ACROSS THE PACIFIC
**½BAMBI
*****
USA
The
last classic from Disney’s first cycle of animated features, which produced most
of the company’s – and cinema’s - great ones. This one probably has
the least along the way of plot (and dialogue) out of any of them: in
episodic, season-based segments, we follow a faun’s maturation into a
stag. Yes, there is an overflow of kitsch - it’s uncomfortable to hear
the animals speak once they hit adolescence - and the ideology of
submissive mothers and absent, aggressive fathers is outdated. But in the early sequences,
Walt and his crew pull off that sense of discovering the world for the
first time through young eyes more
wondrously than just about anyone else ever has. And the animation - a mix of impressionism
and almost photographic realism - has never been surpassed for its
liquidy
gorgeousness.
dir: David Hand
voices of: Peter Behn, Paula Winslowe, Bobbie Stewart, Cammie King,
Donnie Dunagan, Hardie Albright
THE BLACK SWAN
***½
CASABLANCA
****½
CAT PEOPLE
****½
FOR ME AND MY GAL
***½
THE GLASS KEY
**½
USA
A politician is accused of murder and his
right-hand-man attempts to clear him.
A quick and inferior re-teaming of a then-fresh star coupling, which rarely
holds much interest. Though it had Kurosawa among its fans.
dir: Stuart Heisler
cast: Brian Donlevy, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Bonita
Granville, William Bendix, Richard Denning
IN WHICH WE SERVE
****½
IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PART I
*****
JOURNEY INTO FEAR
***½
KINGS ROW
***½
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS
*****
USA
The story goes that after editing on his sophomore picture was finished
Orson Welles disappeared off to South America, pursuing one of the many
projects he was never to complete. Due to a poor response from test
audiences, RKO then went on to drop 44 minutes from his picture, shuffle
around the remainder and hire the future maker of “The Sound of Music” to
film a new ending. This botched version is the only one that still
survives, yet enough of Welles’ vision remains in it to hint at a
greatness equalling – perhaps even surpassing that of the great great
“Citizen Kane”.
It’s a family saga as much as it is a poignant elegy to a lost age,
dressed up very evocatively in Welles’ emblematic expressionistic
lighting, fluid camera movement and aural ‘deep space’. The Ambersons
start off the twentieth century towering over Indianapolis and pinning
their hopes on a despicable little brat who is the sole heir to the
estate. But as the brat matures into a screechy Tim Holt, the industrial
age sends what remains of the ailing dynasty into bankruptcy. In the
meantime we watch the dreaded Automobile evolve into a culturally shaping
factor and the aristocrat devolve into a vassal at a dynamite factory.
As Holt’s anguished mother, Dolores Costello is the image of faded
elegance. Agnes Moorehead turns in a nervy tour de force of a performance
as his spinster aunt and wise and wily Ray Collins is equally effective as
his uncle. Perennial also-ran Joseph Cotten plays the automobile inventor
and is repeatedly denied Costello’s love. A young and very intelligent
Anne Baxter is his daughter. Welles himself doesn’t make an appearance,
but he does put in the laconic, hypnotic, omnipresent voiceover, going so
far as to recite the credits at the end rather than printing them
on-screen.
wr/dir: Orson Welles
ph: Stanley Cortez
ed: Robert Wise
m: Bernard Herrmann
cast: Tim Holt, Dolores Costello, Joseph Cotten, Agnes
Moorehead, Anne Baxter, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Richard Bennett,
Orson Welles
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THE MAJOR
AND THE MINOR
****½
MRS. MINIVER
**½
NOW, VOYAGER
***½
OSSESSIONE
***
Italy
Pretty, wooden Massimo Girotti is instantly attracted to the intensely
mannered Clara Calamai and within hours, they are madly in love and
plotting to get rid of her rich, obese husband.
Visconti's directorial
debut, this low-budget thriller was the first - though unofficial -
adaptation of James M. Cain's much-adapted "The Postman Always
Rings Twice". The picture's emphasis on squalor and location
shooting gained it a reputation as a precursor to the neo-realist
movement. Today you'd be likelier to mistake it for just cheap melodrama
with an odd visual style. (It was barely released outside Italy until
decades later, when Visconti had gone on to do much better things.)
dir: Luchino Visconti
ph: Aldo Tonti, Domenico Scala
cast: Massimo Girotti, Clara Calamai, Juan deLanda, Elio
Marcuzzo, Dhia Cristani
THE PALM BEACH STORY
****
RANDOM HARVEST
**½
USA
Your fondness of this
amnesia-driven melodrama will probably correlate with how hilariously apt
you find its title in retrospect.
SABOTEUR
****
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
***½
THIS GUN FOR HIRE
****
USA
A hitman is double-crossed by a wealthy spy and
seeks revenge while on the run from the police.
An involving, nicely photographed Hitchcockian espionage thriller, with a
few stretches that perhaps needed the real Hitchcock to work. Satisfying all the
same.
dir: Frank Tuttle
cast: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar
TO BE OR NOT TO BE
*****
LES VISITEURS DU SOIR
***
France
A medieval fantasy revolving around two envoys sent by the Devil to
break up an engagement at a Baron's castle. They fall in love with their
targets - guess what conquers all in the end.
There's room for some
tremendous comedy in the plotting, but Carné and co. were never known for
their sense of humour. They were more interested in turning it into an
allegory about the Nazi occupation of France. The only way to do that must
have been through leaden, ponderous medieval drama.
dir: Marcel Carné
wr: Jacques Prévert, Pierre Laroche
cast: Alain Cuny, Arletty, Marie Déa, Fernand Ledoux,
Jules Berry, Marcel Herrand, Gabriel Gabrio
WOMAN OF THE YEAR
***½
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
***
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