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Reviews
Love Me or Leave Me (1955)
dark mix of crime film and musical
If your only knowledge of Doris Day comes from the annoying comedies she did with Rock Hudson, you should check this movie out, a fictionalized bio-pic of 1920s torch singer Ruth Etting. Etting is managed by -- and marries - Marty "Moe" Snyder, a gimping Chicago hoodlum whose laundry business is basically a front for extortion. Cagney portrays Snyder in classic sock-to-the-jaw fashion. However, the character lacks the calculating shrewdness of other Cagney hoodlums - and his denseness makes him even more of a sociopath. Theirs is a classic dysfunctional bond. She uses him to get ahead and even marries him after he nearly rapes her. Later, when she does reach the top, they divorce and he stalks her. Yet somehow, through it all, she feels sorry for him. I'm not a huge fan of Day nor of musicals and yet she really does great on the many fine songs that Etting originated. These great standards are presented simply as part of the story, not as production numbers that distract from it and Day sings each one beautifully. Despite an arguably sentimental ending, the story -- with its themes of possessiveness, paranoia, jealousy, grandiosity and co-dependency -- delves into prime film noir territory.
The Sound of Fury (1950)
harrowing portrayal of mob violence
A harrowing indictment of lynch mob violence, The Sound of Fury (AKA Try and Get Me) pulls no punches. Out of work family man Frank Lovejoy gets involved in small time stick-ups with sociopath narcissist, Lloyd Bridges (yes, the Sea Diver star). Eventually, they progress to kidnapping. Bridges' true character comes out and leads to murder. Lovejoy's family man breaks down, drinks heavily and confesses his duplicity to a woman he has picked up. She goes to the police and the two are arrested. A local scandal sheet starts whipping the community into a frenzy, an announcer actually calls for a lynching on the radio and soon a mob takes out Lovejoy and Bridges as they await trial. That's it -- and that last scene is absolutely terrifying. This was a courageous movie to make at the height of the McCarthy era (1950). The story was inspired by a 1933 lynching in San Jose of two kidnapping suspects; a murder by mob that was actually condoned by then Calif. Gov. James Rolph. The movie conveys a real ambiance of poverty and grittiness beyond the typical film noir posturings of the era. Lovejoy and Bridges are at their best. The Lovejoy character is sympathetic and fragile while the Bridges character is a true predator. And dig the weird narcissism and almost gay vibe that Bridges gives off when he poses in the mirror for Lovejoy at their first meeting. Director Cy Enfield was gray-listed and split for the UK where he did the great Hell Drivers (1957) and Zulu (1964). This is his forgotten masterpiece and actually outdoes the similar Fury (1936) by director Fritz Lang.
Native Son (1951)
well-intentioned, but squirm-inducing curiosity of a troubled era that may
This movie had an incredibly troubled history. Hollywood would not touch Native Son even during its brief 1940s flirtation with liberalism. A 1944 Orson Welles stage production with Canada Lee playing the teen-aged gang member Bigger Thomas, though critically successful, had been quashed by the Catholic Legion of Decency. Wright's novel was sold through the Book of the Month -- its first African-American author -- and won incredible notices. It also scared the daylights out of mainstream white culture. He sympathetically portrayed an African-American murderer (the Legion's stated complaint about the play), unambiguously showed white female desire for a black male and gave a rather jaundiced view of the left-wing, jazz-loving bohemia hidden among the youth of the very wealthy. (And by portraying the thrill seekers of the left as merely that, Wright also alienated many of his Communist and left-wing friends.) It was all too much for Hollywood. Still, a number of people tried to get a film of the play made independently with Canada Lee eventually opting to shoot in Argentina with a French director (not Welles). However, Lee couldn't get out of the U.S. (Oddly enough, he and Sidney Poitier were sneaked into Apartheid South Africa as indentured servants that year so they could appear in Zoltan Korda's masterful adaption of Cry, The Beloved Country.) At the last minute, Wright was called upon to play the lead role and he is terrible! The great writer could not act. He does the one thing a serious black actor should never do -- he pops his eyes constantly. In fairness, the production values are outstanding. This is basically a crime story with a racial subtext and Chenel nails the film noir ambiance. Unfortunately, the supporting actors are Argentinian with Americans dubbing their voices. And there's Wright, already over 40 -- too old to play bigger teenager Thomas -- popping his eyes. When I saw this screened at the AFI, Stanley Crouch, who had written a laudatory essay about the film, spoke afterwords. I seriously wondered if he had seen the movie before he wrote about it. Crouch mumbled throughout his question and answer session and the audience kept telling him to speak louder. The movie deserves preservation simply because of its historic significance but not a wide audience. Read the novel instead.
The Last Flight (1931)
the lost generation gets lost in translation
I really wanted The Last Flight to live up to its reputation as a great film. I'm not sure it is even a really good film. The story, said to be a knock-off of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, involves four WWI fliers who suffer from varying forms and degrees of PTSD. They leave for Paris and later Lisbon to "get tight and keep getting tight." One flier (Richard Barthelmess) has injured his hands while his best buddy (David Manners) has a nervous tic from eye surgery. The third flier (Johnny Mack Brown), a former college football star, is so punch drunk that he runs into the street and tries to tackle a horse. A fourth (Elliot Nugent) sleeps in all day and needs a chimed watch to wake him from slumber. They run into a boozy, ditzy heiress (Helen Chandler) with too much money and time on her hands and alternately act chivalrous and nasty towards her. Basically, that's the story -- drinking, drinking and more drinking by some guys who are self-medicating their PTSD. And for a modern film, that would be enough since these men have been prematurely stunted by the war. I'm not sure what the biggest problem is with the movie. The dialogue is way too non sequitur. German director Dieterle went on to better things (Devil and Daniel Webster, Portrait of Jennie). As this is only his first U.S. film perhaps his ear for English failed him and the actors -- or maybe they tried to write too much slang into the script. And then there is the acting -- a total mishmash of uncomplimentary styles. Barthelmess, a silent matinée idol, telegraphs every emotion through broad facial expressions. Manners, a stage actor who came to film because he could talk, declaims his lines as though this is the first opportunity he has been given to act. (And it might have been just that as Manners usually got stuck with the second lead/male ingenue parts.) Nugent needs only to sleepwalk through his part. Johnny Mack Brown, is the most authentic since he, a football hero turned cowboy actor, didn't have to act. Helen Chandler, in real life a bad alcoholic, also registers as authentic. The scenes with Chandler and the foursome drinking is Paris are probably the best parts. The viewer can almost get drunk by osmosis. Melodramatic complications arrive too abruptly near the end of the movie as though the producers told the writers to 'make something happen.' And, as if to drive that point home, Barthelmess' character somehow regains the use of his hands enough to shoot a gun without any pretext. Its lost generation angst filtered through the staccato style of early 30s Warner Brothers -- and it's just plain weird.