Hold Back the Dawn (1941 Mitchell Leisen)

Coincidentally, we watched three films involving marriage.

The first was a cracking early Wilder / Brackett screenplay (credited as from a story by Ketti Frings, though Brackett's diary revealed they hadn't used it and were angry; she also wrote the screenplay to The File on Thelma Jordan) - in fact it was as a result of Leisen and Boyer's treatment of Wilder's material that pushed him into becoming a director.

Mexico. Charles Boyer callously marries schoolteacher Olivia de Havilland to gain entry to the US, where he can continue 'dancing' with Paulette Goddard. The enclave of hopeful refugees is perhaps inspired by Wilder's time in Paris with a similar assortment of internationals (fugitives from the Nazis). I didn't know any of these actors, though Victor Francen was in dozens of other films. One of the hopefuls for entry, a pregnant lady, pulls off a smart and most enjoyable trick.

Great writing of course, e.g. immigration cop Walter Abel answering Paulette's new non-American speaking sugar daddy's "How do you do?" with "Very well thanks, sucker!"

Ph. Leo Tover, ed. Doane Harrison. Paramount.

The Heartbreak Kid (1972 Elaine May)

For a Neil Simon comedy, the next film is strangely lacking in laughs.

Charles Grodin hastily marries Jeannie Berlin and quickly regrets it as she is the most annoying woman in the world (Q. found her egg salad eating scene "disgusting", though that's perhaps what triggered my hard boiled egg breakfast the next morning). On the honeymoon he meets a gorgeous Cybill Shepherd on an empty beach ("You're lying in my spot") in one of two standout photographic scenes in the film, with the sun behind her head, dazzling him.

It looks like Owen Roizman is using fast film and overall produces a pleasing grainy, contrasty image, which also allows him to create the second standout scene of the couple lit (it seems) entirely by firelight, worth the price of admission alone:

Eddie Albert and Audra Lindley are the parents who don't approve.

You have to feel for the new wife though, when she's finally dumped.

It ends where it begins.

Arsenic and Old Lace (1941, released 1944 Frank Capra)

Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane have also just wed in Capra's black comedy (one of the first?), based on a hit play by Joseph Kesselring and adapted by Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein. In fact this is why the film's release was delayed, as Warner Brothers were obliged to let the play complete its Broadway run first. (This reminds me of Jeanne Calment, who at the age of 90 sold her apartment to a 47 year old lawyer in return for a monthly sum, allowing her to live there until she died. She lived to 122, two years after the lawyer, having been paid twice the value of the apartment.)

It's surely Cary Grant's funniest and most energetic performance - as though he's been directed by Tex Avery. As for the aunts, Q says she wants to walk (how would you describe it - a sort of dainty skip?) like Josephine Hull and Jean Adair when she's older.

I always forget it's a Halloween film in which leaves are constantly falling and night draws in, giving Sol Polito fun with candles and low light scenes.

Raymond Massey (or is it Boris Karloff?) is genuinely scary as evil brother (great makeup of course by Perc Westmore). John Alexander brilliant as the 'President' (the line he delivers to Jack Carson, "Let that be a lesson to you", occurs in more than one Capra); also with Peter Lorre, Edward Everett Horton and Grant Mitchell.

"Let that be a lesson to you!"

It is still very very funny, e.g. Grant's ?ad lib to Lorre: "Stop underplaying"!

Great score by Max Steiner. Ed. Daniel Mandell.

Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993 Steven Zaillian & scr)

Writer Zaillian's debut as director: I can't help feeling that this wonderfully cinematic film owes a lot to Conrad Hall's cinematography, in choice of shot sizes (lots in close up) and pointing the camera "at the story". It also of course features his distinctive lighting style, with naturally ocurring pools of light, not lighting the obvious subject, sometimes leaving the actors in more shadow than they would like. (Note the scene where the fathers are waiting for the contest results: a door opens at the end of a shadowy corridor, we're in long shot and almost lean forward to try and make out which of the boys has emerged / been knocked out). This influence is from Conrad's mentor Ted McCord, who would spend ages carefully lighting the background, leaving the front with a simple key light and fill.

Most cameramen would light the competitors...

Great cast: the chess playing champ is Max Pomeranc; plus Joe Mantegna, Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishburne, David Paymer, Robert Stephens (Wilder's Sherlock Holmes), William H. Macy, Dan Hedaya, Laura Linney and Austin Pendleton!

Music James Horner. Skilful editing by Wayne Wahrman
From a book by Fred Waitzkin about his real life chess champion son Josh.

Who would think a film about chess could be so exciting?

Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978 Ted Kotcheff)

Because of screenplay by Peter (Charade) Stone, novel Nat and Ivan Lyons.

George Segal, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Morley, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Philippe Noiret.

Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Pierre Cassel

Bisset and George Segal

The direction's the problem, both of the actors and the uncertainty of tone.

There's certainly no problem with John Alcott's shimmery photography however.

Gigi Proietti and Jacqueline Bisset at Venetian fish market

No Way to Treat a Lady (1967, rel. 1968 Jack Smight)

Watched this on TV one night with Adam, aged 14 (31 March 1978). I was surprised not only that his parents stayed up for it too but that they obviously found it very enjoyable, no doubt as much for Eileen Heckart's quintessential Jewish mother (hilarious) as for Rod Steiger's outrageous performance as a serial killer.

George Segal and Lee Remick make an attractive couple. Her eyes are so blue, they're almost frightening.

Confession by "midget" Michael Dunn to Segal one of many laugh out loud moments.

Great fun. Adapted by John Gay from William Goldman's novel.

I'm not Rappaport (1996 Herb Gardner & scr.)

Although with its long dialogue scenes this occasionally feels like the play that it was, it's wonderful overall and Gardner's a bit of an unknown genius. Matthau's anti-establishment figure is almost an older version of the Thousand Clowns character, and we really feel for them both. It's also very funny.

Walter Matthau (76) Ossie Davis (79) Amy Irving, Craig T Nelson, Martha Plimpton, Boyd Gaines.

Central Park really well caught; feeling of indifferent city when Matthau collapses chilling. The incidental sax score is by none other than Gerry Mulligan.

ph. Adam Holender (clearly a New York cameraman: Midnight Cowboy and Smoke).

Knowing how much Gardner contributed to A Thousand Clowns (as recounted in editor Ralph Rosenblum's fascinating book When the Shooting Stops) you can bet he was much involved in the editing also.

The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005 Judd Apatow)

scr. Judd Apatow and Steve Carell

Steve Carell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogan, Romany Malco, Leslie Mann, Jane Lynch ("In a New York minute!"), Gerry Bednob, Kat Dennings (2 Broke Girls)

ph. Jack Green (Eastwoods)

Watched 17 min. extended version, too long as are all modern comedies. A quantum leap from Remember the Night - what would 1940 audience make of it?

A lot seems improvised and thus it must have been a difficult film to edit (Brent White: This is 40, Funny People, Knocked Up).

"Age of Aquarius" ending feels like they couldn't finish it properly.

Laughed a lot.

Remember the Night (1939, released 1940, Mitchell Leisen)

If ever there was a film to make you say "Aw, shucks!", this is it.
Written by Preston Sturges.

Nice DA Fred MacMurray eventually falls for bad girl Barbara Stanwyck. Beulah Bondi is mom, Snowflake the help.

Preston Sturges must have liked Fred 'Snowflake' Toones as he cast him when he directed Palm Beach Story

ph. Ted Tetzlaff, mus. Frederick Hollander, ed. Doane Harrison. Paramount, of course

La Piscine (1969 Jacques Deray, not a name I know)

Romy Schneider, Alain Delon (so cool), Maurice Ronet (Lift to the Scaffold, Le Feu Follet), Jane Birkin

It's our kind of holiday, only without the unwelcome guests and murder. A chilly film, for one so sunny. I wonder if the book Jane's reading ("the headmistress did it") is a reference to Les Diaboliques?

People keep bringing food on trays.

mus. Michel Legrand

Winter's Bone (2012 Debra Granik)

The American Academy went nuts over this, nominating it for best film, screenplay (Granik & Anne Rosellini), for Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes ('Teardrop') (both great).

The British Academy ignored it completely.

Like Beasts of the Southern Wild it shows the poor, grimy side of American life (here, Missouri) shot by Michael McDonough with what feels like a non-professional cast. I'd certainly seen that squirrel in something before.

I daresay this Jennifer person might end up with some sort of career. I didn't realise she was in The Burning Plain.

It was engaging.

 

Spies of Warsaw (2013 Coky Giedroyc)

I'm glad we persevered with SPIES OF WARSAW thru virus as it turned out to be rather good, although Wojciech Szepel (Any Human Heart, no less) did overlight the exterior night scenes.

scr. Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais; novel Alan Furst.

David Tennant, Janet Montgomery (Dancing on the Edge), Marcin Dorocinski, Linda Bassett (Lark Rise, Nick Nickleby etc.) & Allan Corduner (the refugees), Anton Lesser (German doctor, The Hour), Richard Lintern (White Heat, Shadow Line), Fenella Woolgar (Poirot, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Jekyll), Tuppence Middleton (Lady Vanishes), Julian Glover (General who likes lunch).

Rob Lane's slightly jazzy score was his first: what a bastard.

That intiguing just pre-war period.

Nice font on subtitles too!

Peyton Place (1957 Mark Robson)

Still feeling virusy, PEYTON PLACE ticked all the required boxes: a long, colour, 50s or 60s melodrama (most of the Sirks were too familiar).

Lana Turner, Lee Phillips, Lloyd Nolan (doctor), Arthur Kennedy (the villain), Russ Tamblyn, Terry Moore ('fast' girl), Hope Lange (villain's daughter), Diane Varsi (Lana's daughter).

Professional ph. by William Mellor (though feel small problems in transfer of Cinemascope print).
mus. Franz Wasserman

Moves along briskly in hands of director former editor. Rape scene powerful. Liked soldier gag "I dug a foxhole so deep it was almost desertion".

They could have simply told mother to check their wet bathing suits.

Charade (1963 Stanley Donen)

Finally the time was right for CHARADE which has a very funny script by Peter Stone. "Let me know what you're eating and I'll wear a suit to match".

Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy, Ned Glass, Jacques Marin (Marathon Man). The little boy is not from Belle and Sebastian.

Great score by Mancini includes an atonal chord which seemed to set the way for jazzy thrillery music like Dirty Harry, with vibes etc.

Jim Clark edits trendily, cutting in a modern sixties style, using the device where a conversation continues over different locations (probably quite innovative, though I daresay Zazie had already done it). Also love the expert cutting on pillars as Grant chases Hepburn at end.

An alternative end would have been if the stamp dealer had said "No, I've never seen this boy and didn't buy any stamps".

The stamps are real ones, but raised by a value of one (for some odd reason).

Charles Lang's photography looks great on BR, back projection good (an unfortunate side-effect of BR is to expose the poorness of a lot of back-projection). And I like the reverb on voices when they go through tunnels, and background sound fading when they face to face in orange passing scene.

Zodiac (2007)

The true life Zodiac killer was an inspiration on Dirty Harry (which is briefly referenced - that they would make this film with the real killer still at large is surprising) and for me this is Fincher's most engaging work to date, hampered a little by mumbling and/or poor sound mixing.

Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo (Shutter Island, The Kids are Alright), Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, John Carrol Lynch (the supposed killer: Crazy Stupid Love, Shutter Island), Chloe Sevigny and many other good supporting actors.

Harris Savides lights the decades evocatively (in Panavision):

Angus Wall's editing provides momentum when you need it.

Ultimately though, because the killer's identity is never absolutely confirmed, it's a little disappointing for the audience, including the Cannes Jury, who didn't give it the Palme D'Or.

Good period detail.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012 David O. Russell & Scr.)

Rather acerbic and shouty when feeling virusy; thankfully it has a happy ending, an ending which actually feels a bit too clichéd (the whole bet thing is ridiculous).

Jennifer Lawrence deservedly won Oscar and key players (Russell, Bradley Cooper, de Niro, Jacki Weaver) were nominated. Also with Chris Tucker, Anupam Kher, Julia Stiles, John Ortiz, Paul Herman

ph Masanobu Takayanagi (Pan.) mus. Danny Elfman

The Titfield Thunderbolt (1952, rel. 1953, Charles Crichton)

Proof that two men can push a steam train comes in THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT, the gentlemen in question being train enthusiast vicar (played with gusto by George Relph) and Bishop Godfrey Tearle. Stanley Holloway and Hugh Griffith are the boozers (a long list of charges brought against them by the police is funny), with John Gregson, Sid James, Naunton Wayne, Gabrielle Brune, Reginald Beckwith, Jack MacGowran and moustachioed Michael Trubshawe on hand.

Can see why there are steam enthusiasts. Glowingly shot by Douglas Slocombe with minimal back projection, music Auric, editor Seth Holt. Also imaginative fade from Western to James plotting.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010 Michael Apted)

Georgie Henley, Skandar Keyes, Ben Barnes, Will Poulter (Son of Rambow, Wild Bill) is charismatic.

Reepiceep brilliantly animated and unrecognisably voiced by Simon Pegg; Aslan seems all wrong though.

Manages not to muck up the book (my favourite of the Narnias). And therefore is most enjoyable.

ph. Dante Spinotti, Panavision. So much CGI that I doubt there was any actual sea etc. Even that well-trained dragon probably isn't real.