Grand Hotel (1932)

Since I have an assingment to write something about possible connections between films and hotels it was rather obvious that I need to evoke my memories on Edmund Goulding's classic Grand Hotel. If a movie has a protagonist called Greta Garbo it is always a pleasure..

But – as the last time I used to do – I'll focus only one scene again, which is the first from the film. It's its first "chapter", a perfect exposition (notice the nice fade in and fade out), a clear-out way of introduce the main characters (Senf, Kringelein, Preysing, Suzette, the Baron and the Doctor). This is Classic Hollywood cinema: informative, economic, progressive (using the new possibilities of the sound), goal-oriented, functional, consistent and continuous (Kringelein mentions Preysing who appears immediately in the phone booth). Every bit of information serve the fast and economic introduction of the hotel guests: How? What are you doing when you call somebody? Normally you introduce yourself...

(More about the rules of the exposition in David Howard's classic on screenwriting: "Exposition is a cousin of backstory. (...) exposition is information the audience needs in order to participate in and understand the events and relationships in the story." (p.158.))

Talking about speed. Bordwell's thoughts about the intensified continuity (The Way Hollywood Tells It) and his revisited ideas on the topic could fit here, but better take a look on the rules of an exposition. Basically there are two ways: it comes right at the beginning communicatively sharing concentrated information on characters or on the following situation, OR it might come late to delay information in order to maintain and uphold suspense. Goulding's film obviously choose the communicative way.

If we draw simultaneous consequences from Bordwell's idea on raising speed and the first example of a classic exposition, we might see the real differences between the classic style and its new Hollywoodian (or European) followers. The rules of exposition didn't change at all, only the original conventions altered by the style.

Exposition nr. 1: Grand Hotel (1932):

Exposition nr. 2: Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996):

(One more funny thing. Be aware of Preysing's English (3rd and 8th speaker in Grand Hotel's scene), who – since he plays a German entrepreneur – curiously imitates German language. "Is that you papa? Ja?! Ja!" :)

9/10

Play Time (1967)

During reading a perfectly detailed review on Jacques Tati's excessive cinematic masterwork, a small, but absolutely talkative example came into my mind what I'd like to share with you this time.

The mentioned and other reviews on the film are approaching from Tati's critical point of view on modernity, more precisely on modern architecture's and modern cities' sterile, alienating, dehumanising contexts (Le Corbusier: "the machines for living"). These contributions are sharing valuable investigations on the co-operation of the visible and audible (Tati's films have little audible dialogue, but carefully integrated sound effects which are participating in the creation of his jokes), on the attributes of Monsieur Hulot's character and its relation to the early silent comedy-stars (eg. Chaplin's physical attributes and moralizing character), on the unbelievable (expensive) sets of the film (he fabricated a huge set called Tativille, based on Paris' recently built (not existing anymore: 1963-1993) Esso-Tower), on the modern technologies, billed as conveniences, which are actually complicate interferences to natural human interaction (my favorite example is the completely silent door, which can't express what the characters feel during shutting it furiously:), in general on criticism about homogenity, standardization, functionality, automatization, ephemerality, unbearability.

All the above are true, but the question is still open: HOW the film's comedic practice is able to deliver all these critical platforms on modernity? The chosen scene tries to exemplify it: the short scene looks like a simple, very-very basic joke, but if we look closer how Tati built up the situation, we'll see that nothing else but the strict environmental shapes become the real protagonist, the real source of the joke.

Notice that the scene starts with a conversation between two characters in the foreground. Their role is to attract our attention, moreover to distract our attention from the glass window behind them (they completely block the view of the doorhandle). They make the way (and our view) free at the very last moment, just before the poor guy runs against the glass. Not only the unlucky character but the viewer can't see either where exactly the glass is. For safety, Tati incases an extra visual trick, namely the overlap between the shapes of the glass door and the building further in the background (plus: the very end a black car arrives to make the door's outline completely visible). See how:

8/10

Whirlpool (1949)

"All the sounds have faded away."

In a hot Summer night of 2007 I've seen first time Otto Preminger's Laura (1944) in a friendly open-air cinema in Vienna. Even if I've found out the trick of its twisty plot, I had to realize that in 1944 its way to mislead the audience was quite unique among the more and more complicated noir films' languages (Bordwell constant argument ("Nothing comes from nothing" – in. The Way Hollywood Tells it, p.75.) on the continuity of the classical film language exeplifies from the '40s the origins of contemporary films' obligatory twisted stories).

But the choosen (and uploaded for you) scene isn't from Laura, but selected from a less known Preminger-noir, Whirlpool (1949). The film's story is rather silly (a quack hypnotist exploits a psychoanalyst's wife to commit a crime...), so let's focus only on the well tempered hypnotic situation and its cinematic execution. The sequence shows the charlatan's first hypnotic try on Ann (after Laura's role we have again Preminger's – and my – favorite Gene Tierney). The shifting states and the differences between the film's reality, the moments of the hypnosis, the hypnotic act, and the coming-back-to-the-reality are told very moderate (almost as undefined way as it was in Laura – remember the misleading moment when Dana Andrews is falling asleep with a booze in his hand...).

Anyway, here the case is more simple: according to the above, there are 4 indistinguished different states within one sequence: 

1. before the hypnosis

2. during the hypnosis

3. under the spell of the hypnosis

4. after the hypnosis

The shifts are visually almost invisible (small changes with the light and the focus), but are well divided with the help of the sound! See how:

1. before the hypnosis: diegetic music (the party's live music)

2. during the hypnosis: silence

3. under the spell of the hypnosis: extra-diegetic music

4. after the hypnosis: the diegetic music fades back.

Preminger's ability to change character objectivity and subjectivity back and forth makes him one of the most exciting directors of his age (it would deserve another post how Tierney's acting supports this tricky shifts: Tierney is as mechanical that sometimes you are not able to recognize the difference between her normal behave (with her guilty kleptomania she is sick anyhow) and her actions under the spell of the hypnosis...). About other examples (without Preminger) of this cinematic shift you can read here.

9/10

Film quiz #2

Let's play! I'll show you one picture and ask three questions (the first gives possible key for the rest / the second is the easiest / about the third I'm the most curious).

1. Which movie is this still from?

2. Who (whose cut out poster?) is on the right??

3. What is he (his cut out poster?) doing in this film???

Please write your answers to the comment section.

My only help is my rate:)

10/10

The Red Shoes (1948)

Michael Powell's and Emerich Pressburger's beautiful story based on Hans Christian Andersen's identical tale is a perfect example of an adaptation. Even more than that: they created a movie which is not only a film but a theatre, more precise a ballet. To be clear The Red Shoes is a film which adapts and incorporates a tale (by H.C.A. – adapts, because the film shows Andersen's tale through a ballet; incorporates, because it repeats its story within the film's own plot) about a ballet dancer who is fighting between her emotions, talent, love and ambition. I won't tell more, you absolutely shouldn't miss this beautiful Technicolor romance (if it helps in your decision, I confess: "I hate ballet, period.").

It's better to dig down for a detail again! I've chosen and uploaded a scene where the ballet is shown first time at the theatre (Let's make it obvious: the film isn't a ballet-film, it is a film which mainly provides an insight behind the scenes of the cruel and delightful world of a dance theatre (see Bob Fosse's 10/10 All That Jazz (1979))). What I find interesting here is the way how the film stops to be realistic, moreover how the visual freedom of a film wins over the strict point of view of the theatrical representation. 

Consider the differences between playing a ballet for a "real" audience at the theatre, and for a film viewer: different gestures (obviously the film – with the help of the camera's wandering frames and focuses – needs to be less artistic, or – such a nice expression here – less theatrical), different possibilities in visualisation (jumping into the shoes, the dissolves, slow motions, and other kinds of cinematic practices), the problematics of the directions on the stage (the theatre has less freedom: normally some movements shown in a film would be hidden for the audience in the theatre (the wandering between the sets the theatre can't afford)), the gaze of the dancers (playing for the individual (embodied by the camera) VS. playing for the mass audience).

[if you can't see all the listed topics in the scene you will when you'll watch the entire film..]

In sum, these are the differences in possibilities, which actually force the theatre directors to be more and more creative, and which makes differences between films which are translating other forms of arts into their cinematic language.

9/10

Greed (1924)

It seems nowadays I dedicate myself for the small details. The web is full with complete reviews of films which – according to the limited extense of an average analysis – are overlooking their attention on the details which in fact are the cinematic building blocks of a given movie.

Yesterday I decided to pay off an old debt and watched Erich von Stroheim's masterwork from 1924, Greed (1999 restored version, 239 min, where the missing parts are substituted with stills (very likely that the film remains as a torso forever since the original parts were destroyed (the footage have been rendered down for the silver nitrate) during the studio's (MGM) unmerciful recut)). Frank Norris's bitter story about McTeague, the simple fellow driven by his even humble instincts becomes extremely grim in the film...

But let's see an example on the silent film's naive, innocent try to identify one of his characters. The scene what I uploaded yesterday shows an argument between two former friends, McTeague and a greedy Marcus. The latter – drinking too much – can't stand anymore McTeague's sudden wealth (his wife, Trina, a previous girlfriend of Marcus won $5.000 on the lotto), and unexpectedly attacks him in the pub. He grabs a knife...

Yes, he grabs the knife, but how we see that? How we realize that Marcus is the one who opens a penknife? The interesting solution of identifying Marcus is coming around the 19th second in the video where a close up shows the penknife. Seconds later we see who opens it, but at the very moment of the close up (which unfolds itself as an analytical shot on Marcus) we can't be sure who is who. And then comes the solution with the help of a small dark ribbon...

If you liked Gance's Napoleon or you are an immersive reader of a long novel, I can assure that you won't be disappointed to watch this truly milestone of the cinematic history.

9/10

North by Northwest (1959)

Yesterday I decided to rewatch one of my favorite films – it seems nowadays I spend more attention on movies which I've seen before. This tendency might have different reasons, for example my disappointment in contemporary films (recently: Tropic Thunder, 2008 (ok, I searched the problem for myself...)), or simply because I'm getting old:)

Anyway, just as yesterday, since you know everything about Hitch's masterpiece already (there are far better articles about it than the one I could provide here), I won't offer you a boring review, but a funny goof.

Please note the small boy in the scene's background:

The simple story goes like the scene required many reshooting, so the boy might have been scared/fedup with the coming gunshot's loudness. But don't blame the director: in 1959 nobody predicted the technical development of the future where crazy cinephiles have a chance to watch every details in slow motion (see the truck's explosion and Cary Grant's puppet under the vehicle:) Even more mostly minor goofs on NbNW are here).

10/10

Touch of Evil (1958)

I don't want to bother you with the 3212405th review of Welles' unbelievable perfect classic noir – here I'd like to talk only about the famous opening scene, the illustrious long take (I had to watch it again after it was honourly mentioned in the even more precisely planned opening (...long) scene of Altman's The Player).

Nothing's new with it, what happened is that yesterday I checked how long is exactly the run of the camera. But first let me give immediately a remark with the help of David Bordwell: ""long take" is not the same as "long shot"; the latter term refers to the apparent distance between camera and object. (...) a take is one run of the camera that records a single shot" (Bordwell: Film Art: An Introduction, 1997, 259). Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922), Welles' Citizen Kane (1941), more recently Joe Wright's Atonement's Dunkirk scene (2007), or the often cited, visually tricky last scene of Antonioni's Professione: reporter (The Passenger, 1975) are the classic examples for the use of the long take without montage. You know them very well. (Here I don't want to mention the difference between the long shot and the tracking shot – which is rather obvious.. On the other hand I believe it's unnecessary to know all the existing cinematographic terms – since they vary in different books, it's much better to understand only how they cue emotions...)

So how Touch of Evil's first long take looks like? Fact: the camera follows the ride of a bomb from its detonator's set until its explosion, so it rolls 3 minutes and 20 seconds without a single cut. It's definitely not a world record, which is more interesting is that the villain who starts the bomb ticking (notice Henry Mancini's bomb-ticking score!) sets the detonator around 3:20 too (as far as we can see that clearly).

And here is the entire scene:

One could argue about the difference between its felt and real time – I would say with the Hitchcockian planted suspense (see below •) I felt the situation much longer than 3:20 (The same happens – without any suspense at all – during Béla Tarr's uunnbbeelliieevvaabbllee ssslllooowww opening take in Sátántangó (Satan's Tango, 1994)). No more words on this since this post is not about the psychological-cognitive differences of the perceived time.

More important is to watch Uncle Joe Grandi's (and Hank Quinlan's, whose "intentions", "hunches" are just painfully, even suspiciously right...) plan which is – as the film's ad says "one of the strangest vengeance ever", but which is the darkest noir for me.

"A real sweet setup."

10/10

• “There is a distinct difference between “suspense” and “surprise”, and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I’ll explain what I mean. We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let us suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, »Boom!« There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware that the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions this same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: »You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There’s a bomb beneath you and it’s about to explode!« In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story” (Truffaut's interview with Hitchcock, 1984, 73).

Rear Window (1954)

Instead of writing a traditional review about one of the best movies ever, here is a 5 (and a half) minutes long summary of Alfred Hitchcock's amazing cinematic classic from 1954 (the voiceover comes partly from the Wikipedia's plot summary). 

I hope you'll enjoy as much as I did during compiling it.

If the last weekend was a lazy one what should I say about this one? I mean maybe I've found a new way to ruin the whole weekend. At least I've got to know the very basics of a Final Cut Express 4 editing software.

Ok, a small amount of "brightness" at the end: Hopefully you recognized the moving images among the stills (not about the ones with the Ken Burns effect, but the "real" moving images). I didn't plan to edit them at the beginning, but since I realized how statically constructed even the moving ones, I decided to use them. I believe that this aspect of the statical viewpoints is less researched in line of the film's analyses. At least in the reviews this wise cinematic feature owes less attention than the POV's, alias Jeffries' dramaturgical staticality accompanied by the camera.

(Let's not start sentences with an 'if', so involve it to your sentences like) if I could restart my cinema-interested career, I would definitely study editing!

10/10

(but what is your grade?)

Sherlock Jr. (1924)

Don't need to introduce the genious Buster "Stone Face" Keaton. On the other day Tarsem's The Fall took a liking for watching an early stunt film (if you've seen the picturesque ode of early Hollywood's stuntmanship you understand my choice..). Usually we praise these films because of their reckless physical features. Although Keaton's Sherlock Jr. is full with these actions it is still more than a "simple" stunt film. It's packed with brain too. I could point to the embedded story of a wannabe projectionist as a detective and all the related tricks (this early example of a 'film in a film' character is – not a wonder – the movie's most cited value), but this time I'd like to indicate only one attraction / trick / gag from the film. What do you think about the jump at 1:59?

                            

I told you – Keaton is without doubt "the" stuntman, but he is a magician too from Harry Houdini's finest school (Keaton remembers as Houdini gave his 'Buster' name to him, but it's more likely that his producers advertised him through the already famous Houdini (fact, that they were working together (Keaton grew up in a vaudeville family (although the story could continue I won't open more parentheses))))...

Without any special lighthearted feelings for the silent era, this 44 minutes is definitely 10 out of 10! Keaton's Sherlock Jr. comprises more cinematic and comedic ideas than half of contemporary Hollywood has. And this isn't a joke. Try to enjoy stone faced.

10/10

(Hey, what about yesterday's questions? One of them is within the best ever made 25 films – according the imdb...)

Logan's Run (1976)

"Sometime in the 23rd century... the survivors of war, overpopulation and pollution are living in a great domed city, sealed away from the forgotten world outside. There, in an ecologically balanced world, mankind lives only for pleasure, freed by the servo-mechanisms which provide everything. 

There's just one catch: Life must end at thirty unless reborn in the fiery ritual of Carrousel..."

Another classic, but at least sci-fi cult film from 1976 (I mean from 2274:) by Michael Anderson about the possible future: at least in its above quoted prologue it encounters all our actual threat which might lead to the depicted utopia (the film definitely made influence on such movies like the Polish cult Seksmisja, but even Verhoeven's Total Recall or Bay's The Island). Our protagonist, Logan 5 (Michael York, who sometimes looks pretty much like Guy Pearce - see the pic) is a "sandman", a member of a special unit who are collecting and killing the so called runners, the ones who doesn't want to "renew" when they turn into 30.

"One is terminated, one is born. Simply, logical, perfect."

One day the 26 years old Logan gets a special mission: his superiors transform him 30 to create a runner from him in order to infiltrate and search for the secret place of the runners called Sanctuary. Why do they run? Why is it wrong to run? Logan's run is more a process of his awake, the realisation of the cruelty of their "well balanced" system.

After the first scene and the initial tune of the atmospheric soundtrack (omg Jerry Goldsmith was a genious! (he wrote the score for The Omen (best st. ever), Chinatown (or this would be the best?) from the same year, and later - not accidentally - for Totall Recall, too)) you feel Anderson's effort to make a "big" film; whish I could watch these classics on a big canvas...

Anyway, Logan's Run isn't a flawless film, for example the middle part is definitely longer than it should be, but if you're a sci-fi fan, then it is a real delicacy. Otherwise: you decide.

6/10

42nd Street (1933)

"Johns and Barry are doing the show!"

The classic 42nd Street about the 42nd street dance theatre at Broadway is Lloyd Bacon's film, but everybody knows because of Busby Berkeley and his stunning staging talent and dance choreographies. To know this you won't expect too much from the story - I bet 4 out of 5 movie fans are watching these films because of Berkeley and the damn good music from the '30s.

Thus if you expect some weak, subservient, shallow story you'll have a positive surprise: "It's a musical comedy with dancing" - says Julian Marsh, the obsessed production director (similar character as Roy Scheider's amazing Joe Gideon in Fosse's All that Jazz (1979)) in the film, but the whole is more than a musical within a musical. The story gives insight into the darkest years of the American great depression. The camera almost never leaves the music theatre, but within its walls, within the desperate effort staging a huge show in five weeks, explicitely emphasizing the weight of the show on people's lifes gives extra values to Lloyd's film.

As I said above the film is about staging a 'never seen before' show (Pretty Lady) with the beautiful Dorothy in the leading role. Not I'm the only one who admires her beauty: as it used to be, a rich but old and dumb fan of her sponsors the whole show, and I won't kill the joke if I tell you the source of the suspense: a former lover of Dorothy endangers this "perfect" cooperation between the show business and the sponsor's wallet...

Dorothy is a more than classic beauty of the '30s, but the real eyecandy is the way how the cinematographer (Sol Polito, see more from him here) and Berkeley created the visual style of the film. Actually the camera is training together with the dancers preparing for the show finale (carefully avoiding to show the most exciting angles and settings to reserve them until the end). Very brave camerawork from the lowest to the vertigous heights, optical tricks (sometimes the choreography is able to imitate these caleidoscope-like tricks (see the picture)), moderate cutting (the performances and the dances are more real / the viewer sits in an imaginary perfect position), and so on...

One more thing: Ginger Roger's "mistake" ("bel... tummy") can't be a mistake - see the revealing discussion about it here.

Even if it's a true masterpiece (within its genre!), you should decide about watch it or not yourself. I did and don't regret.

8/10

Out of the Past (1947)

"- It's a small world.

- Yeah, ... or a big sign!"

My review won't take too much of your time. The day after tomorrow I'm going to defend my PhD thesis, and Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past was mentioned in my opponent's feedback. I suppose it is enough reason to write about it now:)

A stranger enters a small town. He is searching somebody, and seems this time he had luck, because one of the inhabitants he isn't a stranger. Jeff Bailey's (Robert Mitchum, one of the coolest guys from the 40s), a small town gas-pumper's hiding is over. His past, namely Mr Whit's (the perfectly mean Kirk Douglas) "long arms" catched him. Mr Whit, who has the phrase "I fire people but nobody quits me." It seems they had some dark business. And Jeff wasn't fired from that. Yet. The "generous" Mr Whit gives another chance to Jeff for redemption. The offer is unrejectable...

The story is classic noir: there are twists and turns, between them the femme fatale who handles the strings of the crime, and a good criminal who has to face with his mistake, with his past (Cronenberg's History of Violence pop up into my mind..). Most interesting is the way how the story told: Tourneur operates with a huge flashback to heightens his film's suspense and with this to delay the answers for the most important questions. Where does Jeff come from? What did he do?

Nothing special "just" a very amusing film from 1947. Mitchum, the screenplay and the perfectly directed plot makes the film well enough to watch (the latter feature made the film important for my defending..).

"A man – trying to run away from his past /

 a woman – trying to escape her future."

8/10

The Roaring Twenties (1939)

"Bitter or sweet, most memories become precious as the years move on. This film is a memory – and I am grateful."

As the signature tells these lines are Mark Hellinger's words. But who is he? Good question, because Raoul Walsh didn't deal a card for him in his classic gangster masterpiece, The Roaring Twenties. Instead of taking part, Hellinger created the story, but he was more than a simple screenplay writer. He was one of the first Broadway columnists, a classic hard-drinking, hard-living theatre-journalist, with such a friends like Bugsy Siegel, Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and who knows who else. He was authentic.

"In this film, the characters are composites of people I knew, and the situations are those that actually occured."

And Walsh, my favourite gangster film director (with the unbeateable White Heat, exactly ten years after this) delivers the reality what Hellinger imagined, more precisely what he lived through. In the first minutes the wheel of time counts back twenty years from 1938. We found ourselves in a not so shiny April in France. During the WWI our protagonists meet in a bombshell in the middle of a war scene. They are Lloyd the heart of oak lawyer, George the savage guy from a "saloon business" (Bogie again, again, again, and again), and there is Eddie Bartlett, a simple guy from one of the garages of New York (Cagney is perfect as usual). 1919. The war is over, and our heroes return home, to find again their dropped lifes. But when the new decade, the roaring twenties start, they have to continue their well-known game, "the struggle for survive." Unemployment, taxes on the ceiling, prohibition, regression. The almost forgotten veterans are not as welcomed as they thought (familiar?). Everybody needs to find his new role in the changed circumstances, so their lifes starts from different tracks, but in such a perfect screenplay like this we can bet that they will cross each other's paths pretty soon. More than they ever wanted...

The 'roaring twenties' is rather a phrase than a reference to this classic piece to describe the exceptionally hectic decade. There are better and worse explanation about its cultural-, economic-, crime- and politics related historical moment, but if you are tired to study those, this film is a really good choice to seize all its knowledge embedded into a flawless story (Walsh carefully builds the history in the background).

As I said only the screenplay would deserve already 10 out of 10. Cagney's play (he is THE gangster) is the cherry on the top (is it possible that he is a mixture of Robbie Williams and Malcolm McDowell?:)!

!!!SPOILER!!!

Did you realize that in the 30's films Cagney always kills Bogart?

Hellinger had right: "This film is a memory – and I am grateful." Me too!

10/10

Chinatown (1974)

"You're dumber than you think I think you are."

There are thousand definitions of being classic, but for me definitely is the case when I have time to time the feeling to rewatch the same film. Polanski's Chinatown is one of them. A true neo noir masterpiece. Why 'neo' is this noir? I could find thousand reasons, just think on its brave colours (a colorful noir? Yes!), its sexual taboos (hmm, maybe I won't spoil..), its femme fatale's human touch (which makes her story even more tragic). On the other hand it follows all the real noirs' rules with its slow ventillators, venetian blinds, complicated / layered storyline, dense cigarette smoke, sweating foreheads, heroes with accused past, soft hats and white rounded car tyres, where the sneaking in score of Jerry Goldsmith during the credits makes you goose bumps already (It would deserve a separate essay how the tone and the variations of the main theme of the music is changing along our way descending the deepest darkness of the story).

We are somewhere in the 1930's Los Angeles. Jake Gittes, a Marlow-type private eye, who changed a big part from his ancestor's cynism for some blasé attribute (I told you, it's 'neo' already, right after the fatal Vietnam war mixed with Gittes' diegetic dark secret back to his past in Chinatown...) has a new case: Mrs. Mulwray hires him to check her husband who in her opinion is having a lover. An important detail: Mr. Mulwray is a chief engineer of a huge L.A. project "Water and Power." The Alto Vallejo plan is about to solve the water problem of the city ("to keep the desert out from the streets and not on the top of them"). Simple case for the coony Gittes (he defines this extra of his as a "finesse"), he has the next days already compromitted pictures from the "couple" (even the newspaper gets them somehow...:). But the happines doesn't last too long: the next day Mrs. Mulwray is waiting for Gittis at his office with her lawyer. I mean the the never seen before, real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway).

And we are only at the very beginning of it – after some murders happen Gittes gets another assignment, even from the real Evelyn Cross Mulwray. One more character needs to be introduced namely Evelyn's father, Mulwray's business partner in planning, Noah Cross (played by unbelievable complex John Huston, exactly, the film director), who is most likely behind all the mysterious and more and more deadly actions. He gives another assignment for the getting confused but more and more motivated (and involved) Gittes. And I didn't mentioned Polanski's cameo as a "midget" with a knife. Hilariously dangerous with his childish face...

"- May I speak frankly, Mrs. Mulwray?"

- You may if you can, Mr. Gittes."

Of course I won't forget to emphasize Jack Nicholson's figure as Gittes. But I have to say if I would write here a whole litany about his greatness it wouldn't be enough to express his qualities. Some might say that this is his career's main character, which according to his Jack Torrance or McMurphy is rather a brave statement, but I'm not sure if it isn't true.

If we are really talking about a classic film historical masterwork (as we are doing), there must be thousand small stories, gossips, legends around its cultic presence. Next to those I'd like to add my small proud-detail which was mentioned among the extras of the DVD: the novel's and the film's title as Chinatown comes from a Hungarian fellow who was working there and told stories about its strange world to the writer of the original story (Robert Towne).

To make it simple all the enthusiastic gibberish above: Perfect and obligatory.

10/10

I bambini ci guardano (The Children Are Watching Us) (1943)

"Mommy, are you crying?

- No, why would I be?"

The drama of Vittorio de Sica's neorealistic (master)piece isn't "strong" enough if you compare it with some contemporary attitudinizing Hollywood or even European films. That's why my discreet brackets around the 'masterpiece': if you aren't interested in film history, more precise history of film style, or if you can't enjoy a simple nice story anymore, then change DVD immediately and watch those wannabes like Haggis' Crash or Jieho Lee's The Air I Breathe (here is my not so fawning opinion about the latter one).

This time the adjective 'simple' is a definite compliment. I felt something similar during watching PTA's sober There Will Be Blood - of course its simplicity is completely different, and according to 2007, but the way how their directors touched the different topics and styles is talking about some remote affinity. With even a microscopic amount of irony or cynicism you can easily identify this simplicity with sentimentalistic banality, and probably in some extent you have right (btw after all what you would expect from a European movie from 1943? Check your history books, now). Just sometimes, for your own sake, it is not worth to have right.

The beautifully simple story is about a family, or even more, the Family from some peaceful times. But if just there isn't a war to ruin the harmony, there are adults. Family members. In de Sica's film there is Nina, the beautiful mother, who struggles with her feelings between her family and a young lover, Roberto. Finally she makes a decision and leaves her family. The husband is left alone with his sensitive small child, Pricó (he must be a psychic relative of Rossellini's blond boy, Edmund from Germania Anno Zero). But what is more terrible? To leave them or to try coming back to your left family? The question contains the tragic, especially if Nina can't hide from her smouldering feelings, and when the children are not only looking at our directions but watching us...

Thanks to the Criterion Collection for the restaurated version (2000). Maybe without their quality contribution we wouldn't have a chance to see (recognise for a second) the last scene's literally carried out metaphor about the dissaffected, "cold" relationship between mother and child. Moreover, the icecold blew of Nina is more than an embodied metaphor; it is a perfect proof against those film historians who take too seriously the realistic film language/style of the Italian Neorealism.

8/10 

The Sniper (1952)

Let's start with a longer citation from the very beginning of the story - just because I haven't got too much to tell about this rather simple thriller from 1952.

"High among police problems is that of the sex criminal, responsible last year alone for offenses which victimized 31.175 women. Adequate and understanding laws do not exist. Law enforcement is helpless. Here, in terms of one case, is the story of a man whose enemy was womankind."

This offical-like depressive statement leads in Edward Dmytryck's film about a helpless man who starts to shoot women with his sniper gun. I could say that's all, because the story is so banal and actually doesn't happen anything more. Maybe one thing needs to be mentioned, his motivation which connects to the quotation above: he has built up hatred against women piece by piece, from which the story doesn't show too much. Mr. Miller is a deeply frustrated, misantrophe person already in a beginning who knows that he needs help (see other suffering, self-blaming serial killers like Spike Lee's almost perfect Summer of Sam (1999) or Fincher's perfect Zodiac (2007). The latter one's "zodiac" created puzzles in order to help the police to catch him - while Miller desperately honest with his letter: "Find me and stop me. I'm going to do it again."). Tragically his warning shouts don't reach his psychiatrist but turn into real gunshots. And he is unbelievable, I mean deadly accurate...

If you want to spend a simple but valuable 87 minutes I can recommend it, but I would say maybe it's better to watch - even if you've seen already - Dmytryck's timeless noir classic (again), Murder, My Sweet from 1944. The Sniper is nothing else as a straight thriller made sensitive for temporary social problems (the last frame's teardrop undoubtedly opens the individual tragedy to collective social dimension) of its age.

7/10

Key Largo (1948)

"It's better to be a live coward 

than a dead hero."

The essence of the quoted sentence is in the middle of another co-operation of director John Huston and Hollywood's coolest character ever Humphrey Bogart (- within the same year with ...Sierra Madre). One thing is sure: the moral tale of Key Largo isn't their best.

"At the southernmost point of the United States are the Florida Keys, a string of small islands held together by a concrete causeway. Largest of these remote coral islands is Key Largo." The ex war veteran Frank McCloud (Bogart) arrives there to visit a war causilty friend's family. The sorrow of the meeting with the hotel owner Mr. Temple (Lionel Barrymore), the father of the fallen hero and the ex-wife, Nora (Bacall) changes soon when Frank confronts with a suspicious company of the hotel. When he realises who is hiding upstairs, it's too late to act: A long night begins where the rules of the game are in one hand, the ill-famed, nowadays more frustrated ex-mob Johnny Rocco (no one can better smoke a cigar than Edward G. Robinson). Moreover the last years' biggest hurricane is on its way heading Key Largo...

The film is more a theater piece, a chamber play, some kind of psychological drama, where mentally wounded characters, ethical questions, moral values materialize into a closed group dynamics of the situation. Frank's pricks of conscience ("A living war hero? I know already how he did!"), Rocco's growing inferiority complex ("After living in the USA for more than thirty-five years they called me an undesirable alien. Me. Johnny Rocco. Like I was a dirty Red or something."), Mr. Temple's and Nora's sorrow, and their only trusting /useless  faith (the '/' is the question of the film) in Frank are the catalysts of the unfolding drama of this long stormy night. You can't miss the definitely weighty questions of the post WW2 situation behind, materialized by these characters.

The long and short of it: the moral is stronger than the story, Rocco is more cynical (and yes, better) than Frank, Bacall not as beautiful than in Hawks' To Have and Have Not (btw, the final scene of Key Largo is borrowed from Hemingway's To Have... which wasn't used in its rather free adaptation of Hawks). And hey, have you seen a Bogart-film where Bogey tolerates somebody's hit on his face without giving back? There now!

It's not about that you shouldn't watch it but believe me, there are embarrasingly amount of  better movies from the fourties...

6/10

Charlie Chan's Secret (1936)

"Necessity - mother of invention.

But sometimes stepmother of deception."

You certainly love or hate Charlie Chan's figure (created by Earl Derr Biggers, played (this time) by Warner Oland), the Chinese detective, who used to tiresomely repeat these laconic sentences of dubious wisdom, who is sometimes wearing a terrible white suit, and who is using limited English with a bad, but characteristic pronunciation. Maybe in the real world I would like to hit him on his small moustached face, but actually in a movie like the whole series around his investigations he is a private eye full with individual virtue.

This time (Charlie Chan's Secret by Gordon Wiles) the film starts with a headline of a special edition of a newspaper: "S.S. Nestor lost in storm off Hawaii!" The rescue is going on already, because many prominent persons among missing. And just like it used to be, there is something "fishy" around the whole case: "A man walks out on a fortune seven years ago. Then all of a sudden, he appears from nowhere to claim it." The man's name is Allen Colby, and from the passanger list of the sunken ship he is the only one who is missing. He maybe disappeard in the deepest dephts of the ocean, but nobody could say that he died. Charlie Chan won't for sure... 

There is something common between the film professor David Bordwell and me: Charlie Chan's movies were one of our favourites during our childhood. Maybe he had luck to see them in some local movie theatre while I enjoyed some from the television. If you're regularly watching and analyzing films it isn't a surprise thet you've been amazed with these films: following Chan's methods, trying to find out his Columbo-like tricky logic, being interested in the wisely told and unfolded crime shows similarities with our everyday's interpretative methods like collecting small pieces of informations from images amd sequences, trying to look at the given narrative from different points of view, approach from parallel perspectives, build up hypotheses, summarizing existing knowledges. Actually Charlie Chan's stories contain all the values how we like and read movies.

Even if it's a bit overacted (there is a living ghost of a silent cinema in the air), even Chan's irritating character (after a while you will like him more and more) ten out of ten without a single doubt. Nothing's left but quoting the detective's most used words:

"Thank you so much."

10/10

From Here to Eternity (1953)

"Nobody ever lies about being lonely."

I'm not the biggest western fan, so if I have to name one of my favourites I'm usually in trouble, and answer automatically: High Noon. I do

n't know why but Fred Zinnemann's deadline-story (gave a lot to Delmer Dave's original (1957) and Mangold's remade Yuma) showed me more than usually the westerns used to give. First of all its biggest merit is the perfectly drawn psychology. And at this point we arrive to his another movie which was made only one year after it: From Here to Eternity.

Zinnemann takes care of psychology for sure. The movie showes Hawaii in 1941, so it could have been another Pearl Harbour-American-heroic tale, but the history almost disappears behind the personal drama. Just like in the case of High Noon: Will Kane (Gary Cooper's best performance what I've seen from him until now) is waiting and preparing for the drama, namely the promised train at 12 o'clock full with bandits planning revenge on him. The threat is there every minute but the drama isn't connecting directly, physically to the train but to the psychological reactions of those people who are waiting for it. 

Prowitt (the early died talent, Montgomery Clift with his face mixtured from Elvis and Schwarzenegger:) is like Will Kane: he could choose easier ways but he is - luckily for us - stubborn enough not to run away from the situations. Prowitt, you know, 'prove it'. Another 'James Dean'. As his sergeant said: 

"Looks like a good man. I know this type. He is a hardhead."

So, 1941, Hawaii, Schofield Barracks, Prewitt transferred to the island. The reason 'why?' is our first question, but we know, it is actually doesn't matter: the anwer's role is only to enrich our knowledge about Prew's character. At this point of the story more interesting is Karen (anybody can say anything, but Deborah Kerr is beautiful with her strict face and way of speaking), the bossboss captain Holmes' wife, who starts an affair with Prew's strict but human sergeant, Warden (Burt Lancaster). We have an interesting web of relationships immediately (with the traditional tension between army and private life), where there is a regular character, the funny second role, too. Maggio's (Frank Sinatra) figure doesn't so insignificant as it looks like: as we know already these characters used to be the catalysts, the last drops in the drama's glass... [Actually somebody should write a book about this second line-, but very important characters' appearence and importance in Hollywood. "The best friend as a dramatic fuel" or something like this...]

But back to Prewitt's conflict: he stopped boxing a year ago (with a reason, of course...), but Holmes, who as a fan runs an army box-team tries to convince him to return into the ring. The word 'convince' maybe not the right one, let's say he forces him different ways. But - as we know very well - Prew is a 'hardhead', who keeps his word, so he needs to suffer under 'the treatment', a continous tortures of the barrack. He is classic tough guy, can't break him with the army's physical tortures, but could he stand the life's psychological 'treatment' too? This is Zinnemann's - I dare to say - usual question, where all the real, physical, historical threats only colouring the unavoidable drama's background (the informations related to the historical moment are in the background as an "accidentally" shown calendar (6th December, 1941), a newspaper's head about the Japanese army's movements, or the traffic signpost which indicates Pearl Harbour at 8 miles away...).

Maybe not highly, but definitely recommended classic which avoids to show too many American flag and unnecessary heroism. The temporary films should learn about this moderate voice.

8/10