Monday at the Movies - April 22, 2013

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.”  We were so busy celebrating Clarence Darrow’s birthday last week that we missed William Holden’s big day (Wednesday, April 17).  To make up for it, dig this review of one of his best.  (And if you haven’t seen Stalag 17 yet, for shame!)

Sabrina (1954) – I recently wrote that Silver Linings Playbook revived my faith in the romantic comedy genre, and Billy Wilder’s Sabrina is a reminder of the heights to which that genre had previously been taken.  Audrey Hepburn stars as chauffeur’s daughter Sabrina Fairchild; back from Parisian cooking school with a new veneer of class, Sabrina sets her sights on her father’s wealthy employer David Larrabee (William Holden), but David’s brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) needs to distract Sabrina long enough for David to marry a sugarcane heiress.  I won’t spoil the scheme, but I’m sure you know how it ends.  What can we say about Hepburn?  She’s gorgeous, a real vision, and she’s at her best when she brings out that coy smile to show how much she appreciates David’s attention.  As for Holden, his turn as pretty-boy David is a departure from his cynical characters from earlier Wilder flicks Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17, but he handles it with cocksure aplomb and two unforgettable bits of physical comedy (without spoiling anything, those in the know will recall the champagne glasses and the conference table).  But it’s Bogart who’s the real surprise, a far cry from his noiristic detectives and silent tough guys; Bogart downright steals the film as Linus Larrabee, who affects puppy-love and industrial acumen with surprising success, such that you might have a hard time figuring out which is the real Linus and which the performance (and rightly so).  It seems like so many movies I review here are so laden with gravitas that it’s difficult to breathe, so Sabrina is a welcome note of levity.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Top 10 Christmas Season Movies - #2-1!

This week, in anticipation of the Christmas season, we at The Cinema King would like to bring you more than just your usual share of recommendations.  So we present to you:  this week’s Top 10 list.  More specifically “The Top 10 Christmas Season Movies.”  Rather than fill the list with “obvious” choices of Christmas-y movies, there are a few “alternative” choices on the list – the overarching determining criterion is whether or not this is a movie that I will watch beginning to end, especially during (but not limited to) the Christmas season.

#2 – It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
I can’t be faulted for including at least one “traditional” Christmas movie on the list, can I?  Any Frank Capra movie is worth watching any day of the week, and It’s a Wonderful Life has become such a Christmas staple that it’s part of all our traditions.  True, its status as a mainstay on network television was due initially to a lapsed copyright, but after that copyright was reinstated the film remained part of our holiday tradition.  There’s no substitute for Jimmy Stewart’s earnestly heartfelt sincerity and the nostalgic simplicity of Capra’s world, and the truest testament to this film’s lasting success is its cultural ubiquity.  Everyone from Batman to J. R. Ewing has wondered if life would be better without them, and there’s always been a Clarence-esque figure to show them just what an awful hole is left when someone isn’t around.  Though the film may be naïve, it’s difficult to say that it isn’t compelling.

#1 – Stalag 17 (1953)
Anyone who knows me has heard me say these words:  “Stalag 17 is a perfect movie.”  And it is!  William Holden stars as Sefton in Billy Wilder’s adaptation of the stage play about a German POW camp where one of the Americans is a stoolie – and it’s up to Sefton to find out who it is, since the other prisoners have him pegged as the guilty party.  Best of all, it’s a holiday treat since the film takes place right around Christmastime 1944; the Americans throw themselves a Christmas party replete with musical accompaniment and Betty Grable by way of a straw wig.  And when Sefton finds out who the rat is, he does so as his compatriots sing “O Come All Ye Faithful” in a perfect use of visual language (which we know is my favorite facet of filmmaking).  It’s an underappreciated gem, but Stalag 17 has everything a great film needs – it’s intense, it’s mysterious, it’s funny, and it’s touching without being saccharine – and it qualifies for this list, to boot!

Monday at the Movies - January 16, 2012

Welcome to Week Three of “Monday at the Movies.” As Sean Connery once said, “I’ll take swords for $200.” And so, in tribute to that quotation, it’s movies that begin with the letter S for this week!

Sherlock Holmes (2009) – After loving A Game of Shadows, I felt compelled to go back and rewatch the first Guy Ritchie film about the sleuth of Baker Street (although my sister claims it’s a consequence of my “man-crush on Robert Downey Jr.”). And having just read A Study in Scarlet – the first Sherlock Holmes book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – I was surprised by how detail-oriented this film is, despite its overall unconventional treatment of Holmes. It’s a fresh take on Holmes, but it’s one that doesn’t do injustice to the source material; small details like Holmes’s violin, Watson’s injured leg, and snippets of dialogue all seem like clever inventions of the screenplay, but they’re all drawn from the source. Downey is superb as the eccentric master sleuth, and Jude Law (of whom I’m not usually a fan) is suitably irritable and a perfect straight man for Downey’s antics. What I especially love about this movie is how well the script holds together, with a delightful reveal scene at the end in which Sherlock pieces together all the elements of villain Mark Strong’s plot in classic Holmes fashion. But the clues sprinkled throughout the film reward repeat viewings, as does Downey’s quirky performance. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I hold him as one of our finest actors, and in this regard he does not disappoint. And that music by Hans Zimmer? First-class – you’ll be surprised that Holmes never had a major theme tune before a few years ago.

Stalag 17 (1953) – I’ve consistently ranked this as one of my favorite movies of all time, and with the holidays just passing it’s a perfect time to revisit this World War II prison camp flick set during Christmas. Director Billy Wilder hands in this fantastic film in which William Holden is Sefton, an American POW suspected of being an informant for the Germans. But as Sefton remarks, “There are two people in this barracks who know I didn't do it. Me and the guy that did do it.” But don’t mistake this for a mere suspense/thriller; Stalag 17 is not your typical WW2 film. The movie is laugh-out-loud funny in moments, dramatically wrought in others, and unfailingly entertaining. And coming from a guy who hates narration, the voiceover work by Gil Stratton as Cookie is top-notch, advancing the plot but nuanced enough to make us wonder how much we can trust a narrator who stutters. The dialogue is snappy, the mystery compelling, and the last twenty minutes addictively watchable. And don’t be too distracted by stars Holden, Otto Preminger, Peter Graves, and Sig Ruman – there’s an ensemble cast behind enemy lines, and each of them gets a moment to shine, from the “At Ease!” newsman to the Grable-obsessed Animal. One final word by way of recommendation – no one who has seen this movie at my recommendation has come back with anything less than complete love for the film. It might not be the most accurate POW film you’ll see, but it’s by far the most entertaining.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!