Reviews: The Gang's All Here

In The Gangs all Here (The Girls he Left Behind in the British release) James Ellison plays Andy Mason, a cavorting soldier on leave. On his last night off he assumes the name “Casey” and picks up showgirl Edie Allen (played by Alice Fay) for a night on the town, by the end of the night Edie has fallen for him, and he her. Unfortunately, he is engaged to a childhood friend against his will. After returning home with a load of medals, he is treated to a show of Edie’s troop, what will happen? Will she find out? How will the ladies react once they realize that they’re in love with the same man?

None of that matters. This is a Busby Berkley movie, and the plot is merely a bumper between the dance numbers. I’m a fan of Berkley’s early Warner musicals (in fact, Golddiggers of 1933 is my favorite musical ever made) but they had something this movie doesn’t, a plot as good as the song and dance. Of course, in those movies he only directed the dance sequences, while people like Frank Lloyd and Mervyn LeRoy took on everything else. Perhaps that was for the best, for Berkley’s direction seems bored with the other scenes and anxious for the songs.

Backstage musicals have always been Berkley’s priority, understandably so. With backstage musicals he doesn’t have to fit the choreography into the story, he’s free to film any wild idea that pops into his head. After all, it’s hard to imagine something like “shadow waltz” fitting seamlessly into a movie musical.

When the numbers do come however, it’s classic Berkley, with geometrical patterns, almost surreal set pieces and a lustful eye. The camera lingers longingly on a nude statue, there are numerous close-up on chorus girl’s legs, and, while I don’t usually subscribe to Freudian analysis, the banana as phallic symbol presumption is hard to ignore. While Technicolor seems to have added a thin layer of camp to the affair, “The Lady with the Tutti-Frutti hat” deserves a place with “42nd Street” and “Remember my Forgotten Man” in the musical number pantheon. However the showstopper is an inexplicable, embarrassingly kitschy ode to polka-dots. The Benny Goodman Orchestra also makes an appearance as, well, the Benny Goodman Orchestra, and they do very well, of course.

Other then the music, there is one good scene where Carmen Miranda’s character gets into a innuendo filled conversation/fight with Charlotte Greenwood and Edward Everett Horton’s married characters. And that’s about it. Perhaps Berkley doesn’t have the eye for directing anything other then dance, maybe this isn’t one of his better movies. Whatever the case, it isn’t really good (except for some parts) and it isn’t really bad. If you love this type of musical you may like it, but for most of us, all we need is “The Lady with the Tutti-Frutti hat.”

Avery Appreciation

After seeing that a few select bloggers had decided to post their favorite Tex Avery cartoons, I knew that I had to join the fun. My choice is an obvious one, and for good reason. This is cartoon for the ages.
My pick is Red Hot Riding Hood, and it never fails to elicit laughs no matter how many times I’ve seen it. The wolfs reaction to Riding Hood is so famous that one expects it to grow stale, it doesn’t. Now, let me introduce a cartoon that really needn’t of had an introduction: Red Hot Riding Hood

Reviews: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

I have a strange relationship with horror films, my first recollections of film were watching Universal monster pictures on my little TV back in Chicago. Even then, however, I hated to watch anything more scary then Lugosi or Karloff. But lately I’ve been struck by the horror bug and love to be scared out of my wits (within, you know, reason) and have begun to watch stuff like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre on my big screen at the east coast.. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was high on my list, and I think for good reason.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is scary because you never doubt it’s real. Although these people depicted seem over the top, even laughable at times, the way it is shot draws us into this world as if it was the most scholastic of documentaries. Hitchcock once differentiated shock and suspense by saying (paraphrased) “Shock is when a bomb goes off, suspense is when you are given that the bomb will go off beforehand” The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is between the two, it is shock because when it happens we did not know beforehand that say, Leatherface was hiding behind the door, but it is suspense because we know that something is going to happen. And that it’s going to be something scary.

The beginning, before we even see the soon-to-be victims is perhaps the scariest part. We start with upward-moving text accompanied by a creepy narration that assures us that this story is true (it wasn’t really, but it was loosely based on Ed Gein, that most cinematically popular of serial killers) the narration is disconcerting, and feels like a newsreel combined with the “viewer discretion advised” beginning of certain T.V shows. The message is clear, this is going to seem real, and it is going to scare the living daylights out of you. After the last of the text disappears from the top of the screen, we are given a date (1973) which adds to the documentary feel. After the date disappears we hear the sounds of cracking (possibly bones) and numerous grunts, while the screen in completely black.

We hear the sound of a photograph being taken, and we see (through illumination that looks like it came from a flash bulb) a close up of a decomposed hand, the image fades away and we are given photos of hands from different angles and feet. Then, in rapid succession we are given the image of decomposed teeth, eyes and teeth again; all from the same, flashbulb like lighting and accompanying photography sound. After the final ‘photograph” the image fades out for a time, and we hear the sounds of a radio broadcast talking about a find of “decomposed bodies” we also hear more of the cracking sound and an added terror of scraping. Then an image fades in, it is the striking image of a decomposed head, and the camera zooms out to see that it is an entire body, propped upright by wires. It’s a truly terrifying, and wonderful image.

I’m not going to go into detail about the rest of the plot, because you can just as well read the synopsis on Wikipedia. Are you done? Good.

Part of what’s great about Chainsaw is how the violence is presented, it’s very sudden. Leatherface will hit you in the head with a hammer, or put you on a meat hook (one of the scariest moments committed to celluloid) without any thought; he is a butcher, with no concern over the lives of anyone outside his own family. When we are given longer scenes of horror, they never amount to anything, Sally isn’t killed on either of her flights from Leatherface, nor is she killed during the famous excruciating torture scene.

The movie Ends Suddenly, but upon further recollection that is the only way it could end. This is a document that only shows what happened to this group of young men and women, and thus ends when the horror ended, no follow-up capture of the family, no scenes of grief over the fallen, no telling the reporters what happened. Likewise, we know nothing more about the cannibal family then Sally would have known. We are left with the family one less member, but know that it will doubtlessly continue to terrorize all who are foolish enough to come to this hellhole in Texas.

If you can stomach it, this is a great movie, not only in the scares it inflicts, but how it inflicts them. There is also some real beauty to this movie, the ending shots of Leatherface whirling the chainsaw are almost poetic in nature. Don’t let the subject distract you from appreciating this, not as a pure scare flick, but as a work of art.

First Post

Ahem, from the title I guess you figured out what this post means, it is also traditionally used as a summery of the purpose of this blog.

What is this blog for? Well, Just last year I found myself inexplicably drawn to film, which has become a major passion. As a younger compile. I hope this blog will help to record my journey through cinema and my evolving tastes surrounding it. Looking back I (or possible, you, if anyone is reading this) will be able to see my earlier reviews and rants and see how I (hopefully) improved throughout the… years? Months? I can’t promise how long I’ll be able to keep this up.

One important thing to know is what movies to watch, I have taken care of this by purchising not one but two books (I can' help myself I tell ya!) which are basically lists of "must see" movies with reviews on each. My goal is to go through my smaller (501) list before I graduate high school, how plausible this is is still up for debate, but I believe I have 300 more movies to go, of all different kinds and all different quality.

That's all I can say right now, but I hope you don't hold it against me.