A few films for August.

The Hideous Sun Demon (1958), directed by Robert Clarke and Tom Boutross. The creature from the Black Lagoon has much to answer for, including this scaly creature created by radioactive material absorbed by scientist Gilbert McKenna (Robert Clarke) and sensitive to sunlight. Sunlight transforms the good doctor into a raging creature who runs about terrifying people. Production values here are slight and the acting is tepid. The action is predictable. The dangers of radiation and nuclear research have been set out in more effective ways in many films from the 1950s. This one comes late in the decade and does nothing new. It tries to echo the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story, even having two women, one sweet and loyal and the other a lounge singer, but the crucial difference is that Mr. Hyde is a part of the good doctor, whereas the hideous sun demon is created externally. This difference makes our relationship with Gilbert less emotional than our relationship with Dr. Jekyll. The characters in The Hideous Sun Demon do not spark our interest or engagement. This is a low-grade 50s monster movie.

 

The Black Sleep (1956), directed by Reginald LeBorg. The familiar plot has mad doctor, Sir Joel Cadman (Basil Rathbone), operating on human brains in order to find a cure for his wife who suffers from a brain tumour that has put her in a coma. Helping him find patients on whom to operate is the gypsy Odo (Akim Tmiroff, who cheerfully overacts). Those on whom he operates are turned into monsters. One of these victims of the doctor's obsession is the former renowned Doctor Monroe who is now the silent, but deadly, Mungo (Lon Chaney, Jr.). We also have the wild Bohemon (John Carradine) who thinks he is back in the 13^th century fighting in the Crusades. Then there is Curry (Tor Johnson), a figure familiar from Ed Wood films. Our hero is the wrongfully accused Dr. Ramsay (Herbert Rudley) who finds himself aligned with Mungo’s daughter Laurie (Patricia Blair). The plot is familiar, but fun. The moveable fire inside the fireplace is a nice touch. The operation on the patient known as K6 (George Sawaya) is grisly. The final sequence is over the top Grand Guignol. Perhaps not the best of 50s horror, but fun nonetheless. Both Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi (Casimir) are silent throughout. The same cannot be said of Akim Tamiroff who blathers away non-stop when he is on screen. As for Rathbone, he is convincing as always.

Atom Age Vampire (1960), directed by Anton Giulio Majano. This film has neither atoms nor vampires, an indication that the title does not really care what goes on here. The plot is a mix of Eyes Without a Face (1960) and any version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A disfigured nightclub singer meets a mad scientist who has found a way to make dead cells regenerate while looking for, and apparently finding, a cure for cancer. The mad scientist has a mute helper (surprise), and a young woman assistant. Anyway, the mad scientist’s potion to restore cells to health works only for a short time and so the scientist resorts to taking his own potion and turning himself into an ugly beast who stalks young women and snatches their organs so he can keep the alluring nightclub singer fresh and beautiful; in other words, unscarred. Ho hum. All this would be okay if the acting was competent; it isn’t. It would also help if the film had any sense of style. It does not. 

 

The Death Kiss (1932), directed by Edwin L. Marin. This K.B.S. Productions film is a cheapie, but a goodie. The plot is familiar and by 1932 should have been tired. But this film about a murder on a movie set is a surprise. It has wit, intrigue, and twists. Three of the players are holdovers from Universal’s Dracula: David Manners, Edward Van Sloan, and Bela Lugosi. The casting might suggest the villain of this whodunit, but, as I say, the film has its surprises. The unravelling of the mystery is efficient, although I was unsure of the motive for the murder. The camera work here is interesting, very fluid with long panning shots and zooms. The moving camera keeps us moving as we try to figure out who the murderer might be. The film also sports spots of colour, orange gunshots and yellow flashlights. I am not sure what these spots of colour late in the film are supposed to indicate, but they do catch the eye. While the sleuthing is taking place, we have a tour of a Poverty Row studio, Tiffany, where the film was shot. With a running time of 71 minutes, The Death Kiss is as good as these quickies ever got in the 30s. Yes, it does have the comedic shuffler, a security guard at the studio, but this convention is handled relatively painlessly here.

Beginning of the End (1957), directed by Bert I. Gordon. Them (1954) had giant ants. Beginning of the End has giant grasshoppers. The giant grasshoppers here are real grasshoppers whose photographs are enlarged and then superimposed on the screen with real locations and actors. The effect is not convincing. As for the story, this too is thin, predictable, and tired. Since we are in the 1950s, radiation is the problem. A few grasshoppers have found a way in to a botanical experimentation area where they have eaten leaves tainted with radiation. The result: they have grown as large as city buses. Those buses, by the way, are in Chicago, and the grasshoppers threaten the city so severely that it has to be evacuated. Not to worry, Dr. Ed Wainwright (Peter Graves) is on the scene to figure things out and eradicate the plague. We also have feisty reporter, Audrey Aimes (Peggy Castle) and tough General John Hanson (Morris Ankrum) along to help. As 50s monster films go, this one is not distinguished. The giant grasshoppers climbing Chicago skyscrapers are nifty, but, really, Them is a better bet.

 

Space Monster Wangmagwi (1967) directed by Hyeok-jinn Gwon. This Korean monster flick gives us a spaceship of aliens who look distinctly like the people on earth. They plan to send down a monster that will increase 500 times in size and then wreak havoc on earth so the space aliens can come in and conquer the earth. Good plans can go awry, and this one does. The monster Wangmagwi finds himself befuddled and worn down by a young street kid who manages to climb into the monster’s ear. Meanwhile a young bride, on her wedding day, finds herself lifted up, like Fay Wray in King Kong, into the monster’s hand where she reclines for much of the film. Then we have the two comic fellows who make bets on who will run away from the monster first. Oh, and then we have the bride’s groom in a jet trying to shoot the monster. Mix all this with the requisite shots of Wangmagwi stomping on buildings and toy cars, and you have a mish-mash of a monster film that, despite the confusion, has its charms.

 

War of the God Monsters (1985), directed by Jeong-yong Kim. There are bad movies worth watching and then there are bad movies. War of the God Monsters is in the latter category. This Korean kaiju movie is one of the worst movies I have seen. The special effects are terrible. They did these things much better way back in the 1950s. The story of young newspaper reporter Kang Ok-hee (Nam Hye-Gyeong), who seeks out dinosaur researcher Dr. Kim (Kim Ki-ju) is flat. Pretending to be a housekeeper, Ok-hee befriends the wacky doctor’s daughter, So-nee (Kim Da-hye). Most of the story focuses on this budding family dynamic, although we have lots of shots of Dr. Kim wandering aimlessly along the rugged sea coast and falling into huge footprints. Many of the shots of monsters are stock footage, and the monsters themselves look silly, one a large chicken, one a large rhinoceros, another a large creature who spouts floppy red filaments, and yet another that looks like a large bat whose enormous wings are too large for its head. Oh yes, we have much destruction of cardboard buildings and toy boats, and we have much running about by the local populace. But really, this is not worth your time.

As the World Turns (1938), directed by Richard Lyford. This amateur production takes some of its look from the Flash Gordon serials of the time. I should say that the film has created some controversy with various viewers discounting the authenticity of the film and claiming it is a fake made after 2020. I choose to accept that it was made in the 30s. As an amateur film from the late 1930s, As the World Turns holds my interest. Pax (Richard Lyford) is a scientist hell bent on saving the world from itself. Pretending to be an alien, Pax holds up in Labrador where he uses machines of his invention to alter the world’s weather and cause havoc. He demands that humans stop the war (what war is not clear) or he will ruin the planet. The acting smacks of silent film acting. Indeed, the film is silent, aside from its score. We have many close-ups with faces expressing a range of emotions. The special effects are crude (remember Flash Gordon), but fun. The use of stock footage works well, as does the use of models. The story is pretty thin and familiar. What holds my interest are the editing and the echoes of silent films. And, as I said, the special effects are fun. As an exercise in film making, this amateur production gives us a good look at just how films are assembled.

 How about a few Edgar G. Ulmer films for early June?

The Pirates of Capri (1949), directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. This film will hold interest for cinephiles. Others beware. The Pirates of Capri is an American/Italian co-production that offers one of many takes on the swashbuckling films popular in the 1940s and early 50s. It does, however, have little swash and not a lot of buckling. Think The Mark of Zorro crossed with Jamaica Inn and perhaps Captain Blood. Louis Heyward is the masked champion of the down-trodden; he is also the ponce, Lord Amalfi. Of course, the young lady finds herself attracted to the masked pirate, Sirocco, and rather cool to her intended, Lord Amalfi. What a surprise she has when Lord Amalfi and Sirocco turn out to be the same person. The most distinguished aspects of the film are its sets and costumes. The sharp contrast of the cinematography is also noteworthy. As usual, Ulmer delivers a low budget film that has character (and characters of distinction). 

 

The Man From Planet X (1951), directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Of all the Ulmer films I have seen, this one impresses me the most. The expressionistic sets are fabulous, as good as anything since those early days of German Expressionist cinema. The story is also intriguing. In short, Planet X is heading toward earth, and its occupants have sent out an out-rider to scope out earth. This person from Planet X at first seems harmless enough, even quite vulnerable. Then an earthing tries to harm this alien for self-interest – humans are greedy bastards – and the person from away turns dangerous. As one of the characters says at the end, this person from space just might have brought something beneficial to earth. True, the alien’s own planet was becoming uninhabitable, but this does not necessarily mean that the aliens wanted to destroy humans. The action is set on a remote Scottish island and the atmosphere is eery, moody, and at times creepy.  The film has elements of a number of good films to follow: e.g. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Invaders From Mars. Ulmer’s film was made on a shoestring, but it shows imagination and flare. John Dierkes makes an appearance as Jacob, the menacing looking grounds keeper.

 

Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957), directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. This Ulmer film has the reputation of being sloppy – 1950s cars can be seen out a window in a breakfast scene – but I found it richly rewarding. The film draws on the look of those early 1930s Universal horror films and the appearance of the kindly Arthur Shields as the villain is priceless. His devilishness in the prologue and epilogue is great fun. As for the plot, well you can probably guess this. Janet Smith (Gloria Talbott) visits her ancestral home, bringing along her fiancé George (John Agar). She intends to introduce George to her relative Dr. Lomas (Shields) who is looking after the mansion, the mansion that will become Janet’s on her 21^st birthday which is happening during this visit. Dr. Lomas has a family secret to divulge, and this secret, that Janet is Dr. Jekyll’s daughter and just might inherit his penchant for turning into a werewolf. The film mixes werewolf and vampire lore gleefully. We have a few dream sequences and a werewolf sequence to spice things up. The actors perform well, Agar being perhaps better than usual. By no means Ulmer’s best outing, but enjoyable nonetheless.

 

Beyond the Time Barrier (1960), directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Lots of triangles and sliding doors in this late entry from Ulmer. A test pilot in 1960 flies beyond the time barrier and finds himself on earth 64 years in the future. The world’s population has suffered from a plague caused by nuclear testing, and the majority of people are now deaf mutes who suffer from radiation poisoning. If only our pilot, William Allison (Robert Clarke), can get back to 1960, perhaps he can stop the plague from wreaking havoc on civilization. But first he must extricate himself from the underground living quarters in which he finds himself imprisoned. We have a variety of characters, mutants, deaf mutes, “scapes” (those who managed somehow to escape the ravages of the plague), and some creatures from another movie in shots clearly not made for this one. The sets look forward to sets we see in Star Trek a few years later. Everything here, including the triangular wipes, is reminiscent of the old-time serials, the most famous of which are the Flash Gordon serials. This is an earnest film with some excellent visuals, as we would expect from Ulmer. The look of the film reminds me of the work of William Cameron Menzies. The ending is intended to be a shock, and it does have its momentary shock value.

Hannibal (1959), directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia. Hannibal is a film that comes near the end of Ulmer’s career. Ulmer began his career as art director for the likes of Murnau and Lang before heading to America to begin a directing career with The Black Cat (1934). He is well known for his ability to make impressive films on a miniscule budget. Hannibal sees him working with a bigger budget and a cast of thousands plus several elephants. As far as acting goes, the elephants win the prize. Hannibal is one of many historical epics so popular at the time, and it has its pleasures. Things move along fluidly enough, although at times it seems as if the fluidity could use a few dams. We have much marching, much riding, much trudging, and several tumbles from the sides of mountains (probably the same mountain every time). Battle scenes are just about okay and the aftermath sees fields strewn with bodies. I wonder whether the Monty Python people had seen this film. There is not much in the way of character development, but scenes are colourful, and those elephants are impressive. Also noteworthy is the presence of two actors who will go on to fame (and fortune?) in Spaghetti westerns, Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.

 Just a few films for early May.

Bassima’s Womb (2024), directed by Babek Aliassa. This French-Canadian film is escellent. It tells the story of a young Syrian woman, Bassima (Maxine Denis), who, along with her husband Fouad (Roudy Nakhle), are illegal immigrants eking out a living in Montreal. Fouad is deported back to Syria and Bassima finds herself alone. She finds work in a laundry, and before long is faced with a crucial decision. To make enough money to purchase false papers and bring her hysband back to Canada, Bassima must decide whether to become a surrogate mother for a Canadian couple who cannot have children. There is a farther twist in the story that just ups the emotional intensity. The film is about immigration, culture, relationships, and the position of the female in contemporary times. The characters are compelling, even the rat that tries to live in the basement of the laundry. I find little in the internet about this film, and this is unfortunate because it is timely, intense, well-acted, and also important. Recommended.

 

The Silent Partner (1978), directed by Daryl Duke. This Canadian film, scripted by Curtis Hanson, is edgy, bloody, and rather emotionless. It is also clever and surprising. The focus is on mild mannered bank teller, Miles Cullen (Elliott Gould), who susses out an impending bank robbery by observing the strange behaviour of a Santa Claus in the mall where the bank is located (the Eaton Mall in Toronto). Miles prepares for this robbery and when it takes place, he has managed to give the robber just a small amount of money while keeping the larger portion for himself. Once the robber, Reikle (Christopher Plummer, in an uncharacteristic role as a sadistic criminal) realizes that he has been cheated out of a lot of money, he sets out to get the money from Miles. A cat and mouse situation ensures. Meanwhile Miles is attempting to impress his boss’s mistress Julie (Susannah York), and Reikle’s girl, Elaine (Celine Lomez) is trying to seduce Miles. What a tangled web these people weave. The plot has its interest, but somehow the whole thing plays out without a lot of emotion, without drawing the viewer in. Miles spends his time collecting exotic fish and playing chess with himself. The chess board serves as a reminder of the “game” being played by Miles and Reikle. The fish are a reminder that Elliott is a cold fish. John Candy makes an appearance as one of Miles’s co-workers.

Endless Night (1972), directed by Sidney Gilliat. From a novel by Agatha Christie, Endless Night takes its time getting to the murder, but once it gets there, things move along quickly. As for plot, this has young dreamer Michael Rogers (Hywel Bennett) meeting wealthy young woman, Ellie Thomsen (Hayley Mills). Courtship is quick and the two build a fabulous home called Gypsy’s Acre. Soon Ellie’s friend Greta (Britt Ekland) comes for an extended visit and tensions rise. The fim is quite clever in its twists and turns, and the locations are impressive. The old gothic house nearby the new mansion is supposed to be cursed and we have the requisite elderly and sinister woman lurking about, often with two cats. Speaking of cats, we also have the large cat sculpture given as a house gift to Michael and Ellie from Greta. The acting is adequate, the musical score by Bernard Herrmann suitable, and the dubbed singing voice for Hayley Mills clearly dubbed. From what I can tell, the storyline is something of a departure for Christie, and the end does have a rather hasty and unusual twist. Not great, but watchable.

A Dry White Season (1989), directed by Euzhan Palcy. Made just a few years before the end of apartheid in South Africa, this film is a powerful indictment of that unjust system and an excruciating look at the consequences of seeking racial justice under such a system. Somehow the film strikes me as necessary for our moment in the mid 2020s. Palcy tries to convey just what separation means with scenes in a wasteland-like Soweto contrasted with the lush greenery and gardens of the white people, most obviously the home of Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland). Ben is a teacher and a former rugby star who lives a comfortable and shielded life. His gardener Gordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona) is a friend, but always deferential. Ben and Gordon’s sons, as we see in the opening scene, are good playmates who seem oblivious to their racial difference. Then Gordon’s son, Jonathan (Bekhithemba Mpofu), get into trouble with the authorities and is brutally caned. At first Ben brushes this off and assumes Jonathan must have done something wrong. But when the authorities murder Jonatan and bury him in an unmarked and unknown place, Ben sets out to help Gordon find the whereabuts of his son. This sets Ben against the system and soon he runs afoul of the secret police, and his fellow teachers turn away from him, and even his family think he is a traitor, except for his young son Johan (Rowen Elmes). Johan is crucial here. As the driver Stanley (Zakes Mokae) notes, Ben had to learn about injustice after years of turning a blind eye, whereas John as a young boy already understand injustice and its ugliness. This is a powerful film. Marlon Brando appears in a cameo role as a human rights lawyer, and he is both brilliant in the role and also a bit unsettling simply because he brings to the film a humour that is, perhaps, misguided. Or perhaps not. Susan Sarandon also appears in a small role as a newspaper reporter. Other familiar performers also appear, most prominently Jurgen Prochnow as the vicious Police Captain Stolz. The film has a grim ending, although a glimmer of hope exists in the person of Johan, a young boy who understands and resists the ugliness of a system that depends on the subservience of one group of people.

The Long Farewell (1971), directed by Kira Muratova. This is a film of experiments that gets up close and intimate with a mother Yevgeniya Ustinova (Zinaida Sharko) and her son Sasha Ustinov (Oleg Vladimirsky). She is domineering and in need of reassurance while he is growing more independent and expresses a wish to go and live with his father. We see them interact with quite a number of other people in a variety of situations. Muratova’s camera dwells on faces and the texture of things from a dog’s fur to china and cutlery to a target for a bow and arrow to a weed lifted from a river to plaster to a silk ribbon to a young girl’s long hair and so on. The narrative bumps along much as the lives of these people bump their way forward. The sound track too is ornery, sometimes silent, sometimes just accenting sounds of a nearby beach or kids playing, sometimes with familiar pop songs such as "Winchester Cathedral," and sometimes conventional film music. Things are bleak in this depiction of life in Soviet Russia. Yevgeniya is both sympathetic in her lack of confidence and unsympathetic in her desire to control her son. Sasha is brooding and also unsure of himself. The people around them are a mixture of arrogance and eagerness for some sort of satisfaction in a world that offers little. There are touches here of the French New Wave and also of earlier Soviet cinema, but Muratova has an unmistakable originality. The shadow mime we see at one point is perhaps as good an expression of life here as we could ask for.

Wittgenstein (1993), directed by Derek Jarman. I knew little about this philosopher before I watched this film, and I know little about hm after viewing it. This is not to say that I disliked the film. Far from it. The film is cinematically gorgeous. The costumes, the minimalist sets, the colours, the camera positions, the wit (love the Martian) are all splendid. Jarman manages to tell us something of the life of Wittgenstein, his eccentricities, his peripatetic desires, his intensity, his awkward sex life (read conflicted homosexuality), his wealthy family, his relationships with the likes of Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes, and his philosophical enquiries. Clearly, he was a complicated human being. Jarman films his story in a series of vignettes and in a very stage-like manner giving us the impression that the people here live a rarified life, a life somehow abstracted from the push and shove of the cold world, despite Ludwig’s desire to participate in that world by teaching or by manual labour or whatever. As a biography of Wittgenstein, this film is sketchy, but fascinating.

 Let's have a few Howard Hawks films.

The Dawn Patrol (1930), directed by Howard Hawks. As you would expect with Hawks, this is a film about male comradeship, male courage and honour and professionalism and self-sacrifice. Set during the First World War, the story follows a group of fliers asked to undertake dangerous missions with rickety planes; many of the pilots are young and inexperienced. The Commanders, first Major Brand (Neil Hamilton), and later Dick Courtney (Richard Barthelmess), agonize over lost men because they have sent them into combat. We follow Courtney and his close friend Douglas Scott (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.). It transpires that Courtney, following orders, sends Scott’s young brother into combat only to have him killed. The fliers down much alcohol while waiting for orders, and one scene has a jovial gathering of fliers with a captured German pilot who sings happily in his cups. Also in the picture is the German ace, Baron von Richthofen, the Red Baron, called von Richter here. Courtney manages to shoot down von Richter before another German pilot, played by Howard Hawks, shoots him down. The flight scenes are impressive for 1930. The film was remade in 1938 with Errol Flynn.

 

Road to Glory (1936), directed by Howard Hawks. Hawks made a number of war films, beginning with The Dawn Patrol in 1930. Road to Glory is a fairly conventional anti-war film that turns on a love triangle, leading one of the two men in love with the nurse to sacrifice himself. Hawks’s interest in professionals, men in action, honour, and a strong woman is evident. A few moments stand out: the moaning soldier wounded and caught on barbed wire, the enemy tunneling beneath the French garrison, and the soldier who tosses a grenade at his own men. Mostly, however, the action moves along predictably. The sub-plot that has Captain Paul LaRoche’s (Warner Baxter) father (Lionel Barrymore), who is in his sixties, join the regiment, strains believability. The scene during the air raid when Lt. Denet (Frederic March) meets Monique La Coste (June Lang) is nicely Hawksian. On the whole, this is a serviceable film, although not as strong as the films Hawks would create in the following two decades.

 

His Girl Friday (1939), directed by Howard Hawks. This is the fast-talking, fast-paced, quick-witted newspaper story told on film four times, this version being the slickest. This is also quintessential Hawks, with its group of professional men, reporters, and one professional woman, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell). The plot turns on capital punishment, with the sadsack Earl Williams scheduled to hang before the day is out, and the Post’s editor, Walter Burns (Cary Grant), attempting to get a reprieve to stop the hanging, and also attempting to get a good story. The scoop’s the thing. And the scoop may or may not be a reporting of the actual truth. The portrait of newspaper men scrambling to get a story before their competitors get the same story, and newspaper men willing to embellish the truth for the sake of sales smacks of today’s scepticism of news reporting. The dialogue here is famously fast, loud, and crowded with people talking over each other. The cast is chock full of well-known character actors: Ralph Bellamy, Regis Toomey, Roscoe Karns, Porter Hall, John Qualen, Gene Lockhart, Billy Gilbert, Abner Biberman, Ed Cobb, even Earl Dwire, although I confess I missed his fleeting appearance. As usual with Hawks, the editing is seamless, hardly noticeable as characters move about naturally and talk as they walk. The humour is quick and laced with a certain cynicism. Walter Burns is a cad of the first order, but we like him anyway. Hildy Johnson is a career woman who thrives on work. All this is delicious. Underlying the focus on professionalism is an understanding of the corrupt underlay to a civilization built on a grasping for power.

 

Red River (1948), directed by Howard Hawks. Mutiny on the Chisholm Trail with Tom Dunson (John Wayne) as Colonel Bligh and Matthew Garth (Montgomery Clift) as Fletcher Christian. This epic tale of the first great cattle drive from Texas to Kansas is Hawks’s first western, and it shows traces of John Ford’s style both in Russell Harlan’s cinematography and in a cast that has many Ford regulars: John Wayne, Walter Brennan, Tom Tyler, Glenn Strange, Harry Carey Sr. and Jr. In content, however, this is distinctly a Hawks film, focusing as it does on a group of men, professionals at what they do (here herd cattle!), who must confront difficulties posed by both nature and by human frailties. Dunson is the hard-nosed stubborn cattle baron who rules his men with a ruthlessness bordering on instability. His adopted son, Matthew, is a gentler sort. Entering the lives of these two, late in the film, is Tess Millay (Joanne Dru, who will appear in two of Ford’s films soon after), strong woman who sorts things out between father and son. Along for the ride is gunfighter Cherry Valance (John Ireland), allowing for a scene in which Matthew and Cherry admire each others’ gun! Scenes of the cattle drive are impressive in their sweep, especially the stampede that occurs after one of the cowhands causes a racket of falling pots and pans. Dunson’s fanatic desire to get his cattle to Missouri (they end up in Abilene, Kansas) leads him to cruel and unnecessary behaviour, even shooting would be deserters. The intensity Wayne brings to this role will resurface again in Ford’s The Searchers (1956). As westerns go, this one is near the top. The sharp-eyed viewer will spot a few familiar faces: Shelley Winters, John Merton, Richard Farnsworth, Lane Chandler, for example.

 

The Thing From Another World (1951), directed by Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks. “An intellectual carrot – the mind boggles.” Yes, this one is about an alien from outer space, a vegetable man who wreaks havoc in an arctic outpost. This is Hawks’s contribution to the red scare mood of the post war period. I say Hawks’s contribution because the film has his imprint: an isolated place peopled with a group of men and a strong woman, professionals faced with an unusual situation. One rather kinky scene has the female lead, Nikki (Margaret Sheridan), tying the male lead, Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), to a chair. Then we have the scientist who insists on the importance of scientific learning. Unlike the good Captain Hendry, scientist Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) wants to keep Vegetable Man (James Arness) alive in order to study him. Vegetable Man is well-nigh impossible to kill and he reproduces at an alarming rate; we have a big tray filled with wee seed pods, a small-scale look ahead at the larger seed pods in Don Siegal’s terrific red scare flick, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). What does manage to rid the world of Vegetable Man is electricity, something that proved useful in getting rid of a number of monsters in films of the 1950s. The dialogue here is snappy, as one would expect from Hawks. We do see Vegetable Man, but not a great deal. Much of the tension comes from the isolated location of the action and the lurking danger just behind closed doors. The two characters, Captain Hendry and Dr. Carrington remind me of Matthew Garth (Montgomery Clift) and Tom Dunson (John Wayne) in Hawks’s Red River (1948). The location is  reminiscent of the isolated trading port in Hawks’s Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Christian Nyby may have onscreen directing credit, but the film has Hawks’s imprint all over it.

 

Man's Favourite Sport (1964), directed by Howard Hawks. Hawks was the consummate professional, and his films take an interest in professionalism. In this film, the professional is a fisherman who is not a professional. Roger Willoughby (Rock Hudson) works for Abercrombie and Fitch as a fishing expert; he has even written a well-known book on fishing. His secret, however, is that he has never once been fishing. Not only that, he is inept at the sporting life and cannot even swim. So you can imagine the plot turns on Roger's entry into a fishing contest, against his will. Hawks made some of the best screwball comedies, including Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940), I Was a Male War Bride (1949), and Monkey Business (1952). The films I list all have Cary Grant in the lead male role. Rock Hudson is no Cary Grant, and yet Hudson's very clumsiness works. The film is Hawksian in its focus on male activities, professionalism, and the disruptions that a strong woman can bring to the male group. The male group here consists of wealthy older men out for a lark, and we have some familiar faces from those earlier days of screwball comedy - Roscoe Karns and Regis Toomey, for example. Yes, the plot and the action are far-fetched, but they do have funny moments. Some of what we have is now dated, but Hudson in his inflatable waders, or stunts with zippers, or unlikely ways of catching a fish are funny. And the actors are likeable and comfortable (with the exception, perhaps, of Hudson), as we would expect in a Hawks film. Hawks was never a flashy director, but he was most definitely a director with both a consistent world view and a facility with the medium as it was in its heyday.

 Westerns anyone?

Robber’s Roost (1955), directed by Sidney Salkow. This western has a convoluted plot involving two rival outlaw gangs working for the same ranch owner, a taciturn stranger (George Montgomery and his large hat), a ranch owner in a wheel chair, his sister, and an amiable fellow with a guitar who serenades all and sundry with 1950s style croonery (is there such a word?). The scenery (around Durango, Mexico) is impressive, especially the bulbous rock at the entrance to the titular robber’s roost. The plot, although convoluted, is predictable. The performers are familiar and efficient; they include Montgomery as the hero, Richard Boone and Peter Graves as the two gang leaders, Bruce Bennet as the wheelchair-bound rancher Bull Herrick, Leo Gordon as one of the bad guys, Tony Romano as Happy Jack the singer, William Hopper as would-be love interest of the rancher’s sister, and Sylvia Findley as Helen, Bull’s sister. All in all, this is an amiable 1950s western. It may be preposterous, but what the heck.

 

Dead For a Dollar (2022), directed by Walter Hill. As westerns go and as Walter Hill films go, this one is middling. Hill dedicates the film to Budd Boetticher, and his hero here, bounty hunter Max Borlund (Christoph Walz), has the stoic morality of Randolph Scott in the Boetticher films of the 1950s. Borlund takes a job that sends him to Mexico to bring back a rich man’s wife; she has been abducted by a Black cavalry deserter who wants a lot of money for her safe return. Well, it turns out that things are rather different. The woman, Rachel Kidd (Rachel Brosnahan), has gone willingly and she and her fellow escapee, Elijah Jones (Brandon Scott), hope to get enough money to make it to Cuba. Into the mix we have Sgt Alonzo Poe (Warren Burke) who accompanies Borlund, Joe Cribbens (Willem Defoe) who has a grudge against Borlund, and villainous Mexican land owner, Tiberio Vargas (Benjamin Bratt). The action plays out economically, as we would expect from a Walter Hill movie. The filming gives us the brownish colour we also expect, and we have sweeping southwest landscapes. Things move along efficiently, if predicably. The characters are one dimensional, but amiable. The racial aspect of things is presented in a matter-of-fact manner. In short, aside from the presentation of non-white characters, including Mexicans, in a sympathetic way, there is little that is noteworthy here. It is rather strange to see Willem Defoe in a western, but he does bring an amusement that is missing elsewhere.

 

Revolt at Fort Laramie (1957), directed by Lesley Selander. This little no-nonsense western focuses on life in a western outpost, Fort Laramie, in 1861 just as the Civil War begins. When the war does begin, reactions in the Fort are divided, and the short-lived revolt of the title consists of a group of southern soldiers who plan to desert, take a supply of gold with them, and head to Texas to join southern forces. The revolt is short-lived because notice arrives at the Fort that southern men are allowed to leave their posts if they wish to do so. A group does leave, headed by the Fort commandant, Major Seth Bradner (John Dehner). He leaves behind his daughter, who was before the war broke out, the intended of Captain James Tenslip (Gregg Palmer). Tenslip assumes command of the Fort on the departure of Major Bradner. Anyway, we also have the Sioux chief Red Cloud (Eddie Little Sky) and his band of warriors. In short (and the film is short), Captain Tenslip and his soldiers comes to the rescue of Major Brander and his southerners and everyone is friends again, although they still agree to part ways. Nicely filmed with Utah standing in for Wyoming, Revolt at Fort Laramie is serviceable; it has an earnest message about friends and enemies and getting along for honour’s sake. The cast does not have any notable star power, but it does have a young and uncredited Harry Dean Stanton, looking just a wee bit lost. Also uncredited are familiar faces such as Jack Ingram (aka Hal Ingraham), and Kenne Duncan. Oh, and then there is Don Gordon as the “breed” Jean Salignac who speaks with a terrible, what French?, accent. As 1950s western go, this one is passable.

 

Train Dreams (2025), directed by Clint Bentley. This is a beautifully filmed depiction of life on the frontier in the early to mid-twentieth century. Set in northern Idaho, the story follows woodsman and rail worker Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) as he tries to make sense of a world in which he encounters vicious racism, environmental degradation, and emotional confusion. The film has, essentially, two parts, one in which Robert happens to meet Gladys (Felicity Jones) and the two fall in love. They marry and have a child, Kate. They lead a quiet, but intense and happy life in the wilderness. This life abruptly ends when Robert returns from a work trip to find the area of his house on fire. Not only is his house gone to ash, but there is no trace of Gladys and Kate. The second part of the film follows Robert as he contends with grief and hopes beyond hope to see his wife and child again. The film is a lyrical depiction of Robert’s life, especially his inner life. This taciturn man had a deep well of emotion, and we see this emotion in its various forms registered on his face. We also meet characters who interact with Robert, the garrulous old timer who knows about explosives, Arn Peebles (William H. Macy), the storekeeper Ignatius Jack (Nathaniel Arcand), and the likeable survey woman Claire Thompson (Kerry Condon), among the most notable. The lighting of the film reminded me of Arthur Penn’s The Missouri Breaks (1976), and I also saw bits of Jeremiah Johnson (1972), here and there. And yes, Terence Malik’s work also resonates. I like the film’s interest in connectedness. Claire remarks that a dead tree is as important as a living tree, and this is as good a line as any to point us in the direction of nature, its beauty, its connectedness, and also is delicacy. The human appetite for progress, for building, means more and more trees disappear, more and more damage to the environment takes place. The train itself is a potent image of both progress and destruction, both loneliness (oh that haunting train sound) and community. This is a film that gives us a poetic take on that most intense of American myths: the west. What punctures this myth are the train dreams, dreams that keep reminding us of death, bigotry, separation, and destruction.

 

Shoot the Sun Down (1978), directed by David Leeds. ‘Odd” is perhaps the best way to describe this western, set in 1836 New Mexico territory, still part of Mexico. It opens with a goofy scene that plays like a cartoon, as we follow a lone rider, Rainbow (Christopher Walken), who is followed by three Mexican riders (we can tell by their sombreros). The scene ends in Spaghetti-western manner with Rainbow shooting the three riders who have followed and accosted him. Rainbow uses a Colt Patterson repeater, the first six-shooter. Rainbow is the only character in the film who has a repeating pistol. Anyway, on to other things. Rainbow meets up with Captain (Bo Bundin) and his indentured female known as the Woman (Margot Kidder). He also meets Scalphunter (Geoffrey Lewis) and his minions. Scalphunter steals the show. He manages to be both comic relief and menacing villain. The plot has these people seemingly out for various things: escape from servitude, trade with the Native peoples, travel to Texas, The only honest one is Scalphunter who just wants gold, however he can get it. The plot is a bit of a mess. But the cinematography is notable with beautiful shots of the New Mexico landscape, including White Sands. The musical score alludes to the Spaghetti westerns some of the time, although it also has more raucous sounds and even some lush strings. Like the movie itself, the score is all over the place. We even have visual allusions to Jodorowsky’s El Topo (1970). This is a strange one.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), directed by John Ford. Watching this film at this time is bracing. Our time is a time of cowboy bravado coming out of the United States, with its administration strutting and blustering like drunken cowboys in a saloon brawl, although here the saloon is real places such as Minneapolis, Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran. Striding above the mayhem is the lone gunman, today a puffy orange-tinted buffoon, a bloated Buster Scruggs. In the film, this lone gunman, representative of rugged individualism is played by, who else?, John Wayne. The films sets him between Lawyer Stoddard (James Stewart) and the side of law and order, and Liberty Valance and the side of chaos and criminality. The thing is, the world of both the lone gunman and the chaos driven bandit is passing. Yes, it passes, but leaves its legacy to the likes of Stoddard a politician who has succeeded because he has accepted, falsely, the lie that he is the man who shot Liberty Valance. Stoddard does, finally and at the time of Tom Doniphon’s funeral (Doniphon/Wayne shot Liberty to save Stoddard and help the girl he love who is partial to Stoddard). However, Stoddard’s coming clean proves too late, too weak. As Maxwell Scott (Carleton Young), editor of the Shinbone Star, remarks: “when the legend becomes truth, print the legend.” This line, justly famous, resonates now in a time when the lie in politics has become normalized, accepted, and ubiquitous. The cynicism here has been justly earned. The film is remarkable in its acuity. Take just one example out of many: in the schoolroom scene, Stoddard asks the Black man Pompey (Woody Strode), Doniphon’s “boy,” to recite the Declaration of Independence. Pompey begins well, but stumbles at a certain point, and Stoddard helps him out saying, “all me are created equal,” followed by, “that’s all right, Pompey. A lot of people forget about that part.” This film never fails to bring a tear to my eye. This time round it has a power I had not seen before. That cowboy ethos just will not leave America, as the final line of the film states – bluntly. The cactus rose represents both a ray of hope and beauty in a dark world, and also that which has been lost not to return. As the world turns, it is "plus ca change, plus c'est the same old thing": lies and cover-up. No romantic vistas here, no Monument Valley, only a mournful clear-eyed look at the American myth.

Black God, White Devil (1964), directed by Glauber Rocha. This Brazilian western is as bleak a film as you will see. It proceeds in 3 acts, the first dealing with a confrontation between a poor farmer Manuel (Geraldo Del Ray) and the wealthy landlord who cheats him, the second with the poor farmer and his wife Rosa (Yona Magalhaes) on the run and coming across a cult spiritual leader St Sebastiao (Lidio Silva) who attempts to separate husband and wife, and third with the poor farmer and his wife joining the bandit gang under the volatile leader Corisco (Othon Bastos). I guess the black god is St. Sebastiao who comes to his end after he directs Manuel to kill a baby in order to cleanse Rosa of her sins. She reacts by drving the bloodied knife into Sebatiao’s back. As for the white devil, this must be Corisco who is out to avenge the killing of legendary bandit leader Lampiao. We also have an assassin on the trail of both Sebastiao and Corsico; this character will remind you of Clint Eastwood's man with no name. The action takes place in the arid backcountry of Brazil known as sertao. From the opening shots of the earth and the rotting corpse of a horse, we know we are in unwelcoming territory. No one here comes off well: the poor are too easily convinced to follow charlatans, the wealthy are greedy and unscrupulous, the religious leader offers a baseless “island” where children drink milk from streams, the revolutionary leader is nothing other than a violent bandit. As for the filming, the black and white cinematography serves Rocha well. We have scenes that clearly evoke Eisenstein’s Odessa steps sequence from Potemkin, and scenes from Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew. Perhaps the most excruciating scene here invokes Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus. In this scene, Manuel struggles to place a huge rock on his head while on his knees, and then move up a steep road toward the chapel, all the while having Sebastiao prod him with a stick. The film’s action does not have a narrator, although the soundtrack does contain a number of folk ballads that comment on the action, and also serve to accentuate the importance of oral culture. Ultimately, this film suggests we get rid of both gods and devils because both lead us to violence, distrust, misunderstanding, and injustice.

The Furies (1950), directed by Anthony Mann. Intense. This film offers a transition from Mann’s 1940s noir films to his 1950s westerns, and it’s a doozie. It has noir lighting and angles and trapped characters, especially father and daughter, T. C. Jeffords (Walter Huston in his final film) and Vance Jeffords (Barbara Stanwyck). Both Huston and Stanwyck give crackerjack performances. Huston is the bombastic cattle baron and Stanwyck is his clever and manipulative daughter; the two of them have a relationship that is uncomfortably close, as some of the filming makes clear. For Vance, however, this is a love/hate relationship that comes to a boiling point when her father takes up with a gold digger of a woman, Flo Burnett (Judith Anderson). Then we have the friendship between Vance and Mexican squatter Juan Hererra (Gilbert Roland), and the romance between Vance and gambler Rip Darrow (Wendell Corey). Juan’s fate is not pleasant, and Darrow’s wheeling and dealing finally restore the Darrow Strip (a part of Jeffords’s huge ranch) to him. The film has something of King Lear in it. It has melodrama, action, darkness and light (mostly the former). It has an intensity of emotions rare in westerns, but familiar in Mann’s work. The source material is a novel by Niven Busch who also scripted King Vidor’s Duel in the Sun (1946). Need I say more? Yes, I need say more. The Furies is a far superior film than Duel in the Sun. It never allows the over-the-top stuff to dominate. From images to lighting to acting to plotting, this is a superior western.

 

Hondo (1953), directed by John Farrow. I saw this film when I was a kid, probably around 9-years-old. The film I saw was in 3-D, and I have clear memories of several scenes from that 3-D experience. This is also the John Wayne film that I most strongly remember from my childhood, and it is a quintessential Wayne film. As Hondo, Wayne, is tall, taciturn, manly, and given to let others do as they think best, even when he knows that what they think best is wrong. His treatment of his dog, Sam, is a case in point. He neither pets nor feeds Sam because he thinks the dog ought to be independent. Well Sam’s independence goes only so far, and Hondo’s attitude is not one I share – at least any more. I probably thought that Hondo was pretty cool letting young Johnny Lowe (Lee Aker) try to pet Sam only to get bitten. Not only does Hondo let Johnny do what he wants, he also tosses him into the pond when he learns that Johnny cannot swim. “A man’s gotta do what he thinks best.” Anyway, the film is short - just 83 minutes – and brisk. The opening scene with Hondo walking across the barren terrain and arriving at the Lowe ranch stayed with me over the years. It seemed to last much longer than it actually does last. Like so many westerns, Hondo has a hero who is a loner, a man of the land, part Native and once married to a Native woman. His independence has its limits. Like the Anthony Mann films with James Stewart, Hondo has a rough edge. Hondo’s rifle is a prize he has won for marksmanship, reminding us of Winchester 73. Like Shane, Hondo is a mysterious stranger arriving at a lonely ranch where he finds he is attracted to a married woman and her son. The cast will be familiar with Geraldine Page, Ward Bond, Michael Pate, Leo Gordon, Paul Fix, Rodolpho Acosta, and James Arness.

 

The Vanishing American (1955), directed by Joe Kane. This is another of those 1950s westerns that set out to present a positive image of the Native American. Like others, such as the more famous Broken Arrow, The Vanishing American casts a white actor as the main Native character. Here, in eyeliner, we have Scott Brady as the Navaho Brandy; it is not entirely clear to me if Brandy is actually Navaho since he was raised by a white man. In any case, he believes he is Navaho (as I write such belief in Native heritage is in the news). If we can get past this casting, we have the delight of seeing Audrey Totter as Marion Warner, a gun-toting courageous and audacious woman who has come from the east to inherit a parcel of land, with water, in an area occupied by Navaho and lorded over by white merchant and criminal Morgan (Forrest Tucker). Despite the film’s interest in Native Americans, Marion steals the show. She sets out to take down Morgan and to help the people she initially thinks of as simply “savages.” Of course, she has the help of Brandy, although she helps him more than he helps her. And of course they fall in love. In this film, these two can end up together, something rare in films back then. Also of interest is Morgan’s abuse of the young Native girl Yashi (Gloria Castillo). Although subdued, this aspect of the film is clear: Morgan likes young girls. Among the cast we have many familiar faces: Gene Lockhart, Jim Davis, Lee Van Cleef, John Dierkes, James Millican, Julian Rivero, Jay Silverheels, Glenn Strange (playing a Native person), and uncredited, Hank Worden, and Frances McDonald. The location shooting in Utah is impressive. The story comes from a Zane Grey novel, although it softens, actually eliminates, the negative view of the U.S. government. This one is well worth revisiting.

 A few Japanese films, especially those by Seijun Suzuki.

An Actor’s Revenge (1963), directed by Kon Ichikawa. I keep being surprised and delighted by the visual splendours of Japanese cinema. An Actor’s Revenge is stunning in its visual beauty and imaginative staging. I say “staging” because the main character is a kabuki actor, a female impersonator, and the various sets (everything is on a set) and designs allude to, but do not simply deliver, the kabuki stage. The imaginative vision here is stunning. The story is familiar, even old-fashioned. A kabuki actor finds himself acting in front of an audience that prominently includes three men who are responsible for the deaths of the actor’s mother and father. The daughter of one of these men is also in the audience. The plot has the actor set out to avenge his parents. Complicating things are two master thieves, and another mysterious man who is out to kill the actor. And so we have many goings-on, much darkness, much colour, much play acting, and a stunning performance by Kazuo Hasegawa as the cross-dressing Yukinojo. Whether on stage or off, Yukinijo dresses as a woman, although most everyone knows he is a man. In fact, Namiji (Ayako Wakao), the daughter of one of the villains, falls in love with the female-looking Yukinojo knowing full well he is a man. Finally, I might note that this was Kazuo Hasegawa’s 300^th film (this is acknowledged in the screen credits), and he slyly plays two roles in the film, that of Yukinojo and also that of Yumitaro, one of the thieves who also serves as something of a chorus. I say “slyly” because Hasegawa is such a good actor that it is possible to miss this dual role performance. This film is mind-bendingly splendid.

 

Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! (1963), directed by Seijun Suzuki. The opening shot of this frenetic film is a close-up of an American G.I., and early on in the film a character remarks that this is not an “American TV show.” No, it isn’t, but it is a send-up of the American noir cinema. This is Peter Gunn on shrooms. Jo Shishiro, he of the chipmunk cheeks, is Hideo Tajima, proprietor of Detective Bureau 2-3. I have no idea what this name signifies, but the Bureau is the office of Detective Tajima, a sort of Sam Spade or Marlowe transported to Japan. The film delights in filling the screen with images that echo American culture, even going so far as to have a couple of production numbers, one of which sees Tajima singing and dancing along with a nightclub’s entertainer. Another number has several young women wearing little and dancing to “When the Saints Come Marching In.” The whole concoction is a hoot. Perhaps not as stylish as Suzuki’s later Tokyo Drifter (1966) or Branded to Kill (1966), this film does have the primary colours, the careful use of widescreen, the fast pacing, the quirky sound track, the offbeat locations, and the surprises we expect from Suzuki. The film’s title fronts a film that proudly parades excess. The plot, familiar and quite beside the point, has our detective hero infiltrating a criminal organization in order to get the goods on this organization. Meanwhile, the criminal organization is feuding with at least one other criminal organization and this leads to a couple of baroque shootouts. Through it all, our hero meets a femme fatale, has his cover exposed, and spars with his two minions, one of whom is a female reporter. The film is delicious. 

 

Branded to Kill (1966), directed by Seijun Suzuki. Talk about your deconstruction, and then take a look at this film. It is about a hitman who has a fetish for the aroma of rice wafting from a rice cooker. He also has two femme fatales causing him some anguish. Mostly, however, his anguish comes from his desire to be No. 1 hitman. As the film opens, he is No. 3. By the end of the film, he can echo James Cagney’s famous shout, “Top of the world, Mama.” And like Cody, the Cagney character, he has also met his doom. Suzuki is a film maker who marries pulp with more style than you can possibly wish for. He is the master of crazy ideas and wonky camera angles. He likes shots through doorways and passageways. His protagonist, Hanada, is played by chipmunk-cheeks Jo Shishido, a rather addle-pated hitman who finds novel ways to assassinate his targets. For example, he shoots one fellow through the waterpipe below the sink over which the fellow is washing his face. He also shoots a few people while sitting atop a hot air balloon. Then we have the surreal bits with birds in cages or dangling from the rear-view mirror of a car, or the many many butterflies that appear as décor or as impediments to an assassination. Oh, and then there is the scene in which Hanada lies beneath an automobile that has ropes hooked to its bumper, and he pulls the automobile closer and closer to his adversary who is trying to shoot him. So what does Suzuki deconstruct? The conventional noir thriller here finds it nemesis in this wild off kilter crazy Seijun Suzuki fling.

 

Tokyo Drifter (1966), directed by Seijun Suzuki. If Gate of Flesh is the most pulp of Suzuki's films, then Tokyo Drifter is the most stylish. This film offers Classical form crossed with Romantic content. The form delivers sparse sets singularly coloured and lighted, with emphasis on verticals and horizontals. The colours, dark green, mauve, purple, muted yellow, red (of course), pastel blue, white, along with black and white with hot lighting at the beginning, give us eye-popping visual fields to look at. The action is stylized in the extreme giving the action something of a mechanical look. I was reminded of both Melville's Samurai with Alain Delon and MGM musicals of the late 40s and early 50s. The action has clear choreography that gives it an artificial but effective look. Camera angles are various and noticeable diverting the viewer from action to form. As for content, this involves a lone "drifter" with a sense of loyalty who is quick on the trigger and fast with his fists. He is a combination of the typical film noir hero out on a limb and sawing it off, and the American cowboy. The film even has a "Western Saloon," in which an entertaining and wild brawl breaks out. This is as imaginative a take on the gangster film as you could expect to see.

 

The Ballad of Narayama (1958), directed by Keisuke Kinoshita. This film is an exquisite exercise in formalism, painterly and deliberate. And yet it also manages to be an examination of the human capacity for self-sacrifice, kindness, stupidity, and selfishness. Orin (Kinuyo Tanaka) is a woman about to turn 70, and in her village, a village strained by poverty and hunger, when someone turns 70, he or she goes to Narayama to die. Orin accepts this ritual. Her son and his new bride (his first wife has died) are saddened by the prospect of losing Orin, but her grandson and his lover are just thrilled by the prospect of having one less mouth to feed around the house. We have much ado about Orin’s teeth. We have a kerfuffle with some local thieves. Mostly, however, we have Kinoshita’s beautiful set pieces. The film takes the form of a kabuki play. Everything except for the final shot of the film, takes place on sets, but these are exceptionally detailed and beautiful sets. The colours are eye-popping. Most striking are the autumnal colours. We are, after all, dealing with old age and mortality. The journey Orin takes to Narayama, carried by her son, is arduous and wrenching once they arrive, snow begins to fall, and Orin sends her son away so she may die alone. Paired with Orin is Mata (Seiji Miyaguchi), an old man who refuses to take the journey to Narayama until his son binds him with rope and hauls him up the mountain. Then we have that final shot of a train crossing a landscape and going through a town named Obasute (Abandonment of Old People). Just what does this signify? 

 

Gate of Flesh (1964), directed by Seijun Suzuki. The word "pulp" is often used to describe the films of Seijun Suzuki, and of the four Suzuki films I have seen, Gate of Flesh is the most deserving of this descriptor. Suzuki worked for Nikkatsu Studio and he was obligated to take the films the studio gave him. He also regularly had a shooting schedule of not much over a month. With such constraints, he (like Howard Hawks in Hollywood) managed to make films stamped with his singular vision. Gate of Flesh was to be an "adult" film, one of two categories of film available at the time in Japan. In other words, it was to be lurid. And it is. The still photographs one finds on the internet do not capture the richness of Suzuki's colour or his careful structuring of his wide screen photography or the shocking things we see such as the graphic killing of a cow. The action of the film takes place shortly after the end of the Second World War, and it expresses the damage, both materially and psychically, the war inflicted on Japan. The central characters are a group of prostitutes who live in a bombed out building. They eke out an existence by selling their bodies. They will not offer their services to American GIs, and they will not allow any of their group to offer sex for free. To give oneself freely results in severe and humiliating punishment. Each prostitute wears signature clothing, mostly a feature of colour, although one dresses in traditional garb. Anyway, into this group comes chipmunk-cheeked Joe Shishido (a regular in Suzuki films), an ex-soldier who is on the run from the police for having robbed a U.S. army depot. You can guess that the cat has found the chicken coop. Suzuki handles the action with visual flare, and the characters express their anger at the world, their hope amid hopelessness, with intense words, looks, and actions. This is a bleak look at life in post war Japan, but it is also a sobering examination of abject conditions at any time. The narrow streets, ruined buildings, enclosed waterways, teeming markets are reminders of a humanity trapped by circumstance. Even with masterful wide screen photography, Suzuki manages to capture the claustrophobia of existence in this world. Somewhere outside this ghetto people may live more relaxed lives, but we can only imagine this because we cannot see this. What we see is life in extremis. This is pulp fiction with artistry.

 March begins with a few scattered film comments.

Hamnet (2025), directed by Chloe Zhao. Death, grief, and the power of art. This pretty much sums up Hamnet, I think. This fanciful recreation of Shakespearean England has its emotional moments. These arise from the death of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, at the age of nine. It also has its visually stunning moments. Lighting, compositions, shades, and colours bring to mind such visual artists as Rembrandt, Vermeer, Caravaggio, and others. We alternate between lush visuals of the forests and outdoors and those of dimly lit interiors where light highlights certain features and images. I am not sure what all the chthonic mystery is about, the emphasis on Agnes (Jesse Buckley), mother of Hamnet, as an outsider, an earth mother (pretty much literally), a witch of the woods, amounts to, but it does lend itself to the magical aura of the film. The emotional intensity of the action reaches a climax (!) in the performance of Hamlet that works as both an end to the film and as an emotional catharsis both for the groundlings watching the performance (including Agnes) and for the film viewer. The moment when the actor playing Hamlet reaches down and touches Agnes’s hand and the hands of the front row groundlings brings together art and reality. In a way, Hamnet underscores life as a stage on which men and women, merely players, strut and fret for an hour or two and then are heard no more. I confess to having mixed feelings about this film. As far as I can tell, it plays fast and loose with the facts of history, and yet it manages to humanize characters from history who remain just out of range of facts. And finally, we have those magnificent tableaux that invoke Renaissance art. And by the way, do I not recall that an earlier play, earlier than Shakespeare’s work, exists called Hamnet?

All We Imagine as Light (2024), directed by Payal Kapadia. Blue is the predominant colour here, from the blue of the nurses’ uniforms, to the sky, to towels, to various shades of blue turning up throughout the film, both inside and outside. Much of the filming takes a painterly form giving us shots that stand out as looking like paintings. This painterly quality, in a way, belies the film's focus: the city of Mumbai. The opening documentary-style footage announces the focus on a city of dreams that is crowded, bustling, run-down, and filled with poverty. As things proceed, we focus on three nurses, Prabha (Kani Kusruti), Anu (Divya Prabha), and Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam). Prabha has been married for about a year, but right after her arranged marriage, her husband traveled to Germany and he no longer communicates with Prabha. She has taken Anu as a roommate. Anu is flighty and younger than Prabha, and she has a boyfriend, Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon), who happens to be Muslim. Finally, there is Parvaty who lives in a slum and has been evicted because she lacks papers. These three women we come to know well, their anxieties, their dreams and aspirations, their failures, their loneliness, and their desires. When Prabha receives a mysterious package from Germany containing a fancy rice cooker, she is unsure whether this is a gift from her husband or not. As for Anu, she dresses as a Muslim woman in order to visit Shiaz, but at the last minute he cancels her visit. Parvaty decides to return to her seaside village, and the other two women accompany her to help her carry all her belongings. Here at the seaside, Prabha has a surreal encounter with her estranged husband after she revives a man on the beach and save his life. As the film rolls to a finish, we have the three women sitting, at night, at an outdoor establishment, sharing intimacies while the young server dances and twirls in the background. This is a quiet, intensely intimate story of three women. As a piece of cinema, it offers the colours of Wong Kar Wai and the humanity of Satyajit Ray. This is an impressive film.

The Beast (2023), directed by Bertrand Bonello. If I may understate the case, this film is a loose retelling of Henry James’s novella, The Beast in the Jungle. Here the focalizing character is female rather than male. Gabrielle (Lea Seydoux) is an enigmatic character in an enigmatic movie; she appears in three times, as a concert pianist in Paris around 1910, as an aspiring actress and model in Los Angeles in 2014, and as a woman going through “purification” to control feelings and make her a better worker in 2044.  The film opens with the aspiring actress in front of a green screen acting out a scene in which an intruder threatens her life. The unseen intruder (to be added later) is a beast. Indeed, the beast in this movie is amorphous, unseen, more an existential dread than something concrete. The elusiveness of the beast is reflected in the elusiveness of the narrative(s). Things move along without clear transitions. One of the more powerful parts here involve the male character who, like Gabrielle, appears in all three “stories.” This character is Louis Lewanski (George MacKay), and in the 2014 segment he plays an incel who stalks Gabrielle. This segment is chilling. In any case, Louis and Gabrielle are lovers fated never to love. The film has several recurring images, one of which is the doll. In the 1910 segment, Gabrielle is married to a man who manufactures dolls, in 2014 models are dolls and Gabrielle has a sort of Chucky doll, and in 2044 AI generates dolls, one of which is Gabrielle’s companion and would be lover. The doll is a mark of the emotionless state towards which humanity moves. Another recurring image is the pigeon, a bird that signifies both freedom and death. Indeed, freedom and death are perhaps the two most prominent themes here. As for cinematic influences, we can identity allusions to Godard, Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin), David Lynch, Spielberg, and perhaps even Scorsese. This film will not appeal to everyone, but it is provocative.

A House of Dynamite (2025) directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Devastating. A combination of Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove, this film takes us to the edge of nuclear disaster. It leans closer to Fail Safe than to Strangelove, and this may be both its strength and its weakness. The U.S. government here is peopled with serious, earnest human beings desperately trying to sort out a dilemma of world-shattering proportions. We, however, live in times that more closely resemble Strangelove with its nutjob generals and numbskull politicians. This has the effect of making A House of Dynamite even more terrifying. This film is meant as a call to renewed sanity and it arrives at a time of unprecedented insanity.

What We Did on Our Holiday (2014), directed by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin. Heart-warming is probably as good as any description of this film. Heart-warming is both praise and criticism. Some will find this film attractive, and some will find it bland. I found it attractive. The cast, especially the three children, are superb. The script is often witty. The Scottish scenery is fabulous. The scene in which the three young children give their grandad a Viking funeral is worth the price of admission. The plot is straight forward: a couple with three young children is having marital difficulties, but they decide to go as a family to Doug’s (David Tennant) father’s 75^th birthday party in the Highlands of Scotland. Doug and Abi (Rosamund Pike) bicker all the time. Grandad Gordie (Billy Connolly) has terminal cancer. Doug’s brother Gavin (Ben Miller) has social aspirations, while his wife Margaret (Amelia Bullmore) has had a meltdown in a convenience store that has made its way to YouTube. Then we have the scene at the beach with Grandad and the three kids, Lottie (Amelia Jones), Mickey (Bobby Smalldridge), and Jess (Harriet Turnbull). As I say, heart-warming. What we have is a film about family, its frictions, its dysfunctions, its strengths and its weaknesses. Celia Imrie turns up as a social worker, and Annette Crosbie turns up as an owner of ostriches. One ostrich has a way of streaking every now and then. The film too has a way of streaking every now and then.

From Vegas to Macau 111 (2016), directed by Wai Weung Lau and Wong Jing. This film has a 2.6 rating on IMDB and user reviews are uniformly negative. Well, I confess to not having seen the first two From Vegas to Macau films, but I can say that this one is off the wall bizarre. It has two robots, Skinny and Stupido, who fall in love. It has Transformer scenes. It has gadgetry that surpasses anything in a James Bond film by far. It has dozens of Andy Laus. It has two Chow Yun Fats. It has martial arts. It has soldiers that look like the dark side of those in Star Wars. It has characters who wildly overact. It has colourful eye-catching costumes. It has many pies in the face scenes. It has much shooting and a few explosions. It has Psy. It has scenes of gambling. It has a plot that left me wondering what was going on. In short, it is a mess. And yet, it left me feeling upbeat. Its zaniness is contagious. Its two main stars, Chow Yun Fat and ageless Andy Lau are likeable. So if you are seeking diversion in these troubled times, this film just may provide it.