movies – Page 2 – Lee Duigon

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Let me say up front that I’m no fan of ballet. For entertainment and edification, it ranks somewhere below getting a parking ticket and above Obama’s speeches.

But I do like a psychological thriller packed with snappy dialogue and vivid characters played by brilliant actors at the top of their form, and this off-beat little gem from 1946 has all of that.

What happens when a struggling ballet studio and a failed ballet impresario try to strike it rich by engineering the comeback of a genius dancer who may have, and probably did, murder his wife? And who has been holed up with galloping hallucinations ever since? The police can’t prove he did it, the gifted young ballerina is in love with him–so why not? This time everything will turn out hunky-dory.

Uh-huh–but what if Mr. Superstar is not really better, after all?

This movie by Republic Pictures bombed in the box office when it was released in 1946, and you can now see it for free on youtube. I guess it was just too far ahead of its time: probably too dark for 1946.

But it has great things going for it: sharp screenplay by Ben Hecht, Dame Judith Anderson as a washed-up star running a studio packed with mediocre talent, Lionel Stander as a jealous journalist with a bent for bitter poetry. Then there’s Ivan Kirov as the psychotic ballet star. Outside of The Specter of the Rose, his acting career didn’t amount to much; but in this outing he brought a powerful and at times menacing presence to the screen.

Yes, I admit it–I like good old stuff. This movie is even older than I am. I’m not sure modern movie-makers could tell a story this grim without recourse to a lot of nudity, f-bombs, gore, and the usual screaming bodies flying all around, etc.

Watching this film will probably not make a better Christian of you, except in the sense that all things may be considered in the light of faith, and possibly teach a useful lesson. But it will hold your interest–even though there’s a fair amount of dancing in it.

I’m tired of writing about wicked idiots who want to control our lives, so today I’ll take a break to write about something worthwhile.

A Bear Named Winnie (2004) is a simple, straightforward children’s movie starring Michael Fassbender and David Suchet. My wife and I watched it the other day, and we have both dreamed of it since. This uncomplicated little tale is haunting us!

It’s the true story of an orphaned bear cub adopted by Canadian soldiers on their way to fight in France in World War I, and how the bear becomes the inspiration for A. Milne’s classic, Winnie the Pooh. (Helpful hint: if you’ve never read Winnie the Pooh, drop whatever you’re doing and go get a copy!)

We tend to find World War I stories unbearably poignant–such a waste of life as was never before seen in the civilized world. But this movie doesn’t dwell on what we already know to be horrible. I was thankful to be spared the gory details, and almost flabbergasted to see a happy ending.

Suchet kind of steals the show as a drunken, incompetent, upper-class twit of a general; but really, the story’s much more important than the acting.

And I think it’s the musical score that really got under my skin. The film’s main musical theme is a lovely old hymn, This is My Father’s World (one of my favorites: never fails to bring a tear to my eye). There is also a WWI soldiers’ song sung to the tune of What a Friend We Have in Jesus, another favorite hymn. If these two hymns don’t move you, you’d better have yourself checked out: you might be dead.

So, days after seeing the film, the music is still playing in my mind, and Patty and I have both had dreams in which we were petting bear cubs–and if you’re tired of reading and hearing about bloodsucking moronic vampires murdering our country, A Bear Named Winnie will soothe your jangled soul.