THE PASSOVER PLOT (1976)

This fiction film is based on a controversial work of nonfiction by Hugh J. Schonfield. His theory is that the man history knows as Jesus Christ was not divine, but a mortal man who, in order to empower the Jews, planned to pose as the promised messiah, start a political movement, get in trouble with Roman authorities, fake his death when he was crucified, and reappear in public as the risen messiah. This movie, which uses Hebrew names, begins with Yeshua convincing himself that he has been called to be a messiah (men claiming to be messiahs were fairly common back then). He fasts in the desert, is baptized by Yohanan (John) the Baptist, and, with advice solicited from Yohanan, collects a group of followers who will help him usher in a new age for the Jews. (When Yeshua warns them that being a follower might be dangerous, Shimon replies, “We’ve been dying for a long time.”) His reputation for performing miracles is established when a man pretending to be blind approaches him asking to be cured. Yeshua spits in the man's face to call his bluff and the man says he's been cured to save face. Yeshua's brother Yakov and his band of revolutionaries get involved, though his group pushes the use of violence to achieve freedom while Yeshua backs peaceful methods. Yeshua carefully plots to attract enough attention from the authorities by proclaiming himself a king. He has Judah (Judas) deliberately betray him and has Yakov prepare an herbal solution that, when he's crucified, will slow his heartbeat on the cross enough to appear dead. Yakov warns him that the rusty nails in his hands and the blood loss may complicate his plan, and indeed, just as it looks like the plan is working, a soldier stabs Yeshua with a spear. When Yakov takes Yeshua to his tomb, he is still alive, but the stab wound kills him before he can make a public appearance as a resurrected messiah.

The book and movie created a lot of fuss back in the day, and I understand that the claim that Jesus was not actually the son of God would bother believers, though the idea of Jesus as a political figure was not new—in movies, it goes back as far as the 1927 KING OF KINGS. But the bulk of the action of the movie is a fairly reverent and traditional depiction of Jesus' last days. Zalman King's portrayal of Yeshua is also fairly traditional. He's alternately mild and intense; his more intense scenes tend to involve a lot of screaming which doesn't come off well. But on the whole, King sustains viewer interest as he is in almost every scene. British supporting actors Harry Andrews (Yohanan) and Hugh Griffith (Caiaphas) add acting clout. Other standouts include Scott Wilson as Judah, William Burns as Shimon, and Robert Walker Jr. as Bartholomew. Dan Hedaya, in his first movie role, is unrecognizable as Yakov. I find two problems with the movie. Firstly, it doesn’t examine the political conspiracy plot nearly as much as it should, opting instead to emphasize the canonical story of Jesus, featuring scenes of the Baptist's capture, the marketplace disturbance, and the Last Supper (or seder). Secondly, direction by Michael Campus is weak, with way too much of it shot in close-up to the point of too much claustrophobic visual framing. I got tired of seeing faces so close, so often. It's an interesting movie, though if you're hoping for blasphemous controversy, I think you'll be disappointed. [YouTube]

SEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE (1960)

At Collins College, Prof. Zorch has programmed his robotic computer Sam Thinko (SAM standing for Sequential Auxiliary Modulator) to pick a new science department head, and that choice, Dr. Mathilda West, arrives by train. The dean, Dr. Myrtle Carter, greets a chunky straitlaced woman who turns out to be Miss Cadwallader, a bra saleswoman. Dr. West (Mamie Van Doren) is a sexy blonde (measurements 40-20-32 according to Thinko) who, it is noted, looks like Mamie Van Doren. Woo Woo, the beefy lunkheaded football star, promptly faints, and Carter worries that the college will lose a forthcoming grant from wealthy alumnus Wildcat MacPherson because no one will take West seriously, but Zorch and the college's PR man George Barton (Martin Milner) take West's side, especially after they learn she has an IQ of 268 and holds thirteen advanced degrees. Also on the train are two low-level gangsters, Legs and Boomie, who are hunting down a guy named Sam Thinko whom they think is a horse race gambler who wins his bets 100% of the time. (We discover later that Woo Woo had been making bets in his sleep based on Thinko's predictions, but this plotline is completely unimportant.) Complications keep piling up. Woo Woo's girlfriend Jody (Tuesday Weld) thinks that West is out to steal Woo Woo from her and doubles her efforts to get Woo Woo's fraternity pin. Suzanne, a French exchange student, is working on a research paper on the sex lives of American men, and falls head over heels for Legs. Three science professors take West to the Passion Pit, a local nightclub and hangout, where Wildcat arrives, parachuting in by helicopter (his reputation is such that every woman who sees him runs away screaming), and West shows her skill at hypnotism by getting all the men to do a mock strip tease dance. Eventually, West admits that before she got her degrees, she was a stripper from Florida known as the Tallahassee Tassel Tosser. Barton falls for her, Wildcat falls for Myrtle, Jody gets Woo-Woo, and when Thinko has a nervous breakdown, West fixes him, then leaves town with Barton. I'm not sure what happens to Suzanne and Legs in the confusing climax, a large-scale fire extinguisher fight, but generally, there are happy endings all around.

Critics really hate this movie but I kinda liked it. I feel like this might have been the template for the American International teen beach movies of the 1960s, with horny but innocent teenagers, B-list guest stars, and outlandish plot developments. I don't much like those films, but maybe because this feels fresher, I wound up with a sneaky affection for it. The presence of Mamie Van Doren helps. She was never going to win an Oscar, but she throws herself into her performances full throttle and she's almost always the best thing about her movies. Her bosomy blonde persona is the central joke of the first half of the movie but she doesn't play dumb because the character isn't dumb. Martin Milner is the epitome of cute cornfed innocence, tempered with common sense (or at least as close as anyone in the movie comes to common sense), though he always looks bewildered. Tuesday Weld looks great as Jody but winds up with not much to do. Woo Woo is played by Norman Grabowski, who in addition to acting was a famous hot rod designer. Louis Nye mostly just glowers behind a fake mustache as Zorch. Brigitte Bardot’s sister Mijanou is Suzanne, Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester in The Addams Family) does a W.C. Fields impersonation as Wildcat. John Carradine has a small role as one of the teachers (yes, he's in the strip dance scene) and Harold Lloyd Jr. (at left) has a two-line cameo as a cop. Conway Twitty does a rockabilly number called "Miss Mamie," and Vampira (unrecognizable out of her usual getup) has a small role. The movie's working title was Sexpot Goes to College and that's the name of the theme song, sung by Van Doren. The weirdest thing about the movie is the "extra" reel of strip tease footage near the end. Thinko has a dream that four women do strip dances in front of him, complete with bare breasts, and then grind against him dressed only in tiny panties. It's a little bit sexy. Apparently it was shot for the European release and not included in the States, though it has been added to the Warner DVD (which is the print that TCM shows). The movie is frantically paced and not everything works, but I enjoyed it—though I not sure I'd want to sit through it a second time soon. Pictured at top are Milner, Nye and Van Doren. [TCM]

THE HAND (1960)

The opening shot of a Japanese POW camp in World War II says "Burma 1946" but that seems clearly a mistake because the war ended in 1945. Three captured British soldiers are being interrogated about the strength and whereabouts of their regiment, but refuse to give any information except name and rank. Captain Roberts thinks they should get a fictitious story straight and stick to it, but before they can, enlisted men Adams and Brodie are called in to talk, and when they refuse, their right hands are cut off. When Roberts is questioned, he apparently talks and is spared the amputation. Fifteen years later, a drunk named Taplow is found passed out on a London street, his right hand recently amputated and with 500 pounds in his coat. Taken to a hospital, he says he sold the hand to a man named Roberts who had it cut off at a small rural nursing home. During the night, Taplow is abducted by two men and found dead in the Thames the next morning. The police question Dr. Simon Crawshaw, the man who performed the amputation. Taplow had been brought in under the name Roberts by someone else who then took him after the operation. When the police continue to delve into the matter, Simon kills himself in his office. His cousin Roger shows up and, though the police don’t know this, we know that Roger is Captain Roberts, the soldier who kept his hand in Burma. The police trace a phone call that Simon got just before his suicide to a boarding house where Brodie (from the opening scene), who has a hook on his right arm, lives. 

From here on in, the story absolutely falls apart and despite the many notes I took while watching, I can't give a coherent summary of the rest of the plot. Suffice to say that Roberts is a bad guy who winds up paying for his crimes in an ironic fashion. This movie gets labeled horror quite a bit, but except for the implied grisliness of the amputations (none are shown graphically though we do see at least one disembodied hand) it's not horror as much as a B-crime movie. Ultimately the whys and wherefores of the plot are never detailed so we just have to take it on faith that the Burma segment at the beginning (and reprised at the end) is the reason for all the mayhem. It's also never made clear why it took fifteen years after Burma for all this to happen. The acting is all on a par with that of Hammer supporting players without the star power of a Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, meaning everyone is competent but bland. For the record, Derek Bond as Roberts and Ronald Leigh-Hunt as the chief inspector are OK. I did enjoy a running gag in which the policeman named Dave (Ray Cooney, who also co-wrote the script with another cast member) complains to his boss about his girlfriend complaining that he keeps having to work nights on this case. Not an awful movie but difficult to recommend. Pictured are Leigh-Hunt and Cooney. [YouTube]

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]