The Crow (2024): A Review (Review #1857)

THE CROW (2024)

I am often chastised for not having seen certain films before I tackle either their remake or the most recent entry in a certain franchise. It should therefore be no surprise that I have, as of this writing, never seen the 1994 version of The Crow. With that, I enter the remake thirty years in the making with blank eyes. I cannot compare this The Crow to the original. I can say that, independent of that original, this The Crow is a dull, bleak affair despite its lead's best efforts.

Troubled recovering addict Eric (Bill Skarsgard) is at a recovery center that looks like a prison. Into this place comes Shelly (FKA Twigs). She is locked in due to the police having found drugs in her bag when she was fleeing a potential killer. Shelly, a talented pianist, was videotaped with her bestie Zadie (Isabella Wei) involved in something dark and dangerous. This prison-cum-recovery center is probably the best place for Shelly, at least initially.

Shelly and Eric fall quickly in love, but now she has been tracked down by Marion (Laura Birn), someone who works for the evil Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston). We discover that Roeg has lived for centuries, having made a literal deal with the devil. In exchange for sending innocent souls to Hell, Roeg gets an extended life. All this matters little to Eric and to a lesser extent to Shelly. Having escaped from their confinement, Shelly and Eric embark on a passionate romance and in making music. 

That blissful time is cut short when they are found and killed. That is, it appears that they are killed, though while Shelly is slipping into the lower depths, Eric is caught in a netherworld. As his love was pure, the figure Kronos (Sami Bouajila) says that he can float between worlds, feeling physical pain but not dying. He now has a chance to set things right and bring Shelly back if he eliminates Roeg and his minions.

Eric begins his task but when he sees the video, which is of a possessed Shelly killing someone, he wavers in his belief in her. That is enough to send him back to the netherworld and now Shelly is condemned to be separated from Eric forever. Eric, however, will not let Shelly go and offers to take her place in Hell in exchange for her being restored to life. Kronos agrees but he must go back and complete his mission. It is a bloody fight back to bring Shelly to life and Roeg to justice.

Since I have yet to see the original The Crow, I am not in a position to know how close or far this remake strayed from it or from the original comic books.  However, I did overhear a group of women, some of whom had seen the 1994 film. They said that apart from the love story, everything in this The Crow was different. Moreover, they all commented on how violent it was. 

On that point, I agree: The Crow is a surprisingly graphic film when it comes to violence. The final battle at the opera house where Eric, now in goth makeup, eliminates the various bodyguards is quite a bloody affair. I figure a samurai sword can decapitate someone. I did not figure it could sever a jaw in half. The Crow is understandably violent. However, I think at times it might have been better overall if director Rupert Sanders had opted to pull back and leave things to the imagination versus showing people stabbing themselves.

It is interesting that we do not see much of Shelly killing someone but do see more of Zadie's end. For all the violence in The Crow, it does not leave a major impact apart from slight disgust. What is meant as a shocking and dramatic moment when Eric crashes the end of the opera with severed heads is shot in a way that both draws attention to itself but leaves you cold. Moreover, there is something almost rote about the killings. There is no sense of justice or shock, just a sense that it is something to go through.

The Crow is a dark film in a literal sense. There are endless scenes that are so opaque that Gotham City looks like the Hundred Acre Woods by comparison. I understand that it is meant to show the oppressed, despairing world it inhabits. It just ends up making things hard to see.

One, perhaps grudgingly, can give Bill Skarsgard some credit for doing his best with his role. He does well as the traumatized Eric when he is locked up. He also puts in an effort when showing his seemingly intense love for Shelly and in his final transformation as the Crow. Bless Skarsgard for trying, which is more than can be said for FKA Twigs. I am not familiar with her musical career, and the only film Twigs has been in that I have seen is Honey Boy. It is a sign of how bad she was there that I don't think I even mentioned her in my Honey Boy review.

Now, I can make amends for that oversight by saying that FKA Twigs, based on The Crow, has no business being in a movie as an actress and should be kept away from the screens as a service to humanity. She was absolutely abysmal in The Crow. Blank, emotionless, with a look of almost disinterest. Twigs should be a frontrunner for the Worst Actress Razzie, as her appearance in The Crow is a sheer embarrassment for all concerned: cast, crew and audience. 

Huston, under normal circumstances, would waste his skills in being something this awful. However, I figure that he was well paid, so I do not begrudge him that.

Zach Baylin's screenplay spent so much time attempting to foster this alleged love story that it becomes almost parody. It does not help that only Skarsgard even attempts to sell the love story.

Do I think that The Crow is better than Argylle? That is a tough one. Deadpool & Wolverine briefly managed to dethrone Argylle as the worst film of 2024, though in retrospect I would rather sit through Deadpool & Wolverine than Argylle. In a similar vein, I think I would rather endure The Crow than Argylle. I'll give this to The Crow: it made me think whether it was worse than Argylle, so that's something of an achievement I suppose.

DECISION: F

The First Omen: A Review

 

THE FIRST OMEN

It is not easy to craft a prequel to any franchise, especially one that was unintentional. The First Omen attempts to create the situation that would eventually lead to the events that unleashed Damien Thorn, the Antichrist. It works hard to be atmospheric and menacing. If only it had worked on being good and logical.

Rome, 1971. While the Eternal City is plagued by protests, American novitiate Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) comes to work at an orphanage before taking the veil (official become a nun). She is delighted to be reunited with her mentor, Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy) and taken under the wing of Abbess Silva (Sonia Braga). 

Margaret also has to endure the very bizarre Sister Anjelia (Ishtar Currie-Wilson) and the shockingly liberated Luz (Maria Caballero), another novitiate. Luz is openly sexual, down to taking the innocent Margaret to a disco, where they dress provocatively, drink and at least openly flirt with men. Margaret is uneasy about being within such decadence, but finds Paolo (Andrea Arcangeli), a nice Italian boy to dance and make out with.

She, however, has no memory of what happened later that night. Luz assures her that she was well-behaved. However, Margaret has other issues to contend with. There is Carlita (Nicole Sorace), a disturbed young girl whom the nuns mistreat due to Carlita's own abusive manner. There is Anjelica, who sets herself on fire and hangs herself. Margaret sees demons all around: emerging from women's wombs and trying to drag her down during a political riot. 

Why does she see all this? What does seemingly crazed Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson) have to do with all this? What of "Scianna", the only clue in a photograph Brennan has to indicate what evil work the Catholic hierarchy is involved in. Margaret and the priest Father Gabriel (Tawfeek Barhom) learn the shocking truth: the Church has decided to breed the Antichrist in order to bring down secularism and maintain power over the populace. However, their efforts have failed due to the Devil, in the form of a jackal, continuingly conceiving daughters. Will either Carlita or Margaret herself be the mother of the Antichrist? 

The First Omen works to tie itself to the 1976 original, but I wish it had instead gone for the 2006 remake. That is because The First Omen and the 2006 The Omen are of similar quality. They are both bad films. Granted, the 1976 version did not specifically say "1976", but if we go by The First Omen, Damien's birth takes place five years before it should. Yes, the original The Omen could have taken place in 1971-1972. However, that takes away from the idea of 666, with Damien being born June 6, 1976: 6/6/76. Since The First Omen clearly takes place in 1971 (since it literally reads "Rome 1971"), I think it is almost impossible to fit in The First Omen with the 1976 The Omen.

It is a curious detail to focus on. However, what is so menacing about the Antichrist being born June 6, 1972? 

Director Arkasha Stevenson worked hard to create an eerie atmosphere in The First Omen, with grand images of the forced conceptions and the eventual birth of Damien and his hereto unknown twin sister. The first appearances of both Sister Anjelica and Luz, as well as the disco scene, are effective visually. The demonic creature being birthed is also effectively visualized. However, you cannot make a good film solely on its looks. You need a story behind the imagery. Stevenson's screenplay (cowritten with Tim Smith and Keith Thomas) is not that script.

At times, it goes almost out of its way to have callbacks to the original. Sister Anjelica's death is an almost exact replica of Damien's nanny's suicide from The Omen, minus setting herself on fire. She even has the same line, "It's all for you", though exactly who the "you" Anjelica refers to remains a bit opaque. Other times, it reminds me of Rosemary's Baby and through no fault of its own, Immaculate. 

Both Immaculate and The First Omen revolve around nuns being impregnated by Satan and the machinations of the Catholic Church to create and control the Antichrist. Immaculate came out a month before The First Omen, though the latter drew upon an earlier film. It is, to my mind, interesting how both films are similar in theme and mood, even to some plot points. It also reflects what seems to be a hostility by creatives towards Catholicism in particular, seeing it as some dark force bent on world domination through terror. Yet I digress.

The First Omen does not have particularly great performances to recommend it. Free is competent as the innocent Margaret. She is better when appearing to be seduced by the World, particularly in her hesitancy to appear so immorally dressed to go to the disco. Granted, the entire idea that these two novitiate nuns would hit the clubs, dressed so provocatively and be boozing it up while making out with hot guys is in of itself crazier than getting knocked up by Satan. However, Free acquitted herself fine in that. 

Much more interesting was Caballero as Luz, this brazenly sexual novitiate who has her own secrets. Nighy was playing the part as if he knew this was all meant to be menacing. Braga shifted from pleasant abbess to demonic conspirator well. Ineson, playing the part that Patrick Troughton would play in The Omen, I think attempted to play Father Brennan as Troughton had. However, his voice was much deeper and growler than Troughton. 

The First Omen is a poor way to start the story of Damien Thorn. It does not connect well with the original The Omen. It tries too hard to be atmospheric and menacing rather than being atmospheric and menacing. Trying to cash in on this unintended franchise, The First Omen will mercifully be the Last Omen too.

DECISION: F

King Lear (1970): A Review (Review #1855)

 

KING LEAR (1971)

I am a lifelong lover of Shakespeare, yet King Lear has never really been one that I have ever delved deeply into. I love RAN, Akira Kurosawa's adaptation, but I have yet to find a King Lear that I care about. The 1971 film version, sadly, is not going to convert me to this play. I appreciate some of its qualities, but after a while it became so much white noise. 

Old King Lear (Paul Scofield) has decided to divide his kingdom among his three daughters: Goneril (Irene Worth), Regan (Susan Engel) and Cordelia (Anne-Lise Gabold). The two eldest daughters praise their father and his decision, but Cordelia loves her father too much to offer false flattery. With that act, Lear banishes her, gives what would have been her part to Goneril and Regan, and unleashes hell. 

Goneril and Regan renege on their promise to host Lear, making the enraged and elderly king wander the countryside and eventually going insane. Seeing a way to take more power, the sisters soon start a war, and loyal Cordelia, returning with her husband from France, does her best to restore her beloved father. It, however, is not meant to be, with bloodshed and horror all around.

On a certain level, there is nothing wrong with this King Lear. It has an excellent performance from Paul Scofield in the title role. Scofield was one of the greatest yet least known and/or remembered actors of his generation. Despite being an Oscar winner in A Man for All Seasons, Scofield was not a film star and had no interest in being one. We see Scofield in full form as Lear: quietly in control, raging without going bonkers, overwhelmed by tragedy. King Lear showcases Paul Scofield's tremendous range and power as an actor.

King Lear also has fine performances from Irene Worth and Goneril, the cold, angry, arrogant woman who now will pursue her own ambitions. The scenes between Worth and Scofield are effective and strong.

I do not think there are bad performances per se in King Lear.  It is a credit to director Peter Brook to gather all these actors and give them a chance to show their skills. I was not also particularly bothered by the black-and-white cinematography or lack of score. There are some, I understand, who were bothered by these elements. I was not thrilled with them, but they were not dealbreakers for me. 

I say "particularly" for a reason. I think my problem with King Lear is that while everything is fine, that is all it is. King Lear is fine. It is not great. It is not overwhelming. It is also not welcoming to those who find The Bard boring. King Lear starts to feel its two-hour-plus runtime. There is something of stilted nature to this King Lear. 

The words are spoken. Sometimes you have beautiful imagery, such as during the rainstorm that reflects Lear's fall into madness. After a while, however, you stop paying attention to what is going on. It soon becomes background noise, and you can imagine doing anything from reading a book to putting up your laundry as the actors continue on. I kept thinking that this adaptation of King Lear would work magnificently as a radio or audio production, less so as a film.

I think that comes from how there was no sense of urgency or passion in it. Perhaps it is unfair to compare King Lear with Orson Welles' adaptation of the Falstaff plays in Chimes at Midnight. However, I cannot help but think that Chimes at Midnight was welcoming and alive, full of life and able to bring the viewer into the world of Shakespeare. King Lear opted to be more reverential, perhaps even retrained, keeping viewers at a bit of a distance. 

This King Lear is worth for the performances, particularly Scofield and Worth.  I confess to after a while, I stopped watching King Lear and started listening to King Lear. It would be great as an audio play. As a filmed play, it does not have much to offer apart from some good performances and a unique visual style. "I know when one is dead, and when one lives," Lear cries when he carries Cordelia's corpse. This King Lear is not dead, but it is not alive either.

DECISION: C-

Human Voice: A Review

 

HUMAN VOICE (VOCE UMANA)

Human Voice (Voce Umana) is a simple story held together by Sophia Loren in if not a farewell performance at least a strong yet quiet one.  

Naples, 1950. War widow Angela (Loren) waits for her lover, known as the Signore (Enrico Lo Verso), to come for their usual Tuesday dinner. She calls close to dinner to find that he is not coming. As she recalls the day and her five-year romance that came after the end of the war, Angela also recalls seeing another woman coming out of Signore's home. 

It is clear that their affair is over. Devastated, she makes another call telling him as much while tearfully confessing she loves him.

Edoardo Ponti's adaptation of Jean Cocteau's play (cowritten with Erri De Luca) is very sparse and simple. He does open it up a bit by having the lovers stroll through the streets and Angela see the other woman (Alessandra Bonarota) leaving Signore's home. Ponti, interestingly, never shows us Signore's face. It is almost as if he is taking pains to not show him. We also get some interaction with Giuseppina (Virginia Da Brescia), Angela's cook who prepares the meal.

Human Voice gives us just a touch on a story that could be lengthened into a feature film. The film, at a brisk 25 minutes, tells its story through some voiceover but mostly through Loren holding court. Apart from dialogue with Giuseppina, Loren is the only human voice we hear.

Loren is called upon to give a wide variety of emotions in Human Voice. There is the joy of the anticipation, the mundane of talking to someone else about Signore, the anger at the betrayal, the hurt of her loss. Loren does a strong job playing all these emotions to herself, as she has no one to act against her. 

One marvels how she was eighty years old when she performed in Human Voice, her son's directing debut. While she does look like a mature woman, she still maintains some of the extraordinary Neapolitan beauty that has enraptured the world for decades. She also shows that she is a competent and able actress. From her first moment in voiceover reflecting on her romance to the final moment when she is weeping her love out, Loren keeps your attention.

Ponti, however, was wise to not give Loren a running monologue in Human Voice. He gives us little breaks with Angela's flashbacks and with Giuseppina in the kitchen, letting viewers breathe a little. It also makes the story less play-like had it been a single scene, which I figure the play would look like.

Human Voice is seeing an actress in winter still able to give a strong performance. Keeping a somber tone with William Goodrum's score and Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography, Human Voice gives everyone a good and short film to enjoy.  

DECISION: B-

Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills: A Review

 

SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS

There was once a television show that celebrated the lavish lifestyles of those with money to burn. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous relished in selling viewers "champagne wishes and caviar dreams". I thought of this television show while watching Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills. An effort at sophisticated comedy, Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills would have been funnier if it had been played straighter.  

Claire (Jacqueline Bisset) is a recent widow who is planning a comeback with a revival of her old sitcom Hillary. She invites her friend and neighbor Lisbeth (Mary Woronov) to stay with her for the weekend while her house is being fumigated. Also coming is Lisbeth's son Willie (Barret Oliver), in remission for cancer. An unexpected guest is Lisbeth's playwright brother Peter (Ed Begley, Jr.), who in turn is bringing his new wife To-Bel (Arnetia Walker). Claire's daughter Zandra (Rebecca Schaeffer) is not keen on much of this, and oddly not big on attending the wake for her late father, Sidney (Paul Mazursky). Perhaps she would if she knew that Sidney pops in to see Claire from time to time, much to Claire's constant irritation.

One person definitely not invited is Lisbeth's soon to be ex-husband Howard (Wallace Shawn) but come he does anyway. Observing all this is Juan (Robert Beltran), Claire's butler and Frank (Ray Sharkey) Lisbeth's chauffer. Juan owes a gangster $5,000 and he wants it by the following Monday. Looking to find a way to raise cash in a hurry, Frank offers Juan a bet as to see who will seduce the other's employer first. If Juan sleeps with the divorcee Lisbeth first, Juan will get the money. If Frank gets to the Widow Lipski first, Frank will get to have sex with Juan.

In the lurid weekend in which various couples hook up and past liaisons are exposed, things go all over the place. We get porn tapes, people losing their virginities to their relations by marriage and disastrous complications. Who will get what he/she wants?

I get where director Paul Bartel (who cowrote the story with the film's screenwriter Bruce Wagner) wanted to take Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills. I think they were aiming for some kind of modern French farce, full of strange entanglements and clever comments flying at us. It seemed to be almost a class take on Dangerous Liaisons, where it was the servants who were playing sex games with their employers versus members of the Ancien Regime aristocracy. I think, however, the execution is what kills the potential the film has.

The main issue is that everyone is playing things so broad, with some passing into straight-up cartoonish behavior, that it becomes forced. It draws attention to the falseness of things. It also suggests that everyone in front and behind the camera thought they were being far cleverer than they were. Of particular note is Edith Diaz as Rosita, the maid who spouts out bizarre Aztec mythology to people who ends up in bed with Willie (though technically this would the second woman he'd slept with that night). She plays it as I presume as she was directed to, which was big, broad and exaggerated. It is not funny when you tell people how funny something is.

About the one time that I did if not laugh at least smile while being a bit surprised is when To-Bel has a chat with Dr. Mo Van de Kamp, played by director Bartel. Dr. Mo, who is Claire's self-proclaimed "thinologist", informs the gold-digging To-Bel that her playwright husband is actually quite poor. His plays have flopped, and Van de Kamp informs her that Peter has been living off a trust fund that he describes as "niggardly". While the word usage is technically correct, the black To-Bel gives Mo a side glance at his statement.

As just about everyone is so exaggerated, it is hard to judge whether the performances are good. At the least, it is hard to know if they would have been better had Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills opted to tone down the camp. Bisset certainly was game to be camp, fully aware that things were meant to be broad. Walker's To-Bel was also quite good, the closest thing to a sensible person even if she was the one relegated to appear nude the most. Sharkey was appropriately sleazy, though I think the scene where she drugs Claire's drink and deceives people into thinking they had sex would be controversial today. Making him also get an ostensibly heterosexual man to agree to have a one-night stand too might not be seen as funny today as it was then.

As the central character, Beltran too seemed in on the joke. It sadly did not convince me that he was Juan, the character. Instead, I saw Robert Beltran, the actor, playing Juan, the character. 

The dark shadow hanging over Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills is due to circumstances outside anyone's control. Rebecca Schaeffer, whose small role as Claire's daughter showed her promise as an actress, was seen in the film by her stalker. Enraged at the sight of the My Sister Sam actress as a promiscuous teen, he eventually found the actress and murdered her. While Schaeffer's tragic death sparked needed reforms and protections against stalking, it still is disconcerting to know that this film caused such a horror so at odds with the supposed sexual hijinks.

Separate from that, Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills in my view would have been better and cleverer if it had opted to be more grounded in reality instead of playing to the back row. A good comedy is aware that it is funny without having to announce it. There is promise in the material. However, the end result was anything but chic. 

DECISION: D+

12 Angry Men: The Television Movie

 

12 ANGRY MEN

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Ossie Davis.

Times change. What worked in an earlier era might not fully work today. Such is the case with the 1997 television adaptation of 12 Angry Men. This version brings a more diverse cast to the proceedings while keeping what worked from the original film. While it tacked on almost a half hour more than its predecessor, 12 Angry Men is still a showcase for a variety of actors.

A young man (Douglas Spain) is on trial for the murder of his father. The Judge (Mary McDonnell) gives her instructions to the jurors who move into deliberations.

The initial vote from the jurors is 11-1 to convict. The sole holdout is Juror #8 (Jack Lemmon). Leading the charge to convict is Juror #3 (George C. Scott), with Juror #3 (Armin Mueller-Stahl) as his ally. Juror #8 is not saying that he thinks the Accused is not guilty. He just has to move beyond reasonable doubt and wants to talk about.  the case. After some deliberation and fierce opposition from the other jurors, Juror #8 will vote to convict on condition that the other jurors remain unanimous. A single "Not Guilty" vote would extend the deliberations.

First to fall is Juror #9 (Hume Cronyn), who thinks Juror #8's objections should be heard. Over the course of hours, there is a shift among the jurors. Some, such as former Nation of Islam member Juror #10 (Mykelti Williamson) will not fold. Others, such as Jurors #2 and 12 (Ossie Davis and William Petersen) are more wavering, open to both sides. Some jurors just want out, such as Juror #7 (Tony Danza), desperate to make the Yankees game. 

Others such as Juror #11 (Edward James Olmos) take their duty seriously. While the Foreman, Juror #1 (Courtney B. Vance) works to keep the peace and things in order, the other jurors soon start arguing over every aspect of the case. Jurors #5 and 6 (Dorian Harewood and James Gandolfini) are caught in the middle. Will these twelve men agree to convict or acquit? Will their individual lives and views allow them to see the evidence alone?

12 Angry Men manages to sneak in a woman with the Judge. Apart from her, the television adaptation by Reginald Rose from his own original teleplay and 1957 film keeps it all with the guys. What 12 Angry Men has is an all-star cast where it lives out the creed that there are no small parts, only small actors. 

The lion's share is between George C. Scott and Jack Lemmon as the antagonists who will not yield their views without a fight. Lemmon does not have big showy moments. Instead, he almost underplays his role of Juror #8. He remains calm, measured, slightly agitated but never in a rage. That rage is from Scott, diving into Juror #3's mix of stubbornness and ultimately regret. Each play off each other well, ably directed by William Friedkin.

12 Angry Men gives most of its cast a chance to show strong acting. I would say that Cronyn is the standout of the supporting cast (if you make Lemmon and Scott the leads). He has an excellent monologue as to why he opted to follow Juror #8's lead that holds your attention. Williamson too did great work as Juror #10. It is almost daring to have this black man go on a racist rant. A lazier script would have had this diatribe against "spics" be issued by maybe someone else. That it is a minority going after another minority is a sign and sad acceptance that bigotry is not from just one side.

Petersen was also strong as Juror #12, forever wavering between guilty and not guilty. Mueller-Stahl made Juror #4 into a rational figure. While they had smaller parts both Gandolfini and Danza handled the roles well. Davis was too briefly on screen, but he too had a small moment where he got his say.

My great issue with 12 Angry Men the television movie is the same one that I had with 12 Angry Men the film. I think Juror #8 asked for too much in terms of evidence and supposals. The more I think on it, I think the jury reached the wrong conclusion not through the examining of evidence but by going into almost an alternate universe. Juror #8 seemed set on not accepting any evidence no matter what it was.

For example, he goes over a point that Juror #4 keeps going back to. The Accused said that he went to the movies when his father was being murdered but when asked by the police, the Accused could not remember what movies he had seen or even the stars in them. Juror #8 cuts down this testimony by asking Juror #4 to remember the last movie he had seen (Secrets & Lies). Juror #4 bungled the title, calling it "Lies and Secrets", then could not remember the actors in Secrets & Lies. From that, Juror #8 insists that it is perfectly logical that, under the stress and shock of being questioned by the police at the crime scene, the Accused could have been honest about going to the movies but not remembering anything about them.

Never mind that there were other witnesses testified had stated that they had not remembered seeing the Accused at the theater. For Juror #8, everything that pointed to the Accused's guilt was cut down. For me, Juror #8 kept putting up too much supposition to eventually make everything doubtful. He, to my mind, went beyond reasonable doubt. Moreover, I do not know that the comparison between the Accused and Juror #4 is a fair one. 

Other elements, such as what seemed a longer time in getting to the second "not guilty" vote, made 12 Angry Men less than it could be. Some scenes featured Dutch angles, which I figure in a way to spice up the imagery. 

Despite some stumbles, 12 Angry Men works as a showcase for strong acting all around. I think 12 Angry Men is about the process of the jury system. For that, I respect it, even if I would not have changed my vote from "guilty" no matter how often Juror #8 pushed. 

7/10

Blink Twice: A Review

BLINK TWICE

Channing Tatum is a curious figure to me. I do not think he can act. While I thought he was fine in 21 Jump Street and This is the End, that seemed to be more him spoofing himself than any actual acting. Apart from his ability to take his clothes off, I have never seen anything film-wise that suggest to me that Tatum should be in film. Blink Twice, directed and cowritten by his current girlfriend Zoe Kravitz, does not change my mind on him.

Frida (Naomi Ackie) is impressed to obsessed with tech billionaire Slater King (Tatum). Slater has had an unspecified scandal that forced him to step back from his public profile and is now working to rehabilitate and heal both his public image and presumably his emotional well-being. Frida and her BFF Jess (Alia Shawkat) are waitresses at the swanky soiree fundraiser King is hosting. They slip off their uniforms and slip into evening dress, where they instantly crash the party. A broken high heel causes Frida to crash onto the floor, but it is enough for Slater to find her and soon be besotted by her.

Without any hesitation, Frida and Jess fly off with Slater and a group of his friends to Slater's private island. Going on this jaunt are apparent besties Camilla and Heather (Liz Caribel and Trew Mullen). Another woman, reality television star Sarah (Adria Arjona) is also on the island. The men, whom Frida and Jess met at the fundraiser, are flying with them as well. There is celebrity chef Cody (Simon Rex), Slater's business associate Vic (Christian Slater), crypto wunderkind Lucas (Levon Hawke) and Tom (Haley Joel Osment), who I think is an actor going through a career slump. 

At first, everything is fine on this fantasy island of hedonism with rampant boozing and drugging but remarkably few hookups. Why is that? What is Slater's assistant Stacy (Geena Davis) really up to? Why does a creepy old woman call Frida "Red Rabbit" (which I initially misheard as "red robin")? After Jess gets bitten by a snake, she starts freaking out and pleading to leave. Frida, however, won't go. Frida then becomes alarmed when Jess disappears, yet no one has any memory of Jess at all. 

More strangeness occurs when first Frida and later Sarah start remembering things and seeing flashes of terrible things. They eventually realize the truth. Far from this being some delightful sojourn into decadence, the women have been held prisoner on the island. The men have been drugging and raping them repeatedly, save for Lucas who apparently is too weak-willed to participate or report it. Now it is up to Frida and Sarah to free themselves from this nightmare. If it means taking bloody revenge, so be it. Their fight culminates in a torrent of bloodshed and a triumph for our former waitress.

For better or worse, I am a critic who gets hung up on details. Kravitz and her cowriter E.T. Fiegenbaum appears to have essentially blended Promising Young Woman and Don't Worry Darling in another tale of female empowerment that falls apart when you think on it. Why, for example, would Slater and his male chauvinist pig friends abduct and rape the same women they did last year? I might give some leeway had Blink Twice opted to have Frida discover that this was some kind of annual event and this year they were the sacrificial victims. However, as one of the film's twists is that these men had raped Frida on an unremembered previous visit, why would they target the same women again? 

As a side note, I kept calling the film "Don't Blink" as opposed to Blink Twice. I do not know why. Maybe it was my subconscious reminding me about Get Out and Us, which Blink Twice also seems to draw from. 

Moreover, "abduct" or take prisoner or hold hostage is a stretch given that they went to the island on their own free will. I could grant that perhaps it was not on their own free will if the chemicals they were plied with made them forget enough. However, Blink Twice opens with Frida scrolling through her cellphone about Slater King. As presented in the film, she is the one obsessed with him. Did the drugs make her do that? If so, why then did Sarah initially appear to be jealous of Frida and make her the rival for Slater's attention?

I could not get over how Frida and Jess simply up and left whatever jobs they had to fly off to a private island with someone they did not know. I would advise against flying off to remote locales with anyone whom you do not know, no matter how famous he/she is. It is extremely dangerous and irresponsible to travel with strangers. This in no way justifies what the women went through. It does, however, make one question why they would take that kind of risk.

Had, for example, Blink Twice opted to have them win some contest to lure them to this forbidden paradise, then we might have had something. However, the logical leaps one has to go through to justify the plot are too much for me.

Blink Twice also has some truly awful lines and situations that should be groan-inducing. Early on, Frida advises her BFF when it comes to Jess' boyfriend to "Stop giving away your power!". I find such statements unrealistic. That sounds so heavy-handed. Later on, Sarah and Frida talk about how women have been taught to compete against each other when they should work together. Again, do people, actual people, talk like this? Would someone like Sarah, who had starred on Hot Survivor Babes for 22 years, be so easily taken by Slater King and his satanic court? The whole concept of Hot Survivor Babes, the faux-reality show Sarah learned her survivalist skills on, strikes me as misandrist. Men, true, are visual when it comes to beautiful women. However, men are not uniformly shallow as to watch nothing but girls in skimpy outfits just to see girls in skimpy outfits. 

Blink Twice makes the case that all these men would either actively participate in mass rapes and later on, killings, or at least stay silent like Lucas did. That too is shockingly misandrist and like Promising Young Woman and Don't Worry Darling, pushes a narrative that all men are dangerous who see women as nothing. What does it say about the state of the world that there is such hatred for a group of people based on their gender? 

Kravitz, as a director, loves close-ups. It is not as distracting as it could have been, but I think we could have done away with so many. She could not get her current boyfriend Channing Tatum to act. To be fair, no one has managed to do that, so I cut her some slack. She, however, could not get anyone to act. Naomi Ackie was not compelling as Frida. She is meant to be the naive innocent caught up in this web of sex games. However, she was thoroughly blank for most of the film. 

Everyone else really is forgettable, though I felt a bit sad for Osment who appeared to have to endure fat jokes at his expense. During one flashback, he tells the others off about his lack of participation by munching on a candy bar and snapping, "Shut up, I'm eating!". Other times he is made to mention how he is not partaking in Cody's lavish meals due to eating nothing but eggs. I don't get the humor in that.

Blink Twice is treading on too familiar territory (Promising Young Woman, Don't Worry Darling, Get Out, a dash of Saltburn). The rich and powerful may be degenerate, but those they lure should exercise some caution. 

  

DECISION: D-

Pushover: A Review

 

PUSHOVER

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Fred MacMurray.

Pushover is the film debut for Kim Novak, which makes it a noteworthy film in and of itself. Separate from that, Pushover is a well-acted, well-directed story, even if it covers familiar film noir ground.

The beautiful Lona McLane (Novak) leaves a movie theater and has trouble with her car. Seemingly good Samaritan Paul Sheridan (Fred MacMurray) tries to help her, then helps himself to this luscious creature. However, things are not as they first appear.

Sheridan is actually a police detective who is trailing our buxom blonde. She is a gangster's moll who may know the whereabouts of both her man Wheeler (Paul Richards) or the thousands he stole from a bank. Sheridan has the blessings of the police department to pump our girl for information, but they did not count on them falling in love with each other.

Sheridan now finds himself falling into various temptations. He can't fully act on them however, thanks to his partner Rick McAllister (Phil Carey). There is also Detective Paddy Dolan (Allen Nourse), a struggling alcoholic close to retirement. All are overseen by Police Lieutenant Ekstrom (E.G. Marshall), a no-nonsense by-the-book officer.

It looks like things are looking up for Sheridan and McLane when Wheeler does show up. Through a series of circumstances, it looks like Sheridan can get the money and the woman. However, things soon start spinning out of control. McAllister, unaware of any of Sheridan's plans, gets unexpected help from Lona's neighbor Ann Stewart (Dorothy Malone), for whom he's fallen for during the stakeout. Will Sheridan and Lona get away with their crimes of passion or will they learn that crime does not pay?

Pushover, through no fault of its own, suffers by comparison to Double Indemnity. Not only do you have the male lead from Double Indemnity in Pushover, you also have a similar theme. Like Walter Neff in Double Indemnity, Paul Sheridan did it for the money and the woman. Like Walter Neff, he did not get the money and did not get the woman. Unlike the Billy Wilder film, though, the femme fatale was not a vile murderess but a surprisingly sympathetic character.

Pushover as stated was Kim Novak's debut. Her performance shows that she is new to film acting. It has a hesitancy and breathy delivery that seems nervous and unsure. While her performance is not strong, I think we can put that down to a nervousness at the start of her career. This does help her interpretation, as we see Lona as a scared woman. Novak is not strictly speaking a femme fatale in that she does not seem deliberately wicked, more of a mere accessory. In retrospect, Kim Novak did not give a good performance in Pushover, but she was competent enough to begin her long career on a good note. 

MacMurray, curiously, sometimes comes across as bored in Pushover. He does have good moments, such as when he is setting up a room to make it look as if had been occupied. As a side note, Pushover has an excellent opening scene where, like in the previously mentioned one, is dominated by silence. The opening scene is of the bank robbery, where only Arthur Morton's score is used. However, at times MacMurray seems a bit off in his acting, as if his heart was not in it. When planning his double-cross of both the gangster Wheeler and his partner McAllister, he seemed to be delivering his lines with no conviction.

Carey and Malone work well together as Rick and Ann, surprisingly playing a counter-love story to the seedy Lona and Paul one. This subplot makes Pushover almost a romance, bringing a little light into the dark world of film noir.  The minor roles of Nourse's tragic Dolan and Marshall's firm Eckstrom were also strong and interesting to see.

Roy Huggins' adaptation of two novels, Thomas Walsh's The Night Watch and William S. Ballinger's Rafferty has some downright daring lines. Early on, Lona's car does not start (more than likely tampered with to keep her under surveillance and allow Sheridan to help). "I don't think you're getting any spark," he tells her when looking at the vehicle. "I'm not?", she replies in her breathy tone. "Not enough to start the car," he replies. The double entendre is pretty clear, but it works for the scene. Shortly afterwards, as they leave the bar, they decide they should go home. "Your place or mine?", Sheridan asks her point-blank. "Surprise me," is her response, a line that even in noir films is openly brazen, even a little shocking in its meaning. 

One of director Richard Quine's best elements is how he keeps things moving at a brisk 88-minute runtime. Pushover rarely feels sluggish or padded, and that is a major plus given the subplots the film weaves in. You get the main story of Sheridan and McLane's dark romance. You have Ann Stewart and Rick McAllister's light romance. You have Dolan's struggles with alcohol. You have Sheridan's wicked plans to get the money and the woman. All that packed into a runtime shorter than many of today's films says something about how a film can tell a story and even give subplots their time without going on tangents.

Pushover is a strong film with some great moments and interesting, albeit perhaps familiar story. "Money isn't dirty, just people," someone observes. Money and lust can cause even good people to do terrible things. A film that should be better known and remembered for more than just Kim Novak, Pushover works well. 

DECISION: B+

Mogambo: A Review (Review #1850)

MOGAMBO

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Grace Kelly.

There was a Frank Sinatra television movie or miniseries that I remember. In it, there was a scene where Sinatra, in a career downturn, looks to his second wife Ava Gardner for help. She had been cast in Mogambo, the remake of the 1932 film Red Dust. He asks her to help him play her costar. "Who is playing the Clark Gable part?", he asks. A visibly irritated Gardner snaps back at him, "CLARK GABLE!". Mogambo tells our tale of lust among the white savages in darkest Africa with surprising restraint, but with lush African footage on the whole the film flows well. 

Big game white hunter Victor Marswell (Clark Gable) has a successful safari and animal capture business with his business partner John Brown-Pryce or "Brownie" (Philip Stainton). Into this world comes Eloise "Honey Bear" Kelly (Ava Gardner), a chorus girl who was supposed to join a safari with her maharajah lover. "Bunny" however, cancelled at the last minute, and Kelly is enraged at being trapped in this dark continent for a week.

That week does not go to waste, however, as Honey Bear bonds with animals of all kinds, including eventually Vic. She is expected to leave on the next boat, which also brings anthropologist Donald Nordley (Donald Sinden) and his patrician wife, Lisa (Grace Kelly). Donald takes sick in Africa, temporarily holding his planned safari back. It isn't long before sparks begin to fly between Lisa and Vic. Eloise's sudden reappearance due to a boating mishap now add fuel to the fire, the passions igniting all over the place. Will Lisa succumb to the manly arms of Victor? Will Eloise hold her man or see him fall to more dangerous prey? As the expedition to find gorillas begins, the passions collide to their almost-murderous conclusion. 

Both Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly received Oscar nominations for Mogambo as Lead and Supporting Actress respectively. On the whole, I think both acquitted themselves well, if at times their acting was a bit more on the stiff and dramatic side also respectively. Gardner was initially stiff, hesitant and breathy when first meeting Vic. As the film went on, however, I started liking this brassy broad who had a heart. Gardner has a wonderful moment of physical comedy with a baby elephant and rhino. 

There is also a well-filmed sequence by director John Ford when they arrive at a missionary station. In essentially silent film acting, Eloise Kelly, woman of the world, places a scarf over her head and makes the sign of the cross at the makeshift Catholic church. She later, again silently, goes to make confession with the Catholic priest. This actually reveals more about Honey Bear than much of John Lee Mahin's adaptation of Wilson Collins' play.

Kelly for her part did well as the very patrician and elegant Lisa, caught between the love for her husband and the desires of the flesh with Victor. I did wonder whether it was right to make her character British when being American would have been just as acceptable. Kelly, for example, used the British pronunciation of "schedule" versus the American "ske-dule". However, sometimes she seems to speak like an American, albeit a posher one. There was also a scene where she faces a rampaging gorilla that leaned into a more theatrical and exaggerated manner.

As a side note, while Kelly is beautiful, I think Lisa should have been eaten by panthers when she decided to walk alone in the jungle. Also, if it is a contest between them, my choice is Honey Bear.

Gable was all rugged and business as the white hunter. It is not often that we see an actor recreate a role for a remake of an earlier success. Mogambo gives us a rare chance to see the same actor play the same role in two different films. The comparisons between Red Dust and Mogambo are for another day. However, this version shows that Gable, older but no less commanding, had lost none of his power and appeal. His Vic is sensible and professional on all matters save one: women. There are great moments of subtlety that reveal Vic's nature. When Lisa faces that rampaging gorilla, Vic almost casually pushes her away. His actions, while correct in saving her life, also show that he really does not think much of her. He is better with the earthly, lusty Honey Bear, whom he has a love-hate relationship.

The film has some wonderful location footage, though the rear-screen projections are amusingly bad. It also has a natural music score built around indigenous African music, giving us a greater feel for the environment Mogambo is in.

I think the ending is a bit rushed and not as impactful as it could have been. On the whole, however, Mogambo is an entertaining if perhaps a tad longer than it should be. 

DECISION: B-

The Star (1952): A Review

THE STAR (1952)

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Bette Davis. 

We had the "comeback" of a silent film star in Sunset Boulevard. Now it is the sound era's first generation of film actresses longing for a return with The Star. Earning the penultimate Oscar nomination of her career, The Star is a respectable Bette Davis vehicle.

Film legend Margaret Elliot (Bette Davis) has an Oscar to her name, but that is really about all she has to her name. Margaret has fallen on hard times. Her agent cannot get her work, she has endured the humiliation of a public auction of her belongings and faces eviction from her small apartment. She also had to essentially farm out her daughter Gretchen (Natalie Wood) to her ex-husband, who has a happy second marriage and more successful career. The final indignity is when her sister and brother-in-law come asking for a monthly allowance, uninterested that she is broke.

Despondent, Margaret takes her Oscar and says, "Come on, Oscar. Let's you and me get drunk!". An arrest for DUI yields an unexpected source of help: Jim Johansen (Sterling Hayden), a former costar who left the industry and is now happy as the owner of a boatyard. He encourages her to start a new career as a saleswoman, but that ends in disaster when she's recognized and mocked. The DUI arrest, ironically enough, gets her publicity, which in turn gets her a chance to be in The Fatal Winter, a role she has coveted for years.

Therein lies the problem. She had optioned The Fatal Winter years ago when she was an ingenue, but now she is offered a screen test for the older sister. Determined to get a part she is far too young for, she vamps up her screen test. Watching it later, she realizes her disastrous mistake. Is it too late for her to make a comeback? Will she realize that a post-career life with Jim and Gretchen is better than trying to keep being The Star? 

Bette Davis was 44 when she made The Star, and I think that reveals how difficult it was for older actresses to have roles that were not positive portrayals of older women. Her prior Oscar nomination for All About Eve touched on a similar theme of actresses of a certain age needing to move past their glory days to more domestic matters. I do not know if it was a reflection of 1950's America, but there it is.

The Star has a standout performance by Davis as Margaret Elliot. She is strong whenever she has to endure some kind of humiliation due to her faded career. The quiet expressions of either sadness or rage whenever her status is brought up works. Davis even manages to be funny in some of her line delivery of Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert's screenplay. One cannot help but smile when she looks at her Oscar and tells him to join her on going on a bender. Later, she goes off on two old women who look horrified when Elliot throws lingerie at them for pushing her on whether she was Margaret Elliot.

"Call the manager! Call the President! Call the fire department!" Elliot bellows when one of them says she will call the manager on her. I don't know how Margaret went from "the President" to "the fire department", but I found it funny. I also found it true-to-life, this stream-of-consciousness that led from one group to another.  She is effective, if perhaps slightly mannered, when working with Wood as her daughter. The efforts to push these devoted mother scenes was a bit forced in my view. 

Davis' best moments are when she is auditioning for The Fatal Winter. In her efforts at the screen test to be coquettish when the role is meant to be frumpy, we see an actress (Davis) fully aware that her actress character (Margaret) is not fully aware of how ridiculous and contradictory she is. When she sees the footage, the genuine horror and realization of her grave error comes through. Margaret Elliot is not so much self-destructive as she is self-sabotaging. 

Wood, in a smaller role, was strong as Gretchen, the devoted daughter who loved Margaret through thick and thin. I did feel for Wood on a personal level, however, when she has to have a scene while sailing, aware of her great terror of water. Hayden did well as Jim, Margaret's rescuer. I did find their love scenes stretched believability, but not to where they were ludicrous. 

We had a great score from Victor Young, who always brought excellent music to whatever film he worked on. 

The Star is entertaining and keeps your attention. The ending may be a bit pat and perhaps not the most original or affirming (no comebacks for Margaret or acceptance of time going by). On the whole, however, The Star is worth looking up. 

DECISION: B-

The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover: A Review

THE PRIVATE FILES OF J. EDGAR HOOVER

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Jose Ferrer.

J. Edgar Hoover was in life feared by the most powerful men in government. J. Edgar Hoover is in death mocked as a closeted cross-dresser. The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, made five years after the FBI Director's death, has a very titillating title. While a bit haphazard, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover manages a balance between the idea of a dedicated lawman and a paranoid tyrant.

J. Edgar Hoover (Broderick Crawford) is dead. With that, there is almost a mad rush to get to the FBI headquarters where Hoover kept files detailing the various misdeeds, public and private, of the Washington elite. There is a similar rush to shred these files and keep them out of anyone's hands. 

From here, we get narration by Dwight Webb (Rip Torn), an FBI agent whose father also worked for the Bureau of Investigation as the agency began. Young John Edgar Hoover (James Wainwright) is a mere clerk who wants to clean up the most corrupt government body in Washington, D.C. He also is particular about keeping to the law and having everything in writing. He is displeased at how radical immigrants are having their legal rights ignored. It is not that he cares about these Commies. He rather detests them. It is the violation of the law that irks him.

Nevertheless, he is dead-set on reforming the now-Federal Bureau of Investigation into a model agency. No drinking, non-payment of debts or easy sexual practices will be tolerated. Anyone going outside Hoover's strict personal and moral code will be shunted off until he quits or retires unenthusiastically. Surprisingly, Hoover is opposed to President Franklin Roosevelt's (Howard da Silva) plan to arrest and imprison Japanese Americans. Again, it is the legality of arresting people who have committed no crime that upsets him, not any specific favor for Japanese Americans or their civil rights.

Hoover has his courtiers as he amasses greater power. Despite his initial opposition to wiretaps, Hoover now uses FDR's tacit approval of tapping Americans to listen in on all sorts of subversives and perverts. He is enraged when Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (Michael Parks) puts him in his place. However, with his loyalists Clyde Tolson (Dan Dailey) and Frank McCoy (Jose Ferrer), Hoover knows his way around the swamp. He does not know his way around women, even the ones who throw themselves at him.

Will Hoover keep control and continue being the power behind the throne of seven Presidents? Will Webb single-handedly beat Hoover to stay at the FBI on his own terms?

It is almost impossible to look at J. Edgar Hoover through a clear perspective. You either love the man or despise him. The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover I found almost surprisingly sympathetic to Hoover. The image, at least in the early section, was of a by-the-book administrator who had a high moral, ethical and aesthetic standard he expected everyone to follow. He, for example, is appalled that Rule 22 is not being observed for foreigners with Communist links. They may be Commies, but proper procedure should be followed at all times.

It is once his power grows that Hoover becomes more arrogant and tyrannical. "I'm not gettable", Hoover growls to his frenemy Joseph McCarthy (George D. Wallace). He refuses to help Walter Winchell (Lloyd Gough) in getting his press credentials back even after Winchell's decades-long help in promoting him and the FBI. His assistant, McCoy, is pretty much thrown out when McCoy suggests that the aging Hoover should retire. Nevertheless, it is reflective of Hoover's power that those like McCoy continue to stay loyal, if not to him to the FBI. To Hoover's mind, they are sinonimous.

Broderick Crawford is an interesting choice to play the FBI director. I think physically, he is wrong. Crawford is a massive, beefy figure, whereas Hoover was a small, stout one. Crawford however has some wonderful moments in writer/director Larry Cohen's screenplay. A scene where he recites Rudyard Kipling's poem The Dirty Road shows someone determined to "hold on", making when he repeats the poem in the privacy of his office quite moving, even terrifying in Hoover's growing paranoia.  

Rip Torn is a surprising choice for Dwight Webb, the man whose determination to keep his job and position will not be thwarted by Hoover's dictatorial manner. I barely recognized him and found him effective in the role, even if I could have done without the voiceover. It is unfortunate that roles like Ferrer's McCoy and Dailey's Tolson were made smaller, almost disjointed. We do get the whispers of whether Hoover was gay, but they seemed to come more from a sense that such rumors would irritate and anger Hoover more than whether they were accurate. 

One element that elevates The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover is Miklos Rosza's score. You wouldn't think Rosza would go for something so low-rent as this. His music actually seems too good for the project, but it is well-crafted.

The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover does suffer a bit by trying to cover the length of Hoover's tenure of 48 years. A good amount of time was spent in the Kennedy Administration, where both Parks and William Jordan as President John F. Kennedy struggled with their Massachusetts accents. If perhaps the film had focused more on the RFK/JEH battle, it would have worked better. A nice moment is when Attorney General Kennedy suggests the FBI could use more "negro" agents. Hoover cooly points out that there are five "negroes" on the FBI payroll, to which Kennedy equally cooly replies that they are Hoover's chauffers. 

The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, I think, suggests something lurid will be discovered within them. The film we saw was one where Hoover was not at least initially a bad man. He did bring about needed reform and professionalism to the agency. He also was not above breaking the law to get the results he needed. Mildly entertaining, it is a passable portrait of a highly controversial figure, a bureaucrat turned autocrat.  

1895-1972

DECISION: C+

Gentlemen Marry Brunettes: A Review

 

GENTLEMEN MARRY BRUNETTES

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Jeanne Crain.

Despite the title, Gentlemen Marry Brunettes is not a sequel or connected in any way to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Though everyone tried their best, Gentlemen Marry Brunettes is a slog to sit through, making the viewer wonder why it even exists.

The Jones Sisters are a double act fallen on hard times. Bonnie Jones (Jane Russell) is forever falling for and accepting marriage proposals. Her younger sister Connie Jones (Jeanne Crain) is forever pulling her out of the fire. Things look up when they've received a surprise booking to perform their act at the Casino de Paris. 

The man who sent the booking, David Action (Scott Brady) wants to capitalize on how The Jones Sisters are a second-generation act. Their mother Mitzi and aunt Mimi were the toast of Paris in the Roaring Twenties, wild blonde flappers who had everyone in a whirl. Most in a whirl was the Vagabond Lover himself, Rudy Vallee (Rudy Vallee). David, Rudy and Biddle (Alan Young), Action's Boy Friday, are all astonished at how restrained, even demure, the second Jones Girls are. 

This is Paris, so the men will mold the women into vixens. Bonnie instantly falls for David, Connie warms to the sweetness of Biddle, and Rudy Vallee serves as their mentor. Will the Jones Sisters replicate their mother and aunt's wild success, or will they find them a hard act to follow?

I do not know why Gentlemen Marry Brunettes opted to be. Probably attempting to cash in on the wild success of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, I think people might have expected a direct sequel where Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' brunette, Dorothy Shaw, would be center stage. That Jane Russell is in both films would lend credence to that idea. Unfortunately, while Russell is in both films, she is not the same character.

Far from it. Jane Russell appears to play a variation of Marilyn Monroe. The strongest suggestion of that is how Russell's voice is surprisingly breathy in the Monroe style. Moreover, the character of Bonnie is forever catching men, not deliberately but never saying no. That it is Jeanne Crain who is watching out for the sister puts Russell closer to Lorelei than Dorothy.

One watches Gentlemen Marry Brunettes in slight frustration. Everyone does appear to be giving it their all to make things work. A big surprise is Crain as Connie. One of her first lines to her sister is, "Are you a sex maniac?", which is surprisingly daring for the time. She is sensible and able to throw a quip at people with ease. After seeing the barely-there costumes for the Casino de Paris, both sisters are shocked at the near-total lack of actual material. "No thanks, the Breen Office will never pass it," Crain remarks. That too surprised me.

Crain is one of two highlights in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes. She is sensible but also able to be coquettish, flirtatious and fun. While her singing was dubbed, Crain showed off wonderful dance skills to go along with her comic abilities. Any woman who could make you believe Alan Young made her weak in the knees is a skilled actress.

Young, to be fair, was pleasant to watch as he kept going from job to job. He too was working his best to make things interesting. The duet with Crain for My Funny Valentine was good and effective. I do not know, however, how one feels about seeing Alan Young in drag playing his mother. Brady was perhaps the weakest point in the film. Generally nondescript, he seemed to forced in his efforts to be scheming when he was anything but.

Everyone in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes was efficient but there was no real sense of fun or frivolity. The film has what I call "forced frivolity", where everyone wants us to think they (and us) are having a good time but there is no truth or feel to that idea. The only one who seemed to be enjoying himself was Rudy Vallee. The Vagabond Lover did not have to act as he was playing himself, or perhaps an exaggerated version of himself.  He got a chance to sing a few numbers, such as Have You Met Miss Jones and I Wanna Be Loved by You (which would, ironically enough, enjoy greater fame in the Marilyn Monroe film Some Like It Hot). At the very last minute, we see Russell in a third role as the older Mitzi Jones (she and Crain playing their mother and aunt). Russell had a bit of fun whacking Vallee, using his full name "Hubert Prior Vallee" to scold him for interfering in her daughters' lives. 

As for the other highlight in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, we get some beautiful shots of Paris. 

The musical numbers, choreographed by Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' Jack Cole, were surprisingly dull and lifeless. The Ain't Misbehaving number, with its African setting complete with our chanteuses about to be cooked in a pot, might be ghastly to modern audiences. However, I think contemporary audiences would not have found it fun and splashy. Oddly, more numbers took place in flashbacks to the 1920's Jones Sisters than in the present setting. More bizarre was director and cowriter Jack Sale (writing with Mary Loos) deciding to cut the You're Driving Me Crazy opening number with shots of a fistfight outside the stage door. While it is later established how one connects to the other, to start the film with this was a poor decision.

Gentlemen Marry Brunettes is a surprisingly dull and lifeless thing despite everyone really trying to make it fun. Apart from Jeanne Crain and Paris, and possibly a self-mocking Vallee, it is not worth the time. We know why Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but this is one brunette anyone would skip.

DECISION: D-

The Hollywood Revue of 1929: A Review

THE HOLLYWOOD REVUE OF 1929

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is John Gilbert.

The transition from silent films to sound was jerky and complicated. There was panic at the studios from both the front office and the contract players who had thrived during the silent era. Would they survive the transition? Would the public accept their matinee idols speaking at all? Would their voices, their accents enhance or crush their careers? Into this maelstrom comes The Hollywood Revue of 1929, a de facto reintroduction to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's cavalcade of stars. The Hollywood Revue pulled out as many stops as it was able to, leading a series of performances both entertaining and not.

There is no plot in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. It is exactly what it bills itself as: a series of performances, mostly comedy sketches and musical numbers, where almost every MGM contract player participated (Lon Chaney and Greta Garbo being the most noticeable absences). Hosted mostly by Jack Benny with occasional intros by Conrad Nagel, The Hollywood Revue had a variety of numbers.

We had Joan Crawford doing a song-and-dance routine to Got a Feeling for You. Marie Dressler performed For I Am the Queen, a more comic musical number.  MGM's resident musical heartthrob Charlie King had a good number of musical numbers. Some were serious, like Orange Blossom Time (one of two color sequences). Some were comic, such as Charlie, Gus and Ike, a number first with Gus Edwards and "Ukulele Ike" Cliff Edwards (no relation) then joined by Dressler, Polly Moran and Bessie Love as the trio Marie, Polly and Bess. 

The only non-musical or comedy number and the other color sequence was a staging of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet performed by John Gilbert and Norma Shearer. This part, which is in the posher Act II of The Hollywood Revue, starts out straight. Once the filming ends, their "director" Lionel Barrymore tells them that he's been instructed to keep the story but change the name, the characters and the setting. Thus, Shearer and Gilbert perform the scene again but with contemporary dialogue.

The Hollywood Revue of 1929 received a Best Picture Academy Award nomination. It boggles the mind to think that if not for The Broadway Melody (another MGM film starring King, Love and another Hollywood Revue player, Anita Page), this would have gone done as a Best Picture winner. If The Hollywood Revue is remembered at all, it is more for bits and pieces than for the film itself.

Out of The Hollywood Revue came the song Singing in the Rain (sic). It is performed twice: first by Ukulele Ike, later reprised by almost everyone else who appeared in the film for a big splashy finale. This section is referred to in the abomination that is known as Babylon, though how both tie into the other one does not care to find out. Another song from Singin' in the Rain (You Were Meant for Me) originated in The Broadway Melody but was repurposed here. 

The posh Nagel, having been told by King that Nagel's image as a romantic lead precludes him having a singing career, proves him wrong by crooning You Were Meant for Me to King's Broadway Melody costar Page. It is a fake, as it is King who dubs Nagel, but the sight gag of Charlie King shrinking in defeat is a nice one.

It is a surprise to see The Hollywood Revue use special visual effects. You had two actors (King and Love) appear smaller, and Love managed to "grow" when Jack Benny asked her to come out of his pocket. Another number with Marion Davies showed her dancing towards us by appearing to go under the legs of British soldiers then emerge fully formed in front of them. This Military March had the sight gag of having Davies appear to move the straight line with her breath. While Military March does not make the case that Marion Davies was a strong musical performer, the final part where she gets twirled like a bayonet by all these men in succession is a marvel to behold.

One might not imagine Joan Crawford cutting the rug and looking happy about it, but she did quite well. Curiously, apart from the Got a Feeling for You and the closing number, Crawford does not appear again in The Hollywood Revue. There is a bit of a herky-jerky manner to the presentations in the film. William Haines, a popular silent film actor who specialized in charming cads, appears exactly once in a curious bit where he tears bits of Jack Benny's clothes. I don't know if this was some offbeat commentary on Haines' homosexuality, but it is rather pointless and unfunny. 

I think director Charles Reisner (with uncredited work from Christy Cabanne and Norman Houston) along with screenwriters Al Boasberg and Robert E. Hopkins made a terrible mistake by trying to make things light and breezy. There is nothing wrong with many of the comedy bits: the Laurel & Hardy sequence as a pair of bumbling magicians and Dressler's For I'm the Queen number were amusing. It is rather that the first section is more comic hijinks, and the second is posher. You have a pair of beautiful ballet sequences and the Romeo and Juliet section, so fitting them into some of the musical and comedy bits feels haphazard. You have a straightforward ballet number, then a comic ballet number with Buster Keaton as Neptune's daughter. While this section has excellent faux-underwater filming, the dichotomy is curious.

As a side note, Buster Keaton is the only one who does not actually speak in The Hollywood Revue.

The Hollywood Revue is held up as a reason for why John Gilbert, the Great Lover, faded into obscurity. The legend is that his voice was squeaky, and audiences laughed at his efforts at playing Romeo. This idea that Gilbert had a comically bad voice is, I think, reinforced in Singin' in the Rain albeit via the character of Lina Lamont. Having seen The Hollywood Revue, I don't find anything wrong with John Gilbert's voice. It is slightly on the high side, but nothing resembling Mickey Mouse. In between the traditional and contemporary take on Romeo and Juliet (which Barrymore has been told to call The Neckers), we hear Gilbert and Shearer have dialogue as themselves.

Again, John Gilbert sounds fine. His natural speaking voice is perfectly acceptable, solidly American and a good tenor. The problem is in the acting. Both he and Shearer way overacted the balcony scene to where it did veer dangerously close to farce. While both were exaggerated, I would argue that is Shearer who is more over the top than Gilbert. His mannerism and hand gestures may have been on the broad side. Shearer, however, was overwrought to where she transcended parody. After seeing The Hollywood Revue, I simply am gob smacked that Shearer was given another crack at our Maiden of Verona in the 1936 version of Romeo and Juliet. Her Juliet in The Hollywood Revue was pretty bad. Her Juliet in the 1936 version of Romeo and Juliet was an Oscar-nominated disaster. 

The Hollywood Revue of 1929 is a time capsule of a studio, of a whole industry, in flux. Keeping to the traditions of a standard revue with various musical and comedy numbers, I think an opportunity to showcase MGM's stable of stars was if not lost at least misapplied. Still an interesting, even entertaining film though a bit long, The Hollywood Revue of 1929 does its best to show actors can talk, sing and dance, or at least try.

DECISION: C+