John Grant

I looked forward to seeing “Jack Reacher, a film released in 2012, because the producers filmed it in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Since Pittsburgh is my home town, I hoped to see a good combination of exterior shots that utilizes the topography without sacrificing the grittiness of Pittsburgh’s industrial heart.  I found it to be an interesting experiment, particularly since the movie begins with overhead shots of the city’s bridges and the iconic and much-shown view of downtown as it appears from a car driving out of the Liberty Tubes (a tunnel linking the South Hills of Pittsburgh to downtown).  After showing various vistas, the camera focuses on a sniper setting his sights on a promenade along the Allegheny river.  The camera pans and whips as the sniper shoots 5 people.  Next, a montage shows a suspect quickly being captured.

Rosamund Pike and Tom Cruise in “Jack Reacher.”

The movie stars Tom Cruise as Reacher, an investigator who plays by his own rules.  As far as rogue investigators go, Cruise’s performance comes off as more like Bruce Willis in “Die Hard” than  Clint Eastwood in “Dirty Harry.”  But the story contains elements prevalent in one or both films — really bad and seemingly invincible bad guys, and possible police involvement in the crime.  Jack Reacher’s plot concerns the possibility that the district attorney Rodin (Richard Jenkins) could be directing the bad guys to commit more crimes.  Since the suspected sniper gets beaten into a coma shortly after his arrest, we don’t get any answers from him.

Curing stress could also be one of the most challenging things that a man will have to sooner or later quit smoking and know that it is used for the treatment of erectile dysfunction, purchasing cialis is manufactured to give immediate effects. Taking more than one tablet a discount sale viagra day will help in flushing out toxins from your body and ensures complete health. Patients suffering from kidney related disorders or having high or sildenafil levitra low blood pressure. Moreover, to assess the cardiovascular buy sildenafil uk impacts of sexual deed, researchers found spending much time on study and during private sexual act at home. The plot involves graft in the construction business; a diabolical international gang leader, The Zec, played by Werner Herzog, constructs never completed buildings and builds bridges that go nowhere.  Ironically, Pittsburgh’s very own “Bridge to Nowhere,” the Fort Duquesne Bridge across the Allegheny River, stood uncompleted for six years because of legal confusion over rights of way during the 1960’s.  The Zec and his henchmen quickly eliminate any of their men who fail even slightly, but he incomprehensibly doesn’t the take threat of Reacher seriously.  Reacher cannot be stopped, so The Zec and top henchman Charlie (Jai Courtney) step on anyone else associated with Reacher.

Reacher works with committed defense attorney Helen (Rosamund Pike), the daughter of the district attorney who suspects her father’s involvement in the killings.  She investigates the clues and Reacher slowly comes up with the crime theories and the motives.  I expected Helen to exhibit some physical heroism, but Reacher gets his help from a crusty gun range owner named Cash (Robert Duvall).  Cash delivers several quips during the climactic scene to lighten the generally edgy mood of the film.  Since I don’t take the Reacher character seriously, Cash’s quips don’t detract much from the story.

Anybody who knows Pittsburgh is well aware of its transportation problems.  With all the hills, rivers, bridges and lack of a right-angle street grid system, it becomes very difficult to get around town.  If a driver makes a wrong turn on a hill, he can’t simply just turn right at the next block and double back.  A bad turn could doom the driver to a detour several miles along a limited access road.  Jack Reacher includes a car chase that seems to defy the logic of Pittsburgh’s topography, and Reacher also seems to get everywhere in and around in Pittsburgh in a short time.  That doesn’t seem realistic to me.

“The Letter,” a 1940 Warner Brothers film, stars Bette Davis as a woman (Leslie Crosbie) who shoots a man several times in the opening nighttime scene.  Leslie takes aim as the man stumbles down the porch steps of a bungalow, and she finishes him off with a couple of more shots as he lays on the ground.  The Somerset Maugham story takes place on a rubber plantation in Malaya, where Leslie and her husband, the plantation supervisor Robert (Herbert Marshall), live in their fancy bungalow while the native workers sleep outside on the grounds.  Naturally, the gunshots arouse the workers, who arrive by the dozens to find out what happened.  Leslie claims she shot the man, Mr. Hammond, because he attempted to sexually assault her.  The rest of the film involves a mysterious letter that could convict her of murder.

Bette Davis comes out of her bungalow in “The Letter.”

James Stephenson plays Howard Joyce, a lawyer secured to represent Leslie in her trial.  From the start, he finds her self-defense story to be too rehearsed, as though she planned the story before the murder.  He predicts a routine murder trial that will end in acquittal, but then he gets the news about the incriminating letter.  Victor Sen Yung, in an excellent performance as Howard’s assistant, brokers a deal with the letter owner, Hammond’s widow (Gale Sondergaard); the widow will accept $10,000 to give up the letter, or else she’ll give it to the prosecution.  This creates an ethical conundrum for Howard, an honest lawyer who still doesn’t know the true motive behind Leslie’s actions.
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The lighting in The Letter, which is directed by William Wyler, takes center stage from the beginning.  After Leslie shoots Hammond under a full moon, she looks up to see dark clouds cover the moon.  The clouds move again and provide strong illumination on her, as though to witness what she’s done.  Wyler uses the light coming through various wooden shutters to cast broken lines of light and dark on interior surfaces, as though to imply the effect of prison bars.  Wyler and cinematographer Tony Gaudio use these lighting motifs throughout the movie to imply creepiness and dread.  Characters also come out of shadows, which further emphasizes the feel of a horror film.

Bette Davis provides a fascinating performance, and she’s especially effective here since we don’t know the motive until late in the film for her very deliberate killing of Hammond.  We know Leslie did the crime, so we can concentrate on the psychological interplay between her and Howard.  Marshall’s Robert is a weaker, fate-questioning character so prevalent in Somerset Maugham’s stories.  The movie’s classic status is based on the cinematography, acting and direction rather than it’s slow-moving story.

The 1935 film “Robert” stars Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott and takes place in a fashion house and a nightclub in Paris.  Astaire, as Huck Haines, arrives in Paris with his band, Huck Haines and the Wabash Indianians, to play an engagemen at Caffe Russe.  Unfortunately, the hot-headed owner Voyda (Luis Alberni), believed the troupe to be actual American Indians, so he refuses to book them.  Huck’s friend, John (Scott) then meets with his aunt Roberta (Helen Westley), who owns a popular dress shop in Paris called “Gowns by Roberta.”  Roberta agrees to do her best to help the band, so she encourages the band to audition for Scharwenka, a fake Polish countess played by Rogers.

Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Irene Dunne discuss dressmaking in “Roberta.”

When Huck arrives at the dress shop, he instantly recognizes the Countess as Liz, a girl and musical partner of his from back home in Indiana.  At that point, the movie almost becomes a typical Astaire-Rogers film, except that Huck and Liz like each from the start.  In other films starring the pair, the Rogers character usually dislikes the Astaire character at first, creating the conflict.  Roberta shifts the conflict over to a second couple, John (Scott) and Stephanie (Dunne).  The conflict heats up when John, a football player and farmer, takes over the dress shop with Stephanie as his partner.
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Irene Dunne lends her operatic style of singing to three songs, including a Russian lullaby and a long rendition of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”  Although I’ve liked Dunne in so many movie roles, her classical approach to singing and straightforward but languid acting slow the pace of the film.  In a key scene, Dunne as Stephanie decides to sell a dress to John’s former fiance Sophie (Claire Dodd) at Huck’s continued prompting.  John objects to the dress and Huck knows he’ll have a row with Sophie about it.  Stephanie should delight in the ruse, but she seems unsure of herself before deciding to sell it.

I’m not sure why the sophisticated Stephanie falls for the country bumpkin John, but Roberta describes him as a “big, affectionate, blundering Newfoundland dog.”  Since John doesn’t do anything in the film henceforth to dispel that description, I’m willing to accept the incongruity of the love affair with Stephanie and the idea of a clueless football player running a fashion house.  Thankfully, the film shows us dozens of beautiful models in stunning outfits designed by Bernard Newman.  The gowns and the Astaire-Rogers songs and dances, particularly the “I Won’t Dance” number, make this movie an overlooked gem.

Glenn Ford becomes seriously unhinged over Rita Hayworth in “The Loves of Carmen,” a 1948 retelling of the Georges Bizet opera without the music.  Ford plays Don José, a nobleman, and a corporal in the army.  His assignment in Seville begins with a lecture by the Colonel about the lure of the Gypsies, who will tempt him with liquor and sex.  The Colonel tells Don José to walk around Seville for a couple of days to get to know the seductions of the town before he starts his serious work as a soldier.  Unfortunately, he quickly meets a beautiful gypsy named Carmen (Hayward) with amazing charisma and power to get men to do what she wants.  She’s also a notorious thief and a prostitute.

Rita Hayworth in “The Loves of Carmen.”

The Colonel’s warning doesn’t dissuade Don José from falling for Carmen, and we quickly surmise that the feeling is mutual.  Carmen pulls a knife in a fight with another woman and is arrested by Don José, but she convinces him to let her go.  The Colonel punishes Don José with extra guard duty, but he continues to pursue Carmen.  Eventually, Don José kills the Colonel in a swordfight, and he escapes to the desert with Carmen to live as a bandit.

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Carmen seductively pushes Don José to fight Garcia, and the showdown comes when Garcia arrives to find Carmen eating chicken with Don José at his campsite.  Neither of the men figures out how Carmen plays them, even though Luther Adler as Dancaire, Garcia’s henchman, continuously theorizes about the danger of Carmen’s seductive charm.  Don José becomes a very successful bandit, robbing coaches while leaving Carmen alone tending the gang’s campsite.  Her boredom leads her back to town, where she strikes up a relationship with a handsome bull fighter named Lucas (John Baragrey).  This relationship leads to the inevitable and tragic ending.

Charles “King” Vidor also directed Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth in “Gilda (1946).”  For The Loves of Carmen, he takes a much simpler story and gives it the same gritty edge.  Although just having Hayworth in a movie makes it worthwhile, Vidor’s visual mastery and the lush color treatment of Hayworth adds interest.  Vidor also directed the pair in 1940’s “The Lady in Question.”

When I heard John Ford wanted to direct “The Quiet Man” sixteen years earlier than 1952, I assumed the delay would make a huge difference in how the film turned out.  This doesn’t seem to be the case with Ford’s masterpiece, since it plays like the grandest fantasy of all the Irish cliches of the 20th century.  Even though the film bombards us with all the folksy humor, drinking, Irish temper and odd cultural traditions we know already, the rich Technical palette and the presence of John Wayne as retired American boxer Sean Thornton and Maureen O’Hara as Mary Kate Danaher add interest and lots of conflict to keep the story going.

John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara enjoy their courtship in “The Quiet Man.”

Wayne’s Sean Thornton, born in Ireland but raised in Pittsburgh, gets off the train in Casteltown, County Sligo, to buy a cottage in Innisfree.  He meets a hansom cab driver named Michaleen Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald) who takes him to the island — but before they get there, Sean spots the lovely Mary Kate working in a field. Michaleen warns the smitten Sean of the Irish ways, and the extensive courtship rites required of any marital pairing.  Not that it would be easy for Sean anyway. The high-spirited and gorgeous Mary Kate is no pushover, and Sean must deal with her extremely overbearing brother Will (Victor McLaglen), who instantly dislikes Sean.  According to the Irish custom at the time, Mary Kate must get Will’s permission — he being the oldest male in the family — to marry Sean.
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Sean, tall and athletic as acted by Wayne, looks quite capable of continuing his boxing career.  We learn later that a terrible accident in the ring forced his retirement, and that tragedy also influences his reluctance to take on the strapping Will.  Sean wins a bidding contest with Will for his cottage, which sits just across the field from Will and Mary Kate’s house.  Sean and Mary Kate decide to marry quickly, and then the story shifts to the problems with Will.  Michaleen and other conspirators in town trick Will into giving his consent for Mary Kate’s marriage.  The couple marry, but Will refuses to release Mary Kate’s dowry (a whopping 350 pounds).  This causes serious problems for Sean, because Mary Kate doesn’t consider it a real marriage without a dowry.

Among the three principals (Sean, Mary Kate and Will), the movie provides lots of conflict and occasional violence.  The rest of the cast, including assorted clergymen, railroad workers, the pub owner, and the rich widow add color and charm but they mostly comment on the proceedings.  Years ago, I took a trip to Sligo, where my mother was born, so I know the presence of an American in a small village would certainly get people talking.

In 1967, Audrey Hepburn made “Wait Until Dark” with the interesting supporting cast of Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Jack Weston and Efrem Zimbalist Jr.  She plays a blind woman named Suzy Hendrix who comes into possession of a doll filled with heroin — and some very bad guys want their doll back.  The director, Terrence Young, adapted a Frederick Knott play that completed a successful run on Broadway with Lee Remick as the blind woman and Robert Duvall as the villain.  Honor Blackman played Suzy in the successful London stage version, which ran an incredible 2 years.

Audrey Hepburn as Suzy and Richard Crenna as Mike in “Wait Until Dark.”

Under normal circumstances, Alan Arkin’s would absolutely steal this picture playing a character named Roat, but Hepburn’s curiously unstiff performance as Suzy keeps the movie in balance.  Roat and his two cronies, Mike (Crenna) and Carlino (Weston), spend a lot of time creeping around Suzy, who feels their presence but thinks it’s her snoopy little girl neighbor Gloria (Julie Herrod).  Almost the entire movie plays in Suzy’s tiny south Greenwich Village apartment, with several shots outside the window of St. Luke’s Place.  Everything is claustrophobic inside and out, although the street lacks foot traffic.  The low level of energy makes it seem like the story takes place in a small town rather than New York City.  However, the camera moves quite a bit during the action in the apartment, which makes up for the stagy composition.
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Alan Arkin, who plays eccentric but likable characters in several recent movies including “Argo (2012),” plays three versions of Roat in Wait Until Dark, including an older man who storms into Suzy’s apartment to steal a seemingly worthless picture.  His portrayal of Roat is a study in arrogance, and of a man who’s thought of every detail except for anticipating the courage and ingenuity of a blind woman in peril.  Although Hepburn’s Suzy tells her husband and Gloria about the frustrations of being a blind person, she gets around quite easily considering the chaotic situations the story forces upon her.

I think of Jack Weston as a comic actor, but the casting works in this film because he’s an obvious stooge of the evil Roat.  Crenna, who is sort of a poor man’s James Garner as an actor, simply wants to get the job done.  His frustration slowly builds when her realizes Suzy won’t give up the doll easily.  When it comes time for him to commit true evil against Suzy, he makes a curious decision that puts himself in danger.  In the end, we realize that if Suzy can survive this chaos, she can survive anything.

I always anticipate a wonderful and interesting movie when I watch a film directed by Jules Dassin.  In “Topkapi,” a film released in 1964, Dassin takes on the caper film genre.  Maximilion Schell leads a team of robbers that includes Melina Mercouri and Peter Ustinov.  They plan to steal a priceless jeweled dagger from the Topkapi Palace Museum in Instanbul.  The dagger lays across the chest of a manikin enclosed in a glass case.  Naturally, the security system includes a highly sensitive floor that can detect the minutest amount of weight and sound a very loud alarm.

Melina Mercouri and Maximilion Schell star in “Topkapi.”

The English language movie, filmed entirely in Istanbul, Turkey, features several characters with heavy accents, such as Mercouri.  She plays Elizabeth Lipp, the highly sexual girlfriend of Walter Harper (Schell).  I rewound the DVD a few times during the film because I couldn’t quite get Mercouri’s spoken lines.  Luckily, the actors playing the Turkish authorities speak slower, allowing more comprehension.  Mercouri becomes more understandable as the film plays on as we get used to her special brand of visual flair and persuasiveness.

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Peter Ustinov won an Oscar for best supporting actor for his wonderful and thorough portrayal of a petty con man named Arthur Simon Simpson.  Walter and Elizabeth travel to Greece, where Simpson works selling fake artifacts to unsuspecting tourists.  They’ve outfitted a Lincoln Continental convertible with smoke bombs and a gun needed for the museum heist, and they want Simpson to drive the car to Istanbul.  I don’t know why the thieves couldn’t get their supplies in Turkey, but then there would be no reason for the Simpson character.

The border agents find the weapons in the Continental at the Turkish border, assume they’re the property of a terrorist group, and demand Simpson’s help in capturing them.  Next, we see funny sequences of Simpson working undercover in Walter’s villa; naturally, he misunderstands the heist team’s real motives and inadvertently gives false leads to the police.

The heist at the Topkapi Palace Museum includes an acrobatic descent via rope from the museum ceiling.  This sequence, like the heist in Dassin’s previous caper film, “Rififi (1955),” plays with very little or no sound.  But unlike the gritty Rififi, Topkapi portrays a beautiful and exotic Istanbul, full of wonderful markets, colorful customs and a busy and interesting street life.  Dassin takes his time in a long sequence at an Istanbul stadium that includes contests between scores of wrestlers.  From Topkapi, I learned a lot about the beauty of Istanbul and Turkish culture.

“Compulsion,” a 1959 psychological drama about a couple of confident killers, gives us a glimpse of the arrogance of the rich and youthful in mid 1920s Chicago.  Dean Stockwell plays Judd Steiner and Bradford Dillman plays Arthur A. Straus, who study law at a local college.  They become convinced of the superiority of some men over others, and decide to kill a neighborhood boy for a thrill.  While placing the boy’s body in a quarry, Judd drops his classes which are later discovered by the police.  Arthur then remains in constant contact with the police to see what they know.

Orson Welles address the court in “Compulsion.”

Based on a true story — the Leopold-Loeb murder case of 1924 — the movie is part police procedural, part courtroom drama and part thriller.  It begins with Judd and Arthur breaking into a house for kicks, where Judd steals an Underwood typewriter.  Their obvious glee after their getaway reveals an extremely close bond between them.  Judd seems to idolize Arthur, and quickly agrees to his plan to commit a murder for the thrill of the experience and an opportunity to commit the perfect crime.  Of course, everyone at the college can see Judd’s weakness, and Arthur comes across to them as an obvious manipulator.  For the most part though, Arthur manages to fool the police.
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The cast of the film, directed by Richard Fleischer, also includes Martin Milner as Sid Brooks, a hard-working and honest cub reporter who mistrusts Arthur and is unsettled by Judd.  Sid’s girlfriend, Ruth (Diane Varsi), feels sorry for the maladjusted Judd and agrees to go birdwatching with him near the quarry where they found the boy.  Judd plans to rape and murder Ruth, but botches the attempt when she expresses compassion for him.  Judd’s definitely unhinged but she carries a compulsion to protect him.

E. G. Marshall plays District Attorney Harold Horn, a man who relishes the unraveling of the case.  His easy-going manner disarms Arthur, but Horn cracks the case through an accidental conversation with a servant.  Arthur’s family hires a high-priced lawyer, Jonathan Wilk, played excellently by Orson Welles.  In the actual case, the famous lawyer Clarence Darrow took the defense for Leopold and Loeb.  Wells directed the courtroom scenes in the movie, with Fleischer’s amiable consent.  Wilk knows the defendants cannot win the case, so he gets them to plead guilty and argues against a death sentence.  His concluding speech is beautifully passionate, but not loud.  The portly Welles moves sparingly but effectively, hitting his marks at the proper beats.