Day 53: "The Missouri Breaks"

Director: Arthur Penn 1976
Highly publicized due to its pairing of Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, the film was critically drubbed upon its much anticipated release. Thirty years later, "The Missouri Breaks" emerges as a dark, sardonic look at the West highlighted by a truly inspired, eccentric perfomance by Brando, and several baroque murder scenes. And the bits between the stars aren't bad, either, as each tries to outdo the other. Brando, who plays a "regulator" or hired killer, walks away with more scenery between his teeth by affecting a brogue, wearing a Mother Hubbard outfit at one point, and sharing a carrot with his horse. Solid supporting cast (Harry Dean Stanton, Randy Quaid, Frederic Forrest). Brando's and Nicholson's final scene together is chilling.
Written by Thomas McGuane and Robert Towne (uncredited).

Day 52: "Expresso Bongo"

Director: Val Guest 1960
Laurence Harvey played so many cold, calculating heels ("Room At the Top," "Butterfield 8," "Darling," etc.) that it's easy to forget what an interesting actor he could be in other kinds of roles (of course, his coolness worked brilliantly in the original "Manchurian Candidate") when he got the chance to break out of the routine. In "Expresso Bongo," Harvey plays Johnny Jackson, a fast-talking, slightly sleazy manager of jazz and pop musicians. He's like Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) in "Sweet Smell of Success," only with a few, remaining shreds of heart. When he discovers Cliff Richard and navigates the singer's climb up the charts, Jackson's ambitions and amorality lead to his comeuppance. But unlike Falco, he hasn't completely sold his soul. There's a fine supporting cast (save for Cliff Richard, the UK's answer to Elvis Presley, who couldn't act). The movie is much lighter than "Sweet Smell of Success," although both films share and revel in the seedy nightlife of a big city. But Harvey is a revelation, and he's clearly having a great time playing Johnny Jackson. Sad that he died at age 45 without having had enough opportunities to lighten up as an actor.

Day 51: "The Masque of the Red Death"

Director: Roger Corman 1964
The early 60s. It’s a Wednesday afternoon—any Wednesday between September and June. At St. Kevin’s grammar school in Queens, the good Sisters of Mercy are distributing the weekly movie ratings from the Legion of Decency. There are two reasons the older kids at St. Kevin’s eagerly anticipate this guide to what we could and could not see at the local movie theaters. One: the mimeograph ink gave off a distinctive, pleasing smell—one that launched a sixth grade sniffer into a brief high. And two: checking the list allowed a fleeting flirtation with sin. For to see a movie classified by the Legion as B (morally objectionable in part for all) or C for condemned (just push the express elevator button for Hell), was to invite the world’s worst penance (“Say five hundred Our Fathers and five hundred Hail Marys every day for the rest of your life”). Not that many C movies circulated in the outer boroughs. The only one I remember is a re-release of “And God Created Woman” with Brigitte Bardot. There were more B-rated films, but most kids would rather see “Journey to the Center of the Earth” than “Butterfield 8,” a wise choice since “Butterfield 8” was a stinker.
So brainwashed were some of us, that a week after buying a comic book version of the movie “Hercules Unchained,” I went home and shredded it after learning that the Legion had stamped it B (I don’t know why a B—maybe too much cleavage).
Summers were a different story. No mimeograph sheets. If you really wanted to know what the Legion thought of “Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation,” you had to consult The Tablet, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Brooklyn. But not even a shredder of “Hercules Unchained” bothered with that. Which freed us up to go to the movies every week (preferably Wednesday, when new flicks were released).
The RKO-Keiths on Northern Boulevard in downtown Flushing was the place. Once a vaudeville theater, the lobby was like something out of the movies, say Douglas Fairbanks in “The Thief of Bagdad.” The candy stand was well stocked (ah, the sweet taste of Raisinets washed down with a Coke). If the movie was sci-fi or horror, the place was jammed with kids from the neighborhoods. Naturally, the theater made sure a posse of white-starched matrons armed with eye-blinding flashlights was on patrol. Yelling at the screen and putting your feet atop the seat in front of you were the big infractions.
It was at the Keiths where I first saw a Roger Corman movie. Maybe “The Raven.” Maybe “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Or maybe “Tales of Terror.”
Somehow I never got to “The Masque of the Red Death.” Possibly, it was rated B—there’s a lot of Satanism and cleavage. Sorry I missed it when I was 13.
But now I’ve seen it, and it’s one terrific horror movie. For starters, unlike many of Corman’s productions, this one has an expensive look. That’s because it was shot in England on the lavish sets of “Becket,” the movie with Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole made the same year. And the cinematographer was Nicholas Roeg, who later became a director. Roeg achieves some amazing effects with color.
Additionally, there’s a relatively restrained Vincent Price, and a solid English cast, including a wan Jane Asher, then Paul McCartney’s girlfriend. The script, based on Poe’s short story with bits from “Hop-Frog,” was co-written by the talented Charles Beaumont, who wrote some great short stories himself—and some memorable “Twilight Zone” episodes. Remember “The Howling Man”?
There’s really twisted stuff in “Masque”—particularly the gruesome murder of Patrick Magee. Price and Satan, of course, lose at the end—but they sure have a hell of an unrepentant, good time before that.
As for me, what can I say? Except this: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned . . .. “

Day 50: "Gun Crazy"

Director: Joseph H. Lewis 1949
A legendary movie among die-hard noir fans, "Gun Crazy" tells the sordid tale of Bart Tare (John Dall) and Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins). They meet at a carnival, where Annie is a trick-shot artist. Bart is her equal in marksmanship. They fall in love. They marry. They start robbing banks (hey, this is noir-world). Lewis' direction is skilled and imaginative, and there's a bravura, done-in-one-shot robbery sequence. Bart loves guns but doesn't believe in killing. Annie has no such reservations. Loosely inspired by the Bonnie and Clyde story, the film is somewhat saddled by the dreaded Production Code (there's a clunky scene near the end in which the characters lament their criminal ways), but it's still an impressive achievement.

Day 49: "Cry of the Owl"

Director: Claude Chabrol 1987
Disappointing psychological thriller based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith ("Strangers On a Train," "The Talented Mr. Ripley"). The characters are murky at best--their behavior at times inexplicable. The main character is a morose, self-centered illustrator who spies on a young woman who lives alone in the country. He eventually confronts her. Rather than call the police, she invites him in--and falls in love. The problem is that he doesn't love her--or anyone one. There's also a boyfriend and an estranged, nasty wife. The suspense is minimal, the ending unsatisfying. Chabrol has been compared to Hitchcock, but this is a decidedly minor effort.
If you want to see a good adaptation of a Highsmith novel, rent "Ripley's Game" (2002). John Malkovich is Ripley--a part he was born to play.

Day 48: "That Man From Rio"

Director: Philippe de Broca 1964
Jean-Paul Belmondo in a charming spoof of James Bond, Hitchcock, and the Perils of Pauline. Belmondo flies from Paris to Rio to save his kidnapped girlfriend, the beautiful Francoise Dorleac. There's plenty of mumbo-jumbo about lost civilizations and magical antiquities, all of it an excuse for a romp entailing chases, heights, and water-skiing. Dorleac was the older sister of Catherine Deneuve, and was then a bigger star. Sadly, she died in 1967 in a car accident shortly after finishing "Billion Dollar Brain" (see Day 13). At one point, the action settles in Brasilia, then the spanking new, ultra-modern capital of Brazil. The place looks like the perfect sci-fi set.

Day 47: "Diary of a Chambermaid"

Director: Luis Bunuel 1964
Jeanne Moreau plays Celestine, a maid who leaves Paris to work at a chateau. Her masters are an old man with a shoe fetish, his demanding daughter and her randy husband. There is also a nasty handyman and a feuding neighbor. Through contrived indifference, Celestine attracts the attention of all the men. Based on a novel written at the turn of the 20th century, Bunuel chose to set the film in the 1930s as a way to comment on France's dalliance with Fascism. Celestine at first appears to be strictly out for herself. But when a child is raped and killed, she tries to bring the murderer to justice. In the end, however, she reverts to form and does what's best for Celestine. Not an entirely satisfying movie, although it is well acted and directed.
Jean Renoir chose the same novel to make into a movie in 1946. Paulette Goddard played Celestine, and the film was produced in Hollywood with an Anglo/American cast. I haven't seen it, but what I can glean from reading is that Renoir's approach was much different from Bunuel's. Renoir, of course, had covered some of the same ground as Bunuel in "The Rules of the Game" (1939).

Day 46: "October"

Directors: Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Alexsandrov 1927
Commissioned by the Russian government to mark the 10th anniversary of the Revolution, Eisenstein—and it’s definitely his movie—was given a free hand in recreating the events leading up to the Bolshevik victory, particularly the ten days in October, 1917 when the proletariat vanquished the provisional government headed by Alexander Kerensky. The film opens with a stunning sequence in which the Bolsheviks tear down a huge statue of Czar Alexander lll—and there are many brilliantly edited sequences and memorable images, no surprise since Eisenstein was a master of montage. He was also a master of propaganda, which is what this movie is all about. The peasants, workers, soldiers and sailors who revolt are presented in the noblest ways, while Kerensky and his minions are cartoons. Trotsky, out of favor by 1927, is portrayed as a conciliator, a weakling. Eisenstein did such a good job in recreating the Revolution that clips from “October” often appear in documentaries on the subject, as if they were culled from newsreels. There’s no denying the stirring nature of “October,” which is aided by the music of Dmitri Shostakovich (the music and sound effects were added later). But there is sadness too, in light of what followed: the oppression, the show trials, the murders of millions. Look hard enough at “October” and you see that Flaubert was right when he said (apropos of an earlier revolution): “In every revolutionary there is hidden a gendarme.”

Day 45: "Seven Men from Now"

Director: Budd Boetticher 1956
Just as the Jimmy Stewart-Anthony Mann collaboration produced five great westerns (see Day: 24: "Winchester '73"), so, too, did the team of Randolph Scott and Budd Boetticher create seven terrific films. "Seven Men from Now" was their first. Scott plays an ex-sheriff tracking down the men who killed his wife during a robbery. Along the way, Scott befriends a couple trying to get their wagon to California. He's attracted to the wife--and she to him. He also encounters Lee Marvin, not one of the seven men, but a bad guy, too. Only Marvin is not completely bad, and in the end, he and Scott each regret the twists of fate which have led to an inevitable showdown. Marvin's character is reminiscent of Elmore Leonard's complex bad guys, which is interesting given that the next Scott-Boetticher western was "The Tall T" (1957), based on a story by Leonard. Boetticher"s budget was limited, so much of the action takes place outdoors. Like Sam Peckinpah (see Day 38: "Major Dundee"), Boetticher has a real flair for the widescreen--and for directing a great western.

Day 44: "Vampyr"

Director: Carl Dreyer 1932
No Bela Lugosi. No Max Schreck. No bared fangs. No garlic. No crosses. In fact, the vampire is an old (dead, of course) woman. Really a silent film with limited dialogue (the subtitles are in Gothic lettering!) and a few sound effects, in "Vampyr" Dreyer creates the feeling of a dream, and it's the brilliant images that stay with you: a man with a scythe, shadows where shadows shouldn't be, the hero's imagined, premature burial. A beautifully photographed film filled with dread and foreboding. Be aware that the print is old, but some of the bleached-out cinematography was deliberate.
As a bonus, the DVD offers a 1934 short created by Wladyslaw Starewicz (1882-1965), a pioneering animator who fled Russia after the Revolution and settled in France. Starewicz was a master of stop-motion photography (the same method used to create the original King Kong), and this short subject, entitled "The Mascot," is an amazing example of the craft. Imaginative, a little scary, a little surreal, Starewicz' modest film had to influence "The Nightmare Before Christmas," the 1993 Tim Burton-produced stop-motion feature.

Day 43: "The Lady in the Lake"

Director: Robert Montgomery 1946
At least nine actors--as different as Bogart and Elliott Gould--have played Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's knight-errant, the private eye who "down these mean streets a man must go, who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid." Robert Montgomery was the right age (42) to play Marlowe, and he had the right looks. Yet "The Lady in the Lake" is a gimmicky failure, interesting for a few minutes, then annoying. The reason: Montgomery chose to shoot the movie with a subjective camera. With the exceptions of a few awkward scenes in which Marlowe addresses the camera, and a couple of glimpses of Marlowe looking into a mirror, the story is seen through the detective's eyes. The actors talk to the camera--and talk and talk. When femme-fatale Audrey Totter kisses "Marlowe," she is really kissing the camera lens. Erotic it ain't. Totter is good, as is Lloyd Nolan (famous for playing Mike Shayne, a less-literary PI). But the movie drags. Someone someday should make a better version of Chandler's book.
Interesting trivia: Lila Leeds plays a sexy receptionist. In 1948, she was arrested with Robert Mitchum during a legendary pot party in Hollywood. Mitchum, of course, would go on to play Marlowe in "Farewell, My Lovely" (not bad) and a remake of "The Big Sleep" (absolutely awful).

Day 42: "Forbidden Games"

Director: Rene Clement 1952
A sad, emotionally jarring film that begins on a rural road outside Paris as a caravan of refugees flees the approaching German army. The Luftwaffe attacks and several people are killed, including the parents of five-year-old Paulette (Brigitte Fossey). The little girl, clutching her dead puppy, wanders onto a farm, where she is befriended by 11-year-old Michel (Georges Poujouly). His family takes her in. The children bury Paulette's dog, then create a strange world for themselves, one involving a cemetery for small animals, the graves marked with crosses stolen from the local graveyard. A movie about the loss of innocence--and how the spectres of war, death, and religion play profoundly on children and adults alike. Fossey and Poujouly give stunning performances.