Synopsis
Real estate salesman Shelley Levene (Jack Lemmon) begins his evening in a phone booth outside a Chinese restaurant, speaking to his hospitalized daughter and promising to visit her after a sales meeting. Dave Moss (Ed Harris) is furious over the “Mickey Mouse sales conference” and confronts office manager John Williamson (Kevin Spacey) about the poor quality leads being handed to them. Ricky Roma (Al Pacino) is excused from the meeting due to his status as top salesman. He stays at the restaurant to work over a potential mark named James Lingk (Jonathan Pryce).

At the office, George (Alan Arkin) is in a state of dread over the weak leads he’s expected to go out and close. The three salesmen receive the strategy session of a lifetime from Blake (Alec Baldwin), who notifies them: “We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anybody wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.” Williamson hands his salesmen two leads each for the night, which Shelley appraises. “These leads are shit, they’re old. I’ve seen that name a hundred times.”

Shelley presses Williamson to hand out the new leads – the Glengarry leads – but the company man is under orders to save the prized cards for closers only. With his job on the line, Shelley offers Williamson a kickback of 20% of his commission plus fifty dollars per lead, but without the cash on him, the manager turns him down. Moss tries to talk George into burglarizing the office and stealing the Glengarry leads so they can sell them to a competitor. When the salesmen arrive for work in the morning, they discover the office has been broken into. Williamson and a police detective try to find out who’s responsible.

Production history
After attending drama school in New York, David Mamet returned to Chicago in 1969. He worked as a taxi driver, a restaurant delivery boy, and as an appointment setter for a real estate office. Mamet described his employer as “a fly-by-night operation, which sold tracts of undeveloped land in Arizona and Florida to gullible Chicagoans.” Though not very good at his job, Mamet was impressed with the salesmen. “They were amazing. They were a force of nature . . . they were people who had spent their whole lives never working for a salary, dependent for their living on their wits, their ability to charm. They sold themselves.”

In 1983, Mamet wrote Glengarry Glen Ross. Not satisfied with the play, he sent it to Harold Pinter and asked him what it lacked. Pinter responded that the only thing lacking about it was a production, and passed it on to the artistic director of the National Theatre in London. The play had its world premiere at London’s Cottlesloe Theatre in September 1983. The U.S. premiere took place at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, February 1984, with Robert Prosky as Shelley Levene, Joe Mantegna as Ricky Roma and William Petersen as Lingk. It opened on Broadway the following month and ran until February 1985 after receiving four Tony nominations.

Enthusiastically reviewed, the play won Mamet the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Former head of production at Columbia Pictures turned producer Jerry Tokofsky read the play in 1985 at the suggestion of Irvin Kershner, who wanted to direct a film version. Tokofsky caught a performance on Broadway and though he found the plot confusing, contacted Mamet. The celebrated playwright asked for $500,000 for the film rights and another $500,000 to adapt a screenplay. To find the money for this, Tokofsky partnered with a Washington D.C. real estate developer and aspiring movie producer he’d worked with named Stanley Zupnik.

Jack Lemmon – who Tokofsky approached to play Shelley Levene in 1989 – later summarized the film’s commercial potential: “It’s got no women, it’s got no sex, it’s got no violence and it’s got no special effects. So even if it’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, it’s got nothing that the studios are interested in.” Al Pacino had wanted to join the cast of the Broadway run and expressed interest in the movie, but before Tokofsky could set the project up, Kershner opted to direct RoboCop 2 and Pacino left to star in Frankie and Johnny.

Alec Baldwin, who also attached, left when Tokofsky was unable to raise a letter of credit guaranteeing the actor would be paid. In early 1991, James Foley received Mamet’s script via his agent and agreed to direct, but with his cast falling apart, he exited the project as well. Tofosky begged Baldwin back on board. “Alec said: ‘I’ve read twenty-five scripts and nothing is as good as this. Okay, If you make it, I’ll do it.” Lemmon and Foley returned to the production, as did Pacino, who told Tokofsky that the material had been obsessing him.

Tokofsky ultimately raised half of the film’s $12.8 million budget through foreign sales. The rest came from Live Home Video and Showtime for domestic video and cable rights, then New Line – looking to expand their image beyond the Freddy Kruger pictures they were known for – picked up domestic distribution, guaranteeing $3 million to promote the film in theaters. The cast cut their fees to get the film made. Pacino reduced his usual asking price of $6 million to $1.5 million. Lemmon received $1 million. Baldwin accepted $250,000.

Shooting commenced in August 1991 at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens and on location in Brooklyn over 39 days. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival in September 1992, Jack Lemmon was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. The film opened in the U.S. a month later and though it received generally favorable reviews, grossed only $10 million at the box office. Assessing the film ten years later for the DVD’s audio commentary, Foley stated, “I’ve always thought of it as a nature documentary, as if one was watching the Animal Planet channel seeing predatory beasts trying to survive.”

Opinion
Even with rain and thunder on the soundtrack and a few scenes that take place outside the two primary locations, there’s never any doubt we’re watching a play about guys in a room. Glengarry Glen Ross isn’t a classic because of its visual palette; it’s a classic because the seven best actors on the planet were cast in its seven roles. Alec Baldwin turns out one of the greatest movie monologues/rants of all time, but the film is way better than just a fireworks display of snappy dialogue. It’s the quiet desperation of the salesmen that stays with you long after the show is over.

Jack Lemmon spends the film hanging by a thread, using his voice to stave off personal disaster moment to moment. On a long list of triumphs, this is one of the greatest of Lemmon’s career. Ed Harris and Pacino lace into their dumbshit boss with all the virtuosity you’d expect – and a lot of the profanity you might not – while Kevin Spacey achieves the icy calculation of a man who knows he’ll get the last laugh. Ironically, Glengarry Glen Ross has become a sort of sales motivation video, which was probably not what Mamet had in mind. This story is about what happens when men who lie for a living finally run out of things to say.

Mike Sampson at DVD Clinic writes, “My wife finds the film boring and gets annoyed at how I stop and watch it every time that it’s on. She says the movie makes her so depressed and she feels so BAD for some of the characters in the film, she can barely sit through it. I can see that also, but I look past that and see the craft by the actors and Mamet in creating characters that were so pathetic that you couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for them at times. Truly a great movie.”

“Glengarry Glen Ross is a thinking man’s drama, perhaps too dry and stagy for some mainstream audiences, but it’s not in the message, but the delivery where the film scores the most points. No gunfire, no explosions, just acid-laced contempt and hatred bubbling under the surface. Guts and glory filmmaking of the highest order,” writes Vince Leo at QWipster’s Movie Reviews.

Brian Calhoun at digitally Obsessed writes, “This depressing look at the sorrowful world of real estate sales is not the type of film that everyone will enjoy; it lacks the overt, brash approach found in most of today’s Hollywood blockbusters. Yet, it is a throwback to the olden days of cinema, a pensive yet engrossing examination of human behavior. Those who crave a strong character-based film will undoubtedly be riveted by Mamet’s unadulterated vision of immorality and misery.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
At the Rustic Motel somewhere in the flatlands of Oklahoma, Agnes White (Ashley Judd) begins receiving strange phone calls at night. All she hears is breathing, and assumes it’s her ex Jerry, who’s just been paroled. Cigarettes and wine do little to calm her nerves. After her shift as a waitress at a gay bar is over, Agnes’ co-worker R.C. (Lynn Collins) comes over to get high. R.C. brings along a quiet stranger who goes by the name Peter (Michael Shannon).

Peter claims to be able to “pick up on things”. Such as that Agnes is lonely, and that she lied to him about not having kids. Agnes tells him she used to have a son, but he disappeared from a grocery store years ago. Without any place to go, Peter gets permission to sleep on the sofa. In the morning, Jerry (Harry Connick Jr.) drops by. He smacks his ex-wife around and lets her know he’ll be back. Not wanting to be alone, Agnes invites Peter to stay.

Peter wakes in the middle of the night claiming a bug bit him. He finds what he calls an “aphid” in the bedsheets. Agnes can’t really see what he’s talking about. Peter gets spooked, stating there are people after him. He claims that while serving in the Middle East, the Army experimented on him and he went AWOL. Agnes accepts Peter’s schizophrenia as reality. Together, they take measures to repel the bugs they believe have infested the place.

Production history 
Written by Oklahoma native Tracy Letts, Bug had its stage premiere in London in 1996. It debuted off-Broadway eight years later, with Shannon Cochran taking over at the last minute for Amanda Plummer in the role of Agnes, and Michael Shannon reprising his role as Peter from the London production. The play won four Lucille Lortel Awards (including Best Play) and two Obie Awards for its acting company and design team.

Director William Friedkin saw the play in New York, and felt as if it had been written for him. Friedkin was so compelled that in June 2004, he optioned the film rights, with Letts adapting the screenplay. Friedkin approached Ashley Judd to star. Judd’s agent advised her that the material might be too dark, but that only intrigued her. Friedkin also insisted Michael Shannon reprise the role he’d been playing on stage for a decade.

With a budget of $4 million, a 20-day shooting schedule commenced in July 2005. The motel exterior was a real location in Olancha, California, while the interiors were shot on a stage built inside a high school gym in Metairie, Louisiana. Bug was awarded the International Film Critics Award for the promotion of new cinema at the Cannes Film Festival, and was widely touted as Friedkin’s best film in over 20 years when released in May 2007.

Opinion 
The film not only performed relatively well at the box office, but found admirers among critics. I agree that this is Friedkin’s best movie in two decades, but that’s nothing to celebrate with a parade when you consider what his output has been reduced to. The Guardian (not the Kevin Costner/Ashton Kutcher one, the druid one), Rampage, Blue Chips, Jade and The Hunted were virtually unwatchable movies.

Bug runs 102 minutes, and one hour of that is watchable. The film begins with a spectacular aerial shot that glides from the night sky and floats down onto the motel. Friedkin establishes a tense Gothic mood, while Letts has a fine ear for dialogue. The casting is strong, with Ashley Judd giving an even grittier performance than the one she gave for Come Early Morning. Michael Shannon and Lynn Collins are terrific finds that I hope will get a lot more work in movies.

Unfortunately, the last 40 minutes are so broad minded, so over the top, and so repellent that it’s easy to understand why a director like Friedkin thought Bug might make an interesting movie. Letts evokes some spot-on cultural paranoia, but backs away from writing a compelling narrative to have his characters revel in a freak show antics instead. Ashley Judd is terrific, but the movie ends up being far more laughable than it is intense.

Nick Schager at Lessons of Darkness writes, “Bug is William Friedkin’s best film in at least two decades, a compliment that must be tempered by the disclaimer that, after its first thirty minutes, this adaptation of Tracy Letts’ stage play begins to lose its sure-footing. Those first thirty minutes, though, are something else, achieving an exhilarating sense of foreboding and unease.” He gives it a B.

“This is a bleak, harrowing look into an unhealthy relationship so nasty, only the jet-black comedy aspects manage to save it from being too unpalatable for anyone. You might love it, you might hate it, but one thing’s for sure – it takes risks, and it commands your attention throughout,” writes Vince Leo at QWipster’s Movie Reviews.

Tom Becker at DVD Verdict writes, “This film certainly has its champions, and it is unquestionably unlike anything out there from a ‘name’ director and starring a ‘name’ actress. Both Judd and Shannon give courageous performances here, and much of the film is actually very funny. Some people will find this edgy, riveting, and unique. I just don’t happen to be among them.”

“This spring, from the Academy Award winning director of The Exorcist, comes the movie the Chicago Tribune calls ‘one of the most disturbing horror movies imaginable.’” View the theatrical trailer for Bug.

© Joe Valdez

31 days of October. 31 articles devoted to the screen’s maestro of suspense and the macabre, Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). I’ll be jumping back and forth through five decades in this series. More than half of the films I’ve never seen before, but even the ones I have seen were viewed, researched and written about this month.

Synopsis
In Quebec City, a man is murdered in the night. His killer, an immigrant named Kellar (O.E. Hasse) returns to the Catholic church where he works as caretaker. He confesses his crime to Father Logan (Montgomery Clift), who has gone out of his way to help Kellar and his wife Alma (Dolly Haas) settle in Canada. Kellar was tired of seeing his wife work and was caught trying to steal money from an attorney named Villette, who was killed in the struggle.

Logan is bound not to reveal this confession to the police, led by Inspector Larrue (Karl Malden). Logan visits the crime scene, where Larrue observes the priest talking to Ruth Grandfort (Anne Baxter), wife to a member of Parliament. Upon receiving information that a priest was seen leaving Villette’s home the night of the crime, the inspector has a talk with Logan, who reveals that his reasons for speaking to the murder victim and to Ruth are personal.

Larrue brings Logan and Ruth in for questioning. He forces her relationship with the priest into the open. She reveals that they were childhood friends whose marriage was put on hold when Logan left for the war. Combat changed him, and she married hastily in an effort to forget him. When Logan returned, Villette caught them in a compromising position. He threatened Ruth with blackmail unless she got her husband to help him out of legal trouble.

Ruth believes she’s helping Logan by admitting she was with him on the night of the murder, but instead, provides Larrue with a timeframe in which it was still possible for the priest to commit the crime. Logan goes to trial, still unwilling to expose Kellar as the murderer. He’s acquitted, but the court of public opinion turns in a guilty verdict. Kellar is scared that the truth will come out eventually, and decides to handle the problem with a Luger pistol.

Production history 
One of the first projects director Alfred Hitchcock wanted to option for his production company Transatlantic Pictures was The Dark Duty, a 1931 novel by Margaret Wilson. The story chronicled a wrongly accused man’s countdown to execution. Hitchcock desperately wanted to make an anti-capital punishment “shocker,” but Wilson’s agents drove the film rights too high for the director to afford.

Instead, Hitchcock optioned a 1902 French play by Paul Bourde called Nos Deux Consciences. It concerned a priest who hears a murder confession, but is unable to share the information with police due to his vow of silence. The priest is tried for the murder and takes his secret to the gallows. Warner Bros. was leery of the subject matter, but Hitchcock maintained he would get Cary Grant to star and would handle the censorship boards.

French playwright Louis Verneuil had obtained rights to the play, and was hired to write a treatment. Verneuil relocated the story – now titled I Confess – to a small town near San Francisco. His treatment also introduced a plot twist involving the priest fathering an illegitimate child. Warner Bros. became even more concerned when news of this leaked out, but Hitchcock was fascinated by the subject matter, and assured the studio that he could get James Stewart to replace Grant.

Playwright William Archibald wrote a screenplay, which novelist George Tabori punched up the dialogue for in late 1951. When the studio read Tabori’s draft, they threatened to cancel the project. They insisted that Hitchcock remove the out-of-wedlock child and downbeat ending from the script. Hitchcock worked with Barbara Keon to produce a draft acceptable to Warner Bros.

Montgomery Clift agreed to star, only to find out during camera tests that the script he signed up for had gone under the knife. Hitchcock had courted Olivia de Havilland to play the female lead, but as that role diminished, so did the prospect of the star agreeing to appear in the film. Hitchcock was permitted to cast Anita Bjork, but when the Swedish actress arrived in New York with her lover and out of wedlock daughter, Jack Warner insisted she be paid off and fired.

Warner Bros. proposed to buy out Transatlantic and assume 100% financial liability for I Confess. Hitchcock had never walked out on a production and agreed to stay on as director, even after the studio replaced Bjork with Anne Baxter. Shooting commenced in August 1952 and did not go smoothly, with Clift’s meticulous acting methods seething both Hitchcock and co-star Karl Malden. “Lacking in humor and subtlety,” was how Hitchcock summed the picture up for Francois Truffaut years later.

Opinion 
Both script and casting of the lead roles are flawed, but they’re not disastrous, and while I Confess is seldom mentioned in any discussion of Hitchcock’s work, there was a lot about the film that I enjoyed. It suffers in comparison to the director’s “shockers,” but if anyone else had made this thunderous melodrama except for Hitchcock, it might have been greeted with more excitement.

The lighting and camera angles – Robert Burks served as director of photography – are stark and inventive from the beginning. Whether the fact that the film was being shot in Quebec had anything to do with the expressive nature of the film’s look, its visual language is enthralling. Setting the picture in Quebec was a novel choice, and while Clift doesn’t really appear to be acting with anyone else in the movie, the supporting players – particularly Malden – shine.

Clayton White at Film School Rejects writes, “Even though the film has been largely forgotten in America, the French Cahiers du Cinema crowd, made up of great filmmakers like Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Eric Rohmer, consider it among Hitchcock’s best work. I found the film to be fairly engrossing, while the technical aspects of the film are fairly flawless.”

“With a director as prolific as Hitchcock, it is impossible to expect perfection every time out of the gate, but I Confess has enough great moments to rank it among his most interesting experiments,” says Mark Van Hook at DVD Verdict.

John Nesbit at Old School Reviews writes, “The biggest crime surrounding I Confess is the generally indifferent reception that the film has received over the years. Among method actor Montgomery Cliff’s strongest performances, his subtle visual communication has been overlooked for decades simply because it remains undercover with one of the Master’s least recognized works.”

© Joe Valdez 

31 days of October. 31 articles devoted to the screen’s maestro of suspense and the macabre, Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). I’ll be jumping back and forth through five decades in this series. More than half of the films I’ve never seen before, but even the ones I have seen were viewed, researched and written about this month.

Synopsis
Brandon (John Dall) and roommate Phillip (Farley Granger) strangle a former classmate and mutual friend named David with a rope in their New York apartment. They then prepare a dinner party in which David’s father (Cedric Hardwicke) and fiancee (Joan Chandler) are guests. Brandon is a smug intellectual who believes his superiority entitles him to commit murder. Phillip is a pianist who can’t shed his guilt over taking part in the crime.

With David’s body hidden inside an unlocked chest in the middle of the apartment, Brandon takes pleasure in welcoming their former prep school headmaster Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), their philosophical mentor of sorts. Rupert theorizes that murder can be an art when practiced by the intellectually superior. As the party continues, and guests question the whereabouts of David, Rupert observes tension between the roommates. Upon leaving, he discovers David’s hat.

Brandon has planned to drive to Connecticut to dispose of the body, but before he can remove the corpse, Rupert returns to the apartment under the guise of searching for a cigarette case. He theorizes what might have happened to David, mimicking the murder almost to the letter. Phillip cracks, but Brandon has a .38 in his jacket pocket he intends to use if anyone gets in his way.

Production history 
Searching for projects he could develop at his newly bannered production company Transatlantic Pictures, director Alfred Hitchcock considered a retelling of Hamlet, to be set in the U.S. and star Cary Grant. Legal issues ensued when a novelist surfaced who claimed he had come up with that idea first. Eager to find another vehicle he could make with Grant, Hitchcock arrived on a 1929 British play by Patrick Hamilton called Rope.

Loosely based on the Leopold & Loeb case, the play chronicled two students who murder a male classmate to demonstrate their intellectual prowess. They stuff the body in a trunk in their London flat, then invite the victim’s friends and family over for a party. Its content had made Hollywood run the other way, so rights to the play were easy to obtain, while the public’s familiarity with the title would theoretically be good for box office.

Hamilton turned down the opportunity to adapt his play to film. In March 1947, Hitchcock offered the job to actor Hume Cronyn, who got to work on a treatment. Playwright Arthur Laurents was hired to adapt a script separately. Hitchcock wanted Montgomery Clift and Farley Granger to play the murderers, with Cary Grant as their mentor. But the homosexual subtext hit too close to home for Grant and Clift, and they dropped out. James Stewart and John Dall were cast instead.

In addition to making Rope his first film in color, Hitchcock intended to shoot it in long, uninterrupted takes. His discussions on technique had managed to overshadow what the movie was about, but when studio executives got a look at it, they were mortified. Its resemblance to the lurid Leopold & Loeb case outraged civic groups across the U.S. Released September 1948, Warner Bros. dumped the film and it sank at the box office.

Opinion 
While it would have qualified as an instant classic with Cary Grant and Montgomery Clift squaring off against each other, Rope is highly entertaining, technically audacious and filled with the morbid humor Hitchcock is renowned for. Though bloodless, the plot is devilishly gruesome, even by today’s standards. It’s easy to overlook how shocked audiences must have been by this movie, and how far ahead of its time it was.

John Dall – who Ben Affleck is a splitting image of, down to some of his acting mannerisms – makes for a malicious dandy of a villain. I was aware of the uninterrupted takes (there are a total of only ten in the 80 minute film), but the action moves at a clip. The cast is fine and the fiberglass set looks sharp, particularly shot in Technicolor. In the category of “lesser Hitchcock,” Rope may actually be my favorite. It doesn’t pull any punches.

Lisa Skrzyniarz at Crazy For Cinema writes, “The continuous takes lends a hypnotic feel to the proceedings, but it’s more likely to put one to sleep than to excite the senses. The only way I can recommend sitting through this film is if you’re watching it for free and you’re a huge, huge, huge Hitchcock fan.”

“This Alfred Hitchcock experiment remains important as that: an experiment. It is a reasonably good film, but not up to his usual standards,” writes Michael W. Phillips Jr. at goatdog’s movies. He gives it three goats out of five.

Christopher Null at Filmcritic.com writes, “More macabre writing you aren’t likely to find, and a more interesting way to tell the tale you won’t likely see.”

“I’ll see you tonight at Brandon’s party.” View the theatrical trailer for Rope, which includes the film’s deleted prologue.

© Joe Valdez

31 days of October. 31 articles devoted to the screen’s maestro of suspense and the macabre, Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). I’ll be jumping back and forth through five decades in this series. More than half of the films I’ve never seen before, but even the ones I have seen were viewed, researched and written about this month.

Synopsis
Retired English tennis star Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) and his wife Margot (Grace Kelly) receive a guest to their townhome in London, American mystery writer Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings). Margot has been carrying on a long distance affair with Mark since they met a year ago. She explains to him that a handbag carrying one of his letters was stolen, and that the culprit sent word that unless she paid 50 pounds, he’d turn the letter over to her husband.

Tony unexpectedly cancels plans with the pair. He lures a nefarious college alum named Swann (Anthony Dawson) to his home under the pretext of buying his car. Tony reveals his wife’s infidelity and that he was the one who blackmailed her. He offers Swann £1000 to murder Margot, using his knowledge of Swann’s criminal activities as leverage. He walks the killer through an elaborate murder scenario, leaving nothing to chance.

While Tony and Mark are out, and Margot is home alone, Swann sneaks in with a key that’s been left for him. Tony calls his wife on the telephone, luring her from the bedroom, and Swann strangles her with a stocking. But Margot buries a pair of scissors in her killer’s back. Through some fancy maneuvering, Tony is able to make it appear that his wife acted against a blackmailer in cold blood. She’s arrested and sentenced to death, but a police inspector (John Williams) begins to unravel Tony’s story.

Production history 
Producer Sidney Bernstein had seen a play called Dial M For Murder in London and recommended it to Alfred Hitchcock. While in New York in the fall of 1952, the director caught a performance on Broadway. Written by Frederick Knott, the story hinged on an Englishman who discovers his wife is having an affair with a visiting American. He plots to murder her in order to gain her inheritance, but the crime does not go as planned.

Hitchcock was under contract to Warner Bros., who owned the film rights to the play. House of Wax had become a blockbuster for the studio in 3-D, and Warner Bros. wanted the director to try the format. Hitchcock was bitter that advertising dollars had been taken away from I Confess and invested in this “new toy.” But he concluded that Dial M For Murder could be cleverly and quickly made in 3-D.

Part of Hitchcock’s excitement was that he had convinced Cary Grant to take on the role of the wife killer. But Warner expected the film to be a big hit in 3-D and balked at forking over 10% of the gross to Grant. Hitchcock had to settle on Ray Milland. For the role of the wife, the director recalled seeing a screen test for a then 24-year-old starlet named Grace Kelly. She was under contract to MGM, but the studio agreed to loan her out for a reasonable price.

There was no time to Americanize the story, so Knott’s screen adaptation followed his play letter to verse. Filming commenced quickly – in August 1953 – but by that time, 3-D had gone the way of the yo-yo. The film had a brief release in 3-D, followed by a conventional “flat” exhibition. It was a hit anyway, grossing $5 million in the U.S. Hitchcock was dismissive of his contribution and of the film, deadpanning, “I could have phoned that one in.”

Opinion 
Dial M For Murder is lesser Hitchcock, a talkative production stymied by the limitations of the stage, but it has two assets that elevate it to the top of the lesser Hitchcock list: “Warnercolor” and Grace Kelly. “Warnercolor” was simply Eastman Kodak film processed in a studio lab. Cheaper and less refined than Technicolor, the color definition is still far more vivid than modern film. Watching Grace Kelly – the most beautiful movie star of all time – saunter across this color palette is even more luscious.

As opposed to sustained suspense or three dimensional characters, the movie is devoted mainly to hearing people plot a murder. Ray Milland is a cheeky villain though, and the story builds anticipation by making us want to see him get away with it. Remade in 1998 as A Perfect Murder with Andrew Davis directing Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow, the script was far more realistic, but the result much less memorable.

Terrence Brady at Dial H For Hitchcock writes, “While not Kelley’s best Hitchcock work, Dial M for Murder was the beginning of the ‘Hitchcock blonde films’ and the plot is just absorbing enough to offset the rather flat characters.”

“Dial M for Murder lacks the depth and thematic resonance of Hitchcock masterworks like Rear Window, Vertigo, or The Birds. That said, I’ve always found it one of his most entertaining films,” writes Dan Mancini at DVD Verdict.

Lisa Skrzyniarz at Crazy For Cinema writes, “Though somewhat dated, Dial M is pure Hitchcock, a film that makes you think twice about pissing off your spouse.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
At the all white “Palmetto Grove” prep school, All American power forward Odin James (Mekhi Phifer) is awarded a Most Valuable Player trophy by his coach (Martin Sheen). With a gorgeous girlfriend Desi (Julia Stiles), O seems to have everything a high school kid could want. The coach’s son, Hugo (Josh Harnett) feels slighted, both for the award and his father’s attention.

Hugo begins his revenge by seducing Desi’s roommate Em (Rain Phoenix) into stealing a scarf O gave to Desi as a gift. Hugo plants seeds of doubt in O’s head about his girlfriend’s fidelity, suggesting she’s been spending a lot of time with their teammate, Cassio. Hugo also befriends the school outcast (Elden Henson), subject of Cassio’s torments.

Once Hugo’s ruse succeeds in splitting O and Desi, he gets O using drugs. This causes O to blow his big moment in front of the college recruiters. Hugo’s final masterstroke is to convince O to strangle Desi, while giving the outcast the means to kill Cassio, so they can pin Desi’s murder on him. Things do not go as planned.

Production history 
Actor-writer-director Tim Blake Nelson was in Australia acting in The Thin Red Line when he received a script written by Brad Kaaya, who’d worked on MadTV. It was another Shakespeare adaptation set in a high school, this one taking its cue from Othello. But Nelson liked it. He felt that it could be “the high school film that would really turn the genre on its head” and agreed to direct.

With a budget of $3.5 million raised from investors, and filming set to commence, Bob Weinstein – chairman of Dimension Films, a division of Miramax – made a bid of $7.5 million to distribute O. He promised to release it on 1,000 screens. As the film was being edited in April 1999, twelve students and a teacher were killed at Columbine High School. Weinstein was undeterred. He liked the dailies he’d seen, and was eager to release the film in the fall for awards consideration.

Once Bob Weinstein showed O to his brother Harvey, the trouble started. A Senate Commerce Committee had announced hearings into the marketing of violent entertainment to children following the Columbine shootings. Harvey Weinstein had become a major campaign fundraiser for the Gore-Lieberman ticket, and Miramax told the film’s producer – Eric Gitter – that no decision about the release would be made until after the 2000 election.

Two years after filming wrapped, Harvey Weinstein notified Gitter that it wasn’t in the studio’s interest to release the film. Gitter, a former lawyer who knew something about contracts, threatened to sue Miramax unless they released the film as promised. An out of court settlement was reached, and Lions Gate ended up distributing O on 1,400 screens August 31, 2001. It received some good reviews, but grossed only $16 million in the U.S.

Opinion 
O was a bad, bad, bad idea for a movie that gets worse every step of the way. Brad Kaaya had his first and only film credit here and shows why; the writing is completely flat and insipid. The cast features two of the most lethargic, boring actors working – Mekhi Phifer and Josh Harnett – in the same picture. And it felt like half the film took place on a basketball court, so there’s nothing remotely interesting going on with any of these characters.

The violence doesn’t resemble Columbine, so that’s not necessarily the problem. The problem was the concept that a tragedy like Othello – filled with hate and morbidity – would be neat to stage in an American high school. Reality has offered enough tragedy on campus lately, and the film comes off in poor taste, bordering on exploitation. It’s a complete embarrassment. Miramax had the right idea about dumping it.

“This is a movie that holds your interest, but doesn’t do anything with it,” writes Eric D. Snider.

Brian Webster at Apollo Movie Guide says, “The beauty of O is in the seamless transformation of a hundreds-of-years-old story to a 21st century setting, aided by capable performances.”

Christopher Null at filmcritic.com writes, “the film’s biggest flaw is an abrupt, almost bad, editing job – coming in to scenes too late and leaving too soon, and vice versa.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
In New York City of the year 2000, Hamlet (Ethan Hawke) returns from college following the death of his father, king and CEO of the Denmark Corporation. His mother Gertrude (Diane Venora) has hastily married the king’s brother, Claudius (Kyle MacLachlan) and Hamlet – who sulks around in a Peruvian cap and tapes himself on digital video – suspects foul play.

Living with his family in the Elsinore Hotel, Hamlet is notified by a security guard that his father was spotted in an elevator. Hamlet confronts the Ghost (Sam Shepard) and is informed that the King was poisoned by Claudius. Ophelia (Julia Stiles) makes overtures to see Hamlet, but is advised by her brother Laertes (Liev Schreiber) that Hamlet will one day be king, and she cannot get involved.

Polonius (Bill Murray), advisor to the new king, informs him that Hamlet has been acting strangely. Claudius employs two of Hamlet’s friends from school, Rosencrantz (Steve Zahn) and Guildenstern (Dechen Thurman) to gain Hamlet’s trust to find out what he knows.

Hamlet makes an avant garde video titled The Mousetrap and with the help of his friend Horatio, plans to screen it for his family, to “catch the conscience of the king.” When Claudius reacts visibly to a display of poison and murder, Hamlet knows the ghost speaks the truth, and plans his revenge.

Directed by Michael Almereyda, who adapted the script from William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet was produced for less than $2 million. According to Hawke, everyone worked for free in order to retain creative control. Despite being released in May, the film performed well in New York and L.A., but failed to draw crowds when it expanded to 64 screens nationwide. Without support from its distributor – Miramax – it quietly disappeared.

Opinion
There’s uniformly strong work among almost everyone in the cast, but what kills this experiment is its extremely low budget, and Ethan Hawke in the title role. Almereyda never demonstrates any aptitude to make Hamlet relevant in a modern setting. Hawke has yet to give a performance where I haven’t thought, “There’s a guy giving a performance,” and doesn’t possess much dexterity for Shakespeare.

“Measure for measure, I liked this Hamlet more than the Mel Gibson version, less than the Kenneth Branagh version, and about the same as the famous 1948 Laurence Olivier version,” writes Jeffrey Anderson at Combustible Celluloid.

Dan Jardine at Apollo Movie Guide says, “Visually and kinetically, the film is a washed out and dispassionate variation on Baz Luhrman’s intriguing … Romeo+Juliet. Despite the New York setting, Almereyda fails to take advantage of the wealth of visual resources at his disposal.”

“The major Hamlets are Olivier, [Richard] Burton, [Derek] Jacobi, [Kevin] Kline, and Branagh,” writes Alan Vanneman at Bright Lights Film Journal. He calls the Hawke version, “a serious, and seriously unsuccessful, attempt to re-imagine the play.”

© Joe Valdez