The Rare Review - Movies, books, music and TV

Blue Dahlia, Black Reality

On July 31, 2026

Except for its specious final minutes, 1946’s The Blue Dahlia, written by Raymond Chandler, is a smashing crime picture. A horrid, unfaithful woman (Doris Dowling) whom no man truly loves is murdered, and Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd), her husband and an ex-military officer, tries to find the killer. He himself is a suspect, but so is the smooth club owner Eddie Harwood (Howard Da Silva)—the “lover” of Dowling and the husband of a character played by Veronica Lake (my gosh, he’s cheating on Veronica Lake!?)—and the irritable, mentally unbalanced veteran, Buzz (William Bendix).

With his foursquare direction, George Marshall and his cast have delivered a sober, classy but not too classy melodrama. Chandler’s fine dialogue means little in the mouth of Alan Ladd, dull and Shane-like as he is, but it means a lot coming from the memorable Da Silva, Dowling, Will Wright, et al. Lake, who is serviceable, is perfect-looking; Bendix, who is unhandsome, is scary. Have fun.

Watch Out For “The Neon Demon”

By EarlD

On July 27, 2026

In Movies

Although it is often potently, admirably shot, The Neon Demon (2016), by Nicolas Winding Refn, is dissatisfying. Elle Fanning stars as a young model who is almost beauty itself. She becomes the object of jealousy, erotic hunger, and ridiculous violence. The film is art—poor art, because it’s sensationalistic and tawdry; and it pretends to offer insight into a few things. Pretends. What it offers instead, you’ll see,* is the physical uglification of actress Jena Malone. Refn has a new film out—Her Private Hell—which I hope is a step up.

*If you’re a spectator of this thing

An Un-Real Doll, From Lubitsch

By EarlD

On July 24, 2026

In Movies

A silent film by Ernst Lubitsch, The Doll (1919) is cinematic artifice at its most curious. Lubitsch pretends it is crafted from what he pulls out of a toy chest, and a story gets underway presenting a babyish, hypersensitive young man (Hermann Thimig, fascinating) who refuses to get married. What he does instead, to gain an uncle’s dowry (for some gluttonous monks!), is to “marry” what he believes to be a mechanical doll. But not so. The dollmaker’s daughter is pretending to be the doll. Ossi by name, she is played by Ossi Oswalda, a German actress who attained a lot of fame in the Silent era and, in ill health, died at only 48. Here, she seamlessly displays the daughter’s mischievousness and is a luminous delight. In fact, so is The Doll. Anyone who is getting into Lubitsch must see it.

Truffaut Welcomes You To “Bed and Board”

By EarlD

On July 19, 2026

In General

Bed and Board (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Francois Truffaut made Bed and Board (Domicile Conjugal, 1970) to show us his autobiographical character, Antoine Doinel—a former juvenile delinquent—as a married man with a child. Casually he tosses in the revelation that Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is often selfish, and drama would be absent from the film had he not had Antoine cheat on his wife (Claude Jade) with a Japanese woman.

Less successful than Truffaut’s other Antoine Doinel pictures, Bed is nevertheless pleasurable with its slight goofiness and, well, essentially meaningless high spirits. It is usually the equivalent of a Paul McCartney love song, except that it’s pretty risqué. The Story of Adele H. it ain’t.

(In French with English subtitles)

Love’s Decline: “The Lacemaker”

By EarlD

On July 15, 2026

In Movies

Claude Goretta‘s 1977 French picture, The Lacemaker (La Dentelliere), deals with a shy, gentle working-class girl (Isabelle Huppert) and a smart, unassuming college student (Yves Beneyton) who simply do not belong in a serious amatory affair with each other. It is also about lives that become empty and disillusioning and even nonsexual, and are thoroughly secular. After seeing it on videotape years ago, I was never able to see it again except recently on YouTube in an auto-translated version—not the best subtitles; in fact they’re worthless. Still, I’m grateful for it.

The film is an excellent one, splendidly, poetically directed by Goretta. There are beach scenes as lovely as the camera placement is inspired. There is dandy camera movement too (the crane shot) and meaningful fades to black. The Lacemaker derives from a novel by Pascal Laine. On its own, Goretta’s screenplay impresses. As in his film The Invitation, he loves his characters. Huppert and Beneyton are persuasive actors; Florence Giorgetti even more so.