BLONDE ICE

BLONDE ICE (1948). Director: Jack Bernhard.

Claire (Leslie Brooks) is a hard-boiled dame who has many men in love with her and uses all of them right and left to get the life she thinks she deserves. The men include Stanley (Michael Whalen) a probate lawyer; Les (Robert Paige); Blackie (Russ Vincent) a pilot and blackmailer; Al (James Griffith); newspaper reporter Hack Doyle (Walter Sande); and let's not forget her unfortunate husband, Carl (John Holland). While there's some fun in watching Claire try to commit mayhem and outwit the police and pursuers, the fact is that the picture really suffers because lead actress Brooks simply isn't up to the demands of the script. Blonde Ice needs a Stanwyck or Davis -- or at least someone a little zestier and more talented -- to make it riveting. Brooks, who passed away just last month at 88 years of age, made a few film appearances before Blonde Ice, made one other film the same year, and then didn't return to films until 1971.

Verdict: Bad girls should be more fascinating than this. **.

THE KING'S SPEECH

THE KING'S SPEECH (2010). Director: Tom Hooper.

"Bertie," the Duke of York (Colin Firth), who eventually becomes King George the 6th of England, has a stammering problem that is especially noticeable whenever the poor man has to give a speech. In desperation his wife (Helena Bonham Carter) takes him to an Australian speech therapist named Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), who has unusual methods of dealing with the problem. As strong-willed in his own way as the King, he and Bertie seem to become both friends and adversaries as the years progress. This is a superb film, completely absorbing from start to finish, that gives us an insider's view into a neglected aspect of history and does so brilliantly. Firth and Rush are magnificent, and there are also notable performances from Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce as Bertie's brother, Edward, who abdicates, Claire Bloom as Queen Mary, Derek Jacobi as the Archbishop, and others. In addition to the great acting, the film's direction, photography and editing are also all first-class. Deservedly won Best Movie Oscar for 2010.

Verdict: Yes, they can still make great movies. ****.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS SEASON 7

ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS SEASON 7.

This was the final season of the half hour Hitchcock program; the following year it became The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Although AHP remained an entertaining series, and there were quite a few B+ episodes, it might have had the least "A" episodes of any season. These extra-good episodes include: the classic and suspenseful "Bang, You're Dead!" where little Billy Mumy walks off with a loaded gun; the taut "Profit Sharing," in which retiring Henry Jones steals money from his company and tries to run off to Havana with a blonde; the very interesting "Kerry Blue," directed by Paul Henreid, in which a man (Gene Evans) blames his wife (Carmen Mathews) for the death of his beloved dog [both Evans  and Mathews are excellent]; and "Sorcerer's Apprentice," in which a carnival tramp (Diana Dors) takes advantage of a simple-minded runaway (Brandon De Wilde) -- Robert Bloch's story is predictably gruesome but fun.Guest-stars for this season included Robert Redford, Hugh Marlowe, Barbara Steele, and many others.

Verdict: Not the best season but hardly boring. ***.

THE MYSTERY SQUADRON

THE MYSTERY SQUADRON (12 chapter Mascot serial/1933). Directors: Colbert Clark and David Howard.

Down in San Juan, New Mexico, a "mystery squadron" led by an unknown villain called the Black Ace flies over an area where a dam is being constructed and performs acts of sabotage. Fred Cromwell (Bob Steele) and his buddy "Jellybean" (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams) try to get to the bottom of this mystery and uncover the identity of the Black Ace, although both of them are accused of being the culprit at one point. Other suspects include Superintendent Collins (J. Carrol Naish) and Doc Flint (Robert Fraser), both of whom offer the most notable performances in the serial [although Jack Mulhall is also good]. There is a lot of urgent exclaiming by the cast members throughout the movie, and more running around than you've ever seen, but the cliffhangers at the end of each chapter aren't very memorable. Nonetheless, the serial is entertaining and does manage to work up some suspense over the identity of ... the Black Ace!

Verdict: Not one of the best but still fun. ***.

TERROR IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE

TERROR IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE (aka My World Dies Screaming/1958). Director: Harold Daniels.

Philip Tierney (Gerald Mohr) has just married a woman he met in Switzerland named Sheila (Cathy O'Donnell). She is plagued with nightmares about a strange haunted house but hopes to leave all that behind her when she and new hubby leave for America. Unfortunately, the house Philip takes her to is the exact same house that she's been dreaming about! William Ching plays a cousin who seems to know more then he's telling. Among several problems with this movie is that Sheila is such a wimpy heroine, literally screaming at every noise and shadow -- although O'Donnell is a very good actress. This is a rare starring role for Mohr of Angry Red Planet. Ching mostly did television work but he was also in Buck Privates Come Home, Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap and The Mysterious Mr. M. This is actually a Gothic romance masquerading as a horror film. O'Donnell, who sometimes spelled her first name with a "K," also appeared in The Miniver Story, Amazing Mr. X and Ben-Hur. Sensitively scored by Darrell Calker.

Verdict: In spite of everything it holds the attention. **1/2. 

LETTER FROM AN UNKINOWN WOMAN (2004/CHINESE)

LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN aka
Yi ge mo sheng nu ren de lai xin (original title) (2004/Chinese). Director: Jinglei Xu.

"If you were to call me, even if I were in my tomb, I would gather my strength, get up, and go to you."

"There is nothing more terrible than to be alone with people all around."

In this adaptation of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig's story "Letter from an Unknown Woman" -- already filmed under that title by Hollywood in the 40's -- a young woman named Jiang (played by the director Jinglei Xu) develops an intense, life-long romantic obsession with a writer who lived near her when she was a girl. Although the story has moved from Austria to China and has been updated to a pre and post-WW2 period, this version is somewhat more faithful to the print source than the Hollywood version. The settings are colorful, and the production is well-served by handsome photography and a lovely musical score -- not to mention wonderful acting from the director-star and others in the cast. One problem with the movie is that, even given cultural differences, it is hard to believe that the object of the woman's obsessions, as portrayed by Wen Jiang, would inspire fantasies in pretty young girls. Jiang is not unattractive, but he's not exactly Louis Jourdan, either. Officer Huang [Haung Jiao], who romances the woman, is a bit more on the mark. [Admittedly romantic obsession often has little to do with looks.] Whatever its imperfections, this deliberately-paced movie is moving and altogether admirable. Some may even prefer it to the Hollywood version.

Verdict: A little gem from China. ***.

PLACE OF EXECUTION

Greg Wise and Juliet Stevenson

PLACE OF EXECUTION PBS Masterpiece Contemporary/2008. Director: Daniel Percival.

This was shown in three parts in the U.K. and in two parts here in the U.S. Based on a novel by  Val McDermid, this concerns a journalist, Catherine Heathcote (Juliet Stevenson), who is putting together a television documentary about the disappearance of a 13-year-old girl forty or so years earlier in the isolated town of Scardale. Her chief witness to these events is the former Detective Inspector George Bennett, who is played by Lee Ingleby in the frequent flashback sequences and by Philip Jackson as his older self [both are excellent, and indeed the acting in the mini-series in general is very good]. The chief suspect back in the day was the girl's stepfather, the snide Philip Hawkin (Greg Wise), but there were others as well. But now the formerly cooperative Bennett suddenly wants to pull out of the film, and Catherine doesn't know why, only that the townspeople seem to know more than they're telling. This is an absorbing, well-made telefilm for the most part, but it sort of falls apart with an ending that stretches credulity. Fans of the novel who were surprised by the final twist SPOILER ALERT have probably never seen Laura. Instead of being a real clever surprise that makes sense, the ending is merely contrived.

Verdict: Not bad, but was the novel [or this film] really a masterpiece? ***.

LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN (1948)

LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN (1948). Director: Max Ophuls.

"I came to offer you my whole life -- but you didn't even remember me."

Letter from an Unknown Woman is a movie that it seems you either love passionately or feel complete dispassion for, although on previous viewings I've always held the middle ground. I've finally begun to see this as a very good picture, but it has to be taken with a grain of salt. To those people who feel that there's no such thing as a one-man woman (or vice versa) -- or that such women are mentally diseased [and they may be right] -- Letter from an Unknown Woman  may seem more of a pathological study that a moving romantic movie.

The film is based on a story of the same name by Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, which is one of the most powerful and moving studies of unrequited love and romantic obsession ever written. [It is highly recommended for any lover of the short story/novella. It also explains a lot of Lisa's decisions that have appalled the film's detractors.] This Hollywood film version changes the object of desire from a writer to a composer and makes some other changes as well -- Lisa never gets married to anyone in the story --  although the basic substance remains the same. Lisa Berndle (Joan Fontaine) has loved a neighbor Stefan Brand (Louis Jourdan) since childhood. At first she worshiped from afar, but when she becomes an adult she has an affair with Brand, and even gives birth to his son (unknown to him). Unfortunately, Brand goes away for "two weeks" and she never sees him again ... until years later. The title refers to a letter Lisa sends Brand which forms the story of the movie, told in flashback.

Jourdan is excellent as the not evil but simply unknowing Brand. Fontaine is also excellent, although she's perhaps too sophisticated in the second half of the movie to make us believe she would fall for the same old lines from Brand [once bitten, twice shy, and all that].

Letter from an Unknown Woman was remade twice, first for French television in 2001 as Lettre d'une inconnue and then in 2004 in China. I will post about these in the near future, but for now I'll say that the Chinese version, despite changes in setting and era, is a actually more faithful to Zweig's story. 

Verdict: Memorable and moving. ***1/2.

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005)

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005). Director: Steven Spielberg.

I've never been overly impressed by most of Spielberg's films, but I have to admit he knocked one out of the ball park with this impressive adaptation of H. G. Well's wonderful novel. This compares favorably to George Pal's 1953 version. Updated to modern times, this details what happens when meteors fall all over the Earth and unleash tripods [with martians inside] that destroy or capture human beings. Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) does his best to protect his daughter, Rachel (Dakota Fanning) as some truly horrifying events, including an attack on a boat full of people, happen all around them. There are excellent special effects and also some pretty creepy and scary aliens on view. Well-acted [by Cruise, Tim Robbins in a supporting part, and others] and very well-directed by Spielberg. My only quibble is that some may feel that two hours of a little girl being terrorized doesn't add up to entertainment, but Spielberg always feels compelled to put children in danger in his movies.

Verdict: Eye-popping, thoroughly absorbing, and highly intense.***1/2.

LITTLE GIANT

LITTLE GIANT (1946).Director: William A. Seiter.

Bennie (Lou Costello) leaves his mother (Mary Gordon), gal Martha (Elena Verdugo), and farm and heads for the big city to find fame and fortune. An uncle gets him a job at a vacuum company where his unpleasant boss, Morrison (Bud Abbott) is secretly married to his secretary, Hazel (Jacqueline deWit). Morrison has a much nicer cousin, Chandler (also played by Abbott) who runs another branch of the same firm. Naturally Bennie has assorted misadventures trying to sell the firm's product. The best scene has him demonstrating a vacuum cleaner to Margaret Dumont, but why oh why isn't the sequence longer  -- I mean Lou Costello and Margaret Dumont! You would think they would have given the lady a little more screen time. Brenda Joyce makes a nice impression as a kind secretary, Ruby, who befriends the hapless Bennie.In a sub-plot wherein Hazel tries to get information from Bennie, the two sort of wind up in bed together!

Verdict: Good-natured, pleasant, and occasionally amusing as well. **1/2.

LOST CONTINENT (1951)

LOST CONTINENT (1951). Director:Sam Newfield.

When a firebird rocket designed by ex-Russian scientist Michael Rostov (John Hoyt) goes awry, Major Joe Nolan (Cesar Romero) is assigned to finding it so that they can figure out what went wrong. He takes Rostov and others along with him to the South Pacific and discovers the rocket, which terrified the natives, landed at the very top of a high mountain covered by fog. Although no one else seems interested in the rocket, Nolan decides everyone has to ascend to the mountain top immediately, even though they haven't got decent climbing shoes let alone any other standard equipment. In another bit of illogic, the oldest man on the team, Rostov, looks after the least athletic, Briggs (Whit Bissell), even though there are several younger, able-bodied men in the group. The interesting thing about Lost Continent is that the climbing scenes are quite well-done, and have some suspense, which dissipates for the most part the minute the men reach the top [where everything is bathed in a greenish tint] and some crudely animated stop-motion dinosaurs appear. These include a charging brontosaurus and two triceratops who get into a bloody battle. Hugh Beaumont (Michael Shayne, Leave it to Beaver), Sid Melton, and Chick Chandler are in the cast, as are Hillary Brooke and even Acquanetta, however briefly. The acting isn't bad and neither is the movie, all told. The movie with its plateau of monsters was obviously influenced by Doyle's The Lost World, filmed in the silent era and again in 1960.

Verdict: This could have used Ray Harryhausen FX, but it's still minor-league fun. ***.

PERRY MASON SEASON 5

Raymond Burr as Mason and Karl Held as law student David Gideon

PERRY MASON Season Five. CBS TV.

The 5th season of this durable series didn't begin too auspiciously with a few unexciting episodes, but it began to hit its stride with such stories as "The Meddling Medium" [a phony psychic with Kent Smith]; "The Left-Handed Liar" [intrigue at a health spa, with Les Tremayne and Joan Banks];  "Brazen Bequest" [strange doings at a college hoping for a huge cash gift]; "The Mystified Miner" [with Josephine Hutchinson as a kidnapped writer]; and "The Lonely Eloper" with John Dall and Jack Ging, among several others. The two best episodes of the season were arguably: "Renegade Refugee" [is a businessman a renegade Nazi or an American coward? --  with a fine performance from Dick Foran and an especially good script]; and "Counterfeit Crank"--  with Jeannette Nolan, Burt Reynolds, and an excellent Otto Kruger in one of the very best performances of his career. Another great episode, "Ancient Romeo," featured the stars of This Island Earth -- Rex Reason and Jeff Morrow -- as actors in a theatrical troupe [with Donald Curtis of It Came from Beneath the Sea along for good measure].

The character of law student David Gideon (Karl Held), who had been a defendant on the previous season, became a semi-regular. One assumes CBS hoped to ensnare some younger viewers, particularly females, with Held's youth and considerable sex appeal. He first shows up in "Missing Melody," appears in several episodes for a varying length of time, and has the most to do in the aforementioned "Left-Handed Liar." Held, who was appealing and professional, also called himself Christopher Held and Carl Held in later years, when he appeared on such programs as Falcon Crest.

Verdict: Perry is just unstoppable. ***1/2.

HENRY ALDRICH HAUNTS A HOUSE

HENRY ALDRICH HAUNTS A HOUSE  (1943). Director: Hugh Bennett. 

"Things are looking up for this town -- murder and everything!"  -- Dizzy.

 Henry Aldrich (Jimmy Lydon) is up to his usual tricks in this zany installment of the comedy series.  When school principal Bradley (Vaughan Glaser) disappears while going through an allegedly haunted house, Henry is convinced that his is responsible for his murder due to a certain formula he imbibed; he's certain it temporarily changed him into a hulking ghoul. Henry has fallen for the oh-so-intellectual daughter, Elise (Joan Mortimer), of a scientist, and both she and his pal Dizzy (Charles Smith) help Henry investigate the house and discover the truth. And who's that mummy in the basement? John Litel and Olive Blakeney play Henry's long-suffering parents adeptly; Lydon and Smith are just wonderful. While this isn't quite Hold That Ghost, it does have its moments.

Verdict: Suspenseful and amusing. ***.

DISTRICT 9

DISTRICT 9 (2009). Director: Neill Blomkamp.

An alien race that has been sequestered in a slum in Johannesburg learns that they are to be forcibly moved from their homes. In charge of their relocation is a man named Wikus (Sharlto Copley), but in an accident he begins to mutate into one of the "prawns," as the crustacean-like aliens are called, and needs to ally himself with them. Told in documentary fashion, this supposed sci fi version of apartheid seems derivative of  a lot of other movies [such as Robocop] and despite some interesting elements is a tedious effort to sit through. Produced by Peter Jackson. Whatever you want to call it, this is not good movie-making.

Verdict: Pretty awful. *

TO CATCH A THIEF

Kelly and Grant in To Catch a Thief

TO CATCH A THIEF (1955). Director: Alfred Hitchcock.

John Robie (Cary Grant), who used to be a thief known as the Cat before becoming a hero in the resistance, is suspected of a new series of burglaries on the Riviera, especially by his former comrades. Annoyed by the whole situation, he decides to track down the real culprit by getting close to potential victims, such as wealthy American Jessie Stevens (Jessie Royce Landis) and her beautiful daughter Frances (Grace Kelly), with whom he gets very close. While this may lack the intensity of other Hitchcock, movies, it is also smooth, well-made, and full of fine acting and wonderful dialogue [courtesy of John Michael Hayes]. Grant and Kelly are as wonderful as ever, as is Landis, and John Williams -- one of Hitch's favorites -- is as usual on the money as insurance man Hughson. Playing the daughter of one of Robie's old associates, Brigitte Auber may have been younger than Kelly but the latter pretty much blows the former out of the water. All this and a nifty car chase sequence, too.

Verdict: Hitchcock treading water maybe, but who treads water with more -- pun intended -- grace? ***

LE CORBEAU

LE CORBEAU (The Raven/1943). Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot. 

In a small French town an unknown individual is mailing poison pen letters to many residents, inciting suspicion and paranoia. Suspects include the old nurse Marie Corbin (Helena Mason), the new doctor in town, Germaine (Pierre Fresnay), the elderly Dr. Vorzet (Pierre Larquey), his younger wife, Laura (Micheline Francey), and pretty Denise (Ginette Leclerc), who has a yen for Dr. Germaine. As the town gossips have a field day with all the alleged information vomited from the letters, one man is driven to suicide. This is an intriguing, well-acted movie, with an especially memorable sequence when one of the suspects runs through the narrow streets with an angry crowd in pursuit. This was the basis for a very creditable American remake made eight years letter, Otto Preminger's The 13th Letter, which arguably might have a slight edge on the original, making more out of certain key sequences. In any language, however, the story is fascinating.

Verdict: Absorbing foreign film ***.

VOODOO WOMAN

VOODOO WOMAN (1957). Director: Edward L. Cahn.

"We're going into the jungle to bring back a secret recipe for borscht -- there's millions in it, ha, ha, ha!"

For reasons that are never quite delineated, Dr. Roland Gerard (Tom Conway) is trying to make a grotesque, super-strong gorilla-like monster (Paul Blaisdell) out of a pretty native girl, Zuranda (Jean Davis) in the jungle; his wife, Susan (Mary Ellen Kay), has come to realize that her husband is seriously disturbed. In the meantime, a cold-blooded woman named Marilyn (Marla English) has enlisted a guide, Ted (Mike Connors) to take her deep into the jungle looking for treasure -- and a fateful meeting with Dr. Gerard. This is an utterly absurd, but highly entertaining horror flick featuring a vivid Marla English, who also starred in Cahn's The She-Creature and the Bel-Air production Three Bad Sisters. This would be a perfect double-bill with Voodoo Island.

Verdict: Lively, fast-paced, and a lot of fun. ***.

ST. TRINIAN'S

The St. Trinian's girls leave their mark on the Eton boys

ST. TRINIAN'S (2007). Directors: Oliver Parker; Barnaby Thompson.

Carnaby Fritton (Rupert Everett) brings his daughter Annabelle (Talulah Riley) to the girl's school run by his sister Camilla (Everett again, impersonating a more famous British Camilla), where Annabelle is at first dismayed by her classmates and then accepted by them. In this remake of The Belles of St. Trinian's, Colin Firth plays an educational minister, Thwaites, who wants to shut down the school with its unruly students and uncouth headmistress for good. In truth, the school, is about to be shuttered due to major debts, so the girls come up with a wild scheme to steal a famous painting during a quiz show. (They manage to win by seducing the boys from Eton and other tricks.) Everett continues the tradition begun by Alistair Sim in playing the headmistress in drag, but while amusing enough, he's neither as good nor as funny as Sim. It's been years since I saw the original movie, but as I recall it had charm, and this new version has no charm whatsoever. The movie is only sporadically amusing, such as when Camilla and Thwaites, who were once lovers, remark about "another time, another country" in an in-joke: Everett and Firth played best friends in the film Another Country. Gemma Arterton makes an impression as Kelly.  St. Trinian's was followed by a sequel in 2009.

Verdict: Might have looked good on paper. **.

CARTE BLANCHE JEFFERY DEAVER NEW JAMES BOND NOVEL

CARTE BLANCHE THE NEW JAMES BOND NOVEL. Jeffery Deaver. Simon and Schuster; 20ll.

In the first new James Bond novel since Sebastian Faulke's disappointing Devil May Care  in 2008, top American thriller writer Jeffery Deaver [The Bone Collector] takes over the franchise and doesn't do a half-bad job. Bond has learned from intel that thousands of people are going to be killed in an attack, but the trick is in tracking down the details and saving all of those lives. The chief suspects are waste management man Severan Hydt and his right-hand man Niall Dunne, and Bond's allies include two beautiful ladies, an African police chief and a woman who raises money to feed the hungry. Deaver keeps the pages moving adeptly and suspensefully and has a couple of clever twists. However, while Carte Blanche is a good read and a good book, it doesn't have the sheer richness of the best of Ian Fleming [Man with the Golden Gun, among others] and also lacks that nail-biting tension, explosive violence, memorable antagonists, and wild paranoia of the best of John Gardner's 007 novels [Scorpius; Win, Lose or Die; Nobody Lives Forever.]  Still Bond fans should rejoice that 007 remains a very interesting and viable character. Bond and his writers have had to make some adjustments to the character as he goes from decade to decade and have generally done a good job in updating some of his attitudes. Meanwhile, work on the latest Bond movie seems to have come to a halt. We'll see.

Verdict: Not a bad bet for 007 fans if not without flaws. ***.

PREDATORS

PREDATORS (2010). Director: Nimrod Antal.

In this latest film in the Predator series  -- the original film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger -- a group of men and one woman wake up to find themselves falling with parachutes from an unknown aircraft. It also turns out to be an unknown world they're on. The kidnapped humans all seem to have one thing in common: good guy or bad they are tough characters [or "predators"] who are used to killing, and now they find themselves hunted by the same alien species that bedeviled Schwarzenegger and crew in an Earth jungle in the first film. Predeators has superior scenic design, photography and effects work and moves at a fast, suspenseful pace, but it is especially bolstered by the acting and incisive characterizations. Adrien Brody is better than you would expect as the nominal hero, Royce, a mercenary with no sentimental streak, but then Brody seems to be one of those actors who can play just about anything. Alice Braga is fine as Isabelle, a tough soldier who is not without compassion, and Topher Grace scores as the doctor, Edwin, who at first seems out of place with the rest of the group. The supporting cast is also good. Laurence Fishburne plays such an interesting character that it's a shame he gets killed off so quickly. This is slick filmmaking; the only problem is that it all seems a little over-familiar and somewhat predictable.

Verdict: Mostly for Predators fans, who should enjoy. **1/2.

SUNRISE AT CAMPOBELLO

SUNRISE AT CAMPOBELLO (1960). Director: Vincent J. Donehue.

Based on the play by Dore Schary, Sunrise at Campobello takes place in the 1920's in the days when future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Ralph Bellamy) was stricken with polio. With the help of his wife Eleanor (Greer Garson), his mother (Ann Shoemaker), children and close friends, Roosevelt not only comes to terms with his affliction, but rises ever higher in the political arena. Bellamy first played the role on the stage, and he's fine, if a bit artificial at times. Garson is quite good as Eleanor, although at first her prominent buck teeth are a distraction. But as good as the leads are, the film is practically stolen by Ann Shoemaker, superb as Roosevelt's concerned if somewhat domineering mother, and Hume Cronyn as Roosevelt's friend and associate Louis Howe. These two fine actors play characters who don't especially like each other [at least Mrs. Roosevelt finds Howe vulgar], and their crackling scenes together are the highlights of the movie. Serial king Lyle Talbot shows up briefly as another politician. Sunrise at Campobello is overlong, but it's moving and generally effective.

Verdict: Worth seeing for Shoemaker if nothing else. ***1/2.

BLACK SWAN

BLACK SWAN (2010). Director: Darren Aronofsky.

This psychological thriller [or whatever you want to call it] with a ballet backdrop features all the usual elements of such movies: a dancer falling for her teacher; jealous rivalries among dancers; and so on, then adds a twist in that the lead character, Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), who is dancing the role of the swan in a new production of Swan Lake, is mentally unraveling as the date of her debut in the role rapidly approaches. She begins to have strange, sometimes sexual, and often violent hallucinations. Just as the character she portrays in the ballet has a light and dark side, so does Nina, with tragic results. Portman deservedly won an Oscar for her portrayal, and she is the glue that makes the film the riveting twaddle that it is. But despite its good points -- including the fact that it is absorbing and very well acted [Barbara Hershey, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, and Winona Ryder are also excellent in important supporting roles] -- Black Swan is a bit overwrought and occasionally silly, threatening to collapse into [literal] hysterics at any moment. A girl-on-girl sex scene seems to have been thrown in for all the wrong reasons, and does nothing to delineate character. [If the implication is that this is one more indication of Nina embracing her "dark" side, it's a bit regressive, but I suppose it could also suggest she's shedding her inhibitions. But why have a gay sex scene, even a fantasy, without real gay characters? It's like the filmmakers said, "guys won't want to take their girlfriends to a film about ballet, but when they find out it has two chicks gettin' it on...!"] Ultimately, Black Swan holds the attention but its chief appeal is Portman's and the other performances. It's undeniably arresting, but doesn't hold up under close scrutiny.

Verdict: Portman and the rest of the cast deserve kudos. ***.

GOING MY OWN WAY: GARY CROSBY AND ROSS FIRESTONE

GOING MY OWN WAY Gary Crosby and Ross Firestone. Doubleday; 1983.

If you ever wanted to learn what it's like growing up in the shadow of a famous father, Going My Own Way provides a very raw and sharply observed [if highly personal] answer. Gary Crosby [A Private's Affair], who had his own comparatively minor career in show biz that was curtailed and nearly derailed by alcoholism, was the first of four sons born to crooner and movie star Bing Crosby with his first wife, Dixie Lee. [Bing had other children with his second wife, Kathryn Grant.] In this absorbing book, which isn't just a "daddy dearest," Gary writes that the home life for him and his three younger brothers wasn't the idyllic picture that his father and alcoholic mother presented to the public. Today Bing might probably be considered a kind of child abuser, although corporal punishment was fairly standard for the day. Much of the book, however fascinating, must be taken with a grain of salt, as Gary -- with the help of Ross Firestone, an excellent writer -- of course tells a very subjective story, strictly his side of things, relating how he felt when he was a child and younger man. Was Bing simply a poor father who saved his good will and pleasant nature for his fans and co-workers, or was Gary an utterly impossible child who needed more discipline than most? You can decide for yourself. The late Gary Crosby [he died of cancer at 62] spares us nothing, from how he made out with an [unknown to him] drag queen whom he later beat up, and also beat his black girlfriend up while under the influence of alcohol. Whatever you think of the book, it isn't easy being the child of a celebrity, especially one who's so busy, so popular, and so distant. Two of Gary's younger brothers committed suicide. While Mommie Dearest was mostly made-up crap, Going My Own Way has the ring of truth, albeit it's understandably one-sided. One of the first tell-all Hollywood memoirs.

Verdict: Absorbing, very well-written, and in some ways horrifying. ***1/2.

THE OMEN (2006)

THE OMEN (2006). Director: John Moore.

This remake of the 1976 Omen suffers in comparison in large part because the somewhat odd-looking lead actors can't match the original leads (Gregory Peck, Lee Remick), who had more experience and more authority. Liev Schreiber plays a younger Robert Thorne, and his wife Katherine is played by Julia Stiles, who somewhat resembles a cabbage patch doll. As in the original -- this pretty much follows the 1976 movie almost scene for scene, with some differences -- Thorn unknowingly replaces his own murdered baby son with the son of a jackal, the demon spawn of Hell. Mia Farrow [interesting casting!] is not bad as the nasty nanny, Mrs. Baylock, but she isn't nearly as memorable as Billie Whitelaw in the original. The scene with the little devil boy in the zoo falls flat, but the impalement of the priest is well done, and there's a clever variation of the beheading of the photographer. The remake adds another violent death early on, as Thorn replaces the man initially chosen to be ambassador after the latter is parboiled when his car catches fire. Marco Beltrami's music is okay, but doesn't stay in the memory like Jerry Goldsmith's eerie strains for the original. Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick makes an adorable little devil, and David Thewlis and Pete Postlethwaite are effective as, respectively, the aforementioned doomed photographer and priest.

Verdict: See the original. **1/2.

THE WISTFUL WIDOW OF WAGON GAP

THE WISTFUL WIDOW OF WAGON GAP (1947). Director: Charles Barton.

"Marriage is a three ring circus. First there's the engagement ring. Then the wedding ring. And then comes the suffering!"  

Duke Egan (Bud Abbott) and Chester Wooley (Lou Costello) are out in the wild west when the latter is accused of murdering drunken gambler Hawkins. Chester is told that he's now responsible for the Widow Hawkins (Marjorie Main) and her brood of several children of varying ages. Bud and Lou move onto the widow's farm, where Mrs. Hawkins tries to sweet talk Chester into marrying her. Because no one else wants to be responsible for the widow and her kids, Chester discovers that no desperado will shoot him -- and is therefore made the sheriff! It's fun seeing Lou Costello and the great Marjorie Main teamed together, though considering the pairing one would have hoped for a more side-splitting movie. Still, Wistful Widow is generally amusing and boasts one classic bit, wherein Lou is bedeviled by a frog in his soup! Abbott and Costello are both at the top of their game and Main is just marvelous. William Ching plays a good guy, and Gordon Jones, star of the first Green Hornet serial, is a saloon owner and stage coach robber.


Verdict: Cute picture for fans. **1/2.

THE VIGILANTE

THE VIGILANTE (15 chapter Columbia serial/1947.) Director: Wallace Fox.

"These days all you've got to do is take a good-looking guy, give him a hat, black boots and a white horse and you've got a star."

The Vigilante, a super-hero who appeared in Action Comics in the 1940's, gets the serial treatment in this cliffhanger from Columbia. Greg Sanders (Ralph Byrd of the Dick Tracy movies and serials) is a cowboy hero in the movies by day, and the roving action hero Vigilante by night. The plot has to do with a herd of beautiful horses and the curse of the "tears of blood" -- referring to pearls that are secreted in their horseshoes.The mysterious "X-1," whose identity is no surprise and who operates out of a nightclub, wants the horses and the pearls and will kill anyone who gets in his way. Byrd is good, Lyle Talbot is Lyle Talbot, Ramsay Ames (The Mummy's Ghost; Calling Dr. Death) is better than usual as the nominal heroine, and George Offerman Jr. makes for a very amiable sidekick, Stuff. Offerman had small roles in the serials The Master Key and Batman and Robin, and appeared in a great many movies, mostly uncredited. The Vigilante even has a couple of pleasant song numbers but, unfortunately, most of its cliffhangers are very prosaic.

Verdict: Entertaining in spite of itself. **1/2.

THE OMEN (1976)

THE OMEN (1976). Director: Richard Donner.

"She is an apostate of Hell -- she will die before permitting this."

Undoubtedly influenced by The Exorcist, which came out three years earlier, this movie was almost as influential in its own way, and also engendered several sequels and even a remake -- and is just as sub-literate [but somewhat better than The Exorcist]. An even bigger influence on the film must have been Rosemary's Baby (1968). Ambassador Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck)  is told that his baby son has died, and is importuned into accepting another child [who supposedly lost his mother in childbirth] without telling his wife, Katherine (Lee Remick), who fails to bond with the boy, Damian (Harvey Stephens). It turns out that Damian is actually the anti-Christ [Rosemary's Baby as a child?]: Satanists, in the form of nanny Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw), want to protect and nurture him, while certain Catholic priests want to murder him -- a mere child! [DIGRESSION: It never occurs to anyone that there is a possibility that being raised by normal, decent people the boy might grow up to be something other than a devil. But the real problem with the movie is that it doesn't give the audience any breathing room. Damian is the devil's son -- and that's that. How much more interesting the film might have been if the Satanists and priests were all a little nuts. In fact, the priests in this movie seem quite demented.] All that being said, it must also be said that The Omen -- on its own anti-intellectual terms -- is a rather accomplished little horror film, with some interesting sequences and set-pieces -- an eerie scene in a graveyard; some flamboyant, well-handled and gruesome death scenes --  and assured direction from Donner. The acting is also generally excellent, with an intense and authoritative Peck possibly giving the best performance of his life, his sheer solidity helping the audience go along with the absurdity of the proceedings. Lee Remick, David Warner [as a doomed photographer], and little Harvey Stephens are also excellent, and Billie Whitelaw is just superb as the nanny quite literally from Hell. Jerry Goldsmith's memorably creepy score holds all of it together splendidly.

Verdict: If you don't take it seriously this is really quite entertaining. ***.

IN SOCIETY

IN SOCIETY (aka Abbott and Costello in Society/1944). Director: Jean Yarbrough.

"Oh, you men are all alike. I clean and slave all day and you bring in all the dust. Oh, you men!"  -- Lou referring to Bud.

Bud and Lou are plumbers who are called in to plug a leak in a grumpy millionaire's bathroom while a masquerade party goes on downstairs. In the film's funniest sequence, the boys wind up flooding the whole bedroom! This is a cute minor comedy wherein the fellows accidentally get invited to yet another society bash hosted by Mrs. Winthrop (Irene Dunne lookalike Margaret Irving). Her snooty daughter, Gloria (Ann Gillis), has set her cap for handsome rich dude Peter Evans (Kirby Grant), but he only has eyes for Lou's crush, Elsie (Marion Hutton), a cab driver who takes the fellows to fix the leak and is mistaken for a guest at the first party. Then there's a gangster who wants the fellows to help him rob the mansions they service, and some nonsense about an expensive painting that is stolen from the gathering. Marion Hutton was the older sister of Betty Hutton and only made a few films. Her acting is unimpressive but her singing is another story. Ann Gillis also nicely warbles a tune, accompanied by The Three Sisters, an undistinguished lookalike imitation of the Andrews Sisters; they only appeared in this one movie. The songs in In Society are especially pleasant: "No bout adout it ( I mean no doubt about it)"; "Rehearsing;" "My Dreams are Getting Better All the Time;" "What a Change in My Heart." An old vaudeville bit regarding the Susquehanna Hat Shop is amusing but goes on a little too long. Arthur Treacher plays a butler with his customary panache.

Verdict: Not top-notch A & C but it's fun. **1/2.