Human Highway

Neil Young and "Kaw-Liga" in Human Highway

Neil Young's Human Highway is an amusing curio that can't transcend its being an indulgent whim of a rock star. When both manager and wife of said rock star appear in the film, it is difficult to regard it as anything other than a vanity project. Still, Young displays more visual imagination here than in the excruciating Journey Through the Past and Russ Tamblyn (goofy), Dean Stockwell (satanic), and Dennis Hopper (bedraggled) are always fun to watch. It is a tribute to Young's sense of humor that his portrayal of Lionel, an idiotic auto mechanic, is the most self-parodying performance by a rock star ever. Young has a gift for kitchen sink surrealism and Human Highway's best moments smack of a more lysergic Frank Tashlin. The mise en scene blends the awkward fakeries of soundstage musicals and model railroad dioramas. (Young was, at one time, a part owner of Lionel Trains) Fans of Young will appreciate explorations of themes that recur throughout his music: native American spirituality, anti-nuke agitprop, gearhead car culture, and a hankering for waitresses. Rock and roll fans may find the film and its music enjoyable, others will be befuddled by its moronic humor and primitivist film style. 

The Blackcoat's Daughter

Osgood Perkins' The Blackcoat's Daughter is an occasionally creepy and interesting horror film that evaporates towards its conclusion. As in his later films, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and Gretel & Hansel, Perkins is good at establishing spooky atmospherics, but weak at integrating milieu with plot. The plot concerns two students stranded at their all girl boarding school waiting for their parents to pick them up for break. One of the girls is possessed by a mysterious force and proceeds to wreak havoc. Perkins is able to fashion a foreboding presence out of anonymous institutions be they hospitals, motel rooms or schools. He gets a pair of striking performances from James Remar and Lucy Boynton and lifts the rest of a variously talented cast towards competency. Unfortunately, the plot is a sub Exorcist retread. The film ends with a whimper instead of a bang and all of the unsettling preliminaries are for naught. 

Best of 1941

1. How Green Was My Valley                                                        John Ford
2. Citizen Kane                                                                               Orson Welles
3. The Shanghai Gesture                                                              Josef von Sternberg
4. Swamp Water                                                                             Jean Renoir
5. The Lady Eve                                                                             Preston Sturges
6. Man Hunt                                                                                    Fritz Lang
7. Remorques                                                                                 Jean Grémillon
8. Ball of Fire                                                                                  Howard Hawks
9. The Maltese Falcon                                                                    John Huston
10. The 47 Ronin                                                                              Kenji Mizoguchi

         Films I Enjoyed

         A Woman's Face, Dumbo,

         Tobacco Road, Western Union,

         High Sierra, The Strawberry Blonde,

         Suspicion, 

         H.M. Pulham, Esq., The Little Foxes,

         All That Money Can Buy, That Hamilton Woman,

         Major Barbara, The Flame of New Orleans,

         49th Parallel, They Died With Their Boots On,

         Meet John Doe, Here Comes Mr. Jordan

         Below the Mendoza Line

         Sergeant York, Mr. and Mrs. Smith,

         The Devil and Miss Jones,

I don't usually comment on these lists, but, since I am swimming against the tide of film history, a few comments are in order. I feel that Welles is so intent on portraying the mature Kane as a hollow man that he drains most of the dramatic tension out of the last section of his film. Even the monstrous protagonists of The Magnificent Ambersons and Touch of Evil are viewed with more empathy than Kane and that is why I prefer those films to his allegedly unequalled masterpiece. How Green Was My Valley, like a number of films by Ford, has been criticized as being overly sentimental ("A monstrous slurry of tears and coaldust" wrote David Thompson). I think that Ford's sentimentality and humor, which often seem old-fashioned to modern viewers, counterbalance here what is one of the most bleak finales in all cinema. This pattern continues in most of the best of his later work: The Fugitive, Fort Apache, The Searchers, The Wings of Eagles, Two Rode Together, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, 7 Women. Is there a happy ending in any of these films? No way, Jose.

I'll cop to being a Ford partisan. I think he is by leaps and bounds the greatest American director. Heck, I even like Tobacco Road, which most view as an abomination. Still, I think there are more similarities than differences between Ford and Welles. Like Welles, Ford considered himself a man of the Left in 1941. It is only because of the persona of John Wayne, who Ford considered an intellectual lummox, that Ford is thought of today as some sort of right-winger. Ford acted as a mentor to Welles (see especially Tag Gallagher's John Ford: The Man and his Films, still the best book on Ford) and was his primary influence; as Welles, many times, graciously noted. The alleged technical innovations of Citizen Kane have been overstated. Welles claimed to have seen Stagecoach over forty times when he was preparing Kane, using it to study film technique. The expressionistic lighting, visible ceilings, depth of field, low-level camera and many other techniques evident in Stagecoach reappear in Kane in a more flamboyant manner. This is not a pejorative criticism, I enjoy Welles' flamboyance, but it is a distinction between directorial styles. 

One of the best and most moving essays I've ever read is Farran Smith Nehme's short piece on How Green Was My Valley entitled "Father's Day with John Ford". It can be found at her wonderful website, Self-Styled Siren.