FILM FRENZY

Daniel Auteuil and Yves Montand in Jean de Florette (Photo: Criterion)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

CAPTAIN PLANET: THE COMPLETE FRANCHISE (1990-1996). Had the monstrous MAGA movement existed in the 1990s, it’s guaranteed that its groupies would have lambasted the back-to-back series Captain Planet and the Planeteers (from Ted Turner and TBS, 1990-1992) and The New Adventures of Captain Planet (from Hanna-Barbera, 1993-1996) for being too “woke.” After all, here were some conscientious kids (most of them foreigners!) doing their best to make everyone aware of the fragility of Mother Earth and working to keep pollution and other planetary hazards at bay. That’s not to say there wasn’t some conservative criticism of the show, but it was mostly drowned out by the progressive positivity. What no one on either side of the great divide can dispute, though, is that both programs’ execution was often lacking. The story posits that Gaia (voiced by Whoopi Goldberg in early seasons, Margot Kidder in later ones), the personification of Earth, has awakened after an eons-long nap only to discover that we meddling humans have all but destroyed the planet. She therefore chooses five teenagers from around the globe to use the specific powers she grants them (representing earth, wind, fire, water, and heart) to combat environmental evildoers — if the task proves too difficult, they can pool their powers and call upon Captain Planet (David Coburn) to serve as their own eco-conscious Superman. The animation is generally uninspired and the storylines variations on a theme, but the series admirably tackles all sorts of issues beyond pollution (AIDS, homelessness, etc.), and those portraying villains vocally include Martin Sheen, Ed Asner, Meg Ryan, Malcolm McDowell, James Coburn, and Jeff Goldblum.

The Blu-ray box set contains all 113 episodes from both series; there are no extras.

Series: ★★½

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES (1991). Among all the John Hughes joints, this is one of the worst. Written by Hughes but directed by Bryan Gordon, this is yet another of the filmmaker’s male-fantasy-wish-fulfillment films in which a beautiful girl falls in love with the biggest dork around. Riiiiight. Frank Whaley is absolutely insufferable as Jim Dodge, a loser-of-all-trades who’s hired to work as the cleanup boy at the local Target. It’s during his first night on the job that he bonds with unhappy rich girl Josie McClellan (Jennifer Connelly), who happens to be camped out in the store, and fights off two bumbling criminals (real-life brothers Dermot and Kieran Mulroney). The fact that Hughes tried (and failed) to have his name removed from this movie tells you pretty much everything you need to know. Only a funny, uncredited turn by John Candy and Connelly’s ethereal beauty save this from a one-star rating.

Extras in the 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition consist of audio commentary by Gordon; audio commentary by Chicago Critics Film Festival producer Erik Childress; an interview with Dermot and Kieran Mulroney; a discussion with director of photography Donald McAlpine; the theatrical trailer; and trailers for other movies offered on the Kino label.

Movie: ★½

CRUISING (1980). There was no shortage of controversy dogging the cinema of 1980, thanks to such efforts as Dressed to Kill, Maniac, Windows, and I Spit on Your Grave. Also wading into the fray was William Friedkin’s Cruising, which found its production repeatedly disrupted by gay activists who objected to its storyline. Al Pacino (clearly too old for the role) stars as Steve Burns, a young cop who’s assigned by his superior (Paul Sorvino) to find out who’s been killing homosexuals who frequent NYC’s underground S&M scene. To do so, Burns must leave behind his girlfriend (Karen Allen, a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark), move into an apartment under an alias, and pretend to be gay while prowling seedy nightlife venues. Filmed in actual gay bars and with the participation of those regulars who weren’t offended by the treatment, Cruising certainly captures a specific milieu — think Village People with less songs and more masochism. But it’s an absolute bust as a murder-mystery, as a character study (the film is remarkably coy about exactly what Burns will and will not do on the job), and as an in-depth look at an alternative culture. The offensive nature only really rears its head at the end, when an ambiguous — and ludicrous — twist suggests that gays make both the best killers and the best victims. Joe Spinell, writer-star of the aforementioned Maniac, appears as a closeted cop while Powers Boothe, about to break out thanks to the TV movie Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones, appears briefly as a store clerk who explains to Burns the color-coded meanings of various hankies in the pocket.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include two audio commentaries by Friedkin; a pair of behind-the-scenes retrospective pieces, one focusing on the production and the other examining the controversy; an interview with Allen; and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★½

THE GOOD GERMAN (2006) / THE INFORMANT! (2009). Two from director Steven Soderbergh, with the Good one not so good and the other one the better bet.

The 1940s is my favorite decade for cinema and film noir is my favorite genre (tied with classic horror), so how could I not get excited about The Good German, a movie that promised to replicate those classics from Hollywood’s Golden Age, black-and-white gems that often found someone like Humphrey Bogart delivering snappy patter while filmed against smoke-choked studio backlots dolled up to look like a gangster’s hideout or a WWII-era nightclub? But this big-budget equivalent of a grad school thesis project is so intent on everything looking right that it frequently forgets to add either heart or soul. Here, there’s not much beyond self-conscious mise-en-scènes and a lead actor who isn’t mysterious or magnetic as much as he’s simply aloof. George Clooney plays the central sap, a military journalist who returns to postwar Berlin and discovers that his thuggish driver (Tobey Maguire) has been dating his former flame (Cate Blanchett). After the chauffeur ends up murdered, our newshound takes it upon himself to crack the case and, in the process, try to reconnect with his German ex-lover. Clooney basically sleepwalks through the picture, while Maguire is too boyish to convey the proper degree of menace. In this weak company, Blanchett easily steals the film as the femme fatale who may or may not be as wicked as others assume; she won’t make movie buffs forget Ingrid Bergman or Marlene Dietrich, but both she and composer Thomas Newman (deservedly earning an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score) are about as good as German gets.

No stranger to coloring outside the margins, Soderbergh displays a quirky brand of lunacy in The Informant!, in which Matt Damon goes all pudgy as Mark Whitacre, a midlevel executive at a major conglomeration. Whitacre seems like a pleasant enough fellow, so when he approaches a pair of FBI agents (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale) volunteering to uncover a price-fixing racket at the company, they believe he might be honest when he claims he’s turning whistleblower because it’s the right thing to do. But with Whitacre, there’s far more than meets the eye, as he has a way of embellishing some stories and leaving crucial facts out of others. In Whitacre’s mind, he’s the hero of this particular saga, but to everyone else, he’s merely a lying nutjob. In adapting Kurt Eichenwald’s book The Informant (A True Story), Soderbergh  and Scott Z. Burns find a consistent tone that allows the film to function as a loopy satire. And even within the constraints of what often feels like a coldly calculating game plan, there’s some genuine poignancy on tap, made palatable by a sterling performance from Damon that allows Whitacre to come off as clueless and immature rather than simply Machiavellian. This interpretation in turn fuels the comedic quotient, much of which comes from the thoughts racing through Whitacre’s mind. The film is heavy with Damon’s voiceovers, as we’re privy to his character’s inner thoughts — most of which are non sequiturs that illustrate how little Whitacre is paying attention to what those around him are saying or doing. Adding to the mirth is a bouncy score by veteran Marvin Hamlisch, which never provides us with the musical cues we might expect.

The only extra on the 4K + Blu-ray edition of The Good German is the theatrical trailer. Extras on the 4K edition of The Informant! consist of audio commentary by Soderbergh and Burns; deleted scenes; and the theatrical trailer.

The Good German: ★★

The Informant!: ★★★

I’M ALL RIGHT JACK (1959) / HEAVENS ABOVE! (1963). Those who only know Peter Sellers through his Hollywood pictures like Dr. Strangelove, Being There, and The Pink Panther series would be well-advised to check out some of the movies he made earlier in his career in his native England. These include 1955’s The Ladykillers (reviewed here), 1960’s Two-Way Stretch (reviewed here), 1961’s Mr. Topaze (reviewed here), and the pair showcased here.

A sequel to 1956’s Private’s Progress (not available on Blu-ray stateside), I’m All Right Jack finds Ian Carmichael, Terry-Thomas, Dennis Price, Richard Attenborough, and Miles Malleson all reprising their roles from that WWII comedy. Yet it’s story newcomer Sellers who earned this film’s best reviews as well as a BAFTA award (aka the British Oscars) for Best Actor. Carmichael again plays Stanley Windrush, an upper-crust sort who wants to make a living as a business executive. His uncle Bertram Tracepurcel (Price) and former army buddy Sidney DeVere Cox (Attenborough) instead get him a job as a common laborer, counting on his sheer incompetence to cause a strike that will serve their capitalist interests. Also involved in the shenanigans are personnel head Major Hitchcock (Terry-Thomas) and union leader, shop steward, and proud Communist Fred Kite (Sellers). Satirical stones are hurled in all directions, with targets including the laziness of workers, the corruptibility of bosses, and the maladroitness of practically everyone.

Heavens Above! is equally acrimonious (maybe more so?) in its view of people as evil, ineffectual or both. Sellers stars as John Smallwood, a prison chaplain who is accidentally transferred to Orbiston Parva, a prosperous town in which the locals claim to be Christians but care little about church, prayers or providing for the needy (hence, no different from our Religious Right). Smallwood arrives armed with his sincere beliefs, and the wealthier citizens are outraged at his progressive ideas, stuff like hiring a black man (To Kill a Mockingbird’s Brock Peters) to fill an important church post or offering shelter to a poor family with countless kids. After Smallwood manages to hand out free food to everyone — even the town’s well-to-do citizens —  he becomes quite popular, but once the food runs out, the people reveal their true nature. Heavens Above! attacks the hypocrisy of conservative Christian posers, but it doesn’t exactly go easy on true believers. While the film initially positions Smallwood as a saint and a savior, it soon reveals that his acts of charity are inadvertently destroying the town and that no one is really being saved — even the poor people he helps end up stealing from him. I’m All Right Jack lead Ian Carmichael appears here as a cleric also named John Smallwood, this one more in line with approved church doctrine due to his close-minded views.

Both Blu-ray releases offer film historian audio commentary; I’m All Right Jack also includes an interview with co-star Liz Fraser (who plays Fred Kite’s flirty daughter) and the theatrical trailer.

I’m All Right Jack: ★★★

Heavens Above!: ★★★

JAWS (1975). Watching this masterpiece for the umpteenth time, it’s easy to see why it struck (and continues to strike) such an emotional response: In much the same manner as those “giant insect” sci-fi yarns from the 1950s, it offers a frightening picture of nature gone wild, specifically the deadly “what if” ramifications of a world in which another species manages to get the upper hand on us hapless humans. It also taps into that primal fear of being afraid of the dark — in this case, the dark being represented by a churning mass of murky liquid in which it’s impossible to see the (very real) boogeyman until it’s too late. It’s expected for filmmakers to mature over the course of a lengthy career, but I’d be hard-pressed to name many subsequent Steven Spielberg flicks that blow this one away in terms of its expert direction. Spielberg was working with thin material — Peter Benchley’s source novel is pretty lousy — and the potential for disaster was enormous (more so since the mechanical shark didn’t work most of the time). But the director, drawing from a screenplay by Benchley and Carl Gottlieb that vastly improved upon the book, fashioned an instant classic whose success owes as much to his superb orchestration as to the substantial jolts and the knockout performances by Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss. An Academy Award nominee for Best Picture, this earned Oscars for Best Original Score (one of John Williams’ greatest), Best Film Editing, and Best Sound. It was also the all-time box office champ for two years, until Star Wars came along and usurped the throne. This formidable film was followed by 1978’s watchable Jaws 2 (★★½), 1983’s laughable Jaws 3-D (★½), and 1987’s abominable Jaws: The Revenge (★).

Extras on the latest Blu-ray edition include two documentaries; deleted scenes; and a piece on the marketing of the movie.

Movie: ★★★★

JEAN DE FLORETTE (1986) / MANON OF THE SPRING (1986). It’s a shame that the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (aka BAFTA) has in recent decades become content slavishly patterning itself after the Oscars as well as positioning itself as a predictor of how the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will vote. That’s because, in the previous century, the organization saw fit to forge its own path. Witness, for instance, the 1987 BAFTAs, when the French gem Jean de Florette scored a whopping 10 nominations and four awards, including the prize for Best Picture. With our own Oscars, Jean de Florette‘s nomination tally was … zero, and it wasn’t until 2019’s Parasite that the xenophobic Academy handed a foreign-language release the Best Picture Oscar. At any rate, Jean’s BAFTA victory was a fitting one, given that the movie was an international sensation and, even here in the U.S., a potent art-house hit.

Working from Marcel Pagnol’s source material, writer-director Claude Berri (scripting with Gérald Brach) ambitiously crafted a two-film, four-hour saga, with the first half of the tale related in Jean de Florette and the second in the follow-up movie, Manon of the Spring. Jean de Florette is the more powerful picture, delineating how the greedy Cesar Soubeyran (Yves Montand) and his dim-witted nephew Ugolin (Daniel Auteuil) conspire to steal water-rich property away from the hunchbacked Jean Cadoret (Gérard Depardieu), a former city dweller who has moved to the country with his wife Aimée (Élisabeth Depardieu, Gérard’s then-wife) and their small daughter Manon (Ernestine Mazurowna). Visually resplendent and magnificently acted (particularly by Auteuil), Jean de Florette has all the trimmings of a great Greek tragedy. Manon of the Spring loses much of that intensity, as Jean’s now-grown daughter plots her revenge on the two men who irreparably destroyed her family. As Manon, Emmanuelle Béart is stunning in her breakthrough role, but her character is a bit more passive than desired, and the cathartic release isn’t as great as expected. Still, as a bookend set, these two pictures shouldn’t be missed.

Extras in Criterion’s 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition consist of 2017’s making-of piece The Force of Destiny; the 2018 documentary Claude Berri: The Card Dealer; and theatrical trailers. A booklet is also included.

Jean de Florette: ★★★½

Manon of the Spring: ★★★

SANDS OF IWO JIMA (1949) / DONOVAN’S REEF (1963). Here are two John Wayne vehicles, both significant for different reasons. Sands of Iwo Jima earned the actor his first Academy Award nomination, while Donovan’s Reef marked the 14th and final time he worked with director John Ford.

In 1949, two of the top box office hits were centered around key World War II skirmishes. Battleground (#2 for the year) found its soldiers taking part in the Battle of the Bulge, while Sands of Iwo Jima (#4) placed its Marines in the Battle of Iwo Jima. Wayne headlines the second picture as Sergeant John Stryker, who’s disliked by most of the men serving under him because he shows no mercy while training them to become top-notch soldiers. Of course, the reason he’s so tough is to give them better odds when they finally confront the enemy, a fact they slowly come to realize. The film’s major weakness is that it spends too much time on Private First Class Peter Conway (John Agar), whose hatred of Stryker is so intense it almost borders on the comical. Otherwise, this is compelling stuff, distinguished by some of the best battle sequences ever placed on film (enhanced by the insertion of actual combat footage). It all culminates with the historic raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi — three of the surviving soldiers involved with that event, John Bradley, Rene Gagnon, and Ira Hayes (the latter further immortalized in the excellent song “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” a huge hit for Johnny Cash), appear as themselves in this sequence. Sands of Iwo Jima earned four Academy Award nominations, including Best Motion Picture Story (Harry Brown) and Best Actor. It was Wayne’s first Oscar nomination; his second and final bid as a performer would come 20 years later, with The Duke this time winning the Best Actor statue for 1969’s True Grit. (For the record, he also received a nomination as producer of the 1960 Best Picture nominee The Alamo.)

The John Wayne-John Ford partnership began in 1939 with the Western classic Stagecoach, ran through such masterworks as The Quiet Man, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and ended in 1963 with Donovan’s Reef. Certainly no classic, Donovan’s Reef is entertaining enough, a knockabout comedy with Navy vets “Guns” Donovan (Wayne), “Boats” Gilhooley (Lee Marvin), and “Doc” Dedham (Jack Warden) all enjoying the good life on a South Pacific island. When Dedham’s estranged daughter Amelia (Elizabeth Allen) turns up unexpectedly, it disrupts the lives of all involved, including the three children that Dedham sired with a local (and now deceased) princess. Marvin’s character has little to do except get drunk and get into fights, and Cesar Romero’s Marquis Andre de Lage doesn’t prove to be much of a foil. But it’s fun watching Donovan and Amelia verbally spar (although Wayne was uncomfortable with their vast age difference and would thereafter only be paired with age-appropriate actresses like Katharine Hepburn, Maureen O’Hara, and Rita Hayworth), and there’s an appealing performance by Jacqueline Malouf as the oldest of Dedham’s three island kids.

Extras on the 4K + Blu-ray edition of Sands of Iwo Jima include audio commentary by film historian Steve Mitchell and author Steven Jay Rubin (Combat Films: American Realism); a 1993 making-of program hosted by film critic Leonard Maltin; and the theatrical trailer. Extras on the 4K + Blu-ray edition of Donovan’s Reef include audio commentary by author Dwayne Epstein (Lee Marvin: Point Blank); Ford’s 1957 short film The Growler Story; and the theatrical trailer.

Sands of Iwo Jima: ★★★½

Donovan’s Reef: ★★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

CHILD’S PLAY (1988). Most of the earlier demonic-doll projects had tended to focus on ventriloquists’ dummies (Dead of Night, Magic, episodes of The Twilight Zone), but with Child’s Play, writer Don Mancini opted to up the unease by making the tiny terror a children’s toy. Brad Dourif is initially seen and then only heard as Charles Lee Ray, a mass murderer who, finally cornered by diligent detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon), manages to transport his soul (via voodoo incantation) into the frame of a Good Guy doll. The widowed, overworked, and underpaid Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks) manages to buy this particular Good Guy for her son Andy (Alex Vincent), and only the small boy knows that his new Chucky doll actually harbors the spirit of a psychotic killer bent on revenge. Mancini, writer-director Tom Holland, and co-scripter John Lafia deliver the goods with a fast-paced horror flick that also benefits from fine performances (Hicks later found sustained success on TV’s long-running 7th Heaven, but she really deserved a more vibrant film career) and excellent visual effects (with a special shout-out to Kevin Yagher for designing the Chucky doll). A modest box office hit, Child’s Play was followed by a number of sequels, a television series, and a lame-o remake in 2019 (reviewed here).

Movie: ★★★

DR. STRANGELOVE, OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964). From the culture of violence depicted in A Clockwork Orange to the sexual politics examined in Lolita and Eyes Wide Shut to the arrogance and irresponsibility of wartime chicken hawks in Paths of Glory, many of Stanley Kubrick’s films have never lost their topicality. The same applies to this brilliant black comedy: Even the ending of the Cold War couldn’t dilute this uncompromising satire’s immediacy, not so long as men continue to think with their missiles instead of their minds. Peter Sellers delivers three superb performances for the price of one, playing the harried US President who’s confronted by a nuclear holocaust, a British officer who almost always manages to keep that upper lip stiff, and the Nazi madman of the title. George C. Scott also scores as a military man whose idea of an acceptable civilian casualty rate is “no more than 10 or 20 million killed, tops … depending on the breaks.” That’s a great line, although my favorite — in fact, perhaps my all-time favorite line from any movie — is when Sellers’ U.S. Prez barks, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!” This earned four major Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Director, Actor (Sellers), and Adapted Screenplay (Kubrick, Peter George, and Terry Southern).

Movie: ★★★★

MIMIC (1997) / MIMIC 2 (2001) / MIMIC 3: SENTINEL (2003). An early effort from The Shape of Water Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro, Mimic finds Mira Sorvino (not long after her Mighty Aphrodite Oscar win) cast as a scientist who creates a new strain of insect to help combat a deadly disease that’s being spread by cockroaches across New York City. The ploy initially works, but three years down the line, she’s shocked to learn that the new breed has rushed through countless generations of development and now lives in the bowels of the New York subway system. Working from a short story by Donald A. Wollheim, scripters del Toro and Matthew Robbins — and, based on the advance material at the time, Steven Soderbergh and John Sayles in uncredited assists — manage to cleverly incorporate elements from mad-scientist movies, giant-insect flicks, and traditional monster-on-the-loose tales, and the mere thought of roach-like critters the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger will unnerve anyone with even a hint of a bug phobia. The fact that these creatures have the ability to “mimic” their prey (i.e. look superficially human) only adds to the discomfort, and viewers will be forgiven for wanting to rush next door and douse their neighbors with RAID.

With a budget of $25 million and a gross of $25 million, Mimic only broke even at the U.S. box office, which wasn’t enough to warrant a theatrical sequel but apparently was deemed worthy of home-video follow-ups. And so we get Mimic 2 (2001) and Mimic 3: Sentinel (2003), neither of which were worth the effort. Mimic 2 is a more straightforward sequel, with Alix Koromzay again playing Remi Panos. A minor character in the first film, Remi’s the heroine here: An entomologist working as an inner-city school teacher, she’s shocked to discover the bug men are back and valiantly protects a pair of students against them. Koromzay proves to be annoying as the lead, but the film does have a fairly nice twist at the end. Not so Mimic 3: Sentinel, which is basically Rear Window with killer cockroaches instead of Raymond Burr. The poor James Stewart substitute here is Karl Geary, whose allergies confine him to the dingy apartment he shares with his mom (Amanda Plummer) and sister (Alexis Dziena). He enjoys taking intrusive photos of his neighbors, at least until he spots some mysterious characters hanging around and begins to fear for the safety of his sister and the cute lady (Rebecca Mader) across the complex courtyard. The film (shot in Budapest, despite its NYC setting) is illogical and sloppily constructed, and not even a villainous role for Lance Henriksen can elevate it.

Mimic: ★★★

Mimic 2: ★½

Mimic 3: Sentinel: ★

A SCANDAL IN PARIS (1946) / LURED (1947). Director Douglas Sirk has become so defined by his 1950s output, soaring melodramas like Magnificent Obsession and All That Heaven Allows, that any of his movies that don’t fall into that window are often overlooked. Here are two such efforts.

Loosely based on the memoirs of François Eugene Vidocq, a criminal who later repented and became a police chief, A Scandal in Paris finds George Sanders lending his usual mix of suavity and sarcasm to the central role. Providing his own narration over the proceedings, Vidocq gets involved with two dissimilar women (vampish Carole Landis and virginal Signe Hasso) even as he and his right-hand man Emile (Akim Tamiroff) plot to steal a fortune from a trusting marquise (Alma Kruger). Rarely convincing but full of clever scenarios and cutting quips (“Emile was that grimmest of characters, an early-morning optimist”), A Scandal in Paris goes heavy on the comedy, light on the drama, and all-out on the entertainment.

The identities of the killers in many new murder-mysteries are so predictable that they can end up hurting the overall pictures. Not so with Lured, which offers a villain who can be fingered almost from his very first appearance and yet compensates for this obviousness by hitting on all other cylinders. Sanders appears in this one as well, although the largest role belongs to Lucille Ball — she plays Sandra Carpenter, an American dancer in London who’s picked by Scotland Yard (represented by Charles Coburn) to help track down a serial killer who’s been nabbing pretty young women. The suspects are many, including a womanizing producer (Sanders) and an eccentric fashion designer (Boris Karloff). The plot is wonderfully knotty, Ball is appropriately spunky, and there’s a scene-stealing turn by horror heavy George Zucco, atypically cast as a crossword-loving cop assigned to protect Sandra.

A Scandal in Paris: ★★★

Lured: ★★★½

SILK STOCKINGS (1957). The 1939 classic Ninotchka (with the famous tagline, “Garbo Laughs!”) led to a Broadway musical adaptation 16 years later; that stage hit was in turn followed by this musical screen version a couple of years after that. The picture effectively marked Fred Astaire’s retirement from dancing — it was his last significant on-screen hoofing, and he’s as sublime as ever. Yet it’s co-star Cyd Charisse (often rumored to have been Astaire’s favorite dance partner) who dominates the picture, effectively essaying the Greta Garbo role of a frosty Russian emissary who’s sent to Paris to retrieve three wayward comrades (Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin, and Joseph Buloff), only to find her Communist principles melting under the capitalist gaze of an American movie producer (Astaire). Charisse is captivating in one of her best roles, and there’s an amusing supporting turn by Janis Paige as a ditzy actress (basically a reworking of Jean Hagen’s Lina Lamont from Singin’ in the Rain). The Cole Porter score features approximately a dozen tunes, including the wildly entertaining “Stereophonic Sound,” a clever salute to the new technical wonders of cinema in the 1950s, and “The Ritz Roll and Rock,” a gentle dig at the burgeoning rock n’ roll scene.

Movie: ★★★