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alexwells
Reviews
Mean Streets (1973)
The Godfather meets A Hard Days Night
Manic energy and passion keep this film going despite an almost nonexistent plot. The enthusiasm is palpable. Fine supporting actors also lend credibility to the flimsy structure and largely inane dialogue that is punctuated by random outbursts of violence. (The Scorsese touch, you might say.) DeNiro and Keitel improvise a lot and sometimes it works very well, especially the clowning. Poor Robinson is miscast as Teresa. She seems more like a USC coed (complete with California tan) who who took two weeks off to play with low level gangsters. Doesn't come across like a girl from "the neighborhood." The rawness of the film is what must have wowed audiences then. It's jazz-like spontaneity, perhaps. However, it's much lauded soundtrack is too often intrusive rather than supportive and it reveals that the underlying story must be based on Scorsese's recollections of his younger days circa 1962. It would have been more compelling if it had been set then because that is the mentality of the story and the characters. They are punk greasers and their behavior is out of place in the 70s. Keitel seems to be abandoned by the director at times, but he is still interesting to watch. DeNiro's scene stealing antics wear thin after a while because the script does not provide his character much of an arc. The black women - a beautiful club dancer and a lowly hotel maid (both very well acted) - are treated very sympathetically which is one of the film's interesting surprises. Love the cars.
The Naughty Flirt (1930)
Fun, Flapper Comedy with Charming Alice White
"The Naughty Flirt" is a delightful period piece that evokes the (relatively) care-free life many of the very rich maintained even in aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash.
Alice White plays the spoiled socialite Miss Katherine 'Kay' Elliott and does a very charming comic turn. This is a Pre-Code film in which the figures of all the female beauties are provocatively shown off in revealing attire in the party scenes. While the sex - including a somewhat surprising spanking scene - is played up, the prohibition age drinking is can only be suggested.
The film starts with a gay gang of young socialites in the back of a Police Paddy Wagon headed to the police station to be booked on creating a public nuisance. It seems pretty obvious they've all been drinking as well as dancing at a riotous rooftop party.
White as Kay is quite the unflappable flapper, a Daddy's girl with an income of $100,000 a year. Imagine what that could buy in 1931! She's been kicked out of every fine private school her father could get her into and is the dedicated decadent until her world is turned around by a straight-laced country-boy-turned lawyer who happens to work for her Dad's firm.
It's a classic case of opposites attract - with a dash of Taming of the Shrew. The two are instantly drawn to each other starting when the lawyer, Alan Ward (Paul Page), - studiously attending a session of night court at the police station - first lays eyes on the naughty platinum blonde.
Their romance is tested by a scheme masterminded by Linda Gregory (Myrna Loy) and her brother Jack (Douglas Gilmore) who wants to marry her for money. These dark characters hope to recover from the loss of their fortune in the stock market crash.
There are also trust issues as regular guy Alan attempts to gage the loyalty of this 'belle of the ball' while taking stock of her seemingly countless admirers.
I saw this on TCM which has a very high technical standard. I'm always impressed at how quickly sound movies progressed. Just four years into the sound era, there's a scene with a wax cylinder Dictaphone in which we listen in as White puts on headphones and hears the recording of Alan speaking for dictation and then get sidetracked into another far more personal conversation with a friend drops into his office unexpectedly. The sound is played back in the scratchy Dictaphone mode - differentiating it from the regular sound.
This is a fun and funny story, providing a glimpse into a fascinating age (especially if you were rich) where Jazz Age attitudes intersected with an elite American Anglophile culture.