DANGEROUS ANIMALS

 I've said it before but it seems to me that Australian serial killer movies are ten a penny so if they are to make any kind of mark they really need to up the ante which is what "Dangerous Animals" does ten times over. The premis is very simple; Jennifer Lawrence lookalike Hassie Harrison finds herself prisoner on a fishing boat  in shark-infested waters skippered by mad, bad and very dangerous to know Jai Courtney who has a habit of feeding his catches to the sharks. 

Needless to say none of what happens to Hassie or her boyfriend Josh Heuston, who comes to her rescue, is particularly pleasant, (this is a very violent film), but director Sean Byrne knows how to keep the suspense at boiling point and provide a few very neat twists in what is basically a tired genre and this one had me yelling at the screen, something I haven't done in quite awhile. In fact, I have a feeling that "Dangerous Animals" could be a cult classic of the future. It's certainly the best shark film I've seen since "Jaws".

EDDINGTON

 With only four feature films to his credit Ari Aster has already become one of those directors whose name screams 'auteur' or maybe just 'cult' as he hasn't quite cut it yet at the box-office, (his detractors will say he's been working his way down since his first feature "Hereditary" and since nothing he's done since has been as successful either critically or commercially, they may he right), but if his subsequent films haven't quite nailed it there are few American filmmakers this ambitious.

A genre director Aster has always worked outside the box, subverting our expectations at every turn. Fundamentally he makes horror movies but they are not like anything else in the field. These are nightmares that sneak up on you and his latest, "Eddington" has its own nightmare already built into its scenario. Set in 2020 Covid has hit America if not the small town of Eddington, at least according to its covid-denying sheriff, (another superb Joaquin Phoenix performance), whose stance pits him against the town's mayor, (Pedro Pascal), so Joaquin decides to run for mayor, too. Meanwhile far from Eddington the Black Lives Matter movement is gaining ground and suddenly it seems the outside world is coming to town and not in a good way.

A black and bloody comedy "Eddington", like "Midsommar" and "Beau is Afraid" before it, can't quite sustain its length nor can Aster fully tie the many threads of his plot satisfactorily together but if you want to call this a failure it's definitely a brilliant one; smart, crazy, prescient and displaying real imagination. It also confirms its writer/director as someone whose films are fast becoming 'event' movies and who surely must have a masterpiece waiting in the wings.

FLESH AND THE DEVIL

 If "Flesh and the Devil" is remembered at all today it's for the onscreen passion of Gilbert and Garbo but there's a lot more to this tragic melodrama which is one of the last great silent films. There's Clarence Brown's direction for one thing, keeping the novelistic plot sensible and approachable and drawing from his two leads beautifully modulated performances and then there's William Daniel's splendid cinematography, (it's little wonder actresses loved him). The plot itself is that old chestnut of two friends falling out over a faithless woman, (Garbo milking it for all its worth), but in Brown's hands it takes on the status of potentially real tragedy. This is a film that really deserves to be better known.

THE OPPOSITE SEX

 OK, so it's not "The Women" and David Miller is no George Cukor but this 1956 musical remake has a cracker cast, is in Cinemascope and color and retains enough bitchy dialogue to make it something of a treat albeit a minor one. In their own way even the musical numbers are above average but it's that cast, (June Allyson, Joan Collins, Ann Sheridan, Dolores Gray, Ann Miller, Joan Blondell, Agnes Moorehead), that makes it so enjoyable.

Since the title is "The Opposite Sex" this version's got men, in this case Leslie Nielsen, Jeff Richards, Sam Levene, Alan Marshall and Dick Shawn amongst others and while not really necessary, (Cukor managed without them), are not unwelcome even if none of them can compete with the dames.

Allyson is a lot tougher than Norma Shearer was though poor Joan Collins is no match for Crawford but Dolores Gray makes for a perfect bitch and Ann Sheridan steals her scenes as the tough-talking broad who sticks by her friend. At best it's entertaining froth and very watchable but the original is the Real McCoy.

THE LICKERISH QUARTET

 This infamous soft-core porn movie is notorious, not for its sex scenes which are tame by any standards, but for its pretensions to be 'about something'. "The Lickerish Quartet" finds director Radley Metzger stepping into the shoes of Antonioni only to find they don't fit at all. This is porn for the art-house crowd, (the so-called 'dirty mac' brigade would get bored very quickly), but then the art-house crowd would see through this immediately, (it's way too glossy to pass for camp).

Shot in Eastman Colour it's certainly easy on the eye and whatever Silvana Venturelli lacks in acting talent she undoubtedly makes up for in looks. The only 'name' in the cast is Frank Wolff who, despite some energetic humping, doesn't look particularly happy. (he committed suicide only three years later). Perhaps best seen as a curio it's just weird enough to be of passing interest.

SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL

 "Shake Hands with the Devil" isn't much of a movie and its plot, set during the Irish War of Independence, takes some swallowing and yet in its crude way it's highly entertaining. James Cagney, sporting an atrocious Irish accent, is the IRA (here simply referred to as The Organization), commander who takes his role perhaps more seriously than might be necessary, Don Murray is the young Irish-American who is drawn into 'the cause', Dana Wynter, the English girl who is taken hostage and Glynis Johns, again sporting another atrocious Irish accent, the colleen in love with Murray.

The excellent cast also includes Michael Redgrave as 'The General' (I'll take the role but I'm not putting on an Irish accent) and Dame Sybil Thorndike as Lady Fitzhugh, (Countess Markievicz in all but name), while the Irish players include Richard Harris, Donal Donnelly, Cyril Cusack and Ray McNally. Politically it's all over the shop; is it pro-IRA? pro-British? Or are we just meant to enjoy it as another Cagney gangster movie in an Irish setting? Regardless, it's a cracking yarn well directed by Michael Anderson and clearly aimed at the American market. Just don't take it too seriously.

HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS

 It isn't very often that you are tempted to call a film unique but "Hundreds of Beavers" is definitely one of a kind, a wordless, if not silent, black and white slapstick comedy that could have come from the very dawn of cinema but is, in fact, visually highly sophisticated. It is the product of the imagination of Mike Cheslik, (director and co-writer), and the delightfully named Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, (star and fellow co-writer), and it looks like a Guy Maddin film though it's much funnier than anything Maddin ever did.

I won't even attempt to describe the plot or lack of one except to say it all takes place in some icy wilderness, has one leading actor, (Tews), a few supporting actors and a lot of people dressed as bears, beavers, wolves, rabbits etc. and that the opening credits only appear after the movie has been on for about 30 minutes or so and that we aren't given the title until well past the hour mark. It won't be to everyone's taste but if you're a fan of Pythonesque comedy you'll find a lot to like here. A true cult classic,

KINGS OF THE ROAD

 Wim Wenders' "Kings of the Road" comes as close to naturalism, or to what I prefer to call 'actuality', as cinema gets. While the narrative relies heavily on the tropes of narrative cinema the presentation is anything but conventional. Wenders allows his film to evolve in a way that seems wholly to belong to the characters on the screen and not to the actors, the writer or the director, (Wenders, in both cases).

There is a plot of sorts. Bruno, (Rudiger Vogler), travels to towns along the East German border repairing cinema equipment. Robert, (Hanns Zischler), is the man who drives his car into a river while Bruno is having a rest break and who then settles into the passenger seat of Bruno's truck. They travel together, never quite becoming friends. It's almost as if Wender's allows them control over their own stories with both actors simply becoming the characters they are playing.

It's a long film, (three hours). with little resembling narrative action. It's like a documentary with a few divertissements along the way reminding us that however naturalistic it might seem it's only a 'film' after all, (a pick-up in a cinema that is neither sexual or romantic, 'borrowing' a motorcycle for a jaunt into the past). It is also a love letter to cinema and to American cinema in particular, a road movie about movies that should please the most ardent of cinephiles and which is certainly the equal of "Wings of Desire" and "Paris, Texas" in the Wenders' canon.

THE WRONG MAN

 Perhaps because it isn't a conventional suspense picture or perhaps because it's just so downbeat Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man" isn't much revived and yet it's one of his greatest films. It's the story of 'Manny' Balestrero, a totally innocent New Yorker identified by several people as an armed robber. If it were fiction we would call it Kafkaesque but this is fact. Balestrero's reactions as to what's  happening to him are as blank and unresponsive as Joseph K's and Henry Fonda is simply magnificent in the role, (it may be his finest performance), and as befits the seriousness of the subject matter Hitchcock films it almost as if it were a documentary, Brilliantly shot in black and white by Robert Burks and with a surprisingly muted Bernard Herrmann score this is an astonishing and deeply moving work. Absolutely essential.

LADY ON A TRAIN

 

As murder-comedies go "Lady on a Train" is certainly one of the best, if also one of the least known. It's a Deanna Durbin vehicle, (yes, she sings and charmingly), and a screwball comedy of the first rank, (the supporting cast includes Edward Everett Horton, Elizabeth Patterson and, although he gets star billing, Ralph Bellamy in a relatively small role, at least for him).

Deanna is the lady on the train who, like Miss Marple, sees a murder from the train window and sets out, like the scatterbrain amateur detective she is, to solve the case aided and abetted by crime novelist David Bruce (excellent). Throw in the likes of Dan Duryea, George Coulouris and Allen Jenkins as suitably shady characters and it's anybody's guess who the killer might be. More than just a guilty pleasure this Charles David directed movie is a little gem that is well worth seeking out.

VICTIM

 During his lifetime Dirk Bogarde never admitted to being gay and before his death he destroyed many of his private papers. Nevertheless, his sexuality has long been an open secret and Bogarde's desire to keep his private life private had to be respected. It was, therefore, an astonishingly brave decision to take on the role of Melville Farr, the closeted gay barrister who is willing to 'come out' in order to break a blackmailing ring in Basil Dearden's pioneering thriller "Victim".

Bogarde says he chose the part because he wanted to break free of the matinée idol roles he had played up to that time but by doing so he risked alienating his fan-base. Of course, by playing Farr and subsequent similar roles in films like "The Servant" and "Death in Venice" it could be argued that he was vicariously acting out on screen what he was feeling in real life.

That "Victim" was made at all is as astonishing as Bogarde's decision to take the lead. This was 1961 and homosexuality was still illegal in Britain. "Victim" broke new ground by making it the central theme and by making the gay characters sympathetic, the victims of the title, and by making the law, (at least in the form of John Barrie's investigating copper), sympathetic to their plight. This was a crusading work and is today largely credited with bringing about the change in the law that decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults in Great Britain.

Viewed today it is, of course, both melodramatic and didactic. At times it seems the characters aren't saying lines but making speeches. As a thriller it's reasonably exciting, (it's got sufficient red-herrings to keep us guessing), and Dearden admitted that without the thriller element the film might never have been made. (He did something similar with racism in the film "Sapphire").

"Victim" also featured a number of other gay actors in the cast, notably Dennis Price, superb as an ageing actor, and the actor/director Hilton Edwards. Whatever his motives for taking on the role, Bogarde is superb and he has at least one great scene when he finally admits his true nature to his wife, beautifully played by Sylvia Syms. There is certainly no doubt the film has dated and yet it remains one of the greatest of all gay movies.