Update / Apologies.

Basically I thought I’d better just pop my head ‘round the door to offer my apologies to regular readers for letting this blog go to seed over the past few months.

With tedious predictability, the explanation for this lengthy break in posting is simply that, for various reasons, day-to-day life & grown up responsibilities have kept me extremely busy so far this year, leaving zero time for writing or creative pursuits.

Sadly, this state of affairs seems likely to continue for at least a few more months, but I have reached a point where I’m at least trying to claw back some spare time for myself. There are many things which I’m itching to write about, and several plans for exciting(?) new projects bubbling around in my brain waiting for a chance to be realised, so, uh… no promises, but watch this space. There’s life in this barren outpost yet.

Noir Diary # 17: Framed (Richard Wallace, 1947)

 

The very definition of an efficient, tightly plotted b-noir, 1947’s ‘Framed’ begins with a perfect visual metaphor for what’s to follow, as protagonist Mike Lambert (Glenn Ford) literally crashes into the small town in which the action takes place behind the wheel of an out-of-control truck with no functioning brakes.

The platonic ideal of a doomed film noir patsy, Lambert is an unkempt, down-on-his-luck drifter (an unemployed mining engineer, so he claims), who accepted the driving gig offered to him by an unscrupulous trucking company purely as a means to get himself to the next town along the trail. After painfully extracting his fee from said trucking firm’s local rep, he deposits it directly into the hat of the argumentative man whose fender he damaged in the process of bringing his death-trap of a vehicle to a halt, and heads straight for the nearest bar to see if he can scare up some credit.

Within the insalubrious environs of the La Paloma Cafe, we soon come to understand how Lambert has ended up in such dire straits. Clearly he’s one of those guys whose thirst for liquor is matched only by his inability to handle its effects, and, after a few shots of rot-gut, we find him trying to hock his gold watch to the barkeep for stake money to join the 24/7 crap game taking place upstairs, only to be saved from further humiliation when the crooked local fuzz waltz in to pick him up on a spurious dangerous driving charge finagled by the trucking company.

In spite of this world championship level display of loserdom however, archly mannered waitress Paula (Janis Carter) appears inexplicably enamoured of the new arrival; so much so that it is she who steps in to cover the fine Lambert is ordered to pay after a jerry-rigged court appearance, before also shelling out to provide the hotel room in which he sleeps off the effects of his subsequent drinking binge.

Anyone thinking that Paula’s efforts might be motivated by philanthropy, pity or good old fashioned lust however would be well advised to consult this movie’s title. Before you know it, our hero’s new guardian angel has quit her job at the bar, and is on the phone to arrange a meet-up with the smarmy vice-president of the local bank (Steve Price, played by Barry Sullivan), letting him know that she’s found exactly the right guy for their purposes. Same height as Price, same build, and no annoying friends or family to get in the way. Oddly, they’re not too concerned about his facial features… I wonder why?

Before we get the full dope on the ugly fate our hero is being measured up for however, ‘Framed’ takes an unexpected detour into B. Traven territory, as Lambert - suddenly determined to try to make something of himself - heads for the local Assaying Office. For the benefit of readers not based in the South-Western U.S.A. in the early 20th century, this was apparently a place to which would-be mining prospectors could bring samples of stuff they’d dug up, to get its mineral content analysed, and happily, Lambert’s visit happens to coincide with that of a garrulous fellow (Jeff Cunningham, played by Edgar Buchanan) who has just received confirmation that he’s struck a life-changing haul of silver up in them-there-hills.

Better still, when Lambert offers his services as an engineer for the forthcoming mining operation, Cunningham recognises him as the guy who paid him back for damage to his car the previous afternoon, clapping him on the shoulders and declaring him an HONEST MAN. So, hands are shaken, a partnership is born, and the new best buddies retire to nearby café (one which actually serves food, unlike the La Paloma) for a slap-up breakfast and some serious mining talk.

The only snag is, to finance the outfit, Cunningham will need to get a loan from the local bank, but don’t worry, it’s such a sure thing that…. ah. You see where this going. Forewarned by Paula, vice-president Steve turns Cunningham down flat, leaving the disgruntled prospector with no choice but to leave town to drum up some dough elsewhere, leaving Lambert to cool his heels… and to head straight back into the arms of one of the most robotically psychotic femme fatales ‘50s noir had to offer. Some guy just can’t get a break, huh?

Ben Maddow’s script for ‘Framed’ may not be high art, but it’s certainly high craft. A frustrated poet and documentarian before he turned to screenwriting to make a buck, Maddow cheerily lifts a few ideas from then-recent hits (Double Indemnity, ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’, and the previous year’s ‘Gilda’, also starring Ford), but he nonetheless gives us one of those great, watertight yarns in which every detail pays off, every character trait serves a purpose, and in which the overriding theme of the piece remains consistent, without ever getting heavy-handed about it.

In the synopsis above, I’ve casually referred to Mike Lambert as the film’s ‘hero’, and, despite his chronic lack of gumption, that descriptor remains more accurate than was often the case in the realm of noir. For all his faults, Lambert is indeed a scrupulously honest man, trying to ply an honest trade, only to find the combined forces of state and capital (the police and judiciary, banks, employers, the idle rich, even disgruntled suburbanites in one case) lined up against him, working in cahoots to keep him penniless, homeless, and preferably consigned to a wooden casket ASAP, all as part of their venal, corrupt daily routine.

(With an outlook like this, it’s no surprise to learn that Maddow found himself blacklisted post-haste once the dark fog of HUAC descended upon Hollywood, his official screen credits drying up shortly after he earned an Oscar nomination for his similarly themed work on John Huston’s classic ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ (1950).)

The great ‘nearly man’ of 40s/50s household name leading men, Glenn Ford also does fine work here, dialling down the charisma he exuded to varying degrees in other roles to effectively portray a guy who is only one or two rungs up the ladder from the Elisha Cook Jrs of this world -- a stone loser, but one whose side-eye glances convey a sly, calculating self-awareness rather than mere blubbering self-pity, letting us know he’s possessed of just enough grit and smarts to overcome the forces rallied against him… if only he could stay away from the bottle, and the crap table - and most importantly, from Janis Carter.

Though she never scaled the same career heights as her co-star, Carter (whose other genre credits include ‘Night Editor’ (1946) and the notorious ‘The Woman on Pier 13’ aka ‘I Married a Communist’ (1949)) is equally memorable here, creating a character who ranks second only to Lizabeth Scott in ‘Too Late For Tears’ (1949) in noir’s pantheon of cold-blooded female predators.

When Sullivan’s character met her two years ago, Paula was modelling “someone else’s furs”; now she has to make do ugly, lace n’ polka-dot small town finery, but not for much longer. A dead-eyed, remorselessly amoral dame straight out of a philandering studio mogul’s worst nightmares, she’s clearly capable of leaving any of the men who dote upon her to perish in a flaming car wreck at a moment’s notice, just to gain an extra percentage point on the purloined dough which sits awaiting her in that numbered safe deposit box back in town.

There is kind of a performative, self-aware aspect to the behaviour of both lead characters in ‘Framed’ - a feeling that Mike and Paula simply complying with the expectations of their archetypes, if you will, unable to break free from the roles they’ve been assigned within Maddow’s rat-trap of a script. Some viewers might see as a weakness of the film, but personally I really enjoyed the weird, fateful quality it brought to proceedings.

Paula is so obviously ice cold and insincere in her interactions with Lambert and Price, it’s difficult to believe that either of them could believe her rote “I’m crazy about you / let’s run away together” jive for a second. Indeed, Lambert appears suspicious of her motives right from the get-go, but nonetheless, he still keeps trudging straight back to the horrible, chintzy bungalow she rents on the outskirts of town, accepting her stream of lies, rationalisations and half-hearted declarations of devotion with heavy-lidded resignation, like some cut price, off-brand version of Robert Mitchum’s storm-tossed fatalism in the same year’s ‘Out of the Past’.

Though ‘Framed’ has none of the high-falutin’ dreaminess we associate with such top tier noirs, Wallace’s direction is punchy and efficient in the best tradition of Columbia crime pictures, relying on fast cutting and simple visual storytelling to get its point across, whilst the film is further elevated by fine supporting performances from Sullivan, whose smarmy bank exec contains a finger of the same juice which would later fuel Fred McMurray’s character in Billy Wilder’s ‘The Apartment’ (1960), and Edgar Buchanan, who essentially plays the movie’s dishevelled, proletarian conscience, offering Lambert a fleeting glimpse of friendship, hard work and proper, American Dream-type redemption.

The work of Director of Photography Burnett Guffey was not generally as showy as that of his more celebrated competitors in the chiaroscuro racket, and with the best will in the world, this picture’s small town / daylight setting and familiarly drab Columbia interior sets offer little scope for expressionist grandeur.

Nonetheless though, Howe’s steady hand ensures that the movie always looks at least pretty good, employing the steady hand which led some wag to describe him as the “little black dress” of noir photographers to transcend the penny-pinching production design, using mirrors, blinds and jagged, asymmetric shapes to keep things interesting, whilst a few brief nocturnal street scenes evoke the kind of sleek, inky smooth menace he would go on to employ so beautifully on career highlights like ‘The Reckless Moment’ (1949) and ‘In a Lonely Place’ (1950). (1)

If anything in ‘Framed’ cuts against the grain of noir expectation, it’s probably the film’s ending, which - whilst straining here to avoid spoilers - does not proceed in the direction which the hard-boiled nihilist crowd might have wished, let’s put it that way. As much as such a conclusion sounds bad on paper however, in practice it’s handled here with an elegance and open-ended emotional ambiguity which actually works rather beautifully, leaving open the possibility that good ol’ Mike Lambert - now weighted down by an extra layer of cynicism and soul-sickening regret - might be back soon, trying hawk that damned gold watch in some seedy bar ‘round the corner from your place, next week, next year, or on into eternity.

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(1) I need to credit Imogen Sara Smith’s excellent audio commentary on the Indicator blu-ray release of ‘Framed’ for hepping me to that quote about Guffey, but I don’t remember who she attributed it to, and google hasn’t helped me put a name to it, so… answers on a postcard etc.

Horror Express: Censor (Prano Bailey-Bond, 2021)

When I initially read about writer-director Prano Bailey-Bond’s debut feature ‘Censor’ last summer, I was pretty intrigued. I mean, a phantasmagorical trip into the murky underbelly of the infamous ‘Video Nasties’ hysteria whipped up by the British tabloid press in the early 1980s, as seen through the eyes of a BBFC examiner who becomes embroiled in a missing persons investigation involving an underground horror movie director? Lots of fascinating stuff for a smart, self-aware 21st century horror film to get its teeth stuck into there, surely.

My enthusiasm dissipated however when I read Gav Crimson’s review of the film - a detailed and all-too-believable dismissal which sets out a catalogue of anachronisms, missed opportunities and failures on the part of the filmmakers to effectively engage with their chosen subject matter. Oh well.

Suitably forewarned, I took a “walk don’t run” approach to checking out ‘Censor’, but finally caught up with it last month through the eerie medium of streaming. [In view of the film’s subject, it feels weirdly ironic that I chose to ‘rent’ it for 48 hours from the BFI.] I’m happy to report though that, although Mr Crimson’s conclusions are essentially correct, I nonetheless found a lot more to enjoy here than he did, overcoming some pretty severe mixed feelings to eventually come away with a fairly positive assessment of the film.

Which doesn’t exactly sound like a whole-hearted recommendation, I’ll grant you, but… if you can engage with ‘Censor’ on its own terms, there is a lot of good stuff here. In terms of direction, visuals and performances in fact, I’d probably rank ‘Censor’ as one of the most effective and enjoyable films to have emerged from the post-2010 wave of UK art-horror pictures. At the same time though, well - let’s just say there’s a lot to unpack here too.

For a start, and as concisely summarised in the above-linked review, historical verisimilitude is all over the place. In spite of ‘Censor’s shamelessly retromantic fixation on the aesthetic of early 1980s, Bailey-Bond & Anthony Fletcher’s script is full of details both large and small which simply don’t ring true, holding together a series of plot developments which feel wildly unlikely, to put it mildly.

As the film’s story unfolds though, we come to realise that at least some of its more far-fetched events could easily be chalked up to the old “unreliable narrator” factor; and besides, at the end of the day, this is a heavily stylised psychological horror film, and I mean, it’s not like we watch ‘Deep Red’ to get a realistic picture of the life of young creatives in Turin in 1975, right?

On that basis alone, I feel I should extend ‘Censor’ the same courtesy, especially given that (along with the film’s director, I’m assuming), I was busy making my debut at play school at around the time the notorious Video Recordings Act was being fast-tracked through the Commons.

Perhaps more worryingly though, at a certain point whilst watching ‘Censor’, I also found myself concerned that the film might be taking a “the people who make these movies are sick and perverted and basically one step away from being serial murderers” kind of stance, rather akin to the approach Paul Schrader's ‘Hardcore’ (1979) took to pornography. Not exactly a good way to get us horror fans on side, needless to say.

Thankfully though, the film swerves away somewhat from this trajectory during its final act, instead instigating a script-flipping shift in perspective (‘twist’ doesn’t really cover it), the details of which will remain unspoiled here, despite being fairly obvious/inevitable in retrospect.

Though the lingering suggestion that the world of low budget genre cinema is a weird, alienating, sleazy and dangerous place to do business may still rankle with some viewers, on the whole I thought that the film’s big narrative turnaround was very nicely handled, packing an appropriate emotional punch.

And, once again, we need to remember that this is a horror movie, with all that that entails. If the people and situations our protagonist Enid (Niamh Algar) encountered in the lower depths of the film industry were friendly, respectful and welcoming, it’s safe to say ‘Censor’ would not exactly have hit its mark, tonally speaking. As it is, the film builds a Ramsey Campbell-esque atmosphere of liminal unease that I actually found quite effective, in spite of the concerns outlined above.

Although the world of the ‘Censor’s fictional horror director Frederick North isn’t as fleshed out as I might have liked, I nonetheless enjoyed the material dealing with his films. More than anything though, I just found myself wishing I could watch them. I mean, why DIDN’T we have some kind of British answer to Lucio Fulci lurking about in Sussex woods making weird, atmospheric gore films in blatant defiance of the Thatcher/Whitehouse brigade? That would clearly have been amazing. His absence from reality surely marks a collective cultural failure, which we in the UK should regret daily.

Whether it was consciously intended as a joke or otherwise, I liked the fact that North’s magnum opus ‘Don’t Go In The Church’ does not appear to feature a church, and, whilst on the subject, I also very much enjoyed Michael Smiley’s turn as the director’s sleazebag producer, a role which surely cementing his place as the closest thing 21st century UK cinema has to a fully paid up, never-knowingly-underacting ‘horror man’ (following his equally memorable performances in ‘Kill List’ (2010), ‘A Field in England’ (2013) and ‘The Toll’ (2021), amongst others).

Likewise, I also appreciated the detail of the scenes set within the offices of ‘Censor’s thinly fictionalised version of the BBFC. It is here that the film crosses over slightly into the realm of that distinctly British ‘comedy of awkwardness’ which has become such a ubiquitous element of 21st century UK horror, and whilst this kind of stuff is not usually my bag, in this case I found spending time with Enid’s mismatched colleagues to be more comforting than hellish, with their portrayals veering more toward the humane/relatable than the overtly grotesque.

In fact, I found myself quite taken with the idea of hanging around all day in a pokey pre-fab office with a bunch of failed academics and social workers, drinking tea, filing reports and watching films to obsessively count the “shit”s and “fuck”s. Aside from the inherently objectionable business of having to actually cut / ban films, that actually strikes me as a pretty great job. Given that they rarely do much cutting or banning these days, I was almost tempted to call up the BBFC’s website to see if they’re recruiting at the moment, and what kind of background they require, etc.

Meanwhile, ‘Censor’s overall aesthetic struck me as being very much on the same page as Peter Strickland’s recent ‘In Fabric’ (2018), mixing beautifully phantasmagorical neon/gel lighting and baroque, Argento-esque production design with painstakingly fetishised period detail and low key/naturalistic performances to create - especially in its latter half - a similarly vertiginous disjuncture between fantasy and reality (though I personally found Bailey-Bond’s film a less discomforting and more conventionally rewarding experience than Strickland’s).

One visual device I particularly liked - and which I don’t recall ever seeing previously - is the way ‘Censor’ plays with aspect ratio and film grain across its run-time. An idea which would presumably have been nixed on the grounds of expense and impracticality back in the pre-digital era, this now of course feels entirely appropriate to this archly referential horror film-about-horror films. (Once again, Strickland springs to mind here as a reference point, particularly vis-à-vis the intertextual monkey business which characterised ‘Berbarian Sound Studio’ (2012).)

When I first noticed horizontal bars appearing at the edges of the screen, I thought something had gone wrong with the streaming platform, but soon realised that this was deliberate as the film begins to move back and forth between scope anback and forth from “reality” to “video nasty-vision”.

This is a neat trick, and a nice wink to cinephiles and survivors of the format wars in the audience, but it also serves to foreground the suggestion that watching violent videos has actually warped our vulnerable protagonist’s mind beyond all recognition - a problematic notion which is never really sufficiently explored or resolved by Bailey-Bond’s film, for all its visual pyrotechnics and technical acumen.

BEST FIRST TIME VIEWINGS: 2021 (part # 3 of 3)

Yes, I know - this took forever. I’m sorry. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back onto a regular(ish) posting schedule soon, fingers crossed, but in the meantime, please enjoy the superlative gushing which follows.

10. The Curious Dr Humpp 

(Emilio Vieyra / Jerald Intrator, 1969)

During the late 1960s, Argentinian director Emilio Vieyra made a number of striking (yet also curiously boring) low budget films mixing horror tropes with nudity and sexploitation elements. Vieyra’s strangest effort was probably ‘La Venganza del Sexo’, a sort of warped reimagining of Jess Franco’s ‘The Awful Dr Orlof’ (amongst other things) which sees a mad scientist dispatching a paper mache-faced monster to kidnap young people, whom he subsequently hypnotises and forces to have sex with each other as part of his rather vaguely defined experiments - the nature of which appears to be dictated to him by a sentient brain he keeps in a jar in his lab.

In and of itself, ‘La Venganza del Sexo’ certainly makes for an intriguing oddity in the history of global horror cinema, but it really only achieved infamy / immortality [delete as applicable] after a print was acquired by a New York-based hustler named Jerald Intrator, who haphazardly chopped about and reshaped the film, largely to allow for the inclusion of additional, extraneous sex scenes. A wilder and more tightly paced experience all round, Intrator’s reworking also benefits from a staggeringly knuckleheaded / inspired English language dub, written with scant reference to the original Spanish dialogue and featuring several of the most extraordinarily unlikely pronouncements ever to be formed by human lips (let alone minds).

Given a brief run on the NY grindhouse circuit as - yes, I’m afraid so - ‘The Curious Dr Humpp’, the result is an inexplicable, indigestible hodge-podge of relentless, theremin-drenched psychotronic dementia capable of blowing minds at 200 yards. Suffice to say however, the owners of any minds blown during the film’s original release seem to have kept the matter to themselves, leaving the depredations of Dr Humpp entirely forgotten for several decaes, until Frank Henenlotter and the late Mike Vraney of Something Weird Video acquired a print at some point in the ‘90s, cued it up, and - I can only imagine - performed some cult-movie-nerd equivalent of that “we struck gold” dance Walter Huston does in ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ before promptly retreating to the bathroom to soak their heads in cold water for a few hours.

Honestly, if I started unpacking this thing to pick out particular highlights, we’d be here all night, so, by way of exemplifying the general off-kilter vibe of the whole thing, I’ll simply leave you with the zen-like question solemnly posed at one point by the film’s pipe-chewing police detective; “why would a man who needs drugs send a monster to the pharmacy?” Well, quite. 

 

9. Snowpiercer 

(Bong Joon Ho, 2013)

Along with much of the rest of the Western world, watching ‘Parasite’ early in 2020 inspired me to belatedly catch up on the rest of Bong Joon Ho’s filmography - the first stop being this train-bound, post-apocalyptic sci-fi epic, which immediately scores bonus points for having seemingly caused such consternation for financiers Miramax that (as I understand it) they initially did everything in their power to bury the damned thing.

Based on a long-running bande dessinée created by the revered Jacque Lob and shot in English with a multinational, all-star cast, ‘Snowpiercer’ - for which I’ll spare you an easily google-able plot synopsis - is the kind of movie which really, honestly SHOULD NOT WORK. For all its grandiose ambition, the story’s core premise becomes increasingly preposterous the longer you spend thinking about it, and presenting the comic’s world with the kind of nuts-and-bolts verisimilitude it demands would have required a budget and duration far beyond that available to any feature filmmaker.*

And yet… if we leave such concerns aside and simply view ‘Snowpiercer’ as a blunt allegory for the same socio-political concerns its director seems to wish to address in all his films, well, it actually works rather brilliantly.

The same story ‘Parasite’ frames as a contemporary thriller, ‘Snowpiercer’ essentially tells through the lens of a CG-slathered SF blockbuster, and the challenges and conclusions it dares to confront its audience with are bold indeed for a film in this general genre/budgetary realm, mercilessly pricking the balloons of us-vs-them dualism and individual exceptionalism which generally keep such pulpy action/adventure narratives afloat. I’m pretty sure in fact that the harrowing succession of revelations and script flips which comprise during the story’s final act would never in a million years have seen the light of day in a common or garden multiplex clogger (much to the studio’s chagrin, I’m assuming).

As the stubbornness he seems to have demonstrated in preserving his film’s content and tone in the face of full spectrum interference clearly demonstrates though, Joon Ho is a strong enough director to keep even a project this sprawling and ridiculous tightly focused, and the result is, in its own weird way, just as effective as his later Oscar-winner.

* It’s worth noting that, as much as the ‘Snowpiercer’ concept may seem preposterous in strictly logical/utilitarian terms, given that we now find ourselves living in a world in obscenely wealthy celebrity plutocrats are routinely blasting themselves into space and planning gigantic underground highway networks… well, perhaps the idea of a monomaniacal Ed Harris chuntering across the dead globe in a giant train set powered by the blood of his serfs isn’t quite as far-fetched as may have seemed a decade ago…?

8. Rollerball (Norman Jewison, 1975)

Sticking with dystopian nightmares, here we have one of the very best - and, I would suggest, most widely misunderstood - of the many such visions which emerged from Hollywood in the 1970s. Misleadingly promoted as a violent future-sports action movie upon release, Jewison’s film is a more foreboding and cerebral work than audiences (then or now) may have anticipated, feeling almost like a distant cousin to John Boorman’s ‘Zardoz’ or the late Douglas Trumbull’s ‘Silent Running’ vis-a-vis pushing the ‘anything goes’ philosophy of ‘70s Hollywood to the point of commercial suicide in an attempt to bring the aesthetic of the era’s new wave literary SF to the masses.

The film’s actual rollerball sequences are indeed as hard-hitting as the violence-in-the-movies blather which accompanied the film’s release may have implied, but they are more frightening and confusing than conventionally exciting, and by the time we reach the film’s ugly, desultory climax, the monolithic fascist pomp of the arena spectacle has become genuinely nightmarish, the callousness of the game’s brutality leaving us as tired and nauseated as a public execution or a Nazi pep rally.

Outside of the arena meanwhile, the rest of the film is unsettlingly inert. Pacing is glacial and the atmosphere hangs heavy, like an unseen weight on the audience’s shoulders, mirroring that hefted by James Caan’s lost, lonely, test tube-bred athlete, groping around the edges of his world for an exit he can’t even begin to envisage.

‘Rollerball’s masterstroke I think is the way that (with the exception of one or two brief scenes) it keeps us trapped within Caan’s heavily blinkered perspective, refusing to allow us beyond the walls of the placid, self-contained environment within which our protagonist, as an elite Olympian within a corporate/totalitarian global state, is allowed to exist. He has no reliable sources of information, no context for his existence, no friends whose word he can rely upon - and as a result, neither do we.

In a conventional dystopian / earth-future SF tale, we would expect to zoom out and get The Big Picture at some point. We’d get some omnipotent narrator filling us in on the exact nature of the ‘corporate wars’ which seem to have turned North America (and by extension, the rest of the world) into a vast, homogenous monoculture. We would cut away to the huddled masses at whom the spectacle of rollerball is presumably aimed - be they toiling, subterranean morlocks, impoverished, inner-city TV zombies, or whatever. But, there is none of that here, and the absence of this context feels deeply troubling.

Caan’s corporate handlers keep him in a land of plenty, in which a sparse population seem to shuttle between ranch houses, sports arenas and gleaming corporate palaces. But we know that this can’t really be the full story, don't we…?

The icy, transactional manner in which Jonathan E is expected to conduct his interpersonal relationships, the way that decisions are made on his behalf, the complete lack of culture, history, knowledge or education accessible to him - all of this is telling. Meanwhile, the occasional hints we do receive of the Big Bad underlying ‘Rollerball’s world (such as the haunting sight of a group of executive parygoers, high on synthetic drugs, destroying a copse of trees with some kind of flame pistol) feel queasy and inexplicable.

Viewed from an era in which dystopian sci-fi and post-apocalyptic survival fantasies have become a familiar part of the tapestry of popular escapist entertainment, ‘Rollerball’ provides a stridently NOT FUN reminder of just how existentially terrifying it must actually feel to subsist within the calm heart of a vast Orwellian machine, with any notion of truth or understanding kept far beyond your reach.

7. Alphabet City   

(Amos Poe, 1984)

Seemingly an attempt to break into the commercial mainstream from NY underground filmmaker/punk scenester Amos Poe, ‘Alphabet City’ may not have exactly made his Hollywood dreams come true, but, newly scrubbed up by Fun City Editions after decades of neglect, it still stands out both as a beautiful, hyper-stylised exemplar of neon-drenched ‘80s psychedelia and a fiendishly gripping, straight-down-the-line crime drama.

The film’s basic plot is as old as the steam rising from Manhattan’s subways. Ambitious young drug dealer Vincent Spano cruises the streets and alleys of the Lower East Side in his sweet white Trans-Am, paying the rent on the swanky penthouse loft he shares with his artist girlfriend and baby son. When his mafia paymasters order him one night to firebomb the housing project where his mother and sister live though, that’s a step too far. Ya don't say ‘no’ to the mob though of course, so by dawn he and his young family are on the run from the mob, with a violent showdown fast approaching.

Simple as this tale may be, it’s brought to life with admirably fevered intensity by a wildly varied cast of character players (ranging from ‘Let’s Scare Jessica To Death’s Zohra Lampert to ‘Police Academy’s Michael Winslow), generating some real, edge-of-seat investment in the story’s outcome. Beyond that though, it is ‘Alphabet City’s stunning visuals and period detail which seem really set to blow 21st century minds.

Real downtown locations are transformed into phantasmagorical wonderlands by Poe and DP Oliver Wood’s inspired lighting and tracked to a characteristically slinky/superb Nile Rodgers score, meaning that, if you’re into that very particular cinematic aesthetic found only in early ‘80s New York, you just found the motherlode.

From glimmering reflections of headlights on washed down streets and incessant, blinding neon, to infernal gel red lighting cascading down towerblocks as trashcan fires blaze in the foreground, from smoke-filled, candlelit subterranean shooting galleries to swank, art-filled loft spaces and handheld crawls through genuine Manhattan nightclubs…. it’s almost too much, man. Like some flickering fever dream of Michael Mann’s ‘Thief’ mashed up with every Abel Ferrara movie you’ve ever seen, cut with a manageable dose of ‘Liquid Sky’ and whizzed up in a blender for easy mass consumption; just incredible.

(It’s no surprise to learn that, after a screening of this film, Mann himself is rumoured to have demanded that Oliver Wood be immediately tracked down and offered a job on ‘Miami Vice’; no such luck for Mr Poe sadly, but he abides.)

 

6. Drunken Master II 

(Lau Kar-Leung & Jackie Chan, 1994)

Marred by well-publicised behind the scenes clashes between Jackie Chan and director Lau Kar-Leung, and long available to viewers in the West only via a cut/dubbed Miramax version [thank you to Hong Kong Rescue for fixing me up with the real deal - now no longer on sale, sadly], ‘Drunken Master II’ hasn’t exactly had an easy time of it over the years.

Nonetheless, it remains a staggering high water mark of Jackie’s late 80s/early 90s “imperial” phase (and of late period HK martial arts cinema in general), applying epic, no-expense-spared production values to a frankly exhausting compendium of super-human physical/martial prowess, resulting in a film which, for sheer spectacle and entertainment value, arguably tops even the revered 1978 original.

At which point I should probably just give up and resort to asking “need I say more?”, but, I can’t help also taking the time to point out that this is one of the rare kung fu comedies in which the script’s broad comic chops actually worked very well for me, cutting the expected screwball farce with a welcome dose of full-on surrealism - particularly when embodied by Anita Mui, who is absolutely fantastic here as Jackie’s strong-willed step-mother; surely one of the funniest, coolest female characters HK popular cinema ever produced.

Meanwhile, the film’s ending - during which it seems to have suddenly occurred to the filmmakers that encouraging their audience to drink excessively and fight in the streets was maybe just a little bit irresponsible - presents a tonally jarring, bad taste WTF moment which few cult film fans will be able to find it in themselves not to adore.

 

5. Memories of Murder 

(Bong Joon Ho, 2003)

Back on the Bong Joon Ho trail, this riveting, technically impeccable police procedural details the travails of a pair of incompetent / borderline corrupt small town cops and an in-above-his-head rookie detective from the city as they - spoiler alert - completely fail to solve an on-going series of sex murders in rural South Korea during the dreary, mid 1980s tail-end of the nation’s period of military dictatorship.

Arguably rivalling ‘Parasite’ as the director’s best film to date, ‘Memories of Murder’ is less bleak than its unsavoury subject matter and grey, muted colour scheme would tend to suggest. Essentially playing as a down-at-heel black comedy for much of its running time, it takes an admirably non-judgemental attitude toward its morally equivocal protagonists, as each apparent breakthrough in their case soon dissolves into a sticky morass of bungling, botched evidence, interpersonal bitterness and base level stupidity.

Though the stark social commentary which went on to define much of Ho’s later work remains very much on the back burner here, there is nonetheless a strong sense that no sensibly ordered society would leave an active serial murder investigation in the hands of people so clearly incapable of dealing with it, whilst the low level poverty and emotional emptiness of the characters’ surroundings meanwhile speak for themselves.

Amidst the grimness though, the director’s obvious talent for commercial / genre-based cinema still shines through strongly, with superb editing and photography contributing to a series of painstakingly choreographed chase and suspense sequences which feel as exhilarating as anything in a more conventional action picture. Defined by a lingering sense of irresolvable complexity and human frailty which matches up to any of cinema (or literature)’s finest hard-boiled procedural fiction, what we have here is in fact something of a slow-burn masterpiece of 21st century crime cinema, I feel.

4. Notorious 

(Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)

Straight from the “can you believe I’ve never seen this one before?” file. Hitch’s entry in the short-lived post-war “those pesky Nazis are out there somewhere, we’ve got to find ‘em” sub-genre (also see ‘The Stranger’ (1946), ‘Cornered’ (1945) amongst others) finds him at the absolute peak of his powers, delivering an elegant, engrossing and (needless to say) nail-bitingly suspenseful thriller which measures up to any of his more frequently screened classics.

Alongside the expected technical mastery and inspired visual storytelling, the photography and production design also deserve a shout-out here, with the gleaming, high noir style of DP Ted Tetzlaff’s nocturnal Rio De Janeiro exteriors looking so rich you almost want to step into them and lose yourself, whilst the labyrinthine geometry of Claude Rains’ luxurious rented townhouse meanwhile assumes a foreboding, paranoid gothic atmosphere, reminiscent not just of Hitchcock’s earlier smash hit ‘Rebecca’, but also of the kind of digs in which Rains’ aristocratic Nazi business magnate was presumably ensconced shortly before he and his domineering mother were forced to skedaddle across the Atlantic.

Beyond all this though, ‘Notorious’ is, surprisingly perhaps, more an actor’s movie than anything else. it’s no exaggeration to say that Ingrid Bergman proves an absolute revelation here, hitting a wild palette of complex emotional states in a far more demanding and multi-faceted ‘heroine’ role than Hollywood’s leading ladies usually had to contend with (then or now), whilst Ben Hecht’s admirably hard-boiled script skirts into dangerously ambiguous terrain by allowing Rains’ urbane Third Reich-apologist to often seem like a more appealing presence than Cary Grant’s hectoring and duplicitous, jobs-worth FBI man.

Like many of the finest ‘40s American films, ‘Notorious’ seems to offer the viewer a choice between skimming the surface of a masterfully crafted, beautifully rendered entertainment, or plumbing the bottomless depths of psychological motivation and socio-political significance which bubble beneath it. Whichever level you choose to engage with it on though, it’s difficult not to reach the conclusion that we’re looking at a stone-cold classic right here.

3. Ceremonia Sangrienta [‘Blood Ceremony’]  

(Jorge Grau, 1973)

This one is perhaps not strictly speaking a 2021 first-time viewing, as I believe I battled through an iffy bootleg of the U.S. ‘Legend of Blood Castle’ version of this film at some point in distant past, but to be honest I barely remember anything of that sleep-and-alcohol fogged misadventure, and besides, watching the film as its intended form via Mondo Macabro’s revelatory blu-ray release - and actually paying attention to it, more to the point - proves a whole other goblet of gore.

In fact, I’d now go so far as to place ‘Ceremonia Sangrienta’s within the very top tier of European gothic horror - a status rarely acknowledged in the past perhaps simply because director Jorge Grau largely rejects the kind of campiness and exploitational thrills we fans tend to expect of ‘70s Spanish gothic, instead treating this loose extrapolation of the Countess Bathory mythos with a straight-faced artistic seriousness which leads one to suspect he saw himself competing against Buñuel and Pasolini (or at the very least, Michael Reeves and Harry Kumel) rather than Amando de Ossorio or Paul Naschy.

Thankfully however, Grau and his collaborators match these lofty ambitions with a level of imagination and technical accomplishment which ensure the film never slide into pretention or tedium, employing rich, shadow-haunted photography, fascinating and impeccably detailed historical production design, and a far stronger set of performances than one would generally expect to encounter in a horror film of this era.

Of course it’s not my intention here to in any way denigrate the purveyors of pulpier, more down-to-earth Spanish horror (as regular readers will be aware, I love them dearly), but Grau is working on another level here, laying down a sombre, engrossing atmosphere - half lice-ridden realism, half oneiric fairy tale - through which to explore the weird hinterlands separating psychological dysfunction from the supernatural, and the fevered, libidinous effect which such ambiguities tend to inspire within the medieval mind-set which predominates in the film, in spite of its ostensible 19th century setting.

Folk-horror - as we’re now obliged to call it - plays a significant role in the drama here, as do the more prosaic horrors of the feudal class system, with authentic-seeming details of folk magic(k) customs extensively detailed and contrasted with the grander, more blood-thirsty satanic pomp and sexual predation practiced by The Countess (Lucia Bosè) and her dark-eyed consort (played with memorable menace by playboy/producer Espartaco Santoni).

What I appreciated most of all about ‘Ceremonia Sangrienta’ in fact is the way it pulls you so deeply into the beliefs which underpin the film’s world that, after spending 90 minutes convinced you’re watching a a tale filled to the brim with witches, vampirism, demonic possession and corpses rising from the grave, you find yourself reviewing the events you’ve just witnessed and realising that, when reassessed from a “rational” 20th/21st century perspective, nothing objectively supernatural actually happens here at all. A neat trick which I don’t think I have ever seen pulled off this successfully in a period horror film.

And, just for the record, there’s also lots of gushing blood and naked neck-biting, and candle-lit processions through fog-drenched wilderness and wild, reality-shredding delirious editing, so c’mon horror fans - give it a try. The pace may seem a little ponderous at first, but trust me, once you get into it, the restored ‘Blood Ceremony’ really is a WIN-WIN proposition.

 

2. The Lineup 

(Don Siegel, 1958)

It’s difficult to express how much I enjoyed Don Siegel’s psychotic, perverse, action-packed late period hitmen-on-the-rampage noir…. but hopefully I had a pretty good bash at it when I reviewed the film in July last year.

1. Blue Collar 

(Paul Schrader, 1978)

Going into Paul Schrader’s directorial debut, I was expecting, I suppose, a downbeat, neorealist character drama; and heaven knows, I sure got one. Simply put, Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel deliver extraordinary performances in ‘Blue Collar’, each of them pretty much tearing out yr heart n’ soul and giving them a good kicking across the parking lot at various points in the picture, whilst the late, great Yaphet Kotto isn't far behind as their somewhat more canny and laidback cohort Smokey.

Although I daresay the closest Schrader likely ever got to “working the line” was turning in copy for Pauline Kael at the New Yorker, he is, as ever, a phenomenally gifted screenwriter, and the words and scenarios he throws at his volatile cast into here feel entirely authentic. Splitting the weight of the story’s drama between several characters works extremely well, allowing the film to breath somewhat without sacrificing the intensity of each performance, whilst the necessity of concentrating on the essential ordinariness and gut level relatability of our characters’ quandaries meanwhile offers a compelling alternative to the obsessive, lone wolf male martyrs who usually tend to populate Schrader’s universe.

Likewise, I don’t know if there is an aspect of modern life which has been subject to such a weight of fatuous, factional bombast in its fictional portrayals as labour relations, but Schrader, as he is apt to do, cuts straight to the heart of the matter here, rejecting both the chest-beating, all-for-one sentimentality of the left and the poisonous, Social Darwinist bullshit of the right. Instead, he depicts trade unions for what they (in my experience at least) really are. Which is to say, a necessary evil; a leaky cushion of hot air and graft shielding workers from the faceless, instinctual divide-and-conquer tyranny of their employers. The frustration and paranoia which results from being caught in the grind between these two tectonic plates, whilst attempting to remain beholden to neither is, I would contend, perfectly captured here.

Beyond any of this though, what really got me about ‘Blue Collar’ is the unexpected discovery of what a great crime movie it is. It is instructive to hear Schrader speaking about how, nervous about directing for the first time, he wanted to ensure that this movie was “plotted to within an inch of its life” in the manner of a ‘40s thriller, leaving no holes in which the pacing could sag or the actors could lose the narrative thread, because that is indeed very much how the finished movie plays out.

From the painstaking (often hilarious) detail built up around our protagonists’ botched heist attempt to the intractable hell which proceeds to engulf each of them in its aftermath, and the excruciatingly yet totally inevitable manner in which they each willingly deliver themselves up to their own destruction, ‘Blue Collar’ is, surprisingly, one of the best anti-capitalist noirs ever made, be it neo- or otherwise.

It is rare for me to urge readers to watch the conclusion of a film outside of the context which preceded it, but anytime you feel in need of a refresher re: the straight dope on the forces that govern our lives, you could do a lot worse than consult the last two minutes of ‘Blue Collar’ prior to your next encounter with an interview panel / line manager / union rep / tax assessor / polling station.

BEST FIRST TIME VIEWINGS: 2021 (part # 2 of 3)

Yes, I know this has taken a while. Apologies again for the delays in posting.

 

20. The Criminal 

(Joseph Losey, 1960)

Hard-boiled Brit-crime thuggery goes toe-to-toe with Joseph Losey’s self-conscious cinematic artistry in this fascinating UK gangster-noir, which I wrote about at length back in August.

19. Panic in Year Zero

(Ray Milland, 1962)

One of the more comparatively upbeat films made about the prospect of nuclear annihilation, Ray Milland’s directorial debut finds him starring as a stuffy, suburban dad who, having cajoled his family into hitting the highway before sunrise to beat the traffic en route to their annual camping holiday, glances in the rear view mirror just in time to see a H-bomb obliterating Los Angeles.

Within minutes, upstanding family man Ray is busy securing his all-important supplies (two bags of flour, a dozen pounds of coffee, a can of ‘shortening’, whatever that is) and shop-lifting some firepower from a nearby hardware store. Before long, he’s throwing flaming barricades into the middle of busy highways to make a path for his own vehicle, punching out uncooperative gas station attendants, and insisting his wife and daughter stay out of sight in the camper van, whilst his JD-ish teenage son (Frankie Avalon!) - who seems totally delighted by the emergence of Action Dad - rides up front to provide muscle and covering fire for his old man.

I don’t know what it says about me, but I got a tremendous kick of watching this one at the start of last year. Whilst it certainly doesn’t shy away from depicting the downside of total societal collapse (banditry, rape, paranoia, hunger, lack of basic medical care), incongruous bursts of jaunty, big band jazz and Milland’s unflagging determination to make the best of things nonetheless make the whole wretched business seem weirdly appealing.

Full of minor absurdities and rich in dialogue which has assumed an additional, blackly comic weight in recent years, if you’re looking for a movie to temporarily make the earth’s current sorry state feel just a little bit more manageable, Big Ray’s got your number. For as the man himself says;

“Now we don't know what lies ahead of us. The unknown has always been man’s greatest demoraliser. Now maybe we can cope with this by maintaining our sense of values, by carrying out our daily routine, the same as we always have. Rick, for instance, and myself will shave every day... although in his case, maybe every other day. These concessions to civilization are important. They are our links to reality, and because of them we might be... less afraid.”

 

18. La Cripta e L’Incubo [‘Crypt of the Vampire’] 

(Camillo Mastrocinque, 1964)

Moderately weird and exceptionally atmospheric, this oneiric artefact from the golden age of Italian gothic horror had somehow escaped my attention until last year, but I’m very happy to have rectified the situation - as my full length review from October will hopefully attest. 

 

17. Police Story 3: Super Cop 

(Stanley Tong, 1992)

It may take a while for the action to really kick off in this second sequel to Jackie Chan’s epochal ‘Police Story’ (1985), but in the meantime, the tale of Chan’s hapless Ka Kui being dispatched to the Chinese mainland, and later to Kuala Lumpur (where permits for city-wide destruction were easier to obtain, I supposes), pairing up with PRC super-cop Michelle Yeoh to combat the obligatory propagators of nefarious, drug-smuggling villainy, proves likeable enough.

When the expected acrobatic/ automotive armageddon eventually does get going though, holy hell, it is extraordinarily unhinged stuff, even by the standards of Jackie’s late 80s/early 90s imperial phase. Pretty much everything but the kitchen sink gets thrown in here somewhere, from straight up kung fu duels to high velocity car/bus stunts, prison breaks, Rambo-esque machine gun / exploding hut action, death-defying urban helicopter dangles, ‘Project A’ style back alley chases… but the eventual finale (staged atop a speeding train) is simply beyond belief. (If you have fifteen minutes to spare, why not treat yourself by reliving the entire sequence of events via youtube?)

We must, I suppose, salute the dedication to punctuality exhibited by the unseen Malaysian train driver who declines to slow down or take emergency measures, even though a helicopter has crashed into his train, but that aside, MVP status here definitely belongs to Yeoh, who keeps pace with Jackie throughout, and, in the film’s ultimate pièce de résistance - a staggering dirt bike-to-moving train jump - becomes the only co-star to ever upstage him in one of his own classic era films. Respect is due.

16. Cutter’s Way 

(Ivan Passer, 1981)

I’ve been receiving smoke signals for years re: what a good film this is, and, yes, it is indeed an excellent, bitterly heartfelt piece of work. But… shit, it is ever a difficult one to write about.

Though ostensibly a neo-noir / crime story, Passer’s film (based on Newton Thornburg’s 1976 novel ‘Cutter and Bone’) is really more concerned the psychic aftermath of the Vietnam war, and, more broadly, the plight of the people - be they boat-dwelling gigolos, disabled war vets or habitual alcoholics - who fall through the cracks of nine-to-five American life, and suffer for it.

Alongside the shadow of the war, the long hangover from the ‘60s also hangs heavy over the world inhabited by these characters. The promise of new freedoms offered by that decade has congealed, very badly indeed, for those naive enough to take it seriously, whilst, close enough to touch yet a million miles distant at the other end of the beach, the representatives of the previous generation’s Old Money (and even older power) return to circle, shark-like - cold, callous, and just waiting to put the bite into whoever stumbles across their path.

More than anything, I found this vision simply sad as hell, offering little light beyond the self-medicating fog, with John Heard’s feverish performance as Cutter in particular leaving the viewer feeling hallowed out from within, unable to shake the second-hand pain and guilt.

SO HEY -- let’s take a different tack instead. I’m not sure if this little cinematic conspiracy theory of mine has already been extensively discussed elsewhere, but… an unlikely friendship between an aimless slacker played by Jeff Bridges and a bitter, argumentative Vietnam vet? Who both become haplessly embroiled in a criminal intrigue involving a philanthropic millionaire…? You can see where I’m going with this, right? Not to take anything away from a certain comedic masterpiece made by a pair of idiosyncratic filmmaking brothers some fifteen-odd years later, but, drastically tweaked tone aside, the similarities here are striking.

 

15. The Tall T 

(Budd Boetticher, 1957)

Though they’ve long been a cult concern amongst cinephiles, the series of inauspicious western programmers made by director Budd Boetticher and star Randolph Scott in the late 1950s were a new discovery for me in 2021 (driven by the oft-affordable standalone releases now offered by the Indicator label). I’m still slowly working my way through them, but this one - the first in the sequence - stands as my favourite thus far.

Elevated far above the level of a standard oater by Boetticher’s suspenseful, minimalist direction (cutting and moving figures within the frame like a b-Western Kurosawa), by the surprising psychological nuance and moral ambiguity of Burt Kennedy’s script (the fact it was based on an Elmore Leonard story probably helped), and by fine, appropriately taciturn performances across the board (including an early turn from Henry Silva as one of the villain’s goons), ‘The Tall T’ basically is basically the Platonic ideal of a perfectly formed low budget western. 

 

14. La Polizia Accusa: Il Servizio Segreto Uccide [‘Silent Action’] 

(Sergio Martino, 1975)

Despite being saddled with a disspiritingly bland/meaningless title when presented to English-speaking audiences, ‘Silent Action’ (or, THE POLICE ACCUSE: THE SECRET SERVICE KILL, as I prefer to call it) stands for my money as by far the best film Sergio Martino ever made in the crime genre. [Full disclosure: I’ve not yet seen his 1974 film ‘Gambling City’, so can't speak for that one.]

Essentially playing out like a 50/50 hybrid between a pulpy ‘tough cop’ poliziotteschi and the kind of tonally serious, politically engaged thrillers that directors like Sergio Sollima and Damiano Damiani were making at the time, this film (nobly resurrected on blu-ray last year by UK-based label Fractured Visions) presents a somewhat challenging tonal blend which Martino - frequently underrated for his genre-splicing talents - pulls off with aplomb.

On the one hand, the movie is fast-moving, action-packed and full of familiar Euro-crime clichés. But at the same time, it never gets too cartoon-ish or implausible, and never plays its audience for fools, instead working out a specifically Italian take on the kind of paranoid / conspiratorial plotting popularised by films like ‘The Parallax View’ and ‘The Conversation’ in the preceding years. Mercurial as ever, Martino even gives us an outburst of full on ‘exploding hut’-style war movie craziness in the final act, which is… unexpected, but fits in surprisingly well.

Released in the midst of the craze for ‘Dirty Harry’/‘Death Wish’-inspired vigilante fantasies, ‘Silent Action’ is also interesting as an example of a poliziottescho which comes down firmly on the left wing side of the political spectrum, with Luc Merenda’s rule-breaking, two-fisted cop finding himself essentially fighting against corporate/state collusion and the spectre of resurgent fascism - issues which must have hit close to home for many viewers during Italy’s turbulent 1970s. 

 

13. Action U.S.A. 

(John Stewart, 1988)

I picked this aptly named motion picture up as a blind buy last year, after watching the trailer Vinegar Syndrome put together for it, and I’m very glad I did, for it brought great joy unto my household.

A one-shot independent production, ‘Action U.S.A.’ was convened in the unlikely environs of Waco, Texas by a group of professional stuntmen who had seemingly grown tired of working within the stifling confines of Hollywood (and, one suspects, its equally stifling health and safety protocols). The film’s plotline involves a pair of mismatched FBI agents and the super-hot girlfriend of a deceased drug dealer teaming up to undertake a state-wide boondongle in search of a cache of stolen diamonds, and it is goofy to the nth degree, in a hugely likeable way. As to the titular action meanwhile, well - much as you’d hope, it is relentless, impeccably shot and choreographed and totally out to lunch.

Beginning with an extended helicopter dangle which makes Jackie’s one in ‘Supercop’ (see above) look like a fucking joke, the film proceeds to wreak more havoc upon Texas’s highways, urban intersections, abandoned buildings and second hand cars than an entire century’s worth of tornados, alongside all the secondary damage you’d expect to see inflicted upon crotches, jaws, footwear and so forth. Also featuring country n’ western (live), hair metal (on tape), footage of Cameron Mitchell yelling into a brick-size mobile phone whilst sweating on a treadmill, and a gravel-gargling, machine gun-toting William Smith (R.I.P. big man) as the Chief Bad Guy.

What more, I ask you, could you possibly ask of a movie named ‘Action U.S.A.’? 

 

12. King Boxer  

(Cheng Chang Ho, 1972)

Being a relative newcomer to the ways of kung fu, I’d never previously seen this epochal Shaw Bros production, which, as ‘Five Fingers of Death’, became the first martial arts movie (indeed, quite possibly the first Asian movie, period) to make a significant impact at the U.S. box office.

The reasons for the film’s ground-breaking success are clear to see, even today. Due perhaps to the fact that director Cheng Chang Ho was both Korean and also not a Shaw company man, ‘King Boxer’ feels more straight-forward and universal in its appeal than many of the Shaolin sagas which followed in its wake through the ‘70s. As well as ditching much of the convoluted plotting and culturally specific esoterica which can make Shaw Bros pictures a hard sell for Western audiences, Ho also seems to have encouraged his cast to perform in an emotive, conventionally melodramatic manner which immediately sets the film apart from the stiff / formal approach favoured by directors like Chang Cheh.

Though the film’s fight choreography remains convincingly bad-ass, Ho also seems less concerned with the extended demonstration of traditional techniques than his fellow Shaw directors, breaking up the moves with jump cuts and close-ups, and employing the vocabulary of spaghetti westerns (crash zooms, extreme close-ups and long, tension-building camera moves) to bring a delirious sense of operatic / pop art intensity to proceedings.

Excitement is further heightened by the addition of some gloriously crimson, proto-‘Street Fighter’ gore, and of course, the fantastical elements which lend the film it’s most indelible imagery, as Lo Lieh’s strangely beautiful hands glow red with diabolical power, accompanied by an unforgettable, fuzz-drenched electronic musical sting (purloined from, of all things, the intro to Quincy Jones’ theme from ‘Ironside’!)

The seasoning on the chow mein (if you will) though is the film’s cinematography and production design, which is absolutely splendid, mixing dense, detailed sets with extensive use of deep focus and that very particular kind of rich, vivid colour found in only the very finest ‘60s genre films (you know, deep inky blacks and searing, carefully picked out blasts of red/blue/green - think Mario Bava basically). Combined with the other virtues outlined above, ‘King Boxer’ stands as an example of unpretentious, grindhouse-era action cinema reaching dizzy heights of iconic pop artistry.

 

11. La Donna Del Lago [‘The Possessed’]   

(Luigi Bazzoni & Franco Rossellini, 1965)

The directorial debut of Luigi Bazzoni (who went on to make the equally compelling ‘The Fifth Cord’ (1971) and ‘Le Orme’/’Footprints’ (1975)) and Franco ‘nephew of Roberto’ Rossellini (who didn’t), this is another under-appreciated Italian oddity which seems to have fallen through the cracks separating that nation’s arthouse and popular cinemas.

In terms of the latter, the film does boast a somewhat giallo-ish plotline about a troubled young novelist (Peter Baldwin) travelling to an off-season lakeside resort to investigate the death of a hotel maid with whom he had previously had an affair…. but beyond that, it heads straight out into uncharted stylistic waters and never really returns.

Essentially a mood piece, ‘La Donna Del Lago’ is defined by an intangible sense of wrongness which pervades the very air of its remote, wintry location. A mood of weird, almost supernatural, dread seems to hang over the spaces Baldwin explores and the people he encounters, diverting his rather lacklustre investigation into dreamlike, symbolic terrain from which his lonely soul seems unlikely to emerge intact. Or, to put it more simply: ‘Twin Peaks’ vibes to the max.

Though the resolution to the mystery is ultimately fairly prosaic, it is Bazzoni & Rossellini’s decision to concentrate not on the events themselves, but on the psychic detritus and unreliable memories which surround them, which really sets the film apart. Beautifully crepuscular monochrome photography from Leonida Barboni, erotically-charged avant garde daydream sequences and suitably oblique, troubling performances from an extraordinary supporting cast (Valentina Cortese, Salvo Randone, Virna Lisi, Philippe Leroy) all very much help in this regard too, helping ‘La Donna Del Lago’ stand out as one of the most haunting, off-beat and weirdly harrowing thrillers to have emerged from Italy during the ‘60s.

To be (eventually) concluded…

BEST FIRST TIME VIEWINGS: 2021 (part # 1 of 3)

I realise I’m getting started on this list pretty late this time around, for which apologies, but, we’re all living with delays at the moment, right? Post, vinyl pressing, medical procedures… weblogs? Why not? Anyway, on the plus side, with other social engagements curtailed, my household was running movies right up to New Year’s Eve, so waiting until January at least allows this list to be comprehensive.

It’s been another big movie-watching year all round in fact, and I could easily have subjected you to a top 60 if I only had the time. I’m also trying to teach myself to be more concise in my writing though, so a mere 30 it is, and I’ll try not to go quite so overboard with the verbiage as I have in previous years. 

 30. The Harder They Fall 

(Mark Robson, 1956)

Humphrey Bogart’s last movie may not be anywhere near the best boxing noir (for that title, I’ll give you ‘The Set-Up’ (1949) and ‘Body & Soul’ (1948), just for starters), but it’s solid. Essentially a late entry in the cycle of earnest, “capitalism is destroying our souls” type dramas which inexplicably flourished in the artsier end of Hollywood under the shadow of McCarthyism (also see: ‘The Big Knife’ (1955), Thieves’ Highway (1949), etc), it’s perhaps a bit too much of a straight up, populist effort to garner the kind of praise heaped upon earlier, more expressionistic classics of the form like ‘Force of Evil’ (1948), but it still puts its core points across pretty efficiently.

Admittedly, the story of Bogart’s transition from out-of-work sports writer to PR shill for a shamelessly corrupt boxing promoter (Rod Steiger) buying his glass-jawed Argentinian patsy a place in the championship sometimes feels a bit soppy and manipulative - but, for scenes of shark-eyed operators in smoke-filled rooms belting the bottom line back and forth across the table as they trade human lives for a dime, this shit is hard to beat. And seeing the ailing Bogart slicing through their sails, doing his ‘thing’ one last time (hat, bow tie and - unfortunately - smokes all present and correct) is wonderful to behold. If he walks through much of the movie, well, Bogie takin’ it easy beats most other actors straining every sinew in pursuit of glory, and rest assured, there are some moments here where he absolutely shines (literally as well as figuratively, in view of the humidity flying around in those fight arenas).

It probably says something for the scripting that, about two thirds of the way through, I was still wondering whether they were going to go the ‘In a Lonely Place’ ending or the ‘Casablanca’ ending. I had my bets placed, my cynical fingers crossed, and… no spoilers here though folks, you’ll just have to find out for yourself.  

29. No, The Case is Happily Resolved 

(Vittorio Salerno, 1973)

This wonderfully-named Italian thriller begins with a classic Hitchcockian ‘wrong man’ set up, wherein a feckless amateur fisherman (Enzo Cerusico) becomes the sole witness to the brutal murder of a prostitute, only to find himself framed for the crime by the killer (a respected university professor played by Riccardo Cucciolla).

Whereas in a Hitchcock movie we’d expect our wrong man to be a charming, resourceful go-getter though, Salerno defies both convention and commerciality here by presenting his protagonist as a hopeless, morally ambivalent idiot, who, after initially failing to report the crime he has witnessed, proceeds to dig himself deeper and deeper into an intractable mess, pretty much cementing his guilt-by-implication, whilst nervy closet psychopath Cucciolla meanwhile gets away scot-free (or does he?)

Cerusico’s character was presumably intended to function as a stand-in for the apathetic Italian public, and protracted scenes of him blundering around like a headless chicken, abusing and alienating his friends and family in the process, prove excruciatingly (albeit deliberately) frustrating. Feeling rather like an Elio Petri movie on training wheels in places, Salerno’s directorial debut is likewise in some respects a scrappy, oblique and episodic affair - but, it still gets under your skin something rotten.

Driven on by excellent performances from Cucciolla, Cerusico and the director’s brother Enrico Maria Salerno (who pretty much steals the show as a flamboyant muck-raking journalist), it boasts an ingenious premise, a handful of genuinely powerful scenes and a wealth of more casual, low key moments which live long in the memory, unpacking a sly and insightful take on the sundry inequalities underlying Western democratic process.

[POLITE NOTICE: Viewers checking out this film on blu-ray or DVD are advised to take note of the director’s preferred ending, included as an extra, which is infinitely more satisfying than the botched last minute conclusion tacked on to the release version.]

 

28. Nightfall 

(Jacques Tourneur, 1956)

This lesser known, late period noir from Jacque Tourneur is elevated from a routine crime caper to a minor classic by a confluence of factors: an essence of poetic/existential yearning perhaps derived from David Goodis’s source novel, crisp location photography and imaginative staging from Tourneur and DP Burnett Guffey, and a delightfully dysfunctional pair of psycho antagonists (screenwriter Stirling Silliphant warming up for The Line Up, possibly). Best of all though, we have excellent, soulful performances from Aldo Ray and Anne Bancroft as the leads. (I never knew old Aldo had it in him, but really, he’s fantastic here.)

It’s interesting to note that whilst Tourneur’s earlier ‘Out of The Past’ (1948) is in many ways the Ultimate Film Noir - doubling down on the genre’s conventions to a frankly psychotic degree - ‘Nightfall’ takes the opposite approach, casually reversing many of our expectations of this kind of story, whilst remaining far more light-touch and naturalistic than the narcotic, quasi-gothic atmos I generally associate with Tourneur’s direction.

 

27. Les Désaxées  

(Michel Lemoine, 1972)

Probably best known (relatively speaking) for his appearances in such films as Jess Franco’s Necronomicon and Adrian Hoven’s ‘Castle of the Creeping Flesh’, the late Michel Lemoine has long been a subject of fascination for me. His demented erotic horror film ‘Les Weekends Maléfiques du Comte Zaroff’ [aka ‘Seven Women for Satan’] is a personal favourite, so it has been a delight to discover (via the series of restored releases coordinated by French label Le Chat Qui Fume) that much of his other directorial output tapped a broadly similar vein.

Lemoine’s feature debut as a director, ‘Les Désaxées’ [roughly: “The Misfits”] scores an instant hit by kicking off with the sight of Janine Reynaud frugging in silken hot-pants to the sounds of a fuzz-drenched garage-rock band, before proceeding to exhaustively catalogue the carnal misadventures of Lemoine’s priapic, castle-dwelling aesthete as he shags his way through wide-ranging assortment of wild and beautiful Parisian ladies, whilst callously ignoring the needs of his impossibly beautiful young wife (Claudia Coste) back at the chateau. All the while, that weird look of wide-eyed, Satyr-like ecstasy Lemoine does so well rarely leaves his face. May the Great God Pan bless his Luciferian countenance.

Viewers unaccustomed to the ways of ‘70s euro-cult entertainment are liable to have a coronary when presented with the sheer, vein-clogging excess of self-indulgence on display here, but for devotees such as myself, this is an unadulterated, full strength hit of the kind of ridiculous, unfettered escapism we crave. May those giant brandy glasses never be empty, and those harpsichords never cease.

 

26. Survival Quest 

(Don Coscarelli, 1988)

Like most of Don Coscarelli’s films, this low budget wilderness survival epic is hugely entertaining, disarmingly good-natured and very charming indeed. Initially a totally straight forward Fordian tale of a group of diverse misfits learning to realise their potential and endure the privations of the Oregon wilderness under the tutelage of grizzled outdoorsman / father figure Lance Henriksen, things are dragged into ‘Deliverance’/ ‘Southern Comfort’ territory when - somewhat inevitably - our happy gang is brought into conflict with the idiotic, gun-toting blackshirts led by Henriksen’s cruel, neo-fascist opposite number Mark Rolston.

Though the story plays out pretty much as you’d expect, this is a solidly-mounted drama which belies its budgetary constraints; it’s exciting and action-packed where it needs to be, but also emotionally affecting and politically/emotional astute without ever getting too saccharine about things. It feels hideously redundant to claim that the lessons learned herein seem “more relevant than ever” in the USA’s current vexed climate, but, well… they do, frankly. Long overlooked as a result of its non-genre status and lack of a USP, this cool and heartfelt little movie is overdue a revival, I feel.

 

25. The Most Dangerous Game 

(Irving Pichel & Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1932)

A cornerstone of both early American horror and pulp aesthetics in cinema more generally, this oft-referenced spin-off from the production of ‘King Kong’ has proved, in a weird sort of way, to be just as influential as the more famous film whose sets, cast and crew it re-appropriated. It clearly rattled around for decades in the brainpans of euro-horror mavericks like Michele Lemoine (see above) and Jess Franco, but Schoedsack’s film (based on Richard Connell’s short story) could also, at a stretch, be seen as ground zero for the entire men-hunting-men sub-genre which led us eventually to everything from ‘The Naked Prey’ to ‘The Running Man’ to ‘The Hunger Games’.

Despite this, the film has proved quite difficult to actually see in recent years, but I finally scored a copy in 2021, and it did not disappoint. Leslie Banks’ outrageously camp performance as the original Count Zaroff (accept no imitations) is a total delight, essentially dragging Lugosi’s ‘Dracula’ mannerisms through the back alley behind a Soho absinthe parlor, whilst Fay Wray is - as usual - fantastic as the ill-humoured heroine. (The extended sequence in which she tries to alert square-jawed shipwreck survivor Joel McCrea to the fact that something is very wrong here, without alerting Zaroff’s suspicion, is an all-time classic.)

As good as all the interior yakking is though (and god, WHAT an interior Zaroff has managed to pull together on his island-based fortress), it’s in the second half of the movie that things really start poppin’. First for the ghoulish trophies preserved in the Count’s subterranean dungeon, and then for the feverish, near hallucinatory sight of Wray and McCrea fleeing in terror and fighting for their lives through the mossy depths of Kong’s all-too-familiar jungle sets.

Cut through with more sweat-drenched, malarial / colonial South Seas exoticism than most 21st century citizens could reasonably stomach, and incorporating some of the most startling, white knuckle action the early ‘30s had to offer, ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ easily wins a spot in the pantheon of the era’s weirdest, wildest and most perversely fascinating horror films (which is no mean feat, in view of the competition).

 

24. The Silent Partner 

(Daryl Duke, 1978)

Written by the late Curtis Hanson two decades before he directed ‘L.A. Confidential’, this unconventional, Toronto-set bank heist flick struck me more than anything as a ‘40s/’50s film made in the ‘70s. Plotted to within an inch of its life, the intricately polished mechanics of the storyline reminded me of something like John Farrow’s ‘The Big Clock’ (1948), whilst the equally compelling human interest side of the movie seems to draw extensively from Billy Wilder’s ‘The Apartment’ (1960) - a comparison which also speaks to the film’s tone, as it veers uneasily between broad humour (with cross-dressing crooks, villainous Santas and sundry misunderstandings) and stuff which is Very Dark Indeed.

Seeing as this IS the ‘70s though, we also get tits, horrifying graphic violence and the assorted travails of mumbling, late 30-something singletons, brought to us in typically taciturn / agitated / icy [delete as applicable] method-acting fashion by Elliot Gould and Susannah York, both of whom are on absolutely top form here, pulling their characters through convolutions which lesser players would never have even guessed at. Christopher Plummer, by comparison, is entirely one dimensional as the psychopathic bad guy - but by damn, it sure is a dimension you don’t want to mess with.

So, basically, if you’re in search of an under-appreciated ’70s crime classic to tell your friends about this year, look no further - this is brilliant stuff.

 

23. Yes Madam! 

(Corey Yuen, 1985)

You wouldn’t know it from browsing these pages, but one of the things which has helped keep my wife & I sane through the pandemic period has been excavating the catalogue of ‘80s/’90s martial arts icon Cynthia Rothrock - and to be honest, I’m not sure she ever bettered her Hong Kong debut, starring (as “Inspector Morris of Scotland Yard”!) opposite the equally incredible Michelle Yeoh in what must surely stand as one of the most accomplished showcases of female-led ass-kicking ever committed to celluloid.

Given that this is an ‘80s HK production of course, it stands to reason that much of the screen time is dedicated not to our high-kicking heroines, but to the slapstick antics of a gang of comedic losers named after over-the-counter painkillers. So, those of us with a limited tolerance for Cantonese slapstick will just have to live with that, but, naturally director Corey Yuen keeps the pacing so frantic that it’s never that long before something jaw-droppingly crazy happens and/or Michelle and Cindy are back on-screen - at which point chances are somebody’s going to get a foot to the face within seconds, lots of plate glass is going to get smashed and we’ll all be home safe.

As ever, it’s difficult to really find words to quantify the sheer, exhilarating greatness of top flight HK fight choreography / stunt work, so instead of listening to me blather on, why not check some of it out for yourself?

Needless to say though, with screen fighters of the calibre of Yeoh and Rothrock holding court, and pros like Yuen, Dick Wei and Sammo Hung chiming in both behind and in front of the camera to make them seem even more bad-ass, it goes without saying that this shit is phenomenal.

 

22. Under Fire 

(Roger Spottiswoode, 1983)

Presenting a fictionalised account of the death of ABC news correspondent Bill Stewart at the hands of Nicaraguan government troops during the fall of the country’s Somoza regime in 1979, Roger Spottiswoode’s contemporary war/reportage epic is - to get this out the way from the outset - dangerously politically naive, deplorably dated in its Western-centric POV, and generally in pretty poor taste across the board. (Imagine, say, Hollywood setting a star-crossed, ‘Casablanca’-esque love story against the backdrop of the plight of the Kurdish population in Syria circa 2015 for a rough present day analogue.)

If, however, we invoke the ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ caveat and ignore all of that, instead taking the movie purely as a work of cinema, it’s a pretty damned impressive achievement. Restaged (for the purposes of safety and practicality) within a sprawling Mexican city which the production seems to have managed to turn into a single giant set, the depiction of the Nicaraguan revolution, as seen through the lens of Nick Nolte’s photo-journalist character, feels authentic, exhilarating, and at times heart-in-mouth terrifying here, capturing the eerily placid, “death could come at any moment” type atmosphere which accompanies such chaotic upheavals very well indeed (or so I can only imagine).

In addition, we’re gifted with an excellent Gene Hackman performance (as the Stewart surrogate), a strong and convincingly self-determined heroine in the form of Joanna Cassidy, and a characteristically intense turn from Ed Harris, playing a nihilistic American mercenary whose scenes put me in mind of another overlooked, politically uncomfortable action-adventure classic, Jack Cardiff’s ‘Dark of the Sun’ (1968).

Best of all though perhaps is Jean-Louis Trintignant, essaying a sinister, morally ambiguous diplomat / spy / fixer found lurking under the carapace of the crumbling, autocratic regime. The Graham Greene vibes are strong whenever he is on screen, bringing a sense of irresolvable, greyscale complexity and bleak inevitability to proceedings which is sorely missed elsewhere, as soaring strings and melodramatic clinches mash the meaningless brutality of the real life events being portrayed into a more approachable, studio-friendly fudge. 

 

21. Drive a Crooked Road 

(Richard Quine, 1954)

Yet more ‘50s Columbia noir. I reviewed this so-cal car culture reinvention of Fritz Lang’s ‘Scarlet Street’ (1945), anchored by a harrowing, revelatory performance from Mickey Rooney, back in April last year.

To be continued...