Category: Directors Fi

The Mummy (1959, Terence Fisher)

I’ve long held there are no good filmic Dracula adaptations. I’m now going to say there aren’t any good Mummy pictures after the Karloff one. This Hammer production was an officially licensed remake of the Universal production… only not the Karloff title, instead the inferior Universal follow-ups, The Mummy’s Hand and The Mummy’s Tomb. These films are awful, so, in making their first official remake of a Universal horror picture, Hammer chose to remake two awful ones (combining them into a single picture).

I didn’t grow up on Hammer horror films. I knew about them, mostly through their excellent poster art and the Maltin Movie Guide, but I didn’t really see them until I was in college. And then I discovered they’re truly awful, ineptly written wastes of time. The Mummy is, shockingly, one of their better efforts, mostly because it’s a fruit of a poison tree so it’s not Fisher’s fault. Who knows if he’d have directed it well–Jack Asher’s lighting makes the sets look as big as shoe boxes.

Peter Cushing’s a weak lead, but he’s not terrible. Christopher Lee’s okay as the mummy, I guess. Hard to mess it up. Yvonne Furneaux can’t act, but the movie doesn’t really expect anyone to act, so who cares… Only Eddie Bryne, as a police detective, and Felix Aylmer give good performances. They’re very out of place in the picture.

The Mummy‘s a dreadful waste of time and I recommend everyone avoid. But there are worse Mummy pictures.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Terence Fisher; written by Jimmy Sangster; director of photography, Jack Asher; edited by Alfred Cox and James Needs; music by Franz Reizenstein; production designer, Bernard Robinson; produced by Michael Carreras; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Peter Cushing (John Banning), Christopher Lee (Kharis, the Mummy), Yvonne Furneaux (Isobel Banning / Princess Ananka), Eddie Byrne (Inspector Mulrooney), Felix Aylmer (Stephen Banning), Raymond Huntley (Joseph Whemple) and George Pastell (Mehemet Bey, Alias Mehemet Akir).

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Zodiac (2007, David Fincher)

If Steven Spielberg used to be “the kid who’d never grow up,” I always figured David Fincher would always be “the disaffected teen who never grew up,” which is why Zodiac is so surprising. It’s a mature, thoughtful work, one I wouldn’t have even associated with Fincher if I hadn’t known. It’s calm and thoughtful, opening with the old Paramount and Warner Bros. logos, with a score from David Shire–the goal doesn’t seem to be to emulate a 1970s movie (the hit-heavy soundtrack wouldn’t have happened yet), but to reorient the viewer into that time period. When Fincher gets to the early eighties, he’s got this establishing shot at an airport and a plane takes off and there’s something really beautiful about it. Planes take off, whatever, three a minute and on sunny days, like this day in the film, it probably looks really nice… but I’d spent two and a half hours with the Zodiac killer, so it really jarred me. Made me appreciate Fincher not as an aesthetically pleasing director, which he’d always (ideally) been, but as one who could find the extraordinary in the everyday, which he’d never been.

Zodiac shifts its attention between the crimes, the reporters, and the police. For a while, it’s all the crimes and the reporters and for a while it’s all the crimes and the police. It seems like, at the beginning, it’s going to follow Jake Gyllenhaal–he’ll lead the viewer through the story–but then he disappears and, even before he does, it becomes clear Zodiac‘s not following a character-centered narrative. It’s not even about the effects of obsession on the characters. It shows the effects, but it’s really just a very straightforward narrative–first of the Zodiac killings from the San Francisco Chronicle‘s point of view, then from the investigating inspectors (I love how San Francisco calls them inspectors), then from the book writer (Gyllenhaal) as he does he research. It ought to not work, since that narrative model is mostly gone these days. In some ways, the roving narrative and the music, it reminded me of Summer of Sam while watching it, then I had to correct my interior dialogue not to defame Zodiac with such a comparison.

Of the actors, Ruffalo is the best. He’s first billed, but his character remains the most–not enigmatic or sketchy, but off-center–then he has a little scene towards the end and I realized his story throughout the film occupied a whole layer of the narrative and it was great and he was doing some amazing work. Amazing Ruffalo work is, probably, the best acting there is to be seen anymore. As the Chronicle lacky then book author, Gyllenhaal’s good, maybe even excellent, since the film makes no bones about his character not exactly being relatable. He’s supposed to be a little lame. It’s the closest the film comes to making any judgment on its characters. Robert Downey Jr. really doesn’t have an above the title role, but he’s great when he’s in it, which is no surprise. It’s Anthony Edwards who gives the most surprisingly good performance, just because it’d never occurred to me he could be so good, which has more to do with me… well, no it doesn’t. It has to do with “ER,” but whatever.

I kept having to remind myself during the film, it’s not a good example of modern cinema. I was ready to skip down the street and sing the praises of American filmmaking like it was 1999 or something, then reality kept knocking, so I had to accept I’d just have to get Zodiac on DVD… It’s rather indulgent, I just realized; Fincher submerges the viewer and holds him or her down in that bathtub, not letting them loose until the final epilogue card fades. It’s an unbelievable achievement for him, a significant one for twenty-first century American cinema, and just a lovely experience.

Suzy (1936, George Fitzmaurice)

The war story love triangle: girl mets boy, girl marries boy, girl thinks boy dies, girl meets second boy, girl marries second boy, first boy returns, one of the boys dies. Suzy isn’t even an interesting spin on it. The film throws in a relationship between lower class Jean Harlow with her upper class father-in-law Lewis Stone in an attempt to make the story poignant, to give her character some depth, but it fails miserably. Watching the scenes with the two of them, the attempted manipulation reeks. The two aren’t bad together, but Suzy works at its best during moments of high charisma. Cary Grant (as the second boy) has a lot of it, but Franchot Tone’s actually got more in his scenes. Tone’s doing an Irish accent for most of the film (it appears after his first or second scene) and it’s mildly grating, but he’s still good. Harlow ranges, when the character makes sense, she’s good. When it doesn’t, she’s only okay. Unfortunately, the script rarely bothers making sense.

The film does succeed on a few levels, mostly due to George Fitzmaurice’s direction. It has two definite periods–England before the war and France during–and Fitzmaurice gives each part of the film an atmosphere. These distinctions don’t help the film much, but it’s good work and it makes the film a more pleasant experience. His direction of dramatic scenes is pat–a lengthy long shot followed by some close-ups and then a medium shot–but the sets are at least nice. The supporting cast helps a lot in Suzy–Una O’Connor’s got a great scene and there are some others… The film’s quality isn’t particularly bumpy. It does get better after awhile and might actually approach getting good, but it betrays the story in the end. I timed the last act, trying to guess the resolution to the love triangle and figured for a couple scenes–one between Harlow and the winner and another with Lewis Stone, since the film hung everything on he and Harlow’s friendship. Following a couple great action scenes–one of them was just flying footage from Hell’s Angels, but the other one must have been Fitzmaurice unless Suzy was written to match Hell’s Angels leftover shots–the film stops. The love triangle’s resolved, but there’s nothing else. It becomes a war picture for the first time. Instead of finishing the characters’ stories, the audience gets a bit about valor and distinction and then a “The End.”

Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell wrote (some of) Suzy and, according to IMDb, they were a highly paid screenwriting team. They were a waste of money.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by George Fitzmaurice; screenplay by Dorothy Parker, Alan Campbell, Horace Jackson and Lenore J. Coffee, based on the novel by Herbert Gorman; director of photography, Ray June; edited by George Boemler; music by William Axt; produced by Maurice Revnes; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Starring Jean Harlow (Suzy), Franchot Tone (Terry), Cary Grant (Andre), Lewis Stone (Baron), Benita Hume (Madame Eyrelle), Reginald Mason (Captain Barsanges), Inez Courtney (Maisie), Greta Meyer (Mrs. Schmidt), David Clyde (‘Knobby’), Christian Rub (‘Pop’ Gaspard), George Spelvin (Gaston) and Una O’Connor (Landlady).

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The Game (1997, David Fincher)

I don’t know what possessed me to watch The Game again, probably my access to the DVD, but even so, I don’t know what possessed me to finish watching it. It’s fairly atrocious early on, once it becomes obvious that no reasonable human being could identify with Michael Douglas’s character. He’s playing a lonely, depressed multimillionaire who lives in a big house and is good for absolutely nothing. He doesn’t even have fun. I was opined–and still do–that the rich cannot produce good art because there’s no real conflict in their lives. Similarly, the rich make difficult subjects for fiction. Something like Sabrina notwithstanding….

But, really, I was trying to figure out–as The Game went from mediocre to bad to mediocre again to worse than ever (the only good moment comes in the last few scenes, not surprisingly, it’s all Sean Penn)–I was trying to figure out why I used to love David Fincher. I saw The Game in the theater and I can’t believe it didn’t cure me. Fincher is shockingly incapable of recognizing good material and not just the script. I mean, Douglas turns in what must be his worst performance, since all it does is rehash his previous stuff (Wall Street and maybe Disclosure specifically). When Douglas does show some humanity, it comes across like someone else wrote the scene and Fincher stuck it in.

The Game also–and I hate to gripe about this one, because I usually advise against it–has logic holes the size of the Grand Canyon. I advise against surveying such holes because they aren’t the piece’s point and when you interact with a work, you have to give it some leeway. There’s nothing to interact with in The Game, so all that’s left is to point out how incredibly stupid it is. Still, Fincher’s composition isn’t bad–though it’s poorly edited and the cinematography begs for someone better–and a lot of the supporting cast is fun… James Rebhorn in particular, love the Rebhorn.

For some reason, I thought I had something else to say about this film, some other way to close it–besides that it’s a piece of horrendous shit. Oh, I remember: Howard Shore’s score is good.

Alien³ (1992, David Fincher), the assembly cut

So, I guess David Fincher wasn’t that upset about the “Assembly Cut” Fox did of Alien³ for their moronically-titled “Alien Quadrilogy” DVD set a few years ago, because he left his name on it. Fincher’s always badmouthing Alien³ but hasn’t got the balls needed to Alan Smithee a film (like Michael Mann has). Now, was Fincher smart not to reedit the film for DVD? Well, he couldn’t do anything to improve on the existing Alien³ theatrical cut (he’s simply not a capable enough artist), so I guess it doesn’t matter.

I’ve been hearing about this damn cut for years, probably since 1997. Everyone who loved Fincher (from Seven) and thought he was a genius (for Seven!) talked about this magic cut. Most of what’s in this “assembly cut” is in the novelization (I used to read novelizations, then I started listening to film school snobs. I’m not sure which was worse) and none of it helps the film. This cut runs about a half hour longer and includes some different scenes and shit, but mostly it just uses up the viewer’s patience. I need to watch Alien³ the regular version in a few weeks to properly grade it, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t so poorly paced. There’s a full hour of red herring here, which the studio wisely cut the hell out of. Fox was not always a terrible, inhuman studio. That happened, I’m pretty sure, after NewsCorp bought it. According to IMDb, Fincher walked before editing began, which seems to be a good thing, because this “assembly” cut does little but show how much good editing can improve a film.

Now, this cut is and has been lauded around the internet and film snobs (how much of a film snob can you be if you like Panic Room, however) have spewed praise… The fans of this cut think that calling something a “quadrilogy” is an acceptable human practice. I’m not that upset watching this cut–the DVD set was a Christmas gift and it’s not that bad, in the two and a half range, but it was a complete waste of time and did nothing but make me doubt the folks who recommended it.

Alien³, the longer cut, was supposed to be the holy grail of DVD (much like folks hope Warner will do an official, expanded Superman II). Oddly, off the top of my head, I can only think of three or four films that benefit from an expanded cut. The Big Red One, Blade Runner, Touch of Evil (to some degree, it was always great), and then it gets murky. No, wait, Star Trek: The Motion Picture became watchable. Anyway, if anyone out there has the Aussie/UK version of The Last of the Mohicans without Mann’s 2000 tweaks, let me know….