Big Business Back When: Rod Serling and Fielder Cook's PATTERNS comes to Blu-ray

While screen- and television-writer Rod Serling, below, was best-known for creating and writing the TV series The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, his best work may very well have been the script he wrote for the 1955 "live" television special aired on the Kraft Television Theater and the following year was made into a motion picture (yes, they used to do that sort of thing), both of which were titled PATTERNS. The movie version -- which makes its Blu-ray debut this week -- is now 60 years old. It holds up astonishingly well.

Featuring not a trace of Serling's now hallmark creepy/other-worldly plots and tone, Patterns is a tale of big business and Capitalism in the middle of the last century, as it appears to move from something benign and reasonable into the beginnings of the kind of dog-eat-dog free-for-all exemplified by today's Big Pharma, Monsanto, and Donald Trump.

This is a myth, of course. Big business and Capitalism have always been dog-eat-dog. It just depended on who was running the particular show. In this tale, the man who owns and runs the company, Mr. Ramsey (played by Everett Sloane, shown standing at left, below, and at left again, three photos down), is nothing like the kindlier, gentler man who was his father, a fellow who knew and cared about his employees.

Ramsey fils is cut-throat and he expects his underlings to be so, too -- including his newest hire, Staples (no relation to the current office behemoth), played by Van Heflin., below, left.

The pivotal character here, however, is an older man, Briggs (the superb Ed Begley, above, right: Watch him in the scene in which he crushes the eggshell), a man left over from the father's regime, who tries to keep the company on its former course. Ramsey is determined to rid the firm of Briggs, while Staples attempts to prevent this.

The supporting distaff side is performed very well by Beatrice Straight (as Mrs.Staples, above, right) and Elizabeth Wilson, below, left, as Briggs' and then Staples' kindly secretary. Other familiar faces (Andrew Duggan, for one, shown left, two photos below) fill out the rest of the able cast. Serling's writing is first-rate -- smart, real and avoiding the melodramatic, even when voices are at their highest decibel level. When one character tells another by way of a compliment -- "You admit mistakes. You don't pass the buck" -- one can only marvel at how far down we've come that so many Americans now believe in a man like Mr. Trump who is unable to ever admit a mistake and always passes the buck. (Note his recent handling of his Obama "birther" nonsense: Refusing to admit he was wrong, he now blames it all on Hillary's 2012 campaign.)

Serling's writing, the direction by Fielder Cook and all the performances are simply terrific -- moment to moment gold from everyone on screen. The Blu-ray transfer here is also very good, the best I've seen so far from The Film Detective. The movie also reminds us -- unconsciously, of course -- of the place of women in our society back in the mid-20th Century. Even so, it also takes us back to a time when people -- employees -- still mattered. And when decent employment was available for so many. (Except, of course, people of color. We don't see a whole lot of them here.)

The movie's final scene is simply dynamite, as Ramsey and Staples face off. The outcome must have seemed amazing in its own era. In fact, it still is. If you've never seen Patterns, now's the time. And if you have, back in its day, you'll probably want to take a look again. From The Film Detective and running just 83 minutes, the Blu-ray arrives this coming Tuesday, September 27, for purchase, and I hope (somewhere, somehow), rental.

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Business, corporate power, Fielder Cook, great screenwriting, PATTERNS, Rod Serling, the 1950s,

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German history made surprising and palpable in Lars Kraume's THE PEOPLE vs FRITZ BAUER

If you've see as many foreign films and documentaries as I, then you've most likely encountered a lot of movies about or centering around Adolf Eichmann. Not to worry: you'll never have seen one quite like THE PEOPLE vs FRITZ BAUER (Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer), the 2015 film from Lars Kraume just now reaching our shores. Eichmann -- that nasty Nazi nut who helped plan and execute the Holocaust that killed millions of Europeans Jews -- is greatly subsidiary here to the fellow who's front-and-center, the titular Fritz Bauer.

Herr Bauer, (as portrayed with steely fire and intelligence by Burghart Klaußner, above) became a prominent judge and prosecutor in post- WWII Germany, and was actually sent to a concentration camp early in his career for his political views and his fight against the Nazis. Although Bauer was a Jew, he was released from the camp (for reasons we learn toward the movie's end), which no doubt spared him the ovens. Emigrating to Scandinavia, he only returned to Germany after the Allies won the war.

This riveting and very surprising movie takes place in 1957, at a time when Germany was attempting, haltingly and not happily, to come to terms with its Nazi past (recently seen in another, more conventional German film, Labyrinth of Lies), as Bauer dedicates himself to rounding up as many Nazi war criminals as possible, both at home and abroad. He is blocked at every avenue by the powers-that-be (including, of course, Germany, but also the USA) and cannot even trust his own staff -- with, it seems, the exception of one justice-prone helper named Karl Angermann (played by the wonderfully versatile and compelling actor Ronald Zehrfeld (the sleazy Johnny in Phoenix and the kindly André in Barbara), shown above.

As directed and co-written (with Olivier Guez) by Lars Kraume, shown at right, the film is consistently intelligent, very well paced and given just enough style to make our journey an enjoyable and thought-provoking one. A kind of combination judicial procedural and mystery, the tale takes in the Holocaust, Jews, and civil rights of a sort not given much thought or care back in the 1950s -- an era in which everything from left-leaning politics to sexuality was hugely repressed.

TrustMovies cannot vouch for the veracity of the details of the tale told here: Is the character of Angermann created out of whole cloth? I suspect so, yet so convincing and moving is Zehrfeld's portrayal of the man, and so pivotal is Angermann to the idea of justice and sacrifice that the film pushes, that I suspect most audiences will gladly accept the tale as told, as we become engulfed in both the search and capture of Eichmann, as well as the repressed sexuality that finally must burst its seams.

The supporting cast (that's Lilith Strangenberg as an unusual cabaret performer, above) is used mostly for plot purposes, but the actors are all good enough to capture their characters with a few fine stokes. And for all of the time and energy devoted to uncovering that sexuality, what remains at the close of the film is a very strong sense of Herr Bauer as a man committed above all to fighting first the hiding and then the suppression of Germany's Nazi past. He was a hero, and this excellent film -- together with Herr Klaußner's memorable performance -- makes a fine and moving "movie" remembrance.

Beyond those two lead performances, the film lacks the depth for greatness, yet thanks to everything from its production design (Cora Pratz) to its cinematography (Jens Harant), it proves to be an extremely well-made and entertaining look back at an era in which growth and change were slow to begin but inevitable all the same. (Above, left, is Sebastian Blomberg, as one of Bauer's more devious adversaries.)

From Cohen Media Group and running a just-about-perfect 105 minutes, The People vs Fritz Bauer (in German with English subtitles) opens this Friday, September 16, in South Florida at Miami's Tower Theater and the O Cinema in Miami Beach; in Boca Raton at the Regal Shadowood 16, and at the Movies of Delray and Movies of Lake Worth. Simultaneously, the movie will open in another dozen locations. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates with cities and theaters listed.

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Burghart Klaußner, German history, GLBT movies, justice, Lars Kraume, Ronald Zehrfeld, the 1950s, the Holocaust, THE PEOPLE VS FRITZ BAUER,

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Enriching, soulful, sorrowful: James Schamus' adaptation of Philip Roth's INDIGNATION

We're nowhere near the end the year, yet all these wonderful "year's bests" keep appearing. You'd think it was December -- or at least autumn -- already: The Innocents, Captain Fantastic, Homo Sapiens, Hell or High Water (which I won't be reviewing for a couple more weeks). And now appears a new --  and for my money best -- adaptation of a Philip Roth work to yet hit the screen.

It is the first full-length film to be directed by an icon of American independent cinema, James Schamus, and what a lovely job he has done! Granted, many of us movie lovers, who have such a soft spot in our hearts for Mr. Schamus as a groundbreaking producer over decades now, were no doubt hoping for something good. But this has exceeded all our -- mine, at least -- expectations. (And TrustMovies is not a huge fan of the work of Mr. Roth.) I have not read the particular Roth novel on which the film is based, but unless Mr Schamus has changed things rather drastically, this would appear to be one of the kindest and most caring of this author's works.

I don't believe that the filmmaker has sentimentalized things, either. INDIGNATION seems more a clear-eyed and honest -- if  quiet and unshowy -- look at 1950s America, in which to be at all "other" (whether Jewish, or atheist, or a sexually-active-and-happy-about-it young woman) is to court reprobation, if not outright shunning. Fit into the groove, please. Or keep silent. Or get out of town.

Our hero, Marcus -- played with a quiet strength and masculine beauty by Logan Lerman, (center, two photos above) in what is certainly his best role yet -- is both a Jew and an atheist who has come from New Jersey to attend a posh college in Ohio (where Jews have their very own dormitory -- and are expected to join it forthwith). Olivia, the young woman he meets and is very attracted to (the also beautiful Sarah Gadon, above, who comes across here as strongly as I've yet seen her on screen), is so sexually forward that she throws our young man for a loop. But, boy, does he try to figure all this out and make things "work." (Most young people will not have a clue what it was like to have lived though the uber-conforming, sexually rigid 1950s. This movie provides as good a foundation as any.)

At odds with Marcus -- even though they would want to think quite otherwise -- are the school's Dean (a splendid job by actor playwright Tracy Letts, above) and our boy's own mother (yes, this is Philip Roth novel, after all), brought to immense life and even greater strength by Linda Emond, below. (In a smaller role, Danny Burstein plays Marcus' father as a man sadly unravelling.)

Ms Emond has a scene toward the conclusion of the film that is as strong as any we've seen so far this year. She should be a shoo-in for a Best Supporting Actress nod. The scene involves her wringing a promise from her son that is perfectly understandable -- and yet you'll want to put your fist through her face for demanding it. (This is the second great "mother" scene this year, after Noémie Lvovsky's turn in the recent Summertime.)

Dialog is vital in this movie, and so well has Mr. Schamus coaxed his cast that you'll hang on every word. There's one scene midway along between Lerman and Letts that becomes an immediate classic of its kind. Visually, too, the director/screenwriter-adaptor has done some beautiful stuff -- especially the manner in which he ties beginning and end to all that has come in between. This is a quiet movie. And yet it is so full of life that, in its own way, it surges. I would not have missed it, and I can't wait to see it again, once it hits home video.

From Roadside Attractions, Indignation, after premiering in New York and Los Angeles last week, opens this Friday, August 5, here in South Florida (and elsewhere) -- in Miami at the AMC Aventura and Regal South Beach; in Ft. Lauderdale at The Classic Gateway Theatre; in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theatres and Regal Shadowood 16; and at the Movies of Delray in Delray Beach. The film will expand into even more theaters on August 12. 

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college life, conformity, INDIGNATION, James Schamus, Nostalgia, Philip Roth, the 1950s, The Other,

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Streaming tips: black-and-white 1950s British gems: FAST AND LOOSE and ALWAYS A BRIDE

Netflix provides such a treasure trove of movies -- from foreign films to independents to documentaries -- that some of its least-known gems can easily get lost in this abundance. People stupidly complain that the service doesn't have all the big mainstream hits. True. But so what? If you really care about movies of all types, they're here for the asking. Two such, which we recently watched one right after the other (we almost never do this at a single sitting, but these were so charming, we quickly were hooked), I'll tell you about now.

FAST AND LOOSE, a Brit hit in glorious black-and-white from 1954, and ALWAYS A BRIDE, from 1953, also British and in b/w (and filmed at least partially on the French Riviera!) are two small gems of subtle, subdued humor and full of fine character acting from all concerned. Both are also filmed in the aspect ratio of that time (1.37:1) that may seem a little small by our widescreen standards. But that also helps contribute to their charm -- as do the witty, low-key performances from almost everyone in the two casts, along with the unadorned, straight-ahead direction (Gordon Parry for Fast and Loose,  Ralph Smart for Always a Bride).

F&L takes off as a man and his new bride leave for their honeymoon but he runs into an old flame at the station and chats a bit as the train, with his bride aboard, takes off without him. What to do? The result makes up this silly, funny romp that features the wonderfully droll and glamorous actress Kay Kendall (above) as that old flame and the lesser-known-but-serviceable Brian Reece in the role of the husband. The bride's parents provide a bundle of laughs, as does the harridan landlady of the small hotel in which our cast finally gathers.

Always a Bride takes us into the world of father-daughter con artists, Ronald Squire and Peggy Cummins (above), their very funny accomplices and the fellow who falls in love with the daughter (the handsome Terence Morgan, below).

The grifting is handled with fine aplomb and oodles of charm, the romance is light-footed and sweet, and the Riviera looks lovely, even in black-and-white. Both films are quite short (Fast is only 75 minutes, Bride comes in at 82). And both are available now via Netflix and maybe elsewhere. Click on the links above for easy access.

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ALWAYS A BRIDE, black-and-white cinematography, British comedy, FAST AND LOOSE, old-fashioned fun, the 1950s,

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Tim Burton's BIG EYES is one of the filmmaker's most "normal" (and therefore oddest) movies

What fun is BIG EYES, the new film from that master of the oddball macabre, Tim Burton! Much of the fun occurs as we realize, while the movie meanders along, that is it very little like any other Burton work we've seen. It's so... gosh... normal. Sort of. Then we get to thinking that, really, this is the perfect subject for this oddball director: the story behind the story of those hugely popular paintings of the 1950s (and into the 60s), signed with the name Keane, of waif-like, big-eyed children designed to produce that cloying "Ooooooh" sound that eventually morphed into what was heard from the audience on countless Oprah television shows. Those children, and those paintings, were just so adorable that you could puke.

At least, that's what TrustMovies thought of the "art" when he was a very young man, and his opinion hasn't changed now that's he an old one. Still, he very much enjoyed the movie based on this tale that Mr. Burton (shown at left) has brought to the screen with such bizarre finesse. And there is indeed something macabre about the fact that so many Americans could fall for something so utterly kitsch as these cutesy/sad kids, each new one more nauseatingly sweet than its predecessor. But some of us did. Though art critics and dealers told us we were nuts, we just kept at it. And Burton's movie becomes a kind of rich, ironic guffaw at our expense that we were so taken in, not just by the ridiculous "art" itself, but by the husband-and-wife team responsible for it -- every bit as fake as its simpering product.

Burton begins his film with, appropriately, an unreliable narrator: a sleazy reporter played quite well by Danny Huston (below, right). The look of the film is an immediately recognizable (for us ancients, anyway) 1950s America, as though it were being photographed by television of that same era (except in color, which TV didn't have back then). We meet a sad-but-adorable Amy Adams (above), just divorced from her husband, and taking her young daughter with her on the road to a new life.

That life happens in San Francisco, where she gets help from an old and more sophisticated friend (played by Krysten Ritter, below, center), and soon meets and marries yet another loser (but one who at least appears to have a lot going for him) named Walter Keane (played in his best slightly-bizarro fashion by Christoph Waltz, above, left). Burton's film, written by the smart and successful team of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood and The People vs Larry Flynt), doesn't want to be too clever or stylish about its story -- which is already plenty strange enough to carry us easily along. Without giving the store away, let's just say that the art, and the people who created it, leave a lot to be desired in the "truth" department.

The film will probably be seen as "early feminist," given the movie's time frame and the education of its main character in the ways of men and art. But this is somewhat problematic, since Margaret Keane was quite complicit in her being taken advantage of by her husband. And although the movie makes much of the triumphant court case involving hubby vs. wife, it fails to note that the case was overturned some years later, and Margaret got none of the money she was supposed to have been awarded.

The art world of the time is seen mostly via the gulled public, but also through the eyes of a snippy gallery owner (played delightfully by Jason Schwartzman, above) and The NY Times art critic, John Canaday, played expertly by Terence Stamp. No less than Andy Warhol is supposed to have cited the Keane work as genuine art because it was so popular, but then few thinking people would accept a Warhol statement as anything approaching the genuine.

Whatever. The film is mostly great fun -- with one definitive Burton touch in the scene in which all the characters we see suddenly have those huge Keane eyes -- as it tells (all from Margaret's viewpoint, to be sure) its rags-to-riches-to-something-less tale of would-be art, and the fart who sold it to us.

Big Eyes, from The Weinstein Company and running 105 minutes, opens across the country (well, L.A., NYC and Chicago, at least) in a limited release this Thursday, December 25. More cities will follow soon.

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BIG EYES, Keane paintings, Margaret Keane, movies about art, the 1950s, the 1960s, Tim Burton, Walter Keane,

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Narrative & documentary join as one in Stefan Haupt's entrancing history lesson, THE CIRCLE

Of late we're seeing more and more "re-creations" used in documentaries -- acted-out narrative moments, often entire scenes -- that goose the story along. Sometimes these are done well enough to almost pass by unnoticed (as in some of James Marsh's films such as Project Nim); at other times -- as in Holocaust-themed docs like Orchestra of Exiles or No Place on Earth -- these can seem more than a bit ham-handed and distracting. The new Swiss movie THE CIRCLE (Der Kreis) manages to bypass this problem entirely by embracing it completely: Stefan Haupt's new film is half documentary and half narrative, with the two beautifully woven together to make something that seems original and exactly correct for the subject it tackles.

That subject is the tale of two men living in Switzerland during and after WWII who become lovers, and the relatively small group of homosexuals of that time, dedicated to educating the general public, around and in which the two gravitate. As directed and co-written by Herr Haupt (shown at left), the film is helped enormously by the presence of the two men, still alive and kicking, who inspired the story: Ernst Ostertag and Robi Rapp  These two, lovers still, are shown as they are today (two photos below), while two attractive and talented actors -- Matthias Hungerbühler (at left, on the poster above and in the still below) and newcomer Sven Schelker (at right, above and below) -- play their younger selves in the narrative portion, which takes up more than half of this 102-minute movie.

These clear divisions, which turn out to meld quite richly and beautifully, actually give the movie more of a sense of "reality" than we sometime get from documentaries that pretend to be "truth" but then fudge things in various, sometimes less obvious, ways. The Circle is a hybrid doc that wears its manipulation proudly, and its great big heart on its sleeve.

The cultural state of Switzerland in the 1950s is articulately and genuinely rendered here -- it seems to me, at least, who was certainly not present at the time -- as not much better nor worse than most of the rest of the Western world at this time. Though homosexuality per se was not a crime in Switzerland, homosexuals themselves were pursued as though it was. And because the attitude of the general populace was negative, all this was accepted as perfectly fine.

The history of these two men, as well as the little group that they join -- The Circle of the title-- is captured in smart, lean strokes that tell us much while moving the plot along. Ernst, above, center, is a teacher who's up for "approval" and so must keep his sexuality hidden, while Robi, below, is a female impersonator (and a good one -- as is young performer Schelker), whom Ernst sees one special evening and is immediately smitten.

We meet the co-workers, friends and relatives of both men and learn how prejudice -- their own and others -- has affected them all. What a pleasure it is to see again German actress Marianne Sägebrecht (below, right, of Bagdad Cafe), here playing Robi's wonderfully caring mother.

The rest of the large cast, mostly unknown to me (we don't get that many Swiss films over here) are all on point and up to snuff. Their "unknown" quality, in fact, gives the movie just that much more of a documentary feel. The sub-plots -- Ernst's boss at his school is perhaps the most closeted gay of all, and this plays out in ways both expected and not -- are both germane and well-handled, avoiding the overly melodramatic at every step, while still maintaining our interest and good will.

The Circle -- Switzerland's probably very canny selection for Best Foreign Language FIlm in this years Oscar race -- is indeed a feel-good film, but it is also one that earns its status. Considering all that has happened to this pair over more than half a century, not to mention their deserved renown in Switzerland today, these men have every right to feel good -- grand, even -- and so will you, once you've seen their film. (The pairs, real folk, together with their actor counterparts, are shown below.)

The movie, via Wolfe Releasing, opens this Friday in New York City at the Quad Cinema; it will hit L.A. a month later on Friday, December 18, at Laemmle's Music Hall 3.

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Der Kreis, GLBT films, hybrid documentaries, Stefan Haupt, Swiss film, the 1950s, THE CIRCLE,

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