SOUTHEAST ASIAN FILMS

THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (Australia 1982)— From director Peter Weir comes a work with realism so jarring that it stands apart from other war films.  Linda Hunt won a best supporting actress award for her part as Billy, the resourceful assistant to a reporter covering Indonesia’s civil unrest in the 1960s played Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson in a breakout role.) A non-fiction Guy Hamilton as handsome as Gibson was the American reporter in Southeast Asia, Jerry A. Rose.

 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086617/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

THE UGLY AMERICAN (1963 Universal-Int’l) — In this fictional film based on a popular novel, Marlon Brando plays the conflicted US ambassador to a country resembling Vietnam.  Brando comments about growing addicted to risk and in an outstanding performance actor Eiji Okada says inescapable poverty is “water from the moon.” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056632/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2

THE JOURNALIST: The real life Southeast Asia “adrenalin junkie” immune to risks was reporter Jerry Rose, who is profiled by Minnesota writer Lucy Rose Fischer in the book “THE JOURNALIST: Life and loss in America’s Secret War.”  Rose was reporting on the Vietnamese corruption and the ineptness of American diplomats and military brass in the early 1960s when the public and news media gatekeepers weren’t interested in Vietnam. By the time they got interested, their husbands, brothers and sons were coming home in body bags. https://www.mnvietnam.org/story/a-sleeping-child/

 

TERENCE DAVIES British films

SUNSET SONG and BENEDICTION —- “Poetic realism by Britain’s greatest living auteur,” according to the DVD notes about British director Terence Davies.   In Davies films characters exist out of the mainstream order living lives of quiet desperation. 

Outstanding in the Davies collection are “Benediction” and “A Quiet Passion” with the former about poet Siegfried Sassoon which was shown this month at St. Anthony Main.  In “A Quiet Passion” Cynthia Nixon is outstanding as poet Emily Dickinson.  World War One is a defining moment for characters in both “Benediction” and “Sunset Song.” 

Davies films are understated with minimal music scores while the landscapes create poetic moments.  More about Davies in this attached interview:

https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/benediction-interview-terence-davies

 

CRY TERROR with Roy Neal at the Burbank Airport

CRY TERROR (1958) — A suburban family is held hostage in their home by a crazy man (Rod Steiger) and his drug-addled accomplice (Neville Brand).  There’s a bit of me in this story.  The crazy intruder was a popular film genre in the 50s.  Brand has a great scene when he explains his addiction to the hostage wife (Inger Stevens) who is memorable running along railroad tracks in a subway tunnel.  Likewise, the hostage husband (James Mason) appears quite anxious hanging onto a cable in an elevator shaft.  Whatever keeps you on the edge of your seat, you’ll find in “Cry Terror.” 

 For me I enjoyed cameos with NBC news reporters  Chet Huntley, network news anchor, and Roy Neal who covered aeronautics for NBC TV News when I was an editorial assistant at KNBC in 63-64.  Neal, who fancied a cigarette holder, was a bit stuffy but likable.  (Rockets, missiles, satellites and space travel were big news in the 60s).  I picked Roy up in my ’61 Plymouth Fury at the Burbank airport when he returned from an assignment.  The Fury had some space age touches with an aluminum fin running the length of the trunk and very Buck Rogers illusions, mostly dismissed by car buyers and industry critics.  As reporter Jim McLaughlin of The Idaho Statesman observed, it looked like it was going 30 miles an hour when it was sitting at the curb.  I now happily drive a Dodge Dart, a brand that found currency in SoCal with a “little old lady from Pasadena the terror of Colorado Blvd.”  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051501/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

https://www.broadcastpioneers.com/royneal.html 

JOHNNY GUITAR, CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA, RAIN

JOHNNY GUITAR & CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA (1954) — Forget damsels in distress because ladies on horseback rule in these big budget westerns.   Middle aged ”golden era” actresses Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck play powerful cowgirls who literally call the shots.  Execs at Republic and RKO studios were staring into the abyss in the burgeoning TV era when they released these two dusty dramas.  Crawford as the saloon owner does a strip and is aggressive in her feud with Emma (Mercedes McCambridge) while Sterling Hayden as Johnny takes a back seat to Crawford’s theatrics.  Stanwyck is quite feminine in a romantic scene with incidental fading cowboy star Ronald  Reagan in “Queen” while giving bad boy land grabbers a taste of their own medicine.  Both were filmed in color in the Mountain West’s scenic locations and the soundtrack music in “Queen” is exceptional for a horse opera.  “Johnny Guitar” is cited in the NYT book as one of 1,000 essential movies to see.

RAIN (1932) — In a pre-code United Artists film, a married missionary Alfred Davidson (Walter Huston) is presumably making a tyrannical soul-saving attempt driven by lust in a sleazy hotel on behalf of prostitute Sadie Thompson (Joan Crawford).  Davidson’s obsession soon becomes apparent in this south seas tropical drama.  In short, “men are men” Sadie quips for what transpires between her and the soul-saving traveler.  The pounding rain combined with an  incessant disorienting jungle drumbeat heighten the sexual tension as Davidson shivers and shakes in the shadows.  I didn’t fully understand this steamy cinema as a teen when I first saw it on an afternoon matinee in 1954 on KXLY-TV.  It’s from a W. Somerset Maugham short story that was originally filmed with Jean Eagles and remade in the 1950s with Rita Hayworth.