VICE SQUAD: one star swims as co-star sinks

This 1953 day-in-the-life-of-a-detective drama is notable for two reasons. Firstly, the tenacity of it's star, Edward G.Robinson to keep working despite the Hollywood blacklist, and to give his best regardless of the quality of the material and, secondly, as a stark illustration of just how far co-star Paulette Goddard's career had fallen.

Robinson is the sole reason for watching this film. By his presence and with his understated performance he lifts what is otherwise a very run of the mill B-movie to a higher level with his presence and understated performance. He gives the production class, and a reason for us to watch.
While there's much to admire in Robinson's interpretation of Captain Barney Barnaby there's also perverse admiration in watching Goddard. Here is an actress famed for her beauty and recognised for her talent with an Oscar nomination a decade earlier now clinging to her career by her fingernails. Despite her billing, the part of local madam Mona Ross is more of an extended cameo than a genuine co-starring role, and Goddard brings nothing to it that a host of lesser known actresses could not have done. It's sad not only to watch a once big name in such reduced circumstances but also to see how Goddard's famed beauty has hardened and faded with the onset of middle age.
As for the film itself the most interesting aspect is how easily and routinely Captain Barnaby bends the law in order to achieve his objectives. He's clearly the good guy in this story yet he has not the slightest qualms about repeatedly re-arresting and intimidating a witness who's reluctant to identify the killer of a police officer, and having another character detained on a blatantly trumped up charge, without making the slightest effort to investigate the veracity of the accuser's allegations. It's never said out loud but the attitude is very obviously that the ends justify the means, and while it's presented in a very benign light the implications are actually very disturbing.
Despite Robinson's presence VICE SQUAD is not a must-see movie but it's definitely worth taking in if you find yourself with 90 minutes to spare.

THE ASTONISHED HEART: meets the disbelieving viewer

What's most astonishing about this 1950 British drama is how Noel Coward manages to find himself as the focal point of a love triangle, lusted after not only by his prim and proper wife but also her younger looking, faster living, more loosely moral-ed friend.
Coward was admired and even idolised for his wit and writing skills but as an object of desire he left a lot to be desired. Short, balding, middle-aged, self-obsessed and less expressive than one of those large stone statues on Easter Island Coward was no-one's idea of a dreamboat - or at least, no one still in possession of their own teeth and hair and able to hear and walk unaided.

Call me cynical, but perhaps his leading role had something to do with the fact that THE ASTONISHED HEART is based on his play of the same name.
However, his allure is only one of the implausibilities undermining this story. The others include his wife's (Celia Johnson) incredible tolerance for his philandering and her friend's betrayal, and (spoiler alert!) the grand climax when a man who has just jumped off the roof of his apartment building in an attempt to commit suicide is not rushed to hospital but is scraped off the sidewalk and carried back inside to his apartment and put to bed where he lies, unattended by any medical professionals, while his nearest and dearest wait in the next room for him to die. I know Coward was an avid proponent of the British stiff upper lip but this seems to be taking things just a little too far.
The whole film and everyone in it are as stiff as a board and it's difficult to imagine just how much appeal the story would have had to a nation still recovering from the ravages of the Second World War. The lives of privilege and wealth lived by Dr Faber (Coward), his wife Barbara, and the temptress Leonora Veil (Margaret Leighton) must have seemed like relics from Edwardian England to audiences in 1950.
A little humour would have done much to make the story more palatable but Coward's occasional 'bon mots' come across as smug and self-satisfied. THE ASTONISHED HEART is a curate's egg gone bad.

STONE: like a rock - only much less interesting

If only STONE could have figured out what it wanted to be it might have been a halfway decent movie, but as it is it's a mish-mash of genres which never coalesce into anything approaching a satisfying whole.

As parole officer Jack Mabry, Robert De Niro gives what could have been an interesting performance if only he'd succeeded in breaking out of the metaphorical straitjacket he's wrapped his character in. Just weeks from retirement Mabry allows himself to be seduced and set up by the scheming wife (Milla Jovovich) of a convict (Edward Norton) whose case he is handling.
Norton and Jovovich prove considerably more successful in setting up Mabry than director John Curran does in setting up the plot. He can't decide if he wants it to be a thriller or a drama or a psychological drama/thriller or even simply coherent. If his intention was to confound our expectations he succeeds, but not for the reasons he intended. STONE confused me because it doesn't go anywhere logical, rational or even interesting but instead wanders around aimlessly, trying on different genre hats but never managing to settle on any one of them.
By the time we reach the grand anti-climax and the whole sorry mess finally skulks away I couldn't have cared less about anyone or anything. It's disappointing to see De Niro again settling for considerably less than his best, but after 'Little Fockers', 'Everybody's Fine', 'Righteous Kill'. 'Hide and Seek' and 'Meet the Fockers' I'm surprised I'm still surprised.

CHINA: a far from smashing experience

There's the fine bone/porcelain stuff and then there's the plastic stuff that looks like the real thing until you touch it. Paramount's 1943 offering CHINA is most definitely the latter. It's cheap, disposable and disappointing.

By the early 1940s China and its people were no longer the mysterious, half civilised exotics that had so fired Hollywood's imagination in the 1930s, when films such as 'Shanghai Express' and 'the Bitter Tea of General Yen' offered an image that was both seductive and frightening. Now China and the USA were allies fighting a common enemy - the despised Japanese. As such it was important to portray them as less like 'the other' and more like us.
Subtlety has never been Hollywood's strongest point so the producers of CHINA decided to achieve this by having every Chinese character speak near perfect English with a strong American accent. And having taken this liberty with reality it was a case of anything goes. The cast is a rag-bag of Korean and Chinese actors, along with any Japanese-Americans who'd dodged the internment camps, plus anyone else who looks vaguely 'Asian.'  To reinforce the idea that the Chinese and their homeland were not so very different, Paramount chose the desert landscape of Arizona to stand in for the far-too-far-away-and-difficult-to-get-to-in-wartime China.
Now all it required was a real-life Caucasian American to lead the way and show them all how to hit back most effectively at the fiendish Japs. Enter pint-sized hero Alan Ladd as cynical tough-guy profiteer David Jones who doesn't give two hoots about right and wrong until he falls for the glacial beauty and compassion of ex-pat schoolteacher Carolyn Grant (Loretta Young) who needs his help to get her schoolgirls to safety.
Ladd plays his part like a schoolyard bully tamed by the love of a good woman, although quite what Miss Young's character sees in him is beyond me. He's immature with a flippant disregard for anything and anyone that gets in his way, and his conversion to good deeds is as unconvincing as the love which springs fully formed from nowhere to overwhelm the two of them. Ladd and Young have zero chemistry, and she expresses more (distasteful) emotion in rejecting sidekick William Bendix' marriage proposition than she ever manages when being wooed by Ladd.
Both as a piece of wartime propaganda and an entertainment CHINA is a flop. The stars don't click and the plot's a dud leaving the film with zero credibility in both categories. Most definitely one to avoid.

PAUL: appaulingly dismal entertainment

With each subsequent release it's becoming increasingly obvious that Simon Pegg's smash hit success as writer and star of 'Shaun of the Dead' was a fluke rather than the birth of a new cinematic comedy talent.
The eagerly anticipated follow-up 'Hot Fuzz' was a damp squib, 'Run Fatboy Run' limped along, and now comes PAUL which, uninspiring title aside, is bereft of any real laughs.

Pegg reteams with his 'Shaun' co-star Nick Frost as Graeme and Clive, a pair of comic book geeks who find themselves caught up in a surreal chase across the wilderness of Nevada, Utah and Wyoming in the company of a 4ft tall alien called Paul.
Paul looks like ET and sounds like Seth Rogen, which is probably because he is voiced by Rogen phoning in his performance with the minimum effort. Paul confounds almost every one of Graeme and Clive's long held expectations about how a space alien should behave but none of it's funny. His lines and most of the set-ups are lazy and flabby, relying on the old comedic fall back of "it's funny because we (Pegg and Frost) are in it and we are comedians ergo the scene's funny" instead of writing something that is actually funny.
I'd like to say it's self-indulgent humour of the "you had to be there" variety but I was there watching PAUL and I still didn't laugh. Not simply a misfire, and certainly not a future cult classic, PAUL is just a monumental waste of time.

KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS: what's the magic word?

What intrigued me most about this 1948 film was its lurid title. How exactly would they work it into the story? Would it be a plaintiff plea to a loved one by someone looking for comfort in his darkest hour, or a command, barked pitilessly by the victor to his groveling defeated enemy? And what would the circumstances be that would give rise to such an unusual utterance?
Sadly all of these questions and more were left unanswered by this drama which wants to be a film noir but doesn't quite have the nerve to pull it off.

Burt Lancaster stars as Bill Saunders, a mentally disturbed ex-soldier on the run in postwar London who finds an unlikely friend and lover in Jane Wharton (Joan Fontaine), a lonely nurse, whose flat he takes refuge in after accidentally killing a man in a pub brawl.Despite the unconventional nature of their introduction Jane finds herself drawn to this troubled, tough but tender man who wants to do the right thing but just can't control his temper.
If director Norman Foster had remained true to his film noir aspirations this love story would have ended very differently to the way that it does, which is a shameful cop out that betrays almost everything that's gone before. Up to that point he'd done well to adapt the conventions of a uniquely American cinematic genre to a British setting, creating a sense of doom that while never scaling the heights of 'Double Indemnity' or 'The Big Sleep' does ok in the circumstances.
Lancaster is testosterone on legs. Virile is barely adequate to describe his presence on screen and it's not difficult to understand why Jane would be irresistibly drawn to this bad boy despite all the warning signs (starting with his confession that he's just killed someone). Fontaine is surprisingly likeable and appealing and - most importantly - convincing in a part that she's really a few years too old for.
Third billed Robert Newton, however, is another matter. His literally eye-rolling performance as the blackmailer who delights in tormenting the already tormented Saunders is a thick slice of boiled ham. His most famous film role, as Long John Silver in 'Treasure Island' was still 18 months in the future but he appears to be warming up for it here, with a parody of a cockney crook that even Dick van Dyke would blush at.
It all adds up to a routine drama that could have been so much more.

THE JAZZ SINGER: a revisionist take on this much maligned musical

I've generally been a supporter of The Golden Raspberry Awards, or Razzies. They've done a great job over the years of shining a mercilessly harsh light on Hollywood's more tasteless or talentless excesses, but I do have to take issue with their choice of Worst Actor for their first ever awards in 1981.
The Raspberry went to Neil Diamond for his performance in THE JAZZ SINGER and, having just watched the film, I think they gave it to the wrong guy.

This 1980 musical drama marked Diamond's big screen acting debut and while he's no Laurence Olivier (more on him in a moment) he's actually not that bad. I'd go so far as to describe him as  adequate in the part of Yussel Rabinovitch, a cantor's son who upsets his devoutly Jewish family when he leaves New York for Los Angeles to pursue a career as a pop (not a jazz) singer.
Yussel's rise to fame, under the more easily pronounceable name of Jess Robin, is implausibly meteoric, but Diamond is reasonably convincing and never embarrasses himself (apart from with his haircut). Which is more than can be said for Olivier as his father, Cantor Rabinovitch. In religious terms it's verging on blasphemous, but in acting terms it is entirely appropriate to describe Olivier's performance as hammy in the extreme. He shamelessly steals every scene he's in with displays of stereotypical Yiddish theatrics that would have made Al Jolson blush. The Razzies were right on the money when they awarded the greatest actor of his generation the Golden Raspberry for Worst Supporting Actor of 1980.
I've read reports that when Richard Fleischer was brought in to salvage the movie after original director Sidney J.Furie was fired, he insisted on re-shooting most of Olivier's scenes because he had overacted so badly. Given his overheated performance in the version that made it to the big screen, it's almost impossible to imagine how bad he must have been in the discarded version. If only someone had saved those scenes - what wonderful DVD extras they would have made!
Fleischer and Furie were both nominated for worst director but lost out to Robert Greenwald for 'Xanadu' which, I reckon is a far worse film than THE JAZZ SINGER. But the one redeeming factor both these films have in common is some great music on the soundtrack. Where 'Xanadu' had the title track by Olivia Newton John and ELO, THE JAZZ SINGER has 'America', 'Hello Again' and the wonderful, Golden Globe nominated 'Love on the rocks.'
With music that mighty it's possible to forgive all the other inadequacies.

I'M STILL HERE: haven't you gone yet?

I'M STILL HERE is a 1 hour 46 minute film which outstays it's welcome by an hour and 45 minutes.
A self-indulgent fake documentary about a self-indulgent character, it's as big a waste of space as the character that real life (minor) movie star Joaquin Phoenix pretends he's turning into.
Directed by his close friend and brother-in-law Casey Affleck this is the ultimate Hollywood inside joke, but frankly ever if you were actually there you'd still need to be coked out of your head to laugh.

The film follows Phoenix from his surprise 2008 announcement that he was quitting acting and going into the music business to become a hip hop artist. Affleck's camera records Phoenix's apparent mental disintegration as he pursues this unsuitable career goal, culminating in his legendary, incoherent appearance on 'The Late Show with David Letterman.'
The sequence with Letterman is the film's only genuinely funny moment, and that's because of Letterman not Phoenix. The rest of the film is slow, shapeless and tedious.
Now that we know the whole film was just a set-up there's even less reason to watch it than there was when we believed Phoenix really was coming apart.

STAIRCASE: goes rapidly downhill

What better way to add credibility to a story about a bickering, middle aged gay couple than by casting two of the world's most notorious womanisers in the lead roles?
The logic behind the choice of Richard Burton and Rex Harrison escapes me but it makes for interesting watching - at least for the first 10 minutes.

After those first few minutes it becomes obvious that they have no idea how to convincingly portray a homosexual man as a real flesh and blood individual and have chosen to fall back on the old stereotypes instead. Harrison adopts the cliched 'sucking a lemon' frozen facial expression and flouncy hand movements, while Burton goes for a bitchy coalminer characterisation. The result is a pair of caricatures more likely to be found propping up the bill in a gay drag revue than actually existing in a real world community.
Charlie (Harrison) and Harry (Burton) have been a couple for more than 20 years, living above Harry's barber shop in some ill-defined part of London. They bicker and derive perverse pleasure in pushing one another's buttons even though they recognise that it threatens the stability of their relationship. Harry's inferiority complex is complicated by the stress of caring for his invalid, bedridden mother (Cathleen Nesbitt) who lives with them and requires constant attention.
Miscasting the lead actors would be enough to sink most films on it's own, but director Stanley Donen is determined to send STAIRCASE plummeting into undersea crevices so deep that even remotely controlled robot submarines can't reach them. There's no other way to account for the atrociously overblown dialogue spouted by his two implausible characters. The script, by Charles Dyer and based on his own stage play of the same name, makes absolutely no allowances for the fact that the theatre and cinema are different mediums. What works on stage where actors must ensure the back row of the audience can hear them and see the emotion being expressed comes across as hammy, overheated and overly theatrical on the big screen.
Burton was no stranger to cinematic disasters in the late 60s and early 70s (and this wasn't the last time he'd play a gay character) but 1969's STAIRCASE is particularly dreadful because it has no redeeming qualities - no camp value, no so-bad-it's-good performances and no memorable dialogue. It's just awful.

IRON MAN: no, not that one... the other one

More than seven decades before Robert Downey jr climbed into his armored suit to do battle with an evil arms trader, Lew Ayres played a very different kind of IRON MAN, using only his fists and some nimble footwork to protect himself from brutal punishment.

Made in 1931, shortly after he'd shot to fame in 'All Quiet on the Western Front', the 23 year old stepped into the ring as Kid Mason, a young boxer with a one way ticket to Palookaville until his faithless wife Rose (an equally young Jean Harlow) walks out on him and he discovers the secret to success. Under the guidance of his paternal manager George Regan (Robert Armstrong), the Kid vanquishes all comers and acquires the nickname IRON MAN for his ability to withstand whatever his opponent can throw at him. Of course, the moment he gets a sniff at the title Rose miraculously reappears on the scene professing undying love for the newly wealthy pugilist.
This is not a particularly great movie but it's interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all it's a chance to watch two stars on the way up. After the huge success of "All Quiet.." the previous year Universal were keen to exploit their handsome young star in every way possible. IRON MAN was just one of five films Ayres appeared in in 1931. He really doesn't have the build to play a boxer but director Tod Browning finds every excuse to shoot him shirtless both in and out of the ring. In an obvious effort to make a story about boxing palatable to as big a female audience as possible there are numerous scenes featuring a half naked Ayres in the locker room, in his bedroom and in the shower.

Harlow was not yet the huge star she was shortly to become and she is clearly still a work in progress here. Rose is a generic movie gold-digger and could have been played equally well by any number of young actresses of the time, but Harlow succeeds in calling attention to herself as much by the daring amount of cleavage on show as by her acting prowess.
Director Browning is best remembered today for the two horror films he made either side of IRON MAN.- 'Dracula' and 'Freaks' - and IRON MAN comes off badly in comparison. It's certainly less creaky than 'Dracula' but the characters are unmemorable, the pacing is lethargic and the sets look better suited to the stage of a theatre than a studio soundstage. 
The film is mercifully short - just an hour and thirteen minutes - and one reason Browning is able to cram so much story into this space is the title sequence. It lasts just 53 seconds and includes an opening card featuring not only the film's title but also the names of the three leading actors, the producer, the director, the studio and the studio boss. There may not be much that 21st century Hollywood can learn from a relic like IRON MAN, but it is a masterclass in how to keep the opening credits short and to the point.