Saturday, June 14, 2008
Slipped in a Sam Fuller movie on Saturday. This is not one of his best, but it is the most peculiar one of his I've seen. It takes place in a mental institution, and my favorite part is there's a black guy who believes he's a white supremacist, and he puts on a clan hood and goes on a long rant, liberally using the "n" word. Crazy shit!
Showing posts with label Sam Fuller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sam Fuller. Show all posts
Monday, June 16, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The Baron of Arizona
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Vincent Price has an interesting screen presence. It's hard to call him a good actor, but he's an incredibly memorable one. I guess we tend to think of him as a campy over-actor. Certainly, he's a theatrical one. He comes off as possibly homosexual, although he was not, and that adds some campiness. By the time I was watching cartoons, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo was on TV, and Price's persona or iconography was already familiar to me, despite not having even seen any of his movies. I've wondered for a while now, though, if Price was really a bad/campy actor, or if it's just the campy movies he showed up in.
So last night I did a double feature of non-horror movies starring Vincent Price, that I'm going to go ahead and right now name the "Two for the Price of One Double Feature." And yes, this is my second VP double feature in only 4 months. Before you know it, I'll have double-featured my way through his entire filmography.
Two Price movies, both dramatic roles, as a test to see if he is a better actor given different material. No haunted houses, no murders-by-pendulum, and certainly no killing yappy dogs, baking them into a pie and feeding them to their master.
Two things I learned about "the Veep" (as I call him) last night:
1) He is very tall. I mean, I think I knew he was tall, but goddamn, I didn't realize he was some towering gigantor with long monkey-arms. Maybe it was the monkey-arms that I hadn't noticed before.
2) When he was young and beardless, he was actually a decently attractive guy.
So first on the list was The Baron of Arizona, which is Sam Fuller's 2nd movie (I think), and the 3rd I've watched in the past few weeks, so this was really like a perfect storm for me. It's a shitload better than I Shot Jesse James, although it still has some serious flaws that keep it from realizing its full potential. I would say the worst part is that the movie has a useless wraparound story where some older rich dude is telling the story of the Baron of Arizona to a bunch of other guys. So for a while we get this really annoying, cheesy, obvious narration going on over the (far more interesting) story of the Baron, every now and then cutting back to the rich guys sipping scotch in their study or oppressing minorities or whatever it is the upper crust does. Oddly, by the end, the movie has slowly abandoned the narration, and the whole wraparound never comes back. Like they completely forgot it.
The story itself is pretty cool though, about an audacious con man in the late 1800's who sets up a complicated plot to try and claim all of Arizona for himself. He forges all sorts of documents and adopts a little girl for whom he invents a new identity as a Spanish Baroness with rightful claim to the land. When she grows up, he marries her, making himself the Baron.
OK, here it is. I'm going to come out in defense of Vincent Price. Because he's pretty good in this movie. He's still got that weird voice, that sexual ambiguity and some serious theatricality, but it works for the character. I mean, this guy is one ballsy con artist, creating a fictional royal position and persona for himself. It fits. It doesn't come off as hammy... in fact, in a movie that does have some accidentally hammy moments, V.P. comes off as the least corny, most nuanced character.
I'm not gonna give him a posthumous Oscar or nothing, but his demeanor and style of acting don't come off as overly campy in a non-campy movie. So, I'm thinking this means that his style lends well to camp, but that it more has to do with the movie he's in rather than his being a shitty actor. Good job, Vincent, you proved to me that you actually could act.
Vincent Price has an interesting screen presence. It's hard to call him a good actor, but he's an incredibly memorable one. I guess we tend to think of him as a campy over-actor. Certainly, he's a theatrical one. He comes off as possibly homosexual, although he was not, and that adds some campiness. By the time I was watching cartoons, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo was on TV, and Price's persona or iconography was already familiar to me, despite not having even seen any of his movies. I've wondered for a while now, though, if Price was really a bad/campy actor, or if it's just the campy movies he showed up in.
So last night I did a double feature of non-horror movies starring Vincent Price, that I'm going to go ahead and right now name the "Two for the Price of One Double Feature." And yes, this is my second VP double feature in only 4 months. Before you know it, I'll have double-featured my way through his entire filmography.
Two Price movies, both dramatic roles, as a test to see if he is a better actor given different material. No haunted houses, no murders-by-pendulum, and certainly no killing yappy dogs, baking them into a pie and feeding them to their master.
Two things I learned about "the Veep" (as I call him) last night:
1) He is very tall. I mean, I think I knew he was tall, but goddamn, I didn't realize he was some towering gigantor with long monkey-arms. Maybe it was the monkey-arms that I hadn't noticed before.
2) When he was young and beardless, he was actually a decently attractive guy.
So first on the list was The Baron of Arizona, which is Sam Fuller's 2nd movie (I think), and the 3rd I've watched in the past few weeks, so this was really like a perfect storm for me. It's a shitload better than I Shot Jesse James, although it still has some serious flaws that keep it from realizing its full potential. I would say the worst part is that the movie has a useless wraparound story where some older rich dude is telling the story of the Baron of Arizona to a bunch of other guys. So for a while we get this really annoying, cheesy, obvious narration going on over the (far more interesting) story of the Baron, every now and then cutting back to the rich guys sipping scotch in their study or oppressing minorities or whatever it is the upper crust does. Oddly, by the end, the movie has slowly abandoned the narration, and the whole wraparound never comes back. Like they completely forgot it.
The story itself is pretty cool though, about an audacious con man in the late 1800's who sets up a complicated plot to try and claim all of Arizona for himself. He forges all sorts of documents and adopts a little girl for whom he invents a new identity as a Spanish Baroness with rightful claim to the land. When she grows up, he marries her, making himself the Baron.
OK, here it is. I'm going to come out in defense of Vincent Price. Because he's pretty good in this movie. He's still got that weird voice, that sexual ambiguity and some serious theatricality, but it works for the character. I mean, this guy is one ballsy con artist, creating a fictional royal position and persona for himself. It fits. It doesn't come off as hammy... in fact, in a movie that does have some accidentally hammy moments, V.P. comes off as the least corny, most nuanced character.
I'm not gonna give him a posthumous Oscar or nothing, but his demeanor and style of acting don't come off as overly campy in a non-campy movie. So, I'm thinking this means that his style lends well to camp, but that it more has to do with the movie he's in rather than his being a shitty actor. Good job, Vincent, you proved to me that you actually could act.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
I Shot Jesse James
Monday, April 14, 2008
We have something of a theme pick here, as I watched this one as a follow up to Sam Fuller's Pickup On South Street (he directed this one) and Walter Hill's The Long Riders (also about Jesse James).
Actually, this one isn't about Jesse James; he's dead before the 30 minute mark. It's more about the life of Robert Ford after he murders Jesse. Which, if this followed the facts at all, turns out to be pretty odd. Especially when he joins a stage show where he re-enacts the shooting of Jesse.
So, this is a completely different handling of the material compared to The Long Riders, as that was a violent, highly fictionalized, maybe somewhat romanticized, western action picture where Bob Ford was barely a footnote. Hell, Charles Ford even has a bigger role than Bob. I Shot Jesse James is more of a drama about Ford's life, how he's consumed with guilt and falls apart. There's a little action here and there, but mostly it's a character study.
I'm hoping to check out The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford soon, which I think would make for a nice trilogy of blog entries.
This is the fourth Sam Fuller film I've seen, and the only one I didn't like. It has it's moments, like when Ford buys a wandering minstrel a drink in exchange for a song, and the guy picks one he says everyone likes, which turns out to be about the murder of Jesse James. Needless to say, Ford doesn't take it too well. He storms outside, where someone starts taking shots at him from the dark... and it turns out to be a little kid, who wants to become famous by killing Robert Ford.
But too much of the movie is corny and flatly staged (although there are some nice visual touches), quite probably because this was Fuller's first film.
Like, early on there are a couple of scenes where Jesse keeps turning his back on Ford, and then really melodramatic music cues up to let you know that Ford might shoot him. It's a little much. (I did like that one of these scenes takes place while Jesse is in his bathtub, adding what I would like to think is an intentional homosexual undertone.)
Compared to something like Pickup On South Street, this movie just isn't very entertaining, or energetic, or involving, not to mention the complete lack of badass-ness. I mean, there's a part in Pickup where a minor character gets executed by a bad guy, and it just rips your heart out. Here, you don't much give a shit when anyone dies, including Jesse James and Robert Ford.
Oh well. I'll still be checking out more Fuller down the line.
We have something of a theme pick here, as I watched this one as a follow up to Sam Fuller's Pickup On South Street (he directed this one) and Walter Hill's The Long Riders (also about Jesse James).
Actually, this one isn't about Jesse James; he's dead before the 30 minute mark. It's more about the life of Robert Ford after he murders Jesse. Which, if this followed the facts at all, turns out to be pretty odd. Especially when he joins a stage show where he re-enacts the shooting of Jesse.
So, this is a completely different handling of the material compared to The Long Riders, as that was a violent, highly fictionalized, maybe somewhat romanticized, western action picture where Bob Ford was barely a footnote. Hell, Charles Ford even has a bigger role than Bob. I Shot Jesse James is more of a drama about Ford's life, how he's consumed with guilt and falls apart. There's a little action here and there, but mostly it's a character study.
I'm hoping to check out The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford soon, which I think would make for a nice trilogy of blog entries.
This is the fourth Sam Fuller film I've seen, and the only one I didn't like. It has it's moments, like when Ford buys a wandering minstrel a drink in exchange for a song, and the guy picks one he says everyone likes, which turns out to be about the murder of Jesse James. Needless to say, Ford doesn't take it too well. He storms outside, where someone starts taking shots at him from the dark... and it turns out to be a little kid, who wants to become famous by killing Robert Ford.
But too much of the movie is corny and flatly staged (although there are some nice visual touches), quite probably because this was Fuller's first film.
Like, early on there are a couple of scenes where Jesse keeps turning his back on Ford, and then really melodramatic music cues up to let you know that Ford might shoot him. It's a little much. (I did like that one of these scenes takes place while Jesse is in his bathtub, adding what I would like to think is an intentional homosexual undertone.)
Compared to something like Pickup On South Street, this movie just isn't very entertaining, or energetic, or involving, not to mention the complete lack of badass-ness. I mean, there's a part in Pickup where a minor character gets executed by a bad guy, and it just rips your heart out. Here, you don't much give a shit when anyone dies, including Jesse James and Robert Ford.
Oh well. I'll still be checking out more Fuller down the line.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Pickup On South Street
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
I didn't realize this at the time, but it turns out that the lead actor from this movie, Richard Widmark, just died last week. Odd coincidence, considering I don't think I've even seen him in a movie before.
This is a 50's noir with a little spy movie thrown in for kicks, and Widmark is really quite good as Skip, a character who is may be more of a cold-hearted bastard than his name would suggest. The director is Sam Fuller, this is the 3rd film I've seen by him and I should see more because they've all been pretty good. His The Big Red One is a semi-autobiographical war film, probably the oddest WWII movie I've ever seen, it stars Lee Marvin and Luke Skywalker and the main nerd from Revenge of the Nerds, and contains a scene where a woman gives birth inside a tank. The Naked Kiss is a 60's melodrama with a tinge of noir and the main character murders her fiancee when she discovers that he's a pedophile. So, he makes pretty kick ass movies.
Pickup On South Street is a short, exciting little movie with a lot of good characters, dark humor and a real cold blooded attitude. It also has some rather blunt sexism (possibly misogyny?), including a part where the hero accidentally punches out the heroine in the dark. At the risk of sounding un-PC, this attitude is kinda shocking in a very entertaining way. And I'll give Fuller credit, I think the sexism is coming from his characters, not from his own worldview. After all, The Naked Kiss is a movie about a former prostitute trying to start a new life, and the message is clearly that she's a good person who deserves a second chance. And in this one, all the male characters are right bastards, and the only likable character is an older woman who sells information on local crooks to interested parties. She gets murdered in cold blood, but it's because she's trying to protect the main character, and it's just about the only stand up thing anyone does in the whole movie.
I had a few complaints here and there, but overall this is a really good one, and only 80 minutes long, so it's absolutely worth your time.
I didn't realize this at the time, but it turns out that the lead actor from this movie, Richard Widmark, just died last week. Odd coincidence, considering I don't think I've even seen him in a movie before.
This is a 50's noir with a little spy movie thrown in for kicks, and Widmark is really quite good as Skip, a character who is may be more of a cold-hearted bastard than his name would suggest. The director is Sam Fuller, this is the 3rd film I've seen by him and I should see more because they've all been pretty good. His The Big Red One is a semi-autobiographical war film, probably the oddest WWII movie I've ever seen, it stars Lee Marvin and Luke Skywalker and the main nerd from Revenge of the Nerds, and contains a scene where a woman gives birth inside a tank. The Naked Kiss is a 60's melodrama with a tinge of noir and the main character murders her fiancee when she discovers that he's a pedophile. So, he makes pretty kick ass movies.
Pickup On South Street is a short, exciting little movie with a lot of good characters, dark humor and a real cold blooded attitude. It also has some rather blunt sexism (possibly misogyny?), including a part where the hero accidentally punches out the heroine in the dark. At the risk of sounding un-PC, this attitude is kinda shocking in a very entertaining way. And I'll give Fuller credit, I think the sexism is coming from his characters, not from his own worldview. After all, The Naked Kiss is a movie about a former prostitute trying to start a new life, and the message is clearly that she's a good person who deserves a second chance. And in this one, all the male characters are right bastards, and the only likable character is an older woman who sells information on local crooks to interested parties. She gets murdered in cold blood, but it's because she's trying to protect the main character, and it's just about the only stand up thing anyone does in the whole movie.
I had a few complaints here and there, but overall this is a really good one, and only 80 minutes long, so it's absolutely worth your time.
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