On November 9, Turner Classic Movies will present A Place in the Sun, one of the great films of the 1950s. Montgomery Clift is a poor kid who is satisfied to have a job and a trashy girlfriend (Shelly Winters in a brilliant portrayal). Then, he learns that he could have it ALL – the CEO’s gorgeous daughter (19-year-old Elizabeth Taylor), lifelong comfort, status and career. Did I mention Elizabeth Taylor? The now pregnant girlfriend is the only obstacle to more than he could have ever dreamed for – can he get rid of her without getting caught?
Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in A PLACE IN THE SUN
Here’s a rare chance to watch a highly recommended film on my list of Overlooked Noir. Nightfall(1957) is not available to stream, but it plays Saturday and Sunday on Turner Classic Movies.
The set-upl: How’s this for a hard luck guy? Aldo Ray is camping in the Tetons with a buddy, when two bank robbers careen into a car accident, kill his buddy and frame poor Aldo. Aldo manages to escape, and, in the chaos, the crooks misplace their bag of loot, which is soon obscured by an early Wyoming snowfall. Now both Aldo and the robbers have to wait for the spring thaw to recover the treasure. In the mean time, Aldo – now in hiding from both the police and the outlaws – skips from town to town.
As the movie opens, we’re in a neon-lit LA night. Just as Ray meets a beautiful but broke model (Anne Bancroft), the bad guys appear with lethal intent. Brian Keith made for one coldblooded bank robber, and his partner (Rudy Bond with a machine gun laugh) is psychotically blood thirsty. Ray and Bancroft go on the run through LA, and then head for Wyoming to locate the money. Unknown to both the good guys and the bad guys, James Gregory (most well-remembered as Inspector Fran Kruger in TV’s Barney Miller) is also closing in on the loot on behalf of the bank’s insurer. It’s a crackerjack plot, adapted from a novel by David Goodis (Dark Passage, The Burglar). The final confrontation involves a death by snow plow.
The LA scenes are dark and shadowy, no surprise since Nightfall was directed by noir master Jacques Tourneur (Out of the Past). Tourneur evokes Hitchcock with a set piece when the killers hunt Ray and Bancroft at a poolside fashion show where Bancroft is on the runway. Bancroft bolts, and Ray has to pick her up because she can’t run in her long, clingy gown.
Anne Bancroft and Aldo Ray in NIGHTFALL
An important part of the appeal of Nightfall is the chemistry between Ray and Bancroft. Ray is a sympathetic Everyman, trying to make the best out of a hopeless circumstance. Bancroft was 31, ten years before her Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, and very believable as a stunning model down on her luck. Because of the Production Code of the time, these two spend a lot of time NOT having sex when it’s clear that they SHOULD BE having sex. Bancroft purrs to Ray, “You’re the most wanted man I know”.
John Carrol Lynch, Jeremy Strong and Sacha Baron Cohen in THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7
In The Trial of the Chicago Seven, writer Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, Oscar winner for The Social Network) brings history alive. The trial of anti-Vietnam war activists in 1969 was a bizarre moment in our political history (but not any more bizarre than the past four years).
Now in 2020, it’s time for this movie. Back in 1969, there were authoritative statements about criminality on both sides. But it’s more clear today – and indisputable – that the violence outside the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago was a series of police riots, pure and simple, and that the trial was Nixon’s nakedly illegitimate legal assault against all activism.
The overriding absurdity of this political trial was that it alleged a conspiracy – and some of the alleged conspirators barely knew each other and some despised the others. These were rivals within the anti-war movement and only together in Nixon’s mind.
The movie makes this most clear in the conflict between Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Abby Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen). Hayden of Students for a Democratic Society wanted to end the Vietnam politically. Hoffman of the Youth International Party (Yippies) was against the war, but sought a wider cultural revolution; the Yippies’ clownish political theater alienated the American Middle and made Hayden’s job harder. Hoffman was hilariously witty and Hayden was as funny as a heart attack. The two men couldn’t have conspired together to order lunch.
Hayden does not benefit from the Sorkin treatment. One is reminded that another activist said, “Tom Hayden gives opportunism a bad name.” THat almost tops Abby Hoffman’s own cutting appraisal of Hayden: “He’s our Nixon”.
The disparity between the defendants was emphasized by the prosecution of David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), the non-hippie, a pacifist leader from another generation. Dellinger was a suburban dad and boy scout leader, No one could see him as some punk kid, so when his outrage finally boils over, it’s one of the most powerful moments in the film.
John Carrol Lynch and Sacha Baron Cohen in THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7
Cohen and Lynch are superb in The Trial of the Chicago 7, along with Kelvin Harrison, Jr., who plays Black Panther leader and martyr Fred Hampton, and Mark Rylance as defense lawyer William Kunstler. It’s a star-studded cast with Michael Keaton, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Jeremy Strong (so good as Lee Harvey Oswald in Parkland).
Frank Langella is also brilliant as the villain, Judge Julius Hoffman. Langella’s Hoffman is imperious and intemperate, and utterly blind to his own racism and generational bias.
Frank Langella in THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7
The facts are compressed and – for the most part – kept in context. The role of former Attorney General Ramsey Clark (Keaton) happened a little differently but is portrayed with basic truth. Fred Hampton didn’t actually attend the trial and sit behind Bobby Seale; but the facts and impact of his assassination are fundamentally correct.
The one thing that annoys me about The Trial of the Chicago 7 is the spunky character of the defendants’ office manager Bernardine – because it’s clearly inspired by radical Bernardine Dohrn. Dohrn, who was not part of the trial, was NOT some chick answering the phone, but had already graduated from law school and was about to co-found the Weather Underground terrorist cell. I’m guessing that Sorkin wrote her in the story in a well-intentioned attempt to make the story NOT all-male. But the truth is that even the counter culture was sexist, and even male hippies saw women as adornments in 1969. The 1963 publication of The Feminine Mystique did not immediately wash away millennia of patriarchy.
This, however, is a sound retelling of a salient moment in our political and cultural history. Cohen, Lynch, Rylance, Langella, Harrison Jr, are all exceptional, and The Trial of the Chicago 7 is pretty entertaining.
If we’re going to talk about male cinema stars with overpowering magnetism and studly charisma, we’re going to start with Sean Connery, who has died at age 90.
No screen actor has more personally defined a role than did Connery with James Bond. The character of James Bond in Ian Fleming’s source novels is nothing special; Bond was made iconic by Connery’s gifts.
The Bond movies are cartoonish, but Connery’s James Bond never is. Connery’s Bond is hunky, but he’s not just a hunk. He is supremely confident. He is cunning. He always assesses a risk before he takes it.
Several actors, some very talented, have also played the James Bond role that Connery originated. Only Daniel Craig has approached the mix of rugged charm and resourceful physicality that that Connery delivered.
I learned a lot about the crushing childhood poverty that formed Connery in this insightful NYT obit. There’s also a great Sydney Lumet admonition against underestimating an actor’s charm.
My favorite Connery performance (and the best movie he was in) is The Man Who Would Be King (1975). It’s a great Rudyard Kipling adventure yarn, gloriously brought to the screen by director John Huston.
Connery stars with Michael Caine as a pair of reprobates mustered out of the Queen’s army in colonial India. Rather than return to menial prospects in England, these cheeky and lovable scoundrels seek to make their fortune as mercenaries in the outskirts of the Raj. Fortune smiles, and they reach unforeseeable success – and then Connery’s character overreaches…
The Man Who Would Be King, which is widely available to stream, is unforgettable, and so is Sean Connery.
Sean Connery (right) with Saeed Jaffrey and Michael Caine in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
This week: celebrate Halloween with two unconventionally scary movies, Borgman and Freaks. Plus more 2020 films to stream at home.
ON VIDEO
Borgman: This Dutch thriller is a horror film for adults, without the gore and with lots of wit. You can stream it from all the major services.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (link will go live this week, I promise): Aaron Sorkin’s fresh look at an indelible moment in American history. Sacha Baron Cohen, John Carroll Lynch and Frank Langella are great. Streaming on Netflix.
My Octopus Teacher: A diver encounters an octopus and films her every day for a year. He’s not that interesting but the resourceful octopus and the underwater cinematography are worthwhile. Streaming on Netflix.
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
Here’s a genuinely scary movie for Halloween – and it’s 88 years old. Tomorrow morning October 31, Turner Classics airs Tod Browning’s Freaks. Bad things happen at the circus. And bad things happen in Freaks. This is one of the most unsettling horror films (and the least politically correct), because it was filmed in 1932 with real circus freaks. If you have teenagers jaded by today’s empty horror flicks, this will knock them for a loop. Only 64 minutes.
As nature documentaries go, My Octopus Teacher, is pretty singular. Filmmaker Craig Foster, stewing in mid-life disillusionment, is diving in a South African kelp forest when he encounters an octopus and decides to shadow her over a year and document her life every day. The octopus takes to Foster and adopts him as kind of a pet. But My Octopus Teacher is mostly worthwhile for the amazing resourcefulness of the octopus and the harrowing shark attacks.
I knew that octopuses are wizards at camouflage and at squeezing through tight spaces. I didn’t appreciate how intelligent they are and that they commonly live for only one year.
There are some sequences in My Octopus Teacher that are just astonishing. The underwater photography, especially the scenes just below the surf in the first fifteen minutes are among the best I’ve ever seen. The cinematographer is underwater specialist Roger Horrocks.
Foster himself narrates the film. The Movie Gourmet doesn’t cotton to the simpering of grown men, so I wish I had turned off the sound for the first fifteen minutes of his personal angst and the final ten minutes when he forges a blissful father-and-son shared interest in the ocean.
I do admire Foster for two things. First, he generally didn’t interfere with the course of nature (i.e., rescue the octopus from shark attacks). And he didn’t give her a human name. Good for him.
Off South Africa, the octopus’ major predator is the pajama shark, so named because of the stripes that resemble old-fashioned vertically-striped pajamas. Pajama sharks are especially well-equipped to attack in the narrow and deep crevices where octopuses hide out.
I can’t really blame the sharks because octopus is one of my favorite foods, too. It takes some mastery (which I haven’t as yet attained) to cook them so they’re not rubbery. So, I order octopus every time I see it on the menu (usually at Greek, Spanish, Mexican or Portuguese restaurants).
Technically, the Dutch thriller Borgman is a horror film, but it’s horror for adults, without the gore and with lots of wit. The shock doesn’t come from monsters unexpectedly lurching out of nowhere. The entertainment comes from the OMG moments of the “don’t ask the weird guy into your house!” and “don’t let the sinister guys watch your kids!” variety.
The setting is the architecturally striking and well-tended home of an affluent Dutch family and their Danish nanny. The husband is an aggro corporate schemer and a real scumbag – selfish, racist and chauvinistic, with the capacity for a violent rage. His wife Marina is repressed and neurotic. But they are highly functional until a homeless guy, Camiel Borgman, happens by, and circumstances compel them to put him up. Borgman feels entitled to more and more outrageous impositions – and soon it’s apparent that he’s even more sinister than he is obnoxious.
What if Charles Manson wasn’t a drug addled hoodlum, and his deranged charisma worked on the affluent mainstream? Borgman leads a crew of normal looking but murderous henchmen, who operate with the ruthless efficiency of Navy Seals. (Watch for the scar near the younger woman’s shoulder-blade.) Vaguely gifted with mind control, he can apparently create dreams by squatting naked and gargoyle-like above Marina while she slumbers with her husband. There is violence aplenty, but it tends to come through a bonk on the head or some poison in a glass.
Dark comedy stems from the matter-of-factness of the murders and body disposal (as in tossing corpses into a lake and then diving in for a relaxing swim). Every once in a while, there’s a hilariously sinister moment, like the supremely random appearance of some whippets that seem more like hellhounds.
BORGMAN
The acting is uniformly excellent, including the kids, but Jan Bijvoet as Borgman and Hadewych Minis as Marina are stellar.
Some questions are never answered (who are those three guys at the beginning and why are they hunting the homeless guys?). Is this a cult or aliens or what? The audience needs to accept some ambiguity. But the overall story arc is clear – no good is going to come of these people once they meet Camiel Borgman and his friends.
There is a subtext here: is this family so bourgeois that it deserves its fate? Fortunately, this subtext isn’t as in-your-face as in some recent self-loathing Eurocrap like Happy Days or Finsterworld, so it’s not at all off-putting. But Borgman can be enjoyed without going there at all.
Borgman is superbly written and directed by Alex van Warmerdam, a 62-year-old Dutch actor with only a handful of writing and directing credits.
I don’t often recommend a horror movie, but I’m all in on Borgman. Take it from me – you haven’t seen this movie before, and it’s endlessly entertaining. Borgman is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Hulu.
John Carroll Lynch and Sasha Baron Cohen in THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7
This week: The latest from Aaron Sorkin and Spike Lee. But, first, a remembrance.
REMEMBRANCE
Dick Powell and Rhonda Fleming in CRY DANGER
Actress Rhonda Fleming has died at age 97. She was known as the “Queen of Technicolor” when movie studios exploited her blazing red hair, blue eyes, ivory complexion and uncommon beauty in a series of Western, sword-and-sandal and adventure films; in this period, she was a candidate for the world’s most beautiful woman, along with her age peers Gene Tierney, Lana Turner and Marilyn Monroe. But Fleming’s very best acting work was in black-and-white, in Spellbound, Out of the Past, Cry Danger and While the City Sleeps. My favorite Fleming performance is in Cry Danger, where she plays the girlfriend of the guy who had framed the hero (Dick Powell) – an irresistible woman of uncertain loyalty.
ON VIDEO
The Trial of the Chicago Seven (link to full review will go live this weekend) is Aaron Sorkin’s dramatization of the notorious 1969 political trial of Vietnam War protestors. Sasha Baron Cohen, Mark Rylance and Frank Langella are all really good. Streaming on Netflix.
David Byrne’s American Utopia, directed by Spike Lee, is the concert film for Byrne’s Broadway Show, with the Broadway glitz pared down to explore humanity itself. It’s playing on HBO.
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
Driveways: I can’t think of a more authentic movie about intergenerational relationships than this charming, character-driven indie. Best Movies of 2020 – So Far.
The Lovebirds: A rom com with a playful plot and a truthful relationship.
ON TV
Vera Clouzot in DIABOLIQUE
Turner Classic Movies plays a lot of horror in October. But the best is coming on October 25, Diabolique from director Henri-Georges Clouzot (often tagged as the French Hitchcock). The headmaster of a provincial boarding school is so cruel, even sadistic, that everyone wants him dead, especially his wife and his mistress. When he goes missing, the police drain the murky pool where the killers dumped the body…and the killers get a big surprise. Now the suspense really starts…
I recently saw director Rene Clement pegged as the French Hitchcock, although Claude Chabrol and Clouzot are the favorites for that title. It occurred to me that Jen-Pierre Melville loved American film noir and was such an Americanphile that he wore a Stetson and drove a Cadillac. Would he be the French Robert Siodmak, Frtiz Lang, Richard Fleischer, Jules Dassin or Jacques Toruneur? Wait a minute – isn’t Jacques Tourneur already French?
On October 27, TCM broadcasts a searing real life time capsule The Connection, a 1962 cinema vérité of NYC heroine addicts waiting for, and getting, their fixes. It’s haunting.
David Byrne’s American Utopia is the concert film for David Byrne’s (currently paused) Broadway show, directed by Spike Lee. The songs are organized to explores themes of humanity and human behaviors and attitudes, and some are overly political. It’s a thoughtful and entertaining show.
To isolate the humanity on stage, Byrne has very intentionally pared away all the glitz. What remains is just Byrne and his band, which serves as a chorus – two dancers, two guitarists, a keyboard player and six percussionists. All are barefoot and clad in identical grey suits that are well-fitting descendants of Byrne’s Big Suit from Stop Making Sense.
Most, but not all, of the of the songs are Byrne’s or by the Talking Heads. The biggest show-stoppers are the Talking Heads’ vintage anthems Burning Down the House and Road to Nowhere and Janelle Monae’s Hell You Talmbout. This is no run-of-the-mill jukebox musical.
Stop Making Sense, of course, is one of the greatest of concert films, directed by Jonathan Demme. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that great directors make great concert films (e.g., Martin Scorsese and The Last Waltz; DA Pennebaker and Monterey Pop). Given the constraints of the contained set and material, Spike Lee does a great job of projecting the vibe of American Utopia.
This week: a doumentary, a Feel Good narrative and a docufantasy, all from a female point of view.
The Mill Valley Film Festival is still running, and you can still watch most of the films at home through this weekend. Here is my MVFF preview.
ON VIDEO
Today only – stream She Is the Ocean. In this visually stunning documentary, fearless and high-achieving women celebrate the oceans in science and sport.
The Artist’s Wife: Lena Olin’s performance as a woman facing the decline of her older husband with remarkable generosity. A Feel Good.
Dick Johnson Is Dead: A daughter and her dad face the end of his life in this funny, heartfelt and frequently bizarre docufantasy. One of a kind.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp: I wrote about 1943 Powell-Pressburger masterpiece last week. If you missed it last night on TCM, you can stream it from Amazon, AppleTV and the Criterion Channel.
SIBYL
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
Sibyl: trashy, but in that sly and expert French way.
Driveways: I can’t think of a more authentic movie about intergenerational relationships than this charming, character-driven indie. Best Movies of 2020 – So Far.
The Lovebirds: A rom com with a playful plot and a truthful relationship.
ON TV
Tonight, Turner Classic Movies airs In a Lonely Place(1950). The most unsettlingly sexy film noiress Gloria Grahame falls for the troubled screenwriter Humphrey Bogart, a guy with a MAJOR anger management issue; once she’s hooked, she realizes that he might be a murderer after all…Nicholas Ray directs. In a Lonely Place justifiably made the BBC’s list of the 100 Greatest American Films. The Czar of Noir Eddie Muller has named it as his #1 film noir.
Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart in IN A LONELY PLACE
