Monthly Archives: March 2021

The Man Who Skied Down Everest

Narrator: I am alive. They say I skied 6600 feet in 2 minutes and 20 seconds. I fell 1320 feet. I stopped 250 feet from the crevasse. Numbers have meaning in the world below. But in this almost airless world, what do they mean? Was it a success or a failure? That I am alive must be the will of some higher power.

I have a weakness for books and films about dangerous mountain climbing.  This film is remarkably dull in comparison to the best of these.

In 1970 daredevil Japanese skiier Yuichiro Miura mounted an expedition with the goal of skiing down the slope of Mount Everest.  Miura had already accomplished this goal on some very high mountains.  The expedition was supported by 800 porters and a squad of sherpas, medical personnel, scientists, etc. etc.  Miura planned to use a parachute to slow down his speed on the 45 degree slope.

First the expedition had to climb the mountain.  Six sherpas were killed in a cave-in.  In the end Miura lost control of his skis and went into freefall and was lucky to escape with his life.

I thought the film was OK.  I found myself thinking about whether the expense, danger, and hardship is worth the glory of setting a record.  Especially when so many other lives are at risk.

Miura summited Mount Everest in 2003 at age 70 and again in 2013 at age 80, both climbs making him the oldest person ever to see the top of the mountain.  The film received an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.

Helga Ulmann: I can feel death in this room! I feel a presence, a twisted mind sending me thoughts! Perverted, murderous thoughts… Go away! You have killed! And you will kill again!

This movie may be the best example of the Italian thriller genre known as giallo.  It also involves many graphic and horrifically bloody murders.

The setting is contemporary Rome.  As the movie begins, we see pianist Marcus Daly (David Hemmings) rehearsing with his jazz band.  At the same time,  mind-reader Helga Ullman is addressing a conference on the paranormal.  Her speech is interrupted when she feels the presence of a twisted murderer in the room.  Someone leaves the theater. The violence of Helga’s premonitions end her talk and she returns home.  She tells one of the organizers that she thinks she may know the identity of the killer and will tell him the next day.  Tomorrow will not come for Helga as when she returns to her apartment she is brutally attacked multiple times with a meat cleaver, suffers terribly, and is pushed out the window.

Marcus is talking on the street with his very drunk friend Carlo when they hear a scream then spot a figure in a brown raincoat fleeing the scene.  Carlo leaves and then Marcus sees Helga breaking through the glass.  She is his upstairs neighbor and he rushes to help her.  She is beyond help.  Marcus decides he must find her killer and for some reason the police don’t seem to mind as he merrily contaminates evidence.  Pushy female reporter Gianna insists on tagging along.

This is one of those murder mysteries where successive prime suspects are murdered and eliminated from contention.  I’m not going to go further into the plot except to say it involves a haunted house and many bizarre clues.  So we get a set up for a murder, a  progressively more brutal murder, then go on following random clues to the next murder until only one suspect remains.  A lot of Marcus’s investigation seems to be founded on lucky guesses.  Much of the plot defies logic making the atmosphere even more creepy.

This movie is super stylish and very scary.  Argento is a master at making attacks come with a sudden jolt and then prolonging the scare with an inventive and truly horrible murder.  The cinematography and score are excellent.  If this is one of the best, I think I will skip the rest.  Not for me.

Narrator: … The ones who have never had a fatal accident. Oh yeah. The ones who have had one. The ones who, at a certain point in their lives, create a secret weapon, Christ. Oh yeah. The ones who are always standing at the bar. The ones who are always in Switzerland. The ones who started early, haven’t arrived, and don’t know they’re not going to. Oh yeah. The ones who lose wars by the skin of their teeth. Oh yeah. The ones who say ‘Everything is wrong here.’ The ones who say ‘Now let’s all have a good laugh.’ Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Lina Wertmuller reaches greatness with this unique approach to the lot of Italians and Italy during the Second World War.

The film begins with a black and white pastiche of destruction and death during WWII set to R&B music and accompanied by a kind of “beat” poetry.  We then move to Naples.

Pasqualino Frafuso (Giancarlo Giannini) is the only man in a family consisting of his mother and seven ugly sisters.  He is a ladies man with no apparent means of support who is obsessed with the honor of his sisters, the eldest of which is in love with a pimp and dancing in a sexy music hall show.  She claims he has promised to marry her.  Instead she ends up working in a brothel and Pasqualino kills her lover.  He doesn’t do this in a smart way and the best his lawyer can do is a sentence to ten years in a mental hospital in lieu of decades in prison.

The beginning of the film has a Felliniesque comic tone but it turns progressively dark from here.  Pasqualino’s internment in the hospital becomes a living hell.  Finally a doctor tells him that she will declare him sane so he can join the Italian army.  He leaps at the chance.

But Pasqualino’s luck does not improve.  Combat is also hellish and he deserts with a comrade only to be apprehended by the Nazis and put in a POW camp.  The camp is run by a grotesque female Commandant (Shirley Stoler – The Honeymoon Killers (1969)).  Several men are selected for death by firing squad every day.  In the depths of despair and nearing death by starvation. Pasqualino decides that the only way to stay alive is to make love to the Commandant.  It’s not going to be that easy.  With Fernando Rey in a small but memorable role as a fellow POW.

You will never see a World War II movie quite like this one.  Giancarlo Giannini is brilliant both as a comedian and a tragedian and has ample opportunity to show both talents in this film. Wertmuller fills the screen with color and chaos until everything turns dark black. It has tons of heart while being politically savage. It seems to encompass the whole wartime experience in Italy through the fate of one flawed man and asks the big questions about honor and survival. How the editors of the 1001 Movies book passed this movie by is beyond me. Very highly recommended.

Seven Beauties was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Foreign Language Film, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.  Wertmuller’s nomination was the first for a female director and one of only five such nominations to  date.

Opening montage

Clip

Farewell, My Lovely

Philip Marlowe: [opening lines] This past spring was the first that I felt tired and realized I was growing old. Maybe it was the rotten weather we’d had in L.A. Maybe the rotten cases I’d had. Mostly chasing a few missing husbands and then chasing their wives once I found them, in order to get paid. Or maybe it was just the plain fact that I am tired and growing old.

Robert Mitchum brings a world-weary persona and some gravitas to Chandler’s gumshoe Philip Marlowe.

The story is set in the days preceding the U.S. entry into WWII.  Philip Marlowe (Mitchum) is an aging, struggling private eye in Los Angeles.  One day, he is visited by Moose Malloy who more or less commands Marlowe to locate his girl Velma, for a fee of course.  Moose has just been released from several years in prison and is eager to reunite with Velma whom he merely describes as “as cute as lace pants”.  Marlowe and Moose visit the nightclub where she used to work.  She’s not there and the club’s ownership and clientele is now African-American.  The volatile Moose ends up killing a man, the first of many killings in this convoluted plot. Marlowe doesn’t even have a photograph to go on.

Marlowe always appears to be at or near the scene of the crime and he has Detective Nutley (John Ireland) and Billy Rolfe (Harry Dean Stanton) oh his case at all times. Meanwhile, a variety of people who don’t want Velma to be located use the double-cross and other means to get near Marlowe and do away with his snooping.The closer Marlowe gets to Velma (Charlotte Rampling), the more deadly the game becomes.  With Sylvia Miles as a drunken informant and Sylvester Stallone as a thug.

Robert Mitchum makes a fine Philip Marlowe.  The tone of this movie is quite a bit darker and more violent than the original Murder, My Sweet (1944).  Charlotte Rampling puts the fatal into femme fatale.  We see LA strictly from its seedy underbelly and Marlowe is one of the few decent characters in the film.  Richards does well in translating film noir for the 70’s.  I don’t know that the original film needed a re-make but this does make for some engrossing viewing.

Sylvia Miles was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

The Stepford Wives

Bobbie Markowe: I can’t figure out this burg. It’s like maids have been declared illegal, and the housewife with the neatest place gets Robert Redford for Christmas. And believe me, if that’s the prize, I’d enter, but nobody’ll tell what the contest rules are. Cheers!

Well-done horror from the director of Seance on a Wet Afternoon and The Whisperers and the author of Rosemary’s Baby.

Joanna Eberhart (Katherine Ross) and her husband Walter (Peter Masterson), a lawyer, move to the charming, perfect little village of Stepford, Connecticut. It was Walter’s idea. Joanna was not too keen on this development as she loved living in New York City and the move interfered with her dreams of being a professional photographer.  Walter is flattered to be asked to join the town’s Men’s Association and begins spending every evening with the “boys”

But it’s not only the town that is perfect. The men are of many ages and degrees of attractiveness. All the women are young, sexy, well-dressed, and made-up at all times. They spend their days keeping a perfect house and their nights pleasing their man.

This is not Joanna at all and she finds another newcomer wife, Bobbie (Paula Prentiss) who agrees. They try and fail at consciousness raising with the local women. Meanwhile, it becomes more apparent that the husbands are plotting something during their Men’s Association meetings and the story becomes increasingly dark and eerie and then downright terrifying. This is psychological horror with zero gore.

I enjoyed this. Evidently women’s liberation advocates criticized it for being misogynistic at the time. I thought it was a stong indictment against male chauvinism and all those commercials that were making us hate ourselves for leaving a ring around the guy’s collar. We’ve come a long way baby! Not a must-see but interesting.

Sarastro: The radiant sun overpowers the night, And darkness surrenders to wisdom and light…

Ingmar Bergman makes one masterpiece out of another.

The story takes place in the land of myths and fairy tales.  Our hero Tamino is on a quest to find the meaning of life and true love.  He fights a dragon and faints while three Ladies-in-Waiting to the Queen of the Night slay the beast.  When they see the comely youth, they know he will be perfect for a mission highly desired by the Queen. Soon we also meet the bird-catcher Papageno, a comic coward whose quest is merely for a wife.

Pamina is the daughter of the Queen of the Night.  The Ladies come back with a locket containing Pamina’s portrait and Tamino knows at once where his quest is leading him. If Tamino can rescue Pamina from Sarastro, who has captured her, she will be his bride. The Queen provides a magic flute to use in case of emergency.  The very reluctant Papageno is ordered to accompany Tamino and is given a set of magic bells.  Finally a hot air balloon arrives bearing three little boys who will give him advice throughout the story.

Papageno finds Pamina before Tamino does and they run off to look for him.  When Tamino meets Sarastro he turns out to be a righteous god-like High Priest who rules in connection with a Brotherhood.  Tamino will need to go through three scary trials of wisdom to prove himself worthy to join the Brotherhood and wed Pamina.

When the Queen gets wind of this, she vents her fury in an unbelievable aria and orders Pamina to kill Sarastro.  Pamina is unwilling.

Papageno is promised a bride if he will accompany Tamino on these trials.  The number one ground rule is particpants must remain silent.  The very frightened Papageno fails at this miserably.  But Tamino passes the first two trials and will go through the third with Pamina.  Will Tamino complete his quest?  How will Papageno ever find a bride?

I can’t think of a better way to enjoy Mozart’s glorious opera. Bergman strikes the perfect balance between the theatrical and the cinematic. It’s a primal hero’s quest story with quite a bit of comedy thrown in. The film was made for Swedish TV and is sung in Swedish by some fantastic singers. Bergman spends the overture with the audience studying faces, including faces of some of his usual players, reacting to the music. Highly recommended to opera lovers, Bergman completists, and anyone looking for something unique and moving.

The Magic Flute was nominated for the Best Costume Design Oscar.

The Queen of the Night orders Pamina to kill Sarastro  – no subtitles

Daniel Dravot: In any place where they fight, a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find – “D’you want to vanquish your foes?’ and we will show him how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dynasty.

John Huston shows his continued mastery of the craft in this well-acted and written adventure set during the British Raj.

The setting is colonial India.  Scoundrels Daniel Dravnot (Sean Connery) and Peachy Carnahan have finished their service in Her Majesty’s army.  They consider that India is “too small” and decide the pickings will be richer in another country.  And they have one in mind – Kafiristan – an isolated mountainous land which last saw white men when Alexander the Great came to call.

Danny cooks up a scheme to extort the money needed to purchase 20 rifles and smuggle them to Kafiristan. The pair will use these to train a small army of locals to defeat village after village on their way to see the religious leader of the country.

Danny’s schemes get more and more dangerous.  Drunk with power, he makes a few mistakes.  Peachy is loyal to his friend throughout.  With Saeed Jaffrey as an interpreter/side kick and Christopher Plummer as Rudyard Kipling.  The gorgeous Shakira (Mrs. Michael) Caine has a non-speaking part as Sean Connery’s intended bride.

This movie is great fun.  There’s plenty of exciting action, the dialogue crackles, and no expense was spared on production values.  Sean Connery is particularly good.  Recommended.

The Man Who Would Be King was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; Best Costume Design; and Best Film Editing.