Monthly Archives: February 2023

Emma
Directed by Douglas McGrath
Written by Douglas McGrath from a novel by Jane Austen
1996/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon rental

Mr. Knightley: Vanity working on a weak mind produces every kind of mischief.

Shockingly, I had not yet seen this adaptation of Jane Austen’s wonderful novel.

Emma Woodhouse (Gwyneth Paltrow) is rich, beautiful and 21. She keeps house for her kindly but hypochondriac father. A daily visitor to the Woodhouse estate is neighbor Mr. Knightly (Jeremy Northham). As the story begins, Emma is congratulating herself on making a match between her former governess and a wealthy businessman.

Emma is now bored and meets Harriet Smith (Toni Collette), the naive natural daughter of who knows whom. Emma’s next project is to make a match for Harriet. She quickly persuades Harriet to reject the marriage proposal of a prosperous farmer and begins to lay a plot to match Harriet with the local vicar Mr. Elton. This fails disastrously.

I don’t want to spoil the nifty plot for anyone so will stop here except to say that it takes a while for Emma to get over herself. The fun is seeing how she gets there. With Ewan McGregor as Frank Churchill.

I love the book and I really enjoyed this film. Paltrow does well and Toni Collette is hilarious. The only nit I would pick is that Northam seems too young to play Mr. Knightley but he is so appealing I didn’t mind much.

Rachel Portman won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, the first woman to do so. The film was nominated for Best Costume Design.

The Tall Men
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Written by Sydney Boehm and Frank S. Nugent from a novel by Heck Allen
1955/US
Twentieth Century Fox
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Title card: Montana Territory – 1866. They came from the South, headed for the goldfields… Ben and Clint Allison, lonely and desperate men. Riding away from a heartbreak memory of Gettysburg. Looking for a new life. A story of tall men – and long shadows.

This Western didn’t grab me but the male leads are very good in it.

Ben (Clark Gable) and Clint Allison (Cameron Mitchell) have recently been discharged from the Confederate Army at the end of the American Civil War. They are en route to prospect for gold in Montana but need some capital. They try to rob wealthy businessman Nathan Stark (Robert Ryan). Instead he convinces them to become partners on his cattle drive from Texas to Montana.

Then Ben rescues starving Nella Turner (Jane Russell) from a watery grave. They banter and spar the way people who will get together by the end of the movie normally do. Then Stark begins to court her as only the monied can do.

The rest of the film is filled with Indian Attacks, bandits, and a showdown between Ben and Stark.

Jane Russell who sings the rather corny title song several times is the weak link in the cast of this movie. The men are strong and you have to root for Clark Gable of course. But I really couldn’t get too invested in what happened to the characters.

The Wanderers
Directed by Philip Kaufman
Written by Rose and Philip Kaufman from a novel by Richard Price
1979/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Chubby Galasso: It’s a shame to see kids beatin’ each other’s brains out, especially when there’s no financial advantage.

My favorite thing about this throwback to the early sixties was its fantastic soundtrack of rock and pop hits from the period

The year is 1963. The city is New York. At the local high school boys join gangs that represent their ethnicity, etc. The Wanderers are an Italian Gang. It is a more innocent age. There is always a brawl going on but fists are the only weapons. Their main rivals are the Baldies. We focus on a group of guys who just graduated high school. Some of them are beginning to think about breaking away. Others comfortably assimilate into the lives of their parents. With Karen Allen as a love interest and free thinker and Linda Manz as a pint-sized female hanger-on to the Baldies.

I had never seen nor heard of this movie. I like Philip Kaufman’s films a lot and this was a solid springboard to better things. The non-professional cast of teenagers were appealing though none would go on to stardom except Karen Allen.

Love on the Run
Directed by François Truffaut
Written by François Truffaut, Marie-France Pisier, Jean Aurel, and Suzanne Schiffman
1979/France
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Liliane: You can’t make everyone else pay for your rotten childhood.

Truffaut brings his Antoine Doinel series to a most satisfying conclusion.

Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is now in his thirties and has just published his first autobiographical novel. He and wife Christine (Claude Jade) are divorcing. He is currently seeing Sabine (Dorothee) a record store clerk but is naturally commitment phobic. During the course of the film he will run into most of the women he has loved before.

This is the most meta film I can think of. Truffaut not only brings in many of the characters of his series, including in a moving scene Antoine’s stepfather, but illustrates past happenings with clips from the earlier films. And everything flows and does not come off gimmicky. Truffaut was extremely lucky in the choice of his young alter ego and Leaud maintained his high quality throughout the series (and later). And the ladies are all gorgeous. This is a comedy about the messiness of love and I highly recommend it.

North Dallas Forty
Directed by Ted Kotcheff
Written by Frank Yablans, Ted Kotcheff, and Peter Gent from a novel by Gent
1979/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Phillip Elliott: Hell coach, I love needles.

Very seventies movie takes a look at the underbelly of professional American football and will probably be best appreciated by its fans.

Philip Elliott (Nick Nolte) is the star wide receiver on a team called “North Dallas” (a stand-in for the Dallas Cowboys). He’s aging and has acquired many injuries over the years.

The team members are tight and always ready for a party, as wild as possible. Elliott has been there and done that. He meets a soulmate, Charlotte (Dayle Haddon) at one such party and they become a couple despite Dayle’s discomfort about what football is doing to Elliott.

The more serious parts of the film show how the management is more concerned with wins than with the health of their players. The Super Bowl game puts Elliott into a crisis of conscience. With Mack Davis, Bo Svenson and John Matusack as players, Charles Durning as the coach, and Dabney Colman and G. D. Spradlin as management types.

I like Nick Nolte. And this is not a terrible movie. It does focus on the sport and I’m sure I would have liked it even better if I were a fan.

Tess
Directed by Roman Polanski
Written by Gerard Brach, Roman Polanski and John Brownjohn from a novel by Thomas Hardy
1979/UK/France
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Mrs. Durbeyfield: We all have to take the ups with the downs, Tess.

The story takes place during the Victorian Period in Hardy’s fictional Wessex County. Tess Durbyfield i(Nastassja Kinski) is the eldest child of many in the household of John and Joan Durbyfield. The house is living in severe poverty, largely due to John’s drinking. One day, a vicar tells John that his family is actually related to the aristocratic d’Urberville family. Mrs. d’Urberville lives not far away and John sends Tess to try to get some money. John has lost his horse and needs it to make the little he does earn.

Alec d’Uberville (Leigh Lawson) greets her and is instantly attracted. He tells her, though, that her family could not be related to his since his family bought their title. His family is very wealthy in any event having made their money through trade. He gets Tess a job in the poultry yard.

Alex pursues Tess for a long time. Finally he manages to get her to kiss him and that kiss turns into a rape. Tess departs for home and soon discovers she is pregnant.

Her baby dies within months and she leaves her home to wander. Finally she gets a job in a dairy farm, where she meets Angel Clare. The two fall in love. Is Angel what Tess is looking for?

I love Victorian literature but I have never been able to get enthusiastic about Thomas Hardy. His novels are slow and downbeat. That’s part of the problem of this movie which is also slow and downbeat if not depressing. The two men are very flawed and Tess mostly mopes around being a victim. But I am perhaps biased. There is no arguing with the stunning beauty of Kinski (only 17 years old) and the magnificent cinematography and production values.

The Tarnished Angels
Directed by Douglas Sirk
Written by George Zuckerman from the novel “Pylon” by William Faulkner
1957/US
Universal International Pictures
IMDb pageFirst viewing/Criterion Channel

Ted Baker: On the level, what’d you do last night?
Burke Devlin: Nothing much:just sat up half the night discussing literature and life with a beautiful, half naked blonde.
Ted Baker: You better change bootleggers.

I was excited to see this because it features the same stars and director as were in “Written on the Wind” (1956), which I love. I was not as crazy about this one.

The year is 1932. “The Flying Shumanns” travels the air show circuit. Roger Shumann (Robert Stack) is an alcoholic WWI flying ace. He treats his family badly. Wife Laverne (Dorothy Malone) is a daredevil parachutess. Filling out the company is son Jack and mechanic Jiggs (Jack Carson). The family has very little money.

Reporter Burke Devlin (Rock Hudson) runs into them, lets them share his modest apartment, and decides to write a story about what ever happened to Roger Shumann. In the process of his investigation he comes to despise Roger and become drawn to his wife.

This is OK. I missed the technicolor and the over-the-top trashiness of Dorothy Malone’s character from Written on the Wind.