Lost Highway (1997)

Film: Lost Highway (1997)

Stars: Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Blake, Robert Loggia, Richard Pryor

Director: David Lynch

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

We're going to end our series (thanks for playing along!) in the 1990's, a bit further than we normally go with film noir month, but there's a reason for that.  While the 1970's and early 1980's were the most fruitful period of neo-noir, the genre continues into today, and had something of a unique transformation in the 1990's, both in terms of throwbacks (Miller's Crossing, LA Confidential) and then a series of reinventions or surrealistic takes on the genre.  This was primarily driven by one director, who has spent most of his career doing takes on neo-noir: David Lynch.  Lynch's most famous works almost entirely are driven by the concept of noir; Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive are heavily borrowing from the genre.  In picking our film today, I hadn't seen the first of the three "Los Angeles" trilogy pictures that Lynch made from 1997-2006, and thought it would be appropriate to end with the director and Lost Highway.

(Spoilers Ahead) We'll get into it in a second, but this is a David Lynch film, so plot, even if you're watching with a magnifying glass, is hard to summarize but I'll give it a go.  The film opens with Fred Madison (Pullman) a musician who is suffering with sexual impotency in his marriage to wife Renee (Arquette).  The two are receiving strange videos of their house, and then eventually of them sleeping, with no indication as to who it is until one night when Pullman meets a Mystery Man (Blake) at a cocktail party, and he pulls a trick, calling essentially himself on a phone with no explanation as to how he did it.  We see in the next video that Fred gets sent that he is murdering his wife in it, and he is sentenced to death row, until one day...he disappears, and in his place is a young mechanic named Pete Dayton (Getty).  Pete works for a crook (and small-time porn producer) named Mr. Eddy (Loggia), whom we understand later is also named Dick Laurent, whom we hear mentioned in the opening scene by a disembodied voice when they tell Fred "Dick Laurent is dead."  Pete is having an affair with Alice, who looks just like Renee (and is also played by Arquette).  The film ends in a bit of a conundrum, with Pete transforming back into Fred, the Mystery Man shooting Mr. Eddy dead, and then whispering something to Fred that we don't hear.  The movie ends with Fred fulfilling his own destiny by turning out to be the man who says "Dick Laurent is dead" before going on a police chase, likely to his doom.

In 1997, the film was dismissed by critics who claimed it made no sense, but it developed a cult following (likely by gaining easy comparisons to Lynch's better-received Mulholland Drive a few years later), and is generally considered to be a good movie now (it just got a 4K restoration from Criterion).  Watching it having already seen Mulholland Drive, I can see the corollaries, but honestly-it's Lynch's clear obsession with older film noir, specifically two classics of the genre (Detour and Kiss Me Deadly, both of which we've done in past seasons and have reviews at the bottom of this article) that kind of give you a guide to the film.  So for the rest of this article, we're going to also issue a double spoiler alert for both of these movies.

Detour, in particular, is easy to spot here.  Lost Highway is about a man who cannot sexually fulfill his wife, and is dealing with the violent anger he feels as a result of that.  This is true to a degree to Detour, which shows a man who cannot land the woman he wants & is on the run, likely from the law, and being seduced (like Lost Highway) by a woman who is far beneath the "station" of the woman he wants, but still he has sex with her (in Detour, metaphorically, and in Lost Highway, literally).  In both movies, though, it's clear that the main protagonist is lying to the audience.  In Detour, this was to get around the Hays Code, while in Lost Highway it's to heighten the metaphor.  Pullman's Fred can't please his wife, so he transforms into someone he thinks can-a hyper-virile, sexy younger man in the form of Balthazar Getty, who is so horny he has both a hot girlfriend and a hotter side piece.

The film's odes to Kiss Me Deadly are also quite evident.  That movie is focused in large part on interchangeable women, but ones whom the audience knows are more important to the story than the men using them as props realize.  In that film, Cloris Leachman starts the film as a doomed figure who knows more than she's letting on (just like Arquette's Renee) while Gaby Rodgers is the embodiment of Arquette's Alice, an at-first sweet, likely victim...who turns out to have a sociopathic side that also includes agendas that we as the audience never entirely understand.

All of this is to say, I liked Lost Highway, but I didn't love it in the same way I did those two films, even though writing about it it's clear Lynch was showing off and maybe this will play better if I ever revisit.  Pullman & Getty are both intriguing, but the camera pulls back too much, perhaps not wanting to give away the ending.  I wanted more hints of Pullman's madness within (I think it's clear in retrospect that he did kill Renee, or at least some form of him did, because he was angry he couldn't fulfill her sexually), while I wanted more sexuality from Getty's character.  We see multiple sex scenes where Arquette is objectified, which is perhaps the point (this is Fred's fantasy...he doesn't care that the audience also wants to fuck Getty), but it maybe would've helped the cause more if they'd objectified their leading man too.

The best part of the movie, and I can't deny it, is Robert Blake.  Blake was in his late sixties when this came out, and had already had a really long career.  Blake was the very rare child star of the Golden Age of Hollywood (he appeared in the Little Rascals comedies and the Red Ryder westerns), before finding success as an adult in In Cold Blood and TV's Baretta.  He is superb as the Mystery Man, totally nailing the very tricky tone of the character, especially in the opening scene where he feeds off of Pullman's intrigue & terror as he confesses to being the man who is taping him...and may in fact be a manifestation of Fred's own evil.  

The film becomes more complicated (or at least more scandalous) when you know what happened next in Blake's career though.  Blake would be arrested and charged, just like Fred Madison, with the murder of his wife in real life several years after Lost Highway was released.  Like Fred, Blake maintained his innocence in real life, and (unlike Fred) was acquitted, though debate still rages as to whether or not he was guilty.  With that weird crossover into real life, we'll end another season of Film Noir Month, with us hopefully returning next year for another round of grizzled detectives, shady criminal enterprises, and beautiful women...who may be deadlier than they appear.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Late Show, The Long Goodbye, Night Moves, Nightcrawler, Le Samourai

The Late Show (1977)

Film: The Late Show (1977)

Stars: Art Carney, Lily Tomlin, Bill Macy, Eugene Roche, Joanna Cassidy

Director: Robert Benton

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Screenplay)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

In the 1970's, as I've mentioned in some of our recent reviews, neo-noir came into popularity, but very briefly.  I think because there are a trio of major classics of the era that came out at about the same time (The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, and Night Moves...reviews listed below), it makes it seem like there were more films in this time frame that were part of the neo-noir movement than there actually were (i.e. it was not like the 1940's and 50's where it seems like we got a new movie every weekend).  But we did get a few deep cut titles, and some got critical acclaim.  Our movie today was actually cited for an Academy Award, for Best Original Screenplay, but it stars a pair that feels so unlikely in the noir setting you'd be forgiven for assuming it's a spoof.  Lily Tomlin & Art Carney, both fresh off of major Oscar success themselves, are not, in fact, playing The Late Show for laughs.  Though the film has comic elements, it ends up being largely a straight-film...somewhat to its downfall.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers on Ira Wells (Carney), an aging, unwell private detective who meets a kooky actress named Margo Sperling (Tomlin) at the funeral of his recently deceased friend Harry Regan (Howard Duff, a staple in 1940's noir, plays the part in a cameo and in a nod to the films of which it's based).  The two are like oil-and-water, or in this case patchouli & musk, as Margo is a free-thinking hippie to Harry's rough-and-tumble PI, but the two click, and are drawn together after they witness a murder (and nearly die in the process).  This opens up a seedy underbelly to the death of both Harry and the man they saw die (who kidnapped Margo's cat, who despite some close calls makes it through the film unscathed), leading up to a giant showdown late in the movie that will leave them both in each other's lives, likely forever.

The film is an odd juxtaposition because of the actors.  Tomlin, Carney, and Bill Macy (best known as Bea Arthur's husband on Maude) are all the leads, but they are all largely-known today for their comic work, principally in television.  I obviously am watching this in retrospect, and so wasn't subjected to the trailers at the time or the marketing for the movie (or the fact that, at least for Carney, this was during a rare period where Hollywood turned him into a leading man, though this was one of the few dramas that he made), but it feels off-putting to me to watch them, as you're kind of begging for a laugh.  This wouldn't be a problem if they were good, but the movie itself is too formulaic to be of that much interest.  The script presents a very generic story that could easily have been left on a desk in an RKO producer's office in the 1940's were it not for the modern touches Tomlin brings.

As a result, the novelty is watching comedic actors playing drama, and it doesn't work.  They try to foist a love story between the two, but they have nothing in common, and have far more chemistry as friends than as a romantic entanglement (it doesn't help that it's almost entirely Tomlin flirting, more so trying to convince the audience of the romance than anything else).  That this film involved Robert Altman (who produced it), one of the most organic screenwriters of the era, and is so formulaic (and not in a fun way), just feels off.  The film isn't bad, but it's decidedly a missed opportunity.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Long Goodbye, Le Samourai, Night Moves, Nightcrawler

Angus King Isn't Retiring...But He Should

Sen. Angus King (I-ME)

While he had hinted at it for months, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) yesterday announced that he will be running for a third term to the US Senate.  King's career is fascinating.  His original foray into politics was as a third party candidate against two reputable options (future Sen. Susan Collins and US Rep. Joseph E. Brennan, a former governor), and he beat them both to become Governor of Maine for two terms.  Upon the retirement of Sen. Olympia Snowe in 2012, he became the de facto Democratic nominee, but when he first ran, it wasn't entirely clear what kind of a Democrat he'd be.  A few years after winning, King toyed publicly with switching parties if, as expected, the Democrats lost the Senate majority (you can read my rather perturbed thoughts on this here, as we were writing the blog regularly at the time).  But King settled down, and never left the Democratic caucus.  Indeed, much like Bernie Sanders, while King is an idiosyncratic Democrat...he's not a particularly troublesome one, and there is no worry if he wins reelection, which he is widely-expected to do, that he will switch parties.  But I was still hoping to see him retire, and I'm going to explain why here (and note, it's not because of that article-King & I made our peace a while ago).

We've talked a lot on the blog in the past couple of years about the public decline of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the 90-year-old senior senator from California whose cognitive ability has regularly been brought into question.  This has made me rethink an attitude that I have long dismissed.  While I don't believe in term limits on principle (and still don't-this hasn't changed that for me), I do think it's okay for voters to put parameters on whom they should choose to put in office, and I think one of the rules that I have is that, all-things-being-equal, I don't want to vote for someone who will turn eighty during their term in office.  This doesn't reek of ageism because if you're 80 and running for major public office...you don't need that job, this isn't like working as a Wal-Mart manager because your social security isn't making ends meet.

There are exceptions, of course.  I will be voting for Joe Biden, because he's the incumbent and because he's our best chance at holding the White House.  If I were living in West Virginia I would certainly vote for Joe Manchin, who will be 83 if he were to be reelected, because, again, he's the only plausible Democrat who can hold the seat.  These men are way more important than a self-guided principle.  

But Angus King, who will be 86 at the end of his next term, is not irreplaceable.  Maine is a state that seems to be slowly shifting right, but at such a glacial pace it's not clear that demographics are destiny on this one.  It's almost certain that any of the leading Democrats who would run if King retired (likely either Chellie or Hannah Gingree, Sara Gideon, or Jared Golden) would win the seat with Biden at the top of the ticket, and even the oldest of them (Chellie Pingree) is over ten years King's junior.  Giving the Democrats a younger senator from Maine, one with less worry about "pulling a Feinstein" would be a solid move.

But more importantly, it'd set us up for success in 2030.  2030 is so far away, it's hard to tell where it will land, but best case scenario for Democrats is that they're doing something that they haven't been able to pull off since 1942-running a third consecutive midterm while holding the White House.  In that case, it would behoove us to avoid as many open seats as possible, as that would be a brutal cycle, and open seats would be vulnerable, even in blue territory.  This is a lesson we frequently forget in politics, and one that we'd be wise to remember by looking at the Senate races of 2014.

In 2014, four Democratic senators retired: Max Baucus, Tim Johnson, Jay Rockefeller, & Tom Harkin.  While none of the men were in the "over 80" crowd we're talking about right now, all but Johnson was going to turn 70 in his next term when they ran for their final terms in 2008.  What was more important, though, was 2008 was a uniquely good year for the Democrats.  The party didn't lose a single Senate seat that they held, even in McCain territory (keep in mind, save for Harkin, all four of these men won while Obama lost their state-ticket-splitting was still en vogue).  In reality, the four of them running made the ACA reality, so it's possible that this was the right decision.  But it's also worth noting that all four of these men had very obvious successors at the time that might've been able to win an open seat...meaning we'd have incumbents in 2014 to make things easier.

Johnson's was the easiest-he won on the same ballot as Rep. Stephanie Herseth, who two years later would lose to Kristi Noem (now South Dakota's governor), but Herseth, 24 years Johnson's junior, would've been a supernova of a candidate in 2008 had she won (young, attractive, and from a red state, she'd have been on presidential shortlists pretty much instantaneously).  In Iowa, it was much easier.  Though he'd lose Harkin's seat in 2014, Rep. Bruce Braley would've won in 2008 and better established himself under Obama...of all four of these, I think Senator Braley is probably the best positioned to upset the system and get us a victory in 2014.  In 2008, Montana's best options would've been Gov. Brian Schweitzer (who honestly might have gone for it, and the fact that he might've gone for it could've been the reason Baucus ran again in the first place, given he didn't like Schweitzer).  Schweitzer might well have been to Baucus's left on a few issues, and would've been a wild card in 2014.

West Virginia also would've probably stayed blue (it was very blue down-ballot then), though I can't quite tell who might've run.  Given Alan Mollohan's ethics violations at the time, and Joe Manchin having to stand for reelection, I would assume it'd be either Rep. Nick Rahall or State Treasurer John Perdue, both of whom would've struggled in 2014...but would've been less DOA than an open seat.

You live the history you're given, but it was clear in 2008 that 2014 was going to be a tougher environment after two consecutive two-term presidents, and that bore out.  Braley, Herseth, Rahall, & Schweitzer likely would've won in 2008, keeping the ACA intact...but if 1-2 of them had won again in 2014, we're looking at the real possibility that Merrick Garland gets confirmed in a lame duck session in 2021 to replace Antonin Scalia...or Brett Kavanaugh can't get confirmed in 2018.  I personally hope that King's lack of retirement doesn't open up similar "What If's" down the road.

Le Samourai (1967)

Film: Le Samourai (1967)

Stars: Alain Delon, Francois Perier, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

Film noir has existed basically since the early 1940's when it was invented, and there's never really been in a time frame where it didn't have at least some movies, but when we discuss noir, it had really two American heydays, roughly from 1941-59, the original run of Classical Hollywood noir, where it went out-of-style pretty much hand-in-hand with the studio system, and then the early-to-mid 1970's, when the genre made a comeback in the wake of the Watergate scandals.  But in the late 1960's, if you wanted to look at noir, you needed to leave the Hollywood system, and in most cases, head to France.  As we talked about last week, France was obsessed with the genre, making films like Elevator to the Gallows (link to my review of it, and all of the film noirs on this blog, at the bottom of this page).  In 1967, they made what might be the other best-known film noir to come out of the French New Wave, Le Samourai, starring Alain Delon and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, who would make noir-inspired movies for much of the 1960's.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film starts with Jef Costello (Delon) keeping a small bird as a pet in a barren apartment.  We see quickly that he's deeply methodical, and isn't the kind of man who leaves anything to chance.  We learn this pretty quickly when his lover Jane (Delon) provides him an alibi for a killing he's committed.  We soon learn that Jef is in fact a contract killer, one who has never been caught before, but is rounded up by the police, and potentially in danger of being identified by a woman named Valerie (Rosier) he lets live at the club.  Valerie, though, doesn't identify him, but the Commissaire (Perier) can't let up, convinced (correctly) that Jef is guilty.  Jef runs into issues when the men who hired him to kill the initial target want him dead, afraid he'll give them up to the police.  This sets up a high-stakes showdown between the bunch, with Jef eventually dying in a standoff with Valerie, whom it looks like he's going to kill, but after the police shoot him (to save her) it turns out there were no bullets in his gun.

The film is shrouded in enigma, and in almost all ways feels more neo-noir as a result than a noir (neo-noir was given the ability to leave a lot of ambiguity without the pressures of the Hays Code, meaning we had to end with villains getting their comeuppance even when that didn't make sense to the plot), as we don't entirely know Jef's motivations, even in his final act.  In fact, the ending of Le Samourai has been long-debated, and Melville doesn't appear to have left a lot of answers.  I think it hearkens back to the title, where the Samurai (in this case, Jef), forced to atone for losing his perfect streak of murders because his employers want him dead & the women in his life are now suffering the consequences of his actions, commits a form of ritual suicide that should hopefully protect both Jane & Valerie (both of whom will be in trouble with the law as well if Jef is caught as they've perjured themselves).  But there's a lot of ways to interpret Le Samourai, which is maybe the point.

My friend Robin said of Alain Delon "you have to have ridiculously beautiful people next to Alain Delon or he looks like an alien" and this quote sums up the motif of Le Samourai precisely.  Delon is sometimes a wooden actor, one who is so unnervingly attractive that it's hard to concentrate (to Robin's point, putting him next to the equally staggering Delon & Rosier puts the rest of the cast on some level of parity, easing the mind of the audience), but this fits so well with Jef.  Jef is not meant to be understood, even in moments where he might share a little bit about himself (like his private conversations with Jane & Valerie).  The further we go in the movie, he does a good job of showcasing how he's unraveling...but never abandons the character work he's done to make Jef feel invincible.  I maybe wanted one or two bigger moments, or some explanation as to why the Commissaire loathed Jef so much, but Delon's work here is very specifically catered to the film, and Rosier steals every scene she's in as the elusive pianist.  Throw in gorgeous set designs (Paris in the 1960's, man...it doesn't get better), immaculate costumes, and dreamy cinematography and you've got a winner.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Long Goodbye, Night Moves, Nightcrawler

Underworld USA (1961)

Film: Underworld USA (1961)

Stars: Cliff Robertson, Dolores Dorn, Beatrice Kay, Paul Dubov

Director: Samuel Fuller

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

American noir post-Touch of Evil generally struggled to find something new to say.  The genre had been going for two decades at that point with relatively little changes to the formula other than increasingly obvious sex & violence, and after Welles basically perfected the genre in 1958, there wasn't a lot more to say until the run of 1970's when a post-Watergate America was briefly more intrigued by the prospect of movies like Chinatown and Night Moves (where no one trusted anyone).  But noir, now in the form of a type of early neo-noir, existed in the 1960's even if it wasn't a very big deal, and one of the films from that era that generally gets tagged onto the "best of" lists of the genre is Underworld USA starring Cliff Robertson & Dolores Dorn.  We're going to kick off the four "neo-noir" films we will do to finish up June with this picture, one that borrows more from the movies of the 1930's than the 1940's to get through its subject.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a tale of revenge, with Tolly Devlin witnessing his father's brutal murder as a child, and after ending up in prison (and now an adult, played by Robertson) he comes across one of the men who killed his father, gets the names of the other three men, and kills him (to be fair, he was about to die anyway so at least at this point there's a redemption arc remaining even if they don't take it).  He finds out they are all high-level gangsters, and so he works his way into their organization, becoming an informant for the police as well as romancing (though not treating very well) a money-runner named Cuddles (Dorn).  He kills the men responsible for his father's death, but in the meantime sells his soul to the mob, and in order to save Cuddles' life, ends up sacrificing his own.

The movie, as I mentioned, is much more akin to the 1930's than the 1940's.  While there are elements of noir here (namely there's a beautiful blonde woman named Cuddles, which Raymond Chandler himself would've been proud of creating), it's far closer to the gangster films of the early 1930's, with lots of disposable characters and women playing a largely cursory role in the plot (whereas in traditional noir, women are a key focus, which is why I like it).  Gangster films can be good, but they aren't my jam, especially pre-Godfather, and it shows here in the way that there's not enough personality to the side men in Robertson's life.

Overall, I wasn't a fan of this picture.  This was probably somewhat groundbreaking for giving a realistic depiction of how hard it was to go against the mob (in 1961, that would've still been a big deal), with the police hapless to help people like Tolly & Cuddles when they provided evidence.  But the acting is a bit wooden save for Beatrice Kay, doing her best Thelma Ritter impression as Tolly's mother-figure, and while I liked the bleakness of the film (that's part of what makes noir so mesmerizing), it didn't give us enough to actually care about Tolly's journey into hell.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Long Goodbye, Night Moves, Nightcrawler

Westworld (1973)

Film: Westworld (1973)

Stars: Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin

Director: Michael Crichton

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Yul Brynner: click here to learn more about Mr. Brynner (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

By the 1970's, Yul Brynner's career had steply declined from the heyday that had once brought him classics like The King & I, The Ten Commandments, and The Magnificent Seven in short order.  He was consistently broke, and throughout the 1960's had starred in increasingly bad movies, particularly the 1969 flop musical The Madwoman of Chaillot with Katharine Hepburn & Charles Boyer, desperate for money.  For much of the latter years of his life, he split his time between bit work in movies & television, and doing versions of his King Mongkut role, playing it in London, Broadway, and even a brief run on a TV series (yes, dear friends, The King & I was a 12-episode TV sitcom on CBS in 1972 before it was cancelled, and yes I'm desperate to see it if anyone has the means).  Brynner, though, did have one last classic role in him, an unlikely SciFi hit in 1973 that would also spawn a (much, much more successful series) decades later after his death: Westworld.

(Spoilers Ahead) Taking place in 1983, the film is about a high-tech amusement park, run by the Delos corporation that allows guests to live as figures in either a western, medieval, or ancient Roman world.  Debauchery & violence are encouraged, and because there are precautions, the guests are unable to be harmed.  Our two main protagonists are Peter Martin (Benjamin), who is visiting the park for the first time after a divorce, and his pal John Blane (Brolin), who has been in the park multiple times before.  They enjoy the western motif, hooking up with old-timey prostitutes (that are actually robots) and fighting the Gunslinger (Brynner), a robot that is part of the plot and killed multiple times by Peter.  But as the film goes on, it's clear a type of computer virus has inserted itself into the park, putting the guests in danger, including John & Peter, who are now going to have to fight the Gunslinger for real.

There's a lot to say about Westworld, but let's start with the truly groundbreaking aspects of it.  Written & directed by Michael Crichton (most well-known today for authoring the Jurassic Park novels), despite being made on the cheap, the film is the first movie in Hollywood history to use digital image processing (essentially the forefather of CGI).  The moments are brief (they are essentially seen as the way that Brynner's Gunslinger can see the world), but it's an incredible feat and obviously important to the future of cinema.  It's insane that the film didn't get any Oscar attention, because in addition to this, the art direction, costuming, editing, scoring, and especially the makeup & effects (there's a great scene where Brynner's face looks like it's fizzing that's kind of incredible) all were worthy of recognition (I said to future John, reminding myself to include these in the 1973 My Ballot).

The movie overall, honestly, is really well-done.  Crichton keeps it very lean, focused largely on these three men, and clocking in at less than 90 minutes.  The movie doesn't have the conversations about the morality of the place that would become central to the HBO series (which I loved-full disclosure that I was a huge fan of the series right up until the end, and am still angry that HBO cancelled it, and even angrier that they yanked it from their streaming platform, even though I had the foresight to invest in physical media for it...so I come in with a propensity to love this), but it does have a great, unfolding take on the western.  We're not quite to the point where we're going to talk about how New Hollywood changed the westerns (our July star is very much a Classical Hollywood figure), but Westworld is a good introduction to how New Hollywood would skewer and sometimes upend the legend of the Old West, here introducing science fiction elements.

And it would introduce a great new part of Yul Brynner's lexicon.  This is some of his best work, as a robot that starts to realize not only his own place in the world, but that he is, in fact, as good as his myth.  Brynner's part isn't as big as you'd suspect, but he steals every scene he's in, and I get why this was a sizable hit.  Brynner would return a few years later in the sequel Futureworld, but as I said-this wasn't a new phase for his career, just a brief highlight.  He'd do theater for the remainder of his career, and die in 1985 from lung cancer, though he stayed badass to the end, filming an anti-smoking campaign that he mandated to be released after his death, basically becoming one of the first major celebrities to talk publicly about the link between smoking and cancer.

I hate that this is the transition here, but next month, we're also going to talk about a man who died of cancer before his time (and a lifelong smoker).  But while this actor, like Brynner, would become synonymous with the western, his career didn't have nearly the ups-and-downs.  Indeed, for over 40 years he would be the textbook definition of a movie star, and one of the most successful leading men of all-time.  Stay tuned as we reach the halfway point of our fifth season next Saturday.

The Fight for Turner Classic Movies

Five wonderful TCM hosts...being forced to stand
with the man who might end the channel

Like all awards nerds, I have my own personal awards that I do every single year.  I have done them annually since I was 11, in partnership with my little brother.  A holdover from starting said awards when I was 11 is that some of the categories are based on an 11-year-old's understanding of the world of entertainment, and so I have consistently had a category entitled "Best Channel" since then that has become the cheekiest of the awards we give each year.  Since 2002, for 21 years, one channel has been cited every single year, winning multiple times, but never missing as a nominee, and that is Turner Classic Movies.  Throughout that time certain channels (ABC, HBO, The Food Network, and now the streamers) have come in to rival it, but TCM is the immovable object in the lineup.  The best way to signal to my brother that I had been kidnapped or been replaced by an alien cyborg would be to say "I don't think TCM makes it this year," it is such a steadfast presence for me in that category, and in both of our homes.

I have watched Turner Classic Movies since I was a teenager.  My journey with movies started roughly when I was 11, the first time that I saw both the Academy Awards and the film that would set off my obsession with classic film, A Streetcar Named Desire.  Like many aspiring cinephiles, my journey with classic movies began with a few entry points.  First, of course, were my parents.  My mom would take my brother & I every Tuesday night during the summer to the early, discount movie night (since it was my dad's golf night) and we'd see a plethora of titles, many of which I knew nothing about until the credits started to roll.  My parents introduced us to their favorite titles, and given my mom's penchant for romantic comedies & musicals of the 1950's (she'd want to point out that she is not that old right now, so I will clarify most of these came out before she was born) I knew about films like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and White Christmas early on.  During the mid-1990's, I got one of my first almanacs, which had a list of every film that had won an Oscar for Best Picture, Director, & all four acting trophies, and during that time the American Film Institute started to do annual "Top 100" lists.  

The Oscar/AFI picks became something of a game.  I remember many, many hours of reading them all off to my brother (my lifelong partner-in-crime when it comes to all things classic movies, and by definition, Turner Classic Movies), and we'd list how many of the movies we'd each seen.  Our channel guide would come on Friday's in the newspaper, and we'd peruse the movies section, looking for screenings of the films on the Oscar/AFI list, taping them on our VCR and watching them at our leisure.  Initially this was on AMC, which had a very different vibe back then, but in high school our cable package changed, and we got TCM...and suddenly that became the principle source of our movie fandom.

That never changed in the years that followed.  Turner Classic Movies is the first, and quite frankly only thing I look for in a cable package when I pick one, and is the only reason I still have cable.  I have for literal decades looked through the monthly schedule on the first of the month, making notes or recordings for my DVR.  Every February I would exhaust the DVR, recording 31 Days of Oscar, but in the years that followed, I started to go beyond those Oscar & AFI lists to know other actors & directors whom I love.  I learned about genres that I cared about, and adored the deep cut nature of the channel, a beautiful oasis on the entertainment landscape that remained largely unscathed.  Commercial free, filled with movies of every nature, almost always from somewhere between the 1910's to the 1970's (unlike other TCM fans, I didn't hate that we occasionally got in beyond New Hollywood, but like them I definitely wanted to stick to the original 60 years or so of the channel), and usually including introductions from film historians.  First, of course, Robert Osborne (the Patron Saint of Cinephiles), but then Ben Mankiewicz, Jacqueline Stewart, Eddie Muller, Dave Karger, & Alicia Malone would soon follow.

This past week, it has become clear that Turner Classic Movies is in trouble, possibly lethal trouble.  David Zaslav, the worst thing to happen to movies since the 1965 MGM Vault Fire, appears to be either drastically downsizing the channel or eliminating it entirely, laying off all of the senior leadership and (according to reports) most of the behind-the-scenes staff, though it's not clear if any of the onscreen presenters have been let go as well (some have been giving off updates to TCM fans on social media, though little is to be gleaned from it, with Muller tweeting "at this point I do not know" what's happening).  Whether or not the channel will exist at all in the near future is definitely up-for-debate, with Warner keeping their cards close to their vest.

Beloved TCM host Robert Osborne with actors
Jill St. John & Robert Wagner

This has sparked outcry from the film community, and speaks to the special place that TCM has for a lot of film fans.  Actors like Ryan Reynolds & Valerie Bertinelli took to Twitter to talk about their love of the channel, and reportedly film directors Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, & Paul Thomas Anderson met with Zaslav directly to talk about the importance of the channel to the filmmaking community.

In many ways, TCM is less a channel and more a way-of-life for cinephiles who watch it regularly (which I count myself among).  Though it isn't a huge moneymaker for Warner Brothers (estimates put it about a $250 million annual gross for the channel), it is beloved by those that watch it.  It's honestly a way of life, regular series on it are chronicled with an ongoing "TCMParty" tag on Twitter that helps fans find each other.  Devotees of the channel descend each year to Los Angeles for the TCM Film Festival which regularly has film luminaries available for eager movie buffs to hear from on stage (in 2023 alone, cinema icons Ann-Margret, Pam Grier, Angie Dickinson, & Shirley Jones all made appearances).  The intros/outros are gospel to viewers, as important as the films themselves, and many people just have it on in the background, like a roommate in their house (Maya Rudolph has talked publicly about how this is true in her kitchen all day long).  Everyone from Tom Hanks to Michael Douglas to Drew Barrymore are on public record as loving the channel.

It is also one of the last great entry points for aspiring cinephiles.  With the demise of the second-run movie theater, the large video rental store, Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, Siskel & Ebert, and the annual AFI lists, this is one of the few places in the Hollywood structure that focuses on Hollywood's past.  Honestly, it's really the only thing that does in a major, commercial way other than the Academy Awards.  TCM does a remarkable job of showcasing hard-to-find & underseen films from classic film actors.  Many of their movies have never been released on physical media (and not available on any streaming platform), so this is the only legal way to see them.  Its end would be the nail-in-the-coffin of a specific type of film historical preservation, with much of Hollywood's legend, a town who gets much of its mythology from its own glittery (and tragic) history, being tossed in a garbage can.

I have talked about Zaslav's horrendous running of Warner Brothers, arguably the most important movie studio in the history of cinema, because I find it deeply upsetting and dangerous to the future of an industry I have spent much of my life devoted toward.  But eliminating Turner Classic Movies would be unforgivable, and honestly would feel like a death of a loved one.  I genuinely cannot imagine my life without it, and taking it away (or turning into another mindless zombie in the cable landscape) would be further proof that a movie industry that is struggling to understand why so many have lost interest in it has no clue how to save it from itself.  If you don't understand what makes yourself special, you won't ever be able to recapture it when you've burned away everything that people loved about you.  And for people like me, Turner Classic Movies is the living embodiment of why I love cinema.

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)

Film: Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)

Stars: Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters, Ed Begley, Gloria Grahame, Richard Bright

Director: Robert Wise

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

While the French New Wave (as we learned a couple of days ago) was already starting to invest in film noir elements as Hollywood began to lose interest in the late 1950's, that didn't mean that Hollywood had stopped making noir entirely, though the tale-end of the film noir is generally considered to be 1960 (most films after that are "neo-noir" and I refer to them as such if you look at the list of past film noirs at the bottom of this page).  One of the last important film noirs came from United Artists, and was the first film noir from a major studio to star a Black actor, in this case the late Harry Belafonte.  1959 was still within the peak of Belafonte's entertainment career.  At 32, he had starred in major movies, including the box office smashes Carmen Jones and Island in the Sun, and was a popular recording artist, just a couple of years out from "Banana Boat (Day-O)," the biggest hit of his career.  Odds Against Tomorrow represented a different chapter in his career, though, and was an opportunity for him to be seen in a different way by audiences, a dramatic actor who didn't need a musical to make an impression.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a ticking clock story, as we countdown to a bank robbery being orchestrated by David Burke (Begley), a former police detective whose career is ruined when he refuses to provide evidence to state crime investigators.  He recruits a former con Earle Slater (Ryan) and a nightclub entertainer Johnny Ingram (Belafonte) to join him in the hit.  Neither man is excited about the prospect, as Ryan's Slater is an avowed racist who doesn't want to work with a Black man & Belafonte's Ingram is trying to do right by his wife & daughter, but Slater's pride (he's supported by his girlfriend Lorry, played by Winters) and Ingram's gambling debts mean they can't turn down the job.  The heist goes wrong, and Burke is killed holding the keys to the getaway car.  There's a chance for Ingram & Slater to escape, but instead they turn on each other, having a shootout that burns them both alive.  The film ends a bit cheekily, with the police officer not being able to tell who is who with their charred corpses (indicating that underneath, we're all the same).

The film is solid.  The cast is really good.  Winters is maybe the best part as the scorned girlfriend, who can't understand why her man won't love her even though she gives him everything (Robert Ryan is having an affair with their neighbor, played by Gloria Grahame, who is also good as a titillated, bored housewife), but everyone is solid in this movie.  Belafonte is sexy as hell in the lead role, and they even find an excuse to have him sing some of the jazz score, original work by John Lewis that would be a hit for the Modern Jazz Quartet.

The film doesn't always work, though.  The ending is perhaps a bit too cute (particularly the "can't tell them apart" scene), given that it implies pretty heavily both of these men have committed the same crimes, even though Slater's bigotry is far worse (it's 1959, I know, but I'm still going to say it hurts the story).  I also think that the way that they handle the personal lives of Ryan & Belafonte in particular could've been stronger. We needed more scenes late in the film with Winters & Grahame, as well as Kim Hamilton's Ruth (who plays Belafonte's love interest).  And we sure as hell needed to get more of Richard Bright's delicious Coco, who is so queer-coded that honestly I think he's just meant to be openly gay, a small-time hood who is horny-as-hell for Belafonte, and flirts openly with him.  While film noir will frequently hint at queer characters, this is the closest I've ever gotten to seeing an openly gay one in a Classical Hollywood noir, and man I wish he'd been in more scenes.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Long Goodbye, Night Moves, Nightcrawler

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

Film: Elevator to the Gallows

Stars: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin, Jean Wall

Director: Louis Malle

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

The style of filmmaking known as film noir lasted from about 1940-60, with most films made after that considered to be "neo-noir" which we'll get into some examples of in a few days.  By the late 1950's, though, Hollywood was not interested in noir as a major filmmaking style.  Though Hitchcock paid homage to it in Vertigo, and Orson Welles made his in-the-wilderness opus Touch of Evil, neither of these films were hits (no matter how revered they might be today), and by-and-large noir was something that was relegated to lesser stars, lesser studios, and B-movie slots at the theaters.  What's fascinating about this is that arguably the most important new film movement of the era was becoming obsessed with the film noir structure: The French New Wave.  The French New Wave was a film style that dominated arthouse cinema in the late 1950's through the end of the 1960's, and was a clear predecessor to New Hollywood.  They also borrowed heavily from film noir, and one of the best examples of this was also one of the earliest French New Wave films, one that introduced us to two key figures in the movement: director Louis Malle & actress Jeanne Moreau.

(Spoilers Ahead-and this is a twisty film so I want to double underline the Spoiler Alert) The movie is about two lovers, Florence Carala (Moreau) and Julien Tavernier (Ronet).  Julien works for Florence's husband Simon (Wall), and together they plan the perfect murder, essentially concocting a locked room death for Simon where it looks like he committed suicide (when actually Julien killed him).  It goes off perfectly, except Julien forgot the grappling hook he used to climb in Simon's window, so he goes back into the office to retrieve it...and gets stuck in an elevator.  This sets off a chain reaction that includes a young couple joyriding in, and then impersonating, Julien in his car, and Florence confusing the joyride for being Julien with a young woman, setting off a jealousy in her as she thinks he's dumped her.  The young couple kill two Germans, and it soon becomes a bit of a puzzle-Julien's only alibi for the murder this young couple committed (while impersonating him) is for the murder that he did commit.

We've talked a lot this month about film noir's reliance on excessive plot, oftentimes shoving in extra twists & characters to ratchet up the suspense (and the body count).  This is kind of the fun of film noir-it has a gaucheness that's delicous to ruminate within.  But Elevator to the Gallows doesn't do that, and it's the better for it.  Every scene is leading to an eventual conclusion (when both Julien & Florence are caught, even while Florence's descent into her romantic fantasy remains impenetrable), and it locks together perfectly.  This is proof of a brilliant screenplay, but it also poses a risk-films that work too well come across as a ticking clock, something that risks being dull because it's too premeditated or obvious.

But Malle's approach makes Elevator to the Gallows a masterpiece, and he's aided by a fascinating, breathtaking turn by Jeanne Moreau in her breakout role.  The woman that Orson Welles once called "the greatest actress in the world" is impossibly beautiful, glamorous, and tragic as Florence, and Malle interrupts his perfectly calibrated movie with scenes of just her face.  Few directors had done something like this before, just focusing on an actress walking down the street, lit in Paris cafe lights, to accentuate the anguish she's going through, and hoping that her talent was able to fill in her mood, but Malle does & Moreau succeeds.  This is a spectacular pairing of director & actress (the two would become lovers in real-life and make another movie together soon after...titled The Lovers), and it creates one of the most moving films I've seen in a while.  Throw in a fabulous improvisational score by Miles Davis (that's remarkable in its simplicity and the way it gives us a sense of Paris in the 1950's), and you have a masterpiece.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Long Goodbye, Night Moves, Nightcrawler