For one reason or another, September and October were pretty slow in terms of watching films I've not seen before. The main theme of everything I watched, bizarrely enough, was that in one way or another I couldn't completely follow what was going on. Whether it was because of an incomprehensible plot, or whether it was just dull and I couldn't care less, the majority of these films still in some sense remain a puzzle to me.
Beat the Devil (1953)
Humphrey Bogart stars as some guy who associates with some other guys who plan to buy some land in Africa rich with Uranium or something. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on since the plot is difficult to get a grasp of (as are some of the character's accents). The cast do a fine job of defining their characters, and so this ends up being more of a character piece than a plot-driven drama, or comedy, or whatever the hell it's supposed to be. It's fun to watch these characters interact, and eventually you don't mind that you don't know what's going on. I tuned in and out of this film, and still found it fairly enjoyable.
The Front Page (1931)
I honestly have no idea what happened in most of this film. The sound quality wasn't all that great so I couldn't make out the dialogue easily, and hardly anything happened anyway until the third act which meant I wasn't paying all that much attention to the film. There's a bunch of reporters, and I think our main man is meant to be leaving for New York with his girl (who may or may not be an actress or something), and then there's some business with an escaped criminal hiding in the newspaper's office after the idiot sheriff practically hands over his gun to the guy.
It's apparently based on a play, or something, and you can certainly see is theatrical origins seep through at times.
Klute (1971)
A well off, well respected, well loved family man goes missing without a trace. After six months of nothing from the FBI, one of the man's friends (the titular Klute, played by Donald Sutheraland) turns private detective to find him. His only lead is a New York call girl (Jane Fonda) who received some explicit letters sent by the missing man. Now she receives strange phone calls and feels like she's being followed. This is a pretty intriguing noir style detective story that somehow on the whole holds up for nearly two hours despite having almost nothing happen. The film is constructed in such a way that there is always tension of some sort. The film implies (and therefore pretty much gives away) who the culprit is pretty early on, and even when we hear why they did it the explanation seems pretty weak.
Despite the title, the film's not so much about Klute as it is about Fonda's character. She desperately wants to be a model or actress and takes every opportunity to become one, but always falls back into prostitution. Even weekly visist to a psychiatrist can't help her. There's all sorts of layers in this film that you can spend hours thinking about and picking apart. Some of them are interesting explorations of themes such as surveillance, and the relationship between the two main characters. However, some of the elements in the film seem to drag at times, and whenever someone other than the two main characters (or the missing man) was mentioned by name I had no idea who they were.
That being said, if you're a fan of detective noir stories, give it a shot and see what you think.
Seven Samurai (1954)
If you want to be really pedantic, this film is technically only about one samurai. Five are ronin, which are almost like samurai but not quite, and one is just an idiot pretending to be a samurai. However, that's probably the only flaw in Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece. Every year, farmers are terrorised by bandits, and so they decide to hire some samurai to protect them and fight the bandits off. The film wastes no time in recruiting our seven heroes, and with their help, the farmers fortify their farming village and systematically eliminate the bandits. Sure, there's a bit of a lull between when the samurai fortify the village and when the main attack begins, but thankfully it doesn't last long.
Each character feels like they have their own history behind them, which rounds them out and makes them feel complete. (According to the IMDb, Kurosawa actually did give them all a history, and it shows.) Hell, even the battle tactics are pretty easy to follow, deviously clever and therefore somewhat believable. It's a little hard sometimes to distinguish between some of the samurai, but for the most part they all have unique characteristics.
If you want to know where a modern cinematic technique suddenly became popular, this is the film it was in.
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