No.168 : The Stranger (1946)

The Stranger at the IMDb

Post war melodrama now in this 1946 effort starring and directed by Orson Welles, before be was over inflated.

The war has just ended and Edward G Robinson is on the trail of escaped Nazis - presumably the ones who didn’t have much to offer the rocket programme in the US. Bit of politics there.

They want the big fish in the shape of Franz Kindler, but no one knows what he looks like - all they have is that he likes clocks. No clocks. Remember that for later. They suspect that there is a secret network of Nazis on the go, so they let one go in the hope that he will lead them to the head goose-stepper. Of course he does, and Robinson is soon in the small town of Harper Connecticut with a list of likely candidates.

He crosses off those he has dismissed and is close to dong the same with Welles’ ‘Charles Rankin’ but has a second look when he remembers that Welles described Karl Marx as a Jew rather than a German. Welles has gotten his feet under the table and is soon to marry local lovely Loretta Young. He also has a job in fixing the town clock - what a giveaway!

He manages to stretch things out for a while after killing off the Nazi from the start, who was a terrible actor in any event. He also has to off an overly curious dog - damn efficient these Germans. Welles keeps his soppy fiancé onside, but soon even she is having a hard time believing that he’s not a friend of Hitler.

As the net closes in Robinson meets his quarry in the clock tower - will the sausage eater get his just desserts and is some overly poetic justice on the cards?

This was a decent romp but apart from a hilarious ending it was pretty much as you’d expect. Welles is poor as the Nazi on the run and makes no attempt at an accent. Fair enough the Boshe would have masked his accent but Welles is more Bostonian than Bavarian. He does well smooth talking his gullible lady and the idiotic townsfolk, but he’s no match for the no-nonsense Robinson who has his man clocked from the off.

The cat and mouse is pretty poor with it broadcast from the start that a big showdown at the end is inevitable. The clues about pipes and clocks were telegraphed throughout and although the ending was no surprise, it’s manner was. I won’t spoil it, but you’ll guess when you see that this small town has a massive automatic clock, complete with life sized mannequins armed with swords.

The film does include footage from the concentration camps and for 1946 it is quite full on. The message is clear as Robinson shows the films to the disbelieving fiancé that these things are real and that justice needs to be served.

Fair play to Welles for being the villain but he could have done more with the character. I can see why they made him likeable and more handsome than Robinson, but I don’t doubt folks would have been cheering fro the wrong guy at then end on the basis of his straighter jaw line and nicer manners.
Overall the film is an interesting record of the mood of the nation straight after the war - the Nazis should face justice and if it’s mad clockwork justice, then all the better!

THE Tag Line Stranger Danger! 67%

No.162 : The Stag (2013)

The Stag at the IMDb

I’ve been on a lot of stag weekends but none like this - still who’s making films about drunken Scotsman charging about Brussels? Far more fun to have drugged fuelled Irishmen running about the countryside in the nip.

The film is very Irish with Irish Film Board sponsorship and a likely backhander from the tourist board too. It’s pretty gentle stuff with a bit of growth being the main driver, but it was mostly enjoyable with lots of redemption thrown in for good measure.

Andrew ‘Moriarty’ Scott stars as Devin, a lecturer in Dublin who is due to be best man at his friend’s Fionan’s wedding. That name gets plenty of laughs with no one ever getting it correct. In fact, if he was called ‘Brian’ the film would be five minutes shorter.

Fionan is not exactly a man’s man and would rather go on the hen night than contemplate a stag weekend with his pals. His bride to be Ruth, insists that he has the final blow out  and soon it is agreed that a small group of Fionan’s friends will join him on a hike around some of Ireland’s more scenic parts. On its own that’s a bit dull so a wild card is thrown in, in the shape of ‘The Machine’, Ruth’s brother, who is known to be a bit of a handful. He got so much of a build up that I was expecting it to be Hulk Hogan or somebody, but it was just a regular bloke with a funny name.

The guys avoid The Machine’s calls and hope to go on the hike without him. After a quick, and mostly tiresome trip to the camping shop, they head off on their adventure with no The Machine in sight. Happily for the film, Ruth gives away the destination and The Machine shows up in an entertaining torrent of gay slurs and bad language.

They head out the next day with The Machine wearing just his usual about town gear. The rest are kitted out like Millets’ gold card users, but things soon level out when their gear gets lost along with the car keys and a compass that may have some emotional attachment for Devin.

With the lads high on elicit substances, some home truths are revealed along with their arses. As they try to make it back to civilisation will the wedding happen and will they all ever be the same again?

I liked this film and despite a couple of dips it had enough to keep me entertained throughout. It was well observed with the usual guys bullshit and hierarchy all present and correct.

Scott had most of the weight to carry and he do so well with his usual wide eyed shouty style. I twigged the twist early on but to be fair you’d need to lose your compass not to spot it.

The Machine character had most of the laughs and best lines but it was disappointing when he gave up vulnerabilities of his own. I guess we all play a part and inside we’re all as messed up as each other.

The pivotal scene with the lads in the nip was good fun but it went on a bit and there are only so many arse cheeks I can watch in one sitting.

There were a few laughs and a couple of decent payoffs especially with the U2 scene where we just knew a character’s hatred of all things Bono was going to be disproved.

The hike itself seemed a bit easy to an experienced hill walker like me but I guess the crew weren’t for humping equipment up hills. The cast did well and threw themselves into some pretty demanding and revealing scenes.

The wedding at the end wrapped everything up nicely and although a bit pat (even gay hating Dad turned out nice!) it was hard to grudge them a happy ending.

THE Tag Line : A 7 Point Stag! 70%

No.150 : The Natural (1984)

The Natural at the IMDb

I always enjoy a good sports film but I’d never seen ‘The Natural’ before. Maybe the long run time of 137 minutes put me off or maybe the whole thing looked a bit too wholesome for my slightly seedier tastes. Well, now that I have seen it I can say it’s well worth a look and, although not the best baseball film I’ve seen (Major League 3 : Back to the Minors, seeing as you ask) it’s still pretty good.

We open with a young lad playing ball with his Dad - an idyllic scene right up to the point Pop has a heart attacked and snuffs it and then a tree gets hit by lightning for good measure. The lad is Roy Hobbs and when fate gives him an exploded tree he makes a baseball bat out of it. He calls the bat ‘Wonderboy’ just like Homer Simpson’s ‘Wonder bat’ - in fact most of the baseball Simpsons episode pays homage to this film, so that’s a blind spot in my education erased.

We jump forward a few years and the young lad has become Robert Redford. That’s one tough paper round he had! Redford was 38 when he made this, and there is no effort to explain why a 38 year old is playing a teenager. I thought I’d stick with it an all would be revealed - an old man’s fantasy maybe? No, they just didn’t have ‘The Irishman’ style de-ageing then, so just go with it.

Roy gets a call up to the Chicago Cubs and says goodbye to his equally middle-aged, but playing it  young, girlfriend Glenn Close. Roy gets on the train to Chicago and meets sports hack Robert Duvall and ‘The Whammer’ a Babe Ruth type baseball legend. The journalist sets up a bet that Roy can strike out The Whammer which he does, and in turn attracts the attentions of psycho groupie, Barbara Hershey. Barbara takes him back to hers but shoots him in the guts for his trouble. Not what he expected when she agreed to fire into him!

16 years pass and we meet the same Robert Redford whom everyone is now calling ‘Granddad’. He has been signed up by the New York Knights, the worst team in baseball. The manager doesn’t fancy Redford and keeps him on the bench, but a couple of strokes of luck, and a bad bay for Mr Blonde, see him in the team. Roy is a smash hit until he meets floozy Kim Basinger, the squeeze of the local bookie. Soon Roy is facing bribes and a slump in form. Will an old flame reignite the magic and will an old would prevent Roy from winning the pennant and saving the club?

You could probably delve into the subtext of this film and come up with an allegory for the corruption of the American Dream. I didn’t bother and enjoyed the tale of a man striving to win against the odds for what it was. There was a lot of nostalgia flying about with the games and crowds all wonderfully realised by director Barry Levinson.

The turning points of Roy’s life all involved the dames and I think the message is that you’d do better if you kept your pecker in your pocket. The villains such as the bookie and wannabe club owner, The Judge, were all a bit boo hiss and I wondered why they didn’t just bump Roy off rather than try to turn his head.

Some of Roy’s hits were great such as one where the ball is knocked out of it’s cover and others that destroyed clocks and stadium lights. It was well done and you’d be a cold individual not to get the chills when Roy faces the last pitch 2-0 down with two outs and two men on. To be honest I wasn’t sure he was going to win when a young version of himself was the new pitcher - would the story continue with the new ‘natural’? Nah, but it was a nice thought.

I was surprised that the film did as well as it did in awards season as I thought it was a bit slight, but like ‘Field of Dreams’ I think it would speak to Americans about better, more innocent times when you could meet women on trains and be shot by them!

Redford was good, but it was a mistake not to have any attempt at him looking any younger in his adolescent scenes - at one point I’m sure the conductor was going to give him senior citizen discount! The film more than makes up with that one conceit with an excellent cast and a finely realised world.

THE Tag Line :  Whammy!  79%