The Ladykillers (1955) - Movie Review

I grew up watching Miss Marple - not the new, politically correct, sexed-up series - but what we call the authorized version starring Joan Hickson. Hickson was a truly amazing actress, exceedingly subtle and very convincing. It's even more impressive since she really was in her nineties while filming the series. Of course, she was Dame Agatha's pick, and the queen's, but if you want to disagree, please go elsewhere.

Like Joan Hickson, Katie Johnson is one of those great little old ladies that completely disappears into her character and never needs to do something vulgar to be interesting. She had been acting since 1894, if that tells you anything, and won a BAFTA for this role. Her dainty, pink-clad Mrs. Wilberforce steals the film away from the ladykillers themselves, though they include such icons as Alec Guinness, a very young Peter Sellers, and Herbert Lom. Not that they give poor performances. They're excellent, their sleaziness contrasting perfectly with Mrs. Wilberforce's Victorian sensibilities.

Mrs. Wilberforce lives with her parrots in a lopsided house in London, and is looking to let her upper room. Appears "Professor" Marcus, a creepy, cunning Alec Guinness with enormous false teeth, completely removed from the classy Obi-Wan Kenobi, the only role for which he will (rather unfairly) be remembered. Professor Marcus quickly begins to entertain his friends, a group of "amateur musicians." There's the Major (Cecil Parker), One-Round (Danny Green), Louis (Lom) and Harry (Sellers.) It's not much of a spoiler that they are in fact a group of vicious bank robbers, who have concocted a plan that places the oblivious Mrs. Wilberforce right at the center of their machinations.

A Tale of Two Cities (1935) - Movie Review

"Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth"
-Hark the Herald Angels Sing


Let's face it, A Tale of Two Cities is my favorite book. Thus, any adaptation is inevitably going to suffer from my extremely high expectations. My favorite may very well be The Dark Knight Rises. Kidding. Sort of. As of yet, no film version has come even close to my idea of How It Should Be (my screen-play is in the works, so keep an eye out, Hollywood), but the 1935 film is a pretty good attempt.

It's helpful with this film to have some familiarity with 30's movies. Considering it as among its fellows, it was very much ahead of its time, with clever cinematography, a tight script, a huge budget, and a decent cast. Of course, its greatest weaknesses are when it adhered to the then-common conventions, such as the ubiquitous sappy music, the occasionally choppy editing, and a one-dimensional female heroine.

Catch Me if You Can - Movie Review

I remember years back when my dad told me about the remarkable exploits of Frank Abagnale Jr. Abagnale was little older than I was, but he led a successful life of crime, impersonating an airplane pilot, a pediatrician, and a lawyer. I was fascinated.

So apparently was Steven Spielberg, who adapted the conman's life into a film in 2002, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks.

Frank Jr. starts his life in the center of the 1950s American Dream. His father (a very good Christopher Walken) is a successful businessman, his mother a beautiful Frenchwoman. But one day, Frank Sr. can't charm his way out of his troubles with the IRS. It turns out Mrs. Abagnale isn't so charmed with Frank Sr. as she is with the American Dream, and the cracks are beginning to show. Divorce and loss of innocence. Frank Jr. can't take it, so he starts to run, desperate to renew his lost childhood. DiCaprio is particularly good in the role, concocting just the right mix of charm, innocence, and immaturity.

Life is Beautiful - Movie Review

The last three movies I've watched have curiously prepared me for this one, which I finished Monday. To End All Wars was a WWII film, taking place in a camp of sufferers. The Scarlet and the Black was about a resistance movement in Nazi Rome. Kind Hearts and Coronets was a film from the 1940's.

Life is Beautiful takes elements from all of these and improves on them, being a WWII tale set in Italy with a 1940's style of filming. Mark Twain once said "the personages in a tale [should] be alive, except in the case of corpses, and...the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others." In Life is Beautiful, unlike To End All Wars, a vast amount of time is spent in ensuring the life of the characters, before even a shadow of death darkens the horizon.

The Scarlet and the Black strove both for an amusing main character and menacing villains, but both efforts failed. Life is Beautiful excels in both directions, always evoking the correct response.

Clue - Movie Review

As all mystery buffs know, English manor houses are some of the most lethal locations on the planet, but if 1985 comedy Clue is to be believed, even American manors are pretty dangerous places to be. Naturally, the presence of Tim Curry helps a bit. You can't get more English than Tim Curry. Fact.

Based on the board-game, Clue both rips off and improves on the 1976 Murder by Death (amusingly, Eileen Brennan was in both, as Mrs. Peacock and Tess Skeffington), for despite the earlier film's prestigious cast listing, it spun into Scooby-Doo antics, featuring more inappropriate jokes than was necessary, and a slow, meandering plot. (But hey, blind butler Bensonmum, played by the great Alec Guinness, stripped naked lying dead in the kitchen? "Possibly some deranged dry cleaner...")

Not that Clue doesn't have it's share of Scooby-Doo-ness, but it manages to remain within the realm of barely believable, just out of Agatha Christie territory. Six people, all connected to the government in some form, are sent anonymous letters, inviting them to a dinner party in New England. Once there, they are met by a British butler, Wadsworth (Curry), who encourages them to employ false names, such as Mr. Green and Colonel Mustard, neatly following the plot of the board game. Soon enough, they discover they have been gathered to meet the man who is black-mailing them all, Mr. Boddy. Needless to say, his pseudonym quickly becomes very literal.

Kind Hearts And Coronets - Movie Review

Normally, I love British dry humor, but I think this may well have been one of the driest comedies I've ever seen. If American humor flourishes in the marshlands of slapstick, and British wit in a dry waste, Kind Hearts and Coronets is somewhere in the Sahara Desert. However, while it's not a funny, the film is still amusing, a dark, deadpan, ironic satire on everything that makes England English.

Coronets is certainly a black comedy, featuring as its protagonist Louis Mazzini, a ruthless, psychopathic serial killer. But he's English, which means he also has impeccable manners. Dennis Price plays the role to perfection, floating in and out of social functions while sadly lamenting his fiscal misfortunes. His mother, marrying an Italian singer, was disowned the rest of the D'Ascoyne family, and thus did young Louis Mazzini lose his stake in the family inheritance.

Regrettably but necessarily, old fellow, Louis must take drastic action. What he does do is begin killing off the family, one by one, to repay them for placing such value on social class, all the while climbing towards the duchy himself.

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