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Monday, November 27, 2017

Shield for Murder (1954)

Directed by Howard W. Koch and Edmond O'Brien; produced by Aubrey Schenck


By the 1950s, it seemed that police detectives in American movies had changed from the manner in which they were depicted in the 1930s and ‘40s. In the earlier era, they often dressed in the same well-pressed suits as the higher class villains they pursued, and if they mentioned their low salaries, it was usually with humorous resignation. By 1954, the cops were rumpled, tired, fed up and one night-shift away from becoming criminals themselves.


Shield for Murder is a prime example of this trend. The view of a policeman’s lot is a bleak one, with constant references made to dirt, filth, garbage, etc. (At one point, a police captain, ordering his subordinates to arrest someone, tells them, “All right, go out and rub your faces in the mud. Bring him in.”) This fits with the plot, which details the exploits of a cop gone bad (Edmond O’Brien) in his attempt to obtain what he thinks he should have out of life. The first scene shows him murdering a bookie for the $25,000 he is carrying, and, remarkably, this is not as bad as it gets for him. With his suspicious colleagues on his trail and a local mobster wanting his money, killing someone turns out to be the easy part for our protagonist.


Shield for Murder is a low-budget film. This is seen, literally, in the shadow of a boom-microphone visible within the first minutes. The scene wasn’t re-shot, probably due to financial constraints. Later, a show-home serves as the setting for a scene, and the company that built it is named as ‘Kling’. In the credits, Kling is listed as a genuine company, having provided the show-home - probably for free in consideration of being mentioned in the dialogue. Also, some generic shots of police cars are used more than once. 


Small budgets do not kill movies (in some instances, they can be the saving grace), and when they are a disadvantage, they can be made up in other ways. But the dialogue here is only adequate, and the direction, shared by star O’Brien, is routine, except in some action scenes; the shoot-out at the swimming pool is especially exciting. However, the principal supporting players (John Agar, Marla English) are not impressive. Their acting is stiff, especially compared with O’Brien’s. Also to be seen in minor roles are a young Claude Akins, Carolyn Jones (“The Addams Family”), Richard Deacon (The Dick Van Dyke Show”) and William Schallert. The first two in particular are examples of how character actors can brighten a lacklustre film.


And Shield for Murder, unfortunately, does not shine. O’Brien does well. He is not necessarily under-rated as an actor, but is, I think, under-appreciated. He gives solid performances in films. He had a brief period as a leading man but by 1954 was already moving into supporting roles, where his talents were better used. But B-movies such as Shield for Murder allowed less prominent actors to come to the forefront, just as independent features do today. Here, O’Brien gives three dimensions to what another performer would portray as cardboard. His crooked cop is not evil, but he is bad. When he finds a witness to his initial crime, he doesn’t try to hurt him, but attempts to bribe him. His hatred is for the low-level criminals with whom he must deal every day. And there is a rage in his character that is frightening to see.


Despite this, the uneven film is rather run-of-the-mill; the viewer knows how it will end. The story provides no surprises, the script not enough life. Certainly, O’Brien is worth seeing, but, despite a few other attractions, he is not enough to hold up a Shield for Murder.

Monday, November 20, 2017

A Canterbury Tale (1944)

Directed and produced by Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburger


There are very few movies that I would call ‘unique’. Certainly, a movie need not be unique to be enjoyable or even of excellent quality. And, just as certainly, unique can be applied to something bad - in which case, we are glad it is unique. A Canterbury Tale is, however, most definitely good.


The story takes place in the present day (present day when the film was produced (1944)), and concerns three people - an American soldier (John Sweet), a British soldier (Dennis Price) and a girl (Sheila Sim) from the Land Army (agricultural labour volunteers during World War Two) - who meet while passing through the village of Chillingbourne, Kent. Almost immediately, Sim is assaulted in a bizarre manner - a stranger rushes by and pours glue on her head. The trio learn that ten other women have been similarly victimised, leaving them unhurt but bewildered. Amateur investigations lead to the local magistrate (Eric Portman).


From the plot’s synopsis, one might conclude that A Canterbury Tale is a light-hearted mystery. But the mystery is a bit of a red herring; it is an introduction to what is, in fact, a propaganda film. But there are no flags waving or trumpets blaring. This is a tribute to the greatness of England - not its military, nor its politics - but to what truly make a country great: its people, its buildings, even its agriculture and handicrafts.


There is, running through the story, a theme about connections and continuity, among time and places and people. This is demonstrated, at first, in an obvious manner, comparing fourteenth century pilgrims on their way to Canterbury to travellers destined for the same city six hundred years later. But associations show up throughout, as when Sweet compares Canterbury Cathedral to the much more humble church in Oregon that his great-grandfather built, or when Price, whose dream of being a church organist was diverted into the reality of playing in a cinema, meets the cathedral’s organist, who started out playing in a circus. Dates crop up all the time, whether mentioned by a stationmaster about how old his ‘municipal borough’ is, or seen carved on a door. A wheelwright talks about how his father and his father had done such work.


The conclusion I drew was that the makers of A Canterbury Tale saw a nation’s strength in the ordinary things that were constant, in some form, through eons, and that this strength could be found between nations and peoples, as well.

And who were the film-makers? Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburger (“The Archers”) worked so well together that the credits show the film as ‘written, produced and directed by’ both of them. They created some of the best British films of the 1940s and ’50s, and this is one of their gems. The writing brings forth characters that are very different yet all sympathetic in their own ways. Sweet, an easy-going son of pioneers; Price, whose cynical face often put him in apathetic characters, and Sim, a happy girl hiding a secret heart-ache, are all human, their personalities quite different yet, believably, friends to each other. Portman’s local magistrate is equally well-written and played, a man who, while initially almost sinister, comes across as someone with a local patriotism that may seem obsessive, but whose deep love of his land keeps its story alive.


The story-telling is gentle. There is a scene in which two characters compare methods of cutting and seasoning wood (“one year for every inch of thickness”); it’s about seven or eight minutes long and doesn’t add anything to the plot, but adds immensely to the people and atmosphere of the film. Another scene shows a mock war of little boys at play (back in the days when children could play ‘guns’ without either a policeman or a psychiatrist being summoned); this eventually progresses the plot, but the same could have been done using no more than a minute of the film.


The photography is beautiful; warmth, colour, scents, are all conveyed in black-and-white photography. Images of clouds (presaging a warm day), landscapes and distant vistas, show an England clearly dear to the film-makers’ hearts. The direction demonstrates that the nation is not just in fields and cottages: the shops and businesses of heavily bombed Canterbury carry on, and a shot of the cathedral down a narrow lane includes a sign for Boots the Chemists, as English an institution as tea.

A Canterbury Tale is a war-movie without battles, a romance with kissing, a propaganda film without boasting, a psychological drama without angst, a comedy without belly-laughs. Crafted by a native-born Englishman and an immigrant who became a British citizen, A Canterbury Tale is an understated but nonetheless immense tribute to a loved country, and to the people and ways of life that made it.

(You may notice that the poster includes Kim Hunter in the cast. She - and narration by Raymond Massey - were added for the post-war American edition of the film. I would advise against watching that version. Twenty minutes were cut out of the original, in order to make the movie run ‘faster’, while ‘bookends’, with Hunter as Sweet’s girlfriend, were added. The British version as reviewed above is the ‘directors’ cut’.)

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)

Directed by Lewis Gilbert; produced by Herbert Mason


Cast a Dark Shadow has an excellent beginning and doesn’t really miss a step thereafter. The first shot shows a woman in her late middle age screaming; it turns out that she is on a ride in a fun-house’s ‘hall of horrors’. The camera then shows the much younger man sitting next to her, staring unblinkingly at her. We know immediately that the monster of whom she should be terrified is right beside her.


Dirk Bogarde gives a wonderfully layered performance as Edward, a young fellow on the make. His plan to get ahead is to kill his susceptible and wealthy older wife, Molly (Mona Washbourne), in order to inherit her wealth. But there is no perfect crime in fiction, any more than in real life, and Mona has accidentally foiled Edward’s scheme. Hoping to have her money come to him simply by virtue of their marriage, Edward murders Molly when she tells him she intends to write a will. A misunderstanding makes him think she will leave everything to her sister, when she wants to leave everything to him. Her death at his hands keeps her from writing the will he would have wanted.


So Edward sets his sights on the sister, who lives in Jamaica. To get there, he needs money. And that means another unwitting wife…

While a number of elements in Cast a Dark Shadow are interesting, the most intriguing are the character of Edward, and Bogarde’s performance. This is not a cardboard villain. The first time we see him, we note his obvious wickedness. But then we see a brief reaction after the murder. He is not as cold as he first appears. And was that initial glare at Molly in the fun-house one of contempt or pity? At one point, Edward states that Molly was the only one who understood him, and there is no reason for the viewer to doubt this belief. In fact, it may be that it was only with Molly that Edward had ever been or would be happy. Yet, even with this possible realisation, he would not be turned from his evil goal.


The character of Freda (Margaret Lockwood) is almost as well written and played. She is as sharp as Molly was blind to what people can be. She thinks she knows Edward’s type and, as she shares some of his characteristics, is not put off by him. How well they are matched, and how well their respective expectations are met, or not met, may be gauged when one confesses feelings for the other, to which the latter’s response is, “Well, we didn’t see that coming, did we?” in a combination of surprise and amusement.


While the acting and writing take pride of place in Cast a Dark Shadow, the direction is good, as well. The first scene in the fun-house, already mentioned, is very suggestive. The direction is, in fact, quite leading, giving signs of what the director wants us to think or feel, rather than showing it more overtly. Molly’s presence is almost palpably felt by Edward; he not only apostrophises her throughout the movie, as if she were still alive, indeed, watching his progress, but often sets her now empty chair rocking, as if she were in it. There is also a scene in which Edward and Freda pick flowers, his assurance that it is safe to do so in conflict with a sign posted that clearly reads ‘Danger’. This is not so obvious a shot as it may seem; it is not a matter of Freda being oblivious to the hazards Edward represents, but rather of how she can live with them when the signs that indicate otherwise are all around her.


Cast a Dark Shadow has a few weak points, but not enough to cancel the appeal of this thriller, a good example of British film noir.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Hyena Road (2015)



Directed by Paul Gross; produced by Paul Gross and Niv Fichman


The only movie of which I know about the Canadian military in Afghanistan, Hyena Road opens with a small sniper team, led by Warrant Officer Ryan Sanders (Rossif Sutherland), on a mission. That mission almost completed, the team is attacked by Taliban fighters before it can be extracted, and is saved by the intervention of an enigmatic man (Niamatullah Arghandabi), who shelters them in his house. This leads to the involvement of intelligence officer Pete Mitchell (Paul Gross), who believes the man is ‘the Ghost’, a legendary mujahid, famous for battling the Soviets. A plan is evolved to try to persuade the Ghost to help in the current struggle against the Taliban.


Hyena Road is a very good foray into the lesser-charted waters of the Afghanistan conflict. While parts of the plot are familiar to any war-movie viewer (eg. action is centred on small-unit fighting) and others are melodramatic (Sanders is romantically involved with his commanding officer (Christine Horne)), the complicated nature of the story justifies the setting. There is concern over whether the Ghost will help the Canadians, whether he can be trusted in any way; a local power-broker, who has aided the Allies in the past, may be playing his own sinister game; over all is the eponymous highway, a road being driven into Taliban territory in order to shake their hold. Small-scale politics and shifting allegiances have always played a part in Afghanistan’s conflicts, and they are incorporated here.


The action scenes are very good, exciting; a running gun-battle in the streets of Kandahar is fittingly claustrophobic. There was a time when home-grown Canadian films were so low-budget as to look almost home-made; those days are clearly over. Without computer-graphics, Hyena Road makes very good use of location (filmed partly in Jordan, some of which looks convincingly like Afghanistan, and partly in Manitoba, which does not, just in case you are wondering) and extras.


The acting is more than competent. Leading man Sutherland is son of veretan actor Donald Sutherland and half-brother of Kiefer. Director Gross became famous as Constable Fraser in the television series Due South. The other performers are much less known, but no less creditable.


Something that I found different about the movie is its sense of optimism, admittedly guarded. This is only once explicitly stated, but is also found in the reactions of characters to battle, the comradeship between the soldiers, and between Mitchell and his principal Afghan contact (Nabil Elouahabi); this, in spite of the death and destruction prevalent. Hyena Road is not a flag-waving propaganda film (though there is a glimpse of a Canadian flag actually waving), but it presents the Canadian, and, by extension, the Allied, efforts in Afghanistan as being positive, on the whole. Whether or not this is accurate, whether or not the viewer agrees, it does make the film less somber than it might have been.


Hyena Road has nothing that quite lifts it into the realm of excellence, but it is a fine study of war in a highly, but localised, political environment, with a setting that makes a difference.

Monday, November 6, 2017

The Haunting (1963)

Directed by Robert Wise; produced by Robert Wise (uncredited); Denis Johnson, associate producer


It’s easy to make a horror movie. They seem to be produced by the dozen every year. It is not easy to make a frightening horror movie. I have seen very few in my time. Producers, writers and directors seem to confuse bloody murder with horror. While real murder is indeed terrifying, I find its on-screen counterpart to be, for the most part, unimaginative, repetitious and boring. I have never found The Haunting to be boring, perhaps because it relies on terror, not horror.


This adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novel The Haunting of Hill House is about four people who come to a mansion to investigate its sinister reputation for paranormal activity. Leading the team is Dr Markway (Richard Johnson); Theo (Claire Bloom) is a psychic, and Eleanor (Julie Harris) experienced the supernatural as a child. Luke (Russ Tamblyn) is set to inherit the house one day, and comes along to look after his property. What they find is something none expected - or wanted.


This is by far the scariest film I’ve seen and, while, based on my assertion that I haven’t seen many that would qualify for scary, it may seem an empty superlative, I can assure you that The Haunting is hair-raising on its own merits. The director and writer knew that what one doesn’t see or hear, or sees or hears indistinctly, is much more unnerving than what is right in front of one. Incoherent voices, sounds that can’t quite be made out, something on the other side of a closed door… These are the sources of real fright.


Photographed in black-and-white, the movie accentuates shadows and light, distorting the already slightly off-kilter Hill House. Rooms are large but paradoxically claustrophobic; ceilings are low; corridors are abnormally long. The setting is as disturbing as the plot, and is handled by film-makers who know their craft.


The cast is excellent. Johnson portrays Markway stolidly, as an open-minded man, though logical. Tamblyn is at first annoying, but as he begins to realise something is amiss with Hill House, he starts to become a bit more responsible. It is the two women, however, whose characters are best-drawn. Bloom is rather cynical, even cruel at times, but is the first to be truly terrified by the house, perhaps because of her psychic abilities, the same abilities that give her a superior air. Harris is superb as Eleanor, fragile but who nevertheless made me think that there was something hidden all the time in her personality.


Though this is essentially a four-person film, there are supporting players. Among them, Rosalie Crutchley is a stand-out. Her droning, monotone warning of the dangers inherent in the house after dark is creepy; ignored by the other characters and given in the background, it is an harbinger of what will come.


This version of The Haunting is not to be confused with the overblown re-make from 1999, the definition of someone’s misguided belief that bigger is better. But if you like your horror movies scary, if you like your thrills implied rather than obvious, if you like your scripts intelligent, then see this film. But, as one professional movie-reviewer stated, “See it with a friend.”