I'm super tired because of the time change on top of getting up early for church, so I am gonna do my music pick first cause otherwise I'll never get to it. I'll be wearing toothpicks under my eyelids by the time I finish my movie review, haha.
So, this time we are gonna do Tchaikovsky. I think that just about everyone knows a little of the Tchaikster's music, just from classic Walt Disney movies if nothing else, but also from hearing "The Nutcracker" at Christmas and from seeing "Swan Lake" on school field trips in childhood. I came to really appreciate Tchaikovsky after years of listening to KUSC. Over time I was astounded by the beauty of his compositions, especially the waltzes from his most famous ballets. By now, I consider him to be the equal of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, et al. Bach alone reigns supreme above all (for me), but Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is as great as anyone on the level underlying old Johann Sebastian.
I cannot begin to fathom how one would conceive of the "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies", let alone his more sweeping works, of which I am including three of his most famous waltzes as finalists for my favorite piece : "Waltz Of The Flowers" from "Nutcracker", "Swan Lake Waltz", and "Sleeping Beauty Waltz".
As great as the other two are, I am gonna choose "The Sleeping Beauty Waltz" for the sheer grace of it's main theme. You know which part I am talking about. It feels like you are floating on air. This is Tchaikovsky greatness exemplified. It is one of the few non-piano compositions I have chosen as my favorites among the composers we have reviewed so far. Tchaikovsky of course wrote what many consider to be the greatest piano concerto of them all (his violin concerto is also held in high regard), and he wrote many shorter individual pieces for piano, grouped together into opuses. I am sorry to admit that I am not as familiar with his solo piano work as I am with that of Schubert or Mendelssohn or most of our other previously reviewed composers, but I promise to "get right on it" and listen to the piano works of Pyotr Ilyich, whose towering musical genius has so greatly enriched humankind. Give a listen to any of the waltzes mentioned and you will see what I mean. ////
We are still freezing here in The 'Ridge and it is still raining. Will it ever stop? Only The Shadow Knows. :) Me, I personally think it will never stop, because it has felt endless by now. Sigh.
But we did have a movie, discovered at Mid-Valley Libe on an in-person visit this aft. Mid-Val is one of the few libes open on Sunday and is just a few miles down the road from Northridge. There I found a few films to bring home, and chose for tonight's viewing a classic film noir called "The Long Night" (1947), starring Henry Fonda, Barbara Bel Geddes and Vincent Price. This is one of those plot deals like in "Man On A Ledge" or "D.O.A", where the guy is doomed from the start and his story is told in flashback sequences to tell you how he got into such a situation. As the movie starts, Fonda has barricaded himself in his third floor apartment after shooting Vincent Price. Down in the street, a crowd gathers. We are at the Ohio/Pennsylvania border in steel country, Fonda works in a steel mill and has met Bel Geddes, a nice girl who lives nearby. It turns out they were raised in the same orphanage during the Depression. They fall in love and plan to marry, but then Vincent Price shows up.
He is a talented magician who uses an attractive assistant (Ann Dvorak) in his act, as well as a pack of small trained dogs. He is also incredibly smarmy, misogynistic, and is a sociopath to boot, a winning combination if there ever was one.
It turns out that sweet Bel Geddes has been sneaking out to nightclubs to see Vincent Price's act, which - though impressive - comes with a price for young Barbara. The magician takes notice of her as she stands near the stage, and before long he has her under his despicable offstage spell. He is a man who takes advantage of vulnerable young women by getting inside their psyches, fooling them in the same way he fools his audiences. Price knows that Henry Fonda is sweet on Barbara Bel Geddes, but he has contempt for Henry, as he is a mere steel worker and not a man of intellect. Thus he will steal the innocent Barbara from him, and he will try to corrupt her in the process.
Ann Dvorak (she of original "Scarface" fame) knows, as his assistant, where Price is coming from, and she is tough enough to stand up to him. She tries to warn Fonda and Bel Geddes about Price, but it is too late for Barbara Bel Geddes, who has already fallen into his clutches, though she has tried to resist.
The only thing left for Henry Fonda to do is take revenge, which is why he is now barricaded in his apartment, where the movie began. The cops are hard as nails in old noir movies. They don't know or care about psychology, or how a well respected person may have come to be in a life or death situation. The cops are professional, but they have some "mook" in them. All action, no think.
They are gonna either machine gun Henry Fonda or teargas him. Barbara Bel Geddes, making her acting debut here (and it is a good one) begs the coppers to give her One Last Chance to talk to her man, who has given up for a number of reasons, and is ready to shoot it out with Youngstown's Finest.
This time I have told you most of the story, but check it out anyway. The movie is a little slow in places and could've been cut from 97 to 85 minutes (and remember that you have gotta edit your films tight, tight, tight), but barring that minor complaint it is a solid Noir, with great b&w photography by Sol Polito, one of the best cameramen of the genre.
"The Long Night" is very melodramatic, with a love story playing against Vincent Price's amoral attempt to destroy it via his insidious advances to the young lady. Man, can Price ever play an evil bad guy. You hate his movie characters just as much as you love him as an actor and as a person.
All in all, Two Regular Thumbs Up for "The Long Run". Just a notch down from a higher superlative due to some negligent editing, and a teensy bit of overly dramatic acting, a very small quibble and more a fault of director Anatole Litvak than of the actors (Litvak himself being a director of many excellent films). ////
I am now Officially Toast for the evening, but I hope you had a great day. I wish you nice weather wherever you may be, just as I am hoping for the same here or I may join you in your location soon.
Sleep well, with lots of love sent between now and morning. See you then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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