The Godfather: Part II

Part II continues where The Godfather left off. The Corleone crime family has moved to Las Vegas and Michael (Al Pacino) has to deal with problems, professional and personal. He is the target of a hit and must find out who was behind it. While this is going on, we learn the origin story of father Vito (Robert De Niro) in flashbacks. He comes to America as a boy and tries to be a good man by standing up to thugs and bullies.

It had been a couple years since I saw the original and it wouldn’t do to watch the sequel without rewatching it. The original completely holds up to a second viewing and the story makes more sense to me. What seemed like a series of events proved to be carefully connected. I would guess rewatching the sequel would have the same effect.

Like the original, Part II looks wonderful. The tone, the colors, the cinematography, the score were absolutely on point. I found the comparison between Vito as a young man to what Michael has become very interesting. When compared to the first, it is a worthy successor and a must watch. However, it does not quite have the same gravitas, and at almost a half hour longer, it dragged a bit.

I feel Vito’s backstory could have been separated out as its own 90 minute film. That would keep the principle story to around two hours. The problem with that is how well the two stories compliment each other. I thought the film’s structure was dictated by the book but apparently most of the screenplay is original.

Don’t think I’m saying that Part II not a great film in its own right. It is. But the first was more impactful, and the scenes and lines people remember are from it. This is a continuation of the same story, isn’t quite as compelling, and longer. It’s tough to be compared to IMDb’s number 2 film. AMRU 4.

Go West (1940)

It’s the old west and singing cowboy Terry wants to marry pretty Eve, but grampy forbids it. Terry’s pappy sold gramps Dead Man’s Gulch, and wouldn’t you know, there ain’t a lick of gold on it, the swindler! Terry tries to set things straight by convincing the railroad to route their line through there making it valuable. Unfortunately, there are bad guys who want to swindle him, but the boys are there to help. Kinda.

Pretty standard fare at this point in their career. Some witty lines but not quite as clever as the early years. Tedious musical numbers nobody asked for, Chico gets his piano solo and Harpo his harp. Do they even do different songs from movie to movie? I can't even tell. No Margaret Dumont, but don’t worry. She comes back for one more. Only novelty here is seeing the boys in a western. Is it a western? I suppose so.

Like most of their films, the plot is little more than a premise around which the boys frame their bits. Only now the bits are sparse and uninspired. Perhaps the songs returned to pad the runtime. What we end up with is a watchable, vaguely amusing hour twenty. Groucho gets in a few good cuts, but not like in the earlier days. AMRU 3.

Stage Fright (1950)

Jonathan confides in his good friend Eve (Jane Wyman) that his lover, stage actress Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich), accidentally killed her husband. And when he tried to help her out, he became a suspect. Eve is sweet on Jonathan so she tries to help him, hiding him away and doing some amateur sleuthing.

Let’s start off here. Alastair Sim steals the show. As Eve’s eccentric father, he dominates every scene he is in. There is no mystery why he is my favorite Ebenezer. Side note, Hitchcock named his daughter’s character “Chubby Bannister”. Seriously, dude?

This is my fourth film with Marlene Dietrich and she is still an enigma. In her late 40’s here, she is still playing the sexy sexy. I kinda get her sex appeal but at the same moment, I kinda don’t. And her big song is truly lost on me, but it didn’t help that I watched Blazing Saddles (1974) the prior weekend. If you don’t know why that is relevant, then you have some watching to do. Madeline Kahn was an absolute treasure.

Jane Wyman is our 33 year old, cute as a button ingenue college girl with a crush, fresh from her divorce from Ronny. She was made up to be dowdy when going undercover but looked pretty much the same. What did Marlene think of her? Well, here’s a quote of hers from IMDb in its entirety:

"I did one film for Alfred Hitchcock. Jane Wyman was in it. I heard she'd only wanted to do it if she were billed above me, and she got her wish. Hitchcock didn't think much of her. She looks too much like a victim to play a heroine, and God knows she couldn't play a woman of mystery, that was my part. Miss Wyman looks like a mystery nobody has bothered to solve."

Mee-OW!

Stage Fright is another worthwhile lesser Hitchcock. There is a little mystery here and a fun story to watch. And, for what it's worth, Hitch didn't work again with either actress. AMRU 3.5.

Indiscreet (1958)

Actress Anna (Ingrid Bergman) is between relationships and just wants to take a break from life. Her sister and brother-in-law try to coax her into going to a lecture on economics (I know, right?) but she isn’t interested. Crazy. That is, until the head speaker arrives and it’s the dreamy Philip (dreamy Cary Grant). They have a flirtatious evening until he reveals that he is married! They continue to see each other anyhow. How Indiscreet!

There is a lot of subtext going on here. Ingrid was banished from Hollywood for her indecent affair with Roberto Rossellini, having his child while still married to her first husband! She hid in shame in Europe, shunned by the town she loved so not really the story. It’s just how it was always framed. It was more complicated than that. Here, watch this.

Anyhow, Bergman returned a wiser person who better knew herself. Grant, on his third marriage, older, wiser, and evolving as a leading man. Bergman in her early forties and Grant his early fifties, there is no hiding that this is a relationship between older adults. 

What follows is a very believable relationship between two adults. Not by far the most interesting film either actor has appeared in but among their best acting performances, and included some moving scenes. And real life friends, they have excellent screen chemistry. It is a shame they only did two pictures together. AMRU 3.5.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Vagabond Frank (John Garfield) takes a job at a roadside diner and discovers that the old man’s wife is a hot young blond (Lana “Sweater” Turner). Initially they have a chilly relationship but it warms over time.

I’ve been ringing the “is similar to …” bell recently and Postman is similar enough to an earlier noir to land me in serious spoiler territory. I will avoid that, save to say the former is a better film.

I sometimes confuse the Johns, Garfield and Gilbert, but there really is no comparison. Gilbert was a matinee idol on a path to a great career when it was tragically cut short by heart trouble at age 38, while Garfield was a matinee idol on a path to a great career when it was tragically cut short by heart trouble at age 39. By which I mean, Gilbert was four inches taller.

I’ve crossed paths with Lana Turner a couple times but her only significant role was the bad version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941). Sugar Daddy and diner owner is Cecil Kellaway, dependable character actor whenever an amiable older man is needed. Alan “Flintstone” Reed had a significant part. If you are curious what the voice actor for Fred Flintstone looks like, it’s exactly like Fred Flintstone.

Pretty good story, pretty good chemistry, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a pleasant enough movie. It is not the great Film-Noir it was made out to be, and the “based on a book” artifacts are readily apparent. Time passes without time passing, issues arise and quickly resolve that probably filled a chapter and don’t impact much the story at large. Oh, yea, and the nonsensical title. But these sins are forgivable and it’s a pretty good film. Just not the great noir I was led to believe. AMRU 3.5. No postmen were harmed in the viewing of this film.

2020 Retrospective

I am very thankful that 2020 was not for me what it was for so many. There were inconveniences, make no mistake, but nothing like what others have endured. No family health situations, no financial issues. I have been very lucky. Like everyone I miss going out to dinner, to shows, and I worry for these businesses. It has, however, afforded me more time to watch movies. Boy, howdy.

In 2011 I recorded 68 posts, a number I never even approached. That record that fell hard. But maybe the real record was the 60 posts from my first year. Over ten months, that averages six per month. That’s 72 prorated over a full year. In 2020, I managed 73 posts. But then again, I didn’t do a retrospective the first year. I may be overthinking this. Records are meaningless.

I think the best film of the year was The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). It had been on and off my DVR for years but I never brought myself to watch it. It didn’t seem like a “great film” and it was fairly long. Don’t Fear the Long Film. It’s a good motto. I rated eighteen films a 4 so you have your pick of honorable mentions.

I mentioned Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) in last year’s retrospective and managed to make it happen. Not a Judy fan, I was surprised to like it as much as I did. It was one of only two Christmas films this year. I even purchased one and somehow neglected to watch it. Sorry, George C.

I didn’t include any essential horror films this past October. Could the best really be The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)? It’s not hard to see which ones are missing. But for personal reasons, I rewatched some schlocky favorites and watched a few schlocky new ones. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) will have to wait. I did see the legendary Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966) which lived up to its reputation as absolute crap. It is a completely amateur production and shouldn’t even count as a feature film. The worst of the year, however, was Saturday Night Fever (1977).

How can a film so successful, so famous, so popular in its day, be so completely unwatchable and unlikable? It has nothing going for it. There were too many films for me to pick which one surprised me the most but this definitely was the most disappointing. And I went in with very low expectations. I will repeat what I said in the post: The film would have been better if the entire cast jumped off a bridge in the first act.

I may have watched my last Woody Alan film. Manhattan (1979) is arguably his best and I found it just passable. And casting seventeen year old Mariel Hemingway as his sex partner made me feel filthy. I may too have seen the last of Laurel and Hardy. Nothing they do even remotely amuses me.

I do expect to see a lot of Hitchcock in 21. I have seven already recorded plus a DVD compilation with fifteen more of his early, public domain films. They will be a chore. If my count is correct, that leaves another fifteen, including collaborations and lost films. I may never see any of those.

I also expect to watch the rest of the Marx Brothers films. Of their thirteen I have three to go, and two are sitting on my DVR. Also, I’d like to see the rest of the Sherlock Holmes films, although they don’t interest me as much as they once did. Another Bond may be on the table. Can I bring myself to watch an Elvis film?

It was a good year, blog-wise. I don’t expect seventy posts in 2021, but I hope to approach 60. But as we all learned, predictions are hard. Persevere.

The Cheaters (1945)

The extravagant Pidgeon family is on the verge of bankruptcy but takes in a “charity case” to keep up appearances. Enter Mr. M (Joseph Schildkraut), a former actor who hurt his leg then crawled into a bottle. A rich uncle has died and left his estate to a mystery woman. If the executor cannot find her within one week, the Pidgeons will get five million dollars. So, they hatch a plan.

There is a passing similarity to 1936’s My Man Godfrey, including the patriarch being played by the rotund and raspy Eugene Pallette. Billie “Glinda” Burke is his ditsy wife. Our erudite charity case is played by Shop Around the Corner villain Joseph Schildkraut. Rather than being William Powell smart, he talks in elevated theatrical blah blah dialect and winks knowingly at people. He hides his drinking problem and acts sneaky so one wonders if he is helping the Pidgeons or has his own plan in action.

The real protagonist is mystery woman Florie Watson (Ona Munson). She is down on her luck when the Pidgeons come calling, pretending she is a long lost cousin. She doesn’t buy it but being out of options, she plays along. She is charmed by the Pidgeons while they try to scam her out of her inheritance. I wonder if the Christmas Spirit somehow plays into this at some point.

The Cheaters is amusing enough but we don’t get a good read on the players. I was expecting a Pidgeon daughter to step up to protagonist level, but that never happened. And I don't believe Mr. M's vague motivation was intentional. Same for the younger daughter. And why is the older daughter’s fiance even in the film? Also, it’s hard to rally around Florie because she is not active in her own story. She is just going along for the ride. Poor storytelling and character development keeps it from rising above mediocrity. It's not a bad film but it could have easily been much better. AMRU 3.