Day 27: "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse"

Director: Fritz Lang 1933
Banned by the Nazis and not seen in Germany until several years after World War ll, this is a sequel of sorts to Lang's earlier silent film, "Dr. Mabuse the Gambler." In that, Mabuse is a criminal mastermind. He is that, too, in "Testament" but here he is confined to a mental institution--and he appears to die halfway through, adding a supernatural element. There are some terrific scenes, notably the murder of a man as he waits in his car for pedestrians to clear a walkway. This is a strange film in many ways, but always watchable. Despite the Nazi ban, Joseph Goebbels reportedly offered Lang a top position at UFA, the German film studio. Lang immediately fled Germany and eventually settled in Hollywood, where he directed some great movies, including "The Big Heat" (1953). The character of Police Commissioner Lohmann is the same cop who pursued Peter Lorre in Lang's classic "M" (1932). Lang returned to Mabuse in his last film, "The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse" (1960).

Day 26: "The Crimson Pirate"

Director: Robert Siodmak 1952
Forget "Pirates of the Caribbean," this is the pirate flick you have to see when you're in the mood for a swashbuckling 104 minutes of pure entertainment. Former acrobat Burt Lancaster--seemingly sporting at least two sets of sparkling white teeth--is in constant motion (doing his own stunts) as he and his disreputable but lovable crew of swabs battle the British, hijack ships, search for booty--and help stage a revolution. The tongue-in-cheek script by Roland Kibbee is funny and clever. Just a wonderful film--dare I say it?--for the whole family. Or for the kid in all of us aging boomers.

Day 25: "La Dolce Vita"

Director: Federico Fellini 1960
The film starts with a giant statue of Jesus--arms outstretched--suspended from a helicopter whirling across Rome. It ends with the maIn character, a reporter-turned-publicist played by Marcello Mastroianni, getting a chance at redemption--and blowing it. In between, Fellini offers many wonderful, extended scenes, notably the circus-like atmosphere that attends a rural field after two children claim they have seen the Virgin Mary. Mastroianni aspires to be a novelist, but he hasn't the inner strength to break free of the shallow world of the rich and their sycophants. He is a prisoner who will never escape.

Day 24: "Winchester '73"

Director: Anthony Mann 1950
The first of eight films (five of them memorable westerns) directed by Mann and starring Jimmy Stewart. The plot follows Stewart as he hunts for the man who killed his father--and stole his "one-in-a-thousand" Winchester. Some terrific character actors leave their stamp, particulaly the always charming, always psychotic Dan Duryea as a loony gunslinger. The ending heralded a new, Freudian take on the western (check out "Johnny Guitar" or "Forty Guns" some time). The movie also marked a turning point in Hollywood: Stewart and his agent, the all powerful Lew Wasserman, cut a deal with Universal in which Stewart would forego his salary for a cut of the box-office. Stewart and a lot of other stars became very rich as a result.

Day 23: "Libeled Lady"

Director: Jack Conway 1936
A stellar MGM cast--Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy and William Powell--has a ball in this romantic (sometimes screwball) comedy. All the elements are in place--wisecracking newspapermen, a playgirl heiress, first-class trans-Atlantic crossings and hotel suites bigger than Rupert Murdoch's new co-op on Fifth Avenue. What more could a Depression audience need to escape its woes for a few hours? Lots of laughs, particularly when city slicker Powell attempts to snag a large trout.

Day 22: "High and Low"

Director: Akira Kurosawa 1963
Kidnappers snatch the son of a wealthy businessman (the great Toshiro Mifune) and demand a huge ransom. There's only one problem: they mistakenly kidnap the son of the businessman's chauffeur. The first hour revolves around Mifune's dilemma: if he pays for the release of the boy, he will lose his business. The rest of the film follows the police as they attempt to bring the kidnappers to justice. Under Kurosawa's deft direction, the disparate stories work well together. There is a scene near the end in which a team of cops trails a kidnapper through a crowded city street; eight years later, "The French Connection" would show Gene Hackman and other cops following a bad guy through the Upper East Side in much the same way. Based on Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novel, "King's Ransom."

Day 21: "Quai des Orfevres"

Director: Henry-Georges Clouzot 1947
Several years before he made his famous movies "The Wages of Fear" and "Les Diaboliques," Clouzot made this little gem. Less nail-biting than those two films, "Quai des Orfevres" (the site of Paris' police headquarters) hits a Hitchcockian theme of an innocent man suspected of murder. Will he go to the guillotine? Or will the real murderer be found? The characters have depth, and Clouzot's camera delineates a dark, smoky world of nightclubs, vaudeville theaters and Paris streets. There is a wonderful performance by Louis Jouvet as a tenacious, Maigret-like police inspector.

Day 20: "Diary of a Country Priest"

Director: Robert Bresson 1950
Bresson again (see Day 1), this time telling the bleak story of a young priest assigned to a parish in rural France. The priest is sickly, his parishioners don't like him and he has dark moments when he questions his faith. Clearly, this is not "Going My Way," but it is a profound, uncompromising study of one man's relationship with God--and the effect of that relationship on a handful of locals. Not an easy two hours, but well worth viewing. Bresson used non-professional actors. The result is an almost documentary quality that lends a purity to the director's spiritual approach to making movies.

Day 19: "Counsellor-at-Law"

Director: William Wyler 1933
The legendary John Barrymore stars in one of his best movie roles as a fast-talking, mostly good-hearted attorney who worked his way from the slums to become New York's most famous litigator. Made in the liberated days of pre-Production Code Hollywood, Barrymore's character triumphs in the end through unscrupulous means, but you're rooting for him from the get-go. Based on a play by Elmer Rice, there's no denying the movie's stage origins; there is only one set--a brilliantly rendered suite of deco offices in what was then the brand-new Empire State Buidling. Wyler gets around the staginess by having the characters talk so quickly and exit and enter at so rapid a pace that you might think Howard Hawks ("His Girl Friday," "Rio Bravo") was the director. For a seventy-two-year-old film, this is damn entertaining.

Day 18: "The Double Life of Veronique"

Director: Krzystof Kieslowski 1991
Co-written and directed by Kieslowski before he embarked on his "Three Colors" series (see days 3, 10 and 15), this film is mysterious, mystifying and hypnotic as it tells the story of two women, one in Poland and one in France, who are linked by physical and emotional similaritities. Despite that, they never meet--although one glimpses the other during a student demonstration. Both Veroniques are played by the wonderful Irene Jacob. Not an easy movie to decipher (meaning I'm not sure what Kieslowski was shooting for, but you might have a profound insight. If so, please share with me).

Day 17: "Night and the City"

Director: Jules Dassin 1950
Although set in London, the leads--Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney--are American, and no explanation is offered as to why they're in England. Thankfully, they do not affect British accents. Widmark plays a low-life hustler named Harry Fabian, who's constantly on the run as he tries to make a big score. Four years before Brando, Widmark gets to say that all he wants is "To be somebody." But it's not in the cards for Fabian as he finagles his way to staging a big wrestling match, only to run afoul of a most menacing business man (Herbert Lom). As in "Naked City" and "Rififi," Dassin shows his talent for on-location shooting. Fabian is not a nice guy, but his struggle to be somebody is compelling.
Remade in 1992 with Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange.

Day 16: "Beat the Devil"

Director: John Huston 1953
Great cast: Bogart, Peter Lorre, Robert Morley, Jennifer Jones and Gina Lollobrigida, all seeming to have a good time in a movie written by Huston and Truman Capote. A disaster criticially and at the box office when first releasesed, "Beat the Devil" has since acquired a cult status. It's up to personal taste to decide if that status is justified. I enjoyed it (making me a phony in Bogart's eyes since he said "Only phonies like it."). It's a charming film, admitedly talky in places, but entertaining. The wayward plot isn't worth going into. I'm guessing that a lot of serious drinking got done during filming. Based on the novel by James Helvick, a nom de plume for journalist Claud Cockburn (father of Alexander, whose column in The Nation is called "Beat the Devil").

Day 15: "Red"

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowki 1994
The last installment in Kieslowki’s “Three Colors” series, “Red” is my favorite, a beautiful, mysterious film about a fashion model (Irene Jacob) who meets a bitter, retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant). The judge likes to listen in on his neighbor’s telephone calls, and he possesses a God-like, all-knowing quality. There are stunning visuals, and the leads are superb together. “Blue,” “White” and “Red” are self-contained stories, although the last scene in “Red” does unite the three—sort of.

Day 14: “Fanny and Alexander”

Director: Ingmar Bergman 1983
A well-to-do theatrical family in turn-of-the-century Sweden deals with life, death, love, God, ghosts and magic—mostly seen through the eyes of a young boy. There is a wonderful Christmas celebration, a stern and creepy bishop (who becomes stepfather to Fanny and Alexander), truly human characters--and terrific performances from all. Obviously autobiographical in places (although the movie is set eleven years before Bergman’s birth in 1918), “Fanny and Alexander” is so mesmerizing that its three-hours pass quickly. I would have stayed in the hyperbaric chamber to see the end, but had to get out after two-and-a-half hours. The Time Out Film Guide says Bergman’s TV version, which clocks in at five hours, is even better.

Day 13: “Billion Dollar Brain”

Director: Ken Russell 1967
The third and last of the Harry Palmer spy thrillers from the 60s (coming after “The Ipcress File” and “Funeral in Berlin”). Based on Len Deighton’s novel, “Brain” is an entertaining movie in which Palmer is so passive a secret agent that he never once fires his gun. Michael Caine brings his patented, bespectacled cool to the role, which fits him as snugly as Palmer’s wrinkled raincoat. Supporting him are Oscar Homolka, as a wily Russian, and Karl Malden as a not-quite-so-wily American who’s working for a wacky Texas oil tycoon using his dough to fund anti-Communist activities. The plot involves a super-computer (the size of the TWA terminal) and an invasion of Latvia.
The often flamboyant Russell, in one of his early films, is on best behavior here, offering some nice, gruesome touches: a knocked-out Caine awakens in a bathtub filled with corpses; the face and eyeglasses of a man killed near an open window are dusted with frost from the frigid Helsinki weather.
Palmer was presented as the anti-Bond. He was often as concerned about his civil service ranking as the case at hand, a Cockney at war with his twittish, public school superiors. The production designer on “Billion Dollar Brain” was Syd Cain, who was the art director on the early Bonds. “Brain” at times has a weird Bondian look—but Caine always brings the proceedings down to the more realistic world of spies as created by Deighton. A fun two hours.

Day 12: “Walk on Water”

Director: Eytan Fox 2004
A Mossad agent goes undercover to befriend a German brother and sister as a way to discover if their war-criminal grandfather is returning to Germany after decades in South America. While there is a thriller element to the story (will the agent eliminate the old man if he dares return?), it is downplayed, and the emphasis is on the characters, particularly the Israeli and the brother. The Israeli learns about modern Germany and Germans, and the German learns about Israel; the macho Mossad agent learns from the gay man, and vice versa. Shot in Israel and Germany, this is a compelling movie with complex characters. And the story never quite goes where you expect.

Day 11: “After the Sunset”

Director: Brett Ratner 2004
No, I hadn’t heard of this movie either. What I brought to watch was “Quicksand,” a 1950 film noir starring Mickey Rooney. You have to figure any film noir starring Mickey Rooney has to be worth a view. My friend had taped the movie off cable and I was anxious to see it. There was only one problem: when the tape started, instead of Mickey Rooney there were two naked people doing what naked people usually do in the acrobatic style of adult entertainment. In other words, I was securely battened down in the hyperbaric chamber with doctors, nurses and other patients walking about—and I was watching porno! Quickly, a nurse ejected the tape (my friend thought he had taped over the porn with “Quicksand” but failed). So there I was, suddenly the resident hyperbaric perv, and I had more than two hours to kill. So I picked “After the Sunset” from the hyperbaric unit’s video library.
“After the Sunset” is a caper film set in the Bahamas and starring Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek. If you watched it on an airplane, you’d find it pleasant enough—and you’d forget about it by the time you landed.
When I got out of the chamber, I explained that the porno wasn’t mine and that a friend had given me the tape. I don’t think anyone believed me.

Day 10: “White”

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski 1993
The second in Kieslowski’s "Three Colors" series, “White” is more plot-driven than “Blue,” and in spots resembles something James M. Cain could have written. A French woman (Julie Delpy) divorces her Polish hairdresser husband ( Zbigniew Zamachowski) because he cannot consummate their marriage. He loves and desires her but just can’t get his engine started in bed. He returns to Poland (in a truly black-comic scene, he arrives illegally at the airport in a large suitcase, which is promptly stolen. Although the thieves are none too happy when they open the case, Zamachowski is so pleased to be back in Poland that he doesn’t mind getting beat up). The hairdresser becomes a wealthy man in his post-Communist homeland and uses his riches to exact revenge on his wife. But this really is less about revenge than it is about his love for her—and, in the end, her love for him. An intriguing film.

Day 9: "Blowup"

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni 1966
A hip, emotionally detached photographer (David Hemmings) in Swinging London snaps some pictures in a park, then develops the film and realizes he has captured a murder in several of the shots. The best part of “Blowup” centers on the photographer increasing the size of the film to try to see what he has taken. But this is an Antonioni movie, not a murder mystery, so there is plenty of murky symbolism (pantomimes play tennis at the end, and Hemmings, an observer, “throws” the “ball” back at them—he’s no longer detached, get it?). “Blowup” has not dated well. Hemmings attends a party where people are smoking pot, only they act so out of it that you have to wonder if they weren’t ingesting large amounts of LSD instead. The Yardbirds appear at one point and get decadent by smashing a guitar because one of their amplifiers isn’t working. Rent Brian De Palma’s “Blow Out,” a 1981 riff on “Blowup” that’s a lot more entertaining--and thankfully has no mimes.

Day 8: "The Naked City"

Director: Jules Dassin 1948
Shot on location, this film offers a semi-documentary look at what Manhattan and its environs were like post World War ll. The movie follows a dogged team of cops as it tries to solve a young woman’s murder (think the “Law” part of “Law & Order”). There is a terrific climactic chase through lower Manhattan and onto the Williamsburg Bridge. The director would later bring a similar on-location flair to “Night and the City” (London) and “Rififi” (Paris). Dassin was never a critical favorite. Andrew Sarris relegated him to the Strained Seriousness section of Sarris’ 1968 book, “The American Cinema.” Strained Seriousness described directors who were “talented but uneven . . . with the mortal sin of pretentiousness.” Others lumped in this group were Stanley Kubrick and John Frankenheimer. “The Naked City” isn’t pretentious. And it does give us one of the great movie lines (later repeated every week on the TV series of the same name): “There are eight million stories in the naked city—this has been one of them.”

Day 7: “In a Lonely Place”

Director: Nicholas Ray 1950
Bogart as an embittered, hot-tempered screenwriter suspected of killing a hat-check girl. As the cops investigate, he and neighbor Gloria Grahame fall in love, but Bogart can’t shed his anger, which borders on the murderous at times. While innocent of the hat-check girl’s murder, it’s clear Bogart is capable of killing. He just hasn’t done it yet.
The ending is downbeat (although the Dorothy B. Hughes novel on which the film is based is even darker)—as is the view of Hollywood. The relationship between Bogart and Grahame is adult. A remarkable movie for its time—and as fresh today as “Breathless.”

Day 6: “Alphaville”

Director: Jean-Luc Godard 1965
The film is subtitled “A strange adventure of Lemmy Caution”—and strange it is. Caution was a rough-and-tumble private eye played in several films by Eddie Constantine. Godard takes the character and turns him into a futuristic secret agent. Alphaville, the city Caution infiltrates, is really Paris circa 1965, but Godard shoots in enough modern settings to give a feel of the future. In Aphaville, love and other sensitivities are banned. Caution falls for Anna Karina (who wouldn’t?) and eventually helps her escape Alphaville—and break through her brainwashing to learn to love. The relationship is similar to the one between Harrison Ford and Sean Young in 1982’s “Blade Runner.”
“Alphaville” is very entertaining. Caution makes references to Dick Tracy, and one of the bad guys is a Dr. Nosferatu. Rebels are executed by being forced to stand on the diving board of an indoor pool, where they are machine-gunned. Those who survive that are then finished off by a team of female synchronized swimmers. Strange indeed.

Day 5: "Rififi"

Director: Jules Dassin 1955
The mean and hardboiled dark side of “Big Deal on Madonna Street.” A cool, efficient band of thieves breaks into a jewelry store in Paris. There is a bravura silent sequence of some 30 minutes as the thieves pull off the heist. Of course, like all good movies of this genre, things go wrong once the swag has been taken. Filmed on location in Paris, “Rififi” is a true film noir—as tough as another noir classic from the same year, Robert Aldrich’s “Kiss Me Deadly” (also a must see). Both films influenced Godard and other New Wave directors.

Day 4: "Breathless"

Director: Jean-Luc Godard 1959
Forty six years old but fresh (at least to me) as the day it opened. Jean-Paul Belmondo is a petty crook who kills a highway patrolman and hides out in Paris—and in the arms of Jean Seberg, an American student who hawks the Herald-Tribune. Belmondo wears shades, pays tribute to Bogart and can’t get the energy to get out of Paris even as the cops close in. Seberg has a scary cool, and it’s easy to see why Belmondo can’t let her go—even though she’s clearly not good for his health.

Day 3: "Blue"

Director: Krzsztof Kieslowski 1993
The first in Kieslowski’s “Three Colors” series (the others are “White” and “Red”—the colors of the French flag). Juliette Binoche plays a wife and mother who loses both spouse and child in an auto accident—and who deals with her grief in her own, unorthodox way. Like Bresson’s pickpocket, she slowly comes back to life, but it is not an easy journey. Visually a beautiful movie, nearly as beautiful as Binoche. Not an easy film to warm up to, but worth renting.

Day 2: “Big Deal on Madonna Street”

Director: Mario Monicelli 1958
A band of bungling thieves bungle the big heist. Film offers a chance to see a young Claudia Cardinale, a youngish Marcello Mastroianni, and the wonderful Vittorio Gassman. Good fun.

Day 1: "Pickpocket"

Director: Robert Bresson 1959
Last year, I saw my first Bresson film, “Au hazard Balthazar,” (1966) and it has haunted me since. The seemingly simple story follows a donkey named Balthazar from birth to death and from owner to owner. This is not a Disney film—and the film is much more complex than my description. Rent it and see for yourself. It is a great movie.
“Pickpocket” is told in Bresson’s unique, monastic style. Inspired by “Crime and Punishment,” it tells the story of a young man of intelligence who is emotionally cut off from society. He becomes what the title indicates, and only finds salvation when he goes to jail and realizes he is capable of love. Bresson, who died in 1999 at age 98, was a spiritual filmmaker (I don’t like the word spiritual, but it fits Bresson) of great vision.