Fri 25 Jun 2010
Or, things that have occurred to me to say, later the same day as the preceding post.
● I’ve watched the movie To Catch a Thief one and a half times since David Vineyard reviewed both the book (by David Dodge) back about a month ago. The first time was upstairs on our small 24″ TV, which was OK, but when I started watching it again downstairs on our large screen with the commentary on, the difference was like night and day.
What a spectacular movie! The colors are magnificent, and the people — well, who could ever outshine Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in a movie together? The fireworks are what everybody remembers, but the first time she turns and gives him a kiss at her hotel room door, that was something else again. The stuff dreams are made of? You’d better believe it.
● After reviewing the 1937 movie made of H. Rider Haggard’s novel, King Solomon’s Mines, I soon afterward watched the one that came out in 1950. The later version starred Deborah Kerr, Stewart Granger and Richard Carlson, and was nominated for an Oscar as Best Picture of the Year.
It didn’t win the big one, but the film did pick up two Oscars anyway, one for Best Cinematography (Color), and one for Best Film Editing. The characters were shuffled around some from both the book and the earlier film, leaving Richard Carlson with not much to do, but the photography, as the small safari made its way further and further into unknown bush country, was once again spectacular, if I may use the word again. The plot is fairly simple, and some people leaving comments on IMDB complain about the slow pace, but that’s only to be expected after Indiana Jones has come and gone.
● Looking back over the past month, I see that I’ve read only two books, one a science fiction novel by Alan Dean Foster entitled Quofum. I thought it was a stand-alone, and in a sense it is, but it’s also Book 8 in the author’s “Humanx Commonwealth” series
And as such, while tremendously inventive in itself — a strange planet is discovered with an unbelievable abundance of strange fauna and flora, plus many incompatible forms of intelligent life within miles of each other — it’s also spinning its wheels in anticipation of the next book to come along — a fact the reader (me) doesn’t realize until the book is over, only to discover the story’s not finished.
● The other book I read this June perhaps ought to have its own post, but since I never got around to writing the review, I think this is all the space it’s going to get. After tackling and mostly enjoying One Shot by Lee Child, the first “Jack Reacher” adventure I’ve read, but #9 in the series, I tried another.
This one was Nothing to Lose, which is #12 out of fifteen Reacher books, so far. The reason it took me all month to read it, or one of them, is that it’s 544 pages long. But another reason is that after a great opening setup — two adjoining towns in Colorado connected by a single highway, one called Hope, the other Despair — most of the 544 are not necessary. I think the technical name for this is “padding.” Lots of repetitious action, in other words, plus the female chief police officer of Hope has personal problems that Reacher of course takes on as his own.
What I really found amusing — I think that’s the technical term — is that this book has gotten a terrific panning by the reviewers on Amazon. Some 169 reviews, out of 420, have given it only one star. A typical comment goes something like this. Well, to be truthful, it goes exactly like this:
“I found it impossible to buy into the far-fetched ‘conspiracy theory’ with its pathetic ‘villains’ and was surprised at Child’s foray into political opinion (putting his opinions into Reacher’s mouth — which completely changed Reacher’s character). This was totally out of place, I thought, and awkward at best.”
Turns out that the main villain is a born-again Christian with delusions of grandeur, and that Child’s foray into political opinion are some statements that come up relating to the war in Iraq.
In any case, it looks like I’ve just reviewed the book after all.
● I think I’ve reviewed here all of the movies I’ve watched in June, except for the last two, which will be posted soon. I shall have to start forcing myself to take some time for reading, else I shall be falling even more behind. Otherwise I have been making my way through various TV shows on DVD in box sets, which I seldom report on here.
To fill in that particular gap, though, at least in a small way, here are the ones I’m currently watching: Stargate Atlantis, the final season; Vega$, the one with Robert Urich, the first season; The Professionals, a 1970s British series about the fictional adventures of CI5, a high-powered governmental agency that handles security issues inside the country; NCIS, the first season; and Have Gun, Will Travel, also the first season.
● Tomorrow marks the 3.5th anniversary of this blog, which I believe has finally found its niche. It’s taken a while, having had no goals in mind to begin with, but the current mix of old and new reviews seems to be working. I don’t think many people celebrate their 3.5th anniversaries, and I probably won’t do anything out of the ordinary, but since it just occurred to me that that’s what it will be, I thought I might mention it.
June 26th, 2010 at 1:30 am
With the possible exception of the darker NOTORIOUS this is the most sexually suggestive of Hitchcock’s films from that kiss you mention, to the seduction/picnic (“Breast?”) in Kelly’s sports car on the Grand Corniche, to the scene where Kelly and Brigite Auber compare relative anatomy on the swimming platform with an increasingly embarrassed Grant, to that famous fireworks scene where Kelly is clearly offering more than jewels to Grant …
There is some of this in most of the Hitchcock films of the period, but here it is playful and great fun, and played perfectly by Grant who is both a bit bemused by, weary of, and clearly attracted to these sexually aggressive women.
Notice too that his reaction is very cat like — whenever he is cornered or effectively being ‘petted’ he is clearly thinking in escape mode. It’s a canny touch played very subtly throughout the film and emphasizing just how much his character still is Le Chat even in retirement — right down to that double take when Kelly remarks how much her mother will love his villa … He’s a feral feline, not a domestic one.
It’s a nice touch that Grant’s role, though undoubtedly masculine, is a reversal of the usual Hollywood staple of the male in pursuit of the female — here is the sexual object caught between two intelligent and sexually confident women (that’s evident in the book too).
To the films basic suspense it adds a tart bit of sexual tension I found a thousand times more erotic than some much more explicit films both from then and now, adult in a way that most films seldom are in that it neither giggles nor snickers at sex.
I suppose the great 1950 KING SOLOMON’S MINES is ‘slow’ compared with today’s hyperactive films — I guess GUNS OF NAVARONE, WHERE EAGLES DARE, and NORTHWEST FRONTIER are slow too in that sense — of course I consider it to be character development and pace. I enjoy many of today’s frenetic films, but where something like the recent KNIGHT AND DAY falls down in comparison is that development of characters you care about and believe in.
I’m sure the seduction between Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr, and her symbolic strip tease as the safari proceeds goes completely beyond most of today’s film goers who probably think those gorgeous live shots of animals and the African veldt are CGI.
Audiences today know how to look at films, but I wonder how many of them know how to ‘read’ a film for those things that are there, but not explicitly spelled out. It sometimes feels as if the only films with brains and heart today are computer animated films like TOY STORY III and UP.
June 26th, 2010 at 9:39 am
Steve – Happy three-and-a-half! May the Mystery*File weblog last at least another thirty-five-and-a-half.
June 26th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Back in the 50s, the attitude of the studios was that their average big-budget films were targeted towards an adult audience. Children could watch them, but it was probably thought that they would miss the deeper and more subtle threads running through the picture. TO CATCH A THIEF is dripping with sex, but it comes across in the dialogue, performance and direction rather than in acres of naked flesh. Kelly is sexy in a way that you simply don’t see on screen very much anymore.
The loss of this sort of subtlety is probably due to the dive in the average age of audiences going to movie theatres. Most viewers are probably between 14 and 18 years of age and male. Not only will they go back and watch the film again and again, they will buy the merchandise and be swayed by the product placement. The movies are targeted towards that sort of audience, who are alternately fascinated and terrified by sex (hence all of the smirking and giggling). Sadly, the fetishising of youth means that rather than kids aspiring to be adults, adults aspire to be kids. The sort of culture this creates can be seen all around us. As well as being good looking, Grant and Kelly are icons of a certain sort of style. They can move easily through any sort of social situation with ease. They’re grown-ups. Grant wears beaten up old shirts and tuxedoes without looking out of sorts. How many young stars could manage that, I wonder?
As regards pace: the same problems arise. When pictures are designed to appeal to viewers with short attention spans, any sense of pacing your movie goes out of the window. I saw the early Bond movie FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE recently, and was struck with the scene where Bond is at the mercy of Robert Shaw’s psycopathic hit-man. In the course of six minutes, Connery has the plot explained to him piece by piece, whilst his opponent smirkingly explains how unpleasant he is going to make his imminent death. It’s a very long and static scene, with no music and almost the only movement being the motion of the train. It climaxes with a really brutal, 90 second fight sequence. The explosion of action is made all the more effective because the film-makers had the guts to hold back the action and make you wait. I’ll bet that six, apparently dead minutes, would be an anathema to movie-makers nowadays.
PS. In TO CATCH A THIEF, isn’t Kelly’s predatory female, playing with Grant when she’s got him where she wants him, also rather cat-like. By the end, you do feel that they are extremely well suited.
PPS Steve: Good luck with THE PROFESSIONALS. I loved it as a teenager, waaaaaay back in the early 80s. Returning to it now, some of it is now unintentionally funny, but overall it is a very good show. Stories like DISCOVERED IN A GRAVEYARD, where one of the two regulars wanders through a bizarre limbo after being seriously wounded, or MIXED DOUBLES (where the two heroes are shown alongside two hitmen, and are seen to be scarily similar in outlook), make some of the dafter episodes worthwhile. And prepare for a double-take in WHERE THE JUNGLE ENDS, when David Suchet suddenly turns up as a brutal foreign mercenary!
June 26th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
In tomorrow’s New York Times, the Arts & Leisure section, A. O. Scott is quoted as saying “The bigger the explosion, the duller the film.”
Mentioned as examples on either side of the equilibrium point are KNIGHT AND DAY, JAWS, BEN HUR and RESTREPO.
June 26th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Bradstreet
THE PROFESSIONALS was on from 1977-1983, so when I said 1970s and you mentioned early 80s, we’re both right. I’m on season three right now — I have a complete box set of all six years — and of the particular episodes you mention, I’ve seen only the one with David Suchet.
As you say, quite a shocker to see in a role a long long way from Hercule Poirot!
The series is uneven, as you say, and it’s also one of those in which if either of the two younger stars gets a girl friend, it’s somehow just not going to work out. Not they they end up dying on them, as in other series, but as I say, things happen and they’re never seen again.
In any case, it’s another example of why everyone reading this needs a multi-region player. I doubt that there’ll be a version made for the US any time soon.
But I could be wrong!
June 26th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
THE PROFESSIONALS was made during that TV era when film series were designed to be shown in any darned order that the station wanted, hence the lack of continuity. Now that any telly character worth his salt undergoes a ‘story arc’ at least once per season, it does feel rather weird in comparison. They’re really not lucky with females,are they? (In the infamous Keith Allen parody THE BULLS****ERS, it was suggested that the reason that the two can’t keep a girlfriend is that they are far more interested in each other…)
I’m not really surprised that it’s never really taken off in the USA. It doesn’t have the fantastic elements of THE AVENGERS, and strangely it feels much more ‘period’ than THE NEW AVENGERS, which it replaced. TNA often undercut the elements of machismo which abound in THE PROFESSIONALS, which makes it a much more modern feeling series. Personally, I love the “timewarp” feel that I get from watching the show nowadays, and there are some splendid episodes from writers like Edmund Ward (A NOT SO CIVIL CIVIL SERVANT-who would have thought that a script about corruption in the building trade could work so well?
June 27th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Re HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, it has been thirty years since I saw most of them, but the episodes I recall best (and I don’t know what seasons they are from) are the Don Quixote episode, the one where Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg (Patric Knowles) hires Paladin on the American part of his journey, the one where Paladin is hired to umpire a baseball game, and my personal favorite where a pair of ‘gentlemen’ hire Paladin and James Coburn to fight a proxy duel. Funny how some of these old shows stick in your memory.
January 8th, 2015 at 11:54 pm
The demographic shift to younger audiences in combination with Spielberg’s ‘blockbuster’ distributing and Lucas’ mining old adventure serials is what gives us the infantile audience of today. That’s pretty well established. Add-in a little assist from the ‘Heaven’s Gate’ fiasco which put the kabosh on adult, arthouse films from Hollywood. Cretinous low-lifes Tarantino and Cameron came along later and compound the problem; taking their heels and grinding all maturity completely out of Hollywood movie-making. Money talks, and those revenues shut everyone up for good. Pacing? Everything today is “hero’s journey” or nothing. The screenwriting industry is welded to the three-part hero structure.
Characters-to-care-for? Nope. This is the new era of ‘concept films’ where adult human characters –if even present–are mere stereotypes, foils for mega-action. They’re not acting or performing; really just there to provide counterpoint for robotic battles which is the true ‘star’ of the movie.
That ’63 James Bond film looks more and more stunning the more time goes by. The train compartment scene is perhaps the single most potent, explosive scene in the whole franchise. It seeps with tension and foreboding. And it occurs about 3/4th of the way through the flick, not at the end. Extraordinary! Unheard of! Mano a mano battle, in the middle of the movie. How’d they do it?
Poignant, succinct, dramatically-discrete, single-story, standalone films which don’t lend themselves to serialization? Long gone.
I have no respect for today’s kiddie audiences. They bring their cell phones right along with them to their theater seats and effectively, never leave the ‘media cocoons’ that envelop them all the rest of the day. When the movie flags, they turn to their phone.
p.s. ‘To Catch a Thief’ sexuality..nice dissection (above). But for my money its ‘Frenzy’ which is Hitch at his most lascivious…