The Old Dark House

The Old Dark House (Kino DVD, 1999)
Directed by James Whale
USA, 1932
In English

Did you know that that little old lady from Titanic (Gloria Stuart) was something of a hottie back in her silver screen heyday? Well, neither did I until saw her in this cheesy 1932 "haunted house" thriller/romantic comedy from Frankenstein director James Whale. In The Old Dark House, Stuart plays one of five unfortunate travelers who wash up in a dilapidated Welsh manor as houseguests for the night after rains make the roads impassable. The old dark house itself is populated by five creepy family members including a mad butler (Boris Karloff, mostly wasted here), a homicidal pyromaniac, etc. Like the 1927 silent film The Cat and the Canary, with which this is often compared, Whale's successes here owe a great deal to his cameraman's spectacularly shadowy cinematography (Arthur Edeson, take a bow) and to his cast's ability to dexterously juggle comedy and suspense. In addition to the lovely Stuart, who spends much of the movie in a slinky white evening dress trying to escape the unwanted attentions of Karloff's drunken and menacing butler, I particularly enjoyed watching Ernest Thesiger and Eva Moore as the oddball elderly brother and sister act who deliver many of the script's most memorable lines with obvious thespian relish. Grade: "E" for entertaining! (http://www.kino.com/)

Thesiger and Stuart share a quiet moment

Gran Torino

Gran Torino
Dirigida por Clint Eastwood
Estados Unidos, 2008
En inglés

Como muchos de ustedes sabrán, el largometraje Gran Torino tiene que ver con la amistad que se desarrolla entre un viejo americano racista y sus jovénes vecinos hmong en un barrio pobre de Detroit. Eastwood, como el veterano del conflicto coreano Walt Kowalski, es carismático como siempre, y los nuevos actores Anhey Her y Bee Vang, como los vecinos Sue Lor y Thao Vang Lor, hacen un buen trabajo en sus papeles también. De hecho, las relaciones entre estos tres personajes me parecieron bastante creíbles e interesantes. Desgraciadamente, otros entre el elenco (en particular, los que tienen los papeles de los parientes de Kowalski) son verdaderamente nefastos en cuanto a su actuación, y el guión es previsible y estereotípico en sumo grado. Aunque Gran Torino me pareció suficientemente divertido a pesar de estas quejas, ya es ridículo pensar que la película sea considerada como una de las mejores del año. No lo es. Por otra parte, ¡es mucho mejor que aquella pinche Crash de 2004! Nota: 3/5 estrellitas hollywoodianas. (Warner Bros.)

Este "vigilante" no se llama Dirty Harry.

Missing

Missing (2008 DVD)
Directed by Costa-Gavras
USA, 1982
In English and Spanish with English subtitles

Bad acting and a soap opera-like storyline mar what should have been a riveting film about the real life murder of American journalist Charles Horman during the coup in Chile in 1973. John Sheah and Sissy Spacek are basically either annoying or unbelievable in their roles as the young husband and wife who became separated as a result of the military's "mopping up" operations after the coup, a major distraction since the movie's message about the US government's complicity in both the coup and in the cover-up of Horman's death is often powerful and provocative. Jack Lemmon puts in a much more credible performance as Horman's father, a man with wealth and connections who comes down to Chile to try to figure out what might have led to his son's disappearance, but even he's saddled with some seriously creaky dialogue and a director who seems to prefer histrionics to emotional subtlety--a shame since the constant gunfire in the background and the shots of bodies lying bloodied and dead in the streets offer compelling audiovisual witness to just how powerful this movie could have been. (http://www.criterion.com/)

Spacek and Lemmon

NB: Disc Two of this edition of Missing, which includes interviews with both the cast and crew and with various others with firsthand knowledge of the events portrayed in the film, will be reviewed here separately sometime soon.

Pickup on South Street

Pickup on South Street (2004 DVD)
Directed by Sam Fuller
USA, 1953
In English

There's nothing like watching a grumpy old man pretend he invented patriotism to put you in the mood for a black and white movie from the Red Scare era, but even people who buy into John McCain's condescending "country first" flagwaving should find something of interest here. In this gritty '53 noir, apolitical pickpocket Skip McCoy (a sneering Richmard Widmark) finds way more than he bargains for after he picks somewhat dimwitted go-between Candy's purse on an NYC subway train--neither one of the characters initially realizing that Candy's intended delivery had featured a strip of microfilm with top secret info being peddled to the communists. When the cops and the feds get involved and the reds realize they're in danger of losing the classified information that they'd paid for, McCoy and Candy (Jean Peters) get sucked into a web of criminal and political intrigue where personal and political loyalties are all up for sale and seemingly everyone's out for themselves.

Fuller does a fine job of keeping the action moving, and a series of excellently-chosen Manhattan location shots gives this 80-minute movie an edgy urban feel akin to a rough draft of the crime films shot there in the '60s and the '70s. The political angle's approached in a fairly crafty way--Fuller himself has stated that Pickup was condemned as pro-Communist by conservatives and anti-Communist by leftists--so don't be surprised if the grandmotherly stool pigeon (Thelma Ritter) turns out to be the most morally-grounded and "likeable" character in the lot. Unfortunately, while Widmark and Peters cause sparks to fly in their scenes together, the relationship that develops between the pickpocket and his victim is the lone plot element that drags things down a bit. All in all, great film, totally entertaining, no partisan pandering...just one cheesy love story short of a masterpiece. (http://www.criterion.com/)

Richard Widmark strikes a blow for the right with his left!

The Ace of Hearts

The Ace of Hearts (2003 DVD)
Dirigida por William Worsley
Estados Unidos, 1921
Silente con intertítulos en inglés y subtítulos in castellano y francés

No hay nada como una poco convincente historia de amor para arruinar una película que por lo demás es muy interesante, pero eso es lo que pasa acá en este temprano thriller silente que presenta al reconocido "hombre de mil caras" Lon Chaney. Chaney tiene el papel principal de un hombre misterioso que se llama Farallone, miembro de una sociedad secreta que se reúne para decidir quien vivirá y quien morirá entre los poderosos y ricos del país. Una vez decidido el víctima, los miembros del grupo escogen un asesino de entre ellos con la ayuda de un juego de naipes: él que recibe el as de corazones se convierte en el asesino, lo que parece ser un honor e un peligro a la vez.

Aunque Chaney interprete su papel con brío (¡cuán carismático es este actor con esas caras de sufrimiento shakespeariano...y a pesar de ese corte de pelo suyo que le da el aspecto de un pterodáctilo!) y la música de Vivek Maddala es otro punto cumbre, el argumento sufre cuando un triángulo de amor se introduce entre Farallone, su rival romántico Forrest (John Bowers), y la hermosa revolucionaria Lilith (Leatrice Joy), todos partidarios del grupo sólo conocido por el nombre de "la Causa". Esta parte de la película pierde la velocidad debida a la multiplicidad de discursos sobre el amor, y lo que era un filme de intriga en potencia se convierte en otra historia de amor trivial. ¡Qué fastidio!

En honor de Herr Graf Ferdinand von Galitzien, mi bloguero preferido en cuanto al mundo del cine mudo, este nitrato de plata obtiene una nota de 2.5 decadentes condes germánicos a escala de 5 decadentes condes germánicos. Gute Nacht!

Además de The Ace of Hearts, los dos DVDs de la Lon Chaney Collection incluyen los largos Laugh, Clown, Laugh y The Unknown y el documental Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces.

(http://www.turnerclassicmovies.com/)

The Temptress

The Temptress (2005 DVD)
Directed by Fred Niblo
USA, 1926
Silent with intertitles in English and subtitles in French and Spanish

A lightweight but entertaining tale of l'amour fou based on a work by Vicente Blasco Ibañez. While gender studies students should have a field day discussing whether Garbo's title character comes off as the heroine or the villainess of the film, others can just sit back and smile as a parade of men in awful moustaches practically piss all over themselves succumbing to the lovely Elena's devilish charms. Real-life madrileño Antonio Moreno is a bit of a weak link as the brooding engineer that the Temptress supposedly falls in love with enough to abandon her cushy life in France to follow all the way down to rugged Argentina (were you to borrow a vintage monocle from the good count Ferdinand von Galitzien, it would still be difficult to detect any traces of actual emotion in Moreno's wooden performance!), but the move from Paris to the Cono Sur at least allows for some great civilización y barbarie moments featuring guitar-playing gauchos, an uptight Frenchman trying mate for the first time, and the introduction of Roy D'Arcy as scene-stealing pampas villain Manos Duras (the guy responsible for the whip marks on injured engineer Robledo below). Manos is just a minor character in the movie's awkward and heavyhanded debate over whether Elena or men are ultimately to blame for the sexual obsession she inspires all around her; however, he gets off the best line in the movie after blowing up a dam in her honor:

"Beautiful Lady:

My songs could not touch your heart--perhaps a symphony in dynamite will be more to your taste?

Your admirer,

Manos Duras"

Garbo (left) and Moreno (shirtless and charisma-less, right)

(http://www.warnervideo.com/)

A Séance with Countess Dusy Told

As some of you already know, I have another blog, Gambling with Countess Dusy Told, that I started last month with the idea that it'd be an all-movie sort of thing free of the "distractions" of languages, literature and the like. While I now ponder killing that blog off Dr. Mabuse style and bringing all the movie reviews back home to Caravana (their ancestral home before my recent caffeine binge anyway), here are some links to the non-French/non-Spanish films viewed for Gambling in June. In the meantime, is it really cold in here or is it just me?

• A Cottage on Dartmoor (Anthony Asquith, 1929)
• Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924)
• Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920)
• The Most Dangerous Game (Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel, 1932)

The Cat and the Canary

The Cat and the Canary (1998 DVD)
Directed by Paul Leni
USA, 1927
Silent with English intertitles

Lightweight but entertaining haunted house comedy (weird combination, I know) from German expressionist expat Paul Leni. I haven't seen either the 2005 Image or the 2007 Kino restorations of the film, but the picture quality here is fine with all sorts of sepia shadows providing the requisite atmosphere. The action revolves around new heiress Annabelle West's attempts to fend off a host of challenges to her millions in inheritance money, the catch being that she must first maintain her sanity as giant claws clutch jewelry off her neck during her sleep and dead people fall out of hidden panels and such. Creighton Hale's bespectacled dork, Paul Jones, is a little too goofy for me as the main comic relief figure, but the other characters are mostly OK and the "grotesque" mansion itself is an eyeful with or without the howling wind in the background. Includes a great version of the original 1927 score and a Harold Lloyd short (Haunted Spooks) that I haven't seen yet since I've been too busy gallivanting about town with ladies in fur coats. (http://www.image-entertainment.com/)