Monthly Archives: August 2023

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

Directed by Alexsey Menshev
Written by Valentin Chernyk and Vladimir Menshev
1980/USSR
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube

Georgiy ‘Gosha’: How come you never did get married?
Katerina ‘Katya’ Tikhomirova: I was waiting for you.

This sweet coming-of-age romance movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture in a Foreign Language.

The story follows the lives of three female high-school graduates from graduation day until they turn 40. All three get factory jobs immediately thereafter.

Ludmilla (Irina Muravyova) is flamboyant and well-dressed. She has her eyes set on a rich or at least distinguished husband. She gets her opportunity when her friend Katya (Vera Alentova) gets the call to pet sit at the apartment for her well-off uncle. Ludmilla tags along and is soon inviting a bunch of eligible men for a dinner party with the two of them. Both begin relationships with men at the party. These are disappointing to say the least. Will they find happiness in the end?  With Aleksey Batalov (The Cranes are Flying).

This is a very enjoyable look at the image the USSR wanted to project in 1980. The story is sweet and satisfying. Oscar material? I don’t think so.

Street of Chance
Directed by James Cromwell
Written by Oliver H.P. Garrett, Lenore J. Coffee and Howard Estabrook
1930/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

I do not hold that because the author did a bad job of writing the player need trump it with the same kind of acting. When I go into a picture I have only one character to look after. If the author didn’t do him justice, I try to add whatever the creator of the part overlooked. – William Powell

Kay Frances and William Powell team up again in an early talkie melodrama.

Powell plays a famous professional gambler. Francis is his long-suffering wife. She is fed up with Powell’s constant absences and has filed for separation.

Powell doesn’t want her to leave and vows to go straight and take her on a grand holiday. The reconciliation is interrupted be the arrival of Powell’s bother (Regis Toomey) who is looking to gamble his entire life savings in the big city on the chance of trebling his money. This leads to a series of misunderstandings while Powell tries to teach Toomey a lesson. With Jean Arthur in a small role as Toomey’s fiancée.

I thought this was OK, though hardly gripping.  It is available for free on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQpJFNP1frI

Fan-made trailer (can be seen via Watch on YouTube link)

Kagemusha
Directed by Akita Kurosawa
Written by Masato Ire and Akita Kurasawa
1980/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Shingen Takeda: I am wicked, as you believe. I am a scoundrel. I banished my father and I killed my own son. I will do anything to rule this country. War is everywhere. Unless somebody unifies the nation and reigns over us, we will see more rivers of blood and more mountains of the dead.

This epic look at identity is notable for Kurosawa’s gorgeous use of landscape, settings, and costumes. Tatsuya Nakadai gives a magnificent performance in the dual role of a warlord and his hapless double.

It is 1574. Warlords are fighting among themselves for ultimate control of a united Japan. A trio of the strongest clans are at war. The life of each warlord is constantly in danger.

The brother of the warlord Shingen Takeda (Tatsuya Nakadai) has been acting as his double, taking the risk in public.

But now the clan elders have found an even more uncanny double in the form of a peasant thief who was about to be crucified (also Tatsuya Nakadai). He is extremely reluctant to take on the role but you didn’t argue with warlords in 16th century Japan and live. Finally the real warlord is wounded in battle and asks his clan not to reveal his death and to defend the castle for another 3 years.

The thief proves to be very convincing in his part. Will he be able to relinquish it when the three years are over?

Although there was a message I think I missed, I really enjoyed this movie. The acting was superb, the costumes were sumptuous, and Kurasawa’s staging of the various armies was magnificent. Recommended.

Kagemusha was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Foreign Language Picture and Best Art Direction – Set Decoration.

Superman II
Directed by Richard Lester (theatrical release); Richard Donner (Director’s Cut)
Written by Mario Puzo and David and Leslie Newman from a character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
1980/US
IMBd page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

General Zod: [as somebody pulls a gun on him] These humans are beginning to bore me.

When I saw this way back when at the movies, I preferred the sequel to the original.  Donner’s cut took so much of the fun out of it that it is now much worse than the original.

Most of the cast of the first film is back in this one. Kryptonian villains General Zod (Terence Stamp, Lara (Susannah York) and Non (Jack O’Halloran) escape the Phantom Zone and sow chaos on Earth. In the meantime Superman (Christopher Reeve) is distracted by his new romance with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) who had discovered his identity. Will love interfere with Superman’s duties?

The romance was not given as much prominence as in the Lester version.  And Lester captured the comic book campiness of the original.  To add to its demerits,  there is not nearly enough Gene Hackman.

Fame
Directed by Alan Parker
Written by Christopher Gore
1980/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Angelo: [Starts playing his son’s tape on top of loudspeakers on his cab] My son’s music! My son Bruno, Bruno Martelli, he wrote the music! Today 46th street, tomorrow Madison Square Garden!

Several days ago, I watched Alan Parker’s “Fame” (1980). I remember this from original release. It did not disappoint this time around.

The film is about a students at the New York School for Performing Arts. The story takes us from the tension of auditions to graduation day. But don’t worry there is plenty of teenage angst and drama.

The angst doesn’t measure up to the fabulous dancing and the Academy-Award-Winning title song and score, which has stood the test of time.

Music video – not the movie version