Change Your Image
irvberg2002
Reviews
Columbo: A Trace of Murder (1997)
Two Too Dumb Murderers
Here's the basic plot outline: Wife is married to wealthy husband. She has a lover and both want to get rid of the husband and get his money. But they want to avoid the prenup agreement between the husband and wife. So divorce is out. Logical solution: murder the husband. But they're afraid to do so since the obvious beneficiaries, and therefore prime suspects, of the husband's murder would be the wife and her lover. So they concoct a scheme whereby they murder someone with whom the husband has an ongoing serious business dispute and frame the husband of that murder. But what's missing in all of this is how the plot, even if successfully executed, would enable the wife and her lover to achieve their goal, i.e., get the husband's wealth. Because even if the husband is convicted of first degree murder, his wealth does not thereby transfer to the wife . He can dispose of it in lots of ways, e.g., hire the best possible legal defense team both for trial and post conviction legal challenges. give his money to his favorite charities, relatives, etc. Of course they can hope that the husband will simply let his wife have all or most of his wealth while he lives out his life sentence (which may not be his life if he will be eligible for parole) and even in the very unlikely event he is sentenced to death, he will almost certainly spend the greatest part of his remaining life awaiting execution, during which he can find those many ways of disposing of his wealth that do not include giving it to his wife. So, the basic plot amounts to committing murder on spec. Only two too dumb murderers would do that.
The Unknown Man (1951)
A Disgraceful Lawyer
Walter Pigeon plays the part of a truly disgraceful lawyer. He agrees to represent a defendant in a murder case, thereby assuming a duty of loyalty to his client. In the course of the trial he succeeds in establishing that the key eyewitness against his client could not reasonably identify his client in view of the poor lighting conditions and, most important, that the witness need eyeglasses which he was not wearing at the time. Having demonstrated that there is not only lacking evidence establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but a virtual lack of any evidence of guilt at all, the verdict of acquittal is inevitable. Indeed, the case should never have even gone to the jury; the judge should have entered judgment for the accused at the close of the prosecution's case. Upon discovering that his client really did the deed, the lawyer proceeds to assume the defense of the client for a second murder, one that he, the lawyer, committed, not the client, and proceeds to secure a conviction by withholding evidence, i.e., his own testimony that he, not the client, committed the second murder. He then goes on to provoke the client into killing him by, in effect, taunting him by revealing that he is the one who committed the second murder and getting the client to believe that he is prepared to see the client will be punished for the murder he did not commit. It is hard to imagine a lawyer betraying his duty of loyalty to his client so blatantly.
Hitler (1962)
Interesting Omissions
Portraying Hitler as being in a virtually perpetually hysterical state, as this film does, is contrary to any historical reality. There are two interesting omissions in it. First, there is no mention, as far as I could ascertain, of what appears to have been Hitler's central obsession, his hatred of Jews, for the destruction of whom he devoted substantial resources which could have been used to further another of his obsessions, world conquest. Second, in the brief portrayal of the conquest of Poland, the film depicts the blackening of the entirety of a map of Poland to represent the Nazi conquest. However, the Nazis did not occupy all of Poland; they split Poland with their then ally, the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, with whom they had entered into an agreement beforehand to divide Poland between them, and pursuant to which the Soviets invaded and occupied the eastern half of Poland. Surely the producers of this film were aware of this fact, so why did did they omit it?
5 Fingers (1952)
The Real Story
The fictionalized aspects of the story are what give it the most zing. The actual spy, one Elyesa Bazna, was detected as the result of the disclosures of an allied spy who was an official in the German foreign ministry, one Fritz Kolbe (for the story about him, see "A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich" by Lucas Delattre), who provided Nazi documents to Allen Dulles in Bern, who, in turn, notified the British that their Ankara embassy was compromised. A couple of British security agents were sent to the embassy, where they changed the safes and their combinations. Their visit was made to appear normal and routine; neither Cicero nor the Germans ever knew what led to it and Cicero was put out of business well before Overlord was in play. Bazna wrote his own book, "Ich War Cicero", published in Munich in 1964.
Zero Hour! (1957)
Bad Moral Choice?
Stryker has reached the destination airport with about two hours of fuel. The airport is closed in by fog and he is told to circle until there is a break in the fog to permit a better chance for safe landing. Although several occupants of the plane are in very urgent need of medical attention, most are not. Stryker decides to proceed with landing without awaiting better conditions, apparently because one of those needing medical attention is his son. He chooses to undertake a significant greater risk of death to most of the plane's occupants (including himself and his wife) for the sake of maximizing the survival chances of his own son. Has he made the right moral choice?
Executive Suite (1954)
Big Business?
As most other reviewers, I found this a delightful watch; all the actors are right on and the story is gripping. But I am amazed by the number of reviewers who labor under the notion that this is a film about "big business." Given the numbers of the shares of stock and their prices, even at 1954 rates, this is quite a small business and most of the shares are closely held (by the daughter of the founder); it's puzzling how the SEC would permit the shares of such a business to be publicly traded. It's also puzzling how the profits of such an outfit could support the salaries of the executives/board members shown in the film. In this respect, this film is similar to Cash McCall, based on a novel by the same author,where the business involved is tiny compared to the scale of, e.g., the top thousand American corporations by any measure, sales, capitalization, etc.
Double Happiness (1994)
Puzzling Scene
This is for the user who was puzzled by the scene in which someone pours water on the date with whom she was set up. He has taken her from the restaurant to a bar where all the other patrons are men. She realizes that it's a gay bar and that's the way he has chosen to tell her that he did not choose to take her out anymore than she chose to go out with him and that they are both in the same boat, i.e., leading double lives. The person who pours water on him apparently does so to rebuke him for being with a woman.
I was particularly interested by the reviewers who are of Chinese or other East Asian descent and who resonated to the predicament of the heroine. It reminds me somewhat of the original of Fiddler on the Roof, in which the daughter who runs of with a gentile is mourned as if dead by Tevye and his family.
Waking Life (2001)
This May Be Put To Good Use
Most of the "hate it" comments about this piece of garbage summarize it well. I saw about 20 minutes of it before walking out and would have left much sooner except that I was with other people and had to be sure that they felt the same (they did). But in retrospect this "film" could be put to good use. It could be shown, again, again and again (many agains, if necessary), to the terrorists detained at Gitmo and elsewhere, with their eyes somehow propped open and their heads immobilized to prevent them from looking away (as in Clockwork Orange). This could succeed in prying out whatever helpful information they have and, and if anyone complains that this is torture, we can respond by citing the numerous "loved it" comments posted by the idiots who posted them.