Cinema Survey 3
The Searchers: One of his many masterpieces, John Ford’s 1956 Western has just barely escaped the pop cultural scythe that cut Last Tango in Paris, Gone With the Wind, D.W. Griffith, and Woody Allen out of respectable conversation. John Wayne plays a vicious, violent racist out to avenge the Comanche massacre of his family. He must get Debbie—Natalie Wood. It takes him several years. He takes Jeffrey Hunter, playing part-Native American, along with him. Vera Miles pines and waits for Hunter. They end up together, and they’ll grow old together, unlike Wayne’s Ethan Edwards, doomed to wander the West as more and more doors close (in France, The Searchers was called Prisoner of the Desert).
It’s shocking how crazy Wayne is in The Searchers: him and his gang come across a dead Comanche, and Wayne gleefully shoots both of his eyes out after Harry Carey Jr. smashes his head in with a giant rock. Ward Bond, of all people, turns to Wayne, grimacing: “Now what good did that do you?” Wayne, grinning ear to ear: “Means he’ll have to roam the spirit world forever.” There aren’t many moments in Classic Hollywood that match this level of brutality; it makes Jack Palance shooting Elisha Cook Jr. in Shane looked phony, and it matches much of what Sam Peckinpah would do a decade and change later. Ditto for Wayne’s verdict on his Comanche-crazed family, once they find them delirious and sick: “They ain’t white.”
Like Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and most Hitchcock, The Searchers has been discussed and analyzed to death, but it still stuns.
The Lavender Hill Mob: For some reason, the Vatican put this on their very short list of “endorsed films,” under the category “Art” (the other two were “Values” and “Religion”). Maybe it’s because they don’t get away with it, but this Charles Crichton-directed crime-comedy starring Alec Guinness is fairly nasty and perverse—well, maybe that’s why they endorsed it. Guinness and an ensemble concoct a plan to steal a bunch of golden Eiffel Towers, smuggle them to Paris, and make a ton of money. They successfully steal the Eiffel Towers. Then there’s another 40 minutes left. This is an 81-minute movie. The heist is mighty complicated, but it’s all so light and airy the details don’t matter—it’s carried entirely by Guinness’ charisma, presaging both John Lennon and Jean-Luc Godard speaking English. More than anything else this reminded me of 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night; The Lavender Hill Mob came out in 1951.
The Front Room: The trailer for this played before everything at the Charles for a few weeks. Now it’s been dumped with one or two showings a day, and when my friend Katherine and I went, we were the only ones in the theater. So we had the pleasure of supplying our own commentary as Kathryn Hunter terrorized Brandy and her husband by… being the devil? Being a Klanswoman? No, she’s just incontinent and really fucking annoying! The trailer makes The Front Room look like yet another possession movie, but there’s nothing supernatural here, just some spooky dreams and a wild performance by Hunter, whose “Solange” makes Baby Jane look shy. Solange pisses and shits everywhere, and a pregnant Brandy has to deal with it. She comes from a Confederate family, and while a prayer group does come over once Solange moves in—she’s the husband stepmom, and all her money goes to them once she dies as long as they take care of her—the only “terror” is a really nasty old lady.
The Front Room is hilarious. It’s much better than Longlegs, and somehow, lit well. Ava Berkofsky knows how to light black skin. The Front Room is the hangout movie of trashy horror, a series of extended riffs that have more in common with the work of Nathan Fielder than Wes Craven; it’s also more similar to the gross-out comedies of the 2000s than any other horror movie out now. It doesn’t take itself seriously at all, happy to have the freedom to be caustic and messy in the sandbox. It’s not dignified nor prestigious, but I doubt I’ll be as surprised by another horror movie this year; I don’t think I’ll laugh that much again for a while, either.
—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter: @nickyotissmith