One of the best movies made at RKO during the 1950s - no great acclaim admittedly - and one of the final American works from Fritz Lang. It's pulpy noir time as several reporters compete with each other over finding a serial killer.
Lang's direction still had energy and he benefits from a terrific cast, most of whom do their acting with a cigarette and/or drink: Dana Andrews (playing an alcoholic - ironic since in real life Dana was a famous boozer), Ida Lupino, Vincent Price, Thomas Mitchell, Rhonda Fleming, James Craig, George Sanders. Everyone is in good form and mean the office politics side of this is genuinely interesting, with all the back-biting and manipulation and lack of ethics.
Less interesting is the serial killer stuff - John Drew Barrymore is really bad as the leather jacket wearing "momma's boy" who blames it all on momma. There's some awful scenes like where Dana Andrews taunts the killer and uses his bland virginal girlfriend (Sally Forrest) as bait. The romance between Andrews and Forrest is poor - you wish he'd go off with Lupino again. And what's with that ending where Forrest just recites the fate of all the characters?
It's silly but there is a great cast and sense of doom. I enjoyed it.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Script review - "Dad Rudd MP" by William Freshman and Frank Harvey (1940)
The wonders of the on-line age - so much material that you used to have to spend weeks trawling through at various libraries is now available at the click of a switch. Such is the case with the National Archives of Australia, whose contents is being made increasingly available on line. It includes several screenplays which were registered for copyright - something not automatically given back in the day, which is a bonanza for researchers.
This was the fourth and last in Cinesound's Dad Rudd series - a follow up to Dad and Dave Come to Town. It's credited to Frank Harvey, Cinesound's regular writer, and William Freshman, an Aussie who had earned a reputation in the UK - although from memory Freshman isn't credited on the final film, Bert Bailey is. That could have been a contractual requirement.
The script isn't as good as Come to Town, although its still better than Grandad Rudd. Part of the problem is the central concept - Dad running for MP isn't that inherently funny, unlike him inheriting a fashion story. It had already been done as the third act for On Our Selection and Freshman and Harvey (as well as Ken G. Hall's uncredited comedy team who presumably worked on this) didn't come up with anything that fresh.
It is however solid "battler" drama - Dad Rudd is more prosperous now, but not as wealthy as his oily neighbour Webster, who wants to stint on a local dam and runs against Dad, controlling the media so he can't get his message out there (this is all too believable and unfortunately still resonant today). The climax involves a dam about to flood and the brave engineer - Jim Webster (played by Grant Taylor in the film), Webster's son, who is in love with Dad's daughter Anne - saving the day, and then getting the dam workers, who want to vote for Dad, across the water via flying fox to vote... which was a cute idea.
There are some decent comic set pieces - Dad buys a car but actually it's a fire truck, some keystone cops in the form of the local fire department, Entwistle (returning from Come to Town) helps Dad attract people to the meeting via using fashion models and tries to milk a cow, laughing gas substituted for other with comic results.
The romance between Jim and Anne is solid but lacks the vim and spark of that between Jill Rudd and her beau in Come to Town (it doesn't help that unlike Jill, Anne isn't really integral to the action i.e. she doesn't really have anything to do with the dam or the campaign). Mum gives another speech, Dave is a lech. There is a vamp character, Sylvia, from America, who I kept expecting to do something more; the baddie wasn't that bad. It's all solid, and the politics are moving, but it lacks X factor, for lack of a better word.
This was the fourth and last in Cinesound's Dad Rudd series - a follow up to Dad and Dave Come to Town. It's credited to Frank Harvey, Cinesound's regular writer, and William Freshman, an Aussie who had earned a reputation in the UK - although from memory Freshman isn't credited on the final film, Bert Bailey is. That could have been a contractual requirement.
The script isn't as good as Come to Town, although its still better than Grandad Rudd. Part of the problem is the central concept - Dad running for MP isn't that inherently funny, unlike him inheriting a fashion story. It had already been done as the third act for On Our Selection and Freshman and Harvey (as well as Ken G. Hall's uncredited comedy team who presumably worked on this) didn't come up with anything that fresh.
It is however solid "battler" drama - Dad Rudd is more prosperous now, but not as wealthy as his oily neighbour Webster, who wants to stint on a local dam and runs against Dad, controlling the media so he can't get his message out there (this is all too believable and unfortunately still resonant today). The climax involves a dam about to flood and the brave engineer - Jim Webster (played by Grant Taylor in the film), Webster's son, who is in love with Dad's daughter Anne - saving the day, and then getting the dam workers, who want to vote for Dad, across the water via flying fox to vote... which was a cute idea.
There are some decent comic set pieces - Dad buys a car but actually it's a fire truck, some keystone cops in the form of the local fire department, Entwistle (returning from Come to Town) helps Dad attract people to the meeting via using fashion models and tries to milk a cow, laughing gas substituted for other with comic results.
The romance between Jim and Anne is solid but lacks the vim and spark of that between Jill Rudd and her beau in Come to Town (it doesn't help that unlike Jill, Anne isn't really integral to the action i.e. she doesn't really have anything to do with the dam or the campaign). Mum gives another speech, Dave is a lech. There is a vamp character, Sylvia, from America, who I kept expecting to do something more; the baddie wasn't that bad. It's all solid, and the politics are moving, but it lacks X factor, for lack of a better word.
Movie review - "Game Changer" (2012) ****
Excellent account of the 2008 election, focusing on the Republican campaign, in particular the rise and fall and rise-ish of Sarah Palin. Julieanne Moore is very good in what is a great role; Ed Harris is also fine - actually everyone is good, including Woody Harrelson, Ron Livingston and Sarah Paulson as Republican backroomers. The piece has great dramatic structure - the Republicans forced to take a punt, making one... and almost getting away with it. It makes you wish they'd do more films like that in Australia.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Movie review - "We're the Millers" (2014) ***1/2
A surprise - I didn't know what to expect from this bawdy comedy; it had been a success at the box office but that doesn't mean it was any good. However the result is a genuinely entertaining film. There is a solid central idea (pot dealer persuades misfits to masquerade as his family to enable him to smuggle drugs), a well constructed screenplay with good reversals (they take the wrong van, they're being set up, the dags they meet on the road are drug officers), well-etched characters (pot seller, stripper, street kid, geek) and many laughs (especially the "family making out' scene).
Jason Sudekis is always likeable, as is Jennifer Aniston; Emma Roberts is a bit pretty-and-bland, as always, but Will Poulter is the ace in the hole - instead of casting some bland pretty boy they went with someone really talented and odd looking. Kathryn Hahn and Nick Offerman offer strong support. Oh and it's got a heart too - I liked it a lot.
Jason Sudekis is always likeable, as is Jennifer Aniston; Emma Roberts is a bit pretty-and-bland, as always, but Will Poulter is the ace in the hole - instead of casting some bland pretty boy they went with someone really talented and odd looking. Kathryn Hahn and Nick Offerman offer strong support. Oh and it's got a heart too - I liked it a lot.
Movie review - "Body Heat" (1981) ****
Few screenwriters were on a hot streak like Larry Kasdan in the late 70s and early 80s: Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, this, The Big Chill, Silverado... I like to re read the screenplay for this movie every couple of years, it's so good. Yes of course it's not the most original story in the world - couple get together, decide to kill woman's husband, things go horribly wrong - but it was marvellously updated to allow for explicit sex, bawdy humour and an ending where the baddy gets away with it. Also it has some fresh ideas - notably the fact the plot revolves around the incompetence of the lawyer, enabling a will to be struck out.
The casting is brilliant - William Hurt is perfect as the handsome but weak lawyer, never as smart as he thinks he is; Kathleen Turner very sexy as the femme fetale (although her performance with her drag queen delivery does too often spill into high camp, not helped by John Barry's OTT score); Richard Crenna the perfect industrialist husband; Ted Danson the tapdancing, likeable DA who hates investigating his friend; JA Preston as the decent cop; Mickey Rourke is electrifying as an arsonist. Sometimes it feels silly but then everything clicks and its great again.
The casting is brilliant - William Hurt is perfect as the handsome but weak lawyer, never as smart as he thinks he is; Kathleen Turner very sexy as the femme fetale (although her performance with her drag queen delivery does too often spill into high camp, not helped by John Barry's OTT score); Richard Crenna the perfect industrialist husband; Ted Danson the tapdancing, likeable DA who hates investigating his friend; JA Preston as the decent cop; Mickey Rourke is electrifying as an arsonist. Sometimes it feels silly but then everything clicks and its great again.
Book review - "The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway" by William Goldman (1968)
Had another read of this fabulous work and enjoyed it as much as ever - gossipy, opinionated, smart, funny it has aged very well. Occasionally it feels a little mean, with cracks about actresses weight and the section on Mike Nichols, but consistently comes up with good, original ideas and fresh takes on the theatre.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Movie review - "Ice Station Zebra" (1969) ***
Bridge on the River Kwai kicked off the golden age of guys on a mission action films - Guns of Navarone, Zulu, Where Eagles Dare, McKenna's Gold. This one came towards the end of the cycle - it probably accelerated said ending because it was a box office disappointment. It's still a lot of fun - though never quite as good as you hope it's going to be (the title is surely one of the best of all time).
The set up is very good - secret Arctic base, crashed satellite, a Yank sub sent to get there before the Ruskies, a secret agent on board. As usual in Alistair Maclean adaptations someone is a mole, or are they - and there's spies who are seen to consistently change sides. Patrick McGoohan and Ernest Borgnine are enjoyable as dodgy spy types, Rock Hudson likeable as the decent American, the one you can trust (like Clint Eastwood in Where Eagles Dare).
But I think there's a lack of action - unlike the team in Navarone or Eagles there's never any sense the sub and its crew won't get back - you just think maybe a person or two will die, which is the case. I think maybe there needed to be some massive disaster on the sub, with it leaking and sinking and only a few survivors or something - to get the blood racing.
It's entertaining, don't get me wrong - there's a lot of tough guys acting tough. But the suspense and death count are lower. And the treacherous women who usually appear in Maclean novels are missed.
Still there is fine work from the (all male) cast, which also includes Jim Brown and Australia's Murray Rose.
The set up is very good - secret Arctic base, crashed satellite, a Yank sub sent to get there before the Ruskies, a secret agent on board. As usual in Alistair Maclean adaptations someone is a mole, or are they - and there's spies who are seen to consistently change sides. Patrick McGoohan and Ernest Borgnine are enjoyable as dodgy spy types, Rock Hudson likeable as the decent American, the one you can trust (like Clint Eastwood in Where Eagles Dare).
But I think there's a lack of action - unlike the team in Navarone or Eagles there's never any sense the sub and its crew won't get back - you just think maybe a person or two will die, which is the case. I think maybe there needed to be some massive disaster on the sub, with it leaking and sinking and only a few survivors or something - to get the blood racing.
It's entertaining, don't get me wrong - there's a lot of tough guys acting tough. But the suspense and death count are lower. And the treacherous women who usually appear in Maclean novels are missed.
Still there is fine work from the (all male) cast, which also includes Jim Brown and Australia's Murray Rose.
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