Robot & Frank (2012)

Directed by Jake Schreier; produced by Lance Acord, Sam Bisbee, Jackie Kelman-Bisbee, Galt Niederhoffer

In the near future, Frank Weld (Frank Langella) is a former convict, a retired cat-burglar, who is suffering from increasing dementia. His son Hunter (James Marsden) buys a therapy robot (voice of Peter Sarsgaard) to help him, especially in housekeeping and memory-enhancing exercises. At first resentful of the robot, Frank’s attitude changes when he realises his new companion has no moral guide, and thus can break the law, if it helps Frank. The latter therefore renews his criminal activities, this time with the robot’s help, even as his memory continues to diminish.

Labelled as a science fiction comedy-drama, Robot & Frank’s connection to science fiction is tenuous. The only element of the movie that could be so called is the inclusion of the robot. But this is not a fault. Rather, the science fictional aspect of the film is - whether this was the intention of its makers or not - a means of discussing through a story the themes of memory and friendship.

Initially, the two qualities are treated separately. As Frank’s memory disintegrates, the robot’s is retained, in a way, for Frank. The story questions, albeit gently, what part memory plays in making us. Are we the same person without our memories? Interestingly, what occurs to the robot shows how vital recollections are, and how they determine the personality of the remembrancer. Later, memory is hinted as being significant to friendship; recollections of shared activities, remembered facts about someone: these constitute something important in friendship. When the memories are lost, something of the relationship is lost, as well. The movie’s final image of Frank suggests this strongly.

Though several other actors, including Susan Sarandon, figure prominently, it is Langella who is at the centre of the film. Though a leading man in the early part of his movie career, he has excelled in supporting roles (though, as is often the case with actors, he has found greater scope on stage). Nonetheless, he still has the talent to headline a movie. Sarsgaard’s performance should also be noted. Though the robot has no face, and no emotion in his voice, the actor manages to convey meaning and the vaguest touch of feeling in his words.

The direction is good, as is the writing, though neither particularly complements the acting. The script includes one particularly obnoxious character (Jeremy Strong), who fills the role of villain, though a villain isn’t really needed. The story may, in truth, have been better without the conflict that he creates. And there is a revelation near the end which is unnecessary.

The aim of the movie may have been, at least originally, to look at how technology is affecting people, or will affect them - the local library in Robot & Frank is being shut down because no one reads books anymore. But right from the start, it appears that technology - as technology - is unimportant. The robot could have been an alien creature, a foreigner unused to North American ways, a time-traveller, or someone otherwise new to society. The results would likely have been the same. And the results are quite good.

Science fiction has often been used as a vehicle for studying humanity, ironically especially when presenting non-humans as a foil or counter. Yet in Robot & Frank, the non-human becomes a subject of study as much as the human, and the two combine to create an entertaining and melancholy treatise on memory and relationships.

Night Boat to Dublin (1946)

Directed by Lawrence Huntington; produced by Hamilton G Inglis

In the Second World War, the race to develop atomic weapons is on, and the Germans have captured Hansen, a Swedish nuclear physicist, to help them with their plans. While a lead about Hansen’s whereabouts sends British Intelligence operator Captain David Grant (Robert Newton) to Ireland, that’s just the beginning of his mission. He is soon moving from Dublin, to London, to rural Devonshire trying to stop the Nazis’ plans.

Though produced immediately after the end of the war, Night Boat to Dublin takes place during its height, and manages to combine the urgency of war-time operations and the clue-laden story of a whodunnit with the light-hearted tone of a Boys’ Own Paper adventure tale. The running time is a hundred minutes, longer than many films of the era; nonetheless, there are no dull moments, despite genuine action featuring only in the climax.

The script and the direction work together to create some tense and exciting moments, such as when Grant has a face-off with a German agent (Herbert Lom) in the latter’s hotel suite, each trying to get the drop on the other, or when Grant’s colleague, Toby Hunter (Guy Middleton), must scale a cliff to escape a locked room. There is also some typically dry English humour, usually in the dialogue between Grant and Hunter. An interesting aspect of the story is that it shows the British operation to be the opposite of a one-man show, with several police units and intelligence branches working together.

The centre of the movie is Newton. This accomplished and versatile actor is best-known now for his portrayal of Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1950), and viewers who know him only from that will find his work in Night Boat to Dublin a contrast. Here, his Grant is suave without trying to be, a polite, velvety-voiced English gentleman never riled, and rarely out of ideas. Though not successful as a romantic figure - he doesn’t try to be - Newton even so creates a man who is strong and compassionate enough to attract the young refugee, Marion Decker (Muriel Pavlow).

Middleton plays Hunter as a good foil: superficially, he’s a Bertie Wooster-type silly ass, but proves himself to be resourceful and rather sharp. Raymond Lovell may seem bland as the villain but it’s more like the banality of evil, rather than a banality of character. Lom and Marius Goring have small parts in Night Boat to Dublin, but would both appear in bigger roles in 1952’s The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, recently reviewed on this blog. Look fast for Wilfred Hyde-White as an elderly taxi-driver (though only 42 at the time, his voice always made him older than he was.)

Production values are low - sound-stages predominate - but everything else is above average, making Night Boat to Dublin an undemanding spy/adventure story. It takes itself seriously, but wants the audience to have fun while watching it.

Crashout (1955)

Directed by Lewis R Foster; produced by Hal E Chester

A violent prison break results in more than three dozen convicts escaping from their cells. Only six survive the night, hiding in an abandoned mine. There, they learn that one of them, now wounded, has stashed in the mountains loot stolen from a bank years before, and, in return for helping the injured man, the other five will share in the money. But honour among thieves is proverbially lacking, and even co-operation is minimal as the criminals flee and fight their way toward their goal.

Crashout lives up to its title, from the opening moments until the end. It’s grim, hard and uncomplicated, a story of six men with little to lose, and who care for almost nothing beyond their survival. The writing is uncompromising in the creation of the characters, who, like most humans, give glimpses of sympathy, but who are, for the most part, simplistic and brutal.

The most sympathetic character is Quinn (Arthur Kennedy) who, alone among the six, was not incarcerated for murder; he is serving twenty years for embezzlement. It may be thought that he was included principally to make at least one character likeable. Yet even after he explains his motives for theft, and one senses his regrets, he nonetheless lusts after money as the only real salvation he can see.

Each of the characters is different, without much explanation given: their characters are evident in how they act and what they say. There are touches of actual concern beyond selfishness, such as when Quinn tries to help a fellow escapee shot later in the film; the latter worries that Quinn will be left behind if he stays to help. But this really is a gritty story of survival of the fittest.

There is no elaboration of the actual escape, nothing about its planning; those elements are not part of the story. The only hint as to the chaos and suddenness of the break-out is one prisoner’s boast that he stole a radio while running through the warden’s office. The movie begins with the drama of the escape, and the story is that of the evasion. What happens to those involved, how they act and react, is the tale to be told.

The cast is full of top-level supporting players. Kennedy is joined by William Bendix as Duff, the toughest and most dangerous prisoner; Luther Adler, as Mendoza, whose loquacious stories hide uncaring amorality; William Talman, as a demented former clergyman; Gene Evans, as the simple Monk, and Marshall Thompson, as the young and desperate Lang. Beverly Michaels plays a young single mother the prisoners coerce into giving them shelter. She illustrates another kind of prisoner. The writing is good enough in fact to show a number of vignettes of even tertiary characters, which are interesting.

The direction is a fine companion to the writing, which makes sense, as the director co-wrote the screenplay with the producer. Crashout is probably Foster’s best work behind the camera, but he wrote a number of winning scripts, including Mr Smith Goes to Washington and The More the Merrier. Cy Endfield has been listed as an uncredited writer on Crashout.

A good, solid prison-escape story, Crashout doesn’t let any of the characters off easy, and throws the viewer in with them right from the start. It’s involving enough of a movie to keep the audience captive until the end.

Murder by Proxy (1954)

Directed by Terence Fisher; produced by Michael Carreras

Casey Morrow (Dane Clark) is drowning his sorrows in a London bar when a beautiful young woman (Belinda Lee) offers him an incredible deal: £500 to marry her. Morrow passes out before he can accept or reject the fantastic proposal, and wakes the next morning not knowing quite what happened. Nor does he know that the woman has been reported as missing, and her millionaire father has been murdered. Now, Morrow may or may not be married, may or may not be a homicide suspect, and may or may not be able to find out the truth before he himself is killed.

In the 1950s, a number of films were made in Britain which put American actors in British settings and stories. The recently reviewed 36 Hours (starring Dan Duryea) and Circle of Danger (with Ray Milland) are examples. Several were made by Hammer Studios (before they became famous for their horror movies), and Murder by Proxy is one. While they were usually headlined by good but second-tier actors who were usually supporting players in their native land, most were watchable. Murder by Proxy goes one better.

The above average rating for the movie comes mainly from the performances and the dialogue. The latter must be differentiated from the actual screenplay, which is adequate but leaves its plot too loose and with too many holes. What surprised me was the layer of humour added to the proceedings. This is certainly not a comedy, but has a light touch that helps.

In the film, acquaintance Maggie Doone (Eleanor Summerfield), a Chelsea artist, persuades Morrow to investigate his dilemma on his own when he is afraid to go to the police. Morrow replies, “Play detective? Why not? I’ve seen enough movies.” Morrow proceeds to make inquiries, pretending to be anything from a reporter to a private eye, but makes assumptions and mistakes that prove he is neither. Importantly, though, the characters do not play the story for laughs, and take it seriously. Murder by Proxy is not a satire, but a movie about a man who is smart but not very smart, trying to find out the truth.

The acting of Clark and Summerfield work very well in their parts. They have a chemistry together that Clark and the female lead, Lee, do not. It would have been interesting and probably fun to see Clark and Summerfield as the couple, investigating the mystery. Lee, on the other hand, certainly portrays the femme fatale well: one truly doesn’t know whose side she is on. And that’s Cleo Lane as the night-club singer in the opening scene.

The British players are predictably good, and include Harold Lang and Michael Golden, both of whom appeared in 36 Hours. Lang creates another of his sleazy, semi-criminal characters, while Golden, who played a detective inspector in the Duryea movie, plays another - possibly the same one - in Murder by Proxy, though now he has a name.

The setting of London is neutral. It is not used particularly well and, considering that Morrow’s Polish-American mother turns out to be living, inexplicably, in England, the film would have done better to be set in Chicago - Morrow’s home-town - or other city of the United States.

With mediocre production values and humdrum directing, Murder by Proxy doesn’t rise far above the crowd of similar pictures. But with some dry humour and good work by several of the cast, it rises enough, and makes for an entertaining 87 minutes.

The Man Who Watched Trains Go By (1952)

Directed by Harold French; produced by Raymond Stross

Mild-mannered Kees Popinga (Claude Rains) is the chief clerk of an old Dutch business company who learns that his boss (Herbert Lom) has been embezzling the firm’s funds to pay for a secret life in Paris. After a confrontation between the men, Popinga ends up with a huge sum of stolen money. On an impulse, he hops on a train to Paris, where he plans to meet with his boss’s mistress (Marta Toren). Beyond that, however, neither he nor the intelligent police detective (Marius Goring) on his trail know what will happen.

Adapted from the interesting novel by Georges Simenon, The Man Who Watched Trains Go By is itself an interesting movie, but hardly involving. The fact is that the viewer does not really care what happens to Popinga. Neither the book nor the movie present Popinga in a sympathetic light, but the film does not delve deeply enough into either his motives or his mind to draw the audience in.

Events which produce logical results in the novel are omitted or changed, or moved about in their order for the screenplay, and this does not serve the story well. Popinga’s growing mental disarrangement comes across as almost haphazard, and while his adventures in Paris are probably meant to be mentally disconnected and random, they should not come across that way dramatically, but do.

The characters are certainly well constructed. The psychological aspect of Popinga’s increasing unbalance are illustrated to a decent extent, but as there is no clear goal either for himself or the audience, there is no tension or excitement. These are realistic people in a criminal world, but realism alone isn’t compelling. The only person who is at all intriguing is Lucas, the policeman.

The acting, on the other hand, is very good. Rains gives what is probably his last full and satisfying performance on film, after which he moved into minor parts and tv roles. While the story itself is less than fulfilling, Rains’s acting is something to watch, as is that of Toren, Goring and Anouk Aimée. For these efforts, The Man Who Watched Trains Go By may be worthwhile.

The movie was obviously filmed on location, and benefits greatly from it. The direction takes advantage of the settings in turning Popinga loose in a Paris about which he knows nothing. It is clear that the average audience-member feels less lost in the French capital than does the Dutchman.

All in all, The Man Who Watched Trains Go By is creditable, rather than entertaining; watchable, rather than involving. Despite the source material, the acting and the direction, the movie is more memorable for being largely forgettable than anything else.

Prizzi's Honor (1985)

Directed by John Huston; produced by John Foreman

Charley Partana (Jack Nicholson) is a hit-man and all-round fixer for the Prizzi family, headed by Don Corrado (William Hickey). At a wedding, he is smitten with Irene Walker (Kathleen Turner), a stranger who turns out to be a freelance assassin, hired one time by the Prizzis. Charley and Irene’s romance is immediate and their feelings deep, but professionally and personally it causes problems. Charley’s dilemma becomes, in his own words, “Should I ice her? Should I marry her? What do I do?”

Perhaps it is needless to write that Prizzi’s Honor is a black comedy. It’s interesting in that the sensibilities of the movie, if not always the viewpoint, is taken from Charley Partana. Our own ideas of right and wrong are superseded for the time being by his. That can be a risky proposition, but Nicholson’s performance, and the writing, manage to pull it off.

Charley is not a complex man, but, as more than one other character observes, Charley is a thinker. That can get him into trouble in his line of work, but it more often merely produces confusion, for, while Charley is a thinker, he is not, for all that, very smart. He tries his best. He reads. He draws his own conclusions; they are sometimes erroneous.

Nicholson’s acting creates a character that is quite distinct from the cool, confident people usually associated with him. Charley is confident when doing his job, but doesn’t have an answer for everything, and there are no wise-cracks to be heard. He also keeps much of what he thinks to himself: note his facial reaction to a quickly-made decision by his bosses to kill an embezzler of mob funds. Nonetheless, he is loyal to his organisation - even too loyal.

Kathleen Turner also puts in a fine performance, making Irene treat assassination like an accounting assignment, or a public relations gig. Her job doesn’t prevent her from enjoying the light-hearted side of life. Even so, Irene is not as unique a character as is Charley, and thus less interesting.

There are plenty of other fine actors in the cast. Angelica Huston’s Maerose is the principal complication in the plot, and her portrayal of a woman devious enough to run any criminal undertaking - if she weren’t so focussed on her own desires - deserves the Oscar she won for it. (Nicholson was nominated for an Oscar in his rôle.) William Hickey is another stand-out as the Prizzi family’s head. He was 58 in 1985, but convinces us that he is a frail 80 year old. Robert Loggia and Lee Richardson play his sons, the former being just three years younger than Hickey, while Richardson is a year older. Stanley Tucci has his film debut in a bit part.

The direction is, as one may expect from Huston, very good, though I don’t think it rates the nomination for an Academy Award that it received. I consider the writing to be better. The ending will probably be unexpected to anyone not already apprised of it.

Not for all tastes, Prizzi’s Honor is nevertheless a very good film, a mob comedy which, taking into account the setting, can only be dark, and will prove entertaining for most who view it.