Suspense

For the first hour, this is a rather ho-hum affair with little of the suspense promised by the title.  It seems more a showcase for Belita’s skating talents (yes, it’s a figure skating noir) propped up around a routine melodrama.  But things kick into gear for the third act as the tension gradually seeps in.  It’s still not the greatest movie, and there’s some nagging questions, but it does get better.  However, what really saves this film is the look of it.  This is a masterpiece of noir lighting, you could make a whole book of screenshots from it.  Cinematographer Karl Struss (also of the magnificent Journey Into Fear) really earned his paycheck on this one.  Even if the rest of the movie is merely adequate (the music is also well done, and I liked Bonita Granville a lot), it’s worth seeing for the gorgeous style alone.  Rating: 7

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The Suspect

Well, all the decent noirs I’m watching today are directed by Siodmak, featuring a British actor falling for Ella Raines but stifled by his family.  In this case, it’s Charles Laughton (who is wonderful as always) as a hen-pecked man who can’t escape his overbearing wife.  The film manages to be both gloomy and light, which makes it sound uneven but it’s actually pulled off very nicely.  The first half is compelling domestic drama and the second half is fun cat-and-mouse as the noose tightens around Laughton’s neck, all with a very Hitchcockian vibe.  Good times.  Rating: 8

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Suddenly

I tried watching this 8 years ago on one of those cheapo public domains DVDs, and had this to say: “I watched about 20 minutes of this and had to stop.  The acting was horrible, even Sterling Hayden… ESPECIALLY Sterling Hayden.  Godawful dialogue too.  Sinatra is supposed to be good in this, but I didn’t have the patience to wait around and find out.”  This time I made it all the way through, and it wasn’t a complete loss.  Sinatra is pretty good, there’s some sharp postwar cynicism and one or two clever plot moments.  But yeah, the other actors are terrible and the script is crap.  Lots of overly patriotic mumbo-jumbo, and the fact that the obnoxious little boy doesn’t get murdered (spoiler alert!) is a huge disappointment.  Why does every hostage drama have to have an obnoxious little boy to fuck things up anyway?  It kind of makes me appreciate Funny Games a little more.  Rating: 4

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The Strip

Some fantastic song & dance in this flick.  Loius Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, Earl Hines, and Vic Damone (well, Damone isn’t that hot).  “A Kiss to Build a Dream On” is a helluva great tune… and they know it, seeing as it appears four times in various forms.  Mickey Rooney gets to show off his chops on the skins, although he may have been faking it.  But as a noir, this is a pretty much a snooze.  Guy loves gal, gal has Hollywood dreams, sleazy other guy takes advantage, all wrapped up in a very mundane murder mystery that only factors into the intro and the last few minutes.  It’s done competently, with especially likeable performances by Rooney, Demarest and a small part for Kay Brown.  But it’s just got no sizzle to it at all.  Watchable for all the swinging music, otherwise not that hot.  Rating: 6

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Street of Chance

You gotta have some really good stuff to rise above the dumbness of an amnesia plot.  And this movie does not have really good stuff, it’s rather banal.  Ho-hum performances by Burgess Meredith and Claire Trevor, some sloppy plotting, a predictable resolution, no real tension and no sense of atmosphere.  Mildly entertaining at best, and pretty much forgettable.  The one thing that made this interesting for me is that I watched it not long after seeing Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and this movie also has a mute character who communicates by blinking.  Rating: 4

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The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry

This movie asks you not to spoil the ending.  I won’t, but I will say the ending sucks.  There would have been better ways of getting around the production code… in fact, five possible endings were tested.  I have to imagine the others were more satisfying than what we got (I can think of a few superior alternatives just off the top of my head).  But if you ignore the last two minutes, it’s a terrific, dark film.  Really great performances by George Sanders, Ella Raines, Moyna MacGill (Angela Lansbury’s mother, and the resemblance is striking) but especially Geraldine Fitzgerald, a very different kind of femme fatale.  As a passive-aggressive parasite, she really inspires a lot of hatred.  The film grips you with its small-scale story, and is loaded with incestuous psychodrama.  I also wonder if it was an influence on Notorious, with a cup taking on such epic significance.  It’s a shame about the ending, but still worth seeing.  Rating: 7

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The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Something like a cross between My Left Foot and Johnny Got His Gun, this unusual film explores the true story of an “Elle” editor who has a stroke that leaves him completely paralyzed except for one eye.  I wasn’t completely swept away by it, but there are some transcendent moments.  The cinematography (by longtime Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski) has snatches of absolute brilliance, both from Bauby’s view of the exterior world and that of his imagination.  At times it seems to draw inspiration from Brakhage.  The voice-over is handled pretty well (certainly better than Timothy Bottoms in Johnny) and Schnabel seems to know when to let the visuals do the talking.  An often moving and always interesting film.  Rating: 8

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The Gang’s All Here

Ridiculously fun.  The plot is rather inconsequential, but still enjoyable… and besides, you don’t need a whole lot of story in a musical.  Berkeley basically tosses the story aside about every 5 minutes for another song and/or dance number, and they’re all dazzling and delightful.  Not a stinker in the bunch.  The final number, “Polka Dot Polka,” starts out a bit lame with a subpar tune and loads of precocious children, but then it morphs into a surreal neon-and-pastel phantasmagoria of mind-melting weirdness.  And then there’s the centerpiece “The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat” which has insane giant bananas.  The other routines are on a smaller scale, but no less entertaining.  The supporting cast here is really great.  Although I prefer the Edward Everett Horton in Holiday to this type of uptight character he so often gets stuck with, he’s still fun to watch.  Carmen Miranda, Eugene Pallette, and Shiela Ryan are all wonderful, too, but it’s Charlotte Greenwood who really stunned me.  What a charming comic actress, and a good dancer to boot.  I’ll have to seek out more of her stuff.  I do have a few small gripes, starting with the leads.  Alice Faye is kind of boring, and James Ellison is not much better.  Fortunately, the movie doesn’t seem all that interested in them either.  I also noticed a number of small flubs in the choreography, a marked contrast to the tight synchronization of the earlier Berkeley films.  It’s not way, way off or anything, but a little jarring when you normally expect such precision from him.  But it’s easily overlooked when there’s so much joy on the screen.  Rating: 9

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The Apartment (rewatch)

So… I have the world’s dumbest reason for not liking this movie.  I mean, I wasn’t blown away by it to begin with (some 10 years ago), but I developed an irrational animosity towards it when I discovered it was the favorite of someone on the internet whose opinions I couldn’t stand.  He was the most narrow-minded dipshit who could only appreciate film on the level of entertainment.  Anything the slightest bit off the beaten path was the biggest pile of shit to him and pretty much all he liked were comedies (and, to his credit, Hitchcock).  So over time I grew to resent this movie more and more, mostly just to spite this asshat.  But now I’ve decided to quit being a schmuck about it and re-evaluate The Apartment (besides, he doesn’t post on that forum anymore, and for that matter, neither do I).

And boy, am I glad I did.  One thing I really love is the handling of ancillary characters.  Margie is not simply a bar floozy, but has a sad story of her own and feels like a fleshed-out character.  Sheldrake’s secretary isn’t just a spiteful bitch, she’s got her own heartbreak to deal with.  And in lesser hands, Dr. Dreyfuss would just be stuffy and judgmental, but his attitude towards Baxter is a fully-realized mixture of contempt, compassion and pity.  Even the brief appearance by Mrs. Dreyfuss starts out as caricature but quickly becomes more human.  And of course the main characters are equally well-rounded.  Maclaine is adorably tragic, or tragically adorable, and Lemmon is neither merely a hapless schnook nor merely a toadying apple-polisher.  These are rich, relatable characters with both charms and imperfections.  And maybe that sums up the movie as a whole: it’s a film of wonderful balance.  It can turn from joy to sadness, cynicism to hope at the drop of a hat and it all happens so effortlessly, so naturally.  The attempted suicide (and recovery) is a brilliant scene, simultaneously witty and harrowing, it just punches you right in the gut.  The script is sparkling, I especially enjoyed the clever use of callbacks.  And the visual stylization is glorious as well, from the indifferent corporate monolith, to the tacky Chinese restaurant, and of course Baxter’s apartment, all lit beautifully and shot with intelligence.  While this might not be a movie I would want to watch as frequently as Double Indemnity, it’s quickly jumped from my 13th favorite Wilder to my 2nd.  Rating: 9

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Eroica

Two WWII-era stories that focus on tearing down grandiose ideas of heroism and highlight the individual struggles.  The first concentrates on an opportunist who reluctantly gets involved with the resistance movement.  It’s a lively comic tale, that clips along nicely from one amusing episode to the next… it reminded me of Ashes and Diamonds but with a sense of humor.  The second tale focuses on a group of POW’s, including a legendary “escapee” who is actually hiding in the crawlspace above the barracks and a surly officer who tries to get thrown in solitary just to be alone for a while.  This half is darker, but balances drama and black comedy in a way that Stalag 17 fails at.  The entire movie is highlighted by exquisite photography (the cinematographer actually did Ashes and Diamonds after this) with some wonderful close-ups and terrific use of claustrophobic space.  It’s just a terrific movie all around, with some good performances.  Only complaint is the tonal difference between the two halves didn’t quite work for me… the bustling activity of the first part doesn’t prepare you for the slower pace of the second.  It could be better if you switched them, but probably not.  Rating: 8

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