A SEPARATE PEACE (1972)

In 1942, with World War II under way, Gene and Finny are roommates at Devon, a prep school in New England. Gene is a serious student who studies hard and gets A’s; Finney, a handsome and outgoing golden boy, is a jock who barely studies and is happy getting by with C’s. The boys have a loose knit circle of friends who include the snooty Brinker, amusing but irritating, and the awkward outcast Leper whom Finny stands up for. They jokingly refer to themselves as a secret society, though their main activities seem to be playing lacrosse and swimming in a nearby river. One day, Finny climbs up a tall tree and challenges others to climb up with him and dive into the river. Only Gene joins him, an act which cements their friendship. Later, Finney admits that Gene is his best pal, though for his part, Gene seems to both worship Finney and resent his influence. Even when he needs to study, Gene always ends up acceding to Finny's wishes to goof off. The next time the two are at the tree, Finny dares him to climb the tree to do a double jump. Just as they're about to go, Finny falls out of the tree, breaking his leg. It's unclear what happened: did Finny just stumble or did Gene shake the tree branch, causing his fall? Recovering from the break keeps Finny out of school for several weeks, and when Gene visits him, he haltingly admits that he shook the branch, though good-natured Finny doesn't accept the confession. When Finny returns to Devon, the two reconcile and, though his jock days are behind him, Finny coaches Gene for the 1944 Olympics (which Gene suspects and we know will be called off due to the war). But Brinker, suspecting that Gene caused Finny's accident, convenes a midnight kangaroo court to get at the truth. Refusing to accept Gene's guilt, Finny goes stumbling out of the room, falls down some stairs, and breaks his leg again. Though the doctor is sure a routine operation will fix his leg, something goes wrong and Finny dies under the knife. Decades later, Gene visits the school and goes to the tree, the memory of Finny having never left him.

In the 1970s and 80s, the novel by John Knowles that this is based on was a canonical high school reading assignment. This gay boy read it at the age of 16 (not for a class) and found it to be a story, in large part, of homoerotic attraction: Gene can't face up to his feelings, and finds them in conflict with his resentment over how easy life seems for Finny with his looks and charm; Finny is blissfully unaware of any feelings that run deeper than friendship. But the book is more often approached as a coming-of-age story about accepting responsibility, building an identity, and preparing to become part of the wider world outside of school. The war is brought up frequently. The boys know that the draft waits for them after graduation, though for a time Finny clings to a belief that it's a fake war blown out of proportion by the government. After his accident, he becomes upset that he will not be eligible to fight. Leper leaves Devon before graduation to join the Army, but returns AWOL, plagued by mental problems that he thinks will lead to a discharge. Knowles has denied that he intended any queer reading of the story, and the book is usually taught with a focus on Gene's envy rather than any sexual attraction, conscious or otherwise. With all due respect to Knowles, I say, trust the tale, not the teller. Inchoate sexual feelings certainly play a part in the development of Gene and Finny's relationship, and the movie, filled with scenes of energetic shirtless boys and long lingering glances between Gene and Finny, seems to endorse such an interpretation. 

The movie is quite faithful to the book, but it's not an especially good movie. The director, Larry Peerce, wanted and got a mostly non-professional cast. This is the first movie role for Parker Stevenson (Gene) who went on to a long acting career. For my taste, his performance is awfully one-note, his face usually looking either confused or thoughtful, and I fail to see what about Gene caused Finny to gravitate toward him as a close friend. John Heyl (at right), who had been an actual student at the prep school where the movie was filmed, is quite good as Finny, partly because the character is more about surface charm than buried emotions. He's also got preppy good looks to burn, though in real life he turned away from acting and became a teacher. The biggest problem with the acting is that everyone except Stevenson says their lines too quickly with little variation in tone, a problem that should have been addressed by the director. Visually, it's lovely: the tree, the river, the school grounds, and the snow scenes in the last half of the movie all add atmosphere that the acting and script sometimes lack. Period detail is not especially strong. I would say that reading the book then seeing the movie is the best way to experience the story. This is not available on a region 1 DVD and the print I watched on Prime is squished a bit to fit a square screen which was really disappointing. Pictured at top left are Stevenson and Heyl. [Amazon Prime]

STRANDED (1965)

In Greece near some ruins, Jeff breaks up with Raina, telling her that in following her, he is no longer a man. After he leaves, she goes to a beach with her small dog and walks into the ocean in an apparent suicide attempt (all I could think was, what will happen to that poor dog?). Nicos, a handsome sailor, rescues her but she sends him away with no thanks. Later, in a hotel room, we discover that Raina and Jeff were part of a four-person tourist group. The other two are Bob, a handsome American, and Olivier, a handsome French painter. With Jeff gone, the other three rent a barge to go on a tour of the Greek islands, but the barge is junky with a small crew and cramped sleeping quarters, leading the three to decide to sleep on deck. Bob seems mildly interested in a romance with Raina, but when she recognizes Nicos, her rescuer, as one of the crew members, they begin a flirtation. We follow the group as they visit various islands, mostly being disappointed by them. Things we discover: Bob's father has done ruins restoration on some of the islands; Bob and Raina did one season of summer stock together; Olivier is gay and occasionally runs into some rough trade in the villages—Olivier doesn't want Bob to know he's gay and so acts a bit stand-offish with him, but Bob eventually figures it out. One night, Bob, Raina and Nicos set up a table on the beach and dine together, leading to Raina skinny-dipping late that night and to Olivier following her to the shore for a casual sexual encounter. Not terribly happy with the ports they're being taken to, the three decide to hop a Turkish barge which is larger and has more passengers (though we never see anyone else) but is in similarly grungy shape. After an evening of getting high on hashish, Olivier invites them to stay at a chateau in France; the beds are full of fleas and the connection between Raina and Bob begins to erode—though the two sleep in the same bed, they don't really bond as traditional lovers. In the end, Bob leaves and Raina and Olivier, who feels the pull of art ("I must work now while my generation is still important"), drive off down a French road.

This indie film, written and directed by Juleen Compton, who also plays Raina, got virtually no mainstream exposure in the United States, despite it feeling very much akin to the 1960s European new wave work of Godard or Antonioni. It does, however, come off like an American knock-off, which is not necessarily damning with faint praise. This feels like a marker for a new indie movie road that wasn't followed. The experiments in style feel rote, like something Compson did because it was expected. For example, the opening scene of Raina and Jeff arguing is presented mostly silent, until we hear an outburst of Jeff's. Then we hear Raina reply, but her lips don't move. Was that due to technical fudging or was it on purpose? Another time, Bob plays a banjo then stops, but we continue to hear it. Later, there are two short sequences in which the movement is choppy, as if frames were cut out at random. This definitely seems to have been done on purpose, but its meaning remains obscure. Similarly, the hash smoking scene is shot with distorting lenses. I rather like the "slice of life" feel of the narrative, beginning in the middle of the collapse of a relationship we know nothing about and ending with the futures of all three main characters up in the air, despite the apparent resolution of the Bob/Raina storyline (it felt a little like Brian leaving Sally at the end of Cabaret). There is an interesting sequence set in a diner/bar which may or may not be a gay establishment—Raina is the only woman there and Olivier pals around comfortably with the other men. Raina dances to the boppy pop song "Ya Ya" by Lee Dorsey and the men are entranced but remain distant.

The acting is about on a par with the other new wave films of the time, but it's difficult to judge the performances because of the superficial way the characters are written. Compson is fine as Raina, but she's not consistent in her actions, and her half-hearted suicide attempt feels against her nature (BTW, the dog remains with her throughout). Her sexuality is a part of her story but refreshingly, her sexual nature is not her be-all and end-all—mostly, I guess, she's seen as needing freedom at the expense of many other things. Gian Pietro Calasso is fine as Olivier, avoiding easy stereotypes in the portrayal of a confused gay man. (Calasso's brother Roberto was a famous Italian writer.) Alkis Giannakas is the handsome and occasionally shirtless Nicos who, despite his importance to the first half of the movie, more or less vanishes by the end. The outlier is Gary Collins, later a TV actor and talk show host, as Bob. He's a rather vanilla blond collegiate type—Collins was 27 but his character's age seems younger than that—and though I had my doubts that he would fit in with the other indie/Euro types, he provides a good balance in the cast. He is presented in a fairly neutral fashion, neither mocked nor envied, and though he clearly has affection for Raina, he is not swept away by passion (no one in the movie is, though Olivier has the potential to be). It's 90 minutes, and the first hour is well-paced, though things bog down near the end. Still, I was pleased to discover this unusual and unheralded film. Pictured are Collins (the blond), Compson and Calasso. [Criterion Channel]

VIRIDIANA (1961)

As Viridiana is about to take her vows to become a nun, the Mother Superior suggests that she take time to visit her sick uncle, Don Jaime, who has financially taken care of her for years. She has little affection for her uncle though she never says why. She also has no taste for the physical—at her uncle's house, she sleeps on the floor on a bed of thorns and can't bring herself to milk her uncle's cows. For his part, Don Jaime clearly lusts after Viridiana. He tells her that she looks like his wife, who died on their wedding night. On the last night of her visit, he gets her to put on his wife's wedding dress, then he drugs her coffee and carries her to bed, intending to rape her. He doesn't go through with it, but the next morning he tells her she's no longer a virgin and should give up on taking her vows. She goes to leave anyway, but in short order, her uncle commits suicide, hanging himself with a jump rope; she inherits the farm portion of his estate and decides to stay; and Don Jaime's bastard son Jorge arrives to take over the main house. He brings a girlfriend who leaves when she sees that Jorge has eyes for Viridiana, but a servant named Ramona has eyes for Jorge. To commit herself to Christian work despite not taking her vows, Viridiana opens up her part of the house to a flock of beggars, including a leper, but soon they have taken full advantage of her kindness and one drunken night while Jorge is gone, they occupy the main dining room and have a debauched feast, accompanied by the "Hallelujah Chorus" and climaxing with a parodic shot of the beggars reenacting Da Vinci's Last Supper. The beggars tie up Jorge when he returns and one tries to rape Viridiana. In the end, the police arrive to break things up, and in the last scene, Viridiana seems to have given up all thoughts of piety. She enters Jorge's room where he is playing cards with Ramona. She joins them as a pop song says, "Shake your cares away" and Jorge says, "The first time I saw you, I thought, my cousin and I will end up shuffling the deck together."

You can use Google to gather background on the anti-clerical director Luis Bunuel and the reception of this film in Spain (long story short: government censors passed the film until they realized how much it was mocking Christianity). For all the controversy this stirred up back in the day, the film actually seems relatively mild now until the final near-orgy. Even then, the problem isn't so much any graphic visualization as it is the mocking of both the poor and the church that claims to want to help them. Characterization is not Bunuel's strong point here as the proceedings are largely symbolic, but the performances are nicely fleshed out. The gorgeous Silvia Pinal anchors the movie with her strong but subtle performance. Very little that happens causes any change in Viridiana's placid exterior, right up to and including the conclusion. Fernando Rey (the uncle) and the handsome Francisco Rabal (Jorge) are effective as the two debauched males. The original ending, which was objectionable to the censors, had Viridiana entering Jorge's bedroom and closing the door. This approved ending, however, is even more salacious as it promises not just extramarital sex but a threesome. Pictured are Rabal and Pinal. [TCM]

THE WET PARADE (1932)

This story of the effects of both alcohol consumption and prohibition begins in 1916 Louisiana as Chilicote (Lewis Stone), once rich and respected, has descended into an alcoholic haze, stumbling in and out of bars. His daughter Maggie (Dorothy Jordan) tries to take care of him and gets him to stop drinking for a month, but he backslides, loses a huge amount of family money while gambling drunk, and commits suicide in a pigsty. At his funeral, when friends toast his memory, Maggie has an outburst, ranting against alcohol. Her brother Roger (Neil Hamilton, pictured below left), a writer, heads to New York City and stays in a hotel managed by Kip Tarleton (Robert Young) who runs the place for his aging father (Walter Huston), who himself has become an alcoholic—we see him take money meant to buy Bromo Seltzer for a tenant and use it to buy booze. Kip is a teetotaler and his mother prays for prohibition, and in a couple of years, she gets her wish. By now, Maggie has come to New York to check up on Roger who has become quite a drinker himself. Prohibition doesn't stop everyone from drinking as bootleggers step in to keep an underground supply going, using copies of legitimate liquor labels on their bottles even as the odds of much of that alcohol being poisoned increase. When Kip's mother tries to keep her husband from drinking from a bad jug, he attacks her and beats her to death. Kip and Maggie, united in an anti-alcohol stance, get married and Kip takes a job as a Prohibition enforcement agent. As he collects evidence, he has to learn to drink alcohol himself, and his partner Abe notes the irony that Kip had to "join Prohibition services to get his first drink." Ultimately, Prohibition doesn't work as people keep drinking, in private and in illegal speakeasies, and bad booze causes illness and death. The film ends in a kind of limbo, with Kip urged by his dying partner (shot in a raid) to get out of the service to take care of Maggie and their newborn son. The last line of the movie has Kip hoping that, by the time their son is grown up, "they’ll have it all figured out."

Historically speaking, this is an interesting document for a couple of reasons. The first is that it was made and released while Prohibition was still the law of the land but with the Democratic Party platform that year calling for repeal, change was in the air. Secondly, the movie avoids taking a strong stand about the issue of Prohibition. Certainly the fates of several characters make strong anti-booze points, but Prohibition is not seen as an effective solution. The film is based on a novel by Upton Sinclair which was apparently more pro-Prohibition than against. I think the movie works best as a mini-family saga. At two hours, it bogs down here and there, and two of the best performances, by Stone and Huston as the booze-soaked patriarchs, are limited as both characters leave the narrative prematurely, with Chilicote dying and Tarleton sent to prison. But 25-year-old Robert Young, in one of his earliest featured roles (he is billed below many of the other actors but arguably has the lead role in the narrative) is very good; he doesn't overdo the clean-living innocence of the character and is very good as a gung-ho crimefighter who slowly realizes that his work may not be terribly effective at fighting the effects of booze on society. 

Dorothy Jordan (pictured with Young at top right) is sidelined for much of the film as the long-suffering daughter and sister. Neil Hamilton's role starts off strong but his plotline is largely lost in the muddle. Jimmy Durante, as Young's partner, provides comic relief in a mostly serious role, and is OK, even getting a good death scene (though he uses his signature "ha-cha-cha" bit too many times). There are good turns from Wallace Ford as a buddy of Roger's, Myrna Loy as a good time floozy, Emma Dunn as Chilicote's wife, Clara Blandick as Tarleton's wife, and John Miljan as Kip's boss who is against Prohibition but does his sworn duty to uphold the law. At one point, it's observed that, under Prohibition, "peach fuzz kids are getting loaded at high noon," certainly not the intent of the law. Despite the tragedies of excessive drinking, we really do get the feeling by the end that Prohibition didn't help, and may have made this social problem worse. [TCM]

MODERATO CANTABILE (1960)

aka SEVEN DAYS ... SEVEN NIGHTS

Anne, the wife of a factory owner in a small French town, is with her young son Pierre as he takes, without enthusiasm, a piano lesson from Miss Girard in her apartment above a small diner. Girard has to continually prompt Pierre to play his piece "moderato cantabile," that is, in a moderate and melodic fashion. Suddenly they hear the awful scream of a woman from the diner. Investigating, Anne sees that a woman has been murdered by her lover. A crowd gathers, including Chauvin, an employee at Anne's husband's factory. They lock eyes, and later, in conversation, she admits she is obsessed with finding out what led to the murder. Chauvin agrees to dig around for information; he thinks she is bored and looking for vicarious adventure, and the same might be said for Chauvin. He follows Anne (usually accompanied by Pierre) around town. Eventually the two meet up at an abandoned house, and he tells her—most likely making up the details—a story of how the couple met, how she became bored with her life (perhaps an echo of how Anne feels in her marriage), and how, he guesses, she asked to be killed. Anne and Chauvin continue meeting, clearly growing attached to each other, but never consummating their relationship. One night at a fancy dinner party that her husband is giving, Anne gets drunk, embarrasses herself with awkward comments, and leaves the house, finding Chauvin alone in the empty diner. They talk; he notes that they have had seven days and nights together but that this must end and he must go. Their last anguished words to each other: he says, "I wish you were dead"; she replies, "Now I am." As he leaves, she lets out a long scream just like the murdered woman did at the beginning of the film. Her husband's car pulls up and he takes her back home.

Though I haven't seen this comparison in other commentaries on the film, this struck me as an existential (and mildly masochistic) version of David Lean's romantic wartime classic Brief Encounter. Over the seven days of the relationship between Anne and Chauvin, all they do is meet and talk; they barely even touch each other. I don't think they even smile at each other; their facial expressions are always tense and guilty. His stories about the diner couple are clearly being spun just so they'll have an excuse to meet up. As in Brief Encounter, not much happens on a narrative level, though the couple in the earlier film seem to come much closer to having a physical relationship than Anne and Chauvin ever do. But Jeanne Moreau (Anne) and Jean-Paul Belmondo  (Chauvin) do a lot of effective smoldering with their eyes and body language. They are attractive and intense actors, and even when the movie's pace bogs down, they remain interesting to watch. Aside from the little boy, the only other character with much presence is the piano teacher (Colette Regis) who disapproves of the boy's recalcitrance and ends by saying she will no longer give him lessons. The look of the movie matches the mood: gray and gloomy. It's based on a short novel by Marguerite Duras and it retains a literary feel throughout. I admit to almost giving up on the long-feeling 90 minute film but Moreau and Belmondo kept me with it. [YouTube]

FRANCIS (1950)

Francis the Talking Mule was the star of a successful little B-movie franchise for Universal in the early 1950s. The Mr. Ed television series of the 60s adapted the same idea of a domesticated animal who talks but only to one particular person. Francis was played by a mule called Molly and voiced by character actor Chill Wills, but the real star of movies was Donald O'Connor, who was 25 but looked a bit younger, as Peter Stirling, the guy Francis talks to. In Burma during the war, Peter, a second lieutenant, is separated from his platoon and stuck in place during a Japanese attack. An Army mule named Francis starts talking to him and gets him out of danger and back to headquarters. He tells his superiors about Francis, but the mule refuses to talk to anyone else and Peter is sent to a psychiatric ward when he spends his days in basket weaving. Despite having no qualifications, Peter is assigned to be a G2 clerk, working in intelligence. At the same time, Miss Gelder, a sexy French woman, arrives looking for sanctuary after being separated from her father. Francis begins feeding information to Peter who acts on it, capturing enemy soldiers, discovering a secret Japanese observation post, and warning of an imminent enemy air attack. He is lauded for his efforts, but each time, he insists that Francis deserves the credit, and each time, he is sent back to basket making. Eventually Francis finally agrees to talk to General Stevens because, being a military mule, he feels he must follow orders. Francis gets press attention, and Gelder is revealed to be a spy (a Tokyo Rose-type broadcaster). Francis is flown to the States as a celebrity, but winds up with Peter, now a small town bank teller. O'Connor (pictured with the mule), who is personable and believable as the somewhat hapless soldier, did five more Francis movies (and did Singin' in the Rain in the middle of them), with Mickey Rooney doing a final one before the series ended. Ray Collins is fine as a colonel, as is John McIntire as the general. Chill Wills voices the mule as an ornery cuss, not as a cutesy Disney character. I probably won’t seek out any more of these, but this was fairly painless fun. [TCM]

TEN CENTS A DANCE (1931)

Barbara Stanwyck, a gum-chewing tough gal, works at the Palais de Dance, a dance hall where men pay the working girls a dime to dance with them. Stanwyck is popular but her boss says she lacks animation and rhythm, blaming it on her troubles with her would-be boyfriend (Monroe Owsley) who lives at Stanwyck's boarding house and has, despite being unemployed, run up some gambling debt. The upper-class Ricardo Cortez comes in one night and, smitten with Stanwyck, just wants to sit and talk to her. He gives her a hundred dollar tip and she asks Cortez to give Owsley a job, which he does, as an accountant at Cortez's firm. Though Cortez continues to dote on Stanwyck, giving her money and a new dress, she decides to marry Owsley. It's easy to see where this pre-Code melodrama is going—Owsley slips into heel mode, losing money at gambling, hiding it from his wife, and staying out till all hours with disreputable pals and loose women. Stanwyck goes back to work at the dance hall and occasionally chats with Cortez who is still in love with her. When Owsley embezzles money from Cortez's firm and is about to be caught, Stanwyck visits Cortez at his high-rise apartment and asks for $5000. Cortez knows he's being played for a chump ("The only love letter to write to a woman: pay to the order of…") but gives it to her anyway. Owsley takes the money and replaces the embezzled amount, then proceeds to berate Stanwyck, assuming she compromised herself. Stanwyck is stuck between the jealous weakling husband and the loving but disillusioned Cortez. What to do?

The credits tell us that this movie is based on the popular song "Ten Cents a Dance," about the rough life of what was called a taxi dancer. It's depressing, telling of torn dresses, trampled feet, only running across "pansies and rough guys," and being too tired to go to sleep back at home. But after the first ten minutes or so, this movie leaves the taxi drivers and their troubles behind and becomes a predictable melodrama about a woman torn between loyalty to a heel and attraction to a rich guy who may think he can buy her for himself. But the outcome is never in doubt, partly due to the casting. We know Stanwyck will stay pure and true to herself (unlike in the infamous BABY FACE of 1933 in which she sleeps her way to the top); Owsley is pinched and passive (and weirdly looks a bit like Pee-Wee Herman) and is clearly not worthy of Stanwyck, whereas Cortez, who sometimes played bad guys, is rich, handsome and dignified, and is willing to wait for Stanwyck to come to her senses. Both actors are good, but Stanwyck is always worth watching—her characters are strong and smart (sometimes street-smart) and she can usually make even one-dimensional characters (like this one mostly is) interesting. Best line, Stanwyck to Owsley: "You're not a man—you're not even a good sample!" Pictured are Cortez and Stanwyck. [TCM]

FOOTPRINTS ON THE MOON (1975)

We see blue-tinted footage of a moon landing, but when an astronaut comes out of the vehicle, he is dragging an unconscious astronaut out who is left on the moon. We see a man named Blackmann at Mission Control shouting instructions. Then we see a woman wake up. She has apparently been dreaming of a movie she saw years ago called Footprints on the Moon. The woman, Alice, a translator living in Italy, discovers she is missing any memory of the last three days and is in danger of losing her job. She then finds strange things in her apartment including a torn-up postcard of a hotel on the Turkish island of Garma, and a bloodstained dress in her closet. She also has visions of an Oriental room with stained glass windows featuring peacocks. Visiting Garma hoping to find answers, she winds up facing more mysteries. People on the island remember her but as a redhead named Nicole. A handsome young man named Harry gets chummy with her, and she vaguely recognizes him, but she hears more unsettling things about Nicole and her paranoid behavior and finds the red wig she wore on the island as Nicole. Visions of the moon movie and the peacock window continue. By this time, I was worrying that lots of details were accumulating that would all not amount to much. Well, we do eventually get a surface explanation of what’s going on, and it turns out that Harry knew her briefly years ago when they were teenagers and and interacted with her a few days earlier as Nicole. When Harry takes her to his family's house, she sees the peacock windows. Is Alice having a breakdown? Is she suffering from some past trauma? Are her paranoid feelings justified?

If you like your psychological mysteries wrapped up tight, this is not the film for you. [I'll try to avoid obvious spoilers, but I do need to bring up a couple of plot twists.] We get some answers in a lengthy sequence at the end, but those are potentially undercut by the visuals of the last few minutes, which leaves open the possibility that the sinister Blackmann (a cameo from Klaus Kinski, and how much more sinister can you get?) is real and not an old movie memory. This, however, brings up unanswered questions. I feel like most of the puzzle pieces are there but there's maybe one missing. My theory, and one which I have not seen voiced online yet, is that Alice is experiencing some past sexual trauma, as we see a flashback which implies that Harry and Alice had sex in their teenaged past. It's not presented as coerced, but still it's there as a plot thread that isn't worked into the narrative. If you can deal with an ending that leaves you to interpret the situation, I recommend this. The director, Luigi Bazzoni, filmed in the Turkish town of Phaselis which allows him to indulge an attention to architecture and physical place that rivals Antonioni's, and the visuals, though mostly caught under cloudy skies, are attractive. The Brazilian Florinda Bolkan (Alice/Nicole, at top left) gives a one-note performance (that note being confused paranoia) but it's called for her, as her character's background remains largely obscure—if it was a little clearer, the ending would be clearer as well. British actor Peter McEnery (right) is nicely laid back as Harry, which balances out Bolkan's more intense performance. [BTW, virtually all online sources including IMDb refer to his character as Henry, but in the English version I watched, they were clearly saying Harry. Plus, there is a quick shot of him wearing a necklace that says Harry.] The Oscar nominated Russian actress Lila Kedrova has the only other substantive role as a tourist who remembers Alice as Nicole. Some giallo lineage is claimed by some critics because Bazzoni directed a well regarded giallo called The Fifth Cord, but there is little sex or gore, and it's not really a whodunit. I'd never heard of this but it came up in YouTube's algorithm for me and I'm glad to have run across it. The print I saw was clear and sharp, but I think that may have been taken down, and the one that is still up is presented with awful widescreen distortion. Avoid that one. It’s been released recently by a British company on Blu-ray. [YouTube]

THE NIGHT OF THE PARTY (1934)

Newspaper magnate Lord Studholme is throwing a party in honor of Her Serene Highness Princess Amelia of Corsova. Among the guests: Guy, Studholme's secretary; Peggy, Studholme's daughter who is in love with (and might already be secretly married to) Guy; Peggy's friend Joan whom Studholme is trying to blackmail into having an affair; Chiddiatt, a flamboyant writer whose work is always trashed in Studholme's papers. Eventually, police commissioner Sir John Holland, Joan's father, shows up. The group plays a party murder game with all guests playing characters using information given to them on a card. One person is assigned to be the victim and one to be the investigator who interviews everyone and tries to figure out who the killer is. But during this game, the lights go out and a real dead body is found: Lord Studholme. With almost everyone at the party having a grudge of some sort against him, Sir John has his work cut out for him as he investigates for real. This feels like an average Agatha Christie mystery (though it was based not on Christie but on a play by Roland Pertwee who wrote dozens of British films in the 30s and 40s) and it does indeed play out like you'd expect, although the suspects are all let out of the house, and the finale is set in a courtroom instead of a drawing room, and there is a surprising climax. With a running time of one hour, it's compact, feeling like an episode of the modern-day Poirot series, with a full half-hour set up for character development before the murder occurs. The acting is solid all around. Leslie Banks is fine as Sir John; other standouts include Malcolm Keen as Studholme, Ian Hunter (pictured) as Guy, and the always eccentric Ernest Thesiger as the eccentric writer. This is an early film from Michael Powell done mostly in a workmanlike style, though with some nicely fluid camerawork. Entertaining if predictable. Retitled The Murder Party for American release. [YouTube]

THE CRIMES OF THE BLACK CAT (1972)

Peter, a blind musician, overhears a conversation in a bar. The voices sound tense—Peter hears a reference to blackmail, and when one of the two, a woman who we see is wearing a white cape and hood, leaves, Peter picks up an unusual scent from her. Peter was stood up by a girlfriend named Paola, a fashion model, and the next day when she opens up a wicker basket in her dressing room, she screams and is found dead with a bloody scratch on her face. As the police investigate, we get to know other people involved: Francoise, the head of the fashion business; Victor, her adulterous husband; Susan, the white-caped woman who is also a drug addict; Helga, a lesbian model who didn't get along with Paola; and Burton, Peter's faithful valet who never trusted Paola. The police think that Paola died of a heart attack, but Peter conducts his own investigation with help from Paola's roommate Margo. This being an Italian-made giallo, many genre conventions show up: in addition to the blind character, the fashion house setting, and adultery, there are people slashed with knives, baroque methods of murder, plotholes galore (I can't really summarize the last half of the movie because I'm not clear about all the details and I have no desire to watch it again), some choppy editing, and terrible dubbing, especially when overlapping dialogue is used. We're not surprised, given the English title, that a black cat is responsible for some of the deaths, let loose with poison on its claws and attracted to the victim by a dose of a catnip-like scent. Despite the many plot problems, the ultimate solution is satisfying, though I could not tell you exactly what happened or even why all the murders were necessary. Though Anthony Steffan is top-billed as Peter, he turns in a weak performance; much better are Giacomo Rossi Stuart as the playboy Victor and Shirley Corrigan as Margo. Sylva Koscina is fine as Francoise, though she's mostly absent from the middle of the movie. Umberto Raho is nicely sly as Burton. For much of the film, there isn't much gore, only a cat's severed head (and I never figured out how it got that way or who did it), but near the climax, there is a shockingly graphic and unsettling shot of a killer slashing a woman's breasts, inspired perhaps by the shower scene in PSYCHO, that I actually had to turn away from. The Italian title translates to Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk—the baskets with the cats are covered in yellow silk. Generally, it's an ineptly written and ineptly filmed mess, but I guess you could say that about many giallo films. [YouTube]