1935 Movie: Lawless Rider

STUDIO:

20th Century Fox. Known for socially-conscious adventure films and “hokey cheesey ‘Americana’.” Worked with Ford and Wayne.   

CAST/CREW:

Director: John Ford

A well known Director working in the 30's, made a lot of westerns, frequently worked with John Wayne and worked with Bert Glennon on Stagecoach in 1939.

Cinematographer: Bert Glennon

Received the Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Black & White) for Stagecoach in 1939

Actors: John Wayne, Alice Faye

John Wayne is a quintessential Western movie star that works with John Ford and Fox.

Faye also worked with Fox and was considered very popular and attractive.

GENRE:

Western. Audience familiarity. Escapism from the 30's. Cultural critique against banks/wealth.

The idea of the rugged individual can comfort the poor conditions of the great depression. The themes of justice are of interest to a bank-hating public.

SYNOPSIS:

The movie begins with Charles (Wayne) and a group of five rugged bandits looking upon a fairly large mansion on a grassy knoll. As conversation begins to develop, it is learned that the group is there to ransack the mansion for all it’s worth, and it appears that Charles is the ringleader for tonight. Charles explains that the rich couple that owns the house is out for the night, and won’t be back until late in the evening. After a few more gloss overs of the plan, the band separates to get in through the three different entrances, each man at an entrance carefully picking a door open. Once the men are in the building, all is well, until Charles discovers a girl cowering in her closet in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Charles quickly notices that the girl has made a phone call and assumes that it was to the police; seconds later, law enforcement has arrived, and, not yet spotted, Wayne snatches the girl and bolts out of the building, riding off into the night on horseback. It is explained that the girl’s name is Margaret, (Faye) and Charles says the intention of the kidnapping was for some sort of ransom. He explains that he’s not going home without any money. After several escape attempts by Margaret, the two are attacked by a group of bandits looking for loot. Charles ends up fighting them off, and becomes a sort of protector to Margaret, no longer seeing her as a tool for money. As the relationship between the two grows as they continue journeying, Margaret expresses her desire to live in Sacramento. Charles agrees, and after a long and arduous journey, is met with law enforcement officials who know his face. After a solitary respite in a town shop, Margaret is alerted to the sound of gunshots. As she runs outside, she finds Charles dead on the ground, having killed two officers before being gunned down. *Note: it is never made clear whether Margaret loves Charles back or not, just that the hostility fades and she’s complacent with being with him/enjoys his company. It is possible that she loves him, but that’s up to viewer speculation.

HAYS CODE:

Considering the movie follows an anti-hero turned hero, it’s fairly hard to make judgement calls on what’s appropriate and what’s not. However, our character is initially portrayed as a morally detestable person, one that audiences will struggle to support or relate with. Until the point where Charles begins his change of character, the actions committed are frowned upon, due to the law winning in the end over the bandits.  As the relationship between Charles and Margaret develops and the audience begins to identify with Charles, his actions will have the audience rooting for good causes, like protecting someone special. However, in order to make the movie a real moral tale, Charles death informs the audience that a life of crime doesn't just fade away, no matter how much you do to wipe it clean. Charles will always be an enemy in the eyes of the law: his actions have already defined him.

TECHNOLOGY:

Black and White film. Common for 30's Westerns. Stagecoach was black and white and was made in 1939… received award for best cinematography.

IF I COULD HAVE DONE ANYTHING DIFFERENTLY:

I wouldn't have chosen the title we ended up with. I guess it's kind of cool to have the whole generic western thing turned on it's head by the end of the film, but it made me feel like I had to joke about it. It worked out though, didn't it? I'm still struggling to figure out how.

MYST #1: Side Effects

AN INITIAL WARNING: I tried my best to avoid any plot specific spoilers within this review; however, intuition could reveal anything. If plot is important to you, you've been warned.

So yeah, this movie kind of came out of nowhere. I think it's only fair, if I am going to judge this film, to disclose that I started it at one in the morning, pretty much grasping at straws in choosing it as an MYST due to the lateness of the hour. Reliable Netflix, of course, briefly informed me that the movie was actually directed by Steven Soderbergh and starred several A-List actors (including Rooney Mara and three Soderbergh film alums: Channing Tatum, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Jude Law) that provided an intriguing combination. With that, I suppose I was sold.
"Side Effects" is a slow-burning thriller centering around the story of Emily Taylor (Mara), a depressed, blank-faced twenty-something woman with a substantial history of emotional trauma. Emily's husband, Martin (Tatum), has just been released from prison, and, despite an initial joyous reunion and promises of future affluence, is surprised to find that his wife's mental condition hasn't improved; shortly after his arrival home, Emily has made an attempt on her life. While in the hospital, Emily meets the prolific and kind psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Banks (Law), who works extra hours at the hospital and is designated to treat Emily for her depression issues. Immediately, Emily is put on anti-depressants, but these quickly prove to be ineffective as she once again tries to take her life. Banks, in consulting with Emily's former psychiatrist, Dr. Victoria Siebert (Zeta-Jones), for some help, is recommended to prescribe the experimental drug "Ablixa" for treating depression. Soon enough, and despite Banks' initial hesitation, Emily is on the drug and is feeling better than ever, until the drug's sleepwalking side effect causes her to commit an unconscious crime that throws both her and Banks under a spotlight that threatens to unravel their lives.

The movie shines when it's chronicling Emily's continuing path downwards, a spiral in which the drugs prescribed to help her instead throw her deeper into a world of confusion and grief. Mara turns out an excellent performance that, despite often requiring little emotion, opens a portal into a mindset of choking melancholy and confusion, with brilliant close-up work constantly creating a claustrophobic and surreal atmosphere for the first half of the film. It succeeds in lulling the viewer into a dream-like stupor where, much like Emily, the viewer is transfixed by the world presented to them, given in over-saturated hues and quick cuts between slow-moving, contemplative shots. Mara is definitely the star of the film for the first half, holding most of the attention as the victim of her own treatment.
This is not to say, however, that there are not other great performances. Jude Law is great as always, here driven to morally questionable actions as he desperately attempts to wipe away his guilt of having administered the drug (and falls into a little insanity himself). Catherine Zeta-Jones doesn't really get to show her stuff until the latter half of the film, which is unfortunate, considering she does a fantastic job as Banks' shifty peer. When she does gain center stage, ever so briefly, she steals the show.
This latter half that I've been mentioning is my (arbitrary) splitting of the movie in two parts,the first being the part heavily focused on Emily and her state of mind as she experiences her plight, and the second being more focused on Dr. Banks and his journey to expel his worries and clean his slate of responsibility, where the movie becomes too enamored in its own plot and subsequently stumbles. The first half doesn't have much of a plot, and is largely as I described: there are the two suicide attempts, followed by the prescription of Ablixa, and then the crime. It chooses to focus more largely on its criticism of the medicine industry and the heedlessness of medical prescriptions (often influenced by paid deals from drug manufacturers), and after the crime is committed, Banks' decision in choosing whether or not the crime is actually his fault is largely philosophical in nature, making the viewer question if a person can be convicted of a crime if their body committed it but their mind did not. It was this driving question and criticism that I found profoundly chilling halfway through the film, as the viewer realizes that Banks is letting this question drive him mad, anxious to prove his innocence in the whole affair. The actual plot that unfolds onscreen, including the actual event of the crime, is far-fetched enough to distract from the experience, but the first half of the film only uses the few plot points as a starting point for some fairly haunting character and moral explorations that I found to be thoroughly well done.

To clarify, I am not saying I don't like the second half, where the movie takes maybe a few too many twists for its own good. I simply found the moral quandaries that arose out of Banks' inner turmoil immediately following the crime to be a far more disturbing outlook on the psychiatric field than anything that came afterward; however, the second half adds a good deal of menace to all of the characters that allows every actor to more truly stand out in their roles. Unfortunately, it forces the viewer to accept the semi-ludicrous plot and less nuanced characters over the more haunting and relevant message, which is a resounding disappointment. Also, the movie ends by making it clear what character it wants you to root for, but I couldn't help but feel that this character, by the end of the movie, had made a great deal of questionable actions throughout the film, and seemed to be almost as nasty as the rest (maybe a little bit less so). It was a bittersweet moment; a happy ending for this character, and one that I didn't really want this character to have.
I'll end this off on a positive note: the score by Thomas Newman is still reverberating in my mind and  it's brilliant. I can at least guarantee that this movie wouldn't have been the same without it; it's simultaneously calming and chilling; it's haunting, cerebral, and in a subtle way, menacing. I still like "Side Effects" as a film, but this really is (excuse the clichè) the perfect cherry to top it off.

Despite the second half and its weaker plot moments, "Side Effects" is a haunting, extraordinarily directed piece of cinema that requires a good amount of thought for the best experience. It's success lies within the moments outside of plot specifics, when the film relies mostly on its directorial chops and restrained script to propel its characters' states of mind into a hauntingly surreal, and yet disturbingly accurate, portrait of the pharmaceutical industry. It's pretty easy to lose oneself in this film. So, with that,  I'll give "Side Effects" a resounding:

3 Sleepwalking Felonies out of 4 (see, doesn't that sound dumb?)

Original Trailer: