Tag: movie review

The Fly (1958) – A Science Fiction Movie Review

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(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Andre and François Delambre are two brothers who own a technology company.  Andre is a genius and he is working on a teleportation machine.  He shows it to his wife Helene but she notes that the machine still has some problems.  When Andre thinks the machine is perfected, he tries to teleport his cat but it disappears.  Finally, after much work, he shows his wife that it can teleport a guinea pig successfully.  Next, he plans to teleport himself.

The next day Andre’s little son catches a fly with a white head in the garden with his butterfly net.  Helene makes him release it.  When Andre does not appear for dinner Helene goes down to his laboratory.  But the door is locked and Helene finds a typewritten letter from Andre saying his experiment has gone awry.  A fly entered into the chamber and during the teleportation the fly got a human arm and head and Andre got the head and leg of a fly.  He could still think like a human but he was finding his mind slipping away.  He tells Helene to catch the fly so that he can go through the teleporter with it and hopefully return to normal.  They catch the fly but it escapes again.  Andre despairs and tells Helene (through writing on a blackboard) that he will destroy his dangerous machine and his notes.  And he wants to die so he tells Helene to assist him by crushing his head and arm in the hydraulic press in his lab to destroy the evidence of his horrible accident.  She agrees.  After helping her husband to suicide she calls her brother-in-law François (played by Vincent Price) who calls police inspector Charas.  When they arrive, Helene tells them how she killed her husband.  Later on, after much coaxing she tells them the story of the fly.  But they assume she has gone mad.  Inspector Charas gets a warrant for her arrest for murder.  But just before she is taken away Andre’s son tells François that he has found the fly in a spider’s web.  François calls Charas to the web and they see the fly with its human head and hand and hear it cry for help as the spider comes to devour it.  Charas crushes the spider and its victim with a rock and is horrified by the reality of Helene’s story.  Charas and François figure a story involving Andre’s suicide to protect Helene.  The movie ends with François assuming the guardianship over Andre’s wife and son.

I saw this movie as a child on tv.  And then, as now, the big scene in this movie is the spider web scene.  The pathetic little voice coming out of the haggard face of the fly is horrifying as we see the enormously magnified head of the spider come closer and closer to the poor trapped fly.  The other notable scene is where Helene pulls off the hood hiding Andre’s head and we see his repulsive fly face.  It’s kind of hard to see it.  It seemed out of focus but it was reasonably hideous and Helene screams to very good effect.  The only decent acting was done by the police inspector.  The rest of the cast acted their lines but no Academy Awards were earned.  Vincent Price gave his usual over the top delivery.  One surprise for me was that the actor who played Andre was David Hedison and I recognized him as the captain on the 1960’s television series “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” about a US Navy submarine that was always bumping into giant squid and other under sea monsters.  This movie is for connoisseurs of campy giant insect sci-fi films.  It’s not as good as “Them!” but it’s still fun for fans of this type of movie.

Training Day (2001) – A Movie Review

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(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last two paragraphs to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Training Day is a crime drama starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. Hawke plays Officer Jake Hoyt, a young LA police officer who is heading out on his first day under the command of highly decorated and influential narcotics detective Alonzo Harris played by Washington.  But from the minute Hoyt meets up with Harris he realizes that nothing will be done according to the department rules or even according to the rules of law.  Harris pressures him into smoking what he thinks is marijuana but then finds out contains PCP.  Harris uses narcotics busts to steal money and drugs from the perpetrators without actually arresting them.  In one scene Harris uses a phony search warrant to steal $40,000 from a drug dealer’s house and then has to run a gauntlet of gangbangers who riddle his car with bullets as he escapes.

The only legitimate police work done occurs when Hoyt spots two men attempting to rape a Mexican teenage girl.  Hoyt has to subdue both men singlehandedly because Harris remains a spectator.  When the two men are cuffed Harris tells the girl to just leave without getting her information and merely beats and robs the two attempted rapists without charging them.  Hoyt sees the girl’s wallet on the ground and retrieves it to return it later.

And it just keeps getting worse.  We find out that Harris has the Russian Mafia after him for beating one of their men to death.  Now he has to come up with a million-dollar payment or be gunned down by the Russians.  He cuts a deal with the leadership of Los Angeles’ dirty cops whom he calls the “three wise men.”  He agrees to give them the $40,000 to obtain for him a search warrant that will allow him to steal $4,000,000 from a major drug dealer who is also a retired policeman.  Harris offers Hoyt a part of the money but Hoyt refuses.

And it just keeps getting worse.  Harris and the dirty cops are going to make it look like the drug dealer shot at them during the arrest and had to be killed in self-defense.  When Hoyt refuses to shoot the drug dealer Harris does it but tells Hoyt he is still going to have to claim to have done the shooting.  If not, the other cops and Harris will claim he did and because of the difference in stories Hoyt will be under suspicion and his blood test will show that he was using PCP.

Hoyt pulls a gun on Harris and threatens him.  The rogue cops tell Harris they’re going to shoot Hoyt but Harris defuses the situation by claiming that Hoyt is okay and will be allowed to opt out of the rogue unit Harris runs.  Hoyt calms down and leaves with Harris hoping to end his work with Harris after that day.  Harris tells him that they have to stop off at a Mexican gang house to hand off some payments for various illegal activities that Harris is involved in.  Harris says he has to go to the bathroom but ducks out and leaves Hoyt to be murdered by the gang.

But during the setup for the killing, they find the Mexican girl’s wallet on Hoyt and it turns out she is the niece of the gang leader.  When he calls up his niece and confirms Hoyt’s story, he lets Hoyt go.  Now he goes looking for Harris at his girlfriend’s house in a notorious gang area.  A knock-out drag-out fight ends with Hoyt beating Harris into submission and taking the million-dollar payment to bring into the police as evidence against Harris.  Harris calls on his neighbors to shoot Hoyt but we find out that he has alienated even these hardened criminals by his violence and corruption and they abandon him leaving Hoyt to leave with the cash.

Harris makes a run for the airport but two cars full of gunmen box in his car and riddle him with machine gun bullets and he staggers onto the street to die.  In the last scene we see Hoyt trudging exhaustedly home while a radio report announces the death of the hero cop Alonzo Harris during the execution of a warrant on a dangerous drug dealer.

This movie is a relentless assault on the sense of duty of an honest cop.  Harris pushes at the limits of criminal behavior from the beginning of the movie until the end.  Hoyt keeps meeting up with proof that the police system is riddled with corruption from the top down.  But Harris is a glib and persuasive devil who excuses every illegality as “how things have to get done in the real world.”  And surrounded by Harris and the other dirty cops Hoyt is confused and demoralized.  But he maintains his integrity even when it almost costs him his life.

The movie is incredibly gritty and hard edged.  But if a movie like that is acceptable then it is undoubtedly exciting, dramatic and entertaining.  Denzel Washington puts on a tour de force performance.  To paraphrase his character, “King Kong’s got nothing on him.”  So, for an audience that tolerates very crude language and movie violence “Training Day” is highly recommended.

The 47 Ronin (1941) A Movie Review

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This film was made in Japan during World War II and was a form of propaganda meant to showcase loyalty, courage and the martial spirit of the Japanese people.  It is a true story that occurred in the early 1700’s during the shogunate of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi.  It was a time when a formerly prosperous people were slipping into poverty through governmental mismanagement.  And cultural and social norms were unravelling.  The samurai class was finding itself relegated to a diminished role in the feudal system of the Edo period.  But the samurai code still tied them to their patron, the daimyo or lord.

Plot

This story is about a case of revenge.  Lord Asano was a daimyo who was insulted by one of the shogun’s officials named Lord Kira.  Flying into a rage Asano attacked Kira with a knife inside the shogun’s residence which was a capitol offense.  The shogun decreed that Asano would have to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) and his lands would be confiscated.  No penalty was decreed against Kira for his insults.

The leader of Lord Asano’s samurai, Ōishi Yoshio, decided that he would organize all the willing samurai under him to revenge their lord against Kira.  He recruited forty-six other samurai including his own fifteen-year-old son and then waited for over a year until Lord Kira’s suspicions were allayed.  To this end Ōishi patronized brothels and became a disgrace, exhibiting public drunkenness until Kira’s spies became convinced that he was a dissolute man.  Ōishi even divorced his wife.  But it is thought he did this to protect his wife and remaining children from retribution by the authorities.

Then when all was prepared Ōishi led his men against Kira’s castle and using swords and bows they stormed both gates of the castle and killed Kira’s men and rushed his private rooms.  Only his wife and children were found.  But when they checked Kira’s bed, they found it was still warm.  So, they ransacked his rooms until they found the entrance to a hidden courtyard where Kira and a few guards were hidden.  They overpowered the guards.  Then Ōishi respectfully offered Kira the chance to commit seppuku but the man was too terrified even to answer.  Kira’s head was cut off and ceremoniously washed and prepared and taken to Lord Asano’s grave where it was bestowed with the appropriate prayers.  Afterward Ōishi and his men gave themselves up to the shogun’s authorities.  Although the shogun had forbidden revenge against Kira, he decided that because the revenge was so popular among the populace, the ronin would not be treated as criminals but instead allowed to commit seppuku.  And so, about a year after the attack the ronin each committed ritual suicide and were given honored burial next to the grave of Lord Asano.

Discussion

This is a very strange movie for Americans to sit through.  First off, it’s almost four hours long.  Four hours of subtitles is hard to endure no matter how good the movie is.  Secondly, the oddness of the action and manners of both the era being portrayed and Japanese cinema in general presents a considerable barrier to an American audience immersing itself in the story.  And thirdly, the majority of the movie is static and is portrayed by conversations between the characters.  Even the storming of the castle occurs off screen and is read to the audience by one of the characters, Lord Asano’s widow.

I found the three problems I mention above, as too extreme to allow the movie to be thought of as entertainment.  It’s more of an historical experience.  I would not recommend this to anyone who isn’t interested in Japanese history and culture for their own sake.

The Inside Baseball of Film Versions of “A Christmas Carol” – Part 1

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Anyone who has been reading my posts on this site for more than a year knows that I am a Christmas Carol fanatic.  So as a fair warning I’ll just say that this post is only for true Christmas Carol devotees.  Every word of it is subjective and dedicated to minutiae.  I have four versions of the film that I like and each has an aspect in which it excels the other three.  Every year I re-evaluate the films and debate with myself on trivial points that would have exactly zero importance to the overwhelming majority of the human inhabitants of planet earth.  Here goes.

Material that wasn’t in the book

A Christmas Carol was a novella.  It is brief and in places lacks details about the characters and events.

For instance, the book never says why Scrooge’s father treated him so poorly.  In the 1951 version it is stated that his father held it against him that his mother died in his childbirth.  And in the same version a similar grudge exists as the reason why Scrooge dislikes his nephew Fred.  It is shown that his sister Fan died giving birth to Fred.  In the 1984 version the same reason for his father’s dislike for Scrooge is presented.  But the death of Fan during Fred’s birth is not added.  What is interesting about these additions is that based on the original story they would be impossible.  In the book Fan is quite a bit younger than her brother Ebenezer.  Therefore, their mother couldn’t have died at the birth of her older child.  I suppose Fan could have been Ebenezer’s half-sister but I don’t imagine that a twice married man would still be holding his first wife’s death as a grudge against his son.  So, this addition is spurious.  But it is extremely dramatic and provides a timely reason for both father’s and son’s misanthropic behavior that could be somewhat excused and so leave room for deserved forgiveness.  And it has a highly effective scene where the older Scrooge hears his dying sister ask for his promise to take care of her infant son Fred.  We see that the younger Scrooge never heard the dying plea and the older Scrooge gets to belatedly beg his beloved deceased sister’s forgiveness for his heartless treatment of her only child.

And notice that the 1984 version borrows both the discrepancy of Fan’s age and the spurious grudge of Scrooge’s father but neglects the equally spurious grudge of Scrooge for his nephew.  I guess they thought those additions gave resonance to the story.

In both the 1951 and 1984 versions Scrooge’s fiancée is introduced during the Fezziwig party scene and give a name (Alice in the earlier version, Belle in the later).  Neither this early link to Scrooge’s life or the name show up in the book.  In addition, in the 1951 version it skips the scene introducing this woman’s later life with husband and large family but instead substitutes a scene during the Ghost of Christmas Present section where Belle is volunteering at a shelter for the poor.  Now whereas tying Scrooge’s love to the Fezziwig era of his life is fine and in fact better than the way the book presents it, I do not particularly favor the poor shelter addition.  It seems unwarranted.  I think the scene where she is surrounded by her family is dramatic enough in that it illustrates what happiness Scrooge has lost.

In the book the Ghost of Christmas Present visits the house of Scrooge’s nephew Fred.  The dinner guests are presented enjoying games such as blindman buff and forfeits which I take to be word games such as twenty questions.  One of the rounds determined that it was a disagreeable animal that growled and lived in London.  And, of course, it turns out to be Uncle Scrooge.  In the 1984 version the story is adapted so the dinner guests are playing a game called similes where they need to guess the end of a simile.  When Fred asks his wife to complete “as tight as,” she replies “your Uncle Scrooge’s purse strings.”  Scrooge hears this while in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Present.  After his repentance and on the actual Christmas Day he meets his niece and discussing the game of similes he advises her that the simile, in case it came up, was “as tight as a drum.”  Nicely played.

From the book we know that Jacob Marley died seven years earlier on Christmas Eve.  And we are informed that Scrooge inherited his house.  What the 1951 version does is tie these facts together in a scene.  We have Jacob Marley’s charwoman come to the office and interact with Bob Cratchit and Scrooge.  Then we have Scrooge being warned by a dying Marley that their misanthropy would endanger their immortal souls.  And this then links both the charwoman’s stealing of his bed curtains and bed clothing and her later spurious appearance after the last of the spirits depart and Scrooge wakes up on actual Christmas morning.  In this scene the charwoman (identified incorrectly as Mrs. Dilber) is bringing in Scrooge’s breakfast and witnesses his reformation into a caring human being.  His manic happiness frightens her and when he gives her a gold sovereign coin as a present, she assumes it’s a bribe to keep her quiet about his strange behavior.  When he tells her it’s a Christmas present and he is quintupling her salary she is overcome with happiness and rushes off with her own characteristic version of a Merry Christmas greeting.  I find this addition to the story especially apt.  In the story the charwoman selling Scrooge’s bed curtains comes off very negatively.  But humanizing her by including her positively in the scene about Marley’s death and allowing a rapprochement with a penitent Scrooge on Christmas morning improves the story and ties these aspects of the story together in a way that gives the story more depth.  It reinforces that Scrooge’s repentance touches every aspect of the world we have been shown in a positive way.

Overall I’d say that the film additions to the plot have been acceptable and true to the spirit of the story.

 

The Inside Baseball of Film Versions of “A Christmas Carol” – Part 2

Knights of the Round Table (1953) – A Movie Review

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Here’s a costume drama in Cinemascope with a good cast and a decent scripting of the Arthur legend.  Robert Taylor is Lancelot and Ava Gardner is Guinevere.  Their star-crossed love dooms Arthur and Camelot as it always does and Mel Ferrer does a serviceable job in the role.  Felix Aylmer is a welcome addition as Merlin.  I greatly enjoyed his performance as Polonius in Olivier’s Hamlet.  This is a much lesser part but he still makes it an enjoyable character.

This production is a spirited melodrama that spins the story pretty well.  The battle scenes are well staged and sizable and the sword fights are pretty good.  In this version Lancelot is given extra scope.  He is even allowed to kill Mordred or Modred as he is called in this version instead of giving that honor to Arthur.  The ending has an angelic vision of the Holy Grail given to Percival which also announces that Lancelot’s son Galahad will be the perfect knight and then for good measure the celestial voice also tells Lancelot that his sins are forgiven.  Alright, so this is a bit much for a costume drama.  And it sort of oversteps the bounds of this kind of adventure story, I think.

But it’s a fun movie with plenty of sword fighting and really bad villains and very likeable good guys so it gets the job done.

As far as a recommendation, this movie falls into the same category as a good “cowboys and injuns” shoot ’em up.  If you’re in the mood for one it’s harmless fun but if you’re not don’t bother.

The Naked City (1948) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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In this movie the star is New York City at the height of its prominence as the largest city of the most powerful country on the planet.  The tagline of the movie is “There are eight million stories in the Naked City.  This is one of them.”  And almost every shot of the film highlights the sights and sounds of New York.  Everything from the crowded subway cars and crowded streets to dizzying vistas on the tops of buildings and the towers of the Williamsburg Bridge.

The story begins with the late-night murder of Jean Dexter, a pretty blonde model.  It is followed by one of the two murderers killing his partner for being too soft-hearted.

The murder of Jean Dexter falls into the lap of police Lt. Dan Muldoon played with his best Irish brogue by Barry Fitzgerald.  Assisted by detective Jimmy Halloran played by Don Taylor they run down leads until they find Frank Niles, played by Howard Duff.  Every word coming out of Niles’ mouth, including “and and but” is a lie.  And when they find out that he is engaged to Jean’s close friend Ruth Morrison but that Ruth doesn’t even know that Niles was a close friend of Dexter they know they’ve found their connection.  At every step Niles shows himself to be tied to the murder and to a jewel robbery ring.  But at the same time all evidence clears him of Jean’s murder.

Finally, the clues add up to the fact that Jean Dexter and Frank Niles were the brains behind the jewelry theft ring.  They hired two burglars and used information from the husband of a society matron to rob the houses of the wealthy when it was known that they would be at a party.  But finally, the burglars decided to cut Jean out of the picture by murdering and robbing her.  Under threat that he would be indicted as an accessory to murder Niles confesses and provides the names of the two burglars.

The climax of the movie is a manhunt and a shootout between the police and the murderer while he is cornered at the top of one of the towers of the Williamsburg Bridge, hundreds of feet in the air.

In a lot of ways, the movie is a standard police procedural.  But there are enough secondary players to round out the story in a satisfying way.  We meet detective Halloran’s wife and young son and hope with him that he won’t have to obey his wife and spank his son for crossing Northern Boulevard by himself.  We meet Jean Dexter’s parents and watch as the mother goes from declaring her hatred for her prodigal daughter to crying over her “baby” and hugging Jean’s cold dead body in the morgue.  We even meet the murderer’s Lower East Side neighbors who know him as the friendly harmonica playing guy that all the kids like.

This is not a great movie.  It’s a good one.  I recommend it as what it is, an interesting police story.

Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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This must be Charles Laughton’s most unusual role.  As the eponymous Marmaduke Ruggles, he is a gentleman’s gentleman in the employ of the Earl of Burnstead, (played by Roland Young) until his lordship loses Ruggles in a poker game with American cowboy millionaire Egbert Floud played by Charlie Ruggles (there’s that name again).  Egbert’s wife Effie (played by Mary Boland) is attempting to give Egbert and by extension, Red Gap, “tone.”  And her ace in the hole is Ruggles by whose knowledge of etiquette and propriety she hopes to reform Egbert and instill snobbish manners in the Old West town.  And with Effie’s annoying brother-in-law Charles Belknap-Jackson (played by Lucien Littlefield) as the villain and ZaSu Pitts as Ruggles’ love interest the movie is an absurd farce.

The plot of the movie, such as it is, revolves around Ruggles becoming an American.  The movie gets endless mileage out of the contrast between Ruggles’ proper English manners and the rough and ready ways of the residents of Red Gap.  But the movie is really a panegyric to normal good-hearted people regardless of their stripe or fortune.

I realize this sounds like a whole lot of nothing.  But the movie has great good humor and human warmth.  And any movie that has Lucien Littlefield getting kicked in the pants can’t be all bad.

I’m guessing that opinions on this movie will vary greatly.  All I can say is that it’s one of my favorite comedies.  Others will have to take their chances.

Sergeant York (1941) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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“Sergeant York” stars Gary Cooper as the eponymous WWI hero.  The story relates his pre-war life and shows how he overcame a wild youth to “find religion.”  He lives in a log cabin with his mother and younger brother and sister.  Being hillbillies, the soil of his family land is very poor.  When he finds a girl, he wants to marry he sets his mind to buying some “bottom land.”  But a rival in love frustrates this ambition and it was when he was set to settle this feud with his rifle that divine intervention steps in.  Lightning knocks him off his horse and damages his rifle and Alvin ends up at the church where Pastor Rosier Pile played by Walter Brennan, welcomes Alvin back to the Lord’s flock.

But when America enters World War I Alvin York has to somehow square his biblical aversion to killing with his duties as an American citizen.  This conflict and how the reality of the modern battlefield affects him is the climax of the film.  As was stated in his Congressional Medal of Honor citation Alvin single-handedly killed 28 German soldiers with his rifle and pistol and in doing so forced the surrender of 132 Germans and 35 machine guns.  In the movie York explains to the investigators of his actions that he killed the Germans to stop the guns.  As he explains it his actions were meant to save lives.

After the war Alvin returns home and to his great surprise a grateful nation hails him as a hero with a ticker tape parade down Wall Street in New York City.  But even more importantly his home state of Tennessee presents him with a beautiful house on fertile land in his hometown.

Sergeant York was made on the eve of America’s entry into WW II.  In fact, Pearl Harbor was attacked while the movie was still in the theaters.  It is claimed that thousands of young men went directly from the movie theater to the enlistment station.  It could be defensibly claimed that it is a propaganda film for the war effort.  Nevertheless, York’s war time actions were not exaggerated in any way.  Obviously, the supernatural basis of his religious conversion is pure Hollywood but doubtless the portrayal of Alvin York as a simple backwoods man was quite accurate.  The reality of poverty in the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee was real and the importance of family and religion was true.

Gary Cooper’s portrayal of York is somewhat broad and even comical at times but I find that is one of the charms of the film.  The other actors in the Tennessee scenes equally play up the hillbilly stereotypical behaviors.  But recognizing those characteristics I still recommend this movie as a fascinating personal story that shows the collision of an older world with the 20th century.  Sergeant York was an American original.

Room for One More (1952) – A Movie Review

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A couple of weeks ago I reviewed “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and said at the time that it was Camera Girl’s favorite movie.  Well, her second favorite movie is “Room for One More.”  And years ago, as a husband, this was a cause for concern because it gave her ideas about fostering orphan children.  Now I have great respect for folks who bring homeless children into their lives.  It’s an enormous accomplishment.  But we were up to our elbows in family and I just thought it was too much for me!

Nevertheless, it is a very appealing movie and well worth reviewing.  The plot revolves around George and Anna Rose (played by real life husband and wife Cary Grant and Betsy Drake).  The Roses have three children, Teenie and Tim and their sister Trot.  Anna lost her fourth child at birth and has wanted to adopt.  When she goes to the orphanage the Director Miss Kenyon puts in a strong pitch to foster an older child rather than adopt an infant.  And being a good-hearted woman, she agrees to take one of their least adoptable children, Jane.  She’s an adolescent who’s been abused and has grown surly and embittered.

George is dead set against the fostering even as a two-week trial and his antagonism doesn’t smooth Jane’s arrival.  There are a number of incidents that flare into crises when Jane’s easily offended feelings are triggered into anger by innocent remarks.  But Anna goes above and beyond to sooth Jane and make her feel welcome and loved.  At the end of two weeks Jane has learned to love her new home and the whole family is plunged into sadness when Miss Kenyon arrives to pick up Jane.  As Jane says her sad but polite good byes Miss Kenyon asks where Jane’s suitcase is and the camera cuts to George heading up the stairs to return Jane’s suitcase to her now permanent room.

Next Anna decides to adopt another problem child.  This time the problem is an adolescent boy named Jimmy John.  He has braces on his legs from polio and he has been back and forth between hospitals so often that he hasn’t even learned how to read.  Jimmy John is even more of a challenge than Jane.  He has a bad temper and proceeds to sucker punch Trot while the family is driving to a vacation at the beach.  Other incidents include Jimmy John trying to ride Tim’s bicycle.  But after falling he becomes so frustrated that he smashes the back wheel completely with his heavy steel brace.  By the end of the vacation Anna wants to extend Jimmy John’s stay with her family but George insists that the four other children “vote” on his fate.  The children write down their votes and after seeing that all four say, “leave” Tim gives the votes to Jimmy John to read.  But Jimmy John sadly admits he can’t read.  Overwhelmed by that revelation Tim tells Jimmy John that the decision was unanimous for him to stay.

The rest of the movie chronicles the evolving happiness of Jane and Jimmy John as members of the family.  Jimmy John battles mightily against his physical disabilities to become a boy scout and at the end of the movie he achieves his ambition to be an Eagle Scout.  Jane wants badly to go to the school formal dance but the family hasn’t the money for a formal dress until all the children tell their parents to return the Christmas gifts they just received to pay for the dress.  But when the night of dance arrives Jane’s date is “sick.”  Actually, it’s known that his mother has ordered him not to go because she considers Jane’s background too questionable.  George responds by going to the boy’s house and appeals to the parents to think of the broken heart of a young girl.  The father orders his son to go to the dance and shouts at his wife to shut up.

The movie ends with George and Anna granted a night of blessed solitude while the children are staying with friends.

As I’m sure you can tell from my description this is a wildly sentimental movie.  But if this doesn’t terminally violate the viewer’s notion of what a movie consists of, then it is also an entertaining feel-good movie.  Seeing good intentioned adults helping neglected and troubled children and reclaiming them from loneliness is pretty bracing stuff, especially if it’s done with humor and at least a little indication that problems will exist.

Well, if it’s good enough for Camera Girl then I’ll recommend it for good-hearted women and their much suffering husbands.  Definitely a good husband-wife date movie.

Gaslight (1944) An OCF Classic Movie Review

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“Gaslight” is a thriller based on a stage play of the same name.  And in fact, our term “gaslighting” is based on the psychological abuse that is featured in this story.

Ingrid Bergman is Paula Alquist.  As a girl she lived with her famous aunt Alice Alquist, a diva of the Opera stage.  But when her aunt is murdered Paula is sent away from her aunt’s home in London to study music in Italy.  As a grown woman she falls in love with a pianist who plays for the maestro that Paula studies under.  Charles Boyer plays her lover Gregory Anton.  He convinces Paula to marry him and then to move back to London and take up residence in her aunt’s former home.

But once they settle into the house Gregory begins a concerted campaign to undermine Paula’s sanity.  He engineers situations where she seems to lose things or moves things without knowing that she’s done it.  And Gregory conspires with the maid Nancy (played by Angela Lansbury) to undermine Paula’s standing in the home by treating her like a feeble-minded invalid.  And she is isolated from the outside world under the pretext that she has become erratic and would embarrass herself if others witnessed her mental decline.

But one person exists who is aware of Paula’s return to London and is interested in her situation.  This is a Scotland Yard detective, Brian Cameron played by Joseph Cotten.  As a boy he had met Alice Alquist and now he is determined to solve the old murder case.  He suspects that Gregory is up to no good.  Cameron employs the local constable whose beat includes the Alquist home.  He encourages the constable to date Nancy the maid and find out what is going on inside the house.  And Cameron directs him to follow Gregory Anton and find out where he goes every night.

And through Cameron we learn from his superior at Scotland Yard that there were missing jewels that belonged to a foreign king who was a lover of Alice Alquist.  He had given them to her but they disappeared after her murder.  Now Cameron has the motive he has always lacked for the murder and soon he’ll have more.

One of the recurring nightmares that Paula experiences is that every night after her husband leaves the house to go to “work” the gas in her room would go down as if someone had turned on another light in the house.  And at the same time, she would here noises from above her room.  But the attic was boarded up so no one could enter it and no one else ever notices the gas change but her.

Eventually Cameron figures out that Gregory enters the vacant house around the block in order to climb on the roof and enter the attic of his own home from the roof.  There he searches for the jewels of Alice Alquist.  Once Cameron figures this out he barges into the Alquist home while Gregory is in the attic and he confronts Paula with the information.  While Cameron is searching Gregory’s locked desk for his gun Paula notices a letter that Gregory had claimed that she had imagined.  This note was written by an admirer of Alice Alquist named Sergis Bauer and had been found in Alice’s papers when she died.  After examining it and comparing it to an example of Gregory’s handwriting Cameron informs Paula that Gregory and Sergis Bauer are the same man.  Now it is clear that Gregory is her aunt’s murderer.

Meanwhile Gregory has finally found the jewels in the attic and Cameron notices the gas light rising meaning Gregory is coming home.  Cameron rushes out of the house to catch Gregory on his way home.  But Gregory no longer needs to keep up a pretense of working outside his home so he comes through the boarded-up attic door inside the house.   When Gregory discovers his desk has been rifled, he accuses Paula.  She declares that a man did it.  When Gregory demands to know what man was in the house the cook lies claiming that no one has been in the house in order to stall for time.  But hearing this Paula begins to doubt her sanity again.   She is just about to collapse into despair when Cameron shows up and confronts Gregory.  A struggle ensues and after a stray shot Cameron disarms Gregory.  Gregory bolts up into the attic and Cameron follows.  Meanwhile the cook has summoned the constable from the street and he bounds up the stairs and the two policemen subdue and tie Gregory to a chair in the attic.

For the finale Cameron agrees to let Paula talk alone to the securely bound Gregory.  Gregory begs Paula to take a knife out of a cabinet drawer and cut him free to allow him to escape.  But now Paula taunts him with his own words.  She says she’s insane so she can’t trust her own senses that something is actually a knife.  Then she throws the knife away and says, “But I seem to have lost it.”  Then by chance she finds a piece of jewelry that Gregory claimed she had lost and she becomes agitated and she declares her hatred for him and her joy at seeing him being brought to justice.  And she opens the door and demands that Cameron take Gregory away to his fate.

Right up front in the discussion I have to state that listening to Charles Boyer’s voice in this movie annoys the hell out of me.  The combination of his accent and his constant hectoring of Paula makes me want to punch him in the nose.  But at the same time Paula’s inability to stand up to Gregory’s bullying is also very annoying.  I want to shake her and slap her in the face and tell her to snap out of it.  Interestingly, Camera Girl has claimed in the past that I employ gaslighting against her.  But I claim it’s just a combination of bad memory and growing insanity on her part.  Silly woman.

Beyond those visceral feeling I enjoy this movie, especially the ending where Joseph Cotten sets things right.  Ingrid Bergman is a very good actress and even in this exaggerated atmosphere of emotional turbulence she provides a very convincing performance.

Highly recommended.