Easy Rider

1969 hippie manifesto

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A couple hippies strike it rich with the resell of some cocaine. They decide to get on their motorbikes and travel across the country to New Orleans. Along the way, the meet some hippies, a bunch of people who don't like hippies, Jack Nicholson, and some whores. Then, they die.

I'd taken all these wonderful notes about Easy Rider, how it's a laid-back indictment of the American dream with a graceful and poetic narrative-within-the-narrative about the history of America and the failure of capitalism. Stuff about the symbolism of Captain America driving a motorcycle fueled by cash and how free sex is more pure than sex you have to pay for and how freely chasing your ideals will only get you shot by some rednecks. Or maybe it was wasting their freedom got them shot by the rednecks. It was great stuff, but you'll have to take my word that it existed because I ended up wadding it up and stuffing it down my pipe and smoking it. I like the three leads--nonchalant and doomed Peter Fonda as Wyatt, the continuously giggling Dennis Hopper as Billy, and the lively Jack Nicholson in that goofy football helmet. I also really like the look of this movie; Laszlo Kovacs' cinematography perfectly captures the American landscape and the mysteries of our past, working almost like a visual folklore. Although I think a lot of the scenes were filmed by stoned locals Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda encountered on the journey. Easy Rider takes a turn for the weird near the end during a cemetery acid trip scene, dating the movie somewhat but nevertheless a nice trippy diversion. This is a movie just flooded with music, probably too much, and people who don't like this movie very much will argue that in addition to the thing being a relic from an era they probably don't like much, about sixty percent of the movie consists of shots of the actors riding their motorcycles while flower power anthems blare. Fair enough, but it perfectly captures the moods and wasted ideals of the time, and if you look a little deeper, you'll see it's packed with meaning. One thing I can't stand though--the blinking transition thing. That's just irritating.

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #7: Fast Times at Ridgemont High

1982 high school movie

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 12/20)

Plot: Teenagers at the titular high school titillate each other, take some drugs, rebel against their teachers, get their priorities all wrong, knock each other up, make poor decisions, work toward their likely depressing futures, and masturbate.


This episodic look at high school in the eighties barely has Nicolas Cage in it at all. It is filled with a ton of colorful characters and their various misadventures. A few of those misadventures are interesting and/or meaningful, and unfortunately, a few of those characters are annoying. That's right, Sean Penn. I'm talking about you. I did like some of the interactions between his Spicoli and Mr. Hand though. This movie didn't make me laugh, and I didn't hit me on a nostalgic level since it's a bit before my high school time. As an artifact from the 1980s, it's maybe an above-average teen comedy, but if you're watching it only because you're a fan of Nicolas Cage, you're going to be really disappointed.

Heavy Traffic

1973 cartoon for adults

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Michael Corleone (why does that name seem familiar?) lives in a too-tiny apartment in New York City with his parents. When he's not working on his pinball wizard skills, he spends his time huddled over a desk sketching the humans he's interacted with on the city streets, including his parents. He's an underground comic, and that's what they do. He befriends an African American prostitute.

I don't know. I definitely felt a little dirty after watching this. Heavy Traffic is the kind of cartoon you have to wash off yourself if you see it. I guess that's an appropriate feeling when you watch an X-rated cartoon though. This is Ralph Bakshi, the guy who did Fritz the Cat, those Lord of the Rings cartoons, and the terribly boring Wizards. It's more similar to the raunchiness of Fritz than the fantasy stuff though unless there's some scene in Lord of the Rings where Frodo exposes himself to a goblin that I'm forgetting about. It really makes Bakshi seem misanthropic. He draws all these oddly-proportioned grotesque exaggerations of pimps, hookers, bums, and con artists. It's those seedy characters you can't really find in a metropolitan area unless you find a rock and flip it over. The animation style's straight from the unsavory 1970s for the most part, characters who move around like they're a member of Fat Albert's posse or are on their way to sing a School House Rocks type song instructing children on how to dispose of a prostitute's corpse, how to know when you're a dope fiend, or where to hide your pornography. There's also a fair amount of experimentation with a mix of live action and the animation. Seeing Bakshi's completely unnatural characters walking against photographs of the city streets does look pretty cool actually, and I liked some of that 70's funkadelica when the animator's shapes and colors go completely nuts. This is a little uneven and wears out its welcome before its seventy-six minutes or so are up, but it's not a bad little cult cartoon flick.

The Room

2003 masterpiece

Rating: 1/20

Plot: Johnny loves Lisa. He treats her right, too, promising her a bright future, bringing her flowers, and having some really awkward sex with some awful background music. But Lisa is sleeping with Johnny's best friend Mark on the side. Meanwhile there's Denny, a seemingly random kid, is having some problems with the drugs. There's no way things can end well. They sure didn't begin well. And the middle part? Yuck!

The Room is very much Tommy Wiseau's baby. He wrote, directed, and starred in the thing. He even put his big ol' face on the poster. Just look at him acting on that poster? Yes, he's that terrific the rest of the movie, especially if you're impressed with poorly-written lines spoken in this unidentifiable accent. It's a performance of Torgo Award proportions, and if this work of art--like a soap opera blended with the crafts of the mentally challenged--isn't the worst movie I see all year, I'll be surprised. This is trainwreck bad, from the opening badly-delivered line "Hey, Babe" spoken as our protagonist (the big face on the poster) walks into the room (variations of "Hey, Babe" are peppered throughout the dialogue, by the way) to the tragic denouement. The story's slow, most of the time threatening to go nowhere at all, yet it somehow still manages to meander like with the superfluous subplot with Denny, a subplot that I don't believe was every resolved. You also get a whole bunch of scenes with characters playing catch with footballs while standing about seven feet from each other. It reminds me of a middle school play production where the director decides he doesn't want the performers to just stand there and deliver lines and feels the need to give them something random to do. These characters sure loved their football though. Apparently, this has grown into a Rocky Horror type cult flick where people go to midnight screenings dressed as the characters. They throw plastic spoons at the screen and toss footballs around while wearing tuxedos. The spoon thing, by the way, is because there are these odd framed pictures of spoons decorating the room. No, not that room. Another room. Actually, I don't even know why this movie is called The Room. Wiseau said it's because he wants his audience to feel comfortable or something, but he also said that his characters play football in the movie because it's fun and a real challenge without the proper equipment. And he apparently claimed that the whole thing was meant as a comedy all along which might make him a genius. All I know is that I really enjoyed watching The Room, and it got more laughs out of me than any Steve Martin movie I've ever watched. And I'm not the type of person who generally finds continuity errors the first time I see a movie, but there's a great one early in this involving an apple, a Denny, and a staircase that is too obvious not to miss. My favorite line (contender for line of the year): "Hi, doggy."

I think all of my readers should see this movie as soon as possible. You can thank me later.

Awakening of the Beast

1970 didactic drug movie

Rating: 20/20 (See: Coffin Joe Movies Get a 20 or He'll Eat Your Face Off Rule)

Plot: Psychologists test the effects of hallucinogenics by monitoring volunteers. Coffin Joe invades their lobes and chaos ensues.

What I learned from this movie because Coffin Joe taught it to me and if I even suggest that he's wrong, I'll end up having my face eaten off: Coffin Joe's world is strange and made up of strange people, but none are more strange than me. That's how he introduced this delightfully messy movie.

I promise this is the last Coffin Joe movie I'll review because I don't know where I'm going to find any more of them. This is the one that halted his career, banned for twenty years, probably because it's perverted and subversive. Also known as Ritual of the Maniacs (I would have guessed Ritual of the Sadists from both the content and the Portuguese on the gruesome poster above), this is sort of like a Brazilian Reefer Madness as directed by somebody really evil. It's almost like a collection of cinematic short stories, each one a sort of cautionary tale about what might happen if you take LSD. In the opener, some creepy men picture a gal naked while a little record player plays a song about war. Then the girl starts stripping and they all watch before unwrapping a chamber pot. They all laugh, and the record reaches its scratchy conclusion.

In the next scene, a pretty girl is taken to an apartment. There's a guy suspended from the ceiling, a guy playing drums (not quite as manic as the piano guy in Reefer Madness), a guitarist lying on the floor, some guys who burst into song. She sees a guy smoking something; another guy starts stripping. Everybody starts snapping at her like they're all beatniks or extras in West Side Story before somebody asks, "Dig it, baby?" She craws through a window and stands with her legs apart on a table while the men take turns putting their heads up her skirt. They circle around her while holding up a finger and first chanting but later whistling "Colonel Bogey March" from Bridge on the River Kwai. They take turns, well, poking her before Jesus walks in and violates her with a long staff. That's what drugs can do to you, kids.

The third scene is much simpler--a guy watches three women remove their brassieres. He smells them, of course. They bend over and he kicks them.

One fantastic mini-story involves a well-to-do woman setting it up so that her black butler and her daughter (I think) get it on. She watches from a hiding spot while snorting cocaine and fiercely petting a pony.

And there's a scene I'm surprised isn't really famous, one that involves the washing of undergarments and a guy with an absurdly bulbous phallic jug.

A lot of the more gruesome scenes near the end, the ones that involve sadism and cannibalism and Marins' Boschian idea of Hell, are a lot of the more memorable scenes in the incoherent compilation Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind. One would guess that they'd make more sense in context, but they really don't. And that's the beauty of Marins and this misogynist acid trip or filthy nightmare or whatever you want to call it. Did I dig it, baby? Yes, I did, Coffin Joe! Yes, I did.

Lenny

1974 biopic

Rating: 17/20

Plot: The life and career of controversial comedian Lenny Bruce, a guy who liked to say words like "poop" and "boobs" and "pee-pee" on stage a lot. He marries Lex Luthor's assistant, struggles to get ahead in his career, finally makes it big, gets in trouble for using the words "banana" and "parakeet" in inappropriate contexts, has a baby, and struggles with temptations. Penis!?

I realize I grabbed an image of the poster that shows creases, and I'm glad I did. It really seems appropriate since this is a Bob Fosse movie that isn't afraid to show its creases. A story that is anything but black and white is told ironically in this gritty black and white, so suitable for this world of night clubs and strip joints and cheap hotel rooms. It's a story of a funnyman, but a story clothed in gray and bathed in dim lighting, and the stark scenes draw the focus to the characters and the actors who play them. And what performances those are! The fact that the gorgeous Miss Teschmacher and her glorious bosom (actually the glorious Valerie Perrine and her glorious bosom) isn't completely submerged beneath the performance of Dustin Hoffman as the title character says something. She plays wife Bunny, a challenging and brave role with a nice range of emotions and plenty of chances to get a little naked. She pulls off manic, troubled, broken, ecstatic, wounded, and more in this roller coaster of a performance. Hoffman's as good as I've seen him, his Lenny Bruce as spot on as Jim Carrey's "tragic" "comic" in Man on the Moon. I don't recall seeing footage of the actual Lenny Bruce and therefore can't judge the body language, but Hoffman definitely had the cadence and stand-up delivery down. I liked the structure, almost a pseudo-documentary approach with after-the-fact interviews with Bunny and Bruce's manager and lots and lots of footage of Hoffman on stage delivering Bruce's "jokes" and banter. The stage scenes were woven within the narrative structure, helping to transition from point to point in Lenny Bruce's life. I'm not a huge fan of the Lenny Bruce recordings I've heard, by the way, but I can't argue the influence he had on comedy. And his story, or at least this particular telling, is thematically layered and moving, the end scene a perfect interrobang that drives home a near-profound point. I came away caring about and respecting Lenny Bruce a lot more. If that was Fosse's goal, he succeeded. If is goal was just to entertain with a good story, he succeeded there, too.

That's right--interrobang.

The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasure

1975 Coffin Joe morality tale

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Coffin Joe is resurrected (I think) by some scantily-clad women and some male dancers with plastic breasts. His top hat magically appears, and he sulks off to an inn. A variety of guests arrive to escape a thunderstorm. Coffin Joe accepts some while turning others away. The guests engage in a variety of nefarious goings-on--biker orgies, gambling, an affair, shady business dealings, jewel thievery. At midnight, the clocks stop and some bad stuff happens.

I have to admit something--I think I'm terrified to give any of Coffin Joe's movies anything less than a 14. I almost want to make a Santo-esque "20" rule for Coffin Joe; then again, I'm terrified Santo will have an issue with that. The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasure might not be as good as its title. As a horror film (or whatever the hell it is), it's really bizarre. The freeform weirdness of the opening scene sets the oddball atmosphere--a train track rhythm, some of the worst dancing you'll ever see, people in masks, one guy wearing the neck-down part of a gorilla suit, those men with fake plastic breasts, wobbling shirtless men, silk-clad dancing girls. And, the piece de resistance: a guy who is wearing a giant plastic fake butt on his front. After that insanity, you get the opening credits, a hypnotizing asteroid field, and some terribly incoherent poetry. Things slow down, almost to a screeching halt, as some sort of story threatens to develop. For about forty minutes of so, it's just people arriving at the hotel and Coffin Joe saying some cryptic things ("Why are objects important if the goal is for eternal existence?"). Ad infinitum. The biker orgy scene is especially nutsy though. For the longest time, it's just this packed room of unattractive biker guys and biker chicks undulating on top of each other while, for what seems like forever, chanting, "Everybody naked, great! Everybody naked, great!" The juxtaposing scenes of the dealings of the strange hostel's inhabitants is a lot to endure, but thankfully, things get really bizarre again. Stop reading now if you want to avoid spoilers. Coffin Joe, seemingly ubiquitous, pops in everybody's room, does his weird eye thing, and watches flashbacks where nasty things happen. All with some squiggly, howling, squelching Moog accompaniment and omnipresent screams. Oh, and an off-sounding "Auld Lang Syne". One guy puts a gun to his head. Suddenly, the screen is filled with superimposed fireworks before becoming drowned in blood. It's a sick effect. There's also some nifty fire effects that showcase Marins' ability to do a whole lot with just a little. Another favorite scene is where a couple are having a splash fight in a bathtub when the husband walks in with flowers. He pulls a knife and the flowers fall before, if I remember correctly, Marins decides to show us some insects or rats or a close-up of a creepy clock. Even more than the other two Coffin Joe movies on this blog (here and here), this has the feel of outsider art. It's not exactly the most coherent movie I've ever seen, but like any other Coffin Joe movies (there are two forthcoming), I'd recommend this to weird film enthusiasts.

I'm Still Here

2010 mockumentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: River Phoenix's little brother Joaquin decides that enough's enough and announces his retirement from acting. In the aftermath of that decision, Ben Affleck's little brother Casey follows him around with a camera to document Hollywood's response and the birth of Joaquin's new career in hip hop.

Here's who ends up looking really good in this movie: Puff Daddy (or whatever the hell he goes by these days), David Letterman, and Edward James Olmos. The latter's speech (see below) is so freakin' good. I'm not sure if any of these guys were in on the joke (I think I heard that Letterman was), but if they were, their "performances" as themselves were really good. It's really hard to play yourself both realistically and naturally. Ask Joaquin Phoenix because his performance in this is wildly uneven. I sometimes bought that he was a real person living the Charlie Sheen life, struggling with public life and the emotions that it brings and excited about his new career as a terrible rapper. There were other times when it just didn't click. Casey Affleck claims this was the performance of his career, and in chunks, it is impressive. When he's got one take to work with (the television appearances or interviews, the rap concert), he delivers something authentic. There are some scenes where his drugged-out and haggard character just seemed like an over-acting job. (i.e. "Do the fucking snow angel!") The movie also seems very very long, and some of the scenes just dragged. "Ok," I said aloud several times, "I get it. Move on to Joaquin doing something else shocking." I went into this expecting a train wreck, and a train wreck I got. A very long train wreck. A train wreck in slow motion. But I liked the idea behind the experiment and similar to the Sasha Baron Cohen pseudo-documentaries, it uses those not in on the joke to satirize society. In this case, it's looking at the public's expectation of their matinee idols; their obsession with the rich and famous, especially when they're in the process of crashing and burning; and that fuzzy line between real person and entertainer. I was caught off guard by how much I had to think while watching the train wreck. I was also caught off guard by how much I liked this since I really just popped it in for the novelty and didn't even expect to finish the thing. I do wonder what this will do to Phoenix's career. It doesn't seem like he's got any movies coming out any time soon.

Here's Olmos's speech: "That's you, drops of water and you're on top of the mountain of success. But one day you start sliding down the mountain and you think wait a minute; I'm a mountain top water drop. I don't belong in this valley, this river, this low dark ocean with all these drops of water. Then one day it gets hot and you slowly evaporate into air, way up, higher than any mountain top, all the way to the heavens. Then you understand that it was at your lowest that you were closest to God. Life's a journey that goes round and round and the end is closest to the beginning. So if it's change you need, relish the journey."

Winter's Bone

2010 redneck Godfather

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Seventeen year-old Dee Rolly (or maybe it's Ree Dolly) works hard to keep her dysfunctional family afloat while her meth-dealing father runs from the law and her mentally-troubled mother rocks in a rocking chair. She gets her younger siblings fed and off to school and completes more than her share of chores to make the family's poor property the happiest home it can possibly be. Unfortunately, the sheriff informs her that Daddy had used the property for collateral for his bail and that they'll lose it if he fails to show up for his court date. She starts investigating, desperately trying to get answers from family and neighbors. Her inquiries are met with animosity as the court date rapidly approaches. Won't somebody be able to lend her a hand?

There's really nothing complicated about this story except the motivations and behavior of Dee (or Ree's) uncles, grandfathers, cousins, ect. are so different from what most people would consider normal. The story starts in medias res, and the character development, aside from the heroine Ree (or Dee), comes in snippets. But you catch on quickly that the peripheral characters don't matter so much, even though her Uncle Teardrop is a very complex and interesting fellow. This is all about Dee (or Ree) and a kind of journey. She wanders nearly hopelessly through labyrinths of dead trees and frozen air, and the conflict isn't as much a Ree (Dee?) vs. other characters but Dee (Ree?) vs. prevailing moods. It doesn't take long for us to figure out that our protagonist is up against a wall of apathy and hostility. She's heroic in a lot of quiet ways. She goes about her busy stoically, stubbornly, and selflessly; there's no extrinsic value in anything she does. The story itself is just as quiet as her action. Even the high points are subdued, and you almost just want to shrug off the two worst things that happen to Dee (or is it Ree?) because that journey she's on just seems to demand that those things happen. I thought the acting was uneven, ranging from those whose performances felt a bit too polished to those who gave striking portrayals of hill folk that gave parts of this an almost documentary realism. With the latter, there's a lot boiling below the surface, all kinds of dashed dreams and troubles festering just below the surface of their skin. They've got great names, too. I wish I could go back in time and name my son Teardrop.

Another Cory recommendation.

Wait until Dark

1967 Helen Keller biopic

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 12/20)

Plot: The Three Stooges look for a doll stuffed with packets of heroin in a blind woman's apartment.
They concoct a really complex plan

Other than a couple nifty suspense scenes, including a suffocating and intense climax which has the second best use of a refrigerator I've seen in a movie during the last couple weeks, there's not much to see here. The story's ludicrous, that aforementioned plan involving numerous telephone calls, costumes (seriously, why are costumes necessary to fool a blind woman?), signals, and a van making no sense for a criminal who apparently doesn't have problems resorting to brute violence. And why do they need to mess with the blinds in the apartment to signal to their cohorts in the van? Wouldn't a flick of the lights (you know, since the woman is blind) work well enough? Plot holes galore, plot holes big enough that Audrey Hepburn's blind character could probably see them. Speaking of Audrey, I really didn't think she was right for this role. The cutesiness didn't seem to fit her right here, and she was really awkward when interacting with the terrible child actor. Alan Arkin's character is more interesting, but there's just something unnatural about the performance, like he's working too hard at being cold and calculating. There's entertainment value here, but most of what happens here is stuff that can only happen in a movie, like it had it's very own Wait until Dark logic. It really hurt my chances to completely enjoy the movie although the suspenseful moments were really well done.

Recommended by Cory.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call--New Orleans

2009 sequel to Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Terence McDonagh, a cop in New Orleans, gets a promotion, a good thing since this movie couldn't have Lieutenant in the title without it. But Terence starts to turn bad, another good thing since Bad is also in the title. With drugs, stolen paraphernalia, more drugs, gambling, drugs, and lizards, McDonagh beings to lose it. Then he completely loses it, stumbling to find a way to end a downward spiral.

I had my doubts about this one, especially since Herzog's other venture into the mainstream (Rescue Dawn) kind of stunk. But Werner works his voodoo magic here, throwing us something contemporary and oft-mainstream but with a tasty helping of the wonderfully bizarre. There is one scene in particular that I can say is unequivocally the best thing I have ever seen in my life and quite possibly the best scene in the history of film. No, I'm not exaggerating. It's a scene I immediately rewound to watch a second time, watched several more times while the dvd was still in my possession, and have Youtubed at least two times since returning the dvd. It's the type of scene that you think about a couple days after watching the movie and start having one of those religious experiences where you can't stop giggling and when somebody interrupts the religious experience with a stupid question, you snap at him and tell him that if he pulls that crap again, you'll stab him right in the neck. I wish I could tell you more about the scene, but telling you more about the scene would spoil it. Of course, it's impossible to write about this movie without talking about the enigmatic genius of Nicolas Cage, one of America's greatest living actors. Also unequivocally, I can say that this is one of the best acting performances of the decade. Cage brings the weird and he brings it hard, a perfect fit for Herzog's skewed visions, much much closer to a sort of neo-Kinski than to National Treasure's Ben Gates. There aren't too many actors, and maybe not a single other actor, who could have played unhinged and out-of-control so well, and I don't think there are many actors who could have pulled off the comic aspects of the character that are hidden below the surface of this drama. His performance is so physical. He contorts his body (the character has back problems), moves like a madman, and says so much his eyes in this movie, another quality that reminds me of Klaus Kinski. I can't say enough about Cage's performance here, but I can say (unequivocally) that I hope he's in another Herzog movie before he starts filming Ghostrider 3. Even without an appearance of Harvey Keitel's little Harvey and a bunch of over-the-top Christian symbolism, this is easily the better Bad Lieutenant movie. Don't miss it!

More

1969 sex and drugs movie

Rating: 9/20 (Mark: 7/20)

Plot: A guy named Stefan graduates from college, probably with a degree in Douchebaggery, and looking to sow some wild oats, he travels to France, burglarizes, and meets a lovely heroin addict. Together, he and Estelle travel to Ibiza where they sit around naked and look bemused. Eventually, Stefan becomes hooked on the wacky junk. Several more extended scenes of the two doing naked things, sometimes with other people, interrupt lots of other scenes where nothing interesting at all happens.

Sssshhh! Banana peels!

The Pink Floyd soundtrack is badass, and after Patrick played that for me in its entirety about fifteen years ago, I put More on the docket and then completely forgot about it. It wasn't worth the wait. It's like the worst and least entertaining Godard movie that Godard had nothing to do with. It's also like the longest fable ever made, an excruciatingly long fable moralizing about drugs and obsession with about as much playfulness as your average Greek myth. Indeed, the story is loosely based on the story of Daedalus and Icarus which is a cute enough idea but here only works to make the whole thing seem even more (pun intended) pretentious. I did wonder about the title. I think it's called More because as you're watching, you'll keep wondering how much more of the movie you'll have to suffer through. Hey-oooooo! [Banana peels!]

The Man with the Golden Arm

1955 drug movie

Rating: 16/20 (Mark: 12/20; Amy 11/20)

Plot: Frankie Machine, a poker dealer just released from prison, dreams of drumming in jazzy night clubs to make ends meet and take care of his injured and whiny wife. He's got a friend who is half-man/half-turtle, a new suit, and his own brushes. He's also got the scrumptious Kim Novak. And pretty eyes. Oh, and a heroin addiction. I almost forgot about that one. When things don't work out with his drumming aspirations, mostly because he's not very good, he decides to become a James Bond villain and forges a gold cast around his left arm to use as a bludgeon.

I liked the way the camera moved in this one, a sneaky bit of style that never got in the way of the storytelling but added a little cool to the proceedings. Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak are fine; Eleanor Parker ain't; and there's an odd assortment of supporting characters who give this a quirky flavor, including a sluggishly-sauntering pedestrian extra with a hat who I swear I saw in nine different scenes. As a drug movie, this is understandably a little dated, but I still like it twice as much as most modern drug movies. Yeah, Requiem for a Dream, I'm looking at you. I thought the scene with Frankie Machine fighting through withdrawal rang true and liked the amount of edginess that they were allowed to have in this mid-50s production. This movie might also wind up winning the 2010 shane-movies award for "Best Use of a Dummy" which I'm sure would make Otto Preminger pee on himself in his grave. This movie goes on a little longer than it should, and I'm not sure I bought it all, but I definitely liked it a little more than I expected. Bonus point for some nice poker scenes.