Back by Popular Demand: Films I've Watched Lately Some of Which I've Loved Greatly

Cabaret -- old chum

Cabaret (1972) Fosse. I’ve been enjoying this picture for about fifty-three years, that is since it first appeared in theaters. I saw it three times during its initial theatrical run. I’ve no idea how many times I’ve seen it since but suffice to say my DVD is well worn. It sits at number twenty-two on my all-time top 100 films list which come to think of it seems a tad low. Cabaret features Oscar winning performances from Liza Minelli and Joel Grey and Grey’s turn as the master of ceremonies is one of the greatest supporting player performances of all time in any film of any genre. But one thing I noted during my latest viewing was how good Michael York was. He was evidently one of many candidates for the role of Brian Roberts. It is difficult to imagine anyway being better in the role. He had to play opposite the vivacious, the eccentric, the emotional, the erratic, the delightful Sally Bowles (Minelli) and let her do her thing. This he did with aplomb. Cabaret delights on so many levels. The music, the characters, the setting, the stories. I’ll never tire of it.

Lacombe, Lucien (1974) Malle. Talk about the banality of evil….A young Frenchman in war torn France seeks to join the resistance but stumbles into a group of French collaborators who work for the German police. What the heck, he joins them instead. The title character is not a lad with great intellectual gifts and he wants to be part of something, he wants to belong, he wants action and excitement, never mind with whom and for what. Lucien kills easily as we see early in the film when he needlessly kills a small bird with a slingshot. He falls in love with a young woman named France (the stunning Aurore Clément) and tears her life asunder. This is a story of how easily and thoughtlessly we can slip into various roles even ones that require us to kill. The horrors committed in the film are not presented so as to shock us, rather they are matter of fact, carried out by regular people who fancy themselves doing regular work. The great Louis Malle directed. 

More Than a Secretary (1936) Green. What an awful movie and particularly a terrible waste of the great Jean Arthur. I’ve remarked before how Ms. Arthur had chemistry with every leading man she played opposite of. That was before I saw this clunker where her love interest is George Brent. Maybe they would have worked well together with a decent script or under a better director but this is one of those movies that doesn’t work on any level. Screwball romcoms are supposed to make us root for the couple to get together. In this picture I soon gave up any interest in the two and and whether they lived happily ever after or not. I just wanted it over.

A Matter of Life and Death (1946) Powell and Pressburger. David Niven is a World War II British pilot who was supposed to die but the conductor from heaven missed him in the fog. Every effort will be made to bring him back. It’s a bizarre premise but it’s still a very good film. Kim Hunter is the radio operator who the flyer falls in love with in the minutes before he was supposed to die. Roger Livesey plays a doctor friend of Hunter’s who is naturally skeptical that this downed flyer is being told he must ascend to the afterlife. But when he’s forced by personal circumstance to believe him, the doctor defends him in afterlife court. None of it is as silly as it seems and it all makes for an intriguing tale and moving love story. It’s got elements of Here Comes Mr. Jordan and The Devil and Daniel Webster. This is one of four excellent films in a row that Powell and Pressburger made between 1944 and 1947 (the others being A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I’m Going and Black Narcissus). 

Love Affair (1939) McCarey. Sappy, cloying ultimately dull. Not a total waste of time; after all, you get the charms of Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne as your leads but it's bit too melodramatic for my taste. I didn’t care for the remake, An Affair to Remember, either despite it starring Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant and the newest version, also called Love Affair with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening was a stinker. The passion in this version (the best of the three for whatever that's worth) is more told than shown. I never believed it. The side story with the grandmother seemed particularly contrived and lacking emotional heft. If you told me you liked or even loved this film I’d think not a whit less of you. Simply not my thing. Leo McCarey was a fine director but his films were often more technically astute than emotional impactful.

Ever Since Eve (1937). Silly movies can be good movies and of course great fun. Such is the case with this delight which was Marion Davies’ last film role. She was in her late thirties and still easy on the eyes though she looked puffy, doubtless from the heavy drinking that she was indulging in. Nonetheless she and co-star Robert Montgomery worked well together in the story of a woman (Davies) who makes herself look plain so that she can land a job as secretary to a novelist (Montgomery). Patsy Kelly and Allen Jenkins, two of the better supporting players of their era, are in top form here and add to the zaniness. Davies and Montgomery were two of the better comic actors of the their time and together they took a very silly premise and made a perfectly charming movie out of it.

Three Favorite Films From Some of my Favorite Directors Much Annotated And This is Part 2

Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.- Jean Cocteau

Here is what I said before part one of this series which I have by the way decided will have three parts:
The title says it. I take a favorite director and pick my three favorite films he's done or did. Then I write something though sometimes off topic and not necessarily about all three films. I'm calling this part one which suggests that there will be parts to follow. When I don't know. Who can know such things. Truly.

Roberto Rossellini. Roma, citti aperta (1945). Stromboli (1950). The Flowers of Saint Francis (1950). Neo realism as it was meant to be. The human drama. In World War II. In a lonely fishing village. Among monks. The evil the beatified the depraved the tortured. I've never seen a spectacular shot within a Rossellini film but I've seen the spectacular. How do you film desperation or fear or moral decay or certitude? Seems impossible but he did it. There was magic in his style in that he created such depth and drama so effortlessly to our eyes and senses. It just sank in. Sinks. His films don't won't age.

William Wellman. Wild Boys of the Road (1933). Heroes For Sale (1933). Westward the Women (1951). Someone asked me the other day what films most captured the spirit of John Dos Passos and his novels that comprised the USA Trilogy. I said the pre code films of William Wellman which include Wild Boys and Heroes. Like Dos Passos these stories had the power of relevance truth honesty and authentic American style characters often bucking up against the rich and powerful. The struggle of individuals to survive in a cold mechanized and heartless society. Usually finding strength and comfort in numbers. Wellman was a truly American film maker who never bent his films in the direction of easy popularity. He didn't soften characters or stories. There is a timeless quality in his films just as there is in the novels of Dos Passos.

Stanley Kubrick. A Clockwork Orange (1971). 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Barry Lyndon (1975). Here comes the kitchen sink. Stanley did not play ladies and gents. Everything went into the picture all his energy and creativity and attention to detail. And it showed. What spectacular visions. Creations of worlds. Beautiful to behold even when what was taking place in the was repellant. The people were props used masterfully. Kubrick had a way of exaggerating characters to help fill the frame and fill out the story. Films that lasted in your mind and heart and ideas and wow.

Louis Malle. Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987). Elevator to the Gallows (1958). Murmur of the Heart (1971). What is he? New Wave? Noir? There are war pictures. Romances. Family drama. Philosophical meditations. There is Jeanne Moreau in the rain. There is a young Jewish boy being taken away by Nazis. There is oedipus. Lurking lurching loving and leaving and moving and heaving. Camera left and stage right and the eyes of man wandering the city. The artful director and the precise moment captured that lives a lifetime in our memory and can never be wiped away. That indelible moment. That moment. The expression. That sigh. That sign. That director. That man Malle.

Aki Kaurismaki. Ariel (1988). Le Havre (2011). Lights in the Dusk 2006). My Finnish brother. don't come to his films looking for beautiful people or action scenes or special effects. Come for the humanity and the simplicity and the beauty of human experience. The luck good and bad of being alive and going through whatever comes. How people handle the mundane and the interruption of that by the wildly unexpected. Dude is very Finnish. My father told me the Finnish proverb about a man being chased by a bear. He is relieved to come upon a river knowing the Bear won't follow him. Half way across the river he sees another bear waiting for him on the other side. He laughs.

Frank Capra. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Meet. John Doe (1941). It's A Wonderful Life (1946). A softer gentler America then Wellman but a liberal sentimental fighting underdog loving one. Capra was a Republican but his films were often about battles with powerful establishment figures. A neo fascist tycoon in John Doe a predatory banker businessman in IAWL and a corrupt political machine in Smith. One man taking on the vested interest against impossible odds. Very American characters played by the likes of Gary Cooper Barbara Stanwyck James Stewart and Donna Reed. Good clean believable dialog. Easy to root for stories.

Francois Truffaut. Jules and Jim (1962). Shoot the Piano Player (1960). 400 Blows (1959). Exuberant and stylish but never showy. An attention to the little movements and the short seconds that can fly by unattended. But he was a joyful director with a free floating and happy camera. Grounded in his art and telling the story just so. Just so that we would appreciate -- almost like he did -- what an amazing story he was telling.

Charlie Chaplin. City Lights (1931). Modern Times (1936). The Great Dictator (1940). The pathos. The little tramp. The comic genius. The pratfalls the chases the choreography the cute man the pretty girl the darling child the adorable mutt the pulling of heart strings...the tear -- never two. Then the silents ended and Charlie adapted but never yielded. Still mostly silent realizing that words can be so limiting. The sheer brilliance of the above three films. The painstaking attention to detail that created the  large gaps between pictures but resulted in such fine craftsmanship. Such great art. No one to compare him with before during or after.

Four Films Four Million Messages and Then Some

Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity. -- Herman Melville.

Visions I have seen. Now part of who I am. My conscious mind grappling with unconscious desires. The love of beauty and the beauty of love. I have seen....

Jeanne Moreau in Elevator to the Gallows (1958). Louis Malle's first film a richly gorgeous noir though on a higher plain. With Moreau hauntingly stunning roaming the streets of Paris looking and wandering as the best laid plans go awry. The Miles Davis soundtrack accompanies her meanderings. Soulful. Is this a film about the impossibility of perfection? The mad way the muddled way of life disrupts our perfect dreams hopes wishes fantasies. Left grasping for what should have alit on our open palm.

Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday (1940). Snappy slappy happy dialogue that positively sings. Oh it rings. Fast talk. Patter. And so smart. So many stories in one. There is the politics of it of course for one. But really the love between these two people. Their compatibility. How wonderfully wise they are and so damn street smart and sensitive to the rhythms of the world they embrace. Attuned is what they are. Gracefully savvy. They need want each other and together make more than a couple but a team as all great duos do. A team of ten twenty. Unbeatable even in loss but here they win.

That said mad woman in Vincere (2009) Ida Dressler captured by the oh wow! Giovanna Mezzogiorno. She believes herself to be the rightful wife and co parent of no one less than Mussolini (yeah that one).  Their passion early in the film is of the unbridled kind that films so often get all wrong but this is so right. Ms. Mezzogiorno plays Dressler as a driven crazy groping hungry sensual woman who takes stubborn determination to the nth degree and well well beyond. No quit all insanely self assured that her rightful place is right smack dab next to Il Duce. A story of how obsession in the face of reality can -- when bathed with love -- can end so badly. So sadly.

Passion of Anna (1969) from the singular Ingmar Bergman is of course about many peoples passions. How maddening it is to be trying to cope with all the complications life throws our way and then there is love and relationships mixed in. Oh my. Our isolation. It can be so easy to escape to within deep in ourselves and thus so easily avoid others and actually experiencing life through someone else's eyes for the brief moments possible. Never to know another view. Then someone is let into our world as we step into theirs and....There is the clutching passion. There is pulling back. There is confusion and remorse and its a wonder that thinking people can stay in a relationship. And here they are on an island where innocent animals are being butchered and one lonely man blamed and....But Bergman with cinema photographer Sven Nykvist tell it so beautifully.

Parting is Not Always So Sweet a Sorrow -- Malle's Au revoir les enfants

There are some wounds, both physical and psychological, that neither time nor therapy will ever fully heal. For Louis Malle such a scar was inflicted him when at age 12 he watched a friend being led away by the Nazis. That friend was a Jew and he would die at Auschwitz.

Malle undoubtedly found some catharsis in making a movie that climaxed with that incident, Au revoir les enfants (1987).

Some films are technically perfect but have no soul. There is not a wasted shot, the story flows, the performances are all spot on but while watching the movie is an enjoyable experience, it is also ultimately forgettable one. Not so with ARLE which embodies both the superior craftsmanship of Malle the director while being an expression from the heart of Malle the man.

Julien is a 12 year old mama's boy sent off by his glamorous mom to a Catholic boarding school to avoid the perils of war time Paris. It is early 1944 and liberation is still a dream for the French. The Nazis and their French collaborators have a firm grip on many aspects of life. The students at the school include three Jews living under assumed names, their true identities unknown by their classmates.

Gradually Julien and one of the Jewish lads, Jean, become fast friends. And gradually Julien discovers Jean's secret. Julien is no anti semite, indeed he's not even altogether sure what a Jew is.

The film is as evocative a telling of boys' pre teens years as you'll ever see. ARLE never veers into sentimentality nor stoops for easy laughs in its depiction of boys at school and play. Even with their country occupied by enemy troops and with occasional bombs being dropped by their supposed allies, boys will be boys. Math class goes on. English essays must be written. Piano lessons are taken.


Young men are by nature borderline cruel as they test and tease one another. They are forever pushing boundaries with adults and are not hesitant to break rules if its suits them. But at the same time boys are starting to find their place in the world, separating from parents whether mom and dad are near or far or in concentration camps. Talents are being discovered or perhaps already being refined. Strong friendships that can last a lifetime or maybe just a week are formed.

Having armed Nazis about is paradoxically of no consequence and the greatest bogeyman imaginable. Life goes on amid all manner of calamity. Boys are resilient, though not unbreakable.

At the 12 year-old Malle's school the three Jews along with the school's headmaster were betrayed and the Gestapo came to take them on one fittingly cold January day.
It is the headmaster who utters the farewell that gave the film it's title. "Au revoir les enfants" (good bye children). Julien and the rest of school can only watch.

It was over 40 years after the real events occurred that the movie premiered. The wounds of watching a friend, two other classmates and the headmaster being taken away had not been healed for Louis Malle. There was, he said after, a sense of relief to having told the story, but one can't imagine it served as a cure-all for the pain inflicted that day.

Remarkably, Au revoir les enfants is not a depressing film, nor particularly sad. Oh sure a tear or two may form as the closing credits roll, but that's not what one if left with. The story is too rich, too well told to be trivialized as merely "a sad story." The characters, in lead, supporting and small roles, are expertly realized. Malle's direction is perfect and thus all the events within the story too memorable to be left with just one closing moment, no matter how powerful. And indeed it is one of the most touching and beautifully told endings in cinema. Yet is is just one part of a masterpiece.

What great fortune for Malle to be able to share the story. The telling of it gave him some solace while giving audiences a film not soon forgotten.

The Eternal Overcast of the Troubled Mind

Existential angst. A curse of the self aware. Introspection colored by philosophical musings. It's the occasional inability to merely take the next step in one's life without first contemplating its ramifications or those of the previous steps. Throw into the mix something like an addiction, or a deviancy or a mental quirk and you've got the recipe for a tortured soul. Or at least one that needs a lot of attention.

You've also got the recipe for a French film of the New Wave era -- Le feu follet (1963) (the English title is The Fire Within). It's directed by Louis Malle who adapted the script from a 1930s French novel that was undoubtedly inspired by the work of F Scott Fitzgerald. That for Malle this is more homage than rip off is evidenced by references to Fitzgerald during the film.

Some films seem trivialized by presenting a synopsis. It's like being asked of a complicated person: "what's he like?" You can summarize but it hardly does justice. But one must, so in this instance I'll cheat by copy and pasting IMDb's plot summary:

Life has become unbearably painful for Alain who is in his early 30s. He once used alcohol to dull the pain. His estranged wife in New York has paid for a cure at a clinic in Versailles and sends an emissary, one of the many woman he has known, to see how Alain is. She sees only the surface as does his doctor, who says it's time for Alain to leave the clinic. He goes to Paris the next morning and has lunch with old friends, a rendezvous in a cafe and is invited to a dinner party. Will Alain make a connection that will change his mind about ending it all?


Le feu follet is like a lot of great films in that is an invitation. In this case Malle is inviting viewers to follow the main character, Alain Leroy (Maurice Ronet) through various parts of Paris. But it is also a journey through one man's mind and we all know the curious directions such expeditions can take. The mind, the old ad campaign said, is a terrible thing to waste. But it can be a wonderful topic for a film. 


The pace of Le feu follet seems languorous. Malle might have added a fist fight or a car spun out of control or a sex scene. Through much of the movie I was hoping for such a diversion. Not bored, but uncomfortable by the meditative pace. Yet by the last frame I was exhilarated. It had all come together into a wonderful whole. A rich melange of episodes, some curious, others intoxicating. Isn't the thinking process the same? Lots of randomness, lots of going nowhere until viola! 



Here's an overused and overrated word: underrated. But sometimes it must be used, as in any discussion of Malle among great directors. If you need proof look no further then what a compelling film he made out the story of a recovering alcoholic wandering Paris. For one it is beautifully shot, serving as it does as another example of the powerful advantage black and white has over color cinema photography. Pacing in such a film is critical and Malle got it just right. The casting is spot on. Finding the right actor to play Alain was a chore for Malle given the somewhat autobiographical nature of the story.


Donet looks by turns like he must be the French first cousin of Tony Curtis or the Gaelic uncle of Jude Law. He's as good an actor -- if not better -- than both. In Le feu follet he carries the weight of a million woes and personal demons with nary a gesticulation nor frown. It's an incredible responsibility to have the camera trained on you for almost the entire running length of a film and Donet is equal to the task. He expresses more with his eyes or a turn of the head than many actors do with a long soliloquy.


Our Alain visits old haunts and friends. This includes a stop at an upscale opium den where Jeanne Moreau has a cameo. There is also an outdoor cafe where Alain's old army buddies rendevous and visits to flats both bohemian and upper, upper crust. It's a whirlwind 24 hours for a normal bloke but again not the usual stuff of movies. But the French New Wave was not just about different ways of telling stories but of telling a different sort of tale. Why not the curious meanderings of a troubled man?


Don't show Le feu follet to your 14 year old boy, especially if he's been fed on a steady diet of Spiderman and Iron Man (this is Thinking Man!). But for a mature person such as yourself....


This is an explorations of a character. Sad, troubled, sympathetic and altogether mysterious. It is not afraid to leave much to our imagination. I've written often, including in my last post, about admiring films that do not fill in all the blanks. I really don't mind if a film leaves me with room to think. I thank the director for dignifying me in such a way.


Le feu will also leave you yearning for Paris. A city to be fallen in love with again and again. Yes, the photography here would flatter Hoboken, but anyone having seen Paris will know that Le fou is a mere hint of its considerable charms.


This may well be a movie to fall in love with repeatedly. For me it was love at first sight.

Don't You Just Hate it When You Commit the Perfect Crime Only to then Get Stuck in an Elevator?

The film opens with Jeanne Moreau's gorgeous 30 year old face filling the screen. She is saying, "I love you," repeatedly. Whatever happens for the rest of the movie, Ms. Moreau had me at "I...."

Elevator to the Gallows (1958) is French New Wave Film Noir. The noir aspect of it means that the crime at the heart of the story will not go unpunished. We live with this when we watch 40s and 50s noir. We will be sucked into sympathizing with characters that cannot, by the rules of cinema at the time, succeed.

If we allow ourselves to, we can wonder at how they will be undone. Better still we can enjoy the story for what it is. Like mystery and detective stories, characters must be well drawn and strong and the plot imaginative. Director Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows does not disappoint on either score.

Moreau's character, Florence, is married to a wealthy arms trader. He is an older man and we shouldn't be surprised that she has fallen for his younger, more handsome right hand man Julien (Maurice Ronet), a decorated army veteran. We shouldn't be surprised that anyone would fall for Florence or for that matter anyone else who looks like Ms. Moreau. Julien is so smitten that he'll kill the boss for her.

The first part of the crime comes off without a hitch. The cuckold is dead and for all the world it looks like a suicide and its impossible to see how Julien can be implicated. Ahh but there's always a matter of human error that will pop up along the way. When Julien realizes he has forgotten a rather conspicuous piece of evidence that would surely implicate him, he tries to return to the scene of the crime. But the elevator he rides gets stuck between floors and a whole unexpected chain of events have been set off.

This will include an amazingly stupid young couple who steal Julien's car and ride off into the night where they commit their own crimes. Meanwhile Julien has missed his rendezvous with Florence. She doesn't know what to think and proceeds to try to think it anyway. While walking the streets of Paris, sometimes in the rain, stopping at a bar or two in the process. This makes for some famous shots of Ms. Moreau that helped propel her to stardom. There was the raw beauty of her face, sans make up, that expressed so much of the inner turmoil that would surely be bubbling within this character. Malle's career was off and running from that point on as well.

Oddly, the two stars don't actually get the lion's share of screen time. The two misfit young crooks probably get an equal amount, but Moreau and Ronet are the ones we will remember. The teenaged thieves get into one deuce of pickle and subsequently manage to botch a double suicide. But while they're galavanting around it is the stoicism of the two older lovers that is the glue of picture. While Florence walks and wonders, Julien is left quite stuck in a confined space and alternately determined to extricate himself and resigned to his sad fate. Ronet, like Moreau, had to make do with very little dialogue and he was playing a man who was by nature self contained, methodical, unemotional. Not the easiest of parts and he handled it with aplomb.

The story twists and turns in surprising ways, that while seemingly not plausible are more than possible. We buy everything that happens within ETTG because we like its style so much.   The lovely soundtrack from Miles Davis, who recorded it in one night while chilling with Malle and Moreau and sipping champagne, is as indispensable to the story's allure as Moreau's face.

A key question about any film noir is whether, after having had its secrets revealed, you would want to watch it again. With regard to ETTG I am not alone in answering with an emphatic, yes. There is so much to enjoy that goes beyond plot points. Like any film that one considers "great" it is a joy to look at. Savor is the proper word for it. Any time a director decides to bookend his movie with the face of Jeanne Moreau, you know he's one smart cookie.

I Stop in For a Quickie, Comments on Films I've Seen Recently

Before I get totally immersed in studying for my Second Language Acquisition class final (next Saturday, check your local listings for exact time and channel) I'm going to make a few quick comments about some of the films I've watched recently.  I offer these in no particular order and without further ado.

Female (1933). Ruth Chatteron is the wealthy CEO of a car company who uses men, sometimes as sexual playthings. At the risk of being obvious this is a pre code film and is in fact a classic example of the genre. Such a film would not only have been impossible to make in the first 30 years the code was enforced, its hard to imagine it today. Its so wonderful to see a woman in  charge, even if she finally does meet her match in George Brent.

Baby Face (1933). Another pre code film, this is to me the epitome of those daring movies made before the Hays office started its heinous censoring. Moreover its one of the better films of all time. Barbara Stanwyck couldn't be better as a woman who ruthlessly sleeps her way to the top, casting men aside like used banana skins. Like Chatterton in Female, she too gets more than she bargained for upon meeting George Brent. What was it with that guy?

Lacombe, Lucien(1974). It's a good enough film but one would certainly expect more from director Louis Malle. He set himself a heck of a task making the protagonist such an unlikeable fellow. While an interesting and never boring, LL does not show the craftsmanship of most other Malle films. This was my second viewing and I like it less, maybe because I first saw at the Pacific Film Archives on the big screen. It's the story of a somewhat dim witted young Frenchmen who stumbles upon and joins forces with the collaborationist French police force during Nazi occupation. Full of good performances.

King & Country (1964). Speaking of the PFA, I saw King and Country there last Thursday. I now have another film to add to my list of outstanding World War I movies. It's got elements of Paths of Glory (1958) though the man on trial here is actually guilty of the charges. Whether he deserves the death by firing squad is another matter. Tom Courteny is excellent as the naive  war weary young British soldier charged with desertion and Dirk Bogarde gives a superb performance as the officer who defends him (any Bogarde fans out there?). One of a legion of films that examines the lunacy of war. Done in 18 days on the cheap, it feels like a stage play but with all that rain and mud looks and is a really good film.

Shutter Island (2010) One of those rare films that I absolutely have to see again to decide upon. I wrote about it the other day so won't go on too long here other than to re-iterate that it has had a lingering effect on my thinking and even though I'm not sure how much I like it. Must see it again on the big screen.

Flame and Citron (2008). In terms of movies, World War II is the gift that just keeps on giving. Released last Summer in the States and now available on DVD was this film about two heroes of the Danish resistance. No, I knew nothing about the Danish resistance and in fact as much as I've studied the war I'd never given it much thought. Flame and Citron were the code names of two Danes whose primary jobs were as hit men. Their targets were generally Danes who'd gone bad, that is collaborated with the Nazis. It's a true story and a powerful one well told. Two relatively ordinary sorts become heroes due to the extremely unusual circumstances of the time and place. Appropriately bloody, sad, nerve wrecking and fascinating.

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943). You're a fine actor Robert Downey Jr. but when it comes to playing Sherlock Holmes, give me Basil Rathbone anytime. As for Dr. Watson, I'll take the lovable Nigel Bruce over Jude Law or anyone else any time. That said this particular edition of the Rathbone/Bruce Holmes films is merely adequate. Likes others made during WWII it tries too hard to be anti Nazi and takes us away from what Holmes does best, match wits. Still a diverting and delightful film with a good bit of sleuthing.

Taxi Driver (1976). Wow. It's one of those cinematic experiences that makes you wonder what you should single out and praise. How about the performance of its star, Robert De Niro? You could also go with the screenplay by Paul Schrader. Maybe Martin Scorsese's direction? The supporting cast? A particular scene? The mood of the film? It's influence? Great films are like that. You find different things to admire with each viewing. This time I was struck by lead character Travis Bickle and his utter and complete separation from society. Bickle made attempts to engage with his fellow humans but really didn't have it in him. The one person he got along with was a teenage prostitute and she ended up having to watch him shoot holes through three people. It's a great story of an alienated man.

Germany Year Zero (1948). I've already promised to devote a whole post to director Roberto Rossellini's extraordinary war trilogy, of which this is the third part. I'd never see this one before and suffice it to say was suitably impressed. To say it belongs right up there with its predecessors, Open City and Paisan, is high praise indeed and praise I give without hesitation. See all three and meanwhile I'll try to find time in the coming weeks to go on and on and on about them. This latter is, as the title implies, set in Germany. The war has ended and we see that Germans are paying a heavy price for their defeat. We follow in particular one young lad trying against all odds to make the best of a sad situation.

Captain Blood (1935). I didn't so much watch it as have it on while I tended to other matters. It's a familiar enough film with Errol Flynn swashbuckling and Olivia de Havilland looking gorgeous, which of course came naturally for her. You also get Guy Kibbee, the great Mr. Rathbone, Harry Stephenson and Donald Meek. Michael Curtiz directed and he knew how to make a rollicking good adventure story. You can have your Pirates of the Caribbean, give me the pirate adventures of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Europa Europa (1990). This is one of those films that isn't terribly well told but you don't mind because its such an amazing story. A Jewish-German teenager living in Poland at the outbreak of World War II escapes the Nazis and is taken in by the Soviets.  When Germany and Soviets go to war he's on the run again until being captured by the Nazis. He pretends to be...well I could go on about this incredible tale. The kid ends up in of all places the Hitler Youth where he squires a young Jew-hating Aryan bird played by Julie Delpy. Wait a second, didn't I say earlier that he himself was a Jew? Yup. What makes it all the more remarkable is that this is a true story. Not a cinematic work of art but when the story is this compelling, who cares? Very well worth seeing.