Misery (5 Stars)

This is a film I've been unfairly ignoring for the last ten years, maybe longer. After watching it today I decided that it deserves a place in my top 100 films. I have a new list that differs from the list that I posted in September last year. I call it a rolling top 100, because I'll dynamically update it every time I change my mind about a film. My new list is in an Excel spreadsheet, but I still need to figure out a way to easily import it to my blog. 

James Caan plays Paul Sheldon, the author of a series of books about Misery Chastain, a woman who lived in the late 19th Century. It's not explicitly stated where she lives, but there are clues that it must be in Europe, probably England. Paul crashes his car in a snowstorm shortly after finishing his first novel that isn't about Misery. He's saved by a former nurse, Annie Wilkes, who lives on a remote farm. As the days go by he realises that he's Annie's prisoner. She loves him, but her love is mingled with obsession, and she wants to keep him close to her at all costs.

Kathy Bates' performance won an Oscar in 1991 as Best Actress. It was well deserved. She slips seamlessly from romance to mania and back as the film progresses. She's a wonderful actress. This is a film that deserves to be watched more often.

Success Rate:  + 1.1

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de

Murder on the Orient Express (1974 version) (4 Stars)

Tomorrow I'm going to see the new version of "Murder on the Orient Express" in the cinema, so I thought it would be appropriate for me to watch the 1974 version first to help me make a direct comparison. I shan't say much about the plot, because I assume it's the same as the new film, and I don't want to give away any spoilers.

However, I have to ask how anyone could not already know the 1974 film. It used to be regularly shown on television, and I've seen it several times, often enough to remember the plot.

Like the new film, "Murder on the Orient Express" had an ensemble cast. It had a good selection of the biggest actors of the 1970's, just as the new film has some of the biggest actors of the 2010's.

I expect the new film to be more luxuriously set and have better cinematography than the original, but will it be a better film? I don't know. I'll leave that decision to Mark Kermode and his fellow critics. The original film received six Academy Award nominations and won one, Ingrid Bergman as best supporting actress. Let's wait and see what happens this time round.

Hercule Poirot, who was only on the train when the murder was committed by chance, was a magnificent detective. Why couldn't he have been staying in Praia da Luz on 3rd May 2007, the night when Madeleine McCann went missing? If he had interviewed the McCanns and the Tapas Seven he would have uncovered the murderer before sunrise. Where are the great detectives when we need them?

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de

Misery (5 Stars)

Sometimes I have to look at myself in the mirror and ask myself if I'm a real film fan. How can I possibly have spent at least seven years without watching this brilliant film? I know for definite that I haven't watched it since September 2010, but it's possible that I haven't watched it since 2006. When I was married this was one of my wife's favourite films. I remember that we watched it a lot. In those days I owned very few DVD's, so I had more time for repetition. So my excuse, as feeble as it is, is that I binged on it for a few years, and then I stopped watching it after I split up from my wife.

Maybe I should binge again. I don't need a wife to watch good films. Or maybe I should make a compromise. I should set one day each week as a day on which I rewatch a five-star film. I could start at the end of October. For the next six weeks my film watching schedule will be disrupted. The Stuttgart Film Festival runs from September 7th to 17th, so I shan't be watching anything at home. I might need a few days after the end of the festival to catch up on my reviews. I'll be on holiday in England from October 3rd to 18th, my first holiday for 15 years. Honestly! I used to go on holiday twice a year when I was younger, but why does a film fan need to travel? I can see exotic locations in my films every day of the week.

I assume all my readers have seen the film already, so I'll keep my description of the plot brief. Paul Sheldon is the author of a series of books about a young woman called Misery who lived in England in the late 19th Century. He has the habit of staying in a hotel in Silver Creek, Colorado to finish each novel. After finishing his latest novel he gets caught in a snowstorm and crashes. Annie Wilkes, a former nurse who now runs a small farm finds him and takes him back to her farm to recover. Because she's a fan of his books she doesn't want to let him go and keeps him as a prisoner.

The film is based on a novel by Stephen King. He's best known for his supernatural horror stories, but this film is horrific because it's something that could really happen. Annie Wilkes is a stalker, and we can see how her love turns into a sick obsession. Annie is unlike normal stalkers who have to follow their victim, since Annie's victim comes to her, but she has the same mindset as all other stalkers.

Kathy Bates deservedly won an Oscar as Best Actress for her performance as Annie Wilkes. Until today it's the only film based on a Stephen King book that has won an Oscar. "The Green Mile" and "The Shawshank Redemption" both had multiple nominations but didn't win. That reminds me that I haven't watched "The Shawshank Redemption" for more than seven years either. Shame on me!

A few years ago there was an article in Empire Magazine claiming that Stephen King is the author whose books have been adapted as films more often than any other author. That's a difficult claim to refute. The article listed 52 films and mini-series based on his books. There are more now. "The Dark Tower", which I saw in the cinema last month, is the first in a new series of films, a so-called Stephen King Cinematic Universe. I'm looking forward to the other films, and I'm sure I'll watch them all as they appear, but will any of them be as good as "Misery"?

The film shows quite a lot of newspaper clippings that Annie has collected in her album entitled "Memory Lane". In addition to recent articles about Paul Sheldon's disappearance there are articles about the deaths of people in her past. You can click on all of the screenshots to enlarge them.

The first article about Paul Sheldon starts well, but in the fifth column it starts to repeat the paragraphs from the beginning of the article. That's sloppy.

The article about the accidental death of Annie's husband is made up of two paragraphs that are repeated alternately. Then it invites the reader to turn to page 15. I'd rather not. I expect the continuation of the article to be just as sloppy.

There's no death in the third article about Annie's university graduation, but don't expect it to be any less sloppy. It's just one paragraph that's repeated three times. Did the film director really think nobody would notice?

Part of the obituary of hockey coach Ernest Gonyar is hidden by the greetings card, but it's still apparent that the last paragraph is a repetition of the second paragraph. As if that's not sloppy enough, look at the third paragraph, which is in bolder text than the rest of the obituary. We can't read it all, but what we can read seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the text.

Ah ha! The next article, concerning Annie's promotion to head nurse in the Intensive Care Unit, repeats the bold text from the obituary without being obscured, so we can easily read it. It seems to be about some sort of political debate, which has nothing to do with a death or a promotion. Sloppy. Also look at the date on the article: Monday, March 23rd 1978. Yet another blunder. It was a Thursday.

Here's another sloppy article about a man who died while in intensive care. The same two paragraphs are repeated alternately.

This article about the death of a child begins normally, but the last two paragraphs begin to repeat the article again from the beginning. But that's not all. Look at the snippets of text from the previous article, above the headline. We can see enough to make out that the previous article is identical. That's oh so sloppy!

In this article the fourth columns repeats the text from the second column. That's sloppy, isn't it? But at least we see two pretty photos of Annie's pig. Technically it's a sow. She's called Misery. What else would you expect from Paul Sheldon's #1 fan?

In this article the first two paragraphs are repeated, starting in the third column. That's the last in a total of nine sloppy newspaper articles.

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de

How to marry a millionaire (3 Stars)

Starring Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe. The three New York models Schatze, Loca and Pola have decided that love is nothing for them. What they really want is rich husbands to give them a life of luxury. They do their best to ensnare millionaires with their womanly wiles, but the trouble is that they can't keep their hearts under control. They keep falling for handsome poor men.

This is a cute little comedy, though rather dated by today's standards. It's certainly no masterpiece, although it's dear to the heart of Marilyn Monroe fans, even though she doesn't play the main role in the film. The lead actress is Lauren Bacall.

"Murder by Strangulation" is a fascinating book to attract the attention of fellow passengers on an airplane. Putting the dust jacket on upside down doesn't hide what it's about. It certainly makes the man sitting next to her feel uncomfortable.

Dark Passage (3 Stars)

I thought I would take a look at another Lauren Bacall film that I've never seen before, and I picked this one, "Dark Passage", made in 1947. Judging by the picture on the poster I expected a film noir detective story. I'm sure that's what the poster artist intended to portray, but it's false advertising. It's not a detective story. There's no femme fatale. It's not 100% clear who's holding the gun in the poster. Judging by the angle it should be Humphrey Bogart, but it seems to be a feminine glove, so it could be Lauren Bacall. It doesn't really matter, because neither of them holds a gun at any point in the film.

At the beginning of the film a convicted murderer, Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart), escapes from San Quentin prison. He's picked up by a woman, Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall), who takes him back to her apartment in San Francisco because she believes he is innocent and wants to help him. This is complicated by the fact that Irene's close friend is the main witness who testified against him in the murder trial. To disguise himself while looking for the real murderer Vincent undergoes plastic surgery to change his face.

The film uses experimental cinematography. For the first 35 minutes the film is shown from a POV perspective, through Vincent's eyes. This means that we only see his arms and hands, never the rest of his body. We never see Vincent Parry's face, except in a newspaper photo. For the next 25 minutes of the film we see his face in heavy bandages after the operation. The actor is recognisable as Humphrey Bogart. but only just. After the film has been running for an hour, almost exactly to the minute, the bandages are removed and we can see his face for the last half hour of the film.

According to the featurette on the disc, the film was a flop at the box office, but not because of the film itself. In 1947 Hollywood directors and actors were forbidden to work if they were members of the Communist party. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were not Communists, but they joined an association called the Committee for the First Amendment which protested about Americans being persecuted for their political views. As far as the general public were concerned, the committee members were Communist sympathisers, so the film was widely boycotted. A few months later Humphrey and Lauren left the organisation to save their careers. Humphrey Bogart made the famous statement: "I'm no Communist. I'm just an American dope".

The Big Sleep (4½ Stars)

This was Lauren Bacall's third film, and her second film with Humphrey Bogart, to whom she was now married. After only three films she was already typecast as a seductive bad girl. I don't say that to criticise her. She did it so well.

The film is based on a 1939 novel with the same name by Raymond Chandler. The film contains most of the characteristics of film noir, such as the cynical private detective working in a big city and the femme fatale. The book's plot is complex, and the film makes no attempt to simplify it.

A retired general hires private detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) to investigate gambling debts that his younger daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers) has had to pay to a bookshop owner, Arthur Geiger. Usually the general's personal aide, Sean Regan, would have carried out the investigations, but he disappeared a month earlier. By coincidence Sean used to be one of Philip's friends. Philip speaks with the general's older daughter Vivian (Lauren Bacall), who at first assumes Philip has been hired to search for Sean, but then becomes very curious when she finds out that he's doing something else.

Philip visits Arthur Geiger's house, but finds him dead. Only Carmen is in the room with the body. Carmen claims that Arthur was killed by Joe Brody, a gambler who had previously blackmailed her father. Joe now wants to blackmail Carmen, saying he will blame her for the murder. In the same evening the general's driver, Owen Taylor, is found dead. Philip goes to Joe's house, where he finds Joe with Vivian and Arthur's assistant Agnes. Carmen arrives and tries to shoot Joe, but Philip stops her. Then Joe is shot by Carol Lundgren, the general's former driver.

Philip meets Eddie Mars, the owner of an illegal casino and also Arthur's landlord. Eddie complains that Sean has run away with his wife. Carmen tells Philip that Vivian has been having an affair with Eddie. Philip confronts a man who has been tailing him. The man turns out to be Harry Jones, Agnes' lover. He says that Agnes is the only one who knows where Eddie's wife is hiding. Before the information can be revealed, Harry is killed by one of Eddie's men.

And so it continues. I hope I got all that right. The story confuses me as well. Philip's investigation begins with the gambling debts, but as the film continues it's no longer about the debts. Philip develops an obsession to find out what secrets are being hidden that drive the people to kill one another. All he can be certain of is that Vivian is in the middle of everything.

The film takes place in a very stylish world of trickery and deception. It's an unreal world. What I mean is that all woman we see, whether they are shop assistants or taxi drivers, are stunningly beautiful. And they all flirt with Philip, distracting him from his investigations. But whatever else happens, Philip's main interest is in Vivian. She's the most beautiful and the most dangerous of all the women around him. Whenever they talk it's like they're sparring with one another. He's trying to get information from her, while she is trying to cross-examine him. Vivian's laces her conversations with sexual innuendo in an attempt to wear Philip down.

To have and have not (4 Stars)

"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow".

This film carries the name of the author Ernest Hemingway on the poster, but the film has very little to do with his novel, apart from borrowing the names of the characters. In Hemingway's book Harry Morgan is an alcohol smuggler during the Prohibition who turns to smuggling Chinese immigrants into Florida. Somehow I think cinema audiences would have had problems sympathising with such a character. In the film Harry Morgan is an American living on the island of Martinique in 1940 who takes rich customers on fishing trips.

Martinique is a small island in the Caribbean which used to be a French colony. After Germany conquered France, a German-friendly government was installed on Martinique, and the German secret service became active on the island. The majority of the islanders hated the Germans and the puppet government, but they were afraid to do anything. Members of the French resistance sneaked onto the island to continue the fight against the Nazis. Harry just did his best to ignore the conflicts and carry on doing his business. In 1940 America was still independent, as far as the War in Europe was concerned, and so was Harry. This changes when he's desperate for cash and does a job picking up resistance fighters from another island. At first it's only for the money, but the cruel methods of the German occupiers make him sympathetic to the resistance's cause.

At the same time a young woman called Marie Browning arrives on the island, claiming to be from Brazil, although she has an American accent. She flirts with men in the hotel and steals their wallets while dancing. Harry is the first person to see what she's doing, but he promises not to expose her as long as she shares the money with him. He calls her Slim, a nickname that she hates, so she calls him Steve in return. The two fall in love, but Slim makes it clear from the beginning that she's in charge and has to do whatever she says. As an old school macho he repeatedly tells her what to do, but she refuses.

The bigger story is what was happening off screen. Harry Morgan was played by the famous Hollywood actor, Humphrey Bogart, now 44 and at the peak of his career. Marie Browning was played by a 19-year-old girl called Betty Perske in her first ever film role. They had met briefly on the set of "Passage to Marseille" a few months earlier, but their second meeting on February 29th, 1944 changed history. Humphrey was totally smitten with Betty, and he kissed her at the end of the day's filming. This was a shock to the other members of the cast, because he was known to be a perfect gentleman, not a man who would take advantage of an actress 25 years younger than himself. Apart from that, he was married, although it was a well known fact that he was having problems due to the excessive drinking of his wife, the actress Mayo Methot. Shortly after the film was completed, before it was released, the director Howard Hawks urged Betty Perske to change her name to the more glamorous sounding Lauren Bacall.

By the time the film was released there was a passionate affair between Humphrey and Lauren. Humphrey divorced Mayo on May 10th, 1945, and he married Lauren 11 days later. They were soul mates in the truest sense of the word and remained together until his death of cancer in 1957.

How to marry a millionaire (3 Stars)

After hearing about Lauren Bacall's death I decided to watch at least one of her films, preferably one I hadn't seen before. It's amazing that out of her more than 50 films only six are available on Netflix. As you probably know, her main films were made in the 1940's and 1950's. In later films she only played minor roles, for instance Paul Sheldon's agent in "Misery". Of the six films carried by Netflix, only one of her classic films is included, namely "How to marry a millionaire" from 1953. Marilyn Monroe was given the main billing as the most famous actress of the time, and even today the DVD releases only show Marilyn on the cover, but it's obvious on watching the film that she's just a supporting actress.

Schatze Page (Lauren Bacall), Pola Debevoise (Marilyn Monroe) and Loco Dempsey (Betty Grable) are three young models in New York. After being divorced from a poor man who worked in a gas station Schatze wants to make a new start. She's determined to marry a millionaire. Preferably an older man, so that he'll die and leave her the money. To make sure that she meets the right sort of people, she moves into a luxury penthouse apartment with Pola and Loco. Even with the three of them contributing towards the rent it's still too expensive, so Schatze sells the apartment's furniture (which doesn't belong to her).

Even though Pola and Loco are in on the plan, they're not as focussed. Schatze introduces them to rich old millionaires, but they prefer handsome young men. Ironically, Schatze has to fight off the advances of a sloppily dressed young man, not realising that he's one of the richest men in the city.

Which one would you marry? Tough choice.

For me, when I think of Lauren Bacall I associate her with Hollywood's film noir period. To me she was the ultimate femme fatale of the 1940's. "How to marry a millionaire" is very different. I have to admit that I didn't enjoy it very much. It was promoted as a comedy, but apart from the slapstick scenes centred around Pola being short sighted I didn't find it funny. The film seems to be more about presenting eye candy to the audience. For instance, the scene where the three girls are modelling various outfits in a New York store is unnecessarily long. Maybe I'll watch a more typical Lauren Bacall film in the next few days.

Lauren Bacall
September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014