#113 - Ma Barker's Killer Brood

As the schizophrenia continues, we get another selection that has three movies on one DVD. This time around, the set goes by the title, Classic Gangster Movies. If there is anything I have learned while doing this, it is that the adjectives used to describe these kinds of movie collections are usually the exact opposite of what the movies should be described as. In this case, the only thing that makes them classic is that they are old. I suppose that the type of movie is classic, as well as how they made it, but in my mind, classic means that it is memorable and can stand the test of time. I'm assuming that none of you, except maybe one, have heard of this movie. And thats a big maybe. Therefore, this movie is no classic. It's not even a cult classic. It's just another old movie that is being put onto a DVD without the decency of digital remastering. Nothing as bad as Spooks Run Wild, but is it too much to ask to put forth some sort of an effort to make the movie look and sound better? Enough is too much!! You have the technology. We all know it works. We have all seen the results. I'm begging you DVD makers to use it.

But that's not why you came here today. You wanna know all there is to know about this movie. Well, I'll give you some info. It's about an hour long, black and white, has mom with a killer brood. Actually, it appears that in the midst of all these classic(there's that word again) gangsters, there was a team made up of a mother and her children. I would say that this is her story, but I get the feeling that the entire thing is a completely fictitious. I have no historical evidence to back that up, but it just seems to be the case. I'm sure the two Dillinger movies had plenty of fictitious moments, but they seemed to have a few more moments, such as his death, that were based on fact. This doesn't seem to be the case with this one.

Now that we have established that this is a movie filled with made up stuff in it(who knew?), let's actually talk about the movie itself. It's not too bad. It's not good, but we finally have another bad movie that has enough elements in it to make it fun. The best is Ma Barker herself. The movie is really all about her and the way she runs the show. If you believe this story, she was more of a badass and more coniving than Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, and all those guys combined. And let me tell you, the name Barker was never more deserving than for this character. It's ridiculous and over the top, but seeing her literally bark out orders to everyone in her nasty cold blooded style is pretty amusing, and at some times quite humorous. It takes a while for the movie to get going, which is hard when it's only an hour, but once the boys grow up to be men, it gets to be more like the gangster type movie it should be. I can't say that it's worth a recommendation, but it wasn't too bad.

#112 - Cyrano de Bergerac

Knowing that this movie was coming up, I intentionally kept my review of Jose Ferrer's Cyrano brief. I knew I was going to be writing this review next, and I knew that I couldn't write about this Cyrano without referring to the other one. It wouldn't make any sense to not do a comparison of the two, and what's nice about it is that I get two compare two movies that are producing the same story. With the Dillinger movies, I had two different kinds of movies that only shared a main character. It wasn't like they were both going off of the same material. But in this case, both movies are derived from the same play. It becomes more like a comparison of how the two filmmakers presented the story. This may be obvious to some, but I felt it to be a noteworthy tidbit.

First of all, this is a French production with subtitles. While I am fine with that, I have a problem with being able to fully evaluate the acting. Don't get me wrong, I can tell if the actors are bad or not, and they are all pretty good in this one, but I can't fully analyze it like I want to. With Jose Ferrer, every single word was crafted and spoken with a purpose in mind. I can't analyze Gerard Depardieu on that level because I don't understand French. I don't know the words he is using and I can't comprehend his use of inflection or how he emphasizes certain words. I was bummed about that because I couldn't fully compre the two performances like I wanted to. I know that some of you out ther are saying that there is no comparison, but I would disagree. This version of Cyrano is a lot less theatrical in it's style, and therefore Depardieu's performance had to be created to fit in that world. I can only say that his performance was very well done, but I can't say how well he fit into his world compared to how Ferrer fit into his.

I can say that while the earlier Cyrano was all about Jose Ferrer, this version seemed to be more about how well the filmmakers adapted the play for film. And they did a great job with that adaptation. The performances were more natural and the scenes flowed in a way that was less scene by scene, and act by act. But I got the feeling that they wanted to show you more of the adaptation instead of letting happen naturally. What am I talking about? Well, in this case, I am referring to the art direction. A tremendous amount of care and detail was put into recreating the various sites and locales that were the period for Cyrano, whatever period that was. They were actually very well done, and with ALL of the wide angle shots, you could see so much of it. It seemed like every new set had it's own wide angle shot so that you could see how good they were at making an authentic period looking building interior. I only have a beef with it because it gave the film an epic scope for a story that is quite intimate. Even the scenes on the battlefield are intimate, but for some reason, I can't remeber very many wide shots for those scenes. I think there was one or two while the battle was taking place, but nothing like they had earlier in the movie. You have a budget, use it wisely. Don't try to wow me with pretty pictures for a story that stands up on its own.

What it all comes down to is that I woul like a mix of both movies. Personally, I like my movies to be movies, and my theatre to be theatre. I am not the biggest fan of plays on film. Adapt the screenplay to fit the medium, or stage it in a less theatrical way. Of course, if the Ferrer version was done that way, his performance would not have been the same, and I loved his performance. Give me the intimacy of the earlier one, with the natural style of the new one. Give me the english language. I only half mean that. I have no problems with subtitles. If had to make a choice, I would go with Ferrer's Cyrano, but Depardieu's version has it's merit. Both are good movies.

#111 - Cyrano de Bergerac

There is a part of me that looks forward to watching some of the older Oscar winning movies. It kind of has to do with the same idea behind me no sequels first rule. I like to see what came before so that I have a better understanding or point of reference of where other movies come from. But there's something particular about the Oscar winners that I like. I think it's because they are supposed to the best, and therefore, my mind puts them down as "the" point of reference for everything else. I don't always agree with what I see, as in The Great Ziegfeld, but at least I have that perspective. I will admit that I get more geeked up for the pop culture type of movies, but I watch those for different reasons. I have another set of standards for them, and expect different results. It's the way it should be. You can't watch an art house movie through the same glasses as a summer blockbuster, and vice versa. It does a disservice to both.

Needless to say, mostly because the picture says so, this is one of those older Oscar winners. And I bet you can guess what award it won, and who won it. That's right, Jose Oscar Ferrer. What? Oscar isn't his middle name? Oh...right. Anyways, this guy is good. Without taking the time to see who else was nominated, it's easy to see why he won. It is amazing to see how in control of his character and the material he is. Every move, inflection, gesture, and glance is carefully planned out, and there are no wasted movements. Everything he does serves the ultimate purpose of the character and the script. I was unbelievably captivated by his abilities.

The movie itself was well done, especially if you like theatre. It was essentially a play shot for the big screen. One set per scene. Scenes broken up into different acts. Not a whole lot of adaptation done in the way of the script, but they did make a good effort to vary up the camera angles in the scenes. It helped make that aspect of the movie more interesting, which I think is important for a style choice that doesn't always lend itself to great cinema. That, or they really wanted to give you every possible look at the nose, which I think has nostril size inconsistencies through the movie. All I'm saying is that at some times it looked like one nostril was bigger than the other, and at other times it looked like they were the same. This is not a critcism because I dont wan't to be a film continuity geek. Just something I may have noticed. It's not confirmed. I could be totally wrong.

#110 - Spooks Run Wild

Take everything that was bad about King of the Zombies, amplify them, and then add even more things that are unbelievably difficult to sit through, and you have Spooks Run Wild. Seriously, this movie wasn't even good in a nostalgic sort of way. It wasn't even good in an "it's so bad it's good" sort of way. The fact that it's a Bela Lugosi movie other than Dracula, which is the only movie of his I have seen, doesn't even keep this one from drowning into the depths of despair. The thing was only an hour, and it was too hard to sit through. In fact, the disc was damaged, and I couldn't even see the last chapter of the movie. Normally, whenever that has been the case, I have them resend the movie and I don't write anything about it until I have watched it all. With this one, I refuse. I won't do it. You can leave your comments that tell me how that breaks my rules about seeing a whole movie from beginning to end, but I don't care. I'm never intentionally letting this movie into my place of residence again. And just for the record, it is the second movie on the Ghostly Grins DVD. For those with short memories, I won't be watching the last movie on the disc because it is a sequel, but I am getting that movie and it's predeccesor whenever blockbuster.com decides to send it to me.

You wanna know what really sucked about the movie? It's called The East Side Kids. Six kids, who are apparently hooligans, as well as from being from some sort of an east side, are the main characters of the move. It seems that they are also intended to be the humor of this movie. The problem with all of this is that at best, they only occasionally display some sort of humor-like substance. The rest of the time is spent with humorless tedium. They try too damn hard to sound like the humor of the day. I say, leave it to the proffessionals. It's why they are legends, and you ended up sweeping floors in some warehouse in a forgotten back lot for a shut down studio. I'm not a fan. Can you tell?

You wanna know what REALLY sucked about the movie? The picture quality. If I wanted to watch a worn out VHS tape, I would have checked out one of my own. If I wanted to watch a worn out VHS tape via digital technology, I would have transfered one of my own to DVD. Is it too much to ask that if you take the time and effort to put a movie on a DVD, you actually take the time and effort to make the damn thing viewable. It looked and sounded like a poorly transfered videotape. The contrast was so bad, that some dark scenes were IMPOSSIBLE to see. And it's a monster movie, so there are a shitload of dark scenes. And I know that some older movies have the occasional case of choppy editing. I have learned to accept it since it's usually quite rare or infrequent, except for this one. Some scenes have three or four "jumps" all on one camera angle. Ridiculous.

How is it that people can cram so much bad into one hour? I know they do it on TV all the time, but movies are a different beast. They serve a completely different purpose. These days, they'll a least stretch out the crap they put onto the big screen to at least an hour and a half. You would think that with only one hour to work with, you would try to use your time wisely, but they don't. They wasted every single second. If I could see the movie better, or at least the whole thing, I don't think it would make on bit of difference. This movie was dreadful.