Flickers in Time

Bad Day at Black Rock
Directed by John Sturges
Written by Millard Kaufman and Don McGuire based on a story by Howard Breslin
1955/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#287 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] John J. Macreedy: What did Komoko have to do with Corregidor?

Reno Smith: He was a Jap, wasn’t he?[/box]

This is an excellent modern-day Western looking at the dark heart of xenophobia in America.

It is 1945.  John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) stops in the hamlet of Black Rock.  His train is the first to have stopped there in four years and the town looks like it consists of about four or five buildings.  He is trying to visit a man named Kokomo who lives in nearby Adobe Flat.  Macreedy’s mere presence was greeted with great suspicion by the townspeople and, once they hear his purpose, he can find neither shelter nor transportation.  The two elders of the community – its drunken sheriff (Dean Jagger) and doctor (Walter Brennan) – try to warn him away.

Then Reno Smith (Robert Ryan), clearly the town’s unofficial “boss”, shows up and things start to get even more scary.  However, Macreedy manages to commandeer a jeep from gas jockey Liz (Anne Francis).  He discovers Kokomo’s house burned down and what seems to him to be a grave.  Now Macreedy’s life is truly in danger but the one-armed man reacts to all threats with equanimity.

The rest of the film is filled with suspense as our hero tries to stay one step ahead of certain death.  With Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine as thugs.

This is a smartly shot and tightly wound film.  Some of the best actors of the 1950’s are gathered here and all in top form.  The message transcends its wartime setting.  One quibble I had was that Macreedy probably had a good chance to go for help early on which he squandered.  But I suppose if he had acted with greater caution we wouldn’t have had a film!  Recommended.

A Bad Day at Black Rock was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actor (Tracy); Best Director; and Best Writing, Screenplay.

The Mad Masters (Les maîtres fou)
Directed by Jean Rouch
Les Films de la Pleiade
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Personally, I am violently opposed to film crews…. The ethnologist alone, in my mind, is the one who knows when, where, and how to film, i.e. to do the production. Finally, and this is doubtless the decisive argument, the ethnologist should spend quite a long time in the field before undertaking the least bit of film making. This period of reflection, of learning, of mutual understanding might be extremely long, but such a stay is incompatible with the schedules and salaries of a team of technicians. — Jean Rouch[/box]

The best thing about this documentary is that it lasts only 25 minutes.  I found it very distressing.

Documentary filmmaker Jean Rouch takes his camera to Accra, Ghana where we see Africans laboring in the busy city to support “colonial oppression”.  Some of these men gather every day at noon.  On the weekends they transition from modern workers to become Haukas.

The men have constructed their version of the white colonial world with a makeshift governor’s palace and idol of the governor.  The ritual consists of going into a frenzied trance in which their bodies are occupied by caricature versions of the colonial powers such as the governor, a doctor, his wife etc.  During the trance, the men foam at the mouth and stagger around.  They begin to mutilate themselves.  The high point is the sacrifice and consumption of a dog.  Yuck.

I am nothing if not a completist and I found this 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die film on YouTube.  I wish I had died before I saw it.  When I watch things like this I can’t help suspecting that the filmmaker is somehow egging the subjects on. I’m also not quite sure about the political construct Rouch has overlaid the film with.

All That Heaven Allows
Directed by Douglas Sirk
Written by Peg Fenwick; story by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee
1955/USA
Universal International
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#314 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Kay Scott: Personally, I’ve never subscribed to that old Egyptian custom….of walling up the widow alive in the funeral chambers of her dead husband along with his other possessions. The theory being that she was a possession too. She was supposed to journey into dead with him. The community saw to it. Of course it doesn’t happen anymore.

Cary Scott: Doesn’t it? [/box]

Douglas Sirk’s critique of 50’s middle-class morality features eye-popping visual storytelling.

Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) is in early middle age, a widow, and the mother of two young adult children who no longer live at home.  Since her husband’s death, her life has been restricted to country club functions and the tepid courtship of a stolid older man who is always complaining about his aiilments.  She puts on a brave face but you can tell her life is just about killing her.  She confides in her best friend Sara (Agnes Moorehead) who does not seem to understand.

One day, as Sara has stood up Cary for a lunch date, hunky younger gardener Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson) materializes to take her friend’s place.  They immediately hit it off and eventually Ron asks Cary out to his place in the woods to see the trees he is growing. After a few minutes of hesitation, she agrees.  She is soon impressed and a bit frightened by Ron’s Waldenesque unconventional way of life.  Before too long they are in love and Ron asks her to marry him.  She waveringly accepts.

Cary is unprepared for the scandalized reaction of the country club set and, more particularly, her own children.  People object to Ron for both his age and his social standing.  There is a veiled assumption that Ron is after Cary’s money and some murmuring that the relationship must have pre-dated the death of Cary’s husband.  Will Cary have the backbone to go to the altar?

On this viewing of the film, what hit me hardest was Sirk’s barely hidden challenge to the assumption that there is something wrong and even “bad” about a woman of a certain age having sexual needs or desires.  Cary’s old escort is not a threat in this regard.  And by the end of the film even Ron has been rendered “safe”.  The irony is palpable.

The color scheme is vivid and underscores the film’s themes.  Cary is in greys throughout except during the country club scene where she wears a red-dress and becomes the unwilling target of a drunken married lech.  The composition reveals the claustrophobia of Cary’s existence.  The TV set sequence is just brilliant and really does not require words.  The years have provided the film with a feminist subtext that belies its sudsy exterior.  All That Heaven Allows is melodrama for sure but I feel less teary than angry when I watch it.  Recommended.

Trailer

Marty
Directed by Delbert Mann
Written by Paddy Chayevsky
1955/USA
Hecht-Lancaster Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rentaL
#291 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Marty Pilletti: Listen Angie, I been looking for a girl every Saturday night of my life. I’m 34 years old. I’m just tired of looking, that’s all. I like to find a girl. Everybody’s always telling me get married, get married, get married. Don’t you think I wanna get married? I wanna get married. Everybody drives me crazy.[/box]

The ending makes me cry every time.

Marty (Ernest Borgnine) is a good-natured butcher who still lives with his mother into his thirties.  All his many brothers and sisters are married.  His mother is forever nagging him to meet a girl and his man friends always want him to join them in their sexual escapades. The problem that he is not particularly good-looking and is awkward around women.  His life has made him a “professor of pain”.

Then one night, he goes to a local dance hall and rescues a Clara (Betsy Blair), an equally shy girl who has been dumped by her blind date.  Marty finds he can talk up a storm around her and enjoys her company.

However, as soon as he thinks he has found his match, his mother and man friends start getting very nervous.  And poor Marty does not have much of a record of standing up for himself.

A lot of this film is almost painful for me. People are certainly cruel.  I am so glad not to be out there in the dating world!  However, I love the movie any way for the performances and for the human story.  Borgnine reveals depths he did not show often before or after this picture.  Recommended.

Marty won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Director; and Best Writing, Screenplay.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Supporting Actor (Mantell); Best Supporting Actress (Blair); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black and White.

Trailer