Tenkun Reviews

City Lights (1931)

A great movie, as powerful now as ever

[10/10 · 21 July 2007]

I've always loved Chaplin- "Modern Times" has long been one of my favorite films, and I enjoyed "The Circus," "The Gold Rush," "The Great Dictator," and "Monsieur Verdoux." I can easily see how many people consider "City Lights" his masterpiece. It's hard to even speak rationally about this movie. It's very layered, but also very simple, and that's what I think defines a great film.

The plot is easy to describe: the Little Tramp befriends a blind flower girl who mistakes him for a millionaire. Then he saves a drunken millionaire from suicide and uses his money and car to make the flower girl think he's rich. However, the millionaire sobers up and forgets the Tramp; the flower girl desperately needs money to pay the rent; ultimately, after a series of comical attempts to earn money, the Tramp receives $1000 from the millionaire, which (after being mistakenly branded a thief) he gives to the flower girl, before being sent to prison. He gets out months later, the flower girl has had an operation to restore her sight, and as he stumbles about outside her new flower shop she gives him a flower, recognizes him, and the film ends.

No complex subplots, no dialogue. Just a pure and simple story about a Tramp and his love. Chaplin possesses perhaps the greatest gift for changing the audience emotionally: the movie is never blunt or outrageous; I laughed out loud several times, but it wasn't explosive laughter. And I also very nearly cried at several points. When the Tramp finds he's falling in love with the flower girl he's trying to help- that made me cry. It's so touching, how the Tramp's weaknesses are his strengths. If Chaplin is a communist, then I'm a fellow traveler. The Tramp has nothing to give but his heart and his life. He goes through hell and comes out smiling. Sure, filmmakers today could learn a lot from "City Lights," but so could people today: if you are human, you can learn from this movie.

The movie is called a "romance comedy," and that's what it is. The Tramp voluntarily undergoes several ordeals for the flower girl, but he's also subjected to a number of funny situations: the nightclub party that showcases the Roaring '20s (how he drunkenly struggles to find a girl to dance with), the millionaire's attempt to get back home ("Am I driving?"), and of course the classic boxing match. The Tramp is the ultimate underdog: he can never win, but there is beauty is his failure. He finds happiness in life without going along with society's standards. And he gives us happiness, too, and a little inspiration.

Then, of course, there is the ending. I love Chaplin's endings. The last title card in "Modern Times" ("We'll get along") and the final shot of "The Circus" (makes me choke a little just to think about it) are both great examples. This ending is overflowing with tenderness. The flower girl loves her mysterious savior, and has said before that money isn't her greatest concern. But then the Tramp shows up: filthy, pathetic, and right out of jail. She laughs at him and teases him a little good-naturedly. He's a little reluctant to come to her- he stands back a little. Then she takes his hand and suddenly realizes the truth. She confirms it by feeling his arm and then says, "You?" and he asks if she can see now and she says, "Yes, I can see now." Their expressions convey just enough for the viewer to understand completely, without being entirely able to say what they understand. You can read the thoughts in her head, and then the camera turns to the Tramp, and his face is a heart-broken, heart-fixed, strange, sad smile. The screen goes black, it says THE END, and the music continues with a flourish, ending on a bittersweet note. I think the ending lets us know that these are real human beings in front of us, not just actors. They have real lives, and those lives can be changed, for better or for worse. It's absolute pathos. You can't be entirely the same after watching "City Lights."

The Penalty (1920)

Lon Chaney Sr. in- what else?- a grotesque tale of the macabre...

[8/10 · 11 June 2007]

The Man of a Thousand Faces in 1920, before his prime, under the direction of Wallace Worsley who would make him the Hunchback. But instead of being the sympathetic and heart-warming freak, here he is a demoniacal madman out for revenge.

"The Penalty" follows Blizzard, an underworld mastermind who had his legs unnecessarily amputated as a child (kinda like Reagan in "Kings Row"). And aside from general evil, crime, and mayhem, his main goal is to claim revenge on the doctor who did it. After we see the grisly mangling, we move to modern-day (1920) San Francisco where Frisco Pete, a drugged-out hoodlum, murders showgirl Barbary Nell and then flees to sanctuary at Blizzard's hide-out. The police send Rose, their undercover girl, to disguise herself as one of Blizzard's many molls, and become practically a concubine who presses the pedals as Blizzard plays the piano. Meanwhile, he works to seduce the sculptress daughter of the doctor who deformed him, posing as Satan for a sculpture. And all the while he's planning for the greatest crime spree of them all, when he'll bring thousands of disgruntled foreign laborers in to conquer the city...

God, "The Penalty" is creepy. It might not be the best-made movie of all time; the actors might not all stand out; the ending may be a cop-out. But it's got a lot of good points going for it. First, the title. "The Penalty" is about penalties of all kinds: Dr. Ferris must pay a penalty for his youthful indiscretions; Blizzard must pay a penalty for his life of crime. San Francisco must pay for creating monsters like Blizzard and Frisco Pete. The film is submerged in an idea of guilt, revenge, and comeuppance. Lon Chaney, as always, is an asset, in building a disturbing atmosphere of fear and loathing, as well as messing with the viewer's psyche through his performance. On turns you pity and hate him. Sure, he's evil. But his evil is so hypnotically attractive. And he's not entirely to blame for it. He's got no legs- can he still be fully responsible for his actions? Whatever Blizzard does, he revels in it. Climbing up the wall, with those stumps- can you take it? Like other quasi-horror films of the '20s and '30s, "The Penalty" is rife with hellish, gargoylian imagery. Beyond the buckets on Chaney's stumps and his legless swagger, there's the satanic sculpture and the apocalyptic fantasies (in which we see SF reduced to anarchic rubble) and the secret room full of chorus girls making hats, and the dirty underground corridors hidden behind Blizzard's fireplace, and the fully equipped operating room (in which he sets his bizarre revenge, which is worthy of Tod Browning). Then, looking at "The Penalty" from our postmodern perch, we can also enjoy the tinting (which changes from scene to scene) which gives it an almost psychedelic flavor, especially when combined with the soundtrack, which is a mixed bag. It's got some organ, some indistinguishable wailing, a couple possible leitmotifs, and what could be music from the darker levels of Super Mario Bros. It all comes together to give us, basically, "The Phantom of the Opera" meets "Citizen Kane" in hell, dimmed a few notches.

What can I say? If you like Lon Chaney, you're bound to love his role here. The finale may be a let-down, but those are the breaks. Watch with plenty of suspended disbelief and immerse yourself in the abstractly gritty, mildly Gothic San Francisco gangland of the 1920s.

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Welcome to the Jungle

[8/10 · 22 May 2007]

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? John Huston knows, and here he proves it yet again. "The Asphalt Jungle" is at once a gripping crime drama, a shadowy film noir, and a multiple-character study. It starts out with images of Dix (Sterling Hayden), having just done another hold-up, racing through an empty part of town, in and around corners, to a little place where he can drop off his gun. Gorgeous lighting, the picture of a man on the run. But the running's not over yet.

Bit by bit, we're introduced to a big cast of characters. Criminal genius Doc (Sam Jaffe) is just out of jail, there's Cobby, the bookie organizer, Lon Emmerich, the crooked lawyer, Ditrich, the crooked cop, and Gus and Louis and Doll and more. Everybody wants something, and they know just how they're gonna get it: the biggest heist the Middle West has ever seen, with a take as big as half a mil. Jaffe's Doc is a home run. He's got both hubris and pathos at the same time. You love the man- you can't help yourself- even though you know he's nothing but a crook, like all the rest. But he's an old man, and all he wants is to be around the Mexican girls in Mexico City, so he's okay. Plus, he takes a shine to Dix, who just wants to be back on the farm with his father's black colt. Dix may be a hooligan and a brute, but he tries to take care of Doll, and he may be stubborn, but he comes by everything naturally. I didn't want to like Dix- I know I didn't look favorably at Hayden in "The Killing" or "Dr. Strangelove," but here he's got this sympathetic idiocy, even if he is a hood.

The plan is next to perfect. But crime doesn't pay- it's an incontrovertible fact of the movies (at least under the Production Code), and this wouldn't be the same gritty, low-down, inherently pessimistic film if they all got away with it. There is no honor among thieves, as Emmerich proves- and his PI friend Brannom reinforces the point. These are the respectable characters, with licenses and all, but they're still grimier and more despicable than the convicted criminals who populate the rest of the cast. Emmerich still gets your sympathy, because he's got a sick wife whom (despite the Marilyn Monroe he keeps as a mistress) he truly loves, and he's broke and desperate. Brannom, however, is just a jerk. He ruins the whole deal, especially by getting killed. His body turning up in the river is one of the first tip-offs to the cops, connecting it all with Emmerich and breaking down all the careful planning. Brannom is the greedy, honorless human element that Doc couldn't plan for.

Well, Louis gets it on the night of the job, shot in the belly by a security guard's errant gun. Burglar alarms go off for no reason and soon the coppers are hot on their trail. Ditrich, even on Cobby's pay, has got his supervisor breathing down his neck, so he roughs Cobby up until he spills the beans. So we have Doc and Dix hiding out together, eventually going their separate ways. Dix has a bullet wound from Brannom, which is slowly killing him. (He doesn't trust doctors so he dresses it himself.) Doll wants to go with him. He doesn't want her to. She does. Emmerich blows his brains out when he's about to be arrested. This scene is done with a master's touch. You think you can tell what's coming, but you're not sure. Emmerich gets away from the police for a moment to go to his study and write out a note apologizing to his wife. Then he tears up the note, opening up a desk drawer whose contents are obscured by his head. The viewer is briefly distracted, we hear a bang, and the torn-up shreds of the note are swept off the table. It's really shocking.

The end comes soon but you grieve for the characters as it does. Doc meets a fellow German who's a taxi driver, and asks him for a ride to Cleveland. They stop in a little diner and Doc gives a teenage girl plenty of nickels so she can dance for a while before his eyes, and before the eyes of the watching police. Time runs out, Doc and the hackie must leave, and the cops accost them as they do. I think Doc knew what was coming. Then Dix arrives at his farm and, with Doll close behind, he slumps down into a field and dies, his beloved horses nuzzling his head. The end, and a powerful end. From beginning to end we see Dix's slow migration from the dark asphalt jungle that is this anonymous, placeless city back to the bucolic countryside of his youth. He is a vessel through which the currents of nature flow. He is a blank slate of a hooligan onto whom we project our care and emotion. Oh, Dix. We hardly knew ye.

In the final analysis, "The Asphalt Jungle" is all in the title. It's about a sad and dirty city, brimming with corruption and huddled masses yearning to breathe free. A few of them do more than yearn- they act. But it's a dead end: action leads only to the grave and to the slammer. Don't watch it unless you're willing to care for the little B&W people gracing the screen for a two hours' traffic, then disappearing into the air around you. It's a movie that's both ethereal and very, very real.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

Oh, Man, What a Movie

[10/10 · 21 May 2007]

You could watch "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" a thousand times and still be seized with suspense and anxiety during both of James Allen's escape attempts. The story of a man wronged by injustice, a man who gave his youth for his country, his past to his future, and his mind over to civil engineering. Forced at gunpoint to hold up a diner, he is summarily sentenced to 10 years hard labor- on the chain gang. If you have a soul, this movie will move you. You would have to be heartless not to get angry, whether during the scene where the warden causes the death of a sick inmate, when Allen is betrayed for the first and second times by the prison board, when he's betrayed by his loveless wife. It's a movie that draws out involuntary emotions. Strong emotions.

You might just find yourself yelling at the screen, "It's not fair!" I noticed that Paul Muni, toward the beginning, is to a T the prototype of James Dean and Marlon Brando. He epitomizes the frustration of youth as he tells his mother and brother he doesn't want a factory job anymore. He wants to build. He descends into abysmal poverty. He gets caught and thrown on the chain gang. He slaves away before a black prisoner helps him escape. See how progressive this movie is? The guards are white; the saintly inmates are black. He builds a new life for himself from scratch, on only his wits and skill. He's caught again just as he's found himself a woman he really loves. Allen is a tragic figure- his tragic flaw is only his willingness to believe in the American criminal justice system.

The title says it all. It's not "I WAS a Fugitive..." because he never gets away or is permanently caught. Like Al Roberts in "Detour," he flees forever. Parts of the movie are almost nihilistic, as he gets stuck on the chain gang for guys who were too tough for the chain gang. Prisoners cry, "I don't care whether I live or die! What are you gonna do, kill me?" The chain gang breaks a man. It destroys his spirit until he's just a hollow shell that works until it can no longer and then gives out, dies. All with stark B&W cinematography to match the depletion of humanity, the draining of life from the individual and from the nation.

This, along with "Scarface," is Muni's tour de force. He is eternally sympathetic, and we are eternally in chains with him. Stone walls may not a prison make, but when you're on the chain gang long enough, you clearly become stuck in an imprisoned mind frame. As everyone has commented, the ending is one of the greatest of all film endings. This surprising vision of Allen, more a rat than a man, leaping out of the darkness after his final heroic escape, obviously no longer a hero. In the sparse light we get, we see his emaciated and hardened face. He shakes his head when this woman, whose only thought is for him, asks if he'll need money or if he'll come see her. He backs out of the scene, clearly afraid that somebody's traced him there and will have him back on the chain gang in an instant, always running running running, and then she calls out to him like any normal lover would, "How do you live?" But his answer is not that of a lover. His answer is not that of a man. Nor of an innocent man, nor of a hero. We don't know what he is.

"I steal," he hisses in a ghoulish voice whose echoes linger in our ears long after the scene fades and out and THE END rolls with the Warner Bros. logo. "I steal," and we are forever haunted, cursed with this vision of what an innocent man can become. A fugitive. I shiver every time I think of it.

The Corpse Vanishes (1942)

Good Low-Qual '30s Horror with Bela to Boot

[6/10 · 21 May 2007]

"The Corpse Vanishes" may not be for everyone. It's basically Bela Lugosi as his typical mad scientist, this time killing off brides to inject their glands into his aging wife or something. The plot isn't anything new. Then a female reporter gets involved, and it turns into Torchy Blaine vs. Dracula. But we watch "The Corpse Vanishes" for pure Lugosi, doing his stuff: yelling at his old servant woman, mercy killing her freakish giant son, yelling at his dwarf servant, calmly and unctuously lying to the reporter and her doctor love interest, and then losing out in the climactic finale.

It's your beautiful B&W horror thriller with secret passages beneath the mad doctor's house, with flaming hearses off on the side of the road acting as distractions for motorcades. Sure, Lugosi doesn't evoke much pity in this one- not the beleaguered vampire, the dying old man, or the tragic monster- but the same madman who dedicated himself to creating a "new breed of atomic supermen." His eyes glimmering with insanity, murder, and misguided love for his shrewish wife, he vows to lay a trap for our heroine. (And what do we care for our heroine anyway? We can see her kind in any movie. But Lugosi...) You won't appreciate "The Corpse Vanishes" if you're one of those Wes Craven-obsessed latter-day horror fans who need real-looking blood to quench their cinematic thirst. Or if you're the type who'll bypass it for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" or "Saw III." But do those have murdered freak servants lying on basement floors? Or mean-eyed dwarfs who get left behind for dead? No. No, they don't. And no toxic hybrid orchids, either.

No Blade of Grass (1970)

A bleak portrait of the not-so-distant future

[8/10 · 23 June 2005]

I'll admit my tastes are out of the mainstream, but I just watched this film and enjoyed it immensely. Maybe "enjoyed" isn't the right word. "No Blade of Grass" was rather depressing, but a thought provoking and a cathartic experience.

It details a world where overpopulation, pollution, and overconsumption have brought about famine and anarchy. The haunting title song, the equally haunting background music, and the constant montages of dead animals and mass starvation worked well to create an atmosphere of hopelessness.

Scenes such as the one toward the beginning that contrasted gluttonous Brits with starving Africans or the biker battle scene near the end really evoked a lot of emotion. However, the effects such as the flash forwards, the reversal of color, the zooming in and out of still frames- these got a little too theatrical at times and detracted from the value and seriousness of the movie.

The movie was an excellent study of human nature, if not technically perfect, and I can see past the environmentalist overtones to enjoy this very British movie.

John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1965)

Wacky, crazy '60s comedy

[9 August 2004]

I saw "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home" today hoping to see a funny Richard Crenna/Shirley Maclaine film. I was not disappointed. It was the absolute epitome of the '60s, made right in the middle of the decade. The music, done by a young "Johnny" Williams simply managed to reinforce this notion. The opening/ending theme, sung by the lead actress, had an Arabian sound to it, fitting enough. The movie takes place when it was made, in the middle of the Cold War. As it begins, a US ambassador to the nonexistent Middle East country of Fawzia (strangely similar to Saudi Arabia) has just sent the Sultan, a toy train obsessor with a golden golf cart and a harem, pigskin luggage, which just so happens to offend the Muslim. Therefore, the Americans intend to do everything they can to appease him. They didn't count on two things, though: John "Wrong Way" Goldfarb, all-American football star and U2 pilot, and Jenny Ericson, reporter for STRIFE magazine, who intends to get inside the sultan's harem and report on it. Meanwhile, Goldfarb gets lost (big surprise) and crash lands in Fawzia. There are all sorts of crazy complications involving Goldfarb, the reporter (and concubine), and the sultan's would-be football player son, who attended Notre Dame college. It all culminates in an insane football game between Notre Dame and the Fawz U team. If you miss it, you're missing something out of this world. Of course, if you deplore '60s comedies, you might wanna steer clear. Maclaine and Crenna are great together, and Ustinov as the eccentric sultan is brilliant. For all its insanity, I loved it.

Wait Until Dark (1967)

Acting + Plot + Production = Wait Until Dark

[10/10 · 27 April 2004]

Albeit obscure, 1967's "Wait Until Dark" is a fantastic movie in many regards. It may not have epic chases, mushy love scenes, or even a plot involving robotics, but it does capture the mind for that hour and a half. To its credit are the performances of Audrey Hepburn as an insecure "champion blind woman," Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as her encouraging husband, Julie Herrod as her helpful (but rebellious) young friend, and a whole host of (well, three) others as a variety of crooks, cops, and impostors. The plot is well thought-out, with twists and turns to keep you busy from even before Hepburn sets foot on the stage. It almost entirely takes place one or two rooms of an apartment, utilizing the limited set to a "Rear Window"-esque advantage. There is suspense, emotion, crime, passion, and a delve into the world of the blind- and its potential symbolism. Convincing performances, death and devilry, and an almost mother-daughter relationship are all found within this obscure classic, "Wait Until Dark."

The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)

Yet another great addition to our monster movie collection

[7/10 · 26 April 2004]

"The Creature Walks Among Us" may not be everyone's cup of tea, but as a monster movie fan, I enjoyed it. It continues is the same vein (and vein-tearing) of the previous two "Black Lagoon" films, but while the level of violence, mayhem, and male protagonists goes down, there's more contemplation, "philosophy," and questioning the nature of the creature. It maintains the aura of man vs. nature, but a bit more intellectual than the other two. A good way to end the series, methinks. The acting, of course, isn't exactly its strong point, but in that aspect, it differs little from its predecessors. I must say, the creature's makeover into a more-man-than-gill is done with astonishingly good special effects- considering the time in history and the resources at hand. Overall, if you liked "The Creature from the Black Lagoon," you're bound to like this deeper, more eerie sequel, which is a little less blatant and a little more figure-it-out-yourself.