Rashomon (1950)

A travelling Samurai is murdered, his wife is raped, and the man responsible is captured. At the trial, several different versions of how the events unfolded come to light. Exactly, what did happen?

Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon is an enigma. Not quite understood in Japan or America, but loved nonetheless. The Academy Award for best foreign language film, maybe, was created specifically for this film. This is what made Kurosawa an international filmmaker. It is marvelous storytelling, wonderfully shot, and edited to perfection. All hallmarks of the director.

Frequently described as telling the same story from different "perspectives", but make no mistake: all but one version (at best) are lies. The viewer must tease out the agenda of each version to maybe piece together some semblance of truth. Once each story is told, and the character's true nature further revealed, then you must reevaluate what you think you know.

It's not quite accurate to say Rashomon would stand up to a second viewing. It absolutely demands one. The story and characters, despite being alien in time and culture, read true to American audiences. I can't say how I would feel off the film after a second time, but for now AMRU 4.

"It's human to lie. Most of the time we can't even be honest with ourselves."

Batman (1943)

Bruce Wayne, posing as a useless playboy, goes under cover as the Batman for Uncle Sam. A Japanese scientist (J. Carrol Naish) uses mind controlling electronics to steal radium so that he can make a big gun to free the enslaved people of America from their corrupt way of life. Or something like that.

Before the Adam West series there was this World War II serial, the first live action depiction of the caped crusader. While I am without any particular affinity for the character, I do like movie serials, and Batman is a particularly good one. Lewis Wilson was cheeky and heroic, and only eight years older than the dad-bodied West even though he came 23 years earlier.

Allow me to summarize just about every episode: "Jap spy" Daka, having recruited various gangster-types, enact various plots for the destruction of America. From his secret lair he tries to steal radium, blow up a bridge, steal a plane, and hijack a mine. Batman interferes, gets into lots of fist fights, and disrupts the plan. Some henchmen are captured, but Daka stays at large. The baddies, along with the more gullible of the audience, believe that Batman is at last killed. Amazingly, he survives each episode. Oh, spoiler alert.

Here's whats interesting: The dynamic duo return from the bat cave by climbing out of a grandfather clock. No bat pole in evidence. Also missing is the Batmobile. Alfred chauffeurs our heroes both in and out of costume. In the first episode the bad guys get away using a color shifting car. Using clever shading, the car appears to transition from white to black. That was fairly cool given the budget. It is unclear why hottie Linda Paige bothered with Wayne, who carefully hid away his heroics. Only in it for the money, apparently. She would later do battle with It! Boy Wonder Douglas Croft did not live to see the Adam West version.

Some of the sillier elements include the Lockheed engineering room resembling a boathouse and their security being nothing more than goon standing outside of a fenced area. In one episode the homeland transmits a message to Daka using the highest tech of all communication devices: a dead guy. Also Daka's lair includes not only radium guns and a mind control device, but also a giant Buddha.

If you are sensitive to racial epitaphs, you may find cause to be offended. The primary antagonist was called a slant-eyed or shifty-eyed Jap from time to time. Most of that comes from the bad guys, however, and they don't get the best of it. I can overlook this because we were at war with Japan at the time, and this sort of thing was a sign of the time.

Batman completionists must see it. Batman purists (if there is such a thing) may be annoyed. Because I enjoy serials, and because this one was a rather well done, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The opening theme was very reminiscent of radio serials which I listened to as a kid (no, I'm not THAT old!) Batman and Robin, made six years later, might be aired later this summer. TCM's schedule is rather vague sometimes. Columbia went with an entirely different cast for that one. AMRU 3.5.

The Time Machine (1960)

Victorian inventor George (Rod Taylor) discovers a way to move forward and back in the fourth dimension - time. His friends scoff at the notion, and weary of man using his ingenuity to kill more people, he chooses to move forward into a more enlightened time. He learns from a mannequin across the street the horrors of The Great War, then of WWII, then WWIII in 1966.

Because nuclear war has caused vulcanism, the time machine is trapped underground and our hero must wait until the new mountain is worn away before he can stop. When he does, it's the year 800 thousand something and he finds an idyllic setting where everyone is blond and nobody has a care in the world. In fact, when one is drowning in the river, nobody in the world cares. Except George.

After rescuing her, because she's hot, he soon learns that the pretty, empty headed surface dwellers live in fear of the ugly troll-like people who live deep in underground datacenters. Or whatever. Time for a revolution!

Can't go wrong with George Pal. Visually appealing, family friendly, but with a touch of social commentary. The practical effects may appear slightly cheesy today, but they were state of the art, and quite visionary. It won the Oscar for effects and was nominated for a Hugo. The Twilight Zone won.

There is a panel on the time sled that reads invented by H. George Wells, meaning that the protagonist IS the author of the source material. That's a cool detail. Young hot Yvette Mimieux was underage when filming began and turned 18 during the shoot.

One can quibble about time travel paradoxes and issues with the story, but this is a story about man using his ingenuity for destruction and it's ultimate fate when he turns it's back on learning, so keep your nits! The movie is fairly thin and moralistic, but it is wonderfully crafted, visually interesting, and edited to perfection. Rod Taylor's performance was perfect for the story. AMRU 3.5.

"Which three books would you have taken?"

F for Fake (1973)

F for Fake is Orson Welles' video essay about Elmyr de Hory, a notorious art forger, who successfully passed off his copies as authentic. Along the way, it is discovered that de Hory's chief accuser, writer Clifford Irving, is himself a fraud, having faked documents to pass off a fraudulent biography of recluse Howard Hughes. This fake within a fake spins off more tales, like Welles' own War of the Worlds trick.

Welles' so-called free-form documentary is irritatingly herky-jerky. The fat man looks foolish in the black cape and hat, and appears too much to enjoy filming his girlfriend 26 years his junior and acting all mysterious. The overall theme appears to be that people are not what they seem, art is not what it seems, and Orson Welles is not what he seems.

Even still, there is something compelling about the Wellesian style. Here is the Orson I remember from my youth. Self-important, fat, drunk, and rambling, but somehow charming. It's hard to describe. He tells his story, many stories in fact, in a very non-linear fashion. In the end you learn something about the art world and the people that make it up, and your are entertained. While I have misgivings about the overall viewing experience, it is quite different, and maybe that's what trips me up somewhat.

Now I will point you to an episode of one of my favorite YouTube channels, certainly my favorite on the topic of cinema:

Tony Zhou of Every Frame a Painting absolutely loves F for Fake, and I love Every Frame a Painting. He reminds me how little I know, and how few good films I have seen. It's both wonderful and disheartening. So if he loves F for Fake, I suppose I shouldn't be quite so hasty. AMRU 3.5.

MASH (1970)

New surgeons at a Korean war MASH unit three miles from the front subvert authority, cause chaos, and manipulate the commanding officer, while performing in extremely hostile conditions. Then they play football.

MASH is a gritty, morally ambiguous, and episodic film that captured the attention of the anti-war counterculture of 1970. Faithful to the source material, it depicted war entirely different from the heroic fantasy. When the studio complained that the soldiers were dirty, director Robert Altman, a veteran of WWII, said soldiers in war were dirty. Execs then told the filmmakers of Patton, also in production at that time, to dirty up their soldiers.

As a kid we watched M*A*S*H regularly. One new year's eve my sister and I stayed up late while my parents were out (people did that back then!) and we watched the movie on network TV (they bleeped out "god" in "god damn"). I could not reconcile this film with the show, and it takes a careful adult eye to see the transition. Each character was groomed for 70's TV audiences, and the protagonists became for family friendly (Hawkeye became unmarried). Tom Skerritt as the slightly racist southerner was cut altogether. Kept was the idea that enemy wounded also deserved care, as well as a general mistreatment of women.

There is definitely an Altman style and few films represent it better than this. The dialog is layered as in real life, and the story is non-linear (both "fixed" for TV). I can't say that I am in love with his style, but I do have respect. And it was fun to see this old friend again with my son. He has been humming the theme ever since. AMRU 4.

"I'd dearly love to see that angry!"

Night Nurse (1931)

Young Lorna Hart (Barbara Stanwyck) wants ever so much to be a nurse, but without the proper degree (high school) she isn't qualified. But bumping into a chief surgeon on the way out appears to have solved all that. She is paired by sassy blond Maloney (sassy blond Joan Blondell) who shows her the ropes. At the midpoint of the film, Lorna gets a private gig and the drama begins. She is taking care of two young girls who are ever so sorry they have been such a bother and promise to be good, really they do! They are slowly dying of starvation and the twitchy attending physician and the cruel chauffeur Nick (Clark Gable) seem to like it that way.

Classified pre-code mostly because Stanwyck and Blondell have occasion to undress to reveal their overly complicated undergarments. In one scene they share a bunk for no clear reason, then suddenly shiver inexplicably as if cold. While a bootlegger is a protagonist, this is during the great social experiment, and drunkenness must shown in a definitely negative light. One character exclaims that she's a dipsomaniac and she likes it. Dipsomaniac is an old fashioned word for alcoholic but I suspect filmmakers wanted us to think she was saying nymphomaniac, which also fits.

James Cagney was suddenly a big star so he turned down the role of Nick, allowing nobody Gable to take it. I like the jargon thrown in there in an attempt to make it sound credible, like "Have you tried the Murphy drip?" There are nice elements like the point of view shot from an ambulance at the beginning, and it holds your interest, but otherwise Night Nurse is standard fare for it's time. AMRU 3.

"Says me in a big way, sister"

North by Northwest (1959)

Aging playboy (Cary Grant) marketing executive is kidnapped when he is mistaken for a spy. When he refuses to cooperate, they waterboard him with scotch and try to orchestrate a car accident. He gets away and is arrested for drunk driving, but nobody believes his story (not even his mom, the bitch!) On the run from police and criminals alike, he meets up with a young hottie (Eva Marie Saint) who helps him even though logic would demand otherwise. With her help he heads in some ordinal direction that escapes me at the moment to look for his doppelganger spy.

This Hitchcock thriller was very thrilling in a very Hitchcockian sort of way. Cary Grant was at his Cary Grantiest. Old friends Leo G. Carroll (at no point over a barrel) and James Mason had important rolls. Is Mason an old friend? Perhaps not. This is the first thing I have seen him in. Who knew?

North by Northwest is a great piece of entertainment that was expertly crafted. The photography was wonderful. Thrilling to the end. Think it will stand up well to a second viewing. If not for the story, then for the cinematography. AMRU 4.

Eve Kendall: Patience is a virtue.
Roger Thornhill: So is breathing.