Il Bidone

Il Bidone (aka "The Swindle") (Federico Fellini, 1955) The Italian maestro in his hey-dey.  This 1955 film follows a trio of grifters—Augusto (Broderick Crawford), Picasso (Richard Basehart), and Roberto (Franco Fabrizi)—who are low-level con-artists in search of the Big Score—even a Ponzi scheme would do.  They drive into a small village, all pomp and circumstance, with as much respectability as a disguise or a decent suit can buy, and with guile and a healthy disrespect for people's own need for "easy riches" or a "too-good-to-be-true" deal, bilk the citizenry out of as much cash as they can find lying around.  As priests (using the respectability of the Church), they convince simple farm-folk of "buried treasure."  On a grander scale, they're developers collecting down-payments on rooms to a vapor—hotel that will never materialize ("The economy's bad and we've suffered some set-backs"). 

For Picasso, there are dreams of becoming a famous painter (but in the mean-time he can forge a few masterpieces to get by, much to the chagrin of his long-suffering wife, played by the wonderful Giulietta Masina).  Roberto, their chauffeur/get-away driver, is young to the game and is always looking for new angles so he can set off on his own crime-spree, free of "the losers" he thinks might be holding him back.  

But, the leader of the group, Augusto, is feeling the advance of age and getting a little desperate; he hasn't achieved any real fortune, just what can be piffled away on a falsley high lifestyle and an evening of prospecting at the clubs (he's not a high-roller, but he has to play one and that can get "spendy").  He is torn.  He wants the respectability that a really big perpetual con (like the kind found in government circles and among the constabulary can provide) can bring.  In essence, what he wants to do is be for real what he only play-acts as his work.  A man of respect, a high roller...an adult, or his version—his imagining—of what that is, this overlarge, over-age boy in big pants.  For Augusto, he hits "the brick-wall of Reality," in the presence of his very real daughter, for whom he wants most to be seen as a man of respect, a man of accomplishment, instead of the fraud he pretends to be.

I started out this review saying "the Italian maestro in his hey-dey" and have come to this point wondering if that is true.  I've often dismissed his latter films as inferior if more complicated and less grounded in reality to his 1950's films, which are more asprirational in nature.  They're about wishing and hoping for success which eludes their protagonists—the street-performers of La Strada, the drifting men of I Vitelloni...Cabiria.   When Federico Fellini became "Fellini," international artist, he seemed to lose that touch of "becoming," to make observations of his new life of "having made it," and finding it difficult to maintain and empty, finding it wanting, and in a sense, was compiling an autobiography of his journey to success and beyond.  Even his wife (Messina) complained that his Juliet of the Spirits wasn't about a woman's issues, but about his own.  His movies about the glitzerati felt hollow and self-absorbed (appropriately). 

But, the director still aspired, although he struggled for subject matter (see 8½) or funding, especially in his later years, despite his reputation.  He retreated to fantasies and circuses, reality being not enough—and maybe not sure anymore about what reality was, surrounded as he was by reputation, the expectations of fame, and the glare of the spotlight.  Simple virtues and humble origins cannot be found on the soundstages of Cinecitta, or the boardrooms of Titanus. 

But, the aspirations continued.  As if documenting Shakespeare's seven stages of life, Fellini's vision, aimed ever inward, began looking back, became nostalgic for those early times of "wanting" dreams, trying to reclaim them, make them real again.  Not so much aprirational anymore, but seeking the times and memories of aspiration, when the world was full of possibilities, when wonder was more than klieg-lights and grease-piant, a fraud wanting to be real.

I've had a review of Amarcord in the drafting stage for almost a year. I think I can write that now.

He Walked By Night

"He Walked By Night (Alfred L. Werker, 1948) It's funny the things you find. You go down the twisted, dark corridors of the film noir genre and once in a while you find a gem shining in the black, one that has many facets and goes beyond its origins and haunts.

"He Walked By Night" is one of those. Picked up at the Socialist Book Collective (Your Public Library) for free, it looked to be a modest little film. It starred Richard Basehart and Scott Brady, an actor so anonymous they had to bill him with a past movie as a middle name—Scott "Canon City" Brady.* It's a low, low budget film that looks like a million bucks because it was photographed by one of the great cinematographers in Hollywood history, John Alton. Alton painted in black and white and his intricate screens of shadow are works of art, made quickly and with little money. He worked often with director Anthony Mann who is rumored to have directed parts of this film (and sections of it look like Mann's "T-Men," one of the best film-noirs). But credit goes to Alfred L. Werker, a director who toiled in the "B" and "C" strata of movies, working with such talents as Laurel and Hardy, even Disney, and directed the second (and I think best) of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films: "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1939).


But "He Walked By Night" is a different detective story entirely. Based on a "true" LAPD investigation, ** it's a police procedural that details the work the force went into to capture a cop-killer and criminal who "seemed to be one step ahead of" them, all the way. The case drags on for months, and its only the dogged determination of one dedicated cop that leads to the case being solved. It boasts that beautifulAlton cinematography, L.A. locations, and a sense of realism that even precludes the use of a musical score. The film begins with a city-wide dragnet and ends with an incredibly well-done chase and fire-fight in the cavernous drainage system, the gun-fire echoing endlessly through the concrete corridors.


Performances are stalwart throughout, with Richard Basehart given the chance to shine through as the creepy killer, and slate-voiced B-actor Whit Bissell as the best lead witness who gets more than he bargained for.


Then down the credits is a thin, odd little actor who plays the CSI expert—or as it would become known "One of the Lab-Boys"—with a perverse sense of humor: Jack Webb. If "He Walked By Night" comes off as seeming a little familiar, that's the reason. Although having only a minor memorable role, Webb managed to strike up a relationship with technical adviser Marty Wynn, who suggested a radio series based on the crime-files of the LAPD. Webb ran with the idea and debuted the radio series "Dragnet" four weeks after this film premiered. The blue-print is here: the no-nonsense narration with the city as character and even the well-worn phrase "the names have been changed to protect the innocent." It's not exactly "Dragnet"—Webb drained the emotion out of it and did it on an even more thread-bare scale, but it's the facts, ma'am. This is where "Dragnet" started.


Why not look for yourself? "He Walked By Night" has slipped into the Public Domain, and you can watch it for free here.

* Not so anonymous, really. Brady was one of those crusty dependable actors who could do just about everything and did, playing spokesmen, governments agents, cops, people in authority, but strictly blue-collar. You'd know his face if you saw him. He had a rough-hewn authenticity and credibility that was used to its full advantage as the nuclear plant worker who vindicates Jack Lemmon in "The China Syndrome." He was also the more successful brother of actor Lawrence Tierney. There's a resemblance.

** Well, that's stretching it. A lot. Some of the particulars are used--the electronics genius, the use of the L.A. storm drain system for escapes, the meticulousness, the murders. But the truth is far stranger, and not so neat and tidy.

The story is based on the career of Erwin "Machine Gun" Walker, who returned from WWII slightly unhinged by survivor's guilt and the death of a friend at Leyte Island—a death he felt responsible for. He began a series of robberies to fund--I kid you not--a project to create an electronic "death-ray." This led to the murder of Officer Loren Roosevelt, who was gunned down attempting to question Walker after seeing him casing a store.

Instead of technologically-savvy, dogged police work, Walker's undoing was bragging about his crimes to his catholic girl-friend, who mentioned the story in confession, and the priest informed police—there goes the story of sanctity of the confessional.

Walker pleaded insanity for his crimes—he wasn't tracked down in the drainage system and killed—but was captured in a raid on his home (like the one depicted in the film) and wounded in the arrest. Citing insanity in his family and his war trauma, he made his plea, but was found competent and sentenced to death. 36 hours before his execution, he was found nearly strangled with an electrical cord, a suicide attempt—his father had killed himself six months earlier.

The suicide attempt led to Walker being declared insane and his execution postponed for 12 years, while he was remanded to various mental health facilities. In 1959, he was deemed "cured," but, reasoning that it might provoke another suicide attempt, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Then, he was granted a re-trial, and because it ruled his initial confession at the time of his arrest was coerced, he was set free.

Rather than being cut-down in a melodramatic blaze of gun-fire as in the film, Erwin "Machine Gun" Walker walked.

14 Hours

"14 Hours" (Henry Hathaway, 1951) Its place in film history is assured by being the first film role of a high-toned girl from Philadelphia who lived a cinderella existence in Hollywood, and traded it all in for life as a real princess in Monaco--Grace Kelly. Her role is small, but she does make an impression as an innocent by-stander whose life is affected by the circumstances in the movie.

But there's much more to this film than that. Another young star is introduced--Jeffrey Hunter, who is another of the morbid on-lookers as a troubled youth (Richard Basehart) walks out on a ledge and threatens to jump. There's only one beat cop (Paul Douglas) he'll talk to, so cop-in-charge Howard DaSilva puts Douglas out on the ledge as much as he can. He's not helped by the guy's parents (Agnes Moorehead and Robert Keith), or the former fiancee (Barbara Bel Geddes), or the increasingly restless crowd below, egging the jumper on.

Fox is releasing "14 Hours" as part of its "noir" series, but it's not noir. In tone and execution, it more resembles a Hitchcock scenario--a limited space, lots of process work, POV shots, and a rather wicked sense of humor. It also has a passing resemblance to a film that would be released two months later--Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole"--which also dramatized the callousness of mob mentality and reporters covering the story. Yes, it travels the back-alley of human emotions, and the last part of it does take place at night (albeit with klieg lights blazing away), but at the end of the day, dark it might be, but noir it ain't, although Hathaway directed a number of them in his career. And he makes good use of his previous films shot like documentaries for this story. Ultimately, though, it's a suspense film that hangs on a slim thread, anchored by performances uniformly delivered in the higher registers.

La Strada

"La Srada" (Frederico Fellini, 1954) Before his imagination took surrealistic flight, Fellini was still grounded in the Italian neo-realist school, and his "La Strada" takes place in the still existent ruins from the second World War--the villages and hovels where roving bands of merchants and entertainers try to eke out a living on the road. Strongman Zampano (Anthony Quinn), who breaks chains for a living returns to the family where his first assistant (now deceased) was acquired. Next in line is dim, but sweet Gelsomina (played by Mrs. Fellini, Giulietta Masina), and she hops on board Zampano's makeshift motorcycle/carnival tent/camper-trailer ("It's American!") and learns the tricks of the trade, which she takes to quickly. Eventually, they hook up with a larger circus, where they meet The Fool (Richard Basehart), who is sweet to her, but pushes all of Zampano's buttons, making the frustrated performer ever more enraged. Quinn is terrific, a bull with steam constantly coming out of his nose, Basehart shows his lighter irresponsible side rather than the stalwart authority figure he became used to playing, and Masina's performance is one of such force of personality that you can only call it "Chaplinesque," so much of it is tied to wordless expression and acting with the face. It's a melancholy circus Fellini liked to paint, supported by Nino Rota's ebullient/lyrical score but in the end shows how some chains can never be broken. Like any good fable or morality play, it saddens but doesn't disappoint.

(A week after watching "La Strada," Nino Rota's score still capers in my head.)