The Nun’s Story (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Catholic asceticism or self-deprivation, as in a convent, is not for everyone.  It is not for every Christian, in fact.  In the Fred Zinnemann film, The Nun’s Story (1959), strong-willed Sister Luke (Audrey Hepburn) becomes certain she is failing as a nun, certain she cannot adequately keep the Holy Rule she respects.  Her good work as a nurse in the Congo cannot leave her with a sense of spiritual security, and so she renounces the convent life.  Before leaving, Sister Luke (real name: Gabrielle) kneels to receive the sign of the cross from a fellow nun, who silently refuses to grant it.  Subsequently our heroine looks at the crucifix on the wall and makes the sign herself.  Communicated here is that Gabrielle no longer being a nun does not mean she is no longer a woman of God, a Christian.

How faithful the film is to Kathryn Hulme’s book I don’t know, but creditable work has been done by, among others, Zinnemann and screenwriter Robert Anderson.  The movie peters out before its denouement, and reactions to the murder of a nun by a superstitious African ought to have been more affecting.  All the same, Hepburn is beautifully serious and so is the film.  To me it never gets boring; it gets memorable.

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)

Cover of The Prince of Darkness (Plantagenet 4)

Was King John of England, who died in 1216, an evil king?  Jean Plaidy wrote about him in her 1978 novel, The Prince of Darkness, and to her the answer is certainly yes.  It is not long before the book ends that John is forced to sign Magna Carta; before this he demonstrates not only how famously hot-tempered he is but also how infernally cruel, feckless, lustful and selfish.

The novel’s England can barely withstand the royal immorality here, and near the end the nation hits the skids, though not hopelessly.  The Prince of Darkness is gripping and engrossing, even if sometimes Plaidy nearly loses control of her sentences.  I don’t think there’s a shortage of historical accuracy either.

A 64-minute silent film, Hell’s Hinges (1916) is a Western released only a couple of decades after the Old West had faded away.

A Protestant preacher, accompanied by his Protestant sister, is sent to a western town to start a church.  The many reprobate men there resist this church-planting and hope to discredit the preacher, not a very hard task since Parson Henley is probably the weakest Christian on the face of the earth.  But gunslinger Blaze Tracy (William S. Hart) ain’t weak.  This evil fellow falls in love with the preacher’s sister and, possibly blessed with God working on him, wants to reform.  And does, though not without literally fighting fire with fire.

This Charles Swickard-directed short can be exciting and, in some ways, lovable.  Tragic too.

It is perhaps only via the DVD set called Treasures From American Film Archives that Hell’s Hinges can be seen on disc.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Re the writing by John August, Tim Burton‘s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) is not much of a movie version of Roald Dahl’s humanity-scolding book.  The final few minutes go nowhere, and Charlie (Freddie Highmore) is a somewhat hollow character.  Burton’s imagination exceeds his intelligence, yet . . . we love him anyway, right?  His Charlie is spellbinding, with perfect razzle dazzle and effective humor.  And Johnny Depp playing Willie Wonka as a solitary, sadly neurotic freak.  His acting is more curious than strong, but it is curious, even enticing.

A bratty girl is carried to a garbage chute by industrious squirrels, a candy bar techno-magically replaces the monolith in a shown copy of 2001, an Indian palace made of naught but chocolate melts in the sun—Burton presents it all with expert direction.  My enthusiasm is limited—the film lacks the moral import of the weaker Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, from 1971—but Charlie is boyish poetry.