Movie review - "The Harder They Fall" (1956) ****

 Bogart's last movie was as good as any to go out on - a tough, cynical look at the fight game with bogie as a promoter who works for crooked Rod Steiger in pushing dodgy fighters.

Phil Yordan wrote a tough, fast script full of cynicism and bite, from Budd Schulberg's novel. Mark Robson's direction is full og energy - the fight scenes, locked rooms, behind the scenes machinations.  Steiger is excellent as is Bogart. I wish a better actor had played the dodgy fighter - Yordan wanted Victor Mature.

Jan Sterling is a good actress, she plays Bogart's wife. Doesn't have that much to do but she's effecitve. I love the punch drunk fighter. 

 I liked this movie, It stayed with me.  

Movie review - "Casablanca" (1943) ***** (rewatching)

 Not much new to say. Bogart's little smiles at the end to Rains. Bogart over acts in places as do others. Perhaps the best second act in movie history with all these sequences? Endless fun to watch with the characters and the lines.

You know how they could've done a sequel? The tale of Rics run by Sydney Greenstreet. Have a new dodgy French policeman and an American arrives to cause trouble.

Movie review - "The Family Secret" (1951) **

 Made by Santana Productions, the company of Humphrey Bogart, although Bogart isn't in this one there's clearly a role for him - the lawyer played by J Lee Cobb whose son John Derek commits a murder. Derek leapt to fame in a Sanata film with Bogart, Knock on Any Door. Cobb had made Sirocco fot Santana.

The set up is interesting. Derek has accidentally killed a friend and confesses to Cobb. Dad reckons he should come clean, mum reckons he should be quiet especially after an innocent man is arrested for the crime.

The thing with this sort of material is it has a strong dramatic situation - family love, murder - but it needs to go dark. Cobb is so strong and self righteous there's no drama there. He just sort of hangs around and waits for Derek to confess. The mother is very "don't confess" then her role sort of vanishes.

Instead we get Derek feeling bad. There's some scenes that feel real like him drinking and hitting on the secretary who likes him (Jody Lawrance, good value again) - she likes him but knows he's drunk and pushes him away.

I went with his for a bit but when Cobb actually defends an innocent man I started to hate the characters. Cobb isn't even that much of a defence lawyer.

So many scenes happen off camera - the opening killing (Derek could have killed him in cold blood, incidentally, we only have his word for it that he didn't), the heart attack death of the innocently accused.

Derek does better than can be expected, as the Variety review said.  His weakness works here as does his looks. You beleive him as a spoilt rich kid even though this is more evident in dialogue than seen on screen. The film does have a through line... it's about Derek being a spoilt brat who is forced to stand on his own feet. It's thrown by Cobb who is the dad and is clearly so decent and principled. Really the film should be Derek redeemed by the love of Lawrence with Cobb/mother going "cover it up cover it up".

Henry Levin directs sluggishly.

You know something? This would've been better as a western. Outlaw justice - Cobb could've been tougher. Shoot outs. All that stuff.

Movie review - "Knock on Any Door" (1949) *** (warning: spoilers)

 The fame of this lingers a little. First film from Bogart's company, Santana. Star debut of John Derek. Introduced the line "live fast die young and leave  a good looking corpse".

Good on Bogart for trying to expand his range. He plays a lawyer, from the slums, defending Derek, a kid from the slums. We flash back to various events. See the circumstances that led to the "creation" of this kid.

It was filmed at Columbia (who did a deal with Santana). Columbia reliable George Macready is the prosecutor.

Derek is very very pretty. Not much of an actor. The concept of the film is a spunky Dead End Kid. The novel twist is the kid did it... and winds up in the electric chair. That's full on. But we lose sympathy. 

Who else could've played this? James Dean then too young. Farley Granger? Robert Wagner? Tony Curtis? Actually you know Tony Curtis would've been amazing.

You can feel the censors working on this. Still, well directed by Nicholas Ray - handling of the minor roles is strong, visuals are good, and Bogart is reliable. His character isn't that important - maybe if his daughter had fallen for Derek and been the girl who kills herself. Give Bogart some stakes there.

Interesting. With a knock out young star this would be a lot more famous.

Movie review - "Sabrina" (1954) ***1/2

 As in Love in the Afternoon Audrey Hepburn romances an older man in a Billy Wilder film who looks like he's dying of cancer, which in fact he was. Here he's Humphrey Bogart - who's actually quite good, Bogart can play these roles, but years of drinking and smoking have told on his face and he's got one foot in the grave - where he'd place it in early 1957.

Hepburn is far more alive in her scenes with Bill Holden, who she had an affair with in real life, but her transfer of affection on screen to Bogart is well done. The film takes its time but I think it needed to to sell it.

I wish Cary Grant had played Bogart's role instead of Bogart, or just an older star who was less, well, dying - but the thing is they were all dying: Errol Flynn, Clarke Gable, Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper. Maybe Greg Peck again?

Side note: this has a gag where Hepburn's chauffeur dad John Williams insists on a class divide and Bogart calls him a snob and Williams says yes and they all laugh... I encounter that joke a bit (George MacDonald Fraser used it in Mr American and it's in The Admirable Crichton) - I think conservative writers enjoyed it because it reinforces the class structure showing how cool the lower orders are with it.

Still, a charming Cinderella story with three very big stars, nice music and some funny lines.

Movie review - "The Cheap Detective" (1978) **

 I really like Neil Simon, like the actors here, but disliked this movie. It plays like an extended sketch and a not particularly funny one. Also the styles don't mesh. Bogart in The Maltese Falcon is different from Bogart in Casablanca - war is different from the big city, it doesn't work. I didn't care. It was smart arsey and annoying.

I did like it that elder actresses got the chance to shine. Louise Fletcher channelling Ingrid Bergman, Fernando Lamas channelling Paul Henreid, Ann Margret channelling Lauren Barcall, Marsha Mason channelling Gladys George, Madeleine Khan (best of all) channelling Mary Astor. Eileen Brennan is in there too. So is John Houseman, Dom de Luise, Sid Caesar, James Coco.

Mel Brooks did this better.

There was a lot of Bogart spoofing in the 70s - this, Murder by Death, The Black Bird, The Man with Bogart's Face etc.

Book review - "Raoul Walsh" by Marilyn Ann Moss (2011)

 Surprising in a way it took so long for someone to do a decent bio on Walsh, but then he's been overshadowed by figures such as Ford and Hawks. This is a good book - it's hefty but then Walsh had a hefty career (I mean, he learned from DW Griffith and was in Birth of a Nation).

On a personal level he wasn't that fascinating - lost the eye, an actor, a tall tale teller, some dud marriages, a tendency to sue for the love of causing mischief, was into horses, politically conservative, earned a lot of money but never seemed to have enough.

His great period was at Warner Bros of course - all those great movies with Errol Flynn and Bogart. A shame he never worked with Flynn again after Silver City. Last movie was with Troy Donahue - actually Walsh worked a lot with teen idols.

Entertaining read.

 

Movie review - "The Barefoot Contessa" (1954) ***

 Fascinating, flawed piece. Mankiewicz's attempt to do a cinematic All About Eve or his own version of The Bad and the Beautiful - it actually feels most like the latter, which was a version of Citizen Kane. This starts at a funeral of a movie star (Ava Gardner) and tells the story of her life, ish.

There's some memorable dialogue and acting and it was enjoyable, despite Mankiewicz's dodgy sexual politics - I know he used to root actresses with mental health issues eg Judy Garland.

It feels as though it needed an edit - the part played by Humphrey Bogart (who looks like he's dying) surely should have been combined with Edmund O'Brien and that character should surely be in love with Gardner and impregnate her.

There's not a lot of depth to Gardner's character, is there? She wants to fall in love before having sex. Marries an impotent man. Is there anything more?

Her character doesn't deserve to die. She is lonely. And gets shot because she has an affair. That feels so unfair. All the men live.

Key support roles feel undercast - Warren Stevens as Howard Hughes type, Marius Gordin as a Aly Khan type. (These roles feel as though they should be merged too). It takes some fun swipes at admittedly easy targets - film people, the idle rich, aristocrats.

Book revview - "Michael Curtiz" by Alan Rode

I just finished reading a biography of the director Michael Curtiz by Alan Rode and it struck me again how weird it was that someone who made one of the greatest gangster films of all time (Angels with Dirty Faces), one of the greatest melodramas of all time (Mildred Pierce), one of the greatest musicals of all time (Yankee Doodle Dandy), three of the greatest swashbucklers of all time (Captain Blood, Sea Hawk, Robin Hood), one of the greatest Elvis Presley films of all time (King Creole) and one of the greatest films of all time (Casablanca) never got the auterist love of Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Wilder, Losey, Corman or even Frank Tashlin... despite even having an identifiable visual style... Was he too much a company man? Too mainstream? Too rarely a writer? Didn't deal enough with "common themes" so auteurists could group his movies together? Went off the boil too much when baby boomer critics started to get into film? 

Maybe it's simply he died too soon - in the early 60s so wasn't around to give lots of interviews to adoring cineastes, like Ford and Hawks could.

Some random things I learned from the book:

* He was married to top screenwriter Bess Meredyth (who worked in Australia in 1919-20 writing films for Snowy Baker) who was responsible for the fact many of Curtiz's script notes were excellent - she supplanted his career to his, which was unfortunately typical of the time, but as she spent 20 odd years sitting in bed eating cream cakes all day in a house with heaps of servants giving the occasional script note I didn't feel too badly for her (I can think of at least a dozen writers off the top of my head who would leap at a job like this)
 
* He may have gone senile towards the end of his life... making St Francis of Assisi in 1960 he grew so frustrated with the progress of filming he pulled down his pants and did a shit during filming (I wondered what director might be driven to do something like that today and too my surprise I could think of about five... filmmaking can drive people mad)
 
* He got busted by Confidential magazine in a hotel room paying for two African Americans to have sex while he watched... I started wondering what other directors would have done that and actually came up with a fair few names rather quickly...


* He didn't realise how ill he was but his family did and elected not to tell him.
 
This is an excellent book - exhaustive but then there was lots to cover. I was familiar with the Errol Flynn stuff and the great Warners classics but not his early life in Hungary (he was friends with Korda, and was successful as a director almost immediately), or his early silent Hollywood films, or even the early 30s stuff. His star rose with Flynn. 

I also wasn't that familiar with his adventures in post war Warner Bros, when the studio declined after Hal Wallis left but Jack Warners' cost cutting kept it competitive. Curtiz made far less classics after the war but still did things like discover Doris Day, and turn out huge hits like White Christmas. It's a shame he never reunited with Flynn they could have used each other in the late 40s/50s.

A top ten is v easy to compile
1) Casablanca (1943)
2) Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
3) The Sea Hawk (1940)
4) Captain Blood (1935)
5) Mildred Pierce (1945)
6) Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
7) King Creole (1958)
8) Yankee Doodle Dandy (1943)
9) Dodge City (1939)
10) The Breaking Point (1950)

Book review - "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett

This will sound dim but I was struck how faithful the 1940 film adaptation was to this - the structure, dialogue, characters. It really got it - sometimes cut and pasted. And why not? The original book is good - it was silly they changed it.

This has aged well in part because Sam Spade is such a prick - no Philip Marlowe like honor for him, he mostly tracks down the killer of his partner because it's bad for business. He's cynical and full of great lines.

I do get confused by the plot of this, always have - there's lots of talk about the action of people we don't see like Flloyd Thursby and the sea captain.

But the characters we do meet are fantastic - Spade of course but also the partner's cheating wife, Gutman, Joel Cairo, Wilfred, Bridget O'Shaugnessy (who Spade makes take her clothes off for a search).

Book review - Marlowe #1 - "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler (1939) (re-reading)

Full of so much divine writing - the dialogue and the descriptions, not to mention vivid characters:Marlowe of course, the PI almost masochistic in his determination to do the right thing; Vivian, sexy, smart and harsh; Carmen, psychotic and constantly nude; General Sternwood, dying in his chair with that great intro scene (we want to see him again but when you see him again it's not worth it and you go 'there was no point to that we may as well have just had him in one scene'); the principled-or-is-he gangster Eddie Mars; the not-very-smart blackmailer Joe Brody; Geiger, the bisexual blackmailer; Carol, his violent, swear-happy lover (who doesn't appear in many adaptations); Agnes, the luckless woman; Mrs Eddie Mars, the lover of Reagan, caught up in a vicious crew; Regan, the soldier of fortune described but never met; Owen Taylor, the chauffeur whose murdered famously Chandler didn't know; the super killer Canino (a worthy threat)/

Some of the plotting is bodgy - Chandler really should have made it clear who killed Owen, and also the character of Harold Young, Agnes' feller, felt added on. And there was no resolution with the Eddie Mars character.

There's an unpleasant strand of homophobia, which one guesses was typical of the period. But great atmosphere and characterisation, even if you do get the feel Chandler is making it up as he goes along.

Top Ten - My fave bit parts/dailies in film

1) Adelina Poerio in "Don't Look Now" (1973) - if you've seen the film you'll probably guess who it is (nothing to do with the sex scene unless there's a longer cut version I'm unaware of!)... if you havent seen the film I won't spoil it for you... and it's a film worth seeing (maybe not right before a trip to Venice though...)

2) Mickey Rourke in "Body Heat" (1981) as Teddy the arsonist... this is kind of cheating since Rourke went on to become famous, but its a great debut... its a brilliantly written part, as a smart con with a code of honour (Lawrence Kasdan's script is incredible) and Rourke's casting makes it sing... you can see why everyone thought he was going to be a star...

3) Frederick Piper as the milkman in Hitchcock's version of "The 39 Steps" (1935)... very clever writing... a model who to do the comic thriller, perhaps the hardest genre of all to do well... Charles Bennett did the bulk of the script (he's shamefully not credited in the play adaptation of the film), though I'm not sure if he was responsible for that particular scene... there is a scene like it in the original novel though not treated comically).

4) Xander Berkley as Dr Lamar in "Gattaca" (1998)... to go into too much detail would give away spoilers, so I'll just say he has one of the most affecting lines (to me anyway) ever, "my son's not all that they promised. But then, who know what he could do." (to get the full impact you really have to see the whole film, which is worth it)

5) Estelle Reiner in "When Harry Met Sally" (1989). You know the scene. You know the line. Magic. (An aside... it's a shame Estelle Reiner never teamed up with Martin Scorsese's mother in a film-director's-mothers-who-steal-scenes-in-their-son's-movies mega match.)

6) John McGiver as the clerk in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961) - Mickey Rooney’s yellowface has tended to overshadow the excellence of the support cast - Buddy Ebsen, Patricia Neal and McGiver ... who does wonders in his one scene. An aside - is this the first Hollywood movie where two prostitutes go off into the sunset together ?

7) Linda Rae Jurgens who plays Mrs Metcalf in “Top Gun” (1986) - Tom Skeritt’s wife - she’s in the scene where Maverick, having his end of act 2 crisis of confidence, comes to see Viper for a pep talk after Goose has (spoilers but seriously?) died - he knocks on the door and Mrs Metcalf answers it and he asks to see her husband and she says he’s out back and then she lingers and asks how Maverick is and what he’s been up to and tells him to come over for dinner sometime and Cruiser looks sort of awkward waiting for the scene to end - and it’s so random - and I love i because it feels so obviously like a bit part actor trying to drag out their bit with some impro(she clearly doesn’t want to move out of shot ) but you can also see why they kept it in because it does expand the world of the film eg life at Top Gun isn’t just about flying comps and homoerotic volleyball games and singalongs it’s also about families and going to have dinner at the homes of senior officers - and her role raises all sorts of interesting questions (is this the life awaiting Kelly McGills?, does she have a crush on Maverick ? Is it lonely for the women of Top Gun with all the men playing endless games of volleyball and standing around in locker rooms?). I wish I could find the clip - the actress is lobbying on twitter for a role in the sequel and I say why not?

8) Joy Page in "Casablanca" (1942). You probably don't remember the name - I had to google it - but if you've seen the film you'll remember the scene. She's the Bulgarian refugee who asks Rick if she should sleep with Major Strasser to get a visa. The scene is a marvel of screenwriting to get around the censor. Maybe she's not the world's best actor but she was effective. She got the gig because she was Jack Warner's step daughter and didn't do much acting after that.

9)  Michelle Joyner in Cliffhanger (1993) - superb sequence and she’s amazing ... (I actually can’t remember anything else in the film) ... and I can’t recall her in any other movie ... but what a moment ...

10) Danielle Duclois who plays Denise, the daughter of Robert de Niro in Midnight Run... possibly my favourite sequence/scene in a great film. Wendy Phillips is outstanding as the wife too. Some of the reasons why people love this film and moment - I love how director Martin Brest gives the end of the scene to Duclois, and the storyline with Jack and his family isn't resolve, and it does push the story forward.

Dorothy Malone RIP - And a Top Ten

1) The Big Sleep (1946) - Malone is only in this for two scenes but does them with Humphrey Bogart and is sensational (aspiring actresses could do worse than to study these scenes of how to make a big impact in a short space of time).

2)The Fast and the Furious (1955) - not the Vin Diesel classic but a 1955 car chase flick which was the first feature Roger Corman ever produced - Malone is v likekable (Malone also appeared in Corman's directorial debut, Five Guns West).

3) Battle Cry (1955) - a melodrama about WW2 based on a best seller which New Zealand audiences will especially find interesting (part of the film is set there) - Malone has a surprisingly sexually frank fling with a young soldier played by Tab Hunter.

4) Sincerely Yours (1955) - Liberace's attempt at big screen stardom with Malone as his love interest (in the space of three years Malone steamed up the screen opposite Liberace, Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson...) - a fairly terrible movie but fascinating to see Liberace act in a melodrama (he took the blame for this film's failure but the script was as much at fault).

5) Artists and Models (1955) - for me the best Martin and Lewis film a really terrific fun comedy with Malone well matched with Martin and Shirley MacLaine perfect for Lewis.

6) Written on the Wind (1956) - Malone won the Oscar for this but I rewatched it recently and felt her performance did not hold up that well - check out her stroking the oil rig at the end (the same team then made The Tarnished Angels)

7) Too Much Too Soon (1958) - Malone mostly played "the girl" in films but her Oscar saw her get a real chance here, as Diana Barrymore, in what I feel is a pretty decent film - stolen by Errol Flynn as John Barrymore.

8) The Last Voyage (1960) - Malone's role isn't much (something you could say about a lot of her career) but they actually sunk a real ship for this film which is cool.

9) Fate is the Hunter (1964) - a Rod Taylor film where Malone has a one scene unbilled cameo - for years I thought it was a mirage but then later on confirmed it that yes it was her - this is a pretty good movie.

10) Beach Party (1963) - most film fans remember Frankie and Annette and forget or don't realise Robert Cummings and Dorothy Malone had quite big parts in this film, the first in the series.
Oh and she's in Basic Instinct (1992) too

Script review - "Sabrina Fair" by Billy Wilder, Ernest Lehmann and Samuel Taylor

Not considered one of the classic Billy Wilders but a very well done romantic comedy with three excellent star roles. It reads very much as if it were written for Audrey Hepburn - there's references to Sabrina's slenderness, and pixie good looks. Through a modern view point it's a little dodgy I guess Linus pursuing Sabrina for money and her falling for it, and Linus paying off these women in David's life (did he rape them? assault them?).

But it maintains its freshness through that Wilder jaundiced look at the world - the importance of money and position and cynicism mixed with romanticism. It's also very well structured into sequences:
A - Sabrina is in love with David, tries to kill herself when he goes off with someone else, is rescued by Linus and heads for Paris.
B - Sabrina gets glam in Paris, Linus arranges David's marriage and Sabrina comes back and David loves her.
C - Linus decides to cock block David by going after Sabrina himself.
D - Linus pursues Sabrina and she finds herself liking him
E - Sabrina likes Linus and is trying to convince herself she wants David.
F - They fall in love and Sabrina is keen but Linus rejects her.
G - David realises Sabrina doesn't really like him and agrees to marry the girl and sends Linus after Sabrina.

I know this was a tough film to make but the script reads smoothly and logically. I guess Linus and Sabrina is a bit creepy if you think about it too hard.

Script review - "Key Largo" by John Huston and Richard Brooks (warning: spoilers)

The Petrified Forest done after the war with a heavy dose of UN smarmy-ness. McLeod is a drifter who turns up at a hotel at Key Largo during the off season - he wants to meet the father and widow of his dead war friend.

The father Temple is an old bore, crapping on about his dead son, being this "wonderful" paterfamilias to the simpleton Indians (there was a lot of casual racism in Huston films), and abusing the gangsters when they point guns at him, telling Rocco he's a vermit who should be killed (as if).

The widow Norah slaps the gangster and makes eyes at McLeod pretty quickly. McLeod (in the script the spelling is "M'Leod") has some awful speeches where he quotes someone on the war, and whines about how things were hard when it got back. You could seriously cut Norah out of the film - her main thing is to help McLeod be honourable, but Temple could do that, whiny old fart that he is. I suppose you could have kept Norah and lost Temple. You wouldn't have had Temple being wise about the Indians but who cares.

The script is better on its villains - Rocco, the once great gangster on hard times, his trio of gunmen (Toots, who just wants to tell jokes; Curly who wants people to join him for a drink), and most of all Gayle, his alcoholic moll who Rocco forces to sing. The last act, where McLeod overcomes the baddies on the boat is quite exciting. The subplot where two Indians are on the lam and are shot by local cop Ben is depressing - I kept expecting the baddies to do it, and sure they help give Ben the wrong impression, but it's still Ben.

Script review - "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" by Robert Rossen

I had no idea Rossen worked on this movie- but he's the only writer credited. And from reading it, this felt similar to the movie - although it's been a while since I saw it. There was a bit where Curtin (the Tim Holt character) does a big speech about Mexicans after someone refers to them as bloodthirsty and Curtin points out that you'd be bloodthirsty too if you'd had to suffer from years of abuse etc etc - the sort of good old progressive attitudes that commies would put in scripts (not a criticism!)

Maybe it's simply a very faithful version of a very filmable novel - I'll leave it to an academic to do a proper comparative analysis.

I was a tad underwhelmed by this film when I first saw it - I seem to say that a lot about John Huston movies - but enjoyed reading the script. The theme is very universal - down and outers going prospecting for gold, finding it... then realising once they do their problems have only just begun. How do they divide it up between them? What to do when another American, Cody, stumbles upon their campsite and figures it out - kill him or make him part of the partnership? What to do when some bandits come along - bluff or fight? At what point do they leave? What to do when some Indians demand their main prospector go with them?

For a film famous as a work on paranoia, the characters act rationally most of the time - Curtin, the everyman, is pretty much consistently normal and rational - he saves Dobbs' life, always tries to do the right thing, and at the end goes off to find Cody's widow. Howard,the grizzled prospector, is so wise and smart, not just about gold mining but human nature, that you wonder how he wound up in a flop house at the beginning - he spots the gold site, helps dig it, is brave and smart, predicts how people are going to act... Even Dobbs is normal most of the time - he's a bit tetchy but it's only at the end he goes ga-ga.

The film is a bit racist towards Mexicans - the bulk of them are corrupt and ruthless. The Indians are naive. The bandits are genuinely scary (and they should be, lopping off Dobbs' head) - though it should be said the police are quite efficient (though ruthless too).

A very satisfying look at greed with some suspenseful scenes and one very juicy role (Dobbs).

Script review - "The Maltese Falcon" by John Huston (1941)

It's a wordy film - the script is even more so, with heaps of big print and very specific descriptions. Huston once said he just filmed the book and you'd believe it from this.

A lot of characters talking about things, and events taking place off screen. Even major things like Gutman dying.

The characters are vivid - pathological liar Brigid, Sam Spade the arsehole, effeminate Cairo, joyous Gutman, poor Effie, luckless Wilbur.

It's good - but I've always had problems with this film and they are there in the script. Too hard to follow. I feel it's overrated. Some great stuff though.

Script review - "Casablanca" by the Epsteins and Howard Koch

Such a brilliant screenplay. I'll leave it to the serious historians as to who contributed what, except to say I feel the original play provided more than has been acknowledged many times, and it all comes together brilliantly.

The dialogue jumps off the page, the characters are so beautifully sketched: not just nihilistic Rick and joyfully corrupt Renault, and brave (yet silly) Laszlo and wet Ilsa (let's be honest, she can't even think for herself)... but the smaller ones, like drunk and trashy Yvonne, poor Annina, joyous Sascha, the pickpocket. Buffs never give that much love to Carl, Sascha and Sam but they provide a lot of warmth to the movie - their concern for each other and Rick, etc enables Rick to be hard boiled and tough but still likeable because he looks out for them.

The letters of transit is a brilliant Macguffin (in the draft I read signed by Weygand, not de Gaulle... Weygand makes more sense), the action is logically followed through: death of the couriers, Strasser arriving, Ugarte, Rick having the letters, Laszlo arriving with Ilsa, setting up Laszlo wanting the letters and getting involved in local politics, the clash between Renault and Strasser.

I love it how clever Renault is - taking bribes, enjoying hanging out with Rick, knowing Rick's got the letters, knowing it was Ugarte responsible... even at the end Renault almost outsmarts Rick by calling Major Strasser, then at the end doing the final wonderful double cross of the Axis. His love story with Rick is a lot more effective than the one with Rick and Ilsa because Ilsa really is a bit of a ninny, just going with the flow. She can't even shoot Rick.

It's very adult but the writers get around the censorship superbly. Look at the scene where Annina checks with Rick whether Renault will keep his word about getting a visa - it's all implied (she'll have to sleep with him to get it, she doesn't want to tell her husband), and so beautifully done. There's also the "Le Marseilles" scene - which actually doesn't read that well but of course played superbly.

It's just so, so good.

Script review - "The African Queen" by John Huston, James Agee and John Collier (1951)

The movie is beloved because of it's stars but the basic story is so strong I get the feeling it would have worked with a bunch of other people in the role - Greer Garson, say, or Errol Flynn.

It's a very good script. The concept is so simple and strong its surprising it took so long for this to get made... a mismatched couple travel downstream together in a boat to blow up a German cruiser. The structure is highly effective: introduce Rose, introduce Charlie, awkward dinner and news of war, the Germans attack, Charlie returns and takes Rose, she gets the idea of what to do, he goes along with it but then gets drunk (paying off the essential conflict between the two characters sooner rather than later), she pours out his gin and gives him the silent treatment until he relents, they go down rapids and pass by a German fort, have sex, get stuck in the mud.

It's all logical and well thought out. There are two deux ex machinas towards the end - they get out of mud by a convenient rain (after Rose prays) and the boat at the end being sunk by the wreck of the Queen. But it's a marvellous ending with the two of them getting married. Great fun and one of the best star vehicles of all time.

(I should add though the film features a lot of non-very-casual racism of the period. The non white African inhabitants are completely depersonalised, referred to as "blacks", "natives" and that's about it.)

Book review - "Casablanca: Inside the Script" (2012)

I don't know if I have a favourite film but Casablanca would be up there - it's crisp direction, editing, black and white photography, studio backlot, peerless cast, gripping story with themes of sacrifice and redemption and downright cleverness.

This is a worthy tribute taking the reader through the initial play, Everyone Comes to Ricks - which had a lot more influence on the final product than is normally acknowledged. The meat of the drama is all in that original script. Mind you clearly outstanding work was done by the Epsteins, Howard Koch, Hal Wallis etc... the book still doesn't entirely clear up who contributed what (probably impossible). Interesting memos and so on.