A Cinematographic GREAT With A Hitchcockian TWIST!

Black Narcissus (1947) ~ Deborah Kerr, Jean Simmons

Based on the popular 1939 novel by Rumer Godden, Black Narcissus is scripted by Powell’s longtime collaborator Emeric Pressburger. The story follows the attempts by five Anglican nuns to establish an order in a remote, faded palace set in Mopu, at the base of the Himalayas. The sisters are quickly overwhelmed by the privations of this place. The palace locale is so breathtakingly beautiful and sensual that it's just a matter of time before earthly desires begin to creep up on the sisters. A local government agent, Mr. Dean (David Farrar) creates sarcastic sometimes comedic interactions but in a likable, rugged, outdoorsy kinda way. He frequently walks around flaunting his manly charms, wearing hastily buttoned shirts and shorts.

Each of the sisters decend into turmoil while being forced to combat their own inner demons. Newly assigned as Sister Superior, Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), takes her role too literally; Sister Philippa (Flora Robson), a gardener, begins to lose her grip on reality, planting flowers instead of desperately needed vegetables and fruit while Sister Honey (Jenny Laird) invokes the wrath of the locals by administering medicine to a sick baby, whose death though inevitable, is attributed to her. Most problematic is Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron). Sister Ruth, already unstable on arrival to the palace, begins to abuse the natives as she tries to deal with her growing jealousy of her sister superior and unbridaled lust for Mr. Dean.

Byron’s commanding presence indeed dominates the film as she gradually but perceptibly unravels in its dreamy setting. One of her most intense scenes is also one of the simplest: Sister Ruth applying lipstick. This prosaic event, shot in choker close-up and color that seems to vibrate off the screen, powerfully signifies her final parting with her pious life and in fact the end of the nuns’ tenure.

Powell is at his most imaginative in the scenes with this dynamic psycho. He lingers on close-ups of her face, one of the most beautiful and evocative in classic British cinema, tracking her descent into madness, with at time, uncomfortably close shots of her eyes. Her maniacal movements and crazed visage give Black Narcissus the feel of a horror film as she races wraithlike through the dark, wind-whipped rooms of the palace, or when she appears suddenly in a room. Attentive viewers will note the film’s resemblance to another quasi-horror classic, Vertigo, in the crazed climactic fight between Sister Ruth and Sister Clodagh at the bell.

Visual purists will find much to delight the eye in Black Narcissus. In the Painting with Light documentary, cinematographer Jack Cardiff (who won an Oscar for his work on the film) lists Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh as influences. The first shot of the film could almost be excised and convincingly offered as a newly discovered Vermeer.

Watching this movie was like being washed "in color". It has the feeling of being immersed in a dreamworld and is aided immeasurably by Peter Ellenshaw’s superb matte paintings of the valleys and vistas of an imaginary Himalayas. Equally challenging is the film’s melding of music and movement. This is most ambitious in the climactic musical sequence written by Brian Easdale. Some viewers may find themselves more annoyed than moved by the haunted-house operatic chorus that arises throughout this sequence to accompany Ruth on her lethal trek. While the imagery here remains unforgettable — Kathleen Byron’s sudden appearance as a violent lunatic, framed in a dark doorway, is genuinely chilling.

We recommend this movie to those who appreciate great cinematography. In this capacity, the movie is a rare jewel. If you are looking for an engrosing story-line, this is not the movie for you. We give this movie (**) 2-Star Rating, but recommend it for the cinematography.

BREAK Out the BIG Crying TOWEL!!

Madame X (1966) ~ Lana Turner

French playwright Alexandre Bisson's melodramatic tearjerker entitled La Femme X has been filmed many times before and since but it is the 1966 American version of Madame X starring Lana Turner as Holly Anderson that grabs and holds viewers until the very end.

A woman married to a wealthy socialite and diplomat, played by John Forsythe, is compromised by the accidental death of a renowned playboy who had romantically pursued her. Forced by her mother-in-law, she fakes her own death and assumes a new identity to save the reputation of her husband and infant son. As she wanders the world, she begins using Absinthe along with alcohol to try to forget her heartbreak.

In her despair and under the influence of an unsavory man, Holly eventually returns to the city of her downfall where she murders her blackmailer (Burgess Meredith) who threatens to expose her past.

Having fallen on hard times, Holly is represented at court by a young attorney from the public defenders office. Unaware of her true identity, the young lawyer assigned to defend her is her own son Clay Anderson Jr (Keir Dullea), now grown to manhood. Hoping to continue to protect her son, she refuses to give her real name and is known to the court as the defendant, "Madame X."

The 1966 screen version is beautifully filmed with lavishly detailed sets and elaborate dramatics. The acting is first rate throughout the movie but it is the harrowing performance of Lana Turner that keeps the unlikely storyline from unraveling. Thanks to her - and to a lesser degree the talented supporting cast - Madame X is a compelling movie experience that rises a notch above your run-of-the-mill sob-fest. (****) 4-Star Rating

Do YOU have MONSTERs In YOUR Closet???

Monster's INC - Best Song Winner - Academy Award Winner 2001

"Monsters, Inc" is an imaginative and funny animated comedy with a superior voice cast and dazzling animation. The story is original, funny and appropriate for audiences of all ages. John Goodman and Billy Crystal deliver hysterical comic performances. The voice cast also includes Steve Buscemi, James Coburn and Jennifer Tilly.

Their city, Monstropolis, is powered by an unusual energy source: A human child's screams. Collected by monsters who travel through closet doors into their bedrooms in our world late at night.

Monstropolis falls on tough times as rolling blackouts become necessary because kids just "don't get scared like they use to," complains Henry J. Waternoose (gravelly voiced by James Coburn), the crab-like utility tycoon.

Mr. Waternoose relies on his top "scarer" - James "Sulley" Sullivan (Goodman), a horned giant with blue-and-purple fur who works the door assembly line with his buddy Mike Wazowski (Billy Green), a one-eyed green monster. Sulley's title is being threatened by Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi), a giant chameleon whose tricks lead to Sulley accidentally allowing a toddler named Boo (Mary Gibbs) to wander into Monstropolis.

This is BIG trouble, human children are "toxic" to monsters. And if "contaminated", a ruthlessly efficient haz-mat team is employed to clean up the situation.

Most of the humor derives from Sulley and Mike's frantic efforts to hide Boo from Randall and the decontaminators from the Child Detection Agency. Sulley's growing attachment to Boo also introduces some problems as he tries to return her to the human world.

The film's most exciting - and delightful - sequence is a chase along mile-long conveyor belts holding thousands of closet doors.

Monster's Inc is one of our FAVORITE Movies and receives a (****) 4-Star Rating

Documenting Life ~ Tastes Like Chicken!

Mike Rowe and the Discovery Channel take an unsanitary look at the dirty jobs that people do everyday... From one fine mess to another, Rowe demonstrates how pig farmers, garbage collectors and other unkempt heroes keep the U.S and now, world clean make life sane for the rest of us.

As a Geoduck (pronounced Gooie-Duck) Farmer.. and what the HELL is a goeduck exactly? Mike Rowe finds himself waist deep in the ice cold waters of Puget Sound, digging for what else? Geoducks!!! A Goeduck is a special breed of clam. It buries itself nearly three feet underground. Perverse side-jokes are made repeatedly throughout the episode as to the shape and extendability of the Geoduck. The episode completes with Mike enjoying the delicacy sauted with onions... Great for laughs and an eduction of a little known delicacy. (***) 3-Star Rating.

The Essentials ~ Classic Movies

CYNTHIA (1947) ~ Elizabeth Taylor

To kick off our classic movie genre, we discuss a movie by the illustrious, Liz Taylor. Her performance in one of her little known movies, Cynthia was superb. Cynthia was Elizabeth Taylor's coming-of-age film. Cynthia is the story of a sickly, sheltered teen who rebels against her parents' overprotectiveness, finds a boyfriend, goes to the prom, and gets her first kiss. Like Cynthia, the 15-year old Elizabeth had been sheltered and coddled by her mother and by the studio. Like Cynthia, she could not live a normal life, didn't have friends, and longed for independence and romance.

Mary Astor, who played Cynthia's mother, watched her young co-star closely, and made some astute observations. "She was beginning to be conscious in a very normal, teen-age way of her own beauty. She was also bright. Very bright. Head-of-the-class type of brightness," Astor later wrote in her memoir, A Life on Film. "Elizabeth was cool, and slightly superior. There was a look in those violet eyes that was somewhat calculating, as though she knew exactly what she wanted and was quite sure of getting it."

Cynthia one of Taylor's "unjustly forgotten triumphs of tact, sympathy, pathos and insistent self-assertion. It is one of the most likeable movies of adolescent independence." (****) 4-Star Rating

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