What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Worf]

Saw this film years ago. Like you I found it moving and well done. March is so young in this film I barely recognized him. Grant, who's on the upswing shows a depth and range that distinguished him as an actor BEFORE "Cary Grant" typecast him. It is a gritty film and any military historian knows that the average lifespan of an RAF pilot in WWI was criminally short. Part of the problem being that the RAF eschewed issuing parachutes to their airmen as they felt it would make them too inclined to abandon the Kings property.... Especially when it was burning and tumbling to the earth... Sigh...

Worf

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

The Glass Wall (1953) with Vittorio Gassman and Gloria Grahame. Gassman is Peter, a stowaway on a displaced persons ship, who wants to live in America. With no sponsor and no identification, he will be sent back to (presumably) his native Hungary. If he can find Tom, the US paratrooper he aided during the war, his validation of Peter's identity might help him be granted asylum.

Grahame plays the Grahame character, but not so terribly hard this time. Our intro to her character in a New York City eatery tells us quite a bit about her. Peter's GI buddy is played by Jerry Paris, notable as Dr. Helper on the Dick Van Dyke series. Gassman enlists Grahame on his hunt for Paris, while NYPD and the immigration office comb the Big Apple for him.

Two cool aspects: Paris auditions and get a spot with Jack Teagarden's band, and we get to see some musical numbers. Second, there's a ton of NYC location footage, with gazillions of New Yorkers thronging the pavement. Times Square gets the lion's share of screen time, and Gassman's flight takes us to some crummy and downright seedy locales.

Written by Ivan Tors, of Daktari fame, and directed by Maxwell Shane (which sounds like a pulp PI); both artists enjoyed strong careers in radio and television.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Glass Wall (1953) with Vittorio Gassman and Gloria Grahame. Gassman is Peter, a stowaway on a displaced persons ship, who wants to live in America. With no sponsor and no identification, he will be sent back to (presumably) his native Hungary. If he can find Tom, the US paratrooper he aided during the war, his validation of Peter's identity might help him be granted asylum.

Grahame plays the Grahame character, but not so terribly hard this time. Our intro to her character in a New York City eatery tells us quite a bit about her. Peter's GI buddy is played by Jerry Paris, notable as Dr. Helper on the Dick Van Dyke series. Gassman enlists Grahame on his hunt for Paris, while NYPD and the immigration office comb the Big Apple for him.

Two cool aspects: Paris auditions and get a spot with Jack Teagarden's band, and we get to see some musical numbers. Second, there's a ton of NYC location footage, with gazillions of New Yorkers thronging the pavement. Times Square gets the lion's share of screen time, and Gassman's flight takes us to some crummy and downright seedy locales.

Written by Ivan Tors, of Daktari fame, and directed by Maxwell Shane (which sounds like a pulp PI); both artists enjoyed strong careers in radio and television.

I enjoyed your comments and description of Grahame. I saw this one last year (my comments on it here: #30,003 ) and noted, like you, the really cool Time Square footage - it's like time travel.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Star Trek: First Contact

The old DVD on my CRT-TV! OH YES!!

F..K STREAMING!!

 

[Fading Fast]

Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell from 1969 with Gina Lollobrigida, Telly Savalas, Lee Grant, Phil Silvers, Shelley Winters, Peter Lawford, Janet Margolin and Marian McCargo.


The 1950s battle-of-the-sexes romcom was well past its expiration date by 1969, but if you let yourself just enjoy the silliness, Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell is a fun late entry in the genre.

This lighthearted movie floats by pleasantly on the comedic talents of Gina Lollobrigida and its all-star cast, wonderfully set against a sparkling Italian backdrop.

Ms. Lollobrigida pulls this movie through much nonsense with her perfectly timed facial expressions, winks, head nods, body English and asides, much more so than with her still rockin' forty-one-year-old Italian-fortress body.

Eighteen years earlier, at the end of WWII - and what follows is critical to the plot - Ms. Lollobrigida had three consensual "affairs" with three different American soldiers in three successive weeks, which resulted in a pregnancy. It's a "fire enough bullets" moment.

As Ms. Lollobrigida explained many years later in this exchange with her maid Rosa:
Rosa: "And you still don't know the father of your child?"
Mrs. Campbell (Lollobrigida): "Of course I know him. I just don't know who he is."

Enterprising Ms. Lollobrigida, though, solved the problem by collecting monthly checks from all three men. Each one thinks he's the father and each one wants to keep everything quiet once back in America and, quieter still, as each one eventually gets married.

Ms. Lollobrigida also created a fictitious American officer, Captain Campbell, to be her deceased husband, thus making herself respectable (no awkward, "it could be any one of three" conversations) while "legitimizing" her daughter, who also believes the lie.

Life is nice for Ms. Lollobrigida, the respectable "Mrs. Campbell," and her daughter in pretty Italy, until the soldiers' unit, now eighteen-years later, comes to town for a reunion.

The three men want to meet "their" daughter and, despite being married, have another tumble with Ms. Lollobrigida.

The men and their wives are played by Telly Savalas and Lee Grant, Phil Silvers and Shelley Winters and Peter Lawford and Marian McCargo.

Each couple is having marital issues. Plus, each man has kept the affair, the resulting daughter and the subsequent checks a secret from his wife all these years.

That convoluted set up leads to a lot of confusion, hijinx and embarrassment as Ms. Lollobrigida tries to keep the men unaware of each other and her daughter unaware of the truth. The men also try to keep their getting-suspicious wives unaware of everything.

The silly story works because the writing, overall, is funny, Melvin Franks' directing is crisp and Ms. Lollobrigida is a comedic talent. Funny asides come and go quickly, which shepherds the story over a lot of forced situations and silliness.

Also moving everything nicely along is the on-location shooting in Rome, which looks picture-postcard perfect as Ms. Lollobrigida and her pretty daughter, played by Janet Margolin, zip around cobblestone streets and scenic roads in cute little Italian sports cars.

With such a large cast, many of the supporting characters are just caricatures, but a few like Shelley Winters as a brassy but kind wife and Telly Savalas as, well, bull-in-the-china-shop Telly Savalas, create enjoyable personalities.

As in all these battle-of-the-sexes romcoms, there's a climax where the story blows up with all the truths spilling out. Yet it's hardly a spoiler for fans of the genre to note that, somehow, it all still works out. These are feel-good movies from beginning to end.

Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell is a more-risque battle-of-the-sexes romcom than its 1950s peers. Still, it's really just a throwback movie that works because, staying true to its genre, it tries to be nothing more than what it is, a fun, entertaining and pretty piece of cinematic fluff.

 

[photo2u]

One of my favorites. Macario.

 

[zebedee]

'Kiss Me Deadly' 1955.
Then I watched 'Point Blank' 1967.
Good movies.

 

[Edward]

View attachment 520995
Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell from 1969 with Gina Lollobrigida, Telly Savalas, Lee Grant, Phil Silvers, Shelley Winters, Peter Lawford, Janet Margolin and Marian McCargo.


The 1950s battle-of-the-sexes romcom was well past its expiration date by 1969, but if you let yourself just enjoy the silliness, Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell is a fun late entry in the genre.

This lighthearted movie floats by pleasantly on the comedic talents of Gina Lollobrigida and its all-star cast, wonderfully set against a sparkling Italian backdrop.

Ms. Lollobrigida pulls this movie through much nonsense with her perfectly timed facial expressions, winks, head nods, body English and asides, much more so than with her still rockin' forty-one-year-old Italian-fortress body.

Eighteen years earlier, at the end of WWII - and what follows is critical to the plot - Ms. Lollobrigida had three consensual "affairs" with three different American soldiers in three successive weeks, which resulted in a pregnancy. It's a "fire enough bullets" moment.

As Ms. Lollobrigida explained many years later in this exchange with her maid Rosa:
Rosa: "And you still don't know the father of your child?"
Mrs. Campbell (Lollobrigida): "Of course I know him. I just don't know who he is."

Enterprising Ms. Lollobrigida, though, solved the problem by collecting monthly checks from all three men. Each one thinks he's the father and each one wants to keep everything quiet once back in America and, quieter still, as each one eventually gets married.

Ms. Lollobrigida also created a fictitious American officer, Captain Campbell, to be her deceased husband, thus making herself respectable (no awkward, "it could be any one of three" conversations) while "legitimizing" her daughter, who also believes the lie.

Life is nice for Ms. Lollobrigida, the respectable "Mrs. Campbell," and her daughter in pretty Italy, until the soldiers' unit, now eighteen-years later, comes to town for a reunion.

The three men want to meet "their" daughter and, despite being married, have another tumble with Ms. Lollobrigida.

The men and their wives are played by Telly Savalas and Lee Grant, Phil Silvers and Shelley Winters and Peter Lawford and Marian McCargo.

Each couple is having marital issues. Plus, each man has kept the affair, the resulting daughter and the subsequent checks a secret from his wife all these years.

That convoluted set up leads to a lot of confusion, hijinx and embarrassment as Ms. Lollobrigida tries to keep the men unaware of each other and her daughter unaware of the truth. The men also try to keep their getting-suspicious wives unaware of everything.

The silly story works because the writing, overall, is funny, Melvin Franks' directing is crisp and Ms. Lollobrigida is a comedic talent. Funny asides come and go quickly, which shepherds the story over a lot of forced situations and silliness.

Also moving everything nicely along is the on-location shooting in Rome, which looks picture-postcard perfect as Ms. Lollobrigida and her pretty daughter, played by Janet Margolin, zip around cobblestone streets and scenic roads in cute little Italian sports cars.

With such a large cast, many of the supporting characters are just caricatures, but a few like Shelley Winters as a brassy but kind wife and Telly Savalas as, well, bull-in-the-china-shop Telly Savalas, create enjoyable personalities.

As in all these battle-of-the-sexes romcoms, there's a climax where the story blows up with all the truths spilling out. Yet it's hardly a spoiler for fans of the genre to note that, somehow, it all still works out. These are feel-good movies from beginning to end.

Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell is a more-risque battle-of-the-sexes romcom than its 1950s peers. Still, it's really just a throwback movie that works because, staying true to its genre, it tries to be nothing more than what it is, a fun, entertaining and pretty piece of cinematic fluff.

View attachment 520996

Risque for its time, certainly. It would be interesting to know more about the writers' intent; around 1969, there was a whole new generation of GIs impregnating local girls, this time in Vietnam, as depicted - in a far from comic manner - decades later in Miss Saigon.

 

[Edward]

On the plane yesterday, I watched Babylon. It's an interesting picture that falls into the 'Hollywood films about Hollywood" genre. It's not as clever or funny as Hail Caesar, though equally it's not unsufferably smug and also poorly plotted as La La Land. I'm sure the real experts will find plenty that's wrong in the wardrobing (especially what they have Margot Robbie in much of the time), but it's a great, fun romp that presents a version of early Hollywood, and, crucially, the era of the arrival of the talkies and the impact thereof. THere's a lot to like in it. The montage of "innovations in cinema that came after sound" that comes in around the end is an interesting idea - perhaps to some extent a little on the nose, but it makes its point (spot the clip of Raiders). The parallels to Singin' in the Rain are drawn out towards the end as well, an interesting choice. Toby Maguire, one of the executive producers, crops up in a cameo as a gloriously creepy villain. It's quite the contrast from the affable everyman types with which he is so often associated, and he looks like he is having a ball with it. I'd like to see more of him in a bigger role like this.

I suspect the eventual backlash to the over-hyped and disappointing La la Land doing so well may rob Babylon of more recognition. It's not a perfect film by any means, but it is perfectly entertaining.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Das Boot - 1985 uncut TV series (282 min nonstop)

It's so funny, how this movie from DVD on my brilliant CRT doesn't look like a 42 year-old movie!

 

[Touchofevil]

The Fallen Sparrow on TCM’s Noir Alley. Saw that John Garfield was in it so I figured I’d give it a go. It was worth the time.

 

[Fading Fast]

I, Jane Doe from 1948 with Ruth Hussey, Vera Ralston, John Carroll and Benay Venuta


Very few movies, even "realistic" dramas, are an accurate portrayal of life. It's hard to make an engaging movie with an absolutely realistic story and characters, as all the nuances of life and human nature do not fit neatly into a hour-plus-long narrative. Some, like I, Jane Doe, acknowledge this reality by letting the melodrama rip.

With a touch of noir, this full-throttle soap opera, which includes an early feminist angle, covers a pre-WWII two-income marriage, a wartime affair, bigamy, immigration, deportation, murder, two trials and a surrogate adoption debate. Phew.

It's a lot to unpack, especially as the movie opens with a woman, played by Vera Ralston, on trial for murder who refuses to say a single word about herself or in her defense, so she becomes known as "Jane Doe."

It's an intriguing opening that leads to much of the story being told through flashbacks where we learn that Ralston, a French woman, married a downed American pilot, played by John Carroll, she rescued during WWII.

When he leaves to go home after the war, he promises to "bring her over later." When he doesn't, she shows up on her own, discovers he's already married and shoots him. That's why she's on trial for murder.

We also learn through flashbacks that Carroll's first marriage was from before the war and was to a hot-shot attorney played by Ruth Hussey. Hussey, as always, delivers an engaging and spirited performance, here, playing the "second" female lead.

Even before the war, Hussy's best friend, played by Benay Venuta in the "Eve Arden" role, questions Hussey's "perfect" marriage to Carroll. Venuta is suspicious of him and also doubts whether a woman can have both a career and marriage.

Hussey, conversely, believes she can have it all and argues, not perfectly by today's unforgiving political-piety standards, but impressively for 1948, that a woman can be a wife, a mother and have a fulfilling career. Exogenous events muddle her message later.

To tell more would take away several jaw-dropping "Oh!" moments in the drama/soap opera at the core of I, Jane Doe, as a lot of not particularly believable, but quite "shocking" things happen in a movie made under the Motion Picture Production Code.

Hussey, once again, shows that she had all the skills and charisma to be a leading lady, despite a career that, as in this movie, mainly had her in the friend-of-the-lead or the girl-who-didn't-get-the-guy role.

Carroll is excellent as the charming flyboy who proves to be frighteningly nasty when caught in his web of lies.

This movie, though, seems like it was reverse engineered for Vera Ralston's sleepy acting style as she's asked to be almost comatose for a good chunk of it.

It also fit her to be playing a confused foreigner in America as she always looks vaguely confused. But to be fair, intentionally tailored for her or not, the role fits her like a glove leading to Ralston giving an engaging performance.

Today's cultural warriors machine-gun down anyone not adhering strictly to the often shifting "accepted" view of this or that social/political issue making every "old" movie problematic if you abide by their virulent standards.

In its own way, though, I, Jane Doe, discusses and, overall, supports feminist viewpoints on work and marriage that, at minimum, show these ideas were percolating decades before breaking out fully into the open in the late 1960s/1970s.

If you are looking for realism, I Jane Doe is not the movie to choose, but for a post-war melodrama with absolutely no shame, it's a fun romp through war, bigamy, deportation, a murder, two trials and a surprisingly forward-looking view on several social issues.

 

[Edward]

I had issues with downloading much to watch on this current trip to Beijing, so yesterday I had Star Movies running on the in-room TV in the background. Caught a couple of films. The live-action Dumbo was really cute. They've taken a very different approach to the narrative in this one; rather than a live-action / CGI recreation of the original animation, it's more about the humans this time, and the story being told through their experience. The setting is a sort of early-mid 20th Century fairytale world; I don't recall an explicit year being mentioned, but one of the characters has just returned from - if I picked it up correctly while jetlagged - the Great War. Nicely cast and nicely played out, shorn of the worst of the cloying sentimentality to which Disney can be prone.

 

[Granville]

"Give a Girl a Break" starring Marge and Gower Champion with Debbie Reynolds and Bob Fosse. A fluffy dance movie, caught my attention because I once knew a crew of old-time Broadway folk and one of them had been the dance captain for Gower's 42nd Street. The plot is all backstage broadway intrigue, with three men involved in the production of a musical vying to get their favorite girl (and individual love interest) the lead role (Kurt Kasznar and Helen Wood are the third couple). The attraction here is the dancing, of course, and especially Bob Fosse in one of his rare film roles. Having seen him portrayed by Roy Scheider (All That Jazz) and Sam Rockwell (Fosse/Verdon) it was way cool to see the man himself. Although uncredited, Fosse choreographed his own numbers, and his big scene is a standout song and dance with Debbie. According to the Fosse/Verdon mini-series, Fosse's biggest inspiration was Fred Astaire, and it shows in his singing style here, as well as his body-language.
Oh, yes, lest we forget, Fosse was obsessed by hats and loved putting hat business into his dance numbers. And this routine does not disappoint.

Here's a link to Bob and Debbie's big number:

 

[Fading Fast]

Two Women from 1960 with Sophia Loren, Eleonora Brown and Jean-Paul Belmondo


War is hell, even on the civilians, as shown in Two Women, director Vittorio De Sica's poignant look at a mother and young teenage daughter trying to survive the last weeks of WWII in Italy.

To get her daughter out of the danger of the allied bombing of Rome toward the end of the war, a young widowed grocer, played by Sophia Loren, takes her innocent twelve-year-old daughter, played by Eleonora Brown, to relatives now living in the mountains.

This is a Tolstoy "a man goes on a journey" movie, as mother and daughter experience kindness, brutality and indifference on their arduous trek. Once there, things are better, but food is scarce and fear of German or Russian soldiers coming is omnipresent.

There they also meet a young educated man, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo, who spouts a confusing but disillusioned philosophy of war that sees the waste and horror of it from an intellectual perspective, the way Loren sees it from a pragmatic perspective.

Two Women, though, is a show-don't-tell effort, as its value is simply seeing the depredations these women endure, their desperation to find safety and their attempt at maintaining some of their humanity and dignity while the norms of civilization break down.

Nothing is routine as mother and daughter sleep in barns, don't bathe for days, are strafed on the road, run from bombs and, being two attractive women, have to constantly thwart sexual advances that Brown isn't old enough to even fully understand.

Obtaining food is a daily ordeal. "Grocer" Loren bargains with locals in a wild-west-style market where cheating is rampant sans any rule of law. When a bag of flour is dropped on the ground, the loose flour is scooped up out of the dirt as waste is intolerable.

For daughter Brown, growing-up is compressed into weeks as she can't be protected from hunger, the unfiltered conversations of adults and, in the movie's most horrifying scene, the desires of men being forced on her and her mother.

De Sica also shows how cheap life becomes in wartime as German soldiers casually threaten the lives of civilians over a loaf of bread and even the liberating Americans, the good guys here, have bigger issues to deal with than protecting the civilian population.

The war and movie grind down together as Loren and Brown trek home, but not as the same people who left Rome only weeks ago. Loren won a deserved Best Actress Oscar for her performance, here, as the harrowed mother unable to protect her daughter.

Brown, too, is outstanding playing a young girl forced to face things all parents try to protect their children from. Belmondo's performance is good, but his entire character seems shoehorned in so as to give the movie an unnecessary "philosophical voice."

The war-torn Italian landscape, as shown here, is a familiar one that is not as horrifying as the newsreels of Germany or Japan at the end of the war. Still, it's a sad and hostile environment where the basic comforts of food, shelter and clothing are often unavailable.

Two Women is an engaging, moving and sad movie that says little and shows a lot as it delivers a Hobbesian message about life for civilians on the losing side of a war being solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Saw Two Women as an adolescent school boy and it's unforgettable classic film with Sophia cast away
from femme fatale to madonna with daughter, that barn horrific nightmare scene is searing.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Yakuza from 1974


The 1960s had a veneer of hope - "All you need is love," flower power, etc. - but by the 1970s that silliness was over and what remained was a decade that seemed to be spiraling out of control on many fronts, with law and order being near the top of the list.

Street crime was up and citizens didn't feel safe. They didn't believe the, often-corrupt, police could protect them, so Hollywood turned out a slew of vigilante-justice movies with stars like Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson playing lone warriors killing bad guys.

The Yakuza takes that model, straps it on Robert Mitchum's aging shoulders and transfers it to Japan where that culture's organized crime, the Yakuza, combines honor and ancient rituals with good old-fashioned corruption and violence.

Mitchum, playing an American private investigator, is hired by a WWII army buddy, played by Brian Keith, to rescue Keith’s daughter who was kidnapped by the Yakuza in Japan as a result of a "business deal" (guns for money) between Keith and the Yakuza going sour.

Once over in Japan, Mitchum meets up with a beautiful Japanese woman, played by Keiko Kishi, with whom he had an affair during the American occupation. Mitchum also reconnects with a former army buddy who seems to know the inside dope on the girl's kidnapping.

The story gets much more layered from there as it involves the estranged husband of Mitchum's former lover, played by Ken Takakura, and the former lover's daughter who, maybe, is Mitchum's daughter. Keep your scorecards out as more is coming.

Takakura's brother, an honest businessman, is also aware of the Yakuza's gun dealings with Mitchum's friend. When Mitchum begins his quest to rescue Keith's daughter, secrets, recriminations and old grudges spill out in the ensuing blood feud.

This cat's cradle of a story becomes clear about halfway through, which allows you to focus on the movie's three selling points: Japan's culture of ritualized honor, which exists even in the Yakuza, Mitchum's attempt to bridge the cultural gap and a ton of violence.

Mitchum teams up with Takakura to settle old and new scores against the Yakuza, while everyone tries to restore or maintain honor. It's a bit muddled, but compared to America's carefree culture, Japan's ancient traditions feel important.

The violent scenes of American guns and Japanese swords mixing together in battles are well done for the pre-CGI 1970s where stuntmen and analog special effects, not zeroes and ones provide the verisimilitude.

It is no more believable than the purely American vigilante movies, but the Japanese Samurai culture embedded in the Yakuza makes for a fun twist. Plus, guns and swords combined in a fight are better than either alone, even if it doesn't really make sense.

Shot in Japan, The Yakuza has an Eastern look and feel that gives the movie a novelty. Elaborate rituals, a gruesome custom for asking forgiveness and a general feel that there is more honor in Japan than America had to intrigue disaffected Americans of that era.

Mitchum's sleepy acting style with its gravitas backbeat (the guy just looks serious) is a perfect fit for an American private investigator seemingly comfortable in Japan's surface-calm, honor-bound culture.

Several talented Japanese actors, including Takakura and Kishi, play the Japanese roles (thankfully taking that modern-day cultural-handwringing issue off the table), which along with the aforementioned location shooting, gives the movie a genuine Eastern cultural feel.

Despite all it has going for it, including the talents of director Sydney Pollack, The Yakuza never feels like more than another well-done 1970s vigilante movie with a Japanese overlay. It's entertaining in the way those movies are, but nothing more.

 

[Edward]

A Few films on the plane home today. The most notable for these parts would be the 1930s-set Invitation to a Murder. It's a bit sub-'And then there were none' but a perfectly pleasant watch nonetheless, with some nice wardrobe, albeit some of the bits (the American journalist's wardrobe in particular) look out of place for its mid-1930s setting.

 

[Fading Fast]

Downstairs from 1932 with John Gilbert, Virginia Bruce, Paul Lukas and Reginald Owen


Downstairs is a strong pre-code look at sexual passion and marital infidelity oddly set in Austria, but it is also a window into the rapid career decline of silent film star John Gilbert.

Gilbert plays a scamming lothario chauffeur who is hired onto an estate run by a proper and professional butler played by Paul Lukas. Middle-aged Lukas has just married one of the estate's housemaids, played by pretty and young Virginia Bruce.

Things would have gone on fine at the estate, if boring all around, except for change-agent Gilbert who, sensing some untapped passion in Bruce, makes a back-door play for her.

He also seduces the estate's older cook whose lifetime savings he is eyeing. Finally, Gilbert makes a play for the young mistress of the estate who is having an affair of her own.

Phew. Gilbert is pure scum in this one, but he does force Bruce to realize she is not satisfied sexually in her marriage - it's that blunt (God bless the pre-code) - and he forces Lukas to realize he's got to change if he's going to keep his young wife satisfied.

What Gilbert does to the older cook, though, is evil. He seduces her, then drops her cruelly only to let her come back somewhat if she'll offer up her life savings to him for a cafe he tells her he's going to buy for them to run together. Scammers scam, that's what they do.

The last ball Gilbert has in the air is he's blackmailing the mistress of the estate. As her chauffeur, he's driven her to her assignations and is using that knowledge against her.

When the maid and Lukas discover who Gilbert really is, Gilbert uses his leverage with the mistress to keep his job, but the situation is untenable.

This leads to the climax, which is the movie's one truly false note as Gilbert doesn't fully use the leverage he has, but it's still a good scene and doesn't ruin the movie.

Lukas is excellent as the professional butler who thinks he can run his marriage with the same fair but cold efficiency he uses to run the house. His slow awakening to his wife's physical and emotional needs is believable and moving.

Bruce is also very good (and very pretty) as the young newlywed who is discovering her own sexual passions and emotional needs from manipulative but attractive and virile Gilbert.

When Bruce finally admits her affair, she also defends it with a cri de coeur that a woman's physical desires need to be met by her husband or, if not, they'll be met by someone else.

It's a pre-code movie moment that is better and more believable than most of the self-conscious, virtue signaling "girl power" moments in modern movies, as Bruce's cry is real, raw and not overtly political.

Reginald Owen puts in his usual professional performance as the lord of the estate, but he doesn't really have much to do in this one other than to, from time to time, pull Lukas away from his marital problems.

The entire "Austrian estate" setting is, unfortunately, a forced distraction as the movie feels dated - who in the 1930s, especially in America, cared about the last breaths of Europe's medieval barons and baronesses?

It would have felt more relevant had it been set on an English estate trying to transition its economics to the twentieth century or, even better, in a Park Avenue penthouse.

Tucked inside this tale of sexual awakening and manipulation is John Gilbert's real-life drama as this former silent-film heartthrob wrote the movie's story and advocated to play its immoral and lecherous lead.

He got his wish; he played the lead and was excellent in the part. But the movie was a flop as the public didn't accept its former romantic hero as a cad, which left Gilbert's career on its downward trajectory.

The shorthand belief is that Gilbert couldn't make the transition to talkies; the more complex answer is that his voice was fine for talkies, but his choice of roles, excessive drinking, difficult personality and alienation of studio head Louis B. Mayer led to his downfall.

Downstairs, as noted, flopped, however, the movie's honest look at female sexuality, plus its strong cast, make it an enjoyable pre-code window into the 1930s. And it still, all these years later, has something relevant to say to us today about physical desire and infidelity.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

View attachment 522703
The Yakuza from 1974


The 1960s had a veneer of hope - "All you need is love," flower power, etc. - but by the 1970s that silliness was over and what remained was a decade that seemed to be spiraling out of control on many fronts, with law and order being near the top of the list.

Street crime was up and citizens didn't feel safe. They didn't believe the, often-corrupt, police could protect them, so Hollywood turned out a slew of vigilante-justice movies with stars like Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson playing lone warriors killing bad guys.

The Yakuza takes that model, straps it on Robert Mitchum's aging shoulders and transfers it to Japan where that culture's organized crime, the Yakuza, combines honor and ancient rituals with good old-fashioned corruption and violence.

Mitchum, playing an American private investigator, is hired by a WWII army buddy, played by Brian Keith, to rescue Keith’s daughter who was kidnapped by the Yakuza in Japan as a result of a "business deal" (guns for money) between Keith and the Yakuza going sour.

Once over in Japan, Mitchum meets up with a beautiful Japanese woman, played by Keiko Kishi, with whom he had an affair during the American occupation. Mitchum also reconnects with a former army buddy who seems to know the inside dope on the girl's kidnapping.

The story gets much more layered from there as it involves an outcast brother of Mitchum's former lover, played by Ken Takakura, and the former lover's daughter who, maybe, is Mitchum's daughter. Keep your scorecards out as more is coming.

The former lover's brother, an honest businessman, is also aware of the Yakuza's gun dealings with Mitchum's friend. When Mitchum begins his quest to rescue Keith's daughter, secrets, recriminations and old grudges spill out in the ensuing blood feud.

This cat's cradle of a story becomes clear about halfway through, which allows you to focus on the movie's three selling points: Japan's culture of ritualized honor, which exists even in the Yakuza, Mitchum's attempt to bridge the cultural gap and a ton of violence.

Mitchum teams up with Takakura to settle old and new scores against the Yakuza, while everyone tries to restore or maintain honor. It's a bit muddled, but compared to America's carefree culture, Japan's ancient traditions feel important.

The violent scenes of American guns and Japanese swords mixing together in battles are well done for the pre-CGI 1970s where stuntmen and analog special effects, not zeroes and ones provide the verisimilitude.

It is no more believable than the purely American vigilante movies, but the Japanese Samurai culture embedded in the Yakuza makes for a fun twist. Plus, guns and swords combined in a fight are better than either alone, even if it doesn't really make sense.

Shot in Japan, The Yakuza has an Eastern look and feel that gives the movie a novelty. Elaborate rituals, a gruesome custom for asking forgiveness and a general feel that there is more honor in Japan than America had to intrigue disaffected Americans of that era.

Mitchum's sleepy acting style with its gravitas backbeat (the guy just looks serious) is a perfect fit for an American private investigator seemingly comfortable in Japan's surface-calm, honor-bound culture.

Several talented Japanese actors, including Takakura and Kishi, play the Japanese roles (thankfully taking that modern-day cultural-handwringing issue off the table), which along with the aforementioned location shooting, gives the movie a genuine Eastern cultural feel.

Despite all it has going for it, including the talents of director Sydney Pollack, The Yakuza never feels like more than another well-done 1970s vigilante movie with a Japanese overlay. It's entertaining in the way those movies are, but nothing more.

I personally had an altogether different take of The Yakuza Fast. First, I confess the Mitchum, Keiko, Takakura love triangle hit me hard as the Second World War aftermath left an indelible imprint on their post war lives.
Also Keiko is a gorgeous mature Japanese beauty whom I cannot resist falling for though I laboured to fight
but her charms reduced me to surrender. The Kendo instructor is her former husband, who returned after the
American occupation was on and Keiko was living with the then Yank sgt, Mitchum. So he accepted it and took
a stoic samurai silent divorce over the whole thing. Mitchum proposed to Keiko but she declines, saying she will
follow and live with him only as his mistress. So, Mitchum-one of my favourite Yanks, borrows money from Keith
who runs an American protection racket, buys Keiko the bar and leaves. Unbelievable. I would have brought Keiko
back to London with me. I liked the sword play and kendo dojo drills, and the knife finger slice off honor atonement
ritual which was neat but Keiko the kimono girl really sold and stole the show for me.