Disc Reviews

Fritz Lang is an iconic Hollywood director who was successful in the silent era and was able to transition and be successful into the “talkie” era. His work in Germany is what he is most known for, Metropolis (1927) and M (1931) but in 1934 he fled Nazi Germany, even after being offered to be the head of the German Cinema Institute and came to America where he signed a contract with MGM studios where his career flourished despite having a reputation for being difficult to work with. He’s a director that if you go to film school you will learn about, and you’ll either appreciate his films or find yourself falling asleep during them.  Despite my appreciation for M and Metropolis, I have to admit I really never explored the filmmaker’s work beyond those films, so when the chance came to check out Human Desire, I was curious to see how it was.

Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) is a Korean War vet who returns home, and the first thing he wants to do is get back to work as a railroad engineer. As he’s getting used to life back home, he’s living with his fellow engineer Alec Simmons (Edgar Buchanan) and his family. Immediately he is reunited with Alec’s daughter, Vera (Diane DeLaire) who apparently has always been infatuated with Jeff, though he always viewed her as a younger sibling … now that he’s back from the war, Vera seems more grown up as well as being more forward with her intentions, but Jeff seems to have other plans. Then there is Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford) who works for the railroad and has a hotheaded temper; this temper of his gets him fired. This brings us to Vicki Buckley (Gloria Grahme), the young and beautiful wife of Carl who may be her husband’s only chance of salvaging his job. Though to get her husband’s job back it means talking to an old family friend, and despite himself, Carl can’t help but get jealous of what his wife may or may not be up to, and his temper once again gets the best of him, and this time it leads to murder on a train.

Here is an interesting tidbit of information I uncovered while researching this film. When the film was initially released it was criticized for the lack of accomplished celebrities in its cast. This carries some serious irony given that the film features the likes of Willem Dafoe, William Petersen, John Pankow, Jane Leeves, and John Turturro, all of whom have gone on to become accomplished actors in their own right. All it took was time. Despite not being considered well known at the time, this was still a movie with great portrayals and snappy quips that made me laugh. In fact, the only thing to rival its story is the real-world implications it had afterwards, which we will get into in a bit. Petersen leads the film as Richard Chance, a Secret Service agent with a reputation for reckless, impulsive behavior, and, unbeknownst to his superiors in the Service, also corrupt. Petersen has his sights set on Dafoe’s Eric "Rick" Masters, a ruthless and skilled counterfeiter in Los Angeles. Though Petersen and Dafoe are the big draws for the film, the film is predominantly told from the perspective of Pankow’s Secret Service Agent John Vukovich, Chance’s partner who acts as the ying to Petersen’s yang. While Chance is corrupt, Vukovich is a by-the-book agent who chafes at the ideal of bending the rules. The dynamic reminds of me the relationship portrayed in Training Day between Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawkes’ characters. I’d go so far as to suggest that this film may have influenced or at least paved the way for that film.

“Make it real.” That was the instruction that director William Friedkin gave to the actors, and I have to say his will was done in everything from the car chase to the sex scenes. For example, Petersen did a lot of his own driving during the car chase sequence, and actor John Pankow's stressed-out reactions were real. Authenticity was clearly the core intent for this film, and it worked. I was leaning in and wrapped up in the action. Additionally, the car chase sequence, in which the final escape by going the wrong way on the freeway, went on to gain quite a bit of prestige. According to my research, that sequence is consistently ranked among the best car chase sequences on film, often appearing alongside The French Connection (another Friedkin directed film), The Seven-Ups, The Blues Brothers, Ronin, and Bullitt.

Safe-cracker John "Duke" Anderson finds himself a relic of different time as he unwittingly enters a world of pervasive surveillance (cameras, bugs, and tracking devices) and attempts his latest caper. Based on the book of the same name, Sean Connery plays Anderson, a recently released convict who is no sooner out of prison than he is already planning his next job: burgling an upper-class apartment building in Manhattan in a single sweep. Now, I am a sucker for a heist movie. Give Ocean’s, give me Inside Man, give me Heat. Catch me in the right mood and I’ll even take Now You See Me or The Italian Job. Bearing that in mind, this film held some intrigue for me, as it featured a character using old-school methods in what was starting to become a digital age. I was curious to see if his old-school methods could overcome the technological advances. However, I will say that in order to be capable of beating the surveillance, you first need to know about it. Fun fact: The Anderson Tapes was the first major motion picture for Christopher Walken, as well as the last on-screen film appearance by Margaret Hamilton.

Connery is obviously the film’s biggest draw, and his character, Duke Anderson, is likeable to a certain extent. He’s charming and clearly capable of masterminding a heist. At times, particularly during the planning stage, the film reminds me of the opening sequences of a Parker novel. This comparison is most notable when Anderson goes in search of financing to bankroll his heist endeavor and putting his crew together. The side deal he makes with his financier also carries a measure of intrigue, because up until this point, I merely thought of the character and the job as a nonviolent endeavor, and yet in this moment, violence became a factor. This ups the stakes, you could say.

Anna May Wong might be one of Hollywood's biggest stars that most film fans have never heard of. Thanks to KL Studio Classics, you now have the opportunity to get to know the actress a little better and sample three of her films. For those of you who take the time to add this to your collection, you won't be disappointed. She's not the kind of name who appears in many conversations these days, but she left behind a body of work that is more impressive than many of the golden era names you do know. Her real name was Wong Liu Tsong, and she appeared in about 50 films from 1920 in the Silent Era until about 1950 when she made her way to television screens for another 16 years, appearing in such hit shows as Mike Hammer with Darren McGavin and I Spy with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. In the Silent Era she was frustrated that she had been typecast in the typical, often stereotypical roles of Asian women and left Hollywood for Europe where she continued to be disappointed. Throughout her career she went back and forth between Europe and America and even toured China for several years. While she fought to get prominent parts, she was often thwarted by her heritage and ended up in mostly budget films throughout her career. But these budget films have found their way back to the surface, and you get to catch three of them here.

"Nobody disobeys me. My word is law. I am king of this river. They are all savages, but they are like little children, and I know how to handle them. I will say, 'I am your king so back to the jungle. Let peace return to the river.'"

"Hello. My name is Robert Montague Renfield. And just like these decent folks, I'm in a destructive relationship. When I met him, I was a real estate lawyer hoping to make a deal that would change my life and my family's lives forever. Oh, and it certainly did."

After nearly 90 years, the Universal horror cycle stands as one of the most enduring collection of horror movies today. Their influence on modern horror is unmistakable. There have been literally thousands of incarnations of Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein's Monster, but the first image that comes to your mind will always be the nightmare creations of those Universal films. Studio head Carl Laemmle, Jr. was trying to break away from his father's control and create a studio culture of his own. The results would start in 1931 when an unknown Hungarian actor named Bela Lugosi jumped from the stage to the screen in Dracula, directed by Tod Browning. Laemmle's niece, Carla Laemmle, is the girl in the coach headed for Borgo Pass as the film opens to the musical strains from Swan Lake. She is reading a travel brochure about vampires and thus speaks the very first lines ever spoken in a horror film in the era of sound. Lugosi was mesmerizing, and the film was a hit. There was a depression on, but that didn't stop crowds from lining up around theater blocks to be hypnotized by Lugosi's Dracula. The cycle of horror films that followed literally saved the studio from bankruptcy by the time it had all come to an end, and the horror baton was passed along to England's House of Hammer. Since then Universal hasn't really known exactly what to do with these prize IP's.