Reviews

  • Beat the Devil (1953)

    Beat the Devil (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2020) I’m a bit surprised at how Beat the Devil doesn’t work as well as I was expecting. On paper, it looks like a slam-dunk: a comic adventure starring Humphrey Bogart (plus Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida and Peter Lorre!), directed by John Huston and co-written by Truman Capote, all taking place in exotic British East Africa. It’s explicitly made as a parody of earlier films, and concerns swindlers trying to claim uranium-rich lands. I mean, how can this fail to deliver? But it does—the herky-jerky script struggles with consistent tone (a likely artifact from having been reportedly rewritten on a daily basis), the comedy is weighted down by bland direction and the visual flourish of the film is nothing worth reporting on. Some of the film’s production history suggests that it was almost treated as a vacation by Huston, Bogart and others, and this lack of discipline clearly shows—it’s also unclear if Huston had a sense for comedy, as demonstrated by what Beat the Devil tries to pass off as funny. This being said, I’m putting an asterisk (*) here to revisit this film in a while, just to see if I either understand more about what it’s reputedly trying to parody, or if I’m in a potentially better mood to accept what’s going on here.

  • Edward, My Son (1949)

    Edward, My Son (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) There are two interesting things to chew upon while watching Edward, My Son—first, the conceit of having a film named after a character that is never shown (or heard) on-screen; and second, seeing Spencer Tracy play a despicable character. The film is a character study of the father, as his own personal failings help shape the deplorable personality of his (unseen) son, all leading to retribution both legal and personal. The protagonist’s egomania fuels his desire to shape his son into a more privileged version of himself, and this shaping extracts a toll on both men. It’s a decent theme and an intriguing premise (somewhat stylized by presenting the passage of time through candles on birthday cakes—this is adapted from a theatrical play) but in execution falls somewhat flat. The pacing is off, the staginess of the presentation reminds us that this is all a conceit, and all the parts don’t quite come together harmoniously. But, hey, Spencer Tracy being evil—at least there’s that.

  • The Enemy Below (1957)

    The Enemy Below (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2020) While The Enemy Below may, at first glance, be nothing more than a naval WW2 adventure between an American destroyer and a German submarine, a few rewards await those looking a little deeper. For one thing, it’s shot in pretty good Technicolor, giving further life to a wartime adventure. For another, it’s directed by none other than Dick Powell, in the third act of his life as a filmmaker after being a musical matinee idol and then a film-noir tough guy. The result of his fourth directorial effort, adapted from a novel, is a tense cat-and-mouse game between two experienced military officers with unequal means. The destroyer does not have an advantage over the submarine, and that keeps the action going throughout most of the film, and provides a spectacular climax between the two war machines. It took two great actors to fill the shoes of the characters, and we get that with Robert Mitchum (surprisingly credible as a military officer) and Curd Jürgens as the Hitler-hating German submarine commander. The Enemy Below won an Oscar for special effects and looks like it. It’s all quite enjoyable—relatively light at 98 minutes, and buoyed by capable lead performances. Even in the generally good subgenre of submarine movies, it’s above average.

  • The Final Cut (2004)

    The Final Cut (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2020) While Robin Williams’ filmography isn’t solely characterized by comedy, his foray into very serious science fiction The Final Cut still stands out as being unusual. Here, Williams plays the role of a “cutter” in an alternate universe (or future) in which memories can be recorded on implants—his specialty is editing memories of the recently deceased to play at funerals as hagiographies. But his latest case turns out to be far more dangerous than he expected—and leads him to unexpected discoveries. Writer-director Omar Naim has a few good ideas rattling around in The Final Cut, and being able to use Williams as a straight dramatic actor is a rare privilege. So, it’s a shame that the film, in the end, doesn’t amount to much—the bits about the protagonist rediscovering his childhood don’t really lead anywhere, and the bits about cleaning up a dead person’s memories to make him appear more sympathetic are not given a satisfying send-off. The narrative contrivances are vexing and so are the piled-up clichés. In between, we get a fairly standard science fiction thriller in which all the made-up rules are made to be broken one by one, except executed with a fairly resolute lack of visual flair. For a film whose cinematographic approach cried for a noir-ish visual sheen, The Final Cut is depressingly pedestrian. Its first half is definitely better than its second, as Naim seems to eventually lose grasp of a much-better plot and impose a hasty conclusion. A rewrite or two would have done this film a world of good. In its current state, though, this is half of an interesting film—it’s barely worth a look for another surprisingly dark role from Williams and a good idea that goes nowhere.

  • The Devil’s Rain (1975)

    The Devil’s Rain (1975)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) All movie reviewers love to think that their bon mots are the best, that no one else will ever best them in describing a film, and that they certainly don’t need to do anything so vulgar as quoting some other critic. But sometimes, even the most egocentric of reviewers can admit defeat when a quote so perfectly formed comes to their attention. In The Devil’s Rain’s case, I bow down to Michael Adams, who in his book Showgirls came up with “the ultimate cult movie… It’s about a cult, has a cult following, was devised with input from a cult leader, and saw a future superstar indoctrinated into a cult he’d help popularize.” Whew—it’s so good a quote that it headlines the film’s Wikipedia entry. It’s a lot to unpack, but it says it all—The Devil’s Rain is a very 1970s satanic cult movie describing how a cult leader enslaves descendants of his cult centuries after being burnt alive. It’s absolutely not a good movie, but it has a bit of corny charm, and features such notables as William Shatner, Ernest Borgnine (with horns!), Ida Lupino (in a typical Golden-hollywood-star-slumming-in-1970s-horror-film role) and John Travolta in a supporting role. With a cast like that, you can see how and why the film developed a cult following—especially considering that the result, affected by production problems, isn’t particularly coherent on any level. To complete unlocking the quote, it’s worth noting that Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey was a technical advisor on the film, and that John Travolta first encountered Scientology on the set of the film. Whew. The final eight minutes of melting cultists is a lot, though. It would be professional malpractice to suggest watching The Devil’s Rain for its own intrinsic qualities, but as a budding film historian I’d be equally negligent if I didn’t single out the ways in which this movie has made a mark, as tiny as it was, on the grand film tapestry. [November 2024: As I edit this review for publication, years after seeing this wholly unremarkable film, I’m stuck at how I vividly remember at least one element of it—The repeated, “get me out of here!” lament heard over the Bosch-style opening credits. You never know what will stick!]

  • Possession (1981)

    Possession (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) Holy doppelgangers, you’re in for a wild ride in watching Possession. What begins as a troubling break-up between husband and wife constantly becomes even more bizarre, disturbing and incomprehensible. There is a spectrum of levels of analysis available to those who make it to the final frames, from a surface-level “huh, that was weird,” to intricate theories denying even the most obviously supernatural moments of the film. At times psychological thriller, self-destructive drama, body horror, surrealist tragedy, demented action and cosmic enigma, Possession is a multi-level cake of mystery, available for delicious contemplation. Writer-director Andrzej Żuławski slathers the symbolism like he was afraid to run out of it—double characters, a city divided in two, occult events versus secret agents, and so on. Both Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill turn in exceptional, difficult performances. Possession is one of those films that is both diminished and enhanced by discussions—try to see it first (uncut version!) and then dive into the analysis.

  • Fly Away Home (1996)

    Fly Away Home (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, September 2020) It always amuses me how some movies, and not necessarily the box-office champs, end up as being shorthand for an entire concept. For members of a certain generation, perhaps a declining one, Fly Away Home is “the movie where the geese imprint on a human.” It begins as a young teenager (Anna Paquin) moves to Ontario to live with her estranged father (Jeff Daniels) after the death of her mother. Through happenstance, she starts taking care of geese eggs after the disappearance of the mother goose, and becomes their surrogate mom. Had the film ended there, no one would remember it today. But our protagonist’s father, fortunately, is an ultralight aircraft enthusiast who uses his specific skills to teach the birds how to fly, and eventually leads them through a cross-continental migration so that they can be with their own. The film’s single best scene has the geese and ultralight plane flying through a city downtown (Baltimore in the film, Toronto in real-life) in between high-rises. Fly Away Home is a bit of uplifting fluff, but a comforting, even inspirational one—an eloquent proof (should aliens ask) that humans can care for animals as much as each other. I hope it stays a reference for entirely new generations.

  • Il pleuvait des oiseaux [And the Birds Rained Down] (2019)

    Il pleuvait des oiseaux [And the Birds Rained Down] (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) The French-Canadian dream of retiring somewhere in the woods next to a quiet lake gets explored in semi-tragic fashion in Il pleuvait des oiseaux. Evocative title, legendary cast (by French-Canadian standards, anyway), beautiful scenery, an impending sense of doom—this may not be my kind of film, but I found it far easier to watch than most of Québec’s kitchen-table dramas. It takes chances with curmudgeonly characters, an elderly romance, a slow pace and a somewhat tragic ending, but it sort of works despite it all. André Lachapelle is exceptional in the final role of a very long career; so is Gilbert Sicotte, although Rémy Girard remains Rémy Girard as in most of his characters. The rest of Il pleuvait des oiseaux is almost too delicate to describe.

  • Wir sind die Nacht [We are the Night] (2010)

    Wir sind die Nacht [We are the Night] (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) Vampiric hedonism meets the Berlin nightclub scene in We are the Night, as writer-director Dennis Gansel explores the adventures of a young woman who gets bitten, then befriended by a trio of female vampires even as a tenacious police officer closes in on her. While partially original, this is a film that plays into a very familiar pool of references. The vampiric powers are the classic ones, which either mean we’re on comfortable ground or that the narrative runs real risks of repeating itself. Putting the action in modern-day Berlin doesn’t make much of a change, and the film’s themes don’t necessarily bring anything new to the mythos. (Even the female focus is not that new.) On the one hand, We are the Night doesn’t specifically do anything wrong. But on the other, it struggles to distinguish itself from a flood of other, better vampires in the genre’s very long history.

  • The Lost Tribe (2009)

    The Lost Tribe (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) Nooo, Roel, you have let me down! The Lost Tribe landed on my DVR thanks to a single distinction; It’s directed by Roel Reiné, a Dutch filmmaker with a remarkable ability to make low-budget movies look ten times as exciting and fun. Well, his run of good luck expired during the making of this low-rent horror film. The story sees five young people run aground on a small island that is home for murderous evolutionary cousins of humankind. What follows is the usual jungle slasher, as members of the party are progressively slaughtered and the script finds weak justification to string along their deaths. But what could have been interesting if well-executed here hits a decidedly un-Reineian wall of blandness: dull, bland visual style, muddy cinematography and uninvolving direction. Really, who kidnapped Reiné? Maybe he finally met a budget so low that he couldn’t make it work. No matter why, The Lost Tribe is just a waste of time. Don’t let the director’s name fool you, and just avoid.

  • The Big Knife (1955)

    The Big Knife (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2020) Considering my fondness for Hollywood stories about Hollywood, I’m surprised that I don’t like The Big Knife as much as I probably should. The story of an actor negotiating a new contract with his studio while blackmailed due to a few sordid stories (both past and current) sounds like something right up my alley. It’s not as if the film doesn’t have other qualities either: Ida Lupino is wonderful as usual, Rod Steiger chews a lot of scenery, and Jack Palance is sort-of interesting. But in the end, it’s the entire film that fails to impress—perhaps too bleak for esoteric reasons (blame playwriter Clifford Odet, who wrote the theatrical play from which this is adapted), perhaps too stuck to the florid dialogue of the original, perhaps a bit too sedate and stage-bound as the theatrical play itself. I’m not sure there’s a crowd-pleasing movie to be made about an actor declining a wealth-making studio contract, and certainly not in the way the film ends. Too bad, because there are flashes of wit in the dialogue, and some fun performances—just not the kind of material that transforms a film into something compelling. In the end, I just could not make myself believe in The Big Knife.

  • Three Smart Girls (1936)

    Three Smart Girls (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) Deanna Durbin was a short-lived star—her time at the top of the box office lasted barely more than a decade, after which she retired and apparently lived a long happy life away from the cameras. While brief, her stardom was justified by the mixture of youthful cuteness, singing talent and comic timing she brought to the screen—if you’re thinking about Judy Garland, well, only a bit of fate separated those two from the MGM star-making factory. You can get a glimpse of her talents in her feature film debut Three Smart Girls, as she plays one of three sisters trying to prevent their father from marrying a gold-digging young woman. Frankly, it’s not that good of a film—in trying to demonstrate Durbin’s multiple talents, director Henry Koster is shackled to a script that throws in various elements in a whole that doesn’t come together. The musical numbers seem to stick out, and the comedy is quite generic. And it all fits in 84 minutes! Somehow, it was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar for its year. Still, there are good bits and pieces here—plus Durbin’s performance. As far as star-vehicle comedies of that time go, Three Smart Girls is unobjectionable—although there are better roles in Durbin’s later filmography.

  • Boy Erased (2018)

    Boy Erased (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) You don’t have to be directly involved in LGBT+ issues to be infuriated by the conversion therapies as detailed in Boy Erased, a drama adapted from the memoirs of a young man sent to such a conversion camp by his parents. The very idea that sexual orientation can be therapied out feels absurd to most viewers, and writer-director-producer-star Joel Edgerton clearly plays to such audiences in showcasing the regressive nature of those implementing or supporting those conversion programs. High-profile stars such as Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Xavier Dolan and a heavyset Russell Crowe lend further prestige to the production in its militant goals. It would be easy to wrap up the review by only talking about its topic matter, but there are two other things than nag me about Boy Erased. The first is a rape sequence in the first third of the film that seems incredibly pivotal and problematic and then seems shunted off, perhaps because it would distract from the film’s clean “no therapy” message. I’m not knowledgeable enough to correctly assess what happened there, but it still seems to stick out of the film’s narrative without proper acknowledgement or resolution. The second thing is perhaps more fundamental—Boy Erased is a message movie, and agreeing with the message doesn’t quite negate that the film itself is a bit underplayed—facile, predictable and conventional even in the ways it pushes its audience’s indignation buttons. (A lot of the most extreme material seems to be an invention of the film when compared to the book, and to bring together two related things, there’s a whole discussion about whether to keep the rape sequence without properly examining its fallout, while inventing scenes of abuse that never existed.) A better movie exists somewhere, just as militant in its good intentions but more successful in its execution—perhaps with a better script, perhaps with other actors.

  • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1948)

    A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1948)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) My memories of having read the original Mark Twain novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court are dim by now, but I remember enough to be able to say that this film adaptation diverges in significant ways from its inspiration. That’s part of the fun in seeing much-adapted classic works of literature, really—you can pinpoint an era’s obsession with the spin they give to the original material. In this case, it’s fair (and accurate) to say that late-1940s Hollywood was seriously obsessed by Bing Crosby, given that his starring turn in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court effectively makes him a bigger auteur of the film than Twain himself. Hey, it’s not as if Twain had his protagonist croon to the cute ladies of the court and lead big musical numbers, right? But yes: This 1948 take on the material transforms it into a Technicolor musical, complete with singing and dancing. While many of Twain’s imaginative plot devices have become stock for clichés, most of the film is watchable enough—especially if you like Crosby. There’s definitely a curiosity value in seeing how thoroughly the material was changed to reflect its leading man, but all of this fuss doesn’t necessarily make this a good movie. In fact, once it’s all sung and done, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is more notable as a star vehicle than for being an adaptation of a classic literary work… or much of a film by itself.

  • Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

    Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Blu-ray, September 2020) I expected to dislike the original Planet of the Apes series the more I went into the later much-derided instalments, but on the contrary, I find myself unexpectedly impressed by how much the series was able to put on the table even then—the inspiration for the 2010s remakes is clearly seen in the last few films of the original series. But even I struggle to find anything more to say about the last film of the original series. The fifth instalment Battle for the Planet of the Apes certainly feels like an epilogue looking for something to say—it repeats points of previous episodes, looks as if it was filmed with enthusiastic LARPers on a weekend getaway and tortures itself by staying close to the previous films despite an obvious time skip. It’s worth a look for the material it laid out for the later remake series, but it can be a slog to get through thanks to the slow pacing, rough dialogue and meaningless plotting. There are a few extended battle scenes later on that highlight where the meagre budget has been spent, and it’s hard to stay mad at a film that ends the series with an ambiguous message of interspecies harmony. Still, it’s a whimper of a conclusion rather than a bang: the earlier instalments had much more to say.