Reviews

WARNING! Spoilers Galore! If you haven't seen the film yet, you will NOT want to read this review!

This film was screened on opening night of MOMA's "Future Imperfect" series on July 17, 2017. Director John Sayles introduced the film and participated in a talk afterwards. The author's intention is to preserve some of the discussion.

The panel consisted of the director, producers Maggie Renzi and Peggy Rajski, actors Daryl Edwards and Fisher Stevens,and curator Josh Siegel.

Sayles said the plot came to him in a series of dreams. The producers said the financing for another film fell through the day before shooting was to begin, but Sayles said he had $300K in the bank (his Macarthur grant)and would be willing to spend it on a film about a black ET who lands in Harlem.

The first day of shooting was a disaster. The production manager's wife was in labor, and the guy who was supposed to provide the dolly track got a better offer and ditched Sayles. Fisher Stevens said he had to change his clothes in a station wagon. But the experience of this film was great fun and turned him on to independent productions.

Aside: the card trick Stevens does for Joe Morton is a real effect, known in the trade as "Sam the Bellhop," popularized by Bill Malone. Stevens noted that Morton, a method actor, hardly said a word to the other cast members.

Daryl Edwards said this was his second professional gig, and he was just happy to be there, not realizing the shoestring budget made for a very unconventional shoot. The opening special effect, Sayles said, cost just $50 to achieve. An audience member asked what Josh Mostel was doing in a cameo late in the film. Rajski explained he was her ex-husband!

All were grateful to Siskel and Ebert, whose review of the film on their PBS show gave the film "millions of dollars worth of free publicity."

This is a rousing, crowd pleasing comedy with a few dark undertones (pun not intended.)Dee Dee Bridgewater sings and has a fling with Morton. Morton gives a sensational performance as the mute fugitive. Sayles and David Strathairn are a hoot as "men in black" pursuing runaway slave Morton. The brother has empathic abilities and can fix electronics with a touch, but unlike ET and Starman, cannot restore people to life. There's a subplot about heroin that seems out of place, and the script meanders a bit, but on the whole this is a winner. At the end the MOMA audience gave the film a deserved loud ovation.

Highly recommended.

(This would make a great double feature with Charles Lane's "Sidewalk Stories." )

By late 2013, Wendy Whelan had spent more than two decades as prima ballerina for the New York City Ballet. Now, after forty years as a dancer, she was suddenly confronted with the possible end of her career. She was facing surgery for a torn labrum in her right hip. Her boss, Peter Martins, was gently dropping hints that she should retire. Her own doubts led her to consider fleeing ballet and taking up modern dance.

"Restless Creature" is a documentary shot during this upheaval in Whelan's life. It's a look inside the world of dance, and a peek into the life of one of the art's greatest exponents. It's also a story of grace, determination, and courage.

Recommended.

I saw this pleasant albeit unexciting documentary at Cinema Village in NYC on May 21, 2017.

Director Vanessa Gould interviews the people who write obituaries at America's paper of record, the New York Times. Along the way we learn much about the modern newspaper in an era of instant digital journalism.

We watch veteran obit writer Bruce Weber interview by phone a family member of a subject and record answers to standard questions on a printed form designed for that purpose. Another writer, Margalit Fox, rebuts criticism that the Times' obit pages feature mainly white males. Her response: the movers and shakers of the pre-WWII era were mostly white males. She predicts that within a few years subjects will reflect the civil rights and women's movements and gradually balance out. (Interestingly, all the writers interviewed are middle-aged white males except for Fox, a middle-aged white female. We don't see any diversity until we sit in on editorial conferences.)

We learn that the Times has over 1700 obits prepared in advance, mostly for aged subjects. When Michael Jackson died suddenly on a Friday afternoon at age 50, nothing had been prepared and music writer Jon Pareles had four or so hours to sum up the King of Pop's life to make the print edition.

We even get to see the genesis and correction of an error. While interviewing the widow of William P. Wilson, who was JFK's media consultant for the Kennedy-Nixon debates, Weber learns that Wilson's grandfather was a Congressman from Illinois. On camera, we hear him presume the senior Wilson was a Democrat. Of course, we find out later, and from the contrite Weber himself, that Rep. Wilson was a Republican.

All of this is quite interesting, but not terribly thrilling. Gould was unable to cobble a real narrative from her footage. But the behind-the- scenes look at the New York Times and the interviewees (most of whom, by the way, are listed in the credits as "former" NYT obituary writers)make this feature worth watching.

This bizarre short was one of five screened at MOMA on May 15. 2017.

Husband-and-wife comedy team Block and Sully ( a minor league Burns and Allen) are ordering lunch in a restaurant when they run into renowned (even then) columnist Ed Sullivan, who proceeds to tell them what he promises is the strangest experience he's ever had as the emcee of a vaudeville program.

The acts appear in a flashback and with the exception of baritone Sid Gary are mediocre. Cut to the present. Gary is their waiter in the restaurant and the owner, Greek dialect comedian George Givot, ticks off the specials one by one on his fingers, and manages to leave his middle finger straightened, giving his customers and the audience the proverbial finger.

Sullivan is about as comfortable on screen as he was on his TV show, and there is some odd business about people hallucinating a Two of Spades and getting carted off to the loony bin.

Maybe Ed had a flashback to this picture when he booted Jackie Mason off his show in the 1960's.

Only for Sullivan fans.

This was the best of five Universal shorts shown at MOMA on May 15, 2017.

According to co-curator Ron Hutchinson, Jay C. Flippen was a radio star in the 1930's, the host of an amateur hour program to rival that of the better-known Major Edward Bowes. So viewers of this short would have been familiar with his talents as an emcee, which he plays in this film.

The acts are pretty good. Rose Marie (yes, that Rose Marie) sings a couple of songs. The Seiler Brothers, "masters of eccentric dancing," do some splits that seem even more amazing than the Nicholas Brothers. Comic Sid Walker, who looks like an escapee from a Russian silent comedy, gets outwitted in quick succession by the girl singer of a trio and Flippen.

Flippen would be best remembered as a straight actor in the 1950's. Perhaps his signature role was the crooked cop in Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing." He and Rose Marie would be reunited years later on an episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

This short will likely be shown only in museums, but it's worth a look.

This is one of six rare Universal shorts unspooled at MOMA on May 10, 2017.

There's a little framing story here, about a bunch of kids who put on a show to raise money to build a swimming pool. It's just an excuse to show some quality vaudeville acts. The two best were Bill Robinson and the team of Mayer and Evans.

Robinson, as always, was superb. Besides a brief (and poorly shot) tap number, he sings and imitates a trumpet with his voice. (At least I think it's a trumpet.)

Mayer and Evans were a hoot. Mr. Mayer plays the piano and Ms. Evans sings. While she sings, Mayer is mouthing hilarious asides to the audience. ("Wife? No. Mother!)

The other acts were fine, but one was intriguing. Two black youths danced, sang in fine harmony and also voiced musical instruments. I believe these two were the mysterious "Pops and Louie" cited by the late Mr.McIntyre in his commentary.

So, this is a good short, marred by the silly story and the inept photography of Bojangles' number. Maybe Universal will release this one some day because of Robinson's appearance. If they do, it's worth seeing.

This short was one of six rare Universal shorts from the 1930's unspooled at MOMA on May 10, 2017.

Comedian Henny Youngman, sans fiddle and theme song and billed as "Henry Youngman," plays an inventor trying to raise capital to mass-produce his new system of television. He delivers a few of his soon-to-be famous one-liners ("She ate like a bird...a vulture.") but is otherwise nondescript as the de facto emcee of a vaudeville revue.

The real star of this film is "The Wizard of the Strings" Roy Smeck. Smeck had made his first sound film in 1923 in Lee De Forest's PhonoFilm system. Here he plays several tunes on an 8-string lap steel guitar. One number has him accompanying himself (via multiple exposure) on acoustic guitar and ukulele. (Apparently this is an homage to his film debut.) The best of his playing is reminiscent of Les Paul.

Smeck would go on to have a long and distinguished career as performer, inventor, and teacher. He appeared on shows hosted by Jack Paar and Steve Allen and in his eighties was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary short, titled, fittingly, "The Wizard of the Strings."

Roy Smeck is the reason we give this short an eight. The rest is plebeian at best.

It's not likely you will ever get to see this film except at a museum, but if it's playing, see it. Highly recommended.

The cinema essay is a rare form. Few examples come to mind: Welles' "F for Fake," Scorsese's films on American and Italian cinema, some works by Marker, Godard, and Rossellini. The cupboard is not well stocked.

Ross Lipman's NOTFILM can stand with the best of them. It is so much more than a "making-of" documentary about what may seem a minor effort in the careers of four great artists: Buster Keaton and Boris Kaufman from film, Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider from theater. It is a profoundly personal meditation on the cinema and life, at once melancholy and exhilarating. Everything about this film is first-rate, from the selection of archival clips, to the narration (spoken by the director himself,)to the marvelous score.

To say more would be to deprive the reader of the thrill of discovering a most surprising work of film art. See it and judge for yourself.

Highest recommendation.

Apparently MOMA has the only copy of this silent comedy.

Eddie gets a new job in a department store. One night he and the owner's daughter get locked in after hours, while some burglars are trying to rob the place. The crooks dress up as ghosts to scare Eddie and the girl.

This is a typical pre-code performance by Edward Everett Horton. He helps a lady customer select a hat and shawl by trying them on himself, much to the amusement of other customers and the ire of the floorwalker.

The spook gags are mostly routine, but Horton's charm carries the film. Recommended.

"Just Nuts" is, we are given to understand, the only surviving film to show Harold Lloyd's Willie Work persona.

I saw the film at MOMA a week after earlier reviewer Bob Lipton did. This audience was much less enthused than Mr. Lipton's, and rightly so. The character is an obvious Chaplin rip-off, and very unappealing besides.

On its own merits, the film is poor. Bad script, unimaginative gags, and little support for Lloyd, who is adequate but uninspired.

Including the two in last evening's screening, I have now seen three "Lonesome Luke" films. They are all vastly superior to "Just Nuts." The stories are better, the gags are better, and the supporting players (Snub Pollard, Bud Jamison, Bebe Daniels) are much better. Lloyd himself seems more energized as Luke. The Chaplin resemblance is a bit more subtle in these films, and the character is much more pleasant than Willie.

Lloyd remarked in later years that the Luke films were successful, and he could have continued to churn them out profitably. But Lloyd and his producer Hal Roach no doubt concluded that they could do better with a more contemporary, normal looking character. History shows they were right.

Worth seeing once, as an artifact.

It's easy to forget that of the three Horwitz brothers, Shemp was the only one who had his own film series, besides holding his own in features with the likes of W. C. Fields. Here he's starring in a remake of Charley Chase's first Columbia short, "The Great Hooter." He carries it off with flying colors.

Shemp is a henpecked husband who would rather spend time with his lodge buddies than with his wife. He takes his wife to a hotel, where he runs in to a lodge buddy, Harry Barris, Bing Crosby's old partner and composer of "Mississippi Mud." Harry, it seems, is being blackmailed by Christine McIntyre. Shemp offers to help, but his flirting with Christine is cut short by the appearance of her jealous, hot-tempered husband, George Lewis.

There are lots of gags, a brief song by Miss McIntyre, and a surprise finish. This wouldn't be the last time Shemp would remake a Charley Chase film, but it's likely one of the better ones. (I like this more than "Mr. Noisy," Shemp's remake of Chase's superb "The Heckler.")

Recommended.

According to historian Ben Model, MOMA has the only known copy of this Keystone short, so it's not surprising that this is only the second review for this film.

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle practically leaps off the screen. His chemistry with frequent costar Mabel Normand is evident at once. His agility is astounding for a man his size. Besides the usual pratfalls, he rides a bicycle amusingly and hurls the first pie in Keystone history.

The plot is typical; Fatty and Mabel are in love, but there's a rival. Things work out in the end.

The Keystone Kops make their mandatory appearance, but in this rural setting they don't have a jalopy for a change.

There's an aquatic theme to this picture that prefigures the later classic "Fatty and Mabel Adrift." This one isn't in that class, but it's pretty good. Recommended.

Back in the Roaring Twenties, producer Hal Roach got the bright idea of creating a female Laurel and Hardy team. He decided to pair petite Marion Byron with Amazonian (by comparison) Anita Garvin. Certainly they made a visually arresting coupling, and they were excellent comic actors as well. Both ladies had a gift for mugging that was first-rate.

Garvin and Byron made three films together. The best known of these was the last, "A Pair of Tights," which is a minor masterpiece. "Going Ga- Ga" is a good film, but not up to the standard of the later work. There is excellent support from Max Davidson and a good cameo from Edgar Kennedy, but the plot is all over the place. The gags are plentiful, but there are just too many of them. They don't build to a crescendo, they just run on.

The film is missing its ending. (Like many surviving silents, the sole existing print was found in a European archive. The version I saw at MOMA was a preservation print, not a restoration.) Maybe a strong ending would have helped.

But the leading ladies are terrific. One wishes they had made more films together. After "A Pair of Tights" Marion Byron left the Roach studio.

Still, this film is recommended. It's just not as tight as "A Pair of Tights."

WARNING! Major spoilers ahead.

In 1968, Peter Bogdanovich based his film "Targets" on the mass shooting at the University of Texas-Austin on August 1, 1966. Bogdanovich focused on the shooter. Now, nearly half a century later, director Keith Maitland looks at the incident from the viewpoint of the victims in "Tower."

After the MOMA screening on Nov. 26, 2016, the director answered questions about his film. The main purpose of this review is to preserve some of his responses.

A big question was why "Clair de Lune" was the background music to the shooting of the sniper, Charles Whitman, by Austin police officer Ray Martinez. Maitland told the audience that a few weeks before the shootings, Whitman, a student at UT-Austin, had paid a late night visit to one of his professors. Whitman was clearly agitated. He said he was depressed, he had many issues in his personal life, and he needed an extension of time for his term project. Suddenly, the professor said, Whitman noticed the professor's piano and asked if he could play it. The professor agreed, and Whitman proceeded to play, according to the professor, "the most beautiful rendition of Clair de Lune he had ever heard." When Whitman was finished, all the anger had drained from him. As he left, Whitman said, "That's what I needed."

Maitland explained that by using the piece just before Whitman's death, it was his way of acknowledging the humanity of the shooter. As his life ended, he was finally at peace.

Of the eight people whose stories are told in this film, the most prominent is Claire Wilson, the first person shot, who lay next to her dead fiancé on concrete in 100 degree weather for nearly an hour before a couple of brave souls carried her to safety. Wilson, who also lost her unborn son, said at the end of the film that she had forgiven Whitman. The only depiction of the shooter in the entire film is a photograph of him as a child in a magazine article. Whitman is seen at age 3 standing between two rifles.

Claire Wilson became a schoolteacher for thirty years and an adoptive mother. A lifelong activist, she dropped out of school at age 13 to volunteer to register voters in the deep South. She had received special dispensation to attend UT-Austin without a high school diploma.

The film itself is superb. The rotoscopy is first rate, and the actors who play the subjects for most of the film are uniformly excellent.

Highly recommended.

WARNING! Spoilers galore!

This film is yet another entry in a popular family saga of Japanese literature. Director Tomu Uchida had filmed a version of Jinsei Gekijo Seishun Hen (Theater of Life, Youth Version)in 1936 to considerable acclaim. For the 1968 film, he changed the setting from a samurai tale to a yakuza story. Yakuza films were quite popular at the time.

The protagonist, Hishakaku, is a young yakuza mentored by a retired yakuza gambler, Kiratsune. He kills a rival yakuza during a bar fight over his geisha girlfriend Otoyo and is sent to prison for three years. Otoyo leaves town since she and Hishakaku are targets of the rival gang, and becomes a successful geisha elsewhere. When Hishakaku is released from prison, he joins Kiratsune and travels to the same town where Otoyo works and they reunite unexpectedly.

Kiratsune becomes mortally ill and Hishakaku summons his brother to see the old gambler on his deathbed, but the rival gang has been keeping an eye on the brother, waiting for him to lead them to Hishakaku. When they find him, blood will be spilled.

The end fight is strikingly filmed. When Hishakaku finds his brother dead, the film suddenly goes from color to black and white. Hishakaku annihilates the entire rival gang despite being seriously wounded himself. When the fight's over, Otoyo arrives to find her lover and color is restored. Hishakaku's fate is uncertain as he disappears into a blood red mist.

There isn't a lot of action until the end, but that last sequence is worth the wait. Uchida uses subjective camera and hand-held photography to immerse the viewer into the action.

This was Uchida's penultimate film. He died of cancer in 1970 leaving "Miyamoto Musashi VI" unfinished. His work is little known outside Japan, but there is little doubt that he was a master filmmaker.

We recommend this film highly.

The original Japanese title of this film can be translated "Wine, Woman, and Spear." That pretty much sums it up.

Kuronda is a retired samurai bon vivant. Granted a last-second reprieve from the obligation to commit seppuku, he decides to settle down and marry one of two kabuki actresses who helped him enjoy what he thought would be his final days.

A few years later, his brother appears and demands that Kuronda commit seppuku, since his family has lost face for having a renowned coward as part of it. Kuronda refuses, stating that the code of Bushido is senseless and he is enjoying his new life too much to leave it.

Shortly thereafter, an old comrade persuades Kuronda to fight in the Battle of Sekigahara (Oct. 21, 1600.)On the eve of battle, his personal life takes several turns for the worse.

If you don't know much of Japanese history, the framing story will be tough to follow. But it is easy to get involved with the pleasures Kuronda discovers and to identify with him.

Director Tomu Uchida made several films critical of the ways of feudal Japan. This is a beautiful film to look at, and Uchida keeps things moving.

If you like samurai films with ideas more than just mindless violence, you will like this film. Highly recommended.

I'm not prepared to agree with Professor Wheeler Dixon, who calls this film a masterpiece, but it was sufficiently intriguing to induce me to view it in its entirety.

As I watched I was struck by the similarities to films I've enjoyed: Vampyr, Night of the Living Dead, Pull My Daisy, and (at the end) North by Northwest. Since the Romero picture would not appear for a further nine years, it's clear it could not have influenced Ron Rice!

I love Chaplin and Keaton too much to place The Flower Thief on a par with their work, but it had its moments. Like seemingly all films by the Beats, the soundtrack was excellent. They were poets, after all.

Worth a view (and still more, a listen.)It's a glimpse of a city on the threshold of becoming one of the centerpieces of American culture in the 1960's. Ron Rice was a talented director.

From a 1963 appearance on the Steve Allen Show, to an interview on the Today Show not long before his passing, director Thorsten Schutte does not miss a chance to show us the public face of a a very serious artist, Frank Zappa. Much minutiae is omitted, for instance his first marriage and the onstage assault that for a time left him in a wheelchair. But what is shown is consistent. Zappa was a singular musical talent who insisted on complete control of his artistic output. He also was an astute businessman who provided well for his second wife and their four children.

Zappa died absurdly young, but his life was a triumph. "Eat That Question" is an excellent introduction to his work. But it's only the tip of the iceberg.

Highly recommended.

In his first talking comedy, Charley Chase plays a musician who is upset with his girlfriend's habit of flirting with other men. When his buddy suggests he flirt as well, Charley demurs, saying he's too shy around other women. Nonetheless, he agrees to pretend to be having affairs and heads out to an isolated cabin so his pal can bring Charley's lady friend and find him compromised...supposedly.

But Charley goes to the cabin on a stormy night, and there is a gaggle of scantily clad females seeking sanctuary in his cabin! Mayhem ensues.

This is a pre-code film, so the ladies all end up in their underwear, but it's all very chaste. (None of them are as sexy as Stanwyck and Blondell in "Night Nurse" two years later.) Chase's voice records well, and in one scene he has a dialogue with himself playing both male and female parts. He plays it well.

The gags are mostly visual, as befits an early talkie. There's one nice, phallic, running gag with Charley's necktie.

According to Richard Bann, who supervised the preservation of this rarity, Leo McCarey had already left the employ of producer Hal Roach and his screenplay credit was a contractual formality. Chase's angst over the transition to sound exacerbated his already heavy drinking problem so much that by the end of 1929 Chase would check into the Mayo Clinic and have part of his stomach removed.

This isn't one of Chase's strongest efforts, but it's decent and affords an interesting look at how one of the masters of silent comedy handled the transition to sound. Recommended.

The opening shot of this film is great. A guy comes out of a bar at night, shouts a drunken comment at a passerby, and nearly falls on his face lighting a cigarette. The camera tracks him as he stumbles into a crosswalk, picks up a "yield to pedestrian" sign, and lugs it back into the bar.

Before the credits roll, we know the guy's name is Lonnie. He's a thirty-something house painter, he plays video games, hangs out with his high school buddies still, and has a messy relationship with his newest girlfriend Monica. When the credits actually start (actually it's just a title card) we already know the whole story; the guy is a loser. Then director/writer/editor Frank V. Ross tells us the story again in loving detail.

Bloomin Mud Shuffle is a quirky little comedy, a non-rom com. The guy and girl are hardly shown together. Each spends more time with friends and family than with the prospective life partner, which is pretty much why their affair goes nowhere.

Shot on location in the Chicago suburb of Yorkville, Ross captures a modern slice of life: the angst of young white males neither smart enough, greedy enough, nor ambitious enough to fight their way into the vanishing middle class.

Lead actors James Ransone and Alexia Rasmussen are fine, but Alex Karpovsky steals the picture as Lonnie's buddy and boss Chuck. Chuck is one of those know-it-all types who has an opinion about everything but is almost as big a loser as Lonnie. His only edge is he's in a stable relationship.

Oh, yes, the gun. Early in the film there is a scene with Lonnie and more of his high school chums trapshooting. (All Lonnie does is pull the traps.) It's soon established that Lonnie owns a gun.

Jean-Luc Godard said, "All I need to make a movie is a girl and a gun." In a Godard film, Lonnie would have shot somebody before the fadeout. Frank Capra would have had Lonnie about to blow his brains out before the appearance of a deus ex machina like Henry Travers. Frank Ross handles the situation by having Lonnie, on the verge of despair, wander into a Catholic church and confess to Father Tony (played by Dave Pasquesi.) This is another great scene and it resolves the plot. Nobody gets shot. If only real life were like that.

This is Frank V. Ross' sixth feature film. He is a name to be watched. One thing is sure: he'll go a lot farther than Lonnie.

It is one of those strange coincidences that occur in life that on the very day the passing of Japanese acting legend Setsuko Hara is announced, the world premiere of the digital restoration of one of her greatest films, "Late Spring," happens at MOMA in New York.

The restoration is a godsend to those who have seen this film only in poor quality circulating prints. There is no more flicker, no more warpage. One of Yasujiro Ozu's greatest achievements now looks the part.

Words cannot do justice to the magnificence of Setsuko Hara's performance as Noriko. Her face and eyes convey her inner torment as her perfect existence is shattered by society's, and her reluctant father's, demand that she marry.

Near the end, Noriko is shown in a mirror in her wedding kimono. Her smile never wavers, but her eyes reveal her despair. Hara's work here is one of the few performances to rival Falconetti's in Dreyer's "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc."

But Ozu does not neglect Chishu Ryu, whose last scene is heartbreaking.

This film is a minimalist "Vertigo." That is to say, it's one of the greatest films ever made.

Orson Welles' rendition of Charles Williams' 1963 novel "Dead Calm" had the potential to be one of his better films, if one is to judge from the work print shown at MOMA on Nov. 22, 2015.

The original negative has disappeared. This particular work print was edited by Munich Film Museum Director Stefan Droessler from the two surviving work prints, one in black-and-white, the other in color. Some scenes, mainly reaction shots, were not filmed. Much dialogue is missing, mostly of the Russ Brewer character played by Welles, who clearly planned to post-synch his own lines. Occasionally Welles loops speeches by both Laurence Harvey and Michael Bryant; even in his fifties, his talents as a mimic were superb.(Oddly, in one scene, Harvey lapses into his natural British accent instead of the Southern drawl he affected in the rest of the film.)

The camera work is good. Several scenes were shot with a red or blue filter to create the impression of darkness. Welles' eye lingers lovingly on the often undraped form of Oja Kodar, his partner in work and life.

The script exists, and live narration by Herr Droessler filled in missing scenes and dialogue. The plot is surprisingly faithful to the novel, retaining all five characters instead of the three in the Phillip Noyce version. Welles amends the ending a bit and adds a framing device not in the novel. His treatment includes much of his typical humor.

Since Welles himself believed that films were really made in the editing room, and since he edited only a small fraction of the material himself, we will refrain from rating the film. But after seeing the work print, and a nine minute trailer he did complete, we can affirm our belief that "The Deep" would have been a fine addition to the Welles canon.

The Munich Film Museum has assembled the bits and pieces of Orson Welles' TV production of "The Merchant of Venice" into a 40 minute feature. The result feels like a Welles film, albeit one assembled like the jigsaw puzzle Susan Alexander Kane completes in "Citizen Kane."

Welles intended this piece to be part of his potpourri TV show "Orson's Bag," and when that project fell through, part of a film to be called "One Man Band." Snippets of the film appeared in "Orson Welles, the One Man Band" which was released over two decades ago.

Like most of Welles' independent work, "Merchant" was fraught with problems. The original negative vanished and has yet to reappear. The end of the play was not filmed; most of Shylock's famous monologue also was lost. Welles hired Senta Berger to play Portia and then, as was his wont with the Bard, wrote her character out of the piece.

The action focuses on Shylock's troubled relationship with his daughter Jessica and his negotiation with Antonio for a loan of 3000 ducats with the collateral a pound of Antonio's flesh.

Much of the sound track is missing, but fortunately the Mercury Theater had made a recording of Welles' edit of the play circa 1938. So the restorers substitute the Mercury recording for the missing sound as needed. Actors' voices change, as does the timbre of Welles' instrument, but it matters not. In fact, given Orson's penchant for looping dialogue in his other films, particularly "Macbeth," "Othello," and "Touch of Evil," the substitution seems apropos. The modern editing was aided greatly by the discovery of annotations by composer Francesco Lavagnino, who had worked twice before with Welles. His score, as usual, is superb.

The visuals are typical Welles. There are echoes of his earlier films, like "Mr. Arkadin," "The Trial," and "Touch of Evil." As Shylock leaves the ghetto and trudges off to dinner with Antonio, he is shot from behind like Hank Quinlan. Shots of the Jewish ghetto are inter-cut with shots of the well-to-do part of town, a counterpoint reflecting Welles' lifelong sympathy for the underdog, in this case Shylock.

All comedic elements of the play have been ruthlessly expunged. Perhaps shooting this film less than a quarter-century after the Holocaust kept Welles from making the Jewish protagonist a true villain. Indeed, it is not clear from what is shown that Shylock is not the hero of the story. The only negative we are told is that his daughter hates him.

What Welles planned for the denouement is a mystery. The restoration ends with Welles' 1938 recitation of the famous monologue with no visual other than a black screen.

Most of the film was shot in Croatia, but Welles filmed a prologue of himself out of character riding a gondola in Venice. Much of the sound for the opening is lost, but inter-titles convey the words from the surviving script.

In the end we are left with a patchwork television show. It's not "The Fountain of Youth," but it is Orson Welles. This restoration is must viewing for any fan of Welles...or of the cinema. Highly recommended.

The gold standard for recent biopics about showbiz in the 1950's is George Clooney's "Good Night and Good Luck" which depicted Edward R. Murrow's confrontation with Senator Joe McCarthy, junior demagogue from Wisconsin. Jay Roach's "Trumbo" doesn't match the Murrow film, but it's a good, entertaining film in its own right.

Roach's biggest asset is Bryan Cranston, who delivers a good performance as the eponymous Dalton Trumbo. He's not quite as good as David Strathairn's Ed Murrow, but he captures the public Trumbo well. Helen Mirren's vicious portrayal of Hedda Hopper is the standout of the rest of the cast, although Diane Lane and Elle Fanning also turn in good work as Trumbo's wife and older daughter respectively. Louis C.K. is miscast as one of the Hollywood Ten. He no more belongs in the 1950's than the young Madonna would.

The main flaws are in the script. Trumbo is portrayed as a card- carrying, pill-popping, alcoholic workaholic saint, who seemingly wrote or doctored every film released in the Fifties. The trials of his family are glossed over; his drinking problem is minimized, as is his contempt for those who named names. The second half of the film plays like "Father Knows Best."

And there of course is the seemingly obligatory Big Lie, something Clooney's film pretty much avoided. The film claims that an incident in Trumbo's life was the inspiration for his Oscar-winning script for "The Brave One." One need only check this site to learn that the real germ of the movie was a story by famed documentarian Robert Flaherty, the same story which Orson Welles planned to include in his aborted "It's All True." It's a mystery why this sort of idiocy, undermining the credibility of the film, happens all too often in biopics.

Despite being aware of the problems, the writer enjoyed the film and can recommend it. Just as Trumbo intended "Spartacus" as an allegory of his time, so screenwriter John MacNamara uses the present film to comment on the erosion of the Constitution in this century. This film is about people and ideas. It's a welcome change from the childish gung-ho fantasies foisted upon the public these days. So it's worth seeing despite its flaws.

As director Stephen Winter explained after a MOMA screening of "Jason and Shirley," his film is a re-imagining of the events that occurred during the one-day, twelve-hour shoot of "Portrait of Jason." Not one line of dialogue from the earlier film is repeated in the modern film.

Winter, as a black gay man himself, posits a scenario in which the struggling cabaret artist and sometime hustler Jason Holliday assumes the upper hand in his interaction with Academy Award-winning director Shirley Clarke. Negative reviews of "Portrait of Jason" usually focus on the presumed exploitation of the subject by a well-to-do white filmmaker.

The current film is well-directed and well-acted, especially by Jack Waters and Sarah Schulman in the title roles. Waters and Schulman also share writing credit with Winter.

"Jason and Shirley" isn't for everybody, but if you are into art films in general, or the Sixties, or gay cinema, you will like this piece. A prior viewing of "Portrait of Jason" is not required.