a queue of paramount importance

hot on the heels of last month's excellent queue de grâce experience, i have a special surprise for you guys.

that's right. this month's queue is coming to us courtesy of the fine folks at my home away from home, the paramount theatre. it is coming up on my favorite time of year - the commencement of the paramount's summer film series - and i couldn't think of a better way to celebrate than to have them program something especially for me.

i know there will probably be quite a few of you that are new to our experiment here, so here's how it works: for one straight week i turn over complete control of my netflix queue to one of you fine folks. for the duration of that week, excluding screenings i host or trips to actual theaters, i watch only what you select for me. no other movies, no other television, no escape! i then report in daily, telling the rest of the gang here about my experience, recording my impressions and giving a sort of guided tour of my cinematic ups and downs (and sometimes sideways) during the week.

for this special edition of queue de grâce we are actually going to make it even bigger and bolder! it is set to run from 5.7.12 through 5.16.12 and there are going to be a whole lot of cooks in this kitchen. in honor of the summer series, we are having ten paramount staffers each program a double feature for me for ten straight days. from what i have heard, this one is going to be all over the map and i cannot wait to open it up and see what is inside. it is going to be great.

and while we are on the subject of great, you know who else is great? these guys.

hometown heroes, and my favorite video store, vulcan video are generously providing us a few of the harder to come by titles for this project and we certainly appreciate them. support your local video store!

so drop what you're doing next week and tune in for the mayhem and majesty that is queue de grâce. it is sure to be a good time and we may even have a few surprises for you along the way (is that a summer schedule i see in the distance?). if you want to keep up with our extracurricular activity and interact more, feel free to like the ol' facebook page. see you here on the 7th!

another summer over

sadly, it is that time of year again - the paramount's summer classics series is coming to an end. it still runs through this sunday but, sadly, i am unable to attend the final weekend. this summer was busier than ever, what with moving to cedar park and the band's tour, so i didn't get to see as much as i normally do, but what i did see was fantastic. once again, here is a poster gallery of everything i saw there this summer, in chronological order of original release, from el tren fantasma (1927) to the shining (1980).

this finale stings less than in years past, though, as paramount programmer jesse trussell is expanding the film offerings beyond just summertime. no longer do we have to suffer that long, sad drought, bereft of classic offerings, between september and may. the first summer i do not have to say goodbye to row q is a pretty good summer, indeed.

the view from row q - holy bat day!

110°, a city teetering on the edge, an auditorium filled with super-villains and people who text in the theater. with all hope nearly lost, the paramount theatre puts out the call...

and the man responds! today's matinee at the paramount, where the film also premiered forty-five years ago, was the original batman (1966) with none other than the original caped crusader himself, adam west, in attendance. you want the definition of a fun time at the movies? this was undeniably it. the festivities started out in the street, before you even made it into the theatre. the original batmobile was parked outside, at the ready, in case any of the rogue's gallery of villains decided to make trouble in our fair city. it was a hub of activity, surrounded by good citizens and li'l crimefighters alike.

for the record, that kid was awesome.

in the lobby there was an impressive lego batman statue and a flesh and blood frank miller-era dark knight making sure our gotham was protected. a vendor table at the auditorium entrance was piled high with just about every bat-souvenir you could want and upstairs, the man himself, adam west, holding court and taking photos with all the gold and platinum level film fans (just one more reason you should become one yourself). just before the actual screening, he entertained everyone with a hilarious q & a, beginning by letting us all admire his "superhero physique", and then fielding questions about everything from the rumor he is going to be in the dark knight rises (2012) - nope - to which villain gave him the most trouble - catwoman gave him curious stirrings in his utility belt - to his legacy as the first, and most fun, batman - "you know the dark knight? i'm the bright knight". the guy was a riot, fully embracing his position as a pioneer of camp and crimefighting. he seems to be having a lot of fun with it and made sure all the fans were too.

then the lights went down and it was an hour and a half of candy-colored hilarity, more dutch angles than a geometry class in rotterdam and BIFF! KAPOW! SPLOOSH! if you're at all familiar with the series, you know what i mean. the four major villains - penguin, joker, the riddler and the lee meriwether catwoman - converge on gotham to steal a device, quite clearly a vacuum cleaner painted orange and blue, that can dehydrate humans at the touch of a button. their ineptitude and inability to maintain a unified front of evil makes them easy prey for the dynamic duo. the mugging by this band of evildoers is so gleefully over the top that it makes jim carrey look downright restrained and west's delivery is the stuff of legend. batman himself is so deadly earnest and west is simultaneously so tongue in cheek that it almost gives you whiplash. in retrospect, it's almost revolutionary and it just gets funnier, and more fun, with each passing decade. exhibit A:

if that's not funny then just go ahead and spray me with bat-shark repellent right now, because i do not want to live in your world.

thanks nick, jesse and everyone else at the paramount for another great event. i just have one request if you guys do this again when it's 110° outside...

bring mr. freeze too.

the view from row q - el tren fantasma

tonight was a special night at the paramount theatre, probably the first night i circled on the schedule when i received it back in may. they screened one of mexico's most action-packed silent melodramas, gabriel garcía moreno's el tren fantasma (1927).

and, as if that weren't enough, michael ramos, leader of the latin lounge outfit charanga cakewalk, premiered a new score of his specifically composed for the event. these live performances are always a highlight of the summer film schedule and this one certainly did not disappoint. ramos' score was lively and paid homage to the traditional mexican popular forms of the day while seamlessly working in the more modern electronic elements his group usually traffics in. it added a level of enjoyment to the film that was undeniable. ramos and his group ratcheted up the tension during the chases and fights, livened up the dances, underlined the pathos of the more melodramatic passages and, once or twice, added their own playful musical commentary on the action taking place onscreen. a fine performance.

the film itself was fantastic. it was my first exposure to garcía moreno and i am eager to see more. he took what, in other hands, would have been a standard love triangle and made it uncommonly adventurous and nuanced for silent cinema. all the actors did their own stunts, some of which were quite difficult and dangerous, including the romantic lead very obviously jumping from a galloping horse onto a moving steam train. the performers' willingness to put themselves in harm's way results in a heightened level of suspense and deeper sentimental attachment to them. you aren't given the subconscious break that usually comes with obvious stunt doubles and cutaways. every narrow escape or drop from a great height is clearly the character that you have become attached to and whose welfare you are emotionally invested in.

the able physicality of the stars is equally matched by the emotional complexity of the villain of the piece. manuel de los ríos plays paco mendoza, one of the rival suitors of the beautiful daughter of the stationmaster. he is also secretly "el rubí", the leader of a gang of bandits and kidnappers who are responsible for the irregularities that the railroad is having investigated. his love for the stationmaster's daughter leads him to put on illogical displays of bravery and play both ends against the middle with the gang, going to such lengths as standing in for an ailing toreador during a bullfight and orchestrating and staging a fake kidnap and rescue to win her affections. the better angels of his nature eventually win out and, in a last sacrificial act, he throws himself on a bomb intended to sabotage the train our young lovers are on and he comes to a sad, bloody, violent and redemptive end. it's a far cry from the typical, one-dimensional, mustache-twirling bad guy that litters the landscape of melodrama.

the look of the film is also remarkable. the vast majority of it was shot on location in mexico so it offers a window to that world you would only usually find in documentary footage. in addition to being freed of the restrictions of a set-bound production and reaping the benefit of the heightened realism of location shooting, it functions as an anthropological document, a vivid slice of life of 1920's mexico. it is easy to give yourself over to the spirit of the proceedings because it takes place in an absolutely habitable universe, as evidenced by the extras who traversed those streets every day and lived under the rooftops that our hero scampered across in an attempt to save maiden fair. it's full of lived-in spaces and faces that make me wish the camera would just constantly pan back and forth so i could see it all without end. many thanks to the paramount theatre, michael ramos and the folks at cine las americas for putting this together. there may be no greater feeling than walking into a theater not knowing what to expect and having a night like tonight. it makes me fall in love with cinema all over again.

trailer tuesday

once again, i am a day behind. this intermittent access to the internet business will soon be remedied, though. come next week, all will be right in my e-world. this week's entry is for one of my most hotly anticipated cinematic events of this summer, kaneto shindō's kuroneko (1968)!

this beautiful bit of madness is at the paramount theatre on thursday and friday this week as part of a feline-themed horror double feature, along with jacques tourneur's cat people (1942). show starts at 7 p.m. each evening. see you there!

the view from row q - summer classics kickoff

last night was the night i have been waiting for since last september - the kickoff of the paramount theatre's summer classics series!

the joint was packed for a great evening of classic film hosted by paramount film programmer jesse trussell with special guest peter bogdanovich. the traditional season opener, casablanca (1942), was paired with bogdanovich's own selection for the evening, bogart and bacall's first effort together, to have and have not (1944). prior to the screening, bogdanovich gave a little background on the production of casablanca, just to set the tone for the evening, and came back before the second feature to do an extended q & a with the audience. he held forth on matters ranging from michael curtiz' ruthlessness to the benefits of the golden age studio system versus what we have now to a lesson jimmy stewart taught him about the magic of the movies and how cinema provides the gift of little suspended moments of time that last entire lifetimes. he explained how casablanca was a picture blessed by one fortunate accident after another, made flying by the seat of everyone's pants, filming even as the ending wasn't written. when someone from the audience asked how something like that would get made today, it provided bogdanovich an opportunity to drop my favorite quote of the evening. the studio system was a different animal, he explained, and "what we have now is chaos. and a lot of shitty pictures." amen, pal. things then segued into an interesting discussion of how films aren't written for adults anymore and how what were the B pictures of the golden age have become the A pictures of today. add to this mix a number of his trademark impersonations of hollywood royalty and his pledge to finish orson welles' the other side of the wind just so wes anderson can't touch it and you have the makings of a damn fine evening.

and we haven't even gotten to the films yet.

i am now convinced that the law of diminishing returns simply does not apply to casablanca. i have seen this film so many times now that i have lost count and yet it never loses a fraction of its power to entertain and inspire. it has to be one of the greatest examples of cinematic alchemy in the past century. to have and have not, while not considered the cinematic milestone that casablanca is, has the benefit of incendiary chemistry between bogart and bacall, in addition to sharing a number of familiar faces and themes with it - far-flung and exotic locale, oppressive regime providing the foil for romantic revolutionaries, apolitical bogart having his hand forced by cupid's fickle arrow. both are a grand testament to the craftsmanship of old hollywood. one of the great things about seeing these films a number of times is, through the comfort of familiarity, you can take time to examine elements you might not have paid as much attention to the first (or tenth) time around and last night i found myself doing just that. and you know what i found? i love these guys:

dooley wilson and hoagy carmichael are the unsung heroes of these films. try to imagine these movies without the music. it's impossible. wilson is especially crucial. "as time goes by" is more than just a musical number. it is integral, the melodic representation of the film's complicated emotional core, and wilson cares for bogart's character just as much, if not more, than bergman's, in his own way. when you mull over all that these characters have been through together over the years, offscreen, you are left with no doubt that there are times that rick would have been just as lost without sam as without ilsa. without sam, rick might still be standing on that train platform like a sap to this day. carmichael isn't given as much to do as wilson, but he still evinces a similar easy charm and earned weariness. these characters have seen it all in their respective paths to the other side of the world and yet they remain the salt of the earth, low-key guys that you can always count on when the chips are down. there may be no other character archetype i have a reverence for more than that one. and to think, wilson almost lost his role in casablanca to ella fitzgerald. that would have robbed us of this jam, among other fine moments, and the cinematic world would be less for it.

the summer fun has just started. click the link at the top of the article to see the rest of the schedule and take advantage of these films the way they were meant to be seen - on the big screen. casablanca shows twice more this weekend in a double feature with sabrina (1954). i highly recommend it.

christmas in may

it's my favorite time of year again. another may means another summer classics film series at the paramount theatre.

they haven't officially released the schedule yet, but if you would like a sneak peek here you go. between now and september you can see over eighty classic films on the big screen. jesse trussell, paramount film programmer extraordinaire, has dug up some real gems this time around. there will be a lot of new prints, some restorations of landmark foreign films and a week of 70mm epics. peter bogdanovich will be there discussing film history at the casablanca (1942) screening. other highlights for me include orson welles' f for fake (1973), charlie chaplin's modern times (1936), nicholas ray's they live by night (1949), a new, restored print (!) of luchino visconti's the leopard (1963), one of my all-time favorites - robert altman's mccabe & mrs. miller (1971), kaneto shindō's kuroneko (1968) and every single thing in the world cinema classics block in august. for all the double features (and practically every show is) you get both films for the price of one ticket. if you'd like to get even better deals, and support the crown jewel of congress avenue in the process, you can join the paramount's film fan club. the benefits vary according to donation level but no matter which one you choose if you go to these on a regular basis the memberships pay for themselves and the proceeds support the ongoing presentation of film at the greatest venue in town.

it's shaping up to be a fine summer. let me know which films you are looking forward to and i will see you in row q.

the view from row q - sullivan's travels

file this one under "they don't make them like that anymore". and do you know why they don't? they think you're idiots. fortunately, preston sturges didn't think so. exhibit A, sullivan's travels (1941).

the paramount theater screened this tonight, along with bing and bob in road to morocco (1942), as part of a double bill of road movies and all i could think about afterward is how things could be. in 2010, seven of the top ten grossing films were sequels or remakes. throw out cartoons and precisely one out of ten of those films was an original idea written for adults, christopher nolan's inception (2010). how in the world can we be satisfied with that? apparently we are, though, as the box office doesn't lie. the blame can't be placed exclusively on the studios if we continually line up to pay for inferior product. here's a gentle reminder:

every dollar you spend is perhaps your most powerful vote. by extension, every ticket you purchase is a vote saying "please make more like this". cast your votes wisely.

in an impressive run in the late thirties/early forties, preston sturges wrote, and then also directed, some of the wittiest and most literate films to ever come out of the hollywood studio system. he achieved great commercial and critical success without once underestimating his audience. his rapidfire dialogue never sacrificed its sharpness or sophistication for a lowest common denominator laugh and his story presentation often took on an experimental edge that pushed the boundaries of what mainstream films could be. he paved the way for other prominent auteurs, billy wilder and john huston among them, and his influence on the coen brothers cannot be underestimated. he managed to do all of that without pandering, going for cheap laughs or talking down to us. in tonight's film, john l. sullivan, sturges' surrogate, takes those very ideas right out among the people he was making pictures for.

joel mccrea is sullivan, a director who specializes in the lightweight, generating big bucks for the studio with candyfloss like ants in your plants of 1939 and hey, hey in the hayloft. he longs to do something with substance, a film called o brother, where art thou? detailing the plight of the common man. the problem is, he's a product of privilege who doesn't know the first thing about being hungry. he takes it upon himself to leave behind his life on a velvet pillow and take to the open road with only one thin dime to his name. he vows to not return until he knows what trouble is, until he knows what it is to be "without friends, without credit, without checkbook, without name. alone". of course, he's too valuable a property for the studio to lose and they strenuously object. strenuously, that is, until they realize what a publicity bonanza this promises to be. this caravan hits the road, shadowing sullivan the "hobo", but no matter what he tries, he ends up back in hollywood. he crosses paths with veronica lake, an actress whose story is ending like so many who made their way west in search of stardom, flat busted waiting for the next bus home. nothing to lose, they take to the road together.

they do a fair bit of traveling and are exposed to precisely the plight that sullivan envisioned for o brother - hopping freight trains, soup kitchens, flophouses, makeshift camps - but you know they are never more than tourists. they are always but one phone call away from luxury and opulence. sullivan, affable, honest and good-hearted but ultimately soft, calls a halt to the proceedings when the hunger gets to be too much and returns to hollywood to document the experience. he is shanghaied while handing out five dollar bills to the destitute and ends up with a bump on the head on a freight train to parts unknown. the bum that stole his money is misidentified as him in the morgue and sullivan, still in a fog from the beating he took, ends up at odds with a railyard bull which lands him in court, then in prison, sentenced to six years hard labor. he is finally where he so naively wished to be - friendless, nameless, alone. the only way out of this mess is to come forward as his own murderer. from that point, things are sorted out and sullivan eventually makes his way home, wiser for the time he spent in stir. he no longer wants to make o brother, preferring to go back to comedy, after having seen firsthand that laughter is all some people have in the world.

not everything in the movie works, but it plays to its strengths. joel mccrea was never the greatest actor, but he is well cast here, bringing an underlying simplicity that is essential to sullivan's eventual growth and his chemistry with veronica lake is great. this is probably my favorite performance of hers - it's at least tied with i married a witch (1942) - because i think she's so much better when she's playful. the femme fatale business was always too one-note for her. she is faster, smarter and funnier than that. she's easy to want, sure, but i like her better when you're allowed to see why you could love her rather than simply desire her. all around mccrea and lake, sturges fills the margins with his usual stock company of players, each bringing their vital eccentricities. the dialogue is always snappy and any sentimentality registers as sincere, never treacly. it doesn't hurt that the characters on the lower social rungs are the ones who are most in touch with their own, and others', humanity. sullivan's butler, burrows, lectures him, quite rightly, on the dilettantish nature of his experiment, telling him that "the poor know all about poverty and only the morbid rich would find the topic glamorous". the all-black congregation that welcomes the group of prisoners which includes sullivan into their church for movie night is the only group of people in the entire film that is wholly righteous and dignified, notable for 1941. there are some tonal shifts that can be jarring and the gravity of some of those scenes undercuts sturges' "laughter is the best medicine" valediction but it's a complicated line he's trying to walk and he does most of it so well that these minor problems end up just being good places to begin examining the film, ultimately enhancing rather than detracting from the experience. there are a number of thorny questions, deftly introduced. the occasional slapstick may mirror the kind of tripe that sullivan wanted to turn his back on but it is certainly funny, providing the entertainment that keeps us coming back to the movies over and over, and you can't sell a message to an empty theater. the ease with which his legal situation is sorted out is convenient plot-wise but to pretend his status and wealth wouldn't have an effect on the way the proceedings would have been handled is even more naive than sullivan was when he started out. for every time sullivan makes a clumsy attempt at understanding the human condition, a diner owner comes up with a free cup of coffee for someone who is down on their luck, this simple act of human kindness saying more than any orchestrated gesture. there is plenty going on here to dig into and the craziest thing about it, given the current cinematic climate, is that sturges trusts you to do just that. that's rich and rare these days. i recommend you take advantage of it.

the view from row q - high plains drifter

if, due to hazy memory or just the laziness of easy association, you think of clint eastwood's high plains drifter (1973) as just another spaghetti western, you should think again.

the paramount theater screened this film in tandem with rooster cogburn (1975) as part of a set of double features they have going on this week. tonight's was a slightly ironic pairing, as john wayne apparently held drifter in extremely low esteem. he told eastwood that the film "did not represent the true spirit of the american pioneer, the spirit that made america great". well, as far as i am concerned, those two phrases express vastly different sentiments. if he had said that it wasn't flattering, though, he would have been right on the money.

it begins with eastwood as an apparition, fading into view through the waves of heat given off by the scorched desert. a solitary rider on a pale horse, he makes his way down from the mountains, through the graveyard on the edge of town and into the heart of a godforsaken village named lago. the name is appropriate enough, as it a lakeside hamlet, but i have to wonder if it also a nod to the lago d'averno in naples, which dante characterized as the entrance to hell. with all that time spent with sergio leone, it's not outside the realm of possibility that clint picked up a little local color.

it would also be in keeping with the less than subtle symbolism on display throughout the picture. this is a brazen and obvious film on most levels. it's wrathful and has no time for subtlety, very old testament. this version of "the man with no name" wastes no time making his presence felt. he inspires an almost supernatural level of fear and curiosity in the townsfolk and in about as much time as it takes to hitch up his horse, get a drink and sit down in the barber's chair, he has killed three men and raped a woman. it's the treatment of the latter crime that i think is still one of the most misunderstood things eastwood ever committed to film. i see an awful lot written about how the dodgy sexual politics of the rape with the accompanying "she didn't seem to fight it too much" attitude are just in keeping with the less enlightened tenor of the times. i think this is far off the mark. i think that comes from still wanting to view eastwood as a vengeful ghost seeking justice, amoral at worst. well, forget about it. he is trying to make you understand that he is the devil here, as manipulative, disruptive and malevolent as can be. quit trying to make him out to be an antihero based on what you've seen him in before. he's practically daring you to despise him, making you complicit in the debauchery if you don't. look beyond the clint you're comfortable with. see the bigger, uglier picture.

it's the picture that john wayne wasn't ready to accept. the townsfolk want to hire him to protect them from a trio (trinity?) of bad guys that used to wear the mantle of protector he is being offered, until they outstripped their usefulness and were unceremoniously shipped off to a territorial prison. he relents once they make the offer of anything he wants with "no reckoning". now they are speaking his diabolical language. they are craven cowards, so desperate to avoid reaping what they've sown that they will resort to ignoring murder and rape and handing over the run of their town to this mercenary who immediately turns things upside down for nothing more than anarchic glee of it all. he installs the town dwarf as sheriff and mayor and begins "training" them to protect themselves with exercises that are nothing more than charades underlining how foolish and incompetent they are. it's also not enough that they are weak, childish, cowardly and incapable. we also learn, through a set of dream/flashback sequences, that they are also harboring a terrible secret that may have provided the otherworldly impetus for this stranger's arrival in the first place. there is almost no one worthy of redemption here and eastwood is certainly no redeemer. he is here to have what he wants, damn the hindmost. damn the foremost while you're at it. damn the whole thing. just paint everything red, "especially the church", and remove all doubt that hell has come to town.

the day of the inevitable showdown arrives, but just as the final preparations are being made and the townspeople are laying their trap, the stranger simply rides away, leaving them to flounder and fail, some fatally. our "bad guys", also the perpetrators of the crime that has left this black mark on the town's soul, take control of lago, setting fire to half the joint and terrorizing everyone until the ghost of floggings past comes to visit. the stranger exacts his final vengeance on these three, with a curtain of flames erasing whatever lingering doubts you may have had about his more infernal qualities. his work done here, he fades out in the distance exactly the way he faded in, leaving me with an unsettled feeling. there wasn't really a sense of a spirit avenged that can now be at peace. i felt it much more likely that the second he faded from view here he faded in somewhere else, to just start the game all over again, as there is obviously no shortage of the selfish, criminal and morally deficient for this devilish ghost to prey upon. pioneer spirit, indeed.

it's a worthwhile film, if not particularly nuanced, occupying a ghostly terrain somewhere between more traditional western fare and the non-westerns that robert altman and the like were making at the time. i appreciate how bleak and downright nasty it was willing to be. i don't think it gets enough credit for that. watch it again, if you haven't in a while. it may surprise you. and if you've never seen it, i recommend it. you can decide for yourself if the duke was right or not.

good news from row q

this morning's email brought a piece of news that certainly made the day brighter.

the paramount theater officially announced that they are expanding their film offerings this year. now, in addition to the summer classics series, they will be programming all manner of classic and foreign films all year long. they had already been leaning this way with the noir and frankenstein double features last month and this week's shows but it's nice to know that it's not just a diversion to while away the winter (what little we have). it's also nice to know that they aren't just spreading a summer's worth of films over the entire year. the summer schedule is going to be just as full as usual, if not more. they have also started the film at the paramount blog, so check in there for film notes and to keep up with what programmer jesse trussell has in store for us in the coming weeks and months. it promises to be a pretty fun year. i'll see you downtown.

trailer tuesday

this week's entry is for preston sturges' wry comedy sullivan's travels (1941).

you can catch this gem this weekend at the paramount theater on a double bill with bing crosby and bob hope on the road to morocco (1942). see you in row q. take a date!

the view from row q - abbott and costello meet frankenstein

a few days back, my home away from home held quite the monster mash with a screening of frankenstein (1931) and abbott and costello meet frankenstein (1948) and the blasphemous assemblage of not-even-cold-yet bits and abnormal brains wasn't the only thing to be resurrected that evening.

this evening also put a few thousand volts through the memory banks and gave new life to what might be my favorite moviegoing experience, certainly one of the most important. i grew up in a small town in southwest oklahoma. apache, oklahoma, to be exact. the population was probably around 1500 at the time. my high school graduating class had about 52 people in it. when you live in a town that small, with a school that small, you may not have the resources of the average teeming metropolis but you can also get away with things that larger schools can't. my favorite of those things revolved around a simple, old movie projector. up until i was in the fourth grade or so, my elementary school would regularly have a couple of days a year when they would turn the cafeteria into a theater and show the entire school a movie.

hit the bricks, sister! it's movie time!

over the years we saw everything from the heart-rending where the red fern grows (1974) to countless exploits of herbie and everything shaggy that disney could throw at us. one was special, though. one stands out above the rest and has lodged itself so firmly in my brain that i will always be able to see it just like i was six, just like i was sitting in that tiny chair. that was the first one - bud abbott and lou costello in hold that ghost (1941).

this cafeteria and i already had a history, as it was the spot of my greatest triumph to date. my kindergarten graduation took place on the stage in that room and that had been the most momentous day in my life up until that point, and not just because of the sweet suit (powder blue with a rayon shirt covered with tigers, you should see the pictures). something different was happening here, though. we were at ground zero of li'l cole on this day. so much of what i appreciate about, and how i watch, movies can be traced back to this exact day - sitting near the back so i can take in the venue as well as the film, how much i love to just barely be able to hear the sound of the projector, the old dark house conceit, how perfectly funny and innocent everything ever made in the thirties and forties was - it was all there on that perfect spring day in early 1977. and, on 1.22.11, it was all there again, just like i remembered. i hadn't seen abbott and costello on a big screen for over thirty years but it was like nothing had changed from that day. it was just as funny, just as exciting as if i had gotten the day off from school. i might as well have been wearing garanimals. i didn't run all the way to coblake street this time, waving at my grandpa jim on the way as he mowed the lawn, so i could tell my mom all about the great day i just had, but i could have.

this is not actually my grandpa jim. do you know how you can tell? because my grandpa jim wouldn't use a candyass riding mower!

i can't emphasize enough how lucky we are here and how much you austin folks should really take advantage of one of the last true movie palaces left. at the paramount theater you always get a great film out of the deal but sometimes you get a whole lot more. now, what does a guy have to do to get some half pints of milk and graham crackers at the concession stand?

the view from row q - out of the past

my favorite movie palace, the paramount theater, is running a fantastic noir double feature this week. it includes otto preminger's laura (1944) and the film i am here to talk about today, jacques tourneur's out of the past (1947).

if ever there was a case where there was no use in running, boy, have we found it. robert mitchum plays jeff bailey, a former private eye who was always smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut and honest enough to get the wrong people to trust him. he has since left that racket behind for a more bucolic existence running a modest gas station. he has also fallen in love with ann miller, a small town girl and a paragon of virtue if ever there was one. when an old acquaintance blows into town, summoning jeff to a meeting to square some accounts, jeff decides to come clean with ann and on the drive up tells her his story.

it seems a man hired jeff to do a job one time. the job was a dame. the dame took some shots at the man, including one that found the mark, and made off with forty grand. now he wants her brought back. jeff makes some inquiries, catches her scent and follows her south of the border. he catches up with her, that's his bad luck. from that point on his fate is sealed. if only that damned telegraph office had been open...

this film is about as hardboiled and dark as noir got during its golden age. jane greer should be on the mount rushmore of femmes fatale for her combination of ruthless cunning and allure. before we even meet her we are made aware of just how far she is willing to go to have things work out in her favor. the bullet in kirk douglas is a testament to that. whispering whatever it takes in robert mitchum's ear is child's play compared to the trio of homicides she racks up by the end of the film. his falling for it, in spite of her status as a grand larcenist and attempted murderer, is a testament to her other attributes. a woman like that is a force of nature. a woman like that is undeniable.

it's no accident that this first, fateful kiss takes place after leaving the fickle roulette wheel only to end up on the beach surrounded by nets everywhere you look. you spins the wheel, you takes your chances. just take care that you don't end up on the hook, completely ensnared. when jane greer is the house, don't even sit down at the table. i know. that's easy for me to say. even after having seen what happens to every man who crosses her path i don't know that i could guarantee i would make the smart play. if you can confound the two mightiest chins in post-war hollywood what chance does a regular joe have?

the dialogue is noir to the core as well.

"she can't be all bad. no one is."
"well, she comes the closest."

"oh jeff, you ought to have killed me for what i did a moment ago."
"there's time."

ice cold and whip-smart. the characters may be hurtling around, playing infinite angles, hoping to be the one left standing but their words give them away. there is an inevitably here, leering, monolithic. that sound you hear? that's the steady step of the inescapable past. and, for all their machinations, the fatalistic language the characters use gives them away. in their hearts, they are resigned to it. none of them can move fast enough or talk loud enough to drown out that thing stumbling persistently behind and they damn well know it. the past is patient. and, while you might sleep, albeit fitfully, the past never rests.

the noir pedigree is already solid with all of this in place but tourneur and cinematographer nicholas musuraca pile on the style as well. the mood and tension that tourneur was so adept at layering throughout the psychological thrillers he made with val lewton translates well to the dark alleys and morally ambiguous characters that populate the noir cityscape. look at these beautiful shots.

these folks knew their way around light and shadow. they knew their way around our dark collective heart. you have one more chance on sunday, 1.16.11, to come down to the paramount and see for yourself. it's a matinée, show starts at 2 p.m. laura begins at 4 p.m. and, in keeping with the duplicity to be found on the screen, you get admission to both shows for the price of one ticket. i highly recommend that you do.