Watch on the Rhine

1943 movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Sara's been in away in Europe for eighteen years, presumably because her mother is really annoying. While away, she meets a troublemaker named Kurt and has three children who prove that "annoying" is something that runs in the family. They arrive in Washington for a visit, and a Romanian house guest, a guy who's staying with Sara's mother only because he knows there wouldn't be much of a movie without him, learns some of the family's secrets. He attempts to extract money. Oh, Bodo!

It's always interesting to me to see movies like this out of their context. It's a movie about Nazis and WWII, but it really only touches on the historical stuff lightly, and its themes of dedication, sacrifice, and tough decision making are still relevant today. Unfortunately, this is bogged down by what feel like 1940's movie cliches. You get that oh-no-she-didn't stock mother character used for comic effect. Her loud utterances probably had 1943 audiences' sides splitting. You get dialogue that feels painstakingly written, stagy. You get a romantic subplot tossed in, probably to add a bit of light to an otherwise dark ending. But really, the characters of David and Anise just aren't necessary in this thing. A rousing patriotic score that's just a little too much. And Watch on the Rhine has my biggest pet peeve of all--bad child acting! Now if it was just Joshua, the firstborn who speaks in this terrible accent, I could probably tolerate it. And the middle child, a daughter, is just a girl and doesn't get too many lines anyway. But the third child is intolerable. And his name is Bodo! Bodo! How director Herman Shumlin didn't recognize that Bodo, played by Julia Roberts' brother actually, just wasn't working is beyond me. Seems like a good director would have had Bodo fall off the train early in the movie.

Sara: Honey, have you seen Bodo?
Kurt: Yeah, Bodo fell off the train about a half hour ago.
Sara: What? And you didn't tell me about it? Aren't you concerned?
Kurt: C'mon, Sara. You've met Bodo.
Sara: You've got a good point there, Kurt.
Joshua: Mother? Father? We shall be ever so happy now that Bodo is no longer with us.
Kurt: Shut your pie hold, Joshua, or you're going to be the next to "fall" off this train.

Since Herman Shumlin wasn't able to recognize that Bodo didn't work, he was only allowed to direct one other movie, the only Hollywood director ever to be blacklisted because of a Bodo. Now Oscar-winner Paul Lukas is really good. His quiet brilliance emanates and actually makes Bette Davis into a better actress. He's got this quiet strength, this unspoken but palpable fatigue, and eventually a powerful resolution that makes him heroic in an unflashy way. There's no way this guy would have a child like Bodo. Bette Davis, sure, but not Paul Lukas.

Lifeboat

1944 Hitchcock movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A black guy, a nerdy guy, a guy who likes dancing, a guy who doesn't like to wear a shirt, a snobbish socialite, a young woman, and maybe a couple people I've forgotten about survive the sinking of their ship. Tension mounts when they pick up one of the Germans who torpedoed their ship. They debate what to do with their "prisoner" but soon realize they may have to rely on his expertise to save them from their predicament.

I was skimming a trivia page for Lifeboat and came across this nugget: Members of the crew noticed that Tallulah Bankhead was performing sans underwear and brought the issue to Uncle Alfred's attention. Hitchcock answered, probably while chewing on marbles, "I don't know if this is a matter for the costume department, makeup, or hairdressing." I told my wife this, and she asked (with that scrunched-up face she makes some times), "Are you putting that in the blog?" I said, "Of course!" She suggested I start writing cleaner and "get rid of the randiness." So that brings us to the first shane-movies poll of 2011! Please leave your answer(s) in the comments. Do you:

A) want less randiness
B) want a lot less randiness
C) want more randiness
D) want a whole lot more randiness, randiness of Mary Poppins proportions!
E) want nothing but randiness
F) want no randiness at all
G) want the exact same amount of randiness
H) want the same amount of randiness but desire some diversity in the randiness
I) have no problems with randiness as long as it's not too gross or read too close to dinner time
J) have problems even remembering any shane-movies randiness in previous entries
K) have no problem with randiness as long as it's in an entry about randy old Uncle Alfred's movies
L) just want me to write about the movies and not go on and on about randiness
M) want this to be the randiest blog in the history of the Internet
N) think I should start having give-aways like some blogs my wife reads


Quick note: Two movies in a row to start this year with a compound word for a title. Although I'm not sure Timecrimes is a real word.

The movie? Well, John Steinbeck wrote it, based on Hitchcock's idea, and Hitchcock directed it. For a 40's movie that takes place entirely in a boat (Hitchcock experimenting again with a one-setting movie), it sure manages to seem realistic. I like that Hitchcock wasn't afraid to take a tense situation and throw in some comic moments. There are a lot of characters for one lifeboat, and I wish they could have been developed more. This is the type of movie that forces the viewer to put themselves in the situation of its characters and imagine making the same choices though, and it is a story more about the situation than the individuals involved. I really liked Walter Slezak as the enigmatic German, always calculating and with motivations that don't entirely make sense to me. Odd ending, one that made me wonder if Hitchcock was messing with me. Speaking of the director, you've got to look close for his trademark cameo, but it's a clever one.