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Reviews
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
One of the very best films of the 50's
Director Alexander ManKendrick and screenwriters Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets exploration of the slimy underbelly of the 1950's New York entertainment world at a time when a handful of powerful newspaper gossip columnists could make or break a career. Tony Curtis in his best and most definitive dramatic role as a hustling, conniving press agent paying court and doing favors for Burt Lancaster as a sinister, unscrupulous columnist with an unhealthy (to say the least) determination to break up his younger sister's romance with jazz musician Martin Milner. Curtis is completely convincing in every scene, every word, every expression. Hard to imagine any actor--then or now---better suited for this part; this film-- and "The Defiant Ones in 1958---marked Curtis's transition (for a while) from teen heart throb to serious dramatic actor. The dialog is arch and richly stylized with many famous lines ("I'd hate to take a bite out of you Sidney, you're a cookie full of arsenic"); garish, depraved, devious, decadent, despicable and totally delightful; not much of a hit when it was first released it gained a loyal following over the years and is now considered by some critics (and yours truly) to be one of the best movies of the 50's. Photographed in glorious black and white by James Wong Howe on the teeming nighttime streets of Times Square and the New York nightclub district (in part while a chronically hung over Odets was frantically rewriting scenes inside a prop truck and sending them over to the set by messenger). Based on Ernest Lehman's novella. Lehman had worked at one time as assistant to a Broadway press agent who was a close associate of Walter Winchell----for many years the best known, most influential and most feared of all gossip columnists
A Place in the Sun (1951)
18 year old Liz Taylor and Monty Clift. Enough for me.
A major film in its day that has not--in my opinion-- held up very well over the years---- stodgy, stagy and more than a little ponderous---and the trial near the end of the picture must have seemed ludicrous even to contemporary audiences. But, watch the breathtaking scenes between a stunningly beautiful 18 year old Elizabeth Taylor (before all the marriages and scandals) and an equally ravishing Montgomery Clift and see if you can resist its attraction regardless of your gender, sexual orientation or critical preferences. Although the film--as I have said---has aged poorly---watch the scene where Taylor runs into Clift for the first time shooting pool by himself in the billiard room of his rich uncle's house; watch the famous dance scene at a swank party and the record breaking in length kiss that follows---director George Steven's camera hovering as close to the actors as it can get without entering a bodily orifice--- and you can feel the heat shimmering off the screen. If you want--read a plot synopsis of the film so you will have an idea about what is going on and then fast forward through everything except when Liz and Monty come into view. You won't be disappointed. After writing this review I think it's time for me to take a cold shower.
Listen Up Philip (2014)
Mildly interesting film seriously marred by camera work
I found this film to be barely watchable at best but not necessarily because I thought it uninteresting or the principal character hopelessly insufferable. Someone should tell Alex Ross Perry that jerky, hand-held cinematography hasn't been considered to be cutting edge or revolutionary since directors such as Godard and Rossellini used it back in the 1950's and 60's (and Mr. Perry--you are no Godard or Rossellini). Woody Allen tried it once 22 years ago with "Husband's and Wives" and has not used it again in the many films he has made since then . All "Listen Up Philip" did for me while I was watching it was make me dizzy and nauseous. This I assume was supposed to be a serious, feature film and intimate character study about two writers---not a documentary or a big action film or a reality TV show in which hand held photography might be appropriate. Camera work which calls attention to itself in such an obvious, annoying way greatly distracts from the story and the characters (not to mention--in this case--making me physically ill).