Waterloo Bridge (James Whale, 1931)

Waterloo Bridge (James Whale, 1931)

Cast: Mae Clarke, Douglass Montgomery, Doris Lloyd, Frederick Kerr, Enid Bennett, Bette Davis, Ethel Griffies, Rita Carlyle, Ruth Handforth. Screenplay: Benn W. Levy, Tom Reed, based on a play by Robert E. Sherwood. Cinematography: Arthur Edeson. Art direction: Charles D. Hall. Film editing: Clarence Kolster, James Whale. Music: Val Burton.

If I had to name a favorite underappreciated director, I think it might be James Whale, best known for Frankenstein (1931) and its even better sequel Bride of Frankenstein (1935) but also for the first (and best) sound version of Show Boat (1936) and for the semi-spoofy The Old Dark House (1932). Whale had a gift for irony and for spiking things with a bit of acid wit -- something that becomes apparent when you compare his version of Waterloo Bridge with Mervyn LeRoy's somewhat mushier 1940 film. MGM tried to suppress Whale's film when it got the rights to make its own version of the Robert E. Sherwood play, but it didn't have to work hard: The Production Code had made the earlier version, which is more explicit about the fact that Mae Clarke's Myra is a streetwalker, unavailable for exhibition when it went into effect in 1934. As an actress, Clarke wasn't a patch on Vivien Leigh, who played Myra in the later film, but she doesn't really have to be; Whale's direction keeps the story moving and surrounds her with some strong performances, including Doris Lloyd as her tough-girl friend Kitty and Ethel Griffies as the landlady. I was puzzled when I saw her leading man, billed as Kent Douglass. I knew I'd seen him before, and it wasn't until I checked that I recognized him as the Douglass Montgomery who played Laurie in the 1933 Little Women. He's suitably callow in both parts, which acted to his detriment in establishing a career, though I prefer him to the ever-pretty, ever-vacant Robert Taylor, who played the same role in the 1940 Waterloo Bridge. Billed sixth in the cast, after Frederick Kerr and Enid Bennett, is Bette Davis, who plays Montgomery's sister, Janet -- a space-filler of a role. If Davis had been cast as Myra -- which she devoutly wanted to be -- this version of the story might not have been lost to sight for so long. It was stored in the vaults at Universal, where it was discovered in 1975 but not released until the 1990s.

The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953)

The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953)

Cast: Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman, José Torvay, Sam Hayes, Wendell Niles, Jean Del Val, Clark Howat, Natividad Vacío. Screenplay: Collier Young, Ida Lupino, Robert L. Joseph, Daniel Mainwaring. Cinematography: Nicholas Musuraca. Art direction: Albert S. D'Agostino, Walter E. Keller. Film editing: Douglas Stewart. Music: Leith Stevens.

The thing I admire most about The Hitch-Hiker is its economy. It doesn't waste time giving us, for example, the backstory of Roy Collins and Gilbert Bowen, the two guys played by Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy. Lesser films would have given us scenes in which they bid farewell to their wives and children, trying to establish them as good guys in the hands of a psychopath -- we catch on to that fast enough without sentimental ties back home. Ida Lupino doesn't need to mess around with unnecessary sympathy for them. In fact, we're aware that they're not entirely paragons of virtue: They bicker, for example, about where they're going to spend their little time away from their wives, and there's a suggestion that they're glad to get away from home and family -- it looks like they want a little more action than just fishing. Later, after they've been trapped by Emmett Myers (a wonderfully scary performance by William Talman that makes me regret he got forever stuck as Hamilton Burger, the loser D.A. on the Perry Mason TV series), they quarrel about how they might escape from his clutches -- at one point Bowen even slugs Collins, who is on the verge of hysterics. There are some flaws: It's never really clear why Myers doesn't just shoot at least one of them -- he doesn't really need both to complete his journey to Santa Rosalía. And I do think the film falls a little flat at the end when Myers is so easily captured, but not enough to mar the gritty whole of the movie. Lupino and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca use the desert landscape to great effect: It provides both isolation and exposure. The Hitch-Hiker deserves its reputation well beyond its historical distinction as a film noir with an all-male cast directed by a (gasp!) woman.

Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)

Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)

Cast: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Martha Hyer, Arthur Kennedy, Nancy Gates, Leora Dana, Betty Lou Keim, Larry Gates. Screenplay: John Patrick, Arthur Sheekman, based on a novel by James Jones. Cinematography: William H. Daniels. Art direction: William A. Horning, Urie McCleary. Film editing: Adrienne Fazan. Music: Elmer Bernstein.

Like Douglas Sirk, Vincente Minnelli had a special touch with the movie melodrama, taking its often objectively silly elements seriously enough that you can actually believe in them. The James Jones novel on which the screenplay for Some Came Running was based is one of those semi-autobiographical books that writers seem to need to get out of their systems, but adapting it meant challenging the Production Code strictures, particularly on sex, at almost every turn. So the characters in the film are only as believable as the actors can make them. There's a lot of shorthand in the film about the relationships between Dave Hirsh (Frank Sinatra) and the two women in his life, the "schoolteacher" Gwen French (Martha Hyer) and the "floozie" Ginnie Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine). It's not immediately clear why Dave falls in love so swiftly with Gwen, who seems to want to mentor him as a writer more than she does to sleep with him, or why he stays connected with the illiterate and rattle-brained Ginnie, to the extent of marrying her on the rebound from Gwen. Fortunately, all three actors are adept at pulling characters out of the script, where they don't seem to have been fully written. Dean Martin was just beginning to show that he could act -- Howard Hawks would complete the process the following year with Rio Bravo -- and Minnelli helped give his career a boost by casting him as the alcoholic gambler Bama Dillert. And Arthur Kennedy completes the ensemble as Dave's go-getter older brother, Frank. Minnelli makes the most of these colorful performers, to the extent that MacLaine, Kennedy, and Hyer all received Oscar nominations. But he's also adept, as he would show in 1960 with Home From the Hill, at taking a real small town location and bringing it to full life, especially in the climactic scene that takes place in the carnival celebrating the town's centennial. The location gives the film a substance and reality that the script never quite supplies.

A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008)

A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008)

Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Anne Consigny, Mathieu Amalric, Melvil Poupaud, Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, Chiara Mastroianni, Laurent Capelluto, Émile Berling, Thomas Obled, Clément Obled, François Bertin, Samir Guesmi, Azize Kabouche. Screenplay: Arnaud Desplechin, Emmanuelle Bourdieu. Cinematography: Eric Gautier. Production design: Daniel Bevan. Film editing: Laurence Briaud. Music: Grégoire Hetzel, Mike Kourtzer.

A Christmas Tale is not exactly brimful of seasonal cheer, but it warrants watching at any holiday in which families gather to both celebrate and bicker. The Vuillard clan is somewhat dysfunctional, but they're also French, which means that they smoke, drink, and talk a little too much, and have idiosyncratic ways of showing that they love one another. The matriarch, Junon (who would ever have thought Catherine Deneuve would be cast as matriarch?), has cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant. The task of searching for a donor falls to the patriarch, Abel (and who would have ever thought of bringing together the goddess-like Deneuve and the froglike Jean-Paul Roussillon?), since Junon decides at this moment to leave everything to fate. And since this crisis is coming to a head at Christmastime, it means gathering the family for more than just celebrating a holiday. There are three living children -- the first-born died of cancer as a child -- and they don't entirely get along. Elizabeth, the oldest, has banished the middle child, Henri, from her life. The youngest, Ivan, naturally has to exhibit divided loyalties when the other two get together. Elizabeth and Ivan bring along their spouses and children; Henri, unmarried, brings his latest girlfriend, Faunia, who, being Jewish, has her own slightly distant take on the Christmas festivities. Elizabeth's teenage son, Paul, has recently had a nervous breakdown. He also turns out to be a match for Junon's transplant, as does the black sheep Henri, which sets up even more grounds for dissension, especially given the tension between Henri and Elizabeth. And so, out of all this stew of tensions, director Arnaud Desplechin puts together a fascinating portrait of what it means to be a family. He mingles a variety of filmmaking techniques with a whole range of literary, cinematic, and even musical allusions to give us a multifaceted view of the Vuillards, their past, present, and perhaps future. On second thought, maybe it's best not to watch this anytime near one of your own potentially volatile family gatherings -- it cuts a little too close to home.

Closely Watched Trains (Jirí Menzel, 1966)

Closely Watched Trains (Jirí Menzel, 1966)

Cast: Václav Neckár, Josef Somr, Vlastimil Brodský, Ferdinand Kruta, Alois Vachek, Vladimír Valenta, Jitka Bendová, Jitka Zelenohorská, Nada Urbánková. Screenplay: Bohumil Hrabal, Jirí Menzel, based on a novel by Bohumil Hrabal. Cinematography: Jaromír Sofr. Art direction: Oldrich Bosák. Film editing: Jirina Lukesová. Music: Jirí Sust.

It's a little hard to come up with the right adjective for Closely Watched Trains. "Bittersweet" doesn't quite work, nor does "tragicomic." It's one of those essentially comic films that keep you off balance by maintaining a matter-of-fact attitude toward life and death. We've all seen coming-of-age comedies about a young man's attempt to lose his virginity, but they rarely interrupt that process by a suicide attempt or end with a heroic self-sacrifice after the protagonist reaches his goal. The secret of Jirí Menzel's success at bringing off both deviations from the norm lies in the texture of his film: It's so full of little unexpected moments from characters who never quite behave in the ways we think they're going to that we come to accept their off-beat actions and attitudes. Take, for example, the subplot involving Hubicka's lovemaking with the telegraphist, during which he applies the bureaucratic stamps on the table where they consummate the affair to her bottom. She's perfectly fine with it, and even when her mother discovers the inked flesh and hauls her before the magistrate, she maintains a blissful smile during the interrogation. We've come to think of Hubicka as something of a womanizing creep, but her blithe acceptance of her role in their relationship upends (so to speak) what may have been our original view of it. She's using him at least as much as he's using her. 

Captain Marvel (Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, 2019)

Captain Marvel (Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, 2019)

Cast: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Annette Bening, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Lashana Lynch, Gemma Chan, Clark Gregg, Akira Akbar. Screenplay: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Nicole Perlman, Meg LeFauve. Cinematography: Ben Davis. Production design: Andy Nicholson. Film editing: Debbie Berman, Elliot Graham. Music: Pinar Toprak.

When I was a kid, Captain Marvel was a big guy in red long-johns and a cape who looked like a swole Fred MacMurray. But now, many years and many lawsuits later, the captain is a woman and my erstwhile superhero has taken on the name Shazam! which was the magic word that Billy Batson used to transform himself. And that's another movie -- not to mention another comics universe -- entirely, one that I hope I hope to see before too long. Captain Marvel the movie is about Carol Danvers and the origin story of her superhero alter ego. Or perhaps I should say one of the origin stories, because if you start rambling around the internet you'll find that the mighty captain has had many personae along the way. Even this origin story is a little head-spinning, involving rival alien races, abduction, amnesia, accidentally acquired superpowers, and much more. Even now, I'm not sure I can tell you for certain whether the Kree and the Skrull are the bad guys or the good guys and where Annette Bening's Dr. Lawson fits into the whole thing. Only my familiarity with Nick Fury and Phil Coulson (Samuel F. Jackson and Clark Gregg, respectively) from other Marvel movies and TV shows makes me think that Carol Danvers is doing the right thing by trusting them. Even my favorite character in the movie, Goose, is a somewhat ambiguous figure, apt to turn into a voracious many-headed monster when provoked. Good kitty. I have long since grown impatient with movies in which the credits run almost as long as the story, so the narrative complexity of Captain Marvel bored me less than the usual CGI foofaraw it sets up. Brie Larson does what she can with a character who, if she's really as invulnerable as the film implies, doesn't hold much chance for challenge and growth. I assume the sequels will show us what her Kryptonite is -- she can't just potter around the universe tidying things up forever.