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Film Review: Voyage of the Damned (dir by Stuart Rosenberg)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1939, an ocean liner named the MS St. Louis set sail from Hamburg.  Along with the crew, the ship carried 937 passengers, all of whom were Jewish and leaving Germany to escape Nazi persecution.  The ship was meant to go to Havana, where the passengers had been told that they would be given asylum.  Many were hoping to reunite with family members who had already taken the voyage.

What neither the passengers nor Captain Gustav Schroeder knew was that the entire voyage was merely a propaganda operation.  No sooner had the St. Louis left Hamburg than German agents and Nazi sympathizers started to rile up anti-Semitic feelings in Cuba.  The plan was to prevent the passengers from disembarking in Cuba and to force the St. Louis to then return to Germany.  The Nazis would be able to claim that they had given the Jews a chance to leave but that the rest of the world would not take them in.  Not only would the Jews be cast as pariahs but the Germans would be able to use the world’s actions as a way to defend their own crimes.

Captain Schroeder, however, refused to play along.  After he was refused permission to dock in Cuba, he then attempted to take the ship to both America and Canada.  When both of those countries refused to allow him to dock, Schroeder turned the St. Louis toward England, where he planned to stage a shipwreck so that the passengers could be rescued at sea.  Before that happened, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom jointly announced that they would accept the refugees.

Tragically, just a few days after the passengers disembarked, World War II officially began and Belgium, France, and the Netherlands all fell to the Nazi war machine.  It is estimated that, of the 937 passengers on the St. Louis, more than 600 of them subsequently died in the Nazi concentration camps.

The journey of the St. Louis was recreated in the 1976 film, Voyage of the Damned, with Max von Sydow as Captain Schroeder and a collection of familiar faces playing not only the ship’s passengers and crew but also the men and women in Cuba who all played a role in the fate of the ship.  In fact, one could argue that there’s a few too many familiar faces in Voyage of the Damned.  One cannot fault the performances of Max von Sydow, Malcolm McDowell, and Helmut Griem as members of the crew.  And, amongst the passengers, Lee Grant, Jonathan Pryce, Paul Koslo, Sam Wanamaker, and Julie Harris all make a good impression.  Even the glamorous Faye Dunaway doesn’t seem to be too out-of-place on the ship.  But then, in Havana, actors like Orson Welles and James Mason are awkwardly cast as Cubans and the fact that they are very obviously not Cuban serves to take the viewer out of the story.  It reminds the viewer that, as heart-breaking as the story of the St. Louis may be, they’re still just watching a movie.

That said, Voyage of the Damned still tells an important true story, one that deserves to be better-known.  In its best moments, the film captures the helplessness of having nowhere to go.  With Cuba corrupt and the rest of the world more interested in maintaining the illusion of peace than seriously confronting what was happening in Germany, the Jewish passengers of the St. Louis truly find themselves as a people without a home.  They also discover that they cannot depend on leaders the other nations of the world to defend them.

Defending the passengers falls to a few people who are willing to defy the leaders of their own country.  At the start of the film, Nazi Intelligence Chief Wilhelm Canaris (Denholm Elliott) explains that Captain Schroeder was selected specifically because he wasn’t a member of the Nazi Party and could not be accused of having ulterior motives for ultimately returning the passengers to Germany.  Canaris and his fellow Nazis assume that anti-Semitism is so natural that even a non-Nazi will not care what happens to the Jewish passengers.  Instead, Schroeder and his crew take it upon themselves to save the lives of the passengers.  It is not Franklin Roosevelt who tries to save the passengers of St. Louis.  Instead, it’s just a handful of people who, despite unrelenting pressure to do otherwise, step up to do the right thing.  Max von Sydow, who was so often cast in villainous roles, gives a strong performance as the captain who is willing to sacrifice his ship to save his passengers.

Flaws and all, Voyage of the Damned is a powerful film about a moment in history that must never be forgotten.

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night #228: Dressed to Kill (dir by Lindsay Hartley)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Network and I watched Dressed to Kill!

Why Was I Watching It?

Because it was on Lifetime!  It’s been a while since I’ve really gotten a chance to enjoy a good Lifetime film.  I was planning on getting back into my Lifetime viewing habit last year but 2024 had other plans.  This year, though, I hope to once again get to enjoy my weekly Lifetime fix.

What Was It About?

When Vanessa (Suzanne R. Neff) dies after someone steals her asthma inhaler, she leaves her clothing company not her spoiler daughter Blair (Annie Sullivan) but instead to her loyal and kind-hearted assistant, Amy (Brianna Cohen).  Amy tries to figure out who killed Vanessa.  Was it Blair?  Was it disgruntled seamstress Wanda (Monanik Dugar)?  Or was it Amy’s own boyfriend, Kevin (Moe Sehgal)?

What Worked

First, and most importantly, this film fully embraced the melodrama.  When it comes to Lifetime films, the promise of melodrama is essential and the best films are the ones that shamelessly embrace it.  Director Lindsay Hartley kept the action moving and didn’t waste too much time trying to convince the viewer that they were watching a realistic portrait of life in the fashion industry.

This film actually did keep me guessing as far as who the murderer was.  It’s obvious that the filmmakers understood who most veteran Lifetime viewers would automatically suspect and, wisely, they played around with those expectations.

Monanik Dugar’s performance was Wanda was wonderfully unhinged.  I also liked Annie Sullivan’s performance as the hilariously entitled Blair.  As played by Sullivan, Blair was the influencer from Hell.

What Did Not Work

I probably would have taken the fashion aspect of the movie more seriously if the clothes hadn’t been so …. uhm, well …. ugly.  Of course, it’s all in the eye of the bolder but let’s just say that I would not have worn any of the outfits.

This movie did feature a fashion show but it looked so low-rent that, again, it left me wondering whether it would be better to just let the company go out of business.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

I have asthma so, as soon as I saw Vanessa grabbing her inhaler, I knew how she was going to die.  That made me go “Agck!” because, seriously, asthma attacks are always scary.

When I was 18, I had a friend who got a job at a clothing company in Dallas.  At first, I thought that was really exciting but then I visited her at work and discovered that it was a place that designed polyester cabana wear for senior citizens.  Admittedly, that doesn’t have much to do with this movie but I still found myself thinking about it as I watched Dressed To Kill.  At least the company in Dressed to Kill could afford to put on a fashion show.  This place where my friend worked wasn’t even willing to do that,

(For the record, my friend only worked there for two weeks before walking off the job.  Some of that was my fault because I had lunch with her on her final day and, as her lunch hour came to a close, I said, “What if you just didn’t go back?”  Having never had a job before, I was shocked to discover that people still get a final paycheck even if they just leave for lunch and then never come back.  Hmmm, I thought, maybe I’ll get a job someday….)

Lessons Learned

Be careful with those scissors!

Live Tweet Alert: Join #ScarySocial for Twilight Zone: The Movie!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 9 pm et, Tim Buntley will be hosting #ScarySocial!  The movie?  Twilight Zone: The Movie!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  I’ll be there tweeting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Twilight Zone: The Movie is available on Prime!

See you there

4 Shots from 4 Films: Special George Pan Cosmatos Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, we celebrate the birth of director George Pan Cosmatos!  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 George Pan Cosmatos Films

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985, dir by George Pan Cosmatos, DP: Jack Cardiff)

Cobra (1986, dir by George Pan Cosmatos, DP: Ric Waite)

Leviathan (1989, dir by George Pan Cosmatos, DP: Alex Thomson)

Tombstone (1993, dir by George Pan Cosmatos (and Kurt Russell), DP: William Fraker)

Scenes That I Love: Cobra Eats A Pizza

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On this date, in 1941, future director George Pan Cosmatos was born in Italy.  Cosmatos would go on to direct some of the most financially successfully (if critically lambasted) films of the 80s.  He’s also credited as being the director on Tombstone, though it’s generally agreed that Cosmatos largely deferred to Kurt Russell on that film.  (Cosmatos was a last minute replacement for the film’s original director.)

Other than Tombstone, Cosmatos is best-known for the films that he did with Sylvester Stallone.  And today’s scene that I love comes from the 1986 film, Cobra.  In this short but unforgettable scene, we get a chance to learn a little about the Cobra lifestyle.  If you have any doubt that Cobra’s a badass, just wait until you see how eats a pizza.  He handles his guns just as well as he handle a slice of Pepperoni and a pair of scissors.  That Night Slasher better watch out!

Film Review: Tucker: The Man and His Dream (by Francis Ford Coppola)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1988, Tucker: The Man and His Dream is a biopic about Preston Tucker.

Tucker was an engineer in Detroit who went from designing vehicles for the Army during World War II to trying to launch his own car company.  His ideas for an automobile don’t sound particularly radical today.  He wanted every car to have seat belts.  He wanted a windshield that popped out as a safety precaution.  He want brake pads and he also wanted a car that looked sleek and aerodynamic, as opposed to the old boxy cars that were being pushed out be Detroit.  He wanted a car that got good mileage and he wanted one that could be taken just about anywhere.  Unfortunately, Tucker’s dreams were cut short when he was indicted for stock fraud, a prosecution that most people agree was a frame-up on behalf of the Big Three auto makers.  Tucker was eventually acquitted but his car company went out of business.  Of the 50 cars that Tucker did produce, 48 of them were still on the road and being driven forty years later.

The film stars Jeff Bridges as Preston Tucker, Joan Allen as his wife, Christian Slater and Corin Nemec as two of his sons, Lloyd Bridges as the senator who tried to take Tucker down, Martin Landau as Tucker’s business partner, and Dean Stockwell as Howard Hughes, who shows up for a few minutes to encourage Tucker to follow his dreams regardless of how much the government tries to stop him.  One gets the feeling that the film was a personal one for director Francis Ford Coppola, a filmmaker who has pretty much spent his entire career fighting with studios while trying to bring his vision to the screen.  Tucker fought for seat belts.  Coppola fought for a mix of color and black-and-white in Rumble Fish.  Tucker stood up for his business partner.  Francis Ford Coppola stood up for Al Pacino when no one else could envision him as Michael Corleone.  As is the case with many of Coppola’s films, Tucker: The Man And His Dream is a film that Coppola spent years trying to get made.  It was the film that Coppola originally intended to be the follow-up to The Godfather, with Marlon Brando projected for the lead role of Tucker.  After watching the Tucker, it’s hard not to feel that it worked out for the best that Coppola was not able to make the film in 1973.  It’s impossible to imagine anyone other than Jeff Bridges in the role of Preston Tucker.

“Chase that tiger….chase that tiger….chase that tiger….” It’s a song that Tucker sings constantly throughout the film as the camera spins around him and how you react to Tucker: The Man And His Dream will largely depend on how tolerant you are of Coppola’s stylistic flourishes.  Coppola directs the film as a combination of Disney fairy tale and film noir.  The opening of the film, with Tucker running around in almost a manic state and excitedly telling everyone about his plans, is presented with vibrant colors and frequent smiles and an almost overwhelming air of cheerful optimism.  As the film progresses and Tucker finds himself being targeted by both the government and the other auto companies, the film gets darker and the viewer starts to notice more and more shadows in the background.  The moments of humor become less and less and there’s a heart-breaking moment where Martin Landau, in one of his best performances, reveals just how far the government will go to take down Tucker’s company.  But, in the end, Tucker refuses to surrender and Jeff Bridges’s charming smile continues to fill the viewer with hope.  The film becomes about more than just cars.  It’s a film that celebrates all of the innovators who are willing to defy the establishment.

There’s a tendency to dismiss the majority of Coppola’s post-Apocalypse Now films.  However, Tucker: The Man And His Dream is a later Coppola film that deserves to be remembered.

Film Review: The Valiant (dir by William K. Howard)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the days after World War I, a man (Paul Muni) stumbles out of an apartment building and then walks down to the local police station.  He informs the officer on duty that he just shot a man.  He refuses to explain why he shot the man and, when asked for his name, he identifies himself as James Dyke.  The office notices a poster for “Dyke & Co.” on the wall and realizes that the man made up his name.  The man is convicted and sentenced to be executed.

The years pass as the man waits for his execution date.  He is a model prisoner, working hard in the garden and writing editorials for the newspapers in which he warns young readers about pursuing a life of crime.  The money he makes, he puts into Liberty Bonds.  He continues to refuse to tell anyone his first name.

In a small town, an old woman (Edith Yorke) sits in her rocking chair and has visions of all the men who went to war and never returned.  When the woman sees a picture of James Dyke in a newspaper, she thinks that he looks like her son, Joe, who long ago went missing.  The woman’s daughter, Mary (Marguerite Churhill), realizes that her mother is planning to make the trip to the prison to see him before he is executed.  Mary decides to go herself.  She tells her fiancé (John Mack Brown) that she could never get married if it turned out her brother was a murderer.  Meanwhile, the old woman continues to have visions of soldiers marching to war.

At the prison, James Dyke tells Mary that he has no family and he has no past.  But he did serve in World War I and during that time, he met her brother and he saw him die heroically in battle.  Dyke tells her to write to the army for the details of her brother’s death but to be aware that they might not even know whether or not he actually served because the war was such a confusing time that “they don’t know what happened to half the men out there.”  Dyke and Mary continue to talk as the hour of execution draws near….

An adaptation of a one-act play, The Valiant was released in 1929, at a time when America was still coming to terms with the horror of the Great War and Hollywood was still trying to adjust to the arrival of sound.  Though many had assumed that sound films would just be a fad, it turned out that audiences really did like to hear the dialogue as opposed to just reading it.  The Valiant is the type of melodrama that was popular during the silent era and the film does feature title cards that appear between scenes.  “A city street — where laughter and tragedy rub elbows,” one card reads.  Another one announces, “Civilization demands its toll.”  At the same time, it is a sound picture.  The first five minutes of the film are just the Man walking through the city and listening to the sound of cars honking and people talking.  Like many of the early sounds films, it’s obvious that the majority of the cast was not quite sure how they should handle delivering their dialogue.  Some people talk too loudly.  Some talk too softly.  Quite a few deliver their dialogue stiffly and without emotion.  Others use way too much emotion.

The only actor who seems to be fully confident in his ability to perform with sound is Paul Muni, making his screen debut in the lead role.  Muni gives a strong and empathetic performance, one that makes even the most melodramatic of dialogue feel naturalistic.  Muni shows an instinctive knowledge of how to deliver his lines with emotion without going over the top, which was a skill that many of the actors who tried to make the transition to sounds films never learned.  Paul Muni was the first great actor of the sound era, as well as one of the first screen actors to use what would eventually become known as the Method.  Among the actors who were directly inspired by Muni were John Garfield, Montgomery Clift, and Marlon Brando.  Much of modern acting owes a huge debt to the work of Paul Muni.

Seen today, the contrast between Paul Muni’s performance and the film’s staginess can make The Valiant seem like a rather surreal film.  While Muni captures the screen and confidently delivers his lines, everyone else seems hesitant and unsure of how to reply.  The end result is that, to modern audiences, The Valiant can almost seem like a filmed dream.  From the shot of Muni walking down the noisy city street to the sudden appearance of a swing band playing in the prison cafeteria, the film can seem almost Lynchian in its oddness.

The Valiant was a box office success and, according to the notes in the Academy archives, Paul Muni was among the actors considered for the second Best Actor Oscar.  (That year, there were no official nominations and only the winners were announced.)  The Oscar went to Warner Baxter for In Old Arizona but Muni would go on to have an amazing career.

6 Trailers For Pop Music Day

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

According to the good folks at Checkiday, today is Pop Music Day!  In honor of this prestigious holiday, this week’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse Trailers is all about music!

  1. Head (1968)

First off, we’ve got the trailer for Head, starring the Monkees!  This film was co-written by Jack Nicholson.

2. The Great Rock and Roll Swindle (1980)

In the first film that Julien Temple made about the history of the Sex Pistols, Malcolm McLaren presents himself as being the genius behind the group and tries to keep viewers from noticing that Johnny Rotten refused to have anything to do with the film.

3.Stunt Rock (1978)

I know next to nothing about this film but it was directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith and that’s often a good sign.

4, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)

Featuring Donald Pleasence singing the longest version of I Want You ever recorded!

5. The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)

From director Penelope Spheeris comes the ultimate documentary about 1980s Los Angeles punk rock.

6. The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2: The Metal Years (1988)

The decline continues.

Happy Birthday in heaven to Director John Sturges! 🎉

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Director John Sturges was born on January 3rd, 1910. He directed some of my favorite movies, and many of them starred my movie hero, Charles Bronson. The picture above is from 1973’s CHINO!

Charles Bronson’s second role in a film was in Sturges’ THE PEOPLE AGAINST O’HARA from 1951, starring Spencer Tracy. The picture below isn’t a very good picture as Bronson was only in one scene. Can you spot Bronson??

In 1959, Sturges would direct Charles Bronson in NEVER SO FEW, which co-starred Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen.

Just a year later in 1960, Sturges would direct Bronson and an all star cast that included Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Robert Vaughn in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, a remade of the Akira Kurosawa classic THE SEVEN SAMURAI. Bronson’s role as Bernardo O’Reilly is one of the best in the entire film.

John Sturges would direct Charles Bronson again in 1963 in the classic film THE GREAT ESCAPE, which also starred Richard Attenborough, Steve McQueen, James Garner, James Coburn and Donald Pleasence. Charles Bronson drew on his experience in the coal mines of Pennsylvania when he played “The Tunnel King” in the classic World War II film. Charles Bronson is one of the characters who actually escapes, which made me very happy!

John Sturges would direct Charles Bronson one more time in the underrated western from 1973, CHINO (pictured at the top). Sturges was a phenomenal director, and Charles Bronson was in some of his very best work! As Charles Bronson’s biggest fan, Sturges will always be one of my favorite directors!!

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Winner: Unforgiven (dir by Clint Eastwood)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1992 Best Picture winner, Unforgiven, begins as a story of frontier justice.

In Kansas, a young and cocky cowboy who calls himself the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) rides up to an isolated hog farm.  He’s looking for Will Munny (Clint Eastwood), a notorious outlaw with a reputation for being a ruthless killer.  Instead, he just finds a broken down, elderly widower who is trying to raise two young children and who can barely even manage to climb on a horse.  Will Munny, the murderer, has become Will Munny the farmer.  He gave up his former life when he got married.

The Schofield Kid claims to be an experienced gunfighter who has killed a countless number of men.  He explains that a group of sex workers in Wyoming have put a $1,000 bounty on two men, Quick Mike (David Mucci) and his friend, Davey Bunting (Rob Campbell).  Quick Mike cut up one of the women when she laughed at how unimpressively endowed he was.  While Davey didn’t take part in the crime, he was present when it happened and he didn’t do anything to stop it.  The local sheriff, a man named Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), had Davey give the woman’s employer several horses as compensation.  The Kid wants Munny to help him collect the bounty.

At first, Munny refuses to help the Kid.  But, when he realizes that he’s on the verge of losing his farm, Munny changes his mind.  He and his former partner, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), join with the Kid and the three of them head to Wyoming.  Along the way, they discover that the Kid is severely nearsighted and can hardly handle a pistol.

Meanwhile, in the town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming, Little Bill ruthlessly enforces the peace.  He’s a charismatic man who is building a house and bringing what many would consider to be civilization to the Old West. When we first meet Little Bill, he seems like a likable guy.  The town trusts him.  His deputies worship him.  He has a quick smile but he’s willing to stand his ground.  But it soon becomes apparent that, underneath that smile and friendly manner, Bill is a tyrant and a petty authoritarian who treats the town as his own personal kingdom.    Little Bill has a strict rule.  No one outside of law enforcement is allowed to carry a gun in his town.  When another bounty hunter, English Bob (Richard Harris), comes to town to kill the two cowboys, Little Bill humiliates him and sends him on his way but not before recruiting Bob’s traveling companion, writer W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek), to write Bill’s life story.  Bill’s not that much different from the outlaws that he claims to disdain.  Like them, Bill understands that value of publicity.

Unforgiven starts as a traditional western but it soon becomes something else all together.  As the Schofield Kid discovers, there’s a big difference between talking about killing a man and actually doing it.  Piece-by-piece, Unforgiven deconstructs the legends of the old west.  Gunfights are messy.  Gunfighters are not noble.  Davey Bunting is the only man in town to feel guilty about what happened but, because he’s included in the bounty, he still dies an agonizing death.  Quick Mike is killed not in the town square during a duel but while sitting in an outhouse.  Ned and Munny struggle with the prospect of going back to their old ways, with Munny having to return to drinking before he can once again become the fearsome killer that he was in the past.  And Little Bill, the man who says that he’s all about taming the west and bringing civilization to a lawless land, turns out to be just as ruthless a killer as the rest.  A lot of people are dead by the end of Unforgiven.  Some of them were truly bad.  Some of them were good.  Most of them were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Everyone’s got it coming, to paraphrase Will Munny.

With its violent storyline, deliberate pacing, and its shots of the desolate yet beautiful western landscape, Clint Eastwood’s film feels like a natural continuation of the Spaghetti westerns that he made with Sergio Leone.  (Unforgiven is dedicated to both Leone and Don Seigel.)  Unforgiven was the first of Eastwood’s directorial efforts to be nominated for Best Picture and also the first to win.  It’s brutal meditation on violence and the truth behind the legends of the American frontier.  Eastwood gives one of his best and ultimately most frightening performances as Will Munny.  Gene Hackman won his second Oscar for playing Little Bill Daggett.

Unforgiven holds up well today.  Hackman’s Little Bill Dagget feels like the 19th century version of many of today’s politicians and unelected bureaucrats, authoritarians who claims that their only concern is the greater good but whose main interest is really just increasing their own power.  Unforgiven remains one Clint Eastwood’s best films and one of the best westerns ever made.  Leone would have been proud.