City Slickers (1991)

Yee-haw, for the most part.

City Slickers gets a bit schmaltzy at time, but this western comedy starring Billy Crystal and, Shane!, Jack Palance is well worth a look.

Three friends, Mitch Robbins (Crystal), Phil Berquist (Daniel Stern) and Ed Furillo (Bruno Kirby), spend two weeks taking part in a cattle drive.

Robbins is in a funk. His sales job at a radio station ("What is my job? I sell air.") is losing its lustre.

His buddies have their own problems too. Phil is in an unhappy marriage and manages a grocery store for his father-in-law. Furillo is afraid of settling down with his young wife. She wants children. Furillo fears becoming a dad means his days of playing the field are done.

Curly (Palance) is the bonafide cowboy who'll take the trio, and the rest of the would-be cowboys including Bonnie Rayburn (Helen Slater) on the trek.

City Slickers is fun mostly for its one-liners. Most are delivered by Crystal.

Mitch to Ed on trying on western wear: "I think you look like one of the Village People."

Mitch about Curly: "Did you see how leathery he was. He's like a saddlebag with eyes."

Mitch to Curly about his lack of finesse when roping cattle: "I have a roping disability."

In-between the banter, and driving the cattle, Mitch, Phil and Ed find time to talk about their respective problems back home. I'm all for men sharing their feelings. Here, it occasionally gets to be a bit much.

That's a small quibble. City Slickers is worth a whoop, or two.

RATING: 8/10

FUN FACTS: That's Jake Gyllenhaal as Mitch's son. I didn't recognize him. Thanks, Internet Movie Database.

Veteran actress Jayne Meadows (Song of the Thin Man) is the voice of Mitch's mom.

Jack Palance won a best supporting actor Oscar for City Slickers. His last nomination was for Shane in 1954.

Helen Slater's first film role was as Supergirl.

The Big Knife (1955)

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.



The Big Knife cuts deep in its depiction of the studio system of Hollywood's Golden Age.



There's not much happiness in these parts, as depicted by director Robert Aldrich (The Flight of the Phoenix) in this powerful 1955 effort.



Charles Castle (Jack Palance) is at a crossroads. His studio contract is up for renewal. Boss Stanley Hoft (Rod Steiger) wants him back for seven more years. Castle is disillusioned with the roles he's given. His wife, Marion (Ida Lupino), has left him. There's signs of a possible reconciliation, but only if Castle leaves Hollywood. His wife is tired of his cheating and is getting serious with another man, Hank Teagle (Wesley Addy).



TWO IDEALISTS Teagle and Castle are both idealists. Castle sold out for success. Scriptwriter Teagle stayed true, but his works never make the screen.



Castle's leverage in negotiations is limited by a nasty incident in his past that Hoft, and a floozy who he was with at the time, Dixie Evans (Shelley Winters), have in their arsenal. Evans is a potential powder keg to Castle's future. She drinks too much and starts talking too often at parties about what happened a few years back. Castle's next starring role could be as a prisoner in jail.



DIXIE IS IN TROUBLE



Smiley Coy (Wendell Corey) is the studio's fixer, just like George Clooney was for a law firm in 2007's Michael Clayton. Charles is concerned Coy's not joking when he describes what he'll do to make sure Evans stops yapping.



"Sorry to throw the meat on the floor," he offers when he explains what he'll have done.



The Big Knife offers many fine performances. Palance, known to today's audiences for his work in City Slickers, is explosive as Castle. He's shown sparring in the film's first scene, but it's him who's being beaten down at work and home.



Steiger is a powerful force as Hoft. His screen time is limited, but he dominates the screen. Corey's quiet, deadly authority is chilling.



Dixie shares Castle's disillusioment with Hollywood, but not his success. She's offered a studio contract to keep her mouth shut about Castle's indiscretion. But her roles are limited with studio bosses more interested in her shapely figure than her acting talent. "I'm a deductible item," she laments.



GREAT CAST, BUT LOTS OF TALKING



The Big Knife is based on a play penned by Clifford Odets. The film's stage origins are noticeable with most of the action set in the living room of Castle's swanky Bel Air home. Viewers be warned, there's a lot of talking and not much action. The musical score is often obtrusive too.



Movies offer occasional glimpses at Hollywood with efforts such as Sunset Boulevard and The Player. The Big Knife is a knockout.

RATING: 8/10

Panic in the Streets (1950)

Here's an interesting twist.

The original title of Panic in the Streets (Fox Film Noir) was Outbreak.

FOR BETTER FILM, SEE OUTBREAK

Sadly, the 1995 thriller of the same name by director Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot - The Director's Cut) and stars Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman, is a more suspenseful take on the same subject, a plague that can kill.

Still, there are some interesting reasons to watch this 1950 effort from director Elia Kazan (East of Eden, On the Waterfront).

This film noir is definitely more entertaining than his 1947 release, Gentleman's Agreement, which Reel Popcorn Junkie reviewed earlier in 2011.

WELCOME TO THE MOVIES, JACK PALANCE

A big plus is some fine work, in his big screen debut, by Jack Palance (Shane). Palance's Blackie is a violent hoodlum with a permanently itchy finger on his handgun.

Blackie demands his cash back after a recent illegal immigrant to New Orleans, feeling ill, decides to leave a card game early. "I want that money," is Palance's first line. What follows, a nearly silent chase scene along railway tracks and warehouses, is another highlight of this film.

Health inspector Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark) is called in after an autopsy of the now-dead card player. A couple of bullets might have felled him, but something else was well on its way to killing him. Plague.

Reed warns authorities only have 48 hours to find others who had contact with the deceased or the city, and country, risks being overwhelmed by the deadly disease.

Blackie is convinced police interest in the dead man means he brought something valuable into the country. He wants to find the supposed treasure.

Police Capt. Tom Warren (Paul Douglas) isn't so sure of Reed's prognosis. The two clash over how the investigation should be handled. That kind of tension is standard in a thriller. While Douglas gets most of the film's best wisecracks, what makes Reed's character neat to watch is the other job-related pressures he is facing.

THIS DOC HAS SOME PROBLEMS

He's overworked, underpaid and a stranger to his wife, Nancy (Barbara Bel Geddes) and young son. Warren has watched colleagues leave for better-paying jobs with less stress and is starting to wonder if he should follow.

Panic in the Streets doesn't come close to living up to its name. There's a pesky reporter, Neff (Dan Ross), who gets wind of what's happening, but the Big Easy's residents don't have a clue about how close they are to getting wiped out. Neff is locked up by police for fear of inciting panic. Debate the merits of that police action while popping your next batch of popcorn.

Instead, there's just a small number of people working desperately to track down everyone who is infected with the plague.

The ailing include Raymond Fitch (Zero Mostel), a sniveling member of Blackie's posse.

Panic in the Streets features a strong cast and some interesting camera work, but fails to generate much tension about a potentially lethal incident.

RATING: 7/10

FUN FACT: Richard Widmark was nominated for a best supporting Oscar for his debut performance in Kiss of Death.