The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: 1948
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Quartet opens with what turns out to be a questionable introduction from source story author W. Somerset Maugham. In the rather stodgy introduction to the film–featuring adaptations of four personal favorites from Maugham’s extensive bibliography–Maugham indentifies adjectives critics have given his work over the years. Those adjectives prove useful during some of the film’s more…
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Key Largo is a grand affair. Humphrey Bogart versus Edward G. Robinson with Lauren Bacall and Claire Trevor in the wings. Not to mention Lionel Barrymore. The film plays beautifully. Director Huston and co-screenwriter Richard Brooks give Bogart and Bacall some lovely, ever so gentle; Bogart’s a vet, Bacall’s the widow of one of his…
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Drunken Angel never hides its sentimentality. The film’s protagonist, an alcoholic doctor working in a slum (Shimura Takashi in a glorious performance), is well aware of his sentimentality. He resents it–Shimura has these great yelling and throwing scenes–but it’s what keeps him going. It also allows director Kurosawa to have intensely sentimental sequences without affecting…
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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre often comes as a complete surprise, even though director Huston carefully foreshadows certain events. He’s playing with viewer expectations–both of having Humphrey Bogart as his lead and Walter Huston in a supporting role. Sierra Madre is a thriller, but a thriller set during an adventure movie. Bogart and Tim…
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Calling Hollow Triumph a vanity project for star (and producer) Paul Henreid might be a little too easy. He does play a guy who decides to murder someone who looks just like him–sadly, Daniel Fuchs’s script doesn’t have much fun with Henreid in the dual roles. In fact, Fuchs only gets in one joke–at the…
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Woman Hater is an incredible mess. It’s a romantic comedy about the titular character, played by Stewart Granger, who wants to “scientifically” prove women will throw themselves at any man. Or something along those lines. Luckily, he’s a British royal, so he can engineer the entire thing–his victim is a French actress (Edwige Feuillère) looking…
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Berlin Express is a postwar thriller. In the late forties and early fifties, there were a number of such films—most filmed either partially or totally on location in the ruins of Germany. I was expecting Express to be more of a noir, but it’s not. With its pseudo-documentary approach, down to the narration (an uncredited…
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So all you need to make Daffy Duck an incredibly sympathetic character is Porky Pig. In Daffy Duck Slept Here, Porky’s a traveler in search of a hotel room. He ends up lodging with Daffy, only they haven’t met yet. Once they do, the majority of the hilarity ensues. And it is hilarity. Slept Here…
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I have some not insignificant problems with Mouse Wreckers. First, the cartoon is almost entirely beautiful. Great backgrounds, great talking mice, almost everything. Except the mice’s victim, a cat. The animation on the cat is fine, but the design of the cat itself is awful. It frequently disrupts otherwise fine shots. Second, the cat’s innocent.…
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Capra tries for another entry in his humanist series (Mr. Deeds, Mr. Smith and John Doe) and fails miserably. Two of the principal ingredients–Robert Riskin and Gary Cooper–are missing, but since State of the Union is from a play, it’s questionable if Riskin could have helped (Union‘s problems are fundamental). As for Cooper… Spencer Tracy’s…
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Half a great Gothic about drawing instructor Gig Young starting work at an English manor instructing Eleanor Parker. He soon finds himself in embroiled in a mystery involving sinister (and phenomenal) Sydney Greenstreet, an escape mental patient, as well as a love triangle between Parker and her best friend, played by Alexis Smith. Extremely well-made…
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I enjoy old b-movies. They tend to be harmless and occasionally amusing. Parole, Inc. might be a c-movie, however, since it’s not from a studio (I wonder if direct-to-DVD will ever, since real studios are now making them, raise to a b-movie quality level). Parole, Inc. isn’t really amusing. It’s a heavy-handed looked at parole…
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The Search barely qualifies as a dramatic piece. For the first thirty minutes, an uncredited narrator explains everything to the audience, going so far as to ask the characters rhetorical questions (thankfully they don’t respond). It’s filmed on location in post-war Berlin and–exposes is too strong a word–informs the audience about the situation of displaced…
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Absolutely gorgeous, tedious mix of ballet and film–the twenty minute ballet sequence is twenty of the most beautiful minutes ever on film–but it’s a dramatic wreck. The script has a version of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale playing out in a ballet company as it stages the same fairy tale. Moira Shearer’s dancing is…
The Stop Button 