The Naked City (1948)

It's evident that youtube has removed the embed into blogger again. So this film can be found at this link.

Occasionally, films come along that create an entire genre with this origin. It Happened One Night from 1934 pretty much invented the "road picture," in which the plot revolves around the movement of two characters travelling, with the route itself being the primary scenery. Night of the Living Dead in 1968 heralded a long list of zombie movies. 1948's The Naked City essentially created the procedural cop drama, which later drifted into lazy tropes that this film vocally came out against. The film opens without visual credits. A narrator tells you that who wrote, photographed, directed and designed the film. It then takes the time to explain that the film wasn't filmed in a studio, but actually on the streets of New York, which in 1948 was unheard of.

The narrator then continues,

"Barry Fitzgerald, our star, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor, Ted de Corsia and the other actors, played out their roles on the streets, in the apartment houses, in the skyscrapers of New York itself. And along with them, a great many thousand New Yorkers played out their roles also. This is the city as it is. Hot summer pavements, the children at play, the buildings in their naked stone, the people without makeup."

Digging into the film (won two oscars, nominated for another), I found a great many inaccurate tags applied. It is not a "semi-documentary" in any greater sense than any film happens to occur in a real place. It is not a tour through everyday New York; it is a film that uses New York just as hundreds of films do now, every year, only this was made at a time when that wasn't done, except for newsreels. Much of the film does appear to be "newreel" in style, but this is because that was the only means of production that would allow filming in the outdoors, under these conditions, in 1948. It wasn't a director's choice. There were no other choices. The voiceover does not "clarify" the story, nor does it explain the character's motivations. It asks the same sort of questions anyone might, makes wry observations, gives no explanation of the story beyond what is seen.

The Naked City only seems to have the characteristics named above because it's difficult to explain, to a modern film audience, why things were filmed this way, or why the narrator spoke thus, or how the city unfolded, because in terms of film suspension of disbelief, this film in particular stands out as alien to most anything else we might see. It doesn't "fit" a genre, because it invented one. Prior to this, movies were detectives and bad guys, or cops and robbers... police officers weren't depicted as people with private lives, they weren't shown making jokes with each other, "cases" were solved by clever intuition, not by cops doing their jobs — and on that point, police work wasn't shown as a routine, repetitive, working man's job, until this film was made. The story takes the position that cases are not solved by brilliance, but by a lot of people doing small, boring things methodically, repeatedly, over time. It shocked the hell out of audiences at the time, revolutionised the idea of film and did a great deal to smash Hollywood thinking in the 30s and 40s... and yet, now, except in film courses, where the film is horribly mis-labeled and abusively misunderstood, it's almost unknown.

This isn't because the film failed, but because it succeeded too well. The concepts were copied almost immediately, like a tidal force, that not only invented the 1950s idea of the television "cop show," it revamped other genres as well, as western shows like Have Gun will Travel and Gunsmoke likewise became 19th century versions of the same cop-show pacing, very successfully. Amidst the deluge, the original film disappeared.

Also, because the film did use a lot of unknown actors willing to film in New York, perhaps working in the theatre there, a bunch of neat cameos appear of people so near to the beginning of their careers that they're unknown. Arthur O'Connell, the colonel from Operation Mad Ball, appears here much younger, barely recognisable, as a simple cop early in the film. David Opatoshu, is recognisable from Star Trek's original series episode, A Taste of Armageddon. A very young John Randolph, who would later play Clark Griswold's father in Christmas Vacation, is a virtually unrecognisable police dispatcher. James Gregory, familiar as Inspector Luger from Barney Miller, is here, quite obviously as a cop. All of the aforegoing were born in New York City. Molly Picon, who played Yente the Matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof is here as a shopkeeper. Kathleen Freeman, the nun who goes at Jake and Elwood in The Blues Brothers is here, on a subway train. She was born in Chicago. Paul Ford is also here, best known as Mayor Shinn from The Music Man, but whom I also love in The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming. He was born in Baltimore. None of these are "cameos." They're all working actors at the beginning of their career, sprinkled like wedding rice throughout the picture.

Obviously, I don't want to talk about the story. Barry Fitzgerald has always been one of my favourite actors; he turns up in my favourite film, The Quiet Man. More's the pity, it's not available on youtube.

The Commitments (1991)

Must have overdrawn on my blogger or something; it wouldn't let me embed this. I apologise for the subtitles.

The Commitments was directed by Alan Parker, also of Angela's Ashes, Pink Floyd: the Wall, Midnight Express and Bugsy Malone... essentially the most eclectic director of probably all time. The story is terrifically original, the music true to form, the characters rich and, yes, deeply committed to both their talent and their shortcomings. It's a film about how and why truly amazing things put together by multiple extremely talented people mysteriously, from the outside, fall apart.

Dublin in 1991, where the film takes place, was disasterously marked by unemployment, emigration, cramped housing and the pervasive feeling of decay and moral collapse. For those who have tried to be musicians, who have struggled with getting gigs, band members, doubt, a hope for fame and endless bloody frustration, this film was made. I'm frankly surprised by the number of working musicians who haven't seen this.

Most any review of the film would give a breakdown of the story and plot, and then talk about the music. The soundtrack is, frankly, a brilliant mix of utterly familiar soul music that does not need to be catalogued or talked about. The music itself is not the film. The film is ego, money, time, exhaustion and hopelessness grinding until it gives. In a very distant sense it reflects the struggle of black musicians in the sixties struggling to break out of their ghetto, where they created the music that paints the backdrop of this film. But this is not Detroit in 1965. This is Dublin.

What deserves note is that it's wonderfully, drily, unexpectedly eccentric and funny. All of it's played perfectly straight from beginning to end, which is why the comedy works. There are no comedic talents here — though Colm Meaney has always had good timing. What's here is comedy born of dire earnestness, superbly situational, absurd and fully not self-aware. I've seen the film at least a dozen times and still, which I watched this yesterday, I could not stop laughing or smiling.

It remains a little odd that in a film about a band, a member of the Celtic music group The Corrs is in the film, and she doesn't sing.

Zulu (1964)

This unusual film directed by Cy Enfield, a straightforward working director, not particularly known for brilliant design, sets out to depict the events of a Zulu-British conflict as it occurred at a place called Rorke's Drift in 1879.  Produced by Stanley Baker, this was a passion project of the latter; Not only did he play one of the two lead parts in the film, an actual V.C. soldier, he reportedly sought to possess the actual object awarded to the lieutenant on account of this battle.

The story on IMDb states that Baker believed that he had obtained a copy of the V.C., and died believing so; surprisingly, he did have the real medal and reportedly never knew it. The world is funny that way.

The film's credit this as the "introduction" of Michael Caine, but as with many such examples from films at the time, this was not Caine's first picture. It was the one that finally pushed the actor out of obscurity and into a six-decade film career that has made him a staple of Hollywood and British Film. Caine describes his character as the "snut nose" officer in the film. I can't do better. He's marvellous in it, as is Baker. Overall, it's an iconic piece of precisely the sort of British military wit so finely cut to pieces in Monty Python's the Meaning of Life.

It's likely difficult for a modern young audience to accept the depiction of the Zulus in the film — not because the film treats them badly, but rather because the film treats them excellently... which is bound to produce a sort of irrational resistance rather than a concession to the point. The Zulus are frightening because they're presented as strategic, effective, willing to sacrifice themselves, absolutely able to win the fight and, as soldiers. They are wholly unrecognisable as modern American black people, just as these brits are utterly unrecognisable as, say, me. Both depict persons of other cultures that presented themselves in a fight 150 years ago. Any sense that any modern person might "identify" with any of them, except in terms of say fear or bravery, is delusion. But then, delusion drives quite a lot of political rhetoric these days.

It's worth pointing out that the head of the Zulus depicted in the film, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the Zulus participating in the film, was playing his own great-grandfather. The Zulu tribe's historian, a Zulu princess, was employed as one of the technical advisors. The viewpoint of both sides of this conflict were in fact depicted, whatever anyone might think.

The film runs a dense two hours and 18 minutes, probably too long for anyone uncomfortable with scenes of desperate fighting, near-amateur actors actively trying not to hurt each other while filming, while also trying to make it look real, quite a lot of screaming, many depictions of dead lying about and, on the whole, a gruelling, unforgiving depiction of what had to be one of the worst experiences anyone could have. A total of eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded to the survivors of the 150 British, Welsh, Scottish and Irish defenders of the post.

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)

The Scarlet Pimpernel was released in 1934, starring Merle Oberon and Leslie Howard; it was directed competently by Harold Young, who was never a notable director and as such most of the film was designed like a play stage; nonetheless, the dialogue, in large part lifted from the famous novel of the same name, absolutely carries the film from beginning to end, while Howard's performance made him box office gold for the 1930s.

Being 1934, sound constraints favoured large rooms with vast spaces and a sort of theatrical blocking. Since the play takes place in wealthy drawing rooms of the 18th century, this is not at all noticable. It's rarely acknowledged, but the strength of the staging and the performances can largely be assigned to Alexander Korda, whose instinct was to treat the camera as opportunity. For the time period, the film is outstandingly creative: it features huge outdoor scenes which were next to impossible at the time, with a practical chase scene upon a road that today feels like nothing, but to a 1934 audience would have been jaw dropping. Korda would go on to make other astounding films after this, steadily expanding the practical rules of what a film could be, in a time when the gloves were off; some wouldn't work that well (Things to Come) while yet being notable at the time; others would become timeless (The Four Feathers). Rest assured, if you see Korda's name in the credits, it's not going to be a McFilm.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is based on a novel written by Baroness Orczy, legitimately a baroness of Hungary, whose family lands were harried and challenged as Hungary the nation veered toward liberal constitutionalism following the 1948 revolution (which failed in substance but not in spirit). She took refuge in Britain, where she felt a refugee of noble birth — her decision to invent a character who rescued noble refugees from certain death took advantage of the British fascination with the French Revolution, thereby displacing her experience into one her English audience could appreciate. The result was a fabulously successful novel and the late creation of character that nearly stands alongside King Arthur and Robin Hood as a durable hero. It surprised me as a young man to learn the story first appeared in 1910; I'd always assumed it was a mid-19th century invention.

The film will challenge some; it is old. The sound isn't perfect. Even as black-and-white, it's washed out, because of the durability of that old film stock and the filming itself. Still, Raymond Massey (whom most will remember from Arsenic and Old Lace) plays the villain with his typical style, like only a good Canadian can properly manage. There are rare films where he's not a villain, which I also love (The 49th Parallel).  Few know it now, but his younger brother Vincent Massey would become the first Canadian born Governor General of Canada from 1952 to 1959. I just felt it needed saying.

I think it needs seeing, myself. Whether on not one likes it (I do, quite a lot), historically it's important. I do not feel one cannot legitimately discuss film without this being in one's repertoire.

Il portiere di notte (1974)

The Night Porter, starring Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling, is a highly unlikely film to find on youtube. It's part of the Criterion Collection, founded by an American home-video publisher and film preservation company; films that are part of the collection are deemed to have artistic, historical, formal or cultural significance. That said, the film is a far cry from anything that most film audiences would want to see. It is an Italian-produced film directed by Liliana Cavini, set primarily in Vienna, performed mainly in English by an international cast.

It is a not a pleasant film. It was deliberately made to confront and deeply disturb its audience of the time, compelling them to look at ugliness associated with the Third Riech and associations with the holocaust, at the messiness of human eroticism and the absurdities of obsession, culminating in what must be described as an unpleasant and deeply disturbing outcome. There is no happiness, no pleasantness, not rational sense that the characters are behaving as people with whom the audience might identify, or act in ways an uncouched audience could be expected to understand. If a viewer has an issue that might be subject to being trigger by visuals or story, this film will trigger it. It is not, it must be said coldly, for anyone who might remotely be considered "fragile." If this is remotely you, do not watch this film. It is the clearest content warning I can offer.

The weakest perspective of film content that has emerged in these last five decades is the sense that if a film is to be considered valuable, it must be "liked." This condition is of the least importance where a film is concerned, but it is always the first we expect to see when someone gives their opinion. We rate films with numbers and with how many positive adjectives can be applied to the concept, then we suppose we have written something that describes how art is meant to work. It's ridiculous.

"Liking" is a consumer response, designed by those who make films as a consumer product. That is not The Night Porter. Films of consequence do not operate upon an axis of likeability. Many of the most consequential films in history were designed to resist pleasure, identification, comfort or even comprehension. They operate instead upon pressure, abrasion, endurance and implication — asking whether or not they were "enjoyed" is roughly equivalent to asking whether the scalpel that cuts and removes the tumour within felt "good." Films such as this one serve to unsettle, implicate, exhaust or refuse to orient the viewer in order to wrest them from an unconscious lack of awareness about the world, dragging that viewer kicking and screaming into the ugly, horrific unpleasantness of a bright, unyielding light. Filmgoers who would rather crouch in the dark of their escapism are not invited to attend.

Putting that aside. Bogarde in the film gives the performance of his career; his presence, the cruelty of his character, the intensely pathetic evil he possesses, such that he is able to literally shrink his body at will, expresses an artist with unimagined power within his craft. He is overshadowed, however, by the mere presence of Charlotte Rampling, with whom film directors fell in love with in the 1970s, expressly allowing the camera to pour over her for long minutes at a time, given her piercing stare and unimaginably beautiful features. She is hardly spoken of now, but the effort given in the Night Porter, portraying the actress not only in moments of extreme beauty but also in moments of repellant grotesquerie, was but one of numerous films in which the director was more than in love with her. Woody Allen's Stardust Memories would be another example. She is gravitational, a presence that cannot be explained. Her facial features are "perfect" but unlike any other star one might name, from Ingrid Bergman to Lauren Bacall to any of the less magnificent candidates these last twenty years, who cannot achieve the notariety of those who did it without make-up or botox injections.

But, without talking about the story or discussing its ramifications, I present it here, for those who have the wherewithal or the will to see it.

Operation Mad Ball (1957)

A comedy written during Blake Edwards earlier period, directed by Richard Quine; both had worked earlier with Jack Lemmon in My Sister Eileen.  Lemmon's Oscar for Mister Roberts established him as a lead in a number of things all at once, with this film positioning him as a mastermind in charge of a lot of very familiar faces, most very young by the standards they would later become known.

Dick York turns up in Bewitched of course; lovers of The Producers will recognise William Hickey as the drunk at the bar, plus a host of other small roles; James Darren is a young punk whose music career hasn't really gotten started; L.Q. Jones is later a staple character of westerns, notably Hang 'Em High and The Wild Bunch... and Ernie Kovacs is at the height of his short career, cut off by a road accident. He'd work with Lemmon again in Bell, Book and Candle, where the two have excellent chemistry together. There are others besides, including a slightly uncomfortable (by modern standards) cameo by Mickey Rooney, who would appear even more uncomfortably in a later Blake Edwards film, Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Is Operation Mad Ball "good"?  Well, it depends on one's sense of humour. It's 1957, so a lot of the jokes revolve around the usual subjects, people looking dumb, women, misunderstandings... but on the whole, the film is definitely an intellectual pursuit rather than the farce of Edward's later work, particular the egregious later Clouseau films or The Great Race, also with Lemmon. Here the set-ups are familiar to those who experienced that last year of military service in Europe following the end of the war, when this film takes place. Though a military hospital filled with servicemen and nurses, there are no wounded, no strife, no danger... just a lot of unfortunate people forced to go on observing military code dividing enlisted men from dating officer nurses. As such, it's a conscious effort to circumvent rules, conventions and military discipline... which supplies lots of opportunities for humour.

There are a number of clever scams and schemes put in play, some great characterisations, irony, plenty of innuendo and some truly definitive vaudeville bits too; they're all played well, or rather cleverly and with excellent timing, so honestly, yes, in a dry and pleasant way, it's funny.

There's no direct line between this and the later M*A*S*H, but there are some elements where this earlier film or comedy style has influenced the later concept. Still, the connections are tenuous; Altman realised that a military hospital set-up was good for comedy also; whether this film gave him the idea, or he had it on his own, there's no way of knowing.

The Ox Bow Incident (1943)

I wouldn't call this a good picture, but it's here so that I can talk about the nature of film school content and the praise. The Ox Bow Incident is largely canonised because it's seen as a corrective to a cinematic western form of the era, an example of American cinema turning against it's own genre myths.

In the year it was released, the Western was a form normally used to affirm justice, masculinity and frontier morality; pedagogically, the film turned this on its head by depicting an example of collective violence, which I'm not going to state explicitly for spoiler reasons.

Additionally, the director William A. Wellman is praised for showing how restraint works on screen — that is, for filmmakers who fetishise this sort of thing, for reasons of their own. For anyone actually watching the film as, you know, a "film" for the purpose of immersion, it fails on almost every level. The scenes look like sets; the lighting looks like stage lighting; the actors don't look dutifully strained due to the subject material, they look like posed figure-dolls, which is unbelievably grating if one is familiar with the sort of work expected from Henry Fonda, Harry Davenport, Henry Morgan or Jane Darwell. These are all actors who by 1943 had made enough films to look utterly natural on camera.  Here, they look like wax figures, like students performing theatre on a stage. The lines are spoken in a sort of staccato fashion, concentrating on making the extremely obvious point, which becomes so obvious by three quarters of the way through the film that one is ready to quit and just jump to the end... which, by the time it happens, is utterly unsurprising.

Point in fact, the movie was not an especially popular film in 1943. It didn't inspire controversy or debate. It did not redirect the Western, it did not create a film school, it did not make William Wellman into an A-line director and it did not spawn imitators. From an anecdotal point of view, as someone who watched every movie I could as I was growing up, I did not see this one until I was in my 40s. Despite being a Fonda property, it didn't appear on my television in the 70s or 80s, when a great many other westerns did. It was not a fixture of Saturday afternoons, like Big Country or High Noon. It only became a "great film" when a group of film studies professors deemed it so, because it was "deliberately simple," which is something that such people tend to consider the highest form of art.

Film studies courses need films which are resistant to misreading. The Ox Bow Incident is useful for teaching analytical method before students are turned loose upon messier works where interpretation can collapse into projection. Even at that, most people do project their motives onto the film: it is regularly discussed as a revelation of "truth," which is never established; what is established is the lack of procedure, which matters, but as its conveyed here, we don't learn anything. The "message" is obvious, even juvenile. It reveals nothing about the time period it depicts, only the willingness to present something on screen that hadn't been to that time. This doesn't make the film "good." It makes the film "new."

But here it is, presented nonetheless. Because, in my opinion, every film made, especially those made before 1964, ought to be attempted if not fully seen.