341. Some Like It Hot (1959)

Running Time: 122 minutes
Directed By: Billy Wilder
Written By: I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder
Main Cast: Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe, George Raft, Pat O'Brien
Click here to view the trailer

WILDER WEEK: THE FINAL CHAPTER

"We're up the creek and you want to hock the paddle!" 

The week dedicated to Billy Wilder finally comes to a close, not with "The Apartment", as was originally intended, but with "Some Like It Hot", a movie that I'd NEVER seen before and one that I was heavily anticipating.

When Joe (Curtis) and Jerry (Lemmon), two struggling musicians, living in prohibition era Chicago, accidentally witness the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre, their lives are put in danger when the thugs responsible for the murders want to ensure there aren't any witnesses. Fearing for their lives, the two boys take a gig in Florida, playing in a hotel lounge with all expenses paid. The gig sounds pretty sweet, but there is one drawback - the act is an all girl band. So, one thing leads to another, Joe becomes Josephine, Jerry becomes Daphne (not Geraldine, as originally intended) and the all girl band have a brand new saxophone and bow fiddle player. Now, all the boys (bachelors, by the way) have to do is make sure their cover isn't blown and it's three weeks in Florida, where the mobsters will never find them. Of course, it's a screwball comedy, so they don't get off that easy. Enter the beautiful Sugar Kane (Monroe), the lead singer and ukulele player of the band and a girl both boys go ape for. First it's Jerry/Daphne who has eyes for Sugar, but he's sidetracked in Florida when an elderly millionaire falls for him....er...her. Joe, while spending quality time with Sugar, falls in love with her and after finding out what she looks for in men, dons another costume change, sports a Cary Grant voice and tries to win her heart, all the while changing back and forth between a female saxophonist and the millionaire, Shell Oil owner, Junior. Oh and just to add a little more excitement to the mix, it just so happens that during the three weeks the boys are in Florida, the hotel they're playing at holds a summit for all the mob bosses around the country.

I feel like a broken record here, but seriously....seriously tell me what's not to like about "Some Like It Hot"? No, I'll tell you. There's nothing to dislike about this movie. Nothing. Normally, when you watch comedies that are, lets say pre-1970s, the comedy is very different from more modern comedy. You can either adapt to it and still laugh at it or you're one of many who just can't get into "old movies" and you dislike it, citing it as "not as funny as the stuff they're doing today!". A lot of times when I watch older comedies, I can easily realize that they're of a very different brand, but can usually adapt and still have a good time. However, there are a lot of times when it's simply a different time and the jokes aren't funny anymore. In "Some Like It Hot", everything holds up well and this movie is just as funny in 2013, as I'm sure it was in 1959. It's edgy, it houses great comedic timing from both Curtis and Lemmon, it provides ridiculous situations that comedies have been relying on for decades and it's worlds better than your run of the mill, Judd Apatow curse-fest. In the recap yesterday, I took a quick look at "Superbad", a movie that I cited as being a little too crude for my tastes, but good for a few laughs. "Some Like It Hot" is good for dozens and dozens of laughs and gets it's point across on sheer comedy alone and doesn't have to resort to cheap tactics like cursing, menstruation jokes and fart jokes. As I've grown older, I've learned to appreciate the ones who could do it on comedy and comedy alone. Cursing isn't a talent folks - I can curse. What I can't do is make people laugh by holding a pair of maracas and gushing about the fact that Osgood just proposed!

As I watched "Some Like It Hot", I continually asked myself a question and I think it's a good question to ask yourself anytime you watch one of these "man dressing as a woman" comedies. Would this still be funny if they weren't in drag? If they were doing everything just as they're doing it, but they looked like Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis? The answer here is YES - easily yes! I mean, try to picture Jack Lemmon, his sensible, short haircut, in a suit (maybe the type of suit he wore to the Consolidated Insurance Company - maybe even his bowler hat), lying on a bed, gushing about Osgood's proposal and shaking those maracas. My God, I could laugh right now at the thought of that. Hey guys, it's a comedy for God's sake. It's not Tarkovsky, it's not Scorsese, it's not Bergman, it's just a damn funny movie and like I said in my "Grease" review, sometimes the best movies are the ones that just allow you to kick back and have a little fun and "Some Like It Hot" is just that kind of movie. Sometimes you want to be inspired, sometimes you want to be forced to think, sometimes you want to cry, but damn it, sometimes you just want to laugh and this movie is just what the doctor ordered for a good laugh!

RATING: 10/10  I was gonna' go '9', but who the hell am I kidding, this is a big fat '10' if there ever was one. I'm actually getting worried now that I've gone soft during my departure. Just look at the ratings since my return - only one negative review. Am I actually hoping for something bad to come along?

MOVIES WATCHED: 610
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 391

RANKING WILDER

Normally, I'd end a director tribute week by saying a few words about said director, but honestly, I have nothing particularly insightful or wise to say about Billy Wilder, so I'll just rank his films and give him a big thumbs up, as I enjoyed certain things about all of his films!

1. The Apartment 10/10
2. Some Like It Hot 10/10
3. Double Indemnity 7/10
4. The Lost Weekend 6.5/10
5. Sunset Blvd. 6/10
6. The Big Carnival/Ace in the Hole 4/10

February 6, 2013  1:36pm

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229. Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Running Time: 110 minutes
Directed By: Billy Wilder
Written By: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D.M. Marshman Jr., from the story A Can of Beans by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder
Main Cast: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Jack Webb
Click here to view the trailer

WILDER WEEK: CHAPTER V

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

Surprisingly, it looks like I'm actually going to wrap up "Wilder Week" in about one week - an anomaly that usually never happens. Today it's "Sunset Blvd." and you can expect "Some Like It Hot" on Monday or Tuesday.

On the run from a couple of debt collectors, down on his luck screenwriter Joe Gillis (Holden), pulls into the driveway of a Hollywood mansion. I guess you should know that our story takes place in California, but more specifically, the place where stars call home and even more specifically, Sunset Boulevard. When Gillis pulls into that driveway, he thinks that the mansion is abandoned and decides to stash his car away in the garage, where another old car with 1932 tags is parked, looking like an artifact from an age gone by. It isn't long before Gillis realizes that the house isn't abandoned and is actually occupied by two people: ex-silent film star Norma Desmond (Swanson) and her butler/chauffeur/assistant Max (von Stroheim). After their initial meeting, in which Desmond mistakes Gillis for an undertaker (who is expected - to bury her dead chimp), Desmond finds out that Joe is a screenwriter and propositions him to rewrite her script - an adaptation of Salome, which she intends to deliver to Cecil B. DeMille and star in it. Needing the extra dough and a place to hole up for a few days, Joe takes the job, but soon finds that he's being kept around as much more than a script doctor. It seems that Desmond is prepping Joe to be her next husband and is already treating him like her boy toy, buying him expensive clothers, jewelery and treating him like a trophy. It also needs to be noted that Norma Desmond is completely off her rocker and believe that she's still a somebody, when in fact, she's clearly a has-been, that no one really cares about anymore - an extinguished star. Meanwhile, Betty Schaefer (Olson), a reader at Paramount, has happened upon one of Joe's original scripts and wants to rewrite it and petition to have it shot, but Joe can't be found and seems to have fallen out of the loop.

What to say about "Sunset Blvd.", a picture that many people cherish and very few dislike. Well, I'll tell you one thing - this is the second time I'd seen "Sunset Blvd." and the first time I saw it, I was one of those few that disliked it. I can't quite remember my reasons, I'd probably chalk it up to not being in the right mood at the right time, but I remember jotting it down as a '1/10' and vowing never to watch it again...or something like that - it all sounds a lot more dramatic than it really is. However, thinking back, I knew my reaction was a little overboard, because I didn't dread watching it this time around, in fact, I was really excited to give this picture another shot. My tastes have changed so much that I rarely dread watching movies that I once wrote off as tripe. So last night, I watched it again and my final opinion is....that the "Sunset Blvd." is just pretty good. Allow me to explain, won't you?

There are certain aspects of "Sunset Blvd." that ARE must see and that ARE really well done. The fact that it's a film noir, but doesn't submit to the usual film noir requirements, is something I enjoyed. There are no detectives, insurance investigators or haggard ex-cops and the cigarette dragging is kept to a minimum. However, at the same time, the use of shadows is prevalent and the fact that the story is told in flashback form also works for me. I enjoyed that the film was really one big tribute to a Hollywood that didn't exist anymore. The film was produced in 1950, perhaps at a time when the tide in Hollywood was turning? New directors and actors on their way in and old ones being forced out? I don't know if 1950 brought those changes or not, but that's certainly one of the themes in "Sunset" and I found it all very fascinating. The whole eeriness of the picture is also fantastic and "Sunset" actually comes really close to being classified as a horror picture and had they pursued the thriller element a little more, I think I'd have taken to it a lot better. Plus, you have to remember that this film was shot in the late 40s and despite that, the film still covers some pretty risky topics, most notably the relationship between a younger man and an older woman.

The film reminded me that even the stars of yesteryear had their troubles. Sometimes I, and I think most others, tend to think that older stars were more classy and dignified and that when they watch "Extra" or "The Insider" today and hear scandalous stories, that it's just today's crop acting out. When doing some research for this film, I chased link after link and found some fascinating stories: Cecil B. DeMille was a notorious foot fetishist and Clara Bow apparently had all sorts of problems. And, of course, there's Norma Desmond, a murdering megalomaniac who can't let go of the past.

As far as my mediocre opinions on "Sunset Blvd.", I just couldn't get all the way lost in it for some reason. For one, I didn't like the subplot with Nancy Olson and found her to be a small fish, swimming with some very big and talented fish. In other words, I found her to be dreadful and would have much preferred to focus on the Holden/Swanson/von Stroheim stuff, exclusively. With Betty Schaefer left out of the mix, they would have had more time to focus on the insanity of Norma and the tense situations between her and Joe and this only would've added more terrifying, uncomfortable and gripping scenes.

RATING: 6.5/10  In all honesty, I can actually see myself warming up to this one, once I've had some time to mull it over. For now, we'll play it safe and I'd still call it a "must see", if only for the stellar performance of Swanson. Next up in "Wilder Week": "Some Like it Hot" - the conclusion...but not till, at least, Monday.

MOVIES WATCHED: 607
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 394

February 2, 2013  11:40am

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232. The Big Carnival (1951)

Running Time: 111 minutes
Directed By: Billy Wilder
Written By: Walter Newman, Lesser Samuels, Billy Wilder
Main Cast: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Richard Benedict, Porter Hall
Click here to view the trailer

WILDER WEEK: CHAPTER IV

"I can handle big news and little news. And if there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog."

When I first bought THE BOOK, I went through it to see what I could find and what I wasn't going to be able to find and I made a list of all the movies that eluded me. For a while, "The Big Carnival" graced that list, because unknown to me, "The Big Carnival" is better known as "Ace in the Hole", a film that I'd actually seen prior to my 1001 journey.

Kirk Douglas is Charles "Chuck" Tatum, a big shot newspaper man, who may just be a legend in his own booze induced mind. When the film opens, we find Tatum in Albuquerque, swaggering into the office of Mr. Boot (Hall), editor of the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin, promising Mr. Boot a sure fire way to make $200 a week.

"You see Mr. Boot, I'm a $250 a week newspaper man. You can have me for $50."

Mr. Boot ultimately takes the plunge on Tatum, a newspaper man that has been bagged by every other major paper in the U.S. Fast forward one year and Tatum is miserable. He misses the big city buzz of New York and longs to be a big time newspaper man again, instead of jockeying the typewriter in Albuquerque. On their way to cover a rattlesnake hunt, Tatum and photographer Herbie (Arthur), happen upon a gas station/restaurant/trading post and come upon a woman inside praying. It turns out that the woman's son, Leo Minosa (Benedict), owner of the trading post, is trapped inside a cave collapse, just past the business. Tatum immediately sees the big story that's going to free him from Albuquerque. Tatum manipulates the whole affair, gets the sheriff in his back pocket and even convinces the rescue team to take a longer route to get to Leo, so that he can have more time with the story.

I have really mixed feelings on Kirk Douglas. For some reason, I like the guy. When he's on the screen, I can't help but take notice, fixated on his every move. But, the reason I'm baffled by all this, there's yet to be a Kirk Douglas movie that's really "WOWED" me. "The Big Sky" was tripe, "Spartacus" wasn't much better, "Paths of Glory" was really good, but fell short of great and "Out of the Past" was great because of Mitchum, not Douglas. Then you have this movie, which isn't that great either, yet here's Douglas again, spitting out quotable lines with every other sentence he delivers and commanding attention on the screen. Now is it just me, or does Douglas have this air of cockiness about him, the kind of attitude that maybe he thinks he's all that and a bag of chips, when he's really not THAT good. I just don't know about the guy and until I see something that really blows me away, starring Kirk, I think we're bound to have a love/hate relationship.

The movie itself just wasn't that interesting. I don't know what it is about newspaper movies, but I can never get into them. Sure "Citizen Kane" was good, but it wasn't the GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL-TIME. I guess maybe it's because I can't understand the time period when newspapers were a bigger business - I just don't get it. In fact, there are only three good things about this movie, as far as I can surmise:

1) The fact that the only "good guy" in the whole picture is Leo Minosa and he's buried in a mountain. It's kind of a neat idea to have this really inspirational story on the surface, yet when you get closer, you realize that everyone close to the situation is corrupt and only looking out for their interests.

2) Kirk Douglas and his dozens of quotable lines, including, but not limited to:

Bad news sells best. 'Cause good news is no news.

I've done a lot of lying in my time. I've lied to men who wear belts. I've lied to men who wear suspenders. But I'd never be so stupid as to lie to a man who wears both belt and suspenders.

It's a good story today. Tomorrow, it'll be yesterday's news and they'll wrap a fish in it.

3) The Hut-Sut Song!

Everything else is easily passable and certainly not "must see", at least in this blogger's opinion.

RATING: 4.5/10  Kind of a different style review, but we'll go with it. I'm going to try and watch "The Bad and the Beautiful" soon, so I can maybe settle this relationship conflict with Kirk Douglas and make a decision once and for all: love or hate. Next up in "Wilder Week": "Sunset Blvd.".

MOVIES WATCHED: 606
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 395

February 1, 2013  3:12pm

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366. The Apartment (1960)

Running Time: 125 minutes
Directed By: Billy Wilder
Written By: Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond
Main Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen
Click here to view the trailer

WILDER WEEK: CHAPTER III

"That's the way it crumbles... cookie-wise."

So since I was going to be forced to break up the chronology of the Wilder movies anyway, I figured why not really mess it up and go in any order I felt like. Since I was chomping at the bit to relive "The Apartment", I just couldn't wait any longer...so here we are.

C.C. Baxter (Lemmon) works for the Consolidated Life Insurance Company of New York City, sitting at desk #861 and is pretty good at what he does. He's in good health, he's a bachelor and has a decent apartment, for which he pays $85 a month (it was $80 up until the landlady put in an air conditioner). And with the mention of the apartment, we come to the catalyst of this little tale. You see, C.C. Baxter (or "Buddy Boy" as he's commonly referred) has a primo apartment, one that certain executives at Consolidated Life like to use when they're "entertaining" women, behind their wives backs of course. Baxter has four clients: Mr. Dobisch (Walston), Mr. Kirkeby, Mr. Vanderhoff and Mr. Eichelberger, who, through the passing of a key around the office, schedule appointments with "buddy boy" whenever they have a hot date. Baxter departs the apartment, allowing the men to attend to their lady friends and slips in when they've finished. Baxter allows these activities to continue, because over and over he's promised a promotion at Consolidated Life, in exchange for the use of the apartment. Well, the day finally comes when Baxter is called up to the 27th floor, where personnel director Jeff Sheldrake (MacMurray) has his office. It seems that Sheldrake already knows about the scandal with the apartment, but instead of being angry, asks permission to use it himself. This request comes with the promise that when a position opens up, Baxter will be the man for the job. Enter Ms. Frank Kubelik (MacLaine), the elevator operator that Baxter is utterly smitten about. What Baxter doesn't know is that she'll be in his apartment soon enough...in the company of Mr. Sheldrake.

SPOILER ALERT!

Seriously folks, if you've never seen "The Apartment", you need to do yourself a favor and see it ASAP. "The Apartment" is ONE OF the first black & white movies I saw, at a time in my life when I pronounced myself as someone who "doesn't watch old movies". I was a snotty, ignorant punk, what can I say? I had happened upon the AFI 100 Years...100 Movies list and at one of my early attempts to expand my cinematic knowledge, had decided that I was not only going to watch them all, but purchase them all, so that I'd have them for future viewings. Of course, when I bought them, I'd watch them and when I got to #93 I was introduced, for the first time, to Jack Lemmon, Billy Wilder and this outstanding picture. I was approximately fifteen or so, so as I sat there watching, my interest continued to peak, more and more as the film rolled on. God, I hoped so hard that C.C. Baxter would get the girl, the promotion and a wonderful life, where he wouldn't have to eat a fried chicken TV dinner all alone in an empty apartment, an apartment where other, more selfish, less loyal men had had the company that Baxter so desired. I hoped that Fran Kubelik would see the error of her choice, kick Jeff Sheldrake to the curb and go running down the street toward C.C. Baxter. I watched in near horror, hoping that doctor could smack the life back into Fran Kubelik and felt for Baxter every time he had to lie for her; making her look better, while making himself look like the bad guy - to protect her. I watched and hoped that eventually "buddy boy" would tell these five adulterers to stop calling him "buddy boy", throw their fancy job back in their faces and keep his apartment key to himself. I wished for all these things and my imagination flowed as I was transported into the world of Jack Lemmon's Baxter.

It's a great film, end of story. It's one that always takes me back to that first viewing and refills me with all the feelings I felt so long ago. I guess you'd call that a timeless classic, but I'll skip the fancy talk and just call it a definite must see film, one that everybody should see and one that is almost immune to feeble excuses of dislike. If you can't watch this and love Jack Lemmon's performance, get lost in the sometimes outrageous but always interesting, heartwarming and brilliant plot, then there's a problem and chances are it's not a problem with the film. Even if I continued typing for hours upon hours, I couldn't shower this film with enough praise, so I might as well quit now.

RATING: 10/10  So I'm four films in and nothing has yet to dip below a '7' and I already have two '10' films on my hands. WOW! Is this going to be a season to remember or what? Next up in "Wider Week": Probably "Ace in the Hole".

MOVIES WATCHED: 605
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 396

January 31, 2013  6:41pm

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179. The Lost Weekend (1945)

Running Time: 101 minutes
Directed By: Billy Wilder
Written By: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, from novel by Charles R. Jackson
Main Cast: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva, Doris Dowling
Click here to view the trailer

WILDER WEEK: CHAPTER II

"That's the nice young man who drinks."

Rolling on with my return, we come to the second installment of the "Wilder Week" festivities and "The Lost Weekend", starring Ray Milland as Don Birnam - a role that won Milland an Academy Award and rightfully so.

The film begins by zooming in on a Manhattan apartment, as the Birnam brothers, Don (Milland) and Wick (Terry), are busy packing for a weekend getaway. It seems as though Don has had a rough go of it lately and Wick means to take him away for a nice, long four day weekend. Don is an alcoholic, which we get clues to from the get go, via a whiskey bottle dangling from the end of a rope, hanging out the window of their apartment - one of Don's many clever hiding spots. Right away we also meet Helen St. James (Wyman), Don's loyal girlfriend - a girl for whom he actually gave up the bottle for once. Before the Birnam's can catch their 3:15 train, Don urges Wick and Helen out of the apartment, so that he can finish packing and take a nap. When the ruse works, of course Don takes the time to quench his never ending thirst. Don finds $10 in the apartment and uses the dough to buy two bottles of cheap Rye and then heads over to Nat's Bar to buy as many shots as he can, urging the bartender to tell him when it's 5:45 (the time that Wick and Helen are due back at the apartment) and spends the next few hours collecting wet circles on the bar, shot after shot. When Don is too far gone to make it back to the apartment prior to Wick and Helen's arrival, he is abandoned by a fed up Wick and dodges a worried Helen. Therefore, Don is left alone for the weekend, free to drown in the throes of his addiction. What will happen when the bottle runs dry, the money is gone and those little pink elephants start to do their wicked dance?'

There's actually not much wrong with "The Lost Weekend". While it's not particularly a personal favorite of mine, as I tend to find it a tad on the boring side (just a tad), it's not hard for me to admit how almost flawless the picture really is. The film is perfectly segmented into individually great pieces and each and every scene is essential to the film as a whole, with no wasted motions. The film makes it snappy when laying the original groundwork, introducing the characters and establishing the addiction of Don Birnam. We quickly establish that Don will do nearly anything to taste the sweet Rye on his lips, as we see by the bottle hanging out the window. Then we get into the "lost weekend" that the title suggests, as Don is left alone, forced to battle his addiction with a sum of $10 and whatever money he can scrape up hocking his possessions. We spend a time in Nat's Bar, as Don goes over his history and how he once kicked the habit for a new addiction - Helen. We get a great scene at a nightclub, where Don is forced to steal a woman's purse in order to pay his bar tab and I'll stop there because there's really no need to spoil anything. My point is that the film provides great scene after great scene and really my complaint of a boring picture is, even by my own admission, unjustified.

THE BOOK makes note of it and I'd have to concur, that no film has ever tackled the subject of addiction quite as effectively as "The Lost Weekend". When I first started this journey, my perception of older films were that they were a little bit like that overly happy next door neighbor who always had a smile and a wave for you. It was my perception that older movies were more artificial than newer offerings and failed to be really real and provide real emotions. I've been smartened up as I've made my way down this cinematic path and no film could prove my former opinion more wrong than "The Lost Weekend", where shit gets really real, really fast. In my life, I've rarely drank and the farthest my drug use has gone is nicotine and caffeine. However, "The Lost Weekend" will actually let you feel what it's like to have an addiction, to realize what it's like to need something so badly that you go a little insane when you don't get it. At times, the picture is uncomfortable and the scene with the bat and mouse is downright scary, as you realize Don has sunk further than he's ever been. Of course Ray Milland deserved the Oscar this year, he poured out all of his talent and all of his heart to bring us the Don Birnam character.

However, like I said, the film is a scoche on the slow side and honestly, the only actor or actress worth mentioning from the entire production IS Ray Milland. Jane Wyman annoyed me more than she charmed me and made me almost realize why the Don Birnam character drank - with a dame like that I'd get sloshed too. I liked Phillip Terry, but he just wasn't in it enough and the same goes for Frank Faylen ("Bim"), with a great few minutes of screen time. Also, speaking of Helen, I feel like her relationship with Don wasn't established enough. I had a really hard time buying that this girl's affections would be powerful enough to get Don to crawl out of the bottle...temporarily.

RATING: 7/10  That's playing it safe with the rating. Although, really, I can understand anyone who'd go so far as to give it a '10', as it does have those flawless qualities. Next up in "Wilder Week": "Sunset Blvd."...but expect some filler between now and then, because I won't have "Sunset Blvd." until Friday.

MOVIES WATCHED: 603
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 398

January 30, 2013  2:10am

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172. Double Indemnity (1944)

Running Time: 108 minutes
Directed By: Billy Wilder
Written By: Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler, from the novel Double Indemnity in Three of a Kind by James M. Cain
Main Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Jean Heather
Click here to view the trailer

WILDER WEEK: CHAPTER I

"How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?"

Well I'm back, but let's not make a big hoopla about it. I've been in and out since the start of this project and I'm sure there will be a few more breaks before I finally end my journey through the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" book. With 400 movies left to go, I kick off the sixth season (set of 100 movies) with "Wilder Week", as announced prior to my departure; a week (or two) that I'm certainly looking forward to. So, let's not dilly-dally - the lights are going down, so please turn off your cell phones, as Mr. MacMurray is about to enter stage left...

MacMurray is Walter Neff, a successful insurance salesman, who knows his trade and makes a decent living at it, living in Los Angeles. Neff plays his business by the books...that is until he meets Mrs. Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck). During a visit to a "fake Spanish mansion", where Neff plans to meet with Mr. Dietrichson (Hall) about renewing his auto insurance, Neff encounters Phyllis and is totally captivated by her, such as most men are by the dames that exist only in film noir movies. Mrs. Dietrichson presents herself wrapped in a towel, following a sunbath, clutching a pair of sunglasses, long blonde hair flowing over her shoulders and sporting a sparkly anklet, the entire package making Neff swoon. He keeps his cool, however, and gets down to the business at hand. After a little flirtatious chit-chatting, Phyllis asks Neff about taking out an accidental insurance policy on her husband and is curious to know whether or not that can be done without his knowledge. Neff smells a rat and gets out quick, but not before accusing Phyllis of plotting murder against Mr. Dietrichson. Later, Neff can't stop thinking of Phyllis, seeing her shiny anklet in his mind's eye and smelling the honeysuckle that surrounded her neighborhood. He meets up with her again and this time, the plot is laid out on the table: Phyllis wants to off Mr. Dietrichson and during a night filled with lust, in Neff's apartment, the two plot it together, piece by piece. You see, Neff knows the questions that will be asked and the suspicions that will be aroused when Mr. Dietrichson suddenly, "accidentally" dies, following the taking out of a $50,000 accidental policy, one that will pay out double indemnity if Mr. Dietrichson is killed during an accident aboard a train. Therefore, he goes into the plot prepared, covering all his bases and making sure that when all is said and done, he and Phyllis are financially secure and free and clear of the gas chamber. But, as you may have guessed, since it is a film noir, not everything goes as planned.

SPOILER ALERT!

I wouldn't go so far as to call it the perfect film noir, but there's not much to dislike here. It's a movie that I'd dub an "obviously good film", or a movie that you just KNOW you're going to like, before you even press "play". From the moment the gunshot wounded Walter Neff stumbles into the offices of the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company, the questions and plot guessing immediately, unavoidably start popping into your head and even when the deed is done and there's forty-five minutes left, you just know that you haven't seen the last twist or turn. The movie is your textbook example of film-noir and usually I'd be turned off by all the cliches - the token dame appearing at the top of the stairs, the voiceover narration, the flashbacks, the amateur sleuth work - but here I was able to embrace everything about this piece and accept and enjoy it all. As far as the cast go, I'd say they all did a fine job, but I'd give my biggest hat tip to Edward G. Robinson, someone who made a career out of being the bad guy, but also knows just what to do to pull of the good guy persona too. I fell in love with Robinson (heterosexually speaking) in "The Stranger" and it was good to see him pop up again. Barbara Stanwyck never looked so good and even managed to shake the frumpy persona that she executed in "Stella Dallas". That image of her appearing at the top of the stairs, her first appearance in the picture, is flawless and you'll never look at her the same again. And then there's MacMurray, a perfectly acceptable and very talented leading man. He and Stanwyck had marvelous chemistry and the lust that they were able to create between the two characters was marvelous in establishing heated, noir-ish moments. It always astounds me how much sexual chemistry and intensity existed in old film-noir pictures - pictures where nudity and anything but elusive flirting was absolutely forbidden. "Double Indemnity" is undeniably sexy, easily watchable, enjoyable and houses a fine cast. Like I said, I wouldn't call it the perfect film-noir, as I've seen better even from THE BOOK, but it's really good and deserves a watch.

One last note though, I do believe that the suspense factor could've been kicked up another few notches. For example, during the car ride to the train station, what if the Dietrichson's had been stopped by a cop? Or what if Mr. Dietrichson had suddenly decided that he wanted to sit in the back seat, citing more leg room for his broken limb as the reason? It seems to me that while the actual plot was carried out well, I think it could've been done better and even if they were simply staying true to James M. Cain's novel, who says they can't make a few creative adjustments...everyone else does. In fact, the only time the film ever really capitalized on sheer suspense is when Keyes and Phyllis nearly run into one another at Neff's apartment. The lack of suspense is definitely my one big nitpick.

RATING: 7.5/10  We'll play it safe and go with the '7.5', but honestly I could see that rising or lowering in time...with the odds of it rising being greater. Not a bad first post back, as I didn't feel all that rusty and think I got my point across well. Next up in "Wilder Week": "The Lost Weekend".

MOVIES WATCHED: 602
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 399

January 28, 2013  12:22am

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