The Hole, Holiday, and a few more movies

Heil Honey I'm Home! (1990)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Mimicking the style of I Love Lucy or The Honeymooners, this half-hour TV sit-com has Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun as a bickering American middle-class married couple. Their neighbors are the very Jewish Arny and Rosa Goldenstein, and when the Hitlers and Goldensteins get together, and Neville Chamberlain is coming to dinner, hilarity is in the air!

In theory, anyway. Trouble is, beyond the concept itself and a very artificial laugh track, there are only a couple of chuckles here.

It's real, in case you're wondering. Eight episodes were allegedly made, but only this debut was aired, before the show was cancelled.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦       

Hoffa (1992)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Jimmy Hoffa, longtime kingpin of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, sits in a limousine with his fictional friend Bobby Ciaro. They're waiting to meet someone who's running late, so they reminisce via flashbacks for a couple of hours.

We're shown Hoffa the young union organizer, Hoffa the tough negotiator, Hoffa going up against Bobby Kennedy, Hoffa going to prison, etc.

What motivated the man is mostly sidestepped, which is weird. A movie about Hoffa and titled Hoffa needs at least a couple of scenes of Hoffa's rabblerousing rhetoric, letting us see the man express the beliefs that drove his union work, his life's passion. Those scenes are here, but they're never more than a few sentences, and mostly clichés.

#336  [archive]
SEPT. 20, 2024

The script is by David Mamet, so it's surprising how perfunctory it is. Jack Nicholson stars, with Danny DeVito, who also directs.

Many or most of the movie's outdoor scenes were filmed on very large sets, instead of on location. It gives the proceedings the feel of fantasy, which is unusual. Sadly, nothing much else is.

The film is competent, and I don't want the price of my ticket refunded, but Jimmy Hoffa's life could make a terrific movie, and this is just lukewarm.

Verdict: YES, I guess.

♦ ♦ ♦     

Hog Wild (1930)
Streaming free at YouTube

Oliver Hardy tries to install a radio antenna atop his roof, and Stan Laurel tries to help. This 20-minute short delivered one laugh, but about 18 minutes of smiling.

Laurel & Hardy can't compete with the stunts of Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd, they lack the constant physicality of the Three Stooges, and there aren't really any wisecracks in the script. Mostly the comedy comes from their personas — Hardy the overly confident but under-competent, Laurel the kind-hearted bumbler.

Cinematography by George Stevens (director of Giant, A Raisin in the Sun, Shane, etc).

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦      

Hold That Ghost (1941)  
Streaming free at Internet Archive

This is a feature-length Abbott & Costello movie, starting with two barely-connected episodes — first they're working as waiters in an expensive, high-class night club, and then they're working at a gas station.

Eventually, they get to the haunted mansion and ghostly comedy that earns the movie's title. The film is from Universal, so the horror-movie look is authentic, and there are some laughs.

In the night club scene, Ted Lewis, an inexplicably popular performer of the time, sings "Me and My Shadow" while a black man matches his moves, playing the shadow. Less weirdly, the Andrews Sisters sing "Sleepy Serenade," and their talent and charisma remain obvious even now.

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦      

Hold That Lion! (1947)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

A millionaire has died, leaving her three nephews to inherit everything. The nephews are Larry, Moe, and Shemp, so there will be 15 minutes of complications, misunderstandings, nose twists, and smacks in the head.

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦     

The Hold Up (1972)

Three guys lose their factory jobs, and decide to hold up a Gulf station (where the posted price for regular is 37.9¢ p/gallon).

14 minutes long and filmed on Super 8, this is one of Abel Ferrara's earliest surviving works. Ferrara is a great moviemaker — Bad Lieutenant, Ms 45, etc — but this is him learning how to make movies, and his genius is not yet on display. 

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦     

Holding (1971)
Streaming free at YouTube

There are boobies in this 13½-minute short, which gets my attention, but there are also weird camera tricks, random sounds, double exposures, etc.

Bored after several minutes of this, I jumped ahead toward the end, where the same two women were horizontal, one making lunch out of the other, still with double exposures and wacky sounds.

This is "an experimental film from director Constance Beeson," says IMDB. When it was made, 1972, lickety-split imagery was shocking, even illegal in some places. America has changed, though, and now such scenery is always within half a dozen clicks, if you know your way around the web.

Lesbo porn doesn't do much for me, and if I wanted to see two women going at it, I'd prefer it without all the 'artistry' added.

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦      

The Hole (1960)
a/k/a Le Trou
a/k/a The Night Watch
Free on DVD from your public library  

It's a masterpiece, all the way through.

A man named Gaspard has been accused of attempted murder, and says he's innocent, but that's what most murderers say.

He's sent to prison, but this is in France, where prisons are very, very different than in America. The inmates are all polite, as are the guards. Nobody gets beaten up, or shivved in the yard. Never have I seen a prison so humane, and yet, Gaspard and his cellmates are plotting an escape.

Their plan is clever, maybe even possible, and thoroughly believable. The men take turns battering the cell's foundation with a purloined piece from a bed support, and slowly the concrete breaks and yields, but there's minimal time lapse or jump cuts; you're watching their actual progress, chip by bash by the sweat on their arms. It's thrilling, and psychosomatically made my shoulder ache.

There's no musical score, only the ambient noise of a jail and a jailbreak, which adds more to the feeling of reality.

It's a nearly true story, or so we're told, and I don't disbelieve it. The film is based on a novel by José Giovanni, who was imprisoned, plotted an escape, and later wrote a book about it.

In addition to all the edge-of-your-seat stuff, there's a soft-spoken message in The Hole, but I can't discuss it without giving away too much. Suffice to say that it's two hours of extreme tension, and you are there.

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦     

The Hole (1962)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

In this 15-minute animated short, two sewer workmen have an engaging conversation while they're supposed to be working down in the hole. The imagery is unusual and appealing, the voice work warm and human, and the story is a banger.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦     

The Hole (2001)  
Streaming free at Hoopla, with your library card

Four rich white high school kids get locked in an abandoned bomb shelter. Stuff happens (murdery stuff, not supernatural stuff) and some unimaginative cops investigate. We're shown different versions of what happened, à la Rashomon, except that Rashomon was interesting and this is not.

There's no moment that's even slightly frightful, and it doesn't work as a psychological drama, because these four characters lack the depth of genuine high school students.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦     

The Hole in the Ground (1962)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

This is a civil defense film, describing Britain's Cold War system for detection of atomic attack. Instead of merely explaining it, this half-hour short dramatizes it, envisioning a Soviet attack on England.

"Not too bad at all," says an un-named authority figure, "Only one burst. Southampton was the only place that got hit."

"Southampton!" says a young woman, shocked, to two other young women. "That's where our parents live!" Apparently, there are adult triplets working in Britain's defense command facility, and only one of them knows the whereabouts of Mom & Dad's house.

Strauss's "Also sprach Zarathustra" is the theme song, six years before 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦   

Holiday (1930) and Holiday (1938)
1930 version, streaming free at Internet Archive
1938 version, free on DVD from your public library

Based on a play by Philip Barry, who also wrote The Philadelphia Story, this is a pleasant (1930) or very good (1938) romantic comedy-drama of manners, in which two adult sisters live in a ridiculously huge castle in New York City, with their domineering father, an American gazillionaire,.

The younger sister, Doris, has fallen for a man named Johnny, who isn't after Doris's money, and isn't much after money of his own, either. He's planning to take a few years off from working, for no particular reason except to see the world and figure out who he is.

Doris and her moneybags father are both aghast at Johnny's disinterest in greenery, but Dad's elder daughter Linda has the same skygazing, free-spirited mindset as Johnny. It's soon obvious that Johnny and Linda belong together, though admirably, they remain only cordial, suppressing all sparks, until the story's happy ending.

There's plenty of wit and verve hung from the plotline, and you gotta love a man who's sincerely disinterested in success. At least, I gotta.

The 1930 film features Ann Harding, Robert Ames, and Mary Astor, with enjoyable best-buddy roles for the marvelous Edward Everett Horton, and future gossip columnist and HUAC name-namer Hedda Hopper. It's a very early talkie, though, and suffers from muffled sound, and now-faded imagery. Also, Ames is too dull, as a guy who's supposed to be a dynamic dreamer.

The 1938 version has no such limitations, and perfect casting with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. It's slight but sweet, gently mocking the worship of lucre while hardly letting on that it's mocking. Delightfully, Mr Horton returns, playing the same best-buddy as in the first film.

"When I find myself in a position like this, I ask myself, what would General Motors do? And then I do the opposite!"

Verdict: YES and YES, but unless you're into cinematic spelunking like me, skip 1930 and head straight to 1938.

Eleanor Powell in
Broadway Melody of 1940

   9/20/2024   

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

Holiday Inn (1942)
Hollow Image (1979)
Hollywood Boulevard (1976)
Hollywood Hotel (1937)
Hollywood or Bust (1956)
    ... plus schlock,
            shorts,
                and surprises out of alphabetical order

— — —

Now accepting movie recommendations,
especially starting with the letter 'I'.
Just add a comment, below.
— — —

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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