Tag: movie review

Stagecoach (1939) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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Stagecoach was considered a classic western at the time it was made.  It also proved to be the breakout performance for John Wayne’s career.

The plot involves a stagecoach making a run straight through an Indian uprising under Geronimo.  The passenger list is a cross section of various types found in westerns.  Driving the coach are a lawman named Curley Wilcox and for comic relief Buck, played by Andy Devine.  There’s a prostitute with a heart of gold named Dallas who’s been thrown out of town by the ladies of the Decency League.  There’s a southern gambler named Hatfield played by John Carradine.  There’s the drunken Doc Boone played by Thomas Mitchell.  There’s the obnoxious town banker Mr. Gatewood who has secretly absconded with the bank’s money.  There’s Mr. Peacock who is a mild-mannered whiskey salesman.  There’s Mrs. Lucy Mallory the pregnant wife of a cavalry officer.  And last but not least, the Ringo Kid played by John Wayne.  Ringo has busted out of jail and is headed to Lordsburg like the rest of them but in his case, it is to find and kill the three Plummer brothers who killed his father and brother and framed him for one of their crimes.

The passengers represent the various class and moral differences that make for friction and hard feelings between them.  The main story is the journey through Apache territory and the gun battle with Geronimo’s men but along the way the drunken doctor sobers up long enough to deliver Mrs. Mallory’s baby.  Dallas and Ringo strike up a romance.  Doc Boone finishes off all of Mr. Peacock’s whiskey samples.  Gatewood and Mrs. Mallory discover that he served under her father the general in the Civil War.

But the final chapter is the showdown between Ringo and the Plummers.  And after Ringo finishes off all three of them (with just three bullets!) he gives himself up to Curley to finish out his sentence in jail.  But Curley decides to take the law into his own hands and frees the Kid and sends him off with Dallas to start their new life together across the state line at Ringo’s family ranch.  The storybook happy ending.

For our generation the story probably seems a little too stereotyped, the acting too broad and the ending too pat.  The idea that a lawman would release his prisoner on his own recognizance to allow him to engage in a gunfight after which he would just walk back into custody to be brought back to prison seems like some kind of fantasy.  The expectant mother travelling on a stagecoach through an Indian attack seems even crazier.  But the movie does provide an enjoyable story.  I wouldn’t consider it any kind of best in class western.  I think it’s a good story with several good actors, especially Thomas Mitchell and John Carradine.  And it’s fun to see a young John Wayne navigating around actors who were much bigger stars than he was at the time.

I recommend this movie to fans of westerns, John Wayne and movies of this era.

Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) – A Movie Review

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This is a British film from the 1960’s and reflects the filmmaking conventions of that place and time.  This is seen in the realistic and drab scenery and even the look of the actors themselves.  The atmosphere is depressing and claustrophobic in the extreme.

Bill and Myra Savage are a middle-aged married couple.  Myra is a professional medium who performs seances for a small circle of believers who would like to communicate with the dearly departed.  Bill is a man who was forced to stop working because of health problems.  Myra is the dominant partner in the marriage and berates and orders Bill around.  But it is apparent that Myra is delusional about many things including her “gift.”  She wishes to be rich and famous for her ability to speak to the dead.

In support of this desire, she comes up with a plan.  It’s a carefully detailed plan to kidnap the young daughter of a rich man and hold her for ransom.  But in addition, the plan calls for Myra to use her “gift” to allow the girl to be found unharmed after the ransom is delivered.  And of course, Bill will have to perform all the active parts of the plan.  He is to kidnap the girl, make the ransom demand, pick up the ransom and drop the girl off for the return.  Myra’s part is to set up the room for the hostage and act as a “nurse” for the girl in the fiction that they will try to maintain that she is a patient in a hospital.  To that end they have a room painted white and a facsimile of a hospital bed set up in it.  And finally, Myra will contact the kidnapped girl’s family and claim that she is in contact with the girl through her spirit world contact, “Arthur.”  And when they have the money, Myra will tell the parents where to find their daughter after Bill has dropped her off at the pick-up spot.

Surprisingly, the plan is remarkably successful.  The girl’s kidnap goes off without a hitch and the ransom is collected by a complicated and circuitous route that the father has to follow going in and around the London Underground Railway.  But after the ransom pick-up the mother of the kidnapped girl shows up at one of Myra’s afternoon seances and we have the nerve-racking experience for Bill of trying to keep the little girl quiet as she calls out in a delirium of fever for her mother who is right in the next room taking part in a séance that is supposedly in contact with her.  At the climax of the séance Myra faints and the séance is stopped and the girl’s mother departs without incident.

But the excitement that Myra felt during this bizarre and dangerous charade has inspired a new and hideous change in the plan.  Myra tells Bill that Arthur, her spirit partner has asked that the girl be sent to him in the spirit world.  In other words, Myra wants Bill to kill the girl with chloroform and thus allow Arthur to have her spirit as his companion.

This madness horrifies Bill and he tries to force Myra to confront her delusions.  Arthur is the dead child of Bill and Myra but whereas Myra believed that Arthur was a child in their lives into his school age years the reality is that “Arthur” was a stillborn baby.  He tries to convince her that there is no Arthur and all these fantasies are her imagination.  And that killing the girl is madness.  But Myra raves on about her gift and Arthur and screams at Bill until he agrees to do her bidding.

In the next scene we see Bill leaving the child’s body in a wooded area and then rushing away to his vehicle.  When he gets home Myra is delighted at the way the plan has worked out.  But suddenly there is a knock at the door.  Bill answers it and comes back with three plainclothes policemen.  They ask Myra if she will perform a séance to help the police locate the girl now that the ransom has been paid.  She agrees and begins the performance with Bill and two of the policemen forming the circle around the table with her.  Myra goes into her trance and starts talking to and for Arthur and slowly she begins to repeat the conversation that Arthur must have had in her mind about killing the child.  When she lapses into silence where she is pantomiming herself cradling a small child in her lap the senior officer looks at Bill and says, “Where did you hide the money sir?”  And Bill replies, It’s in the coal cellar.”  Then Bill adds, “You found the girl alright?”  and the detective says, “Yes, she’s alright.”  And there the movie ends.

This is one weird and creepy movie.  Myra is a deranged lunatic and Bill is a pathetic weakling.  But he actually loves her.  And the atmosphere and plot are quite effective at providing suspense and interest in the story.  Interestingly, Bill was played by Richard Attenborough, the guy who played John Hammond, the man who built Jurassic Park in that movie.  Taken all in all I recommend this movie to fans of suspense movies.  It’s not as shocking as Psycho but it is a similar experience.

Mystery Street (1950) – A Movie Review

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“Mystery Street” is a 1950 black and white film noir that I decided to write about because it’s one of very few old Hollywood movies shot in the Boston area.  The plot is the story of Vivian Heldon, a girl who works at a low-class bar called the Grass Skirt.  She’s gotten pregnant by a married man and is trying to get him to pay for her child.  She calls up the father Joshua Harkley who lives down on Cape Cod and tells him to meet her at her bar.  When he doesn’t show up and leaves his phone off the hook, she convinces a drunk to let her drive him home.  But instead, she drives sixty miles to Harkley’s town, Barnstable and calls him to force a showdown.  Because the drunk (Henry Shanway) is starting to sober up and complain she abandons him on the side of the road and drives off with his car to the rendezvous with Harkley on a lonely road.  Harkley shoots her and dumps her naked body in the ocean and drives the car into a canal.

Three months later Heldon’s skeleton washes up on the beach.  The local police Lieutenant Peter Morales, played by the inimitable Ricardo Montalban, goes to the Harvard Medical School’s crack forensic expert, Dr. McAdoo to try and discover whose bones were found and how she died.

Using estimated date of death and a photograph of the skull on a transparency they superimpose it over each photograph of a missing woman from that time period and are able to determine that Vivian Heldon was the probable victim.  Also, they find the bones of her unborn child and a broken rib that showed traces of the metal from a bullet and they deduce that Vivian was murdered.  Next, they find from the bar patrons that Vivian left the bar with a man driving a specific color and model car.  Looking into stolen car records for that date they find Henry Shanway.  Once the bar patrons identify Shanway in a police line-up he is arrested for the murder.  Also, Shanway’s car is pulled out of the water sealing his fate.

After that there is a whole bunch of interaction between Vivian’s landlady and the murderer culminating in her stealing the murder weapon, a service .45 automatic that she found in his office desk drawer.  Meanwhile Dr. McAdoo figures out that based on which rib was hit, it was possible that the bullet was still embedded in the car.  Finding the bullet they then try to find the gun to cinch the story.  But Shanway doesn’t have a gun.  This disturbs Morales who then starts checking the rest of Heldon’s contacts to see if any of them had a gun.  Of course, when he checks Harkley’s desk the gun isn’t there.  But this alerts Harkley that the landlady has stolen his gun.  He goes to her home and chokes her until she agrees to tell him where she hid it, a storage locker at the train depot.  But just then the police show up and to keep her quiet Harkley hits the landlady on the head, knocking her out and eventually killing her.  Harkley escapes but Morales finds the key to the locker and decides to stake out the depot and find out who tries to get the gun.  After a lot of running around a train yard Morales catches Hartley and Shanway is saved from false conviction.  Three cheers for forensic medicine and Ricardo Montalban.

This is a solid B movie.  The acting is pretty good and the forensic science was state of the art in 1950.  But I have to take off points for lack of local authenticity.  At one point one of the “locals” pronounces Barnstable as if it sounded like the two words barn and stable.  Now admittedly I’m a refugee here in New England with my Brooklyn accent and all, but even I’ve picked up more of the local names than that.

I’ll recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys both old movies and police procedurals.

Guest Contributor – Neil Dunn – Dune, Part 1 (2021) – A Science Fiction and Fantasy Movie Review

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I have been a fan of DUNE for over 40 years, having read the six books of the DUNE series written by Frank Herbert (and most of the satellite books by his son, Brian Herbert. and Kevin J. Anderson). Before this review, I confess that I had not reread DUNE or portions for probably 15 years. I have now reread some scenes and looked up several items on the internet (See links below).

The movie–DUNE, Part 1- exceeded my expectations by capturing the essence of the book DUNE, its complexity and the grandeur of a galactic struggle focused on the desert planet Arrakis (= Dune).

The movie portrays the political competitors–the emperor, the Atreides, the Harkonnen (i.e., the grand houses), the Bene Gesserit, the fremen and all their competing goals–ruling power, treachery, controlling the spice, water and ecology. All these elements are interwoven, struggling, and competing. And somehow this will all come to fruition in Part 2 (supposedly out in 10/2023).

Overall, the actors-actresses gave fine performances of the book’s characters–physically compatible, and highly believable. Timothee Chalamet (Paul Atreides) performs quite well as he matures, increases his self-awareness of his future, and hardens.  Oscar Isaac as Paul’s father Leto Atreides is regal and honorable. Rebecca Ferguson (Lady Jessica) does fine as mother and Bene Gesserit. Gurney Halleck’s role (Josh Brolin) is simplified from the book to being Paul’s arms trainer and warrior but with no baliset for singing.  Jason Mamoa (Duncan Idaho) performs well as the swordsman providing comic relief (which I do not remember in the book). Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) is well cast as the blubbery and evil villain. David Bautista (Glossu Rabban), the Baron’s muscle man and nephew, is fine but the role is limited. Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Liet-Kynes, the Imperial Planetologist, has a mildly significant role in the movie and does well. That Liet-Kynes character is female (book = male) is of no significance. Stilgar (Javier Bardem) and his crew of fremen are well cast and look menacing. Zenday (Chani), Kyne’s daughter, performs well both in Paul’s dreams and when actually with him, as part of the freman “greeting party” for Paul and Lady Jessica. Other actors, not named here, were ok in their roles.

The script fulfills its function quite well in carrying the story, providing information, and allowing the actors to develop the book’s characters. I did have some difficulty hearing some lines even with my hearing aids cranked up but my wife and I saw the movie twice which helped. I enjoyed the subtitles scattered occasionally throughout. I have read that online streaming (don’t remember by who) provides subtitles for the speech which would have been nice.

The visual aspects were extremely well done. Be on the alert as Director Denis Villeneuve frequently uses picture footage to tell the story. Also, Paul has dreams of what might happen = flash forwards (or “easter eggs?”) which I was not expecting, so it took a few times before I synched with the movie. At other times, he tells someone what he knows something about them pretty much out of the blue–e.g. I must have blinked and missed him telling Lady Jessica that he knew she was pregnant (my wife told me, so I was ready for the scene our second time– even then she nudged me). The computer graphics were outstanding and were not overwhelming as in many Marvel movies. Of course, the sandworm scenes were my favorites. The space ships were well done with different shapes, sizes, and movements. The ornithopters were impressive, but their blades movements were beyond my understanding of flight mechanics.

There were certainly some plot differences which are expected when transitioning from a book–>movie. Nothing really bothered me as I thought the movie plot flowed very smoothly. Since there is supposed to be a part two, I am not going to second guess the director on how he sets up (pt. 1) to film the sequel (pt. 2) for a unified, integrated, and coherent total adventure.

Side note: The movie ended with Chani and the fremen leading Paul and Jessica to Sieth Tabr.  My hard copy of DUNE has this occurring on page 280 of 474 pages total. This leaves 194 pages for part 2.  A part 3 has been mentioned but at this point, I do not see how this could happen, but then I never thought the Hobbit could be made into three movies.

Based on the above and more, for fans of DUNE, I think the movie is an unqualified, most enjoyable must! For general Sci Fi fans I recommend it highly, even if you may not be a fan of the book DUNE. For the general audience, the movie has all the elements to have an enjoyable fantasy adventure–plot, characters, special effects. My only concern is whether condensing this complex book to a movie sometimes makes it hard to follow.

Some Links:

More authoritative review article of DUNE pt 1 by Steve Sailer: https://www.takimag.com/article/dune-old-spice-in-a-new-age/

Background for movie DUNE pt. 1: https://screenrant.com/dune-movie-book-story-world-characters-spice-explained/

Plot of movie DUNE pt. 1: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419/plotsummary#synopsis

For fun: Google “nerdist dune” and get a bunch of DUNE links at nerdist.com  — just link away!

M (1931 film) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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This old movie is in German.  Peter Lorre stars as M, a psychotic murderer of young girls in Berlin.  The movie chronicles how the murderer’s crimes terrorize the city and galvanize the police to roust the criminal element of the city in an effort to find the murderer.  And this interference with their normal operations convinces the criminals to organize and find the murderer themselves.  So, the movie is made up of the murderer’s actions including his killings, the police investigation and the effort of the underworld to find the murderer themselves.

Up front we have to address the foreign language aspect of the film.  If you cannot tolerate a subtitled foreign film then let this one be.  If you can, then follow my review and see if this sounds interesting.  Peter Lorre’s character is satisfactorily creepy and despicable.  Luckily a movie from this era would not include any graphic violence against a small girl so all the murders occur off camera.  The police procedural scenes and the investigator’s analysis of the evidence and the psychological profiling of the killer are well done and satisfy that part of the movie’s work.  But it is the underworld’s capture and subsequent treatment of M that are the centerpiece and most interesting aspect of the movie.  Because after locating M.  The underworld gang have to break into a bank building to extricate him from where he is hiding out.  So, all of their criminal expertise is employed in an enterprise that is actually admirable.

And finally, after capturing M they put him on trial for his life.  They provide him with a defense attorney and have a prosecutor, judge and the membership of the underworld serve as the jury.  The only effective defense that might sway the jury is M’s own testimony that a terrible compulsion forced him to kill against his own will.  But led by the women who formed part of the criminal jury the verdict comes in guilty and they are right at the point of carrying out the death penalty when the police break in and rescue M for his legal arrest and trial.  The last scene is the judge giving a verdict which appears to be the death penalty and a sort of Greek Chorus of the mothers of the murdered children lamenting that M’s death will not bring back their children’s lives.

I like this movie.  Certainly, it is so far removed in time and culture from our present world that it makes it slightly difficult to become submerged in the cinematic experience but I don’t find it too great a barrier to enjoying the story.  And it is a very clever idea.  Criminals policing their own and a parallel manhunt going on by the police and by their usual quarry.  And a trial before the underworld is a wonderful invention.  Finally, Peter Lorre is perfect for the part.  Here he is a younger and surprisingly chubbier Lorre than we are used to seeing in such things as “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and the “Maltese Falcon.”  But his manner with the young girls makes your skin crawl.  So, acknowledging the caveat about foreign language films I highly recommend this film.

Nosferatu (1922) – Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) – A Science Fiction & Fantasy Movie Review

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Last night I watched both Nosferatu movies.  I believe they are best reviewed together since Herzog’s remake of the silent film is in many ways an homage.  Almost all of the “dialog” of the silent film is reused word for word.  The appearance of the Dracula character and even the sets have been constructed to mimic the look of the originals.  Mercifully, the science of motion picture imaging had progressed tremendously between 1922 and 1979 so the picture quality of the latter film has none of the pioneering qualities of its predecessor.  Night scenes weren’t shot during the day and there is sound so the actors can restrain their pantomime gesturing.  But that being said it is essentially the same story.

In this version of Dracula, Renfield is a “land agent,” sort of a nineteenth century realtor and he employs Jonathon Harker to go to Transylvania to sign papers to buy a house in Bremen, Germany.  Jonathon leaves his wife Nina behind fretting about his safety.  When he gets to the environs of Castle Dracula the townsfolk warn him about spooky stuff but he goes anyway.  Dracula meets him and signs the papers and then feeds off of Harker for a few days, packs his dirt boxes and drives off with horse and wagon.  Harker escapes from the castle, and after recuperating for some time in the village heads for home by horse.

Dracula takes the slow boat across the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, and the North Sea to Bremen.  Enroute, he sucks the life out of the crew so that the boat drifts into Bremen with only the captain’s lifeless body tied to the ship’s wheel.  Somehow Dracula sneaks off the boat and takes up residence in the house across the street from the Harkers.  Dracula also brings a goodly supply of plague rats with him and the town starts dying off of the bubonic plague in droves.

While Dracula was enroute by ship Renfield is somehow driven mad and starts eating flies and biting animals and people to get blood.  He is cast into a mad house but eventually escapes and capers around town awaiting “the master” and acting like a gibbering idiot.

All this time Nina has been suffering mentally from the strain of worrying about Jonathon and because she seems to be a clinically depressed heroine.  When he arrives, she reads this book on vampires that Jonathon has specifically told her not to read.  This disobedience seemed the most realistic detail of the movie.  Nina reads that a pure spirited woman who offers her blood freely to the vampire can keeps him drinking until dawn.  And at that point the sun will destroy him.  Nina feigns illness and sends Jonathon to get a doctor.  She invites Dracula to her home and he falls for the trick and is evaporated in a puff of smoke.  Jonathon and the Doctor arrive just in time for Nina to greet Jonathon and expire from exsanguination.

In the 1979 version the ending is less positive.  When Nina expires Jonathon, who has been slowly becoming a vampire for the last few days goes full Nosferatu and escapes the town on horseback to start his own reign of death somewhere else.

So, what about these movies?  The silent version is a product of German Expressionism and uses bizarre and unreal imagery to evoke the sense of fear and dread.  The Dracula character is a cartoonish figure.  He is exaggeratedly tall and gaunt, has a dead white skin color, an elongated hairless head, protruding front teeth and ridiculously long and curved fingernails.  The sets at Castle Dracula showcase bizarre architectural details like the odd shaped doors and the monolithic walls in the crypt.  Everything is unnatural and bizarre.  I would say for a silent film this is a successful visual representation of a horror story.  But remember, it’s a silent film.  That means the acting is painfully exaggerated to pantomime the meaning.  Both of the Harkers are always gesticulating and grimacing to let you know they are emoting something or other.  I think very few modern viewers can get past the staginess of silent films to enjoy the story as a story.  So, it’s a successful silent horror film but I couldn’t recommend it to the general audience.

As for Werner Herzog’s 1979 homage, that’s more of something we can discuss in normal movie terms.  I’d call it an art film.  It goes a long way to provide good cinematography, good (if odd) acting and a rationale for the actions of the primary characters.  Dracula even gets to tell of his ennui and his envy for those who can die.  And he invests the characters with a reasonable level of personality above what was provided in the silent film.  There is even a small amount of humor thrown in, primarily around the character of Renfield but what struck me as funniest was a scene at the very end of the movie.  Dr. Van Helsing is holding a bloody stake that he has used to permanently kill Dracula.  Two town officials arrive on the scene and Jonathon denounces Van Helsing to them stating that the doctor has murdered good old Count Dracula.  The magistrate orders his underling to have Van Helsing arrested and jailed for murder but the subordinate argues with him that there are no police left to arrest him, no jailors left to imprison him and no town officials left to charge and try him.

Herzog has succeeded in making an atmospheric, artistic horror film.  It’s not particularly frightening but it attempts to adhere to the spirit of the original Dracula story, a sort of late nineteenth century gothic fairy tale.  So, my recommendation is restricted to people who enjoy art films.  And it wouldn’t kill a horror fan to watch it.  It just might not be completely what he would be hoping for.  So, there’s my Halloween day horror review that I promised.

30OCT2021 – OCF Update

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Today I spent a good chunk of the day on fiction writing.  And it was very productive and I think successful.  But the trade off is no time for web site work.  I’m going to have to get much more efficient at splitting my time between the two tasks.  Tonight I am employed watching the 1922 and 1979 versions of Nosferatu.  The original is a silent film that is without a doubt a puzzling experience for the modern audience.  The film quality is terrible, the special effects are non-existent and the acting is highly stylized if I want to put it politely.  The 1979 version is titled Nosferatu the Vampyre and was directed by Werner Herzog.  I just started it but it looks like it could be okay.  I hope to have the review out tonight.

 

28OCT2021 – OCF Update

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Finally up to snuff.  So I’ve been catching up on my chores.  Fixing a fence, stowing some gardening equipment, some prep for some larger tasks.  But ti’s good to be back in the land of the living.  As I was walking by a hill I could hear one lonely cricket still chirping slow and low.  I couldn’t help saying to him, “Hang in there brother.”

I look around today at the headlines; economy tanking, inflation running amok, Biden sucks; same old, same old.

But on the home front lots of good stuff going on.  Halloween will be a real thing this year.  They’ve taken the plastic wrap off the kids and they can go out and beg for grubby candy.  We’ve got a grandson’s birthday coming up here and we’ve also wrangled the rights to hosting Thanksgiving for all the grandkids this year.  So whatever else Dementia Joe destroys he may be too late to destroy Thanksgiving.  And I say that knowing that there may be no turkeys or pumpkin pie because of “supply chain” foul ups.  But for whatever reason hope is in the air.

I looked at TCM’s line-up of horror movies for Halloween and they really are pathetic.  They’ve ignored almost all the Universal Classic Monster movies and they’ve back-filled with a lot of shlocky 1950’s and 1960’s Vincent Price junk.  I could understand if they had decided to go for more modern fare but then they could have had Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, maybe some of the really gruesome stuff from the 1990’s.  But apparently they’ve lost interest.  I’m looking around to review at least one good horror movie for Halloween.  If anyone has a suggestion that I haven’t already reviewed feel free to leave it in the comments.

I noticed that the poll takers, Reuters and Harris and the rest haven’t tried too hard to boost Biden’s poll numbers over the last couple of weeks.  Or if they have it hasn’t helped.  He’s been at approximately -10 (40 up, 50 down) for a while.  I’m curious to see if it can go much below that.  If it got to -20 (30/60) I bet even Dementia Joe’s puppet master will consider trying to repair some of the damage done to the economy by shutting off the petroleum supplies.  But then again they are true believers.  Maybe nothing will stop them from trying to destroy the US economy and us.

I’m going back into some older pictures for my Photo of the Day.  It’s stuff I took with my Sony A-850 DSLR.  Some of it is more than ten years ago.  I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the great quality of a lot of the files.  And it’s been a nostalgic experience seeing some of the people and places that were around back then.

Well, that’s enough rambling for now.  More organized posting to follow.

Transatlantic Tunnel (1935) – A Science Fiction Movie Review

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This is such an awful movie that I thought I should start off with a clear statement to that effect.  The script is unbelievably bad.  And with a script this bad it wouldn’t really help if the cast were first rate because even Lawrence Olivier would sound like an idiot saying idiotic things.  But this is not a first-rate cast.

Richard Dix “stars” as Richard McAllan a brilliant engineer who has already built a tunnel under the English Channel.  Not satisfied with that he’s now going to build a tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean from England to the United States.  Well, good for him.  But his wife is unhappy because the daughter of one of the financial backers has the hots for her husband and has blonde hair that’s blonder than hers.  And blondie keeps dragging her husband away to publicity shoots in New York.  So somehow this convinces her to go work in the tunnel as a nurse without her husband knowing.  And she ends up with “tunnel fever” and goes blind.  So, for reasons that don’t make any sense to the audience she leaves her husband and raises their son up alone until he’s old enough to get killed “working in the tunnel.”  Apparently, the tunnel designers picked a route that had an active volcano directly in the path of the drill.  And in order to contain the destruction caused by the raging volcano McAllan is forced to shut the isolation doors trapping McAllan Jr. and sending him to a fiery death.  When McAllan explains this death to his blind wife it sounds like he’s trying to find the bright side of this unfortunate situation.  It’s really quite extraordinary.  It’s as if the dialog were written by someone who had never met humans and had been raised by google-bots.

Finally, when the tunnel is somehow completed the President of the United States and the British Prime Minister announce it to their respective nations as if it were the second coming of the Lord.  Somehow the tunnel would bring on world peace and defense budgets would be slashed to nothing and prosperity would engulf humanity.  I’m really not sure why shipping things from Europe to America somewhat faster would achieve all that.  But there was a lot of cheering.  Go Anglosphere!  Next, I guess a tunnel between Australia and California would really make the world a greater place.  I think I’m really feeling that tunnel fever now.

And there are problems beyond just a bad plot and dialog.  The tunnel sets and the props like the pressure suits they wear are quite silly looking.  And the investors and the public gyrate between giddy elation and stark terror on an almost constant basis.    There’s even a murder plot going on between two of the venture capitalists funding the project.  It all seems to have been strung together from odds and ends out of a bucket of spare ideas for movie plot devices.  I would say, unless you really enjoy bad old sci-fi movies skip this turkey.

Yasujirō Ozu’s Noriko Trilogy – A Movie Review – Part 3 – Tokyo Story

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Yasujirō Ozu’s Noriko Trilogy – A Movie Review – Part 1 – Late Spring

Yasujirō Ozu’s Noriko Trilogy – A Movie Review – Part 2 – Early Summer

 

In the third installment of the Noriko trilogy, Tokyo Story (1953), Setsuko Hara, once again, plays a young Japanese woman named Noriko.  But in this story Noriko is less of a central player.  In this tale the main action involves the visit of an elderly mother and father to visit their children living in Tokyo.  Shūkichi and Tomi Hirayama have two sons and daughters and they have a daughter-in-law, Noriko, from their son who was killed in the war.  The youngest daughter lives at home with them in the country.  Their eldest son, Kōichi is a pediatrician in Tokyo and has two sons.  The eldest daughter Shige is married and runs a hairdressing salon there too. Neither Koichi or Shige is anxious for the parents to stay with them.  After tossing them back and forth for several days they split the cost for the two elderly people to stay at a resort spa.  But the wild nightlife disturbs the sleep of Shūkichi and Tomi so they are at last forced to accept Noriko’s hospitality.  She is very gracious and generous with her time and her meager resources.  Both Shūkichi and Tomi express how grateful they are for her generosity and her mother-in-law especially tells her that she is sad that Noriko has not remarried and restarted her life.

Shortly after Shūkichi and Tomi return home to the country Tomi becomes critically ill and the family assembles at her bedside.  When she dies the children attend the funeral but all of them leave hurriedly for home except Noriko.  She remains with Shūkichi for several days during the bereavement.  The youngest daughter, Kyōko complains bitterly to Noriko about the selfishness of her brothers and sister.  But Noriko defends them saying that grown children have their own lives and it is inevitable that they will drift apart from their parents.

On the day that Noriko must return to Tokyo for work Shūkichi speaks to her about his happiness at the treatment she showed to her parents-in-law whereas his own children showed such callous disregard for their parents.  He gives Noriko a pocket watch that belonged to Tomi.  Noriko humbly claims that she showed no such generosity but was actually very selfish.  Then Shūkichi renews his entreaties for her to remarry.  Finally, after repeated inquiries she admits that she has been very lonely and she weeps.  Afterwards we see Noriko deep in thought on the train ride home.

Despite the very sympathetic portrayal of Noriko and the very unflattering picture that we have of Koichi, Shige and their families, we are forced to somewhat believe the opinion that it is inevitable that grown children become so absorbed by their own lives that they appear selfish to their parents.  But admitting that much we are charmed by the respect, affection and generosity that Noriko lavishes on her mother- and father-in-law.  Ozu must be making the point that the modern world was forcing the abandonment of the old culture that lavished respect on elders as a primary virtue and replacing it with the Western cult of commercial success.

It is a well-made film.  The parents and Noriko are sensitively portrayed and even the slightly caricatured siblings are well acted.  Many of the details of the story provide human interest.  One example is the doctor’s sons displaying childish anger at their father reneging on a promised outing on account of a sick patient needing attention.  Their peevishness in the face of an unavoidable disappointment rings true to anyone who has raised a family.

I’ll include a conclusion for the whole series here.  Ozu has shown how the changing world the Japanese found themselves in impacted the roles and behavior of each family member but most especially the younger women whose lives were shunted away from the traditional template that girls typically followed on their way to becoming wives and mothers.  The various versions of “Noriko” act as the barometer to indicate to her family that something very different is happening in their world.

These stories have appeal far beyond the Japanese public they were made for.  The roles of women have radically shifted even again in our most recent times.  And exploring the fallout from this change and noting the value that the traditional roles that women play in family life possess are worthwhile exercises.  I recommend the Noriko trilogy for anyone who sees the value in the stories I have described in these reviews.