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Reviews
Law & Order: Bodies (2003)
Maybe the best of the best
L&O was the best drama series ever. And "Bodies" is arguably the best episode. There are two part of this story beyond the L&O format: Ritchie Coster and the rest.
Coster needs no costume, no props, just himself with a grubby two-day beard. In his shuttered, sordid abode, Coster's Bruner is truly the Prince of Darkness. The rapes, tortures and murders, as sensational as they are, seem almost incidental to the pure evil radiating from Bruner. When we first see him, he sits in his chair enthroned, the devil in his domain. Hospitably he ask of Biscoe and Greene, "Anyone want some cheese?" He brings out a clump of cheese in one hand and a long pairing knife with the other, the cops draw their pieces: "Drop the knife!" and Bruner replies, "Gouda?"
He's no less frightful at the station. He scares off his first attorney by pure creepiness, then, on Rikers, he startles with his mocking laughter and outbursts. Finally, as McCoy and Serena turn to leave, Bruner says, like a cobra to a rabbit, "You can't take your eyes off me." His head turns to face them square-on: "I'm everything your aren't; I'm the un-you."
The camera lets Brunner's face fill the screen. This is not just the face of a murderer but of murder itself. He's could be talking to his victims! Ritchie Coster does this with his face (he even has the devil's hairline!), his voice, his indifference for his victims, their loved ones, the police, prosecutors and the system. He achieves all this with only about ten minutes screen time, yet we'll never forget. I agree with another reviewer: this certainly deserves an Emmy!
Then, there's the rest, one of those moral conundrums that make L&O worth watching. We all know attorney-client privilege. We all understand why its needed. But that's not satisfying in Bruner's case, where there are compelling reasons to dispense with this particular privilege. One reviewer here, appropriately calling himself Garbage, goes off on an inane tangent, wrongly making the lawyer's trial about making the trial about privilege, when the trial was actually about the lawyer's unlocking the space to see the bodies, then locking it back up, thus, "facilitating," making the lawyer an accessory after the fact. That's a fault with the story, because as we all know, that issue was hardly touched on at trial, but rather the "privilege" question. The crime he was actually being tried for could and should have bee thrown out. But, as they cynically say, all it took was "one crying mother" on the stand.
But back to Coster. He's in an unenviable situation. He's a fine actor in other roles, but for those who know this one, any heavy he plays will always be measured against this one, the benchmark, the best ever by anyone.
Germania anno zero (1948)
Shattering
Thematically Germany Year Zero should be paired with Isao Takahata's animated Grave of the Fireflies. Stylistically, though, Rossellini is far less sparring of the audience than Takahata's quiet Studio Ghibli animation. With Rossellini we follow a desperate child, thinking surely somehow, someone is going to pluck him from the remorseless ruins of his world, like we later saw Montgomery Clift do in The Search. Instead, as the boy's prospects remain relentlessly grim, despair takes over. I always assumed despair was an adult experience. But in the last moments of his film Rossellini taught me otherwise. No! No! No! I stared at the screen, stunned. This is one of those movies I think is a masterpiece, which I'm not sure I want to see again. It's already seared inside.
Away (2020)
Woke Netflix Garbage
Alpha female leaves her soy-boy husband and teen daughter-with-issues to join diversity-marketed crew for Mars, so they can work out their personal issues on the way. I mean, why settle for wife and mother when, after you've proven yourself as a female boxer, you can impersonate an astronaut? Ah, but a realistic story of flying to Mars can't hold a candle to multi-gender, multi-racial feelings. On top of that, any adventure movie realistic enough to be about a crew of white guys (Remember Master and Commander? Seems like a lifetime ago) would be raked over the coals by whining identity groups and the left-wing media. So, why bother with real movie-making, when you can force audiences to swallow this virtue-signaling dog food?
Perry Mason (2020)
Tribute to today's generation-stupid
Find an original Perry Mason and watch it, if your short attention span allows. Notice the underplaying by the main cast, lots of monosyllables and uh huhs. The emoting is assigned to the subjects of the episode, which makes our three seem that much cooler. Perry is a smart dresser who maintains a cool bachelor pad and seems to live for his cases, except for the occasional fishing trip with Paul Drake, which usually turns into a case anyway. That he's a bachelor is ALL you need to know. Della lives for Perry, her great unrequited love. Paul is the sport. Of course they all have lives beyond the work, but Gardner doesn't include those, because the Perry, Della and Paul we see are the characters PERIOD. By delimiting them this way, Perry Mason becomes a story-driven series. It's about solving the cases!
Well, the garbage at hand wants the series to be character driven, so we can moon over Perry and his feelings and his fashionable stubble and tats. The result? Crap stories. Do you know why Law & Order ran for 20 seasons? It didn't delve into characters but concentrated on the stories. The mediocrity of this series reflects the mediocrity of its target audience: Too dim to be engaged in in the complexities of story or plot, but super-eager to wallow in the sentimentality of character, where thinking is not required.
No, this not the "old" Perry Mason. This isn't Perry Mason at all. That sample episode you're watching? Like all the old ones it concludes with a recap that makes a complex case comprehensible. It's for adults interested in stretching their minds. That's what makes it old, I guess, compared to the current offering: Intelligence required.
What a wonderful chance for an updating of Perry Mason, as Perry Mason! Reintroduce Earl Stanley Gardner's fully-formed Perry Mason that we don't know too well, and then move on to the cases. Alas, too much to hope for in the feminized, soy boy world that Hollywood now panders to.
Der ewige Jude (1940)
Consider the votes-consider the fans
The nature of the Internet is such that anyone can find a "community" for his pathology. I notice that the reviews which acknowledge the obscenity of what this film depicts get down-voted. There are far more votes than reviews, and
the more negative the review, the more down-votes it gets. One can only hope that the loathsome underbelly of the human species in evidence here is due to the aforesaid "Internet community" effect: When it's Saturday night at Disco Goebbels, the whole world is anti-Semite.
Michael Clayton (2007)
Tribute to Classic Movies
Michael Clayton was released in 2007, a long time ago, it seems, because a straight, well-crafted, stylish, story-driven-but-character-informed movie, by and for adults, is an endangered species today, since adults themselves have become endangered species.
Consider the leads: George Clooney, dressed, groomed and behaving like an adult; likewise, Sidney Pollack, the great director and here actor/producer. Even Tim Williamson's raving lunatic is an adult raving lunatic. Only the marvelous Tilda Swinton plays infantile-completely self-absorbed, obsessively rehearsing before she "performs" her encounters with others, be they bosses, board men or hit men. She's at once an amoral sociopath and a sad little girl. She reminds me of female reporters we see at press conferences, desperately over-trying.
The story is familiar, but what makes this a great movie is how wonderfully it's executed throughout. Even bit parts, by Michael O'Keefe, Denis O'Hare and the precocious Austin Williams as Clayton's son, are memorable. Also memorable is the chilling professionalism of hit men Robert Prescott and Terry Serpico.
The perfect pacing, cutting, unobtrusive camera, and the brilliant script are due to the fact that director Tony Gilroy is also the writer. It's Hollywood film-making at its best and, alas, some of the last.
Knives Out (2019)
A funny mystery genre send-off
In general, when you see 1 star, no need to waste your time reading it because it's saying, "I'm a moron." As for the complaints about politics, it's all for laughs. Anybody taking it straight is a moron.
Here we have a brilliant ensemble of Christopher Plummer, Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Shannon versus Daniel Craig. Anyone from deep South knows his drawl is not at all over-the top. He sounds exactly like guys I've known. Southern happens to be easy for Brits, so Craig gets to play with the Southern Poirot.
Each of the family is a piece of work, and the interplay is hilarious to watch. My only demerits are for Jamie Lee's part. Her character it too delicious not to have been developed more. Also, the kid was like an update of Eddie Munster, who also deserved more than the bit part he was assigned. And the ending had a hilarious part and a gimmicky part.
But none of these spoiled an overdue return to good old-fashioned movie-making for neglected adults. By old fashioned I mean, with great actors doing their stuff, interesting plot and a creaky old house. And NO CGI, no explicit sex, but lots of wit and farce to make up for it.
By the way, after watching I remarked to my partner that the Johnson, Curtis, Shannon threesome would make a great franchise. Well, I've read talk of a sequel/series.
The Expanse (2015)
Another Cowboys in Space
You could make this into a Western. Or, let's say this is a Western, set in space, with high tech weapons and space ships. You've got two big ranchers feuding and the sheriff in town. That's the way most sci-fi is today. You'd think hundreds of years in the future and outer space would provide some bizarre new stories, like Forbidden Planet or Blade Runner. But lazy Hollywood keeps plugging cliché stories into the "space" template.
What's just as annoying is to read people critiquing the story, oblivious to the formulaic "diversity" casting that ruins the plausibility of any story. No, in a few centuries biology will NOT change, and missions-earthbound or extraterrestrial-led by alpha-females will still be as far-fetched as they are today. But I do understand the marketing value of pandering to diversity.
Yellowstone (2018)
Costner hasn't changed that much since Dances With...
The late great Spy Magazine called that Costner Vehicle, "Dances with Goofballs". Soooo majectic and solemn and self-righteous and humorless. Hey, perfect for today's fatuous social justice warriors! Well, then, I guess bringing in a Native American Studies and MeToo victimhood elements should bring the SJW wannabes in. I guess besides the shills, they're the ones giving this thing 9s and 10s and down-voting reviews that don't buy what they're selling.
Costner can play great Westerns, like he did with Robert Duval, in Open Range. That was in 2003. And it was a straight Western. Right now he's just bringing home a fat paycheck for doing his Dance.
Chernobyl (2019)
The negative reviews remind me of...
If you remember The Producers, there was a crackpot Nazi who wrote "Springtime for Hitler". When the audience responded with uproarious laughter, the Nazi was outraged at the disrespect. That's what the low scores remind me of. Crackpots! To those squawking about the language, the movie is aimed at English speakers. What the heck are they supposed to be speaking?
If anyone knows Kafka, then you know the Soviet system as depicted here is straight out of Kafka.
I've seen many, many docudramas, and this one is just about perfect. Those who pan it reveal something about themselves.
The Laundromat (2019)
As usual, shills front-loading the review list
This is an awful movie that gets a pretty bad overall rating of 6.3 (so far). So, why do we see nothing but rave reviews until we scroll way down the page? My guess is that shills for the film are writing or up-voting the raves and down-voting the accurate reviews. I guess some people honestly think this is a great movie, but raves and blurb-like headings for bad films always sound fishy. If you see this review, then you've scrolled passed the shills to the truthful reviews about this piece of garbage. If you're a shill, then do your dirty. If you're looking for truthfulness, then good on you!
The Family (2019)
In the old days, the nuts were looking for black helicopters . . .
Today, they're looking for hidden Christians who meet at that clandestine National Prayer Breakfast! A reviewer says, "it's a really poorly executed conspiracy theory produced by people who clearly have an agenda and who don't think their target audience is very bright." From all the 8s, 9s and 10s-who believe James Cromwell because he's one of them, like a lecture about gangsters by De Niro-it's obvious the producers have their audience nailed. And like that reviewer who sees this garbage for what it is, I'll get lynched by that audience, too.
A Successful Calamity (1932)
"The poor don't get to go very often"
"Mr. George Arliss," the way he billed himself, wears his parts like a tailored suit. He seems so comfortable in all of them. He's one of those performers of whom Norma Desmond spoke in Sunset Boulevard: "They had faces, then." Arliss certainly did. And to that I should add, "style". His stage makeup, with lip rouge, is a bit quaint and off-putting at first, but he draws you so effectively into whatever character he's playing, that before long it's out of mind.
One of the delights of an Arliss movie is the young actors he liked to cast, some of whom became stars. He did it famously for Bette Davis, and here he's giving a beautiful, young Mary Astor a boost, as--because he can--his wife!
This is a clever little comedy, about a man who takes a drastic step to get in touch with his wife and kids, who have become too spoiled and self-indulgent to be a family. It's all in good humor, though, with some great comic bit parts, plus the confection of a very young walk-on Randolph Scott drawling a few lines. We know he's going places! There's even some slick corporate intrigue to spice up the plot.
Arliss and John Barrymore were great stage actors who could modulate their theatricality to fit the intimacy of the camera. while retaining their stage presence. Because he made so few movies, because he gives us a glimpse of the actor's craft from an otherwise lost era, and because of his unique look and style, George Arliss is always a treat.
Loving (1970)
Underrated gem
People from Pauline Kael to Bret Easton Ellis call the 1970s a golden age of film. Don't need to list them, but see for yourself.
Starting the 70s canon is this neglected gem. Kael calls it, "A beautifully sustained piece of moviemaking by Irvin Kershner." Heading the master class that includes Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn and Roy Scheider are George Segal and Eva-Marie Saint. Segal is self-conflicted middle-aged crazy over career and love, and Saint is his wife who knows exactly what's going on with them both.
Before I saw this I read Kael's comment that it's a European film with American production values. And it is. It's a familiar story, but it's told through "stunning" performances and the director's empathy with the characters and, since we may find ourselves in their place, with us. Director Kershner's respect for people is what another reviewer calls, "Renoirish".
Yes, it's true, some great films need patience. Alas, thanks to today's attention spans, this 8+ gets unjustly lowballed. Give this one a chance.
Designated Survivor (2016)
Interesting how this book-ends the election cycle
A disaster befell America in 2016, and since then we've been a country split between the people reminding us how nice they are and the people whom the nice people remind us are not-nice. Of course the nice side is supported all the way through by the news media Greek chorus either haranguing us about what we already know or about how not nice the not-nice people are--you know, white, bigoted, stupid, police, military, non-Muslim, loud opposed to our whispering hero. Isn't it amazing not only how art imitates life in these United States, but how timely it is? Almost as if the conclusion of this slick schlock depends on the 2020 election. +1 for production values.
Dragged Across Concrete (2018)
Well-crafted Gibson Mutilation Vehicle
By now we know Mel Gibson has a thing for mutilation, with anti-PC meant to enrage the snowflakes. A typical Gibson vehicle, this one is beautifully crafted, with great photography and car POV shots. There's little directorship here--that is, no vision of a whole story. We have fascinating episodes that add up to not much of a story. There are interesting characters, too, but all of them, except one, get killed off before we get to know them, even with a 2½-hour run time. That's because the pacing is slow, but miraculously without dragging--herewith an especially cruel episode of a girl who works at a bank. There are uber-nasty bad guys who need developing. The leader Vogelmann is Hans Gruber without Alan Rickman's delicious evil. I think there was even more filming, because there are some gaps that probably weren't in the screenplay by S. Criag Zahler, who also directs. One thing: Usually the MB character comes out with some redeeming heroism. Not here.
The Green Years (1946)
Stockwell and Coburn make it interesting, then . . .
There's a powerful scene in this movie, when a cynical, thoughtless elder tells a young child that there is no Santa Claus. It could come from Truffaut's The 400 Blows. It's a memorable moment in an otherwise forgettable movie, in which Dean Stockwell, one of the great child actors, is replaced by the annoyingly mealy-mouthed Tom Drake, who, when everybody else wears his straw hat straight, has his pushed way back, like he did in Meet Me in St. Louis, as if that bland face can't project beyond the brim. He's even paired with a romantic interest that's as unappealing as he is. Aside from the Falstaffian Charles Coburn, a fine cast, including Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Gladys Cooper and Norman Lloyd, are wasted on characters they make interesting but aren't allowed to develop. A.J. Cronin wrote human interest novels made into fine movies, like The Citadel, the Stars Look Down and Keys to the Kingdom. Contrast them with this. After Stockwell, don't waste your time.
Young Winston (1972)
Great performances, accurate story
I avoided this movie, assuming, because of the scale, that it would be an overproduced travesty. I also thought Simon Ward was only cast because of his uncanny resemblance to young Churchill and nothing more. Well, for a few years, now, I've been steeped in Churchill, reading books by him-The River War and Marlborough were brilliant-and about him. Right now I'm listening to the audio book of William Manchester's biography of the young Churchill, and upon noticing the film on TCM, I couldn't resist.
It's a fine movie, very faithful to the facts, with great performances across the board. What surprises me is how good Simon Ward is. I can't understand why he didn't get an Oscar nomination. Maybe at the time they thought he was just mimicking Churchill, but that would have been wrong. From all I've read, Churchill mimicked himself, that is, he was never out of character, even in private. His beloved wife Clementine had to take yearly vacations from him because, in her words, he couldn't talk to anyone without making a speech. interestingly, Robert Hardy, who had a bit part in the movie, later became the best Churchill of them all-The Wilderness Years-by playing Churchill playing himself and driving Siân Phillips as Clementine to distraction. But I think Ward shows admirable restraint. He doesn't make Churchill a caricature, as even the great man himself did.
Other reviewers are bothered by the interview device. Actually, I rather liked it. It was a kind of interior monologue for Winston and Jennie, fleshing them out without resorting to some kind of voice-over.
Robert Shaw is great as the tortured Lord Randoph. For me Anne Bancroft is slightly miscast. For one, though she favors her, she's not as pretty as Jennie, and she's a bit overly made-up. She seems to try too hard to show us why every man wanted to bed her. Aside from that, the casting is superb. Early ANthony Hopkins is always a treat. Even the young boys playing Winston looked and acted convincing.
As for the directing, Attenborough, while no Lean, handled the grand-scale story skillfully. Maybe the main reason I resisted this movie was because it plays the young Churchill like an action hero. Well, it's taken me all these years to realize that, indeed, that's what he was!
The Devils (1971)
An Authentic Masterpiece
The Devils was one of the most soul-shaking experiences I have ever had. I was lucky to see this film in its X-rated first run, with no censoring at all. I watched it while tripping, which was risky, but it worked out. If I had a morbid nature, then it might not have. I suspect I wasn't alone. After all, 1971 was also the year of A Clockwork Orange, another mind-altering masterpiece.
Almost every character in this movie is outrageous: Louis XIII, Richelieu, his henchman the Baron, Grandier, the nuns, the inquisitor, the grotesque quack doctors.... Only one is human, sympathetic. Other reviews have outlined the story and gone into detail about the outrageousness, so I won't repeat them. Two things I need to point out:
The set design and costuming are incredible. Those walls of Loudon--I can still see them.
And that brings me to the second point. Reviewers here target the Catholic church. Indeed, considering what goes on, it's hard not to target the church. But really, this is political film. The church is serving the king and his cardinal. Richelieu tells Louis that he must centralize power to break France from its feudal yoke, manifested in its fortified, walled towns. Grandier, who is in effect Loudon's mayor, is not being cooperative with the Baron, whom Richelieu has dispatched to bring down the walls. Grandier is also a libertine. When the Baron gets wind of the lurid goings on from a prioress in a cloistered nunnery in Loudon, who is insane and lusts for Grandier, he sends the inquisitor to take care of Grandier. So, yes, the movie is about the horrors in Loudon, but also about the high political ends those horrors serve.
The final outrage is that the US version has been butchered by Warners, but the UK version not as badly. It's worth buying an all-region VCR and the UK version just to see this masterpiece, which deserves far better than its current score of 7.9, which doubtless is due to Warner's butchery.
Mowgli (2018)
Finally, a Mowgli Worthy of Kipling!
It's dismaying how many here regard Disney as the benchmark for The Jungle Book and its central character Mowgli. The benchmark is Kipling's book!
For over a century the fantasy life of young boys and girls was informed by the self-contained story-chapters in the Jungle Book, not all about Mowgli. Kipling was a story teller, who could fire the imagination of kids, which Nobel recognized in one of their wiser prizes. Unfortunately, Disney ruined it for kids by cartoonizing the Jungle Book and turning into a silly musical.
There's a beautiful Korda version of the Jungle Book, from 1942, starring Sabu as Mowgli. Due to the constraints of having animals speak, most of that movie focuses on the humans and in a way closer to the Kipling version. The ripe technicolor of the restored print and the soundtrack of Miklós Rózsa make for an exotic, faraway, almost dreamlike experience. Find this one and compare the Mowglis. I think Sabu and Rohan Chand are wonderful, in their own ways.
The Serkis Mowgli takes advantage of modern CGI to give the animals articulating mouths to speak the lines, so we can be in the jungle more. Though most of the characters are original, Serkis has replaced Shere Khan's sidekick Tabaqui's jackal with a hyena, maybe because hyenas are more grotesque. No biggie. Serkis has departed further from the Kipling plot, but in ways that don't spoil the basic story.
The very end is good enough, but in the Kipling, Mowgli is finally drawn back to the humans by one of them he's oddly curious about--a girl. I thought that was a charming way for Kipling to end it. But the way Serkis chooses to end the film is fine. I'd have given an 8, but add 1, because this movie has done a great service in rescuing Kipling and us from Disney.
Knightfall (2017)
Fraud Warning
Historical fiction can be great fun and a learning experience, too. Good historical fiction writers do lots of research. James Michener was a famous example. More recently come series like Rome, The Last Kingdom, Saving Private Ryan. You take a timeline with historical plot points and fill in the gaps. The further back you go, the wider the gaps and the more fiction to the history. Sometimes you just have people that history only says lived and events that history only says happened and nothing else, and away you go.
We know about the Templars, in general, but not in much reliable detail, so we take what we know and fill in the gaps with believable, plausible narratives. And here is the fraud of this Knightfall and of the History Channel. As others have pointed out, even things we know-historical facts-are presented falsely. About the only thing reliable about Knightfall is that there were Templars.
The moment I saw something billing itself as The History Channel running a series called "Ancient Aliens," I knew it was a fraud. That's fine, as long as you enjoy nonsense presented as if it were historical but don't kid yourself that you're being educated. But to take seriously the likes of this garbage is to buy into fraud.
Under the Red Robe (1937)
Unearthed Gem
I say "unearthed" because the film seems to have been buried -- the condition of the print is pretty bad, and the soundtrack is so worn that half the subtitles say, "Inaudible". Apparently this is an orphaned film, in the public domain, without a decent print to remaster. Considering that many fine films have disappeared, we are lucky that this one survived at all. Lucky, because we see here what made this movie's era "Golden". Even routine costume dramas/comedies such as this one were blessed with fine production values, interesting scripts, and great directors and actors.
You can't have everything, and I wanted to see more of the deliciously ruthless Raymond Massey, who got second billing as Cardinal Richelieu but only a few minutes of screen time. A great discovery for me was Romney Brent. I looked him up, and most of his career was on the stage, so to see this delightful character player on the screen is a real treat. Annabella's heavy accent is hard to decipher, but she's so lovely, who cares, especially when she's framed by Victor Sjöstrōm, who brought us Garbo.
The sets are impressive, and the story is an interesting piece of historical fiction. There really is a Château Foix (subtitles call it "Fiox"), which did have a connection to Richelieu. If you're a movie lover, then look past the poor print and be grateful for this unearthed gem.
The Score (2001)
One of my favorite caper flicks
My favorite De Niro role is some kind of wise guy or crook. He has that predatory squint. Here he's paired with Edward Norton, another favorite. They have a great inter-generational confrontation.
Unlike some others, I have no problem with the "old heist story". ALL heist stories are old! It's how they're pulled off that's fun. And this one is pulled off exquisitely. The plot is tight, the pacing is perfect, the photography is great, and there's a nice payoff in the end. Same applies to Ronin, another De Niro fave.
The only problem here is Brando. Yes, he was always a draw, but I agree with another reviewer who says his character could have been demoted or omitted and not be missed. All he does is waddle around and be Brando. I find myself looking for that little in-ear receiver they say he used for his lines. And I guess they had to get their money's worth having apparently paid by the pound.
Anyway, it's delicious to see De Niro and Norton doing their stuff.
Night Into Morning (1951)
An underrated gem
The fifties were pretty alcohol-soaked. World War II had both scarred the collective psyche and ended the Great Depression. The Korea had turned the Cold War hot. Alcohol was the self-medication of choice. It was also just fun, and fun was what filled the leisure that American prosperity had brought the masses.
Yet, this was no longer the era of Nick and Nora Charles or Robert Benchley, when being drunk was cute or comic. So, when imbibing America needed a cautionary tale, Ray Milland was the right protagonist, as he proved in The Lost Weekend. Night into Morning isn't about alcoholism per se but about the response to a horrible tragedy. Lost Weekend was about alcoholism as a lifestyle. Night into Morning is about a binge that is carrying Milland over a precipice.
The casting is flawless. Milland, like Holden, has this seemingly easy way of acting. By being himself, he is the part. I like Nancy Davis better with every new viewing. What I used to regard as wooden, I now see as measured, kind of like the great Anne Revere. Here she's quite believable as a voice of reason, a voice on our behalf, responding to Milland's woes as we should.
And then there's John Hodiak. What can I say? He died so young that everything he was in becomes precious. And this may be one of his best performances, as Milland's best friend and colleague. Hodiak may have been pushed aside when the big stars returned from WWII, but for me he still chews up the scenery. The looks, the voice. It just occurred to me that had Hodiak survived he might well have settled into a Lloyd Nolan career. Dawn Adams gets good screen time as the girlfriend of the lug whom Professor Milland is going to flunk. The bit parts are not neglected. Whit Bissel has a great little turn as a headstone salesman. The cocktail waitress/student appealed to me a lot, and it turns out that Mary Lawrence playing her was 32 at the time!
Aside for the casting, the production is first-rate. There was a trend in the era for location shooting. In this case, Berkeley gets to play the college town, with a long sequence with Davis and Hodiak on campus, and a scene from the Tower. There's also a bang-up crash scene, though by necessity back at the studio.
There are a couple of problems that preclude perfection. There's a a connection with elderly neighbors that doesn't go anywhere. It was great to see Jean Hagan, but her part should have been developed more, in place of the useless footage of the elderly neighbors.
Night into Morning ends with what, to today's ears, seems a corny send-off, "Go with God". As a product of its time, it's not so corny. War hangover, the Holocaust, The Bomb, atheist Communism ginned up by McCarthyism, and the rat race. Plus ordinary misfortune that's always hitting someone, somewhere -- sooner or later you or me. Or just plain ennui. It seems that movies like Lost Weekend, Night into Morning, The Man in the Grey flannel Suit, are appealing to contemporary audiences to use faith and friendship instead of fixes. It's no coincidence that at the same time AA was getting noticed for sending this message.
Crime and Punishment (1935)
Disappointing Hollywood Treatment
Along with "M" and "The Face Behind the Mask," this Raskolnikov is Peter Lorre's finest rôle. Unfortunately, it's not supported by the rest of the production. The stylized von Sternberg lighting and the Madonna look he gives Marian Marsh (Dietrich stand-in?) don't really suit the grim narrative.
Edward Arnold is woefully miscast as Inspector Porfiry. He's ponderous and bombastic, in his usual manner. Aside from Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the rest of the cast play their stock Hollywood characters. The only Russian about them is "the long-winded names by which they address each other." (Kael)
Coincidentally, a great French "Crime and Punishment" was made the same year. Harry Baur as Porfiry is sensational, and if he had been cast as Porfiry in the von Sternberg version, then it would have caught fire.
I give it a 7 for Lorre.