TOP GUN MAVERICK, Laurel & Hardy, Scarlet St. + more

 TOP GUN MAVERICK (2022) — Old is new again and Tom Cruise, who would be eligible for AARP membership, has been resurrected 36 years after the original Top Gun for a wild blue yonder thriller.  I was less than thrilled.  Junior bird men and bird women duel it out in the sky against missiles to knock out the threatening installation of an unnamed country (I assume Canada).   Leonard Maltin wrote that Anthony Edwards was the reason to see the original, but his character was knocked off in the ’86 Top Gun.   Most Navy officers after 36 years have retired to a trailer park near San Diego, but not Cruise who is cast in yet another golden oldie, a Mission Impossible sequel.  The recycling of scripts won’t stop —at the Riverview a Jurassic Park sequel is next month’s feature.

“It could have been a 1942  film with Cary Grant and Randolph Scott,” said Rick Notch.

Howard Hughes made his mark with aerial warfare in the 1930 “Hells Angels” and tried again in 1950 with “Jet Pilot” but it was shelved until 1957 when RKO was gone and moviegoers weren’t interested in dueling pilots from cold war countries.

A few blocks form the river in a residential neighborhood is the Riverview Theater, a 50s mid century modern design with an oval shaped auditorium.  Very "modern" copper drinking fountain and furniture.

THE PLAYER — It was marketed as a ‘thriller” but it’s a subversive dark comedy where an unpleasant Hollywood studio executive murders a screenwriter but then who cares?  Overkill with cameos of celebrities.  Buck Henry is featured as a writer trying to sell the exec (Tim  Robbins) on a sequel to “The Graduate” which seems like a terrible idea.  Whoopi Goldberg plays the cop leading a dysfunctional investigation of the murder where a “reliable witness” identifies another cop (Lyle Lovett) as the perp.  Not to be missed. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105151/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

SCARLET STREET (1945- Universal) — This is the drug of choice for film noir addicts.  Fritz Lang’s classic film noir is a biblical tale of lust in the garden of evil where the prostitute Kitty (Joan Bennett) dangles her ripe fruits under the twitching nose of the lonely artist/cashier Chris (Edward G. Robinson) who takes a bite.  Aided by her pimp played by a regular visitor to the dark side, Dan Duryea, they take the hapless Chris for all he has or can steal.  Kitty reveals her cheapness and vulgarity in the restaurant scene with Chris where a straw carelessly dangles from her lips while she nervously talks.  A contrived conversation amongst strangers on a train offers an opinion that Chris will have to pay a steep price for the wages of sin. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038057/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

THE HOODLUM (1951 Eagle Lion Classics) — Actor Lawrence Tierney was the reigning king of the bad boy genre and he hasn’t mellowed in this low budget film noir directed by Max Nossock (Dillinger).  After laying waste to his family, his dying mother denounces him thusly:  “What can momma do; go to the electric chair for you.  I was blind.  I always stuck up for you.  I should have let you rot in jail.  Your brothers’ girl friend died with your unborn baby in her.  You are the smell.  You are the stink.” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043655/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1

BENEDICTION (UK 2022) — A very sobering look at life in Great Britain during World War I, including discrimination against gays and staggering loss of lives.  Showing now at the Main theater on the river in historic St. Anthony Main with the Prime Timers.  Cobble streets are quaint but the Dodge Dart didn’t appreciate the ride.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6852178/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

SWISS MISS (1938 MGM Roach) — Laurel & Hardy are moving yet another piano in this musical but this time it’s over the alps on a flimsy rope bridge with a menacing ape.  Not the best L&H but some great musical numbers including the flag throwing extravaganza and a sound stage full of dancers in town square.  In a droll British moment Eric Blore and Walter Woolf King sing “I Can’t Get Over the Alps,” which infers that the “miss” in Swiss is secondary to the mountains if you hadn’t guessed.  (Blore has some very amusing moments with Edward Everett Horton as a fussy butler in the 1930s Fred & Ginger RKO musicals.)  In July 1963 on a steaming hot LA day before air conditioners were standard in cars I was at the Roach Studios with John Miller of Ontario and his girl friend for the auction of props from L&H films, most of which went to the museum.  A sweet women on a camp stool shared L&H memories from her photo album when her husband Charles Rogers was music director at this Culver City studio — a sad movie land moment.

DAMN YANKEES & FOSSE VERDON, EXCELLENT CHOREOGRAPHY

 DAMN  YANKEES (1958) — Weary from the Washington Senators losing ways, a middle aged fan sells his soul to the devil (Ray Walston) and is transformed into youthful Joe Hardy (Tab Hunter), an MLB all star.  Bases are loaded with tempting Lola (Gwen Verdon), the devil’s femme fatale who chirps it’s “your heart and soul I came for.”  

Meanwhile the Senators find that “you’ve got to have heart” to win games.   Hunter writes in his autobiography that the studio thought Verdon “wasn’t pretty enough” and they wanted to replace her with Marilyn Monroe or Mitzi Gaynor although she had won a Tony for Damn Yankees.  

In the cable TV series “Fosse Verdon,” Michelle Williams and Sam Rockwell are outstanding in their creative partnership that resulted in Yankees and more.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051516/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8746478/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

FLASH GORDON, 1980 CULT CLASSIC TURKEY

FLASH GORDON (1980 UK) — It’s a cult classic.  The writer of the script for this turkey (in an interview on the DVD)  candidly admits that the film is “campy and confusing.”  The Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis was only interested in making a “Star Wars” like film.  Screen writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. said De Laurentiis could neither read or speak English so he didn’t bother with the script which is a series of unrelated confrontations with evil forces.  Semple didn’t understand Italian so they worked through a translator who only spoke French.  The script could have benefited from criticism but that never happened, said Semple.  

Director Oliver Stone in his autobiography recalls difficulties working with De Laurentiis.   

I was a teen when the entertaining 1936 Flash Gordon serial with Buster Crabbe was shown on KXLY-TV at 3 pm weekdays so I hustled home from school to see the latest installment.  The movie is based on a 1930s comic strip.   In the 1980 version, credible actors were recruited for supportive roles — Max von Sydow as Ming and Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin, but the lead is an unknown, Sam J. Jones.  Would Laurence Olivier as Flash have made a difference? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080745/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 

TRUMP, SUPREME COURT, SEPARATION CHURCH/STATE

 CHURCH STATE SEPARATION.  Protecting freedom requires a wall between church and state, which is crumbling, was the take away today (3/29) from a Univ. of Minn. Lifelong Learning class online.  Social justice activists from Cincinatti’s Jewish Humanist Congregation  Beth Adam spoke.   Pew Research:  55% of Americans support separation of church and state.  Supreme court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby to impose  their religious values on employees.  Everyone should be threatened  to the extent that these people succeed in breaking down the separation wall.  Upcoming case before the Court: Wash. State related to football coach requiring players to pray; should be a decision within a few months. https://www.bethadam.org/social-justice1.html

RAGE, 2020 book, several interviews by journalist Bob Woodward with No. 45 following Woodward’s book “Fear: Trump in the White House.”  The takeaway from “Rage” comes when Woodward asks Trump to define the president’s job.  Trump hedges and Woodward offers this:  “it’s figuring out what the next stage of good is for a majority of people in the country.”  Trump responds: “That’s good.”  Woodward writes: “As I listened, I was struck by the vague, directionless nature of Trump’s comments.  He had been president for just under 3 years, but couldn’t seem to articulate a strategy or plan for the country.  I was surprised he would go into 2020, the year he hoped to win reelection, without more clarity to his message.”  Woodward wrote 189 pages of Trump goofing off before becoming surprised.

Dracula, Taxi Drive, Youth v Gov and more

 HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945) — Dr. Edelman (Onslow Stevens) entertains uninvited guests Frankenstein, Dracula and Wolfman at his seaside mansion in this 1945 Universal bit of whimsy with creepy music, great photography and super special effects.  Dracula (John Carradine) lusts after the nurse (Martha O’Driscoll) while the gruesome trio drive the stressed out doctor to wild-eyed insanity and Frankenstein’s monster sets the mansion ablaze.  Recently available on DVD.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037793/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

SHAMPOO (1975) — In the 70s we were in a lather over Warren Beatty playing a Don Juan hairdresser,  possibly inspired by real life Hollywood hair stylist Jon Peters who became a film producer and Barbra Streisand’s boyfriend. In this film,  Beatty & company attend a fund raiser for Nixon who is on TV mouthing empty rhetoric about bringing the country together.  Coincidentally after watching Shampoo on tape I turned to Dick Cavett on Decades with Beatty offering support for Sen. George McGovern’s presidential candidacy. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073692/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

YOUTH V. GOV — Share, Connect, Act — that’s the message in the nearly 2-hour documentary (Netflix) on court cases brought by U.S. young people to prompt a government plan combatting climate change.  Yet another attempt to get this before the Supreme Court is underway by the young plaintiffs.  We need to know what are the actors in Minnesota who will advance this cause.  https://www.youthvgov.org

PLATOON (1986, US) — Director Oliver Stone in his autobiography wrote that his film told only a fragment of the true Vietnam war story.  Actor Charlie Sheen plays Stone who observes the disturbing actions of two non-commissioned officers. Stone’s script is based on his 1968 experiences when he drops out of Yale University and volunteers with the Army for frontline Vietnam warfare.  Stone’s manuscript for his biography could have benefited from heavy editing; his phrasing lacks polish throughout, but his recollections of Vietnam are well stated. 

RIDLEY ROAD (PBS)  four-episode drama set in a colorful but tumultuous time on Ridley Road, based on Jo Bloom’s acclaimed novel. Inspired by true events, Ridley Road is about a young Jewish hairdresser who fits right into London’s mod scene, while secretly infiltrating the British neo-Nazi hierarchy on behalf of Jewish antifascists,

The neo-nazi riots in London in 1958 are the subject of the 1986 film ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS featuring David Bowie, Sade and James Fox — a very stylish musical that wasn’t well received in the US but nevertheless is quite well done by director Julian Temple.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/shows/ridley-road/

AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MURDER AT THE GALLOP (1963 MGM UK) — Classic British comedy mystery with Margaret Rutherford, Robert Morley and Flora Robson.  Available on VHS tape. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057334/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1

THE RAZOR’S EDGE (1946) — A returning war veteran (Tyrone Power) is inspired by a holy man and forsakes the capitalist rat race for serenity which doesn’t set well with his shrewish girl friend (Gene Tierney).  I kept seeing Kathryn Hepburn as the Tierney character, but Bette Davis or Audrey Totter would have worked as well.  Excellent director, Edmund Goulding (Nightmare Alley.)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038873/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

TAXI DRIVER (1976) — Martin Scorcese brought a new kind of cinema to the screens in the 70s — raw, violent and real.  Robert DeNiro plays a psychotic racist gun-toting vigilante roaming the Manhattan streets.  The film is relevant today.  Scorcese and DeNiro got their starts at poverty row studio American International where DeNiro was the drug addicted son of Ma Barker in “Bloody Mama” (1970).  In another  AIP Great Depression gangster story,  Scorcese directed David Carradine and Barbara Hershey in “Boxcar Bertha.”  Very unsettling cinema. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075314/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0