1941 (1979).

The Scoop:
Steven Spielberg is not well known for his comedic sense (despite some comic moments in his escapist fantasy films) and this, his only true comedy film, is proof why.

There are a lot of clunkers here, but it is still a fun movie, far too underrated by most critics. Featuring a huge cast (perhaps too huge), the film is set in the tense few weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor when the whole West Coast was nervous about further Japanese attacks. So, when a bumbling Japanese submarine crew wanders away from its fleet and turns up off the coast looking to bomb Hollywood, all hell breaks loose. John Belushi gives one of the best performances of his career in the too-small role of a lunatic fighter pilot, and Dan Aykroyd and Robert Stack are also good. Completely slumming and out of their element, though, are Christopher Lee as a German officer and Toshiro Mifune as the sub commander.

Spielberg throws in some familiar touches used in his other films (most notably an opening sequence that parodies the opening sequence from "Jaws"). "1941" is an interesting failure -- equal parts laughfest and sprawling mess.

Side Note:
Charleton Heston and John Wayne both turned down the role of General Sitwell (played by Stack) because they felt the film was unpatriotic and insulting to World War II vets.

Best Line:
"I'm a bug!"

Companion Viewing:
"It's Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963) and "The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!" (1966).

Links:
IMDb.

Take a Look:
The trailer...

First Spaceship on Venus (1960).

The Scoop:
Despite having the title and all the trappings of a B-grade cheesefest, this East German/Polish co-production actually provides a few compelling moments. Sometime in the near future (it's that '50s vision of the near future that looks hopelessly dated now), a construction crew unearths a strange metal coil. Extensive scientific investigation determines that the coil is really a log recording of a crashed Venusian spaceship, outlining the planet's plans to conquer Earth. From there, an international expedition sets off to the morning star to get to the bottom of it all. What they find there offers a creditable anti-Cold War message and a few moments of genuine suspense. Of course, there are the usual B-movie moments, too, making an end result that is good for both a laugh and a little contemplation. Also commendable is the multi-racial cast, a rarity for the genre at that time.

Side Note:
The American release of the film (which is still the only one available in the U.S. today) is nearly an hour shorter than that original European release, which offers a tantalizing promise of an even more fascinating picture.

Best Bit:
All the alphabetized extras waving goodbye..

Companion Viewing:
"Rocketship X-M" (1951), "The Angry Red Planet" (1959) and "Forbidden Planet" (1956).

Link:
IMDb

Take a Look:
Here's the trailer for the original U.S. theatrical release in 1962:

A Christmas Story (1983).

The Scoop:
Since this will be my last post before Christmas, what better time to review this beloved holiday chestnut?

Ahem.

Well, I guess it's beloved by most, but not by me so much. I realize I'm in the distinct minority on this one, so I'm letting you know up front that your mileage may vary with my review.

Anyway, "A Christmas Story," based on a series of semi-autobiographical stories by Jean Shepard, concerns the eventful holiday season of little Raphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) and his quirky midwestern family in the 1940s. All Ralphie wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder BB gun, but his mom is afraid he's going to put his eye out with it. The rest of the plot is mainly a series of vignettes involving Ralphie, his family and his friends, all eventually reaffirming the importance of family ties and the holiday spirit.

It's all meant to be heart-warming, and some of it is, but most of it just get bogs down by two crucial flaws in the film. The first is the obnoxiously relentless "quirkiness" of the family, which becomes overbearing at times. And the other flaw is the narration, in which Shepard's florid prose is used to mythologize the smallest moments and invest them with a cloying pretentiousness. This style has been better used elsewhere to better effect (most notably on television in "The Wonder Years" and "The Adventures of Pete and Pete") but is just too much here.

Of course, these things which turn me off to the movie happen to be the biggest draw for its many fans. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. Just don't ask me to watch it (again) this year.

Best Line:
"Fra-gee-lay. That must be Italian!"

Side Note:
Look for Shepard's cameo as the angry man in line for the mall Santa.

Companion Viewing:
My perennial Christmas favorites tend to lean toward TV rather than the movies, especially the Rankin-Bass specials and "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965). Although I didn't discover it until my adulthood, "The Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special" (1988) is another favorite.

Links:
IMDb.
The official Warner Bros. DVD site.
The house from the movie. Tours available!

Take a Look:

Targets (1968).

The Scoop:
While "Targets" presents the story of a moral crossroads, it also represents a cinematic crossroads -- the end of the brilliant Boris Karloff's career and the start of Peter Bogdanovich's.

In this writing and directing debut, Bogdanovich crafts this cautionary, semi-autobiographical tale of aging horror movie star Byron Orlok (played by Karloff), who decides to leave the business when he realizes his life's work can't compare to the real horrors taking place on America's streets everyday. The clips of Orlok's past work are taken from the classic performances of Karloff, and to complete the real-life parallels, Bogdanovich even casts himself as the young director making Orlok's last film. There is also a parallel plot concerning a troubled young man who goes on a shooting spree that is sadly all too familiar in our post-Columbine world. These two plot strands cross when the young shooter takes refuge in a drive-in theater that turns out to be the site of Orlok's last public appearance before retirement.

This film offers an interesting exploration of the role of the entertainment media in the social upheaval of the late-'60s (it was released in the late spring of 1968, shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King, but before the shooting of Robert Kennedy) that has grown even more prescient today. And Bogdanovich challeges the viewer by filming from the point of view of the shooter, putting the audience in the killer's shoes.

Despite his obviously failing health, Karloff gives the strongest, most human portrayal of a career marked my more depth than most horror actors'. In a perfect world, this swan song performance would've been recognized with an Oscar. Instead, the poverty-stricken Karloff followed his performance here with appearances (confined to a wheelchair) in a quartet of bad Mexican cheapies, filmed over the course of a couple weeks, before dying in 1969. But forget those duds -- this is the true, final summation of one of the truly great acting careers in film.

Best Line:
Karloff's summation, "Is that what I was afraid of?"

Best Bit:
The staging of the freeway shooting scene.

Side Notes:
1) Bogdanovich originally offered the lead role to Vincent Price, who turned it down. 2) The film showing in the drive-in at the end of the movie is "The Terror" (1963), in which Karloff costarred with a young Jack Nicholson. 3) The victim who dies in the phone booth is none other than Mike Farrell, who went on to a more distinguished career in television, starring in "M*A*S*H" and "Providence."

Companion Viewing:
Two of this film's cinematic descendents -- "Taxi Driver" (1976) and "Natural Born Killers" (1994).

Links:
IMDb.
Wikipedia.
Horror-Wood.

Take a Look:
Well, my Mad Internet Skillz couldn't turn up any "Targets" clips online, so you'll have to settle for this...

The Day the Sky Exploded (1958).

The Scoop:
This Italian/French co-production tells the story of a joint U.S./U.S.S.R. (huh?) space mission that goes horribly wrong. You see, it seems that the pilot of the first manned rocket to the moon runs into a little trouble and kinda, sorta accidentally shoots a nuclear missle blindly into space, causing a giant swarm of meteors to set a collision course for Earth.

Oops.

Anyway, worldwide panic ensues, as we've seen in dozens of other films from "When Worlds Collide" to "Armageddon," before order is finally restored and An Important Lesson is learned.

As you might expect from the ultra-low budget, stock footage abounds. But the best part about the film is the crazy dubbing of the original French dialogue. Not only do the American characters say archaic things like "shan't" a lot, but the international cast of supporting characters are all given ridiculously stereotyped accents. Plus, there are lots of those nifty "ooo-wee-ooo" theremin noises at wildly inappropriate moments on the soundtrack. Despite a few slow stretches, there is plenty of fun to be had here.

Side Note:
Director Paolo Heusch would later serve as casting director for the notoriously perverted "Caligula" (1979).

Best Line:
"This is no time to panic!" -- one male scientist comforting a female colleague before the imminent destruction of the world.

Companion Viewing:
"Deep Impact" (1998), "Armageddon" (1998), "When Worlds Collide" (1951) -- any of your standard "that-big-rock's-coming-right-toward-us!" classics.

Links:
IMDb
Internet Archive

Take a Look:
Full movie via Google Video.

The Naked City (1948).

The Scoop:
Before “CSI,” before “The French Connection,” even before “Dragnet,” there was “The Naked City.” Jules Dassin’s noir classic gritty classic is a pioneer of the “police procedural” genre, letting its drama arise from the realistic depiction of day-to-day police work rather than from specatular cops-and-robbers shootouts. It was also shot entirely on location in New York City (back in a time when studio-bound shooting was still the norm), which only adds to the gritty vibe.

Lt. Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald), a crusty old-school Irish detective, teams up with neophyte partner Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor) to solve the murder of an aspiring model who is involved with a jewelry theft ring. Complications pile on fast and furious, all leading up to the thrilling climactic chase scene through the streets and back alleys of Manhattan.

Six decades later, the film manages to hold up, mostly due to all that realism, and offers a fascinating glimpse at everyday life in New York at the time. The one aspect of the film that falls flat, though, is its most artifical aspect -- the voice-over narration provided by producer Mark Hellinger. Before getting into the movie business, Hellinger started out as a headline writer for the New York tabloids, and he brings that lurid sensationalism fully to bear on the narration. Too bad that sort of writing just sounds so cheesy now.

But that's only a minor quibble. Don't let it get in the way of your enjoyment of this noir classic.

Best Line:
Although the closing line is the best remembered and has entered the vernacular ("There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."), my favorite line is reaction of the model's mother after learning that her daughter, who had fled their small town for the glamor of the big city, is murdered: “Dear God, why couldn’t she have been born ugly?”

Side Note:
Keep your eye out for James Gregory, in his film debut, playing the bit part of a beat cop near the end of the movie. Gregory would later go on to play a number of memorable character roles in movies and TV shows, including the clueless Sen. Iselin in “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) and the crusty Inspector Luger in “Barney Miller.”

Companion Viewing:
Dassin's other noir classic, "Night and the City" (1950). Also, episodes of the "Naked City" spin-off television series, or of the original 1950s incarnation of “Dragnet.”

Link:
IMDb

Take a Look:

Metapost: Welcome!

Welcome to Desuko Movie Spot! Here, we will be reviewing and discussing all sorts of movies -- from the old to the new, from the popular to the obscure. I'll try to have new posts up at least a couple times a week, but other than that, I have no set agenda for what films I'll decide to review and when. But come along for the ride, and I hope it will be entertaining and informative for you. And maybe you'll even discover a few new titles to seek out, or perhaps find a different perspective on an old favorite. Either way, I hope you'll join in and help make this a lively discussion.

And now... on with the show!