Flickers in Time

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.

All I Desire
Directed by Douglas Sirk
Written by James Gunn and Robert Blees from a novel by Carol Brink
1953/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Naomi Murdoch: We’re a big disappointment to each other, aren’t we? You’ve got a mother with no principles; I’ve got a daughter with no guts.

Stanwyck is always worth seeing but I found the story lacking. Sirk is really Hayes-Code bound on this one.

The year is 1910. Naomi Murdoch (Stanwyck) left her husband Henry (Richard Carlson) and three children to be an actress on Broadway. Her daughter Lily (Lori Nelson) is starring in the high school play and sends Naomi an invitation which she accepts.

Naomi arrives and is not exactly welcome with open arms. Lily wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Young son Ted (Billy Gray) wants to get to know her. Henry and daughter Joyce are still bitter over their abandonment. Sara Harper (Maureen O’Sullivan), the local high school drama teacher, has been seeing Henry but her love is unrequited.

The rest of the film involves Naomi’s efforts to get closer to her children, an unwanted advance from one of her former lovers, and an ending that did not seem prepared for to me. If you are looking for the subversive tone and style of later Sirk melodramas you won’t get it here.

The Black Stallion
Directed by Carroll Ballard
Written by Melissa Mattheson, Jean Rosenberg, and William D. Witliff from a novel by Walter Farley
1979/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Snoe: Hey, what happened to you?
Alec Ramsey: Everything.
Snoe: Everything? That’s a whole lot. It can’t be everything.

A beautifully mounted film about a boy and his horse that should appeal to all ages.

Young Alec Ramsey (Kelly Reno, 11) and his father are traveling by ship from Africa to Liverpool. Alec becomes fascinated by an untamed and fierce black Arabian stallion who is being ill-treated by some Arabs. Shortly after this, the ship sinks. Alec survives by holding onto the mane of the stallion as it swims to the shore of a desert island.

For 23 dialogue-free minutes, we see how Alec survives and watch him tame the black stallion, who is grateful after Alec frees him from some ropes.

Some fishermen pass by the island and rescue Alec. He refuses to leave without his horse and the fishermen oblige. Alec takes the Black home where it is not well-satisfied with a suburban backyard.

Eventually, the Black makes his way into the hands of an aging racehorse trainer (Mickey Rooney). So begins Alec’s dream of training the Black to be a racehorse. With Terry Garr as Alec’s mother and Clarence Muse as a philisophical horse and cart owner.

This movie is absolutely gorgeous in every way and one of the most baffling omissions in Oscar history was the failure of cinematographer Caleb Deschanel to earn an Oscar nomination. The other amazing features are the talent of Cass-Olé the horse and Kelly Reno who did most of the riding himself. The movie has a kind of pleasing fairy tale quality that I really enjoyed.

Studio executives delayed the release of this film for two years.  They said “What is this? An art film for children?”.  The film won a Special Achievement Oscar for Sound Editing. Mickey Rooney got a well-deserved nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film was also nominated for film editing. I would have given it nods for the cinematography and for Carmine Coppola’s evocative score.

Pride and Prejudice
Directed by Simon Langton
Written by Andrew Davies from a novel by Jane Austen
1995/UK
British Broadcasting Corporation
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime

Mr. Bennet: For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

I watched Simon Langton’s “Pride and Prejudice” (1995), a six-part BBC mini-series which I regard as the definitive adaptation of Jane Austen’s masterpiece. I just finished my umpteenth re-read of the novel.

The story takes place in the English countryside (lushly photographed) in the Regency period. The Bennet family is headed by Mr. Bennett (a cynic) and Mrs. Bennet (an airhead). The two eldest daughters have grown up to be normal lovely young women while the youngest three take after their mother. Mrs. Bennet is determined to find wealthy husbands for all her daughters and goes about it in an embarrassingly ham-handed way.

Nonetheless, their rich neighbor Mr. Bingley falls for the eldest, Jane. The lively Elizabeth Bennet (Jennifer Ehle) attracts several suitors but is not enthusiastic about any of them. Mr. Bingley’s friend Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth) gets off on the wrong foot with Elizabeth by proving to be haughty and proud.

I will say no more except that the course of true love never did run smooth. There are many comic characters to enjoy on the way to one of the most satisfying endings in literature.

Colin Firth is devastatingly attractive in this film. He specializes in scowling, sending smoulderingly hot glances, and looking like a deer in the headlights when Elizabeth is around. Ehle makes the perfect Elizabeth. The supporting cast is equally good. I especially liked Anna Chancellor as Caroline Bingley this time through. She tries so hard to be snarky but just puts her foot in her mouth every time. Highly recommended to all fans of the novel.

Thunder on the Hill
Directed by Douglas Sirk
Written by Oscar Saul and Andrew Salt from a play by Charlotte Hastings
1951/US
Universal International Pictures
First viewing/Criterion Channel

A really good detective never gets married. — Raymond Chandler

This is a well-made melodrama and mystery but the story didn’t quite work for me.

Sister Mary Bonaventure (Claudette Colbert) is a nursing sister at a hospital in the English country side. She joined the convent to assuage some not very well explained guilt with regard to the suicide of her sister. She is a very competent and well-respected nurse. One of the lay nurses hates her for always being right.

As the story begins the hospital is overloaded with refugees from a major flood. Among them are Valerie Carns (Ann Blyth) and her jailers. Valerie is on the way to Norwich to be executed for murdering her brother. She is very bitter.

Sister Mary softens her up and begins to be convinced Valerie is innocent as she has claimed all along. She begins investigating despite many orders not to interfere. In my opinion, the identity of the real culprit is evident way too early in the story. With Gladys Cooper as the Mother Superior.

First you have to get over Colbert’s casting as a nun. She is quite good though, unlike Blyth who overdoes it. The dialogue also is overblown. It kept my interest though and has some good noirish cinematography by William H. Daniels.