Disaster in the making!

Saturday nights were often the most enjoyable times to work at our video store. To deal with the hustle of customers stocking up on films for the weekend, we would usually run some of our favorite films on the tv sets throughout the store. One of our all-time favorites was the 1972 disaster classic, The Poseidon Adventure. What a cast! Ernest Borgnine, Gene Hackman, Red Buttons, Stella Stevens, Jack Albertson, Carol Lynley and of course, Shelley Winters. Based on the novel by Paul Gallico and written for the screen by Stirling Silliphant, The Poseidon Adventure was the top grossing film at the box office in 1972. Audiences flocked to see the all-star cast struggle and argue with each other as they made their way through the capsized ocean liner. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards including a best supporting Oscar nod for Winters. She lost the award to Eileen Heckart (Butterflies are Free), but over thirty years later it is Winters' performance as an overweight Jewish grandmother, that is so fondly remembered. With the success of films like Titanic, and the advent of CGI digital effects it is no wonder that Hollywood decided to crank out another big screen adaptation of Poseidon. In fact two re-makes were made in the last two years, a TV remake starring Steve Guttenberg, and now the Warner Brothers film starring Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas and Richard Dreyfuss. The tv version was almost unbearable to watch, a ripped-from-the-headlines plot capitalizing on post 9/11 terrorism fears, had terrorist bombs responsible for capsizing the ill-fated cruise ship. The big-screen remake fares little better, the digital effects make for a dazzling 4 minute capsizing sequence, but the additional 90 minutes of unmotivated and uninteresting dialogue make the short running-time seem like an eternity. Dreyfuss gives it his best trying to fill his role of a grieving elderly gay man with a few moments of thoughtful insight, but the script fails him as well as the rest of the cast. So many questions linger throughout the film over many of the characters motivations and backgrounds, that it is hard even by the end of the film to remember many of the characters names. It is hard not to compare the re-makes to the original, but when the original is so memorable for it's broadly drawn characters, and often camp-filled dialogue, it is hard not too. One of the reasons the original film works so well, is that by the time the ship turns over the characters are all so broadly drawn and their relationships to each other so well known to the audience, that you can't help but be taken in regardless of the absurdity of the plot. What seems missing from the new film is that conflict of wills that was so prevalent in the original. Borgnine vs. Hackman was the fight you witnessed throughout the struggle to make it out alive, a struggle that is missing in the 2006 version. And despite the big budget and digital effects on hand in the new film, the interiors of the original films ship are much more realistic and convincing. Often in the new Poseidon, sets don't appear to be much different upside down from when they appeared right side up! Re-makes like Poseidon seem to be following a trend in movie making these days. A trend that seeks only to fill seats in movie theaters. Bigger is better in Hollywood. The updated computer wizardry is utilized to re-make the beloved films of the past bigger and better for today's young audiences. Although Wolfgang Petersen is a skilled director and handles most of the action sequence well-enough in the new version, he could have taken a page from Peter Jackson's playbook. When Jackson updated the legendary 1933 classic King Kong much reverence was paid to the original, and great care was taken in presenting its cast along side a mammoth CGI character. In Petersens' case the mammoth ocean liner sank his characters too fast, for what remains for them to discover is just plain dull. While watching this most recent update, somewhere in the back of my head I swear I could hear the faint cries of Shelly Winters yelling soulfully throughout the new ship...."Manny, Manny I'm stuck on this boat!"

Humphrey Bogart meets the Bowery Boys!

One of my favorite movies that I discovered on vhs while working at the video store was Dead End. Made in 1937 and starring Humphrey Bogart, the movie was adapted from the Broadway play which starred and introduced the world to the Dead End Kids. Later to become known as The Bowery Boys in a successful series of films in the 1940s and '50s, Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey, Billy Halop, and Gabriel Dell all got their start with this original more serious urban drama. Bogart who was on loan from Warner Brothers to Sam Goldwyn turns in one of his best performances of his early film career. As 'Baby Face' Martin, Bogart plays a gangster on the run returning to his childhood home on the banks of the east river in NYC. While there he hopes to see his forgotten mother (Marjorie Main) and old girlfriend played by Claire Trevor. Trevor won an Oscar nomination for her brief performance, but it is Main who steals the movie with a startlingly tragic cameo, one that will surprise any fan who grew up thinking of her as only Ma' Kettle. The film also stars Joel McCrea, one of the most underrated film stars of all time. McCrae plays a a struggling architect who like Bogart's character grew up on the mean streets of the old neighborhood, but he chose the righteous path instead of a career in crime. The film was directed by William Wyler, the most nominated film director of all time with 12 Best Director nods. Wyler takes a stagy screenplay and adapts it nicely to fill his movie screen. Often working with female stars like Bette Davis, Wyler projects strong independent women in his films, as is the case with Sylvia Sydney in Dead End. Sydney plays a working single woman trying to keep her younger brother, Halop out of trouble in the streets. For 1937, none of the female characters come off as simple or vampy as in other gangster pictures of the time. Greg Toland, who shot Citizen Kane pulls off another visual feast for the eyes with his black & white photography of Art Director Richard Day's convincing recreation of east side New York. Legendary composer Alfred Newman underscores memorable opening and closing title sequences, but his music is scarce throughout the rest of the fim. Available now on DVD,

Dead End [DVD](1937) DVD
Landmark drama of life in the crime-ridden slums of Depression-era New York stars Humphrey Bogart as a hoodlum who returns to his old neighborhood and is idolized by the local youths (the Dead End Kids, in their film debut). William Wyler's classic crime tale, scripted by Lillian Hellman, also stars Joel McCrea, Sylvia Sidney, Wendy Barrie. 92 min. Standard; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital mono, Spanish Dolby Digital mono; Subtitles: English, Spanish, French.

Late Charges

Over the past few years much has been made about the practice of charging late charges for overdue video rentals. This is mostly due to several law suits filed against the Blockbuster rental chain. I have to admit, I have very little sympathy for those who complain that late fees are unfair. In the eighteen years that I worked in the video rental business, most of the customers who complained about late fees were often habitual offenders. It seemed they were more upset about having been caught returning late videos, than the actual cost of a few dollars extra. My favorite charge by repeat offenders was to infer that I or one of my colleagues were calling them a liar. Often they would claim to not have rented a title on a date the computer or receipt stated, and so we the clerks had the audacity to accuse the customer of lying! Well, yah' you are lying! You got caught returning a tape late, and now you refuse to admit that you were wrong. And that's the real problem isn't it! While your SUV is illegally parked in the fire lane in the front of the store, you're arguing a lousy $2.00 late charge because you're used to getting everything your way. And no, I don't believe you had a death in the family, because you've used that excuse three time before. And don't blame your kid, he didn't rent the three porn tapes, you did. Have you no shame? Does it mean that much to you that you would use your own kids as a ploy to get out of paying for your crime? Wow, that felt good. Now, if I only had said that to the hundreds of liars who never returned their films on time.