Tonight I started to watch a film called "Black Moon" (1975), directed by Louis Malle and released by Criterion. I figured with those credentials I couldn't go wrong, although the plot synopsis was a little weird : A young girl, a blonde Alice In Wonderland lookalike in wool skirt and thin sweater, drives frantically through the English countryside. She is alone, the car radio gives vague news about a catastrophe - a world war between men and women. On the road she sees signs of such battles. She drives through the forest to escape, and suddenly finds herself in a strange world of empty houses and talking animals, including a Unicorn.
Okay, now you know I couldn't have made that up, and I was willing to give it a shot, because Malle made some good movies and this one was on Criterion.
I rarely turn movies off. I have watched untold numbers of films since videotapes and then dvds hit the shelves, and I would guess I've pressed the "stop" button less than ten times. Before video and dvd, when you had to go to a theater to watch a movie, I believe I walked out of a movie only once, because of a truly awful film called "The Gore Gore Girls" that my friends and I had gone to see in the late 70s or thereabouts.
So I usually persevere and rarely turn a movie off, but tonight I did so with "Black Moon". I made it to the 24 minute mark, and then I said to myself "this ain't working for me" and that was that.
It's not a bad movie, judging by what I saw. For one thing, the cinematography - by Sven Nykvist - was incredible. And the lead actress in the "Alice" role was very good, especially considering that neither she nor anyone else in the movie had a word of dialogue during the 24 minutes I watched. Only the animals made sounds.
I think it was trying to be one of the offbeat counterculture fantasy statements that were sometimes seen in the experimental 1970s - not my favorite decade for cinema - and to be honest I have no idea what Malle was trying to say. Maybe if I'd watched the whole thing.
I was planning to give it another chance before I had to take it back to the Libe, but after seeing all the One Star reviews at Amazon, I think I will leave well enough alone.
As I said, it's not a bad movie or a stupid cash grab like you see nowdays. It's just an incomprehensible art film that, in my opinion, was going nowhere, which was why I turned it off. Give it a chance if you want to; maybe you will have better luck with "Black Moon" than I did. ////
Because it was still early, I had a chance to put another movie into the dvd player, and I chose a Western from my newly acquired slew of same. I only had time for a short movie, and you can't go wrong with a 77 minute Western, especially one starring Rory Calhoun and Lloyd Bridges.
"Ride Out For Revenge" (1957) was the title, and though it was made as a B-Movie by United Artists, it was A-Quality, as was the other recently reviewed UA Western "Gunsight Ridge". Both films were shot in moody black and white, both had socially conscious scripts that raised moral questions about such Western themes as vengeance and the US treatment of Indians, and both featured excellent acting and beautiful location settings.
In "Ride Out For Revenge", a title chosen to sell tickets but in actuality a thoughtful film, Rory Calhoun plays a level-headed Sheriff in a Dakota town about to explode with hate and violence. Lloyd Bridges, playing against his usual Good Guy type, co-stars as an outwardly brash but cowardly Army Captain who heads up the local outpost in town. He is charged with removing the last of the Cheyenne from the Black Hills to an Oklahoma reservation (an important real life story) and, as he hates Indians, he is willing to use any means to get rid of them. But Bridges also fears the Cheyenne because he has no rapport with them. He doesn't understand their ways or their sense of honor and he drinks himself into a stupor to gain the courage to evict them from their ancestral home.
Meanwhile, Rory Calhoun (also playing against type for he very often played an outlaw) is the rock steady Sheriff. He is a friend of the local Cheyenne and has tried to stave off their eviction. He is also in love with the Chief's daughter and she with him. But her brother, the son of the Chief, hates Army Captain Lloyd Bridges and wants to make war with him. The brother also doesn't trust Rory Calhoun, because he is white. The white man has tricked the Cheyenne before, and now is intent on removing the Indians once and for all from their sacred Black Hills.
It's a hell of a set-up, and the story is presented very realistically with no glamorization. The arguments of both sides - the Indian and the settler - are reasonably presented, and the villain is shown to be the prejudiced on either side, though in this case the whites are more heavily represented. The Indians are shown to try and isolate the hateful in their number, so as to avoid war and uphold honor.
Once again, we have a high quality B-Western that ranks with the best of the A-List movies.
In small speeches at the end, the fate of the White Man is questioned. The last of the Cheyenne have now been forced onto reservations and the Indian troubles are almost over. But what would happen, the characters wonder, if in the future some new interloper came onto the land and tried to force the white man out, much as he had forced the Indian?
What would happen then? Would the White Man resist being moved from his home, as his former foe the Indian had resisted?
The moral of the story is given in the last lines of dialogue, and this was one fantastic Western, and realistic too. Made in 1957, you could call it a Playhouse 90 Western, imbued with the inner psychological dramas and acting styles of that show at that time.
Very high marks for "Ride Out For Revenge", Two Huge Thumbs Up. And sorry about "Black Moon" but you can't win 'em all.
Listening to Yes, reading a biography of Paul Dirac. See you in church in the morning.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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