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gromit
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 5:50 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Picked up a Columbia Pics film noir set:

The Sniper (1952) - directed by Edward Dmytrik and starring Adolphe Menjou, Arthur Franz, and Gerald Mohr.
5 Against the House (1955) - directed by Phil Karlson and starring Brian Keith, Guy Madison, Alvy Moore, and Kim Novak.
The Lineup (1958) directed by Don Siegel and starring Eli Wallach and Robert Keith.
Murder by Contract (1958) directed by Irving Lerner and starring Vince Edwards as a well-mannered college-educated young man who just figures that being a hitman is a good way to make a living.
The Big Heat (1953) directed by Fritz Lang and starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Lee Marvin.

Watched The Lineup last night.
Pretty good noir.
Apparently it was based on a Tv show (which had been based on a radio program, though how a police lineup works dramatically on radio is beyond me). In any case, this feels like Don Siegel's tune-up for The Killers.

In Lineup, Siegel has an odd pair of killers. Eli Wallach is a ruthless sociopath, who travels with his skeletal mentor who tries to keep Wallach focused and give him a veneer of social manners. It's an odd pairing of an older criminal gent tutoring and keeping in line the younger hitman protege. Actually there are good character actors in all of the roles.

The film is about a drug smuggling operation that sells statues and knickknacks loaded with heroin to unsuspecting law-abiding citizens on vacation in Asia, who then unwittingly smuggle the smack into the US. It's an interesting premise, except for the small problem of retrieving the drugs which, in all 4 instances in the film, goes wrong enough so that the first three end up in 4 deaths and the last one is an even bigger mess.

It would have seemed easier to merely buy the items from the carriers for what would seem to them a high price, or break in and steal only the drugs within the items and leave nothing apparently missing. Instead things get seriously bungled. Another tiny flaw is that in two out of the four cases, the carriers find the drug; one knows what H is while the other one doesn't. So half the shipments are found out by the carriers, the police get one, and the criminals get only two, and San Fran is littered with bodies.

The film is most fun and unpredictable when following Wallach and his mentor, the other half of the film is a police procedural, with two detectives trailing the drugs/hitmen/bodies in conventional tough 50's form. The film keeps a good pace so you don't really notice the flaws I mentioned, and the tight one day time frame adds tension (though would seem to greatly increase the chances of error). It does add an interesting element of unease that all of this nasty business is conducted in broad daylight amidst lots of nice location shots all over old San Francisco.

Good film.
Very Don Siegel.
The guy was good at this stuff.


Last edited by gromit on Tue Dec 01, 2009 9:13 am; edited 1 time in total

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whiskeypriest
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 7:22 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
lissa wrote:
I have yet to see Adaptation...now that I'm a NetFlix-esque member, I think I'll put it in my queue.

(*grins* I've always wanted to say that!!)
Cool
I think the world of Adaptation, but then I am a sucker for Charlie Kaufman's stuff - provided he leaves directing to an actual director. But please, after Nashville.

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marantzo
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:03 am Reply with quote
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Murder by Contract (1958) directed by Irving Lerner and starring Vince Edwards as a well-mannered college-educated young man who just figures that being a hitman is a good way to make a living.

It's alive, it's alive! I always wondered if it would ever be released on a disc. It's one of my, not so secret, pleasures. The Austrian critic from our NYTFF days (I think yunfat was his moniker), and I were two big fans of this movie that just about no one saw. Must have cost about $12.50 to make. I had it in my top 100 list back in those days of the NYTFF. Hope you like it gromit.
marantzo
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:06 am Reply with quote
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I liked Adaptation, but I thought it fell apart in the last twenty minutes or so. It changes pace and becomes a different movie. Strange.
billyweeds
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:41 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
I saw Murder by Contract and agree that it was a first-rate B movie.
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whiskeypriest
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:41 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
marantzo wrote:
I liked Adaptation, but I thought it fell apart in the last twenty minutes or so. It changes pace and becomes a different movie. Strange.
It is supposed to. It's the part Donald wrote.

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lady wakasa
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 2:46 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 5911 Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
Has anyone heard of the movie The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes? I saw it when looking up something else, but it looks kind of interesting.

I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this[

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lissa
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 2:52 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 2148 Location: my computer
whiskey - YES! Nashville goes into the queue first. In fact, I just did that. Finally!

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Joe Vitus
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 3:50 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
lady wakasa wrote:
Has anyone heard of the movie The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes? I saw it when looking up something else, but it looks kind of interesting.

I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this
I will not buy this[


Haven't head of it, but I love the title.

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Befade
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 4:14 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 3784 Location: AZ
I loved the Orchid Thief, the book Adaptation was based on. Scuzzy goings-on in the Florida swamps. Orchids are fascinating.

I'm sure you can imagine Daniel Craig having a fling with Julie Christie? But what if Daniel Craig wasn't such a hunk.......but an aimless, scruffy, underfed, handy-builder guy? In walks Anne Reid suggesting they go to the spare room. She a 60 year old woman like Julie Christie......but unlike her in that she looks like most 60 year old women.

Well.......this is the drama that plays out in The Mother....a movie that apparently noone but the BBC wanted to touch. It's worth seeing though none of the characters are really likeable but it's certainly a film with alot of intimacy.

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whiskeypriest
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 4:21 pm Reply with quote
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Befade wrote:
Julie Christie?
She can't even comb her hair!

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gromit
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 4:25 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
lady wakasa wrote:
Has anyone heard of the movie The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes? I saw it when looking up something else, but it looks kind of interesting.

There are some interesting parts, and I like the basic warped conception and attempt, but overall felt it was a miss. Just didn't sustain anything or have much cohere.
I'd rec the Quays animated short films.
Institute Benjamenta was similar to Piano Tuner in that there's a decent core, a few good set pieces, but it all gets kinds of bogged down and the fetishism gets worn.

I preferred Svankmajer's Faust which I thought was great fun. I still talk like the Devil in the film on occasion (the cat especially enjoys that impersonation). Or if you want live action, I liked Little Otik better than both of the Quay live action films. I've never seen Svankmajer's Alice which is suppose to be ingenious.

But all of these films are kind of weird and skewed and off-kilter.

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lady wakasa
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 4:42 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 5911 Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
Befade wrote:
I loved the Orchid Thief, the book Adaptation was based on. Scuzzy goings-on in the Florida swamps. Orchids are fascinating.

I'm sure you can imagine Daniel Craig having a fling with Julie Christie? But what if Daniel Craig wasn't such a hunk.......but an aimless, scruffy, underfed, handy-builder guy? In walks Anne Reid suggesting they go to the spare room. She a 60 year old woman like Julie Christie......but unlike her in that she looks like most 60 year old women.

Well.......this is the drama that plays out in The Mother....a movie that apparently noone but the BBC wanted to touch. It's worth seeing though none of the characters are really likeable but it's certainly a film with alot of intimacy.


That's funny (in a humorous way) - there's a highly-regard Korean movie named Mother that just came out recently, about a mother trying to prove her son innocent of a murder.

*This* is how I know I need a vacation - when similar titles seem funny. %^&

gromit wrote:
lady wakasa wrote:
Has anyone heard of the movie The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes? I saw it when looking up something else, but it looks kind of interesting.

There are some interesting parts, and I like the basic warped conception and attempt, but overall felt it was a miss. Just didn't sustain anything or have much cohere.
I'd rec the Quays animated short films.
Institute Benjamenta was similar to Piano Tuner in that there's a decent core, a few good set pieces, but it all gets kinds of bogged down and the fetishism gets worn.

I preferred Svankmajer's Faust which I thought was great fun. I still talk like the Devil in the film on occasion (the cat especially enjoys that impersonation). Or if you want live action, I liked Little Otik better than both of the Quay live action films. I've never seen Svankmajer's Alice which is suppose to be ingenious.

But all of these films are kind of weird and skewed and off-kilter.


Well, weird and skewed and off-kilter is up my alley... although that's disappointing that it doesn't seem to work.

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lady wakasa
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 5:19 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 5911 Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
gromit wrote:
Or if you want live action, I liked Little Otik better than both of the Quay live action films.


Oh, and I think I caught Little Otik in Theatre N in downtown Wilmington, DE one weekend. Neat theater, poignant movie.

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gromit
Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 4:12 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
I think it's worthwhile to see at least one of the Quays live action films. Just not pressing.
I'd probably choose Piano Tuner, because it has a weirder vibe and seems more ambitious. Though Institute Benjamenta is probably a more consistent film. I guess both feel a little like a good 30 minute film stretched out to feature length.

I probably should re-watch Piano Tuner, but what would all of my unwatched Dvd's say?

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