cigarjoe
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Posts posted by cigarjoe
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Stalag 17, yes.
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There are plenty of Film Noir that take place around Christmas and the Holidays.
Christmas Holiday, Blast Of Silence, Two Men In Manhattan, Lady In The Lake, Cover Up, Roadblock, Crime Wave, I, The Jury, Repeat Performance, Backfire, there are more Neo Noir also.
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The Homesman (2014) It's a 7/10, way better than Meek's Cutoff, but still, all these overly touchy feely arty Westerns seem to be more what I'd call Wiminz Westerns. They just ain't the same animal, they got a different vibe to 'em, they still don't even compare to say a Wiminz Western from the Golden Age like Westward The Wiminz. they just got an off feel to them. Tommy Lee Jones, Hilary Swank, and John Lithgow.
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Meeks Cutoff (2010)This film was a total snooooooooozzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeefesssssssstttttttttttttttt, with an ambiguous ending.
Here is my scenario for their next opus. A rancher gets up at the break of dawn, he heats up some coffee, fries some bacon and eggs, he gets the horses rigged up and attaches the wagon. He rides out towards town. 4 hours later he hears a squeaky wheel. He stops gets some grease out of the grease bucket and greases the axle. He hops back on drives his team another 4 hours and finally gets to town. The end, another exciting tail of the true West.
It's the real West, forget John Ford, Henry Hathaway, Budd Boetticher, etc., etc., directors who knew how to make exciting Westerns. This is the West as it probably actually was, boooooorrrrrinnnnnggg.
Watch Westward The Women, Wagon Train, this revisionist stuff is getting same ol' same ol'. lol. It's only for complete Western junkie nutters who'll watch anything that will give that Western fix.
*Note the real Meek did get the party of about 1000 pioneers to the Willamette Valley.
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Stay away from the atrocious 1992 remake.
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The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) Cassavetes' Jazz Noir
Until I saw Mikey And Nicky a few weeks ago, I honestly have never been that big a fan of John Cassavetes as an actor. He was always a bit too intense, wound a bit too tight, reminding me a demented Jerry Lewis hopped up on steroids.He got older. And with age he slowed down a bit making him more world weary and more believable to me as an actor. I haven't seen much of his directed material either. A few Johnny Staccato's which weren't bad, the horribly boring (to my tastes anyway) Too Late Blues, and Gloria which I liked, and now The Killing Of a Chinese Bookie which I loved.
There are two versions of Chinese Bookie out there. The initial 135 minute release which tanked at the box office. The re-edit by Cassavetes clocked in at 108 minutes. The re-edit trims a lot of Gazzara's expositional explorations of Cosmo's character. It also adds an extra sequence at The Top Sider gambling club, where a uppity doctor and his gambleholic wife are getting threatened by the gangsters. A lot of "Mr. Sophistication and his De Lovelies" routines are trimmed or cut also. The longer version immerses you more into Cosmo's world, it's Cassavetes riff on Noir. 8/10 Full review with some screencaps from the Criterion DVD in Film Noir/Gangster.
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The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) Cassavetes' Jazz Noir
Until I saw Mikey And Nicky a few weeks ago, I honestly have never been that big a fan of John Cassavetes as an actor. He was always a bit too intense, wound a bit too tight, reminding me a demented Jerry Lewis hopped up on steroids.
He got older. And with age he slowed down a bit making him more world weary and more believable to me as an actor. I haven't seen much of his directed material either. A few Johnny Staccato's which weren't bad, the horribly boring (to my tastes anyway) Too Late Blues, and Gloria which I liked, and now The Killing Of a Chinese Bookie which I loved.
So let's get into the story. La La Land. The City Of Angels. West Hollywood. Cosmo Vittelli (Gazzara) owns a small nightclub, cabaret, dump, take your pick, on Santa Monica Blvd. The Crazy Horse West. It's Cosmo's dream, his pride and joy. He's obsessed with it. Everything he makes he invests back into the joint. He's also a two bit impresario arranging the acts, designing the stage decorations, choosing the music, choreographing the skits, doing the lighting, acting as the emcee. The place is doing decent business. Cosmo is working hard at what he likes, he's comfortable and happy, loving life. Living the American Dream.
Cosmo Vitelli: I've got a golden life. Got the world by the balls. That's right, I'm great... I am amazing.
Cosmo's got style. He's a snappy dresser, he gets along great with the help, his dancers are his ersatz family, and he has as his girlfriend, the beautiful ebony goddess, Rachel (Azizi Johari). Cosmo only has one problem, he thinks he's a player. He likes action. He's got a small gambling problem. He doesn't know when to fold and he builds up gambling debts that he's got to scramble to pay. When we first meet Cosmo he's making his last payoff to a loan shark named Marty Reitz (Al Ruban).
Marty: Cosmo you're a prince. Now you can go out and work for yourself.
Cosmo: Marty you're a low life. No offence but you have no style. I do business with you but you have no style.
Marty: Cosmo anytime you need some help come to me.
Cosmo: I don't ever want to see you again.
Marty: Don't push it.
"Marty you're a low life." Cosmo (Gazzara) 
Cosmo goes back to the club. A few days later a mobster in cahoots with Marty named Mort Weil (Seymour Cassel), shows up at the Crazy Horse with an entourage. He introduces himself to Csomo. He compliments Cosmo on the Crazy Horse, he gets buddy buddy, tells Cosmo that he runs a club also, a private one for gambling, a class carpet joint, it's fronted in The Top Sider a hoity-toity boat club down in Santa Monica. Mort tells Cosmo that he can give him unlimited credit. That is the bait. You can almost see the lights go on in Cosmo's eyes. They want to set Cosmo up as the fish.
The next day Cosmo, acting like Mr. Big, hires a limo and dressed to the nines in a tux, picks up his three favorite dancers, Margo (Donna Gordon), Rachel and Sherry (Alice Friedland). He gives them all orchids and takes them to The Top Sider. There during the course of the afternoon, with his eye candy surrounding him, he manages to lose $23,000 at poker and runs out of credit. He's out of the game. He now has to sign makers for the whole amount. He's basically now screwed.
Back at the Crazy Horse, Cosmo's visited by the mobsters that run The Top Sider, Mort, Flo the mob enforcer (Timothy Carey), Phil (Robert Phillips), The Boss (Morgan Woodward), and Red the accountant (John Kullers).
There are some excellently choreographed intimidating physical performances by the actors here, on the sidewalk outside the club. The mobsters tell Cosmo that he can eliminate his debt if he kills this small timer down in Chinatown, the titular, "Chinese Bookie." Cosmo doesn't want to do it at first, but it's basically an offer he can't refuse. Flo roughs him up, they make him get into their limo, they give him an automatic, a map with an address and describe the layout. For Cosmo, they got a stolen hot wired car. It's parked and running right behind the limo. He's to use it for the job. Flo tells him "don't stall it, there's no key."
Cosmo hops in the car and drives down the boulevard and onto the entrance ramp of the Freeway to Noirsville.
Noirsville
Flo (Timothy Agoglia Carey) Cosmo, after a series of mishaps, a flat tire, the subsequent stalling of the hit car in the middle of the busy freeway, having to run out to a service road to call a taxi from a gas station phone booth, and having to get a dozen cooked hamburgers at a bar to distract the guard dogs. He finally gets to the bookie's house. He feeds the dogs, slips through the gate, gets in kills the bookie and a handful of guards, but gets a bullet in the back on his way out. Going on sheer adrenalin, Cosmo runs out of the neighborhood, flags a taxi and heads to Rachel's house where he finally starts feeling the effects of his wound. Rachel's Mama tends to him. He recovers enough to head back to the club.
Meanwhile at a restaurant/mob hangout, Marty confronts Mort and tells him that the **** has hit the fan, the boss of the Chinese mafia the "heaviest cat on the West Coast was assassinated." Marty blanches. Their plan was really a double cross and they expected Cosmo to get killed, instead he probably ignited a gang war. Now Marty tells Mort to kill Cosmo before the Chinese Triads can connect him to them. Mort slides over to Flo's table tells him the bad news, that Cosmo did what they couldn't do and gives him the job to whack Cosmo. Flo is instantly sweating bullets.
Flo heads to the Crazy Horse and waits. When Cosmo finally shows up, Flo has come to the nervous realization that Cosmo, with his Korean combat training, is the real professional hit man and that he and his mobbed up goombahs are the **** cheezy amateurs. Flo asks Cosmo to take a ride with him, tells him that the gang wants to hear how it went. Cosmo tells Flo that he's not feeling well and that "I'll tell you and you can tell the gang." Flo insists, and Cosmo suddenly and surprisingly agrees. The coolness of Cosmo on the trip to the deserted warehouse gives Flo cold feet. Cosmo tells Flo he's a amature and tells him to leave. Flo hops in his car and splits. Outside Flo passes Mort waiting in his parked car, he runs his window down and tells Mort that Cosmo is his friend (for letting him live), and if he want's him dead you kill him.
Mort drives into the warehouse looking for Cosmo. Mort puts his car in park and is immediately surprised to find Cosmo right outside his window. Mort starts some distracting **** small talk while trying to gab his gun and Cosmos shoots him dead. While this is going on Phil has driven into the warehouse. Cosmo slips away while an anxious Phil is blasting away at shadows.
Cosmo taxi's back to the Crazy Horse, back to his whole world, the show goes on but with a bullet in the back, and a few of the mob still out there. Cosmo stands on the sidewalk at the entrance his blue jacket acquiring ominus red pinstripes below a bullet hole. We are left up in the air as to Cosmo's final ambiguous fate.
Ben Gazzara's performance, and he essentially carries the bulk of the film, is excellent. He is very compelling as the dreamer whose whole life, his whole reason for being, is connected up with the running of his club. It's his baby. He actually radiates happiness a sort of visible serenity, positively glows when all is right with his girls in his world. His cheshire grin will long haunt your memory of the film.
Whenever Cosmo is separated from this dream he is still so involved and concerned with his show that even during the hit and all the complications, he'll stop, drop some quarters into a payphone to call the club to check on how things are going and what number is being performed. His conflicts and strained relations with the mob juxtaposed against his entrepreneurs vitality give the film its dramatic tension.
Cassavetes's direction in this feels superficially a bit similar, to me, in style to Robert Altman's way of filming dialog as overheard conversations. Besides the main script, written also by Cassavete, you're getting a lot of short situational improvisations, and this with the combination of professional and amateur actors interacting comes off as real slices of life.
All the supporting cast are great, especially Noir veteran/lunatic Timothy Carey (Ace in the Hole(1951), Crime Wave (1953), Finger Man (1955), The Killing (1956)). Meade Roberts is Teddy aka Mr Sophistication. Picture in your mind a fat, moody, talentless Tiny Tim. He thinks obviously that he is an artiste, he is also another one of the dreamers, dreaming he's some kind of prima donna of taste. He is portrayed as intentionally bad, singing acapella off key tunes to an audience that's probably too drunk or stoned to care as long as they see some gyrating **** on stage in accompaniment. The De Lovelies "artistic" routines are also amateurish, as you'd so expect in some **** hole Tinseltown strip dive that has apprehensions of greatness.
The cinematography uncredited was by Cassavetes, Mitch Breit, and Al Ruban. The Music, sort of a "Cosmo's Theme" tying it all together was by Bo Harwood.
There are two versions of Chinese Bookie out there. The initial 135 minute release which tanked at the box office. The re-edit by Cassavetes clocked in at 108 minutes. The re-edit trims a lot of Gazzara's expositional explorations of Cosmo's character. It also adds an extra sequence at The Top Sider gambling club, where a uppity doctor and his gambleholic wife are getting threatened by the gangsters. A lot of "Mr. Sophistication and his De Lovelies" routines are trimmed or cut also. The longer version immerses you more into Cosmo's world, it's Cassavetes riff on Noir. The screencaps are from the Criterion DVD 8/10 Full review with more screencaps here: Noirsville
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It would be nice to have a TCM tech give us some answers.
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The Italian Connection (La mala ordina ) (1972) Two American mob hitmen Henry Silva and Woody Strode, are sent to Milan to kill a Mafia pimp Mario Adorf who is suspected of stealing a portion of a heroin shipment. It's actually Milan Mafia Boss Adolfo Celi (Largo in Thunderball) who did it. Watchable but nothing special, 6-7/10
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On 11/15/2017 at 10:39 AM, Dargo said:
Sorry Rich, but even with the swapped haircuts those two fat-butted fatheads up there don't look alike.
(...and besides let's remember here, this thread is about people who LOOK alike, not ACT alike, if you don't mind!)
Maybe if they both bent over and dropped trou we'd see more of a resemblance.
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I saw Bo Derek in 10 and possibly Tarzan, but it's been so long ago. I haven't seen Pia Zadora in anything until the other day when I actually watched Butterfly on Youtube, unfortunately it was in German with no subs but you get an eye full of Pia.
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3 hours ago, Fedya said:
Cigarjoe:
You're probably thinking of Flyboys (2006), which was about the Lafayette Escadrille. Bill Wellman's last movie was also about the Lafayette Escadrille.
Yea that's it. I knew it wasn't named Lafayette Escadrille, thanks.
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I have it (Sling) also, the "oops it looks like some of your content didn't load, please try later." seems to come and go, some days I'll have no problems at all other times I do. But I did notice this last time that it happened that message didn't come up on every selection. I'm wondering if maybe I'm hitting the buttons too fast and not maybe letting it load fully. If I push the buttons too fast occasionally it will cause the Roku box to reset. I hate the navigation on Roku.
It maybe a Roku problem rather than a Sling TV problem for me anyway. What are you using to cast with?
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Trapped was great.
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The Red Baron (2008) bio pic about Manfred Von Richthofen some nice aerial combat shots/CGI about 7/10. There's been a few films since The Blue Max that covered WWI aerial combat back in 1966. There was that one about the I think it was the volunteer American Expeditionary Force before US involvement, I don't remember it's name and probably another. I need to see Wings and the others again to compare.
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Fallen Angel (1945)
I rewatched Fallen Angel today.
It's a Noir with all of the right ingredients. An out of money drifter named Eric who gets thrown off a Pacific Coast Highway bus in a California seaside flyspeck called Walton. He has one dollar to his name, the fare to San Francisco is $2.25. Out of luck buddy.
The chiaroscuro cinematography throughout the film is breathtaking. Review with a few screencaps in Film Noir/Gangster pages.
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Fallen Angel (1945)
I rewatched Fallen Angel today.
It's a Noir with all of the right ingredients. An out of money drifter named Eric who gets thrown off a Pacific Coast Highway bus in a California seaside flyspeck called Walton. He has one dollar to his name, the fare to San Francisco is $2.25. Out a luck buddy.
He walks to a beanery called Pop's. Pop is an old **** infatuated with his sultry waitress. a doll named Stella. Another patron under steamy Stella's spell is an ex NYPD cop named Mark Judd.
Stella's character is embodied with a ton of subtext. To have that many guys hanging and sticking around her, is not simply because she's just a very desireable woman. The way it's depicted is as if she's a cat in heat. They way I read it, as a man, is, that, this dish Stella is, to put in the terminology of the day "a broad who's good for a blast, a cookie who likes to make it with the whoopie, basically "putting out.," To what extent exactly she is doing so or letting get done to her is never spelt out, but she seems to be a tough cookie, juggling various horney tomcats.
A free spirit up to a certain point. She'll let any dreamboat eager beaver have a shot at it. A "hotsy totsy, hot diggity dog!, a share-crop, Wow!" You can, in the best noir tradition, let your imaginations run wild.
Getting back to Eric. After a cup of joe, he then heads over to a local dive hotel and cons his way into the room booked by a traveling "Spook Show," by claiming he knows Professor Madley the spiritualist. And this in turn leads to Eric worming his way into the good graces of two rich spinsters June and Clara Mills. The chiaroscuro cinematography throughout the film is breathtaking.
Screencaps are from the Fox DVD, full review with more screencaps at Noirsville
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How about bringing Laurel and Hardy or Chaplain, Harold Lloyd, Our Gang/little rascals to elementary classrooms ..... get an early appreciation for Black & White images.
'member that Little Rascal short about Petey, it's almost a silent film, the one where I think it was Stymie goes looking all around the neighborhood for him and Petey is in the pound getting ready to get gassed. It was a pretty powerful little short.
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7 hours ago, limey said:
Possibly, but TCM has aired at least the following over the last few years:
- Abbott And Costello Meet Captain Kidd
- Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
- Abbott and Costello in Hollywood
- Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Yea how about those in the amount of rotation that say North By Northwest gets. My point is that these films are what we as kids, saw and as a result got turned onto films from an early time than what was contemporary for us. You hear some kids today that won't look at anything old, or if it's in Black & White forget it.
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Young, Violent, Dangerous (1976) Tomas Milian is the police commissioner of Milan, Italy on a manhunt for three young criminals shooting up the city. The film boasts a couple of exciting car chases through the narrow city streets, the police look a bit stupid though, and seemingly a bit uncoordinated, it has a few either plot holes or cuts that creates these holes however. Eleonora Giorgi was cute. 7/10
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33 minutes ago, limey said:
I know that this may be considered an act of heresy... but, I'd rather like to see some of Mr Turner's infamous colorization's, if only to see how technically effective they were...
We could call it CI, Cinematically Incorrect
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3 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:
What about me?!?
<-----
His bit was pretty good, ya gotta admit.
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Jackie Brown (1997) Soul Noir
A great amalgamation of Blaxploitation, Neo Noir, and Elmore Leonard, by Quentin Tarantino.
This film is a lot of fun to watch, Tarantino weaves his magic in his Tarantinian way. Snappy dialog, check, pop references, check, soul music, check, low life losers, check, bringing back blasts from the past in the forms of Pam Grier and Robert Forster, check. The film is probably one of his more restrained efforts, but it fits perfectly for Film Noir.
Noirs were almost always about small time losers. Low key stories of life on the cusp. Tales that drift to the wrong side of the tracks. It's about poor schmucks who are trying to get by any way they can. And if in the process they have to step over on the dark side occasionally, and make deals with the boogie man, well, in this case, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.
This film is full of these amusing vignettes, and it's a fun ride. Everyone is jockeying for position. Odell wants his cash, the ATF and LAPD want Odell, Max wants Jackie, and Jackie wants her freedom and a payback from Odell. How all this plays out is part of the magic of the movie and it's the getting there with wonderful fleshed out characters that's a hoot.
The film stars Pam Grier as Jackie Brown, Samuel L. Jackson as Ordell Robbie, Robert Forster as Max Cherry, Bridget Fonda as Melanie Ralston, Michael Keaton as Ray Nicolette, Robert De Niro as Louis Gara, Chris Tucker as Beaumont Livingston, Michael Bowen as Mark Dargus, Lisa Gay Hamilton as Sheronda, Tommy "Tiny" Lister Jr. as Winston, Hattie Winston as Simone and Sid Haig as the Judge.
Cinematography was by Guillermo Navarro and the soundtrack has cuts by Bobby Womack, Smokey Robinson, Brothers Johnson, The Supremes, Pam Grier, Bloodstone, Roy Ayers, Johnny Cash, Jermaine Jackson, The Delfonics, Minnie Riperton, Foxy Brown, Isaac Hayes, Bill Withers, The Meters, Elliot Easton's Tiki Gods, Elvin Bishop, The Guess Who, The Grassroots, Randy Crawford, The Vampire Sound Incorporation, Orchestra Harlow, Umberto Smaila, Snakepit, Brad Hatfield and Dick Walter.
Partial review with some screencaps in Film Noir/Gangster and full review with more screencaps and dialog at Noirsville
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Recently watched Noir
in Film Noir--Gangster
Posted
Bob le Flambeur (1956) Laissez les bons temps rouler
Montmartre, 18th arrondissement, Paris. Bob's " hood." Excon. Bank robbery. He's been a well known fixture for twenty some odd years since, among the denizens "de la nuit." He's even quite friendly with the police commissioner Ledru. It seems that long ago a criminal "the Stick" took a shot at him but Bob deflected his gun at the last moment, saving his life.
When Bob's on a winning streak he goes and bets the harness horses at the Hippodrome, or heads to the Channel beach casino at Deauville. He's a complete gambleholic. He even has a one armed bandit that he keeps in the closet at his home.
Bob wears a fedora and trenchcoat with panache. He regularly trolls throughout the night, he's got a circuit, the cafes, the private clubs, the night spots, the bars and back rooms of Place Pigalle. He combs for games of chance, craps or cards. Today he's having a run of bad luck. At dawn almost broke he quits.
Heading back on foot to his flat. He spots a young girl, une jeune fils strolling the concrete, the prostituée Anne. Fresh talent. He's never noticed her before. Bob gives her some friendly advice, telling her that, she'll end up a "pavement princess," and he slips her some money for a hotel. Bob is played by Roger Duchesne the femme fatale streetwalker Anne by Isabelle Corey.
When later, Bob sees Anne walking down the street carrying a suitcase he asks her if she didn't use the money he gave her, and she replies that she had to use it to pay off her hotel bill so that she could get her clothes. Bob offers her the use of his apartment. Bob is afraid that she will fall into the clutches of Marc (Gérard Buhr) a notorious Montmartre pimp.
Marc has got to split town the police are searching for him. He goes to Bob's flat and asks for money. Bob is good for staking people not quite on the straight and narrow. Bob is about to hand him a hundred francs but when he finds out that Marc beat up his ****, he tells him to get the hell out.
Marc gets picked up by the police. Le commissaire Ledru (Guy Decomble), tells him that if he gives him something, rat's something he will let him off. He wants him to be a stoolie. Marc says that he knows of nothing, but if Ledru lets him loose he'll get him something.
While all that is going on Paulo is basically getting screwed stupid by Anne. When Bob and Roger start to organize the heist Paulo is included in the plans. They get the floor plan, recreate the casino in chalk in a field and lay out all the details.
After another marathon session in bed with Anne, Paulo boasts to her that soon he will give her the moon. He spills about the heist at Deauville. Anne during all this time has worked her way up at Roger's club graduating to the role of a "hostess." One night she lets herself get picked up by Marc. She goes home with him for a roll in the hay, and while they are canoodling afterwards she tells Marc that Paulo will soon be rolling in it. When Marco gets way too much interested in this news Anne immediately knows she made a mistake. Anne runs to find Bob and tells him what she said to Marc. Bob angrily slaps her. He asks how long ago did she tell Marc, she tells him five minutes and Bob hurrying, heads out to tell Paulo and Roger that the heist is off unless they can find and stop Marc. Then they spread out to look for Marc. Paulo finds him in a brasserie just as he's about to phone tip the police about Bob's plans and shoots him down.
With Marc out of the way the heist is still on.
Of course the croupier's wife who has grown suspicious of Jean's sudden wealth prys the deal with Roger and Bob out of Jean. And then wants to blackmail Bob for more.
When Susanne can't find Bob she decides to tip the police about the heist, and it goes Noirsville in Deauville.
Noirsville.
Screencaps are from the Criterion DVD. 8/10 Full review with more screencaps here Noirsville