More Sprinkle than Deluge

Film: The Rainmaker (1956)
Format: Movies! Channel on rockin’ flatscreen.

I know it’s not true that it’s been awhile since I watched a film I really liked, but it feels like it sometimes. I genuinely go into each film expecting to like it or at least hoping that I will. That’s certainly the case with The Rainmaker from 1956. Considering that it stars Katharine Hepburn, Burt Lancaster, and Lloyd Bridges, I thought that hope was not unfounded. What I got instead was a movie with a pretty dumb plot, loaded with multiple instances of wild overacting, and that was badly miscast to boot.

We’re first introduced to Bill Starbuck (Burt Lancaster), a con man in the Western states and the Midwest, who travels around on a horse-driven carriage selling a variety of items and services that don’t really work. He initially sells small devices that are designed to prevent tornadoes from striking houses. He gets run out of town and ends up in a small town in Kansas that is hard-hit by drought. While this doesn’t pop out immediately, it’s not a stretch (based on the title) that Starbuck is going to pass himself off as a rainmaker for the drought-stricken town. They’re ripe for picking because the cattle are starting to die off.

Off Script: The Hitcher (1986)

Film: The Hitcher (1986)
Format: Streaming video from HBO Go on rockin’ flatscreen.

There’s a reason that I rewatch movies I’ve seen before for this blog. That reason is that my opinion sometimes changes regarding a particular film. If you’d asked me a year ago what I thought of The Hitcher from 1986, I’d have told you it was a disturbing horror film that goes to some really dark places and does it really well. Seeing it again now, this is a film that retains none of the power that I would have attributed to it and is instead just a thinly connected series of sadistic events. I looked forward to revisiting The Hitcher and now I wonder exactly what I saw in it. Even the scene, the one that everyone remembers, comes across as just being mean-spirited and ugly.

Here’s how this works: Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) is driving a car from Chicago to San Diego to deliver it to the man who bought it. One night, he almost falls asleep at the wheel. Worried that he might actually fall asleep, he picks up a hitchhiker named John Ryder (Rutger Hauer), hoping that conversation might keep him on his toes. Unfortunately for Jim, John Ryder is a psychopath who needed a ride because he brutally murdered the driver of the last car he was in, promising to do the same to Jim. When he sees an opportunity, Jim kicks Ryder out of his car and drives away.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1957

The Contenders:

Sidney Lumet: 12 Angry Men
David Lean: The Bridge on the River Kwai (winner)
Mark Robson: Peyton Place
Joshua Logan: Sayonara
Billy Wilder: Witness for the Prosecution

N.W.A.

Film: Straight Outta Compton
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

Every now and then, I watch a movie that makes me realize just how white I really am. Shaft made me feel white, Superfly and Boyz n the Hood made me feel even whiter, and Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song made me feel translucent. I don’t know if any movie has ever made me feel whiter than Straight Outta Compton. I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about rap because I don’t. I’m not even going to pretend that I like rap that much; in truth I’m not that interested in music anymore at all. The challenge for a film like Straight Outta Compton for a late-40s white guy like me is to make me care about the story beyond the music. So, it’s a good thing that this is a hell of a story with a collection of great performances from newer actors and a seasoned professional or two.

We’re introduced to the members of N.W.A. and given a taste of their life in the first part of the film. Eric “Eazy-E” Wright (Jason Mitchell) deals drugs. Andre “Dr. Dre” Young (Corey Hawkins) struggles with wanting to spin records and with what his mother expects him to do. O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson (O’Shea Jackson Jr.—Ice Cube’s son) is a high school senior just trying to survive in Compton. Dre and Antoine “DJ Yella” Carraby (Neil Brown Jr.) spin at a local club. One night, Dre gets busted while trying to break up a fight. The next day, Eazy-E bails him out. Dre convinces E to start a record label. When their first act falls through, refusing to read Cube’s lyrics, the four along with E’s friend Lorenzo “MC Ren” Patterson (Aldis Hodge) and Dre’s friend The D.O.C. (Marlon Yates Jr.) perform the song themselves and create their own label and the group N.W.A. And it’s a hit.

Love and Pancakes

Film: Imitation of Life (1934)
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Movies like Imitation of Life are simultaneously fascinating and frustrating. It’s fascinating because it was made in 1934 and deals at least in part with ideas of race that seem far ahead of its time. On the other hand, it’s extremely frustrating because it deals with race in a way that to modern sensibilities seem so backward and racist that it’s at times painful to watch. It’s doubly frustrating because it brings up some really interesting ideas of race and then focuses instead on a romance that has nothing to do with the questions that are the most interesting.

Imitation of Life starts by introducing us to Beatrice Pullman (Claudette Colbert), a widow raising a young daughter named Jessie (played in succession by Juanita “Baby Jane” Quigley, Marilyn Knowlden, and eventually as an adult by Rochelle Hudson. It’s worth noting that in the 1935 Les Miserables, Marilyn Knowlden and Rochelle Hudson played the same role, too). Her husband was killed in a train accident and, needing an income, Bea has attempted to take over his business selling maple syrup with not very good results. On the particular morning of the film’s beginning, Bea’s morning is interrupted by the arrival of Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers), who is looking for work as a housekeeper. Bea can’t afford a housekeeper, but since Delilah and her daughter Peola (Sebie Hendricks, Dorothy Black, and then Fredi Washington) will essentially work for room and board, Delilah gets her job.

Oy, Gevalt!

Film: Lies My Father Told Me
Format: Internet video on laptop.

There are times when I take one for the team with this blog. With Lies My Father Told Me, I regretted my choice of movie immediately. In fact, the only thing that kept me going was the realization that if I didn’t watch it today, I’d have to watch it some time in the future. Worse, it’s exactly the sort of film that, frankly, kills my hit count. I don’t get miles of traffic on this blog, but when I review something that has fewer than 15 ratings and no reviews on Letterboxd, I know it’s a review that most people are going to look at, perhaps read this first paragraph, and then move on. Really, I can’t say that I blame anybody for not reading further. Really, you won’t offend me.

Lies My Father Told Me takes place in a Jewish ghetto in Montreal in the 1920s. Young David (Jeff Lynas) lives with his father Harry (Len Birman), his mother Annie (Marilyn Lightstone), and Annie’s father Zaida (Yossi Yadin). Zaida is a rag and bone man, wandering the streets of the ghetto, buying junk from the people who live there and selling it for a small profit. Harry doesn’t do much of anything. He attempts to invent new things for men’s fashion—pants that don’t need pressing and adjustable cufflinks, for instance, but his plans consistently fail and end up losing what little money he has borrowed from Zaida.

Off Script: Tombs of the Blind Dead

Film: Tombs of the Blind Dead (Tomb of the Blind Dead; The Blind Dead; La Noche del Terror Ciego)
Format: Internet video on laptop.

Two of my favorite movies are Spanish horror movies. The Devil’s Backbone is one of my top-5 movies of all time and The Orphanage is probably in my top-10, although I’ve never made a formal top-10 list. I entered Tombs of the Blind Dead (sometimes called just Tomb of the Blind Dead, just The Blind Dead, or its Spanish title La Noche del Terror Ciego) with some expectations. This is apparently one of the movies that starts a renaissance in Spanish horror films and spawned a trio of follow-up films. Evidently people just can’t get enough of vampire/mummy Templars.

While we start with what appears to be a medieval ceremony involving the torture and death of a young woman, we spend the bulk of the beginning of the film in the present. Gina (Maria Elena Arpon, listed as Helen Harp) and her boyfriend Roger (Cesar Burner) are planning a camping trip when Gina bumps into Betty Turner (Lone Fleming), a friend from school. Betty is quickly invited along on the trip, and while it’s not stated, I think it’s pretty clear that Roger is hoping for a little doubling-up on him under the stars. That is made more manifest when he and Betty flirt on the train. Gina gets so upset that she asks for the train to stop to let her off. When the train doesn’t stop, she jumps off right around an old abandoned monastery.