All Things Thriller

April 30, 2018

Three Paragraphs Besides the Murder: The Content of the Life of Bobby Franks Googled

I have grappled with murder. And I have imbibed in it. From an early age I have been both fascinated with and repelled by it. Murder has entertained me. Is that right? Or wrong? I’m not sure. Perhaps that’s because I hang out in a patch of gray with a lawn chair that is perfectly molded to my form and variables strewn carelessly around. I don’t know.

I do know that true crime occupies a more distant space inside that patch of gray for me. I keep it at arms length. That’s because there are real people involved. Someone’s life has been taken; their soul has been required of them and, as is so often the case with true crime, murder has happened as a consequence of a piece of…a human stain seeking their own morbid entertainment. When I gawk at this, I’m compelled to do it behind mirrored glasses.

It was my intention to write about the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope and another film, though not as critically acclaimed, Compulsion and even another lesser known and much more current film Swoon. I was pleased with myself and up for the challenge until I started the doing the research. That made me queasy.

Now I have a pretty strong stomach and a taste for the macabre, but these films have variables and stains in common that tragically are related to one fourteen-year-old boy. Bobby Franks.

I’m a mom. I remember when my daughters were that age. And my brother too.

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There’s not a lot of information about Robert Emmanuel Franks on the internet. I was six pages into a Google search before I found out this: Franks was a brilliant student at the school. As a member of the Harvard debate team, he had argued against capital punishment. Franks’ conduct, however, worried his teachers. On his scholastic record are the notations “too self-satisfied” and “still hampered by unpleasant characteristics”.

The “Harvard” in reference here is not Harvard University but the Harvard School of Chicago–a prep school for boys endowed by Edward S. Waters a wealthy benefactor and Harvard University graduate who wished to produce candidates for his alma mater. Only the most prestigious families sent their sons to Chicago Harvard School. Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Franks fit the bill in what really mattered–dollars and cents–although the family’s social status was tarnished by Mr. Franks former occupation as pawn broker. Even his ventures into real estate speculation and watch manufacturing couldn’t completely redeem his social standing. This was in 1924, the year his youngest son “Bobby” was abducted.

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There are a few pictures of Bobby Franks on the internet. One of them I used as the “featured image” to this post. It shows Bobby Franks from the waist up in what looks to be a suit and tie. It’s not. This is a cropped picture and the real deal shows a gangly teenager in an unfortunate school boy uniform; unfortunate because he is wearing nickers and long socks– and, seemingly, over-sized oxfords, consistent with his “awkward” age–not a good look then or now, in my book.

But there is another picture that is more flattering and, from what I’ve gleaned, a more accurate representation of him. In this photograph he stands on a step or possibly a curb with his father. Mr. Franks looks to be about seventy and he was, sixty-eight to be exact. Both father and son are impeccably dressed. Mr Franks sports a beautifully tailored pinstriped suit. He wears a bowler hat, a monocle eye-piece and there is a cigar between the fingers of his left hand; his right hand is grasping, gentlemanly, his son’s elbow as if he is halting him from stepping down or, perhaps, he is alerting the boy that their picture is about to be taken.

If the latter was the case, Mr. Franks was wasting his time. Here Bobby is exquisitely prepared. He also wears an expensive suit, but it’s his fedora that completes the look of unabashed teenage cockiness. A bit of a smirk creases his lips. He is handsome, but not in the way that he thinks. He’s amusingly cute. And still gangly. He’s skinny too and petite, though, from the length of his limbs and the height of his father, he most likely would have been tall. The photograph was taken a few weeks before his abduction.

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Bobby Franks was walking home from Harvard School that day in late May when Nathan Leopold rolled up in a rented Willys Knight automobile. In the back seat sat Franks’ eighteen year old cousin and neighbor from across the street Richard Loeb. Loeb offered Bobby a ride.

Initially Bobby begged off. He was only a couple of blocks from home but Loeb persisted, claiming he had a new tennis racket he wanted Bobby to check out. Bobby was happy to oblige. He was an excellent junior player, often challenging his cousin to long rounds on the Loeb’s court. And besides, it was unseasonably cold that day. He slid into the front seat beside Leopold.

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The Franks household was in a frantic uproar when they would have otherwise been eating dinner. Bobby hadn’t made it home. The family knew Bobby was supposed to umpire a baseball game after school so initially they weren’t worried, but something was clearly wrong. The Franks made a point of eating together whenever possible and though Bobby could be aggravating and self centered, like 99.9 percent of teenagers, it wasn’t like him to make his mother worry to this extreme. Older siblings Jack and Josephine scoured the neighborhood, while Mrs. Franks phoned the headmaster of Harvard School. Mr. Franks left to search the school. It was only three blocks down the street.

While Mr. Franks was away, Mrs. Franks received a phone call from Nathan Leopold. He said his name was George Johnson. He said he had kidnapped Robert Franks and there would be further instruction in regards to a ransom coming soon.

At the time of the phone call Bobby Franks was lying in culvert. Acid had been poured on his face, his belly and genitalia in an attempt to hide his identity. He had undergone abdominal surgery and there was a distinctive scar; and although Mr. and Mrs. Franks, both Jewish, had converted to Christian Science before Bobby was born, he was circumcised.

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It takes a lot of strength to snuff out a life–if you don’t use a gun. That’s what murderers say. Unfortunately I’ve read a lot of accounts. I’m not going to quote them.

The good Lord gave us the will, yes, the instinct to survive. That is what I believe. I’ve witnessed this will personally during my late mother’s long and heroic battle with a very severe form of cancer. I’ve witnessed it with my husband as he struggled for life after a botched kidney surgery perforated his bowel.

He won. I’m grateful.

Bobby Franks fought hard too. He had youth on his side and though he was small, he was fit and had the strength of an athlete. His cousin was surprised.

Richard Loeb used a chisel to bludgeon Bobby from behind. He reached over the front seat suddenly while making small talk and covered the boy’s mouth, at the same time striking the back of his skull as hard as he could. Immediately afterwards he hit him again, only this time he used more leverage, bringing the chisel down even harder. But Bobby was still conscious. Still struggling.

During the struggle Bobby managed to twist himself around, flaying and kicking, so that he faced Loeb eye to eye. Twice more Loeb bludgeoned him. Bobby’s forehead caved in. Blood splattered and spewed all over the car seats, spattering Loeb’s pants. But Bobbie wasn’t dead.

Now Loeb began to panic. How could this shrimp still be alive? Frantically he grabbed Bobby under the arms and pulled him over the seat. Then he shoved a rag as far down the dying boy’s throat as he possibly could and held it there.

The thrashing gradually subsided. Finally Bobby stopped breathing.

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Three paragraphs. That’s the content of Bobby Franks’ life on the internet, at least from what I was able to find and I’m a pretty good searcher.

Whereas it takes considerable effort to piece together a truthful, personal and informative portrait of Franks from fragmented excerpts here and there, there is a whole treasure trove of information about, and an entire cottage industry of entertainment devoted to, his killers. Consider this:

In addition to the films Rope (1948), Compulsion (1959) and Swoon (1992) there are at least three plays, five novels and four films dedicated to Leopold and Loeb. In some of these pieces Bobby Franks isn’t mentioned by name and in Rope he isn’t mentioned at all; the victim is an adult male whom the killers, clearly based on Leopold and Loeb, strangle and then conceal the body in a chest on which they serve horderves.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. This inequity is not a revelation to me. Nor is the irony–hypocrisy would be a better word for it–that I am raising the issue of the glorification of murder and, hence, murderers on the very site that I bill as a celebration of thrillers, noire and dark comedy, all of which promote homicide as spectacle and, at least to some extent, objectify and dehumanize the victim(s). I am well aware, as I should be. And no, I will not be shutting down my site or revising it either. It is what it is. And I am who I am. For better or worse. But this isn’t about me. And it’s not about them either.

Bobby Franks was fourteen years old when he was bludgeoned to death by someone he trusted and had known all his life. He was the youngest child of a sixty-eight-year-old father and a forty-two-year-old mother. He was spoiled. Some of his friends and family members described him as a bit of a smart-aleck. He was a decent athlete; smart, but no genius. Like his friends at the exclusive Harvard School, he was a rich. He lived in one of the finest neighborhoods in all of Chicago. He liked expensive clothes and girls. His parents and siblings loved him. He was well liked. Eight of his friends served as pallbearers at his funeral.

He was good looking kid.

April 27, 2018

Hard Eight, a film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, 1996 (with an appendaged tribute to Sidney Lumet and Philip Seymour Hoffman); Crime Drama

We get older; we get wiser. That’s how the old adage goes, and I believe it. For the most part.

Sometimes we get lonelier too–because we are alone. And because we know why.

This is the juncture where Sydney (the awesome Philip Baker Hall), an aging professional gambler (I’d say he’s mid-sixties, at least) resides in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s critically acclaimed 1996 feature film, Hard Eight. (Well, actually, he resides in various high end casino hotel rooms in Reno, Las Vegas and Atlantic City. There’s no house. Not even an apartment.)

Sydney is strictly nomadic. Unattached. He comes and goes as he pleases. He answers to no one–though that wasn’t always the case, entirely. He was married once, with two children. A boy and a girl. Both are completely grown–late twenties and early thirties–and distant. He doesn’t know where they live.

Regret is a palpable thing for Sydney. It aches like arthritic knees and a bad hip. There is no solace in the day in and day out grind and glare of the casino or the rituals of meals taken in a coffee shop and cigarettes fished from a collapsed soft pack. Expensive suits, manicured nails and good manners don’t help either; they’re just remnants of a bygone era that tend to piss the local yokels off.

But Sydney has wisdom that he longs to share. To that end he takes a dimwitted drifter and a volatile cocktail waitress under his wings.

At first John (John C. Reilly) is weary of Sydney. He thinks the old guy might be some kind of a pervert. But true to his word Sydney just wants to show John the ropes and nothing else. And he does.

He shows him how to finagle a nights room and board on the house by playing the slots and cashing in chips in some kind of round robin manipulation that I couldn’t quite make out the intricacies of. (I’m not very good at that kind of stuff. Not much of a chess player I’m afraid.) He shows him how to win at craps and keno and, probably, (though I’m not sure that this wasn’t just John’s lone con) how to steal cable movies from the front desk.

But more than all of that, Sydney teaches John how to be a gentleman. As such John attracts the attention of Clementine, (Gwyneth Paltrow) a cocktail waitress who moonlights as a hooker and Jimmy, (Samuel L. Jackson) a small time hustler, who moonlights as a security guard.

Sydney approves of Clementine, even though he knows about her hustle, because he sees a fragile, childlike vulnerability in her, but not of Jimmy because…well…Jimmy walks, talks and smells like the rat that he is. The problem is when it comes to Jimmy, John is both nose blind and regular blind. And when it comes to Clementine, neither he nor Sydney can see the forest for the pretty face, the decent heart and the halfway good intentions.

These entanglements are the consequence of the ties that bind, exactly what Sydney has spent a lifetime avoiding. Now he desperately hangs on when every strand of his intricately coiled instinct tells him to cut loose.

And then there’s this: Sydney is a slave to decorum. Jimmy violates Sydney’s beloved master hard. He thinks Sydney’s good manners and fastidious articulation (not to mention the senior citizen thing) indicates softness. He’s wrong.

On the other hand Sydney thinks Jimmy is just a parking lot rent-a-cop with a try-hard vocabulary. He can’t see the fox for the fool’s gold bling. He’s wrong.

Jimmy is cunning. And dangerous…

And so is Syd.

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Hard Eight is a great movie. To me it is every bit as good, maybe even better than Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. These movies have a similar feel (though one is straight realism while the other is melodrama, so maybe it’s just me) and while Paul Thomas Anderson is my favorite film director, Sidney Lumet comes in a such a close second that, if not for A Stranger Among Us and the remake of Gloria, it would probably be a tie.

Here’s the deal: Hard Eight is Paul Thomas Anderson’s debut film. He made it on a shoestring budget when he was twenty-six. Conversely 2007’s Before the Devil Knows Your Dead was Sidney Lumet’s final film. He had a substantially larger budget of eighteen million dollars, but in comparison to the budgets of tepid blockbusters of the same year like Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End and Spiderman 3, it was mere chicken feed.

Lumet was eighty-three when he made Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. The wonderful Philip Seymour Hoffman starred in it. Hoffman was also featured in a memorable bit role in Hard Eight. In fact he was cast in the first five films Anderson directed.

Sidney Lumet died April 9, 2011 at the age of eighty-six. Philip Seymour Hoffman died three years later. He was forty-six.

Paul Thomas Anderson is still going strong. They tell me his latest film Phantom Thread is really great. Daniel Day Lewis (one of my all time favorite actors) plays a control freak dress designer with a very serious jones for a much younger woman.

It’s in my perpetual queue.

April 17, 2018

Fret

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/fret

I have a sense of responsibility to my hobby as a writer and more importantly to those fellow writers who indulge me as audience, and to whom I am audience as well. So while I’m taking a break from my interaction, please don’t fret. (I’m only using this word because it is part the daily post word exercise; it’s a bit dramatic for the circumstances.) Don’t worry, or wonder about me. I’m taking care of business and going to the gym again.

And just in case you are uproariously amused and appropriately chagrined by this post, please make note that I’m aware of the obvious. I will miss you much, much more than you will miss me.

I will be back. Lord willing.

April 16, 2018

Touch of Evil, a film directed by Orson Welles, 1958; Classic Film Noir

Attention film buffs and cinephiles: Do you have a film(s) that fits your criteria to a T and yet you continually pass up every opportunity to watch it? If you’re like me you do. (Currently Hell or High Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri are in my perpetual queue.)

Why do we (I) do that?

For years, Citizen Kane was that movie for me. (Yeah, I know…What can I say? I’m ashamed.) Perhaps it was because I knew that I should watch it, because I knew that any and every self respecting buff absolutely must watch it, that I just never did–until a few years ago.

Newsflash: It was great. Even revolutionary. But not as good as Touch of Evil. To me.

Yes Touch of Evil is a recognized masterpiece, recorded in The National Film Registry, Library of Congress; ranking #64 on American Film Institutes 100 Years, 100 Thrills; coming in at #26 and #57 respectively on Sight and Sound’s directors and critics Greatest Films of All Time list and the accolades go on. Any fanboy or fangirl should be pleased with this representation and I am, (not so much with the fangirl part, but it is what it is) it’s just that Citizen Kane ranks #1 on these directories.

Do I think that’s fair? Umm…Nooo.

Do I think Touch of Evil should be #1? No. I do not. But # 64 on American Film Institutes 100 Years, 100 Thrills? Come on.

Then what should be #1? I’d rather not go there.

So then, where is this going? To an unspecified town on the Mexican border actually. And yes, it’s going to get messy…And complicated. (Duh. It’s a border town. And I’m interviewing myself.)

When critics talk about Touch of Evil they always talk about the opening scene. Let me see…How can I describe it? Well that’s hard because I haven’t got a clue as to the technical side of it. Of course I could brush up on the research but I’m going to skip the analysis since a lot of famous critics and directors admit they don’t know how Orson Welles pulled it off.

If you’ve seen the opening scene to La La Land, the spectacular choreography, to me that’s what’s going on here. Choreography. But in Touch of Evil, it’s even better (and that’s saying a lot since I love the La La Land opening scene) because instead of dancers, this choreography is with moving cars, pedestrians in crosswalks, vendors and peddlers pushing carts, a passel of goats, more pedestrians and cars intertwining at intersections, going through checkpoints and all the while, one particular car is intersecting at different points with one particular couple, walking. (Yes, there is a couple in the car of question. It is not driven by ghosts.)

Except for the opening establishing shot and the ones that are immediately subsequent, all of this is filmed moving toward the camera while the camera(s) is backing away in a beautiful collage of orchestrated chaos pulsing to a percussion heavy jazz intro. It is absolutely, unequivocally spectacular.

Oh, did I mention that it is suspenseful? And on the edge of your seat thrilling?

Well it is. That’s because that one particular car that is intersecting with that one particular couple (along with all the other people, cars and the passel of goats) has a ticking time bomb in its trunk. We know this because the ticking time bomb, in unidentifiable hands, is the opening establishing shot. And the fiend–whoever it is–is seen placing it in the trunk of the car in the immediate subsequent opening shots.

So this is what the movie’s about? Well…Yes and no.

What this movie is about is Charlton Heston in all of his overacting glory. Believe me, there are plenty of Damn you…Damn you…DAMN YOU…(Planet of the Apes) moments here.

What this movie is about is Janet Leigh, pre Psycho, giving a very nuanced and spunky, spirited performance.

What this movie is about is Denis Freaking Weaver executing one of the most bizarre, jittery, over-Kilimanjaro feats of acting in all of cinematic history. And it is wonderful.

But if you want to know about plot, you are just going to have to watch the movie. I’m not going to lay it out for you—it’s far too brilliant. I can’t give it justice. (Plus it’s really complicated and I’ve already taken up too much time and space interviewing myself.)

That said, I will delve into theme. (You didn’t think I’d let you off that easy did ya?)

At it’s core, Touch of Evil is about corruption. Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) is a nefarious, aging police captain in a border town on the U.S. side. When I say aging, I’m being kind. A more accurate adjective would be decaying. He’s a mess. Obese. Obviously diabetic. Lumbering, with a cane. So riddled by booze and sugar that he cannot speak without slurring his words.

He is terminally prejudiced and dangerously criminal. Even so, as I write this, there are tears in my eyes for him. And I’m not kidding.

Quinlan has a partner, of course. His name is Pete (Joseph Calleia) and he would be a thoroughly decent man and honest cop, if not for Quinlan. Even with him he’s a nice guy.

Pete is completely devoted to Quinlan. He admires him. Reveres him even. Why?

And he’s not the only one. The police chief, the District Attorney, just about all the old guard of the town hold this ugly, contemptible man in high esteem. Are they all in cahoots with him in his corruption? Possibly. Probably. To some extent. But it’s more than that.

There is an aging prostitute, a madam in this border town. Yes, sadly, there always is at least one. But unlike Quinlan, she has retained vestiges of her charm. She is in fact, still, exotically beautiful–and mysterious. Her name is Tanya. (She is portrayed by the great and legendary Marlene Dietrich.)

Quinlan wanders into her brothel in a perpetual stupor and when he sees her, when he recognizes her, his disease ravaged face is transfixed and just barely, but still, it is transformed…With kindness. With awe…With, even, love.

Later when Tanya is questioned about what she thinks of Quinlan, she talks about who he was before he completely disappeared into a fog of vile, “He was some kind of man. What does it matter what you say about people?”

This revelation is stunning as it hints at what has been lost not only in the character of Quinlan, but in Orson Welles himself. At the time Welles was suffering from chronic alcoholism, binge eating, drug dependency and numerous infidelities. For his old and much respected friend Marlene Dietrich to deliver these lines with such matter of fact poignancy is fitting and exploitatively sublime…Exactly the way Welles intended it to be.

April 12, 2018

Manhattan Beach, a novel by Jennifer Egan, 2017, Scribner; Historical Fiction

It takes a certain discipline to read literature. There is no standard template, no conspicuous signposts to reassure along the way. The unraveling is sporadic, often leisurely and that tends to frustrate the mere genre fiction reader; yes, even those of us who like our airplane reads robustly seasoned with character development, metaphor and symbolism. When we get a hold of the “real thing” we know it, if only because we are tempted to abandon it to a prominent position on our book shelves prematurely. One hundred pages in and we are growing increasingly restless for something…anything to happen…

This is so often the way it is with literary fiction and those of us who want to like it, but so often don’t. Like with fine dining, we are compelled to savor when we really just want to dig in. Jennifer Egan’s historical novel, Manhattan Beach, provides a rich return for the investment of time and patience. Trust me. This one’s worth it. Here is that rare novel that nourishes our intellect and satiates our nagging appetite for something more. Oh yeah, the entertaining part? It is…if given the chance.

Anna Kerrigan has always been a daddy’s girl. She’s a lot like him: introverted, lithe in body and mind, pleasing to look at but not beautiful, occupying her skin and space contentedly. Precisely because of this and, more importantly, because she whispers to his conscience so affectingly that sometimes he even listens, she accompanies her father on journeys to the waterfront where he works as a bagman for a mid-level hood who is also a childhood friend. (Plus she’s flat out cute and the gangsters like her. It’s less likely that there will be any shenanigans while she is present.)

Eddie Kerrigan should do better– he could parlay his underworld connections into a real longshoreman’s job– if not for Anna and his wife, for his severely disabled daughter Lydia who needs expensive, specialized care. But dirt under the fingernails doesn’t appeal to Eddie (he had been a successful stockbroker) so he pines for something more befitting his pedigree. It doesn’t help that it is 1930s New York and the entire country, if not the world, is in the throes of the stock market crash.

Then one day Eddie takes twelve-year-old Anna on an unusual journey to an opulent home on the beach, ostensibly to play with a business associate’s children and actually, of course, to charm the associate, Dexter Styles, who is really a high powered racketeer. True to form Anna comes through on both fronts, especially excelling with the well-healed, handsome gangster when she shucks off her shoes and wades out into the ocean. It is cold. She is brave. And precocious. Styles is impressed. He has an affinity for intelligent women outside the confines of his bed. He wishes his own daughter was more like Anna.

In the car after the meeting with Styles, Eddie intimates that everything went swimmingly but Anna’s not so sure. She had observed Styles and her father from a distance and there was something about the former’s body language that didn’t set well with her. Sometime later her beloved father abruptly disappears.

Manhattan Beach has been roundly praised and lauded as exquisite, cinematic and viscerally stunning. It has been occasionally criticized, too, as conflated, compartmentalized and overwrought. I found it to be all those things at varying times and degrees with the good far outweighing the paradoxically overburdened.

Perhaps Egan’s follow up to the Pulitzer Prize winning A Visit from the Goon Squad would have benefited from more clearly defined genre-like boundaries. I float that out there as a mere possibility in response to some critics musings. Personally I think not. Anna’s character is simpatico with the novel’s nonconformist spirit and vice versa. And though Eddie Kerrigan and Dexter Styles are interesting, well represented characters, Manhattan Beach is all about Anna.

The novel leaps ahead some six years with America on the verge of entering World War II. Anna is now the dutiful head of household and sole provider for her mother and disadvantaged sister. But Anna is more than just dutiful, she is decent and she deeply loves Lydia.

Anna is also as adventurous as she in industrious. Like so many other intrepid protagonist, almost all of them male, she is drawn to the sea. In a wily, almost impossible for its time feat if not for the looming war, she finagles a job as a deep sea diver and repairer of ship hulls. This is where Egan’s prose, so skillful and elegant, becomes poetry mingled with science.

At last her shoes met the bottom of Wallabout Bay. Anna couldn’t see it: just the wisps of her legs disappearing into dark. She felt a rush of well-being whose source was not instantly clear. Then she realized: the pain of the dress had vanished. The air pressure from within it was just enough to balance the pressure from outside while maintaining negative buoyancy–i.e., holding her down. And the weight that had been so punishing on land now allowed her to stand and walk under thirty feet of water that otherwise would have spat her out like a seed.

Though Anna is strong, shrewd and capable, destiny will have its way with her inevitably. It intrudes upon her in the form of Dexter Styles. They meet again in one of his nightclubs and even though she believes that he is in someway responsible for her father’s disappearance she is drawn to him. They plunge into a sexual tryst that it is dangerous for all the obvious reasons (yes, he is married) and then some.

Longing for something more than what they have been allowed, or what they have allowed themselves, binds Anna, Eddie and Dexter Styles together as does the sea. When Anna surveys it she sees an eternal expanse of gorgeous possibility. Eddie, on the other hand, takes solace in its tranquil, hypnotic effect and Dexter Styles is overwhelmed by its powerful mystery that evokes in him a sense of purpose and duty. This linkage bridges the “compartments” of noir, adventure, romance and history into a cohesive if not seamless narrative that, like the sea, is sometimes serene, sometimes tempestuous and always compelling.

But above all Manhattan Beach anchors itself in the father daughter dynamic. With this bond as catalyst, Jennifer Egan explores loyalty, sensuality, the aptitude of trait and the feasibility of redemption with uncommon pathos ensnared in hope.

April 9, 2018

Panic, a film directed by Henry Bromell, 2000; Crime Drama/Comedy, Independent

Back in the early days of the millennium when everybody was in love with quirk, Panic was the indie darling that all the critics were hot and bothered about. Since I consider myself a reasonably discerning moviegoer, I attempted to give it a go.

I had to bail out. I didn’t get it.

The other night I was searching for something to watch and there it was. I was in the mood for a comedy and it was billed as such. So I gave it another try. This time I made it through the whole film…

I still didn’t get it. And that bothers me. I pride myself on getting it. (Hey I got The Killing of a Sacred Deer so…)

By and large, late director Henry Bromell’s (award winning writer of Showtime’s Homeland) film, plays more like an off kilter family drama. Seriously, I would consider The Texas Chainsaw Massacre more of a comedy, but that’s just me.

In Panic head of household Alex (William H. Macy) is in a perpetual funk. His marriage has lost its spark. He has zero job satisfaction and, though he’s in his mid forties, he’s still under his parents thumb. That’s because he works for the family business and his dad (Donald Sutherland, playing the smart aleck as usual) is a genuine control freak. Plus the family business is kind of a mom & pop (and son) Murder, Inc. That’s right, they’re hitmen. (Not Alex’s mom. She’s dad’s support system, but she knows everything.)

There is one sunny exception to Alex’s emotionally spartan life: his son Sammy (David Dorfman). Sammy is a cute, precocious five to six-year-old. If this sounds a bit ho-hum, seen-it-about-a-hundred-times already, wait up a second…

In Panic David Dorfman gives one of the top ten, all time great, cinematic kid performances. I was awed and delighted by his interpretation, his quizzical expressions and, above all, his timing. The scenes where he and Alex lie in bed discussing the issues of the day, some quite philosophical, but always through the filter of innocence are life affirming and offer a simultaneous lifeline to Alex’s character and to the movie. Just about every parent will recognize the way Sammy touches Alex’s face when he asks him, “Dad are you alright? You look like there’s a lot on your mind.” It’s pure. And yes, it’s funny.

Alex seeks more joy. To that end he consults a psychotherapist (John Ritter). There’s just one problem. Alex’s dad finds out. He doesn’t like the idea of Alex giving up family business secrets to anyone. All things considered, I get his point. He’s still an asshole though. The part where he berates Sammy over spilled glue hammers this home.

Then one day Alex gets a manila folder with–dun dun dun– his psychotherapist’s picture in it. Therein lies the conflict.

Later, after Alex has stalled out on the hit, (he doesn’t want to do it) his dad takes Sammy on a squirrel shooting outing. This is the preliminary stages of hitman training. Alex is mortified. And so are we. Therein lies the heart of the conflict.

As I’ve intimated–even put it in the title–Panic is considered a comedy. That’s the thing I don’t get.

Now far be it from me to come across as a know it all…(pause for snickering)… but I understand the ins and outs of black comedy and I presume you do too, so I won’t explain…(pause for relief)…Panic just doesn’t come across as one to me. Yes the aim is to derive humor from the dire circumstances and family dynamic e.g., a condescending patriarchal grandpa, a depressed family man with a very unusual side job, and prim and trim matriarch with a heart of coal (they’re just like us, or people we know, except for the hitman part) but here, at it’s very core, it falls short.

If it was only just about acting, dialogue and cinematography–the opening scene, a homage to noir, with emphasis on geometrical design and forced perspective, is brilliant–Panic would be a sparkling little gem. As a comedy, black or otherwise, it comes across a little lackluster. But then again comedy is the most subjective of all genres. And admittedly with Bromell’s highly acclaimed indie I just don’t get it.

Neve Campbell as Sarah Cassidy, Alex’s love interest (Yeah, I know, I didn’t mention her. She’s solid but I found her character unnecessary.)
Tracey Ullman as Martha, Alex’s wife (She’s really good here; very natural.)
Barbara Bain as Deidre, Alex’s mother (Besides David Dorfman, hers is the best performance.)
Miguel Sandoval as Detective Larson (He’s always good; plus I find him very attractive. Just sayin’.)

April 2, 2018

Get Carter, a film directed by Mike Hodges, 1971; British; Mystery

Whew! Get Carter–director Mike Hodges’ cinematic film debut and undisputed king of the British gangster movie–is complicated. That’s just one of the many things I love about it.

It’s a righteous flick. It checks out.

Intricate plot twists, lots of dialogue and low volume sequences where you have to listen ever so carefully, or at least rewind it five or six times? √

Realistic action scenes with memorable but not over the top violence? √

A handsome gangster with narrow eyes and a razors edge streak of good? √√ & √

See what I mean? Righteous.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. The complicated plot.

Early in the film we see Michael Caine as lead character Jack Carter. He’s on a train bound from London to his hometown of Newcastle. Carter’s mob boss has warned him not to ruffle any feathers over his brother Frank’s untimely death. Stay in London where you belong, he’s been told. It was an accident. But Jack doesn’t believe it. Frank wasn’t the careless type. And besides that, he was a good bloke. Relatively straight, all things considered. Not like Carter at all.

On the train, Carter attempts to read the Raymond Chandler novel Farewell My Lovely. This detail is both amusing and key. Amusing because as time lapses on the train, Carter remains only ten or so pages into the book. (Obviously it’s too highbrow and complicated for him.) Key because the plot lines of Chandler’s novel traverse a similar twisting and turning trek as Carter’s journey, although you don’t have to be familiar with the book to understand the movie (but it doesn’t hurt.)

What is relative here is that we understand that Get Carter is your standard–though amazingly crafted–detective/mystery movie, albeit with a glaring twist: Carter, a London mob hit man, is the detective investigating the murder.

The are other classic plot devices too, such as the fish out of water mechanism. Like a lot of suit wearing criminals, Carter thinks of himself as a cosmopolitan rouge. He looks down his nose at his hometown and thinks that he’s better than the blue collar gangsters he’s forced to rub shoulders with. Case in point: upon ordering a beer, he demands that it be served to him in a thin glass. Makes a big show of it. This attitude hardly wins him any friends and the one young man who might be counted on as loyal, he readily and royally screws over.

Such ruthlessness is a reoccurring theme in Get Carter. Carter screws just about everybody over.

He does have a soft spot for his deceased brother, though. The scene where he carefully unscrews the lid of Frank’s coffin so that he can view his body is touching and unexpectedly tender.

Anyway, back to Farewell My Lovely. In it the plot involves a politically connected physician who is also a drug dealer. In Get Carter the plot hinges upon a vending machine supplier and the commodity in question is pornography. Keep in mind that pornography was illegal in the UK during the seventies and the laws regulating it are still much stricter than similar laws in the US.

The movie opens with Carter and his London mob associates sitting around a projector in a posh high-rise watching what was called a stag film back in the day. The mob boss runs his hand lasciviously up the thigh of young blonde woman who exchanges uncomfortable glances with Carter. This is where Carter is warned not to get involved with the Newcastle mob. The sound of rustling wind blowing through the hollows is present. It is an ominous, lonely sound. Where does it come from? The high-rise is as tight as a drum.

Later, in his hometown, Carter is in bed with the Newcastle mob boss’ woman. That’s just one of his peccadilloes–he doesn’t know his place and won’t take orders. He respects no boundaries. Predictably, Carter insults the woman and she storms off to the bathroom. There is a film projector on the nightstand. Carter lights a cigarette and turns on the projector. The film begins to roll. Once again there is the sound of wind blowing, seemingly, from nowhere.

This is just one of Mike Hodges’ many subtle, sophisticated flourishes that makes the intensely dark subject matter more palliative. And that’s a good thing considering nihilisms tendency to make short shrift of its welcome and the almost two hour duration of the film.

On the surface it is tempting to over romanticize Hodges’ cinematic directorial debut when, in fact, he was a well known veteran of British television where he wrote, directed and produced two gritty, celebrated small screen thrillers, 1969’s Suspect and 1970’s Rumour. It was the success of those TV movies and his reputation for making arresting documentaries that earned him the right to write and direct Get Carter; that and the fact that the European branch of MGM was closing up shop and the studio heads wanted to shoot Get Carter on the cheap. Most of the funds went to Michael Caine who had only recently become a bona fide star. So MGM rolled the dice with Hodges’, but he was no gonzo breakout director like Queintin Tarantino was with Reservoir Dogs.

Get Carter is a terrific movie, but it’s not perfect. As I have made clear before, the 70s are my favorite cinematic time period. There are, however, excesses of the period that diminish the power of the art form. The overemphasis of on screen sexuality is one of those excesses that bloats Hodges’ otherwise lean and mean machine. There’s just too much screen time dedicated to Carter gettin’ busy. I’ve heard it said that the phone sex scene where Carter titillates his fiance and his slutty land lady simultaneously is revolutionary. To me it’s an unnecessary ploy to cram as much sex into a mainstream film as possible. But hey, it was the 70s. Endurance was key.

All things considered, Get Carter is a must-see for gangster movie aficionados in particular and anyone else who enjoys a sound, well built movie. If that doesn’t do it for you, watch it for Michael Caine’s performance. It’s wicked.

March 26, 2018

Galveston, a novel by Nic Pizzolatto; Scribner, 2010; Noir

A long time ago, back in the 40s and the 50s, Jim Thompson eked out a living writing about psychopathic sheriffs, hit men, treacherous women and…more hit men. It was heady stuff.

You ever see the movie The Grifters? (If you haven’t you should. Great movie.) It’s adapted from the Jim Thompson novel of the same title. The Getaway? That’s Jim Thompson too. The Killer Inside Me? (Umm…I wouldn’t go there.) Yep. Jim Thompson.

Now I’m not claiming that Thompson created the genre–the origins of the phrase is cinematic–that was probably James M. Cain with his 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. Then there’s Edward Anderson’s stunning novel Thieves Like Us (my personal favorite) published in 1937. Raw and beautiful it’s better than anything Thompson ever wrote.

But, I digress. Thompson was good. Very good. These days, he is probably the best known original gangsta noir writer. You have to have the stomach for him though. He’s brutal. Nihilistic. Sexist.

Nic Pzzolatto writes a lot like him. And a little like Anderson.

Roy Cady is a collector and a sometimes hit man for a mid level Dixie Mafia crew in New Orleans. Recently diagnosed with terminal cancer things get even worse when he runs afoul of the crew by sleeping with his boss’ woman. The fact that she was Roy’s girlfriend first is of no consequence. Roy is small time, as expendable as a paper cup.

But Roy’s not exactly stupid either. And even though he considers his options, he’s not ready to cash in just yet. So when his boss tells him not to bring a gun to a collection–it’s just a little rough up job, if there’s no gun that’s the way it’ll stay–Roy disobeys. That turns out to be a good thing since it’s a set up. (Yeah, duh, but the boss underestimates. Criminals do that. For real.)

Predictably Roy escapes from the hit, but not without baggage. His baggage is filled with about three grand, some ammunition and some incriminating papers on his boss. Oh, and there’s a girl too–a prostitute, naturally, that was supposed to go down with Roy in the hit. Her name is Rocky. Rocky has a four-year-old sister, Tiffany, who comes along too. Where’re they goin’? Galveston, of course.

In Galveston (that’s a Texas gulf port, for those unacquainted) Roy, Rocky and Tiffany take up residence at a rundown motel, called The Emerald Shores, on the grungy, non-touristy side of town. Still it’s in walking distance of the beach, so there’s that.

Have you ever wondered about these places? About who stays in them? Well, Pizzolotto clues us in.

Let’s see…there’s Nancy, the manger of the place, an older sun cured, hard-ass with a soft spot for Tiffany. There are two elderly sisters, devout Catholics who are touring around the country and have stopped off at The Emerald Shores indefinitely. (Yeah, I know…but they’re on a fixed income so that makes sense–kind of.) There’s a transient family who’s schlubby head of household guzzles beer, starves his children and beats his woebegone wife. And then there’s the junkie burglar Tray, a younger, scrawnier version of Roy minus the Dixie Mafia who has eyes for Rocky–and Roy.

This is all pretty standard stuff. Pizzalotto keeps it straight in the genre’s lane. It’s well written enough. The plot makes sense. It’s fast paced and intense…But is it special?

Dennis Lehane–one of my favorite authors–writes of Galveston, “It’s filled with so much drop-dead-gorgeous writing that I felt authentic envy while reading it.” Umm…I wouldn’t go that far, at least not for the first one hundred fifty pages. (Keep in mind there’s only about another hundred to go.)

Then around page one fifty-five or so Pizzalotto writes this: A runaway. She wouldn’t be doing this long, between the pimps and psychos and cops. I pulled out my flask and took a hit, passed it to her. We watched the men moving around the pumps and the occasional woman step down from one of the parked rigs. A lot of times they run off and don’t understand where they are. Then they run back home, if they can. But it’s too late.

This is where it gets good. Where it gets Jim Thompson.

You see that’s the thing about noir fiction. It’s hardcore. It’s the underbelly, the stuff that the butcher lets fall on the floor. The stuff they make hot dogs out of.

Some of us just have a taste for it. That’s all.

It’s different with film noir. The extreme camera angles, the low lighting, the way the rain reflects off the street. A woman’s silhouette. The extended scratch and hiss of a match strike–it’s beautiful. It’s art. Noir adapts to cinema well. People like it.

Anyway, about forty pages later Pizzalotto writes: I felt a mutual recognition. Like he knew something about the big empty fields, the one-room apartments, coffee made on a hot plate, the voice that calls lights out. And for my part I was the only one who understood the terror of where he found himself at the end of everything, in that alley with me.

This is where it gets special. Where I began to care. And where Pizzalotto earns Lehane’s praise–almost.

It’s a rare thing in noir fiction for an author to scratch the surface of sentiment and stay legit. That’s why I admire Edward Anderson so much, his Thieves Like Us satisfied my proclivity and made me cry.

Let me make myself clear–Nic Pizzalotto is no Edward Anderson. He’s no James M. Cain or Dorthy B. Hughes either. He is a good writer. He wrote the screenplay for True Detective season one single handedly. It’s a masterpiece.

He also wrote season two. (Oh well, stuff happens.)

Galveston the movie–screenplay written by Nic Pizzalotto–has received mixed reviews at Austin’s storied SXSW Film Festival. I’ll wait for it to show up on Netflix.

I’m lookin’ forward to it.

March 24, 2018

In Youth Alone…a Long Time Ago

Young people of today…I was once like you, in youth alone, a long time ago. I lived in the moment. I caroused in the day when my mother thought I was in school. I caroused in the night when my mother thought I was at the movies…or bowling…or playing putt putt.

Young people of today…I was never like you. It never crossed my mind that someone might bring a gun to school and shoot up the place. A knife? Maybe. A gun? Never. Incomprehensible.

Young people of today…I was never like you. I never had your courage. I was spoiled. I complained a lot…about how lame school was…about how bogus the weed was…that I didn’t have enough designer jeans.

Young people of today…I was never like you. I singled out people who weren’t like me. I harassed gay people because I thought it was fun. I wasn’t kind.

Young people of today…I am proud of you. My daughters are you. I am glad, relieved, that–if the Lord is willing–you are our future. Given the chance, I believe you will make things better.

Young people of today…I ask of you one thing: “Remember your Lord God in the days of your youth.”

Young people of today…think of these days and the changes you made. VOTE.

March 17, 2018