Murder on the Orient Express (2001, TV)

     Murder on the Orient Express (2001, TV) A modernised version, with cell-phones even, and the current touristy Venice-Simplon Orient Express, which in fact no longer runs to Istanbul. The Poirot here is laid back and almost sleepy, he lacks that rage to know that is Poirot’s essence, and even more he lacks the ruthless conviction that murderers must be brought to justice. The result is a vaguely pleasant way to pass a couple of hours. The movie doesn’t demand much of the viewer. Poirot’s sleepiness is matched by the almost soporific pace of the narrative, the sloppy placing of the red herrings, the almost complete lack of urgency, the perfunctory cross-cutting between scenes that are supposed to reveal important clues or misdirections. A couple of the usual mistakes in depicting railways don’t help: one stock scene of a passing train shows an American locomotive. *

And Then There Were None (1945)

      And Then There Were None (1945) [D: Rene Clair. Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston] This movie is based on Christie’s stage-play, not the book, which explains that I didn’t recognise all the plot points. It’s also a typical Hollywood adaptation, well done photography, ominous music signalling that it’s time to watch the screen instead of munching popcorn, and so on. I can’t tell how much the script departs from Christie’s, the rather static blocking of the characters and surprisingly clunky narrative pace feels like a holdover from the stage. The story itself is typical Christie, with red herrings well placed. The unravelling of the group of guests as they realise that the murderer must be one of them doesn’t feel quite right. However, the mix of distrust and wary trust is difficult to make plausible, and this was not intended as an Oscar contender. An OK 80-odd minutes of entertainment. **

Johnny Hart. B.C.: Great Zot, I’m Beautiful (1971)

     Johnny Hart. B.C.: Great Zot, I’m Beautiful (1971) A dinosaur gazing at its reflection in a stream does the Narcissus thing. That’s one sign that Hart is a literate and witty comic strip author. Most of the strips collected here rely on visual, verbal, and conceptual puns, one sometimes gets the point only on a double take. Other strips rely on bizarre logic: “How do go about sell underarm deodorant without getting too offensive?” asks Wiley. “Try keeping your elbows close to you sides,” answers Peter.  And that sample will have to do. You may find a copy of a B.C. collection in a yard sale, if you do, snap it up. ***

Dishonored Lady (1947)

     Dishonored Lady (1947) [D: Robert Stevenson. Hedy Lamarr, Dennis O’Keefe, John Loder] A soaper, as these movies came to be known. Lamarr plays a playgirl fashion magazine art-editor whose empty life leads to a nervous breakdown. A psychiatrist suggests complete withdrawal from the glitzy life in order to rediscover her true womanhood (although it’s not put as bluntly as that). She does so, takes up painting again, meets a young post-doc (O’Keefe) doing research on blood, does the illustrations for him, and of course they fall in love.
     A lecherous old flame (Loder) picks her up when she returns to New York to help out her successor, and takes her to his place. But before any further compromising behavior can occur, the lecher’s associate arrives, there’s a dispute about missing jewelry, and Loder is murdered. But Lamarr has already left. Of course she is wrongfully arrested and tried, which puts the kibosh on her romance with O’Keefe, but he figures out the truth and gets the bad guy. Lamarr, still feeling guilty over her hoydenish past, flees, but O’Keefe catches up to her at the airport, clinch, and fade-out to happily ever after.
     The plot is not quite as ludicrous as this summary might imply, both the writing and the acting make the characters plausible enough, and with the exception of the murderer, they are nice enough. What 70-odd years have done is change the both the psychological theory and the mores that explain and govern our lives. It’s in the light of those explicit and implicit assumptions about human nature that we read this as a thoroughly dated movie. But we’d better not feel too superior about it. In every age popular fiction rests on the world-view of the day, and the 2010s will no doubt seem just as ludicrous to our descendants as the 1940s seem to us.
     A workmanlike piece of film making, worth a look, especially if you like Lamarr.  **

Simon Schama. History of Britain II: The Wars of the British 1603-1776 (2001)

     Simon Schama. History of Britain II: The Wars of the British 1603-1776 (2001) A shorter time-span, a fatter book. Schama has lots more sources to work with than for Volume I, and here and there yields to the temptation to pile on the details. This makes the arc of the plot harder to follow. Schama shows that the civil wars of the 1600s led fairly directly to the constitutional reforms that gave us a monarch subject to law, and a sovereign Parliament.
     The British Parliamentary system separates the roles and powers of Head of State and the Head of Government. It took three centuries for that system to reach its present form, Schama interrupts his story at the beginning of the American Revolution, when Americans still insisted that they were British, and so were entitled to all the rights and privileges of the British in the home-country. It was this demand for political and economic equality with Britain that was refused by Westminster (with a strong support from the King, who still had an active role in government). It’s interesting to speculate on the consequences of that equality being recognised. Would we now have a Queen residing in Baltimore, perhaps?
     As in Volume 1, Schama shows that whatever the social and economic pressures on the decision makers, they did have decisions to make, and those decisions did determine the next round of problems to solve. I think he could have contrasted the paths taken more strongly with the alternatives and analysed why they weren’t taken. We do, after all, make choices according to the values we take for granted. It’s those values, and even more the assumptions about human (and non-human) nature that guide the evaluation of choices, and it’s in that sense that “historical currents” determine history. But the results always include the unpredictable. Understanding where decisions went wrong comes slowly, sometimes two or three generations later, by which time a new set of unconscious assumptions guide the new decision makers.
     In short, we can’t win. But we can muddle through, as Schama’s tale shows. The Cromwellian revolution, the Stuart Restoration, the installation of  the houses of Orange and Hanover, were reactions to immediate problems seen in the light (or rather, shadows) cast by the past, made more complex and contingent by the personal desires and feuds of the actors. They were not actions taken as part of a long-range program of liberalisation, although that was, in the end, their main effect. The Whigs’ reading of British history as steady progress towards personal and economic freedom was right after all, albeit as often despite the actors' explicit wishes as because of them.
     A good read. ***

Gordon Snell & Aislin. Yes! Even More Canadians (2000)

     Gordon Snell & Aislin. Yes! Even More Canadians (2000) Snell writes the verse, Aislin does the portraits, the result is a mildly amusing collection.  I nibbled at it over a couple of days, recommended for anyone who wants a painless intro the list of the good, great and scoundrels of our history. But this is a “gift book”, the kind of confection put together for Christmas and birthdays. What do you give to the one  who, you know well enough to give gift, but not well enough? This is book is safe, it’s educational, patriotic, amusing, and doesn’t give offense to anyone. It’s nicely made, too. **

Der Untergang (Downfall) (2004)

    Der Untergang (Downfall) (2004) [D: Oliver Hirschbiegel. Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara]

       A docudrama recreating the last days of Hitler in the bunker under the Reichskanzlei in Berlin, focussing on and based on the memoirs of Traudl Jung, his last secretary, but also using all available documentary evidence to present life within the bunker and in Berlin. The movie has the ring of truth.
      What is clear enough is that people act within the roles and structures they inhabit. The staff follow and obey Hitler partly from habit, partly from personal loyalty, partly because of ideological conviction, and even from a kind of fascinated pity. The reaction to the impending doom varies with these motivations. As one might expect, there is no shortage of rats leaving a sinking ship, of people realising that there is no post-war role for them, and of people continuing to live in the fantasies of war and conquest.
      None was more in the grip of fantasy than Hitler himself, who according to the record rarely showed awareness of what was actually happening, or gave signs that he understood his responsibility for the catastrophe. It is in this denial of reality, of clinging to his crazy vision, that Hitler is paradoxically most human, and that is how Ganz plays him. This has caused criticism of Hitler being presented as too human, as weak and fragile and deserving of pity. I think this criticism is misplaced, or rather, that it comes from a desire to deny that Hitler is well within the range of human possibilities, and to see him instead as some kind demonic aberration. But he was merely a man who tried to make his fantasies real, and in failing to do so he caused the death of 50,000,000 people.
      Hitler was not merely fundamentally too stupid to achieve his ambitions, he was unable to accept his own incompetence. Many people believe Hitler had a monstrous ego, but I think he suffered from a pathetically weak one. He needed the fantasies of supreme power and competence in order to survive. His rage at what he saw as personal betrayals was at bottom fear that others saw that he was an empty shell, a null. His skill consisted in convincing other people that he indeed could wield supreme power, and that conviction reflected back to him was what sustained him.
    

Ganz as Hitler

When objective evidence showed up his incompetence, Hitler scrabbled all the more desperately to maintain his fantasy. For too long he succeeded, and the puzzle is why. I think that a large part was his followers’ distrust of each other. They weren’t so much afraid of what Hitler could or would do if they asserted independence, but of what their colleagues might do, if only to eliminate rivals for power. And all of them were afraid of the lower cadres, the ordinary soldiers who were in the habit of following orders. Some could see no way out, and stumbled towards the end, doing their work as best they could. Put that stew of feelings, fears, beliefs, attitudes and habits together, and we can see how the power structure in the bunker lasted until Hitler put a bullet through his head. That’s what the movie shows, and in showing this, it reminds us that character and personality always make a difference .
     This is a depressing movie in many ways, but I think it’s essential viewing. Well done in all respects. ****

Update 2020 05 05: According to the German news bulletin announcing Hitler's death, he "fell" while fighting to protect the German people from Bolshevism. Another fantasy, designed to hide the truth of Hitler's cowardly suicide.