Monthly Archives: May 2015

The Passionate Friends (AKA “One Woman’s Story”)
Directed by David Lean
Written by Eric Ambler, David Lean, and Stanley Haynes from a novel by H.G. Wells
1949/UK
Cineguild
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] I think people remember pictures not dialogue. That’s why I like pictures. — David Lean[/box]

Imagine Brief Encounter if the lovers had not made a clean break of it but had tortured each other with unresolved desire for a couple of decades.  The plot did not work for me but with Claude Rains at his best and the beautiful visuals, I enjoyed this any way.

The story opens at a Swiss resort where Mary Justin (Ann Todd) and her husband Howard Justin (Claude Rains) are set to spend their first vacation together in several years.  It just so happens that, unbeknownst to her, Steven Stratton (Trevor Howard) has checked in for his own get-away in the room adjoining theirs.  From some uncertain point in time, Mary begins a narration that will take us to a series of episodic flashbacks.  I found the story rather hard to follow until I was well into it.

Evidently, Mary and Steven were in love as young people.  Mary, who wants to “belong to herself” rather than to any man, decides that the incredibly wealthy and powerful Howard is a better match and marries him despite her continuing eternal passion for Steven.

They meet by chance while Howard is away doing some big business detail in Germany in 1939 and start seeing each other.  The sparks rekindle almost immediately.  Steven persuades Mary to break with Howard and go away with him.  A dramatic confrontation with Howard (most of which we do not witness) changes Mary’s mind.  Howard convinces her that she is not looking for the type of romantic, all-consuming love Steven has to offer.

Nine years pass and we return to the post-war present and begin to follow Mary’s reunion with Steven in the Alps.  Steven is now married with children and Mary says her relationship with Howard has grown and deepened.  Nevertheless, the two clearly still care for each other.  Howard spots them returning from their picnic in the mountains and jumps to the natural conclusion.  He can take no more and sues for divorce naming Steven as the correspondent.  The ending of this film is abrupt and, I thought, unsatisfying.

The suave Rains seems to have been born to play the cuckold (Notorious, Deception).  He is superb at it here.  The hurt on his face needs no words.  Howard more or less reprises his role in Brief Encounter.  Ann Todd struck me as a bit too much of an “ingenue” type for the part.  Lean makes some beautiful, beautiful pictures once again.

I generally have a problem with stories about people who can’t make up their minds.  This was no exception to the rule.  These characters actually seem to relish tormenting each other.  I did think it was interesting that Mary was a woman who wanted to retain her independence even within a relationship.  We don’t get too many characters like that in the classic era.  Unfortunately, she is not shown to have the strength to go with her principles.

BFI Trailer

Late Spring (Banshun)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu
Written by Kôgo Noda and Yasujirô Ozu from a novel by Kazuo Hirotsu
1949/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
Repeat viewing/Criterion Collection DVD

[box] Shukichi Somiya: Happiness isn’t something you wait around for.  It’s something you create yourself.[/box]

This is my very favorite Ozu film and that is really saying something.  Something about the combination of the music, the stately visuals, and the writing creates a kind of melancholy nostalgia in me for a place and time I have never seen.

Noriko Somiya (Setsuko Hara) is 27 years old and unmarried.  She is just now recovering her health after years of wartime malnutrition and forced labor.  She lives happily with her father Shukichi, a professor, doting on him and caring for his every need.  Her aunt has decided that it is high time for Noriko to marry and has the ideal candidate picked out (he “looks like Gary Cooper”).  The father agrees but Noriko resists.  Privately, she says she can’t imagine how he can take care of himself without her.

So the father resorts to acting as if he has it in mind to remarry himself. This really upsets Noriko, who previously told another widower she thought remarriage “indecent”.  But this push is what she needed and all’s well that ends well.  The father bears his new loneliness with a sad resignation and dignity.

This very slight and seemingly happy story has me in tears throughout its final third every single time. There is a clear sense of the change going on in Japan in the subtext of the film.  Evidence of the occupation appears in the strangest corners of the scenery and Noriko’s best friend is a divorcee and thoroughly modern stenographer.  I guess change, even change for the better, is usually fraught with sadness and a letting go.   Most highly recommended.

Clip – Some fatherly advice

The Small Back Room (“Hour of Glory”)
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Written by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
1949/UK
The Archers/London Film Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

Susan: Wouldn’t it be silly to break up something we both like doing, only because you think I don’t like it.
Sammy Rice: Yes, you’ve got it all worked out in the way women always have. They don’t worry about anything except being alive or dead.

The Archers follow up a couple of technicolor extravaganzas with a little black and white film that harkens back to One of Our Aircraft Is Missing.  The result is uneven but enjoyable.

It is London in 1943.  Bomb demolition wizard Sammy Rice (David Farrar) lost his foot in some unspecified accident.  Since then he has been in constant pain that neither pills nor alcohol seem to touch.  Nevertheless, he persists with taking both to excess.  He lives with Susan (Kathleen Byron), a secretary at work, and feels sorry for himself.  She does her best to soothe his woes.

Sammy works in a top-secret research unit in the Ministry of War.  He is presented with the challenge of guessing what kind of German bomb is responsible for killing a number of young people.  The military authorities continue to search for the actual device.  Sammy promises to travel anytime, anywhere if the bomb is found or claims additional victims.

Sammy’s unit is also asked to test a new gun for use by the military.  The army brass thinks very little of the weapon, judging it unsuitable for use by the raw recruits that will have to use it.  Sammy’s boss (Jack Hawkins) is pushing the gun hard at the behest of his superiors. Although Sammy’s figures reveal the gun’s drawbacks, he is unwilling to argue forcefully against it or stand up to his boss.  Susan is disgusted and they quarrel, sending Sammy back to the bottle.  Can he redeem himself and regain his manhood?  With Lionel Banks as a colonel and Robert Morely as a clueless Minister.

This film is a bit of a mess combining as it does a psychological study with wartime political intrigue and suspense.  We get elements as disparate as a dream sequence that seems straight out of The Lost Weekend and a bomb demolition scene as tense as something from a Bond film.  It doesn’t hold together that well but is still enjoyable thanks largely to the performances, including many from new faces who would go on to make a name for themselves in the British cinema.

Clip

Stray Dog (Nora inu)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by Akira Kurosawa and Ryûzô Kikushima
1949/Japan
Film Art Association/Shintoho Film Distribution Committee/Toho Company
Repeat viewing/Hulu Plus

[box] Det. Sato: A stray dog becomes a mad dog.[/box]

Kurasawa makes a solid police procedural  that harkens back to films like The Naked City and Bicycle Thieves.

It is summer in Tokyo before air conditioning.  Every one is covered in sweat and befuddled by the heat.  After target practice, rookie Homicide Detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) is as drained as everyone else in town.  He lets his guard down for just a second while riding the bus home and a thief pickpockets his service revolver.  He chases the thief but can’t catch up with him.

He reports to headquarters filled with remorse and expecting to be fired.  Instead, he is given the go-ahead to search for the gun.  Disguised as a down-and-out war veteran, he scours the haunts of black marketeers and loose women.

Then the gun is used in a robbery in which the victim is wounded.  Murakami grows more and more desperate to find the thief before the gun can be used again.  He slowly begins to identify with the thief, who like him is a war veteran whose knapsack was stolen on the train home.  Finally, he is teamed up with veteran Detective Sato (Takashi Shimura) and they begin to make some progress.

Kurosawa was still developing the mastery that would reach full flower in the next year’s Rosohomon.His view of crime land Tokyo has always struck me as a bit fanciful but its denizens are nevertheless a lot of gritty fun.  He wrings every bit of heat out of the setting. Mifune and Shimura are great as always.  Not a masterpiece but a very enjoyable film noir.

A Letter to Three Wives
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz; adapted by Vera Caspary from a novel by John Klempner
1949/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Sadie: If I was you, I’d show more o’ what I got. Maybe wear somethin’ with beads.

Lora Mae Hollingsway: What I got don’t need beads.[/box]

If you can look past the 1949 gender politics, you will find a very sly comedy of manners.

The story takes place in an upper-middle class enclave in the suburb of a big city.  Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain) is the farm girl who joined the WAVES and found love with a wealthy officer to whom she is now married.  Rita Phipps (Ann Southern) writes soap operas for the radio and now makes more money than her intellectual college professor husband George (Kirk Douglas).  Lora Mae (Linda Darnell) used her considerable looks and cunning to escape existence on the other side of the tracks by hooking crude but wealthy chain store owner Porter Hollingsway (Paul Douglas).  An unseen presence is Addie Ross (voiced by Celeste Holm) who is admired by all the men as a model of taste and “class” and naturally despised by all the wives.Just as the three friends are about to leave for a picnic on an island without a telephone, they get a note from Addie saying she is leaving town for good and taking one of their husbands with her.  Each of the women has all day to ponder the state of her marriage and look back on the possible reasons they might have to lose their man.

Deborah remembers her first cocktail party at the country club where she appeared in a disaster of a dress and juiced to the gills to calm her fears.  Rita thinks about a dinner party for her philistine boss and George’s rant about mass media.  Lora Mae looks back at  her “courtship” with Porter.  All the women will have a shot at redemption.  With Thelma Ritter to provide a constant backdrop of wisecracks.

The Mankiewicz dialogue is a razor sharp, if a little stagy, and all three actresses sparkle. Darnell and Paul Douglas’s bickering exchanges are classic.  Recommended to all those looking for a good time.

A Letter to Three Wives picked up Oscars for Best Director and Best Writing, Original Screenplay.  It was nominated for Best Picture.

Trailer

Thieves’ Highway
Directed by Jules Dassin
Written by A.I. Bezzerides from his novel
1949/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Nico ‘Nick’ Garcos: Do you know what it takes to get an apple so you can sink your beautiful teeth in it? You gotta stuff rags up tailpipes, farmers gotta get gypped, you jack up trucks with the back of your neck, universals conk out…[/box]

Before the Blacklist bit down too hard, there were many of these exposés of cutthroat capitalism.  This one takes the analogy out of the boxing ring and into the unexpected territory of bringing fruit and vegetables to the table in California.

Nick Garcos (Richard Conte) comes home from the war flush with the money that will allow him to start in business with the father of long-time girlfriend Polly.  He is appalled to discover, however, that his trucker father has lost his legs in a trucking accident.  This happened after a drunken night with notorious produce distributor Mike Figlia (Lee J. Cobb) and his boys.  Nick’s father is sure that Figlia didn’t pay him for some tomatoes Figlia sold on consignment.  After his accident, the father sold his truck to Ed Kinney (Millard Mitchell) who likewise has not managed to pay.

Filled with righteous indignation, Nick heads off to repossess the truck and drive to San Francisco for a confrontation with Figlia.  Instead, Ed convinces him to invest his nest egg in the first Golden Delicious apples of the season and join him in hauling the fruit to San Francisco.  Nick survives a near-death experience with a flat tire on the journey and makes it there in one piece.  Ed takes much longer with his rig, which is on its last legs.

On arrival, Nick seeks out Figlia who is desperate for the apples.  Figlia uses every trick in the book to basically steal the fruit out from under him.  One of these is the lures of the streetwise Rica (Valentina Cortese).  Despite her callousness, though, Rica eventually becomes Nick’s one ally.  With Jack Oakie and Joe Pevney as truckers who tail the convoy like vultures looking to cash in if the truck breaks down.

Filmed on location, this has a gritty documentary feel and some excellent acting.  Every single person in it, even Nick, is looking to make a quick buck, not caring who gets hurt in the process.  I wondered how Figlia could have stayed in business for more than a week using his tactics.  This time around I was also bothered by the obviously tacked-on Hayes Code speech by a policeman on taking the law into one’s own hands and the rushed resolution of the Conte-Cortese romance.  Even as I cut pictures a lot of slack for the time, I like my happy endings to be prepared for.

Trailer