1982: Verdict, The (69th)

Nice.

What else happened this year? The Falklands! And a lot of bad fashion.

What is the plot - in one sentence? An alcoholic lawyer is given a juicy case where he can either take the money, or fight in court for justice.

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? The jury eventually finds them negligent, and he wins the case. At the end of it, he's slightly wealthier, now ignoring the call of a woman who betrayed his cause that he seemed to like, despite her looking 1/3 of his age. 

What is the meaning of the title? It all hinges on... the verdict ... of the jury.

Photo goes he

Here's Paul Newman and his one ally sleeping on a plane together. Doesn't that look glamorous? Isn't it weird that it's only 5 years after Paul Newman was playing a hockey player in a movie?

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? It's the 1980s, so we see doctors chain-smoking. There's a lot of discussion about an 'expert' witness being black, and thus not trustworthy - but at least they're honest, today it would just be sugar-coated. The entire movie's about a scandal involving Catholics, but it isn't about systemic child abuse - it's a medical negligence case in a Catholic hospital. I was as amazed as you are.

As for a slap - Paul Newman slap-punches Charlotte Rampling in a bar, a few people intervene. She poses as his lover, and then spies on him, so, in the logic of the movie, she had it coming.

Any thoughts? Paul Newman plays an alcoholic lawyer. We learn that he was an idealist initially, and was set for great things, but he was betrayed by his wife's family firm, and it's left him a bit fucked career-wise. He's now an ambulance and funeral chaser, and he's given one last case out of sympathty.

Instead of taking the money, he works against the odds to find the truth of what has happened (a nurse was made to doctor some documents.) Despite exposing the truth of the situation, the evidence is shot down by a technicality. Ignoring that, the jury finds the Catholic church guilty and there'll be a payout for both Paul Newman and for the family of the person at the end of negligence.

The message of the movie seems to suggest that it is people who make justice, not books and lawyers, but the fact that a case like this would be unique suggests that it is not the case. As would the fact that the legal system has already screwed him over so much.

It's full of good performances, Paul Newman is a captivating fellow (though I always think he needs a bit of a moisturising: his face looks like you could sand with it), but a few other characters don't hit the same heights. A doctor agrees to help out, but is bribed into not testifying, but he's not a convincing character even in the short scenes he has. The brother-in-law of the comatose woman who is the center of the trail also seems a bit perfunctionary - he describes himself as 'working class' guy who just wants a payout, but even in a very small role he doesn't show himself to be a convincing actor. This is weird as the director, Sidney Lumet, was renowned as an actor's director.

Would you recommend this? It's a perfectly fine movie, with some good performances, and a real, rousing speech from Paul Newman about the nature of justice at the end. It was fine, but maybe I've just seen too many of these recently, perhaps it's aged poorly? Perhaps I'm just too jaded?

I've been watching (and have mentioned before) the TV show Rake, and I think that does a better job showing a substance abusing lawyer getting up to hijinx, this was more just a sad character study.

Final thoughts? In reality, a case like this would probably have been found not guilty: it's hard to get inspired by that, no matter how many end-of-movie speeches you get.

Paul Newman's assistant in the case, one of his few allies (which is in stark contrast to the  overfunded, overstaffed, and overstrached opposition) looks like absolute shit in this movie, he looks like a melted sandwich in a suit.I hope he was ok.

There are a lot of villains, not least the judge, who is so anti-Newman it would lead to a mistrial in real life. However, he was the detective in 'Theatre Of Blood' a movie I watched with my parents a few days ago, and that was a lot more fun than this. I'll admit that this is going for 'character study / inspirational realism' than fun, but... 

 

OK! That's it, you can find the others in this series right HERE!!!!! I'll be busy with work (guess who's travelling with work!) for a while so this may have to tide you over a while.

I love YOU most of all.

 

1983: Fourth Man, The (aka De vierde man) (68th)

What else happened this year? Grenada is invaded by the US, and I know nothing about it other than the year, and that it wasn't much of a fight.  

What is the plot - in one sentence? A writer deals with some possibly religious visions which seem to point to his new lover being a witch, who is likely to kill either him or her other lover.

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? It's not certain that it's her doing, but her two lovers are involved in a crash, the writer survives, and the other one dies. The woman at the heart of the story seemingly finds a new love interest in the hospital, letting the cycle continue.

What is the meaning of the title? She's had three husbands die before she meets the writer character; he's worried about either he or his rival becoming the 'fourth man'

Mother Mary in a facemask! Probably. That's the main guy, the writer getting a haircut, and the little blondie is the femme fatal.
 

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? No slapping around... though it may be implied that the handsome lover is violent to her? It wasn't depicted. 

Other than that, this is an incredibly Dutch movie, which you'd expect from a Dutch movie filmed and set in the Netherlands. It's Dutch in that the main stars are happy being naked and awkwardly naked throughout the movie. There's a bit where they are having quite uncomfortable looking sex, and he comments that, without breasts, her physique is boy-like, and he then spends time squashing the boobs.

The other lover, who eventually becomes the writer's lover too - is first seen browsing porn in a train station bookshop.

She's shown to have made some home movies, on a reel film, of all of her former husbands on the day of their death, but it's kind of hilarious how much work it takes to get to see them: get reel ready, turn on power, turn out lights, watch movie, repeat. It's also funny that she does the same poses that people would do now for phone footage - weird poses and fake smiles.

Any thoughts? This doesn't take any time to get weird, we're bombarded by some violent and religious imagery from the very beginning - eyes being poked out, blood flowing, Christ on a cross, etc. - and it's not helped by the fact that the main point of view of the story is someone who thrives on being an unreliable narrator. It's unclear, exactly, whether the Mother Mary figure who shows up is real or just a hallucination / figment of his imagination. That's fine, by the way, not everything has to be spelled out.

The movie makes the bisexual romance a good counter to the religious horror of the 'witch'. He has to choose between his faith, his lust for the male model, and his being allured by the witch - all of this culminates when he is fellated by the lover in the graveyard tomb which houses the ashes of all of her former husbands. It's an interesting scene.

Would you recommend this? Yeah I guess so, it was a pretty unpredictable, little bit saucy tale.

Final thoughts? Everyone who drives is shown to drive like a maniac. The model male guy is killed in a car crash (and this justifying all of the 'eye' trauma that the writer had been worrying about), but it was inevtiable when they were driving around like drunken Italians the whole movie.

I quite like that the 'hero' of the movie was just a bit of a dick, too. He's petty, maniuplative, and ruled entirely by emotions, yet he still ends up getting it on with the most attractive male and female in the movie. What a guy.

I imagine at the time this was pretty graphic, but it's less shocking now, it's still interesting though.

 

There you go - finished. If you're interested, you can find the others all here. If you're not interested, you can go fuck yourself. It's not like I'm making any money out of this. 

1970: Cercle Rouge, Le (67th)

What else happened this year? Kent State massacre, the cultural revolution continued, and Apollo 13 blew up?... (Yep, Yep but it lasted a decade, and it didn't really blow up, they saved themselves)

What is the plot - in one sentence? We follow two criminals, one who is a recent release from prison, the other an escapee from custody, as they meet (by chance) and plan 'one last heist' together.

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? The heist (a jewelry theft) goes off without a hitch, but they have trouble selling the merchandise, so they're caught in a sting trying to sell it. the policeman who let the escapee escape manages to catch them, and the three criminals are shot dead while fleeing.

What is the meaning of the title? There's a bunch of pseudo-spiritual nonsense about all of life's events being within a red circle. It's made up nonsense, and doesn't really apply here.

Here are our three guys, driving on some greenscreen- L-R: Nigel Farage Lookalike and sharpshooter, Oliver Reed / Ape crossover and escapee, and Kd Lang, Robert De Niro crossbreed ex-con.

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? I couldn't remember a woman speaking in this movie.It's aged well and badly in that it's a good look at the mindset of France, and the mindset of French manhood at the time.

Any thoughts? This was good: a nice, tightly done movie with a lot of details thrown in and a lot of things which went unsaid that you had to surmise.

The whole thing is about 'the code' of masculinity - the detective may have cats at his house, and have to worry about demotion, but the code means that he will still force someone to rat on their mates even when his son has just died in custody. The 'good side' does whatever it takes to get results (although, not having more than a single guard for a prisoner who is being transported by train, it seems).

The criminal code seems a little less harsh - you do what you hope the other would do in the circumstances if you follow the same code: the ex-con protects a fugitive who is hiding in his car, because of the code. They team up, because it's the right thing to do - they don't even really need to say it out loud: the convict kills two men who are following his new friend. Why? The code. The sharpshooter they draft in refused money for his acts, and eventually dies in the shootout because of the code - why ?they'd helped him with his alcoholism, even if none of it is said to them aloud. Large stretched of this movie go with no talking whatsoever.

The two guys are following him because the ex-con came in and took money that was probably owed to him. The man he took it from may have betrayed him, and definitely stole his girl from him. Probably the money he stole was owed him fair and square, but again, the code...

Would you recommend this? Yeah, I kinda would. It's a good heist movie and tells a lot about the time and the place it was made. It was also pretty riveting.

Like a lot of movies from the 70s, the actual movie about crime is able to overcome the ridiculous limitations in technology of the time: it's about the story and how it unfolds.

Final thoughts? By the end of it all, he's been out of prison like a day and a half, and he's shot dead. That was quite a ride for him. He returns to his apartment after 5 years in prison and everything is covered in mould and decay- which reminds me of the apartment that I have in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, which hasn't had anyone in it since January 9, 2020.

It's ironice that for a movie which is essentially about French machismo, the main guy (the ex-con, who was also 'le samourai' - looks like KD Lang in a fake moustache.

There's also a nightclub where everyone in the movie meets at at one stage or other. It seems to be staffed by criminals, and has a huge stage with insane dances going on int it, I'd love to go.

There we go - 68 down, the other 67 can be found here, click if you want to see more, click twice if you don't.

1990: Nikita (66th)

What else happened this year? Gulf War? Not till next year right? Nelson Mandela is let out, that'll do it!

What is the plot - in one sentence? We follow a woman who is arrested for killing a cop, and then trained as an assassin by a vague yet menacing government organisation.

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? There's a very strange relationship with her boss, she falls in love with some little guy, and manages to do... two other missions in a few years before she has to flee after a bungled hit. She leaves the two men in her life to miss her.

What is the meaning of the title? The Woman Nikita, She's a woman called Nikita.

The things she screamed like this, were about 4 x the volume I thought possible. A dog living 4 doors away from me died because of it.

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? It's 1990, so part of her montage of training involves being taught to learn how to use a computer mouse for several minutes. Other than the ridiculous fashion (she wears a hat with holes in it, like Swiss cheese,once), and the technology (giant walkie talkies, enormous security cameras etc) probably the more interesting thing is the gender politics, and the director. We'll talk about that later, but let's just say it's not aged well... as for slapping around, she is slapped around at the beginning of the movie by a detective, she's also happy to dish it out.

Any thoughts? The actor playing Nikita was a lover of the director (more on that later) and she's not up to the task. She starts off as a literal junkie, with violent tendancies, and there's no reason to wonder why she's been selected for the task of being an assassin. We are also told that she's turning 19, but she's an attractive 30 if she's a day.

Her acting isn't up to much, and there are a few lines which she screams 'MY NAME IS CUTIE!' 'MOTHERFUCKERS!' and 'OPEN THE DOOR MOTHERFUCKER!' which had her voice crack and I didn't know what was going on. Another time she said it with a mouse, and then sings like a psychopath, and I really didn't get what we're meant to think. It certainly wasn't charming. Half the time she's unstable, the other half she's a deadly and collected assassin.

She's taken to a top secret location to be trained in assassination (in two weeks!), and there she's ... taught ballet and allowed to spray paint her room. Meanwhile, the guy in charge, and in complete control of her, falls in love with her. He looks like a French Kenneth Brannagh, and their relationship is entirely inappropriate (more on that later). Put it this way, if you throw a birthday party with cake, and there's only two of you, and only one of you can go home, because the birthday girl is effectively a prisoner, there's no way that you aren't a creep.

The other guy she falls in love with (a cashier turned boat builder, because why not?) seems to be an earnest and supportive lover, but there's a bit where he won't let her have a bath, and is happy with her having no friends. He's also very interested in what she was like as a small child. Something was up there, no question.

Despite the notable handicap of having no friends, she's able to source together a crew for her final mission. One of them ends up being Jean Reno, who gives a worrying performance.

Would you recommend this? No I would not. Her missions in total are: deliver some surveillance equipment to a room, two assassination jobs, and a bungled hit on the embassy, for 2 hours. It's not exactly fast paced. I'll drop this now: if this was in English, it would be almost unwatchable.

Is it a precursor to various movies where a woman kicks ass? Yeah, but they've done it better since, and probably better before too.

Final thoughts? This already felt a bit off just in watching it. It's not a good action movie, and it's not a good romance movie. The whole thing felt either stupid or creepy. After that, and reading about the director, I feel even worse. For the record, the director is Luc Besson, whom we discovered before is a perv. I mentioned in the last post that I'd try to watch more non-American movies, now I'll try to watch more non-peadophile-made movies. In theory, I'd be willing be overlook a lot from a director, but his creepiness has seeped into the movie itself, and it's not even a good movie. This was grim, and a grim reminder that so much of the art we consume is made by objectionable pieces of shit.

Also, one of her missions involved making a room service delivery? I've had dogs do that.

Ooh boy, 66 done, the other 65 will be here too. Any more in the future will be there too, because of the magic of the internet. 

1954: Barefoot Contessa, The (65th!)

What else happened this year? Cold War Stuff, and Chinese people starving to death in their millions. Same as most other 1950s years.

What is the plot - in one sentence? We follow the rise and fall out of a Spanish actor from her humble beginnings to her lavish death.

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? She's dead, leaving behind several former lovers and friends, but the only one who seems to care for her is a director - a director who cares about her so much he's willing to stand in the rain at her funeral instead of wearing an umbrella.

What is the meaning of the title? It refers to the star of the movie, who prefers to be barefoot - she marries a count later on in the movie. I wish that they were all this literal.

 

Here's the countess, on the left, a pretty woman dressed at the height of (hideous) fashion of the time. This shot it taken from an extended scene where two wealthy men have  a fight about how rich they are: it reads a lot like a big dick competition (note, only one of the men is in this shot).

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? Within the first few minutes a spoiled movie producer has slapped a starlet. The countess is herself killed by her husband when she reveals she's pregnant. Luckily, in the scene where they cradle her 'dead' body you can see her breathing very obviously. She looks like she had hiccups or something, did no one notice?

Other than that, one of the 'themes' of the movie is that the Barefoot Contessa is exploited through love and stardom without the need for there to be any violence given to her. The one thing she can really control in her life is her steady stream of lovers, whom she refers to oddly as 'cousins,' but it is a pregnancy from one of them which gets her killed.

Any thoughts? The barefoot Contessa, a Spanish actress named Maria, is first seen dead and being buried. From there we work out the rest of the story. That's certainly a played out mode of storytelling now, but presumably it wasn't then. 

There are various mourners, but only one is emotional enough to be standing in the rain without an umbrella, and it's Humphrey Bogart - so you just assume that he'll be some jilted lover. In a surprise, he isn't - he and Maria develop an entirely friendly relationship, which is even avuncular. He even has a wife who he appears faithful to. It's probably the only healthy relationship that Maria has in the movie.

She ends up a star (Humph is a director) and goes through several romances with wealthy men.The last husband that she ends up with discusses with his sister about how they can't have children, but he still wants to marry her. There's a lot of innuendo about it, he's incapable of having kids, and for a long time it reads as him being too gay to father kids. That he was blown up in the war and patched back together at great expense seems a cop-out. 

 Oh, and why not just raise the kid as the count's own? It's not like anyone else needed to know he couldn't father kids, and he could continue his legacy like he was always going on about. [answer, male pride - another theme of the movie: we're told that another of her 'lovers' would rather he didn't have her love, but had the world thinking it so, than having her love in secret].

The whole movie is pretty slow - a lot of action takes place off-stage, and we're told about it and shown the aftermath. That, coupled with voiceover narrations from Bogart's character, and another from a guy called Oscar - who is a legal enforcer for a wealthy and unpleasant producer, before a small voiceover from the Italian Count, it can seem a little cluttered.

Would you recommend this? It is a big, epic, melodramatic thing. I didn't mind it, but it's slow, nicely shot and the story was needlessly byzantine and about the concerns of the very wealthy. I liked it, but...

Final thoughts? Ava Gardner is the Contessa, and I don't think I'd ever seen her as a young woman before*. She looks a little like Carrie-Ann Moss - Trinity from the matrix, but squeezed into unpleasant, 1950s fashion. It seems that her character is analogous to someone in real life, and a very cursory search tells me that it's based on Rita Hayworth. Great.

Ok that's enough of this. I've been doing too many American movies, so I'll try to spread it out a little now into other countries and languages. I'm doing my best. Anyway, this is the 65th movie in this particular thing I've been doing, and you can find the others right at this page here. Thanks and watch your ass.

*I had. I've seen the Killers, and 55 days in Peking, she's also the old woman who rents the house out at the Sentinel, a movie that caused a break-up for me :S

1941: Face Behind The Mask, The (64)

What else happened this year? Oh, just a little thing called the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Basically anything from the early 1940s is war.

What is the plot - in one sentence? An earnest recently emigrant to New York suffers a bunch of setbacks and finds himself the leader of a master gang of criminals.

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? He tries to give up the life of crime, they turn on him, and he sets about righting some wrongs and killing the gang members. He does, dying in the process.

What is the meaning of the title? He's severely burned early on, and turns to crime to fund the purchase of a mask and eventual plastic surgery. Incidentally, the mask is the creepiest thing you've ever seen, making Peter Lorre even creepier than you'd ever imagine. The title also has a metaphorical meaning too, as he's caught between his crime life and his honest life.

This is him with the mask on, the tux gives a bit of class, the mask brings nightmares.

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? This movies 'one woman' (and how often is there only a single female of substance in a movie?) is blind (another recurring theme) and she's treated well, shown to be clever, pretty and funny, and is killed in a car bombing (along with her dog!) - in a move that I didn't see coming.

We're told that his character is both a technical genius, and that he's been in (what we can presume) the German army for a few years. As it's 1941, it might be that fact, and not just his scarred face, that means he keeps getting rejected for jobs before he turns to crime, which we're told about his prowess but not really shown.

Any thoughts? The man behind the mask is Peter Lorre, who plays: an earnest immigrant, a man turned to crime in desperation, a confident and tough criminal gang leader, a love interest and a plotting vengeance taker within this, oh, 80 minute movie. It's pretty effective.

He's burned in a fire in the hotel (on his first day in America!) and is bandaged for a time. When he's unbandaged by doctors, his reaction shot where he screams and writhes around in fury and fear, and nurses faint and shriek, was obviously a big influence on that shot in the first Batman movie where the Joker is first... unveiled.

At the end, the three surviving gang members are abandoned in the desert, and decide to go three different ways to find help, but all die, seems like something I've seen, but I'm going to say that it first happened here. It seems this was a pretty influential movie, both in terms of scenes and in terms of the vibe.

He's tricked the gang into getting there, and arranged to have a reward sent to his friends poverty-stricken mother. It's quite surprising that all of the gang are dismissed as dead, before our main man in the mask is declared it too. This declaration is made by the same policeman that Peter Lorre met on the first day in America, who recommended him the hotel in which he was burned, then later searches in vain for him and his criminal gang, and is there at the end to identify the dead. Without knowing it, those two had a real relationship throughout the movie. All resolved, the movie ends. just dead.

Would you recommend this? Now I think of it, it's a pretty bleak thing. All of his friends dead, along with himself and his gang members who betrayed him, and he was just looking for a new life and honest employment. Anyway, this is a weird, influential, brief, cleverly done movie. I'll recommend it.

Final thoughts? The love interest of the movie is pretty and blind, and this has happened very freuqnely in this series. I'll have to do a ranking of them when I'm done. Anyway, because she's blind, she can see the inner beauty of our burned hero, until she's killed. When they first meet, she mentions that she can't afford a guide-dog, which I would have thought was pretty cheap even at the time. If not, it would certainly be worth paying a big to avoid bumping into people constantly.  

Is there a euphemism and analogy there within the larger story? The death of the self when you immigrate? In the name of arty pretentiousness, let's say yes.

AT the beginning there's a poor little guy who's a criminal who remains loyal to Peter Lorre's character through the movie. It's his mother who gets the reward at the end - he's a nice guy, a small confidence man, when teamed with a guy with severe burns, reminded me a lot of the mouse who cheers up Dumbo in that movie. Anyway, his name is Dinkie, and the way it's pronounced in the movie by Peter Lorre makes me think they made him say it all the time because it sounded cool. That's that!

Here we go, 64 down, Christ knows how many to go! The rest can be found here, thanks for dropping by¬!