Movie Reviews: Guns, Girls and Gangsters

Guns, Girls and Gangsters
directed by Edward Cahn

There were three top blonde bombshells of the fifties and early sixties, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and this film's star actress, Mamie Van Doren. 

Van Doren's appeal was more always more "bad girl" than Marilyn's wide eyed innocent schtick. For whatever reason Van Doren never had Monroe's success. 

After a number of roles in movies that didn't quite break through Van Doren began (and has since continued) to star in films that rarely pretended to be about anything more than showcasing her physical attributes. 

This short running 1958 movie shows that if Van Doren had gotten a few more breaks she could have been as well known for her acting as for her hourglass figure, platinum hair, and va-va voom looks. So it goes. 

The movie's title is truth in advertising. There's not a lot of wasted dialogue. Everyone gets his or her fair share of snarky one-liners and tough guy/gal comebacks.

Movie Reviews: Witness to Murder

Witness to Murder
directed by Roy Rowland

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse and manipulation in which one person (usually a sexual intimate, trusted authority figure, or close family member) convinces his or her target that what they saw/experienced didn't happen, if it did happen then it's ok, and/or that the target is the one who is crazy/mistaken despite all evidence showing the exact opposite. 

If the man or woman employing this tactic is really skilled, well sometimes that's how you end up with men running harems or wives convincing their husbands that the wife's constant infidelity and public disrespect is all the husband's fault. If the husband wasn't such a punk then the wife wouldn't do what she did. 

Gaslighting needn't necessarily be committed by intimates though I think that's when it's most effective. One could argue that white racists have been carrying out a successful 400 year gaslighting project on Black Americans. 

The term comes originally from a 1938 play "Gaslight" that was later developed into multiple films, most notably one directed by Alfred Hitchcock. 

Movie Reviews: Black Gunn

Black Gunn
directed by Robert Hartford-Davis

This 1972 film was a foreign made entry in the American Blaxploitation boom of the late sixties and early seventies. It's not a great movie. In fact it's not even a good movie, given that its story and themes had been done many times before, even as far back as 1972. It did have a somewhat well known cast.

But as I've written before these movies were some of the few times on the big screen when Black men were portrayed as heroic, Black women were portrayed as desirable, and Black people in general could inhabit the entire spectrum of human morality and skill. Black people weren't only comic relief or sexless sidekicks who either die first or spend the entire film trying to ensure that the white lead finds happiness with someone else.

That was unusual then and is still uncommon now. I've seen this film described as neo-noir but I disagree with that. This is an action film. The lead character, played by football superstar turned actor, Jim Brown, doesn't talk much. He's not morally compromised. He's not suffering from existential dread about the meaningless of life or unhappy with his career. 

Dogs React To Owner's Fake Death

Sometimes you read stories about dogs who, upon seeing their owner in some form of sudden distress, immediately run to alert someone else in the home, call 911, and bring or push the med alert button. These are indeed good dogs. 

Then there are dogs, who apparently having confirmed with their nose that their owner is faking it, decide to take the opportunity to play along with the game. I guess these are also good dogs. Perhaps they just have a sense of humor.

 

Movie Reviews: Thieves' Highway

Thieves' Highway
directed by Jules Dassin

In some respects this 1949 film is both social criticism and a morality play about the values of such concepts as love, revenge, and trust. Thieves' Highway is both a gangster and noir film, though hardly the darkest of either genre. 

Whereas some noir films like Decoy had convoluted storylines and dreamy cinematography, Thieves' Highway was simple and realistic. It was mostly shot on location in San Francisco among the produce markets.

I wasn't surprised to learn that Dassin had been blacklisted shortly after this film and forced to surrender his career in his native United States and relocate to Europe. 

Thieves' Highway may feature some criminals, even some organized ones, but this movie makes it clear to modern eyes, and apparently a few right wing eyes in the late forties, that the real crime was a system that made it only too rational to exploit workers and eliminate them if they protested. 

Movie Reviews: The Cursed

The Cursed
directed by Sean Ellis 

The Cursed harks back to the mid twentieth century Hammer Films period horror movies. The Cursed has a brief gratuitous nod to the salacious early seventies Hammer entries with a topless scene by actress Kelly Reilly. This came out of left field. It added nothing to the story except well, beauty, which is always worthwhile.

Some leading actresses have contract clauses refusing scenes with cleavage, toplessness, or nudity. Perhaps Reilly has a contract insisting that at least one such scene must be in her films. Snicker. 

The Cursed updates some old horror myths. Like Stephen King's "Thinner" it centered the titular malediction in a crime against the local (in this case French) Roma minority population. An American viewer may see similarities to crimes against Black Americans and especially Native Americans. As the saying goes the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. The Cursed references some Christian themes.

Dog Fights Mountain Lion

I thought this story was good evidence of the selflessness that is normal for many dogs. 

If dogs could speak they might indeed take an oath to their humans, much like Aragorn's in The Fellowship of The Ring, "If by my life or death I can protect you I will." 

A California woman's dog is being hailed as a hero after jumping to her owner's defense when a mountain lion attacked the pair. The woman, who has been identified as Erin Wilson, encountered the mountain lion when she was taking her dog Eva for a stroll near a picnic area along State Route 299 in Trinity County on Monday.

After she exited her car with her dog, the duo began walking down a path with Eva slowly tracking ahead of her. Before Wilson knew it, a mountain lion jumped out from her side and swiped her across her left shoulder.

While in pain, Wilson called out for her dog. “I yelled ‘Eva!’ and she came running,” Wilson told the Sacramento Bee on Wednesday. “And she hit that cat really hard.” Wilson noted that her 2 1/2-year-old dog weighs 55 pounds and tried its best to take down the cougar.