And Run Silent, Run Deep, elements of which are recycled for ST:TMP as well as the series episode Balance of Terror. And to be fair, I’m a TMP fan. It just struck me as fascinating how Hindenburg mirrors it in ways.
Supposedly Wise was not happy having it called a “disaster film,” which put it on the level of something like Earthquake. I guess he saw it more as a drama than a spectacle. And it might have been if any characters were at all compelling.
He wasn’t. But Wise was old school–he kept accepting the jobs that came his way in order to work in a rapidly changing Hollywood. He directed 39 feature films from 1944 through 1989–a remarkable run with highs and lows. That THE HINDENBURG is–as you rightly note–“an interesting distraction” (though I would be less charitable myself) is testament to a professionalism that no longer exists.
Nice to see love for this film.
Then you will love the 4k restoration.
I am really looking forward to it
One of my favorite Aldrich movies, with a fine, nasty performance by James Stewart.
Notes from the 2022 San Francisco Silent Film Festival (May 12-18).
The Festival’s 25th anniversary edition kicked off with a restored, re-edited version of Erich von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives (1922). “The Man You Love to Hate” played a con artist posing as a Russian nobleman in Monte Carlo. Typical Von Stroheim—novelistic attention to layered (visual) detail alongside a fetishistic love of well-heeled sleaze and an odd streak of sentiment. The same was mostly true of Blind Husbands (1919), which played a day later and also starred Von Stroheim as an adulterous swine who looks great in uniform and gets his comeuppance, this time in the alps.
Below the Surface (1920), directed by Irvin Willat, starred steely-eyed Hobart Bosworth as a diver fighting to free his son from con artists. Not as great as the previous Bosworth/Willat collaboration, the awesomely twisted revenge drama Behind the Door (1919), but still a corking melodrama, with a submarine rescue opener and sinking ship climax. Next on the program was The Primrose Path (1925), an agreeable crime-drama programmer featuring Clara Bow as the hero’s girlfriend.
I was slightly let down by Waxworks (1924), the famous anthology film directed by Paul Leni. The first story, involving Harun al-Rashid, is too long; the last, dealing with Jack the Ripper, is too short. In between we get Conrad Veidt as Ivan the Terrible, but the film was never as macabre or scary as I’d hoped. Splendid art direction though.
The Great Victorian Moving Picture Show: Large Format Films from the British Film Institute (1897-1902), was narrated (with dry humor) by the BFI’s Bryony Dixon and collects 68mm footage by former Edison film pioneer W.K.L. Dickson. It covered everything from the Boer War to the Royal Family, including Queen Victoria in sunglasses.
There’s little original I can say about Buster Keaton’s masterpiece Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). The last independent film from the greatest comedian to work in cinema, it begins slowly and ends in a symphony of ingenious slapstick. Afterward came Apart From You (1933), a rare silent from the great Japanese director Mikio Naruse. A short and sad (but not depressing) tale of two geishas aiding a juvenile delinquent.
Rebirth of a Nation (2007?) was billed as DJ Spooky’s “remix” of Birth of a Nation (1915) but turned out to be a summary of BOAN with a modern score. I had been expecting an essay film rather than a digest and was disappointed. Another letdown: Salomé (1922), a creakily directed adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play, starring Alla Nazimova in a series of progressively silly costumes. Any camp value was negated by turgid pacing and filmed theater staging.
The fourth day of the Festival started with The Kid Reporter (1923), a short starring the charming Baby Peggy (Diana Serra Carey, four years old at the time; she passed away in 2020 at 101) and Penrod and Sam (1923), an adaptation of the once popular Booth Tarkington book. Parts of it resembled the Our Gang films; all of it benefited from director William Beaudine’s skill in handling child actors. Prem Sanyas (1925), an opulent German-Indian retelling of the Buddha’s life story filmed in India, featured music by Club Foot Hindustani, with Pandit Krishna Bhatt on the sitar. The sound proved so soothing I fell asleep within 15 minutes and didn’t wake until the final quarter.
Arrest Warrant (1926) was of obvious relevance, being set during the Russian Civil War and made in (Soviet) Ukraine by Ukrainian director Heorhii Tasin. The copy screened was a scan from the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Film Centre in Kyiv (temporarily closed but showing films in the subway). The dark and unsettling story of betrayal and human weakness had little consolation and none of the ideological posturing that blights much of early Soviet cinema.
Just as bleak was Sylvester (1924), a German Kammerspielfilm (chamber drama), set on New Year’s Eve. Though stylishly directed by Lupu Pick and featuring no intertitles, the story (between a man, his wife, and his mother) was unconvincing. Also disappointing was A Trip to Mars (1918, Denmark); the Martians turned out to be simpering pacifist goodie-goodies.
Skinner’s Dress Suit (1926) started the Festival’s fifth day. A delightful light comedy starring the superb farceur Reginald Denny, adroitly directed by William A. Seiter, that proved “clothes make the man.” Next was The Fire Brigade (1926), famous for featuring in the first episode of Kevin Brownlow’s Hollywood documentary series as an example of Hollywood craftsmanship. Familiar but unseen after decades in the vaults, the firefighting melodrama proved itself a rousing crowd-pleaser, thanks to the restoration of its tinting, Handschiegel process color effects, and what was left of a scene in two-color Technicolor. Afterward came Limite (1931), a Brazilian avant-garde feature by Mário Peixoto, boasting evocative imagery and a punishing two-hour runtime.
The last screening of the day was Dans la Nuit (1929), the only feature directed by French character actor Charles Vanel, whose career lasted from 1912 to 1988. This beautifully directed film, about a miner who marries and suffers a series of misfortunes, undergoes a radical tonal shift that has led to it being accurately described as a fusion of Jean Renoir and Henri-Georges Clouzot. Despite the studio-mandated ending, it’s close to being a masterpiece.
The penultimate day of the Festival began with A Sister of Six (1926). I wasn’t sure what to expect of this this German/Swedish co-production, directed by Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius in Hungary. It turned out to be a funny and ingratiating comedy of mistaken identity, with stand-out performances from its many female cast members.
The Street of Forgotten Men (1925), a passable Bowery melodrama of professional beggars, directed Herbert Brenon, is now famous for marking the debut of Louise Brooks, who has a very small part as a gangster’s moll. Also passable was The History of the Civil War (1921), Dziga Vertov’s second documentary feature. A film of great historical interest but disappointing to anyone expecting another Man with a Movie Camera. I was also underwhelmed by The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)–despite Lon Chaney’s make-up and a high production values, it was a shallow adaptation of Victor Hugo.
The festival’s final day commenced with Smouldering Fires (1925), about a female business executive who puts aside her masculine ways and appearance when she falls for a much younger male employee. This could have easily turned sexist and ugly, but the heartfelt lead performance by Pauline Frederick and sensitive, sophisticated direction by the underrated Clarence Brown resulted in genuinely humanist work of cinema.
Next came Ten Minutes in the Morning (1930), an amusing Soviet Georgian short on the importance of daily exercise to aid Communism, followed by Salt for Svanetia (1930), Soviet director Mikhail Kalatazov’s documentary about backwards villagers in the Georgian Caucasus, featured stunning compositions and intoxicatingly dynamic camerawork that anticipatef his I Am Cuba (1964). Julien Duvivier’s The Divine Voyage (1929), a seagoing tale of miracles triumphing over fat-cat greed, was another example of exquisite late silent filmmaking. Made by someone drunk on cinema, the style was sensuous and ravishing.
The Festival ended with Ernst Lubitch’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925). Throwing away Wilde’s epigrammatic dialogue and retaining his melodramatic plot should have resulted in a failure; instead Lubitsch triumphed by retelling the story with visual wit. Eyelines and glances took the place of dialogue; blocking and camera placement created gags and showed character relations.
It all sounds great, but the Keaton, Naruse, and Lubitsch sound sublime.
Thank you for your report.
Exciting times! Sean gets to see his favourite James Bond on the big screen ! It’s TLD today…
Top Gun: Maverick.
Thrilling and heartfelt, this is what cinema is all about. It perfectly compliments and betters the original film. Bravo to Tom Cruise and all involved. If you get the opportunity to see it, make sure you do.
Going with my wife to see Top Gun: Maverick this afternoon. I’ll report back later.
Like a few of you I’ve also been to see Top Gun: Maverick. I was never a fan of the original but my partner really wanted to see it (Top Gun is pretty much her favourite movie) so I went along with a certain sense of trepidation. And I was absolutely blown away.
Even with no nostalgia for the original this landed and I really can’t remember the last time I saw such intense and thrilling action scenes. Highly recommended.
Top Gun: Maverick was a far more intense action movie than I ever expected. At its core it really is a military espionage mission into foreign territory. The first one was a romance with action. This one is a hardcore action movie and is epic in every sense of the word. I was reminded of the trailer that dropped last week for The Gray Man, with its incessant and obvious CGI. Top Gun: Maverick is mostly shot in camera and the difference in effectuality on the viewer is palpable. I’m sure there is digital clean-up and enhancement, but the front and center action has been captured on film and the eyes can see the difference and in the hands of a competent director, the suspense that generates is exhilarating.
Just caught up with The Northman and enjoyed it so much I want to go looting and pillaging. Robert Eggers is rare in his ability to give a film a sense of gritty realism and the feel of ancient myth and magic. Most filmmakers nowadays can only do the first, in an anachronistic and adolescent way. Eggers honors the strangeness of the past but makes it immediate. The story is a visceral take on the proto-Hamlet legend, filmed with dynamism and sensual grandeur.
Before the film I was subjected to 20 minutes of trailers for what can only be described as CGI live-action cartoons edited with a mixmaster. By contrast, The Northman gives its story enough breathing room and although there’s a list of CGI artists in the credits the film never feels airless. My only quibble was that some of the Scandinavian accents reminded me of Toki and Skwisgaar from Metalocalypse.
I absolutely LOVED The Northman (as noted earlier in this thread) and consider it the best movie I’ve seen so far this year. I thoroughly enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick as a great big screen popcorn movie experience, but The Northman was a totally unique and exhilarating piece of art from frame one.
MARNIE–on 4k Blu- ray
MARNIE receives a proper home video release at last. Watching the film reminded me that Hitchcock was a studio filmmaker–the studio is where he thrived. Sets and backlots were his milieu, and he employed rear projection to travel the world.
It is said that Cary Grant’s characters represented who Hitchcock wished to be, and Jimmy Stewart’s who he was. For me, Mark Rutland is also who Hitchcock was (with an added dollop of what he wished he looked like). Mark is attentive and caring toward Marnie–he wants to help her. He also has a fetishistic attraction to her–the thief, the wild animal that he has caught, and which he will not release. He is also violent towards her–he commits marital rape, and carries on afterward as if it was his right to do so. Rutland may be the most ambiguous of all Hitchcock male leads, and his most complex rendering of the male psyche.
Marnie is a definitive Hitchcock blonde: alluring and duplicitous–to be desired, but not trusted. If Hitchcock used a lying flashback in STAGE FRIGHT, he centers a lying heroine here–one who never loses the audience’s sympathy since we suspect the motivation for her lying is buried in a traumatic past. We root for Mark to succeed in helping Marnie, even as we abhor his methods and sense of entitlement.
Connery and Hedren are superb, as is the entire cast. Hitchcock’s regular colleagues–Tomasini, Burks, Boyle, and Herrmann–are all in top form, and this film is their finale with Hitchcock. The sense of an ending is there is from the opening credits–an old-school turning of pages, but the pages turn in a odd fashion–appropriate for such an odd movie. Not just a final movie with trusted collaborators, but a last studio-style film, made at the very moment when filmmakers and their cameras were liberating themselves to explore/document the world (the Bond films made a contribution to this trend).
MARNIE also calls back to previous Hitchcock films–especially NOTORIOUS and VERTIGO (which it seems to be an aesthetic corrective to). The movie is also AH’s love letter to German Expressionism, his earliest and most formative aesthetic influence.
Hitchcock makes his cameo early on, in which he goes so far as to acknowledge the audience–as if saying, here is a woman to study/follow. Marnie is of interest, and so is the movie named after her. Robin Wood says if a person does not love MARNIE, they do not love cinema. Hyperbole–maybe. But just shy of 60 years after its release, MARNIE still casts a spell.
It’s my mom’s favorite movie. She absolutely loves Sean Connery in it. It’s a good film.
You had a wise and discerning mother, and she the same in her offspring.
Marnie and Mark may be the richest, most complex characters in Hitchcock’s entire oeuvre. As I was watching the film this time, I sensed how irreducible these two characters are. They are all over the place (in a good way).
Get Carter (1971)
Went to a special screening yesterday. It’s a film I’d never seen it before and only knew by reputation. It’s hard to call this a film I ‘enjoyed’ as the tone was bleak, visceral and raw (with a dose of dark humour) but the story was engaging and Caine gives a great performance in the lead. Get Carter excellent film well deserving it’s reputation as a classic.
In addition to espionage, I am a huge fan of crime fiction and crime movies. I am a big fan of Get Carter and its source material, the novel Jack’s Return Home by Ted Lewis. I also think the opening theme to the movie is one of the absolute best and would be enjoyed by any Bond lover.
The Emperor’s New Groove (2000).
It’s still as funny as it was when it came out. A easy watch for anyone, nothing sad happens. Yzma is still one of the best Disney villains. Highly recommended for anyone. It definitely had a unique history of what it was originally supposed to be. The Making of The Emperor's New Groove was a Sh*t Show - YouTube
The Black Phone.
I love a good horror film and this one didn’t disappoint. The film had a really novel premise; an abducted teen talks on the black phone to the ghosts of his captor’s previous victims. The two young leads do a great job of carrying the story while Ethan Hawke gives maximum creepiness as ‘the Grabber’. This was a genuinely tense film and when the scares came people in the cinema screamed.
In particular I loved the Grabber’s mask. It was a Devil mask but came in 2 sections that could be removed to show off different parts of Hawke’s face when needed. The parts could also be swapped out so different ones could be used to reflect the Grabber’s mood at any given scene which was a simple but highly effective technique.
Horror is one of the few genres that’s giving us interesting new ideas. If you’re a fan of the genre then this one’s highly recommended.