Clickety-clickety-click

 THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Bogart was always more intrinsically watchable as a non-hero, non-chivalrous, scheming and distrustful man. Look no further than "In a Lonely Place" or "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" for such darker characters, though one should not dismiss his more heroic pictures either. Either way, Bogart steals the show in William Wyler's "The Desperate Hours."

The plot is simple enough. A random family home is invaded by three escaped prisoners from an Indiana prison. The prisoners need to stay out of sight and they need cold hard cash, and the leader of this trio is the tough, often brutal Griffin (Humphrey Bogart). A package of money is supposed to be delivered to this home address by Griffin's Ohio-based girlfriend. Of course, nothing goes as planned. Griffin's girlfriend is stopped for a traffic violation and so now, she will have to mail the money. Griffin goes head-to-head with the patriarch of this household, Mr. Dan Hilliard (Fredric March), who will not so easily bow down to Griffin's every request. The other family members in this hostage situation are Dan's wife, Eleanor (Martha Scott), who is close to getting a nervous breakdown though she's ever the dutiful wife; teenage Cindy (Mary Murphy) who is considering getting married, and the little brother, Ralphie (Richard Eyer), who insists on being called Ralph and will not kiss his father before going off to school - a simple firm handshake will do.     

As a home invasion thriller, Wyler's direction allows for much introspection of the characters and their motives, some which surprise us. One rudimentary brute is more cold-blooded than the rest (watch out for the scene with the garbage pickup man). Bogart allows a little touch of humanity when his younger brother, Hal (Dewey Martin), decides he wants to cut loose, afraid he will be jailed again. Griffin will not stop from killing but only as a last resort and Dan especially comes close to upsetting the whole situation. The tension builds and the danger of getting killed slowly becomes a realization. We side with the good-natured family of course but they are not hapless victims, and that is the strength of Joseph Hayes' script. Hilliard will vainly protect his family and switches from vulnerable to a man of potential violence when holding a gun. Cindy is no vulnerable teenager, faking an illness by collapsing on the floor with a brave attempt to take one of their guns. Ralph himself doesn't like any of the thugs and lets them know it, also bravely trying to escape through his bedroom window at one point. The wife shows courage as well when she smacks Griffin in the face. 

Bogart and March really bring the audience to their knees with their endless confrontations and verbal attacks. We also get Ray Collins appear as a Sheriff, if only for a few minutes, and there is Deputy Sheriff Jesse Bard (Arthur Kennedy) who has dealt with Griffin in the past. This deftly handled noir thriller shows that Wyler knew had to engage us with an unbearable suspense yarn in the ways Hitchcock did. It truly packs a wallop.

The children of today, that they may be better citizens of tomorrow

DEAD END (1937)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There is a stunning opening shot in William Wyler's "Dead End" where we see the poor tenements below the skyline of massive buildings in the background and, as the camera pans to ground level, there is a street filled with garbage and local folks trying to make a living (a milkman is spotted) living in crowded quarters. The camera then tracks to the left to see part of the East River and an opulent looking building where the wealthy live. That dividing line is crucial to understanding William Wyler's film, part melodrama, part reality and part mob movie. 

There is a group of kids called the Dead End Kids who do nothing but stir trouble (they roast potatoes over a drum fire). They harass the wealthy people in that tall ornate building left and right, in the most harmless ways imaginable (and with the deepest New York accents you can imagine). One incident unfortunately involves the stabbing of a judge's brother, right in the man's hand. Then there is that rich kid who gets robbed by the hooligans of his watch and clothes.The Dead End Kid involved in the stabbing, Tommy (Billy Halop), lives with his big sister, Drina (Sylvia Sidney), who wants to move out to a better neighborhood. She has her eye on her childhood friend, a struggling architect, Dave (Joel McCrea), who has his eye on a glamorous looking blonde, Kay (Wendy Barrie). She lives in the expensive high-rise and when she comes to visit Dave at his apartment, she sees cockroach-infested garbage cans. Yuck!  

Meanwhile, a high-end mobster who had a little plastic surgery done, Hugh "Baby Face" Martin (Humphrey Bogart), has returned to the neighborhood with his partner Hunk and hopes to see the girl he almost married two decades earlier. Baby Face wears silk suits so he hardly has an issue with the wealthy moving in close to the picaresque East River. He also has no issue with the rowdy street urchins because he used to be one himself. 

"Dead End" is suffused with imagery of only one corner of that dead end street next to the East River (the origins of this screenplay are stagebound). Still, during the sequence of Kay going up the tenement stairs or a chase that involves relentless shootouts, we see dark, confined spaces such as fire escapes and rooftops that give this film a special noir look (this is where you can see cinematographer Greg Toland, pre-"Citizen Kane," really at work). Interestingly, there is no visual comparison with the marble-looking high rise apartments and we never see how swanky those accommodations are.

"Dead End" is well-crafted by director Wyler (along with Toland's help) and there are some strong, emotional moments that can pierce and cut through the facade of its singular location. Bogart's mobster has a scene with his mother whom he has not seen in years - her feelings of betrayal of having raised a murderer echo deeply and it hurts Baby Face to his core. I also love Drina's insistence to the police that her brother be released in her care, or how she pines for Dave and such moments feel honest and earned. "Dead End" evokes the world of the poor and the rich and how they will never coalesce. There will always be a dividing line.

If war comes, it's goodbye roses

 MRS. MINIVER (1942)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If you watch William Wyler's "Mrs. Miniver" in principally the first half hour, you might not see anything here other than a domestic drama where not much happens. Sure, you got Mrs. Miniver (Oscar winner Greer Garson), the matron of a British household with two kids and her architect husband (Walter Pidgeon). They are spendthrifts - she goes into town to buy fashionable hats and he is ready to buy a new car rather than fixing the tire of his old car. Their eldest son, Vin (Richard Ney), has just returned from studies at Oxford and pontificates about Britain becoming a feudal system. This is all very simply presented without much fuss or troubling issues. Oh, yes, and there is the girl (Oscar-winning performance by Teresa Wright) that Vin likes whom he dances with and proposes marriage. 

Before you know it, air raid sirens are heard and the fictional town of Belham is struck by bombs from war planes overhead. This is the time of World War II where Vin enlists in the Royal Air Force and Mrs. Miniver is less than pleased though she never voices her concerns other than to her husband (who in turn is part of a riverboat mission to Dunkirk). The rest of "Mrs. Miniver" functions as sentimental war melodrama yet it works - I never felt that the film was thick in sentimental inclinations. We expect certain cliches for this kind of picture yet Wyler instead relies on irony and some unexpected lives are taken during these endless bombing campaigns. One sequence stands out with Mrs. Miniver - a wounded German soldier infiltrates her home and demands milk and food. It is a titillating sequence because we are unsure of the outcome - will he kill her or will she be able to disarm him?

"Mrs. Miniver" is often a stirring drama of the people caught in the middle of a war who are not soldiers  - "it's the people's war." The movie has been pegged as propaganda by Wyler and even President Roosevelt who, at the time, declared the picture needed to be in theaters fast to rally the troops and provide morale. Regardless of how it was pegged and trotted about, "Mrs. Miniver" benefits from a most elegant performance by Greer Garson. She is the soul of the movie - the voice who does not speak about war yet her silence speaks volumes.

Bourgeois threatened by affair

 THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE (1969)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Some of the critics at the time felt Hitchcockian tones present in Claude Chabrol's "The Unfaithful Wife" yet the writer-director denied such claims. He is right since his infidelity-in-a middle-class family picture is more about a slow progression of unrelenting tension felt in almost every frame without the benefits of heightened suspense by way of 120 volts of Bernard Herrmann's music. "The Unfaithful Wife" is leisurely-paced yet within its portrait of the artifice of a unified domestic family, something wicked this way will come.

Charles Desvallees (Michel Bouquet), working in the insurance business, is in a presumably happy marriage with an attractive wife, Hélène (Stéphane Audran). What's not to love; they have a son and live in a desolate French countryside manor so this all points to a beguiling bourgeois existence. From the start of the film, something is askew when Charles' mother visits, complaining to Hélène that he needs to lose weight. When we are introduced to Charles, he seems fit and jolly enough for a Frenchman who loves to drink and eat. When he is away from his heavy workload at the office, he realizes Helene needs to enjoy life a tad - sometimes they frequent a nightclub or have dinner at a fine elegant restaurant. Still, right from the start, I had the sneaky suspicion that Charles was well aware his wife was committing adultery. When she makes a phone call, we know she is calling her lover and Charles catches her without admission from either one - she claims it was a wrong number.

Charles eventually hires a private detective to check where Hélène goes when she frequents Paris. Eventually we get an address and the identity of the lover and it leads to a confrontation delivered with tension and suspense. The odd thing about Chabrol is that he refuses to indulge in heightening any moment - it is all deadpan delivery. Charles appears to be a bland individual and Helene shows a spark of sexiness that he may or may not find troubling - their bedroom scenes are nothing more than slight pecks. He knows she has desires but he has erred in thinking their domesticity is enough for their existence as a family (I suppose a sex life went out the window long before they had their son). She clearly needs passion yet the irony is that her lover (Maurice Ronet) is only a tad more animated than Charles. 

"The Unfaithful Wife" is not easy to digest or like, plainly due to the emotional disconnect to these self-absorbed characters. That is precisely the point, that a marriage has to entail something more grounded than just having a child and a pleasant home. For Charles, there is nothing else and that is his own tragedy - a man with no passion and no joy other than devotion and commitment to his family. No matter what.

Oceans of blood

 THRONE OF BLOOD (1957)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

"Throne of Blood" is pure nihilistic chaos. There is no morality, only the consummation of power by any means necessary. Violence is etched in every frame of this film, and it is also encouraged and understood as the only way. Ascension of power has no limits other than someone else vying for the same climb to the desired throne. 

Set in 1400's feudal Japan, this is Akira Kurosawa's theatrical, Noh-style of Shakespeare's bloody "Macbeth" except that the dialogue from the Bard is nonexistent - only the feeling and tone are somewhat present. The sets of the Spider's Web Castle, the sole visible impenetrable fortress of note, are spare, formally empty spaces with some noticeable painted directional stripes on the walls. One other section has dried blood on the wall. Aside from the castle, the outside forest is constantly drenched from rainy weather where the spirits reside, foretelling of prophecies. There is a white witch in a hut spinning a wheel speaking in almost otherworldly tones and foretelling that samurai warrior Washizu (a terrifying Toshiro Mifune) will eventually become Lord of the Northern Garrison. Furthermore, Washizu's childhood friend, Miki (Minoru Chiaki), will lead as Commander. As the witch continues speaking of prophecies, Washizu learns he will be Lord of Spider's Web Castle and Miki's son, Yoshiteru (Akira Kubo), will also ascend to being a lordship. Is this ascension easily obtained? Perhaps, since the current Lord of Spider's Web Castle, Tsuzuki (Takamaru Sasaki), later informs the samurai warriors of their predestined positions. 

What is deeply chilling is watching Washizu's wife, Asaji in the Lady Macbeth role (truly scary performance by Isuzu Yamada), who seems to foretell her own prophecies - that is to say, she persuades with incalculable conviction that Washizu needs to kill the current lord and blame it on the guards. Asaji never makes much eye contact with her husband and when she does, she resembles the ghostly witch. Asaji is also pregnant yet there is a stillborn death, and she slowly goes insane (at one point, she washes her hands of blood stains except there is no blood or water). 

"Throne of Blood" is chock full of atmosphere and impending dread with vicious rainstorms and immense fog. Kurosawa has a crafted a story of an endless cycle of violence steeped in superstition and fulfilled prophecies. Mifune's last stand in an ocean of deadly arrows is still one of the most thrilling and intense action scenes ever recorded on film. A stone cold masterpiece.

Early Ozu comedy

WHAT DID THE LADY FORGET? (1937)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia 

I love films that exist as observational pieces on family dynamics. Yasujiro Ozu made this his own dynamic, exploring complicated relationships between families with sometimes devastating results. "What Did the Lady Forget?" is his second sound film and is more comical than his later works yet there are nuggets of truth buried in its observations.

A wealthy professor of medicine, Dr. Komiya (Tatsuo Saito), needs precious time away from his overbearing wife, Tokiko (Sumiko Kurishima). The old man is about to play golf and then decides not, opting to have a drink at a Ginza bar known as the Cervantes Bar! Since his progressive teenage niece from Osaka is in town, Setsuko (Michiko Kuwano), she follows him to the bar and drinks and smokes (oh, these rebellious teens!)  Setsujo stands up to Tokiko, refusing to cater to her demands of not drinking since Tokiko sees her as too young. The doctor is more amused than upset at his niece, and they frequent together at the bar. Of course, Dr. Komiya cannot admit to being at the bar since he's supposedly playing golf and it is raining! Komiya can't escape his wife finding about his lies and it leads to a moment of him slapping his wife in the face that almost stops everything cold. 

At 71 minutes, "What Did the Lady Forget?" explores these characters though not with quite enough depth - it is more of a treatment that could've been expanded to a longer running time (note the running time of Ozu's later efforts). I did find it to be exquisitely made and consistently absorbing in its depiction of the interior lives of this family - most of it feels like a stage play though it reads as much more cinematic. Most memorable characters are Saito's doctor, who rubs his head when he is happy, and Kuwano's luminous Setsuko. "What Did the Lady Forget?" is not a bad place to start if you have never seen an Ozu film.

When you wish to become a real boy

 PINOCCHIO (1940)
An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

Kind, older, warm-hearted Geppetto has creates toys out of wood. His shop is filled with happiness, warmth on every inch of his place, from cuckoos clocks to a black cat named Figaro and a female fish named Cleo. A sunnier disposition cannot be had in this place until he finishes creating Pinocchio, a wooden puppet in the form of a young boy. 

Darkness enters the picture after Pinocchio is brought to life by the Blue Fairy, who has performed this miracle because Geppetto is such a good man. Like any good wooden puppet, a conscience is needed and who better than Jiminy Cricket - he consistently breaks the fourth wall making noises and sound observations. But Jiminy can't perform too many miracles himself when Pinocchio is easily deceived by a devious fox ironically named Honest John and his relatively mute partner, Gideon the Cat. This leads Pinocchio to be used as some sort of freak show at a puppet theatre, sans strings, managed by the mean, ugly Stromboli. This delights the audience but eventually our innocuous puppet is kept locked in a birdcage, presumably held captive forever. The Blue Fairy appears wondering how Pinocchio got led astray so quickly. We get the most famous scene perhaps in all of Disney's movies where Pinocchio lies and his nose grows longer and longer until tree branches start forming (Jiminy tells him quietly, "Leave me out of this.") After Pinocchio and Jiminy escape Stromboli's carriage, Honest John finds him again and lures him to Pleasure Island where all the kids are transformed into donkeys! And then we get a huge frightening whale that can probably makes waves around Moby Dick! 

"Pinocchio" is a marvelous delight, completely memorable and tightly paced from start to finish. It also has a couple of memorable, catchy songs notably "When You Wish Upon a Star" (sung by Jiminy) and amazing three-dimensional colorful animation that is among Disney's greatest efforts ever (right up there with "Fantasia"). A movie to revisit again and again (I had the good fortune of seeing it in theaters back in its 1970 reissue) - a true national treasure and a fantastic fantasy where kids will be kids but they can learn to grow and learn from their mistakes. Only Disney could make such a message feel and look so beautiful. You just might excitingly jump up and down after seeing it.