Reviews

No one to like or root for--the main character is palpably, greasily unlikeable. So's the guy he's pulling a stunt on. The female is without any sex appeal whatsoever, in spite of over-applied over-red lipstick and flowing blonde hair--plus she's cheating on her poor slob of a husband. There's an irrelevant boor who swills down all the sherry and makes drunken comments.

The "perfect murder"--which of course isn't perfect at all by the end of the film, but we knew that already--is a perfect bore. People sit around getting drunk and insulting each other and then having Moments, where everyone is silent and then drinks some more.

And THEN! the bad guy brags the whole plot away, except he forgot one thing that exposes him at the end. He also manages to bludgeon someone at least six times without getting any blood anywhere.

The musical score is aggressive, leaden, and overpowers the flimsy story. Like the director, it seems narcissistic and self-referential, i.e.,"look what I composed!"

Don't bother with this movie unless you have some sort of crush on the director.

This movie clomps through some dated sixties tropes: that women need to use their sex appeal as much as their intelligence; that seducing a man is merely a technique; and that, in the end, women are slaves to their feminine feelings.

Both actors are miscast--McQueen because he's anything but suave and debonair (there's only one Cary Grant), because he's unattractive in closeup, showing tobacco-engraved wrinkles and sun damage (there's only one Cary Grant!), and because he plays only one character, that of the smirking bad boy. You don't rise in the Boston Brahmin banking echelon and maintain that persona. His performance started skidding with his faked hysterical laughter and never regained traction.

Faye Dunaway delivers her lines with the skill and conviction of a Jackie Gleason chorus girl, swings her miniskirted hips and fondles herself with sixties-era "nude" fingernail polish, but she's out of her depth. Her hairdos recall Princess Leia's cinnamon buns in surreal bulk. It's worth remembering that, like Cybill Shepherd, she was a fashion model to start with, and can't stop composing her flawless features into camera-ready freezes.

The plot is sketchy, the motivation unclear, the supporting characters, particularly the heist men, left unexplored with the exception of Jack Weston's sweaty Erwin. Even Crown's motivation is barely hinted at. You don't care that Vicki loses her man in the end, and I actually wished for Crown to get his comeuppance--then, at least, McQueen's bad-boy insouciance would have something to work itself on.

Gimmicks like split-screen, slow dissolves, and the psychedelic colors (the costuming is particularly hideous, putting Dunaway in stale-coffee shades of beige and black, and minor characters in the ugliest of lime, orange, and pink) don't annoy as much when viewed as artifacts of a particularly dismal time in fashion and film--they arouse a more indulgent compassion, like what we experience looking at old high-school pictures of heaped-high hairdos, narrow short trouser legs, and garish makeup.

Huston must have been Technicolor-blinded: the film is awash in garish hues, about the only thing to recommend it. Seen the dancing girls once, you've seen them jump and yelp six or seven times. Dull script (well, Huston didn't have Dashiell Hammett as his foundation), with a flashback sequence that seems slightly ridiculous, with José Ferrer playing Lautrec AND Lautrec's father (see the virtuosity!), leaden pacing, not a single clever line. Lautrec comes across as a bearded brat, pettish and spoiled. The flash-cut sequences showing Lautrec's paintings are jumpy and amateurish and poorly timed--it's hard to believe this is the creator of The Maltese Falcon, Beat The Devil, and Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Painter loses girl, painter loses girl, painter loses girl. Nobody loves him or appreciates him, then he dies. Zsa Zsa Gabor lip-synchs bad songs badly and offers nothing as an actress except a reminder that the era required several Marilyn Monroe facsimiles. I had a difficult time staying awake, and by the time Lautrec finally closed his eyes I had long since done so myself.

I was prepared for a turgid talky soap opera cum travelogue, but was pleased to find a fast-paced script, an underlying moral, excellent portrayals from all the actors, especially Peter Finch, amazing special effects, suspense, and beautiful cinematography--there's even a shot of the majestic stone Buddhas recently destroyed by the Taliban. Not to mention Elizabeth Taylor at her most gloriously beautiful and sympathetic, before she gave in to the gaspy hysterics that marred her later work. All the supporting players round it out, and I do wonder who trained all those elephants.

Speaking of the stone-Buddha sequence, you really can discern that it's Vivien Leigh in the long shots. Her shape and the way she moves is distinct from Taylor's. The only thing marring that sequence are the poorly done process shots, where the background moves by much too fast for horses at a walk.

If you want a thought-provoking film that is beautiful to watch and never boring, spend a few hours with Elephant Walk.

The line that's repeated over and over again is, "You're not going to bring that up again, are you?" Oh yes they are. Leaden, turgid, tedious beyond belief, utterly lacking in any leavening humor--even sarcasm would be a relief--the four main actors put a dull stage play on film. Lumet cuts in for a few closeups--but the faces have nothing to say at any angle. Richardson blusters, Stockwell whines, Robards brays, Hepburn frets. But they're all well fed and well liquored up--even Mommy gets her morphine fix--for all their complaints of life's cruelty. O'Neill has a set-piece speech for every character--this is basically O'Neill himself in four bodies. There's no one to care about, no one to root for, no one to identify with. Suck it up, Jamie, and go to the sanitarium. Edmund: get a JOB. Richardson, stop being such a bore about the old days. One could muster up some sympathy for Hepburn if she weren't so annoyingly helpless, always either smiling through or dissolving into tears.

Don't waste any time on this unless you're required to. O'Neill deserves nothing better than to be tossed on the scrap heap of irrelevancy. This play has nothing to offer modern audiences except an idea of what a previous generation thought was "serious" theatre.

The only things worth watching are early in the film, the girl running down the highway and the implied torture sequence, which, for the 50s, is pretty grisly and very effective. After that, it's all crap, particularly the unbelievable ending. I will give props to Aldrich for giving roles to African-American characters that aren't those of maids or janitors. Strong performances turned in by the boxing promoter and club owner in roles that were usually color-barred to them.

Watch the trailer included with the DVD--the film was promoted as sex and beat-em-ups. Girls to paw and push around and guys to punch. Nothing more. So let's not get all classic-film-noir-cum-political-statement here, shall we?

I don't know who W. J. Abbott is, but he certainly has a way with weird dialogue. It's worth watching just for the wonderment of that.

"Sir, you have an air of enquiry about you that immediately offends my deepest nature."

"Don't be polite to him," says Professor Leonide (Lugosi), indicating his dwarf. "He hates it."

"Don't forget, Mr Lee: one must not expect too much from certain types of mentality. --Shut up, Bull Raymond! I remember when you couldn't even make your X!"

"Poor Lily Beth. I kinda hinted that all I needed was a murdered body, but I didn't think she'd take it personal."

Lee (shoves cop): "Wake up!" Raymond (groggy): "I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate or degrade--heh, heh. My unconscious mind."

"To think this wilted flower was once even as you and I."

Strange, baroque script. Who does it remind me of? The Coen Brothers.

And that's to see a squalling, moaning, weeping, whining Nicholas Cage get BURNED ALIVE. You have to sit through the entire awful movie to get your money's worth.

I can think of only two Cage performances that were solid: Raising Arizona and Moonstruck. Forget that Las Vegas Hangover movie he won an Oscar for (or did he?).

In both Raising Arizona and Moonstruck he was satirizing an earnest man, a gentle parody of Gary Cooperish manliness. When he tries for earnest, he flops every time. He plays either sickly sentimental (Family Man) in trouble or slick sophisticate in trouble (Snake Eyes), and neither well.

It only gets a 2 because of the fight sequence, although it borrows heavily from Scorsese's Raging Bull, and the corpse-discovery sequence.

Otherwise, it's leaden, stagey, badly acted, dunked in sepia tint (authenticity, see?), convoluted, unintentionally comic, and a complete bore. No thrills, no tension, no emotion, draped in a cloying horn-heavy pseudo-noir Isham score. The co-villain looks like a refugee from Who Killed Roger Rabbit?

Someone should tell actresses who want to play forties glamour gals to GAIN 15 POUNDS. Not even Lauren Bacall had the scrawny shoulders and bony breastplates of Johansson and Swank. Swank fills out her lace gowns like a barber pole, and Johansson is a study in cosmetics and couture, nothing more. Her lips look like advertisements for collagen injections, distracting giblets that distort her facial proportions.

A chubby, smirking k.d. lang as a tuxedoed crooner in an unlikely lesbian bar evokes not Marlene Dietrich, but Spanky MacFarland. She looks creamily pleased with herself, up to her puffy cheeks in writhing female bodies, but it's embarrassing to watch.

Fiona Shaw is horribly watchable, and provides the only comic relief. I checked out of the movie several times to go over who did what to who and why--others went for popcorn or restroom breaks.

All in all, just a De Palma stroke job. There are so many "director's touches" they should have little fluttering tags on them like Minnie Pearl's trademark hat.

Don't waste your money.