Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Lust for Life
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Written by Norman Corwin based on the novel by Irving Stone
1956/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Paul Gauguin: With all your talk of emotion, all I see when I look at your work is just that you paint too fast!

Vincent Van Gogh: You look too fast![/box]

Vincent Minnelli gives us a visual feast and Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn bring great painters to life.

The story covers the life of the great expressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh (Douglas) from age 25 until his death by suicide at age 37.  Mental illness will haunt him all his life.  The son of a minister, Vincent begins with a burning desire to spread the word of God to the poor.  His superiors at theology school in Belgium do not believe the unconventional man has what it takes and recommend against assigning him a parish.  Desperate, Vincent begs to be sent to the most undesirable district and he is finally accommodated and sent to preach to a community of dirt poor miners.  Vincent is capable only of rambling and incoherent sermons and does not attract a following.  Finally he decides to be of more direct help by going down into the mine and into the hovels of the workers.  When inspectors come to see how he is doing, they are appalled at his style of living and his rags.  He is relieved of his ministry.  This is the first of many failures and he goes back home to recover.

Vincent begins to draw frantically.  He also falls in love with his widowed cousin.  His behavior is still out of control and he disgusts his cousin.  He goes to the Hague where he studies painting with a cousin and sets up house with a prostitute.  This ends badly as well and he is called back home when his father is stricken.  After his father dies, he goes to Paris to live with his devoted brother Theo (James Donald), an art dealer.  There he meets the Impressionists and begins to develop his own colorful, passionate style.

Vincent goes off to Arles in Provence and throws himself feverishly into his painting.  He is lonely and drinking heavily, however, and his brother decides that the painter Paul Gaugin (Quinn), who had taking a liking to Vincent, might be just what is needed.  Theo pays Gaugin’s expenses and the two painters begin to live together.  Sadly, the fiery and orderly Gaugin is a bad match for Vincent, who has difficulty getting along with anybody, and this relationship too ends in disaster.

This movie is absolutely beautiful to look at.  It is lit to look like the paintings from each period of the artist’s career and Minnelli frequently stops to show us the actual works. Douglas and Quinn are both superb in their parts.

I have read Van Gough’s letters to his brother and was tremendously moved by them.  The story is accompanied by Theo’s narration of imaginary letters (the Estate would not allow any direct quotes).  Douglas does not quite capture the sensitivity of the artist but it’s close enough and I really enjoyed the movie.

Anthony Quinn won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.  Lust for Life was nominated in the categories of Best Actor; Best Writing – Best Screenplay, Adapted; and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color.

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The Rainmaker
Directed by Joseph Anthony
Written by N. Richard Nash from his play
1956/USA
Hal Wallis Productions/Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

Noah Curry: We don’t believe in rainmakers.
Bill Starbuck: What DO you believe in mistah? Dyin’ cattle?

For me, this starts with Katharine Hepburn cast as a forty-year-old virgin and goes downhill from there.

Lizzie Curry (Hepburn) is smart, capable, and one heck of a good cook.  However, she is “plain” (?!) and speaks her mind so naturally she can’t snatch a man.  This is her one aim in life.  She has a close family that loves her but her brother Noah (Lloyd Bridges) is getting fed up with her spinsterhood.  Her father is trying to set her up with the sheriff (Wendell Corey) but he is commitment-phobic and won’t even come over to taste Lizzie’s homemade limeade.

In the meantime, Bill Starbuck (Burt Lancaster) a conman who claims he can relieve the current drought for one hundred dollars appears to shake things up.  He gives both Lizzie and her younger brother (the “stupid one”) the courage to stand up for themselves and makes Lizzie feel beautiful at last.

This movie is not actually too bad though Lancaster cuts the line between flamboyance and ham acting perilously close.  It rubs me wrong on a whole lot of different levels, though.  Hepburn is forced to play both below apparent age and grievously against type.  Hepburn may not be conventionally beautiful but there is no way in the world anybody could perceive her as plain.  The story is the epitome of 50’s sexual politics.  Lots of people love it for its romance however.

The Rainmaker was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actress and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

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Daddy Long Legs
Directed by Jean Negulesco
Written by Phoebe and Henry Ephron from a novel by Jean Webster
1955/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] When an irresistible force such as you/ Meets an old immovable object like me/ You can bet just as sure as you live/ Something’s gotta give/ Something’s gotta give/ Something’s gotta give — Lyrics by Johnny Mercer[/box]

The May-December romance and dream ballet don’t do this musical any favors.  It has its pleasures, however.

Jervis Pendleton III (Fred Astaire) is one of the world’s richest men, but is mostly interested in playing the drums and otherwise having fun.  On a trade mission to France, his car breaks down and he has to go to an orphanage for help.  There he spots eighteen-year-old Julie Andre charmingly teaching English to the other orphans.  He wants to adopt her but the American ambassador convinces him that this would be unseemly.  He then opts to finance her college education in the U.S.  Julie is required to write letters to him and in the process develops a fascination with the anonymous benefactor she refers to as “Daddy Longlegs”.

After this has gone on for a couple of years without a response, Jervis’ aid (Fred Clark) and secretary (Thelma Ritter) become concerned that the girl is falling in love with him.  Now intrigued,  Jervis visits the school and after one dance at the hop falls in love with his charge.  She loves him, too, but a new encounter with the ambassador messes things up until the happy ending.

I really wish they could have done this without Astaire and Caron becoming a couple.  It should have been easy enough.  There is some fantastic dancing here though, not least from Caron.  It says something that I could take my eyes off Astaire long enough to appreciate her footwork. Unfortunately, there is a long dream ballet sequence that, while well danced, stops the movie in its tracks.

Daddy Long Legs was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Music, Original Song (for “Something’s Gotta Give”) and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.

Clip – Astaire and Caron dance to “Sluefoot”

La Pointe-Courte
Directed by Agnes Varda
Written by Agnes Varda
1955/France
Cine Tamaris
First viewing/Hulu

[box] They called me ‘The Ancestor of the New Wave’ when I was only 30. I had seen very few films, which, in a way, gave me both the naivety and the daring to do what I did. — Agnes Varda[/box]

In her first film, Agnes Varda still had to work on her story-telling technique.  She already had the images absolutely nailed.

The film tells a couple of simple stories in counterpoint.  In the first, a man (Philippe Noiret) has returned to his seaside village birthplace for a holiday.  His wife (Silvia Monfort) joins him there five days later.  She arrives intending to ask for a separation.  We follow their conversations leading to a resolution of their marriage.  The second story is a documentary-like chronicle of life in the village.  A thread running through it is the constant efforts of the villagers to collect shellfish from a nearby lagoon and the efforts of the health authorities to prevent them from doing so.

The main story moves along at a snail’s pace and was not emotionally engaging to me. The documentary portion is played by amateur actors and was interesting for the folklore content.  Shortcomings aside, the whole is total eye candy.  Many of the frames would make beautiful stills worthy of the finest gallery.

This is the third anniversary of this blog.  I can’t really believe I’ve been at it this long and covered more than 20 years of great and not-so-great films.

I realized this was the day when I couldn’t log in any more.  I thought I had renewed my domain registration for another year but had not.  Scary …  All fixed now.

Thanks so much to my readers for keeping me at it.

To Catch a Thief
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by John Michael Hayes based on a novel by David Dodge
1955/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Frances Stevens: I have a feeling that tonight you’re going to see one of the Riviera’s most fascinating sights.[/box]

This movie is a ton of fun, especially if you like eye candy.

John Robie (Cary Grant) lives in a villa on the French Riviera.  As the movie opens, he is being chased by police.  Before too long, we find out that he is a retired cat burglar, known as The Cat, who, when his jail was bombed, joined the French Resistance and received a pardon.  His former fellow criminal associates and inmates are all working at a nearby restaurant.  A series of jewel burglaries go down which bear his unmistakable trademark. As we have come to expect in a Hitchcock film, he decides that the only way to clear his name is to apprehend the real criminal.

Robie believes the best way to get his man is to think the way he would.  He starts working with the local Lloyd’s of London representative and is tipped off to a wealthy American, Jessie Stevens (Jessie Royce Landis) who is travelling with a fortune in jewels and a daughter.    The daughter, Frances (Grace Kelly) sees through Robie’s alias early on but seems to be turned on by his thievery.  That is until her mother’s jewels go missing …

You really don’t need much more when your movie features two of the most beautiful people ever to grace the screen, the crystal waters of the Riviera, and Edith Head’s stunning costumes.  The Vista Vision widescreen process captures everything vividly and looked especially beautiful on the Blu-Ray DVD I received.  This is as much a romantic comedy as it is a thriller and is very enjoyable.  Recommended.

To Catch a Thief won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color and Best Costume Design, Color.

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