Film review: Father Brown/The Detective (1954)

Well, this is a British film from the 50s, so guess who's the first actor you see in it?  If you guessed Sid James, you've been paying attention.  He is fleeing down the stairs of some sort of factory at night as Police climb them and somehow he manages to avoid them and get out to safety.  When the police get to their destination, which appears to be the payroll office, the shine their lights around and reveal Alec Guinness's Father Brown calmly replacing stacks of bills in the safe.  Nonetheless they arrest him and take him to the station 

and put him in a cell, after first emptying his pockets (he asks for his bar of chocolate, because he hasn't eaten) and taking his glasses, leaving him squinting like Mr. Magoo.  After some calls to other stations, looking for info on conmen who pose as priests (largely because the arresting officer refuses to believe he's really called "Brown" - although his first name is the much less prosaic "Ignatius"), they find somebody who knows of him because of his status as an amateur detective, and he is released, bearing them no animus.  In fact, very rarely do we see Father Brown betray annoyance (so that on the one occasion I remember, it's rather shocking), at most he is disappointed.  When he gets out, Sid James is there to meet him.  As we might have guessed, Father Brown worked out where Bert Parkinson (Sid's character) would be operating and talked him out of it.  As they walk together by the canal, Father Brown talks Bert into going straight, specifically as a chauffeur for a "friend of mine."  This turns out to be Lady Warren, played by Joan "posher-sounding Glynis Johns" Greenwood, 

who was also paired with Guinness in The Man in the White Suit.  (Another fellow Ealing Comedy castmate of Guinness's, Cecil Parker (who plays the first of The Ladykillers to lose his nerve and get bumped off) shows up as Father Brown's Bishop.)  Anyway, the main plot of the film concerns Father Brown's pursuit of notorious thief Flambeau, played by Peter Finch, whom I only knew for his final, Oscar-winning role in Network ("I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!") but who is wonderful here, underplaying nicely and managing a believable French accent.

The initial battle is over a thousand-year-old cross (I think he says it was St. Augustine's) that needs to be sent to Rome.  The church is convinced that Flambeau will try to take it, so make plans to send it under armed guard.  Father Brown thinks this is ridiculous, and because "the best place to hide a leaf is in a forest" he suggests that a priest should carry it, as vast numbers of clergy are descending on Rome, and Flambeau won't know who has it.  When he gets overruled, Father Brown takes the cross anyway.  This is his first time outside of England, and he commiserates with a fellow priest on the very rough ferry ride.  They ride on together to Paris, where the other priest shows him around, having served on a mission or something there.  They are being followed by a team of an English policeman and a French, as it has been discovered that Father Brown has the cross.  As this will attract unwanted attention, Father Brown and the other priest (who spot the cops as they're eating at a cafe) 

escape on a bus and then down into the Catacombs... where Father Brown calls the other priest Flambeau, for of course it is he (under a fake goatee).  Where he went wrong, Father Brown reveals, is in ordering a ham sandwich at the cafe, as I think it is Friday.  Flambeau takes the parcel Father Brown is carrying, at which FB smugly says that he switched parcels and left the real crucifix back at the cafe.  Then Flambeau opens the parcel to reveal the crucifix and says he switched them back.  Then he ties up FB, changes clothes and limps out of the Catacombs, taking time to report to the cops that have followed them that he heard a disturbance at [revealing FB's location, so he wont have to stay tied up].  Of course FB is in huge hot water for disobeying orders and causing the loss of the crucifix, but FB is confident he can set things right.  And to do so he convinces Lady Warren to set a trap by auctioning a priceless chess set, because he knows Flambeau won't be able to resist it.

Father Brown does indeed catch Flambeau (seeing through another of his disguises because of another "ham sandwich"-style mistake) but (a) Flambeau returns the chess set (clearly taken with Lady Warren) 

and (b) FB helps him escape, for which he gets into more hot water.  BUT, he has a clue: he lifted Flambeau's cigarette case (it's revealed early in the film that he has the skills of an "oyster" which apparently was slang for pickpocket - he has also shown that he is a good wrestler) 

which has his family crest on it, so the first thing to do is return to Paris to a repository of French Heraldry.  

Will FB catch Flambeau?  Why does Flambeau steal (and then sometimes return it)?  Both times FB and Flambeau have encountered each other, they have been studiously polite, but Flambeau has become annoyed at FB's attempts to reform him.  He reveals that he steals because he is a man out of time: he has skills (as a fencer, as a horseman) that are obsolete, and tastes that he cannot afford to satiate, so he steals so he can have beautiful things.  Well, he's in for a real scolding if FB catches him again...

As with the books, one can enjoy the character and the story without being too nauseated by the gentle Catholic Propaganda (in this way it reminds me of the Don Camillo stories).  Alec Guinness is in prime Ealing Era comedic chameleon mode (with a very unfortunate haircut), which the part calls for, but which allows Peter Finch, who has a genuinely poignant edge to his performance, to more-or-less steal the picture.  As Jami remarked, it was more like a TV show than a proper film, but that's true of a lot of British cinema, particularly in the 50s, but all the performances are good, at least.  I'd certainly watch more of Guinness-as-Brown, so it's rather a shame there aren't any more. 

Film review: Little Caesar (1931)

This is the film that made the image of Edward G. Robinson that those of us weaned on Bugs Bunny Cartoons know well, 

and where he utters the immortal line "Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?" (And is probably the reason it's called RICO.)  Apparently it also entered the public domain on January 1st.  I hope somebody puts out a cleaned-up print of it, because what we watched on the Criterion Channel was not a patch on any of the films of this era and earlier available in the Criterion Collection or on Kino Lorber.

It's pre-code, which didn't mean much in this case except I picked up some serious homoerotic sub-text (our anti-hero, Caesar Enrico Bandello has "no time" for Dames, but is very attached to his buddy Joe (played by the much-taller Douglas Fairbanks Jr., 

who did not really distinguish himself in the role), to the extent that when Joe betrays him, this ruthless killer gets moist-eyed and not only can't bring himself to shoot him, he prevents his stooge from shooting him too.  The plot is pretty formulaic, too - the usual "ascent of the criminal ladder" plot that would be perfected in films like The Roaring Twenties.

We first see Joe and Rico at an all-night diner (getting "Spaghetti and coffee") after having pulled off a heist in the small town that is their stomping ground.  Rico reads a story in the paper about a big-time gangster getting feted and decides he needs to head East to where the action is.  Joe doesn't seem all that keen, and mutters about going back to being a dancer, but Rico informs him he's coming along.

Next, Rico does become a goon for a small-time boss called Sam Vettori 

(who gives Rico his titular nickname, and introduces Rico to his gang, such as Killer Peppi, Scabby, Kid Bean and Bat Korilla), who works for "Diamond" Pete Montana, who in turn works for a shadowy figure called "Big Boy" (no, he doesn't wear checked dungarees and carry burgers aloft).  

Joe does indeed go back to dancing, and, with the help of his new love "Olga," 

gets a job for what seems like the princely sum of $100 a week, dancing at the Bronze Peacock.  Alas, the club is owned by a rival of Sam's (Arnie Lorch) so Rico basically gives Joe no option but to help rob it on New Year's Eve.  To make matters worse, the new crusading (and incorruptible) Crime Commissioner, Alvin McClure was at the club, but was leaving because he found out who owned it (told you he was incorruptible) when Rico guns him down.  This makes Sam super-nervous, which prompts Rico to take over as gang boss, claiming that Sam's lost his nerve.  

(He isn't the only one: the driver, Tony, has a full-on panic attack, freezing at the wheel and then later crashing the car, and when one of the gang meets him walking on the street, he's on the way to talk to his priest.  So Rico has him gunned down on the steps of the church, in a killing that echoes Cagney's death in The Roaring Twenties.  

But he does make sure he gets a lavish funeral parade afterwards).  

Meanwhile McClure's former underling Thomas Flaherty 

(all the cops (and the priest) are Irish, all the gangsters Italian) swears that he's going to get Rico, after Rico survives an assassination attempt by Lorch with just a graze, 

and then drives Lorch out of town as punishment.  Rico's ambition gets him noticed by Big Boy (whose gaudy house dazzles Rico when he visits, a clear sign of his humble origins (as is his discomfort in the "monkey suit" he puts on to make the visit)

because it very much resembles something decorated by Donald Trump), who informs him that he is now to replace Diamond Pete in charge of the Northside territory.

Rico finally gets feted as he wanted, 

although things are soured somewhat when Flaherty visits and reveals that a watch identical to the one Rico has just been presented as a gift by his loyal men has just been snatched from a local Jeweller's.

At this point Rico grows paranoid that Joe will squeal on him and demands that he quit both dancing and Olga and come back to a life of crime.  The distraught Joe tries to get Olga to flee the city with him, but Olga is a cool customer and points out that Rico will track them wherever they go, so it's better to strike first and reveal to Flaherty that it was Rico who killed McClure (following?).  They hole up in the apartment and wait for Flaherty to come over, but the knock on the door turns out to be Rico and his most trigger-happy henchman Otero.  This is when the afore-mentioned tears and the saving-of-Joe happen, before Flahery shows up and the two hoods run for it down the fire escape.  Otero doesn't make it, but Rico does, and first hides out in a hidden room in Ma Magalena's Fruit Store, 

who refuses to be intimidated, and then he "takes to the gutter" to vanish.  We later find him in a flophouse, drinking alcohol (that he had fastidiously refused throughout the whole movie) and growing enraged at the anti-Rico taunts from Flaherty that a fellow bum is reading from the newspaper.  He calls up Flaherty to set up a showdown... and pretty soon this is indeed the end of Rico, 

gunned down behind a sign advertising Joe and Olga.

As I said, pretty corny stuff overall (for example, Tony's death is made all-but inevitable by him going home to visit his loving Ma after the shooting), but Robinson shines.  His voice is inimitable and he has that sheer force of personality that, like Cagney, makes him much larger than his stature.  Two scenes in particular stand out for me, both of which are where the director (Mervyn LeRoy - this is part of a collection of his films on the Criterion Channel) moves in slowly on his face and he conveys volumes without speaking.  This one is where he's paused while telling Joe what he will do in order to answer the phone, only to return to find that Joe has done a runner:

And the other is the tears scene:

proving that raw magnetism can come in stocky, unprepossessing packages.

Sewage fountain

 So we woke up this morning to floods in the basement.  The worse one was in what was the little bathroom, until it was dismantled in the great Mold Search, but it did leave a functional toilet, which appeared to have disgorged raw sewage all over the floor.  Also, in the laundry room, there were pools under the sink (famous as the sink that we once found a racoon hiding in when Grandpa visited).  Well, we got somebody to come about the sewage and he had to use various machines to unclog the pipes of the masses of [stop reading here if of a sensitive nature] wipes that had accumulated over the years, and in fact had to wrestle to such an extent that he literally broke the toilet and had to get us a new one.  After he left (leaving us to clean up [gagging noises]) the water under the sink reappeared, so we called him back, but he discovered it had nothing to do with the other problem, it was just that the pipe at the back of the sink had rusted out, so when the washing machine discharged into the sink, it just came gushing through.  So that needs fixing.  What an odd coincidence.  Lesson learned: "flushable" is a LIE.  The aftermath:

 

The Flamingo at its finest

 

Film review: Umberto D (1952)

Film number 49 from our box set, and another one that I put off because it seemed crushingly depressing, and (while undeniably sad, and left me with a lump in my throat) was definitely not that.  Certainly the description - old man and his adorable dog fall gradually into homelessness in a poverty-stricken post-war Italy (Rome?) - illustrates why I avoided it (as does the fact that it's by the director of the heartrending Bicycle Thieves, whose absence from the box-set its presence explains), but the real earthiness of the characters, and the fact that Italians just don't seem capable of simply lying down and giving up, means it's a nourishing rather than depleting watch.  The main actor, a small, slight, dapper man, was a non-professional, and I believe the next-most-major character, the maid in the house from which "Mr. Umberto" (full name Umberto Domenico Ferrari) is being evicted was new to acting.  Both are revelatory.  The old man's face is an open book 

and he is never less than completely convincing in his reactions to every event and every other character in the film (and especially his beloved small mutt "Flike" (rhymes with Bike), who is the smartest little guy since the dog in the Thin Man movies).  Meanwhile Maria-the-maid has an almost cartoon face, it's so open and guileless (she's no great beauty, but she qualifies as a great cutie), 

befitting the country girl who can't go back to her village because her father will beat her, but is the one person who cares for Mr. Umberto.  Meanwhile his heartless landlady (she is tall and bleached-blonde, in contrast to the tiny, dark Maria) 

who is a shameless social-climber, cannot wait to kick him out, and is even renting out his room by the hour in a The Apartment-style scheme while he's out protesting inadequate pensions (the film opens with the rally being broken up by brutish police, who run off hordes of Umbertos).  As with Bicycle Thieves, the rest of the movie is very "slice of life" (De Sica is one of the primary figures in Italian Neo-Realism, after all), with Umberto trotting around trying to avoid his landlady at first, and then, when he realizes how serious she is (she refuses to accept anything but a full payment of his back-rent, which amounts to 15 thousand lire, when the most he can scrape together is around 5 thousand) desperate attempts to sell off various items of property or secure loans from old acquaintances (he worked for 20 years for the Bureau of Public Works).  Meanwhile Maria confides to him that she is pregnant 

(and knows that as soon as the hated landlady finds out, she'll be fired), and also that she's not sure which of her current two boyfriends (both soldiers - she points them out to Umberto as "the tall one from Naples" and "the short one from Florence") is the father, but also that both deny it.  What is particularly appealing about their relationship is that he really is like a doting grandfather to her, who feels like he needs to be strict but caves instantly.  So he's deeply shocked when he finds out her predicament, but instantly forgives her.  (And later, when he runs into one of them giving her a hard time on the street, he gives him a death-stare.  Also his last words to Maria, after telling her she needs to get away from the evil landlady, are to dump the one from Florence.)

Other incidents: when he is trying to avoid the landlady he gets himself committed to a Catholic hospital (they come to pick him up - at this point I thought that a bankrupted post-WWII Axis country still treated its citizens better than the current USA) where he is told that he just has tonsillitis.  The doctor says that if he was younger, he'd remove the tonsils, but what's the point?  

Umberto makes a half-hearted attempt to stay longer by complaining about a pain in his side, before essentially giving up.  He does get to stay an extra day because he gets advice from the young man in the bed next to him on how to manipulate the soft-hearted nun who comes round distributing rosaries.

Then when he comes back from the hospital, he finds that Flike is missing.  Maria reveals that the landlady purposely left the door open for him to escape.  Distraught, Umberto searches all over town before going to the pound, where he witnesses crates of dogs being put down, before, to his immense relief, dogcatchers bring in Flike.

Umberto sees others unashamedly begging, and tries his best first to get Flike to do it

and then to do it himself, but in a tragi-comic scene, he chickens out just as somebody is about to put money in his outstretched hand, and turns it over, pretending to check for rain. 

But then things go from bad to worse: as the day of eviction draws near his landlady has workmen knock a giant hole in the wall of his room, 

and he realizes that the writing is on the no-longer-existing wall.  Then his focus becomes finding a place for his beloved Flike so that he'll be cared for after Umberto is gone.  He leaves most of his stuff for Maria and sets out.  However, the place he hoped would look after Flike just seems too awful.  

And while a little girl he knows from the local park would love to have Flike, her snooty au pair won't let her.  So he resolves that he and Flike can just end it all together, and clutching the little dog, goes and stands on the rail tracks (the poster is a massive spoiler!).  But Flike struggles free and leads Umberto away, until our last viewing of them is them playing catch and vanishing off down the path by the river.  Not too bad, you might say, but Umberto has abandon all his worldly goods and has nowhere to stay, so this is just a moment of joy before the engulfing darkness.

 

The Sled-Dog Days of Winter

 

Temps hovering between zero and 20 F, snow has nowhere to go (because it's too cold to melt) and the nice sunny days have gone away.

Film review: Ballad of a Soldier (1959)

48th out of 50 in our Criterion box set, and put off because it looked depressing.  Once again, my cowardice was misguided, as, although it definitely had poignant elements, it is primarily a road (well, rail) movie/love story, and not really much about the war in which it is set (WWII), although that periodically intrudes (much like in Forbidden Games).  Also, despite being a Mosfilms production, this film is refreshingly un-propaganda-y, and in fact, I'm rather surprised it wasn't censored (I guess it came out during the comparative thaw of the Khrushchev era) because everybody who breaks the official rules is painted sympathetically, and the most weasley and obnoxious character is a stickler for them (well, only so that he can be bribed).  If it propagandizes anything, it's simple decency, which needs more propagandizing if you ask me.  Also, it's gorgeous to look at: lush black and white photography and absurdly photogenic leads.  (Apparently this in itself was a break from standard Soviet protocol, whereby the individual should not be lauded above the collective.)

The film begins with a grey-haired woman standing on a road that winds as far as the eye can see through fields staring off at where it disappears over the horizon, as a voiceover informs us that this is the only road along which her son could return to his home village, but that he was killed in a foreign land and buried by strangers.  Then the voice announces that this is the story of her son, told by his friends.

Next we flash back to our hero, who is a very young private in charge of telecommunications in the field, under fire.  The older officer who's with him tries to run for it and is killed.  Our hero (Alyosha Skvortzov, the actor playing whom was only 19) continues to relate what's happening until a tank literally bears down on him.  At this point he legs it, 

and we get the somewhat ludicrous image of him being followed by the tank, zigging as he zigs and so on (there's also a disorienting shot where the camera goes completely upside down).  Finally he stumbles across an anti-tank gun and as the tank crests the ridge above him, he shoots it in the underside, destroying it.  Then another tank rolls into view and he destroys that one, too.  Back at base people can barely believe his achievements, but his commander wants to give him a medal.  Alyosha requests that instead he be allowed to visit home, because his mother has written him that her roof is leaking and needs him to repair it.  After some resistance, his commander is convinced, 

and even gives Alyosha six days: 2 to journey there, 2 to fix the roof, and 2 to return.

On his way away from the front, after helping push a jeep out of the mud, he is asked to take a message for Pavlov to his wife, and then the whole troop rallies round their commander to browbeat him into giving Alyosha soap as a gift for the wife.  After initial categorical refusal, he proves just as susceptible as Alyosha's commander and eventually hands over two huge cakes - the entire supply for the platoon.

Next, Alyosha hooks up with a one-legged soldier returning from the war, Vasya (who is also absurdly good-looking, only in a much more rugged way - imagine Charles Bronson's more handsome brother).  Vasya, who clearly regards Alyosha as an annoying greenhorn, asks him to watch his suitcase while he sends a telegraph.  The train arrives and Vasya has not returned, so Alyosha goes in search of him to find that he's slumped over the desk because he's decided to tell his wife he's not coming home, because, he says, she was always too good-looking for him, so that he was jealous, and now he can't saddle her with a cripple.  However, the lady in charge of the telegraph shames him and orders him to return home to his wife who will be mad with worry.  Then we get the first of many train trips, this time with Alyosha and Vasya surrounded by other soldiers, who joke around and have to be convinced of Alyosha's story of the tanks.  Then we see a very affecting scene of Vasya's wife throwing herself into his arms (he was right, she is pretty stunning - that's the propaganda of this film) as Alyosha slinks off.

Alyosha's next journey is stowing away in a compartment of hay on an army train.  I'm not sure why he has to stow away, and he's told that he can't by the officious little oik Gavrilkin, who swears that his lieutenant is an absolute beast and is only mollified by a bribe of a can of meat (that says "MEAT" in English on it!)  Alyosha is hiding when he hears someone climbing into the car, and we have our heroine: the tiny and absurdly-long-haired Shura, 

who is initially comically terrified of him, so much so that she throws her pack out of the car intending to leap after it before Alyosha stops her (the train is by then moving very fast).  Of course they end up becoming very close, although it's chaste because Shura lies to him that she has a fiance she's returning to.  At the first stop where Alyosha hops out to get a drink, Gavrilkin comes in and discovers Shura, and demands more bribing.  Then his lieutenant shows up, and of course turns out to be very understanding... of everyone but the odious Gavrilkin.  

"See?" he says ruefully - "a beast!" 

At the next stop, Alyosha again gets out to get water, 

while Shura sleeps, but is distracted by news from the front being transmitted over loudspeaker in the small town, so that the train leaves without him.  He gets a ride from an exhausted woman 

driving an ancient truck (and lucky for her, because he keeps having to get out and crank it or push it out of ditch) but arrives too late in the next station.  Disconsolate (his pack, which contained a present for his mother among other things, was on the train) he is trudging into town when a small figure high on a bridge above him yells at him - Shura!  

They pause to picnic and wash, at which point Shura asks about the soap and Alyosha remembers he has to deliver it, handily in the very town they are near.  They find the Pavlov family building destroyed, but a kindly old lady tells them that Pavlov's father is in a shelter, while his wife is nearer by at a new address.  On arriving, Shura and Alyosha quickly realize that she has a live-in male lover, so they leave, and Alyosha even doubles back to get the soap, which he then delivers to Pavlov Sr., and spins him a yarn about his Best Friend Pavlov (Sergei).

Then it's on to the next stop, which is Shura's.  As they're saying goodbye Shura reveals that she doesn't have a fiance.  She runs alongside the train as Alyosha travels on, and later he realizes that she was telling him she loved him and he makes as though to jump off the train before realizing he can't.  The train is packed with Ukrainians (!) fleeing the carnage in their homeland, but they can't escape it fully, because the train is hit by German bombers, and Alyosha has to save as many people (not all) as he can.  This means his only way to get home is first by raft and then by car, with nobody willing to pick him up, until one old geezer (who is clearly convinced he'll be punished if he picks up a soldier - perhaps to guard against deserting) thinks twice and comes back 

and drives 10 km out of his way to take Alyosha back to his village.  But he can only give Alyosha a couple of minutes, just long enough to hug his mother, because he's almost used up all six days.  For a while there it looks like his mother will miss him, too.  I admit, I was decidedly moist-eyed at the end.  (Not so Jami, because she decided she couldn't face a war movie and was deep in David Copperfield.)  A truly lovely little film.  Definitely ranks higher than 48th out of 50.