So, before I head off for an actual meeting with an actual exec producer, some semi-baked thoughts on Bunuel's DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID, adapted from Octave Mirbeau's novel, which I re-saw as part of the Jeanne Moreau retrospective. Actually, I was arguably seeing it for the first time, since my V.H.S. experience was not wide-screen. Bunuel can't have made many 'Scope films, but he seems perfectly at home in the wide format. And is there anything more beautiful than black-and-white wide-screen? Maybe it's just the rarity, since wide-screen came into existence parallel with the dying days of black-and-white so there are relatively few films made in both (although THE BAT WHISPERS is an almost-unique 1930s wide-screen experiment, and the occasional film like THE ELEPHANT MAN has united monochrome and 'Scope).

I always enjoy this film up until the ending, but this time I was determined to get something positive from the ending as well. I failed. I always get sucked into seeing the film as a detective thriller, which it definitely functions as from the time of the murder onwards -- a country house detective thriller, in fact. Of course, the real point is the satirical dissection of French society, and this is terrifically enjoyable. Bunuel's houseful are all enjoyably strange, and while many people wouldn't regard the film as surreal at all, there are aberrant moments like the secret chemistry lab belonging to the mistress of the house, where she presumably "minces among bad vats and jeroboams, spinneys of murdering herbs, and prepares to compound [...] a venomous porridge" for her husband. Michel Piccoli (with hair! on his head!) is the husband, a pitch-perfect portrait of baffled idiot virility, a surging pillar of testosterone reduced to the infantile by his hormonal geyser.

Moreau is part bitch-goddess, part warm and humane heroine, depending on who she's dealing with. She seems to live by a version of Raymond Durgnat's Proletarian Ten Commandments -- "Thou shalt not strive too hard, or jump through more hoops than you have to. Thou shalt not offer to take another person’s place, or help out unless you’re not paid to do it ... blood transfusions aren’t paid for. Thou shalt not expect good treatment. Thou shalt always look for the catch, for what the other person gets out of it. Thou shalt contemplate defeat, but not change yourself to avoid it. Thou must become accustomed to always being out-talked and made to look a fool and put in the wrong ... but Thou shall not be moved ... Oh, and don’t be downhearted." And she becomes the detective heroine, which is exciting.

Except -- and I can't really call this a spoiler, but look away if you're worried -- she doesn't catch the killer. The film seems explicitly to identify him at the moment the crime is committed, but since the horrific act itself is literally unshowable, his guilt isn't 100% certain. At a certain point, one begins to doubt if Moreau has set her sights on the right man, and a conventional thriller would have allowed us to jump ahead and suspect Piccoli, only to produce a third, surprise suspect as the guilty party, someone we had dismissed. This being Bunuel, I would then expect some turnaround that leaves the guilty unpunished and the innocent "getting it in the neck", to use Joe Orton's description. The ending we get produces no such twists, allowing a happy ending for the killer but transferring the political subtext from the background, where it has been simmering away very effectively, to the foreground, where it seems rather crude and programmatic. The crash of thunder at the end seems particularly unfortunate, especially as Bunuel's mastery of surprising sound juxtapositions has been very much in evidence: a screeching flock of unseen schoolchildren, a loud passing train where no train can be seen, and sounds that recur, linking apparently unconnected scenes.

I thought of Bunuel and Carriere's script for THE MONK, eventually filmed by other hands, which likewise avoids the ending dictated by genre but is actually less startling than the "conventional" punishment meted out in Matthew Lewis' gloriously excessive Gothic novel. Maybe it's possible to be too clever with these things. I guess the all-round happiness of the ending -- with the fascists on the march -- comes closest to THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ, which has an absurdly upbeat ending I'm very fond of.

If Jean-Claude Carriere's script-work with Bunuel, on their first collaboration, doesn't quite satisfy me, his performance as the village priest is hysterical. I wanted more of him. I wanted him to have his own series of films, dispensing awful, cynical advise to his parishioners in exchange for funds for repairing the church roof. He seems about to advise the mistress of the house on how to satisfy her husband without the painful and abhorrent business of penetration, when the alarm is raised and he's reduced to uselessly attempting to kick down an oaken door ("Damn it!") -- the lady's father has dropped dead in his locked bedroom while fetishizing a pair of patent-leather shoes, demonstrating that John Carradine's advice to his sons -- "Never do anything you wouldn't be caught dead doing" -- is not always so easy to follow.

When a character says "I've got my reasons," I was of course reminded of Renoir. So I must watch his version of DIARY, which stars Paulette Goddard and is knocking about the house somewhere. Otherwise this is like a kinky GOSFORD PARK -- no bad thing.

This post originally appeared on my personal site but since I have been called upon to lead Vaulting Sky I take up the challenge of facing ridicule and exposing myself to bodily harm on this, our feature blog. Alone and shivering I creep forth, compelled by some dark force to step out and proclaim that the films listed at the end of this post are the greatest westerns ever made.

What prompted this seedy daring? Our need for lists and cataloging, foolish ego and the plain old fact that if one has a blog it might as well be an interesting and occasionally hilarious read. Without this what is the point of blogging? The very fact that we are here in the blogging universe says to the world, “Hey, look at me. I may not be pretty but, darn it, I exist!

Then there is the fact of the Western. It is an invented art form and perhaps, along with jazz, the only art forms to be almost wholly formed on American soil.

The Old West as it comes down to us in the movie art form called “The Western,” is mostly myth. We all know or have caught hints that Wyatt Earp was considerably less than his self-generating reviews which were ripe for the pickings for an America hungry for heroes (When isn't America hungry for heroes?), and the horrors of the Native American ordeal in this country are now widely known fact.

Yet Hollywood found a way to express itself most powerfully by taking the dime-store myths of quick-draw, gun-slingers and Indian Fighting he-men and blowing them up into epic heroes while burying beneath the vast landscapes and sun-blasted exteriors the fears, the desperate hopes, and the yearning for role models that might teach us how to be good people in a world gone gray from compromise.

A man could walk alone in a movie western and declare the hard truths of black and white though, beneath this gritty, rock hard exterior lay a man wrestling with fears and doubts just like the rest of us.

And no movie star did this better than the much maligned, much hated, much under-rated John Wayne an actor whom, in his element, was as great an artist as Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando, James Cagney, Burt Lancaster, Anthony Hopkins, Kirk Douglas, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Al Pacino, and Robert Ryan.

In Wayne we have an actor that carried the whole world in his eyes and much of that world contained all the hurt and pain that would subdue any thousand men, let alone one, lone hero. But more on Wayne, later.

You will note the presence of Eastwood, Bronson and Scott, but neither Cooper, Flynn nor Ladd made the list. Their Westerns are certainly interesting but they lack that complete package that would put them on such a list as this. Script, direction, and acting must all combine to make a memorable western and while I do enjoy “Shane,” “They Died With Their Boots On,” and “High Noon,” they are not works of art, or those works that repay careful attention and grow richer upon repeat visits.

An aesthetic statement?

Yes.

A shabby one?

Yes.

Scary?

I scare myself!

Thus, without further ado here are, in my throttled, beaten down, kicked and cudgeled opinion, the greatest westerns ever made (and below the list an attempt at commentary on each of the films):

1. "The Searchers"

2. "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"

3. "Ride the High Country / "The Wild Bunch"

4. "Red River"

5. "My Darling Clementine"

6. "Once Upon a Time in the West"

7. "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"

8. "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon"

9. "Rio Bravo"

10. "Stagecoach"

Hang on, a commentary, for what its worth, follows:

1. "The Searchers"

(Ford Dir., Wayne, Hunter, Miles)

Stop. I know the rage. I know the blows. I understand the frustration. But stop.

There is one thing we have to understand. There will never be an answer for John Wayne the creature, the man, the symbol, the poster boy, the devotee, the siren, the patriot, the loon, the lunk-head, the icon. There can only be a serious appraisal of John Wayne's movies by serious people. Wayne was said to be a bore, a racist, a misogynist, a goon, a coward, and a draft dodger. It is known that he escaped service from not one but two "patriotic" wars. (I understand the need to fight WWII but WWI?) At any rate, this small aside simply shows us the baggage that already attends to the Duke even before we might consider Wayne as Donposa has, rightly in my opinion, called him: one of the very greatest artists that America has ever produced.

Wait I have just taken a huge guzzle of Trader Joe's excellent Harris Tawny Port the better to ward of the cudgeling I suspect is my due for having uttered, for some, such profound nonsense. No, I am not drinking straight from the bottle. Besides the bottle is not even in a brown bag which, as we all know, is the only proper way to bottle-guzzle. And I am not "snifting" from a big fat jar passing as a glass. You John Wayne haters will stop at nothing. Nothing!

Further:

I am not a member of the John Birch Society nor have I ever aspired to be.

And, finally, no I am not some vile, backseat goon screaming out "Bomb, bomb, bomb, / bomb, bomb Iran."

I am a mere fan, perhaps soon to be an ex-fan but I warn you: the authorities have been alerted. If anything happens to me this blog will go dark--so there.

With such a safety net in place I can now, loudly, er, make that quietly but with some measure of conviction, proclaim that the greatest Western ever made is John Ford's "The Searchers." Wait. Ok it was the alarms but my security cameras only picked up a strange looking man in a hoodie rifling through my neighbor's Infinity Q45. I will say this about that: "I'm glad it's not me!"

Back. "The Searchers." It is terrifying. No, not because John Wayne enters the frame, (Stop it haters!), but because it starts in mystery and ends in mystery and you cannot imagine an end for any of the main characters. What has gone on before the movie's legendary final shot is mostly horror and the anticipation of horror. Even attempts at humor are bathed in a glow that breeds horror around the next bend. It is a movie of massacres and crushed young love and thwarted hearts that burn with rage at memories too painful to dwell on and too precious to totally still.

"The Searchers" is searing in the vile racism breathed by its main character, Wayne's Ethan Edwards, the unreconstructed Confederate (Yes, a Johnny Reb!). But "The Searchers," on the other hand, is unapologetic also about its stern condemnation of this same man's hate, his sometimes boorish behavior and his eventual "turning."

"The Searchers" is lurid in its great action scenes in that they are played out with hatred as their real base.

Wayne's character is one of only three film roles where Wayne disappeared and a towering figure of world class art emerged, hideous warts and all. The other two film roles were: Tom Dunston in "Red River," and Captain Nelson Brittles in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon." Here are characters that rival Cagney's Cody Jarrett and George M. Cohan; Bogart's Fred C. Dobbs and Commander Phillip Francis Queeg; Brando's Don Corleone; Al Pacino's Michael Corleone; Russell Crowe's Captain Jack Aubrey and John Nash; Denzel Washington's Trip and Malcolm X; Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle, Johnny Boy, Jake LaMotta, Jimmy Conway, and young Don Corleone. In short Ethan is allowed to be himself without any interference from the "star" playing him.

"The Searchers" is screaming. It is a shout heard across endless deserts and lonely mountain-ringed plains. Ford's eye misses nothing and the vast, glorious landscapes that he captures become, in themselves, characters and players in this greatest of American epics.

You know the plot. Some adore it; others scowl when they speak of it.

Mystery, unrequited lust, love never achieved, a life consigned to wandering, massive defeats, the greatest scene of impending doom ever captured on the screen. Desperate battles, Revenge--strangled. Burning passions. Seemingly unquenchable hatreds. Towering crescendo. Mystery again.

Max Steiner's score is one of the greatest ever produced by Hollywood and Stan Jones' title song, sung by the venerable Sons of the Pioneers (Roy Rogers' old group), enters the memory and the heart like it is brain matter and heart tissue.

There are a few films that might equal "The Searchers" as the greatest film ever made but none, however, surpass it.

2. "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"

No one begrudges “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” its towering status as one of the greatest movies of all time. Indeed it may be the second most outrageous “great” film ever made. If, to stray for a moment, “Chimes at Midnight,” where Orson Wells attempts to cram pieces of the two Henry IV plays, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Richard II, and Henry V into a tidy epic with a showpiece battle scene thrown in for good measure for a total package that runs just under two hours (The result: A stupendous triumph!), is the most bold and positively insanely outrageous of the great movies, then TGTBTU, with its epic Civil War backdrop and its characters lust for gold, is right up there in its class.

TGTBTU is a Western that takes to the extreme the possibilities inherent in the genre. It is a film of lean, angular poses and sharp colors. Its dialogue is often terse and pointed so that lines ricochet around the memory for quite awhile before becoming spent. Eli Wallach’s Tuco is given some room to run gloriously around like a firecracker forever lit without igniting, but the film draws its strength from the iconic poses of Clint Eastwood’s Blondie and Lee Van Cleef’s Angel Eyes. They bookend Tuco’s nervous energy with their tall, rail thin frames. They are all about looks and poses and they both possess a serene languor that while quietly breathing menace it is yet a menace with verve and a real sense of style.

A quibble might break forth about which of the two Sergio Leone masterpieces might hold sway if put into a locked room with a bottle of Gran Patron on the table between them. I believe “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” would emerge from the room, bloodied but victorious.

The key is its entertainment value. TGTBTU repays countless viewings. One never tires of its mysteries. Its use of its hero Blondie is subtle and assured. Blondie may be a jackal but he is a jackal with a heart, not of gold, mind you, but a with a heart nevertheless. It is Blondie who sees Tuco’s humiliation at his priestly brother's hands and wisely keeps this to himself; it is Blondie who has sympathy for the Union Captain forced into senseless battles for worthless objectives; and it is Blondie who covers the dying Confederate teen with a warm coat, offers him a smoke, and stays with him until he perishes.

But Blondie is not, by any means, soft and emotional. He is a thug and as greedy and as opportunistic as either Tuco or Angel Eyes. And from this stand Eastwood and Leone never yield (although there are rumors that Leone kept wanting to change the script on the set but Eastwood, wisely, refused) for a moment. Thus it is after the Confederate youth dies that Blondie coolly takes the same cigar that the youth sucked on and lights a canon that is calmly aimed at the fleeing Tuco!

“Once Upon a Time in the West,” is certainly Charles Bronson’s greatest film and he is as iconic as Eastwood in some ways. But Eastwood looks as if his whole persona was built for leans and poses. Bronson has a scrambler’s look–he’s Blondie in Tuco’s body and clothes. OUATITW is a tad more moving. I don’t know what it is but I get teary-eyed when Bronson looks at Claudia Cardinale and says: “Now I gotta go,” and he leaves with both of them knowing they will never see each other again.

Henry Fonda’s villain is sublime in OUATITW. It is a late triumph for the old time mega-star and he brings to the role of the wicked Frank the same conviction that he brought to his very best heroic films. He is relaxed, funny and wholly, and unapologetically, murderous.

But OUATITW falls off with the Cheyenne story line that features Jason Robards. Here the movie sags a bit and though Robards is his usual excellent self he isn’t given much to do. The witty lines, the cool poses, the sense of frame owning is denied his character. Is this a case of one star and story line too many? Perhaps.

Even Morricone’s superb soundtrack seems to meander with Cheyenne’s character and that is something unheard of on a Morricone score.

Finally, the OUATITW story of how the West was settled and the epic glory of the first Western railroads is a wonderful one but Leone makes much more use of the Civil War backdrop in TGTBTU. The throwaway scenes are downright jaw dropping. There is, for example, the magnificent scene where the retreating Rebs flow through town as canon shots boom all around them. Meanwhile the real action is the hunt for Blondie by Tuco and his men going on upstairs in a hotel. And what can one say about the great shot of Union soldiers shooting a deserter as Blondie and Angel Eyes ride into town looking for the buried gold that everyone wants. As the war swirls around them, Blondie, Tuco and Angel Eyes are reside in their own parallel universe

Enough! In the end taste will out and if someone prefers “Once Upon a Time in America” over “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” they are, in the end, on as equally a solid piece of ground as I believe I am.

Finally, there is the late, great Leone, the fabulous Italian filmmaker, the master of framing and a visual poet on par with Vidor, Mann and Scorsese. In his hands the Western was both poetry and music. Landscapes, characters, ideas all flow by, now in tumultuous riot, now in quiet concert and with Morricone’s head spinning scores accompanying his vision, Leone pulled off that rare thing that only great artists are able to pull off: he created two works that triumph both as crackling entertainment and as profound art.

3. "Ride the High Country / "The Wild Bunch" (tie)

(Peckinpah Dir., Scott. McCrea [Country]; Holden, Ryan, Borgnine, Johnson, Oates, O'Brien [Bunch]:

Two towers from Peckinpah.

Both made in the 60's. "Ride the High Country" could stand here alone and be fine. Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea two of the old stars of Hollywood had moved on late in life when they were called upon by Sam Peckinpah to have one more last chance to star in a Western. It turns out that these mighty veterans knew the worth of the project they were getting into. McCrea is an old, epic lawman fallen on hard times who picks himself up and takes a dangerous job transporting gold from a mine to a bank. This job restores McCrea's pride and confidence and we begin to a late flowering in the old, veteran lawman whose moral code has now been revived. Along the way he partners with his old buddy Scott who was also a lawman veteran but a one who has gone further to seed. Indeed Scott plans to rob his buddy and take the gold!

There may be no more moving Western, save one, than this. Scott and McCrea have never been more towering and Peckinpah's relaxed storytelling and beautiful landscapes capture eloquently the poetry of shifting emotional landscapes. The dialogue is to die for and the movie is full of electrifying set pieces. Yes, it rocks!

By the way, there is only one other great Western ending in the movies that tops the one that ends this masterpiece. Once you watch "Ride the High Country" you will see that I do not speak falsely.

"The Wild Bunch" is the adventure of a gang of thieves whose days of glory are, as William Holden's gang leader Pike says "closing fast." Now, on the surface, the Bunch are mere murderous, thieving louts. They are ruthless. William Holden, Ernest Borgnine (yes, Mchale himself!), Warren Oates and Ben Johnson, play the core gang members. Sam Peckinpah, the director, sets up the gang's M.O. early when the Bunch bursts into a bank at the start of the film and Holden tells his gang of the innocents gathered there:

"If they move--kill 'em!"

On the surface this is not a bunch to take to heart. But Peckinpah keeps our attention on the Gang and as we learn that it functions like a family of outsiders taking their whacks against authority, they not onoy grow upon us but become, yes, endearing! Never lovable they are, nevertheless, men we come to admire for their own sense of right and wrong.

Of course they are also hunted. There is a relentless pursuit of this aging outlaw gang let by ex-Pike partner Robert Ryan's Deke who clearly has not heard of the "stop snitching" campaign now currently littering our urban streets. Ryan's Deke is a broken hood who just wants to lie down and rest. His only chance to escape prison for good is in corralling his old partner and as the weary bounty-hunter/betrayer Ryan is at his very best!

Holden the gang leader? Yes, the mighty Bill! The same William Holden of Billy Wilder's excellent triumphs "Sunset Boulevard," and "Stalag 17." The same William Holden of "Born Yesterday." The same William Holden of "Sabrina." The same William Holden of "Bridge on the River Kwai." Yes, that glorious William Holden.

And he is truly magnificent as one of those heroes who could care less about the outside world and the people in it, but grows towering and inspiring as the leader of his own little universe in which the gang revolves.

Along with Holden and Ryan, Peckinpah also stars. The now celebrated slow motion scenes of mayhem that Peckinpah submitted his audiences to were not properly appreciated in 1969 when the film came out. They are now. And the final walk to the Armageddon shootout must be seen, (I know this is a truly tiresome cliche but here it is gainfully employed), to be believed.

"Ride the High Country" and "The Wild Bunch" could, on their own, top any Greatest Westerns list. Sadly, they cannot here. They are towers. They are at the very highest heights of world cinema and modern art but, incredible as it may seem, two other works must, to this lone blogger at least, be ranked ahead of them.

It is a terrible case to make and I understand this full well. But I shall try to do just that over the coming few days. And I shall tremble all the way knowing that the only supports upon which I might rely are my own judgment and my own daring--shaky as both are.

4. "Red River"

(Hawks Dir., Wayne, Clift, Dru, Brennan, Ireland):

Hawks at his greatest. "Red River"s was John Wayne's breakout film, the film that made Hollywood gasp. Wayne, when broken early, can be one of the very greatest of artists and Donposa is right to point this out. Here he has a tragedy early in life and it profoundly affects his desperation years later as he must move a sea of cattle to the North through Indian territory, drought areas, thieves, and bushwhackers, or else go broke and lose everything.

This is the film that really understood the possibilities of the epic "dark" Western. The real key to this film is how Wayne bitter and despairing one moment can be heroic and epic the next. His Tom Dunston is one of the very greatest characters in the movies.

5. "My Darling Clementine"

(Ford dir., Fonda. Mature, Brennan):

The best of the "OK Corral" epics with Henry Fonda as a wonderful, laid back Earp, Victor Mature as the sick but deadly Doc Holiday, and Walter Brennan as the nasty and murderous Pa Clanton. The scene where Fonda and Cathy Downs, as "Clementine," take their slow walk to the Sunday Dance as the bells clang and flags flap gently in the wind, is one of the greatest in all of the cinema. Girls? Don't worry. You'll see what I mean.The black and white photography is stupendous and Ford is totally on his game. Magnificent!One of the greatest lines in the cinema belongs to Brennan's Pa Clanton:"If you pull a gun--kill a man!"

6. "Once Upon a Time in the West"

(Dir. Sergio Leone; Starring Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, and Jason Robards).

This dark Leone masterpiece is languorous in its pacing and not for all tastes. But it never fails to move if you stay with it. Bronson has never been better and Fonda is absolutely lights out/bonkers as, guess what, one of the greatest movie villains ever! Bronson, a man not given to many words, rides into town to settle a score from long ago. Cardinale arrives from Italy as a mail order bride only to find her “husband” killed by the evil Fonda and his gang. Robards is an outlaw who gets pinned with the murder of Cardinale’s husband. Everything comes together in the end and everything, surprise, works gloriously. The great Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack is almost as towering as his kick-in-the door triumph of a score for “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”

This is a towering work that, in a fair world, might even be considered a top five film. Alas in such a world where great Westerns used to be the norm and not the exception, "Once Upon a Time in the West" must be content with this: a second tier berth in a first rate list.

Cruel world!

7. "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"

(Dir: John Ford; Starring John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, and Lee Marvin).

Late, glorious Ford. Wayne, the Old West, and Stewart, the New West, vie for Miles’s hand. Hovering over everything is Marvin’s superb Valance, a first rate thug to-end-all-thugs. Wayne, however, towers over all and reigns supreme not only as a hero, but as a desperate man who suddenly finds that the world has passed him by. Ford, now indoors, no longer has the majestic sweep of the land that so graced his other Westerns but, for all of that, he has crafted a most intense and highly rewarding drama.

This is a great film if for no other reason than the fact that John Ford with his wild interiors was already pointing to his final masterpiece "Seven Women."

8. "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon"

(Dir: John Ford; Starring: John Wayne, Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson).

The greatest of all cavalry movies. Wayne is an old and grizzled veteran who must lead his men on one last dangerous patrol through hostile Indian territory. Ford brings his “A”-eye to the glorious landscape and Wayne is typically fine. Dru and Agar are the young lovers. The depiction of post-Civil War Cavalry life is fascinating with rifted brevet officers, once commanding hundreds of Civil War volunteer troops, now reduced in rank to Sergeants and Corporals. One ex-Confederate General has even joined up the new, smaller, U.S. Army as a private! Great fun.

9. "Rio Bravo"

(Dir: Howard Hawks; starring John Wayne, Angie Dickinson, Dean Martin and Walter Brennan).

The best of the late Hawks/Wayne Western combine which would yield box office hit after box office hit. Wayne, a drunken Martin, and a grizzled Brennan hold a killer for trial against various attempts to free him. A youthful Dickinson is Wayne’s love interest and she is glorious! She is the Helen of whom Marlowe wrote:

“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?”

Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

10. "Stagecoach"

(Dir: John Ford; starring John Wayne).

Ford’s first iconic Western with Wayne making his first real impression as a star. A stagecoach, filled with colorful passengers, finds itself under Indian attack. Thrilling but only a hint of what was to come with the Ford/Wayne combo).

]]> http://tfwreviews.wordpress.com/?p=13 Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:02:27 +0000 tamfuwing http://tfwreviews.wordpress.com/?p=13 Title The Incredible Petrified World Tagline See women trapped in fantastic caverns at the center of Earth! Date 1957 Director Jerry Warren Starring John Carradine (Prof Millard Wyman), Robert Clarke (Craig Randall), Phyllis Coates (Dale Marshall), Allen Windsor (Paul Whitmore), Sheila Noonan (Lauri Talbott) Links Internet Movie Database entry

SciFi Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection

A scientist has designed a deep sea diving bell, and two men and two women people go down into the inky deep in it. The cable snaps, and the bell lands on the bottom. Unscathed I might add, and not in complete darkness as one might expect. Turns out that there are some caverns, and the foursome swim there in their diving suits. The cable snapped at 1700 feet, and they fell a long way one assumes. Whatever the depth, they don't get squished, and the caverns have air. (The source of the air turns out to be a volcano.)

They determine that they will try and walk to the surface - I didn't get quite how. Through the caverns I guess, aiming up. They even encounter a relic from a sunken ship. That is, a bearded lecherous old man, who's been living down there for 14 years.

One of the women is a reporter. She's a complete bitch, really, and does any screaming and whining that need doing. She even verbally attacks the other woman for no discernible reason whatsoever, except that "[t]here's nothing friendly between two females. There never was. There never will be". Huh? She apologises in the end so that's all right then.

Meantime the scientist on the surface hasn't given up, and fortunately there's this other diving bell ...

This film is also part of the SciFi Classics Movie Pack Collection. It isn't scifi at all - unless you consider the volcano that spews air into undersea caverns SF. Or the diving bell that appears to be a close cousin to the Tardis - it seems to be significantly bigger inside than it looks from the outside.

The film is really silly. What John Carradine was doing in it only he will know. And I didn't see anything incredible or petrified. Maybe they meant the stalactites in the caverns?

In this age of high oddness -- more things are available to see on home video than ever before, but not necessarily the RIGHT THINGS -- it is particularly odd that Otto Preminger's second Hollywood feature, DANGER, LOVE AT WORK, should be available from the BFI on DVD. Why not his first feature? Why not his only pre-Hollywood film? They might be completely negligible (Otto thought so), but then, so is this.

My dog-eared copy of Halliwell's Film Guide calls the film "not inconsiderable", which might be true, but I would go so far as to actually call it "considerable" either. Halliwell then compares the film to YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, which is bang on the money (something that can rarely be said for the once ubiquitous Leslie H, a steaming middlebrow who didn't love anything made after 1968) -- both films try to create comedy out of an excess of eccentricity. Both have dated badly and can irritate more than they amuse.

Preminger claimed that studio head Darryl Zanuck, having handed him the project, tried to foist Simone Simon upon the director as leading lady. OP protested that with SS's scanty command of English she would be unable to cope with the current fashion for fast-talking screwball dialogue, and he claims that after a couple of days filming he was proved right. Simone was sent packing, only making her real mark in American movies a few years later at RKO.

I find it hard to believe that Zanuck would cast Simon as the daughter of a family of wealthy American eccentrics. How would he get around her obvious ooh-la-la? Some studio bosses may have been stupid, but Zanuck wasn't one of them. Preminger tells this story in Gerald Pratley's critical study of the director (mostly a bunch of Otto anecdotes), again in his ottobiography, and it's repeated in Willi Frischauer's unauthorised bio (mostly a bunch of suspiciously similar Otto anecdotes), but I'd love to hear the Zanuck version, or better yet, an account by a neutral third party.

Anyhow, Ann Sothern landed the part, and she's the most appealing feature of the film, sexy and zesty and doing a bit of a Katherine Hepburn impersonation but not so's it gets annoying.

Preminger further claims that Zanuck LOVED what he did with the film, and this is harder still to accept, since it's conspicuously UNamusing for a comedy of this period (it's pretty hard to find dull studio comedies of this era, though they do exist). The film also lacks much of Preminger's flowing visual style, tending to cut into closer views whenever it threatens to get any visual momentum going. The exception is a nice shot that follows Jack Haley and Ann Sothern out of a bedroom, along a looong landing and down a staircase, which also serves as build-up to Edward Everett Horton's entrance.

Horton (see B. Kite's splendid profile in The Believer: "Edward Everett, are you gay?") is another of the film's delights, cast flamboyantly against type as a notoriously "masterful" he-man. As interpreted by EEH, this character is a mass of neurotic tics, obviously living a lie: HE knows he's not masterful, and he expects at any instant to be rumbled by all and sundry, and so he strides around in a perpetual tizzy at the thought of his imminent shaming. A joy.

Jack Haley is a weak spot as leading hombre. With the appearance of a cherub gone to seed, he apparently thinks he's CUTE. Fiona didn't recognise the Tin Man without his lead-based face paint. He proves to be one of those select unfortunate actors who only really works when he's wearing a funnel on his head. Richard Gere is another.

Fiona: "I don't recall Richard Gere ever wearing a funnel on his head."

Me: "He never had. But BOY does he need one."

Also troublesome: John Carradine as Hollywood's idea of a modern artist. One enjoys the Carradine presence, of course -- a cadaver jerked about by invisible wires -- but the loony modern artist is a tiresome comic trope. Then there's the irritating kid -- the problem here is that most Hollywood kids are already irksome without seeming to try (well, they DO try, awfully hard, but to be sweet and moppet-like rather than irksome), so an annoying little professional who's actually an ass-pain ON PURPOSE is more than can be stood without anaesthetic.

What I'm really complaining about is an accumulation of bits of zaniness, that tiresome substitute for the genuinely surprising. In a zany context, almost nothing is surprising except shock brutality (Jack Haley savagely kicking the little boy into a mud puddle isn't funny exactly, but it's a welcome change of tone). And surprise is lifesblood to comedy.

But but but -- Preminger was not totally without comedy props. His two Lubitsch-related films are hard to see, but I did manage to get my mitts on a VHS off-air recording of A ROYAL SCANDAL, made under the Great Ernst's supervision (the other "collaboration", THAT LADY IN ERMINE, was developed by Lubitsch then taken over by Otto after the maestro was struck down by post-coital heart attack). The film has just gotten a BFI DVD release.

And it's pretty good! While most attention has focused on the film being unusually weak for a Lubitsch comedy, one could as well say that it's unusually funny for a Preminger comedy. And it has Charles "Piggy-Wiggy"Coburn, who can't NOT be funny unless seriously handicapped. The script seems to get wittier when he's around, possibly because he's playing a Macchiavellian rogue politician and that's something both Lubitsch and Preminger can get a kick out of. Vincent Price is enjoyable as ever and in the lead, Tallulah Bankhead is a great Catherine the Great.

William Eythe is the weak spot here -- his timing is impeccable (EVERYBODY'S timing is impeccable when Lubitsch is lurking by, he mines comedy from the unlikeliest people) but he lacks charisma, and even in a tight white uniform he doesn't really have what it takes to explain Tallulah's lust for him. But he does get the best gag in the film...

Tallulah has laid her cards on the table -- she hasn't laid William but she's declared she wants to. He steps away from the divan where she reclines and retreats to the wall. Pensive, abstracted in deep thought, he paces the room. For a long time he paces. Preminger's camera follows him in one of those long, elegant tracks. Then -- double take! he paces right into Tallulah, who has left her divan, unseen by us and him, to stand patiently in his path and wait for him to pace into her velvety clutches.

It doesn't sound much, but it's an elegant joke on the camera's ability to be fooled, during a long take, if things don't stay still. It marks the point in the film where Lubitsch's wit and Preminger's rather different pure style come together for one glorious moment.

(Foto de Tipo Gráfico) 

Regresa un hombre a su casa y dice a su mujer que le han despedido. Ella, que está tomando una ducha, le resta importancia. Cariño, ya encontrarás otro trabajo, ¿vienes?... Se les escucha el juego amoroso, y sobre estos arrumacos se superpone la voz del prescriptor de turno. ¿Problemas de erección, eyaculación precoz?...Si su vida sexual funciona, lo demás no importa. Y el prescriptor deja caer el nombre de Boston Medical Group, que no ofrece trabajo sustitutivo, pero te pone lo que te dije más nervioso que el revólver del Coyote.

 Lleva sonando esta cuña en la radio meses y meses. Debe de ser tan mala que ni un viejo profesional de la publicidad como el Duende era capaz de recordar la marca anunciante.  Erre que erre, mira por donde la acaban de pasar a las 7' 59 a.m., y todavía no la ha olvidado su decrépita memoria de mosquito.  Las grandes agencias no se molestan en hacer creatividad para radio, porque la radio, como subraya Ricardo Pérez, no la ve nadie, y vivimos la civilización de la imagen. Da poca fama, y premios menos relevantes que los spots de la tele. Por eso, cualquier tontería vale en una cuña. Sin embargo es de suponer que alguien acudirá a ese instituto para restaurar su virilidad perdida, pues si no la habrían retirado. La cosa es que según están las cosas aunque funcione el remedio harían bien en cambiar la campaña. No es lo más adecuado al momento, francamente. Ese lo demás no importa cuando acaban de anunciar casi doscientos mil parados más, y lo que te rondaré morena, suena como una broma de mal gusto.

El padre Bonete suele recrear en su defensa de la castidad una homilía que es una clásica entre las destinadas a aterrorizar a los pecadores en ciernes. Jóvenes que han cronometrado el placer -explica remarcando con dramatismo cada sílaba- me dicen que éste dura veinte, treinta segundos a lo sumo. Y os pregunto yo... Por veinte segundos de placer efímero...¿vais a arriesgar una eternidad en los infiernos? La operación, claro, no tiene cuenta. En Todo lo que usted quería saber sobre el sexo y nunca se atrevió a preguntar,  Woody Allen presenta a un siniestro anciano depravadillo interpretado por el histórico John Carradine que presume de unos orgasmos de treinta minutos. Ese si que aspiraba, con razón, a la Champions League del sexo, y a lo mejor podría contarnos que, tan largo me lo fiáis, el fin justificaba los medios.

Pero ni siquiera el Zapatero más optimista se atreverá a prometer tanto en ese campo. Y es raro, porque sigue valiendo todo para el personal que entre polémicas obispales, ilegalizaciones sospechosas, listas torpes, mentirijillas feas y datos económicos alarmantes de los que Bush ya no es el único culpable está mosqueado y desmotivado para mojarse en las urnas. Así que más vale que nuestros gobernantes trabajen en serio para evitar que se pierdan más puestos de trabajo.

 Y entretanto, que le ayuden los del instituto de marras, y cambien  el comportamiento de esa tonta para la que un macho con el as de bastos en condiciones  es la panacea de todos los males. Todo es relativo, pero que le vendan a uno el encanto del sexo cuando el horizonte del parado es oscuro y sólo tiene la calle para correr, además de una mentira es una bofetada que no tiene ninguna gracia. Con o sin trabajo, con o sin erecciones, -y más ante las elecciones-  lo demás es lo que importa.

'Peter, an archeological research participant shivers finding out a strange medallion in a mysterious cave. It forms into a beautiful girl but an evil Haggia. He gets hold of Sherry's body and in a wild and animalistic way starts lovegame with her in a rough manner. Sherry realises it was wonderful as he had never made love to her like that. He starts killing, resulting with the involvement of the police. The Bishop's help was sought after to perform the right of Exorcism. Haggia, naked on self-shaking bed, laughing horribly, shouting insults and curses, tries to kill the Monk who at last manages to tie up the damned soul. He takes the crucifix, presses and pours into the mouth of the being resulting in the vomiting of a filthy and horrible liquid.'

A FILM YOU WILL NEVER FORGET

I swear to G*dard, these are the actual sleeve notes from an old VHS of EXORCIST III, in reality an Italian knock-off entitled UN URLO NELLE TENEBRE, and no relation to the real EXORCIST III made some years later by William Peter Blatty (which is rather good).

"Sounds great, honey, let's rent THAT!"

So, if you don't speak English real good and you have no idea how to write... why not get a job writing video blurbs?

Hysteria aside -- this was a sad note for Richard Conte to end on. Aging actors, please be more careful! Remember the wise advice of John Carradine to his sons: "Never do anything you wouldn't be caught dead doing."

Directed by John Ford (Stagecoach, Drums Along the Mohawk), 1940's The Grapes of Wrath is a film adaption of John Steinback's novel worked into a screenplay by Nunnally Johnson. The film stars Henry Fonda (12 Angry Men, The Tin Star) as Tom Joad, the amazing Jane Darwell as Ma Joad, John Carradine as Casy, and a host of others to round out the Joad family and supporting characters. The film would pick up two Oscars, one for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Darwell) and one for director John Ford. It was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Fonda), Best Film Editing, Best Sound Recording, Best Screenplay, and Best Picture. In 1963, The Grapes of Wrath won a Blue Ribbon Award for Best Foreign Language Picture. It also won the 1940 USA National Board of Review prize for Best Picture.

The Grapes of Wrath is John Ford's masterpiece, a film that captures in on the social protest themes of some of Ford's other films instead of the magic of the Westerns by which he was so well known. Ford, instead, tells a sweeping story of tragedy and epic struggle against "the man". He pulls it together in lush black and white cinema, moving characters and pulling in the audience like a master at work. The direction is truly something as the subtle touches pull on the heartstrings of the viewer while the grandeur of it all do the same.

Henry Fonda is tremendous as Tom Joad, bringing out the "good man" character to great levels. He really urges the audience through the picture, rising up to injustice and delivering classic lines with such intensity and grace that you almost forget you're watching a film.

Jane Darwell as Ma Joad deserved every accolade she received for this film. She is simply mesmerizing as the matriarch of the Joad family, struggling to keep her precious family together and supporting her son in all he does. Ma Joad is given tremendous grace by Steinback in the novel and Darwell pulls it off perfectly, playing Ma Joad to a tone that many would select to overdo. Her consistency and emotional range plays out through a subtlety that is rare in cinema.

The film is packed with moving dialogue that captures the plight of the Joad family through this historical event and moves the viewer through the time as if they were perched on the back of the family jalopy and skittering across country looking for work. It is the type of film that both creates anger against injustices and creates a feeling of joy for the uprising of the human spirit in the face of tragedy and hardship. The time is captured beautifully and the mood is stunningly dark and yet victorious.

The Grapes of Wrath is a true film classic in every sense of the word and perfectly captures the time in a sensibility that is owed to Ford's tremendous direction, the cast's tremendous work with the characters, and Steinback's legendary novel of the Joad family.

10/10