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On the basis of his success with The Manchurian Candidate (1962), director John Frankenheimer was able to assemble a similar behind-the scenes crew for another B&W political thriller, Seven Days in May (1964). This time, however, Rod Serling (not George Axelrod) penned the highly effective screenplay.
The movie, based on a popular novel of the same name, is the story of an attempted military coup in the United States, spearheaded by the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Burt Lancaster). The planned coup is in response to a nuclear disarmament treaty signed by an unpopular President (Fredric March). Kirk Douglas plays Lancaster's right-hand military man, who alerts the Administration to his boss's overthrow plot.
The soul-searching dialog, as noted by Frankenheimer in the DVD commentary, is pure Serling:
General Scott (Lancaster): You're a night crawler, Colonel. A peddler. You sell information. Are you sufficiently up on your Bible to know who Judas was?
Colonel Casey (Douglas): I suggest you read that letter, sir. It's from the President.
General Scott: I asked you a question.
Colonel Casey (hesitantly): Are you ordering me to answer, sir?
General Scott (angrily): I am!
Colonel Casey (calmy, stoically): Yes, I know who Judas was. He was a man I worked for and admired...until he disgraced the four stars on his uniform.
(1948): Underappreciated noir from director Anthony Mann,* with moody voiceover narration from Claire Trevor, the Queen of Noir. A northern California setting provides the fog.
The story: Homme fatale Joe (Dennis O'Keefe) takes the prison rap for a crime boss, Rick (Raymond Burr), who owes Joe 50 Gs. Rick then sets up a prison escape for Joe, while relying on the odds that he'll get caught. But Joe escapes the police dragnet with the aid of his lovesick BFF (Trevor) and the reluctant cover of a pretty legal aid.
Despite the caliber of the film, the transfer to DVD (Classic Media) provides the bare minimum. Not even a subtitle option to catch every last drop of juicy screenplay—let alone any deserving commentary.
* Of noir and western fame.
(1969): It just goes to show you that a shoestring budget doesn't prevent the creation of really interesting shots. Director Leonard Castle and DP Oliver Wood are largely responsible for the look, sound, and feel of this black-and-white docudrama of 2 real-life lovers, Martha Beck and Ray Fernandez. The zaftig nurse and her Latin gigolo, played completely unapologetically by Stephanie Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco, became notorious in the 1940s for murdering a string of lovelorn women.
The DVD interview with Castle, a composer by training and profession, is mandatory.
Movie poster from Wikipedia reproduced under fair use law.
So what is Hobson's choice? The answer depends on which Hobson you're talking about.
District 9 (2009): On their visit to planet Earth, crustacean-like aliens don't hover over Manhattan or Chicago but stop, instead, at Johannesburg, where they are ultimately subjected to a lengthy and cruel apartheid (with evidently little interest from the international community). When the aliens' living conditions become too distasteful for even South Africans, the government—with the logistical efforts of a lackey official, Wikus Van De Merwe—begins their removal to a new camp.
District 9 is, more or less, a character study of the callous and self-serving Van De Merwe, who is made watchable by the curiously named South African actor, Sharlto Copley. But the story is also a very graphic union of depravity, violence, and technology, and its quick telling relies on easily recognized elements from a number of dystopic sci-fi stories, namely "V," Mad Max, The Fly, Aliens, and (God help us) Enemy Mine.
While District 9 isn't Best Picture material, despite its nomination, it is distressingly memorable.
I Soliti Ignoti (1958), aka Persons Unknown or Big Deal on Madonna Street: If this farcical heist movie doesn't make you shrug, wave your hands, and argue in gibberish Italian with the nearest person, I don't know what will.
Marcello Mastroianni plays just one of several incompetent, demonstrative, thieving wannabes.
The usual nod and thanks to KTG.
The Conversation (1974): Come on. It's been how many years since you've seen this movie? Rediscover what a national treasure Gene Hackman is. It's also one of Coppola's best, and I'm including The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II.
For my part, I've watched this film, about a wiretapper with a Catholic conscience, more times than I care to admit outside a group of drooling cinephiles: There's the pulling of focus to complement audio lapses; the showing of character (Hackman picking up sidewalk trash to emphasize his character's fastidiousness); the best dream sequence on film; the confession (play close attention to the developing mismatch between the audio and Hackman's lips*); tech geeks cutting loose; the wry nod to Psycho in the hotel bathroom; John Cazale (fer Christ's sake!); a fetal Harrison Ford; the surveillance camera-like closing. Yes. YES. YES!
* This guy's so wound up he can't even tell his deepest secret to a priest in a confessional.
Pickup on South Street (1953): Cops trailing a va-voom courier of government microfilm (Jean Peters) are diverted to a subway pickpocket (Richard Widmark), who unknowingly steals it. The pickpocket then has to contend with prying visits from the courier, the cops, and loathsome pinko sympathizers at his waterfront shack.
Other than asking, "What's the moral compass of a petty thief?" the movie raises this question: "Where exactly was there a waterfront shack in Manhattan?"
N.B.--The movie also features the incomparable Thelma Ritter as a tie peddler and professional CI. Her pre-demise monologue is something, bitches.
Green for Danger
(1946): Interesting title for a black-and-white whodunit.An off-beat inspector from Scotland Yard (Alistair Sim)* investigates the surgical death of a postman and the murder of an OR nurse at a remote English hospital. The suspects are soon limited to 5 overdramatic medical personnel—2 of whom deliver a priceless over-the-top sequence of mad laughter, followed by face slap, followed by hysterical sobbing.
* Think precursor to Columbo.
The usual HT to KTG.
