Tornadoes of Our Lives

One of the greatest directors possessed of pure instinct for cinematic language was Samuel Fuller. 1957's Forty Guns exhibits his genius beautifully.

Barbara Stanwyck plays Jessica Drummond, a wealthy landowner on the vanishing frontier who rules over a retinue of 40 gunmen. Meanwhile, a grim, infamous gunfighter named Griff Bonnell (Barry Sullivan), along with his brothers, comes to town and is compelled to bring justice to one of Jessica's men who's murdered the local marshal.

This surprisingly doesn't put Jessica and Griff at odds, in fact they seem to have an immediate attraction and respect for each other. This culminates when they're out alone on her property, looking for places her renegade employees can hide out, and they're caught in a tornado.

It's a terrific scene. Fuller makes the brilliant decision to omit any mention of the tornado in dialogue. We just watch these two badasses struggle in a sudden, increasingly deadly situation. Fuller piles on wind and dust, Jessica's dragged by her horse, Griff's coach is destroyed. They crawl on their bellies into the ruins of a tiny home. We catch up with them later, laying beside each other, chatting about the past and the future as two people who've obviously just had sex.

The production code was gone at this point, Fuller didn't need to have the tornado as a code for sex. He has it because it works so damned well.

Griff has to be one of the great, grim, solemn old gunfighters in western history, which he proves in a breathtaking finale.

Forty Guns is available on The Criterion Channel until the end of the month.

No Pigeons Around

I ended up watching Double Indemnity last night because I received the new Criterion blu-ray in the mail, a birthday present from my mother (to-day is my birthday). It sure is beautiful now.

I remember the trouble I had getting it on DVD for years. Finally, I bought a Chinese bootleg copy which, as you can imagine, was pretty lousy in picture quality. But I was happy to have something and probably watched it a dozen times. Then Universal finally got around to releasing a special edition DVD which was excellent but can't hold a candle to finally getting a blu-ray.

Nowadays, I tend to watch movies thinking about how easy it would be to show to a Japanese acquaintance. I realised this one would be just about impossible. How could a translation truly do justice to the loop-de-loops of colloquialisms in Raymond Chandler's script? Where to begin with a line like the one where Phyllis offers Walter some tea and he's says that'd be fine unless she has "some beer that's not working." You'd have to be aware of the English oddity, "fix a drink".

The dialogue's just filled with stuff like that which the native speaker is just barely able to keep up to. Obviously it's been talked about a lot and it's obviously more stylised than realistic. But I like how it conveys what Walter is trying to do with Phyllis.

All that patter is covert yet obvious. It's so clever it seems meant to be slightly disorienting. He thinks he's toying with her but the whole time he's just painting a picture for her of an opportunity to find an accomplice in her husband's murder.

It's a terrific film, and shot on film so they can continually release higher definition editions. It's one of the good things in life.

The Discount Plough and Imported Stars

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone, from where it starts early, Japan. I decided to watch an Irish movie last night and chose 1937's The Plough and the Stars. Really it's an American film though it has an almost entirely Irish cast and was directed by first generation Irish American John Ford. Based on an Irish play of the same name about the Easter Rising of 1916, Ford was unhappy with the finished product due to changes made by RKO to it. It has its good qualities, particularly from the supporting cast, but it's far from the best of Ford's career.

The studio mandated the inclusion of Hollywood stars in the leads. Preston Foster and Barbara Stanwyck play Jack and Nora Clitheroe. Jack's in the IRA and has just been promoted to a command position despite Nora's desire that he stay out of the fighting.

I love Barbara Stanwyck but this was not her finest hour by any stretch of the imagination. She spends the whole film on the same whiny note, begging her husband not to fight the British and complaining to everyone else that her husband's fighting the British.

Some of the supporting cast would go on to be Ford regulars, most notably Barry Fitzgerald whose amusing antics in the pub are definitely the highlight of the film.

The Plough and the Stars is available on The Criterion Channel.

Twitter Sonnet #1532

A syrup jam results in flooded cakes.
And yet, we never thought to break the fast.
For eating right we read for extra steaks.
Supplies exhausted, skies provide repast.
A thinning face revealed a working brain.
As time conspires now for twitching nose.
The little phantoms load a gun with grain.
The scattered seeds produce a picture pose.
Her latest int'rest seeks her only feet.
A tiny smudge of paint could change the house.
We built the palace steps of moss and peat.
The place exceeds the plans of dreaming mouse.
The screen in shades of green displayed the hills.
With hours, dimes, and sweat, we paid the bills.