Desperate men commit desperate acts, and the three protagonists of ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW are desperate indeed in this late entry in the film noir cycle. This is a powerful film that adds social commentary to the usual crime and it’s consequences plot by tainting one of the protagonists with the brush of racism. Robert Wise, who sharpened his skills in the RKO editing room, directs the film in a neo-realistic style, leaving the studio confines for the most part behind, and the result is a starkly lit film where the shadows of noir only dominate at night.
But more on Wise later… first, let’s meet our three anti-heroes. We see Earle Slater (Robert Ryan ) walking down a New York street bathed in an eerie white glow (Wise used infra-red film to achieve the effect). Slater’s a fish out of water, a transplanted Southerner drifted North, a loser and loose cannon…
You may remember that this film, a remake of the 70s vigilanteclassic, came out last March and critics literally went insane attacking it. That it got negative reviews wasn’t necessarily a shock because the movie was directed by Eli Roth and he’s never been a favorite of mainstream critics. Still, it was hard not to be taken aback but just how enraged the majority of the critics appeared to be. Seriously, from the reviews, you would have thought that Death Wish was not just a bad movie but a crime against nature.
Of course, a lot of that was due to the timing of the film’s release. The film was released less than a month after the shootings at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. At the time the film first came out, the country was in the midst of a daily diet of anti-second amendment rallies and David Hogg. Many critics accused Death Wish of being a commercial for the NRA. Others branded the film as being right-wing propaganda. In fact, the criticism was so harsh that it was hard not to feel that the critics were essentially taking Death Wish far more seriously than it took itself.
If anything, Death Wish is a big, glossy, and rather silly movie. Bruce Willis stars as Dr. Paul Kersey. Paul is a peace-loving man. We know this because he refuses to get into a fight with a belligerent parent at a soccer game. He’s also an emergency room doctor, the type who pronounces a policeman dead and then rushes off to try to save the life of whoever shot him. No one in the movie suspects that Paul would ever become a vigilante but we know that there’s no way he can’t eventually end up walking the streets with a loaded gun because he’s played by Bruce Willis. When Paul backs down from the fight at the soccer game, Willis delivers his dialogue with so much self-loathing that we just know that, once Paul gets back home, he’s going to lock himself in the basement and start yelling at the walls, Stepfather-style.
Eventually, criminals break into Paul’s house and shoot both his wife (Elisabeth Shue) and his daughter (Camila Morrone). His wife dies. His daughter ends up in a coma. Paul spends a day or two in shock and then he promptly gets a gun and starts shooting criminals. Eventually, this brings him into conflict with the same criminals who attacked his family! Meanwhile, two detectives (Dean Norris and Kimberly Elise) look at all the dead bodies piling up around them and just shrug it off. At one crime scene, Norris is happy to grab a slice of pizza.
And really, that’s it. It sounds simple because it is simple. There is absolutely no narrative complexity to be found in Death Wish, which is why, in its own cheerfully crude way, the film totally works. In real life, of course, vigilante justice is not the solution and the death penalty is often unfairly applied but, from the moment the opening titles splash across the screen, Death Wish makes clear that it has no interest in real-life and, throughout its brisk running time, it literally seems to be ridiculing anyone in the audience who might be worried about the moral ramifications of a citizen gunning down a drug dealer.
Death Wish is a big extravagant comic book. It takes Paul one scene to go from being a meek doctor to being an expert marksman and, when Paul dispatches one criminal by dropping a car on him, Roth lays on the gore so thick that he almost seems to be daring us to take his film seriously. By that same token, Paul kills a lot of people but at least they’re all really, really bad. In fact, the criminals are so evil that you can’t help but suspect that Roth is poking a little bit of fun at the conventions of the vigilante genre. Even the fact that Willis wanders through the entire film with the same grim expression on his face feels like an inside joke between the director and his audience.
The critics were right when they called Death Wish a fantasy but they were wrong to frame that as somehow being a flaw. It’s a cartoonishly violent and deeply silly film and yet, at the same time it’s impossible not to cheer a little when Paul reveals that he’s been hiding a machine gun under his coffee table. It’s an effective film. Eli Roth delivers exactly what you would expect from a film about Bruce Willis killing criminals in Chicago. It may not be a great film but it works.
Famed striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee published a steamy mystery novel called “The G-String Murders” in 1941, all about backstage intrigue at a burlesque house. The book was a best seller, and so of course Hollywood came a-calling, and William Wellman was assigned the director’s job for LADY OF BURLESQUE, a somewhat sanitized version of Gypsy’s racy tome, though Wellman and screenwriter James Gunn got away with what they could in those heavy-handed Production Code days.
The film opens with the glittering lights of The Great White Way, then takes a turn onto 42nd Street, where benevolent burlesque impresario S.B. Foss (J. Edward Bromberg) has purchased the old Opera House to present his bump’n’grind shows. Barbara Stanwyck plays new headliner Dixie Daisy, and (as they said back then) va-va-voom…
La Stanwyck is some kinda hot in her skimpy Edith Head-designed costume! Dixie sings “Take It Off the E-String, Put It…
Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Killer Twin!
Why Was I Watching It?
Well, it was on Lifetime, of course.
Plus, I love movies about evil twins!
What Was It About?
As babies, twin sisters Amber and Kendra were both abandoned at the same orphanage. The head of the orphanage, Eunice (Bronwen Smith), took an instant dislike to Amber but always liked Kendra. When it looked like the sisters had a chance to be adopted, Eunice arranged for Kendra to go off with new parents while Amber remained at the orphanage.
30 years later and Kendra doesn’t even remember that she had a sister. However, Amber remembers. Kendra has a great life, with a good job and a nice husband (Jason Cermak) and a big house. Amber has … well, Amber has a lot of bitterness. When Amber manages to track down Kendra, she sets out to make her sister’s life a living Hell. That means breaking into her house, ruining her credit, lusting after her husband, and … even murder!
(They couldn’t call it Killer Twin if one of the twins wasn’t a killer!)
What Worked?
Occasionally, a supporting character will pop up in one of these movies and, despite having limited screen time, they’ll become something of a cause célèbre for those of us watching. In Killer Twin, that character was Marvin (Nelson Wong). Marvin was a totally nice, friendly, and professional guy who worked at a bank. When he suspected that Amber might be imitating her sister, Amber reacted by hitting him in the head with a safe deposit box and then running out of the bank.
Now, here’s the thing. Amber hit Marvin pretty hard. A lot of us were convinced that Marvin was dead. BUT NO! Marvin not only lived but he went back to his desk and called the police! YAY MARVIN! After that happened, I think we all definitely wanted Justice for Marvin.
As for the rest of this film, it was a good and entertaining Lifetime movie. It was totally over-the-top, melodramatic, and fun. Lindsay Hartley was obviously having a ball getting to play two totally opposite characters and director David Langlois and cinematography Jan Klompje brought some visual flair to the story. There was one shot in particular, in which Amber seemed to literally emerge from the Seattle fog, that was especially impressive. Visually, Lifetime films have come a long way.
What Didn’t Work?
It all worked! If you can’t enjoy a good killer twin movie, I worry about you.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
You know, at the start of the movie, I was pretty much Team Amber. I mean, I went through a whole period of time when I only wore black and I refused to smile and I’m actually kind of amazed that people put up with me while all that was going on. I knew that Amber was serious about her scheme when she removed her nose ring because seriously, nose rings are almost as painful to take out as they are to put in! I speak from personal experience.
But then, of course, Amber hit Marvin and I lost sympathy for her. Leave Marvin alone!
Lessons Learned
Marvin is indestructible and evil twin movies are always fun!
Hal Roach first teamed Stan Laurel with Oliver Hardy in 1927, beginning a long and prosperous screen comedy collaboration. The pair became the movie’s most beloved, and funniest, screen team, a point that’s hard to argue against after a recent rewatching of BLOCKHEADS and SAPS AT SEA, two films that each clock in at less than an hour, but pack more laughs than many longer, larger budgeted films of the era – or any era, for that matter!
In BLOCKHEADS, L&H are soldiers during WWI, and Stan is ordered to stand guard in the trench until the troop returns from battle. Twenty years later, he’s still there! Found by a pilot he shoots down, Stan is taken to an Old Soldiers’ Home, when Ollie (once again a henpecked husband) spots his picture in the newspaper. Ollie rushes to see his old pal, and finds him sitting in a wheelchair with…
I recorded Cheerleader Nightmare off of Lifetime on July 29th, 2018.
According to the imdb, Cheerleader Nightmare was originally titled Teen Drone Stalker. Lifetime often changes the title of the movies that it acquires so I guess it’s not a shock that Teen Drone Stalker became Cheerleader Nightmare. And I guess I can understand the reasoning behind the title change. Teen Drone Stalker is a bit of an unwieldy title while Cheerleader Nightmare rolls right off the tongue. Add to that, as a title, Cheerleader Nightmare promises both cheerleaders and nightmares, which has been a successful Lifetime formula in the past.
That said, Teen Drone Stalker is actually a far more accurate title. Don’t get me wrong. There are cheerleaders in this film and one of them does get murdered. So, it’s not as if the new title is deceptive or anything. But, in the end, it’s the teen drone stalkers who are far more important to the story than the dead cheerleaders.
(Add to that, Teen Drone Stalker is a great name for a band. I’d probably call them TDS for short, however.)
Anyway, the story centers around Sophie (Taylor Murphy), who is her high school’s official photographer. She and her friend Mickey (Johnny Vistocky) use a drone to capture exciting action shots of the school’s football team and the cheerleaders. Sophia has a complicated history with cheerleading. On the one hand, her mother (Melissa Ponzio) is the cheerleading coach and never makes a secret of the fact that she wishes Sophie was on the team. On the other hand, Sophie wants to find her own identity and maintain her independence. Meanwhile, Sophie’s former best friend, Leah (Mia Stallard) is the head cheerleader and Sophie’s boyfriend, Tyler (Jeremy Shada), is on the football team. You would think that Sophie’s mother would be happy that Sophie’s dating a football player but, instead, she’s concerned because Tyler used to be a juvenile delinquent.
Got all that?
Good, because things are about to get complicated.
While using Mickey’s drone to spy on a party being given at the football coach’s house, Sophie catches Tyler making out with Leah! Then, someone murders Leah! Was it Tyler? Was it one of the other cheerleaders? Was it Mickey, who seems to have issues with popular students? Or …. could it have been Sophie!? Seriously, Sophie seems to have a lot of unresolved issues towards cheerleaders.
I’ll be honest. I spent the first 45 minutes or so convinced that Sophie would be revealed to be the murderer. I had it all worked out in my mind. I was convinced that Sophie suffered from blackouts, during which time she became a murderous named Sofia. Was I right? Was I wrong? I guess you’ll have to watch the film to find out.
That said, I did relate to the character of Sophie. When I was in high school, I was frequently told that I should I be a cheerleader but I never tried out because my sister was a cheerleader and I was all like, “I have to have my own identity!” Looking back, it seems like kind of a silly thing to worry about but, at the time, it was like my declaration of principles. Needless to say, I made my sister watch Cheerleader Nightmare with me so that I could get her opinion. Erin says that it was an okay movie but she also pointed out that, if the cheerleaders had done a better job, everyone would have been too full of school spirit to commit any murders. I have to agree with her on that.
Cheerleader Nightmare got off to a good start but it lost its way about halfway through. I did enjoy counting up all of the red herrings that the film introduced before revealing the identity of the killer but there’s only so much you can really do with a red herring. In the end, the identity of the murderer was not a big shock and it was hard not to feel that the murder would have been solved a lot earlier if Sophie and her mom had just stayed out of everyone’s way. Unfortunately, Cheerleader Nightmare was no The Cheerleader Murders.
A bunch of strangers sit in a bar. On the television, a blandly handsome anchorman delivers the news. He talks about foreign wars. He talks about domestic conflicts. One of the bar patrons asks the bartender to turn off the news. Who cares about all of that stuff? All he wants to do is have a nice drink before heading home to his cattle ranch. Can’t he just do that in peace? The bartender agrees and turns off the news…
That’s a scene that gets played out a lot nowadays. No one wants to watch the news. Certainly not me. I guess we all know that we should because it’s important to know what’s going on in the world and blah blah blah. But seriously, people who spend all of their time watching the news inevitably seem to end up going insane and ruining twitter. I’ve got no interest in doing that.
Here’s the thing, though. Invasion U.S.A. may open with a contemporary scene but it’s hardly a contemporary movie. Instead, it was made in 1952 and it serves as proof that we’re not the first Americans to get sick of watching the news and that our current crop of politically minded filmmakers are not the first to try to change our mind with heavy-handed propaganda.
Everyone at the bar has a complaint. The Arizona rancher resents having to pay high taxes just to support the defense department. The Chicago industrialist is upset that the government wants to use his factories to build weapons. Congressman Haroway (Wade Crosby) is a drunk. Socialite Carla Sanford (Peggie Castle) worked in a factory during World War II but she no longer follows the news. Newscaster Vince Potter (Gerald Mohr) is a cynic. Tim the Bartender (Tom Kennedy) is too busy selling cocktails to worry about the communists.
Only the mysterious Mr. Ohman (Dan O’Herlihy, who would later play Conal Cochran in Halloween III) seems to care. While holding a conspicuously oversized brandy glass, Mr. Ohman explains that he’s a forecaster. What’s a forecaster? A forecaster is … oh wait! There’s no time to explain it because the communists have invaded!
Everyone sits in the bar and watches as the news reports on the invasion of the U.S.A. (Everyone except for Mr. Ohman, who has mysteriously vanished.) In the tradition of all low-budget B-movies, the invasion is represented through stock footage. Lots and lots of stock footage. Planes drop bombs. Soldiers run out of a barracks. Cities burn.
When everyone leaves the bar, they discover that America has been crippled by people like them, people who never thought it would happen. Some of our bar patrons die heroically. (Not Tim the Bartender, though. He’s still making dumb jokes and cleaning beer mugs when the bomb drops.) Some of our patrons regret that they didn’t care enough when it would have actually made a difference. The industrialist discovers that, because he wouldn’t let the government take over his factory, he now has to take orders from sniveling little Marxist. The rancher discovers that taxis get really crowded when everyone’s fleeing the Russians. And others discover that better dead than red isn’t just a catch phrase. It’s a way of life.
Of course, there’s a twist ending. You’ll guess it as soon as you see Mr. Ohman with that brandy glass…
Invasion U.S.A. is often cited as one of the worst films ever made but I have to admit that I absolutely love it. I have a soft spot for heavy-handed, over the top propaganda films and they don’t get more heavy-handed than Invasion, U.S.A. There’s not a subtle moment to be found in the entire film. You have to love any film that features character authoritatively declaring that something will never happen mere moments before it happens. Best of all, you’ve got Dan O’Herlihy, playing Mr. Ohman with just a hint of a knowing smile, as if he’s as amused as we are.
Politically, this film is a mixed bag for me. The film argues that you should trust the government and basically, shut up and follow orders. I’m a libertarian so, as you can imagine, that’s not really my thing. At the same time, the villains were all communists and most of the communists that I’ve met in my life have been pretty obnoxious so I enjoyed the part of the film that advocated blowing them up. The only thing this film hates more than communists is indifference.
In the end, Invasion U.S.A. is a real time capsule of a film, one that shows how different things were in the past while also reminding us that times haven’t changed that much. Though the film’s politics may be pure 1952, its paranoia and its condemnation of apathy feels very contemporary.
(For the record, apathy is underrated.)
Seen today, what makes Invasion U.S.A. memorable is its mix of sincerity, paranoia, and Dan O’Herlihy. Unless the communists at YouTube take down the video, you can watch it below!
BEND OF THE RIVER, the second of the James Stewart/Anthony Mann Westerns, isn’t quite as good as the first, WINCHESTER ’73 . That’s not to say it isn’t a good film; it’s just hard to top that bona fide sagebrush classic. Stewart continues his post-war, harder edged characterizations as a man determined to change his ways, and is supported by a strong cast that includes a villainous turn by the underrated Arthur Kennedy .
Jimmy plays Glyn McLyntock, an ex-outlaw now riding as trail boss for a group of farmers heading to Oregon to begin a new life. He encounters Kennedy as Emerson Cole, a horse thief about to be hanged, and enlists his help on the trail west. Both men know each other’s reputations; they were both once raiders along the Missouri/Kansas border. The wagons are attacked at night by Shoshone, an arrow piercing young Laura Baile, daughter of…
Looking for a tough, no-frills ‘B’ crime drama? Look no further than ARMORED CAR ROBBERY, which is just what it says it is, the planning, execution, and aftermath of said dirty deed, with a cast of rugged mugs and hard-hearted dames directed by Richard Fleischer during his salad days at RKO. The movie echoes Robert Siodmak’s CRISS CROSS in its heist scene, and I’m sure Stanley Kubrick watched and remembered it when he made his film noir masterpiece THE KILLING .
Make no mistake, ARMORED CAR ROBBERY isn’t on a par with those two films. It is, however, an enjoyable little 67 minutes of cops vs crooks. Criminal mastermind Dave Purvis assembles a gang of low-lives to pull the caper off, killing a cop in the process. The cop’s partner, Lt. Jim Cordell, is now determined to hunt the crooks down and avenge him. One of the participants, Benny McBride…
Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime premiere, The Wrong Cruise!
Why Was I Watching It?
Well, the obvious answer is that it was on Lifetime and I always watch Lifetime original films. I’m running a little bit behind in reviewing all of them and, for that, I apologize. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get caught up next week!
The other reason that I was watching The Wrong Cruise was because it was a “wrong” movie. As any regular Lifetime watcher knows, there are several different genres of Lifetime movies, each with their own quirks and rules. There’s the “Killer” movies, which usually feature Barbie Castro. There’s the “at 17” movies. There’s the “Deadly” movies. And then there’s the “Wrong” movies. Several of these films — including The Wrong Cruise — were directed by David DeCoteau and usually featured Vivica A. Fox and William McNamara in memorable supporting roles. The “Wrong” movies are always a lot of fun.
What Was It About?
Ever since her father died, teenager Sky Tanner (Sidney Nicole Rogers) has been acting out. After throwing a punch at track meet, Sky finds herself on the verge of being expelled from school! Uh-oh!
Fortunately, for Sky, it looks like she’s about to get a break from the stress of dealing with high school. Her mother, Claire (Vivica A. Fox), is booked on a cruise to Mexico and there’s no way that Claire’s going to leave Sky home alone.
At first, it seems like the perfect vacation! Claire meets a man named Dante (Andres Londono). Sky meets a teenage boy named Rico (Adrian Quinta). Love is in the air! Dante is charming and quite insistent that Claire go sailing with him. As for Rico, he’s willing to buy drinks for the underage Sky and he’s more than happy to show Sky around Mexico.
If, at this point, you’re saying, “I don’t trust either of them!,” you’re not alone. After you’ve seen enough Lifetime films, you know better than to trust any charming stranger. Add to that, while Sky is drinking with Rico and Claire is flirting with Dante, there’s a creepy ship’s mate (played by William McNamara) who seems to be determined to keep an eye on both of them. What’s up with that?
What Worked?
This one was a lot of fun, largely because Vivica A. Fox and Sidney Nicole Rogers were totally and completely believable as mother and daughter. Every time that Claire said something overprotective and Sky reacted by sighing and rolling her eyes, the more you found herself believing in their characters. When they inevitably ended up getting into trouble, the stakes felt real because the mother/daughter relationship felt real.
Londono and Quinta both did work as Dante and Rico but the film was ultimately stolen by William McNamara. For such a handsome actor, he’s really good at playing creepy Lifetime movie villains.
What Did Not Work?
I would have liked to have spent a little more time on the cruise ship. For a film called The Wrong Cruise, it seemed like the boat was a little underused. Then again, maybe I just want to go on a cruise…
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
I didn’t run track in high school but, if I had, I would hope that I would have had just as combative an attitude towards my competitors as Sky had towards her’s.
Also, like Sky, I spent a lot of my teenage years rolling my eyes at overprotective parental figures.
Through the Shattered Lens