Criterion Corner-DVD/Blu-ray Reviews
Entries from July 2021
“NOT
THE TYPICAL DAY JOBâ€
By
Raymond Benson
They
say (whoever “they†are) that it’s the “oldest profession.†Maybe it is and
perhaps it’s not, but there is no question that prostitution is indeed a
profession—if it’s voluntary. Yes, it’s illegal in most places, but still…
In
New York City during the 70s, 80s, and 90s (and probably still today), private
brothels were plentiful throughout the metropolis. One only had to pick up a newspaper
that catered to underground activities (available at any newsstand), or even New
York Magazine or the Village Voice to find classified ads that
directed clientele to phone numbers for discreet services. It is assumed that
law enforcement is paid off for protection—or maybe it’s the mob, so who knows?
While assuredly there may have been instances of human trafficking going on in
these places, most of the time these brothels were operated privately and
employed ordinary, women-next-door types who looked upon the “job†as a way of
making money.
Feminist
filmmaker Lizzie Borden’s docu-drama Working Girls, about the goings-on
and culture of a private brothel, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986
(it won the Special Jury Prize), and then was released to the public in 1987. It
is a realistic, frank, and non-judgmental examination of a handful of women who
are “working girls†and what a typical shift might be like. Suffice it to say
that it’s not the typical day job.
Molly
(Louise Smith) is a smart, attractive, Yale graduate with two degrees. Her life
partner is a woman, and they have a daughter together. Molly rides a bicycle to
work, which is an apartment with several bedrooms upstairs and a comfortable
living room and kitchen downstairs. The building’s doorman is discreetly paid
to keep things quiet. Molly works with two to three other women throughout the
day, seeing various men who make appointments over the phone. The madam is Lucy
(Ellen McElduff), an attractive middle-aged woman who states, “The two things I
love most in life are sex and money… I just never knew until much later they
were connected.†Lucy is all about the business, keeping clients happy, and
only slightly considerate of her employees. Molly, Gina (Marusia Zach), Dawn
(Amanda Goodwin), and, later, April (Janne Peters) and Mary (Helen Nicholas) “entertainâ€
a variety of men who run the gamut of personalities—shy and awkward, confident
and boorish, nice but weird, and creepily aggressive. Molly, who is usually personable
and “acts†the part she’s supposed to do, takes the work in stride until she is
pressured to take another shift into the night. Finally, the stress becomes too
much.
This
is a fascinating picture that will assuredly make you uncomfortable. It is
insightful and raw in its matter-of-factness. Director Borden takes a
documentary-like approach to the material, even though the story is fiction and
focuses on a character arc that evolves over a twelve-hour period. There is
nothing here that can be called a stereotype, and it can be said that the
sexual activity on the screen is far from erotic. The approximately 90-minute
picture was released unrated, but it likely would be a hard R or perhaps an X
(this was before X was replaced by NC-17). It should be noted that most of the
creative team and crew were women.
Louise
Smith is marvelous as Molly. She exhibits a knowing canniness to the
proceedings without letting her true emotions erupt until she finally does
reach the breaking point. McElduff’s Lucy is also perfect as the ingratiating
boss who pretends to care about the working girls, but she is truly only
interested in her married boyfriend and the gifts he bestows.
The
Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray release features a new, restored 4K digital transfer
supervised by Borden, and it comes with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. There
are English subtitles for the hearing impaired. An optional audio commentary
from 2007 is enlightening and smart, spoken by Borden, director of photography
Judy Irola, and actor Amanda Goodwin.
Supplements
include a new conversation between Borden and feminist filmmaker Bette Gordon (Variety;
1983); a terrific new Zoom discussion between actors Smith and Goodwin,
producer Andi Gladstone, and assistant director Vicky Funari; and a new Zoom
discussion between real-life sex workers Antonia Crane, Daphne, Selena the
Stripper, and Jo Weldon. The booklet contains an essay by author So Mayer and
excerpts from a 1987 interview with Borden by film scholar Scott MacDonald.
Working
Girls is
a time capsule of 1980s New York City, a sobering view of what really goes on behind
these closed doors, and a prime example of smart, challenging, independent
filmmaking.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON
“I
CAN’T GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT LOVE, BABYâ€
By
Raymond Benson
It
boggles this reviewer’s mind that Bringing Up Baby, released in early
1938, was considered a “flop†at the time. Was it really, or is that Hollywood
PR nonsense? The truth is that it did fine, but perhaps not as well as the
studio, RKO, had hoped. Shortly before its release, the Independent Theater
Owners of America had deemed star Katharine Hepburn (and other popular leading
ladies) “box office poison.†This bit of nastiness may have had an impact on Baby’s
earnings in 1938.
The
movie was re-released in the early 40s after the success of The Philadelphia
Story (1940) and did much better. When television began broadcasting Bringing
Up Baby, the picture’s reputation shot through the roof. Today, it’s
considered one of Hollywood’s greatest screwball comedies, and fans agree that
it contains performances that are among Hepburn’s and co-star Cary Grant’s most
beloved.
This
reviewer counts it as one of the funniest movies ever made and could very well
be the quintessential screwball comedy, which is what this type of wacky romantic
comedy was called in those days, especially if the lovebirds involved were of
differing social classes and temperaments.
And
while both Hepburn and Grant are absolutely a delight to watch in Bringing
Up Baby, the film is also filled with other funny character actors
delivering eccentric performances—Charles Ruggles, May Robson, Walter Catlett,
Barry Fitzgerald, and others. Howard Hawks was known to have said that his one
error with the film was that every character was “crazy,†and that there should
have been a few grounded in sanity. This reviewer disagrees! It’s the zaniness
of Baby that makes the movie special.
The
plot? Mild-mannered and shy paleontologist Dr. David Huxley (Grant) is building
the skeleton of a brontosaurus for his museum, and he’s missing the one bone
that will complete the project: the elusive “intercostal clavicle.†He’s also
engaged to be married to ho-hum Alice (Virginia Walker). On the golf course, Huxley
meets flighty but beautiful Susan Vance (Hepburn). She immediately sets out to
snare Huxley, and Vance does everything in her power—unwittingly or not—to
wreak havoc on the man’s life and stability. Complicating the matter is the
presence of “Baby,†a tame leopard that Vance’s brother had sent to her. The
one thing that calms down the animal is if someone sings to it the song, “I
Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby,†which both Huxley and Vance are forced
to do—a lot! Vance convinces Huxley to help her take Baby to a farm in
Connecticut, and then the picture really does become a mad, mad world. Vance’s shocked
aunt turns out to be a wealthy patron who may be donating money to Huxley’s
museum—she also owns a wire fox terrier named George (played by “Skippy,†who was
also Nick and Nora’s “Asta†in The Thin Man). When Huxley finally
receives the intercostal clavicle, George steals it and buries it somewhere.
One would think the dog and the leopard are conspiring against the couple! To
reveal more would spoil the rollicking good rollercoaster ride that is Bringing
Up Baby!
The
Criterion Collection has done a bang-up job on the new Blu-ray release. The
restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack, is a
marked improvement over the 2005 Warner special edition DVD (which was pretty
good to begin with!). Besides optional English subtitles for the hearing
impaired, the audio commentary included is by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, ported
over from that DVD release. All the other supplements on the Criterion edition
are different.
There’s
a wonderful video essay by author Scott Eyman on the early career of Cary
Grant; a new interview with cinematography John Bailey about DP Russell Metty;
a fascinating interview with film scholar Craig Barron about visual effects
wizard Linwood Dunn, who handled the tricky rear-screen projection and
traveling matte shots involving the leopard with the actors (and Dunn didn’t
receive credit!); a selected-scene commentary by costume historian Shelly Foote
on the work of designer Howard Greer for the film; an enlightening 1-hour
European documentary on Howard Hawks (with subtitles) by Hans-Christoph
Blumenberg, made not long before Hawks’ death; a fun audio interview from 1969
with Cary Grant answering audience questions after a screening of the film; audio
excerpts of a 1972 conversation between Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich (whose What’s
Up, Doc? is a direct homage to Baby); and the theatrical trailer.
The
enclosed booklet contains an essay by critic Sheila O’Malley, and, of special
interest, the original 1937 short story by Hagar Wilde upon which the film is
based.
Bringing
Up Baby is
guaranteed to make you laugh. Highly recommended for fans of screwball comedy,
Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Howard Hawks, and pure zaniness.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON
“PICKPOCKETS
AND STOOL PIGEONSâ€
By
Raymond Benson
Samuel
Fuller’s 1953 film noir, Pickup on South Street, was
shocking in its day and still manages to deliver a punch to the gut.
In
the conservative early 50s, who would have thought that Hollywood would green
light a picture in which a pickpocket, a “loose†woman, and a stool pigeon are
the protagonists? Film noir titles often told stories from the point of
view of the criminals when they didn’t focus on cynical and hard-boiled private
investigators, but Pickup attempts to make these lowlifes sympathetic.
Surprisingly, the movie succeeds. While the film was not well-received upon
release, the years have been kind to it. Today, Fuller’s hard-edge crime
story-cum-Cold War spy thriller is considered a masterpiece of its ilk.
Sleazy
Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) is a professional pickpocket, often preying on
unsuspecting women on New York subway trains. When he lifts the wallet from the
attractive and sultry Candy (Jean Peters), Skip doesn’t realize that she’s being
watched by the Feds. Candy is unwittingly delivering the movie’s MacGuffin—a
microfiche of top-secret government goods—to a Communist cell in the USA. Candy’s
handler and former boyfriend, Joey (Richard Kiley) seems subservient to his
bosses at first, but we soon realize he is a dangerous powder keg. The Feds
enlist the NYPD’s help to recover the stolen wallet, and the cops, in turn, go
to stool pigeon Moe (the fabulous Thelma Ritter), who has her own problems with
the law—but she seems to know everyone in the underworld. Eventually, McCoy
realizes he’s in possession of something quite valuable, so he embarks to play
both ends against the middle, with Candy as a pawn in his risky game.
“Red
Scare†movies were a thing in the late 40s and early 50s. The paranoia went
part-and-parcel with the Hollywood blacklist and House Un-American Activities
Committee work to flush out Communists in the entertainment industry. Several
anti-Communism pictures were produced, mostly B-movie crime thrillers that were
similar to the cheap science fiction alien invasion movies also being made at
the time. Pickup on South Street, though, is one of the better Red Scare
movies in that it is more of a crime thriller… and a sort of twisted love
story, too.
Yes,
McCoy and Candy develop a sizzle for each other, despite McCoy violently abusing
and assaulting the woman. This aspect, perhaps, is a bit difficult to swallow
in terms of believability—why would she fall for a guy who punches her in the
jaw? But this was 1953, and film noir characters did not often behave
rationally (or realistically).
While
both leads are terrific, it is Thelma Ritter who steals the movie; in fact, she
was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance. The
picture is also buoyantly elevated by the several supporting character actors
who play cops, Feds, and underworld figures.
Pickup is loosely based on
a short story, “Blaze of Glory,†by Dwight Taylor, but the screenplay is by
Fuller himself. The direction is tight, frank, and economical. It is easily one
of the controversial director’s most accomplished works.
The
Criterion Collection’s new Blu-ray release is an upgrade from a previous DVD
edition. This time the feature is a 4K digital restoration with an uncompressed
monaural soundtrack. Most of the DVD’s supplements are ported over—a 1989
interview with Fuller conducted by critic Richard Schickel; a 1982 French TV
program in which Fuller talks about the film; a Hollywood Radio Theatre adaptation
from 1954 with Thelma Ritter reprising her role; and trailers for this and many
other movies directed by Fuller. New to the Blu-ray is an excellent interview
with critic Imogen Sara Smith, a film noir scholar and expert, who
provides many enlightening tidbits about the picture, its director, and the
cast. The booklet comes with essays by Martin Scorsese (Pickup is
allegedly one of Scorsese’s favorite pictures) and critic Luc Sante, plus a
chapter from Fuller’s autobiography.
Pickup
on South Street should
appeal to lovers of film noir, Samuel Fuller, Cold War-era drama, and
edgy crime thrillers of yesteryear. Highly recommended.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON
|
|