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Hollywood or Bust obv

Yeah that’s a great one that I’ll have to revisit before list-submission, but I think I already wrote up for this project. I meant outside the Jerry Lewis collabs, all of which I’ve seen.

The Lieutenant Wore Skirts is pretty funny, though not in danger of making anyone’s list

As far as 50s Tashlins go, Rock Hunter is undoubtedly the best. Son of Paleface has its moments, but Bob Hope is an absolute drag and the satire doesn’t land often enough. The Girl Can’t Help It is definitely the lesser of the two Mansfield films, and as domino says The Lieutenant Wore Skirts is worth seeing but not enough to force yourself here. The rest aren’t even close.

Not sure if you're leaving off Susan Slept Here because TWBB already mentioned it, but that one's definitely at least even close. Of the Lewis collabs, I'm most fond of Artists and Models (possibly because it was my first) and The Geisha Boy

Yep, I left it of for that very reason! I do agree that it’s close, probably second to Rock Hunter in terms of the non-Lewis films.

swo17 wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 6:51 amOf the Lewis collabs, I'm most fond of Artists and Models (possibly because it was my first) and The Geisha Boy

The Geisha Boy is one of my favorite Lewis films period, and definitely in the running to make my list. I watched all three of these top Lewis/Tashlin mentioned at the very start of the project, yet none of them are on my tentative list even in the reserve section. Great excuse to revisit them.

Of those other Tashlins I’ve at least seen The Girl Can’t Help It but remember nothing about it- thanks for the recs

Not even Little Richard?

Bitter Victory (N. Ray 1957). Curt Jürgens and Richard Burton are at the head of a British WWII commando raid on Rommel’s headquarters in Libya, but the real test is the long, anguishing trek back across the desert to Egypt. At the heart of the film, however, is the moral duel between the conflicting officers. Jürgens is the higher ranked but a “professional coward”, although given it’s a Ray film the character isn’t all black and has his own vulnerability. This is the film Godard ranked as the best of the year, and that inspired him to write that there had been theater (Griffith), poetry (Murnau), painting (Rossellini), dance (Eisenstein) and music (Renoir), but now there was cinema (Ray). I don’t know what he was smoking there, I clearly don’t see it. It’s a solid little film, but I don’t see any greatness, and definitely nothing as memorable as that review!

Christopher Lee is one of the soldiers in the unit. (Avoid the French blu ray as it’s got unremovable French subtitles - I’ll make sure to avoid Sinonis Calysta discs in the future -, didn’t look that great, and I stuck to my Columbia “Combat Classics” dvd.)



Seven Men from Now (Boetticher 1956). This one impresses me more and more each time out. You think of Boetticher films as fairly simple and elemental, but this film has so many angles to enjoy – beyond the clever robbery story and the wounded, dark heart of the sheriff’s motive for revenge, you’ve got his subtle relationship with Annie, Masters’ sexual threat towards her and his humiliating taunting of her husband, the complex film-long match-up between the sheriff and Masters, the latter’s dealings with the robbers, throw in the Chiricahua on top of that. A lot packed in a tight script, that has a distinctive, grave and realistic tone throughout. The director doesn’t have the same compositional skill as Ford but I love his use of nature, especially those woodland and river scenes that pop here and in later films, and his westerns have a really nice of way of framing and putting in evidence the reality of the horses. And the performances are very good, especially Lee Marvin (I had the same thought as twbb that this film would a much lesser thing without him) and Gail Russell – the first thing that comes to mind when I think of this movie is her sparkling eyes. And man do they drink a lot of coffee in this film, especially in the night scenes – you’re surprised anyone manages to get any sleep!


The Brothers Rico (Karlson 1957). Really some kind of template for The Godfather and Scorsese’s mob films. More of a gangster drama than a noir per se, although quite suspenseful. I’d seen it once before but didn’t remember it to be as gripping as it was. That moment when Eddie (Richard Conte, who’s excellent here) discovers the truth of what’s happening is quite the emotional punch. The ending is definitely rushed and too pat and there are some occasional lapses in the acting from some quarters, but this was a thoroughly enjoyable ride.


Big Deal on Madonna Street (Monicelli 1958). A satirical study of social mores, within a neorealist setting, just as much as a crime caper. My memory of it was that it was more consistently funny than I found it this time. I felt the film started losing a bit of steam too once all these diversions get in the way of preparing the burglary, starting with the Peppe’s wooing of Nicoletta. Once we get to the heist, it’s also a bit disappointing how quickly it all ends.



A Place in the Sun (Stevens 1951). This was the film I rated the highest among my list of films to revisit for this project (others land higher but I’ve seen them recently enough to know already where they stand). It didn’t disappoint – this is such an impressive film. It really succeeds in making you sympathize with – and I dare say almost root for - George from beginning to end, despite his actions and intentions, and the conclusion reveals a sense of the human person as combining both light and dark, and lovable as such. There’s really a spiritual feeling around this sense at film’s end.

For a film of its era and place, it’s surprising how it also unambiguously creates a sense of the sacredness of desire, especially in that near-to-last moment with the flashback to the kissing scene, even in the face of

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untimely death

, beyond good and evil you might say. Early on already I was surprised to feel how strong and uninhibited the erotic charge was when George meets up with Alice that first night. When later George and Angela admit their love for one another, during that very kissing scene later recalled, while the film stays anchored in realism Stevens doesn’t hold back in giving it an almost delirious, Borzagian mythical quality (and of course Taylor is breathtakingly beautiful here).

The very way Stevens sets up some shots frame the film as a mythical tragedy within a realist setting. I’m thinking notably of those frequent enough (especially in the first half or so), extremely long, very still shots (sometimes the camera slowly zooms in at first to establish them), with the character often at a distance, his or her face away from the camera, creating a sense at once of emotional intimacy and distance. Really a superior film.

I also found a huge diminished return in Big Deal on Madonna Street on a rewatch a couple months ago. I don't know what I saw in it the first time. Great writeup on A Place in the Sun, which wasn't on my revisits list despite remembering I liked the film, but now surely will be with your reading in mind. I definitely last saw it enough years ago where my categorization of moral wrestling and spiritual development were not aligned, and now that I cannot separate the two I think we'll see eye-to-eye on that element.

I maybe found A Place in the Sun just a bit too artfully "studied" or calculated the first time around - but this time, only my 2nd, it just hit the sweet spot without any reservations. (I'm with you on also liking Shane, but other than Swing Time which is my favorite of the Astaire-Rogers musicals, I don't think the director made another film nearly as good as this.)

I'm not the biggest Stevens fan either. Giant has a great final arc for James Dean (attributed more to him, but the staging of his smallness is a great touch), and I like domino's fav Vigil in the Night, but I'm right with you on everything else... except I actually really like Gunga Din :-"

Coming in to say the More the Merrier before swo sees this

I was waiting for that one

I'm really off my game tonight

I totally forgot that was him, probably because I don't think think of him as a comic director, or rather I don't think any of his other comedies are funny (except Swing Time, which outside of one terrific number, is overall a better comedy than it is a musical). I'd probably put The More the Merrier at the top of his work, or at least alongside it.

I mean, it's somewhat notorious that after his time spent photographing the war, he pointedly pulled a Sullivan and decided he wouldn't make comedies anymore, so he'd prob be glad to hear you think that

Also, A Place in the Sun was one of the first older Hollywood films I ever saw in my initial studio system class and I still remember my soon to be mentor telling me I was the first student he'd ever had that expressed sympathy with Shelley Winters' character in the film

By the time I saw A Place in the Sun its “classic” status had been diminished a lot and I remember having trouble finding any critical readings of it that didn’t treat it with a lot of skepticism or accusations of hokiness (a phrase I remember specifically seeing though I can’t recall where). So as often happens, I assumed I was nuts because everything about it — characterizations, photography, moral messaging, the way it delivered its story — seemed ridiculously strong and emotionally resonant to me. It’s great to read such an enthusiastic reappraisal of it. I’ve seen it twice but I hope it finally gets a blu ray release soon.

As usual I have to apologize for not being very active in discussions but I have recently gotten around to a bunch of major 1950s titles I'd never previously seen. Johnny Guitar, The Cranes Are Flying, Steel Helmet and The Big Heat all lived up to everything I've heard about them over the years. I'm not sure I've ever seen a film that fused propaganda and emotional drama as beautifully as Cranes, though I think Pudovkin's Mother is close. Johnny Guitar is the rare film that I think could've gone on twice as long and I wouldn't have grown tired of it, I so loved lingering around with its characters. To my shame I had never seen a Samuel Fuller film before sitting down with Steel Helmet (unless you count Pierrot le Fou) and it hit much harder than I expected. I was blown away by how immediate and intimate it felt; the way that the Sgt. Zack character played by Gene Evans copes with trauma by enduring and immediately discarding it was somewhat mirrored by the way I processed the film. After seeing it I genuinely had trouble understanding how I felt about it, except to say it registered mentally almost as something I had gone through myself rather than just watched, which sounds like such a cliché when typed out. It's certainly a movie that I think is helped along in its impact by its evident lower budget, which causes it to seem more immersive and realistic than any number of big studio war epics of the time I could name. Obviously can't wait to explore Fuller more, starting soon with Pickup on South Street. As for the Lang film -- I grew up on his Weimar-era pictures and it's been an absolute delight tracking his Hollywood career along with these list projects, because it really is akin to experiencing the evolution of his work as if it were in real time. As usual with his American work I'm impressed by how uncompromised The Big Heat felt, even when

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it's pushing a relatively benign finale. Several of the plot turns were really throttling, and it's the mark of a master that such a feeling is still possible from a sixty year-old film.

Somehow, though, The Life of Oharu is the movie I can't get out of my head from this project. I probably liked it less than any of the above despite being extremely fond of Mizoguchi, who as a director I may love even more than Kurosawa and Ozu, but the story and particularly its ending have haunted me ever since seeing it. Maybe it's because the world we are currently living in makes

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the detachment depicted in the final scenes feel like an extremely attractive solution.

In the moment I found myself wishing for the righteous catharsis that closes something like Sisters of the Gion, but as time goes on I'm finding the reality of Oharu's fate increasingly powerful.

Among many other revisits, I found All About Eve as striking and intelligent as ever, and Throne of Blood -- while awe-inspiring in its fashion -- less dramatically successful than it seems to be for most.

Glad you enjoyed The Steel Helmet so much. It's definitely one of the rawest war movies I can think of, and it's important that you pointed out the budget constraints given what Fuller was able to accomplish within those limitations. A great companion film is the later-career The Big Red One, which is another semi-autobiographical war film including some idiosyncratic real details, my favorite being

Spoiler for detail in The Big Red One that has no impact on plot

when the soldiers plan for controlled breakdowns to scream while the Nazi tanks move over them hiding in trenches, as the only safe opportunity to alleviate their fear and express emotional distress! Talk about cinematic depictions of bravery being shattered for authenticity...

If you're itching for more of Fuller's unfiltered harsh grey worldview, I'd definitely recommend Underworld U.S.A. and his other more-celebrated 60s works. Pickup on South Street is a personal favorite but mostly because it hits all the right spots for me, rather than being specifically indicative of Fuller's personality, though that's there too.

Some thoughts on recent viewings and re-viewings with shortlisted films in red.

Pushover (Richard Quine, 1954) A great noir that makes me wonder why I haven’t seen more use of compressed timelines in the genre. Quine and cinematographer Lester White do really wonderful things with rain here—rain speckling a black cop car, dripping from window sills and awnings. Fred MacMurray essentially reprises his role from Double Indemnity a decade earlier and Kim Novak does the same “mysterious and intense mode” I noted in Bell Book and Candle, which is making me realize that maybe it’s her default: some strange combination of emotional vulnerability and frank sexuality with unnatural, constantly signified, inhibition. These aspects of her are so perfectly calibrated and deeply felt in Vertigo, in one of my favorite performances of the decade, but in these two Quine films Novak really sticks out from the glossy genre trappings because she always seems to be trying so hard. That’s the opposite of what you expect from a Hollywood star (someone like Stanwyck who seems completely effortless), but it’s also part of why I find her fascinating. It works much better here, in a grubby noir, than in Bell Book and Candle’s romance, especially since MacMurray quickly labels her motivation as fear and she explicitly sees herself as an outsider among both cops and criminals.

I look forward to catching up with Strangers When We Meet soon and if anyone knows of good writing on Novak, point me in that direction. Jonathan Rosenbaum’s piece on her is pretty good, but unsatisfying, though I think the autobiographical reading of her performance in Vertigo from her point of view (which he doesn’t entirely connect the dots to here) is essential.


A Bucket of Blood (Roger Corman, 1959) I basically knew everywhere this was going after the first 15 minutes, but it has good energy, a nicely detailed setting, and a great lead performance. I was pretty surprised at how broadly it’s labeled a comedy, actually, since I mostly found pathos in the way Dick Miller approaches the character. I mean, there’s beatnik jokes all around, but the central conceit felt more pitiful than ironic. And if the predictable, eyeroll-inducing ending is really someone’s sense of humor, God help us.


La Casa del ángel (Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, 1957) I was also blown away by this and, unlike domino, I thought the use of counterpoint in the two storylines was superbly done, in part because the secondary story seems so extraneous at first, then shockingly collides into the heart of the film. Nilsson presents two different cultures and value systems that Ana finds herself stuck between and, in a Buñuelian touch, harshly critiques both, making the choice between them impossible. It’s a wonderfully dark and pungent mood piece, which hits its stride right away with the incredible shadowy montage of the opening. And when the structure of the film became clear to me, I was bowled over.

Re: twwblus question on the ending,

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I had a similar thought when it cuts right from the rape scene to her in her bed. But immediately afterwards, considering the narration that follows and her lasting hatred of Aguirre, it read as definitively real.

Orpheus (Jean Cocteau, 1950) It sounds like I would love this, but whenever it backed out of the trick shots and expressive imagery, it instantly became less interesting. The drama feels so ordinary and halfhearted and doesn’t do enough to reinvigorate the myth instead of just reheating it. For a while, it rewrites the myth with a careerist and irritable Orpheus and a domestic, neglected Eurydice (which is an utterly conventional and uninspired way to portray the life of an artist), but that gets dropped relatively quickly, and the film focuses instead on the plainly autobiographical elements of Orpheus’ career and bid for immortality—which is just a bore. One of the most interesting elements of the original Orpheus myth, IIRC, is that after Eurydice dies, he swears himself to a life of chastity, which is the thing that angers the Furies enough to tear him to shreds. I was hoping that would play a part here and bring some of the psychosexual intensity of La belle et la bete, but instead it becomes another career anxiety in the form of the plagiarism scandal.

For me, Cocteau simply doesn’t create an absorbing atmosphere or decenter the film's conventional side enough (like, say, Epstein’s Fall of the House of Usher for the former and Mulholland Drive as an example of the latter) to create a sustained poetic effect or a hypnotic rhythm. Instead the famous imagery here is more like intermittent special effects illustrating a relatively straightforward narrative. Cocteau’s unusual imagery is only used to illustrate supernatural conceits, never to express the feelings of the characters or the perspective of the filmmaker. It's hard to "share the filmmaker's dream" if he keeps insistently waking us up. Looking back (ha), this writeup wound up being more negative than my overall feelings on the film, which I enjoyed, but I felt I had to explain why this didn’t have the magical effect on me that it has on so many others.


Similarly, it seems like people’s reaction to Le Journal d’un curé de campagne (Robert Bresson, 1951) really varies based on their sensibility, but seeing it on 35mm at a Bresson retrospective last summer was such a viscerally intense experience that it immediately struck me as one of the best films I've ever seen. It’s simultaneously blunt and mysterious, economical and lyrical, gaining in power and emotional complexity as it goes on and as its religious questions get more and more complicated. Like another shoo-in for my list, Ozu’s Good Morning, the absolute focus and wrung-out clarity of Bresson's images and sounds—I wish there was a better word for it—just overwhelms me.

Andre Bazin's contemporary essay on the film, collected in What is Cinema? vol. 1, is required reading. A sample:

Andre Bazin in subpar translation wrote:The value of an image does not depend on what precedes or follows it. They accumulate, rather, a static energy, like the parallel leaves of a condenser. Between this and the soundtrack, differences of aesthetic potential are set up, the tension of which becomes unbearable. Thus the image-text relationship moves towards its climax, the latter having the advantage. Thus it is that, quite naturally, at the command of an imperious logic, there is nothing more that the image has to communicate except by disappearing. The sepctator has been led, step by step, towards that night of the senses the only expression of which is a light on a blank screen.

Thanks for that additional text on the Bresson, Red Screamer (and glad to have another member cite it as an All-Time favorite, it’s definitely my favorite tonally-distinct dramatic film). The Bazin reading really helps to describe why I find the film to be a spiritual experience, especially in how this process of analytical technique reflects the film’s thematic process. Each frame builds on the other to capture a series of moments in time, each significant in contributing to a nonlinear progression of spiritual development. This mirrors an existential crisis with a secret ingredient of hope, and despite all the fleeting despair it’s a soaring optimistic piece of realism that ends in grace, just not in the way catharsis works in our dreams. Living the best life we can is full of compromise, egotism, selflessness, appreciation, and suffering, but through it all is this shifting of perspective that marks spiritual growth as I see it.

The priest’s ability to re-evaluate himself constantly builds to where he ends, his life defined as working through a series of moments cumulatively toward that bright light of serenity resulting from this amalgamation of experience. “Oh miracle of these empty hands,” perhaps my favorite line ever, celebrates curiosity, wonder, empowerment, and empathy through a path of evolving humility. All moments are filled with opportunities to access this space, and we take a turn on an avenue of development whether we are aware of it or not; in helping an aging woman through being present and joining with her; engaging with a young mean-spirited girl as she refuses help and retaliates with relational aggression, only to see her humanity as the bruised soul she is beneath the acidity; riding on a motorcycle with wind and sun on his face while soaking up the presence of a higher power, without asking it to become tangible; or accepting life on life’s terms in suffering, regardless of the acts he’s made against his own best interests. What a beautiful acknowledgement of how a complex existence can be made simple.

Jubal (Daves 1956). There isn’t much of the traditional western narrative here (ranchers vs. homesteaders, Indians, outlaws, etc.) – it’s all romantic and group psychology drama (a reworking of Othello as it’s been observed), but in western dress (horses, guns, open spaces). For all of its psychological focus, the film stays away from complexity – notably in the fact that Jubal never entertains any interest for Mae, his character stays pretty much “pure” for the entire film. Still enjoyable, especially for the perfomances of Steiger and Borgnine, but nothing quite approaching greatness either.


Kanal (Wajda 1957). On top of the historical context and being told at the beginning by the narrator that all of the combatants are going to die, the film quickly engages us in its characters, their mission and personalities. All of the scenes before the sewers are very effective in their own right. If anything there are a few moments in that second half, principally some of those characters’ reactions, especially Michael going mad, that feel a bit heavy-handed, but the way those more and more suspenseful stories progress and especially end, in unblinking hopelessness, is really impressive.


The Killing (Kubrick 1956). I don’t know what much else to say except I enjoy the hell out of this one every time. It’s a smallish heist noir but Kubrick produced a mini-masterpiece on his first really professional film – a really tight script and amazingly effective direction, including the way of presenting the storyline, the acting, the cinematography. A piece of exacting precision that mirrors the clockwork exactness of the heist.


Summertime (Lean 1955). This is a bit reminiscent of Powell & Pressburger films like The Red Shoes in its devotion to lyricism, romanticism and visual-musical poetry. The clichés (the judgmental, cerebral American and the sensual Italian, the choice of musical pieces, etc.) were quite a turn-off for me this time, but there are some memorable shots and I liked the ending.


The Lusty Men (N. Ray 1952). The suspenseful action sequences punctuate what’s foremost a psychological relationship drama. Maybe others will be inspired to be more articulate about this one, but I can only say I found myself fully engaged again in the incredibly natural feel of this unassuming but ultimately grand film. Just extremely fine on all counts.

Rayon Vert wrote: Sun May 24, 2020 3:20 am Kanal (Wajda 1957). On top of the historical context and being told at the beginning by the narrator that all of the combatants are going to die, the film quickly engages us in its characters, their mission and personalities. All of the scenes before the sewers are very effective in their own right. If anything there are a few moments in that second half, principally some of those characters’ reactions, especially Michael going mad, that feel a bit heavy-handed, but the way those more and more suspenseful stories progress and especially end, in unblinking hopelessness, is really impressive.

RV, are you planning on watching the other Wajda war films? All three are pretty great, especially Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds. I wrote up some thoughts a few months ago but posted them in that dedicated thread:

therewillbeblus wrote: Wed Feb 12, 2020 2:21 am A Generation is inconsistently engaging but impressively conceived, Wajda exhibiting his strong comprehension of space and issuing a few inspired setpieces. The characters are allotted agency and the film becomes most interesting when giving room from a fatalist perspective to the idea that the choices all lead to this dangerous stratosphere, despite the la-di-da ending.

Kanal is just incredible, right from the opening where we follow a few looong tracking shots and are introduced to our protagonists by their names and a quick icebreaker characteristic, as if the narrator himself can’t keep up with their forward movement into hell. We then watch in silence as they move through space, for long enough that Wajda elicits the feeling of movement through time too. The juxtaposition yields a residual feeling that, for the frantic inability to attach verbal signifiers, the camera’s ability to capture visual ones carries a power that reduces the intellectualization unimportant and elevates the emotional experience to be the most tangible measure of interest. The hasty attempts at summarizing these men in that opening narration can only be done in that long, silent death march, or the many other long takes we get of these men struggling to survive against the grain of their unpredictable spaces, together yet always alone (Daisy can’t even disclose her feelings and initiate an intimate connection until hope is even more lost than has already been established throughout the narrative!) The reliance on visual character development means each actor must carry an authenticity in body language and mannerisms as much as in dialogue. Wajda’s wildly intrusive and retracting camera zips into and out of rooms and corridors, abrasively smothering actors and retreating like a scurried animal, using indoor and outdoor space like claustrophobic traps or facades of freedom, yet doing so even in retreat with a delicacy that doesn’t take away from the power of the scene with stylistic interference. As a war film it hardly gets more bleak or compassionate than this (unless you want to peer into minds and issue transcendental experience like The Thin Red Line), an affirming combination of attitudes that proves how they aren’t mutually exclusive.

Ashes and Diamonds earns its reputation in formal mastery and strong characterization against a perceived fatalist milieu. I think the agency here is more fleshed out and existentially pleasing than the first film of the trilogy, as we watch a man grapple with his conscience, desires, duty, usefulness, expectations, and position, and wondering what is authentic, escapable, or destined. Again this is expressed so much in body language and a lot of the film’s successful moments must give shared credit to Zbigniew Cybulski, whose honest identity is always cracking just a bit through the facade he presents with; and a genuine yearning to access his ‘self’ permeates his attempts at reflection without coming off as obvious or exaggerated. This might be the most digestible and engaging film of the three, though on par with Kanal for exceeding perfectly at their respective aims.