Three Odd Film Noir

By definition all film noir are odd, but we have recently watched three that are Odd (note capitalization).  In January the Criterion streaming channel has a whole bunch of films we would like to see, so we have now watched 6 films in a row leaving January 31st.  Most recently have been three "B" pictures worth noting, all in beautiful b & w.  Most recent came The Man I Love, a 1946 film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Ida Lupino.  Though it has some soap opera moments, this drama jumps all over the place, telling three stories during the course of the movie.  What is most interesting about this film, however, is how strong a woman Lupino is.  The film centres on her, and she handles the part with a solid type of acting seldom seen in female characters, especially in the noir genre.  She is tough and tender, smart and talented, as she sings her way into top nightclubs.  She falls for a down and out jazz pianist, and they almost make a go of it.  By the end it appears as if they are not totally washed up, but still might manage to get together later.  Robert Alda plays the owner of the nightclub where Lupino sings, and manages to create one of the creepiest creeps who ever crept into a movie.  A dizzy blonde, mother of twin babies and wife to husband Johnny, also manages to upset audiences with her lifestyle.  An unusual film, and worth a peek for Lupino's performance.

Leaving Criterion January 31st. 

 

Before that came Pickup Alley, a 1956 film starring Victor Mature as a globetrotting cop on the trail of bad guy Trevor Howard, who is being assisted by Anita Ekberg.  A few things make this film unusual for a film noir.  First of all, it is filmed in Cinemascope.  Secondly, we get to travel the world, instead of only staying in New York or LA.  The sleazy film title has nothing to do with this film, made fun because the police are looking for Trevor Howard but don't know what he looks like.  London, Paris, Rome, and Athens all feature somewhere in this fairly fast paced thriller.  Sadly, Mature hardly makes it as a hero cop.  He seems to do very little acting in this film, going through his lines like an amateur.  Ekberg is, of course, rather cute, though her part is not very demanding.  Can she act?  We would hardly know for sure from this film.

 

Leaving Criterion January 31st.

Earliest of the three came Human Desire, an American Fritz Lang directed remake from 1954 of La Bete Humaine, from a story by Emil Zola.  Glenn Ford stars as a passenger train engineer who runs headlong into trouble when he falls for a married woman, played by Gloria Grahame.  Her overbearing husband, played by Broderick Crawford, is a jealous man, and an alcoholic who lets off too much steam and is fired from his job at the railroad yard.  The film, especially at the very beginning, features some of the worst background matting this viewer has ever seen.  Glenn Ford guides his train through the mountains, across bridges, and into tunnels, though when the camera pans to him we see Midwest flat farmland in behind him out his cab window.  Weird.  Ford is mostly emotionless in this picture, hardly acting at all.  Grahame is okay as she goes through the motions of loving Ford to help her get rid of her husband.  We learn that her past is a sordid one, beginning when she was 16.  Will Ford, freshly back from Korea, kill her husband for her?  Good tension is built up to this climax.  I much prefer the earlier French film starring Jean Gabin, but this one has its moments.

Leaving Criterion January 31st. 

 

In local news, I did some fun things this week.  Last Sunday I went ice skating for the first time in 14 years.  Public skating at the local arena is on Sunday at 5 pm.   I managed to skate for 30 minutes without falling or crashing into someone (It was rather crowded).  Seniors can skate on Wednesday afternoons, but our schedule is currently too filled with medical appointments, so I will stick to Sundays for now.  On Tuesday morning I dropped Deb off at her physio appointment (for TMJ) in Amherstburg, then went on to walk a segment of the local rails to trails path.  It was a very cold day (about 25 F) with a nasty little breeze, but once I was into the forest it was okay.  It was strange to be walking here in January, but we had had no snow.  The marsh was frozen over and could have been travelled on skates.  We haven't gone above 30 F for nine days now, and some of the nights have been bitter.  Then on Thursday morning I went over to Dr. Seski's home and put in an hour on his incredible 7' Fazioli piano.  I was able to run through my entire program, and it went pretty well.  He played a Brahms Intermezzo for me.  I may be back into the piano group on occasions when they have smaller gatherings.  Last time there were only three of them.

 

From my trail walk on Tuesday morning.  The marsh is frozen solid.

 

Tonight (Friday) it is snowing, our first real snow event this season.  We might get 2" or a bit more, so we should awaken to a white winter wonderland.  If so I will take some pics tomorrow morning and add them here. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

My Hour With A Fazioli Piano

I really like my Yamaha upright piano.  It's about as good a piano as I could have ever hoped to own.  It is not perfect, and it has idiosyncrasies.  Like all pianos.  Most of my practicing and performing life I have played on Yamahas, both uprights and grands.  I've never given a concert on a Steinway, but have had lessons on them.  Old pianos, not so great ones.  But today was a real treat, as I got to run through my Bach and Grieg program on Dr. S.'s four year old Fazioli.  The piano itself is a piece of woodworking art, both inside and underneath.  They are acclaimed by many as the finest in piano craftsmanship known.  I can now vouch for that statement.  This one was beautiful, a 7' grand, model 212 (length in cms).  Here is a picture of it from the Fazioli website.

The model I played on today.  It retails today for $157,000 US. If I sell my house, I can get one!

Angela Hewitt swears by hers, and she plays a lot of Bach.  Today I started with 6 pieces by that composer.  The piano spoke beautifully, each separate voice line heard clearly and cleanly.  The bass range has a warmth to it that will work well for a lot of literature, though a more growling bass might be preferred for Beethoven, for example.  The mid-range and upper range are both perfection, with a creamy sound that is hard to describe, rich and forthcoming.  Loud tones resonate really well, without harshness, and softer tones can whisper and still maintain plenty of body.  The six pieces by Grieg that I played all test different aspects of the piano, though being called Lyric Pieces, lyricism is at the heart of all of them.  

The Shepherd Boy took me away from this world into another one.  Gentleness, loneliness, the cruelty of being isolated from fellow humans, are just some of the emotions the composer was after here.  From pp to ff, the piano spoke wonderfully for the entire piece.  In the Peasants' March I had trouble with the fff passages.  After stopping to figure out what was wrong, I realized that I was pushing the piano too hard.  It was unnecessary.  This piano will work for the player, making our job easier than we might think.  I tried the super loud passage again, without trying to kill the piano with sound.  I didn't strive to reach that fff, but I think I realized it much better than my first attempt.  Allowing the sound to build up without crushing  it seemed to work much better than brute force.  The March of The Dwarfs was a revelation to me.  This piano can do staccato better than any other piano I have ever played, both loud and soft.  And now that I didn't push for more sound, but rather politely insisted instead, the loud parts worked beautifully.  The singing lyrical mid-section (when the forest nymphs, fairies, pixies and whatever come back out to play after the passing of the dwarf hoard) took me into near ecstatic realms of beautiful tonal washes.  I probably won't play these pieces nearly so well at the upcoming gathering of pianists here, but for a short time, I sounded amazing lol!!

It did take me some time to get used to the piano, (but I am coming from an upright) so I recommend bringing more than one piece to the group in June.  If time permits I will perform the three Grieg pieces mentioned above (I played the other three on Paula's perfectly lovely Yamaha grand last month).

Robert and Yvonne also have an amazingly beautiful home, filled with art.  I felt very welcome.  If a bedroom becomes available, I might ask to move in

Mapman Mike

 

Eastshade: A Game For PC

Gaming has fallen by the wayside around here in the past several months.  No board or card games, and no computer gaming, other than to wander around old stand-bys like Myst, Riven, and Uru.  I got bogged down in Botanicula, where I completed certain goals but the game never let me advance.  So we loaded Eastshade, a game built for people who loved Myst.  One wanders around a truly beautiful landscape as a painter, often selling art for cash or favours, without fear of dying.  Goals are clearly laid out, the inventory menu is clear and easy to use, and the scenery is breathtaking.  There are seaside landscapes to explore, and villages, hilltops, forests, rivers, and mountains.  Days are sunny, with an eclipse each day that changes the light and mood.  Nights are cold, and you have to have shelter by the time it is dark, or else have a glass of mead with you as you wander about.  Best of all, the items players need to gather are easy to find and clearly differentiated from the surrounding flora and fauna.  Walking here is very restful.  Here are a few screenshots.

4 screenshots from Eastshade, a game for PC.  After painting a picture, it can be exported to your desktop. 

 

Last Friday was the third gathering of the newly formed Windsor/Essex piano performance fellowship.  We met at Paula's home and studio.  Four turned out this time, the largest gathering so far.  There are seven of us now, including three doctors.  Next meeting is at Dr. Rob's home, where we will get to play on his Fazioli piano!!!!!!!!!  Everyone is looking forward to that!!!!!!

 

Astronomy begins this week, and with the start time bumped up to around 10 pm, my entire schedule will be thrown off again when a clear spell arrives.  Thursday morning our tree person will be here to clean up storm damage from February, and of course it looks to be clear Wednesday night.  Not much sleep ahead, I am afraid.  It also bumps heavily into my reading time.  But I love being out at night with the telescope.  There is nothing quite like it.

 

My April film festival finished up with another Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.  Sansho The Bailiff is from 1954, and ranks 75th on the Sight and Sound best 100 films list.  It is a retelling of an old oral folktale about slavery in medieval Japan, and is quite a dark film.  Well acted for the most part, and beautifully photographed again, the film would seem to have much to say to most of civilization, even today.  While it's discouraging to see so few kind males in the film (they are all brutes), most of the women are portrayed with greater sensitivity and positive human-like qualities.  Definitely a recommended film to watch (our 2nd time, at least), but doubtful as to whether or not it would make our top 100 film list.

 

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

Now that the festival choices were complete (3 films along with 10 short docs accompanying them), I still had my two regular choices remaining.  One choice can be from any source, while the 2nd choice must come from the leaving soon list from either Criterion or Mubi.  My first pic was a truly crazy animated feature called Mind Game, from 2004.  From Japan and directed by Masaaki Juasa, it is a mix of styles and techniques.  This would be a good contender for the animated equivalent of "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once," only it came out 17 years ago, and it works for animation.  The story is simple; a group of three people (a guy, his girlfriend, and her sister) run from the yakuza after killing one of their hit men.  Their speeding car goes off a bridge and they are swallowed by a whale.  Inside the whale, an old man is living comfortably, after having been caught 30 years earlier.  This is one of the wackiest features ever made, and often very funny.  Often you just sit back and watch some of the weirdest imagery and nonsense flash before your eyes.  Needless to say, the credits are long for this one.  Highly recommended.

 

Mind Game is showing on Mubi. 

 

More movie news next time.  Next time may be delayed by clear skies.

 

Mapman Mike