cinema history class: navajo joe (1966)

The session: "And the Train Kept a Rollin'"
We look at Spaghetti Westerns with an eye toward trains and how they helped change the West

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 3: Navajo Joe (1966)
Directed by Sergio Corbucci

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
I'd never seen this film, though I was aware of it and the fact that it starred Burt Reynolds.

Plot:
In the South, a lone Indian (well, biracial, half Indian/half White) seeks revenge on the white gang who killed his wife.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
One of the unusual things about Navajo Joe, as far as Spaghetti Westerns go (and judging from my experience), is that it involved Indians. For some reason, the Italians behind Spaghetti Westerns generally uninterested in that element of the history of the American West, and Indians are generally not a theme. But here the titular character is half Indian. But, for all intents and purposes, he's fully Indian.

The other thing that I found odd is that there's actually a good guy (that being the titular Navajo Joe). My line is that,  American Westerns that have good guys and bad guys, Spaghetti Westerns have bad guys and worse guys. The heroes are morally ambiguous at best. But in Navajo Joe, Joe is an unambiguously good character. I don't like that. One of the things I like about Spaghetti Westerns is the fact that the heroes are really anti-heroes. I also like that in TV shows -- The Americans, Boardwalk Empire, and The Sopranos, to name a few.

Burt Reynolds does a good job showing off his athleticism, getting into and out of tight spots. And it's fun to watch him outsmarting the rest of the characters (and the other characters outsmarting each other and themselves). And I especially liked the ambiguous ending.

The film does suffer from having too low a budget. I noted in class that Corbucci never did get the great epic feel that Leone managed to put into so many of his films, Keith explained that that was a function of him being on tighter budgets. I have to wonder what he could have done with more money

Ratings
Me: 8
Bob-O: 9
Dave: 9.3
Ethan: 7

cinema history class: duck, you sucker! (1971)

The session: "And the Train Kept a Rollin'"
We look at Spaghetti Westerns with an eye toward trains and how they helped change the West

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 2: Duck, You Sucker! (1971)
Directed by Sergio Leone

My Impressions Going In:
I'd seen his film a few times before and thought very highly of it..

Plot:
In rural Mexico, a thief and a revolutionary join forces in pursuit of their goals.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
Where Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone's prior film, and the movie we saw a week before this), showed us the taming of the West, Duck You Sucker (one of the film's alternate names is Once Upon a Time...the Revolution) went a step further  into modernity. Set during the Mexican Revolution, we see motorcycles, trucks, and what looks like a distant cousin of a military tank. And yet, with the guns, horses and rural settings, it still maintains its identity as a Western. In fact, the opening sequence depicting Juan and his sons robbing a stagecoach clearly declares he film's identity as a Western. But, as Spaghetti Westerns go, there's a distinct maturity to it. So many of the Spaghetti Westerns center on a protagonist (and likely an antagonist as well) with superhuman gunslinging abilities. So much so that many of the movies have a comic book quality. That's absent here. Instead of deadly accuracy, we see the protagonists use machine guns and explosives to cut their enemies down.

In many ways, Duck is also a classic buddy film. Two guys meet as antagonists. But there's enough overlap in their goals that they find themselves working together, often against their better judgement. They are supremely mismatched -- Juan the dirt poor thief who is trying to support his numerous kids (and dreaming of a big score) is working with John, an erudite Irish revolutionary who finds himself fighting the Mexican revolution after becoming a fugitive in his native Ireland. And somehow they develop a grudging respect for each other.

It all wraps itself up into an amusing, if not particularly deep story.

Ratings
Me: 9
Bob-O: 9.8
Dave: 9.8
Ethan: 9.5
Joe: 10

cinema history class: once upon a time in the west (1968)

The session: "And the Train Kept a Rollin'"
We look at Spaghetti Westerns with an eye toward trains and how they helped change the West

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Directed by Sergio Leone

My Impressions Going In:
I'd seen his film a few times before and thought very highly of it..

Plot:
A widow fights to keep the land her husband died for, while a mysterious gunman fights his own little war for reasons nobody understands.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
By the time Sergio Leone had made his third Spaghetti Western, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, he had pretty much perfected the genre. But more than that -- he had figured out how to turn Spaghetti Westerns into epics.

And, with Once Upon a Time in the West he continued in that mode -- making a sprawling movie that tells a compelling story but is still bigger than simply the story it tells. It's meant to be an exemplar of is time, making a grand statement about the taming of the Wild West, with the railroad being the major catalyst. In the opening (which, by the way, is among the best opening scenes in cinema history) and second scenes, we see a world where the law is irrelevant and guns rule the day. As the  movie closes, a town is being born out of scraggly desert as a host of hopeful people cooperate in the enterprise. In between, we see the tension between he lawless avatars of the old west and the disciplined civilized people who finally tame it. While I'd seen this movie several times before, including once on the big screen, I had never really caught on to the level of its ambition. It took Keith's email (about  the session) and his introduction to make me make the connection.

Charles Bronson, as Harmonica, is playing to his strength as a man of few words. But the real stars are Jason Robards, who steals every scene he's in, and Henry Fonda. Fonda is in the unfamiliar position of playing an evil antagonist. But he does such a perfect job, one almost wishes he would have made a career out of it.

In some ways, One Upon a Time is more ambitious than The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which was Leone's prior effort. Yet I don't think it quite lives up to the high standard set by its predecessor. While Good/Bad/Ugly is a 10 in my book, Time is just a shade lower.

Ratings
Me: 9.8
Bob-O: 9.8
Christina: 9.7
Dave: 9.8
Ethan: 8
Evelyn: Good Movie
Joe: 10

cinema history class: i, the jury (1953)

The session: "Yuletide Noir"
An abbreviated session (two films) featuring Christmas-based films noir.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 2: I, the Jury (1953)
Directed by Harry Essex

My Impressions Going In:
I had never heard of this.

Plot:
A hard-boiled private detective hunts for his friend's killer. But didn't foresee where the clues would take him

Reaction and Other Folderol:
I do have to note that we were watching a flawed release of ItJ. The image was grainy, and the sound kept going out for a half a second (or so) at a time. I try not to let that cloud my judgement, since it's not really a flaw in the movie itself. Of course, I am only human.

Nothing in the movie really grabbed me. It did what it had to do as a film noir -- beatings and all. There were some really well-done scenes, notably the fight on the outdoor stairs. I had a hard time accepting Biff Elliott in the role of Mike Hammer. His voice and face didn't really convey the hardened character that I imagine Hammer to be, and he just wasn't believable as the fight-happy brute.

It was fun seeing a pre-Flintstones Alan Reed, and listening that gravelly voice, But I kept wanting him to let out a hearty "Yabba Dabba Doo." But, alas, he was still a decade away from that.

Ratings
Me: 6.5
Dave: 9.4
Ethan: 7
Joe: 10

cinema history class: lady in the lake (1947)

The session: "Yuletide Noir"
An abbreviated session (two films) featuring Christmas-based films noir.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: Lady in the Lake (1947)
Directed by Robert Montgomery

My Impressions Going In:
I had never heard of this.

Plot:
A private detective decides to become a writer. But his efforts only get him embroiled in another murder case.

Reaction and Other Folderol:


LitL does well as a film noir. It's got that crisp, clever dialogue and the surprising plot twists that the genre requires. So I found myself surprised several times. And the denouement definitely caught me off guard. But the thing is that all that doesn't really make it stand out as film noir. It establishes it as one of many really good films noir out there.

What makes this movie special is that Montgomery used it to experiment with a "camera as protagonist" approach. Essentially, the movie is all POV, seen from the vantagepoint of protagonist Philip Marlowe (played by director Robert Montgomery). Montgomery's idea was to recreate the style of the novel,. which was told in first-person. As a result, we rarely actually see the protagonist. He only appears when he looks in a mirror or when he delivers a monologue. It was an interesting technique, but it could be disconcerting at times.

And in case anyone asks, I do think this counts as a Christmas movie. At least it dies if Die Hard does...

Ratings
Somehow I neglected to write down the ratings for this, so those are lost to time. My bad.

cinema history class: i, marquis de sade (1967)

The session: "Porno Month...Well, Sort of: de Sade Month"
We watch films inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 4: I, Marquis De Sade (1967)
Directed by Richard Hilliard

My Impressions Going In:
I had never heard of this.

Plot:
Convicted of murder, a psychotic writer, believing himself to be the Marquis de Sade, remembers his exploits

Reaction and Other Folderol:
I really puzzled over this grade. IMdS can't really be said to be a good movie. The story is thin, the acting is uninspired. And it's really frickin' ugly. But there was something about it that had me interested. Enough that I still found myself thinking about it days later.

It was really odd how the script worked its way around Los Angeles, cutting back and forth between the unfolding story and the protagonist in jail, with his de Sade fantasies. The ugliness (both visual and plotwise) reminded me of a Russ Myers film. And I kept reliving the final scene.

It's not a good film. But it is interesting.

Ratings
Me: 6
Bob-O: 5.5
Dave: 8
Ethan: 4

cinema history class: eugenie de sade (1970)

The session: "Porno Month...Well, Sort of: de Sade Month"
We watch films inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 3: Eugenie De Sade (1970)
Directed by Jesus Franco

My Impressions Going In:
I had never heard of this.

Plot:
A beautiful woman and her creepy stepfather have an extended affair and commit murder.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
The big problem here is that the story is just too damn flimsy. The beautiful cinematography can't make up for that. It's actually obscene in its beauty. Bob-O described the film as a sort-of pornographic film noir. And I guess there's something too that, though this lacked the rapid-fire clever dialogue of noir. I wanted to like it, but had a hard time getting into it.

Ratings
Me: 4.5
Bob-O: 8.6
Dave: 9.5
Ethan: 6