Casino (1995, Martin Scorsese)

The best part of Casino isn’t my favorite part of Casino because the best part is James Woods bickering with Erika von Tagen. It’s mainly in the background, and it’s the only time anywhere in the film anyone shows any personality not expressly required for their scenes. Director (and co-screenwriter) Scorsese doesn’t believe in background action; if it’s not foreground, it doesn’t matter. The problem is von Tagen is a kid, and Sharon Stone’s her mom, and Woods is the pimp who groomed Stone from age fourteen. The movie doesn’t even seem to see its problem, which isn’t a surprise because Casino is holy shit levels of misogynist.

My favorite part of Casino is a scene where Robert De Niro bitches about Stone being all about money and fame when he’s walking through the dressing room for the showgirls who dance on his big-budget local talk show. He needs the talk show so he can bitch about how the state government is targeting him even though he’s just a successful businessman who happens to be helping the mob steal from their own casino. During that sequence, when Casino is dragging its way through its second act, it’s clear just how little self-awareness has gone into making the film.

It hurts De Niro the most, as he plays a caricature of Robert De Niro in a mob movie. He spends most of his time not being the super-genius bookmaker he’s supposed to be and getting more possessive and controlling of Stone, a successful Vegas hustler who De Niro gaslighted into marrying him. The omnipresent narration (by De Niro, Joe Pesci, and occasionally a surprise narrator for effect, but never Stone because women don’t think) sometimes teases a significant plot development involving the mob, the FBI, or the casinos. Still, until the rote mob clean-up sequence at the end, it’s always about De Niro and Stone. Specifically, De Niro being awful to her, Stone reacting poorly, and De Niro being more and more horrific. It’s a strangely crap part for Stone. She’s there to decorate and be decorative, and when she refuses to decorate, well, De Niro’s done with her.

The film runs three hours. The first act takes about an hour, almost all of it in summary, with the first twenty minutes or so jumping ahead, jumping back, filling in the details from different perspectives (well, De Niro’s and Pesci’s), and dumping a bunch of great exposition about how the mob ran Vegas. The second hour and a half is about Stone’s failings as a weak woman bringing down De Niro, which will eventually affect Pesci, then the casino, then the mob, then Vegas itself. Also, we’re not sure who’s narrating from Norma Desmond’s swimming pool because the movie opens with De Niro getting blown up in a car bomb. Once you’re narrating from beyond the grave, anything’s possible.

Though not De Niro’s character listening to The Rolling Stones all the time, and they’re practically every other song. Casino’s got a great soundtrack. Clearly, a lot of work went into it. Shame more didn’t go into the writing.

Given the speedy first hour and the absolutely fantastic procedural set-up, it seems like Thelma Schoonmaker’s cuts alone make the picture coherent. It looks excellent–Scorsese and cinematographer Robert Richardson do a remarkable halo effect with the lighting, then some cool spotlighting later—but the “scenes” are so short, it’s hard for anyone to work up any acting momentum.

Except Pesci and Stone, who both do well until they just can’t beat the film working against them. De Niro’s never particularly good, always just fine. Not exactly miscast, but the part’s so thin it gets blown around the frame. If it weren’t for his spectacular wardrobe (having De Niro look glamorous in his silly clothes really works against the film) and Richardson’s lighting, you could forget De Niro’s even there.

The supporting cast has some good acting, but no one’s in it long enough to give full performances. Woods is excellent; Don Rickles and Alan King are perfect, but scenery. Rickles is in an extended cameo; King is just a cameo. The most significant supporting part is Frank Vincent as Pesci’s chief goon. He’s fine, but the narration explaining his behavior does a lot more than anything Vincent can do onscreen.

It’s clear from the start Casino’s got a low ceiling and will probably just be a masterfully directed mess, but it ends not even being energetic enough to be considered a mess. I suppose it’s vaguely interesting to see how the film presents De Niro as a hero, but even then, not really. The writing is too tepid, and there’s nothing to his performance past the pomp. It’s most disappointing for Stone and Pesci. Scorsese and Casino fail them. Besides them (and De Niro), everyone else in Casino gets to ride the prestige wave while it lasts.

Shame it’s in such a shallow pool.

Run Silent Run Deep (1958, Robert Wise)

Run Silent Run Deep runs a little short. Just when the film has the most potential does it sort of shrug and finish up real quick. There’s a third act reveal and it’s a good one, but it’s not good enough the movie can end on it. Especially not after it’s just had such a strong second act.

Burt Lancaster has just had a big character development moment, there’s just been an awesome special effects sequence, it’s right when Run Silent Run Deep has its most potential. The film’s never bad, though it occasionally feels a little claustrophobic, narratively speaking, but it’s been on this “can’t believe no one calls him Ahab” arc with Clark Gable for about an hour. The second act shake-up comes at just the right moment and sets up a great third arc. And the third arc is not great. It’s perfunctory, inventively so, but perfunctory. The finale lacks any impact. The big action finale doesn’t have much action, certainly not of the level in the second act set piece; Lancaster’s arc ends up going nowhere. He really had just been support for Gable the whole time.

So, Run Deep takes place during World War II. It opens with sub commander Gable’s sub getting sunk; he survives, along with some other guys but not everyone. A year later, he’s pushing pencils and playing “Battleship” with new sidekick Jack Warden. All of a sudden Warden lets it slip three other ships have gone down just where Gable’s did. A man possessed he storms over to the brass, demands a ship, gets one, which pauses executive officer Lancaster’s promotion to captain. His captain… died on their previous mission? It doesn’t come up.

Once onboard it soon becomes clear Gable’s going to hunt down Japanese ship sinking all the U.S. submarines. Run Deep teaches the sound moral, “you’ve got to be willing to die to kill.” For a brief few minutes, the film’s about the inherent righteousness of Ahab-ing. Gable’s got Lancaster convinced—though Lancaster doesn’t want to admit it. The crew doesn’t get that perk of command, however, so they’re ready to mutiny.

Lancaster and Gable are great together because they don’t like one another but Gable’s exploiting Lancaster’s ability. It’s kind of awesome, even when it’s just to kill time with montage sequences. Run Deep impresses with its special effects. The other stuff? It doesn’t worry too much. The submarine set is fine; not great. The editing—supervised by George Boemler—is awesome. The editing makes Run Deep until that end of the second act uptick.

Gable’s good. Warden’s good. Lancaster’s almost great. He’s great for a while, then his character arc falls out from under him. Worse, the third act is set to be where Gable finally gets some great material and never does. It’s a bummer. It needs to go longer. And there are places where it could’ve, but it really could have used a better action set piece in the third act than the second. If the dramatics were stronger, it’d be fine. But the dramatics aren’t stronger.

Nice supporting cast, particularly Brad Dexter, Don Rickles (in a totally straight part), and Joe Maross.

Decent Franz Waxman score. Solid Russell Harlan photography. The composite shots don’t really impress but Harlan does fine with the submarine suspense stuff and it’s more important.

Wise’s direction is fine. He does really well with the action. He does better with the supporting cast than his stars, which is a problem. But there’s already that too short script. So fine.

But Run Silent Run Deep ought to be better than fine. It wastes Lancaster and Gable separately and it wastes them together.

This post is part of the Second Clark Gable Blogathon hosted by Michaela of Love Letters to Old Hollywood.

Innocent Blood (1992, John Landis)

At some point during Innocent Blood–I think it was the lengthy sequence with recently resurrected Robert Loggia wrecking havoc at attorney Don Rickles's house–I realized it was hilarious. The movie moves so fast, director Landis never lets up long enough for a laugh. There's one other really good pause spot a few minutes earlier involving Loggia escaping the morgue, but for the most part, too much is going on.

There are multiple achievements to the film. Michael Wolk's script is a strange mix of serious vampire film (undead and lonely Anne Parillaud is frequently shown to loathe her life), police versus Mafia drama (Loggia's a terrifying mob boss), tender romance (between Parillaud and undercover cop Anthony LaPaglia) and spoof of the first two. Landis never spoofs the romance. The great Ira Newborn score aids in transitioning between the genres.

Landis directs the film perfectly; he has these little stylistic devices to control the viewer's experience of scenes. The script's really big–Wolk structures it like a thirties slapstick comedy, with Parillaud and LaPaglia always racing around while the fantastic supporting cast moves things along in their absence.

Parillaud and LaPaglia have the most difficult roles. Parillaud gets to narrate some of the film, but all the depth to the character is subtly addressed. Wolk's script decidedly does not give her easy monologues to define herself. And LaPaglia has to establish himself over a long period of the film. It's three-quarters through before he's done.

Innocent Blood is a phenomenal motion picture.