She was simply staring into the pass, the never-ending movement of vehicles down on the freeway like blood through the veins of the city.
--Michael Connolly, Dark Sacred Night (Little, Brown and Company, 2018).
"Night" in Connolly's title seems to suggest two meanings, the night shift on which Rene Ballard works and the "knight" that Harry Bosch is, in his search for killers in cases that have gone cold. Bosch even rescues a "maiden," a woman who has taken to drink and drugs after her daughter Daisy had been killed nine years ago. To some extent policeman Bosch, now exiled to San Fernando, is passing the torch to thirty-years-younger Ballard at LAPD; each has much to learn from the other and they even rescue one another from death. Ballard and Bosch are both dedicated to their jobs, as Bosch's daughter is in college and Ballard is devoted to her dog and the beach.
After thirty-five books (four of which I have mentioned previously) Connolly has the same intense feeling for 21st century Los Angeles that Raymond Chandler had for mid-20th century LA; plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Phillip Marlowe operated alone and so do Ballard and Bosch, albeit with some technical help from the police department, while ignoring authority and being driven by a search for truth.
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Monday, December 10, 2018
Philip Moeller's Age of Innocence 1934
Edith Wharton was born in 1862 so she had some firsthand knowledge of "the gilded age" when she wrote The Age of Innocence in 1920. The film was directed by Phillip Moeller who was mainly a stage director, except for one other movie, and used both elements of the book and of Margaret Ayer Barnes's stage adaptation; the script is by Sarah Mason and Victor Heerman. Moeller's film is much kinder to the upper-class denizens of 1870's New York than Wharton's novel is, emphasizing how trapped they were in the mores and customs of the time (as too many of us often are). Irene Dunne soars as the complex Ellen Oleska, who tells Newland Archer (scheduled to marry Ellen's cousin) that they can't run away together because when Europeans flee to America and Americans flee to Europe nothing changes (Ellen wants to divorce her Polish aristocratic husband but her family doesn't want the scandal).
The film of The Age of Innocence is an emotional melodrama, sometimes derisively called a "soap opera" because radio versions had soap companies as sponsors, though it is a genre which has appealed to some very talented directors, including John M. Stahl (who made Back Street with Dunne and John Boles, who played Newland Archer, in 1932), Frank Borzage, and Douglas Sirk, directors that are not afraid to appeal to the emotions within layers of irony. Moeller heightens the emotion and the irony by framing the story as a flashback, with Newland Archer deciding not to see Ellen after twenty-six years, preferring to remember her as she was .
The film of The Age of Innocence is an emotional melodrama, sometimes derisively called a "soap opera" because radio versions had soap companies as sponsors, though it is a genre which has appealed to some very talented directors, including John M. Stahl (who made Back Street with Dunne and John Boles, who played Newland Archer, in 1932), Frank Borzage, and Douglas Sirk, directors that are not afraid to appeal to the emotions within layers of irony. Moeller heightens the emotion and the irony by framing the story as a flashback, with Newland Archer deciding not to see Ellen after twenty-six years, preferring to remember her as she was .
Sunday, December 9, 2018
The Big Apple Circus Dec. 8, 2018
Victoria (age 7), Gideon (20) and I all went to the Big Apple Circus yesterday and had a great time. There were two things that made it better than last year (see my post of Dec 10, 2017): the absence of the unfunny clown "Grandma" (Barry Lubin was fired for sexual harassment) and the precisely timed performances. And I do mean "performance," as the Circus is now more in tune with its origins in performance art, a term one does not hear much anymore. I was particularly entranced by Victor Moisev's horizontal juggling that was effectively visual (the red balls were on strings). Jenny Vidbel was back with her domestic animals (including a potbellied pig) and The Flying Tienzianis were back with their impressive trapeze performance. New this year was Emil Faltyny balancing on a free-standing ladder and kicking a ball into a goal while at the top of the ladder, Duo Fusion --Ihosvanys and Virginia Tuiells -- who did handstands on each other's abdomens -- and Valeriy Dynochev and Eraterina Abakarova, who did a beautiful and sexy aerial ballet.
"Grandma" was replaced by juggler Adam Kushler (who did wonderful things with piles of boxes) and Mark Goudich, who played an aspiring circus performer; they even used elements of Barry Lubin's routines, without the nastiness. The show was written and directed by Mark Lonergan -- who never let any routine go on too long -- and choreographed by Grady MacLeod Bowman, who made much of performance seem like dance. We all loved the show, for various reasons, and Victoria loved the cotton candy and popcorn.
"Grandma" was replaced by juggler Adam Kushler (who did wonderful things with piles of boxes) and Mark Goudich, who played an aspiring circus performer; they even used elements of Barry Lubin's routines, without the nastiness. The show was written and directed by Mark Lonergan -- who never let any routine go on too long -- and choreographed by Grady MacLeod Bowman, who made much of performance seem like dance. We all loved the show, for various reasons, and Victoria loved the cotton candy and popcorn.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Lee Child's Past Tense
The bowstring thumped, the arrow hissed, and Shorty screamed and went down like he had fallen through a trap door.
--Lee Child, Past Tense (Delacorte, 2018).
Some of the strengths of Child's past Jack Reacher novels remain in Past Tense, particularly the character of Jack Reacher, always ready to help the downtrodden, and the detailed use of location as Reacher travels about the country. In this novel Reacher is researching his childhood in New Hampshire when he stumbles across a group that kidnaps tourists and lets other men hunt them, for a price. The plot is more or less borrowed from Richard Connell's 1924 story that was made into the pretty good movie, The Most Dangerous Game, by Irving Pichel and Ernst Schoedsack, in 1932 and remade a number of times.
Kidnap victims Canadian tourists Shorty and Patty are vivid characters, as are some of the denizens of small town New Hampshire, though Child has the annoying habit of keeping information from us until late in the novel, turning suspense into predictable "surprise," something all-too-common among mystery and thriller writers. I have the feeling that Child is spinning his wheels here, even the relationship with cop Brenda Amos doesn't suggest the possibility of it leading anywhere, as it does in other Reacher novels (see my posts of 12/5/17, 1/9/17, 11/10/15, 10/15/14).
--Lee Child, Past Tense (Delacorte, 2018).
Some of the strengths of Child's past Jack Reacher novels remain in Past Tense, particularly the character of Jack Reacher, always ready to help the downtrodden, and the detailed use of location as Reacher travels about the country. In this novel Reacher is researching his childhood in New Hampshire when he stumbles across a group that kidnaps tourists and lets other men hunt them, for a price. The plot is more or less borrowed from Richard Connell's 1924 story that was made into the pretty good movie, The Most Dangerous Game, by Irving Pichel and Ernst Schoedsack, in 1932 and remade a number of times.
Kidnap victims Canadian tourists Shorty and Patty are vivid characters, as are some of the denizens of small town New Hampshire, though Child has the annoying habit of keeping information from us until late in the novel, turning suspense into predictable "surprise," something all-too-common among mystery and thriller writers. I have the feeling that Child is spinning his wheels here, even the relationship with cop Brenda Amos doesn't suggest the possibility of it leading anywhere, as it does in other Reacher novels (see my posts of 12/5/17, 1/9/17, 11/10/15, 10/15/14).
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Film Journal
While my wife Susan is recovering from a broken leg we are watching some movies I have taped from Turner Classic Movies.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The dances are always wonderful in their films -- though there are never enough of them -- because they are choreographed by Astaire and Hermes Pan and the director has little to do with them. That being said, their best "musical comedies" are directed by Mark Sandrich, who had a knack for comedy. Top Hat (1935) was directed by Sandrich and has wonderful comedy (with the help of Eric Blore, Edward Everett Horton and Helen Broderick), lovely music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and exquisite dancing, especially to "Cheek to Cheek" and "Isn't It a Lovely Day (To Be Caught in the Rain)?" Before Top Hat Astaire and Rogers made Roberta (1935), the film that effectively made them a team, as they shared billing with Randolph Scott and Irene Dunne. The film was directed by the impersonal William Dieterle and Dunne sang Jerome Kern's "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," which I loved, though but Susan did not care for Dunne's warbling. Astaire and Rogers become a couple in that film with the delightful "I Won't Dance."
Run of the Arrow (1957) was written, produced and directed by Samuel Fuller; it is a story about a Southerner (played by Rod Steiger) who is bitter at the end of the Civil War and goes to live with Native Americans in the West which is not yet officially part of the United States. The cinematography is by Joseph Biroc (who often worked with Fuller and Robert Aldrich, among many others), who beautifully captures the isolated beauty of the West. Fuller's film works as an effective genre film --soldiers versus Indians -- but also as a parable about loyalty and country and where one belongs; at one point soldier Brian Keith tells Steiger about Phillip Nolan, the "man without a country." itself a parable by Edward Everett Hale. Fuller ends his film with a title card "the end of this film will be written by you," more true now, in our divided country, than ever.
I admire Dean Martin, especially in Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo (1959) and Vincente Minnelli's Some Came Running (1958), but he was often his own worst enemy, being remembered as the dipsomaniac host of various roasts and a member of the Rat Pack. Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) shows Martin brilliantly making fun of his own image, being stranded in Climax, Nevada on the way from Las Vegas to Hollywood and becoming desperate because if he goes a night without sex he gets a headache. Kiss Me, Stupid is beautifully filmed in the unusual format of widescreen black-and-white, capturing the claustrophobia of small-town America as well as its obsession with celebrities and success. Whether one finds Wilder's film funny or not (I do) it is an intelligent observation by a foreigner (Wilder is Austrian) of America's hypocrisies and celebrity obsession and is even more relevant today than it was in 1964.
Frank Tashlin's Hollywood or Bust (1956) was the last film Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis made together: Lewis wanted to direct himself and Martin wanted more serious roles (though as the straight man he was funnier than the clown). Unfortunately Martin and Lewis had finally found their best director, Frank Tashlin, and they had just made their best movie with him, Artists and Models (1955); Hollywood or Bust showed the strain of their increasing hostility to each other. Tashlin did use this tension somewhat effectively as Martin and Lewis traveled across country in a motorcar they had won in a raffle, Martin to a job and Lewis to meet Anita Ekberg. There are many of Tashlin's cartoonish elements and satires of consumerism in Hollywood or Bust (at one point Lewis's dog drives the car), the title referring to the portion of the female anatomy that Tashlin saw some American men obsessed with, including Malcolm Smith, played by Lewis. As Martin and Lewis drive across the country they see mostly young and lissome young women in scanty outfits waving at them as they go by; the one older woman they give a ride to pulls a gun on them and steals their car. Tashlin's use of eye-popping primary colors is enhanced by VistaVision, which produces a fairly high-definition image.
King Vidor's Street Scene (1931) is an effective adaptation of Elmer Rice's play. Vidor does not make the mistake of many film adaptations of "opening up" things and instead sticks to the one set of the exterior of a New York apartment house in a struggling neighborhood. People come and go and stick their heads out the windows but Vidor never goes into any apartments: when a husband comes home to shoot his wife and lover we only see the window as the lover attempts to escape. Vidor was an innovator with early sound films -- particularly Hallelujah in 1928 (see my post of July 23, 2014) -- and worked closely with cinematographer George Barnes to move the camera and vary the shots to capture the dynamics of the streets and people moving in and out of the apartment building.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The dances are always wonderful in their films -- though there are never enough of them -- because they are choreographed by Astaire and Hermes Pan and the director has little to do with them. That being said, their best "musical comedies" are directed by Mark Sandrich, who had a knack for comedy. Top Hat (1935) was directed by Sandrich and has wonderful comedy (with the help of Eric Blore, Edward Everett Horton and Helen Broderick), lovely music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and exquisite dancing, especially to "Cheek to Cheek" and "Isn't It a Lovely Day (To Be Caught in the Rain)?" Before Top Hat Astaire and Rogers made Roberta (1935), the film that effectively made them a team, as they shared billing with Randolph Scott and Irene Dunne. The film was directed by the impersonal William Dieterle and Dunne sang Jerome Kern's "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," which I loved, though but Susan did not care for Dunne's warbling. Astaire and Rogers become a couple in that film with the delightful "I Won't Dance."
Run of the Arrow (1957) was written, produced and directed by Samuel Fuller; it is a story about a Southerner (played by Rod Steiger) who is bitter at the end of the Civil War and goes to live with Native Americans in the West which is not yet officially part of the United States. The cinematography is by Joseph Biroc (who often worked with Fuller and Robert Aldrich, among many others), who beautifully captures the isolated beauty of the West. Fuller's film works as an effective genre film --soldiers versus Indians -- but also as a parable about loyalty and country and where one belongs; at one point soldier Brian Keith tells Steiger about Phillip Nolan, the "man without a country." itself a parable by Edward Everett Hale. Fuller ends his film with a title card "the end of this film will be written by you," more true now, in our divided country, than ever.
I admire Dean Martin, especially in Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo (1959) and Vincente Minnelli's Some Came Running (1958), but he was often his own worst enemy, being remembered as the dipsomaniac host of various roasts and a member of the Rat Pack. Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) shows Martin brilliantly making fun of his own image, being stranded in Climax, Nevada on the way from Las Vegas to Hollywood and becoming desperate because if he goes a night without sex he gets a headache. Kiss Me, Stupid is beautifully filmed in the unusual format of widescreen black-and-white, capturing the claustrophobia of small-town America as well as its obsession with celebrities and success. Whether one finds Wilder's film funny or not (I do) it is an intelligent observation by a foreigner (Wilder is Austrian) of America's hypocrisies and celebrity obsession and is even more relevant today than it was in 1964.
Frank Tashlin's Hollywood or Bust (1956) was the last film Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis made together: Lewis wanted to direct himself and Martin wanted more serious roles (though as the straight man he was funnier than the clown). Unfortunately Martin and Lewis had finally found their best director, Frank Tashlin, and they had just made their best movie with him, Artists and Models (1955); Hollywood or Bust showed the strain of their increasing hostility to each other. Tashlin did use this tension somewhat effectively as Martin and Lewis traveled across country in a motorcar they had won in a raffle, Martin to a job and Lewis to meet Anita Ekberg. There are many of Tashlin's cartoonish elements and satires of consumerism in Hollywood or Bust (at one point Lewis's dog drives the car), the title referring to the portion of the female anatomy that Tashlin saw some American men obsessed with, including Malcolm Smith, played by Lewis. As Martin and Lewis drive across the country they see mostly young and lissome young women in scanty outfits waving at them as they go by; the one older woman they give a ride to pulls a gun on them and steals their car. Tashlin's use of eye-popping primary colors is enhanced by VistaVision, which produces a fairly high-definition image.
King Vidor's Street Scene (1931) is an effective adaptation of Elmer Rice's play. Vidor does not make the mistake of many film adaptations of "opening up" things and instead sticks to the one set of the exterior of a New York apartment house in a struggling neighborhood. People come and go and stick their heads out the windows but Vidor never goes into any apartments: when a husband comes home to shoot his wife and lover we only see the window as the lover attempts to escape. Vidor was an innovator with early sound films -- particularly Hallelujah in 1928 (see my post of July 23, 2014) -- and worked closely with cinematographer George Barnes to move the camera and vary the shots to capture the dynamics of the streets and people moving in and out of the apartment building.
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Turner Classic Movies Dec. 2018
Plenty of Christmas movies; my favorites are Vincente Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), which has Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane) on Dec.1, Ernst Lubitsch's wonderful The Shop Around the Corner (1940) on Dec. 2, John Ford's The Three Godfathers (1946) on the 15th and Remember the Night (1940), written by Preston Sturges and directed by Mitchell Leisen, on Dec. 20.
Other movies in Dec. include:
Chantal Ackerman's intensely minimalist Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles (1977) on Dec. 2 (I commented on this film July 7, 2014)
Jacques Tourneur's great film noir Out of the Past (1947)
John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) on Dec. 11.
Joseph Losey's The Prowler (1951) on Dec. 13
John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle(1950) and Raoul Walsh's High Sierra (1941) on Dec. 17
Preston Sturges's Christmas in July (1940) on Dec. 20
Other movies in Dec. include:
Chantal Ackerman's intensely minimalist Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles (1977) on Dec. 2 (I commented on this film July 7, 2014)
Jacques Tourneur's great film noir Out of the Past (1947)
John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) on Dec. 11.
Joseph Losey's The Prowler (1951) on Dec. 13
John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle(1950) and Raoul Walsh's High Sierra (1941) on Dec. 17
Preston Sturges's Christmas in July (1940) on Dec. 20
Sunday, November 11, 2018
The B Western: Stage to Chino (1940), Riding Shotgun (1954)
When I was a kid I loved Roy Rogers and Gene Autry movies; now I don't care for them because they had motorcars in them and I prefer Westerns --A or B -- that take place on the 19th C. frontier.
Stage to Chino is a nice B Western starring George O'Brien who, for whatever various reasons, was a star in silent films (John Ford's The Iron Horse in 1924, Murnau's Sunrise in 1927) and mostly relegated to B Westerns in the thirties and forties, ending his career back with Ford in Fort Apache in 1948. Stage to Chino was directed by Edward Killy, who directed mostly B films with intelligence and flair. Stage to Chino has something for everyone: comedy (salesman Hobart Cavanaugh saying "I'm in ladies underwear"), music (by The Pals of the Golden West), action and romance. I especially liked the key role played by Virginia Vale, as the woman who takes over her father's stagecoach line and fights for the mail business, helped by postal inspector O'Brien. The film is also something of a study of monopoly capitalism, as a rival stagecoach line resorts to robbery and murder to win the mail contract.
Riding Shotgun is more of a B+ Western, directed by veteran Andre de Toth and photographed by Bert Glennon, who worked often with John Ford; it stars Randolph Scott, an icon of Westerns, and has the themes of many post-WWII Westerns and many of de Toth's film: betrayal and revenge. Many people die in de Toth's film, none in Killy's. Killy's film is in black-and-white, de Toth's in gorgeous color. De Toth emphasizes the solitariness of the Western hero (as in High Noon in 1954 and Rio Bravo in 1959), as Scott is thought mistakenly by the townspeople to be a murderer, while Killy's film has the townspeople working together. Killy's film has important roles for women, while in de Toth's film the women are mostly on the sidelines.
Stage to Chino is a nice B Western starring George O'Brien who, for whatever various reasons, was a star in silent films (John Ford's The Iron Horse in 1924, Murnau's Sunrise in 1927) and mostly relegated to B Westerns in the thirties and forties, ending his career back with Ford in Fort Apache in 1948. Stage to Chino was directed by Edward Killy, who directed mostly B films with intelligence and flair. Stage to Chino has something for everyone: comedy (salesman Hobart Cavanaugh saying "I'm in ladies underwear"), music (by The Pals of the Golden West), action and romance. I especially liked the key role played by Virginia Vale, as the woman who takes over her father's stagecoach line and fights for the mail business, helped by postal inspector O'Brien. The film is also something of a study of monopoly capitalism, as a rival stagecoach line resorts to robbery and murder to win the mail contract.
Riding Shotgun is more of a B+ Western, directed by veteran Andre de Toth and photographed by Bert Glennon, who worked often with John Ford; it stars Randolph Scott, an icon of Westerns, and has the themes of many post-WWII Westerns and many of de Toth's film: betrayal and revenge. Many people die in de Toth's film, none in Killy's. Killy's film is in black-and-white, de Toth's in gorgeous color. De Toth emphasizes the solitariness of the Western hero (as in High Noon in 1954 and Rio Bravo in 1959), as Scott is thought mistakenly by the townspeople to be a murderer, while Killy's film has the townspeople working together. Killy's film has important roles for women, while in de Toth's film the women are mostly on the sidelines.
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