The Big Heat: A Film Noir Classic

 

 

THE BIG HEAT (1953)

Directed by Fritz Lang

Columbia Pictures, 90 minutes, Not-rated.

★★★★

 

 

 

The Big Heat is widely regarded as a film noir classic. In my mind, at 90 minutes it’s a bit cramped, but there’s no denying the skillful touch of director Fritz Lang (1890-1970). He was dubbed “Master of Darkness” for both his chosen subject matter and his preference for black in the age of black and white movies. The Big Heat is also remarkable when you think that the then 63-year-old Lang made this film nearly 30 years after he directed Metropolis, which might be the best dystopian film ever made.

 

The Big Heat is cut from different cloth, shrouds. Homicide Sgt. Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) investigates the alleged suicide of fellow homicide officer Tom Duncan whose wife Bertha (Jeanette Nolan) says was in poor health. Several things don’t add up. Why is everyone in such a hurry to close the book on Duncan? Why does Tom’s mistress Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green) insist that Tom was perfectly healthy? What kind of guy about to off himself leaves a note for the district attorney rather than friends and family? Why can’t Dave see the contents of the note?

 

In a good film noir, questions like these portend murder. Bannion is suspicious and how can he not be when Chapman joins Duncan in the Great Beyond–with cigarette burns on her body? To Bannion’s nose everything smells like the work of mobster Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby). Yet superiors order him to close the book on the case. Of course, he won’t; even when the case is moved out of his jurisdiction. When Bannion accuses higher ups of ignoring evidence and corruption, he is suspended and his badge is revoked. As if that’s going to stop him after a car bomb kills his wife, Katie (Jocelyn Brando).

 

The free-lancing Bannion is certain he’s on the right track when he’s in a bar and observes Lagana’s chief punk Vince Stone (Lee Marvin) extinguish a cigar on a woman’s arm. Bannion challenges him and his lowlife buddies. That catches the attention of Stone’s girlfriend Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame), whom we infer has herself been on the wrong end of Vince’s anger. But which side is she on? The Big Heat has more femmes fatales than an NBA locker room has castoff sneakers. Moreover, aside from Bannion and his war buddies, there aren’t many men who can be trusted either. Threats to Bannion’s daughter are the icing on an explosive cake.

 

The term gritty is apropos for a film that could only make an undertaker happy. If Bannion is right, he truly is a man on his own. In his mind, everyone from the police commissioner on down is beholden to the mob. The drama hinges on Dave’s ability to stay alive and, he thinks, the content of Duncan’s note.

 

Glenn Ford is terrific as a man metaphorically dancing on the edge of the razor in his bare feet. He’s angry, but also scared. As well he should be. Lee Marvin is chilling as the amoral Vince Stone and, for once, the women in the film get to play major parts. Gloria Grahame shines in a role that requires her to walk a tightrope with no safety net to catch her. You can rest assured also that any film directed by Fritz Lang and cinematographer Charles Lang (no relation to Fritz) will be stylish and moody.

 

The only thing that mars the film is that it should have been longer. Sydney Boehm’s screenplay based on a William McGivern novel requires viewers to juggle a few too many characters. Though McGivern’s work was brief (200 pages), Boehm’s truncated script strips away depth, not enough to rob characters of their personalities, but enough to provide temporary confusion over their respective relationships.

 

As for Dave Bannion, is there any hope if the establishment is rotten to the core? Has he allowed his grief to make him paranoid? Losing a friend, a wife, a few witnesses, and worrying about a kidnap plot on your daughter could make you so. Watch and find out who is left standing.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

Oddball Comedies

 

The film genre known as screwball comedy was a sort of predecessor to situation comedy. In this piece–a follow-up to my review of Seducing Dr. Lewis–I offer suggestions for probing “oddball comedy.”

 

Oddball comedies are the antithesis of formulaic mass market movies. They can be sweet and uplifting, but they trade in absurdity, improbability, irony, satire, and surrealism. They are a blend of the Apollonian (intellectual) and the Dionysian (sensual, untethered from the commonplace, inverted perspectives).

 

Here is a smattering of oddball comedies to try, listed in alphabetical order:

 

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Through the Window and Disappeared (2013): Phew, that’s a mouthful but it sets up the entire movie. When Allan’s cat dies, he’s shuffled off to the old folks home but Allan wants no part of it and goes AWOL. Elephants in Sweden? Why not? Not much goes right–for the bad guys! A caper film the likes of which you’ve seldom seen.

 

Amélie (2001): There are actually people who don’t like this film and all I can say is get over yourselves. This tasty morsel directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet is worth watching for its first five minutes alone. Add Audrey Tatou oozing coquettish cuteness, an unconventional love story, and absurdity on Montmartre and it’s on my all-time favorite films list.

 

The Big Lebowski (1998): “That rug really pulled the room together,” says Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski to the thugs who just peed on his carpet. I’ll watch anything from Joel and Ethan Coen, but what a cast of crazy and crazed characters: John Goodman as a bowler who won’t roll on Shabbat, Steve Buscemi as a clueless fall guy, John Turturro setting back gay rights by a decade, Julianne Moore au naturel, and inept baddies and all one can say is, “The Dude abides.”

 

Blazing Saddles (1974): This Mel Brooks classic is both hated and beloved. Those who don’t like it say it’s broad and crude; its defenders (such as I) applaud its dark lampoon of westerns, its silly songs, and its anarchic qualities. Some parts might offend the terminally PC, but Brooks wanted you to see the ridiculousness of ethnic stereotyping.

 

Brazil (1985): Can dystopia be funny? In the hands of Terry Gilliam, the cartoonist for Monty Python, nothing is sacred. Some have called Brazil a colossal mess; others a send-up of 1984. Put me in the second category. It’s amazing how funny ductworks can be. Ditto consumerism gone mad. For the record, it has zilch to do with its namesake country.

 

The Castle (1997): “What do you call this?” asks Darryl Kerrigan. “Chicken,” replies his wife, Sal. “Ahh, but it’s what you’ve done with it,” Darryl replies. He’s a simple man whose "castle” lies at the end of an airport runway and he doesn’t want to part with it. Take every bit of logic, turn it upside down, and you’re still short of the hysterics embedded in this Australian comedy. How about lines like, “Dad’s even more proud of him now than when he was in jail!” You’ll be singing, “We’re going to Bonny Doon” when this one ends. This might be my favorite offbeat film.

 

Comfort and Joy (1984): Pathos and absurdity mix in this Bill Forsyth film set in Glasgow. Can a break up film be a feel-good Christmas movie? Aye, lads and lassies. Bill Paterson is a DJ trying to recover his mojo. He proves what dribble AM radio can be. Queue Mr. Bunny and an ice cream war.

 

Delicatessen (1991): You have to have an abiding love for the offbeat to watch a comedy about cannibalism. This post-apocalyptic French film directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet is practically a Gallic Sweeney Todd. Believe it or not, it’s preposterous and wacky, its subject matter notwithstanding. Hey, a guy’s gotta eat.

 

 
 

Duck Soup (1933): All Marx Brothers films are blueprints for absurdist comedy, though Duck Soup is my favorite. If you think about it, puffed-up leaders, militarism, and war are absurd to their very core. The battlefield costume changes alone are worth the price of admission. Ditto Harpo walking through an active battle zone with a “Help Wanted” sign.

 

Eagle vs Shark (2007): This was Taika Waititi’s first film. It’s uneven, but who mixes cosplay, geeks, a singer who fails to connect, and fast food with Claymation interludes? Love and sex in the Land of the Weird.

 

Fargo (1996): “Ahh, jeez Marge, you gotta have your breakfast.” Forget the TV show; this Coen Brothers black comedy makes a wood chipper murder victim seem funny–in a twisted way. Anything with Frances McDormand, the Queen of Droll, is worth watching.

 

A Fish Called Wanda (1988): Stars John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin. It’s obstensibly a double-cross heist film with Monty Python qualities. It features Cleese as a bumbling Lothario. That alone is funny!

 

Hunt for the Wilder People (2016): This film from New Zealand director Taika Waititi is a comedy-drama shot through with absurdism. Ricky, a foster child, and Hector, a cranky survivalist, hightail it through the New Zealand bush with child services in pursuit. You meet a lot of wacko people in the middle of the wilderness. This one is funny, but also poignant and sad in places. It’s unorthodox throughout.

 

The Jerk (1979): “Waiter, take this away and bring us some new wine.” This Steve Martin vehicle is a screamfest of looniness from start to finish. Carl Reiner directed this tale of love among the reality challenged, a dog named Shithead, and an invention gone wrong.

 

The Lobster (1995): This pan-European surrealist black comedy takes us to a future society in which unmarried people get 45 days to tie the knot or they are turned into animals. And you thought the dating scene was fraught with trauma! It might sound stupid, but it won the Jury Prize at Cannes, sports an all-star cast, and how-did-they-come-up-with-that turns.

 

Local Hero (1983): This film established Bill Forsyth’s reputation for showing Scotland as both charming and strange. Offshore oil sends a Yank from Houston to a remote Highlands village to forge a business deal. Mythic elements and a lilting brogue add to city slicker versus country bumpkin play acting.

 

Malcolm (1986): There’s nothing like a flaky inventor to stir things up, especially one with a childlike imagination who’s pretty far along the spectrum and whose love of trams leads to law-breaking. This unusual Australian comedy also advanced the career of the Penguin Café Orchestra.   

 

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975): Another Terry Gilliam directorial effort that turns King Arthur legends on their collective heads. If you’ve never seen it, watch zis film or I will have to taunt you again. Coconut shell horses, Castle Anthrax, a Trojan Rabbit, the Holy Grenade of Antioch, and the Knights Who Say “Ni” are among the things you’ll encounter.

 

O, Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000): Another Coen brothers’ film, this one starring George Clooney. Some viewers didn’t get its humor, but it makes a lot sense­–well nonsense–if you brush up on your Homer and know that it’s mostly a parody of The Odyssey set during the Great Depression. Be “the one the capacity for abstract thought” and enjoy this film. Wonderful soundtrack as well.

 

The Adventure of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994): It’s as if the Aussies have a near stranglehold on oddball comedy. How about a drag queen road trip comedy set in the Outback? It sure is an antidote to Mad Max.

 

 

 

Rushmore (1998): Wes Anderson often drives me to distraction because most of his films are half brilliant and half of a lazy college sophomore’s term paper. Rushmore is his most complete venture into eccentricity. Jason Schwartzman is a 15-year-old kid who’s part huckster, part genius, and part spawn of Satan. This film also rebooted Bill Murray’s career as a laconic character that he can’t be bothered with what makes sense.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

Seducing Dr. Lewis is for Lovers of the Absurd!

 

 

SEDUCING DR. LEWIS/LA GRANDE SÉDUCTION (2003)

Directed by Jean-François Pouliet

Wellspring Media, 108 minutes, unrated (language, adult situations)

In French with English subtitles

★★★★★

 

 

 

Movies like Seducing Dr. Lewis remind us of why independent cinema beats the pants off of mainstream movies. This small and exceedingly quirky comedy won an audience award at Sundance in 2004, was cited for excellence at Cannes, and won six Genie awards (the Canadian Oscars).  So, naturally, it was remade in English (2013) and set in Newfoundland rather than Québec, and France made another version two years later. Don’t be tempted; the original is all you need. 

 

This film couldn’t be more appropriate for a blog titled off-center views; it positively crackles and cackles with offbeat whimsy. The village of Ste-Marie-la-Mauderne is a village located on an island miles into in the Bay of St. Lawrence and accessible only by boat.* The steep decline of fishing has left Ste-Marie’s 120 residents in a bad way. Each week the men line up to collect their welfare checks at the bank managed by the nebbish Henri Giroux (Benoît Brière). Because it’s Canada, they are in no danger of starving, but everyone would rather work, both for their self-esteem and out of boredom. A souped-up and funny exchange between Giroux and de facto village leader Germain Lesage (Raymond Bouchard) in which he produces a permission note to collect the check for a long-dead resident alerts us that the film’s humor is coming at you every way except straight-on.

 

When Ste-Marie residents hear of plans for a plastics factory, they begin to lobby for it in ways that will put you in mind of shenanigans of the Scottish film Local Hero. Several problems. First, Ste-Marie is 80 residents shy of the firm’s population cutoff; second, a resident doctor is needed to sign off on the contract and care for the line workers. Third, the plastics firm point man wants a $50,000 bribe. A little in-one-door-out-another farce and sleight of hand swells the population, but recruiting a doctor willing to relocate in the middle of nowhere is another matter. Not even the bend-the-truth advertisements of Germain and his laconic best friends Rolland and Simone Lesage can make that happen. Nor is it easy for an island filled with welfare recipients to find $50,000.   

 

Meanwhile, in Montreal, Dr. Christopher Lewis (David Boutin) is pulled over for speeding in Montreal by a cop who was once the mayor of Ste-Marie-la-Mouderne. When Lewis reaches into his glove box for his registration, a packet of cocaine falls into plain view, and Lewis is up the St. Lawrence without a paddle. Luckily, the cop is willing to ignore the coke if Lewis agrees to spend a month on the island to minister to Ste-Marie’s long-ignored health needs. (The fact that his specialty is plastic surgery is irrelevant!)

 

If you suspect city slicker versus islander folksy country wisdom jokes, you’re on the right track, but think in terms more surreal than homespun. Germain, his wife Hélène (Rita Lafontaine), the Lesages, and the entire village conspire to convince Dr. Lewis to sign aboard for a three-year stint. All manner of weird enticements appear: faux love of cricket by hockey-loving residents who wouldn’t know bowls from the Dead Sea Scrolls; a lucky money-dispensing gnome; and faked interest in fusion jazz. Locals also tap Lewis’ landline phone to determine his other interests and let it be said that they misunderstand at a greater degree than they comprehend. About the only real attraction for Lewis is Ste-Marie’s attractive-but-aloof postmistress Éve (Lucie Laurier).

 

Will Lewis stay? Will the factory be built? where will the islanders find fifty grand? Will Germain. et. al. level with Lewis? Will Henri be replaced by an ATM? Those are the wrong questions and the answers scarcely matter. Watch this film with an eye toward wallowing in absurdity. You just might receive a heartwarming bonus or two.

 

Rob Weir

 

* Ste-Marie is actually Harrington Harbour in northeast Québec and is located on a peninsula, not out to sea.

Halibut on the Moon, Lesson in Depression or Just Depressing?

 

 

HALIBUT ON THE MOON (2019)

By David Vann

Grove Atlantic, 260 pages.

★★★

 

 

 

Halibut on the Moon was deaccessioned rather quickly by my local library, so I had to track it down for an interlibrary loan. I admit that I was mostly intrigued by the title, but now I understand why it had such a short shelf life. Not many people want to read about a guy contemplating suicide, even if the tale is fictional. I get that, though I give author David Vann credit for capturing the despair and hopelessness associated with chronic depression.

 

One wonders if any part of the novel is autobiographical, given that the protagonist is 39-year-old Jim Vann. Jim has been living in Fairbanks since his second marriage to Rhoda ended in divorce. Alaska, with its painfully short winter days, is not the best place for a gloomy person to live–especially in a home he’s never bothered to furnish. His younger brother Gary convinces him that he needs to come to get over his woes by spending time with his family in California. Jim has two children, David, and Tracy, to his first wife Elizabeth, plus a sister (Ginny), and both parents scattered between Santa Rosa and Lakeport, the latter where Jim was once a dentist like his father. Like many, Gary treats “family” as if it’s a magical incantation rather than one of the things that might fuel depression. The psychiatrist Jim sees in Lakeport is incompetent, but he’s at least smart enough to start him on medication immediately. The kicker is that the drugs take at least two weeks to kick in and Jim carries a .44 magnum with him because he’s not sure he can take his anguish any longer.

 

Jim is the epitome of a hollowed-out man. He’s intelligent but he trashed his career, repeatedly cheated on both wives, frequents hookers, owes the IRS $365,000, can’t sleep, doesn’t believe in anything, and is especially contemptuous of his family’s Lutheranism. Nor does he possess many filters, so even those trying to help him vacillate between sympathy and repulsion. All he wants to do is call Rhoda and have sex with her. He can’t even articulate why, as he doesn’t find her very attractive and family members try to tell him that she’s “poison.” Perhaps she’s just the only thing remotely interesting in Lakeport, a small town of about 5,000 souls in which nothing much happens. Jim even has to scale a fence to get to its namesake shoreside.

 

For sure Jim is several fries short of a Happy Meal. He shoots a scrub jay and talks of cooking it. The book’s title is a preposterous tale he tells his kids of sending an astronaut halibut to the moon, where it flies. The meds mess with him; he’s manic one moment and fingering his gun the next. He imagines he should be proud of his Cherokee ancestry, though he can’t muster much enthusiasm about that or anything else. Mostly he ponders suicide and views himself as a breathing ghost   

 

The open question is whether Jim will become a non-breathing ghost. Halibut on the Moon is an interior novel told from Jim’s point of view. It’s a short book that’s long on troubled thoughts, an apt lens through which to view someone who can’t see beyond his pain and isn’t sure he wants to. Still, dwelling upon Jim’s dark, angst-ridden, and disjointed thoughts parallels his conflicted self-awareness, but it makes the book a will-he-or-won’t-he one-trick pony. In essence, Jim is on a roller coaster between life and death perched on the crest of a steep piece of track; “stalled” is a challenging place for readers along for the ride.

 

Should you nonetheless read Halibut on the Moon? It depends. If you think of it as didactic, you will attain a deeper understanding of a mental state you never wish to visit. You will also get the message that telling a profoundly disturbed person to snap out of it and be thankful for what he has is a ludicrous piece of advice. If you’re reading for pleasure, that’s another matter altogether. Either way, though, be cautious of thinking of family as a panacea.

 

Rob Weir

The Killers: See the 1946 Masterpiece; Ignore the Remake

 

THE KILLERS (1946)

Directed by Robert Siodmak

Universal Pictures, 103 minutes

★★★★★

 

 

The 1946 version of The Killers was heralded in its day, but has retreated to relative obscurity. Too bad; it’s an exemplar of the film noir genre. It takes its title and basic plot from an Ernest Hemingway short story in which even the double crossers are double-crossed.

 

The film opens bold by offing its protagonist, Ole “Swede” Andreson (Burt Lancaster), before you can butter your popcorn. Two guys enter a Bentwood, New Jersey greasy spoon, ask for Swede, terrorize the staff, and trumpet their intention to murder him. When Swede fails to show up at the diner, customer Nick Adams–a character Hemingway fans know from other tales–rushes to Andreson’s house to warn him, but he acts as if he has been expecting them and orders Nick to leave. Sure enough, the killers (William Conrad, Charles McGraw) show up and fill him full of lead. The rest of the film is told in flashbacks.

 

Lancaster cut his teeth in impulsive, not-so-bright tough guy roles. In The Killers he is a boxer whose best buddy, Sam Lubinsky (Sam Levene) is a cop, who attends Swede’s last fight before he is forced to quit the game. Sam and Swede fall out shortly thereafter. Andreson dumps his wholesome girlfriend, Lily (Virginia Christine) for a sultry brunet, Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner). When Sam tries to pinch Lily for possessing a stolen broach, Swede insists he stole it, ignores Sam’s advice, pulls three years in prison, and disappears after his parole.

 

Sam and insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O’Brien) try to get to the bottom of Swede’s murder­­–Sam out of past friendship and his marriage to Lily, and Reardon because of a suspicious $2,500 life insurance policy Andreson left to a boarding house owner. They speculate that the gunmen were contract killers taking revenge for a $255,000 payroll heist in which Swede allegedly took part after his release.

 

Sam and Reardon are baffled, though. Swede didn’t possess enough gray cells to plan such a caper and, as his former boxing manager, his New Jersey gas station boss and, as fellow attendant Nick attest, Andreson was a loner who owned little more than the clothes on his back and his dopp kit. Who planned the caper and where’s the money? “Big Jim” Colfax (Albert Dekker), a Pittsburgh contractor, might not be as legit as he claims and several others are shadier than a rainforest, but proving guilt is easier said than done. What about Kitty? Is she a puma or a domestic tabby? All I will say is that Swede isn’t the last corpse and The Killers has a killer ending.

 

Lancaster plays a dim bulb, but he’s candescent whenever he’s on the screen.  Levene exudes folksy charm, and they certainly don’t make insurance adjusters as tough as O’Brien anymore. Gardner positively sizzles in a role that will keep you wondering if she’s a femme fatale or just a gal who once kept unfortunate company. Toss in a thematically appropriate soundtrack from the masterful Miklos Rozsa and crisp black and white cinematography from Woody Bredell and you will wonder why a movie that once garnered four Oscar nominations is now infrequently viewed.

__________________________________­_____________________________

 

If only Hollywood could resist the temptation to touch up a Michelangelo. In 1964, Universal released a remake directed by Don Siegel. It’s shorter (95 minutes) and in color because it was supposed to be a TV movie but was deemed too violent for the small box. (By today’s standards it’s practically Sesame Street.)

 

The 1964 movie is pared, though it follows the same arc as Siodmak’s 1946 film. In what now looks like a cheap ploy to appear hip, Swede was transformed into Johnny North (John Cassavetes), a racecar driver who also teaches at a school for the blind. (Really!?) His spurned best friend Earl Sylvester (Claude Akins) is a mechanic instead of a cop, and subplots of a gun-toting insurance guy and a dumped sweetheart are dropped. Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson) is the female interest. She’s a built-for-speed bad girl, but also invites viewers to wonder if she’s misunderstood.

 

Lee Marvin plays one of the killers with icy ruthlessness and is easily the best thing in the movie, though Cassavetes is also competent. Alas, the script is so sappy that you need not queue the remake unless you’re a curious comparative shopper. The Colfax analog is Jack Browning–Ronald Reagan in his last movie role. Virginia Christine was the only actor to appear in both versions; she’s a blind secretary in Johnny’s school. Angie Dickinson was no Ava Gardner, nor John Williams the equal of Rozsa.

 

The 1946 film is worthy of its inclusion in the Criterion Collection, but that’s not the case for its 1964 counterpart. The first is a hearty stew; the second tomato soup from the can and mixed with water.

 

Rob Weir   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Code Girls: The Women Who Helped Win WWII

 

CODE GIRLS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE AMERICAN WOMEN CODE BREAKERS OF WORLD WAR II

By Liza Mundy

Hachette Books, 2017, 448 pages.

★★★★

 

 
 

Perhaps you have heard of the WACS and WAVES, but women’s contributions during World War II remain underappreciated. This is certainly true of those who worked as code breakers, like a deceased friend who was recruited when she was an undergraduate at Mt. Holyoke College. In deference to what would have been her wishes, I will refer to her  by the initial B.

 

 I did not know of Code Girls by Liza Mundy when B was alive. I sometimes wish we had known about this book earlier, though it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. B was chatty, sharp, and irreverent, but took no bait when prompted to talk about her wartime role. “I took an oath," said she, and maintained that stance even though stories about code girls had begun to surface in her lifetime and much of their once-secret mission had been declassified.

 

Mundy’s book gives an appreciation for the burden these women carried. They came from all walks of life, including those plucked from the best women’s colleges, but given that just four percent of women attended four-year colleges in 1942, the main criteria were an affinity for math, languages, and/or puzzle solving. B was highly intelligent, so I'm sure she ticked all of the boxes. The task was nothing less than breaking German and Japanese secret communications in an age in which electronic computing was in its infancy and there was no such thing artificial intelligence. Try cracking powerful mechanical encrypting machines through brainpower alone. Even if you figured out messages linguistically, what did the nonsensical words mean? That took late nights, intuition, and sweat.

 

Here's the kicker: much of what the women discovered could not be used, lest Axis powers suspect that their codes were compromised and change them. Information had to be parceled carefully and saved for crucial moments. Imagine the enormous weight of having advance knowledge that hundreds of GIs were marching toward their deaths. Many of the women had brothers and husbands in the war and their information could have prevented the slaughter of someone else's brothers and husbands. I often wonder if that's why B took her oath to the grave.

 

Mundy does a fine job of giving glimpses into the mindsets and patriotism of her subjects. Decades after the war ended in 1945, some were allowed to break their silence. Among them were a former Virginia school teacher, an African American recruit, a Smith College history major, an English scholar and champion swimmer, and a woman from a backwoods Pennsylvania town. Naturally, though, Mundy has lacunae in her story. After all, how much has been forgotten or embellished after the more than seven decades later?

 

There are common touchstones. The women spoke of their training. Those from humble backgrounds had never before ventured far from home before they reported to training facilities; several had to scrape together fare to get there. Quite a few had no idea what they had volunteered to do until they arrived. They had a sense of duty, but were also aware of the sexism of male superiors and bristled from the disrespect shown by men who were their intellectual inferiors. There were also maters of lower pay, poor work conditions, and crummy lodging. In the 1940s, what we’d today call structural sexism was the social norm. Many of Munde’s informants did not reflect upon fairness until years later; one gets the sense they were too busy and too exhausted to dwell upon it at the time. They simply figured out how to bypass inter-service rivalries, deflect personality clashes that led to inefficiencies, and cope with everyday indignities.

 

The code “girls”–and most were indeed young–were a mix of traditional and non-traditional individuals, some of whom presented in conventional feminine ways and others who embraced proto-feminist ideals. However we view the code breakers though, the stakes couldn’t have been much higher. Until the Japanese codes were broken in 1943, the United States was losing the war in the Pacific and it wasn’t much better in Europe. This alone makes the case that more attention should be cast upon those women whose names do not make the history books. They should take their place aside famous men such as MacArthur, Eisenhower, Halsey, and Patton.

 

Mundy’s is a fine early corrective. Only a lack of an index mars an otherwise stellar work.

 

Rob Weir

The Last Vermeer Should Have Been Better

 

THE LAST VERMEER (2019)

Directed by Dan Friedkin

Sony Pictures, 118 minutes, R (brief nudity, language, violence)

★★★

 

 

 

Near the end of The Last Vermeer Han van Meergern proclaims, “I believe every fascist deserves to be swindled.” No argument there, but was the audience also swindled? Sort of. Movies such as this can be more frustrating than bad ones. It’s merely okay and it’s too easy to detect the various ways in which scriptwriters and director Dan Friedkin give us a muddy watercolor instead of a vibrant oil.

 

The plot is based on actual events detailed by Jonathan Lopez in his 2008 book The Man Who Made Vermeers. World War II has ended and the Allied Command is in the process of shutting down to return control of The Netherlands to a civilian government. That’s not good news for Captain Joseph Piller (Claes Bang), a Dutch Jew tracing art looted by the Nazis. He has a big fish in custody: Han van Meergern (Guy Pearce). He stands accused of selling Christ and the Adulterer, a hitherto lost work of 17^th century luminary Johannes Vermeer, to Hitler’s righthand man, Hermann Goering. The 1.6 million guilders van Meergern pocketed was, at the time, the most ever paid for an artwork. Detective Alex De Klerks (August Diehl) wants possession of van Meergern, perhaps to send him to the firing squad with other Dutch collaborators, or worse to let him walk in exchange for information.

 

Piller finds van Meergern privileged and arrogant, but he also entertains an inkling of doubt about his guilt. The last point is among several unfilled plot holes. Why does Piller care about van Meergern? Pearce plays van Meergern in full foppish condescension. He lived in the lap of luxury while Piller, a member of the Dutch Resistance, spent the war avoiding being captured and sent to a death camp. Friedkin offers psychobabble instead of solid motives; Piller’s wife Leez (Marie Bach Hansen) was also in the Resistance, but her job was to court the Nazis to ferret out information. Joseph believes she did her best work in the boudoir. Or is that just because Piller is drawn to his assistant Minna Holberg (Vicky Krieps), a widow? Friedkin’s attempt to suggest their relationship remained chaste either further whitewashes Piller’s behavior or is another plot hole–take your pick.

 

Friedkin tries to play coy, but he need not have bothered; it’s obvious before the film is 20 minutes old that van Meergern is a forger. Perhaps he wanted us not to notice that women of The Last Vermeer are afterthoughts. Leez is scarcely present and the only other female character of note is Cootje Henning (Olivia Grant), a social gadfly, model, and serial paramour whose biggest scene is an unclothed one. These are odd choices given that Minna who figured out that van Meergern is telling the truth that the Vermeer he sold to Goring was a forgery by his own hand. That’s a hard sell, though, as everyone van Meergern claims can verify his claim is missing or dead, and the entire Dutch art establishment views van Meergern as a hack who couldn’t possibly paint like Vermeer.   

 

What’s a man facing the firing squad to do? Why paint another Vermeer, of course. It will be a defense exhibit at van Meergern’s trial, but not one that a Dutch court or the art world wishes to entertain. After all, Piller is a Jew defending a traitor with a fanciful tale of using Bakelite (an early plastic) to pass the usual test for forgery. Worse still, the same art critics scoff at van Meergern’s boast that he also painted several other “Vermeers” on display in art museums, including Christ at Emmaus at the Boijmans in Rotterdam whose director, Dirk Hannema (Adrian Scarborough), is the chief witness for the prosecution. Van Meergern’s flamboyant braggadocio sways spectators witnessing the trial, but is the Dutch public too hungry for a hero and too anxious to believe what isn’t so?   

 

The Last Vermeer is worth watching for Pearce’s star turn, its takedown of pompous critics, and its lessons on how easily “truth” can be massaged. If only what was made up was as exciting as what really happened, this would have been a gem.

 

Rob Weir

 

Postscript: Among art connoisseurs, few 17^th century painters are as celebrated as Vermeer. He left just 36 recognized works, several of which are certainly fakes. Han van Meergern is now viewed as the greatest forger in Western art history.