2013 Sacramento French Film Festival

I returned to Sacramento in June to see the 2013 Sacramento French Film Festival (SFFF).  I attended the 2012 SFFF.  As in 2012, this year's SFFF was held at the Crest Theater in downtown Sacramento.  As an aside, the Crest stopped daily movie screenings earlier this year but its main auditorium remains available for "one off" film & live events as well as most of Sacramento's film festival screenings.

Three Worlds starring Raphaël Personnaz, Clotilde Hesme & Arta Dobroshi; directed by Catherine Corsini; French with subtitles; (2010) - Official Facebook
Adieu Berthe starring Denis Podalydès, Valérie Lemercier & Isabelle Candelier; directed by Bruno Podalydès; French with subtitles; (2012) - Official Facebook

Going Places starring Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere & Miou-Miou; directed by Bertrand Blier; French with subtitles; (1974)

Starbuck starring Patrick Huard; directed by Ken Scott; French with subtitles; (2011) - Official Website

Each feature film I saw was preceded by a short film.

Les Meutes; directed by Manuel Schapira; French with subtitles;  14 minutes; (2012)
Les Lézards; directed by Vincent Mariette; French with subtitles; 14 minutes;  (2012)
Tram; animation; directed by Michaela Pavlatova; 7 minutes; (2011)
Bad Gones; directed by Stéphane Demoustier; French with subtitles; 13 minutes; (2011)

Les Meutes (The Hounds) preceded Three Worlds.  Les Lézards (The Lizards) preceded Adieu Berthe.  Tram, which had no dialogue, preceded Going Places.  Bad Gones precedes Starbuck.

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Before I forget, the Sacramento Japanese Film Festival (SJFF) is running from July 12 to 14 at the Crest Theater.  For as long as I have known of its existence, the SJFF has conflicted with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF).  However, this year the SFSFF is one week after the SJFF.  The SFSFF will be from July 18 to 21 at the Castro Theater.

To the best of my knowledge, Sacramento has four film festivals.  I've already mentioned SFFF and SJFF.  There is also the Sacramento International Film Festival which was held April 20 to 28 and the Sacramento Jewish Film Festival which was held March 9 and 10.

In addition to those Sacramento film festivals, there is an organization called Trash Film Orgy which holds midnight screenings during the summer with live stage shows before their screenings.  They kick off their season on July 13 at the Crest (same venue & weekend as the SJFF).

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Back to the SFFF.

Three Worlds is the story about three people whose worlds would typically not intersect.  Al (Raphaël Personnaz) is a manager at a car dealership who is out partying with two of his friends from work.  Driving while drunk, Al hits and kills a man. The man who is a Moldavian immigrant leaves behind a widow named Vera (Arta Dobroshi).  The third person is a medical student named Juliette (Clotilde Hesme) who witnesses the hit & run and can identify the driver.

When Al discovers the man has died, he feels guilt but his friends from work tell him to keep quiet.  Al is marrying the owner's daughter in a few days and a DUI hit and run death might put the kibosh the wedding.    Al is marrying above his social station as his mother used to be his boss' maid.  Unwilling to risk everything he has worked for, Al decides to keep the "accident" from his fiancée and future father-in-law.

Meanwhile, Vera's relatives are investigating the accident.  The police are largely (if not completely) absent from the film.  I assumed the death of (illegal?) immigrant doesn't rate high.  Juliette is contacted by Vera's relatives and she takes an unusual interest in the victim who survives the accident for a few days.  Actually, now that I think about it Juliette goes to considerable lengths to find the identity of the victim and contact his employer and family.

Al visits the hospital to check on the victim and is spotted by Juliette.  Juliette keeps the fact that she saw the driver of the car which hit Vera's husband from Vera and her family.  Later, she tracks down Al and shows up at his car dealership which puts him at unease.  The stress of the man's death, his upcoming nuptials and a desire to pay some money to Vera is causing Al to behave erratically.

I won't continue recounting the plot because the film is not quite up to snuff.  Although the plot sets everything up and the actors dutiful perform their roles, something feels flat in Three Worlds.

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If Three Worlds felt flat, Adieu Berthe (aka Granny's Funeral) felt hyper energetic.  Denis Podalydès (the brother of the film's director) plays Armand.  Adieu Berthe is a comedy centered around the death and funeral of Armand's grandmother.  Armand and his wife Hélène (Isabelle Candelier) are pharmacists who run a small drugstore.  Armand also has a mistress, Alix (Valérie Lemercier).  Both wife & mistress of the other but Armand seems to have settled into his dual life...how very French.

Anyway, we get some gags as he makes funeral arrangements.  One funeral parlor is New Age ridiculous.  Another seems to specialize in animal funerals.  His father has Alzenheimer's Disease.

A lot of gags and contrived situations does not a comedy make.

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Going Places was scheduled to start at 11:20 PM.  It started a little late but there was an introduction from festival director Cécile Mouette Downs, then the festival trailer and finally the short film.  The point I am making is that the film didn't start until close to 11:45.  I think I feel asleep around 1:15 AM. At nearly 2 hours, Going Places kept on going.  I recall the bars across the street from the Crest were closing down as I exited the theater.  I completely missed 20 year old Isabelle Huppert's appearance

A young Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere (who would commit suicide in 1982) play two roguish drifters.  "Drifters" is not the right word.  Punks, thugs, rapists, killers, nihilists, bisexuals, ne'er-do-wells, etc.  They seem to drift through life looking for sex, crime and trouble.  For example, they end up having a menage-a-trois with Jeanne Moreau who ends up killing herself in the next room by shooting herself in the vagina.

If you had to classify the film, you would call it a comedy but it has a misanthropic streak to it.  Imagine if Jean-Luc Godard had made Natural Born Killers and you get some sense of type of film Going Places is.  Despite that less than stellar commentary, I cannot say I disliked the film.  There was certainly some artistic vision at play.  I'm just not sure if I agree with the direction or scenery.

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With three near misses on Saturday, was hoping Sunday would be better.  I only had time to see one film before driving back to the Bay Area.

Starbuck is the story of David Wozniak (Patrick Huard) who lives French Canada (Montreal?).  Twenty years earlier, David made money by providing samples to sperm bank.  Through a procedural error, the sperm bank used his sample to impregnate many women resulting in his "fathering" 533 children.  About 100 of them have sued the sperm bank to learn their father's identity.  David signed a confidentiality agreement so his identity is protected.

However, he receives the biographical background of the plaintiffs and can't help himself.  He begins to meet some of his children but does not divulge his identity to them.  They just think he is a nice guy.  When his interactions with them become to coincidental he explains his presence by saying he is the step-father of one of the plaintiffs...the one who has Lou Gehrig's disease and therefore cannot communicate.

This proxy paternalism plays out against David's life which consists of his cop girlfriend being pregnant and he has shown no desire to assume parenting responsibilities to date.  As his friend and lawyer (outstanding performance by Antoine Bertrand) battles on his behalf in court and he clandestinely contacts his kids, David keeps the paternity suit secret from his friends and family even as the case become newspaper fodder.

As the bonds between David and his children deepen, David finds he is the one benefiting from knowing his children.

The title refers to the nom de guerre  David assumed at the sperm bank.  Also, Starbuck is being remade into Hollywood film with Vince Vaughn in the role of David.

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Although the features were not completely satisfying, the short films were particularly strong.

Les Meutes was about a party and some guys trying to crash it.  There is a fight and this was my least favorite short film.

Les Lézards is about two men hanging out in a Turkish bath while one waits for his blind date.  They talk about love & life.  It was very funny.

Tram is an animated film about a zaftig female trolley driver who likes her job quite a bit.  The vibrations of the ride excite her and the in-and-out motion of ticket punch becomes a metaphor for the sexual act.  By the end, she is fantasizing about the male commuters while driving & masturbating.  I thought it was laugh out loud funny.

Bad Gones - not sure what the title means or if it is a bad translation.  The short reminded me a little of The Bicycle Thieves.  A boy and his father go to a professional soccer match but the man hasn't pre-purchased the tickets.  All that are left are the most expensive seats which he cannot afford.  When he informs the boy, his son starts sulking.  Eventually, the man compromises with his own conscience and steals some tickets from a distracted person.  The boy is unaware or doesn't care about the provenance of the tickets.

Hitchcock 9

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) presented the Hitchcock 9 at the Castro Theater from June 14 to 16.  I saw six of the nine films on the program.  The Hitchcock 9 is project by the British Film Institute to digitally restore all of Alfred Hitchcock’s surviving silent films.

Blackmail starring Anny Ondra, John Longden & Cyril Ritchard; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; silent with intertitles; live accompaniment by the Mont Alo Motion Picture Orchestra; (1929)

The Ring starring Carl Brisson, Lilian Hall-Davis & Ian Hunter; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; silent with intertitles; live accompaniment by the Mont Alo Motion Picture Orchestra; (1927)

The Manxman starring Carl Brisson, Malcolm Keen & Amy Ondra; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; silent with intertitles; live accompaniment by Stephen Horne & Diana Rowan; (1929)

Easy Virtue starring Isabel Jeans, Robin Irvine & Franklin Dyall; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; silent with intertitles; live accompaniment by Judith Rosenberg; (1927)

The Pleasure Garden starring Virginia Valli, Camelita Geraghty, Miles Mander & John Stuart; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; silent with intertitles; live accompaniment by Stephen Horne; (1926)

The Lodger starring Ivor Novello, Malcolm Keen & June Tripp; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; silent with intertitles; live accompaniment by the Mont Alo Motion Picture Orchestra; (1926)

The same nine films are screening at the PFA from August 16 to 31.  Judith Rosenberg is scheduled to accompany all nine films.  I plan on seeing the three films I missed at the PFA screenings.

It was little odd for SFSFF to have a program so close to their annual festival.  The crowds were a little lighter than the festival proper but still quite strong.  It was also the first time I recall Judith Rosenberg performing at a SFSFF event.  She performs regularly at PFA and Niles Essanay.

Most of the films were not "Hitchcockian" - few murders and the humor wasn't quite so cheeky.

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The festival opened with Blackmail which was Hitchcock's final silent film and it portended his best talkies.  Frank (John Longden) is police detective. He and his girlfriend Alice (Anny Ondra) have an argument over dinner.  It's unclear if Alice is having an affair or goes off with an artist in response to the argument with Frank.  I think the latter but regardless, she goes to his studio where he eventually tries to rape her.  She defends herself with a pair of scissors which ends in the artist death.

Frank is assigned the case the next day and recognizes Alice's glove at the murder scene as well as the victim who he glimpsed leaving the restaurant with Alice.  He tries to steer the investigation away from Alice but she is being blackmailed by someone who saw her enter the artist's studio.  Frank and Alice conspire to handle the blackmailer but he flees leading to climactic chase on the roof of the British Museum Reading Room.

This film felt just like one of the Master's more well known films - sex, blackmail, murder, etc.  Hitchcock shoots a great visual scene where the camera elevates as Alice and the artist ascend the stairs.

Michael Powell of Powell & Pressburger fame worked on Blackmail as a still photographer.

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The Ring wasn't bad although it didn't feel like a Hitchcock film.  "One Round" Jack (Carl Brisson) is a carnival boxer who takes on all comers.  Bob Corby (Ian Hunter) is the boxing champ who steps into the carnival ring against Jack.  Jack doesn't know who his opponent is and suffers a rare defeat at his hands.  Corby was there looking for a sparring partner.

Jack's girlfriend, and eventual wife, (Lilian Hall-Davis credited as "The Girl") is fickle.  She was attracted to Jack because of his boxing prowess but seeing Corby beat him and the following Corby's boxing career, she eventually takes up with the champ.  In fact, Jack must rise up the ranks in order to get a championship fight against Corby in order to win the girl back.  Ironically, it is while Jack is training for the fight that Corby and the girl become an item.  If the old boxing superstition is to be believed, it was because Corby consorted with women that he eventually loses the match to Jack.

The film was a little too pat.  The Ring is Hitchcock's only screenwriting credit and shows a maudlin streak.  I thought it would have worked better if Jack had lost the fight (or the girl) but there is no use in talking about the film that wasn't made.  The final fight scene was nicely done although the two actors did not move like fighters.

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The Manxman was also a love triangle but I enjoyed it more than The Ring.  The title refers to people from the Isle of Man.  Shouldn't they be called Manman or Manmen (plural)?  Hitchcock makes great use of the coastal scenery but Cornwall stood in for the Isle of Man, a small island off the northwest coast of England,

Pete (Carl Brisson) , a poor fisherman and Philip (Malcolm Keen), a lawyer from a prominent family are best friends.  Pete is in love Kate (Anny Ondra) but her father refuses to allow her daughter to marry Pete due to his low station in life.  Pete goes to Africa to make his fortune.  Africa?  Anyway, before he leaves he ask Philip to "take care" of Kate until he returns and can marry her.  You know were this is going.

In Pete's absence, Kate & Philip develop attraction towards each other but it isn't until news of Pete's death reaches them that their passion can be fully expressed.  Philip is being groomed for a judgeship on the island (which is called a Deemster).  Additionally, Philip's family objects to his consorting with people like Kate (a tavern keeper's daughter) and Pete.

News of Pete's death was inaccurate as he arrives back on Isle of Man healthy and wealthy.  Although she has stronger feelings from Philip, Kate marries Pete so as not to break his heart and not to mention Philip has kept their relationship on the QT.  There is a great scene where the wedding reception is held at a grain mill, the same spot of many of Philip and Kate's trysts.  Kate's father (the stern looking Randie Ayrton) delivers a wedding toast about something being ground up like the grain under the millstone.

Kate & Pete settle into married life while Philip is appointed Deemster.  If Kate could just let go of Philip, everything would be alright.  Kate gives birth (the father is open question) and the stress of being a new mother and being married to a man she doesn't truly love is too much.  She goes to Philip to rekindle their affair but he has a career and reputation to protect.  Distraught, Kate attempts suicide but is unsuccessful.  Attempted suicide is a crime on the Isle of Man and Kate is prosecuted in Philip's courtroom.

Despite his wife's erratic and hurtful behavior, Pete is still in love with her and pleads with Philip to free her to his custody.  Pete still doesn't know about Philip and Kate's relationship.  Philip agrees to let Kate go in the custody of her husband but she refuses.  While watching the proceedings, Kate's father begins to realize that Kate is in love with another man...and that man is Philip.  He publicly accuses Philip of betraying Pete and impregnating his daughter.  Philip admits to this and leaves the bench.

The final scene is Kate & Philip leaving the Isle of Man to jeers of a mob.  That seemed a little overdone but according the program notes, it would have been consistent with the prevailing attitude of the time.

The Manxman was very good and I liked it quite a bit.  I was going to say that I liked it quite a bit for a love triangle story but decided there was no need to qualify statement.  The three lead actors gave strong performances.

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Easy Virtue was adapted from a Noel Coward play which seems like odd source material for both Hitchcock and a silent film.  I thought I saw the stage version of Easy Virtue at ACT a few years back, but I was mistaken.  ACT has never performed Easy Virtue.  I'm wondering where I saw it.  Since seeing the film, I realized it had been remade a few years ago with Jessica Biel, Colin Firth & Kristin Scott Thomas.  I still can't figure out where I saw the stage version.

Anyway, the Hitchcock version is a film I like better today than when I saw it.  I won't say I liked it but I've gone form mild dislike to neutrality.  As the film opens, Larita (Isabel Jeans) is married to a drunken wife beater.  Accused of adultery, she accepts divorce to get away from him.  The divorce brands her an adulterer or woman of "easy virtue" so she leaves for the French Rivera where she meets John Whittaker (Robin Irvine), a rich young man.  Afraid to reveal her divorce or more specifically the grounds for her divorce, she keeps her first marriage a secret.  John falls in love and asks her to marry him and she accepts.

John takes Larita back to England to meet his family where his mother shows an antipathy towards her. News of her first marriage and particulars of its dissolution come to light.  Larita eventually decides to end her second marriage for different reason that her first.  Tired of the hostility and realizing another woman loves John, Larita gets divorced for a second time.

Condensed to 70 minutes, the film didn't leave much room for character development.  Moreover, it looked like a play that had been filmed.  I'm also sure that some of Coward's biting dialogue was lost on the intertitle cards.

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The Pleasure Garden was kind of ham-handed in some of its characterizations.  Jill (Carmelita Geraghty) arrives in London with a letter of introduction addressed to the proprietor of the Pleasure Garden Theater - a dance and variety revue.  Jill apparently comes from a small town and is immediately the victim of a pickpocket.  Jill promptly loses her letter and her money.  Patsy (Virginia Valli), a kind-hearted chorus girl at the Pleasure Garden takes pity of Jill and invites her to stay at her place.

Jill's boyfriend Hugh (John Stuart) shows up in London with Levet (Miles Mander) Levet, slight acquaintance.  Whatever her background, Jill is self-confident to the point of arrogance.  She gets a lead role on the basis of her talent and quickly gets high-handed with Jill and to a lesser extent Hugh.  In the meantime, Patsy & Levet being a romance despite signs of Levet's misogyny and other character flaws.

Hugh is sent overseas for work and Levet is soon to join him although he first marries Patsy.  Jill begins to carry on an affair with a prince which Hugh is unaware of.  After their honeymoon, Levet goes Africa although it looked more like a South Seas/Pacific island where he meets Hugh, keeps secret Jill's affair and takes up with local girl.  Patsy becomes concerned after not hearing from her husband for a long period.  Shacked up and not thinking much of his wife, Levet makes up an excuse by saying he has been ill.

Concerned for his health, Patsy immediately sets out to join him so she can nurse him back to health.  When she arrives unannounced, she discovers Levet has been carrying on with the native girl.  This sends Levet into a tizzy.  He forces the girl from his hut she refuses.  He settles the matter by drowning the girl.  Determined to get his wife back, he looks for her and find her tending to Hugh (who really is ill).  Levet forces Patsy to return to the hut where his guilt over killing the woman drives him crazy.  Actually, I wondered if his behavior was the result of untreated syphilis.  I don't know why that popped into my mind.

Hugh has warned his boss that Levet is acting erratically.  The boss arrives at Levet's house to find him trying to kill Patsy.  He shoots & kills Levet.  In the meantime, Hugh has read in a newspaper that Patsy brought that Jill is marrying the prince.  As Patsy arrives, the two find consolation with each other - one  a fevered man who has just learned he has been jilted and the other woman just barely survived attempted murder.  I'm sure that's a happily-ever-after relationship.

Miles Mander seems to be enjoying himself playing the dastardly Levet.   Carmelita Geraghty also seems to embrace the "success has gone to her head" Jill.  Virginia Valli & John Stuart seem a little flat in their roles.  A little melodrama goes a long way and this film had too much for my taste.

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The full title of The Lodger was The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.  A serial killer called "The Avernger" is terrorizing London.  His MO is to kill young blonde women.  He even kills them on Tuesday night every week.  Joe (Malcolm Keen), a policeman is assigned to case.  His blonde girlfriend Daisy (June Tripp) lives & works at her parents boarding house.  Joe has determined that the Avenger's murders are working their way across London and if the pattern holds, next week his hunting ground will be in the vicinity of Daisy's boarding house.

Mr. Drew (Ivor Novello) arrives at the boarding house and rents a room.  A peculiar man, Drew is secretive and has the paintings of beautiful blonde nudes removed from his room.  Drew & Daisy become friendly during his stay which leaves Joe resentful.  In addition, Daisy's mother hears Drew entering the house late one night...only to discover the Avenger has struck again and right around the corner from her house.

Daisy's parents and Joe come to believe Drew is the Avenger but Daisy is unconvinced.  She even goes out with him the Tuesday night.  Joe arrests the lodger and finds a gun, a map with the Avenger's murders marked on it, newspaper clippings and a photo of an attractive blonde woman.  Joe thinks he has caught the Avenger despite Daisy's protest.  Drew escapes custody and hides out with Daisy's help.  Drew explains that the woman in the photo is his sister and one of the Avenger's victims.  Drew had promised his dying mother that he would catch the Avenger and he has been hunting him ever since which explains his suspicious behavior.

With a manhunt on for the Avenger/Drew, a crowd becomes suspicious of Drew and Daisy.   It appears as though a lynching is inevitable but at the crucial moment, a paperboy, hawking his newspapers, loudly announces that the Avenger has been caught and the mob disperses.

Not quite a MacGuffin but definitely a red herring, Hitchcock keeps the deception up for the entire film.  I don't think the Avenger's face was shown in the film.  The lodger's true intentions remained hidden throughout the film which allowed for a "surprise" ending.  The Lodger felt like a Hitchcock film and a good one at that.  Ivor Novello is particularly creepy as the eponymous character.

Six from the 50s at the Stanford

In June, I saw six films at the Stanford Theater in Palo Alto.  All six were made in the 1950s.  I didn't have to look up the film release dates before writing the previous sentence.  The spring film program was titled Films from the 1950s.

Brigadoon starring Gene Kelly, Van Johnson & Cyd Charisse; directed by Vincente Minnelli; (1954)

Bus Stop starring Marilyn Monroe & Don Murray; directed by Joshua Logan; (1956)

Some Came Running starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine & Martha Hyer; directed by Vincente Minnelli; (1958)

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers starring Howard Keel & Jane Powell; with Julie Newmar; directed by Stanley Donen; (1954)

Calamity Jane starring Doris Day, Howard Keel, Allyn Ann McLerie & Philip Carey; directed by David Butler; (1953)

Roman Holiday starring Gregory Peck & Audrey Hepburn; directed by William Wyler; (1953)

Technically, Roman Holiday is part of the Stanford's summer program but I knew it was made in the 1950s.

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Musicals are typically not at the top my "To See" list.  I find them to be formulaic and times tedious; not to mention unfulfilling.  Breaking out in song and dance at the crucial moment is disappointing for a guy like me who is conditioned to expect a bang or clever rejoinder.

Brigadoon is one of these musicals I have heard about for years but have never seen.  It was playing with another Gene Kelly musical, Singin' in the Rain which I enjoyed very much.  Brigadoon also had the advantage of being a Lerner and Loewe collaboration.  Lerner & Loewe shared credit for one of my favorite musicals (Gigi).

Brigadoon was not Gigi.  The story of a Scottish village in which a century to the rest of the world passes in one day in Brigadoon.  American Gene Kelly & Van Johnson stumble into the town on that one day.   With musicals, plot is not a major selling point.  Apart from one dance number soon after Kelly & Johnson arrive, I found the musical numbers to be a hard slog.  Cyd Charisse looked beautiful and was the best part of the film.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (7B47B) is another of those musicals I have long heard of but have never seen.  7B47B had a raucous energy and Howard Keel & Jane Powell to interject some humor into the story.  The barn raising number was stupendous and Keel seemed inspired in his role as the eldest of the seven brothers.

Similarly Doris Day seemed to be extra enthusiastic as eponymous Calamity Jane.  Swaggering like the cock of the walk and talking like Foghorn Leghorn to boot, Day plays Calamity like a tomboy until Allyn Ann McLerie shows up and makes eyes for Calamity's calvaryman.  Keel shows up as Jane's best friend.

Of the three musicals, 7B47B was my favorite.

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My two favorite films by Jean-Luc Godard are Breathless and Contempt.  They are very different films and I would be hard pressed to pick one over the other.  The latter film features Michael Piccoli as French screenwriter adapting Homer's Ulysses for the big screen.  Fritz Lang plays himself as the director of the "film within a film."  Jack Palance plays the American producer of the film and Brigitte Bardot plays Piccoli's wife.  The contempt referenced titled could be from Palance towards Piccoli and Bardot but it could also refer to the feelings of Bardot and Piccoli towards each other.

In a memorable scene, Bardot & Piccoli argue whether he should take the job with Palance.  The argument takes place in their flat.  Bardot and then Piccoli (I think that is the order) take baths while the conversation flows from topic to topic and room to room.  Piccoli wears his hat while taking a bath and when Bardot tells him he looks ridiculous, Piccoli mentions he looks like Dean Martin in Some Came Running.  Since seeing Contempt for the first time, I have wanted to see Some Came Running to compare Martin's character to Piccoli's character in Contempt.

When I saw Some Came Running on the Stanford calendar, I knew I would have to see it.  I don't recall it being screened anywhere else in the Bay Area for the past decade or so.  I wasn't disappointed.

Some Came Running (based on a James Jones novel).  Dave Hirsh (Frank Sinatra) is US Army veteran and published author returning to his small hometown.  He was drunk the night before and doesn't getting on the bus into town.  He also doesn't remember hooking up with Ginny Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine).  If the author James Ellroy is to be believed, Ginny was a roundheel in the vernacular of the day.  Nowadays, she would just be called poor, white trash.  Looking to dump Ginny and settle some scores, Dave checks into a hotel and looks to settle the score with his older brother who sent him off to a boarding school as a boy.  I'm not quite sure what Dave's beef is with his brother but regardless it is there.

Frank Hirsh has married well and runs his wife's family business (a jewel store).  Embarrassed by Dave's behavior, Frank & his wife try to play matchmaker by pairing Dave with Gwen (Martha Hyer), a schoolteacher and daughter of a college professor.  Dave is looking for some action but Gwen is more interested in his fiction.  Not getting what he wants in the respectable part of town, Dave falls in with his pals from the wrong side of the tracks - professional gambler Bama (Dean Martin), his gal Rosalie and Ginny Moorehead who sticks around town because she is stuck on Dave.

And so it goes, Dave is pulled between the two poles.  As the film progresses, we see that the respectable people aren't really so respectable.  Frank starts an affair with his secretary.  Frank's teenage daughter runs with a fast crowd.  Gwen seems to be sexually repressed for unstated reason (I suspect the book hinted at incest).  At the other end of the spectrum, gambling, drinking and fights are the order of the day.

Disillusioned by everyone's hypocrisy, Dave is fed up and decides to ask Ginny to marry him...much to the dismay of Bama who refers to Ginny as a pig and refuses to attend the ceremony.  After the wedding ceremony, Dave & Ginny are walking hand in hand appearing as though Dave will be miserable for the rest of the marriage as Ginny is not his intellectual equal.  There has been a jilted lover/gangster stalking Ginny since the beginning.  Looking to kill Dave, he shoots but Ginny jumps in front and takes the bullet proving that the least sophisticated amongst them all was the most earnest in her love.

Some Came Running is one of those films that can't be made anymore.  The production code sapped the piss and vinegar from the story so we have to look for signs of what is really going on.  I interpreted the film to be a condemnation of suburban morals and lifestyles.  The hypocrisy of their lives hid the moral rots of their lives.  Dave recognizes this and doesn't bother with the hypocrisy but only finds the unvarnished truth is worse than the hypocrisy.  There is no escape for him except to marry a woman he doesn't love or respect.  He would have ended up as bad or worse than what he was trying escape except Ginny gave him redemption through her death.

Shirley MacLaine received an Oscar nomination for her performance.  Dean Martin's Bama was very cool - gambling, drinking himself to death and always wearing that hat.  The one time he takes it off, he gets knifed.

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Bus Stop was Marilyn Monroe's first dramatic role.  Monroe plays Chérie, a woman of questionable background who hustles drinks in a cowboy bar in Phoenix.  Beau (Don Murray) and Virgil (Arthur O'Connell) are in town for the rodeo.  I cannot recall the circumstances of Beau's life.  Virgil appears to have raised him on an Idaho ranch.  Beau owns the ranch but Virgil still serves as his advisor.  I do recall that Beau has had little to no contact with women.

Beau falls hard for Chérie despite Virgil's warning.  Chérie had hustled a few drinks from Virgil before Beau arrived.

I'll digress for a moment at this point.  When I was a boy, my father switched careers.  He became an accountant.  He sold his services to small businesses.  For reasons I do not know, he had quite a few bars as clients.  I think it had to do with the high volume of cash transactions in bars.  Anyway, I remember him telling me (or complaining) about how some of his clients had bar girls on payroll but off the books.  I didn't know what a bar girl was.  He explained that a bar owner would get a nice looking woman or two to hang out in the bar.  She would get guys to buy her drinks.  She would order whiskey but the bartender would serve her room temperature tea.  You could do the same thing with vodka and water.  Anyway, the guy would be paying full price for her drink.  A good bartender would keep track of how many "whiskeys" a bar girl had ordered and know that he could sell that quantity of real whiskey without having to record the transaction.  Essentially they could same sell the shot of whiskey twice with the revenue from the second shot completely off the books.  The bar would have to kick back some of the that revenue to the bar girl.  In the movies, the bar girl would get the guy drunk (matching him shot for shot) and then she and/or her accomplices would roll the guy for his wallet.  I don't think this happens often.  If more too many guys complains to the police about this kind of behavior, it draws unwanted attention from the police.  More common is that the bar girl is also a prostitute and makes some money off the guy the old-fashioned way.

Back to Bus Stop - despite Virgil's warning, Beau pursues Chérie relentlessly.  Chérie is from the Ozarks and Monroe lays on a thick Southern accent.  She is making her way from Arkansas to Hollywood to become a movie star and the Phoenix bar is just a way station.  Monroe memorable rendition of "That Old Black Magic" (both comical and sexy) is from Bus Stop.  Beau unilaterally decides that he and Chérie are getting married.  Chérie declines his "proposal" and attempts to skip town but Beau essentially kidnaps Chérie and drags her onto the bus back to Idaho.

Beau is quite a character  - loud, raucous, uncouth and a bully.  Actually, he has known only success on his ranch so maybe "bully" is not the right word.  Success on the ranch was measured in how fast he rope a calf or how long he can ride a bull.  Using that same mentality, he decides to snag a wife and he won't let anyone (including Chérie) stop him.  At a diner/bus stop, the other passengers realize that Chérie is being forced to go to Idaho against her will.  The bus driver (Robert Bray) steps in at Virgil's urging and fight Beau.  The bus driver resoundingly beats Beau and Virgil demands that Beau apologize to Chérie and allow her to return to Phoenix.  Humiliated by the defeat, Beau drags his feet in apologizing.  When he finally does, it leads to tender moment between the two which ends in Chérie agreeing to go to Idaho with Beau.

Bus Stop stretched the limits of credibility.  Could a character like Beau really exist?  Probably not but within the context of the film, Beau was too rambunctious.  Until the end of the film, there were no gradations or subtleties to Beau.  He was like a bull in a china shop.  I know Bus Stop was Monroe's vehicle but the film would have been better if they had toned down Murray's performance.  Monroe's Southern accent seemed more of an affectation than anything.  Chérie's backstory could have easily been set in a part of the country where her natural speaking voice (not her breathy Marilyn voice) could have been used.

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Roman Holiday is all-time classic.  It's been many years since I last saw it and I had never seen it before on the movie screen.

Audrey Hepburn plays a princess who tires of the regimented nature of her life.  She sneaks out of her country's embassy in Rome one night as an act of rebellion.  Unfortunately, she had been given a sedative before she sneaked out.  After a late night poker game, American journalist Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) encounters her sleeping on a public bench.  Taking pity, Bradley takes her back to his place so she can sleep there.

The next day, Bradley realizes that the woman he took home the previous night is the princess who has "taken ill" according to official government announcement.  Realizing he has a big story, Bradley enlists his photojournalist friend (Eddie Albert) to photograph the princess.  Upon returning to the apartment, the princess continues to pretend she is someone else.  Realizing that she would like experience a normal life, Bradley offers to show her around town along with his buddy (Albert).  There are the iconic scenes of Hepburn & Peck on a Vespa.  

Later, the three go to a dance and get into a fight with the security personnel hired to track down the princess.  She hits someone over the head with guitar which Albert photographs and then they jump in the river to escape the police. 

Bradley has developed feelings for the princess and decides against using photos or writing the story.  Despite her reciprocal feelings towards Bradley, the princess realizes she must return to her duties.  They have an emotional farewell with neither admitting their deception to the other.

The next day, the princess (in her official capacity) has a press conference which Peck & Albert attend.    Seeing them, she realizes what has happened.  During a public exchange with considerable subtext, Bradley assures the princess her secret will remain so and the princess expresses her gratitude to Bradley.  Newly self-assured, the princess decides to meet with some of the journalists at which time Albert hands over the photos and Bradley & the princess share a meaningful glance.

When the press conference ends, Bradley lingers wondering if the princess will send for him.  Realizing this won't happen, he is the last to leave the room with the bittersweet memories of his time with the princess.

Hepburn shines in her role.  It was Roman Holiday that made her a star and won her an Academy Award.  Displaying comic abilities and an appealing vulnerability, Hepburn's star power was on full display.  I also liked that the film didn't sell out at the end and have the two leads live happily ever after.

2013 San Francisco International Film Festival (3 of 2)

In the 2 months since the 2013 San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) wrapped, a number of its film selection have been generally or limited released.  I was aware that several of the films were getting theatrical releases so I skipped a number of films figuring I would catch them when played elsewhere.  The "3 of 2" in the title refers to realization that I've watched so many of the SFIFF films in the two months since the festival closed that is almost like another 3 or 4 days of the festival.

Among the 2013 SFIFF films that I have seen since the festival:

Frances Ha starring Greta Gerwig; directed by Noah Baumbach; (2012) - Official Website
Venus and Serena; documentary; directed by Maiken Baird & Michelle Major; (2012) - Official Website
The East starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård, Toby Kebbell & Ellen Page; with Julia Ormond & Patricia Clarkson; directed by Zal Batmanglij; (2013) - Official Website
What Maisie Knew starring Julianne Moore, Steve Coogan & Onata Aprile; with Alexander Skarsgård & Joanna Vanderham; directed by Scott McGehee & David Siegel; (2012) - Official Website
A Hijacking starring Søren Malling, Pilou Asbæk & Abdihakin Asgar; directed by Tobias Lindholm; Danish, Swedish & English with subtitles; (2012) - Official Website
Much Ado About Nothing starring Amy Acker & Alexis Denisof; with Clark Gregg, Reed Diamond, Jillian Morgese & Fran Kranz; directed by Joss Whedon; (2012) - Official Website

I saw Frances Ha, The East and A Hijacking at the Landmark Embarcadero.  I saw Venus and Serena and What Maisie Knew at the Landmark Opera Plaza.  I saw Much Ado About Nothing at the Stonestown Cinema.  I saw A Hijacking on Wednesday, June 26, the day before the Embarcadero Cinema closed for renovations.  The Embarcadero Center Cinema will be closed until early November if all goes according to plan.  I had really started to see quite a few films at the Embarcadero this year.  It's the closest movie theater to my workplace.

On Tuesday afternoons, Rubio's sells their delicious Original Fish Tacos® for $1.50.  I can attest to their tastiness.  On many Tuesdays, I have gone to Rubio's (Four Embarcadero Center, Street Level) after work for an early dinner consisting of three (sometimes four) Original Fish Tacos® and then to Embarcadero Cinema (One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level) to catch a movie during the 7 O'clock hour.  I'll miss the Embaradero CInema because I won't have an excuse to go to Rubio's.

I will likely see more films at the Landmark Opera Plaza while the Embarcadero Cinema is closed.  I don't like the Opera Plaza theater very much.  There are some sketchy characters on the walk from Civic Center BART/Muni to Opera Plaza.  I have to add time to account for Muni and the walk from the station to the theater.  One nice thing is the theater is close A Clean Well Lighted Bookstore (Hemingway reference) or whatever the place is called now.  I also recall reading that the McDonald's across the street designed their building differently to get the local permits.  It certainly doesn't look like the standard McDonald's building design.

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Frances Ha has been likened to Annie Hall.  Greta Gerwig plays the titular character whose full name is Frances Halladay.  At 27 years old, Frances is having trouble adjusting to post-collegiate life.  Now that seems a little late in life to be encountering these issues but Frances is an "artist" and lives in NYC.  Having never lived in NYC, I don't know how it "really" is but in the movies it seems as though artistic types can scrape by because there are so many outlets for arts and entertainment.  I'm reminded of quote from Indiefest where a director said (paraphrasing) that Mumblecore started with a bunch of overeducated, underemployed people in New York.  In Frances' case, she is a dancer and graduate of Vassar College.

Technically, Frances is not a professional dancer.  She is part of the auxiliary or some non-paid position.  Frances' life consists of quirky confusion about the trajectory of her life and money troubles.  In fact, it's unclear how Frances makes money.  What is clear is that she and her best friend from college are drifting apart.  As the film starts, they are living together (they even sleep in the same bed sometimes) but Sophie (Mickey Sumner) soon moves out to live with her boyfriend which hits Frances hard.  This seemed very true to life as I have known women who develop intense friendships which are strained when one becomes serious with her boyfriend or gets married.

In addition to the unraveling of her most valued friendship, Frances is beginning to realize that a dancing career is not in the cards for her.  In fact, the director of her dancing troupe urges her to take a job as a secretary in the company.  Finally, Frances must deal with friends and family who are moving on with their lives and achieving traditional signs of success.  An awkward dinner party makes clear how out-of-step Frances is with some of her peers.

There is a bittersweet undercurrent running throughout Frances Ha which I interpreted as the end of her youth.  As portrayed by Gerwig, Frances has an ebullient nature which makes you want to root for her despite (or perhaps because of) her insecurities.  A running gag throughout the film is Frances' numerous changes of address.  Each chapter of the film is titled by her address.  In the final section, Frances is writing her name on the slip of paper for her mailbox and can't fit it in.  So she folds the paper so it will fit and hence "Frances Ha."

Frances Ha was also filmed in black & white which gives it a unique look and style.  I very much enjoyed Frances Ha.

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Venus and Serena is not a hagiography but fails to ask the really tough questions of its subjects.  I have a passing knowledge of the Williams sisters so much of the film was not new to me.  In fact, I wonder if the best subject of a documentary would be Richard Williams - Venus and Serena's controversial father.  At one point, Serena is informed that a young man accompanying her father is, in fact, Richard's son or her half-brother.  She seems unaware that she has a half-brother and frankly, it doesn't really seem phase her much.

Of the two sisters, Serena is the better subject for a documentary.  The documentary was filmed well before Serena's comments in Rolling Stone about a teenage girl being raped and a competitor's boyfriend.  Acknowledging her mercurial nature and occasional temper tantrums, Serena doesn't seem to feel the need to control her behavior.  Being the top ranked player in the world has certain privileges.  At one point, John McEnroe urges Serena to apologize for her outburst at the US Open; Serena declines.  What does it say when John McEnroe is the voice of reason?

It's also clear that the two sisters have a very tight bond.  They share a house in Florida although they train separately.  It's understandable that the two would bond since the professional tennis tour can be stressful.  It also seems to point to something dysfunctional in the Williams family that they are still that close.

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The East is a tense thriller about eco-terrorists.  Brit Marling (who co-wrote the script) is Sarah, a former FBI agent who is now working for a private security firm.  Her boss (Patricia Clarkson) sends her undercover to infiltrate the East, a shadowy anarchist group who is targetting the CEOs of companies they judge to have committed environmental crimes.  By infiltrating the group, Sarah's company can better sell their services since they will have advance intelligence on the targets.

With surprising ease, Sarah does indeed join the East.  The main members are Benji (Alexander Skarsgård) who is the leader, Doc (Toby Kebbell) and Izzy (Ellen Page) the most militant.  As Sarah begins to develop feelings for Benji, she becomes more sympathetic to the cause and the members of the East.  Izzy for example is the daugher of an industrialist.  They target his company because it regularly (as in 3 AM every morning) dumps industrial waste into a lake.  Izzy's commitment to the cause seems to be a cry for attention from her father.

Ultimately, Benji & Sarah have to confront each other and their true agendas.  There is more to Benji than meets the eye.

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What Maisie Knew was the opening night film at the 2013 SFIFF.  Based on a Henry James novel, What Maisie Knew focuses on a young girl (Onata Aprile) whose parents (Julianne Moore & Steve Coogan) are getting divorced.  Becoming a pawn in her parents increasingly antagonistic relationship, Maisie is shuttled back and forth between the parents.  Moore plays a hot headed rock & roller who wants to recapture her past glory.  Coogan is an art dealer who constant travels and self-absorption pushes everyone away.  Coogan ends up marrying the nanny (Joanna Vanderham) and Moore marries a young bartender (Alexander Skarsgård looking much different than he did in The East).

The new spouses are drawn into Maisie's life and troubles as Moore & Coogan make clear that their marriages had to do with gaining custody of Maisie and not actually providing a good home for her.  As the film progresses, Maisie becomes attached to her step-parents and realizes the collateral damage that her parents' acrimony have inflicted on her and her new step-parents.  

The film was a heartbreaking exploration of how a little girl's life is thrown into turmoil by her parents' divorce.  The ending stretched credibility but is a) consistent with James' novel and b) heartwarming.  The cast was excellent; Onata Aprile (6 years old at the time of filming) delivered a performance that seemed well beyond her years.

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A Hijacking was a tremendous film.  The plot is simple - a Danish cargo ship is captured by pirates and its crew held for ransom.  The film focuses on a few of the characters.  Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk) is the ship's cook and becomes the go-between for the pirates because he speaks English as does the pirates.  Søren Malling is Peter, the CEO of the shipping company.  Abdihakin Asgar is Omar, the pirates' negotiator.

The film establishes early that Peter is supremely confident in his own negotiating skills.  Against the advice of his hijacking response consultant, Peter decides to negotiate with the pirates himself.  Several of the cast members are non-actors and have experience with ship hijackings.  This leads to palpable authenticity in the film.

These three men will be stressed in different ways the film proceeds.  Mikkel is obviously held captive but is subjected to death threats and other deprivations and humiliations.  Peter who begins the film as self-confident, has bitten off more than he can choose.  He must stay at the office around the clock to take the phone calls from the pirates.  In addition, to the personal sense of responsibility he has towards his employees on the ship, he also is getting pressure from his board of directors as the negotiations drag on for months.  Omar is presented not as a pirate but as a negotiator who is negotiating with both the pirates and Peter.

The stress of the situation takes it toll on all three which makes resolution of the problem slower to materialize.  To give some sense of the distance need to be bridged, the pirates initially demand $15 million and Peter's initial counteroffer is $250,000.  The consultant's suggestions have the effect of prolonging the negotiations and the crisis in an attempt to wear down the pirates but it also has the effect of wearing down Peter.  The scenes where Peter & the consultant strategize has an "inside baseball" feel to it which is understandable because the consultant was played by Gary Skjoldmose Porter, an actual hijacking response expert.

A Hijacking is one of my favorite films on the year.

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Much Ado About Nothing marks my return to the Stonestown Cinema which is operated by Regal Entertainment.  I had not been there since 2011 despite it being the second closest movie theater to my residence.  I went to the 9:45 PM screening on June 28 and there were only 10 or so people in the cavernous auditorium (seating capacity equals 452 if I recall the placard correctly).

Much Ado About Nothing is a modern retelling of Shakespeare's play of the same name.  The actors recite the exact lines as Shakespeare wrote with little modification.  Despite its modern setting and modern costumes, the actors are reciting 15th century dialogue.  One problem I always have with Shakespeare is understanding the dialogue.  The phrasing and cadence is foreign to my modern experience.  I have to concentrate very intently to follow the plot of a Shakespeare play.  Such was the case with this film.  Fortunately, I have seen the play before and read a summary of it before attending this screening.

With that said, I thought the film could have used a little more retooling. There are curious plot points which are incongruous with modern day Southern California.  Putting that aside, I never lost myself in the film.  It felt like a chore to get through...like in school when I had to read a book I didn't enjoy.

Much Ado About Nothing had a very nice soundtrack; it reminded me a little of Norah Jones at times.

I Wake Up Dreaming 2013 - 99 44/100% Noir

I saw 17 films at I Wake Up Dreaming 2013 which was held at the Roxie from May 10 to 23.  I Wake Up Dreaming is programmer Elliot Lavine's spring event.  His late summer/autumn event is typically called Not Necessarily Noir.  The 2013 edition of I Wake Up Dreaming had the subtitle of "99 44/100% Noir."  I wonder how many people under the age of 50 picked up the Ivory soap slogan.

Of the 30 films on the program, I had seen 12 before including All Through the Night which I saw again during the 2013 festival.  The two films which I had not previously seen and did not watch during the festival were My Gun is Quick (1957) and The Tattooed Stranger.

The 17 films I saw during the festival were:

Blues in the Night starring Priscilla Lane, Richard Whorf, Betty Field, Jack Carson & Lloyd Nolan; with Elia Kazan & Howard DaSilva; directed by Anatole Litvak; (1941)
I Wake Up Screaming starring Victor Mature, Betty Grable, Carole Landis, Laird Cregar & Elisha Cook, Jr.; directed by H. Bruce Humberstone; (1941)
The Monster and the Girl starring Ellen Drew, Robert Paige, Paul Lukas & Joseph Calleia; directed by Stuart Heisler; (1941)

Fall Guy starring Leo Penn; with Elisha Cook, Jr.; directed by Reginald Le Borg; (1947)

Club Havana starring Tom Neal; directed by Edgar G. Umer; (1945)

Island of Doomed Men starring Peter Lorre, Rochelle Hudson & Robert Wilcox; directed by Charles Barton; (1940)

Nightmare starring Diana Barrymore & Brian Donlevy; directed by Tim Whelan; (1942)

All Through the Night starring Humphrey Bogart; with Kaaren Verne, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, William Demarest, Jackie Gleason & Phil Silvers; directed by Vincent Sherman; (1942)

Bewitched starring Phyllis Thaxter; directed by Arch Oboler; (1945)

Five  starring William Phipps, Susan Douglas, James Anderson, Charles Lampkin & Earl Lee; directed by Arch Oboler; (1951)

All Night Long starring Patrick McGoohan, Marti Stevens, Paul Harris & Richard Attenborough; directed by Basil Dearden; (1961)

Autumn Leaves starring Joan Crawford & Cliff Robertson; with Vera Miles & Lorne Greene; directed by Robert Aldrich; (1956)

Killer at Large starring Robert Lowery; directed by William Beaudine; (1947)

Key Witness starring John Beal; directed by D. Ross Lederman; (1947)

Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons starring George Sanders; directed by W. Lee Wilder; (1960)

Death of a Scoundrel starring George Sanders, Yvonne De Carlo & Zsa Zsa Gabor; directed by Charles Martin; (1956)

The Crooked Way starring John Payne; directed by Robert Florey; (1949)

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Although I enjoyed several of the films, overall I was slightly disappointed with the program.  Granted, I missed two films in the program which are among the all-time great noir films - Sweet Smell of Success and Criss Cross.

The best double feature was a George Sanders' pair on the penultimate night.  Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons was a dark comedy which reminded me of Sweeney Todd with a dash Hitchcock cheekiness.  Sanders plays a used furniture dealer who is in love with a chanteuse.  Unfortunately for him, she has expensive tastes and monogamy is not exactly her strong suit.  One thing leads to another and Sanders ends up a killing series of women whom he is romancing.  Now that sounds very harsh but director W. Lee Wilder handles it with a deft touch.  Sanders is very frugal and keeps track of all his costs in a little ledger.  When he buys train tickets to take his victim to his country cottage, he saves money by only buying her a one-way ticket.  How does he dispose of the bodies?  Fortunately, his cottage has a large stove that custom built to cook large game animals.  A better man would be offended but the film tickled my admittedly perverse funny bone.

Whereas Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons was a fun little film, Sanders strives for the epic in Death of a Scoundrel.  Oddly, Sanders with his RP accent plays Sabourin, a Czech refugee in New York by way of South America.  Having survived a Nazi concentration camp, Sabourin calls on his brother only discover he has married his true love.  Undeterred, he sells his brother out to the police in exchange for passage to New York.  Once in NYC, he spots Yvonne DeCarlo pulling a scam.  Seeing a chance to scam the scammer, he steals her stolen loot.  For his trouble, he gets shot but that leads to better things. The back alley doctor tips him off to penicillin which he promptly buys on the stock market.  With his insider tip, he makes friends with the wealthy Mrs. Ryan (Zsa Zsa Gabor).  Eventually, Sabourin sets up a company and parlays unscrupulous and fraudulent deals to great wealth.  Juggling amorous intentions towards Mrs. Ryan, her secretary cum actress, his sister-in-law, Sabourin is a scoundrel in every sense of the word.  Only DeCarlo understands and even appreciates his flaws and strengths.  Sanders is magnificent in the role.  His performance is even more incredible given that Sanders and Zsa Zsa Gabor were less than 2 years divorced in real life at the time of the filming.

About 15 years after making Death of a Scoundrel, Sanders married (and divorced) a second Gabor sister (Magda).  If he hadn't committed suicide in 1972, Sanders might have been able to pull off the Hungarian Hat Trick given his apparent partiality towards the Gabor sisters and their collective propensity for marriage.  Magda, Zsa Zsa and Eva had something on the order of 20 marriages between them.

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I Wake Up Screaming features one of the iconic images in film noir:  Victor Mature standing with the shadow of an elevator cage partially obscuring his face (see program below).  The film was quite good but not in the pantheon of noir.  Victor Mature is a Broadway producer who "helps" young actresses.  Together with newspaper columnist Allyn Joslyn and Broadway actor Alan Mowbray, the three seem to make sport of building up the next big thing.  Carole Landis is a waitress who is the latest object of the trio's attention.  However, she ends up dead and creepy cop Laird Cregar thinks Mature is the prime suspect.  Betty Grable shows up as Landis' sister who develops an unusual attraction to Mature, who was in love with her sister and is the prime suspect in her murder.  Elisha Cook, Jr. is the front desk worker at the apartment building where Landis & Grable live.  Most memorable for Cregar's menacing performance, I Wake Up Screaming is a solid film.

Autumn Leaves was paired with Female on the Beach which I saw at the 2011 edition of Not Necessarily Noir.  Both films feature Joan Crawford as vulnerable woman.  In Autumn Leaves, she is a lonely spinster who is won over by Cliff Robertson.  At least they acknowledge the age difference in the film.  Crawford was 20 years older than Robertson.  Interestingly, Lorne Greene played Robertson father despite only being 8 years older than Robertson.  In true noir fashion, Robertson's Burt turns out to have serious psychological issues and Vera Miles shows up claiming to be his ex-wife.  Crawford's Millie has a strong nurturing streak due to childhood trauma.  Desperate to personally care for her husband, Millie rejects all entreaties that she commit Burt to a mental sanatorium.  As you see, Autumn Leaves is fairly melodramtic.  In addition, Crawford is vulnerable and I think she is at her best when she has a bitchy role.  We do get to watch Robertson chew up the scenery when he is in one of his fugue states.

Peter Lorre seems to be one of those actors whose presence elevates a film.  Such was the case with Island of Doomed Men.  Lorre plays the warden of an off-the-books private island prison which is kind of cross between Devil's Island and a slave plantation.  Lorre takes sadistic pleasure in lording over the prisoners and his beautiful but captive wife.  A G-man goes undercover to break up the racket but needs the help of the wife.  Lorre is the best thing about the film and makes it worthwhile.

The final film of the festival was The Crooked Way, another amnesia film.  John Payne is a soldier convalescing (at Letterman Hospital in the Presidio) after WWII.  Permanently unable to regain his memory, his doctor decides to send him back home to Los Angeles where familiar surrounding may help him adjust.  What doctor & patient are unaware of is that he is a former gangster who joined the army under an alias and his return stirs up old feuds with the cops, other gangsters and his ex-wife.  It's a run-of-the-mill plot with above average performances.  Sonny Tufts as the gang boss and Rhys Williams as the hard-nosed cop stand out among the cast.

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I had never heard of Arch Oboler before this festival.  Lavine programmed a Oboler double bill one night.  Bewitched was about a young woman who "hears voices in her head" and whose fiancé ends up murdered.  Technically, she only hears once voice but that's enough to lead to multiple homicides.  It was a nice try but ultimately the film fell flat.  Phyllis Thaxter gives it her all as the lead character.

Five was more interesting for me.  The premise is that a nuclear holocaust has killed everyone in the world except for five people.  Interestingly, the buildings are still standing and the nuclear fallout doesn't seem to be particularly fatal.  Even more amazing is that these five people find each other but contrived situations and incredible coincidences are part and parcel of cinema.

Anyway, the five consist of Roseanne (Susan Douglas), a woman who turns out to be pregnant.  She goes to take refuge at her aunt's remote home only to discover her aunt is missing and man is living there.  His name is Michael (William Phipps) and  I believe he was an architect.  Later, two men drive down the deserted road near the house.  The younger man is Charles (Charles Lampkin), an African American who worked at a bank.  The older man is Oliver (Earl Lee) and also worked at the same bank.  The four of them survived due to chance - Roseanne was in lead lined X-ray room, Oliver & Charles were accidentally locked in the bank vault and Michael was in an elevator in Empire State Building.  Wouldn't the EMP knock out the elevator?  As Oliver shows signs of radiation poisoning, they take him to the beach to recuperate where they meet the fifth survivor.  Eric (James Anderson) is a mountain climber was trapped at the top of Mt. Everest at the time of the nuclear detonation.  After the blizzard passed, Eric flew back to the US (despite having a French accent) where his plane ran out of fuel just off the coast.

With the quintet set, we see societal ills played out in a microcosm.  Eric brings discord to the group.  He and Michael both have romantic intentions towards Roseanne.  He is also a racist which causes tension between him & Charles.  His greed and selfishness causes problems for the small group (by this point, Oliver has died of his illness).  From a rational perspective, Eric's behavior is counterproductive.  Everyone knows that all three of the men should impregnate Roseanne to created the large gene pool but I guess that would be a little risque for 1951.  Eric's desire to go to the city and "steal" jewelry and money is ridiculous in a post-apocalyptic world as is his destruction of the crops Michael & Charles have cultivated.  Human foolishness knows no bounds.  The film was a little predictable and pedantic but interesting nonetheless.

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Lavine appears to have an affinity for the obscure and B-films.  Sometimes this results in unearthing hidden gems.  Other times, I feel as though these films were obscure for a reason.  I wouldn't say the films were "bad" but they were largely forgettable.

As I scan the list of films I saw, I cannot recall the full plot for many of them.  A scene or two is as much as I can remember per film.

Blues in the Night - a jaxx band gets mixed up gangsters at a roadhouse.  Jack Carson played the trumpeter, Elia Kazan played some instrument.

The Monster and the Girl - a human brain in a gorilla; enough said.

Fall Guy - a guy has no memory of the previous night but he is covered in blood and a woman is dead.

Club Havana - a large cast and multiple subplots set in a nightclub.  There was a shootout in the parking at the end.

Nightmare - Brian Donlevy breaks into a house and makes himself some fried eggs.  A woman in the house confronts him and the next thing you know, they rooting out Nazi spies in wartime England.  There were explosives in marked bottles of wine or some liquor.

Key Witness - a guy has no memory of the previous night but he is covered in blood and a woman is dead.  Sounds like Fall Guy, eh?  I liked this one more because the guy goes on the lam and eventually switches identities with a dead man whose face is disfigured.  It turns out the dead man is the estranged son of a wealthy industrialist.  The older man has not seen his son since he was boy so he doesn't recognize the man claiming to be his son.  Actually, now that I started writing I think I liked Key Witness more than the other films in this section.  The man's achieves success as the rich man's son which brings him to the attention of his wife who has assumed he was dead.  The ending was pure hokum but it was fun ride until that point.

Killer at Large - two newspaper reporters (one male & one female) investigate the murder (suspicious suicide) of a city leader.  Eventually, the trail leads back to the female reporter's father.

All Night Long - I forgot I saw this at the 2009 I Wake Up Dreaming.   A retelling of Shakespeare's Othello set in a London jazz club in the early 1960s.  An impressive array of jazz musicians appear as themselves over a long night at the club. Patrick McGoohan's performance stood out.  He always seems to stand out from the cast.

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All that is left is All Through the Night.  About as noirish as a Bowery Boys film, the film is essentially a screwball comedy.  It was embarrassing to see Humphrey Bogart ham it up and sprout gibberish.  I guess I've typecast Bogie but he seemed to want to have it both way - part tough guy, part comedian.  Growing bored with the film about halfway, I wondered how Bogie & Gleason got along.  Gleason was infamous for his all night parties and the prodigious amounts of money & alcohol he consumed.

2013 San Francisco International Film Festival (2 of 2)

As I mentioned, I enjoyed most of the films I saw at the 2013 San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF).  Let me get the ones I didn't like out of the way.

Outrage Beyond was the sequel to Outrage which I saw at the 2011 SFIFF.  I was luke warm about the original but decided to give the sequel a try based on largely on Takeshi Kitano's reputation.  I think he was credited as Takeshi Kitano as director and Beat Takeshi for his role as an actor or vice versa.  Much like the first film, Outrage Beyond dragged at times.  Takeshi doesn't really cover much new ground in the sequel and he does so with less violent panache than the original.

Cold War is a big budget Hong Kong action/thriller with Aaron Kwok & Tony Leung Ka-fai in the lead roles as two high ranking cops with an eye on the Chief Superintendent job.  With a big cast and lots of twists and turns, I lost track and ultimately lost interest in the film.

Big Sur was the second Jack Kerouac film I had seen in as many months.  In March I saw On the Road.  On the Road was written when Kerouac was in his 20s.  Big Sur was written as Kerouac was closing in on 40.  The narrative structure of both films left me a little confused.  As I write this two months after seeing the film and with no notes of that particular film, I struggle to remember the film.  I do recall the scenes at the cabin the woods but overall the film did not leave a lasting impression on me..

Dom: A Russian Family was an interesting study about a family on the Russian steppes.  A little melodramtic, Dom was marred by a ridiculous ending involving a old man in a wheelchair.  The ending was so bad that it eclipsed anything good that came before it.

Chimeras was a documentary about two Chinese artists - one established and successful, the other trying to make a name for himself.  I never really got into the film; the subject matter, the pacing, the cultural differences were more than I could overcome.  I also saw the film towards the end of the festival so there was some cinematic fatigue on my part.

Byzantium was director Neil Jordan's return to the vampire genre (he directed Interview With the Vampire).  Nice performances by Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan as the mother-daughter duo but ultimately I found the plot to be ho-hum.

I guess The Mattei Affair should go here.  As I mentioned, the screening I attended was marred by subtitling issues.  I couldn't follow the plot which made it the most frustrating film experience of the festival.  I would very much like to see the film again (contingent on the subtitling working properly). There was one remarkable scene I can remember vividly.  A journalist interviews oil magnate Enrico Mattei as he travels around the world.  The interview is strung together as they change locales from offshore oil platforms to Arabian deserts, etc.  The effect was a bravura directorial and editing performance.

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I am hard pressed to choose one film as my favorite of the 2013 SFIFF.

Penance is an addictive, five hour, Japanese film about a young girl whose unsolved murder affects her four childhood friends.  Originally, a five part miniseries, the film focuses on each of the four in their adulthood while the fifth hour focuses on the victim's mother and her attempts to find the killer.  The final hour was a bit of letdown but the four hours which preceded it were inspired melodrama.  The four girls have coped with the trauma in different ways.  One is sexually repressed, another uses self-discipline to mask her inner pain, the third girl has shut herself off from the world and the final girl is sexually aggressive (sleeping with her brother-in-law).  Sakura Ando (Sion Sono's Love Exposure) was especially memorable as the semi-reclusive young woman who discovers something unsettling about her older brother.  Yu Aoi, Eiko Koike & Chizuru Ikewaki also acquit themselves well in portraying the young women dealing with the emotional fallout of their childhood friend's murder.

The Daughter is a very powerful film about Inna (outstanding performance by Mariya Smolnikova), an adolescent coming of age in a small town in Russia.  She becomes friendly with a free-spirited girl (nice performance by Yana Osipova) who has just moved to town.  Tragedy strikes when the new girl is found murdered but the situation goes from bad to inconceivable when Inna's father is revealed to be a serial killer (and rapist?).  Adding to the complexity is that Inna has a crush on the town priest's son but the priest has taken Inna's father's confession but is bound by clergy-penitent confidentiality.  The film focuses more on Inna than her father or his crimes so we get the coming-of-age story through the perverse prism of being the daughter of a serial killer.

Populaire has a ridiculous premise but its late 1950s savoir-faire and winning performances by the leads carry the film.  Romain Duris is Louis, a successful small businessman who sponsors and trains his secretaries to compete in speed typewriting competitions.  His latest protégé is Rose Pamphyle (Déborah François), a small town girl who dreams of escaping her father's general store and becoming a secretary.  After some initial bumpiness, Louis and Rose hit their stride - as coach and "athlete" as well as romantically.  "Delightful" is the word which most comes to mind in describing this comedy.  Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) is très chic as Louis' childhood sweetheart who ended marrying an American paratrooper she met on D-Day.  Mélanie Bernier is also memorable as the self-assured French speed typewriting champion cum crowd sensation.

Our Homeland is a fictional account of a strange but true period of North Korean history.  In the 1970s, North Korea was viewed as utopian by some diasporic Koreans living Japan.  Unstated in the film was that most of the Koreans were likely living in Japan due to forced labor during WWII.  Sonho (Arata Iura) is a North Korean repatriate.  Sent back to North Korea as a teenage boy, Sonho has returned to Japan to seek medical treatment for a brain tumor.  Reunited with his family during his stay, Sonho has been profoundly affected by his time in North Korea.  Sakura Ando (Penance) shines as Rie, Sonho's younger and free-spirited sister.  Although his medical condition is real, Sonho's primary (if not voluntary) mission is recruit spies from his former circle of friends and family.  Heartbreaking but filled with impressive performances, Our Homeland struck a chord with me.

Juvenile Offender is a South Korean film about the pernicious inter-generational effects of poverty and poor parenting.  Young Ju Seo is the eponymous teenager and Jung-hyun Lee is his mother whom he thought dead.  Both are beset with personal troubles and their reunion only adds to their problems.  Immature and unable to keep a job, the mother offer little in the way of stability which could benefit the young man.  Neither mother or son seem capable of helping themselves much less each other due to their economic circumstances and emotional immaturity.  Understandable and even forgivable in the boy, the mother is proof the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.  Jung-hyun Lee is stupendous as the likable and vexing mother and Young Ju Seo holds his own as the troubled teen.  There was nothing exploitative in the film which the title may imply but the criticism of the two lead characters and Korean society in general was loud and clear.  I found the film to be very thought provoking.

Afternoon Delight appears to be a sex comedy but slowly morphs in a character study.  Kathryn Hahn is Rachel, a good-natured, upper middle class, Jewish mother.  Her life revolves around volunteer activities at her daughter's school.  Having sexual problems with her husband, Rachel is seeing a therapist (very funny supporting role by Jane Lynch) but ultimately decides to spice up her sex life by visiting a strip club with her husband, best friend Stephanie (Jessica St. Clair) and Stephanie's husband.  While having a lap dance with stripper McKenna (Juno Temple), Rachel becomes very uncomfortable.  I thought she had latent homosexual tendencies but in fact, McKenna has stirred sexual feelings in Rachel which will lead to very painful repressed memories.  Eventually, Rachel invites McKenna to live with her and her family...much to the dismay of her husband and Stephanie.  Thinking McKenna's job and lifestyle will reinvigorate her own libido, Rachel forms an unusually close relationship with the younger woman.  Ultimately, Rachel reveals being raped in college in a funny and painful drunken baby shower scene.  At the same time, Rachel's attitude towards McKenna has shifted to one of contempt.  Picking up on Rachel's change in attitude, McKenna reacts in a drunken, hypersexualized seduction of group of middle-aged men including Rachel & Stephanie's husbands.  Afternoon Delight takes a pretty dark turn about 75% of the way in which for me, elevated the film immeasurably.  Strong performances by the lead actors and an innovative variation of a familiar theme made this one of my favorites of the festival.

The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay is a documentary about magician Ricky Jay.  My earliest memories of Ricky Jay are from Boogie Nights and an episode of The X-Files.  The X-Files was one of my favorite television series.  Anyway, Ricky Jay has been around a lot longer than the late 1990s.  The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay showed a clip of Jay on Dinah Shore's talk show.  That clip was so old that Steve Martin had dark hair in the clip.  In fact, Ricky Jay (real name Richard Jay Potash) was a child performer who made his first TV appearance at age five.  As much a raconteur as a magician, Jay is an appealing performer and clearly a master of his craft.  As the title of the film eludes to, much of the screen time is dedicated to magicians who befriended Jay in youth and taught him how to be a magician.  The film is definitely about the magician...not the magic but Jay is such an interesting character that I was riveted throughout.  At the end of the film, Jay recites a poem written for him by children's book author Shel Silverstein.  As delivered by Jay and written by Silverstein, the poem was worth the price of admission alone.

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Just a notch below in enjoyment and esteem are the following films.

The Kings of Summer - quirky comedy about three teenage boys who runaway from home to live in the nearby woods.  A little uneven but highlighted with offbeat performances by Nick Offerman as the father of one of the boys and Moises Arias as the oddest of the three boys.

Thérèse - Audrey Tautou as I've never seen her before.  As the dissatisfied but wealthy housewife in 1920s France, Tautou as Thérèse seeks to escape her stultifying and intellectually unchallenging life.  What begins as an accident eventually becomes attempted murder by arsenic poisoning.

Pearblossom Hwy - I think this was a sequel to Littlerock which played at the 2010 SFIFF.  The director (Mike Ott) is the same for both films; the screenwriters (Ott and Atsuko Okatsuka) are the same; the lead actors (Okatsuka & Cory Zacharia) are the same; etc.  However, there are slight differences which makes me wonder.  Okatsuka & Zacharia who plays characters with the same first name as the actors, are friends in a small California town.  Along with Cory's older brother, they take a road trip to San Francisco to meet Cory's estranged father.  Atsuko is living with a Japanese family but pines to return to Japan to visit her grandmother.  For reasons unstated, her family does not want her to return to Japan.  Atsuko makes money on the side by prostitution; presumably to save money for her return to Japan.  Cory has an ambiguous sexuality (and ingratiating voice) as well unresolved issues with his "father."  Light on plot, long of character study, Pearblossom Hwy is less than fully satisfying but not without its moments.

Key of Life - a contrived but effective Japanese comedy about a loser actor and successful assassin who exchange identities when the actor takes advantage of the hitman's amnesia.  Too clever by a couple of plot twists, I still laughed quite a bit.

You're Next - a slasher film with a cast of notable independent film actors and directors (including Joe Swanberg).  With some dark comedy and metareferences, I'll call You're Next a postmodern Scream.  

Fill The Void - I chose this film strictly because it filled the time slot between Cold War and Our Homeland.  The story is about an orthodox Jewish rabbi's family who must cope with the death of their eldest daughter.  When the widower hints that he will remarry and move away with his daughter, his former mother-in-law conspires to have her youngest daughter marry him.  I'm not sure how realistic that is.  It kind of reminds of biblical stories of the younger brother marrying the elder brother's widow.  The film provided fascinating glimpse into this foreign world of orthodox Jews.  

Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time features an incredible performance by Choi Min-sik, a mid-level, South Korean customs officer who uses his family connections and chutzpah to climb the ladder of organized crime.  The plot was a little confusing but I couldn't take my attention away from Choi.

Eight Deadly Shots - a Finnish television miniseries presented as 5+ hour program at the request of 2013 Mel Novikoff Award winner Peter von Bagh.  Alcoholism, moonshining, harsh conditions and small town attitudes create a deadly environment which results in the death of four policeman.  Director Mikko Niskanen also stars as the killer.  There is a memorable scene where Niskanen struggles for 15 minutes to get his horse unstuck from the snow.  The film proceeds at a measured pace but never bores.

Il Futuro - I'm not sure what to make of this film.  An orphaned teenage boy and his older sister come into the sphere of two bodybuilders/petty criminals in Rome.  They plot to rob a blind recluse, Rutger Hauer as a former sword-and-sandal movie star.  In order to gain his trust, the older sister (Manuela Martelli) prostitutes herself as she looks for the key to the locked room with his riches.  She didn't count on developing feelings for the older man.   The ending was abrupt as the criminal scheme is just dropped.  Nice performance by Martelli who calls Hauer's character "Maciste" ...a reference I am familiar with from attending the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.

Big Blue Lake - a Chinese actress returns to Hong Kong to visit her mother but discovers the older woman is beginning to suffer from dementia.  While dealing with her own stalled career and her mother's condition, the woman reconnects with friends from her youth and reconsiders her past and future.

Rosie - in this gentle comedy, a successful gay author returns home to care for his ailing mother whose ailment appears to be excessive alcohol consumption.  Dealing with his stubborn mother and a young one-night stand who won't go away are more difficult than he imagined.  

Memories Look at Me - blurring the lines between fiction and documentary; actress/director Song Fang "cast" her actual parents as her on-screen parents.  Similar to Big Blue Lake, Memories Look at Me deals with the inevitable aging of one's parents and by reflection, oneself.  Somber and honest, I was impressed by Memories Look at Me.

The Puzzle Within the Castro Theater's July Calendar

A new month, a new Castro Theater calendar. The calendar came out last week but I've been so busy that...same old excuse - too busy to blog.

This was an easy one although I have yet to solve one of these puzzles without help.

July 8 - Redd Foxx was immediately recognizable despite looking younger than the Sanford and Son days when h I first saw him.

July 9 - I did not recognize this woman.  When I showed my co-worker the calendar, he immediately recognized Betty White.  I would guess the photo is from around the time White was on the Mary Tyler Moore Show.  I watched that show during its original network broadcast as a child but didn't recognize White.  I'd like to think I would have made the connection but my co-worker was too quick in identifying White for me to make that claim.

July 15 - I immediately recognized Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi as the Blue Brothers.  Obviously there was a film called The Blues Brothers (1980) staring Ackroyd & Belushi but the Blues Brothers released several albums and performed live at many venues including the final show at Winterland.  When performing, Ackroyd & Belushi did not break character and they developed intricate backstories and biographies of the characters.  They also hired top-notch musicians for their band.

Redd, White and Blues can only mean Red, White and Blue in celebration of Independence Day.

I drew a blank on the guy sitting on the wall in the July 4 rectangle.  I'm not sure if the July 4 item is part of the puzzle.

As for the films, July looks like a good month at the Castro.  I'm a big fan of Jaws (July 3).  Robert Shaw gave a great performance.  I've long wanted to see Night of the Hunter (July 11).  Another favorite of mine is The Exorcist (July 12).  Mercedes McCambridge's voice performance is incredible.  The Craft (July 13 with Peaches Christ) is one of my guilty pleasures.  It's the first time I saw Fairuza Balk.  On July 17, they are screening a pair of Jim Jarmusch's anthologies - Mystery Train and Night of Earth.

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival and the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival occupy much of the  rest of the Castro's July calendar.

Castro Theater Calendar - July 2013