Tag: Drama

THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (Mexico, 1962)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Luis Buñuel
CAST: Silvia Pinal, Jacqueline Andere, José Baviera
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 94% Fresh

PLOT: The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave the drawing room in Buñuel’s famous, none-too-subtle satire.


Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel has many moods.  On the one hand, it’s a dark comedy of manners railing against the entitlements of the upper classes, much like the more recent Triangle of Sadness (2022), which owes much to this film.  On the other, it’s a Serling-esque horror story mining a common occasion for unexpected suspense, like The Ruins (2008) or Open Water (2003).  On a deeper level, perhaps it’s a Lynchian exploration of the human psyche, regardless of class, like Mulholland Drive (2001) or…well, with Lynch, you can probably just take your pick.

I experienced all of those moods while watching The Exterminating Angel.  I haven’t seen such an effective juxtaposition of tone since Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).

The weirdness starts right away, in scenes that seem to be setting the stage for a Marx Brothers comedy.  Edmundo Nobile (“Nobile”, “noble”, get it, wink, wink?) has invited a large number of his posh friends to his mansion for dinner following an opera.  The moment they arrive, Nobile notes that his servants are not stationed at the door to take the visitors’ coats.  This is because most of the servants felt the sudden need to take the night off and left, being careful to avoid their employer.  He makes a statement about his servants, then everyone troops up the grand staircase to the dining room.

Moments later, this scene literally repeats itself, not by re-using the same footage, but in a separate take.  This kind of repetition occurs multiple times during the actual dinner scene, as well.  If there’s a deeper meaning to this device, I’ll have to leave it to film scholars to analyze.  For myself, it simply added a layer of oddness to the proceedings, but not in a bad way.

The dinner scene contains pratfalls, repeated conversations, and a visit to a side room containing three or four lambs and a bear on a leash.  What the WHAT…?  I remember thinking, okay, so this is going to a broad comedy turning upper-class manners into slapstick.  Seen it before, so I hope this movie executes it well.

The weirdness escalates when everyone retreats to a drawing room just off the dining room, where one of Nobile’s guests entertains everyone with a piano solo.  But when one of them tries to leave, he finds he can’t.  Not physically, like there’s suddenly an invisible wall, but one by one the guests discover they’re simply unable to leave the room.

They slowly realize the logistics of this bizarre situation.  The drawing room has no food.  Water runs low.  The one servant who remained outside manages to bring in a tray of water and coffee, but when he tries to leave to bring food…he can’t.  There’s no phone for them to call anyone about their predicament.

Outside the house, people find themselves unable to enter the grounds, so no one can tell what has happened to the people inside.  Curious crowds gather.  Inside, social structure starts to degenerate.  There are no restrooms, but one quick shot reveals a closet full of nothing but vases, and we see people entering and exiting these rooms repeatedly.  Ick.  Arguments are started with the drop of a hat.  One couple finds a unique, but undesirable, method of escaping their prison.

I responded to this material very unexpectedly, due mostly to its unpredictability.  I wasn’t cheering at the sight of upper-class twits being brought low when faced with bizarre circumstances, but I was more in tune with the horrific aspects of this story.  Buñuel has stated in interviews that he regretted not being able to take the story even further by including cannibalism, which is honestly where I thought things were headed.  It would have made a marvelous satirical statement, hearkening all the way back to Jonathan Swift.

(So, what DO they eat, you may be asking yourself?  Wouldn’t EWE like to know?)

I realize this review of the film hasn’t been much more than just a summary of its events, minus the surprising, “circular” ending.  A more detailed analysis might require listening to the commentary or reading Roger Ebert’s review or something.  But I hope I’ve conveyed how much I enjoyed The Exterminating Angel.  It was weird and surreal and absurd, and comic and horrific, and slapstick and satiric, and totally unpredictable all the way to the final frame.

P.S.  Now that I’ve seen this movie, the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris (2011) has even deeper resonance when Gil meets Buñuel at a party and gives him the idea for The Exterminating Angel, and even Buñuel can’t understand it: “But I don’t get it. Why don’t they just walk out of the room?”  Funny stuff.

ASHES AND DIAMONDS (Poland, 1958)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Andrzej Wajda
CAST: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska, Waclaw Zastrzezynski
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 96% Fresh

PLOT: Against a backdrop of internal political turmoil at the end of World War II, a Polish resistance fighter faces a crisis of conscience when ordered to assassinate a Soviet official.


The Polish film Ashes and Diamonds is reportedly Francis Ford Coppola’s favorite movie, and Martin Scorsese has stated in interviews that he used it as an answer for one of his finals at film school.  From a technical standpoint, I can see why.  Echoes of this film (and perhaps others from director Andrzej Wajda’s filmography) are overwhelmingly evident in the bodies of work of both directors, from the mobile camera to the shocking moments of violence to the psychological makeup of the characters themselves.  As an emotional experience, I confess I didn’t get “worked up” over it, but it was interesting to see where two of the greatest American film directors got a healthy dose of inspiration.

Ashes and Diamonds opens on May 8, 1945, with an idyllic scene outside a country church that quickly degenerates into a brutal double murder.  The killers are the calm, detached Andrzej and the flighty, charismatic Maciek, who spends most of the movie behind dark sunglasses.  We quickly learn their victims are not who they thought they would be.  Instead of killing two Soviet/Communist officials, they have killed two innocent factory workers.  War is hell.

Later, through circumstances that feel very Hitchcockian, Andrzej and Maciek hole up in a hotel bar, only to discover that one of their real targets, Szczuka, has booked a room in the very same hotel.  Maciek books a room directly below Szczuka’s, and the rest of the film plays out with that element of suspense hanging in the background, leaving us to wonder when and how Maciek will complete his assignment.

Complications arise when Maciek becomes infatuated with the hotel bartender, Krystyna, a blond beauty who rebuffs Maciek’s advances at first.  Later, they connect, but she doesn’t want to get involved with someone when it will eventually have to end: “I don’t want bad memories when memories are all I have left.”  Maciek falls for her so hard that he starts to doubt his resolve to kill his target.  “Will he or won’t he?” becomes the movie’s prime conflict.

Where to begin with the comparisons to Coppola and Scorsese?  The most obvious one is the unblinking attitude towards violence.  The two killings at the beginning of the film are done with very few cutaways as we see the multiple bullet hits on each victim, with one of them getting hit in the eye and another shot in the back at point blank range with such force his shirt catches fire.  (Malfunctioning squib?  Possibly, but it’s still effective.)  It’s interesting that this movie predates Bonnie and Clyde (1967) by almost a decade, but its depiction of onscreen violence feels very modern, even by today’s standards.

Then you’ve got the moral struggle of the main character, a man of action capable of casual murder who is suddenly given a reason to make something different with his life.  This reminded me of Scorsese’s The Departed (2006), with DiCaprio’s character undergoing the same internal conflict.  Maciek has multiple opportunities to kill Szczuka throughout the film, but something always pulls him back from the brink.  His partner, Andrzej, becomes impatient and reminds him what happens when soldiers let personal feelings interfere with their duties.  I had a vivid flashback of Michael Corleone’s credo: “It’s not personal, Sonny.  It’s just business.”

(I also felt that the dynamic between Maciek and his more level-headed partner Andrzej were evoked in Scorsese’s Mean Streets [1973], with De Niro’s Johnny Boy and his more level-headed partner Charlie, played by Harvey Keitel.)

But, cinematic comparisons aside, I didn’t find Ashes and Diamonds to be as gripping as other war or crime dramas of that era, such as Elevator to the Gallows, Touch of Evil (both 1958), or Rififi (1955), to name a few.  It’s a little weird to me, because all the pieces are there for a first-rate thriller.  I’m not asking that every drama pack the exact same kind of emotional gut punch every single time because I know that’s unrealistic.  But the fact remains: Ashes and Diamonds, while clearly very influential on future filmmakers, did not get me as involved as I would like to have been.  I was never bored, but neither was I over the moon.  It was…average.  Perhaps one day I’ll watch it again with a fresh eye to maybe see what I missed the first time around.

FRANKENSTEIN (2025)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Guillermo del Toro
CAST: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Christoph Waltz, Mia Goth, Charles Dance, David Bradley
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 86% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A brilliant but egotistical scientist brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that threatens to undo both the creator and his tragic creation.


Having never read the original novel by Mary Shelley, I have no idea if Guillermo del Toro’s rendition of Frankenstein is any more or less faithful to the source material.  What’s interesting about this version is that it feels like it is.  There are long passages of dialogue and even some monologuing on the nature of life, death, and the creator’s responsibility to their creation.  del Toro is smart enough to balance these cerebral discussions with enough gothic (and gory) horror to satisfy any fan of the genre.  Call it a good example of a thinking man’s horror film.

Oscar Isaac’s performance as Victor Frankenstein puts a new spin on the stereotypical mad scientist.  He’s no less obsessed than previous versions, but del Toro and Isaac went for a slightly different vibe in his personal appearance.  Rather than a cackling lunatic with a god complex, Isaac’s doctor looks and sometimes behaves more like a self-absorbed rock star…with a god complex.  (I learn on IMDb that this was by design; del Toro wanted Victor to evoke David Bowie, Mick Jagger, and Prince…mission accomplished.)

Jacob Elordi as The Creature does an admirable job of generating sympathy and empathy for perhaps the greatest misunderstood monster of all time.  The unique makeup (which took up to 10 hours to apply!) allows Elordi to emote and lend humanity to the Creature in the second half of the film, especially during his encounter with the blind man.  There is a subtle but ingenious effect where one of his eyes will sometimes glow orange with reflected light as a reminder that, when push comes to shove, this Creature is not to be trifled with.

Mia Goth is a welcome presence as Elizabeth, who is not Victor’s love interest this time around, but fiancé to Victor’s younger brother, William.  I supposed I could quibble that the screenplay does not give Elizabeth much to do.  She comes across as the intellectual equal of Victor in a few well-written scenes, but her encounter with the chained Creature felt a little trope-y, and her character’s payoff left me wanting more.

The visual style of the film is crammed with del Toro’s signature fingerprints: huge gothic structures, elaborate costume designs (loved Victor’s mother’s red outfits near the start of the film), startling dream sequences, and lots of practical effects…well, more than there were in Pacific Rim (2013) and Crimson Peak (2015), anyway.  One image that really struck me was the unique design of two coffins seen in the film.  They looked more like futuristic cryogenic chambers than Victorian-era caskets.  Watch the movie and you’ll see what I mean.

Other things I loved:

  1. Victor’s early presentation of his theories to a disciplinary board, in which we get an echo of that creepy dead guy resurrected by Ron Perlman in del Toro’s Hellboy (2004).
  2. The towering set for Frankenstein’s laboratory.  What it lacks in the whirring, crackling machinery we normally associate with his lab, it makes up for in scale, including a yawning pit several feet across that really should have had a guardrail.
  3. Being able to get inside the Creature’s head this time around.  There have no doubt been other variations where the Creature speaks, but I haven’t seen one where he is this eloquent, expressing his pain and anguish over his unwanted existence and apparent immortality (his wounds are self-healing).  This is another factor that makes this movie feel more faithful to Shelley’s novel, even if it isn’t.
  4. The no-holds-barred aspect to the violence and gore, which can be quease-inducing, but which never feels overdone or exploitative.  In fact, the moment that scared me the most in the film had nothing to do with the gore or violence at all, but with one of the doctor’s early experiments that comes to life in a most surprising manner.

Above all, there’s the tragic nature of the poor Creature’s existence, the misunderstood monster that has been so often satirized or spoofed, and the deeper questions the story raises about our own lives.  It might be tempting to listen to the closing passages of the film and dismiss them as trite and sentimental, but Frankenstein earns those moments, in my opinion.  More than any other Frankenstein movie I’ve seen, this one made me think, and jump a little, in equal measures.  Tricky stuff.

THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA (1937)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: William Dieterle
CAST: Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut, Gloria Holden
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 92% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Prolific novelist and muckraker Emile Zola becomes involved in fighting the injustice of the infamous Dreyfus affair.


If you want to get me angry at the movies, you can do one of two things (besides leaving your phone on): Make a really terrible movie that makes me sorry I’ll never get those two hours back…or make a really good movie about some kind of social injustice, where those in power are so empirically wrong that any fool can see it, except those in power.  Matewan (1987) comes to mind, as do I, Daniel Blake (2016) and Do the Right Thing (1989).  William Dieterle’s The Life of Emile Zola falls neatly into that category, as well.

I’m tempted to give a play-by-play summary, but that would take too long.  In short, novelist and muckraking author Emile Zola is approached by the wife of Alfred Dreyfus, a French officer wrongly convicted of espionage and sentenced to Devil’s Island.  Mme. Dreyfus convinces Zola of her husband’s innocence, and Zola pens the famous J’Accuse…! article, an open letter published in the paper accusing the French military of antisemitism (Dreyfus was Jewish) and conspiracy.  The last act of the film covers Zola’s trial for libel.

The scenes that really made me angry were the ones where French officers planted, suppressed, or burned incriminating evidence of their own treachery.  Outright lies were paraded as fact, and the actual spy was acquitted in a court-martial of his own, just so the French government could continue the façade of Dreyfus’s guilt.  When the comeuppance arrives for the parties involved, it is immensely satisfying.  No one is drawn and quartered, which is what I would have preferred, but it’s good enough.

While the actor playing Dreyfus himself (Joseph Schildkraut) won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, it seems incredible to me that Paul Muni did not win for Best Actor that same year.  It went to Spencer Tracy for Captains Courageous, and I’m sure Tracy’s performance was exceptional, but Muni as Zola is pretty amazing.  He ages convincingly with Zola, from starving artist to a well-fed member of respected Parisian society, never less than convincing while playing a man much older than himself for much of the film.  The highlight is a late courtroom monologue that runs about six minutes.  It’s not exactly subtle screenwriting, but Muni makes the most of it.

The same could be said about the film’s screenplay as a whole.  It’s not the kind of story where the two sides have equal validity, so the script doesn’t have to be coy about where its sympathies lie.  There may be a few moments that feel like the film is preaching to the choir, but it nevertheless has great power.  That might just be me, though, given my proclivity for rooting against social injustice at the movies.

On the whole, The Life of Emile Zola is the tale of a life well-lived, punctuated by an incident that made Zola’s name immortal, and contains one of the best courtroom sequences I’ve ever seen.  It’s biography at old Hollywood’s best, not 100% historically accurate (as stated in an opening title card), but capturing the emotional essence of the story in a way no history textbook ever could.

EAST OF EDEN (1955)

by special guest Ronnie Clements

“A special, re-written review of my favourite Jimmy film, to mark the 70th anniversary of his death on September 30, 1955. Forget Rebel, this is James Dean’s defining performance!”


East of Eden is unmistakably a product of 1950’s cinema, steeped in the era’s stylistic restraint and tonal sincerity. But that’s not a flaw, it’s a virtue. The film unfolds with a deliberate pace, anchored by a thoughtful script, evocative cinematography and deeply felt performances. There are no dazzling effects or adrenaline-fueled sequences here. Instead, the piece leans into emotional truth.

Despite its vintage aesthetic, complete with a sweeping overture and classic framing, the themes of East of Eden remain timeless. Set in 1917, it explores the fractures of a family in turmoil and a young man’s aching search for identity, love and belonging. These struggles resonate just as powerfully today.

Adapted from John Steinbeck’s novel and directed by Elia Kazan, the story takes place in Monterey, California. At its heart is Cal Trask (James Dean), a brooding, impulsive and emotionally raw young man, desperate for the approval of his stern father, Adam (Raymond Massey). His brother Aron (Richard Davalos) and Aron’s girlfriend Abra (Julie Harris) form the emotional triangle that complicates Cal’s journey. As buried truths surface, the drama deepens with quiet intensity.

Kazan’s direction is masterful. His use of framing and camera angles, especially in intimate scenes, reveals a deep understanding of character psychology. You feel the tension, the longing, the isolation … all through the lens.

This film holds a special place in cinematic history as Dean’s first major role, preceding Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. Tragically, he wouldn’t live to see either of those released. But here, in East of Eden, he is alive and electric. Every gesture, every glance, every awkward pause speaks volumes. This isn’t just a performance, it’s a revelation. Forget Rebel. Forget Giant. East of Eden is Dean at his most vulnerable, most human, most unforgettable!

Raymond Massey delivers a chilling portrayal of the emotionally distant father. The real-life tension between Massey and Dean (Massey’s rigid traditionalism clashing with Dean’s improvisational method acting) only enriches their on-screen dynamic. Kazan, ever the tactician, allowed that friction to simmer, knowing it would serve the story.

The supporting cast is equally compelling. Richard Davalos brings quiet strength to Aron. Jo Van Fleet is haunting as Cal’s estranged mother. And Julie Harris, caught between three emotionally volatile men, brings grace and complexity to Abra.

Revisiting East of Eden is always a bitter-sweet experience for me. Dean’s tragic death in a car accident not long afterwards casts a long shadow. Watching him as Cal Trask, so alive, so raw, makes you ache for the roles he never got to play. But through this film Jimmy becomes immortal!

Cal Trask lives!

WINGS (1927)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: William A. Wellman
CAST: Clara Bow, Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, Richard Arlen, Gary Cooper
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 94% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Two young men, one rich, one middle class, who are in love with the same woman, become fighter pilots in World War I.


Not long ago, I purchased a copy of the 1927 classic Wings, based mostly on the favorable review by my friend and colleague, Marc Sanders.  I was more or less aware of its place in cinema history: the very first winner of the Best Picture Oscar, essentially the birthplace of Gary Cooper’s career (despite appearing in the film for just over 2 minutes), legendary aerial footage, and so on.  But I never felt compelled to seek it out.

Having finally watched it, I am very glad I did, and you should, too.  Wings is pure entertainment from start to finish.  Unexpectedly engrossing, captivating, thrilling, the whole enchilada.  High melodrama, comedy (borderline slapstick, what are you gonna do, it was 1927), romance, comic misunderstandings – and some not-so-comic – and eye-popping aerial footage, true to its reputation.  A neat camera move gliding over several cabaret tables even showcases director William A. Wellman’s desire to push the boundaries of what was possible with the massive cameras of his day.  I once wrote that Sunrise (1927) was my favorite silent film of all time.  If I ever make another 100-Favorite-Films list, Wings and Sunrise are going to have to duke it out…

Wings sets a surprisingly modern tone from the start.  In the very first sequences of the film, Jack Powell (Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers) does not “ham it up” like some of the more typical Hollywood actors of that era.  Obviously, his mannerisms are exaggerated, but there is a restraint to his face and body that seems at odds (in a good way) with nearly everyone else in the film…except Gary Cooper, who, if he underplayed his role any further, would have become a still painting.  That restraint is also evident in Jack’s foil/nemesis, David Armstrong (Richard Arlen), the rich aristocrat to contrast Jack’s more humble background.  This moderation lends a very contemporary feel to a movie that’s nearly a century old – quite a feat.

In sharp contrast to the two male leads, the fabled Clara Bow plays her role, Mary Preston, with complete abandon.  She never truly overacts, exactly, but she throws herself into her supporting role with abandon.  Mary is hopelessly infatuated with Jack, who is actually in love with the debonair Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston), who is already involved with David, though they haven’t made anything official.  (If Facebook had been a thing back then, their relationship status would have been “It’s Complicated”.)  So, when Jack makes eyes at Sylvia, poor Mary is in the background as her hopeful smile deteriorates into sobs.  She may not be subtle, but Clara Bow makes sure you know EXACTLY what is on Mary’s mind at any given moment.

In the middle of this would-be soap opera, World War I intervenes.  Jack and David both enlist to become aviators.  A crucial scene shows Jack asking for Sylvia’s picture to keep as a good luck charm, a picture that has already been signed over to David.  Then, as he says his farewells to the lovelorn Mary, she offers him her picture.  How this scene plays out, and how it comes to bear much later, is one of the high points of the film’s ground-based drama.

But the real marquee attraction Wings comes during the aerial training and combat scenes.  Watching this movie, you understand why modern filmmakers today strive for realism as much as possible.  Ron Howard wanted to show weightless environments for Apollo 13, so sets were constructed inside a military jet tanker that flew parabolic arcs to simulate weightlessness…for real.  The makers of Top Gun: Maverick wanted to draw audiences into the film, so they had their actors train for weeks and months so they could be filmed inside the actual cockpits of F-18 fighters as they performed simulated combat maneuvers…for real.  Those filmmakers knew what had already been demonstrated decades earlier by Wings: nothing beats reality.

(Almost nothing…Ready Player One was pretty damn cool…BUT I DIGRESS…)

For Wings, director Wellman, a combat pilot himself during the war, knew that the best way to grab the audience by the lapels would be to get his actors up in the air for real.  To put it very briefly, he got his two lead actors to become certified pilots, got them into the air with small cameras strapped to the front of their planes, and had them act, fly their own planes, and be their own camera operators, all at the same time, while other stunt pilots flew around them, sometimes in VERY close quarters, simulating aerial combat.

The results are staggering.  There is a visceral mojo to these scenes that cannot be overstated.  Sure, it looks “old” because it’s black and white and grainy, but it is also undeniably real, and when you see long shots of a biplane going into a death spiral after being shot out of the sky, your intellect tells you there’s a real pilot flying a real plane hurtling at high speed towards the real ground, and you either sit back in awe or you lean forward with excitement.  There are a few scenes where real planes crash to the ground in various ways; one of them crashes into the side of a freaking HOUSE…for REAL.  IMDb mentions one staged crash where the plane didn’t do exactly what it was SUPPOSED to do, and the stunt pilot literally broke his neck…but survived and returned to his job six weeks later.  And it was all done in camera with no trickery or fake dummies in the cockpit.  It is literally mindboggling.

However, it should be noted that these accomplishments by themselves would mean very little if they weren’t hitched to a compelling story.  The love story among Jack, David, and Mary is a constant thread through the whole film.  Mary, having volunteered as an ambulance driver in the Army, miraculously finds herself stationed overseas…right next to Jack and David’s unit, wouldn’t you know it!  Contrivances aside, Wings expertly balances the exciting elements with the melodramatic flourishes.  The melodrama comes to a head when Mary finds herself alone in a hotel room with Jack, who is so drunk on champagne he doesn’t recognize her.  (She is dressed as a cabaret dancer, but that’s a long story…)  This movie truly contains the best of both worlds, genre-wise.

This might be crass of me to mention, but I’m going to anyway…Wings is also notable for some of the earliest on-screen nudity (in an AMERICAN film, anyway) that I can recall seeing.  There is a scene in a recruitment office where a line of bare male bums are lined up in the background, awaiting health inspection.  Then later, we see a woman’s bare breasts…just a brief glimpse, but it’s there.  Not only THAT, but during a fancy camera move in a French cabaret, we see a woman caressing another woman’s face…are they a couple?  Scandalous!  Who needs the Hays Code?  Not this guy!

(I could also mention the homo-erotic overtones during a pivotal scene towards the end of the film, but they pretty much speak for themselves [like the volleyball scene in Top Gun], so I’m just gonna move on…)

To sum up: Wings ranks as one of the greatest pure entertainments that Hollywood has ever served up.  Marc mentioned that it perhaps doesn’t get the love it deserves.  He’s probably right.  I’m sure it’s revered among cinephiles, but it is certainly not in the general public consciousness when it comes to silent films.  Regardless, it is exceptionally well-made and uncommonly effective.  If ever an old film deserved to be rediscovered by the general public, Wings is it.

A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: George Stevens
CAST: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Raymond Burr
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 82% Fresh

PLOT: A struggling young man gets a job working for his rich uncle and ends up falling in love with two women, one rich and one poor.


I first saw A Place in the Sun many moons ago at a friend’s house.  I remember enjoying it but thinking it was too soapy for my taste.  Years went by.  I finally got around to watching Woody Allen’s Match Point and was stunned at how much Allen’s film borrowed from George Stevens’ celebrated melodrama.  Having just re-watched A Place in the Sun, my opinion of it has warmed considerably, without diminishing my admiration for Match Point, which remains one of my favorite films of all time.

A Place in the Sun tells the story of young George Eastman, played by Montgomery Clift at or near the height of his powers.  He’s a bit of a layabout who wrangles a job at his rich uncle’s swimsuit factory.  When George meets his rich relatives, I was reminded of a George Gobel quip: “Did you ever get the feeling that the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?”  That’s George Eastman to a T, a ne’er-do-well in a sea of the well-to-do.

Against company policy, George falls in love (or at least in lust) with a rather plain girl, Alice, played by Shelley Winters in a de-glamorized role that went completely against type at that point in her career, winning her a Best Actress nomination.  Alice and George flirt and hold hands and occasionally neck (mildly scandalous for a 1951 film), but George can’t help but stare at another girl who pops up occasionally: Angela Vickers.  Angela is played by a ravishing Elizabeth Taylor, who was only 17 at the time of filming and empirically one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, if not the world.  It’s not too hard to imagine any man, let alone poor George Eastman, falling in love with her instantly.

But George is still connected to Alice, especially because he’s already slept with her.  When George learns Alice is pregnant, he despairs because he had been planning to end things with Alice to pursue Angela.  Alice even visits a doctor who might possibly provide an abortion.  Of course, this being 1951, “abortion” is never mentioned out loud, nor is the word “pregnant.”  But Alice’s visit to the doctor is handled with incredible intelligence and brilliant screenwriting that manages to say everything it needs to say without ever uttering those forbidden words.

The rest of the film examines what George may or may not be willing to do for the sake of his love for Angela, who loves him back, it turns out…but she doesn’t know about Alice.  Since this is based on a then-famous novel called An American Tragedy (by Theodore Dreiser), it may not be too hard to divine what is in store for George before the final credits roll, but getting there is the fun part.  By casting heartthrobs as the hero/anti-hero and the rich girl he loves, the film cleverly gets us to root for them a little bit, even when George is considering murder.

While Elizabeth Taylor dominates every scene she’s in just by standing there, the Academy made sure Shelley Winters was recognized for her incredibly difficult performance as Alice.  There are some movies where, if a character is an emotional yo-yo, it can be frustrating.  With Alice, Winters never crossed a line into unlikability, even when she calls George at a fancy dinner party demanding he marry her tomorrow, “or else.”  It’s clear she has no options left to her if she wants to have any semblance of a life in polite society (by 1950s standards, anyway).  I felt bad for her.  But I also felt bad for George – to a degree – when he demonstrates how sincerely he has fallen head over heels for Angela.  Not just because she’s stunningly beautiful, but also because she really seems to have fallen for him, too.

Lately, my movie-watching itinerary of classic films has involved a fair share of outstanding melodramas (Leave Her to Heaven, 1945; The Heiress, 1949; Dodsworth, 1936).  A Place in the Sun fits right into that mold.  It doesn’t quite achieve the perfection of The Heiress, but it is a fantastic example of its genre, good enough for Woody Allen to “reimagine” its basic story for Match Point, so it’s definitely worth a look if you’re into that kind of thing.

THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS (1974)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
CAST: Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, Michael Sacks, William Atherton
MY RATING: 6/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 87% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A young wife breaks her husband out of prison in 1969 Texas so he can help reclaim their infant from a foster family.  The ensuing media circus takes everyone by surprise.


Watching Steven Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express is like looking at one of those historical medieval tapestries of fierce battles, created by artists who didn’t yet know how to depict perspective.  There is plenty of action on display, but everything looks and feels flat.  The film took an award at Cannes that year for Best Screenplay, probably (at least partly) in recognition of how it shies away from a traditional Hollywood resolution, but even its downbeat ending is reminiscent of earlier, more resonant films like Bonnie and Clyde [1967] or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [1969].  As a stepping stone in the career of an eventual legend, it’s worth a view.  As a stand-alone film, it never quite achieves liftoff.

Based on real events, The Sugarland Express tells the story of Lou Jean Poplin (Goldie Hawn at her irrepressible, bubbly best), the young wife of prison inmate Clovis Poplin (William Atherton).  During a conjugal visit, just four months before Clovis is to be released, Lou Jean boldly busts him out because she needs his help to reclaim their infant, Langston, from a foster home.  Lou Jean herself has just finished serving time at a women’s prison, and the state, probably very wisely, determined Langston was better off with a foster family.  But they need to hurry because “I bet those Methodists are gettin’ ready to move out of state.”  Lou Jean’s delivery of “Methodists” tells you all you need to know about her feelings on the matter.

After Lou Jean breaks him out, a comedy of errors ends up in a situation where she and Clovis have hijacked a police cruiser and are holding a police officer at gunpoint.  They demand to be left alone while they drive to Sugarland, Texas, and retrieve their son, at which point they’ll release their hostage.

Now, this has all the makings of a smart, character-driven “road” movie, instigated by desperate people with no real plans for their end-game.  But for reasons I can’t put a finger on, nothing ever happens in the film that got me on the edge of my seat, figuratively speaking.  I fully comprehended the situation intellectually, but the film never got to me at an emotional level.

Could it be because we never really learn a lot about Lou Jean and Clovis in order to make them more empathetic?  No, I don’t think so, because over the course of the film, we’ll hear all about their past histories and previous brushes with the law.  The very fact they’re executing this plan to essentially kidnap Langston is proof of how unfit they are as parents.

I think part of the problem with the movie is…

…I’ve been sitting here for the last fifteen minutes trying to finish that sentence.  I can report that the film didn’t get to me emotionally, but I am struggling to explain why.  Could it be as simple as I think they’re not such great people, but the film seems to be siding with them as the movie progresses?  I mean, the movie HAS to side with them at least partially in order to make their journey mean anything.  Look at Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Bank robbers, lawbreakers, but clearly the good guys because, duh, Paul Newman and Robert Redford are playing them.

So, maybe it has to do with the casting?  The Sugarland Express had one of America’s sweethearts as a woman willing to resort to kidnapping just to commit another kidnapping in the name of maternal love.  So, we’ve gotta root for her, right?  But then we see her behaving in the most inane, brainless way for so much of the movie.  I found it difficult to side with her when I just wanted to, forgive the expression, slap some sense into her.

What about Clovis?  I could side with him.  He appears to have misgivings throughout the entire film, right up to the point of no return.  But the way he willingly goes along with the scheme because, dammit, it’s his wife…something about that also turned me off on him.  There are moments I felt sorry for him, for them both, because I could see where this movie was headed early on.  But that empathy wasn’t enough to make me feel a catharsis of tragic energy at the film’s finale.  There’s just something about Clovis and Lou Jean that wouldn’t allow me to get too worked up over their fate.

I guess I identified most with the kidnapped police officer, Slide (Michael Sacks).  Maybe too much.  From the beginning, Slide is begging them to drop their weapons and turn themselves over to the police.  At first, he looks like he’s just following his training.  But then the movie progresses, and doggone it, he starts to like these two loonies, even though Clovis handcuffs him and even shoots at him a couple of times in the heat of the moment.  He can see where this road ends, and he pleads with them not to do exactly what the Texas state troopers expect them to do, because he doesn’t want to see them dead.  Because Slide never stops imploring the Poplins to see sense and do the smart thing, I guess he’s who I sided with for the entire movie.  (Well, him and his superior, Captain Tanner [Ben Johnson], who also doesn’t want to see them die.)

But…isn’t that the wrong way to approach this movie?  I shouldn’t be siding with the cops, for cryin’ out loud, should I?  At least, not in this movie.  Discuss.

From a technical standpoint, it is pretty cool to see how Spielberg, in only his second film, was able to marshal vast resources to create some arresting imagery.  The sight of what looks like literally hundreds of cop cars following the Poplins is a deceptively difficult feat, logistically speaking.  There’s a tense shootout in a used car lot that would have been right at home in The French Connection.  And everywhere, there’s bits of humor that made me smile.  From the elderly couple abandoned on the road (long story) to the solution of how to get Lou Jean to a toilet while in the middle of an extended police chase, Spielberg constantly pokes us in the ribs.  If this had gotten to the hands of someone like John Landis, it’s easy to see how this could have been turned into an out-and-out comedy with thriller elements, instead of the other way around.

One other aspect I did like was the media circus that blew up around the Poplins’ plight.  I’m sure it is yet another link to previous anti-heroic films, but while I was watching it, I was reminded of only one film: Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers [1994].  The outpouring of affection from the general public for these two, let’s face it, outlaws was both funny and sobering at the same time.  It would have been interesting to see a scene or two at the end of the film as an epilogue, so we could get a reading on what the public thought about how the police should have handled the situation.

If comparing The Sugarland Express to most of Spielberg’s later films, it certainly comes up lacking, no question.  As a lifelong Spielberg fan, I am compelled to say it SHOULDN’T be compared to his later films because it was made before he’d had a chance to hone his skills and become the populist/mainstream film icon he is today.  Look carefully at the two-dimensional storytelling and you can see the outlines of what was coming around the bend for this modern-day master.

SHANE (1953)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: George Stevens
CAST: Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon De Wilde, Jack Palance
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 97% Fresh

PLOT: A drifter (who may or may not be a retired gunfighter) comes to the assistance of a homestead family terrorized by a wealthy cattleman and his hired gun.


Shane affords me the opportunity to use a word I never get to use in daily conversation: archetypal.  John Ford’s Stagecoach [1939] may be the granddaddy of the modern Western, but Shane taps into something even more primal.

Alan Ladd as Shane is the archetype of the mysterious stranger riding out of the mountains, either coming to the aid of a community who has lost hope (Pale Rider, 1985) or wreaking havoc as an avenging angel (High Plains Drifter, 1973), and then disappearing into the sunset or riding back into the distant mountains.  This formula was probably already old when Shane was made, and the film does little to dress it up or add any kind of pretentious spin to the story.  But by sticking to the formula and really nailing it home, director George Stevens achieved a weird kind of clarity that elevates Shane into a mythical realm.  If it’s not terribly realistic, well…who wants realism mixed in with their magic?  Not me.

Shane is set in the high plains of Wyoming in 1889.  (I don’t remember the exact year being mentioned in the film – I pulled it off IMDb – but we can tell it’s after the war because a running gag involves a harmonica player who always starts playing a Union song whenever a homesteader called Stonewall, who fought for the South, walks into a meeting.  It’s a mark of faith in the intelligence of the average viewer that the screenplay never comes out and explains that’s what’s happening; we just see it and have to put two and two together.  Nice.)

ANYWAY…it’s 1889, and a land baron named Rufus Ryker is trying to run homesteaders off some land that they rightfully own, but which is preventing Ryker from expanding his cattle ranch.  Among these homesteaders is Joe Starrett (Van Heflin); his wife, Marian (Jean Arthur); and his little boy, Joey (Brandon De Wilde, who earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but don’t ask my opinion of his performance…just don’t).

One day, true to mythical form, a lone figure rides out of the mountains and up to Starrett’s patch of land.  He is improbably good looking, wears a fringed buckskin jacket, two ivory-handled revolvers, and identifies himself only as Shane.  After earning Starrett’s trust, he agrees to stay on as a hired hand and possibly help with the struggle against Ryker…

…and if you’ve been watching movies as long as I have, you could practically write your own screenplay for the rest of the film, because you’ve seen it before, many times.  The stranger proves his worth, defends his new friends, makes friends with the wife (but not TOO friendly), gets hero-worshipped by the little boy, and eventually runs them cattle barons plumb out of business.  But I’ve never seen it done quite like Shane.

For example, there’s a bar fight that ought to be in the Bar Fight Hall of Fame.  Shane, in what HAS to be a deliberate move to goad the bad guys into action, walks into a saloon filled with Ryker’s men to return a soda-pop bottle for the deposit.  A fight predictably breaks out, first one-on-one, then 1-on-2, then 3, then 4.  (Who does this guy think he is?  John Wick?)  The fight gets to a point when it’s winding down…then it picks right up again.  Then they get Shane on the ropes and start waling on him…until Starrett sees what’s happening, grabs an axe handle, and cracks it over someone’s head.  That may not sound like much in writing, but it’s pretty impressive visually, especially from a 1953 Western that feels at times like a Disney product.

(It almost feels like what Tarantino did with the fight between the Bride and the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003).  George Stevens said, “Okay, these people want a bar fight?  I’ll give you a damn bar fight.”)

But while I was watching it, I started to analyze it a little bit.  Bar fights…seen one, seen a thousand.  But Shane felt to me like it was embracing the cliché, making friends with a trope, and in so doing the fight became a myth of a bar fight, a fever dream of itself.  It’s not just a bar fight.  It’s THE bar fight.

A lot of Shane works that way.  Shane isn’t just a mysterious stranger, he’s THE mysterious stranger.  An argument could be made for Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” as the archetype of this character, at least in the Western genre, but it’s clear that Eastwood took a lot of cues from Shane when writing and directing his own films.  I’m not suggesting that Eastwood plagiarized Shane.  I’m suggesting that Eastwood’s creations are infused with Shane’s DNA in all the best ways.  (I wouldn’t presume to speculate how much of Shane is in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns starring Eastwood, though I would say those have more of Kurosawa in them than George Stevens.)

There are just two items that bugged me while watching Shane.  One, the editing was occasionally erratic, using a lot of fades or cuts to virtually empty frames in the middle of the action.  I don’t normally pick that kind of thing apart in a review, but it was glaringly apparent in a lot of places.

Two…the tragic waste of talent by casting Jean Arthur as Mrs. Starrett.  Jean Arthur is the fast-talking, quick-thinking actress who appeared in such classics as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town [1936], Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Only Angels Have Wings [both 1939].  She goes (or OUGHT to go) on the list of intelligent female actors like Katharine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell.  By 1953, she was semi-retired and only appeared in Shane as a favor to her friend, director George Stevens.  When I saw her name in the credits, I had visions of her delivering fiery speeches, shaming and out-thinking the menfolk, declaring her admiration for Shane without exactly laying out her TRUE feelings for him, and so on.  Instead, she is reduced to spending the majority of her screen time fretting over her husband’s safety, casting loaded glances at Shane while her husband isn’t around, baking pies, and reading bedtime stories to Joey.  I know I just got done writing about how the movie embraces clichés and becomes mythological, and there’s nothing more clichéd than the “little woman” supporting her husband, etc., but something about her role just rubbed me the wrong way.  After this film, Arthur retired from film completely, and although Shane was a massive popular and critical hit, I can’t help but wish she had been given more to do in her last film.

By the time Shane reaches its famous finale (“Shaaane!  Come baaack!”), justice has been meted out and the little guys have won…all is right with the world.  Echoes of Shane still linger today, because who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned bad-guy beatdown, administered by the archetypal mysterious stranger?  This may not be my favorite Western of all time, but from now on, whenever I do watch my favorite Westerns, I’ll keep an eye out for Shane’s shadow, looming large over all who came after it.

LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945)

DIRECTOR: John M. Stahl
CAST: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 85% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A writer falls in love with a young socialite, and they quickly marry, but her obsessive love for him threatens to be the undoing of them both as well as everyone around them.


Leave Her to Heaven is one of the earliest examples in my movie collection of what I call a “head-fake” movie.  There is a tiny bit of foreshadowing in its opening moments, but after that, it appears to fall into the traditional pattern of an old-fashioned, melodramatic potboiler, with a spurned fiancé, lovers in a whirlwind romance, and glorious three-strip Technicolor production design and cinematography that makes everything feel like a Douglas Sirk soap opera.  When it makes its left turn into unanticipated territory, I was on tenterhooks.

Author Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) has a classic, almost clichéd meet-cute with the ravishing Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney, who has never looked more beautiful) during a train trip to New Mexico.  He’s visiting friends, she’s there for a funeral, and their circles of friends unexpectedly mesh.  He winds up staying with her family at their ranch house.  She and her family remark how much Richard resembles Ellen’s late father.  He notices her engagement ring, but a few days later he also notices its absence along with her declaration that she’s removed it “forever.”  (I’m REALLY condensing here to get to the point…)

Her fiancé, Russell Quinton (a very young Vincent Price), arrives upon hearing she’s broken off their engagement.  He leaves after a brief conversation, and a few minutes later she literally proposes to Richard.  They marry and enjoy a few scenes of wedded bliss (in separate beds, of course, this is the ‘40s), during which Ellen makes some red-flag-raising statements to the effect of, “I’ll never let you go” and “I want you all to myself.”

During all of this, the filmmakers exhibit terrific restraint.  In some high-tension scenes, there is a notable lack of background score, which is a bit unusual for these kinds of pictures.  You usually get ominous for tension, or pastoral for outdoor scenes, etc.  But Stahl seems determined not to cue the audience for what they’re supposed to feel at any given moment, with one or two exceptions.  This method contributes greatly to not giving away what’s coming.  Ellen’s own words do that all by themselves.

There are other plot developments I could mention: Richard’s brother, Danny, who is disabled and comes to live with them for a while…Ellen’s fixation on how much time Richard spends with her sister, Ruth…Ellen’s attempt to get Danny’s doctor to prescribe more bedrest…these and other signal markers start to twist this apparent soap opera into something else entirely.  It reminded me of the great head-fakery in Woody Allen’s ingenious Match Point [2005], which also started out in soap opera territory and wound up somewhere altogether more sinister.

Much is made of the film’s Oscar-winning cinematography, and rightly so.  In an era when color films were an extravagance for a movie studio, they made the right choice here.  Cinematographer Leon Shamroy and production designer/art director Lyle R. Wheeler create picture-postcard images of a bygone era, lending an air of “vintageness” to the rooms, wardrobe, and makeup of the actors.  Look at Gene Tierney’s marvelous red lips, or the gaudy red of her swimsuit, worn at a time in the film when she probably shouldn’t have been so extravagant.

But I particularly love the music choices, or rather the choices to NOT use music during key sequences.  One in particular stands out.  If you’ve never seen Leave Her to Heaven, I won’t spoil it for you.  It’s the scene with a rowboat and one character’s attempt to swim across a lake.  In many other films of the time, there would almost certainly have been tense strings, low cellos and brass in the background.  For some reason, my mind goes to Miklós Rózsa’s magnificent score for Double Indemnity [1944].  That’s the kind of music normally heard in scenes like this.  But the filmmakers made the canny decision to let us merely listen to the actors and watch as Ellen makes a crucial decision.  That dread silence fairly SCREAMS as the scene progresses.

It’s tempting to look at this movie as a kind of Fatal Attraction [1987] prototype, but that’s not giving either movie its due.  Fatal Attraction is a straight up thriller, and it’s about an unfaithful husband getting what he deserves.  Leave Her to Heaven is also a cautionary tale, but not because the husband did anything wrong, aside from choosing to ignore a lot of red flags in Ellen’s behavior until it was far too late.  It might also be possible to interpret the film as a warning to men against women who think for themselves too much, who are too “take charge”, or would be considered such in the 1940s.  But I would disagree with that interpretation, too.

Look at Leave Her to Heaven as a whole, and I think it most closely resembles Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat [1981], or vice versa.  Both feature femme fatales who are not shy about doing what’s necessary to get their way.  The film’s ending even seems about to resemble Body Heat’s ending, but it veers away at the last second from the later film’s bleakness, providing an ending that seems just a little too pat.  I have a sneaking suspicion the filmmakers had a different ending in mind, but were forced to make changes to please the censors.  If there’s anyone out there who knows how the book on which the film is based ends, sing out.

Leave Her to Heaven is a singular experience.  I even knew about the famous boat scene, and I was still on the edge of my seat.  I simply couldn’t believe she was going to go through with it.  That’s the sign of a great film: you know what’s coming, it’s inevitable, but instead of feeling predestined, there is real suspense, a desire to know why this is happening, and what’s going to happen next.