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. 

Mild Lycanthropy shocks

 WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Of all the werewolf movies I've seen (with certain modern exceptions), Henry Hull's botanist character is one of the dullest. Hull has expressive eyes that can show fear and emit some level of pathos but the ill-written screenplay doesn't allow much for dynamism or soul. 

In the rather clunky opening sequence set in some backlot meant to represent Tibet, Hull's botanist, Dr. Wilfrid Gendon, is in search of an uncommon (and fictional) flower known as the Mariphasa lupina lumina. With his trusty binoculars, he locates the flower in record time. Dr. Gendon and his exhausted associate travel through the mountainous region and are almost stopped by an invisible force! They continue on until they find the flower and Wilfrid is attacked by a werewolf and bitten on the arm! Back in London, Wilfrid shows off his foreign plant collection, one of which includes a Venus flytrap and a plant that could easily be mistaken for something out of "Little Shop of Horrors." A certain Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland) is after the same flower that can heal or prevent transformation, likely due to the fact that he's also been afflicted with lycanthropy. 

The film has some mild atmospheric flavor for its customary Universal London fog and cobblestoned streets, though that does not set it apart from the norm of its time. A lot of the indoor scenes are visually cramped. As for the actors, Hull is inefficient as the insufferable doctor and it is hard to distinguish between the minimal werewolf makeup (the monster's widow's peak is its major distinction) and the doctor - they are practically the same except for the fangs. This werewolf has a predilection for attacking and killing women - our first misogynist werewolf? It also visits a zoo for some reason (housing a couple of wolves - nice touch) where the guard is having an illicit affair! Guess who gets killed? 

I loved seeing the delicate-as-a-flower Valerie Hobson (appearing the same year as Frankenstein's fiancee in "The Bride of Frankenstein") playing the doctor's wife who slowly loses any hope of romance with this introverted man. She seeks the companionship of her old friend and past lover, Paul (the delightful Lester Matthews). Why didn't someone just cast Matthews as the werewolf and give Hull a chance to be charismatic as Paul? 

"Werewolf of London" is sort of entertaining and fascinating to see as the first official full-length werewolf movie before Lon Chaney, Jr. immortalized it. Change the casting of the lead protagonist and they might have made a more impactful horror flick.

War fought on the frontlines of alleged domestic bliss

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

When World War II ended, it signalled a victory for America after four arduous years of defeating the Japanese and the Nazis. The American war-time propaganda illustrated that soldiers came back from the war virile and ready to dive right back into society without a hitch. They were America's heroes yet the sad reality was that many young soldiers never came back and were killed in action. "The Best Years of Our Lives," a stupendously enlightening and divine motion picture, shines a light on three soldiers who survived and returned from the war. They reluctantly and awkwardly matriculate back into society with mixed results. Director William Wyler and the astute writers Robert E. Sherwood and MacKinlay Kantor have fashioned a relatable story of coming home to a different kind of war being fought - emotional struggles with family and marriages rather than the Germans' piercing bullets. War is hell and so is the homefront.

The three men returning from combat are Air Force Captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), a married soda jerk who had lived with his parents in an impoverished neighborhood and married a woman he hasn't heard from in years; Sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March), who worked in a bank and is married to the faithful Milly (Myrna Loy) and has two children who have matured; Navy sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) who lost both of his hands and has hooks instead that can be tricky to use. The men have difficulty in acclimating to the environment they left behind for too long. Fred comes home to his apartment only to find his wife is not present and has never written to him. When he tries again, she's home and delighted yet she doesn't comprehend his mental issues, which include PTSD (shell-shock was the term at the time, though you never hear it mentioned here). Al Stephenson doesn't have to rebuild his relationship with his wife or his grown-up children yet he feels the need to imbibe alcohol - to cure his potentially ailing mind and revisit his favorite bar. Homer loves the girl-next-door but he imagines she will not want to spend her life with a wounded man - she may not realize his deeper wounds are in his heart than in his physical handicap. 

"The Best Years of Our Lives" doesn't sugarcoat Fred's trauma but you almost get the sneaky suspicion that he misses the war as far as his relationship with his brothers-in-arms. A scene where he visits an airport graveyard with inoperable war planes is powerful stuff. Fred is battling his vivacious wife (Virginia Mayo) who wants to go clubbing every night - Fred is more comfortable being home. Al Stephenson seems to fare better but that is because he has a family that supports him and a bank job that is seemingly secure, as long as he doesn't give away too many loans to GI's. It is Homer who should be the weakest link to the war, considering his wounds, yet he tries to move forward except he's not sure how. Will that girl-next-door be the ticket to domestic bliss? And what of Fred's obvious love for Al's daughter, Peggy (Teresa Wright)? Peggy reciprocates that love and is willing to break up his unhappy marriage. That is strong stuff for 1946. And let's not get started on that drugstore customer who has the audacity to tell Homer that the war was for suckers! I can imagine audiences getting a little irate over that statement so soon after the war ended.

"The Best Years of Our Lives" is thankfully fussy with character details and nuances over melodrama. This film could've been a high-pitched soap opera and could've featured footage of the war itself with the soldiers on the frontlines. Wyler opts for the war fought on the frontlines of alleged domestic bliss in suburbia and the cities. This is peak cinema of the 1940's.   

Familiar yet engrossing tale of wealth inequality

 HIGH AND LOW (1963)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

An endlessly fascinating treat of a movie, "High and Low" is a highly watchable police procedural directed with smoothness and precision by Akira Kurosawa. Once you see it, you can ascertain its influence on most anything having to do with police procedurals nowadays. What is more enthralling about "High and Low" is how enveloping it is in terms of character and motivation to move the plot forward. It also has an extended third act that feels both ghostly and decadent. 

The great, towering presence of Toshiro Mifune lends itself to gravitas specifically as Gondo, a fiercely devoted executive for a shoe company called National Shoes. Gondo anticipates a takeover from board members of the company, sensing that their loyalty lies to sales and not their devotion to a superb product (the board members want to use cheaper materials to increase profit.) Gondo refuses to budge despite knowing there could be a takeover and they could sell him out. He has other plans which quickly fall apart when his son is kidnapped, no more than mere seconds after the board members hastily leave their meeting. It turns out that Gondo's son was not kidnapped, it was the chauffeur's son! A call is made expeditiously by the kidnapper to Gondo and if a ransom is not paid (the sum is in the region of what his company is worth), the child will be killed. Whereas Gondo was adamant about paying the ransom when it was presumably his child, he has a change of heart when it involves his chauffeur's offspring. Is money everything and anything - what kind of man values money over a human life? We understand Gondo's dilemma - he will lose his company and his luxurious lifestyle which his wife (Kyôko Kagawa) was more than accustomed to - but should it be a dilemma? 

Kurosawa toys with these questions over a man's reluctance to take care of his own, no matter the cost. Mifune doesn't play Gondo as an unsympathetic man, only an unreasonable one who eventually gives in to the kidnapper. The rest of the film follows the police proceeding to find the child and the kidnapper. The child is eventually found but not the kidnapper, and the calculated approach of giving the kidnapper the bags of money by throwing through a window in a moving train will leave you gasping for air. The details of the police investigation are intriguing as we follow the clues from a phone booth location to a plume of pink smoke that serves as a major plot point (the film is in black-and-white with one moment of pink color that is one of the best uses of color ever). 

"High and Low" may seem long but every moment counts and is done under the assured direction of Kurosawa, one of our great filmmakers. There is a moment where Gondo is seen outside a shoe store looking in, and the police are surveilling the kidnapper who asks Gondo for a light. It brings up a question of not some inevitable twist around the corner but rather a situation where the have and the have-not meet, only one knows who the other is. There is also a sequence where a bunch of drug addicts are walking around in an alley like zombies with the kidnapper looking for someone to inject with heroin. The pale-faced addicts are all lost souls looking for their next fix in a post-World War II environment. Both as an obvious yet essential statement on how money is an overriding factor in business and relationships and the decay of certain parts of Japan where poverty exists, "High and Low" is never unrelenting or grim but it is a nail-biter with an astounding ending that doesn't feel victorious or triumphant. Vintage crime film by the one and only Kurosawa.

The Perfect Chase Picture

 NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia 

Frenetic chase pictures are a dime a dozen but only one holds any true merit to go that extra mile, unafraid of going ballistic in terms of absurdity and breathless moments that will leave you awestruck. Alfred Hitchcock's "North By Northwest" is not just a perfect chase picture, it is the perfect chase picture. It is chock full of action galore and suspenseful situations that continually build into elegant, inventive moments of spectacle and more intimate moments in intimate surroundings as well (the hilarious auction sequence; the Franklin Lloyd Wright house sequence). Only Hitchcock can build suspense at a cafeteria that faces Mount Rushmore! Only Hitchcock can astound with a crop-duster plane dusting fields where there are no crops while trying to kill our reluctant hero.

The coup de resistance is the perfect, charismatic leading man, Cary Grant, playing the most indelible unlikely hero with a name that, admittedly, may not be the most memorable yet you get used to it. That name is Roger O. Thornhill, a successful advertising executive who has been married once too often and still communicates with his mother. Grant doesn't play Roger as some unlikable lout - he is simply a suave, educated man who doesn't think for a second about stealing a cab ride (neither do the villains). He has charm, elegance and sophistication and is not boring - the way Grant walks gracefully across a room in this movie has always inspired me. When Roger is kidnapped and mistaken for a secret agent who doesn't exist, we feel for him and hope he can get out of this haywire situation. The beauty of a mystifyingly uniformed screenplay by Ernest Lehman is that you always wonder how Roger will get out of any perilous situation he is in, no matter how hair-raising. Whether he is forced to imbibe copious amounts of bourbon, not paying a ticket and escaping into the former 20th Century Limited train after an assassination hit at the UN (!), climbing down the Mount Rushmore in cliffhanging moments that would make any formidable hero sweat, bidding ridiculous amounts of money at an auction on a statue holding microfilm with government secrets, and so much more that it would be criminal to reveal all. The whole movie is about a spy who isn't one yet he becomes rather good at it. We are never one step ahead of Roger - when he discovers a new angle or a twist about someone, we are in lockstep with whatever new surprising information develops.   

From the most delicious nefarious villain of 1950's cinema that I can think of, the devious Vandamm played by James Mason, to one of the most mature and intelligent blonde female leads of almost any Hitchcock film, Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall, a mysterious woman on the train who has more than a few secrets up her sleeve, "North By Northwest" has much up its own sleeve. Saint's romantic scenes with Grant set the fireworks ablaze, more so than in "To Catch a Thief" and possibly "Notorious." A sumptuous, exciting, goose-pimpling music score by Bernard Herrmann adds enormously to the proceedings. "North By Northwest" is about as entertaining as most Hollywood movies ever get.    

1950's adventure spiked with drama and humanity

 WHITE WITCH DOCTOR (1953)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

1950's adventure movies set in foreign lands almost always end with the man searching for gold ending up having a heart of gold. Gold treasure is what lifelong Africa resident and animal hunter “Lonni” Douglas (Robert Mitchum) is reluctantly after, yet his greedy partner (Walter Slezak) wants to be anything but poor. Hunting big game and selling wild animals to the zoo doesn't exactly bring a lifetime of riches. "White Witch Doctor" has the advantage of three plotlines, one involving the search for gold within the territory of an allegedly deadly African tribe, the other having an inexperienced nurse, Ellen Burton (Susan Hayward), trying to make amends and further her late husband's doctoral work in the jungles, and the tribes themselves and their daily rituals.

"White Witch Doctor" is probably the only movie where you will hear Mitchum speaking the Congo's language, the Bakuba, one of 2,400 different dialects of which Ellen knows only one. A lot of the film is studio-bound Congo with some rear-screen vistas, and a fake gorilla! I did expect a fake gorilla, I suppose, but the lion was very real so maybe Frank Buck was keeping the lion tame for some wild scenes where it attacks a Bakuba boy. Meanwhile, that boy suffers a near-fatal injury from the lion's attack and so unless Ellen can heal the boy, and if Lonni can dissuade his greedy partners from entering the territory and steal the gold, all will be well. 

"White Witch Doctor" is quite absorbing despite its near-artificiality in its depiction of its wild environment. Mitchum stands tall and shows some level of heroism. Susan Hayward shows strength, possesses selfless determination in her Ellen character, and I could imagine these two characters trying to make it work in the Congo. The film may not be director Henry Hathaway's greatest hour but as drama with spades of adventure, a quietly stirring music score by Bernard Herrmann, not to mention a more civilized and humane way of presenting African tribes and their rituals than say a Tarzan movie, it is worthwhile and you will not lose interest.  

Astonishingly existential nightmare

 THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Hardened criminals and robbers. Money hard to come by, even for allegedly wealthy lawyers. Dames looking for work after their place of business is robbed. A master thief with a master plan who needs financial backing to rob a swanky jewelry store. Some corrupt cops exist who are on a bookie's payroll to keep quiet. This is the hard, spiritless world of John Huston's "The Asphalt Jungle," a realistic, hardcore, exceedingly tough picture that is less about a heist than it is a profound character study. This may easily be the most hard-boiled noir picture of the 1950's. 

Huston's crime picture begins with a tall man hiding himself from the cops in daylight hours. Dix is a hooligan (Sterling Hayden) who does small-time robberies and spends every nickel on the horses - considering he was born in Kentucky on a farm, it is no surprise. He can't wait to wipe away "the city dirt" and live on the farm. Eventually, we meet a rogue gallery of colorful characters that includes criminals and cops such as Cobby (Marc Lawrence), the gambling bookie who has a cop on his payroll; Lt. Ditrich (Guy Kelly) is the cop on the payroll who faces a dilemma when a master thief is released from prison, and at the same he is facing pressure from the commissioner; "Doc" Erwin Riedenschneider, the master thief himself (fantastic chameleonic character actor Sam Jaffe) who wants a crooked and broke lawyer, Emmerich (a cool, restrained Louis Calhern) to finance a high-scale robbery; James Whitmore as a hunchback owner of a luncheonette who knows when the heat is on, and we can't leave out "Doll" (Jean Hagen) who is in love with Dix though he doesn't reciprocate.

Lastly, I should not leave out Marilyn Monroe in one of her early roles, before she became a splashy star, in the role of the lawyer's breathy-voiced girlfriend who doesn't quite fit in this world - she is naive yet she also sticks out like a sore thumb in this movie. Compared to Jean Hagen's Doll, who knows how to stand up to Dix, and Emmerich's sickly wife (Dorothy Tree), a mature woman who only wants her husband around to play cards, Monroe feels like a perverse distraction.

"The Asphalt Jungle" has Huston fashioning a corrupt world with only a handful of good people with strong morals. This world is hardly a nihilistic nightmare but it is an astonishingly existential one where criminals are suffocating from the city and as the safecracker (Anthony Caruso) says it, "my wife wants fresh air." There is no sense of joy, reprieve or relaxation in this midwestern city - everybody is always on the run or on the take. An alcohol drink and a smoke is not enough to overcome suffocation, nor is a robbery. Dix is the only one to get close to that rugged farmland of freedom. I suppose he always knew he would die with the horses.  

Adventure and peril on a muted scale

 MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

An alleged grand adventure based on Jules Verne's novel, a sequel to his own justly famous "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," "Mysterious Island" the movie may justify one reading the book than suffering through a slipshod narrative that feels slightly schizophrenic.

An unmemorable group of imprisoned Union officers during the Civil War break out of a Virginia jail and take off on a balloon that is worthy of Jules Verne. The nighttime escape is shot day for night and so you may be hard-pressed in distinguishing who is who. Michael Craig is the bearded Captain followed by two more Union soldiers (Michael Callan, Doug Jackson); an ecstatic Northern newspaperman named Gideon Spillett (Gary Merrill) who uses flowery language, and a Rebel Sgt. Pencroft (Percy Herbert) with a very Southern twang. The balloon barely makes it through a horrific storm near a Pacific island. It is some unnamed tropical island frequented by pirates that also holds a few prehistoric creatures such as a giant bird, a huge bee with an even larger honeycomb and a giant crab. When the bird and crab are killed, it is feeding time for the castaways. When a shipwreck is seen in the ocean, two English women land on the beach. Yes, you can bet one of the Union soldiers, the young handsome one, falls in love so quickly that marriage plans are already discussed (plus the need for a minister). Although most of this occurs in the book, the movie feels like it is trying to be too many things at once.  

"Mysterious Island" picks up steam with the introduction of Herbert Lom as the spirited Captain Nemo whose Nautilus submarine is no longer in operation. This movie's sense of adventure and peril is so muted though that even when a volcano starts to erupt, it barely holds much excitement (especially with the use of stock footage). The Ray Harryhausen stop-motion effects are quite good yet I'll say "Jason and the Argonauts" was far more impressive. Good movie to watch on a Sunday afternoon if you need a sleep aid. 

Pure Bullet Noir

 BULLITT (1968)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

"Bullitt" is definitively bullet noir. There were a few notable existential action films in the late 1960's ("Point Blank" comes to mind) but there is something more immediate, more dangerous, more alluring about "Bullitt." There is one amazing car chase scene and one fantastic foot chase yet the movie also has Steve McQueen, a true antihero who has no inner life and not much interest in anything other than his work. He's always driving from one location to another in pursuit of a clue or an informant or a suspect. He never stops moving because there is nothing else to latch onto, except the alluring beauty of his architect girlfriend (Jacqueline Bisset). The world is a sewer, as his girlfriend says, and Bullitt himself is wallowing in it. Bullet noir.

The plot is relatively simple and spare. A mobster named Johnny Ross is on the run. Lieutenant Frank Bullitt (McQueen), along with his partners, Delgetti (Don Gordon) and Stanton (Carl Reindel), have the unenviable task of guarding Ross at a cheap hotel. The task is requested by U.S. Senator Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) - the goal being to guard Ross until the Senate has their subcommittee hearing on organized crime. Of course, something goes wrong when Ross is killed and one of Bullitt's men is injured - Chalmers doesn't know Ross was killed and won't until Bullitt persists with uncovering why this bloody mess occurred. 

The story may be nothing new yet the movie is a breeze, a coolly atmospheric and smoothly directed action picture where the thrills are derived from the investigation, from the clues that Bullitt gathers. It is also about Bullitt looking cool, calm and collected and driving his green Ford Mustang yet never expressing much emotion. McQueen has one smile that he passes to Bisset in a restaurant scene but that is the nature of Bullitt. He is aloof, never one to emote or to even show anger (he does convey concern for his injured partner). One particularly riveting scene has Bullitt in a copy room with his boss while Chalmers waits for him to sign the writ of habeas corpus - you feel a heated intensity from Bullitt but he never gives in. Anger is not in his arsenal, only his gun and his fast green Ford Mustang.

Speaking of the fast green Ford Mustang, the scene where he turns the tables on the hit men following him is insanely entertaining to watch and keeps you on the edge of your seat - you might almost fall off of it. There is a significantly explosive crash and yet Bullitt drives away, onto the next stage of the investigation. He is unstoppable and is aware that the world can be a sewer with not much light coming in from the darkness. His last scene is a beaut - Bullitt just stares at the mirror and knows more danger in his line of work is headed his way. Pure bullet noir. 

Death, snakes, convicts, halos

 WE'RE NO ANGELS (1955)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Talk about rigid staginess, "We're No Angels" is a crime comedy but it is so darn flat that it almost evaporates from the screen once it is over. That is saying a lot for a movie starring Humphrey Bogart.

It is Christmas time and three convicts have escaped from Devil's Island and they are about as charming a group as you can imagine. There is Joseph, the charming thief (Humphrey Bogart); Albert, a killer who has a predilection for getting any woman he can (Aldo Ray), and Jules, a clever thief who can break into any safe just by caressing it (he had also killed his wife and is played by Peter Ustinov). These three enter a shop that sells clothing and various other items and knick-knacks and volunteer to help Felix Ducotel (Leo G. Carroll), who runs the store, fix a leaking roof. Meanwhile, some shenanigans develop between the owner's wife (a thankless role by Joan Bennett) and their pretty young daughter (Gloria Talbott) who faints about three times before she's even properly introduced to these men. The convicts were planning all along to rob the store blind but they start to change their ways because, you know, it is Christmas and they fix the meal and clean the dishes. 

"We're No Angels" takes an eternity before the pace picks up and it does briefly with the introduction of the colorful, mean-spirited store owner (Basil Rathbone), an incorrigible prick who thinks money is the only value in life. Rathbone elevates the proceedings yet the movie never veers from its stage origins. I did like the running gag that everybody in Cayenne, a French colonial town, knows that the escaped convicts are at this store and nobody flinches at the sight of them or calls the police (until the end of the film). There is also an unseen poisonous snake belonging to Albert that results in a couple of unseen deaths. I could have lived without the halos. 

All hope is lost

 IN A LONELY PLACE (1950)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

None of Nicholas Ray's films could be considered average genre pictures that fulfill the needs of the specific genre. "Rebel Without a Cause" could've been a juvenile delinquent picture yet it rises above the surface of teens in trouble with its firm handling of disillusioned teenagers who are trying to figure out their place in the world. "In A Lonely Place" is one of Ray's best films, a sordid picture of Hollywood in the 1950's where making a buck and staying relevant matter more than anything. When it comes to struggling screenwriter Dix Steele (Humphrey Bogart), his displeasure with B "popcorn" pictures is due to having recent flops on his record and not because he doesn't want to make them. He is not interested in high art, just doing his diligent job of writing a sentimental, average movie. His own life is anything but sentimental. 

Dix Steele frequents nightly at Paul's restaurant, a regular hangout for all screenwriters, actors and Hollywood execs where getting noticed is the deal. Dix needs a comeback but his outbursts of violence and aggression can get the best of him. He has temperamental issues but they are not enough to deter anyone from working with him - his long-suffering agent, Mel (Art Smith), always makes excuses for Dix. One night, Dix invites a very perky hatcheck girl, Mildred (Martha Stewart), to his apartment to work out the details of the book he's adapting - she has already read it and dictates the plot to him. Dix couldn't be less interested and probably even less interested in Mildred, whom he sends home with 20 dollars to take a cab. The next day, Mildred is found murdered. Did Dix do it? He is a likely suspect, though his new alluring neighbor, Laurel (Gloria Grahame), did not see him leave with Mildred. She supposedly observes his every move since their apartments face each other in the courtyard.

"In a Lonely Place" finds Dix and Laurel getting romantically involved. She cooks for him and provides solace while he works on the script - she types the pages he writes. This relationship is doomed because as much as Laurel loves Dix, she catches his frequent temper fits. One night, he nearly kills another motorist by almost crushing his head with a rock! Dishonesty can set Dix off - he strikes his agent in the face at Paul's, and he takes off like a bat out of hell after it is discovered that Laurel met with one of the police detectives. He is rash and far too impulsive in his rage without being able to control it - he unsurprisingly has a history of violent episodes. Who can doubt that he killed Mildred especially when he reenacts it ("artistic temperament" he calls it) in front of his buddy, Brub (Frank Lovejoy), a police detective who is working on the case, and Brub's frightened wife, Sylvia (Jeff Donnell).

This all leads to a frighteningly intense ending where Dix confronts Laurel. First, she doesn't have her engagement ring on and he starts to get angry. Then she tries to shield his eyes from her bedroom where she has packed some belongings and has left an envelope for him (she's ready to take off to New York). It is so suspenseful and so tension-filled that you may find yourself trying to cover your eyes (Bogart gives a scary, tantalizing performance). Where can all this lead and did Dix kill Mildred? The beauty of "In a Lonely Place" is that its noir elements are not as significant as Dix's impending rage that can be set off at any time, anywhere. Laurel sees the beast in Dix and when the final truth is revealed, it doesn't matter whether he committed the crime or not - all hope is lost.   

We have all the time in the world

 ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Watching George Lazenby take on tough superspy James Bond can run a bit hot and cold. Lazenby (in his film debut) is suave, has the right physical build for a spy and ample presence - the guy knows how to throw a punch and how to fire a gun. I still do not buy him as James Bond because there is no danger to him and I do not sense that killer instinct. Sean Connery is the obvious comparison and Lazenby doesn't carry much in the way of adult charm either - he has boyish charm and remains resolutely calm around the ladies but that is it. In one scene, under disguise, he looks like Sherlock Holmes and I could see him as Holmes without question.

The story that matters most in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is Bond's search for Ernst Stavro Blofeld, his main arch-nemesis (this is Operation Bedlam). After Bond rescues a Countess from committing suicide in the Portugal sea, there is an elongated fight scene on the beach that is fairly witty in its payoff. The Countess is Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo (the luscious Avenger herself Diana Rigg, who only figures in the action during the opening and closing passages). She is the sole daughter of Marc-Ange Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti), the head of a powerful Corsican crime family, who wants Bond to marry her hoping she will be dominated and obey a husband (this would not go well in 2025). Bond declines the offer but he hopes that Draco will help locate Blofeld. It turns out that Blofeld (a very engaging Telly Savalas) is living in the Swiss Alps and is claiming the title of Count Balthazar de Bleuchamp through the London College of Arms! This is, of course, an attempt by Blofeld to disguise himself from being killed by Bond yet the archvillain also has a dastardly plan. Blofeld, or Count Balthazar, runs a clinic concerned with allergies and has a bunch of women used as test subjects. The truth is that the women are guinea pigs who are being brainwashed into spreading biological warfare agents to Britain and Ireland. The supervillains always had harebrained world domination and destruction plans, but wouldn't it have been easier to distribute such agents through gas exhaust or some other technological means?

"On Her Majesty's Secret Service" has some well-oiled action scenes and a breezy one or two ski chases which is something early Connery films did not have until Moore's "Spy Who Loved Me" (though Blofeld skiing through the Alps merits a few chuckles). Lazenby's Bond also has some great physical fistfights that are truly mind-boggling and keep you on the edge of your seat (when he knocks out a bunch of Draco's men and you hear ricocheting sound effects, it really does startle your senses). I also enjoyed Bond's attempts to escape a maintenance room with the monstrous gears controlling the cable cars - my hands got sweaty so I know it works. And we also get a marriage sequence that is followed by a tragedy - very unusual for a James Bond flick. Speaking of unusual, we are treated to a rare visit to M's house!

Lazenby is not quite the James Bond I love to see - he just doesn't have that edge but his romantic scenes are wonderful and he's acceptable playing cards at a casino. He isn't bad so I have to grade him against latter-day Bonds - he's miles ahead of Timothy Dalton but he's no Connery or Roger Moore. The movie is still fun and engineered with maximum skill by debuting director Peter Hunt. Still, in light of what Connery could get away with or even Moore, neither would pass muster disguised as a Holmes type or a genealogist wearing a Scottish kilt! 

I won't play the sap for you

 THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Sam Spade can love women like any hardboiled detective, but can he forgive himself after loving someone who may killed someone close to him? That is the real question and one that stays with you long after watching John Huston's astonishing directorial debut, "The Maltese Falcon." 

Based on Dashiell Hammett's classic mystery novel (adapted twice before), Sam Spade is our man of the hour (Humphrey Bogart), a tough detective who doesn't sugarcoat anything and pedals hard when he wants information. His partner, Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan), is more than a bit enchanted by their newest client, a certain Miss Wonderly (Mary Astor), who wants protection of her sister from a malevolent boyfriend named Thursby. The private detectives know what to do and when Archer allegedly confronts Thursby, the pleasant detective is shot dead. A half-hour later, Thursby is gunned down. The police and Archer's wife suspect foul play from Spade but Spade is nobody's murderer or fool. Spade is eager to find Archer's shooter and he has a good hunch that Miss Wonderly, who is actually Brigid O'Shaughnessy, might hold some clues. It turns out her story was a fabrication, which Spade had already suspected, and he can sense almost everything coming out of her mouth is a lie. 

Then we get to the business of the Maltese Falcon, a sought after statuette of a black bird that holds encrusted jewels. The effeminate Joe Cairo (Peter Lorre) is interested in acquiring it and thinks Sam has it. Then there's the "gunsel" Wilmer (Elisha Cook, Jr., known at the time in Hollywood as the "lightest heavy") who is trailing our detective and whom Spade can easily spot a mile away. Wilmer works for a most jolly, cultured fellow known as Kasper Gutman, the "Fat Man" (a marvelous Oscar-nominated performance by Sydney Greenstreet), who relays the history of the "black bird" that goes as far back as the Knights Templar. Before long, Spade is embroiled in a search for a statuette that is of little significance to him, other than his growing love for Brigid and the mystery killer who shot his partner and Thursby.

"The Maltese Falcon" is so alarmingly fast-paced that, not unlike say "His Girl Friday," you have to keep up with these characters' rapid-fire dialogue to make sense of everything. That is the beauty of a jewel of a movie like this - it never hesitates to keep moving, to keep us on our toes wondering what else will be uncovered and what other double-crosses are headed our way. The clean, crisp dialogue is full of delicious memorable lines like "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it!" or "Don't crowd me" or even the film's last Shakespearean line delivered by Bogie's Sam "This is the stuff dreams are made of" (a line not in the original novel). Every scene is sumptuously acted and crackles with excitement (further proof that a room full of people talking can be thrilling and suspenseful) - no shot is ever wasted and no scene ever feels out-of-tune. Watching Humphrey Bogart have his way with everyone, and completely fearless, is truly divine cinema. Greenstreet's girth says just as much as his soft Brit accent - such a man with a wicked smile can only spell danger around the corner. Bug-eyed Lorre as Joe Cairo also keeps you on your toes - he threatens Sam with a gun twice in the same scene! Then there's Elisha Cook, Jr. whose eyes well up when he realizes he will be the fall guy for this black bird mess. And, finally, there is the equally divine Mary Astor who is also fearless in her own right, playing one of the most duplicitous femme fatales I've ever seen. And when Sam confesses he loves her and knows that he has to send her away to jail, you feel his regret. Astor's Brigid can't even look at him in the final scene. This is juiced-up, fantastically entertaining noir and it would make a hell of a double feature with "Out of the Past." An American classic.  

Neorealism at its peak

 BICYCLE THIEVES (1948)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Bicycle Thieves" is highly effective in its very simplicity, in evoking a time and an era where hardships and financial strife were all too common. The simplicity goes further in establishing desperation through a necessary mode of transportation.

That mode of transportation is simply a bicycle, one needed sorely for a new job that our protagonist needs. The protagonist is Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani), a desperate man who finds a job placing movie ad posters on bare walls surrounding selective parts of Rome, Italy. Ricci has a wife who has a strong religious faith, Maria (Lianella Carell), who sells her bedsheets for money, and a young, empathetic son named Bruno (Enzo Staiola) not to mention a newborn baby. When Maria receives sufficient money, Antonio uses it to buy back his bicycle at a pawn shop. While doing his job one day, a young man steals his bicycle and Antonio spends the rest of the film trying to get it back. Without it, he can't do his job (although he tries to convince the boss that he can walk all over Rome if needs be). Antonio files a police report but to no avail - Rome is littered with its citizens riding bikes. Finding the bike is practically a needle in the haystack yet he does come across the young man, seen speaking to an older, disheveled man who wants a hot meal at the local church. The young man disappears in the bike yet again and Antonio begs the old man to tell him about this thief but to little avail, until an address is finally revealed. 

Set during the post-WWII era in Italy, director Vittorio de Sica has crafted something that was unusual at its time - a street-level look at life in actual locations that look and feel real. Aside from some rear-screen projection during a bus ride, nothing in "Bicycle Thieves" seems inauthentic or less than credible. The film never gives you the impression that you are looking at dressed-up sets or elaborate soundstages with expressionistic lighting. This film was one of a select few that birthed the neorealism movement on film (the movement began as a literary one in the 1920's)  - using found locations with people marching along or bicycling their way around the many tight corners around buildings and the wide, open streets. The cast is not a group of professional actors - they are all people with real jobs selected by De Sica and it is admirable how not one false note is apparent in their characterizations. 

I did get a bit impatient with the business of the Wise Woman, an alleged fortune teller whom Maria seeks and gives money to when luck initially seems to be on their side. I see the necessity of such a character but one scene would've been enough - an extra scene with Ricci just seems extraneous. It is the only issue I have with "Bicycle Thieves," a film where you can't help but empathize with this unfortunate poor family getting by with scraps yet hoping for a better future. We share in Antonio's plight so strongly that it is hard to feel anything other than pity and helplessness at the end during a very tearful scene rich with irony. No bike, no job, and if there's no job, no money to support a family - very elegantly and simply told. Everybody seems to be poor (other than the restaurant scene where we see people affording luxurious pasta meals and refreshing wine) and we know the young thief is poor and we feel sorry for him, as well. Antonio feels that sorrow as well.