Melvin Purvis: G-Man

Matt Clark and David Canary

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Dan Curtis' Melvin Purvis: G-Man, a made for television movie that premiered in April of 1974. Like many American TV movies of that era, it was released abroad theatrically and, because Purvis is relatively unknown overseas, the title was changed to The Legend of Machine Gun Kelly. The film come at the end of a mini-boom in Depression era gangster films that was sparked by the 1967 success of Bonnie and Clyde. The film was a joint production of AIP and Curtis' production company. Curtis had had an overnight success when his daytime vampire soap Dark Shadows, briefly, became a hit. Both Melvin Purvis and Dark Shadows aired on ABC, the upstart of the then three major American television. It was more prone to display exploitation fare than the more staid CBS and NBC.

Part of my interest in this film is the discernable impact John Milius had on the production. He is credited with the story, shares credit for the screenplay with William F. Nolan, and is listed as the flick's creator. The project was originally intended to be a spin-off of Milius' feature debut Dillinger in which Purvis was portrayed by Ben Johnson. There was conflict between Curtis and Milius and the latter spent the rest of his days castigating both Curtis and television production in general. Dale Roberson ended up being cast as Purvis, but the script's right wing slant, violence, and male camaraderie remain as hallmarks of Milius' efforts. This is not a film that passes the Bechdel Test.

It is also a film that stands as a Thermidorian rebuke to most of the Depression era gangster films of this period like Bonnie and Clyde and The Sting which glamorized criminal behavior. Milius, a law and order reactionary, has Purvis provide an opening narration in which he describes the film's miscreants as psychotics and punks. The G-Men are not totems of virtue, they cadge cigars and booze from a kidnapped millionaire, but they are definitely the good guys in this film's cosmos. After his aide-de-camp (a note perfect Steve Kanaly) complains about dealing with the press, Purvis replies that their interest is an opportunity to shift public sympathy away from the desperadoes and put it firmly behind J Edgar Hoover and his minions. 

None of this would matter if Melvin Purvis was as clumsy and poorly acted as most exploitation fare. However, Curtis keeps things rolling along, the film is a brisk 75 minutes, and the ensemble acting is superior to most American A features from 1974. Robertson keeps within his range, portraying Purvis like the droll sheriffs he played in numerous B Westerns and on television's Death Valley Days. Harris Yulin is somewhat miscast as Machine Gun Kelly, but he deftly reveals his character's psychosis. Margaret Blye, as Kelly's domineering wife, is even better and makes me wonder why she didn't nab more challenging roles. The scene where she vents her class resentments at the kidnapped millionaire is a highlight of the film. That smarmy dilettante is well embodied by Dick Sargent, best known as the second Darren on Bewitched.

There are an array of small scene stealers in the film: John Karlen, Woodrow Parfrey, Don Megowan, and the ubiquitous Eddie Quillan. Best of all are familiar faces Matt Clark and David Canary as a duo with more guts than brains. The byplay between the two is lively and they are given the film's most dramatic exit. Dan Curtis made all sorts of disparate crap, mostly for television. However, The Winds of War and especially Melvin Purvis: G-Man makes me want to check out more of his work. It is probably more dross than diamonds, but Melvin Purvis is the kind of find that will keep me searching. It was so successful that a sequel of sorts was made: The Kansas City Massacre, also featuring Dale Robertson and Harris Yulin. 
                   

Ascenseur pour l'echafaud

Jeanne Moreau

Louis Malle's Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows) is a crisp and sleek thriller released in 1958. The film was based on an Série noir novel by Noël Calef published in 1956. Jeanne Moreau stars as Florence Carala, the unfaithful wife of a munitions magnate played by Jean Wall. Florence, we immediately discern, is involved in an affair with a subordinate of her husband named Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet), a former soldier in the French Foreign Legion. We first see the lovers talking to each other on the phone, expressing their love for one another and going over the last few details before Julien attempts to rub out Florence's husband. Malle frames Moreau in enormous close-ups here, heralding her arrival in a role that helped make her a major film star after a decade of playing bar girls in B pictures; albeit, usually superbly.

I first saw this film nearly fifty years ago through the snow on my television on a broadcast from Washington D.C. 's WETA. Viewing the Criterion Collection's disc gave me a greater appreciation for the high contrast black and white cinematography of Henri Decaë, but my overall impression of the film remained the same. The film is effective when it focuses on Tavernier and his somewhat unbelievable plight after he manages to get stuck in an elevator while trying to escape from the site of the murder. Even better are the scenes following Florence as she prowls the streets of Paris searching for her lover. Moreau's face, like Garbo's at the end of Queen Christina, becomes a mask that both hides and projects a myriad of conflicting feelings. Malle's tracking shot of Moreau striding down a boulevard, shot apparently by Decaë using a pram, cemented her as a cinematic icon.

What still didn't work for me was Malle's handling of the two beatniks in love who steal Tavernier's car and go on a spree that ends with murder. Part of this is due to the actors. Malle was tentative at this point in his handling of his players, so that those actors who needed the least guidance (Moreau, Wall, and Lino Ventura as a homicide chief) fare best. One thing I can better glean from this viewing was the effects of Malle's influences on this picture. Malle confessed that the film was an amalgam of Bresson and Hitchcock. He had been an assistant to Bresson on that master's A Man Escaped and that picture informs Ascenseur's interiority: especially Florence's monologues and the trapped Tavernier. The frisson of excitement in the film owes much to the cross-cutting utilized by Hitchcock on Strangers on a Train. What the film lacks is the lovers on the run fervor of Ray in They Live By Night and Rebel Without A Cause.

And that leads me to the question of Louis Malle's artistic personality. Ultimately, it was more malleable than forceful. His best films display a lively intelligence and some sensuality, but lack the flair or intellectual rigor of great filmmakers. I like Ascenseur, The Fire Within, Atlantic City and a few others, but the impression they leave strikes me as the work of a nice man, but not an artist who wants to break ground. His disasters were numerous: Zazie dans le Métro, A Very Private Affair, Black Moon, Crackers. I warn all semi-interested parties to avoid these pictures. They are among the worst films of anyone considered a major director

Small Things Like These

Cillian Murphy

I enjoyed the film adaptation of Claire Keegan's novel Small Things Like These more than I expected to, if enjoyment is not quite the right word for a work concerning the depravations of Ireland's Magdalene Laundries. Set in 1982 or so, both film and book concern a simple and honest lorry driver named Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) who discovers dark secrets about the local church run facility while making his deliveries. The laundries employed and sheltered Ireland's unmarried mothers who were forced to give away their babies for adoption. The laundries were Dickensian work houses, David Copperfield figures prominently in Small Things Like These, that became satanic mills of abuse and exploitation. Screenwriter Enda Walsh has streamlined the novel, yet retained its very Gaelic flavor.

What worried me about the material is that there is no subtext, book and film are both righteous screeds against the Laundries. Fair enough, but not necessarily the stuff of multi-dimensional art. However, the film is superbly acted by all concerned and director Tim Mielants' technique is interesting and evocative. He conjures the period by giving the film a throwback look and audio design. The colors are muted, appropriate for this grim tale of the 1980s. The sound is multi-layered and scratchy like an old cassette mixtape. Furlong is constantly going back in time within his head to revisit his troubled childhood. Mielants includes many shots of characters looking through windows conveying how we are constantly rewitnessing the past, but are forever cut off from it. The past is a foreign country as L.P. Hartley put it. Mielants uses long and slow pans to give the viewer a queasy sense that some undiscovered horror is just around the corner or in a disused coal bin. Furlong is a virtual saint, devoted to his wife and five daughters. We have little doubt that he will do the right thing even if he has to oppose his beloved church. As in Oppenheimer, Murphy underplays beautifully in what was a pet project for him. Emily Watson delivers in the juicy role of the Mother Superior who personifies the corruption and hypocrisy of the Catholic clergy.