Category: 1967

Mad Monster Party? (1967, Jules Bass)

Mad Monster Party? spends a solid portion of its runtime only slightly amusing. It’s technically competent stop-motion animation with a charming voice performance from Boris Karloff as Boris von Frankenstein. He’s just discovered the anti-life formula and has become destroyer of ravens, potentially worlds. Having run the gamut from creating life to creating anti-life, Karloff decides it’s time to retire, and he’s leaving the whole thing to nephew Felix Flanken (voiced by Allen Swift). And he’s going to reveal both his achievement and his succession plan at a meeting of the Worldwide Organization of Monsters.

So Karloff invites all the monsters to come down to the island, have a few laughs, have their dreams of world domination crushed.

The opening titles are a usually amusing, always competent series of bits involving the various monsters getting their invitations to the party. There’s Dracula (voiced by Allen Swift), there’s the Invisible Man (voiced by Allen Swift), there’s Dr. Jekyll (voiced by Allen Swift), and there’s Mr. Hyde (voiced by Allen Swift). Swift has two more major characters—the zombie and the Frankenstein Monster. Phyllis Diller plays the Bride of the Frankenstein Monster, though Mad Monster doesn’t do the obvious hair bit.

Finally—at least in terms of unique performers—there’s Gale Garnett. She plays Francesca, Karloff’s ample-bosomed assistant. She thinks she ought to be the heir and starts plotting against Karloff, enlisting the aid of Count Dracula.

Swift plays Dracula as a Borscht Belt Bela Lugosi. Outside Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Swift has a bit for all the voices. Invisible Man is Sydney Greenstreet, specifically in Casablanca, including the fez. The zombie character is Peter Lorre (looks like him too). Felix, the lead (who looks like a variation on Hermey from producer Rankin/Bass’s Rudolph), is Jimmy Stewart. It’s very disconcerting to watch the Stewart bit fail over and over; like, did they really think it would work?

Swift will also voice “Mafia Machiavelli,” who is the chef. It’s a surprisingly intentionally problematic scene with the killer chef threatening the Lorre zombie, who’s busy mooning over Garnett.

Garnett is Mad Monster’s secret weapon. When she does her song about betraying everyone—in alliance, at that time, with Dracula–the movie suddenly gets strangely good. At first, it seems like a brief flash of goodness, but then Garnett keeps going, both in her performance and the occasional song numbers. She and the Felix puppet get a good moonlit duet and such.

There’s a surprise monster—a deus ex machina in a movie about a literal deus ex machina—but there’s enough humor in the finale for the movie to surpass the contrivances. Even the worst characters have some charm to them, and the stop-motion’s always fun. There are a couple of great action sequences, including one coming immediately after Diller and Garnett’s puppets start wrestling, and the soundtrack plays cat yowls. Repeated ones, like the sound editors demanded more, drilling in the “joke.”

But then the movie immediately recovers with a phenomenal action sequence.

Mad Monster Party?’s got lots of moments ranging from fun to actual funny, a surprisingly good performance from Garnett, a fun one from Karloff, way too broad work from Swift, and superb stop-motion animation.

It all evens out well enough.

Batgirl: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 1 (1967-68)

Batgirl Omnibus 1

The strangest thing about the first five stories in Omnibus Volume 1 isn’t how writer Gardner Fox uses Barbara Gordon’s position at the Gotham Public Library to explain how she somehow targets criminals. She violates professional privacy standards—if not laws (it was the late sixties, who knows)—to figure out where the bad guys are going to strike so she can go out and beat them up before Batman and Robin get there.

I’m going to assume Fox just didn’t know anything about the library profession (were there Ph.D.s in library science in the late sixties or is Barbara’s doctorate just there to be something else for her father not to be impressed with) and not it being some kind of statement on how we should all be a little more fascist when it comes to enabling women (and men) dressed as bats.

The strangest thing is how it takes Fox until the last story to explore how Barbara’s inherent femininity as expressed with concern for her appearance, her deference to men, and her propensity to scream at inopportune times is going to be a problem for crime-fighting. The collection opens with a foreword from Gail Simone talking about how the character—as created—didn’t have much to offer the female readership but reading Fox’s stories?

It’d be worse if he thought there were a female readership. Sure, he’s telling little boys how to be both misogynist and ignorant, but at least he’s not telling little girls their value is only as sex objects for boys? Probably? Like, Fox’s Batgirl isn’t really cheesecake though artists Carmine Infantino and Sid Greene do employ some cheesecake, but there’s this definite undercurrent with Robin lusting after her. But in late sixties Code comics so it’s simultaneously subtle and grossly overdone.

Anyway, why Fox waited until the last story to remind everyone girls are better to look at than anything else—it’s also an about face from earlier stories where Batman tells Robin they have to respect Batgirl even though she’s, you know, a girl–is the strangest thing about his stories. They go out on a low; already brought down by a two-part Catwoman story (Frank Springer pencils the second half; it misses Infantino) where Catwoman is jealous of Batgirl and wants to force Batman to put a ring on it ASAP.

The most amusing part of that story is Fox finding an honest moment with Barbara, who’s surprised and perplexed why Catwoman is all of a sudden pissed off at her.

Aside—it seems like Selina Kyle is publicly infamous costumed criminal Catwoman? Or at least Bruce Wayne knows about it? Even acknowledging these comics require a profound willful suspension of disbelief, but at some point, Fox is responsible for things not making logical sense. And they can’t be too steeped in continuity because this Bat-era is when they were introducing characters from the TV show to try to get TV viewers to read the comics.

Then again, Barbara very obviously should’ve figured out Bruce’s secret identity in one of the stories and there’s even a hint about it, but it goes nowhere. Because Fox’s stories get worse as they go along, as Batgirl is more and more the guest star. At least in the origin story she’s something of a protagonist.

Though she’s the protagonist in the story about her worrying about her hair too much to stop bad guys from trying to kill her.

I thought about writing this post with abundant alliterations but decided against it. Outside keeping a dictionary (or thesaurus, really) handy, there’s not really anything to talk about regarding Fox’s use of alliteration and adjective. I mean, other than to track if it was ripped off from Marvel at this point. Similarly, the frequent sports metaphors in Batgirl’s thought balloons had me expecting her to talk about loving jazz at any point.

But leaving these first five stories—the character’s foundation (Barbara was a new character at this point, right?)—there hasn’t been much in character development or even establishment. Fox avoids Commissioner Gordon conversations with his daughter other than to chastise her for not being more like Batgirl; otherwise, Gordon just speaks in transitional exposition to his daughter. Fox does firmly establish Batgirl’s got no romantic interest in Batman and vice verse (despite Infantino pencilling otherwise at one point), which ended up just making me remember that terrible Killing Joke movie.

It’s not the worst thing it could be. At least until the last story and then, really, the Catwoman ones foreshadow it, but even then it’s not like Batgirl quits being she’s too sexy by far. No, she’s going to keep crime-fighting and use that sexy, just like Batman says.

Ew.

There’s a little of Robin being the sexist teen and Batman having to tell him not to be—within limits—but then there’s also the Robin as Batgirl’s partner thing. It’s a complex web of mediocre comics writing (see how I qualified that one), misogyny, patriarchy, and lots more. Lots of good Infantino art, with Gil Kane pencilling the last story in a way almost indistinguishable from Infantino. The Springer you can tell, but the Kane seems just like more Infantino.

Though it is just cheesecake when Barbara is hanging out in the library after work in her Batgirl costume, which definitely seems like someone—Infantino or Fox—really wants to fetishize it.

So much of these comics should’ve gotten a “No” even in the sixties but—I just realized—they’re objectively a lot less misogynist than DC output from forty years later. It’s a definite flex to present these stories without contextualizing the rampant misogyny because outside the art, any reading of them has to be either subjectively, nostalgically influence or you just have a terrible taste in comics and bad critical thinking skills.

That statement made… obviously I’m going to keep going. Even on sale the book wasn’t cheap.

Cool Hand Luke (1967, Stuart Rosenberg)

Maybe a third of the way into Cool Hand Luke, the film all of a sudden starts getting really good. It’s when Jo Van Fleet makes her appearance, which provides the film both its single best acting—Newman and Van Fleet are exquisite in the scene—and also director Rosenberg showing he’s actually got a handle on the film’s style. Luke’s got an excess of style—about half of the more ambitious shots work (though they always look great thanks to cinematographer Conrad Hall)—and it’s not clear to Van Fleet’s exit whether or not Rosenberg actually knows what he’s doing.

Unfortunately, even though it’s initially a big positive Rosenberg’s got ambitions, the lumpy second half (and especially the third act) show such a lack of ambition—outside the forced Jesus symbolism, which Rosenberg feigns big but feigns empty. Rosenberg goes on to press with the Jesus stuff without exactly having prepared for it, which also ends up being a problem for editor Sam O'Steen. O’Steen and Hall enable most of the great early filmmaking stuff, but once Rosenberg gives up on anything but religiously themed production design and what not… well, Hall can still make it look good, but O’Steen’s slicing at… soft-boiled eggs. It’s hit and miss.

It also doesn’t help Lalo Schifrin’s first half score seems entirely disconnected from his second half score. Luke’s from a very strange place in time, when you weren’t going to have leading man Paul Newman getting accused of glorying criminals but you also were going to acknowledge criminals were people too (as long as they’re White and it’s the late 1940s and there’s no such thing as prison rape or or beatings or even bullying). Rosenberg’s initial approach is to acknowledge the unspoken through the, let’s just say, mise-en-scène. But instead of actual engaging with that unspoken in the second half, when the film very directly says it wants to question the idea of humanity and empathy and brotherhood and whatever… it just cops out and becomes a disjointed Jesus parable with some amusing chase sequences throughout.

The stuff in the beginning, with Schrifin’s score turning the road gang vehicles driving Newman and his fellow prisoners to and from the prison camp into a nightmare scene… it doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t figure in. It’s just Rosenberg flexing. And he’s got some good flexes throughout; how could he not with this cast and crew. Newman, Hall, O’Steen, Schifrin, George Kennedy, Strother Martin, and the entire supporting cast. Rosenberg’s able to mix a lot of acting styles, like gravel-voiced straight shooter J.D. Cannon and mumblecore Harry Dean Stanton. The direction of the cast is impressive. It’s just the scenes aren’t great. Not after a while.

When Rosenberg’s got to figure out how to show Newman alienated and abandoned by masculinity and what not… Luke just shrugs. It does whatever it can to avoid Newman. It’s like a character study until it decides it doesn’t want to get too close to that character.

And instead there’s a bunch of Christian imagery. Only not assembled in any meaningful way, it’s just another gimmick for Rosenberg to utilize. He doesn’t seem to be malicious about it. He’s not covering for any perceived lack in the picture… which is kind of the problem. Rosenberg’s got some moves, a great crew, a fantastic cast, and a script in need. He gets about as far as you can without being able to fix the problem and then throws in some crosses to get to the finish line.

It’s a bummer.

Some great acting from Newman though. Just great. Like, Kennedy’s good and whatnot, but Newman’s big swings hit.

King Kong Escapes (1967, Honda Ishirô)

Despite lacking special effects and a phoned in score from Ifukube Akira (reusing his previous Godzilla themes to various effect), King Kong Escapes has quite a bit of charm to it. The film opens with Kong enthusiasts–really, they’re sitting around drawing pictures of him–Rhodes Reason and Takarada Akira. They’re U.N. submarine guys; U.N. submarines, patrolling the globe, is a thing in Escapes’s reality. Along with a female ship’s doctor, played by Linda Miller, who later in the film screams at the sight of blood. It’s like they forgot she was supposed to be a doctor.

Anyway, the film opens with them and isn’t particularly great. Those lacking effects are imaginative–they have a hovercraft–but there’s just something off about the trio. All the chemistry is between Takarada and Miller, which is great, only for some reason Miller’s always hugging Reason. It’s even established later on Takarada and Miller are a couple. So clearly Toho (and co-producers Rankin/Bass) didn’t think the world was ready for a Japanese guy and a white girl. Sorry, getting ahead once again.

Once the U.N. submarine is established, the action goes to the bad guys and the bad guys are awesome. One of the bad guys is evil scientist, Dr. Who (Amamoto Hideyo), who wears a cape and all of his henchmen have, if not capes, something approximately capes. It’s very, very weird and Amamoto plays it for all its worth. He’s working for beautiful foreign agent, Hama Mie–she’s not Japanese, not Chinese, but from some unidentified Asian nation with enough money to fund Amamoto building a giant King Kong robot. Mechani-Kong. They need a giant robot Kong for mining radioactive materials. The movie spends like fifteen minutes on it, the need for Kong (or Kong facsimiles) to mine. Hama plays it all straight, Amamoto chews through every bit of scenery he can. Somehow, it’s a magic combination. They’re both fantastic throughout the film.

When the action gets back to the U.N. submarine, it’s when they just happen to have to stop at Kong’s island. Escapes’s Kong suit conveys this sad and lonely giant ape. He’s got big, soulful, sad eyes and dejected body language. Some of that dejected body language is because the suit’s terrible, disproportionate and haphazardly detailed enough editor Fujii Ryôhei spends most of his time just trying to cover for the suit looking bad. Lots of questionable cuts, just because the head on the suit often doesn’t match the suit.

Once they’re on the island, director Honda does a bunch of homage to the 1933 King Kong, which is pretty cool. The effects are bad, seeing an adorable King Kong violently defend Miller against the Tyrannosaurus Rex stand-in is jarring, but the location shooting is excellent (and too short) and Honda’s homage is neat.

After the island, there’s a significant lull as Reason makes an address to the U.N. only to be sent right back to the island. Before they get there, Amamoto and his goons go to capture Kong in an amazing action sequence with helicopters and gas bombs and so on. The miniatures are okay, the suit is weak, Honda’s direction is phenomenal.

Eventually the bad guys capture the good guys–and Hama starts having a change of heart because Reason is so hot, but he doesn’t make the goo-goo eyes at her. While it is a bit of a plot hole, Kimura Takeshi’s script has a lot of nonsense going on. It does ruin the one chance to humanize Reason, who’s otherwise a stiff. Amamoto can’t even give his scenes with Reason much of a pulse.

Of course there’s a fight between the two Kongs–in Tokyo, on the Tokyo Tower, amid another Kong ’33 homage from Honda with Takarada as Bruce Cabot and Miller as Fay Wray. It’s all rather well-executed, regardless of the suits. The city and military miniatures are fine. In fact, the big fight scene could’ve easily gone on a bit longer. Escapes just needed a better budget. Honda was ready to do this one.

And Reason needs to go. Or at least be less of a stiff.

Takarada and Miller are both more appealing than good. Outside their chaste romance, they’re just around to make Reason seem important.

King Kong Escapes is goofy, the suits are silly, and Ifukube’s score disappoints (though the revised Godzilla 1954 music for Kong and Miller’s love theme is great). It’s still all right, thanks to Honda taking it so seriously. And Hama and Amamoto. Especially Hama and Amamoto.

The Tiger and the Pussycat (1967, Dino Risi)

The Tiger and the Pussycat tells the sad tale of forty-five year-old businessman, Vittorio Gassman. He’s just become a grandfather. His college-age son wants to have long hair. All of his wife’s friends are abandoned women; their husbands have run off with younger women. Gassman is dissatisfied. Upon finding his son attempting suicide over a girl (Ann-Margret), Gassman lets the girl seduce him. Him Gassman, not the son.

Hilarity ensues.

Or not.

Mostly it’s just Gassman being a different kind of jerk to people. Initially, he’s a successful jerk–The Tiger–but once Ann-Margret shows up, he’s putty.

The Tiger and the Pussycat runs just over one hundred minutes. It’s never particularly good, never promising. Even though Alessandro D’Eva’s photography is fine, spectacular on occasion, and Marcello Malvestito’s editing is nice, director Risi is so boring there’s never anything to get excited about. Except maybe in comparing how Risi’s male gaze on either tightly or scantily clad Ann-Margret has less enthusiasm than his male gaze on Eleanor Parker (as Gassman’s suffering wife) and her similarly aged friends. At one point, Ann-Margret’s mother has to console Gassman and the film had the closest flirtation with chemistry ever.

But no. Because while Gassman is a caricature, he’s at least an active one. He has some unfortunate slapstick attempts, but otherwise it’s a perfectly fine performance. He’s trapped by the lame script and lame composition, just like the viewer.

Ann-Margret’s bad. Parker’s okay; her part’s terrible, but she’s okay. Fiorenzo Fiorentini is cute as Gassman’s sidekick (the film barely has a supporting cast–Gassman’s the whole show). He carried on with a young woman and ruined his life. The script’s constantly setting up comical examples of why Gassman ought to get serious. That aforementioned “hilarity” ensues after he doesn’t acknowledge any of them.

The film gets a little bit worse at the end, which is sort of too bad because if it had just not gone on and on and on and on in the second half, it might have at least been tolerable. Instead, it’s Risi wasting his cast, Gassman giving a decent enough performance will suffocated by a bad script and a disinterested director, Parker not even having enough material to turn her part into a role, and Ann-Margret being annoying. Yes, the script fails her too–and Risi’s direction of her–but she’s still not good in Tiger and the Pussycat. She’s just not.

Warning Shot (1967, Buzz Kulik)

Warning Shot is almost successful. For most of the film, director Kulik and screenwriter Mann Rubin craft an engaging mystery. Then the third act happens and they both employ cheap tricks and it knocks the film off course. It’s a rather short third act too–the film’s got a peculiar structure, probably to allow for all the cameos–and it just falls apart. What’s worse is the plot was already meandering (and promised more meandering) by that point.

David Janssen is a cop about to go to trial for killing an upstanding doctor. He’s got to prove himself innocent–or the doctor dirty–which means he visits various people. The first act–with Ed Begley as his boss, Keenan Wynn as his partner, Sam Wanamaker as the DA out to get him and Carroll O’Connor as the hispanic coroner–is completely different than the rest of the film. Kulik uses cockeyed angles, which Joseph F. Biroc shoots beautifully (though he doesn’t do as well with the hand-held look Kulik goes for in other early scenes). It makes all the exposition sail. The angles and the actors. The actors are very important.

There’s only one weak performance in Warning Shot–Joan Collins as Janssen’s estranged wife–all the rest are good or better. Even when it’s a single scene like Eleanor Parker or George Sanders. Parker’s better, she’s got a lot more to do than sit behind a desk and be a snot, which Sanders accomplishes admirably. George Grizzard is solid as Janssen’s newfound ally and Stefanie Powers is great as the dead doctor’s nurse. Lillian Gish has a small part as a witness and she’s a lot of fun. Begley, Wynn and especially Wanamaker are all strong. Carroll O’Connor as the–wait for it–Hispanic coroner is a little weird, but he’s not bad, just Carroll O’Connor playing a Mexican.

There’s a lot going on in the story for the first half of the film; the second half doesn’t have much material as far as the mystery, but it does have material for the supporting cast. They work at it and Janssen’s a phenomenally sturdy lead. He’s able to sell everything, from drinking buttermilk as a vice to fending off a seductive Collins. Bad performance or not, the latter seems unlikely.

I suppose the somewhat lengthy slide into troubled mystery waters is a bonus. It makes Warning Shot less disappointing. Even the finale, with its problems, should be better just because of location and Jerry Goldsmith’s competent score, but Kulik fumbles it. He also has some really bad blacking out sequences, one near the end, which might help to forecast the problem finish.

Still, some good acting, some great acting, a fine lead from Janssen; Warning Shot diverts for its entire runtime and intrigues for more than half of it.

Son of Godzilla (1967, Fukuda Jun)

Strangely enough, Son of Godzilla ends well. It’s a surprise because the film loses a lot of steam throughout. Whether it’s the human plot or the Godzilla plot, the scene inevitably fails because of director Fukuda. Unless it’s one of the multiple times writers Sekizawa Shin’ichi and Shiba Kazue completely fail. Son of Godzilla constantly starts and stops. There’s no unifying style.

Directing the actors, Fukuda often shows ambition. It’s just there’s no way for that ambition to be realized. While he can intuit how a scene should play, he can’t make the scene play. Fukuda is just a bad director–and, of course, Fujii Ryôhei’s tone-deaf editing doesn’t help anything.

The film has an appealing male lead, a too enthusiastic newspaper reporter (Kubo Akira) who ends up as short order cook for a group of scientists. They’re studying weather conditions on an island where Godzilla and other giant monsters coincidentally are hanging out. The film often plays the giant monsters for laughs. Not well, but still successfully. The interactions between Godzilla and his not quite as giant son, Minilla, are endearing and fun. If incompetently visualized.

Now for a few things deserving standout attention.

First, Beverly Maeda as an island “savage” who’s always saving Kubo. She’s this great character; then, all of a sudden, Kubo’s the boss. But nothing about the characters’ personalities change, just Maeda’s place in the film. Logically, she should still be the hero but she isn’t. It hurts the film a lot. Maeda’s performance isn’t quite good, but she’s definitely appealing. At least until she’s the damsel.

Second, the music. Satô Masaru does this crazy, campy, playful score for the film. For ten minute stretches, Satô’s score makes Son of Godzilla feel like an absurdist comedy. It seems like Fukuda gets that disconnect, but then he doesn’t properly utilize it, which again makes the filmmaking appear inept. It’s as though everything good about the film–except the acting–is accidentally okay.

Finally, the giant mantises who terrorize the humans (who are more interested in the weather than these giant monsters) and Minilla. While the special effects are problematic in the film, the mantises are great. As are the backdrop paintings. Fukuda can’t direct the jungle sets, however. They’re always stagy.

But then comes Son of Godzilla’s last sequence and it’s amazing. Fukuda doesn’t screw up the direction and Satô’s score changes tone and the humans finally say something interesting. The successful ending closes the film on its highest note.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967, Arthur Penn)

Bonnie and Clyde opens with two immediate introductions. First, in the opening titles, photographs from the 1930s set the scene. Second, in the first scene, with Faye Dunaway (as Bonnie) and Warren Beatty (as Clyde) meet one another and flirt their way into armed robbery. Okay, maybe in the latter, director Penn does start with Dunaway.

It’s only fair because Dunaway’s the one who gets the big personal arc. The bigger arc–Dunaway and Beatty robbing banks, making a gang, on the run–is a Homeric odyssey through the characters’ lives and the world they live in. The film is very much a rumination on the thirties and the Depression, but never an overpowering one.

The script moves quickly, whether it’s bringing characters together or developing their relationships. At the center of it, right off, Dunaway and Beatty have to click. And they do; that opening scene shows off how well they click (as they click). There’s a certain boastfulness to Bonnie and Clyde; Penn is confident and takes bold strokes.

Dede Allen’s editing is also an essential for the film’s success. The cutting in the first act is maybe the most dynamic, but it also sets up the viewer for what’s going to come. It’s startling but reassuring. Great photography from Burnett Guffey. The film’s visuals are extremely important. Penn is always keeping things moving.

Excellent support from Michael J. Pollard, Estelle Parsons, Gene Hackman.

Bonnie and Clyde is breathtaking work. Big kudos to Penn, Dunaway and Beatty.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Arthur Penn; written by David Newman and Robert Benton; director of photography, Burnett Guffey; edited by Dede Allen; music by Charles Strouse; produced by Warren Beatty; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Warren Beatty (Clyde Barrow), Faye Dunaway (Bonnie Parker), Michael J. Pollard (C.W. Moss), Gene Hackman (Buck Barrow), Estelle Parsons (Blanche), Denver Pyle (Frank Hamer), Dub Taylor (Ivan Moss), Evans Evans (Velma Davis) and Gene Wilder (Eugene Grizzard).

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Weekend (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)

The best part of Weekend is Jean-Pierre Léaud singing his dialogue while in a phone booth. He then gets into a fight with leads Jean Yanne and Mireille Darc as they try to get a ride from him. Weekend is about the unreality of bourgeois life when it gets into the wild–in this case, the French countryside, which is inhabited by communal cannibals and people out of novels. Yanne and Darc, an unhappily married couple plotting each other’s murder after they kill Darc’s father for his money, are in a film, not a novel.

They soon learn the difference.

Director Godard goes for various shocks–whether through violent misogyny, quiet misogyny, violent animal cruelty, sight gags involving car accidents–and none of them ever really come across. He puts the viewer on guard immediately; when he does surprise, it’s usually because a scene is so well executed.

Maybe the best sequence in the film is when Yanne and Darc are stuck in a traffic jam on a tranquil French country road. It goes from pastoral to horrific, the constant blaring of car horns reminding the viewer not to get comfortable.

And when Yanne and Darc are on the road, Weekend might never connect (it doesn’t try), but at least it moves well. The performances are good, Godard’s almost all long shot composition is good (lovely photography from Raoul Coutard). It also isn’t forced. At least, not compared to the third act.

That third act is excruciatingly boring stuff.

1/4★

CREDITS

Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard; director of photography, Raoul Coutard; edited by Agnès Guillemot; music by Antoine Duhamel; released by Athos Films.

Starring Mireille Darc (Corinne), Jean Yanne (Roland), Paul Gégauff (Pianist), Jean-Pierre Léaud (Saint-Just), Blandine Jeanson (Emily Bronte), Yves Afonso (Tom Thumb) and Juliet Berto (The Radical).

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Evening Classes (1967, Nicolas Ribowski)

Evening Classes is a bit of a surprise; without Jacques Tati’s involvement, the short would almost work more as an examination of his films. With his involvement, Classes certainly has some outstanding moments, but director Ribowski and Tati (who also wrote the short) don’t really have a point.

The film opens with Tati as M. Hulot seemingly bumbling into a classroom, but no–he’s actually the instructor and a good one. He’s teaching an improv or mime class, except in the context of Tati’s films, it’s more like a look inside his process on those other films.

Without a familiarity with Tati’s work (Classes, shot on the same sets as Playtime, ends with a big reference to that film), the short goes on a little too long. Tati’s examples of smoking, tennis and fishing are all phenomenal. The horseback riding and postal worker stuff? Too much.

It’s successful, if problematic.