The Ace Black Movie Blog

Showing posts with label Judith Anderson. Show all posts

Wednesday, 11 August 2021

Movie Review: Pursued (1947)

A western drama with strong noir elements, Pursued features a feud, troubled love, revenge, and the search for a sense of belonging.

In New Mexico around 1900, lovers Jeb Rand (Robert Mitchum) and Thor Callum (Teresa Wright) reunite in the ruins of his childhood home. In flashback, he recounts their story.

Jeb was adopted as a child by Thor's mother Mrs. Callum (Judith Anderson), after his father was killed by Grant Callum (Dean Jagger) to resolve a family feud. The brother of Thor's deceased father, Grant would have preferred to also kill young Jeb but agrees to wait until the boy matures.

Growing up, Jeb and Thor are close, then as adults they start a romance and are eager to get married. However, Jeb's relationship with Thor's brother Adam (John Rodney) is never less than fractious. Jeb then loses a coin toss and joins the army, and upon his return Adam is even more hostile. Grant reappears and starts agitating others to kill Jeb. Forced to defend himself, Jeb risks losing Thor's love.

Directed by Raoul Walsh, Pursued is a character-driven drama and romance that happens to be set in a western milieu. The script by Niven Busch explores a dark fate hovering over Jeb through no fault of his own. Beset by nightmares since the traumatic night his father was killed, hunted by Grant since he was a child, and always resented by Adam, Jeb suffers even more as Mrs. Callum and Thor turn against him at critical junctures. If ever a man had enough reasons to turn into a prototypical western bad guy, Jeb checks off the entire list.

But from the opening context-setting scene, Busch is also interested in the luminous power of a true love. Jeb and Thor share a resilient connection which might just be strong enough to save them both, and although events severely test their relationship, often pushing them apart and nudging love towards animosity, they both always have something to reach back for.

The noir elements include the flashback structure, effective narration, Thor exploring her fatale side, plenty of scenes set at night, and nice touches including a cold courtship and a coin that always lands on the wrong side.

The visual style is economical, and does not attempt to conceal some of the weaker narrative moments. Thor's emotional transformations are jarring, driven more by the whims of the script than true exposition. Grant's malevolence, wayward targeting, and penchant for contracting out his dirty work would have benefited from more depth, and the ending is abrupt.

But Pursued succeeds in tracing an eloquent arc of discovery, Jeb's journey finding a resolution where it started. He is less innocent and more resigned, but now has love by his side.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Saturday, 20 February 2021

Movie Review: Edge Of Darkness (1943)

A World War Two drama, Edge Of Darkness is a stirring tale of resistance in a small Norwegian village.

In the occupied Norwegian fishing community of Trollness, all the residents and all the stationed German troops are found dead. The events of the prior week are revealed in flashback.

The German commander Koenig (Helmut Dantine) maintains order through intimidation, and his soldiers keep close tabs on the restless villagers, including resistance sympathizers Gunnar Brogge (Errol Flynn), a fisher, and his lover Karen Stensgard (Ann Sheridan). But not all the residents are hostile. Cannery owner Kaspar Torgersen (Charles Dingle) is a German collaborator. Karen's father Martin (Walter Huston) is the village's only doctor and stays neutral, while his wife Anna (Ruth Gordon) is borderline delusional. The innkeeper Gerd Bjarnesen (Judith Anderson) lost her husband to the war and is fending off a German soldier's unwanted romantic advances.

Gunnar and Karen learn the Allies will drop off a weapons cache from the sea. The villagers are only able to communicate at secret meetings, and have to decide whether to unite, organize and take up arms against the occupiers while guarding against the threat of informers.

An adaptation of the book by William Woods, Edge Of Darkness is an engrossing multi-character drama. The Robert Rossen screenplay patiently explores the tensions simmering among residents chafing under the Nazi occupation, and director Lewis Milestone keeps the story moving, using most of the two hours to delve into the challenge of uniting a group towards a common purpose as the fuse is lit for a raucous climax.

From the opening sequence showing dead bodies strewn all across the village, Edge Of Darkness sets itself apart as a grim and uncompromising view of war. Despite propaganda objectives to rally anti-Nazi support when the war's outcome was very much in doubt, the story rises above shallow pedagogy by avoiding crass emotions and histrionics. Instead Milestone gets down to the pragmatic business of occupiers and the occupied engaged in a deadly game of mental and physical manoeuvring for intimidation and control.

The underlying theme is strength in unity, and despite the presence of stars Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan, they have relatively limited roles. Gunnar and Karen are just two of the many villagers making up a community with diverse viewpoints on how to deal with a well-armed occupying force. And while businessman and factory owner Torgersen is easy to dislike as an all-in collaborator, the grey middle zone of uncertainty is most compelling.

Doctor Stensgard, his mentally suffering wife Anna, and the church pastor are among prominent citizens unsure whether carrying guns and charging at the Germans is the wisest course of action, while elderly and retired school teacher Andersen (Morris Carnovsky) seeks an independent method of resistance.

In addition to debates between here-and-now action and pick-the-right moment strategy, an undercover agent adds intrigue, while the weaponization of sex features in the story of Polish captive Katja (Nancy Coleman) and a harrowing rape incident. The narrative depth extends to commander Koenig's own ambitions and disillusionment with his superiors.

When the time comes for the bullets to fly, Milestone and cinematographer Sid Hickox deploy gliding camera work to capture a village turning into a battlefield. Filled with human-centred intrigue, Edge Of Darkness is a sharp moment of reckoning.

All Ace Black Movie Blog Reviews are here.

Saturday, 24 March 2018

Movie Review: And Then There Were None (1945)

A multiple murder mystery, And Then There Were None adapts the Agatha Christie 1939 novel with a distinct lack of passion.

Eight guests assemble at an isolated island off the coast of England, where a single large mansion dominates the landscape. The guests are strangers to each other and include Judge Quincannon (Barry Fitzgerald), Dr. Armstrong (Walter Huston), Philip Lombard (Louis Hayward), Emily Brent (Judith Anderson) and Vera Claythorne (June Duprez). They were all invited to the island by the mysterious Mr. U.N. Owen, who appears to be absent from his own house. Two frazzled servants, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers (Richard Hayn and Queenie Leonard), hired just for the weekend, welcome the guests.

Mr. Rogers plays a recording in which Owen accuses each of the assembled guests of being responsible for a crime in which one or more people died. Soon the guests start dying one by one under mysterious circumstances, following the ghoulish Ten Little Indians nursery rhyme. As each death occurs, one of 10 Indian figurines disappears from the dining table centrepiece. The guests search the island to try and find Owen, before realizing the murderer must be one of their own and they start suspecting each other.

Directed by René Clair, And Then Were None is functional and methodical, but has aged poorly and never comes close to resonating. While the windswept island and the mazy mansion provide an effective setting, and Christie's source material is strong, the film is devoid of everything else needed to create a compelling cinematic experience. The film settles down to a metronomic routine of roughly one death every eight minutes, and the execution is nothing short of frigid.

The film is 97 minutes long, and would have benefitted from a longer length to better delve into the backgrounds of at least some of the assembled guests. Instead, the characters are never developed beyond Clue board game definitions, and they remain cardboard representations. Who dies next is of barely any consequence, because the victims are just about interchangeable and barely introduced before being knocked off.

Clair also does not try to inject any level of tension: all the deaths occur off-screen, the bodies are discovered with hardly any sort of reaction, and its quickly on to the next perfunctory and emotionless scene.

None of the cast members are provided the opportunity to shine, sharing the screen time in unsatisfactory snippets and defaulting to theatricality in the absence of depth.

For audiences unfamiliar with Christie's typical but still ingenious sting in the tale there may be enough interest sustained until the murderer is finally revealed, but for everyone else, the film becomes a test of survival where the sooner everybody dies already, the better.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Sunday, 12 November 2017

Movie Review: All Through The Night (1942)

A jaunty thriller, All Through The Night mixes laughs with action in a story of a New York gambler tangling with a Nazi terrorist cell.

"Gloves" Donahue (Humphrey Bogart) is prodded by his Ma (Jane Darwell) to investigate the murder of popular cheesecake maker Mr. Miller. Along with his sidekicks Sunshine (William Demarest), Barney (Frank McHugh), and Starchy (Jackie Gleason), Gloves starts to investigate Miller's mysterious customer, the alluring singer Leda Hamilton (Kaaren Verne). Soon another murder is committed, and this time Gloves is falsely implicated, forcing him to delve deeper into the plot to try and clear his name.

Gloves: [Breaking into a building] Personally, I'd feel more comfortable if I had a rod.
Sunshine: Here lies Sunshine under the sod. That's not odd. He had no rod.
Gloves: You know, there are times when I wonder about you.

His pursuit of Hamilton leads him to an auction house used as a front by a Nazi terrorist cell commanded by Ebbing (Conrad Veidt) and assisted by Madame (Judith Anderson) and their enforcer Pepi (Peter Lorre).With the cops on his tail, Gloves has to infiltrate the terrorists before they can launch their latest elaborate bombing plan, all while deciding which side Leda is really on.

Ebbing: You're not afraid to die, are you?
Gloves: I don't mind dying, but I hate to be divided up into small pieces.

Any wartime film that tries to add levity to a raging conflict where the outcome is still in doubt is bravely walking a tightrope above the abyss of bad taste. All Through The Night pulls it off, barely, thanks to a smart script filled with really sharp zingers courtesy of Gloves' collection of dubious friends.

[Sunshine knocks out a Nazi with an ax handle]
Gloves: Very good. Joe DiMaggio couldn't have done better.
Sunshine: I used to bat .320 at reform school.

The central character is good natured and only a bit shady, Gloves apparently a Broadway promoter of some sort but mostly interested in gambling scams. His background gives director Vincent Sherman and co-writers Leonard Spigelgass and Edwin Gilbert license to surround Gloves with wisecracking friends who provide a continuous stream of witty commentary on the evolving mess. A running gag features Barney marrying his girl Annabelle at the start of the evening, but unable to spend any time with the new bride because of the events of the wild night.

Barney: Say, chief, can't I get away just long enough to give my girl a quick hello?
Gloves: No, stick around, will ya?
Starchie: What are you so nervous about? She'll keep!
Barney: That's what you think. I can't take a chance. The fleet's in and she's defense-minded!

On a more serious note, the film makes mention of the Dachau concentration camp, perhaps one of the earliest references in a Hollywood film to the Nazis' worst atrocities. And while the plot contains a large number of holes as the Nazis oscillate between dangerous and dimwitted, Sherman maintains brisk pacing on the cheap, limiting the action to a few sets and several hide-and-seek set-pieces with conventional gunplay and fisticuffs.

Barney: I don't get it. I marry Annabelle and I spend my honeymoon with you.
Sunshine: Well, I can cook.

With Bogart injecting his confident swagger into every scene, this time emboldened by unscrupulous tendencies rather than personally-defined principles, All Through The Night is never less than watchable. Kaaren Verne is more than adequate as the damsel in distress who may or may not be part of the terrorist cell, and Conrad Veidt is as oily as bad guys come. The film features a large gathering of the Warner Bros. company of character actors, with Peter Lorre prominent as the the most cold-hearted plotter.

Leda [speaking to gathered reporters]: Well, I also feel it's about time someone knocked the Axis back on its heels.
Gloves: Excuse me, baby. What she means is, it's about time somebody knocked those heels back on their axis!

Any film that gets away with that line deserves some recognition.