Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Jean-Luc Godard

This week on The Movie Gourmet – two remembrances, current recommendations and a discussion of actor Warren William. Coming up – a preview of the Nashville Film Festival.

REMEMBRANCES

Writer-director Jean-Luc Godard, with his jump cuts, non-linear structure and other innovations, helped revolutionize cinema as a leader of the French New Wave. He made three masterpieces in early 1960s: Breathless, Contempt and Band of Outsiders. This is the Godard of “All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.”

But by 1968, Godard’s thinking has become so devoid of humor, nuance, texture and ambiguity, that his work became one-dimensional and boring.  Indeed, I have found all of the Godard films since 1967’s Weekend to range from disappointing to completely unwatchable.  Godard was still making movies in 2018 – and they all sucked.

Band of Outsiders is not streamable, but Breathless is included with HBO Max and Criterion subscriptions and rentable from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube; Contempt is included with Criterion and rentable from Amazon, AppleTV and YouTube. Or, you can watch the biting send-up of Godard in the recent Godard, Mon Amour on AppleTV, YouTube or KinoNow.

Henry Silva

Actor Henry Silva is recognizable from his 140 screen credits (and, outside of the Oceans 11 movies, those roles may have all been villains). He leveraged his acting talent and unusual facial features to project menace as few actors have done, most memorably in the original The Manchurian Candidate.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

THE VISITOR
  • The Visitor: self-isolation no longer. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Outfit: no one is just what they seem to be. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Colma: The Musical: a refreshing hoot. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Worst Person in the World: funny, poignant, original and profoundly authentic. Amazon, Apple, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Heartworn Highways: like desperados waitin’ for a train. AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Showtime.
  • Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel: the artsy and the quirky. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Jockey: he finally grapples with himself. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The East: how do we punish corporate crime? HBO, Amazon, AppleTV, redbox.
  • The Bra: Just your average silent Azerbaijani comedy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Project Nim: a chimp learns the foibles of humans. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Bombshell: The Hedy Lamar Story: the world’s most beautiful woman and her secrets. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, KINO Now.
  • The Gatekeepers: winning tactics make for a losing strategy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Auggie: Who do you see when you put on the glasses? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

Warren William with Loretta Young in EMPLOYEES ENTRANCE

On September 28, Turner Classic Movies airs Employees Entrance, starring Warren William, whose movies from the early 30s remain fresh today. Although he is not well-known today, William was “King of the Pre-Code”, starring in 25 movies between 1931 and 1934, many with the sexual frankness and moral ambiguity that was to be erased by the Production Code. If you want to understand Pre-Code cinema, watch Employees Entrance, and imagine the future movie censor, the supercilious Joe Breen, with his head exploding.

In the 1933 Employees Entrance, William plays a department store manager who is viciously ruthless with his competitors and suppliers.  He abuses his own employees and is indifferent to the resultant suicide attempts.  He uses his position to have sex with a young employee (Loretta Young), even after she marries someone else.  And he keeps a floozy on the payroll to distract another executive (his putative supervisor) from meddling in the business.  And for all 75 minutes of Employees Entrance, William’s joyously despicable character is richly enjoying himself.  If you’re looking for the triumph of Good over Evil, this isn’t your movie.

With his striking features (including a prominent and noble nose) and his deep and cultured voice, William was a natural for the newfangled talkies.  William excelled in the Pre-Code movies because he could play deliciously shameless scoundrels who would use their wit and position to exploit everyone else, especially for sex, power and money.  His characters are fun to watch because they take such delight in their own depravity.  His leading ladies included the likes of Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Loretta Young, Ann Dvorak and Claudette Colbert. But in 1934, the new Production Code meant that movies could no longer allow his characters to have sex and otherwise behave badly and get away with it.

One of my favorite movies is 1932’s hilarious political comedy The Dark Horse, in which William plays an equally ruthless and amoral campaign manager.  He is such a scoundrel that he must first get sprung from jail to teach his dimwitted candidate to answer every question with “Yes…and, then again, no.”  He describes his own candidate (the gleefully dim Guy Kibbee) thus:  “He’s the dumbest human being I ever saw. Every time he opens his mouth he subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge.” 

Ever the sexually predatory cad on the screen, the real-life William led a quiet life and was married to the same woman for twenty-five years until his death.

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