47: Lola

            The seminal films of the French New Wave are some of the most creative and beautiful pieces of cinema ever assembled.  This incredibly productive and progressive period yielded numerous films that I cannot bear the thought of never seeing again, and I find myself almost consistently impressed when I discover the wonders within the movement’s earliest offerings.  Jacques Demy’s Lola (1961) is no exception, and it also serves well in hinting at the treasures to come with his masterpiece The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).

            Demy’s film, dedicated in opening credit to Max Ophüls, begins mysteriously as an American convertible, driven by a rather cowboy-esque figure, cruises along the boardwalk of the coastal town of Nantes.  The cowboy appears only briefly in this opening sequence, but his presence is central to the remainder of the film, and his early presence sets the movie off.  Some critics feel that the plots and characters of the Nouvelle Vague are essentially interchangeable, and that the films overlap too much in theme.  While Roland, the central figure of Demy’s story, suffers from many of the same strains as other New Wave heroes, by comparison he is distinguishably plain, lacking the charisma of the typical Jean-Paul Belmondo role.  Perhaps this lack of charisma is why Demy chose instead to title the film for Roland’s love interest, the gorgeous cabaret dancer Lola (Anouk Aimée).  

            When the two characters meet after years apart, she recognizes him immediately, but he hesitates, almost struck by how beautiful she has become.  He’d thought of her only minutes before, but never was she so striking in his recollections.  She’s thought of him often too, but in her mind no man can replace her lost love, and the father of her child, Michel.  In this regard, comparison between Lola and Félicie, the protagonist of Eric Rohmer’s A Tale of Winter (1992; # 52), is unavoidable, and indeed both women are content to live out their lives waiting for the return of their former lover.  But where Félicie seemed to engage in sexual relationships out of a need for human contact, Lola finds joy in her trysts, even taking the occasional customer at the cabaret home with her.

            Roland spends much of the film hoping that Lola will show such kindness to him, and thinks that perhaps she may even be convinced to marry him.  They have a connection no doubt, but Roland has little to offer her but a friendly and familiar face.  He’s been fired from his job, and his prospects for finding any type of sustainable or legitimate work don’t seem very promising.  He’s intelligent enough, but lacks the responsibility necessary for any serious work.  The audience is given the sense that he’s read nearly everything in a local book shop, but that he could never be organized enough to manage such place.  There he meets a mother and her precocious teenage daughter, and volunteers an English dictionary to be loaned to the girl.  The mother hesitantly accepts the offer and tells him to come by their home with the book that night, perhaps with intentions peripheral to foreign language.

            What strikes me so much about this film is the interconnectedness of the characters.  They don’t feel forced together, as is the case with so many of the lesser hypertext movies of late, in which characters who were supposed to have nothing to do with one another somehow are drawn together in the end.  The plot of Lola feels legitimately coincidental, to the point where I was hoping for an ironic ending (of any kind) and not dreading foreseeable connections.  This is a strength of the script that is complemented by the cinematography of Raoul Coutard, who makes Nantes a city of dramatic angles and interlocking avenues in which this almost fairytale coincidence seems plausible.  Equal praise should go to Michel Lagrand, whose use of musical variations sets nearly every scene perfectly, with styles from Classical to Jazz.

            Lola was Demy’s first feature, and though he went on to make other good films, and the great Umbrellas, he never became a superstar of the New Wave like Godard, Truffaut, and Rohmer.  Instead he’s considered a part of the “left bank,” a group of directors whose films contributed to the movement, but didn’t necessarily define it.  Also in that group is his spouse Agnès Varda, whom he wed shortly after the release of Lola, and was married to until his death from AIDS 1990.  Of the Nouvelle Vague set he was the director perhaps most interested in the classic Hollywood style, and while visually Lola is pure New Wave, it does have the magical and dreamlike feel of old Hollywood woven within its narrative…”with a little sex in it” as John L. Sullivan said.

Language: French

Runtime: 90 Minutes

Available @Youtube.com

Grade: 3 Hats Off

48: Secret Beyond the Door (a.k.a. Fritz Lang’s Secret Beyond the Door – Onscreen title)

            There have been times throughout the process of writing this blog that I’ve neglected to take into account that movies are supposed to be fun.  Films can serve greater social and artistic purposes, but virtually everyone who comes to respect cinema in these terms initially goes to the movies because it is enjoyable.  The experience of seeing a great or good movie for the first time is, and should be, less about the process of evaluating camera angles and mise en scène, and more about the progression of becoming emotionally engaged in character and story.  In seeing these films and writing these reviews I’ve found that it’s usually the cinematic sludge that causes me to take specific notes, whereas the merits of the best films are easily recalled after the credits have rolled.  Such was the case with Fritz Lang’s Secret Beyond the Door (1948), a genre bending noir that has never quite found its deserved place amongst its director’s lauded canon.  

            The somewhat disorienting narrative focuses on Celia (Joan Bennett), a young and affluent New York socialite who takes a trip to Mexico after the death of her caretaking brother.  During the holiday she meets a charming but mysterious architect, Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave), and falls madly in love.  Within weeks the two are married.  All is well for a time as they remain in Mexico for their honeymoon, but Celia begins to detect anger in Mark that she cannot describe, nor discern its coming.  She questions her analytical thoughts, believing that she’s just paranoid, and dismisses an incident as a strange coincidence. 

            Things however do not improve when she returns with Mark to the U.S., coming to live with him in his rural estate.  She learns from his sister, who runs the house, that Mark was married before, that he has an impertinent son, and that his first wife died tragically after they had separated.  What’s more, the constant presence in the house of Mark’s supposedly deformed secretary, who was scared in a fire while saving David, the son, adds to the already potent tension.  As if the atmosphere in the house were not strained enough Mark reveals at a party a unique feature that adds to the morose atmosphere.  He gives a tour of an entire wing of the home that is comprised of rooms, which he collects like stamps, in which murders have taken place; each one recreated to look just as it did when these crimes of passion were committed.

            He coldly describes the actions that took place in the genuine rooms, to which this hall is an architectural manifestation of tribute.  Strangely, these crimes all seem to have been committed by men whose desire for their female victims was only quenchable through death.  Odder still, is that for as open as Mark is about his collection, there is one room to which the door always remains locked. (….Dun dun dun!)

            Secret Beyond the Door is a bit of a mixed bag; part horror and part noir, with a note of Freudian character study thrown in for good measure.  It’s part of a movie trend of the 1940s, sometimes described as “female gothic,” that includes films such as Rebecca (1940) and Val Lewton’s The Seventh Victim (1943) that feature strong female characters in danger.  Such films may have eventually inspired the critically lambasted “women in peril” formula, but ironically they are themselves often critically admired.  Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1940, and though the Lewton film and Secret were never acclaimed or loved in their own time*, they’ve gone on to garner praise as top notch B-movies. 

            Here, Lang was openly inspired by Rebecca, but his version suffered numerous drawbacks, including budget overruns and clashes between director and star Bennett.  The script also has weak elements, such as a shifting voiceover perspective between its leads that makes for a confusing progression.  It’s not a superior film, and certainly not Lang’s greatest effort, but it is gripping entertainment and for that it’s worth your time.

Language: English

Runtime: 99 Minutes

Grade: 3 Hats Off

*One response card from an early test screening reportedly said the film was “beyond human endurance

49: The Man in Grey

            Once again on my trek to conquer the 1001 list I cross paths with James Mason.  Here, I meet him in the form of the evil Lord Rohan, one of his greatest characterizations, in Leslie Arliss’ The Man in Grey (1943).  The film is a costume melodrama, and one of the best of such British films produced during the war, rivaling the Hollywood productions of its day.  Mason, perfectly cast as an arrogant London playboy, appears relatively late in the narrative, but he so dominates the film that it’s hard not focus on his performance.  Indeed he conveys the type of villainy that only seems possible in the movies; the man so conceited that he feels others are honored even by his scorn.  Such is his belief with the pretty young Clarissa (Phyllis Calvert), a woman who appears destined to suffer at the hands of his cruelty.  

            Clarissa is the most adored girl at her boarding school, well-liked by both classmates and the mistresses.  However, she’s initially despised by the new pupil Hesther (Margaret Lockwood), who resents her wealthy upbringing and sunny disposition.  Eventually, Hesther warms to Clarissa, who swears undying loyalty to her new friend.  The strong allegiance between the two young women is challenged soon thereafter, when Hesther elopes with a soldier to escape the torments of the headmistress, who unjustly torments her.  Clarissa refuses to stay at a school that condemns her friend’s actions, and returns to London to be introduced to society.

            Her mother presses her into a marriage with the eligible and wealthy Lord Rohan, a man who takes considerable pride in his family crest, “He Who Harms Us, Dies,” but cares little for his interactions with family members.  After their marriage, he informs Clarissa that he intends for her to produce him an heir, and cares little else for what she does.  She complies with his wishes, and for several years she finds relative comfort in her wealthy loneliness, though she longs for more time with her son.  Then, almost by chance, she finds a playbill that notes Hesther’s performance in a nearby production of Othello.  She races to the playhouse, eager to reunite with her old friend, on the way meeting a handsome member of Hesther’s troupe.

            Though it appears that Hesther and the dashing actor Rokeby (Stewart Granger) may have a past, Clarissa cannot help but be taken by him.  She inquires about him to her long absent friend as the two dine together after the play.  Talking, their friendship is rekindled, but Hesther again bears a note of the bitterness that once divided them.  Still, Clarissa insists that her companionship is encouraging in her loneliness, and eventually convinces Rohan to let Hesther come to live with her in her London estate.

            Rohan’s initial apprehensions fade when he begins an affair with his wife’s companion, one that prevents him from noticing her own developing affections for Rokeby.  Hesther however is not so naïve, and she uses the distraction of Clarissa’s burgeoning relationship with her fellow thespian to further betray her friend with Rohan.  Revealed throughout the narrative procession of these relationships is Rohan’s truly cold nature.  He claims to love Hesther, and could if he so wished, divorce Clarissa and legitimize their passion, a seemingly practical option when he learns of Clarissa’s own affair.  However, he refuses to bring scandal and shame upon his family name, and is content instead to remain both a cuckold and a lecher.  That is until Rokeby proposes marriage to Clarissa, asking her to join him on his family’s plantation in the West Indies.  This change in the status quo prompts a public dispute between the two men, and a dual seems imminent.  Rokeby instead opts to flee, knowing that he must first secure a place for his new bride in the new world before they can marry.  Watching in the rain as his ship sales toward the horizon, Clarissa contracts pneumonia, leading to a tragic end to both love affairs.          

  

            Though a clever frame story provides an uneven sunny ending to the film, this is pure melodrama at its finest.  Each of the four primary characters is well drawn, and the performances of all of the leads are adept.  However, Mason does certainly emerge as the tour de force presence within The Man in Grey.  I’m struck now to come up with a single moment of cruelty that best embodies his character’s malevolence, and I can think of none.  It’s the entire tone of the man that made my flesh crawl, and Mason brought that to life not so much with specific lines or actions, but with a consistent wry furrow in his brow that projects utter disregard toward everyone his character meets.  He seems to know that he is dislikable, and to take a distinct pleasure in that knowledge.  Such characters are always fascinating.      

            I’ve experienced varying degrees of believability in the Mason performances I’ve encountered so far for this blog with The Reckless Moment (1949; #108) and Bigger Than Life (1956; #111), but must say that this is the material that suits him best.  Were I given the option to cast a melodrama of any era, and could employ the services of any actor, living or dead, I think I’d look to Mason to embody my villain.  I can think of only two other actors I might consider: Orson Welles and Robert Mitchum, but they’d be up for the role of the hero as well.  Mason, I’d only ask to read for the villain. 

Language: English

Runtime: 111 minutes

Available @youtube.com

Grade: 3.5 Hats Off  

50: Story of Women (Une affaire de femmes—Original French title)

            As noted above, the original French title of Claude Chabrol’s 1988 drama Story of Women is Une affaire de femmes, which I’m given to understand translates more directly to the phrase “womens’ business.”  Certainly the term is used enough in the movie’s DVD subtitles, and women are more than central to the film it’s clear.  As I reflect on the picture I’m conflicted though.  I’m not sure how to classify it.  It’s definitely not a “women’s picture” in the 1950s sense, nor is it an issues drama, despite the fact that its subject is as controversial as they come.  Perhaps I’m clutching at straws, or simply unable to embrace it as a feminist work, but I can’t help but think of Story of Women as a war movie.  After all, that’s what it is.

            During the Nazi occupation of France, mother of two Marie (Isabelle Huppert) struggles to put food on the table.  Her husband, a French soldier, is in a German prison camp, but the war has also brought on struggles away from the battle fields.  A hard day’s work barely buys a sack of potatoes, and Marie’s young children make it difficult to find any form of sustainable employment.  There are few men around her village besides the occupiers, and this causes problems for the local women.  Many of their sweethearts have gone away, leaving them with no income until they return and can marry. 

One day a neighbor comes to Marie in trouble.  She’s pregnant, and though she knows the father is her French boyfriend, she’s convinced it is best for there to be no babies until he returns from his military service.  Marie is sympathetic.  She understands raising children without a father, and she’s willing to help the girl.  Months later, another young woman arrives at her door, this time with a mother in tow who’s none too keen on the idea of her daughter baring an occupation baby.  She offers Marie 1000 francs to handle the problem.

When Marie’s husband, Paul, arrives home, having been released, there is only temporary joy in the cramped apartment.  He’s another mouth to feed, and his drinking is a concern.  He’s also rather suspicious of what his wife has been up to in his absence.  He even tries to get his son drunk to coax an explanation out of him.  He expects that perhaps his wife has been taking on German Johns, but when the truth is revealed he’s apathetically cooperative.  The now steady stream of income that Marie brings in with her services provides for a move to a better neighborhood as well as successive bottles of wine.  He’s even compliant when her business branches out; growing to include the maintenance of a private room for less fortunate women to perform other questionable services out of.

Though finances and other problems seem to be behind the family, the marriage at its center is severely dysfunctional.  Paul grows to resent Marie’s income and the sense of independence, both financial and sexual, that comes with it.  Though perhaps not Chabrol’s intent, there were moments in which I felt a sympathy for Paul even greater than that which I held for Marie.  This, I believe, is the film’s primary weakness.

I have never wanted to use this blog to make any sort of outright political statement, nor do I wish it to become a forum for such comments. (Though at this point it becoming a forum for anything might be welcomed.)  However, from a purely narrative standpoint, creating a sympathetic character who’s an abortionist is a tough sell, and this is why I prefer to classify Story of Women as a war movie. 

Films about war are filled with male characters driven to commit atrocities by the extraordinary circumstances of their times.  I see this film no differently in that respect.  War, and it’s resulting political, economic, and social conditions, does prompt an increase in black market activities and the numbers of individuals who trade in such goods and services.  Examples of this are prevalent in countless war movies from Casablanca (1942) to Schindler’s List (1993).

However, much of what makes many of the characters in these films so compelling is the change of heart they experience that guides them from selfish practices to a more patriotic or humanistic cause.  I’m not sure that the same shift is at work here in Story of Women.  Many of the women who employ Marie’s services are desperate for her help, but not all of them are better off for having received it.  And for her part, Marie never seems to lose most of her selfish motivations.  I’m sure that a feminist film theorist could dispute these points, and I’d be willing to hear all arguments, but there are two things that cannot be denied. 

Marie is a war profiteer.  There is no doubt about this.  She finds a way to better her own situation through taking advantage of the situations and vulnerabilities of others, and it can be difficult to make such characters endearing.  The other undeniable truth is that the film’s ending asks us to feel sympathy for her because she is a woman and a mother.  It seems to me that she deserves no more sympathy for either of these traits, and any feminist who would argue this has a skewed definition of equality.

Story of Women is one of the finest technical achievements in motion pictures that I can recall from the late 1980s, but from a narrative standpoint it’s stuck in the mud.  There is a well-known screenwriter’s guide that suggests that every sympathetic hero must have a “save the cat” moment early in a film.  This is the small action that endears the character to the audience by proving that they are not a completely soulless cynic.  Think of most popular films and their main characters, and the save the cat moment should come to mind (it’s often as early as the opening credits in romcoms, because the writers feel they have to suck audiences into those faster than dramas).  Now imagine if you will a character that saves a cat, and then does it again, is offered money for doing so, and then continues to go about the remainder of the film looking for cats to save, hoping to enjoy the lucrative financial benefits of said cat saving activities.  That’s Story of Women, and for that reason it just didn’t work for me.

Language: French

Runtime: 108 Minutes

Grade: 2 Hats Off

The Final Checkpoint

So here I stand, 150 posts behind me, and only the 1001 list’s 50 most elusive titles to go.  This last batch of 50 has had some gems and some stinkers, and I must admit that I’m starting to get burned out, but this blog (like certain video games) offers rejuvenation when certain milestones are reached.  My resolve is strong, and I’m not stopping until I reach the top of this 1,001 step climb.  I still love movies, and I’m still open to allowing my definition of film as both a medium and an art form to change. 

Sometimes I wonder what the last year and a half would be like if I hadn’t started working on this webpage.  I’d still certainly have seen some of these titles, but I doubt I’d be as motivated.  I’m more than a year away from my self-imposed deadline of my 27^th birthday, and I’m still finding ways to access these titles.  I want to take the opportunity at this checkpoint to once again thank any readers who are sticking with me through this process.  I’m not sure if you’re out there, but the hope that you are is part of what keeps me going.  I also want to thank my beleaguered wife, whose ability to put up with me and not be driven crazy by my obsessions is staggering. 

As always, milestones also warrant pausing, and reflecting on the journey, and so here are the cream and the crap of the crop, laid out as I assessed them as such.

The Five Best of the Last 50:

1. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

2. Seconds

3. Soldier of Orange

4. Letter from an Unknown Woman

5. Underground

The Five Worst of the Last 50:

1. Heaven and Earth Magic (worst)

2. Blonde Cobra

3. Celine and Julie Go Boating

4. India Song

5. Mother India

51: Viy (a.k.a. Vij – Hungarian title; Вий – Original Russian title; Spirit of Evil– U.S. DVD title)

I think it’s fair to assess Viy (1967), the first horror film produced by Soviet-controlled Mosfilm, as a solid “B-Movie.”  No, it isn’t particularly spectacular in any fashion by contemporary horror standards, but it is a sufficient work for its time.  While it feels overlong, even at a meager 77 minutes, its final 15 hold wonders that represent state of the art makeup and special effects of the late 1960s. 

            The Story follows Khoma, a young seminary student happy to be on holiday with friends.  When the three are lost in a field as they travel, they take shelter with an old hag whose farm seems lost amongst the wheat.  In the night the decrepit woman comes to Khoma, revealing that she is a witch when he spurns her advances.  She tortures him briefly, using him as a human broomstick, but he overcomes her in a struggle, beating her to death.  Remorse sets in quickly however for Khoma, when the corpse transforms into a beautiful young woman.

            Soon after the incident, Khoma is summoned to a remote village where the daughter of the local landlord has died.  Though he has no connection to the region, he specifically is requested to preside over the prayer ceremonies for the eerily familiar body.  Through three nights of reciting in the village’s ancient church, the lifeless body becomes more and more animated, drawing closer to Khoma and summoning ghouls to attack him.  On the final night, the ghostly woman casts a spell summoning the demon Viy from the underworld to consume his soul.

            These final scenes are effective in both their ability to convey terror and present compelling action, and they far surpass the quality of the picture’s build-up.  The early sequences leave much to be desired in terms of cinematography and production design, and aren’t quit offset by the caliber of the special effects of the film’s climax.  Viy himself is also something of a letdown, as he barely surpasses the spookiness of his aforementioned ghoulish minions.

            Overall, Viy is compelling because of its historical significance, and striking special effects, but it’s likely to draw more of a cult horror audience—those interested in the film specifically for these reasons—than to appeal to audiences of less specialized movie fandom.

Language: Russian

Runtime: 77 Minutes

Available @Youtube.com

Grade: 1.5 Hats Off           

52: A Tale of Winter (a.k.a. Conte d'hiver - Original French title)

            “I saw a Rohmer film once. It was kind of like watching paint dry.”

- Harry Moseby; Night Moves (1975)

            While I’ve never outright disliked the work of French auteur Eric Rohmer, I can’t say that Gene Hackman’s hardnosed detective Harry Moseby was wrong in his characterization of the films of the New Wave icon.  What I can do is draw a parallel that I couldn’t shake the thought of while watching Rohmer’s A Tale of Winter (1992).  I learned from Roger Ebert’s “Great Movies” review of the film that Rohmer is often compared in criticism to the Japanese master Yasujirô Ozu, but I liken him more to Woody Allan.  That is, if Allan’s films were not comedies.

 Let me explain.  Allan’s most rigid drama, Interiors (1978), has a similar look and feel to this Rohmer effort.  The two pictures are about different periods in the development of a family, and have different tones, but each centers heavily on the choices we make about who we love and how we analyze the validity of that emotion.  I suppose that description makes the connection to Ozu obvious as well.  I think I’m simply more apt to draw comparison to an American director because, primarily, I was raised on American films.  I think Harry Moseby has a similar issue.  He’s certainly an American character, and Rohmer films are about as European as they come.

A Tale of Winter is a film without cynicism, or at least it features a female lead who has none.  I can think of few American films, or lead parts, that fall into that category.  It’s also a film with almost no romantic payoff.  Virtually every scene concerns a breakup, or the build up to a breakup, or its aftermath.  There is one sex scene, and it comes so early in the narrative that the characters who participate have not yet been introduced to the audience.  It resembles a standard Hollywood rom.com. about as much as I resemble male rom. com. lead. 

The story concerns Félicie, a hairdresser who had a holiday affair five years ago, but mistakenly gave her lover, Charles, the wrong address for him to contact her.  From that affair she has a few photos and the daughter of a man whose last name she has forgotten.  She has not, however, forgotten him, and believes that perhaps they will meet again.  This belief holds her back from committing to either of the two boyfriends she juggles, and she’s accepted this fact.  She and her daughter move in with her boss for a brief while, but it’s clear to her that she can live with no man other than the absent Charles. 

She openly admits this to everyone she becomes involved with, and tells her mother that it is the reason she cannot marry.  She’s devoted to the father of her child.  She likes what’s natural she tells one boyfriend, but not what’s plausible she confides to the other, and she lives each day with the thought that Charles might return, or that he may be gone forever.  I have a friend who takes a similar approach to gambling.  He claims that the odds in any game of chance are 50/50.  Either what you bet on will win, or it won’t.  There’s only two ways it can go.

A Tale of Winter is a film of conversations.  Action is limited to salons, living rooms, and dining tables.  Exteriors are used sparingly, but effectively, and sometimes have little relevancy until later conversations confirm what has been shown.  Rohmer is smart enough to give the audience the credit that they will remember what they have seen.  He also builds a wonderful use of Shakespeare into his plot, as one of the boyfriends takes Félicie to a production of A winter’s Tale.  A scene within the play is all she needs to redeem her hope, and justify her faith in a love worth holding onto.

Rohmer’s film isn’t likely to appeal to every movie fan, but the intelligent viewer will appreciate a picture that handles adult relationships appropriately, while simultaneously displaying a character with the faith of a child.  Félicie has been hurt, and has made mistakes, but she has no regrets.  Holding out for a chance at true love, even if it defies common sense, appeals to her, and it vicariously appeals to the audience.  A Tale of Winter wouldn’t make my own list of “must see” films, but it’s inclusion on the 1001 list doesn’t seem unjustified.

  

Language: French

Runtime: 114 Minutes

Grade: 2 Hats Off

53: Seconds

            John Frankenheimer’s Seconds (1966) is a film chocked full of paranoia, and understandably so.  It’s a movie that also poses more questions than it answers, and I suspect that this incredulous tone hurt the film, both with critics and at the box office.  It was lambasted by the foreign press at Cannes, and not particularly well received stateside, despite the fact that Frankenheimer was establishing himself as an A-list director, and the film’s star, Rock Hudson, was bankable with audiences.

 It likely didn’t help (in Cannes at least) that the film centers on a somewhat uniquely American view of middle age, and that top billed Hudson doesn’t appear on screen until 40 minutes into the picture’s 106 minute runtime.  The role was also a departure for the 50s heartthrob, now entering his forties, but was perhaps as a personal a part as he ever played.  Hudson wasn’t Frankenheimer’s first choice to portray the man reborn in another body, but the actor he wanted, Laurence Olivier, seems all wrong for this movie.

Seconds begins with a mystery.  A man approaches a passenger as he boards a train at Grand Central Station.  “Mr. Hamilton?” “Yes?” He hands the passenger a small slip of paper, beginning to walk away almost before the exchange is complete.  The folded scrap contains only an address, “34 Lafayette St.,” but it’s clear that Hamilton (John Randolph) is distressed.  When his wife picks him up at his commuter station he’s short with her. He asks her not to bother him about the strange phone calls he’s been receiving in the middle of the night.  He’d rather she talk about their adult daughter who’s moved away.  It’s clear that this couple cares for one another, but they don’t seem much to need each other anymore.

Another phone call comes when Hamilton can’t sleep.  He doesn’t recognize the whispers from the receiver, but the caller seems to know things that a stranger couldn’t.  Questions fly, but the voice says that all will be answered at the scribbled address at noon tomorrow.

Reluctantly, Hamilton leaves his office the following day to find 34 Lafayette.  When he arrives he’s prompted to another address, then he’s shipped from there to a mysterious office complex.  Confused, he waits as directed, only to dose off.  When he comes to, he finds that he cannot leave.  He wanders for a moment, stumbling upon a group of other middle aged men who seem confined to a lackluster day room.  Someone who seems to be in charge directs him back to the office where he waited.   They’re ready for him now.

A salesman (Jeff Corey) explains that “the company” (the only name ever given for this strange group) that operates out of the complex provides a unique and valuable service.  They offer men who’ve past their prime the opportunity to start life again as a different person, with a different past.  They use the insurance money from a staged death to set the surgically altered man up in a new place, with a new profession, and a new life.  All his needs are provided for until he is ready to function on his own in his metamorphosed world.  His former family will be taken care of; living off of insurance residuals as well, never aware that he’s abandoned them.       

Of course, this service is optional, but a fate worse than death and rebirth awaits the man who knows this much and doesn’t comply.  After some convincing, Hamilton agrees to the radical surgical procedures and emerges as Tony Wilson (Hudson).  The rehabilitation process is lengthy, but eventually Tony is ready to enter his life as a schooled painter, living in Southern California.  The company provides him with a home and a butler; there to answer any questions and aid in his re-entry into life. 

For a time, Tony finds happiness.  He begins to paint his own works, “developing” the style of painting that had been provided for him.  He enjoys his freedom, and walking on the shores of the Pacific.  He even meets a woman who introduces him the pleasures of the swinging 60s.  All is well, until at a party, he realizes just how much control and influence the company holds over his new existence.

Seconds has flaws.  Continuity errors and potential plot holes keep it from greatness, but it navigates these shortcomings well enough to classify as a good movie, and it certainly warrants more attention than the basic cult classic status it has achieved.  Technically it is brilliant in both look and sound, with black and white virtuoso James Wong Howe behind the camera, and a score from Jerry Goldsmith that perfectly complements the movie’s off-putting images of sedated fear.  As well as being a cultural document of the shifting ideals of the 1960s, it’s also a notable film from a historic Hollywood standpoint.  

Randolph, as well as Corey and several of the other players who comprise the company’s employees, were finding work in film for the first time in over a decade, as they had been victims of the notorious Hollywood blacklist.  For Randolph, it was the first picture since 1952.  The presence of these talents, who all more than understood what it was to questions who was with you, and to rebel against a controlling system, provide the film with just the right notes.  Were it not for the fine work of Hudson in his role, they would all but steal the film.

Hudson, for his part, also must have understood paranoia, and as such the role seems tailor-made for him.  To be a man trapped in the image of another man, unable to express his true self, must be unbearable.  Hudson had cut his teeth in Hollywood in Anthony Mann Westerns and had transitioned to stardom as the strong-willed and iron-jawed rancher in 1956s Giant.  By the late 1950s he was a sex symbol, starring opposite Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959).  But Hudson was gay, perhaps the only thing in Hollywood worse for publicity than being a suspected communist.  He brings to the role complexities that perhaps only he could understand.  He enjoys being the strong and handsome Tony Wilson, but for as talented as the company surgeon was, he couldn’t remove the inner vulnerability of Hamilton, and in Seconds it becomes painfully obvious that this just won’t do for the quality control department.

Language: English

Runtime: 106 Minutes (107 Minutes, 1996 re-release)

Grade: 3.5 Hats Off         

54: Chronicle of a Summer (a.k.a. Chronique d'un été – Original French title; a.k.a. Paris 1960)

            Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961) is one of the films in the 1001 canon that truly qualifies as an intellectual undertaking.  Anthropologist Rouch and sociologist Morin set out to see if they could capture reality on camera, and in the process revolutionized the documentary genre while simultaneously influencing the burgeoning French New Wave.  Taking advantage of the newly available hand held sync-sound system for 16mm film, the social scientists sent two women into the streets of Paris to ask passersby a simple question: “Are you happy?”

            The responses to this question are as varied as one would expect, but the focus here is more on the interaction than the answers.  They serve merely as a basis for further investigation of the individuals and their willingness to speak to others about personal matters on camera.  Breaking the very rules of Cinéma vérité that they were establishing with this picture, the filmmakers choose to stage a number of the responders in conversations covering subjects as broad as debilitating depression to the Algerian conflict that raged in North Africa at the time. 

            Some of these conversations inevitably feel forced, and with them the film drags, but in moments of genuine exchange, particularly those with regard to political opinion, the movie seems to have a life of its own – certainly in some cases apart from what even the filmmakers could have imagined.  While many of the picture’s subjects have the unfortunate tendency to slip into amateur philosophizing, it is in the moments when they drop the façade of intellectualism and speak with unforced emotion that the film shines. 

In these moments Rouch and Morin (and cameraman Raoul Coutard), although perhaps unintentionally, employ filmic techniques that undoubtedly manipulate the audience.  Though these instances seem to betray the intent of the project to film “truth”, they inevitably speak to the unique powers that cinema holds that are unavailable to ethnography authors who employ other formats.  Certainly these images had an effect on the other filmmakers working in Paris at the time, as the visual style of this picture is a clear precursor to some of the early films of the French New Wave, also heavily reliant on the hand held system that is used to such great effect here. 

I tend to enjoy ethnographies as I assume that they appeal to my naturally curious nature. However, the best ones are often not those that expose the great differences between cultures but rather the films that note the vast similarities within the entire human race.  Chronicle of a Summer contains a memorable sequence in which a woman who has survived the Nazi Holocaust recalls her interactions with her father during that horrific time.  Her stories are told in voiceover as she traverses the boulevards at sundown.  At this point they are neither particularly shocking nor overwhelmingly heart wrenching, but they are distinctly human, and the combination of that humanity and the cinematography of this sequence make for a moment not easily forgotten. 

A continent and more than a generation removed from the Paris of 1960, I can hardly be expected to comprehend the nuances of the politics being discussed in much of Chronicle of a Summer.  However, the impact of this film is undoubtable and tangible even from my removed standpoint.  Is it a masterpiece? No.  But it is a smart enough film to know that its goals of “truth” may be unattainable.  The film’s final sequence entails the subjects of the interviews gathering to discuss a rough cut of the project, only to perceive its message (and their fellow subjects) in a variety of different lights.  After the screening, Rouch and Morin meet in the hall to compare their own reactions and almost immediately revert to discussions of the perception of truth.  They hint at their own pictures shortcomings and openly confess to hoping that their own favorite subjects would be embraced by the larger audience.   

The two filmmakers felt that with Chronicle of a Summer they were pioneering Cinema Vérité, and although they lay the groundwork for that movement here, many of their techniques would be dismissed by latter-day proponents of the genre.  However, many scholars point to this piece as a seminal work of the Direct Cinema movement, which unlike Vérité openly questions within its texts the relationship between reality and film.  In any case, this film, while somewhat slow for its 85 minute runtime, does deserve a viewing.

Language: French

Runtime: 85 Minutes

Grade: 2.5 Hats Off

55: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

            The revered film critic Pauline Kael once wrote that “movies are so rarely great art, that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have very little reason to be interested in them.”  This statement seems to be exemplified by Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), a film that gross-out guru and iconoclast John Waters says is the greatest movie ever made.   Meyer is a director who is more discussed than seen in my circle, and I would imagine this to be the case in many other social groups as well.  This was my first of his films, and while I’m given to believe that this is one of his better efforts, I must admit that I feel that the public perception of Meyer, at least what I’ve heard, is misleading.  Yes, this film is laden with large-breasted women in skimpy outfits.  Yes, it is exploitation to its core.  But Faster, Pussycat! isn’t just a pathetic excuse to expose some skin onto celluloid.  It doesn’t play like a sex movie, and anyone who’d fantasize about its female lead would have to be certifiable.

            “Ladies and Gentlemen – welcome to violence” sneers a narrator as visual manifestations of his statement dance across a black screen.  This opening monologue, one of the film’s true joys, is accompanied only by the accumulating sound wave graphics, which seem to form a crude line of prison bars as the unseen voice warns (somewhat facetiously) against the dangers of the newly liberated woman.  Then, with clever editing, the audience is transported to an almost featureless go-go club, where male patrons leer at the soon-to-be protagonists.  Quickly the scene changes as the three women, now out of their dancing costumes and into ensembles only slightly less revealing, tear through the desert in their supercharged sports cars.  Meyer may have been a man whose meanings will be endlessly discussed, but here he makes it clear; these chicks are out for kicks.

            Also clear is the power structure within the group.  The raven-haired and black clad Varla (Tura Satana) calls the shots.  Her right hand woman is fellow brunette Rosie (Haji), and the blonde Billie (Lori Williams) is along for the ride.  Dissention in the ranks is exposed, and dealt with, early, when Billie decides to take an impromptu detour for a dip in a roadside lake.  This leads to the film’s first of many catfights and a challenge to a Rebel without a Cause-esque game of chicken to be officiated by the incensed Varla.  Of course this set-up begs several questions. Where were the girls in such a rush to in the first place? And why all of the sudden do they have time for a chicken contest when the brief swim was such an offense?  But such inquiries seem rather pointless only six and a half minutes into Faster, Pussycat!, and I wisely choose to ignore them.

            The drag race between the two underlings leads to a meeting on the salt flats with an amateur racer and his teeny-bopper girlfriend.  Relations between the women are friendly enough at first, but when challenges are issued by the boyfriend, temperatures quickly rise.  The outcome seems almost inevitable, but the film successfully navigates the potholes of walking the audience through the paces by keeping the resulting fight interesting with an energetic soundtrack, before the boyfriend lies dead on the ground.  Varla doesn’t hesitate to drug the young girl, and soon the whole female tribe is off again with their kidnapped cargo in tow. 

            This incident is just the set-up for the larger payoff of Meyer’s masterpiece.  When a gas station attendant informs the trio of women that a local eccentric has a stash of cash buried somewhere on his property, the real fun begins.  Yes, there’s a contrived plot at work here, but the execution is superb.  With the script, Meyer does his best to balance the quick tongue lashings and the moments where they’re planted squarely in his character’s cheeks.  The black and white pallet he works from as a director is spot on, as color would muddle this material.  It’s low budget for low budget’s sake, and it works just right.  All of these elements, along with terrific performances from actors who understand the tone of this material, are complimented by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter’s energetic jazz score, which paces the film with bravado.        

            What is interesting here is the role reversal.  This time it’s the would-be sex objects who take control of the picture.  Are they out for sex? Maybe.  Are they prone to violence? Certainly yes.  They seem intent on getting both on their own terms though, and for a film made in 1965, those are some awfully progressive ideas.  Meyer may have liked big breasts, but he certainly didn’t care for their being attached to weak willed women.

Faster, Pussycat! is without a doubt an influential film.  Everything from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) to Death Proof (2007) has some roots here.  However, unlike many of the films it inspired (I’m looking at you Mr. Waters and Mr. Tarantino) Faster, Pussycat! doesn’t have a gag-inducing goal.  It’s just pure fun.  No, I can’t argue that it’s high art.  But it is just the kind of trash that movie fans should treat themselves to from time to time, and for that I loved it.  

Language: English

Runtime: 83 minutes

Available @youtube.com

Grade: 4 Hats Off