The Trouble with Angels Directed by Ida Lupino Written by Blanche Hanalis from a novel by Jane Trahey 1966/USA Columbia Pictures Corporation/William Frye Productions/Eaves Movie Ranch
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Mary Clancy: I’ve got the most scathingly brilliant idea![/box]
About as cute as any convent comedy has the right to be.
Mary Clancy (Haley Mills) and Rachel Devery (June Harding) become fast friends immediately upon arrival at St. Francis Academy for Girls. The imaginative Mary keeps them in trouble with Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell) for the next several years.
I saw this on original release. It remains a fairly entertaining family comedy.
Roma Directed by Alfonso Cuarón Written by Alfonso Cuarón 2018/Mexico Esperanto Filmoj/Participant Media
First viewing/Netflix
[box] Sra. Sofía: We are alone. No matter what they tell you, we women are always alone.[/box]
I haven’t met a movie as full as surprises in a long time.
I knew nothing about the story going in and I think that is the way to see it. The setting is Mexico City, 1971. At the center of the story is Cleo (Yalitza Aparacio), a young domestic worker in the household of a physician Sr. Antonio, his wife Sra. Sofia (Marina de Tavera) and four children. Cleo is one of several servants and has a particularly close relationship with the children.
Sr. Antonio soon departs for Quebec and never returns. Sra. Sofia is left to pick up the pieces. Cleo has troubles of her own.
Cuaron specializes in gorgeous wide panning shots that capture the detail and scope of the setting before closing in on the action in each scene. The effect is dreamlike and yet hyper-realistic. I tried and failed several times to anticipate what happened next and found it to be one delight after another. Absolutely recommended.
Roma won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Foreign Language Picture; Best Director; and Best Cinematography. It was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actress; Best Supporting Actress; Best Original Screenplay; Best Production Design; Best Sound Editing; Best Sound Mixing.
The Wild Angels Directed by Roger Corman Written by Peter Bogdanovich and Charles B. Griffith 1966/USA American International Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Heavenly Blues: We wanna be free! We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. We wanna be free to ride. We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man! … And we wanna get loaded. And we wanna have a good time. And that’s what we are gonna do. We are gonna have a good time… We are gonna have a party.[/box]
Totally over-the-top biker movie starring some of the future’s best actors.
The Wild Angels motorcycle gang is clearly based on the Hells Angels, whose members participated as extras. The gang is under the leadership of Heavenly Blue (Peter Fonda) and “Mama” Mike (Nancy Sinatra). Heavenly Blue, Mike, best friend “Loser” (Bruce Dern), and Loser’s girlfriend Gaysh (Diane Ladd) head off to the Coachella Valley to retrieve Loser’s bike from some Mexicans who stole it. Lots of brawling, partying, drug use, and general anti-establishment behavior ensue. With Michael J. Pollard as a gang member.
I had to see this as most of it is set close to where I live. The movie is really quite fun from the horrible acting to the surf music sound track. Bruce Dern chews the scenery with great relish. Hard to believe that he would become a staple in Hollywood. Go for it if the genre appeals.
Fun trivia: Dern and then-wife Diane Ladd conceived daughter actress Laura Dern during the making of this picture.
Le dieuxieme souffle (“Second Wind”) Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville Written by Jean-Pierre Melville and José Giovanni from a novel by Giovanni 1966/France Les Productions Montaigne
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] It so happens that the gangster story is a very suitable vehicle for the particular form of modern tragedy called film noir, which was born from American detective novels. It’s a flexible genre. You can put whatever you want into it, good or bad. And it’s a fairly easy vehicle to use to tell stories that matter to you about individual freedom, friendship, or rather human relationships, because they’re not always friendly. Or betrayal, one of the driving forces in American crime novels. — Jean-Pierre Melville[/box]
A brutal, detailed, and realistic late French noir. Worth watching, despite its length.
Gustave (“Gu”) Minda (Lino Ventura) is a notorious French criminal. He is the lone survivor of an audacious prison escape with two fellow inmates. He heads for Paris where he meets up with lover Manouche and former criminal associates. Shots soon ring out in her restaurant and what will be a high body count begins to mount.
Police inspector Commissaire Blot (Paul Meurisse) is on the case and has solved it from first glance. But it seems he doesn’t mind too much if underworld rivals continue to rub each other out. Gu goes into hiding in Marseilles and eventually is taken on as the fourth in the holdup of a platinum transport. As usual, the anti-hero vows one last job and never to return to prison. Plenty of double crosses on the way to the explosive finale.
Melville creates a striking sense of realism while telling his tale of “honor” among thieves and its betrayal. The acting is fantastic. Love Blot! I think I might have liked it better had the screenwriters picked up the pace but recommend it nonetheless to fans of the genre or director.
This Property Is Condemned Directed by Sidney Pollock Written by Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Coe, and Edith Summer suggested by a one-act play by Tennessee Williams 1966/USA Paramount Pictures/Seven Arts Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Alva Starr: New Orleans is certainly not a place where a person needs to feel the pain of separation for long.[/box]
One of the last of the Tennessee-Williams Southern-fried psychodramas of this period. Williams disowned the film. Still watchable though.
The story is framed by a conversation between Willy Starr (Mary Badham) and a local boy about what happened to her sister Alva. Alva (Natalie Wood) is one of those dreamy poetic Tennessee Williams heroines in the tradition of Blanche DuBois. Her domineering mother (Kate Reid) sees her beauty as a meal ticket for the whole family and tries to pimp her out to a middle-aged train conductor with an invalid wife. Others interested in Alva Include Sidney (Robert Blake) and even mom’s boyfriend J.J. Nichols (Charles Bronson).
But Alva falls hard and fast for Owen Ligate (Robert Redford) who has arrived in town to close down the railroad station on which all depend. Owen eventually reciprocates. But mama has other ideas.
The acting in this is swell as is James Wong Howe’s cinematography. It just kind of feels like an erzatz version of what we have seen before several times.
Persona Directed by Ingmar Bergman Written by Ingmar Bergman 1966/Sweden Aurora/Svensk Filmindustri
First viewing/Amazon Instant
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] Sister Alma: If she won’t speak or move because she decides not to, which it must be if she isn’t ill, then it shows that she is mentally very strong. I might not be equal to it.[/box]
Ingmar Bergman’s best film? Gorgeous, haunting, and baffling.
Nurse Sister Alma (Bibi Andersson) is assigned to care for famous actress Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullman). Elisabet has stopped talking or moving. According to her doctor, she is in perfect physical and mental health. The two get acquainted at the hospital. The story picks up speed when the doctor offers the two her beachside summer place.
The setting and the mood is blissful. Alma finds an apparently very willing listener in Elisabet and starts to pour out her heart. Then the silence begins to wear on Alma and things begin to fall apart.
I watched this twice in one day trying to wrap my head around it. Probably it is impossible to get to the bottom of this one. Everyone concerned was running on all cylinders and you don’t have to understand the film to be awestruck by the beauty and the great acting. I’ve been wondering if Bergman is (among other things) doing a commentary on acting and filmmaking. It is a wondrous thing to watch the two personae meld into one.
Fantastic Voyage Directed by Richard Fleischer Written by Harry Kleiner; adapted by David Duncan from a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby 1966/USA Twentieth Century Fox
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Col. Donald Reid: A woman has no place on a mission of this size![/box]
This sci-fi classic is not as fantastic as I remember from my youth. Still pretty cool for its time.
A defecting scientist develops a blood clot in the brain. In the not so distant future, a submarine and its crew are miniaturized to sub-microbe size and injected into the carotid artery from which there is a direct route to the brain. When there they will destroy the clot with a laser. But there is the threat of treachery from within and the patient’s physiology throws a monkey wrench into the works. Can the crew complete its mission within the 60 minutes before they start growing and are destroyed by the body’s immune system? With Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Pleasance, and Arthur O’Connell.
This movie is all about its concept and its special effects. Certainly it wasn’t going to win any awards for acting or dialogue. Now the effects appear pretty cheesy but in the movie theater they were magic to my eyes. Fleischer keep things moving along. All in all, it’s a an entertaining romp.
Fantastic Voyage won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color and Best Effects, Special Visual Affects. It was nominated in the categories of Best Cinematography, Color; Best Film Editing and Best Effects, Sound Effects.
Funeral in Berlin Directed by Guy Hamilton Written by Evan Jones from a novel by Len Deighton 1966/UK Jovera Pictures AG/SA/Lowndes Productions Limited
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Harry Palmer: We get plenty of Russians. It’s a pity you’re not Chinese.[/box]
Some snappy dialogue and the gorgeous young Michael Caine make this a fairly entertaining mid-sixties spy movie.
Harry Palmer (Caine) is a thief turned British secret service agent. He is assigned to help retiring East German official Col. Stok (Oskar Homolka) defect to the West across the Wall. Palmer doubts the Colonel’s sincerity as he carries on with the task at hand. Will he become caught up in a deadly game? Of course he will.
This aims for kind of a middle ground between the Bond films and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and but lacks the excitement of the former and the tension of the latter. It’s OK entertainment though and I could happily watch this era Caine in much worse films than this. Such a treat to see Homolka still up to his old tricks!
Mademoiselle Directed by Tony Richardson Written by Marguerite Duras; story by Jean Genet 1966/UK/France Procinex/Woodfall Film Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] The serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend because the evidence is burned up. Joseph Wambaugh [/box]
Despite Jeanne Moreau’s great performance, this was ultimately just a downer as far as I was concerned.
“Mademoiselle”( Moreau) is the highly respectable and very evil school teacher in a French village. Practically from the first frame it is clear that she delights in death and destruction and is responsible for a series of fires, a flood and water poisoning afflicting the local farmers. But the townspeople are sure a hunky Italian itinerate logger (Ettore Manni) is responsible. Mademoiselle becomes infatuated with the handsome young womanizer.
This film takes a very dim view of humanity and not in a blackly comic way. It was not for me.
Zontar: The Thing from Venus Directed by Larry Buchanan Written by Hilman Taylor and Larry Buchanan 1966USA Azalea Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Keith Ritchie: The world is full of facts.[/box]
This grade Z TV movie is an absolute hoot from its absurdly expository dialogue to its ridiculous creature.
Rocket scientist Keith Ritchie has invented a way of communicating with Venus via laser beams. Venusian Zontar has Ritchie convinced that he is on his way to save Earthlings from themselves and initiate a new age of world peace. Zontar plans to establish control by sending drones to take over the bodies and minds of community leaders. Too late, Keith begins to doubt the benevolence of his monster buddy’s plans. John Agar appears as an elder scientist.
American International Pictures commissioned schlockmeister Larry Buchanan to remake Roger Corman’s It Conquered the World (1956) to fill out a TV package deal and this little gem was the result The tiny budget is evident in every shot. The actors labor with dialogue that might have come from a Popular Science magazine or is so silly you can only laugh. And laugh you will if you approach this very lame movie in the right frame of mind. No riff track necessary.
