Last night's movie was "Innocent Meeting"(1958), a British Crime Flick with an Angry Young Man theme that opens with "Johnny Brent" (Sean Lynch) on the run after robbing a store late one night. His subsequent flight is expertly choreographed. From a crane shot high above the London streets, we see Johnny outrun the beat cops chasing him through alleys and backyards, but he can't beat the police car. It's that Rolls Royce Thing again - "It's coming to get you!" - but at least they don't show the Menacing Grill this time.
Johnny winds up trapped in his fourth floor tenement flat, where - for now - he's keeping the cops at bay. With his pistol and enough ammo to hold out for a while, he has a temporary advantage as he can see the police coming up the stairs, so they can't approach without being shot at. The captain orders tear gas, but Johnny solves that problem by opening a window. While the captain then debates whether to call in a sharpshooter ("I don't want to kill the lad but he's leaving me no choice"), we hear Johnny's voice in his head: "How did it come to this? Everything was finally going well. How did I wind up trapped like a rat when I had my whole life in front of me?"
We then relive his story in flashback, beginning at a court proceeding. Johnny is the only one of his former gang of street punks who, after their conviction in another crime, is shown leniency by the judge. His three partners are all sentenced to prison or reform school, but Johnny, because it's his first offense, is given probation. At their initial meeting, his probation officer "Mr. Garside" (Ian Fleming) tries to help him. "You are said to be an artistic young man, Johnny. You like to draw? What if I got you a job as a graphic artist?" Johnny declines because he's scared of the responsibility. He doesn't think he can make it in society, but Mr. Garside persists: "Okay, Johnny. have it your way. But I'm here any time you want to talk. And don't forget your appointment next month."
Johnny heads straight to his local HMV record store, where a gang of kids are playing jazz (it's a "listening store" like Wallach's Music City). Pretty "Connie Martin" (Beth Rogan) walks in and selects a Tchaikovsky record, saying "I'd like to play this next." The jazz kids say no: "That noise ain't got no beat." Though he doesn't know her, Johnny sticks up for Connie, demanding she get a chance play her record, even though he's never heard of Tchaikovsky. In gratitude, she takes him back to her house, a mansion complete with butler. Connie's Dad (Robert Raglan) is a textile manufacturer. She takes a liking to Johnny, and when she discovers he can draw, she gets him a job as one of her Dad's designers. All is now going well for Johnny. He keeps his probation appointments with Mr. Garside, who's impressed with his progress. He even shrugs off his former hoodlums at Uncle's Cafe, when Uncle (Denis Shaw of the Indomitable Hairline), a crook himself, suggests he should pull another "job". "I don't need that life no more" Johnny tells him. His former gang buddies sneer, "Oh look at 'im now, too big for 'is britches."
Johnny is ascending the ladder at Mr. Martin's company, and he and Connie are in love. But Johnny retains the psychological traces of his former life, and has little self-confidence, especially in the presence of Mr. Martin, and one day he's confronted with his past, when Martin's wallet goes missing from his coat pocket, and Martin reports it to the police. They run a check on all the firm's employees and discover that Johnny has a criminal record, a secret he's kept from Connie and her Dad. He's blamed for the wallet theft, though he swears he didn't do it. Mr. Martin declines to press charges, but fires Johnny, who now reverts to his former lifestyle, though his fall is a lot more layered than that, depicted in gradual plot points.
The final straw for Johnny comes when Mr. Garside won't loan him the money to elope to Scotland (pron.) with Connie. "I can't do it, Johnny. Not without the approval of her father. Connie's underage." That final disappointment leads Johnny to go back to his old ways and try robbing the store to gain the money for train fare. The final ten minutes resumes the standoff that began the movie. Two Big Thumbs Up and a high recommendation for "Innocent Meeting". The picture is good, not great. ////
The previous night, we began "Radar Patrol vs. Sky King"(1949), another chapter serial from Republic Pictures, in which the newly formed Patrol, an offshoot of OSS, is trying to stop the takeover of the United States by the megalomaniacal foreign spy "Dr. Baroda" (John Merton), who has already succeeded in crashing planes, trains, and 18 wheel trucks, in the usual Mabusian manner. We see him in his laboratory, planning how to circumvent the radar ring being set up to protect the country.
To get around it, he devises an opposing scanner that will detect the radar's Key Station, it's point of origin (hint, it's in Chatsworth Park). He installs his anti-radar scanner in his four engine airplane (his own personal AWACS) and proceeds to fly up and down the Chatsworth/Mulholland Drive border, looking for the Key Station. "Nitra" (Eve Whitney), his Amazonian assistant, finds it - "way out in the boondocks," she says, posing as an encyclopedia saleswoman.
This leads to the kidnapping of "Joan Hughes" (Jean Kent), the Radar Patrol agent assisting lead agent "Chris Calvert" (Kirk Alyn). An excessively long punchout ensues before the chase to try and find her, but you get some great old-time Chatsworth road footage once it begins. This is only the first chapter, but we can tell we're gonna love it. Republic seems to be the go-to studio for serials, though Universal made some good ones, too, but most that we've seen have been Republic. Two Bigs for "Radar Patrol vs. Sky King." The picture is razor sharp. ////
This time we have a bonus movie, "Knock at the Cabin"(2023), though I won't give you any plot detail because it's brand new. Like you, I'm an M. Night Shyamalan fan, though I admit he's been hit or miss over the years. To me, his best movies are "The Sixth Sense", "Unbreakable", "The Village", and "Signs", and now "Knock", which I was especially interested to see because I read the book it was based on, called "The Cabin at the End of the World", about 5 years ago, when I heard about an author named Paul Tremblay. His name came to me somewhere online from an endorsement by Stephen King, who recommended the book which was good enough for me. I got it from the Libe, it scared the beejeezus out of me, then I got Tremblay's other books ("A Head Full of Ghosts", "Disappearance at Devil's Rock") and became a huge (pronounced yooge) fan. He's now one of my favorite writers. I also follow Tremblay on Facebook, so I've seen his responses to how the movie turned out, and while his overall review was positive, he wasn't happy with some of the changes made by Shyamalan. Tremblay, not having Stephen King clout, was cut out of the writing of the script. M. Night bought the rights and made it his own deal, and while he kept the overall framework of the story intact, he changed several of the major plot points.
The bottom line: the movie is scary as all get-out, but more than that, it's disturbing. The lead performance by David Bautista is one of the creepiest but most genuine in recent horror. All told, it's one of the top Shyamalan flicks. But I can understand Tremblay's complaints, because it changes major things about the book.
But if you haven't read the book - which The Shamster was banking on because Tremblay isn't a famous author (he still teaches high school math!), then the movie changes won't bug you (and they didn't bug me even though I've read the book). In short, they're two different entities, book and movie, but companion pieces all the same. One thing's for sure: Shyamalan couldn't have made this film without the genius of Paul Tremblay. Sham didn't come up with this story out of nowhere on his own. I do feel he could've given Tremblay more credit in the "making of" interview he did (available in the DVD extras), but that's a small quibble.
Anyhow, creative differences aside between writer and director, it's one weird and disturbing movie. Two Huge Thumbs Up, though not for the squeamish. ////
And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is "The Roaring Silence" by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. My late night is Handel's Rodrigo Opera. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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