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Saturday, March 2, 2024

"FORTURES OF WAR" (2024) **

 After a surprise raid on a German convoy goes sideways and their imperious C.O., Lieutenant Quayle (Mark Kitto of "The War Below") is killed, the survivors of an ill-fated British commando unit find themselves cut off in Nazi-occupied France. Sergeant Mason (James Oliver Wheatley of "One Ranger") and a mixed batch of Tommies, both black as well as white, along with a couple of pugnacious female French Resistance fighters take refuge in an apparently deserted farm. Alas, they learn the farm is not completely deserted. Now, between the blotched mission and the forced march that culminates at the deserted farm house, co-writer & director Bill Thomas indulges in moments reminiscent of Louis Milestone's classic World War II movie "A Walk in the Sun" as the Tommies reflect on their predicament. One of the blacks doesn't trust the French girls, while one of the whites, a smart aleck named Leech (Daniel Thrace of “Book of Monsters”), causes no end of trouble. His precipitant action when he whipped back the rear flap of the flatbed revealed a nasty Kraut holding a flame-thrower. Although Leech eludes death, the Tommy who had accompanied him is incinerated. Now, this incendiary death is probably the most violent scene. Meantime, “Fortunes of War" never tries to rival the grit, grime, and gore of "Saving Private Ryan.” Nevertheless, everything about this infantry epic looks entirely plausible. Thomas generates considerable urgency from the get-go with our heroes exchanging gunfire with the enemy. Meaning, less talk and more action! Sadly, the filmmakers reveal next to nothing about that raid gone wrong. Lieutenant Quayle claimed his plan would succeed like clockwork.

Afterward, Mason, his men, and the French dames must fight the Nazis in a baptism of bullets. Essentially, this modest military melodrama could be classified as a single setting actioneer. Eventually, Thomas and co-scribe Ian Thomas came up with a title that foreshadows the chief surprise in this men on a mission movie. As war weary Sergeant Mason, James Oliver Wheatley radiates a gruff virile charm as he chews the scenery. This slap happy combat non-com keeps reminding his men he isn't their "mum." The French Resistance girls know which end of their weapons to aim at the enemy. Annette (Sophie Craig of "The Adventures of Maid Marian") cradles a machine gun like a baby, while her fellow French compatriot, Ines (newcomer Meg Forgan), lugs around a sniper's rifle. Ines rarely misses what she fires at in a fracas. These dames have no qualms about loosening a hail of lead into a passel of Jerries. Would that the filmmakers had developed their characters in greater depth so they would be more memorable. No sooner have our heroes taken up residence at the farm than they encounter some suspicious characters. Turns out one of them is a Belgium guy who has a screwy story to tell them about bricks. Eventually, our outnumbered and outgunned chaps find themselves surrounded by more Germans than they can shower with a hand grenades. It comes as something of a shock when German General Horseler (Bob Cryer of "The Undertaker"), immaculate in his trench coat and cap, wants to negotiate with them. He worries more about what our heroes may reveal when they surrender as well as what his men will think when they discover his underlying motives. Turns out Horseler had been melting down precious Jewish contraband, that is, golden ornaments and glittering jewelry into ingots! The sooner Horseler can get these infernal Brits out of the way, the less attention he will face about his ulterior motives. Mind you, the Brits chop up a fair number of the enemy before this happens. Shrewdly, Horseler uses this moment of silence to wave the white flag of peace. To all outward concerns, Horseler justifies it as time for his troops to  remove the wounded and the dead.

 

Thomas relies heavily on the charisma of his capable cast, since their budget couldn’t accommodate the kind of fireworks display we're accustomed to in million-dollar military melodramas. This stiff upper lip saga about the aftermath of a blown mission clocks in at a meager 85 minutes. Happily, Thomas makes certain the air is swarming with bullets, and our heroes are whittled down one by one until only a handful are alive. Some of the German soldiers look like they are wearing American helmets, but everybody appears to tote period-accurate firearms. Sergeant Mason brandishes a .30 calibered Thompson submachine gun, while the most of the German soldiers carry the familiar MP 40 "Schmeissers." Beware of the DVD cover art for “Fortunes of War,” because a flaming B-17 flies above our heroes. No aircraft are ever seen in this movie. Apart from highlighting the little-known fact blacks served in the British Army during World War II, "Fortunes of War" is a fair to middling potboiler. If racially integrated World War II epics are your cup of tea, you should watch “Come Out Fighting” (2022) about African American tankers in Patton’s army!

Saturday, February 17, 2024

"THE OUTSIDE MAN" **1/2 OUT OF ****

 

“Borsalino” director Jacques Deray’s  French mobster melodrama “The Outside Man,” starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Ann-Margret, and Roy Scheider, chronicles the trials and tribulations of a Frenchman flown to Los Angeles to kill a wealthy crime czar, Victor Kovacs (Ted de Corsia of “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral”), in his palatial Beverly Hills mansion. Lucien Bellon (Jean-Louis Trintignant of “The Great Silence”) isn’t a professional contract killer. Instead, wrestling with a gambling addiction, he must find a way to pay off his enormous debts. Unfortunately, the only way he can raise sufficient funds to liquidate those debts is to fly from Paris to Los Angeles and ice a notorious crime lord. After landing in Los Angeles, Lucien checks into the luxurious Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The desk clerk hands him a mysterious attaché case along with his room key. In his room, Lucien finds a loaded snub-nosed revolver and an envelope stuffed with cash in the case. Renting a car, Lucien drives out to the Kovacs mansion. The doorman admits him without frisking him for firearms. Victor surprises Lucien then realizes he isn’t the man he was expecting. Lucien brandishes his revolver and shoots him dead on the spot with a single shot. Earlier, Lucien had emptied the cylinder of the gun in his hotel room and replaced only one of the six bullets. No sooner has Lucien fled the scene of the homicide than an alert circulates about Kovacs’s murder. However, the description of the shooter, furnished by Victor's wife Jackie (Angie Dickinson of “Ocean’s Eleven”) and Victor’s son Alex (Umberto Orsini of “La Dolce Vita”) doesn’t fit Lucien!

While the LAPD struggles to catch the killer, Lucien discovers the Detroit mob has sent an assassin to rub him out. Lenny (Roy Scheider of “Jaws”) arrives in town eager to kill Lucien. Fate has a quirky way of intervening on behalf of our protagonist, and Lucien survives three of Lenny’s desperate attempts on his life. Meantime, the Frenchman hooks up with a bosomy topless bartender, Nancy Robson (Ann-Margret of “Viva Las Vegas”), who agrees to help him obtain a passport. The dastards who had hired Lucien have stolen both his passport and his plane ticket, so our protagonist cannot leave the country. Lucien confers with his Parisian friend Antoine (Michel Constantin of “Violent City”) about his predicament during a long-distance phone call. He advises Lucien to find with one of his old girlfriends, Nancy. Happily, she arranges for Lucien to buy a forged passport from a cabbie, Karl (Carlo De Mejo of “Teorema”), who can get him one.

Eventually, a naïve Lucien figures out the killing was an inside job, and he served as a mere pawn. Victor’s greedy wife Jackie and his treacherous son Alex were instrumental in orchestrating Victor’s demise. Poised as our protagonist is to leave the country, Lucien has second thoughts and prefers to remain in L.A., so he can discover who incriminated him. Meantime, Antoine and his bodyguard fly in from Paris to attend Victor’s funeral. Probably the most offbeat thing about “The Outside Man” is the funeral itself. When everybody pays their last respects to Victor, they find his corpse sitting upright in a chair with a cigar in one hand. What a bizarre way to display an embalmed corpse! An impromptu gunfight erupts in the funeral home when one of Alex’s henchmen, Miller (Alex Rocco of “The Godfather”), tries to gun down Antoine. Instead, Antoine guns down Miller and traps a cowardly Alex hiding in a casket, finishing Alex off for good. Meantime, Lucien hijacks a hearse and careens away through the cemetery grounds with Antoine chasing after him. A policeman with a rifle shoots Antoine before he can get into the hearse with Lucien. Antoine tells Lucien to leave without him. Grabbing hole of the rear bumper, a mortally wounded Antoine is dragged behind the hearse until he dies. During the gunfight, Lucien caught a slug himself, too. As “The Outside Man” concludes, Lucien is sitting behind the steering wheel of the hearse with blood-soaked hands. Like Deray's later crime thriller "Three Men to Kill" (1980), the protagonist dies in the end just as Lucien dies here in "The Outside Man."

This uneven but entertaining crime thriller has its moments. Initially, when Lucien goes on the lam, he carjacks a single-mom, Mrs. Barnes (Georgia Engel of “Grown Ups 2”), and forces her at gunpoint to take him to her residence. Lucien cools his heels there. Mrs. Barnes cooks him supper and her presumptuous young son, Eric (Jackie Earle Haley of “Watchmen”), wants to know more about him. During a private phone call, Lucien catches the disruptive adolescent listening in on his call and slaps the stuffing out of him. Meanwhile, every step of the way, Lenny shadows Lucien but fails repeatedly to kill him. At one point, Lucien picks up a hitchhiker who rhapsodizes about Jesus. Cruising up alongside them, Lenny shoots from his car into Lucien’s. Miraculously, he misses Lucien and blasts the Jesus freak. During the rest of the film, Lenny pursues Lucien. He kills the cabbie that provided Lucien with a passport and finally tracks him down to a hotel where he is holed up with Nancy. Their adversarial relationship changes when Lenny decides to team up with Lucien and go to the Kovacs estate. At the last second before they enter the estate, Lenny tries to double-cross the Frenchman, but Lucien kills him with a single shot.

Deray and writers Jean-Claude Carrière and Ian McLellan Hunter complicate matters considerably throughout this brisk, 105-minute thriller. Actually, the filmmakers had not scheduled to shoot “The Outside Man” but another movie. Unfortunately, the other movie they were set to produce fell apart. Deray’s scenarists whipped up this tale in a matter of twelve days, and he lensed it before their work permits expired. Composer Michel Legrand garnishes this fish-out-of-water tale with an interesting orchestral soundtrack that accentuates the action. The abrupt ending with our protagonist parked in the Los Angles river basin with blood on his hands and nowhere to run leaves too many plot threads hanging. Basically, this was ‘an inside job’ organized by Alex to liquidate his dad Victor using an “Outside Man” from Paris who knew no better.

Monday, January 15, 2024

"I SHOT JESSE JAMES" (1949) *** OUT OF ****

Maverick director Samuel Fuller made his directorial debut with the B-movie western “I Shot Jesse James” (1949). This black & white, 81-minute oater opens during a daylight bank robbery. A bearded Jesse James (Reed Hadley of “The St. Valentine's Day Massacre”) and his accomplices have the bank president and his employees at gunpoint. Nevertheless, Jesse cannot see is the president edging his foot closer to an alarm bell in the floor. The tension builds as a cashier stuffs money into a set of saddle bags. The manager grinds the alarm mechanism underfoot. The alarm goes off, and Jesse and his gang flee. One of Jesse’s minions, Bob Ford (John Ireland of “Red River”), scrambles out of the bank with the loot in those saddle bags. Gunshots ring out as the gang gallops  out of town. Bob takes a bullet in the back and drops the saddle bags in the road. Jesse and his gang hightail it out of town. The infamous outlaw rushes to keep Bob from falling out of the saddle as the gang storms out of town.

Several months later, Bob splashes buckets of steaming water over Jesse’s back as the outlaw legend as he bathes. Bob spots a brand, spanking new, nickel-plated, Colt’s .45 revolver on a nearby stool. Picking it up and admires it, Bob is surprised when Jesse tells him the revolver is a gift to Bob, a reward for the latter’s loyalty. Meanwhile, Jesse’s wife, Zee (Barbara Wooddell of “The Great Jesse James Raid”), complains to Jesse about Bob and his younger brother, Charlie (Tommy Noonan of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”), who are hiding out with them. Jesse masquerades as an honest rancher under the alias of Tom Howard. He has managed to live in quiet anonymity in Missouri, while conducting his bank robberies in other states. Jesse shares his paranoid nature with Bob when he tells Bob that everybody wants to collect the $10-thousand bounty on his head. According to Jesse, a man must choose his friends with discretion.

Jesse has no idea how desperate Bob is to wed an old flame, Cynthy Waters (Barbara Britton of “Dragonfly Squadron”), who has been on tour, warbling songs for a roadshow company. No sooner does Bob learn about Cynthy being in a nearby town than he lights out to see her and propose marriage. Cynthy rejects Bob’s offer. She insists she can neither live on the run nor hide out from the law while Bob gallivants out of Missouri with Jesse and Frank James. Not only does Bob vow to hang up his six-gun, but he also plans to resume farming if Cynthy will marry him. Bob’s trouble is he has very little cash, so Cynthy--much as she loves Bob—turns down his marriage proposal. Bob’s obsession with Cynthy creates more problems than he imagined. Another man, John Kelly (Preston Foster of “Montana Territory”), approaches Cynthy with a business proposition. He wants to invest in Cynthy’s song and dance routine. When he catches Kelly in Cynthy’s room, Bob smolders with jealous rage.

Later, at the Howard ranch, Charlie is reading a newspaper article aloud about amnesty for anybody who kills or captures Jesse James and turns him over to the law. While Charlie reads the article, Bob imagines what he could do with the $10 thousand and the amnesty. Initially, he decides to buy a wedding ring for Cynthy, marry her, and settle down with the ten grand to live a quiet farmer’s life. Without further ado, Bob brandishes the Colt’s .45 with pearl handles that Jesse gave him and shoots the outlaw in the back while he struggles to adjust a picture on a wall. Eventually, Bob learns all of his best laid plans are compromised. Although he lands amnesty, Bob gets only $500 instead of the $1o thousand. Of course, Cynthy is appalled by Bob’s treachery. Although the law cannot touch him, Bob is shocked that some deranged souls want to kill him because Bob had killed Jesse. No matter where he rides, Bob encounters either contempt at his cowardice or men itching to slap leather so they can brag they have killed Jesse James’ murderer.

In “I Shot Jesse James,” Samuel Fuller shows more sympathy for Bob Ford than the eponymous outlaw. Fuller suffered no illusions about Jesse’s notoriety. He regarded Jesse as nothing less than a murdering coyote. Incidentally, Fuller doesn’t beat around the bush. He has Bob Ford bushwhack Jesse early in the film. Afterward, Bob goes prospecting in Crede, Colorado. Bob and Kelly’s paths cross again. They share a hotel room. Bob awakens the next morning and discovers to his anger that the ring he bought for Cynthy has been stolen. He accuses Kelly of the thief. However, Kelly clears himself and brings the thieving hotel clerk (Byron Foulger of “Ride the High Country”) to confess he stole Bob’s ring. By now, Cynthy fears Bob and wants to flee. However, Bob’s days are numbered when he tangles with Kelly who has pinned on a town marshal’s badge. Fuller directs with a fast, efficient hand and doesn’t let this outlaw saga wear out its welcome.

 

Saturday, January 13, 2024

"BLAST OF SILENCE" (1961) **1/2 OUT OF ****

Although it isn’t in the same league with Jean-Pierre Melville's classic 1967 French crime thriller  "Le Samurai," director Allen Baron's procedural murder melodrama "Blast of Silence" amounts to a meditation on the fate of a Cleveland, Ohio-based, contract torpedo, Frankie Bono (Allen Baron), who arrives in New York City on Christmas Eve to ice a rival, low-level crime boss. Tis the season to be murderous! Bono prefers a .38 caliber revolver equipped with a silencer as his weapon of choice. Seems like a lot of cinematic gunsels packed revolvers with silencers, even though an automatic pistol would have been far more appropriate for the occasion, particularly when silence is considered golden. Of course, most cinematic assassins usually show up with their own hardware, thus eliminating the need to bring anybody else into the equation who could prove to be a loose thread that unravels everything.

Written, produced, and directed by Baron, this lean, mean, 77-minute, film noir unfolds from our paranoid assassin's perspective. You'd think he’d tote his own firearm, so he wouldn't wind up in a hopeless predicament like he faces eventually at fade-out. Not long after he shows up in the Big Apple and receives his marching orders, Frankie tangles with a dire crisis of conscience about his predatory lifestyle. Accidentally, he runs with an old school classmate in a restaurant, and this well-meaning fellow invites Frankie to come to a party. During this social occasion, Frankie rekindles a brief relationship with an old flame, Lori (Molly McCarthy of "Over The Edge"), whom he knew before he embarked on his shady, criminal shenanigans. Second thoughts about his job as a mob hitman plague him, and he toys with the idea of making this killing the last one of his career. Our embittered protagonist displays his considerable skills as a homicidal killer, and as we eavesdroppers watch him skillfully shadow his intended victim, Troiano (Peter Clune of "Juke Box Racket”), who is often accompanied by two bodyguards. Frankie knows how to tail a target in traffic without attracting attention. He never rents the same automobile, and he knows when to stop stalking his prey because the latter might spot him. Now, we’re never given any details  about either Troiano or why he has become the object of a hit. Produced on a minuscule budget of $20 thousand, this movie is nevertheless interesting because it is so atmospheric.

Basically, "Blast of Silence" is a slow burning fuse of a film that chronicles Frankie's standard operating procedure for killing a man. First, he obtains an untraceable firearm from an unsavory, low-life criminal, Big Ralph (Larry Tucker of “Shock Corridor”) who lives alone in a ground floor city apartment. This gun runner has cages of pet hamsters stacked up around his apartment! Imagine the odor!? Ralph lives up to his “Big” nickname because he is obscenely fat and slimy. Later, Ralph gets under Frankie’s skin, and our pugnacious protagonist takes him apart during a violent, knockdown, drag-out fight that leaves Big Ralph dead in his apartment and Frankie shaken up. The criminal underworld of “Blast of Silence” is riddled with treachery and untrustworthy accomplices, especially in the film’s ominous finale.

Baron penned Frankie's loquacious voice over narration with scenarist Waldo Salt. Later, Salt would win an Oscar for his "Midnight Cowboy" screenplay, and this evocative narration provides considerable insight into the psychology of our tightlipped assassin as he contends with all the obstacles that complicate this job. Moreover, the distinguished blacklisted actor Lionel Stander of “The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight” delivers Frankie’s voice-over narration in his trademark gravel voice that blends in orally with Barron’s physical depiction of Frankie. Too bad that Stander couldn’t have dubbed all of Baron’s dialogue for the sake of similarity between the narration and Frankie’s spoken dialogue.

"Violent Women" lenser Merrill S. Brody's black & white cinematography captures the era of storefront shopping, and the austere New York City locations lend the film an abundance of authenticity, seasoned with its historic significance. The filmmakers photographed the daily flow of ‘Big Apple’ traffic on foot and in vehicles. Low-key film that it is, "Blast of Silence" delivers snapshots in time of New York City back in the early 1960s. You can feel the gritty sidewalk crunch under your shoes. Shot in an improvised documentary style, "Blast of Silence" familiarizes audiences with the obstacles our protagonist must transcend before he can perform the execution for which he has been paid.

Despite his emotional outburst after he renews his acquaintance with an old grade school girl, Frankie is a very thorough-going assassin. He describes his method of operation when he is dispatched to kill somebody. Ultimately, Frankie tosses the incriminating weapon he wielded into the bay. This turns out to be a fatal decision, and it costs Frankie his life. When he appears at a rendezvous with the mobster who hired him, Frankie is shocked to discover his days above ground are limited. We witness the age-old duplicity of organized crime when the gangsters who hired Frankie have no intention of paying him off for a job well done. Instead, these vicious hoods pursue him and riddle him with lead! Our protagonist dies face down in a muddy pond in the boondocks. Predictably, Hollywood maintained its familiar credo of ‘crime does not pay.’ Comparably, “Blast of Silence” came before the incomparable hit thrillers like Jean-Pierre Melville’s "Le Samourai" (1967) Alain Delon and Michael Winner’s “The Mechanic” (1972) with Charles Bronson. Some spectators may grumble about this slow-moving saga as well as its anonymous cast. Interestingly, Peter Falk turned down the lead role in “Blast of Silence” for his stunning turn as a killer in “Murder, Inc.” (1961) helmed by Burt Balaban and “Cool Hand Luke’s” Stuart Rosenberg. Crime Genre specialists should make the effort to watch this low-budget indie release!