Us: "Nor have you, Al, it's still April."

Speaking of French film, I caught 2 Godard/Anna Karina films today: Une Femme est Une Femme (1961) and Made in U.S.A. (1966).

Both were light and not quite up to the level of Pierrot Le Fou or Vivre Sa Vie, but as in most if not all Godard, there were great things in them.

Femme was full of puns, inside jokes, and bits directed at the audience. It had a playful approach and all the leads acted like children.

USA was more political, maybe deliberately confusing as a metaphor that you can't ever really know the truth of what went on politically. It ends on an odd note: is it positive (Karina driving down a highway talking about her politics finally triumphing), or negative (her companion telling her that her politics will fail, that the Right and Left are both flawed, that she'll selfishly benefit from what has happened in the story by writing a book, etc.)?

Daft Hammer horror about a man turning into a woman...(oh that did happen ...Wendy Carlos, Angela Morley anyone?! )...Casting of Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick is inspired, very atmospheric though I'm not really watching it as it's on tv right now (and I've seen it a few times before) and I'm on this board, main reason is to listen to David Whitaker's utterly lush score...that piano led romantic/tragic theme is a real killer, damn but this needs a release?!

Holes I’m surprised this hasn’t been discussed on the board. Seems it is a Disney
movie based on a very popular book for adolescents. McNeely’s score was serviceable
with a few themes. Juvenile delinquents are sent to a desert camp and have to dig holes all
day for a wicked warden (Signorney Weaver) who is hoping that a treasure will be found.
Jon Voight turns in a wonderful performance as a totally weird guard who is second in
command. I guess we’re suppose to be enamored with the other “odd” characters, but I
just found them irritating. I liked the lizards more. This film should have developed some
kind of “heart” between the boys, but this aspect was never delineated with any emotional
resonance. Quirky characters past and present weren’t enough to really entertain me. A
few comedic places made me hunger for more comedy. Critics liked the movie, but I was
rather bored.

They Won't Forget (1937)
A steamroller of a picture, moving forward at a breakneck speed in its telling of the aftermath of a college girl murder in a deep South town.
Uncompromising depiction of bigotry, hatred, prejudice, politics, ambition, ruthless manipulation. Riveting performance from Claude Rains as D.A. attorney Andy Griffith, stirring up the inflammatory atmosphere in order to ensure himself access to the Governor's seat.
And no comforting happy ending. I'll bet they would not dare to make it today.
Nice to see there was more to Mervin LeRoy than his MGM side.

Timmer, a suite of "Sister Hyde", taken from the Hammer archives and conducted by Philip Martell, was included on some Silva Screen Compilation of some years ago.

The picture itself boasted a great idea from Brian Clemens, the potential of which apparently everybody got cold feet about; and what was left of it ended up being ruined by the usual sloppy direction from Roy Ward Baker.

Lou, no checking on that but I think "Les Violons du Bal" was directed by Michel Drach.

Sorry for talking film music here folks ...back to films....

MacGyver...yeah, friggin MacGyver on the tv, this episode concerns th... "oh, what, sorry? you don't give a fig what this episodes about?"... "but people, doncha realise this is the best ever MacGyver episode??" "Brian Blessed is in it, it's gotta be good???"

"right????"

Lou, I saw TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER back on its first release in 75 or 76. Saw it three times in the one day. The programme was -

2.30: TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER

4.00: CANDY STRIPE NURSES

5.30: TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER

7.00: CANDY STRIPE NURSES

8.30: TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER

And I sat through it all. Thirty eight years after the fact, TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER wasn't good enough to spend an entire day with, not even coupled with CANDY STRIPE NURSES. But I have lingering memories of Nats Kinky in da nood. Actually, I have seen TO THE DEVIL on the jellybox a few times since (just to do the freeze-frame), and I think part of the problem lies with the characteristically confused Christopher Wicking screenplay. I've re-watched a few of the movies he did (THE OBLONG BOX, BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB, CRY OF THE BANSHEE, MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE) and they all share that "interestingly fragmented" or "incomprehensibly disjointed" structure. I used to blame it on director Gordon Hessler, but Hessler didn't do ALL those films.

I have yet to see Dr. J & Sis Hyde though the way I've been pounding Hammer films lately, I'm sure to run across it soon.

Yes GDI, where the hell is Captain Kronos on CD?

To the Devil a Daughter was not directed by Gordon Hessler, but it does have this disjointed, we're not going to let you in on the plot right away feel to it. It has scenes you'll find in the Nigel Kneale scripts, like visiting the old library to get info on the creature, but it doesn't pull them off with the same aplomb.

Back to showing films each Sunday after a break for Easter and the term's end. No theme for the Summer, just random movies.

Gae

Peyton Place seems special, poignant, emotional, subjective. It goes over the top in places but that's part of its sensationalism and melodrama. The music is great as music but it too goes over the top in places in the film as well. Daughter to Mom: I hate you. Waxman: Giant impact. It's too much really, almost like Grand Opera set in the living room.

The one interesting point from the documentary on Peyton Place was that the trailer was scored with the Main Title music from Man In The Grey Flannel Suit and not music from Peyton Place.

Return to Peyton Place is weak. Not having the original cast members back really hurts. As cute as Carol Lynley and Tuesday Weld are, and I love them, they're just pretty girls, they don't have the gravitas that Diane Varsi and Hope Lange gave to their roles in the prequel. Lynley's character is such a blank. She must've spent nights up writing her book in Peyton PLace but it seems like one all-nighter working on it with an editor is something she's never done before. And, is one night with a forceful guy is enough for her to fall in love? Sounds pretty easy to me. Mary Astor is painted as a black and white villian, though as an actress she does everything to give her character depth. Her son is so manipulated by the two women in his life that it's pathetic to watch. He betrays his mom three times: he doesn't tell his mom he's getting married, that his wife is pregnant, and he opposes her at the town meeting. He's supposed to come off as a growing person but instead he really comes off as trading one strong influence for another. Though, that was one of the interesting elements in the film, that the characters weren't always as adult as they were pretending to be. And, there was an overall nastiness and antagonism that people had for each other in this film, adult or not. There are some pretty brutal things in the first Peyton Place as well. Both films seem to be about adulthood as a place where you spill out the truth and go for what you want with courage. Nice on paper, but as Astor's son shows, Lynley's character too, not as straightforward as that, the downer ending with Lynley and her lover splitting suggests this as well, and Astor has built some sympathy for her nasty character too so you see her exit from the town hall in a downer way as well. I'm not sure if all this was intended, I presume it must've been, this kind of ambiguous feel of what is presented originally in B&W terms. But the real flaw of the film isn't that the leads are a bit weak for their roles or that the expressed point of view is subverted by other elements in the film, it's that there's just a certain unrelenting creepiness to the whole affair, that life shouldn't be filled with people like these or events shouldn't go down the way they do, and it makes the film harder to watch as a result.

SWITCHBACK (USA 1997)

Directed by Jeb Stuart
Screenplay by Jeb Stuart
Photography by Oliver Wood
Music by Basil Poledouris

Main Cast: Dennis Quaid, Danny Glover, Jared Leto

Man looks for kidnapped son. But who is the kidnapper? And who is that serial killer?

Nah, didn't think it was very good. It's all very sketchy, and the lack of character motivation plus the loose ends just annoyed me. The film looks handsome though, with those wide open snowy exteriors and fussily cluttered interiors, and it's watchable when it breaks into action near the end, but for the most part I found it criminally dull and talky.

Directed by Denzel Washington
Screenplay by Antwone Fisher
Photography by Philippe Rousselot
Music by Mychael Danna

Main Cast: Derek Luke, Denzel Washington

Sailor exorcises his childhood demons in order to become a good person.

Nope, sorry, didn't like it much. I didn't find the story interesting in the least, and Denzel W's carefully tasteful direction went the road of understating the understated a bit too much. I wasn't asking to be bludgeoned over the head, but the deliberate restraint sucked all life out the film. Could have done with a few more forceful highlights. As it is, I found it well-meaning, well-made, and as bland as a teatime TV Movie.

P.S.
Graham, as an introduction to Donald Westlake's work, you could pick one of his "Dortmunder" novels, which are good fun to read; I'll suggest THE HOT ROCK or WHY ME.

And you can visit his site: http://www.donaldwestlake.com

BOXCAR BERTHA (USA 1972)

Directed by Martin Scorsese
Screenplay by Joyce H. and John W. Corrington, from characters in Boxcar's autobiography
Photography by John Stephens
Music by Gib Guilbeau and Thad Maxwell

Main Cast: Barbara Hershey, David Carradine, Barry Primus, Bernie Casey, John Carradine

Free-spirited Bertha has adventures, such as bank robbing, in Depression-era America.

From the Corman stable comes this early Scorsese movie, and, pardon me, but nope, I didn't think it was very good. The script makes a few concessions to putting things into a socio-political context by bandying around terms like "Bolshevik", but it didn't fool me. No sir, I bet the scriptwriters never even knew who Bolshevik was! It is, of course, just an exploitation movie, and I've no problem with that at all. It's just that here the scenes have no dramatic punch, and it's full of bad editing, poor continuity and corny humour. The lead performances are either charmingly naturalistic or strictly amateur, depending on your (and their) mood. Seeming a lot longer than its 88 minutes I didn't see many hints of the Scorsese to come, except perhaps in the striking final sequence with Carradine crucified on the side of the train and Hershey running alongside. And the preceding bloody gunfight does look ahead to the climax of TAXI DRIVER in tone, though I imagine that Corman's idea was to cash in on the then fashionable violence of THE WILD BUNCH and, particularly, BONNIE AND CLYDE.

I've seen a few things over the last few days. These include Quatermass 2 and The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal. Quatermass 2 is wonderful despite certain plot holes. It's amazing how much they milk out of a few sets and the outside of an oil refinery. Because it's a mystery for the first half and then trying to solve the conflict once they know what it is, the film keeps moving. The score by James Bernard was wonderful.

It was remarkably suspenseful and frightening for the 50's especially the scenes of them trapped in the control room of the refinery and not really knowing what was going on around them...only hearing screams and tannoy messages. I reckon this could have inspired James Cameron's "Aliens" as their circumstances where similar. It just goes to show that allowing our imaginations to wander rather than bombarding us with dodgy special effects is very often more powerful and effective. A lesson could be learnt here for modern film makers. Sometimes less is more.

I also enjoyed the "conspiracy theory" element of the film which must have been quite ahead of its time. It was a kind of metaphor for how we are manipulated by the powers that be as the people in the refinery knew nothing of the sinister goings on.

The scene too of the supposedly harmless "fallout" from the refinery into the pub was also very effective. The arrival and look of the aliens dressed in protective suits and gas masks in this scene almost had the look and feeling of a fascistic army, reminding me of the wonderfully styilised uniforms of the firemen in Truffaut's "Fahrenheit 451".
Of course, it goes without saying that the James Bernard score was indeed superb!!

Gae

Directed by Bigas Luna
Screenplay by Bigas Luna, with dialogues by Michael Berlin
Photography by Josep Maria Civit
Music by J.M.Pagan

Main Cast: Michael Lerner, Zelda Rubinstein, Talia Paul

Short-sighted part-time optician lives with his domineering mum in a big house full of birds and snails. Mum sometimes hypnotizes son and communicates with him through shells. He starts killing people, collecting their eyeballs. Then he goes to the cinema and starts killing the audience. Then we discover that all this "isn't really happening" and that it's just a film people are watching in a cinema... where, amongst the audience, there is a mother-dominated serial killer. And some of the audience fall under hypnosis, whilst others get bits of grit behind their contact lenses. But this "isn't really happening" either, of course, because it's just a Bigas Luna film from 1987, and WE'RE the audience! And we're getting hypnotised too!

And that's just the first twenty minutes! Barcelona-born designer and experimental director/fetishist Bigas Luna went on to direct acclaimed films with lots of tits in them, but there aren't any tits in ANGUISH at all. Still, it's an interesting movie, more for the concepts than the execution. It starts off with Hitchcock references - birds, dominant mum, Saul Bass-type credits... and Bernard Herrmann lookalike Michael Lerner in the cast (I'll bet this was unintentional), then quickly moves into Dario Argento-style eyeball gouging territory, whilst at the same time recalling Peter Bogdanovich's TARGETS. But for the most part it's pure Bigas Luna, despite the lack of tits.

Reality, illusion, voyeurism - the movie plays around with a lot of ideas, and does manage to cast a suitably hypnotic spell for the first half hour or so, the trouble is that all the cards are on the table within these first few reels and it has nowhere to go except to turn into a "real" (hee hee) slasher movie, surely the least interesting aspect of the whole thing. It's still the best film I've seen this month (which isn't saying much, admittedly) - audacious and risible by turn.

Directed by Danny and Oxide Pang
Screenplay by Jojo Yute-Chun Hui
Photography by Decha Seementa
Music by Orange Music

Main Cast: Lee Sin-Je, Lawrence Chow, Chuteba Rujinanon, Candy Lo

A girl, blind from the age of two, gets a cornea transplant and begins to see dead people.

Second film in a row for me about eye problems, this slanty-eyed thriller has quite an intriguing premise (dat's why I went to see it) which, alas, is not sufficiently well developed. The shadow of THE SIXTH SENSE at least makes for some effective scary jolts en route, but I was left feeling a bit empty by it. Watch out for the Tom Cruise remake!

An American Romance(1944)
From what I have read, King Vidor's picture was drastically re-edited by MGM; though to which extent I know nothing about - if someone has some light to shed on the matter, he's mostly welcome.
What is left of it, is a hieratic epic beautifully shot with a painter's eye; the story of Czech immigrant Stefan Dangos progressing with the industrial expansion of the U.S..
I have found the picture to be quite lacking in terms of personal drama, all the excitement is generated by semi-documentary passages depicting the different stages of steel production, car assembly lines and the fabrication of war planes.
Each of this passages marking a new step in the social evolution of the main character.
Brian Donlevy's acting is too bland and clichéd for my taste - Spencer Tracy had been Vidor's original choice.
One thing which didn't fail to impress me was Louis Gruenberg's score.

Graham, Sid James was indeed a reporter in the pub. A pre-cursor to his "Carry On" days.....W-H-Ha-ha-ha!! (done in a sleazy Sid James laughing kinda way)

Donlevy is hit and miss. He's great in The Glass Key and in the Preston Sturges movies, pretty good in the two Val Guest Quatermass films, but I'm sure there are films he's not right for or good in. I have American Romance on tape, TCM showed it a few months ago, but I haven't seen it yet.

Caught Skyscraper Souls, a Pre-code film from '33, very risque, very funny, but then with a tough ending with a lot of death. The morality is very conventional, the nice people get married and are happy, the manipulative people all meet bad ends. Yet, somehow, the manipulative people were ones with all the energy and drive, they were the ones I liked and was rooting for!!

Also watched Bowling for Columbine. It was interesting, funny in places, and I understand its winning the Oscar. But, it has a lot of problems. Plainly, its arguments just don't hold water. The film is structured and scored in a highly manipulative way that shows more bias than objectivity. Moore confronts people like Dick Clark and Charlton Heston and corporations like K-Mart in ways that really aren't called for, that are more for emotionalism than any serious debate. With K-Mart especially, Moore tries to use the wounded kids of Columbine to elicit a response and then tries to take credit for K-Mart doing something that it was probably thinking of doing anyway. Just because the Columbine shooters bought their bullets at K-Mart, it doesn't mean that K-Mart is responsible for the shooting or that the bullets should be called "K-Mart bullets" as Moore refers to them. Heck, K-Mart just sold the bullets, they didn't manufacture them, another company did but Moore doesn't go to see them. He tries a similar tactic with Heston too, bringing him a photo of a kid killed in Flint, MI by a gun as if the NRA was responsible for that. This isn't logic, if anything it's venom making these guys look bad. The Flint kid died, not because of guns, and not because the shooter's mom was poor and had to travel to work and couldn't supervise the shooter as Moore implies, but because the shooter's uncle who had the gun was too dumb to lock it up or teach the shooter to stay away from the gun when he came to stay in his house.

It's not guns per se that kill but whether people can handle them. Some can, others can't. But are all guns supposed to be illegal because of the few looneys and the others who don't practice gun safety? And would the gun death rates change, would we really be safer or much worse off with gun controls? Moore doesn't even bring this argument into his film.

There are other juxtapositions which don't make for logical arguments. Just because Littleton, Co., the town where the Columbine shooting took place, is a town where they build Titan missles doesn't mean that the one type of violence is causation for the other. On the day of the shootings, the US bombed Kosovo. Moore makes this point a few times as if it is supposed to mean something. It doesn't, there is little connection. It's possible that a government that is on a war footing leads to a culture of violence inside that country, but it's just as likely that the US during WW2 or Germany under the Nazis didn't have any more gun deaths domestically compared with their peacetime rates. I don't know for certain, but I don't see the corrolation between what the government policy is in foreign affairs and how people decide or not to shoot at people down the block. I don't think one produces a violent culture for the other. I could be wrong, of course, but even if I am, I don't think Moore proves his point, just makes the suggestion.

Lastly, I have problems with Michael Moore himself. He had the right to dis Bush at the Oscars, that's not my beef. He can go around as he pleases too, but honestly, he's a rich man, his books and other films have made him a lot of money, he's directed a fiction feature (scored by Elmer Bernstein!), now he has an Oscar, but he still goes around like a prole slob, scraggly beard, baseball cap, shirt not tucked in, etc. I'm sorry, this guy is an intellectual, not a mechanic, and so his image is all costume, trying to look the part of a prole, the man of the people, when he simply isn't one. This is worse advertising than I've seen in some political ads.

But let's keep to the film itself. The film's main points or questions go along these lines: The US has more gun-related deaths than any other country. Why? Is it our violent history? Well, Japan, England, France, and Germany especially have violent pasts and they don't have high gun death. Is it due to the fact they have stricter gun control? Not necessarily. Canada has little gun control, a large percentage of the population there own guns and yet they have remarkably low gun death rates. Is it that the US has a lot of "violent" blacks and hispanics? No, as Canada has just as many minorities and ethnic populations percent wise as the US.

Moore proposes that the difference between the US, Canada and elsewhere is in the attitudes of people toward people (Moore implies that poverty is a factor in our high gun death rate but isn't sure) and in the level of fearful stories in the news.

In Canada, it seems people wouldn't think twice about not helping each other, there's free health care, no slums, etc. Moore asked if there were homeless people around and some guy didn't think so (I saw them on the streets in Toronto though). In one of the most amazing sequences, Moore found many people who refuse to lock their doors even after they've been broken into! It seems they can shrug this off. Moore even tested the notion by opening a lot of doors and finding they were indeed unlocked (yes, but did he come across locked ones and not put them in the film?!). The news in Canada seemed very sedate and less filled with sensational stories as opposed to news in the US and crime shows such as Cops. Moore's thesis suggests that the difference in the US is that fear of other people, of black men, or germs and crime, or the government itself, or disasters of various kinds has made us all hair-trigger insane. With this kind of fear and tension, people give over power to their leaders to protect them and they consume, they buy guns and other items, to lessen the anxiety. Once we have guns, unlike others in more sedate lands, we use them. But despite this fallout, profit and power still make it a worthwhile practice for both producers and politicians to keep people in the US focused on the latest scary thing be it Osama or SARS.

But what does the fear have to do with the shooting? Sure, scared people are more likely to shoot than secure people, but were the kids who shot up their high school scared of something? Is this really the answer for the high gun death rate in the US overall?

Well, it could be. Moore's thesis might actually be correct, it certainly feels right watching the film. But I'm not sure if the "proofs" he provides in interviews and examples are enough to confirm it as what's actually going on in terms of why the US has more gun death than any other country in the world.

Nevertheless, even if the film is full of holes, the debate, the things raised by the film to consider and the glimses of people on the street, their culture and opinion, are worth the time spent looking at it. Despite my criticisms, I actually enjoyed watching this film a lot. I just can't consider it serious journalism is all.

Although a documentary, at one point it has an animated sequence from the South Park guys that expresses Moore's thesis idea of white people in the US killing everything foreign and then each other out of fear and mistrust. It's great to look at but, again, it's commentary more than fact. The suggestion is interesting, that people in the US are so afraid of dying that they'll kill everyone else just to stay alive, it may even be true, but Moore isn't really backing up these assertions with the right kind of material. In the end, his film is all questions and theories with very little answers and fact. That doesn't make it less interesting or entertaining, but it does lead me to call it pretentious. Moore might say he doesn't have the answers himself, that he isn't pretending to know, but then, if that's the case, why is he still promoting a political agenda based on his guesses, where is the real evidence for his convictions?

Anton Walbrook is the master of ceremonies – à la Peter Ustinov in Lola Montès – talking directly to the audience; he sets in motion the proceedings , introduces each new story, comments the events, arranges the action, and even not resists the impulse of appearing in some of them.
The circular narrative structure – the movie ends where it has begun – is echoed by the recurrent figure of a carrousel playing an Oscar Strauss waltz, and by the elaborate camera movements.
The picture abounds with beautiful tracking and running shots, following the characters through richly decorated sets, reflecting the indecisiveness of their feelings.

At the opening of the film, we follow Anton Walbrook as he sets foot on a theater stage erected on a studio recreation of 19th century Vienna, walks to and fro musing on the nature of what is about to be shown, before coming down, doning a coat and a hat, and inviting us to follow him through sets to a little place where stands the carrousel, which he proceeds to start, while introducing us to the first story – all this in one single shot.

At one time, he takes one character by the hand, leading her among cameras, lights, and props, to the next scene, which is to be taking place after a two-year gap ; on another occasion the carrousel breaks down, freezing the progression of the narration.

This is Art openly and unshamedly asserting itself as a lie, but a lie which speaks the Truth.

A stellar cast complete the scene: Jean-Louis Barrault, Gérard Philipe, Simone Signoret and the sublime Danielle Darrieux - the Ophuls heroine par excellence.

This was the show at its orthodox best, respecting unity of time and space - in this case a plane flight - and not resorting to the silly gimmick of replacing Martin Landau by the actor whose character he was supposed to impersonate.
Very mobile camera work - much more enjoyable from the days there was no steadycam - and great editing; plus theme music from maestro Schifrin, with a rumbling motive I have always favoured over "the plot" theme.

The episode was directed by Lee H. Katzin who, with Leonard J. Horn, was responsible for the best "Mission: Impossible" episodes.

No bud, you tell me, I'm all ears. You go ahead tell me, bud.

Well, I saw NOO YORK, NOO YORK, y'know, the Scorsese movie. Robert De Niro, Liza Minnelli.

Oh yeah? Go ahead, tell me, whatcha think?

I didn't like it, pal. All I'm saying is I thought it was a pain in the ass, y'know what I mean?

Whatcha mean a pain in the ass. I can't believe you guys, a pain in the ass, you guys don't know jackass, all I'm saying is you know nothing, you know? Nothing.

Well, I thought it was one pain in the ass, starting with De Niro. A pain in the ass performance, a pain in the ass part, and one helluva pain in the ass movie.

You guys crack me up, I mean, you're crackin' me up. All I'm saying is that. You crack me up. Gimme a break, willya?

I don't know, all I'm saying is that, I don't know, but it was one pain in the ass, okay? YOu get that? One pain in the ass. De Niro, there you have this great actor, and all he does is show that he's one helluva pain in the butt. Show-offy, "look at me, I'm acting, and I'm acting real good in this part of this unlikeable guy", but he was just, I don't know, you tell me bud, self-indulgent, I don't know, one pain in the butt.

You telling me he was one pain in the butt? I can't believe this guy. He says he was a pain in the butt. You guys crack me up.

OK, so I crack you up, you got a problem with that?

I didn't say I had a problem with that, all I'm saying is, how can you say he was this one pain in the ass?

That's all I'm saying. And Scorsese? One hell of a pain in the butt director, in this movie anyway. Self-indulgent, shallow and elephantine. I mean, nearly three hours to tell this story about those pains in the ass. And Minnelli? Funny-looking broad, that's all I'm saying, like a fish or somethin', y'know what I mean? Here's De Niro, some kind of stud, he's obviously been with a million broads, and he falls for this fish-faced broad with eyes on the side of her head.

You tellin' me she had eyes on the side of her head? The Minnelli dame? Gimme a break, bud, you're crackin' me up big time here, all I'm saying is you're cracking me up. Gimme a break, willya?

All I'm saying is I didn't see what he saw in her, know what I mean? I mean, this broad with a face like a fish, and he goes and falls head over heels for her. One big ego trip for all concerned, but pure torture for the audience.

You trying to tell me it was torture, like some kind of torture for the audience? Let me get this straight. You're saying it was some kind of torture, as in torture, man?

I don't know, that's all I'm saying. Some kind of ego trip torture, I don't know. And way too long. And I think it was way too long partly because everybody kept repeating themselves, adding to the movie's already somewhat too long running time. Just repeating things.

You trying to tell me that they kept repeating things? Well, let me tell you something, bud, that's the way people talk round here, just in case you hadn't noticed.

That may be the way YOU talk buddy, but it ain't the way I talk, that's all I'm saying. It ain't the way I talk. You got some kind of problem with that?

I didn't say I had a problem with that, all I'm saying is that I can't believe you're saying this, you crack me up. Whadya mean that you think I might have a problem with that? YOU might have a problem with that, but...

(at this point I get confused as to who's meant to be saying what).

But you must admit, the sax solos, ghosted magnificently by Georgie Auld, were rather good, no?

Oh, I say, that's right! Terribly good sax solos by jazz great Georgie Auld!

Oh, goody! We agree! Let's have a drink!

RATHER ! !

NOO YORK, NOO YORK (US of A 1977)

Directed by Martin Schcorsese
Schcreenplay by Schmearl MacRauch and Mardik Schmartin
Photography by Schlaszlo Kovacs Schmomacs
Schmusic director Ralph Schmalf Burns Schmurns
Songs schmongs by John Kander Schmander and Fred Ebb Schmebb

Main Cast Schmast: Liza Schmiza Minnelli Schimmelli, Bob Schlob De Niro Scheero, Lionel Stander Schmander, Barry Schmarry Primus Scheemus

As for Moore, he can do as he pleases. If I had a ton of money, I might go around comfortable too, after all, who cares, I'm rich now, what do I care about what you think about how I look. But that's me. If I was on camera looking poor when I'm not, people might take shots at me for pretending to represent one socio-economic class when I really belong to another. At least Edward Kennedy wears a suit and tie when he speaks out in congress, he's a member of one class representing another but doesn't hide his roots for effect. Then again, I dunno, maybe I'm just being a biased prig about the whole thing.

Latest films--Actually an episode of Perry Mason from 1957, The Case of the Restless Redhead. Lots of fun to watch Perry run rings around the police and make things turn out his way. The shtick with both the gruff Lt. Tragg and his put-upon PI friend Paul and the easily-baffled DA is the same from episode to episode but that's the meat of the show and it still works.

Never mind that Perry does things that would get him disbarred in real life or that people show up at the last minute with important information or that Perry is a few steps ahead of you so you have to wait to see what the heck he's doing, the enjoyment outstrips the logic.

Plus, there were a few cues in there that had Herrmann signatures all over them. Maybe they were by Herrmann and maybe they weren't, but it's always a plus to watch some TV show with above average music.

Also watched A Time to Love and A Time to Die for the umpteenth time. It's a favorite film of mine just because it's both harsh and romantic and takes an ambiguous attitude towards Hollywood formulas of the 50s. And, I seem to experience this film differently each time I see it. In this showing, I felt the intensity of it, how it moves non-stop from one beat to the next without letting up for a second.

In other viewings, I felt it differently, I could feel the lulls and the swells or got caught up with it moment to moment. Here, instead of following that current, I got caught up with the currents of what propels it forward. Maybe that comes from having seen it so many times or from watching it in a room full of people as opposed to at home, I can't say. In any case, because of its many details and the large numbers of characters who come and go, it's a film that lends itself to being watched each second at a time like in Ozu or other Japanese films.

But, it is still a Western-style narrative and an element in one scene will build to fruition in a following scene so that there is always an arc or line to follow and in that respect the individual episodes or the film's episodic nature hang together (like blossoms on a tree branch to use one of the film's own metaphors).

This one is energetic and entertaining, interspesed with a few great scenes. True, at times it bogs down, but the proceedings are swiftly carried along by an excellent Max Steiner's score.

Sydney Poitier was offered the most interesting part, that of Rau-Ru, the educated slave who revolts against the benevolent paternalism of his master, Gable's Hamish Bond.

Clark Gable is very good as the former slaves runner, turned into a plantation owner, haunted by his violent past. Unfortunately, his final reminiscence when confronting Poitiers is too much trite material and too long a speech for what it is.

And Yvonne de Carlo has much to offer, hasn't she?
She plays Amantha Starr, a former mistress sold as a slave when she is revealed to be the product of an "affair" between a black nanny and her father, now dead and whose possessions are auctioned off. Enter Gable..

The Kennel Murder Mystery (1933)
This entry in the Philo Vance series is a pure "exercice de style" for Michael Curtiz. What permeates here, is the sheer pleasure of filming.
Before its showing, we were treated to an enlightning analysis of Curtiz's technique by Bertrand Tavernier, based on excerpts from the picture.