College widow and swordfish

 THE HORSE FEATHERS (1932)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Harpo Marx gets to impressively play the harp for an extended period of time and catch some dogs, maybe a policeman. Groucho Marx gets to uproariously sing "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It" as a professor in front of the faculty, and makes a mockery of everyone. Chico Marx is finicky about getting the right password for entry to a speakeasy, and argues until he accidentally gives it away ("Swordfish" of course). Zeppo Marx, the most normal of the Marx Brothers, is interested in the "college widow" (Thelma Todd). Meanwhile there is some business about kidnapping two college football players.

"The Horse Feathers" is pure tomfoolery fun, though not nearly as anarchic as "Monkey Business" or "Duck Soup" (the latter is tied with "A Night at the Opera" as their greatest comical work). There is so much to enjoy here from the double, sometimes triple takes delivered by Groucho as well as his various one-liners. I howled with laughter at many but especially at Groucho who believes that a "father further" is more appropriate than "Anything further father?" The constant interruption in the college girl's bedroom from Groucho coming and sitting on her lap while opening an umbrella, to Chico and Harpo both bringing in blocks of ice and throwing them out the window (Not sure what the heck that is all about). The football sequences are insanely funny, particularly the antics of the Marx Brothers playing cards and eating hot dogs or leading a chariot with horses tied to a garbage wagon in the middle of the field. 

For a 1932 flick pre-Code, most of "Horse Feathers" is gleefully inoffensive and never crude (though double entendres are plentiful). There's also the unusual sight for its time of Groucho breaking the fourth wall and telling the audience to head to the lobby while Chico sings and plays piano. You just gotta love the glorious antics of the Marx Brothers because anything goes. 

Note: The term "college widow" refers to a young woman who remains in a college year after year dating different male students. Nothing further father.   

High School as a big garbage can

 THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (1955)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I would argue that for potency alone, "The Blackboard Jungle" has not lost none of it nor is it dated. This 1950's school of juvenile delinquents may not have cell phones or computers or carry guns but their attitudes have not changed nor their propensity for violence (it has only gotten worse). In the 2020's, the grossly negligent attitudes of the 50's have now become practically nihilistic. This movie seems innocent by comparison but not completely alien by any standards.

Richard Dadier (Glenn Ford), a Navy veteran, is is seeking the most noble of jobs - a high-school teaching position in English at an inner-city school overrun with misfits and gang members. One of them, Artie West, the leader (Vic Morrow), taunts "Teach" relentlessly. First, Artie might listen to Mr. Dadier, then he ignores and scoffs at him. Eventually, there is a brutal assault on the streets of this rough neighborhood where Dadier is beaten up along with math teacher Josh Edwards (Richard Kiley). Police are called yet Dadier has no idea who beat him up or slashed his briefcase. Naturally, he suspects one of the students and it doesn't take long for him to find the culprit in Artie. Only the shenanigans go beyond the classroom when Artie starts sending letters to Dadier's wife with false adultery accusations. There are also false bigotry accusations within the classroom. A Navy man can only take so much before making a stand. Mr. Edwards quits after his jazz records are all destroyed by these students. Dadier's pregnant wife (Anne Francis) insists that her bruised husband quit and teach elsewhere. Nothing will make Dadier quit, however, not even hearing the heartless remarks by another teacher (Louis Calhern) who calls the school "a big garbage can."

"Blackboard Jungle" shows some students are willing to learn despite peer pressure from Artie and other loyal members. One of them is Miller (Sidney Poitier), who calls Dadier "chief," and he is the smart guy of the class whom others listen to. Miller also has interest in music and is preparing for a Christmas play at school. Dadier knows that with Miller's help, he might be able to reach his students. Dadier will not quit no matter how often he's pushed or threatened with switchblades. 

"The Blackboard Jungle" is a rough, tough picture for its time, showing how far juvenile delinquents have gone to defy the establishment. What may have irked some audiences back in 1955 wasn't so much the teens in the audience finding something that spoke to them but rather the cold reality of the school system. One teacher is either sexually assaulted or beaten or they have their property destroyed - no one is safe from the teens' wrath. Being destitute brings forth desperation and anger and the teens felt it and, I suspect, so did the teenage audience who danced in the aisles to the tune of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" playing in the opening credits (later the song became synonymous with "Happy Days"). The movie is ostensibly a rock and roll-type picture with the vastly underrated Glenn Ford showing he is the perfect idealistic teacher - the one who is ready to fight for what he believes in. We have had cinematic teachers for many decades but Ford has that special gift and that is, beyond his tough exterior, he shows he cares. He genuinely cares. Not dated at all.

Note: Look for Paul Mazursky and a beaming Jamie Farr (listed in the credits as Jameel Farah) as students in Dadier's class.    

Spruce Goose as a flying ocean liner

 NON-STOP NEW YORK (1937)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Starting off as a noir piece about a mob killing amidst the Depression-era of New York, "Non-Stop New York" doesn't settle long enough for a thriller dynamic with a love story and some sociological tension. The movie is a non-stop roller coaster ride filled to the brim with wit, pungent casting and a futuristic-looking plane that seems to be years ahead of Howard Hughes' own Spruce Goose. Except of course that this Spruce Goose is seemingly a mini-ocean liner with propellers!

A zestful English actress, Jennie Carr (Anna Lee), is penniless and is eager for at least a cup of coffee. Thankfully she has enough change for a coffee, which she promptly drops on the floor when bumping into a guy named Billy (James Pirrie). Billy is a mob attorney and wants out of the business, only Jeannie doesn't know that. She is invited to Billy's apartment and then ejected when the mob boss Brant (Francis L. Sullivan) and some goons arrive and a shot rings out. Jennie had seen the men but not the murder, and there is a vagrant who witnessed it and is charged for a crime he didn't commit. You see, it looks as if the film is building to another noir until we enter Hitchcock terrain via a Trans-Atlantic flight from New York to London.

What is delightfully escapist fun about "Non-Stop New York" is the eclectic cast of characters including the aforementioned Anna Lee's Jennie Carr, who's a little on the naive side. John Loder is the disbelieving Scotland Yard inspector who takes an interminable time to believe Anna's story (I would have trouble with her version of events too). There's also a bespectacled young musical prodigy (Desmond Tester) who annoys all passengers with his saxophone (which leads to a great joke about a parachute); Jerry Verno as a steward who has his share of double entendres, and the grand villainy of Francis L. Sullivan as Brant who pretends to be a Paraguayan general named Costello (isn't Costello normally an Irish or Italian surname?) 

"Non-Stop New York" has a wildly contrived plot (why all the shenanigans to put Jennie in jail briefly and then have Brant follow her back to New York?) Still, I did not mind and found the film fluffy yet never less than breezy fun. Wait till you get to the parachute joke!

One of the liveliest action-adventure chase films of all time

 THAT MAN FROM RIO (1964)
An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

The sheer joy from one exacting frame to the next, from one dazzling action-filled sequence to the next, is evident in Philippe de  Broca's "That Man From Rio." Context is needed here for a 1964 international production so think of it as the Charlie Chaplin movie that was never made - a high-spirited, frenetically paced action-adventure movie with a sly wink to the audience containing an unusual hero who flies, glides and runs across the screen much like Chaplin would've. Maybe even a dash of Fred Astaire is here as well.

Jean-Paul Belmondo is Adrien Dufourquet, a simple French Air Force pilot who loves his Agnes (the elegant and luminous Francoise Dorleac), his fiancée, and witnesses her being kidnapped and runs after her as he jumps through a window! He finds a motorcycle and chases her, finds her at Orly airport, has no ticket yet he finds entry with an old man in a wheelchair that had me rolling with laughter! This is just the beginning, and never mind that the movie opens with a museum robbery where an antique Brazilian statue is stolen. "That Man From Rio" never lets up, taking us from Paris to Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia and finally the deep corners of a jungle where three antique statues need to be placed in their proper places to allow the sunlight to reveal the location of priceless diamonds! (Yep, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" reference that also harks back to 1954's "The Secret of the Incas"). We also got a shoeshine boy named Sir Winston (Ubiracy De Oliveira, who has a contagious laugh) who figures in the action in the most unexpected and hilarious ways. We also have time for energetic Brazilian dancing and some bossa nova music, and a scene at some dive with a tremendous singer (Simone Renant) that evokes Old Hollywood that leads to a spectacular barroom brawl.  

It helps that Belmondo is a hell of a hopeless romantic hero who wants nothing more than to find and be with Agnes - he could care less about antique statues or villainous men dreaming of wealth beyond their dreams (Adolfo Celi as a rich industrialist and Jean Servais as a museum curator round out the incredible cast but I wont' say which one is the bad guy). Adrien will fly a plane uncontrollably and, thrillingly, upside down. Adrien will run across unique landscapes in Brasilia such as several seemingly empty Modernist buildings and towers and a construction site with scaffolds that results in one of the biggest laughs of the entire movie (I would not dream of giving it away). The daring escapades and car chases (including driving a pink car with green stars) are dizzying and breathless, all as well executed and perfectly timed as any "Mission: Impossible" flick. Belmondo's Adrien has a Harold Lloyd moment on a building facade that goes way beyond what Lloyd ever accomplished (and that's saying something). Belmondo and De Broca always try to one-up previous cinematic stunts and every shot seems to hold on long enough so that we see Belmondo accomplishing death-defying moments that will make you fear for his safety and wince. 

Witty, hysterically funny, sporadically spoofing James Bond, and showcasing Belmondo and Dorleac as true, genuine, charismatic movie stars who happened to be good actors as well, "That Man From Rio" is bound to entertain anyone who wants pure escapism and breathtaking vistas with a hero you can root for. Its popularity certainly paved the way for Indiana Jones and most other tongue-in-cheek action-adventure flicks. This film is also special to me because my father introduced me to it over 40 years ago, and I am eternally grateful. It is one of the stepping stones to my growing interest in international cinema. Bravo!  

Unreliable witnesses

 RASHOMON (1950)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

"Rashomon" is an institution, not just a unique film for its time. Its title is part of the lexicon, though I rarely hear it nowadays. I would call it one of Akira Kurosawa's greatest films as it stirs the soul and is remarkably provocative. It establishes a murder with motive but we are never sure how it really occurred. We hear eyewitness accounts and those who participated in the murder, yet can we trust the eyewitnesses or the participants? 

The presumed first eyewitness is the sorrowful woodcutter. He walks through the woods with an axe and finds a dead body. The woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) runs away to find the police and gives his testimony to the court. There is a slight problem: his account of what occurred varies from what he tells the court versus his admission to a commoner. Was it a sword that was thrust into a samurai's chest or was it a dagger with the pearl inlay? The rough, tough, maniacal bandit Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune) claims to have killed the samurai, but did he? And what of the samurai's wife (Machiko Kyō)? Under a trance where her dead husband's spirit is summoned, the claim changes to suicide and the samurai used a priceless dagger to kill himself. The samurai, Kanazawa (Masayuki Mori), couldn't live with his wife's virtue taken by the bandit so he offed himself. Is this a reliable version of events? Is any version reliable in terms of how the rape and murder occurred? We know with certainty that the wife left the bandit and her husband, and we know the samurai is dead. 

Who is telling the truth of such a bizarre incident? I can't say which is the most truthful account yet one wonders why the woodcutter suddenly confesses to the monk and the commoner that he witnessed the actual murder! There's the issue of the missing dagger and writer-director Akira Kurosawa starts cleverly building the narrative to include multiple versions told from multiple people yet the incident never occurs the same way. It is a fascinating, complex structure that incorporates the time-honored literary tradition of flashbacks within flashbacks. We start piecing it together and realize that detailed truths are evasive - the murder is real but the telling is all fabrication and contradiction.  

"Rashomon" is based on a 1922 Japanese short story titled "In a Grove" by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa and it deals with similar themes but the most telling is unreliability. As it reaches a riveting conclusion involving the monk, the commoner and the woodcutter's raging discussions on truth and selfishness (they are in the present time structure discussing this most horrific crime), "Rashomon" touches us with hope that shoulders on its ambiguities. There are also shades of honesty, most tellingly Kanazawa's wife who says, "To have my shame known by two men is worse than dying." Not disclosing her shame and asking two men to fight to the death with the sole survivor remaining with her is indicative of her making sure the event unfolds her way. Exemplary vital cinema, and one of the few films that truly challenges the idea of truth.

No eternal damnation, just eternal love

 FAUST (1926)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

F.W. Murnau had done something unusual with his crossbreed of Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus" and Goethe's "Faust" versions and earlier literary texts - he has made it terrifying. The notion of selling your soul for all the riches in the world is not exactly what is explored in this "Faust" film. Sure, Faust, the lead protagonist (Gösta Ekman), does sign his name on a contract with Mephistopheles and sells his soul yet it is mostly for the people in town dying from the plague. When that doesn't seem like enough, Faust wishes to do away with his whiskers and old age and become young again. When that is accomplished, Faust falls in love with Gretchen, a virginal young girl who runs away from Faust. Naturally, Mephistopheles can help cure that romantic problem with a tasteful golden necklace.

1926's "Faust" is a mite closer to the original Goethe text (more so than later adaptations) and it has its own distinctive F.W. Murnau peculiarities. For one, the sight of an enormous Satan casting a shadow with his wings over a German town is a terrifying image. There's also the sly Mephistopheles (scene-stealing Emil Jannings in an atypical role) chasing after Gretchen's aunt, Martha (a colorful turn by Yvette Guilbert), that seems to belong to another movie (she also wears a bracelet given to her by the devil yet not much comes out of it). It is genuinely funny and tingles the spine at first, especially not knowing what this devil is really up to, but then it gets repetitious. Faust chasing after Gretchen also goes beyond the tolerable meter as they run circles around the town's children, and keep circling and circling. He clearly pines for her.   

Still, I have to give F.W. Murnau credit where it's due with the depiction of Gretchen's painful scenes (a nerve-wracking turn by Camilla Horn) where she solicits help from the townspeople who ignore her after being named a harlot by her own murdered brother (Mephisto does the deed). The truly tough scene of Gretchen walking in a blizzard and seeking shelter with her newborn is one that will stay with me forever (she conjures an image of a cradle and places the newborn in it, wherein the baby promptly dies). Also powerful are scenes of an older Faust, an alchemist, trying to burn books including the Bible. I was quite touched when Faust seizes upon Mephistopheles to help rescue Gretchen from being burned to the stake. Faust doesn't realize that Mephisto is a trickster and unreliable and, if memory serves, Faust has always been a pathetic literary figure whose temptations outdo his sensibilities. Our sympathy for him is stretched when, earlier in the story, he seduces the Duchess of Parma (Hannah Ralph) resulting in the devil killing the Duke in a duel - all this for eternal sex, I gather, though it is short-lived.

"Faust" is amazingly shot and directed, in particular the use of looming, stark shadows (a major staple of German Expressionism that was fluently used in Murnau's "Nosferatu"). I also love the distorted various rooftops that seem to collide in depth of field shots seen from an ascending road. Jannings is memorably evil with his raised eyebrows and black mane of hair that seems impossible to maintain (of course, he's a devil so he can). "Faust" stands as a sardonic, exemplary, often haunting meditation of Goethe and Marlowe's texts (though I do not see much of Marlowe's influence here). Somehow, in Murnau's and Faust's mind, love beats the demon.   

Wolf Man suffering from amnesia

 THE WEREWOLF (1956)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

What is seemingly another werewolf film trying to conjure memories of Lon Chaney, Jr. and the Universal Monster lot has some other tricks up its sleeve. "The Werewolf" also fulfills what Lon Chaney, Jr. did, build sympathy for a man who doesn't want to transform into that howling creature. The sympathy seems stronger yet less sad and unfortunate than with Chaney, but make no mistake - Steven Ritch as the amnesiac man who is frightened by the prospect of transformation does a helluva job of making us care about his plight.

Most of "The Werewolf" has Ritch running around the mountainside, trying to evade the police after he killed a bully outside a bar. This guy doesn't need moonlight to change - he can transform during the day (some day-for-night scenes get confusing with daylight scenes). It turns out this poor guy was in a car crash, rescued by a pair of doctors who had injected wolf serum into him to help deal with the fallout of some presumed nuclear holocaust. These doctor Moreau-types also have ideas of creating a super race of werewolves!

"The Werewolf" has some decent black-and-white photography yet the werewolf transformations are not nearly as fun as Lon Chaney Jr.'s haunting changes in "The Wolf Man" (the werewolf looks a lot like that sad sack in "The Return of the Vampire," both by the same makeup artist Clay Campbell). Still, the film plays it straight and has subtle sci-fi overtones that lend it a little pizazz. I love the national forest look and the firm sheriff (Don Megowan) who has no time for love with a doctor's assistant - he'd rather hang with some of the residents holding torches. I also love seeing the poor man's family trying to convince the lycanthrope to remedy his sickness and come home. Weak ending is saved by some decent acting and a couple of imaginative werewolf attacks.