LOVE’S LABOURS LOST. Miramax, 2000. Alessandro Nivola, Alicia Silverstone, Natascha Elhone, Kenneth Branagh, Carmen Ejogo, Matthew Lillard, Adrian Lester, Emily Mortimer, Richard Briers, Geraldine McEwan, Stefania Rocca, Jimmy Yuill, Nathan Lane, Timothy Spall, Anthony O’Donnell, Daniel Hill, and Richard Clifford. Presented by Martin Scorsese and Stanley Donen. Screenplay and directed by Kenneth Branagh. Available for rent on Amazon and Apple TV.

   And now I must face an internal struggle between propriety and ease; should I slight your smarts by adding that this is based on the play by William Shakespeare (sorta) which I’m sure everyone here knows? or say nothing and perhaps be taken to task for slighting Shakespeare himself?

   My critical reputation could be at stake here, if I had any. What shall I do? Please send your comments and suggestions to Steve, as I can’t be bothered with them.

   At any rate, this is the movie that stalled out Kenneth Branagh’s career and didn’t do Shakespeare any good, either. I’ve always thought of it as a thin slice of Sheer Genius: a tribute to old musicals, the Bard, clowns, and Casablanca.

   What serves for a plot is set in or around the mid-1930s, in the Kingdom of Navarre, a largely fictitious pocket monarchy, where the King secludes himself and a few friends in a program of monastic study, just as Hitler is sweeping across Europe gobbling up nations and peoples like they was salt peanuts — a device cleverly tacked on by Branagh himself, conveyed in mock-newsreel footage (rather than mock-Shakesperean dialogue) to lend a sense of movement and urgency to a paper-thin story.

   Because as you might have expected, Love comes pounding on the castle moat when four total babe princesses come a-callin’, ostensibly and sensibly to negotiate some sort of treaty with the King of France, but actually to sing & dance.

   I’ll admit it comes as a bit of a shock when the players suddenly shuck their Elizabethan prose for the lyrics of Gershwin, Berlin and Cole Porter, but I think Branagh carried it off wonderfully. The numbers are well-chosen, boldly imagined, and presented with enthusiasm that almost-but-not-quite makes up for the amateurish status of the performers.

   In fact, Branagh covers rather well for the deficit of terpsichorean talent in his cast with deft camera trickery. Not the enervating step-cut-step editing of Chicago, where the camera does all the dancing, but cleverly coordinated set-up and follow-through moves of camera and dancer that combine to impart grace and harmony to actors who sing like Astaire and dance like Crosby.

   In case you’re not familiar with the story of Love’s Labours Lost,  I won’t spoil it for you. Much. I’ll just say that a sudden reversal late in the game sends the whole thing spinning off in an unexpected direction. And Branagh swings the bat and hits a touchdown. Or scores a strike. Or whatever it is they call it in Polo.

   I joke, but in fact, Branagh provides us with one of the most moving endings I’ve ever seen on film. Fast-moving, poignant, and suffused with Romance — or perhaps it’s Love. An incredible montage of images that carry the Bard’s tale to a surprising and hugely satisfying conclusion.

   Which did no good at all. LLL was what is usually and charitably called a Box-Office Disaster, though possibly stronger terms are called for here. Statistically speaking, the movie-going public stayed away at a rate of 97% plus-or-minus 6% — which means that this film might have been shunned by movie-goers either dead or not born yet. Branagh had a three-picture deal going here, but the studio lawyers must have decided it’d be cheaper to be sued than make another movie like this.

   Of course, I really really like Love’s Labours Lost, and once again I find myself waiting for Fashion to catch up with me.

THE FALLEN SPARROW. RKO Radio Pictures, 1943. John Garfield, Maureen O’Hara, Walter Slezak, Patricia Morison. Based on the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes. Director: Richard Wallace.

   John Garfield stars as a former prisoner in the Spanish Civil War, now investigating the murder of a friend on the police force – the same one who helped arrange his escape from Spain (about which he finds he still has more to learn).

   This was the age of Nazis and war-torn Europe, and the tone of the movie follows suit. Slezak is immediately suspicious as a refugee well-versed in matters of torture, but Maureen O’Hara’s role as the granddaughter of a deposed prince in a bit more puzzling.

QUEENS LOGIC. 7Arts, 1991. Kevin Bacon, Linda Fiorentino, John Malkovich, Joe Mantegna, Ken Olin, Tony Spiridakis, Tom Waits, Chloe Webb and Jamie Lee Curtis. Written by Tony Spiridakis and Joseph W. Savino. Directed by Steve Rash.

   A perfectly ordinary film, but done with such sheer panache that I found myself charmed by the players and involved with the characters.

   “Panache” is perhaps a charitable way of describing the overall attitude here. The Italianate natives are uniformly portrayed as volatile, immature, and borderline violent. Their language is crude, civility sporadic, and faithfulness a matter of convenience. And that’s just the nuns.

   Sorry, just kidding. But I really have to warn prospective viewers about the ethnic stereotyping here. I found the characters sympathetic and amusing, but those closer to the milieu may justifiably see the broad brushstrokes as ethnic denigration. Viewer beware.

   The main threads of the plot involve a self-described Fishmonger whose wife literally throws him out of the house on their anniversary. He remembered the date, he remembered the gift, but he stopped off for a drink with the boys on his way home to take her out for Dinner and lost track of time — for several hours! This thread gets counterwoven (Hey, I invented a word there!) with another about an artist who gets the proverbial cooling tootsies as the day approaches for him to marry the Fishmonger’s sister.

   They’ve made plenty of movies with one or the other of these elements, but this one does the weaving so adroitly, I was barely aware of any plot structure at all; everything just seemed to be happening. Happening to a likeable and genuinely funny ensemble that includes Malkovich as a gay man who can’t relate to gay men, Waits as a spaced-out jewel hustler, and Curtis as a sincerely daft dowager with a dangerously innovative approach to problem-solving.

   I could go on: Bacon as a local boy returning after a stint in Hollywood, Fiorentino as a Wife and Mother that don’t take nothin’ from nobody….

   And it occurs to me now that when you talk about the characters here, you’re talking about the plot. Because in this instance, the plot is all about these people bouncing off each other, much as we do in what is sometimes called Day to Day Living. The artistry here is in making something so cohesive and consistently funny out of anything as messy as Real Life.

DINNER RUSH. Access Motion Picture Group, US, 2001. Danny Aiello, John Rothman, Frank Bongiorno, Lexie Sperduto, Zainab Jah, Alex Corrado. Director: Bob Giraldi.

   Dinner Rush isn’t your typical Hollywood fare; in fact, this independent feature is fairly unorthodox in its style and presentation. Set almost exclusively over the course of one night at a trendy downtown Italian restaurant in Manhattan, the movie follows a coterie of employees and customers as they navigate a series of challenges.

   Central to the story is the chef’s father and restaurant owner, bookmaker Louis Cropa (Danny Aiello). Cropa, after years of taking bets, wants out of the illicit trade. But it’s not going to be so easy. Not only does he have to look after Duncan (Kirk Acevedo), restaurant’s sous-chef and a compulsive gambler who’s up to his neck in debt. He also has to face down a squeeze play by two Queens mobsters who have shown up at his restaurant for the evening.

   Bookmarking the film are two killings, one at the very beginning when Cropa’s partner is murdered and a second one at the end, when the entire point of the evening is finally revealed. In between, the viewer is treated to both the petty dramas that unfold in a high-stakes kitchen and to an almost anthropological study of the types of patrons who frequent expensive, well-reviewed eateries. As I said, unorthodox.

   The film benefits tremendously from a very talented cast, including Mark Margolis (Breaking Bad) as an art critic; Walt MacPherson (Homicide: Life on the Street) as a detective; and Summer Phoenix as a waitress whose art adorns the wall of the restaurant.

   Even though there were times when I questioned what exactly it was I was watching, overall I enjoyed this one a lot. It’s different, to be sure and reminded me to some extent of David Mamet’s work.

THE TRIAL. Astor Pictures Corporation, France, 1962, as Le procès. Astor Pictures Corporation, US, 1963. Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Akim Tamiroff, Orson Welles. Based on the novel by Franz Kafka. Written and directed by Orson Welles.

   Anthony Perkins (in a post-Psycho role) portrays Josef K. or just K. in Orson Welles’s cinematic adaptation of Frank Kafka’s novel, Der Prozess. K. is a mild mannered clerk. He is somewhat neurotic, but not overtly so. One day, out of the clear blue sky, two government agents – police – arrive in his apartment at dawn and notify him that he’s been arrested.

   His crime? They won’t say. In fact, throughout the running time of the entire film, neither K., nor the viewer, will learn what it is that K. has been accused of. As such, the movie becomes a parable about a singular man – an “everyman” – facing impossible odds in a cold, bureaucratic state that deems him as an enemy for reasons never revealed.

   Filmed in a stunning black & white that relies heavily on elements of both German Expressionism and film noir, this paranoid, nightmarish thriller is a Welles creation through and through. Not only did Welles write and direct the work, he also starred in it as Albert Hastler or The Advocate. An obese man with health issues, The Advocate is a womanizer and a scoundrel. He is supposed to be taking K.’s side in the proceedings, but seems little interested in justice and far more in power for power’s sake.

   During his nightmarish journey, K. encounters an array of oddball characters, including his nightclub-dancing neighbor (Jeanne Moreau) and The Advocate’s assistant/sometime lover, Leni (Romy Schneider).

   In many ways, however, the people he meets seem less important than the places where he meets them. The set design and on location settings are spectacularly haunting; there is simply no way to adequately verbally describe what must be seen. What must be felt. The German Expressionist influence here can’t be overstated.

   Despite its downbeat mood, I enjoyed watching The Trial immensely. Sometimes scenes don’t work at all. But that’s okay. It’s a bold work of film-making and deserves your attention. Perkins was perfectly cast here.

SHOPWORN. Columbia, 1932. Barbara Stanwyck, Regis Toomey, Zasu Pitts. Director: Nick Grinde.

   In this Columbia pre-Code romantic drama, Barbara Stanwyck portrays Kitty Lane, a waitress who falls in love with David Livingston, an upper crust university student (Regis Toomey). The latter’s overbearing mother disapproves, to put it mildly. To separate the lovebirds, her friend, a prominent judge, creates a bogus charge against Kitty, alleging a public morals violation.

   That gets Kitty  sent to a women’s reformatory. After she gets out, however, she doesn’t return to her humble job at the diner. Instead, she becomes a world famous showgirl. Years later, David (Toomey) shows up at her doorstep. He’s still madly in love with her. But his mother, who now owns a gun, is still adamantly opposed to having Kitty as her daughter-in-law.

   Truth be told, there’s not a whole lot to recommend about Shopworn. It’s not that the movie is completely abysmal or anything like that; it’s just rather tedious with a color by numbers type of script that gives the viewer the bare minimum of drama and conflict but nothing more. It’s anemic.

   Overall assessment: Stanwyck takes her role seriously, but the overall product remains something of a dud.

PROFESSIONAL SOLDIER. 20th Century Fox, 1935. Victor McLaglen, Freddie Bartholomew, Gloria Stuart, Michael Whalen, C. Henry Gordon Based on the story “Gentlemen, the King,” by Damon Runyon. Directed by Tay Garnett.

   Well done mix of adventure, sentiment, and comedy finds ex-Marine Colonel Michael Donovan (Victor McLaglen) at the nadir of his career as a soldier of fortune around the world, from Siam to Nicaragua, playing bodyguard to American playboy George Foster (Michael Whalen) in Paris. After rescuing Foster from his own profligate ways in a comic Paris night club brawl, Donovan dumps the unconscious playboy at their hotel room, where two men show up with a proposition.

   It seems one of those comic opera kingdoms so popular in the era in the Ruritania/Graustark mode need Donovan to kidnap their popular king so they can carry off their revolution (“We are not Bolsheviks or National Socialists…”) and then return the king to his throne once the crooks who have control of the country are gone. Donovan is a little disappointed he won’t be leading the army in the revolution, or at least assassinating the king, but the money offered is $50,000 and even covers hospitalization.

   So we are off to the comic opera land of castles and intrigue where Donovan and Foster kidnap the monarch only to discover his majesty King Peter II is a child (Freddie Bartholomew). Forced to also kidnap Countess Sonia (Gloria Stuart), who Foster flirted with at a costume ball they attended to get the lay of the land, they successfully make off with the King while Gino (C. Henry Gordon), leader of the military junta that holds power, desperately seeks them.

   As you might guess from Damon Runyon’s name in the credits Donovan and Foster were originally a pair of Chicago gangsters in the story, and the screenplay refers to that with King Peter initially thinks they are just that, and that Donovan might be Dillinger. Peter is absolutely thrilled at the idea of being kidnapped and having an adventure rather than the dull old life of a king, even a young one.

   This would make an interesting double feature with My Pal The King, in which cowboy Tom Mix and his traveling Wild West show help King Mickey Rooney stay in power in yet another Ruriatanian setting.

   There are no surprises here. Donovan is crazy about the kid who proves game (he calls the boy “Campaigner” and the boy calls him “Soldier”) and Foster and Countess Sonia fall in love. The bloodless revolution succeeds, and everything seems to be going fine until a camp of Romany peoples camped near the place they are hiding Peter inform Gino of their whereabouts, and in short order McLaglen and Foster are captured, imprisoned and ordered to be executed despite the King proclaiming they are to be freed.

   Before being captured Donovan and Peter make a cross country escape trying to reach the palace and the leaders of the Revolution.

   It seems the King recognizes that the revolution was right and should be in power and plans to support it, and Gino can’t have that so he plans to execute the King by firing squad and blame the two Americans for his death.

   Luckily Sonia learns of the plan in time to free Donovan, but can he take on two hundred and fifty armed men with just Foster’s help until help can arrive?

   Well, maybe, because all along he has been telling some pretty tall tales about doing something just like that wielding an 88 pound Maxim machine gun in his arms (“You have to understand Irish-Americans can do some pretty uncanny things when they’re riled…”), and while no one quite believes him, including Peter, it’s the only chance King Peter has.

   Fast-paced and running under eighty minutes the film is handsomely decked out with costume balls, castles, and chalets in the mountains, while Tay Garnett keeps a tight hand on the reigns and McLaglen, the screenplay by Gene Fowler is snappy and finds a nice balance between the disparate elements of action, comedy, and sentiment, and McLaglen and Bartholomew have real chemistry together. Whether that was real or forced it works and is enough that the scenes between them are funny and charming rather than grating and annoying, and that is the difference between a film like this working or not.

   It plays like Adventure, Argosy, Blue Book, and Popular (one half expects Hope’s Rudolf Rassendayl, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barney Custer, and Joseph Louis Vance’s Terence O’Rourke to show up).

   Granted it also has about as much logic and realism as those too, but it makes up for that by never pretending for a minute to be anything than a rousing story well told, a tall tale for grown-ups.

   Tears are kept to a minimum and while there are a few misty eyes before the ending, they are appropriate to the rousing finale which ends as all good Ruritanian romances should. amid trumpets, fanfare, and in this case the Marine Hymn.

A CANTERBURY TALE. Archers, UK, 1944. Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Dennis Price, and John Sweet. Written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

   A true original, made by England’s premier filmmakers at the height of their genius. A wartime film infused with… well… not so much with patriotism as with a deeply-felt but unspoken love of a country and its people. Plus a hint of romance and a dollop of detection, played to perfection by a cast that radiates charm but never oozes with it.

   What mystery there is concerns a small-town villain known only as The Glue Man, who stalks young girls out late at night, sneaks up on them in the dark (this was the time of blitzkrieg and blackouts) and pours glue in their hair.

   Sounds like very little to hang a movie on, and in fact the filmmakers tip the audience off early on as to the identity of the sticky miscreant. And while the cast goes through the motions of detection and pursuit, the movie itself dawdles innocently on the quiet charm of simple folk rooted to the soil or uprooted by War.

   The principal roles are wonderfully played, But Powell and Pressburger take as much care over characters whose hour upon the screen is brief indeed — to wonderful effect!

   From a pugnacious Station Man unseen in the dark, to a beefy, pipe-puffing sergeant at a lecture, a garage owner, an organist at a cathedral…. We watch the stars play out the story against a background of characters who seem to be stars of their own movies in some alternative cinematic universe.

   This is, in short, a film you must not miss— Yes You: that guy out there peering at the screen. I’m talking to you, Buddy. Find this movie and watch it!
   

JUROR #2. Nicholas Hoult, Zoey Deutch, Megan Mieduch, Toni Collette, J. K. Simmons, Kiefer Sutherland. Director: Clint Eastwood.

   Juror #2 starts with a premise and then runs with it to the very end. Magazine writer and recovering alcoholic Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is called for jury duty in Savannah, Georgia. It doesn’t take him long, however, to realize that the defendant, former drug dealer James Michael Sythe (Gabriel Basso), is most certainly innocent, and that he himself was the accidental perpetrator of the crime in question.

   The state’s official version of events is that Sythe, after a public fight with his girlfriend (Francesca Eastwood), followed her down a dark, rainy two lane highway, bashed her head in, and dumped her in a ditch. What the state doesn’t know is that Kemp, juror number two, accidentally killed the victim that same night, thinking that he had hit a deer with his vehicle.

   That’s the set-up. What follows for the next ninety minutes or so is a taut courtroom drama and thriller that doesn’t waste a minute of your time. The viewer gets to witness not only the jury deliberations, with Kemp trying to bend the jury to his will, but also the contest between an ambitious prosecutor (Toni Collette) and the overworked public defender (Chris Messina), tasked with a thankless job.

   Filling out the cast are J.K. Simmons as a juror who turns out to be a retired police detective from the Midwest who has doubts about the case, Kiefer Sutherland as a lawyer who is also Kemp’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, and Zoey Deutch as Kemp’s pregnant wife who wants to believe that her husband is a good man. All three are excellent in their roles. One only wishes Simmons had a more prominent role. His character simply disappears after a while.

   Overall, a solid, comparatively apolitical work by director Clint Eastwood that doesn’t remotely dumb things down for a mass audience. It’s a mature, sophisticated film that is able to both appeal to both one’s emotions and intellect without being pretentious or preachy. It’s not flashy and there’s not a lot of action, but it’s worth your time.

VIRTUE. Columbia Pictures, 1932. Carole Lombard, Pat O’Brien, Mayo Methot, Jack La Rue, Shirley Grey, Ward Bond. Director: Edward Buzzell.

   A Columbia pre-Code production, Virtue is a well constructed romantic melodrama/crime film that doesn’t remotely feel dated. Directed by Edward Buzzell, who lent his tradecraft to both Marx Brothers films and musicals, the film stars Pat O’Brien and Carolyn Lombard as a working class New York City couple who run into their fare share of trouble after they get married at town hall.

   O’Brien portrays ambitious cab driver Jimmy Doyle who hopes to own his own gas station one day. Lombard portrays Mae, a prostitute who stays in the city despite a court order for her to leave town. Although Mae hopes to turn a new leaf and leave her old one behind, it’s only a matter of time before her past catches up with her.

   Doyle, for his part, is never quite able to reconcile with his wife’s past in the oldest profession. Mae, on the other hand, still isn’t able to shake off her former work associates and ends up being conned out of her money by Gert (Shirley Grey), another ex-prostitute. When Mae attempts to get money back from Gert, she ends up getting framed for murder by lowlife Toots (Jack La Rue).

   Just a fair warning: the crime aspect of the film really comes at the end of the movie, so it takes some patience to get there. But it’s worth the wait.

   The film also benefits from the presence of Ward Bond who portrays Doyle’s close friend. When I think of Bond, I tend to associate him with westerns (and for good reason), but here he portrays a fellow NYC cab driver. He doesn’t have a huge role, but his character is pivotal to how the crime/murder aspect of the plot is resolved.

   Overall assessment: an above average movie with great chemistry among the two leads.