The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967, 108 min, NR) **1/2 – Directed, co-written by, & starring Roman Polanski, also starring Jack McGowran and Sharon Tate. The production design is so evocative and Polanski’s direction is so good that you almost wish he had left out the hit-and-miss slapstick and just made a straight vampire flick. The midnight ball for the undead, in which our heroes pose as minuet-ing vampires, is genuinely suspenseful. Still, there are some good sight gags, involving low dresses, pantomime, and general clumsiness. Everything is dusty, drafty, and gray, first in the wintry lodge besieged by the undead, and then in the cobwebbed castle itself. Polanski leads us through catacombs, corridors, and on the backs of dogsleds with several engrossing tracking and hand-held shots. Jack McGowran is the bumbling, bespectacled, thick-mustached professor, while the director himself plays the bumbling, soft-spoken, cleavage-entranced sidekick, as they chomp on garlic and wave crucifixes. The DVD comes with “Vampires 101,” a goofy little promotional short that captures the charm of the feature.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1947, 95 min, B&W, NR) ** – Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, and Gene Raymond. It’s an oddity: the one and only screwball comedy directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In his interviews with Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock casually admits he did the movie as a “favor” and “since I really didn’t understand the kind of people who were portrayed in the film, all I did was to photograph the scenes as written.” The cheerfully preposterous premise is that a dashing young husband-and-wife discovers that, due to a clerical error, they are not technically, legally married. She takes the opportunity to kick him out and vent all her grievances, while he shouts and kicks in doors. Mrs. Smith is played by Carole Lombard, whose turn in “Nothing Sacred” is often considered one of the highpoints of the screwball ‘30s. Mr. Smith is rubber-faced and thick-lipped Robert Montgomery. Several scenes are undeniable charmers, including the romantic restaurant where he proposed being not so romantic anymore, and the great bit where he tries to give himself a bloody nose to get out of dinner with a boorish tart. But unless you’re a diehard screwball fan, the movie wears out its welcome a ways before the end credits. Gene Raymond plays Montgomery’s law partner, who’s had his eye on Lombard for some time. The movie has few recognizable Hitchcock touches, except that potential murder weapons—a straight razor, ski slopes, a headlock, an allusion to poison—are within arm’s reach in several scenes. “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” also has little to do with the 2005 Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie picture of the same name, besides being about a bickering married couple.
for September 2005
A Perfect Murder (1998, 108 min, R) **1/2 – Directed by Andrew Davis, starring Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, Viggo Mortensen, and David Suchet. Thrillers like this need to be clockwork and perfect; when someone pulls out a gun that wasn’t on the mantle earlier, or, worse yet, a tape recorder, I don’t feel like the game is fair. Still, director Davis’ (“The Fugitive”) remake of Hitchcock’s “Dial M for Murder” is not an ineffective diversion, in which a sleazebag investor (Douglas, virtually reprising his role in “Wall Street”) plots to have his philandering wife (Paltrow) murdered by the very man (Mortensen of “Lord of the Rings”) who is cuckolding him. Things go wrong, of course. One difference between 1950s London and 1990s New York is that, while everyone is still as murderous as ever, the players in the remake seem so much nastier, and constantly out to prove their superiority to the others. “Revenge” is too grand a word, it’s more like a lot of “I’m gonna get back at you.” Everyone in the original treated the whole dead-body-in-the-living-room affair as a glorified parlor game.
Purple Rain (1984, 111, R) ** - Directed & co-written by Albert Magnoli, starring Prince, Apollonia Kotero, Clarence Williams III, and Morris Day. Prince’s feature-length, theatrically released music video is an attempt to prove that his particular brand of cheesy ‘80s synth pop was forged in pain (good luck with that). Okay, the lyrics do have a dimension of angst to them, when they can be understood, but they still sound like screechy Casio-powered caterwauling to me. “Purple Rain” tells the classic story of art that is beautiful, made by an artist who’s a jerk. It’s essentially the same movie as “Immortal Beloved,” only immensely more facile; it’s all poses, prancing, hairdos, and clothes. Why is aspiring rockstar The Kid (Prince) such a prissy jerk? He gets it from his wife-slapping dad (Clarence Williams III). The love of a penniless and chesty singer (Apollonia Kotero) inspires The Kid to change his ways. The eponymous song at the end that proves his transformation wins everyone over and has them nodding with approval, if not in outright tears. (In “Immortal Beloved” it’s the 9th Symphony.) Still, if you’re a fan of Prince, “Purple Rain” is so ridiculously sincere that it might work as great camp, if you can stop feeling embarrassed for everyone involved. One can laugh at its sincerity while still feeling moved by it, like one can laugh at poses in an old photograph, while still recalling when said poses were hip. Draw your own conclusions about how The Kid ejaculates on his audience with a guitar. It goes without saying that the leads are as wooden as a basketball court, as are the passive-aggressive members of The Kid’s band. They’re played by Prince’s real-life back-up musicians, whose moments of seriousness are undercut by their garb (one looks Baroque, another has on a stethoscope, and their glances are SO laden with meaning!). But the rival musicians, played by pop musicians Morris Day and Jerome Benton, are so transparently villainous as to be amusing. “Purple Rain” is not especially realistic—The Kid has a motorcycle to match all his costumes but still lives with his parents; the girl can’t afford a telephone but has humongous, perfectly tended hair—but that’s not to the movie’s detriment.