"Dinner at Eight" (1933)

"Dinner at Eight" (1933), directed by George Cukor, 4 stars

“Nothing can be done. That's the unfortunate thing about death. It's so terribly final. Even the young can't do anything about it.” – Carlotta Vance

This depression era gem, which sits at number 85 on the American Film Institute’s (AFI’s) top comedies (100 Years, 100 Laughs), explores both the idyllic and the carnal qualities of young love, the jaded, depressed, and corrupt side of the more mature set, and betrayals of various sorts that plague young and old alike.  Although characterized by AFI and others as a comedy—and it certainly does have its fair share of farcical wits about it—the fact that infidelity, bullying, financial ruin, heart disease, and suicide are all critical plot points, I consider the film more of a drama.  For some characters things do end well, but for others, not so much.

The studio certainly didn’t advertise it as a comedy—at least not in its posters or previews.  MGM’s publicity department concentrated instead on the film’s stellar cast.  “The riches of the entire dramatic world gathered for one stupendous screen entertainment.”  So says the original trailer for the film, further professing that it even dwarfs MGM’s own “Grand Hotel," released the year before with many of the same actors.

The invitation to dinner certainly does extend to several of the biggest names in the entertainment industry in the early 1930s.  Most prominent are John Barrymore as Larry Renault, an actor once known for his “great profile” and now unable to get even small, supporting parts, Lee Tracy in the thankless role of Max Kane, Renault’s supportive, fast talking agent, Wallace Beery as Dan Packard, a rough-hewn and unscrupulous financier, Jean Harlow as Kitty, Packard’s young, fast, and free-spirited platinum-blonde wife, Lionel Barrymore as Oliver Jordan, a sickly shipping tycoon with his business on the rocks, and Billie Burke as Millicent, Jordan’s next-to-neurotic wife whose dinner plans set most of the plot in motion.  Oh, yes, there’s also Marie Dressler as Carlotta Vance, grande dame of the New York stage, who is wise, wizened, and not nearly as well-off as her fading finery would have everyone believe.

A quick plot summary: An eponymous 8pm dinner is being given by the Jordan’s for the esteemed Lord and Lady Ferncliffe.  Things go badly right away.  Carlotta, Oliver Jordan’s former lover and erstwhile Broadway star, drops by to borrow money just as the Jordan’s shipping line is discovered to be in severe financial straits.  Dan Packard, the person Jordan looks to for succor, sees this instead as an opportunity to suck up the stock at a rock bottom price.  The Jordan’s daughter has recently become enamored of an aging alcoholic stage actor, and horror of horrors, there is an uneven number of dinner guests now that Carlotta is on the scene.

The major actors in the film are so spot on in their roles that one gets the distinct impression that the original play (or at least, the modified screenplay) was written specifically with them in mind, Larry Renault, the John Barrymore character, most particularly.  I’ve watched and enjoyed the film at least twice before, but I liked it more than ever this time.  Perhaps, this was because I saw it for the first time in a theater, on a large screen, and surrounded by an audience.  But I suspect that my increased pleasure derived even more from the attention I paid to the difference of opinions expressed by the free-spirited youthful dinner guests and their boxed-in elders. As I’m not getting any younger, I was able to appreciate both perspectives much better now than in the past.

“Moonrise Kingdom” (2012)

“Moonrise Kingdom” (2012), Wes Anderson, 3.5 stars

“What kind of bird are you?” – Sam

Wes Anderson’s quirky “Moonrise Kingdom” rolls back the clock to the 1960s and recounts the tale of a pair of lonely and troubled pre-teens who run off together to escape the anguish of their anything but normal lives.  Sam (Jared Gilman) is a member a khaki scout troop bivouacked for the summer on the island of New Penzance.  Suzy (Kara Hayward) is the eldest child in a massively dysfunctional family that lives on the island.  Her parents, Walt and Laura Bishop (played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), two lawyers teetering on the edge of divorce, communicate through a megaphone, and her mother is having an affair with Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), the island’s only police officer.  Sam’s skills as a scout facilitate the pair’s escape despite the fact that Suzy is dressed as if she’s on her way to Sunday school and has brought along many of the comforts of home, including a suitcase, a cat, and a record player.  Captain Sharp enlists the aid of Scoutmaster Ward (Edward Norton) and his troop of eager khaki scouts, but the couple remains one step ahead, in one scene by unleashing some unexpectedly gruesome violence on their pursuers.

Much of the action within the film borders on the absurd, but the cast plays it completely straight, which makes the staging and reciting of their lines very funny.  The camera seems to be constantly on the move, dollying left, right, up and down and not at all self-conscious about the sweeping movements that give grandeur to rather ordinary scenes.  Scenes within the massive Bishop house are the most elaborately staged with characters entering and exiting the frame as the camera dollies with or in opposition to their movements.  Even static shots call attention to themselves: many are photographed from high or low angles (seldom straight on); many are filled with odd color combinations; and many catch characters behaving in ways you just don’t expect, for instance, Walt shuffling about with an axe on his shoulder and a bottle of wine explaining to his sons that he’s about to chop down a tree. (Actually, you might expect him to do that if you’ve seen the trailer.)   It’s a quirkily constructed piece of work in which quirky characters find comfort in each other’s quirky company, and it feels as if everyone involved, the camera included, had a good time making the film.  I had a good time watching it, and so did the audience I saw it with.

“Underworld” (1927)

“Underworld” (1927), directed by Joseph von Sternberg, 4 stars

“There was something I had to find out – and that hour was worth more to me than my whole life” – Bull Weed 

Anyone familiar with the cycle of gangster films from the early 1930s will see in this movie much of the familiar iconography of that genre: the fast cars, the self-absorbed, wise-cracking dames, the jesterish sidekick, the gangster with a gimmick (this one bends coins in his bare hands), the macho posturing, the fateful signage (“The City is Yours”), the jaunty nightclub (Dreamland Cafe), the car chase, and, of course, the fatal climactic shootout.  George Bancroft is free-wheeling “Bull” Weed, crime boss, Evelyn Brent is “Feathers,” his sultry moll, and Clive Brook, who gets top billing, is “Rolls Royce,” a drunken, down-and-out ex-lawyer who Bull decides to take under his wing during the aftermath of a robbery.  Except for his aide-de-camp, “Slippy” Lewis (comedian Larry Semon), Bull seems to operate pretty much alone.  This is in distinct contrast to his counterpart in the world of crime, “Buck” Mulligan (Fred Kohler), who is full of bullying bravado when cavorting with his carousing companions.

Unlike many gangster films of the thirties, there is very little interplay between the police and the criminal element.  There is no over-the-top cop, detective, or newspaper reporter fixating on getting his man, as there is in “Little Caesar” (1931), “Scarface” (1932), and, most prominently, in MGM’s reactionary answer to the crime film, “The Beast of the City” (1932).  There is Buck, who though constantly surrounded by compatriots, always feels overshadowed by the larger than life persona exuded by Bull and, thus, overcompensates in ways that invariably backfire.  In a sequence that may have inspired the opening scene of “Rio Bravo,” Buck tosses a $10 bill into a spittoon both to impress Feathers and to demean Rolls Royce, who is is now sweeping floors at the café.  Unlike his kindred spirit in the Howard Hawks oater (Dude, played by Dean Martin), Rolls Royce does not take the bait by (literally) lowering himself to pick up the money.  His response infuriates Buck—especially because his gang finds it amusing.  After demanding that Rolls Royce pick up the bill, in a cleverly constructed subjective shot from the point of view of Rolls Royce, Buck throws a vicious punch to the stomach to which the camera reacts by suddenly panning upward as if being struck by the blow.

All of the deadly sins except, perhaps, gluttony feature prominently at one point or another in the film, and they escalate the violence which ultimately culminates in the killing of Buck Mulligan by Bull Weed.  Despite the laxity of the production code in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Hollywood’s rules of the game nearly always mandated that murderers meet their just reward before the house lights came back on.  Bull winds up on death row, and Paramount executives almost sentence the film to the same fate.  The studio wasn't particularly happy with the end product and gave it a very limited release.  Then, something unexpected happened:  the public took the film by storm. Screenwriter Ben Hecht was initially so angry at Director Von Sternberg's modifications to the script that he asked that his credit be removed.  It wasn’t, and Hecht won an Oscar for it at the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929.  The popularity of crime films has not diminished since that time, and anyone who enjoys the genre should watch this film and see how all the fuss began. 

Mimic (1997)

Mimic (1997), directed by Guillermo del Toro (3.5 stars)

“We don’t even know what the impact is of what we did.” — Dr. Susan Tyler

"Mimic “was director del Toro's second film and his first foray into Hollywood.  According the commentary that accompanies the Blu-Ray release of the "director's cut," the lessons he learned during the making of "Mimic" would prove extremely valuable to him as a filmmaker--in hindsight if not at the time.  Constant clashes between del Toro and the producers resulted in significantly dumbing down the film by the time it was released, so the 2012 director's cut is his best effort to eke the most out of the footage that was shot.  And say what you will about the Hollywoodization of the plot, the visuals and themes that permeate the film are pure del Toro.  It is appropriately dark and stormy, and the subtle interplay of shadow and fluid camerawork does a good job keeping viewers on the edge of their seats for much of the film.

The plot is sure to be of interest to entomologists everywhere. For two years, Strickler’s Disease, a bug-borne virus that ravages the young, has infested New York City. Peter Mann (Jeremy Northram) of the CDC solicits the assistance of Professor Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino), who comes up with a cockroach cocktail that contains the spread.  Unbeknownst to all concerned, however, the cure has severe side effects.  Termed the “Judas Breed,” Dr. Tyler’s molecular mix of manta, termite, and cockroach DNA disrupts the metabolism of all three insect species, causing the fortunate few that have survived to regenerate, mutate, and grow at a staggering rate. Three years later, members of the brood begin to emerge from abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city streets and, the first casualty—pure del Toro—is a priest.  The man falls to his death while fleeing a shadowy pursuer, and he is then dragged into a nearby sewer.  It requires several tugs from within to pull the priest through the narrow hole.  As his bones crack, the cross he wears around his neck gleams in the rain-reflected street lights.

Those familiar with del Toro’s work will not be surprised by the overarching presence of Christian iconography, of which this is only one early example.  Other of the director’s signature themes are also on display, including oversized, fierce and filthy insects, young people trying to make sense of a world gone mad, and painful cuts that are difficult to watch—and here I am referring to bloody slashes and gashes, not to the editing of the film.  Familiar thematic motifs also recur, particularly, that of redemption.  The major characters, especially the two scientists and Leonard (Charles Dutton), a policeman and fellow traveler on a descent into progressively deeper and darker circles of Hell, face seemingly insurmountable odds in their individual sacrificial quests to save the lives of others.

Although a more visually and narratively consistent film in its reedited form, “Mimic” still suffers from a “too many cooks in the kitchen” syndrome fostered, it seems, by too much attentive care and feeding by studio executives.  Nevertheless, it’s a cut or two above other semi-apocalyptic thrillers, and it preserves in celluloid (like insects in amber) the evolutionary imprint of a young filmmaker on the rise.

"Double Indemnity" (1944)

"Double Indemnity" (1944), directed by Billy Wilder, 5 stars

“They’ve committed a murder.  It’s not like taking a trolley-ride together where they can get off at different stops.  They’re stuck with each other, and they’ve got to ride all the way to the end of the line, and it’s a one-way trip, and the last stop is the cemetery” – Barton Keyes, Claims Manager

"Double Indemnity" is one of the best examples of 1940s film noir and stands at 29 in the American Film Institute's 10th anniversary listing of the top 100 American films of all time.  Fred MacMurray plays Walter Neff, a top-of-his-game insurance salesman and Barbara Stanwyck plays Phyllis Dietrichson, the slinky wife of a client whose auto policy has come due.  It's lust at first sight, and the two fairly quickly concoct a scheme for killing the husband and cleaning up on his accident insurance policy.  If he dies on a train, an actuarial improbability, the policy pays double (hence the title), so that's the plan.  The story is loosely based on a real murder committed by Ruth Snyder and Henry Judd Gray in 1927.

MacMurray, best remembered for his later forays into Disney comedies (e.g., "The Shaggy Dog" and "The Absent-Minded Professor") and for the iconic and extremely long-running sitcom, "My Three Sons," was equally adept over a decade earlier adopting the necessary hard-boiled persona he exudes in this film.  As the murder plot unravels, so does he, but to outward appearances, he remains cool, calm, and collected.

The plot unfolds as a series of first-person narratives spoken into a Dictaphone in the office of Neff's colleague, Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson in, perhaps, his very best role).  Neff appears to have been shot in the shoulder, and each time an episode ends and cross-fades back to him, the spot of blood on his coat grows larger.  The narration is filled with tough-guy colloquialisms and sparks fly in the banter between Neff and Phyllis.  And well they should.  The screenplay was written by Raymond Chandler based on a 1936 novel by James M. Cain.  This duo along with Dashiell Hammett were the masters of the genre in literary form and are variously responsible for other cinematic and literary pulp classics such as "The Maltese Falcon," "Out of the Past," "The Postman Only Rings Twice," "Murder My Sweet," and "The Big Sleep."  And then there's relative newcomer to directing, Billy Wilder, whose "Sunset Boulevard" a few years later takes first-person narrative to a whole new level, putting words into the mouth not of a man who is dying, but one who is dead before the film begins.  "Double Indemnity" is an early example of what the French would later dub "film noir."  Its fatalism prefigures the post-World War II cycle that would become pervasive until the McCarthy witch hunters weighed in and laid waste much of the pool of talent responsible for identifying and illuminating the darker corners of American life.

"The Unholy Three" (1925)

"The Unholy Three" (1925), directed by Tod Browning, 3 stars

“The Unholy Three” was the third of ten silent films Lon Chaney made with director Tod Browning (known also for sound films such as “Dracula” and “Freaks”).  The film also stars Victor McLaglen as the sideshow strongman, Hercules, and Harry Earles as Tweedledee, a politically incorrect little person billed as “Twenty inches! Twenty years! Twenty pounds! The Twentieth Century Curiosity!”  With Chaney as Echo, the ventriloquist, the men partner to become the pseudonymous unholy three, opting into an ostensibly easy life of crime.  In short order, however, we learn that this is no group of criminal masterminds. But I’m getting a little ahead of their story.

The film begins at a pretty sleazy indoor carnival where performers, including the three principals, a tattooed lady, a sword swallower, and Siamese twins, are flaunting their unique qualities.  Among the onlookers is Mae Busch as the not so sweet Rosie O’Grady.  She busily picks various onlookers' pockets, much to the delight of Echo, who watches her while performing his act.  He’s clearly smitten, but as this is a Lon Chaney film, there’s no chance of their relationship ending well.  In fact, things go in a southerly direction rather quickly.  Tweedledee kicks a young boy in the face for making fun of his height, and the unholy ones together with Rosie escape just as the cops come to call.

After their abrupt departure from the carnival, they pool their resources and open a store that sells birds.  The shop owner is Grandma O'Grady, who is really Echo in drag.  Tweedledee also gets into the act by dressing himself in swaddling clothes and impersonating a toddler (see photo below).  Grandma hires Hector (Matt Moore) as the store's sales clerk, and Rosie immediately takes a shine to him, much to Echo's distress.  But before things deteriorate, Grandma hobbles around the store selling talking parrots to rich patrons by projecting her voice, thus creating the illusion that the birds are speaking to the customers.  Their words appear on the screen in animated cartoon bubbles, a nice touch.  Because the homes where the parrots wind up are regularly robbed soon after they arrive, the cops come once again to call.

In a scene reminiscent of Hitchcock, a detective interviews the unholy three.  Tweedledee has stashed stolen jewelry in a toy elephant which the detective inadvertently kicks.  He then picks up the toy, begins playing with it, and in the process, hears something rattle from within.  The camera cuts between the detective's examination of the object and the fearful faces of the unholy trio, each increasingly worried that the man will stumble upon the hidden treasure.

He doesn't, so the group decides to implicate Hector in the robbery and then flee the scene of the crime, accompanied by a fifth companion: a giant chimpanzee.  As Hector goes on trial for theft, the fugitives hole up in a mountain hideaway, getting increasingly jittery, greedy, and treacherous in their isolation.  In a final fit of pique, Tweedledee lets loose the chimp and, sorry to say, things go very badly.

At almost 86 minutes, “The Unholy Three” seems a bit overlong.  The attraction that Rosie develops for Hector doesn’t really ring true—at least not in movie terms.  Matt Moore plays Hector as a four-eyed wimp, and Mae Busch’s Rosie is way too sassy and street-wise to find much use for a guy like that.  But somebody other than Chaney needs to get the girl, and Hector, assuming he's found not guilty, is the only guy around.

The film, which cost just over $100k to make, grossed over seven times that amount.  Its financial success, combined with the prospect of adding not only multiple faces but multiple voices to his repertoire, induced Chaney to remake "The Unholy Three" five years later as his first and only sound film.

Prometheus (2012)

Prometheus (2012), directed by Ridley Scott, 3 stars

I tried my best not read anything about “Prometheus” before seeing it because I was so looking forward to being blown away by the return of Ridley Scott to the Alien franchise.  I still remember sitting in the front row on the day that “Alien” opened at the Uptown Theater in Washington, DC and being thrilled and chilled as the crew desperately tried to combat a terrifying, seemingly indestructible creature that neither they nor the audience had ever seen the likes of before.  I knew nothing at all about “Alien” going into that film other than its catchphrase: “In space, no one can hear you scream.  About “Prometheus,” I knew nothing other than Noomi Rapace (“Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) and Charlize Theron (“Monster”) were in it and that Michael Fassbender (“Shame”) played a robot.  Although I did a pretty good job clearing my mind of any preconceptions, my gut reaction to “Prometheus” both as I watched it and almost immediately afterward was a feeling of disappointment.  I haven’t given up on the Alien franchise by a longshot, but I think it needs more of an infusion of creative energy than this film gave it to keep the series going.

It begins with a humanoid drinking a putrid-looking liquid which almost immediately dissolves him down to his DNA.  His molecular structure washes into the river below where it mingles with the fast flowing waters.  Cut to a cave where an ancient painting discovered somewhere in the Isle of Skye includes a familiar pattern of stars.  Although invisible to the naked eye, apparently, this configuration has been seen in preserved drawings from Egyptian, Mayan, Babylonian, and other ancient cultures (but not from the recently discovered imprints from Spain, which some are theorizing to be Neanderthal in origin—hold that thought).  How could ancient humans know about this?  The answer to that and other fundamental questions of species origin are first and foremost on the minds of scientists and soul mates Elizabeth Shaw (Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green).  So persuasive are they in their arguments that these are clues to the dawn of humanity that an aged tycoon, Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce in less than becoming or convincing makeup), finances a trip to the stars.  Or so we are led to believe.

As should come as no surprise, upon arriving at their destination, the crew discovers that the world they have landed on is fraught with danger, and their reactions in general are, unfortunately, less than cool, calm and collected.  Two easily freaked-out scientists head back to the mother ship only to get lost and then wind up trying to befriend a cute little slithering creature that, true to form, welcomes them with open mouth.  David the android concocts his own mischief and the results are about as bad a breakup as possible between doctors Shaw and Holloway.  Ships and chests explode violently and no one—including me—is any more the wiser by the end of it all.  Check out this video after watching the film to hear from some equally confused, kindred spirits.

I wanted something smarter.  Sure, the characters in the original “Alien” were pretty much decimated, but they really were trying to do the right (and smart) thing given the circumstances.  In “Prometheus,” it’s not really clear what motivates anyone.  You'd think that on a mission as critical and as well-financed as this one, the crew would not start coming apart so quickly.  Also, I found I really liked the space jockeys (now referred to as “engineers”) much better dead than alive.  They were much creepier that way.  The 3D and Microsoft-inspired computer effects were nicely-done, and petite Noomi Rapace does a great job following in the gigantic footsteps of Sigourney Weaver’s mythic alien-buster Ripley.

There are many (many) sites out there that attempt to explicate far better than I the critical elements of the film.  This FAQ is a good place to start.  I'm guessing that most fans of the original series (or some subset thereof) will like but not love this film.  I suspect, too, that viewers who haven't seen any of the earlier films won't miss much if they see this first, but I certainly hope that, if nothing else, "Prometheus" inspires this group to see "Alien," which without question remains one of my favorite horror films.  Watching it again even now can make me (with apologies to Paul Simon) still queasy after all these years.