There is quite a wrinkle in the old Western, The Texas Rangers (1936), in that the two principal characters who join the famous Rangers are fakers—stagecoach robbers hiding out in the organization.  Fred MacMurray is one of them, jocular Jack Oakie is another; but as time goes on, both of them reform, and remain Rangers.

The let’s-roll adventures begin early: wild Indians entrap the motley lawmen, and later MacMurray, though still unscrupulous, forces a murdering kingpin to be tried.  At this point scriptwriter Louis Stevens keeps up the captivating work by having one of MacMurray’s buddies, a fellow stagecoach robber (Lloyd Nolan), save MacMurray’s life by shooting down two men who want to kill him.  Nolan’s character, even so, is bad news.  In The Texas Rangers, an antihero, MacMurray, becomes a hero (also, it seems that all along he’s a believer in God) while his buddy, Nolan, is a heavy who gets morally worse.

All of it is enjoyable enough to possibly make Rangers one of director King Vidor‘s best films.  The pacing is good, the principal acting—well—not bad.  MacMurray’s love interest is a young Jean Arthur, spunky and looking like Claudette Colbert.

There is quite a wrinkle in the old Western, The Texas Rangers (1936), in that the two principal characters who join the famous Rangers are fakers—stagecoach robbers hiding out in the organization.  Fred MacMurray is one of them, jocular Jack Oakie is another; but as time goes on, both of them reform, and remain Rangers.

The let’s-roll adventures begin early: wild Indians entrap the motley lawmen, and later MacMurray, though still unscrupulous, forces a murdering kingpin to be tried.  At this point scriptwriter Louis Stevens keeps up the captivating work by having one of MacMurray’s buddies, a fellow stagecoach robber (Lloyd Nolan), save MacMurray’s life by shooting down two men who want to kill him.  Nolan’s character, even so, is bad news.  In The Texas Rangers, an antihero, MacMurray, becomes a hero (also, it seems that all along he’s a believer in God) while his buddy, Nolan, is a heavy who gets morally worse.

All of it is enjoyable enough to possibly make Rangers one of director King Vidor‘s best films.  The pacing is good, the principal acting—well—not bad.  MacMurray’s love interest is a young Jean Arthur, spunky and looking like Claudette Colbert.

Cover of Clean

Clean, the engrossing 2003 picture by Olivier Assayas, stretches from Canada to Western Europe, and from heroin to methadone to “clean.”

Maggie Cheung gets jailed in Canada for possession, then moves to Paris to beat her addiction.  Plus she wants to see her young son in London.  It’s all very hard.  Cheung’s recovering addict is a stumbling bisexual and would-be Deborah Harry (another former addict), living with humiliation.  Speaking now in French, now in English, Maggie’s acting is outstanding, full of depth.  She and director-writer Assayas were married but got divorced during the filming of Clean, and Cheung is not in good spirits.  Sad.  There are some things just as lamentable as drug addition.

Cover of Clean

Clean, the engrossing 2003 picture by Olivier Assayas, stretches from Canada to Western Europe, and from heroin to methadone to “clean.”

Maggie Cheung gets jailed in Canada for possession, then moves to Paris to beat her addiction.  Plus she wants to see her young son in London.  It’s all very hard.  Cheung’s recovering addict is a stumbling bisexual and would-be Deborah Harry (another former addict), living with humiliation.  Speaking now in French, now in English, Maggie’s acting is outstanding, full of depth.  She and director-writer Assayas were married but got divorced during the filming of Clean, and Cheung is not in good spirits.  Sad.  There are some things just as lamentable as drug addition.

Oliver (David Suchet) is a laid-off IBM technician, and he is homeless.  Every day is Sunday for such a man; he has no job to go to.  On one particular Sunday, he meets Madeleine (Lisa Harrow), a little-known actress separated from her husband.  After Madeleine mistakes Oliver for a movie director, the two talk and then engage in sex, which—count on it—will never happen again.  They realize that what has developed is a charade.

Jonathan Rossiter‘s characters in Sunday (1997) are bereft.  The film is nonchalantly concerned to show us what would be rightly considered beside the point, as the copulation in the hallway between Madeleine and Oliver turns out to be.  Likewise with the activities of the men from the homeless shelter (again: bereft) where Oliver is staying.  Like Oliver, they’re inescapably wasting their time.

A poetic American indie, Sunday is sad but, because it’s also amusing, not quite a heartbreaker.  There is more acumen than pathos.  Rossiter provides some masterly direction, and Suchet and Harrow are distinguished. ‘Tain’t for children, though.  Lisa Harrow gets stripped to an extent she never did in The Last Days of Chez Nous (the only other movie I’ve seen her in).