Monthly Archives: June 2017

Paris Blues
Directed by Martin Ritt
Written by Jack Sher, Irene Kamp, and Walter Bernstein; adapted by Lulla Rosenfeld from a novel by Harold Flender
1961/USA
Pennebaker Productions/Diane Productions/Jason Films/Monica Corp./Monmouth
First viewing/You Tube

[box] Lillian Corning: You know, everybody’s always waiting for everybody else to take a chance because they’re so afraid![/box]

Part romance, part travelogue, and part Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.  I guess I don’t have to tell you what I thought was the best part.

Ex-pat Ram Bowen (Paul Newman) leads a very popular jazz band in Paris.  He is working closely with saxophonist Eddie Cook (Sidney Portier) on orchestrations of his music. (Since he writes exactly like Duke Ellington, he is great at this too).

The arrival of two American tourists, Lillian (Joanne Woodward) and Connie (Dihann Carroll), throws a hitch in both men’s wild lifestyles.  With Armstrong as a famous trumpeter on tour in Paris.

The music is just fantastic and and, as usual, Armstrong is the best thing about any movie he is in.  The plot is kind of all over the place with race relations, patriotism, and Paris landmarks thrown in for good measure.  Newman and Woodward sizzle in their scenes together.

Duke Ellington was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

Clip

Fanny
Directed by Joshua Logan
Written by Julius J. Epstein from the Marseilles Trilogy by Marcel Pagnol and the play by Joshua Logan and S. N. Behrman
1961/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Panisse: It’s not dying I mind. It’s giving up life that annoys me.[/box]

This was bound to suffer in comparison to the 1930’s Marseilles Trilogy. which I consider to be practically perfect.  It’s got a lot going for it though.

The film compresses the trilogy into one story.  Cesar (Charles Boyer) runs a bar on the Marseilles waterfront.  His son Marius (Horst Buchholz) reluctantly works for him but dreams constantly of going to sea.  Fanny (Leslie Caron), who works for her mother selling mussels, has been in love with Marius since childhood.  Wealthy sixty-something widower Panisse (Maurice Chevalier) is looking to remarry and has his eye on Fanny.

As the film begins, Marius has the opportunity to go to sea with a five-year scientific expedition.  There is no way Cesar will approve.  Marius does confess his plan to Fanny however.  She responds by seducing him and they have one night of passion.  In the cold light of dawn, Marius continues to talk of the sea and Fanny reluctantly encourages him to go. He does and Fanny is heartbroken.

Panisse continues his pursuit of Fanny, who rejects him until she finds herself pregnant. The childless Panisse is delighted. They marry and have a son they name Marius Cesar Panisse.  The film continues to track the lives of all the protagonists.

Hollywood glitz and “romance” does not improve the touching tale told in Marius (1931), Fanny (1932) and (1936), which I highly recommend.  The acting in that, particularly that of Raimu as Cesar and Pierre Fresnay as Marius, is superior as as well. That said, I am certain if I had not seen the French films I would have liked this better than I did.  It is still a lovely story, the actors are charming, and Marseilles never looked more beautiful.

Fanny was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor (Boyer); Best Cinematography, Color; Best Film Editing; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer – DVD print quality is fine

Leon Morin, Priest (Léon Morin, prêtre)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville based on a novel by Beatrix Beck
1961/France/Italy
Concordia Compagnia Cinematografica/Rome Paris Films
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “Celibacy goes deeper than the flesh.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise[/box]

This is a well-acted story about a spiritual awakening and the struggle that accompanies it.

The story begins in France in a village occupied by Italian soldiers.  Seemingly the only inhabitants are women and children.  The plot centers on Barny (Emmanuelle Riva), a young widow.  She is mightily attracted to her beautiful co-worker Sabine.  When the Germans come to take over from the Italians, Barny needs to protect her half-Jewish daughter.  She and others in a similar predicament decide baptism is the answer.

In this way, atheist Barny becomes acquainted with young priest Leon Morin (Jean-Paul Belmondo).  He senses she is searching for something and begins to meet with her regularly.  Gradually, she sees things his way and converts.  Unfortunately, their closeness sparks another forbidden desire  in Barny.

This is a quiet film, consisting mostly of conversation.  I found the talk to be interesting and the acting great so I enjoyed it.  Belmondo displays a subtlety denied him in his performances for Godard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6xj7TMeyMo

The Phantom Planet
Directed by William Marshall
Written by William Telaak, Fred De Gorter and Fred Gebhardt
1961/USA
Four Crown Production Inc.
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] [last lines] Narrator: What the future will reveal of this story is only the beginning, only the beginning, only the beginning…[/box]

Sometimes wooden acting and a ridiculous alien are not enough to make an enjoyably bad movie.

Rheton is a small invisible asteroid which can evade its enemies by moving in and out of galaxies.  When a team is sent from Earth to investigate, its spaceship is drawn into Rheton’s force field and all but one of the astronauts perish.  The survivor has become six inches tall like the rest of the folk on the planet.  He blusters and tries to establish himself as alpha-male but to no avail.  Rheton’s rulers have no intention of letting him go.  So he spends his time dabbling in a love triangle and battling a Solorite.

This plays it a little too earnestly to make a good “bad” movie.  Quite missable.

Trailer

A Woman Is a Woman
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Written by Jean-Luc Godard
1961/France/Italy
Euro International Films/Rome Paris Films
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Alfred Lubitsch: Make up your minds. I’d hate to miss “BREATHLESS” – it’s on T.V.[/box]

Godard’s second feature is bright, shiny and brings us the lovely Anna Karina.  It’s even more meta than Breathless and I’m still not buying it.

Stripper Angela (Karina) is locked in a perpetual, playful battle of the sexes with stuffy live-in lover Emile Recamier (Jean-Claude Brialy).  She is also in a long-term flirtation with Emile’s friend, Alfred Lubitsch (Jean-Paul Belmondo).  Angela has decided she wants a baby.

The plot, such as it is, concerns Angela’s light-hearted attempts to play the two men against each other until she gets what she wants.

As always, this is an exercise in style and the style is certainly innovative and fun.  Godard is the star of all his films.  Here he enjoys making references to his contemporaries in the French New Wave, going so far as having a character meeting a cameo Jeanne Moreau in a bar and asking her how Jules and Jim is going.  I like some meat on the bones of my movies and am afraid Godard might never be for me.

Trailer

Chaudhvin Ka Chand (Full Moon)
Directed by M. Sadiq
Written by Saghir Usmani
1961/India
Guru Dutt Films Pvt. Ltd.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “Sometimes the sky looks so beautiful and at the same time earth also looks so beautiful and finally we look so beautiful as well! By just looking at the nature you become the nature itself! Look at the beautiful full moon, you become a beautiful full moon!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan[/box]

I wasn’t in the mood to watch a 2 1/2+ hour romantic Bollywood musical.  This one quickly captured me though.

The characters are predominately Muslims living in the northern India city of Lucknow.  The mother of Nawab Pyare Mian has two dreams in life.  One is to see her son married and the other is to fulfill her religious obligations by making the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca.  By now she is infirm but can visit Mecca by proxy through her priest.  The problem is the priest is unwilling to travel while his daughter is unmarried.  This has a simple fix.  Mom asks the Nawab to marry the daughter.

In the meantime, the Nawab caught a glimpse of a beautiful woman who briefly unveiled her face at the market place.  He is now totally obsessed with finding her.  He easily convinces his best friend Aslam to marry the priest’s daughter Jamila.  But a series of misunderstandings means that Aslam discovers that Jamila was actually the beautiful lady at the marketplace.  The Nawab is making plans to marry someone he thinks is his dream woman.  This leaves Aslam, who is madly in love with his wife, with a terrible dilemma.

I thought this would be one I watched to get it over with but I was charmed.  The Muslim angle is unusual and the story is sweet and tragic.  There is a little of the obligatory comic relief but a refreshing lack of silliness and not too much dancing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MDICxNDT44

So Evil, So Young
Directed by Godfrey Grayson
Story by Mark Grantham
1961/USA
Danziger Productions Inc.
First viewing/YouTube

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. Nathaniel Hawthorne

Possibly the tamest women-in-prison movie ever made.

Ann (Jill Ireland) is framed for robbery and sent to prison where she is forced to wear a pink dress and be scolded by the guards.

Even the worst women-in-prison movie generally offers some fun.  This one put me right to sleep.  I will not be catching up on the parts I missed.

Clip – credits and opening

Immortal Love (Eien no hito)
Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita
Written by Keisuke Kinoshita
1961/Japan
Shochiku Ofuna
First Viewing/FilmStruck

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Healthcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.” ― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

Ever-lasting love is not an entirely good thing in this melodrama.

Sadako (Hideko Takamine) is the beautiful daughter of a tenant farmer.  She is in love with Takashi who is away at the front.  Heibei (Tatsuya Nakadai), the lame son of a wealthy landowner, is in love with her.  Frustrated by her consistent refusals of his marriage proposals, he rapes her.  She becomes pregnant and they marry.

Almost immediately thereafter, Takashi returns.  He begs her to run away with him but she is prevented.  He marries another.  Years pass.  He has a son and she has two sons and a daughter.  All concerned remain mired in resentment for most of their lives.

This is more nuanced than your average doomed romance and has an unusual, refreshing outcome.  Given the personnel involved, you know going in that the acting will be outstanding and the cast does not disappoint.  Not a masterpiece, but recommended if the plot appeals.

Immortal Love was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.