The Last Angry Man (1959)

The Last Angry Man is a sort of late 1950s early 1960s prestige drama, the kind that Arthur Miller would write – about principles and such. Not that I'm knocking it, but it's a drama that is tired of the world we live in, and it hopes people can be better than the modern world is making them. The Last Angry Man, however, is elevated by a brilliant performance by the great Paul Muni, and supporting turns from Billy Dee Williams and Claudia McNeil. And look for Cicely Tyson in a cameo!

I watched this as part of a series of Paul Muni films playing on the Criterion Channel.

Operation Petticoat (1959)

Operation Petticoat is pretty delightful. It's a silly, totally absurd comedy about a submarine that gets sunk before it leaves Pearl Harbor but whose captain insists on repairing it anyway and sailing it into battle. It's the kind of farcical take on World War II that Spielberg was aiming to make when he made his worst film, 1941.

I watched Operation Petticoat on the Criterion Channel, where they were playing a series of Cary Grant's broad comedy films. Grant is hilarious in this. Tony Curtis is funny, too, and is as femme as ever.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

Journey to the Center of the Earth is a fairly typical late-1950s science fiction story, although this one has a pretense at being a literary adaptation, that is... if you want to call Jules Verne literature. Haha.

But this film has lots to recommend it. It's funny and sweet, and it has plenty of adventure in it. Pat Boone spends over half of the movie shirtless, and he's pretty and sings beautifully. At one point he's sweating profusely and he cuts off most of his clothes with a knife and it's really more than a kid's movie should allow. If I had seen this as a kid I might have turned gay immediately. Arlene Dahl is also fairly wonderful in this. And there's a really adorable duck called Gertrude. In short, I had quite a lot of fun with Journey to the Center of the Earth.

I got Disney+ so that I could watch Hamilton and Frozen (again – for a research project). But I still haven't watched either Hamilton or Frozen and instead I watched this bit of silliness. I stand by my choice.

Good Morning (1959)

I think the most stunning thing about Ozu's Good Morning is that not only does it have Ozu's usual Chekhovian nuance of sweetness, sadness, finely observed character study, and humor, but Good Morning also has very broad farce! A fart joke is a running bit in this film, and the plot follows two small boys who stop speaking to their parents because they won't buy a television for the house. It's quite hilarious! Much funnier than most Ozu films but sacrificing none of his usual detail.

Good Morning is a perfect film. In fact, all of Ozu's films are perfect. Is Ozu Yasujirō the best film director to ever live? I am convinced that he is.

Two Men in Manhattan (1959)

Deux Hommes dans Manhattan is not Melville's best, and it's clearly one of his earlier films, but it is interesting for starring the director himself (even though he's not great) and for being shot in New York City. Still, this is no place to begin your Melville viewing. Start instead with Le Doulos or Le Samouraï or Le Cercle Rouge.

Porgy and Bess (1959)

I had always been curious about this film and so I got myself a bootleg copy of this opera-turned-movie ...and now I know.  

Porgy and Bess had a beleaguered production process, and it switched directors right before shooting. It also had a cast that mostly didn't want to be involved, and actors who couldn't sing. Then Otto Preminger filmed the entire thing in a medium shot for reasons I cannot understand at all, but may be related to his relationship with Samuel Goldwyn. The result is distanced and strange. Fine for a stage production, maybe, but as a film it is cold and has too many gaps.

Is the film worth watching for Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier, Pearl Bailey, and Sammy Davis Jr.? I don't actually think it is. No one seems to want to be here, actually, except maybe Sammy Davis, Jr., who plays a version of Sporting Life that is strange and stilted.

I've used the word strange twice above, and I guess I just feel like this entire film is very odd, as though the director and the producer just didn't quite know what to do with the Gershwins' masterpiece.

Nine Lives

Nine Lives: the Story of Jan Balsruud is the most extraordinary, incredible true story. A Norwegian spy escapes from the Nazis over the mountains into Sweden. He is helped by a succession of extraordinary civilians working for the resistance. This was completely conventional, in many ways, but it was exciting and unbelievable.