Dogs Bark

What’s A Gentleman? - - Red-Headed Woman (1932, USA, B/W, 79 min)

Recommended. This pre-code movie is sort of a scandalous comedy. It's hard to take it any other way when every character is so deliciously lascivious. Jean Harlow (Dinner At Eight) is the host of this priapismic party and welcomes all the guests. Her character, Lil, is as unredeemed a leading lady as any before or since. Harlow doesn’t sleep her way to the top; she’s wide awake on every dirty little floor; however, the objects of her acquisition are so morally moronic that little sympathy is aroused. The movie was scripted by the great Anita Loos (Gentleman Prefer Blondes) . . . who was never called schmaltzy. Red-Headed Woman is often compared to Baby Face - - another pre-code, round-heeler rodeo - - and the latter is the better of the two. But, in the other hand, Baby Face does go limp at the climax with a feckless ending of remorse. Red-Headed Woman has no such dysfunction.

There's The Rub - - Warui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemuru [The Bad Sleep Well] (1960, Japan, B/W, 151 min)

Recommended. Throughout his distinguished career, Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon) mixed several very noir crime dramas among the many samurai fables and remakes of Shakespeare for which he is better known. Having said that, some of the samurai code, particularly as channeled by the rōnin, or masterless warrior, is essential to the ethics of the Chandler/Hammett hard-boiled detective. Of course, the rōnin is also thought to have evolved into the yakuza. Into this dark alley, steps The Bad Sleep Well, featuring Kurasawa’s usual suspects. Toshirô Mifune (Seven Samurai), seeks vengeance for his murdered father. Pop worked for corrupt land developers, Masayuki Mori (Rashomon) and Takashi Shimura (Stray Dog). My favorite character is Kô Nishimura (Yojimbo) horribly disfigured by guilt over the course of the story . . . much like the rotting corpse of Griffin Dunne in An American Werewolf In London. My only complaint is the ending, which seems realistic but dramatically unsatisfying.

The Apple Of Her Eye - - The Lady Eve (1941, USA, B/W, 94 min) - - 15 April 2020

An essential. I returned to this classic Preston Sturgis (Sullivan’s Travels) screwball comedy after attending Kimberly Truhler’s excellent TCM Fashion in Film webinar. It was Truhler’s successfully argued take that you can trace out the changes in Jean Harrington’s (Barbara Stanwyck, Double Indemnity) self-image through her costuming (Edith Head, Sunset Boulevard), as she goes from scam artist, to woman-in-love, to disgraced woman-in-love, to Lady Eve, and back to her authentic self. It’s a fascinating observation and a credit to Head’s self-effacing genius that these clothing clues lurk around the other mise-en-scène components, despite their individual fabulousness. Also lurking about are some delectable performances by Eric Blore (Swing Time), William Demerest (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) and Eugene Pallette (The Adventures of Robin Hood). And, of course,  Henry Fonda (The Grapes Of Wrath), wonderful as the mark, and Charles Coburn (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), who seems to be always crossing the Atlantic.

The Horror . . . The Horror - - Ad Astra (2019, USA, Color, 123 min) - - 10 April 2020

Not recommended. Maybe it’s me . . . but the first thing I imagine when getting a deep space mayday is NOT that baboons have eaten the crew. Sorry, that's a spoiler. Please forget about the baboons. The script of Ad Astra quickly does. Let's move on to the image of Brad Pitt (Troy) using a makeshift, Shield of Achilles to jet-pack through the rings of Neptune, cosmic flotsam bouncing off of him like the jibes of sour critics. This movie is absurd and if it wasn’t for the fine cinematography of Hoyte Van Hoytema (Dunkirk) and the god-like (for the moment) status of Pitt, there would be nothing worth watching in this discontinuous mélange of Apocalypse Now and 2001. Brad plays a perpetually glum astronaut searching the outer planets for his father and a resolution of his crippling stoicism. I did like the random appearance of Donald Sutherland’s (Backdraft) crazy eyes!

Based On A Future Story - - Panic In The Streets (1950, USA, B/W, 96 min) - - 1 April 2020

Strongly recommended. Cowering in place - - and those who don’t - - isn’t a new concept. Seventy years ago, Elia Kazan directed this little noir gem, set in New Orleans. A petty criminal runs from the law, unknowingly carrying pneumonic plague. This is the same microbial disease that pops up every so often in northern New Mexico. Richard Widmark (Kiss Of Death), three years past Tommy Udo, this time plays - - with equal ferocity - - a good guy trying to contain the potential epidemic. This was Jack Palance’s (Shane) opening as a waterfront mobster and he paints a grimly blood-soaked portrait. Zero Mostel (The Producers) is wonderful as Palance’s gunsel. The always delightful Barbara Bel Geddes (Vertigo) is Widmark’s wife, creating yet another sharp-talking mother hen. The cinematographer was Joe MacDonald (Niagara) and he effectively uses all of the classic noire camera angles and lighting set-ups to grime up the belly of the NOLA demi-monde.