Reviews

Writer-director-star Haas, an expatriate, was an interesting multi-faceted figure within B movies, whose 20-odd films (notably those several starring bad-blonde Cleo Moore) await proper rediscovery and reassessment. His later works are united by an avuncular presence before and in front of the camera, as well as themes common to many of them which, a la Hitchcock, often feature blondes. His work is often casually sneered at or derided. While he is certainly no Ulmer, let alone Welles (one of the few other directors who share his ambitious mantle of creative titles) when seen as a group his films make for an interesting study of bargain-basement cinema while nearly all his work has interesting moments.

Take EDGE OF HELL. This one is the most disneyesque that I have yet seen of his (forget the grotesquely inappropriate title), largely avoiding the bathos which it's plot invites. Haas plays Valentine, a down-at-heel dog owner living in a basement,, whose animal's tricks provide him with his principal source of revenue. Apart from a couple of other tenants of the building, his friends mainly include tramps even less fortunate than he. A chance to entertain at a children's party brings a temporary change in circumstances, which he shares with everyone. Such happiness is short-lived however as the viewer might expect, although the old gentleman remains unembittered and steadfast to his canine companion to the end. Haas' achievement is to entirely humanize and empathise with the lower orders he presents. The basement feast, which brings beggars with Beethoven, is in one respect the central scene of the film: a bitter-sweet representation of life and dance that is in accord with the european humanistic culture and traditions from which the uprooted director sprang,

The film is also concerned to draw a distinction between performance and life (in one remarkable moment the one-time actor Valentine regales his listeners, and us with an effective, if ultimately false, account of personal tragedy, while his dog's tricks before audiences are another reminder that reality can be manipulated.) In UMBERTO D fashion, in which we find some echoes in this film, Valentine's dog is at the centre of his world. As Valentine's troubles grow, a processes made more intense by some fine close ups, we know that his woes and those of others are not fiction or just a trick, but a reality; one which can grind people down until their health suffers or they are left sleeping under arches - something that not even the occasional gift of vodka, cake and cigars from the happily well-off in better districts can permanently assuage. Only the very ending tips over into the bathos I mentioned as largely avoided otherwise,but anyone who knows MIRACLE IN MILAN will know where the sympathies of this poverty row auteur lay. In short this is not a masterpiece, but not something to be written off so readily especially when seen as part of the interesting output of a decent man making his way in ambitious fashion in a strange land.

In this latest Netflix offering, a paunchy Kevin Costner and a grizzled Woody Harrelson (the latter after a previous investigative two-hander in True Detective) play a couple of reinstated Texas Rangers at first doubtful as to their effectiveness away from their heyday, brought to hunt down Bonnie & Clyde and end a murderous rampage out of control. Unlike previous tellings of the these events, we see only glimpses of the criminals up until the final shootout, leaving the film concentrating on the changing, and often deprecating, relationship between old lawmen buddies: whether their time on the road, scornful of new developments in police procedures, or in hunting Bonnie & Clyde down. Fortunately the pairing is, as one might expect, a good one, with Costner and Harrelson enjoying a suitably world-weary rapport, renewing respect for each other, which makes any general longeurs incidental. Director John Lee Hancock, whose previous two efforts were Saving Mr Banks and The Founder, builds the period atmosphere and there's a good soundtrack by Thomas Newman. The overall story and its denouement maybe well known (certainly the climactic scenes can't quite escape the shadow of Arthur Penn's seminal work of decades back) but this is a fresh approach, the end result enjoyable.

Ten Things I learnt from The Shack

Just one of a wave of pro-Christian films and proselytizing flics which have hit American cinema in the last few years, which commonly adhere to a traditionalist view of religion, regularly preaching to the converted The Shack has been received better than some, perhaps because it is based on a bestseller. Called "beautiful, profound, moving" by some and "ham-fisted and painful" by others, The Shack is the film in which a man receives a note from 'Papa' i.e. God and, as if this is not enough, apparently then encounters Himself as the Trinity, holed up in a log cabin out in the woods somewhere. Conversations with the three ensue and enlightenment naturally entails. This is all tied up with the forgiveness of a serial child killer, as well as beginning a new process of self-healing and forgiveness for the grieving principal. It all stars Sam Worthington.

Response from critics has apparently been relatively unfavourable, while orthodox theologian have also criticised the film for being, among things, 'heretical' or 'unbiblical' - but then again they always take things too seriously. As mentioned, audiences have been more enthusiastic (the film is currently a reasonable 6.4 on IMDb, for instance while audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale) and so the film has obviously resonated with some.

As a guide to those who wish to take away the most useful messages from the film, I list them here in lieu of a review:

1. 132 minutes can be an awfully long time. I mention this upfront since if you are going to be watching this on a pew in a church hall say, bring a cushion or park up on a prayer mat. You'll need it. 2. God is, in fact, a jovial black woman who does not care for religion. 3. It is impossible to sing in church without a faraway look on your face. 4. The Holy Spirit, rather than being incorporeal, is in fact quite a dish. But with no sense of humour. 5. A child can easily be buried in a plant bed. 6. In addition to being part of and all of the Trinity, God also has a figure called Wisdom who helps to explain things. 7. Sam Worthington was better in Wrath of the Titans and even Macbeth, where there is far more drama and more believable characterisation 8. God is a pretty good cook and even likes a drink. 9. Direct, awkward doctrinal questions are best answered by platitudes, evaded or just plain ignored. 10. It is fun to run on water. In fact Jesus prefers to run on water. We'd all like that.

I will readily admit that I am not the most likely audience to the film. In fact there are no atheists to be caricatured at all as in, say, God's Not Dead ,1 & 2. But they could have at least tried to cater for all. Instead The Shack comes across as well-produced, albeit saccharine, confection of traditional doctrine and faith - the literal and literal explication of which ironically only serves to reinforce many of the impressions of sceptics as far as popular religion is concerned. And,

(SPOILER ALERT!)

...they don't even catch the darn killer; I remember reading that, in the book, they do?

Based on the real life crimes of 'The Pied Piper of Tucson' thrill-killer Charles Schmidt, Shear's second film offered a completely different, and far more salutary, view of the younger generations than his first (Wild in the Streets) - in fact, arguably rejecting any empathy with it at all. Starting in strikingly edited fashion with the hurried burial of a victim and ending with the police recovering the bodies of two others, The Todd Killings is a work whose negative view of a generation and its alienation is unrelenting, bleak and compelling. The "fictionalised dramatisation" stars Robert F Jones as 'Skipper' Todd, a charismatic 23 year-old slacker, drug dealer and would-be song writer living in the small Californian town of Darlington. Todd lives off an allowance from his mother (Barbara Bel Geddes, her last film) who runs an old people's home. Worshiped by a clique of younger females, Todd's own view of his dissipated lifestyle is characteristically cynical: "fornication isn't much (but) it's about all Darlington has to offer". It's only when he is attracted to the initially standoffish Roberta (Belinda Montgomery) that things get more complicated. At the same time Billy Roy (Richard Thomas) arrives back home in town, fresh out of reformatory, quickly rediscovers his love for an old school sweetheart and is taken under Skipper's doubtful wing.

Although from this summary it seems a film with two infatuations at its core, The Todd Killings is not a romantic piece. On the one hand we have Skipper, scheming and callous towards Roberta, while on the other there is Billy Roy, naive, confused and, ultimately, just as cruel towards his own girl. Neither relationships will end well. In this they are typical of the party and drug set around them, where the only real relationship is with hedonism. Others have noted the fractured and documentary style employed by the narrative, reflecting the lack of real focus in the young lives of Darlington. Only Roberta gets some real sympathy, but ironically its her will-she won't-she attitude towards Skipper and his actions which make up some of the film's less successful elements. When we first see her she seems a cut above the rest of her sex; her continued affection towards Skipper, even after the the most serious suspicions emerge and rape, considerably reduces her standing. Ultimately, even with her self-awareness and conscience, she is barely different from the others.

In the first half of the film Shear breaks up the presentation of Skipper's sometimes frantic, always shallow existence with more formal, considered shorter scenes, as the young man is interviewed in turn by police and military (he dodges the draft by pretending to be gay). At other times too, when faced by the establishment, Skipper acts the considerate, polite young man, and initially impresses Billy Roy's parents by his manner. At first he also seems to fool his former teacher, who's out trying to save local bored housewives from their own intellectual "death sentence" with reading groups of 'Moby-Dick'. At one point he recalls Skipper as one of his brightest former students, but now the young man is as dismissive of literature as of anything else. But we know that the slimy charmer is already a murderer, his secret buried out in the desert - just as his real character lays buried beneath a facade for his elders' benefit. Indeed, with one notable exception, Skipper's violence is hidden from the audience as well. It is Shear's achievement that he makes something shocking and memorable out of the coldness which remains, in an exploitation piece par excellence.

It's hard to think of another film with a heart quite as nihilist as The Todd Killings, a movie in which murders are committed just to see what it feels like, or because there's "nothing else to do", and in which a shiftless society of teenagers seem alienated from the magnitude of their actions. Other films have shown rebellious, shallow and disenchanted youth, but few are so thoroughgoing and so completely dark. For Skipper one of the most despicable emotions is pity, and his lack of empathy with others and is echoed back by his loose circle of friends whose only concern, even when the full horror of his crimes is revealed, is what to do when he's no longer around. (In fact the original shooting script was apparently called 'What Are We Going to Do Without Skipper?'). Some have compared Shear's film to (I think less bleak) River's Edge (1986), while passing similarities can also be seen in another favourite, Mean Creek (2004). A further film based on Schmidt's real life crimes, Dead Beat (1984) is not in the same league.

By turn charming, dangerous and self-centered, Jones' charismatic portrayal as the murdering misogynist is unforgettable, while The Todd Killings further benefits from an excellent supporting cast which, besides Bel Geddes, also includes Gloria Graham and Edward Asner. With hindsight, Richard Thomas' casting shortly after this as TV's John-Boy Walton, where he was to co-star in a completely different moral universe, gives his appearance here particular resonance. A pathetic figure, he is easily led in a world where nothing matters and "there's the crap, and living like you want to live." All of this is aided by some excellent cinematography as well as an outstanding, sometimes frenetic musical score by Leonard Rosenmann. Earlier in his career the composer had worked on Rebel Without a Cause. One wonders what he felt creating music for another, if later generation, equally estranged,but with a much more dangerous alienation, in which personal angst is almost entirely absent.

If you haven't seen The Todd Killings, then it may be one of the best films you've hardly heard of. If you have, then you'll surely welcome any chance to see it again.

A box office smash for it's time Nevada Smith is a long, episodic film directed by Henry Hathaway starring the charismatic Steve McQueen. Interestingly McQueen's character actually only uses the Nevada Smith moniker once (as a temporary alias in the movie), the rest of the time using his 'real' name of Max Sand. Sand is a half breed whose parents are killed by outlaws - the outstanding trio of Martin Landau, Karl Malden and Arthur Kennedy a group of class heavies that's worth the price of admission alone - and then who resolutely sets out to track the murderers down one by one, after taking on board some life instruction from gun trader Brian Keith. The moments with Keith reminded me of the great Spaghetti Day of Anger made a year later - another film in which an experienced older gunfighter teaches an innocent the way to get through travails: with gun skills and a bit of frontier philosophy. It's a fairly traditional plot, albeit given resonance by a quality cast and production value.

Nevada Smith benefits greatly from Hathaway's leisurely outdoor directorial style, familiar from such personal favourites as The Sons of Katie Elder and North to Alaska as well as some excellent mise en scene cinematography by the great Lucien Ballard. Some critics such as Phil Hardy have sniffed a little at the film, and it's contemporary popularity, but I found it engrossing throughout, although admittedly it might have benefited from a little trimming. The mid-section, in which McQueen finds himself doing hard labour, then escaping, from a swamp-surrounded, brutalising prison camp reminded me of the (I think) weaker Papillion.

The real weakness to the film appears in the last section, when Sand/Smith is rescued from Malden's gang by a priest to be then reminded, by way of belated balance to Keith's earlier lessons, of the virtues of forgiveness and Christian forbearance. To a modern viewer this moral lesson seems a little laboured, and does little to make the final scene of the film psychologically convincing, ultimately leaving the principal character redeemed without purpose. Such considerations are striking given moments elsewhere, when the viewer can see the influence of the cynicism and violence of the genre which flowered elsewhere during the mid-sixties.

However if you haven't caught this yet I do recommend it, especially in the fine widescreen DVD edition now available. It's short on extras but the image and condition of the print is fine.

A terrible film, in which the love of Susan Hampshire turns a man into a zombie. Taken from a novel by Gordon Honeycombe, a mistake was made in allowing the author to provide the screenplay as in the event it proves a lugubrious affair, aiming (and completely missing) any profound statement about love and death, replacing it with platitudes and hackneyed emotions. It's the sort of thing that was done with far more atmosphere, eroticism and the necessary morbidity by the Italian horror directors at around the same time like Bava. Those who live on the channel island of Jersey will no doubt enjoy the location work, but others will struggle to stay patient with a tale that includes in its small cast veteran actor Frank Finlay, who no doubt wished he was back on TV in Casanova. The print is fine with good colour photography in the seventies' style. There's some fleeting nudity, and even mild interest in seeing the normally fridge-like Hampshire attempting a couple of bed scenes but, by the end of a long 90 minutes, the viewer will probably end up as numb as her unfortunate lover.