The Forces Straining the Ranch

Sometimes what seems to be a conflict between living for oneself and living for the social good is more complicated on closer examination. 1963's Hud, a movie about a cattle ranch hit by sudden, monstrously bad fortune, presents a weary patriarch in conflict with his philandering, loose-principled son. Shot in stark black and white with a haunting score by Elmer Bernstein, the film actually features very few instances of characters executing their own will, leaving a curious void around the central conflict. This has the advantage of highlighting the fundamental humanity of the characters as they suffer a purgatory that starts to look a lot like Hell.

Presented as the film's moral centre is a teenage boy named Lonnie (Brandon deWilde). His conflict is in choosing between two father figures in his grandfather, Homer (Melvyn Douglas), the owner of the ranch, and his uncle, Hud (Paul Newman), Homer's son and nemesis.

Hud is handsome and charming, often given to selfish, drunken pronouncements and with a reputation for sleeping with other men's wives all over town. When Hud asks Homer why he's nursed a grudge against him for so long he assures Homer he won't "give a damn" either way. Homer replies that this is exactly it--it's the impression that Hud doesn't give a damn. Yet the fact that Hud retreats to the kitchen to angrily shed tears over a beer suggests this isn't so.

A fourth character rounds out the dramatic conflict; a beautiful, worldly housekeeper called Alma, played by Patricia Neal in a truly remarkable performance. There's a brilliantly played sexual tension between her and Hud though it culminates in the one instance of Hud definitely doing something vile. Drunk one evening after a fight with Homer, he tries to rape her. In this instance, he's not just talk.

Most of the time, talk is all his wickedness amounts to. At one point he announces he's going to get Homer declared mentally unfit to oversee his property in order to gain the inheritance but he never actually follows through with this.

Wikipedia quotes director Martin Ritt and star Paul Newman as saying that Hud was intended to be an antihero, someone we're ultimately meant to despise. Yet in attempting not to be too heavy-handed they've left a lot in Hud's favour, like the fact that he continues to publicly support every decision Homer makes regarding the farm and works hard to make sure the old man's wishes are carried out.

Mostly this involves a horrible situation imposed by monstrously bad luck--a recent purchase of cattle from Mexico has resulted in all Homer's stock being struck by an epidemic of foot and mouth disease. Government men tell Homer he's going to have to slaughter them all--Hud suggests they sell them all quickly before anyone finds out. But, again, despite an argument with Homer, Hud doesn't actually do anything against the old man. Is it loyalty? Or does Hud realise what exposing other cattle stocks to the virus would mean for the industry? We never know why exactly Hud doesn't act on his idea.

The presented conflict takes on a political tone when Homer directly speaks against the idea of giving too much sympathy to Hud--because there's a danger in too many people admiring, and voting for, men like Hud. Yet Hud is portrayed as so human by Paul Newman and Homer as so severe by Melvyn Douglas we're forced to contemplate just how wicked Hud is at heart. The cycle of Hud feeling isolated, unable to confront his feelings, self medicating with alcohol, and then acting rashly under inebriation--to be isolated again by bis behaviour--doesn't excuse Hud. But it compels the viewer to wonder if sympathy is such a bad idea after all.

Hud is available on Amazon Prime.

The Affable King in Skins

From the woods of 18th century Tennessee emerged a simple hearted, plain spoken fellow. In the 19th century he was Indian fighter then Indian advocate but always Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier. That's what his friend George called him, anyway, and since he put it in a catchy song it stuck. The 1955 film is a compilation of the first three episodes of the Disney television series, shot in colour and in vast American forests. Fess Parker in the title role is a loveable straight shooter, his personality, perhaps appropriately, strikingly understated compared to his enthusiastic biographer played by Buddy Ebson.

In the first third of the film, Crockett is interrupted in his attempts to subdue a bear by grinning when he's called to duty under General Andrew Jackson (Basil Ruysdael). This is the Creek War and it'll be up to Davy to defeat the dreaded Chief Red Stick (Pat Hogan).

Despite his larger than life reputation, I like how the film shows Davy generally having to struggle in combat. His fights with Red Stick are touch and go and Davy almost loses his scalp in the middle of a battle. But it's diplomacy that finally wins the day and for the second third of the film Davy finds a new career in congress, a role prepped for him by the spread of his legend, courtesy of the faithful George.

At first an ally of the old General Jackson, Davy finds he must argue against him when Jackson plans to double-cross the Native Americans. The first part of this section presents a more hands on version of this drama when Davy must prevail in contests of shooting and fists when an Indian neighbour called Charlie Two Shirts (Jefferson Thompson) is run off his property by the dastardly Bigfoot Mason (Mike Mazurki). The fight choreography is okay but there's an appreciable quantity of ideas at work. Davy and Bigfoot hit each other and bash each other in creative ways and occasionally with props.

The final section is the Alamo and you know that can't end well. Still, it's a Disney film and a strong effort is made to keep it upbeat but the film stops short of lying about Crockett's fate. It's touching to see Davy's friends rally around him, including Captain Hook himself, Hans Conried, playing a cowardly gambler with an unmistakable voice.

I kept waiting for him to say, "Cod fish!"

Davy Crockett is available on Disney+.

The Machine Mind is Deadlier than the Machine Tank

The War Machines feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. The 1966 Doctor Who serial starts off being about a computer taking over the world but becomes, in part 2, more about killer robots. The naivete of the world governments all happily surrendering control to a computer mind, just because the computer is purported to be always right, seems like it would have some resonant longevity. But I suppose it does turn people into zombies throughout the serial.

Even poor Dodo (Jackie Lane) whose last appearance this is on the show. Maybe the most unceremonious departure for a companion, she nips off to an off-screen country house in part two and is never seen again. A message at the end is all the Doctor (William Hartnell) gets in which she expresses her love. "Is that all?!" he asks and we might well sympathise with him. Lane's contract ran out in the middle of the serial but one supposes she must have really hated her time on the show not to make at least one, final, brief appearance, even without contractual obligation. Yet she went on to be an agent who represented Tom Baker and Janet Fielding so presumably she didn't shepherd clients away from the show.

I still think of Hartnell as the First Doctor though I suppose that makes me racist now. This may be his most superhero moment, when he wears a cloak and stares down a killer robot. I love how Sir Charles (William Mervyn) takes him into his confidence so quickly, becoming Commissioner Gordon to the Doctor's Adam West. Well, at least the serial never gets as consciously tongue-in-cheek as the Batman series.

I like Ben (Michael Craze) and Polly (Anneke Wills) so much better than the previous time I watched this serial. I love the injection of a couple of hip London twenty-somethings. This shot of Polly making a face when asked about her typing skills would've been much better as a wide shot, though, showing her with the other people in the conversation.

It's still kind of funny, though.

Twitter Sonnet #1355

The stunning phase erased the laser gun.
A saucer seemed a milkless bowl in flight.
The planet's core would egg the yellow sun.
At warp, the neutral zone contained a fight.
The cam'ra told of yellow birds at home.
A metal hat protects from cannon thoughts.
The light could show a brainy silver dome.
The forest shrank to seven tiny dots.
A charging phone could push aside the bull.
For timing right, the plans were snapped to belts.
In summer heat, we threw aside the wool.
In humid caves, we cast away the pelts.
The soil yields a fruitful weed or two.
Respected ducks array in orange and blue.

Four Faces in the Devil's Drama

Sometimes a movie is carried so beautifully by the charisma of its stars. 1942's Les Visiteurs du Soir (The Devil's Envoys) has lovely cinematography and a fascinating screenplay but its magnificence resides in its inimitable four leads, Alain Cuny, Arletty, Jules Berry, and Marie Dea. The story of two servants of Satan and their entanglement with mortal affairs needs very little in the way of special effects when it has faces like these.

I'd only seen Alain Cuny when he was older, like in Dolce Vita and Emmanuelle. In 1942 he looked just like one of Tolkien's elves. With him is the beauty from Children of Paradise, Arletty, here being perfectly cruel, exhibiting deliciously subtle, sadistic amusement.

His name is Gilles and her name is Dominque and they disguise themselves as minstrels to wreak havoc via seduction. They come to a peculiar white castle where a Baron (Fernand Ledoux) is holding an enormous banquet. Everyone laughs hysterically when three hideously deformed dwarves are unmasked.

It's perhaps for this cruelty the people here have become Satan's prey. But there's an exception--the beautiful Anne (Dea) recoils in pity and horror from the dwarves. The dwarves, by the way, turn out to be servants of Satan too and they deliver messages to Dominique and Gilles. There's a wonderful, understated logic of fairy tale to the movie and I particularly like how it's used to reveal or reflect the way characters are thinking. When the Devil (Jules Berry) arrives and taunts Anne in her bedroom, she doesn't believe he is who he says. Then he shows her he can be two places at once--talking to her in her room and also in the nearby garden, sewing seeds of violence between two noblemen.

Without missing a beat, she tells him this isn't so wonderful because she's in two places at once, too--trapped in her room and, in her mind, at the fountain with her love, Gilles.

The movie comes back a lot to the idea of free will, that "the mind is its own place", as Milton's Satan put it. Gilles, as a servant of Satan, still randomly decides to do a good deed at the beginning of the film. Both he and Dominique do what they do because they choose to and they can stop any time. Satan can threaten and coerce but he can't really force people, in their hearts, to think or feel a certain way. It's no wonder many saw the film as an allegory for the Nazi occupation of France, though the director, Marcel Carne, denied it. Certainly Jules Berry as the Devil is much more charming than Hitler ever was.

But of the four leads, I have to give top marks to Marie Dea. When she looks at Gilles at the beginning, I've never seen such an intensity of passion in a relatively still face. A screenshot can't communicate it, you have to see the subtle motion of her breath and her eyelids. Something about the proportion of her nose and her beautiful big eyes suggest a girl whose heart is right there on the surface.

Les Visiteurs du Soir is available on The Criterion Channel.

Investigating the Local Aliens

After Aeryn's been kidnapped by the Scarrans on Farscape, Crichton tries to piece together her location from one clue, a single Scarran word, "Katratzi". In the process, he obsessively watches a documentary from Earth about his alien friends.

Season Four, Episode Seventeen: A Constellation of Doubt

David Kemper writes a more thoughtful episode about Moya's crew on Earth than "Terra Firma". The interviews depicted in the documentary having been conducted partly by John's (Ben Browder) nephew Bobby (Joshua Anderson) during the events of "Terra Firma". Aeryn (Claudia Black) is also interviewed by an amusing 90s style tabloid TV host (Nick Tate).

We also see a series of experts commenting on the aliens, including one played by David Kemper and another by Brian Henson.

Some of the opinions shared are a little cliche or dated, like Noranti's (Melissa Jaffer) opinion on religious zealots or the depiction of a Buddhist monk being more understanding of Chiana's (Gigi Edgley) frank sexuality than a Catholic bishop. But parts of the episode focusing on the casual alienness of the aliens, particularly Chiana, are sweet.

Though I find it hard to believe Chiana has no concept of makeup. Maybe Nebari don't wear makeup but I can't believe everyone she encounters on this colourful series is supposed to have only their natural pigmentation. But Edgley does a great job with the scene, which, according to the wiki, she believed to be her last for the series. Scenes featuring D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) focus on Earth's military inferiority, providing an interesting contrast with Chiana's alien vulnerability.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas
Episode 13: Terra Firma
Episode 14: Twice Shy
Episode 15: Mental as Anything
Episode 16: Bringing Home the Beacon

That Wily Roddy McDowall

Still watching Columbo. I notice Steven Bochco's name on teleplays a lot but the episodes without him seem to be a bit better. I'm not sure if it's the writing or the performances or a magical combination but my favourite season one episode was "Short Fuse" with a teleplay by Jackson Gillis and a story by Gillis along with Lester Pine and Tina Pine. It has one of the best guest cast rosters including Ida Lupino and Anne Francis--but Roddy McDowall steals the show.

Normally I find McDowall a bit over the top, particularly in Fright Night. But "Short Fuse" actually makes use of this as he plays a genius killer whose strategy includes flagrantly indulging in behaviour that should give him away, deliberately leading Columbo in directions that point to his guilt.

In danger of losing his inheritance, a profitable chemical company, McDowall offs the uncle who doesn't like him. He weaves a complicated web including the boss's secretary (Francis) and wife (Lupino), using both to create a plausible alternate scenario implicating his co-conspirator and Francis. So McDowall is one of the few suspects who never ever gets flustered by Columbo's slow burn, roundabout interrogations.

Yes, he did know about the cigars that may have exploded in the car that killed his uncle. Yes, he was in a position to tamper with them. Yes, there was bad blood and a history of resentment. But a little detail here and there and Ida Lupino is ready to defend him to the death. The guy carries off his plan with such panache I didn't think there was a plausible way Columbo could trap him--but then he did in a great scene in a sky lift.

Columbo is available on Amazon Prime with commercials.

Twitter Sonnet #1354

From floor to paper came a dizzy rise.
A clip of paper fell from coat to sky.
The daily rags could cook their ink for pies.
An iron ball bespoke the college try.
The stalking thought returns with empty throws.
In bleach, the cubes became a scattered chance.
In tumble dry the rivals came to blows.
Increasing spiders bade the flies to dance.
The sushi stream was cut for seven bites.
The movie stumbled out the swinging door.
A drunken band collapsed on busy nights.
A minute passed for ev'ry second more.
A cushion cloud completes the roof decor.
A ceiling apes what leaves and bark restore.

A Girl with Metal Hands

I've been living in Japan for almost two months now and I've hardly been watching any anime. I decided to fix that and started watching 2018's Violet Evergarden a few days ago. A steampunk-ish shojo series, it's one of the more popular shows from recent years and I was happy to see it has good animation and design. This should come as no surprise since it's a product of Kyoto Animation, or KyoAni. One of the reasons I chose the series was because of the horrific arson attack suffered by the studio last year not far from where I now live. Of the 36 people who have died so far (some of the injured are still in critical care), several worked on Violet Evergarden. The studio is also known for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a series I'm a big fan of.

I was always aware that hotel rooms, apartments, and shops were generally smaller in Japan than in the U.S. but having experienced it firsthand has made me become very aware of how often I see very large interior spaces in anime.

Maybe people in Japan like to fantasise about large living spaces. Violet Evergarden is also a Japanese fantasy about the West, apparently set in an alternate reality Edwardian era fictional country. The written language looks sort of like English but not quite.

And there are, of course, pieces of advanced technology, the most notable being the mechanical arms of the series' heroine, Violet (Yui Ishikawa).

We see her lose her original arms in extremely bloody flashbacks. She lost them in the course of her duty as a soldier protecting her superior office, a major named Gilbert (Daisuke Namikawa), who nonetheless perishes, but not before telling her that he loves her. The story hints that Violet is some kind of artificial lifeform or a clone bred for war, in any case, she seems cold and has difficulty accessing emotion. To find out what the major meant by "love", she takes a job as an "Auto Memory Doll", women who work as ghost writers for personal letters.

So Violet is definitely a character type, one that goes back to Rei Ayanami on Neon Genesis Evangelion; the young, unemotional woman. But her background as a soldier gives the stock type a different context. It's hardly strange someone would have trouble reconnecting with normal life after the war though I'm starting to suspect this type of character holds fascination for Japanese audiences because the work ethic here compels people to give total focus to their jobs, even if their jobs don't require it. So in an empty department store, you don't see employees chatting, even if there are no customers. Employees stand and wait patiently.

Unsurprisingly, Violet isn't very good at transcribing the feelings of her clients at first but by the third episode her subdued feelings yield an unexpected advantage in distilling emotions to an elegantly simple message. It's all very sweet and well animated.

Violet Evergarden is available on NetFlix in the U.S. and Japan.

The Improbably Good Cinematic Cocktail

I love the wide selection of obscure B-movies and exploitation films on Amazon Prime. Usually they're no masterpieces but I love all kinds of films and there's almost always one or two things interesting about every one. Last night, though, I came across a real gem, 1939's Slightly Honourable. This fascinating B-movie gleefully careens from one genre and tone to another, starting as a witty screwball romance and a drama about government graft before becoming a murder mystery, a suspense film, and finally a remarkable proto-noir. Supporting performances from Ruth Terry, Willie Best, and especially Broderick Crawford, anchor this mad ship and make it something really captivating.

John Webb (Pat O'Brien) is an attorney and a thorn in the sides of several corrupt government officials responsible for the shoddy workmanship on a public road. The film begins just after one of the biggest scoundrals dies in a car accident caused by the bad asphalt he was partly responsible for. Cut to his funeral and we meet one of the other bad guys, Cushing (Edward Arnold), carrying one side of the dead man's coffin and Webb and his partner Russ (Crawford) carrying the other.

The great, quippy dialogue gets off to a running start:

WEBB: Tell me, Cushing, what do you pave the roads with, tapioca?

CUSHING: dryly Yeah, we add raisins to make it hard.

RUSS: Sounds awfully rich to me!

From there, the boys repair to a nightclub where Webb's accompanied by his beautiful old flame, Alma (Claire Dodd). But he starts immediately lusting after the girl singing and dancing on stage, creditted only as "Nightclub Singer" but referred to throughout the film as "Puss" (Ruth Terry).

His ardor is checked a bit when he finds out she's only eighteen and a half (Terry's actual age at the time) but, for reasons the film doesn't quite explain, she ends up back at his apartment with him after he'd punched out a guy who'd socked and tore her dress.

His worry at the scandal in their relationship can't prevent the wide eyed stares from the elevator operator (Willie Best) and Webb finds himself buying expensive gifts for Puss. Who will it be, Webb? Puss or Alma? That's about the time Alma ends up dead and Webb becomes suspect number one.

The film maintains its rapid tone without undercutting the severity of events. The police interogate Webb, Cushing, and the guy who socked Puss but get no-where. There are just too many suspects--it could be Webb, it could be someone trying to get revenge on Webb. It could be Puss, who's violently jealous of any girl in Webb's orbit, which is still mostly played for laughs. But the truth isn't discovered until a spooky scene in a graveyard.

The line the killer has when he finally explains his motives is remarkably reminiscent of severl noirs that would follow the film. It was a surprising topper to a film that was a terrifically erratic ride the whole way.

Clear and Pleasant Motives

For all the films about lesbian lovers to have been slapped with the "male gaze" label, you'd think such a film made entirely by women would receive some praise. But 2016's Below Her Mouth was largely condemned by critics as "pornographic fantasy". To be fair, that's clearly what the film sets out to be, and at that, it does a terrific job. If you are physically attracted to women, you will love this movie.

Over twenty years ago now, Stanley Kubrick set out to make Eyes Wide Shut partly because he found the filmmaking quality of porn to be generally terrible. I love Eyes Wide Shut but I don't find it especially titillating. It's got too much of what Kubrick is justly renowned for, a narrative coldness. Below Her Mouth doesn't strive to present an intellectually provoking or complex tale along the lines of Kubrick's final film, instead relying on cliches for its premise--a beautiful, wealthy woman (Natalie Krill) discovers she's a lesbian when she falls for a roofer (Erika Linder). They have lots of sex. It might as well be the "Log Jammin'" porn parody from The Big Lebowski, minus the log.

But instead of the sex serving a story, really, the story here is to serve the sex. Jasmine's (Krill) anxiety about her fiance finding out isn't really there for us to worry about how she's handling her life or her future. It's to add tension to the foreplay when Dallas (Linder) puts her hand between Jasmine's legs in a bar and the closeups on Jasmine's face show us how she's battling her own libido. The resistance is entirely to add piquancy.

The setup is cliche, sure, but few pornos could rival the delivery, particularly in terms of cinematography.

Cinematographer Maya Bankovic and director April Mullen paint close range compositions with gorgeous layers of artificial light. The lighting may well be the star of this movie. The actresses are fine, particularly Erika Linder as the improbable Swede turned American construction worker. And both actresses come off as sincere in the lengthy sex sequences but it's the lighting and editing that really captivate.

Why do critics evidently think it's a bad thing for a film to have such motives? I guess in this day and age it's probably a safer opinion. It's a shame because the world would be a better place with more movies like this.

"What, exactly, is below her mouth?" wrote Jude Dry of Indiewire, "Her chin? Her body? Her entire mind and spirit? It's a fittingly ambiguous title for a directionless film." It's funny, no-one had to ask Ella Fitzgerald what she meant when she sang about a man tickling her under her chin. We seem to have lost some cranial capacity in the past sixty years.

Below Her Mouth is available on NetFlix.

Twitter Sonnet #1353

The ticking clock concludes in pink and white.
A candy haze descends on quiet streets.
With sugar dust the spell obscures the sight.
A sober porridge slashed the plot to sheets.
A spinning ribbon cloud obstructs the sky.
Replacing grass, a puking cat advanced.
A field of games constricts the honest try.
In bony minds the marrow people danced.
An amber line creates a skull and neck.
Tomato bloom against the chest was warm.
A mirror gel refracts the glowing wreck.
The turning web of beams revealed a form.
Some icy shots exchanged between the gems.
Some skinny legs dissolve beneath the hems.