Welcome to the Sunday Morning Antidote Movie!
We are trying something new here at Naked Capitalism. Every Sunday morning a new movie from YouTube will be posted, including Westerns, foreign cinema, documentaries, horror, comedy, sci-fi, war dramas and much more. I want to find films that will appeal to the sophisticated sensibilities of our readership but the occasional clunker will be allowed to sneak in for a bit of cheesy goodness.
Each movie will be viewed before posting to avoid the truly terrible and the terribly edited. A synopsis and a review will accompany each offering, as well as the occasional link to music videos and other interesting items. So take a break from the news of the day and enjoy a curated movie courtesy of Naked Capitalism and yours truly, Semper Loquitur! We look forward to your comments, critiques, and of course movie recommendations of your own.
The first movie we present is The Incident. Set in a New York city subway car circa the late 1960s, it’s a gritty tale of grinding tension. Two hoodlums, fresh from a night of debauchery and violence, terrorize a subway car filled with passengers whose lives are problematic enough without this mayhem.
Written by Nicholas E. Baehr
Directed by Larry Peerce, whose work includes the theatrical feature Goodbye, Columbus (1969), the early rock and roll concert film The Big T.N.T. Show (1965), One Potato, Two Potato (1964), The Other Side of the Mountain (1975) and Two-Minute Warning (1976).
Notable actors: Beau Bridges, Martin Sheen, Ed McMahon, and Ruby Dee.
Warning: Spoilers
Review: Honestly, I was first attracted to this movie because I’d never seen Martin Sheen in his youth so I felt I had to take a look. I’m glad I did. It’s a movie worth watching but also a deeply frustrating one. The cowardice exhibited by most of the passengers will make you wonder if they don’t deserve the terror they have to endure. After a couple of opportunities to gang up on the hoods are let pass by, one passenger finally takes a stand. The fact that no one, including his buddy, assists him will leave you with the satisfaction of seeing the hoods get theirs but with a bad taste in your mouth at the spinelessness of the others.
The movie briefly explores the unhappy lives of the victims before they converge on the subway car. No ones life is in a good place, everyone suffers from problems with themselves and others. Is there a message here? Is their inability to work together to stand up to the hoods a symptom of their internal struggles? If it was meant to be that way, I don’t know if the director succeeded in making that connection clear.
I struggle to categorize the movie. Is it film noire? It’s gritty enough and there is crime aplenty. What do you think?
The Film Forum in New York City screened this film sometime before the pandemic. As FF repertory director Bruce Goldstein later said, this and the original The Taking of Pelham 123 are the only two commercial movies that get the sequence of subway stations correct. And it’s the peak of Ed McMahon’s film oeuvre — which makes it a Must See!
Janet and I are rewatching the first season of Law & Order as our comfort viewing. Pelham came to mind – much grittier, more ambient sound, soft focus on close-ups but a lot more yelling. Kept expecting Harvey Keitel to round the corner.
You want Harvey Keitel and New York in one movie? “Bad Lieutenant.”
New York, the place, is often a “character” in movies.
“Mean Streets” as well. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9xHpS10CZ0
Do be careful though, “Bad Lieutenant” will haunt you…
Naked City: Noir birth of the Police Procedural genera.
Also a great portrait of NY City a hundred years ago (not quite).
Bookmarked!
Part of the New York City mythography (what is it they call it now — the _imaginary_) descending from the Kitty Genovese legend, is that random gatherings of New Yorkers are passive spectators and won’t defend themselves or help others. But in my wayward youth and later in life I saw many instances of other kinds of behavior contradicting the myth. I witnessed many instances of random subway and bus riders, and people just walking on the street, intervening effectively against crazy and violent people, sometimes at considerable risk to themselves. But I suppose it you’re going to make a movie, which is a sort of industrial enterprise, you’ve got to go with the myth to keep the dumber, less informed sectors of the audience satisfied. It’s not a bad movie, but in real life intervention would probably have come a lot sooner and been a lot more conclusive. At least that has been my experience.
I’m glad you like it! I didn’t even know Ed McMahon had an oeuvre, I always thought of him as Carson’s sidekick.
This is great! Like Giant Ants on Saturday Morning!
The arguments about genre categorization should be epic.
Along that like: Noir? Yes! You can view the whole film fast-forward by pulling the cursor along the bottom bar. Early in the film, most of the visual field is dark, highlighted by sparse bulbs of bright white as contrast. More white appears in the frame in the subway car, and as time goes on, more of the frame takes in the ceiling, until the final exits are in a harsh glare. Enlightenment as to the true nature of humanity has been revealed, accompanying the parents as they ascend back to the world, with unconscious nihilism as the final image.
So, yeah, Noir.
That makes sense. And thanks for pointing out the director’s use of light, that slipped by me. Pulling out details like that makes this venture all the more valuable.
This is an excellent idea. I am looking forward to watching and future ones. But from the summary I’m not sure this film will be a calming antidote like our daily ones in Links.
Thank you! I am thinking of dropping the “antidote” part of the title. There are too many good films that I want to run that are definitely non-antidotes.
There are lots of good films to cover, no doubt about that. I happened to watch “Matewan” yesterday, available at archive.org.
Outstanding, particularly during this present time.
Thanks, I’ll be sure to explore archive.org for movies!
Great Idea! Might I suggest putting the ‘run time’ in the Headline link?
Thank you! Yes, I will do so in the future.
You are being quite subversive here SL. I like it.
I’m glad you like it! I’m curious, how is it subversive? Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Subversive in that what people usually call “high brow” or “art films” often run plots counter to the prevailing narrative. “The Incident” is a case in point. A subway car full of mid-century Americans does not look anything like the Founding Ethos of the “Rugged Individualist” or the “Yoeman Farmer.”
Do consider foreign language films as well. Something like Kurosawa;s “Red Beard,” or “Dodes’Ka-den” will open western eyes a bit. For s—s and giggles, how about something by Mario Bava? “Planet of the Vampires” would be perfect for a Sunday Matinee.
I’ll shut up now. Stay safe.
Sadly Planet of the Vampires is PPV but I found some free Kurosawa films.
I came across this film many years ago, when I saw it broadcast on a local NY television station. It always stayed with me, not because it’s especially good (though still worthwhile), but because of the great cast and its visual and moral bleakness.
Worth watching if only for the prominent though then quite young actors who appeared, I always assumed the film was at least an indirect commentary on the real-life Kitty Genovese murder.
Genovese was a young bartender who was followed home and murdered on the street while returning home from a shift. News reports at the time – though the story has been revised over the years – claimed that dozens of people had heard and ignored her cries for help; the story blew up and became an example of urban alienation and indifference. Audiences at the time and those involved in making the film would have at a minimum known about the case, and many would have reacted to the movie with that in mind.
Thanks for bringing up the Genovese angle, it’s exactly the kind of insight that will spark further discussion. That’s one of my goals here.
Do you mean the NYT made-up kitty Genovese story?
Part of the legend was that people simply watched the violence and did nothing. Reporters later found out that many people had called the police and some claimed they had gone down to the street to see what was going on, but were too late or in the wrong place. However, the legend was too good to resist and lives on to this day. There has been some sociological or psychological debate as to what causes some people to intervene and others to avoid involvement.
Good idea and thanks a million. In our house, when we’ve had a long day and want to just “relax and watch a movie”, we go to Turner Classics. We don’t watch one on the Turner channel, we skim through their recent offering and either go “haven’t seen that in years” or hit a review of something interesting. We’ll then watch it via various sources. A recent one was Night Song (1948?). Not a musical but music is woven into the story. Arthur Rubinstein, Hoagy Carmichael and a Black Widow. Exceptional, both that film and this offering.
Thank you! I searched for Night Song on YouTube but couldn’t find it. If you could link your source, I’d be happy to run it.
Oh, and while I know you’ll get many unsolicited suggestions, here’s another one: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
Sam Peckinpah’s last movie, this flawed but worthwhile film stars Kris Kristofferson, James Coburn, Slim Pickens and other prominent character actors of the time. There’s also music and a dramatic turn by a folk artist once known as Bobby Zimmerman.
Worth it for the cast alone…
I’m soliciting suggestions, to be sure! I checked on Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, it’s pay-per-view on YouTube and I am only going to post free movies. There will be plenty of Westerns to be sure, especially the Spaghettis, one of my favorite genres of film.
I would recommend the 1972 film “The Candidate” with Robert Redford but I think that it is pay-per-view too-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Candidate_(1972_film)
Sadly, it is. Thanks, though, and keep the suggestions coming!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin-dza-dza!
Wow, that’s upsetting: it was free, with commercials , when I watched it a few months ago…
Not Peckinpah’s last movie – his last Western, and a great one.
I think that Peckinpah’s last feature length film was “The Osterman Weekend.” That is a very interesting film. An example of Modern Paranoid Living.
For some laughs and a very interesting Republican / Democratic Party dynamic:
Wild In the Streets – circa 1968. I saw it posted for free by someone on YouTube.
It imagined wild and young artistic types invading the government instead of DOGE.
For a crazy remake, I’d imagine substituting LSD with Ketamine.
It fits this description in your open:
“…but the occasional clunker will be allowed to sneak in for a bit of cheesy goodness.”
But sometimes that cheese can contain a wee bit of prophecy.
Bookmarked, thanks!
Fascinating film! I’ve seen it a couple times over the years. Takes the anxieties about the majority youth population coming of age and using its collective voice to an extreme end. Spoiler alert: Max Frost’s choice of party to run for as president is an interesting one, since he’s a pop star whose clique (which includes a young Richard Pryor!) would be classified as hippies by the older generation depicted in the film.
My older brother exposed me to this film as a young Canadian teen and I am still emotionally affected stark contrasts of the deadly terrorizing bully, the paralyzed by fear victims especially the inhumane abuse of the African American man and his wife and in the face of death the hero going into battle. To me this was the essence of New York city and it was 30 years before I let myself visit, my innocent self would not allow it.
I was in a bar here a few years back and struck up a conversation with a fellow patron. He told me he was an NYC native and I asked him about the 1980’s in the City. He explained that you could go out on a Friday night, run into some ladies, do some drugs, and end up at a sex party that lasted until the wee hours of Saturday morning. Good wholesome fun. Then, on your way home on the subway, the lights might flicker out and when they came back on you would be surrounded by three dudes with knives demanding your wallet.
Ah, the Bad Old Days!
Native and lifelong New Yorker here, whose gloriously misspent yout’ coincided with those times. Sort of odd for one’s salad days to have coincided with blight, decay, violence and cultural ferment.
Needless to say we onetime denizens of the Carnegie Hall Cinema (it was in the basement–Dan Ackroyd once plopped down in front of me) welcome this new NC “art house.” I don’t hang out on Youtube much and have a rather gigantic movie collection of my own, but I recently had occasion to look up Olivier’s Henry V on Youtube and it’s available in a rather amazing 4k restoration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BLBQIwZ_h4
The film was made during WW2 and Olivier, who starred and directed, played up the patriotic side of the play. The Agincourt charge–filmed in Ireland–was inspired by the attack across the ice in Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky.
Thanks for that link, it also revealed the “Shakespeare Network” channel on YouTube which has a lot of films. I’ll be sure to post Henry V at some point in the future.
Will add to Olivier’s Henry V, the absolutely astounding version by Kenneth Branaugh in 1989. He was only 29 when he directed and played the lead. A masterpiece.
btw Nevsky with one of the most “effective” pieces of film music, by Prokofiev:
Battle on the Ice
6 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaHtoaTQsNw
This piece was heavily referenced by young James Horner throughout his seminal Star Trek II score
for comparison see e.g.
Surprise Attack
5 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_vGZFyZzMA&list=OLAK5uy_mb-_mAvDlCQNh1Onr8cwCTMcCPoZ-Z3e0&index=2
But it goes much deeper of course. In case see this by Michael Harris:
Borrowing Beyond the Stars: James Horner’s Music for Star Trek II and III
https://www.thetemptrack.com/2016/12/25/borrowing-beyond-the-stars-james-horners-music-for-star-trek-ii-and-iii/
Apparently it´s Mosfilm day for me:
Alexander Nevsky (1938)
– with USSR star Nikolay Cherkasov who also played another Russian king, Ivan Grozny in Eisenstein´s second biopic from 1944 which contained the allegedly first colour stock used in film history in parts II and III of the movie which got censored/never made and thus some of it is lost –
107 min. + subs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq4PaJfod4w
Don´t know if anyone here is familiar with the now defunct “ARSENEVICH” film history blog.
It´s creator by the (user) name Scalisto died last year as his son informed the readers/community.
The blog had stopped operation several years ago but was still kept alive.
I don´t know the exact story behind it.
But the texts about the films provided were usually very good.
Additionally the blog was also providing the films as downloads. As these were may be known but little sought for art films (e.g. how many people know of Ingmar Bergman but how many have actually seen Ingmar Bergman´s movies) – I assume those who owned the rights did not regard it at as a threat. Or may be Scalisto did not mention this being an issue. I cannot tell.
Anyhow Scalisto´s son has put back much of the original material.
For those with some time highly recommended. The complete version of the blog used to cover all continents and mainly 1950-2000s.
It´s old style wordpress so you need some time clicking through.
https://fueraorkos.blogspot.com/
The touching reactions by readers upon the news of Scalisto´s death are here. The latest one was posted just last week. It´s all in Spanish so in case use google translator. The blog itselfs is Spanish/English.
https://fueraorkos.blogspot.com/2024/07/adios-scalisto.html#comment-form
This was the son´s message to the community:
“(…)
Hello everyone:
My name is Joaquín, and I’m the son of Scalisto, the author of this blog. My father sadly passed away this month at the age of 71 after battling cancer for several months. He lived a life marked by his love for his family, music, animals, languages, and, of course, cinema. He was able to say goodbye to the people he loved and was supported throughout the entire process.
I would like to one day have at least a fraction of the knowledge about cinema that my father had and shared here at Arsenevich with people from all over the world. I’m certain he found great happiness sharing these films with you, and I hope you know that this blog and its audience meant a lot to him. I can’t continue it, but I hope to leave it as a digital monument to who my father was and what he wanted to do with his life. If it’s useful to even one person, I’ll be happy, and I’m sure he would be too.
Sending you a big hug.
Joaquín
(…)”
p.s. And since Arsenevich was Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky´s 2nd first name:
Here his works on YT be courtesy of the Russian government (i.e. Mosfilm). In excellent quality: (fuck Disney)
IVAN´S CHILDHOOD (1962)
94 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TAvXRF5ZHc
ANDREI RUBLEV (1966)
205 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUk3XfP_hUc
SOLARIS (1972)
166 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ZhQPaw4rE
MIRROR (1975)
106 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYZhXm02kN0
STALKER (1979)
161 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3hBLv-HLEc
NOSTALGHIA (1983)
– unfortunately this is by distributor Lorber who are known to botch their classic releases. It has the forced Russian dub over the Italian.
It´s about a Russian in Italy because Russians are said to love Italy however they like to claim that about every other possible nation except may be France… –
125 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEJsY-GGq90
SACRIFICE (1986)
– this too is not by Mosfilm and thus the quality isn´t as good but it has Engl. subs –
148 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZy4NbGqTnI
The making-of of SACRIFICE, dir. by Tarkovsky:
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (1988)
97 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Rd6PbSmHM
Although East German dubbing of the movies from brother countries was world class the Russian original is awesome to listen to even for German audience. Same goes for Bergman´s Swedish btw.
As to dubbing during the Communist era: Imagine what it meant for cultural understanding and insight if all these movies from all over Europe and the USSR were dubbed.
Not really 2nd first name nor 1st second name, but patronymic/patronym.
Yeah right. Sorry, forgot: It´s Russian!
Thanks for reminding.
Thanks! Tarkovsky is definitely going to be here!
I think this is a great idea! Well done, Semper Loquitur and Yves/NC!
If antidote seems inappropriate, what about christening it an “inoculum” to build resistance or immunity? I suspect there may be a good pun along the lines of “video inoculum” to be had, too….
As for films to watch, the British Film Institute has some free to watch material, RTÉ has a whole suite of Irish films that are free to watch (the wind shakes the barley, the quiet girl etc) and I think Warner Bros has put several dozen films from its archive up for free (Barry Lyndon is the one that I remember).
Oh Barry Lyndon is on my long list of movies to see I have not yet seen!
I saw it on the big screen when it was first released (1975). Outstanding cinematography at the time, classic Kubrick
WB released it to their YouTube channel. I have not got around to watching it but I just tried for you :-)
https://www.warnerbros.com/movies/barry-lyndon
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yVUqOGkKRC0
It would seem to require the YouTube app.so I will have to watch it on the goggle box / Google box.
Bookmarked! Thanks, Revenant!
So the interesting anecdote (not a spoiler, BTW), about Barry Lyndon is that the scenes filmed only with candlelight were shot with a special Zeiss f/0.7 lens that was originally developed for NASA, I gather to photograph the dark side of the moon.
Various people have wondered how Kubrick was able to obtain this unique item from NASA, and the tinfoil hat speculation is that he was just calling in a favor after generously helping NASA out of a pickle in July, 1969. ;)
The dark side of the moon is not dark, at least not more than the opposite one. As far as taking first photos of it goes,
https://www.rbth.com/history/332872-first-photographed-dark-side-moon
P.S. The film for Soviet moon filming effort was provided by USA spy balloons (predecessor of which fell in Roswell, no tinfoil hat speculation).
Among the film critic sites still running is MUBI´s Notebook, which started out as text only site to then start distributing movies and eventually even producing them.
Although I don´t know how that is working out for them. Since movies can make you bankrupt very quickly.
https://mubi.com/en/notebook
Yes, good idea. And the people that comment on NC, I bet are going to give me trustworthy other suggestions. My favorites and of ‘lefty’ friends are Ken Loach and the Dardennes Bros. movies. I really miss Lambert’s water cooler, and his deep dives. But the new people are great. Thanks Yves and all!!!
Thanks! I found a Loach movie: I, Daniel Blake
land and freedom is up for free too. A classic..and historically true. I love how the american yuppie guy, of course, joins the Stalinists.
Mike Leigh is another worthy Brit filmmaker. His films are character studies in contexts of relationships. ‘Naked’ remains a fave; David Thewlis is remarkable. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdKPbyvS0qc
Ken Russel is another fun English director. Very offbeat to boot!
The short “A Kitten for Hitler” defines ‘offensive’ on film.
“Lair of the White Worm” is a sheer hoot. From the book by Bram Stoker.
The other end of his output would be “The Devils.” Religious hysteria never looked so good!
I’ll slither back under my rock now.
I found a couple of his, thanks!
Reminiscences of a misspent youth seated in front of the old boob tube. Seen that one and many more. Maybe try “The Hill”, with Sean Connery.
“The Hill is a 1965 British prison drama war film directed by Sidney Lumet and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It depicts the physical and psychological power struggles of a British military prison in North Africa, near the end of the Second World War. The title refers to a large mound prisoners are made to repeatedly climb.”
Free here, https://ok.ru/video/6050111228476 or on tubi.
The Hill is very good and Sidney Lumet almost always a fave.
We are living in a golden age of movie availability whereas when I was in college “art films” had to be expensively rented via 16mm versions. With the coming of the disc era libraries are a very good source although my library doesn’t buy nearly as many as they once did.
Apropos of Lumet and NYC in the ’60s and ’70s, “Serpico” and “Dog Day Afternoon” are both gritty entries into that oeuvre.
For a different viewpoint about New York and coppers, try “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” and “Come Back Charleston Blue.” Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques as two tough as nails vice cops in The Big Apple.
Thank you for the suggestions! It’s been a while since I’ve ventured into ’70s films. I saw that Ossie Davis (longtime husband of Ruby Dee, who’s in today’s movie suggestion) directed the first. It’s actually on Youtube without ads.
Bookmarked, thanks!
Wow, thanks! Looks pretty film noire to me!
Here’s one considered a neo-noir classic:
L.A. Confidential https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ17286bNtQ
(Warning: R rated so you might have to log in to YT, and a good ad blocker helps the viewing experience.)
Shame Curtis Hanson died so early (71). James Ivory will be 97, Clint Eastwood 95.
Kim Basinger recently gave an interview to Variety. While I care little for what actors have to say I did read this one. After all she mostly lives a private life now.
She says, initially she expected the character of “Lynn Bracken” to be a role which she did not want to play (prostitute etc.)
“(…)
“I didn’t ever think of myself as a sexual Bond thing,” she says. “I saw those women and I thought, ‘Jesus, I don’t have that!’ I grew up a tomboy.”
(…)”
But with Hanson and then the script the way it was written she eventually knew this could be it.
fwiw
Kim Basinger Gives Rare Interview on ‘9½ Weeks’ Feud Rumors, Intimacy Coordinators and Why She’s Not Retired: I’m ‘Picky’ and There’s ‘A Lot of Bad Material’
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/kim-basinger-retirment-intimacy-coordinators-alec-baldwin-1236321432/
A bit on Dante Spinotti´s work on the movie as DOP in ASC magazine, 2018:
“Wrap Shot: L.A. Confidential
Looking back at the expert cinematography by Dante Spinnoti, ASC, AIC in this hard-boiled yet contemporary take on film noir.”
https://theasc.com/articles/wrap-shot-l-a-confidential
Bookmarked, thanks!
“(…)
EXLEY
Rollo’s the reason I became a cop. I
wanted to catch the guys who thought
they could get away with it. It was
supposed to be about truth and justice
and Rollo. But somewhere along the
way I forgot all that… How about
you, Jack? Why’d you become a cop?
Jack looks like he might cry, but smiles instead.
JACK
I don’t remember…
Both men are quiet a moment.
(…)”
(screenplay by Brian Helgeland)
Thank you for doing this, Semper!
My pleasure!
In the interests of antidote, here’s a clip from “Smashing Time”, a curate’s egg that I watched last week while reviewing the Swinging London movies of the 60s.
Yvonne (Lynn Redgrave) has just won a GBP10,000 prize and spends it on becoming a pop star. Here she meets her manager, records her hit single I’m So Young and then we enjoy a fame montage set to the finished record. Hilarious satire!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEHNtZKoi3A (5:07)
The whole thing is on youtube but there’s really only one other sequence as good as this one. The rest is kinda meh.
This looks like an interesting project, and I hope they’ll be more discussion of the actual movie in the future, otherwise I’m not sure what the point is.
I found the movie to be really disturbing though for some reason less disturbing as it went on. I guess that was because people started to stand up individually, a little bit, and that reduced some of the tension for me.
The thing I kept thinking about was that hijacked flight on 9/11 where are the passengers fought back against the terrorists. Now I don’t know if that story is true, but watching this movie made me wonder how those passengers managed to stand up, and why that was different than what we were shown here.
The main thing I got from the movie is the reality of powerlessness. I kept thinking: oh I would stand up, I wouldn’t put up with this, but the more I watched the more it seemed possible that I wouldn’t stand up. That’s definitely not an antidote.
Well, the point is to provide an entertaining movie although I agree more discussion would be a good thing. People are welcome to comment throughout the week as they watch it! And some movies, like the one I have lined up about a Megalodon lurking in a freshwater lake, aren’t going to spark the deepest conversations. Thanks for sharing your impressions of the movie today!
“Camp” is perfectly acceptable to the discriminating viewer.
Something along the lines of “Blood for Dracula,” or “Ciao! Manhattan.”
Somehow, I don’t think that Grindhouse or Troma are going to appeal to this audience.
“a Megalodon lurking in a freshwater lake, aren’t going to spark the deepest conversations.”
Don´t underestimate the madness of NC-commentariat!
Paul Greengrass directed ‘United 93’ about that flight. I saw it when it came out but that was quite a long time ago (circa 2005?) and I don’t remember it particularly well, so can’t vouch for or against it. I do remember that much was made about its apparent verisimilitude at the time, and how events on the plane were reconstructed from the available evidence, while using relatively unknown actors so as not to distract from that attempt at authenticity.
Okay, I love the idea of a NC movie antidote on a Sunday but this movie is not for me. More grinding tension, I don’t need.
I watched a Betty Grable musical on YT this afternoon just to make myself feel better. The clothes, the songs, the dances! Betty’s incredibly fluffy hair! It was a cotton candy of a movie.
Sorry, it’s probably just me. I do love movies but my sensibilities must not be very sophisticated these days.
Don’t be sorry, I’m going to mix it up with lighter fare as well.
For some other lighter fare from the studio era, ’screwball comedies’ are fun and breezy, too. “My Man Godfrey,” “Bringing Up Baby,”(with a leopard as the titular ‘Baby’) and “Ball of Fire” (the latter two directed by multi-genre director/auteur Howard Hawks) are just a few that fit the bill perfectly.
For a change of pace, maybe “Educating Rita” made back in 1986 with Michael Caine and Julie Walters-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeDf0dHBhBI (1:46:21 mins)
The comments are interesting to read too.
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!
https://ok.ru/video/332652153592
To my delight I discovered that YT provides two of my favs:
Take Me Out To The Ball Game (1949)
E. Williams, G. Kelly, F. Sinatra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SClJgaUksdI
That Lady in Ermine (1948)
B. Grable, D. Fairbanks Jr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AurKAwULU4g
Especially the 1st act enjoys quite a popularity among my close friends… (the servant and the Hungarians!)
“The Gang’s All Here” is a 1943 MGM-Busby Berkeley spectacle with Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, Benny Goodman and other notables of the time. The production numbers are wonderful and the final ten minutes, with the saturated colors, rich orchestrations and weirdness on a whole ‘notha’ level, are hallucinatory.
I assume this wouldn´t fit the purpose of an antidote-post:
But YT has a few of the excellent late essay features by Godard + some Jacques Rivette
Allemagne annee 90 neuf zero (1991)
62 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWW1wWAu_Bw&list=PLFSoFEf90LB-QuRLBiJQEt9k5LEC6Q_ok&index=52
Éloge de l’amour (B&W/1080p) (2001)
94 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTDYhPSFjVU
Notre Musique (2004)
80 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFTuCu2hXFQ&list=PLFSoFEf90LB-QuRLBiJQEt9k5LEC6Q_ok&index=64
Film Socialisme (2010)
97 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bybIwKfb0c&list=PLFSoFEf90LB-QuRLBiJQEt9k5LEC6Q_ok&index=70
Others (the great “Nouvelle Vague”) are behind age registration wall.
JLG at the Dick Cavett Show (1980)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQQH00Rg-Ds
Jacques Rivette´s Joan of Arc with Sandrine Bonnaire, Engl. subs
Part 1
Joan the Maid I: The Battles (1994) (1080p)
160 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPmYDTA05o4
Part 2
Joan the Maid II: The Prisons (1994) (1080p)
176 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCppypjB_TI
Most of them were defeated before they got on the train. That’s what the bullies sensed. And they underestimated the injured man.
This post might be a good place to plug Kanopy, a free video streaming site that one can access via a public library card or some university affiliation. (It appears to be available through the world, although I had read that NYC libraries dropped out of it at one point.) Kanopy has a not bad selection—I just noticed there are even some fairly recent films like Parasite available, not just really old ones.
So, depending on how available that is for NC readers, you (semper loquitur) might not feel constrained to only those films available for free on the usual video platforms.
thanks!
What a wonderful regular antidote, or innoculum, as suggested above! Thank you, SL.
However, the choice of the NY subway as a venue for the action is a creepy coincidence: for a couple of days last week, an article with this bizarre and Onion-like headline kept appearing on my morning check-in of the NYT digital front page. Police Search for Man Suspected of Abusing Corpse on New York Subway.
Please assure me that the film contains no corpse abuse. (I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence. These are truly unprecedented times.)
Good stuff sempor; can’t wait for future films!
Man, that was brutal! Totally agree on the noir categorization; exactly how it was explained to me in a college course many years ago. Some thoughts:
– The police come on board, take one glance at the scene, and arrest the only black man on the train. Such a perfect portrayal of what we still sadly see happening today.
– Not sure what I thought about how the gay man was portrayed. Almost seemed as if he was mentally handicapped. Did he have to be written that way for us to have sympathy for his treatment by these guys? Perhaps for 1967…
– Terrific performances by everyone! Would have loved to see how everyone came down at “Cut!”.
– I thought the soundtrack was very nicely done. Very minimal until it’s all subway where they let the subway car create all the “music”.
– I also thought the Genovese angle to be spot on.
– Throughout I’m thinking “how can these folks just sit there and let this keep happening?”! I’d like to think nowadays someone (everyone) would stand up earlier. But maybe that’s another part of the sad general commentary: “Aww, they just having fun” or “He’s just a queer”. Another nod to how it carries over to today’s times.
Just checked, and “Nothing But A Man” with Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln (in a strictly dramatic role) is free on YouTube. Important film by Michael Roehmer.
Best place to find movies to watch from the 50’s/60’s can be found in Manny Farber’s book Movies. Farber was called the best film critic ever by James Agee.
Always Outnumbered Always Outgunned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2byg4XZc_RM
Laurence Fishburne as Socrates Fortlow