Get Low

‘Get Low’ suffers from underwritten script

ROBERT DUVALL (left) and Bill Murray in “Get Low.”

“Get Low,” to tell you right off, means to die.
And that’s almost the premise of this film starring Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray.
Duvall plays crusty Felix Bush, a real-life hermit in the 1930s for whom legends are made. Everyone had a story about Bush, the fights he got in. The people he supposedly killed.
He lives in a shack with no electricity. Well, it was the Great Depression, lots of people didn’t have electricity.
After a friend died, Bush decides to visit the local church and ask the minister to give him a big funeral while he is still alive.
His idea is to be there and enjoy the event and hear everything people are saying. Bush even shows the pastor a roll of cash.
The pastor declines the offer, but in the church overhearing the discussion is Buddy Robinson, played by Lucas Black. Buddy happens work for the local mortician, Frank Quinn, played by Bill Murray. Frank and Buddy decide to drive out to Bush’s shack and offer to give him the grand sendoff he can live to tell about.
It is an interesting premise, a great cast and it’s one of those pictures you can breath in the authenticity of the 1930s.
Add to the mix Sissy Spacek as Duvall’s former love interest and you have the makings of a compelling story.
Except this film isn’t compelling in any respect and only mildly interesting.
Director Aaron Schneider got all of the elements together except the story. It just sort of plods along.
All of the actors are excellent and they all have original, clearly defined characters, especially Duvall.
But the story is underwritten.
At times it looks like the plot will pick up. Take for instance when the Duvall character goes on a rickety local radio show to discuss his unusual funeral.
Not expected by anyone, the Duvall character announces on the air there will also be a lottery. Send $5 to the funeral home with your name and address. At the funeral, someone’s name will be pulled and win his farm and pristine timber after he dies.
Plus Bush wants to sit back and hear all of the stories people have to tell about his supposed fights and killings.
But there’s a soft side, too. Spacek plays his former love interest who married another and moved away, only to return when her husband died.
The two start talking again, but when the Spacek character sees a worn photo of a woman in his kitchen area, she grabs her things and leaves.
Ah, a mystery? Who is this woman and why did it make Spacek storm off?
OK, that part of the mystery is solved relatively quickly in the movie. It’s Spacek’s sister and although married, she was having an affair with Duvall’s character, while Duvall was supposedly courting Spacek!
Meanwhile, someone smashes a window to get into the funeral home and whams Buddy on the head. Duvall visits another minister a distance apart.
What does this all mean? How does it enter the festivities as everyone gathers on Duvall’s land for the big funeral.
Ah, there’s the rub. The big conclusion is pretty much a dud. Somebody needed to go back to the word processor and work on the script some more.
But good, authentic 30s scenery and a stellar cast makes the film worthy of a rental.


GET LOW
• Directed by Aaron Schneider
• Written by Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell
• Rated PG-13 for some thematic material and brief violent content
• Runtime: 100 minutes
• 2 1/2 stars out of 4

China Moon

My One and Only

Zellweger seeks man to care for her in 50s comedy

CHRIS NOTH and Renee Zellweger in “My One and Only.”

It’s quirky. It’s fun. It has interesting characters.
“My One and Only” is definitely worth 108 minutes of your time.
Wonderfully nostalgic, the film stars Renee Zellweger as an aging socialite in 1953, married to a womanizing band leader, played by Kevin Bacon.
Zellweger’s character is Anne Deveraux, a ditzy blond who spends her time traveling and relaxing. She returns home early to find her husband, Dan, in their bedroom with another woman.
She’s not surprised. She takes it in stride. She even helps the woman get her clothes on, remarking she looks like a tramp. “What am I saying,” she then says. “You are a tramp.”
She leaves hubby with sons George and Robbie in tow, played respectively by Logan Lerman and Mark Rendall.
They empty out hubby’s account, jewels and all, buy an expensive $3,000 vehicle and head out to Pittsburgh where the Zellweger character has an old friend. Everywhere she goes, she has an old friend.
The thought of actually working for a living is totally foreign to always smiling Anne. She lives in an age where beautiful women find a man to care for them.
A reoccurring theme in the movie is Anne and sons meet people who steal from them. She meets an old friend in Pittsburgh she thinks can help her financially. When he begs her for money over dinner, she excuses herself to go to the powder room. When she returns, the money in her purse is gone and the restaurant manager is only interested in getting the dinner tab paid.
Enter Chris North, playing a man in uniform who comes to her aid. They court and eventually become engaged. The North character gives young George a lecture on how there can only be one top dog in a family and he, not George, has that roll.
George replies with a bark but is able to plant a wedge that eventually breaks off the engagement.
George appears the most stable. Mom has no head for money or a sense of responsibility. When she decides to take her kids out of school to start their cross-country trek, she doesn’t even know where they go. Brother Robbie is very gay and vapid.
Anne keeps smiling through it all. When she tries to spark a relationship with a man in a bar, he turns out to be a house detective who charges the Zellweger character with prostitution.
When she tries to spark a relationship with an old flame, she discovers he has a new, younger girlfriend who remarks her mother has a dress like Zellweger’s. She asks if Anne can dance the Charleston.
Amongst the running jokes is Zellweger’s oldest son, played by Rendall, wants to be an actor. Each town they move to, he gets a part in the school play. But he never gets to perform in front of an audience. In once instance, they move before play night. In another, the play is about to start when it is announced a tornado has been spotted and everyone must exit to the school basement.
It’s hard to fathom all that happens to this trio, including Zellweger’s almost marriage to a hardware store owner and the surpise reason she doesn’t.
The kicker is this isn’t exactly fiction. George is telling the story and George really exists today. I won’t reveal his identity although a search on the Internet will get you the answer fairly quickly.
It would be more fun to go for the ride from New York to California with the Zellweger character and the two sons and learn his identity at the end of the film.
“My One and Only” is a wonderfully human, beautifully nostalgic piece of cinema. The film is truly a hoot!

MY ONE AND ONLY • Directed by Richard Loncraine • Written by Charlie Peters • Runtime: 108 minutes • Rated PG-13 for sexual content and language • 3 1/2 stars out of 4

Straw Dogs 1971

Violence flows in original ‘Straw Dogs’

ABC Pictures
IT'S THE CALM before the storm in the original “Straw Dogs” for Dustin Hoffman and Susan George.

If you frequented the drive-in theaters back around 1971, chances are you discovered “Straw Dogs.”
I think for the entire summer, it was the second feature at every theater. You could have “Bambi” followed by the Sam Peckinpah, violence-ridden “Straw Dogs.”
Peckinpah was a leader in realistic violence in films. Before him, people who were shot showed no blood. It’s as if they were shot and died of a heart attack.
Well, there was the union soldier who got his face blown off in “Gone With the Wind,” but that didn’t happen too often.
Peckinpah gave us spraying blood and great heaps of guts on walls behind where people were shot.
“Straw Dogs” has kitty cats hung, a sex-charged girl strangled and many others killed with guns, animal traps and more. It has rats running around. Baby, this film has everything. It was indeed a drive-in classic.
A “Straw Dogs” remake will be released next week, so you need to get out and see the original in preparation. I’ll be checking to make certain you do.
I did my duty and pulled out the $6 version I bought at Half Price Books. Now there is a Blu-Ray version with a DVD of extras. Prepare to pay more than $6.
Dustin Hoffman is a bookish, Clark Kent-cloned American living in a hard drinking English village with his mouth-watering wife, played by Linda George. She wears skirts the size of a washcloth and no bra. She gets two stars just for her appearance.
George’s character happens to be from that village and had a relationship with one of the burly louts there, played by Del Henney.
The Henney character and the other yokels spend most of their time in a pub and when not, working on the Hoffman character’s garage, putting on a new roof.
OK, they spend time there. Little work is done. Who can concentrate on work when the George character parades in front of her window topless?
Plus, time must be spent raiding her underwear drawer.
Little pranks are pulled and the yokels on the roof roar with laughter.
Even when the family cat is found strangled, the Hoffman character lets it role off his back.
Until things get REAL bad. Then it’s time to take action. You see, the patriarch of the yokels discovers his horny daughter has taken off with the town dullard (played by David Warner) and is missing. The Warner character, after accidentally killing the girl, is whacked by Hoffman’s car. Hoffman takes him to his home and all of the village cutthroats descend on the house to bring the killer out.
“Straw Dogs” is best known for its rape scene which engrosses and repels, along with its endless string of violence at the end.
The film is well executed and interesting. There is a sincere attempt to provide real characters, too. Hoffman’s character is a mathematician who received a grant to write a book. But with all of the violence and incidents leading to violence, the poor guy never gets anything done.
The new “Straw Dogs” moves the action to the deep South, rather than a charming English village.
We’ll see about the new version, but the old “Straw Dogs” holds up just fine, thank you.

STRAW DOGS 1971
• Directed by Sam Peckinpah
• Written by David Zelaq, with screenplay by Peckinpah
• Runtime: 118 minutes
• Rated R for lots of violence and sex, including rape
• 31⁄2 stars out of 4

Hangover Square

‘Hangover Square’ offers sex, murder

LAIRD CREGAN goes into a trance and kills people in “Hangover Square.”

I had heard little about “Hangover Square” before Netflix delivered it to my door.
Most of the cast is pretty much unknown or forgotten, except for the sexy Linda Darnell and Alan Napier, who two decades later played Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne’s butler, on the campy TV series “Batman.” He didn’t change much either from 1945 when this film was made.
It opens with a harrowing murder and storefront apartment set afire. The scene was done on the cheap compared to today’s standards, but it still worked shockingly well.
The Jekyl-Hyde story centers on George Harvey Bone, played by Laird Cregar, a pianist and composer. He is torn between cultured Barbara Chapman (Faye Marlowe) and her father, the future Alfred; and classical compositions vs. the bawdy Netta (Linda Darnell), who sweettalks old George in order to get him to write original songs for her.
Not only does he have his conflict between the cultured and the sexy, he’s got that Jekyl-Hyde situation. George, when he hears a loud noise, his eyes widen, he goes into a trance and then he, well, kills people and days later finds himself wandering about, forgetting all that happened.
Lovely Netta, who dresses and dances in a pretty-darn risqué manner for 1945, appeals to George’s purulent interests. However, when he goes into his trance, she meets her end with spectacular results as part of the biggest movie fire since “Gone With the Wind.”
The DVD commentary includes some interesting backstories. Cregar had weighed 300 pounds and went on a crash diet and lost 100 pounds. But that put a strain on his heart. He ended up having stomach surgery and died four days later at age 31, long before “Hangover Square” was ever released.
Darnell lived another 20 years . On April 9, 1965 she was staying at the home of her former secretary in suburban Chicago when the house caught fire. She died the following afternoon at a Chicago hospital. She was watching her fourth movie, “Star Dust,” when the blaze broke out.
Marlowe contributes audio commentary to the DVD. She remains alive today at 83.
At only 77 minutes, this film was a lot of fun and true film noir. If you’re a fan of this genre, this is a tight, sweet little picture that will leave you pleasantly surprised.
Watch it right now by going to the Internet Movie Data Base (imdb.com) and do a search for the film. The movie can be streamed from the site.

HANGOVER SQUARE
• Directed by John Brahm
• Written by Barre Lyndon (screenplay) and Patrick Hamilton (novel)
• Runtime: 77 minutes
• Not rated but some taunt scenes for younger children
• 4 stars out of 5

Jane Eyre

Great classic film actors in 1943 ‘Jane Eyre’

mptvimages.com
ELIZABETH TAYLOR (left) and Peggy Ann Garner in “Jane Eyre.”

The tragic story of “Jane Eyre” has been filmed numerous times.
It’s been a miniseries. A new version was released early this year and is coming to home video.
Ah, but one of the best comes from 1943. As you would expect, it’s filled with film noir.
It has also plenty of recognizable stars.
For example, the young Jane is played by Peggy Ann Garner, best known as the optimistic little girl in the holiday classic “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”
And Jane’s sickly little friend (you know what that means) is played by (drumroll) a very young Elizabeth Taylor, before she was married to anybody.
Sharing writing credits with Charlotte Bronte was none other than John Houseman, best known as Professor Kingsfield in “The Paper Chase.” Also helping was Aldous Huxley, author of “Brave New World.”
Orson Welles plays the dashing Edward Rochester, who chooses Jane as his governess to his young but annoying ward. Jane as an adult is played by Joan Fontaine, who seems rather pretty for plain Jane.
Ah, but the best is Mrs. Reed, the aunt who cared for the young Jane, if you can call it caring. She’s played by the great Agnes Moorehead, one of the best character actresses of all time, as in “Citizen Kane,” the Orson Welles epic. Anyway, Reed labels young Jane an evil child and she’s shipped off to a boarding school. And yes, Moorehead went on to play the nosy mother in the TV series “Bewitched.”
Jane screams her hatred for Reed as she rides away, happy at the thought of learning and meeting children her own age at school.
Hey Jane, did you forget, this is 19th century literature? You must earn your happy ending.
At the school, the sadistic head master, Mr. Brocklehurst, played by Henry Daniell, proclaims little Jane is evil and of the devil and nobody is allowed to talk to her.
Ah, but young, sweet, frail Liz Taylor does anyway. Did I mention she was frail?
Of course Jane grows up to become Joan Fontaine and takes the job at the huge, spooky mansion of Rochester, aka Welles.
Jane falls in love, things don’t go well, more tragedy awaits before true love comes calling.
The acting is first-rate and all of those big stars are fun to watch. The matte shots do get a little tiresome after awhile.
But “Jane Eyre” is an interesting film to revisit, especially in the wake of the newer remakes. The 1940s lilt seems more conducive to the novel.
And while not trying to be too political, check out the beginning of the book and see if it suggests anything from modern life.
“...I was born in 1820, a harsh time of change in England. Money and position seemed all that mattered. Charity was a cold and disagreeable word. Religion too often wore a mask of bigotry and cruelty. There was no proper place for the poor and unfortunate.”
“Jane Eyre” is available for streaming for Netflix subscribers.

JANE EYRE • Directed by Robert Stevenson • Written by Charlotte Bronte, John Houseman,Aldous Huxley and others • Runtime: 97 minutes • 3 stars out of 5

Solitary Man

MICHAEL DOUGLAS, Jenna Fischer and Jake Richard Siciliano in "Solitary Man."

What goes around in 'Solitary Man'

At the beginning of “Solitary Man,,” car magnate Ben Kalmen seems to have the world at his feet.

He’s rich. He’s about to open another car dealership in a prime spot. Even as he ages, he retains his finesse with women and can talk them into bed.

Oh, he has some problems. When he sees his daughter and grandson in the park, he has to sush them from calling him ‘Dad’ or ‘Grandpa’ because he has his eye on a young lady he’s thinking of picking up.

He has Susan Sarandon as his ex-wife and the luscious Mary-Louise Parker as a girlfriend.

He even gets to take his girlfriend’s pretty daughter, played by Imogen Poots, to his alma mater to help her gain admission.

And that’s where his life starts to crumble. Not willing to give an inch, he starts off getting in a fight with a college student and garnering the ire of the university’s chief of security.

The Douglas character ends up sleeping with his girlfriend’s 18-year-old daughter at the university. Again, he can’t let it go and pursues her until she tells her mother.

That’s when his life REALLY starts to plummet. Seems he is having real financial problems and his quest for the new car dealership is turned down by the town’s various boards.

A past indiscretion involving a car franchise and the fact he barely avoided prison doesn’t help the situation. He can’t even get a job as a car salesman.

He must go to his daughter for rent money for a cheap apartment.

His relationship with daughter is strained a bit too, when he sleeps with her best friend and as a result fails to wake up for grandson’s birthday party.

He indeed is a solitary man, burning any chance of a relationship with his girlfriend, his ex-wife, anyone. He treads water trying to have a relationship with his grandson.

Jesse Eisenberg of “Social Network” fame plays a nerdy college student who shows Douglas around the college. Douglas gives him some important advice about bagging chicks and Eisenberg becomes his biggest fan. At least for awhile. Until the Douglas character tries to bed Eisenberg’s girl, the one Douglas helped him get.

In many ways it is a fascinating morality play. It tells you that when you treat people as so many playthings and don’t establish and nurture relationships, you might be OK, for awhile. But it comes back to bite.

In one scene, the Douglas character discusses how he came to the realization in his life that while he was a car dealer, he did not necessarily have to be an honest car dealer.

Yet he discovered that nobody noticed, nobody cared.

But eventually his deeds and lack of relationships helped do him in.

He couldn’t pay his rent on his shabby apartment.

A man nearing his twilight years finds himself returning to his college town and asking for a job in the neighborhood restaurant owned by his former college acquaintance, played by Danny DeVito.

Even at this point he has no shame. He still woos the coeds and attends college parties.

That is until his ex-girlfriend finds out he’s in the same city where her daughter is going to school and causes him some more hurt.

He’s a man estranged from all, without a job, without any financial or emotional support. He’s a guy who thought he had it all, but ends up with nothing.

It’s a compelling film. One of Douglas’ best. Best yet, it is available for streaming through Netflix and other services. Like the Douglas character, you can seek immediate gratification. Watch it right now.

SOLITARY MAN

• Directed by Brian Koppelman and David Levien
• Written by Brian Koppelman
• Rated R for language and sexual content
• Runtime: 90 minutes
• 4 stars out of 5

Taking Lives

Serial killer genre takes a hit with ‘Taking Lives’

Warner Bros.
TCHEY KARYO and Angelina Jolie in “Taking Lives.”

There’s nothing quite like a good a good serial killer film.
There just aren’t that many around. Maybe they have reached the saturation point.
Such is the trouble with 2004’s “Taking Lives.”
It starts out with promise several years ago.
Two young men sit together on a bus, headed for Canada. But it breaks down so the two visit a raggedy shop and buy a junker to take them on their journey.
When a tire goes flat, one man has never changed a tire, so the other takes over. That doesn’t mean the young man who can’t change a tire wasn’t busy. He spends the time pushing the new friend into the path of a speeding truck. It causes the truck to flip over, obviously killing the driver. The young friend needs a bash with some asphalt to finish him off.
Fast forward to the present where an excavation site reveals a body and we learn a serial killer is on the loose in Quebec.
There to help investigate is the lovely-lipped Angelina Jolie, playing the role of FBI agent Illeana Scott.
So you wonder why an FBI agent is investigating murders in Canada? My theory is it’s because it is cheaper to film there.
There are some intriguing aspects to the film. First off, there’s the talented Gena Rowlands who informs police the son she thought had died years ago is still alive. She says she spotted his eyes in a crowd and she’s positive it is him. Oh yes, and he’s very dangerous. That statement comes back to haunt her.
That brings a sense of wasted foreboding to the plot.
Another highlight is we see Jolie’s breasts in a rather graphic sex scene. Hey, you gotta take what you can get in a pedestrian film like this.
Finally, while the ending, what might be described as the epilogue, is satisfying and suspenseful, it is also highly predictable.
The rest of the film is pretty much void of originality. Honey, this isn’t any “Silence of the Lambs:”
An apparent witness to a killing is Costa, an artist who tried to rescue a victim. By the time he got there, the serial killer did his work and things weren’t pretty.
So Costa, played by Ethan Hawke, is grilled by police who ask questions like, Why do you have blood on your shirt? The Hawke character replies when you are trying to save someone’s life who is bleeding to death, you get some blood on your shirt. Yeah, you get the idea, this film is stretched a bit.
Hawke at least does well in a difficult role.
Jolie seems a bit too subdued part of the time. We get a $1.95 explanation as to why she does what she does. I guess it replaces a real character.
Also, she likes to sit and lie at a crime scene, complete with photos of the blood and gore, maybe in hopes information will simply flow to her. It doesn’t work to solve the crime and it doesn’t work for the plot.
Besides Jolies’ um, anatomy and a few flashes of suspense, the best this has going for it is the theatrical release was only 103 minutes. The unrated version, with the decent sex scene, is 109 minutes.
So the film isn’t terrible and remains relatively short.
Not a whole-hearted endorsement. But then, this is a half-hearted kind of film.

TAKING LIVES • Directed by D.J. Caruso • Written by Michael Pyle and Jon Bokenkam • Rated R for strong violence including disturbing images, language and some sexuality • Runtime: 103 minutes, unrated version 109 minutes • 2 stars out of 4

Indictment: The McMartin Trial

Movie plot difficult to believe but true

HENRY THOMAS plays an outcast wrongly accused of child molestation in "Indictment: The McMartin Trial."

You will find the plot of “Indictment: The McMartin Trial” difficult to believe.
Imagine, a day care center where the children are routinely molested, where animals are killed in front of the children.
A seemingly upright family, the oldest in her 70s, are arrested amidst the bright lights of television and hauled into court.
There is so much hatred toward this family, the day care is burned. There are reports at other day care centers of molestation and cruelty.
The case lasts seven years and costs Los Angeles County $13 million. And the whole story is a hoax.
Yes, hard to believe. But sadly, it is true.
This movie stars James Woods as Danny Davis, an attorney who agrees to take the unpopular case. Wife and others are disturbed he would agree to represent such perverts, but Danny says they deserve a defense like anyone else.
The defendants include Henry Thomas, who you may remember as the little boy in “E.T.” He is Ray Buckey, a reclusive young man who lives with his mother and likes to look at nude photos of women and relieve himself.
When authorities find cut up nude photos he tries to flush down the toilet, it is a sure sign he is guilty of molesting kids.
Lolita Davidovich plays Kee McFarlane, a self-proclaimed social worker without any training. She is alerted to possible child abuse after a woman whose child is at the center reports her son has been sexually abused.
McFarlane records each of the sessions she has with the children. She uses puppets to make the interviews less traumatic for the kids.
The recordings show at first the children deny they were molested. But slowly, the McFarlane character tires them out. Her puppets ask the children’s puppets if they won’t “join” the others and agree they were molested. The children, wishing to please the woman, finally agree they were molested.
Now the prosecutors don’t view all of the tapes. McFarlane writes down the VCR numbers so they can forward to the parts where the kids describe being “molested.”
This case goes on for years and elderly day care owner must submit to sick cavity searches in prison. Yet so much about the children’s stories don’t jive.
First off, they say they were molested in closets. But there are no closets.
The Thomas character, who spends more time in prison than any person in California in history without being convicted, is accused of actions before he even worked at the center. That didn’t stop the case from being prosecuted.
The children, used to lying, sit on the witness stand and tell bizarre stories. One child says they were taken to a church where animals were killed on the altar and the children were molested. But a priest at the church says the doors are always locked. There is no way anyone can bring children there and kill animals.
One child describes being molested in a carwash, but then changes his story. They were all taken to the airport and placed on a plane so they could be molested. But the plane doesn’t leave the ground.
The Woods character learns the mother who initially filed charges of molestation later says the child’s father also molested the boy, as did a neighbor and finally her brother. She eventually ends up in a mental institution. But the prosecutor maintains she went crazy AFTER making the initial charges against the day care center.
Yes, lives are ruined and money wasted. It is a compelling but so sad of a story.
You can watch it unfold over 135 minutes on DVD. Prepare to be appalled.

INDICTMENT: THE McMARTIN TRIAL • Directed by Mick Jackson • Written by Abby Mann and Myra Mann • Runtime: 135 minutes • Rated R for graphic language and disturbing visuals • 3 1/2 stars out of 4

Panic in the Streets, Pinky and Splendor in the Grass

Elia Kazan’s films ahead of their time

BOTTOM: NATALIE WOOD and Warren Beatty in “Splendor in the Grass.”

CENTER: JACK PALANCE in “Panic in the Streets.”

TOP: JEANNE CRAIN plays African-American “Pinky.”

I always liked director Elia Kazan’s movies.
A few years ago I found myself engrossed in “A Face in the Crowd,” in which a not-so-nice, narcissistic Andy Griffith plays a musician who is nothing like his alter-ego on “The Andy Griffith Show.”
I must have ordered a bunch of Kazan films on Netflix back when and have been enjoying film after film after film as they appear in my mailbox.
The first of the Kazan films was “Panic in the Streets” from 1950. Richard Widmark is a low-paid military doctor who must find people infected with the pneumonic plague.
While he is out trying to save the world from a major catastrophe, his wife, played by the under used Barbara Bel Geddes, is trying to negotiate with their grocer because she doesn’t have the money to pay the bill.
The story begins with Jack Palance, as vicious hoodlum Blackie, who kills an illegal immigrant who made too much money playing cards.
When authorities examine the body, they find it filled with the plague and the race is on.
Given the times, it looks like Kazan is using the plague as symbolism, equating the plague with the communist scare.
Kazan was excellent at bringing important issues into the plots of his films.
A year before, Kazan directed “Pinky,” starring Jeanne Crain as Pinky Johnson, who returns to her backwater town with a nursing degree and a professional demeanor. What we don’t realize initially is Pinky is African-American and by not mentioning the subject, passes herself off as white.
Her granny, played in real mammy style by the great Ethel Waters, says it’s a crime against God to not mention she is black or well, “colored.”
Now what is amazing about this film is it tackles the question of racism head-on, even though it was filmed in 1949 when discrimination was still well established.
You have to wonder how “Pinky” made out in the deeply-segregated South of 1949.
Pinky gets jolted into remembering she is a woman of color when she is nearly raped by two men who try to track her down and grab her in their car. After all, raping a black woman was OK.
In another scene, a white woman puts up a fuss and demands satisfaction from a store manager when a clerk asks the woman to wait a second until she rings up a sale for Pinky. White women do not wait for blacks, even if their skin is almost the same color.
After the near rape, Pinky decides to leave, but agrees to stay to nurse a dying Miss Em, the stern old lady who helped granny out and lives in the big house. She is played wonderfully by the great Ethel Barrymore.
The film tackles racism at a time when racism was perfectly acceptable and legal.
The third film was “Splendor in the Grass,” a rich, beautiful-looking film starring Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty.
The film tackles raging teen hormones and societal norms. It takes place in the South in the late 1920s. Boys will be boys and handle their teen desires with a certain kind of girl. Yet another type of girl was used for marrying purposes.
Beatty, as Bud, came from a rich family headed by loud, obnoxious Pat Hingle. Bud is head-over-heels in love with the lovely Natalie character and doesn’t really want an alternate girl.
Hingle pushes the idea of finding a less moral extra girlfriend, not realizing his own daughter is fulfilling the same role, sometimes with married men.
Teen sex kicks in to high gear as Wood finds herself consumed with love or, um, the like and ends up in a mental hospital, after his father cashes in bonds to pay for it. (The bonds wouldn’t have been worth much soon anyway, as October 1929 approached.)
While Wood struggles in the mental hospital, Beatty blows his chances at success at Yale. He would rather run the family ranch.
It is a compelling film of almost epic proportions, shot in beautiful Technicolor. Again, Kazan tackles issues you rarely saw discussed in motion pictures at the time.
Kazan definitely didn’t dodge controversy during his years of directing. You would be amazed at how contemporary his work plays today. His last film was “The Last Tycoon,” which came out in 1976. He died in 2003.
You might know him by other pictures, including “On the Waterfront,” “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “East of Eden.”
He’s well worth revisiting.

The Woman in the Window

‘Woman in the Window’ offers ending with twist

EDWARD G. ROBINSON and Alice Reed in "The Woman in the Window."

Edward G. Robinson plays Professor Richard Wanley from Gotham College.
As the film “The Woman in the Window” opens, he is giving a lecture on crime and murder. At the time, we don’t realize just how little he knows.
The professor is middle aged and leads an uneventful life. His dowdy wife and son live in the country. He spends his time in his club, one of those places that only exists in the movies.
There he and his friends sit in their suits and ties, with brandy and cigars, discussing such weighty subjects as the photo of the beautiful woman in the adjoining storefront window.
This is one of those clubs with the English butler types in their tuxedos, serving drinks.
It’s a way for the good professor to pass time after bidding good-bye at the train station to wife and son.
Later, as he leaves the club, he passes the portrait of the woman and gazes again at her beauty. Except suddenly she appears in the reflection behind him.
Played by Joan Bennett, she invites the learned professor back to her apartment for a drink. Mmmm, lucky for him, especially since the film was made in 1944.
Ah, but the Bennett character has been, um, friendly with others besides the Robinson character.
Suddenly, a jealous boyfriend played by Arthur Loft barges in the room, slams his fist into the Bennett character’s face and soon is in a struggle with Robinson.
In fact, he begins choking Robinson to death. Bennett saves the day by giving him a pair of scissors he can nicely plant in the assailant’s back.
As quick as the attack begins, it is over. The boyfriend is dead on the floor. Robinson and Bennett are shaken.
But let us remember, Robinson is playing a professor who knows all about crime. The assailant has no connection with the Robinson character. There’s no link. So why not drag the corpse into his car, drive him to an out-of-the-way place and dump him?
Veteran director Friz Lang knows how to build suspense, as Robinson has a couple of close encounters with the law on the way to his body dumping, not to mention a toll road worker. (The toll is 10 cents.)
Raymond Massey plays the district attorney and a member of the club, who gives Robinson inside information, never dreaming he is the murderer.
In fact, Massey invites Robinson to the scene of the crime. This results in some funny scenes, such as when Robinson unintentionally leads the group to where the body was found. Everybody laughs, figuring it is a good guess.
Robinson also learns he left incriminating evidence, like part of a torn sleeve of a jacket, blood from a pricker bush, shoe prints and tire tracks.
But the laughs quickly stop when the bodyguard of the murdered man, a rich industrialist, shows up on Bennett’s door, seeking blackmail money.
Suddenly the cushy life of Professor Wanley has fallen apart.
This is a well directed, well acted film noir piece, with special kudos going to Dan Duryea as the blackmailer.
You feel sympathy for the good professor, who does little but defend himself against an attacker.
But in the movies, especially back then, those who sin must be punished.
But there’s a twist and turn along the way.
Lang uses suspense, music and a bit of comedy to keep this fun and suspenseful. For once, Robinson plays a good guy who just does one bad thing and may pay dearly for it.
It’s a great example of 1940s filmmaking and worth taking a look at. If you are a Netflix subscriber, you can watch it tonight via streaming.

WOMAN IN THE WINDOW Directed by Fritz Lang Runtime: 107 minutes May be too intense for young children 3 stars out of 4

CHLOE

‘Chloe’ has interesting beginning, ending

JULIANNE MOORE (left) and Amanda Seyfred in "Chloe."

Is Amanda Seyfried in every movie filmed these days?
Not that I am complaining. Amanda is very beautiful as well as talented.
And watching her in “Chloe,” I noticed she has the fullest, reddest lips since Mick Jagger.
“Chloe” is dramatic, erotic, entertaining but misses the mark of being a great motion picture.
Julianne Moore plays Catherine Stewart, a successful physician, if you judge her on her spacious, swanky home.
She has a handsome husband, David, played by Liam Neeson, and a musical son, Michael, played by Max Thieriot. Michael, like a few other teens, has an attitude about his parents. Oh yes, and he’s also horny.
Directed by Atom Egoyan, the film opens with the Neeson character lecturing in New York City. He is a college professor who is often hit upon by his female students. A girl, during the discussion, raises her hand and asks if he would be interested in a drink afterward.
Wife Catherine (Moore) meanwhile has a houseful of guests waiting for him in their Toronto home for a surprise party. We see Neeson on the phone with the girl in the background. He’s sorry, he missed his flight, he says.
So the expensive party goes on without the honored guest. But the Moore character is suspicious of hubby. She sees the way his students react to him and how he flirts back, not to mention the texting.
When she sees a photo of an unknown student on his phone, she gets really suspicious.
Often harried at work, seeing all of her patients, she suddenly has a break where she can look down on the city and sees a beautiful, high-priced call girl, played by Seyfried.
Moore arranges a chance meeting in a restroom and engages in conversation. The Moore character wants to know just how far her husband will go with a student.
When you have lots of disposable income, you can do things like hire a hooker, er, escort girl, to come on to your husband and see what happens.
Soon the lovely lipped Seyfried agrees to the plan and reports back. She talks about how she borrowed sugar from his table at a diner and he strolls over to her table to talk to her some more. He’s flirting. The Moore character is intrigued.
So the Seyfried character continues the experiment. She tells of fondling him in the back of a building, a visit to a hotel.
She gets pretty graphic.
Moore is taken back. She decides it has gone too far. She wants it all to stop. But the Seyfried character seems more in control and aware than the much older Moore. She has plans of her own.
The characters are interesting and fully developed. The side story of son Michael is brought into the fold. He has a girlfriend whom Dad allows to spend the night. When they break up, son doesn’t want to hear from Mom.
Ah, but a visit from Chloe would be all right, wouldn’t it?
There are some twists and turns in the plot and Seyfried is showing herself to be a really subtle, first-rate actress, the way she looks, the way she darts her eyes. The way her eyes glint. And to think I used to think of her as just the daughter in HBO’S “Big Love.”
But at some point all of that dirty talk gets a bit repetitive. The escort tells wifie about the latest hubby exploits. She reacts. Lots of restaurant scenes. A good amount of white wine. And lots of mirror, too.
While the film has twists and turns you won’t see coming, the plot could have included a few more subplots or the story trimmed a bit, even though it is only 96 minutes.
But the filmmaker certainly makes the opening and ending of the film interesting and compelling, so I guess we can forgive if the middle sags a bit.
Especially when you can look at Seyfried’s lips.

CHLOE Directed by Atom Egoyan Written by Erin Cressida Wilson and Anne Fontaine Runtime: 96 minutes Rated R for strong sexual content including graphic dialogue, nudity and language 3 stars out of 4

The World's Fastest Indian

Hopkins unlikely speedster in ‘Fastest Indian’

ANTHONY HOPKINS in 'The World's Fastest Indian'

Burt Munro was a quirky but likable kind of guy.
He lived in southern New Zealand. He was a bit, well, strange.
For instance, when the grass in back of his and his neighbor’s house got too long, he poured gasoline and burned it. He was shocked when the fire department arrived to put it out.
But Munro was a fascinating guy and became the topic of a pretty compelling, fun film, “The World’s Fastest Indian.” Munro is played by the always versatile Anthony Hopkins.
It’s a true story about a guy who overcomes countless odds to achieve and go beyond his original goals.
Munro had a motorcycle, a 1920 Indian, that he enjoyed modifying and racing. His dream was to take it to the Bonneville Salt Flats.
But he had limited funds and angina, a particularly painful heart malady.
One day, he mortgaged his home and shipped himself and his motorcycle to America to attempt to fulfill his dreams.
He really doesn’t know the country, doesn’t know the currency and is soon ripped off from his limited funds by a cab driver and prostitute. He decides to stay at a cheap motel best rented by the hour, not the week.
Munro isn’t fazed by much. He doesn’t blink an eye when he discovers the friendly girl who helps him from the hotel is actually a cross-dressing guy.
He befriends a used car dealer who sells him a lemon of a car, but Munro’s mechanical talents quickly turns it into a winner. The car dealer asks him to stay and fix his other vehicles.
Along the way his cycle trailer falls apart, he is pestered by police and has similar troubles.
Burt is also befriended by a widow who misses her deceased husband, so he must fill in the best he can.
When he finally gets to the race, his motorcycle is ripped apart, figuratively.
It doesn’t have a chute, no brakes, no safety features. It isn’t even registered!
But Burt keeps his cool and plods along toward his goal.
Hopkins is such a good actor in everything he does. He is a chameleon in his various roles and becomes his characters. This is no exception.
His smiles, his mannerisms, his sighs. It’s all part of the character.
This film is a solid lesson on how to fulfill your dreams, how to overcome adversity when problems continue to mount.
Because of what the real Burt Munro accomplished in his life, the speeds he attained on his motorcycle are nothing short of extraordinary.
Yet he was a congenial guy who people liked to help.
Hopkins makes this movie, which came out six years ago but never got the publicity it deserves.
This is a great film for younger people to learn from. And even though it is 127 minutes long, you will be sorry to see the film end.
So if you haven’t seen “The World’s Fastest Indian,” it’s time to add it to your Netflix que. In fact, it is available for streaming. Watch “The World’s Fastest Indian” fast!

THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN • Directed and written by Roger Donaldson • Rated PG-13 for brief language, drug use and a sexual reference • Runtime: 127 minutes • 4 stars out of 5

Petrified Forest

‘Petrified Forest’ kicked up careers of Bogart, Davis

BETTE DAVIS, Leslie Howard (center) and Humphrey Bogart in “Petrified Forest.”

“The Petrified Forest” started as a stage play and became a celebrated film in 1936.
Imagine, this film stars Leslie Howard three years before “Gone With the Wind.”
Bette David is a young, upcoming actress.
Humphrey Bogart had bit parts and appeared in unimportant pictures before this. Howard insisted on Bogart appearing in this make-it-or-break-it picture.
Without this film, Bogart may have given up on a motion picture career. So indebted, Bogart named his daughter Leslie after Howard.
Davis plays Gabrielle Maple, who works in her father’s restaurant and gasoline station out in the desert. She sort of flirts with an employee and ex-college football player, played by Eddie Acuff.
She was born in Paris but left after only a few days. Still, she enjoys poetry and dreams of returning to France. She’s not your typical country girl.
Howard is Alan Squier, a depressed hitch-hiker and author who indeed spent time in France. He’s making his way to the Pacific coast.
Squier enjoys a meal with Davis. She charges only 30 cents for the food, but he can’t even pay that. She feels sorry for him and gives $1 “change.” She even arranges a ride with a rich family.
Unfortunately, out on the road the family meets up with cold-blooded Duke Mantee (Bogart) and his gang of killers.
They end up hold up back at the restaurant where the film turns, well, a bit too conversational.
This is where it gives away its stage-play origins. The earlier scene between Davis and Howard seems to go on forever, a sort of precursor to “My Dinner with Andre.”
A highlight is character actor Charley Grapewin, who plays an old man who Billy the Kid allowed to live and who met Mark Twain.
It’s easy to see why this is a breakout film for Bogart, with his pompadour haircut and grizzled, unshaven look. He’s a mean hombre with no scruples, ready to blast away at any moment.
One victim offers to pay for his freedom, to the tune of $200. Duke takes the money, but keeps him in captivity. He’s not such a bad guy though. Duke lets him keep his loose pocket change.
Two African-Americans play minor but interesting parts. One is a liberated gang member who looks down on the black servant of the rich family.
So depressed is the Howard character he signs over his life insurance policy to Davis’ character. He then asks Duke to kill him, since Duke has already killed, another victim won’t make a difference.
Gabrielle’s father is part of a cartoonish militia that meets regularly. The group is a holdover from the Great War but is fumbles its way until captured by Duke’s gang.
There’s a pretty good shootout with the cops at the end.
The whole tone of the film and the ideas exchanged seem far more contemporary than the Great Depression, when the film was made.
It also spotlights a diverse group of great actors early in their careers.
If you get the DVD, it includes an MGM night at the movies, with newsreel, short subject musical and a cartoon.
A little too talky, it is still worth watching 74 years later.

THE PETRIFIED FOREST • Directed by Archie Mayo • Written by Charles Kenyon and Delmer Davies • Runtime: 82 minutes • Not rated by violent shootout may be too intense for youngsters • 3 starts out of 4

As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me

Bernhard Bettermann in “As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me.”
‘Feet’ carries you into engrossing movie

The opening of "As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me" reminded me a little of one of those 1970s miniseries.
It's the end of World War II. A German soldier is being taken to prison by the Russians . He tells his pregnant wife and little daughter not to worry, he would be home for Christmas.
From there we can forget the TV movie aspect and are taken on an incredible journey that will keep you glued to the screen. It's been awhile since I've been so engrossed in a film. Made in 2001, I hate to admit I wasn't familiar with the movie or the plot. By the way, it is a remake of a 1959 German TV movie.
Clemens Forell, played by Bernhard Bettermann, is the German soldier sentenced to a labor camp in far east Siberia. You know it is cold when Forell, lying in the icy boxcar on his way to the mines, must wiggle free because his body froze to the wall.
If the cold existence on the train isn't enough, the soldiers are forced to walk the rest of the way.
While done on a small budget, there are some heart-in-stomach scenes, like when a horse breaks through the ice and struggles to break free. Already half-dead individuals fall through the ice and struggle with their last breaths to free themselves.
This film, we find out quickly, illustrates just how much the human body and soul can take.
Forell works the mines for four miserable years. A spur-of-the-moment escape attempt finds him in the hole in freezing rain. The hole is pretty much a storm drain, with water flowing over him.
He ends up ill and a doctor, who was stockpiling for his own escape, decides Forell has a better chance. Besides, the doctor, played by Michael Mendl, has cancer.
Now escape is no walk in the woods. This prison doesn't have razor wire or towers. They are in an icy abyss with no civilization for thousands of miles, so those things aren't necessary. Well, you might try getting to Alaska, but the U.S. was allied with Russia at the time and a prisoner would simply be returned.
But Forell decides to take the meager items, some warm clothing, bits of food, a gun and a few bullets, and attempt the escape. Otherwise, he will die in prison. Now this isn't one of those deals where after seven days on the lam he will find himself in a Howard Johnson's with a shave and hot shower. No, this is a year's commitment, he is told
And thus starts a nail-biting journey that pits the former soldier against man, beast and perhaps worst, the elements. It is a sort of "Lassie Come Home" revved up a few notches.
And that expected one-year of running turns to three.
And sort of like "The Fugitive" TV series, Forell has his own Lt. Gerrard, the head of the camp, Oberleutnant Kamenev, played by Anatolly Kotenyov, who continually stalks him.
This is simply the best action, suspense film I have seen in years. It's a testament to what the human brain and body can take and is well worth the more than the two-hour commitment to watch it.
Hey, all told, it was a seven-year commitment for Clemens Forell.

AS FAR AS MY FEET WILL CARRY ME
• Directed by Hardy Martins • Written by Josef Martin Bauer and Bastian Cleve • Runtime: 158 minutes • Not rated but may be too intense for young audiences • 5 stars out of 5

Magadlene Sisters

‘Magdalene Sisters’ tells of sad time for unwed mothers

NORA-JANE MOON in “The Magdalene Sisters.”

If you like movies about crazy, sadistic nuns — and who doesn’t — you’ll love “The Magdalene Sisters.”
This 2002 film takes place in 1964. We follow three women, two of whom had out-of-wedlock children. One is by rape.
No matter. Their children are taken from them and they are ordered, indefinitely, to Magdalene Asylum for young women.
This fact-based film takes us into this distorted world where religion is used as an excuse for cruelty and torture.
For their transgressions — real or imagined — the women are ordered to hard labor, doing laundry by hand in a sink and trying to get the pesky stains out of the priests’ collars. Their sentences are indefinite.
They aren’t allowed to talk and must listen to scripture while eating. Breakfast consists of a type of gruel, while the nuns enjoy eggs and bacon on the other side of a partition.
The nuns like to whip backslides, rap knuckles and play games in which the women must stand nude and be humiliated. Nuns decide who has the largest and smallest breasts, among other attributes. I won’t go further with my examples.
These nuns are definitely on the sick side of the sacraments.
When the nuns aren’t putting the girls through hell, they use an elderly woman to monitor and tongue lash the girls. Her pay, an automatic entrance into heaven.
Before the movie is over, she learns if that is true or not.
The nuns also seem to have a penchant for cutting the hair of the most unruly girls, going so far as to bloody the eyebrows. Ouch!
The film may be based on fact, but it does seem to go over the top at times.
It has an almost cult-like, “Mommy Dearest” quality to it. I can see a theater full of patrons chanting “Cut that hair. Cut that hair!”
In one scene, a young woman escapes from the institution, only to have her father thrash her violently and then deliver her, bloody and bleeding, back to the asylum.
There is a sensitive scene in the film where one of the inmates, while hanging out clothes, sees her sister and young son gazing at her. But she dare not react, risking the ire of the nuns.
It’s difficult to believe there could be such cruelty to these young women.
Geraldine McEwan does an admirable job as the sadistic Sister Bridget.
Dorothy Duffy plays a pretty girl who ends up at the institution because the boys pay too much attention to her at the orphanage.
Nora-Jane Noone plays a girl who is brutally raped by her cousin. When the sobbing teen comes down to tell a woman what happens, the cousin is ushered to safety and she is taken to the asylum. Imagine, a rape victim!
Mary Murray has a child out of wedlock and is forced to sign papers giving the baby up for adoption. She immediately changes her mind and ends up at the asylum.
It’s a film that will stay with you
I would hazard a guess you won’t find this film on the Eternal Word Television Network.

THE MAGDALENE SISTERS
• Runtime: 119 minutes
• Directed and written by Peter Mullan
• Rated R for violence, cruelty, nudity, sexual content and language.