Reviews

  • House of Wax (1953)

    House of Wax (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) Despite having seen enough movies to know better, I thought that having seen the 2005 remake of House of Wax meant that the original wouldn’t have many surprises in store. I was happily mistaken—it doesn’t take a lot of time to realize that the “remake” is as far apart in plot from the original as “movies about a wax museum created by a psychopath using live persons” could be. This version stars none other than the unique Vincent Price as a genius-level wax sculptor who, in the opening moments, sees his labour of love being burnt down. When he reappears, he’s got a few people working for him with designs far darker than before, and it’s up to the investigators to piece together the rebirth of his museum, the mysterious disappearances around the city and the reports of a horribly disfigured figure prowling around. House of Wax does feel a bit more daring than usual for a 1950s horror film—the prestige colour cinematography does help a bit, and Price does help make any material compelling. It’s a decent film in its own right, and much more interesting for those who have seen the remake.

  • Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

    Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) Abbot and Costello movies don’t deal in subtleties, and so their chance to meet the Mummy (third in their trilogy of Universal Movie Monsters team-ups) is a full-bore excuse to indulge in as many Egyptian stereotypes as possible. The comic intent of Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy helps make it as inoffensive as possible, although we’re once again deep in pyramids, European expat clubs and old-school adventurer hats. It’s also an excuse for them to run through variations of their comic routines, where it’s the “pick/spade” verbal jousting that echoes their famous “who’s on first” number, or the “slipping the mickey” routine from an earlier film. There’s a nice mixture of comedy levels here, and the result is easy enough to watch even if it’s seldom as clever at it could have been (or as the first “Frankenstein” film). The character of the Mummy is comically altered, but still recognizable from its classic roots. If you like Abbott and Costello, if you’ve seen the two other films in this sub-trilogy, if you’re looking for the authorized comic takes on the Universal classic monsters, then Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy will fit the bill. It may even be a good pick for Halloween night viewing with the kids.

  • The Far Country (1954)

    The Far Country (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) Never mind the western, here is the northern: The Far Country is distinctive in how it is set in Alaska (but shot in Alberta), featuring an adventurer bringing order to the north. There are numerous points of comparison between this and Thunder Bay in semi-awkwardly featuring James Stewart as an outdoorsy adventurer, and that was before I discovered that both movies shared the same director Anthony Mann, who made many other 1950s films (especially westerns) with Steward. The ingredients are similar, what with an adventure story made distinctive by its procedural description of a slightly unusual setting. The Far Country is not that distinctive nor that good, but it’s watchable enough in how it transposes familiar Western themes to an underused environment. There’s a little bit of Canadian and French-Canadian content in here (largely due to the location and to Corinne Calvet’s performance). Still, the film is not all that memorable, and there are better choices out there for Stewart fans looking at his 1950s filmography.

  • Humoresque (1946)

    Humoresque (1946)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) I’m not a big Joan Crawford fan, but she’s the single best element of Humoresque, a dour and dark romantic drama that rests on her performance as a damaged woman dragging a young and inexperienced violinist (John Garfield, fine but no more) in her self-destructive spiral. In many ways, this is an old-fashioned weepie, with characters fated to bad ends through their own flaws. There are not a lot of opportunities for levity or jokes here (placing supporting actor Oscar Levant at a disadvantage, as his later roles would demonstrate), reinforcing the all-orchestral swell of melodramatic intensity that goes with the ending. There’s a little more to it than just a melodrama in how the film delves, especially in the first half, in the universe of classical music performance. This enables the film to spend a lot of time featuring good music (and for Levant to play a bit of piano), lending additional respectability to the result. Humoresque is not exactly a good movie, but Crawford is compelling here as a woman who knows she can’t be redeemed, and if the result is overlong, it’s not to be dismissed easily.

  • Birthmarked (2018)

    Birthmarked (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) It’s really not a good sign if you make it to the end of a film wondering when the good stuff will start. You can call Birthmarked a slow burn, and that’s fine. I’ll just call it a film without a clear reason to exist. It attempts to be darkly funny in describing how two scientists raise kids contrarily to ideas about their “nature,” but that’s already a shaky start considering that few people will subscribe to that central thesis in the first place. It gathers no point for a restrained direction and a rather dull narrative. While Birthmarked does acquire a pulse very late in the process, by that point we’re in a sunk-cost kind of situation, as it’s easier to let the film play and see how it ends than stopping watching already. I should feel more positively about the film: after all, it’s a Canadian production shot not too far away from Montréal, and it’s a bit more subtle than usual. But there’s subtlety and then there’s having no perceptible point, and Birthmarked doesn’t do too well in that area. The premise called out for wilder screenwriting and much more stylized direction—what we got instead is simply too dull to be interesting.

  • Downhill (2020)

    Downhill (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) I never watched Force Majeure, the Swedish film that inspired Downhill: Being the story of a father who has to face down his family after fleeing an impending disaster, it felt too far away on the awkwardness scale. After watching Downhill, however, I’m curious to see how it did better than its remake because the American version just feels pitiable. Featuring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in one of their least funny performances in ages, Downhill sinks humiliation “comedy” to new depths as it charts the disintegration of a marriage following an act of cowardice by the father of a family of four. Taking aim at the traditional “protector” role of the father, Downhill never goes beyond that, nor does it allow its characters a redemption arc. It just gets more and more uncomfortable until we’re left wondering, “and then what”? I don’t always agree that movies should be rated on the effectiveness in fulfilling their intentions: I think that, at some point, we should also rate the film based on how we feel about those intentions. So Downhill means to be uncomfortable and is uncomfortable and then what? What for? I can be hideously uncomfortable on my own, thank you very much. Despite a few amusing moments, many of them in Louis-Dreyfus’ vicinity, Downhill is the kind of film where you start wondering why it exists. The ending (exception made of the final kicker meant to show that everyone jumps under the right circumstances) comes too quickly to have any sense of meaningful dramatic progression: if the lesson is that their marriage is doomed, then that lesson could have come an hour earlier. OK, that’s it: I’ve got to see the original to see how it did better than that.

  • Across the Wide Missouri (1951)

    Across the Wide Missouri (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) One of the main reasons why I dislike westerns as a genre is often its treatment of Native American tribes as nothing more than savage enemies. It took a long time for Hollywood to come around to the idea that there was more to them than violent antagonists, and you can feel the shift beginning with Across the Wide Missouri, which tackles a Dances with Wolves kind of plot in 1950s Technicolor. Featuring none other than Clark Gable as a fur trapper who heads to Blackfoot territory with mercenary intention but is gradually seduced by their way of life, taking up a wife and raising a son. The film steadily shifts from a comedy to more serious drama as it goes on, creating some easy sympathy for its characters before moving on to more serious lessons. I’m not going to pretend that it’s a particularly progressive film by twenty-first century standards: in-narrative, the “romance” between our protagonist and his indigenous wife starts off as a kidnapping-for-ransom scheme, and the perspective resolutely remains that of a white man despite a Metis narration. Out-of-narrative, most characters are played by actors of inappropriate ethnicity, meaning Ricardo Montalban as a Blackfoot warrior and María Elena Marqués as a Native American princess. But it’s the thought that counts for a 1951 film, and Across the Wide Missouri does feel far more humanistic than other westerns. The stunning colour cinematography remains an asset, and I was pleased to see the film making some space for French-Canadian trappers, especially one played by Adolphe Menjou (some of his French is fluent, while some of it is borderline incomprehensible, including a rendition of “Alouette” that manages to mangle every single gendered article). I’ll further note that this is not a western film in the cowboy-and-gun sense as much as it’s one of wilderness and fur trappers—I don’t have to ask myself for long why the second sort is far more interesting to me as a French Canadian. In other words, I got quite a lot more enjoyment out of Across the Wide Missouri than I expected—it’s a surprising Western, and one that does much to reconcile me with at least a subset of the genre.

  • Merton of the Movies (1947)

    Merton of the Movies (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) My primary interest in watching Merton of the Movies was to find out if this remake of the 1932 film Make Me a Star (itself one of many adaptations of Harry Leon Wilson’s novel Merton of the Movies) was any better than the rather disappointing original. That objective took a backseat the moment I saw Virginia O’Brien’s name appear on-screen: O’Brien has become a favourite of mine following a few striking musical/comedy supporting numbers, and one of the happy surprises of Merton of the Movies is how she gets a rare leading role: no singing, no dancing, just looking gorgeous and acting as a foil for Red Skelton. While I’m far from having seen all of Skelton’s movies, I’m struck by how many of them are remakes of earlier (often silent) movies – something facilitated by his friendship with Buster Keaton. This being said, I’m not complaining because Merton of the Movies fixes nearly every single complaint I had about Make Me a Star: the script improves nearly every aspect of the story from the finale to the budding romance, the pacing is much better, Skelton’s take on the character is immensely more likable, and O’Brien is a more distinctive performer. Most of the original’s strengths in taking us back to the silent film comedy era are also preserved. The upgrade of the character alone is worth the remake—while the original sad-sack protagonist was too dumb to live, Skelton plays his character as situationally dim-witted, and occasionally shows flashes of cleverness. O’Brien gets a chance to prove what she could do outside her usual comedy singing routines, and she nails it—if nothing else, her take on the “thirty kinds of kisses” scene is just wonderful. I’m not going to maintain that Merton of the Movies is a great movie: it’s obscure even in Skelton’s biography and the version shown on TCM is one of the poorest transfers I recall seeing on the channel. But it’s good fun; it’s a redemption act for the previous film and it showcases O’Brien as more than a novelty act.

  • Au revoir les enfants (1987)

    Au revoir les enfants (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) There’s a familiar quality to the blend of elements that Au revoir les enfants uses so intently — this isn’t the first film to confront the innocence of kids to the horrors of war, or to take less-obvious means to talk about the holocaust. But that doesn’t take away anything from the success of the result. Written and directed by Louis Malle from autobiographical experience, much of the film is set at a French boarding school during the Nazi occupation of France, as schoolboys in their early teens learn to deal with new schoolmates that are eventually revealed to be Jewish. Much of the film is about the growing friendship between the protagonist and a Jewish boy until, inevitably, the Gestapo comes knocking to take them away. For a movie in which not much happens during most of its running time (with much of it soberly directed as well), the ending is unexpectedly powerful, even more so given its restraint: We all know what’s going to happen to those Jewish kids and their older sympathizers, and the very final voiceover (by Malle himself) only drives the point home. There have been many movies revolving around the same topic, but Au revoir les enfants still packs a punch.

  • Orfeu Negro [Black Orpheus] (1959)

    Orfeu Negro [Black Orpheus] (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) As far as unusual takes on the Orpheus myth go, Orfeu Negro is in a class of its own—setting a story in a Rio de Janeiro favela and sticking close to a realistic treatment despite some eerie visuals, it brings its own interpretation of the classical story. Written and directed by French filmmaker Marcel Camus but entirely set in Rio de Janeiro with Portuguese dialogues, it remains a very colourful film with several striking sequences. While, in theory, the film avoids any outright supernatural elements, it does skirt the limits of magical realism by having a character meant to physically incarnate death, by setting itself in the revelry of carnival, and by adopting a poetic tone that clearly seeks to avoid realism. Very attractive actresses do help, led by the stunning Marpessa Dawn. Soccer player turned actor Breno Mello also does well in the title role, even if much of the film’s last act has him running from one place to another with a worried expression. Orfeu Negro has aged far better than many of its contemporary films, and retains quite a bit of interest today. Some of the images are stunning, whether it’s in portraying Rio de Janeiro in the late 1950s, or the way Camus uses colour and cinematography to get an impression. Where the film may open itself to criticism is in the way it has a French director come in and use the favelas as a colourful backdrop—the film does retain an outsider’s quality in how it presents colourful costumes in an exotic setting. It doesn’t take away anything from the result, but it’s easy to wonder how another filmmaker with knowledge of the context would have handled the same material.

  • In Fabric (2018)

    In Fabric (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) Some horror movies delight in establishing normalcy before showing us the intrusion of the supernatural, but In Fabric clearly heads out the other way: In showing us how a middle-aged woman prepares for a date by buying a red dress, it misses no opportunity to make even the mundane feel creepy and foreboding. I was reminded early on of Berberian Sound Studio’s British-giallo feel, which made complete sense once I discovered that both movies share writer-director Peter Strickland. While In Fabric is not fully realized, at least it’s somewhat more satisfying than Strickland’s earlier movie. It does remain messy: In its hurry to be as weird as it could, In Fabric spreads itself thin in confounding flourishes. It may be about an evil red dress. It may be about a department store staffed by servants of hell. Heck, it may even be about two bank executives who clearly aren’t on the same plane of reality as its characters. It’s first about a middle-aged woman, but then it’s about a milquetoast new groom. In other words, In Fabric is rather about moment-to-moment sensation than overarching plot, which may make a few rational-minded viewers crazy with unfulfilled narrative. As with Berberian Sound Studio, don’t expect much resolution. Don’t expect much overarching coherency. Certainly, do not expect conventional screenwriting: In following one character then another in an attempt to illustrate the actions of an evil red dress, In Fabric falls in between the two chairs on either telling us a story about a person or telling us a story about an object—the in-between feels misguided, limited by budget and time, or simply amateurish. There are tons of wasted opportunities left on the table, In Fabric only realizes a fraction of its potential. I still liked it (mildly) for the sum of a few individual scenes. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is quite good in a kind of role that one seldom sees in movies, while Leo Bill plays the oppressed milquetoast with passive dignity. I just wish that the film would make just a bit more narrative sense, with enough scaffolding to keep up the vignettes that are obviously matter more to Strickland.

  • Seed of Chucky (2004)

    Seed of Chucky (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) I went into Seed of Chucky with very low expectations—I’ve never been taken by the series’ premise, which seemed like a joke carried too far even in the second sequel. Now that Seed of Chucky is the fifth instalment (of eight so far), I didn’t even bother to review my notes about the previous ones—killer doll, with a bride voiced by Jennifer Tilly, is about all I remembered. But as the film started, it became clear that this wasn’t the same kind of film as its first 1988 instalment—moving away from straight-up supernatural slasher to something akin to a bloody comedy, Seed of Chucky clearly spends a lot of time on what surrounds the kills—and is far more interesting when it’s not busy killing off various characters. The film quickly takes on a metafictional quality, as it plays with the notion that the dolls are celebrated Hollywood props, and Jennifer Tilly has a dual role playing herself and voicing the female killer doll. Once their son/daughter comes into the film, the script plays with notions of gender, in between throwing up as many pop-culture references and comically playing with expectations. (If you were expecting “Heeere’s Chucky!” then you’re going to be mildly amused.) Some of the jokes work: John Waters as a paparazzi is fun, the Glen or Glenda gag is amusing, and the technical aspects of the film are not bad. On the other hand, some of the series’ weaknesses remain: Chucky is just as annoying as he was, and some of the coarse humour of the film is more repellent than amusing. Some of the twists and turns are intriguing, but sadly, the film doesn’t quite manage to make it across the finish line: somewhere along the third act, Seed of Chucky disintegrates, perhaps in an attempt to subvert too many expectations. The ending doesn’t quite satisfy and doesn’t quite manage to pull all elements together. The result is still better than I expected at the beginning of the film, but still disappointing in how it introduces a few elements and a more comic tone without quite knowing how to wrap it all up. At least my expectations going into the next segments are back to being comfortably low.

  • Prom Night (1980)

    Prom Night (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2020) I have rather vivid memories of Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (ugh, that locker scene), and was curious about its prequel, but it turns out that the films barely have anything in common except the title and general high-school-horror theme. Most fundamentally, Prom Night is a boring psycho-with-a-knife slasher, rather than the supernatural horror that I find more interesting. Not only that, but Prom Night is influential: coming in a few months after Friday the 13th, starring Halloween scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, and affirming the tradition of special-day-themed slashers, it ended up providing a template for many other low-budget filmmakers trying to follow in those footsteps, littering the early 1980s with dozens if not hundreds of broadly similar (and awful) horror films. The highlights of those films are “the kills” rather than “the plot” and they continue to make critics grumpy to these days. Prom Night doesn’t fly all that high: the structure is familiar, the mystery is familiar, the prom night setting is not as original considering the example left by Carrie, and the characters couldn’t be blander if they tried. There are a few ways in which the film is more interesting as a historical marker than for itself. It’s one of the most successful Canadian movies of the era, for instance (my country has much to answer for in the role it played in the slasher explosion), was put together in Toronto by a young Toronto-area cast and crew, and it features Leslie Nielsen in what would be one of his last dramatic roles following the success of Airplane! But even by slasher standards, Prom Night is not all that interesting, and given that I don’t like the genre to begin with, there’s little else to say—fans of the genre will like, but it won’t convert anyone else.

  • Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

    Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) There are two movies in Amityville II: The Possession and neither one of them is particularly good. Aping the first film but dispensing with the fiction that it’s adapted from real events, this sequel has us returning to the iconic house alongside a family just moving in. But there are darker forces at play, and the first half of the film is just the house messing around the family with special effects gratuitously thrown in without much coherence. When the house is done showing off, it moves to the more serious business of possessing the family in order to get them to argue, hit each other or have siblings have sex together. But don’t get your hopes up for anything interesting: this part of Amityville II plays likes a humourless copy of Poltergeist having forgotten all about narrative coherency or moment-to-moment entertainment. By the time that our possessed young man finally does what the house wants it to do, the film shifts in its second form by shifting the focus on a Catholic priest intent on exorcising the demon inside the younger man and purging the house of its satanic influences. Alas, Amityville II is far less interesting than it sounds as it throws Poltergeist overboard and sets its target on stealing as many things as it can from The Exorcist. Except, again, without any clue as to why those movies worked. The result is so incredibly familiar to the point of being contemptible for not even doing a good job of hiding its influences. None of the actors do particularly well (although Burt Young has one of his few roles as a villain) and while some of the special effects are decent, they’re wasted in a film that doesn’t know what to do with them. Even then, I think I like this sequel slightly better than the first Amityville because it’s a bit livelier and does not even try to claim that it’s based on a true story. But it’s a fine line and I’m not exactly claiming that the improved result is anywhere near good. Reading about Amityville II’s production makes it clear that this was a quick cash-in with little production time—no wonder about the results.

  • Souls for Sale (1923)

    Souls for Sale (1923)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) My appreciation for 1920s silent movies only goes so far, but I was curious to see how far back the “young woman goes to Hollywood to become a star” genre went back, and the earliest stop I’ve found so far (there are doubtless others) is Souls for Sale, a 1923 comedy/drama that has our proverbial heroine indeed landing in Hollywood to become a star. But there are complications so thorny that they wouldn’t be imitated in later years. For instance, the opening segment has our heroine dropping off the train she is riding with her new husband and discovering a movie-shooting troupe in the desert, just as we discover that her no-good new husband is a serial killer who marries, robs and kills young women. If you think that’s far-fetched, you haven’t seen anything yet: Our heroine makes an impression on the star and director of the movie she stumbles on, but refuses to follow them back to Los Angeles, taking up a job in a hotel that lasts about ten seconds before she once again heads over to Hollywood in the kind of useless plot kink that no modern screenwriter would dare include. (If it’s any help, the film is based on writer-director Rupert Hughes’s own rather turgid novel, which is now in the public domain and can be found online easily enough.) It gets much wilder later in the film, as the no-good ex-husband goes to Europe, meets a woman who swindles him in the same manner he usually does, and makes his way back to Hollywood having seen his ex-wife in movies. But the real interest of Souls for Sale is elsewhere—in the glimpse at 1923 moviemaking, with the Hollywood mystique already in full swing. Amazingly enough, even a relative silent movie neophyte such as myself was surprised to recognize Erich von Sternberg filming Greed, or Charlie Chapin (sans moustache) directing one of his movies—the film spends a few minutes simply revelling in taking us backstage and telling us all about how Hollywood worked, even as the title means to imply a condemnation of the entire town. But it doesn’t. Unsurprisingly, this film actually likes Hollywood (one notes that director Hugues was the uncle of movie magnate Howard Hughes), especially when the killer ex-husband (who doesn’t actually kill anyone throughout the film) is a more immediate villain. Souls for Sale can be a messy mix of style at times: in addition to the thriller aspect, the wish-fulfillment aspect and the behind-the-scenes aspect, the film isn’t above a few pure comedy gags, especially when it comes time to show the underside of the dream factory. (I was particularly fond of the “Lunch. Lunch! LUNCH!!!” title cards.) This bizarre mixture does make the film messy and undisciplined in the way later movies wouldn’t be. On the other hand, it does make Souls for Sale far more interesting than most of the straight dramas of the 1920s—there’s a rough vitality to the result that’s about as interesting as the realization that not as much has changed in the hundred years since the film was put together. And those are the things that can catch my interest even in 1920s films, an era of film that I often find more educational than purely entertaining.