"And Sometimes, Finally, a Cliche is the Best Way to Make a Point" or "Mommy, That Man is Talking to Himself" ("Come Along, Justin")
Boris Yellnikov (Larry David) is a genius. A misanthropic genius, to be sure, but a genius; he's only too happy to tell you that he almost won a Nobel Prize for his work in quantum mechanics, specializing in string theory. He's also only too happy to tell you that you're sub-normal, a microbe!, an inchworm!, a potzer!, a troglodyte!, a mouth-breather!—and in fact, at a couple points during the film he turns to the audience and turns on them...us...to tell us what he thinks of us. A lot of movies choose to insult its audience these days (sometimes directly, sometimes by what the makers think they can get away with), but Yellnikov has the courtesy of treating anyone who chooses to listen to him the same disparaging way. >He has a lot of views about quantum theory, the Heisenberg Principle, but never mentions the Konigsbergian Bubble Theory, in which the world is essentially a sub-set of forty individuals restricted to a single geographical point, 15 of whom have speaking parts.
Whatever Worksis a return to Woody Allen's World, and its story of a young girl turning the heart of a beast is familiar ground, coming across as a "Woody's Greatest Hits" film—you'll find bits of Annie Hall, Manhattan, and particularly Hannah and Her Sisters—with its scenes of turmoil in the marriage between intellectual Frederick (Max von Sydow) and sensitive former-student Lee (Barbara Hershey). And Whatever...'s Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood) is the latest in a long string of naive young waifs portrayed by Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway, Mia Farrow, Mira Sorvino, Samantha Morton, Juliette Lewis, and Scarlett Johansson. One could make some excuse about Allen returning to themes he explored earlier in order to form a more perfect coalescence of his ethos and it would be as pretentious as it sounds. Allen says that Whatever Works is an early screenplay he wrote in the 70's with the intention of it starring Zero Mostel. When Mostel died, Allen shelved it. So, the truth is Allen has been cherry-picking from this script for years to make some of his earlier, better pictures.
Although this is one stretch of New York City pavement worn a bit thin, there is something unique about it. One thing you can count on in Allen's movies is his autobiographical characters, the passive aggressive smart-asses played by Allen or a surrogate (past stand-in Woody's have been Mia Farrow, Mary Beth Hurt, Kenneth Branagh, John Cusack and Edward Norton). But Yelnikoff isn't passive at all, and David plays him as he does much of his work...at 110%. This should get tiring, but it doesn't, and that's a very tricky thing to pull off. Mostel could do it, with his razor's edge timing and comic flailing, but David doesn't have his gifts as an actor. David merely sends off "vibes" that he could actually be this self-absorbed (he did co-create "Seinfeld," after all), and as with George Costanza, the entertainment value is in watching the train wreck. He's the reason to see Whatever Works (and his character is of the opinion that's the main motivation of the audience).
So, if you're going to go, go already, but understand that you'll see a lot of the same themes that have come before: of the chameleon nature of personality due to environment, of universal impermanence and the embracing of it, that it's a long, long way from May to December, and that it's not such a stretch for a physicist to move on from string theory, and pursue post-doctorate work on the ties that bind.
Warning Shot(Buzz Kulik, 1967) Based on a novel by Whit Masterson (who also wrote the book that had become Touch of Evil), Warning Shot was considered a good vehicle for David Janssen, who was in the middle of his run on "The Fugitive" TV series. The script was by "Fugitive" veteran Mann Rubin* a prolific writer who wrote at least one script for most of the thriller/SCI-FI series of the 1960's and 1970's.
The story has a nice affiliation with Janssen's "Fugitive" persona in that he plays a discredited cop accused of killing an unarmed man—and nobody believes his story that the dead man was carrying a gun—a search of the scene has never turned up the weapon, and the prosecuting attorney (Sam Wannamaker) is more than happy to provide no reasonable doubt. It doesn't help that the L.A. police (in the form of Ed Begley's crusty superior and partner Keenan Wynn) have their own suspicions, whether to save face for the force or attain a promotion.
Plus, it doesn't help that Janssen has a face that always looks guilty.
It's true that during a drug stakeout, Sgt. Tom Valens (Janssen) has shot a man who was running away from him in the night, in the fog of a swimming pool, but Valens swears it was a "good" shoot; he didn't fire until the suspect drew a gun on him. But, in the light of day, the dead man turns out to be a respected doctor and no weapon can be found on the scene. Valens had been shot a year previously—so the whispers are that he might be a little trigger-happy. Facing manslaughter charges, Valens is forced to do a little investigating on his own.
The victim, Tom Ruston, was a respected doctor catering to diseases of the rich, but also well-regarded for his humanitarian work in Mexico. The doc's accountant (George Sanders) and his floozy wife (Eleanor Parker) are of no help, nor is the doc's assistant (Stephanie Powers). Nope, the only people who seem to have any sympathy for Valens' plight is his ex-wife (Joan Collins) and a pilot (George Grizzard) who lives at "the scene of the crime" and who offers to fly Valens down Mexico-way to see if the doctor's work in Mexico was legit.
Then, things start to get complicated; Valens acquires quite a few bruises after he's been beat up in an apparently random attack. Then, Ruston's nurse dies and the doctor's office is ransacked. Then, Valens is dosed with a mickey in his milk—this was the days of door-stop deliveries**—and nearly gassed by his own fireplace. It would have looked like an accident. But, Valens knows it's enemy action.
Now, it being the 1960's, there's a little bit of experimentation on director Kulik's part with camera angles that are a little too precious,*** and when Valens is beat up (not too convincingly and in sloooow motion) his POV is shown with vasellined and distorting lenses, which is groovy, baby, but didn't strike me as being very convincing. Frankly, when these sorts of shots appear I think less that the person is going unconscious and more that trends in film-making in the '60's were very fleeting.
Ultimately, the entire movie is not very convincing. The plot hinges on one of the most unbelievable and least likely MacGuffins**** in movie history (nope, I won't spoil it, but, once you know, you'll say "why would they use THAT?"). It's odd, but Warning Shot is one of those movies where the script is supposed to be deadly serious, but there are those moments—when Kulik is focusing on a bottle of milk at Janssen's feet, or a shot that shows just how convenient meeting in a graveyard can be—that you think they're trying to have as much fun with the material as they can, the results seeming half-hearted, like the film-makers realizing somewhere in filming they were making one of those Hitchcock "wrong-man" movies. The film is top-heavy with talent—Sanders, Parker, Walter Pidgeon and Lillian Gish—all playing characters they've played and excelled at in their careers—but, the film is far less entertaining than one would expect given all that. The film needs a little bit more absurdity to work. Especially given its ending.
* Yeah. No, he didn't write for "Star Trek" but for Irwin Allen and the "Bionic" people. Quite a few scripts for The Alfred Hitchcock show and most of the detective/mystery shows of the era.
** It's just a cautionary note in these pandemic times, but don't be like David Janssen and leave the delivered food on the stoop all day so bad guys can poison you...or the food gets so old it poisons you.
*** Check this shot out—that's the heavy-hand of the prosecutor in the foreground during the manslaughter trial. Yup, the judge is Carroll O'Connor.
**** And just in case you don't know what a "MacGuffin" is, here is Alfred Hitchcock to explain...
On Dangerous Ground(Nicholas Ray, 1951) Big city detective Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan) is a one-man "good cop/bad cop" shake-down. Of all the detectives on his night-time beat, he's the one who takes the work home, studying mug-shots, knowing the rules, keeping his nose clean. One little problem—he's taking his work home with him. The job's weighing on him, poisoning his mind. All he sees are the mean city-streets, and the nighthawks who scurry through it. It's being noticed. "All we ever see is crooks, murderers, wino's, stoolies, dames—all with an angle." muses his new partner. "You get so you think everybody's like that. 'Til you find out different, it's kind of a lonely life...Jim just takes it harder than the rest of us." There's been a cop-killing recently—Wilson's partner, in fact—and it's gone unsolved. He knows why: "Everybody hates cops," he tells his captain (Ed Begley). "On either side of the law."
He's not helping the image: When a guy running down the street matches the description of a robbery suspect, he gets pulled over, gets cleared, he starts squawking about "Dumb cops" and Wilson's ready to take a poke at him before he gets held back by his partners; and when he finds an associate of the more likely cop-killers, he beats the information out of him. "Why do you make me do it?" he yells at the guy before laying into him. "You're know you're gonna talk. I always make you punks talk! Why do you make me DO it?"
Well, now the guy's got a ruptured bladder from the beating and Wilson's captain has an ulcer from another civil suit, not Wilson's first. And he's not showing any remorse or any inclination to change. He gets results. He's got a medal. "For being judge, jury and executioner?" grumps his captain. "Make up your mind to be a cop. Not a gangster with a badge."
So, Wilson gets sent up-state for awhile—"Siberia" he calls it—as there's been a murder of a little girl up there. He needs the space. He needs to get out of the city. And, although he doesn't suspect it, he's going to be particularly well-suited for the job, as he has no pity. And he'll find himself in the odd position of not being the worst thing that could happen.
Once he gets to the county, he finds a scared populace with a mob mentality. Visiting the Brent family, whose daughter is dead, he finds few leads as the girl's sister is too traumatized to offer any help identifying the killer. And the victim's father, Walter Brent (Ward Bond, playing the role with all the reactionary fervor natural to the actor) finds the detective's presence and questions just a delay to vigilante action: "No trial by jury. No sob-sisters. I'm just gonna empty my gun into his belly. Anybody try to stop me'll get the same thing." Up there, Wilson actually finds himself a voice of reason.
A snowy chase into the back-country causes both cars to spin out and ditch. And Brent and Wilson must continue the pursuit on foot following tracks in the snow. The way leads to a cabin with only one light on. The inhabitant is Mary Malden (Ida Lupino) who welcomes the men into her house and it's a few minutes before Wilson realizes that Mary is blind and has been for some years. Brent is suspicious and goes out to track Danny, leaving Wilson and Mary alone in the cabin, where she gets tea for the two of them. Wilson just observes.
She notes this, suspecting she's not the first blind person he's known. When Wilson asks why, she says he didn't offer her help and there's no pity in his voice. She asks him what it's like to be a cop, and he says you get to where you don't trust anybody.
"You're lucky," she says. "You don't have to trust anyone. I do. I have to trust everybody."
For Wilson, out of his element and having to deal with nuance and honesty, the case becomes one of negotiation, between two individuals—without angles—who either want the culprit alive or the culprit dead, and his understanding the cases for both sides. The extremes must coalesce if justice must be served...if only one can trust.
On Dangerous Ground (it's original title was "Mad With Much Heart", as per the original novel by Gerald Butler) boasts a great script by director Ray and A.I. Bezzerides**(one of the better noir screenwriters), which was originally a three-act structure, with the upstate scenes bracketed by the city action with a downbeat ending. But Howard Hughes, in charge of RKO at the time, was in a tinkering mood, and moved the last episode, earlier in the picture, so any inspiring words have to be recalled in echoed memory, rather than told to him for the first time, making Ryan's Wilson a cop who doesn't listen too good. And a tacked-on happy ending doesn't help things as far as a consistent tone, which makes it tough for both Lupino and Ryan, who does some mighty subtle work on a character who doesn't go in for subtle. The film already treads the noir landscape of cynicism, paranoia and naive romanticism, but, in the ecstatic ending, it doesn't remain true to the characters and their core souls. The film also has a great score by Bernard Herrmann which gives a hastily shot scramble up a bunch of rocks that are standing in for a mountain a sense of urgency and largeness; it foreshadows his work on North By Northwest. It elevates the film several notches above its roots and has the verve of another movie entirely.
Just the music from the chase scene On Dangerous Ground
The Street with No Name(William Keighley, 1948) Another of the odd docu-dramas Filmed in the real locations (but not better actors) that studio 20th Century Fox made in the 1940's with the FBI's full co-operation. As with the earlier example, The House on 92nd Street, Lloyd Nolan once again plays FBI inspector George Briggs who hires a new agent recruit to infiltrate a violent gangster racket run by one Alec Stiles (Richard Widmark, a year after tearing up the screen in Kiss of Death). Mark Stevens plays the mole, George Cordell, while a young John McIntire (wait a minute, he looks old in this one, too!) is his chief contact with the Feds. The Stiles gang is high on fashion, but low on smarts with the exception of Stiles, who's big on intricately worked out by-the-book schemes, secret rooms inside warehouses and likes to do a lot of whining about his gang, his moll, and probably the government, too, if he actually paid taxes. He takes a personal interest in Cordell (working under the alias of George Manley) and personally hires him as part of his mob.
The movie builds to a violent climax with anybody-who's-anybody in the cast all in the same place dodging bullets and daggers and hiding in all the spacious blackness that director Keighley and cinematographer Joe MacDonald (he shot My Darling Clementine, Call Northside 777, and Pickup on South Street) can offer. It's a minor noir, curious only for Widmark's early work and the spare elements of the truthiness at FBI Headquarters, which are less on display than The House on 92nd Street. This would be the last film of its type to have the full co-operation of the FBI until James Stewart starred in The FBI Story in 1959, and, of course the TV series "The F.B.I."starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jnr.
Well...almost. The script for The Street with No Name ended up being recycled for another, better film for Fox, which we'll talk about next week.
