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Wednesday 12/19/07

12:45am Turner Classic Movies
Chicago Syndicate (1955 USA): Not that I keep track of such things, but surely this is the first time in the five-year history of this column that the first four films include place names in their titles? I'm going to put this down to coincidence and NOT plough through the archives to see if this has happened before, but if some enterprising reader wants to take up the challenge, have at it. Anyhoo, Chicago Syndicate is a rarely-seen Columbia second feature about Barry Amsterdam (Dennis O'Keefe), an accountant hired by the Feds to get the goods on Mob boss Arnie Valent (Paul Stewart), whose last book-balancer came to a sticky end. Stewart is, as always, terrific, and the cast also includes Allison Hayes (two years before she became the 50-Foot Woman) and, in a very rare dramatic performance, rumba master Xavier Cugat. It's as unambitious and unsurprising as you would expect a Fred Sears-helmed film to be, but hasn't had a television airing in a long time.

6am Turner Classic Movies
Mr. Winkle Goes to War (1944 USA): Edward G. Robinson didn't get comic parts all that often, but when he did he proved himself more than capable of playing for laughs. If you don't believe me, check out the wonderful Larceny, Inc. (1942), or this thoroughly amusing wartime effort about a meek bank clerk whose efforts to open his own repair shop fall by the wayside after his draft notice arrives. Henpecked to death by wife Amy (Ruth Warrick), Wilbert Winkle (Robinson) responds to the notice with enthusiasm, finds himself immediately inducted for active duty, and manages to return home an unlikely hero. Gently comedic and thoroughly patriotic, Mr. Winkle Goes to War is no Preston Sturges yuk-fest, but more than passes muster thanks to Robinson's first-rate performance.

Thursday 12/20/07

1:25am Flix
The Thief (1997 RUS): A huge critical and festival hit that was nominated for Best Foreign-Language Film at the 1998 Academy Awards, The Thief tells the tale of six-year-old Sanya (Misha Philipchuk), a boy born in the immediate and poverty-stricken aftermath of the Great Patriotic War. Living from hand to mouth, Sanya is befriended by Tolyan (Vladimir Mashkov), a mountebank whose charming ways and relative wealth soon entrance mother Katia (Yekaterina Rednikova), who sinks her claws into a man who seems to offer a measure of stability. Alas, that stability is illusory, and Tolyan soon reverts to thieving type, sending his new "family" fleeing from boarding house to boarding house as he picks the pockets of tenants and landlords alike. Although The Thief is a character study first and foremost, the political terror of the Stalin years is always hovering in the background, and the film draws some none-too-subtle parallels between the Georgian strongman and Tolyan. It's a film that can induce laughter or tears in equal measure, and comes strongly recommended.

3:45pm Sundance
U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha (2005 SAF): I haven't seen this musical drama yet, but one of the themes of this week's column seems to be hard-to-pronounce titles, so I can hardly overlook it. Apparently an updated take on Bizet's opera, Carmen, transported from Spain to South Africa, the film includes the entire libretto, performed in Xhosa. Khayelitsha is a neighborhood within the city of Cape Town, and the film won the Golden Bear at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival, neatly tying it to both of this week's OTHER recurring themes (place names in titles and the BIFF, for those with incredibly short memories). Did Sundance and Flix staff get together in Area 51 or The Bermuda Triangle and plot these strangely synchronous programming choices? If Jack Palance were still with us, this would surely be worthy of investigation by Ripley's Believe It or Not!, but perhaps Henry Silva's Bullshit or Not? team can get on the job.

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