Monthly Archives: January 2020

The Thomas Crown Affair
Directed by Norman Jewison
Written by Alan Trustman
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Vicki Anderson: What do you get for the man who has everything?[/box]

Main selling point seems to be extreme close-ups of two beautiful people engaging in sex scenes that would not have been allowed just a couple of years earlier.  Not my thing.

Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is an independently wealthy thrill-seeking bank director.  He and his associates conduct a high-stakes robbery of his own bank and nets $2 million dollars.  The bank’s insurer sends its sexiest and craftiest investigator Vicki Anderson (Faye Dunaway) to find and retrieve its money.

The remainder of the movie consists of a cat and mouse game between Thomas and Vicki. She is forthright in her pursuit.  He is generally one step ahead of her.

Despite my love affair with Steve McQueen, I’m not crazy about this movie.  It plays like a heist version of a Bond movie, complete with product placements and rich men’s toys but with steamier sex and no sense of humor.  I love the theme song but also think that Noel Harrison’s  lugubrious rendition of “The Windmills of Your Mind”, used in the movie at least two or three times, is the worst ever.

Michele Legrand and Marilyn and Alan Bergman won the Oscar for Best Music, Original Song.  Legrand was nominated for Best Original Score for his first Hollywood score.

The definitive version

No Way to Treat a Lady
Directed by Jack Smight
Written by John Gay from a novel by William Goldman
1968/US
IMDb link
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Mrs. Brummel: I am sickened at heart when my own son goes looking at dead women’s naked bodies. I tell you Morris, it is no way to treat a lady.[/box]

1968 was certainly a year for serial and spree killer movies!  This one straddles that fine line between thriller and comedy and mostly does it well due to some fine acting.

A rash of murders, Boston Strangler-style, is disturbing the already shaky equanimity of New York City.  The killer (Rod Steiger) is crafty.  Witnesses see only his disguise, never his real face.  Detective Morris “Mo” Brummel (George Segal) is on the case.  Poor Mo has a stereotypical Jewish mother (Eileen Heckart) who is always hectoring about his lowly employment and comparing him to his MD brother.

During his investigation, Mo meets eye-witness Kate Palmer (Lee Remick), a non-Jew who rings every one of his bells.  In the meantime, the murderer may be exposing himself by taunting his pursuer by phone.

Often when Steiger is given free rein to ham it up he blows it.  Here fortunately he exercises enough restraint to give five or six impressive performances.  The rest of the cast is also rock solid.  It’s the weaker of the thrillers I’ve been watching lately but enjoyable for all that.

Clip – pre-credits murder

The Boston Strangler
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Written by Edward Anhalt from a book by Gerold Frank
1968/US
IMDb link
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Capt. Ed Willis: We’ve got a full-blown maniac on our hands.[/box]

Solid performances and direction make a “true crime” story enjoyable.

This is supposedly the true story of the investigation and ultimate capture of Albert De Salvo (Tony Curtis), who strangled and mutilated thirteen women in the Boston area in the early 60’s.  The first half of the movie is a police procedural about the increasingly desperate efforts of law enforcement to halt the killings, which span several different jurisdictions.  Finally, the State Attorney’s Office takes over to coordinate.  John S. Bottomly (Henry Fonda) takes charge.  Little progress is made as the investigators continuously focus on “perverts” (read homosexuals).

The police get their break when family man De Salvo leaves a survivor (Sally Kellerman), who bit him on the hand. She has blocked the identity of her attacker and much of the incident out her mind.  There is no physical evidence to tie him to the murders.  De Salvo is diagnosed with multiple personality disorder.  Bottomly gets him to open up to a certain extent  at the mental hospital by promising nothing he says will be used against him.  With George Kennedy and Murray Hamilton also investigating.

Tony Curtis gets a chance at working outside his comfort zone and gives a good low-key performance as the confused killer.  I thought the movie worked best, however, in its first hour with its well-edited killings and surprisingly sexually frank content.  (I guess I still have to get used to demise of the Hayes Code.)

There are theories that De Salvo did not commit all of the murders but apparently the police were satisfied and the attacks stopped after his arrest/involuntary commitment.

Romeo and Juliet
Directed by Franco Zefferelli
Written by Franco Brusati, Masalino D’Amico, and Franoco Zefferelli from Shakespeare’s play
1968/UK/Italy
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063518/reference
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Romeo: Thus with a kiss I die.[/box]

This dreamy, romantic, lush film has held up beautifully over the years.

Surely nobody needs me to explain the plot of this movie.  With Leonard Whiting as Romeo, Olivia Hussey as Juliet, John McEnery as Mercutio and Michael York as Tybalt.

When this first came out its big selling point is that the star-crossed lovers were played by actual age-appropriate teenagers and for being somewhat racy.  All the performances are good.  I like John McEnery’s Mercution best.  But the high points go to the fabulous Renaissance production and costume design.  The Nino Rota score is also a gem.  Beats the Norma Shearer-Leslie Howard version by a mile.  Recommended to Shakespeare lovers.

Romeo and Juliet won the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design. It was nominated in the categories of Best Picture and Best Director.

Clip – Love at first sight

Dire Straits in Sydney – just because I love this song so much.

Destroy All Monsters (Kaiju soshingeki)
Directed by Ishiro Honda
Written by Ishiro Honda and Takashi Kimur
Japan/1968
IMDb link
First viewing/Criterion Channe

[box] Kilaak Queen: Ghidorah is a space monster. The monsters from Earth cannot win. I will get in touch with you, when you feel like giving up.[/box]

As a break from more serious fare, I took a chance on this utterly lame monster movie so you don’t have to.  Unless you want to, of course.

The alien Kilaak people have vowed to enslave the human race.  The first step is gaining control over all the monsters segregated on Monster Island and some of their human keepers.  All the series monsters are then unleashed on major world capitals where they crush skyscrapers with their mighty feet.  Mankind’s last hope are some lunar astronauts who figure out how to unleash the combined power of the Earth monsters on Space Monster King Gidorah.

This one never grabbed me.  I thought Toho had reached rocked bottom on its special effects in 1967, but nooo, these are even worse.  So some laughs for some people on some days.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Directed by Robert Ellis Miller
Thomas C. Ryan from a novel by Carson McCullers
1968/USA
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Jake Blount: Huh? “John Singer. I am…” Um – a MUTE? Chee-rist! And all this time I thought you was a good listener![/box]

If you are looking for a bittersweet Hollywood movie with some superlative acting, look no further.

This has an involved plot and I’ll be leaving out quite a bit.  Alvie Singer (Alan Arkin) is a deaf-mute.  His best friend is Antonopoulis, who is also a deaf mute and seems to be mentally retarded as well.  Antonopoulis’ custodial relative has him committed to a mental hospital when he gets in trouble one time too many.  Singer moves to an even smaller Southern town to be near his friend until he can take custody of him.

Singer rents a room in a home with a complicated family life.  He befriends its dreamy 16-year old daughter Mick (Sondra Locke in her film debut).  Circumstances make him the favorite listener of several other lonely people. With Stacy Keach (in his film debut) as a drunk; Percy Rodrigues as a pround black physician; and Cecily Tyson as his angry daughter.

I last saw this on original release.  It stuck with me (even if I did not see the ending coming yet again) and I loved it this time as well.  Arkin is amazing in a detailed, nuanced performance in which his face and demeanor convey a rich interior life that is not guessed at by the many people who lean on him.  The supporting players are also uniformly excellent.  Recommended.

Alan Arkin was nominated by the Academy for Best Actor.  Sondra Lock received a nod for Best Supporting Actress.

Black Cat (Kurnoneko/Yabu no naka no kuroneko)
Directed by Kaneto Shindo
Written by Kaneto Shindo
1968/Japan
IMDb link
First viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1000 Best Horror Movies on They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They?

My mind was always on the commoners, not on the lords, politicians or anyone of name and fame. — Kaneto Shindo

Kaneto Shindo gives us a beautiful and truly creepy ghost story that rivals his Onibaba (1964).

War rages in Japan.  A mother and her daughter-in-law live in an isolated hovel scraping out a meager existence as peasant farmers.  Their son/husband was snatched away by samurai three years previously.  Suddenly, they are attacked by a troop of samurai, gang raped, and killed.  Their hovel is reduced to ashes.

Their ghosts vow to the evil god to suck the blood of and kill every last samurai.  They proceed to do this.  Things get complicated when the son/husband comes home in triumph as a very successful samurai himself.

Might be the first film of the year for the 2020 Favorite New-to-me Films list.  I thought it was absolutely superb.  The score, soundscape, editing, and slightly surreal imagery combine to make the chills run up your spine.  Highly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG7RlzRF15c

Genocide (AKA “War of the Insects”) (Konchu daisenso)
Directed by Kazui Nihonmatsu
Written by Susumu Takaku; story by Kingen Amada
1968/Japan
IMDb link
First viewing/Criterion Channel

[box] Since Auschwitz, we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima, we know what is at stake. Viktor E. Frankl[/box]

Japanese horror trades giant monsters for tiny ones in this amusingly dreadful movie.

Swarms of insects attack a U.S. bomber and it pilot becomes the first to be infected.  He slowly goes insane and starts babbling about genocide.  Turns out the insects have gathered together to exterminate the human race in order to to save themselves from extermination by the H-bomb.  A pretty American concentration camp survivor(!) is conspiring with the insects.

The twisted mind that brought us the hilariously bad The X from Outer Space (1967)  is back with this little gem, in which bizarre plot meets bad effects.  The dialogue (sub-titled) is pretty great too.  Recommended to my fellow connoisseurs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwNHNgd86Og