Lewis Allen and Richard Sale‘s Suddenly (’54) has been in the public domain for decades. I’ve seen different versions maybe five or six times. They’ve ranged from mildly tolerable to better-than-decent to good to first-rate. Plus I own what I believe is probably the best-quality Bluray version. But I honestly believe that the GoldenAgeClassics 4K UHD version, which was posted on 1.6.22, is the best I’ve ever seen.

The detail is exquisite, and the monochrome tones and shadings are as rich and natural and un-pushed as anything I’ve ever seen via streaming. I’ve mirrored this version on my 65-inch and it looks great. Plus the corners of the 35mm image are rounded, which indicates that every square inch in every shot has been rendered — no cropping whatsoever. Acres of head room. Hats off to the Golden Age guys…excellent work as far as it goes.

…and perhaps even breathtaking happened in my head when I accidentally mis-titled Jane Campion’s 1920s Montana western. All I knew was that the attitude suggested by The Power of the Doug felt curiously liberating. If the first name of Benedict Cumberbatch’s smelly, snarly, well-educated, self-loathing gay guy had been “Doug” instead of “Phil”, the whole package would have radiated a different mood or tone. Just don’t ask me to explain.

…about being blissfully and contentedly ignorant about movies. To hear it from Alia Shawkat, there are definite generational differences between Zoomers and Millenials (including sexual histories).

Dwayne Hickman, forever and indelibly identified as the star of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (September ’59 to June ’63), passed this morning at age 87. Hugs and condolences to friends, fans, family, former colleagues.

And by “former colleagues,” I’m partly referring to Dobie Gillis costar Warren Beatty, whose path and potential in life led to historic accomplishments, Oscar nominations and wins, and the altering of cinematic culture. During his heyday Beatty was an extraordinary, legendary, real-life hound while Hickman only played one, and the kind of hound, by the way, who never really experienced an erection (even an erection of the mind) or coped with primal lust and longing and hot blood.

For Dobie Gillis‘ romantic passion was more in the realm of Percy Bysshe Shelley than Lord Byron — he sought love and assurance and the perfect mating with a sister of the spirit — a soul priest in search of the perfect nun. It’s not that Dobie tried and failed to get laid during the four-year run of the series — he never even seemed cognizant of the idea. Wokester prudes can point fingers at Beatty’s off-set behavior in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, but at least he was alive and pulsing on the planet earth.

But Hickman’s Dobie was kind and considerate and thoughtful — he believed in middle-class values (the show was one of Hollywood’s final expressions of the sleepy and hermetic 1950s, ending only a few months before the murder of JFK and the onset of ’60s social turbulence) and he identified, remember, with Pierre Auguste Rodin‘s “The Thinker”.

Born in 1934, Hickman costarred with the recently departed Dean Stockwell in Joseph Losey‘s The Boy With The Green Hair (’48) and was, at the time, considerably taller than Stockwell.

Hickman’s first big score was a recurring role on The Bob Cummings Show (’55 to ’59). He also played a Marlon Brando-like rebel in Rally ‘Round the Flag, Boys! (’58). Hickman began playing the teenaged Gillis at age 25, and with blonde hair yet. (His hair reverted to brown in subsequent seasons.) His biggest post-Gillis score was the role of “Jed” in Elliot Silverstein‘s Cat Ballou (’65), along with costars Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin and Michael Callan.

Incidentally: Hollywood Elsewhere has always identified with Bob Denver‘s Maynard G. Krebs, the difference being that while Maynard was known for freaking out whenever he heard the word “work”, HE freaks whenever anyone mentions the word “woke.”

I always carry around three combs because sooner or later I’ll lose one of them and then I’ll be down to two.

The best kind of comb isn’t too large + has a rubbery, bendable quality. This black comb [below] was perfect — my #1 default. The other two were semi-acceptable but not really — too large, too brittle, one is blue.

Anyway a couple of weeks ago the black comb disappeared. I looked and looked and looked and couldn’t find it — heartbroken. I have five backup combs (right size & bendability) that I keep in a trinket box, but I didn’t want to deplete my reserve. I exhaled and imperceptibly slumped and grumpily resigned myself to the loss of the blackie.

Then this morning I washed and aired out a dark blue couch comforter, and lo and behold blackie re-appeared. It made my day, but this is my life. I lose stuff all the time — combs, chargers, connecting cords. It’s always something. Stressful, anxious, unceasing.

Pretty much the entire cast (significant-name-wise) of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (‘47), which is partly a courtroom drama but mainly a saga of sexual obsession and unrequited desire that ends in total humiliation. Extremely minor Hitchcock + the Kino Bluray allegedly blows from a perspective of HD quality. Speaking as a Hitchcock completist I’d like to see the Bluray, but something psychological is preventing me. I would rent it in a second, but you can’t.

What needs to be done at this stage in our social-political evolution is an investigation into the possibly racist decisions made by Peter Jackson in the making of his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Why didn’t Jackson anticipate presentism? And why was he so oblivious to the notion of casting actors of color? I don’t want to sound overly scolding or militant, but it might be necessary to haul Jackson before a committee and rake him over the coals.

And why, by the way, couldn’t Denethor (John Noble), Grima Wormtongue (Brad Dourif) and Saruman (Christopher Lee) be gay?

With her wins from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and (today) the National Society of Film Critics, Parallel Mothers‘ Penelope Cruz has now won two major-league Best Actress awards. Plus 13 out of 27 Gold Derby go-along whores have included her among their top-five spitball picks.

HE has never harbored the slightest doubt about the award-worthiness of Cruz’s performance. And yet Cruz isn’t among the six nominees for the Critics Choice Awards Best Actress award. They didn’t even nominate her! And yet it’s been claimed that the CCAs are predictive of the Oscars — sure!

HE also applauds the NSFC’s first-runner-up support of The Worst Person in the World‘s Renate Reinsve (42 votes); ditto handing its Best Supporting Actor trophy to Reinsve’s costar Anders Danielsen Lie (who’s also quite good in Bergman Island).

Otherwise the NSFC went hog-wild for Drive My Car — Best Picture, Best Director (Ryusuke Hamaguchi), Best Actor (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Best Screenplay (Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe).

Drive My Car is a morose, slow-paced film about coping with grief and long-festering guilt (i.e., the trials and tribulations of grief monkeys). It’s strictly an art-house sauna movie for elite, ivory-tower critics — a respectable effort by any measure, but a movie that resides in its own cave and doesn’t begin to even try to capture or engage with or reflect anything about mainstream life in the years 2020 or ’21. It could have been made in 1957 or ’63 or ’86 or ’92.

NextBestPicture‘s Matt Neglia recently had the temerity to suggest that Drive My Car, having won Best Picture trophies from NSFC, LAFCA and the NYFCC, is cut from the same cloth as Goodfellas, Schindler’s List, L.A. Confidential, The Hurt Locker, The Social Network and Spotlight. Neglia is one of those film nerd types who lives on his own planet, or, if you will, inside his own rectum. There’s no reasoning with guys like this.

Every year Hollywood Elsewhere subjects the leading Best Picture contenders to the Howard Hawks measuring stick. The legendary director is famed for having said that a good movie (or a formidable Oscar seeker) always has “three great scenes and no bad ones.”

Hawks also defined a good director as “someone who doesn’t annoy you.” I wouldn’t want to sound unduly harsh or dismissive but I’m afraid that Kenneth Branagh‘s direction of certain portions of Belfast and particularly his decision to open with that vibrantly colorful prologue…’nuff said.

How do the leading 2021 Best Picture contender films (numbering nine) rate on the Hawks chart? Here we go…

Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog: I’m sorry but despite the fine performances, the feeling of 1920s open-range authenticity, handsome visual compositions and carefully-honed pacing, this 126-minute film has no great scenes. There are a few intriguing moments, but none I would even begin to call highly impactful, much less “great.” You keep waiting for a killer scene (or two or three) to arrive, but it never does. Dog is more about the overall than this or that peak moment.

Reinaldo Marcus Green, Will Smith and Zach Baylin‘s King Richard: I could go on and on, but this 2021 Warner Bros. sports drama has more than a trio of stick-to-your-ribs scenes. One, the persistent Richard (Smith) persuades elite tennis coach Paul Cohen (Tony Gpldwyn) to check out Venus and Serena’s exceptional skills, and within a couple of minutes Cohen gets it. (“You taught ’em this?”) Two, Richard takes offense when Andy Bean‘s Laird Stabler, a colleague of the cigar-smoking Will Hodges (Dylan McDermott), tells him he’s done “an amazing job” in training his daughters. Three, the kitchen argument scene between Richard and wife Orascene (Aunjanue Ellis). There are at least two or three others (the Oakland tennis match finale, Richard comes perilously close to shooting a Compton gangsta, refusing the initial endorsement deal, etc.).

Kenneth Branagh‘s Belfast. Again, a few diverting scenes but none that could be called outstanding or great. Branagh’s real-life dad may have been an appealing crooner who could dance fairly well, but Jamie Dornan‘s singing and dancing scene struck me as cloying and insincere and untrustworthy. It therefore qualifies, no offense, as a “bad” scene.

Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story. One, the opening shot of tear-down rubble and ruination on San Juan Hill, and how that feeds into the brilliant “Jets Song” sequence. Two, Corey Stall‘s dismissive rant about how the Jets represent the “can’t make it and haven’t moved to Long Island” crowd, and that in a very short while high-rise luxury apartment buildings will be hiring Puerto Rican door men, etc. Three, the neighborhood Scherzo sequence as Maria tries to make it seem as if she’s slept all night in her bedroom. If these aren’t great scenes they’re certainly damn good ones.

Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Licorice Pizza has one great scene — the finale in which Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman finally embrace like they mean it. Otherwise the film is a bit spotty and meandering, but I respect the courage that Anderson showed when he included those two scenes involving John Michael Higgins‘ Jerry Frick and his two (i.e., successive) Japanese wives. Anderson knows the climqte out there, and had to realize that wokesters would come after the film for engaging in what some regard as crude racial stereotyping. But Anderson kept it in, partly because he was drawing on his own SFV experience and partly because he doesn’t believe in presentism, or so it seems.

Denis Villenueve‘s Dune. A captivating visual scheme and impressive production design elements do not, in and of themselves, constitute what anyone would call great cinema. Okay, perhaps on an overall aesthetic sweep basis but certainly not in terms of this or that scene.

Sian Heder‘s CODA has two appealing supporting performances (Troy Kotsur‘s randy dad, Eugenio Derbez‘s singing tutor), but no exceptional scenes per se, and certainly no great ones.

Joel Coen‘s The Tragedy gf Macbeth boasts excellent performances (Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Alex Hassell, Kathryn Hunter) and of course an impressionistic sound-stage environment blended with the classic Shakespeare text. At the same time I can’t honestly think of any particularly great scenes in the Hawks sense of the term. It’s an honorable film at the end of the day, certainly, but there’s no ducking the fact that it’s far less of an undertaking than Roman Polanski‘s 1971 version.

Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s The Lost Daughter falls more under the heading of “highly respectable, especially coming from a first-time director” than “a film which contains three great scenes and no bad ones.” Honestly? The scene in which Ed Harris visits Olivia Colman in her condo but doesn’t say boo about the doll lying on the patio table, except to note that it has water inside it. The missing doll is a huge thing on the island (reward money, posters stapled to trees) so Harris’s curious indifference to Colman being a doll thief is an odd call — I think it’s fair to argue that its a “bad” scene.

In sum, the only Hawks finalists are King Richard and West Side Story.