Quick Takes, July 2024

Ken Uehara and Eitaro Ozawa in Port of Flowers

Keisuke Kinoshita's Port of Flowers, from 1943, is an endearing comedy set on an island in the north of Japan. Based on a play by Kazuo Kikuta, a theatrical titan in Japan who remains virtually unknown in America, the film concerns two grifters who come to the island intending to fleece the locals. However, they both are charmed by the open-hearted sincerity of the islanders and the younger of the two falls for a local lass. The onset of hostilities with the Allies further galvanizes the community to make real the con-mens' scheme, a shipbuilding endeavor. The direction is remarkably assured for a first feature. A delicate touch is evident, especially with the close-ups. The material is not earthshaking and a tolerance for jingoism is required, yet viewing Port of Flowers is a congenial experience all the way to its sweetly melancholic ending.

Clarence Brown's Wife vs. Secretary is a subpar MGM melodrama from 1936 starring Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, and Myrna Loy in a romantic triangle. The script attempts to be sophisticated and snappy, but ends up hackneyed and rote. Gable and Loy achieve some sizzle as a happily married couple while Harlow has to play noble this time. The most erotic moment between Gable and Harlow occurs when she takes his shoes off. It is that kind of a movie. Brown's best moments don't involve any dialogue: tracks and pans of disapproving eyes as Gable and Harlow dance and Harlow watching a couple flirt and dance in a Havana nightclub. The film features able support from May Robson, Jimmy Stewart, and George Barbier. 

Park Sye-young's The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra, his debut film, is an arty Korean horror film about a monstrous fungi that is formed in a funky mattress. The monster plucks the titular bone from his victims and, well, that is about it plot wise. What the film lacks in plot and character development, it more than makes up for in visual imagination, grotty textures, and icky sounds. More promising than fully realized, the film will please adventurous horror fanatics. Only 65 minutes and currently streaming on Tubi.

Richard LaGravenese's A Family Affair has been stomped on critically, but I thought it was OK romcom fluff. Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron are the lovers in this May to October romance, but Joey King delivers the best performance as Kidman's daughter who is shocked to find her mother schtupping her movie star boss. Predictable fare, yet LaGravenese's direction is limber amidst the usual tropes. I found that the film's critique of its self absorbed characters resounded trenchantly against the film's background of Malibu and material excess. Currently streaming on Netflix. 

William Dieterle's Jewelry Robbery, from 1932, is a small pre-Code gem. This breezy 70 minute Warners flick is set in a soundstage Vienna and has William Powell stealing Kay Francis' diamond ring and her heart. Ms. Francis shows off her decolletage, back, and gams while Powell distributes reefer to befog the investigation of his larceny. Dieterle's direction is sometimes overly broad, the choreographed chorus lines of constabulary and thieves particularly, but I can't imagine anyone disliking this movie. Powell is especially superb. Unlike other stars from this period, he does not try to seduce or dominate women. He is a courtly gentleman in their service, yet hip. His ultimate role as Godfrey awaits. 

Powell stars in the more routine Lawyer Man, also from 1932 and also directed by Dieterle. Powell's role is more roughhewn and randy than in Jewelry Robbery. He plays a lawyer practicing in the Lower East Side of New York who has a roving eye. The film chronicles his career ups and downs and his success with the ladies. Joan Blondell, criminally underused here, plays the loyal secretary who tolerates his philandering until he wises up and makes her an honest woman, as they used to say, in the final reel. Powell is his usual wonderful self, but the film's villainous gangsters and legal shenanigans are rather dull. 

Nag Ashwin's Kalki 2898 AD is a three hour Indian science fiction movie that cobbles together bits from Star Wars, Mad Max, Transformers, and Hindu cosmology to good effect. Despite its length and its juggling of four story lines. Kalki... is a bracing dystopian fantasy for adolescents of all ages. The villains, heroes, and anti-heroes are vividly drawn and the momentum never flags. I particularly admired the performances of Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan, and Anna Ben. I thought it was better than either of Denis Villeneuve's Dune films or RRR. A sequel awaits.