Appointment With Death

It's not too long ago from the point of when I wrote this post that I did a post on a Lauren Bacall movie. It's even slightly more recent that I did a post on a movie based on an Agatha Christie novel. Today brings a post on another of those all-star Agatha Christie movies, this one a book I didn't know much about before seeing the move show up on TCM during Lauren Bacall's term as TCM's Star of the Month: Appointment With Death.

The movie opens in 1937 in New Jersey. Emily Boynton (Piper Laurie) is the widow of a wealthy businessman who has one daughter of her own by her late husband, Ginevra, and three step-children from her late husband's first marriage. The Boynton lawyer, Jefferson Cope (David Soul) is discussing the will with Emily. Well, actually, two wills. Apparently it was Dad's original intention that Mom be the head of the trust, judiciously using that money to keep the four children taken care of until Emily dies. This, even though the three step-children are adults by now, one with a wife of his own. Two days before Mr. Boynton died, he wrote out a new will that split the estate among the four children and the widow equally. Emily for fairly obvious reasons doesn't like this, and blackmails Cope into destroying the updated will in the fireplace.

The kids are, for equally obvious reasons, not happy about this and suspect that there was in fact a second will out there but cannot yet provie it. Lennox (Nicholas Guest) is married to a nurse, Nadine (Carrie Fisher); Raymond (John Terlesky) is the youngest; seemingly afraid to do anything to cross his stepmother; and daughter Carol rounds out the family. As a way of getting over the grief of the passing of the family patriarch, Emily suggests that a transatlantic cruise to England followed by a Mediterranean trip to the Holy Land would be just what the doctor ordered. It's also a good way to get away from Cope, since Emily knows what secret he holds over her head.

On the way to Europe, they meet some intersting characters. Lady Westholme (Lauren Bacall) is one of those beautiful Americans looking for a man with class and finding one in the late Lord Westholme who was looking for money which his wife's family had. Miss Quinton (Hayley Mills) is an archaeologist looking to do some digging in Mandatory Palestine, and Dr. King (Jenny Seagrove) is fresh out of medica school. Finally, when the boat docks in Trieste, the lot meet Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov), who claims to be on vacation.

Now, we know that Poirot isn't going to get that nice vacation he was hoping for. Everybody makes their way to Jerusalem and then to Qumran, which was one of the big archaeologic sited back in the late 1930s. And it's there that Emily finally gets what's coming to her. But who did it? If you've been watching the movie carefully -- or even not so carefully since this is an Agatha Christie story and you know the formula -- you'll know that most of the other main characters in the piece minus of course Poirot are suspects. Col. Carbury (John Gielgud) is part of the British administration, and he lets Poirot do an investigation as an official investigation might cause some problems since Lady Westholme is a sitting member of Parliament. In the end, Poirot will solve the case....

Appointment With Death follows a formula, but it looks like one of those movies where everybody was getting up there in years and the steam was running out of the formula. As a result, there are some nice locations, although the story and the acting aren't the greatest of the series. (From what I've read, Agatha Christie fans don't consider this one of her best books, never mind the changes made for the screen.) Still, it's an Agatha Christie movie with an all-star -- or mostly-star -- cast, so it will wind up being entertaining enough even if not up to the standard of some of the earlier movies.

When Harry Met Sally...

For some reason, I thought I saw on my DVR that When Harry Met Sally... was on TV tomorrow, April 13, so I watched it this weekend to do a post on. It turns out there's an airing on the evening of April 12, although you'll probably have missed that by the time you read this post. There are some airings later in the week though and next week, and the DVD does appear to be available, so you get a post on it anyway.

The movie starts off in the spring of 1977. Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) is graduating from the University of Chicago, leaving behind a girlfriend Amanda and driving east to start life in New York City, sharing the driving duties with Amanda's friend Sally Albright (Meg Ryan). They discuss any number of things, such as Ingrid Bergman's motivation in Casablanca, but they don't hit it off as friends, largely because Harry says that guys can't really be platonic friends with nice-looking women -- the guys think too much about sex. Never mind that Amanda is still nominally Harry's girlfriend. So when Harry and Sally get to New York, they go their separate ways.

Fast forward five years. Sally has a boyfriend in Joe, while Harry has a wife Helen. Harry is going on a flight somewhere, and at the airport he just happens to run into Sally and Joe, although he doesn't recognize Sally at first. Sally does, however, seem to be mildly irritated at having run into Harry again.

Finally we get to the meat of the movie after the action jumps forward another several years. Sally has just broken up with Joe, sharing her heartache with best friends Marie (Carrie Fisher) and Alice. Harry's wife has left him, and he commiserates with his best friend, Jess (Bruno Kirby). By chance, in a Manhattan bookstore, Harry and Sally run into each other again.

With the title of the movie being When Harry Met Sally..., you might guess that the two are going to wind up together in the final reel. But we've still got a good hour to go before getting to that final reel. In the meantime, Harry and Sally decide to do a good thing for their friends. Marie has been seeing a married man even though deep down inside she knows that that man is never going to leave his wife. So Sally decides to set her up on a date with Harry. Harry, meanwhile, sets Jess up on a date with Sally, and the four go on a double date together.

The outcome of that date is obvious too, in that Marie and Jess are going to wind up together, although it's much more quick in happening than you might think. Harry and Sally still have a lot to go through before they finally decide whether they really love each other or not.

Even though you know where When Harry Met Sally... is going to end up, it's still quite enjoyable in getting there. The various scenes are introduced by faux-documentary vignettes of elderly couples talking about how they met (these are all actors, not real couples), adding a really nice touch. There's a lot of talk about sex, with one really memorable scene of Meg Ryan faking an orgasm in the middle of a diner.

If you haven't seen When Harry Met Sally... before, I can definitely recommend it.

The 'Burbs

One of the movies that I had the chance to record during one of the free preview weekends was The 'Burbs. It's going to be on Flix again tonight at midnight, and is on DVD and Blu-ray, so I recently watched it to do a post on here.

Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) is your typical middle-class family man, living with a wife Carol (Carrie Fisher) and son Dave in a well-manicured suburban cul-de-sac on the Universal backlot. There's a mix of neighbors such as Mark Rumsfield (Bruce Dern), a Vietnam vet who seems to want to relive his glory days in Vietnam; elderly Walter (Gale Gordon), who gets some joy in having his dog pee on Mark's lawn; and Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun). There's also adolescent Ricky (Corey Feldman), although we never see his parents for whatver reason.

All of them have noticed that there's something odd going on in one of their neighbors' houses, these being the reclusive Klopeks. Their house is unkempt, the lawn is dead, there's an elaborate alarm system, and odd lights and noises emanate from the basement of the house. It's only natural that everybody should be curious about the place.

Unfortunately for Ray, it's the start of a week's vacation, and Carol would prefer to spend the week at their cabin up in the mountains. It's the source of some tension between them, as Ray and the other younger guys are not only getting more curious, they're beginning to get more worried about what's going on in the Klopek house.

What brings matters to a head is that one morning, Walter's beloved little dog is wandering the street alone, and when they bring him back to Walter's house, there's no answer at the door. They eventually break in out of concern, an find the place devoid of life, save for Walter's toupee. That's a big read flag for Ray, because just as Grace Kelly points out in Rear Window that no wife is going to leave the house without her wedding and engagement rings, no elderly man with a toupee is going to leave the house without it.

The guys all think that the Klopeks must be doing satanic rituals or something that otherwise puts people's lives in immediate danger down in that basement, and that Walter is probably already dead. But to find out what's really going on, they have to get into the house, so Ray and Carol along with Mark and his wife Bonnie make a visit over to the house. Dr. Werner (Henry Gibson), together with his brother Reuben (Brother Theodore) and a son/grandson Hans (Courtney Gains) are weird, to say the least, although Dr. Werner seems to be a researcher in, well, something. But why won't the Klopeks let them see the basement, and why do they have a guard dog down there?

Everything seems at least like something that can be answered, until Ray reveals that he found Walter's toupee in the basement along with his mail. In theory it's no big deal that the Klopeks might be picking up Walter's mail, but Ray deliberately left the toupee in Walter's house, and that shouldn't have been picked up. To figure things out once and for all, the guys are going to have to make a commando raid on the Klopek place, something that's just the thing for a Vietnam vet with delusions of glory.

There's the kernel of an interesting story, if nothing new, in The 'Burbs. Unfortunately, the movie is largely let down thanks to the direction, combined with some overbearing music cues. There's one scene, for example, in which director Joe Dante wants to show suspense by doing exaggerated closeups on everybody's faces (including Walter's dog). It goes on too long; it's clumsily handled; and, combined with the obvious music, it doesn't work at all. Bruce Dern's character is written as too much of a stereotype; unlike, say, Terry-Thomas in Make Mine Mink, he's not somebody you'd want to follow but someone you'd want to avoid.

Corey Feldman and his friends playing spectator for the climax are one of the high spots, but The 'Burbs is a film where the high spots are too few and far between. But, as always, watch and judge for yourself.