Monthly Archives: June 2024

Frances
Directed by Graeme Clifford
Written by Eric Bergren, Christopher De Vore, and Nicholas Kazan
1982/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

Harry York: Frances, you’re crazy.
Frances Farmer: [softly] Don’t tell anybody.

The acting is the thing in this biopic of the troubled life of actress Frances Farmer.

The story begins in Farmer’s (Jessica Lange) hometown of Seattle. Her mother (Kim Stanley) has big dreams for her. Even as a teenager, Frances lacked a filter and shocked the locals with her prize-winning “God is Dead” speech. She further scandalizes society by accepting a free trip to Russia. Her beauty and her mother take her to Hollywood. But Frances continually bucked the system with her aspirations to something serious. She heads to New York where she attracts the attention of left-leaning theaters and stars in Clifford Odets’s “Golden Boy” on Broadway.

The one constant in Farmer’s life is Seattle friend and lover Harry York (Sam Shepard) who supports her through thick and thin. A combination of mother and Frances’s alcohol and drug abuse and burgeoning mental illness make her unemployable. Eventually they send her to asylums where she is subjected to brutal conditions and treatment.

Lange is truly remarkable in this role and richly deserved her Oscar nomination as did Kim Stanley.  I always find Sheherd appealing.  Otherwise, this would be just lurid.  The film was based on a book which the author later admitted was highly fictional.  I believe the only movie I have seen with Farmer in it was Come and Get It (1936).  She was excellent.

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn
Directed by Nicholas Meyer
Written by Jack B. Sowards based on a TV series created by Gene Roddenberry
1982/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

Spock: [closing monologue] Space: the final frontier. These are the continuing voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Ricardo Montalban’s villain is the best part of this science-fiction adventure.

James T. Kirk (William Shatner) has been promoted to Admiral of the Starfleet. He comes back to inspect his old stomping grounds on the starship Enterprise. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is now captain and all the characters in the TV series appear once more.

Two hundred years ago Kirk marooned his rival Khan (Montalban) on a dead planet without resources. Khan managed to survive with a small crew and is obsessed with revenge. He is also interested in a life-generating device known as Genesis which has been developed by Kirk’s former lover Carol on Regula 1. Most of the film is devoted to a cat and mouse chase between Kirk and Kahn. A cat and mouse chase with plenty of explosives.

I have a complicated relationship with Star Trek.  During my childhood my younger brother had series reruns on rotation 24/7.  This irritated the hell out of me particularly because we had assigned days for choosing what to watch and it seemed I was always home during my brothers’ turns and away during mine.

Anyway, this is a well-done film but nothing I would choose to watch again.  On the other hand, Montalban is a total kick in the pants.  I watched the director’s cut.  The special effects are old-school but effective.  Kirstie Alley made her feature-film debut here as a Vulcan trainee.

Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip
Directed by Joe Layton
Written by Richard Pryor
1982/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental

Richard Pryor: One time, it looked like I had an appendage on my hand – was a pipe. Cause this pipe used to tell me when to go to bed. The pipe would say, “Time to get up. Time for some smoke, Rich. Come on now. We’re not going to do anything today. Fuck all of your appointments. Me and you just going to hang out in this room together.” And I’d get mad and frustrated. People didn’t understand me and the pipe would say, “Come in the room with me. I’ve got you covered. I know how you feel, Rich. I understand. Just light me up, hold me for a couple of days, and we’ll talk it over.”

This concert film has to capture one of the best standup comedy routines ever.

Richard Pryor’s material includes:  experience filming at a penitentiary; his trip to Africa; relationship advice; race relations;  an appearance by his character Mudbone with some folk wisdom; “Mafia nightclub”and finally his self-immolation while free-basing cocaine in 1980.

I saw this on original release. I loved it then and I still love it. It has not aged one bit. The topics may not sound hilarious but his descriptions certainly are. And unlike many such routines, it is all personal and relatable. Anybody who doesn’t enjoy profanity should definitely give this a miss. Highly recommended to all others.

Genocide
Directed by Arnold Schwartzman
Written by Martin Gilbert, Martin Hier, and Arnold Schwartzman
1982/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube (free)

Narrator: Small wonder then, that the 9.5 million Jews who still lived in Europe at the end of the First World War looked forward with great hope to the new world, the world of Democratic Europe, the world President Wilson promised would be made safe for democracy.

I think I may be maxed out on Holocaust documentaries. They are just so sad and infuriating.

This one is ably narrated by Orson Welles and Elizabeth Taylor. It follows the progress of the persecution and murder of Jews in Europe from Hitler’s rise to power to the end of WWII. It contains many images and clips I had not seen before. The best part covers Jewish life just before Hitler.

This is a powerful reminder of just how bad and out of control people can get.  The news now is so depressing I just don’t watch it.  But it could be so much worse and I get to live in my little bubble of prosperity.  Heartbreaking really.

Genocide won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
Directed by Carl Reiner
Written by Carl Reiner, George Gipe and Steve Martin
1982/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

Rigby Reardon: Carlotta was the kind of town where they spell trouble T-R-U-B-I-L, and if you try to correct them, they kill you.

This should have been better than it is.

The film is a spoof of classic film noir.  Steve Martin plays private eye Rigby Reardon.  He has been hired by Juliet Forrest (Rachel Ward) find her father’s killer. The story is interspersed with scenes from films noir in which Steve Martin is inserted.  So he meets up with Humphrey Bogart, Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, etc. etc.  The humor is broad and often dirty.  With Carl Reiner as a butler.

This movie didn’t work for me.  It’s like Reiner got so caught up in his gimmick that he didn’t bother to make the underlying story interesting.  I also didn’t find it particularly funny but that’s always such a subjective thing.  The movie got two “no” votes from Gene and Roger.

Say Amen, Somebody
Directed by George T. Nierenberg
1982/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental

 

Gospel music is the purest thing there is on this earth. – Elvis Presley

This truly excellent look at gospel music is less a documentary and more a joyful experience for the ears and heart.

The film captures fascinating interviews with the Father of Gospel Thomas A. Dorsey and the equally legendary Willie May Ford Smith. The joyful part consists of amazing performances by Smith and three singing acts – Delois Barrett Campbell and the Barrett Sisters, Zella Jackson Price, and the O’Neal Twins, Edgar and Edward, backed by a choir.

These performances are the equal of the greatest performances by the best soul singers ever.  If you have any interest in the history of pop music from honky tonk blues through soul and R&B you will likely love this film.  Highly recommended.

Lousy print but I love this song so much!

Victor/Victoria
Directed by Blake Edwards
Written by Blake Edwards from a screenplay by Reinhold Schunzel
1982/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

Norma: You two-timing son of a bitch! He’s a woman!

This could have gone badly off the rails.  That it did not is tribute to the director and his cast.

The setting is Depression-era Paris. Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) is a classically trained soprano with a beautiful voice. This is not what Paris nightclubs are looking for and she is down to her last sou. As she is preparing to run out on a dinner tab, she meets Carole “Toddy” Todd (Robert Preston). He is also flat broke after he started a riot while performing at a gay club. The two immediately like each other. He gets a brilliant idea after Victoria has to dress in a male lover’s clothes when hers shrink.

Toddy decides for some mysterious reason that Victoria will be convincing as a female impersonator and he is right. She becomes the toast of the town. But her cover may be blown with the arrival of gangster King Marchand (James Garner). King is so attracted to the “gay man” that he becomes obsessed with proving he is a she.

First you have to get past the major sticking point that Andrews is far too feminine for this to work. And yet it does. It’s not a musical but Andrews and Preston do several numbers on stage as part of the story. Preston is a total delight in this film – very lovable and very arch. His relationship with Andrews is central to the film and it is sincere and even touching. James Garner plays himself but what a self. I always like him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wejgyx3e4rY8

Missing theme song about another Victoria

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl
Directed by Terry Hughes and Ian MacNaughton
Written by the members of the Monty Python troupe
1982/UK/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube (free)

Argument Customer: Yes it is! An argument is an intellectual process! It isn’t just contradiction!
Mr.Barnard: Look, if I’m to argue with you, I have to take up a contradictory position!
Argument Customer: Yes, but it’s not just saying “No it isn’t!”
Mr.Barnard: Yes, it is!
Argument Customer: No, it isn’t!

Fans of Monty Python will not want to miss this live performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

The show is comprised of super-classic sketches, including songs and pieces such as “The Last Supper”, “Sit on My Face”, the “Silly Olympics”, the “International Philosophy Show”, the “Four Yorkshiremen sketch”, “How Sweet to Be an Idiot”, and, “The Lumberjack Song”.

The troupe seems to have had a very good time and the audience concurred.  I laughed out loud with frequency.  The humor is perhaps even more irreverent than it was on TV.

The Atomic Cafe
Directed by Jane Loader, Pierce Rafferty and Kevin Rafferty
1982/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube (free)

Civil defense film: Be sure to include tranquilizers to ease the strain and monotony of life in a fallout shelter. A bottle of 100 should be sufficient for a family of four. Tranquilizers are not a narcotic, and are not habit-forming.

This excellent documentary contrasts the reality of nuclear explosions with the propaganda surrounding the subject in the 1940’s and 1950’s.

The film contains no narration.  It begins with the Trinity atomic bomb test and continues to the devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the pop culture embrace of the bomb immediately thereafter in the heady days of victory.  We proceed deep into the Cold War of the McCarthy era and government reassurances about the survivability of the bomb.

This film is surreal in a way that could be appreciated by Salvador Dali.  The insanity around the subject is simply mind-boggling.  We are constantly reminded of the reality of the human cost of the entire enterprise.  It is just amazing what lies people will believe, especially when told to them by the Government.  I’m old enough to remember our teacher telling us that nuclear war could break out the next day during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I thought this was thoroughly fascinating.