Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[drinkanddestroy]

Thanks for that review, DJ. I just finished reading THIS IS ORSON WELLES, a book of Peter Bogdanovich's interviews with Welles, edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum. They talk a lot about Welles's magic. I enjoyed your review

[drinkanddestroy]

VICTIM 8/10
British movie (I believe from 1961) about homosexuals being blackmailed; homosexuality was a crime, the movie is about a blackmailing ring taking pictures of homosexuals, forcing them to pay or the ring will rat them out to the cops.
There is a lot of preaching here, how wrong such a law is, how it leaves homosexuuals vulnerable to blackmailers, how it's not their fault how they are, how gov't shouldn't be making such laws, etc. I have no idea about the nature stuff but I agree with the message - i.e., I don't believe it is government's business to be legislating morality, criminalizing any behavior between consenting adults no matter how abominable it may be.
Anyway, it's a good movie. There is no subtlety here, the word "homosexual" and "queer" is mentioned frequently; I am sure that at that time it could never be mentioned in an American movie.

[dave jenkins]

Nope. American films could go no further than "pansy" or "sissy."

[dave jenkins]

Thanks for that review, DJ. I just finished reading THIS IS ORSON WELLES, a book of Peter Bogdanovich's interviews with Welles, edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum.

In that case, you may also like this: http://www.amazon.com/My-Lunches-Orson-Conversations-between/dp/1250051703

I've read both and enjoyed both. My favorite part of the Rosenbaum book is probably when Welles tells the Mr. Wu story. It really cracked me up (but maybe in part because I know a guy named Wu).

[Groggy]

VICTIM 8/10
British movie (I believe from 1961) about homosexuals being blackmailed; homosexuality was a crime, the movie is about a blackmailing ring taking pictures of homosexuals, forcing them to pay or the ring will rat them out to the cops.
There is a lot of preaching here, how wrong such a law is, how it leaves homosexuuals vulnerable to blackmailers, how it's not their fault how they are, how gov't shouldn't be making such laws, etc. I have no idea about the nature stuff but I agree with the message - i.e., I don't believe it is government's business to be legislating morality, criminalizing any behavior between consenting adults no matter how abominable it may be.
Anyway, it's a good movie. There is no subtlety here, the word "homosexual" and "queer" is mentioned frequently; I am sure that at that time it could never be mentioned in an American movie.

Victim couldn't even get an American release due to using "homosexual." I think the Hays Office relented eventually but it was a big uproar at the time.

I wrote a piece on Victim a few months back, if you'd care to peruse it:
http://moviepilot.com/posts/2014/10/03/from-victim-to-hero-revisiting-basil-dearden-s-victim-1961-2304327?lt_source=external,manual

[drinkanddestroy]

Thanks, Grogs, I'll be suure to have a look

[drinkanddestroy]

RE: Victim (1961)

According to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_%281961_film%29 this movie is "notable in film history for being the first English language film to use the word 'homosexual.' " But this sentence is unsourced so I have no idea if it is true.

Here is an article on the movie on TCM.com, by Jeff Stafford
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/159646|0/Victim.html
(as with many TCM links, this one doesn't work when you click on it; you need to copy the link into your browser; anyway, I will cut and paste the article here)

It may not seem like a controversial or even daring film by today's standards but when Victim was released in 1961, the subject of homosexuality was rarely addressed in commercial films and here was one that placed it front and center in its story about a married lawyer who risks exposure for his own sexual past when he tries to apprehend a blackmail ring that preys on closeted gay men. Unlike the often clichéd depiction of homosexuals as sexual deviants or perverts in movies, Victim took a sympathetic approach, building compassion and understanding for this marginalized group within the context of a straightforward crime thriller. Any accusations of exploitation were dispelled by the film's honest and intelligent treatment. Nevertheless, the film was still refused a seal of approval from the American Motion Picture Production Code and it proved to be a risky but rewarding career move for Dirk Bogarde in the role of Melville Farr, the closeted barrister.

Victim began as a script entitled Boy Barrett which was written by the wife-husband screenwriting team of Janet Green and John McCormick. Green had previously penned the script for Sapphire (1959), a crime drama in which a murder investigation exposes the racial bigotry and hatred in London at that time. The film, which was produced by Michael Relph and directed by Basil Dearden, received critical acclaim for its frank and unsentimental treatment of a potentially inflammatory subject presented in the guise of a genre film. As a result, Relph and Dearden decided to try a similar approach for Victim with Green and McCormick weaving a tense narrative that would also engage the viewer in a moral debate over the treatment of homosexuals in society.

Relph knew that to get the film approved by the British censors they would have to avoid any scenes or discussions that specifically addressed gay sexual relations, noting the comments of the censor board's secretary, John Trevelyan: "...to the great majority of cinema-goers homosexuality is outside their direct experience and is something which is shocking, distasteful and disgusting." In regards to this, Relph said, "What I think we want to say is that the homosexual, although subject to a psychological or glandular variation from sexual normality, is a human being subject to all the emotions of other human begins, and as deserving of our understanding. Unless he sets out to corrupt others, it is wrong for the law to pillory him because of his inversion." Relph added that Victim was "a story not of glands but of love."

The casting of an actor to play Melville Farr was crucial to the film's success and Dirk Bogarde was not the first choice. Although accounts vary as to who was actually offered the role before Bogarde, Jack Hawkins was allegedly the front runner but he rejected the script as being not "for me." James Mason was then approached (he turned it down for tax reasons regarding his English citizenship) and even Stewart Granger was considered before Dearden finally turned to Bogarde whom he'd previously worked with on The Blue Lamp (1950) and The Gentle Gunman (1952).

In his autobiography, Bogarde recalled a dinner discussion with his father and the actress Capucine [she had co-starred with Bogarde in Song Without End, 1960] over his choice of the role prior to filming. When he commented that his character was problematic, his father asked why.
"Married man with a secret passion," Bogarde explained.
"What's the problem there?"
"The passion is another bloke."
"I don't see the problem," said Capucine. "My God! You English. You think that nothing happens to you below your necks."
"And in any case," said my father settling comfortably down into his chair, "I've told him that I think he ought to do The Mayor of Casterbridge."
"But I did Victim instead, and playing the barrister with the loving wife, a loyal housekeeper, devoted secretary and the Secret Passion. It was the wisest decision I ever made in my cinematic life. It is extraordinary, in this over-permissive age, to believe that this modest film could ever have been considered courageous, daring or dangerous to make. It was, in its time, all three."

Regarding the filming of Victim, Bogarde said, "The set was closed to all visitors, the Press firmly forbidden, and the whole project was treated, at the beginning, with all the false reverence, dignity and respect usually accorded to the Crucifixion or Queen Victoria. Fortunately this nonsense was brought to a swift end by one of the chippies yelling out, "Watch yer arse, Charlie!" to a bending companion, and we settled down to work as if it was any other film. Except that this was not...Some critics complained that it was only a thriller with a message tacked on rather loosely; but the best way to persuade a patient to take his medicine is by sugaring the pill - and this was the only possible way the film could have been approached in those early days. Whatever else, it was a tremendous success, pleasing us and confounding our detractors. The countless letters of gratitude which flooded in were proof enough of that, and I had achieved what I had longed to do for so long, to be in a film which disturbed, educated, and illuminated as well as merely giving entertainment."

The film did indeed connect with countless moviegoers who felt it reflected some of their own experiences in the world. One of these viewers, future filmmaker Terence Davies, recalls the impact Victim had on him: "It was an incredibly traumatic thing for me - being gay, and it being very much against the law. That moment when Dirk is in the police station and the policeman says, "You of course knew that Barrett was a homosexual?" And the camera tracks in on Dirk and he says, "Yes, I had gathered that.' 'Homosexual' was a word that no one ever said. The word in those days was 'queer,' which was derogatory and very unpleasant. And I don't know why the gay community have taken it up now because to me it is so derogatory; because it used to be said with such hatred. And I just thought, 'And yes, so am I.'"

Almost every major film critic praised Victim. The Evening Standard noted that "At last, after years of playing paper-thin parts in paper-weight films, Dirk Bogarde has a role that not only shows what a brilliant actor he is, but what a courageous one he is too...He risks curdling the adulation of the fans." The Evening News chimed in, "Today we must salute Dirk Bogarde. Applaud him for his courage and for the revelation of previously unplumbed depths of his talent." And Time magazine wrote it "has a careful performance by Bogarde and it pursues with eloquence and conviction the case against an antiquated statute." The film also won a Best British Actor nomination for Bogarde and a Best British Screenplay nomination for Janet Green and John McCormick in the BAFTA Film Awards (Britain's version of the Academy Awards). In addition, Victim was nominated for a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

For Bogarde, however, Victim marked the beginning of a new career as an actor after years of being typecast as a matinee idol for the bobbysoxer crowd. As he told interviewer Ann Guerin in 1970 on the television program "Show": "It busted the thing wonderfully open because the kids just fell away overnight like grass, not because I was playing a homosexual, because in England the word 'queer' usually means that you're not feeling very well, so they didn't get it anyway, but I did have grey temples and I was broaching my own age, playing a man about 45. I wasn't the bouncy happy doctor with a little perm in the front lock of my hair and my caps in and my left profile - every set was built for my left profile, nobody ever saw the right side of my face in something like 30 pictures. I was the Loretta Young of England. And so that all broke. The caps came out, the hair was never permed again and a different audience came." In fact, shortly after Victim, Bogarde was cast in Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963), which achieved even greater acclaim than Victim and marked the beginning of a long line of critically acclaimed performances in films by directors of international renown such as John Schlesinger (Darling, 1965), Jack Clayton (Our Mother's House, 1967), Luchino Visconti (The Damned (1969) and Death in Venice, 1971), Liliana Cavani (The Night Porter, 1974), Alain Resnais (Providence, 1977), Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Despair, 1978) and Bertrand Tavernier (Daddy Nostalgie, 1990).

Producer: Michael Relph, Basil Dearden
Director: Basil Dearden
Screenplay: Janet Green, John McCormick
Cinematography: Otto Heller
Film Editing: John D. Guthridge
Art Direction: Alex Vetchinsky
Music: Philip Green
Cast: Dirk Bogarde (Melville Farr), Sylvia Syms (Laura), Dennis Price (Calloway), Anthony Nicholls (Lord Fullbrook), Peter Copley (Paul Mandrake), Norman Bird (Harold Doe).
BW-90m. Letterboxed.

[drinkanddestroy]

I wrote a piece on Victim a few months back, if you'd care to peruse it:
http://moviepilot.com/posts/2014/10/03/from-victim-to-hero-revisiting-basil-dearden-s-victim-1961-2304327?lt_source=external,manual

SPOILER ALERT in this post RE: Victim

Groggy, I just finished your article. Nice work!

Just wanted to point what IMO are a couple of mistakes in the third paragraph. First of all – this is a relatively minor point – you write that Barrett was Farr's ex-lover; in fact, Farr and Barrett had never "consummated" their relationship; that was the subject of the incriminating photo, that Barrett was crying cuz Farr told him he couldn't go forward with the relationship cuz it would jeopardize his career. That is what Farr said – that he had to stop being friendly with Barrett because he started wanting him.
But more importantly, you write " ... Farr is targeted by blackmailers who threaten to out him." Maybe I am being too nitpicky here, but Farr actually was not targeted by the blackmailers – at least not initially; only Barrett was targeted by the blackmailers, and after Barrett committed suicide, Farr made it his business to find out who the blackmailers were. Indeed, as you write in the same paragraph, (after Barrett's suicide) Farr was heedless of his reputation in an attempt to find the blackmailers, but that was only after Barrett committed suicide; initially it wasn't the blackmailers who sought out Farr – they only started "targeting" him after he made it his business to go after them.

btw, IMO that is a big hole in the story, why the blackmailers would go after the poor Barrett instead of Farr, a wealthy married man with a reputation to protect. Barrett's friend offers some feeble explanation like, they knew Farr was too big to go after, but that is ridiculous; the bigger the man, the more money the blackmailers could get. The fact that the blackmailers didn't come after Farr until he went after them is a big mistake in the story IMO.

[Groggy]

Drink, thank you for the TCM article! I hadn't read it before.

Indeed, as you write in the same paragraph, (after Barrett;'s suicide) Farr was heedless of his reputation in an attempt to find the blackmailers, but that was only after Barrett committed suicide; initially it wasn't the blackmailers who sought out Farr – they only started "targeting" him after he made it his business to go after them.

You're definitely right on your first criticism, this one seems a bit nitpicky though since Farr's clearly targeted later in the film.

btw, IMO that is a big hole in the story, why the blackmailers would go after the poor Barrett instead of Farr, a wealthy married man with a reputation to protect. Barrett's friend offers some feeble explanation like, they knew Farr was too big to go after, but that is ridiculous; the bigger the man, the more money the blackmailers could get. The fact that the blackmailers didn't come after Farr until he went after them is a big mistake in the story IMO.

I'd have to watch the movie again, but did they know Farr was gay at that point? I don't recall it coming up.

I think in the movie's universe, the criminals were targeting people like Barrett because they were more desperate and easily scared. A construction worker or hairdresser isn't going to put up a fight the way a barrister or well-known actor would. Libel laws being what they are in the UK (eg., the accused has to prove their innocence, rather than vice versa), tackling someone like Farr would be a big risk, even with compromising evidence.

[drinkanddestroy]

I'd have to watch the movie again, but did they know Farr was gay at that point? I don't recall it coming up.

Of course they knew about Farr! The pic was of Farr and Barrett.

I think in the movie's universe, the criminals were targeting people like Barrett because they were more desperate and easily scared. A construction worker or hairdresser isn't going to put up a fight the way a barrister or well-known actor would. Libel laws being what they are in the UK (eg., the accused has to prove their innocence, rather than vice versa), tackling someone like Farr would be a big risk, even with compromising evidence.

When Barrett's friend is meeting with Farr in his office, he says something like, they went after Barrett cuz they knew they couldn't touch you, you were too big; something like that.
IMO that is bullshit; blackmail is a risky business; you want the person with the most to lose, the biggest reputation to protect and the biggest bank account.  That was Farr, not Barrett. In fact, the only reason Barrett went to those great lengths to play ball with the blackmailers is that he so loved Farr that he wanted to protect him.

No way would Farr ever bring a libel suit against them and risk his career by outing himself (in the normal course of things; of course, at the end, he gets the courage to out himself and that is what the story hinges on). But IMO it is a hole that they didn't blackmail Farr first. This could have easily been fixed by having the photo of Barrett and an unseen male (Farr from the back) so that Farr couldn't be seen, and nobody, even the blackmailers, knew of who he was until he decided to get involved.

Oh, and one more criticism: that red herring with those two con men mailing letters to people, that is just stupid, like a way for the movie to say, haha I tricked you!

BTW, what is the relationship between the two real blackmailers? One looks to be a young man of 25-30; the other looks to be a woman of at least 50. That dude running a blackmail scheme with his mom?   

[Groggy]

I think the movie leaves enough of this plot ambiguous to avoid calling it a flaw. Besides the libel issue, perhaps the photograph itself sans context isn't overly incriminating. We never see it, so we're left to infer based on what's told to us.

Presumably Barrett had a history of "indecent" behavior and that's why the blackmailers were targeting him. Then they stumbled upon his connection with Farr by accident. (We also don't know when or how the blackmailers got the photograph, unless I'm forgetting something.) Farr didn't actually do anything with Barrett, so until Barrett committed suicide and his sexuality made public, there wasn't anything to pin on Farr.

Or, another interpretation: they didn't know (until later on) that Farr was gay, and were just smearing dirt. It's not like Farr was actively pursuing relationships with other men.

[drinkanddestroy]

the photo was basically the two of them sitting in the car and talking, but Barrett was crying. That was the only giveaway – you are sitting in a car with a homosexual talking to him, and he is crying, it is obvious that you, too, are homosexual.
The blackmailers were taking pics with a telephoto lens.
Of course the blackmailers knew Barrett was homosexual. This pic proves Farr is also.
-----
BTW, note that even in this supposed;y progressive movie, the hero to fight the homosexuals' fight is a married man, dignified from high society, who has probably never actually had sex with another man; he has had desires but has suppressed them. The hero could never be a flaming proud homosexual.

[noodles_leone]

Speaking of weird sex:

Chinatown - 8.5/10
Would be a 9.5 if Jack didn't lose his brain at the worst time to do so.
Also, like I probably already said a couple times, this movie has the best ending scene and line ever (actually it's a tie with GBU, and Full Metal Jacket is close third).

[PowerRR]

Revisited a couple of my favorite Werny Herzy movies in a fitting double feature:

Rescue Dawn - 8/10
Werner goes Hollywood and it's pretty fucking good. I like Herzog as a dramatic storyteller, but definitely think he's stronger as a documentarian. I think stuff like Aguirre and Woyzeck is a bit overrated (his only movie I don't like is probably Aguirre), but the praise for Fitzcarraldo and Nosferatu is fitting. I don't think that Rescue Dawn is my favorite of his dramatic work, but I'd be in the small group of those who prefer it over Aguirre, Woyzeck, Kaspar Hauser, etc. The ending is a bit too over-sentimental in its presentation, but it doesn't hurt the movie too much.

Little Dieter Needs to Fly - 10/10
Overall Herzog's best film, and maybe my favorite documentary of all time. I've seen it maybe four times since Rescue Dawn came out, and it's just plain perfect.

DJ, this is for you. Where do I go next in my return to Herzog? This is how I'd rank his fiction / documentary separately:

Fitzcarraldo - 8.5/10
Rescue Dawn - 8/10
Nosferatu - 8/10
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser - 7/10
Cobra Verde - 7/10
Woyzeck - 6.5/10
Bad Lieutenant - 5.5/10
Aguirre - 4.5/10

Little Dieter Needs to Fly - 10/10
Grizzly Man -  9/10
My Best Fiend - 8.5/10
Into the Abyss - 8.5/10
Lessons of Darkness - 8/10
Encounters at the End of the World - 5/10

Haven't seen any others. Stroszek? Land of Silence and Darkness? Heart of Glass?

[cigar joe]

Lady On A Train (1945) Deanna Durbin, mystery fluff with Dan Duryea, and Ralph Bellamy. New York Central train stops on Park Avenue viaduct (Metro North nowadays) Deanna spots murder taking place in adjacent apartment window and proceeds to solve crime. 6/10