Movie Review

  • The Wrong Man (1956)

    The Wrong Man (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) It’s paradoxical yet inevitable that while “the wrong man at the wrong place” ends up being a perfectly valid plot description for much of director Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre, The Wrong Man finds a true story that perfectly fits this description and somehow manages to produce something less involving than pure fiction. A dramatized depiction of real-life events, this is a movie that stars Henry Fonda as an innocent man accused of robbery through bad luck and happenstance. Given its status as a true story (as ponderously announced on camera by Hitchcock himself in the film’s first moments), it’s no surprise if The Wrong Man goes for more of a more realistic atmosphere than many of Hitchcock’s contemporary works. It doesn’t quite feel like one of his movies—the black humour is toned down, the stylistic camera tricks are mostly absent and the return to black-and-white here feels like an accidental rehearsal for Psycho than anything else. The inclusion of a mental health breakdown (toned down from true events) is also a bit of a downer that carries through the end credits. Still, one thing that The Wrong Man does get right is the casting of likable everyman Henry Fonda in the lead, equally able as other heroes in Hitchcock’s filmography. It still works today, but more like an attempt at true-crime realism than a Hitchcockian thriller by itself. But then again, reality is usually duller than fiction.

  • Brubaker (1980)

    Brubaker (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) Making a movie about prison reform, inspired by real-life events, isn’t exactly the most compelling subject matter. But make sure that your hero is a two-fisted reform advocate, pit him against an entire corrupt prison/town/state and given the role to Robert Redford and suddenly Brubaker gets far more interesting. Redford’s legendary charisma is well suited to his role, as he takes on an establishment that actively profits from old-fashioned prison practices. A gallery’s worth of character actors (including Yaphet Kotto, M. Emmet Walsh, Wilford Brimley and very young Morgan Freeman—recognizable by voice rather than by sight) are united against him. This being from a true story, don’t expect a triumphant ending: at most, the character gets applause and an end title card explaining the scandal that erupted afterward. Still, much of Brubaker’s entertainment value comes in seeing an incorruptible character uncover the vast web of old-boys corruption that surrounds the prison, and defending himself against attacks. It does make for dramatic intensity and narrative interest. It also represents a good entry in Redford’s filmography as a progressive champion, a role matching his political interest with his megawatt charm. Plus, he gets to shoot a shotgun, which isn’t to be neglected.

  • Peyton Place (1957)

    Peyton Place (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) I’m not sure it’s possible to put ourselves in the same frame of mind in which audiences first took in Peyton Place. It was the late 1950s, after all, a time at which American society barely started to acknowledge the rampant dysfunction behind its picture-perfect façade. The previous year, Grace Metalious’s novel had become a publishing sensation by acknowledging the rot to be found in small towns, and the film had to tone down or remove much of that material. What remained, however, was enough to create some amount of controversy even at the twilight of the Hays Code era. Of course, we’ve seen much—much—worse since then, and going back to Peyton Place with a modern mindset is closer to “well, what did you expect?” as the town’s sordid secrets are exposed at a time when few took familial abuse seriously. Alas, the result suffers. The film is both far too long at 162 minutes and now too tame to be entirely interesting. Despite the good sequences to be found here and there (most notably Lloyd Nolan as a town-castigating doctor), much of it feels like the talky melodrama it was meant to be. Lana Turner is good in the lead role, but this is really an ensemble cast. The Technicolor cinematography brings a distinctive sheen to the movie, but Mark Robson’s flat direction doesn’t really lead to any cinematographic distinction. I found Peyton Place substantially dull, but then again– I acknowledge that you really can’t perceive the film as audiences did back then.

  • The Crowd (1928)

    The Crowd (1928)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) The concept of Hollywood was in its teenage years when The Crowd was released, and you can almost see in here an inkling of the medium’s maturation. Rather than give in to upper-class melodrama, cheap comedy or grand adventure, writer-director King Vidor’s film chooses to focus on ordinary people. At times, he even makes an ironic point about the unremarkable nature of its characters—despite early proclamation that the protagonist is destined for great things (and him spitting on “the crowd” early on, instantly accumulating karmic debt), we spend most of the film seeing him fall in love, get married, resent his job, get into domestic fights and eventually resigning himself to his own lack of distinction. The Crowd is not exempt from melodrama—there’s a particularly cruel twist of fate two thirds of the way through that seems curiously at odds with the idea of following an ordinary man. Still, our protagonist suffers through the last act before accepting his newfound humility as a member of the crowd, and that’s a fairly unusual point in a medium usually obsessed with the exceptional individual. Where the film does become distinctive even in showing indistinctive people is in its direction. Clearly inspired by the German expressionist school, Vidor goes for some crude but effective special effects and mise-en-scène from time to time. The zoom up a building and into an endless sea of desks to portray work alienation remains a striking sequence, and other moments in the film show impressively symmetrical shot compositions. This is an extraordinary film about ordinary people—not quite a slice-of-life kind of thing, but a grandiose symphony for the common people. I started watching it without particular expectations (I do struggle with non-comic silent movies) and ended up far more impressed than I expected to be. The Crowd strikes me as more accessible and, in many ways, more interesting than many other silent dramas—I suppose that the idea of common people remains just as relevant today.

  • Love Affair (1939)

    Love Affair (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) By sheer happenstance, I happened to have Love Affair waiting on my DVR after watching An Affair to Remember and finding out that it was a remake of this film. Watching both at a few days’ interval only highlighted the similarities between both versions and what it takes to make it work. Both movies are easier than most pairs to analyze: after all, both are (co-)written and directed by Leo McCarey, and both share a structure that is almost scene-per-scene identical. Love Affair is in black-and-white, whereas An Affair to Remember is in Technicolor, but that’s not the most significant difference: Stars Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne are in the lead roles and while they’re certainly not bad or unlikable actors, they simply can’t compare to Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, who shoulders almost all of the remake’s added interest over its progenitor. Perhaps the best example of this difference can be found in the weepy last scene—a bit silly and melodramatic with good actors, but somehow almost convincing with superior ones. Oh, I liked Love Affair well enough, despite thinking that the first half isn’t as funny as the remake’s first half. It’s more even and less frustrating in parts when compared to the melodramatic remake. But even if the remake is flawed, it’s still far more memorable than the first movie. So it goes—Hollywood alchemy, unpredictable and striking at once.

  • Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

    Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) It can be a tough sell to make a movie about a pair of irredeemable villains, but Sweet Smell of Success takes up the challenge with vigour and delivers a compelling movie despite being unable to cheer for any of the two main characters. Tony Curtis has a welcome and somewhat atypical role (at the time; many more followed) as a morally bankrupt publicist who schemes to get in the good graces of an influential and just-as-terrible columnist played by Burt Lancaster. The casting here is a triumph—Curtis’s good looks being commented upon as a façade, and Lancaster being the incarnation of an “intellectual bully” towering over his co-star and glaring down on him through distinctive glasses. Both characters are profoundly immoral in their behaviour, and what saves the film from overwhelming darkness is the presence of a heroine to save (Susan Harrison, looking as cute as her character needs to be in order to earn our affections) and some terrific dialogue that still packs a punch even today. (This is where “The cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river” comes from!) The dialogue’s strength and the cohesion of the story are borderline miraculous in that Sweet Smell of Success was essentially being written as it was shot—but this is what happens when you have professionals working from a strong plan and keeping the polish to the end. While the film is light on murders, the noir atmosphere of the story is impossible to miss, what with corruption reigning and people making themselves worse in order to please the Great Corruptor. There’s a sombre atmosphere that makes the ending almost a relief. While the film does lose itself in a few tangents along the way, there’s a steady trickle of strong sequences even in the subplots (the attempt to blackmail another newspaper columnist being a highlight), and a sense of style in director Alexander Mackendrick’s approach that gives a modern urban grittiness to the result. It’s often subtle, but it’s there: The way “Now here you are, Harvey, out in the open where any hep person knows that this one… is toting THAT one… around for you” is handled is good stuff. You can quote that film for days, but what carries even longer is Curtis and Lancaster going at each other, with the audience rooting for no one in particular. Sweet Smell of Success often gets a mention as one of the top movies of the 1950s, and it’s not hard to see why.

  • Mommie Dearest (1981)

    Mommie Dearest (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2020) Even though I’m moderately knowledgeable about movies, I’m still often surprised by the stories that I unlock in researching movies prior to these capsule reviews. Obviously, I knew of Joan Crawford, and her relatively small modern profile (especially when compared to Bette Davis, with whom she legendarily feuded), and the tarnishing of the Golden Age of Hollywood idols, and Faye Dunaway’s decline as an actress throughout the 1980s. But prior to watching and reading about Mommie Dearest, I was certainly missing on a piece of the puzzle that linked all of these things together. To put it simply: Mommie Dearest is an adaptation of a biography by Crawford’s adopted daughter, in which she revealed that her “mommie dearest” was a cold-hearted parent, a child abuser, and an overall wreck. In film history, Mommie Dearest was the first landmark in a series of books by children of Classic Hollywood stars that unbolted their saintlike public image. Many followed, but Mommie Dearest had a bigger impact than most in that much of it was corroborated, and it led to a movie whose execution, to put it charitably, maximized the tragic arc of the story. Faye Dunaway here plays Crawford as a quasi-caricatural monster, and the first half-hour of the film is the depiction of one episode of child abuse after another, as the mom terrifies her daughter in ways that are actively unpleasant to watch. (The famous “Wire Hanger” scene is one for the history books even in its French dubbed version: my cat, who can normally tolerate the worst horror movies with supreme feline detachment, had her ears pointed sideways in alarm at the screaming in the sequence… and I wasn’t necessarily any more detached.) I’m told that the film earned an unplanned reputation as an over-the-top camp classic of unintentional hilarity, but I’m not subscribing to that viewpoint. While some sequences do attain a certain comic level of scenery-chewing, there’s only so much outright child abuse that anyone can tolerate, and despite Dunaway’s unhinged performance, the character she plays is an out-and-out harridan who clearly should not have any kids. It’s that character portrait that still makes Mommie Dearest ghastly intriguing to watch today: the raw mother/daughter feud, and how it fed into the falsity of their public appearances at the time. It’s hard to say whether the book or the movie had a bigger impact on Crawford’s reputation, but I note with some interest that Crawford’s star was considerably dimmed compared to some better-behaved contemporaries. Everyone has taken sides for Bette Davis in the Davis/Crawford feud, and Crawford is now seldom mentioned without sideways glances at her personal life. I suppose that Crawford’s lesser body of work may have something to do with it (She’s distinctive in her Oscar-winning performance in Mildred Pierce and not much else), but comparing the way she’s discussed to that of comparable stars of the same period is instructive. There’s an argument to be made that Faye Dunaway’s performance here was too good for her own good: While she was a superstar in the 1970s, her filmography dimmed significantly in the 1980s following the acid reception of this film. That’s quite a lot of material for a film to touch upon, but only a few other films so clearly attack the reputation of a former Hollywood icon as savagely as this one. (Have a look at The Lives and Deaths of Peter Sellers and The Girl for further examples.)

  • The Ward (2010)

    The Ward (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2020) I’m sure John Carpenter had a lot of fun coming back to moviemaking in The Ward, after a decade away from feature film directing. On some levels, it does have the hallmarks of classic Carpenter movies: the isolated setting, horror minimalism, subjective levels of reality and potential to simply scare the pants off its audience. Taking place in a 1960s insane asylum, it features a group of girls being picked off by an evil presence, and our heroine trying to avoid being the next one. It’s clearly a horror movie, but it touches upon women-in-prison tropes (I really liked seeing Lyndsy Fonseca in old-school glasses, for instance) and ends on a hallucinatory note. There are clearly flashes of Carpenter doing stuff that he likes: As a veteran director, he knows how to block a scene, use his camera for suspense and lead an atmospheric horror movie. Unfortunately, none of these flashes of interest amount to much of an overall film. The final twist feels overused in a genre that has often used something similar; Amber Heard isn’t that distinctive as a lead actress and much of the film is spent going through the usual cascade of death sequences until the plot gets moving again. The Ward is clearly better than Carpenter’s 2001 Ghosts of Mars, but that’s not much of a recommendation. A decade later, this remains Carpenter’s last work as a director and it ends his career with a half-whimper rather than a bang.

  • Red Heat (1988)

    Red Heat (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2020) On paper, Red Heat feels inevitable. Arnold Schwarzenegger was near the top of his early fame in 1988, and the idea of making good use of his accent naturally led to him playing a tough cop from behind the then-Iron Curtain. From that point on, you can almost write the rest of the film yourself, so closely does it branch out from that premise and sticks to the buddy-cop plot template. Of course, his American counterpart will be an opposite of Schwarzenegger’s polished image as a Soviet supercop—slobby, loutish, loose with the rules in ways that only Jim Belushi (also near the top of his unexplainable fame at the time) could play. Alas, inconsistent writer-director Walter Hill doesn’t quite know how to maximize the elements at his disposal: the script is a hodgepodge of predictable sequences strung together in haphazard fashion, with some curious lulls to prop up a surprisingly dull plot. Only the ending, making good use of buses for some glass-smashing action, floats above the morass that Hill serves here. There are a few good things here: Schwarzenegger is picture-perfect as a tough policeman, his character has aged fairly well as a (rare) heroic Soviet character in Hollywood movies, and Gina Gershon looks great in an ungrateful role. It’s also cool to see some footage shot in Moscow, including a saluting Schwarzenegger. Alas, Jim Belushi remains obnoxious throughout—his character being only slightly less obnoxious as the very similar one he’d play the following year in K-9. The action is often dull, the plot never sparks and the cinematography has that telltale 1980s softness. In the end, Red Heat is far more interesting as an example of the Schwarzenegger and/or buddy-cop movies of the 1980s than on its own merits.

  • An Affair to Remember (1957)

    An Affair to Remember (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2020) While An Affair to Remember is often hailed as one of the finest romantic movies of all time, it’s amazing to see how much it walks a very fine line between an honest romantic comedy and overcooked romantic schmaltz. The film is almost clearly divided into two halves, and as things unfolded, I ended up watching the film in two separate sessions separated by that division. The first half of the film is significantly better than the second, as a world-famous playboy meets a retired nightclub singer aboard a transatlantic liner bound for New York. Comedy and smart dialogue take precedence in this flirty first half, culminating in a cleverly unseen kiss that complicates everything for both characters, as they are already engaged to others. Faster than you can say, “Sleepless in Seattle will steal this,” they agree to meet on top of the Empire State Building six months later. It’s all funny and charming and Cary Grant can do no wrong and Deborah Kerr (despite an unflattering hairstyle) clearly shows why she was one of the best actresses of her time. Then there’s the break: the characters disembark from the ship in Manhattan, and the film loses the pressure of the seagoing setting. But that’s also the point where the film piles on the contrived obstacles, what with one character becoming paraplegic on the way to a weepy conclusion. It works largely because of the actors, because suave, charming and sophisticated Grant could make people swoon by reading the telephone book at that time of his career. It ends on a note that would be unbearable had the film starred nearly anyone else—good casting, certainly, but not-so-good screenwriting. Despite its flaws, there’s no denying that An Affair to Remember is a film to remember as well: not as a completely successful film as much as an imperfect one that succeeds despite itself based on certain very specific elements. Amusing enough, it’s directed by Leo McCarey, who also directed Love Affair, the film on which An Affair to Remember is based.

  • The Big Heat (1953)

    The Big Heat (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) At first, I couldn’t quite see in The Big Heat why it has earned such high regard as a film noir. I mean—sure, the film opens with a murder, and there’s a cute barfly dame being antagonistic toward our protagonist… but what about that protagonist? A veteran policeman, a solid husband with a loving wife, a wonderful little girl and a happy middle-class life? Where was the real noir? I shouldn’t have asked (or should have guessed that the happy home life only highlighted what he had to lose), because by the middle of the movie the plot explodes all domestic bliss, turning our protagonist into a vengeful rogue with a gun and no badge to stop him. The barfly is dead, and an even more dangerous woman enters the picture, her face half-scarred from burns. That’s the point where The Big Heat becomes noir, turning into a two-fisted anti-corruption tale that’s well handled through unobtrusive direction by Fritz Lang. It gets noirer the longer it goes on, culminating in an action-filled climax where all the pieces have a role to play. Glenn Ford is simply perfect as the lead character, with some able support from Gloria Grahame as a vengeful moll and Lee Marvin as the Big Boss. While the story clearly harms its protagonist, the ending offers a semi-unusual return to normalcy for him as he picks up the badge again. Noir rarely allows for the possibility of it being a detour into madness, but The Big Heat was a late-period entry in the genre, and remains successful largely because it does not clearly begin nor end in typical fashion.

  • The Lady Eve (1941)

    The Lady Eve (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) I’m slowly starting to understand what film enthusiasts mean when they point at writer-director Preston Sturges’ extraordinary 1938–1944 run. The Lady Eve remains a spectacular film by any standards, and yet it’s only one of the four Sturges movies from the period often mentioned as an all-time comedy classic. In some ways, the premise feels familiar: the grafter taking aim at a wealthy target for purely monetary objectives, only to fall in love along the way. But there are twists and turns here that complement a well-executed delivery. It certainly helps that Henry Fonda is very likable as a hapless romantic lead, a bookish scientist who falls for Barbara Stanwyck’s scheming seducer. If Stanwyck has been sexier or funnier in any other movie, please tell me, because this is a classic performance—her opening sequence, as she provides colour commentary on seduction attempts on her target, says it all. The duo has a pair of very funny seduction sequences—first an unbroken shot of Henry with his head on her lap, and then later on a barn conversation interrupted by a curious horse. The film’s conventional first half leads to an unexpected turn midway through, and then even more comic sequences later on. Deftly mixing top-notch dialogue (you can quote that movie all day long) with physical comedy and absurd situations, The Lady Eve is indeed a screwball comedy classic, and a very good showcase for Fonda, Stanwyck and Sturges. This is what we mean when we say that they don’t make them like this anymore.

  • Battling Butler (1926)

    Battling Butler (1926)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) There are good Buster Keaton movies and funny Buster Keaton movies and the relationship between the two isn’t as clear cut as one would guess. The General is perhaps his most narratively successful film, but it’s got comparatively fewer laughs than many others. Conversely, Steamboat Bill, Jr. has a lot of great comic set-pieces, but a fairly dull story. Some films do manage both (Sherlock, Jr. is as good as the mixture gets), but Battling Butler clearly errs on the side of fewer-laughs-better-story. The premise is suitably ridiculous, with a pampered rich-boy protagonist (Keaton, in a familiar naïf role) blurring the distinction between him and a similarly-named boxer in order to win the romantic affections of a girl he just met. “Buster Keaton” and “glamping” aren’t words that seem to go together, but they’re a good description of the film’s first act, with numerous gags about trying to maintain an upper-class lifestyle in the woods. Then it’s off to the film’s main plot, as Keaton has to become a boxer in order to impress a young woman. The chuckles are there, but the film remains distinctively less impressive than its comic highlights. Fortunately, though, the buildup to a dramatically satisfying ending is handled with skill, and the conclusion is quite heartwarming in its own way. Keaton remains the highlight of the film, although Snitz Edwards does get a bit of attention as a valet and Sally O’Neil makes for a lovely heroine along the way. This isn’t often mentioned in Keaton’s upper tier, but it’s likable enough and is worth a look for his fans.

  • None but the Lonely Heart (1944)

    None but the Lonely Heart (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) When you intend to watch an actor’s entire filmography, you have to take the good with the not-so-good, and so any Cary Grant fan has to go through None but the Lonely Heart on the way to (or once past) better movies. Oh, it’s not that that this poverty/family/criminal drama is terrible—in fact, it does have its qualities, most notably in portraying a Londonian working-class environment and wrapping up domestic drama in spicier criminal activity. Still, this is fairly mild and disappointing stuff for Grant, who gets to use a Cockney accent (not his own) and a fraction of his natural charm as a young cad who learns better. For Grant’s fans, this is the film that best portrays his lower-class origins, although that’s not much of an overall comfort.  Fans of car chases will be impressed by an explosive action sequence late in the film—and seeing the wires used for the special effects only somehow makes it all better. A relatively minor entry in Grant’s filmography (but significant in its own way), None but the Lonely Heart remains for convinced fans in the mood to appreciate a bit of social realism.

  • Hold back the Dawn (1941)

    Hold back the Dawn (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) I’m a good sport for anything written by Billy Wilder, but even I remain underwhelmed by Hold Back the Dawn. Wilder’s biography tells us that it was largely inspired by his own life—as an immigrant from Europe, Wilder had to spend some time waiting at the Mexican/American border for his right to enter the country. Of course, Wilder’s stay was uneventful—the story here is quite different. Charles Boyer stars as a European gigolo trying to gain entry to the US and resorting to what he does best—seduction. Taking aim at a visiting American schoolteacher, he inevitably develops feelings for his mark, and much of the film follows the consequences of trying to square everything away. We know from the framing device that he will make his way to Hollywood, but there’s more than him to care about. Olivia de Havilland plays the romantic interest, adding a further bit of star-power to the result—although Paulette Goddard is more interesting as a vengeful flame. Hold back the Dawn is unapologetically a grand Hollywood romantic drama. It seldom holds back in terms of melodrama, and toys with audience expectations in its very dramatic third act. While it does end well (at least for most characters), there are plenty of dramatic complications along the way, and chances for the actors to deliver sob-inducing speeches. I liked it well enough as an example of that kind of film, although I can’t say that I have any particular affection for it over similar examples.