GOTTA SEE IT # 8 - "THE GRISSOM GANG"

“THE GRISSOM GANG”

Starring: Kim Darby, Scott Wilson, Tony Musante, Robert Lansing, Connie Stevens, Irene Dailey, Wesley Addy, Joey Faye, Michael Baseleon, Ralph Waite.
Written by: James Hadley Chase (novel), Leon Griffiths.
Directed by: Robert Aldrich
Colour – 1971
128 mins.
U.S.A.

Class. Everyone has it. That is they belong to a class - low, middle, high. At least, these labels are slapped, sometimes carelessly, on those with or without money or those with questionable or unquestionable morals. You can actually belong to two classes at the same time - high (money) and low (morals). Many of our most famous/wealthy people achieve this contradictory, dual distinction with apparent ease. Okay, I’m a bit off topic. What I’m trying to say is that in, “The Grissom Gang”, the class divide is bridged and then, softly, annihilated.

Set in the 1930's, Kim Darby (The Strawberry Statement) plays Barbara Blandish, an heiress who is kidnapped and held for ransom by backwoods Ma Grissom (Irene Dailey) and her family/gang of very nasty and very sweaty boys. Her plan is to get the ransom and then kill the girl to avoid getting caught. There’s only one problem - her son, Slim (Scott Wilson), has a big ole crush on the captive rich girl.

“The Grissom Gang” is at once dark and kooky - at once compelling and just plain loopy. Yet, at its’ centre is a remarkable back and forth between Scott Wilson’s sadistic, yet dim and sensitive Slim and Kim Darby’s tough yet brittle Barbara. Their scenes together are funny, sad and romantic. They collide off of one another in surprising ways - at different times resembling quarrelling siblings, a tyrannical mother and her compliant child and, in a most touching way, young, naive lovers.

I confess - I’m a big Scott Wilson fan. He’s one of those terrifically naturalistic performers who makes the very difficult art of acting look easy. Lesser actors play characters, he takes possession of them - soul and all. He’s also got a wonderful sympathetic quality that, particularly here, makes detestable characters likable. There are scenes where Grissom Gang member and playboy creep Eddie (Tony Musante) plays Slim for a fool. They are painful, awkward moments. You catch yourself feeling deeply for Slim before you remember he’s heading upstairs to see a woman whom he played a part in kidnapping.

Producer/ Director Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen, The Killing Of Sister George) is one of those filmmakers whose work always seems only a scene or two away from slipping into full-on camp. I felt that way about “The Killing Of Sister George” and still can’t get the image out of my head of him killing his son off during the opening credits/plane crash of “The Flight Of The Phoenix.” I chuckled as I typed that last sentence. This isn’t to say that I don’t like his films, on the contrary, especially when it comes to this one. I’m just acknowledging a peculiar, almost-falling-apart-but-still-very-good-quality of his movie making. His films are the cinematic equivalent of some wild Evel Knievel stunt - any moment it threatens to turn into a mammoth disaster. “The Grissom Gang”, thankfully, does not.

As the final moments play out under a scorching sun, with press, police, concerned and unconcerned parties looking on, something that truly, rarely happens in films happens - you’re moved. Yes, the film that almost teetered a bit too much and toppled into a land overpopulated by hack acting and inept direction ends with grace and power.

GOTTA SEE IT # 7 - "A FACE IN THE CROWD"

“A FACE IN THE CROWD”

Starring: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau, Lee Remick, Percy Waram, Paul McGrath, Rod Brasfield, Marshall Neilan.
Written by: Budd Schulberg
Directed by: Elia Kazan
B & W – 1957
125 mins.
U.S.A.

We’re not in Mayberry – at least not yet. This late fifties stunner slid into theatres a few years before Andy Griffith starred in the good natured sitcom for which he’d become best known. If you’re only familiar with him from that or “Matlock”, well, you might just blow a fuse or two watching him bark and bully his way through two hours of film as a cunning hick who plays people with as much ease as he does his ever-present acoustic guitar.

Patricia Neal is the sturdy good girl Marcia Jefferies - a bright and adventurous radio show host who travels the country looking for new talent. She finds that and a whole bunch more when she visits an Arkansas jail where she encounters hick huckster extraordinaire Larry Rhodes. She christens him “Lonesome” and he sweeps her and the country off their feet with his potent mix of hillbilly bravado and wild eyed charisma on his way to becoming a regional radio superstar and, later, a national TV sensation.

Now, this was directed by Elia Kazan (On the Waterfront, East of Eden) who, to say the least, knew a thing or two about actors. Here, though, he outdoes himself by getting Griffith to crawl into every dirt corner of his being and dig out a performance all muddied with rage and wild desperation. Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes is one twisted mess of a maze of a man. He’s part boy-part man, part angel-part devil. He’s more real and alive than anyone you’ll ever meet. He’s also more fake and dead.

Schulberg (The Harder They Fall) and Kazan have created something complex and magnificent here - partly the chronicle of the unraveling of a megalomaniac, partly an undressing of a brand new mass medium and fully the skewering of a gullible public starting with none other than ambitious and love struck Marcia Jefferies. She’s a sort of a Dr. Frankenstein here. No, though she named him, she didn’t create Rhodes, but she certainly did let him loose on an unsuspecting public. He was a predator and she showed him to his prey. Heck, though she didn’t know it, she was his prey.

The film also works as a clever tale of country vs. city and intuitive vs. intellectual. Though bright and well educated, Marcia is no match for Rhodes. When we first meet him - asleep on a jail cell floor, looking spent and soul sick, ready to throttle the next person who so much as whistles his way - “Lonesome” already knows more about how people are hooked up than any human should. He’s bright and knowing in ways that Marcia and her pal Mell Miller (played with appropriate mild mannered dullness by Walter Matthau) cannot even conceive of, let alone comprehend.

There’s a startling scene, at a train station, fairly early in the film, where a crowded mass of Arkansas folk have gathered to see their hometown hero “Lonesome” off as he heads to Memphis to star in his very own big time TV show. It’s nighttime and the train is pulling away from the station. The folks are waving and cheering and “Lonesome” is hanging off the train, smiling and waving back at them. Then, the folks run out and so to does the smile on Rhodes’ face, as he rolls into the night and stares, sad faced, into the endless, empty dark. That brief, yet memorable moment, hints at the saddest of all truths about Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes – he was the first and he’ll be the last casualty of his own cruel con.

GOTTA SEE IT # 6 - "ELLING"

“ELLING”

Starring: Per Christian Ellefsen, Sven Nordin, Marit Pia Jacobsen, Jorgen Langhelle, Per Christensen.
Written by: Ingvar Ambjornsen and Axel Hellstenus
Directed by: Petter Naess
Colour – 2001
88 mins.
Norway

Buddy movies – they are a dime a dozen. Many are lazy, unfunny and seem to take it as a given that two guys (or girls) hanging out together is inherently funny and compelling. That reminds me, have you seen “Bad Boys”? The good ones, though, “Scarecrow”, “California Split”, “Midnight Run”, “Sideways”, distinguish themselves by building real characters with real inner lives whose personalities are in constant conflict with one another. It’s these sparks that fly from the tension between the two, as if they inhabited a world unto themselves, that make or unmake these films. Good writing, directing and acting also help as well.

Two maladjusted adult men, Elling (Per Christian Ellefsen) and Kjell Bjarne (Sven Nordin) recently released from an institution, are given an apartment, in Oslo, and tasked with the challenge of living on their own. If they fail, it’s back to the institution. That’s the film. It’s a simple, straightforward story about co-dependence, growing and learning to overcome your fears and, most importantly, it’s damn funny.

Another key ingredient to the “buddy film” is the discovery that, even though these two friends are complete opposites, they fill in the gaps of the other. In this case, Elling is the agoraphobic, anxiety ridden brain to Kjell’s dim, caring, and outgoing beast. Kjell pushes Elling to leave the safety of their apartment and connect with the world around him, while Elling helps Kjell romantically connect with neighbour Reidun Nordsletten (Marit Pia Jacobsen).

Ellefsen and Nordin make a great team. Ellefsen plays Elling’s uptight, nervous, know-it-all with great ease and depth. There’s no overplaying here, just a perfect fit for actor and role. Nordin brings great warmth and child-like energy to the oaf’s oaf that is Kjell Bjarne. But, Bjarne is the straight man here and it is Ellefsen’s wonderful turn as Elling that triggers most of the laughs. The opening, in which the two initially click, is a brilliant bit of comedic give and take.

Even though I’d describe this as a “slight” film, with many terrific comic moments, “Elling” also has stretches that are full of depth and tenderness. There are some real dramatic craftsmen at work here. The scene at Christmas is a marvelous funny-moving sequence that foreshadows what’s to come for the two and it is followed by one of the funniest bits in the movie.

So, if you’re looking for a kooky buddy movie set in Norway – okay, even if you’re not – then pick this one up. “Elling” is worth the time and effort to get to know.

GOTTA SEE IT # 5 - "MONDAYS IN THE SUN"

“MONDAYS IN THE SUN”

Starring: Javier Bardem, Luis Tosar, Jose Angel Egido, Nieve de Medina, Enrique Villen, Celso Bugallo, Joaquin Climent, Aida Folch, Serge Riaboukine, Laura Dominguez.
Written by: Ignacio del Moral, Fernando Leon de Aranoa
Directed by: Fernando Leon de Aranoa
Colour – 2002
113 minutes.

Unity - one for all and all for one. In theory, it’s a concept that seems a given – one pledges loyalty to a collective and the collective reciprocates. In reality, though - especially in bleak and desperate times – this give and take relationship is often put to the test by the temptation of an easy way out.

Santa (Javier Bardem) is one of a group of former shipyard workers, living in Northern Spain, who was laid off some three years ago. He, along with his colleagues, are still jobless, still suffering from the demoralizing effects of this blow to their lives, to their identities, and, most importantly, to their sense of self worth. Santa is their leader, their conscience. He’s a big, bearded bull of a man titling his horns at selfishness and greed and charging at those who seek to weaken his sense of community. He’s the glue that holds everyone together and reminds them of why they are together in the first place.

Santa’s fellow unemployed are struggling with feelings of inadequacy – Jose (Luis Tosar) can’t deal with the fact that his wife, Ana (Nieve de Medina) is now the breadwinner; Paulino (Jose Angel Egido) is fighting his age, as he competes for jobs against workers twenty years his junior; and most sadly, Amador (a brief but touching performance by Celso Bugallo) has simply fallen apart. Fernando Leon de Aranoa and Ignacio del Moral capture the humanity of these lost souls. They contrast the impersonal world of unemployment offices, and, in one key scene, a cold and indifferent bank employee, with the, at times shaky, yet ultimately solid bond that these characters feel with one another.

In the haunted hush of scenes that pass by with much warmth and humour, you’ll find a portrait of lives adrift, moving further away from one another and, consequently, from what gives them strength and meaning. The jobs that they lost gave them a sense of self, a sense of pride, but it’s their relationships with each other that truly define and sustain them. Time and again, in MITS, characters are weakened when they act alone – they sabotage themselves, their marriages, their dignity. Yet - and, again, this is where the film’s heart beats loudest – when they rely on, trust, and generally put their faith in one another, they heal, they persevere and hold on to hope.

The script is thoughtful, respectful and only occasionally hits its’ notes too hard. The acting is superb, but not in a showy way. It’s honest, sometimes brutally so, with Bardem - who stands out in an excellent cast – putting most high priced Hollywood actors in their place with his cool, ragged charm and broken hearted bravado.

Look out for “The Grasshopper and the Ant”, “The Siamese Twins” and a brilliant scene inside a soccer stadium. Look out for “Spregel”, hair dye and an achingly romantic line about a mermaid. But, most of all, look out for your heart, this film may just break it.