The 1954 Naked Alibi centers on some shabby police work which turns out not to be so shabby.  Chief Joe Conroy (Sterling Hayden) strongly believes that Gene Barry‘s Al is the murderer of three police officers.  However, Al is a family man who—no, wait.  In truth Al is a neurotic louse, cheating on his wife with urban Marianna (Gloria Grahame).  But does this make him a murderer?

Director Jerry Hopper‘s potboiler is a fierce ferret of a movie, adapted from a story called “Cry Copper.”  It leaps from reasonable, anti-injustice compassion to a pro-justice bubbling swirl.  There is scary agitation from Barry.  Grahame, in yet another film noir, is mesmerizing because of her demotic beauty and voice, not her acting.

The 1954 Naked Alibi centers on some shabby police work which turns out not to be so shabby.  Chief Joe Conroy (Sterling Hayden) strongly believes that Gene Barry‘s Al is the murderer of three police officers.  However, Al is a family man who—no, wait.  In truth Al is a neurotic louse, cheating on his wife with urban Marianna (Gloria Grahame).  But does this make him a murderer?

Director Jerry Hopper‘s potboiler is a fierce ferret of a movie, adapted from a story called “Cry Copper.”  It leaps from reasonable, anti-injustice compassion to a pro-justice bubbling swirl.  There is scary agitation from Barry.  Grahame, in yet another film noir, is mesmerizing because of her demotic beauty and voice, not her acting.

If you have Netflix, you might want to check out episodes of the old Twilight Zone series, by Rod Serling, from the first four seasons.  Many disappointments crop up, yes, but many virtues are there too.

Among the disappointments, in the Serling-written “Nightmare as a Child,” for a woman (Janice Rule) to conjure herself as a little girl, the child she used to be, in order to revive unsettling memories is too blatant an invention.  Serling does better in “The Hitch-Hiker,” in which Nan (Inger Stevens), driving cross-country, espies the same male hitchhiker everywhere she goes, and is terrified.  The story quickly suggests the subject of the violence of strangers against women (is there foul play in the offing?), but this is not what occurs.  Rather it is something more metaphysical.  The episode is neatly, grippingly directed by Alvin Ganzer.

As lovely as Rule and Stevens, Ann Francis stars in ‘The After Hours.”  Here, she is Marsha, a woman who seems normal but assuredly is not.  She buys at a department store a golden thimble she finds she must return, only to be told that the floor she bought it on does not exist.  Ah, but it does exist.  It could well represent the Other, the Incomprehensible, in cosmic and human experience.  Somehow Marsha herself represents this too.  The episode (like the other two, featured in the first season) is more sapidly weird than arch, with grounded acting by Francis and mildly chilling acting by a couple of others.

To be continued

If you have Netflix, you might want to check out episodes of the old Twilight Zone series, by Rod Serling, from the first four seasons.  Many disappointments crop up, yes, but many virtues are there too.

Among the disappointments, in the Serling-written “Nightmare as a Child,” for a woman (Janice Rule) to conjure herself as a little girl, the child she used to be, in order to revive unsettling memories is too blatant an invention.  Serling does better in “The Hitch-Hiker,” in which Nan (Inger Stevens), driving cross-country, espies the same male hitchhiker everywhere she goes, and is terrified.  The story quickly suggests the subject of the violence of strangers against women (is there foul play in the offing?), but this is not what occurs.  Rather it is something more metaphysical.  The episode is neatly, grippingly directed by Alvin Ganzer.

As lovely as Rule and Stevens, Ann Francis stars in ‘The After Hours.”  Here, she is Marsha, a woman who seems normal but assuredly is not.  She buys at a department store a golden thimble she finds she must return, only to be told that the floor she bought it on does not exist.  Ah, but it does exist.  It could well represent the Other, the Incomprehensible, in cosmic and human experience.  Somehow Marsha herself represents this too.  The episode (like the other two, featured in the first season) is more sapidly weird than arch, with grounded acting by Francis and mildly chilling acting by a couple of others.

To be continued

There are no moral—or therapeutic—messages in the 25-minute silent flick, Coney Island (1917).  Just hilarity.

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, starring here, also directed and did so with a proper sense of scope and an appreciation of space.  “Fatty,” on the beach, slips away from the wife who treats him like a child and begins to enjoy the delights of Coney Island.  The main delight he enjoys is the company of the pretty girl (Alice Mann) courted by Buster Keaton and later by goofy-looking Jimmy Bryant.  Keaton has two rivals now, and unyielding anger flows nearly to the flick’s finish.  One likable sight gag follows another.  There is a perfect economy to the whole thing, and the performers, positively including the women, are superb.