After reading Vera Caspary’s novel Laura last year, inevitably I wanted to rewatch the 1944 adaptation. It took me longer than I expected.
LAURA (1944) stars Dana Andrews as McPherson, a homicide detective investigating the murder of Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), who got a shotgun blast to the face when she answered her door one night. Was the killer Laura’s effete Southern fiancee Shelby (Vincent Price)? Ann (Judith Anderson) who knows Shelby’s no good but wants him anyway? Perhaps Laura’s closest friend, the snide, sneering columnist Lydecker (Clifton Webb)? Complicating things, the more he learns about Laura, the more McPherson finds himself falling for a dead woman …
This is an excellent movie and I definitely prefer it to the source novel. Which is not to say it’s a perfect adaptation: we lose Laura’s strong, independent spirit and McPherson’s surprising education (he’s way smarter than he looks). Still, a terrific film. “Let me put it this way — I should be sincerely sorry to see my neighbor’s children devoured by wolves.”
After the recent adaptation of Wuthering Heights I went back and rewatched the 1939 WUTHERING HEIGHTS with Laurence Olivier as a brooding, angry Heathcliffe, Merle Oberon as Cathy and David Niven as Edgar (the impeccably British supporting cast includes Flora Robson, Donald Crips, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Leo G. Carroll, Cecil Kellaway and Miles Mander). We open on a new tenant of the Grainge arriving at Wuthering Heights on a freezing winter night, meeting an aged Heathcliffe — and when the tenant mentions seeing a woman out in the snow, Heathcliffe has a meltdown. One of the servants takes it on herself to explain and we begin a flashback to when Cathy’s father brought Heathcliffe home …
My first thought was that this was more Tragic Romance where the recent movie was Doomed Obsession; then again, Heathcliffe here comes off more obsessed, particularly after Cathy’s death. Either way it works for me; I know from LeAnn’s discussion that it includes elements the new film drops (Cathy’s mean brother, for instance) though it drops others in its turn. Worth a look. “Haunt me then — haunt your murderer!”
Classics of the Horror Film listed THE MAGICIAN (1926) not as a classic but one with really good visuals. They have a point: director Rex Ingram gives this silent film, based on W.S. Maugham’s novel (based loosely on the life of notorious Satanist libertine Alistair Crowley) a good look, whether it’s the sinister Haddo’s ancient castle or a snake-charming ceremony. I still can’t recommend it.
Paul Wegener has a strong screen presence as Haddo, who needs the heart-blood of a virginal young woman for his plan to create a homonculus. His solution is to entrance young, beautiful Alice Terry away from her fiancee and marry her, though he doesn’t lay hands on her. Can her sweetheart rescue her before the fatal hour? There isn’t enough of a story here to work for me and the fight over Terry comes off less like a struggle with evil and more like a domestic melodrama. “This is the song of the wheel that spins — who loses today, tomorrow wins!”
While I thoroughly disliked Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, TYG caught her WUTHERING HEIGHTS (2026) Valentine’s Day weekend and liked it so much she wanted to see it again, with me. Good call on her part — this is a much better film.
Catherine (Margot Robbie) is the child of a drunken, wastrel, living on their slowly decaying estate with her companion Nelly (Hong Chau — her ethnicity is explained by being a byblow of Cathy’s father in his younger days, IIRC). When dad brings home an abused boy he rescued to serve as a pet for her, Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) becomes instead Cathy’s soulmate, leading to obsessive love, insane jealousy and ultimately tragedy (it’s a 200 year old book, I don’t think that’s a spoiler).
I’ve never read the novel, though TYG says they softened the edges of the characters some; even so they still come across as awful people. The performances are excellent and as TYG told me, the look of the film is breathtaking — Fennell and her cinematographers manage to make every scene look cool. “If I thought you meant that, I’d slit my own throat.”
When I blogged that the third season of UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS was eventful I had no idea the fourth season would go “hold my cuppa!” Given that it’s all taking place in WW I, I probably should have anticipated that.
James (Simon Williams) and Edward (Christopher Beeny) go off to the front as respectively an officer and an enlisted man. Georgina (Lesley Anne Downe) goes too, as a nurse; for years I thought a sequence where she lights a dying man’s cigarette came from an adaptation of Testament of Youth, but nope. Richard (David Langton), as an MP, has to deal with the political and strategic side.
Among the servants, the staff has to deal with tight rationing, shortages and Rose (Jean Marsh) going to work as a bus conductor as a second job (manpower shortages were chronic then, as in WW II). There’s a clash with a terrified Belgian refugee family, James and Edward returning on leave scarred by what they’ve seen, Hazel’s (Meg Wynn Owen) charity work, Edward and Daisy getting married and a tragedy as the war ends in the season’s final episode (I’d correctly pegged that death would strike on the home front but now how). As always, great viewing. “It wasn’t very dignified — fighting for my husband in a ward full of injured soldiers.”
Following 2022’s superb Prey and the animated Killer of Killers, PREDATOR: BADLANDS (2025) continues the winning streak. I missed hearing about it when it hit theaters last year but as soon as Camestros Felapton blogged about it streaming, I caught it.
The protagonist is Dek (Dmitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), a Yautja (Predators’ name for themselves) runt of the litter, thereby deserving of culling. His brother sacrifices himself to give Dek a shot at redemption — hunting and killing the Kalisk, a kaiju no Yautja has ever overcome. Arriving on the Kalist planet, Dek discovers every lifeform on it, even the plants, is hostile. Fortunately he encounters Thia (Elle Fanning), a synth (android from the Alien franchise) who lost her legs trying to capture the Kalisk. She knows this planet; if Dek takes her along, together they might have a chance (“I know the Yautja hunt alone — but they also die alone.”). Suddenly we’re in the Predator/Android buddy comedy I didn’t know I wanted. Of course, Dek is hardly a fun or trustworthy travel companion but it turns out Thia’s got a few secrets of her own … Two thumbs up. “I’ve never been thrown before — what a thrill!”
LOVERS AND OTHER STRANGERS (1970) is a favorite rom-com of mine that I always think of watching on Valentine’s Day, but usually too late to actually do it. This year, I made it.
This is based on a stage play collecting several different one-scene skits. Here, however, they’re woven into a coherent hole as everyone’s related to everyone else, all gathered together for the wedding of Mike and Susan (Michael Brandon, Bonnie Bedelia). Her father (Gig Young, excellent in the role) is cheating on her mom (Cloris Leachman) with Susan’s aunt (Anne Jackson); her sister Wilma (Anne Meara) is getting sexually frustrated with her husband (Harry Guardino); Michael’s brother Richie (Joseph Hindy) is divorcing his wife Joan (Diane Keaton) and their parents (Richard Castellano, Bea Arthur) can’t understand it — so the marriage didn’t work out, you can’t end it just like that!!
The film shows it’s age in some ways. It’s an era when no-fault divorce was new (and divorce itself was still a touchy subject — though America has always been a divorce nation) and living together was a sin; when TYG and watched it a decade ago, she didn’t pick up that Mike’s male roommate was a lie he’d made up to hide that Susan was his roommate.
The emotional core, however, holds up well. Young’s slick dodging over commitment. Castellano and Arthur expressing their sad view of marriage. Michael listening to their stories about other bad marriages who didn’t divorce and finally exploding (“I don’t want someone telling a horrible story about us that ends with ‘but they’re still together.”). Overall it’s a charmer. “If you let ten years of love end in a bathroom, I’ll lose all respect for myself.”
Returning to that Christmas gift collection of Fritz Lang films — THE WANDERING SHADOW (1920) has a woman fleeing into the mountains to escape a vengeful pursuer. We eventually learn this is the outcome of an insanely melodramatic backstory involving free love, a fake marriage, an inheritance and more. Overwrought though it is, it looks and watches way better than Harakiri (reviewed at the link), whether that’s Lang learning on the job or just being more at home with German material. “For your support and assistance I am eternally in your debt, but I must carry my cross alone.”
In a recent substack post, Celeste Davis of Matriarchal Blessing discussed the many rich and famous guys who’ve gone from pudgy and nerdy looking to buff and muscular, including Jeff Bezos and Christ Pratt. I don’t find this terribly remarkable — while the pressure on men to look good isn’t as intense as with women, it does exist. In our modern world I don’t think it’s that far off from someone forty years ago getting rich and switching to bespoke suits.
Davis argues that what this is really about is becoming invulnerable: “The invulnerability arc shows up in just about every myth, story and hero we have for boys—be they modern or ancient, religious or secular. The story goes like this: once upon a time there was a weak, shrimpy boy, who eventually through pain and violence is transformed into a fortress of muscle and power. Now no one makes fun of him. Now he is a hero.” Cases in point, Disney’s Hercules, Harry Potter, Batman, Captain America. Davis goes on to argue that if your goal is a long, healthy life (and for a lot of these dudes, it is), becoming buff or paying for radical medical treatments won’t work as well as having a community of friends around you.
That conclusion I do not dispute. Davis’ interpretation of the “invulnerability arc” as the essential Boy’s Journey … not so much. Since she brings up the Marvel and DC cinematic universes, let’s look:
Iron Man: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. of course) discovers his munitions manufacturing has made the world worse. Sets out to atone. And far from being invulnerable, he starts the movie in good health, then ends up a guy relying on the world’s most advanced pacemaker. The comic book doesn’t start Tony out in such a guilty place, but does emphasize even more that he’s not invulnerable —drain his armor’s power, he’s dead. Jack Kirby cover below.
Superman: No arc. He’s an invulnerable child who grows up into the world’s most invulnerable man.
Thor: Arrogant jackass whose arc is learning not to be such a jerk.
Captain America: (Steve Rogers in the Jack Kirby scene above is saving a Cap imposter, by the way). No question his origin involves going from a scrawny 4-F into the perfect man. But I think it’s more significant that his quest isn’t to become strong, it’s to fight fascists. That’s why he applies in the comics (and IIRC in the film). That’s what drives him. And it’s not that he’s invulnerable —
— it’s his indomitable spirit, as in the Gene Colan image above.
Hercules? Disney’s take is an outlier, portraying him as a wimpy kid; in mythology, Hercules strangles venomous snakes while he’s still in the cradle. Marvel’s Hercules (at the bottom of Kirby’s cover) and most other pop-culture presentations are much the same — superhuman from the get-go.
Harry Potter is far and away the worst argument for her position. Her synopsis: “A shrimpy nerdy orphan is shunned by his family, forced to live in the hall closet and be beat up by his cousin. Eventually he fights in some battles and after securing The Deathly Hallows, becomes the master of death and savior of the world.”
Okay, that’s technically true, but only technically. The real story is a miserable lonely good gets away from his abusive caregivers, make friends, finds a parental figure who isn’t shitty and learns to be happy. The books are an endorsement of exactly what Davis says we need, community. Harry wouldn’t have made it to book two if he didn’t have Ron and Hermione (particularly, of course, Hermione) fighting alongside him. He wouldn’t have finished the series alive if he hadn’t trained his fellow students into Dumbledore’s Army.
Harry is all about community. In a sense that’s what makes him the perfect opposing player for Voldemort, who has no use for other people except as pawns or followers.
Likewise, few superheroes these days come without a supporting cast. Green Arrow and Flash on the CW have sizable backup teams, for instance. Movie Batman is probably the closest to what Davis talks about; I think he’s more an anomaly than a template.
Looking at pop culture more broadly, I think the post underestimates the number of characters who don’t have origins in a conventional sense. In cop shows we may get some backstory but a lot of the time they’re simply there, no origin. Jack Bauer on 24 ditto — his childhood and how he came to be a tough guy is never detailed that I recall.
In short, I don’t think the post nailed the zeitgeist as much as she thinks.
Another pick from the Leonard Maltin book TYG got me last year — AURORA BOREALIS (2005) stars Joshua Jackson as Duncan, a Minneapolis twentysomething who’s stubbornly resisting adulting: he works dead end jobs, sticks with the same group of friends he’s always had, and lets life continue in much the same vein it has since he graduated high school.
As the movie starts, however, Duncan’s just lost his convenience store job. His brother is using Duncan’s apartment to bang women without his wife knowing (inspired, Duncan says, by the Jack Lemmon movie The Apartment). And now his beloved grandfather, Donald Sutherland, is suffering both Parkinson’s and the onset of dementia. Can Duncan get his shit together enough to help both grandpa and grandmother Louise Fletcher?
Things change when Duncan meets Kate (Juliette Lewis), his grandfather’s home healthcare worker, a free-spirited vagabond who never stays long in one place. Sparks fly, they become lovers and she begins nudging him to become more than he is — but will the lure of keeping everything the same make a difference?
While I’m not fond of coming of age/New Adult books, I can enjoy the tropes in a movie and this was a good one, well-acted and well-written. The special features reveal it was based on a stage play which explains why, despite the title, we never see the Northern lights. Curiously, everyone insists the closing scene is open-ended because we don’t know how Kate/Duncan will work out in the long run; as you can say that about most HEAs, I don’t find this striking. Still, thumbs up. “Do you realize you sound like Don King when you use big words?”
A friend of mine used to be a huge fan of THE CLOSER, a 2005 TNT series staring Kyra Sedgwick as Brenda Johnson, a former CIA interrogator turned head of a major-crimes unit in Los Angeles. As it turned up on Netflix recently, I gave the pilot a look; it’s solidly done but I don’t know I’ll bother to watch more.
Johnson’s team aren’t thrilled about having an outsider in charge, she has a messy personal life, and in this episode she’s facing a headscratcher: An unknown women has been found murdered in a prominent plastic surgeon’s office. The surgeon’s vanished. The victim’s fingerprints are all over his home while the surgeon’s are nowhere to be found. How does it make sense? Like I said, it’s a solid job, fitting into the subgenre of cops who have One Simple Trick for getting to the truth. The Mentalist and Lie To Me both have someone who can read people like a book; Psych has a guy who’s hyper-observant about everything, HPI has someone who’s hyper-observant and can match up what she sees with a storehouse of knowledge. Here, Johnson’s a genius interrogator; having figured out what’s going on, she calmly guides the killer to a confession.
The results are good and if I were more of a fan of cop shows I might keep up with it. If I had more time for TV (and lately I don’t seem to) I might try a couple more episodes. As neither of these is the case …
Howard Hawks has done some wonderful rom-coms including Bringing up Baby and Ball of Fire. MAN’S FAVORITE SPORT (1964) is not one of them, though it has many of the elements of Bringing Up Baby, with the male lead (Rock Hudson) put through the wringer by the good bad girl Abigail (Paula Prentiss) before finally realizing she’s more than the most obnoxious, most irritating woman he’s ever met.
Roger is a legendary fishing guru working for Abercrombie and Fitch (apparently back then they were a sporting goods store rather than clothing). Abigail’s running PR for an upcoming fishing tournament and convinces Roger’s boss (John McIver) that Roger competing would be a publicity windfall for everyone.
Too bad Roger can’t actually fish: he learned by listening to fishermen talk, then sharing what they say with his customers, eventually compiled it into a book … but he has no skills. Fortunately Abigail knows fishing; she can teach Roger, but can she teach him enough? And will they kill each other before the training is over?
Hawks wanted Cary Grant for the lead role but didn’t get him (though Grant, while still elegant, was 60 — I think that would have been a stretch even for a movie May-September romance). Hudson was a logical choice, having starred in a couple of rom-coms (Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back) but he doesn’t work as Roger. In one of the early scenes — Abigail parks her car in Roger’s sport, he tries to move it, hilarity ensues — I can imagine Grant’s deadpan frustration as he struggles to cope. Hudson can’t pull it off. On the plus side the supporting cast are fun and legendary costume designer Edith Head decks out the women in some great outfits. “Does a man who sells canaries have to know how to fly?”
Now, the play: my brother has twice appeared in the musical LEGALLY BLONDE (yes, based on the Reese Witherspoon film) as the lecherous professor who recruits Elle Woods for his murder-case team simply because he’s hot for her. Wanting something light and fluffy I streamed one of the productions (he sent me a link) last weekend and enjoyed the story of how blonde sorority girl Elle Woods (“Whoever said tangerine is the new pink was seriously disturbed.”) crashes Harvard Law to prove to her ex-boyfriend she’s not some bimbo, then discovers to her surprise that she’s not some bimbo. A fun, light-hearted show, which is what I needed.“The Irish fear nothing and no-one/They keep fighting till everyone’s dead/I’m not sure where this metaphor’s going/But I feel that it needs to be said.”
I’m a fan of H.F. Heard’s novel A Taste of Honey, and a few years back watched the Boris Karloff TV adaptation, The Sting of Death. When I discovered Britain’s Amicus Films had adapted it into THE DEADLY BEES (1967) I couldn’t resist — though I can’t say that was a great use of my viewing time.
Suzanna Leigh plays Vicki, a singer burned out from overwork, though we do get a couple of pop songs before she collapses (as I know from Amicus Horrors, the studio started out doing rock-and-roll films). Recuperating on an isolated rural island (just typing those words seems to conjure ominous background music) where there’s a rivalry between her beekeeeping host, Doleman (Ralph Hargrove) and fellow apiarist Manfred (Frank Finlay). And as the movie progresses, a surprising number of people drop dead of bee stings …
All of which is rendered at a slow, plodding pace; I suspect the film added the opening (a couple of defense officials discussing some crackpot’s ridiculous claim he can weaponize bees) because otherwise it would take too long for us to learn what the film’s about. This also suffers from the lack of Mr. Mycroft, Heard’s Holmes-by-another-name figure. Still, I’m surprised nobody used this property a few years later, when America was consumed by fears of South American killer bees. “The scent of fear? I always thought that was just a phrase.”
GOOD MORNING (1959) is a slice-of-life dramedy from Japanese director Yasujiro Ozo, looking at the goings on in a small Japanese neighborhood. Housewives worry one of them has walked off with the homeowner’s assocation dues (or something equivalent), a salaryman bemoans his miserable retirement and two brothers vow never to speak until their parents by them a TV (a variation of a plotline in Ozo’s silent film I Was Born, But). This is quite charming, though I didn’t realize how much fart humor there is in it (the special features clued me in) — the beeps Ozo uses to stand in for farts didn’t register as such, partly because I was focused on subtitles more than sounds. “Do you still eat pumice stones?”
I’m not a fan of A CHRISTMAS STORY — THE MUSICAL (I caught a TV adaptation some years back) but as my brother was in one production I watched the recording of one of his performances as Ralphie’s dad. He does as well as anyone can who isn’t Darren McGavin but the stage version is still too, well, cute.
While the movie is hardly Eugene O’Neil, the family have their rough edges. Ralphie gets his buddy Schwartz in trouble by claiming he taught Ralphie the f-bomb; Mom apparently busts the legendary leg-lamp because she hates how tacky it is. The stage version sands them off, like George Lucas insisting Greedo shot first. Here, Ralphie’s brother breaks the lamp and Mom covers for him; a big part of the ending is a song about family and how any Christmas Story that has them all together is a happy story (the songs, in general, are forgettable). Though the cast were all good in their roles. “They were so far down the evolutionary chain, they weren’t even in Darwin’s family tree!”
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Not only that, the two movies I watched last weekend both ran 2.5 hours. Only one of them was worth the running time, though.
A number of people consider RIO BRAVO (1959) Howard Hawks’ last great film (cowritten by Brackett and Jules Furthman). I loved when I first caught it years ago; it doesn’t hold up as well on rewatching as Red River did but that may have been my mood that afternoon. Things have been so hectic this month, it’s harder to relax and go with the movie flow.
The opening is certainly striking, more so for being silent. Dude (Dean Martin), a deputy and gunman undone by drink (he crawled into the bottle after his wife ran off) stares into a saloon. Slimy bad man Burdette (Claude Akins) offers him a silver dollar to buy some booze, then drops it into the saloon spittoon. Dude (back then the name referred to a fancy dresser, which presumably Martin was before he became a lush) is almost ready to stick his hand in when Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) shows up and stops him. That prompts one of the barflies to stand up to Burdette, who guns him down. Chance and Dude bust Burdette, who’s unfazed — his wealthy brother won’t let him suffer any consequences and won’t care who gets hurt. And it’s six days until a US Marshal arrives to take custody of the killer …
This is something of an anti-High Noon. Hawks thought the premise of that film — Gary Cooper’s sheriff trying to form a posse against a gang of killers — was ridiculous; a group of farmers and storekeepers don’t stand a chance against a band of professionals. Hawks liked his protagonists competent and professional and Cooper didn’t measure up. Here, John T. dismisses the idea out of hand; he’ll do his best to survive with Dude and cantakerous deputy Stumpy (Walter Brennan), come what may. Colorado (Ricky Nelson) has the skills to help but he sticks his neck out for nobody; John T. approves (“Smart kid.”). Then there’s Feathers (Angie Dickinson), a chattering gambler who shows up on the stage and insists on sticking around for Chance, even if the odds are against him living long enough for anything to happen.
There are lots of elements echoing earlier Hawks movies here. Tough, competent men under pressure. A bantering relationship between an awkward male lead and a more assertive woman. People constantly having to prove themselves (John T. likes testing everyone). I think one reason it threw me off is that the character arcs — Dude struggling to stay off the booze, Feathers/John T. — are more important than the supposed threat of the Burdettes. That said, it’s still enjoyable, though Ricky Nelson and Dickinson ain’t much as actors. And may I say that is one terrific poster. “We’re all fools. We ought to get along very well together.”
In Films of Howard Hawks, Donald C. Willis says HATARI! (1962) is the film Willis would bring up if he wanted to prove Hawks was largely talentless. Can’t say I disagree.
Sean Mercer (Wayne again) leads a team of men working in Africa to capture animals for American zoos, variously including Pockets (Red Buttons), the Indian (Bruce Cabot) and Brandy (Michelle Girardon), the daughter of their former boss. Trouble erupts because a)Brandy, whom they’ve known since childhood, is very obviously a woman now, and b)the “Dallas” the zoo hired to photograph the team’s work turns out to be another very obvious woman (Elsa Martinelli) who finds Sean attractive but frustrating; burned by his ex, he refuses to make a move so she has to do the work (“Do you prefer your kisses fast or slow?”).
As Willis says, these feel less like Howard Hawks characters and more like character swho’ve watched lots of Hawks films and are trying to imitate them. We have the tough band of men, a flirtation that works much less well than in Rio Bravo, a constant risk of death, rivalry over a woman, a climax with baby elephants that reminds me of Bringing Up Baby …and it all falls flat. I might not be a huge fan of Angie Dickinson’s acting but I bought Feathers falling for Sheriff Chance; here I can’t swallow Dallas/Sean, nor Pockets/Brandy. Pockets is supposed to be a likable comic-relief sidekick but for whatever reason Buttons can’t pull off the role. The one good thing in the film is the gorgeous wildlife photography. It’s not enough. Oh, and while it’s only a minor weakness, it’s annoying Brackett and Hawks got their blood types wrong (someone with AB negative blood is rare, but B, O and A negative blood can all be given to such a recipient). “Rhinos, elephants, buffalo — and a greenhorn.”
“Add a movie to the wonders of the world!” is, I think, in category B
I have not seen the movie but the sentiment from those who have is that the movie does not, in fact, rise to a wonder of the world. In case you were wondering.
