FRAMED - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The insane stunts are the real thing as legendary man's man director Phil Karlson delivers a slice of nasty 70s noir pie, minimal hair pie, manhandled blondes and a whole whack of delectable man-on-man brutality! YEAH!

 This brief snippet from Framed gives you an idea
of how action scenes were directed by filmmakers
who knew what they were doing and why the REAL THING
is ALWAYS so much better than STUPID CGI.
Damn! Movies used to be TRULY insane!!!

Framed (1975)
dir. Phil Karlson
Starring: Joe Don Baker,
Gabriel Dell, Brock Peters,
John Marley, John Larch,
Paul Mantee, Roy Jenson,
Warren Kemmerling,
Connie Van Dyke

Review By Greg Klymkiw


In contemporary cinema, when all or some of the properties that normally characterize the genre (or, if one prefers, movement) of film noir are present in the work, pains always appear to be taken by those who write their analyses of said pictures to use phrases such as “noir-influenced”, “noir-like”, "neo-noir" or “contemporary noir”. Seldom will you see anyone daring to refer to Sin City or its ilk as film noir, but will instead utilize one (or variations of) the aforementioned.

During the 1970s, a number of pictures burst on the scene that – aside from their contemporary settings and dates of production – bear considerable traces of the properties attributed to film noir. Arthur Penn’s Night Moves, Francis Coppola’s The Conversation, Michael Ritchie’s Prime Cut, Peter Yates’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia and numerous others could all be characterized as film noir – especially with their emphasis on such properties as: hard-boiled heroes, the power of the past and its unyielding influence upon the present, the unique and stylized visuals (even those emphasizing visual “realism” have style to burn with their harsh lighting and mega-grain), post-war and/or wartime disillusionment and, amongst others, an overwhelmingly hopeless sense of time lost (and/or wasted).

One picture from the 70s that could also fit the noir tradition permeating that oh-so-rich-and-groovy decade of dissent is one that has largely been forgotten. Since it was neither a hit, nor critically regarded in its year of release, Phil Karlson’s grim, violent crime melodrama Framed is a movie that’s long overdue for discovery, or, if you will, re-discovery.

JOE DON BAKER NUDE SHOWER SCENE

Produced and written by Karlson’s creative partner Mort Briskin (they previously delivered one of the hugest box office hits of the 70s, Walking Tall), the world of Framed resembles a cross between Jules Dassin’s Brute Force and virtually every other revenge-tinged noir fantasy one can think of including Karlson’s 50s noir classics like Kansas City Confidential and the utterly perfect, deliciously mean-spirited Phenix City Story. In fact, Framed comes close to being a remake of Kansas City Confidential, but where it definitely departs is in the permissiveness of the 70s and the levels of wince-inducing violence it ladles on like so many heapin’ helpin’ globs o’ grits into the bowls of hungry Tennessee rednecks patronizing the greasy spoons of the Old South.

And indeed, Tennessee is where Framed was shot and is, in fact, set (not unlike the Karlson-Briskin Buford Pusser shit-kicker Walking Tall). While this down-home haven for rednecks seems “a might” incongruous for a film noir thriller, it’s actually in keeping with the sordid backdrops of numerous noir classics – many of which are set against the small mindedness of middle America. Not all noir was in the big cities – the sleepy suburbs, seedy tank towns and just plain wide-open spaces – could all provide ample atmosphere for any number of these dark crime classics. Not that Framed qualifies as a classic, but it’s damn close and delivers the kind of goods one expects from a kick-butt director like Phil Karlson.

CONNIE VAN DYKE IS MANHANDLED

His grim, brutal picture recounts the gripping saga of Ron Lewis (Joe Don Baker) a beefy, semi-amiable (albeit semi-smarmy) gambler and club owner who arrives home with a satchel-full of cash he’s just won in Vegas. His lover and partner in the club, platinum ice-queen country singer Susan Barrett (frosty, sexy Connie Van Dyke) begs him to stop gambling and quit while he’s ahead. If he did, there’d be no movie. Instead, beefy-boy takes his satchel and enters a high-stakes poker game and cleans up even bigger.

On his way home, someone tries shooting at him and when he pulls into his garage a redneck deputy harasses him. A brutal fight ensues (with eye-gouging – yeah!) and the lawman dies, whilst our hero, a mangled heap o’ beef, slips into a coma. Ron wakes up to find that he needs to plea-bargain his way out of a sticky situation wherein he faces life imprisonment for murder. He also discovers that his money has been stolen and that he’s been set-up big-time. (Granted, he DID actually kill the redneck lawman, but it was in self-defense.) Adding insult to injury, Ron’s ice queen is beaten, then raped by some bad guys and soon, our hero is sent up the river to a maximum-security prison.

Luckily, once he’s firmly ensconced in the Big House, he hooks up with a friendly hitman (former Bowery Boy – I kid you not – Gabriel Dell) and an equally amiable mob boss (John Marley, The Godfather producer who wakes up to find a horse’s head in his bed). Time passes with relative ease, and soon, our beefy hero – with a little help from his new prison pals – is on the loose and on a rampage o’ sweet, sweet revenge.

Loaded with violence and plenty of dark, seedy characters and locales (and a few welcome dollops of humour), Framed is a nasty, fast-paced and thoroughly entertaining crime picture. Joe Don Baker is a suitably fleshy hero and Gabriel Dell a perfect smart-ass sidekick. What’s especially cool about the movie is just how amoral a world ALL the characters move in and frankly, how their shades of grey don’t actually confuse things, but work beautifully with the noir trappings of the story and style.

And DAMN! Phil Karlson sure knows how to direct action. No CGI here. The utterly insane car stunts and hand-to-hand fight scenes are astoundingly choreographed and captured with his trademark brute-force aplomb. What an eye! What a MAN! They don't make filmmakers like Karlson anymore nor, frankly, do they make crime pictures like Framed.

If nothing else, the movie features a nude Joe Don Baker shower scene. That alone offers plenty of titillation.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3-and-a-half Stars

Framed” is available as a barebones DVD release from Legend Films. As well, other terrific Phil Karlson pictures are available and can be ordered directly below.

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FORCE MAJEURE - DVD Review By Greg Klymkiw - Domestic Drama fromFilmsWeLike

Just in time for Valentine's Day long weekend is the DVD release via FilmsWeLike of Sweden's FORCE MAJEURE. It's a perfect film for young lovers (especially those considering marriage) and certainly, it makes for fine family viewing since it presents a superb mirror image for Moms, Dads and the little nippers of their own lives.

At press time, I was unable to assess the Blu-Ray, but the DVD (especially if you play it on a Blu-Ray player with a high-def monitor) will look absolutely gorgeous - the snowy whites of the Alps, blasting your eyeballs and the well composed and apportioned dollops of glorious colour will massage your oculi to put you and those you love in a state of blissful complacency before the film's inner, roiling power explodes into the true savagery inherent in love.

Added bonii include a superb interview with  writer-director Ruben Östlund and star Johannes Bah Kuhnke in addition to an AXS TV featurette: A Look At Force Majeure. Below is the full review of the film and ordering information - you can conveniently purchase the picture directly from this website via Amazon.

Perfection is in the eye of the beholder.
Disaster, however, is always looming.

Force Majeure (2014)
Dir. Ruben Östlund
Starring: Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A perfect nuclear family from Sweden - gorgeous, physically fit and full of smiles - pose for holiday snaps on the slopes during a ski vacation in the French Alps. They appear, for all intents and purposes, to have a perfect existence.

Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke) and Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) are such peas in a pod they perform nightly ablutions together with vigour and their two children actually get along with each other, happily playing like little piggies in a mud pen.

All four of them even wear stylish matching pyjamas as they nap together after a few hours of exercising their ludicrously lithe bodies in out-of-doors family-fun-frolics. How could anything go wrong?

From the very opening frames and onwards, filmmaker Ruben Östlund has us believing that nothing could be this perfect. His miss-en-scene is rife with gorgeously composed, almost perfectly symmetrical shots with long takes and very judicious cutting. The pace is so meticulous, so strangely mannered, that something, anything, could happen. Sure enough, whilst they all happily dine on an outdoor terrace, a huge avalanche crashes down and everyone in view of the fixed position of the camera disappears in a spray of snow.

False alarm.

As the fog of snow dissipates, it's clear the avalanche fell with considerable force, but at a great distance away. Ebba and the children, still at the table, gather their wits about them. Tomas enters the frame and the four sit down to eat. Little does Tomas know, but he's in big trouble - or rather, his actions during the false disaster have placed a seed in Ebba's mind that's only going to grow - a seed of doubt. It's going to produce a sharp thorn in Ebba's craw that she's going to rip out and then, repeatedly plunge into Tomas with until she creates open wounds that will fester into gooey, viscous clumps, like some rapid flesh eating disease.

Does Tomas really love his family? Does he love Ebba? Does he care about anyone other than himself? If he did, why would he leave his family behind and run like a coward when disaster seemingly struck?

These are questions that come up again and again and yet again. Hell hath no fury like a woman who believes she's been scorned - it's usually worse than if she had been genuinely decimated. Ebba not only casts aspersions upon her husband's manhood, but begins to construct a belief that their marriage is in serious jeopardy.

If she'd only keep it between them, it would be one thing, but she hurls her accusatory doubts in front of the children, strangers and even close friends who join them on the trip. Her construct becomes an inescapable reality and over the next five days in the Alps, Östlund serves us domestic fireworks - Swedish style, of course - as things get intensely, harrowingly and even hilariously chilly.

Force Majeure is, for most of its running time, a tour de force of domestic drama dappled with mordant wit amidst a snowy backdrop. With sharp writing, gorgeous, controlled direction and performances that are quite perfect, it's too bad Östlund's screenplay hands us a major copout during the final third when he manufactures a false, forced symmetry to the aforementioned situation - one that's so predictable we can't actually believe it's happening.

When it does, indeed, unfurl, the almost inept balancing of the conjugal power dynamic feels painfully didactic. In a movie where we're normally on the edge of our seats, wondering what could be lurking round every corner, we do suspect Östlund could well take us in this particular direction, but we assume he never would.

We assumed ever-so mistakenly.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

Force Majeur is currently available on DVD from FilmsWeLike. Feel free to order directly from the Amazon links below and in so doing, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

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IN HER PLACE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - One of the year's 10 Best Films as selected by The Film Corner begins its Canadian Theatrical Premiere at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas in Toronto. A GREAT FILM that quietly rips our hearts to shreds. AN ABSOLUTE MUST-SEE!!! ***** 5-Stars Highest Film Corner Rating

WINNER of numerous Accolades from Critic Greg Klymkiw
in The Film Corner Awards (TFCA 2014)
One of the 10 BEST FILMS of 2014
Best Canadian Feature Film: Time Lapse Pictures
Best Supporting Actress: Ahn Ji-Hye
Best Musical Score: Alexander Klinke
WINNER of numerous Accolades from Critic Greg Klymkiw
in the Film Corner Canadian Film Awards 2014
Director Albert Shin
Screenwriters Pearl-Ball Harding, Albert Shin
Actresses Yoon Da-kyung, Kil Hae-yeon, Ahn Ji-Hye
David Miller, A71 Entertainment,
Top 10 Heroes of Canadian Cinema

A daughter,
whose child
can never be hers.
A mother,
whose daughter
is everything.
A woman,
who comes
between them.
A baby,
that binds
all three
for eternity.

In Her Place (2014)
Dir. Albert Shin
Script: Shin
& Pearl Ball-Harding
Prods. Igor Drljaca, Yoon Hyun Chan & Shin
Starring: Yoon Da Kyung, Ahn Ji Hye, Kil Hae Yeon, Kim Sung Cheol, Kim Chang Hwan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Now and again, I find myself seeing a movie that feels so perfect, so lacking in anything resembling a single false note and so affecting on every level that I'm compelled to constantly pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. In Her Place, enjoying its Canadian Theatrical Premiere at Toronto's Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas is a dream, but most decidedly of the dream-come-true variety. This is exactly the sort of film that restores my faith in the poetic properties of cinema and how the simplest of tales, at their surface, allow its artists to dig deep and yield the treasures inherent in the picture's soul. When a film is imbued with an inner spirit as this one is, you know you're watching something that hasn't been machine-tooled strictly for ephemeral needs. In Her Place is a film about yearning, love and the extraordinary tears and magic that are borne out of the company and shared experience of women. And, it is exquisite.

A childless couple nearing the early stages of middle-age, cut a private deal to adopt outside the purview of an official agency, which, they're convinced, will be the ideal no-muss-no-fuss arrangement. The Wife (Yoon Da-kyung), having been previously afflicted with serious health issues, especially wants the world to think she's the biological birth-mother of the adopted newborn.

She and her Husband (Kim Kyung Ik) concoct a cover for friends and family that she's waiting out her pregnancy in America instead of Seoul. In reality, she's not left South Korea at all and is staying on an isolated farm. Her hosts are The Mother (Kil Hae-yeon), widowed and forced to run the sprawling acreage on her own and her daughter, a shy, pregnant teenage Girl (Ahn Ji-hye). For a substantial sum, this financially needy rural family agrees to give up the baby to the well-to-do couple from the big city. The Wife stays in modest digs originally meant for onsite farmhands while her Husband returns to Seoul to work. From here, she can maintain the optics of being away from home during pregnancy but also take an active role in nurturing the young lady carrying "her" child. The arrangement seems too good to be true and sure enough, complications slowly surface and threaten to scuttle an otherwise perfect plan.

In Her Place is director Albert Shin's stunning sophomore feature-length outing. Working with co-writer Pearl Ball-Harding and co-producer Igor Drljaca (director of 2012's dazzling Krivina and Shin's old York University film school pal and partner in their company TimeLapse Pictures), Shin and Drljaca seem to have pulled off another miracle in the relatively short life of their seemingly perfect partnership. Evocatively photographed by Moon Myoung Hwan, wrenchingly and beautifully scored by Alexandre Klinke, featuring a cast as perfect as any director (or audience) would want and edited by Shin himself with the pace and deep sensitivity that's reminiscent of a Robert Bresson film, you'll experience as haunting and touching a film as any of the very best that have been wrought. This is great filmmaking, pure and simple.

What I love about this movie, aside from its emotional content, is just how Shin trusts in the beautiful writing and employs a mise-en-scène that allows his actors to inhabit the frame (always perfectly composed) for the kind of maximum impact that can come from holding steady on narrative action and only cutting when absolutely necessary to spin things forward in subtle ways - parcelling out information so that we are allowed to take in both information and the affecting layers of very palpable impression and subtext.

A perfect example of Shin's assured direction occurs right off the top. The film opens with a fade up from black into a perfectly composed fixed shot of a well-worn gravel road. Flanked by lush, green trees, an unassuming, slightly worn farmhouse sits deep in the centre background, while a car makes its way into the frame and moves with purpose onto the property. All is swathed in a strange grey light from the overcast sky and as the car reaches a halfway point on the road, Shin cuts to place us in a reverse as the vehicle comes even closer to the house. It's as if the point of view was not so much from that of a character, or even from the inanimate house as if it were personified, but rather taking the perspective of an omnipresent observer. This won't be the first time Shin delivers such a POV. From this point and onwards, he allows us, the audience to participate with a kind of fly-on-the-wall scrutiny.

This second shot of the film is masterful on several important fronts.

In both the writing and staging, the camera lets action play out in the time it takes and in so doing, always keeps us guessing (in all the right ways) as to who is in the car, who the people are once we meet them as they exit the vehicle, get an immediate sense of character from how the two people are positioned in the frame and also by their actions and finally, a very subtle dolly back as the two characters move forward and encounter a sweet, friendly, but sad-eyed dog, chained next to an empty food bowl as it observes the visitors.

This image of a chained dog resonates incalculably as the film progresses.

Another important element here is that these two people become identifiable as a married couple because the shot takes its time and is so perfectly blocked. Even more extraordinarily, the shot allows enough time for one of the people to notice something in the distance and move towards it before the next cut.

This entire shot is a brave and bold stroke so early in the proceedings. The shot lasts for two minutes of screen time, setting the mood, tone and pace of how the tale will unfold, but also establishing how we, as viewers, are observers. And we are not passive viewers. It's as if we were actually in the frame, unseen by the characters, but participants in the narrative nevertheless, almost complicit in the actions of the story. Complicity is indeed a key thematic element at play in the film and Shin does not let us off the hook.

Finally, though, the shot also gives us the sense that this will be the story of The Husband. He is, after all, the most active half of the couple. This is essential at this point, especially since we soon find ourselves within an interior shot set back from a table where the Husband, his back to us, continues to be the most active character in terms of his domination of the conversation and by his declarative statements regarding the heat and stuffiness of the interior.

The notion of being able to breathe, to feel the sort of freedom this natural, rural environment should inspire, to not be hemmed in by circumstance, a lack of communication and/or connection to the outside world is also an element that is established and will reverberate throughout the film with great force.

The other vital component here is that the position of the camera allows us to see all three women very clearly. Though their interaction seems tentative compared to that of the husband, the very length of the shot allows Shin to establish trinity between these women and we're soon plunged into their story - which ultimately, the film is. The Husband seems a mere appendage or, if you will, the chauffeur. He gets his wife there, he even gets us there, but when his job is done, he's dispensed with save for a few key moments later on wherein he still, strangely, feels more like an instrument of mere conveyance.

The dynamic between these three women is so powerful, so telling and finally, so devastating, that Shin's subtle control of his film is at once invisible and yet always present because we are where we have to be for every single emotional and narrative beat.

In Her Place so quietly rips our hearts to shreds. We are included in the emotional journeys of a daughter whose child can never be hers, a mother whose daughter is everything to her but comes to this realization when it's too late and a woman who has come between them because her own desire to love and nurture is so strong and true.

Finally, it's all about a baby - a new life that binds all three women for what will be an eternity.

This is a great picture. See it.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

In Her Place enjoys its Canadian Theatrical Premiere at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas in Toronto via A71 Entertainment.

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WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Kiwi-Vamp MockDoc via VSC

VLADISLAV ENJOYS, uh, IMPALING, or rather, POKING.

1. A Fine Mess

2. Erotic Dance

3. Big Grumpy Pants

4. Impaling is always Fun

What We Do In The Shadows (2014)

Dir. Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi

Starring: Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, Jonathan Brugh, Ben Fransham, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, Stuart Rutherford, Jackie van Beek, Rhys Darby

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I should have hated this movie, but I couldn't. It's too good-natured and funny not to like. We're talking mockumentary, here. The subjects are vampires in New Zealand in the modern world. Just imagine a slightly broader This is Spinal Tap with blood-sucking before you go in and you're going to be just fine. I went in expecting nothing, mind you, but was rewarded with consistent laughs and often found myself soaring with joyous ebullience.

The set-up is pretty basic. A documentary crew (who always stay behind camera and don't ever appear as characters a la Rob Reiner in Spinal Tap) is granted permission to capture the daily lives of vampires (with a solemn oath that they'll never be attacked).

We're introduced to a "family" of four bloodsuckers and unlike our traditional notion of the undead living solitary lives in out-of-the-way castles, these fellas live in a sprawling dwelling in Wellington, New Zealand as - get this - flatmates.

Viago (Taika Waititi) is a bit frilly and foppish and takes on the role of fuss-budget den mother - always reminding his co-habitants of their household duties (sweeping, dusting, doing dishes and not leaving bloody spinal columns on the floor).

Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) is a long-haired, moustachioed satyr who hails from an Eastern European tradition of impaling, though he prefers to call it "poking".

Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) is the youngest and hence, most immature of the bunch, complaining about having to lift even the slightest finger to fulfil his responsibilities as a flatmate.

Deep in the bowels of the basement lives the eldest of the group, Petyr (Ben Fransham), a grumpy, 8000-year-old Max Schrek (or depending on your cup of Nosferatu, Klaus Kinski) lookalike.

The camera crew conducts one-on-one interviews with the oddball assortment of vampires in addition to capturing their day-to-day activities. The lads especially enjoy nights on the town (save for Petyr, who seldom leaves the basement, preferring victims to be dragged downstairs for him) and we get to enjoy our sidewalk-sashaying nocturnal undead buds roaming about, making like Dion and the Belmonts' The Wanderers.

Vampire Jam Session

Alas, these oddly-attired "nerds" are refused entry to all the hottest clubs and usually end up in the same joint, a decidedly uncool watering hole full of others of their uncool ilk. Here they usually meet up with their human "slave" Jackie (Jackie van Beek) who not only cleans up their messes, but most importantly, procures victims for them to dine upon. Poor Jackie is infected with the vampire bug, but only enough to do the fellas' bidding.

Nick - Master Clubber

She longs for eternal life and wants it sooner rather than later. She feels she's in her prime and wants to stay that way forever. How long can a girl be expected to procure? One of the victims she does indeed appropriate for the lads is the youthful Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer). Rather than decimating him entirely, he's drained completely of blood and turned into a vampire himself, thus becoming a new flatmate. Good thing too.

Nick's quite the man about town and gets his pals into all the hottest nightclubs.

IT-whiz Stu introduces
our vampires to the INTERNET!

The only thing that troubles Nick, though, is not having the company of his best friend, the computer geek Stu (Stuart Rutherford). He cuts a deal with the other vampires to bring Stu into his confidence and into their private world - unmolested. This turns out to be the best deal ever for the fellas since Stu's an IT-whiz during his day job and soon has the vampires hooked on YouTube, Skype, FaceBook and all manner of cyber-shenanigans.

There's a tiny bit of conflict that creeps into the movie involving their natural rivals, the werewolves of Wellington and Nick's less-than-discrete bad habit of telling everyone he knows (or barely knows) that he and his buds are vampires. This brings far too much unwanted attention upon them including a genuine vampire hunter and visits from the local constabulary.

The film eventually builds to an absolutely insane climax when the lads attend an annual ball of vampires, witches and zombies which furthermore spills over into a potentially deadly conflict with the werewolves. None of this, however, is ever scary, though there's a decent amount of tension and plenty of surprises to be had.

All in all, this group of bloodsuckers prove to be genuinely charming and likeable fellows and the movie injects all the tropes and lore of vampirism into the proceedings to keep genre fans constantly delighted. The running time is mercifully short and the picture never overstays its welcome. Happily, the camera crew do capture more than a few chases and kills, but they're never offensively complicit in their actions like, for example, the filmmakers in the vaguely reprehensible Man Bites Dog. The mock-doc is true to the genre and we're never presented with the sort of gaffes that can, in lesser examples of the ilk, takes us completely out of the forward thrust of the piece.

WHOOPSIE-DAISY: A BLEEDING MESS!

Though I might have preferred some of the performances to be slightly less over-played, nobody is ever egregiously tongue-in-cheek. Surprisingly, the movie is full of moments that are genuinely sweet and, I kid you not, rather touching. God knows, mock-docs and vampire pictures have been done to death, but What We Do In The Shadows always feels fresh, funny and yes, occasionally original. The movie is also blessed with a terrific song score (including weird recurring themes of klezmer-like Romanian foot-tappers) wonderful makeup, digital and wire effects, plus some dazzling stunt work.

My only major quibble is that there are simply not enough babes in the movie. Yes, there are a few, but they take a major back seat to the fellas and what red-blooded genre-geek doesn't want a good amount of babe action?

Well, this writer, for one, but even I had to concede that my grumblings about the dearth of babes eventually fell upon my own deaf ears. These guys are a riot!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

What We Do In The Shadows is currently in theatrical platform release throughout Canada via VSC (Video Services Corp). Upcoming playdates include:

February 13 opening:
TORONTO - Scotiabank Theatre
MONTREAL - Cinema Cineplex Forum
VANCOUVER - Cineplex International Village

February 20 opening:
OTTAWA - SilverCity Gloucester
CALGARY - Select CINEPLEX Locations

February 27 opening:
WINNIPEG - SilverCity Polo Park

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REMEMBER THE NIGHT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - - The TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". Curated by TIFF Senior Programmer James Quandt.

Remember The Night (1940)
Dir. Mitchell Leisen
Scr. Preston Sturges
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred McMurray, Beulah Bondi, Sterling Holloway, Elizabeth Patterson, Georgia Caine

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A fine script from Preston Sturges, solid Mitchell Leisen direction and an undeniably wonderful cast are what keep this It Happened One Night wannabe reasonably diverting. This ball of well-used yarn involves an inveterate kleptomaniac (Stanwyck) and the State Prosecutor (Fred McMurray) who's determined to bring her to justice. The picture then blossoms into an unlikely romance on the road.

All the requisite romantic comedy tropes of the period merge with Sturges's signature American Renoir microscope upon the values of middle class America as McMurray's character brings his criminal charge to spend the holidays with his family upstate, only to face an eventual conflict of interest when the reality of throwing the book at her legally, looms its ugly head.

This charmingly familiar item adds to the pantheon of Old Hollywood Christmas movies. Even in 1940, though, it must have felt a tad derivative, but there's no denying its first-rate entertainment value.

The Film Corner Rating: *** 3-Stars

Remember The Night plays Sunday, February 22 at 3:15 p.m. at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX in James Quandt's amazing series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". The film is presented in 35mm. For further info, visit the TIFF website HERE. The film is also available on DVD and Blu-Ray via Universal Pictures replete with a phenomenal set of extra features. As well, there are many other Stanwyck films from this TIFF series which can be ordered directly below and, if so, you'll be contributing to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

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DOUBLE INDEMNITY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". Curated by TIFF Senior Programmer James Quandt.

"I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man."

Double Indemnity (1944)
Dir. Billy Wilder
Scr. Raymond Chandler & Wilder
Src. Novella by James M. Cain
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred McMurray, Edward G. Robinson, Tom Powers, Jean Heather, Byron Barr, Porter Hall, Richard Gaines

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This is one of the creepiest, most chilling film noir thrillers of all time. That after 70+ years Double Indemnity still manages to pummel us with the force of a raging bull is a testament to the genius of director-and-co-writer Billy Wilder, his dark-matter-infused screenwriting partner Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, the original author of the novella upon which the film is based.

No matter when I've seen it, the movie never lets me down and continues to raise my goose-fleshy hackles with the same force Barbara Stanwyck's performance pumps streams of blood to engorge my, uh, appendage.

The movie begins with a car's mad dash through the streets of Los Angeles until its driver, one seemingly distraught Walter Neff (Fred McMurray) stops, slowly exits his vehicle, stumbles into an office tower, then into the domain of the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company. In the pitch black of night, not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse; though, it seems, a few weary cleaners work quietly as they sweep, vacuum, mop and wax the floors, occasionally emptying the contents of wastepaper baskets near the desks that now sit empty and silently in the vast workspace. Neff, still unsteady, carries himself along the hallways until he lunges into a dark room, slumps into a chair and flips on the dictaphone.

"You said it wasn't an accident, check.
You said it wasn't suicide, check.
You said it was murder…check." 

Neff has a story to tell, a confession if you like. His voice, filled with an odd mixture of regret and cynicism, begins to pour out the events which will comprise the vast majority of the film. It's a story rooted in lust and love, one that slowly tunnels into the muck and mire of paranoia, dreadful secrets and murder most foul.

A routine visit to remind a client (Tom Powers) that his automobile insurance is about to expire is the thing that turns Neff's life completely upside down. The client isn't home, but his wife, the shapely Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) most certainly is.

Being a man obsessed with keeping his standing as Pacific Assurance's top-flight salesman, he's had little time for love.

Lust, maybe, but Cupid's Arrow has always eluded him.

Phyllis, much younger than her hard-working oil man hubby, is trapped in a loveless marriage which she thought would yield riches, but has instead, served up an all-you-can-eat buffet of unhappiness, abuse and the most modest financial stability.

These two are primed, so to speak, for a good pump.

Phyllis: Do you make your own breakfast, Mr. Neff?
Neff: Well, I squeeze a grapefruit now and again.

Love, however, is a deadly game and a secret affair twixt Neff and Phyllis turns positively noxious when the ace salesman hatches a devious scheme based upon his confidence (due to experience) in being able to successfully pull off the ultimate insurance scam. Initially inspired and supported in his efforts by Phyllis, she of the Gorgeous Gams, lustful eyes, sexily curled lip and provocative anklet, perfect a plan that seems perfectly in the cards. If someone has life insurance, you see, there's a little clause called a "double indemnity". If the death occurs in a number of rare locales, then the payout is twice the normal amount. A tidy sum, indeed.

Nothing's ever perfect, though. Neff's best friend, mentor and bonafide father figure is the crafty, dogged insurance investigator Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson). Neff is more than aware that Keyes will be a tough nut to crack, but he's ultimately convinced that his dark premeditated enterprise will succeed.

"You know, you ought to take a look at the statistics on suicide some time. You might learn a little something about the insurance business… you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why they've got ten volumes on suicide alone… of all the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leaping from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that train was going at the point where the body was found? Fifteen miles an hour. Now how can anybody jump off a slow-moving train like that with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself?"

This is a great film. Though it captures the post-war ennui of the 40s, it's a film that still packs a punch in a contemporary context. Its protagonist, Walter Neff, unfettered by the "normal" desires of the upwardly mobile, seems to be content with his place in the world. He doesn't need love, a home with a hearth, a family, nor a desire to take to a desk-job in order to justify that he's "made it". He wants to be in the field, out in the world and finally, he takes a certain degree of pride (albeit of the laissez-faire variety) in being the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company's top salesman.

His patter to sell insurance is sprinkled with seemingly caring advice; counsel which indeed might have the potential to interfere (albeit positively) upon the lives of others, but is ultimately self-serving. It boosts his ego, his pride in selling more successfully than anyone, but most of all, Neff, as a human being seems to share the psychological portrait of a corporate entity. In the official synopsis of Mark Achbar, Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott's 2003 documentary The Corporation, a corporation. which is a legally constructed individual, or if you will, a "person", is defined thusly:

"The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social 'personality': it is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism."

This seems to describe Neff to a "T" and yet, we like the guy. Why shouldn't we? He's a charming, oddly handsome and wryly funny human being. He sees something he wants - Phyllis - and he's willing and able to do what he needs to do to get it/her. All this said, though, the Wilder/Chandler/Cain Holy Trinity have carefully inserted enough shadings to Walter's character, which gradually reveal a man who honours friendship, wants love and is also imbued with a sense of sacrifice. It's true that he's painted himself into a kind of "the jig is up" corner, but it's a sense of both mortality and morality which work upon the un-oiled hinges of that tiny door nestled deep in his heart and sacrifice, he will, and does.

Phyllis: We're both rotten.
Neff: Only you're a little more rotten.

In many ways, it's a heartbreaker of an ending. Neff breaks the hearts of too many, including himself and he takes the ultimate plunge into seeking a kind of skewed redemption - one which we all too clearly understand. Fred McMurray is fundamentally perfect for the role of Walter Neff. It's no surprise that he eventually went on to depict the wise TV-Dad of the long running series "My Three Sons". Wilder/Chandler/Cain have created a character who fits very nicely into a cusp, one between war and post-war and yet another twixt hard-line film noir and mid-60s mainstream sentiment.

As filmmaker/critic Paul Schrader notes in his terrific essay "Notes on Film Noir", the film "… provided a bridge to the post-war phase of film noir. The unflinching noir vision of Double Indemnity came as a shock in 1944", but I'd go further and suggest it's as shocking now as it once was. We all want to believe in man's inherent goodness and though, as Schrader notes, "Double Indemnity was the first film which played film noir for what it essentially was: small-time, unredeemed, unheroic", I'd again go a step further and suggest that Neff's final act of sacrifice goes beyond all that.

There are two deep loves in the film. Firstly, there's the love between friends - Neff and Keyes. The body language between the two men and even the way they look at each other subtly betrays the notion that Neff is a true psychopath. Secondly, there's the love between old man Dietrichson's daughter Lola (Jean Heather) and her hot-headed-with-jealousy boyfriend Nino Zachetti (Byron Barr). It's a love thwarted by Lola's Dad, Phyllis and through his nefarious actions, Neff himself.

"Who'd you think I was anyway? The guy that walks into a good looking dame's front parlour and says, 'Good afternoon, I sell accident insurance on husbands. You got one that's been around too long? One you'd like to turn into a little hard cash?'"

Even Phyllis, the ultimate noir femme fatale, feels like she transcends using her charm, her seductive powers in the manner in which the Neff-Phyllis affair plays out - in secret, unconsummated, behind dark sunglasses and furtive whispers in a public supermarket where they can hide in plain sight. Stanwyck's performance is a whirlwind of sensual/evil force, but in her final confrontation with Neff, she's as cold and calculating as she's also tinged with a bitter regret, clearly inspired by the entire abnormal set-up of seeking to make love a reality.

Neff's narration of the tale has the same impact as Wilder's use of narration much later in Sunset Boulevard. Schrader defines the narration of film noir as being imbued with "an irretrievable past, a predetermined fate and an all-enveloping hopelessness." The sad and salient difference is that Sunset Boulevard is brilliantly narrated by a literal dead man, but the earlier and equally powerful Double Indemnity is narrated by a dying man, or rather, a man facing the inevitability of death, a life wasted save for his sacrifice for a love between two people that might only have been achieved by his acts of deception and murder.

And this, maybe more than anything, is why Double Indemnity is truly and virtually unequivocal in its greatness. The immoral actions of one man lead to sacrifice, which in turn leads to love. If this isn't as cynical as it is profoundly and deeply moving, nothing is.

The Film Corner Rating: ***** 5-Stars

Double Indemnity plays Saturday, February 21 at 3:30 p.m. at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX in James Quandt's amazing series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". The film is presented in a BRAND NEW DIGITAL RESTORATION. For further info, visit the TIFF website HERE. The film is also available on DVD and Blu-Ray via Universal Pictures replete with a phenomenal set of extra features. As well, there are many other Stanwyck films from this TIFF series which can be ordered directly below and, if so, you'll be contributing to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

"YES, I KILLED HIM. I KILLED HIM FOR MONEY AND A WOMAN.
I DIDN'T GET THE MONEY AND I DIDN'T GET THE WOMAN.
Pretty, isn't it?"

In Canada - BUY Double Indemnity HERE, eh!

In Canada - BUY Barbara Stanwyck Movies HERE, eh!


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In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY Barbara Stanwyck movies - HERE!


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BALL OF FIRE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". Curated by the inimitable Senior Programmer James Quandt.

Prince Charming, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:
Howard Hawks/Billy Wilder/Charles Brackett-Style

Ball of Fire (1941)
Dir. Howard Hawks
Scr. Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers, S.Z. Sakall, Tully Marshall, Leonid Kinskey, Richard Haydn, Aubrey Mather, Dana Andrews, Ralph Peters, Dan Duryea, Kathleen Howard, Allen Jenkins, Gene Krupa

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Yes, I love him. I love those hick shirts he wears with the boiled cuffs and the way he always has his vest buttoned wrong. Looks like a giraffe, and I love him. I love him because he's the kind of a guy that gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk, and I love the way he blushes right up over his ears. Love him because he doesn't know how to kiss, the jerk! " - Sugarpuss O'Shea

In this day and age, how hard would it be for movies to include characters with colourful monickers like Sugarpuss O'Shea? (Accent on "like" since there can only be one Sugarpuss O'Shea as portrayed by Barbara Stanwyck.) Seriously, it's not as if anyone in real-life during 1941, when the great screwball comedy Ball of Fire was made, actually sported sobriquets (officially christened or not) like Sugarpuss O'Shea, anyway. So, hell, 2015 is as good a year as any for screenwriters and directors to embrace similarly delectable appellations in their motion pictures.

And dialogue? What's with movies today? Come on, get with the programme, dudes! (AND dudettes!) Really! Does anything in the 21st Century come close to the magnificent banter as wrought by those esteemed Ball of Fire scribes Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett? Check out this gloriously sexy, funny and eminently romantic repartee twixt Sugarpuss (Stanwyck) and Professor Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper):

Sugarpuss: You think we could sort of begin the beguine right now?

Potts: Well, it's nearly one o'clock, Miss O'Shea.

Sugarpuss: Oh, foo, professor. Let's get ourselves a couple drinks, light the fire maybe, and you can start working on me right away.

Potts: I wouldn't think of imposing on you at this hour.

Sugarpuss: I figured on working all night.

Yes, it's always important for a gentleman to start working on Barbara Stanwyck tout suite! Imposing, indeed, if you ask this fella'.

Like any first rate romantic comedy, we've got a seemingly mismatched couple whom we desperately desire to get un-mismatched by getting together for an eternity of blissful whoopee by coming to appreciate and love each other's differences and in so doing, discover a few things or two about their own charming selves.

We begin with the introduction of a most unlikely Prince Charming in the form of Bertram Potts who, along with seven bookish codgers (Henry Travers, Oscar Homolka, Tully Marshall, S.Z. Sakall, Leonid Kinskey, Aubrey Mather and Richard Haydn), live and work in a stuffy old domicile branded the Totten Foundation by their late benefactor who has charged the men with writing a brand new encyclopedia bearing his surname and, of course, a decent entry within the A-Zs of all human knowledge.

Though our gents are well behind schedule and over budget (they're still working on the letter "S"), Potts is especially obsessed with his dictionary of contemporary American slang. After a conversation with the local garbageman (Allen Jenkins), our tightly-collared leading man discovers he's only begun to scratch the surface of the vulgar verbal vernacular of the modern American. He drags his coterie of stuffy old gents to a nightclub, hoping to connect with the beat of the country's au courant argot.

And WHAT a beat they connect with.

Legendary drummer Gene Krupa and his Orchestra are playing to a packed house and it's here where Potts encounters the woman of his dreams (only he doesn't quite know it yet). Krupa and his boys are blasting through a blistering rendition of "Drum Boogie" which gets even hotter with a closeup of a gorgeous hand clasping a curtain, its slender, titillatingly provocative finger tapping in rhythm to the beat until the hand clutches the fabric, wrenches it open and the sensual digit's owner, none other than hot chanteuse Sugarpuss O'Shea parades onto the floor and sexily croons along to the mirthful stylings of the orchestra.

Now, allow me please, an interjection not unlike the queries I opened my review with. Why, Oh Why, do we never see nightclubs in contemporary movies like the one on display here? Probably, because nightclubs like this don't exist anymore. Well, GOD DAMN IT, they should!

Before reading on, check out this clip from Ball of Fire and tell me afterwards you're not salivating at the prospect of such a nightclub appearing in a modern movie and on every bloody street corner on the North American continent.

Gene Krupa Orchestra -Drum Boogie-1941 by redhotjazz

And now try telling me that wunderkind director Damien Chazelle shouldn't have included repeat helpings of this clip in his otherwise perfect motion picture Whiplash.

But, I digress. Here's where Ball of Fire kicks into full gear. Sugarpuss is hooked up with mob boss Joe Lilac (a slimy Dana Andrews) and the District Attorney wants to subpoena her to testify against him. It's perfect! She needs a hideout and Potts needs an ideal guide to the lexicon of the savages. Lilac's henchmen Duke Pastrami (an even slimier Dan Duryea) and Asthma Anderson (the bumblingly slimy Ralph Peters) dispatch her into the lair of Prince Charming and the Seven Dwarfs of the esteemed Totten Foundation.

Here's where they fall in love (though they don't know it yet). Here's where the seeds of betrayal are sown. Here's where Ball of Fire delivers laughs and romance aplenty until its stirring climactic chicanery involving guns-a-blazing, mad-dashes and lovers destined to be together being ripped apart and brought back into each other's arms for some very hot Yum-Yum-Yum.

And if you want to know what a yum-yum-yum is, you're going to have to see the movie. I'm not spoiling that one for you.

The Film Corner Rating: ***** 5-Stars

Ball of Fire plays Thursday, February 12 at 9 p.m. at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX in James Quandt's amazing series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". The film is presented in a GLORIOUS 35MM ARCHIVAL PRINT. For further info, visit the TIFF website HERE. As well, there are many Barbara Stanwyck films from this TIFF series which can be ordered directly from the following links: Buy Barbara Stanwyck movies in Canada HERE and/or Buy Barbara Stanwyck movies in the USA or from anywhere in the world HERE. You can even click on any of these links and order ANY movie you want so long as you keep clicking through to whatever you want to order. By doing so, you'll be contributing to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.