Category: Ratings

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968, Norman Jewison)

The first twenty-five minutes of The Thomas Crown Affair is a bank heist. Starting with its planning. After opening titles suggesting the film is about stars Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway doing fashion advertising, we meet future wheelman Jack Weston. Weston gets hired by a mystery man to do a job. We jump forward in time and meet some other mystery men (including a baby Yaphet Kotto), along with McQueen. They're all getting in place for something; he's being a financial wizard guy.

Once the heist starts, we'll learn McQueen is the mastermind behind it all. Director Jewison breaks it out visually, with multiple frames onscreen at once, collaging the various simultaneous perspectives. It's a lot, but Jewison and the dream team crew pull it off. Affair's got Haskell Wexler shooting it; Hal Ashby, Ralph E. Winters, and Byron 'Buzz' Brandt (one of these things is doing its own thing…) editing it. So even though the film changes gears after the heist, when Dunaway comes in, it's still great-looking. Except after that dynamite, one of a kind opening number, the rest of the creative flexes are all in how to do lengthy montages.

The story is about McQueen, a brilliant, rich guy who planned a heist to see if he could do it. Dunaway is the insurance investigator working for the bank. Once she decides he's the guy, she's going to seduce him to get the money. Now, Dunaway does not come into the movie immediately after the heist. After the heist, we meet square-jawed copper Paul Burke. He will be the de facto lead for about fifteen minutes. Why is the timing so important? Because Affair's only got an hour once Dunaway's established. We're forty minutes into the movie before the movie decides what it's going to be.

And what it's going to be is McQueen doing rich guy stuff and living the good life and being genius and Dunaway falling for him. Sort of. Now, Dunaway's late sixties woman willing to trade a little bump and grind when two hundred thousand's on the line. McQueen's a divorced dad who doesn't miss the kids, much less the wife. He's got model Astrid Heeren at his beck and call (she's the same age as Dunaway but seems younger). Burke's a working-class good guy who can't understand why a smart dame like Dunaway would ever trade sex. It's this late sixties and early sixties clash between the two of them, and it's charming. Burke's a solid lug.

Unfortunately, it's more charming than anything Dunaway and McQueen get going. Yes, there's a very well-executed chess game with a bunch of innuendo, but it's like an ad for the Playboy Channel that airs after nine o'clock. It goes a tad too far, but it's trying to be classy. Because they're hot. Thomas Crown Affair is an attempt to sell McQueen as a male movie star as sexy as Dunaway is a female movie star. Thanks to Wexler in particular–McQueen's eyes are something–they pull it off well enough.

So they get hot and bothered in a sweaty way, Burke gets hot and bothered in a mad way, repeat ad nauseam. The film seemingly alternates between opulent wealth sequences, Dunaway doing her work thing (trying to bust McQueen), and her and McQueen having moody, tragic romance scenes.

It does not help the theme song–Noel Harrison's Windmills of the Mind is all about how nothing is happening except the same thing over and over and over again. And over again. Why are the lyrics to your original theme song about how boring your original theme song is?

Anyway.

Of course, they're going to get to the third act, when Dunaway and McQueen finally match wits for the chess game in real life, and we'll get some kind of intricate, elaborate sequence to top the opening heist.

Or one might think. Because Affair does nothing with the third act except manage to drag out a rapid-fire montage sequence. As for the star-crossed romance? Either way, it leaves Dunaway with nothing. It ought to be a post-modern noir, with Dunaway the combination investigator femme fatale. Instead… it's 1968.

Filmmaking-wise–outside the song–Thomas Crown's fantastic. Alan Trustman's script is impressive in what it does and does not accomplish (or attempt). But Burke's too square for the rest of the movie, even if he's good.

McQueen's fine. It's a nothing part. He's intelligent, athletic, charming when he needs to be, broody when he needs to be. He rides horses, flies planes, and just wants the next thrill. Alexander wept and all that jazz. Sometimes, the movie is just about McQueen being bored. And rich.

Bored and rich.

And Dunaway just wants to be bored and rich, too. She's good, but when her character goes to pot in the script, it goes to pot–bad 1968.

There's nothing quite like Thomas Crown Affair–with the filmmaking techniques and fashion angle–but the big swings can't cover everything. Maybe the song. But not everything else and the song.

This post is part of the Norman Jewison Blogathon hosted by Rebecca of Taking Up Room.

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961, Stanley Kramer)

Insofar as it has a protagonist,Judgment at Nuremberg is the story of recently electorally defeated Maine judge Spencer Tracy. Tracy is the chief justice on a military tribunal hearing cases in the Nuremberg trials, the Allied attempt to hold the Germans accountable for their actions during World War II. Tracy's coming in towards the end of trials; the American public has lost interest, more enthusiastic about hating the Communist Russians than their enemies… the defeated Nazis.

I mean, yikes.

The film's trial centers around four German judges, who all wore the literal Swastika while dispensing law during the Nazi period. Now they're being held accountable for their actions, which gives all the lawyers some pause. Judges aren't expected–Nuremberg's exposition from the legal minds contends–to administer justice; they're supposed to interpret and administer the laws on the books. So, since Nazi persecution was legal, the judges are exempt from accountability. Tracy's not sure about that take, but he's a Republican who voted for FDR, which fellow judge Ray Teal thinks is weak sauce. Third justice Kenneth MacKenna is going to sway with the wind, but Teal's sure these fellows were just doing their jobs.

After all, as the Germans' lawyer (Maximilian Schell) points out… The United States loved sterilizing people. Our greatest legal minds were all for it.

Schell's the breakout performance in Nuremberg. He's a little weasel who didn't learn anything from the war. However, none of the Germans learned much, other than Burt Lancaster. He's the Weimar leader who became a Nazi rubber-stamper. Much to Schell's chagrin, he refuses to participate in the trial proceedings. Schell figures if a guy like Lancaster could be a Nazi, it wasn't so bad for Schell to be one either.

Werner Klemperer, Torben Meyer, and Martin Brandt play the other judges. Klemperer is the goose-stepper, and the others are just regular Germans. They don't have much to do, but they're perfect at it.

Nuremberg is all about the performances.

The film has three phases, each punctuated by a performance from the witness stand. The first phase belongs to Montgomery Clift, who appears as a laborer who the Germans sterilized. The second is Judy Garland's. She plays a woman who, as an orphaned teenage girl, was friends with a sixty-ish Jewish man who knew her family. They executed the man and defamed her for denying a sexual relationship. Garland actually gets two scenes on the stand. Both are fantastic, but director Kramer takes the opportunity between them to change the narrative distance a bit. We're shifting for the finale, which will have the film's various philosophical showdowns.

See, it's not just the American people who'd rather forgive and forget the Germans and start hating the Russians; it's the U.S. Army, too. They've got a new war, and can't prosecutor Richard Widmark get with it? He's a soft touch, they all think, because he liberated Dachau and still has the sads about it. It's 1947, incidentally. Alan Baxter plays the General who calls Widmark a weak sister for still carrying about it.

It's a lot, especially because Nuremberg always talks about it. There are things they don't bring up, such as none of the Americans hanging out with the local Germans being Jewish or, seemingly, caring enough about their Jewish compatriots to be uncomfortable. They're all good white Christians, after all. But Tracy's really trying to figure out if they're monsters or not.

And Tracy's not just confining his fact-finding to the courtroom. He starts seeing Marlene Dietrich. She's a blue blood who's lost it all thanks to the war. She just wants everyone to forget about it and let the Germans back into society. It's not like she knew about the concentration camps–she was a regular Army general's wife, not the S.S.

Nuremberg has its more and less straightforward resolutions, but the one for Tracy and Dietrich is fecund with subtext.

The best performance in Nuremberg, no spoilers, is Lancaster. One reason being he's under scrutiny long before he does anything. The film examines him and the character's building underneath that silent observation. He's outstanding.

After Lancaster, Garland.

Nuremberg's got a position–in the last fourteen years, it's become clear the Allies didn't go hard enough on the Germans. Teal has a whole bit about the only way to judge anything is through historical lenses; at different times during the film, Tracy and Widmark will look almost dead into the camera and denounce that idea. Schell's whole defense of the judges revolves around reestablishing those good Nazi Germany legal principles. At least in terms of assailing the marginalized. Schell flexes the fascism, getting Teal hot while letting Tracy both sides enough to hang out with Dietrich.

So, seeing how the Germans victimized and abused their own becomes essential. And Garland is the face of it. It's a beautiful performance. Kramer and cinematographer Ernest Laszlo bust ass on about a dozen close-ups in Nuremberg, but they give the best to Garland. The film's too big–and constructed as a courtroom procedural–to allow for thorough establishing shots, much less arcs. Kramer utterly relies on his cast to deliver–Tracy, Widmark, Schell, Lancaster, Garland, Clift, Dietrich.

And no one's better from that angle than Garland. Lancaster embodies a righteous rage; it fuels his energy. Especially since he's so restrained; it's like this electric buildup. But not Garland. Garland's survived Nazi Germany and just gotten some semblance of stability for the first time since she was a tween, and then Widmark shows up and says risk it all.

And Schell uses her fears to amp up the cruelty, leading to a great courtroom scene.

Clift's scene is entirely different. It's a showcase, but it's self-contained. It's beautiful work, too. It's all beautiful work. Nuremberg doesn't miss.

Besides the gorgeous photography, Frederic Knudtson's editing is standout. Abby Mann's script (based on his script for TV) is excellent. The film never dawdles; Mann's good at the exposition, good at the courtroom back-and-forth. It's a smartly assembled narrative. Kramer and the cast do wonders with it.

Nuremberg is an exceptional, complex, terrifying, and tragic motion picture.

This post is part of the Third Judy Garland Blogathon hosted by Crystal of In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood and Kristen of Hoofers and Honeys.

The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989, Steve Kloves)

The Fabulous Baker Boys opens with pseudo-protagonist Jeff Bridges saying goodbye to his latest cocktail waitress one-night stand (always his decision, never hers–Baker Boys is all about taking advantage of patriarchal privilege). Under the opening titles, he walks to work. Baker Boys takes place in Seattle and regularly features its skyline, but director Kloves is careful never to show the Space Needle. Much like its characters, the film exists on the edge of reality.

Bridges plays one half of the Fabulous. Beau Bridges play the other. Beau’s the responsible one who has a wife and kids in the suburbs. Jeff is the love-them-and-leave-them, hard-drinking jazz pianist with a heart of gold (he gives Ellie Raab, the tween who lives upstairs, a safe spot when her mom’s got a fellow over). They’ve been playing piano together for thirty-one years, starting as kids, turning it into a profession. They’ve played all over town for years, and they’re getting played out. No one’s going to clubs with pianomen.

After one particularly disheartening experience, Beau decides they’re going to need to have someone along to sing a song. Cue an amusing (albeit unkind) audition sequence, which starts with Jennifer Tilly’s off-key attempt. Baker Boys appreciates having Tilly (she even gets a special end credit), and she’s a lot of fun. She brings the first lightness to the film. While it’s never too dark, it does… wallow in melancholy at times. Tilly shakes up the momentum nicely.

The audition sequence ends with Michelle Pfeiffer, who can sing, and thus becomes the singer, even though she’s a little too brash for Beau’s tastes. She doesn’t even rate a blip on Jeff’s radar initially, but once they all get performing and realize they’ve found a good thing… he takes notice.

There are some fantastic scenes during this portion of the film. There’s a mix of dismay and exuberance–Pfeiffer’s new to the live entertainment business, excited at various potentials. Beau and Jeff have years of experience and are appropriately downtrodden about the whole thing. They think they’ve hit their peak, not realizing Pfeiffer’s contributions will change their lane. Jeff plays most of his scenes silent and sullen. He’s a tortured artisté (no one says he’s the best jazz pianist in the town, but it’s definitely the vibe, and he’s given that up for Beau, who’s just good). But when Pfeiffer and Beau clash, Jeff gets these twinkles in his eyes, and they add up to character development and chemistry.

Lots of Baker Boys is about chemistry. Jeff and Pfeiffer spend a solid portion of the second act circling each other, trying to find an angle where going for it isn’t a mistake. Beau sees what’s going on and tries to stop it. The sequence where he can’t is spectacular, where Kloves shows off he, cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (it’s such a gorgeous photography job, it’s never not stunning), and editor William Steinkamp’s abilities in an entirely new context. They’ve got light drama, light comedy, and sexy but not tawdry lounge singing down, but they can do so much more.

Baker Boys is a character study. It’s a strange one because despite spending the movie with Jeff, it’s not clear until he and Pfeiffer start alternating clashing and crashing; it’s all about him. The character’s distant from everyone; why would the audience be any different.

But Kloves doesn’t let the sub-genre dictate the format. Even as a straight drama–despite the hot and heavy, it’s not a romance or a romantic drama–there’s time for screwball, there’s time for laughs, for smiles. The first act sets up the Baker Boys, but there’s a lot more to say about them, it turns out, right into the third act. After an unevenly paced present action–the film takes place over any number of months, with New Year’s being around the center–the third act is a few days at most.

Because there’s not a lot to wrap up other than everyone acknowledging the state of their situations. One of the problems is the lack of communication (no one ever points out Jeff being smirking, smoking, or sullen is a significant contributor, unfortunately), and the way Kloves layers in those reveals is exquisite. The characters often argue about something the audience doesn’t know about or know how to contextualize, and Kloves has to get the reveals in just right. Even though the audience can’t know (with some exceptions) how things will hit, the film’s got to be ready to situation them on demand. The thing about the arguments and the character turmoils is they’re fast-paced. When Jeff lashes out to hurt people, he does it rapidly, and Kloves makes sure the audience is never behind.

The acting’s outstanding. Jeff really gets to come into it towards the end of the second act, while Beau plays sturdy support. Pfeiffer deserves those effusive “revelation” statements. There’s not really a cast besides them; hence Tilly is making such an impression.

Outstanding technicals, fantastic Dave Grusin score, The Fabulous Baker Boys is, obviously, fabulous, but it’s also a superb achievement from cast and crew. There’s a lot of exceptional work on display here.

This post is part of the It’s In the Name of the Title Blogathon hosted by Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews and Rebecca of Taking Up Room.

Tormented (1960, Bert I. Gordon)

Tormented is the story of how the world’s greatest jazz pianist (Richard Carlson) lost it all because he wasn’t a forty-eight-year-old virgin. I mean, also because he let his former lover, played by Juli Reding, fall to her death without trying to help her. Good thing they’re on an island where any peculiar death results in a ghost haunting. Hence, Reding can take her vengeance while also revealing Carlson’s skinny moral fiber.

Carlson’s on the island preparing for his big Carnegie Hall debut. At some point, he met and fell in love with local girl Lugene Sanders. She’s from a wealthy family and is “young,” according to Reding. Sanders is actually older than Reding, but… Sanders is virginal, and Reding is in showbiz. They’re a week away from the wedding, so many scenes involve Sanders being interested in the preparation and Carlson not being very interested.

Sanders’s little sister (daughter of director Gordon, Susan Gordon) thinks Carlson’s just the best and wishes he’d marry her but he can’t because she’s only ten. Too bad they don’t live in one of those places where you can get married at twelve. Yow and double yow.

Most of Carlson’s scenes are by himself, looking around for Reding’s ghost, who starts haunting him the day after her death. It takes him a few close encounters to believe it’s real, but then he spends a long stretch trying to ignore the haunting. If it weren’t for meddling water taxi captain Joe Turkel, he’d have gotten away with it, too.

Turkel shows up around halfway through the movie and, poking around, realizes either Carlson has Reding in some pleasure hideaway… or she might just not be anywhere anymore. That kind of information should be worth some money, shouldn’t it? Especially since Sanders’s parents are rich (the actor playing her father, Harry Fleer, is younger than Carlson, but mom Vera Marshe is actually older than Carlson, who’d have thunk).

At a certain point, the blackmail plot takes over from the haunting plot. Island horticulturist Lillian Adams seems to know what’s going on—even threatening Reding’s (unseen) presence—but then immediately disappears from the movie so Turkel can come in. Adams doesn’t even come back for the big wedding scene. The character is a blind person, and Adams does a lot of work for it, but there’s a scene where it’s apparent none of that work includes using the cane. See, Reding fell off a lighthouse, so everyone in the cast has to go to the lighthouse at one point or another.

The special effects are, frankly, too cheesy to be taken seriously, but they’re not poorly done. Some of them are okay. And Tormented’s got great cinematography from Ernest Laszlo. Most of the movie is profile two-shots, but they fine.

The same cannot be said for the music, composed by Albert Glasser. It’s a jazz score, but not a jazz piano score, and it seems like it’s for a beach party spoof version of the film.

Carlson’s not good, but rather convincing as a very bad dude as the film progresses. Gordon gets a bunch, and she’s terrible–though with all of the ten-year-old’s dialogue being upset about not being a sexual object yet, did she have a chance? Yow, yikes, and yuck.

Turkel is awesome. Sometimes, he’s good, and sometimes, he’s as good as the material lets him get, but he’s always awesome.

Tormented’s too long at seventy-five minutes, but the various curiosity factors keep it going until Turkel shows up and takes over.

The Dark Past (1948, Rudolph Maté)

The Dark Past opens with a lengthy, confidently showy, and capable POV sequence. Lee J. Cobb is arriving at work, just like anyone–and the movie does a lengthy “peoples is peoples” bit–except he’s a police psychiatrist. It’s his job to save kids from becoming hardened criminals, thereby not being on the taxpayer dime. It’s progressive but not too progressive. Cobb’s not some wuss.

Cobb is outstanding in the film. It’s a sometimes silly role with the framing sequence, but when he gets to acting, it’s acting. Past is a remake of a stage adaptation, and Maté spotlights the actors. Well, Cobb and Holden. Cobb’s the protagonist and narrator, and Holden’s the star. The rest of the cast stays busy, but everyone gets left in the dust. It’s worst for Nina Foch. Second-billed, and she just disappears.

Oh, yeah, the setup. So, when Cobb has to convince a cop a petty criminal is a human being, he tells the story of his adventure with Holden. Holden’s so infamous everyone recognizes his name. But apparently don’t know anything about his very consequential involvement with Cobb. No spoilers, but the more interesting story is the direct sequel.

So, back to the setup. Holden and his gang crash Cobb’s dinner party. They need a place to wait for their getaway boat. While the guests give Holden’s gang minor trouble, Cobb gets around to psychoanalyzing Holden in a commercial for the Freud method. Holden’s a vicious killer who delights in toying with his prey, but Cobb sees some glimmer of humanity and tries to cure him. Foch kind of wants picket fences and helps Cobb.

The second act is Cobb slowly unraveling the very simple knot Holden’s tied out of his subconscious. Holden can’t unravel it himself because he has repressed memories, which only come out in his single, ever-recurring nightmare. There’s an inverted color dream sequence. It’s not as successful as it should be.

Despite his top billing, the film keeps Holden in reverse for a good while. Once the bad guys take everyone hostage, it takes time even to get Holden and Cobb talking. Partly because of Holden’s reticence, and partly because there are so many subplots cooking. Every single one of them gets left unfinished. The film often feels like the framing device is a distraction from the real story–which is sort of true because there doesn’t end up being a comparison between Holden and the kid criminal in the present. It’s not about criminals possibly being human; it’s about psychiatry curing them of their anti-social tendencies. Cobb’s not even concerned how the patient feels about things.

It’s craven, and it makes for some great scenes. Holden can’t figure out Cobb’s angle, and–with the frame defining the character already–neither can the audience. Cobb’s intentionally inscrutable; the only thing the frame helps with.

Lois Maxwell plays Cobb’s wife, who does get to fail Bechdel with Foch, but otherwise just sits around with son Robert Hyatt. He’ll end up with a bit to do before the movie drops him for the next subplot. Past is so noncommittal to its subplots, for a while near the end I thought they might even skip closing the bookend. At that point, with everything else unfinished, why do it anyway?

Maxwell’s solid. She doesn’t get much at all. Foch is good with a little more. Between Holden and Cobb, Holden probably has the edge. It’s a showier role, but he’s also got an arc. Cobb’s just proving one point or another.

While Past has its problems, the stars are phenomenal, Maté’s direction is good, and Joseph Walker’s black and white cinematography is beautiful.

This post is part of the 6th Golden Boy Blogathon hosted by Emily of The Flapper Dame and Virginie of The Wonderful World of Cinema.

Zero Hour! (1957, Hall Bartlett)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: fighter pilot suffering PTSD boards an airplane in a last-ditch effort to salvage a bad relationship only for the plane to serve rotten fish, requiring this unstable pilot to fly the jet to safety. And there’s an exclamation point at the end of the title.

No, it’s not Airplane!, it’s that film’s (still) unofficial source material–Zero Hour!. The difference being Hour plays it straight, instead of making fun of playing it straight, but it’s all the same material; only, you’re watching it and not supposed to laugh at it.

And it’s a long eighty minutes, especially once Sterling Hayden shows up to start barking absolutely pointless exposition.

The movie begins with narration explaining just before the end of World War II, Canadian squadron leader Dana Andrews made a bad call and got most of his men killed. Or at least a large number of them. Hayden may or may not have been one of those men. The movie’s strangely opaque about it. When we leave 1945 for the future, Andrews is in bad shape. Fast forward ten years, and we find out he’s never made anything of himself, despite marrying Linda Darnell and having a kid (an abjectly annoying Ray Ferrell). Darnell’s fed up, and she’s leaving, so Andrews chases her to the airport and buys another seat to follow her.

There will be numerous moments throughout Hour when it seems like Darnell’s going to have something to do other than debase herself at the altar of machismo. She can’t respect Andrews because he won’t get over getting those guys killed and man up. The movie simultaneously tries to show the horrors of experiencing PTSD while also lambasting him for having it. When Andrews has to fly the jet, Darnell’s in the co-pilot’s chair, and it seems like there’s going to be the couple teaming up to solve their problem.

No, not at all. However, that sequence features Andrews’s best acting in the film, when he successfully intensely stares straight ahead in static panic. However, Andrews isn’t the worst performance. Thanks to Hour’s casting choices, the bloated screenplay, and director Bartlett’s failings… every performance in Hour is eventually bad except maybe Jerry Paris, who plays flight attendant Peggy King’s boyfriend. Sorry, misspoke—stewardess, and not just stewardess, but “Stewardess,” most of the characters refuse to acknowledge she may have a name. Paris is bland, but he’s consistent. For a while, it seems like King might turn in a good turn, but then no. She also can’t stop looking into the camera in the third act, which just makes the whole picture seem more embarrassing.

Geoffrey Toone plays the doctor, who luckily didn’t have the fish. He’s absolutely flat and delivers mouthfuls of exposition. Hour’s script is pretty sure all you have to do to convince people it’s legit is use enough jargon. But Toone’s not forceful enough. Hayden’s arguably worse—heck, he’s arguably the worst performance, and Hour also stars former pro-football star Elroy ‘Crazylegs’ Hirsch, and Hirsch is a very, very bad actor. But Hayden’s a phenomenon, chain-smoking, yelling at thin air, staring into space. It’s a masterclass in how not to do a solo performance.

Though he’s not solo, he’s got a bunch of yes-men around to look worried (and get coffee). Charles Quinlivan plays the main yes-man. And until the third act, Quinlivan seems like he will get through Hour unscathed. He does not, but he gives that impression the longest of anyone in the cast.

The special effects are ambitious—except the lousy stock footage (including when the Canadian jet becomes an American Airlines one). They’re not good, but they’re ambitious. The sets are either too big, or Bartlett doesn’t know how to shoot them.

Skip Zero Hour! and watch the remake.

This post is part of the 2nd Annual “Favorite Stars in B Movies” Blogathon hosted by Brian of Films From Beyond The Time Barrier.

Rebecca (1940, Alfred Hitchcock)

Rebecca opens with protagonist Joan Fontaine narrating, establishing the present action as a flashback—which is kind of important considering how much danger Fontaine will be in throughout. She’s got to make it since there’s the narration. Some of that danger is in Fontaine’s head. Or, at least, she sometimes apprehensive of the wrong person. Sort of.

Rebecca is a passionate romance, a suspenseful thriller, and a reluctant character study. Fontaine’s nameless protagonist isn’t the one being studied, but rather her new husband, played by Laurence Olivier. Olivier’s a little older and a lot richer. He’s a relatively recent widower (Rebecca is the first wife), and he sweeps naive Fontaine off her feet.

The narration establishes the eventual setting—Olivier’s seaside estate—before heading to Fontaine and Olivier’s version of a meet-cute. They’re in Monte Carlo; she’s out sketching and comes across him on a cliff. She’s sure he’s going to jump. So, technically, maybe not a meet cute.

They soon meet again under formal circumstances. Fontaine is a paid companion to obnoxious rich lady Florence Bates. Bates knows Olivier socially, but he can’t stand her. However, once Bates gets a bug, Olivier and Fontaine become vacation buddies. Fontaine’s performance during these sequences is fantastic; the various emotions play out on her face as she observes Olivier, trying to figure out what’s happening.

What’s happening is a whirlwind romance; they leave Monte married. They’ll go on a honeymoon, which we see later on in home movies, but the action cuts from vacation to the estate. In the opening, director Hitchcock does what he can to make it not look too much like a miniature, but… it looks like a miniature. When Fontaine and Olivier arrive home, however, there’s this great composite shot of them driving up. The estate is a miniature, we won’t get any significant, closer exterior shots, but with that composite shot, Hitchcock makes sure the audience knows not to hold that kind of status against the film.

The film quickly introduces the new supporting cast—Judith Anderson as the imposing housekeeper who loved Rebecca, Reginald Denny as the estate manager, Gladys Cooper as Olivier’s sister, and Nigel Bruce as her comic relief husband. Olivier looses Fontaine to figure out how to run the house with Anderson’s help.

At this point, Olivier will orbit further and further away from Fontaine until they have their big second-act blowout. He’s busy being back but also actively neglecting to tell Fontaine anything about the house itself and how Rebecca liked it to be run. Much of the film during the second act is just Fontaine finding out more and more details Olivier really should’ve told her about. Why did he ever bring her there if Rebecca was so amazing? Since Olivier doesn’t confide in anyone, all the characters have a different impression of how Fontaine is supposed to function as the new lady of the estate. And since they all assume Olivier’s told Fontaine, no one gives her any context, with that lack knocking her between bewildered, overwhelmed, and frightened without any rest.

Hitchcock mounts whole set pieces just to showcase Fontaine’s discomfort and possible danger. There’s lots of beautiful work from Hitchcock, photographer George Barnes, and editor W. Donn Hayes. Fontaine acts the heck out of the scenes—and she’s the one who continues the character arc after the scenes forebodingly fade to black—but they’re technical marvels. Rebecca’s a great-looking (and sounding) film.

Just as Fontaine starts feeling like she should exert some agency, she tries to bond with Anderson over a favor—George Sanders, Rebecca’s favorite cousin, visits one day when OIivier’s out of town, and Fontaine promises to keep it a secret. Assuming she and Anderson share any kind of bond will be one of Fontaine’s worst mistakes.

Sanders is an abject delight. Rebecca’s got lots of great performances—while Fontaine gets a great showcase for the first three-quarters, Olivier then gets to play leading man for a bit and overshadows her—but Sanders is always a reliable scene stealer. He appears, takes over, then returns control on exit. It’s a fabulous balance. The three share a particularly great scene together.

The film has two major plot reveals to answer all the questions, tie up all the loose ends—one comes before the third act, one finishes off the film. In between those two reveals, Rebecca metamorphizes.

What follows is a very different film—still a romance and thriller, but with a different pace and narrative distance. Hitchcock changes things up for the finish, turning it into a race against time, then another, then another, all while bounding along the razor’s edge of melodrama. It’s a phenomenal success, delivering on many last-minute promises and giving the cast even further ranges to essay.

Hitchcock relies on a special effects set piece to close things out (did we forget there’s a narration safety net?), which has the added benefit of calling a draw on the performances. Fontaine has the most character development, while Olivier gets to do a great reveal and then excel further. Sanders and Anderson also have their singular qualities. Maybe it’s right no one can overshadow anyone else… they (and we) are all trapped in Rebeccas magnificent grasp.

This post is part of the Second Master Of Suspense Blogathon hosted by Maddy of Classic Film and TV Corner.

The Odd Couple (1968, Gene Saks)

Even when The Odd Couple plods, it never feels stagey, which is impressive since it’s from a stage play (Neil Simon adapted his own play), it mostly takes place in the same location, and many of those sequences are just stars Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon following each other around and bickering. The one thing director Saks can do—the one thing he can reliably do—is not make the movie stagey.

Thank goodness.

While Saks doesn’t bring much to the film, his hands-off direction isn’t really a problem. Couple just doesn’t have a story. It’s got a setup—the film opens with a suicidal Lemmon roaming the streets of New York, trying to work up the courage to kill himself. He then ends up at poker bestie Matthau’s Friday night game, where all the fellows (Matthau, John Fielder, Herb Edelman, David Sheiner, Larry Haines) know Lemmon’s marriage has broken up, and he’s at least told the wife he’s going to kill himself. So it’s a lengthy first act, with lots of laughs (once we’re in the apartment, anyway).

Matthau offers to take Lemmon in, and we’ve got a movie. Matthau is a slob with a broken refrigerator and mold, while Lemmon is a neat freak who loves to cook. They’re perfect for one another. Then, they spend the movie getting on one another’s nerves.

Sort of.

Lemmon gets on Matthau’s nerves, and we hear in exposition about how Matthau gets on Lemmon’s nerves, but it’s not until Lemmon screws up Matthau’s double date night things start getting really bad. The film ostensibly takes place over three weeks, starting with the opening night, except all the days in the second and third acts are consecutive. And they’re not a week. Also there seem to be two Fridays very close to one another (the poker game is every Friday).

Since Lemmon’s the nuisance in the film, even with his top-billing, Matthau’s the star. They share the scenes together well, but Matthau’s the one who wants to meet girls (Monica Evans and Carole Shelley are two British divorcees who just happen to like much older American men), has work subplots, divorced dad subplots. Lemmon just cooks, cleans, and whines. His estranged wife and children don’t appear, though (especially given some details in the second act) they should; he doesn’t go to work (we don’t even find out his job until late second act). Lemmon’s just there to set up jokes and gags. At times, Matthau seems overwhelmed and frustrated to be the only one with anything to do—even when he’s processing his separation, Lemmon’s just got bits, no substance. Simon isn’t doing a character study or juxtaposition of divorced late-sixties men; he’s doing a situation comedy without many situations.

The acting’s all more than solid. Matthau’s got some great moments, Lemmon some good ones (then others where he hits the ceiling on how far Simon’s taking the character development), and the supporting cast is fun. Fiedler, in particular.

Technically, it’s also solid. Robert B. Hauser’s photography is competent without ever being particularly impressive—though Odd Couple’s got a wide Panavision aspect ratio so Saks can fit all the actors in a full shot, which should make it stagey, but, again, never does. Maybe it’s Hauser.

Great theme from Neal Hefti.

The Odd Couple’s funny, charming, and only terribly dated a couple times. It just doesn’t really go anywhere.

This post is part of the Mismatched Couples Blogathon hosted by Barry of Cinematic Catharsis and Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews.

One-Percent Warrior (2023, Yamaguchi Yudai)

The One-Percent in One-Percent Warrior’s title does not refer to the super-rich, but rather when someone transcends in their film-related martial arts excellence. The majority of the film is just a forty-minute action sequence with star Sakaguchi Tak roaming around an abandoned zinc factory—on its own little CGI island—and kicking various butt. A lot of it is the same butt. It was in the second or third big beat-down I realized all of the bad guys have their faces covered so they can keep getting beaten down.

But forty minutes isn’t a movie, so Warrior’s has a very complicated story tacked on.

The movie opens with documentary interview footage about how Sakaguchi’s such a badass; even though he’s just an action movie star, he can kick his special forces buddies’ asses too. He can dodge bullets. Sakaguchi doesn’t necessarily get a lot to do in the film—even when he’s got the big reveal, which I’ll dance around later—he doesn’t do a lot. But he manages to make the bullet dodging believable.

And he’s socially awkward enough you can believe it when he can’t hold a steady job. His latest gig is on a period piece where he very quickly mouths off too much and gets fired. On this particular job, however, he meets Fukuyama Kohei, who thinks Sakaguchi’s an action god. Fukuyama becomes Sakaguchi’s sidekick and trainee, listening to Sakaguchi talk about his martial arts and his dream of the perfect action film.

So much talking.

Fukuyama convinces Sakaguchi to try to get funding, which leads them to the abandoned zinc factory island. They’ve got to find a location, after all. There, they discover another film crew already scouting the same location. Before that scene even finishes, Warrior adds the next plot wrinkle—they’re both scouting a location where a dead mobster hid his cocaine and now one set of bad guys has brought the dead mobster’s daughter (Fukuda Rumika) to find it.

Except… there’s also another set of mobsters who want the cocaine, so they’re trying to kill those gangsters without hurting Fukuda. They’ve got other gangster’s daughter Harumi Kanon with them. Harumi’s a vicious killer, not naive like Fukuda, so there’s a whole juxtaposition thing.

Fukuyama will end up bonding with Fukuda, but there’s no payoff for it, which stinks because Fukuyama’s really likable in the scenes. It also stinks because it plays into the third act reveal, which part and parcel lifts one of the more famous movie twists from the twentieth century. While Warrior uses the twist just to get to stop the movie—it’s very low budget, and they do a lot with that budget, but there’s a limit, and they do hit it multiple times—but the twist also suggests there’s all sorts of character development they could’ve done but didn’t. Even within the constraints of the established format (the documentary interviews and so on).

It’s a real bummer because Warrior overcomes a turgid first act to actually get moving once the action starts. Sakaguchi can obviously do his job, but Fukuda, Harumi, Fukuyama—they all come through. Even the gangsters are solid. Warrior goes into the finale much stronger than expected, albeit because we’re worried about characters we may or may not need to be worried about, but still. Warrior’s second act rally is significant.

And then it all crashes down.

The Moon (2023, Kim Yong-hwa)

The Moon runs about two hours, but it’s got enough story for eight. About the only way to tell all the story it’s got overflowing would be a miniseries remake. And even then, you could probably toss on another couple of episodes to even it all out.

The film concerns South Korea’s second attempt at a moon landing. Their first attempt blew up five years before this one. Moon takes place in 2029, so the first attempt was 2024. It doesn’t so much take place in the near future as the immediate future and then the very near future. Except, for all the truthiness of Moon, there isn’t any. Korea’s doing a solo moon mission because they want to take all the water out of the moon (we’ve discovered there’s probably water under the surface, and whoever controls the water controls the spice). The United States and all the other English-speaking countries with white people have teamed up to share the moon–no word on anyone else.

The U.S.-led group also has a space station orbiting the moon at all times. It has landers on it so they can go down and do a Tom Hanks-inspired skip and sing whenever they want, but Moon almost immediately establishes no one has walked on the moon since the seventies. This new mission is going to be the first time since then. Actually, wait, it might be possible only Americans have walked on the moon, including since the seventies, which means they don’t let the other astronauts on the lunar space station go walking on the moon because Americans are dicks.

Americans are dicks is another of Moon’s subplots, it turns out. See–and buckle in–disgraced Korean Astronautics and Space Center (NASC) flight director Sol Kyung-gu, who oversaw the previous tragic mission, is back because he designed the control module, and they need him. His ex-wife (Kim Hee-ae) dumped him, moved to the United States, renounced her Korean heritage, married a white dude to raise her son with her, and became the head of NASA. Lots of Moon involves Kim telling Sol to shove it whenever they need help.

Now, there’s the subtext about South Korea wanting to strip-mine the moon and not share with anyone else, especially Kim. It’s bizarre. The geopolitical implications are all very, very strange.

But Moon doesn’t get into any of them. Not when it’s also got one of the astronauts–Do Kyung-soo–vastly unqualified for the mission. It turns out his dad (Lee Sung-min in a not-tiny but always silent cameo) was Sol’s partner on the previous mission, and when it went bad, Lee was the one who killed himself in disgrace. Another big thing about The Moon–basically all of the Korean guys in authority positions imply they frequently consider suicide instead of having to apologize or be uncomfortable. It’s so much.

But also Sol and Do don’t know they’re working together. And they have so many secrets from one another.

Presumably, Do has another secret, which somehow the film felt the need to cut–he’s supposed to be an elite ROK Navy SEAL, except he’s terrible under pressure and spends all his time not under pressure panicking about being under pressure. The other astronauts–who disobey orders and kick ass because they’re astronauts, bro–make fun of him for being such a worry wart.

There’s also Sol’s sidekick, Hong Seung-hee, taking up screen time because they wanted an ingenuine (at one point, she and Do seem like they’re going to have a long-distance connection, but it’s actually nothing, which is weird). Oh, and new KASC political appointee Jo Han-chul is freaking out about everything because he wanted an easy government job without any responsibility.

See, it could easily go eight episodes. I haven’t even gotten into the constant terror everyone finds themselves in once things start going wrong.

Not talking about what goes wrong isn’t necessarily a “no spoilers” decision, either. The Moon’s a science and technology thriller a la Apollo 13 but since it’s based in a poorly thought-out reality (courtesy director Kim’s script) and doesn’t pretend to know any of the engineering whatsoever… it’s just a bunch of words and visuals out of other movies. The special effects are great, no complaints in that department, but they’re just showing various, pre-existing visual tropes.

In all, Moon’s not original (though letting melodrama knock a science thriller off course so much isn’t common), but it’s usually compelling. Do’s not good, but he’s sympathetic. It’d have helped if they revealed he’d faked his way onto the mission, just so the KASC astronauts don’t seem incompetent. Sol’s fine, but there’s not a part there. The rest of the supporting cast is solid–Jo’s a lot of fun, always in the background.

The Moon’s a very tense, simultaneously bloated and thin special effects extravaganza. The only thing missing is the human drama, making it a phenomenal contrast between that genre and melodrama.