Elizabeth, before I say anything else I've gotta say thanks for posting that beautiful photograph of the cabin in the snowy woods. That's exactly the kind of winter photo I was asking for. We don't get snow around here unless you go up to the mountains, and even then we don't get it every year. When I was a kid, we called it "going to the snow", which meant driving up to Frazier Park and Pine Mountain, about 90 minutes away. Up there, you might see a scene similar to the one in your photo, but it's been so long since I've "been to the snow" that I enjoy it best nowdays through your pictures. If I'm not mistaken, you took a photo years ago of an abandoned cabin in your area. I don't recall if it was in wintertime, and it may not have been the same cabin, but the effect is similar, of a different and more simple time. And the blanket of snow adds a cozy feeling, of calm and silence. So thanks! I asked for a winter wonderland and you posted it, and a beautiful photo it is. I hope you are enjoying some hikes and having a good holiday season.
(And making some amazing dishes also.......) :)
Well, I'm back home and I've got a really good movie to report tonight! It's called "Loophole"(1954), the story of a bank teller who gets blamed for a theft he didn't commit. Barry Sullivan stars as "Mike Donovan", longtime teller at the Hollywood branch of First Federal Savings. As the movie opens, the bank is being audited by government inspectors, a process that happens at random to keep the employees honest. Mike is the soul of honesty, but this time his cash count comes up short - to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. But it turns out there was an extra inspector there that day, an eleventh man instead of the usual ten. The man was an impostor, and it was he who made off with the 50 Gees, with the help of his Gal Pal who distracted Mike at just the right time. It's okay if I tell you this, because the movie states it up front. But the investigator from the bank's insurance company (the great Charles McGraw), doesn't believe Mike's story. He thinks Mike stole the money himself, so he proceeds to hound Mike and his wife (Dorothy Malone) for the remainder of the movie.
Meanwhile, the FBI is also on the case. Their agents believe Mike is innocent. He passes a lie detector test, and for a while it looks like he may get his life back. He's lost his job at the bank, but lands another one as a gas station manager. However, Charles McGraw won't let up, and gets him fired from that gig, too. Finally, Mike ends up driving a taxi, and who should be his boss but...........Mr. Reeves!
Yeah, it's way too cool. Mike is trying to stay on his feet and hold his marriage together, while at the same time trying to prove he didn't steal the money from the bank. Even though the FBI has cleared him, he wants McGraw off his back. And Mr. Reeves is on his side. When McGraw shows up at the taxi service to try and get Mike fired once again, Reeves tells him to get lost. Way to go, Mr. Reeves!
Mr. Reeves will also play a crucial role in the film's conclusion. You can call "Loophole" a noir or a crime film. It has Tough Broads and Slimeballs who could figure in either genre, but there's no shadowy photography typical of a film noir. The story moves at a very fast pace and in that sense, you could call it the movie equivalent of a "page turner" book. You just can't stop watching, because you've gotta see what happens next! There's some great location footage of early '50s Hollywood, and also a narrator who sets the story up for you, then returns at the end to deliver the moralistic punchline. I'm surprised that "Loophole" doesn't have a more highly acknowledged reputation among noir enthusiasts. I'd never heard of it until tonight, but it's great stuff, and I'm gonna go all the way and call it a must-see. Talk about a movie that won't bore you even for one second - this is it! /////
I also watched a tremendous movie last night, a WW2 film called "1944", made in 2015 by an Estonian director named Elmo Nuganen. This one I watched on a dvd obtained from the Libe, something I haven't done as much this year because of the time it currently takes to receive one's library holds, but I read a strong recommendation for the movie and knew I had to see it.
It's a perspective on WW2 that I don't think we've seen before, from the point of view of Estonian soldiers, who fought on both the German and Soviet sides. I had to look up Estonia on the map; it's a lot further north than I'd imagined, just south of Finland across the Baltic Sea. I'd pictured it as being east of Poland and on the same latitude, but it's very close to being part of Scandinavia instead. In any event, by 1944 the Germans had advanced through Poland and Lithuania, right up to the Estonian border, which was now the front line against the Soviet Union. And in the other direction, Estonia shares it's eastern border with Russia, so the country was caught in a pinch between the powers of Fascism and Communism, and the young men of Estonia were forced to choose sides. Depending on their personal outlook, some chose to fight for Germany and others for the Soviets. Often this decision was based on which army had destroyed their hometowns, which usually resulted in the deaths of family members. If the Nazis, say, had raided a village and ruined the citizens' lives, the surviving men would likely sign up with the Soviet Army. And vice versa, if it had been the Soviet soldiers who pillaged their town, the Estonian boys would join with the Germans to defeat them.
It's not 100% clear from the dialogue whether or not enlistment was voluntary or by conscription, and I haven't yet read up on it, but what the movie shows, at least from the side of Estonians fighting with Germany, is that they had no loyalty to that country, nor to Hitler, whom they treat as a joke, making fun of him in front of their German superiors. But the movie shows that they are all young boys, Estonians and Germans alike, and as such, they are all frightened, not only by the war but by their colonels and the fearsome Waffen SS officials, to whom the slightest disobedience is cause for a soldier to be shot. It's grim stuff, but then it's also what really happened, so there's no point in downplaying it.
The director does a brilliant job of showing the plight of young men, most of them teenagers or not much older, caught up in a horror they have no say in. They didn't create the war, nor the culture and policies that led up to it, but it's all they know, because the part of the world they lived in, at that time, was beset by warfare for centuries. I have to take an aside to comment on what I was thinking a couple of days ago. I thought that, "y'know, Europe as a whole has been fighting, one or more countries against each other, for more than two thousand years, and they've been doing so on a continuous basis, right up until the end of World War Two". That is a mind boggling thing to consider. The countries of Europe were at constant war with one another for over two thousand years. And the only thing that put a stop to it was the advancement of war technology, and the onset of the United States as the premier world military power. We had to bomb Germany to smithereens to end World War 2, and as horrible as that bombing was, little else would have stopped the Nazis. After that show of power, the war ended and the United Nations was formed, and then NATO. Now we're all on the same side, but my point is, that it's only been a mere 75 years that Europe has lived in a relative state of peace, after millennia of war.
In a Hollywood movie such as "Loophole", you can watch the crime and violence and not be affected because it's stylized. That's what's so great about the Golden Era of Hollywood, that the cinematic style came right up to the boundaries of real life, but did not cross those boundaries. Thus, there was no gross violence in a crime film. But in a modern war movie like "1944", you are gonna see the real thing, which is why I can only recommend it for the non-squeamish viewer. One final note concerns the dvd itself. For some reason (which I cannot understand), the producers, or whoever was in charge of the dvd release, made some really weird decisions where the subtitles are concerned. To be honest, they went the El Cheapo route, and the result is that the subtitles are not rendered in clear English. Instead they are garbled and have to be interpreted. But that's not the worst of it. Apparently, someone felt the subtitles weren't enough, so in addition, you get a singular Dubbed Voice over the top of the subtitles, of a Russian or Estonian man (I have no idea which), dubbing the dialogue of every single character in the movie. In other words, you can't hear the individual characters speaking their lines, because the dubber is reading over them at a higher volume.
It's as if a single individual was sitting next to you in a movie theater, reading every word of dialogue from every character aloud, as you tried to watch the movie.
It's off putting to say the least (and on IMDB it caused some folks to turn the movie off), but if you are gonna watch "1944" I implore you to work your way through the pidgin English subtitles, and to ignore the overbearing dubber if you can do so, because this is an important and tremendous movie that deserves to be seen. Maybe one day Criterion will do it right. Highly recommended in any event. ///
That's all for tonight. See you in the morning. Tons of love!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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