Morgan! (1966) starring Vanessa Redgrave, David Warner

Madcap comedy about a guy named Morgan (David Warner) trying to win back his ex-wife (Redgrave).

Morgan has a unexplained "mental condition", as referred to in the film, and is obsessed with Marx and communism.

Redgrave is set to marry a "higher-class" gentleman, but Warner wants to break it up. He spends much of the movie jealously obsessing over Redgrave and her lover. There's some madcap comedic sequences of him speeding around town on a bike in a gorilla suit and crashing the wedding, which is funny.

What's so interesting about this 1966 British film is that the lead character here is a communist and communist ideas are spoken of highly by characters, and rather non-chalantly. In American films, pro-communist dialogue was still not heard of much during this time period, when anti-communist films such as "Pickup on South Street" and "The Manchurian Candidate" were being made.

The film was never released on VHS, but was released on DVD in 2005. The DVD has a few good special features including a few versions of the trailer.

Vanessa's role is more of a supporting one to Warner's Morgan, but her performance left an impression with many that year for her to be nominated for Best Actress Academy Award (losing to Elizabeth Taylor in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?").

Her sister Lynn Redgrave, also had a good year - her film "Georgy Girl" was a hit as well, and she too was nominated for Best Actress.

The official, UK title of this movie is Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment.

Read another review from The Magnificent 60s (blog)

Son of Saul (2015) and Hail Ceasar! (2016)

Son of Saul is a  Holocaust story, set in the Auschwicz concentration camp in Poland. It's sad, but a very well made film, directed by directed by László Nemes.

Saul is a Jewish prisoner forced to worked in a crematorium.
As he attempts to give a dead child a proper burial, he finds out that the child may or may not be his son.

As he continues to uncover the truth, he learns that either situation is likely.

The man risks his life devoting himself to the cause of a proper burial, especially during an uprising of the camp that causes many in the camp to doubt his loyalties.

The director's style is impressive; the entire film is told from Saul's perspective, with the camera focused on him the entire time, even when there's horrible violence taking place in the background of the frame.

Read a blog post by Cliched Monologues on this film here.

Read a blog post by Avvaganda.com here

Read a blog post by Korova Theater here

Another film I saw this past week was Hail Ceasar! directed by the Cohen brothers. The trailer showed some snippets of what looked like homages to old Technicolor movies of the '40s and '50s, which really intrigued me. I've seen some of the Cohen Brothers films but not all, so wasn't sure what to expect.

It's an ensemble comedy satire, and focuses on Josh Brolin's character, a Hollywood "fixer" who keeps actors' scandals out of the press. We meet some of the actors he helps, including George Clooney who's playing a Roman soldier in a Biblical epic called "Hail Caesar" (with dialogue very much - almost identical - to Ben Hur); his character is kidnapped by Communists. Yes, it's absurd. There's also a submarine in it. You have to see it to believe it.

The movie also spoofs musicals, westerns, and melodramas, as well as gossip columnists, communists, and censorship boards. There's a musical number with sailors in the bar; Channing Tatum is supposed to be playing a Gene Kelly-type sailor (like from Anchors Aweigh). I liked that the song used was an original piece, not a copycat number from a real '50s musical; kudos to the songwriters.

I have to say that George Clooney in the Roman solider uniform really looks as if he could play the part in a Roman epic from that time period.

The movie is pretty entertaining. A little crazy, but entertaining.  I enjoyed it.

Here's another review, from a blog about biblical epics.

Bobby Rivers wrote about this movie several times on his blog. Read the posts here:
Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3

Hard-boiled Cinema: Exploring Communism in American films of the 1950s

In the Spring of 2004, I enrolled in Facets Film School's 6-week appreciation series that dealt with the subject of blacklisted and/or propagandized American films from the 1950s, during the Cold War era.

Our instructor was Robert Keser. I learned alot from this course about communism and the impact the cold war had on the society and in films. We discussed the blacklisting of filmmakers/actors and how communism, socialism, activist movements, and public/government attitudes were was portrayed on the screen during this time.

Each week we watched a feature film from the 1950s during the McCarthy years. After each film, we discussed and analyzed the messages in the films. My notes are summarized below.

Week 1 (5/6/2004)
Christ in Concrete / Give Us This Day
Starring actor Sam Wanamaker. British audiences did not like the fact that the film had "Christ" in the title, so the title was changed in the UK to "Give Us This Day". In some other parts of the world it was called "Salt of the Devil".

Week 2 (5/14/2004)
I Can Get It For You Wholesale (951)

In 1947, there was the Taft Hartley act, which forced people to renounce communist ties if they are in unions. There was the Hollywood 19, who were all subpoenaed. In 1951 we had the Hollywood 10. Almost all were writers. One of these who were called in was actor Larry Parks.

We also discussed the following films:

• The Iron Curtain, the first movie to discuss the communist scare.
• Red Scare (1949), one of the most famous movies about communism, from New Republic Films.
• Joan of Ozark (1942) starring Judy Canova, made by Republic Films. Not about communism but about Nazi spys.

Week 3 (5/21/2004)
My Son John (1952)
A very interesting movie on so many levels. Stars Ms. Helen Hayes, Oscar-winning actress and stage veteran. Directed by 3-time Oscar winning director, Leo McCarey.  Before the film started, our instructor warned the class by calling the film "A Very bad film".

As the movie began, I was eager to see what was so bad about it. I was surprised; the film was not really as bad as our teacher made it seem, at least in my opinion. In fact, I found the film to be very memorable, especially the final scene which I can't give away just yet.

Week 4 (5/29/2004)
Pickup on South Street (1953) Starring Richard Widmark, Thelma Ritter, Jean Peters. Directed by Samuel Fuller

Week 5

Salt of the Earth (1954 - Dir: Herbert Biberman).