BALL OF FIRE
***˝
THE BIG STORE
***˝
BLOSSOMS IN THE DUST
**
CITIZEN KANE
*****
THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER
***
USA
A struggling farmer makes a deal with the Devil.
A patchy, poorly dated moralistic melodrama that occasionally, abruptly
takes on a bewitching, otherworldly tone that hints at its director's
German Expressionist heritage.
dir: William Dieterle
cast: James Craig, Anne Shirley, Edward Arnold, Walter
Huston, Simone Simon, Jane Darwell, Gene Lockhart
DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
***˝
DUMBO
*****
USA
Arguably the greatest, most perfect of the Disney cartoons. At 64
minutes, it's also maybe the shortest. In terms of mixing pathos with
screwball comedy, it's never been surpassed. It's made up of a bunch of
ingeniously conceived, perfectly timed sequences, and nobody who's ever
had a childhood could ever forget them: the opening visit from the storks,
the elephant pyramid, the clown fire brigade, the pink elephants on
parade, the crows' song. The characters are delightful, from Dumbo himself
(who is cute in a way that rather than sickening is irresistible), to the
politically incorrect jive-talkin' 'black' crows, to the bitchy socialite
lady elephants, to the wheezing, chugging, irrepressible train. And
through it all there's even the subtext of an ostracised hero who turns
his liability into an asset. It's freakishly touching.
dir: Ben Sharpsteen
m: Frank Churchill, Oliver Wallace
49TH PARALLEL
****˝
THE GREAT LIE
**˝
HERE COMES MR. JORDAN
***
HIGH SIERRA
**˝
USA
A convict escapes prison and gets involved in
the One Last Job.
A heedlessly patched up star vehicle, with superfluous subplots and
little to suggest it ever needed to exist.
dir: Raoul Walsh
cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy,
Joan Leslie, Henry Hull, Henry Travers
HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY
****
THE LADY EVE
***** THE LITTLE FOXES
****
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THE MALTESE FALCON
*****
USA
This was the third adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's novel, but it was one
of the first pictures to use things like trench coats, shoulder pads and
Venetian blinds the way they were meant to be used. Bogart plays Sam
Spade, a private eye who gets involved with a crooked bunch of individuals
in search of "the stuff dreams are made of". He spits out his
lines with his mouth half closed, he smirks where he's meant to swoon and
grins where he should be furrowing his brow. If you want to figure out
what all those French upstarts were worshipping in the 60s, this is the
place to start. Mary Astor maybe wasn't the most fatale-looking femme on
Warners' payroll, but she was one of the most versatile. Here she plays
sixteen different kinds of duplicitous, all of them with great poise.
Peter Lorre does his usual googly-eyed, pansy-voiced thing to great
effect, and there's also 61-year-old debutante Sydney Greenstreet, whose
immense girth is showcased to maximum impact with low camera angles. It's John Huston's
first directing gig and already he demonstrates an exemplary sense of pace and
economy. The cutting is swift and unfussy. There isn't an ounce of fat in
the picture, but there's plenty of atmosphere. Huston was one of the first
American auteurs to appreciate the value of high contrast and low-key
lighting.
wr/dir: John Huston
ph: Arthur Edeson
cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney
Greenstreet, Elisha Cook Jr., Gladys George, Lee Patrick, Ward Bond,
Jerome Cowan, Walter Huston
MAN HUNT
***˝
USA
Fritz Lang's anti-Nazi propaganda thriller opens with one of several
startling sequences: in a windy, secluded German forest, we see Hitler
through a gunman's crosshairs, then the gunman takes a 'practice' shot.
Subsequently, the gunman is revealed to be American-accented Walter
Pidgeon playing an aristocratic English game hunter (in his defence, he
does say 'cahn't' instead of 'cain't'), while the Nazi commander is played
by George Sanders, speaking awkward German and flawless English. The
film's conception of Britain and the British also includes a misjudged
cardboard cityscape and a gut-busting attempt at Cockney by (the
ravishingly beautiful) Joan Bennett. It gets difficult to determine
whether you should it all that seriously, even though Fritz Lang is
patently desperate that you do. The suspense setpieces at least, are
handled with the expertise you'd expect.
dir: Fritz Lang
cast: Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, John Carradine,
Roddy McDowall, Ludwig Stossel, Heather Thatcher
MEET JOHN DOE
***
THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER
**˝
USA
An arrogant radio critic is forced to stay with
a Midwestern family.
A few decent lines of dialogue emerge intact from this dated, forced and claustrophobic play
adaptation, which is otherwise as pompous and irritating as its supremely pompous and
irritating central character.
dir: William Keighley
cast: Monty Woolley, Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Richard
Travis, Jimmy Durante, Reginald Gardiner, Billie Burke, Elizabeth Fraser,
Grant Mitchell, George Barbier, Mary Wickes
MR. AND MRS. SMITH
***
USA
A tempestuous couple discovers their marriage
wasn't legal.
A surprisingly bland stab at screwball by the master of suspense, though
most of the blame should really lie in the script department.
dir: Alfred Hitchcock
cast: Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond, Jack
Carson
SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS
****˝
SUSPICION
***˝
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