How About 139 Worthwhile Movies? Part Three

Why another list of old movies?

With the Biograph Theatre’s 40th anniversary celebration on Saturday, February 11, in mind, my instinct to promote good movies has been reawakened.

The 139 movies on the entire list all played at Richmond’s Biograph during my 139-month stint as its manager. For convenience the list has been broken up into three posts. Two weeks ago I posted the first 40 titles from the list. Last week I posted the second group of 40 favorites. This week’s post covers the remaining 59.

Hopefully, this effort represents a fair overview of the sort of movies that were staples at art houses and revival theaters during what was the Golden Age of Repertory Cinema. Let’s say that was from 1966, or so, through about 1981.

The Biograph opened in February of 1972 and closed in December of 1987, two months shy of its 16th anniversary. After it closed, both the 20th and 30th anniversaries were celebrated with lively parties open to the public. After this year’s celebration next month you’ll either be telling stories about being there, or you’ll be hearing stories from those who were. At this writing tickets are still available.Title, (Release Year), * Indicates a Richmond Premiere

“Midnight Cowboy” (1969): Color. (1969): Directed by John Schlesinger. Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Brenda Vaccaro. Note: For its unflinching exposure of characters usually in the shadows, this then-X-rated view of street life was a breakthrough in its day.

“Monterey Pop” (1968): Color. (1968): Directed by D.A. Pennebaker. Performers: Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Simon and Garfunkel, The Mamas and Papas, Otis Redding. This music festival documentary established the genre.

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1974): Color. Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. Cast: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle. Note: The previously unearthed, humorous parts of King Arthur’s search for the Holy Grail are revealed.

“Mr. Hulot’s Holiday” (1953): B&W. Directed by Jacques Tati. Cast: Jacques Tati, Nathalie Pascaud. Note: Tati’s whimsical films establish a category of their own. In this one the ever bumbling Mr. Hulot, Tati’s disheveled everyman, visits a wacky seaside resort.

“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939): B&W. Directed by Frank Capra. Cast: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains. Note: This idealistic take on down-and-dirty politics in Washington may seem corny. Does it still make you cheer for Smith? Of course it does.

“My Dinner With Andre” (1981)*: Color. Directed by Louis Malle. Cast: Andre Gregory, Wally Shawn. Note: Is it better to spend your life searching the world over, to find universal truths? Or, is it best to know one city, perhaps a neighborhood, absolutely.

“My Man Godfrey” (1936): B&W. Directed by Gregory La Cava. Cast: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Eugene Pallette. Note: This Screwball Comedy proves that the genre was at its best during The Depression, while laughing bitterly at class warfare’s absurdities.

“Napoleon” (1927): B&W. Directed by Abel Gance. Cast: Albert Dieudonné, Vladimir Roudenko, Edmond Van Daële. Note: The tale of resurrecting Abel Gance’s masterpiece from the ash heap is almost as fascinating as this ancient film is eye-popping.

“Nashville” (1976): Color. Directed by Robert Altman. Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Lily Tomlin, Henry Gibson, Karen Black, Shelley Duvall, Keith Caradine. Note: An offbeat, cynical look at 1970s American society, as seen through the window of the country music industry.

“Network” (1976): Color. Directed by Sidney Lumet. Cast: Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, William Holden. Note: The future of cable television’s soon-to-be-seen excesses in bad taste is anticipated with chilling accuracy. Both Finch and Dunaway won Oscars.

“Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1962): B&W. Directed by Robert Enrico. Note: Based on an Ambrose Bierce story about the Civil War, this stylish short French film originally appeared to American audiences as an episode of The Twilight Zone in 1964.

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975): Color. Directed by Milos Forman. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Danny DeVito. Note: This zany look inside the walls of the loony bin offers the viewer plenty of laughs to wash down the indignities and tragedies.

“On the Waterfront” (1954): B&W. (1954): Directed by Elia Kazan. Cast: Marlon Brando, Lee J. Cobb, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Steiger. Note: The Academy threw eight Oscars at this gritty classic that asks — who deserves loyalty and what constitutes betrayal?

“Papillon” (1973): Color. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. Cast: Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Victor Jory. Note: Wrongly convicted, Papillon ends up in a hellish penal colony in French Guiana. Impossible as it seems, escape is all he can think about.

“The Passenger” (1975)*: Color. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider. Note: Set in North Africa, a bored reporter suddenly decides to assume a dead gunrunner’s identity. The unusual last scene is quite memorable.

“Paths of Glory” (1957): B&W. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Cast: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou. Note: In the trench warfare stalemate of WWI, the search for glory becomes a fool’s errand. Blame-shifting trumps mission. Loyalty evaporates.

“Performance” (1970): Color. Directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg. Cast: James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg. Note: A cruel gangster on the run hides out from trouble in a strange, drug-filled mansion with a faded rock star and his girlfriends.

“Phantom of the Paradise” (1974): Color. Directed by Brian De Palma. Cast: William Finley, Paul Williams, Jessica Harper. Note: This campy rock ‘n’ roll version of “The Phantom of the Opera” throws in some Faust and lots of laughs. It’s strange but it works.

“The Philadelphia Story” (1940): B&W. Directed by George Cukor; Cast Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart. Note: Although the typical screwball plot that mocks the filthy rich may seem ordinary, the dialogue and performances are anything but.

“Point of Order” (1964): B&W. Directed by Emile de Antonio. Note: This documentary was made with kinescope footage from the famous televised Army-McCarthy Hearings in the Senate in 1954. Welch to McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

“The Producers” (1968): Color. Directed by Mel Brooks. Cast: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars, Dick Shawn. Note: Brooks’ first feature film laughed at Nazis in a way never imagined. Mostel and Wilder are so audaciously funny it ought to be illegal.

“Psycho” (1960): B&W. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Martin Balsam. Note: Nervous Norman tries to be a good boy, but his demanding mother is hard on him. Misfortunate Marion is tired and wants to take a shower. Uh-oh…

“Putney Swope” (1969): Color and B&W. Directed by Robert Downey Sr. Cast: Stan Gottlieb, Allen Garfield, Archie Russell. Note: This strange but hilarious send-up of Madison Avenue was Downey’s effort to crossover from underground films to legit.

“Rancho Deluxe” (1975): Color. Directed by Frank Perry. Cast: Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston, Elizabeth Ashley, Slim Pickens. Note: A duo of cattle rustlers in a pickup truck search for fun in modern day Montana in this offbeat and funny update of cowboy movies.

“Rashoman” (1950): B&W. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori. Note: This mystery, set in the Middle Ages, is told with flashbacks from different perspectives. Thus, the complicated nature of truth is examined.

“Rebel Without a Cause” (1955): Color. Directed by: Nicholas Ray. Cast: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo. Note: Yes, this teens-in-trouble melodrama is somewhat overwrought. Still, Dean’s way of inhabiting a character remains fascinating to watch.

“The Red Balloon” (1956): Color. Directed by Albert Lamorisse. Cast: Pascal Lamorisse, Sabine Lamorisse, Georges Sellier. Note: Using little dialogue, this utterly charming 34-minute French fantasy follows a boy and his balloon friend along the streets of Paris.

“Repulsion” (1965): B&W. (1965): Directed by Roman Polanski; Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser. Note: A beautiful young woman with the dead rabbit in her purse wallows in paranoia and descends into madness. You won’t forget this one.

“The Return of the Secaucus Seven” (1979)*: Color. Directed by John Sayles. Cast: Bruce MacDonald, Maggie Renzi, Adam LeFevre. Note: Before “The Big Chill” (1983), perhaps a better film with much the same hippie-days-reminiscing hook was produced.

“Rollerball” (1975): Color. Directed by Norman Jewison. Cast: James Caan, John Houseman, Maude Adams. Note: Crush individuality in a future with a few corporations running everything; combine hockey, roller derby and cage-fighting. You get Rollerball.

“Roman Holiday” (1953): B&W. Directed by William Wyler. Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck. Note: A bored princess runs away, looking for adventure. She falls for an American journalist. Everyday story? No, but this modern fairy tale has oodles of style.

“Sabrina” (1954): B&W. Directed by Billy Wilder. Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden. Note: A lightweight romantic comedy, but don’t worry about how silly the plot is. With Hepburn’s striking visage lighting up the screen, who cares?

“Seven Beauties” (1975)*: Color. Directed by Lina Wertmüller. Cast: Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler. Note: Caught in a war, what, if anything, will captives refuse to do, if they want to survive? This drama/black comedy takes you there.

“The Seven Samurai” (1954): B&W. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Cast: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Yoshio Inaba. Note: When bandits terrorize a peasant village in 16th century Japan, samurai warriors are recruited to fend them off. An epic ensues.

“Slaughterhouse 5” (1972): Color. Directed by George Roy Hill. Cast: Michael Sachs, Ron Leibman, Valerie Perrine. Note: “Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time,” Kurt Vonnegut wrote about his character. In WWII in one minute, on another planet the next.

“Spellbound” (1945): B&W. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Leo G. Carroll. Note: Something is fishy at the mental institution and somebody is covering it up. The spooky dream scenes were designed by Salvador Dali.

“Stagecoach” (1939): B&W. Directed by John Ford. Cast: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Thomas Mitchell, Andy Devine. Note: With this saga that throws travelers together, to face peril, Ford made a star of Wayne and created a template for all Westerns to follow.

“Stage Door” (1937): B&W. Directed by Gregory La Cava. Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Lucille Ball. Note: The wisecracks bounce off of every surface in this Screwball Comedy about would-be actresses living in a boardinghouse.

“Stalag 17” (1953): B&W. Directed by Billy Wilder Cast: William Holden, Otto Preminger. Note: In a WWII German prison camp, most of the captives plot to escape, endlessly, except for one cynical sergeant who trades with the guards. Is he the traitor?

“State of Siege” (1972)*: Color. Directed by Costa-Gavras. Cast: Yves Montand, Renato Salvatori. Note: An American undercover agent who teaches the police in Uruguay brutal interrogation techniques is captured and put on trial by guerrillas. Who are the villains?

“A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951): B&W. Directed by Elia Kazan. Cast: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Karl Malden. Note: After directing this Tennessee Williams masterpiece on Broadway, Kazan adapted the play set in New Orleans to the silver screen … Stel-lah!

“The Stranger” (1967): Color. Directed by Luchino Visconti. Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Karina. Note: Mastroianni is brilliant as Arthur Meursault, the detached protagonist of Albert Camu’s story of crime and punishment set in Algeria.

“Sunset Blvd.” (1950): B&W. Directed by Billy Wilder. Cast: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim. Note: For a young struggling writer, down on his luck, why not coast for a while? Why not facilitate the batty fantasies of a rich old movie star?

“T.A.M.I. Show” (1964): B&W. Directed by Steve Binder. Performers: the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Lesley Gore and more. Note: Rare concert footage of young pop stars.

“Taxi Driver” (1976): Color. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Cast: Robert DeNiro, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, Jodie Foster. Note: This amazing portrayal of an alienated veteran’s decent into madness is still as eye-popping and haunting as it was 36 years ago.

“The Thin Man” (1934): B&W. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke. Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy. Note: This is the first of a series of six films about the sleuthing, drinking and wisecracking of dashing detective Nick Charles and his comely sidekick/wife Nora.

“The Third Man” (1949): B&W. Directed by Carol Reed. Cast: Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Alida Valli. Note: This elegant film noir mystery, set in crumbling post-war Vienna, is pleasing to the eye and stylishly cynical. Hey, no heroes here, but great music.

“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (1969): Color. Directed by Sydney Pollack. Cast: Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Gig Young. Note: A Depression era melodrama about desperate characters participating in a dance marathon contest that borders on torture.

“A Thousand Clowns” (1965): B&W. Directed by Fred Coe. Cast: Jason Robards, Barbara Harris, Martin Balsam. Note: A social worker investigates the rules-bending circumstances in which a boy lives with his iconoclastic uncle, an unemployed writer.

“To Have and Have Not” (1944): B&W. Directed by Howard Hawks. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan. Note: In Bacall’s debut, Bogie is a cynical American expatriate who gets dragged into taking sides in WWII. Plot sound familiar?

“To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962): B&W. Directed by Robert Mulligan. Cast: Gregory Peck, Brock Peters, Robert Duvall. Note: A perfect adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about little girl learning from her father’s battle for justice and dignity.

“Touch of Evil” (1958): B&W. Directed by Orson Welles. Cast: Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Janet Leigh. Note: This noir-ish, crime melodrama, set on both sides of the American/Mexican border, is so chock full of weird characters it feels like a cartoon.

“Traffic” (1971) Color. Directed by Jacques Tati. Cast: Jacques Tati, Marcel Fraval, Honoré Bostel. Tati’s last feature has Mr. Hulot battling with gadgets to do with motor vehicles. Tati’s films are physical comedies and his sense of humor is like no one else’s.

“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948): B&W. Directed by John Huston. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt. Note: Three down-on-their-luck drifters, almost strangers, throw in together to prospect for gold in Mexico. Problems ensue.

“Wait Until Dark” (1967): Color. Directed by Terrence Young. Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna. Note: This taut thriller pits brave and blind Audrey against the vilest of hoodlums in her apartment. Warning: Don’t let anyone reveal the spoiler!

“Who’ll Stop the Rain?” (1978)*: Color. Directed by Karel Reisz. Cast: Nick Nolte, Tuesday Weld, Michael Moriarty. Note: A merchant marine reluctantly agrees to mule some heroin back to the USA for a journalist friend. It turns out to be a woefully bad idea.

“Wild Strawberries” (1957): B&W. Directed by Ingmar Bergman. Cast: Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin. Note: Traveling to accept an honorary degree, an old doctor dreams and reminisces about the turns in the journey his life has taken.

“Wise Blood” (1979)*: Color. Directed by John Huston. Cast: Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton, John Huston. Note: An adaptation of a Flannery O’Connor story about an Army vet, self-styled street preacher’s wacky efforts to fit into a world of shadows and scams.

“Z”  (1969): Color. Directed by Costa-Gavras. Cast: Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Irene Papas. Note: A political assassination’s cover-up in Greece spawns a compelling based-on-truth whodunit, with sudden plot twists, all told at a furious pace.Tha, tha … that’s all folks!

How About 139 Worthwhile Movies? Part Two

Why another list of old movies?

With the Biograph Theatre’s 40th anniversary celebration next month in mind, my hope is that a reader might be persuaded to take a chance on watching one or two on this list. The movies all played at Richmond’s Biograph during my stint as its manager.

Last week I posted the first 40 films on the list. This week’s post covers the next 40 titles.

Hopefully, this effort also represents a fair overview of the movies that were staples at art houses and revival theaters during what was the Golden Age of Repertory Cinema. Let’s say that was from 1966, or so, through about 1981.

The Biograph opened in February of 1972 and closed in December of 1987. The Fan District was a bit behind the curve, but it was in the game.

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Title, (Release Year), * Indicates a Richmond Premiere

“Duck Soup” (1933): B&W. Directed by Leo McCarey. Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Margaret Dumont. Note: With Rufus T. Firefly in charge of the tiny country, flush from a fat loan from Mrs. Teasdale, what could possibly go wrong? War.

“East of Eden” (1955): Color. Directed by Elia Kazan. Cast: James Dean, Julie Harris, Raymond Massey. Note: This adaptation of the Steinbeck novel provided the role that launched Dean’s meteoric career. Only six months after its release he was dead.

“8½” (1963): B&W. Directed by Federico Fellini. Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée. Note: A film about making a film, but fret not about making sense of it. Just watch as Fellini dazzles you with unforgettable characters and images.

“Elmer Gantry” (1960): Color. Directed by Richard Brooks. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy, Dean Jagger, Shirley Jones. Note: Lancaster’s riveting, Oscar-winning portrayal of a salty traveling salesman, turned evangelist, is unforgettable.

“Eraserhead” (1977)*: B&W. Directed by David Lynch. Cast: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph. Note: Is it all a moody but meaningless dream? Is it an experimental, fantasy flick? Or, is it a tongue-in-cheek spoof of haughty art movies?

“A Face in the Crowd” (1957): B&W. Directed by Elia Kazan. Cast: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Lee Remick. Note: An early warning about television’s potential to boost a charismatic personality into power. Andy is a scary good villain.

“Farewell, My Lovely” (1975): Color. Directed by Dick Richards. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland. Note: Mitchum is perfect as Raymond Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlowe, in this faithful flashback to film noir’s heyday.

“Forbidden Games” (1952): B&W. Directed by René Clément; Cast: Brigitte Fossey, Georges Poujouly, Amédée. Note: The toll of mechanized war, as seen by small children who can’t grasp what’s happening around them, is stunning in this anti-war classic.

“Five Easy Pieces” (1970): Color. Directed by Bob Rafelson. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Sally Struthers. Note: A gifted pianist works oil fields and shacks up with a waitress to escape the expectations of his upper crust family. Then push comes to shove.

“The 400 Blows” (1959): B&W. Directed by François Truffaut. Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy. Note: This story’s deft portrayal of a brave boy’s yearning for dignity in an indifferent world kicked in the door for the New Wave’s filmmakers.

“The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” (1971)*: Color. Directed by Vittorio De Sica. Cast: Dominique Sanda, Lino Capolicchio, Fabio Testi. Note: With WWII approaching, why did wealthy, well educated Jews stay in Germany and Italy? This film provides answers.

“Gilda” (1946): B&W. Directed by Charles Vidor. Cast: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready. Note: Set in Argentina, everyone has too much baggage in this slick film noir classic. Rita, the songstress, stops the show by merely peeling off her gloves.

“Gimme Shelter” (1970): Color. Directed by Albert Maysles and David Maysles.  Performers: The Rolling Stones, the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Tina Turner and more. Note: A documentary with much concert footage and one murder.

“The Godfather” (1972): Color. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Cast: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden. Note: Power, turf and family are at the heart of this quintessential mob saga. In other words, it’s about sincere payback.

“The Godfather II” (1974): Color. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Cast: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, John Cazale, Diane Keaton, Lee Strasberg. Note: Together, The Godfathers, Part I and Part II, received 22 Oscar nominations. Both won Best Picture.

“Grand Illusion” (1937): B&W. Directed by Jean Renoir. Cast: Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim. Note: With the imagined glory of war waged honorably by proper gentlemen falling out of style, this classic spotlights the folly of modern warfare.

“Grapes of Wrath” (1940): B&W. Directed by John Ford. Cast: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Ward Bond. Note: This stirring story of Dust Bowl victims, a family pursuing a California dream of honest work, is still quite effective.

“The Great Escape” (1963): Color. Directed by John Sturges. Cast: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson. Note: McQueen is at his antihero best in this somewhat true WWII story about prisoners of war plotting a massive escape.

“The Harder They Come” (1972)*: Color. Directed by Perry Henzell. Cast: Jimmy Cliff. Note: In this Jamaican production, Cliff is Ivan, a pop star/criminal on the lam. This movie paved the way for the explosion of interest in reggae music in the mid-1970s.

“Harold and Maude” (1971): Color. Directed by Hal Ashby. Note: Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort. Note: This off-beat comedy presents a whimsical story about an unlikely pair — an alienated, faux-suicidal rich boy and a feisty old lady. They both like funerals.

“Harry and Tonto” (1974): Color. Directed by Paul Mazursky. Cast: Art Carney. Note: Put out of his building in Manhattan, a retired teacher, Harry, and his orange cat, Tonto, go on a cross-continent journey. Carney’s performance won the 1975 Oscar for Best Actor.

“High Noon” (1952): B&W. Directed by Fred Zinnemann. Cast: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Lloyd Bridges. Note: The contrasts are vivid. Shadow or light? Happiness or duty? Community or self interest? Honor or whatever is the opposite? Life or death?

“His Girl Friday” (1940): B&W. Directed by Howard Hawks. Cast: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy. Note: The pace of this gem about cynical newspaper reporters is nonstop. The rare comedic timing between Grant and Russell is impeccable.

“The Hustler” (1961): B&W. Directed by Robert Rossen. Cast: Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, George C. Scott. Note: This beat parable, featuring pool sharks, gamblers and lost souls, follows a charming fool’s meandering quest for perfection.

“The Incredible Shrinking Man” (1957): B&W. Directed by Jack Arnold. Cast: Grant Williams, Randy Stewart, April Kent. Note: What about unanticipated dangers of new technologies? Primitive special effects don’t hurt this off-beat sci-fi flick’s charm.

“The Informer” (1935): B&W. Directed by John Ford. Cast: Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston Foster. Note: This film noir precursor depicts a betrayal within the ranks of the Irish Republican Army. Dark and pitiless, it’s about facing brutal choices in 1922.

“La Jetée” (1962): B&W. Directed by Chris Marker. Cast: Davos Hanich, Hélène Chatelain, Jen Négroni. Note: A stunning example of how less can be way more. This short New Wave classic about memory, imagination, longing and time is unforgettable.

“King of Hearts” (1966): Color. Directed by Philippe de Broca. Cast: Alan Bates, Geneviève Bujold, Pierre Brasseur. Note: The first movie to play at the Biograph was a zany French comedy, set amid the harsh but crazy realities of too much war.

“Lacombe, Lucien” (1974)*: Color. Directed by Louis Malle. Cast: Pierre Blaise, Auroe Clement, Holger Lowenadler. Note: How does a naive, nihilistic teenager in France, just looking for a way to fit in, end up running with the Nazi invaders? Hey, why not?

“The Last Detail” (1973): Color. Directed by Hal Ashby. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, Randy Quaid. Note: Two old salts draw chaser duty to escort a young sailor to the brig. Feeling sorry for the luckless kid, a petty thief, they take a few last-chance detours.

“The Last Picture Show” (1971): B&W. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Cast: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd. Note: This adaptation of the Larry McMurtry novel is a coming-of-age story set in a dusty little Texas town, as its cinema dies.

“Last Tango in Paris” (1972): Color. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Cast: Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider. Note: A young woman and a middle-aged widower meet. Spontaneously, for no good reason, a passionate affair takes off like a runaway train.  

“Lonely Are the Brave” (1962): B&W. Directed by David Miller. Cast: Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau. Note: To help his friend, a free-spirited cowboy flings himself recklessly at the hobbling effects of modernity … then tries desperately to escape. 

“The Maltese Falcon” (1941): B&W. Directed by John Huston. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet. Note: With his first effort as a director, Huston brought Dashiell Hammett’s detective story about a mysterious sculpture to the silver screen.

“Manhattan” (1979): B&W. Directed by Woody Allen. Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway. Note: Woody Allen has consistently made worthwhile movies. Most have been funny enough. So far, he’s made at least one great film. This is it.

“M.A.S.H.” (1970): Color. Directed by Robert Altman. Cast: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Sally Kellerman. Note: This cynical comedy about doctoring in the field, near the pointless battles of the Korean War, is funnier than the television show that followed it.

“McCabe & Mrs. Miller” (1969): Color. Directed by Robert Altman. Cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie. Note: With Altman, gambling, prostitution and power struggles in the Old West take on a different sort of look. More grit. Less glory. All random.

“Mean Streets” (1973): Color. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Note: Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel. Note: This produced-on-a-shoestring-budget feature about awkward street hoodlums in New York’s Little Italy put Scorsese, De Niro and Keitel on the map.

“Medium Cool” (1969): Color. Directed by Haskell Wexler. Cast: Robert Forster, Verna Bloom. Note: Questions about the proper role of journalists are posed in this docudrama that includes real riot footage shot in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention.

“Mephisto” (1981)*: Color. Directed by István Szabó. Cast: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Krystyna Janda. Note: As the Nazis ratchet up their control of all aspects of German life, with his smartest friends fleeing the country, an actor feels trapped in his role.

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The third and final post for this list of 139 top shelf art house flicks will go up next week. It will include the remaining 59 titles with appropriately opinionated notes.

The list of 139, in its entirety, is included in my collection of stories lifted from the days of the Biograph Theatre in Richmond, Virginia. Click here to read more of “Biograph Times,” a work in progress.

British Period Piece Recommendation (Non- “Downton Abbey” Division): Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

After thumbing through various reviews of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), I realized that I fell within the roughly 50% that adored the film. Those in the other aisle not only failed to love the film, they simply could not stomach it. And the result of their discomfort could be universally found in one reason: Tinker Tailor is slow. Very slow. Even reviewers who lauded the film (and I am in that class) admit this.  Yet I see no reason why films cannot produce pleasing results even if they move at greatly reduced velocities. 

Directed by the Norwegian Tomas Alfredson, of Let the Right One In (2008) fame, and based on the famous John le Carre spy novel, Tinker Tailor is an acquired taste.  The essentials of the plot are not too difficult to grasp.  Rumor has it that a mole actively works within the inner circle of the British Secret Service, known as the Circus.  Recently retired/sacked George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is brought back to uncover this man, if he does indeed exist.  Yet within such a narrative that might invite frenzied and hurried action, I cannot recall a single frenetic scene. No one quickly dashes through a public square filled with pigeons or engages in well choreographed fisticuffs.  Beads of sweat emerge not through physical exertion, but from nervous tension.  Alfredson does a terrific job of building such tension by pulling back on the reigns rather than letting his horses trample through his shots.  One of the best spy scenes I have seen in years occurs when Smiley’s young assistant, Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), is asked steal a log book from headquarters.  Perfectly measured, the scene executes a wonderful level of nervous inaction.

One of the main reasons that I did not mind the frequency of inaction was that Alfredson put so much into the inaction.  I was impressed with his eye and style in Let the Right One In, and I am even more hopeful of his future endeavors based on what I saw in Tinker Tailor, his first English language piece.  Alfredson possesses an odd, distinctive style.  His scenes are perfectly cluttered with stuff: ashtrays, decanters, briefcases, notebooks.  His shots are beautifully rendered still life paintings of British professional class life in the 1970s.  Furthermore, Alfredson uses small, enclosed spaces, yet presents them as spacious on-screen.  Even his outdoor settings have people moving against large flat backgrounds that seem to press up against the actors and the camera lens.  Everything and everyone is being trapped or squeezed.  No one can breathe let alone escape. 

Alfredson explicitly plays into the film’s theme of vision and why people do or do not see what they should.  Many things remain hidden and out of sight, often because the characters refuse to see.  Karla, the ghostly KGB agent never appears on-screen.  We are only told that he is “short.”  Maybe he is too small to actually see.  Smiley wears huge spectacles, but cannot clearly see the damaging course that his boss is taking.  Likewise, Smiley cannot (more likely refuses) to bear witness to his wife’s infidelity.  Alfredson never allows us a good look at Smiley’s wife.  We are as blind as he.  Guillam’s male lover is similarly kept blurry and out of focus.  The personal is sacrified in favor of the professional.  Of course, the professional duties seem as personal, if not more so, to the collection of British agents than any other familial or romantic bonds. 

Alfredson also was also blessed with an exceptional cast.  (Many of the actors have obviously graduated to government work after being denied tenure by Hogwarts.)  I do not mean to dismiss Alfredson’s role, but with Oldman, Cumberbatch, John Hurt, Ciaran Hinds, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, David Dencik, Tom Hardy, and Mark Strong, Alfredson must have felt like Pep Guardiola managing Barcelona FC.  Role the ball out onto the pitch and let the lads do what they do best. Indeed, it might be utterly fair to claim that the this cast does nothing special at all.  Of course, average work from this lot is still pretty damn good.

Oldman was particularly impressive in his first lead role in years.  He begins as a rather old, doting figure and seems sad that he never made more of his life, personally or professionally.  Yet his quest to find the mole and redeem himself and his mentor, John Hurt’s Control (who is rarely in control), invigorate him.  Smiley becomes younger and stronger, more assertive and confident.  The final shot of Smiley assuming Control’s seat in the Circus seems perfectly triumphant.

It took Smiley a long time to get there, and it takes the film a long time to conclude (127 minutes), but similar to Smiley, I was rewarded by the slow pace.  Not every spy flick needs a shot of Matt Damon or George Clooney running around and panting .  Oldman and this crew can do just as well by conserving their energies for other tasks, like acting.

How About 139 Worthwhile Movies? Part One

Why another list of old movies?

With the Biograph Theatre’s 40th anniversary celebration on the horizon, my lofty hope is that a reader might be persuaded to take a chance on one or two on this list, titles they’ve previously overlooked or forgotten about. In other words, once a know-it-all promoter of supposedly gourmet films, always such. It can’t be helped.

You see, I spent so many pleasant hours in my office sanctuary at the Biograph, reading about old movies, choosing double features and writing film notes that the urge to promote what I believe to be worthwhile flicks is still irresistible. When I see a good one on Netflix, these days, I can’t resist urging friends to check it out.

Why 139 movies?

Needed to pick a number, so this makes one film for each month I worked at the Biograph, from December 1971 (two months before it opened) through June 1983 (when I resigned). The titles on this list all played at the Biograph during my stint as its manager. So this isn’t the same thing as a list of my all-time favorites, which would include lots of movies that never played the Biograph.

Hopefully, this particular list represents a fair overview of the range of movies that were staples at art houses and revival theaters during what was the Golden Age of Repertory Cinema. Let’s say that was from 1966, or so, through about 1981 — roughly, a decade-and-a-half. Richmond’s Biograph closed in December of 1987.

And, of course, this list provides a handy source of movie trivia. With foreign language films, in most cases, I’ve used the convenient translation for the title. Exceptions to that rule were made when the foreign film is better known in this country by its original title. Like all the favorite films lists I’ve made, this one represents my favorites today.

So, some of the movies I might have liked a lot 30 or 35 years ago, that now seem less worthy, didn’t make the cut in 2012. As this overview of movies was compiled and crafted several changes from the first draft were made. Note: All favorites lists must be obedient to the mood of the moment.

To make this list with film notes easier to digest, I’m going to post the first 40 titles this week, then 40 more next week and then the rest of them the third week.

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Title, (Release Year), * Indicates a Richmond Premiere

“The African Queen” (1951): Color. Directed by John Huston. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn. Note: With WWI reaching a German colony in Africa, salty boat captain Charlie and prim missionary Rose are thrown together for a wild ride.

“Aguirre: The Wrath of God” (1972)*: Color. Directed by Werner Herzog. Cast: Klaus Kinski, Ruy Guerra, Helena Rojo. Note: A bizarre but fascinating look at accumulating madness, Conquistador-style, in search of a dream … by way of a river of danger.

“Alfie” (1966): Color. Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Cast: Michael Caine, Shelly Winters. Note: Set in swinging ’60s London, narrator Alfie tells the story of his convenient affairs of the heart. It’s the story of a charming young cad, constantly on the make.

“All About Eve” (1950): B&W. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders. Note: Bette is at her bitchy best in this peek behind Broadway’s elegant curtains. Marilyn Monroe as the quintessential ditz sparkles.

“Amarcord” (1974)*: Color. Directed by Federico Fellini. Cast: Bruno Zanin, Magali Noël. Note: A nostalgic but fanciful glance back at growing up in a small Italian port, with its eccentric townsfolk, during the era of Fascist rule before WWII.    

“American Graffiti” (1973): Color. Directed by George Lucas. Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Candy Clark. Note: A wistful glance at choices made in the process of coming of age in pre-JFK assassination times. The oldies soundtrack works to perfection.

“The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz” (1974)*: Color. Directed by Ted Kotcheff. Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Micheline Lanctôt, Jack Warden. Note: Pushy, social-climbing Duddy is in an awful hurry to become a player, a somebody — a Boy Wonder.

“Bang the Drum Slowly” (1973): Color. Directed by John D. Hancock. Cast: Robert De Niro, Michael Moriarty, Vincent Gardenia. Note: A genuine oddity — a good movie about pro baseball players that even viewers who don’t care about baseball can love.

“The Battle of Algiers” (1966): B&W. Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. Note: This account of the nasty tactics employed by both hardheaded sides during the Algerian revolution is part suspenseful documentary, part staged flick. It will tattoo your mind.

“Belle Du Jour” (1967): Color. Director: Luis Buñuel. Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli. Note: Beautiful Severine loves her successful husband. With him she’s frigid. Her kinky fantasies lead her to the oldest profession … only by day.

“Between the Lines” (1977)*: Color. Directed by Joan Micklin-Silver. Cast: John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, Jeff Goldblum. Note: The anti-establishment era in which an alternative newspaper was hip is winding down. The quirky staff wonders, what next?

“Black Orpheus” (1959): Color. Directed by Marcel Camus. Cast: Breno Mello, Marpressa Dawn. Note: This utterly charming film is the retelling of a Greek myth, set during Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. It won the 1960 Best Foreign Film Oscar.

“Blazing Saddles” (1974): Color. Directed by Mel Brooks. Cast: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman. Note: Unrestrained lowbrow, dirty-joke humor is at its cockeyed best in this mockery of formula Western movies.

“Blow-Up” (1966): Color. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Cast: David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles. Note: With England’s Mod scene in the background, a cocky fashion photographer stumbles onto a murder mystery … or does he?

“Das Boot” (1981): Color. Directed by Wolfgang Petersen; Cast: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann. Note: Submarine warfare during WWII, from the standpoint of the crew who manned Germany’s U-96 in a hell of deep water.

“Bread and Chocolate” (1974)*: Color. Directed by Franco Brusati. Cast: Nino Manfredi, Anna Karina. Note: An Italian immigrant in Switzerland, trying to make a living and keep his dignity, bumbles his way through this class warfare comedy.

“Breaker Morant” (1980)*: Color. Directed by Bruce Beresford. Cast: Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown. Note: This terse Australian film, set during the Boer War, is about how malleable truth can be in war, once politics overwhelm stark realities.

“Breaking Away” (1979): Color. Directed by Peter Yates. Cast: Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern. Note: Set in a college town, this class-conscious story uses its young protagonist’s bike-racing obsession to frame larger questions about society.

“Breathless” (1960): B&W. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg. Note: An opportunistic thief on the lam becomes irresistible to a pretty American journalism student in Paris. Uh-oh, the guy is dangerous. How long can it last?

“Cabaret” (1972): Color. Directed by Bob Fosse. Cast: Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Joel Grey. Note: A striking glimpse at the decadent German nightlife scene in 1931, with Nazis coming into power. Then again, it’s a dynamite musical and Liza was never better.

“The Caine Mutiny” (1954): Color. Directed by Edward Dmytryk. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson, José Ferrer, Fred MacMurray. Note: A nice adaptation of the Herman Wouk novel about a mutiny at sea in WWII. Contrived, or necessary?

“Carrie“ (1976): Color. Directed by Brian De Palma. Cast: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta. Note: Shy and telekinetically gifted Carrie finally runs out of patience with her rotten mother and the popular kids at school who taunt her. Payback!

“Casablanca” (1942): B&W. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid. Note: Africa. Rick and Ilsa. Paris! Nazis. Victor. La Marseillaise! Major Strasser. Escape. Fog. Captain Renault. Beautiful friendship.

“Cat Ballou” (1965): Color. Directed by Elliot Silverstein. Cast: Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Michael Callan, Dwayne Hickman. Note: Nat Cole and Stubby Kay sing the narration to this slapstick Western spoof. Lee Marvin won an Oscar for his dual roles. 

“Cat People” (1942): B&W. Directed by Jacques Tourneur. Cast: Simone Simon, Kent Smith. Note: The first of the Val Lewton productions at RKO was an imaginative, stylish but cheap horror movie. This precursor to film noir was hugely influential.

“Un Chien Andalou” (1929): B&W. Directed by Luis Buñuel. Note: A 16-minute early effort to adapt surrealism to film that is the result of a collaboration between Buñuel and his artist pal, Salvador Dali. It both stunned and outraged audiences in its day.

“Chinatown” (1974)*: Color. Directed by Roman Polanski. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston. Note: The dark story of a dogged detective, who won’t let go of a murder mystery, unfolds in pastel colors. Maybe as close to a perfect movie as it gets.

“Citizen Kane” (1941): B&W. Directed by Orson Welles. Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore. Note: The meaning of a powerful, lonely man’s last word enlarges into a mystery. Flashbacks reveal a life driven by lusts and obsessions.

“City Lights” (1931): B&W. Directed by Charlie Chaplin. Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee. Note: Silent movies were passé in 1931, but not with perfectionist Chaplin, who shot the pivotal scene with the blind flower girl 342 times.

“A Clockwork Orange” (1971): Color. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates. Note: This rather stupefying, yet prescient, look into the violent future of popular culture was seen as over-the-top in its time.

“The Conformist” (1971)*: Color. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin. Note: A visually stunning look at Italy, with Mussolini in power, with old class distinctions melting away and betrayal in the air. 

“The Conversation” (1974)*: Color. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Cast: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Cindy Williams. Note: The secrets of a professional eavesdropper and a murder mystery are peeled away in layers in this brilliant character study.

“A Day at the Races” (1937): B&W. Directed by Sam Wood. Cast: The Marx Brothers,  Maureen O’Sullivan, Allan Jones. Note: Dr. Hugo Hackenbush hurls wisecracks at everybody in sight, and the horse they rode in on. Great jitterbugging dance numbers.

“Day for Night” (1973): Color. Directed by François Truffaut. Cast: Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, François Truffaut. Note: An engaging look at the process of making of a movie, with the private lives of the cast and crew intermingling with the production.

“The Day of the Locust” (1975): Color. Directed by John Schlesinger. Cast: Donald Sutherland, Karen Black, William Atherton, Burgess Meredith. Note: Adapted from the Nathanael West novel about the lure of stardom in Hollywood and the same old road to hell.

“Days of Heaven” (1978): Color. Directed by Terrence Malick. Cast: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard. Note: A love triangle rooted in deception develops in a dreamy film so striking to watch that the plot hardly matters, until something goes wrong.

“The Deer Hunter” (1978): Color. Directed by Michael Cimino. Cast: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Savage, John Cazale. Note: This war story pulls pals lose from their familiar blue collar moorings, to be cast into unimagined horrors.

“Dinner at Eight” (1933): B&W. Directed by Georg Cukor. Cast: John Barrymore, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Lionel Barrymore. Note: A tight script brimming over with sarcasm and social commentary from the Depression Era’s school of laughs.

“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972)*: Color. Directed by Luis Buñuel; Cast: Fernando Rey, Paul Frankeur, Delphine Seyrig. Note: Probably prankster Buñuel’s most accessible film, this dream within a joke, within a dream, sparkles with its dry wit.

“Dr. Strangelove…” (1964): B&W. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Cast: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens. Note: Surprisingly, this outrageous, nuke-mocking black comedy worked like a charm at the height of the Cold War.

*

Next week, look for another 40 titles from the list of 139. This piece is part of a collection of stories lifted from the days of the Biograph Theatre in Richmond, Virginia. Click here to read more of “Biograph Times.”

(Possible) Recommendation: Hugo

In an earlier recommendation, I described The Muppets (2011) and two other autumn releases, Hugo (2011) and The Artist (2011), as attempting to conjure up memories of prior art and entertainment.  While I lauded The Muppets, I could not comment on the other two.  My extended winter vacation finally provided me the space and time to see one of the other films, Hugo; however, more than ten days after seeing it, I still do not know if I want to recommend it.  Hugo obviously surpasses The Muppets in many areas, yet, despite numerous technical and visual accomplishments, I cannot remember having fun at any point while viewing Hugo.  (On the other hand, I all remember from The Muppets is having fun.)

Hugo’s greatest achievement is the gorgeousness of the cinematography and flawlessness of the editing: two trademarks of nearly every Martin Scorsese directed film.  Scorsese luxuriates over the Paris train station and the labrynthine clock tower in which the film’s action takes place.  Whether Scorsese directs our gaze to the internal workings of the station or the external view, nearly every shot is beautifully rendered. 

The orphaned Hugo (Asa Butterfield), the young boy who keeps the machinery of the clock operating smoothly and succinctly, ambles through gears and mechanisms, climbs up precarious ladders, and crawls through ominous tunnels.  Indeed, he appears safe and comfortable within the confines of the machine.  Only when he ventures outside into the streets of Paris do we see him as vulnerable.

Of course Hugo is always vulnerable.  He is an orphan and has the most gloriously heart-breaking blue eyes imaginable.  Any cheesy pick-up lines that expound upon the beauty of someone’s eyes actually apply to Butterfield’s baby blues.  They shimmer with beauty and communicate his innocence and inner virtue.

In the end, we know that Hugo will be alright because the gruff silent film director George Melies, played by a gruff Ben Kingsley, will bely his uncaring exterior and show himself to have a kind, tender heart.  We know that Hugo will be alright because Melies’s god-daughter Isabelle, played by the Jodie Foster-ish Chloe Grace Moretz, will take a shine to him as an object of young romance.  We know that Hugo will be alright because the film, in the midst of all of its visual brilliance, fails to tell an interesting story or produce interesting characters, all of whom are so terribly predictable.  Scorsese even managed to mangle a role played by the incomparable Sacha Baron Cohen, who played the dastardly gendarme.  Given Cohen’s prior roles, it would appear difficult to make him dull, but Hugo does just that. 

Everyone ends up happy, and everything works out for the best.  Hugo finds a family.  Melies finds redemption.  And everyone else finds love, but I did not care because Hugo never allowed me to care.  The film announced its narrative from the beginning, so there was no need to see it through.  And yes, most narratives are predictable.  I had little doubt that Kermit and his gang would emerge victorious in The Muppets, but at least I remained interested in the fates of the characters in The Muppets.  The most damning criticism that I have of Hugo is that I stopped caring about the characters even though the camera made their visages gorgeous.

Despite what I see as its narrative hollowness, I cannot not recommend Hugo.  The film’s technical aspects as well as its ideas of merging art and science, inspiration and precision, and magic and machinery make a wonderful thesis for a film studies paper.  Scorsese and his film clearly love the origins of the art of cinema.  And Hugo does offer up new ways of looking at older art. 

I actually believe that Scorsese does a wonderful job of figuratively filming the inside of the camera.  The constant focus on clocks, cameras, automatons, and various other mechanisms represent an effort to climb inside the machine that produces cinema.  Scorsese wants to see how it operates and produces its magic. The examination of the production of film and why we are entranced by it easily reprsents the films most fascinating aspect, and it has kept me pondering the meaning of film in and of itself.

However, that examination does not make for a great film; it could very well have been a wonderful Master’s thesis or an excellent journal article.  Hugo simply does not perform the very cinematic actions it seeks to celebrate.   

My final summation of Hugo can be found in the scene in which Isabelle sees a film, a Harold Lloyd silent picture, for the first time.  As Lloyd crawls out onto the ledge of a building and dangles from a clock’s minute hand (a famous scene that is deliberately referenced later), Isabelle clutches Hugo’s arm.  She is lost in and enthralled with the moving images before her.  Never once while watching Hugo did I share Isabelle’s emotions. 

The Biograph’s 40th

On its 40th anniversary, the Biograph Theatre, or perhaps something akin to its reanimated spirit, will serve up a pair of highly acclaimed films as a double feature.

In other words, the James River Film Society will present “Breathless” — a 50th anniversary restoration 35mm print, no less — and “Lonely Are the Brave” at the VCU Grace Street Theater on Saturday, February 11, 2012.

“Breathless” (1960): B&W. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg. Note: An opportunistic thief on the run becomes irresistible to a pretty American journalism student in Paris. Uh-oh, the guy is dangerous. How long can it last?

“Lonely Are the Brave” (1962): B&W. Directed by David Miller. Cast: Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau. Note: To help his friend, a free-spirited cowboy flings himself recklessly at the hobbling effects of modernity … then tries desperately to escape.

“Breathless,” based on a story by François Truffaut, did much to set the French New Wave in motion. “Lonely Are the Brave,” with its screenplay by blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, was an apt American reaction to the artsy European films of that time.

For the JRFS, this special event will kickoff a three (or more) part series titled The Golden Age of Repertory Cinema. It will also serve as a fundraiser for the volunteer run nonprofit and an opportunity to officially launch its campaign to establish a small storefront cinema in downtown Richmond.

Soon more information on the event will be available, including the scoop on the post-screening party, plenty of background on Richmond’s Biograph (1972-87) and the essential how-to-buy-advance-tickets details.

Please note: Only 225 seats will be occupied once the light hits the screen. So, if you want to be there that night, mark your calendars. And, when the advance tickets become available, be smart — don’t wait.

The JRFS’s Biograph 40th Anniversary Celebration Facebook event page is here.

Screening Recommendation: I Am

I realize that is post comes with rather short notice, but I wanted to put it out there nonetheless. Sonali Gulati will be screening her award-winning film I Am in Richmond tonight (Friday, 16 December 2011) at 1708 Gallery.  Doors open at 6:00 p.m., and the film starts promptly at 7:00 p.m.  Gulati will also be gracious enough to answer questions following the screening.

I have not yet seen the film, so I am in the unenviable position of writing about something of which I have little knowledge.  However, all the reviews and critical acclaim surrounding Gulati’s work have made me anxious to finally see it.  And I now have my chance.  Furthermore, as a current Richmonder, Gulati allows me to dine as a cinematic locavore. Support finely crafted cinema created by local artists.  See I Am.  For more info contact the 1708 Gallery.

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Five Film Favorites: Gun Fights

I have not yet worked out the ethical dilemma of how I can find certain forms of violence so mesmerizing and, yes, entertaining in cinema while knowing that those same forms of violence, when they occur in real life, have such devastating and harmful consequences.  I assume that the technology of cinema itself holds the key to unlocking this problem. And I probably need to dig deeper into the writings of Walter Benjamin.  But before I do that, let us move on to my favorite cinematic gun fights.

This particular list does not represent my favorite films that have gun fights. Instead, I have chosen my five favorite individual scenes in which gun fights are the governing logic. A better title for the piece might have been “gun duels” because I have limited the notion of the “gun fight” to small number of individuals, two to five. As a consequence, long drawn out action sequences with multiple shooters were not considered in this category. Had they been, this would have simply been a list of Peckinpah scenes. (He still makes one appearance on this list.) This list of five favorites is only meant to capture solitary gun duels, not action sequences or battles.

I recognize that my list is predmoninantly Western driven, but I suppose that the gun fight as narrative climax itself is rooted in the Western, at least in terms of American cinema. And to be honest, I am more partial to the Western than other genres that would be likely to possess gun fights. (And, yes, I realize that I left High Noon off my list.) For those of you who enjoy mob films and John Woo, please feel free to add your favorite scenes in the comments.  So finally, without further ado .  .  .

Jimmy Stewart vs Lee Marvin (vs John Wayne) in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) – Directed by John Ford

I cannot recall any scene in any Ford film that I enjoy more.  The two opposing forces, Stewart and Marvin, are at their absolute best.  Moreover, this entire scene has been perfectly set up.  Stewart, the emasculated Easterner wearing his dishwasing apron, feebly engages the violent, toxically manly Marvin.  The film comes back to this scene to illuminate how Wayne, of course, saved the day.  This is a wonderful scene in what is most likely my favorite Western of all time.

Gene Hackman vs Richard Harris in Unforgiven (1992) – Directed by Clint Eastwood

My favorite gun fight from Eastwood’s best and most complete film (as both an actor and director) is not the famous final scene in which Eastwood’s Will Munny tells Hackman’s Little Bill that “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”  Rather, it is a scene  in which a shot is not fired. 

Hackman gives a loaded pistol to English Bob’s biographer.  In seeking to create that mythologized western duel for his own selfish, artistic purposes, the writer attempts to hand the pistol to the imprisoned Harris.  Hackman, grim and determined, keeps his hand close to his holster, and eventually, after a long deliberation, Harris refuses to take the pistol.  The scene ends with Hackman taking the pistol back and emptying the bullets onto the ground.  Thudding on the wooden jailhouse floor, the bullets echo with the ominous tones of violence.  Harris appears thoroughly defeated, Hackman stands triumphant, and a trigger was never pulled.

Clint Eastwood vs Lee Van Cleef vs Eli Wallach in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) – Directed by Sergio Leone

Well, Eastwood is in this scene, the penultimate gunfight in Leone’s “Fistful of Dollars” trilogy.  The shooting and gunplay are nothing special, but Ennio Moricone’s brilliant score and Leone’s frantic camera work and his continual insistence on close-ups make this scene satisfying.  I remember playing this particular scene for students in various classes, and the students grew anxious as the music played and the camera panned around the combatants.  Leone was always good at making us wait, sometimes to a fault.  This scene is an appropriate conclusion to the trilogy.

Vincent Perez and Jeremie Renier vs Aurelien Recoing in Demain des l’aube (2009) – Directed by Denis Dercourt

This is my one non-Western scene on the list.  In this scene from a well crafted French film, two brothers, Renier’s Paul and Perez’s Mathieu, have become entangled in the sordid world of Napoleonic War re-creationists. (Hell, who among us hasn’t?)  The villainous Captain Deprees, played by Recoing, is most likely responsible for the murder of the brothers’ mother, and a Napoleonic era duel is seen as a resolution. 

I saw this film at The Byrd as part of the French Film Festival, and Recoing was in attendance that evening.  When his character was shot and possibly killed, the American audience cheered and applauded.  I imagine that his thoughts at that moment ranged from “Stupid Americans” to “Oh no!”

Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea vs John Anderson, James Drury, and Warren Oates in Ride the High Country (1962) – Directed by Sam Peckinpah

I could not very well have a list of gunfights and not include a single Peckinpah scene.  The scene is lovingly rendered, as much as any deadly gun fight can be lovingly rendered.  Peckinpah clearly yearns to recapture a lost era of the Western just as McCrea and Scott, as lawmen long in the tooth, look to recapture their former youth and glory.  Everyone dies, and life moves on: a fitting conclusion to the cinematic gun fight.

Five Film Favorites: Christmas Movies of the Damned

Happiness is a TV set in Douglas Sirk's devastating "All That Heaven Allows".

The Christmas season is a boom time financially for Hollywood, and it’s also when moviegoers get that soggy glow in their eyes as they remember their holiday favorites. It’s A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, Holiday Inn, The Shop Around the Corner… good movies, some great movies, and movies that celebrate the spirit of the season. Nothing wrong with that.

But we all know people who loathe the Christmas season, who see it more as a “time when the greedy, give a dime to the needy” (in Bob McDonough’s acerbic lines.) They don’t want to live in a world of diabetes-inducing candy canes, polyester-clad Santas, and music that bores into your brain like a worm in an apple. Me, I love the holidays, but I can’t ignore that they are also a time of great hypocrisy, of grotesque materialism, a season that is often cruel for the lonely.

So instead of a list of great Christmas movies that raise your spirits, here’s a list of cynical movies that examine the darker, twisted, brown-needled side of the tree.  There’s actually quite a few movies that take place on Xmas, like Die Hard, and movies that go directly against the spirit of the season, like the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise. But for the movies below, Christmas is an integral and often ironic part of the plot, and that’s what makes the cut even more painful. Because for some of us, that’s a lot more fun than Jimmy Stewart thanking Bedford Falls.

5. Gremlins (1984, d: Joe Dante.) I can’t get away from the fact that this very mainstream movie, a big hit in 1984, is a great Christmas movie, in the absolute darkest sense. Perhaps it’s a bit of a cliche to include Gremlins here, since everyone knows it’s a rip on the holidays. So what? Just because Gremlins is the best doesn’t mean you leave it off the list. Look, the little beasts themselves are perfect, and I personally love how Dante twists even the cute gremlin, especially when that stinky critter reproduces. This one’s a barrel of fun, especially in this scene, aptly called “the worst Christmas story ever.” Enjoy.

4. The Proposition (2005, dir: John Hillcoat.) This is a brilliant and beautiful film, with a crack plot: Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone), is the law and order of a small Australian town in the 19th century. At the movie’s opening, he and his men (and they’re a collection of some of the vilest soldiers imaginable), completely blow apart a brothel, killing virtually everyone inside except the two Burns brothers, Charlie (Guy Pierce) and Mikey (Richard Wilson), that they’re after. See, Arthur Burns, and a few of his brothers and mates, robbed, raped, and then murdered a family in the outback. But Arthur’s elusive, so after grabbing Charlie and Mikey, Captain Stanley makes this proposal: Charlie will leave by horse, armed, and go and kill his brother Arthur. If he doesn’t, Stanley will hang Mikey on Christmas Day.

Lovely. Nothing good can come of this deal, we know that. But the movie unfolds in shock ing and surprising ways, especially the violent clash on Christmas day. Filthy, gorgeous, and hard to watch, The Proposition could be the last great western, for it is surely that, but its brutality, and the fact that the deal of the title concludes on the holy day, make this a cynical holiday masterpiece.

3. Brazil (1985, dir: Terry Gilliam.) We played Brazil just recently at the Trylon microcinema here in Minneapolis, and I was stunned to discover that it took place over the holidays. Then I was equally stunned to realize how integral this fact is to Brazil’s labyrinthian plot. That’s one of the things I love so much about this complex film: unlike a lot of dystopias, or stories criticizing the impersonal state, Gilliam is not content to let simple human greed go to the wayside. Brazil, then, is as much a criticism of the rampant materialism that runs amok through any society, especially at Christmastide.

There’s a dynamite scene that was cut from the original, but available on the Criterion edition, where Mr. Helpmann (Peter Vaughan) speaks to Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) who has been detained, and who can only see Helpmann through a hole in his restraining jacket. Helpmann is dressed as Santa Claus, trying to reassure Sam that everything’s all right, when we know damn well it is not.

I couldn’t find that scene, but this one with De Niro (in his last great role? Name another…) as the terrorist plumber is one of my favorites. Check out that awesome ring tone.

2. All That Heaven Allows (1955, dir: Douglas Sirk.) Boy, this a sad, fucked-up movie about the stifling life of a suburban 50s woman, and it’s amazing. Jane Wyman plays Cary Scott, a widow who is seeing her grown up children move out of her life, and is at a loss for what to do with herself. Then comes Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), a gardner, much younger than Cary, who comes to admire, and then fall in love with her. But the conventions of this awful town practically scream that these two should not be together, never, ever, forget about it.

Ron doesn’t care–he’s a man who thinks the town can go to hell. But Cary is respectable, and has respectable children. It’s almost too much, but Sirk does a remarkable job at keeping all the tensions strung just tight enough to keep this plot in motion. In this devastating scene, Cary’s wretched children come home for Christmas, and give their Mom a TV set, a novelty at the time, and something to keep her company. “Turn that dial, and you have all the company you want, right there on the screen.” Sirk’s camera moves, and we see Wyman’s Cary, trapped in the set, the look on her face that of a woman who knows she’s on the verge of living damnation.

1. Roger and Me (1989, dir: Michael Moore.) This one’s my personal choice. I’ve seen this firsthand, good men and women watching their jobs and then their communities wither up and die. Christmas in Michigan, in Saginaw around where I grew up, in Lansing where I went to school, and in Detroit where I later lived and played, is a holiday that seems so edged with cruelty: bright lights on streetpoles in front of abandoned stores and buildings, people still rushing to Wal-Mart to buy shit they can’t afford, the whole mess writhing under the eternal cloudcover that is the Great Lakes State in December.

Roger and Me, though flawed with Moore’s excesses (as always), nonetheless captures Michigan, and by extension, America’s sickening relationship with Christmas, the fact that on one hand it’s meant to be a celebration of the human spirit, and on the other, business goes on, kicking families to the curbs, ignoring the plight of the blue collar worker, pretending the world is nothing more scary than the seasonal showing of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This closing scene of the movie always gets me, the sheriff, as bewildered as anyone by the events that have brought him to the doorstep of a family he must toss to the street (from a home that probably hasn’t been lived in to this day, twenty-two years later), looking to the camera for help. Cut away to Roger Smith, who says about Christmas “for two weeks in the year, our whole environment is transformed.”

Well, it is and it isn’t. String up the lights all you want, but the factories are still closed, the homes still dark and empty. Everything I love about the holidays runs contrary to the reality that is Flint, that is Michigan’s auto industry.

In this state, which is not madness, but Michigan… (Phil Levine, from the poem “Rain Downriver”.)

Merry Christmas.

Nostalgia Recommendation: The Muppets

Some of my favorite movie reviewers write for The New York Times, and thanks to the wonders of the internet, I can read them online. Of course, The New York Times had to go and put a limit on the number of articles each individual computer can access per month. So I simply find other and various computers (work, home, vacant office building) on which I can read the online newspaper. (Suck it New York Times! I will never, ever pay for your online access.)

For the past week, the Times’ three major film reviewers, A.O. Scott, Manohla Dargis, and Stephen Holden, have each recommended a current film that, in large part, is driven by a nostalgic reflection to search for and enjoy previous and more primitive forms of visual entertainment and technology.  Scott recommends The Artist, Dargis champions Hugo, and Holden lifts up The Muppets.  I have not yet seen either The Artist or Hugo,  but I can already vouch for Holden’s opinion about The Muppets.

The Muppets works nostalgically in two ways.  First and most obviously, it looks back at and attempts to reinvigorate a franchise that once held massive appeal to children and adults in the 1970s and 1980s.  More subtly, The Muppets represents the most complete rebirth of a subgenre that was once a staple of Hollywood: the backstage musical.  (I feel that it easily surpasses Chicago and Nine.)

Of course, the old television program which bore Kermit, Miss Piggy, and others was already and always nostalgic.  The premise of the show was built around older forms of theatrical and vaudeville entertainment that had been driven out of style by commercial television and Hollywood.  So the film re-doubles on the nostalgic impulse. 

As it invites us back and asks us to revisit it, The Muppets presents a most pleasing invitation.  It does more, much more, than simply say, “Look, here is a piece from the past.  Love it!”  Instead, The Muppets says, “Here is a terrific film about the past.  Love it!”  And I do.

The Muppets is aware of the nostalgic impulse and draws material from it, but the songs, dances, and jokes work on their own; they are more than simple reminders of the past.  Numerous sight gags elicit laughter, and the comic dialogue, often occurring between muppet characters, is as quick and often smarter than what one would find any Apatow inspired bromance.  One of the triumphs of the film is that the muppets become fully realized as characters alongside their human counterparts.  Indeed, Kermit and Piggy seem to contain more emotional depth and baggage than Gary (Jason Segel) and Mary (Amy Adams).

I do not want to imply that either Segel or Adams failed.  Both of them, along with Chris Cooper (who plays the film’s antagonist, Tex Richman) do what is required: they have fun.  More than anything, Segel, Adams, and Cooper appear to have blast acting, dancing and singing alongside the half puppet, half marionette creations. Adams, more so than her male counterparts, appears particularly adept and joyful within the confines of the musical.  Her solo song and dance number, conducted in a busy Los Angeles diner, was delightful and pleasing.

And it was during Adams’ song and dance that I finally realized that The Muppets, more than anything else, was a backstage musical.  Sure, children’s entertainment and 70s and 80s icons were the material, but the genre was the backstage musical.  The entire plot of getting the gang back together for a performance that is sure to fail but ultimately succeeds is right out of The Band Wagon (1953). Even the backstage romance between Kermit and Piggy fits into the subgenre.

Much like The Band Wagon, the most enjoyable and entertaining parts of The Muppets occur during the production of the performance, which in this case was a live television broadcast.  My only complaint about the film is that it failed to produce more skits and scenes from the production. 

One scene in particular deserves special notice.  In an ode to the prior television show’s embrace of vaudeville, four muppets engage in a barber shop quartet rendition of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as they give a bound and tied Jack Black a shave and trim.  The Muppets cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” simultaneously emits love of the music, captures the frantic punk rock ethos, and pokes loving fun.  I was both applauding and laughing; indeed, and this is not an exaggeration, I laughed so hard that I cried.  Having Beaker sing Kurt Cobain’s incomprehensible lyrics was comic genius.    I cannot recall any comic scene of recent vintage that was so pitch perfect in its material and delivery. 

Director James Bobin uses his previous television experience to capture the original feel of the television show, but he does not succumb to the tendency to reduce the size of the screen and scope of the project.  While The Muppets is a film about television, it is not a television show replayed on cinema’s wide-screen.

More than making me wistfully nostalgic for my childhood television shows or those grand Hollywood backstage musicals, The Muppets makes me hopeful that, in the future, wonderful, quirky films can rise and succeed.  The glory of The Muppets is that it did not need its past to succeed.  It is quite good as presently constituted.