Monthly Archives: July 2020

Le cercle rouge
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville
France/1970
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

Le chef de la police: All men are guilty. They’re born innocent, but it doesn’t last.

Terrific French noir from the master of the genre.

As the story begins, Corey (Alain Delon) is preparing to be released from prison. A guard sneaks into his cell and tells him about a “no-risk” jewel heist opportunity just waiting to be taken up.  The super-cool Corey is not overly enthusiastic but says he will look into it.

Simultaneously, Vogel (Gian-Maria Volonte) is being transported by train handcuffed to Police Inspector Mattei (Brouville).  Vogel manages to escape and is relentlessly pursued by Mattei for the rest of the film.

Corey’s first act upon release is to relieve his former criminal associate of several thousand francs he believes are owed to him and a gun.  The victim’s henchmen are now on the hunt for Corey.

Vogel frantically looks for a hiding place and selects the trunk of Corey’s car.  After the men size each other up, they become partners and begin planning the heist.  A drunken sharpshooter (Yves Montand) completes the heist team.

The heist takes  27 minutes and is completed without any dialogue whatsoever.  It is mesmerizing – like the rest of this sparsely written but meticulously filmed beauty.

OK, get ready for a gush.  This movie is fantastic in every way. I love movies that get down to the details of how things are done and found this completely engrossing. And what a cast!. Henri Decae’s cinematography, full of moody blues, is superb. Includes a nice score by Eric Demarsan.  Recommended.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto)
Directed by Elio Petri
Written by Elio Petri and Ugo Pirro
1970/Italy
IMDb page
First viewing/Netflix rental

Il Dottore – Former head of homicide squad: The people are children and, therefore, we have no choice but to repress: The repression is our vaccine!

I loved how Petri’s brilliant political thriller seamlessly blends sexy suspense with a savage indictment of corruption in high places.

Gian Maria Volonte (he is never named in the film, I will call him Il Dottore) is about to leave his job as Chief of the Homicide Division for a promotion to the Political Department.  He and his mistress Augusta (the smoking hot Florinda Bolkan) like to indulge in mildly sado-masochistic fantasies in which he either plans her murder or subjects her to a humiliating interrogation.  We see one such role-play as the movie begins.  There will be flashbacks to previous sex games throughout the movie.  Within a couple of minutes, Il Dottore murders Augusta for real.  He deliberately plants evidence pinning the crime on himself.

Although he is no longer Chief of Homicide, he inserts himself as thoroughly into the investigation as if he were.  His former employees and even his replacement are awed by and afraid of Il Dottore.  Il Dottore is even more sadistic in his work life than he is in his sex life.  He uses his considerable clout and commanding presence to lead the entire homicide squad on a wild goose chase while providing additional information against himself and  taunting them the entire time .  He is trying to find out if he really is above the law.

In the meantime, it is 1969 and Il Dottore is in charge of putting down violent political protests by young revolutionary radicals and Communists.  He is as brutal at this as at everything else and his interrogation style suits his penchant for cruelty.    At some point the murder investigation and the political repression intersect.    I will stop there as this really is a mystery in which the question was is not who-dunnit but why and whether the homicide squad will ever discover the identity of our crafty killer.  The movie has an unforgettable ending.

I was really impressed with this movie. The story is engrossing and the images are stunning. Gian Maria Volonte was born to play this kind of role and is superb here. The upbeat score is by Ennio Morricone. Recommended.

The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Picture.

U.S. trailer (dubbed, I watched the subtitled version)

Three Reasons to Watch

George C. Scott won the Best Actor Oscar for his memorable performance as General George Patton in Fox’s classic war biopic Patton  but he declined to accept the nomination and the gold statuette award (and did not attend the awards ceremony in 1971), because he did not feel himself to be in any competition with other actors, calling it a “meat parade” or “meat market.” Earlier, he had declined his nomination for his role in The Hustler (1961), becoming the first actor to decline an Oscar nomination.

With Helen Hayes’ win as Best Supporting Actress for Airport, she became the first person to receive Academy Awards in the two categories honoring performers. She had previously won Best Actress 38 years earlier for The Sin of Madelon Claudet.

MPAA’s “M”(Mature) rating was changed to PG (Parental Guidance). Nevada millionaire Kirk Kerkorian bought MGM in 1970, and then promptly downsized the company.  The sell-off financed an expansion of Kerkorian’s hotel-casino investments, and began a decline for the studio.

Plenty of actors made their film debuts including: Tommy Lee Jones; Diane Keaton; Susan Sarandon; Sissy Spacek; and Sylvester Stallone.  The film world lost Cathy O’Donnell; Ed Begley; Billie Burke; Edward Everett Horton; and Charles Ruggles.

Richard Nixon ordered troops in Vietnam to cross the border into neutral Cambodia.  The Ohio National Guard shot 13 students at Kent State, killing 4, at protest rally against the war.  Eleven days later police shot 12 students, killing 2, during racial violence at Jackson State University in Mississippi.  The voting age was lowered to 18.

An oxygen tank exploded and Apollo 13’s lunar landing was aborted.  After much anxiety, the crew was brought safely home.

“Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel spent six weeks on the Billboard charts and was the No. 1 hit of the year.  The music world lost Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

Collected Stories by Jean Stafford won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; No Place to Be Somebody by Charles Gordone won for Drama; and Seymour Hirsch won the International Reporting Prize for his exclusive disclosure of the Mei Lai massacre in Viet Nam.  Time Magazine’s Man of the Year was West German Chancellor Willie Brandt “for his bold approach to the Soviet Union and the East Bloc”.

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The list of movies I will select from is here.  I would be glad to get suggestions for anything good I may have left out.

Montage of photos from Oscar winners

Montage of photos from Oscar nominees in the major categories

All My Good Countrymen (Vsichni dobrí rodáci)
Directed by Vojtech Jasny
Written by Vojtech Jasny
1969/Czechoslovakia
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

“The moon does not care if the dog barks at it.”  — Czech proverb

This film, perhaps the last of the Czech New Wave, mixes savage political commentary, black comedy, and poetic imagery.

The story follows life in a rural Czech village from 1948-68.  The villagers’ customs and manual farming methods could have been used in any of the last three hundred years.  Their peace, so recently broken by the Nazis, is now blasted by a growing communist movement.  Finally, most farmers and small entrepreneurs are collectivized out of existence.  Thugs use threats to gain Party loyalty.  Rebels disappear suddenly.

We get some black comedy in a plot thread that follows a young “Merry Widow” as each of her many boyfriends and husbands meet with sudden accidents and worse.  We also get plenty of absolutely lyrical scenes in the fields and within the village.

This was a pleasure to watch and a nice way to end my viewing of 1969.  Recommended.

Clip – no subtitles

The Milky Way (La voie lactee)
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carriere
1969/France
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed. – Christopher Morley

There’s is something to offend everyone here, especially devout Catholics.  I thought it was pretty hilarious.

Two penniless bums are on a pilgrimage from France to Santiago de Campostela in Spain. They meet many strange people along the way from various eras.  All are talking and/or arguing about theology.

At the end of the film we learn that every bit of dialogue is taken from the Bible or old theological treatises.  I recognized some Q & A’s from the Catechism too.  Their application to the many absurd situations is pretty perfect.

I don’t know why I didn’t expect much from this film and was pleasantly surprised.  I had a blast and would recommend it to those who are not easily offended.