Last of the Great Westerns

With Ride Lonesome (1959), we finish the Bud Boetticher/Randolph Scott westerns. We weren't sure if we had already seen it, but Netflix sent it (a surprise from the Wait section), so we watched it.

It starts, as so many of these do, with Scott riding between some big rocks - a familiar location, in Lone Pine, I think. He captures the outlaw James Best, but his gang gets away. Best tells his gang to tell his brother Frank.

Scott and Best arrive at a stage coach stop and find the station man gone, leaving his worried wife Karen Steele to hold down the fort. And so she must do, when Pernell Roberts and his sidekick James Coburn show up, and it looks like they plan to rob the stage. But when the stagecoach arrives, it's filled with dead men - the Apaches got them.

When they Indians arrive, Scott and Steele go out to negotiate. The chief wants to trade the woman for a horse - and it turns out the horse belonged to Steele's husband.

So now we have a pair of badmen, a tribe of hostile Apaches, and a widow, and Scott still has to take Best in for the bounty. By the way, the bad men have heard that the town of Santa Cruz is offering amnesty for all past crimes for anyone who brings Best in, and they want to be the ones to collect.

Also, we know that Best's brother Frank is coming, and he's the real bad-ass. Best is just the kid brother. 

It all ends up by a hanging tree in a dry wash. Spoiler? OK, SPOILER - Frank, Lee van Cleef, killed Scott's wife, and he plans to use Best as bait to flush out van Cleef. 

If you recognize any of the elements to this, like the stagecoach station (Comanche Station), or the hanging tree (Buchanan Rides Alone), the bad guy's dumb sidekick (Tall T), some of the locations, and so forth, I don't think you are imagining it. It makes a good capper to the series. 

Same Old Story

Since we're a big fan of old musicals, we thought we should give the new Spielberg West Side Story (2021) a look. Actually, the old WSS is not one of our faves, but, in this one, at least the Sharks are actually Hispanic (-ish).

It's the old story of the Jets (kids from families who immigrated to New York a few generations ago) and the Sharks (kids from Puerto Rico who recently moved into the neighborhood). They are fighting over the turf which is slated to be torn down to build the Kennedy Center. Tony is Ansel Elgort, an ex-Jet who did time for beating a kid in a rumble. He's trying to keep out of it. He works Rita Moreno, who runs the drugstore that her husband Doc ran in the other movie before he died. 

Maria is Rachel Zegler (Colombian on her mother's side). She lives with her hot-blooded mother and fiery tempered father - they speak a nice mix of Spanish (un-subtitled) and English. Her father wants her to date boring Chino, who wants to be a Shark. 

Tony and Maria meet at the dance. This is the big scene - a long scene with no cuts and a flying, swooping camera. It reminded me of another Spielberg dance sequence, from 1941. Which is my favorite Spielberg on some days.

Somewhat sadly, that is kind of the peak of directorial splendor in the movie. Especially in the last tragic act, where everyone is getting stabbed, the direction seems to get, well, conventional. Nothing special.

And I have to say, that's kind of where we come down on this movie. Some nice touches - the Spanish language, the closer looks at the social context. What came from the original does well - the dances are still very Jerome Robbins, the music is still that Broadway/classical/jazz mix, and the songs are fine (considering I don't especially love either Robbins, Bernstein, or Sondheim). In the end, only Rita Moreno made much of an impact. 

Kid Stuff

I think I'll the next two movies in one post. They aren't really thematically matched, but they were both pretty much mistakes.

First: Tank (1984). This was a "Long Wait" that suddenly showed up. I wanted to see it because it starred James Garner. He plays a Command Sergeant Major - a super-Sarge - moving to a new post with his wife Shirley Jones and son C. Thomas Howell. There is mention of a dead son, and an impending retirement to a fishing boat. There is also a tank that he bought surplus and fixed up as a project with his son.

Garner gets along on base, but the Officer's Club is a noisy disco, and he seeks a quiet place to drink. So he winds up in a townie bar, the kind with some trailers out back for the working girls. He's having a drink with one, just shooting the shit while singing sea shanties. But a deputy sheriff (James Cromwell!) doesn't like him. Since the law runs the hookers in this town, he orders the girl back to work and slaps her. Garner will put up with a lot, but not that. He slaps the deputy to the floor and it is on.

There's a bit of back and forth with the law in town, G.D. Spradlin, trying to get his hands on Garner, and the Army insisting that they have jurisdiction. So Spradlin and Cromwell set up Garner's son of drugs. When he's convicted by Spradlin's brother-in-law the judge, it's time for Chekov's Tank.

The first part of this is actually heavier than you might expect. The low-level misogyny, the violent misogyny, the background racism, the explicit racism against "Jew lawyers", Howell's feelings that he comes second to his dead brother, all pretty upsetting. So it's great to see Garner in his tank with the hooker running down the Sheriff's jail and freeing his son, then heading for the Tennessee line. But maybe not as great as it should be. Also, Shirley Jones gets nothing to work with, and tries too hard to make something of it. Sort of sad.

I queued up Sky High (2005) on. the recommendation of Laird Barron, Ms Spenser's favorite horror writer. But it isn't a horror movie, it's a teen superhero spoof. The setup is: Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston are the biggest superheroes in Superheroville. Their son, Michael Angarano, has no powers, but he can't tell his parents that. He is starting superhero high school, along with his best friend, Danielle Panabaker. She has the minor superpower of controlling plants. The school hovers above the clouds, served by a flying schoolbus.

At the titular Sky High, they fall in with a group of the usual goofballs, but Angarano is attracted by senior Mary Elizabeth Winstead (to Panabaker's distress). They also discover that they will be tested by taskmaster Bruce Campbell (yay!) to determine if their powers are great enough for them to be classed as heroes, or if they will be relegated to the sidekick track. Angarano and most of his goofball friends wind up as sidekicks.

But it turns out that Angarano has an arch-enemy, Warren Peace (Steven Strait, Holden from The Expanse). Strait is the smoldering, leather-jacket-wearing loner with long greasy hair that often threatens the hero in these teen movies, later becoming an ally. But first, he attacks Angarano in the cafeteria, and Angarano finds his powers. 

Now, that Angarano will be in the hero track, will he forget his sidekick friends? Will he drop Panabaker for Winstead? Will Winstead be good for him? And all that stuff. You know the answers - there's even a scene where he makes a date with Panabaker and forgets about it when Winstead offers to spend time with him. Ever seen that before?

Although this isn't all that original, even adding in the superpower stuff, it's all done well enough. The kids are cute, plot is handled competently, and it was a good role for Bruce Campbell. (And Lynda Carter as the principal.) There are also roles for Dave Foley as a forgotten sidekick, and Kevin McDonald as Professor Medulla, with a giant brain. But overall, this just isn't really our thing. 

So, Ms. Spenser enjoyed Sky High and wandered off during Tank. I guess I owe her some good movies.

Klaatu, Barada Say What?

Even though I still haven't seen the original, I felt like watching the Keanu Reeves' The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008).

It really stars Jennifer Connelly as an astrobiologist who is suddenly woken up by the military and hustled off to Manhattan on a secret mission. They ignore her step-son, Jaden Smith (son of deceased husband by his first wife), but fortunately a neighbor is able to take him in. 

The mission turns out to be an asteroid heading directly for Earth, impact in minutes. The asteroid turns out to be a spherical spaceship, which stops at the last instance in the middle of Central Park. A creature comes out, and in a moment of confusion, is shot. A giant robot who accompanies him gets ready to destroy, but the creatures hastily orders him to stand down. This is the "Klaatu barada nicto!" moment, but it is so distorted you can barely hear it. Bummer.

The creature turns out to be a sort of amniotic spacesuit, which falls off and the being inside quickly becomes Keanu Reeves. He explains that he is here to save the Earth from humanity. When the military tries to hold him prisoner, he breaks out and runs for Connelly.

Connelly brings him together with mathematician and philosopher John Cleese, who is able to make a pretty good case for mankind. But little Jaden is pretty P.O.ed with his step-mom, claiming she never wanted to keep him after his dad died. So Reeves picks up quite a bit of negativity too. He has a funny relationship with Reeves. When they are stopped by a cop, Reeves kills him, then resurrects him. Smith is horrified by the murder, but impressed by the resurrection. He seems to want to make Reeves a father figure, but also considers him a murderous alien.

The giant robot, named GORT by the military based on a very clunky acronym, is being held in a sort of missile silo. When he goes active, they try to destroy him, which doesn't work. So he starts his mission. He sort of disintegrates into a swarm of nano-robots and begins destroying all man-made objects.

We watched this on a Friday night in a rather drowsy state. I might not have been maximally attentive, but I did like some of the dreamlike imagery: the looming, red visored GORT, Reeves' intense, yet inhuman acting, the sphere in Central Park, the many nighttime scenes. I'd say we watched it in the best way.

We'll save the original for Spooktober, coming up soon.

Hot Torch

Hot Saturday / Torch Singer (1932) makes a good pre-Code double bill.

Hot Saturday is set in the small California (?) town of Marysville. Nancy Carroll works in the bank, and all the young people like to go up to Willow Springs on Saturday evening for dancing, and maybe some parking. Carroll is sort of going with slick Edward Woods (not the director), although Grady Sutton, the comic relief, does make a play. 

Cary Grant, who is renting a place nearby stops by to cash a big check. He has a chauffeured limo with his high-class mistress in the back, but he makes a big play for Carroll. When she doesn't tumble, he has Woods invited the kids to his place for drinks on Saturday - which will give him some time with Carroll.

On Saturday, he cuts Carroll out of the herd for a long walk and a boat ride on the lake. He is open, honest, and clearly interested. His mistress has left (and Carroll has seen the check he tried to pay her off with), but Carroll still doesn't tumble. She leaves with Woods who also takes her for a boat ride (in a little rowboat), but he gets aggressive, and she has to walk home. She stops at Cary Grant's place, and he sends her home in the limo in the early hours - to the shock of the neighborhood gossips.

In the kitchen, who should she meet but Randolph Scott. He's one of her childhood pals who is now a mining engineer, surveying the area from the old Indian cave. It's pretty clear that he is pleased with the way she's grown up. Her parents were hoping that they would get together and it looks like it will work out.

But the next day, the town is buzzing with the scandal. Carroll is fired, and everyone turns on her. She runs to the Indian cave to find Scott, even though it starts storming. She barely makes it there before passing out from exposure. She comes to with under a blanket with all her clothes driving above the stove. Hm. But it's OK, he proposes and they are going to get married.

But Scott will have to hear the news sometime, and when he does, he calls off the engagement. Want to guess how it is resolved? Here goes: Scott changes his mind and wants to take her back. But Carroll went ahead and slept with Cary Grant that night, and now they are leaving town. They are headed for New York, and who knows what adventures. Whew!

Torch Singer (1933) starts with Claudette Colbert showing up at a Catholic maternity hospital, broke, unmarried and desperate. She has the baby and gets a place with a widowed young Swede - but times are hard, and she has to give the baby up for adoption to the same nuns.

She starts singing torch songs for a living, and does very well for herself. She gets rich and lives a wild drunken lifestyle, although she never forgets her baby. She is particularly nice to a rich, married sponsor, and one day her drunken party drops in on a radio broadcast of a children's show. When the nervous new host chokes on air, Colbert takes over, and is a surprise hit. So she's hired for the gig, and eventually starts to use it to try to find her baby. All she knows is a first name and a birthday. But it's a dead end - the first child she finds is black (this is not played for laughs - she is disappointed, but also sweet and compassionate). 

But she does find the kid's father - a rich playboy who headed for China on business before he realized that his one-night stand produced an heir. He wants to be re-united, but she is not having it. She's happy with her lifestyle and her manager, Ricardo Cortez. Want to guess how this one comes out?

She finds her daughter, and she's been adopted by the playboy. He makes a deal: Colbert can marry him and get the kid - she won't have to give up her life as a singer, she doesn't even have to love him. But they will be married snd raise the kid together. A cold but happy ending.

This movie has a lot of fun with the wild parties and a few songs. Colbert sings Give Me Liberty or Give Me Love, which I knew from Janet Klein's recording. Hot Saturday has some good parties, too, and some star power, with roommates Grant and Scott playing off against each other. But Grady Sutton is my favorite part.