The Phantom of Liberty (1974)

Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière
Starring Monica Vitti, Milena Vukotic, Michel Lonsdale, Michel Piccoli

Writing a review would be pointless. Trying to write something about The Phantom of Liberty that is more absurd than the film itself would be a game of one-upsmanship I would not win. Here then is a recipe for inducing pink vomit:

1 package strawberry Jell-O
1 quart of milk

Mix ingredients in a bowl and chill for at least one hour.

Bon appetit.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by Robert Rodat
Starring Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeremy Davies, Matt Damon, Ted Danson, Paul Giamatti, Dennis Farina, Nathan Fillion, Bryan Cranston, Harve Presnell

I had just settled in to watch Saving Private Ryan for the first time in probably ten years. Like many movies in my collection, it has quietly travelled with me across the continent and back, standing alongside its brothers on one shelf or another, always ready for duty but never getting the call. Thanks to this little project, all of these films will finally have another day in the sun.

And so the movie began, with its distinctive shot of the U.S. flag waving with sunlight shining through and its awkward framing story. This was followed soon thereafter by the most justly famous section of the movie, the invasion at Normandy beach. I enjoy most of the journey that the movie takes us on, but my favorite moment occurs early. I won’t give it away, but my spontaneous reaction to it today was saying “Goddamn it!” and then laughing out loud.

After the opening fireworks had settled, the exposition scene was just starting to get the main storyline moving. And that was when I got the telephone call from Tom Hanks.

“Hello, Mister … I’m sorry, I’m not sure how to pronounce that.”

I started to answer, but Hanks cut me off.

“You know, for marketing research purposes it really doesn’t matter. Actually I’m going to save a little time here and go ahead and check a few of these boxes. Age bracket -- B … income -- we’ll be generous and call that one a D ... single … Virgo … and your favorite color is -- periwinkle.

“OK, so that’s the preliminary stuff. The reason I’m calling today, Mister -- you know, why don’t I just call you Skip? It’s informal, it’s fun, it’s easier to remember and it definitely rolls off the tongue nicer than that mess of consonants you got going on there. Skip, the reason for the call is that the surveillance chip embedded in your DVD player shows that you are watching one of my films, specifically Saving Private Ryan. I believe you should be at the scene where Harve Presnell is reading Lincoln’s letter right about … now.

“I want you to go ahead and pause that. If you’ve got some popcorn, you could make some. I should be there in about five minutes. Also, do you like RC cola? Because I get a discount on it and I was going to get a two-liter. You want to go halvsies on it?”

I decided to hold off on making the popcorn for a few minutes, which worked out for the best. Tom didn’t arrive at the house until nine minutes after the call, owing to a busy store and a clerk who had been a pain to haggle with. I showed him in, paid the $.39 which was my share of the cola minus Tom’s share of the popcorn, and we resumed the film from where I’d left off.

“Don’t mind me, Skip,” Tom said through a mouthful of popcorn while he took photographs of my DVD shelves. “I’m just doing demographic research. Hey, do you have any Heckle and Jeckle cartoons?”

I shook my head, and then had a sinking feeling as I realized what he was bound to ask at some point.

A dying Vin Diesel was on screen, trying to hand a blood-covered note to one of his fellow soldiers. “Huh. Whatever happened to that guy?” said Tom. Some of his popcorn was flying out of his mouth in little pieces and landing on my tatami mats. I made a mental note to sweep them later.

Tom’s eyes were once again roaming my well-organized movie collection. “Let’s see, no Fast and Furious, no Chronicles of Riddick. Guess you’re not much of a Vin Diesel fan.” He noted this in his research. And then it happened.

“Holy crap! Where is your copy of Forrest Gump? Did you loan it out to someone?”

I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes.

Tom stood up slowly. His jaw was slightly opened, and I noted he was drooling a little. “Philadelphia … Big … Cast Away?” He was now frantically moving his hands over the spines of my DVDs, looking for a Tom Hanks movie, any Tom Hanks movie. He looked at his notes again. “But … your demographic … you should own Road to Perdition! Or maybe, --”

He scratched through some numbers and, I think, carried a one.

“Splash! Or Bachelor Party! One of them has to be here!”

I muttered something about kind of wanting to see Joe Versus the Volcano again, but it didn’t seem to comfort him.

“I don’t know what to say to you, Skip. Here I’ve spent the last three decades entertaining you. And don’t try to deny it. I have the receipts from when you saw Catch Me if You Can and The Terminal in theaters. So I know I’ve made some kind of connection with you. You’re not going to let the ice melt in that RC, are you?”

Not wanting to upset him further, I took a long sip. And then I saw it, on the fourth shelf from the top, the remake of The Ladykillers starring Tom Hanks. I started to tell Tom, but he interrupted.

“I know. I saw it there too. But we both know that one doesn’t count.”

On screen, machine guns were firing. But it wasn’t enough to drown out the awkward silence in the room.

Tom took a deep swig from his RC and put the glass down on the mantelpiece. He gathered up his research materials and started to say something to me. But the hurt in his eyes said it all. He opened the door and sighed.

I’m sorry, Tom, I was saying to him. But he was already gone.

Sword of the Beast (1965)

Directed by Hideo Gosha
Written by Hideo Gosha, Eizaburo Shiba
Starring Mikijiro Hira, Go Kato, Shima Iwashita, Toshie Kimura

The beast had been wandering for centuries. Once it was the ruler of this land, and its influence had even spread to realms beyond. The beast knew this much. Beyond that it knew how to forage to survive. But in truth, it would have died many years ago had its body still required sustenance to carry on. For this was a dead land.

There had been a time when the beast would have never imagined a need to seek its own food. He had only to move his head and bellow, and men would sacrifice their young and their beautiful maidens. The beast would consume them whole and pass their bones.

Later the meat had not been as tender. Only the elder ones remembered and recognized his power, and they sacrificed from within their own ranks. When the last of them had exhausted their short lives, the beast’s howls would go unrewarded. The angry beast would infect the men with plagues, cause their homes to catch fire, and would swell the ocean to rise up and wash away their towns. But the stupid men never thought to feed him.

Now there were few signs that the land had ever been civilized. The beast spent his days patrolling a dead forest. Sometimes something new would sprout from the ground, but then a spontaneous fire would erupt and scorch the earth. Occasionally, the beast would pick up the scent of a man, but it was always distant and possibly only imagined.

But today the beast encountered an odor that had been all but forgotten to him. A demon was in his land. In better times, the beast had taught demons to stay away from his food. Demons corrupted men’s souls and soured the meat. This the beast would not tolerate.

But the meat and the souls were long gone from this land. What business would a demon have here now?

The beast did not care for the taste of demon and did not have the motivation to fight. Nevertheless he felt protective of the land that was still his, depleted though it was. He would have to deal with the intruder.

He did not have to search for long. At the edge of what had once been a treeline was a lake that had been created by the blood of men and the piss of the beast. On the other side of the lake the beast’s one good eye followed a pillar of black smoke down to its source, and there saw the demon, sitting stone still by a campfire and meditating.

The beast took his time walking around the lake. He had not spoken in a thousand years, but in any case communication with demons scarcely required it. Like many of the ancient races, demons could instinctively read souls. What made them skilled predators was their ability to just as instinctively pervert them.

The demon stood up slowly as the beast approached. He beckoned for him to join him by the camp. The beast instead stopped in his tracks, and the demon addressed him.

You are the master of this land. I am a young demon, and I do not know you, but I can tell that this is true. I hope you will forgive my trespass. I am waiting for someone.

You will not wait here. If someone is coming, I will greet them with my jowls and welcome them into the pit of my stomach. I would offer you the same, but you are unappetizing. Leave my land and do not return.

I am sorry, old one, but I will not leave yet. What will you do about it?

The beast had not been so brazenly defied in all its existence. It was confused more than anything else. Had the beast a little more intelligence, he might have recognized that confusion as the moment he lost the battle.

I am old, that is true. I do not fight as fiercely as I once did. But I am more than capable of tearing a little demon into many pieces.

I believe you, old one. So why did you so graciously offer me the option of leaving here whole?

I … do not know.

Oh, but you do. You cannot deceive a demon, as you well know. I see what is in your soul.

The beast knew he was trapped. If he retreated, his hold on the land would end, and he would become mortal. His body was far too old to survive such a transition. And though a moment before he could have destroyed the demon with ease, it was too late. The demon had found his soul. It was corrupted by tendrils that caressed and weakened his spirit. Even if he had been able to focus enough to mount an attack, killing the demon would kill himself.

Your spirit has been dying for too many years, old one. Thankfully your bones are still strong. I may be able to fashion a weapon from them.

Above his campfire the demon had mounted a spit. The beast was drawn to it.

Climb onto it, old one. Use those jowls one more time and swallow it whole. That should not be too difficult for you.

The fire was roaring strongly now. The beast found it oddly inviting. Perhaps this was not such a bad way to leave this land. He opened his jaws wide around the spit and pulled himself forward.

A Generation (1955)

Directed by Andrzej Wajda
Written by Bohdan Czeszko
Starring Tadeusz Lomnicki, Urszula Modrzynska, Tadeusz Janczar, Janusz Paluszkiewicz

The debut film for director Andrzej Wajda is also the first part of his unofficial “war trilogy” (there are no character or storyline connections between the three films), depicting Poland at different stages during World War II. A well-made first feature that kind of pales beside the second and third installments. Not a bad movie, but I have no insights to offer and can’t think of anything funny to say about it. One more movie off the list. Next.

Wait, that’s a terrible blog entry. Where is the value for my reader’s time spent indulging me in my obsessive quest to watch all these DVDs and report on them? This isn’t Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide. I have to do more.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, so after much research, here are some Interesting Facts I discovered about A Generation:

-- Roman Polanski is in this movie somewhere.

-- So are Alfred Hitchcock, Amelia Earhart, and one of the stunt double vehicles from Herbie Rides Again.

-- Despite the fact that director Wajda and all of his cast and crew were native Polish speakers, only pig latin was spoken while filming in case there were still any listening devices nearby left over from the recent occupation. This meant dubbing all dialogue in post-production. To more closely match the rhythms of the Polish language, the footage was played in reverse while the actors recorded their lines. So during production, all actions that included dialogue had to be performed backwards. Thankfully the actors were up to the task. One would never know any better by watching the final film unless his or her attention is distracted by all the backward-walking animals and bullets going back into their guns.

That’s it. I got nothing else. My apologies to Andrzej Wajda. He really is a good director.

The Hidden Fortress (1958)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, Shinobu Hashimoto, Akira Kurosawa
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Minoru Chiaki, Kamatari Fujiwara, Misa Uehara

Mifune was born with a katana in his hand. He emerged fully grown from the womb, performing a c-section from the inside. After severing his umbilical cord, his first action was field surgery to save his mother’s life.

He spent his first years farming. He had a natural ability with the soil. There was a form of communication between them. His crops grew tall and plentiful.

When his mother died, Mifune’s grief became an earthquake that ravaged the farm. The bond between him and the land was broken. He salvaged enough food for a long journey, and picked up his sword.

He encountered no person on the day he left home, but his travels did not go unnoticed. A pack of wolves surrounded him. Mifune bowed and asked for safe passage. The leader of the wolves attacked and became Mifune’s winter coat and a quiver. A snake tried to bite him, and provided Mifune a belt and string for his bow.

On the first night he made camp, a demon visited Mifune by the fire. It was interested to know how Mifune had come by the blade he carried. Mifune answered that he was born with it, and offered no more in the way of conversation. The demon’s presence annoyed him.

The demon told him that the blade was cursed. He could sense the presence of a demon more powerful than himself bound within it. It was this that had drawn him to Mifune’s camp.

This angered Mifune. He called the demon a liar and challenged him, but the demon smiled and refused. He would stand no chance against Mifune’s blade, he said. He then walked into the fire and rode the smoke upwards and was gone.

Mifune did not sleep that night, nor for several nights after.

He did not know how long he had been travelling. His senses were keen, even sharpened, by the lack of sleeping. But the measurement of time had been lost. As dawn broke one morning, he saw the outlines of a town.

The smells of the city were different from those of the farm he had known for most of his life. The concentration of people and the poor living conditions made it a foul place that assaulted and overwhelmed him. He vomited twice before his body could adjust.

Mifune walked from building to building and observed. He carried no money and had little in the way of social skills. The townspeople were clearly frightened by his appearance. Some would skitter away, but just as many adopted defensive postures and kept their eyes on him.

He encountered an older man who had lost his legs and was begging in the street. Mifune asked to sit a while with him and rest. The beggar was glad for the company.

The beggar began telling Mifune things about the town. What it was called, how it began, and who its prominent citizens were. But the travel had taken its toll, and Mifune was soon asleep.

He was awakened when his sword was snatched from his hand. Mifune was on his feet in a second. He barely got a look at the thief before the crowd closed in around him and blocked his view.

Mifune fought them well, but he was only one man, weakened by travel and lack of rest. He was beaten badly and eventually succumbed to unconsciousness when a rock struck his head hard. Mifune had just enough sense to register that the throw had come from the direction of the beggar before everything faded into blood red.

It was some time before he realized his spirit was now walking without his body. He was beside a nearly dry river bed. Only a trickle of dirty water ran past him. A dam built of corpses and manure was blocking the water upstream.

A strong campfire was burning ahead, with a beast Mifune could not identify turning on a spit above it. Stoking the flames was a familiar demon. As Mifune approached, the demon addressed him.

You are brave to visit this world, living man. Without your blade you are powerless against me. And you did not treat me with hospitality when we last met.

Mifune did not reply. Instead he pulled a piece of meat from the roasting creature and ate. It was burnt and rancid.

You will find no nourishment in the flesh of that creature. At one time it was a god, but its name has long since been forgotten, even by itself. It asked me to kill it, and I granted its wish.

What do you wish, living man?

Nothing from you, said Mifune, and started to walk past the demon. The demon grabbed him by the throat and lifted him with one hand.

You are not welcome here. You will return and face me again, and on that day I will destroy you. But you have more demons to face before me.

The demon threw Mifune over the dam of corpses, over the foul reddish-brown lake past it, over the charred remnants of a forest, over a ruined castle, and over the edge of anything Mifune could comprehend. He fell and fell into nothing.

He felt an impact and his body jolted. The sudden movement sent up flares of pain from his broken ribs. An inhuman sound was forced from his lungs, and he began breathing in quick, forced gasps.

It took some time before he was able to stop shaking long enough to stand. When he had regained control of his body, Mifune took in his surroundings. He was at the bottom of a gully in a forest, but it was too dark to determine more than that.

Mifune began gathering material for a small campfire. Morning would come soon. Then he would retrieve his sword.

The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)

Directed by Joel (and Ethan) Coen
Written by Ethan and Joel Coen
Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, Scarlett Johannson, James Gandolfini, Tony Shalhoub, Jon Polito

The Man Who Wasn’t There is a great-looking curiosity piece. The same could probably be said about most of the Coens’ movies. I’m a fan of them, as are most film people I know. They’ve put their stamp on a lot of different genres and created a few truly unique movies. What other movie is like O Brother Where Art Thou, or The Hudsucker Proxy?

This time around the genre is film noir. Working with their regular cinematographer Roger Deakins, they nail the look. That’s a given. There’s a reason Deakins is one of the best-known people of his profession. The basic elements of the plot fit in with the genre as well. There is betrayal and murder. The protagonist, Ed Crane the barber, is less than heroic. He narrates his story with unflinching cynicism.

But the feel of the movie is different from classic noir. Maybe it’s über noir. The movie just oozes hopelessness. It’s not without the Coens’ comic touches, but they aren’t enough to let any sunshine in to this bleak tale. Scarlett Johansson’s Birdy is the brightest spot, but even her character isn’t immune to the effects of the general malaise.

A decade before, the Coens made Miller’s Crossing, a film that was as good a gangster picture as it was a sendup of the genre, depending on how seriously you feel like taking it. It is one of many high points in their careers. Of that film’s protagonist, Tom Reagan, it is said that he doesn’t hate anyone -- or like anyone. That statement can be applied and amplified to Ed Crane. To say he “isn’t there” is fair enough. His life seems to have happened around him, without any initiative on his part. When he makes the decision to go into business with Jon Polito’s dry cleaning entrepreneur, his actions are motivated out of spite for his own wife. It makes him impossible to sympathize with, even if he had his own reasons for doing what he did.

The second half is a little easier to take. Events of the first section wrap up sooner than expected, and better for our protagonist than he deserves. Ed gravitates toward the light he sees in Birdy’s piano playing out of misplaced affection, and her presence is as much a relief for the audience as it is for him. But eventually his past comes back to haunt him, even if the specifics are a little off, and the story ends as it must.

I don’t know what kind of business the film did or how it was received critically, but I suspect history will be kind to the movie. Despite the detachment between protagonist and audience, it has to be said the movie is immaculately made. Writing, performances, direction, cinematography, and music all work together to create an experience that is cinematic in the best sense of the word.

And now the movie’s over and I’m bummed. That’s why I haven’t watched it in forever until now.

Interesting Facts

-- After initial discussions with the Coens about taking on the role of Ed Crane, Billy Bob Thornton watched every episode of The Andy Griffith Show featuring Floyd the barber repeatedly in preparation for his performance. Then, upon reading the final script, he said “what the fuck did I do that for?”

-- The moving piano piece that Birdy plays at her recital is “Move It On Over” by Hank Williams.

-- There is an anachronism toward the end of the film when Ed sees the UFO. The movie takes place in 1949, but the spaceship he sees is clearly a 1957 model. The dual exhaust and chrome highlights give it away.

Sanshiro Sugata Parts I-II (1943/1945)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by Akira Kurosawa, Tsuneo Tomita (novel)
Starring Susumu Fujita, Takashi Shimura, Ryunosuke Tsukigata

Only my third movie into this thing and Ziggy Jr. picks my first Kurosawa. And a couple of Kurosawa’s earliest movies as a director at that. Not Seven Samurai or Throne of Blood or Yojimbo or Rashomon or Red Beard or Ikiru. Sanshiro Sugata aka Judo Saga. Since there are two parts and the movies are fairly short, I might as well cover them both.

Akira Kurosawa is my favorite director. His peak period is from 1950 to 1965, from Rashomon to Red Beard. He directed thirteen films during that span. All are emotionally gripping and technically terrific films. A small number of these films have notable flaws, but the majority of them are classics.

The Sanshiro Sugata films, released in 1943 and 1945, are Kurosawa’s first and third films as a director. It wasn’t until his seventh film, 1948’s Drunken Angel, that Kurosawa himself felt he was becoming the kind of director he wanted to be.

So far I’ve said nothing much about the movies I am supposed to be writing about. This is only my second time watching them, so I’m not overly familiar with either part. So far, I’m finding the first one compelling enough. The action scenes are awkwardly staged, something which Kurosawa would improve upon tremendously by the time he made Seven Samurai.

Thankfully the rest of the storytelling is solid. It’s a pretty straightforward hero’s journey, from a nobody new in town who goes through trials to become the champion who gets the girl. There’s a villain with a memorable look to him. And some of the scenes and little touches are lovely. It’s clear what Toho studios saw in the young Kurosawa.

It’s also worth noting that Takashi Shimura, veteran actor who would appear in twenty of Kurosawa’s thirty films, was there right from the start. Though it was Toshiro Mifune who would come along a few years later and dominate Kurosawa’s classic period, the always reliable Shimura was excellent in support and even better in his leading roles in Ikiru and Seven Samurai.

Susumu Fujita, the lead actor in both Sanshiro Sugata films, has an affable quality but lacks the fire of Kurosawa’s later leading men, Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai. Because of this and the fact that the story is so well-worn, and also because Kurosawa’s style had not yet developed, the films don’t make as much impression today as they did upon their original release. The first part was a hit for Toho. The second part is not only the lesser film in terms of story and craftsmanship, but had the misfortune of being released at a time when Japan was pretty ravaged by the effects of World War II.

Sanshiro Sugata is a modest success as a great director’s first film. Its sequel lacks most of the original film’s charm, and frankly is a disappointing continuation. Ultimately the audience for both films is limited to Kurosawa completists.

Interesting Facts

-- Akira Kurosawa was considered to be the Japanese John Ford. He did have great respect for Ford’s films and learned a few things from him. But Kurosawa generally preferred to be known as the Japanese Rita Hayworth, for reasons that have never been made entirely clear.

-- Susumu Fujita, who appeared in several of Kurosawa’s early films, was largely absent during the director’s peak period. This was not because of any kind of creative fallout, but because Fujita led a secret Japanese task force to find and rescue Japanese P.O.W.’s who had been left on foreign soil after WWII. These heroic efforts gave him a reputation as the Japanese Rambo.

-- Takashi Shimura was the Japanese Buddy Holly. Go figure.

The Bank Dick (1940)

Directed by Edward F. Cline
Written by W.C. Fields (as Mahatma Kane Jeeves), Richard Carroll 
Starring W.C. Fields, Shemp Howard

It was, I believe, last Wednesday night. Whichever night it was raining and that fog seeped in. I was taking the train home from work when I became convinced by a completely illogical premonition that the conditions would somehow cause us to derail. I made it a point to disembark at the next stop.

I found myself in a part of town that I had never seen before. It smelled like it was laundry day, and everyone had washed their clothes in urine before hanging them out to dampen in the mist. I was shivering and pulled my coat up tight. But I needed a different kind of warmth in my belly.

I walked toward where the fog was at its brightest yellow-grey. I found there a tavern lit by gas lamp, with a better-than-average weeknight crowd, no doubt driven by the same impulses as myself.

Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain were arm wrestling in a booth. A lively game of Texas Hold ‘em was underway in the middle of the room. Colonel Sanders was holding a cigar and looking very confident. Minnie Pearl and one of the Monkees each had a decent stack of chips. Paul Lynde appeared to be out of the game and was just hanging around to chat. Poor Elisha Cook was obviously about to be dealt out.

There was one open stool at the bar and I worked my way over, careful to avoid a collision with Carmen Miranda balancing a tray of drinks atop her head.

Shemp Howard was moving faster than I would have imagined him capable, applying a lemon twist to a martini on his left and pouring a jigger of amaretto on his right, then quickly turning around to tighten up a faulty beer tap. I didn’t want to interrupt his work to place my order just yet, and looked to the neighbor on my left.

“It ain’t a fit night out for man nor beast!” said W.C. Fields, and threw down a shot. He had his own bottle of rye, and immediately poured another.

“What an apt phrase,” said the silly old bear to my right. He turned up his hunny jar and then, licking his lips, offered it to me. I politely declined, but then the bear leaned in and whispered to me in confidence.

“It isn’t really hunny, you see. Or at least it hasn’t been in some time. Do you, sir, imbibe of mead?”

It was a libation I had never tasted, but my curiosity was piqued. I hefted the hunny jar in both hands (it was surprisingly large), took a cautious whiff, and drank in a large gulp.

“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” the bear continued. “None of my friends know, but then none of us are very bright. I feel I’ve been sending warning signals for years, vainly hoping for intervention.” He sighed loudly. “How very silly of me.”

I had drunk more than I’d intended, and I passed the jar back to my gracious host. But his expression changed to one of consternation.

“Oh bother, all gone.”

On my left, Fields stopped his glass halfway to his lips. He glanced nervously at our companion. “Everything OK there, Mister Saunders?”

“How very, very silly of me,” the bear repeated, swaying awkwardly on his stool.

By now his behavior had drawn Shemp’s attention. He poured a glass of ice water and placed it before the drunken old bear. “You uh, want us to call that boy to come get ya?”

Apparently that had been the wrong thing to say. The bear knocked back his stool and stood on his haunches. “That boy -- is never coming back!”

And then, his balance lost, he fumbled his paws around the hunny-mead jar just as his body rolled over with a crash. Somehow he worked the jar over his entire head and then pawed and clawed in the air like a turtle on its back.

Aghast, I looked to Fields, but he had already returned to his rye. “Silly old bear,” he muttered.

The mead was burning in my stomach. I’d gotten what I came for. Sensing that the place would be closing and perhaps ceasing to exist very soon, I made for the exit and never looked back.

Key Largo (1948)

Directed by John Huston
Written by Maxwell Anderson (play), Richard Brooks, John Huston

Starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall

Well, I got a pretty good one to start things off. Was afraid the computer (hereafter known as Ziggy Jr.) would end up picking something obscure like Armageddon for my inaugural foray with this blog. Key Largo stars my favorite actor working with his favorite leading lady in one of their better films together. My order of preference for the Bogart-Bacall collaborations: The Big Sleep, Key Largo, To Have and Have Not, Dark Passage. All but the latter are indisputable classic Hollywood entertainments.

Key Largo is basically a reworking of The Petrified Forest (1936), which contained Bogart’s breakthrough performance in the role of villain Duke Mantee. Warner Bros.' original choice for that role had been Edward G. Robinson, who was already an established screen star thanks to his turn as Rico in 1931’s Little Caesar and subsequent gangster pictures. Robinson’s performance as Johnny Rocco in Key Largo gives us a good idea what he would have been like as Mantee. Bogart, as protagonist Frank McCloud, has a grittier edge than Forest’s hero, the proper gentleman actor Leslie Howard. In both films, the heroes and villains are confined together during a storm and drama ensues. It’s one of the great formulas that still works.

I don’t believe in giving star ratings nor letter or numerical grades. So I’m not going to do that. My opinion of Key Largo is: very good movie, with entertaining story and performances that hold up well. My one gripe is that Bacall is underutilized.

Randoms

-- Johnny Rocco is one of those gangsters who likes making tough speeches while someone nervously shaves him with a straight razor. Possibly inspired a similar scene with Robert de Niro’s Al Capone in The Untouchables (1987).

-- Bacall is pretty fearless for a hostage. Would you spit on the leader of a bunch of hoods holding guns? Luckily she had Bogart there to talk him down with one of his patented dizzyingly fast speeches. If that hadn’t worked, I’m sure Bogart still had the magical shoulder-chop KO in his bag of tricks.

-- Rocco’s gang has guys named Ziggy, Curly, and Toots. What are the odds of assembling a group of mooks with names like that?

-- “What’s worse, Curly? A dumbbell or a wiseguy?” Curly answers "wiseguy". Maybe in his line of work he’s right. Me, I can’t abide stupidity. I’d have told him to shoot the dumbbell.

-- “One Rocco more or less isn’t worth dying for.” Would that line be convincing with any actor other than Bogart delivering it?

-- Inclement weather = natural drama. Screenwriters take note.

-- Rocco makes his poor alcoholic floozy sing for a snootful, then refuses to give her a drink because “you were rotten”. What an asshole.

-- One minor drawback to this particular Bogart-Bacall film is their lack of flirtatious scenes together. Their chemistry is better displayed in The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not.

-- This was the last of the five films featuring Bogart and Robinson together. In all the previous films, Robinson was the star and Bogart a supporting player. In Key Largo, both actors get top-billing. Robinson kind of steals the show though.

-- Key Largo was the second film starring Bogart and directed by John Huston released in 1948. The other was The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, containing what is possibly Bogart’s best performance.

-- So you ditched a dead body outside and a lawman stumbles over it. What to do? Blame it on the Indians! Now that’s thinking like a white man.

-- Bogart is pretty restrained right up until he kills everybody.

Interesting Facts

-- John Huston was not the original director attached to the project. Key Largo was intended to be a technicolor musical and would have been the debut feature for a very young Stanley Kubrick. Hostilities broke out between Kubrick and Bogart, who harbored a deep jealousy of the acclaim James Cagney had received for Yankee Doodle Dandy. Bogart insisted on doing his own singing and choreographing all his big dance numbers with Bacall and Robinson. This set the production back several weeks before Kubrick was sacked. Some of his original footage was discovered perfectly preserved in a crypt in Switzerland shortly after Kubrick’s death in 1999. The material remains unavailable to the general public but by all reports is really, truly awful.

-- The fact that Bacall makes less impact in Key Largo than in her other screen adventures with Bogart may have to do with her replacing Betty White at the last minute. White apparently screen-tested very well, but refused to sign a contract stating that she would not be allowed to film her scenes nude.

-- Edward G. Robinson, on the other hand, had enough clout to add a nudity clause into his own contract, as evidenced by his bathtub introduction scene. It was common practice for the bigger stars of the time to demand these vanity nude scenes the first time their characters appeared in a movie. Unfortunately all home video versions have been based on the cropped and censored prints from the late 50s to early 60s, and most of these nude introductions are forever lost to us.

Coming Soon ...

I will be watching all of the DVDs (and the few Blu-Rays) in my collection and writing ... something about or inspired by each. Or maybe just random gibberish. Depends on my mood. I don't intend to write movie reviews, though I'm sure some of that will seep in.

There are a lot of movies to go through. If I were able to do one every day it would take more than two years. At my normal writing pace it would probably be more like ten years, or one hundred. Hopefully I can do a little better than that.

First review whatever will be up in a few days. The movie will be ... don't know yet. I will be using a randomizer to tell me just before I watch it. Which won't be tonight.

Be back soon.