Film Pairing — Off To The Land Of The Rising Sun and Ken Takahura

Tired of American gangsters? Board a jet in the comfort of your own residence and travel across the Pacific to watch American cops track down Japanese criminals in their own land.  Both are older films; but they hold up very well.

Black Rain — In this 1989 Ridley Scott-directed film two New York cops, played y Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia are assigned to take a Japanese criminal back to Japan.  He escapes and the Americans decide they must track him down despite all the language and cultural barriers.  Douglas does well as the ugly American and Andy Garcia does equally well as the charming sidekick as they sink deeper into the world of the yakuza, the Japanese mafia.  The real star is the subdued Ken Takahura who is assigned to reign in the two rowdy and initially out-of-their depth American policemen.  Black Rain makes for a nice evening of quality escapist action.

The Yakuza — Before there was Black Rain there was The Yakuza. Not exactly heralded when it was released in 1974, the film noir directed by Sydney Pollack has more than redeemed itself. The plot is relatively complicated, but introduces the audience to the intricacies of Japanese culture as well as residue from World War II and the ongoing influence of the yakuza. This is an intelligent thriller, with all the violence that goes with it. Robert Mitchum plays a slightly aging, retired police detective who travels to Japan to help an old friend rescue his kidnapped daughter. Paul and Leonard Schrader wrote the screenplay with help from Robert Towne. A younger Ken Takahura is outstanding in a principal role.  Brian Keith and James Shigeta are also featured.

To augment your viewing pleasure – Saki. Cold or warm. For many of us westerners  who have no idea how varied Saki may be, it’s worth investigating.  For those who avoid alcohol, nothing wrong with a plum spritzer. Just remember, it’s a pretty tough night on screen.

Film Pairings — What Happens When You Plagiarize Yourself? Is It An Homage?

I was a Western fan before I switched to more contemporary crime fiction.  I’m thinking my first movies. They were mostly cowboys and Indians.  At some point, probably around eleven, I switched sides and stated rooting for the Indians. I couldn’t relate to Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea.

Gradually I moved from horses to cars and from the desert to urban streets. I made an exception when I was fifteen. Rio Bravo played at one of the big movie theaters in downtown Indianapolis. I’m pretty sure it was Ricky Nelson and Dean Martin that drew me to it because I didn't like John Wayne either.  He was always bossing people around. I thought Rio Bravo was entertaining but not as meaningful as High Noon, which I saw when I was eight, (and Rio Bravo pales compared to The Unforgiven). Even so, here are two John Wayne movies for the evening.  They are interesting for their similarities (understatement) rather than their differences. According to Wikipedia, director Howard Hawks was upset with what he deemed to be the un-American High Noon. Rio Bravo was the response with the blessing of the conservative superstar John Wayne. In addition to these two nearly identical films by the same director and a third attempt by Hawks called Rio Lobos, other directors were inspired by the efforts. Rio Bravo and its offspring became an inspiration for an American meme:

Rio Bravo (1959) —Tough guy lead: John Wayne; His alcoholic al: Dean Martin, The young smart-aleck tag-along: Ricky Nelson (nick-named Colorado), The lovable old geezer: Walter Brennan.   Plot: Sheriff arrests a bad man. Another bad man wants him released. Gunfights ensue. Alcoholic kicks habit.  Old man shows his worth. Smart –aleck gets respect. Tough guy shows his soft side, sort of. The film was based on the novel by B. H. McCampbell and also features veteran western actor Ward Bond.

 

Eldorado (1966) — Tough guy lead: John Wayne.  His alcoholic pal: Robert Mitchum.  The young, smart aleck tag-along: James Caan (nicknamed Mississippi).  The lovable old geezer: Arthur Hunnicutt.   Plot: Sheriff arrests a bad man. Another bad man wants him released. Gunfights ensue. Alcoholic kicks habit.  Old man shows his worth. Smart–aleck gets respect. Tough guy shows his soft side, sort of.  The film was based on The Stars In Their Courses by Harry Brown.

If you watch just one, I’d suggest Rio Bravo.  It also has Angie Dickinson and a sweet, little duet performed by Dean and Ricky. However, despite Dean Martin’s usually comic portrayal of a drunk most of his life, Mitchum in Eldorado gets the nod in the who-makes-the- most believable-alcoholic competition.  The evening is more fun than majesty.

Speaking of drinking… if you choose to imbibe, there’s a whole lot of whiskey drinking going on. Everybody does it.  For those who choose not to mimic the characters on screen —who also shoot people and smoke — remember we’re in the desert.  We’re parched.  How about lemonade? And one more question:  What prompted the famous director to make the same movie twice?

Film Pairing — Filming George V. Higgins And The Definition of Success

The stories are all over the Internet.  The film, Killing Them Softly, “bombed.”  It only made $7 million the first weekend, a pittance, they imply, compared to such megahits as Twilight, Part 310 and the 2,000th Bond bonanza Skyfall.  The L.A. Times asks, “What went wrong?”

Nothing went wrong.  The way success is measured is wrong. The movie will very likely not only pay its expenses but make a tidy sum for those who invested in it. Skyfall had a budget of nearly $200 million and Killing Them Softly’s budget was $15 million. During its first weekend it made half its cost back.  The film was not intended to be a blockbuster, but a fine film that tells a realistic crime story without superheroes and special effects.  It’s a different kind of movie. Saying “it bombed,” is irresponsible journalism.

What fascinated me about all this is that in a way Killing Them Softly is about how our money-oriented culture corrupts everything, including, I would add, what we value. The labeling of this film as a failure because it didn’t compare well to blockbusters shows how far off the compass of the definition of success is.  I want to yell at the L.A. Times, what’s wrong with you people?

During the opening credits and reappearing from time to time throughout the film, we hear former President Bush talking about the need to bail out the banks. Paulson is heard too, as is Obama.  The gist of what we hear from them is that the banks need to be bailed out, not because it is the morally correct thing to do, or even that they really need it, but they, the rich bankers, need taxpayer money because of an unfortunate perception.  And we can pretty much ignore the crimes the bankers committed for the larger good, the greater perception.  These brief allusions offer a kind of background music, certainly a theme, which the film mirrors.

The story is about a guy (Ray Liotta) who puts together illegal, high-stakes poker games. Let’s call that Wall Street.  The games are real money-makers for a crime syndicate.  At one time, many years earlier, the Liotta character robbed his own game (any number of high-profile CEOs may be substituted) though as years past and players changed, his misdeed though now largely known, but considered a funny story, well in the past.  However, a clever someone figures out the situation offers the perfect set up. It’s a dangerous idea to rob them. He knows that. These aren’t a bunch of mechanics and taxi drivers blowing off steam on a Friday night.  These are genuine tough guys playing the game and even tougher ones running it.  It’s big business to the local mafia.  But the idea is that the tough guys will figure its Liotta who did it again.  The super-tough bad guys would take him out, leaving the real robbers to go free with their loot.

Despite the hilariously inept heist, the concept seems to work.  They get the money and they get away.

The syndicate folks call in a professional hit man to take care of business.  Enter the mightily cool Brad Pitt.  I say that without sarcasm.  We don’t know where he came from.  We know nothing about him except that he seems to be the sanest, smartest character we’ve met so far.  He also advises the mob’s attorney/courier/negotiator, played excellently by Richard Jenkins that it’s not necessary to beat up the Liotta character because they’re just going to have him killed anyway.  Why, put the poor guy through the pain? Pitt asks.  There’s a committee, the attorney said, that wants it that way. “A committee?” Pitt asks, incredulous.  After some thugs beat Liotta mercilessly and endlessly, they conclude he is actually innocent.  But he must be killed anyway. It’s a matter of perception. Some might think he did it and got by with it. It’s crucial that the punishment me quick and severe.  The poker business is way down.  People aren’t showing up and besides, if it appears that the games are such an easy mark, every amateur thug in the area will think they can do it and the players will stay away.  That’s not good for the economy, their economy. So, some of guys are killed because they did it.  One is killed because the perception of his guilt is bad for business.

The movie, based on the highly regarded noir-novelist George V. Higgins book, Cogan’s Trade, is well put together.  The characters are well-drawn and well-acted. Pitt, Liotta and Jenkins, who should be considered for an Academy Award nomination, are joined by James Gandolfini, who, alone, is worth the price of admission as a top-notch hit man, now a dysfunctional alcoholic.  Sam Shepard plays an enforcer in this drama that was moved from Higgins’ Boston in the ‘70s to a desolate New Orleans of 2008.  Purists might object, but it works. Andrew Dominik directed the film.

In the end, we are left at a bar where Jenkins pays off Pitt, but shorts him on the agreed amount.  The television over the bar shows President Obama talking about what it means to be an American.  Pitt’s character sarcastically predicts Obama’s standard line, we are not Republicans and Democrats, but we are one community, one country. 

“America is not a country,” Pitt tells the attorney.  “It is a business. Now I want my money.”

It’s probably not a coincidence that in an earlier film based on Higgins novel, bars play an important role.  And in this one, Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), directed by Peter Yates, the film begins with a heist as well.  Robert Mitchum is at the top of his form as blue-collar worker in Boston, trying to support a wife and three kids with a low-paying job and questionable supplemental income from highly questionable friends.  We all know guys like this.  Basically good guys, but willing to cut some ethical corners for a quick return. Desperate times, desperate measures. But Coyle is getting too old for this.  And he knows it. That doesn’t mean he can do anything about it.  First he gets screwed by the bad guys.  Then he gets screwed by the good guys.  There’s no escape. Peter Boyle’s portrayal of a bartender who knows how to survive in a corrupt world fits right in with the low-life crowd and Steven Keats, in his first Hollywood film, is, as is said now, “spot on” as the gun runner.  Everything about this film screams authentic and is a good match for the more recent Killing Then Softly.

Though the Higgins’ books that formed the basis for these two movies are only a few years apart, there is a huge gap between films.  A third film production, Rats on Fire, had been underway, but was stopped by legal issues. 

Go see the Pitt film, stop by a local dive, have a beer.  Go home, watch Friends of Eddie Coyle with a shot of whiskey and go to bed.

Special alert — Early 2013 films that looked promising in previews:

Side Effects, directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Channing Tatum

Broken City, directed by Allen Hughes, starring Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, Catherine-Zita Jones and Barry Pepper

Gangster Squad, based on the L.A. Times news series, “Tales from the Gangster Squad,” by journalist Paul Lieberman, directed by Ruben Fleischer, starring Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone and Sean Penn.

Film Pairing — Raymond Chandler's Marlowe, Bogart or Mitchum?

Friday’s double feature presents an opportunity to compare the performances of two legendary actors as they play one of the two most famous American private eyes in literature and film. Both played Raymond Chandler’s famous creation, Phillip Marlowe, in versions of The Big Sleep.

Of the seven actors who have played him on the big screen — Dick Powell, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Montgomery, George Montgomery, Elliott Gould, James Garner and Robert Mitchum — two set the standard. While I know there are those who would disagree. Some point to surprisingly excellent performances by Elliott Gould and Dick Powell. James Garner in the role also has fans. It still comes down to Bogart, who surprisingly played Marlowe only once, and Mitchum, who did it twice.

The story follows Marlowe, in the employ of a rich old man, General Sternwood. Marlowe is hired to stop a blackmailer who is about to reveal embarrassing photo

graphs of one of the General’s two wild daughters. The blackmailer is murdered, but that only complicates the situation, and Marlowe has a bigger job. He needs to find both a missing husband and a murderer.

I’m really a contrarian at heart, so I wanted to go against conventional wisdom and like the Mitchum version better. Not so. The old black and white Humphrey Bogart film is far superior in almost every way. Sometimes Robert Mitchum’s seemingly effortless acting is good. He never overplays it. Here a little effort might have paid off. He’s almost phoning it in. Sarah Miles, playing Sternwood’s older daughter, is down right ditzy and can’t hold a candle to Lauren Bacall’s smart and sexy characterization. Martha Vickers, in the older film, plays the crazy younger sister and she does crazy far more believably than Candy Clark’s feeble, flailing attempt. There were some great moments in the later version. Watching Richard Boone and Oliver Reed as heavies was a pleasant surprise. And the cars. Great automobiles.

Humphrey Bogart, at 46, was a little older than Chandler’s Marlowe, who was described as 33 by the author. Mitchum was 60 when he played the shamus. However, Marlowe was supposed to be tall and well-built, more like Mitchum and not at all like Bogart who was short and thin. No surprise here. This is Hollywood. There is word that the diminutive Tom Cruise will be playing the 6’5” brute, Jack Reacher, on the big screen.

Those were not the only differences in the two films. The Bogart version was in black and white, took place in L.A. (though director Howard Hawkes didn’t take much advantage of the location) and in roughly the timeframe the book was written. The Mitchum version was in color and for some unknown reason took place in late ‘70s London, which might explain Sarah Miles hair. The changes didn’t add anything.

Despite the later version’s shortcomings, it’s difficult to ignore a movie based on P.I. fiction by one of its founders. If you find my comments on the Mitchum film too off-putting you can substitute one of the other films based on Marlowe. The character was also featured on HBO, the BBC and on other television and radio shows. He was portrayed by many different actors. For the best online information on fictional private eyes, including writer Raymond Chandler and his character Marlowe, go to The Thrilling Detective.

Another option is to pair the Bogart version of Chandler’s Marlowe with Hammett’s Sam Spade also played by Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, thereby putting the top two American private eyes up against each other.

If you choose the both versions of The Big Sleep, watch the Mitchum version first and finish with the classic. To accompany the films, tonight, we come back to Bourbon, I think. Most of the characters in both films drink it straight — not even on the rocks. General Sternwood would have suggested brandy, and perhaps recommended that it be poured into a glass of champagne. In the Maltese Falcon, Spade goes down with a mickey in his brandy.

Film Pairing — Only The Shadows Know

In Night of the Hunter, Robert Mitchum arrives to court Shelley Winters, mother of two. He wants her to believe he is a righteous, religious man, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. The film, though almost worshipped now, was a failure at the box office, perhaps because it was unlike any film anyone had ever seen. It was a collaboration with renowned writer James Agee and the only film that actor Charles Laughton directed.

Night of the Hunter was story based on David Grubb’s novel of the same name. While there are still those who are critical of the melodramatic nature of the screenplay, its high rank on lists by film scholars is largely because of its ground-breaking, expressionistic cinematography. Deep, dark, angular shadows set the mood. Every moment of the film seems to suggest some deep, dark horror is only a few frames away.

With Sin City, if you want mood, if you want dark and harsh and brutal images, one after another, you’ll get it here as well; but it will be through advances in filmmaking technology. Nothing wrong with using the tools we have. And here they are used well. This is Frank Miller’s movie. It is based on his fine graphic novel, also of the same name. He directed with help from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. Like Night of the Hunter, Sin City is shadowy black and white; but with strategic touches of bold color. Where Hunter is more fluid visually, Sin City has more sharp edges. Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Own, Jessica Alba, Benicia Del Toro, Rutger Hauer and Josh Hartnett are among the talented stars rendered in graphic fashion. Sin City has its critics as well. For some, the characters didn’t seem quite human.

There is some truth, I think, in the criticism of both films —created half a century apart. However the truth in both these cases is what makes them the significant contributions to film history that they are. I don’t think either director set out to make a conventional film. And they didn't. That’s one of a number of reasons to see them.

How about Jack Daniels on the rocks for the double feature? Something rugged from Tennessee seems appropriate.

Film Pairing — Cape Fear Times Two

All right, it doesn’t take a genius to pair an original film with its remake. And in this case, it might have been more interesting if Nick Nolte had taken Robert Mitchum’s role in the remake of Cape Fear. We could have compared real life “bad boy” actors in bad boy film roles. However, that was not to be, so the obvious pairing of the same movie in different decades (1962 and 1991) had to be viewed in some other manner. And that manner is the gentlemanly and ungentlemanly manner of the films.

Gregory Peck, usually cast in decent guy roles, is a generally decent guy in the earlier version of Cape Fear. He plays a man who testifies in a trial that convicts a clearly indecent guy, played by Robert Mitchum. When Mitchum is released, he wants retribution. Clearly this is Mitchum’s movie and he plays the ex-con with cool, lizard-lidded, understated menace. The lines of good and evil are pretty clearly drawn and while there is some violence, the suspense comes from anxiously anticipating what we know will happen.

The first film was based on The Executioners, a novel by John D. MacDonald. The second was an adaptation of that first screenplay. Therefore, it’s not odd that the basic plot and the essence of the characters are remarkably similar. But while the first Cape Fear was high on suspense, the second is high on horror. It has been described by some as a “slasher film.” That may be an exaggeration. However the second film, directed by Martin Scorsese, is far more violent. The Scorsese version also blurs that line between good and evil. Nick Nolte, who assumes the Gregory Peck role, is not a genuinely decent guy. As the ex-con’s defense lawyer, he didn’t do everything he could to defend his client and in fact may have violated the law by excluding evidence that would have helped his client. This gives Robert DeNiro, in Mitchum’s role, greater motivation, though not justification, for his acts of vengeance.

One of the great things about Cape Fear (II) is that Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum and Martin Balsam all do cameos in the remake. Both DeNiro and supporting star Juliet Lewis (who was exceptional) were each nominated for Golden Globes and Academy Awards. Perhaps the most interesting part of this double feature is watching Mitchum and DeNiro interpret the same role. Of the two, Mitchum, no lesser talent, is definitely the minimalist.

I’d suggest doing the films in order, not just because of chronology, but also because number two steps up the intensity significantly. For drinks, I’d suggest shots of anything as each film begins to reach its climax.