Kick-Back Friday: April 2008 Archives

I'm not sure how to classify Louis Malle's directorial debut, Ascenseur pour l'echafaud (literally, Elevator for the Scaffold). Possibly French new wave/noir, although some may object to Malle being lumped in with the new wavists. In any case, Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet look terrific in this absurdist crime thriller, and the Miles Davis score is beautifully, excrutiatingly sad.

Poster image from Wikimedia and reprinted under fair use law.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is a strange, little noir story made entirely watchable by the supporting performances of Kirk Douglas (in his film debut) and the sadly forgotten Lizabeth Scott. Oh yeah, and Barbara Stanwyck is her usually stellar self in the patented role of any man's ill-advised lover.

The Fallen Idol, a thriller directed by Carol Reed (The Third Man) and also based on the writing of Graham Greene, features one of the best performances of a child on screen. However, if the provided DVD commentary is to be believed, this may be due more to the undying patience of Reed rather the skills of the boy actor, Bobby Henrey. A mid-film hide-and-seek sequence is masterfully fun and spooky, and I don't know why it's not copied ad nauseum by contemporary movie makers.

One of Johns Sayles's best, Lone Star is a cross-generational, cross-cultural murder mystery, which features the terrifically understated Chris Cooper as an ambivalent, small-town Texas sheriff. Shown in flashback sequences are the previous generation's lawmen in the form of one charismatic Matthew McConaughey (what happened, Matt?) and one rattlesnaky Kris Kristofferson.