Tuesday's Overlooked Films: THE CROOKED WEB Starring Frank Lovejoy (1955)

This 1955 film directed by Nathan Juran stars Frank Lovejoy, Richard Denning, and Mari Blanchard. It is an above-average crime movie I watched because I liked Frank Lovejoy featured in Ida Lupino's The Hitch-Hiker and in Bogie's best film in my opinion, In A Lonely Place. This time out, Lovejoy plays an Army sergeant who kills an MP while still in post-World War Two Germany. He gets discharged and returns to California where he opens a fast food joint and hires the effervescent Maria Blanchard to work there as a waitress. Richard Denning, posing as Blanchard's brother, shows up with a get-rich-quick scheme that involves travel back to Germany. Lovejoy knows he's wanted for murder in Germany, but he can't resist making the big score. Plus, the nubile Blanchard is egging him on to take Denning's offer to cut them in on the scheme. Lovejoy, who proves he isn't the brightest bulb on the porch, goes for it, and the real trouble begins when they get to Germany. I won't say anything else about the plot which I found a bit confusing at times. Blanchard, who later died of cancer at age 43, is a delight to watch. Denning, later appearing on Jack Lord's TV crime drama Hawaii Five-0, does a solid job in his role. On the other hand, the laid-back Lovejoy is a bit of a disappointment, or maybe it's just the character's role he plays. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch The Crooked Web, but it's not a terrible movie either. IMDb.com rates it 6.2/10.0 which also shows it is okay but not great.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Violent Saturday Starring Lee Marvin

This 1955 film noir was a pleasure to watch for several reasons. First, Lee Marvin is always good as he is in his minor role here as a sadistic bank robber. Second, the movie was shot in color, and the Arizona small town setting is picturesque. Third, Ernest Borgnine plays a stolid Amish farmer with convincing success. Fourth, Victor Mature gives us another one his laid-back but sure-footed performances as the good guy. The premise is pretty basic. Three professional thieves show up, case the town bank, and execute their plan to rob it. The extra treat is we get to see the lives of the different townspeople from the "peeping tom" bank manager to the dishonest librarian who steals a purse. Of course, since this is noir, the robbery doesn't come off quite as it was planned. Comparisons have been rightfully drawn between Violent Saturday and Harrison Ford's The Witness with the Amish farming family angle. The plot builds to a rousing climax appropriate for this type of film. Good stuff.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Farewell, My Lovely Starring Robert Mitchum

This 1975 private eye film stars the incomparable Robert Mitchum as Phillip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's famous PI. It also features Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Jack O'Halloran (as Moose Malloy), Sylvia Miles and Harry Dean Stanton, with a young Sylvester Stallone appearing as a punk gangster. Sly went on to bigger things with his Rocky Balboa franchise. The legendary noir writer Jim Thompson in a cameo as Judge Baxter Wilson Grayle is pretty cool to see. I liked that the movie is a period piece set in Marlowe's L.A. The night photography with the neon is moody and spot on. The jazzy soundtrack sounds like something you'd hear playing in one of the smoky jazz clubs Marlowe visits while he's working the case. I haven't read the Chandler novel of the same name in several years, but the movie plot appears to follow the novel's storyline. I've read a few online reviews observing how Robert Mitchum was too long in the tooth to be playing Phillip Marlowe. That doesn't bother me. In fact, I found it more appealing and realistic. I don't remember what Mitchum thought of the movie from reading his biography Robert Mitchum: "Baby I Don't Care" by Lee Server. I don't think Mitchum was all that crazy about his co-star Charlotte Rampling who'd just made The Night Porter. So, all in all, I go a big thumbs up on this classic Robert Mitchum flick.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Jigsaw (1949)

This 1949 crime drama isn't one of the better ones I've seen, unfortunately. Franchot Tone plays an ambitious Assistant D.A. tracking down a white supremacist group calling itself The Crusaders operating where I took to be New York City. Jean Wallace (married to Tone) plays a night club singer who has some of the answers he's looking for until she decides to leave town suddenly. Tone does a decent acting job. It is just the story moves so slowly even for a short movie. The cameo appearances of John Garfield, Henry Fonda, Burgess Meredith, and other well-known Hollywood faces seem more of a gimmick than they add much entertainment value to the film. Perhaps they are the pieces of the "jigsaw." Marc Lawrence plays a pretty good oily thug ironically called Angel. I guess I was expecting more, and the movie just didn't deliver the goods. I'd only grade Jigsaw with a C+.

Current Movie Review: A Most Wanted Man Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman

This British spy-thriller film based on the novel of the same name by John le Carré is very entertaining if just for watching the great talent Philip Seymour Hoffman in his final leading role before his tragic death in February 2014. Since we're talking about le Carré, espionage is the main ticket. In post-9/11 Hamburg where the infamous Mohammed Atta and his terrorists planned their attack, the authorities are hyper-vigilant about nipping any further conspiracies in the bud. Hoffman leads a shadowy German police unit responsible for tracking down and intercepting any new terrorists that hit town. Issa Karpov, a half-Chechen, half-Russian immigrant, shows up, and Hoffman is on his tail to figure out what bad stuff Karpov has in mind. The intricate plot is filled with crosses and double-crosses, much like a Cold War spy drama would unfold. At times, I thought I was seeing a Cold War picture except everybody was using cell phones. Hoffman smokes a cigarette or has a drink in every scene like in an old forties film noir. Rachel McAdams plays a starry-eyed lawyer, and Robin Wright is a wary CIA agent. The favorable reviews are spot-on if you enjoy viewing intelligent spy flicks without a lot of violence.

Humor: My Summer 2014 Gardening Just Went Bust

When I was growing up in the rural part of Northern Virginia (not so rural these days, I'm afraid), my family raised a vegetable garden. Our garden was a prodigious one with a wide variety of produce grown in it. Flash forward years later to this summer, and I ended up with a few tomato plants to set out. Figuring I'd resurrect the green thumb of my youth, I planted the tomato plants in our side yard where they'd get just enough morning sunlight, and I had easy access to watering them from the spigot.

Of course, when the first yellow bloom appeared, I was so proud of my accomplishment that I shared the good news with my Facebook and twitter friends. I got back a surprising response from the like-minded gardening folks who cheered me on. Imagine then my sheer delight when the first marble-sized green tomato appeared on my plants. I was ecstatic over it.

So, I just blithely went on watering and watching over my tomato plants. They were growing almost as fast as kudzu. I was reliving my youth, although admittedly on a much smaller scale. Jack in the Beanstalk, eat your heart out. By now, the garden-savvy readers know where this story is headed--downhill fast!

One morning I stepped out the door and saw where a thief (i.e., varmint) had taken a big chomp out of my almost ripened red tomato. Well, I saw a little red myself. My Facebook friends were sympathetic to my plight. I devised a clever plan where I'd pick the next tomato just before it turned ripe and beat the varmint. My plan didn't work. This time, the varmint ate my tomatoes while they were still GREEN!

I'm not certain how the varmints caught wind of my clever plan unless somebody leaked it to them. My neighbor pal down the street informs me it is our burgeoning deer population who are the guilty culprits. He also sure does like venison, as do I, especially now. At any rate, I've run up the white flag on my gardening efforts. Maybe by next spring, I'll give it another go. We'll have to wait and see what happens then.