1/20/09: Semi-Tough (1977)

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Semi-Tough is one of four sports-related films from the 1970s that have been on my movie-queue list for quite some time. (I finally saw The Longest Yard over the Christmas break, so now all I've got left are Slap Shot and North Dallas Forty.)

This movie is openly scorned by fans of Dan Jenkins' comic novel about drinkin', smokin', cussin', screwin'...oh yeah, and playing football. By all accounts, the book is riotous affair, loaded with sex, racial slurs and all manner of hilariously inappropriate content. Clearly, something has been lost in the translation to film, which is largely about the relationship between Miami gridiron heroes Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson, and the team owner's daughter, Jill Clayburgh. Aside from suffering from a case of Tourette's Syndrome (someone, usually Clayburgh, has to say "fuck" or "asshole" every couple of minutes), the movie is rather tame by today's standards. The three leads start out as close Platonic friends/roommates, a la Three's Company, but when Clayburgh and Kristofferson pair off, Reynolds does a slow burn that lasts all the way through to the predictable payoff. I would have been fine with a simple love-triangle flick with a football backdrop, but the filmmakers decided to add a subplot satirizing the EST movement of the Seventies, as well as a depiction of rolfing—the first of which seems ridiculously out of place in this film, and neither of which would make the slightest bit sense today to anybody under the age of, say 45.

There's a very decent movie buried here somewhere. I enjoyed the chemistry between the leads; Burt Reynolds (doing another football flick three years after Longest Yard) is at his cowboy-hat-wearing, gum-chewing best, and Jill Clayburgh is surprisingly sexy—I've never had that reaction to this actress before. And there are several scenes I thought played very well, along with a few memorable lines. However, all of the actors were right around 40 years old at the time, which strikes me as a little long in the tooth to be NFL players, and the various parts of the film don't really mesh as a whole. There should have been a lot more football in the movie, more of the great Robert Preston (as the slightly batty team owner) and none of the material involving Bert Convy as a self-help guru, which I found embarrassingly unfunny. (Note: turns out I had seen some of those scenes on TV many years ago, but had no idea it was this film.) Character actress Mary Jo Catlett has a memorable bit as a less-than-stunning barfly seduced by Reynolds, and it was funny to see Brian Dennehy in his relatively younger days (i.e., almost 40). Also, it's worth noting that Reynolds uses the word "nigger"—tellingly, another white character throws the same word around in director Michael Ritchie's previous movie, The Bad News Bears. That kind of talk wouldn't fly with moviegoers today. Flawed but sporadically fun; I doubt I am the first one to suggest a better title for this would be Semi-Entertaining. Rating: 3/5.

1/19/09: Burn After Reading (2008)

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I tend to run hot and cold on the Coen Brothers. Fargo is one of my very favorite movies—I've seen it at least six times in its entirety, and if I'm flipping channels and discover it's on HBO, I'll let it play out. It's highly dramatic, with occasional touches of black comedy. No film by the Coens has kept (or could keep) me riveted quite like Fargo; even the much-heralded No Country for Old Men failed to surpass its predecessor. Most of Fargo's main characters are seamy and morally bankrupt, but Frances McDormand, as a kind-hearted policewoman, gives the story its incorruptible good guy.

There are no such good guys in Burn After Reading, the Coens' 2008 offering, and in a screenplay littered with idiots and misfits, McDormand is relegated to being one of the main ding-dongs. (I missed her Midwestern accent from Fargo—she should be required to do it in every movie.) The convoluted story involves an ex-CIA operative (John Malkovich), a philandering Treasury agent (George Clooney) and a couple of birdbrained gym employees (Brad Pitt and McDormand), whose lives all intersect after a blackmail plot goes awry. The viewer is never compelled to give anything remotely approaching a shit about any of these people, so we're left to chuckle at the curious coincidences and occasional dollops of black comedy. The drama doesn't add up to much of anything, but the Fargo-like musical score (by Coen favorite Carter Burwell) works overtime to keep reminding us that it's all very dramatic. Rating: 3/5.

1/18/09: Hotel for Dogs (2009)

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This is technically my first official viewing of a 2009 theatrical release. A ragtag group of young teens (including a brother/sister pair of foster kids) rescue stray dogs, which they keep in a condemned building where, curiously enough, the electricity is always up and running. My niece bawled uncontrollably when the story took an abrupt turn from the lighthearted to the bleak (all of the hounds sent to the pound and the brother and sister forcibly separated). I was forced to wax philosophical about a more innocent time when I myself lacked the cynicism to know that a kid movie like this can't possibly end on a sour note. And what a magnificently corny ending Don Cheadle gives us—as long as you're able stop your mind from boggling over how he got to this canine caper after Boogie Nights and Hotel Rwanda. Oh, well, I guess a paycheck is a paycheck. Rating: 3/5.

1/17/09: Outbreak (1995)

DUSTIN HOFFMAN WEEK
We close out Dustin Hoffman week with a medical drama in the tradition of Robin Cook and Michael Crichton novels. (How this was not written by one of those two guys, I'll never know.) Outbreak is the 1995 hit all about how an extremely virulent strain of an Ebola-type virus makes its way from Africa to the United States. Hoffman plays a heroic Army doctor racing against the clock to find a vaccine before comically evil Major General Donald Sutherland can blow up the town where the infected people live.

Throughout the movie, I kept wondering: How did Hoffman steal this role from the clutches of Harrison Ford, whom it very obviously was written for (or, at least, somebody like him)? I don't want to say Dusty is miscast, exactly—how does Ratso Rizzo act "against type?" I have seen him play everything from an autistic savant to an actor in drag, but this has to be one of his few ill-fitting roles. Still, the movie has a dream cast, which includes Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey and a pre-Jerry Maguire Cuba Gooding Jr., and plenty of nail-biting suspense at every turn. Sure, there are plot holes and clichés up the wazoo, but I was thoroughly entertained throughout. It's a solid thriller that kept me glued to the edge of my seat.

This was a fun week. It'd be nice to do another Dustin Hoffman marathon sometime next year, featuring more of his films I haven't seen. My dream lineup: Who Is Harry Kellerman, Straw Dogs, Death of a Salesman, Billy Bathgate, Moonlight Mile and I Heart Huckabees. Rating: 4/5.

1/16/09: Mad City (1997)

DUSTIN HOFFMAN WEEK
Once more, we go back to the future, this time to 1997's Mad City, a maddeningly heavy-handed smackdown of the media from director Costa-Garvas. When an ex-security guard takes a bunch of little kids hostage at the museum where he was fired, a TV newsman (Dustin Hoffman) on the scene gets entirely too involved in the unfolding drama, using his proximity as a way of advancing his own career. For once it's not about Hoffman giving a stellar performance (in fact, he's mostly phoning it in). It's about the director making a grand statement about the media circus. We don't care one iota about any of the characters, and unlike Wag the Dog—Dusty's other film from the same year—there's no humor in the satire. It's just preachy as all outdoors, and it doesn't help that the film's pace is agonizingly slow. One bright spot: the lovely Tammy Lauren as Miss Rose. Rating: 2/5.

1/15/09: Papillon (1973)

DUSTIN HOFFMAN WEEK
I've hopped back into the Dustin Hoffman time machine and set the dial to 1973. Published in 1969, the memoirs of Henri "Papillon" Charriere (now widely considered to be a novel more than an autobiography) serve as the basis of this film, featuring Steve McQueen as Papillon and Hoffman as his myopic sidekick, Dega.

The movie chronicles their long years in various prisons and penal colonies, their repeated attempts at escape, and their brutal punishments. The costumes, scenery and makeup effects are extremely impressive; a typically convincing touch are the various oral appliances worn by the leads to suggest deteriorating dental health. We never really learn very much about Papillon other than the fact that he was convicted on trumped-up charges and that he'll stop at nothing to win his freedom—everything else is either implied or left unsaid. (For a two-and-a-half-hour long movie, the backstory is surprisingly nonexistent.) The story frequently reminded me of the British TV series from five years earlier, Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner, which described another fellow wrongly jailed and relentlessly hell-bent on escape from his own island prison. As Dega, Hoffman turns in another astonishing performance—yet inconceivably, not only did he not win an Oscar, he wasn't even nominated for Papillon! Rating: 4/5.

1/14/09: Wag the Dog (1997)

DUSTIN HOFFMAN WEEK
The Dustin clock is turned considerably forward a couple of decades to this late-Nineties comedy, a political satire featuring Hoffman as bigshot Hollywood producer Stanley Motts, who along with professional spin doctor Corad Brean (Robert DeNiro) is called in to tidy up a sex scandal involving the president of the United States. Most of the humor comes from the lengths these guys will go in order to distract the public, even if it means conjuring up a fake war with Albania. The twist involving a war hero (Woody Harrelson) is pure comedy gold; Denis Leary, Anne Heche, Jim Belushi (as himself) and country crooner Willie Nelson all add their personal touches. I take a particular shine to comedies that mine laughs from unexpected places, and this one trades on rape and murder, among other things. Dustin's character is said to be based on real-life producer Bob Evans, who of course produced Hoffman's movie Marathon Man. Rating: 4/5.

1/13/09: Midnight Cowboy (1969)

DUSTIN HOFFMAN WEEK
Although I have seen bits and pieces of Midnight Cowboy since it was first broadcast on TV, I've never watched the entire unedited film from beginning to end. What I remember of it as an adolescent was very dark and confusing and not at all something I would ever fully enjoy. But this is Dustin Hoffman week, and since the movie has had untold accolades heaped upon it (including a Best Picture Oscar), it was way past time for me to take a closer look at it as an adult.

Seeing it in its proper linear fashion hasn't changed my mind about it being dark and confusing, but it is obviously much more cohesive as a film. The themes are loneliness and shattered dreams permeate this very visually intriguing picture. Both of the main characters have doomed aspirations: Joe Buck (Jon Voight) wants to make it as a gigolo in New York City, while Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) dreams of escaping his deteriorating health by way of Miami Beach. But they soothe their loneliness by forging a friendship together, two very different men unified by their dark pasts. I was a little annoyed and disturbed by the psychedelic freak-out party scenes, and the fractured flashbacks and dream sequences give only hints and clues about Joe's troubled history. Overall, Midnight Cowboy is a quite dour and pessimistic movie (everybody in New York is depicted as a lunatic or a pervert), but it's effective and surprisingly poignant. This was Dustin Hoffman's immediate follow-up to The Graduate, and it's immediately clear that the sheer breadth of his range is staggering. Talking in a Flatbush accent reminiscent of the earliest Bugs Bunny cartoons, Hoffman is truly mesmerizing as Ratso—filthy, unshaven and walking with a limp, it's as if he'd contracted tuberculosis just for this particular role. With Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes and John McGiver. Rating: 4/5.

1/12/09: John and Mary (1969)

DUSTIN HOFFMAN WEEK
Yesterday I watched 71-year-old Dustin Hoffman meet a woman and spend an entire day getting to know her as the seed of romance takes root; today I experienced the same thing with a 32-year-old Dusty. Fresh off his international smash The Graduate, Hoffman teamed with Mia Farrow, herself enjoying the stardom that came with Rosemary's Baby. Both actors look exactly like they did in their previous hits (let's face it, Mary is not a huge leap from Rosemary), but John and Mary enjoyed none of the enduring esteem of those earlier movies—in fact, today it's even more obscure than your average Ed Wood trifle.

The story couldn't be simpler: Dustin meets Mia at a bar, they go back to his flat in New York City, sleep together...then spend the next day trying to figure out what comes next. The film is surprisingly gimmicky, with interior monologues and flashbacks providing the various thoughts and backstory to help flesh out the obvious limitations of observing two people held captive in his apartment making soft-boiled eggs and chitchat; there's also the added conceit that they don't even ask each other's names until the movie's over. The performers do their best to overcome the so-so script, but the film is not without its peculiar charms. The chemistry between Hoffman and Farrow make it worth watching to see whether what they had was a one-night or maybe something more. Cool also to see the Hoffmeister act in a similarly romantic movie some 40 years earlier. Also featuring Michael Tolin and Sunny Griffin (in flashbacks) as the pair's former lovers. Rating 3/5.

1/11/09: Last Chance Harvey (2008)

DUSTIN HOFFMAN WEEK
Here's my first unqualified thumbs-up for the year (and the perfect kickoff to Dustin Hoffman week). It's an old-fashioned romantic comedy about two older people finding love when they aren't expecting it—or even necessarily hoping to find it. TV commercial jingle writer (and failed jazz pianist) Hoffman flies to London to witness the marriage of his daughter and meets Emma Thompson, an employee of Heathrow Airport. The rest is a Before Sunrise-style story of two strangers who start to fall in love. It's an unashamedly corny picture that dares not to insult the intelligence of the viewer—only one scene (involving a dress shop) was genuinely idiotic, but blessedly brief. The movie is about learning to overcome and conquer disappointment, and it's delightfully corny, with a touching score by Dickon Hinchliffe, and it put a tear in my eye not once but twice. See it with someone you want to make out with afterwards. With Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Kathy Baker, Eileen Atkins, James Brolin and West Wing alum Richard Schiff. Rating: 5/5.

1/10/09: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

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Completely plotless and largely pointless, Happy-Go-Lucky is British director Mike Leigh's aimable piffle all about Poppy (Sally Hawkins), an incorrigibly upbeat free spirit who can't take anything or anybody— least of all herself—very seriously. Forever joking and laughing at life's minutiae, Poppy parties with her female friends, jumps on a trampoline, prowls through a bookstore and rarely thinks anything she doesn't say. If the film is about anything, it's Poppy's conflicting role as a teacher (of primary school) versus her role as a student (of Flamenco dancing and driving school), and how her endless effervescence and endearing jokiness ultimately attract the best—and worst—in the people around her. After her bicycle is stolen at the beginning of the film, an incident she naturally laughs off, Poppy pays a grouchy driving instructor to teach her the rules of the road; the scenes detailing their clash of personalities become the glue that holds the film together. Beyond that, we spend a lot of time with her as she goes to a chiropractor, visits her pregnant sister, sleeps with a handsome social worker, and even attempts to mind-meld with a mentally disturbed homeless man. The film urges us, Patch Adams style, to live life to the fullest, and Poppy's cheerful refusal to be serious for three seconds is designed to win our hearts, and it mostly succeeds. (The movie should be called Poppyanna.) She's the sort of girl you wish you knew, but didn't necessarily have to spend two consecutive hours with; in Happy-Go-Lucky, she's onscreen virtually every single second. Whether you flip for Poppy or not, Hawkins does give a star-making performance. With Stanley Townsend and Eddie Marsan. Rating: 3/5.

1/9/09: House of Games (1987)

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I came to House of Games with heightened expectations. I like con-man movies, and I admire the work of David Mamet (this was his directorial debut, which he also co-wrote). It's a decent idea, involving bestselling psychoanalyst Lindsay Crouse and her interactions with con man Joe Mantegna. The film has a reputation of excellence, so I was amazed to find that it is loaded with terrible acting, chiefly by Crouse, who looks all the world like David Bowie and reads her lines like she just memorized them five minutes before Mamet yelled "action." Once you know that the theme is about confidence games, it isn't awfully difficult to predict the main twist in this tale, unless, like Crouse's character, you're exceptionally stupid. With Lindsay Crouse, Joe Mantegna, Mike Nussbaum and J.T. Walsh. Rating: 2/5.

1/8/09: In the Spirit (1990)

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When I embarked on this cinematic odyssey, I never stopped to consider that some of the films I shoved into the ol' DVD player might just be...unwatchable. Such was the case with In the Spirit, a mess of a comedy starring some of my very favorite performers. Unfortunately, they are saddled with a lousy script and extremely awkward direction (by Sandra Seacat—this was her first and, understandably, last picture). I was unable to sit through the entire movie, despite the presence of the usually hilarious Peter Falk and Elaine May. Truth be told, I did laugh out loud twice, both times at Marlo Thomas, who—along with the rest of the capable cast—deserved much better than this "quirky" comedy. With Elaine May, Peter Falk, Jeannie Berlin, Marlo Thomas and Melanie Griffith. Rating: 1/5.

1/7/09: Force of Evil (1977)

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A good deal of the nearly 400 DVDs in my unseen collection are TV movies from the 1970s. These were the films I grew up watching, and I get a perverse, nostalgic kick watching them 30 years later. Today's choice was random, although I did deliberately choose a TV thriller from that decade. Force of Evil contains all of the elements I look for in a movie of this type: revenge, murder, suspense and people forced to take the law into their own hands. (The archetype of this genre is 1973's irresistible Outrage, starring Robert Culp as a guy whose family is being terrorized by no-good punks.)

Force of Evil is about Yale Carrington (Lloyd Bridges), a doctor who's visited by a hospital employee he helped send to jail years before on a rape and murder rap. Now on parole, the sinister Teddy Jakes is back to get revenge against the doctor, his wife and pretty daughter, played by former Brady Bunch star Eve Plumb. Very Bad Things start to happen when Jakes is around, but as always, the law's hands are tied because there's no hard evidence against him. The movie is basically a made-for-TV carbon copy of Cape Fear—it even cribs the earlier movie's famous houseboat climax.

William Watson, a hulking badass with a grotesque grin and an evil glint in his eye, is perfectly cast as the villain, but the movie goes off the rails in its third act when things go from implausible to ridiculous. Still, it was a fun ride until the last 15 minutes. With Lloyd Bridges, William Watson, Pat Crowley, John Anderson and Eve Plumb. Rating: 3/5.

1/6/09: Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

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I had been under the impression that this was an indie film made on the cheap in Mumbai, and that it had really connected with movie audiences and critics alike. I was expecting kind of a feel-good type of feature, but nothing could have prepared me for how truly gruesome, nauseating, violent and profoundly distasteful much of the first two-thirds of this movie is. It's a particular quirk of mine to be turned off by depictions of children in peril, and more than half of Slumdog focuses on chidren living amid poverty, filth, garbage, crime and such abhorrent conditions that I found myself repeatedly having to look away from the screen. (In one scene, the child protagonist is compelled to wade through a giant pile of human waste; another shows us how another boy is deliberately blinded to make him a profitable beggar. And that's just for starters.) I suppose Slumdog's portrayal of kids living in poverty is an accurate one, but the sheer gruesomeness of it was relentlessly repulsive to both me and Joan, my faithful movie companion. The adults in the movie don't fare much better; a young woman's face is slashed with a razor, a teenage boy is repeatedly tortured, first by being nearly drowned, then electrocuted. There are also numerous killings by handgun, including one murder carried out by a child. The film is terribly potent and brutal.

Having said all that, the final third of the movie lightens up just long enough for a satisfying payoff—a surprisingly corny Hollywood ending. (Thank God; I'd have felt cheated without it.) Despite being occasionally difficult to watch, the film is stylistically brilliant and deserves its universally great reviews, thanks in no small part to the first-rate direction, excellent performances and extraordinary script. My review does not reflect the quality of the movie—just my excessive squeamishness. With Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor and Freida Pinto, a real standout as the immensely beautiful grownup Latika. Rating: 2/5.

1/5/09: Frost/Nixon (2008)

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Peter Morgan adapted the screenplay from his own stage play. It's a (very) slightly flctionalized dramatization of the real-life interviews disgraced President Richard Nixon did back in the summer of '77 with British TV personality David Frost. It was apparently Nixon's plan to snare an easy $600 grand by doing the equivalent of a "puff piece" interview with Frost—who surprised everybody by being much better informed and researched than Nixon could have guessed. It's a battle of wits as Frost attempts to trick the Trickster into admitting his guilt in the Watergate affair; the film shambles along at its own pace until the electrifying third act, where Frost finally confronts Nixon about Watergate. Certain dramatic licenses were obviously taken (the real interviews did not climax with Watergate, and Nixon's movie "confession" is wildly blown out of proportion), but it's still a fascinating—if fictionalized—account of the meeting of two very interesting public figures. With Michael Sheen as Frost and Frank Langella as the very sweaty ex-POTUS. Rating: 3/5.

1/4/09: Endless Night (1972)

GEORGE SANDERS WEEK
And we close out George Sanders Week with this Agatha Christie adaptation, which also stars one of my favorite actresses, Hayley Mills. Sanders had aged quite noticably in the 11 years since yesterday's selection, 1961's Five Golden Hours. This was one of his last films, released the same year he committed suicide by swallowing several bottles' worth of barbituates; he was 65.

Endless Night surprised me by reuniting Mills with Hywel Bennett, the young co-stars of The Family Way, one of my all-time favorite films. This is a Hitchcockian chiller with a Gothic-type setting, about two lovers moving in to a spectacular mansion they've built on land supposedly cursed by gypsies. There's something menacing and sinister in the air, and the film contained a fairly surprising twist I didn't see coming, which was a nice surprise. Mills struggles with an American accent, and her singing voice is obviously dubbed in a scene where she accompanies herself on piano (I own her 1961 single "Let's Get Together," so I know her real singing voice pretty well). The movie lacks Hitchcock's directorial style and finesse, but the creepy Moog-highlighted musical score helps to heighten the suspense. With Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett, Britt Ekland and George Sanders. Rating: 3/5.

1/3/09: Five Golden Hours (1961)

GEORGE SANDERS WEEK
George Sanders Week continues with this con-man comedy cut from the same cloth as David Niven's Bedtime Story (later remade as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels). 1950s TV star Ernie Kovacs stars as a professional pall-bearer in Rome who tries to bilk various widows out of money, and hilarity ensues. As The New York Times pointed out in their review, it's the sort of movie Alec Guinness made many times; the all-British cast (except for Kovacs, an American) do a very good job in this sometimes dark comedy. Cyd Charisse—whom I've never before seen in a movie—is extremely charming and beautiful as the widow Kovacs ill-advisedly falls in love with. Sanders himself doesn't show up until more than halfway through, but he's worth waiting for. This was his first movie following my beloved Village of the Damned from 1960. With Ernie Kovacs, Cyd Charisse and George Sanders. Rating: 4/5.

1/2/09: Death of a Scoundrel (1956)

GEORGE SANDERS WEEK
Two years (and about 10 movies) after starring in Witness to Murder, my selection from yesterday, George Sanders headlined this quite different crime drama. Far better acted and directed than that earlier two-dimensional story, Death of a Scoundrel recounts the life of Clementi Suborin, a Czech refugee who becomes a super-suave womanizer, stock manipulator and professional con man by unscrupulously plotting and bilking his way to astonishing wealth. (How Suborin acquires his money isn't a mystery; where he got his perfect British accent is the real puzzler.) It does the Citizen Kane trick of starting with the main character's death, and the rest of the story unfolds in flashbacks.

A variety of actors familiar to me from their later TV appearances come along for the ride, including Lily Munster, Col. Klink and George Sanders' ex-wife, Zsa Zsa Gabor, looking and sounding much more lovely than that shrew who would go on to slap a Beverly Hills cop 33 years hence. The film is a fictionalized account of real-life Wall Street wizard Serge Rubenstein, whose bribes, schemes and other illegal activities led to his own unsolved murder a year before Death of a Scoundrel came out. With George Sanders, Yvonne De Carlo, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Nancy Gates, Victor Jory, Werner Klemperer and Tom Conway (Sanders' real-life brother). Rating: 4/5.

1/1/09: Witness to Murder (1954)

GEORGE SANDERS WEEK
There was no compelling reason for me to launch my crazy project with this film noir from 1954. I don't even particularly like noirs; I'm just a big fan of its star, George Sanders, who would go on to star in my favorite movie, Village of the Damned, six years after this one. I've got four Sanders movies in my vault, and since this is a partial week, it should work out fairly nicely.

Sanders strangles a woman in his apartment, but makes the classic 1950s movie mistake of doing it with the drapes wide open, leaving neighbor Barbara Stanwyck to watch the murder in horror from across the street. Naturally, this being the ’50s, the cops don't believe her and accuse her of dreaming the whole thing. Released the same year as Rear Window, this movie has absolutely none of Hitchcock's directorial flourish—it reminded me more of TV's Dragnet (which isn't helped by the film's blatant references to it).

I found Stanwyck to be homely and somewhat difficult to look at, and the script isn't much better. Much of the drama involves Stanwyck confronting Sanders about the killing, and him denying it ("I saw you do it!" "I did no such thing"). Eventually it turns into a game of cat and mouse, with Sanders successfully framing Stanwyck to look like a nutcase. When she's hauled off to the psych ward, the story recalled 2008's The Changeling, another movie about a woman unjustly thrown into the looney bin. There's a preposterous romantic subplot involving Stanwyck and Gary Merrill as a sympathetic cop who thinks she's merely hallucinating everything, but he digs her anyway, despite her ho-hum looks and debilitating psychosis. The intrusive music soundtrack works triple time to compensate when there's very little happening on the screen. With Barbara Stanwyck, George Sanders, Gary Merrill. Rating: 2/5.