Dunkirk (2017)

Posted on September 23, 2017 by 4 Star Films

Upon being thrown headlong into Christopher Nolan’s immersive wartime drama Dunkirk, it becomes obvious that it is hardly a narrative film like any of the director’s previous efforts because it has a singular objective set out.

It’s economical (shorter than many of most recent efforts) and the dialogue is sparse, sprinkled sparingly throughout his picture. After all, the main goal of this film is not so much to tell us a story — drawing up the lines as they might have been — but actually immersing us in that moment that was so crucial to British morale and ultimately the outcome of WWII.

As such, this is visual storytelling to the utmost degree and it comes off splendidly for the precise reason that film has always been a visual medium as much as we try and make it about dialogue. Because invariably dialogue is often used as a crutch while Nolan’s film relies almost solely on its images to tell its story and that’s a quality of filmmaking that is often lacking in the contemporary industry.

Backstories are all but left to the imagination and there’s immense power in that. Too often storytellers feel a need to spell everything out, providing all the perfect cookie cutter moments in order to hold the audience member’s hand so they comprehend it all. But has something as volatile as war ever been like that? I’m sure we can all answer with an emphatic “NO,” so why would a film be any different? Make people use their brains. Make them feel something viscerally. Leave them in the dark. Keep the outcomes ambiguous.

Likewise, there are no imagined interactions between the major figures at play whether Winston Churchill or Adolf Hitler. In fact, we never see a German’s face. We only see the results of their efforts to deter the British and cut off their escape route. As for Churchill, we never see the great English bulldog but his spirit wafts over the picture — certainly his words too — but it’s that spirit of resilience, that never say die attitude that speaks to his own character. That is enough.

Normally these type of decisions would signal a death wish but Nolan has been rewarded for his brazenness offering up a summer blockbuster that’s all but necessary. Because it tramples over much of the conventional wisdom that the industry has tried to impose on itself to reel in success. If there was any man to do it, Christopher Nolan certainly fits the bill.

There’s still very purposeful action playing out on three fronts. You have the soldiers actually stuck on the beach and in this case, we end up following a group of soldiers. Boys really. First, one who flees back to the beach after his compatriots are gunned down then joins with another boy to try and get aboard a battleship with a man on a stretcher. Finally, they get their chance only to get torpedoed out of the water. Treading in the oil-soaked ocean until someone can save them.

Then, there’s a trifecta of British Spitfires (led by Tom Hardy) traveling across the English Channel to provide coverage to their boys down below. Their exploits are documented with engrossing aerial shots that bring us right into their cockpits as they sit behind the controls looking to evade and vanquish their enemy.

Finally, we have the men of the home guard namely a father (Mark Rylance) and his two sons who answer the call to come to the aid of their young men stranded across the channel. You get the sense that they are riding into the valley of the shadow of death except that the valley of death is the sea and German U-Boats are waiting for them. Still, they push onward to rescue men coming by sea and by air. It too requires costly sacrifice.

Dunkirk’s soundtrack is magnified by ticking clocks and Hans Zimmer’s selection of screeching strings but it’s not necessarily developing the drama for drama’s sake. Again, there’s this underlying striving for authenticity.

One scene stands out in particular when the shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy) asks if the boy he accidentally harmed is okay. He’s sorry now but doesn’t know the irreparable damage he has done. Still, the young man’s brother could lash out in anger. Instead, he takes the high road and tells him the boy is fine. His father grimly gives him a nod. He has made the most merciful decision for all parties involved.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the moment and you begin to understand to what extent these British soldiers were sitting ducks on the beaches of Dunkirk. Because you are right beside them in every waking moment. And if we understand the horrors and the selfishness that begins to breed as survival instincts set in then just as easily we comprehend the pure euphoria that comes over the men when the flotilla from home comes to their rescue.

Even in these moments what is striking is not so much that Dunkirk is a grand epic but it feels surprisingly intimate. Despite the anonymity that runs through a great deal of this film Nolan still gives us characters that we can attach ourselves to and they begin to resonate not because we know their person inside and out necessarily but we start to empathize with their positions first hand. When you begin to see the world as someone else sees it, it’s difficult not to connect. And that goes for everyone.

Because this was not just a war of soldiers from the army, navy, and air force. This was a war that involved nurses and the home guard and every other man, woman, and child who rationed their supplies and blacked out their windows all because of the collective war effort.

It’s often the most trying circumstances that bring us together so that we are no longer individuals but we become one. Dunkirk seems like precisely one of those galvanizing events that can forever be looked back on with pride. It personifies bravery, resilience, a stiff upper lip if you want to put it that way. And the significance in survival is that they lived to fight another day and ultimately with the other Allied powers they were able to quell the Nazis.

Some might come out of Dunkirk hailing it as one of the great war pictures of our generation, but truthfully it’s more so a survival story and a tribute to the fighting spirit that often dwells in the souls of men. In an age so often lacking in courage, fortitude, and honor those are the very attributes that rise to the surface and become most evident. Dunkirk is a striking reminder, not simply for the British people, but for us all.

4.5/5 Stars

Morocco (1930)

Posted on September 22, 2017 by 4 Star Films

Gary_Cooper_and_Marlene_Dietrich_in_Morocco_trailer_2.jpg Before the exoticism of Casablanca, Algiers, or even Road to Morroco, there was Josef Von Sternberg’s just plain Morocco but it’s hardly a run-of-the-mill romance. Far from it.

Although it involves soldiers, it’s also hardly a war film but instead set against a backdrop that presents an exotic love affair as only Sternberg could. With a sultry Marlene Dietrich matched with a particularly cheeky Gary Cooper, it instantly looks to be an interesting dynamic because they couldn’t be more different.

She, a radiant German beauty with an evocative pair of eyes to go with a somewhat sullen demeanor. He, America’s ruggedly handsome ideal of what a man should be. And it in Sternberg’s film neither of them is what we’re used to.

He’s a renegade soldier in the French Foreign Legion. She’s a cabaret singer (that hasn’t changed) but she also manages to be French, not German. Somehow it’s easy enough to disregard because it’s not necessary to get caught up on the particulars.

All that matters is that they both find themselves in Morocco. He is traipsing through town with his division and spends some free time taking in her floor show along with the rest of the rowdy masses. Neither one of them has found someone good enough for them — they’re equal of sorts. He’s a gentleman cad if you will and she’s hardly an upstanding woman, making a living in a dance hall but there’s more to her. It’s hinted that she once had love, perhaps.

It takes so long for them to actually speak to each other but they’re flirting from the first moment they lay eyes on each other. They say so much through simple expressions all throughout the cabaret show. Things proceed like so. She slips him a flower, then an apple, and finally a key. At this point, he gets the drift and we do too.

Later that evening he winds up at her flat and they spend their most substantial time together. It’s full of odd exchanges, meandering conversations that run the risk of sounding aloof. In fact, their entire relationship is replete with oddities.

Another man (Adolph Menjou) is smitten with Amy but he’s never driven to jealousy. He’s good-natured and generous in all circumstances. People like him must only drift through the high societies.

She holds onto some wistful longing for the tall dashing Legionnaire who drifted through her life. But she’s slow to act. Meanwhile, he hardly seems to take it as a blow to his love life when she resigns to stay behind. After all, he’s quite the ladies’ man. He probably doesn’t need another woman. He’s always got several draped over each arm.

Morocco is a film interesting for the spaces that it creates and not necessarily for the story it develops. Visually, by the hands of the director and then simultaneously by Cooper and Dietrich as they work through their scenes both together and apart. Though it might in some ways lack emotional heft, its stars are still two invariably compelling romantic stars of the cinema.

Somehow it still manages to be quite lithe and risque when put up next to its contemporaries. It exudes a certain mischievousness of the Pre-Code Era. It’s not so much licentiousness and debauchery but it wishes to suggest as much. It can be implied without actually going through all the trouble of showing it.

Dietrich sums it up perfectly in her little diddy about Eve (What am I bid for my apple/ the truth that made Adam so wise? On the historic night/ when he took a bite/ they discovered a new paradise). In essence, the world got a lot more exciting when sex and deceit were brought into the equation. Maybe she misses the implications the Fall of Man but that’s precisely the point. Still more Pre-Code sauciness case and point.

In the final moments, where Dietrich abandons her heels and goes slinking across the sand chasing after her man, it feels less like a romantic crescendo or even a tragic turn and more like a ploy by the director to make his leading lady the focal point of his story one last time. She is granted the final bit of limelight. Because in many ways Gary Cooper could not win when it came to upstaging Marlene Dietrich orchestrated by her devoted partner/director Sternberg. Thus, Morocco turns out to be a rather curious love story different than some of the more typical Hollywood fare.

4/5 Stars

Review: Pickpocket (1959)

Posted on September 16, 2017 by 4 Star Films

pickpocket-1 Pickpocket is an intricately staged, truly intimate character study from the inimitable Robert Bresson solidifying itself as one of his greatest works. As was his practice, Bresson took Martin LaSalle, a non-actor to be his leading protagonist.

The Uruguayan-French actor sports gaunt, rather severe features, thick eyebrows, a sauntering gait and a slumped posture. However, there’s also some facial similarity to Henry Fonda there, except LaSalle is even more “normal” if you want to go that far. He seems altogether unextraordinary and still Bresson manages to tell an engaging story with such an unassuming star–not through emotions but the inverse–a complete lack of emotions replaced instead by actions.

Aside from being a vagrant who lives in a dilapidated flat, Michel is a cynic who holds a bit of a superman complex. In fact, he’s not far off from Raskolnikov in Crime & Punishment. The difference being his crimes are more mundane. The outcome is less pronounced. But he too achieves a kind of redemption.

With such a life as he leads, not working, with hardly any friends, or anything to do aside from betting on the horses, Michel fills his idle hours learning what it is to be a pickpocket. It becomes his livelihood as he joins forces with some accomplices, honing his trade, and gleaning inspiration from the life of pickpocket socialite extraordinaire George Barrington. Except Michel seems nothing like this man. He’s no adventurer or colorful personality. He watches the world with passionless eyes, lacking purpose, and hardly talking to anyone. When he does, it’s generally brusque. He’s not looking to make friends–aside from his “buddy” Jacques. He hardly even visits his sickly mother even when she’s lying on her deathbed.

But that’s what makes his nearby neighbor Jeanne (Marika Green) all the more fascinating because she brings something out of him. It just takes him a long time to realize it. I cannot get it out of my head that Marika Green shares some striking resemblance to Natalie Portman. This notion shot into my head the first time I ever viewed Pickpocket. It serves no real obvious purpose but to suggest her stunning beauty and maybe even that there’s a modernness to her or better yet a timelessness behind her eyes that’s full of some sort of inexplicable power. Maybe Natalie Portman has that same quality as well. It’s difficult to say.

It’s striking that many of the scenes in Pickpocket are almost silent, lacking scoring and often even dialogue, and yet they’re choreographed like the most elaborate dance. Instead of feet, though, hands are involved. The dexterous hands and limber fingers of pickpockets. And his eyes rove as much as his prying fingers.

There are similarities here with Sam Fuller’s Pickup on Southstreet except in this case the life of a pickpocket, this life of second class crime is the extent of his existence. There are no gangsters, plots, or big implications pointing to Cold Wars and Communists. But if they share anything it’s their equally impressive understanding of economical filmmaking with the innate ability to tell rich, impactful stories in a highly condensed amount of time.

Michel’s life is pitifully mundane in a sense and yet within that context, he’s still able to find hope and that’s the beauty of what Bresson suggests here through the simple functions of sound and image. He evokes a great deal.

It was not the final words of Pickpocket that struck me but rather the image that we are left with. There stands Michel incarcerated in prison. It seemed inevitable. Because supermen do not exist, at least not in the way that he supposed. And yet in the same breath, when he shed that philosophy he found something better.

He caresses Jeanne through the bars, kisses her face. Yes, he’s still trapped, stuck in such a horrible spot without his freedom. But the utter irony of it all in this one moment, before a very abrupt conclusion, Michel is finally free–finally saved by the graces of love and it took a prison cell to teach him as much. His life was propelled by inaction highlighted by contained moments of theft and deception. Therefore, it’s in this final instance that Michel finally shows some amount of goodness and affection bursting forth. His life no longer seems to be defined by being a pickpocket. For once, it’s defined by something else–by someone else.

Whereas Raskolnikov realized that he needed Sonya to resurrect him much like Christ resurrected Lazarus, Michel comes to a similar conclusion here though he only believed in God for three minutes. Still, in a sense, he has been redeemed and now there’s a certain amount of hope in his life going forward. The straight and narrow is a tough road to traverse but Michel might find it yet.

“Oh, Jeanne, to reach you at last, what a path I had to take.”

4.5/5 Stars

Review: Vivre sa Vie (1962)

Posted on September 11, 2017 by 4 Star Films

vivre-sa-vie The opening credits of Vivre sa Vie commence with the opening note “dedicated to B-movies” and indeed many of Jean-Luc Godard’s best films could make the same claim. They’re smalltime stories about little people living rather pathetic lives if you wish to be brutally honest. This isn’t Hollywood.

Opening titles aside, we meet our main characters from behind, their backs to the camera in the throes of a minor spat. It acts as the subject for the first of the director’s 12 tableaux that make up the film rather like chapters in a book following the life of our heroine Nana (Anna Karina). Next, comes pinball games, Nana’s occupation as a Record Shop attendant and other mundane moments.

The passage of time caused me to forget that Nana goes to a screening of The Passion of Joan of Arc. Her own life witnessed in the eyes of Joan–a heroine that she easily empathizes with for her own amount of suffering and pain. It’s difficult to decipher who Nana feels more connected to, Joan of Arc or the actress Maria Falconetti herself. Because the truth is, Nana too was trying to make it as an actress, even being featured in a film or a play or something or other. It didn’t work out.

As the story evolves, we gradually begin to see her plight more clearly. It comes slowly at first before fully establishing itself. She goes down the rabbit whole quite by chance, taking on a very different occupation. It’s pitiful really, she looks more like a frightened rabbit than a woman of the street.

Her aspirations of catching the eye of some director are instead channeled towards Raoul, the pimp who gets her started and shows her the ropes of the trade. In some ways, it feels like he owns her, and yet Nana still strives to lead her own life. One of the moments she gives the illusion of happiness is in all places a pool hall as the jukebox grooves away and she shimmies with it. But in this moment as with so many others, it seems as if she’s constantly under the gaze of men. She’s constantly trying to earn their affection and in some sense earn her own worth. Whether or not they give it is another matter and that’s the great tragedy of Nana’s life.

In some of the film’s final interludes, she finds time to wax philosophical with an old thinker on a number of topics from personal responsibility to issues of free will. He further asserts that the more one talks, the less the words mean. Perhaps Godard took that to mean form over dialogue.

At times it’s as if Godard’s camera is constantly on a swiveling axis or even a pendulum, focusing on a figure and swinging back and forth between it’s two subjects. No cuts are necessary and it’s oddly compelling.

Look at his work hastily here and it could be misinterpreted as shoddy and that could be but more likely is the fact that Godard was always thumbing his nose at convention. He was never beholden to classical Hollywood but he did have heroes. The likes of Sam Fuller, Fritz Lang, and Nicholas Ray. Men with their own aesthetics and Godard was forging his own path. Only someone like Godard would have the audacity of having us watch the entire transcription of a letter. Why? Because he wanted to.

Vivre sa Vie did not ignite the Nouvelle Vague but in many ways, it stoked the flames and Godard perhaps unwittingly gave nod to another landmark film from his compatriot Francois Truffaut, Jules et Jim, which finds its way up on a movie marquee.

Perhaps what’s easiest to take away from Godard’s work here with longtime collaborator Raoul Coutard is that he’s constantly messing with our classical cinematic sensibilities. The way he cuts (or doesn’t), the way he interrupts sound, the way he moves between intertitles and so on. It’s still his and it still disrupts the status quo that we are used to even as seasoned viewers of visual content.

For some, it can come off as tiresome, even pretentious but it’s undoubtedly Godard and highlighting the entire narrative is the quietly yet still evocative performance of Anna Karina. Her doe eyes speak volumes by themselves. They truly were the power couple of the French New Wave. He being the audacious artist, she his inspired muse. However, it begs the question, if there is any stock in the parallelism between film and reality. Nana/Anna being controlled by the men in her life or was it truly her life to live?

4.5/5 Stars

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)

Posted on September 7, 2017 by 4 Star Films

cleo-from-5-to-7 It’s a joy to watch Agnes Varda dance. Or, more precisely, it’s a joy to watch her camera dance. Because that’s exactly what it does. Her film opens in color, catching our attention, vibrant and alive as the credits roll and a young woman (Corinne Marchand) gets her fortune read by an old lady. She’s worried about her fate. We can gather that much and this is her way of coping. Superstition and tarot cards but she’s trying and the results are not quite to her fancy.

And from that point on Varda’s camera continues to move dynamically but her film quickly turns to black and white as if to say something. Our main heroine, this young, attractive singer named Cleo has sunk into a sense of despondency. For the next two hours, she must wait it out to hear the news from her doctor. The news being whether or not she has been stricken with cancer. And if cancer then recovery or even….death. This is her existential crisis.

In the following moments, the camera falls back as an observer even donning her point of view from time to time and that’s the true enjoyment of this film. There are stakes laid out right from beginning and those remain in the back of our minds but it’s really about how we get there. How she gets there.

Cleo walks the streets of Paris browsing shop windows for hats, taking cab rides through the city, patronizing local establishments, resting at her flat with her assistant, and even calling on friends.

It becomes obvious that Cleo needs other people in her life whether she knows it or not. There’s an importance in solititude when she gets to examine the passing world and take in the serenity of running water in a park on a peaceful afternoon. But it’s the people that bring some color to her life. True, she does note that everyone spoils me, no one loves me, undoubtedly bemoaning the quick house call by her lover, the doting of her houskeeper, and the comical buffoonery of her pianist and lyricist duo.

But she also calls on her friend Dorothee who models by day in a sculptor’s studio taking in the bustling Parisian streets with all sorts of people but more importantly time for all sorts of conversation both superficial and sincere. They visit the local cinema and are treated to a silent comedy short (starring Nouvelle Vague power couple Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina). As the girl’s boyfriend rightly ascertains comedy is good for the soul. It can help alleviate a world of hurt.

Cleo’s final confidante comes quite by chance. A soldier on leave from Algeria as it turns out. He’s at first forward, then didactic, and finally utterly sincere. He’s perhaps just the type of person Cleo was looking for without even realizing it — someone who is perfectly obliging with conversation when she feels completely taciturn. Theirs is a quick friendship as he agrees to go with her to the hospital for the impending news and she, in turn, looks to see him off to the train station as he goes back from whence he came.

And does the film’s conclusion suffice? Not particularly. It’s abrupt and unsatisfying after all that prolonged wait but curiously Cleo seems at peace. Perhaps that is enough. What this film does impeccably is capture a moment as if it was pure and true and utterly authentic. It takes real world issues and a real world setting, synthesizing them into a fictional storyline that still functions as the every day would.

This is the world of the Cold War, war in Algeria, Edith Piaf in the hospital, Elmer Gantry, Bridget Bardot, and French pop music. It’s all melded together, bits and pieces, and moments and ideas and snapshots into a thoroughly engaging piece that becomes a sort of rumination on life and death and all those things that complicate living. If it all sounds like a jumbled mess of words it is and instead of trying to comprehend it by any amount of diction you should do yourself an immense favor and see Agnes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7 for yourself. If you are disappointed then I am truly sorry for you. Because it’s a wonderful film.

4.5/5 Stars

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Posted on August 31, 2017 by 4 Star Films

Whaddya hear, whaddya say ~ Jimmy Cagney as Rocky Sullivan

If he hadn’t been on the stage and screen, it’s easy to get the sense that James Cagney, born and bred on the streets of the Lower East Side of Manhattan could have easily been a gangster. And it’s true that in films like Public Enemy and White Heat he embodied gangsters for ensuing generations solidifying his own legend.

Angles with Dirty Faces features another stellar performance as Rocky Sullivan, but what makes it truly unique are the intertwining worlds of faith and crime that meet and ultimately provide the major conflict in the narrative. It’s at these crosswords — the moral fabric of the film — where things get fascinating and to understand those things it’s necessary to see where Angel with Dirty Faces opens.

Two young hoodlums get caught in the act of snitching from a train car and in the ensuing chase one gets nabbed by the cops while the other slips away from their clutches to live another day. This succinct scene is a fitting reflection of all that happens thereafter. The one fellow will grow up to be the notorious gangster extraordinaire Rocky Sullivan who will be at odds with the authorities from his first moments in juvie to his final days.

Meanwhile, Jerry (Pat O’Brien) becomes a local priest who makes it his life’s work to reform the young men in the community who are more than likely destined for the life of Rocky and his fellow gangsters. Through a certain amount of kindness and quiet strength, he attempts to mold the boys through constructive activities like basketball, choir, and other extracurriculars. However, the bad boys (the real life Dead End Kids ensemble, less actors than personified hellraisers) are not quite swayed by his regimen, more content rough-housing, causing mayhem, and idolizing their rebellious hero the great Rocky Sullivan.

When he finally gets out of his stint in prison, Rocky has some choice words for his crooked lawyer (Humphrey Bogart) who hands over a load of cash to save his neck although he’s not looking to be swindled. But although he continues to have his hand in the local corruption and crime scenes, Rocky still maintains his ties with his old friend while renting a room from the girl he used to rib, the now stunning Laury Martin (Ann Sheridan). Here the core relationship between Rocky and Jerry becomes paramount as Jerry vows to tackle corruption in the city with the help of a local paper, even if his old buddy gets in the way.

So Jerry begins his full-fledged crusade against vice because he sees it as a threat to his parish — made up of the impressionable boys in his stead. But just as crucial is the boy’s idol worship, namely of Rocky. This is Jerry’s final goal to bring their idol tumbling down and it doesn’t involve simply destroying the aura surrounding a gangster — it involves two old friends making one final promise. The crime syndicate is thrown into an uproar as Rocky is wanted for murder, cornered, and finally apprehended. Oh how the mighty have fallen, although he’s not about to go yellow because that’s the only thing he has left–his own bullish sense of moxie.

Still, Jerry asks him to imbue a different kind of courage (Not the courage or heroics of bravado but the kind that you, me, and God know about). And as the electric chair looms in front of Rocky as an arbiter of justice, you could easily make the claim that this is his modern-day cross with him as the martyr. But this gets into the ultimate dilemma where everything begins to break down. Either Rocky committed his final act out of undying affection for an old friend (and not remorse) or more feebly still he was not repentant at all but was, on the contrary, legitimately groveling in the face of death.

The first time seeing this film I mistakenly mistook Rocky’s actions as heroic in the end because as our protagonist that’s what we like to project onto him but it simply does not line up. The way he’s so belligerent before breaking down as he gets ready to meet his maker. The way the priest looks on with tears in his eyes, newspaper men too awestruck to jot down a single note. I mistook Cagney’s astonishing acting for Rocky’s own showmanship. However, the more astounding conclusion is that Rocky is hardly high and mighty in the end. His rough veneer is equally easy to shatter as his being is brought to the ultimate low, death.

It reflects the moral ambiguity of man that these angels with dirty faces are not in the singular sense but the sum of man in his plurality. We are all prone to evil just as we are all capable of good. But we can hardly save ourselves just as we are not always wholly good or wholly evil. The best we can do is make the way better for other people. If this film is any indication sometimes it’s extremely difficult to parse through the differences between the altruism versus the evil versus just plain cowardice.

Films about friends on diverging paths have continued to exist from Cry of the City to Mystic River but Angels with Dirty Faces is arguably one of the most compelling. Once again, Cagney steals the film with his usual no holds barred approach. It electrifies the screen like very few others, making Angels with Dirty Faces an undisputed gangster classic and one of his very best.

Furthermore, the often discounted Michael Curtiz shows his versatility with the foremost of Warner Bros. winning craftsmen including directors William A. Wellman and Raoul Walsh. Notably, each man paired with Cagney with great results, because, after all, he is without question the king of the gangsters.

4.5/5 Stars

Body and Soul (1947)

Posted on August 29, 2017 by 4 Star Films

body_and_soul_1947_movie_poster John Garfield was never the most dashing of leading men but nevertheless, he was always thoroughly compelling as ambitious working class stiffs during the 1940s. He had a straightforward tenacity about him like he had to fight his way to the top. At the same time likable and destined for trouble right out of the gates. You can cheer for him and still rue the decisions that he makes. That’s what makes his foray as boxing champ Charlie Davis all the more believable. His aspirations are of a very real nature and they give his character a genuine makeup.

Abraham Polonsky’s (Force of Evil) script for director Robert Rossen’s Body and Soul drops us in the middle of the life of Charlie Davis (Garfield). He’s the big “Champ” of the local boxing world with a fresh bout coming up soon but he doesn’t seem all that happy. He’s restless in sleep, haunted by specters, and everyone from his mother to his girl seems to be distant. We don’t know what it all means and yet in the ensuing unfoldings of the plot we begin to understand the true gravity of the situation.

He comes from a humble background on the seedy side of town where his parents (Anne Revere and Art Smith) run a humble candy shop that barely allows them to get by. He’s handy in the ring and wins an amateur prize. Part of his winnings includes a dance with a pretty gal named Peg (Lilli Palmer). It’s just part of her job but being persistent he looks to get to know her and call on her again. She allows it.

Mrs. Davis wants her son to go to night school, leave boxing behind, and make an honest living. Pool halls and speakeasies are not a place to make a life, much less a boxing ring. And Charlie tries to make an honest go of it for a time, but he’s going nowhere fast.

With the backing of his best bud Shorty, Charlie gets in with a small-time promoter (William Conrad) who still is big potatoes compared to what they’re used to. Soon it’s more wins, larger pots, and then Charlie hits the big leagues when a ruthless promoter named Roberts (Lloyd Gough) comes in his corner. It means heavy payoffs on all accounts. Charlie can put Peg up in a nice place and take better care of his mother. They can sell the family candy store. Even Shorty gets a bigger cut.

But Charlie has finally lost sight of his priorities. When the film establishes itself back in the present, we soon realize that the big time boxer has fallen away, compromising everything that gave him integrity. And as a result, all those close to him resolve to let him find his own path. It’s likely to lose him money or worse yet get him killed but Charlie’s dilemma is far greater than that. This is a fight for his very soul as he struggles to hold onto his morals, grappling with his conscious.

Lilli Palmer is a breath of fresh air as the love interest who is intelligent and refined with a penchant for art and poetry. Her German roots give her a rather unplaceable accent and she’s equal parts beauty and charm. She’s a cut above Charlie but the very fact that he goes for her suggests something about his sensibilities. There’s also a highly sympathetic African American character for that day and age in Charlie’s fellow boxer Ben portrayed with extraordinary grace by Canada Lee.

And you only have to go down the line to notice many interesting performances. The opportunistic Alice (Hazel Brooks) is beguiling as a perfect counter to Peg. Her accomplice and equally sleazy partner Quinn (William Conrad) proves a meaty role for the actor who served as a delightful heavy in many films noir. His visage, build, and voice gives him a leg up on a great deal of the competition. Anne Revere plays the disapproving yet concerned mother with relative ease and Shorty (Joseph Pevney) is surprisingly adequate as Charlie’s best pal, a man who first sees only dollar bills flashed in front of him, yet still has enough gumption to know when to back out.

The Set-Up filmed a couple years later was a fine boxing film along similar lines. But with more to work with and a robust cast, Body and Soul is a fuller study not simply with gritty boxing scenes but also a gripping character analysis indicative of the human condition. It’s precisely the multifaceted drama that its title suggests. Cinematographer James Wong Howe’s sequences in the boxing ring are especially dynamic supposedly created by racing around the ring on roller skates. The film is also covered by the foreboding clouds of the blacklist that claimed the careers of many of those involved including John Garfield, Anne Revere, Canada Lee, Art Smith, and numerous others. But despite the unforgivable blot of the blacklist, Body and Soul still stands as a marvelous example of the potent capabilities of film noir. That remains untarnished.

4/5 Stars

On Dangerous Ground (1951)

Posted on August 26, 2017 by 4 Star Films

Father hear my prayer. Forgive him as you have forgiven all your children who have sinned. Don’t turn your face from him. Bring him, at last, to rest in your peace which he could never have found here. ~ Ida Lupino as Mary Malden

On Dangerous Ground is essentially a throwaway plot about nothing but Nicholas Ray turns it into to something — something about everything that is universal and even transcendent about film. Bernard Herrmann’s score draws the audience in with a killer hook as he did for many of Hitchcock’s most iconic films later in the decade.

There are cop killers on the loose and the force is on high alert. The particular cops that we have the benefit of following get the honor of scrounging around every dive bar and crummy joint in town where the scum of the earth dwell at all hours.

It’s in these opening vignettes that we are introduced to the seedy underbelly of the urban wasteland. It’s no good but there are innumerable interesting characters and they’re not all bad. There’s Doc at the drugstore ready to fix ailments while also being handy for a sundae. Streetcorner newsmen are ready with a tip in a pinch almost on cue.

Still, Jim Wilson (R0bert Ryan) is all out of sorts — restless and prone to aggressive outbreaks. He’s not sparing the rod when it comes to apprehending criminals and questioning riff raff. And the very fact that Robert Ryan almost always has a nondescript expression on his face make his more heated outbursts unnerving. It’s enough of an issue that the police chief (Ed Begley) has to get on him. His partners warn him too, namely, the veteran Pop who has his share of ailments while still finding some time to wax philosophical about life.

Soon, enough is enough and Wilson is transferred to a case out in the country tracking down the culprit in the murder of a young girl. And in these moments On Dangerous Ground becomes all too real. He’s actually on thin ice if you want to get really technical, in both the figurative and literal sense. The vengeful patriarch (Ward Bond) is out for blood, waving around his shotgun just waiting to fill someone full of lead. And as it happens, the story becomes a snowcapped manhunt out in the country with Nicholas Ray developing a second distinct world in stark juxtaposition with the first.

If you wait for Ida Lupino’s entrance you will not be disappointed because it is a fabulous one indeed. She and Robert Ryan do make a heady combination as the film devolves into an extraordinary sensitive picture. Ray’s use of closeups near the end is remarkable in creating an immense intimacy between his protagonists. It leads to the question, can a film about police brutality also be about a policeman’s loneliness? In this case, the answer is yes. Because it seems like a great deal of the people within this story are in a similar state. There are frightened youths as well as alienated and isolated individuals who do not know how exactly to deal with other humans. But thankfully we can all learn.

On Dangerous Ground isn’t so much a cynical film as it is melancholy and so, far from seeing its ending as a cop-out, it actually feels like an extension of what Ray was doing all along. It’s this passionate almost spiritual escape from the world at large as reflected in the setting and ultimate outcome. The cop starts to untangle the mess of his life and begins to settle on a firmer foundation. His story need not end in the bowels of darkness. A holiday in the country is still attainable for him.

4/5 Stars

Ride the Pink Horse (1947)

Posted on August 24, 2017 by 4 Star Films

ride-the-pink-horse-1 Films Noir often find their hooks in lurid titles but also in metaphor. Ride the Pink Horse fits into the latter category as pulled from the pages of Dorothy B Hughes and adapted by Ben Hecht & Charles Lederer. The horse can be taken in the literal sense as one of the wooden animals that go round and round on the local carousel but there’s some symbolism in this opulent creature. In some distant way, it’s the fantasy of a different life that every man seems to crave when he doesn’t have it. But still, he strives and grinds to get closer and closer to it. More often than not he does not succeed in finding so-called contentment.

Whether you get that sense from actually watching Ride the Pink Horse is up for debate, but it’s a film that deserves more limelight for its numerous assets. Robert Montgomery is not necessarily the most agreeable lead at first as Lucky Gagin, a war vet who travels to the New Mexico tourist trap of San Pablo to end some unfinished business for a friend.

But the camera gives the sense of constantly tailing Montgomery as he makes his way through the surprisingly atmospheric streets of New Mexico. The on-location shooting is a credit to the film, in particular, the work inside La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe that gives a certain Spanish sensibility to the film through its very architecture. It has the type of color that you expect to find in a place like Rick’s Cafe or The Mos Eisley Cantina.

ride-the-pink-horse-2 And it’s from these opening moments that we try to get a line on Gagin by watching his every move and word. He’s brusque and abrasive with almost crazed features — constantly suspicious, demanding, and sour. He had a little too much cyanide for breakfast (although he does like fruit cocktail). Just as we watch him with interest, his probing eyes case every joint and every person he comes in contact with. Because, if it’s not obvious already, he’s not come to San Pablo for R & R. He’s come to town to avenge his dead army buddy, who was double-crossed and put out of a commission by a very big man (Fred Clark).

Gagin’s looking to get Shorty’s due: $15,000. But he hasn’t thought it out a whole lot; he doesn’t quite understand what he’s up against as is often the case with rough and tumble noir heroes. It can be their undoing. Uncle Sam (Art Smith) is in one sense grandfatherly but there’s also a sly sparkle in his eyes that leads to some question to his motives. Does he really have Gagin’s well-being in mind or is there something sinister going on here? It’s too early to tell.

However, in a dive bar, Gagin meets the jovial local Pancho (Thomas Gomez in a particularly spirited performance) who quickly befriends the out of towner over drinks and simultaneously makes the audience like Gagin a little more by simple transference. We like Pancho right off and if Pancho likes this character then we might as well give him a chance. He makes him into an actual human being and that’s what he’s searching for too. Because, in truth, Gagin is wary of anyone and everyone. The people who are out to get him. The “dames” you touch only to get stung in return.

ride-the-pink-horse-3 Just as there is a cultured femme fatale (Andrea King), her counterpoint is the tentative Pila (played sympathetically but rather unfortunately by Wanda Hendrix), who floats in to watch over Gagin even when he doesn’t want her around. She stays anyways.

A merry go round was utilized by Hitchcock a few years later in Strangers on a Train but in a different way. He used the frenetic energy to his advantage. In Ride the Pink Horse it’s the blatant juxtaposition that is telling. Something so pleasant and joyous as a merry go around takes a whole new meaning in the presence of violence.

A grand fiesta makes its way through town that culminates in the traditional burning of the effigy of Sasobra, The God of Bad Luck. A dozen years later Sam Fuller would use a similarly lively cultural celebration as the climatic backdrop for The Crimson Kimono.

However, what stands out about Ride the Pink Horse is the idiosyncratic roads it traverses. It’s difficult to put a finger on it exactly, as it has glimpses of other films but there’s also nothing quite like it. The way the story progresses, what the characters find time to talk about, even the title, it’s all fascinating for its very uniqueness.

4/5 Stars

Creed (2015)

Posted on August 21, 2017 by 4 Star Films

creed_poster There’s a very special place in my heart for Rocky (1976) and I choose those words very carefully. The reason being, subsequent films lost the appeal of the original and I simultaneously lost interest in the franchise. Perhaps it’s because, after Sylvester Stallone’s breakthrough film, the series lost much of its unassuming charm. It was no longer an underdog story. It no longer felt as personal and intimate.

It’s true that I cannot pass any kind of judgment on Rocky II, III, IV, V, and Rocky Balboa. But it’s so easy to lose your guiding light, for a franchise to drift away from what made it good by simply relying on blockbuster status, star power, and a robust fanbase. These very things kept me away and yet Creed made me extremely happy that I came back into the fold.

This is by no means a rehash of the original Rocky, that beloved classic in the pantheon of sports movies, but it knows its lineage and maintains the same spirit of that narrative. But when you have such a strong sense of your roots, that makes it all the easier to head out into new terrain.

Creed is, of course, about Apollo Creed’s son. Because whether you know it or not (I didn’t) Apollo Creed has passed away. He was (SPOILER) killed by Ivan Drago. All he left behind was his wife, an illustrious boxing career, and crucial to this story, an illegitimate son who has grown up much of his life in juvie. But his widow tracks down the boy and looks to rehabilitate him, like a prodigal son gone astray.

Over time, Adonis “Donnie” Creed (Michael B. Johnson) grows in knowledge and stature, landing a job in a company where he is rising up the ranks, but he’s discontent. He does some boxing on the side behind closed doors, in places that no one of any repute has heard of but he strives to be like his deceased father. He wants to be a boxer, ditching his job, leaving his step-mother’s lavish home behind to start on his own hero’s journey.

And unsurprisingly his dreams take him to that gem of a city — the City of Brotherly Love — Philadelphia, to seek out a man who now runs a humble Italian restaurant christened “Adrian’s.” Donnie walks into this establishment with a mission, to get to know the former rival of his father, to get this aging man to train him in his own boxing career.

Rocky Balboa (Stallone reprising his role) is not about that life anymore. Content with simplicity and the memories that are left from his many years in the ring. If his restaurant is any indication, it stands as a testament of the love he still holds for his wife, who passed away. He visits her every week at the local cemetery still sharing his life with her like his closest confidante.

It’s moments like these that suggest that director Ryan Coogler’s film is a cut above some of the previous offerings. It’s this fascinating idea of a transgenerational film — it’s Rocky for the millennial generation but it shows a certain deference and even wistful reverence for its past — even the music constantly hinting at Bill Conti’s iconic score. But that should not be mistaken for being stuck in the past because with Michael B. Jordan in the lead, he motors the story forward with his own Rocky-like resolve.

Yes, his daddy is Apollo Creed, but he’s looking to make a name for himself apart from that. He starts calling on the girl downstairs — the local singer-songwriter Bianca and his relationship with “Uncle” Rocky quickly grows. They’re family now. And for boxing fans, Creed has its fair share of training sequences, buildup, and such, as Creed himself becomes an underdog facing off against world champion Jack Conlon. But if that’s all that Creed was, I would have been content going back to the original Rocky.

However, Creed suggests something very powerful as noted by Rocky early on. Time takes everyone out, time’s undefeated. There are affectionate callbacks to Adrian (the restaurant) and Paulie (Adonis stays in his old bedroom), even Apollo. But all of them are gone now. All of them lost against time. And Rocky nearly does as well. It’s inevitable. However, with the story of young Adonis we are reminded that there’s still room for hope and dreams and love and caring about other people. Those are things to be treasured.

Here Ryan Coogler has proven once more that he is a rising director crafting compelling films. Teaming up again with Michael B. Jordan after the searing Fruitvale Station, he fills the blockbuster with the same ambiance of an independent film with hot dog vendors and little bits of everyday authenticity. There’s a certain amount of documentary realism that still manages to be cinematic and at the same time surprisingly personal. So if you love Rocky go see Creed. If you love boxing go see Creed. But beyond that, it’s a film with a great deal to offer and I was heartily impressed in how it balances the past and the present with so much poise.

4/5 Stars