Film Reviews by Steve

Exotic, esoteric ghost story set in the feudal middle ages which gave western audiences a taste for the Japanese occult. It’s inspired by a series of 18th century tales (by Ueda Akinari) but was adapted by Kenji Mizoguchi to reflect on the recent WWII.

And in particular, the brutal treatment of Japanese women by their own soldiers. During a civil war, two wives are abandoned by their reckless, vainglorious husbands. The men learn valuable wisdom from the intrusion of the spirits of the dead into their destinies.

Meanwhile, their women suffer abominably. There is an impression that existence in medieval Japan is so wretched and capricious that people exist in some indefinite space between life and death, realism and fantasy. And the line between is fragile.

Mizoguchi permeates this indeterminate margin with shadowy, hazy enchantment. This is a beautiful, ethereal parable, enhanced by a percussive score of dissonant atmospherics. Now this is called folk horror; and it was hugely influential in creating an image in the west of what Japanese cinema is. 

Notorious precode melodrama which borrows the plot from MGM's Red Headed Woman (1932) and refashions it in the hardboiled Warner Brothers style. Crucial to this is Barbara Stanwyck's corrosive performance as the girl from the slums who endeavours to screw her way from the gutter to the boardroom, all the way up a New York skyscraper.

Stanwyck came from absolute poverty and its easy to imagine she drew on experience. Some of her delivery is extraordinary, particularly her paint stripping put-down of her father. The best part of the film is the sexually abused girl escaping her background and getting a foot on the ladder of a big bank. 'Do you have experience?' asks the first of her seductions. "Plenty'.

One of those rungs is a pre-stardom John Wayne. As she reaches the summit, the film becomes more predictable and less interesting. There's a fascinating scene early on when an old man in her father's front room speakeasy tries to interest her in Nietzsche. Surely the studio was warning of the danger of fascism taking root among the poor of the depression?

Red Headed Woman played as a comedy, with Jean Harlow's glamour. This is more realistic. The excellent Theresa Harris gets one of the few roles for African Americans in the '30s which allows her some dignity. Of course, when the Production Code came in the following year, the transgressive stuff was edited out. Including Nietzsche.

Thrilling, high-speed silent comedy set on the streets of New York, with Harold Lloyd playing his usual impetuous go-getter. Really this is three sketches linked by location as the star visits Coney Island with his girl, the Yankee stadium with Babe Ruth, and saves the last horse drawn tram in Manhattan from a big business takeover.

Woody Allen says one day people will only watch his own films as record of how New York used to look. And there is something of that here with Ted Wilde’s complex shoot capturing the city just before the stock market crash. And as well as the acrobatics, there is social realism.

However it still excels as an action comedy, with the chases and exciting stunts. The logistics of staging most of this in Manhattan must have been a huge challenge. The gags are imaginative and Lloyd gives a classic performance in his final silent film.

It was later released with a soundtrack and four short dialogue scenes, which still exists. But that was a gimmick; this was conceived as a silent with Harold about to go into sound at about his peak. It was the end of an era for Hollywood, just as it is for the horse drawn trams of New York.  

Moderate Buster Keaton entry which offers decent entertainment, but without any glimpse of the extraordinary. Genre staples are reworked and there are no spectacular stunts. He’s certainly not the first skinny comedian to find himself in the boxing ring with a burly, rowdy thug…

Or the last. Buster plays another rich, oblivious milquetoast. He ventures into the great outdoors to escape his customary luxury, but takes along his super-efficient valet (Snitz Edwards) and all the comforts of home. When he falls for a local girl (Sally O’Neil) the fop has to prove his manliness to her backwoods family.

So he pretends to be Battling Butler (Francis McDonald) a real pugilist in training for a big fight with the Alabama Murderer! And the dilettante learns valuable life lessons, as well as how to fight back. O’Neil brings little to the thankless role of Buster’s love interest, though Mary O’Brien sparks as the actual boxer’s wife.

 In the absence of the expected acrobatics, there’s a moment to appreciate that Buster had a kind of androgynous appeal, and how durable is his impassive-yet-liberated screen image. The modern world is an unfathomable mystery, but he confronts it with an irrational courage. And that’s always worth seeing.

Diverting, though ultimately unexceptional silent comedy which lacks the inspiration we usually expect from Buster Keaton. Most obviously, it is two years after Harold Lloyd in The Freshman and this is a bit of a rip off. Only it’s not as good, and did much worse at the box office.

Which was a problem as Keaton made a huge loss the previous year on The General. He has lost his credit as director. And he's still cast as a boy, even though now 31. There is an impression of his star beginning to fade, especially as College arrived at the same time as sound in The Jazz Singer.

Buster plays an unpopular bookworm who graduates from high school and follows his girl (Anne Cornwall) to college*. They break up because she desires a more athletic guy, so the swot seeks to prove himself on the track while bullied by the arrogant jock (Harold Goodwin) who wants to date his ex.

Most of the action is Buster performing athletic events badly, which looks improvised and lacklustre. Put a group of sport shy kids on a playing field, and they will come up with this stuff. It recovers for a decent climax and there are a couple of big laughs. But this is a misfire. 

*There is a scene in blackface.

Stanley Kubrick's heist-noir imitates the genre conventions established in John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle in 1950. The star of that film, Sterling Hayden also features, though as the leader of the caper, rather than a heavy.  

It’s a racetrack robbery worked by inside men, particularly a crooked bookie, expertly played by Elisha Cook jr. He's a sexual flop, pitilessly squeezed by his unfaithful, predatory wife (Marie Windsor). As it must, the caper falls apart disastrously on the big day.

There is a good hardboiled script, which employs the unusual device of telling the story from the multiple points of view of all the gang members, supplemented with the sort of strident third person voiceover familiar from documentary noirs like The Naked City.  

This low budget thriller was Kubrick's first significant release. It didn't sell too many tickets, but is made with considerable style and gave him the opportunity to direct Paths of Glory the following year. Now it is a genre classic. 

The last of a stunning sequence of silent classics made by the Fox studio at the dawn of the talkies. This rural melodrama was released in a Movietone version with some dialogue, though only the beautiful silent alternative remains.

Visiting Chicago to sell the family wheat harvest, a country boy (Charles Farrell) impulsively marries a flirtatious but world weary city girl (Mary Duncan). When he returns home with his bride he finds his father unimpressed with both his business acumen and choice of wife. In fact, the patriarch finds many reasons to be angry.

This is social realism, without the metaphysical themes of the Frank Borzage pictures also being released by Fox. But its naturalism is gloriously illuminated by the golden splendour of its imagery (photographed by Ernest Palmer). The artistic lighting is an enchantment.

This absolutely works as a romantic drama. The location shoot is richly atmospheric. Farrell and Duncan handle the comedy particularly well, though they lack the chemistry he shared with Janet Gaynor in the Borzage films. It's the visual appeal which makes this an exalting and haunting experience. 

Astaire & Rogers represent so much of the classic glamour of 1930s cinema. This is their usual screwball frou-frou with a shiftless gambler (Fred) who seeks to blag a fortune by marrying a rich looker (Betty Furness), while falling in love with a working girl (Ginger).

Some of the support cast from Top Hat return, including the super-unctuous Eric Blore and comedian Helen Broderick, again playing Ginger's older pal. Swing Time's weakness is that it lacks the wit of Top Hat, and Fred's character really isn't all that easy to like. But...  

...it boasts some astonishing musical standards from Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern. And dance numbers which can be included among the stars' greatest hits. Fred sings the sensational romantic ballad, The Way You Look Tonight. His Bojangles tribute to Bill Robinson is the showstopper*. The legendary duo make magic together on Never Gonna Dance.  

And there's Pick Yourself Up, A Fine Romance and the title waltz! The art deco sets are wonderful too. Neither Astaire nor Rogers was a great actor or singer (in my view...) But 90 minutes in their company is a time machine back to a world of romance and sophistication.  

*warning, this is a blackface number. 

Brief, bullet paced B western full of offbeat narrative details: like the gunfighter's steel prosthetic right hand and the hero's duelling weapon of choice, the harpoon. And it's a vehicle for the director's audacious flourishes. The ultra-stark black and white photography allied to a percussive mariachi score, gives it a unique ambience.

Sterling Hayden plays a Swedish immigrant sailor who returns home to discover a rich landowner (Sebastian Cabot) has hired a gunman (Ned Young) to murder the farmers who have leased his territory, now he has discovered it is sitting on a sea of oil. The killer shot down the sailor's father. So it's a revenge western.

It was scripted by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo under a front, and this is ostentatiously about the failure of people to stand up to an oppressor. It is also a warning of the dangers of US capitalism. The terrified farmers wonder why one man should want everything. Hayden was another victim of McCarthy. He is terrific in this.

And it's an exciting work of genre fiction. There is phenomenal suspense for such archetypal situations. And the characters are vivid and moving. We really care about these persecuted farmers. This was Joe Lewis' last release before he went on to tv, but he was clearly still at his peak; and one of the great low budget directors.

Low budget psychological western raised way above average by the double act between nervy Anthony Perkins and cool Henry Fonda. There's a standard western plot; a bounty hunter/ex-lawman (Fonda) passes through town to claim on the body of killer. He stays around to help the inexperienced sheriff (Perkins) learn the facts of life in the old west.

The stranger lost his wife and child long ago, and the youngster has no family either. They form a temporary father-son relationship as the veteran teaches his protégé how to face down a contemptuous gunman splendidly played by ever loathsome bad guy specialist Neville Brand.

It's a liberal Hollywood picture and Brand channels the racism of ‘50s America which the sheriff must overcome to impose law and order. And it's a great looking western in fabulous widescreen b&w Vistavision. There's a plausible impression of period and a lovely romantic score from Elmer Bernstein.    

This is Anthony Mann at his peak, making fine entertainment out of genre conventions. But it's the simpatico pairing of Fonda and Perkins that makes the film so enjoyable. Though admittedly Perkins looks more like he belongs in High School Confidential than the old west.  

Ensemble western set after the Civil War. The title refers to our motivations: bounty hunter James Stewart is driven by revenge; wandering prospector Millard Mitchell by gold; and disgraced cavalryman Ralph Meeker by sexual depravity. All are distorted by greed and compete to take in a fugitive killer (Robert Ryan), for a cut of the $5000 reward.  

And the murderer will seek to divide his captors and escape with his girl (Janet Leigh) as they trail through the Rockies back to Abilene. Most of the entertainment is watching the crazy, glittery eyed gunman use the men's weaknesses against themselves, like Iago in a cowboy hat.

Ryan gives the dominant performance. He keeps his wild strategies secret, but plainly relishes the barbed malice he scatters in the path of his adversaries. No one could sneer quite as repellently as Meeker and he feels dangerous and completely mercenary as an ex-army rapist without any conscience at all. He's even more loathsome than the killer.

Stewart creates a complex impression of a peaceful man who survives the Civil War with (what we'd call now) PTSD.  It's an actor's film, but visually striking with magnificent colour photography of the Rockies. It's all shot on location and there's an exciting action climax in the rapids of the rugged, picturesque Colorado River. 

Faithful adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque pacifist novel which was a landmark Hollywood sound film and helped establish the conventions by which we imagine WWI on screen. Exhorted by a patriotic teacher, a group of naive German teenagers enlist, and over years of combat are transformed by their experiences, until mutilated, insane or dead.

There is no sense of strategy. The boys and their fatalistic mentors contest the same plot of French farmland in an absurdist exercise in futility. The soldiers create a society out of their irrational circumstances, and normality out of their fear. They come to view life away from the front as alien, even menacing.

Lewis Milestone fought with the US army in France and he does sensational work. He turns his cast into a believable band of misfits; brutalised, but processing their trauma through trench wit. The visual scope is epic, the camera is mobile and the editing lively. He portrays his huge battle set pieces with coherence, which few directors ever do.  

This ranks high among anti-war films, and visions of WWI. There is a lot of vérité; the film shows us the logistics of mechanical war. We see a man blown away by an explosive leaving just his hands on the barbed wire. There is no music to evoke glory or sentimentality… Just the habit forming terror of trench warfare and the betrayal of a generation. 

Hollywood evaded WWI after the armistice, but this success launched a wave of productions about the war over the next 10 years. It was made only eight years after the US joined the conflict, so there must have been real life experience either side of the camera.

This invented the rules for platoon films, partly because it follows a predictable path: the initial patriotism on the home front; the drilling of a group of civilians into a fighting unit; the boredom of waiting and the virile furlough pursuits. Then the young soldiers confront the German army, and are stopped dead on the western front.

Yet there isn't an overwhelming impression of authenticity.  The story is dominated by a romance between its charismatic star- John Gilbert- as a rich doughboy, and the French Renée Adorée as an exuberant farmer's daughter. The cute comedy of their mutual incomprehension is utterly charming.

King Vidor’s epic gave audiences an initial vision of screen war: the fighter planes, the army camps, the anti-aircraft artillery and chemical weapons. A veteran may have felt too many punches are pulled in the interests of tasteful entertainment. It is groundbreaking, but better, more incendiary combat films were coming. 

The labyrinthine plot of Raymond Chandler's classic crime novel was simplified for the screen, though is still complicated by normal standards. But a surprising amount of the author’s approach survives, including a fair approximation of his tough, sardonic hero, Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell).

The star handles the comedy particularly well and tones down the toothsome vitality of his crooning days. In his screen debut, one-time wrestler Mike Mazurki is memorable as the giant ex-con who strong-arms the gumshoe into looking for his former sweetheart, a vanished showgirl. As cute as lace pants.

It's disappointing so little of Chandler's vision of Los Angeles makes the cut (the studio didn't go near a subplot involving the trading of drugs to Hollywood stars). But many other strengths remain. Powell's voice-over reflects the writer's immortal narrative style and trademark wisecracks.

A huge bonus is the noir photography, especially Marlowe's expressionistic descent into drug hell. Thanks to censorship, the streets aren't all that mean, but there is an impression of the class structure of the great sprawling west coast metropolis and the crazies and charlatans who feed on it. A proto-noir landmark. 

Platoon film set on the Burmese front during WWII which looks at the conflict through the eyes of the ordinary soldier. These special operations GIs have been together since Bataan and find they no longer run missions, but fight one seemingly endless battle. As malaria and typhus become endemic, they are physically and mentally burned out.

This is a psychological war film. The message is reinforced by the army doctor (Andrew Duggan) who runs a commentary on the state of exhaustion. This isn't really about combat with the Japanese, but the human cost of being out in the field for so long. Sam Fuller excels at presenting the group as a well drilled team, and the corrosive pathology of stress.

Jeff Chandler is extraordinarily convincing as Frank Merrill, the leader who has to live with the guilt of ceaselessly pushing his men against their limitations. Even the mule gives up... but still the men march on through the jungle! The location shoot in the Philippine jungle gives a realistic impression of the arduous terrain.

The CinemaScope is skilfully used, especially for a B picture. And this is a Hollywood Burmese War picture which acknowledges the presence of the British and Commonwealth army and the suffering of the local population. It's a very moving experience and if it presents these soldiers as being exceptional and heroic, then, probably they were.