Anvil: The Story of Anvil Directed by Sacha Gervasi
2008/Canada
Little Dean’s Yard and AHIMSA Films
#1079 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (Combined List)
First Viewing
Out of 1934 rentals again, I turned to Netflix Instant for another documentary from the 1001 Movies list. While this was interesting enough, I can’t see why I should have made a point to see it before I died.
Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow: Everything on the tour went drastically wrong. But at least there was a tour for it to go wrong on.
This documentary is the story of the comeback efforts of a Canadian heavy metal band called Anvil,which had some success as an opening act in the early 80s. The core members of the band, the lead singer/guitarist and drummer, have been together since they were 14 and are now in their early 50s, holding down blue-collar day jobs but continuing to play. The film follows the band’s comedy-of-errors tour of Europe and attempts to record and get a distributor for their 13th album.
While Anvil has been referred to as a real-life This Is Spinal Tap, I didn’t find it particularly funny. You had to hand it to these guys for their persistence and love of the music, but mostly it was kind of sad. I also had the nagging feeling that the film itself was something of a self-promotional comeback effort.
In the Year of the Pig Directed by Emile de Antonio
1968/USA
Emile de Antonio Productions
#502 of 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die
First viewing
Made while the war in Vietnam was still raging, The Year of the Pig ïs an “advocacy film” intended to raise opposition to the war by appealing to both the emotions and the intellect. Although I generally hate to feel manipulated, I have to admit that the film is brilliantly effective in what it sets out to do.
The film traces the history of conflict in Vietnam through disturbing images, ironic use of music and sound effects, U.S. television news footage, sound bites from U.S. government and military officials, and interviews with scholars and war opponents. The basic message is that the U.S. cannot win the war because it is a liberation struggle supported by the majority of the Vietnamese people, North and South.
[box] “Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.” – General William C. Westmoreland[/box]
De Antonio was a committed Marxist and made no pretense of objectivity in this film. Since I agree with him about the folly of that war, the propaganda does not bother me as much as it otherwise would. And we certainly had a lot of propaganda on the other side for it to counter!
I had never heard of this film before. Thanks to whomever nominated it for the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Blog Club.
Treasure Island Directed by Victor Fleming
1934/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Second or third viewing
Capt. Alexander Smollett: When there’s treasure in the hold, there’s fire in the fo’c’sle.
Old Billy Bones (Lionel Barrymore) turns up at the inn run by Jim Hawkins’s (Jackie Cooper) mother with a mysterious chest. Soon other unsavory characters turn up in search of Billy. Upon Billy’s untimely death, Jim discovers a treasure map in the chest. Gentlemen of the town hire a ship to search for the treasure. Before they know it, unscrupulous but loveable Long John Silver (Wallace Beery) has signed on as cook and brought aboard his pirate cronies as crew. Long John and Jim become fast friends and the adventure begins.
This movie was a ton of fun and I’m sure immensely popular with boys when it came out. I thought the style foreshadowed The Wizard of Oz, also directed by Fleming, in its storybook exaggeration and charm. The pirates are deliciously vile! I think those who enjoyed The Adventures of Robin Hood would like this.
Manhattan Melodrama Directed by W. S. Van Dyke
1934/USA
Cosmopolitan Productions for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
First Viewing
James W. ‘Jim’ Wade: I’m going to clean out every rotten spot I can find in this city, and, Blackie, I don’t want to find you in any of them.
Blackie and Jim were childhood buddies. Both were rescued from a tragic steamship fire and then raised together by a man who was trampled to death at a political rally. Blackie (Clark Gable) grows up to be a gambler and tough while Jim (William Powell) grows up a lawyer and idealistic politico. Blackie’s main squeeze is Eleanor (Myrna Loy) but he eventually loses her to Jim who is the marrying kind. Jim becomes District Attorney and friendship and crime-fighting come into conflict. I think we all know where this is going!
I thought the script really let down the actors, who were fine. There were just one too many coincidences and everybody was a tad too noble for me to bear. But what do I know? This won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 1934.
This was the movie that bank robber John Dillinger had just seen before he was gunned down in front of Chicago’s Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934.
Of Human Bondage Directed by John Cromwell
1934/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First Viewing
Mildred Rogers: You cad, you dirty swine! I never cared for you, not once! I was always makin’ a fool of ya! Ya bored me stiff; I hated ya! It made me SICK when I had to let ya kiss me. I only did it because ya begged me, ya hounded me and drove me crazy! And after ya kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! WIPE MY MOUTH!
Leslie Howard plays Philip Carey, a club-footed medical student with the soul of an artist. He falls helplessly in love with Mildred (Bette Davis), a waitress with a heart of ice who treats him like dirt. She figures that she can always go to Philip for help when she is in trouble and she is right.
Bette Davis begged Warner Bros. to loan her to RKO so that she could play the meaty but unsympathetic role of Mildred. Her gamble paid off and the movie made her a star. Her performance is excellent and far less mannered than she would get in later roles. Leslie Howard is actually the central character and he acquits himself well as the pathetic young man. I thought the ending was a bit weak but it turns out that it is the same as in the novel.
Tokyo Story (“Tôkyô monogatari”) Yasujirô Ozu
1953/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
#257 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Multiple Viewings
Kyoko: Isn’t life disappointing? Noriko: [smiles] Yes, it is.
This is one of my very favorite films by my very favorite director and I feel like I’m too close to it to find the right words to review it. I love this and Ozu’s other films because they are unique in giving me a sort of nostalgia, like a bittersweet sadness for a time now lost. Although I have no reason to be nostalgic for 1950’s Japan, Ozu shows us the core of family life, with its inevitable challenges, in a way that speaks to every time and place. Ozu’s deliberate pacing and formal compositions encourage a contemplative attitude on the part of the audience, allowing our impressions to linger and evolve.
Shukichi (Ozu regular Chisu Ryu) and Tomi (Chieko Higashiyama) are an elderly couple who have not seen their scattered adult children for several years. They eagerly set off by train to visit them in Osaka and Tokyo. When they get to Tokyo, it gradually becomes clear that their son and daughter are too busy with their own lives to entertain their parents. In contrast, Noriko, the widow of a son who died in the war, (Setsuko Hara) takes time off from work and extends herself gladly to make her in-laws welcome.
Daughter Shige (Haruko Sugimura) is particularly ungracious and stingy toward her parents. We learn that she has built up resentments from childhood at her mother’s weight and her father’s drinking. Shige comes up with the idea of sending the old people to a beach resort to avoid having to take them places. During his stay with Shige, Shukichi goes out on the town with old friends and gets thoroughly drunk. It turns out all the old men are disappointed in their children but Shukichi reminds the others that children must be expected grow up and live their own lives, that is just the way life is. Finally, the old couple decide to cut their visit short and head back for home in the country.
Tomi falls in ill on the train and the two spend a night at their younger son’s place in Osaka. While there, they reflect that their children are a disappointment but still are better than most children.
After they arrive home, Tomi is stricken and becomes critically ill. The clan gathers once again at their childhood home. They grieve when Tomi dies yet revert to their old ways after the funeral, Shige asking for some of her mother’s clothes almost before the corpse is cold.
Kyoko, the couple’s youngest daughter who still lives at home, bitterly denounces her siblings as selfish. The unselfish Noriko explains that it is natural that the older children have busy lives of their own and that eventually she, too, may need to think of herself first. Life is disappointing but that is the way it is.
Shukishi urges Noriko to remarry and tells her she is a good woman who treated them better than their blood relations on the trip. In tears, Noriko responds that she is not so good but is very lonely and at loose ends. Kyoko has already left for work and Noriko now departs for Tokyo by train. The film ends with Shukishi agreeing with a neighbor that stops by that life will be lonely now.
Ozu allows us to draw our own conclusions. We are given ample space and time to get to know the characters. Surely, we are meant to see that the Tokyo children treat their parents very badly but just as certainly we are meant to consider the parent’s acceptant response as admirable. Life is disappointing, but it goes on.
The Black Cat Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer
1934/USA
Universal Pictures
Second viewing
Highly enjoyable pre-Code Universal horror outing with boffo dual performances by Karloff and Lugosi.
Peter Allison: I don’t know. It all sounds like a lot of supernatural baloney to me.
Dr. Vitus Verdegast: Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney, perhaps not. There are many things under the sun.[/box]
Dr. Vitus Vendergast (Bela Lugosi) meets honeymooners Peter (David Manners) and Joan on a train and hitches a ride with them to their ultimate destination. On the way, the car goes off the road, the driver is killed and the party is forced to take refuge in the creepy modernist castle of Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff).
This suits Vendergast just fine as he is on a mission to make Poelzig, his sworn enemy, suffer slowly. Poelzig left Vendergast to rot in prison for 15 years then told Vendergast’s wife she was a widow and took her for his own.
Hjalmar Poelzig: The phone is dead. Do you hear that, Vitus? Even the phone is dead.
The movie is basically a duel of wits between Vendergast and Poelzig, who also has plans to use Joan as the sacrifice in a Black Mass. As for a black cat, well one wanders around, but it’s basically just an excuse to use the Edgar Allen Poe title
This is the kind of thing I just eat up. Sure it can be a little campy in places and Lugosi over-emotes furiously but that is part of the fun. The Expressionist cinematography and art direction are quite wonderful. Recommended for lovers of classic Universal horror.
Charlie Chan in London Directed by Eugene Ford
1934/USA
Fox Film Corporation
First Viewing
Charlie Chan: If you want wild bird to sing do not put him in cage.
A woman is convinced that her brother, who has been sentenced to death, is innocent of murdering the Secretary of the Hunt at a mansion where he was staying. Charlie Chan (Werner Oland) is called in on the case only three days before the hanging. Will he be able to discover the true killer on the grounds of the British country house? Need you ask? Also with Ray Milland as the condemned man’s attorney and Alan Mowbray as the owner of the mansion.
This is a pretty good entry in the Charlie Chan series. Charlie does without the assistance of Number One Son here. The DVD comes with a featurette in which various people argue that the Charlie Chan character, despite some stereotyping, was a positive development for the image of Chinese Americans in films. Up to then, Chinese were generally portrayed as either servants or evil doers. Charlie Chan was always the smartest guy in the room. It’s unfortunate that the times allowed him to be portrayed by a Swede, however talented.
Slacker Directed by Richard Linklater
1991/USA
Detour Film Production
#840 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
First Viewing
This is another of those unseen 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die titles on Netflix streaming. I could have lived without this one.
Hitchhiker: Every single commodity you produce is a piece of your own death!
This movie basically follows a whole bunch of twenty-somethings with time on their hands around Austin, Texas for a day. Most of the characters are oddballs with an axe to grind or and a willingness to go on and on about it. There are a few fragments that might be said to tell some sort of story but we leave all of those quickly. The end.
Anti-Artist: Uh, I don’t do much really, I just read, and work here, and, uh, sleep and eat, and, uh, watch movies.
Woman trying to sell Madonna’s pap smear
I would like to get 97 minutes of my time back. But don’t take my word for it. For some reason, this film is in the National Film Registry. Hip people probably get a lot out of it.
The Phantom of the Opera Directed by Rupert Julian
1925/USA
Universal Pictures
#26 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
First Viewing
This is another of the movies from The List that I had never seen before and was available from Netflix streaming.
Erik: Feast your eyes! Glut your soul on my accursed ugliness!
Erik (Lon Chaney), a self-taught musician and disfigured, criminally insane fugitive, has taken refuge in the cavernous cellars of the Paris Opera House. There he has been taken for a phantom that haunts the opera house. He develops a passion for rising opera singer Christine and promotes her career by writing threatening letters to keep the star diva from singing and by killing the audience with a chandelier when that doesn’t work. Eventually, he lures Christine to his realm where she soon learns of the hideous countenance hidden by his mask. He agrees to allow Christine to return to the opera on the condition that she stay away from her lover. Naturally, Christine cannot resist and all hell breaks loose.
The Phantom as the Red Death
I must say that this is much creepier and more gripping than the 1943 Claude Rains version. The print I saw had quite a bit of tinting, two-strip Technicolor sequences, and a specially composed score that heightened the effects. Chaney was spectacular and, while I could have lived without some of Mary Philbin’s posturing, I really enjoyed it.
I’ve been a classic movie fan for many years. My original mission was to see as many movies as I could get my hands on for every year from 1929 to 1970. I have completed that mission.
I then carried on with my chronological journey and and stopped midway through 1978. You can find my reviews of 1934-1978 films and “Top 10” lists for the 1929-1936 and 1944-77 films I saw here. For the past several months I have circled back to view the pre-Code films that were never reviewed here.
I’m a retired Foreign Service Officer living in Indio, California. When I’m not watching movies, I’m probably traveling, watching birds, knitting, or reading.
Photographs and videos found in this blog, unless indicated, are not owned by me and are here only for the purpose of education and discussion. Media found here are not intended for any commercial purpose. Copyright infringement is not intended.
Written material belongs to me and is copyrighted by flickersintime.com
