Movie Review: Objective, Burma!
Year of Release: 1945
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Errol Flynn, William Prince, George Tobias, Henry Hull
Plot outline: An American platoon parachutes into Burma to take out a strategic Japanese outpost (IMDb).
Made during the mayhem of World War II, Objective, Burma! remains an exciting war picture by one of Hollywood's most prolific and reliable action directors, Raoul Walsh. Assembling a superb cast, the production is further strengthened by a powerful score from Franz Waxman, one of Hollywood's top composers. The standard mono mix is layered with plenty of sound effects and music, and the ultimate fusion of sound and picture occurs early on, during an incredible parachuting sequence over Burma. Incorporating actual newsreel footage with production material, Walsh, editor George Amy, and cinematography James Wong Howe milk every tense moment as the troupe awaits their drop point, while nervous team members and an aging reporter fear the worst. As the men jump from the plane, Waxman's dissonant score barrels from the speakers, and perfectly captures the danger, the gung-ho excitement, and urgency as the men scramble into the trees, bury their chutes, and trek to the radio station for their demolition assignment. The transfer is first-rate, showing no artifacting, and preserving Howe's immaculate cinematography; anytime you see the veteran cinematographer's name in the credits, you know you're in for a visual treat. The image clarity even reveals beads of sweat on the actors' porous faces. The final title crawl reflects the nation's sentiments in 1943 - Japan and Germany weren't just global enemies, but evil to the core - and while an exciting action movie, Objective, Burma! should be watched with an awareness that's the movie was an obvious morale booster, and reflects the strong anti-Japanese sentiments of the time. (MRH)
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: M
Year of Release: 1931
Country of Origin: Germany
Director: Fritz Lang
Cast: Peter Lorre Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Gustav Grundgens
Plot outline: When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child serial murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt (IMDb).
Fritz Lang's first sound movie was M, a crime drama that also made Peter Lorre a star. The movie was made in Germany shortly before the Nazis came to full power. Both Lang and Lorre had Jewish family connections, and would soon emigrate to America where their respective careers would continue successfully. The story has Lorre playing a pathetic, tormented murderer of little girls. As the list of his victims grow, Berlin falls into a state of panic. Citizens begin accusing each other of being the child serial murderer. In their frustrated search for the murderer, the police crack down heavily on criminal activity. Organized crime figures decide that they must find the murderer themselves, to return to business as usual. Soon, both the cops and the crooks are closing in on Lorre. Lang takes pains to show the similarities between the police captains and the crime-lords. Both meet separately to decide how to stop the murderer, and Lang switches back and forth between the two meetings. While the two groups may have different methods, the end result is the same: Lorre is to be identified, captured, tried, and executed. Lorre was well cast as the murderer. His nasal voice and unsettling manner and appearance played to stereotypes of what a child murderer would be like. Once he becomes hunted, his wide eyes and furtive behavior express fear and desperation. Once in Hollywood, he would overcome this early stereotype in a series of Mr. Moto movies, and was later best known for his supporting roles in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. (BK)
My judgement: **** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: In Which We Serve
Year of Release: 1942
Country of Origin: UK
Directors: Noel Coward, David Lean
Cast: Noel Coward, John Mills, Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson, Joyce Carey
Plot outline: This "story of a ship," the British destroyer HMS Torrin, is told in flash backs by survivors as they cling to a life raft (IMDb).
Although dated, Noel Coward's patriotic war movie captures the mood of Britain in 1942. Coward starts off with a narrative voice intoning the message: "This is the story of a ship." Luckily, it's not. It's the story of the men who served on her and the women who stayed behind. Coward has to prove that he is officer material and not some theatre johnnie with a talent to amuse. He tends to be severe, even when giving the crew a morale-boosting pep talk, and his relationship with the lady wife (Celia Johnson, in her first screen role) is textbook no-touchy-no-feely. He takes his role extremely seriously and, as a result, accumulates considerable respect. Although blatantly propagandist, the movie has good old-fashioned qualities. Coward was nervous of directing, since his experience had been entirely in the theatre, and so asked John Mills if he knew of anyone who might give him a hand. Mills suggested "the best editor in the country." He was hired. His name was David Lean. (AWM)
My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars
Movie Review: 12 Angry Men
Year of Release: 1957
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Henry Fonda, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall
Plot outline: A dissenting juror in a murder trial slowly manages to convince the others that the case is not as obviously clear as it seemed in court (IMDb).
The earnest 1957 jury-room drama 12 Angry Men promotes skepticism as civic duty - a lesson too often forgotten. Henry Fonda's juror No. 8 is the only one who takes the concept of reasonable doubt seriously, while his peers initially want a quick guilty verdict. Slowly, quietly Fonda convinces the others that the state's case is full of holes. The speechifying is didactic '50s liberal, and Fonda's character engages in some stunts that would get him thrown off a real jury, but screenwriter Reginald Rose is serious about the duty not to rush to judgment. Much of the message for both justice and mercy depends on our repugnance for juror No. 10 Ed Begley's obvious bigotry, although the script has been de-ethnicized to such a degree that it's not clear who the objects of his hatred are - slum dwellers in general, apparently. The movie showcases a roster of great character actors: Martin Balsam as the foreman; Lee J. Cobb as a father alienated from his own son; E.G. Marshall as the rectitudinous stock broker who "never sweats"; Jack Klugman as the token slum dweller; George Voskovec as the quiet immigrant faithful to American values; Robert Webber as the wishy-washy ad executive; and a brash young Jack Warden as a know-nothing who just wants to go to the Yankees game. Sidney Lumet, in his first directorial job, showed a sure hand at milking the claustrophobia as the arguments and animosities escalate. He was helped immensely by Boris Kaufman, a master of black-and-white cinematography. Lumet remembers that while screenwriter Rose "believed that people were good ... I don't feel that." (MSG)
My judgement: **** out of 4 stars
Movie Review: Man on Wire
Year of Release: 2008
Country of Origin: UK, USA
Director: James Marsh
Cast: Philippe Petit, Jean-Francois Heckel, Jean-Louis Blondeau, Annie Allix, Mark Lewis
Plot outline: A look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City's World Trade Center twin towers in 1974, what some consider, "the greatest artistic crime of the century" (IMDb).
The subject of James Marsh’s engrossing documentary Man on Wire is so good that it’s a wonder no one has thought to make a movie about it before. It’s not that the story is in any way a secret (on the contrary, it made international headlines in August of 1974), but it is quite possible that enough time has passed to allow it to fall into the deeper recesses of public consciousness; those who were alive at the time murmur something along the lines of “Yeah, I seem to remember that …,” while many of those who were born after the event, which would come to be called “the greatest artistic crime of the century,” might very well have never heard of it. Which is precisely what makes Man on Wire such a treat: It mines recent history in a way that makes it seem new and invigorating, reminding us of how wonderfully, blissfully deranged human behavior can be. James Marsh, who has previously made both feature movies and documentaries, turns Man on Wire into a nail-biter of a thriller, which is all the more extraordinary given the fact that we know Philippe Petite is going to pull it off. The question becomes “How?” How are he and his associates going to sneak into then-still-under-construction World Trade Center twin towers with hundreds of pounds of equipment (including at least 200 feet of three-quarter-inch steel cable weighing 450 pounds), make it to the roof, and set up a complex tightrope apparatus that can sustain high winds more than 1,350 feet above the streets of New York City? The unfolding answers to those questions is what compels Man on Wire along as it draws you into Petite’s artfully inspired scheme that still amazes those who pulled it off. Of course, knowing that the Twin Towers are now gone gives the movie an expectedly bittersweet tone, which Marsh never explicitly milks. Petite’s antics were technically criminal, but as Petite himself noted both at the time of his arrest and today, there is no easy “why” to explain them. To do so would reduce his death-defying accomplishment to simple psychodymanics and tear it away from the high-wire art and life philosophy he so fervently pursued. (JK)
My judgement: ***1/2 out of 4 stars
Year of Release: 1945
