Back after a brief hiatus: my ‘New York State of Mind’ series. When it was released in July 1989, Do the Right Thing was a grenade thrown from the front line: the system isn’t working; America is a pressure cooker, not a melting pot. Spike Lee’s film, about two days in the life of a […]
The World of W. Somerset Maugham: ‘Quartet’ (1948), ‘Trio’ (1950) and ‘Encore’ (1951)
“In my twenties the critics said I was brutal, in my thirties they said I was flippant, in my forties they said I was cynical, in my fifties they said I was incompetent and then in my sixties they said I was superficial.” So speaks W. Somerset Maugham in his wry introduction to Quartet, an […]
Monster from the Id: Cody Jarrett in ‘White Heat’ (1949)
This post is a (very late) entry in the Great Villain Blogathon, hosted by Shadows and Satin, Speakeasy and Silver Screenings. See the other posts here. I’ve decided to try something a little different for this post: not a review but a look at a single performance. (Spoilers ahead.) Some villains have chainsaws, others vats […]
Five Riffs on ‘Paris Blues’ (1961)
Paul Newman has been TCM’s star of the month this May; presumably because the programmers knew just how many of his films I hadn’t seen and decided to make me happy. On my must-watch list, Paris Blues, a film I’ve longed to see, if only to further appreciate the origins of this gif: Directed by […]
The Circus is a Wacky World: ‘Inside Daisy Clover’ (1965)
Inside Daisy Clover has urgent news to impart: Hollywood is full of phoneys. Beneath its sparkling veneer, Tinseltown is a snake pit filled with sycophants and fiends who pay millions for your smile, while also stealing your soul. This revelation isn’t particularly shocking, or much of a revelation, but the film repeats it endlessly and […]
Lonely Town: ‘The Crowd’ (1928)
Here’s the second instalment in my ‘New York State of Mind’ series. The Crowd is about a man who moves to a big city and waits for his life to get started, without realising that his life has become waiting. So desperate is he to stand out from the crowd, he never considers there might […]
A Piece of the Action: ‘Quick Millions’ (1931)
Quick Millions moves like a getaway car—at speed. Within the first two minutes we meet a lowly truck driver who dreams of becoming a big shot. Within five, he’s committed a crime. Within 10, he’s laying out plans for a protection racket, the first of many schemes which pave his way to the top. Like […]
All That Money Can Buy: ‘The V.I.P.s’ (1963)
Ensconced in the lobby of Grand Hotel, Dr. Otternschlag famously observes: “People coming, going. Nothing ever happens.” The joke is of course that he’s wrong. The V.I.P.s is filled with people coming and going, specifically a group of passengers at a London airport en route to the US. We witness one tumultuous day in their […]
Grand Tapestry: ‘War and Peace’ (1966-67)
Yesterday I spent eight and a half hours swept up in the great current that is Sergei Bondarchuk’s adaptation of War and Peace—now playing in a dazzling new restoration at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. A patriotic Soviet response to King Vidor’s 1956 version—which starred Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn and had been a […]
La Belle Dame sans Merci: ‘Baby Face’ (1933)
Baby Face has earned a reputation as one of the films that led to the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code—and it’s easy to see what gave censors the vapours. Not only does Alfred E. Green’s film dare to speak plainly about female exploitation, it depicts a woman ruthlessly exploiting men and celebrates her. (The story […]