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Rich and Strange [1931)

Though the plot is relatively banal at times, this has to be one of the most bizarre cinematic concoctions ever.  The love stories which spin out from a troubled marriage are but the branches of this unwieldy tree.  Most importantly, this early Hitchcock film should not be overlooked as a superfluous, amateurish outing.

From the first moments we are thrust into the world of René Magritte.  The automata in their bowler hats rush from their clerical jobs and dutifully unfurl their umbrellas at the door before stepping onto a street in London.  All but one.  Poor old Fred (Henry Kendall) is having a rough day at the office and the roughness starts to really get going in earnest once he has clocked out.  Yes, Fred’s umbrella does not open.  On the Tube ride home he makes a series of mistakes due to poor balance.  As he reads the day’s paper with great effort he manages to give our auteur the perfect occasion to segue into the drama proper:  a headline inquiring as to the reader’s satisfaction with life.

Yes, Fred’s umbrella eventually opens…at his own doorstep!  As he enters his humble flat, having been soaked to the bone, his good wife industriously sews a new dress on a hand-cranked sewing machine.  Fred is disgusted with life.  He wants to get away.  To the sea!  Like clockwork, movie magic has a letter arrive in the post informing Fred that a relative is going to give him what’s coming to him in a will early so he can travel and see the world.  Fred and his wife Emily (Joan Barry) are set!

And so they take to the channel.  To Paris!  It becomes obvious early on that Fred has a problem with ocean travel.  For a great deal of the film (an around-the-world voyage) he will be laid up in his cabin too seasick to bat an eyelash.  Emily tries to make the best of it.  A kindly Commander Gordon (Percy Marmont) graciously keeps Emily entertained as her husband wiles away the hours in agony.  Gordon quickly begins falling for Emily.

After Fred finally gets his sea legs, his nouveau riche blindness leads him to follow after a German “princess.”  Soon Fred has far outpaced Emily in adulterous dealings.  The truth of the matter is that Emily feels guilty and doesn’t do much wrong.  Fred, on the other hand, goes head-first into playboy mode.  As the drama plays out, we feel sympathy for the continuously jilted Emily as well as for the sincere Commander Gordon.  Fred becomes more and more revolting by the day.

But this film really gets weird after we find out Fred’s “princess” is no princess at all.  After making off with 1000 pounds sterling, she hot-foots it to Rangoon.  Fred and Emily are then left to hobble back from Singapore to London on a steamer.

The steamer, apparently, crashes.  Fred and Emily are stuck in their cabin and no one hears their cries for help.  Thinking that they will go down with the ship, they are genuinely amazed to see the sun come up the next day.  They climb from their porthole and discover they are the last ones on board this floating wreck (save for a cat).

As the ship starts to take on more water a Chinese junk just happens to pull up.  As the Chinese sailors go aboard to scavenge, Fred and Emily hop on board the junk without asking or explaining (though I suppose the scene speaks for itself).  Once at sea, they witness the steamer finally sink.  All seems to be going well as the Chinese offer the two bowls of food.  Being absolutely ravenous, they forego the chopsticks and eat with their hands.  Across the ship a sailor tacks up the hide of a…what is that?  Yes, a cat.  Fred and Emily abruptly lose their appetites.

That’s about the gist of it.  Hitchcock really makes this thing fly with creative shots from many fascinating vantage points.  There is a bit aboard a moving Tube train.  The sequence in the Folies Bergère is pithy and surreal (especially the shot of the banjo player).  The Paris part in general bears a striking resemblance to the “city symphony” genre which is perhaps best remembered for Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (1927).  Hitchcock has his protagonist couple mechanically agog as they whip their necks back and forth during intercutting to Notre Dame and other Parisian sights.  The novelty would again show up in Strangers on a Train, but by then Hitch would have the knowing touch to add a constant (a static referent) to the mechanical motion:  the psychotic, uninterested tennis spectator Robert Walker.

…a sea-change/Into something rich and strange.  Indeed.

-PD

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The Big Sleep [1946)

If you’ve seen Mulholland Drive, you know the pleasure which being confused can bring.  Where is that confounded plot?  Yes, that is exactly what can happen here if you are not paying strict attention.  This film is notorious for being convoluted.  Perhaps the assertion is unfair.  Unlike Finnegans Wake, there is actually a plot (complete with characters) here, yet you must hold on tight to come out with any specific sense of what has just transpired.

In some ways The Big Sleep is similar to Hitchcock’s Vertigo in that both films seem to be buoyed along primarily by their mood and tone.  Whether it was specifically the doing of Faulkner (one of three screenwriters here) or not, the dialogue is perhaps the best ever written.  Inextricable from the razor-sharp repartee are the talents of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.  An underappreciated addition to this grand concoction of Howard Hawks is the contribution of Martha Vickers.  This was perhaps the only significant film role of her acting career (which also included television), but it is one for the ages!

Bogart, for his part, is stellar in his versatility.  His “undercover” stint at Geiger’s book shop is hilarious!  Dorothy Malone has a short-yet-incendiary part as the proprietress of Acme Bookstore.  She would go on to win an Oscar for best supporting actress by way of Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind (1956).  Even as late as 1992 she was making an impact on the film world (in Basic Instinct).

But it is Bogart who gives one of his greatest performances as the truth-seeking, street-smart Philip Marlowe.  Passion drives Marlowe to “soldier on” just as much as justice.  Bogart is the supreme example of insubordination gone right.  His fierce independence is infused into the character of Marlowe to stunning effect.  Bogart won’t quit.  Howard Hawks makes the whole thing seem real by having Marlowe shake with fear near the climax.  All we needed was a glimpse of his humanity to truly appreciate the insouciant superman we’ve been following.

-PD

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To Have and Have Not [1944)

Was you ever stung by a dead bee?  Their sting can’t possibly be as piquant as 19-year-old Lauren Bacall in this classic.  Humphrey Bogart would agree.  It was Bacall’s first film and the beginning of a “beautiful friendship.”  Their on-screen charisma here is both impossibly cute and sweltering (the latter due to Bacall’s sultry acting).

Walter Brennan can’t stop talking about dead bees (or stop talking in general).  His performance is magnificent.  The sub-plot involving Brennan’s character Eddie and Bogart’s Capt. Morgan (rum, anyone?) is truly touching.  Bogart plays the tough-yet-compassionate friend to the old alcoholic Eddie.  It is an underdog story and we are glad to see someone looking after the unfortunate Eddie.  It is significant that the novel upon which this film is loosely based was written by Hemingway, yet Eddie seems to bear a slight resemblance to Lennie from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.  To round out the American literature lesson, William Faulkner is credited as one of the two screenwriters.

Of additional note (no pun intended) is the acting, singing, and playing of Hoagy Carmichael.  There are such fantastic musical moments herein.  One wonders whether Tom Waits was inspired by the songs from this film (and by Carmichael in general).  We must also remember that Ian Fleming envisioned 007 as looking like Carmichael.  His presence in this film adds immensely to the whole.

The direction of Howard Hawks is stunning, though deftly “invisible.”  We believe the events are actually happening.  Though it is Hollywood through and through, there might be a case made for Hawks’ own neorealism at this time when Rossellini was about to release the seminal  Roma città aperta (the epitome of cinematic veritas). 

-PD

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A View to a Kill [1985)

The opening disclaimer is odd.  Zorin…  One wonders whether the apologetics were in deference to Valerian Zorin.  In the West, the Soviet diplomat/statesman was best known for a stand-off with Adlai Stevenson at a UN Security Council meeting during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Surely the legal clarification wasn’t at the behest of a high Soviet official?  The question is important because it colors my reading of this film.  Something unique was afoot for this production.  At what point in the life of this film was the disclaimer created?  Valerian Zorin died the year after this film was released.

Is it significant that an MI6 agent dies in the carwash at a BP gas station?  Is it significant that a Chevron sign comes tumbling down to destruction in the San Francisco car chase?

One thing is certain:  the fact that villain Max Zorin is interested in horse breeding and horse racing is no accident.  Dr. Carl Mortner (played by Willoughby Gray) is a former Nazi scientist whom the Soviets picked up (à la Operation Paperclip).  His steroid experiments on pregnant women in concentration camps spawned our highly-intelligent, psychopathic antagonist in question.  One could draw many parallels…

But we must also remember that this is a movie.  In my estimation, it is the best Bond film up till this point with the possible exception of The Man with the Golden Gun.  What makes this film so special is indeed exactly what I have been skirting around:  its villain (Christopher Walken).

Yes, the theme by Duran Duran is great.  Yes, Grace Jones is fantastic.  But it is Walken who really provides the drama.  That the greatest of all Bond villains would have a particularly nasty scheme up his sleeve is only natural.  Eliminate the competition.  It is simple.  Cold, calculating, mechanical…and creative in its destruction.

Fiona Fullerton really filled out since her role as the title character in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972).  She would have made an excellent Bond girl, but the honor goes to perhaps an even more worthy candidate:  Tanya Roberts.  The blue-eyed Roberts and the blue-eyed Roger Moore are almost like the thoroughbreds which play a minor role in this film.  Credit both actors with remaining human while still being among the beautiful people.  Both do an excellent job of giving depth to their characters.  This would, sadly, be the last Roger Moore production in the Eon series of Bond movies (barring a late comeback).

It may or may not be significant that Roberts’ character has the last name Sutton.  Considering the geopolitical intrigue at stake, one might consider the reference as to Anthony Sutton.  Dr. Sutton was a historian, economist, and writer on politics who researched and published on such fascinating topics as the Skull & Bones fraternity of Yale University, The Trilateral Commission, and the U.S. Federal Reserve System.  Of particular note are Sutton’s books on the relation of Wall Street to both the Bolsheviks and the Nazis.

Shedule, not skedjule.  With a simple pronunciation nuance, Walken exits the mine after killing his own workers with an Uzi (while laughing).  Surely such demented individuals don’t reach such important positions of power, do they?

Walken even laughs at his own death.  By attacking Moore with an axe, we are brought back to the archetypal depiction of insanity which Jack Nicholson so hideously characterized in Kubrick’s The Shining.

I won’t forgive myself without mentioning the significant contribution over the years of Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny (this being her last film in the role).  And as a reward for having read this far, the secret to the disclaimer is Zoran Corporation (which strangely, strangely actually did specialize in making microchips…and! was located in Silicon Valley).  As a side-note, the aforementioned company derived its name from the Hebrew word for silicon (being strongly connected to the government of Israel, though incorporated in Delaware).

And I didn’t even get to snowboarding…or the game for Commodore 64 🙂

-PD

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Blind Husbands [1919)

Erich von Stroheim, like Lars von Trier after him, was not really a “von.”  Even as early as Josef von Sternberg directors were adopting (through hook and crook) the self-styled nobility of Stroheim in imitative honor.  The pioneer of this trend started his directing career with the film in question.  One wonders whether this movie also began the habit of filmmakers to shoot in (or depict) Cortina d’Ampezzo.  Through the years we would see both the Pink Panther and James Bond franchises gravitate towards the little Alpine village in the Dolomites.

One thing is certain:  after almost 100 years this story (also by Stroheim) feels modern and the direction is equally modern and stunning (especially for a first-time director).  Just two years later, Charlie Chaplin would begin (with The Kid) a string of self-directed features (with himself cast as the lead) which would rocket him to international stardom [the exceptions being A Woman of Paris (1923) and Chaplin’s last film A Countess from Hong Kong].  So one might argue that Stroheim started yet another trend (starring in self-directed features) which became inextricably integral to the development of film.  Later echoes would present themselves in the work of Orson Welles and François Truffaut (to name just two).

There are several innovative uses of the camera in this picture.  One, when Francelia Billington is combing her hair at the mirror, sees the focus go from her to her husband asleep in his bed.  Not content with this coup, Stroheim then has the husband morph into a memory of the young wedded couple in their happier, former days.  Another instance of ingenious directing comes when Billington is having a fevered nightmare ridden with guilt.  Stroheim (who plays The Other Man) appears as a disembodied, grotesque head.  As he smokes lasciviously from his long cigarette holder the dream sequence then cuts to his nicotine-stained hand and a solemn index finger which slowly comes to point at the dreamer.  Such imagery anticipates Hitchcock’s gun sequence from Spellbound (not to mention its dream sequence for which Hitch employed the design skills of Salvador Dalí).

Another poignant auteurist touch comes near the end when Stroheim (as actor) is stranded atop a mountain peak.  His dire situation is reinforced by the birds of prey which gradually start circling, yet we first only see them as shadows against the rock.

Most notably, this film was released just two months after the end of World War I.  Stroheim plays a Lieutenant in the Austrian cavalry (Austria-Hungary being one of the Central Powers battling the United States which was among the opposing Allies).  It was the assassination of an Austrian which triggered the war and the first shots fired were by Austrians on Serbians in retaliation.  Keep in mind that Blind Husbands is unquestionably a Hollywood production (Stroheim having emigrated to the U.S. in 1909).

Moving back to the theme of this film, one senses a shifting, secular morality pervading throughout.  Perhaps Stroheim was “urged” to make the whole thing a morality play, but he sure seems to be enjoying the role of the womanizing dandy.  The end of the film is not convincing enough to deduce that Stroheim really cared one way or another about the moral “lesson” ostensibly conveyed.  The only strange caveat is the shot of him (The Other Man) desperately praying atop the mountain.  That and, in my cut of the film, we never see Stroheim plunge from the cliff after having been attacked by vultures.  Perhaps I am still becoming versant in silent film and the fall escaped me.  Viewers with ADD stand no chance of making it through this “blockbuster.”  Those who have successfully absorbed the linguistic disconnect of Shakespeare from modern English will have a good idea of the patience it takes to delve into lesser known silent films on a regular basis.

-PD

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The Host [2013)

Science fiction is often a metaphor…and this movie is about the national security state (whether it knows it or not).  It would be easy to fault this film for its trite trappings, but if one has reason to give the film a chance…  My reason was Saoirse Ronan.

I remember being a big fan of Thora Birch after seeing Ghost World.  [I’m still a big fan.]  The lengths to which film fans go to see their favorite players is sometimes remarkable.  My admiration went so far as to watch Dungeons & Dragons (2000).  Boy, I wish I could get those 107 minutes back!

I can’t echo the same sentiment about The Host.  This is truly a fine film.  Granted, it is a pale imitation of Hanna (2011), but I believe that Hanna will stand as one of the best films of all time.

What we do have is a dystopian “failure to communicate.”  This is essentially the problem with the national security state.  No reasonable person can seriously believe that the men and women of the CIA, NSA, and other such agencies are truly sitting around frying up babies on spits.  The problem is that the technology has far outstripped the human skills of these agencies.  For every action which is automated–every process given over to a computer…these agencies lose the war they think they are winning.

When agencies such as MI6 and Mossad no longer have popular support, their days are numbered.  The American intelligence community has failed to recognize that the war is not against “terrorists,” but rather for Americans.  “Hearts and minds” went the old phrase…  The world’s most powerful intelligence agencies are losing the human relations race almost as much as they are losing the information race.

Every once in a while there is a crack in this monolithic façade.  Not so long ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski (perhaps inadvertently) blurted out the real score of both the information and interpersonal communications races during a speech in Canada (Toronto, I believe).  It may have been a Council on Foreign Relations function, but really:  who cares?  The sentiment was echoed on the floor of Congress some years back by Hillary Clinton.  Whether explicit or not, these cracks indicate the panic of highly intelligent and heavily-invested players on the world stage.

Technology brings with it a certain uncertainty:  an undefinable amount of risk.  The same can be said of democracy.  It is no wonder that certain American Founding Fathers (Alexander Hamilton, for instance) felt ill at ease about the prospect of “government by the people.”  But this fear only shows weakness.  When power is fearful, power shows its ass.  Obverse and reverse.  We are used to seeing the obverse, but we must remember there is a man behind that wizard curtain.

Diane Kruger impressed me with her articulate acting in the National Treasure movies.  Here, she represents the sheen of the national security state.  She is like Shannon Bream on FOX News:  a neocon trophy anchor.  In truth, her character is staged in almost an identical way as that of Cate Blanchett in Hanna.  The accoutrements of power in The Host also have a ubiquitous and literal sheen in the form of mirrored-paint (chrome).  It is not far from the cheese factor of Sphere (1998).

Yet, The Host truly does have something to offer…and that is primarily due to the acting prowess of Ronan.  The major addition is the superb support of William Hurt.  In his character “Jeb” we see the dreamer mentality of American ingenuity which stretches back at least to Benjamin Franklin.  We also see in Hurt’s depiction the presence of John Wayne and other noble examples of simple morality from the American western genre of film.  What is really at issue is consequentialist morality vs. deontological morality.  Consequentialists (such as the rational aliens of our film) would argue that their ends justify their means.  Deontological circumspection (as in the case of Hurt’s character) holds that certain acts are repulsive in and of themselves (ontology) and therefore to be considered in such light.

Hurt’s character goes against the grain (Huysmans, anyone?) by refusing to kill the alien which has occupied the body of his niece.  His hunch turns out to be right:  his niece is still alive somewhere deep down inside there.  In Hurt’s character and his milieu we see the “prepper” mentality which has remained strong in America, but most of all we see the imagination to think conceptually.  Uncle Jeb is the only one to give credence to the thought which those around him spurn.  It is possible.

Much has been made about the American intelligence community’s “failure of imagination” regarding 9/11 all those many years ago, but I believe that’s rubbish.  However, the only way the U.S. will ever heal and move forward in an evolutionary way is for those “in the know” to come forward in numbers and ways heretofore unseen.  Likewise, those upset with even the most senior of the military-industrialists must be prepared to embrace the unique wisdom they have.  It is hard to talk about such things in precise terms owing to the nature of the dispute, but ultimately the powerful and the powerless need each other.

-PD

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The Manxman [1929)

The Isle of Man has two movie theaters as of 2014.  Alfred Hitchcock’s last silent film was set on this little island between Great Britain and Ireland (though it was actually filmed in Cornwall).  It’s amazing how much a director can improve in one year.  The previous year had seen the release of Hitchcock’s dull “rom-com” The Farmer’s Wife.  Truth be told:  The Manxman is just a much better story.

In simplest terms, it is the drama of two men (best friends) in love with the same girl.  She’s in love with one of them, but unfortunately not the one she ends up marrying.  The whole thing bears a striking resemblance in tone to Ingmar Bergman’s Summer with Monika (1953).  In fact, the more general mood of the film might be successfully compared to Bergman and Dreyer (a Swede and Dane respectively).  This is not going against the history of The Isle of Man.  The Norse began settling on the isle in the 9th century.  The island’s history is tied not only to Norway, but also the Hebrides civilization.

More importantly, the dramatic material is simply much more suited to what would become Hitchcock’s signature style.  The girl (played by Anny Ondra) throws herself off the quayside in a suicide attempt.  She is not successful.  The viewer familiar with Vertigo might rightly snap to Kim Novak plunging into San Francisco Bay (and warming herself in Jimmy Stewart’s apartment after failing to drown herself).

The dénouement comes when Ondra stands before a deemster (name for judge on Isle of Man) for the crime of attempted suicide.  The judge just so happens to be the man she loves (and it’s his first day on the job!).  The courtroom drama nicely anticipates an underappreciated Hitchcock gem starring Alida Valli called The Paradine Case (1947).  Our film ends up in a bizarre admission by the deemster that he is not fit for the bench owing to his surreptitious dealings with Ondra.

The Manxman in question (played by Carl Brisson) is left to deal with the heartbreak of having been tricked from marriage to fatherhood and beyond.  We end up feeling pity for him, but for most of the film we sympathize with the star-crossed lovers (Ondra and Malcolm Keen).  Keen’s surname in the film is Christian (Philip Christian) and we see him struggle with his situation in a way that today might be termed quaint.  Max Weber might call it the Protestant love ethic.

In closing, this film is definitely worth watching.  There is particular anguish and tension (artfully conveyed) in the child custody scene.  Hitchcock’s ingenuity starts coming to the fore in his final experiment with silence.

-PD

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In Like Flint [1967)

It all started with Errol Flynn.  Flynn, accused of statutory rape by two under-age girls in November 1942 was defended by (among others)  the American Boys’ Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn.  That’s right:  ABCDEF.  One member of the organization was William F. Buckley, Jr.  Ah Buckley…not the heroic Bill Buckley who died in Beirut (after helping to expose Project MKUltra).  Nay, we speak of the harpsichord man.  The Knight of Malta (like Ronald Reagan). 

In 1943 (that is, the next year) the Buckley in question would go from ABCDEF (Z.O.W.I.E. anyone?) to being a student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.  After a short stay, he entered (?) WWII out of U.S. Army Officer Candidate School and soon enough (at war’s end) was at Yale and in the loving arms of Skull and Bones (being a member in good standing). 

Buckley was recruited by the CIA in 1951.  The story goes that he served just two years, but strikingly one of those two was back in Mexico City as a “political action specialist” in the Special Activities Division under E. Howard Hunt.

Now there’s a name…  Hunt, along with G. Gordon Liddy (what is it with these guys and first initials?), engineered the first Watergate burglary on behalf of President Richard Nixon and his administration.  That is to say:  in 1972 the President of the United States of America’s “people” broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.  In on this whole thing was another fellow keen on the aforementioned self-referent nomenclature:  L. Patrick Gray (the acting head of the FBI at the time).

This immense tangent serves to set the stage for what is not really that great a movie:  In Like Flint.  Yes, the phrase is thought to have originated in reference to good old Errol Flynn (the demigod [not to be confused with demagogue] of our friends the ABCDEF).

All of this is to say that the “plot” of In Like Flint is beyond fanciful (and utterly jaw-dropping in its dated sexism).  Yet, every day the machinations of strange organizations with nefarious plans swirl around us in orbits mostly unnoticed.

I must say that I preferred the direction of Daniel Mann’s Our Man Flint to the staging here of Gordon Douglas.  Don’t get me wrong:  there are some priceless moments herein.  At one point James Coburn utters the phrase “an actor as President…” (as if the whole thing seemed too preposterous to be real).  Of course the U.S. would go on to actually have an actor as President when Reagan assumed the position for the majority of the 1980s.

The tape recorders in hair dryers idea bears a spooky resemblance to what the other Bill Buckley observed at McGill University in Montreal (under the horrific guidance of Dr. Ewen Cameron):  that is to say MKUltra. 

More light-hearted is Coburn’s hilarious “dolphin talk” near the top of the film.  Fans of The Illuminatus Trilogy will doubtless find this particularly poignant. 

Spy Chief Framed As Libertine…  This brings to mind the strange case of Gen. David Petraeus.  In the film, intelligence (?) chief Lloyd Cramden is stoned and dethroned in just such a manner by a junta of which Gen. Carter is head.  Once again Flint shows his boundless talents (including a stint as hypnotist and another as a ballet dancer).  Rahm Emanuel would surely be proud.  Leave it to the polymath Flint to deduce female cosmonauts from a cardiograph (80 BPM) on Earth. 

Coburn as a Cuban is definitely a knee-slapper.  And there is plenty of eye candy (as in the appropriately-named Operation Smooch).  All in all this is great downtime for spy and enthusiast alike.

-PD 

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Passage to Marseille [1944)

The Maginot Line was the greatest “oops” in the history of military strategy.  It’s not often we walk into a movie theater and hear about this relic, nor about the Siegfried Line on the other side.  That is why we must look to classic cinema for these and other lessons.  Make no mistake, this film is not primarily about that ill-fated Titanic of fortifications which was outflanked.

Sydney Greenstreet makes mention of both lines in the fictional build up to real war.  Greenstreet is once again the slippery villain…this time a Major in the French army who would side with Petain and the Nazis.  Peter Lorre, for once, is a good guy (though a pickpocket/safecracker by profession).  Claude Rains is convincing and distinguished as Captain Freycinet, but it is Humphrey Bogart as Matrac who leads the show.

For Bogart’s character Jean Matrac we must look to another chapter of history:  that of Jean-Paul Marat.  Bogart plays a radical journalist who ends up being framed by the government of France and sent to the penal colony at Cayenne, French Guiana.  Sound familiar?  To Francophiles it certainly should.  We must remember Lieutenant-colonel Alfred Dreyfus (another great “oops” of French history).  Dreyfus was wrongly accused of being a spy and sent to (you guessed it) French Guiana [in fact, to the worst part:  Devil’s Island].

And so…we have Bogart and Lorre and three other “convicts” (some legitimately guilty and others, like Bogart, there on dubious charges) escape in a canoe.  I won’t go too much into plot detail in case you feel like actually watching this thing (what a concept!).

The theme, on the other hand, is worth elaboration.  We are dealing with patriotism in spite of corrupt governance.  As St. Thomas Aquinas said (and I paraphrase), “An unjust law is no law at all.”  Another page from history.  Here we see the principle of Natural Law which would attract none other than Martin Luther King, Jr. (who cited the same sentiment in his Letter From Birmingham Jail in 1963).

We now live in a time and (we in the United States) a country which is as dynamic with vile antagonists as was France during WWII.  Knowing history becomes paramount.  Knowledge (as James Madison pointed out) is essential for popular governance.  Facts are weapons.

Bogart ends up worthy of being a subject for Jacques-Louis David by film’s conclusion (I’m being purposefully cryptic), but not before giving the Nazis a good lashing.  Bogie’s character is similar to the one he played in Key Largo.  Matrac’s disillusionment almost makes him become the complete opposite of his former self.  In an instance fit for bystander law, Bogart intercedes on behalf of a young boy.  The young boy revives the national pride in Bogart–that fire for justice.

We in America would do well to remember the Maginot Line when disillusioned with a government we feel no longer represents us.  Even the Prophet Mohammed spoke of the scholar’s ink as superior to the martyr’s blood.  Everyone with a mouse to click is fighting.  Every blog, post, and tweet is a riposte.  Every dollar a vote.

Vive la France!  And long live the United States of America!

-PD

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Octopussy [1983)

This was another childhood favorite of mine.  The intriguing geopolitical aspects were beyond me till now.  In the midst of the Soviet-Afghan War, the Bond franchise saw fit to introduce an Afghan villain.  What is more, the plot revolves around a rogue Soviet general (think Dr. Strangelove and Gen. Ripper) set on a sort of sneak attack against NATO.  The stratagem in question here is a rather more slippery bit of stealth.

Director John Glen does another admirable job and turns in a thoroughly entertaining episode for the series.  The disarming of the nuclear warhead is genuinely enthralling, but perhaps the best part of the movie is after that:  when Octopussy’s amazons besiege the villain’s hideout.

There’s a generous helping of humor and generally ridiculous set pieces in this installment.  Maud Adams makes a return to the series as the title character (having previously appeared in the excellent 1974 Eon production The Man with the Golden Gun).  The film, however, gets a bit clunky when her family history is introduced.  She pours a martini a little too fast and (voilà!) the plot becomes inexplicably convoluted at 100 miles per hour.

There is the nice reference to (one would assume) Strangers on a Train when Vijay is swatting thugs with a tennis racket.  It is cheeky, but the Bond series by this point had started to develop its own film language.  Other films simply could not get away with the hubris involved in such repeated suspension of disbelief.

Roger Moore in a gorilla suit is utterly absurd, but the whole thing works (to me) because he checks his watch while eavesdropping on a time-sensitive conversation.  On the other hand, the sequence in the jungle overdubbed with a Tarzan yell has the effect of the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope film Road to Bali.  The only problem is that Road to Bali sustained the anarchic irreverence throughout.  Bond’s life being in danger all of a sudden seems to be a laughing matter.  Somehow, John Glen gets away with it.  I don’t know if deft is the right word, but in the context of the increasingly farfetched series it works…more or less.

There are a couple of ribald excerpts which bear mentioning.  One is a cheeky cut immediately after the word asp to a lady’s rear end.  The other is far more strange.  As Q is briefing Bond (as usual) there is a strange stand off with a very distant, timid feminism.  Moore focuses a camera on a lady’s breasts (herself also an employee of MI6) and does the mondo zoom in/zoom out to generally entertaining effect.  The strangeness lays in the lady’s reaction.  She is like one of the Vietnamese in the famous picture of Jane Fonda which Godard spun out into an entire film (Letter to Jane).  The lady connected to the breasts is obviously displeased by what today would be accurately termed sexual harassment.  The fumbling mise-en-scène allows her to linger in plain sight for a long while as the joke is played out in aftermath.  I find this to be a potentially greater crack in “the fourth wall” than Vijay’s snake-charmer rendition of the 007 theme.

-PD

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