The 400 Blows and 4:44 Last Day on Earth, and a few more films

Foul Play (1978)
Streaming free at Internet Archive 

A recently-divorced librarian (Goldie Hawn) picks up a hitchhiker, which unwittingly brings her into an assassination plot involving an albino, a man with a scarred face, a high-ranking Catholic official, a performance of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado, and Billy Barty as "the dwarf." Chevy Chase plays the cop who shows up when Goldie calls 9-1-1.

In 1978, I took a dame to see this at the long-gone Town Theater in Seattle. We both liked it, and a rewatch has been on my playlist for years. Last night was the night.

Local critic John Hartl, writing in The Times, had called Foul Play a "paint-by-numbers Hitchcock imitation," and I thought Hartl was being a highbrow movie snob. Back then, though, I hadn't seen much Hitchcock, and watching Foul Play again, it's exactly what Hartl said. The plot and situations are borrowed from Hitch, along with some of the camera angles. The only thing they didn't steal was a Hitchcock cameo.

NEVERENDING
FILM FESTIVAL
#275  [archive]
APR. 12, 2024

Objectively, there's a lot wrong with this movie. The plot is a mess of MacGuffins that can't be untangled and doesn't try. It can't decide whether it's a thriller or slapstick. Chase is mostly unfunny, and sometimes obnoxious. And it's set in San Francisco, but clearly filmed in Los Angeles.

And yet, Goldie Hawn has never been cuter, and saves the show almost all by herself. Dudley Moore is her co-star more than Chase, and Moore is hilarious. Burgess Meredith kicks ass, playing Hawn's lovable landlord.

Written and directed by Colin Higgins, who wrote the wondrous Harold and Maude, this has some small sliver of that movie's sparkle, mostly in Hawn. I even liked Barry Manilow's song, "Ready To Take a Chance Again." 

I ain't proud to recommend Foul Play, but I do.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

4D Man (1959)
a/k/a Master of Terror
Streaming free at Internet Archive

James Congdon and Robert Lansing play brothers, both mad scientists, working on getting two objects to occupy the same space at the same time. The brothers also want to occupy the same space inside Lee Meriwether, though not at the same time.

Lansing passes his fist through solid steel, walks through walls and doors, etc, so the movie needs excellent greenscreen and double-exposure work, but the effects are the weakest thing here. The greenscreens look obviously unreal, even by the standards of '50s special effects.

It's a good movie, though, with a memorably swinging score by Ralph Carmichael, and lighthearted direction by Irvin S Yeaworth Jr (The Blob), who has the actors occasionally show playful body language. 

Movie buffs might be confused by the first several seconds here. I sure was, and still am: the Columbia Pictures logo shows (you know, lady with a torch) while the Warner Bros fanfare plays. Bizarre.

Patty Duke is in the credits, but I never spotted her, and the movie's good but not good enough to watch a second time looking for an identical cousin.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

4:44 Last Day on Earth (2011)
Streaming free at The CW

Abel Ferrara made two fantastic, gritty, pessimistic films that I loved, Ms 45 and Bad Lieutenant.

In 1993 he did a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, titled simply Body Snatchers, and I was there for the first matinee. I was pumped, man. It should've been a perfect match of cynical moviemaker and dark source material, but instead, Body Snatchers simply sucked.

After that, Abel Ferrara dropped off my watchlist.

Everybody makes occasional mistakes, though, and Ferrara has had a long career since the '90s, making movies I've never heard of. Sometimes "never heard of it" is a good thing, especially if your tastes run outside the ordinary. This is a film I'd never heard of, written and directed by Ferrara.

"At 4:44 AM tomorrow morning, give or take a few seconds, the world will come to an end. It will be the result of the ever-weakening ozone layer, that has now thinned and dissipated far more rapidly than even the worst doomsayer could've imagined. So the final explosion, meltdown, will come with fair warning, but no possible means of escape. There will be no survivors. The world will end."

That's the concept. Everything's over at a quarter till five tomorrow morning.

The film opens with a long, unsexy sex scene, to remind you that Ferrara is a sick fuck, but after that 4:44 is unique and very worth a watch. It's about little moments, and like life itself, some of the little moments are stupid and some are profound.

The film isn't apocalyptic, nor science fiction. It's not a realistic look at how a sudden, known-in-advance end of the world would play out, nor is it trying to be. It's a think piece, that's all — a meditation on the mood when you know everything's almost over.

CNN signs off, so staff can go home to their loved ones, but there's little panic in the air. Cisco (Willem Dafoe) checks his email, visits his brother, and spends most of the last day with his wife Skye (Shanyn Leigh). She's an artist, painting a canvas that'll never be finished. With mere hours to go, they order Chinese food delivered. "Ain't That a Shame" plays on the soundtrack, a fitting theme for a sunset that won't be followed by sunrise.

"The world's been ending ever since it started, man. We've been ending ever since we were born. Don't take that shit too seriously."

Verdict: YES.

Best of all, 4:44 puts a long backlog of Abel Ferrara movies on my watchlist. Even Body Snatchers might merit a second look.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Four Horsemen (2012)
Streaming free at Tubi

This is a documentary made in the aftermath of the financial crisis circa 2008, and I think it's arguing that the banking collapse was symptomatic of the end of American or western civilization. The film does quite a poor job making its point, though. It's full of odd, flowery assertions made without much evidence.

"Just as Gutenberg's printing press wrestled control of the cognitive map away from an ecclesiastical and royal elite, today the internet is beginning to change governments, finance, and the media."

Is it? How so? It's unexplained here.

"… We need context from people who speak the truth in the face of collective delusion, because to understand something is to be liberated from it."

Uh, no, understanding is not liberation. That's the dumbest line since "Love means never having to say you're sorry."

Immediately after promising "context from people who speak the truth in the face of collective delusion," we're introduced to one of the world's great liars, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell. Wilkerson helped Powell prepare the infamous false reasons for war, delivered at the United Nations, and thus should be disqualified from punditry or being a talking head in any documentary.

"People who speak the truth," my pimpled white ass.

The four horsemen, if you're wondering, are crooked finance, ecological collapse, state violence, and poverty. OK, but what's gained by calling these things 'horsemen,' beyond creepy religious implications?

Watching the first ten minutes of this — that's as far as I got — is like listening to a kindhearted kook ramble on and on about politics. Even if you agree with him, he's not making much sense, and unless he's family, you have better things to do.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

This is a famous silent movie, beautifully photographed, and tinted scene by scene to match the mood. It has some great war scenes, but I kinda hate war movies. The Biblical prophecy of the four horseman of the apocalypse is presented well, but religion bores me. Mostly, this is an big, kinda bloated and boring silent melodrama.

The story is about a rich family in Argentina, where the patriarch is a Spanish cattle rancher. One of his daughters marries a German man, the other daughter marries a Frenchman. Because of the politics of the time, Dad prefers the French-married daughter, and adores his half-French grandson, who grows up to be Rudolph Valentino. 

This made Valentino a star, and he's very handsome, but his acting is of a different era. So's the movie. It was a big hit in 1926, but seems stale today.

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

The 400 Blows (1959)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

This is a coming-of-age story about a French kid named Antoine, who's about 15 years old. He's a low-key troublemaker at home, and frequently scolded at school, which is shown as being all about discipline and control, and barely about education at all.

Antoine's parents argue frequently, and his mother is endlessly exasperated with him, so after skipping school one day his excuse at school the day after is that his mum died. Of course, that gets him in even worse trouble.

The boy moves on to theft, stealing a typewriter, which in our day might be akin to stealing a laptop. In this movie's France in the 1950s, it's enough to get Antoine sentenced to a juvenile prison, which seems excessive to this bleeding heart liberal — it's discipline and control again, a rotten thing to do to a kid.

François Truffaut's The 400 Blows is widely hailed as one of the finest films of the 20th century, which seems a bit much, but it's excellent — the best film I've seen this week, maybe this month. It's heartfelt, thoughtful, funny and sad, with fine direction, sweet performances, and a great black-and-white look to it. 

Verdict: BIG YES.

4/12/2024   

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

Four Lions (2010)
Four Sided Triangle (1952)
14 Days in a City with No Laws (2023)
Fourteen Hours (1951)
The Fox (1967)
Foxy Brown (1974)

... plus schlock, shorts, and surprises

— — —

'Movie reviews' that that recount the plot, paragraph after paragraph, suck. My pledge to you: I'll only give the basics of a movie's premise, with no spoilers after that.  

— — —

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 

 

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