POLL ME DEADLY ... the films of Robert Aldrich

It's automatic here that I mention my dad's cousin Nick Dennis being in Kiss Me Deadly and The Big Knife. The former will win, but I'll vote for Baby Jane.

Kiss Me Deadly! obvious choice, but it's soooo good

indeed

POLLZANA'S RAID surely tad?

i'm not that clever, nakh ;_;

i've not seen nearly enough of these films

me neither but Kiss Me Deadly is perfect

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by my count I've seen 13 of these.

Ulzana's Raid

I'm pretty sure I'm related to him (and Nelson Rockefeller!) somehow.

been meaning to watch Ulzana's Raid for awhile, should remedy that someday.

lotta love for Bette Davis and Vera Cruz, but Kiss Me Deadly it is.

he didnt direct aunt alice

Glad my opinion is worth considering. Whew!

Runaway productions, clashes between masterful form and politically incorrect content, revisionist westerns, uncredited direction, camp, Kiss Me Deadly -
Aldrich's schizo filmography reflects the desperation of the studio era in decline and makes problems for auteurists. Hetero ones, at least. This oeuvre is queer-as-fuck in more ways than one and invites a prance down its lesser celebrated alleyways.

So don't sleep on Autumn Leaves. Joan Crawford's final speech goes on the career reel. After Rain and the 1947 Possessed, it's her finest acting. In the wake of Vito, The Killing of Sister George is ripe for a new sniff. And every decade gets its Showgirls and so the 1960s had The Legend of Lylah Clare. Get thee to it.

Um, I voted for Lylah Clare (figured no else would)

'killing of sister george' is ripe, alright

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always mean to check out emperor of the north, worth it?

^yes

I guess Twilight's Last Gleaming is getting a DVD release, as it's been preserved/restored and will be screening in NY next month. A LEFT-WING Air Force general holding the US hostage is an idea that could only have been floated in the '70s.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/16536

TLG is flawed but fascinating, '70s lib paranoia done in a different (talkier, more digressive, split-screen) key than Pakula. Burt Lancaster is the bulwark, but Charles Durning and Paul Winfield are MVPs.

I got the camp and Grand Guignol, but did they really need 133 minutes for Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte? Seemed twice as long as Baby Jane, so I was surprised to find that it's a minute shorter. Charlotte's hallucination near the end reminded me a bit of Eyes Wide Shut, and I liked seeing Percy Helton as the funeral director. He was everywhere in the '60s, though I can't remember specifically where.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XVKeTa5_UMY/TE_ds-y_i4I/AAAAAAAADek/HVPUbXz-Pe8/s1600/Percy+Helton.jpg

Just watched Baby Jane again the other day. How'd I never catch "See You Next Tuesday" before? Was that even a thing yet in '63?

Harvard retro just wrapped

http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2016junaug/aldrich.html

a v similar NYC one coming in fall, i hear

I'd seen The Big Knife once before, but I think it was bad timing and I drifted through a lot of it--remembered nothing. Got lots of background from the person who introduced it, so I know it's about Garfield and Cohn and Mayer, but it also felt like a rough draft by Odets for Sweet Smell of Success, right down to a flunky lighting a cigarette for a gossip columnist. Steiger's compellingly malevolent. Palance is awful. Nick Dennis, who I mentioned above, gets the Sal Mineo role.

boy, is The Big Knife weird. I haven't watched an Aldrich film with such theatrical blocking. clemenza otm about its working as a rough draft for Odets' more florid passages perfected in SMOS. I disagree about Palance: the bizarre stresses, the cartoonishly imposing physique, the hints of effeminacy work in an impossible role. Steiger's the one who starts compelling but turns laughable, but I can see how David Lynch might've studied this performance.

Next up for the Charles Taylor book: Ulzana's Raid, which I conveniently have on DVD (a bargain-bin purchase from ~ 15 years ago, I assume, when cheap DVDs were everywhere). Can't say as I'm looking forward to it.

Ulzana's Raid was a favorite when I was younger (along with much of RA's work) but my tastes seem to have shifted as I didn't enjoy it on a recent rewarch -- I think I just care less for RA's cynicism today.

Took me 10 minutes to find it...wasn't in the alphabetical section. I knew where to look next, but I have it as part of a war collection; I always thought it was a western.

https://i.postimg.cc/Dym76f1H/ulzana.jpg

it plays like a war movie. i like it, but it certainly is bleak

Yeah it's a western -- i dunno what it's doing in that set.

Vietnam Western, innit?

You are both correct: obviously a western, but clearly has Vietnam on its mind--pointedly, in an exhange between Lancaster and Bruce Davison, My Lai. (I think in that Breakdown film on Netflix, someone says that the only way you could make a Vietnam film at the time was to disguise it as a western; I'd add horror film to that formulation.) The politics...well, maybe Charles Taylor will help me figure that out. At times the film felt like a throwback to before when Westerns started to question themselves (started in the '50s?), at other times Aldrich seemed to be groping towards something more thoughtful. Some nice cinematography, good performances, understated ending, but not really my kind of film. (Mostly I'm with Kael when it comes to westerns.)

(Re Vietnam films circa 1970--studio film, that is, and not directed by John Wayne.)

Or you could set it in the Korean war, although I don't know of any films other than M.A.S.H. that did that

That too (MASH), or another war (Catch-22).

Oops--missed that mentioned MASH.

I haven't seen it, but Aldrich's Too Late The Hero from '70 was supposed to be another 'Nam allegory.

Two different versions of Ulzana's Raid:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069436/alternateversions/

Screenplay by Alan Sharp, who also wrote Penn's Night Moves.