Let's Make Love

Oh, no, here I go again doing another musical review. Okay, that's not entirely true. A comedy with musical numbers, but I'm definitely leaning more toward the musical department with this one. Drawn in by a talented cast, I nonetheless came away unimpressed with 1960's Let's Make Love. Scandalous title? I suppose people had sex in the 1950s/1960s, but do they have to rub it in our face like this?

A billionaire who has everything in the world he could ever want, Jean-Marc Clement (Yves Montand) is internationally known as quite the ladies man. He's approached by one of his PR men, Alexander Coffman (Tony Randall), with news of an off-Broadway play that's going to poke some serious fun at him. Jean-Marc wants to go check out a rehearsal, see what it's all about, but there's a hiccup. Arriving at rehearsal, two things happen. First, he is immediately struck by Amanda (Marilyn Monroe), one of the actresses, and second, he's mistaken for an impressionist of....himself. He's hired and in hopes of getting the girl, goes along with the plan to play himself. And let the hijinks and shenanigans begin!

Far more for the cast aspect than the musical, I dove headfirst into this George Cukor-directed quasi-musical. The potential early-on was certainly there, but over the course of a 119-minute movie that potential never actually left the landing pad. It has a somewhat checkered past as everyone from Gregory Peck to Yul Bynner turned down the part (find the full list HERE at Wikipedia), an uncredited Arthur Miller revised the script to give more screentime to Mrs. Arthur Miller -- Marilyn for those keeping track at home -- and oh, by the way, Monroe and Montand had on-set affair. Awkward much?

My revised stance on musicals is that if there is a worthwhile cast I should at least give it a try. Of the three names listed above though, Monroe is the only one who ends up being even remotely memorable. She sings, she dances, and once again shows that she is not just eye candy. Side note: She looks beautiful. End of side note. Monroe could act too, and not just a ditzy blonde. Montand is a little stiff for the part, and while I've liked him in everything else I've seen him in, he just isn't very likable here. Chemistry off-screen with Monroe maybe, but on-screen, I never bought their possibly budding relationship. As for Randall, it's just not his fault. He provides some laughs early on, but the script basically has his character written out in the second half. He sits and watches other people act/dance/sing. Literally. He sits there off stage and has to smile. What a waste of a very funny comedic actor.

So that potential I was talking about, huh? I thought I'd stumbled upon a hidden gem early on. The opening montage, a history of the rich but always ill-fated Clement family, is hysterical in its dark humor. Montand's face is super-imposed on images throughout the Clement history, a succession of his ancestors earning their millions and dying in some tragically funny way. The laughs sort of dry up after that opening three minutes. That's a good sign of a movie if there ever was. Also look for three cameos that make the draggy middle portions almost watchable. As Jean-Marc tries to impress Monroe's Amanda, he hires coaches in the form of Milton Berle (comedy), Bing Crosby (singing) and Gene Kelly (dancing). Playing themselves, the trio provides some much needed laughs.

Mostly though, things never click. Clocking in at just under two hours, this is a painfully slow movie. There are eight different musical numbers that aren't that bad in themselves, but when they slow up an already slow-moving story, we're in for a long ride. I'll recommend it for Monroe, Randall and the cameos -- too short though they are -- but I was bored almost from the start with this one, and it never gets better.

Let's Make Love <---trailer (1960): **/****

The Wages of Fear

I was first introduced to Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 classic film The Wages of Fear on late night TV, always a bad place to discover a movie. I didn't know it at the time, but I was watching a heavily cut version that was about 20 minutes short of the original 1953 release, including completely editing out the ending Clouzot intended. Sign of a good movie? I loved the edited version, but short of dropping $45 on the Criterion Collection DVD, I could never track down the longer version. Thanks Turner Classic Movies, it was worth the wait.

Might as well say this early. 'Fear' is one of the best movies ever made, an example of pure cinema, a movie that is criminally simplistic in its execution. This is a story of desperation and life and death, the extreme and foolhardy choices an individual will make to alter and hopefully better his life. If you're skeptical about watching a French movie or reading subtitles, get over yourself.  Because of its subject matter, you can't help but feel a bit uncomfortable watching Clouzot's film, but that's the goal. Sit back and let this one wash over you.

In a remote region of South America, an oil well owned by an American company, Southern Oil Company (SOC), has caught fire. The only solution to handle the blaze is to blow up the well, sealing it off. The only problem? The nitroglycerin needed is hundreds of miles away in a decrepit little village full of international tramps and vagabonds. The company offers a huge payday to any drivers willing to try and attempt to deliver the nitro, one of the most unstable elements in explosives around. Four men are accepted, Mario (Yves Montand), Jo (Charles Vanel), Luigi (Folco Lulli), and Bimba (Peter van Eyck), the four splitting up to drive two trucks packed with the nitro. With thousands of dollars at stake, the two trucks set out on a 300-mile plus trip through hell where any bump in the road, any disruption at all could set the nitro off, killing the drivers in an instant. A suicide mission if there ever was, can this quartet pull off the job?

It is hard to put into words how ridiculously tense this 1953 French film really is. An early introduction of the power of nitroglycerin sets the stage when a single drop of the liquid touches the ground, producing a deafening roar in a confined setting. If a single drop produces that effect, what would a whole truckload produce if something went wrong? Almost 90 minutes of a 131-minute movie are spent on the road with the two trucks and their respective drivers, and you're waiting at the edge of your seats, living and dying with every bump, every noise, every little pothole in the road. That's all it will take to set it off, and in an instant life is gone and death takes over. It is an amazing movie to watch, a sick beauty to it all.

To amplify this incredible tension, Clouzot makes a brilliant decision. His first 45 minutes are almost painfully slow, laying out the groundwork of this desperate group of men in an isolated South American village. The only way out is a tiny airport. They need money to buy a ticket, but there's no work or jobs and so they waste away. These are desperate men, pushed to the limit where a suicide mission delivering nitro is seen as a positive. Through this first segment, we get to meet the players, Mario, a French playboy yearning for Paris, Jo, an aging gangster not as young or tough as he once was, Luigi, a hard-working Italian who discovers he may be dying of a lung disease, and Bimba, a Dutch pilot with a tortured past. It is slow going at times, but these scenes are needed. The adrenaline of the driving scenes are incredible on their own, but knowing the characters and their motivations? It amps that adrenaline up to an almost painful level. We want these characters to succeed. Slow at times? You bet, but completely necessary and a brilliant choice.

The performances here are primal and perfect, human beings at their most basic level; survival. Montand is one of my favorite actors, and his performance rivals his equally impressive turn in Le Cercle Rouge. His Mario is the main character, and one who isn't always a likable guy, or at least someone who's easy to like. He becomes obsessed with mission, willing to risk it all even when it would be so easy to turn back. Vanel is perfectly cast as his opposite, the new arrival in town who seems to have it all figured out. Only when his back is up against the wall does he realize he's not who he thought he was. Lulli and van Eyck aren't given the same screentime, but their performances are just as impressive, putting a desperation and a human edge on these two men. The director's wife Vera Clouzot plays Linda, Mario's girl in the village with William Tubbs playing O'Brien, the brutal, cynical local American head of SOC who hires the men for their mission.

The simplicity of the mission and the story on the whole is what sets this movie apart. A handful of sequences keep the momentum going from the second the two trucks -- a few miles apart -- leave the village for the oil well.  The opener is a beat-up dirt road with two options. Floor it across the road, negating the bumps in a quick ride, or slowly go over it, taking significantly longer. Unable to communicate, what if the back truck decides to speed while the lead truck goes slowly? A second sequence is a hairpin turn on a mountainside, a rickety platform the only support the truck will have. The third is a giant boulder in the road, the four drivers using a tiny supply of nitro to blow it up. The last is a perilous drive through an oil-filled hole, the desperation weighing down on the drivers. These sequences are incredible to watch and be a part of. It's hard to express the power here of these scenes. They need to be seen to be believed and appreciated.

Now for the ending, one pretty typical of French films in the 1950s and 1960s. An epic downer, but in a way you wouldn't expect. The movie delivers its fair share of shocking moments, but Clouzot's ending is the most shocking without a doubt.  Like the best surprise endings, it leaves you feeling like you've been punched in the stomach. The movie is one of the all-time bests, an incredibly dark, cynical look at human life and what drives us. How far would you go? Would you go through what these four men did? What's your limit?

Also worth checking out the American remake, one of the few remakes to rival the original, 1977's Sorcerer, which I reviewed a couple years back. Read the review HERE. It's an early review so bear with me. TCM offers three clips which you can watch HERE of 'Fear.'

The Wages of Fear <---trailer (1953): ****/****

Le Cercle Rouge

Before I started this blog a little over a year and a half ago, I had watched a handful of movies that I didn't feel like reviewing.  Sure, it was only a week or two since I'd seen them, but as much as possible I wanted to review a flick with the flick fresh in my mind.  One movie I really wanted to review was a Netflix rental that has quickly climbed to a non-existent list of my favorite movies (okay, I have a definitive Top 5), 1970's Le Cercle Rouge or for us non-French speaking moviegoers, The Red Circle. With some leftover b-day money, I bought the pricey Criterion Collection DVD, and 18 months later after initial viewing, here's the review.

Over a three-year span, French director Jean-PierreMelville had one of the best strings of movies ever for a director starting with Le Samourai in 1967, continuing with Army of Shadows in 1969 and wrapping up with 1970's Cercle Rouge. I've yet to see a Melville film I didn't enjoy, but 'LCR' was my favorite.  It's a slower-paced heist movie that features the director's typically cool gangsters in a world where everyone looks out for themselves and anyone would turn you in if it would benefit them even a little bit.  But more than that, it is a surprisingly deep look at the criminal underworld, and the way complete strangers bond and work together in strenuous situations...in this case a jewelry heist.

In Paris, three men are about to work together for the first time on a perfectly planned jewelry heist that will net them almost $20 million francs.  There's Corey (Alain Delon), a recently released prisoner who has nothing left for him back home and vows to never return to prison. Supremely cool, calm and collected, nothing seemingly can get to him.  Second is Vogel (Gian Maria Volonte), an escaped fugitive who accidentally meets Corey, the two forming a quick friendship when they realize how similar they are.  Last there's Jansen (Yves Montand), a former cop and expert marksman struggling with a drinking problem, a man just looking for redemption and a second chance. But while these three conspire together to pull the jewelry heist, a police inspector (Andres Bourvil) investigates anything and everything he can about Vogel, wanting to catch the man who slipped through his grasp.

For fans of Melville, this is a prime example of when a director figures everything out in the moviemaking process, knowing exactly what he wants in a finished product.  He puts it together here.  His characters are loners, men of principle who even in the underworld hold honor and respect to a high degree.  The gangsters wear suits, trench coats and hats, smoke cigarettes and drink hard liquor.  There is always a cool, light jazz soundtrack playing over their actions.  They populate late night clubs and lonely, dusty apartments.  And no matter what, these guys are cool to the utmost.  It is a highly stylized, very suave and most likely idealized view of the criminal underworld, but you know what? It doesn't matter.  Melville drops you into this gangster's world, and you just go along for the ride.

We go into this world with the three men who've never worked together, and know very little about each other.  But with little to no background on Corey (what was he in prison for?) or Vogel (why was he arrested?), Melville makes these characters who would be very easy to dislike the ones you side with.  This is a performance that ranks with Le Samourai as Delon's best.  His Corey is so quietly understated you wonder if Delon is even acting or just playing himself.  In terms of pure cool, it doesn't get better than this character.  The same for Volonte as Vogel, an intense part as this mysterious crook we know nothing about.  Montand gets the most background for his character and doesn't disappoint.  Separately, all three parts are perfect, but together, they're as good as it gets in movies.  The scenes among the three are pitch perfect, each character knowing what is expected of them.  These men are professionals and they know how to get the job done.

The tour-de-force scene is an almost 30-minute extended sequence with not a word spoken as Corey, Vogel and Jansen pull off the heist.  With an obvious comparison to Jules Dassin's Rififi, Melville creates a tension that is hard to explain.  You're so geared up during the scene because any sound, any sound at all, will spell doom for this criminal trio.  The security system they're going up against features sensors, hidden locks, and a wide array of technology to deter them.  In terms of pure moviemaking skill, I don't know if Melville was ever better than he was here.  The whole heist is about as ideally laid out as a movie could do.  The whole movie is good, but that extended scene sets it apart from most.

MILD SPOILERS If you've watched any Melville movies, you'll know he's from the old school way of thinking; if your character has done something bad, he's going to have to pay for it.  Le Cercle Rouge applies in every way.  I'm not going to spoil it here, but it's certainly not a happy ending.  The police closing in as the three desperately look to get some cash out of the deal, they make a gutsy play.  It's an ending that caught me by surprise the second time around as much as the first one.  It is a surprisingly moving if downbeat ending that shows the honor and loyalty these crooks have working together.  They're partners, and that's how it is, end result be damned.

It all comes together with a fictional quote that explains the title, the red circle.  Men of a certain ilk like these criminals are destined to end up in the same place as unpleasant as it assuredly will be.  There's nothing they can to do avoid it, this is the path they've chosen.  In the end, they're going to end up together in this 'red circle.' And in the end for Melville, that's where they'll be no matter if it's far from happy. A great ending to one of my favorite movies.

Le Cercle Rouge <----French trailer (1970): ****/**** 

Grand Prix

One of my favorite things about movies is that if someone wants badly enough to make a movie on a specific topic, it's going to happen. And sometimes, more than one person likes that topic so moviegoers are hit with a wave of similar movies. Think of all the quasi-Lord of the Ring movies to come out in recent years, or the sci-fi avalanche that resulted from the original Star Wars trilogy. In the late 60s, it was racing movies as stars and directors turned their attention to fast cars. I've always liked Steve McQueen's 1971 semi-documentary Le Mans and I'd like to see Paul Newman's 1969 racing movie Winning. But the first of these late 60s and early 70s racing movies was 1966's Grand Prix.

I'd read many positive reviews of director John Frankenheimer's race epic that clocks in at just under three hours so I went into the movie really hoping to enjoy it. It tells the story of a whole season of Formula One racing in Europe and the U.S. through the eyes of four drivers. There's Pete Aron (James Garner), an American racer who's been in a two-year long slump but has a chance to climb back to the top with a Japanese racing team owned by Izo Yamura (Toshiro Mifune). Jean-Pierre Sarti (Yves Montand) is a veteran driver tiring of racing but still at the top of his game. He's married but is separated from his wife and during the season falls for an American photojournalist, Louise Frederickson (Eva Marie Saint). A new driver, up and coming Nino Barlini (Antonio Sabato) makes a splash on the circuit after becoming a champion motorcycle driver. And last, there's Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford), a British driver trying to live up to the expectations set by his racing father.

The movie starts with a bang on the opening race of the season at Monte Carlo with a great credit sequence, and here's an extended clip just so you can get an idea of the racing footage. Teammates Aron and Stoddard have a miscommunication mid-race and Aron's car is destroyed and he's shaken up while Stoddard is badly broken up and so starts the tension. Director Frankenheimer clearly pulled out all the stops when it came to the racing footage. Cameras are placed on the cars, facing forward so you get a sense of how fast these cars are going and backward where we see the drivers. Then there's the big wide shots of the racers zipping by.

Not being a Nascar fan, I thought this would get repetitive over the course of the movie. I couldn't have been more wrong. The races never get old, and I recommend watching the movie for those alone. Here's a few more samples, the F1 Spa-Francorchamps and then the finale with SPOILERS at the Italian Monza course with its high banking turns. The footage is so good the race sequences feel like a documentary. It's by far the best racing footage I've come across in movies, right up there with Le Mans.

It's a shame then that Frankenheimer couldn't just have made a racing movie that ran about 2 hours and stopped there. The movie as is drags incredibly slowly once the racers leave their cars on the tracks. It took me a handful of sittings to get through the movie because of that slow pace. Each of the drivers has their personal issues to deal with, but the only one that comes across as sympathetic is Montand's Sarti.

Of course that doesn't mean the huge international cast isn't good. Garner was and still is a cool actor, making seem like he's not even trying. As Aron, the down but not out racer, he may not be the most sympathetic character but as a sort of underdog I was rooting for him. Sabato is having a lot of fun as the rags to riches Italian driver, and Bedford is good but doesn't leave a huge impression. Mifune rises above what could be a cliched role, and Marie Saint is a good counter to Montand. Jack Watson has a small but strong part as Jeff Jordan, Stoddard's fiery race manager. Adolfo Celi makes a quick appearance too as a race team owner.

Rewatching these racing clips as I post, I can't help but feel the adrenaline rush just watching them. And that's the reason to watch Grand Prix, here's a trailer. With so many directors relying on CGI these days, it's hard to imagine better quality race movies coming out. So even though the non-race sequences can be painfully slow, I'm highly recommending this one because I loved the races more than I hated the love stories.