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Kitty Foyle
Lady Chatterley
The Last King of Scotland
The Last Picture Show
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Kitty Foyle 1940 Sam Wood (RKO) 3.0 Ginger Rogers (AA) glowing, expressive, and compelling as white collar girl working in New York who is faced with a impossible romantic dilemma; Dennis Morgan as her wealthy Mainline, weak-willed, and inconsistent sometime husband; James Craig perhaps less inexpressive than usual as wimpy and patient doctor, who wants to help poor children in medical need and would like to marry Kitty; Ernest Cossart as classic Hollywood Irish father who can’t stop exclaiming ‘Judas Priest’; Gladys Cooper as stuffy if not completely unreasonable Mainline mom. Written by (the commie) Dalton Trumbo. Sort of soap opera set in New York and Philadelphia about the romantic entanglements of Ginger Rogers. The principal strength of the film is the stage presence and performance of Ginger Rogers; she may not have deserved the Academy Award for best actress, but the screen sparkles in all of her frequent close-ups; she is good-humored, a good soldier who doesn’t let disappointments get her down, pretty and compelling even if not beautiful; she wears an incredibly stylish succession of hats and clothes, always matched with a different hairstyle. All the other performances are good enough, even with the likes of Morgan and Craig. The film is well-directed and edited: it begins with Kitty in indecision, and then in a series of flashbacks each introduced by a clichéd snowman-in-a-ball transition, the script takes us through her teenage days into adulthood when she goes to work as a shop girl is a fashion store, and through the ins and outs of her amours with Morgan and Craig. Kitty’s head is turned by the rich, and she cannot resist a marriage proposal from the Mainline Wynn, but he periodically disappears and reappears, and she takes up at time with the reliable Craig, although never being able to forget Morgan (you know, true love). The script and characters sometimes defy credibility: Kitty just can’t seem to get enough of Morgan and she instantly drops competitors when he resurfaces after years; she gets pregnant with him (of course during the short period when they were married – gratia Code), but then the script knocks off the baby in childbirth, presumably to keep him from getting in the way of the “happily ever after” ending; nice guy Craig just seems to be there all the time to keep Kitty from getting bored when her true love is not around. At the end Morgan, Kitty is ready to run off with him to Buenos Aires (nirvana!) without benefit of matrimony (what would Mr. Breen say?), but the flashback reflections bring her to her senses, and in allusive dialogue with a doorman she announces her intention of marrying the good boy instead. A woman’s film about the problems of women: the point of view is that marriage is clearly the destiny of every woman; having a job might be a stop-gap until you find the right man; and of course you need to choose the right one.


Kwaidan 1964 Masaki Kobyashi (Japan) 3.0 Legendary four-part ghost movie that presumably sets the standard for Japanese ghost films for the past 40+ years. The first film ('The Black Hair') is perhaps the most compelling: a samurai chooses career over domestic bliss, and leaves his wife to serve a lord; he even marries an upper-class woman to advance; regret sets in and he returns to his presumably Penelope-like wife patiently waiting for him and weaving at the loom; when he lies down with her at night, shock sets in -- she turns into a desiccated cadaver and he follows suit while reeling in panic through the house; the director makes much use of the jilted woman's long, straight, shiny black hair, a trope that becomes very popular in subsequent Japanese horror films. The second, 'Woman in the Snow' is less arresting: in a raging snowstorm two woodcutters are approached by a beautiful yet pale and disturbing woman, who kills one of them, but because she finds the other attractive, she spares him on the condition that he tells no one about the experience; he later meets a modest, pert young woman whom he marries and with whom he engenders three children; one evening, for no particular reason, he reveals to her the forbidden experience, and since it turns out that his wife is the same as the original witch, she is very angry and unforgiving; however she does spare him and commands him to protect her children faithfully or else.... The third, "Hoichi the Earless", is the longest and memorable in many parts; Hoichi is a blind bard recalling Homer or the like who works in a Buddhist temple; through views of ancient paintings and hieratic-like reenactments the viewer is introduced to an ancient naval disaster in which all the losing side lose their lives in the blood-tinged waves; Hoichi is visited by an imposing samurai warrior who invites him to perform telling the story of the battle to the assembled ghost court, which he does in a cemetery transformed into a court setting by the director; when the temple employees try to protect him against further visits by covering him with sacred Japanese writing, they forget to cover his ears; the rage of the samurai is then visited upon Hoichi by ripping off his ears in a length, and fairly grisly scene; the punishment however seems to backfire, since the fame of Hoichi spreads and real live nobles come to him asking for his performance, earless and all; he then becomes rich. The last, "In a Cup of Tea', is the slightest and shortest: a samurai keeps seeing the image of a younger man in cups of water and cups of tea that he consumes; since he slashes with his dagger at the ghost-man when he appears to him, he is visited by three of his retainers, who taunt him but whom he is unable to touch; the story ends with the film asking us how we would finish the story.... While often interesting and beautiful, the viewer’s mind often wanders. Dividing the film into four unrelated parts undermines the dramatic intensity of the film. It has a rather frozen, hieratic character that subtracts from dramatic intensity and virtually eliminates horror frissons: the background of 'Hoichi" are obviously painted sets with images of the moon and the sun (?) that look more like stylized eyes; three of the four ghost stories have more or less happy -- or at least open -- endings; the pace of the narratives is usually painfully slow; we are expected to appreciate the beauty of the painstakingly designed mise-en-scene as a compensation. There can be no doubt that the mise-en-scene and cinematography are lovely -- one need only think of the meticulously and sensitively photographed shots of the ceramic cups in the last segment. Also interesting are the references to Homer -- Penelope and the bard singing about heroic deeds. Lacks dramatic punch, but aesthetically memorable.


Lady Chatterley 2006 Pascale Ferran (France) 2.5 Marina Hands (Lady Chatterley) as pretty, apparently reserved wife of wealthy mine owner (Hippolyte Girardot as the complaisant husband) living in rural England in the 1920s; Jean-Louis Coullo’ch as taurine garde-chasse, Parkin, living by himself on the estate. Women’s version of the D.H. Lawrence story based on the second of three treatments by the author; this version emphasizes the beauties of sylvan nature surrounding Coullo’ch’s hut, the lyrical aspects of sex between a man and a woman; and it has the two eventually falling in love after several couplings and vowing in the end – by which time Hands is with child – that they will live together sometime in the future. Girardot is paralyzed from the waist down and impotent from world war wounds, and Hands, who is restless and yearning for motherhood and sexual-romantic connection, happens upon a half-naked Coullo’ch washing up outside his hut; the encounter occasions Hands to admire herself naked in the mirror and then seduce the gamekeeper in a series of sexual trysts: most of them are outside, rather quick, and not leading to orgasm for Hands, but when she finally agrees to spend the night with him, they undress in each other’s presence and behave like true lovers. Much of the movie shows rustling leaves and waving grasses as the lovers walk through the unkempt woods and fields with birds singing and chirping overhead. Hands always takes the initiative with Coullo’ch following often with a light reluctance. The Lawrence ideology of the artificiality of English civilization and the naturalness of sex in union with nature – the sexual juices rising and flowing like the sap of the trees – obviously drives Hands in her quest; Coull’och seems to act more reluctantly driven by a romantic disappointment with his wife, whom he refuses to talk about. Class complicates the relationship, since true friendship between the gentle and the laboring classes is very difficult in England due to social and cultural differences; but the class issues seem less apparent in the film since, being spoken in French, the two lovers do not speak in distinct accents like they would if they were speaking in English. Despite the numerous sexual encounters, the film moves slowly. The sex scenes focus on the facial reactions of the couple with only a few Lawrencian sexual remarks (“your penis is so small now, like a little bud!”). The most interesting part of the film are two conversations: one in which Hands’ husband indicates that he would accept as his own a child fathered by another man with Hands; and another at the very end of the film in which the two lovers declare their unending attachment to one another and their intention eventually to live together when Hands gets tired of living with her husband and decides to leave him (they seem happy enough to be apart for the time being). The film’s style is low-key and undramatic: no scenery-chewing, and matter-of-fact ending of scenes with a simple fade-out. Please, no more Chatterley films.


The Lady Eve 1941 Preston Sturges; Paramount 4.0 Henry Fonda as naïve, absent-minded and clumsy scion of rich industrialist family interested mostly in snakes but dressed in high-fashion impeccable suits; Barbara Stanwyck lively and radiant as younger of con card sharp duo (daughter of Coburn) trying to bilk Fonda for some money on board ship but then complicating the situation by falling in love with him; Charles Coburn as her father and partner in crime; the gravel voiced Eugene Pallette as Fonda’s father (croak-singing an English folk song and banging his dishes like a child when he is hungry) talking good sense to his son; and Sturges regulars Eric Blore (lisping away), William Demarest (tough talking and often confusing words – “It’s the same dame!” as assistant trying to keep Fonda from being duped), Jimmy Conlin as steward, and Robert Greig as butler in the Connecticut estate (where was Franklin Pangborn?). Sturges film that has it all: star power, fabulous performances, witty screenplay, imaginative direction, and convincing, true romance. First half has Stanwyck trying to cheat Fonda on board ship, but then falling in love with him whereupon she defeats her father’s efforts to cheat Fonda out of money – she wears a Waldo cap in one shipboard scene. Second half has her going to his estate in Connecticut after they had broken up and posing as another woman (without changing her appearance) – an elegantly dressed noblewoman with an amusing English accent – in order to win him back; he marries her under her new identity (is he stupid?); still playing the con woman who expects a big settlement from a divorce, she provokes a break with him in the famous train scene on their wedding night; but regretting her behavior she arranges to meet him on the ship, where he pratfalls one more time and they kiss torridly; although he does not understand that she and Eve are the same woman, she leads him to her stateroom and begins to close the door; when he objects “But I am married”, she replies, “So am I, Darling,” and closes the door! Firmly in the realm of screwball comedy: e.g., single women on board lying in wait for the easy mark, Stanwyck’s shrieking panic at the sight of a snake in Fonda’s cabin, Fonda’s repetitive messy pratfalls when obsessed with Stanwyck (he is on his last tuxedo by the end of the dinner scene at the Pike estate), Demarest and Greig spilling a platter full of meat on Fonda, Fonda being constantly nudged by a horse when he is making his second declaration to Stanwyck. Film has snappy dialogue, although perhaps it isn’t as funny as its reputation: “That’s the tragedy of the rich: they don’t need anything.” “They say a moonlit deck is a woman’s business office.” A house of millionaires “in the heart of the contract bridge belt.” Charles as “tall, backward boy always toying with toads and things.” Revenge-bent Stanwyck: “I need him like the axe needs the turkey.” Stanwyck “If anybody deserves me, you do, Charles…so richly.” Sturges presents a mildly satirical look at the antics of the rich (servants everywhere, traveling on luxury liners, always in evening clothes, fawning over English aristocracy, servants furiously polishing silver, etc.). The film is a duel between the male and the female with the latter being constantly compared to the seductive Eve (and in this case a rather unequal contest, much like ‘Bringing up Baby’ with Hepburn in charge of Grant). Wonderful scene toward the end in which Stanwyck tells the gullible Fonda about all the men she has had (starting with the stable boy on her estate) to the accompaniment of 19th century operetta overtures and even ‘Tannhäuser’ when Fonda is speaking – prematurely –of the beauties of forgiveness and while the camera cuts to the powerful locomotive cutting through a violent electrical storm; scene ends with a classical closing phrase. Fonda plays the clueless role well, and Stanwyck stands out as the bold-faced, though surprisingly radiant comic lead. There is a certain romantic sexiness in Stanwyck’s seductive campaign and in Fonda’s romantic vision of her and his dreams of them together. Often interesting directing techniques: flashing forward to a future scene when cued by a remark in a conversation; a very long montage scene detailing the wedding preparations and the marriage of Stanwyck and Fonda; the long sequence of Fondaesque pratfalls that finally deliver him into the arms of the waiting Eve. The film deserves its reputation as Sturges’ masterpiece.


The Lady Vanishes 1938 Alfred Hitchcock (Britain) 4.0 Michael Redgrave, Margaret Lockwood, Dame May Whitty, Paul Lukas. Already viewed several times. This time the print was pretty good, audio was completely understandable. Film starts slow with painstaking set up of situations and characters in the Swiss hotel. Main plot is the thriller of Mrs. Froy being kidnapped and rescued, but several subplots: of course the romantic one as Lockwood and Redgrave start off antagonists, but when Redgrave comes to rescue (in baggage car) they begin to melt, which does not come to fruition until the taxi to the Foreign Office; Caldicott and Charters at first are concerned only with cricket results and they shy away from getting involved in search for Mrs. Froy, but then being good red-blooded, stiff-upper-lip Englishmen (Charters genuinely shocked at being shot in the hand but he carries on), they do their part to defend the railroad car against the Nazi-like police; the evolution of Paul Lukas’ fake nun, who being English, has to rally to her countrymen and ends up on the side of the good guys. Caldicott and Charters provide bluff British humor all the way through – unaware of what is happening outside England, inability to speak a language other than English, befuddled reation when something unexpected occurs. Much of success of movie depends on charm of Lockwood and Redgrave, who engage the audience; especially Lockwood, who shows a lot of pluck as she persists in her search for Mrs. Froy; May Whitty is also very sympathetic as kindly old lady we all want to protect. The usual comments about suspense, deceiving and manipulating the audience through plot twists (surely there was a Mrs. Froy, but why is everybody denying it?) and clever editing (when Mrs. Froy first mentions her name to Lockwood, her voice is covered by the whistle [shades of ’39 Steps’] and then she writes her name on the dining car window; subsequently when Lockwood is trying to convince Redgrave that Froy really existed, the name “Froy’ appears in steam on the window just as train enters the tunnel; and then also third scene in dining car, where camera focuses suggestively on the different size wine glasses that are supposed to contain a soporific). Final shootout with the fascist police is patriotic declaration – all Englishmen must rally together to oppose the tyrannical threat of the fascists, and the one pacifist (the cowardly barrister who won’t fight) will meet an ignominious end; seems to be Hitchcock declaration in 1938 that Britain must stand up to Hitler. Fetching ending when Redgrave and Lockwood in London have decided to marry, suddenly Redgrave has forgotten coded tune and can remember only Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding march,’ panic, then they hear in adjoining room the McGuffin tune played on the piano, and then walk eagerly toward Mrs. Froy who greets them with outstretched arms. A very nice mix of light-hearted humor and suspense with at least a little bit of menace, even though it is a safe thriller.


The Ladykillers 1955 Alexander Mackendrick (Ealing Studios: Britain) 3.5 Alec Guinness with hilarious protruding teeth as rather oily and ineffective chief of the group planning an armored car heist; Katie Johnson steals the show as the compulsive, batty little old lady who constantly upstages Guinness and gets in the way of the gang’s plans; Cecil Parker as stiff-upper-lift Major who falls under the influence of the lady; Herbert Lom smooth and evil as the most serious of the gang members; Peter Sellers stays mostly in the background as the cipher Harry; Danny Green as the dim-witted but good-hearted bouncer One-Round. Delightful, light-hearted caper film that focuses on the problems caused to the hold-up team by their landlady and finishes with the death by murder of all members of the gang, thus giving the lie to the title. Performances of Johnson, Guinness, and Green are particularly endearing and amusing: Johnson is hilarious in her moral decency and her tendency to repeat phrases fed to her by the criminals; Guinness, whose teeth never cease to amuse, is also very funny in his often scattered, Uriah Heep-like ineffectiveness; Green combines verbal incompetence with a developing affection for Johnson that creates anarchy for the group. The five crooks provoke chuckles by posing as a string quintet that needs a space to practice; the violin and cello cases could also be used for carrying weapons and cash. Guinness et al. pull off the robbery without a hitch, but things go awfully wrong when they return to Johnson’s house to pick up the money-filled trunk (counting on her innocent appearance, they had sent her to the railroad station to fetch it). They decide that she has to be “done away with”, but repetitive drawing of straws ends up instead in the progressive elimination of all but Guinness and their bodies being dropped off a railroad overpass into the hopper cars of passing freight trains. As Guinness looks on with satisfaction at the removal of Lom’s body (they had previously dueled), a railroad signal changes, bops him on the head, and he too falls on to a passing train. In a humorous ending, Johnson tries to turn the money into the police, but, not believing her, they tell her jokingly to keep it, and she walks off down the street, light-hearted and passing out large bills to a beggar she had previously ignored. The setting is humorous and appropriate – a small, almost fairytale-looking house perched precariously (some of the rooms are condemned) on the edge of a busy railroad freight yard, which of course is put to good use. The film celebrates modest English subjects and the virtues of making modest, non-studio style movies. Understated humor and the ability to see the light side of the most perverse subjects – robbery and multiple murders.


The Last King of Scotland 2006 Kevin Macdonald (Britain) 3.0 Forest Whitaker pretty mesmerizing as the Ugandan dictator able to alternate between juvenile charm (snookering McAvoy but also every western reporter that comes into his presence) and brutal blood-thirstiness; James McAvoy as young Scottish doctor come to Ugandan to do good but who falls for Amin’s charm big-time, Kerry Washington as one of Amin’s younger wives, who falls for McAvoy (as do several other women in the film), Gillian Anderson as the virtually seduced wife of a humanitarian doctor. Historically based film that makes Idi Amin rather attractive and interesting: sure, he kills 300,000 Ugandans in the course of his rule, but he is charming, boyish, impulsive, and he is a great admirer of Scotland (he fought with Scottish soldiers against the Mau-Mau) to the point of wearing the Scottish hat and kilts. The McAvoy character is quite annoying – from boundless enthusiasm for all that Amin is doing to astounding success with African women including one of Amin’s wives to complicity with Amin and finally whimpering victimhood before a noble African doctor sacrifices his life to ship him out of the country to “tell the world the truth about Amin”. But that is perhaps the way it was meant to be – the white European naive, lost, and making things worse in a place where he does not belong, just like many thousands before him. The Grand Guignol images at the end are shocking – when Amin discovers that his third wife, Washington, has been unfaithful with McAvoy, he has her hunted down, quartered (cut into pieces) and then he displays her separated body parts in the basement of the hospital. The center of the film is the character of Amin as portrayed in bigger than life fashion by Whitaker (who received the Academy Award). Film can also be enjoyed for its attention to historical context.


The Last Picture Show 1971 Peter Bogdanovich 4.0 Based on McMurtry novel. Timothy Bottoms as protagonist Sonny, Jeff Bridges as Duane, Sam Bottoms as half-wit Billy, Cybill Shepherd as Jacy the wealthy, oversexed manipulator of Anarene males, Ben Johnson as the town elder Sam the Lion, Eileen Brennan as maternal café waitress, Ellen Burstyn as Jacy’s cynical, disabused mother, Cloris Leachman as the very sad and lonely wife of the basketball coach and sometime lover of Sonny. Extraordinary old-fashioned Hollywood movie perfectly approximating a declining West Texas town in 1951 – country/western and popular music (“The Thing”), early TV shows, the last hurrah of great Hollywood movies (last movie shown in town was John Wayne’s ‘Red River’), the perfect beat-up pickup truck that Sonny drives around, kids drinking beer and driving, making out and getting perhaps to third base in the back or front seat of their cars. Anarene is declining godforsaken town, flat as a sidewalk, no employment aside from working in oil fields; movie opens with pan shot of dusty, windy streets and ends that same way. Content reminds one a bit of ‘Peyton Place’ – sex is on everybody’s mind, it would seem mainly because there is nothing else to do in town, and everyone realizes that the town is dying; movie avoids soap opera status by its beauty, sincerity and contemplativeness. Film seems to address the demise of small town America, looking upon it with some nostalgia, but also with realism about how provincial it was. Cast is large and superlative – almost every performance is interesting and moving. Film is coming of age film following the travails of Duane, a not-so-smart, quick-tempered kid dating Jacy, but who has a hard time consummating the relationship (in a very funny scene where the high school friends are waiting outside the motel in Wichita Falls for a report); and mainly Sonny, who has a sweet, passive disposition that makes him a plaything of women he is attached to and that makes it hard for him to make decisions and grow up; he has a long love affair with 40-year old Leachman, is manipulated into running off to Oklahoma to marry Jacy (marriage then broken up by the parents), and then when Billy is tragically killed, he rebels and revolts….only to end the movie comforted by ex-lover Leachman. Is he any more adult? Beautifully and expressively photographed in black and white.