Arthur Penn

  • The Missouri Breaks (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) While I’ll never deny the appeal of an intriguing cast, it’s not a guarantee of success. If you know about 1970s Hollywood, the top-line cast and crew of The Missouri Breaks sounds like a wonder:   Director Arthur Penn! Stars Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid and Harry Dean Stanton! What’s not to like? Well, plenty:  With Brando in the cast and a script intent on being a downbeat revisionist western, this is one film where the making-of stories are far more interesting than the film itself. According to legend, Brando was almost uncontrollable on set, going in his own bizarre eccentricities at the expense of the film’s tonal integrity. The production was plagued by bad weather, harsh on-location shooting, and a horse died while filming. Much of this is imperceptible in the finished product… except for Brando’s eccentricities, which are enough to make anyone wonder what was going on there. The rest of The Missouri Breaks doesn’t fly particularly high: intent on rejecting decades of Western tradition, the film doesn’t have much to offer instead. It plays like dull wallpaper whenever Brando is off-screen, never quite fulfilling the promise of its marquee names.

  • Dead of Winter (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2022) Any film that dares re-create a Gothic horror story in a somewhat modern setting gets my attention – that it happens to star the lovely Mary Steenburgen is a really nice bonus. Taking place under a deep cover of snow and ice, Dead of Winter sees a struggling actress (Steenburgen) travelling to an upstate mansion under the impression that she’s auditioning for a part in a movie. It’s for a part all right – but in a twisted familiar melodrama of familial feud, murdered women, identity replacement and amputation. Locked in the middle of nowhere, her frantic efforts to ask for help result in a devilishly frustrating confrontation with visiting police, in which her captors coolly argue that she has lost her mind. Dead of Winter, appropriately shot in Ontario, honestly comes by its Gothic credentials – it’s an unofficial remake of the 1940s domestic thriller My Name Is Julia Ross, itself adapted from The Woman in Red, a novel written in the heyday of British mystery fiction. While Roddy McDowall is suitably creepy as the antagonist, Steenburgen has a lot to do here, with the plot naturally leading her to play three different roles. The plot is almost entirely preposterous down to the importance of free gas station goldfishes (don’t ask) – but the point here is the thrill of a woman stuck in the middle of nowhere, desperately trying to escape a situation rigged against her. The film stands as director Arthur Penn’s last theatrical release – even if the true authorship of the film is muddled through a mid-production change. The result is not that good, but it’s reasonably entertaining – and a treat for Steenburgen fans.