I Hate Kids

Gloria (1980) - Cassavetes

My goodness. Gena Rowlands chews up the screen and spits it back out in your face. Gloria is no nonsense middle aged broad up in the Bronx. When her neighbors, a mixed race family (headed by Buck Henry) gets wiped out by the mob, she is left with the only survivor, 6 year old boy with wild curly hair, Phil. And she hates kids (especially hates her neighbor's kids, she tells their mother once). Gloria has a shady mob connections from the past and many times throughout the film contemplates ditching the kid. But for some reason, she always ends up shooting her way out with the smartass Phil tightly attached on her waist. On the run, they change series of holdouts, showcasing sleazy NY in the late 70s. In true Cassavetes fashion, the dialog is nonchalant and action immediate. It's all Rowlands though. Not exactly a dog, but she is definitely not a typical Hollywood pretty. Can't see anyone else playing this role.

Crimes Don't See Colors

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) - Wise




Robert Ryan is Earle Slater, a bigoted ex-convict and WWII vet who's been living off of his working girlfriend (Shelley Winters). Even though emasculated and aging, he still has the fire in him. Harry Belafonte is Johnny Ingram, a divorced vibraphonist with a massive gambling debt. Enter Dave (Ed Begley), an ex-cop trying to organize a heist in upstate NY. He puts a squeeze on the two so they have no choice but to go along with the "one last shot at the greatness" deal.

With a cool title sequence, rapid cuts, zoom-ins, extreme closeups, jazzy score and old New York scenery (including Central Park merry-go-round), there are a lot to love in Odds Against Tomorrow. It patiently spends 2/3rd of the film on the characters before the heist. It even pauses for Slater and Ingram to hang (albeit separately) in pastoral area looking all contemplative before the heist which, of course, goes horribly wrong.

Belafonte, a darker, edgier side of Sidney Poitier, is mesmerizing as a conflicted anti-hero, so as Ryan in his aging grizzly man persona. Gloria Grahame shows up as saucy next door neighbor of Slater and their scene together is deliciously explosive.

Moral of the story? As the last line of the film indicates, crimes don't see no colors.

Keep That Coffee Hot

The Big Heat (1953) - Lang

Gloria Grahame, ooh la la. Who does she remind me of? Julietta Macina if she was ever young and sexy, maybe? It's a very difficult task to make a ditzy girl sexy and she does it here.

The big heat tells a tough cop, Bannion (Glenn Ford) in a sewer city. While investigating a cop's suicide, for some reason, Bannion can't keep his big mouth shut so everyone around him ends up dead, including his wholesome beer and steak dinner sharing wife, blown up by the bigwig Lagana's goons.

Enter Debbie (Grahame), a pretty young thang that belongs to Lagana's right hand man Vince (Lee Marvin). She sticks with the busyhand because she likes money and mink coats. But after Vince gets a shakedown by Bannion, Debbie walks up to Bannion and they 'talk'. Vince in turn throws a hot coffee in her pretty face.

Morally mucky film by Lang where its straight-shooting protag unknowingly direct everyone to their demise in order for him to get to the big fish, The Big Heat is perhaps the dirtiest noir I've seen so far. And Grahame is there to make guys think dirty. Bravo.