Knives Out (2019, Rian Johnson)

Knives Out is very successful, very neat riff on the Agatha Christie-esque genre of mystery stories, specifically the limited cast, the intricate death, the “gentleman detective.” Out’s gentleman detective is Daniel Craig, who plays his French-named character as a Southern Gentleman with aplomb. He’s always delightful, even though he’s—intentionally—not particularly good at the investigating, rather trying to figure out where the truth will reveal itself and meet it there. Nice Gravity’s Rainbow reference, though writer and director Johnson’s joke about people not actually reading it… well, there’s an insight ceiling. Out does a pretty good job not bumping it while covering a range of precarious topics throughout, with the Pynchon cop out probably being the closest call.

The lead in the film is instead Ana de Armas, nurse and confidant to recently deceased (apparently by suicide) Christopher Plummer. Plummer’s a millionaire mystery novel writer who supports his greedy family members, reigning from an intentionally gothic house with the occasional physical gimmicks related to his mystery novels. The house set is a lot of fun. When the film finally leaves for a sustained period (instead of just quick asides to remind de Armas has a real life away), it loses a bit of its personality. Especially when it will just turn around and head back, reining in its expanse at the end of the second act just to use the house again in the third. Only once it returns, it’s already shown what’s behind the curtain–Johnson does a fine job establishing the actual suspects from the potential ones and gives the audience enough information to at least guess the perpetrator if not the motive.

It’s a good script. Even during the finale, which goes on a little too long, all of Johnson’s instincts and twists are good, there’s just too much material in between them. Some of it’s Craig mugging but Johnson’s also really careful never to let him go too far. The film’s got a very specific tone, very specific narrative distance—it’s got to encompass a lot around de Armas—Johnson and his crew do an excellent job with it. Steve Yedlin’s photography, Bob Ducsay’s editing, Nathan Johnson’s music. All works out.

No small thanks to de Armas, obviously, who’s able to do a lot in this spotlight, including entirely, exquisitely humanize Plummer. It isn’t until their big scene together Plummer really gets to act; until then, opposite the family, it’s all for motive setup. With de Armas, Plummer gets real personality, which resonates throughout the film.

The first act’s a series of flashbacks and flash arounds, establishing the last night of Plummer’s life, with the various family members and suspects—Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette—incriminating themselves and others and getting annoyed with cop LaKeith Stanfield’s repeated interrogations. Stanfield’s the straight man, Noah Segan’s his numbskull sidekick, Craig’s the gentleman detective. Johnson has a great handle on the genre norms and nimbly adapts some of them.

Good performances all around, though Out is really de Armas, Plummer, and Craig’s movie. Of the supporting cast–well, the family (Stanfield’s great but he’s de facto third tier)—Collette and Shannon are the best. Curtis and Johnson are both fine, they just don’t have the same opportunities. As the black sheep and prime suspect (of sorts), Chris Evans is good (his amazing sweater, hiding Avengers guns, is amazing) and maybe even better than I was expecting given the part, but he doesn’t have the spark the big three exhibit.

Though he also doesn’t have Johnson showcasing him the way de Armas, Plummer, and Craig get the spotlight. They all transfix, the film riding on them—which just makes de Armas more and more impressive as the film moves along.

Knives Out is good. Just about ten minutes too long.

Extra Ordinary (2019, Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman)

A few minutes into Extra Ordinary, after a stylized prologue and then opening sequence, I realized it was a low budget marvel. The film has under five locations and six characters. Directors Ahern and Loughman widen the proverbial lens to make it feel bigger with choice location shooting—being able to do the driving in the car stuff well does a lot—and, of course, the excellent special effects. Extra Ordinary is a ghost comedy, meaning there need to be a lot of ghost effects, and they’re able to execute all of them well, most of them comedically. The supernatural in the film is a combination of mundane and uncanny, with an understanding the latter is only possible with some filmmaking finesse, otherwise you get the former.

The film opens with hilarious (film in the film) eighties VHS series on the supernatural. It’s one of the only times it really feels low budget because the VHS filter they use still looks way better than actual VHS would. A very amusingly straight-faced Risteard Cooper hosts the show.

In the present, Cooper is long dead; something went wrong with the supernatural and now adult daughter Maeve Higgins still blames herself for it, even though sister Terri Chandler tries to assure her she’s not. Higgins is a driving instructor who used to do some other kind of work. Turns out she was a medium for hire, but has given up the trade. All she wants is driving instruction gigs, all anyone ever calls about is ghost busting.

So when she gets a message from Barry Ward for driving lessons, she thinks it’s a real gig. Only then it turns out Ward’s being haunted by his dead wife and daughter Emma Coleman told him he had to call Higgins or she was moving out.

Throw in American-rock-star-in-tax-exile Will Forte who’s trying to get his Satanic ritual together and needs a virgin, setting his sights on teen Coleman, and Extra Ordinary’s got the ingredients for a rather eclectic ghost comedy.

The make and break of the film turns out to be Higgins, who’s phenomenal from the first moment and for a while it’s not clear if the directors just really know how to direct her or if it’s Higgins. It seems to be Higgins, who’s able to keep character development going even when she’s got to be the most static one in the film. Not to knock the directors; they do an exceptional job—and it’d be impossible to image the film looking, sounding, or feeling any different—but Higgins is still the star.

Ward’s a fine sidekick for her; she’s got to introduce him to the supernatural around town. He’s always good, sometimes better. He just starts better than he ends up so it’s not as easy to be excited about his performance. He’s got a big swing and it’s a hit, but like just enough to get to first base. Nothing special. Not like Higgins being able to carry the film.

Then the other two main stars are Forte and Claudia O’Doherty as his wife. Forte’s awesome. The film’s got great timing, Forte’s got better timing. It’s incredible how well he sells the Satanic one hit wonder trying to get back on the charts with his terrible music.

O’Doherty’s always funny as the needling wife, though it’s definitely one of the film’s shallower parts.

Ahern and Loughman’s composition is almost always excellent. In the handful of shots where it goes a little wrong, it’s obviously something about the budget. Cinematographer James Mather works wonders and the film looks great, but there’s just something off every once in a while. Usually reaction over the shoulder shots actually.

Great editing from Gavin Buckley, great music from George Brennan. Again, it’s a low budget marvel.

And they’re able to do a big effects sequence.

Extra Ordinary is an extremely well-made comedy and a great showcase for Higgins.

Justice League (2017, Zack Snyder), the Snyder cut

The absolute saddest part of Justice League: The Encore Edition is the new stuff’s not bad. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. You almost want to see the movie, which is basically Ben Affleck Batman teaming up the not even A-list for 2021 of DC Comics movies stars and roaming a post-apocalyptic wasteland. But then there’s even more new stuff with Affleck and it’s the best Affleck’s been in the whole four hours. He has a thirty second or so conversation without screenwriter Chris Terrio’s indescribably horrific dialogue and it’s fine. It’s kind of charming even and there’s no other time in all of Justice League: The Uncensored Version Affleck’s ever near charming. He’s obviously miserable in the rest of it, having realized after his last Snyder outing whatever he thought he was doing on set, it wasn’t ending up printed on film. Though Affleck doesn’t even get an arc, which is kind of funny. Like, Affleck, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams—all the people who’d already had their solo movies—they don’t get arcs.

And it makes sense, because Justice League: The Commemorative Edition takes its time introducing its new superheroes. There’s Aquaman (before Aquaman) Jason Momoa, Cyborgman Ray Fisher (who got screwed the most in the theatrical version), and Flashman Ezra Miller, who’s done so well since Justice League: The Theatrical Version Warner had to beg him onto the TV shows the movie people all dissed. All three do pretty well with some lousy material. All three get extended introductions, with Momoa doing a cologne commercial set to Nick Cave—if you’re going to sell out, sell out big (and it’s actually the second Nick Cave in fifteen minutes because Adams’s D plot gets a Cave song too, so double up, sir)—Miller doing a lovely slow motion meet cute with Kiersey Clemons, albeit set to very annoying music—while Fisher gets a football success flashback. Snyder really can’t direct sports scenes. Whatever Zack Snyder thinks slow motion accomplishes, it does not. If you ran Justice League: The Special Edition at regular speed, you’d probably lose an hour.

The action in the first half is all very elaborate. None of it involves the superheroes. Snyder really can’t be bothered with the superhero action. He takes his time with the Amazons—led by an atrocious Connie Nielsen, but her level of atrocious doesn’t even get her in the top five—he takes his time with some of the Momoa stuff (Momoa’s stuff figures into the A plot, whereas Miller’s doesn’t at all and Fisher’s sort of figures in but only coincidentally). But there’s Atlantis stuff and there’s a lengthy flashback to ancient battles against a terrible CGI bad guy. Justice League: Untitled does a great job proving Marvel had the right idea all along (minus hiring Joss Whedon); build up the characters in solo projects, hire an actor to motion capture your inter dimensional blue bad guy. Justice League: The Bootleg Cut spends a lot of time on very pointless setup; at least the Fisher stuff gets closed off, but it turns out it’s because he’s the only one who’s not getting to come back after Justice League: Integral Version. The film leverages Joe Morton to get it done.

Joe Morton can get it done. No one in the movie makes the crap dialogue seem as reasonable as Joe Morton.

Even if he and Fisher never really get any good scenes together. Of the new three, Fisher’s the best (and actually good). Momoa survives unscathed. Miller survives… scathed.

So if Affleck’s bad, Gadot’s kind of fine but has no character arc and her characterization is very thin. Actually, more abrupt. Terrio’s scared to write people talking to one another so everyone just spouts declarative statements. Though Gadot does get a lengthy narration scene—when Thamos is fighting against Bronze Age super magic people—and she is terrible. It’s terribly written, but she’s really bad at it too. Like, maybe throw in some John Lennon to make a human connection. Wonder Woman does vaporize a guy in front of school children in her action scene though; Snyder wimps out on CGI’ing blood all over them.

Cavill’s fine. He’s in Justice League: Redux seemingly less than in the other one when he had the silly CGI jaw (they should’ve used all that footage but made it Bizarro). Adams is fine too. She gets the second biggest shit part in the movie though. Her part actually gets worse the more we learn about her, which happens because of the biggest shit part—poor Diane Lane. First they give her a shit part, then they change it Carrie Fisher in Star Wars 9 style and make it even worse. Plus all the Cavill, Adams, and Lane stuff is clearly not meant for the pan and scan. It’s a sad end to their trilogy and it’s kind of obvious Snyder cut more of their stuff than anyone else’s. Except maybe Gadot’s; even though she gets the terrible narration thing, her solo action scene gets trashed through editing. Also the music.

Thomas Holkenborg’s music is occasionally fine. Mostly for the Aquaman stuff, but in general it’s not too terrible. Except for Gadot’s stuff and Cavill’s stuff. With the latter, it’s like Holkenborg’s giving the old Hans Zimmer material the finger. With Gadot’s stuff, Holkenborg’s just got terrible ideas. He also completely avoids giving Affleck any music, which is too bad because it’d be great if there was some sad Affleck music whenever you can just see the dejection on his face. He’s painfully miserable. He can’t even keep pace with Jeremy Irons, who’s doing everything to try to keep their scenes afloat. Irons can save Gadot, but Affleck’s a sunk rock.

He’s terrible to the point he’s annoying to watch.

Oh, and J.K. Simmons. So bad.

Amber Heard’s fine. Willem Dafoe’s terrible but not in an embarrassing way like Simmons or Lane or, you know, Affleck. Meanwhile Billy Crudup seems to be doing an impression of John Wesley Shipp, who plays the same part (The Flash’s wrongly convicted father) on the “Flash” TV show.

Who else… Oh. So the voices for the CGI bad guys, who all look terrible because the visual concepts for Justice League: The Final Cut are all bad. But Ciarán Hinds. Not good work. Ray Porter, terrible. Peter Guinness, terrible.

Another misunderstanding I had about the theatrical version and Justice League: Extended Collector's Edition… I thought the lousy CGI backdrops, like when people are out on the street—I thought all those scenes were post-Snyder. Nope, there’s a bunch of shot in front of green screen instead of on exciting nondescript city street. It looks terrible. Worse, when they do the Kansas corn fields with the CGI backgrounds? It’s like a museum diorama where just a little further away it’s the wall with the painted horizon. Ruins the scenes.

Again, Justice League: The Reconstruction does no favors for the Man of Steel gang.

Fabian Wagner’s exterior photography is all exquisite. It’s just the composites. They’re all crappy. Every single one. If Snyder leaned into it more, the artificial, exaggerated distance between foreground and back, he might have something. But he never has something with Justice League: The R-Rated Director’s Cut because there’s just nothing to see here.

Fixed Bayonets! (1951, Samuel Fuller)

About two minutes after I had the thought, “Oh, no, what if the morale of Fixed Bayonets! is ‘it isn’t the generals who are the heroes but the men,’” the film reveals the morale to be it isn’t the generals who are the heroes but the men.

The film opens with a title card establishing the setting and the direct involvement of the U.S. Armed Forces. The first scene has two enlisted guys waxing poetic about how generals are super cool and they could never be generals because generals are super cool. Stuart Randall plays the general. He’s terrible. For his entire scene, it’s pins and needles whether the rest of the film is going to have such atrocious acting. And ham-fisted exposition. There’s going to be exposition later, but it thankfully won’t be ham-fisted. In fact, the opening scene is such an outlier to the rest of the film for a while in the second act it seems like Bayonets is going to end up a dark, satirical tragedy.

It has all the pieces. Leave out some of the patriotic music, get rid of the voices lead Richard Basehart hears (even the good ones), and without making any changes to the edit, Bayonets would be very different. The patriotic music and Basehart’s reassuring voices turn it into wartime propaganda. It assures the homefront the fellas are a-okay, even if it’s more a war than a “police action.” Heck, even the screwups get another chance over there. So it does end up being a tragedy, just not in a good way.

Because the second act of Fixed Bayonets! is phenomenal. Director Fuller is always ambitious with the action. The film mostly takes place at this pass Basehart and his platoon are defending; they’re the rear guard, trying to fake out the Chinese they’re actually the advance because everyone else has pulled back. There’s a big set of the pass, which lets Fuller and cinematographer Lucien Ballard do a bunch of great crane shots while things explode. It’s technically solid—particularly the photography—but it’s dramatically inert. Good pyrotechnics, but a string of booms, nothing else.

So when Fuller all of a sudden starts doing these amazing sequences in act two, after one of the squads has taken shelter in a very convenient cave, it’s a bit of a surprise. And then when it just keeps getting better and better, including the exterior sequences with the fighting and not just the pre and post-fighting scenes where the soldiers humanize… Fixed Bayonets gets really good, really fast, and for a significant portion of its runtime. If it weren’t for the finale, you could almost convince yourself the studio took the picture away from Fuller and tacked on the pro-Army intro. Especially since it would mean Fuller’s not responsible for Randall.

It also helps the acting is best in the second act. There’s no Randall, but there’s also a lot less Craig Hill. Hill’s the lieutenant. He’s not just bad, he’s annoying at it. Fuller gives him a bunch to do and Hill can’t do any of it. He’s mostly in the first act, immediately after Randall’s scene, so Bayonets isn’t off to a good start with its actors. Second act, focusing on Gene Evans’s squad in the cave, is when the acting gets better; the actors aren’t just better, they also have a lot better material from Fuller (who also scripted). Second act is when Fuller starts caring about the performances—and he cares a lot, but that first act is rough and not easily forgotten or forgiven. But they do it. Fuller, Evans, Basehart, Ballard, and especially editor Nick DeMaggio (after a routinely edited first act, Fuller goes on to almost entirely rely on it to create suspense and drama, something DeMaggio excels at executing). They get Bayonets to a great place and then the third act hits and it slides down into the muck. It’s not even jingoistic muck, it’s very specifically redemption through Armed Forces service muck. It doesn’t help Basehart’s performance goes to pot either. Evans tempers Basehart but when they need to do things separately, Basehart can’t hack it.

Some of it’s the part, some of it’s Fuller… actually, Basehart might be off the hook. There’s really no better way to play the recruitment ad portion of the film.

Evans is great. You know what, actually, no, Basehart’s not off the hook. He definitely should’ve incorporated some of sergeant Evans’s Obi-Waning.

But Evans is great.

Michael O’Shea’s decent as one of the other sergeants—uncredited Henry Kulky is hilarious as the third and final sergeant; otherwise the supporting cast is mostly indistinct. You can spot James Dean really easily if you keep your eye out.

The middle of Fixed Bayonets! is a beautifully made film, combining various techniques to slow down and inspect the emotions of its characters during moments of crisis and tension. There’s a very clear change in the film’s tone when it starts, very clear change when it stops. It’s not quite foreshadowing but it does involve the same character. It’s really unfortunate the third act is such a disaster. Even without the aspirational, jingoist finish, the action in the third act is mostly bad too. I guess it’d be worse if the first act were better, because then it’d seem like a nosedive instead of a return to original form.

But when Fuller excels, it’s something very special; thanks, obviously, in no small part to Evans, Ballard, and DeMaggio.

East of Eden (1955, Elia Kazan)

As intentional as Kazan gets with his direction of James Dean, he’s orders of magnitude more intentional on Julie Harris. Harris is top-billed and the natural protagonist, but Dean’s a supernova. He’s the lead, he’s the star, he’s dynamite, a press agent’s dream. Only he’s got a really quiet part for most of the movie; he’s an extrovert we only ever get to see as an introvert because the movie’s from 1955 (and about 1917) and when he’s not being a top-notch farmhand, he’s bedding every Hispanic girl in town. The film manages to find some honesty in how racism is playing a factor, but it can’t exactly address it.

It’s not just it’s 1955… men are men, after all. And East of Eden is a gloriously turgid mix of toxic masculinity, chauvinism (in both senses), and some kind of religiosity. The religiosity is mostly in the ground situation and revealed backstory; it’s important and it informs everything, but more in how it protects Dean’s twin brother, Richard Davalos, and their father, Raymond Massey, from ever having to take personal responsibility. Massey’s been a single dad since they were born—their mother died in childbirth, he told them—and he’s parented with the Bible. Except Massey’s a very kind, empathetic, curious person—Massey’s performance is startling in its earnestness and warmth, even when he’s being a complete jackass to Dean—so he’s had to arrange his life a certain way. It works with Davalos, who models the piety of his widower father as a way to navigate through as well—masking his core-deep insecurities and jealousies—but not with Dean. Because Dean’s the same as Massey, only Massey wants Dean to be like dear departed mother, Jo Van Fleet.

Who, it turns out, lives just a train ride away.

Van Fleet is a successful madam in the shitty coastal town, while Massey and sons live in the more Christian in-land farming community, where you can meet a nice girl like Harris.

The film opens with Dean following Van Fleet home, where she sends out Timothy Carey to deal with the lurking teen. Carey might be looped; he’s uncredited and Eden’s full of looped audio (quite obviously because Kazan wanted something just right; the film’s exquisite in its precision); either way he’s awesome. He runs Dean off, with some exposition to at least foreshadow and establish this plot line with Dean and Van Fleet. It’s a great sequence.

Once Dean’s back on the right side of the mountains, the film introduces Davalos and Harris. They’re a morally upstanding teenage couple, very chaste, very appropriate; Harris finds Dean concerning—so peculiar he’s scary—while Davalos just thinks his twin is a hilarious goof, at most a prankster.

Davalos and Dean is Eden’s most complicated relationship and the one the film gives the least amount of time. The film’s about Dean getting up the courage to confront Van Fleet, but more about how the many-layered revelation of Van Fleet affects Dean’s relationship with Massey. And, unintentionally, Davalos and Harris. They become collateral damage in this brewing family drama no one realized was brewing. Van Fleet’s the catalyst for the explosion, which is appropriate as she’s the one who got it brewing in the first place.

At least, the way the men see it.

Once Dean has a heart-to-heart about his parents with sheriff Burl Ives (who’s phenomenal in this picture), he starts trying to play the good son. And those attempts—the successes of those attempts—are going to bring ruin to everyone. Some more ruined than others. And there’s enough ruination going around it’s not all Dean’s fault. He is, after all, a sixteen or seventeen year-old kid who has a lot going on in his life and the easy access to alcohol. Massey’s good and evil dichotomy runs Dean and Davalos’s lives, with Harris’s outsider perspective and questioning starting to make Dean ask some questions. In conjunction with the rest of the world making Dean ask some questions too.

War’s almost on and Dean has a profiteers take on it. Davalos and Massey are devout pacifists, but Dean’s a mercenary. Only he’s not because he doesn’t understand what’s going on because he’s a kid. He’s a drinker and a fighter and a lover, but he’s still a kid, something Van Fleet sees in him and is willing to help him too. The relationship with Dean and Van Fleet, Dean and businessman Albert Dekker, with sheriff Ives, they’re all helping push his character development. Right up until we remember Adam had two sons (literally, of course, Adam is Massey’s character’s name) and then everything explodes. Even though we’ve only ever seen Davalos from Dean’s perspective and in Dean’s scenes… he’s had his own subplots brewing and boom.

The third act is then this tightly constrained melodrama where Kazan does everything he can to max out the intensity without getting too loud. And it’s where that direction of Harris gets so important.

Harris has figured out what’s going on with this family and she knows how to fix it but she has to get Dean, Davalos, and Massey to do that work. So it’s not just Dean’s going to be a golden god and get all the camera’s attention, it’s also the story doing it too. It’s treating Harris as a function.

Kazan doesn’t let it.

He, cinematographer Ted D. McCord, and editor Owen Marks figure out this way to showcase Harris, especially in the second half, when it becomes obvious she ought to be the protagonist of this story. Except men.

Harris is great. Dean is singular. No one’s made the adjective. Massey’s great. Ives, Van Fleet, Dekker. Davalos is fine. He functions. Lot of help from Kazan. With everyone else, it’s Kazan figuring out how to best convey his actors’ performances; with Davalos… he’s making it work.

Lois Smith is excellent in a small part.

Technically, it’s almost perfect. There’s a repeated shot of Dean riding the train back to the bad town two scenes and a few hours after we saw it used for him coming home to the good town; it’s now night, the shot’s day. It’s bewildering. Kazan and crew make up for it. He and McCord do a lot with camera angles, including some really awesome showy stuff; the repeat footage gets a pass.

And Paul Osborn’s script. Like, East of Eden has got to be a pain to adapt, but Osborn finds a chunk of the story (presumably the end, I’ve never gotten through it) and writes this great family drama; when I said earlier Kazan had to defend Harris against the script, it’s not Osborn working against her even, it’s the plot. Osborn makes sure Harris has excellent material. It wouldn’t work otherwise.

It’s just not easy to contend with Dean and his presence in the film, visually onscreen and then in general with the plot. He’s so exceptionally good and the film’s able to do so much more because it can leverage him.

East of Eden’s exceptional. I think I’d forgotten just how exceptional.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931, Rouben Mamoulian)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—it’s pronounced Gee-kyl, incidentally, as in Fronkensteen—is a stunning disappointment. It’s difficult to know where to begin, given the film is about a scientist, Fredric March, who’s really horny for his fiancée, Rose Hobart (and she’s horny for him too), but her dad, Halliwell Hobbes, thinks March’s a no good horn-dog so he won’t let them hurry the engagement. It’s very frustrating for March, who’s working on a serum to make men less horny and more productive. For a while there’s that joke about Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire is the song your mom liked about the Boss being so horny could die but then Jekyll becomes about March holding lower class working girl Miriam Hopkins his prisoner and raping and beating her for a month while Hobart’s away.

Large portions of the film are just Hopkins in utter terror as March, in the Hyde persona, threatens her until the scenes fade out on him inflicting pain on her while terrorizing her. March plays Hyde in makeup to make him look more savage, like a caveman. Only we’re going to find out the only savage thing about March as Hyde is his lack of empathy, which cave people had obviously. And then we find out… March the “good guy” is well aware of his bad behavior. The whole reason Hopkins is in this situation is because after March whines to his butler, Edgar Norton, about Hobart going away, Norton tells him just to start seeing a prostitute but March is too high class for it. So instead he takes the serum, which lets him terrorize and assault with abandon.

While the film is Pre-Code and so can get away with quite a lot, including Hopkins’s suggestively dangling her leg for forty-some seconds—see, March the good saves Hopkins in the street, she fancies him, but he’s engaged after all… so he has to take the serum to give himself the excuse to rape her.

I don’t think I’ve seen this film more than once or maybe twice before—a long time ago—and it’s possible I watched the cut version, which apparently excises the entire “March sets Hopkins up so he can constantly assault her” plot thread by dropping six minutes. But I’m trying to imagine how they recapped this movie for the Crestwood House kids’ monster books I used to read. Most of my memories of the film are things I’m sure were stills in that book.

So, another thing about the film is how much it acknowledges the reality of the situation. When March confides in fellow doctor Holmes Herbert, you’re hoping Herbert will have the sense to turn him into the cops. All of Hobart’s scenes become these layered suspense sequences; she’s under threat from March, who she’s convinced is a literal saint. I mean, March does operate on the poor and help little kids walk again, but he’s clearly only doing it because otherwise he’d be abusing women.

March is great as Hyde, low middling as Jekyll. The film punts resolving any of the multitude of questions it raises with a rushed third act. In addition to getting the movie done without fully addressing March—the good—as the villain, director Mamoulian doesn’t tie together any of the visual stuff he’s been doing throughout. The film opens with a length first person perspective shot, which echoes during one of March’s transformations (the transformation scenes start great but are terrible in the third act) and then Mamoulian forgets about them. The film’s aurally and visually ambitious until all of a sudden it’s just not anymore. Mamoulian’s composition is still good, it’s just not wildly ambitious like the start. He does do the big chase action sequences really well—and it’s really impressive if March did all the Hyde stunts himself–and Karl Struss’s photography is superb.

It just seems like Mamoulian’s going for something and instead all we get for a moral is “beware horny scientists.”

Again, March is terrifying and fantastic as Hyde. Hopkins is even better. Hobart’s good, Hobbes is good.

If the film’s third act were as deliberate and intentional as the first act, if it tried to resolve itself even a little instead of dropping the ball and running away as fast as humanly possible—which, even Pre-Code, might not have been possible… who knows. Also if March were anywhere near as good as the good guy as the bad guy, though Samuel Hoffenstein and Percy Heath’s screenplay deserves much blame on that one. They punt on March’s character development far sooner than anyone else.

The film’s just the right combination of unpleasant and unrewarding; it’s undeniably effective but also a pronounced failure.

The Eagle and the Hawk (1933, Stuart Walker)

The Eagle and the Hawk starts light and ends very heavy. Astoundingly—and appropriately—heavy. Eagle is a WWI flying ace picture, all about a group of British fliers who go to France only to discover war isn’t like playing polo actually.

Right after an inventive segue from opening titles to the present action, the film has a very lumpy first act. Cary Grant has just landed he and Fredric March’s plane upside because he’s a bad pilot and then Jack Oakie comes along to make some jokes. Bogart Rogers and Seton I. Miller’s script is particularly rough in this section, ditto Walker’s direction. There’s also the problem Grant’s not very good and March’s character is real shallow. Oakie’s around with a shallower character, so it works out a little, but not well.

Soon enough, March and Oakie are in France—March having left Grant grounded in England—and they quickly find out people you meet die in war too, not just faceless Germans. Walker is bad at the first act comedy and noticeably better (if still not great) at the drama. A lot of the problem is the script, but then there’s also James Smith’s (uncredited) editing. Sure, Walker probably didn’t give Smith enough coverage–Eagle always feels frustratingly rushed and slightly on the cheap, particularly with the supporting cast—but there are some profoundly bad cuts in the film. It gets to the point you have to predict the jump cuts so you can follow where the actors have moved while still in the middle of the same continuous scene.

March goes through numerous observers—which ought to be a great montage sequence but Walker screws it up in an obvious way (the film ends up implying only March ever loses any observers in combat and yet gets all the medals for them dying)—until there’s no one left in France so they bring in Grant. They’ve got some unresolved hostility to work through, in addition to Grant being a sociopathic bully, but eventually March’s functional alcoholism starts getting dysfunctional and commanding officer Guy Standing has to do something about it.

That something ends up involving a Carole Lombard cameo—the public’s got to have a pretty face—and she’s great but it’s complete filler. Though it does give March another good couple scenes, including meeting bloodthirsty little ghoul kid Douglas Scott and his mother, Virginia Hammond, seemingly realizing toxic masculinity is probably bad.

At its best, Eagle and the Hawk gives March the material he needs to give an exquisite performance. It’s never quite up to snuff—the final monologue needs to be better, even if March knocks it out of the park—thanks to the script and the direction. Walker (or possibly “associate” director Mitchell Leisen) have some occasional great instincts and the sound design is always right and Harry Fischbeck comes through on the photography when tasked… but there’s only so high Eagle can fly with its various albatrosses.

Grant in particular doesn’t help. Even as he improves throughout, it’s a combination of his acting being a tad too inconsistent and Walker not knowing how to direct the film.

And Standing needs to be better if he’s going to be so earnest in his indifference to the loss of human life.

Oh, and Kenneth Howell. Howell’s the new kid whose supposed to be angelic and it’s a fail for multiple reasons, including Howell not being very good. Again, Walker’s no doubt responsible for a lot of it.

But March is good enough alone he almost makes Eagle and the Hawk worth it.

Under the Rainbow (1981, Steve Rash)

There are a number of scenes in Under the Rainbow you probably wouldn’t have imagined had been put on film. Starting with Billy Barty playing a Nazi spy who accidentally hits Hitler in the balls because he’s a little person. When that scene began, I was thinking about how you don’t see a lot of Hitler sight gags anymore. When it ended with Barty hitting Hitler in the balls… I realized there has to be a good reason this movie is so forgotten bad as opposed to infamous bad.

I guess at the time it was the constant sight gags and jokes with drunk, carousing little people who are starring in The Wizard of Oz. But forty years on, I feel like the Japanese racism dates it the most. Rainbow, set in 1938, goes for very Old Hollywood racism. For a while it seems like they’re going to not be overtly racist about the one Black guy (elevator operator Freeman King), and they do avoid it instead doing a literal cartoon sequence with him, but they do a big racist bit with the Black cleaning lady. Even with the Japanese stuff, Rainbow at least humanizes those characters. They treat the Black woman like it’s a racist forties cartoon.

But, and it’s hard not think it’s intentional, when they crash the MGM lot during Gone With the Wind filming, turns out that movie is a lot more racist when you’re watching it be filmed.

Because there is some sincerity to Under the Rainbow, a slapstick comedy about a Japanese spy (Mako) not being able to find his Nazi pal (Barty) because the hotel is full of little people starring in Oz. Barty can’t find Mako because there’s a Japanese tour group in town and all the Japanese guys are dressed the same. You keep waiting for the movie to make an overt “can’t tell them apart” joke, but they seem to think it’s too broad a joke. The constant little person grabbing a boob gag… perfectly okay.

Every once in a while, there’s a not terrible moment or an actual good laugh—but for the most part, aghast is the only appropriate reaction.

Some of the acting is fine, if not better. Eve Arden’s closest to best. She’s a Duchess who’s in L.A. just because; Joseph Maher is her husband, the Duke, who’s convinced an assassin is after him. Chevy Chase is their Secret Service protection. He doesn’t believe there’s an assassin. Robert Donner’s the assassin.

Maher’s not bad. Donner’s bad.

Carrie Fisher is the special casting director for Oz, in charge of the Munchkin cast. She has no chemistry with Chase, but a little with Japanese tourist Bennett Ohta, who gives one of the best performances. Fisher and Chase are professional? I think professional’s a good adjective. And Rainbow traipses Fisher are in her underwear for five or six minutes for no reason other than they want Princess Leia scantily clad. There’s eventually a women’s dressing room scene too, which starts generally offensive and ends very specifically offensive.

Mako’s occasionally okay. At least he doesn’t like Nazis.

Barty’s… I mean, if Rainbow worked, Barty’s performance would be one of cinema’s great performances. However, Rainbow does not work and Barty’s bewildering. It’s impossible to imagine Under the Rainbow any different—certainly not any better, though definitely even more offensive.

Cork Hubbert’s the actual protagonist, but the movie dumps him for the various antics. He’s not bad. He’s not good. But he’s not bad. And he gets the Ben-Hur chariot homage, which is a handful of neat frames amid the chaos.

Adam Arkin’s the hotel manager. He could be worse.

Technically, Rainbow’s mostly fine. It’s not cinematographer Frank Stanley’s fault or David E. Blewitt’s editing. Nothing they—or even director Rash can do—is going to make a difference with the plot. Rash’s got no sense of comic timing, though Joe Renzetti’s disastrous cartoon score accompanying doesn’t help. Great production design from Peter Wooley.

Shame it’s wasted on this exceptionally weird and bad motion picture.

Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985, Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat)

Life is profoundly cheap in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. The film’s ostensibly about little human orphan Aubree Miller’s adventure with her Ewok buddy Warwick Davis and the old man (Wilford Brimley) who takes care of them after a group of bad guys appear out of nowhere and destroy the Ewok village and pew pew away Miller’s family, who survived the previous Ewok movie. I believe that one also had Ewoks with names other than Davis’s one (who can speak English here); no names for the Ewoks anymore. Also not much Ewok action. They disappear for a large portion of the movie, when it’s apparently more fun to watch Brimley pretend to be a mean old man to newly orphaned Miller and separated from his tribe Davis.

Davis’s subplot about the missing Ewoks is kind of the important one until evil human witch Siân Phillips—who lives in bad guy Carel Struycken’s medieval castle and has never heard of spaceships before Miller tells her about them—kidnaps Miller so Miller can explain interstellar travel to Struycken. Struycken and his gang are aliens, but extremely cheap ones for a Star Wars product; apparently their species is based on some bad Ralph McQuarrie concept drawings from Empire Strikes Back.

Doesn’t matter.

The first act, ruining Miller’s life and making Davis’s rather inconvenient, is fairly bad. For whatever reason, directors Wheat are quite bad at the action sequence involving Struycken attacking the village. Some of it’s clearly budget—not sure who decided it was too expensive to do matte paintings of the Ewok village (or just use some Kenner playset backdrops)—but some of it’s just bad directing. Rather inglorious farewells to returning actors Eric Walker and Paul Gleason, though Gleason’s is much worse just for being in the movie longer.

The second act’s tedious and cloying, though Miller’s not anywhere near as obnoxious as she could be—initially it seems weird she and Davis treat being on the run from a murderous gang like being on a nature hike, but given how bad it gets when she and Brimley talk about their feelings… I mean, at least the nature walk has pretty scenery. It’ll eventually look just like the forests from Return of the Jedi, but then because they’re obviously using footage from a better movie—even if it weren’t the competent special effects or better film stock, Davis’s costume doesn’t have the weird eyes he gets in this one.

They go really cheap on the Ewok costumes, so it’s pretty impressive when the third act action sequences are actually not bad. They can’t save Battle for Endor (it’s a fairly tepid battle, though based on the variety of alien species, it’d be interesting to know how they all evolved), but once the Ewoks come back into the movie… it’s occasionally entertaining. Even if the Ewok costumes look like pajama sets with matching slippers.

Other bad elements include Peter Bernstein’s music—he’ll occasionally imply some John Williams but never followthrough (it’s a shock when they use actual Star Wars sound effects for thirteen seconds, around the time Brimley gets to pretend he’s Harrison Ford and then they drop it because it doesn’t play because Miller clearly hasn’t seen A New Hope–but then Bernstein turns around and misses an obvious Jaws reference, which reminds me Endor gets very slapstick with its violence at the end. But no less fatal.

Also real bad is Isidore Mankofsky’s photography but what he’s going to do with the Brothers Wheat directing. Eric Jenkins’s editing is fine. Joe Johnston’s production design is not, but how much can you blame on him unless he’s personally responsible for the truly terrible matte paintings.

Brimley isn’t any good but he keeps it together far better than anyone could expect. He earns his paycheck, most definitely. He, Miller, and Davis don’t really embarrass themselves… as opposed to almost everyone else involved.

Gun Crazy (1950, Joseph H. Lewis)

We don’t see John Dall court Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy. We get to see them meet cute when Dall—back home after the Army (and reform school before the service)—and his pals go to carnival and see Cummins’s shootist act. Dall was in reform school for breaking into a store to steal a pistol and has been obsessed with guns his entire life. He won’t kill anything—there’s an exceptional flashback sequence while young Dall (played by a wonderfully tragic Russ Tamblyn) is in court and everyone testifies about his love of guns and his abhorrence of violence. He’d never use them to shoot anyone, everyone tells the judge (a very good Morris Carnovsky), he just wants them around all the time and maybe to, like, shoot the channel switcher on a TV someday.

But never to kill anyone.

The film never addresses Dall’s military service in that regard and is able to avoid it because right after Dall becomes bewitched with Cummins, he joins the traveling carnival as another shootist. He quickly starts romancing Cummins, running afoul of carnival owner Berry Kroeger who’s been blackmailing Cummins into his company and has no plans on letting up. Kroeger is the one who gives the insight into what the courtship must look like—they look at each other, Kroeger complains, “like a couple of wild animals.” Thanks to Kroeger, the whirlwind courtship ends with Dall and Cummins married and jobless. They try to make an honest go of it, but once the money runs out—they try to beat Vegas (Cummins is a British expat and in some ways more naive than the very naive Dall) and fail—Cummins gives Dall an ultimatum.

Either they start sticking places up for cash or she’s leaving him. It doesn’t take Dall much thought. It takes him a little bit of thought and we get to see it on his face and we get to see Cummins waiting for his decision because director Lewis is all about how the couple is experiencing their tragedy. But pretty soon they’re sticking up everything from hotels to banks, but never hurting anyone because Dall says no killing.

There’s eventually a great conversation between Dall and Cummins about the no-killing thing, which turns into this great contrast of their respective naiveties as well as a fine character development reveal for Dall. The film’s got a very simple, very linear plot with director Lewis and screenwriters MacKinlay Kantor and Dalton Trumbo focusing on the character relationship between Dall and Cummins when they’re not sticking up the joint, rather coming off the high.

Towards the end of the film, we get to see what Kroeger was talking about with the wild animal looks. At least from Cummins; we’ve seen them some from Dall, who’s usually the one trying to keep the couple from breaking apart under the stress, but the scene where we finally get to see Cummins gazing hungrily on Dall. It is indeed a little scary. It’s closest to the terrified look Cummins gets when she’s feeling cornered and like she needs to shoot her way out, not worrying about who or what the bullets are going to hit. But Dall’s not in the same place as Cummins, who’s alone, a stranger in a strange land; Dall’s got loving big sis Anabel Shaw and his hometown pals, cop Harry Lewis and reporter Nedrick Young. The film occasionally checks in with them during the montages to show how Dall’s life of crime is affecting the loved ones who never gave up him for being, you know, Gun Crazy.

Dall and Cummins keep trying to get stable financially but something always goes wrong and they always need to pull another heist, leading to some exquisite chases sequences, both in cars and on foot. Lewis, cinematographer Russell Harlan, and editor Harry Gerstad are always inventive with how they present Dall and Cummins in rooms versus outdoors versus in cars. They’re trapped together in rooms; outdoors they’re free, in cars they’re hunting and hunted. Lots of extreme close-ups, perfectly lighted, perfectly cut, lots of very particular composition where the actors work together in an unbroken shot. Lewis perfectly balances the showiness of the characters with the intimate. The character development in Gun Crazy is one of its reassuring successes—the film implies it’s going to stick with it, even after it could get rid of it—for a movie called Gun Crazy, it’s not particularly sensational in how it depicts Dall and Cummins (outside when they’re running around dressed in Old West outfits). Lewis and the writers always make sure the film’s an endless fount of empathy and compassion… all while making no promises about hope or redemption.

It’s an exceptional film with singular direction from Lewis. He makes it all happen. I mean, the script does quite a bit, but Lewis (and his crew) make it magic.