Off the Shelf: From Noon Till Three (Blu-ray)

by Patrick Bromley

It’ll keep you on the edge of your saddle.

As someone who grew up on the ‘80s output of Charles Bronson — movies in which he usually played a grimacing cop cleaning up the streets with his own brand of justice, usually for Cannon Films — I sometimes forget that he was once a big movie star who did more than scowl while wasting punks in New York. While fans of his Golden Age work probably know him best for movies like The Dirty Dozen and Once Upon a Time in the West, I’ve been discovering some of his smaller, lesser-known efforts in recent years and realizing that Bronson had a taste for the idiosyncratic and the potential to shine in those kinds of movies. The latest title to add to that list is From Noon Till Three, a charming and offbeat comic western recently released to Blu-ray from Twilight Time.

Bronson plays Graham Dorsey, an outlaw riding into town to pull off a robbery as part of a gang of bandits. Graham is having second thoughts, though, after a nightmare in which he envisions the robbery as a trap that gets him and his friends killed. He opts to stay back and hole up at the home of widow Starbuck (Jill Ireland, Bronson’s real-life wife), whose horse the gang had intended to steal. During the three-hour window before his friends return, Dorsey and Starbuck bicker, talk and eventually wind up in bed together, falling into a whirlwind romance from which Dorsey does not wish to leave. When he’s forced to ride out and check on the fate of his gang, everything changes and new legends are born.

It’s hard to describe the plot of From Noon Till Three in a way that accurately conveys the film’s pleasures. The screenplay, by writer/director Frank D. Gilroy, is based on his own novel and it feels like it: it’s a movie that continues to unfold in unpredictable ways based on who these characters are rather than establish a premise early on and follow it through in lockstep. The first act features bandits and shootouts and an outlaw taking refuge in the home of a good woman against her will — pretty standard western stuff — while the second act becomes a sweet and gentle romance. The third act…well, I don’t want to say what happens in the third act, as there’s almost no chance anyone can predict where the movie is going based on what has happened so far. When you see as many movies as I do, any movie that’s able to go to unexpected places is a welcome surprise.

While it may be too soon to make this kind of a declaration, I sat through From Noon Till Three pretty certain that it was the best I’d ever seen Bronson on screen. He gets to be funny and charming, sweet and romantic, petty and pathetic. He is more than likely a con man, but the fact that Bronson is able to keep us guessing as to his character’s true motivations is a sign of just how good his performance in the movie is — his Graham Dorsey could be seen in a number of ways, all of them potentially correct. It helps that he’s acting opposite his real-life wife Jill Ireland, with whom he has a genuine chemistry and who always brings out the best in the actor when acting opposite him. Ireland, like Bronson, creates in Widow Starbuck a character who is difficult to pin down, and while the first half of the film can be a little tough to stomach by 2016 standards (it is suggested that Bronson makes a woman fall in love with him after having sex one time, and by forcing himself on her no less), the back half of the movie turns the tables on both characters in such a way that it forces us to rethink exactly what has happened. Maybe things aren’t so cut and dried after all.

Twilight Time is releasing the Blu-ray of From Noon Till Three in their usual limited run of 3,000 units. The 1080p HD transfer offers the movie in its original 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio and looks great for a film that’s 40 years old; like most westerns, the color palette is subdued (limited to a lot of earth tones) but the image is bright and clean and filled with good texture and detail. Twilight Time always puts care into the transfers on their releases and it shows even on smaller titles like this. The lossless mono track offered for the main audio option is surprisingly strong, presenting clear dialogue and some lively effects, all mixed well with composer Elmer Bernstein’s lovely and quirky score. That score is actually offered as an isolated option, as is customary for Twilight Time. The only other bonus feature offered is the original theatrical trailer.

From Noon Till Three is exactly the kind of movie I love to discover — one that works within a familiar genre but which carves out its own space by not adhering to any strict rules about what story it can tell or the way it can tell it. It’s a small movie, sure, and could be dismissed as “slight,” but it actually has quite a bit to say about myth making and the way that legends are created and passed down, which is something with which almost all westerns concern themselves. At the very least, it allowed me to see a side of Charles Bronson I had never seen before. What a pleasant surprise this was.

Blu-ray release date:
99 minutes/1976/PG
1.85:1 1080p
DTS HD 1.0 Master Audio (English)

Blu-ray bonus features:
Isolated score
Theatrical trailer

Cinema Bestius: The Searchers

Some semi-random thoughts on the greatest Western ever made.

#13 – The Searchers

I once read that Martin Scorsese used to screen The Searchers in his NYU film class in the late 1960s, but such was the polarizing force of star John Wayne’s conservatism that many students announced their intentions to boycott the screening. Scorsese instead told students that that week’s screening was an obscure, hard-to-see gem, locked the doors once the students were in attendance, revealed he would be screening the obscure gem the next week but tonight was screening The Searchers, and assured any students walking out that they would immediately fail his class.

Scorsese wanted his students to see this film. Later, of course, Scorsese would direct what is arguably the most successful remake of The Searchers, Taxi Driver. Great art inspires other great art.

The Plot In Brief: Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns from the Civil War years after it officially ends. He visits the homestead of his brother, which is almost immediately besieged by a tribe of Comanche Indians led by Chief Scar (Henry Brandon). The attackers kill almost all the family members, set fire to the house, and kidnap the two youngest girls, Lucy (Pippa Scott) and Debbie (Lana Wood in the earlier scenes, but sister Natalie Wood in the majority of the film).

Ethan puts together a ragtag posse and vows to bring back the girls. Joining him are the Reverend Captain Sam Clayton (Ward Bond), neighbor Brad Jorgensen (Harry Carey, Jr.) and the young and impetuous Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter). They soon discover that Lucy has been tortured and killed, but Ethan vows to continue searching for Debbie. The search winds up taking years and becomes a physical manifestation of Ethan’s utter hatred for Native Americans. Will Debbie be rescued? Would Ethan rather see Debbie dead, rather than become a bride of Chief Scar? Why aren’t all Westerns this morally complex?

I screened The Searchers in my Film Studies class for decades, and it always turned out to be one of the students’ favorites of the semester. I think they were expecting something simplistic—the “bang bang” simplicity of childhood play. Instead, they were treated to a rousing story, superbly told; and a morally complex tale showing the corrosive effect of racial hatred; and some fun “bang bang” cowboy stuff too!

The Searchers is unique in that it does not simply use racism as a plot point or a clothesline upon which to hang easy platitudes, it is actually about racism and the effects its on the soul. Ethan is beyond being haunted by his irrational hatred of Native Americans, it is the only thing left that defines him and drives him. We see in The Searchers a theme that would become a favorite of countless other filmmakers (I’m looking at you, John Woo): that of the good guy and the bad guy being essentially interchangeable. They cannot stand each other because they recognize too much of themselves in each other.

After a recent Chicago Film Critics Association screening of 1941, I asked Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski if they thought Slim Pickens’s line, “Boy, watch that knife!” was a reference to Ward Bond’s very similar line in The Searchers. Childress said he was not sure but would not be surprised, given that Spielberg has screened The Searchers before directing every one of his films.

And of course, a young Buddy Holly sees the film during its original release, is taken with Ethan Edwards’s oft-repeated response to being challenged, and goes home to write “That’ll Be The Day.” Great art inspires other great art.

The Searchers’ Three Miracles: John Wayne’s career-best performance, brave and inevitable, like the turning of the Earth; a bountiful supply of terrific supporting performances, all of them perfectly cast; and John Ford’s exquisite direction, which never calls attention to itself. Ford was a master storyteller.

In nomine Ford, et Wayne, y spiritu Scorsese, Amen.

Off the Shelf: Hannie Caulder (Blu-ray)

by Patrick Bromley

There was a notch on her gun for every man she got!

The 1970 movie Hannie Caulder is a fascinating mix of a traditional American western and a nastier Italian one. Director (and uncredited screenwriter) Burt Kennedy knows his way around the genre, having directed mostly westerns from the 1950s through the '70s, but here is pushing in a darker, bloodier direction. This is a movie with a glamorous, iconic movie star playing cowgirl, a rousing and upbeat score Ken Thorne and a rape revenge plot at its center. It's a weird combination of elements, but that's what makes it great. And Hannie Caulder is pretty great.

After a bank robbery gone wrong, the Clemens gang -- played by Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam and Strother Martin -- come upon a ranch occupied by Hannie Caulder (Raquel Welch) and her husband. The men murder the husband, rape Hannie and burn the house to the ground leaving her for dead. The surviving Hannie enlists the aid of bounty hunter Thomas Luther Price (Robert Culp) to train her as a gunfighter so she can get her revenge on the men who wronged her. Like all revenge missions, this one gets bloody.

There's a lot to appreciate in Hannie Caulder, whether it's the gorgeous vistas photographed by Edward Scaife or Ken Thorne's rousing score or the character actor triptych of Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam and Strother Martin or the appearance of Christopher Lee as a cowboy or the very existence of Raquel Welch, a screen presence unlike anyone before or since. But the movie's true secret weapon is Robert Culp as the bounty hunter who becomes a mentor to Hannie in much the same way that Dr. King Schultz did to Django in Django Unchained. While the character work is good across the board (save for Hannie, who is mostly a cipher), Culp creates someone who feels brand new and fully realized. He's almost bookish -- a badass who never has to prove he's a badass -- and his relationship with Hannie feels like it could be romantic someday but is borne out of mutual respect. I don't want to suggest there's something paternal about it because that, combined with the possibility of romance, makes it sound creepy. It isn't. I love their dynamic, mostly because I love Robert Culp here.

I also love the way that director Burt Kennedy commits to all of the movie's big emotions. Hannie Caulder doesn't do anything by half measures, whether it's the bloody violence or Hannie's impassioned rage or the operatic western scope. That's why I mean when I say that the movie feels like a really good mix of American and Italian styles; there's something that's always a little bit square with most American westerns and something unabashedly emotional about spaghetti westerns. Hannie Caulder exists at the cross section of both.

Hannie Caulder is the next in Olive Films' "signature" line; though the company first released the movie on Blu-ray in 2011, this new disc contains an updated HD transfer and a handful of bonus features to make it a true "special edition." The 2.35:1-framed, 1080p HD image is very good, cleaned up and boasting nice detail as well as a considerable amount of grain. There are some really good bonus features, including a commentary from filmmaker and fan Alex Cox (Repo Man, Sid & Nancy) and some interviews that that discuss the making of the movie and its placement within the rape-revenge genre, which arrive at the conclusion that it's not a great example of female empowerment because so much of film is experienced through the POV of the rapists.

I first caught Hannie Caulder on Netflix a year or two ago. It has since been removed, because such is the downside of streaming media. This is a movie I want to own, so I'm happy to see Olive Films upgrading their original barebones Blu-ray release and giving this title the special edition treatment it deserves. If you haven't seen it and you find yourself ever agreeing with my tastes, you really should check it out. This is a movie that deserves a bigger audience. Do it for Robert Culp.

Blu-ray release date: November 15, 2016
85 minutes/1971/R
2.35:1 (1080p)
DTS HD 2.0 Master Audio (English)
Subtitles: English (SDH)

Blu-ray bonus features:
Alex Cox Commentary
"Exploitation or Redemption?" Featurette
"Win or Lose: Tigon Pictures and the Making of Hannie Caulder" Featurette
"Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" Text Essay by Kim Morgan

Buy Hannie Caulder from Olive Films here

F This Movie! - Westerns with Joe Maddrey

Patrick and Heath Holland welcome author Joe Maddrey to talk about the western genre and name some of their favorites. This hour was originally broadcast and recorded during our 18-hour F Breast Cancer! live podcast-a-thon on July 9, 2016.



Download this episode here. (29.6 MB)

Subscribe to F This Movie! in iTunes.

Listen to F This Movie! on Stitcher.

Find more of Joe Maddrey's writing here.

Review: Hell or High Water

by Rob DiCristino

“I never met nobody that got away with anything, ever.”

The opening sequence of David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water plays big, open skies against a desolate small-town square. It’s one 360-degree pan that encompasses every-thing America used to believe about itself and everything it failed to accomplish since then. Cheap signage advertises Easy Credit and Low Financing. Scrawled graffiti laments, “Three tours in Iraq, but no bailout for us.” Christian crosses are worked into the facades of mom-and-pop stores that have long-since closed their doors. This is the story of one-horse towns and no-win scenarios. This is what’s left of the West.

Brothers Toby and Tanner Howard (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) are robbing a string of West Texas banks in an effort to pay off the debt owed on their mother’s house before it falls into foreclosure. They hit the smallest branches during just the right early-morning hours, taking only small and loose bills, then drive to an Oklahoma casino to launder the money. That money is then converted into checks made out to the very banks they’ve stolen it from, the very banks that duped their dying mother into a reverse mortgage and snatched their birthright out from under them. They only rob these specific banks, and they never take any money that belongs to real people. They use a different beater car every time, paid for in cash, and then bury each one in the backyard after the heist is over. They’re so meticulous in their planning and execution that they’re leaving Texas Rangers Hamilton and Parker (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham) very little to go on in their hunt to bring them down. But Hamilton knows this pattern. These boys aren’t driven by greed or a thirst for killing, he figures. This is the smart work of smart people.

Hell or High Water is a quiet and contemplative little movie about Has-Beens and Never-Weres. It’s about the people left behind by technology and royally fucked by big business. There’s a sense of dread and hopelessness permeating through each of the small towns we visit; it’s not that these people are down on their luck, it’s that they never had any luck to begin with. Entire scenes are framed around characters standing on porches and gazing out onto empty rural landscapes as if they’re simply waiting out the rest of their lives. Still, they pride themselves on their Heartland values and loose open-carry laws (how often do you see bank robbers fleeing the scene with five pick-up trucks full of Good-Ol-Boys in hot pursuit? “I love West Texas,” Hamilton laughs). The film has a rebel soul to it, an almost anti-institutional bent that colors the decisions made by even the most law-abiding characters. It never forgets about the individuals being crushed by these giant corporate machines: there’s an excellent bit involving a waitress who refuses to let the cops take her tip money into evidence. She needs it, after all, and these bank robbers aren’t any concern of hers (it doesn’t hurt that she’s hot for Chris Pine, because who wouldn’t be?).

It’s this stubborn defiance that drives the film’s best performances, none more so than Ben Foster as The Screw-Up, Tanner. He’s dumb but not that dumb, strong enough to know better but proud enough not to stop. Writer Taylor Sheridan (Sicario) wisely avoids giving him The Big Scene, the one where he falls apart and sobbingly confesses how little he has to live for before going out in a blaze of glory. Hell or High Water certainly has its didactic moments, but it trusts the audience to understand Tanner purely through context and character. Chris Pine continues to develop as a leading man and carries the moral center of the film in his chiseled mustache. Again, this isn’t a hero. This isn’t a fight to save the girl or slay the dragon. Toby knows he’s the bad guy and that his ex-wife Debbie (Marin Ireland) will want even less to do with him when this is all over, but at least he’ll be restoring to his sons what is rightfully theirs: the oil under-neath their property. What’s fair is fair in West Texas, after all. Jeff Bridges does his Jeff Bridges thing with grace and care. He’s got a few showy moments near the end, but he never plays his retiring lawman as broken or angry. He’s just an old-timer with a lot more to say than his remaining years will allow.

Hell or High Water carries the spirit of crime dramas like Fargo and No Country for Old Men without getting too operatic for its own good. It spends its running time developing one very relatable thesis before paying it off with the kind of moral complexity it really deserves. It’s a film about division and independence, about race and class, about borders and boundaries. It’s not exceptionally taught or action-packed, but that’s by design. These aren’t expert con men looking for One Last Score or big-city cops delivering Hard Justice. It’s not about twists and turns or dense, complicated plotting. It’s about moments between men sharing a beer on the front porch and what those men will do to protect the people they love. They’re good and bad, us and them.