Classic Film Preview

No movie comes closer to being the visual equivalent of a fairy tale than Beauty and the Beast (1946). Jean Cocteau had already achieved fame in his native France and throughout the world as a poet, playwright, artist, and avant-garde filmmaker. Then he did what must have seemed totally unexpected. He transformed a little-known fairy tale into a film that was both accessible and artistic.

Beauty and the Beast looks and feels like the fairy tale a child might imagine. The acting, make-up, sets, gestures, and magical effects — all combine to produce a childlike sense of wonder and awe. There’s nothing quite like it, including the Disney animated version, which was strongly influenced by this movie. Perhaps it takes a painter’s eye and poet’s sense of layered meaning to create a film that’s equally fitting for children and adults.

Cocteau enjoyed collaborating with other artists, and his willingness to share the credit helped attract the best cast members and crew. In the book Cocteau on the Film, he explains how the two main actors brought specific qualities to the project:

The only tragic part of the making of La Belle et la Bête was Jean Marais’ terrible make-up which used to take five hours and from which he emerged as though after a surgical operation. Laurence Olivier said to me one day that he would never have had the strength to undergo such torture. I maintain that it took both Marais’ passion for his profession and his love for his dog to have persisted with such fortitude to pass from the human race into the animal one. What was in fact due to the genius of an actor was ascribed by the critics to the perfection of a mask. But there was no mask, and to live the part of the Beast, Marais in his dressing-room went through the terrible phases of Dr. Jekyll’s transformation into Mr. Hyde.

As to Mademoiselle Josette Day’s performance in the part of la Belle, it had a peculiarity that very few people noticed. She has been a dancer. Now it is very dangerous to use slow motion for a person who is running. Every fault of the movement is revealed. This is why a race horse or a boxing match can be so beautiful in slow motion, and why a crowd is so ridiculous.

Credit should also go to Henri Alekan, whose cinematography struck just the right balance between reality and fantasy. Alekan left retirement three decades later to photograph Wings of Desire (1987), another film that hovers between reality and fantasy. Similarly, Georges Auric’s orchestral score is ideally suited to the material. The music is solidly traditional, yet never boring.

Beauty and the Beast was recently remastered by Janus Films/The Criterion Collection. As a result, the newly re-released DVD and current television prints are much improved. Even if you’ve seen it before, this new print may surprise you and win your admiration all over again.

Beauty and the Beast
(1946; directed by Jean Cocteau; cable & DVD
The Criterion Collection
List Price: $39.95

Sunday, July 18 at 8:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

Fahrenheit 451 (1966) is a film that pleased almost no one when it was released. Truffaut fans felt it lacked the spontaneity and warmth of his previous films. Science fiction fans were puzzled by the lack of futuristic technology. Today we’re more sympathetic to the virtues of this unusual Truffaut movie, which was his first color film, his first studio film, his only English-language film, and his only venture into science fiction.

Just two years later, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) would portray another version of the future that lacked human warmth. In retrospect, Truffaut’s emphasis on the societal rather than technological ramifications seems a better fit for the theme of intellectual repression, which is at the center of both the book and movie.

The story is told through the eyes of Guy Montag (played by Oskar Werner), a fireman who doesn’t put out fires — he starts them. Firemen in the future destroy books because the written word is banned. No one is allowed to own or read books. In a wonderful conceit, the opening credits are read to us, as though the rules have spilled out from the story onto the medium itself. Nowhere on the screen will you see a printed word.

In an interview published in the book Françoise Truffaut by C. G. Crisp, Truffaut said he was drawn to the story because of his affection for reading and concern over institutional censorship:

The theme of the film is the love of books. For some this love is intellectual; you love a book for its content, for what is written inside it. For others it’s an emotional attachment to the book as an object. . . On a less individual and intimate level, the story interests me because it is a reality: the burning of books, the persecution of ideas, the terror of new concepts, these are elements that return again and again in the history of mankind. Once, they were expressed cruelly, openly. Now they are manifested more obscurely, more discreetly, but more dangerously.

The critics didn’t care much for this film in 1966, though Ray Bradbury praised Truffaut for having “given a new form to my book while remaining true to the spirit of it.” Today most film historians view this movie as a flawed work with cinematic elements that don’t always succeed. Bernard Herrmann’s restrained musical score and Nicholas Roeg’s color choices that pit conformity (red and black) against pseudo-individuality (yellow and blue) are perhaps too subtle. And while the characters too-often fail to connect emotionally with the viewer, the film does have its share of emotionally satisfying ideas and images.

Odds are you’ll savor the ending and find comfort in Truffaut’s optimism that the creative impulse will endure.

Fahrenheit 451
(1966; directed by Françoise Truffaut; cable & dvd)
MCA Home Video
List Price: $14.95

Monday, June 14 at 3:45 a.m. eastern (late Sun. night) on Turner Classic Movies

The 39 Steps (1935) is one of Hitchcock’s most accomplished early films. It’s also the movie that caught the eye of Hollywood, and the rest — as they say — is history. On the surface, it’s a story about spies and vital information that can’t fall into the wrong hands. Dig deeper, and you’ll find a thrilling adventure of a man wrongly accused of a crime (a favorite Hitchcock theme), as well as a romantic comedy that’s centered on an unlikely couple.

Based on a famous novel by John Buchan, the author was initially upset with the changes Hitchcock made for the film. Years later, he acknowledged Hitchcock had improved the story. In a 1962 interview with Françoise Truffaut, Hitchcock explained his approach to adapting the story:

I worked on the scenario with Charles Bennett, and the method I used in those days was to make a treatment complete in every detail, except for the dialogue. I saw it as a film of episodes, and this time I was on my toes. As soon as we were through with one episode, I remember saying, ‘Here we need a good short story.’ I made sure the content of every scene was very solid, so that each one would be a little film in itself.

Given Hitchcock’s remarks, it’s a wonder the movie doesn’t feel disjointed. Hitchcock was such a skilled director at this point in his career, he was able to hold the episodes together through the strength of the characters and thrill of the chase. As in many of Hitchcock’s films, the origins of the crime or espionage are unimportant. We don’t care what the 39 steps are, and neither does Hitchcock. He even has to insert a few lines at the end to remind us what all the hubbub was about.

The film is filled with deftly rendered vignettes, such as the sequence with the farmer and his wife. Richard Hannay (played by Robert Donat) encounters them as he flees the police. Based on just a few gestures and glances, we immediately understand the couple’s relationship. When a handcuffed Hannay evades detection by joining a Salvation Army parade, and then is mistaken for a political speaker (he’s hustled onto the platform to improvise an election speech), we willingly go along for the ride. And when those same handcuffs bind Hannay with a woman (played by Madeleine Carroll) who despises him, we savor the improbable circumstances that ultimately bring the two together together. The 39 Steps is only 81 minutes long, but it has more thrills, comedy, romance, and understated wit than the vast majority of films you’ll see. As Hitchcock explained to Truffaut in the interview, “You use one idea after another and eliminate anything that interferes with the swift pace.”

The two-disc-set DVD of The 39 Steps includes a bonus documentary titled The Art of Film: Vintage Hitchcock. It’s an excellent introduction to Hitchcock’s early British films, which include The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), Sabotage (1936), Young and Innocent (1937), and The Lady Vanishes (1938).

The 39 Steps
(1935; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; cable & dvd)
Criterion Collection
List Price: $39.95

Wednesday, February 17 at 6:30 p.m. eastern on RetroPlex

We talk about directors who are open, either to the spontaneity of their actors (Robert Altman) or to chance events (David Lynch). No director has been as open as Jean Renoir. Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) is not only an early sound film for Renoir, it’s an early sound film for the French cinema. Like Rene Clair, Renoir freely experiments with various sound and camera techniques. Yet Renoir’s experimentations are always firmly grounded in the story and characters.

Boudu is the story of a tramp who wants to end his life because he can’t find the dog who has befriended him. Most critics have viewed the film as an indictment of petty bourgeois behavior, but Renoir’s approach isn’t so simple. He also pokes fun at the well-intentioned left, who want to help the unprivileged — as long as they’re kept at a distance. Michel Simon turns in a masterful comic performance as Boudu. He’s simultaneously lovable and irritating, and true to form, Renoir remains impartial. Renoir’s world is large enough to encompass the good and bad aspects of contradictory sides — left versus right, instinct versus convention, self consciousness versus naiveté, and civilization versus nature.

Truffaut and the other New Wave directors were heavily influenced by Renoir’s relaxed and inventive style (Renoir was Truffaut’s favorite filmmaker). They also adopted his realistic approach to filming, which Renoir had picked up from silent director Erich von Stroheim. (Renoir’s films, particularly Toni, also strongly influenced the Italian Neo-Realists.) Not surprisingly, the New Wave was more excited by Renoir’s early free spirited films, such as Boudu and The Crime of Monsieur Lange, than by his later masterpieces, Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game.

With Renoir and the early New Wave directors, it’s easy to fall into the trap of confusing an easy and liberated style with technical incompetence. André Bazin writes in his book, Jean Renoir:

One of the best scenes in Boudu Saved from Drowning, the suicide attempt from the Pont des Arts, was made in total defiance of the logic of the scene. The crowd of unpaid extras gathered on the bridge and the river banks was not there to witness a tragedy. They came to watch a movie being made, and they were in good humor. Far from asking them to feign the emotion which verisimilitude would demand, Renoir seems to have encouraged them in their light-hearted curiosity. . . For Renoir, what is important is not the dramatic value of a scene. Drama, action — in the theatrical or novelistic sense of the terms — are for him only pretexts for the essential, and the essential is everywhere in what is visible, everywhere in the very substance of the cinema.

By all means, see Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, which are truly two of the greatest films ever made. But don’t deny yourself the pleasure of watching Boudu Saved from Drowning.

Boudu Saved from Drowning
(1932; directed by Jean Renoir; dvd)
Criterion Collection
List Price $29.95

Monday, January 11 at 2:15 a.m. eastern (late Sun. night) on Turner Classic Movies

With so many fine films to his credit, it’s a challenge to pin down Hitchcock’s best film. For my money, the best one is Vertigo. That’s especially evident in the restored print that’s available on DVD in Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection and that TCM shows occasionally.

Perhaps the most rarefied of Hitchcock’s films, Vertigo is difficult to talk about without giving away important plot elements. If you haven’t seen it, don’t read too much about it. Just watch it, and then watch it again to see how carefully the film is constructed. Just as he does in Psycho, Hitchcock leaves a trail of bread crumbs so repeat viewers can enjoy the story with a renewed sense of awareness.

Vertigo is unusual in its use of associative color. In a 1962 interview with Françoise Truffaut, Hitchcock explained how the color green signals the main character’s state of mind:

At the beginning of the picture, when James Stewart follows Madeleine to the cemetery, we gave her a dreamlike, mysterious quality by shooting through a fog filter. That gave us a green effect, like fog over the bright sunshine. Then, later on, when Stewart first meets Judy, I decided to make her live at the Empire Hotel in Post Street because it has a green neon sign flashing continually outside the window. So when the girl emerges from the bathroom, that green light gives her the same subtle, ghostlike quality. After focusing on Stewart, who’s staring at her, we go back to the girl, but now we slip that soft effect away to indicate that Stewart’s come back to reality.

Pay close attention to Bernard Herrmann’s music. Though not as groundbreaking (or influential) as his score for Psycho, the Vertigo score reinforces the dreamlike and ghostlike qualities Hitchcock referred to in his interview with Truffaut. As in Psycho, the music makes even a simple drive down the highway rich with emotional meaning.

Vertigo
(1958; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; cable & dvd)
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
List Price: $19.98 (Vertigo: Collector’s Edition) or
List Price: $119.98 (Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection)

Thursday, December 31 at 3:30 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

The Importance of Being Earnest (1952) is not only the definitive Oscar Wilde adaptation, it’s the definitive comedy of manners. Often acknowledged to have the best cast ever assembled for the play — either on celluloid or on stage — this is one of the best film comedies of the 1950s. Michael Redgrave (as Jack Worthing), Joan Greenwood (as Gwendolen Fairfax), Michael Denison (as Algernon Moncrieff), and Dorothy Tutin (as Cecily Cardew) are perfectly matched as the couples who have to overcome real and imagined obstacles to attain true love. Yet it’s the performances by Edith Evans as Lady Augusta Bracknell and Margaret Rutherford as Miss Letitia Prism that steal the show. Pity the poor actress who has to play Lady Bracknell to an audience that remembers Evans’ outraged voice from this unforgettable movie.

Of course, here the play’s the thing. Wilde’s comedic farce is revisited time and time again because inspired writing never grows old. Here is some of the dialogue from the movie:

Jack: I have lost both my parents.
Lady Bracknell: To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Gwendolen: Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you. [Jack looks at her in amazement.] We live, as I hope you know, Mr. Worthing, in an age of ideals. The fact is constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines, and has reached the provincial pulpits, I am told; and my ideal has always been to love someone of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you.

Algernon: I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It’s very romantic to be in love but there’s nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one might be accepted. One usually is I believe. Then the whole excitement is over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

Lady Bracknell: To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion — has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now — but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognized position in good society.

The film’s director, Anthony Asquith, was fully in his element when poking fun at British upper-class manners. His father was Herbert Asquith, first Earl of Oxford and Prime Minister of England from 1908 to 1915. Ironically, it was Herbert Asquith, who as British Home Secretary had ordered Wilde’s arrest in 1895 for immoral behavior. Perhaps Anthony Asquith saw his direction of this sumptuous Technicolor production as a form of restitution. Whatever the motivation, Asquith was an excellent choice. His other films include A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929), Pygmalion (1938), The Way to the Stars (1945), The Winslow Boy (1948), and The Browning Version (1951).

The Importance of Being Earnest
(1952; directed by Anthony Asquith; cable & dvd)
Criterion Collection
List Price: $26.95

Sunday, November 29 at 8:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

No current horror movie would be quite the same if Alfred Hitchcock hadn’t chosen to scare the living daylights out of us in Psycho (1960). It isn’t just a movie that rises above its genre. Psycho has become a model for any type of film that attempts to creatively disorient the viewer. Similarly, Bernard Herrmann’s musical score is copied — almost note for note — by young composers hoping to set the right mood for a variety of genres, including horror, action, adventure, and science fiction.

This film is so well known you probably have seen it by now. If you haven’t watched it, please do. No director knows more about manipulating the audience than Hitchcock (and that’s meant as a compliment). This is his second best film, after Vertigo (1958). If you haven’t seen Psycho, don’t read the next paragraph or the block-quotes below that paragraph, for I’ll need to touch on a key plot element.

What would be Psycho’s most important innovation? You’re not allowed to identify with any of the characters for very long. Hitchcock explained this strategy in a 1962 interview with Françoise Truffaut:

You know that the public always likes to be one jump ahead of the story; they like to feel they know what’s coming next. So you deliberately play upon this fact to control their thoughts. . . You turn the viewer in one direction and then in another; you keep him as far as possible from what’s actually going to happen. . . I purposely killed the star so as to make the killing even more unexpected. As a matter of fact, that’s why I insisted that the audiences be kept out of the theaters once the picture had started, because the late-comers would have been waiting to see Janet Leigh after she had disappeared from the screen action.

While it has been widely available on DVD since the 1990s, an anamorphic widescreen version didn’t turn up on DVD until 2005. That format provides a higher resolution for compatible televisions. An anamorphic widescreen print is included in the DVD bundle — Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection.

Psycho
(1960; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; cable & dvd)
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
List Price for Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection: $119.95 (14 movies)

Saturday, October 31 at 12:00 a.m. eastern (late Fri.night) on Turner Classic Movies
Thursday, December 31 at 1:30 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

Film is an intrusive medium. Even though we willingly suspend our disbelief to accept movies as fiction, there’s a strong element of voyeurism that’s inherent in the art form. Movies allow us to spy and eavesdrop on the lives of others. We see private actions we wouldn’t ordinarily see and hear private conversations we wouldn’t ordinarily hear.

The Conversation (1974) is one of a handful of films that openly — and successfully — exploit this key attribute of the medium. As in Psycho (1960) and Peeping Tom (1960), we’re simultaneously repelled and fascinated by the main character. In all three films, the protagonist is psychologically detached from others and — perhaps because of the extreme detachment — obsessive in his observation of other people. The three protagonists also intensely guard their own privacy.

In The Conversation, the protagonist is Harry Caul (played by Gene Hackman). He spies on people for a living using sophisticated listening devices. Well aware of what he can do to other people, he is compulsively paranoid that others will invade his own privacy. His girlfriend (played by Teri Garr) doesn’t even know what he does for a living.

While editing one of his surreptitious audio recordings, Harry discovers what he thinks is evidence that a murder will be committed. This echoes Blowup (1966), where a photographer uses the isolating and magnifying power of visual technology to uncover a possible murder. Here we have the added pleasure of a fine character study. Gene Hackman gives an understated performance that’s easily one of his best.

More relevant today than when it was first released, The Conversation (1974) probes the boundaries between technology and privacy. Francis Ford Coppola directed it in-between The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974), and just before Apocalypse Now (1979). If you’ve familiar with the other three films, you may be surprised by how restrained and personal this film is. In its own way, it’s just as good as Coppola’s other films from the 1970s.

The Conversation
(1974; directed by Francis Ford Coppola, cable & dvd)
Paramount
List Price: $14.95

Friday, August 21 at 10:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

Nobody does ghost stories like the Japanese. Just ask someone who has seen the contemporary Japanese movies, Ringu and Kairo. Ugetsu isn’t just a ghost story, though it’s the images from the ghost portion of the film that tend to linger in the mind and haunt the viewer for years to come.

Ugetsu is generally acknowledged to be director Kenji Mizoguchi’s finest film. Tastes in movies can be subjective, but it’s fairly obvious to anyone who has seen it that Ugetsu belongs in the same league as Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and Ozu’s Tokyo Story. Set in a period of violent civil strife, a humble potter leaves his wife and young child to sell his wares in the city. He meets a mysterious woman there, who turns out to be much more than meets the eye.

One of the most beautifully photographed and fluid of the classic Japanese films, Ugetsu is given a first-class treatment by Criterion with a new high-definition digital transfer. The scenes on the water glimmer and sparkle as they did in the 35mm print, and the subtle lighting throughout is far more apparent than in the previous laserdisc release. As someone who has treasured his laserdisc version of this film, I am very happy with the new transfer. It’s as close to the theatrical experience as we’re likely to have for some time.

The double-disc set includes an informative 150-minute documentary on Mizoguchi and his films, titled Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director. It’s an excellent introduction to an underappreciated director, who Jean-Luc Godard proclaimed as “quite simply one of the greatest of filmmakers.”

Ugetsu
(1953; directed by Kenji Mizoguchi; cable & dvd)
Criterion Collection
List Price: $39.95

Monday, July 27 at 2:00 a.m. eastern (late Sun. night) on Turner Classic Movies

The best film noir stories center around fate. Characters are destined to commit a crime because they can’t escape their past. Or a fatal flaw keeps them from seeing the obvious truth, so the tension builds as we’re unable to warn the characters, as we might be able to do in real life. Double Indemnity (1944) is almost a textbook film noir. The voice over and flashbacks reinforce the inevitability of the outcome. We already know Walter Neff (played by Fred MacMurray) has committed a crime, has been shot, and will likely be caught. As we watch the flashbacks, we accept the inevitable outcome, knowing nothing can prevent him from being used by Phyllis Dietrichson (played by Barbara Stanwyck). With the whodunit out of the way, we can sit back and enjoy the unfolding story. Walter’s self assurance and mocking humor are seen for what they are — a cover for a weak character that’s no match for Phyllis’ cunning manipulation.

Double Indemnity was only the third film Billy Wilder had directed, though he had already made his mark in Hollywood as a writer for such classic films as Midnight (1939), Ninotchka (1939), Hold Back the Dawn (1941), and Ball of Fire (1941). This film is based on a James M. Cain story which first appeared in 1935 in Liberty Magazine. Cain was unavailable to work on the screenplay, so Wilder called in novelist Raymond Chandler, who is best known today for creating the character of private detective Philip Marlowe. Chandler had a great ear for dialogue. He also knew how to successfully extend a metaphor far beyond what anyone thought was humanly possible. Wilder knew how to craft a complicated plot that somehow became simple and completely understandable when translated to the screen. He was also a master of applied cynicism. Together they wrote one of the best scripts of the 1940s. Here’s a small sample:

Phyllis: Mr. Neff, why don’t you drop by tomorrow evening about eight-thirty. He’ll be in then.
Walter: Who?
Phyllis: My husband. You were anxious to talk to him weren’t you?
Walter: Sure, only I’m getting over it a little. If you know what I mean.
Phyllis: There’s a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.
Walter: How fast was I going, officer?
Phyllis: I’d say about ninety.
Walter: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.
Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.
Walter: Suppose it doesn’t take.
Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.
Walter: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.
Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband’s shoulder.
Walter: That tears it.

With this film, everything works together in lockstep — the script, the direction, the acting, the lighting, everything. Elements from the film are copied and adapted every decade, as new directors strive to recapture some of the magic. None have surpassed it. And why bother? When you have the original to enjoy any chance you can.

Double Indemnity
(1944; directed by Billy Wilder; cable & dvd)
Universal Studios
List Price: $26.98

Thursday, July 16 at 9:00 a.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies
Thursday, July 23 at 12:30 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

Winchester ’73 (1950) is an important film for many reasons. It’s the first in a string of five top-notch westerns made over a five-year period that were directed by Anthony Mann and star James Stewart. The other four are Bend of the River (1952), The Naked Spur (1953), The Far Country (1955), and The Man from Laramie (1955).

You could argue that Winchester ’73 is the first modern western. It brings the flawed protagonist from the film noirs over to the westerns. Mann had already made a name for himself with his skillful direction of tough-guy psychological dramas, including T-Men (1947), Raw Deal (1948), and Side Street (1949). By 1950, he was well prepared to reinvigorate the western genre by giving it a darker, more anguished hero.

The success of Winchester ’73 is largely responsible for the rebirth of the genre in the 1950s, and its tone would lead to other revisionist westerns, such as John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) and Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969). It isn’t fair, however, to say there were no dark westerns prior to 1950. Howard Hawks’ Red River (1948) points in this direction, though the John Wayne character isn’t the protagonist of that film.

Winchester ’73 is also notable for its contribution to the break up of the studio system. Mann couldn’t afford to pay Stewart his usual salary, so Stewart agreed to take a percentage of the profits. That turned out to be a smart move, because Winchester ’73 went on to gross $4.5 million in the U.S. That encouraged similar deals between other actors and production companies, and this alternative method of compensation broke the studios’ control in determining which movies actors would appear in and how much they would be paid.

Stewart was a big star at the time (Harvey was released that same year), though he hadn’t appeared in a western since Destry Rides Again (1939). He was taking a risk, as was Mann, in making a moody western. The public may not have accepted the usually upbeat Stewart as having deep unresolved psychological issues. Obviously, the public was able to handle the complexity, and this type of role proved to be a creative shot in the arm for Stewart, who would go on to play brooding roles in the other Mann-Stewart westerns, as well as Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958).

Winchester ’73
(1950; directed by Anthony Mann; cable & dvd)
Universal Studios
List Price: $14.95

Sunday, May 10 at 11:15 a.m. eastern on HDNet Movies
Monday, May 11 at 4:45 a.m. eastern (late Sun. night) on HDNet Movies
Thursday, May 28 at 8:30 a.m. eastern on HDNet Movies

As the follow-up to his most successful silent film (Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler), Fritz Lang’s The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) revives one of cinema’s most intriguing criminal masterminds. When we last saw Dr. Mabuse, he was driven insane by the collapse of his criminal empire. Eleven years later, he has progressed from a coma to only being able to write — first with unintelligible scribblings, then with arcane symbols and unrecognizable words, and finally with detailed instructions for carrying out devious crimes and acts of terror.

Meanwhile, we are reintroduced to Inspector Lohmann, the detective from M, Lang’s previous sound film. Lohmann has encountered the doctor’s name in connection with several puzzling investigations. Were these crimes perpetrated by the same group? And how could they involve a criminal mastermind who is physically incapacitated?

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is a thrilling detective story, but also a not-so-subtle reproach of Hitler and the Nazis, who had just risen to power. It even foreshadows our own time with a diabolical character who commits terrorist acts — not for financial gain, but to create chaos and fear among the public.

In an interview with Mark Shivas, published in the September 1962 issue of Movie, Lang explains the origin of the project, and how the film was banned in Germany before it could be released:

In ’32, I guess, someone came to me and said, ‘Look, Mr. Lang, we have made so much money with Mabuse. . . ’ I said, ‘Yes, much more than I did. . . .’ He said, ‘Can’t you give us another Mabuse?’ So I started thinking about it and I said, ‘All right, what shall I do? This guy is insane and in an asylum — I cannot make him healthy again. It is impossible.’

So I invented, with the help of Mrs. Von Harbou, the next Mabuse — The Testament of Dr. Mabuse — and then said, ‘Now I am finished. Now I am killing him.’ I had been able to put into the mouth of an insane criminal all the Nazi slogans. When the picture was finished, some henchmen of Dr. Goebbels came to the office and threatened to forbid it. I was very short with them and said, ‘If you think you can forbid a picture of Fritz Lang in Germany, go ahead.’ They did so.

As Lang tells it, a few days after the ban was announced, he was summoned to meet with Goebbels, who told Lang that Hitler was a fan of Die Nibelungen (1924) and Metropolis (1927). Hitler wanted Lang to head up a group that would produce National-Socialistic films for the Nazi party. Lang feigned excitement over the offer, but fled to Paris that night. We have only Lang’s word for the meeting, which is at odds with The Testament of Dr. Mabuse having just been banned for its strong political content.

Whatever the truth, Lang probably wouldn’t have survived in Germany. He went on to have a productive career in Hollywood, directing such classics as Fury (1936), Man Hunt (1941), Ministry of Fear (1945), The Big Heat (1953), While the City Sleeps (1956), and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956). He returned to Germany to direct yet another Mabuse film, titled The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1961).

The digitally restored print on the Criterion DVD is ample proof that this is one of Lang’s best films. Originally 124 minutes, the restored version runs 121 minutes and is based on a German Film Institute print, with missing scenes supplied by prints from the Federal Film Archive (Germany) and the Munich Film Museum. In addition to the top-quality restored print, Criterion provides a second disc with the 94-minute French-language version of the film, which Lang directed simultaneously with the German-language version (Lang was fluent in French). Until 1951, it was the only version available for film historians. The second disc also features a 1964 interview with Lang, background on Mabuse’s creator (the character first appeared in print), and a comparison of the German, French, and American-dubbed versions.

If you’re a fan of Hollywood film noir, you’ll feel right at home with this film’s dark and menacing world. And if you’re a fan of detective and crime movies, you’ll enjoy Lohmann’s dogged determination and the intricate layering of the plot.

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
(1933; directed by Fritz Lang; cable & dvd)
Criterion Collection
List Price: $39.95

Sunday, December 21 at 9:45 a.m. eastern on IFC

What if you took the greatest American play and turned it into a film using an ideal group of actors? That’s exactly what happened with Long Day’s Journey into Night (1962).

Deeply autobiographical and searing in its emotional power, the play wasn’t supposed to be made public until 1988. Completed in 1942, Eugene O’Neill asked his publisher Random House to seal the play in its vault until 25 years after his death. Following O’Neill’s death in 1953, his wife transferred the rights to Yale University, which nullified the agreement with Random House. As a result, it was performed on Broadway and published in 1956, three year’s after the playwright’s death. The Broadway production featured Fredric March (as James Tyrone), Florence Eldridge (as Mary Tyrone), Jason Robards, Jr. (as “Jamie” Tyrone), and Bradford Dillman (as Edmund Tyrone). It received the Tony award for Best Play, and March received the Tony for Best Actor.

Only Jason Robards, Jr. repeated his role for the film version. Sidney Lumet, the film’s director, cast British actor Ralph Richardson as Jamie Tyrone. One of the greatest Shakespearean actors of his generation (along with Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud), Richardson was already familiar to American audiences through such as films as The Heiress (1949), Richard III (1955), Our Man in Havana (1959), and Exodus (1960). Katharine Hepburn was cast as Mary Tyrone. Her previous movie, Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), was also based on a dramatic play, though her entire career was preparation for what was probably the most demanding role of her lifetime. Former child actor Dean Stockwell was chosen to portray young Edmund. Only 26 at the time, Stockwell holds his own among the three more experienced actors.

As a tribute to their extraordinary performances, all four won acting awards at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. Hepburn was honored as Best Actress, and the three male leads shared the award for Best Actor.

As good as the play and performances are, this film isn’t for everyone. It reaches into the depths of the human psyche and explores — perhaps better than any other work of art — the complex love-hate relationships among family members that build up over the years. This isn’t your typical family, fortunately, and it’s even more frightening to think these events largely mirror O’Neill’s own experiences (the Edmund character is based on O’Neill).

If you haven’t seen the film, do give it try. There isn’t anything else like it. The 1950s and 1960s opened up the floodgates for movies based on dramatic Broadway plays. None have the strength and intensity of this film. If any play deserves to be called the American Hamlet or the great American play, this would have to be it.

Long Day’s Journey into Night
(1962; directed by Sidney Lumet; cable & dvd)
Republic Pictures
List Price: $14.98

Friday, November 14 at 11:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

Mention the topic of foreign films to some people, and you may elicit a wince or frown. They think of hard-to-decipher films such as Bergman’s Persona (1966), austere films such as Dreyer’s Gertrud (1964), or confrontational films such as Fellini’s Satyricon (1969). Add in the difficulty of reading the subtitles, and you don’t have to travel far to find film fans who avoid anything foreign.

Fortunately, there are many foreign language films that are eminently approachable. They’re warm, upbeat, and easily digested. And truth be told, the approachable ones are often as good as the more demanding ones. In my opinion, Fellini’s Amarcord (1973) is as fine as 8½ (1963). But why choose between them, when you can savor both?

This brings us to Cinema Paradiso (1989). You would have to be hardhearted not to be touched emotionally by this film, yet it’s much more than a warmhearted story. It’s nostalgic not just for a way of life that had disappeared, but also for a style of filmmaking that had grown out-of-style. Ennio Morricone’s excellent musical score intensifies the experience, as it strikes the right mood in just the right places. Not surprisingly, Cinema Paradiso won the 1990 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

As good as the 124-minute theatrical release is, the 174-minute re-edited version is even better. You’ll have to rent or purchase the DVD to see the longer cut, which is more complete than the original 155-minute Italian release of the film. While all three versions are centered on the relationship between a young fatherless boy and a solitary movie projectionist, the newer version spends more time with the boy as an adult as he searches for Elena, his lost love.

Given the 124-minute running time listed on the HDNet website, it looks like HDNet will be showing the theatrical version. Don’t worry about not seeing the longer version first, as the theatrical version stands up well on its own.

Cinema Paradiso
(1989; directed by Giuseppe Tornatore; cable & dvd)
Miramax
List Price: $14.95

Sunday, August 17 at 1:15 p.m. eastern on HDNet Movies
Saturday, August 23 at 9:45 a.m. eastern on HDNet Movies
Thursday, August 28 at 12:00 p.m. eastern on HDNet Movies