Kick-Back Friday: April 2009 Archives

Le Cercle Rouge (1970): Deliberate pacing and spare dialogue lend a very existential vibe* to this engaging jewel-heist movie from Jean-Pierre Melville. With Alain Delon as a professional thief and Yves Montand as a seriously alcoholic cop.

Il n'y a pas d'innocent.

A remake is reportedly in production with director Johnnie To, the "Jerry Bruckheimer of Hong Kong." No doubt the action will be accelerated.

* With a wry, introductory nod to Buddha.

The Cruel Sea (1953): The English (very English) counterpart to Das Boot. Jack Hawkins (Ben-Hur, Zulu) commands a convoy escort in the Atlantic during WW2. The crew, including a young Denholm Elliott, displays the expected variations of human nature during the tedium and torture of cat-and-mouse warfare.

Force of Evil* (1948): Shot in gorgeous black and white by DP George Barnes; written and directed by the later-blacklisted Abraham Polonsky.

John Garfield (The Postman Always Rings Twice) is a Manhattan attorney caught between the organized numbers game and fraternal loyalty. Supporting character actors Thomas Gomez (Key Largo), as Garfield's beefy brother, and Howland Chamberlain (High Noon), as the jumpy bookkeeper, are in top noirish form.

* Not to be confused with the Orson Welles classic, Touch of Evil.

Un long dimanche de fiancailles

(2004)*: A young woman (Audrey Tatou of Amélie) is determined to discover the fate of her fiance and 4 other soldiers who were court-martialed for self-mutilation during World War I. War scenes in director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's visual masterpiece owe heavy debts to Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front and Kubrick's Paths of Glory; but the end-product is, by no means, derivative.

N.B.—A mid-film sequence reveals the payoff of Jodie Foster's education at Le Lycée Français de Los Angeles.

* English title: A Very Long Engagement.

HT: KTG