Movie: Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (spoilers)

I oopsied and was late returning last week's Netflix, so I plugged the laptop into the computer and watched something off Instant Viewing. (Unfortunately, Friday evening is not the best time to try to watch Instant Viewing movies due to the high server load, but with some long pauses to build up a buffer, I got it done.)

Now, there were two not-terribly-deep reasons I wanted to see Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.
First, as a young girl, I was a big Darkwing Duck fan, and there was an episode titled "Hush Hush Sweet Charlatan." Now, those episodes never have anything to do with whatever the title was parodying, but I was curious anyway.

Second, it was recommended as one of Bette Davis' better movies, and I thought I'd give her another chance after the slow boring train wreck that was Mr. Skeffington.

So, what did I think of it?
...
My God, the stupid. Lots of movies expect the audience to suspend their disbelief, but this one expects the audience to suspend all cognitive functioning whatsoever.

Unless I am missing something in the unintelligible mumbling that starts the movie, it opens with a young man going to see Charlotte Hollis's father to ask for her hand in marriage

1. Before they elope
2. Despite the fact that he is already married to someone else
3. And that he is NOT in the midst of, or even planning, a divorce.

Ow, ow, ow.
And to make it worse, Bette Davis is playing Charlotte in this scene set 37 years before the rest of the movie. This means that a 56 year old Bette was playing a 19 year old girl. As you can well imagine, this required that there be no good shots of her face. Unfortunately, because her idiot lover's breakup with her and subsequent brutal murder are such a significant part of the opening, this requires some really heavy handed stunts to hide her.

We then flash forward 37 years, and find that the Hollis mansion has been seized by eminent domain and is going to be torn down to build a bridge.
Uhn huh. Charlotte is so rich that the town is named after her family. (Literally; the town's name is Hollisport.) Eminent domain storylines only work with middle class or poorer families, because we all know the rich get to play by different rules. Realistically, whoever did the planning for that bridge would look at the route and go "Ah crap. The lawsuit alone is going to drag this project out 10 or 15 years, and if she realizes that place dates back before the Civil War and has it declared a historical landmark, we're screwed. Let's just see if we can get an easement about a hundred yards from the house, and if that doesn't work we'll just do a bypass on the other side of the property line."

Then we bring in Miriam. The box text spoils most of Miriam's schtick. Before I get to that, though, what's funny is that according to the trivia at IMDB, they had the damnedest time getting anyone to take this role. Joan Crawford had it, but she got sick and they had to replace her. Katherine Hepburn didn't even return their call, Loretta Young said " I wouldn't play a part like that if I were starving," and Vivien Leigh answered "No, thank you. I can just about stand looking at Joan Crawford's face at six o'clock in the morning, but not Bette Davis." It took the director a flight to Switzerland and four days to convince Olivia de Havilland to take it.

So, most of the movie is Miriam trying to drive Charlotte insane, or at least to a point where she appears so. For some reason, she thinks she's going to have trouble involuntarily committing

1. the town loony
2. who everyone "knows" brutally murdered her lover with a meat cleaver 37 years ago
3. and who tried to kill two people within five minutes after the opening credits
4. and who spends most of her free time searching and calling for said lover who was brutally murdered 37 years ago.

Come on! You want to get Charlotte committed, what you do is go to the nearest judge and say "I think my cousin is crazy and needs to be committed." And you know what he's going to say?
"Oh, you finally noticed that, did you? Give me those papers to sign. I've been waiting decades for this."

No, we spend a long, slowly paced movie going about this instead.
And then, Miriam kills the maid. Whoops. Now we've got this pesky body laying around. What do we do about it?
Well, I'm thinking we want to get Charlotte involuntarily committed, and that requires danger to self or others, so "Oh my gosh, look what Charlotte did." I mean, you've got a dead maid, you might as well use her.
No, that would cut a good 20 minutes out of this turd. Instead they fake that she died in a completely different building while trying to repair her own home's roof. Which means they then have to go and fake Charlotte killing someone else! *head desk*

Finally, if you're going to go give your "how I became an evil villain and just how evil I am" speech, maybe you should make sure your would-be victim is actually sedated. Because it's really a bummer when they wake up and wander into listening distance of your speech -- and an appropriate weapon.

And on top of it all, you get to listen to Bette Davis shriek out half her lines. Yeah. I'm not a Bette Davis fan. In fact, I am probably going to go to great effort to avoid her movies from now on.

So, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte gets a nice big "Don't do it, man!"

Movie: The Spiral Staircase (heavy spoilers)

This week's Netflix offering was the 1945 movie The Spiral Staircase.

First, the spoiler-free review:
Excellent, excellent movie. Now this, this is what Hitchcock is known for.

Unfortunately, it's not one of Hitchcock's. Frankly, I think Hitchcock wished he had made something this awesome.

But I kid Alfred. Seriously, beautiful beautiful cinematography. Wonderful, amazing camera and light work. When Helen is running to the house in the rain at the beginning and we see the hiding murderer in a flash of lightning, ooh. Shivers, I'm telling you. (It's 5 minutes in; I can't call that a spoiler.)

I can't really comment on the story, because I've got this thing with mysteries. Nine times out of 10, I immediately laserbeam on to the villain. For example, first time I watched a 13-part silent serial named Judex, which is possibly the first filmed superhero story, I had the hero's secret identity pegged halfway through the prologue -- and that ain't normal at all. So with Spiral Staircase here, I was pretty sure who done it and how it was going to end for them early on, but I don't think that would be normal. I think most people who enjoy mysteries would enjoy this one.

Now, if only I could figure out where that spiral staircase is in relation to the rest of the house.

Anyway, if you like mysteries, go see this. It's good.


Super spoilerific version:
I swear, if I am ever in a situation involving spies, Nazis, or serial killers, and someone says to me "Don't trust anyone", I am going to turn around and shoot them right there on the spot. Has there ever been a time in cinematic history where someone has said that, and NOT turned out to be the villain? I had my suspicions about this guy as soon as he appeared on screen, but as soon as he said this, I spent the next hour and 15 minutes going "It's Hisname. It's Hisname. Dude, it is so Hisname."

And man, do NOT mess with a Barrymore. They will kick your ass. It doesn't matter if they have to magically regain the ability to walk in order to do it, because they will. Lionel in Key Largo and Ethel here... Just don't mess with them.

Actually, bumping off that to Key Largo, that reminds me of an observation. Every once in a while in one of the old movies, someone will get out of a wheel chair. This tends to really mess with modern minds, because in this day and age wheel chair usually means spinal cord injury. However, before World War II, a spinal cord injury was fatal. It didn't matter how low it was; you died. The medical community just didn't have the technology and understanding to care for it. So when an audience in the 1930s and 1940s saw a character in a wheelchair, what they thought was "polio", and thus would expect it to be difficult but possible for that character to walk short distances.
For those who are curious, Lionel was in the wheel chair because of a hip injury and arthritis.

Oh, I am really disappointed that I didn't get to see Carlton take the villain down. Dude, you've got a bulldog right there. What's the point of having a bulldog if you aren't going to use him?

Hey, I needed those!

I wanted to read the novel "Night of the Hunter", that the movie I reviewed a few weeks ago was based on. Local library system didn't have it. I know I could have requested it through interlibrary loan, but I just couldn't be buggered to figure out how to do that, and I didn't want to rush through it on a deadline. It's pretty cheap new, so I bought a copy.

I bet you never notice typography on a book unless it's really terrible. I don't either. Except this is really terrible. I'm almost wondering if this book fell into the public domain, because this printing looks like it was done by Lulu.com -- except that Lulu produces better quality. Most significantly, though...

There are no quotation marks! None! Not a one! There are apostrophes, thank the Lord, but no quotation marks. Dialog is just completely mixed in with prose with no differentiation whatsoever. It's actually kind of difficult to read.

See, your English teacher was right. They're important.

Movie: Blazing Saddles (spoilers)

I am probably going to spill a whole can of whoop ass all over myself with this one. But I've got Brawny, so that's OK.

I want to like Mel Brooks' parodies, I do. But starting with Blazing Saddles and just about everything afterwards, I just can't. There's plenty of reasons why, but let me jump into the really big ones.

First, you know what's really funny? Rape. Mel Brooks finds rape to be an unending source of amusement. If you were playing a Blazing Saddles drinking game and took a shot every time there was a rape joke, you'd die of alcohol poisoning. The movie can't go 15 minutes without a rape joke. Because rape is just so funny.

That's to say nothing of the sexism. Look at the female characters in this movie, look me in the eye, and try to tell me you don't see a problem.

This is especially ironic in a movie about the evils of racism, but perhaps even more ironic is the rampant anti-gay jokes. Not nearly as common as the rape jokes (because nothing could be), but still, day-um. Don't be trying to tell me that homosexual rights weren't even on the radar in 1974, because the sheer number of gay-bashing jokes in this movie gives lie to that. Now, you could argue that viewpoints were radically different 35 years ago and maybe that's fair, BUT it does IMO show a lack of critical thought at the time. Did Mel ever stop to think "you know, I'm making commentary on how wrong discrimination is and at the same time I brutally bashing this other group any chance I get. Is this problematic at all?"

So, you take out the rape jokes, the gay-bashing jokes, and sexism jokes, and... You don't have a whole lot of movie left. What you do have... Frankly, it's not funny. For example, one line that's supposed to be hilariously funny is the schoolmarm reading a telegram she has composed to the governor, in which she tells him that this "just goes to show that you are the biggest asshole in the state."
....
This is one of your best jokes, Mel? Because, see, I live in Illinois. To me, "the governor is the biggest asshole in the state" is just a statement of fact. (The whole Blagojevich thing? "OMG, a corrupt Illinois governor! Who woulda thunk it?")

There was a study done in the 1990s when shock jocks were popular that found that people don't actually find that kind of humor funny when they're alone. It's only in groups that they laugh at it, and then it's a shared embarrassment response rather than a true humor response.

So, since most of Mel's jokes involve throwing out something vulgar and waiting for the lolz, you should probably see this one with a group of friends.

The only good thing in this movie is Gene Wilder. And he does get some good lines. ("You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.") But he can only do so much on his own.

'Fraid this one's going up on the DVDSwap shelf.