*SPOILER ALERTS, BOTH FILMS*
Torn Curtain: (1966. dir: Alfred Hitchcock) Nobody's favorite Hitchcock, I think, but even lesser works from the master are worth watching. Hampered by a padded and halting script, John Addison's sour-making treacle-score and a dearth of chemistry between its stars, Hitchcock still pulls off some interesting stunts. First, it's mostly done in exquisite greens and golds, and his camera, as always, flows in fascinating ways into interesting angles. Paul Newman's eyes have never looked lovelier in the ultra-saturated color (reminiscent of North by Northwest), and he and Julie Andrews give it the old college try, but they're fighting an uphill battle in this little Cold War spy-story about a brilliant physicist (you can just buy Newman as such, just barely) who pretends to defect so that he can winkle crucial secrets from a communist counterpart behind the Wall. A lesser man would've had a total hash on his hands, but Hitch manages to coax some suspense out of sometimes ridiculously forced situations. I suspect Andrews, who at first seems wildly miscast, was chosen for the very innocence with which we all associate her, as we must buy her naievete in misconstruing her lover's actions, then her sheer and utter niceness as she comes to understand. Most actresses might bring too much spunk and vitriol to the table, whereas Andrews keeps the emotional content clean and simple (and, alas, fairly humdrum).
The best parts are satellite to the leads: Wolfgang Kieling as the leather-clad Soviet goon assigned to shadow Newman, for instance, a man who romanticizes New York City and has a lighter that won't work and a taste for American slang. His death scene is one of startlingly protracted violence and suspense, albeit with cartoonish elements. (An OVEN? Seriously? Is that supposed to be a joke?) Lila Kedrova gives a heartfelt turn as a Polish aristocrat prowling for American "sponsors", and she enjoys a good deal of solo camera time, so we can watch her face as it twists and melts in a sort of dance, as if she's decaying and reforming in constant motion before our eyes. The way the camera registers the ballerina recognizing the physicist in her audience is chilling, effective, and just plain odd. The ending, like many of the plot-turns which have preceded it, feels stilted and incredible, but by that time there's already been a big scene on a bus which has so stretched even the most elastic sense of credulity that by the time the end comes we've tossed our common sense overboard and we go where the ship takes us, disembarking gratefully wherever it finally decides to dock.
Mother Lode: (1982. dir: Charlton Heston) Heston directs himself in a vanity project from a script by his son, and, to be fair, he has a mother-load of fun as a half-crazed, eremitical Scottish miner protecting his claim from greedy-bastard interloper Nick Mancuso and tag-along girl Kim Basinger. The bad news is that the script is utterly lifeless until Heston speaks (or John Marley, who turns a lovably crotchety deus-ex-machina fisherman into some pleasant company for a few scenes). Mancuso and Basinger fuddle around speaking listless lines which would clunk on the floor even delivered by the greats, and this was back when Basinger, bless her heart, was still learning how to act, with a flat, whiny delivery negating any good emoting she might do. On the upside, she's got terrific hair.
Heston does some nice aural things with creaking beams and faraway bagpipes, but there is some hideous electronic music to suffer through, and the pace is a leisurely one, to say the least, with lots of cross-fades and lingering shots of pretty country, which effectively quashes any claustrophobic tension he might otherwise have forged inside those rickety mine-shafts. When we finally get to the climax, though, we get to see Heston barrelling around in full-on axe-wielding mode, and he gives himself one of those awesome Monster Death-Roars we used to get in the '70s (see Duel, and Jaws, et al), and I call that good fun.
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