DVD MIA #3: While the City Sleeps

US, 1956. Directed by Fritz Lang. Starring Dana Andrews, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders, Ida Lupino, Rhonda Fleming, Vincent Price, Howard Duff.

I don't think While the City Sleeps is the best of Fritz Lang's American films (The Big Heat almost certainly holds that title), but it may be my favourite - it's certainly the most entertaining. It`s a sly, funny and suspenseful tale set at a news syndicate while a series of sex murders is going on in the big city. The man who founded the empire has died, leaving the works to his useless son (Vincent Price). The only man dad thought worthy of the job was the resident editoralist and TV news anchor (Dana Andrews), who has no interest in such a job, since he routinely fires off bestselling books and receives Pulitzers where he is. So Junior decides to pit three veteran department heads - wire service man George Sanders, newspaper editor Thomas Mitchell, art department head James Craig - against each other for a coveted managing director position, little suspecting Craig is sleeping with his wife (Rhonda Fleming at her va-va-voomiest). The contest: whichever department head can unmask the sex killer first gets the job.

Sanders and Mitchell immediately try to convert Andrews to their causes, using two women - Sanders`mistress, gossip columnist Ida Lupino, and his secretary, Andrews`potential fiancee, Sally Forrest.

Anyone who enjoys vintage Hollywood movies should get a jones for this movie just looking at that cast, and I`m happy to report that Lang and the scenario use them all to marvelous effect. Ever the perceptive social critic, Lang is fascinated by how the various players used the police and other peoples lives purely for the advancement not even of their common employer`s cause, but their own selfish ends. Craig doesn`t even actively pursue the job, preferring the let Sanders and Mitchell cancel each other out and just gets it on with Fleming in the meantime. Andrews, on the surface the most respectable of the bunch, thinks nothing of putting his fiancee out as bait for the sex killer, figuring the end justifies the means.

The dialogue is witty and acidic, the suspense sequences solid, even if the actions that initiate the murderer`s ultimate capture ring a bit false. Why this isn`t on DVD is beyond me, so if it pops up on TV or you find an old tape of it, I highly recommend you seize the opportunity.

DVD MIA #2: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

By decree of the boss man, movies/DVDs only count towards the great 2010 viewing tally contest if Gen X carries the film for rental. For my extracurricular viewing, I've created DVD MIA, a series covering movies not available on DVD in North America.

US, 1956. Directed by Fritz Lang. Starring Dana Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackmer.

Fritz Lang's last American film, and it's a solid one. Thriller fans may find it routine, in spite of a satisfying twist that maybe isn't the one most viewers will expect. Lang's concern here isn't with crafting suspense but with exploring degrees of culpability among his characters. Proof positive of the film's lack of suspense movie oomph is that the recent Michael Douglas remake seems to have screwed around the plot to the point where it barely resembles the original's.

One thing the two have in common is the central gimmick - a writer of integrity (here it's Dana Andrews) sets up an elaborate plot to frame himself for a murder in order to prove a point. He's given the idea by newspaper publisher Sidney Blackmer, whose daughter (Joan Fontaine) is his fiancee. Blackmer fiercely attacks capital punishment in the pages of his daily, with frequent verbal blows directed at the pro-C.P. district attorney. By planting evidence and secretly, scupulously documenting Andrews' actual innocence, the pair hope to get Andrews sent to death row, to be saved at the last moment by the exculpatory documentation. I'll bet you've never seen a movie before if you haven't already guessed that something is going to throw a wrench into their plan, and it wasn't the wrench I was expecting.

Lang is clearly happy as a pig in filth with how many avenues this scenario opens up to explore his obsession with human guilt. Blackmer and Andrews may have noble motives in their plan, but is it noble to hijack - maybe permanently - the investigation of a lonely stripper's murder in order to make their point? What kind of sexist, patriarchal monsters do they have to be to mess so much with the emotions of Fontaine, the woman they have in common? How about the police detective who once romanced Fontaine, what are his motives for steering the case in the directions he does, to the point of contradicting himself in two back-to-back sentences in the climactic scenes? And what of the murder victim, never spoken of positively by a single witness, in contrast to the relatively noble motives of one particular lawbreaker? Not to mention all of the other gray areas I won't bring up so that I don't ruin the plot.

The film is very low budget, and looks it, so one will often search in vain for the striking Lang visuals established from the very beginning of his career. For fans of ambiguity and thought in mainstream genre cinema, however, there's plenty to chew on here.

DVD MIA: If I Had a Million

By decree of the boss man, movies/DVDs only count towards the great 2010 viewing tally contest if Gen X carries the film for rental. For my extracurricular viewing, I've created DVD MIA, a series covering movies not available on DVD in North America.

If I Had a Million. US, 1932. Directed by James Cruze, H. Bruce Humberstone, Ernst Lubitsch, Norman Z. McLeod, Stephen Roberts, William A. Seiter, Norman Taurog. Starring Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, George Raft, Jack Oakie, W.C. Fields, May Robson.

This is one of Paramount's early-talkie all-star affairs, with a wide selection of contracted directors and stars involved. The umbrella story involves a dying millionaire (Bruce Bennett) deciding to give away his fortune before he kicks off, rather than leaving to his lecherous colleagues and family members. He picks eight names at random from the L.A. phone directory, and gives each one million dollars. Each segment of the film details how that individual copes with their sudden richesse.

This kind of affair is usually pretty hit-and-miss, what with grand master filmmakers like Lubitsch handling one segment alongside one by journeyman Humberstone; huge Hollywood stars like Cooper contrasted with esteemed British thesp Laughton and vaudeville comics Fields and Oakie. The success rate in this one is surprisingly high, with many of them hitting sweet spots. The tone of the segments ranges from wishfulfillment comedy (Lubitsch, McLeod) to ironic humour (Seiter) to tragic (Cruze). In fact, for a film with such a screwball premise two of the segments have such depressing outcomes as to beggar belief. Roberts contributes one of the best segments: a poignant vignette about a skid row prostitute who spends her first night of wealth alone in a swank hotel, making a point to throw away the second pillow. He also contributes the worst, a retirement home tale that careens from sneering villainy to ridiculous utopianism.