Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 12/31/23

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Backfire (Vincent Sherman, 1950)

Edmond O'Brien, Gordon MacRae, and Virginia Mayo in Backfire

Cast: Gordon MacRae, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Viveca Lindfors, Dane Clark, Ed Begley, Sheila MacRae, Mack Williams, Leonard Strong, Frances Robinson, Richard Rober, David Hoffman, Ida Moore. Screenplay: Lawrence B. Marcus, Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts. Cinematography: Carl E. Guthrie. Art direction: Anton Grot. Film editing: Thomas Reilly. Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof.

Backfire is a hyperplotted whodunit that aspires to some of the narrative complexity of Raymond Chandler but doesn't quite have what it takes. Gordon MacRae plays Bob Corey, recovering from war wounds in an Army hospital, who receives a visit one night from a mysterious woman (Viveca Lindfors) who tells him that his friend Steve Connolly (Edmond O'Brien) has been in a serious accident and is threatening to commit suicide; she asks for his help, but Corey has just been given a shot to help him sleep and passes out as the woman is talking. The next morning, he's not certain whether the woman was really there or if he dreamed about her visit. When he gets out of the hospital, the police contact him: Connolly is wanted for the murder of a notorious gambler and has disappeared. While in the hospital, Corey has fallen in love with a nurse, Julie Benson (Virginia Mayo), and with her help he begins the search for his friend. The rest of the story is told mostly in a series of flashbacks, some of them provided by people who get killed for telling Corey their stories, which all point to a high-roller with a mistress who is none other than the mysterious woman who visited Corey in the hospital. Some suspenseful moments and some entertaining performances keep the movie going, but the outcome is just a little too predictable. It's like one of those TV detective shows where the bad guy turns out to be that character actor you've seen before but can't quite place. This time, it's the actor whose name recognition is a little larger than their role in the movie seems to justify.