Film Reviews by Steve

Long, episodic adaptation of Norbert Jacques’ novel about a criminal mastermind who exploits the anarchy of post WWI Germany; like the Sherlock Holmes stories were written from the point of view of Moriarty. It’s an idea that seems simultaneously both obvious and inspired. Unfortunately Fritz Lang’s fabled epic is a disappointment.

If this is a classic crime picture, then it's concealed in 4.5 hours of overkill. The period decadence is potent and the action begins well with Mabuse crashing the stock exchange. Rudolf Klein-Rogge is definitive in the title role as the shapeshifting manipulator of zeitgeist who runs the Berlin underground.

And there’s an interesting support cast of sordid aristocrats, proto-celebrities and deadly henchmen. But the narrative is padded to the point of obsession. Scenes are repeated to no positive effect… Long speeches are made without inter titles… Many moments of suspense are fluffed.

There’s not even any expressionism! Thea von Harbou’s script is a disaster and Lang just lets it spin out eternally. There have been shorter, better edits by other hands. The legend is compelling- of the mythic criminal Übermensch feeding on degenerate Weimar Berlin, presented in the high style of silent German cinema. But this isn’t that film. 

Typically energetic early Buster Keaton feature, with the silent comedian this time squeezing the gags out of an adventure at sea. He plays his usual inscrutable stoneface, but now as a clueless, entitled millionaire with little experience of real life.

When his naive marriage proposal to a wealthy neighbour (Kathryn McGuire) is spiked, Buster- for complicated reasons- finds himself alone with the same woman on an ocean going steam ship, which becomes a playground for Keaton’s trademark gymnastics.

Eventually as the couple adapt to their environment, their absurd gadgetry seems to anticipate Wallace and Gromit! There are also some underwater routines. The jokes are not always of superior quality, but there are plenty of laughs and Buster is engaging. It gathers momentum for the blockbuster climax…

Though this encounter with a tropical island of savage cannibals will offend modern sensibilities. Still, McGuire has comical input beyond standard for the love interest in a silent farce. It’s a bit uneven but still fun, overflowing with the great man’s acrobatics and cartoonish daydreams.  

Maybe it’s a shame that the stunt which made Harold Lloyd famous is towards the end of one of his otherwise lesser comedies. He plays his familiar character, the young optimist who struggles through the postwar recession but believes in the American dream and imagines he is a go-getter. If only he could get a break.

Harold leaves his small town for the big city with a plan to send for his girl (Mildred Davis) when he has scaled the corporate ladder… but he only lands a job in sales. This supplies a steady stream of gags and a few laughs. But then… the wage slave must climb the whole department store to drum up publicity.

One of the premier comic action sequences in pictures climaxes with the shop assistant swinging off the flagpole and the hands of the giant clock. It’s simply breathtaking and expertly staged and performed. Lloyd became an icon and the film elevated among the silent masterpieces.

Davis has little to do as the ditsy fiancée who is similarly status hungry. But she’s fun. When she watches her intended (spuriously) boss about the corporate minions it seems to give her sexual pleasure! So the hour it takes to get there is no hardship, but this is remembered for the star’s climactic vertigo inducing acrobatics. 

This is Buster Keaton’s debut feature as director/star, though as he’d been heading comedy shorts going back to the war years, he was already an experienced film maker. And this is really a collection of shorts but intercut and on a common theme: the hazards of courtship through the ages.

There are three comic love triangles set in prehistoric, Roman and contemporary times. Wallace Beery is a stolid heavy who eternally challenges Buster for the hand of Margaret Leahy. And for fans of the great auteur, it’s a little disappointing.

Heaven knows, there is rarely much for female leads in silent comedies, but still, Leahy makes zero impact. And neither does Beery. It’s all about about the star and- at least now- most of the gags are very familiar. And we don’t get any spectacular action stunts.

Buster throws in a few gimmicky ideas, including stop-motion animation. He may even have invented the Flintstones! And it’s startling how much this influenced early Woody Allen. It’s fun but lacks ambition and is not obviously the work of a cinematic legend. 

Charming early Buster Keaton feature set in a vague US rural interior of the early 19th century; the sort of place where arcane feuds are conducted between rival families. He is the amiable big city tenderfoot who arrives at his remote ancestral home to find himself in conflict with his neighbours, while pursuing their lovely daughter (Natalie Talmadge).

Though the rules of hospitality mean the enemies won’t kill him while inside their house visiting the girl. Much of this is sweetly amusing, particularly the long introduction as the young man travels south on a Puffing Billy style steam engine which is so slow his faithful dog arrives first (the mutt almost steals the show).

It has historic interest for Buster enthusiasts. This is his second feature length film as director/star, but the first with a single unified story, rather than a collection of linked shorts. And it’s among his best. He’s excellent as the winsome innocent, and (of course) he is extraordinary at the acrobatics in the action scenes.

The romance explodes into a classic blockbuster climax when our hero has to save the girl from drowning. The famous set piece in a waterfall is literally (yes!) breathtaking. It’s an ambitious film of imaginative situations and sight gags. Buster emerges as one of the great comic stars in cinema. 

Erratic small town murder mystery, with an all time great film noir title. Dana Andrews is the grifter who drifts into a dead end beach resort and intends to marry a churchgoing spinster (Alice Faye) to bankroll his infatuation for the sexy waitress (Linda Darnell) who wants to convert her visual appeal into a steady income…

Only when she turns up dead, the stranger feels the noose around his neck. This is Otto Preminger’s follow up to Laura (1944) and it’s not in that class. There’s an inferior script, ridiculous motivations and some poor casting in the support roles. It's slipshod, like the director’s heart isn’t in it.

Yet the photography is outstanding. The standard noir scenario will engage genre fans and while Darnell as the trashy bad girl is on, it generates a little heat. Which is then extinguished by Faye. After the murder, it becomes a whodunit as Dana attempts to clear his name. Though, the real suspect is obvious.

Anyone who isn’t engaged by the prospect of watching an immoral bum fall for hot sleazy trouble in a scuzzy diner on a studio set of a California beach town is in the wrong place… And doesn’t like film noir. But this Fox production is too clean. Maybe better if it had been made on poverty row, like Detour at PLC the same year. 

Picturesque Italian sex comedy/political allegory is probably going to be too provocative for modern audiences. It’s an update of JM Barrie’s Admirable Crichton but with (tasteful) nudity and profanity. A super-rich female boss browbeats the poorly paid male staff on her yacht.

But when she and one of her lowly flunkies are washed up on a deserted island, of course the positions are reversed. Only this time the man demands compensation for past wrongs, which isn’t so much sex as her absolute submission. Which she discovers is her ultimate fulfilment.

Naturally, this is intended to represent the conflict between capital and labour, but the erotic content will stimulate a variety of responses. Personally, the male on female violence isn’t acceptable, however symbolic. This is supposed to be comedy and the situations are grotesquely exaggerated, though never actually funny.

Giancarlo Giannini as the grubby socialist and Mariangela Melota as the sexy fascist play it as farce, and it eventually gets a little tiresome. But this is a really well directed film set in gorgeous locations on the coast of Sardinia. And though the sexual politics is dated, the class warfare is still relevant.

Typically offbeat historical meditation from Werner Herzog based on the true story of the title character who emerges as a teenager in Nuremberg in 1928 apparently having grown up in isolation without education. For a while he is exploited as a circus freak and then more comfortably housed for academic curiosity.

It’s a scenario which feels too good to be true for the philosophers of identity who followed John Locke. And Herzog lightly reflects on themes of learning, and nature vs. nurture. It is a mesmerising and imaginative recreation of period which continually strays into the out of focus and the folkloric.

Curiously, the camera is absolutely static and we see long unbroken edits like watching figures moving within a painting of rural German Romanticism. But strangest of all is the eccentric performance of Bruno S.- a non-professional actor with personal experience of institutionalisation... Though he’s 20 years too old.

There’s a striking support cast mostly chosen for their interesting faces. It’s an outré comedy of manners which imagines the impact of the foundling within all levels of community; there is plenty of dry humour within the absurd situations. This is poetic realism and another idiosyncratic and hallucinatory vision from peak-period Herzog.

Unorthodox historical account of Spanish conquistador Lope de Aguirre’s quest in 1560 to discover the mythic city of gold at El Dorado- supposedly based on the diary of his christian missionary. Inexorably the foolhardy expedition is consumed by lunacy and preyed on by indigenous tribes.

The opening scene of a royal train in a mountain descent, captures the greed borne insanity, the cultural incongruity, and the misguided heroism of Empire. The long ago conquerors seem to emerge out of the sky in their absurd uniforms like ghosts, burdened by the junk of their culture.

There’s a benchmark deranged performance from Klaus Kinski as the hubristic aristocrat who intends to inaugurate a pureblooded dynasty through marriage to his own daughter. Though he hardly seems to be acting at all, but permeating the madness with his presence.

The hallucinatory conclusion with the self-appointed sovereign drifting down the Amazon on a raft of monkeys with the corpses of his men, is astonishing. The hypnotic soundtrack of electro-prog is inspired. It’s not lengthy, but feels like an epic of the imagination. It’s Herzog’s best film and the masterpiece of the New German Cinema.

Nicholas Ray’s drama about the postwar controversy of teenage delinquency is inevitably dated, and probably naive but still works better than any other '50s film on that theme. And it's a memorial to the legend of James Dean who was dead by the time of the release.

He’s the new kid in town with a history of petty juvenile crime who grabs the attention of a disturbed gang of young offenders. Natalie Wood is a valley girl who gets her kicks from hanging out with the slum kids. With a damaged, gay outsider (Sal Mineo) the trio make up an improvised family which none of them can find at home.

Jimmy now seems a little old, but Natalie (17) and Sal (16) look endearingly authentic. The voices of the first teenagers trying make sense of their nascent freedom are quite potent. It's a fascinating period piece which Ray shoots in the style of science fiction; the small town which must get through a long night of crisis in a threatening universe- as evoked by the climax in the planetarium.

The Cinemascope and the inky colour palette are a joy. The clothes create much of the iconic imagery.  But it's the performance of James Dean that dominates and we still believe in his troubled, alienated antihero trying to understand the rules of his confusing and changing times. Which are tearing him apart.

Exuberant and intelligent drama set in the US midwest in the '20s about an itinerant troupe of revivalists working the rural towns of the bible belt, passing the hat around the poor farming families of the depression. After being joined by travelling salesman of the title, they take on the challenge of adapting to new markets in the cities.  

This is the role Burt Lancaster was born to play, as the charismatic preacher: big hearted, generous, forgiving and full of sin. And he delivers a huge, boisterous performance. It is an actors' film: Jean Simmons plays Sister Sharon, the star of the roadshow; Shirley Jones is dazzling as the sex worker from Gantry's past.

Sinclair Lewis' 1927 novel draws on Sister Aimee McPherson's real life showbiz evangelism. It is a curiously American phenomenon which fuses capitalism and protestantism. The film critiques a broad range of themes around the subject of evangelistic faith, some editorialised through Arthur Kennedy's atheistic news journalist. It is cynical of revivalism's provenance and ethics.

It makes a valid point about the preachers' exploitation of their followers, but this is by no means a dissertation. The threadbare locations, the impoverished times, the showmanship and the personalities are vividly brought to life. It is a colourful, sumptuous production which is charged with the magnetism of Lancaster's Oscar winning performance. 

Screwball fantasy about a boxer (Robert Montgomery) who crashes his small aircraft and is assumed dead by the inexperienced clerk (Edward Everett Horton) at the pearly gates. Big mistake. The fighter has to be found a new body by heaven's head of department (Claude Rains) as his own was cremated.

He is billeted in the fresh corpse of a murdered banker. The boxer is just an honest guy who wants the world to be a better place. But he discovers everything is corrupt, whether the stock market or the fight game. His consolation is Evelyn Keyes, who he runs into no matter whose body he is in. It was meant to be.  

Robert Montgomery is a little too much of a dumb klutz. Everything is explained to him three times in case the audience isn't paying attention. And Claude Rains twinkles far too unctuously. But this is a pretty funny story with a fertile premise that would be remade many times. Keyes brings plenty of Hollywood glamour.

What happens is meant to be, and we would understand if we saw the whole picture. Hardly the most progressive of philosophies. But it's easy to see this is intended to be solace to those suffering loss. It was released with the world at war, and America's entry was confirmed a few months later, after Pearl Harbour. Before the end of the year, Montgomery was in the US navy. 

Louis Malle’s debut as director is an unconventional and ultra-stylish crime thriller which borrows from film noir but also trials methods later associated with the French New Wave. While the suspense is unreliable, it looks amazing and made an international star of the photogenic Jeanne Moreau.

Maurice Ronet plays an ex-soldier who murders the rich husband of his lover (Moreau) but gets trapped in a lift on returning for incriminating evidence. Which leaves her to wander around Paris trying to find him. Meanwhile a couple of teenagers (Georges Poujouly and Yori Bertin) steal Ronet’s car and kill some tourists.

The weakness is the amount of time spent watching Moreau search for her accomplice. Though that is hardly a chore! Filmed with handheld cameras in natural light on the streets of Paris accompanied by Miles Davis’ improvised jazz score; what could be more Nouvelle Vague?

There’s a cute ending, but as a thriller this is uneven. Yet, as a vehicle for a fresh cinematic approach, it’s stunning. Malle is a quality film maker who always engages the eye. There’s some politics and reflections on Americanisation, but it’s really all about the bebop soundtrack, and the novelty of the look.

Hollywood biopic of a real life mountain trapper in the time of the Frontier Wars. A look around the internet suggests this is a fairly approximate account; there’s no suggestion of his cannibalism of Native Americans! Robert Redford represents a very ‘70s idea of the old west which is liberal and inclusive.

So it’s a revisionist western. What we get is a tribute to the stoic resilience of the isolated pioneers who endured the cold of the Rockies, gloriously photographed on location around snowy Utah. And though the politics are updated, the impression of their hardship and native tribal customs is persuasive.

There’s a rugged star performance from Redford who leads a strong ensemble cast of unfamiliar character actors playing the sort of eccentrics who can’t tolerate human society and so seek out the most inhospitable surroundings. It focuses on the psychology of those living on the edge of the extreme frontier.

Occasionally it gets a bit whimsical, particularly the soundtrack of acoustic ballads and the folksy voice over. But mostly, this an intelligent and fascinating insight into a very alien existence. There was a minor wave of frontier survival westerns in the early '70s- like A Man Called Horse (1970)- and this as good as any. 

Charming, leisurely comedy-drama elevated way above the standard by excellent performances from Timothy Bottoms as an alienated teenager from a rich American family and (especially) Maggie Smith as a nervous, rather austere middle aged spinster.

Of course they fall in love, while travelling through beautiful, rural Spain in the last years of Franco and before the age of mass tourism. So it feels like undiscovered country, almost feudal. While the lovers are separated by age and background, they are both lonely introverts.

And it’s a sweet tale of romantic serendipity and odd couple comedy, at least until the late (predictable) twist. Bottoms seems to channel Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967) while Smith is serenely magnificent as a kind of vinegary lonely-heart; a dependable carer experiencing unexpected freedom.

The peaceful, touristic locations are a wistful setting for their improbable encounters on the road with Spanish eccentrics. The comedy is muted but really quite adorable. The script (Alvin Sargent) is sensitive and compassionate and directed with warmth by Alan J. Pakula. A cult film which might be better known.