Legionnaires' Disease

I picked up Black Legion (1937) because it was a Humphrey Bogart movie I hadn't seen yet. 

Bogart works in a machine shop, which seems like a pleasant place. The guys josh around a lot - everyone ribs Jack Foran for being hung over, and Polish kid Henry Brandon for studying all the time. But it's all in fun. When the foreman gets a promotion, Bogart is pretty sure he's up for the new position. He even starts making plans with his wife and kid for a new car and maybe a vacation. But the job goes to Brandon.

Now, instead of listening to radio serials with his son, he listens to radio ranters going on about immigrants stealing our jobs. He gets surly and sloppy at work, and a co-worker invites him to meet some friends. It turns out to be - the Black Legion!

These guys have a nifty black uniform with black hoods and carry pistols (both required, for a reasonable price). They beat up and whip undesirables, and Bogart goes along with it. In fact, they beat up Brandon and his nice old Polish dad, Egon Brecher. Then they burn down his home and throw them on a freight train out of town. So now Bogart is foreman.

Bogart's friend Foran, boards next door to Bogart's family. His landlord's daughter, Ann Sheridan, is Bogart's wife's friend, and thinks that Foran should settle down and marry her. Foran may run around with floozy Helen Flint and drink too much, but he has husband potential. But the landlord is Irish, and gets promoted at work, so the Black Legion goes after him. Now Bogart's wife begins to suspect, and leaves him, taking their son with him.

Bogart gets drunk and starts hanging out with Flint, but drunkenly tells Foran about the Legion. So now he is marked for death.

Bogart is caught, and left to take the rap. He is defiant, willing to go to prison or face the chair for the Legion. But when he sees his wife and son in court, he breaks. He spills everything about the Legion, and points out the members who are there in court, leading to their arrest. The judge gives a rather long speech about America and Democracy. 

Note that this was made in 1937, before America joined the war against Hitler. It is plainly a work of propaganda, and kind of clumsy at that. It's hard to believe that a nice guy like Bogart could be such a dope. When he goes to the first meeting, he evens laughs at the secret knock. But then he kind of gets excited about getting a uniform. I did buy that he got excited when holding a pistol. 

But having a great cast really made up for the slightly clumsy script. And maybe, I didn't mind because I agree with the sentiment: bigotry and violence are bad. But I don't think director Archie Mayo did Bogart any favors with this one. 

Take Out Chinese

Ms. Spenser has been getting a bum deal on the movie selection lately, so she requested Khartoum (1966). How could an epic North African adventure fail?

It starts in the Sudan, late 1800s. An Egyptian force lead by an Englishman is defeated by a local army lead by a mystical Islamic figure, the Mahdi (Laurence Olivier!). In London, there is pressure to show force to support the Egyptians, but Prime Minister Gladstone (Ralph Richardson) doesn't want to get bogged down. They decide to send Charles "Chinese" Gordon (Charlton Heston), alone except for an aide, as a private citizen. Gordon made his name leading a Chinese army in support of the Emperor, and had previously fought to rid the Sudan of slavery. But he was also headstrong, with a strange mystical bent, leading him to frequently disobey orders. 

So he heads out to Cairo and up the Nile. Officially, he is to organize an evacuation of the English and Egyptian citizens of Khartoum. But when he gets there, he starts organizing the defense of the city. The populace welcome him as their savior. He meets with the Mahdi, who treats him with respect, but warns him that he plans to burn the city and murder all within.

He begins a crash course to fortify the city for a siege, but his only hope is the British Army. But will they arrive in time? Or at all?

There was a lot to like about this movie, especially the location shooting in Cairo and on the Nile. Of course, there were a lot of sets, like all of Khartoum, and they were only so-so. The action scenes were amazing. Famed stuntman Yakima Canutt was credited as second-unit director, and you bet there were a lot of horse stunts, most probably unethical. But there weren't really that many action scenes. Mostly tense waiting or political wrangling. A lot was made of Gordon's mysticism, but aside from a few prayers from him, you don't get much. He even promises the Mahdi a miracle, and fails to deliver. 

Plus, of course, there's Gordon's super-power: Imperialism. Everywhere he goes, the simple Africans (only a very few of whom are black) fall all over him. Well, he did outlaw slavery, so a few ex-slaves had good reason. 

Olivier as Mahdi was OK, if you don't mind an Englishman playing Sudanese Muslim. Very portentous and masterful. But he was in the background most of the time. 

I'd say this one is up for a remake, maybe from a Sudanese perspective.

Day of Reckoning

Now we've seen Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023). I guess I need to go back and check out the podcasts that I've been avoiding for spoilers.

It starts on a Russian sub, under the ice, with some new tech that makes it undetectable. It can only be operated with a two-part key with a cruciform cross section. You'll hear "cruciform key" a lot. Unfortunately, the tech, later known as "the Entity", goes rogue and makes the subs torpedoes turn around and destroy it. we last see one part of the key hanging around he neck of a drowned Russian seaman. 

So Tome Cruise is sent into the desert to pick up part of the key from Rebecca Ferguson, playing Ilsa Frost. The Elder of the High Table is not involved, sorry. They are attacked, etc, they get out. We cut to a US superspy top-level meeting, including Cary Elwes as top bigwig. A perfectly normal guy stands near the back while they run down the premise. The Entity is an all-seeing, all-controlling AI. If you can control it with the cruciform key, you could... dare we say it? Rule the world!

Of course, normal guy is Tom Cruise in a mask. He bombs the place with sleep gas and has a private convo with his boss. It ends up with him going after the key. He gathers his team (Ving Raimes and Simon Pegg) and hit up the Abu Dhabi airport, where someone has one part of the key. 

But it turns out that freelance pickpocket Hayley Atwell has nabbed the key. Also, Shae Wigham and his team from the IMF show up to take down rogue agent Cruise. Pretty soon Cruise and team realize that the Ent is manipulating surveillance, sending everyone running in circles. It is also hiding one man, Esai Morales. He shows up on no ones cameras, and Cruise can barely spot him in real life.

Anyway, Atwell loses Cruise and takes off to Rome without him. She gets arrested on arrival, but Cruise shows up to get her out. This leads to a silly car chase where they are stuck in a Fiat 500 that Atwell has to drive, and it's reminds me of Knight and Day (which I thought I'd blogged, but can't find), with a lot of spluttering from Cruise and shrieks from Atwell. It also reminded me of Fast X (driving down the Spanish Steps) and that other Mission:Impossible where they went to Rome. Anyway, they are being chased by a cool assassin, Pom Klementieff, in a police behemoth. 

They get out (of course) and head to Venice, where someone is going to buy the half-key from Atwell, now working with Cruise. The buy will be held at a high-class party, run by arms dealer Vanessa Kirby, who seems to be fronting for Morales, who is fronting for the Ent. Also, Ferguson is there. This became my favorite scene. There's a moment when they are all together, and Morales reminds them that the Ent sees all, knows all. It can predict their every move, every thought. And either Ferguson or Atwell will die that night, and Morales will get the key. 

This is when the drugs hit. The camera starts circling, the lightshow represents the Entity on the screens and Cruise starts trying to figure things out. He tries to tell people that the Entity must be afraid, or it wouldn't have set up the meeting, He tries to covince Kirby that the Entity is bluffing. He knows he's being psyched out at every turn.

And that's what I like about this movie - the philosophical problem of how you outwit a being who can model your every thought. manipulate all information, force you to carry out its plans unknowingly. Of course, Cruise does this by punching people, but also by turning enemies into allies. In the final set piece, where Cruise famously rides a motorcycle off a mountain and parachutes onto the Orient Express (!), a bridge blows up (like in The General!). And Klementieff saves his life, because the Ent predicted she would betray him. 

Like in Across the Multiverse, and some other epics, this movie ends with a cliffhanger (not literal) with Cruise going off alone to find the Ent. Which is too bad, because I loved all the supporting cast - including a lot of women. Both Atwell and Klementieff get out of Marvel jail and get great roles. I also loved Shea Wigham. who we previously knew as the Atwell's FBI boss in Agent Carter. He's definitely a "that guy" that we now know by name. Morales gets a good villain role, who mentored Cruise before he went straight and joined the IMF. He survives the movie, so we'll see him soon, whenever the next (last?) M:I comes out.

I should not that Ms. Spenser wasn't as keen on this as I was. But she didn't hate it as much as some of the dreck I show her, so could be worse. 

I'm a Barbie Girl

We finally got to watch Barbie (2023). Now we can listen to all those podcasts I've been saving.

It starts in Barbieland, where all the Barbies live in Dream Houses. Margot Robbie is just a regular (Stereotypical) Barbie. Of course, everyone - the President, Supreme Court, doctors, scientists. CEOs - all Barbies of one sort or another. The Kens all hang out on the beach - in fact, their job is Beach. Robbie's Ken is Ryan Gosling. He's jealous of the other Ken's and only wants Robbie's attention. But of course, she is busy with girl's night sleepovers, and doesn't really have time for boyfriends.

Then one day, she has thoughts of death. Soon, her breath turned sour, ceelulite started to appear on her thighs, and she no longer walked as if she were wearing high-heels when she was barefoot. She needed the help of Weird Barbie. 

Weird Barbie, Kate McKinnon, is a Barbie with hacked hair and crayoned face, who lives in a weird house with some discontinued or otherwise unacceptable Barbies. She tells Robbie that the problem is the child who is playing with her in the real world. She will have to go there to solve the problem.

So she heads out to the real word in her pink convertible, singing along to the Indigo Girls. Gosling pops up in the backseat, stowing away. They end up in Venice Beach on roller skates, blending right in. While Robbie heads to school to find her real-world owner, Gosling went to hang out in the library.

It turns out that the girl who was playing with Robbie is Arianna Greenblatt (65), a mean, gothy adolescent who doesn't even like Barbie. Her youthful malevolence manages to crush Robbie's irrepressible spirit. But we've seen her with her mother, America Ferrera, a depressed working woman who sketches Barbie variations, like Persistent Thoughts of Death Barbie. She works as a receptionist (/designer?) at Mattel.

The Mattel board, led by Will Ferell, has found out about the Barbie escape, and are freaking out. Fortunately, Robbie shows up at the headquarters and Ferrera shows her into the boardroom. She just wants things to go back the way they were. She doesn't like the real world - the men aren't respectful, and the woman can't get a break. Heck, the Mattel board are all men. So the board plans to put her in a package and send her for remanufacturing. But Ferrara breaks her out, they grab Greenblatt and head for Barbieland.

When they get back, they find out that Ken has returned first. He read up on Patriarchy and decides to impose it on Barbieland. And then, Ferell and the board show up.

This may sound a little scattered and unfocused, becuse it is. There's a lot going on. Barbie's awakening and Ferrera's quest for meaning sort of fit together, but the Ken plot seems sort of shoehorned in - and it's about 20-30% ot the movie. He has the song that got the Oscar, plus another country-folk number (I like that one better. although it's pretty rough). Plus, he's Ryan Gosling. He has most of the jokes, and he has the biggest problem: He has no purpose, except Barbie. 

There's a scene I loved where, after the Patriarchy is overthrown, he re-unites with Robbie. He is delirious with relief, babbling about what he went through, how he didn't even care about patriarchy when he found out it wasn't mostly about horses. I've been there, babbling to my crush about everything I've thought and dreamed while we were apart for a weekend, not even realizing that she didn't really care. He confesses his love for Robbie, but she doesn't love him. That's refreshing. 

Barbie's arc is a little more hard to pin down. You can see elements of the hero's journey (from Barbieland to Real World and back), but I have trouble finding the center of the story. Maybe it's because Barbie isn't a real character, she's just dreams and playtime. But I also wonder if this was Greta Gerwig's story from the start, or did someone offer her a Barbie movie, and she just threw stuff at it until it was 2 hours long.

I guess I'm not really the audience for this movie, anyway.

Freelancing the Stone

You know the I love stupid action adventure movies. Ms. Spenser less so, but still, she voted to watch Freelance (2023) out of a bundle of movies I picked up from the library.

It stars John Cena, who gives us his life story in a voice over/montage. As a kid, he valued justice, so he went to law school. That didn't do it for him, so he joined the Army and went Special Forces. This he liked. He was good at it, and one day, got sent on a secret op to kill the dictator of a Latin American country (Juan Pablo Raba). Before they can land, their helicopter is hit by a rocket. Cena survives, with some back problems.

So he becomes a lawyer again, falls in love, has a kid, gets a house in the suburbs, and generally dies inside. So when an old buddy (Christian Slater) who has started a private security company calls, he doesn't need much persuasion. 

The job he has is a short-term bodyguard assignment. An influencer/journalist, Alison Brie, is going to interview a reclusive, shadowy dictator - yep, it's Raba. But it should be easy money...

He doesn't get on very well with Brie on the way to Fredonia (or whatever it was called), thinking her a lightweight, because her biggest gig was "Celebrity Hot Tubs". But they made it there, met the Raba, and headed off to his Palace. On the way, they are ambushed - by Raba's own military. But of course, Cena gets them out.

They run for the jungle, with Cena protecting Brie and trying to shake Raba (after all, they are shooting at him). But he keeps turning up, and takes them to a village where he is beloved, and they all have a little fiesta.

This is where it really hit me: This is a Romancing the Stone knock-off - possibly second-hand, via The Lost City. This time, it's from the guy's point of view. Also, there's no romance, because he's married and faithful.

But it was still a lot of fun. I like this sort of movie (as I've said), especially if they're funny. This was funny enough, exciting enough, and ended with the bad guys (South African mercenaries) defeated. Raba even turns out to be a good guy who didn't shoot down Cena's chopper. And Slater appears at the last minute so that good old USA saves the day. 

Shadows and Madness

We've been watching the new Hiroyuki Sanada Shogun, and it got us in the mood for some samurai stuff. So I picked up. Kurosawa's later masterpiece, Kagemusha (1980). This is a rewatch, but I don't think we've seen it since it came out.

The first scene is simple: Three men sitting on the floor in front of a wall. In the center is lord Takeda Shingen, played by Tetsuya Nakadai. He sits on a thick mat, elevating him inches above the others. On his left is his brother, played by Tsutomo Yamazaki. He tells his brother about the third man, a condemned thief, also played by Nakadai-san. Because of his resemblence to the lord, he could be useful as a stand-in, or shadow-warrior, kagemusha. The thief is unrepentant, and rails at Shingen as a murderous. warlord. Shingem laughs this off, and directs that he be trained to be his stand-in, if needed.

Years later, Shingen is laying siege to a castle. He hears that someone in the castle plays a flute beautifully every night, and decides to go listen. A shot rings out, and his army retreats. It turns out Shingen has been hit, but they are keeping this secret. Just before he dies on the way back to his fief, he demands that his death (if it comes) should be kept secret for three years to give his clan time to regroup, and that they should never move against the enemy, but stay at home. And so he does die.

To keep the secret, they find the thief and get him to take the lord's place, without telling him that his double has died. But, being a thief, he creeps about the palace and finds a huge treasure jar. He breaks in, and finds that it contains the corpse of Shingen. 

Shingen's son, played by Kenichi Hagiwara, wants to take his rightful place as lord, and he wants to bring the fight to his enemies. The kagmusha presides over a council meeting where most don't realize that he is an imposter. Hagiwara tries to subtly expose the kagemusha by asking him to make a decision. Nakadai-san has learned enough about the lord to successfully impersonate him, stating that like the mountain, which is his symbol, they will not move.

But of course, he is finally found out - he couldn't ride the master's wild horse, and he doesn't have the right scars. So he is cast out, and the son takes over rule, and begins attacking their enemies.

Here, Nakadai-san begs to be allowed to serve the clan, and watches in horror as they are beaten in battle against musketeers. Maddened, he attacks as well, and is killed.

I remembered this movie mainly for the masses of soldiers, flying banners from poles on their backs, running across battlefields. The banners are there, all colors and motion. These scenes are amazing, but aren't the only thing in the movie. There are also detailed scenes of the enemies trying to figure out if Shingen was alive or not, including a detailed investigation into how he was shot (maybe?) in the dark. 

But most of all, I was fascinated by Nakadia-san's close-ups. Especially as he descneds into madness at the end, his face resembles the classic stage make-up of a King Lear or Don Quixote (I read this book in high school).

Of course, Nakadai-san played Lear in Kurosawa-san's next movie, Ran. He's been our favorite Japanese actor (next to Mifune-san) since forever, so we loved this. 

I was surprised at the roughness or simplicity of some scenes. Like the first scene, which is just three actors in a single locked off shot. Of course, one actor played two characters, so there are technical requirements, but I expected more elegance from a filmmaker of Kurosawa's caliber. I think it was partly budget - the studio was not behind him at all, and Lucas and Coppola had to help out. But I think some of it was Kurosawa's constant invention, reaching for something he didn't always attain, and not being satisfied with doing the same thing over and over.

Rhubarb and Rhubarb

I am going to preface this post on Rhubarb (1951) with a little personal info. When I was a child, I missed a lot of school, due to what was diagnosed as mononucleosis. I missed most of fifth grade, then most of seventh grade (since you don't get mono twice, I must have had some other disease, but never mind). It wasn't painful - I got some headaches, and was prone to colds, but I got to stay home in bed most of the time. I didn't get to play with friends, but I'm a bit solitary anyway. I got some tutoring and kept up with class from home (although I never learned long division). I read Tom Swift books, played with a litter of kittens, and watched a lot of daytime TV. I saw John Lennon on Dick Cavett! I also watched a lot of old movies on Dialing for Dollars. Now, I only remember a few: Bringing Up Father, Cheaper by the Dozen, and Rhubarb.

It starts with millionaire Gene Lockhart hanging around a golf course with two of his flunkies, Ray Milland and William Frawley. It seems there was a stray cat who liked to run up on the green and steal golfballs before the player can putt. Lockhart loves this - the courage, the fight in this cat. When the players set their dogs on the cat, they come running out again, scared. So Lockhart demands that Milland, who is his PR man, catch the cat for him. After several ruined nets and traps baited with golfballs, he succeeds.

To Lockhart's delight, the cat tears up his office, then settles down and learns to love him. Lockhart owns a failing Bronx baseball team, so most of Lockhart's cronies are retired ballplayers. One of them refers to the trouble the cat is causing as a rhubarb - "You know, a dust-up, a donnybrook". So that became the cat's name.

They are inseperable for years, with Rhubarb resting on a cashmere comforter beside him. And then Lockhart dies and leaves all his millions - including the team - to the cat. And Milland will run the business for him. While Lockhart's daughter argues with the lawyer, Frawley muses, "I dunno, some ballplayers might not like being owned by a cat. They're superstitious like that. I mean, they're human, too, in a way..." 

Turns out he's right, the players don't like it. Of course, they've been on a losing streak, so maybe things can't be worse. But Lockhart always said his team could win if they had the same will and fight that Rhubarb has, so Milland convinces them the cat is good luck. And it works.

Now, there's a bunch of stuff with Milland's girlfriend, Jan Sterling. She's allergic to the cat, and their marriage keeps getting postponed due to business. Then there's some gamblers and a catnapping, and a trial at the end. All in all, this movie is sort of cute, not really great. There aren't a lot of big laughs - it was based on an H. Allen Smith novel. The cat was mostly played by Orangey (seen in many other movies, including Comedy of Terrors), who is a big cat star, but you could see how much editing they had to do to make it seem like the cat was acting.

But, as a kid, I loved this movie, mostly because it was about a cat. And on this, my second watch, some 50 years later, I still loved it. It's silly, and just a little funny, and even less romantic. There isn't enough of the actual ballplayers either. But it did have Ray Milland and a bunch of great character actors. And Orangey.