Days of Heaven: A Review

DAYS OF HEAVEN

Days of Heaven is a remarkably simple story told in a lyrical, almost poetic manner. Widely celebrated for its visual splendor, Days of Heaven does veer slightly into eccentric territory. However, it still has more than enough to make it an intelligent and beautiful viewing experience. 

Told in voiceover by young Linda (Linda Manz), we learn that her hot-tempered brother Bill (Richard Gere) murdered a foreman at the Chicago steel mill that he worked at. Linda and Bill flee to the Texas Panhandle. Joining them is Bill's long-term lover, Abby (Brooke Adams). Here, they are hired hands for The Farmer (Sam Shepard). Bill and Abby pose as brother and sister, though that does not stop whispers about their closeness from being spoken by the other temporary laborers. 

The Farmer is a quiet, retiring man. He is very wealthy. He is also very ill. The Farmer is drawn to Abby. Finding a way to make some quick cash, Bill prods Abby to encourage The Farmer's attentions. Bill has learned that The Farmer has, if he's lucky, a year to live. By the season's end, The Farmer and Abby are married. As Linda observes, however, "he didn't get sicker. He didn't get better. He stayed the same". I would say that The Farmer did actually get better, or at least no longer appeared to be at Death's door.

This frustrates Bill, who is waiting less and less patiently for the Farmer to kick the bucket. Abby, however, seems to have genuinely fallen in love with the Farmer. For his part, The Farmer begins to wonder exactly what Bill and Abby are. They seem far too close physically to be mere siblings, especially since Bill and Linda are not as affectionate as Bill and Abby are. 

Things take a strange turn after Bill departs, when a literal flying circus lands on The Farmer's land. Things take a tragic turn when locust arrive. There will be more deaths, and a sad separation for Abby and Linda, who will perhaps not stay where she is supposed to.

Days of Heaven is a quiet film. At a crisp 94 minutes, Days of Heaven is a short film. In that time, however, writer/director Terrence Malick puts in so much. The film foregoes flash for a mostly still serenity. Everything in Days of Heaven is simple. However, that should not be confused with simplistic. There is an undercurrent of tragedy and strong drama within the film's softness. 

The story is simple and direct. The performances are simple. The pacing is simple. Yet, Days of Heaven, I would argue, has great emotion within it. Sam Shepard's Farmer may be quiet and still. However, we see his genuine hurt to rage at seeing Abby's longing for her "brother". Shephard may not have been an actor at the time. Known primarily for his writing, Sam Shepard made his feature film debut in Days of Heaven. I think his relative inexperience in front of the camera helped Shepard. It made his quietness and hesitancy in approaching Abby stronger and again, simpler, in its portrayal. 

Bill is probably the most openly emotional character. He, for example, does not shrink from killing a man. However, Richard Gere was not ranting and raging as Bill. He too had a soft manner, at times almost tender. Gere showed Bill's temper, such as when he throws his food at another worker for suggesting he and Abby were far too close for brother and sister. Even here, however, there was a cool and controlled manner that fit all of Days of Heaven. 

Brooke Adams and Linda Manz as Abby and Linda also did well. Adams made Abby into a woman who did love one man and fell in love with another. The push-and-pull between Bill and The Farmer was well-played by Adams. "I think I love you", the Farmer tells Abby. She replies, quite simply but with no hint of sarcasm or amusement, "What a nice thing to say". Adams shows Abby is flattered by the comment, but neither impressed nor enthusiastic about it.

Manz was precocious without being cloying. She played Linda as a straightforward teen making sense of things. In her voiceover, she reflects on things with a slight distance. I think this is correct, to have that dispassionate tone. Linda is, in her voiceover, reflecting on those lost days. As such, it should be with that simple, direct quality. She is not speaking to us with her opinions or feelings. She is speaking to us with the facts, stripped from any emotional reflection. Bill killed a man. The Farmer did not die of his illness. These are things that happened. How Linda felt about them is secondary to her telling us what happened.

Days of Heaven is mostly now known for two elements: its score and its cinematography. Both are beautiful. Ennio Morricone received his first of an eventual six Original Score Oscar nominations for this film (finally winning for The Hateful Eight, his sixth and last nomination). Like the film itself, Morricone's music is simple, direct, lush and I would say quiet. Days of Heaven's greatest claim to fame is Nestor Almendros' cinematography, which won him the Oscar for that category. It too matches the film's manner of beautiful sedateness. 

The fiery conclusion with the locust did bring to mind The Good Earth. It is probably the most action Days of Heaven has. It leads to a tragic conclusion, but it is also visually impressive. 

I think perhaps the part where the flying circus comes to the farm might be a bit too eccentric for what we have seen. Days of Heaven had been pretty grounded until then (no pun intended). A bit where President Wilson passes by Amarillo (the closest town to them) seemed there more to let us know the time setting than anything else. 

Days of Heaven is a quiet, elegiac film. Soft and still, I think the viewer will still be rewarded by the time the film ends. These are days that are worth visiting.  

DECISION: A-

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956): A Review

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956)

The 1956 film The Man Who Knew Too Much as a few interesting historic footnotes. It is the only remake that director Alfred Hitchcock made of his own film (the original made in 1934). It is the last Hitchcock film to win a competitive Oscar in Best Original Song. That song's title is, according to the screen credits, Whatever Will Be, Will Be. Most of us know it as Que Sera, Sera. I think more than a few people forget that Que Sera, Sera came from a Hitchcock film. We even forget that there were two songs written for The Man Who Knew Too Much. Well-acted, with an engaging story, the second version of The Man Who Knew Too Much works quite well.

American doctor Ben McKenna (James Stewart) is on holiday in exotic Marrakesh. With him are his wife, former professional singer Jo Conway (Doris Day) and their son, Hank (Christopher Olsen). Dr. McKenna had just finished off a medical convention in Paris and was showing his family where he fought in World War II. On their way, they encounter the mysterious Louis Bernard (Daniel Gelin). Bernard has a very curious fascination with the McKennas. Ben happily gives Bernard all the information he wants. Jo notices how Bernard pumps Ben for information but never reciprocates no matter how hard she tries.

In Marrakesh, the McKennas also encounter the Edward and Lucy Drayton (Bernard Miles and Brenda de Banzie). They are a British couple also staying at their hotel. The Draytons recognize Jo from her former singing career. They help Ben and Jo by showing them around and translating what they hear in French to English. That comes in handy when the four of them, along with Hank, encounter Bernard staggering towards them. He is in brown makeup, with a knife literally in the back. Bernard whispers to Ben a shocking secret: there is to be an assassination of a head of state in London. He is told to find "Ambrose Chappell". 

What Ben is not told, at least initially, is that Hank has been abducted to keep Ben quiet. Ben is forced to drug Jo before revealing that Hank has been kidnapped by the Draytons to ensure his and Jo's cooperation. This almost completely shatters Jo. However, they are determined to both rescue their son and stop the assassination. Now, it is off to London. Jo is still a wildly popular and beloved singer in Britain. She has a circle of friends eager to reunite with her and her husband. First Ben and later Jo search for "Ambrose Chappell". Jo is the one who finds that the name is not of a person but of a place. 

Hank, however, is still being held prisoner by the duplicitous Draytons. Edward is committed, but Lucy is starting to waver, the thought of harming a child playing at her conscience. Eventually, the McKennas learn that the assassination is set to take place at the Royal Albert Hall. Will they be able to stop the killing? Will they manage to also rescue Hank?

One of The Man Who Knew Too Much's strongest element is how it keeps things grounded. Ben and Jo McKenna are not superheroes. They are ordinary, average people caught up in terrifying circumstances. It speaks well of the film that Jo is the more sensible of the two. Ben is not dumb. He is, rather, very trusting and open. Jo, for her part, is quickly suspicious about Louis and aware that her husband is being duped. A good way that Hitchcock shows the dynamic is in a restaurant scene.

James Stewart has a lot of physical comedy attempting to both sit and eat. Stewart's tall, lanky frame and struggle to eat according to the local custom shows how clumsy he is. It makes the transition to making him a more forceful figure desperate to save his son all the more impressive.

The Man Who Knew Too Much also showcases Doris Day's strengths as a dramatic actress. She displays Jo's intelligence when dealing with Bernard. Her best scene, though, is when she learns that Hank has been abducted. In his efforts to protect Jo before telling her about Hank's abduction, Ben has pushed her into taking tranquilizers. The mix between her terror at hearing of her only child's fate and the drugs lulling her to sleep create a great moment. Day is excellent throughout the film. She similarly has a strong sequence at the Storm Cloud Cantata section. She shows the immense struggle between keeping silent to save her son and saying something to save the Prime Minister. 

The other performances work almost all well. Bernard Miles shifts easily between the kindly Mr. Drayton and the villainous Mr. Drayton. He makes it believable that the same man who was so helpful to Ben and Jo would not shrink from murdering a child to protect himself. Similarly, Brenda de Banzie's evolution from being cold towards Hank to realizing the evil of killing kids is strong. I was not too keen on Daniel Gelin's Louis Bernard. He seemed to try too hard to be mysteriously charming.

Music is one of The Man Who Knew Too Much's strongest points. The film introduced what would become Doris Day's signature song, Que Sera, Sera. She sings it twice, and each time its use illustrates something about the Jo character. The first time, it plays like a nice lullaby, expressing optimism. The second, it plays like a way to release tension. The joyful lyrics and melody by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans play counter to the tension of the scene.

As stated, there are actually two songs that Livingston and Evans wrote for The Man Who Knew Too Much. It is unfortunate that We'll Love Again has been pretty much forgotten, eclipsed by Que, Sera, Sera. That is understandable, as We'll Love Again plays, almost inaudibly, when Ben is cornered by the assassin in the latter's efforts to escape. The other major piece is Arthur Benjamin's Storm Cloud Cantata, the piece of music that is meant to cover the fatal gunshot. "There came a whispered terror on the breeze", the cantata begins. Intentionally or not, the Storm Cloud Cantata fits into the story. I would say that it was intentional, as the Storm Cloud Cantata was used, per my understanding, in the original version. Here, we get to see Bernard Herrmann, who wrote the remake's score, conduct. It is a nice touch to have the film's composer (and regular Hitchcock scorer) appear on screen. 

I think that John Michael Hayes' adaptation of the original version's screenplay spent too much time on the wrong "Ambrose Chappell". The fact that there was an Ambrose Chappell Senior and Junior did not help. Neither did adding what I trust were comedic elements in the taxidermist's shop involving swordfish and tigers.

That, I think, was a misstep. Still, it was a small one. The Man Who Knew Too Much works well as a thriller that keeps things going to the end. The last bit did add a nice comic punch, which was needed after all the suspense. The future may not be ours to see, but it is well worth watching The Man Who Knew Too Much.

DECISION: B+

Ace Crawford, Private Eye: Bull Bates

ACE CRAWFORD, PRIVATE EYE: BULL BATES

Written by: Ron Clark & Tim Conway

Directed by: Charles S. Dubin

Original Airdate: March 22, 1983

What would any noir detective be without a femme fatale to tempt him? Ace Crawford, Private Eye has found one in Bull Bates, the second of five episodes. Bull Bates has mud wrestling and some clever sight gags. It also, sadly, is not funny.

Gangster's moll Dee Dee Boswell (Leslie Easterbrook) is worried for her life. Her sugar daddy, notorious mobster Bull Bates (Albert Salmi) just had a witness rubbed out. She fears that she might be next on that hit parade. For help, she turns to Ace Crawford (Tim Conway), the world's greatest private eye. This gumshoe with the mind of a turnip is the only man who can help Dee Dee.

Dee Dee will help Ace get Bull's secret black book that contains all his criminal activities. Ace finds that Bull plays poker every Thursday, so he has an opening to break in a take the book. Actually, Ace sends his Guy Friday, meek accountant and eternal fanboy Toomy (Joe Regalbuto) to break into Bull's warehouse and steal the book. Ace will stay at the Club Paree, where Dee Dee mud wrestles. While poor Toomy has to evade a group of vicious dogs, Ace and Dee Dee have alone time together. Ace is not wooed by any dame no matter how hard she tries to get him to fall for her charms. However, it might be Ace who falls when Bull unexpectedly shows up at Dee Dee's dressing room. Will Ace manage to avoid getting caught? Will Toomy get the book and get out alive?

How bad does a television show have to be when having female mud wrestling does not make it watchable? It has to be Ace Crawford bad. I am not sure that I can say everyone involved in Bull Bates was trying. If they were, they were almost all trying to be bad.

The one actor who I think did give it his all to sell everything in Bull Bates and Ace Crawford overall is Joe Regalbuto. Toomy is made out to be a bit of an amiable nitwit. He bizarrely thinks that Ace is some kind of brilliant sleuth when he clearly isn't. He also has nice bits of trying to balance his actual life of a married accountant with this pseudo-exciting world of crime. 

Every time Toomy attempts to explain to Ace his job or family duties, Regalbuto gives Toomy an almost innocent manner. Toomy, as played by Regalbuto, genuinely comes across as someone who gets so wrapped up either in fear or enthusiasm about whatever he talks about. It looks like he took things seriously.

Everyone else, however, plays things as if they know they are in a spoof. The key to making a spoof work is that no one is supposed to be aware that you are in on the joke. Joe Regalbuto is the only one to make that work.

An aspect that, two episodes in, doesn't work is how Tim Conway is with everyone compared to Regalbuto's Toomy. With everyone else, Ace is if not kind, at least pleasant. He treats Bill Barty's bartender Inch and Shera Danese's sultry lounge singer Luann with courtesy, albeit with an oblivious manner. With Toomy, though, Ace is short-tempered, snappish and almost bullying. Ace clearly has no patience with Toomy or how Toomy's wife and children are suffering because of Ace's odd hold over him. This dichotomy between Ace's manner with everyone and Ace's manner with Toomy alone has a bad effect. It makes Ace a bit of a jerk to someone who is actually quite endearing.

Bull Bates, to be fair, does have some strong positives. Of particular note is a strong sight gag with mirrors. Tim Conway shows great physical comedy abilities in his various efforts to not be seen by Bull when he unexpectedly shows up at Club Paree. It ends with Ace looking as if he pulled a gun on Bull when it is actually the reverse. 

This must have been popular. This scene was accompanied by prerecorded applause, which sounds strange. The laugh track throughout does not make things funny. Oddly, both the applause and laugh track emphasize how unfunny so much of Ace Crawford is.  

As mentioned, Joe Regalbuto also brought a nice manner to Toomy. In his shock that he would have to evade the killer dogs while Ace stays with Dee Dee, Regalbuto never goes for broad farce or excessive stupidity.

Unfortunately, everything else is not good. Leslie Easterbrook and Tim Conway have a particularly painful scene in Dee Dee's dressing room. She is meant to accidentally pour beer onto Ace. As performed by Easterbrook and directed by Charles S. Dubin, it is obvious that everyone is aware of this gag. It is both poorly directed and poorly acted.

There is another painful scene where Dee Dee is telling Ace her plight. Luann is walking around with her microphone across the bar. The gag is that everyone is oblivious that Dee Dee and Ace are revealing dangerous information directly into the microphone while Luann is singing. No one plays this with any sense of believability even in something as broad as Ace Crawford, Private Eye. In short, they are trying too hard and it shows. 

Lines that are supposed to be clever in showing off the film noir spoof come across as painful. "You and clothes go together like a tuna sandwich and a glass of milk", Ace tells the lovelorn Luann. I know it is meant as a spoof of hardboiled dialogue. It just sound dumb no matter how you cut it. Another supposed comedy bit is when Dee Dee comments on Ace's physical allure. "You lookers are all alike. You know you can get any piece of candy in town", she tells him. "Yeah, maybe I don't have a sweet tooth", he replies.   

I can give some grudging respect to Albert Salmi's Bull Bates, who did play the role as broad as possible. He made Bull's idiocy passable.

Bull Bates has a big plus in the clever mirror sight gag. It gets a point knocked down because of the poor direction. Mud wrestling is not a thing anymore. Bull Bates and Ace Crawford, Private Eye show they were never a thing to start with. 

3/10

Next Episode: Inch in a Pinch

The Woman in the Yard: A Review (Review #2227)

THE WOMAN IN THE YARD

What could be scarier than a creepy woman, cloaked all in black, sitting ominously outside one's house? My guess would be just about anything. The Woman in the Yard attempts to be eerie and ominous. It ends up being both unintentionally hilarious and surprisingly insensitive towards a serious topic. 

Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) is a physical and psychological mess. Recently widowed, she cannot escape the video memories of her late husband David (Russell Horsby). Judging from appearances, she would like to escape her teenage son Taylor or Tay (Peyton Jackson) and her younger daughter Annie (Estella Kahiha). They live on an isolated farm that was never formally named. They have little food, virtually no money to pay the various utilities, and one dog. 

Out of nowhere, a woman covered all in black appears near their house. Ramona goes to confront "the woman in the yard" but finds that said woman (Okwui Okpokwasili) is not easily persuaded to leave. In fact, The Woman tells Ramona that "today is the day". Tay is all for getting rid of "Miss Weirdo Funeral Lady". Ramona, however, insists that she can take care of it. We don't know how given that they have no telephone service and apparently have little to no communication with any neighboring farms. 

It becomes a game of supernatural cat-and-mouse where one wonders which one of the two women is the more bonkers one. Is it the creepy creature sitting in her noir ensemble, or is it the mother who fantasizes about stabbing her daughter in the back? Not is all at it appears to be, especially when we flash back to David's death. 

He was killed in a car accident that left Ramona injured. However, we learn that Ramona was deeply unhappy with her life? Could the accident have been a failed suicide attempt? Only the woman in the yard knows, and she tells all to Tay. We discover that both the woman in the yard and Ramona are truly connected, but will the former manage to get the latter to join David in the afterlife?

Perhaps I can find how The Woman in the Yard had a very small cast something to admire. Other than that, I think I'm pretty out of things to admire or like about this film. I do not know if screenwriter Sam Stefanak and director Jaume Collet-Serra thought some tall woman skulking about a front yard would send chills. I was too busy wondering why, given her leg injury, Ramona wouldn't have done better to stay on the ground floor instead of schlepping up and down the stairs. I think Collet-Serra wanted to compensate for the lack of frights by filming much of The Woman in the Yard with various Dutch angles and with rapid editing. 

It did not work for Battlefield Earth. It did not work for The Woman in the Yard. 

Perhaps the point of The Woman in the Yard was not that it was scary. In that case, the film succeeded beyond the hopes of anyone involved. I think that The Woman in the Yard fancied itself a metaphysical exploration of grief and the evil lure of suicide. If memory serves correct, the film ends with information about how to contact suicide prevention. If that was the intention, I find another problem with the film.

Suicide is a very serious topic. It has devastated millions of lives. Treating suicide, even unintentionally, as something prompted by otherworldly figures is very troubling to me. I am deeply uncomfortable with that idea. I am also deeply troubled when any film puts children in danger. The Woman in the Yard has a sequence where it looks like Ramona is stabbing Annie. We quickly see that she is really stabbing a pillow and that Annie is safe. Still, no matter how disturbed Ramona may be, the entire concept of killing your children is not something I would put in a supposed supernatural film.

Stefanak's screenplay is pretty much a mess. It certainly isn't subtle. Late in the film during a flashback to the fatal car crash, we see the title The Mirror Has Two appear reflected on the passenger side. I presume that the film was The Mirror Has Two Faces. Granted, I have yet to see the Barbra Streisand film as of today. However, I don't exactly know what exactly a film I was led to think was a romantic comedy has to do with supernatural figures urging women to kill themselves. I figure that the title was used to flash "SYMBOLISM" in our face.

It might have done better not to flash so many lights in the third act. At this point, the title character has now been able to enter the house and is threatening everyone inside. I figure that we are supposed to be frightened to terrified. However, the thing that is supposed to make things scary doesn't. It really is just hard to follow with a lot of flashing lights all over the place. It reminds of those low-rent amusement carnivals that had those haunted houses. If I understand Ramona's motives, she opts to, perhaps unintentionally, kill poor David because she fills unfulfilled and is unhappy with her life.

This is not exactly a strong motive for murder. Ramona can change her life. She does not have to kill her husband or herself to do so. It does also lead to a moment that did make me chuckle. "But if you want things to get better, you've got to dig deeper", David tells her before he dies. I just wondered, "where was Mama Odie when you need her?" 

I think The Woman in the Yard tried too hard to be twisty when it just ended up muddled. That third act is just so convoluted that one has completely lost interest.

It also does not help that The Woman in the Yard has some absolutely terrible performances. Danielle Deadwyler had a tough act to follow after Till. We were incessantly told how Deadwyler gave the single greatest acting performance in all human history in Till. I suppose that it would be impossible to reach such grand heights after giving the most brilliant, awe-inspiring acting performance ever captured or likely ever to be captured on camera for Till. Now, I think that The Woman in the Yard showed that she could not muster a second greatest acting performance in all human history. I never felt Ramona was a troubled, grieving figure trying to keep it all together. I thought she was a mean, bossy, abusive figure to her kids. 

Both Peyton Jackson and Estella Kahiha looked bored and lost in The Woman in the Yard. There was no emotion in their performances. Okwui Okpokwasili, I figure, might have been having some fun coming across as a demonic Miss Grace Jones, skulking and posing all over the place. I will give Jackson a bit of credit for making me laugh after he shouts, "She's on crazy pills!" when it came to his mother. 

Suicide is a serious topic, one that should be handled with finesse. The Woman in the Yard, to my mind, used it as a plot device to what we were led to think was a horror film. I do not think that the two mix, at least here. The Woman in the Yard is not scary. It is not insightful. It is not well-acted. If I were to find anything good in it, at least it was short at around 89 minutes. Try as the film did, one cannot make black-cloaked ladies into something to fear. 

DECISION: F

Two Girls and a Sailor: A Review (Review #2226)

TWO GIRLS AND A SAILOR

In terms of an all-star cast, you can turn to Two Girls and a Sailor. Jose Iturbe! Gracie Allen! Harry James AND Xavier Cugat! Lena Horne! An uncredited Ava Gardner! All in one film, where they don't add much if anything to the thin plot. Two Girls and a Sailor may not be original or good. It has not one but two of my least favorite performers from the so-called Golden Age of film. It is also longer than what the thin plot can hold. It is, however, a nice time capsule of World War II America, where big numbers make up for odd stories.

The Deyo Sisters were practically born in a trunk. Older sister Jean has always been protecting younger sister Patsy, down to always pulling Patsy's thumb out of her mouth. Their parents are hoofers, but somewhere along the line their mother died and their father retired. They do meet a fellow vaudevillian, Billy Kipp (Jimmy Durante). He is fond of the girls, but he too disappears from the stage. 

Now, it is the war, and Jean Deyo (June Allyson) and Patsy Deyo (Gloria DeHaven) are making their way on the vaudeville circuit. They have a regular gig at a club where Harry James and Xavier Cugat and their respective bands perform. This floor show can go from the Deyo Sisters doing a lively number to James blowing on his horn to Cugat taking that song to a Latin beat. Jean is also desperate to keep Patsy from falling for every guy who so much as smiles in her general direction. She has to watch over her lovesick sister in both Augustas (Maine and Georgia). Despite this curious friction, the sisters are devoted to each other.

They are also devoted to the various servicemen who go to the club. Jean and Patsy invite dozens of soldiers, sailors and Marines to their apartment virtually every night. No, not for wild orgies, but for song, dance, coffee and donuts (with some booze and sandwiches thrown in). The girls love having the boys over, down to inviting them when they stand outside the club after the show ends. One of those boys is Frank Miller (Tom Drake), a nice, soft-spoken Texan boy. Another is "Johnny" (Van Johnson), a seemingly shy sailor. In reality, Johnny is John Dykman Brown III, a scion of a very wealthy family. Romances soon start tangling themselves when Patsy falls for Johnny who in turn falls for Jean. Jean too is smitten with Johnny. Frank is in the background, pining for Patsy and I think Jean too.

Jean and Patsy want to open a canteen for servicemen but don't have the money for it. Miraculously, cash comes their way from a mysterious benefactor they nickname "Somebody". This allows them to buy a warehouse they've had their eyes on for some time. They also are astonished to find Billy Kipp there, hiding out after his wife and son left him. The Deyo Sisters open up their canteen, and new romantic entanglements come about. Who will end up with whom? Who is the creepy kid hovering around, who can do a surprising jitterbug? 

Two Girls and a Sailor runs a little over two hours. The Richard Connell and Gladys Lehman screenplay, which was Oscar-nominated, seems too thin to hold a surprisingly simple love quadrangle. That isn't to say that there are not funny moments and lines in Two Girls and a Sailor. Commenting on one of Patsy's potential suitors, Jean remarks that he has "not much hair and too much stomach". When Jean pulls Patsy away from a Latin suitor, Patsy replies, "I was just trying to be a good neighbor". The Good Neighbor Policy found itself namechecked a few times in the film. After Harry James' all-American number, the stage shifts to welcome "our good neighbor, Xavier Cugat". 

To be fair, the visual transition from James to Cugat is a very good transition. Two Girls and a Sailor also has a nice small running gag where Patsy makes impromptu wishes that do come true when it comes to furnishing their canteen. After finding the sad and lonely Billy Kipp, he tells them that he has been squatting in the abandoned warehouse, calling himself "a hermit without a permit". We have a nice montage where various servicemen are invited to the newly opened canteen. "Hey soldiers, food!", a soldier tells his fellow troops. "Hey sailors, drink!", a Navy seaman shouts to his fellow sailors. "Hey Marines, GIRLS!", a third branch calls out. 

In the surprisingly surreal dream sequence Jean has, we have a brief appearance by Ava Gardner as one of the beauties on parade. We also end it with a catfight between Jean and Patsy over Johnny, which I did find funny.

Personally, I find it puzzling that any woman, let alone two, would fight to get at Van Johnson when the much prettier Tom Drake is around. Here is where I will confess that one of the two of those least favorite figures. The other is June Allyson, whose popularity despite (or perhaps because of) her foghorn voice never ceases to puzzle me. I have to be fair in that Allyson was not bad in the film. She had a nice comic manner whenever pulling Patsy out of romantic escapades (and taking Patsy's thumb out of her mouth). However, when she has to perform, such as when she sings Young Man with a Horn to Harry James (who is the title figure), I remember why I dislike her so much. Fair is fair, though, and she was able to cut a rug with a minor character who did nothing but skulk around and frankly gave me the creeps.

Van Johnson's stardom is more puzzling than Allyson's. Two Girls and a Sailor did not show him to be particularly good. He seemed oddly ill at ease whenever he had to woo one or the other. He also seemed an odd fit for someone who was supposed to be a man-about-town mistaken for a poor sailor. Gloria DeHaven, the third figure in our sister act, was quite nice as the perpetually lovestruck Patsy.

I was surprised that Jimmy Durante could show off some dramatic chops in the film. The Great Schnozzola could rattle off lines and songs with his legendary grand manner. He even managed to get his theme song of Inka Dinka Doo into the film. However, when he talks about the reasons that he went into hiding and gave up his career, it was surprisingly moving. He had a few quips while delivering his dramatic monologue. That did not lessen the emotional impact of a man regretting his lost child.

Even if the picture of said child had a honker just like dear old dad.

I think that if one watches Two Girls and a Sailor, it should be as a way to study what and who were popular at the time it was made. The film is full of musical numbers that bear absolutely no relevance to the plot. I figure that many people today would not know who Harry James or Xavier Cugat are. To be fair, James has a few lines, even if he is playing "Harry James". Other musical performers like Ben Blue and the Wilde Sisters would have been wildly popular at the time but would elicit puzzled looks today. It is nice to see Carlos Ramirez sing Granada. It is also hard to imagine that viewers would know the song more than they would the performer.

Normally, shoehorning Lena Horne (billed as a "Specialty") would be a source of criticism. She appears near the end of Two Girls and a Sailor to sing Paper Doll. However, given the structure of Two Girls and a Sailor, I think this would be a rare case where her specific number being cut would not be motivated by racism; many musical numbers could have been cut without interrupting the flow of the story. 

A surprisingly long section that I figure could have served better as a short is Gracie Allen's performance of Concerto for Index Finger. The number itself is amusing. However, like almost all the musical segments in Two Girls and a Sailor, it is just there.

Two Girls and a Sailor could have been shorter. However, I think the point is to have the film loaded with big musical numbers ranging from Latin to jitterbug. Apart from Durante and DeHaven, the film is not particularly well-acted. Still, as a period piece of World War II America, Two Girls and a Sailor is a nice portrait of the times. 

DECISION: C+

Heaven Can Wait (1978): A Review (Review #2225)

HEAVEN CAN WAIT (1978)

The gridiron meets the Great Beyond in Heaven Can Wait. This first remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan updates the original story. It should also not be confused with a 1943 film of the same name that is a completely different story. Mostly solid performances and an engaging story lift this divine comedy to worthwhile watching. 

Los Angeles Rams backup quarterback Joe Pendleton (writer/codirector Warren Beatty) is on the cusp of taking the top job. He is fit. He is in top form. He connects his passes flawless. He is also dead. His overly eager and inexperienced Escort (codirector Buck Henry) scooped Joe up a bit too early when Joe was hit by oncoming traffic in a tunnel. Joe was scheduled to die on March 20, 2025. Joe, firmly unbelieving that he is dead, is adamant that he nonetheless be returned to his body. Unfortunately, Joe Pendleton was cremated.

This requires that heavenly host Mr. Jordan (James Mason) take up this situation personally. It is surprisingly hard to find a good body to take. Eventually albeit reluctantly, Joe takes on the form of billionaire industrialist Leo Farnsworth. Leo's wife Julia (Dyan Cannon) and his secretary Tony Abbott (Charles Grodin) have just murdered Farnsworth in the bathtub. Julia and Tony, who is her lover, know that Farnsworth drowned, but no one else does. Among those unaware is Betty Logan (Julie Christie), who has come all the way from Britain to make a personal plea to Farnsworth to stop him from building a factory in a small Welsh town.

Owing to a mix of outrage at Farnsworth's murder and the sight of the beautiful Betty, Joe finally agrees to take on Farnsworth's body. Julia literally screams when she sees Leo back from the dead. The household staff are puzzled at how Farnsworth changes in personality. He no longer has an interest in his extensive wardrobe and hats. He also has a mania for football. He also has a growing mania for Betty, who slowly falls for him too.

Not falling are Julia and Tony. They are determined to ice Leo/Joe, especially after Leo/Joe makes clear that he knows they are schtupping and asks for a divorce. Leo now goes the extra mile to get back into football. He literally buys the Los Angeles Rams and decides to be the quarterback. This draws the contempt of the Rams players and exasperation of the Rams coaching staff. One person who does come around to supporting Leo is Max Corkle (Jack Warden). Corkle is the Rams trainer, who eventually is convinced by Leo that he is really Joe. Despite everyone's initial misgivings, Leo proves himself adept at throwing touchdowns.

However, Mr. Jordan pops back and tells Joe that Leo will not be leading the Rams to the Super Bowl. Keeping to their original agreement, Joe's time as Leo is up. Joe essentially asks for an extension, especially since he has fallen in love with Betty. Tony's mastery of the rifle, however, takes care of any extension. Mr. Jordan does have Joe come back to the Rams in a roundabout way. However, will Joe's third form hold up the Lombardi Trophy? Will Detective Krim (Vincent Gardenia) solve Leo Farnsworth's disappearance? Will Max manage to reunite with the right quarterback? Will Betty find a new man who is really the old man?

I think that there is a perception that Warren Beatty struggles with comedy. If Ishtar is the example of Beatty's comedic skills, that perception is very much warranted. Having said that, I think that Ishtar, for all its awfulness, did show that Beatty had a very narrow way of making comedy work for him. The way he could do that was by not being broad. In Ishtar, he could at least make the dimwitted, almost innocent character work by playing him as perpetually naive. In Heaven Can Wait, I would not say that Beatty plays Joe Pendleton as naive or innocent. Rather, he plays Joe/Leo as unaware. Throughout the film, Beatty plays Joe as a man who never fully realized or accepted that everyone around him saw him as Leo Farnsworth. 

Beatty in his performance brought a great sense of charm and eagerness. Joe/Leo/Tom Jarrett was always earnest and guileless. There is when he uses an Exo-Grey Industries board meeting to compare it to a football team. He has already shocked the board members by inviting the press to attend. As Joe/Leo continues, he sees the big picture, which I would call "positive capitalism". Rather than upend a whole community to build a polluting waste site, why not build something that would provide jobs at that community that would be cleaner. He is not opposed to building power plants. He just wants them built where it would be safe to build them. Warren Beatty brings a great enthusiasm in his performance, making Joe/Leo extremely likeable.

Beatty even manages to have a nice bit of droll comedy when he twice enters Julia's bedchamber. Tony continuously runs behind the curtain in an effort to hide. After Joe/Leo tells Julia what he needs to tell her, he then addresses Tony and gives him instructions. Tony, weak-willed as ever, meekly responds to the affirmative. This sequence is never overdone, making it amusing if not hilarious.

Most of the cast similarly keeps to this dry sense of humor. Julie Christie is blessed with being a very beautiful woman, which adds to her humor of the somewhat perplexed but enchanted Betty Logan. She is quiet in her forceful manner early on. As Heaven Can Wait continues, though, Christie brings a charm to the woman who has fallen in love with the billionaire. Once Leo Farnsworth disappears, we see Betty's genuine sadness at the thought of losing him forever. Heaven Can Wait does give her a nice moment at the end when she appears to see that the man she fell for does reenter her life, albeit in a different form.

Charles Grodin was a master at being overtly sleazy in a humorous way. He was campy and exaggerated in Heaven Can Wait. However, that is not a negative. Tony Abbott was meant to be campy and exaggerated in his machinations and total unethical manner. I think that he was better in the comedy than Jack Warden, who received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for the film. Warden was good as Max, the initially befuddled trainer who eventually accepts Leo as Joe. He has some wonderful individual moments of physical comedy and genuine affection. However, he seemed absent for long stretches, which lessen his impact.

James Mason was the epitome of elegance as Mr. Jordan, who is never flustered or flummoxed by anything going on. He might show mild irritation at the Escort's incompetence and Joe's perpetual rejection of endless potential bodies. However, it is so slight that one figures Mr. Jordan it totally unflappable. Buck Henry has limited screentime and was fine as the Escort. 

I was surprised, after watching Heaven Can Wait, that Dyan Cannon received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance. It is not that Cannon gave a bad performance. To be fair, I did find it the one performance that I would say was unnecessarily broad and exaggerated. Unlike Grodin, who made his broad manner work for the character, Cannon's broadness came across as too broad, as if she were overacting. She did scream a lot, which was humorous. For the most part, Cannon worked almost exclusively with Grodin. I think that hampered her performance as she was maybe trying to match Grodin's exaggerated manner and didn't quite match up. 

Beatty and Elaine May, who cowrote the screenplay, kept things flowing well and had nice moments. One of them, interestingly enough, was with Dyan Cannon. "I don't frighten anyone", Joe/Leo tells Mr. Jordan. He then immediately pops into Julia's view, who immediately screams in fright at the sight of the man she thought dead very much alive. 

Overall, Heaven Can Wait is a nice solid romantic comedy. It is, perhaps now, a product of the late 1970s in the same way that Here Comes Mr. Jordan is a product of the 1940s. In the end, I think people will enjoy the film and should seek out this little slice of heaven.

DECISION: B+

Lorne: A Review

LORNE

How does one make a documentary about someone when the documentary's subject shows no interest in participating in nor in blocking the project? This is the conundrum that director Morgan Neville faced in Lorne. This profile of Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels features someone who not only doesn't particularly want to be seen, but who doesn't seem to know who he is himself. We get in Lorne a most curious portrait of someone whom people talk about, but whom still is a bit opaque at the end.

Narrated by former SNL alum Chris Parnell, Lorne covers the rise, retirement and resurrection of Michaels along with his career. Lorne Michaels is seen pacing Studio 8H as he works on that year's season of the long running sketch series. We see how Michaels is a man of permanent, almost rigid routine. Larry Liberstein, who cleans Michaels' fishtank, literally calls him "a man of routine". Curiously enough, one of those routines is to never start a meeting when it is scheduled. We see in Lorne how a meeting set at 4:30 actually began at 6:37, which is par for the course in Michaels' world.

As Michaels works with various guest hosts ranging from Timothee Chalamet to Ryan Gosling to Emma Stone, we see how Michaels frets over various aspects. We see how the dress rehearsal shortly before airtime is where we see how long all those sketches the various writers and performers have gone through will make it or not.

"We don't go on because we're ready. We go on because it's 11:30", Michaels observes. 

Lorne also chronicles Lorne's early career prior to Saturday Night Live (originally titled NBC's Saturday Night). The young Canadian born Lorne Lipowitz had his own sketch comedy show in the Great White North, The Hart & Lorne Terrific Hour on the CBC. Michaels had already ventured into the United States, writing for Here's Lucy and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. A major break was working with Lily Tomlin, who was instrumental in building up his career.

Lorne covers his various routines for Saturday Night Live hosts, like taking them and the cast/writers to dinner at the same restaurant he's taken all his guest hosts. We see how he walked away from Saturday Night Live for a few years. We see how his attempts to create a new show called The New Show bombed. We see how his return to SNL led to an even worse Season 11 (which I think he called the worst season). After that, however, Saturday Night Live started course correcting. Michaels was ruthless in firing flaying cast and writers, which he had been reluctant to do before. In Season 12, he brought in Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks (with Jon Lovitz surviving the purge). 

He reflects on some of the notorious moments, commenting that few people remember that a very good comedy sketch called Sweet Jimmy, The World's Nicest Pimp followed Sinead O'Connor's then-scandalous musical performance where she ripped the Pope's picture and declared, "Fight the REAL enemy". SNL cast members past and present all talk about working with Michaels. Of particular note is a roundtable with Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, Andy Samberg and John Mulvaney. They talk about the pressures of writing and performing. They, along with Carvey and via archival footage from Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy, show how they impersonated Michaels as a rather stiff figure.

I confess that I have not seen Saturday Night Live in years. I'm going to walk that back slightly. I did see parts of a 2024 season episode because Stevie Nicks was the musical guest. Apart from that, I could not name a current SNL cast member to save my life. The best that I could do today is I could identify the Weekend Update hosts of Michael Che and Colin Jost. For myself, I see Saturday Night Live the same way I see Dave Matthews Band: something I enjoyed while in college but haven't really cared for since.

One of the curious elements about Lorne is that in the end, Michaels is still a mystery. If one wants to see why Michaels runs, we do not see it in Lorne. I put that down to how Michaels really does not seem interested in being in front. My sense is that Michaels sees himself as a producer but not of much interest. It is interesting to see some looks behind the stern Michaels persona. I think Mike Myers was surprised that Michaels, for all his pressure to not have cast break out of character during the show, actually did exactly that on The Hart & Lorne Terrific Hour. 

We learn about Michaels' Maine retreat, which he finds restorative. We also learn about his love of blueberries. Lorne gives us bits here and there. Overall, though, Lorne Michaels still seems a bit of a shadow. Early on, Michaels comments that comedy is like pornography, you know it when you see it.

Lorne is not a bad film. It is, I would say, more of an inaccessible one in so much that the subject himself is inaccessible. I found Parnell's narration leaned a bit too much in the faux-serious tone, as if he thought his narration would sound dry and witty when it did not. I also found that once the animation segments that covered such things as Michaels' pool construction during his hiatus or his battles with network executives faded, Lorne became better.

One does, to be fair, learn a bit about what it is like to work for Michaels and on Saturday Night Live. We see how the writers work all through the night and essentially sweat it out as they go into the various proposed sketches. We learn that Michaels did have a bit of a stubborn streak early on. A sketch about Bees early on bombed. Michaels kept bringing back the Killer Bees despite network objections. Eventually, audiences embraced the oddball characters.

Again, after finishing Lorne, I did not learn much if anything about Lorne Michaels, the man. Well, I did learn that he keeps fish in his office. Lorne is best for those who genuinely care and are passionate about Saturday Night Live minutia. Apart from that, I think people should stick to watching the 2024 film Saturday Night if they want any insight, even fictional, into the longstanding ruler of late-night comedy.

DECISION: C+