The Asphalt Jungle

Fringe types including a ruffian career criminal (Sterling Hayden), a seedy attorney (Louis Calhern), a diner cook (James Whitmore), a numbers runner (Marc Lawrence), and an ingenious safe cracker (Sam Jaffe) just released from prison converge to execute an extremely lucrative but ultimately doomed jewelry heist. John Huston's tough, gritty, and influential noir (informing both classics and cheap imitations alike) is starkly shot, exciting and lifelike with a great cast of characters, Hayden, Calhern, Lawrence, and Jean Hagen as Hayden's doting and naive girlfriend standing out among the lot. Marilyn Monroe is unforgettable too as Calhern's mistress in her breakthrough role.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Prizzi's Honor

A slow-minded hitman (Jack Nicholson), adopted into the powerful Prizzi New York crime family, catches a glimpse of a beautiful WASP (Catherine Turner) at a wedding and goes to extreme lengths to acquaint himself and start an affair, at the expense of his ill-reputed, longtime girlfriend (Anjelica Huston). The truth about the occupation and intentions of the mystery woman will, however, jeopardize the long-held standing of the family and put the hitman's life in imminent danger. Watching John Huston's Prizzi's Honor a second time through, it didn't seem to play as well in this post-Sopranos era and felt more like timeworn ganster comedy material. Still Robert Loggia and John Randolph  are really good in support and Jack is excellent playing a man who is completely sharp and capable when his brain finally catches up.

*** ou of ****

Fat City

An aging, drunk boxer (Stacey Keach) living in a Southern Californian slum and romancing a taken, volatile lush (Susan Tyrrell) becomes inspired to get back into fighting condition after sparing with a young, green pugilist (Jeff Bridges) headed down his same path. With great performances leading the way, John Huston's Fat City begins with boxing movie cliches and takes a deeper look while also sensibly commenting on poverty, race, and exploitation in sports.

*** 1/2 out of ****

The Dead

At his aunts' annual Feast of the Epiphany Party, lecturer Gabriel Conroy (Donal McCann) toasts and addresses the revelers while being confronted with uneasy realities, including the unsettling revelation stirred by his wife Greta's (Angelica Huston) sudden memory of a deceased lover. In his last film of a lengthy, robust career, John Huston's The Dead is reflective and evocative, made with an acute eye for detail, and (in a screenplay by his son Tony) faithful to James Joyce's short story to a tee, especially the beautiful and starkly captured final passage. Angelica (also kin to the director) and McCann are superb.

*** 1/2 out of ****

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Two American exiles (Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt) living on the fringe of society in Tampico and at the whim of pernicious entrepreneurs acquaint an old but assured miner (Walter Huston) who all but guarantees the riches to be found in the Sierra Madres, where the trio would then only have to contend with avarice, madness, and bandits. John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which he drew off of a B. Traven novel, is an insightful take on greed and human nature, brilliantly shot and boasting many memorable sequences. Bogart is unforgettable in his paranoid, maniacal performance as Fred C. Dobbs, Holt is strong in a straight supporting role, and Walter Huston (John's father) is tremendous in an Oscar winning part.

**** out of ****

The Maltese Falcon

When San Francisco private eye Sam Spade's services are procured by a young woman, his partner winds up murdered shortly thereafter. He then embarks down a sinuous path, encountering a calvacade of miscreants all hell bent on getting their hands on the mythic, invaluable title statue. John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, the third filmization of Dashiell Hammett's novel and one of the first films classified as film noir, is an impeccable, shadowy detective story with Bogie inimitable in one of his iconic roles. The dialogue is snappy, the underhanded supporting players (including Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet) are incomparable, and Bogart's cold, final speech to Astor is one for the ages.

**** out of ****

Moby Dick

John Huston's filmization of Herman Melville's seminal novel, scripted by Ray Bradbury, detailing the foreboding journey of the Pequod, a Nantucket whaling ship, and its obssessive captain's biblical grudge with a massive, elusive white whale is made with technical and directorial prowess and offers a colorful supporting cast, yet is somewhat muddled and features a badly miscast Gregory Peck in a turgid performance as Ahab. After some tremendous opening scenes, including a remarkable cameo by Orson Welles playing a preacher, and some exciting whaling scenes, the film settles down becoming somewhat muddled leading up unto a disappointing showdown.

** 1/2 out of ****

Beat the Devil

A disparate band of villains, swindlers and thieves travels from Italy to Africa in search of uranium mines as part of a get rich quick scheme but only find mischief and international intrigue. John Huston's Beat the Devil, supposedly written on the fly by Truman Capote, is a not so serious B-picture containing a few hearty chuckles, a memorable cast (including Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, and Peter Lorre), and a hilarious denouement in the form of an interrogation.

*** out of ****

Chinatown

1930s L.A. private eye Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is drawn into a routine and seemingly simple case of adultery involving the director of the water department and his steamy and fragile wife (Faye Dunaway). When the politico is found murdered, the investigatory trail takes on serpentine and overarching proportions, all leading to Dunaway's nefarious, ruthless businessman father (John Huston). Chinatown boasts one of the cinema's all-time great screenplays courtesy of Robert Towne which throws in everything but the kitchen sink and barely leaves you hanging from a thread. Roman Polanski's direction is masterful (his cameo as a knife wielding hood is memorable also), Nicholson and Dunaway are in top form, and legendary helmer Huston is potently menacing.

The Red Badge of Courage

A Union Army private at an unnamed battle (supposedly inspiration for the story was drawn from the fighting at Chancellorsville) finds his grit and fortitude tested as he is hurled head on into the unforgiving blazes of war. The Red Badge of Courage is a dense, compacted take on Stephen Crane's classic, already concise Civil War tale. Starring war hero Audie Murphy, the film was at the center of a major studio fray leaving director John Huston's severely butchered picture as the main casualty.

Casino Royale

Following the assassination of M (John Huston), an aging James Bond (David Niven) is coaxed out of retirement to once more thwart the evil forces of SMERSH, and instead decides to send his nephew James Bond (Peter Sellers) who himself must contend with a series of agents, opponents, and villainesses also named James Bond. When Columbia Pictures held the movie rights to Ian Fleming's premier film instead of  Eon, the studio which has produced most of the other 007 films, they opted to make a goofy spy spoof mashup instead of trying to contend with the lauded series. Employing no less than 6 directors and 10 writers, which inexplicably features the likes of Huston, Woody Allen, Ben Hecht, and Billy Wilder, "Casino Royale" is an incomprehensible mess which only serves as a curio for its sometimes amusing cameos which include Allen, Huston, Orson Welles, and Peter O'Toole.

Reflections in a Golden Eye

A rigid, sexually repressed officer (Marlon Brando) stationed pines after a peculiar enlistee (Robert Forster), while his boozy wife (Elizabeth Taylor) takes up with a fellow functionary (Brian Keith) whose wife (Julie Harris) has just undergone a bizarre bout of psychosis. John Huston's "Reflections in a Golden Eye" is a strange, disturbing, and compulsively engaging adaptation of Carson McCullers' 1944 novel, which is filmed in an unusual color tint with great gusto by the legendary master. Brando delivers a keen and unexpected performance as the homosexual army man, which must have been a shock for 1967 audiences, and Taylor is his match playing his bratty, domineering wife. I also am really fond of Keith's work here, trying to keep a level head and caught in between devotion to his wife, his superior officer, and his lover. 

The Killers

The Killers, based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, opens fantastically with a diner/hostage scenario followed by the murder of the main character. It is followed by a contrived insurance investigation coupled with an effective flashback plot narrative in which we learn what led to the opening events. The film is often mentioned as an epitome of film noir, and that it is, as it contains all the elements that make up the genre such as the dark shadows, troubled hero, femme fatale, etc. It also represents the breakthrough performance of Ava Gardner and the debut of Burt Lancaster, reportedly the studio’s last choice, but an unavoidable one. By that I mean it seems that Lancaster was destined for the movies with his screen presence, physical stature, and dramatic demeanor. It is also worth mentioning that John Huston anonymously contributed to the screen play, and was probably responsible for its hard boiled elements. The Killers represents a classic, though flawed, entry into the original American film genre.

***1/2