As I Lay Dying (2013)

When a Mississippi farm woman (Beth Grant) dies, her family honors her request to be buried in her people's town located several days away. As they undertake the journey of carrying her coffin by buckboard, everyone (including the deceased) reflects on their own aspirations, desires and feelings. William Faulkner's AS I LAY DYING is one of the great American novels. It is also among those literary works that defy being translated to film, unfilmable as it were. What makes Faulkner's book great is not necessarily its narrative but his technique, his style. The entire novel is a series of chapters, each complete chapter a stream of consciousness narrated by one character. That being said, director James Franco's (he also plays the second of the sons) film is probably as good a film of the Faulkner novel as we'll ever see. While his use of split screen as a visual device to approximate Faulkner's technique only partially works, there are still some impressive scenes (Beth Grant's monologue recalling her unhappy marriage and adulterous affair that spawned a son) that suggest the greatness of the novel. It bodes well for Franco's future as a director. The cast is perfect, they look like 1920s Mississippi farm people, not Hollywood actors and several of the actors deliver flawless performances: Grant, Tim Blake Nelson as her husband and Logan Marshall Green as the spawn of her affair. But it isn't Faulkner's novel, not really. The underscore by Tim O'Keefe is imposing. With Jim Parrack, Ahna O'Reilly, Brady Permenter and Danny McBride..

The Decks Ran Red (1958)

The first mate (James Mason) on a luxury liner leaves his position to take command, his first as a Captain, of a New Zealand freighter. But his first command turns disastrous when a psychopathic crew member (Broderick Crawford) and his cohort (Stuart Whitman) start killing everyone on board. Allegedly based on an actual incident, the film's plot seems rather far fetched but that doesn't stop director Andrew L. Stone from creating a tension filled nail biter not unlike his THE LAST VOYAGE also set on an ill fated ship. It's not as good as THE LAST VOYAGE for several reasons, most notably because its ending is rather anti-climatic but the film benefits from a rather unpolished look to it. Mason seems a bit ill at ease as an action hero though Crawford is easily convincing as the murderous crewman. Dorothy Dandridge (CARMEN JONES) as the cook's sexy wife doesn't have much to do as a conventional heroine in distress but she looks fantastic. There's no film score but this is one film that could have used one to add a little needed flavor to the doings. With Jack Kruschen, Katharine Bard and Joel Fluellen.

Love Me Tonight (1932)

While attempting to collect monies owed by a deadbeat client with a title (Charles Ruggles), a Parisian tailor (Maurice Chevalier) meets a haughty Princess (Jeanette MacDonald) and promptly falls in love. When the deadbeat client introduces the tailor as a Count to the Princess, he reluctantly goes along with the deceit. This sparkling musical comedy is a pure delight. If one hadn't seen Rouben Mamoulian's name as the director, you would swear it was an Ernst Lubitsch film, it's that good. I don't mean to take anything away from Mamoulian who has more than proven himself as an ace in the musical genre. The song score by Richard Rodgers and lyricist Lorenz Hart is witty and charming and includes some of their best work, songs like Isn't It Romantic?, Lover and Mimi. The film's use of music is quite clever as shown in the Isn't It Romantic? number: Chevalier begins the song which is picked up by different characters and the song travels the country until we see MacDonald singing the song (and this is before they've met) and the dialog is often sung rather than spoken by even the most minor of characters from the maid to the cook. So breezy and brilliant that the film overcomes my intolerance for Maurice Chevalier. MacDonald shows how amusing and sexy she could be (she's half undressed a lot) before MGM got a hold of her and turned her into the Norma Shearer of operetta. Mamoulian's use of sound is also quite innovative for an early sound film. With Myrna Loy as a nymphomaniac (when asked if she thinks of anything besides men, she retorts, "Yes, schoolboys"), C. Aubrey Smith, Charles Butterworth, Ethel Griffies and Elizabeth Patterson.

Les Maudits (aka The Damned) (1947)

In 1945 Oslo, just before the fall of Berlin, a group of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers board a submarine headed for South America where they plan to continue to carry on the work of the Third Reich. But the voyage will not be as smooth as anticipated, indeed, to steal the title of another film (from 1976), this is a voyage of the damned. Rene Clement's post-war thriller has been compared to Wolfgang Petersen's DAS BOOT but I don't think it's a fair comparison. They're both films about Nazis in a submarine but that's about it. Clement's film isn't favorably disposed to the Nazis as its 1981 counterpart is ("they're just like you and me"). Clement captures the claustrophobia and the tension of disparate characters, who don't always see eye to eye, crammed into a confined space with no escape. Clement's film allows multi dimensional characters rather than stock stereotypes and some suggestive situations that would never have been allowed in an American film of that time. Technically, it's impressive especially a shot that follows Henri Vidal (as a kidnapped French doctor) the length of the submarine without a cut. it was shot by Henri Alekan (WINGS OF DESIRE) and the effective score is by Yves Baudrier. The cast is very good. In addition to Vidal; there's Marcel Dalio, Jo Dest, Michel Auclair, Fosco Giachetti, Anne Campion, Paul Bernard and Florence Marly.

The King And Four Queens (1956)

A less than ethical confidence man (Clark Gable) arrives in a small deserted town populated by an old woman (Jo Van Fleet) and her four daughter in laws: the clever Sabina (Eleanor Parker), the dangerous Ruby (Jean Willes), the gentle Oralie (Sara Shane) and the sexy Birdie (Barbara Nichols). His intention? To swindle them out of a $100,000 in gold that is hidden on the property. This robust western directed by Raoul Walsh is an entertaining if minor entry in the western canon. There's not much one can say about it. Its aspirations are pretty slight but it accomplishes them easily. In his mid 50s, Gable is every bit as virile and commanding as he was in the 1930s and his sex appeal still intact. His interactions with the five actresses are playful and charming and both he and Parker manage to keep us attracted to their characters even if they are essentially amoral rascals. The hearty score is by Alex North and Lucien Ballard's (THE WILD BUNCH) CinemaScope lensing takes full advantage of the Utah scenery. With Roy Roberts and Jay C. Flippen.

Underworld U.S.A. (1961)

After he sees his father being killed by four thugs, a young boy (David Kent, later Cliff Robertson as an adult) sets himself on a path of revenge that will take almost twenty years to see fruition. Subtlety was never director Samuel Fuller's stock-in-trade. This is tabloid film making at its most conspicuous. It's crude, blatant, artificial ... and undeniably effective. It feels like an episode of the 60s TV show, THE UNTOUCHABLES with Larry Gates' District Attorney standing in for Elliot Ness. Fuller keeps punching at you so that you can't help but be pulled in while part of your brain tells you "Resist!" but you can't. Fuller's jackhammer tactics compensates for the generally poor performances especially a miscast Cliff Robertson whose idea of acting tough is to have his lower lip move to the far right or to the far left as he says his lines. As the chippie who falls in love with him, Dolores Dorn is erratically effective but eventually defeated by some of the dialog she's required to say. Only Richard Rust as a mob thug and Beatrice Kay as an aging moll manage to consistently hit the right notes. Still, you have to admire Fuller's cinematic symmetry. I love Sam Fuller but this simply doesn't rank with his best work though it has an inexplicable core of admirers. With Robert Emhardt, Paul Dubov and Gerald Milton.

Captain Carey, U.S.A. (1950)

After the end of WWII, a former OSS officer (Alan Ladd) returns to Italy to find the traitor responsible for betraying his hiding place and causing the death of his partner (Paul Lees) and the woman he loved (Wanda Hendrix). But when he arrives in the small village, he finds the girl alive and well and married. Based on the novel NO SURRENDER by Martha Albrand and directed by Mitchell Leisen, the film never progresses beyond commonplace. Ladd, dim as ever, walks through the film with that cold denseness that passes as a performance and Hendrix is hopelessly miscast as an Italian though she gives it the old college try. The film manages to hold your interest for awhile (just who is the traitor?) but the tediousness overcomes the mystery. The film is perhaps most famous for the love song Mona Lisa which was a big hit and won the Oscar for best song. Funnily enough, the song isn't used romantically in the film but used as a warning that the Fascists are approaching. With some more magnetic stars, it might have worked as a poor man's CASABLANCA. As it is, it's watchable ... just. With Francis Lederer, Joseph Calleia, Russ Tamblyn, Celia Lovsky, Angela Clarke and Jane Nigh.

The Big Parade (1925)

When WWI breaks out, the frivolous son (John Gilbert) of a millionaire (Hobart Bosworth) joins the Army on a whim. Sent to France, he bonds with two fellow soldiers, a construction worker (Karl Dane) and a bartender (Tom O'Brien). At the village where he is billeted, he falls in love with a young French farm girl (Renee Adoree) but is soon called away to the front and the horrors of war. This is a great film! The director King Vidor takes his time with the exposition and the first half of the film is amusing and charming as we get to know the characters. The second half which concentrates on the war is stunning and potent. The scenes of the soldiers marching through the woods filled with snipers is brimming with tension and the battle scenes are impeccable. Vidor doesn't glorify war but he does give equal time to the courage as well as the damage that accompanies war. I saw the version with the superb Carl Davis score which was especially composed for its British Thames silents project done in the 1980s. I'm not a fan of war films in general but this one can't afford to be missed. I much prefer it to the similar but overrated ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT.

Jane Eyre (1944)

Sent away to school by her mean spirited aunt (Agnes Moorehead), a spirited young girl (Peggy Ann Garner) survives the oppressive and harsh atmosphere of the school to become a governess. In charge of a precocious young child (Margaret O'Brien), she (Joan Fontaine as the adult Jane) finds herself attracted to the brooding head of the household (Orson Welles). Charlotte Bronte's Gothic romance (though, of course, the great novel is much more than that) has been filmed countless times going all the way back to 1910! Though it eliminates some key portions of the novel, this is a fairly faithful adaptation (Aldous Huxley was one of the screenwriters) of the novel and one of the best. The director Robert Stevenson, abetted by his ace cinematographer George Barnes (an Oscar winner for REBECCA), gives the film the requisite Gothic atmosphere and guides his cast to some marvelous performances. Fontaine, one of the great beauties of the screen, would seem to be miscast as the plain Jane but she's a good enough actress to suggest the plainness of the character and no one does brood better than the young Welles. Bernard Herrmann provides one of his most evocative scores. With Henry Daniell, John Sutton, Sara Allgood, Hillary Brooke, Ethel Griffies, Edith Barrett and young Elizabeth Taylor, already a startling beauty at age 11.

The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

After his fiancee (Virginia Leith, Kubrick's FEAR AND DESIRE) is decapitated in an auto accident due to his reckless driving, a research surgeon (Jason Evers) keeps her head alive and has 72 hours to find a new body to attach to her head. Every bit as silly as it sounds. This distasteful and sordid sci-fi/horror flick is so ludicrous that one can't take offense at its bad taste. Made in 1959 but not released until three years later, the film has a cult following among the bad movie/camp crowd but I just found it dumb. What's really sad is seeing the lovely Virginia Leith, who had leading roles in some good films like VIOLENT SATURDAY and A KISS BEFORE DYING reduced to playing a talking decapitated head! To her credit, she manages to give a semblance of a performance unlike the other actors. Directed by Joseph Green. It's screaming to be remade as a comedy but I suppose the Steve Martin comedy THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS is about as close to a comedy "remake" that's likely.

Street Angel (1928)

After she is arrested for theft and prostitution in Naples, a young girl (Janet Gaynor) escapes and joins a carnival. There, she meets a young artist (Charles Farrell) and they fall in love. Not knowing about her past, he insists they go to Naples where he can further his career. Bliss is theirs but how soon before her past catches up with her? Directed by Frank Borzage, this is one of three performances (the other two are SUNRISE and SEVENTH HEAVEN) that garnered Gaynor the first Oscar for best actress. I've enjoyed some of the previous Borzage/Gaynor collaborations I've seen but this one is sentimental to the point of treacle. I had problems with SEVENTH HEAVEN too but at least that had several scenes which redeemed the maudlin scenario. The pacing is way too slow. There's a scene where Gaynor is granted an hour with her lover before being carted off to prison. The scene takes all of ten minutes but damn if Borzage doesn't make it feel like an hour. I'm not sure that's a compliment! The Oscar nominated cinematography by Ernest Palmer is quite good (an image of Farrell against a wall looking for Gaynor while shadows of pedestrians cross him is quite wonderful) though the sappy score by Erno Rapee is inexcusable. With Natalie Kingston and Henry Armetta.

Kandukondain Kandukondain (aka I Have Found It) (2000)

The two daughters of an old and revered family take different romantic paths. One (Tabu) has been unlucky in love (her fiance committed suicide over another woman) and feeling herself to be a jinx is reluctant to get involved even while being pursued by an aspiring film director (Ajith Kumar). The other (Aishwarya Rai) dreams of an exciting passionate lover, she dismisses the older gentleman (Mammootty) who attempts to woo her in favor of an unethical but handsome entrepreneur (Abbas). Jane Austen meets Bollywood! This is an adaptation of Austen's SENSE AND SENSIBILITY transposed to contemporary India. Updating Jane Austen is nothing new, EMMA morphing into CLUELESS is probably the most well known example. But this lively all singing, all dancing adaptation is hard to resist and the transition from 1811 Southwest England to 1990's India is seamless. Rajiv Menon's direction is strong and the cast is very attractive. The songs and score are by Oscar winner A.R. Rahman (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) and the choreography is lively and spirited. A good example of the charms of the Bollywood musical.