June Films Update 1

I watch too many films, here's ten from earlier this year.

1. Scarface

Tony Montana leaves Cuba in 1980 as a refugee; he’s a former convict being sent out of the country. Arriving in Miami he finds himself in a refugee camp. His way out for him and his friends is to murder a former Cuban general for drug lord Frank Lopez.

Working as dishwashers, Lopez’s henchman Omar find another job for them, making a deal with Colombian smugglers. The smugglers hold them up and one of Tony’s friends is killed with a chainsaw before the others rescue him. They return the drugs and money directly to Lopez, unsure if Omar set them up to fail, or just sent them to some dodgy people.

Tony becomes indispensable, though when he visits his mother and sister, his mother throws him out for being a criminal. Tony also flirts with Frank’s wife Elvira. When Tony’s sent to Bolivia with Omar, Omar’s unhappy when he negotiates; then the Bolivian grower hangs Omar from his helicopter, claiming he was an informant.

Frank’s unhappy with this and Tony sets up his own cocaine dealing business. A corrupt policeman shakes him down, and after an attack Tony realises he’s in league with Lopez. He sets a trap and kills them both, taking Lopez’s cocaine business, working with the Bolivians. He makes vast amounts of money, marries Elvira, gives his sister a hairdressing salon and lives in a fortified estate.

And then the fall. A friendly bank is laundering the money but the problem now is there is too much, it can’t handle it all. They try another lead, but it’s a federal sting. Thanks to his high-priced lawyers Tony can wriggle free of most of it but they’ve got him on tax evasion and is facing jail time. The Bolivians come in, offering to use their influence to get Tony off (millions of dollars in fines, but that’s money, there’s no problem). In return they want his help in killing an activist who is going to report on Bolivian drug industry and government corruption to the UN. Filled with anger and frustration Tony blames his friend Manny, and accuses Elvira of being drug-addicted and infertile and useless, so she leaves.

In New York Tony stops the hitman when he’s going to blow up the car with the activist because his wife and children are in it. His partners decide he’s a liability and send an army of hitmen after him. Back in Miami he discovers his sister is missing; tracking her down he discovers her with Manny who he shoots before learning they got married that day. He brings her back to his mansion where a final bloody shootout and confrontation occurs, all the rage that Tony has and all the firepower he’s kept in reserve come out.

It's a violent and bleak film, about the people who commit crime, the glamour and the danger, the grim and terrible emptiness. The compromises you make, and how no matter how ruthless you are it’s not enough.

Watch This: Classic gangster film (based on a 1930s novel that had a film made back then)
Don’t Watch This: Sweary, violent people lie, cheat and steal

2. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

A prequel to The Lord Of The Rings, at least in film form; Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit (halfling) who lives in a burrow. The wizard Gandalf, who knew his mother, is passing by and decides that it would be good for Bilbo to join Thorin Oakenshield and his band of dwarves on their quest.

What is that quest? Thorin’s grandfather was king under the mountain, lord of the dwarf realm of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain. The dragon Smaug drove them out and also destroyed the town of Dale, where men lived, downhill from the gate. The dwarves became wanderers. No one has seen the dragon for years. Thirteen dwarves take over Bilbo’s home for dinner and Thorin explains what’s happened. He called for his kin in the other dwarf kingdoms to come and help him retake the mountain and it’s fabulous riches. They would not, not without some proof. Without the Arkenstone, the fabulous king-jewel that was found beneath the mountain. Gandalf has picked Bilbo to be the expedition’s burglar. He has a map with a secret door into the mountain. If Smaug is dead or gone, no problem. But if he’s still there, Bilbo will sneak in, take the Arkenstone and then Thorin will proclaim himself king and get the dwarf help.

They spend the rest of the film travelling. They encounter some trolls, and though captured Bilbo keeps them talking* so that the trolls attempt to eat them is interrupted by daylight when they turn to stone. Amongst the treasure hoard they find some elven blades, including a short one that’s hobbit sized. Radagast the Brown, a wizard colleague of Gandalf's, arrives to warn them that something bad is happening in the Mirkwood, which is bad as they have to cross it.

Also hunting them is Azog the Despoiler, an orc war-chief who killed Thorin’s father, and in return Thorin cut off his arm (while wielding an oak branch in his off-hand, hence Oakenshield). Thorin thought him dead. He’s not! They flee to Rivendell where Gandalf consults with Saruman, another wizard; Elrond, Elf Lord of Rivendell; and Galadriel, Elf Lady of Lothlorien. Saruman thinks the rumours of bad things in Mirkwood false, forbids the expedition from continuing, but the dwarves and Bilbo have already left.

They head into the Misty Mountains, find themselves caught up in a battle of Stone Giants and seek refuge in a cave. They are captured by goblins and taken to the Great Goblin. Bilbo meanwhile escapes, picks up a magic ring, meets a strange creature known as Gollum, and wins a riddle game. Gandalf arrives and rescues the dwarves, they all flee the mountain only to be chased by Azog, fleeing into trees. As the orcs try to flush them out, at the last moment Gandalf manages to summon eagles and they escape.

The film takes a larger view than the book, partly in an attempt to make them fit better with The Lord Of The Rings films, and partly to expand a slim children’s book into three long films. The various escapes and chases are hectic, and sometimes confusing. The advancements in special effects are not always to the advantage of the film. A problem is that there are thirteen dwarves, too many to actually have characters or stories. It is the right number to lose one or two to show the peril they’re in; but all thirteen are fated to make it to the Lonely Mountain and despite all the additions, this is one change the filmmakers weren’t going to make.

It is still, however, a superior action fantasy film. If occasionally confused, for the most part the action is clearly set up, we understand what’s going on and who is where. The scene of the dwarves in Bilbo’s home goes on and on, with several changes in tone, but it’s great fun. And if a lot of other bits also go on too long, they’re never without interest.

Watch This: Fun, exciting and well-made fantasy film
Don’t Watch This: It’s only one third of a slim story padded out with some unnecessary Lord Of The Rings foreshadowing

* Apparently; the film muffs this as several dwarves are on a spit being cooked while the discussion takes place, so he doesn’t actually delay them.

3. The Mummy (2017)

Do I have anything new to say about this film? Now I know that the Dark Universe was dead on arrival, how does it hold up?

The whole ancient Egypt, doing deals with the demon of Set thing is still a little dubious. Poor Egyptology. Still, having seen a bunch of stand-alone Mummy and Mummy-adjacent films, no worse than usual. There’s some genuinely spooky moments, which the film seems determined to undercut – the zombification and return of Nick’s friend Chris, Henry Jekyll’s cold-blooded decision to allow Nick to be possessed to capture Set, several scenes of underground menace. Each then being turned to light-hearted action.

Putting Prodigium, the monster-hunting agency under the Natural History Museum is fun, if only for me, someone familiar with the area. And the modern day equivalent of the ancient mummy-trap, that’s nice.

In 1999 they made a version of The Mummy that was, frankly, old-fashioned even then, a period retro-action adventure. The complete modernisation, making this a contemporary occult-superhero thriller had the odd effect of making it lose it’s identity. It’s Tom Cruise doing daring stunts and saving the worlds, like he does in Mission: Impossible. It’s Russell Crowe doing some exposition like he did in Man Of Steel. The world’s threatened by a mysterious, seductive woman – actually that bit is distinctive, she’s sensual and sexual in a way that villains don’t seem to be at the moment. But not enough to lift it to the heights they were hoping.

Watch This: Spectacular creepy action film
Don’t Watch This: Watch the Mission Impossible films, or other Mummy films

4. Death On The Nile (1978)

Jackie de Bellefort (Mia Farrow) convinces her wealthy heiress friend Linnet Ridgeway to employ her fiancé Simon Doyle (Simon MacCorkindale). In the next scene we discover that Linnet has cut out Jackie and married Simon. They go on honeymoon to Europe, where Jackie follows them, interrupting their enjoyment. This continues to Egypt. At a hotel in Aswan, on the Nile, they meet a variety of unusual characters, including famous detective Hercules Poirot (Peter Ustinov).

Attempting to evade Jackie, Simon and Linnet pretend to head for the railway station and instead sneak aboard the SS Karnak for a cruise down the Nile. The other passengers are all the recognisable actors from the scenes in the hotel, many of whom have connections to Linnet. Her American lawyer (George Kennedy); author Salome Otterbourne (Angela Lansbury), an author who libelled her accompanied by her daughter; her maid who wishes to marry but Linnet will not pay what she promised; an American who covets her necklace, and her assistant who was ruined by Linnet’s father; a communist who hates all wealth; and a psychiatrist whose unorthodox treaments hurt a friend of Linnet and in return she exposed him.

Jackie joins the cruise, and then there is a late night confrontation. Jackie shoots Simon in the leg. The next morning Linnet is found dead, the letter J marked in blood by her. Poirot and his friend Colonel Race (David Niven) must investigate, preferably before they return to Aswan and the police get involved.

It’s an Agatha Christie murder mystery, and a convoluted one. Poirot has to find his way through a tangle of odd characters with peculiar potential motives and even stranger objectives, each of them approaching their interrogation in their own idiosyncratic manner. Poirot is Poirot, here an older, somewhat vain man, yet formidable enough that he is put out of the way on the night in question. There’s some lovely scenery, though the majority of the action takes place on board the boat, rather than looking at the river (or the banks, some of which might not have been the same as in 1937, when the story is set). Egypt itself and Egyptians make little impact on the story.

Watch This: Classic period adaption with many notable actors of the 70s
Don’t Watch This: Rich people squabbling fatally on a boat

5. Super Mario Bros

Mario and Luigi are brothers and plumbers in Brooklyn New York. They’re comically inept, to the derision of their former boss and disapproval of their father. Finding a leak they discover a warp pipe and are sucked to another dimension, maybe.

Mario lands in the mushroom kingdom. This is threatened by Bowser, lord of the Dark Lands, who has got control of a Super Star, and wishes to marry the mushroom ruler, Princess Peach. Luigi unfortunately ended up in the Dark Lands.

Mario learns about how things work. Platforms, power-ups, pipes, that kind of thing. It’s like a computer game! Because that’s what it’s based on. Or rather several computer games, Mario originated in Donkey Kong so they have to go to Kong country, and also there’s a cart racing game, so there are long sequences of spectacular driving.

There’s a few fun jokes, probably more that I missed because I’m not a Nintendo kid, the paper thin plot is plastered over with some fun characters. It’s for kids, so it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome, shooting brightly coloured complex action at the eyeballs for ninety minutes.

Watch This: 90 minutes of ridiculous computer-game inspired action
Don’t Watch This: Unless you want a moustached Italian-American running jumping and driving in a bizarre platform-ed world

6. Rocky IV

After regaining the Heavyweight Boxing Championship Of TheWorld Rocky’s doing well for himself. He’s got money and a mansion, he and his wife are doing well, his son is growing up fine and he’s even bought his brother-in-law Paulie a robot (?). Then former rival and now friend Apollo Creed arrives. The Russians have discovered boxing exists and have created the ultimate boxer, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgrum) to bring the Cold War to a new arena. He’s touring America and Apollo wants to come out of retirement to fight him – in part because he’s a patriot, and in part as the ultimate show, USA vs USSR. Rocky doesn’t think there’s anything to prove, but agrees to join him in training (he owes him from Rocky III).

At the press conference there’s a lot of shouting, the Russian manager insulting, Apollo full of self-promotion as ever. They really want to fight Rocky, who’s still champion (I think?) but Rocky will not be baited. There’s a big match in Las Vegas, James Brown, dancing girls, a huge show. Creed dresses up like Uncle Sam, the whole thing. Then he fights Drago, and is entirely outmatched. Duke, Apollo’s trainer, want’s to stop the fight but Apollo tells them not to, and then in the next round Drago kills him.

Rocky feels guilty, can’t cope with it. He has a long driving scene where he flashes back to all the good Apollo scenes from Rocky I, II, III and IV. He comes back and decides to fight Drago, though his wife doesn’t want him to.

There’s another press conference where Rocky is even less demonstrative than usual, refusing to rise to the bait of the manager. Only when Paulie responds do they manage to get the argument they want. Rocky heads for Russia where he trains out in the snow, while Drago has machines and computers.

Seeing this film in the context of I,II,III and V (review forthcoming) makes it clear how slight it is. It’s not as though Rocky films are deep thematic, psychological dramas, it’s about a guy who’s trying to live his life and occasionally has a boxing match. But in Rocky he’s got a whole romance with Adrien, despite the two of them having difficulty talking to each other, and a storyline of how he reconciles with Mickey. Here it’s Apollo wants to fight Drago, but doesn’t take it seriously. Rocky wants to fight Drago and does take it seriously, his wife doesn’t want him to but comes around, in the end he makes a speech about maybe we can all get along. The weight of it was supposed to be the Cold War stuff, Russians being inherently scary, ten feet tall fighting machines. Well Dolph looks the part, but there’s nothing going on with his character either. An empty shell of a Rocky film.

Watch This: Iconic addition to the boxing movies series
Don’t Watch This: Just Rocky stripped of depth, all surface razzmatazz

7. The Riddle Of The Sands

It’s 1901 and Carruthers has been working in the Foreign Office, holding it down during the summer while everyone is away on holiday, also getting over being disappointed in love. As people start to trickle back he gets an invitation to go yachting with his old friend Davies in the Baltic. He accepts, and arrives* with Davies’ requested supplies to discover the Dulcibella is much smaller than he expected and also the only crew is Davies (and now Carruthers).

Davies has a strange story. He has encountered a German entrepreneur, Dollman, on his yacht the spookily named Medusa. He’s attracted to Dollman’s daughter Clara, but something is off. There’s something strange going on amongst the Frisian Islands off Germany’s North Sea coast. Dollman tried to lure Davies to the Baltic to go duck shooting, and when Davies tried to take shelter in an estuary in heavy weather, cut him off in a way dangerous to both vessels. Meanwhile Dollman seems heavily involved with the German naval authorities. Carruthers speaks German, and as a Foreign Office official, has credibility to the British government if the Germans are secretly building a naval base or something on an obscure island.

There’s a lot of sailing, a lot of spying, and some fun bits of Davies awkwardly courting Clara, while Carruthers plays the oblivious Englishman in front of the Germans. There is a plot, and if a bit impractical from the view of 120 years later, it’s worth noting the enormous changes in naval warfare that took place in the years leading up to and into the First World War. We might place the novel in the legacy of invasion scares of the period. The film though is an uncomplicated period adventure, very enjoyable if you like sailing scenes and Edwardian logistics.

Watch This: Fun period sailing spy thriller
Don’t Watch This: Boats and spying are not fun

* Until he steps off the train the film is somewhat coy about revealing Carruthers’ face, though the voiceover is the distinctive tone of Michael York. Did they have to shoot the London scenes with a stand in, or was it just an odd affection?

8. The Gamma People

An American reporter and a British photographer are on a train through Europe on their way to a music festival. Their carriage comes loose and rolls down a normally closed branch line to the tiny and obscure state of Gudavia. There’s some confusion as the comic opera commandant tries to arrest them as spies.

The entire country (one medium sized town and a castle up the valley in the mountain) has been cut off. There’s a scientist who’s informally in charge, who has some ideas of improving people through education.

Things get spookier as there’s a gang of men who wordlessly wander around, thuggishly. The common people are generally cowed though one beautiful woman will speak up a bit. One of the children is giant fanatic of whatever the ideology is; it’s against backwards, past ideas, favours science and logic.

The scientist is using gamma rays, and there are two possible ways things can go, creating the mindless, ape-like men who can be directed in a pack. Or it can make very smart kids, very talented ones. Obviously the interlopers figure this out, the scientist tries to stop them, then kill them and there’s a violent ending.

Watch This: Undemanding Ruritanian Science Fiction Horror
Don’t Watch This: Gamma rays don’t work like that

9. The Bigamist

Harry and Eve Graham are looking to adopt a child; Mr Jordan from the agency is vetting them. They live in San Francisco, the two working together selling fridges, with Harry often travelling to Los Angeles and staying there as part of his sales. Jordan goes to Los Angeles, talks to the people at his office. For some reason they can’t find where he’s been staying; when the receptionist calls round the hotels he hasn’t been in them for months. Jordan finds Harrison Graham in the phone book and goes round to discover Harry, with a baby and a sick wife. Harry then explains himself in a lengthy flashback.

After Eve discovered she couldn’t have children she threw herself into the business to the exclusion of everything else. Feeling lonely and at a loose end in Los Angeles Harry takes a tour of the move stars’ homes and meets Phyliss (Ida Lupino, who also directed the film). After some banter she suggests going to a Chinese restaurant where it turns out she’s a waitress. When Harry calls up and tries to tell Eve about this she insists on talking business.

Harry spends free time with Phyliss, first as friends. As their relationship gets more serious Harry tries to give up, asks Eve to go on a vacation but she thinks the business comes first. Phyliss has insisted Harry not tell her about his past, as they aren’t going to fall in love. They fall in love and on Harry’s last night they have sex.

Wracked with guilt Harry returns to San Francisco and arranges things to not go back to Los Angeles. Eve meanwhile comes to terms with her infertility and suggests adopting, But then her father falls ill and she has to go to them; after three months Harry has to return to Los Angeles to do business. Checking in on Phyliss, he finds she’s pregnant. She doesn’t want to trap him; he decides the honourable course is to divorce Eve. But when he calls her, her father has died and he hasn’t the heart, so he marries Phyliss bigamously.

The film ends in court, where Phyliss and Eve meet in a rather muted manner and the judge muses on how if Harry had made Phyliss his mistress the law would have no say in the matter, and whichever way it ends up he’s responsible for providing for them both. The film is perhaps most notable for Ida Lupino both directing and acting in it; it seems she was the first female director/actor to do so in Hollywood after the silent era.

Watch This: Interesting 50s drama of forbidden love
Don’t Watch This: There’s no real twists or turns, and the women don’t really get to comment on what all this means

10. Carry On Girls

The seaside town of Fircombe* is a tourist spot but no one’s coming. It’s old-fashioned and rains all the time. At the town council Sidney Fiddler (Sid James) suggest a beauty contest. Augusta Prodworthy (June Whitfield) objects, walking out, but she neglects to ensure the meeting has officially finished so they hold a vote and it passes.

Fiddler arranges things at the hotel, filled with various eccentric characters, though the owner, Fiddler’s girlfriend Connie Philpotts (Joan Sims), the hotel owner, is dubious, especially as the contestants get to stay for free. The beauties arrive, including Hope Springs (Barbara Windsor) who won a biker beauty contest, and gets into a fight with rival Dawn Brakes (Margaret Nolan) who won a dairy beauty contest. In the ensuing struggle the Mayor loses his trousers, photographed by Larry Prodworthy (Robin Askwith).

The film moves through various comic (and “comic”) setpieces. Prodworthy’s feminist movement is joined by the mayor’s wife with an unfunny bra burning scene. They also protest a gents toilet being opened by the mayor, asking where the facilities for the ladies are.

Sidney gets Peter Potter (Bernard Bresslaw), a publicity man to drum up coverage, and he succeeds in getting Cecil Gaybody (sigh) to bring a TV crew down to film the contest for the TV show Women’s Things. Sidney convinces Potter to dress up as a contestant for some extra publicity. Prodworthy and butch feminist Rosemary bring the police who correctly point out that it’s not illegal for a man to dress as a woman** unless it’s for fraud. The accusation is made with the contestants on stage in front of the cameras so they begin to strip to their underwear to prove themselves. Potter escapes and hides in Hope Springs’ room where she, in league with Fiddler, claims he’s been there in his underwear the whole time. At this moment Potter’s fiancée Paula Perkins (Valerie Leon) turns up for a bit of romantic confusion, which ends with her joining the contest to Potter’s dismay.

The final setpiece is the actual contest at the end of the pier, where the feminists decide to try and sabotage it, while Fiddler intends to pocket the door money. Interestingly the film is not especially hard on the killjoy feminists; yes they are ridiculous and incompetent but so is everyone else. As soon as Fiddler starts his admittedly low-minded plan to get visitors to the town he starts getting everyone else to pay for it and trying to gain the benefits for himself. The extremely beautiful Paula going from bespectacled office-worker to swimsuit model being disapproved of by her fiancé, the publicity man for the contest, is as close to the film gets to an opinion, and it’s more about his hypocrisy.

Watch This: Unsophisticated small-town beauty contest comedy, with more to say about the period and the media than it intends
Don’t Watch This: Even for Carry On films this is a very silly set-up

* Pronounced almost like “Fuck ‘em”. You can see the level we’re aimed at.

** Or vice versa, as he says to the suit-and-tie wearing short-haired Rosemary in a pre-pronouns pronouns joke