Rififi (1955)

 A group of low-level criminals hatch a plan to rob a jewelry store but are betrayed by their human impulses.  This is kind of an anti-Ocean's movie.  Content warning:  violence, child endangerment

Tony (Jean Servais) has just gotten out of prison and needs quick cash.  His friend, Jo (Carl Möhner) knows a couple of guys with a score in mind.  They take a few days to recon and plan the heist but Tony is distracted by trying to find Mado (Marie Sabouret), the woman who left him while he was in prison, discovering that she's now the moll of a low-level gangster named Pierre Grutter (Marcel Lupovici).  

This is a black-and-white French crime noir and I feel like you probably already know if that's your jam or not.  Personally, I thought it was very good.  The heist is immaculate and I dearly love seeing people do something well.  It's awesome that a 70-year-old movie can still be this riveting.  The second half suffers a little in comparison but I was still on board.

Unfortunately, it's not streaming right now but keep an eye on Criterion and Kanopy.  If it does show back up, it'll probably be there.  

The Square Peg (1958)

  This is a very slight screwball comedy import from Britain.  

Pitkin (Norman Wisdom), a Public Works employee, runs afoul of the local military outstation and is drafted in retaliation.  He is mostly inept at being a soldier but excels in road repair, so much that he ends up four miles behind enemy lines in France and is mistaken for the resident German commander.

Screwball comedies aren't really my thing, but if you like physical comedy and bumbling antics, this might be worth your time.  

I could be wrong (it's happened once or twice) but this definitely feels like it's nostalgic for the late 20s/early 30s screwballs while trying to acknowledge a present that would have felt extremely raw for a lot of the English.  Like trying to wrap their trauma in cotton candy to make it go down easier.  But I could be reading too much into it.

It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

The Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

  Continuing our noir theme, we have a Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis entry.  

Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) is a press agent for small acts in and around Broadway.  He is beholden to columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) to publish Falco's promotional materials.  Hunsecker, a vengeful megalomaniac, has frozen Falco out until Falco breaks up the relationship between Hunsecker's younger sister, Susan (Susan Harrison), and jazz musician Steve Dallas (Martin Milner).  

This is definitely noir and Lancaster has never made a bad movie, but it just didn't stick the landing for me.  The climax peters out instead of detonating.  I wanted this movie to have shrapnel.  Still, it's very highly regarded in film circles and does showcase a sweaty, sleazy Curtis as well as a solid supporting cast.  If you're a Lancaster completionist or interested in All Things Noir, give it a shot.  It's currently streaming on Kanopy with a library subscription or Tubi with ads.

Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)

  Stressed about the holidays?  Watch manly men dealing with their fear and resentment while being stalked through the seas!

Lieutenant Jim Bledsoe (Burt Lancaster) is pleased to receive his first command of the submarine Nerka, but is stymied last-minute when Commander Richardson (Clark Gable) is announced instead.  Richardson had been desk-bound because his previous sub was sunk off the coast of Japan by a destroyer called the Akikaze.  Bledsoe has a terrible suspicion that Richardson is just looking for revenge and is willing to risk the lives of the entire crew to get it.

This is a good movie to put on if you're laying on the couch taking a break from wrapping gifts or doomscrolling or just hungover on a Sunday.  The black and white is very soothing, there's a lot of talking interspersed with some torpedo explosions, and Don Rickles is in it.  It's not the best WWII movie --hell, it's not even the best WWII submarine movie-- but it's good enough.  Appropriately melodramatic.  There is precisely one (1) woman with a speaking role and the pin-up poster in the sub gets more screen time than she does, but you can't have everything.

It's currently streaming for free (with ads) on the Roku Channel.

Scream-O-Rama 2023 Day 11: The Thing from Another World (1951)

  I'm cheating a little bit here because this is more properly sci-fi, but it was a Movie Club pick and the progenitor of John Carpenter's The Thing so I'm saying it counts.  Content warning:  severed limb, dead animal (dog)

An Air Force rescue group is dispatched after scientists at the North Pole report a downed aircraft.  They discover that it's actually a spaceship with an occupant.  They dig free an ice block and tow it in to the research station but the Captain (Kenneth Tobey) is adamant it remains frozen, over the protests of the scientists led by Professor Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite).  An accident sees the block thawed and the creature turns out to be very much alive and hungry for blood.

A lot of older horror movies don't stand up very well by today's standards (we're so spoiled) but this was a very fun sci-fi romp.  Tobey has excellent chemistry with lead actress Margaret Sheridan, who is written like an actual person, a rarity of the time.  Even better, a fun person who drinks and smokes and wears pants and talks about her previous would-be one-night-stand with the Captain.  Practically shocking for 1951.  

I wish they hadn't shown the "monster" because that is the weakest part of the movie, but overall, definitely a keeper.  It's currently streaming on Tubi and the Roku Channel.

Throne of Blood (1957)

  The Kurosawa streak continues with the adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

General Wazishu (Toshiro Mifune) receives a prophecy that he will become the next Lord of Forest Castle.  At first deeply disturbed by the implications of treason against the current lord (Yoichi Tachikawa), Wazishu grows more accustomed to the idea of usurpation, helped along by his wife, Lady Asaji (Isuzu Yamada).  But the paranoia of ruling soon begins to unravel the pair, leading to more and more bloodshed.

It's always interesting to see different interpretations of literature, especially through the lens of a different culture.  Kurosawa took several liberties with the source material to make it more specific to feudal Japan, but that really only makes it seem more universal in concept.  Envy, greed, and ambition are not unique to 16th century Scotland, after all.

The cinematography is cold and forboding, and feels very stiff compared to some of Kurosawa's earlier work.  It feels like a stage play.  Mifune's face does a lot of heavy lifting in the film.  His Macbeth counterpart wears his emotions on his sleeve, allowing the audience to practically see every thought he has.  Yamada, by contrast, is icily calm, lending her paranoid suggestions the veneer of reasonability.  Of course, Wazishu should kill the Forest Lord.  Didn't he kill his predecessor to get the title?  Doesn't Wazishu deserve it?  After all, it's been foretold.

Despite my admiration, I found it hard to pay attention.  The Scottish Play is one of my favorites and I am very familiar with its story beats.  I was struck by the costumes, however, which are incredibly lush and (I assume) period-accurate.  Wazishu's sigil is the centipede which was odd enough that I looked it up and according to Wikipedia, the centipede has a positive connotation with the God of War but a negative one because of its association with death.  So it too represents the wheel of fortune that Macbeth faces.

It's currently streaming on Criterion Channel and (sigh) Max.

Two of a Kind (1951)

  The tagline makes this movie seem way more hardcore than it is.  It's still a noir but it's a sunny, Southern California noir with a non-bullet-riddled ending.

Mike Farrell (Edmond O'Brien) has spent his life hustling, so when he's approached by Brandy Kirby (Lizabeth Scott) with a deal worth millions, he figures he knows what he's getting into, even if it does require a little mutilation between friends.  See, Brandy has a line on an old rich couple who lost their son many years ago.  Their son was missing the top joint of his finger, but with a couple of months of salt and sun exposure, a new wound looks much like an old one.  She and her silent partner, Vincent (Alexander Knox), the old couple's attorney, have worked out a scam to steal the multi-million dollar inheritance by substituting their own Anastasia Romanov.  With inside knowledge to help him prep, they introduce Mike to Kathy (Terry Moore), the couple's niece, a naive do-gooder anxious to "reform" him.  But as Mike and Kathy's relationship progresses, Brandy and Vincent's jealousy begins to grow until it threatens to derail the entire plan.

This is a cute movie.  It's breezy and not particularly tense, with screwball elements courtesy of Kathy.  I would definitely consider it a lesser noir, but it's worth a watch.  I don't find Lizabeth Scott particularly beautiful but she is magnetic.  You can't take your eyes off her.  That's a level of star quality that is missing from a lot of performers today.

Unfortunately, it's not available to stream anywhere.  You're going to have to dig out a physical copy.  This came from the "Bad Girls of Noir" set.  I got it from Netflix while they're still in the physical media game.  This is your periodic reminder to make copies of your shit and buy physical if you possibly can.  Streamers and studios will just disappear content like Josef Stalin removing dissidents from photos.  Never thought we'd see the day where piracy has the moral high ground but yaaar, mateys, thar t'is.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

I did buy this and it does get better on a repeat watch.  I decided to make it my Movie Club pick because I wanted to stay with the musical/performance theme but I wanted something a little lighter and fluffier after Black Swan.  I think it's a nice juxtaposition of Art for Art's Sake and Art as Commodity.  Nina Sayres is willing to die to achieve perfection in her art form but Lorelei Lee just wants to have a comfortable retirement.  Both women know their careers are short-lived and that time is running out.  And that's why we have to burn down the patriarchy because there is a 50-year time difference in these films and absolutely nothing has changed.  Originally posted 17 Mar 14.    I've never been a big Marilyn Monroe fan.  I just don't see what the big deal is.  I could be convinced to be a Jane Russell fan, though, after this and His Kind of Woman.

Lorelei (Marilyn Monroe) and Dorothy (Jane Russell) are showgirls and best friends.  Lorelei is after money and she has her eye on dull millionaire Gus Esmond (Tommy Noonan), but Gus's father won't approve their marriage.  Lorelei and Dorothy decide to cruise to France in the hopes of getting Gus to chase after her and get out of his father's influence.  What they don't know is that Daddy Esmond has hired a private detective (Elliott Reid) to follow Lorelei in the hopes of catching her being a gold-digging whore.  The detective is much more interested in Dorothy, however, it doesn't keep him from snapping some pictures of Lorelei and the owner of a diamond mine, "Piggy" Beekman (Charles Coburn).  But it's when Beekman gives Lorelei a diamond tiara belonging to his wife that things really start to go downhill.

This film features the song "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" and one of Monroe's most iconic costumes.  I had seen the musical number (and countless rip-offs) before, I just hadn't seen the whole picture.  It still stands up as a comedy and Monroe excels at playing the dumb blonde, that's just not a character archetype I'm fond of watching.  I'm definitely going to own it, though, since I think it'll just get better with repeat viewings.

A Place in the Sun (1951)

  This week I got to pick for Cinema Club so I picked A Place in the Sun because it was the highest on my queue.  I didn't know a thing about it, which I thought put us all on equal footing.  Now I'm worried I'll get dragged for this choice.

George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) is a poor cousin to a very rich family, having grown up in a religious mission.  He runs into his uncle (Keefe Brasselle) by chance and is offered a job mostly out of pity.  Arriving at his uncle's swimsuit factory, he is assigned to a menial job stacking boxes.  There he meets Alice (Shelley Winters), but company policy prohibits dating between employees so they must keep their relationship secret.  George thinks he's part of the working masses, but with a connection to the company owners, Alice knows it's only a matter of time before he is pulled into upper management.  Sure enough, an invite to the Eastman house results in George meeting society darling Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor), a rich and beautiful heiress.  An unplanned pregnancy ties him to Alice but he can't let go of Angela and all she represents.  So he begins to plan Alice's murder.

I really thought this was going to be more like From Here to Eternity, all melodramatic sighs and relationship drama, not a two hour Perry Mason episode (complete with Raymond Burr!) but the second Alice tearfully explains that they're in "trouble" I was like Oh No.  A 2004 study determined that 20% of pregnancy-related deaths are homicides.  That is 1 in 5.  It is the leading cause of death for pregnant women, and Black women are 4.5x more likely to be murdered than white women.  In that sense, it's interesting that this movie made in 1951 would focus on it, although of course sympathy is supposed to go to George, not Alice.  The "tragedy" of the original novel, An American Tragedy, is that George is forced to bear consequences of his murderous thoughts.  

Also, side note:  isn't it insane that the novel took 752 pages to tell the same story as a 48-minute episode of Dateline?  Wild.

Anyway, it was pretty impossible for me to take this film seriously even though Clift is very good in it.  Winters is her usual weepy self, and Taylor is pretty and vivacious.  Both leading actress roles are barely fleshed out as the characters exist only to provide motivation for Clift's character.  There's never any reason given why either of them would want to be with him, only why he would want or not want them.  It does still feel very prescient but that's honestly more depressing than anything else.  It's not streaming anywhere legally but you can rent it on Amazon Prime.

Jailhouse Rock (1957)

  Yeah, it's the accompanying record cover, not the movie poster but come on.  That face is hilarious.  It looks like he just stepped on a live eel.

Vince Everett (Elvis Presley) served a year in jail for manslaughter.  His cellmate (Mickey Shaughnessy) was once a star in country music and teaches Vince the guitar.  Once out, Vince wastes no time trying to break into the recording business but his violent temper and relative naivety work against him.  Still, his natural talent sees him to success, landing a television special, multiple records, and eventually a Hollywood contract.  All the money and fame in the world, however, won't buy Vince love, especially when he's determined not to be ruled by it lest it break his heart.

Ironically, this has almost the exact same plot beats as Elvis.  It almost feels prophetic if the Baz Luhrmann film is to be believed.  Vince is kept ignorant of his appeal by a washed up star, talked into a worthless contract, beset by flunkies he overpays out of sense of misplaced loyalty, and rejects the brunette with his best interests at heart.   There are also too many musical numbers that feel shoehorned in and it too feels like it's a day and a half long, even though it actually clocks in at 96 minutes.  

As a movie, it's not great.  It feels very cheap.  The sets are basic, the dialogue is bare minimum, and even the main draw (Elvis) seems wooden and misplaced.  There's no energy to the role.  And this was one of the successful movies. 

It's streaming as part of HBO Max's Elvis collection until the end of the month so if you're interested, you might want to hurry.

Ace in the Hole (1951)

  This was the pick for Cinema Club this week and I managed to shoehorn it in between Oscar nominees.  Content warning: racism against Indigenous Americans, violence against women

Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) used to be a big deal in the reporting business but a string of consequences sees him landing in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Chuck is desperate for a story to get him back on the national news level, and thinks he finds one in Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), a two-bit gas station owner who gets trapped in a cave-in while looting priceless artifacts from the local indigenous cave dwellings.  Chuck spins a tale of angry spirits, cursed objects, and other racist rhetoric to inflame public sympathy for Leo.  It works and suddenly Chuck is being courted by every national outlet.  He decides to keep this gravy train running, partnering with the corrupt sheriff (Ray Teal) and the chief engineer (Frank Jacquett) to slow down the rescue operation and deny the other reporters access to the site.  

Hey, remember when this kind of sensationalism was cause for shame?  Probably not.  Journalists manufacturing outrage, playing both-sides, and manipulating emotions for clicks is so endemic now, it feels like that's how it always was.  But it wasn't.  In the 50s, Chuck Tatum is an odious character, a smarmy weasel only out for himself.  In the 2020s, he's every talking head on a 24-hr cable channel.  More than anything else, that makes the movie feel dated.  That he's considered a villain in this narrative.  And that he eventually expresses remorse.  That's also gone the way of the dodo.

Douglas is fantastically watchable, even when he's being vile.  I really wish they had found a different lead actress than Jan Sterling, however.  She's so flat in her line delivery and so monotonous in her facial expressions.  It's such a waste of what could have been a great, seething scenery chew role.  

Ace in the Hole is a stone-cold classic and worth revisiting.  Unfortunately, it's only available under some really niche streamers like Filmbox, which you can get as a free trial, even though it should be on the Criterion Channel.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

  This was the Movie Club pick for last week.  I didn't hate it but I'd probably never rush to see it again.

Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is a small town doctor who notices something strange.  People keep coming to him and complaining that their loved ones have been replaced by people they don't know.  They look the same, have the same memories, but the emotions are gone.  Dr. Bennell is even called out in the middle of the night to the Belicec house, where Jack (King Donovan) and his wife, Teddy (Carolyn Jones), have a weird body on their pool table.  It appears dead but taking on life, specifically Jack's.  Miles and his old college flame, Becky (Dana Wynter), soon find themselves on the run from the pod people who have taken over the town.  They must find help before this invasion can spread.

I don't like this version as much as the 1978 version, which I've written about previously.  McCarthy comes off as super smug to me, which is off-putting.  The writing is atrocious, absolutely a product of its time with all the casual misogyny you'd imagine.  Dana Wynter is given nothing to do but stand there and be beautiful (which she does admirably) and Carolyn Jones (RIP) is just an exposition machine.  

It does have a more hopeful ending (apparently a last-minute studio addition, as well as the framing narrative) which may or may not appeal.  Depends on how you like your horror. 

It's streaming on Tubi.

Hello Horror 2022 - Day 17 - Voodoo Island (1957)

  I like the idea of following horror movies I hated with old-school creature features but this one should probably remain on the scrapheap of history.  

A hotel magnate (Owen Cunningham) hires a noted skeptic, Philip Knight (Boris Karloff), to investigate a Polynesian island rumored to be cursed.  The only survivor of the previous expedition (Glenn Dixon) was found washed up on a neighboring island in a catatonic state.  Knight's team includes Cynical Boat Captain Who Secretly Cares Too Much (Rhodes Reason), Corporate Shill (Murvyn Vye), Ice Queen (Jean Engstrom), Spineless Greedy Sellout (Elisha Cook, Jr.), and Career Girl Who Needs to be Shown the True Meaning of Femininity (Beverly Tyler).  Their investigation is plagued with problems, but Knight perseveres in his quest for logical explanations.

Voodoo Island serves as a shining example of why diversity in film is so important.  Voodoo is West African and Caribbean, not Polynesian or East Indian.  The leader of the "natives" is a French guy with bronzer.  Coconut crabs will eat a person (RIP Amelia Earhart), though the one in the film is a taxidermied Alaskan King crab.  The same extra shows up at the airfield and then later on a separate island, both times as Vaguely Menacing Brown Guy.  Sure, some of this could be chalked up to budget constraints, but most of it is just '50s racism.

Karloff is a horror icon but he is not enough of a reason to seek this movie out.  However, this is the debut of a baby-faced Adam West (!) playing the radio operator.  I didn't even recognize his face (when too many white dudes are on screen, I find it hard to tell them apart) but his voice cannot be mistaken.  It's on video sharing site dailymotion.com if you're interested, but I would watch only until you see West, then turn it off.  There's nothing else salvageable.  

Hello Horror 2022 - Day 14 - The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

  After the crapfest that was yesterday's movie, here's a nice creature feature from the Atomic Panic years.  Content warning: animal death (pretty sure they just fed an octopus to a shark for some B-roll)

Atomic testing in the Arctic awakens a 100 million-year-old creature.  The eyewitness, Professor Thomas Nesbitt (Paul Hubschmid), is adamant in the face of ridicule and contacts a noted paleontologist (Ceil Kellaway) to confirm his theory.  Not until multiple other attacks happen do any of the authorities take note, and the beast makes it all the way to Manhattan before any real response is put together.  

This very much seems like a Godzilla clone, except it was released the year before.  The monster is by Ray Harryhausen in his solo debut, a phenomenal achievement when you look at how seamless the movement of the beast is and how well-integrated the animation is with the live-action.  You can also see a very young Lee Van Cleef as the sniper assigned to take the monster down with a radioactive bullet.  

It is not available on any streaming services, but you can find the whole thing on the Internet Archive for free.

Love Me Tender (1956)

  If you've ever wondered what the big deal with Elvis was, this might go a long way.

Vance Reno (Richard Egan) and his two brothers have survived the American Civil War and are eager to return to their Texas home, none moreso than Vance who is looking forward to marrying his sweetheart, Cathy (Debra Paget).  The brothers are flush with cash after having knocked off a Union payroll before discovering their side, the Confederates, had surrendered the day prior, making them just thieves instead of lawful combatants.  At home, things are much changed.  Vance had been mistakenly declared dead and Cathy married his baby brother, Clint (Elvis Presley).  Vance tries to bury his feelings and decides to leave the farm but before he can say his goodbyes, a man from the government comes to town to recover the stolen payroll.

This is not a great movie.  It is a very middling Western steeped in Confederate apologia.  Elvis does okay, swinging between puppy-dog enthusiasm and whiny jealousy with a few musical numbers thrown in.  There's no Sullivan-Show-only-film-from-the-waist-up shenanigans here either.  His trademark hip gyrations are on full display.  

It does have one scene where Clint beats the shit out of Cathy in a fit of jealous rage, so if you've ever wanted to see Elvis slap a woman, there you go.  Also, you are a bad person, what is wrong with you?

Love Me Tender is currently streaming on Starz, which I get through Amazon.

The Robe (1953)

  Getting a head start on Easter over here.  

A Roman tribune (Richard Burton) and his slave (Victor Mature) run afoul of the emperor (Michael Rennie) and are sent to the province of Jerusalem to put down a slave uprising.  After crucifying the leader, the tribune experiences untold amounts of guilt, leading him to believe the dead man's robe had been cursed and the only way to save his deteriorating mental health is to find his former slave and burn the robe.  

Honestly, this is one of the worst movies about the Passion I've ever seen.  Burton is playing a drunken sot and looks like he leaned too hard into method acting for it, he has no chemistry with lead actress Jean Simmons, the dialogue is wooden, costumes are generic, action scenes are laughably bad, and the whole thing is almost two and a half hours long when 90 minutes might have been a generous amount of time.  Mature is the only actor treating it seriously and Rennie is the only one having fun with it.  

I thought the timeline was off since I've never heard Caligula mentioned in the same breath as Jesus but it's plausible Burton's tribune spent four years combing the desert for Mature.  Still feels weird, though.

It's streaming on the Criterion Channel though only God knows why.

The Pajama Game (1957)

  I just wanted to watch musicals because I was having a bad day.  I was going to watch Carousel but then it started with an introduction from PBS that was like, "Based on the tragic opera, this musical deals with themes of brutality and loss," and I was like Nope.  Not today, Satan.  Then I saw the Pajama Game, which I had also never seen, and thought, Ah, Doris Day.  She won't let me down. 

It's about unions in the garment industry trying to get a 7.5 cent raise from management.  It's basically The Garment Jungle in Technicolor.

Sid Sorokin (John Raitt) has landed a job at the Sleeptite Pajama Factory as a supervisor.  An altercation with a worker brings him to the attention of Babe Williams (Doris Day), the union grievance committee head.  Sparks fly but they are on opposite sides of the current simmering debate.  The union wants a seven and a half cent raise and the management doesn't want to give it.  

Seven and a half cents.  Not percent.  Less than a dime.

So, anyway, Bob Fosse choreographed the musical numbers, which include "Steam Heat" and "Hernando's Hideaway", two very famous Broadway show tunes.  If you're a fan of classic musicals, you've probably already seen this, but if you haven't, it's on Amazon Prime.  It's very much a product of its time.  At least one number is cringingly racist towards Indigenous Americans and the cast is as white as Wonder Bread.  Forewarned is forearmed.

The Garment Jungle (1957)

  This has been in my queue for ages but it finally got added to the Criterion Channel as part of their New York Stories feature.

Alan Mitchell (Kerwin Mathews) returns home from abroad to his estranged father's fashion house in New York City after his father's business partner, Kenner (Robert Ellenstein), is killed in an accident.  Kenner wanted to join the garment workers' union but the elder Mitchell, Walter (Lee J. Cobb), was dead-set against it.  Alan is there when the union organizer, Tulio (Robert Loggia), spills that Kenner's death wasn't an accident but a murder by Walter's "silent" partner, a gangster named Ravidge (Richard Boone).  Disturbed by the accusations, Alan begins to investigate the seedier side of the fashion business, his interest spurred in no small part by Tulio's hot wife, Theresa (Gia Scala).  

Seriously, the movie makes it very clear that Alan wants to fuck Tulio's wife but won't, because he respects Tulio too much.  1957, baby!

The film is extremely heavy-handed and simplistic in its "Union Good, Exploitation Bad" message but goddamn does it also feel current.  You could remake this tomorrow with Wal-Mart or Amazon as the setting and it would still be relevant.  Same tactics, same arguments, same "murder of an immigrant is okay, murder of a white man will get you the death penalty."  The more things change, huh?

Anyway, it might feel a little naive but it's not a bad movie.  Cobb has always been a terrific character actor and this was Loggia's first credited film.  If you only know him from playing old, grizzled mobster types, you should check this out just to see him young.

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

  The sensibilities in this film are woefully outdated (though unfortunately still relevant) but it remains a damn good trial film.

Paul Biegler (Jimmy Stewart) is a former prosecutor turned quasi-retired.  He is nominally a defense attorney but spends the majority of his time fishing in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Until the Manion case drops in his lap.  Army Lieutenant Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara) is accused of murdering bar owner Barney Quill (uncredited, only shown in photos).  Manion doesn't deny the murder but his extenuating circumstance is that Quill raped Manion's wife, Laura (Lee Remick), causing Manion to become murderous in a bout of temporary insanity.  This was a very risky plea even in the 50s and Paul has his work cut out for him as Laura is known as a flirt and Manion has a hair-trigger temper.  Making matters worse, the district attorney (Brooks West) has called in a hotshot up-and-coming lawyer from the state capital named Charles Dancer (George C. Scott) to help him win against his predecessor in the office.

This is based on a novel written by a Michigan Supreme Court justice, in turn based on a man he defended in 1952.  So the legal bona fides are there.  It was directed by Otto Preminger, starred Stewart, Gazzara, Scott, and Remick, and was scored by Duke Ellington.  It might be one of the finest made movies to ever exist.  It was nominated for seven Oscars but was unfortunately going up against Ben-Hur and The Diary of Anne Frank.

So that's what's good.  What's bad is A) the treatment of Laura Manion, a rape victim who is never treated like a victim during the course of the movie.  She has almost no agency and her rape (when it is believed at all) is referred to only as it affects her husband.  The prosecution brings up her clothing and personal habits, implies that she was cheating or that "married women can't be raped" and does everything possible to degrade and denigrate this woman on the stand.
B) the entire mental health aspect.  A lot of their concepts of shell shock, neuroses, and dissociative states are just really outdated.  That, at least, is to be expected.

It really is a phenomenal film, as long as you watch with the caveat that it gets these things terribly, terribly wrong.  It was a product of its time and that should be addressed.  It's currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

Richard III (1955)

  Since everyone is stuck at home now, some of you may be looking to enrich yourselves by starting an online class or reading those classic books people are always talking about.  But why put in all that effort when there are movies that are just as cultured?

Edward IV (Cedric Hardwicke) has emerged victorious from the Wars of the Roses, seized the throne, married a lovely woman (Mary Kerridge), and had the requisite heir and spare.  Everything seems to be heading towards peace, but his youngest brother, Richard (Laurence Olivier) covets the throne.  Richard schemes and plots to have his middle brother, George (John Gielgud), discredited, thrown in jail, and eventually murdered, and has his flunky, Buckingham (Ralph Richardson), spread rumors that Edward was actually a bastard and that Richard is the only true heir, all the while wooing the rich widow (Claire Bloom) of a man he killed in battle.  Richard is not a good dude.  But it works and he becomes Richard III, only to see his paranoia unravel all the gains he made.

It's kind of nice when the villain is just completely unrepentant.  In the opening monologue, Richard directly faces the camera and tells the audience that he is just The Worst.  There's no shades of gray, no antihero, no wrong-thing-for-the-right-reasons.  He just wants to be king and he wants both his brothers and their heirs out of the way to get it.  It's refreshing in a way I didn't know I needed.

And despite that, Olivier is so charming that he almost gets away with it.  (Except for the parts with Anne.  That's just straight gross and creepy.)  Seriously, though, this version is like the gold standard of Shakespearean adaptations.  Everybody who's anybody in British theater is in this.

It's currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.