The Saint Strikes Back (1939)

Posted on August 18, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #60
John Farrow | 62 mins | TV | 4:3 | USA / English | PG*

The first film to star the Roger Moore-ish George Sanders as Simon Templar, aka the titular Saint, is also one of the RKO series’ better entries.

For starters, John Farrow’s direction is admirably slick for ’30s B-movie filler. One of the first shots of the film is a grand single take through a nightclub; not the longest shot ever, of course, but very effective, including a neat balloon-popping reveal of the movie’s villainess — a most striking introduction. There are a couple of directorial flourishes along these lines throughout the movie, including a bizarre hallucination sequence and a final tracking shot that loses the Saint in the fog.

If there’s one thing the Saint series is surprisingly good at it’s evoking a place. Each film seems to occupy a different setting (though there are a couple of trips to New York throughout the series) and, though I suppose fundamentally arbitrary, they do a solid job of reminding the viewer where they are. It’s no coincidence that almost half follow a The Saint in… title format. Here it’s The Saint in San Francisco, evoked with very atmospheric opening shots of the Golden Gate bridge — presumably stock footage, but its fogginess is carried on to the studio sets/backlot the film transfers to.

To be frank, I found the plot to be equally foggy in places. It’s adapted from one of Saint creator Leslie Charteris’ novels (She Was a Lady, aka Angels of Doom or The Saint Meets His Match) and perhaps it’s the legacy of squishing a book down into an hour of screentime. It’s not ludicrously unfollowable, just… foggy. The ending in particular seemed fudged, rushed, or just not as clear as it should be.

Nonetheless, it’s mostly a fun romp. Sanders’ portrayal of Templar is witty and enjoyably knowing, even more so than Louis Hayward in the previous film. He’s at once more laid-back and less self-certain; by which I mean you can sometimes see him working out his devilishly clever plans as he goes along, rather than floating through with invulnerability. This Saint is the kind of man who’ll bluff that a criminal’s house is surrounded by police so that he can escape, but then can’t resist phoning back to have a little gloat about how his bluff worked. Lighter, jokier — if Hayward was Sean Connery, Sanders is (as noted) Roger Moore. Though I’ve never seen the ’60s TV series, here I can see clearly how Moore was suited to the role.

Returning as Inspector Fernack, Jonathan Hale has a great double act with Sanders. Their relationship clearly grows as the series goes on, but it clicks from the off. He’s a great sidekick and foil, here treated to a neatly constructed subplot about his diet. It’s better than that sounds. Also topping the bill is Wendy Barrie, making the first of three appearances as three different characters. This is her best turn in the series, however, the part being the most interesting of her three roles as well as getting the most to do.

Initially I would have said I preferred in New York to Strikes Back, by a smidgen; but having completed Sanders’ run in the series before writing this review, I’ve further warmed to his portrayal. As I said at the start, this is certainly one of the high points of the run.

Read my thoughts on the four other films to star George Sanders as the Saint here and here.

* As with many of the Saint films, this has apparently not been passed by the BBFC since its release in 1939. Nonetheless, it’s available on DVD, rated PG. ^

102 Dalmatians (2000)

Posted on August 17, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #18
Kevin Lima | 96 mins | TV | 1.85:1 | UK & USA / English | U / G

I imagine the live-action re-working of 101 Dalmatians was a surprise hit back in 1996 — of course the animated original is very popular, but I don’t remember the remake collating much critical acclaim and, with the talking animals and songs gone, was there much point? But clearly it went down pretty well because it earnt itself this sequel. While I quite like the first, it’s definitely an inferior rehash of the animated film; this one, striking out on its own, is for my money a better experience. It’s not a great film, but it’s resolutely dotty and barking — puns very much intended.

It’s at its best early on, with Cruella de Vil turned nice. It’s different and allows more room to be original and funny. Director Kevin Lima (who has since gone on to helm Enchanted to much wider acclaim) imbues it with a kind of craziness that transcends being a Silly Children’s Film and borders on silliness-as-art. A moment where London is completely dalmatian-coloured is particularly good, and a sequence aping Lady and the Tramp is quite neatly done.

More than Lima, though, this all shows off Glenn Close. She’s great at camping it up appropriately, laying on the Niceness with a trowel. She’s magnificent throughout… but, sadly, it’s an undemanding second half. The experience derails the further things go on, turning into merely a rehash of the first film but relocated to Paris for no particular reason. And aside from a race around the streets, ‘Paris’ is mostly a studio set anyway. Obviously they couldn’t keep Cruella in Nice Mode for the entire running time, but there’s call for a bit more originality in what happens after she goes bad.

Elsewhere, Alice Evans (for some reason I seem to remember there being a big fuss around when she was cast in this, but she doesn’t seem to have done a whole lot notable in the decade-and-a-bit since) and Ioan Gruffudd are fine (since this they’ve become a real-life couple, which is, y’know, something). Tim McInnerny provides able comic support as ever. Gerard Depardieu isn’t really trying as a French fashionista — a daft haircut and silly costumes do most of the work for him. Eric Idle is hit and miss as the voice of a bird. For one thing, why can it talk? A little incongruous when no other animals can. For another, he’s allowed to go off on one too often. When it works, it does; other times, it’s just too much. Then there’s an array of British-actors-in-small-roles for those that enjoy such face-spotting: look out for Ian Richardson, Timothy West, Ron Cook and Jim Carter here.

Plus there’s an awful lot of cute dogs. Always a bright side. And it’s a great answer for “name an Oscar-nominated film” trivia questions (it garnered one for, appropriately, costume design).

It’s a shame 102 Dalmatians degenerates into predictability, because early on it’s off-the-wall loony in a way they don’t dare to make any more. Silliness-as-art, indeed, but ruined by a nasty case of sequelitis.

Toy Story Toons: Hawaiian Vacation (2011)

Posted on August 10, 2012 by badblokebob

Pixar have always attached original short films to their feature releases. As part of what seems to be their increasing franchisation, however, they’re not always wholly original now: Hawaiian Vacation was the short attached to Cars 2. And it’s the first in a series of Toy Story shorts: the second, Small Fry, appeared in cinemas before The Muppets; the third, Partysaurus Rex, comes with Finding Nemo 3D later this year.

The simple, sweet story is that the toys’ new owner (I forget her name) is off on holiday, so Ken and Barbie attempt to stowaway for a romantic break, only to hide in the wrong bag. Being the kind and caring friends they are, the other toys set about giving them a Hawaiian holiday right there in the bedroom.

Hawaiian Holiday — another time when British English bests American English right there. But I digress.

When I first heard they were doing these shorts I was trepidatious. Toy Story is in many ways Pixar’s flagship franchise, and after the Huge Event that was Toy Story 3, was it really wise to dilute the experience with a series of mini-adventures? Was it not better to leave it as a series of three big movies, each one a grand and special event? After all, the more you do something, the less special it becomes. That’s one of the reasons Toy Story 3 works — we hadn’t seen these characters we love for 11 years. It’s why Toy Story 4 would be a disastrous idea — after such a perfect ending, why revisit them?

Hawaiian Vacation doesn’t exactly allay these fears — its very existence is proof of that — but at least it’s an entertaining piece in its own right. It succeeds partly by not overreaching itself — this isn’t Toy Story 4 and it doesn’t try to be. It reminds us of the characters and gives them each a story beat, while remaining funny, entertaining and sweet, all in under six minutes. Cars 2 can’t manage that in 106.

These Toy Story Toons may eventually add up to a dilution of Toy Story’s specialness, just another example of Pixar’s increasing predilection for the creation of sequels and spin-offs. But if they’re as good as this, at least we’ll have fun while they do it.

Toy Story 3 comes to Sky Movies Premiere today at 4:15pm and 8pm, and continues until Thursday 16h August. You can read my review here.

Rango: Extended Cut (2011)

Posted on August 7, 2012 by badblokebob

There seem to be an increasing number of live-action directors sticking their oar into animated films; and not just lending their ideas and name, as Tim Burton did with Nightmare Before Christmas, but properly directing them. Robert Zemeckis’ mo-cap obsession has given us that Christmas one, that other Christmas one, and Beowulf; Tim Burton supervised the stop-motion himself in Corpse Bride; then there’s Zack Snyder (Legend of the Guardians*), Steven Spielberg (Tintin), Peter Jackson (Tintin 2), and, here, first-three-Pirates helmer Gore Verbinski.

Perhaps this is because the increasing prevalence of CGI in big-budget movies (which all of these directors have also been responsible for) means the transition to 100% animation is easier — indeed, as I’ve said before, Avatar is classed as live-action but is basically a motion-captured animated film with a few live-action bits. This theory has added weight when you look behind the scenes at Rango: rather than teaming up with an established animation producer like Pixar or Dreamworks, Verbinski assembled his own team of pre-production creatives, wrote and designed the entire film independently for 16 months, then took it to ILM — who had never done an animated movie before — to do the heavy lifting. (The story of how the film was made is pretty much as interesting as the film itself, with Verbinski and ILM bringing their live-action-honed methods and sensibilities to bear on the production of a fully computer animated (not mo-capped) film. I heartily recommend the two documentaries on the Blu-ray. If you’re interested but don’t have the BD, you could do worse than read this article.)

Indeed, perhaps the most striking thing about Rango is ILM’s hallmark, the extraordinary realism. Though some of the characters are rendered cartoonishly (just look at Rango’s face) and all are of course anthropomorphised, the textures and lighting are as true-to-life as any of their work in live-action movies. They consciously went for a photographic look, as if it had been shot with real cameras, including consultation with Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins, and it paid off because the whole thing looks incredible. I know I only just recommended it in the last paragraph, but the making-ofs are really great for an insight into why the film looks and feels so different to most current computer-animated films. The sequences of them recording performance reference are incredible — they essentially shot some scenes in full, with the entire cast, in costume, with full props, some sets, blocking, marks, camera angles, improvisation… (The only thing lacking on the Blu-ray is a Sin City-style full-length version of the movie using that footage.) Even though it’s not mo-capped (Depp refers to their performance-reference recordings as “emotion capture”), they used a mo-cap studio with virtual sets so Verbinski could find angles and so on — all the tools he’d have on a live-action set.

Is it cheating to make an animated film this way? Some people object to motion-capture; is this as bad, or worse? Some will say so; personally, I don’t care — it’s the final product that matters, not how you got there. Though how you got there can make for a damn fine story. (Watch the making-ofs.)

Back to the film itself. I know it’s less interesting, and it is far too slow at the start, but when it eventually gets underway it becomes very entertaining. Somewhere in the middle there’s a five-minute wagon/bat chase that’s a properly exciting action sequence, excellently realised. It was so good I watched it again immediately afterwards. It’s got a clever use of Wagner too, as well as some regular Hans Zimmer action scoring. Zimmer’s score throughout is top quality, referencing Morricone and all the other staples of Westerns.

There’s the quite dark, twisted, alternative designs for characters and locations — not too much (it’s still kid-friendly), but it’s different to what Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks are doing (after early attempts at realism, they seem to be really amping up the cartoonishness now). The cast are great, though there’s much fun to be had spotting voices: some are obvious (Depp, Ray Winstone), others not so much (Isla Fisher, Alfred Molina; Bill Nighy!). There’s a good John Huston impression by Ned Beatty, and Timothy Olyphant’s Clint is so spot on I checked it wasn’t actually him.

For the cinephile viewer, Rango plays as one big homage. The obvious is its deployment of all the cliches and tropes of a Western, including a relatively subtle nod to The Man With No Name (the lead character identifies himself as Rango, but his real name? We never learn). I’ve seen some commentators berate it for this, but it’s clearly paying tribute to the genre, not being a shameful attempt at it. The plot, however, is clearly borrowed from Chinatown, but it plays out differently and there’s a clear acknowledgement of the similarities in its portrayal of the Mayor. Again, it’s homage, not rip-off. It does enough under it’s own steam on both fronts to avoid accusations of plagiarism, in my opinion.

On the down side, some of the ‘humour’ is a bit too mucky for my taste. The number of toilet-related gags goes way beyond necessary, and it’s slightly depressing that at least as many are aimed at adults as children. This is where a lot of the extended cut’s four-and-a-half-minutes comes in, incidentally, as this comparison shows. In their opinion, while the extended version’s jokes are still PG-level, they may have been cut to make sure it was absolutely family-friendly. (If you have access to the Blu-ray and want to see the added material without trying to spot it in the film itself, try the deleted scenes section — pretty sure that’s just the stuff from the extended cut.) Aside from muck, there’s an extended ending, though I’m not sure what I think of it. There’s a bit about a final sunset shot which is quite good, but I like the theatrical ending’s mirroring of the opening with the mariachi birds. All things considered, the coda was probably a wise excision in cinemas.

With its detailed references to other films and real-world visual aesthetic, Rango may be more likely to find appreciation among grown-ups than the children who are the typical target for English-language feature animation. Then again, there’s that immature humour I mentioned. A ‘family’ film indeed. Either way, it’s an entertaining addition to — and alternative from — American animation’s usual offerings.

* which has nothing to do with Rise of the Guardians, even though that crazed mash-up looks like a Snyder film. ^

Cars 2 (2011)

Posted on August 4, 2012 by badblokebob

Pixar, oh exalted studio of wondrous excellence, who produce naught but critically-acclaimed and audience-beloved films that may as well just be given the Best Animated Feature Oscar without the need for fellow nominees, dropped the ball with Cars. So why did it become only the second Pixar movie to earn a sequel? As most people know, because of the merchandise. Little boys love toy cars (and grown men too, apparently) and the things sold like hot cakes, and continued to do so for years afterwards. Running out of ways to milk the first movie’s characters, the only solution was to make some new ones — and that involves making a new film.

For what is essentially a near-two-hour toy commercial, Cars 2 fares quite well — it’s better than Batman & Robin anyway. Well, it’s less offensive to one’s sensibilities. Not ruining a great character and a once-great franchise helps. And, despite its lowly Rotten Tomatoes rating (which is flat out appalling, and doubly so for a Pixar movie), there’s a solid argument to be made that it’s better than the first Cars.

The plot is just as predictable though: character arcs are so well-trodden they only seem to bother including them because they push the story along; surely everyone will guess who the ‘surprise’ villain is as soon as he/she/it shows up earlier in the film; and so on. But instead of the stock “slick city guy finds his true self in the country” tale told first time round, here we get an international spy movie — much more fun. The espionage stuff is clearly inspired by Bond (the primary secret service is British, for starters), and the opening eight minutes — an action sequence starring the film’s Michael Caine-voiced Bond analogy — is probably the best stuff in either Cars movie. Actors like Caine and Emily Mortimer lend the whole affair some much-needed class.

Mater, voiced by Some Idiot (I believe Larry the Cable Guy is actually his ‘name’) was a mildly irritating character in the first film, but at least there was less of him than the marketing suggested. Clearly he clicked with someone — the pre-pre-teen toy-buying audience, I suppose — and so his role is massively bumped up here. In fact, I don’t think anyone would disagree that he’s the main character, with Owen Wilson’s McQueen relegated to a supporting role. Mater isn’t the most irritatingly stupid animated character ever conceived, but he’s not a huge amount of fun either. Like so much else, his whole schtick is tiresomely predictable fullstop, and depressingly familiar from first time round — and it was barely amusing in the first place.

McQueen, then, may still be front-and-centre in the marketing, but his story — the racing aspect of the movie — gets quickly relegated to a subplot. It’s kind of ironic, as the first film was all about races on boring NASCAR loops, whereas here we getting exciting European street circuits and we barely see them. On the bright side, we all know how race movies pan out — the back-and-forth battling, the last-minute surge, etc etc — so it’s not really any loss.

There are a raft of cameos — more than the first film, I think — the most obvious being Lewis Hamilton as a black racing car. He’s joined in a sort-of-double-act by some American voice who I presume is also a racing driver. This is the role picked for localisation, getting region-specific racing drivers in France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Russia, Sweden, Latin America and Brazil. I’d wager at least half of those voices would be infinitely more recognisable to a British audience than that yankee bloke they do have in there — I don’t follow racing and I’ve heard of Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Jacques Villeneuve, but I’ve not got the first clue who Jeff Gordon is.

One much-criticised aspect of the first film was its world (who built these cars? where are the humans? etc). It was possible to gloss over it, just about, when the film was doing other things to hold your attention. Here, it’s almost like they don’t want you to forget. It’s plenty exciting and fast-paced enough to leave behind concerns about what’s going on, but then throws in all sorts of unnecessary snatches of dialogue or small details in set design that slap you with a brief remembrance that this world doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. One I didn’t even notice until I was collating pictures for this review: why is the police car wearing a giant hat?!

The technical faults don’t stop there: despite its pedigree, direction is strangely amateurish much of the time. The action sequences occasionally sing, but not always, while the entirety of the dialogue scenes are flatly shot, showing a repetitive choice of boring angles. It doesn’t help that they don’t contain much engaging material, especially the instances when they seem to be literally trotting out all the first film’s characters to deliver a single line each in not-that-quick succession. At times it verges on painful.

The Cars films are really aimed at kids no older than about six. They won’t be familiar enough with movies to see the tired plot points, they won’t question the film’s bizarre world, they’ll probably be enamoured of Mater, they’ll certainly be suckered in by the talking cars and the glossy action sequences… It’s their very lack of familiarity or critical faculties that makes the film easily entertaining. And then they’ll want all the toys, which is why this movie exists.

And one of the reasons people heavily criticise the Cars films in spite of that increasingly obvious fact is because they’re made by Pixar. In themselves, these two films are fine — but that’s all they are. When Pixar can make so many innovative, exciting, emotional, entertaining films, how can they also produce something so uninspired?

Cars 2 still suffers from many of the first film’s faults, being lacklustre in vital departments like character, humour and storyline. But it’s shorter, faster-paced and more exciting, which for my money makes it the lesser of two evils.

The Hitchcock 4

Posted on August 3, 2012 by badblokebob

It looks like 2012 might be about to turn into a banner year for Alfred Hitchcock.

The BFI have recently completed their project to restore his nine surviving silent films; thirteen of his US works are about to make their Blu-ray debut in October’s massive box set; and Vertigo has just been crowned The Greatest Film Of All Time in Sight & Sound‘s definitive decennial canonisation process.

So broadly in that spirit, today I’ve brought my four previous Hitchcock reviews over to this new blog. I have an awful lot more of his films on DVD that I really ought to get round to seeing… but with that new BD set on the horizon, the compromised comparable DVD set (I think all of the films are even cropped to 4:3) doesn’t look such a tasty proposition. But then the chances of my upgrading to such an expensive BD set don’t look too bright either…

Anyway, that’s a thought process for another time and place. Here’s some old reviews:

July 2012

Posted on August 1, 2012 by badblokebob

This month: how I’m doing (as usual), and a little something of interest courtesy of the BFI. (Or should that be a something of little interest?)

Comparisons

I think it’s fair to say that, after a few poorer months recently, July has gone pretty well. In total I watched 16 reviewed films, although as five of those were my Batman retrospective and one was a different version of M (2010’s #20), only 10 actually count towards my total. Still, that’s as good as May and June put together and my best month since March — and when you include the Batmans and M, it’s my best month of the year so far!

So I’m pretty happy with that, it must be said. Especially so as it comes as a bit of a surprise — ‘busy’ months normally feel it, but this one has really crept up on me.

July’s films

#52 Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, aka Di Renjie (2010)
#53 Green Lantern: Extended Cut (2011)
#54 16 Blocks (2006)
#54a Batman (1989)
#54b Batman Returns (1992)
#55 Passchendaele (2008)
#56 Cowboys & Aliens: Extended Director’s Cut (2011)
#56a Batman Forever (1995)
#56b Batman & Robin (1997)
#56c Batman Begins (2005)
#57 Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
#58 The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
#58a M (British version) (1931/1932)
#59 The Saint in New York (1938)
#60 The Saint Strikes Back (1939)
#61 The Final Destination (2009)

87 Films in a Year

In my experience, twitter is generally defined by what you happen to see. Unlike a website, where you might log on and peruse posts going back days or even weeks, twitter gives you a snapshot of what everyone’s saying right now.

So I’m glad I happened to see a tweet from the BFI that declared that “2011 saw an average of 87 film viewings per person in the UK”. Considering what my blog’s all about, I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I’ve often wondered this. And I must admit, it’s considerably higher than I would’ve expected, which makes me wonder how they arrived at it. After all, they didn’t survey everyone in the country, so who’s likely to be reached by BFI polling? Film fans, of course.

All statistics are of course dubious, and there’s no information on how this was collated. Was it a random sampling of the general population or was it specifically people who found it via the BFI (i.e. film fans)? Is it only at the cinema or at home too? Is it any film or only ones new to them? Were they asked to guess or were they asked to keep a thorough record? Were they even asked to guess at all or is it somehow derived from box office admissions?

The penultimate one is especially likely to throw the whole affair (so’s the last one, but we’ll ignore that for now because it makes the whole exercise pointless). People often wildly over- and under-estimate, especially when it comes to how many times they’ve watched something. Perhaps that would mean it averages out OK, or perhaps it skews higher. “Oh, I must’ve watched 100 films this year, easy”, when really they watched one every a week.

And if it is derived from people who kept a thorough record, that brings us back to the point that they must be dedicated film viewers — what regular person is going to count up what they watch now and then for an entire year?

Hm. This statistic started out as really interesting to me, but with all of this logic and analysis I think I’ve ruined it. Maybe that’s for the best.

Next time on the all-new 100 Films in a Year monthly update…

I’ve been watching a surprising amount of the Olympics over the past few days. With it set to continue for about the first half of August, will that be a problem for my continued film viewing?

I’ll let you know… in a month. Enforced tension to maximum!

The Saint in New York (1938)

Posted on July 26, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #59
Ben Holmes | 67 mins | TV | 4:3 | USA / English | PG

The Saint in New York is a B-movie in every sense of the term, but it’s certainly one of the fun kind.

There’s a crime wave in New York City. The police know which gangs are responsible but have been unable to successfully prosecute their leaders. So a bunch of people who are somehow involved in the policing of the city elect to call in elusive vigilante-type Simon Templar, aka the Saint, to sort it out for them. It’s the sort of premise you only get in pulp fiction and comic books, and these days the kind of thing that needs subverting or justifying (look how Batman of the ’60s (and even ’90s) works with the police, but is (officially) at odds with the law throughout Nolan’s trilogy)… and I love it. And despite what I just said, you could completely sell it today as a back-room conspiracy of powerful men — I’d love to see this film remade well (and I’ll return to that).

As the Saint, Louis Hayward makes for an appealing hero. He’s cocksure, and you could well argue (as Mike does in his spot-on review at Films on the Box) that he “seems to float through all the perilous situations in which he finds himself, as though he knows he’s the hero of the story and can never die”. Alternatively, he’s a James Bond character, so justifiably confident of his own abilities and plan that he has every right to believe he’ll be OK. (Indeed, this is certainly readable as a proto-Bond movie.) The downside either way is that there’s no sense of jeopardy or danger, which I suppose is a shortcoming; but instead there’s a kind of comic inevitability to the villains believing they could ever beat the Saint.

Screenwriters Charles Kaufman and Mortimer Offner also bestow him with a clever wit. There’s every possibility this results from how he’s portrayed in Leslie Charteris’ original stories, but I’m not familiar with them so couldn’t say; either way, Kaufman and Offner pull it off here too. Hayward wears it well, making a mischievously entertaining presence. His habit of jumping into moving vehicles, much to the surprise of their drivers, is also fun. The other stand-out character is henchman Hymie, played by Paul Guilfoyle, who is enamoured of the Saint and constantly comments on his actions. Together they make the film a light, fun, amusing experience, with more memorable lines than a film of its stature deserves.

The plot is in many ways stock crime thriller filler, though I believe it has more potential than is realised here — again, I’d love to see a swisher remake. Hitchcock was apparently interested in helming it and I think there’s little doubt he would’ve made a better fist of it than Holmes, whose work is fine if workmanlike. So the story loses some of its impact because it’s under-explained, the final twist solid if guessable (at least by me) because it’s hurtled towards so quickly. The real weak link, though, is a ludicrously rushed romance between the Saint and gangster mol Fay (Kay Sutton). Apparently they fall in love during a 30-second visit to the zoo. Again, the potential joy of a remake: bulk that up and it’d fly well enough. Same with the main plot. Perhaps I should try reading the novel this is based on…

For all its flaws, The Saint in New York is a quick jolt of B-movie fun. Clearly it doesn’t rival the Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series (it’s obviously not as fondly remembered, and that’s usually for a reason), but admirers of pulp ’30s/’40s thrillers are likely to be as entertained as I was. Daft, but certainly fun. Hopefully the rest of the series can live up to (or better) the enjoyment I got from this one.

The Saint in New York is available on iPlayer until 31st July.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Posted on July 24, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #47
John Sturges | 78 mins | TV | 2.55:1 | USA / English | PG

Bad Day at Black Rock comes with an air of the forgotten classic — or, at least, it did to me. I think that’s important to how I ultimately reacted to it. As is that wherever I first heard about it pitched it as a suspenseful mystery with a twist. I forget where that was now, but I remember consciously avoiding finding out the plot’s developments (more so than one naturally would anyway) before viewing.

The latter seems to pay off, at first. Spencer Tracy stars as Macreedy, who arrives in a tiny, remote town in the American West, shortly after the end of World War II. He’s there with an unrevealed purpose; the locals are, for some reason, immensely suspicious of him. Starting here, the story is built on slow suspense and mystery: who is Komoko? What happened to him? How does Macreedy know? And what does Macreedy want? Sturges happily lets this mull and build over the best part of an hour, before suddenly darting past the reveals as if they’re unimportant. I’m not saying they need to be sign-posted with dramatic camera angles, weighty overacting and thudding “dun-dun-DUN!” music, but they’re shoved in here as if they’re immaterial; a bit of bookkeeping before the all-action climax. Perhaps these reveals weren’t meant to be so vital to the story as I had been expecting, but it still undermined my expectation.

The film also raises issues that, in my opinion, it fails to adequately explore. Primarily, the American attitude to the Japanese in the wake of Pearl Harbor, and also notions of complicity and complacency in the face of crime. There’s room for these threads to be explored and commented on, to be better exploited than they are. I don’t think it’s an issue of subtly (that is to say, that they are present, but without a heavy hand), more that they’re only fleetingly touched upon. Perhaps that’s unfair — I’m entirely upon to the suggestion that I was so busy focusing on the mysteries, I missed the commentary. Indeed, in his piece at Riding the High Country, Colin notes that the issue of American reaction to the Japanese “is very obviously presented”. (He also examines the film’s representation of a third area, that of Bad Day… as a modern Western and by extension a commentary on “the nature of the west itself”, which as ever I heartily recommend.)

I’ve read that Spencer Tracy was reluctant to star (presumably because of the arguably-anti-American stance of the film), but he nonetheless gives an engaging Oscar-nominated performance, perfectly embodying the character’s odd mix of qualities. He’s authoritative yet acquiescent, disruptive yet quiet, placid yet can hold his own in a fight… In a film otherwise marked by its consciously single-note townsfolk, he makes an intriguing creation.

The most underused character by far is the only woman, Liz, played by Anne Francis, who is vital to the climax but barely has any screen time before that to make us care. Most of the other cast are served at least one scene which is ‘theirs’, in which we get to learn about their archetypal character and their piece in the town’s make-up and secretive past, but third-billed Francis is robbed any of that. Considering the film barely runs 80 minutes as it is, I can’t help but feel there was room to dig into her character a considerable amount more.

For a film so based in mystery and which has what I’d call a methodical pace (despite its short running time), there are surprisingly good action sequences to look out for: a car chase/battle along a thin path, a one-handed punch-up in a bar, and a climactic shoot-out that’s at its most tense once all the bullets have been fired. It’s not an action movie by any means, but these cinematic sequences stand out nonetheless.

I imagine I’ve come across as harsh on Bad Day at Black Rock. As noted, I’m not sure where I specifically heard it recommended — several sources, more than likely — but wherever it was made it sound like an under-appreciated minor classic, with a mysterious setup that specifically appealed to me. So perhaps that’s why I’m disappointed the mystery element wasn’t as foregrounded, and why I’m niggling at the ways it could have explored its own content better. At the very least, it leaves topics of consideration open for the audience to debate amongst themselves, and that’s never a bad thing.

Bad Day at Black Rock is on Film4 today at 5pm, and again on Thursday at 12:40pm.

The Dark Knight Rises: Initial Thoughts

Posted on July 20, 2012 by badblokebob

Everyone and their mother will be writing about The Dark Knight Rises over the next few days — I’m sure there’s already been an explosion in articles, blog posts and comments on both, not to mention various related terms trending on twitter almost constantly for most of the week already — so I figured I may as well add my voice to all the thousands shouting into the dark. But rather than a full review (which I’ll save for when things have quietened down a little, and perhaps there’s some kind of consensus or even just other reactions to respond too), here’s a couple of stray thoughts and paragraphs that immediately struck me.

Naturally, this is all spoiler free.

Christopher Nolan’s film is properly epic, and a proper trilogy-closer too. We’re so used to superhero stories that never end that even when he said this would be an ending I half expected something spectacularly open-ended. But no, this is as much a fullstop as we’re ever likely to see on a big-screen superhero… unless it proves really popular and they all start doing it, of course. It feels really weird, but only because it’s not something we’re used to.

The epic part has its pros and its cons. It creates a grand close to the trilogy, but it’s a very busy film and arguably the makers bit off more than they could chew. There’s probably enough story and characters for two whole films here, and maybe they should have pulled back a bit on some threads. Equally, that sense of scale creates the uniquely epic sensation, and maybe it will reward repeated viewings and more leisurely contemplation, each apparently-short moment loaded with information. Or perhaps not — it is literally something only time can tell.

There’s been some backlash already, and though I’ve only skimmed it the feeling I get is mostly one of mismanaged expectations, rather than flaws of the film itself. It’s definitely more comic book-y than The Dark Knight, but only about as much so as Batman Begins. That has clearly disappointed some, but may delight others, and not bother others still. The marketing is part of the problem: the final trailer’s slow, measured, elegiacal style suggested Superhero Movie As Art, whereas Nolan has instead delivered a proper summer blockbuster — albeit one with a more measured pace and less frenetic action than usual. It’s more ‘traditional’ in that respect — I’d wager the pacing is similar to a blockbuster of 20 years ago, rather than the non-stop-bombast we get today.

I also think it might have benefited from a title change — the fan-mooted Gotham City seems ever so apt. Perhaps that would have aligned some expectations in the right direction. Ultimately, you see, this isn’t A Batman Film for the people who want that — it’s The Conclusion Of Christopher Nolan’s Bruce Wayne Story. And I think that’s fine, but perhaps you need to expect that, or at least be open to it as a possibility.

Stray thoughts:

On BD I may watch it with subtitles, not just for Bane (one review I read noted that some of Gordon’s lines “seem to get lost in his moustache”, which is an amusing way of putting the fact that half the cast offer muffled lines at some point; could just be cinema sound systems though).

Criticism of Nolan’s action direction, which has gone on since Begins, is increasingly unwarranted. Some may feel there isn’t enough action, or that what we get doesn’t go on in enough detail, but that’s the style of these films — they’re story movies with action sequences, not Action Movies. The previous two were the same. But the actual shooting and cutting of the action we do get is never less than fine.

Related to the epic-ness, I’ve seen numerous complaints of poor pacing or a slow middle. I didn’t feel that once. Similarly, this epic-ness may be why it can feel certain cast members are underused. The one that surprises me is Matthew Modine — is he really a big enough name for his supporting role here to be labelled “underused”? I didn’t think so. The stand out for me was Michael Caine, who may bring a tear to your eye, but there are several other noteworthy performances.

This is why I’m going to write a full review later, though this has already turned out a tad long.

The big question on everyone’s lips has always been, can it equal or better The Dark Knight? I don’t think it does. I didn’t ever really think it could, so perhaps I just correctly managed my expectations in that regard. But it not being as good as one of the greatest action-thrillers ever made doesn’t mean it isn’t a fantastic film in its own right, and it has a tone and a feel that’s both connected to the previous two Nolan Bat-pics and distinctly its own.

I think it’s wonderful stuff.

My ‘official’ drabble-length review can now be read here.

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