'The Maltese Falcon' is a mystery classic

The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Gladys George, and Elisha Cook Jr.
Director: John Huston
Rating: Ten of Ten Starts

When private detective Sam Spade (Bogart) tries to solve the mystery surrounding the murder of his partner, he finds himself drawn into a struggle between eccentric treasure hunters (Greenstreet and Lorre) and a beautiful con artist who may or may not also be a coldhearted killer (Astor). At stake is the Maltese Falcon, a treasure of almost unimaginable value.

"The Maltese Falcon" is one of the few movies that truly deserves the label "classic." It's a perfectly paced detective story, with just the right mix of suspense and humor to bring out the maximum effectiveness of both elements as they play off each other.

The characters are quirky and unpredictable to the point where the final outcome of the story remains in question until the final few minutes of the film, and each actor is perfectly cast in their role. Even better, every line of dialogue is perfectly crafted and delivered with spot-on timing.

In fact, everything in this film is about as perfect as a film could possibly be. If you're a fan of the hardboiled detective genre or mysteries in general and you haven't yet seen this masterpiece, you owe it to yourself to change that.

Humphrey Bogart as the deeply flawed hero Sam Spade is particularly excellent in the part, as a man with questionable moral values yet a firm personal code of honor who finds a woman (Mary Astor's Brigid O'Shaughnessy) who at first seems capable of bringing out the best in him, but who ultimately may end up bringing out the absolute worst in him. While Spade is constantly fighting verbally and physically with the Lorre, Cook and Greenstreet's villains, it is Brigid who is Spade's main foil and she turns out to be one of the screen's greatest femme fatales, because Astor brings a vulnerability to a character who may be the hardest of any of the hard cases that populate this story that goes a long way to keeping the mysteries swirling through the plot open questions until the very end. As amusing and dramatic as Lorre and Greenstreet's performances are, it is Astor who is the true driver of the story, providing a great portrayal of a character that is almost as important as Bogart's Sam Spade when it comes to the success of this film.

There are only a handful of movies that I've watched more than once. "The Maltese Falcon" is one of those. Check it out, and I'm sure you'll see why.






Trivia: "The Maltese Falcon" was the third adaptation of the Hammett novel by the same title. This goes to show that not all remakes are bad. Some are even improvements on the original film. (Although, by all accounts, the 1931 and 1936 versions are pretty good, too, with the 19365 version being a spoof. I haven't seen either of those older movies yet, but both other versions are included in the DVD edition I've linked to above while the Blue-Ray edition only includes the 1936 comedy version, "Satan Met a Lady".)

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Attack of the Astro-Zombies!

Astro-Zombies are murderous, science-created monsters that have been featured in three (so far) movies from B-movie auteur Ted V. Mikels. You can click here to read about the production of 2002 film "Mark of the Astro-Zombies", and here to read my reviews of both "Astro-Zombies" and "Mark of the Astro-Zombies".

Here's the best Astro-Zombie art from a gallery that is located at www.tedvmikels.com. Dating from around 2003, the illustrations are by some of the best comic book artists working then and now. You can click on the individual illos to see larger versions, and if the artist has a website with more of his work, click on his name to visit it.

No matter what you might think of Mikels' movies, these are great drawings.

By "Buzz"

By Adam Hughes

By Frank Brunner

By Mike Hoffman

By Jerry Bingham

By Sal Velluto

By Mike Grell

By Norm Breyfogle

By Mike Deodato Jr.

By Kevin Conrad

By Tom Nguyen

Mohammed Monday: The Joy of the Prophet Muhammad Painting

Originally presented as part of the world-wide Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, this cartoon first appeared at www.friendlyatheist.com. It's a spoof of the famous Bob Ross "Joy of Painting" instructional television show and books. (And if more Muslims decided to exchange painting for their current hobbies of mayhem and murder, the world would be far, far better place.)

'Nova' is mediocre 1970s sci-fi/superhero comics

Essential Nova (Marvel Comics, 2006)

Writers: Marv Wolfman and Len Wein
Artists: John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Carmine Infantino, Frank Giacoia, Tom Palmer, et.al.
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Some comic book series start start out strong and die whimpering. The majority start in mediocrity and end in mediocrity, and that is the case with the series "A Man Called Nova", which is presented in its entirely, along with Nova's guest appearances in "Amazing Spider-Man" and "Marvel Two-in-One", in this entry in Marvel's massive, low-cost reprint book series "Essential Marvel."

Created and written by Marv Wolfman, "A Man Called Nova" centers of Richard Rider, a perfectly average high-schooler who is chosen by a dying alien soldier to be the inheritor of his mantle and his powers. Rider's first excursion as a superhero pits him against the destroyer of the distant alien world of Xandar, where his benefactor originated, and he later battles against the enigmatic Sphinx, the high-flying Condor, the bizarre Corruptor, the mad Blacklight, and many other colorful foes. Eventually, Rider is drawn into outer space, a war with the Skrull, and a race between the Sphinx and the insane machine-man Dr. Sun to control the living computers of far away Xandar.

For most of 500+ pages of comics that are presented in the book, Richard Rider/Nova place a distant, boring second to the villains he faces. Rider is simply TOO average to be interesting, and the same is true of his super-hero identity: He can fly really fast, he's super-strong, he can take a punch like nobody else... and his helmet folds like cloth when he takes it off. And that about sums it up.

The villains he fights would almost all make better stars of a comic book than he does with the Condor--a would-be kingpin of crime whose main shtick is super-science--and the Sphinx--who is questing for the secrets of the universe so he might end his immortal existence--making Nova look particularly boring when they squared off against him.

It isn't until the series is about to be cancelled that it started getting interesting, and even mildly at that. Although, like so many superhero titles, "The Man Called Nova" flirted with science fiction, the last 1/8th of the book starts moving completely in that direction. A few of the earlier stories in the book--and the best ones, by the way--had drawn heavily on sci-fi, but the majority of them were tepid super-hero stories "the Marvel Way." I suspect that if Wolfman had gone with the sci-fi angle consistently from the outset, and moved more quickly toward the Sphinx/Xandar/Skrull War storyline (which seems to have been planned from the outset), I think the original series may have been able to find an audience.






Trivia: Nova became the object of a copyright suit filed by Marv Wolfman against Marvel Comics. He wanted the rights back to the character, because he had originally created one that was very similar while a fan. He lost his case. (Let that be a lesson to all you creative out there: If you think you love a character well enough that you want to keep it yours forever, DON'T use it or some close approximation of it to fill obligations you enter into under work-for-hire agreements.)

This is your brain on drugs....

... or something very close to it. This 1931 cartoon is about as trippy as they come!

Picture Perfect Wednesday Giveaway #1:Win "150 Movies to (Die Before You) See"

Identify the movie that still is from and win a copy of my soon-to-be-in-bookstores tongue-in-cheek movie review book "150 Movies To (Die Before You) See." Full of trivia, capsule reviews, and descriptions of films that are either flawed, failed, or F-ed up in some other way, it's sure to be the new favorite bathroom reading in any household!

To win, you have to a) be the first person to correctly identify the movie in the comments section of this post; c) be willing to give me your snail-mail address, so I can get the book sent to you, and d) have a working email address linked to your profile (or that you include in the reply) so I can contact you..

The contest remains open until 11/17, or the movie is identified correctly. Good luck! (If this one goes off, I'll do another give-away.)





(Hint: It's a film directed by Jack Hill.)

'Seventeen Ninja': A film as hidden as the ninja?

Seventeen Ninja (1962)
Starring: Jushiro Konoe, Ryutaro Otomo, and Satomi Kotaro
Director: Yatsuo Hasegawa
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

As the Shogun lays dying, seventeen Iga clan ninja are sent to infiltrate the impenetrable fortress where his youngest son is preparing to storm Edo Castle and name himself Shogun by force of arms. They are to either steal the documents that will eventually give him lawful claim to rulership, or they are to assassinate him. But even before they reach the castle walls, they find their every move countered by a ruthless ninja hunter in the employ of the would-be usurper (Konoe), who not only knows their every tactic but knows the exact make-up of their team thanks to his own spies within Edo Castle. As the Iga Ninja fall one by one, the mission's success or complete failure--where failure will result in a bloody war of succession--comes to hinge on a single young and inexperienced ninja (Kotaro).

Interestingly, although a friend alerted me to the "classic status" of this film--it's thought of very highly of by those well-versed in the ninja genre (a sentiment verified at the site I grabbed the still from, Vintage Ninja)--it's not listed in IMDB. I'm used to films I write about "not existing," but I'm always surprised when I find a classic that's not in their database, even a foreign one like this. Especially when it's deserving of the label "classic" like this film is.

"Seventeen Ninja" was one of the earliest movies to portray ninja in a realistic light. There are no spells, no flying sword-fights, and no magic beans/pellets that allow the ninja to mysteriously disappear in puffs of smoke. There are just guys in black outfits fighting Japanese samurai with big shoulder pads. The ninja in this movie are masters of disguise, infiltration, and covert murder. They are, as they were historically, spies and guerrilla fighters who rely on specialized skills and equipment to get their dirty work done.

The life of a ninja, as portrayed in this film, is one of anonymous servitude, to the ninja clan first and to the lords who hire them second. The life of a ninja is also cheap, and, although every ninja is resigned to the fact that they might be called upon to sacrifice themselves at any moment, the film gains some depth from the fact that the leader of this band of ninja (Ryutaro Otomo) has grown frustrated with seeing his men die, especially while performing missions that he feels uncomfortable with. Like the one that claims his team in this movie. The character takes a couple of surprising actions born from his frustration, actions that are against the stereotype of the hardbitten ninja master and they will keep you guessing as to what the final outcome will be.

Another character that is more complex than is usual is the "anti-ninja expert" portrayed by Jushiro Konoe. He plays a character very much like the bitter ninja slayer from "Ninja Hunt", Wada, except that here he is the villain. Like "Ninja Hunt", however, there is not much in the way of a moral distinction between the "good guys" (the ninja assassins trying to infiltrate the castle) and the "bad guys" (the samurai and their "new retainer" that are trying to stop them). Both sides are killers, and both sides view human beings primarily as disposable assets that are there to be sacrificed on the whim of their "betters." There might have been a bigger gulf between the ninja heroes and their opponents if the viewer didn't feel a growing sympathy for Konoe's character, even as he's causing the deaths of the film's heroes; he is working for people so full of themselves and their self-perceived stature that they time and again disregard the very expert advice they hired him to provide.

Aside from the multi-faceted chief antagonists in the film, "Seventeen Ninja" is blessed with some great cinematography where the black-and-white medium is used to its fullest dramatic potential and the drama is heightened even further by expert framing of shots. It's a movie that's just great to look at.

On the downside, it slants a little too heavily toward melodrama, with just enough speeches being delivered with too much emphasis on each and every word and just too many pregnant pauses to make the film feel draggy during its first half. Things get more exciting when the impossibility of the Iga Ninjas' mission becomes apparent, and more focus is placed on Jushiro Konoe and Ryutaro Otomo's characters, but that first hour requires a little patience.

It's the second-best movie in the "Ninja Collection Vol. 1" set, and combined with the aforementioned "Ninja Hunt" is what makes the set worth buying, especially if you're a fan of Japanese movies.

The deadliest of blogathons....

Note: While looking alternative titles for this film, I discovered that there's another blogathon going on featuring ninja movies (and Japanese movies in general). It's a real blogathon, not like my one-man show here. Click on this link to check it out.

Mohammed Monday:At the Department of Islamic Development

Restored 'Metropolis' airs on TV tonight!

"Metropolis," one of the greatest sci-fi movies will be airing tonight (Sunday, November 7) at 8pm on Turner Movie Classics. There are a myriad of cuts of this film floating around, but this one contains about half an hour that hasn't been seen anywhere for decades.

Here are a couple of stills to celebrate.

Click here to see a few more pictures at Cinema Steve. And happy viewing tonight!

'Ninja Hunt' is a dark and violent event

Ninja Hunt (aka "The Ninja Hunters") (1964)
Starring: Jushiro Konoe, Kei Sata, Yamashiro Shingo, and Kokuo Hojo
Director: Tetsuya Yamanouchi
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A group of sinister Koga ninja are hired to pave the way for the corrupt Tokugawa Shogunate to seize the property and wealth of the Matsuyama clan. Four masterless samurai (ronin), who saw their lieges lose power and wealth at the hands of the same ninja through the same gambit, are hired to expose any ninja spies and prevent them from disrupting out the ninja spies. Led by Wadda (Konoe), this "special anti-ninja unit" sets about hunting and exposing spies and would-be assassins with fanatic ruthlessness and brutality that eventually forces the ninja master out from behind his disguise and into a final confrontation that perhaps none of them will survive.

"Ninja Hunt" is a surprisingly violent and amazingly suspenseful film that plays like a cross between a samurai film and a film noir thriller. It's a dark, well-crafted film that grabs you and keeps your attention from the opening scenes through the final fade-out. It's also a film that will keep you guessing as to what is coming next.

The excellence of this film starts with its characters. The "heroes" are a group of men with nothing to lose who are driven first and foremost by revenge, striving to save a noble house to whom they have no particular allegiance and who views them as completely expendable, so long as the Koga ninja are stopped. There is almost nothing that distinguishes the heroes from the villains in this movie, as the unbridled ruthlessness, as each side is equally willing to terrorize, torture, and murder to achieve their ends. While lip service is occasionally paid to duty and honor, it's clear that both the ronin and the ninja just doing tasks assigned to them by rival government factions, and that their extends no further than that. As for honor, any of the characters seem to care about is that their reputation be such that is scares others into submission before they actually have to act. There is virtually no mortal distinction between the heroes and their ninja enemies, nor necessarily between the lords of the Matsuyama clan and the Shogunate functionaries who are targeting them, and the film presents various faces of the cruel and oppressive nature of Japanese feudal society rather than a dichotomy of good vs evil.

The film is strengthened by solid directing, great cinematography and flawless editing. Nearly is perfectly staged for maximum dramatic effect and tension, and, although many scenes are draped in heavy shadow--especially the final battle between the ronin and the ninja inside a sealed burial crypt--at no time does it become difficult to tell who is whom and what is going on. (That's a frequent problem I have with ninja films... the director, camera men, and editors seem to be overwhelmed by all the running around that takes place in these films and fail to capture the action and story in a clear manner. Not so here. At no time did I get the sense the crew couldn't manage the film.)

The only major flaw in this otherwise perfect and engaging film is the scene where one of the ronin confronts and unmasks a female ninja spy within the Matsuyama palace complex itself. He knows she's a deadly killer and yet he allows himself to be "seduced" by her and/or decides to take the opportunity to engage in a little rape just for the hell of it. The stupidity that the character displays in this scene seems out of step with everything else in the movie, as does the whole tenor of the scene. To make it worse, what I suspect the filmmakers thought was dramatic ends up playing like a parody of overly melodramatic, drawn-out death scenes. I couldn't help but wonder if that scene wasn't along the lines of the rape scene got added to Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed because some film executive wanted to "sex up" the picture. (There's also the minor issue of the chief ninja's martial arts speciality--he spits needles at great velocity. While I find that a little too fantastic and silly for an otherwise grounded and serious picture like this, it is a staple of the genre.)

As far as I've been able to determine, the only place "Ninja Hunt" is available in the United States on DVD is in the "Ninja Collection, Vol. 1" ten movie set. It is by far the best film included in it, and it is almost worth the $18 purchase price by itself.






Trivia: "Ninja Hunt" (origial Japanese title "Ninja Gari") was the directorial debut for Tetsuya Yamanouchi. IMDB credits him with directing seven films between 1964 and 1978. He passed away at the age of 75 on April 2, 2010.

The deadliest of blogathons....