As the H’s get underway, this is the best bunch of movies yet — four BIG YESes today, and I’m not even sure which YES is the biggest!♦ ♦ ♦
Hail! Mafia. (1965)
Streaming free at YouTube

This is a dark but brilliant buddy picture about two Mafia killers, Phil and Schaft, working as a team. Jack Klugman and Henry Silva star, along with a happening jazzy score, and dialogue sharp as broken glass. Eddie Constantine plays the target, an American living in France, and destined to die there, because he has inside knowledge and the client thinks he’s likely to talk.

NEVERENDING FILM FESTIVAL #316  [archive] JULY 31, 2024

The two killers have long, borderline friendly conversations about the mechanics and morality of their work, squabbling about some things and agreeing about others. Phil talks and talks, while Schaft is quieter but more intense, and Klugman and Silva are fabulous together.It’s surprising that this film isn’t more famous; it’s a top-drawer B-movie, better than most A’s, and it’s among the best screen work by both Klugman and Silva.Hail Mafia was filmed on location in France, but it’s hard to tell — the only copy I could find is so washed out it looks like kinescope. That’s my only complaint, but even in this visually damaged version, it’s well worth seeing.Verdict: BIG YES. ♦ ♦ ♦   Hail the Conquering Hero (1943)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Chronic hay fever gets Woodrow Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) discharged from the US Marines. There’s a war on, so the hay fever probably saved his life, but he wanted to do his patriotic part so he’s sad about being booted back home.Recuperating with a beer at the bar, he meets the wily Sgt. Heffelfinger (William Demarest), who urges him to concoct some imaginary heroics. As often happens at the movies, the lie gathers momentum that can’t be stopped, and soon Woodrow’s widely admired and being cajoled to run for Mayor, and there’s romantic interest from his ex-girlfriend (Ella Raines), though she’s engaged to marry someone else.If you read between the laughs, it has something to say about mindless hero-worship, and the inanities of mindless politics, but mostly the movie’s just funny. Written and directed by Preston Sturges, who was a master at this kind of giggly schmaltz. Verdict: YES.♦ ♦ ♦ Hail the New Puritan (1987) 

British ballet-man and counterculture choreographer Michael Clark stars as himself, and the film has an ordinary documentary structure, following Clark and his colleagues around, gathering soundbites and rehearsal bits and such. I’m uncertain whether the talky bits are real or mockumentary, but the aura is rock’n’roll even amidst the ballet, and it’s fabulous.Sure, there’s dancing, but the moves, the music, the costumes, and the hop-around attitude would not be welcomed by the tuxedo crowd that ballet usually draws. The dancework is fabulous, so they must’ve rehearsed the hell out of it, but the hell is still in it.And even the pretentious moments are done up with snickers and special effects, making this a near-perfect blend of legwork and twirling and drag and bad attitude.
Hail the New Puritan is one of the great dance movies, right up there with anything from Michael Powell. It is filled with strange people being strange, making art and being marvelous, and it cannot be watched without a smile — I dare you. It’s especially recommended if (like me) dance is not a topic that generally piques your interest. Great music on the soundtrack, too, by The Fall, Glenn Branca, maybe others.Sadly, it’s hard to find, unavailable on DVD or streaming. I watched a VHS version bootlegged from a British telecast, with commercials included (helpful for catching my breath between the dances). After much searching, my second watch was a commercial-free pirated version with sharper imagery, which I’ll cheerfully share with anyone who asks.Verdict: BIG YES. ♦ ♦ ♦ Hair (1979)
Streaming free at Daily Motion

Hair is a sanitized look at the 1960s hippie era and drug counterculture, with a story of an Oklahoma boy named Claude (John Savage) who’s been drafted, and takes a bus to New York City to report for induction. For cinematic reasons, the bus lets him out in Central Park, where he promptly meets Berger (Treat Williams) and his band of clean-scrubbed flower kiddies, a black dude named Hud, a Peter Tork lookalike going by Woof, and a pregnant hippie chick named Jeannie.From this follows pot, acid, a pretty woman, literal horseplay, a lot of terrific music, and an impossible but inarguably effective ending.Gerome Ragni, James Rado, and Galt MacDermot created Hair for the stage, and of course, it was a big hit with a long run on Broadway.When Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest)
made it a movie more than ten years later, he jettisoned the plot,
dropped some of the songs, and pissed off the play’s creators, who unanimously hated this movie. They’re all dead now, and wrong — dead wrong. The movie of Hair is simply a joy.Several of the songs became familiar pop hits, and others should have — “Aquarius,” “Sodomy,” “Colored Spade,” “Ain’t Got No,” the marvelous “I Got Life,” “Electric Blues,” “Where Do I Go?”, “Black Boys/White Boys,” “Walking in Space,” “Easy to Be Hard,” “Good morning Starshine,” and “Let the Sunshine In.” There are no weak numbers, presumably because Forman chopped them out. My only objection is that he cut Charlotte Rae’s hilarious rendition of “My Conviction,” but at least it was on the soundtrack album, which I bought and played almost endlessly until giving away my albums and record collection when I gave up my ordinary life.Choreography by Twyla Tharp, so the dancing is splendid, but often the cuts and edits don’t let us see it all. There’s a lovable hallucination sequence that surreally stretches across several songs. Savage captures innocence, Williams exudes exuberance, and as Sheila the socialite debutante, Beverly D’Angelo is a daydream on a horse.It’s the ’60s reworked for a PG rating, but it’s not pretending to be a documentary, and it develops a counterculture feel. Every time I see Hair, it’s better than I’d remembered. Verdict: BIG YES. ♦ ♦ ♦ The Haircut (1982)
Streaming free at YouTube

John Cassavetes plays an important executive on his way to an important meeting, but he needs a haircut and needs it in a hurry — it’s important!He asks a barber if he can be in and out with a haircut in fifteen minutes, but this short film is 21 minutes long, so there’s your answer.Cassavetes made great films, but he’s only an actor here. Never would’ve guessed him as a funny guy, but he brings most of the laughs. Also features Joyce Bulifant, Nicholas Colasanto, Meshach Taylor, and the Bangles when they were just the Bangs.Verdict: YES.♦ ♦ ♦ Hairspray (1988)”Our souls are black, even though our skin is white.”

In the entire history of show business since the first caveman told the first joke, has there ever been a more unlikely success than John Waters’ grand slam with Hairspray? He’d made nothing but cheap and disgusting movies, like Female Trouble, Mondo Trasho, Pink Flamingos — all filled with vomit and poop and other gross-out moments that made him a cult hero and certainly a favorite moviemaker of mine, but he was so far from the mainstream that most moviegoers had never heard of him. And then — this?Hairspray is set in the early ’60s, with clean-cut teenagers who have enormous sprayed-helmet hairdos, and dance on a fictionalized version of American Bandstand. Well, the white kids dance, but the black kids are restricted to the show’s “Negro Night,” Thursdays only, and aren’t allowed at the town’s amusement park.Ricki Lake stars as “pleasantly plump” Tracy Turnblad, who’s all for integration but mostly just wants to win the dance contest. Everyone’s favorite cross-dressing star, Divine, plays dual roles as Tracy’s mom, and in manclothes as the TV show’s bigoted producer. And how the heck did Waters talk Debbie Harry into saying, “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” — and how did they make that line hilarious?Somehow Waters dialed down his trademark eccentricities to find exactly the sweet spot, making Hairspray weird, funny, just a bit outrageous, but palatable to the masses. It offers laughs, great music, and An Important Lesson To Be Learned about racial tolerance.Sonny Bono, Ruth Brown, Josh Charles, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Ric Ocasek, Jerry Stiller, and Pia Zadora are featured, with Waters mainstays Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pearce, and Waters himself. Produced by Rachel Talalay, who’s directed eight episodes of Doctor Who on the other side of the ocean.”The Council will now meet in secret, debate your personality flaws, and come to a final decision.”Verdict: BIG YES. ♦ ♦ ♦  • Not your average monster movies: exploring the many monsters of Larry Fessenden • How Dashiell Hammett’s first and most important novel eluded film adaptation and still managed to find its way onto the big — and small — screen • Many people visit, few ever leave… The Madhouse7/31/2024   • • • Coming attractions • • •     Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018)
Hallelujah I’m a Bum (1933)
Hallucination Generation (1966)
Hamilton (2020)
Hammett (1982)
… plus schlock, shorts, and surprises