The Great Unwatched: Bava, Argento, Cronenberg

There are two goals to my Great Unwatched project. The first is to see some films that I might not otherwise give the time of day to. The second is to finally experience movies I should've watched a long, long time ago. This weekend, I focused especially on the latter goal, filling in gaps in the filmographies of three of my favorite horror directors: Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and David Cronenberg. I even made a special effort to watch some of their non-horror offerings mixed in with the usual fright flicks.

Film 1: Hercules in the Haunted World (1961, Mario Bava)
Bava's second (credited) turn as director is a fascinating tale of swords 'n' sandals with a bit of Christopher Lee thrown into the mix. Hercules (Reg Park) journeys to Hades to retrieve a mystical stone that will save the life of his lady love, Princess Deianira. What our musclebound hero doesn't know is that his girlfriend's wicked uncle (Lee) is machinating to use Deianira's blood in a ritual to make him immortal. Hercules in the Haunted World was Bava's first opportunity to show what he could do with color and he really wows. The scenes of hell in particular show his visual mastery. Reportedly Bava used a few movable walls and a handful of columns to form every interior set in this film, resorting to visual trickery when he needed it to look like he had more. He creates an expressionistic peplum film, which works best when taken as a visual feast hung on a loose plot.

Film 2: Erik the Conqueror (1961, Mario Bava) 
An unofficial remake of Richard Fleischer's The Vikings (1958), Erik the Conqueror (also known as The Invaders) tells the tale of two Viking brothers, separated as children when their village on the coast of England is pillaged by the vicious Sir Rutford (Andrea Checci). Eron (Cameron Mitchell) is raised by his Nordic brethren. Erik (George Ardisson) is adopted by the Queen Alice of Scotland (or Britain, depending on whether you're watching the movie dubbed or subtitled) and grows up to become the Duke of Helford.


What struck me about Erik the Conqueror was the care taken that neither Viking or English were portrayed as villainous or unsympathetic. Both sides are caught in the cycle of violence known as history, occasionally manipulated by Sir Rutford to achieve his own ends. Certainly the Vikings are portrayed as more brutish and violently-inclined, but they're also largely honorable, honest people. The English are more cultured, but they are given to subterfuge and, in the case of Sir Rutford, outright treachery. 

The best sequences, visually, take place in the Viking's headquarters, a large cave where Bava's colored gels run wild. The centerpiece of the set is the giant gnarled tree from Hercules in the Haunted World, which looks magnificent in this new context.

Overall, however, the film isn't that interesting, unless you're really into vikings.

Film 3: Fast Company (1979, David Cronenberg)
It's certainly possible to read a lot of Cronenberg's prevalent themes into Fast Company, most notably the intersection of man and technology and the betrayals of corporate America. However, I think it misses the point to a certain extent. This is Cronenberg working in established drive-in fodder territory for the first and only time in his career. He sticks pretty cleanly to the rules by providing a story with clear heroes and villains, plus the requisite amounts of sex and action. William Smith plays Lonnie "Lucky Man" Johnson, a race car driver in his twilight, doing the drag race circuit under the sponsorship of FastCo Oil. When FastCo betrays him (through their corporate liaison Phil Adamson, played by John Saxon), he strikes out on his own. Adamson uses every trick in his book to make sure Lonnie's cars never reach the finish line. Fast Company is slow-moving (ironically) and takes forever to get around to its central conflict. Cronenberg really only breaks out of the mold during a surprisingly brutal climax that kills off two characters and seriously injures a third.

Film 4: Inferno (1980, Dario Argento)
I still don't know what I feel about this one. Certainly it's the most beautiful Argento film I've ever seen. However, the plot is a huge wad of happenstance, with very little rhyme or reason. In some places it seems to want to emulate the structure of its predecessor, Suspiria, but it lacks a character like Susie Banyon for us to relate to. I'll admit that I was already starting to get a little burned out at this point in my marathon, so I might not have given Inferno the due it deserves. Next time I watch, I'll do it properly -- well-rested, with all the lights out, and the soundtrack up loud. Until then, I can't really give a strong opinion one way or the other.

As a bonus to my general theme, however, Mario Bava did some uncredited effects work for the New York segments of the film.

Film 5: Rabid (1977, David Cronenberg)
Rabid is much more in line with Cronenberg's general oeuvre. Marilyn Chambers emerges from experimental surgery with a retractable phallus in her armpit and a craving for blood. Those who she feeds from become blood-crazed zombies. Cronenberg expands on the themes he first posited in Shivers, with disease as a catalyst for societal breakdown. Moving outside the confines of a single apartment building into the city of Montreal, Cronenberg is able to analyze government and public responses to an outbreak of irrationality. Meanwhile, on a parallel track, Chambers is just trying to survive, oblivious to the effect her feeding has on her victims (and her victims' victims). Unfortunately, Cronenberg never manages to blend the external outbreak narrative with the internal vampire one, so the film gets narratively and thematically confused at times. Cronenberg would do better in later films by keeping his focus on a single character navigating through the chaos, as in Videodrome.

Film 6: Phenomena (1985, Dario Argento)
Not a lot to say about this one, except that it was the last film of the night and it didn't do much to grab hold of my already shaky attention. As a sidenote, at some point I may write an article tracking Argento's treatment of Daria Nicolodi's characters throughout their collaborations, as it does seem he gets more brutal with her after they broke off their romantic relationship.

My original plan, incidentally, had been to watch Four Flies on Grey Velvet, but my bootleg (purchased before Mya Communication announced their official DVD) was nearly unwatchable. Very disappointing.

52 Perfect Movies: Psycho (1960)

"We all go a little mad sometimes..."

Where does one begin in talking about Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, one of those watershed motion pictures that can literally be said to have helped change the course of the development of movies as we know them? Here is a film that has been studied, analyzed and digested over the course of decades of scholarly attention and fan obsession, and anything I say to praise its greatness has doubtless already been said many a time. But truly, if there are any titles that a series called "52 Perfect Movies" immediately conjures up, Psycho has to be on the short list. The perfect blending of commerce and art, it represents the greatest heights to which popular entertainment can aspire.

At the time Psycho was made, the Hollywood film industry was at something of a crossroads. The "golden age" of the silver screen was coming to a close. Studios were rapidly losing their power, and the directors (and to a certain degree, the actors), were gaining more creative control. The often draconian hold of the censorious Hays Production Code limiting what film-makers could put on screen, was starting to lose its grip--a process that would continue over the course of the 1960s. It was the perfect time for a film like Psycho to come along.

Psycho wasn't the first of what we'd call "modern thrillers", having been preceded by pictures such as the French triumph Les Diaboliques, but what it did was popularize the concept amongst mainstream American audiences. It was something of a departure for Hitchcock, who, since coming to Hollywood, had become known for sumptuous, full-color "event movies". This time out, he went back to basics, stripping everything down to the bare bones, for a lean, mean, suspense machine of a movie that never stops being endlessly fascinating and never fails to work on every single level, a half century after the initial shock of its famous surprise ending has worn off.

This is the kind of film that the word "timeless" was meant to describe. Literally from the opening shot, we are drawn into this ominous, brooding, somewhat seamy world of adultery, larceny, intrigue and God knows what else. Janet Leigh is perfect as the sultry, flawed and yet charismatic Marion Crane, a main character we come to identify with only to witness brutally murdered not yet halfway into the picture--surely one of the boldest narrative maneuvers ever attempted in American cinema up to that point in time.

Her murderer, although we do not know it at that time, is the deranged Norman Bates, played with boyish charm and naivete by a young Anthony Perkins, whose performance was inexplicably denied the Oscar nomination with which Leigh's was recognized. Nevertheless, he is note-perfect as the stammering, seemingly harmless Bates, caught in the ultimate Oedipal struggle with his off-screen "mother"--it's easy to see how 1960 audiences would've been totally caught off guard upon discovering the true nature of that relationship.

And speaking of that, Psycho was particularly groundbreaking in its relatively frank approach to sexually charged subject matter. Remember, this was still a relatively culturally conservative time in American pop culture (to give you an idea, Psycho is the first American film to depict a flushing toilet bowl), and so Norman's cross-dressing, not to mention Marion's nudity during the shower scene, was pretty heady stuff.

It's that shower scene, naturally, that everyone still talks about to this day when discussing this unquestioned classic. A masterpiece of editing, sound design and photography, many have called it the finest scene ever put to celluloid, and it's tough to argue that. One of the most amazing things about it is that anyone who sees it, especially for the first time, will swear they saw way more skin and blood than they actually did--they may even claim to have seen the knife penetrate Marion's flesh, which we never do. That's powerful film-making.

That scene, and so many others in Psycho, would have lost so much of its impact were it not for what may be the most famous film score of all time, composed by Hitchcock veteran Bernard Herrmann. In an era of sweeping studio orchestral pieces, Herrmann chose to go with a small, all-strings ensemble, a relatively unheard of approach that would later become much more popular thanks to its success in Psycho. Not only the unforgettable staccato sounds of the shower scene cue, but every single cue in the film is burned into the consciousness of film lovers the world over. For my money, only the work of Sergio Leone rivals it in terms of combining such high levels of both originality and pure skill.

Films would be different after Psycho, particularly those films meant to scare, upset or disturb us. No longer would monsters and other supernatural things that go bump in the night be the primary tools of those purveyors of cinematic terror. Rather, Hitchcock proved in his brilliant adaptation of Robert Bloch's novel, that the most fearsome monster of all is the human mind itself, and it could be the one residing in the person living right next door to us. This became the message of modern horror: The monsters are us.

Hitchcock was known for his uncompromising perfectionism, and perhaps nowhere does it come across so powerfully as in Psycho. Making the most of a streamlined production crew assembled from the staff of his TV show, Hitch's fingerprints are on every single one of the great John L. Russell's breathtaking shots, in the almost palpable lighting that reminds us over and over again why this film had to be made in black and white, despite the industry's transitioning to color at the time. Nearly every line of Joseph Stefano's script has become an iconic quote, not just those given to Perkins and Leigh but also to outstanding supporting players like Martin Balsam as the hard-boiled Det. Arbogast, and Vera Miles as Marion's bereaved sister Lila.

Perhaps the finest intersection of art film and pop culture, Psycho has truly stood the test of time, and remains that one movie that film students most relish digging into. This is not some moldy "classic" forced upon younger generations by preachy academics--this is a living, breathing masterpiece, and a joy to experience over and over again.

For more, please check out The Vault of Horror's ongoing series, "Psycho Semi-Centennial"!

NEXT UP: Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Non-Movie Things

After the antics that lead to this post, it's been maddeningly difficult to sit down and watch a movie properly, even moreso to write about one coherently. It's a long story, but the end result is that my apartment is in disarray and all of my DVDs and books are boxed up in a haphazard fashion. For a guy used to having his movies organized by year of release, it's a painful situation, but I have ways of dealing.

For one thing, my wife and I have been going through Babylon 5 at a breakneck pace. We started just three weeks ago and we're already a couple of episodes into Season 4. This is epic, epic storytelling. I am shocked at the breadth and depth of it. This is what Lost could have been if they'd really had a plan (so far, the Vorlon vs. Shadows philosophical debate is already more intriguing than Jacob vs. the Man in Black). Don't get me wrong. I love Lost. But I am head-over-heels gaga for Babylon 5. J. Michael Straczynski gives me the kind of characters I can follow mixed with the epic "sweep-of-history" mythos I can't resist. Sure there have been a few individual clunkers here and there (especially in the occasionally dodgy first season), but overall? Masterpiece. So far. I'll let you know if my tune changes once I've finished.

When not plopped in front of the television, I've been consuming Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, usually on my train rides to and from work. I picked it up because I'm a fan of the Hitchcock movie. The book is kind of a ghost story minus ghost, a haunted house story without a haunting. One young wife, uncertain of her place in her new husband's life, finds herself pitted against the memory of his first wife, Rebecca. du Maurier's descriptions of Mrs. Danvers, Rebecca's devoted maid, are particularly striking in their horror imagery and all the more evocative for it.

Anyway, I'll be at Madcap Theaters in Tempe, AZ this Saturday for their 12-hour movie marathon (assuming it goes off -- they still need a few more people to buy tickets in order to make the event cost-effective). I'll let you know how it goes.

52 Perfect Movies: Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

"If you were a woman, Miss Plimsoll, I would strike you."

After making a film as perfect as Sunset Blvd. in 1950, many directors would have found themselves on that inevitable downward slide, forever trying to match the greatness of their earlier masterpiece. Not so with Billy Wilder. Not only did he continue to make such remarkable films as The Apartment and Some Like It Hot, but in 1957 he nearly equaled his 1950 achievement with a movie that has stood the test of time like few others: Witness for the Prosecution.

I first came into contact with this film thanks to a high school social sciences class which required us to watch it. Imagine a roomful of rowdy teenage boys (ah, Catholic school), sarcastically skeptical that this movie had anything to offer them, only to find themselves entranced by the drama and laughing at the comedy within minutes. This movie is entertainment at its most fascinating, a brilliantly acted, unflaggingly witty whodunit that just may be the finest courtroom drama of them all.

Years later, I had the pleasure of seeing Witness for the Prosecution on the big screen, presented by none other than Gene Wilder (no relation), who cited the film as one of his favorites, and one of his greatest influences. It might seem odd that a comic writer and actor would be so inspired by a courtroom potboiler, but this film is so much more than that.

Based on an original play by the queen of parlor mystery herself, Agatha Christie, the story was expertly adapted by early TV writer Larry Marcus, with the aid of Wilder and successful playwright/screenwriter Harry Kurnitz into a taut, brilliant script that alternates deftly between suspense and intrigue on the one hand, and whimsical comedy and wordplay on the other. It's quite an achievement, made even more impressive, as all movies are, when viewed in its proper setting.

Charles Laughton is magnificent as the stodgy-yet-irreverent Sir Wilfrid Robarts, the celebrated attorney who takes on the case of a young man, played by consummate movie star Tyrone Power, accused of murdering a rich, middle-aged widow. The plot thickens when his war bride, played by the devastatingly sultry Marlene Dietrich, is called as, you guessed it, a witness for the prosecution. But even that is grossly oversimplifying things--this movie is packed with twists and turns that need to be seen to be appreciated. And even though some of them may have become trite or cliche with the passage of time, they're done with such style that it doesn't matter.

Laughton's razor-sharp back-and-forth dialogue with real-life wife Elsa Lanchester, who plays his nurse, is nothing short of amazing (as an aside, I always found it amusing that the Hunchback of Notre Dame married the Bride of Frankenstein...) You see, Sir Wilfrid has recently suffered a heart attack, and isn't even supposed to be taking on such grave cases due to his health. It's his nurse, Miss Plimsoll, who is charged with the thankless task of keeping him healthy, which means doing none of the things he enjoys, ie. drinking, smoking and taking on murder cases.

As much as this is a courtroom drama, and a very effective one at that, I can't stress enough how it's comic elements are just as entertaining, thanks in large part to the obvious chemistry between Laughton and Lanchester. Dietrich is movie magic as always, a figure of towering charisma who doesn't even have to speak to steal a scene. Power can't be blamed for being no more than a good-looking prop, as his character is merely a device to set the other characters in motion around him. His arc pays off big-time in the film's big "gotcha" ending--which I won't spoil here for those who have yet to experience it.

Over the years, and even in its own time, people have mistaken Witness for the Prosection for an Alfred Hitchcock film, which is truly a testament to the effortless manner in which Wilder takes to the material, even mixing suspense and comedy just as effectively as Hitch himself did so many times. This was probably the "heaviest" film Wilder had taken since Sunset Blvd., and it really says so much about his chameleon-like quality--so common in Hollywood directors of the golden age--that he was able to seamlessly transition from stuff like The Seven-Year Itch, to a movie like this.

By the time this movie came out, the courtroom drama was already a tried-and-true staple of motion pictures, and yet Witness for the Prosecution added so much to the genre, and set the standard for many more films to come. This can be attributed in equal parts to Christie, giant of the mystery milieu that she was; Wilder, the man who made it work so well without seeming like a "filmed play"; and the supreme efforts of a brilliant cast, highlighted by Laughton, one of the true craftsmen of his time.

In a sense, Laughton was ahead of his time--a character actor able to headline a film. Nobody bats an eye nowadays to see guys like Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson--who are essentially character actors--headlining their own movies, but in the age of the handsome leading man, it was far more unusual. Only Laughton, one of the most underrated film actors who ever lived, could have pulled off Quasimodo, Capt. Bligh and Sir Wilfrid Robarts. And despite the presence of Power in Witness for the Prosecution, there is never any doubt that this is Laughton's movie. His performance truly makes this one of cinema's most satisfying experiences.

NEXT UP: Psycho (1960)

52 Perfect Movies: 12 Angry Men (1957)

"Do you think you were born with a monopoly on the truth?"

There are many great ensemble dramas in the history of film. And then there is the great ensemble drama, which may very well be Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men. Adapted from a TV movie, this superb motion picture collects some of the finest actors of their own and any other generation, puts them in a room together for an hour and a half, and the result is absolute gold.

Let's have a look at the unbelievable assemblage of talent on display here. The gruff and cynical Jack Warden; the beguiling and childlike John Fiedler; the menacing and pompous Lee J. Cobb; the very young and unassuming Jack Klugman; the understated yet riveting Ed Begley; the regal and commanding E.G. Marshall. And of course, the beloved everyman himself, Henry Fonda as the central figure on the jury. And that's not even covering all 12 of the angry men!

To call this a dream cast would be the understatement of the century. This is the kind of a cast a director would kill to have working for him--a room full of unparalleled pros who take the already excellent material written by Manhattanite wordsmith Reginald Rose, and weave it into a tapestry of such sublime interaction, that the viewer is caught up in every nuance of the 90-minute conversation, from beginning to end.

How ironic that such an impeccable gathering of gifted actors would be brought together for first-time film director Sidney Lumet. Up to that point strictly a TV guy, Lumet was a hot young prospect at the time, and the homerun he hit out of the park with this Oscar nominee opened the door to an illustrious career that included such pictures as Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Pawnbroker, Serpico, Murder on the Orient Express, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Verdict, A Stranger Among Us, and Before the Devil Knows Your Dead.

Here, the 32-year-old auteur certainly has an advantage in a cast of gentlemen who could not give a bad performance if their lives depended on it. Naturally, it would be unfair to say that even a lesser director could've pulled off a classic given the material and the participants. Lumet was responsible for bringing it all together into a coherent whole, and he does so with the masterful confidence of a veteran, flawlessly staging the nearly claustrophobic goings-on with the help of Russian cinematographer Boris Kaufman, ratcheting up the tension higher and higher with the skill of an orchestra conductor.

12 Angry Men was a standout film in a sweeping sub-genre of "message" movies that Hollywood cranked out during the post-war '50s, somewhat liberal-minded pieces (which no doubt rankled the McCarthyites running roughshod with their red-baiting antics at the time) that fed into America's genuine desire to behave as the high-minded purveyor of principle its citizens considered it to be. And while this may not have always realistically been the case, it was an ideal that was genuinely striven for, and films such as Stanley Kramer's Inherit the Wind and 12 Angry Men are prime examples of its expression in film.

This is a film about ideas, that isn't afraid to hash them out in depth and with very little in the way of "action". The action here is in the dialogue, in the interplay of the characters, and in the development of their differing opinions over the course of the plot. It's a very thoughtful film, but manages to engage viewers of each ensuing generation, continuing to be amongst the most popular of all "pre-modern" motion pictures, owing most likely to the intensity and authenticity of the performances.

Fonda's wide-eyed innocence is here put to its best use since his younger days in films like The Grapes of Wrath. He is the film's moral center, the one we're supposed to identify with. The film revolves around his own moral journey, his search for the truth amidst a room of fellow human beings who range from tentatively fair-minded, to apathetic, to downright hostile.

In opposition to him is the bigoted, loud-mouthed Cobb, at his very best here playing the part of a man whom we may vehemently disagree with, whom we may see for the dangerous ignoramus he is, yet whom we still identify with as a human being. Most importantly, he is still written and acted as a whole person with motivations and ideas, and not just a cartoon character. This is a testament to the greatness of 12 Angry Men.

To do justice to the rest of the performances would take a series of posts like this one. Suffice it to say that each man in that room distinguishes himself at one point or another in the film--whether it be a handful of key moments, or a consistent presence throughout the film. Whether it be Warden's flippant comic relief, Fiedler's earnestness, or the meek charm of George Voskovec, there is so much here to be thoroughly enjoyed.

12 Angry Men is a movie about truth, and about the natural instinct of people to seek it out, within themselves and others. It's a movie about justice, and whether or not it can exist within the American legal system. It's a film that's high-minded without being heavy-handed, and packed with drama despite the fact that its characters never leave the deliberation room. They say that small people talk about people, average people talk about things, and great people talk about ideas. The same can be said of movies. And 12 Angry Men is one of the latter.

NEXT UP: Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

One of those Good News, Bad News Situations

Bad: Getting a call from your apartment complex that your apartment might be flooded.

Good: Finding out that it's just a little bit of water leakage (and you don't have carpeting anyway).

Bad: The most significant damage is to your Creature from the Black Lagoon mini-poster, which is probably the first monster movie memorabilia you bought with your own money.

Amusing as Hell: The damage is that the plastic casing has filled with water, so the Gillman looks like he really is swimming (and oddly enough, the poster hasn't fallen off the wall).

Phoenix Comicon Schedule

Hey folks, Nate here. Just a quick post to let you know that I'll be on a couple of panels at Phoenix Comicon this weekend.

Thursday:

Not Another Remake! (Room 152, 8-9PM) -- Join Arizona's top Horror Film aficionados for a spirited discussion of the pros and cons of the Horror Film movement of remakes. Hot on the release of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake, the discourse is sure to be lively! Why so many remakes? Panelists: Danny Marianino, Nate Yapp, Jeff Dolniak, David Hayes

Saturday:

Japanese Monster Invasion (Room 153, 9-10PM) -- AZ's top Japanese Monster "Kaiju" experts examine the cross cultural phenomenon entrancing fans for years. From Godzilla and beyond and from the rise of the Kaiju in its earliest incantations to modern day interpretations. Panelists: Damon Foster, Nate Yapp.

The convention is taking place at the Phoenix Convention Center and memberships are still available at the Phoenix Comicon website. Hope to see some of you there!

52 Perfect Movies: The Wrong Man (1956)

"In the past, I have given you many kinds of suspense pictures. But this time, I would like you to see a different one."

Alfred Hitchcock is known primarily for his thrillers and suspense films, but this is a very different kind of Hitchcock film--which stands out as one of his very best, both for its distinction from much of the rest of the director's body of work, and also by virtue of being a damn fine motion picture.

Sure, The Wrong Man builds an almost unbearable amount of suspense, but in a very different way from many of Hitchcock's other works. This time around, the director tells the real-life story of Manny Ballestrero, a Stork Club musician and mild-mannered family man mistakenly sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. The majority of the powerful tension created here derives from the fact that we know Ballestrero is innocent, and are powerless to do anything but watch as he gets trapped tighter and tighter in a net of bad luck and circumstantial evidence.

But it's because of the magnificent performance of Henry Fonda that this whole ploy on Hitchcock's part works. The movie's ultimate good guy (well, until Once Upon a Time in the West), Fonda has boatloads of pathos in the role of the put-upon and unflappably virtuous Ballestrero, and we can't help but feel for the guy as things go from bad, to worse, to far, far worse. It's also a credit to both Hitchcock's direction, and the screenplay by Maxwell Anderson & Angus MacPhail, that somehow Ballestrero continues to act inadvertently as if he were guilty, even though he is not.

This character nuance rings true, and lends an air of realism to the proceedings. It also generates tremendous frustration, as the viewer takes in the worsening plight of the protagonist, mistaken for a stick-up man from a prior bank robbery, all the while agonizingly hoping someone will give him a break. Anderson, writer of such classic films as All Quiet on the Western Front, Death Takes a Holiday and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, as well as the original stage play of The Bad Seed, adapted the story from true events, and teamed with MacPhail--who had worked with Hitch a decade earlier on Spellbound--to create a maddeningly tense script worthy of the master of the nail-biters.

Joining Fonda is Vera Miles in the role of Manny's wife Rose. Also known to Hitchcock fans for playing sister to Janet Leigh in Psycho, Miles is utterly gripping in the role of a very flawed woman. Rather than play it all Hollywood, the film shows the true-life fallout of Ballestrero's plight and the effect it has on his spouse. Rose is a damaged character, and her arc, as brilliantly dramatized by Miles, is another testament to the unblinking realism of the picture. No easy way out here.

What I also enjoy about the film is its portrayal of ethnic Americans in a completely non-stereotypical fashion. Manny and Rose are Italian-Americans, and yet this is subtly downplayed throughout the picture, rather than played as some kind of broad character trait, whether for negative or positive effect. It's simply part of who they are, and only plays minimally into the story. When it does pop up, as with so much in the film, it rings completely true.

The movie is crisply shot by Robert Burks, Hitchcock's go-to man for much of the 1950s and '60s. Burks had shot Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief and The Man Who Knew Too Much prior to this, so he clearly had no trouble interpreting what his director wanted. And clearly his director was pleased, as he would go on to use him for Vertigo, North by Northwest, The Birds and Marnie.

Bernard Herrmann, another Hitchcock stalwart, turns in a stellar score, less string-heavy and more jazzy to reflect Ballestrero's profession. It's a blaring, jarring, yet also beautiful piece of music, perfectly accompanying Manny's trials and tribulations, and even foreshadowing what Herrmann would bring to the table 20 years later for his final film, Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Take Henry Fonda, one of the most beloved and well-liked actors of all time, team him with the man many consider the finest director of all time, and what you get is a film that is both touching and raw, suspenseful without being sensational. It deals with decent, everyday people, in very trying situations, all the more powerful because it really happened.

The Wrong Man is a film that is often overshadowed by Hitchcock's more sweeping, larger than life movies, or his more stylish, lurid and sexy potboilers. But it's one that should be sought out by film lovers, especially lovers of crime drama and post-World War II era cinema in general. And certainly by fans of Alfred Hitchcock, who thought enough of the picture to open it with a personal introduction.

NEXT UP: 12 Angry Men (1957)

52 Perfect Movies: Scrooge (1951)

"Can you forgive a pig-headed old fool with no eyes to see with, no ears to hear with, all these years?"

Does it seems a little odd to be writing about this film in the middle of spring? Possibly, but Leonard Maltin once declared that Brian Desmond Hurst's 1951 adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol was far too good to only watch at Christmastime--and he was absolutely correct. Far beyond your typical seasonal heartwarmer, Scrooge is nothing short of a timeless masterpiece.

It's also a film that is nearer and dearer to my heart than almost any other. For as long as I can remember, I have been watching it each and every year in December, and it's very possible I've seen it more times than any other motion picture. I can recite nearly every piece of Noel Langley's adapted screenplay by heart, drawing as it does quite faithfully from Dickens' original text. Its characters, from Kathleen Harrison's shrill yet endearing Mrs. Dilber to Ernest Thesiger's grimly hilarious undertaker, are like old friends I've known my whole life.

The very sound of Richard Addinsell's unmistakable score can instantly put me in a mood, and conjure up tangible, unshakable memories. No other adaptation of the classic Christmas tale even comes remotely close to the greatness of this one--in fact, quite honestly, although some are quite good, it almost feels like a pointless endeavor to watch any other when Hurst nailed it so perfectly in every way.

Why does it work so well? More than any other reason, the explanation lies in its lead actor: Alistair Sim in the role of Ebeneezer Scrooge--a revered British actor interpreting one of literature's most well-known characters, and somehow managing to make him a real, textured, living, breathing human. Unlike other versions, Scrooge here does not come off as an irredeemable soulless wretch whose transformation seems forced and trite; nor does he either seem like a really nice guy only pretending to be mean.

Rather, Sim's Scrooge contains both aspects equally, balancing them out in such a way that we buy him completely as the unfeeling skinflint, and rejoice with him in his later redemption, which is pulled off so expertly that it can still give me chills a third of a century after the first time I witnessed it. His performance imbues the film with heart, yet without schmaltz; more importantly than anything else, he is authentic.

Dickens' message of hope and joy is brought to life in a manner which somehow avoids both sentimentality and cynicism at the same time. Scrooge's heartbreaking relationship with his ill-fated sister Fan; the unflappable Bob Cratchit, played by Mervyn Johns, putting on a brave face for Tiny Tim; and perhaps more than anything else, the old humbug's reconciliation with his nephew Fred, as he embraces the daughter-in-law who reminds him of Fan, as the strains of "Barbara Allen" fill our ears. Even in the liberties it takes with Dickens' plot, there is not a single misstep. This is film magic at its best.

There's an even-handed subtlety at work here; unlike other adaptations, it never feels cartoonish, and also never becomes too dark. There's a tendency with this story to sometimes either play it too broad, or otherwise to give in to the urge to make it a full-on ghost story. Maybe Dickens meant it to be a bit grimmer than Hurst's version, but no matter; like the finest of screen adaptations, it takes the essence of the source and does something remarkable that's all its own. Something about this story has touched people for over a century and half, and this movie seems to totally understand what it is.

The film holds both wonder for a small child, with its moral lesson and flamboyant ghosts (Michael Hordern's sympathetic Jacob Marley stands out), yet it also offers much to adults--in fact, I can personally vouch that the experience of watching it changes it deepens with age. This film holds profound power over me, so much so that I find emotions welling up inside even simply writing about it.

It's usually Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life that is typically held up as the quintessential Christmas movie. And as amazing as that movie is, for me, Scrooge will always be the one, a movie that transcends the holidays to become a deep experience, not just a great Christmas movie, but a great film. In my family, it has always been a tradition to watch it, to cherish each and every scene, to grin and hold back tears in turn as every scene, every line plays out.

Charles Dickens blessed his fellow man with a tale that touches something universal in us, and this adaptation is its most perfect cinematic distillation. I encourage anyone who has never seen it to get a hold of it, and allow the awe-inspiring Alistair Sim to floor you with his spot-on screen presence and profound understanding of the character. Hold off until Christmas to see it if you like, but really, why wait?

NEXT UP: The Wrong Man (1956)

The Great Unwatched: The Stranger (1946)

Director: Orson Welles
Runtime: 95 minutes

Being married is a strange experience. Suddenly you have to justify a lot of things that you didn't even think about before. For instance, when I wanted to watch Orson Welles' The Stranger, there wasn't a question in my mind as to why -- a well-respected film-noir from one of the great directors? No problem. However, I'm having a stay-in weekend with my wife and so I had to pitch the movie to her. For her, a non-cinephile, the name Orson Welles meant little to nothing and the film's age was actually a strike against it. So I had to spin the plot (despite the fact that I haven't actually seen it) in such a way that it would intrigue her: a Nazi war criminal hiding out in small town America might get his cover blown by a wily investigator.

Of course, my story is true. What Professor Charles Rankin (Orson Welles) must tell his new wife isn't. Once upon a time, he was Franz Kindler, a Nazi war criminal who faked his own death and escaped to Harper, Connecticut. In this sleepy New England burg, he became Rankin, a history professor at a prestigious college. On the day he's set to wed Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young), two new faces come to Harper who could expose him: an old compatriot, Konrad Meinike, and an investigator for the Allied forces, Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson). Rankin disposes of Konrad, but Mary holds the only piece of evidence connecting the two. Wilson, who doesn't know what Kindler looks like, suspects that Rankin is Kindler, but without Mary's cooperation, it's just that... suspicion. Rankin, meanwhile, begins spinning lies to Mary that fit the facts but not the truth, even as Wilson explains to her exactly to whom she is married. As the two stories battle in her head, Mary becomes increasingly unhinged, something that proves a danger to Rankin's cover and, by extension, to Mary's life.

Welles was reportedly dissatisfied with The Stranger; the final cut wasn't his. The released version eliminated both an extended chase sequence between Meinike and Wilson in the first act as well as the original screenplay's flashback structure. What's left is still an effective thriller, with Welles doing his survival-oriented villain bit, which he would later perfect in The Third Man (1949).^* My wife, who brings a unique perspective to elements I might otherwise overlook, noted that there was about 15% more melodrama than necessary. She's probably right, but after years of watching films from this era, I'm almost entirely accustomed to it. The best part of the film is, of course, the tense climax in the clock tower, as Wilson, Mary and Rankin/Kindler attempt to, ah, settle their differences. Welles uses intense close-ups, painted with cinematographer Russell Metty's brilliant shadow-work, to create a palpable sense of tension.

In short, I dig The Stranger quite a bit. My wife... was less enthused, but she did concede that it was "neat."

Worth the Purchase: It was a gift from a dear friend, but I would have gladly paid for it.

"If we walk without rhythm, we won't attract the worm." - David Lynch's DUNE

At one point during Dune (1984), I forgot which David was directing. When the giant space slug slithers to the front of his special case and starts talking out of a vaginal mouth, I thought, "Yeah, this is totally Cronenberg." I didn't even realize the mental gaffe until I was preparing this brief blog post. David Cronenberg had no part in David Lynch's adaptation of the classic Frank Herbert novel and Lynch's been known to employ genital imagery from time to time (hello, Eraserhead). This has nothing to do with the rest of this post. Actually, the rest of this post has nothing to do with the rest of this post. Consider it largely a bunch of unrelated thoughts attracted by vibrations in the sand of my brain.

• Netflix Instant Watch only offers the theatrical version of Dune, which is David Lynch's, ah, preferred version. That is to say, he hasn't utterly disowned the theatrical cut, as he did with the three-hour television version. To put metaphorically, he's more apt to take a punch in the face than a kick in the balls. All available versions of the film have been tampered with to one degree or another and none seem to meet Lynch's ultimate vision (although he admits, "it's not like there's a perfect film sitting somewhere waiting to come out"). Still, I'm curious to see the longer cut, if only because it might clear up some confusion that the theatrical version must bear for being only two hours (and change) in length.
  
• It's kind of crazy how long Alicia Witt and Virginia Madsen have been working in movies. Witt was eight or nine when she filmed her part as Paul Atreides creepy little sister.
  
• I wish I had not been eating a brownie bite during the "bug juice box" bit.
  
• There's a lot of sci-fi visual gold in this movie, which largely makes up for its flaws as a story. I'm referring to the shield suits, the bluer-than-blue eyes, the sandworms (oft-imitated, never matched), and the aforementioned space slug. Still, it all feels very 80s.
  
• The ever-present thought narration gets tedious, especially since much of it communicates emotions or concerns already apparent from the thinker's facial expression.
  
• Sting says little, acts less. In one scene, he wears even less than that.
  
• Holy crap I had no idea how much random phrases and concepts from Dune (be it book or movie) had infiltrated pop culture. I always thought "the sleeper must awaken" was a Cthulhu thing. Whoops.
  
• The pain box sequence is gnarly and disturbed, even after having seen Don Coscarelli do it in Phantasm.

In conclusion, WTF:

52 Perfect Movies: Sunset Boulevard (1950)

"I am big. It's the pictures that got small."

Among the most utterly enthralling 110 minutes you will ever spend watching a motion picture would be those you spent giving yourself up to Billy Wilder's masterful slice of film noir, Sunset Boulevard. From beginning to end, you are encapsulated within the sordid cocoon of the world created by Wilder and his co-screenwriters, Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman Jr., a faded Hollywood where dreams go to die and souls are lost like so much spare change.

William Holden plays Joe Gillis, a down-on-his-luck screenwriter who consents to rework the script of a secluded, highly eccentric, washed up silent film actress looking to make a comeback. Along the way, he becomes something of a "kept man", or gigolo for her, residing in her sad, dilapidated mansion with her and her mysterious butler, Max.

A movie star of middling status during the 1940s, Holden was catapulted to major celebrity and the heyday of his career thanks to Sunset Boulevard. Playing the character of Max is Austrian director-turned-actor Erich von Stroheim, who instills the part with a fascinating ambiguity suited to the bizarre secret he holds.

In the role of forgotten 1920s celebrity Norma Desmond is none other than actual 1920s leading lady Gloria Swanson, who won an Academy Award for her efforts, and rightfully so. An actor whose own path in life somewhat mirrored that of the character she played, Swanson brought a startling authenticity to the role.

As Norma Desmond, Swanson plays a woman so wrapped up in her own former glory that she literally loses herself within the alluring folds of vanity's cloak. She is delusional to the point of psychosis, carrying herself with a level of histrionics that belies her Silent Era roots. And although the character is decidedly over-the-top, that's entirely the point--Desmond has become a caricature of her former self. Much like Brando's Don Corleone, this is a role that has been often parodied, but if you strip away all that, you will find that it remains a raw and powerful performance.

All the elements of noir are in place, sucking the helpless viewer further and further in as the tale unfolds. We have Joe's hard-boiled narration, delivered despite the fact that he is already dead in the film's opening scene. There's the picture's hardened cynical presentation of life and love, both made into mockeries by the harshness of reality. Sexuality is dealt with in a fashion that was quite frank for the time--a fact that led some better-known actors to turn down the part prior to Holden's casting.

The noir phenomenon in American film had been gradually fermenting over the course of the 1940s, and this film represents something of a high watermark for the subgenre. Like a pulp novel come to life, Sunset Boulevard is brimming with unforgettable dialogue and sharply drawn characters. It's also shot with brooding brilliance by John F. Seitz, a cinematographer whose roots stretched back to the earliest days of feature films. He helps undeniably to cement the film's stylized quality with a keen sense of light, and most importantly, shadow.

One of the true auteurs of the golden age of cinema, Wilder is at his very best here, in what is arguably his finest hour. An Eastern European transplant who broke into Hollywood as a screenwriter in the 1930s, had made a name for himself as a director in the '40s with films like Double Indemnity (1944) and The Lost Weekend (1945), and would later distinguish himself with an astounding string of classics that includes Sabrina (1954), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960). Although nominated for Sunset Boulevard as both a director and writer, it would ironically be for his script that he won.

And what a script it is. One of the hallmarks of film noir is the importance placed on clever, fast-paced dialogue, and this film has it in spades. The twisted relationship of Joe and Norma is at the center of all the goings-on, and naturally, the scenes Holden and Swanson share are the highlights of the film.

Sunset Boulevard is the kind of film that stays with you. It's the kind of film that makes you forget everything while it's playing, makes you sit perfectly still in rapt attention, and as the credits roll after the gut-punch finale, makes you sit back and say, "That was one hell of a movie." Ready for a "close-up" that will never happen, the delusional Desmond waltzes towards us, her self-fabricated world in shambles, as we look on--dazed, spent, shaken to our core.

One hell of a movie.

NEXT UP: Scrooge (1951)

Dexter: You Don't Need CGI for an Uncanny Valley

I recently started watching Dexter Season 1 via Netflix Instant Watch. My wife caught these episodes when they originally aired back in 2006, so she's been guiding me through, making sure I watch during crucial sequences (as I am occasionally less than focused). It never ceases to amaze me how a woman who claims that she has no love for horror or gore can watch (and even obsess) over shows like Dexter, Supernatural, and CSI: Some City. But I'm getting off topic (see what I mean about focus?).

Five episodes in, I'm really digging this show, and it largely has to do with Michael C. Hall's carefully layered performance as Dexter Morgan, forensics specialist by day, serial killer of serial killers by night. A key component of Dexter is that he is playing a character, or rather, characters -- affable co-worker to the Miami PD, caring boyfriend to Rita (Julie Benz), and supportive big brother to Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter). The genius of Hall's performance is that we never see him playing those parts. Hall plays Dexter, troubled sociopath, and then lets Dexter do the rest of the acting. This apparent disconnect gives an eerie unreality to the friendly faces that Dexter puts on, one that hits the proverbial "uncanny valley" usually reserved for purely visual media (i.e. the closer something gets to looking human without actually being human, the more disturbing it is).

Dexter isn't a normal person. He doesn't have the responses to stimuli that a normal person would have. He has to fake all of these things and over the years, he's gotten quite good at it. As an audience we know it's all a show, so we're more apt to look for the places where he gets it wrong, but the achingly skin-crawling truth is that he really doesn't. He's dead-perfect, except... somehow he isn't. There's some element, some intangible tell that gives him away to those "in the know." The more effort he puts into being normal, the more subliminally discomfiting he becomes -- and the hardest part is that no-one around him (save an angry, suspicious cop named Doakes) seems to see it. Just watch Dexter as he apes a playful surrogate father figure to Rita's two children and tell me you don't get the screaming heebie jeebies.

Here's a quick promo video that appears to be from the show's first season:

52 Perfect Movies: White Heat (1949)

"Made it Ma--top of the world!"

By the end of the 1940s, it had been years since James Cagney, once the ultimate movie gangster, had portrayed one on screen. Attempting to branch out as an actor and show all that he was capable of doing, Cagney had sidestepped pigeonholing and moved on to many other diverse parts. And yet, after enough time had passed, Warner Bros. was finally able to lure Cagney back to the genre that put him --and to a certain degree, the studio--on the map.

In doing so, Cagney created what is undoubtedly his most nuanced and fascinating gangster role, and most likely the greatest of his career, period. It makes sense that he would have held out for all those years, until such a plum part came along. Unlike previous racketeers he had played, like The Public Enemy's Tom Powers, who are guys relatively decent at heart that come to a bad way of life due to unfortunate circumstance, Cody Jarrett is a full-on psychopath, rotten to the core.

Watching Cagney dig into the part with relish is amazing. Jarrett is a bona fide monster, and yet Cagney plays him in such a fascinating, magnetic fashion that he never comes off two-dimensional or unbelievable. In fact, a good argument could be made that Cagney was one of the first to bring true naturalism to cinematic acting. Cagney's Cody Jarrett paves the way for James Caan in The Godfather, and especially Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. In that way, White Heat may be the beginning of the modern gangster film.

A demented, murdering bandit, Jarrett is famously coddled by his sinister mother, played sharply by Margaret Wycherly. The relationship is a twisted one, an unhealthy prolonging of the maternal influence, mixed together with Jarrett's amoral criminality to form an unforgettably warped character. By his side is the beautiful Virginia Mayo playing the archetypal gangster's moll, Verna--a hard woman who goes head-to-head with Ma for Cody's affections.

And speaking of Ma, it is her death that leads to the moment in this film that may be Cagney's defining scene. Upon discovering of her passing while in jail, Jarrett launches into an animalistic frenzy in the middle of the prison cafeteria, collapsing utterly into a subhuman mass of unreasoning pain and sorrow. There is nothing pretty here, no stylized dramatic presentation--make no mistake, this is raw stuff. And it demonstrates Cagney's absolute mastery of the acting craft.

Our director is Raoul Walsh, who had previously directed Cagney in The Roaring Twenties 10 years earlier, and had done another great gangster picture, They Drive By Night, with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart. Walsh seems intent on remaking the genre that had proven so popular during the 1930s, instilling a much darker edge, and also a bizarre fixation on technology that is probably very much in line with America's post-war tech obsession heading into the 1950s.

The writing team of Ben Roberts and Ivan Goff turned in the screenplay--these guys were personal favorites of Cagney's, and it's easy to see why. They deliver a script that is rich and layered, presenting the criminal element in a way far less romantic than what had been seen before. It's no wonder Cagney would use them again, including a few years later for his Lon Chaney biopic, The Man of a Thousand Faces (and in a totally random note, this same team would go on to create Charlie's Angels some 25 years later...)

One interesting aspect of Roberts and Goff's script, however, is the challenge of presenting undercover FBI agent Hank Fallon, who befriends Jarrett and joins his gang, only to turn him over to the feds. By post-modern standards, this character would be considered a rat and a heel, but in 1949 this simply would not have been permitted by the Hays Code, not to mention that mainstream American society hadn't yet developed that deep-seated and sanctioned contempt for authority. So instead, Fallon is a stalwart hero, doing his duty to take a vicious killer off the streets. It's an unusual take for those used only to modern gangster movies and their unbridled glorification of the criminal, but it works.

As for the climactic scene at the factory, any lover of film has at least a passing familiarity with Cody Jarrett's standoff, in which he utters the famous line at the top of this post. It's a powerful scene, literally ending in a gigantic explosion that spells the end of James Cagney as movie gangster. The movie itself also acts as a transition from the classic gangster pictures of old, presaging the much grimmer, bleaker, gangster cinema to come, populated with unhinged, violent sociopaths.

NEXT UP: Sunset Boulevard (1950)