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| Radio Days (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
But I'm getting ahead of myself, film night unexpectedly came back into the calendar this week at short notice but was none the worse for being a surprise. Arthur turned up with the usual wonderful pie and beer (although he decided to stick to apple juice himself this week) together with some suggestions for the programme. He had with him two VHS tapes: One, "The Swimmer" we put by for another time as we decided on the other tape "Paris Trout" together with one from the "Rialto"'s own archive: Radio Days.
Another wonderful Bilko episode filled the intermission between the two features. This time it was "Bivouac" with a healthy dose of one of my favourite characters, Paul Ford playing the Colonel.
Paris Trout is one that Arthur and I had seen together at the very wonderful Duke of York's cinema in Brighton about twenty years ago in a period of that venue's history when it was run on the lines of an art-house film club (membership if I recall correctly was just a pound per year) and the programmes were full of amazing classic foreign and indie productions and every week brought films I shall never forget. Having said that we hadn't retained an awful lot of Paris Trout apart from a memory of the appalling, powerful central performance by Dennis Hopper as the eponymous Paris and his relationship with his wife. She does explain at one point how she came to marry this monster but it is still hard to fathom.
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| English: Dennis Hopper at the Cannes Film Festival in France. Français : Dennis Hopper au festival de Cannes (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
It being fresh to us again, it was able to shock once more and did so. Trout is a truly horrible, and I really hope not too realistic, southern bigot running a shop and a loansharking business. He appears to believe that he is above the law and that the black population is so far below it that he can literally get away with murder either with at most a sham court case or likely a little bribery. To some extent this proves to be true but Trout has gone too far for his own brutalised and tortured wife (Barbara Hershey) and his lawyer (Ed Harris) and alone he teeters on the edge of madness. Hopper's performance is memorable, and while the other leads give a good account of themselves credit must also go to Trout's victims and very affecting performances by Tina Lifford and young Darnita Henry.
It's not an easy watch and if you are anything like me the illogical brutal prejudice and inhumanity will make you angry. It was directed by the Gylennhaal paterfamilias, Stephen, whose career has mostly been and still is, in television. The evidence of this film is that that is cinema's loss.
The choice of Radio Days (1987) was partly as antidote to the poisonous Paris, as it is full of comedic charm and whimsy as well as a sparkling period soundtrack. This is the Woodmeister's homage to his roots and the excitement of listening to the radio in America in the forties. Structurally it is a series of episodes or stories relating to the narrator (Allen as mentioned above) "his" family and their radio listening. These stories are interwoven on a background of the family's own stories - and what a family. The cast is marvellous and linking this with the last couple of films in our
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| English: Woody Allen at the Cannes film festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Radio Days is a perpetual delight, full of wonderful bits of surreal humour and memorable lines as well as catchy tunes, and a great period feel. It was like slipping down into a favourite armchair or a warm bath after facing the evil Trout. Speaking of trout, fish feature quite a bit in Radio Days but in an altogether more pleasant way. The whole thing is an unashamedly romanticised version of the past as the narrator says and as such is warm and soothing. A little red snapper?
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