Movie Review: The Mirror Crack'd (1980)

Genre: Crime Mystery  

Director: Guy Hamilton  

Starring: Angela Lansbury, Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Tony Curtis, Edward Fox, Geraldine Chaplin  
Running Time: 105 minutes  

Synopsis: It's 1953 in rural England. American film director Jason Rudd (Rock Hudson) is in town to prepare for his next movie, featuring a big comeback role for his troubled wife Marina (Elizabeth Taylor). Marty Fenn (Tony Curtis) is the producer, and his wife Lola (Kim Novak) is Marina's nemesis. When a local woman is murdered by poison at the estate where Jason and Marina are residing, local woman Jane Marple (Angela Lansbury) and her nephew Inspector Craddock (Edward Fox) investigate.

What Works Well: In her few scenes, Angela Lansbury is a dotty delight, and Rock Hudson brings a welcome sturdiness to the otherwise over-animated cast. The quaint English village setting is idyllic, while Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak exchange sharp barbs as lifelong rival actresses not afraid to wish each other the worst.

What Does Not Work As Well: The murder victim is an annoying nobody, and Miss Marple is sidelined in her own movie, the bland Craddock leading most of the detective work. Taylor, Novak, and Tony Curtis, all near their career twilights, lean towards exaggerated theatricality. Director Guy Hamilton errs on the side of too many red herrings and not enough real clues, but regardless, the murderer is not hard to guess. This is a weaker Agatha Christie story (despite being based on an actual tragedy that befell actress Gene Tierney), and translates to a limp cinematic effort.

Key Quote:

Lola (to Marina): And I'm so glad to see that you've not only kept your GORGEOUS figure, but you've added SO MUCH to it!

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Movie Review: Pal Joey (1957)

Genre: Musical Romance  

Director: George Sidney  

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth, Kim Novak  

Running Time: 109 minutes  

Synopsis: Nightclub singer and crass womanizer Joey Evans (Frank Sinatra) has been thrown out of every joint he's ever worked at. He arrives in San Francisco, weasels his way into performing at a club, and is soon lusting after innocent chorus girl Linda English (Kim Novak). Joey has ambitions to open his own club, and romances rich widow (and former stripper) Vera Prentice-Simpson (Rita Hayworth) into funding his project. But trouble arises when Vera realizes Joey may really be in love with Linda.

What Works Well: The loose adaptation of a 1940 Broadway musical (based on a John O'Hara novel) is drenched in vivid nightclub ambience where performances are tacky and desperation hangs in the air. The sturdy love triangle offers sharp edges derived from character fundamentals, while in the central role a jaunty Frank Sinatra navigates the complex arc of a manipulative scoundrel confronting a new set of values. Some of the songs are imported from other musicals, and the better highlights include The Lady Is A Tramp, Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered, and There's A Small Hotel.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot is wafer thin, and Joey's Neanderthalic attitude towards women creates a distasteful character for most of the running time. The singing voices of Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak are dubbed, and Novak never finds her footing as a naive chorus girl from a rural background. Beyond the three leads, there are no notable secondary characters to animate the surroundings.

Key Quote:

Joey (to Vera): Nobody owns Joey, but Joey.

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Movie Review: The White Buffalo (1977)

Genre: Western  

Director: J. Lee Thompson  

Starring: Charles Bronson, Jack Warden, Will Sampson, Kim Novak  

Running Time: 97 minutes  

Synopsis: Suffering from nightmares about a rampaging white buffalo, 'Wild' Bill Hickok (Charles Bronson) travels west to the rugged Black Hills. Along the way he renews acquaintances with ex-lover Poker Jenny (Kim Novak), and tangles with nemesis Captain Tom Custer (Ed Lauter) and new enemy Jack Kileen (Clint Walker). Concurrently, Lakota tribe leader Crazy Horse (Will Sampson) is hunting the same beast to avenge his daughter's death. Hickok, Crazy Horse, and old timer Charlie Zane (Jack Warden) team up for the hunt high in the snowy mountains.

What Works Well: Inspired by familiar man-versus-mythical-beast narratives (or more simply, Jaws), this Richard Sale adaptation of his own book benefits from razor sharp dialogue peppered with frontier era colloquialisms. Charles Bronson looks natty in cool specs and forges an eloquently uneasy bond with Will Sampson's Crazy Horse, while Jack Warden's old-timer is uncompromising in representing hardened racist attitudes. In the lead-up to the climax, the action highlights are sharp, and Hickok's encounter with Poker Jenny is resolved with unexpected vulnerability.

What Does Not Work As Well: The special effects used to create the titular white buffalo are hideous. The creature looks like an emancipated carnival prize set on a rocking horse base, severely undermining the drama's core and the fundamental sense of dread. Elsewhere, Hickok would have benefited from an expanded backstory, and no context is provided for his nightmares.

Conclusion: Grand ambitions compromised by a small-budget creature.



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Movie Review: The Man With The Golden Arm (1955)

Genre: Addiction Drama

Director: Otto Preminger

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak

Running Time: 119 minutes

Synopsis: Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra) returns to his old neighbourhood after a six month addiction treatment stint. An ace card dealer for back-alley poker games, he now wants to stay clean and become a jazz drummer. His bitter and clingy wife Sophia (Eleanor Parker) is confined to a wheelchair and hiding a secret, but Frankie has a warmer relationship with his downstairs neighbour Molly (Kim Novak). Frankie finds it difficult to resist bad influences and is soon pressured back into old habits.

What Works Well: Screenwriter Walter Newman and director Otto Preminger create a hypnotic down-and-out litter-strewn neighbourhood corner dominated by the local bar and neon signs for gaudy nightclubs. This is not an environment for kicking an addiction habit, and unsurprisingly Frankie's good intentions are threatened by well-entrenched sleazoids, from his wife to the local drug peddler (Darren McGavin) and the poker game organizer (Robert Strauss). Frank Sinatra finds a career peak, throwing himself into an addition ordeal with admirable zest. Elmer Bernstein's music and Saul Bass' opening credit sequence are both iconic.

What Does Not Work As Well: The outdoor set is clearly studio-bound on the RKO lot, and Frankie's up-and-down cycles are a bit repetitive.

Conclusion: A gritty and compelling humanization of addiction's stranglehold.



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Movie Review: Phffft (1954)

A divorce comedy, Phffft boasts smooth chemistry between Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon, but otherwise offers little in the way of crisp content.

Robert and Nina Tracey (Lemmon and Holliday) have been married for eight years, and have just about had enough of each other. He's a tax lawyer, she's a television writer, but their relationship has deteriorated to the point of constant bickering. They quickly agree to get divorced. Through flashbacks, Robert remembers the origins of their relationship: his best friend Charlie Nelson (Jack Carson) introduced Robert to Nina just after the war, the attraction was mutual, and he offered tax filing advice to get closer to her.

Now both single again, Robert crashes at Charlie's apartment, and Charlie is quick to set up dates for his friend with younger women, including a night out with Janice (Kim Novak), a first class airhead. Meanwhile, Nina dates conceited television actor Rick Vidal (Donald Curtis) and gets advice from her mother Edith (Luella Gear), the woman blamed by Robert at least partially for the breakup of the marriage. But for Robert and Nina, finding happiness with new partners will prove surprisingly difficult.

Phffft, which represents the sound of air escaping a relationship according to a newspaper gossip columnist, enjoys one terrific scene on the dance floor. Robert and Nina both try to reinvent themselves by taking dance lessons after their break-up, and they subsequently have a chance encounter at a club which turns into an energetic and prolonged dance duel. Comedy mixes with determined sassiness as Lemmon and Holliday let loose, attempting to both impress and out-do each other. It's an original, well-executed moment in a film that otherwise struggles to overcome a relatively predictable George Axelrod script.

In only his third film role, Lemmon is already establishing his screen persona as an unimposing typical man facing life's challenges with humour and false bravado. Lemmon has sympathetic presence, and easily portrays his problems as representative of society, his clumsy attempts at solutions only slightly more pronounced than real. Holliday is all about comic timing, and she nails her role as Janice with perfect pauses, expressions and reactions. Janice is written as a slightly less realistic character than Robert, but this allows Holliday to shine bright without descending into farce.

Together, Lemmon and Holliday are by far the best thing about Phffft. The film only threatens to sparkle when they are on screen together, and otherwise drifts into predictability. Carson is his usual strong presence but is undermined when his character takes a ridiculous detour towards the end of the movie. Kim Novak, in only her second credited role, attempts to purr herself into busty brainless blonde breathlessness, but her character is thinly written and quickly freefalls into repeating the same jokes to poor effect.

Filmed in rather bland black and white, director Mark Robson is unable to inject much in the way of style. While the escapades of this divorced couple provide harmless entertainment, Lemmon and Holliday at least ensure Phffft doesn't fully deflate.

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Movie Review: Vertigo (1958)

An Alfred Hitchcock journey of doomed romance and tragedy, Vertigo is convoluted and meandering, with perplexing puzzles hidden within a maze. Stars James Stewart and Kim Novak are suitably cold, navigating a plot spiralling into a tightening loop of weirdness with San Francisco serving as a stirring backdrop. Hitchcock never claimed any hidden meanings behind Vertigo, but this is one film that works better when interpreted beyond its surface storyline.

John "Scottie" Ferguson (Stewart), a San Francisco police detective, suffers from acrophobia (fear of heights) that triggers vertigo. Involved in a rooftop chase, Scottie is left hanging from a ledge and witnesses a fellow police officer fall to his death. Now retired from active duty, Scottie is good friends with Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes), a painter and advertising artist. Scottie and Midge were once briefly engaged, a relationship that Midge broke off. Gavin Elster, a long lost college friend, resurfaces and offers Scottie an unusual private investigative opportunity: trail Elster's wife Madeleine (Novak) to find out why she is suddenly entering trance-like states. Elster believes his wife is possessed by a dead spirit; Scottie is sceptical, but accepts the assignment.

Scottie spends long hours trailing Madeleine. She demonstrates an obsession with her great grandmother Carlotta Valdes. Scottie eventually saves Madeleine's life and gradually they are attracted to each other. Madeleine confesses to experiencing nightmares set in the San Juan Bautista Mission ranch, south of the city. Scottie drives her there to confront her fears; instead she climbs the bell tower and Scottie is unable to prevent tragedy. 

Scottie is devastated and spends time at a mental hospital. Upon his release he imagines sightings of Madeleine all over the city, but finally spots Judy (also Novak), a woman who looks incredibly similar to Madeleine. Scottie insists on getting to know Judy, and she agrees, although Judy is in fact hiding a terrible secret. Scottie and Judy anyway fall in love, but eventually Scottie appears to lose his grip on reality and starts to insist that she change her appearance to exactly resemble his recollection of Madeleine.

The script by Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor is full of teasers and tests the outer limits of human behaviour. Setting aside the age difference between Judy and Scottie, what exactly is it that attracts Judy to Scottie? And what woman will tolerate being molded into the image of another woman, and worse still for Judy, being sculpted into the form of a dead woman?

Other conundrums in the form of sudden disappearances and appearances contribute to Vertigo's cerebral obstacle course. Where does Midge disappear to after Scottie's hospital stay? Central to his character in the first two thirds of the film, she drops out suddenly. Madeleine's disappearing act from her hotel room is never explained. Elster also disappears from the film. Would Elster be careless enough to allow Judy and Scottie, the only two people who can cause him trouble, to reconnect with each other? And finally, where exactly did that miraculously silent nun appear from?

Vertigo is fascinating as an exploration of a debilitated mind. In one alternative interpretation, Scottie's afflictions include a deeply broken heart due to Midge abandoning him, his emotional state in a fearsome downward spiral. His hanging from the ledge is a precarious hold on reality, and most events are occurring in his devastated mind, while he is incarcerated in the hospital.

There are some delicious clues to Midge as the real love of Scottie's life. His experiences with Madeleine and then Judy become elaborate creations in his deeply grieving psyche, the image of Madeleine being Scottie's imagination of a perfect Midge, his mind endlessly repeating the same painful arc: an impossible love heroically found and tragically lost in his helpless presence. The only real scene in the movie may be his close-to-catatonic stay in the hospital, imagining Midge hovering around him, neatly tucked between the Madeleine and Judy episodes created by his conscience.

Vertigo's shattered pieces are never intended to fall into place, but rather form an intentionally dizzying series of loops with more questions than answers, a psychological tour-de-force about the devastating, everlasting and disorienting anguish of loss.

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