You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939)

Director:  Lewis Seiler

Writers:  Robert Buckner, Don Ryan, Kenneth Gamet, Lewis E. Lawes, Jonathan Finn

Composer:  Heinz Roemheld

Starring:  Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, Billy Halop, John Litel, Henry Travers, Harvey Stephens, Harold Huber, Joe Sawyer, Joe Downing, George E. Stone, Joe King, Joseph Crehan

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  AMERICA'S TWO-FISTER ANSWER to the Gun-Mad Rats Who Rule the Underworld!

Plot:  Youthful tough Johnnie Stone has fallen under the influence of petty crook Frank Wilson, who involves him and robbery and murder using his sister's boyfriend's stolen gun.

My rating:   6/10

Will I watch it again?   Nah.

The Bogart of THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) (and beyond) is the Bogart I love.  A lot of what he did prior to that, mostly his really early stuff, he was stiff and the stuff caricatures are made of.  But here he is just two years away from being memorialized as Sam Spade that he's not just a cookie cutter bad guy and not just some other run of the mill actor walking the walk and talking the talk like any low rent stiff could do.  He, as Frank Wilson, does a great job manipulating Johnnie (Billy Halop) and he keeps on doing it until he's physically unable to, and by that time the damage is done.  I liked the film but it was painful watching Halop play the anguishing Johnnie.  The kid, as an actor, was trying too hard which meant his acting chops weren't up to the task of filling the role.  It doesn't help him that he's got a lot of screen time.  Besides, Johnnie was pissing me off to almost getting Fred killed by the electric chair.  All he had to do was tell the truth.  I suppose that was a big part of building suspense.  It just frustrated me and I was glad when it was finally over and Johnnie was finished.  It was a pleasant surprise hearing and then seeing Eddie "Rochester" Anderson pop up as a convict.  I love that guy.  It's an OK flick where you have to take the bad with the good.

Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Director:  Edward Dmytryk

Writers:  John Paxton, Raymond Chandler

Composer:  Roy Webb

Starring:  Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki, Miles Mander, Douglas Walton, Donald Douglas, Ralf Harolde, esther Howard

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  A night of murder the police won't let him forget! The only key to his safety... a woman's face he can't remember!

Plot:  After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.

My rating:   7/10

Will I watch it again?   Yeah.

Is it me or is this a little too complicated for its own good?   I dig the flick and it's fun.  The dialogue, acting and such is right where you want it to be for a noir crime picture but sometimes it feels like a copout when all the information you need to figure out what's going on isn't given until the massive exposition dump near the end.  Sometime it works great like in THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) and sometimes it feels like cheating as in this movie.  Maybe I'm getting too worked up about it.  I don't know.  Dick Powell is always fun to watch but I do like my noir detectives to be on the darker side than wise-cracking.  Moose (played by 6'5" Mike Mazurki) was a tough and fun character.  It's still a fun ride despite my bitching about being in the dark until the end.

Hell's Angels '69 (1969)

 

Director:  Lee Madden

Writers:  Don Tait, Tom Stern, Jeremy Slate

Composer:  Tony Bruno

Starring:  Tom Stern, Jeremy Slate, Conny Van Dyke, G.D. Spradlin, Bobby Hall, Steve Sandor, Sonny Barger, Terry the Tramp, Clifford Workman, Tiny Walters, Charles Tinsley, and the Oakland Hell's Angels

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  This was the RUMBLE that ROCKED Las Vegas!

Plot:  Chuck and his brother Wes are wealthy siblings who plan to rob Caesar's Palace more for fun than profit.  Oh, yeah, they're going to use the unsuspecting Hell's Angels to pull it off!

My rating:   7.5/10

Will I watch it again?   Yes.

 

Well goddamn this was different!  Biker flicks are nearly always predictable and they follow a similar pattern.  This one's very different.  The fact that a couple of wealthy brothers use the Hell's Angels (without the knowledge of the gang) to help them knock off Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas is a very unusual idea.  It's not hard to see how this got made by any studio.  Sure, it's AIP, a studio known for it's low budget drive-in movie fare, but it's still a studio with budget and a crew and not some max out your credit cards to get it made kind of a deal.  Hell, they even got a soundtrack album released on Capitol Records!  Nice going, fellas!!!

The premise is great although I knew nothing of the plot going in so the heist caught my completely by surprise.  The acting serves the film well enough and the lead actors (the brothers) do a very nice job.  Take a look at their credits, they are impressive.  Usually in a biker flick there'd be a ton of padding with the gang riding around everywhere and while that's here, it's just enough and it doesn't feel like it's there to eat up some time.  There's a variety of camera angles and other things you just don't expect to find with this genre.  And this is from a first-time director!!!  I'm going to have to see what else Lee Madden has done.  This picture is 96 minutes and I was left wanting more.   And HOLY FUCKING SHIT!  That ending!!! 

 

 

The River's Edge (1957)

Director:  Allan Dwan

Writers:  Harold Jacob Smith, James Leicester

Composer:  Louis Forbes

Starring:  Ray Milland, Anthony Quinn, Debra Paget, Harry Carey Jr., Chubby Johnson, Byron Foulger, Tom McKee, Frank Gerstle, Lee Morgan, and LOTS of fake rocks

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  It was kill ... or be killed ... all the way down to The River's Edge.

Plot:  A murderous thief on the run with stolen loot forces a poor rancher to guide him across the desert into Mexico. Accompanying them is the rancher's wife, who happens to be the killer's former girlfriend.

My rating:   5.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No. 

I'm down with the cast.  They're all good actors and great movie stars, especially Milland.  I've never seen a bad performance from him regardless of the movie's budget or quality.  He always shows up to win.  Quinn can be stale but he's generally a solid actor.  I'm not familiar much with Paget as I've barely seen anything of hers.  She was in SEVEN ANGRY MEN (1955) so she must be good if she could pull off playing a pissed of white guy.  I don't know what the fuck her character (Margaret) was thinking wearing heels on a desert ranch.

Milland (Nardo) can be charming but once he crosses the line of killing a cop (great scene, by the way - it's brutal), His likability factor drops until he's just weak and lot someone you want around anymore.  Quinn (Ben) does fine as the somewhat soft but tough husband to Margaret and becomes stronger as the picture nears to an end.  But he also gets sappier and sappier when it comes to his fragile relationship with his wife.  Oh, boy, do they pour the sugar on where you get that style of romantic crap where the two are talking madly in love while embracing and not looking each other in the eyes.  Yuck.

I know what you're saying.  "Hey, Scorethefilm, what about the fake rocks?  How'd they do?"  As obviously fake rocks go, they did a splendid job.  And I say, good for them for getting work.  This movie is to them as THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) was to little people - they hired A LOT of 'em!

I'm sure they re-used them at different angles and with magical lighting, but still.  They get a lot of screen time.  Good for them.  Fake rocks are a thing of the past now that computers do all the heavy lifting.  Ahahahahahahahahaha!  But seriously, there are a lot of fucking fake rocks in this movie.  

With Margaret getting syrupy sugar sweet with both of the men, there are no surprises in this picture.  You can probably figure out how this plays out because you've seen a gazillion of these pictures to just plain know.  You don't have to be a detective with a comically funny pipe to solve this case.  It's middle of the road entertainment and some bottom of the barrel-scraping by the three leads.  They all deserve better.  It's simply OK.  It's not good nor is it bad.  But those rocks acted their fucking pebbles off!

 

 

Johnny O'Clock (1947)

Director: Robert Rossen

Writers: Robert Rossen, Milton Holmes

Composer: George Duning

Starring: Dick Powell, Evelyn Keyes, Lee J. Cobb, Ellen Drew, Nina Foch, Thomas Gomez, John Kellogg, Jim Bannon, Mabel Paige, Phil Brown

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Time Was Running Out For Johnny O'Clock ... and so were his women!

Plot: New York gambling house operator Johnny O'Clock is junior partner in a posh casino with Guido Marchettis and Chuck Blayden, a crooked cop. But Blayden is trying to cut into the casino's profits and warns Johnny not to interfere with his intention of becoming Marchettis' full partner. Blayden ends his relationship with coat check girl Harriet Hobson, then disappears. Later, Harriet is found dead in her apartment, apparently from suicide. Police Inspector Koch begins an investigation.He questions Johnny, Harriet's sister Nancy, who is infatuated with Johnny, and Johnny's associate, Charlie. When Blayden's body turns up in a nearby river, and when it is learned that Harriet death wasn't suicide but murder by poison, Johnny and Marchettis become prime suspects in both cases.To make matters worse, Pete Marchettis discovers that his wife Nelle is having an affair with Johnny. Out of jealousy, he sends hired gunmen to kill Johnny in a drive-by shooting while Johnny is driving Nancy to the airport. Johnny, now certain that Marchettis has betrayed him, goes to the casino to end their business partnership.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Johnny O'Clock wouldn't be in this mess if he hadn't been squirelling around with all those dames.  He's one troubled dude.  Is that why he's such a brooding downer?  I don't think I saw him smile or laugh once.  Powell does a fine job but for my money, it was Cobb who stole the show as a drab, solid, hardened detective who's out for Johnny and to clean up the criminals.  He was great and the picture would've benefited from more of him.  But then this is called JOHNNY O'CLOCK and not INSPECTOR KOCH.  And while I'm thinking about it, That's a terrible last name.  Drinking game:  take a shot every time someone says his last name and you'll be hammered in twenty minutes.  It's so bad with the number and frequency that it calls attention to itself, hurting the picture for anyone who picks up on (and it's easy to notice and not stop noticing).  

The writing has your standard 40s crime dialogue and for the most part it's good.  It's when it gets into the melodrama with the broads is when it goes south, and there's enough of it to realize Rossen and Holmes were weak on writing female characters.  That's also where the picture shifts halfway in to deal with Johnny's relationships with his women and it starts to drag.  Until then, they'd done a nice job with the pacing of that first third only to crawl from that point on until the finish line was in sight.  The ending isn't a winner either with it's odd mix of emotions.  Johnny's a criminal but he's also the nicest and most charming of all the criminals in the picture so Inspector Koch gets his man but he's not really sore at Johnny, hinting that he'll put in a good word so his punishment won't be so bad.  It was just a little too happy for my taste.  

Cruising (1980)

Director: William Friedkin

Writers: William Friedkin, Gerald Walker

Composer: Jack Nitzsche

Starring: Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox, Don Scardino, Joe Spinell, Jay Acovone, Randy Jurgensen

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Al Pacino is Cruising for a killer.

Plot:  A police detective goes undercover in the underground S&M gay subculture of New York City to catch a serial killer who is preying on gay men.

My rating:  6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I'm not sure where this film failed.  It's an interesting premise but I don't think it went far enough with Steve's (Pacino) descent into a world unlike his own and the overall investigation of solving the murders.  The picture is an hour and forty minutes and it doesn't seem nearly long enough and that another half hour would give the film time to really delve into what's important to the picture.  That's just my amateur opinion, of course, and I respect William Friedkin and his body of work that this is the story he wanted to tell.  But what I found fascinating isn't given enough serious time to develop.  It's neat seeing so many actors in early roles like Ed O'Neill, James Remar and Powers Boothe.  The ending is satisfying enough but it's what happens after Steve is done with his undercover work that blew me away.  The ambiguity was fucking insanely good.  It could've been a red herring for the audience and a way to make you go, "ooooooh!", but I loved it just the same.

Dancing with Crime (1947)

Director:  John Paddy Carstairs

Writers:  Peter Fraser, Brock Williams

Composer:  Benjamin Frankel

Starring:  Richard Attenborough, Barry K. Barnes, Sheila Sim, Garry Marsh, John Warwick, Judy Kelly, Barry Jones, Bill Owen, Cyril Chamberlain, Peter Croft, Dirk Bogarde, Diana Dors, Jon Pertwee

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Torn from the sinister shadows of London after dark!

Plot:  A London cab driver gets mixed up with a criminal gang and sets out to expose the group and its leader for what they are.

My rating:   6/10

Will I watch it again?   No.

This is another middle of the road crime thriller from the 40s.  The performances are good, the story is fine for what it is but I never felt any suspense or tension.  You know it's there with the characters but it didn't translate to me.  It's just...there.  Unfortunately, the print I saw was too dark (taped off TV) which made the night scenes hard to make out who was who and what was happening to who.  And speaking of whos...see if you can spot the following in their almost first films: Dirk Bogarde, Diana Dors and Jon Pertwee!

The Butcher (2009)

Director:  Jesse V. Johnson

Writer:  Jesse V. Johnson

Composer:  Marcello De Francisci

Starring:  Eric Roberts, Robert Davi, Keith David, Geoffrey Lewis, Irini Bjorklund, Paul Dillon, Jerry Trimble, Michael Ironside

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Never gamble when you are desperate...

Plot: Merle Hench (Eric Roberts) is an enforcer for a mob outfit. He's set up to take the fall for a multi-million dollar heist of a rival mob boss. Merle's luck turns as he survives the trap and winds up with a piece of the take and the girl. He might have been content to just disappear, but the betrayal of his twenty years of loyalty snapped something inside.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Stuntman turned writer/director, Jesse V. Johnson, directed eight pictures before this one.  I'd say that's a lot.  I'm surprised because this is a REALLY long 95 minute flick.  It's so fucking slow.  The music score is mostly a slow, steady electronic beat, the kind you get when someone is on a heist and they're being super stealthy.  That makes the movie even longer.  Everything about this is so casual in its pacing that it almost feels like you're in one of those dreams where you're running but it's in slow motion and you can barely move.  I wonder why it's like this because it certainly doesn't have to be. 

The cast does an OK job.  Roberts doesn't give up the cool tough guy routine for a moment (which gets laughably old).  That slows things down since he's giving a one-note performance.  That's OK if you dig the tune but it's the combination of everything else in this that the total weighs it down.  There is a good deal of slow motion.  Scenes are too long and the ending is really stretched out.  Around an hour into this I thought it was wrapping up and I was only two-thirds in.  Ugh.  I'm trying to be positive here and I don't mean to come of like an angry guy who just says, "It sucks!" about movies and leaves it at that.  This would be an interesting project to give to people to play with the editing and the music and see how much better this could be.  I'm not saying this needs to move at a break neck speed but this picture is unnecessarily slow.

The Wild Rebels (1967)

Director:  William Grefe

Writer:  William Grefe

Composer:  Al Jacobs

Starring:  Steve Alaimo, Willie Pastrano, John Vella, Bobbie Byers, Jeff Gillen, Walter R. Philbin, Robert Freund, Seymour A. Eisenfeld

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  THEY LIVE FOR KICKS...LOVE FOR KICKS...KILL FOR KICKS!

Plot:  A stock car driver goes undercover as the wheel man for a motorcycle gang.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

Dig those sounds, man!

I've watched a lot of movies recently that suffer a similar problem.  They've got a bang-up fun and interesting first third, things settle down for the next third and a half and then what's left with the finale delivers enough as if to make up for the lackluster middle section.  That way you leave  thinking about the big finish, maybe forgetting the preceding dull shit.  Is it because screenwriters are full of energy when they begin a script, get tired, bored, or run out of ideas for a few dozen pages and then try like hell to wrap it up enough to wake up the audience?  This movie follows the same pattern.

The pop music in this and the main theme are really fun.  That first half hour is a blast.  Then after the gang rob a gun shop things slow down and stay that way until the last twenty minutes when they rob a bank, things go awry and lots of cops and robbers die of lead poisoning.  That last bit was great but it's hard to commit to watching this again because of that dull mid-section.  The acting's not so good but Steve Alaimo as Rod, the stock car driver and hero of the story, does very well.  This guy was selling it like a pro in the first act.  After that there wasn't all that much of interest for him to do.  This was the first of only four movies he acted in.   The best of the action is saved for the end.  The rest of it is your average, low budget fistfight shenanigans.  Nothing special there.  This is definitely worth a look.  It's a fun ride except for that middle part.  You'll love the beginning and end.  Well, I did.

The Great Texas Dynamite Chase (1976)

Director:  Michael Pressman

Writers:  Peter Macgretor-Scott, Mark Bruce Rosin

Composer:  Craig Safan

Starring:  Claudia Jennings, Tara Strohmeier, Jocelyn Jones, Miles Watkins, Nancy Bleier, Buddy Kling, Oliver Clark

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  They'll Blow You Away!

Plot:  A couple of slutty, thievin' chicks like to blow stuff up, rob banks and drive cars real fast.

My rating:  6/10

Will I watch it again?   No.

Well, I'll be.  This wasn't nearly as bad as I expected.  Of course, the abundance of nudity is a big plus.  Usually movies of this ilk are pretty bad and are filled with what's supposed to be "comedy", along with horrible rinkydink music to mimic the "comedy".  This one doesn't really have anything like that which is a welcome relief.   Claudia Jennings and Jocelyn Jones do a great job, you know, for a low budget drive-in picture like this.  No one's going into this expecting the likes of Laurence Olivier caliber of acting.  Their boobs do most of the heavy lifing anyway.  California, as usual, is the stand-in for Texas.  They rob some banks, have some sex, and generally enjoy themselves on the run from the fuzz.  The ending has some surprising moments which was welcome.  Dishing out something different in a movie that is so much like all the others of its day is nice.  Did I mention the boobs?

State of Grace (1990)

Director:  Phil Joanou

Writer:  Dennis McIntyre

Composer:  Ennio Morricone

Starring:  Sean Penn, Ed Harris, Gary Oldman, Robin Wright, John Turturro, Burgess Meredith, R.D. Call, Joe Viterelli, John C. Reilly, Deirdre O'Connell, Marco St. John

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  The Irish mob in Hell's Kitchen.

Plot:  A New York cop is recruited to return to his hometown and infiltrate the mob run by his best friend's brother.

My rating:  7.5/10

Will I watch it again?   Probably not.

Good flick.  After maybe three viewings over the past three decades, I still have trouble remembering anything about this movie.  Maybe my brain is full.  It's a well-told story (this movie, not my lack of retention) that feels about right at two hours and fourteen minutes.  The performances are good and Joanou and cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth (on his last film - he also shot BLADE RUNNER (1982) do a wonderful job in shooting NYC.  It looks great!  Ennio Morricone's score is sombre and effective.  He's in his 90s now and still composing with over 500 score credits!!!  The movie does run a little slow at times but it works.  I was surprised that there were at least a couple of moments when I was detecting tension but I wasn't feeling it.

Cleaner (2007)

Director:  Renny Harlin

Writer:  Matthew Aldrich

Composer:  Richard Gibbs

Starring:  Samuel L. Jackson, Ed Harry, Eva Mendes, Luis Guzman, Keke Palmer, Maggie Lawson, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Robert Forster

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Solving a crime can be dirty work.

Plot:  A former cop who now earns a wage as a crime scene cleaner unknowingly participates in a cover-up at his latest job.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?   No.

I've seen this twice now because I completely forgot everything when I saw it three years ago.   That's what happens when you let yourself get behind.  The first act is great but not entirely.  Tom (Jackson) talking about his job is interesting and fun (in a dark way).  Everything's going great until Ann (Mendes) shows up in his office like something out of a hard-boiled detective movie from the 40s & 50s.  There's a slow descent in quality from that moment on.  I though the story was pretty good.  It might've done with some touch-ups but the basic plot is very workable, especially when you throw in Folks like Jackson and Harris.  They're great!  And so are Guzman, Cantillo and Forster.   Mendes?  Not so much.  She played the role OK but she seemed rather empty.  Richard Gibbs' score had that underlying moody vibe that sounded so generic that it could be used in hundreds of other movies and you'd never know it.  I dig some of the guy's work but it was only serviceable in this picture.  The camera rarely stands still (or so it seems).  I don't know what it would've taken to make this better.  What I liked most about it were some of the performances from several actors whose work I respect a lot.

James Ellroy: American Dog (2006)

Directors:  Clara Kuperberg, Robert Kuperberg

Writers:  Clara Kuperberg, Robert Kuperberg

Starring:  James Ellroy, William Bratton, Dana Delany, Gerald Derloshon, William Stoner, Bruce Wagner, Tim Wride

More info:  IMDb

Plot:  James Ellroy is the hugely successful crime writer whose novels have proved gripping reading since his first publication in 1981. Among them, a number have also been turned into films, most famously LA Confidential. In this unique documentary, he reveals himself to be a writer in search of himself as he pursues his life-long obsession: his investigations into the murders of both his mother in 1958 and the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, who came to be known as 'The Black Dahlia'.

Why do all his books keep returning to the same subject, with the same protagonists? Because his entire life, both as a man and writer, has revolved around a single obsession: the murder of his mother - a murder which became entangled with the killing of the girl known as the Black Dahlia, found naked and mutilated years earlier. This intriguing film explores the journey of a man and author who plumbed the depths of hell before finding redemption.

A series of contributors, including Helen Knode, novelist and Ellroy's wife; Steve Hodel, former LAPD police officer and the author of the bestseller The Black Dahlia Avenger; Dean Tavoularis, production designer and painter, and William J Bratton, LA police chief, provide key information to help better understand this rite-of-passage of a man who had all the traits of a serial killer, a man who is now one of the greatest thriller writers of the age, a man for whom the journey is not yet over.


My rating:  7/10

Will I watch it again?  Nah.

I could listen to James Ellroy talk for days.  He's a really interesting guy and what happened to his mother is just tragic, to say the least.   Now knowing more about his mother's murder when he was a child, it makes complete sense that he's held a lifelong obsession with The Black Dahlia killing.  It's interesting hearing all of this from the man himself, learning about his childhood, early influences and his career as a writer.  Good stuff.

Steelyard Blues (1973)

Director:  Alan Myerson

Writer:  David S. Ward

Composer:  Nick Gravenites

Starring:  Donald Sutherland, Howard Hesseman, Peter Boyle, Jane Fonda, Mel Stewart, Morgan Upton, Jessica Myerson, John Savage, Nancy Fish, Roger Bowen

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  If you can't beat 'em ... drive 'em crazy!

Plot:  A group of misfits decide to leave for a place that they can all be free. Their mode of transportation is a PBY flying boat. The only problem is that the PBY needs a lot of work and they will need jobs to pay for the parts. When they find that they have only 10 days before the PBY is sold for scrap, they decide on borrowing the parts for their trip.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Hoo, boy.  I don't know what to say.  This flick meanders and doesn't feel like there was a complete grasp of what the filmmakers wanted and how to achieve it.  Sutherland is either doing a smashing job of looking bored and lazy or he's high.  It could be both.  Boyle is kind of fun because of his many costume/character changes.  He's got the 'lost his marbles' thing down pat.  Howard Hesseman is a blast.  He's probably my favorite character of the bunch.  The misfit band of oddballs doesn't work for me and neither does the lackadaisical pace and vibe of the film.  This was writer David Ward's first movie (the Internet says this was made in 1971 and released in 1973) and his next one was THE STING (1973).  These two pictures almost couldn't be farther apart in quality.  The Warner Bros. DVD has the film in anamorphic widescreen.  The only extras are the theatrical trailer (fullscreen), a 4 minute short film made during the film of this movie called, WOULD YOU BELIEVE?  PETER BOYLE! and a trailer for DUKES OF HAZZARD: THE BEGINNING.  The fuck?