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.

The short (and silent) Buster Keaton flick, One Week (1920), revolves around Buster and his bride (Sybil Seely) building their first house from a do-it-yourself kit, saddled by a sabotage effort from an obnoxious old flame.  Keaton’s comedies are not only funny, they’re adventurous, for Keaton is so often on the precipice, life and limb almost lost.  Through it all, the wife he loves is at his side—and she loves him—and both of them summon delectable mirth.

Also from 1920, Convict 13 is not as good but still pleasurable—weirdly so.  For a long time I thought the 21-minute lark contained too much coarse criminal violence, but—well—it doesn’t.  The ending proves it.  Again Keaton has vigor to spare, and Seely’s in this one too, though with less personality.

Jonathan and Sandy, the two most significant figures in Carnal Knowledge (1971), enter some decidedly sexual but, by and by, dismaying and all too pedestrian relationships with women, primarily Susan and Bobbie, the account of which begins with their college days and ends in the 1970s when both men are in their forties.  Susan, acted by Candice Bergen, hooks up with Sandy (Art Garfunkel) but cannot or does not resist the temptation of sleeping with Jack Nicholson’s Jonathan (Sandy’s best friend).  A later marriage between Susan and Sandy turns unhappy, and Sandy starts cheating on Susan with another woman.  For his part, Jonathan meets the toothsome, buxom, fun-loving but neither stupid nor unkind Bobbie (Ann-Margret), she who can call Jonathan an obscene name for his reluctance to shack up with her—he’d rather just visit and copulate, thank you—but who also, finally, abjectly pleads with him to make her his wife.  Jonathan will have none of it until Bobbie tries to pack it in; then, ashamed, he marries her.  Later there is a divorce.

At forty, Jonathan has become a prosperous but misogynistic boor who regularly meets with a literate, well-to-do prostitute from whom he hears prepared, ego-stroking words about his being a “real man.”  Such words are required for producing for the fellow an erection.  Sandy, forever sans Susan, is not much better off:  He now loveth the counterculture, talking of “vibes” with his hippie girlfriend.  “Both men are losers, pitiful or laughable” (John Simon) in this a director Mike Nichols-writer Jules Feiffer production which acridly bashes away at the sexual revolution.

Feiffer’s dialogue is a grabber:  smart, mocking, and what today would be considered politically incorrect:  “I don’t want a job, I want you!” exclaims Bobbie to the man who won’t marry her—hardly a line a feminist would prize.  She might approve of this one, though:  Jonathan thinks he knows how to be tender to a woman, which prompts Bobbie to yell, “Feeling me up in public is not affection!” . . .

Cover of Carnal Knowledge

The 1977 Citizens Band was released during the national CB radio funfest, but didn’t make any money.  Even with a re-release and title change (Handle With Care) it fell commercially flat.  Directed by Jonathan Demme, it’s a movie rather short of brains but largely successful.  It’s a rural serio-comedy, a trifle silly about women and other things—congrats, though, to actresses Ann Wedgeworth and Marcia Rodd—but also slyly funny.

Other people have liked Citizens Band more than I do, although I do like it—primarily for some of its probing performances.  Boyish Paul Le Mat is at his best.

The 1977 Citizens Band was released during the national CB radio funfest, but didn’t make any money.  Even with a re-release and title change (Handle With Care) it fell commercially flat.  Directed by Jonathan Demme, it’s a movie rather short of brains but largely successful.  It’s a rural serio-comedy, a trifle silly about women and other things—congrats, though, to actresses Ann Wedgeworth and Marcia Rodd—but also slyly funny.

Other people have liked Citizens Band more than I do, although I do like it—primarily for some of its probing performances.  Boyish Paul Le Mat is at his best.