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The Old Masterpiece, “Mutiny On The Bounty” (1935)

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On April 4, 2014

In General, Movies

Cropped screenshot of Charles Laughton from th...

Cropped screenshot of Charles Laughton from the trailer for the film Mutiny on the Bounty. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve never read Mutiny on the Bounty, but the ’35 film version, for all the sappy-silly Tahiti material, seems a well-made and even felt adaptation.

Captain Bligh is an expert seaman but also a mean fool, wanting only to impose his ruthless will.  Charles Laughton plays him with astonishing aplomb, frighteningly. . . Second in command Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable) simply refuses to have men at Bligh’s mercy any longer, uncondonable though some of the Bounty’s sailors find the mutiny.  Incontestable here is an urgent need for the liberalization of the English navy, with the navy itself seen as utterly honorable and necessary by the filmmakers.  It becomes almost palpable that the film is liberal—though certifiably separate from today’s liberalism—because it is conservative.  It wants what is best for a timeless institution.

A great deal goes on in Mutiny on the Bounty, which is two hours and ten minutes long.  Frank Lloyd directed with a fine sense of seafaring adventure and of grandeur.  It is, I think, a masterpiece.

 

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If It Must, It Must: “Night Must Fall,” From 1937

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On March 14, 2014

In Movies

Night Must Fall (1937 film)

Night Must Fall (1937 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 1937, what I assume to be a suspenseful play by Emlyn Williams became a suspenseful motion picture.  I mean Night Must Fall, superbly directed for the screen by Richard Thorpe and featuring crisp and clever acting from Robert Montgomery, Dame May Whitty and Rosalind Russell. 

In it, an extroverted page boy (Montgomery) wins the heart of, and is hired to work for, a nasty old woman and pseudo-invalid (Dame Whitty) who is daily disappointed by the ministrations of her live-in niece (Russell).  The page boy is sexually attracted to the niece and she to him, except that a news report of a missing girl in this English vicinity induces the niece to suspect that the page boy is in reality a Jack the Ripper.  Of course this leaves her cold but also fascinates her.  In fact both characters are eccentrics, one of them creepy and the other, the niece, repressed.  The latter makes the claim, in effect, that the page boy has taken away her reason.

Night Must Fall is about a world of ordinary petty spite (the old woman’s) and ordinary vulnerabilities when it confronts a devilish phenomenon.  It has to do with when there arises a perversion greater than your own—greater, that is, than the old woman’s, but also greater than the niece’s temporary perversion when she loses her “reason.”  Moreover, it is about the mystery of human motives.  It is a thriller about terror, made by Thorpe with an eye for cinematics.

A Middle-Ager In “Love”: “Gloria”

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On March 12, 2014

In Movies

MV5BMzI1NjgxNDM3N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMTI4MDI1MDE@._V1_SY317_CR0,0,214,317_The excellent Chilean film Gloria (2014), by Sebastian Lelio, concerns a woman in her (late?) 50s who desires a man, acquires one, and then suffers because of his curious behavior.  Intercourse takes place right away, followed by pleasurable hanging-out, followed by the overcautiousness and divided attention of Rodolfo, the near-elderly “boyfriend.”  For Gloria, the heroine, a mini-disintegration goes on, and her conduct is sometimes repellent.  When a reasonably strong person is agonized is a concern here, and the simple uplift at the film’s end amounts to very little.  But it is there.

The picture is like an extended artistic short story, with enticing cinematics (everything from the cinematography to the white peacock).  The middle-aged nudity is ugly, though; Gloria does the full frontal.  In truth, this is part of the evidence that actress Paula Garcia (Gloria) goes the whole nine yards for her stellar role, but I wish Lelio had not required her to go that far.

She does an extraordinary job of acting, however—now amiable, now solemnly bitter—and Sergio Hernandez is unbeatable as sheepish, unthinking Rodolfo.

(In Spanish with English subtitles)

Frank Capra’s “American Madness” Is A Gem

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On March 9, 2014

In Movies

American Madness

American Madness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tom Dickson (Walter Huston) is a bank president who nobly considers depositors his friends and is unconcerned about profit.  Though serious about banking, he is the most humane of businessmen—and the hero of Frank Capra’s Depression-inspired film, American Madness (1932).

The madness of the title is a foolish run on Dickson’s bank by depositors terrified by a big loss of money owing to an embezzler named Cluett (Gavin Gordon).  Dilemmas befall the bank president:  he begins to fear losing both the bank and, as it happens, his marriage.

Hollow optimism about human nature—Capra’s familiar trait—finally springs up in the film, and there is an inconsistent tone (which is why Madness is a semi-comedy).  Yet Robert Riskin’s script is a pretty effective character study, not incisive but humanly appealing.  Too, it’s beguilingly smart, filmed by a dedicated and likable craftsman who worked well with his actors.

Sympathy For The Naughty Kennedys – “The Kennedys” Miniseries

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On March 6, 2014

In General, Movies

Français : Logo de la minisérie THE KENNEDYS. ...

Français : Logo de la minisérie THE KENNEDYS. Français : Logo de la minisérie THE KENNEDYS. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To me, one of the best “movies,” if you will, of 2011 aired on TV and was eight hours long (eight episodes long).  It was The Kennedys, a docudrama not entirely free of blandness but also workmanlike and discerning.

Greg Kinnear is good as JFK, Tom Wilkinson terrific as Joe Kennedy Sr. in all his corruption.  As the elegant Jackie, Katie Holmes looks the part but histrionically lacks conviction.  The show’s focus is always on the mark, with the Cuban missile crisis covered vividly and painstakingly.  An air of sympathy and compassion never goes away even as hagiography never intrudes.

The Kennedys is available on DVD.

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