The last episode of the FX series, The Americans (Season 2), was melancholy.  An important question the season raised was, what kind of burden do undercover “crusaders” place on their unsuspecting children?  Also, the last episode was very artfully made, ending with a whimper not a bang.  The acting on the show is utterly expert.

Stan, you’re the man.

What will become of Nina?

I must see Season 3 ASAP.

Not a very rich or meaty tale, William Wyler’s The Westerner (1940) is nevertheless well-directed and beguilingly seriocomic.  It moves slowly enough that we really take in the personalities of saddle tramp Cole (Gary Cooper) and the unjust “Judge” Roy Bean (Walter Brennan) as another cattlemen-vs.-sodbusters strand emerges.  In Bean the film offers the idea of once a baddie, always a baddie:  the phony judge warms to Cole and idolizes the theatre actress Lily Langtry, but he’s a brute.

The Westerner is technically strong, with cinematography by Gregg Toland, and so I wish I could see it on the big screen.

Cooper captivates.

Cover of The Westerner

The “Americans” in the TV series, The Americans, are in reality Soviet spies masquerading as an American husband (Matthew Rhys) and wife (Keri Russell), who keep their identities—and subversive activities—a secret even from their two U.S.-born children.  They go by the names Philip and Elizabeth, and the time is the early Eighties.  I have been watching Season 2 of the show on DVD.  I haven’t seen any of the current episodes.

However far-fetched the plot details might be, this is a sophisticated, pleasurable program.  Whatever inept moves the FBI makes, the KGB looks even more inept.  And Philip and Elizabeth, true believers in the Commie cause, will resort to out-and-out murder, albeit not without Philip feeling guilty.

Sex ‘n’ violence exist in The Americans, and the former has increased during the second season to the point where it’s nearly exploitive. I say “nearly.”

Two more episodes to go (I think).

Four friends in a photograph, described in Muriel Spark’s short story “The Portobello Road,” reflect “the glory of the world, as if it would never pass.”

Ah, but the glory of the world does pass, a truth made utterly clear by Spark—British writer and Catholic convert—by the story’s end and largely through the device of a murdered woman’s seemingly content ghost.  One of the four friends snuffs out another: George, who is all sensitivity (neurotic sensitivity) and no conscience, murders Needle, who dies yet stays alive.  Needle (a woman) appears before George and amiably says hello to him; by and by he has a nervous breakdown.

When she was alive, Needle was considered lucky.  Joltingly, in fact, her friend Kathleen says, “[Needle] was at Confession only the day before she died—wasn’t she lucky?”  I submit that the story suggests that the best kind of “luck” is metaphysical or supernatural “luck.”  This, however, is actually Grace, shown to transcend not only the glory of the world but also friendships the neurotically sensitive can ruin with murder.

“The Portobello Road” is cheeky, unusual and riveting, and so is “Bang-Bang You’re Dead.”  The principal character, Sybil, is an easily bored intellectual compliant enough to spend a lot of time with her obtuse friend, Desiree, and Desiree’s husband.  This is to say she keeps returning to an environment of falseness:  the married couple are unspeakably dishonest, self-deluding.  But Sybil is doing this not only because she is weak, perhaps, but also because she has guilt to expiate.  Interestingly, she escapes a killer’s bullet near the story’s end (divine mercy?) whereas another character does not.  Is Sybil one of the elect?

Coming from the Catholic Spark, even “Bang-Bang You’re Dead” is not an altogether secular fiction.  Both stories are ingenious and can be found in the book, The Stories of Muriel Spark  (1985).

The Howard Hughes-produced The Racket (1951) is a remake of a 1928 film, which I haven’t seen, and it’s nicely convincing about the workings of a city dominated by a crime syndicate.  Probably the best thing about it is the cast.  Among others, Robert Ryan co-stars as a crime boss, the second in the syndicate hierarchy, and early on, we are startled to see his brutal behavior toward Robert Mitchum’s police chief.

The Racket is based on a play.  What it lacks in originality it makes up for in vitality.  Because director John Cromwell received a lot of uncredited help from Nicholas Ray, et al., it is finely made.  The movie is far from faultless, but I’m glad it exists and is available on DVD.