Nevada Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – John Huston – 1961 – UK – Cert. – 125m

****

As the Old West fades, a woman tries to navigate the men who appear to be dying with it in the final film of both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable – back out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 5th; the season Marilyn Monroe: Self Made Star plays BFI Southbank throughout June and July

Reno, Nevada. Local resident Isabelle (Thelma Ritter from Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock, 1954; Pickup on South Street, Sam Fuller, 1953; All About Eve, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) meets garage tow truck driver Guido (Eli Wallach from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Sergio Leone, 1966; The Magnificent Seven, John Sturges, 1961; Baby Doll, Elia Kazan, 1956) as he inspects the damage to the car of Roslyn (Marilyn Monroe) who claims, from an upstairs window, that it was caused by men bumping into her vehicle to get her attention.

The worldly Isabelle attempts to coach the hapless Roslyn as to what to say in the divorce court, a service Isabelle would appear to have performed for previous house guests. Following the hearing, and a brief encounter with Roslyn’s ex Raymond (Kevin McCarthy from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Don Siegel, 1956), the two women head out to a cocktail lounge to celebrate.… Read the rest

The Dead Don’t Hurt

Director – Viggo Mortensen – 2023 – US – Cert. 15 – 129m

***1/2

An independently-minded woman whose partner is away fighting a war struggles to survive in the Old West – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, June 7th

While there is much to admire in this Western, it suffers from unclear flashbacks and parallel editing. Both the trailer (below) and the UK press handouts circumvent this problem by describing a straightforward, chronological narrative (and a fascinating narrative at that). For anyone who doesn’t try to follow plot, this may not be a problem. For those who do, it most definitely is.

Two things happen at the start. One is a shoot out in which Weston Jeffries (Solly McLeod), a nasty bit of work with scant disregard for either decency or law and order, rides away into the evening after shooting various people inside and outside the town’s saloon, including the deputy sheriff. The town is apparently called Elk Flats, Nevada – something I gleaned not from the film (where, if that information is there, it’s easy to miss, and I missed it) but from the production notes.

This is indicative of a problem with the film overall: there are certain key bits of information it needs to tell the audience, which it fails to deliver in a clear, comprehensible way.… Read the rest