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Reviews
Plenty (1985)
A post WWII world seen through English eyes
David Hare's brilliant stage play has been translated beautifully to the screen. The peculiar English trait of natural melancholy radiates throughout this sad exercise of seeing all through the lens of British class consciousness, repression and despair. The color photography, the performances, the stifling framing of the widescreen shots all add to the oppressive beauty of a story about the self-destruction of a preternaturally beautiful woman. Mery Streep has never been better before or since. Hare makes her intellectual acuity a weapon against herself as she sees through all the ghastly pretenses of a corroding Empire. No insight, no beauty of body, no letting go of formality and pretense can save her from herself. Feminism itself is taken to the burning stake as Streep's character thrashes, Hedda Gabbler like, against walls and prohibitions beyond her understanding. Rarely has such condemnation looked so ravishing.
Panic in the Streets (1950)
A great little noir from Kazan
The night location work in New Orleans in Panic in the Streets gives this film added resonance post Katrina. Jack Palance looks like something our of a Marvel Comic -- evil incarnate -- while Zero Mostel gives a hopped-up performance as his side kick literally running all over the city. The plot is serviceable if not completely believable but the photography, direction and acting drive the show along like a runaway train. Richard Widmark seems miscast as the hero. I keep expecting him to join the crooks but I guess his cooler-than-thou existential pain and self-pity were considered hot stuff in 1950. Kazan is a lover of men and manly ways so the good girl, Barbara Bel Geddes gets little more than to look longingly at her crazy for science hubby and do her wifely duty to provide children and motivation for the world of macho achievement.