MISERY

Kathy Bates

MISERY (1990). Director: Rob Reiner. Based on the novel by Stephen King.

"If you don't enjoy your own company, you're not fit company for anyone else." -- Annie Wilkes.

"You'll never know the fear of losing someone like you when you're someone like me." -- Ditto.

Novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan of Games), who made millions writing about a woman named Misery, has just finished a new book with which he hopes to get more respect as an author. After a car accident he winds up at the home of his "number one fan," Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates of Cheri), who tells him that the roads are impassable due to a blizzard and the phone lines are down. In reality, Annie wants to keep the bedridden, crippled Paul all to herself. As the weeks go by Paul realizes that Annie is keeping him prisoner and cutting him off from the world and everyone who knows him. He also comes to realize that Annie is a truly dangerous sociopath ...

James Caan

Misery is an enjoyable and absorbing picture that focuses on a frightening dilemma for the protagonist who finds his situation becoming more and more sinister with every day. However, the characterization in the film is lacking, with Paul being a one-dimensional "famous author" and not much else -- you really don't learn much about him except that after making lots of money he now wants the critics' respect. You learn a bit more about the psychotic Annie, who has probably had a long career of killing people, but the origins of her psychosis are never explored.

Desperate struggle: Bates vs. Caan

Kathy Bates won a Best Actress Oscar for her work in this film. Although she's good in her own understated way, I didn't think her performance was Oscar-worthy back when the film was first released and I don't think so today. She often seems over-rehearsed. James Caan, who in general (despite some perfunctory moments) gives a more solid performance in a much, much more difficult role, wasn't even nominated. Reiner's direction is good even if it seems by the numbers at times, and the film could have been cut by a good twenty minutes, tightening up the tension and the pacing. Richard Farnsworth is fine as the cop "Buster," as is Frances Sternhagen [Outland] in the tiny role of his wife. Lauren Bacall is similarly good in the small role of Sheldon's agent.  And we mustn't forget Misery the pig, the cutest hog since Babe.

An amusing sequence has Annie railing about how the cliffhanger serials she saw as a girl often cheated, showing a car with the hero apparently trapped inside going off a cliff one week, and then inserting the hero jumping out of the car beforehand in the next episode. On this, the deluded Annie is mostly right, although there were some serials that played fair.

Verdict: Fun movie with some truly horrifying moments and one pretty good shock. ***. 

SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL

Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood

SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL (1964). Director: Richard Quine.

Bob Weston (Tony Curtis), who writes for a sleazy expose mag called Stop, has just come out with a story on psychologist Helen Brown (Natalie Wood). Dr. Brown wrote a bestseller entitled "Sex and the Single Girl," but the article claims she is a virgin with limited experience. Weston wants to dig up more dirt on Brown, so he poses as his next door neighbor, hosiery salesman Frank (Henry Fonda), whose wife, Sylvia (Lauren Bacall), is almost pathologically jealous, and pretends to be Helen's patient. When Bob and Helen start falling in love, it causes complications for everyone.

Lauren Bacall

When someone got the bright idea of turning Helen Gurley Brown's bestseller into a movie, they should have tried for something more sophisticated than this dumb "sex comedy" that has hardly any laughs. Even the basic premise of a man getting close to a woman who hates him by pretending to be someone else is nothing new. A sequence when not only Bacall but two other women show up at Brown's office claiming to be Sylvia should at least have been fun, but it's as clunky as everything else in the movie. The picture develops a slight degree of momentum toward the end, but it all winds up in a race to the airport with everyone chasing everybody else in their cars or taxis -- a bit with Bacall and a cab driver is kind of muffed -- and an attempt to emulate the kind of zaniness you used to find in Frank Tashlin movies never really comes off. The whole sequence goes on too long in any case.

Tony Curtis

Sex and the Single Girl might have worked if Carol Burnett had played Brown instead of Natalie Wood. She and Curtis give it the old college try, but they can do little to make any of the lines -- some of which are actually funny -- come alive. Henry Fonda is out of his element and even Bacall is mostly mediocre. Others in the cast include Mel Ferrer as a psychiatrist who is interested in Helen, Fran Jeffries as an amorous friend of Bob's, and Leslie Parrish as Bob's secretary. Two veterans who add a bit to the limited fun are Edward Everett Horton as Bob's boss and Otto Kruger as one of Helen's associates, and Larry Storch shows up as a motorcycle cop driven crazy by all the goings-on. There's an inside joke about Some Like It Hot but the references to Jack Lemmon are repeated once too often. The pic tries to come up with some interesting backdrops -- a dock where Bob threatens suicide, the ape cages in the zoo -- but ultimately the movie is just deadly. Fran Jeffries, who sings and dances in the movie, had previously been married to Dick Haymes, and then married Richard Quine, the film's director, the year after this was released. The marriage only lasted four years.

Verdict: And it's nearly two hours long as well! *1/2. 

BRIGHT LEAF

BRIGHT LEAF (1950). Director: Michael Curtiz.

Thrown out of the town of Kingsmouth, NC many years before by the wealthy tobacco man Major Singleton (Donald Crisp), Brant Royle (Gary Cooper) returns to make a fortune and stir up trouble. With the aid of John Barton (Jeff Corey), who has invented a machine for making and packaging cigarettes, and the financial help of gal pal Sonia Kovac (Lauren Bacall), he builds the Royle cigarette company into a giant that puts many of his tobacco competitors out of business. Sonia is in love with Brant, but he only has eyes for Singleton's lovely daughter, Margaret (Patricia Neal), and as the years go by he becomes more and more like her father, gaining power and prestige but treating people shabbily. Brant finds out that he may not have a friend left in the world ... Bright Leaf is a pot-boiler that slowly builds in dramatic intensity and features some effective performances. Cooper is better than usual in his portrayal of Royle; Neal is good but not great; and Bacall [Shock Treatment] has one of her best roles in this. Jack Carson and Jeff Corey are fine as Brant's business partners, Elizabeth Patterson [Out of the Blue] is terrific as the major's elderly sister; and Donald Crisp [The Old Maid] nearly steals the show as the implacable major -- one of the movie's best scenes has the major challenging Brant to a duel. As the love rivals, Neal and Cooper haven't any scenes together, unfortunately. A comical aspect of the movie is when Bacall tells Cooper that she's opened a "rooming house" when it is all too obviously a brothel! Smoothly directed by Michael Curtiz.

Verdict: This could be dismissed as a nearly two hour advertisement for cigarettes were it not for its sheer entertainment value. ***. 

APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH

Carrie Fisher and Nicholas Guest

APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH (1988). Producer/director: Michael Winner

In 1937 Emily Boynton (Piper Laurie), a former prison wardress, rules over her family after her husband's death with an iron fist. The American family consists of two attractive stepdaughters, Carol (Valerie Richards) and Ginevra (Amber Bezer), and two strikingly good-looking stepsons, Raymond (John Terlesky), who is single, and Lennox (Nicholas Guest), who is married to Nadine (Carrie Fisher). Vacationing in the Holy Land with the rest of his family, Raymond finds himself attracted to Dr. Sarah King (Jenny Seagrove), who is appalled by the domineering behavior of his stepmother. Then there's a murder, and Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) is conveniently on the scene to  ferret out the killer  ... Appointment with Death is a mediocre adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's best murder mysteries, though the film does boast some interesting settings and decent performances. Piper Laurie [Dario Argento's Trauma] is probably the cast standout, and we've also got Lauren Bacall in a superficial turn as Lady Westholme; Sir John Gielgud wasted as an elderly colonel; Michael Craig barely putting in an appearance as Lord Peel; Hayley Mills [The Family Way] fine as a traveling companion of Lady Westholme's; and David Soul [The Disappearance of Flight 412] effective enough as Jefferson Cope, the family lawyer with a shady past. More or less faithful to the novel, the screenwriters invent some stuff but director Winner fails to give the film very much suspense. Ustinov's performance is too fussy by far.

Verdict: Okay, but stick with the book if you love Christie. **1/2.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974). Director: Sidney Lumet.

Famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney of Tom Jones) takes over the investigation after a man using an assumed name is murdered, and there turns out to be a whole train load of suspects. In her novel, Agatha Christie's starting off point was the murder of the Lindbergh baby, and the victim was involved in the kidnapping of the child, herein named Daisy Armstrong. In both book and movie Poirot perhaps doesn't exhibit quite as much incredulity as he might have when he learns at least two people on the train just happen to have had ties to the victim (as well as others whose deaths were a direct result of little Daisy's murder). And then things get even stranger, but there's a method to Christie's madness ... This was the first of the big-budget, all-star adaptations of the works of Christie, and it's entertaining if unspectacular. Oscar winner for Best Actor, Finney is nothing like Poirot, but if this is a "stunt" performance, I must say it's an excellent one, although he isn't as good as David Suchet, who later made the role his own. Wendy Hiller gives a positively weird, and one assumes, intentionally comic performance as the aged Princess Dragomiroff. Ingrid Bergman is fine but her very small role hardly deserved the supporting Oscar she received. Similarly, Sir John Gielgud is wonderful, but he's on-screen for only a few minutes; he won a BAFTA award. (Surely Oscars should be reserved for actors who are very much outside their comfort zone, which Finney definitely was). In a terrible performance, Anthony Perkins literally twitches all over the place as the secretary to the dead man; Sean Connery has one strong scene explaining himself to Poirot; Rachel Roberts scores as the princess' maid; Richard Widmark is fine as the victim; Vanessa Redgrave [Camelot] is perfect and lovely as Connery's paramour; and Martin Balsam is a delight as a representative of the train line and a personal friend of Poirot's. Richard Rodney Bennett provided the pastiche Porter score, which lacks the suspense this type of picture requires. Many of the cast members, especially Lauren Bacall as the loud American lady, seem self-conscious.

In addition to the 2017 remake, there have been other adaptations of the famous story. Alfred Molina played Poirot in a 2001 television version. David Suchet again essayed Poirot in a 2010 TV movie  which added a prologue, with an adulteress being stoned to death, that was not in the novel, and an epilogue wherein Poirot expresses moral outrage over the murder on the train which he does not express in the book; later he softens his attitude due to the murder of that woman at the opening. Suchet is especially excellent in this and it's amusing to see Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey playing a mere valet. Finally, a Japanese mini-series based on the novel appeared in 2015.

Verdict: Take this train ride or not -- it's up to you. **1/2.

.

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

Lauren Bacall and Hoagy Carmichael

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944). Director: Howard Hawks.

Charter boat captain Harry Morgan (Humphrey Bogart) meets up with adventuress Marie (Lauren Bacall) in Martinique just after France has fallen. Needing money, Harry agrees to bring two members of the French resistance, De Bursac (Walter Szurovy) and his wife (Delores Moran of Old Acquaintance), into Martinique, but he comes afoul of the corpulent Captain Renard once they arrive. Renard wants their whereabouts, and captures Harry's old sot friend, Eddie (Walter Brennan) to achieve his ends. But Harry may have a trick  or two up his sleeve ...  If you're expecting a serious or faithful version of Ernest Hemingway's novel of the same name, look elsewhere, for this movie is pure Hollywood and little else. Bogart and Bacall, who fell for each other while making this movie -- they were married the following year -- certainly had a unique chemistry despite the difference in ages and attractiveness. This was Bacall's first picture, and she's fine, probably due in no small measure to Hawks' special tutoring . Dan Seymour [Return of the Fly] is just plain strange as Renard, but amusing, speaking in musical cadences as he makes silent threats with his eyes and belly. Walter Brennan is Walter Brennan. The presence of real-life songwriter Hoagy Carmichael as Crickett, the piano player in a club, almost turns this into a semi-musical. The best thing about the movie is the ending, with both Bacall and Brennan boogieing their way out of the club, albeit in entirely different manners. As a thriller, if that's what it is, To Have and Have Not is almost a complete failure, as scenes that should crackle with tension are flat (if well-acted). The movie holds the attention for the most part, but it's a little too odd and Hollywood-ish to be effective. This was remade as The Breaking Point, which is a much better and much more serious picture.

Verdict: Not much to do with Ernest Hemingway. **1/2.

SHOCK TREATMENT (1964)

 Lauren Bacall: Who's crazy?

SHOCK TREATMENT (1964). Director: Denis Sanders.

Harley Manning (Judson Laire) hires actor Dale Nelson (Stuart Whitman) to feign mental problems so that he can be admitted for observation in a mental hospital. It seems that crazy gardener Martin Ashley (Roddy McDowall), who lopped off his elderly employer's head with garden shears, may know where some of the old lady's fortune is hidden. Unfortunately, Dr. Beighley (Lauren Bacall), also has an interest in that money, and has developed a drug that can turn certain people into catatonics ... Made a year after Shock Corridor, in which the hero also feigned mental illness in order to be admitted to an institution, Shock Treatment may not necessarily be a better movie, but it is a lot more fun, a rather absurd melodrama that typically exploits mental illness without ever having anything of note to say about it. However, as a melodrama this works all the way through. While Whitman [Sands of the Kalahari] and Bacall [The Cobweb] are okay, the best performances come from Carol Lynley (as another patient) and McDowall [Fright Night], who gets across the character's anger and madness without chewing the scenery. Ossie Davis and Bert Freed have smaller roles. Everything seems resolved a little too neatly at the end, but the finale is very amusing, if not very believable.

Verdict: Watch out for Bacall and her needle! ***.

THE WALKER

THE WALKER (2007). Writer/director: Paul Schrader.

Carter Page (Woody Harrelson) is the third in a line of powerful politicians, but he himself is on the outskirts: as a "walker" in Washington D.C. he escorts the wives of important men to social functions and art events that the husband would rather not be bothered with. When one of these lady friends, Lynn (Kristin Scott Thomas), finds her lover butchered in his apartment, Carter is importuned to say that he found the body, and therefore becomes embroiled in scandal and mystery. The Walker certainly has an interesting cast --  Lauren Bacall and Lily Tomlin [Shadows and Fog] are two of the other ladies that Carter knows -- and the premise is an intriguing one, but while the movie is entertaining, it doesn't quite cut it. Having a gay man as the lead character is a step in the right direction, but Schrader won't let Carter be entirely comfortable with his lifestyle, and even adds a wistful postscript involving one of the ladies that almost gives the movie a homophobic subtext. But a bigger problem is that this is, in part, a thriller, and the basic plot is not that original or involving. Carter is an interesting character, however, and Harrelson gives a very good performance, even if at times he seems to be channeling his inner Liberace. Scott Thomas [Mission: Impossible] is also splendid, as is Ned Beatty as Tomlin's husband. Willem Dafoe [Daybreakers] plays Scott Thomas' husband in a brief bit, and Moritz Bleibtreu scores as Carter's sometime boyfriend, Emek.

Verdict: This might have been better if Schrader hadn't written the script. **1/2.

DARK PASSAGE

Clifton Young tries to put one over on Bogie

DARK PASSAGE (1947). Director: Delmer Daves.

Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart), who was convicted of murdering his wife, somehow escapes from jail and winds up in San Francisco. Helping him hide out and in other ways is Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall), whose father was [she believes] also wrongly convicted of murdering her stepmother. During the first half or so of the film we never see Bogart's face, as just about everything is depicted from his subjective point-of-view. It is not giving much away to relate that Parry has plastic surgery, and wears bandages for more of the running time, until he is unveiled as -- Bogart. [Oddly we see Parry's original face in newspaper photos and he is depicted by a much better-looking man than Bogart. But when Parry looks in the mirror he isn't dismayed by the fact that he looks much older and is, frankly, quite homely.] The best scenes in Dark Passage have less to do with Bogie and Bacall than they do with the very tense business involving Parry with would-be blackmailer Baker (Clifton Young.). While Bogart and Bacall are both good in the movie they are overshadowed in the acting department by some members of the supporting cast, especially the aforementioned Young [who died tragically four years later] and in particular Agnes Moorehead, who gives a ferociously mesmerizing performance as Madge, a friend [of sorts] of Irene's and a would-be paramour of Parry's. Tom D'Andrea is good as the cabbie, Sam, and Houseley Stevenson certainly makes an impression as the plastic surgeon that Sam [rather conveniently] happens to know. Bruce Bennett, Douglas Kennedy [as a cop named Kennedy!], and Rory Mallinson are also notable. Dark Passage is a very entertaining and suspenseful film, but the often far-fetched plot has to be taken with a grain of salt and the characterizations could have used more pepper. Daves' direction isn't bad, but he's not on the level of a Hitchcock. Crisp photography and a nice Franz Waxman score are added bonuses.

Verdict: Suspend disbelief and you'll enjoy this formidable piece of film noir with a frankly formidable Moorehead. ***.

WRITTEN ON THE WIND

Rock Hudson and Dorothy Malone

WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956). Director: Douglas Sirk. Producer: Albert Zugsmith.

"Lousy white trash!"

Kyle Hadley (Robert Stack), a spoiled rich son of an oil tycoon (Robert Keith), woos and weds Lucy (Lauren Bacall), oblivious to the fact that his best friend Mitch (Rock Hudson), also has feelings for her. Basically raised in the same household, Mitch, unfortunately, only has brotherly feelings for Kyle's "sluttish" sister, Marylee (Dorothy Malone), who's in love with him, and sleeps around out of self-hatred and frustration. Complications ensue when Kyle learns he might not be able to have children [one senses he wants kids more to "prove his manhood" than out of any great desire for children], yet Lucy gets pregnant. This movie may have seemed daring back in its day, but now it's dated and full of dime-store psychology. Although produced by Albert Zugsmith, it has the same glossy sheen of a Ross Hunter movie, and it looks great, with superior cinematography by Russell Metty, and first-class art direction and set decoration [from, among others, Robert Clatworthy]. The acting is okay -- Stack, with crazy eyes, gives one of his best performances and garnered an Oscar nomination -- although Malone's performance seems to consist of making painfully obvious faces and doing some sexy dancing; she does have some good moments, however. Bacall and Hudson do fine, if neither is outstanding; Robert Keith is better. Ironically, reportedly in the novel by Robert Wilder that was the source material, Stack's character was an old-fashioned "tormented homosexual," which is somewhat suggested in Stack's tortured portrayal, if never stated outright. This blatant, superficial soap opera is like a forerunner of TV's Dallas.

Verdict: Entertaining, handsomely produced junk movie that is great to look at, but there's less here than meets the eye. **1/2.

THE COBWEB

THE COBWEB (1955). Director: Vincente Minelli.

"Van Gogh didn't sell a painting in his lifetime, but now they're worth thirty million. They weren't that bad then and they're not that good now, so who's crazy?"

The patients and staff of a Clinic for Nervous Disorders become embroiled in -- believe it or not -- a fight over which drapes to hang in the library. Some want an attractive if standard pattern, while others, such as Dr. Stewart McIver (Richard Widmark) want to transfer drawings done by a young patient, Stevie (John Kerr), to silk screenings and hang them instead. The complications of the staff's private lives don't help much. Dr. Devanal (Charles Boyer), the former head of the clinic now in a sort of advisory capacity, is an unregenerate skirt-chaser whose secretary (Adele Jergens) is in love with him. Dr. McIver's wife Karen (Gloria Grahame) feels neglected by her husband, who is slowly being drawn to the widowed Activities Director Meg Rinehart (Lauren Bacall). Then there's Miss Inch (Lillian Gish), the prickly, strong-willed spinster with territorial instincts who objects to anyone she sees as threatening to her authority. This is an interesting if overlong melodrama/soap opera with outstanding performances by Gish [great in a mostly unsympathetic part] and Grahame, and very good performances by most of the rest of the cast. The love story between Stevie and fellow patient Sue (Susan Strasberg) is kind of boring, however. Oscar Levant is quite amateurish as a neurotic patient and his scenes should have been cut as they add nothing to the picture. Fay Wray, Myra Marsh [from the operetta episode of I Love Lucy] and Virginia Christine appear in smaller roles. Christine had much bigger roles in The Mummy's Curse, Three Brave Men, and Nightmare (1956). She later became "Mrs. Olsen" of coffee commercial fame.

Verdict: Over-baked but enjoyable for the most part. ***.

BIRTH

BIRTH (2004). Director: Jonathan Glazer.

"I thought you were my dead husband, but you're just a little boy in my bathtub."

Anna (Nicole Kidman) is about to remarry near the tenth anniversary of the death of her first husband, Sean. Along comes a ten-year-old boy, whose name is also Sean, who tells Anna that she must not remarry because he is her late husband. Is this an actual reincarnation at work, or is there something wrong with the child? It really doesn't matter -- and the characters don't wonder about it as much as they might -- because it becomes clear long before Anna and young Sean sit in a bathtub together in the nude that whatever its "romantic" pretensions this film is merely contrived to create a situation in which there is sexual tension between an adult and a child. [Anna takes an awfully long time to tell Sean that she doesn't want him in the tub.] In other words ---yuck! What we have here is a film like Tadpole, pseudo-intellectual pedophile chic -- or rather shit. You have to wonder why many critics don't see through this stuff, and why actors like Nicole Kidman and Lauren Bacall lend their names to what is really just a more "acceptable" variation of kiddie porn. [Although one wonders how acceptable this would have seemed had the adult been male and the child female, or both male?] The film also suffers from disjointed continuity, and is at times quite laughable. I'll spare the name of the intense boy actor who appears in this, but what on earth were his parents thinking? You don't have to be open-minded to like this, just stupid.

Verdict: If you want to think this is "artistic," be my guest, but I think it's crap. 0 stars.

WOMAN'S WORLD

WOMAN'S WORLD (1954). Director: Jean Negulesco.

"New York is the most fabulous, exciting, thrilling city in the world!"

This is a very entertaining, handsomely produced comedy-drama with a simple premise. Ernest Gifford (Clifton Webb), the President of Gifford Motors, needs a new general manager after the man in that position dies. He calls three district managers and their wives to New York so he and his sister can look them over. Gifford knows that the man who gets the job will need to have a wife who can also do her part on the social end, and who will understand that the job might have to come first. Katie and Bill Baxter (June Allyson; Cornel Wilde) are small-towners and the wife wants to keep it that way. Liz and Sid Burns (Lauren Bacall; Fred MacMurray) are actually in the midst of a marriage crisis, with the wife already thinking that the business has taken her husband away from her and given him an ulcer. When it comes to third couple Carol and Jerry Talbot (Arlene Dahl; Van Heflin), the wife has fallen in love with the city and all it offers while the husband fears he's too frank to be given the job. The picture works up some nice suspense as to who will be offered the position while offering serio-comic vignettes about each marriage and how each wife sees her position in it. Director Negulesco has gotten fine performances from the entire cast, with Webb his usual superb self, and especially nice work from MacMurray. Dahl is sexy and zesty as the slightly amoral Carol; one of her better performances. Allyson and Wilde make the Baxters a very appealing couple. [No mean feat, as this writer generally can't stomach June Allyson.]

Verdict: It ain't Shakespeare, but it's fun! ***.