By
Ed Garea
MOVIES
ON THE BIG SCREEN
Rebel
Without a Cause, the 1955 film that made a star and legend
out of James Dean, is coming too selected theaters September 23 and
26. Dean has excellent support from co-stars Natalie Wood and Sal
Mineo, who appear to be troubled as he is. Best scene, Jim Backus as
Dean’s father parading around in a woman’s frilly kitchen apron,
obviously to let us know that Dean’s problems stem from the fact
that Dear Old Dad is p-whipped.
RESNAIS
September
2: At 2:00 am comes the film that filled art houses
throughout the country, director Alan Resnais’s Hiroshima,
Mon Amour. Opinions today are divided as to whether
the film is a genuine work of art or just another steaming pile of
celluloid. Don’t look at me, I’m ambivalent about the film.
Resnais, who made his name in documentaries before this (his most
famous feature was the highly acclaimed Night and Fog from
1955, the first film about the holocaust), was originally going
to shoot this as a documentary on the bombing of Hiroshima, but
decided there was no way to do the subject proper justice in a
documentary format. Marguerite Duras, a novelist and playwright,
solved the problem with her screenplay about a nameless French
actress and a married Japanese man who enjoy a brief affair, during
the course of which memories are brought to the fore (using a unique
form of flashback to indicate memories) of the woman’s past life as
a collaborator and love affair with a German soldier and the man’s
recollection of his experiences in World War II. The film is
innovative in that, unlike the film structure before it, where
character was subservient to plot and action, here plot is
characterization and what action there is merely serves as to further
define the characterization. By all means, see or record it and form
your own opinion. For me, however, Godzilla (the
original) was a far better commentary on the horrors of the war than
this film.
VARDA
September
2: At the graveyard hour of 4:15 am comes one of the truly
groundbreaking classics, Agnes Varda’s feature debut, La
Pointe Courte (1955). The film concerns a husband and
wife, known only as Him and Her, who attempt to resolve their marital
differences in a nostalgic tip to his hometown, a small fishing
village on the Mediterranean coast. While the couple talk over their
differences and hope for reconciliation, Varda contrasts it with the
everyday life of the village, which seems ultimately to have a
therapeutic effect on the couple. This is a fascinating and
compelling film about the influence one’s environs can have on a
person. The husband grew up in the village while his wife is a native
Parisian with cosmopolitan values. Note that couple speak in a
reserved, formal master while the sounds of the village display a
casualness found in familiarity. Varda seems to be making the point
that living in Paris has alienated the husband from his organic roots
in the village, which in turn has contributed greatly to the couple’s
problems. The villagers, on the other hand, go about their business,
plying their trade and battling with government bureaucrats who make
their already tough life even harder. Watch for the water jousting
festival that comes near the end of the film, and listen for the
contribution of composer Pierre Barbaud, whose music goes perfectly
with what is occurring on the screen
MICHEAUX
September
4: At 8:00 pm, Oscar Micheaux’s breakthrough classic
about racism, the 1920 Within Our
Gates, will be shown. There is nothing I can say about
this classic that can top the touch of Jonathan Saia, and so we
provide a link to his provocative and informative essay here.
NOIR
ALLEY
September
1: Laraine Day is a femme who’s oh-so-fatale in the 1946
noir, The Locket,
from RKO airing at Midnight. Brian Aherne and Robert Mitchum are
along for the ride.
September
8: Honest truck driver Steve Brodie is beset by gangsters
lead by Raymond Burr and forced to flee with wife Audrey Long in
Anthony Mann’s Desperate (RKO,
1946), also airing at Midnight. Mann’s noirs are always worth the
time, as is the commentary by Eddie Muller.
PRE-CODE
September
2: Garbo vamps it up as only Garbo can in the
entertaining Mata Hari (MGM,
1932) at 6 am.
September
3: The solid Dinner at
Eight (MGM, 1933) can be seen at 9:45 am. Ready
out essay on it here.
September
6: Clark Gable is a dedicated, though naughty, doctor and
Myrna Loy his neglected fiancée in Men
in White (MGM, 1934), which can be seen at 9:30
am. We have an essay on it here.
When
Paul Muni hits it big in business his success goes right to his head
in The World Changes (WB,
1933) at 12:30 pm.
The
original The
Front Page from
1931 is shown in all its pre-Code glory, starring Pat O’Brien as
Hildy Johnson and Adolphe Menjou as his scheming editor Walter Burns
at Noon.
September
11: Honest working girl Irene Dunne falls for slick playboy
Lowell Sherman in the sophisticated comedy Bachelor
Apartment (RKO, 1931) at 8:15 am. It’s rarely shown,
so try to catch or record it if you can. It’s worth the trouble.
September
12: Grocery clerk Stuart Erwin travels to Hollywood to
become a star in Make Me a
Star (Paramount, 1932), airing at 6:15 am.
Joan Blondell tries to help him along the way. The film was later
remade as the Red Skelton vehicle Merton of the Movies.
September
13: Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert star in possibly the
first road picture, It Happened One
Night (Columbia, 1934) at 6:00 pm).
September
14: The William Wellman directed social drama, Wild
Boys of the Road (WB, 1933) can be seen at 1:15
am.
PSYCHOTRONICA
AND THE B-HIVE
September
5: The Bat (1959),
the remake of the silent classic,starring Vincent Price, Agnes
Moorhead and Gavin Gordon is airing at 2:45 pm. It’s rarely shown,
so catch it while you can.
September
7: A psychotronic double-feature begins at 2:00 am with Rory
Calhoun scraping the bottom of the barrel, as a farmer whose
home-made sausage contains a secret ingredient in Motel
Hell (1980), followed at 4:00 am by possessed
scarecrows in the aptly-named Scarecrows(1988).
September
10: Charles Laughton gives a performance for the ages as
Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Norte
Dame (RKO, 1939) at 7:15 am. Maureen O’Hara
dazzles as the gypsy Esmeralda.
September
12: After a murder takes place during a seaplane ride to
Catalina Island, Edna May Oliver, as the delightful detective
Hildegarde Withers, sets out to solve the mystery in Murder
on a Honeymoon (RKO, 1935) at 9:15 am. Helping
out as always is James Gleason as Inspector Oscar Piper.
September
14: For those of you who like breakdancing or bad movies
about it, Breakin’ (MGM,
1984) and its sequel, Breakin’ 2:
Electric Boogaloo (MGM, 1985) can be seen
starting at 2:30 am.
September
15: In
a unique double feature beginning at 8:00 pm, the country is treated
by epidemics. First, Public Health Service officer Richard Widmark
must track down a carrier of pneumonic plague before he infects New
Orleans in Elia Kazan’s Panic
in the Streets (Fox,
1950). It’s a taut, thrilling drama of gangsters and medics, with
Jack Palance (billed as Walter Jack Palance) and Zero Mostel among
the bad guys. Following at 10:00 pm, jewel thief Evelyn Keyes has
contracted smallpox in Cuba and is in danger of spreading it
throughout New York in The
Killer That Stalked New York.
This entertaining little 1950 B drama from Columbia was based on an
actual incident in New York in 1946.
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