IMDb meta-data is 1 hour, rated 5.2 by 112 cinematizens.
Genre: Mystery.
Verdict: Fluff.
Emeritus Professor invents a Big Ear that can eavesdrop on a conversation anywhere in the world once he has the co-ordinates. No wires, no transmitter, no credibility are required. All EP needs is the shortwave signature of the spot, and every spot has a unique shortwave signature. Is that what Google Maps is doing? Uh huh. Maybe the President in Thief can explain this.
This is Big News! Hat and Snap are dispatched by the Daily Rag to get the scoopola. Sure. Hat is a no nonsense dame that stomps as she walks and Snap carries a really big iCamera. Turns out Prof’s KPIs do not require him to talk to idiots so they get nothing. For a scandal hound ‘No!’ is just the beginning and they barge around, first at the foundation headquarters and then the laboratory. Sure.
They take possession of the Top Secret plans for the gizmo. How this possession happens has to be seen to be disbelieved. They use the plans to extort interviews. [Media ethics have changed so little.] During one interview a board member is shot dead. The flour is in the oil now, thickening the plot. Hat is well known to Plod and in between praising her perspicacity he derides her intelligence. Consistency takes a holiday.
Snap makes clever use of his flashbulb camera to foil a heist of the plans. Hat gets some good lines, like this exchange.
Plod: ‘Just because a man is cold to the touch doesn’t mean he’s dead.
Hat: ‘When I touch a man and he stays cold, then he is dead.’
In contrast to the dialogue there is an attenuated scene about trying to whistle that, well, where is The Whistler when he is need. The efforts to whistle go on too long and are repeated to no purpose but to get that the magic hour for theatrical release. Don’t blame the players, they did as directed, and the director can blame the screenplay, if there was one. The buck stops there.
Regrettably there are few Rouges and no Gallery. The singular villain — Smiley — was there all along, bumping into Hat and Snap wherever they went. It took these two Mensas an hour to connect the dots to the ever present Smiley who for reasons unknown to the scriptwriter persisted in hiding the stiff.
It was released on 6 December 1944 when the US was fighting a two-front war with nearly a million men under arms. B-29s began bombing Iwo Jima for the blood bath that would take place there in a month. Meanwhile an all-out Japanese offensive had begun on Leyte to expel the invading Americans, and in Europe the Nazis were preparing for the offensive that in ten days would be called The Battle of the Bulge. The Pentagon dispatched the dreaded yellow and black telegrams everyday with many more to come. In this context some inane light relief was certainly in order.
GoodReads meta-data is 348 pages, rated 4.2 by 2881 citizens
Gerne: krimi
Verdict: Procedural
A journalist is found dead in his Spartan home in Birmingham, the second largest city in England these days. Local plod writes it down as suicide and prepares to leave, but by chance DI Mariner is nearby, attracted by the flashing lights of the panda car; he takes a closer look. It is enough to make a citizen lose faith in Plods. He finds obvious signs it is a murder and also a witness hiding under the stairs which the local plod had missed.
The witness is of little use for though he is twenty-nine years old he is on the far end of the autism spectrum. That malady, its effects on families, its care and treatment, the cocktail of guilt and wishful thinking it triggers, the charlatans that comes out to feed on it, these are all central to the plot. I found out more about autism than I liked, truth to tell, but it did develop the plot, including the description of the home as spare, sparse, and Spartan.
The deceased was the sole-carer of this autistic man, his brother, and had devoted most of life in recent years to that. Now that he is dead, their reluctant sister has to prise herself away from her high-powered job to take over. One day she is soaring with corporate eagles, and next day cleaning up the living room after this unhouse trained man-child brother has…. While she has been well paid, and her brother left a sizeable estate, the cost of residential professional care for the autistic brother is cosmic, far beyond ‘well paid’ and ‘sizeable,’ more in the income range of an Oil Sheik, a Latin American dictator, or the President in Thief. In any event the deceased estate will be tied up for at least a year, and she will not be well paid if she has to care for the brother full-time. The problem for her is N-O-W. One place she turns for help is the kindly old family doctor.
Meanwhile, Mariner noses around. He is especially motivated to stick his oar in the water because by sheerest chance (maybe a little bit too sheer for some readers, like this one) he realised he had seen the deceased outside a pub earlier that very evening as the victim was getting into a distinctive, if old, Stuttgartmobile.
Thereafter the herrings are diverse and red. Mariner’s fallibility is nicely handled as he goes from dead ends to false trails and back. The moral growth of the sister as she copes with her unwanted brother, and in so doing begins to see the world in a different light is credible.
According to the formula the least likely person is the villain and that applies here with a deus ex machina revelation, although it leaves many, many loose ends. We may infer that low bid contractors for the Bleachers did it and they remain untouched, yet they killed four people on someone’s orders. What were those symbols that were mentioned several times early and then dropped? Did I flick a page too fast and miss the point? Perhaps later titles in the series dot a few of these i’s, and I might find out.
Chris Collett
There is much to’ing and fro’ing in Birmingham, including Bournville which we visited on the utopia trail in 2004, and many of the city’s canals. When planning a trip occasionally I consult Trip Fiction for novels set in the destination, click on https://www.tripfiction.com. Anticipating a trip to Birmingham late in 2020 I went looking and found this title.
In 2019 we did the Sydney Festival with Renaissance Tours and were tourists in town, staying at a hotel and letting Renaissance select what we saw. That was a good experience and we thought to repeat it 2020, and signed up for the Renaissance Sydney Art and Culture Long Weekend again, but for reasons unknown it was cancelled. Sacré bleu! Tabarnak! We had to decide for ourselves.
Studying the program we picked five things and I proceeded to book them. Too slow I was for our number one pick, which was William Barton playing the didgeridoo. We had seen him perform with the Song Company nearly ten years ago in Darwin and found it enchanting. But by the time I hit the keyboard, it was sold-out and I accepted waiting listing. (Later I got an email about a few last minute tickets but when I tried to purchase the web site was down – collapsed under the demand I supposed.)
My timing was better for the other four and we got tickets on the days and at the times that suited us.
First up was Life – The Show at Spiegeltent in Hyde Park, produced by one of the fabulous Davey sisters from Melbourne. It was marvellous. Wet, dry, hot, cold, sad, deliriously happy with anti-gravity aerialists, cabaret music, and a flying saxophonist shown in the centre bottom of the image above.
Next up was the Albury-Wodonga’s Flyings Fruit Fly Circus show Time Flies at the Seymour Centre, University of Sydney. It was presented as a School Captain’s report with droll humour, and with exuberant energy.
Adding to cabaret and circus was drama in Black Ties at Town Hall. It was great fun though the antics of one of the characters was disproportionate, we thought.
But seldom have so many had so much fun in the Town Hall theatre, which is frequently the site for some acrimonious back-stabbing when political parties use it for annual meetings.
We capped off our Festival with the songs of the a cappella Tenebrae Choir from Old Blighty at the City Recital Hall where we saw several others from Kate’s choir, from Newtown, and from days gone by. Such precision, such clarity, such blending of voices, such emotion made it a riveting performance.
IMDb meta-data is four episodes of 46 minutes each, rated 6..8 by 287 cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Fy fact
Verdict: Only for Mars junkies.
An international team (code for American, though all the actors are Canadian only one wears that flag patch in this Montréal production) embarks on a two year mission to Mars in 2030. The trip is long, the arrival short. Along the way the main obstacles are boredom and the shortcuts taken by the McKinsey-managed low-bid contractor. Yes, it is all very realistic. Produced by Discovery Canada, great pains were taken to get the science right. It is shot in HD and looks great.
Computer faults arise en route and have to be worked around, not once but twice. ‘That should work’ fixes don’t (fix it) and more fundamental efforts are needed. That is an IOS update while in flight. I did warn them against Catalina, but as usual shouting at the screen has no effect.
When the crew members were selected for compatibility they must have had some surgery because there is not a spark of sexual tension in the nine month close quarters voyage among the four men and two women. Definitely rated G on that dimension. There are a few expletives by way of compensation.
The master narrative in the title is that the Chinese have sent a robot ship to Mars to drill for water (as the source of life). Though launched shortly after the International Mission, the Chinese craft will get to Mars first. Why? Because it is robotic and without a human crew it can travel faster. It does not need to provide artificial gravity. It does not need to liftoff slowly so as not to crush the crew It does not need a long and slow deceleration to allow the crew to adjust. It does not need to dock and change crafts for ascent and descent. The one bus will make all stops. But will it get to water first, that remains to be seen.
Much time and effort is expended in landing, assembling equipment, withstanding the first dust storm, and setting up the drill. They do not do any exploring and there is never any discussion of that. No one wants to look around. Instead we have occasional views of travelling matte expanses. (This was not filmed in either Jordan or Morocco and it shows. These countries are favourites for big-budget Mars scenery.) They were sent to drill, and drill they do.
One of the Red Shirts breaks his arm in arraying equipment, and that increases everyone else’s workload. This is an industrial accident, not a Martian curse, and at this point the fraternity brothers passed out. Later another low-bid contractor puts in an appearance when the drill breaks.
Meanwhile the Chinese robot ship (very much like the cute little June bug spacecraft in Mission Stardust [1968], see comments on this film elsewhere on this blog) has struck….salt water. There is so much salt that no life could exist in it. Think Dead Sea and there it is. Think of the Great Salt Lake. No, wait, don’t. Anyway the smarty-pants Chinese have come up with nada.
Then off-camera, with the consent of ground control, suitably lagged for communication, our heroes get permission to cannibalise the Chinese rig for its drill, and they spend the best part of one forty-minute episode fitting it to their equipment, measured in inches, while the Chinese used abaci. (Joke.)
Not soon enough they hit water because their drill site is far away from the area the Chinese used and they have a geyser. In fact, it is too much and it blows the rig apart and shrapnel kills the Red Shirt. Much guilt follows, but no Christian ritual.
Now they have water and it seems anti-climatic since the samples are sealed and will only be analysed later on the ground after this series has long ended. Oh. It is all race and no finish.
Though there is much docking and rendezvousing which is passed in silence, and they start back when more computer failures threaten everything and no sooner is that fixed, then a damaged panel requires the Sy Fy mandatory EVA in which another member of the crew is injured. Was their equipment built by Trabant? Then they return to Earth orbit. The End.
No meteor showers, no flesh-eating plants, no exploding heads, no monsters of the deep, no creepy caves, no crappy special effects, just hard work and difficult decisions, industrial accidents, personal tensions, though the captain seems to wear his decisions lightly. That seems far fetched in such small group. The more so considering there is no military discipline in sight. I would expect more blowback. The extra shifts, first to compensate for the injured crewman, then to adapt the Chinese drill, then to make the deadline for the departure window, exhausts everyone. Tempers get shorter. Personal hygiene is absent.
I rather liked that low key approach, but the direction is leaden. The camera goes face-to-face for reaction shots every time a line is spoken. One speaks and we get five reaction shots. It lingers while the actor remembers the next line, and then on to the next actors. The result is that even the simplest scene is attenuated beyond its dramatic weight. While the asinine comments in user reviews about it are just that, it is also true that the film invites this reaction with its lethargic pace. It is one of slowest movies one is ever likely to see with the word ‘race’ in the title. Every actor gets plenty of close-ups for the demo disc without advancing the story or deepening the character
It was filmed in Montréal and I did not recognise any of the players but they all have extensive credits in Canadian television. It won several Gemini Awards for being Canadian. That the voice of ground control with an egregious Texas accent traces back to an Anglo actor from Montréal.
It is so low key that only one external reviewer was linked to the IMDb page when I looked. Moreover, or lessover there is not a single still photograph associated with the IMDb entry. This is the first time I have encountered that.
IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 1 minute, rated 6.0 by 186 cinematizens.
Genre: Mystery
Verdict: Go girl!
Clichés have to start somewhere. Nebraska’s own Lyle Talbot before he descended to the ranks of character actors is Three Star, a hotshot flyboy who boasts, brags, and shows-off, reminds me of that midget. We never do know if Three Star’s flying days began in the Great War, nor why he is called Three Star, apart from the three stars tattooed (it seemed) on his narrow, pasty chest. Why not four star? No room. Or just Star? Still I rather like it that there is no tedious backstory.
Before LAX ate Westchester a number of small airports served Los Angeles, and one, now long gone, was at Glendale. This drama takes place in the wide open spaces there.
Three Star, after character-establishing antics, is assigned a top secret mission, while unnamed enemy agents listen in, and then Three Star promptly goes to a bar and gets into a fist fight set up by the nefarious villains, which he loses, three to one. The next morning when he is a no-show for the top secret mission, there just happens to be another pilot right there to volunteer for it. Guess! Yes, this one is another plant by the unnamed enemy.
The co-pilot for this flight is the callow younger brother of Ann Dvorak, the airline’s only cabin crew. On board is an egghead with his invention, which is something to make boom, as if we are ever short of that. Whoops! The plane blows up in mid-air. Was it a Boeing Max? Well maybe, but skulduggery is afoot.
To keep it simple, the plant pilot (after eating Mexican beans) gassed the crew and passengers, took the secret device, and parachuted out after setting a time bomb. Kablooie! Four dead ducks. Some design fault.
Three Star with a nary a word of regret or apology sets out to recover the device, once it is not found in the wreckage. So far, so standard.
Here’s where it gets more interesting. Dvorak, seeking information about her now missing brother, the co-pilot, gets taken in by the villains, led by the redoubtable Russell Hicks, tall, distinguished, thoughtful, cultured, impressive, avuncular, and evil. Hicks and company trick her into helping them abscond with the device. So they think.
In fact, she soon realises their murderous larceny by accident and in a great scene thinks through in silence what she has heard and seen, and arrives at the conclusion to out trick them, and she does with a little help from the McGyver Manual. Marvellous!
She had overheard the news that her brother was dead, but stifled the stereotypical consequent female hysteria in the screenwriters paucity of imagination and turned the tables on the villains. Go girl!
Three Stars then flies around for ten minutes at a time. Remembers those underwater sequences in Thunderball (1965) that go on and on without advancing plot or character. Ditto here. It no doubt had novelty value at the time of release, 15 December 1934, and it is nicely done, but too much is too much (except for Dolly Parton and Arnold Schwarzenegger).
Ann Dvorak had a reputation in Hollywood for being difficult, according to the Harvey Weinsteins of the day. She was not compliant with his sort, whatever that may be, and, in addition, she resiled at the fluff she was forced to play and complained about it a lot. One suspects that her attitude influenced the portrayal of this disciplined, resourceful, and determined heroine. No doubt her personality was the result of reading too much, because her IMDb biography terms her a bibliophile who collected first editions.
When she realised she was being paid the same as the juvenile actors in one film, she bought herself out of the Warner contract. Gutsy, indeed, in that fraternity. The material was bad enough, but to be paid peanuts for it was the last straw. Later she married a Brit and moved to Old Blighty where she drove ambulances during World War II in the Blitz. No bone spurs were detected.
IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 3 minutes, rated 6.1 by 99 cinematizens.
Genre: Old Dark House (Honourary).
Verdict: It seemed longer.
N. B. This is not T-H-E Shadow of Mutual Radio though the time coincides with the eponymous Shadow. Confusing? This is a very British production quite independent of that radio program. Got it? Repeat after me: this is a shadow but not T H E Shadow.
The Set-Up: A masked figure has been blackmailing wealthy personages (see, it is a British film and they are personages, not just people), driving several to suicide. Wow! What did he have on them! I’d like to know. Where did he get it? Wikileaks? Pox News? Is there more there? These are all excellent questions that are never addressed by the stiffening lips. Instead the forces of order gather to protect these child molesting aristos. Nothing ever changes.
Clues and leads are few, but one Scotland Yard stalwart lays a cunning trap for this murderous Shadow. It is so cunning that One forgets to load his gat and the Shadow makes short work of him. Dick One is a dead dick in the first five minutes. Maybe not so cunning after all.
A Second Dick is assigned the case and sets about annoying dialogue with the Head of the Criminal Investigation Branch, Sir Forgotten Name. In the midst of the most terrible crime wave of the century (since if concerns wealthy personages being blackmailed for the heinous crimes they had committed) Name sets out for his country estate for the weekend to play golf. Hmmm. What does that remind me of?
Ah, at last, an Old Dark House, hoped the fraternity brothers.
For reasons unknown to the scriptwriter the Shadow is there, too, and for reasons unknown to the scriptwriter Second Dick knows that the Shadow is there, and rushes — ever so slowly — to warn Sir Name, when….! Second Dick is shot to death on the winding five-mile driveway of the country estate. Maybe a poacher shot him by accident, but is that likely? Well, yes in Midsomer, but the end result is: Two dead dicks!
Well, never mind, there are more dicks where those two came from and another middle aged, overweight, dolt is called to the country estate who confirms that Dick Two is dead. Enter the Third Dick.
In the Old Dark House are gathered the usual suspects: a butler, a scrumptious daughter, her unsuitable suitor, a toff of no apparent value who blunders about looking for the other two stooges, a maiden aunt who still hopes for the best, along with a sneak thief who passes himself off as a gentleman with an Eton tie, his girlfriend, and someone else whom I have overlooked. They do not add up to ten and soon subtraction begins.
There is also a ringer who passes briefly through the halls before being killed. This latter is the butler’s son escaped from a conveniently located nearby looney bin. (See any version of Hound of the Baskervilles for the prototype of this plot device.) Ringer makes the mistake of getting in the way of the Shadow and clonk he goes back to central casting.
The Third Dick with a body guard assistant muddies the waters. Much this and much that follows on the Dali watch. Frail swoons. Toff toffs. Plod plods. Name names. Butler butlers. Got it? Care?
Spoiler ahead!
Then Third Dick reveals all by means of reading the script off camera. In standard operating procedure screenwriting the least likely did it. No, wait, not the maiden aunt, but rather….[pause] the garrulous Toff. He transform from tiresome bore to tiresome villain. Now Richard Dix could have made this transformation worth watching but in this case one Henry Kendall could not and did not. We were all just glad to see The End.
There is one scene with some acting in it when Name comforts the Butler about the death of his psycho son, but that two minutes is not worth the rest. It has nothing to do with the plot.
There is also an oddity on the IMDb entry, where there are 184 photographs linked to this title. That is an extraordinary number for any film, let along one of this era, and from Great Britain. The Shadow Laughs (1933) has two photographs and that is a typical number, and this is the real Shadow, too!
The book [drum roll] is Laurent Binet, The Seventh Function of Language (2015).
The citation reads ‘Who would have thought such delightful libel could be published.’ I discussed this book in an earlier post on this blog. Get clicking’ for more info.
Laurent Binet
Stay tuned as other awards will follow on this site.
