are in good company; Bogart himself is quoted as saying, "Only the phonies think it's funny - it's a mess." Then again, Bogart did have his own money tied up in this film, which was less than a hit.

(Small spoiler) If you do watch "Beat the Devil," note the name of the associate producer in the opening credits; it comes up again later.

Incubus (1966)

Ingmar Bergman Meets `The Outer Limits'

[20 June 2003]

It's tempting to jokingly call this the best William Shatner movie in Esperanto I've ever seen, but it deserves better than that - it's a delightfully weird low-budget horror film that might best be described as "Ingmar Bergman Meets `The Outer Limits.'" The reference to the 60s TV series is apt, since several of the creative forces from that show were behind this film: writer-director Leslie Stevens; future Oscar-winning cinematographer Conrad L. Hall, and composer Dominic Frontiere (although I suspect they simply borrowed his "Outer Limits" themes to score this film). In fact, "Incubus" looks, sounds and feels so much like an episode of the "The Outer Limits," there were times I half-expected it to fade to commercial; a flash of nudity reminds us this isn't a TV show.

In "Incubus," a seductive female demon - a succubus - named Kia becomes bored with luring morally corrupt men to their eternal doom and sets her sights on a virtuous soldier named Marc, played by a pre-"Star Trek" Shatner (who guest-starred in an "Outer Limits" episode titled "Cold Hands, Warm Heart"). The bucolic out-of-time setting reminds me of the medieval Sweden of Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," and Hall's black & white cinematography is starkly beautiful. The Esperanto dialogue lends an exotic flavor with its vaguely recognizable European word roots. It also dresses up dialogue that might have been too over-the-top in English (in his DVD commentary, Shatner can't help chuckling when Kia declares, "There are no heroes burning in the fires of Hell!"). I'm reminded of the old joke that a movie seems more "artistic" if it's in a foreign language with subtitles - I guess Esperanto, originally intended to be a universal language, effectively makes "Incubus" a "foreign film" to just about everyone.

Shatner, as the young, handsome, dashing hero, is unmistakably Shatner, even in Esperanto. Allyson Ames is frostily beautiful as the evil Kia, while Ann Atmar is sweetly vulnerable as Marc's sister, Arndis.

I don't mean to over-praise "Incubus." It's a very well done little film, comparable to the original "Carnival of Souls" - if you don't expect too much, you may be pleasantly surprised at how much there is. It's definitely worth a look.

Dead of Night (1945)

Tame Terror

[15 June 2001]

I'm afraid time has passed this classic British horror anthology by. It may have given audiences a real scare in 1945, but it's long been outstripped by its successors and imitators. To anyone remotely familiar with TV shows like "The Twilight Zone," "One Step Beyond," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "Night Gallery," not to mention numerous other horror movie anthologies ("Asylum," "Tales From the Crypt," "The Vault of Horror," to name a very few), "Dead of Night" will seem terribly, terribly tame.

There are five stories in all (not including the framing device, in which an architect finds himself in a country home filled with oddly familiar strangers who have stranger tales to tell). The first two stories, having to do with a hearse driver and a children's Christmas party, are minor, inconsequential affairs (although the latter does boast a charming teen-aged Sally Ann Howes, later of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" fame). The third story, about a haunted mirror, is nicely spooky. Story number four, about two middle-aged duffers who are rivals in love as well as golf, is, I'm guessing, supposed to be funny. (It isn't.) The best remembered - and best - segment is the fifth one, in which Michael Redgrave plays a troubled ventriloquist. Again, you've seen this done elsewhere, but Redgrave's intense performance still packs a punch. (The segment's closing line elicited nervous giggles from the AFI audience in Washington, D.C.)

Word has it (from the IMDb as well as Pauline Kael) that two of the five segments were deleted from the original American release, throwing out of kilter the movie's climactic attempt to bring the stories together. (The deleted segments were later returned.) Which stories were temporarily lost? (I'm guessing either the hearse driver and the Christmas party, or the Christmas party and the golfers.)

Chew Chew Baby (1958)

The Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of

[8 March 2001]

This cartoon comedy, about a pint-sized cannibal capable of consuming people with one huge snap of his mighty jaws, is the stuff childhood nightmares are made of. I saw it on TV as a child back in the 1960s, and never forgot it - I seriously doubt they'd show it today. (When I saw it again for the first time in something like 35 years, I felt a chill creeping up my spine - I don't know whether it was because the cartoon was affecting me in the present, or if I was unearthing some repressed memories.) Some may argue the finale steals from Tex Avery's "Crazy Mixed Up Pup," but it does provide something resembling justice - as well as a jaw-dropper of an ending. Once you see "Chew Chew Baby," you're not likely to forget it - no matter how hard you try.

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

Flawed, Yet Powerful

[13 October 2000]

There are things one can carp about in "Dancer in the Dark," a modern musical about a poor Czechoslovak immigrant eking out a meager living in Washington state in 1964. Selma works in a metal stamping plant, even though she's losing her eyesight to some congenital condition. Her 12-year-old son, Gene, will also go blind unless she can scrape together enough money to pay for an operation. Selma has one passion that enables her to temporarily escape the struggle of her day-to-day existence -- movie musicals, both of the Prague and Hollywood variety. Selma spends some of her spare time rehearsing the role of Maria in a local production of "The Sound of Music." And when her imagination really soars, she's able to picture herself in her own musical numbers, starring herself.

Like an attorney in a courtroom drama, the amateur movie reviewer in me kept jumping up to object. I objected to the daydream musical numbers; with their Europop melodies and mechanized choreography, they're a lot closer to MTV than MGM. I objected to the handheld, video-to-film look -- I'd gotten enough of that (and the vaguely nauseous headache that came with it) from "The Blair Witch Project," thank you very much. Another disappointment -- when Selma goes to see movies with her best friend Kathy (played by the still-beautiful Catherine Deneuve), the few clips we get are from creaky black and white musicals of the early 1930s. I guess they couldn't afford to license excerpts from "Singin' in the Rain" or "The Band Wagon" or -- since this is supposed to be 1964 -- "My Fair Lady." (Or how about "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"?)

I also objected to some of the manipulative, unconvincing twists and turns of the plot, which I won't divulge here. Yet I found each and every one of my objections being overruled, not by a film judge, but by the star of "Dancer in the Dark," the Icelandic pop star Björk. Her performance as the humble yet hopeful Selma, the young woman with a song in her heart that's also filled with pain, blew me away -- it felt so achingly real, I left the theater convinced Björk should be nominated for an Academy Award. (It's going to take me a while to forget the way she screams the line, "I can't breathe!") It was Björk who also wrote the music to the original songs, and while they're not to my taste, she at least embraces them with the same fervor as she does her character.

I predict: Björk will be nominated for a best actress Oscar. You read it here first. (Of course, I could be wrong, in which case, you read that here first, too.)

The Curse of the Living Corpse (1964)

The `Corpse' Came D.O.A.

[8 September 2000]

Has the patriarch of a turn-of-the-century New England family actually returned from the dead to start murdering his relatives, one by one? Believe me, by the time you get to the end of this low-voltage horror film, you won't really care anymore. Of interest only as the film debut of Roy Scheider, as well as the second movie appearance by "Carnival of Souls" star Candace Hilligoss.

What Lies Beneath (2000)

Boooo!

[28 July 2000]

"What Lies Beneath" is like a person who likes to repeatedly sneak up behind you and pounce on your shoulders while shouting "BOO!" at the same time. That might scare you the first few times (maybe every time), but sooner or later, it's bound to get annoying -- like this movie. "Beneath" is a synthetic, mechanical supernatural thriller that's programmed to jolt the audience once every several minutes, usually by having something pop into the frame accompanied by a blast of music on the soundtrack. That is, once it actually gets going, which takes a while. (After about 20 opening minutes of homey domestic scenes, I glanced at my watch and wondered, When is this movie going to get started? Since the name of Alfred Hitchcock will inevitably be invoked, may I suggest that the Master of Suspense had a knack for making the ordinary seem ominous; in this film, the ordinary seems so -- ordinary.)

Not to give anything away, but, IMHO, "Beneath" has already been sabotaged by its advertising campaign, which effectively negates a good part of the unfolding plot. As for the film's resolution, it's terribly familiar stuff we've all seen before in other movies and in TV shows, jolts included. It's also, I think, pretty silly. Director Robert Zemeckis has been chided in the past for such things as clunky exposition and stretched-out climaxes -- he's true to form here.

Movie buffs will note hommages to Hitchcock. (There also seems to be an image inspired by James Cameron's "Titanic," if you can believe it.)

Hold Back Tomorrow (1955)

Tawdry Tabloid Tale, Tenderly Told

[3 August 1999]

John Agar himself has said (in an online chat hosted by Turner Classic Movies) that this was a "very strange" movie. Strange yes, but also intriguing in a low-budget sort of way.

Of course, the film is a retread of the old hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold romantic fantasy. (A much more recent example: "Leaving Las Vegas.") The Cleo Moore character, who agrees to spend the night with Agar, isn't actually identified as a prostitute, but we get the idea. We also know that the more time these two tormented souls spend together, the more they will get to know each other, and themselves, with a generous helping of psychobabble along the way.

But once you get past the obviousness of the film's rather incredible premise, not to mention a mawkish opening theme song, things get interesting in this modest, offbeat Hugo Haas opus. Moore and Agar deliver performances that are sincere, if at times a bit theatrical - he plays a condemned man who's mad at the whole world; she plays a suicidal woman who, despite her despair, is still capable of hope. Some of Moore and Agar's scenes together are nicely played out in long, continuous takes.

Unfortunately, the movie is nearly ruined by a frustrating, unresolved ending. Haas may have been trying for some kind of dramatically suspended moment, but it makes you want to yell at him: Tell us what happens next!!!

Negatives (1968)

Underdeveloped, Overexposed `Negatives'

[12 July 1999]

Strange doesn't begin to describe this film, which features three of the coldest, most unpleasant movie characters I've seen in some time - which wouldn't necessarily be bad in itself, if only the characters were more interesting. None commands our sympathy; not the passive/aggressive Theo, nor the contemptuous Vivien, nor the enigmatic Reingard. Basically, "Negatives" is the story of a selfish, ineffectual man who exchanges one pathetic fantasy role for another. "Peanuts" fans will recall how Snoopy, imagining himself to be a World War I flying ace, sat atop his doghouse, pretending it was a Sopwith Camel; Theo's embrace of Baron von Richthofen reaches an even more ludicrous height (both figuratively and literally). Director Peter Medak's deliberate pacing makes you feel as though there is some Great Meaning invested in this movie. My question is: What on earth is it?

Dr. Crippen (1963)

The Good 'Dr.'

[30 June 1999]

A compact, modestly budgeted movie that looks perfectly at home on home video (which is how I saw it). "Dr. Crippen" boasts flavorful performances by Donald Pleasence as the not-so-good doctor, Coral Browne as the long-suffering as well as insufferable Belle, and a pre-"Collector" Samantha Eggar as Ethel Le Neve, every unhappily married middle-aged man's fantasy. Casting the British-born Pleasence and Australian native Browne as the American Crippens hardly seems to matter. Eggar may have been too beautiful to play Le Neve (who, judging from photographs, was still a darkly attractive young woman). The movie is, perhaps, too economical; although we do get to see Crippen and Le Neve disguised as father and son for their ill-fated ocean voyage, I wished other colorful details of the case had also been re-created, such as Crippen's recklessly escorting Le Neve to a charity ball shortly after his wife's disappearance. As for the movie's suggestion that Crippen wasn't truly guilty of premeditated murder, my reply is: perhaps - but that doesn't really explain why Crippen cut up his wife's body and buried the pieces in the coal cellar.

The real Ethel Le Neve was still alive when this film was first released (she died in 1967). One wonders if she saw it. One wonders what she thought if she had.

Earthquake (1974)

Run for Your Ears! It's SENSURROUND!!!

[26 June 1999]

Like Minniver Cheevy, I was born too late for such movie-going gimmicks as "Percepto" (which sent an electric shock into certain designated seats) or "Smell-o-Vision" (you can pretty much guess what that must have been like). But I can boast that I actually saw "Earthquake" in its original Sensurround. (Boy, was that a mistake!)

I went to see "Earthquake" at New York's Ziegfeld Theatre in mid-town Manhattan. When I walked in, I immediately noticed these ominous, evil-looking black boxes (the Sensurround speakers) strategically located throughout the theatre. I sat in the middle of the audience section to get the full, even effect of the Sensurround. (That wasn't hard - only about a dozen people showed up.)

When they turned the Sensurround on - oh, my God! If I'd known I was going to be belted by huge low-end sound waves, I would have brought along earplugs. I remember noticing that my ribcage seemed to be vibrating - that's the closest I came to feeling as though I were in an actual earthquake.

As for the rest of the movie - eh! Pretty much of a genre picture; Irwin Allen couldn't have done any better.

What with the advent of DVD, I'm sure you can get a reasonable approximation of Sensurround at home - just buy the biggest, most evil-looking subwoofer you can find, crank up the volume, and let 'er rip!

Dance Me to My Song (1998)

Very Good, But...

[19 June 1999]

"Admirable" and "courageous" are two words that come to mind while watching "Dance Me to My Song." "Frank," "candid" and "uncompromising" can also be used to describe this Australian film about Julia, a woman with a severe form of cerebral palsy that prevents her from doing the most basic things, like getting dressed or going to the bathroom. She's played by Heather Rose, who really is afflicted with cerebral palsy, and who co-wrote the script. (I'll admit feeling acutely uncomfortable at times watching Rose's Julia as she writhes and contorts while making gurgling noises - I'm sure that says a lot more about me than the film or Ms. Rose.)

I saw this movie at the American Film Institute in Washington, D.C. (where it was shown as part of FilmFest DC '99). "Dance Me to My Song" deserves a lot of credit for refusing to blink at Julia's condition. We see her completely undressed; Julia's nakedness conveys her vulnerability without being the least bit prurient or exploitive. Julia is very much at the mercy of Madelaine, her latest assigned caregiver. And it quickly becomes apparent that Madelaine is an extremely selfish person who has no business caring for Julia or anyone else. How she uses - and abuses - Julia is at the core of this drama. Also figuring prominently in the plot is a rather mysterious man named Eddie, whom Julia manages to befriend after comically blocking his path with her motorized wheelchair.

As straightforward and unpretentious as this film is, one thing it's not is... terribly complicated. I'm hard-pressed to think of any scene where it isn't abundantly clear how we're supposed to react; everything is so clear-cut. This scene will make you smile, that one will make you shed a tear, this one will make you laugh, and that one will make you want to shout in anger. The film falls short of true greatness, IMHO, by making Madelaine a near-total witch. There are a few attempts at making Madelaine a more three-dimensional character (including a scene in which she sits by herself and cries), but in the end, it's apparent that we're just supposed to hate her. Further stacking the deck are visits from a woman named Rix, one of Julia's former caregivers who's meant to be every bit as wonderful as Madelaine is horrible. (When Madelaine gets a form of comeuppance from Rix, it's as if the audience is expected to cheer. The AFI audience didn't.) Viewers might rightly wonder: If Madelaine is so awful, why doesn't Julia get rid of her? We get something of an explanation fairly late in the film - it's implied that caregivers are hard to come by, which suggests a lot of borderlines slip through - but it doesn't really explain why Julia tolerates as much ill treatment as she does. (The movie is too preoccupied with making Julia out to be a total victim to consider the possibility of an abuser-enabler relationship.)

Also - and I think this is a legitimate point - for all the time we spend with her, I don't feel as though we get to know Julia all that well (unlike, say, the way I think we become acquainted with Daniel Day-Lewis' Christy Brown in "My Left Foot"). Part of this may have to do with the fact that Julia (and, I assume, Heather Rose) lacks the power of speech (unlike Christy Brown), and must rely on a "voice machine" to synthesize simple spoken sentences. I mourn as a lost opportunity a scene in which Eddie reads a lengthy message that Julia has left on the screen of her personal computer, a message which must have required a Herculean effort on Julia's part to type out. The camera sweeps past the monitor; we can only pick out a few phrases. (The gist of the message is summarized by the film's title.) This was our best chance to experience Julia's inner voice at length, and the movie skips over it.

Still, "Dance Me to My Song" is a strongly acted film, very much worth seeing.

The Littlest Angel (1969 TV Movie)

Not So Heavenly

[27 May 1999]

I recall seeing most of this "Hallmark Hall of Fame" musical special on NBC, probably when it first aired in December 1969. Seeing it again almost 30 years later, I found this shot-on-tape production every bit as dreary and depressing as I'd remembered it. "The Littlest Angel" is the heartwarming story of a shepherd boy named Michael who dies on his eighth birthday, and ends up in Heaven. (To make matters worse, the white dove that lures Michael to his death turns out to have been sent by God Himself.) Michael, less than enthusiastic about being in Heaven, just wants to go home - and who can blame him? If you have any small kids who weren't sufficiently traumatized by the demise of Bambi's mother, they're bound to get a kick out of the scene in which Michael is allowed to return to Earth briefly to retrieve his treasure box; he can see his parents, but his parents, who don't even know yet that their son is dead, can't see him.

In this special, Heaven is a place where people wearing white gowns and metallic halos are badly chroma-keyed against vaguely psychedelic backgrounds. There's very little plot, and a bunch of pretty forgettable songs which run the gamut from pious to perky. The video effects are hopelessly crude (even, I think, by 1969 standards). Johnny Whitaker, who was still co-starring in "Family Affair" on CBS at the time, is one of the few genuinely delightful things about this production. Fred Gwynne, a few years after shaking off Herman Munster, does what he can as guardian angel Patience. You may be surprised at how well he sings (as he did in the much later "Ironweed"). Connie Stevens appears for one number as a "flying mistress"; Cab Calloway leads a heavenly choir; E.G. Marshall plays God.

Little Voice (1998)

Hitting Some Sour Notes

[29 January 1999]

If, like me, you thought "Little Voice" sounded promising -- the story of an extremely timid young woman who can barely speak, but who has the remarkable ability to belt out, in private, standards in the styles of her favorite legendary singers -- then, like me, you might have been guilty of half-writing the plot out in your mind ahead of time. The premise is, of course, the stuff of show business fables -- the shy but talented person who blooms in the spotlight, using her talent to transform herself and express herself in ways that she can't otherwise. However, this movie refuses to go the fable route -- with, I think, less than satisfying results.

I appreciate that the makers of this film have avoided the clichés of the genre. What I can't appreciate is what they've put in place of those clichés. "Little Voice" turns out to be a surprisingly sour film, one in which the main character, who's called "Little Voice" (LV for short), learns to express herself in spite of, and not because of, her talent.

LV's attitude toward her gift is, and remains, totally passive; when she sings, she does so only for her dead father. A side plot involving a shy young man who keeps pigeons as pets and who befriends Little Voice holds out the promise that she'll find someone else to sing for, but the movie refuses to follow through. (Did the moviemakers think that would be too corny, too false?)

The movie strives for a "realistically" upbeat ending; I don't think it's the one we want. It makes a hash of what has gone before, telling us that talent isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Why impress us with a glimpse of that talent, only to end up saying, in so many words, that it doesn't matter?

Jane Horrocks (who, we're told, did all of her own singing) is smashing as Little Voice (she's so good, she almost gets away with a bizarre scene in which LV, facing a crisis, begins reciting lines from the close of a famous movie); Michael Caine is delightful -- until his last couple of scenes -- as the low-rent showbiz agent determined to bring Little Voice to the world. Brenda Blethyn is over the top as LV's overbearing mother; the character is written and played with all of the subtlety of a bazooka.

(P.S. Yes, I knew that was Shirley Bassey singing the "Goldfinger" theme on the soundtrack.)

Paranoia (1969)

Experiencing `Paranoia'

[7 December 1998]

It's tempting to look at this movie and think: What on earth is Carroll Baker doing in this piece of junk? (One becomes a lot less judgmental after reading Baker's autobiography and finding out this film came along at a time when Baker was in somewhat dire financial straits.)

It's still a piece of junk. "Paranoia" is a nasty, amateurish, inept thriller that tries hard to be sexy, but is more embarrassing than erotic. I don't know how it plays in Italian, but the (partly dubbed) English dialogue is as ghastly as the direction (somebody take away Umberto Lenzi's zoom lens!). There is one intriguing, identity-blurring moment when Baker playfully dons a dark wig that makes her look so much like co-star Colette Descombes, it's spooky. (Yes, of course it's a rip-off of "L'Avventura," but in this film, you take whatever you can get.) The movie's ending is beneath "Contempt."

(Interestingly, Baker in her memoirs mistakenly identifies her character as a divorcée instead of a widow, and never mentions the movie by name, either by its American title, "Paranoia," or its oh-so-charming Italian appellation, "Orgasmo.")

Law & Order (1990– )

Making a Case for `Law & Order'

[1 December 1998]

After becoming hooked on this hybrid police-courtroom drama, I thought it was such an ingenious idea for a series, I wondered: Why hadn't anyone thought of it before? (As it turns out, somebody did - more on that later.)

We've all seen cop shows in which the hero - Sgt. Joe Friday, Kojak or Columbo - ends up arresting the obviously guilty party in the final scene. We've all seen TV legal dramas in which the defendants are put on trial, usually for their lives. ("Perry Mason" is the all-time classic of that genre.) "Law & Order" is unique in that it traces a criminal case (usually a homicide) from the police investigation all the way to the courtroom.

But more than just the basic premise, L&O is a consistently intelligent, fast-paced, thought-provoking hourly series, packed with seemingly authentic detail and snappy dialogue. Except for a spell of weak episodes in the 1997-98 season, it's maintained a high standard of quality - even many of the lesser episodes contain scenes or plot twists worth savoring again and again. It's a series that holds up under repeated viewings - not too many shows can make that claim.

One of L&O's charms is that it's almost exclusively story-driven - no getting into the regular characters' personal lives, unless it's integral to the plot. The show has also endured the comings and goings of cast members over the years, an approach more in keeping with the vagaries of real life.

For all its ingenuity, L&O was not the first combination police and courtroom drama. There was a 90-minute series on ABC from 1963 to 1964 called "Arrest and Trial," starring Ben Gazzara and Chuck Connors. I've managed to see one episode ("Some Weeks Are All Mondays"), and while I wouldn't try to judge the entire series on the basis of that single viewing, this particular episode wasn't very good, IMHO. Basically, it was like watching a stretched-out episode of "Perry Mason" that was twice as long and only half as interesting, with none of the riveting pace of L&O (or, for that matter, "Perry Mason"). Even worse, it turns out that the "trial" segment of the show is not from the point of view of the prosecutors, but that of the defense attorney played by Connors, who as the hero of the second half must prove the defendant innocent. If this episode was typical, it would mean that in each show, the police would spend half the program deciding whom to arrest, and Connors would end up proving they were wrong. (Did the producers think the only way to be dramatic was to put innocent people on trial?) That would seem to be a fatal flaw in "Arrest and Trial's" premise - not one shared by L&O.