Chappie

Dinner and a Movie
 
Chappie Goes Publick

By Steve Herte

Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping memories lie, as it were.

I mentioned in my column last week that I was going to attend the Spring Gem Show in New York. When Helene and I first attended the show years ago, it was in the cavernous Armory on Lexington Avenue, holding a literal sea of clubs, companies and collectors offering any and every sort of stone known, loose or in various fittings. It took us hours to explore the entire space and we usually came home with something special, a replacement stone for a ring or a malachite lion. Since then, the show has shrunk substantially, and this year it was held in a small ballroom at the Holiday Inn on 57th Street.

One by one the various purveyors of precious and semi-precious gems have dropped out. Combined with the accompanying increase in price of space, so many vendors have dropped out that it's no longer a “show;” it’s a high-priced marketplace. I saw a less than half-carat emerald with a sickly green color going for $400. As I left, disappointed, I realized that another piece of the city that I have so loved and which has brought me much joy over the years has disappeared.

But, as the Bee Gees sang, “Nobody gets too much Heaven no more…” it bring us to Friday. Even sentient robots can experience Hell and sometimes anticipating something bad results in something good. Enjoy!

Chappie (Columbia, 2015) – Director: Neill Blomkamp. Writers: Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell. Cast: Sharito Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, Brandon Auret, Johnny Selema, Maurice Carpede, Jason Cope, & Anderson Cooper. Color, 120 minutes.

This is a sad, disturbing movie, a tragedy, and not exactly a travelogue come-on for Johannesburg, South Africa. It brought back thoughts of District 9 and apartheid (not racially, but economically).

Brilliant computer scientist Deon Wilson (Patel) develops a robot police force, which is gratefully adopted by the police department of Johannesburg (the first city to do so). Crime is reduced radically. Vincent Moore (Jackman), a fellow co-worker develops a major assault robot called “The Moose” capable of fending off an army or an aerial attack but their boss, Michelle Bradley (Weaver) and the police department puts the kibosh on it, making Vincent dangerously jealous of Deon.

Violent gangs at war with each other populate an enormous area of poverty on the outskirts of the city. Ninja (Ninja), Amerika (Cantillo) and Yolandi (Visser) owe a large amount of money to the muscular and ruthless gang leader Hippo (Auret). They know of the robot designer and hatch a plot to get the “remote” (so they think) to turn off the robot police force and allow them to steal enough cars to pay back Hippo.

Deon wants to create Artificial Intelligence (AI) and is on the verge of a break-through, but when he presents his idea to Michelle, she turns it down. He decides to swipe a robot scheduled for recycling (its battery has been inextricably wedged into its body by the force of a grenade-launcher wielded by Hippo on its last raid), change out the all-important – and only – “guard key,” which prevents any outside hacking into the computer program, and finish his experiments on it. After loading the robot and equipment into his van he’s no sooner on his way than Ninja and his gang hijack him.

Deon is forced to work at the deserted warehouse hideout for the three-person gang and successfully loads his program – strangely Star Trek named “Genesis” – into the robot. When the robot powers up it responds and cowers like a newborn child. It has to be taught to speak, how to act, how to read and think. Yolandi calls him a “Happy Chappie,” and from that he gets his name, despite the protests of Deon.

Ninja won’t let Deon stay and teach Chappie. The three hoodlums teach the robot how bad life is, and that he must learn to fight and use weapons to survive. Ninja becomes Daddy and Yolandi, her motherly instinct surfacing by Chappie’s helplessness, becomes Mommy to Chappie while Deon is just the “Maker.” Chappie’s skills grow exponentially while in their questionable care.

Vincent figures out that Deon took the guard key and follows him to the lair, where he learns of Chappie and his new capabilities. He uses another program to remotely take all the police robots off-line (including Chappie) and when Deon brings Chappie into the home office Vince gets the guard key back by force.

As soon as the robot police force crumbles, so does the social order of Johannesburg, and crime goes rampant in the streets. Vincent tells the Michelle that Deon is to blame and they need to activate the Moose to get control back. He uses news videos of Chappie stealing with Ninja and his gang to bolster his case, and she finally agrees. Using his monstrous robot he goes on a remote killing spree (he only has to wear a helmet to control the monstrosity) at the deserted warehouse where Hippo and his cronies are already confronting Ninja and his group along with Chappie and Deon.

Chappie is a tragedy in the classic sense as the Deon’s situation is going very well at the beginning. His robots are a big success and he’s lionized for it. But the trend goes down as the movie progresses. His dream of creating a conscious robot succeeds, but only after both he and Chappie are kidnapped by the underworld. He sees his creation being gradually perverted and tries repeatedly to intervene, but it seems hopeless, especially when he sees news footage of Chappie participating in a heist.

Let me emphasize that this is not a movie for children. It’s extremely violent, gory and (when you can understand the Afrikaans accents) vulgar. There is a scene where slow motion photography make the gunning down of one of the characters seem like the last scene in Bonnie and Clyde complete with blood spatter. You actually see the bullets pass through the body. A great special effect, but not one I wanted to see. Speaking of great special effects, the character Chappie (voiced by Copley) though computer generated, looks completely real and moves convincingly and smoothly.

The hairdressing department went hog wild with this film. Yolandi’s hair looks as if it was glued on from a Barbie prototype, and Hippo’s do is a horrendous combination of Buckwheat and a mullet.

Dev Patel gives us a new dimension to his acting abilities. His usual ebullience is there, but he registers shock, sadness and amazement as well. And ... he performs the scene every actor wants to perform eventually and does it well. Frequent moviegoers know what I mean. Sigourney Weaver is great as the corporation head who thinks only of profits over practical applications, and Hugh Jackman does a believable performance as a bully.

One cannot help but feel empathy for the hapless Chappie, who realizes that everyone has lied to him (including his maker, who didn’t tell him his battery could not be replaced and that he would “die” when it did). But, stay until the end. There’s an unexpected twist and the threat of a sequel.

Rating: 3½ out of 5 Martini glasses.

Church Publick

82 Reade Street (at Church Street), New York

www.churchpublick.com

I must admit to being somewhat reluctant to visit this restaurant knowing that a little over two years ago it was a Blimpie’s sandwich shop, not exactly haute cuisine. But, with rain coming on in the evening I decided that this would be the time to try it, as its location was convenient to both the movie theater and the subway.

The entrance on Reade Street opens into a noisy bar with a tiny Captain’s Station to the left of the door. People are chatting and drinking and occupying every seat at the bar and the tables surrounding it. I wondered if I would have a table. A gentleman who reminded me of the late Ray Walston as he looked on My Favorite Martian greeted me and, after a double-take at the computer screen, led me upstairs to a small balcony and gave me a choice of two tables. I chose the one at the end of the hall with a great view of the activity below. The Plexiglas walls surrounding the balcony helped shut out most of the noise.

When my server arrived I already had the menu, the wine and drink list and a glass of water. After determining that they did not have any gins I liked I asked about specialty cocktails. She indicated the page in the menu and right away I chose a drink called “Lose The Tie” – Dorothy Parker gin, Lillet, and Grand Marnier with an Absinthe swirl. It looked like a Margarita and tasted like an Orange Blossom, very nice.

The menu features appetizers, salads, sandwiches, entrées and market/garden sides. There were several choices I found appealing and when I chose two appetizers, an entrée and two sides my server didn’t bat an eye.

As with my cocktail, the first wine on the list caught my attention as the perfect accompaniment to all the dishes I selected. It was a 2012 Christian Simon Chablis – a crisp, bright and slightly dry wine, refreshing.

The two appetizers arrived first, the baked soft pretzel – cheddar and parmesan, jalapeno with a ramekin of house-made mustard. It satisfied one of my recent cravings this week perfectly and substituted for bread as I enjoyed fried green tomatoes with diced roma tomatoes and red onions over baby spinach in a horseradish aioli. Between the two dishes I got the alternative tangs from the mustard and the horseradish while tasting the salty sweetness of the pretzel and the mild acidity of the tomatoes. Though not the best versions I've had of either dish, they were both comforting.

The main course and sides arrived a little early but I managed to fit what was left of the appetizers onto the entrée dish. The beer battered fish and chips with cole slaw and house-made tartar sauce were fluffy and crisply coated. Even though my server proffered vinegar for the fries and brought a ramekin of catsup, they didn’t need either. They were lightly salted, browned and crisp, perfect. The sautéed spinach with garlic was a beautiful green and had a respectable garlic flavor while retaining a slight crunch but they were out-done by the crispy Brussels sprouts. The halved sprouts were tender with a crispy crunch outside and the individual leaves were sheer delight.

I was having a great time and, despite all the food, was ready for dessert. The “La Bomba” – chocolate and vanilla ice cream with a chocolate shell, cut in half, drizzled with chocolate syrup and garnished with a Maraschino cherry – was a decadent but wonderful ending to an unexpectedly great meal. Add one double espresso and all was right with the world. As Captain Obvious would say, Church Publick is an enormous improvement over Blimpie’s. When Lent is over I look forward to trying the meat dishes.

For the Dinner and a Movie archive, click here.

Cinéma Inhabituel for March 16-31

A Guide to the Rare and Unusual on TCM

By Ed Garea

STAR OF THE MONTH

TCM continues its Star of the Month festival with Ann Sothern. One thing a cinephile will discern after viewing some of her films is that she was a deft actress, equally at home with drama as comedy. As one who has enjoyed her work for years, my opinion is that MGM dreadfully wasted her talent by not allowing her to appear in films that might stretch her talents as an actress, typecasting her as a B performer. It would have been most interesting to see the results if she were paired in the lead with a Gable, a Tracy, or a Stewart. When allowed that chance in 1987, she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as the neighbor of Lillian Gish and Bette Davis in The Whales of August (1987).

March 18: There are two excellent Sothern films bring aired this night. The first, at 11:30 pm, is Panama Hattie, a 1942 offering from MGM with Red Skelton, Rags Ragland, and Lena Horne. Ann is a nightclub owner in Panama who must deal with Nazi spies. It’s strictly “B’sville,” but the antics of Ann, Red and Rags make for enjoyable viewing. The other film worth catching follows right after at 1:00 am, Lady Be Good (1941), co-starring Robert Young and Eleanor Powell. Though the film was meant as a Powell vehicle, Ann and Robert acquit themselves nicely as married songwriters constantly battling. Again, it’s wholly enjoyable thanks to Sothern.

March 25: A much better night for those of us devoted to this talented and beautiful lady. First up at 8:00 pm is the excellent A Letter to Three Wives (1948). Sothern stars with Linda Darnell and Jeanne Crain as recipients of a letter from the town flirt telling them that she has run off with one of their husbands, but neglects to say who, leaving it to them to figure it our. And this is where the fun starts. Cleverly written and wonderfully directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, this is a definite “must see” for anyone who has missed seeing it over the years, and a “gotta see again” for those who have caught it. Sothern is solid as Rita and provides hilarious support to Crain and Darnell as they try to figure out which husband it is.

Following at 10:00 pm is her Oscar nominated performance in 1987’s The Whales of August. Here Ann was sandwiched between two heavyweights of the cinema in Bette Davis and Lillian Gish and rises to the occasion, giving us a glimpse of what might have been if only she were allowed to stretch herself like this in the past.

At 11:45 pm is the underrated The Blue Gardenia (1953). Ann is telephone operator Crystal Carpenter, who shares a room with fellow operators Anne Baxter and Jeff Donnell. Anne accidentally kills the leering Raymond Burr after he tries to force himself on her at his apartment, and becomes the subject of a search by Burr’s reporter friend, Richard Conte. Sothern acquits herself well in the familiar role of the wisecracking friend. Fritz Lang, who keeps viewers on the edge throughout, directed the film in his usual inimitable style.

One other film worth noting this evening is Cry Havoc, a 1943 effort from MGM about nurses and civilians stranded on Bataan before the Japanese invasion. Margaret Sullavan is top billed as Lt. Mary Smith. She receives excellent support in this film from Joan Blondell as an ex-vaudevillian and stripper, and Sothern as a wisecracking waitress. It was Sullavan’s swan song for the studio, as management was tired of her on-the-set antics and had already groomed her replacement, June Allyson. As it airs at the awful hour of 3:00 am, we suggest recording.

March 26: In the spillover of Sothern films from the night before is a most entertaining gem airing at 7:45 am – Fast and Furious, the last attempt by MGM in 1939 to make a viable franchise out of the Joel and Garda Sloane mysteries. Joel is a rare book dealer and Garda his helpful wife in this imitation of Nick and Nora Charles. Exhibitors were clamoring for more films in The Thin Man mold and the studio created the Sloane mysteries in response. The problem with the series was the fact that the studio kept changing the leads with each new film. In the first, titled Fast Company (1938), Joel and Garda were played by Melvyn Douglas and Florence Rice. Reception was positive, so the studio filmed a sequel in 1939, titled Fast and Loose. This time Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell starred as Joel and Garda. Again audience reaction was positive, so a third film was commissioned. This time Franchot Tone and Sothern portrayed Joel and Garda. Though this is a decent film, it didn’t quite do the business as the previous two. The constant changing of leads kept the audiences from making a connection, and with Powell and Loy back at work on another Thin Man film, MGM decided to pull the plug on the Sloane mysteries.

FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT

In our last installment we mentioned the Friday Night Spotlight for March is devoted Roadshow Musicals. But it’s been brought to our attention that we failed to tell our readers exactly what is meant by the term “roadshow musical,” and for that we apologize. It promises to be an interesting marathon of sorts of mediocre to downright awful musicals. In the early ‘60s, the traditional musical was dying, so the studios, in an effort to revive audience interest, decided to market their product, which by this time had become quite expensive, by opening the films in certain big cites before their general release. They also included reserved seating and special ticket prices. The first of these roadshow musicals was Julie Andrews’s The Sound of Music, which did extraordinary business. Hollywood made the mistake of confusing the marketing with the quality of the product and began rushing other musicals, musicals that really weren’t that good, into production, and, as a result, suffered several big box office bombs in addition to various success stories. After awhile the financial weight of the films alone doomed them to extinction as the public began to lose interest in the traditional musical in favor of other options.

March 20: The night is devoted to the star whose performance in The Sound of Music cemented the trend of roadshow musicals: Julie Andrews. We begin at 8:00 pm with the ponderous Darling Lili, from 1970, a film whose financial baggage and mediocre story combined to make it a box office disaster that almost bankrupted Paramount. It concerned the romance between WWI American flyboy Rock Hudson and Mata Hari type Andrews, not exactly a prime idea for a musical. No wonder it bombed.

Following at 10:30 pm is another box office bomb, this one from 1968: Star! Ostensibly the story of stage legend Gertrude Lawrence, it seemed like a good idea, but the way in which it was fleshed out as a musical left a lot to be desired. In these days of dwindling interest in musicals, it took a special film to reverse the trend. Giving audiences this drivel was not the way to reverse the trend.

At 1:30 am, it’s one of the few successes of the period, 1967’s Thoroughly Modern Millie. It’s a very enjoyable film, with sprightly performances from Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Channing. Set in the Roaring ‘20s, it features several excellent songs of the era plus a good background score by Elmer Bernstein. It’s definitely one to record.

Lastly, at 4:15 am, it’s the wonderful Victor Victoria from 1982, with show-stopping performances from Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston, and even Alex Karras. Unfortunately, the rot had set in so firmly that this film was unable to stop it, let alone reverse the trend of diminishing returns for musicals. Catch it anyway, it’s well worth the time and effort.

March 27: Our final night of roadshow musicals is not exactly one to go out with, as all shown are varying shades of dreadful. The worst is first: Man of La Mancha (1972), a stillborn version of the Broadway musical with Peter O’Toole as Don Quixote, James Coco as Sancho Panza, and the great Sophia Loren totally wasted as Dulcinea. They don’t get any worse than this one.

Next up at 10:30 is Camelot from 1967. Though it’s not as bad as the others being shown this night, given its connections with the Kennedy Administration, it was released four years too late.

At 1:45 am is an excruciating film from Francis Ford Coppola, Finian’s Rainbow, from 1968. This tale of a leprechaun who follows an Irishman who stole his pot of gold all the way to the U.S. South will have viewers hating leprechauns, gold, and the South. It starred Fred Astaire in his last musical (what a way to go out) and Petula Clark (??). Clark was too intimidated to dance with Astaire and Astaire was apprehensive about singing with Clark. See it only if you must.

Last, at 4:30 am (right where it belongs) is the musical adaptation of Frank Capra’s classic, Lost Horizon. Yes, you read that right. Produced by the clueless Ross Hunter and starring Sally Kellerman and Peter Finch (Hey, don’t blame them!), this film has nowhere to go but down. And it does. They say films like this are a dime a dozen. I just want to get my hands on whoever is supplying the dimes. Mommy, please make it stop hurting. Please?

OUT OF THE ORDINARY

March 16: At 1:45, director Henri-Georges Clouzot’s gripping thriller, The Wages of Fear (1953), is scheduled. This gritty and suspenseful film documents the lives of four drifters so desperate for work that they agree to sign on to deliver nitroglycerine needed to put out a fire in an oil well. The journey is considered so dangerous, and the chances of a truck exploding so high that two trucks, each with a crew of two men, are sought to drive at a safe interval behind each other to insure that the nitro gets to the fire. A reward of $2,000 is waiting for those who survive the trip. Yves Montand (the star), Peter Van Eyck, Folco Lulli, and French silent film star Charles Vanel are the four drivers picked for the assignment. Clouzot keeps the suspense ratcheted up with each passing minute as the men encounter an almost endless steam of obstacles. In order to be shown in America, 21 minutes were excised, cutting a homosexual subtext and references to the corrupt oil company that hired the men for this suicide mission. However, what is left is still a choice exercise in adult cinema that dispenses with the obligatory happy ending Hollywood and the Code had imposed on its product.

March 17: At 8:00 pm St. Patrick’s Day brings us one of director Carol Reed’s gems: Odd Man Out (1947), the tale of an IRA leader hunted by the British after pulling off a daring robbery. Made two years before Reed made The Third Man, many critics consider this film as his real masterpiece. James Mason, in a masterful and gripping performance, plays the wounded IRA leader who is left behind in the aftermath of the robbery and must make his way to sanctuary, all the while bleeding heavily and becoming more disoriented, as he encounters strangers on the streets of Belfast who vacillate between wanting to help and wanting to turn him in for the reward. It’s a desperate struggle for Mason and his friends to get him to safety. Reed does a wonderful job of capturing the mood of the times; the paranoia, morals, and fears of the period, which are seen with an unusual degree of depth through Mason’s character. To those who love The Third Man we also recommend this gem as companion viewing. For those who haven’t seen any films of Carol Reed we heartily recommend this film as an excellent place to begin.

March 22: The late night hours feature two marvelous films from Swedish director Alf Sjoberg. First up at 2:30 am is his 1944 opus, Torment. This is a well-crafted story of high school student Jan-Erik Widgren, whose Latin teacher, nicknamed Caligula, is feared by everybody, both teachers and students. Widgren falls in love with Berta, who works in a tobacco store. As their relationship blossoms, she confides to him that she is being harassed by a mean, sadistic man. What she doesn’t tell him is that her tormentor is none other than Caligula himself. It’s a beautifully realized film, highlighted by Sjoberg’s use of photography and a first rate script from the young Ingmar Bergman.

Following at 4:15 am is Miss Julie (1951), Sjoberg’s adaptation of playwright August Strindberg’s 1888 tragedy about a love affair between an aristocratic young woman and her father’s lowly valet. As doomed lovers, Miss Julie and Jean, Anita Bjork and Ulf Palme are superb, and the cinematography by Goran Strindberg added to the direction of Sjoberg infuses the usually static Strindberg with a vitality that never goes overboard into melodrama. This may be Sjoberg’s best work and is a film definitely worth a look.

March 27: The morning and afternoon hours are dedicated to the topic of “spring,” and films with “spring” in their title are running on this day. Among them, TCM is including director Yasuhiro Ozu’s 1956 drama Early Spring, airing at 10:30 am. Early Spring is an insightful drama about a married young clerk who, bored at home and on the job, begins an affair with the office flirt, nicknamed “Goldfish” by her co-workers. It sounds like a simple story, but this is Ozu – nothing is as simple as it appears, especially in Japanese society. Ozu does a magnificent job of showing the growing alienation of white-collar workers crushed by a corporate culture that was the result of Japan’s postwar recovery. That this culture is not all its cracked up to be can be easily discerned from the frequent use of the word “dissatisfaction” throughout the movie. Ozu shows the effect the affair has on co-workers, as well as the wife, who suspects her husband of straying when he refuses to pay attention to her. Ozu also poignantly shows the reaction of Goldfish when she realizes her lover is no longer interested in continuing the affair. As with life, Ozu shows us that nothing is as simple as it appears at first, and the choices we make come back to define us later – one reason why his films are so interesting, and continue to pack a punch years later.

March 29: It’s three from Luis Bunuel, beginning at 2:00 am with Tristana (1970). A love story as only Bunuel can make it, Catherine Deneuve stars as the title character, a young orphan in the custody of well-to-do Fernando Rey, who seduces her and makes her his mistress, but eventually loses her to the younger painter Franco Nero.

At 4:00 am, it’s the groundbreaking short Bunuel made with Surrealist painter Salvador Dali, Un Chien Andalou (1929), a film that must be seen numerous times to be fully appreciated. Then, at the dawn of day, 4:30 am, it’s Bunuel’s religious masterpiece, Simon of the Desert (1965). Claudio Brook is Simon, an ascetic who spends years perched on top of a column to perform penance for his sinful nature, while ministering and occasionally performing miracles for the devotees who come to watch. It’s a clever satire of dogma, heresy and the hypocrisy of the Church, as Simon’s faults are soon revealed to be egotistic pride and self-delusion in his quest to get closer to God by sitting atop a pillar. It’s only 45 minutes long, but says more in the allotted time than most films twice as long.

March 31: “An Evening With Louis Malle” could be the title of this day’s entries, as five of his films are screened beginning at 8:00 pm with the delightful comedy Zazie Dans Le Metro from 1960. Zazie is a precocious and energetic 11-year old who comes to stay with her uncle for a few days. Her dream is to ride the Paris Metro, but when a strike quashes that plan she takes her uncle on a wild romp through the streets of Paris.

At 10:00 pm, it’s Malle’s touching drama Au Revoir Les Enfants from 1987, about a wartime headmaster who attempts to hide three Jewish children in his boarding school.

Following at midnight is Malle’s brilliant take on collaboration, Lacombe, Lucien (1987). It was one of the first films to address France’s collaboration with the Nazis, as shown by its title character, a teenage peasant who joins up with the Gestapo after being rejected by the Resistance. Malle brilliantly deals with the tortured psychology of a young man who really doesn’t understand the ramifications of his choice, which are brought home when he falls in love with a Jewish girl.

At 2:30 am, it’s Malle’s bizarrely quirky coming-of-age comedy, Murmur of the Heart, from 1971. His hero, Lucien, is a 14-year old who experiences dramas enough to provide the plots for 100 made-for-television movies: underage drinking, underage sex, blasphemy, incest, petty theft, adultery, art forgery, whoring, and drunk driving among them. We won’t give away the ending; that would be unfair. But we will say this is a film that packs one helluva punch, no matter how many times we see it.

Finally, at the graveyard hour of 4:30 am comes one of Malle’s early masterpieces, the Hitchcockian Elevator to the Gallows, a 1958 combination of noir and the “New Wave,” with stars Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as lovers plotting to kill her husband (Jean Wall), a rich arms dealer. They pull of what they believe to be the perfect crime, but a small mistake made by Ronet leads to a succession of events that undoes all their careful planning. It was released in the United States under the title Frantic in 1962.

BATMAN CONTINUES!

On March 7 TCM began showing Batman, the 1943 serial from Columbia starring Lewis Wilson as the Caped Crusader and Douglas Croft as Robin. It’s old, it’s creaky, but it’s fun. As it was made in 1943, it shows the influence of the war and it contains 15 chapters. The costumes may be ill fitting, but this serial is pure entertainment and has been cited by critics as one of the best serials ever made. So park the brain for a few minutes, tune in, and enjoy. All episodes air at 10:00 am Saturdays.

PSYCHOTRONICA AND THE B HIVE

March 16: At 8:00 pm it’s a Western so bad it’s good. The Oklahoma Kid, from 1939, stars Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart as two of the unlikeliest cowboys that ever rode a horse. Cagney is the title hero, a sort of Robin Hood of the Plains who comes after Bogart and his gang after they kill the Kid’s father. It’s hokey, corny, and totally unbelievable. The performances by Cagney and Bogart are so outlandish that they take the film into the realm of High Camp and make it a treat to watch. Check out Cagney in a hat so big it looks as though it was wearing him. As for Bogart (described as “another authentic Westerner from Tenth Avenue” by New York Times critic Frank S. Nugent), we can tell he’s the villain because he’s dressed all in black - an ahead-of-his-time urban gangsta. And catch Cagney singing “I Don’t Want to Play in Your Yard.” Directed by the equally clueless Lloyd Bacon, the strength of the film is the seriousness with which it takes itself. And that makes it one to catch. Total entertainment.

March 19: It’s a night of Bert I. Gordon films! Yes, the man who made himself a drive-in icon with giant monster pictures such as King Dinosaur (1955), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Beginning of the End (1957), and the incredible Earth vs. the Spider (1958). No one quite made ‘em like Bert, also known as Mr. B.I.G., as any MST 3000 fan can testify. Several of Gordon’s efforts were shown during the course of the show. TCM gives us a retrospective of Gordon’s films, with only three giant monster films among the seven scheduled.

Beginning at 8:00 pm is Tormented, from 1960, with Richard Carlson as a composer haunted by the ghost of his former lover (Susan Gordon, Bert’s daughter), who he let die. At 9:30 comes Cyclops (1957), a version of sorts of The Amazing Colossal Man. Come 10:45 pm, it’s Attack of the Puppet People (1958). Mad scientist John Hoyt has shrunk several unwilling volunteers so they can be his puppet friends. At 12:15 am, it’s The Magic Sword (1962), Bert’s attempt at fantasy. Look quickly for Vampira as a hag.

The night grinds on with The Boy and the Pirates, from 1960, airing at 1:45 am, followed by the dull thriller Picture Mommy Dead (1966) at 3:15 am. Finally, at 4:45 am, it’s the campy Village of the Giants (1965), a take off on H.G. Wells’s Food of the Gods, as a group of teenage delinquents ingest a substance that makes them grow to 30 feet tall, and take over a small town. So bad it’s fun.

March 26: A night of noir from Hammer Studios begins at 8:00 pm with Heat Wave (1954), starring Alex Nicol, Hillary Brooke, and Sidney James. Paid to Kill (1954), with Dane Clark as a ruined executive who hires a man to kill him but later changes his mind, follows at 9:30 pm. If it seems familiar, note that it was done before: in 1944 as The Whistler, starring Richard Dix and directed by William Castle.

At 11:00 pm, it’s The Gambler and the Lady, from 1952, starring Dane Clark, again, as an American expatriate gambler who tries to buy his way into British society. Finally, at 12:30 am, Zachary Scott stars in Wings of Danger, a 1952 crime drama about a cargo shipper whose ties to the underworld are exposed after a plane crash.

Although all four films are, to be kind, relentlessly ordinary, they are rarely shown and give us cinephiles a peek into both Hammer Studios and British society at the time.

March 28: The “Carry On” crew gives us a superior effort in Carry On Screaming (1966, 10:30 am), a clever spoof of Hammer horror films with Harry Corbett as a clueless detective who must stop nefarious Dr. Watt (Kenneth Williams) from kidnapping women and turning them into mannequins to be sold to department stores.

TCM TiVo Alert for March 15-22

TCM TiVo ALERT

For

March 15–March 22

DAVID’S BEST BETS:

FURY (March 16, 10:00 am): This is director Fritz Lang's first American film, and it's one filled with suspense, revenge, mob rule, hostility, intolerance and action. Spencer Tracy established himself as one of Hollywood's best actors when Fury was released in 1936. Tracy was busy that year with a secondary but important role in San Francisco and he co-starred in Libeled Lady. In Fury, Tracy plays Joe Wilson, who is accused of a crime he didn't commit. While he sits in jail, waiting for the police investigation into the crime, the local townspeople get worked up and go to lynch him. Unable to get inside, they torched the jail with Wilson killed in the fire – or so it seems. The great plot-twist is that Joe escapes, but is presumed dead, with the people responsible for the incident facing murder charges. With the help of his brothers, Joe seeks revenge against his would-be killers. Tracy does a great job going from a hardworking, mild-mannered guy into one controlled by anger and vengeance. The film moves from a love story to suspense to a courtroom drama. Interestingly, it was released by MGM, best known at the time for its big-budget musicals.

THE CITADEL (March 18, 2:00 pm): Robert Donat (a greatly under-appreciated actor) stars in this moving film about an idealistic doctor who begins his medical career treating Welsh miners with tuberculosis. He becomes disenchanted and moves to London with his wife, played by the wonderful Rosalind Russell, to be a doctor to the rich. The film is a damning indictment on physicians who get into medicine for the money. Most of the doctors who treat the wealthy are portrayed as social climbers and largely incompetent. It can be a bit cliched at times, but the acting is solid and the story is touching.

ED’S BEST BETS:

WAGES OF FEAR (March 16, 1:45 pm): A gripping and gritty drama about four down and out men who are hired by an American oil company in South America. Their task is to drive trucks of nitroglycerin over rugged and treacherous terrain to be used for blowing out oil fires in wells. If they complete the trip, they will be paid $2,000 each. Director Henri-Georges Clouzot does a wonderful job chronicling the lives and relationship of the four men (Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli, and Peter Van Eyck) while keeping the suspense on full. Clouzot never lets us relax for a minute as the men fight the terrain, their fears, and ultimately, each other. It’s light years away from what Hollywood was providing at the time, which makes viewing it even more essential for the film buff.

ST. MARTIN’S LANE (March 20, 6:00 pm): Any time we can watch Charles Laughton, Vivien Leigh, and Rex Harrison all in the same film is a good time indeed. And all three shine in this film about the world of buskers, or street entertainers that inhabit the lowest rung of London’s entertainment ladder for a few pence, mingling with the high society types who attend the theater and dine at the fancy restaurants and who look down on the buskers as little more than beggars. It’s the same with the police, who roust the buskers at every turn, but still they persevere. Leigh plays Liberty, a young pickpocket whom Laughton befriends. Taken with her beauty and ability to dance, he transforms her into a street artist. But Liberty has bigger goals. She wants to make it over the invisible line and become a legitimate performer. Harrison is a songwriter for the legitimate stage with whom Libby falls in love. The film plays out beautifully, avoiding the easy route of melodrama for something more substantial. It was also Leigh’s final film before Gone With The Wind, and provides us with a good look at her extraordinary beauty and range of talent. Laughton, of course, is Laughton, and he doesn’t let the viewer down for one second, while Harrison, in the early part of his career, shows us the promise that later allowed him to bloom in a smaller role. Anyone who has seen buskers at street corners or on subway platforms will find this film fascinating.  

WE DISAGREE ON ... VICTOR VICTORIA (March 20, 4:15 am)

ED: A. I consider this as the last great movie Blake Edwards directed. I think he knew it also, because he later directed a TV-movie based on the Broadway production, also starring wife Julie Andrews. And Edwards takes the art of female impersonation to its ultimate height: Julie Andrews is a woman playing a man playing a woman. When she comes on stage as Victoria she must be slightly imperfect because she’s known off-stage as Victor. Where she’s successful in this is the source of much of the comedy in the film, which as Roger Ebert said, “is a lighthearted meditation on how ridiculous we can sometimes become when we take sex too seriously.” Andrews is a starving signer who befriends Toddy, marvelously played by Robert Preston, who comes up with an idea: Since there are no jobs for female singers, but plenty for female impersonators, why shouldn’t Andrews assume a false identity and pretend to be a drag queen? It’s a deliciously screwy idea, and one we can only find in a sex farce. When James Garner enters the scene, falls in love with her and refuses to believe she’s not a woman, the fun starts. Add Lesley Ann Warren as Julie’s jealous friend, and Alex Karras as Garner’s bodyguard, and it gets even better. All the gags depend on split-second timing and people being in the wrong place at the right time. That Edwards pulls it off is further testament to his directorial prowess at the time. This is a hilarious film precisely because the characters seem to be people first and genders second, which makes them even more likable. And they must be likable for the film to work, which it does and does well.

DAVID: B-. Except for a couple of Pink Panther films with Peter Sellers, I can't think of any other movies directed by Blake Edwards that come close to great. He made a number of good films, including Victor Victoria, during his career. However, we are not here to debate the directing skills of Edwards. We are writing about this particular film. Victor Victoria is a good movie, just not as good as Ed describes. A remake of a 1933 German film, the movie is about Victoria (Julie Andrews, who was Edwards' wife) is a talent singer unable to find work in pre-World War II Paris. With the help of Toddy (Robert Preston), she becomes a sensation as a great female impersonator with the twist being, of course, that she's a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. An American night club owner/mobster (James Garner) sees the act and ends up falling in love with Victoria (who now goes by the stage name of Victor), convinced the singer is a woman. Andrews is a delight and Lesley Ann Warren as Garner's girlfriend and Alex Karras as Garner's bodyguard are good. Preston is over-the-top in his portrayal of Toddy, becoming a gay cliché. Garner is competent, yet uninspiring in his role. He is supposed to play it straight (no pun intended), but Garner really doesn't bring anything special to the character.

For the complete list of films on the TCM TiVo Alert, click here.

Dillinger

Psychotronic Zone
 
His Story is Written in Bullets, Blood and Blondes!

By Ed Garea

Dillinger (Monogram, 1945) - Director: Max Nosseck. Screenplay: Philip Yordan. Cast: Lawrence Tierney, Edmund Lowe, Anne Jeffreys, Eduardo Ciannelli, Marc Lawrence, Elisha Cook, Jr., Ralph Lewis, Victor Kilian, Ludwig Stossel, & Constance Worth. B&W, 70 minutes.

John Dillinger was one of the most charismatic gangsters who ever lived. Because of his positive notoriety, the Hays Office banned any Hollywood studio from capitalizing on his name. This was well before Dillinger met his death outside in Biograph Theater in Chicago at the hands of the FBI. Adding strength to the ban, J. Edgar Hoover made it known to Hollywood that any studio making a Dillinger biopic would lose the cooperation of the FBI, which counted for a lot in those days. The studios, for their part, complied, even though a Dillinger-esque character might slip through every once in a while, such as Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest (1936) and Bogart again in High Sierra (1940). Though Warner Brothers produced both films, the studio quickly disavowed any connection or resemblance between the characters and Dillinger.

But come the ‘40s, America was at war, fighting bigger gangsters. Independent producers Frank and Maurice King decided the time was right to take a chance, and secured the cooperation of Poverty Row studio Monogram Pictures. Upon learning of this, the Hays Office sent Monogram a reminder to keep their film within the established guidelines that were set forth in the special regulations regarding crime in motion pictures. Thus, the script by Philip Yordan (with unbilled assistance from the young William Castle) steered a wide berth from many of the known facts of Dillinger’s life and career. In fact, it could be said that any resemblance between the Dillinger of the film and the real Dillinger was only coincidental. The Dillinger of the film is a cold-blooded killer, a highly unpleasant person. The real Dillinger, by contrast, was a bank robber who was not a killer by nature, a charismatic Jesse James type who stole from the hated banks.

The original thought of the producers was to tell the story from the point of view of Ana “Anna Sage” Cumpanas, the Romanian madam who sold Dillinger out to the FBI in return for a promise not to be deported - a promise the government did not keep. She is renowned in popular culture as The Woman in Red, for the red dress she wore so the FBI could pick out Dillinger. In reality, her dress was orange; it only looked red under the lights of the theater marquee. In this way, they didn’t have to mention Dillinger by name, and could thus escape any interference from the censors. But Yordan thought Dillinger was the compelling character, and that patrons would prefer his story instead of a disguised gangster yarn.

For the role of Dillinger, Monogram head Steve Broidy wanted Chester Morris. But the King brothers pointed out that Morris would be too expensive and, if Broidy wanted him so badly, Monogram should pony up the required salary separate from the film’s budget. So there went Chester Morris. The King brothers wanted Lawrence Tierney, an unknown contract player from RKO, to play the title role. He had been signed by RKO in 1943 and had gone through five films without being credited. His best known of the bunch was his performance as a sailor in producer Val Lewton’s Ghost Ship, where he plays a luckless sailor crushed to death in the coils of the ship’s anchor chain. He finally received ninth billing in Lewton’s JD epic for RKO, Youth Runs Wild (1944). As he wasn’t used much at RKO, Tierney began to spend his time at Monogram, looking for parts, and that was where the King brothers met him. They wanted him right away for the title role. They liked his swagger and his tough guy persona, already established this early in his career. Broidy nixed the choice, not wanting to give top billing to an unknown. But the King Brothers were persuasive: Tierney cost less than half the salary of Morris and, if Broidy didn’t accept the choice, they would take the production elsewhere. Broidy liked the script and didn’t want to lose the picture. On the other hand, he didn’t want to commit a lot of money to what could well be a hard film to sell, so he budgeted the project at $65,000, which was fine by the King brothers, as they had a deal for a percentage of the gross. As he saw the dailies, Broidy’s enthusiasm for the project grew and he raised the budget to a final number of around $192,000.

The film opens with the conclusion of a newsreel detailing Dillinger’s criminal exploits. Dillinger’s father talks to the movie’s audience about his son, describing his youth as uneventful, but noting that John was headstrong and ambitious.

Cut to a speakeasy in Indianapolis, where John is drinking with his date. She wants another drink and John tells the waiter that he’s short of cash but can write a check. The waiter, a hard-ass, tells him it’s a cash-only joint. John wants to leave, but his date insists on ordering another drink. John excuses himself, telling her he’ll be right back with some money. He heads to a nearby grocery store and robs the owner, fooling him into believing he has a gun. On the way out he runs into two cops, who arrest him and note that he only got $7.20 in the heist.

Sentenced to prison, John gets off on the wrong foot by trying to bully his cellmate, who knocks him cold. Later, John learns that his cellmate is none other than “Specs” Green (Lowe), one of the nation’s premier bank robbers, and quickly makes up to Specs, who in turn, introduces him to his gang: Marco Minnelli (Cianelli), Doc Madison (Lawrence) and Kirk Otto (Cook, Jr.). Talk about an all-star roster of B-movie criminals. John, whose sentence is much shorter, vows to help them escape once he’s paroled.

As soon as he is freed, John holds up a movie theater box office, after flirting with the ticket seller, Helen Rogers (Jeffreys). Although Helen recognizes him from a mug shot, she says she cannot identify him during a line-up, and Dillinger goes free. Afterward, Helen goes out with John. Several more successful robberies give Dillinger the wherewithal to carry out his escape plan, which involves sneaking in a barrel carrying firearms to the gang while they’re working in the quarry. They shoot their way to freedom, and with Dillinger, commit a series of daring bank robberies.

But the gang learns that all but John have been identified by one of their victims. Specs sends John out to case their next target, the Farmers Trust Bank. On the way, however, Dillinger stops in at the speakeasy where the waiter had given him such a hard time during the movie’s opening scenes. Dillinger invites him to sit down for a drink, then breaks a bottle and shoves the bottle into the man’s face.

Posing as a customer, John checks out the bank, reporting to the gang that it has a sophisticated security system. Specs wants to bring in outside help, given the security and John’s trigger-happy disposition, but John convinces the crew that he has a better plan. The gang uses gas bombs to rob the bank and flee to their hideout, where John takes over leadership of the gang from Specs, taking his double-cut as well. The group splits up for a couple of weeks, reuniting at a lodge run by the Ottos, Kirk’s foster parents. Learning the law is closing in, the gang heads to the West, robbing banks there. In Tucson, Dillinger visits a dentist to see about a toothache. As John is about to be put under, the police burst in and arrest him.

This leads to a scene in prison, where we see Dillinger whittle the wooden gun he later uses to make his escape. Reunited with the gang, Dillinger’s first order of business is to kill Specs, who he has figured out betrayed him in Tucson. He then shows the boys his plan to rob a train with a huge payout. But during the robbery, John is wounded and Kirk is killed. The gang, with new member Tony (Lewis), flees back to the Otto’s lodge, where Helen is staying. With Kirk dead, the Ottos have no qualms about turning the gang in, but as they are making the call, Dillinger overheads them and kills them both. John then stops Helen from sneaking off with Tony, and as the police close in on the lodge, he and Helen escape in a car. The rest of the gang surrenders, but John and Helen make it to Chicago, where they find a place to lay low.

It’s July 1934. John is Public Enemy Number One and the authorities are offering a reward of $15,000, dead or alive. John, feeling antsy, decides to go to a movie with Helen. However, he is unaware that, in the meantime, she has sold him out to the FBI. As they exit the theater, FBI agents spot Helen, who is wearing a red dress for easy identification. As they close in, Dillinger tries to shoot his way out, but is gunned down. In the final irony, the agents go through his pockets and discover he has only $7.20 on him.

I mentioned before that the film played loose with the facts about Dillinger’s life. The part in the beginning with Dillinger’s father was true, as mentioned earlier. Dillinger did live in Indianapolis, and prison is where he met the men he joined later. He did help them escape - however, the names are all wrong, as the men he met at Indiana State Prison were Harry “Pete” Pierpont, Charles Makley, Red Hamilton, and Homer Van Meter. There was no recognized leader. Dillinger was arrested with the gang in Tucson, but not while going to the dentist. The lodge in Wisconsin existed, but the people who owned it were not related to any of Dillinger’s gang. And it was Anna Sage, not Dillinger’s girlfriend (Polly Hamilton), who wore the “red” dress. The theater was the Biograph, which viewers of the film would not have known, as they instead substituted a generic theater located on the lot. Not even the Biograph’s marquee was duplicated. The film Dillinger saw that night? Manhattan Melodrama, a 1934 MGM film staring Clark Gable, William Powell, and Myrna Loy.

The strong part of Dillinger is its cast, especially in the supporting parts. The casting of Edmund Lowe, Marc Lawrence, Eduardo Ciannelli, and Elisha Cook, Jr. made for quite the formidable gang. Anne Jeffreys, essentially playing “The Lady in Red,” was borrowed from RKO. She turned in an original, thoughtful performance as Dillinger’s girlfriend, almost walking away with the film. Selmer Jackson (as the dentist) and Ludwig Stossel (as Elisha Cook’s father) were fine in bit parts. But it was Lawrence Tierney’s movie, as he snarled, growled and spat his way through without resorting to his hambone. He was nothing short of brilliant as he portrayed a man whose violent rage always was simmering beneath the surface, ready to explode. This was Tierney’s big break, and to say he was anxious was a helluva an understatement. His frequent anxiety attacks during filming necessitated having a port-a-potty nearby to cut down his time away from the camera.

After the success of the film and the reception afforded his performance, Tierney returned to RKO as a star. He played a very credible Jesse James in the Randolph Scott oater, Badman’s Territory, in 1946, before going on to become America’s favorite psychopath in such films as The Devil Thumbs a Ride (1947), Born to Kill (1947), and The Hoodlum (1950). He would have been a major star if it weren’t for his rather raucous life off the set. Tierney seemed to be living up to his reputation in much publicized brawls, usually in bars and anywhere alcohol played a part. He found himself reduced to supporting status, and while jobs were available, they weren’t nearly as frequent or as substantial as before. Finding himself almost forgotten in the ‘80s, he had a reprieve when he was cast as Elaine Benes’s father in a memorable episode of Seinfeld. Plans were to make him a semi-regular character, but he so scared the producers with his ad-lib ideas (including one where he threatens Seinfeld with a knife), that the plans were quickly forgotten. In 1992, he engineered a comeback of sorts when he was cast in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs as the aging gangster, Joe Cabot. But, again, the filming was far from peaceful due to Tierney’s temper. When word of his antics on the set got around, especially his near-fisticuffs with Tarantino, ideas of starring roles in major productions faded once again and he continued to work supporting parts and television guest shots. After his death in 2002 at the age of 82, Tierney is remembered in film history as a case of tremendous talent sabotaged by a borderline personality whose worst side was brought out by alcohol.

Dillinger was directed with a close eye toward the budget by Max Nosseck, a German actor-director who left after Hitler came to power, with stops in France and Spain before coming to America in 1940. His first directorial assignment was a Yiddish film titled Der viler Shtot Khazn (The Vilna Town Cantor), eventually being released as Overture to Glory. From there he signed on with Columbia’s B unit, directing Girls Under 21 in 1940 before eventually finding his way to RKO after assignments on Poverty Row. He returned to Germany in 1956, where he spent the rest of his life directing and acting. He died in 1972. While at Eagle-Lion, after his stint at RKO, Nosseck had the distinction of directing Tierney in Kill or Be Killed and The Hoodlum. To say they disliked each other was putting it mildly. They argued frequently and vociferously, with Tierney walking off the set several times before returning.

Given the small budget on Dillinger, Nosseck used whatever resources came his way, including liberal use of stock footage during the chase scenes, even in prominent scenes, and lifting the bank robbery scene from Fritz Lang’s 1937 drama, You Only Live Once (look closely and you’ll see that film’s star, Henry Fonda, looking out of the back of the getaway car). He also used still-framed backdrops for tighter angles. He also used reduced lighting to hide the shabby sets and spinning newspapers with bold headlines to advance Dillinger’s progress, saving valuable dollars in the process. Nosseck also made good use of a score by none other than Dimitri Tiomkin. The result was a film that combined aspects of both documentary and noir, even though it looked firmly within its low budget. Over the years, though, it has aged well and still packs something of a punch, thanks to Tierney.

Yet, despite the dilution of the subject matter, Dillinger still received strong condemnations at the time of its initial release in March 1945, including from the War Department in Washington, which refused to screen it for the troops overseas, and the Chicago censorship board, which for reasons all too obvious, banned it for two years. Still, it brought in over $4,000,000 at the box office, a remarkable sum given its budget of $193,000. In addition, screenwriter Philip Yordan garnered a 1946 Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay (losing out to Richard Schweizer for the Swiss import Marie-Louise). But most importantly, it proved that although Dillinger was dead and buried, he still retained the charisma he enjoyed during his brief lifetime.

AFTERWORDS

During production, the film went through a slew of proposed titles, including John Dillinger, John Dillinger, Mobster and Killer D.

The film also marked the first appearance of John Dillinger in a Hollywood production. It would be followed by Don Siegel’s Baby Face Nelson in 1957, with Mickey Rooney as the star and Leo Gordon as Dillinger; Nick Adams as Young Dillinger (1965, with footage liberally lifted from Baby Face Nelson); Warren Oates in John Milius’ Dillinger (1973); Robert Conrad in The Lady in Red (1979, with script by John Sayles); and the most-recent effort by Johnny Depp in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies (2009). The best of the bunch? 1973’s Dillinger.

As for the real Dillinger, there is the classic account of his robbery of a bank. For the gang’s getaway, they placed customers as hostages on the getaway car’s running board to deter police pursuit. Dillinger assured the hostages they were in no danger and would be released once the gang reached the city limits. As they turned a corner onto a residential street, one of the hostages exclaimed she lived on the block. Dillinger, driving the car, asked where her residence was, stopped in front, releasing her, but not before she kissed him on the cheek and he gave her a $10 bill, saying that she would be able to tell her grandchildren she once rode with Dillinger. As the car sped away, he tipped his hat and smiled.