Dogs Bark

Were You Ever Lovelier? - - Funny Face (1957, USA, Color, 103 min) - - 29 May 2017

Recommended. I am certain a movie was never made before or after so dedicated to the showcasing of its star’s drop-dead gorgeousity. With Stanley Donen (Singin’ In the Rain) directing, Gershwin brothers (Shall We Dance) score, choreography by and co-staring Fred Astaire (Top Hat), make up by Wally Westmore (Breakfast at Tiffany's), frocks by Edith Head (Vertigo), with drop ins by Hubert de Givanchy (every other AH film) and Richard Avedon . . . oh, and Paris playing herself. So, if you are an Audrey Hepburn (Sabrina) fan - - and there are few serious movie nerds who are not - - this is an essential. The story is about as sturdy as a tulle veil but the titular face is much more. I like the way Ms. Hepburn is presented as an intellectual . . . a philosophy student, no less!  Her career was a splendid cocktail of intellect and class but this is just a wonderful Photoplay cover. Enjoy!

Carmel Hath No Fury - - Play Misty For Me (1971, USA, Color, 102 min) - - 28 May 2017

Recommended. This film began two interesting pop historical lines. It was the directorial debut of Clint Eastwood and it was the first of the feminist-backdraft, stalker-bitch movies. Glenn Close’s rabbit killer (Fatal Attraction) was fricasseed by gender studies faculty before the film came out of the darkroom; Play Misty For Me has escaped a similar beat-down. Perhaps it’s that Clint played a more sympathetic character than Michael Douglas’s married sleazeball. Eastwood was in so much directorial debt here to Don Siegel that he gave him a real part (Siegel played a character named Murphy in two movies). Regardless, it’s Jessica Walter (Grand Prix) that plays the right note. She’s quirky attractive at first, then pathetic . . . but I won’t spoil the Hitch-like twist at the end. Never be a cop in one of these stories; they don’t end well. Bruce Surtees’s (Dirty Harry) camera work is gorgeous and brilliant in places.