The Last Sunset

Directed by Robert Aldrich (1961) Starring: Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, Joseph Cotten

This is officially the most ridiculous movie I’ve seen all year.  At first, I had thought: “Oh hey, a western with Kirk Douglas playing a man in black and Joseph Cotten as a drunk rancher? Sign me up!”  The first half is pretty much what I was expecting– O’Malley (Douglas) rides into the ranch of John Breckenridge (Cotten), offering himself as a cowboy for their cattle drive.  He has two conditions: One-fifth of the cattle and Breckenridge’s wife (Malone).  O’Malley and Belle had a thing before he became an outlaw, but now she’s married with a daughter, Melissa.

O’Malley has been followed into Mexico by Dana Stribling (Hudson), a Texan sheriff who wants to bring O’Malley to justice for killing his brother-in-law.  He gets roped into helping the cattle drive, on the condition that he’ll arrest O’Malley at the border.  Stribling falls for Belle on the trip and wants to marry her in Texas.

I just realized that this could have been a really interesting love-rectangle plot, but noooo Breckenridge has to get killed by some fellow Virginians in some damn bar fight.  And there goes half the reason I’m watching this movie…

(Joseph Cotten makes the best drunk character-actor.)

Post-Breckenridge’s passing, the second act is pretty much run of the mill Western fare.  Rock Hudson is so macho-honorable, it almost gave me a tooth ache.  Kirk Douglas does his usual anti-hero charm, which is cool, if he wasn’t working it on the mother and the daughter.  Meanwhile, the women have next to nothing to do (it’s a Western).

I was hoping for something consistently ridiculous and action-related, but the third act takes a dip in the creepy-psychosis area of the swimming pool.  It had been building up to it the entire movie, but I was also hoping for it to not take the shame-road.   Oh, movie, you didn’t have to slum in that way!  You could have come out of this with a little bit of dignity.

That said, several amazing drinking games could be played while watching.

Ace in the Hole

Directed by Billy Wilder (1951) Starring: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Richard Benedict

Chuck Tatum (Douglas) is stuck in the small town newspaper in New Mexico after being fired from the big city papers.  He offers himself to the owner of the Albequerque for cheap, sure that he’ll be on his way out in a few weeks.  A year later, he finds the story that will return him to the top: A man has gotten trapped in a tunnel under a sacred Indian Mountain.

I was torn from the start because Kirk Douglas is really hot in this movie, but he’s such a jerk!  A jerk who wears a belt and suspenders as a running metaphor from the first five minutes.  In any case, the point is to watch him fall, not really to reach some kind of redemption.  He builds up Leo’s (Benedict) predicament so it becomes a large media circus with a literal circus–like, the carnival comes in with rides and everything, as much as the big tent full of Tatum’s former co-workers.

Meanwhile, poor Leo is trapped in a cave and Tatum has made a deal with the sheriff so that he’s the only reporter allowed in to see him.  In order to make the story last, they convince the engineer to go through a more difficult route to save him, which will take days, compared to an easier route which would only take 16 hours.  The drill drives him insane so he can’t sleep, and to make matters worse he’s convinced that he has made the Indian spirits angry, which is why he’s stuck down there.

Leo’s wife (Sterling) wants to leave him and only sticks around because Tatum needs the sympathetic wife figure.  She ends up with a cash cow since the tourists coming by need something to eat and they’re the closest restaurant.  Her character is like the female version of Tatum–she just wants to get out and has no moral qualms about it.  Eh, I didn’t really find her that interesting.  She’s another one of Wilder’s highly amoral, maybe two-dimensional characters, like the boss in The Apartment.  She usually made an attempt to work against Tatum and then gives it up since he’s hot.

Wilder kind of hammers in the morals here, but he gets out some good performances and cool shots.  It’s his commentary on the media, which is lastingly relevant.  However, the throw away jokes are really awkward in their age, but they’re given in the first fifteen minutes, so it doesn’t effect the real plot.

I really like Wilder and Douglas, so this was kind of a disappointment, but that was just my high expectations.  It’s pretty decent, just not my favorite.

 

 

Paths of Glory

Directed by Stanley Kubrick (1957) Starring: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready, Joe Turkel, Timothy Carey

There are a few things that I am thankful about with regards of Paths of Glory:

1) I am so glad we covered lens and camera movement this week in Film Analysis.

2) I quite probably have a crush on Kirk Douglas.  There, I said it.

3) Criterion Collection! Behold, something I will own very soon!

In the French trenches of World War One, the 701st regiment is ordered by General Mireau (Macready) on a suicidal mission to take the Anthill, in the German territory.  While Colonel Dax (Douglas) disagrees with this course of action, he relents.  While Dax is able to get most of the soldiers into battle, a third stay in the trenches.  Mireau orders them to be shelled, and this attack is only barely prevented.  Eventually, no land is taken and the soldiers retreat.

Mireau, outraged by this show of “cowardice” wants a general court martial.  Three soldiers are picked, one from each company: Private Ferol (Carey), Corporal Paris (Meeker), and Private Arnaud (Turkel).  The film shifts from the front to a court sequence, with Dax defending his men before the council.  With testimony that it was a lost cause and evidence that Mireau was doing this to further his own career, it all comes to naught: the honor of the French army must be upheld.  The men are sentenced to be executed by the next morning.

Kubrick proves himself a master camera movement.  The sweeping shots of the battlefield and moving through the trenches are marvelous.  He uses lenses and camera angles and with just one shot, characters situations and relationships are quickly understood.  So many great things to appreciate with this movie, I tell ya.