When The World Was Fresh And Young And All Things Were Possible (Or So We Thought)-Ah, To Be Young Was Very Heaven-Ans Cat Steven’s Soundtrack Too-Ruth Gordon And Bud Cort’s “Harold And Maude” (1971)-A Film Review

When The World Was Fresh And Young And All Things Were Possible (Or So We Thought)-Ah, To Be Young Was Very Heaven-Ans Cat Steven’s Soundtrack Too-Ruth Gordon And Bud Cort’s “Harold And Maude” (1971)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Frank Jackman

Harold and Maude, starring Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, 1971

I have commented in the past, and a number of other commentators have as well most notably or publicly the late great Gonzo journalist Doctor Hunter S. Thompson, on when the 1960s ended. Meaning not 1969 or 1970 however you count decade-endings but the spirit, the wildness ride of the 1960s, the time when we variously sought a “newer world” in the expression of poet Alfred Lord Tennyson and “to be young was very heaven” in the words of poet William Wordsworth. Thompson himself put it at 1968 and the Democratic National Convention in bloody Chicago and I, for one, and I am not alone on this, called May Day, 1971, the day we tried, and failed, to shut down the government if it would not shut down the Vietnam War the ebb tide. Others have picked the horrific Rolling Stones concert at Altamont as the low tide and others have expressed other lesser events at the touchstone of the night of the long knives, the long night of fighting, these days seemingly daily rear-guard actions in the cultural wars burning a hole in this country, in America. All of this to say that the film under review, the now classic Harold and Maude, upon re-watching (after having seen it several times when it was a cheap no dough for big dinners date night ritual to go watch and re-watch the film when it first came out in 1971) seems very much a product of those times, a moment in those times and therefore dated. Dated not in a negative sense necessarily although some of the dialogue seems that way but very much rooted in the dying embers of the 1960s, the ebb tide previously mentioned.

       

I noted recently in a rare film review of the anti-fascist classic from 1945 starring Dick Powell Cornered, previously rare apparently since under the new Greg Green regime since here I am again, reviewing a classic of another sort, that generally I had been concerned with other types of commentary, mostly political and social, cultural if you will. Greg “drafted” me for this assignment with the understanding that since I had already seen the film when it came out and he wanted somebody to do a “then and now” piece as he called it, and as it is called in the business, in the film review business at least at his previous job as editor at American Film Gazette I was the logical choice. Neglecting the real logical choice Sam who actually reviewed the film in 1971 but who these days is in a knock down, drag out fight with young up and coming reviewer Sarah Lemoyne over a series of issues that need not detain us here. So I am second logical choice not only because I had seen (and re-seen) the film but because I have some comments about the times centered on that ebb tide business mentioned above.     

The premise of Harold and Maude is fairly simple, a benighted young rich kid, Harold, played by Bud Cort who I don’t recall having done anything much of anything on screen after this performance which may tell us something as well about the film or the times since it was not well-regarded except in the rarified air of Cambridge and such alternative life-style havens and as well the extremely rarified air around Sam Lowell in those day for he prophetically was one of the few who reviewed the film positively. Harold had, rich or poor then, two things many of the young could relate to a deep-seeded if comically portrayed hatred for his well-heeled but indifferent mother who controlled lots of his life’s decisions and too much time on his hands waiting to break out in the world. That former may seem strange today but during the 1960s a common slogan was “don’t trust anybody over 30” which meant every freaking parent of the baby-boomer generation was in our cross-hairs. The latter as well since we were caught in a world we didn’t create, a war we could not comprehend while being caught up in its throes and no constructive way to make ourselves heard without going to the barricades.    

Harold, an odd-ball and a loner, although nobody would have cared much one way or the other about his idiosyncrasies then, beside staging about twenty-seven fake suicide attempts for his mother’s “benefit” attended funerals, became on the surface at least comforted by that attendance. As part of that ritual he eventually meets the Maude of the title, played by energetic Ruth Gordon, a woman almost eighty and still going strong, still full of spunk. She attends the funerals for a very different reason, a reason having to do with coming to terms with her own mortality, not an unimportant concern given her age. Harold, after umpteen attempts by his mother to get him married to an assortment of young women, gravitates toward, well toward a grandmother figure. Maybe we all hated our parents then but we gave grandparents a pass. I know my own grandmother saved my young ass from many a home life wrangle with my own mother.

Once you get past the extreme age difference between the pair they are kind of an interesting couple. Maude has, as I said, her own agenda, but while they interact she is a positive influence on Harold breaking out of his self-imposed shell. His affect, his clothing, his interest shift as he becomes more in thrall of Maude. The dicey part, or rather the two dicey parts which may have accounted for the negative reviews back in the day, was that relationship leading to a romance, leading to sexual intercourse between the two. These days you can love who you want, or at least that is the thought of many people on the question of gender identification but the area of intergenerational sex still has some distance to go. Who the hell would go to bed with their grandmother after all. More pressing was that Maude agenda item. She held firm to the notion that at a certain age, eighty, she would have had enough of life. And she acted on it, took her own life when the deal went down leaving Harold bereft. But not paralyzed for knowing Maude Harold was able to break out of death door’s grasp. Like I said dated, but not necessarily in a negative way given our social identity issues today.

When The Bad Guys Danced (And The Dance Was No Foxtrot, Brother) -James Cagney’s “Lady Killer” (1933)-A Film Review

When The Bad Guys Danced (And The Dance Was No Foxtrot, Brother) -James Cagney’s “Lady Killer” (1933)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Alex Radley

Lady Killer, starring James Cagney, 1933 

Everybody in the old neighborhood, the Atlantic section of Carville, the used to be “capital” of the cranberry world now pushed west to Wisconsin and places like that, knew a guy like Dan Quigley, the role that legendary actor James Cagney plays in the film under review Lady Killer. Well, maybe not everyone, but close, a guy who knows, or thinks he knows all the angles, has the angels on his side too no matter what. A Teflon-type guy who might be put in a spot but comes up smelling like roses.

I’ll get to Dana’s moves, good and bad, in a moment but the character of Dana Quigley, including the lady’s man, aspect reminded very much of Lenny Logan from down in that Atlantic section of Carville where I grew up and who was if not my closest friend, or me his, then we never crossed each other, and I was never directly the butt of one of his scams, cons, brainstorms. Lenny, good-looking Lenny, also a lady’s man was as much from what other older guys who write for this site have called “from hunger” in declining market seasonal cranberry country. But he always had dough from early on when he would con guys out of their milk money by flipping “fixed” baseball cards against the schoolyard wall (until some parents complained to the teachers and it stopped-or rather he stopped on those particular kids). That deeply larcenous scheming heart would parlay that kind of scam all through school including plenty of serious housebreaks which he would plan-and others would carry out. He would, for lack of a better word, be the “finger” man with plausible deniability in case things did not work out. Sent more than one young woman off to “Aunt Emma” as writer Sam Lowell would have called it in any earlier time and we said rolling our eyes “in the family way.” Lenny, wouldn’t you know, eventually broke that bad streak by becoming a very successful local lawyer (including being mine on a couple of occasions) but it was, as always with guys like Lenny, a close thing.

With that kind of character in mind let’s see what made Dana Quigley tick, how he passed his time. Part of the problem with this particular film is that the producers or somebody wasn’t sure which James Cagney they wanted to use. The notorious 1930s headliner gangster from films like White Heat in the classic age of that genre of which audiences in Great Depression ate up like crazy or the dandy song and dance Yankee Doodle Dandy man. As usual they went for the great test audience muddle. So they kind of put them together and added in that street wise kick. Yeah Dana was always hustling, nickel and dime stuff mostly until he almost drew a sucker punch when he got conned by a dame, by a moll, twist, frail whatever you want to call a girl ringer playing the old lost pocketbook gag luring guys in and set them up for a beating of their worldly goods at the poker table.

But our boy Dana got wised up quick, and despite a roomful of thugs against his small stature he made those low-rung gangsters cry uncle-and make them plenty of dough. Of course guys like Dana are always thinking about the next best thing which is to make a big score-here doing cagey burglaries in Mayfair swell houses. Made a nice racket as the pretty boy finger-man until the beef went too far and conked too many heads, too many deaths and the future looking like the big step for everybody unless they blow town.

That blowing town begins the shift to the pretty boy part, to Dana’s rise as an actor out in Tinseltown, out in Ed Rushca’s big Hollywood sign hills. While there he takes up with a different kind of frill, a big- time movie actress. Wouldn’t you know it though that old gang of his from back east wound up in LA, including that former love interest moll he had been running around with and who left him high and dry when the deal went down. The old gang figured to work that high- end burglary scam of old with Dana in the lead. Problem: the gang, now the gang that couldn’t shoot straight if you ask me robbed his movie star honey. Bad move. Maybe bad move both ways. The gang sensing Dana was the weak link wanted to waste him, put him out in the Pacific deep heading to the China seas maybe.  Dana in turn, turned copper –a no-no in our old neighborhood and by general consensus a “fink,” “rat,” “stoolie” better left six feet under. Even Lenny understood that, maybe Lenny better than anybody since he knew he could do whatever he wanted, whatever larceny, sex acts, etc. he wanted and the Omerta oath of the corner boy neighborhood would protect his young. But this is Dana remember, shades of Lenny, and so he lands on his feet. I don’t know what to make of this film but one thing I do know I kept thinking about Lenny all the way through the film.  You probably have your own Lenny and will too. 

Trying To Figure Out What The Heck Is Going In A Film-A Case Study-Tom Cruise’s “The Last Samurai” (2003)

Trying To Figure Out What The Heck Is Going In A Film-A Case Study-Tom Cruise’s “The Last Samurai” (2003)

DVD Review

By Leslie Dumont

The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, Ken Wantanabe, 2003      

Usually in doing film reviews I watch the film, alone or with my companion to compare notes after viewing, and then write a draft review from scratch. I do not usually look at the now many film reviews provided by such companies as Netflix and the like on the Internet. (The best by far is still American Film Gazette which started out as a hard copy magazine about seventy years ago and went to on-line about ten years ago and has reviewed over fifty thousand films in that time, many reviews classics in the genre like that publication’s Sam Lowell’s extensive and inclusive film noir series from the 1970s which defined the genre in the wave of the French New Wave which went crazy over the 1930s-1940s material)  With the film under review though I was perplexed as to what my hook would be so I looked at some thoughtful and familiar reviewers I have known and trust (despite the cutthroat nature of the business personally between reviewers who take no prisoners  the reviews usually are spot on) and found that they had missed the point or had gotten so caught up in the action that they missed the real point which I will discuss in a minute after I take a few of the views expressed to school.

Marlene Kalen, a well-regarded reviewer and former colleague of Leslie Dumont now of this publication at Women Today, seemed to have dismissed the whole venture as just a violence-soaked way to put Tom Cruise in a period piece (1870s Japan after the American Civil War when many of the fighters of that war were free-booters, were ready and willing mercenaries for whatever came up from training foreign armies in modern warfare to robbing banks and trains a la the James gang and Cruise’s character, Captain Algren, took a leap to the Orient for a private company working on behalf of the Japanese government trying to modernize its army and put down a rebellion by traditional samurai who were resisting those efforts). To Ms. Kalen Cruise, along with Harrison Ford and the string of James Bond from Sean Connery on, were hopped up on the male fantasy cave man taking on all comers to preserve, well, preserve something. I have lost the figure, or it is not at hand but in a film of some two and one-half hours Ms. Kalen noted over twenty separate “battle, skirmish, fake battle” scenes including using children as foils for the violence. While I might today have sided a bit with her general conclusion about films, action films, which exist solely to keep people glued to their respective seats in horror, fascination I think by modern standards, and given the subject matter of the film which after all was about the demise of free agent warrior culture in a country trying to modernize the film’s violence was inherent in what was being produced.

Naturally if you want to avoid talking endlessly about violence in modern films, and not so modern films check out the gangster classics of the 1930s, then the next step is to fix on the brotherhood, the multicultural brotherhood (Japanese and American) between Captain Algren and the leading samurai, Kyoto, played by Ken Watanabe, around questions of honor, valor, and service. That was the approach Lenny Lynch then of American Film Gazette took when he made this out as one of the great buddy films in the tradition of Robert Redford and the late Paul Newman where individuals who would not normally associate with each other, would not normally interact in their respective occupations find a serious bond by virtue of their common (maybe universal at least that was the way Lenny broached the subject) regard for fellows who took honor, sacrifice and expertise seriously. Maybe if Lenny had thought more about what he saw on screen he would have seen that these two men in the end did not really understand each other since Kyoto was trying to stave off the injurious effects of modernization on Japanese society and Algren was barely more than a well-paid, well-trained but vicious mercenary. A loner to boot.    

A lot of people have prattled on endlessly, Danny Lawrence, from Film Today, for one about how the American Civil War was the harbinger of mass military industrialization and that older values and occupation had to bow down to what was coming, coming to America and to Japan and that to challenge that was fool-hardly and unwise. Thus the Kyoto-Algren axis of the film was misdirected   and the railroad magnate Omura, and his agent Colonel Bagley formerly of the Union Army as well, should have been held up as the model of modernizers and agents of serious change whatever personal benefits they would receive from such changes. The film according to Danny can be taken as a cautionary tale about what happens to those who can’t keep up with social changes and had to, should be left bury themselves in splendid isolation.      

Action-faction, buddy-buddy and holding the thumb in the dike may all have a place in a review of this film but sometimes reviewers can’t see what is in front of them, can’t get out of the way of their own shadows, can’t imagine the obvious as in this film. The key here, maybe the only thing that gives this film any energy is the “boy meets girl” aspect that none of the above reviewers had a clue about. (Remember I told you the film review occupation is not for the faint-hearted, is more cutthroat that any lawyers would dream possible and they consider themselves a pretty wild lot when they get up a head of steam). Think about it. This Captain Algren, a drunk, a stone-cold killer either while under orders or as a free-lancer, and a guy you should hang on to your wallet when he is around is nowhere, is nothing until his Japanese sweetie, Taka, whose husband he has off-handedly killed in battle sobers him up, get him to take a bath, teaches him how the show works in Japan and takes him in tow. Ms. Kalen may have counted up the number of violent acts committed in the film but what about the more numerous significant glances between Algren and Taka as the film rolls along. There will be problems as with any pair who are from different cultures but Taka softened the rough edges off of the good captain. The proof of what I say is obvious by the end of the film when there is speculation about what happened to Captain Algren after the decisive battle between Omura’s troops and the samurai warriors where Kyoto is killed and the samurai legend extinguished except in lore and novels is done and his whereabouts unknown. Does it really take a private detective like Phil Marlowe to figure out he hightailed it back to his Taka. Like I have said elsewhere Hollywood has milked this boy-girl theme a million times to good effect. Here as well.       

In Lieu Of A Hook- In Defense Of One Woman Vigilantism-Frances McDormand’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017)-A Film Review

In Lieu Of A Hook- In Defense Of One Woman Vigilantism-Frances McDormand’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Laura Perkins

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, starring Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, 2017 

I frankly don’t know what to make of this film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri which I do know rightfully won Oscars for two of the actors in this effort. One for the righteous Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes and the other as supporting actor Sam Rockwell as Jason Dixon. My quandary though is about what the cluster of themes are supposed to represent. What that means in “film speak,” in what I mentioned in one recent film review piggy-backing off of long time film critic and my longtime companion, Sam Lowell, is that I don’t have a “hook,” something to turn this review on. Sam’s safety valve suggestion which mainly is good for older films, black and white films from the 1940s and 1950s which he made his reputation on, wrote what many until recently anyway considered the definite classic on the genre, is to take on the “American slice of life” aspect when all else fails or you are stuck.

I am not sure though in this case this film tells us much about contemporary America, at least anything that you can put a hook into. A suggestion that this film is the current classically fashionable “fight” between the Eastern intelligentsia and the redneck backwoods “good old boys and girls” who sense of justice and political correctness are worlds apart seems snarky. A cinematic replay of the 2016 American presidential campaign, interfered with or not, doesn’t put this round peg in the square. Moreover, the way the whole political correctness aspects play out makes me believe (and Sam too when I asked for candid and serious advice) that the producers have missed out on the Occupy Movement, more importantly what #Me Too stands for, and most decisive of all is that it is clueless about race, about what Black Lives Matter which after all started in real Ferguson, Missouri and either they didn’t hear the news or were more comfortable with stale old clichés about the matter. I make no pretense to have the pulse of the racial question right in this country but if I knew that when I was making a film like this I would not flaunt that ignorance straight up.

Maybe it is best to lay out the storyline and let the emotions wrought by the situation stand in for a hook. I don’t like the idea but I also don’t like the aforementioned slice of life pitch either. Mildred, played by McDormand, is the bereft mother of a raped and murdered teenage daughter by person, or persons unknown. Also in the mix the ditched wife of a wife-beater husband and devotee of intergenerational sex having copped a holy goof nineteen- year old girlfriend after ditching Mildred in a fit of his 27^th mid-life crisis. Mildred is far from over the grief of losing that daughter and the local police’s seeming readiness to throw the case deep into in the cold files. Down the road from her house are the three billboards of the rather inelegant and unfashionable film title and she decides to move things off of dead center by renting the long unused signs to shame/egg on/belittle the efforts to find her daughter’s murderer.

Needless to say the cops, especially top cop Willoughby, played by Woody Harrelson, and one of his young deputies, a wacko cop, Jason Dixon, played by Sam Rockwell did not like this aspersion on their commitment to solving this or any crime. The townspeople in general back them up on this and so stoic and determined Mildred stands essentially alone in seeking some rough justice in this wicked old world for her beloved and mourned daughter. To add fuel to the fire (no pun as will be mentioned shortly) Willoughby is dying of cancer and before the whole deal had gone down commits suicide which some contend Mildred’s seemingly unwarranted campaign had a hand in. With the top cop’s death Jason goes into overdrive first crashing and trashing everything in sight and then when he is fired by the new sheriff in town, a black man no less, he get’s “religion”  about what a cop is supposed to, and not supposed to do.

Meanwhile Mildred still on a rampage turns into a one woman guerilla unit firebombing the police headquarters not knowing that Jason was inside. He got out but had severe burns over a good part of his body. Guys like Jason though never get a break, whether the deserve one or not, and when he does try to solve the case after hearing a random bar conversation which might be related to the daughter’s murder and collects DNA surreptitiously from the suspect it turns out there was no match. Which leaves Mildred and Jason now confederates on that so-called suspect’s trail as over-the-top vigilantes.

See what I mean about where the hook is despite the two excellent acting jobs. In the end though maybe the query of the title of this review can stand in-in defense of one woman vigilantism. Hope that will do.