What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

The Poseidon Adventure from 1972 with Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Red Buttons, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Carolyn Lynley, and Pamela Sue Martin


The Poseidon Adventure is one of the best of the "disaster" films that populated 1970s movie screens. It's held up well because the standard in those pre-CGI days was to make the movie believable; whereas, now the standard is to use over-the-top, unbelievable special effects.

The movie is also helped along by its outstanding cast including veterans Shelley Winters, Red Buttons, and Ernest Borgnine; 1970s heavyweight Gene Hackman; and several talented old and new tier-two stars like Stella Stevens, Carolyn Lynley, and Pamela Sue Martin.

At the outset, a cruise ship departs for a multi-day trip over New Year's. As the passengers do their thing - have fun, argue, dance, eat, drink, gamble - the owner of the ship pushes the captain to go for speed to save money, à la the Titanic disaster.

Owing to an underwater earthquake, and in the movie's era-iconic visual moment, a tsunami hits the ship, flipping it upside down. It's not perfect, but the lack of CGI makes the special effects still impressive today.

As the ship settles down after the wave, an iconoclast preacher, played by Hackman, realizing the ship is upside down, encourages the survivors to follow him on a journey up to the bottom of the ship, which of course is now the top. Only a few agree to go.

There is a lot of 1970s "Me Generation" religious ideology in play as Hackman was already challenging the Protestant Church's establishment before the wave hit. You see some of that attitude in his leadership of the small band of survivors who follow him.

If you want to carry the metaphor further, you might view him as a Christ with his Apostles or, alternatively, as Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt. Hackman even yells at God, demanding He stops getting in their way if He isn’t going to help. It's full-on 1970s anti-establishment stuff.

You don’t need to pay that rigmarole any attention if you don’t want to; instead, you can simply enjoy a good old-fashioned disaster/survivor movie, which is where The Poseidon Adventure shines.

Hackman's group fight among themselve but also pull together as they overcome obstacles, including flooding decks, flash fires, locked steel doors, underwater escape routes, destabilizing shocks as the ship experiences explosions, and other challenges.

You can pick apart scenes and effects if you study them closely, but if you just go with it, it’s a darn good disaster-escape story, complete with a little 1970s titillation as Lynley, Martin, and Stevens end up with fewer clothes over time, often soaked through.

Hackman and Borgnine – Borgnine plays a retired New York City police detective – fight endlessly, embodying the anti-establishment trope, while others, like Buttons and Lynley, form an unlikely bond born of kindness and need.

These are professional actors, all led by experienced director Ronald Neame, who take their work seriously. The result is a somber, not-campy effort with fewer cringeworthy moments than most of its 1970s counterparts, and it even delivers a few genuine nail-biting scenes.

For what it is – a 1970s disaster movie with a big cast – The Poseidon Adventure has aged well. It’s the perfect movie to grab a bucket of popcorn, sit down, and enjoy a fun picture from a time when disaster films were all the rage.

 

[Fading Fast]

Lawyer Man from 1932 with William Powell, Joan Blondell and David Landau


Not every precode movie is a steaming cauldron of wanton sex – most aren't.

Many use their precode freedom to take a realistic look at social issues. In Lawyer Man, political corruption and legal ethics are explored through the career ups and downs of an honest Lower-East-Side attorney.

When William Powell, playing the honest lawyer, wins a big case for a poor immigrant, a prestigious uptown lawyer offers him a partnership. Powell then moves to the high-rent district with his smart, loyal, and quietly pining-for-him secretary, played by Joan Blondell, in tow.

Once there, Powell refuses to play ball with the city's political boss, played by David Landau. Since this is the era when "political machines" ran cities, Landau then sets Powell up to be disbarred. The climax sees Powell fighting back against the machine and Landau.

The story is simple, but it's also very precode as the movie takes for granted that the audience knows political organizations and city governments are crooked patronage systems. Jobs and contracts were doled out in return for bribes and graft.

It also doesn't shy away from showing plenty of sexual shenanigans, with aggressive women – one played with viper-like blonde greed by Claire Dodd – using sex in exchange for money and favors. Dood will be the pivot that eventually tests Powell's integrity in his new "rich" world.

Beyond its revealing look at corruption, the fun in this film is Powell playing a smart but personally careless lawyer. He wants to get ahead, stay honest, chase skirts, and fight corruption, all with a blind eye to the entrenched interests he's challenging.

Blondell sees all those risks and tries to warn her overconfident boss, for whom she's carrying a torch, but Powell has to learn the hard way. Blondell was outstanding at playing the wisecracking "smart gal" with a heart of gold, a role she perfected in the 1930s at Warner Bros.

Powell is excellent as the mirthfully smooth yet fundamentally honest lawyer with the grit to fight the system. He is, though, a bit less believable as the downtown "champion of the immigrant" lawyer, as everything about the man says he's educated and urbane.

This is, though, a small flaw in the movie as Powell is supposed to be "at home" with the immigrants and "out of place" with the swells, but the reverse seems true. He's good at relating to the immigrant community, but it's obvious he's not one of them.

Powell went on to great success playing roguishly sophisticated characters throughout the 1930s, while Blondell, as noted, often played the "sassy gal" going toe to toe with the fast-talking male actors of that era. It's fun to see them together here, early in the decade.

Lawyer Man is a short, enjoyable precode look at the blatant corruption of that era's big-city governments dominated by "political machines." It’s a candor that would largely disappear from movies after the post-1934 enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code.

While a work of fiction, Lawyer Man offers modern audiences a vivid reminder of how entrenched politically corrupt "machines" once were. Today we are equally cynical about our political class, with the good news being that the system did correct itself, once, when it rid itself of the "machines."


N.B. Another pre-Code specialty of Warner Bros. – and something else that would vanish with the Code’s enforcement and the “cleaning up” of “immigrant” America on screen – is the scene where Italian Powell, back in his old neighborhood, speaks Yiddish with a Jewish man.

 

[Edward]

View attachment 664144
The Poseidon Adventure from 1972 with Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Red Buttons, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Carolyn Lynley, and Pamela Sue Martin


The Poseidon Adventure is one of the best of the "disaster" films that populated 1970s movie screens. It's held up well because the standard in those pre-CGI days was to make the movie believable; whereas, now the standard is to use over-the-top, unbelievable special effects.

The movie is also helped along by its outstanding cast including veterans Shelley Winters, Red Buttons, and Ernest Borgnine; 1970s heavyweight Gene Hackman; and several talented old and new tier-two stars like Stella Stevens, Carolyn Lynley, and Pamela Sue Martin.

At the outset, a cruise ship departs for a multi-day trip over New Year's. As the passengers do their thing - have fun, argue, dance, eat, drink, gamble - the owner of the ship pushes the captain to go for speed to save money, à la the Titanic disaster.

Owing to an underwater earthquake, and in the movie's era-iconic visual moment, a tsunami hits the ship, flipping it upside down. It's not perfect, but the lack of CGI makes the special effects still impressive today.

As the ship settles down after the wave, an iconoclast preacher, played by Hackman, realizing the ship is upside down, encourages the survivors to follow him on a journey up to the bottom of the ship, which of course is now the top. Only a few agree to go.

There is a lot of 1970s "Me Generation" religious ideology in play as Hackman was already challenging the Protestant Church's establishment before the wave hit. You see some of that attitude in his leadership of the small band of survivors who follow him.

If you want to carry the metaphor further, you might view him as a Christ with his Apostles or, alternatively, as Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt. Hackman even yells at God, demanding He stops getting in their way if He isn’t going to help. It's full-on 1970s anti-establishment stuff.

You don’t need to pay that rigmarole any attention if you don’t want to; instead, you can simply enjoy a good old-fashioned disaster/survivor movie, which is where The Poseidon Adventure shines.

Hackman's group fight among themselve but also pull together as they overcome obstacles, including flooding decks, flash fires, locked steel doors, underwater escape routes, destabilizing shocks as the ship experiences explosions, and other challenges.

You can pick apart scenes and effects if you study them closely, but if you just go with it, it’s a darn good disaster-escape story, complete with a little 1970s titillation as Lynley, Martin, and Stevens end up with fewer clothes over time, often soaked through.

Hackman and Borgnine – Borgnine plays a retired New York City police detective – fight endlessly, embodying the anti-establishment trope, while others, like Buttons and Lynley, form an unlikely bond born of kindness and need.

These are professional actors, all led by experienced director Ronald Neame, who take their work seriously. The result is a somber, not-campy effort with fewer cringeworthy moments than most of its 1970s counterparts, and it even delivers a few genuine nail-biting scenes.

For what it is – a 1970s disaster movie with a big cast – The Poseidon Adventure has aged well. It’s the perfect movie to grab a bucket of popcorn, sit down, and enjoy a fun picture from a time when disaster films were all the rage.

I remember seeing that one as a kid, back in the early eighties, on television. I've seen it a few times since and it always holds up. It feels like such a different era of cinema now.

Spoiler

What stands out for me particularly is how Hackman, as the hero, is 'allowed' to die in the end. It's such a rare thing in cinema these days - Logan in many ways really stands out because it bucks the contemporary trend by doing the same. There's a place for the unkillable hero, I suppose, but at an impressionable age I read so much Greek and other mythology - Robin Hood a notable example - where the hero's death is such an important part of the narrative arc. Sometimes the refusal to permit this in so much modern cinema, the refusal of the fanbase to tolerate it, seems so infantalised. I'm thinking particularly of the huge online backlash ahead of the release of Dial of Destiny when it was rumoured that Indiana Jones was to died in that picture. It robs so many films of their tension: it was hard to feel a sense of real danger in a crucial scene in World War Z when you're sitting there thinking "Well, they won't kill off Brad Pitt....".

The remake was interesting in the same way remakes of George Romero pictures are interesting: as a comment on the time in which these remakes are made, and thereby a comparison with the times in which the originals were made, and the then and now comparisons between the two. Not as good as the original, but interesting nonetheless.

I've watched a couple of films in the last week. The Mean One (2022, currently on Amazon Prime) is in the vein of 'modern horror film take on established childhood classic.' Specifically, it's the Dr Seuss story of the Grinch, but done as a 'what really happened' horror picture. Something akin to the notion of reading the original Grimm fairy story after being familiar with the sanitised, populist version. Much to my surprise, I thought it actually worked rather well. A lot of these sorts of things never get beyond an ill-thought out juxtaposition of a cute kiddy thing with violence. This however was clearly made with a lot of love for the inspiration (I wouldn't call it source material so much because this is completely unauthorised; while it is very recognisably, visually, a take on Seuss' Grinch, the film dances around the original, never quite using its language. The Grinch is never quite called that: it is, twice, implied that the word Grinch is used, but drowned out by a waitress shouting "Finch!" Events take place in Newville, not Whoville, and so on.) The ending is a very dark little twist on the ending in Seuss' story. Best of all, it plays the whole thing straight and leaves the audience to 'get' it. The opposite of so many modern pictures (I'm thinking especially of the Scream franchise) which all but have someone turn directly to camera to ay "Psst! Look at us being clever!" every two minutes, the cinematic equivalent of including a laugh track to instruct the audience how to recognise the jokes in a sitcom.

I also watched The Strangers: Chapter One . I was something of a fan of the 2008 original (its 2018 sequel I have never seen, so can't comment of that). The original picture was a well put together, psychological horror that stood out from the trend among its contemporaries of always providing an explanation / motive / justification for the villain, making the lack of any real motivation on the part of the antagonists truly chilling. Chapter One feels like a relatively straight remake of the original. Slightly different setting, but essentially the same story. Alone, this makes it somewhat superfluous. The original is no Jason Vorhees: it's a story that only works as well once. That said, this is a well made and well paced picture on its own (even if the protagonists aren't wholly sympathetic), and it is intended as a redux, not connected to the 2008 or 2018 pictures. It's intended as the first part of a trilogy, each of which will have a very different structure to the story, so it'll be interesting to see where it goes. Not one for the casual fan, all told.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

The Holiday Movie-a-pa-looza continues with Christmas in Connecticut (1945) with Barbra Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, and Sidney Greenstreet, directed by Peter Godfrey, behind the camera for The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt, That Hagen Girl, and Escape Me Never, among so many others. Stanwyck writes a proto-Martha Stewart magazine column, regaling her readers with accounts of elegant home-life and fabulous recipes. She's fraudulent, fooling even her tycoon of a publisher Greenstreet, as she is an apartment-dweller in the Big Apple. Navy hero Morgan, rescued at sea and hospitalized after 18 days in a life raft, is set up by Greenstreet for a swell home-cooked Christmas dinner prepared by Stanwyck. Her attempts to convince all she's a wonderful hostess, great cook, doting mom, and exemplary wife (none of which she is) make up most of the story. This is a family-wide favorite, even the kids enjoying it. One of them even quoted Greenstreet's imperious "Or my name isn't Alexander Yardley!"

The rapidly-shrinking window of pre-Christmas evenings for movie watching may result in some double features-

 

[Fading Fast]

3:10 to Yuma from 2007 with Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, and Ben Foster


Old movie fans can't help but compare this relatively modern version of 3:10 to Yuma with the highly regarded 1957 one. Modern technology makes the action scenes in the new one incredibly engaging, but storywise, the slight nod goes to the 1957 one for a cleaner narrative.

On its own, the 2007 3:10 to Yuma is a modern classic in the Western genre. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, with an incredible cast, including Ben Foster playing one of the great psychotic gunmen of all time, draw you in early and never let go.

The core plot is all but the same as in the 1957 version. Crowe, in the Glenn Ford role, plays the leader and sole member of a gang who is caught in a small town because he stayed around too long after a holdup to have sex with a barmaid – the exact same plot pivot used in 1957.

Capturing a notorious gang leader in a small town, though, is one thing, getting him to prison is another. Knowing Crowe's professional gang of killers will be coming to free him, few men are willing to help the sheriff.

A $200 fee entices a local, financially struggling family man and farmer, played by Bale, in the role originally played by Van Heflin, to escort Crowe to the train, the titular 3:10 to Yuma, that will take Crow to the Yuma prison.

With the plot now set – two men on a journey with opposite goals – the movie becomes a battle of wills, smarts, and skills as Bale tries to take his prisoner, Crowe, to Coventry – an overnight trip on horseback – to meet the train to Yuma the next day.

As in the original, Crowe is a master manipulator of people and gets inside Bale's more linear brain – a brain suffering from insecurities due to a leg he lost in the Civil War, his failing farm, and his less-than-respectful son.

It's a long night and then a longer day as Bale, with help – a Pinkerton, his son, a sheriff, etc. – along for parts of the trip, tries to deliver Crowe to the train. Crowe, however, tries to escape; his gang tries to ambush them; and other obstacles that would break a normal man come and go.

It all climaxes in Coventry in an incredible battle of wills, head games, and one heck of an exciting – if not particularly believable – gun battle. Even as a viewer, you're exhausted like Crowe and Bale are when it's over.

The only uncertainty about the acting of those two is which performance is more impressive. Crowe brings an incredible joie de vivre, intelligence, and Machiavellian strategy to his character, which is matched by Bale's "my entire life is tied up in this mission" passion.

While there are several other strong supporting performances, the standout one is Ben Foster, playing Crowe's second in command. If you ever find yourself running a gang of outlaws in the Old West, Foster's psychotically devoted-to-you character is the one you want as your second.

His portrayal of a man with a singular focus – to free his boss – but done with a full-picture strategy, Olympian-level gunslinger skills, and absolutely no respect for anyone's life but his and his boss', makes him frighteningly effective. Foster creates a memorable character.

Movies today are almost always more complicated. You need a Venn diagram to keep Bale's emotional issues straight and the gun battles are long choreographed routines with more bullets fired than in all of WWII, but that doesn't make the movie better.

The 1957 3:10 to Yuma engages with its tense but simple tale of two men set on a journey where only one of them will like the outcome. There is emotional baggage and head games, but also a "point A to point B" overarching narrative that keeps the story sharply focused.

The 2007 version is incredibly engaging, but it's so complicated and packed with action that you sometimes lose sight of the simple mano-a-mano story. It is, though, an outstanding movie and an honorable remake of a midcentury Western classic.


Link to my comments on the 1957 version of "3:10 to Yuma:" #31,342

 

[Fading Fast]

The Crime of Helen Stanley from 1934 with Ralph Bellamy, Gail Patrick and Vincent Sherman


Television shows and series existed before television, they were just called B-movies, shorts or serials and were shown in movie theaters before the main feature from the 1930s through the 1950s.

The Crime of Helen Stanley is both a B movie and a serial as Ralph Bellamy played the same character, Inspector Steve Trent, in four hour-long movies where he has to solve a complex mystery. It was effectively a four-episode TV show made in the 1930s.

In The Crime of Helen Stanley, Trent is called in to investigate the murder of a female Hollywood star who was shot on the set during the filming of a scene, possibly because real bullets were used instead of blanks in the prop gun. Once again, we see that very little is new.

The murdered actress, played by Gale Patrick, was shot as she was playing a dancer in a ritzy nightclub. The case seems to be solved immediately as the man who shot the prop gun was Patrick's estranged husband. He admits to the crime just before dying from a suicide attempt.

Smart Bellamy is suspicious, so he has the bullet that killed Patrick checked and it doesn't match the prop gun that the husband used. It is thus back to investigating for Bellamy, where he discovers a clown car of suspects spilling out.

Patrick was a prima donna star with many enemies. Her sister and the sister's fiancé, the latter is also Patrick's ex-boyfriend and current cameraman, both make the list as Patrick opposed the marriage and tried to get the fiancé blacklisted in Hollywood.

Patrick's business manager also makes the list, as there's a little "confusion" about a missing $60,000 of Patrick's. Also under suspicion is the imperious director of Patrick's current movie. He is a Viennese expat living in America on an expired visa, a detail Patrick knew about.

Last up is Patrick's bodyguard and chauffeur, who was blackmailing Patrick. Bellamy learns some of this from Patrick's diary; a diary that almost every suspect was trying to find and destroy after Patrick's murder.

This all plays out like an early TV show with Bellamy speed pushing through everyone's lies and obfuscations, while he has to dodge an attempt on his life as a heavy prop is nearly dropped on his head. It is very much like a 1960s/70s TV-detective drama.

It is disappointing, though, that the resolution, no spoilers coming, could not be solved by the viewer as there's no clue dropped in early. You feel a tiny bit cheated when Bellamy figures it out as you can't have either an "I knew it" moment or a "how'd I miss that" moment.

The added fun in this one is the inside view of the real Columbia studios, here playing the part of the fictional "True-Art Pictures" movie studio. Back then, a movie like this gave the public a look at a studio in action; today, it's a time capsule of 1930s movie making.

It's also fun to see Bellamy and Patrick at the start of their careers, when they are still learning their craft. Also, famed director Vincent Sherman pops up as an actor, playing the blackmailer. The entire effort is a cool curio for fans of early movies.

The Crime of Helen Stanley is not even close to being a great picture, but it wasn't trying to be. It was trying to be an hour of modest entertainment before the featured movie was shown. Just like a good early TV show, it succeeds in its humble aspirations.

 

[Fading Fast]

Bhowani Junction from 1956 with Ava Gardner, Stewart Granger, Bill Travers, and Francis Matthews


"The only people who face reality are too dumb to duck when they see it coming."


Bhowani Junction is an underrated movie that uses the backdrop of Indian independence in 1947 to frame its tale of love, lust, and race. For its time, it's a thoughtful and sensitive look at issues of cultural identity that, sadly, still buffet our politics today.

Unwinding an empire is hard work as the British try to exit India and India tries to become independent, with – both hoping – some dignity intact. But empires don't unwind – nor do countries assemble themselves – by fiat with ease.

At the center of what becomes the love quadrangle used to highlight all these issues is Ava Gardner playing the half-Indian, half-English, and wonderfully named Victoria Jones – a "chee-chee" in the slightly derogatory slang of the day.

With the British pulling out, "Anglo-Indians" like Gardner become people without a country as Mother England isn't their home – and doesn't want them – but neither does the new India trying to rid itself of its colonial vestiges.

A WAC in the British Army, Gardner is pursued hard romantically by another Anglo-Indian, played by Bill Travers, who is trying to out-English the English, but of course, it's a contest his mixed blood will never allow him to win.

Gardner is stationed at Bhowani Junction, a key rail depot that is a swirl of Indian passive resistance, defiance, and outright terrorism as different factions in India try to "expedite" the British exit, while jockeying for control in the new India.

Stewart Granger, playing a British colonel, is sent to Bhowani Junction to keep the trains on schedule by capturing the terrorists and tamping down the non-violent protests and defiance that are wreaking havoc with the railroad.

Granger is all business – fair but gruff. An early event, where he makes a tough call against the non-violent protesters, turns Gardner's sympathies against him, but she was already in the miasma of a personal and cultural identity crisis that sees her cool officer facade shaken.

Gardner will eventually try on every identity: proud "chee-chee" dating a "chee-chee," proud Indian dating an Indian (played by Francis Matthews), and even a proud British officer dating Granger, but none are an easy fit, for none can be an easy fit for this woman without a country.

Her struggle is an intentional microcosm of India's struggle. The country will no longer be a British colony, but it, like Anglo-Indian Gardner, can't just pretend its English heritage never existed as the country and its people try to define what a new India will be.

So much happens it's challenging to distill it down as an attempted rape, possible manslaughter, an ammunition train being raided, and terrorists and communists battling for power – as Gandhi's non-violent movement gains momentum – are all in the mix.

Unfortunately, in the film's one weakness, director George Cukor has Granger doing multiple voice-over narrations to explain the story. It takes the viewer out of the movie so often that it undermines the "feel" of watching a story unfold, though it does help to clarify a confusing narrative.

Cukor's decision to film in Pakistan subbing in for India helps tremendously as it gives the movie a genuine look and feel for the region that no backlot and army of LA-based extras could come close to achieving.

Also kicking this one up several notches are nearly uniformly impressive performances, with the exception of Travers who loudly overacts. Granger gives one of his career best as the strict but fair British officer trying to balance too many factions in a political tsunami.

He and Gardner have palpable screen chemistry, so much so, you can even feel a little attraction when they are in their I-hate-you phase.

Gardner herself is on fire in this role: She elevates every one of her scenes by thoughtfully and passionately playing the smart, calm woman realizing there will soon be no firm ground under her feet.

Her emotions rarely explode, but there's feeling in her every nuance as she desperately tries to find a home for her homeless heritage. It's a moving, often heartbreaking performance that argues Gardner's acting talent might even have exceeded her prepossessing beauty.

Today's politics are strident and unforgiving, but so were India's in 1947, which makes Bhowani Junction feel modern in a way yet dated for those who can't abide anything but "perfect" ideology.

For those who can, the picture – flaws and all – offers an insightful look at the end of an empire and the beginning of a country. It is an epic from "Old Hollywood," which in 1956, could still assemble an impressive array of resources and talent to capture a defining historical moment.

 

[Touchofevil]

Watching Casablanca right now for hundredth time on HBO. I am, like many, a fan of Humphrey Bogart, but watch this movie for Claude Rains. For me, he steals every scene he is in. He is a delight to watch.

 

[Fading Fast]

Watching Casablanca right now for hundredth time on HBO. I am, like many, a fan of Humphrey Bogart, but watch this movie for Claude Rains. For me, he steals every scene he is in. He is a delight to watch.

Always nice to see you posting again. Hope all is well and Merry Christmas.

 

[Touchofevil]

Always nice to see you posting again. Hope all is well and Merry Christmas.

Thank you! It’s nice to see you are still here and entertaining as always.

 

[Auld Edwardian]

I just recently watched "The King's Speech." I'm a great admirer of the late King VI. And also for the late Queen Elizabeth II.

 

[Edward]

Watching Casablanca right now for hundredth time on HBO. I am, like many, a fan of Humphrey Bogart, but watch this movie for Claude Rains. For me, he steals every scene he is in. He is a delight to watch.

It's a picture I came to late - didn't see it til I was in my middle thirties. What struck me about it though was just how funny it is in parts. So much more than its origins as a propaganda pic. It's also I think of its time in that there's no way I could see Hollywood greenlighting a pictured with that ending today. Even back as far as 1961 they changed the end of Breakfast at Tiffany's...

 

[Fading Fast]

Holiday Affair from 1949 with Janet Leigh, Robert Mitchum, and Wendell Corey


Hallmark's entire slate of Christmas romcom movies – all kabillion of them – is mainly just varying attempts to do a modern version of Holiday Affair. And kudos to Hallmark: Since every story is derivative, why not imitate just about the best source material ever?

There are better Christmas movies, but there is no better pure Christmas romcom than Holiday Affair. It nailed every element of the story: the perfect love triangle, the perfect setting, the perfect kid, and even the perfect toy.

It starts with the perfect setup: Janet Leigh plays a young, pretty war widow with an adorable seven-year-old boy. She works hard as a "comparison shopper" for a department store to keep a roof over their head and food on the table.

The roof is a modest walk-up apartment in New York City. So right from the start, we're rooting for her and the kid. Then she meets a handsome young man, played by Robert Mitchum, in a 1949 slow-rolling meet-cute that comes about when she accidentally gets him fired.

Of course, in one of Hallmark's go-to romcom moves, she already has a nice boyfriend, played by Wendell Corey, but he's boring and not as handsome as the new guy. After an early mix up about some gifts, all three wind up standing awkwardly in Leigh's small apartment.

It's clear from the start that Mitchum is the one who Leigh should be with, she just needs a bunch of movie things to happen first so that she'll see it. At twenty-two, Leigh looks incredible but also genuinely represents a demographic of the era: the war widow and young mother.

Corey, too, needs to experience the movie "stuff" first to finally realize that trying to convince someone – Leigh in this case – to love you is a bad idea. He deserves a lot of credit making the usually unlikable "odd man out" character sympathetic and amiable.

With that setup, the rest of the movie is a bunch of hurdles and lessons to be learned before Leigh and Mitchum – and the adorable boy – can have their happily ever after. Director Don Hartman adroitly steers the story through all of them.

Leigh is scared of taking risks after losing her husband; Mitchum is a dreamer who wants to build boats in California; Corey is a good guy but needs to learn about love; and the kid just wants a fancy electric train for Christmas.

Mitchum keeps popping up; Leigh keeps getting flustered when he does; Corey keeps being understanding, but is starting to get suspicious; and the kid learns a lesson about the "true meaning of Christmas" versus just wanting an expensive toy.

Mitchum is the prototype for almost every Hallmark romantic lead. They, like Mitchum – who wants to build elegantly designed wooden boats – want to work at something, one, they are passionate about – cooking, painting, saving a forest, etc. – and, two, that adds beauty to the world.

It's all strikingly filmed in LA, capturing New York City – the Central Park Zoo, in particular – surprisingly well and giving the movie an authentic feel for a set and back-lot effort.

You want to watch, in particular, for the two Central Park Zoo scenes as Mitchum and Leigh's on-screen chemistry sparkles there: She's cute, a bit flirtatious, but reticent about love; he's approachably handsome, honest about his intentions, and confident about love. It's perfect.

He also keeps coming and going from her life for one contrived reason after another, but in an early "goodbye for good" moment, Mitchum surprises Leigh with a kiss that tops ninety-nine percent of movie kisses – look for Leigh's rocked-back-on-her-heels post-kiss expression.

At the center of this story is a toy train – a supercool for 1949 electric train sets with all the, literal, bells and whistles. It serves as a metaphor for the plot, as taking a train to California represents Mitchum's dream and Leigh's fear of risk and change.

In-laws, a silly but fun court scene, and a trip to the president of the department store's office – plus plenty of snow, gifts, stockings, lights, and Christmas trees – round out this endearing Christmas romcom.

Holiday Affair is Christmas-movie comfort food at its best. It's the Christmas romcom to end all Christmas romcom, but of course it ended nothing as Hallmark and others have been trying to do the tautologically impossible and improve on its perfection ever since.

They have of course failed because in 1949, magic – Christmas movie magic – shined on Holiday Affair in a unique way.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We showed HolidayAffair last week, to a very appreciative crowd, especially after I told them WHY Robert Mitchum made this particular picure...

 

[Fading Fast]

We showed HolidayAffair last week, to a very appreciative crowd, especially after I told them WHY Robert Mitchum made this particular picure...

That had to be fun. I'd love to see this one in a theater.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Right now Blade Runner - Final Cut DVD, on my brilliant CRT-TV. Original tone.

Didn't watch it for a while and finally missed it.

 

[Fading Fast]

Black Gravel from 1961, a German film


Film noir is not cheery, nor is it supposed to be, but rarely does it get bleaker than in Black Gravel, a 1961 German film. The few good people here have been ground down by a life where every decent instinct provokes anger or outright violence in others.

Set in a small, dreary town in Germany adjacent to a U.S. Air Force base, most of the men earn money doing construction work at the base, while many of the young women work as prostitutes, mainly servicing the American servicemen.

Whatever the immediate post-war feelings once were, by now, the Americans are held in contempt by the Germans and vice versa. The Germans want out – immigrating to Canada is their hoped-for Shangri-La – as do the Americans, who see any other posting as better.

In this desolate town, a truck driver, Robert, is a small-time hustler who steals gravel from the Americans. After a few coincidences, he reunites with an old flame, Inge, now married to a senior American officer on the base.

Robert is good at scheming and lying since he believes in nothing but taking care of himself, and he believes that everyone else thinks this way too. Now that he's met Inge again, instead of respecting her marriage and her wishes to be left alone, he contrives a way into her life.

Inge, he says, and she also implies, married the American for security not love or passion. She feels both for Robert, which he uses to great advantage in this carnal movie, where his one real hold on Inge is his ability to satisfy her sexually – a hold that becomes the film's central hook.

At any point, Inge could stop Robert, but something in her can't turn him away even though she knows she should. She's risking everything she bought with her marriage – safety, respect, a future – for a tumble with a man she understands offers her no future.

Her entanglement with Robert becomes one thread in the unraveling fabric of this desolate town, where a dead dog, stolen gravel, and the accidental manslaughter of two young lovers turn the base and town into a place of recriminations, investigations, and distrust.

Much of the movie focuses on Robert manipulating others and worming his way past the investigators as he tries to win Inge back – he only wants her to prove he can get her. At the same time, Inge, trying to do the right thing, weakens as desire for Robert starts to overwhelm her.

In a heavy-handed metaphor, black gravel both conceals and reveals the dirty deals and deeds done in this Godforsaken place. The gravel itself ultimately metes out justice in a way that leaves everything looking grimy.

Robert and Inge are the movie. He is not evil but arrantly selfish, which makes him sometimes do evil things if they benefit him. The nuance, and it's a critical one, is that he doesn't enjoy being evil – à la the Joker from Batman – but sees it as a tool he keeps at his disposal.

It's a powerful performance as you grow to dislike him more, but you see him as very human and very broken. You almost – though not quite – feel sorry for him at times as he shows how lonely a life devoted only to oneself becomes.

Inge is more complex; she isn't devoted to selfishness, but can still be selfish. She married for security, genuinely tries to be a good wife, and probably would have been one if Robert hadn't reappeared to stoke her libido. It's not only men who behave badly because of sex.

Set in Germany only fifteen years after the end of the war, anti-semitism still lurks in the shadows. In a brutally revealing scene in a bar, an older German man is continuously playing martial music on the jukebox while marching in place.

After a table of Americans mildly complains that he keeps playing the same song repeatedly, the bar's owner politely asks the man to stop. The man says he can play whatever he pays for since, "thank god, martial music is no longer forbidden."

When the owner finally unplugs the machine, the older German man loudly calls the owner a "filthy Jew:" the bar freezes. The Americans look away as we see the owner's arm is tattooed with a concentration camp number.

The owner plugs the jukebox back in, the martial music starts playing, and the old German, seeing the owner's arm, walks away quietly as someone in the crowd shouts, "******* Nazi." Then it's back into the shadows for the seemingly always-stalking German antisemitism.

Director Ron Oliver created a powerful movie, using a noirish style and an utterly bleak outlook to capture a time and place in Germany. Black Gravel is not easy viewing; it hangs heavy in your mind afterward. But if art is supposed to stir passions and thought, Black Gravel is art.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

As the Christmas Movie Season draws to a close, it's the Shellhammer Report: Boxing Day edition-

White Christmas (1954), directed Michael Curtis, with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen, in VistaVision. Not a reboot of Holiday Inn, but tantalizingly close to it. Many of the songs from the latter enjoy spectacular reiterations. Subtle musical reference: Crosby's character noodles at the piano with a snippet from the Washington's Birthday number from Inn leading up to the midnight snack scene. Vera-Ellen and John Brascia's tap duet is stunning.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)- no need to comment here, most of us have seen the story of George Bailey many times.

In there somewhere was Champion (1949) with Kirk Douglas as Midge Kelly, driven to escape poverty and make something of himself, which happens to be via boxing. Arthur Kennedy is his brother, handicapped by a leg injury, who watches Douglas turn into a remorseless user of people on his way up.