Thoughts from the Ushers Podium: Monthly Retrospective

I really need to stop watching good films. I realize that sentence seems a little confusing so allow me to explain. I have been pilfering through the foreign and classic film section of my local niche video store for the past few months enjoying the vast works of Max Ophuls, Akira Kurosawa, Sam Fuller and Luis Bunuel. At their most blithe, the movies catching my eye recently have been given the tacit thumbs up. I can understand how many have refused to be forgotten by film-fanatics. At their best, they're quite a mind altering experience yet the irony is that experience is grounded in my previous viewings of other, similar films. Can a person truly appreciate the grandeur of Seven Samurai (1954) without first sampling The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945)? Can those uninterested in filmmaking or film history still enjoy movies made before their birth year? Does it matter if they don't?

Happy birthday to me!

My worries were piqued when I celebrated my birthday this month and was given three incredibly thoughtful gifts by my girlfriend. Her taste for films is much different than mine but she knows me all too well. As she handed me the gifts, one at a time, scattered throughout the evening I noticed the puzzlement on my friends' faces as I jumped up and down with glee. 3 Idiots (2009); my favorite Bollywood film of all-time. The looks I got were ones of brow-raising ignorance. Belle de Jour (1967); Luis Bunuel's masterpiece of sex and kink at best made me look like a pervert to my friends. At worst I looked like a pretentious movie-snob. Finally the coup de grace, Battleship Potemkin (1925). Yes I am now the proud owner of the only film believed to be watched by every college film appreciation class ever. No one knew what to make of it.

Next month I'll need to make more of an effort to watch what everyone else is watching but in the meantime I'll briefly go over all the films I have seen this month (this is a retrospective after all). First I should go into more detail about the aforementioned The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail. During WWII, Akira Kurosawa made a series of nationalistic films meant to instill a sense of pride among the Japanese people and highlight glorious legends of the past. The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail made a bit of a splash and was banned by the censors until 1952. The movie is based on a kabuki play called Kanjincho which is set during Japan's feudal warring period. A group of samurai try to get passed roadblocks set up by an enemy disguised as Buddhist monks. While the story itself was popular and well known for the time, Kurosawa saw fit to introduce a new comic-relief-type character to the proceedings undermining the story's serious tone. Needless to say the censors didn't take to kindly to Kurosawa concentrating on the negatives of Japan's fractured past and were doubly concerned with his loudmouth porter character (Kenichi Enomoto). At a spritely 59 minutes long, The Men Who Tread, is a great introduction to the works of Kurosawa and a detailed if mini-scoped look at feudal Japan.

The Men Who Tread was part of the Criterion collection's Eclipse Series which is meant to highlight overlooked films by talented directors. I took the time to venture into two other Eclipse Series collections the first of which was one titled The First Films of Samuel Fuller. The film in the collection that caught my eye was said to be Vincent Price's favorite film he's ever done: The Baron of Arizona (1950). The second Eclipse movie that caught my eye was from The Ernst Lubitsch Musical Collection entitled The Smiling Lieutenant (1931).

The Baron of Arizona has Vincent Price playing James Reavis, a scurrilous forger and conman who in 1880 attempted to steal thelion's share of the land in Arizona. Based on a true story, Reavis in-fact created this elaborate hoax by taking advantage of the U.S.'s policy on honoring Spanish land grants in the territory. The movie, while not one of Fuller's best films from an auteur's standpoint is nonetheless one of the best performances I've seen from Price; and yes that does include The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and House of Wax (1953).

The Smiling Lieutenant has Maurice Chevalier playing the lieutenant of a fictional central European country. Happily in love with a free-willed musician (Claudette Colbert), Chevalier's Nikolaus gets into hot water when he winks and smiles at her from afar as visiting emissaries from Austria ride by in their coaches. Thinking fast, he explains he was overwhelmed by the beauty of the visiting Princess Anna (Miriam Hopkins) thus creating an unintended love triangle Nikolaus struggles to come to terms with. While a little outdated in its message and treatment towards women, The Smiling Lieutenant is still pretty risqué even by today's standards. There is indication of a truly completed love triangle coyly inferred after the song "Jazz Up Your Lingerie" which is still ringing in my ear.

Lubitsch really had a thing for love triangles

After watching The Smiling Lieutenant I rented another Lubitsch film which I now hold in high regard. The film is called Trouble in Paradise (1932) starring Herbert Marshall, Miriam Hopkins and Kay Francis. In the film Marshall plays the infamous Gaston Monescu, a conman who enjoys parting rich European barons and entrepreneurs from their money. He meets Hopkin's Lily who proves to be a formidable pickpocket and thief herself. The two join forces to take down a perfume magnate (Francis) who falls hard for Gaston thus complicating the heist to the point of farce. Most people cite Frank Capra's earlier work as the high point in the evolution of screwball comedy but in my opinion Lubitsch is on equal footing in that regard.

Of course if there was a strong third place finish it would belong to Preston Sturges who not only wrote and directed the films The Lady Eve (1941) and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) but also made Sullivan's Travels (1941) a new addition to my seen it list. Starring Joel McCrea as an ambitious comedy film director looking to make something substantive, the film is arguably one of the best movies about the creative process ever. In an attempt to prove he can make an engrossing and compelling drama, McCrea's John Lloyd Sullivan spends a year as a hobo to learn about human suffering. The film is at times cynical, clever, engrossing and poignant often even in the same frame. Co-star Veronica Lake brings the necessary T&A but also provides a moral compass to ground the audience. I highly recommend Sullivan's Travels.

Other films I recommend include The Hustler (1961) starring Paul Newman as a pool shark who may have bitten off more than he can chew. Also on that list is The Apu Trilogy which includes Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956) and The World of Apu (1959). The three films tell the story of a young man who grows up in rural India with his parents and sister. When his sister dies, they travel to the city where his father, an educated writer and priest dies during his adolescence. Having an aptitude for his studies, Apu travels to Calcutta where he excels but then his mother passes away while he's abroad. He weds a friend's sister, she becomes pregnant, then dies during childbirth... There's a lot of dying going on in this trilogy but believe me when I say that Satyajit Ray's infamous Apu Trilogy is ultimately a very life-affirming set of films.

Of course if tragic but ultimately triumphant foreign films aren't your bag, you can always take a look at Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961), hands down my favorite film I've seen this month. The story of a Coca-Cola executive in West Berlin who is nudged into a farce involving Communists, The Secret Police and former Nazis. Of course if 1961 is too distant in the past for you, you can't go wrong with Newsies (1992) starring a young Christian Bale who attempts to unionize a rag-tag group of newspaper boys. I was pleasantly surprised by the film's catchy songs and engaging performances by Bale and Robert Duvall as Joseph Pulitzer. Then of course there's Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014); a theater release and continuation of the Marvel uber-series which includes Iron Man (2008), Thor (2011) and The Incredible Hulk (2008). The film surpasses Captain America: The First Avengers (2011) and relays some pretty salient messages about today's state of modern surveillance.

The month could not be complete without a fair share of disappointments, the most obvious of which was Last Year at Marienbad (1961). When a person seeks out critically acclaimed films occasionally a few clunkers sneak into the pantheon and make a big stink. That's not to say those who like Last Year at Marienbad or any other films about...something...nothing don't have taste, they're just on a wavelength I'm not on. If you are curious about a film about two people who may or may not know each other while haunting the hallways of an eerie hotel, by all means give the thing a try. I have my limits when it comes to pretention.

Speaking of pretension; A Brief History of Time (1991). The first time I got wind of such a documentary existing was when I watched an episode of The Critic (1994-1995) which parodied it. The film itself is a documentary detailing the life of Cosmologist Stephen Hawking and his life's work on the expansion of the universe. While I'm sure the movie was something for science junkies in the early nineties, Hawking went on to expand on his theories much better in other documentaries including the Discovery series Stephen Hawking's Universe (2010-present).

Less of a disappointment was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), a film which is no longer a mainstay on my must watch list. It's a well made film considering it was made with a minuscule budget. Yet for a film which famously featured less than a gallon of blood, it was a little too brutal for my taste. Continuing with the horror theme, The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), directed and starring Roman Polanski was a huge disappointment as a horror/comedy. Neither scary or funny, the film seems to have aged very poorly.

The final let down this month was Marty (1955), 1956's Best Picture winner and one of Paddy Chayefsky's most famous screenplays. I was expecting something along the biting satire of Network (1976) or The Americanization of Emily (1964) but instead it was a subdued character piece along the lines of What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993). Not a terrible movie but considering it was released the same year as East of Eden (1955), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) and the brilliant The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), I'm still puzzled as to why it won Best Picture.

Largest surprises this month include A Patch of Blue (1965) starring Shelley Winters as a blind white girl from an impoverished family who befriends a black man played by Sidney Poitier. Found seemingly at random by my girlfriend, the film was an experience I won't soon forget. Pom Poko (1994), another girlfriend choice, was another pleasant surprise from the hearts and minds of Studio Ghibli. The film features a cabal of shape-shifting raccoons who pull out all the stops to save their forest from human encroachment. Finally there's Johnny Yuma (1966) a pulpy spaghetti western with the spirit of My Name is Nobody (1973) and a story as rich as a Fistful of Dynamite (1971). Mark Damon plays a gunslinger whose uncle was recently killed; a plot by his wife (Rosalba Neri) and lover (Luigi Vannucchi). Barely seen, at least according to rottentomatoes and imdb, Johnny Yuma is a very good western not quite up there with Unforgiven (1992) but definitely in Destry Rides Again (1939) territory.

Some other good movies; Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives (1992) about two New York couples in crisis. Speaking of broken marriages The Squid and the Whale (2005) starring Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney and Jesse Eisenberg is also a very well made film about relationships. Recommended though with caution if you're the product of a divorced household. Luis Bunuel's Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) is a classic about a woman who serves an eccentric family and works with an even more eccentric house staff.

Along the same vein there's Max Ophuls's The Earrings of Madame de... (1953) involves a woman of nobility who falls in love with one of her husband's friends. Her world falls apart due to a gambling problem and a pair of earrings which unravel her deceits. And of course no monthly recap can be complete without a traditional Bollywood film: Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001). Unlike the Apu Trilogy, Lagaan has some catchy tunes and stars Aamir Khan which is quickly becoming my favorite Indian actor. Plus it's a sports movie about Cricket, Cricket! Who does that? Indians do.

Finally there are the awful movies. The movies I just couldn't find enough redeeming qualities to really care about. The first was Howard the Duck (1986) which was recently reviewed as per request. The Second was Gamera (1965) or Daikaiju Gamera or Giant Monster Gamera or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It's basically a huge rip-off of Godzilla (1954) only instead of a giant lizard, Tokyo has to deal with a giant, fire breathing, flying turtle. Yeah, I doubt its going to be remade anytime soon.

Here's to hoping the month of May will provide more well known fodder for my reviews. Best case scenario I actually grow a fondness and appreciation for things that normal filmgoers enjoy. Worst case scenario I have fodder for my blog.