Kim Novak

No Pushover

Male cinephiles tend to get all gaga over Kim Novak because she was in a ton of auteurist movies and...well...look at her.

This is Kim in Pushover, one of those t.v.-style late noirs that have been packaged so perceptively by Columbia and the like.  Directed by the solid but rarely inspired Richard Quine, one can sum up the pleasures of Pushover in pretty much two words (Kim and Novak) and a few choice images, including this one, which one wonders how in the world they ever got away with.

Perhaps not SFW

But it is the ambiguity of the look in the car mirror that is the key Novak image.  What in the world is being those eyes and that sloping nose?  Certainly most of the suspense of Pushover is wondering to what extent Novak's character is controlling the sap played by an rather sad-looking Fred McMurray, long past his leading man days, to do her bidding.   If she is really in control at all. 

Heartbreaking Photo Essay

75 Abandoned Theaters from Around the U.S.A. on Buzz Feed. 

Dream Theater, Tahlequah, Oklahoma

One can close one's eyes and picture smartly-dressed couples and families filtering their breathless selves into these former palaces to enjoy the unique experience of being taken away from their lives in Pinoche, Nevada and Bucyrus, Ohio via the magic carpet of movies. 

Remember when the advent of television had the movie industry all in a kvetch about how the idiot box would kill the movies?  Well, it didn't happen, entirely, because the movies figured out a way to continue to appeal to its audience's sense of otherness.  A big part of that was the building itself, palaces and shoe boxes of a grand or intimate nature which offered an experience more immediate and shared than a 19-inch Zenith could ever hope to achieve.

Now, I see these dead soldiers on the American horizon, and I close my eyes and picture those same couples and families, decked out in matching sweat suits and plopped in front of their home theaters arguing over whether American Idol is just not the same since Simon left, driving each other insane.

Murder By Contract

 

The best movie I have seen in the  last three months is not The  King's Speech, not Black Swan or True Grit or 127 Days, but Irving Lerner's taut, hilarious and disturbing Murder by Contract from 1958.  Long unavailable on any format until 2009 and packaged rather inappropriately by Columbia as a Film Noir, Lerner's Termite Opus makes a more pungent and succinct case than The Godfather 14 years later that killing is just another word for good business.

Irving Lerner was probably who Andrew Sarris had in mind when creating the chapter "Oddities, One Shots and Newcomers" for his seminal work of cinephilia The American Cinema.  Indeed, the kind of cinephilic excavation pioneered by Sarris and his troops was bound to stumble on Lerner hiding in the weeds of the American movie factory at some point, but not sure that would have happened without this, his masterpiece amongst some rather undistinguished titles (Studs Lonigan likely the most interesting of the bunch).

In a year when Gigi (not Minnelli's finest by any means) took home the big prize, when Stanley Kramer's stolid, artless Defiant Ones was widely believed to have been robbed of the award, Murder by Contract is, in hindsight, aside from Vertigo and Touch of Evil (neither of which was nominated, of course) the best picture of 1958.  And a preposterous idea like that is what The American Cinema, and the American Cinema, is all about.

The film concerns Claude (played by Vince Edwards with Elvis pompadour,  fresh off seducing Marie Windsor to betray Elisha Cook, Jr. in Kubrick's The Killing), who decides to eighty-six his Squaresville regular job and pursue a position with an unseen Mr. Big as a Hit Man.  True to Lerner's lean and mean storytelling, no back story is given why Claude would find this attractive, no pop-Freudian father-hating or sexual repression flashbacks.  It seems Claude is attracted to idea because it seems more or less a pretty sweet gig.   We know nothing of Claude except he looks and acts cool, and it is this attraction to the banality of this particular kind of evil that makes the audience complicit and, thanks to the whimsical script by Ben Simcoe, delighted in the events.

His handlers (Herschel Bernardi and Phillip Pine), who trail around with Claude seemingly to assure he doesn't flinch from his duty, seem similarly baffled and attracted to Claude.  They live vicariously through his amoral, emotionally detached walk through the world.  They mockingly refer to Claude throughout as Superman, a nod to both Nietzsche and George Reeves.

Claude is no clod.  He moves deftly from hit to hit, slowly building credibility with Mr. Big, until, of course, he meets his match with a canny Broad (the little-known but quite wonderful Caprice Toriel) doing time in witness protection, a gig which ultimately pushes Claude to the limits of his resourcefulness.

It is to Lerner's credit that as Claude is knocked off his perch it is not for moral reasons.  Killing simply gets harder, as if Claude is on some bizarre Peter's Principal path in his chosen career.   Success in this sort of business is hard-earned.  No hep cat off the turnip truck is going to be Superman without paying his dues.  Claude learns this the hard way, then Lerner fades out, careful not to make the point too emphatically.

Martin Scorsese, a more famous cinephilic excavator than even Sarris, provides a great, short introduction to the DVD.   One can imagine the young Marty, taking in and taking notes on Murder by Contract as the second bill in some Times Square flea bag the year of its release.   Scorsese admits to an homage (or is it theft?) to the sequence where Claude prepares for the call from Mr. Big by working out, a lone, solitary, totally committed figure, in a tiny apartment, to similar sequences in his Taxi Driver, and his far more disturbed protagonist, Travis Bickle.

 

Cinephile Taste Test, Part 1

Wherein you must not only understand the reference, but give the CORRECT answer to qualify.

• Brian Cox or Anthony Hopkins?
• The Clouzot or the Friedkin?
• The Friedkin or the Boorman?
• Pre Double Life of Veronique or post?
• The first Man Who Knew Too Much or the second?
• Pre The Fly or post?
• High Noon or Rio Bravo?
• The Nyby/Hawks or the Carpenter?
• Sarris or Kael?
• Shock Corridor or Shutter Island...or both?
• Pink Panther or The Party?
• La Strada or Toby Dammit?
• Jesus Franco or James Franco?
• Seven Year Itch or Lord Love a Duck?
• The Apartment or Kiss Me Stupid?
• Wild River or Streetcar Named Desire? 

Dogtooth

The creepiest image from the most uncomfortable  movie of the year.  And this was no horror movie. Probably closer to Black Comedy than anything if you are into the whole Genre thing.

Dogtooth  (Kyondatis) would have made my list of Top 10 surprises for 2010 had I seen it, but it didn't play at all in Seattle that I know of, and has yet to receive a DVD release.  I was only able to watch it through the good graces of Netflix Streaming Video.  I was surprised, all right, despite the film getting fantastic word of mouth in the underworld, by the rawness, the intensity, the ingenuity of the playing out of a scenario that could have gone terribly awry in lesser hands.  When they remake this in America, with, I dunno, Jennifer Lawrence in the role played by Angeliki Papoulia (above), with all the naughty bits excised and family values restored at the end, the thing will likely be a house of cards.

But fat chance of that remake.  Whereas Let the Right One In had the vampire hook that was able to seduce a big budget out of Hollywood, Dogtooth lacks what it takes for a mass audience.   It doesn't so much critique patriarchy (the Mother is complicit in everything), or anything, really, in the end.   But it has real bite.

And I will just come right out and say it:  every parent should see Dogtooth.  Even if they only see it mostly between the fingers of the hand held in front of the face.

Black Swan

Finally got the chance to catch Black Swan last night.  Thought it was Showgirls-bad.  In other words, highly recommended.

How this started

I had an idea about a book that would be a travelogue about cinemas around the world.  I had some interest here and there from boutique publishers, but no track record or distinguishing talent as a writer (clearly), and let's face it, the world of publishing is, shall we say, challenged these days.  Travelogues sell, but those centered around food were more commercial, for instance, than something tailored to the freak set who would rather visit a tiny cinema in an alleyway than a museum or a four star restaurant.

The idea would be that every year I would release a book about a new city, telling the story of the historical or independent cinema in these cities a cinephile might visit if she was so inclined.  Classic case of writing a book one would want to own.  As far as I know, nothing of the kind existed.  Fame and fortune, therefore, awaited me.

Not so much, of course, so I went the D.I.Y route, with this blog.  While I am not not entirely sure the entire vision isn't skakey, I would like to extend an invitation to all of those of you out there who might have something to contribute.  Not the least of the challenges in my book idea were the simple logistics of producing a book per year about the cinemas of the cities of the world on a budget best described as making Roger Corman blanch. 

But it is more or less free to publish online.  And I would love to see your contributions, whether humble or grandiose.    The idea would be a site that would be a reference for cinephiles around the world who find themselves in a strange town who are inextricably drawn to the cinema when common practice would indicate they should be moved otherwise.  

It was always the intention of this piece that it be personal, rather than strictly informational, in nature, so if you would like to talk about one cinema in some city, your home town or not, where you broke your cherry, so to speak, it is all good and, glory be to the Blogosphere, publishable. 

So shoot me a comment or an email if you have something you would like to add.