The Messenger - The Story of Joan of Arc.

(Dir. Luc Besson.  Milla Jovovich, John Makokvich, Faye Dunaway, Dustin Hoffman, Vincent Cassel.  158 min. International version).  Director Luc Besson (The Professional, The Fifth Element) does have a seriously perverse streak, and in that respect he reminds me of Roman Polanski.  But where Polanski is a meticulous filmmaker aiming for art (at least most of the time) Besson is a splashy filmmaker aiming for entertainment and in that respect his bloody, revisionist retelling of the story of Joan of Arc succeeds mostly by going big.  Milla Jovovich, a fine actress, has her work cut out for her bringing one of history’s great enigmas back to life, and with her athleticism and beauty she really sells the role.  When Joan rides around an army of 13^th Century French soldiers flat on their backs after just having their butts kicked by the British and rallies them to attack one more time, you do get the feeling that she must have been a phenom. Yet that’s where the movie seems to slip out from under you and becomes less about Joan per se and more about the mystery of charisma.  Joan as proto-rock star?  Fashion icon?  I did say perverse?  Fortunately Besson loves the subject and is really down with the soldiers, the best scenes being when the French army officers are shaking their heads in disbelief as Joan leads one more attack without asking.  Other plusses are the fine ‘guest star’ spots: John Malkovich as Charles Vll, self-absorbed boy-man.  Faye Dunaway as Charles’s mother-in-law Yolande, her stories high forehead disappearing into a double-sided headdress, floating around the court like a space alien queen with cold-blooded instincts to match.  Dustin Hoffman, somewhat less successful as a bearded hooded figure in one of Joan’s visions, is ambiguous as a fortune cookie and only moves around when being pulled on wheels.  That’s the problem with trying to tell the story of someone as ineffable as Joan.  We really don’t get any deeper insight into her other than wow, she sure did yell a lot.

                    

The Quiet Man

(1952.  Dir. John Ford.  John Wayne.  Maureen O’Hara, Victor McLaglen, Barry Fitzgerald, Ward Bond.  129 min.)  Of all the films by legendary director John Ford, this is definitely my fave.  A smooth piece of movie making in glorious Technicolor with major stars from Ford’s decades old stock company.  

Now much as I love old man Ford’s westerns and war movies, he drives me crazy slipping in the Irish sanctimony and schmaltz every chance he gets.  Well this time the entire movie is Irish sanctimony, and the schmaltz is the jumping-off point for some great comic effect.  And probably the greatest screen romance this side of Gone With The Wind.  Wayne is Sean Thornton, a retired boxer from Pittsburgh (Yah!) who returns to the Irish town of his in birth to buy back the family home from the wealthy widow Tillane.  He just wants to live a quiet life (while nursing a dark secret) but ah, the biggest loudmouth in town, Squire Will Danagher (McLaglen) has been trying to get the widda Tillane to sell him the property for years, and he takes none to kindly to losing out, declaring cold war on Thornton as a result.  To further complicate matters, Thornton and fiery redhead Mary Kate (O’Hara), Danagher’s sister, make the googly eyes at each other and fall hopelessly in love.  Except this is rural Ireland, pre WW 2 boy-o, and per local custom only the head of a household can give any consent for marriage.  Fat chance persuading big brother Will of that.  So the sympathetic townsfolk cook up a scheme to trick Will into giving his consent which of course blows up in their faces and simply make matters worse.  From that point on the movie picks up a great head of steam and barrels towards a hilarious knock-down drag out third act.  This is a John Wayne movie, right?  The moral of the story: you can get along with your in-laws just fine as long as they know you can beat the crap out of them.

Rocketship X-M

(1950.  Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery, Noah Beery Jr., Morris Ankrum, Hugh O’Brian.  Dir. Kurt Neuman.  77 min.).  So bad it’s good.  From our jaded perspective of 2017 this early 50’s sci-fi adventure - first of its kind post WW 2 - does seem rather silly.  But before America’s Mercury program made space flight reality, imaginations ran wild and in this scenario four men and one woman are to be the first humans into space.  And they’re going straight to the moon.  Orbiting the earth first?  That’s for sissies.  

Bridges is the Colonel in charge, Berry is a Major who plays the harmonica, and Hugh O’Brian in his first screen role runs around making himself useful.  However once underway there’s a problem with the rocket engines.  And after they’ve restarted the ship runs into a meteor storm which knocks them off course and heading straight for … Mars.  It could happen.  Then on Mars things go from bad to worse.  Our intrepid space explorers encounter cave Martians wearing furs, fang necklaces and carrying spears.  Even though the crew is armed with pistols and thunder sticks, the cave Martians throw rocks and send everybody running back to the rocket where they blast off as fast as they can – a sad day for the US Space Program.  Then on the way back to Earth … well you get the picture.  NASA may have studied this movie to learn what not to do.

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll

(1960.  Paul Massie.  Dawn Davis.  Christopher Lee.  Dir. Terence Fisher.  88 min.)  Clever rethink of the old Robert Louis Stevenson tale done with the panache of Hammer Films in it’s hey-day.  A chump Dr. Jekyll, sexy wife Kitty, and mooch friend Paul (a very amusing Christopher Lee) form an uneasy love triangle until Jekyll shoots his dope and turns into lady-killer Hyde.  Of all the Hammer Horror films maybe the best written, with weird twists like Hyde going to Jekyll’s house to seduce his own wife, or Jekyll sucking his beard back into his face. Victorian era whorehouses, more beaver shots than you can count, and Oliver Reed getting hit over the head with a bottle.  Where else are you going to see Christopher Lee puffing on an opium pipe?  Ah they don’t make them like that anymore.