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.