The Man on the Eiffel Tower

I started four ALB- stubs in the morning starting with Mikuru Shiina in Also, My Girlfriend Is My Brother's Daughter: Azusa (November 2011; ALB-126) and finishing with the lovely Yuri Shirasaki in 108cm Bouncing Big Boobs with an Erect Clit: Kozue (November 2011; ALB-129). Shirasaki has appeared in the "Pocha Doll" series (yet to make an appearance at Boobpedia), and here she is, on the left, in a DVD for MAGURO-- one of the DVD series I've got to start on once the ALB- project is finished.

I've been neglecting my work at IMDb in favor of Boobpedia, so I spent my afternoon session adding three Pink films: Kaoru Higashimoto's Kôkishin Fujin (1975) Nihon Cinema / Shintoho Company, Shin'ya Yamamoto's Semi-dokyumento: Shinjû sex go jû-nen-shi (1975) Watanabe Pro / Nikkatsu; and Genji Nakamura's Semi-document: Bôsô sex shûdan / Semi-Documentary: Runaway Sex Gang (Weisser's title) (1976) Watanabe Pro / Nikkatsu. Pink films and Roman Porno are often said to be separate entities: Pink films were produced and released outside of the big studio system, while Roman Pornos were produced and released by the big studio, Nikkatsu. However, the latter two titles mentioned were of that interesting variety of Pink film which was independently-produced, but released by Nikkatsu as a third-bill for its Roman Porno series. So they are both Pink films and Roman Pornos.

Last evening's entertainment was a glimpse at Burgess Meredith's The Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949). Unlike with Walter Matthau a few weeks ago (Gangster Story; 1959), Meredith's directing was quite good. Possibly even better than his acting role: a poor, near-sighted knife-sharpener who is framed for murder. This character, naturally, brought to mind Meredith's classic Henry Bemis character in the Twilight Zone episode, "Time Enough at Last" (1959), though, unliked Bemis, this guy just wasn't very likeable. Charles Laughton plays Inspector Maigret, and he's always a joy to behold, though a little exaggerated-- cartoony-- in this one. Franchot Tone as the main bad guy is an overly-self-impressed, manipulative, condescending yet incompetent, arrogant sociopath. In other words, he's the kind of guy who accumulates power in real life, and fucks things up for the rest of us. He would be warmly welcomed into the august ranks of Wikipedia's deletionists and administrators. And like them, he turns out to be full of hot air when the chips are down and it comes time to live up to his word-- jump off the Eiffel Tower in this case. He surrenders to the police and eventually leaves us instead with an unsatisfactory off-screen government-approved beheading... The acting and directing were fine in this one, as was the scenery and cinematography, but it still came out not very good... I suppose it was the screenplay's fault. Despite some similarities to Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951) it was a fairly routine inspector story.

Obviously I've been thoroughly enjoying these Mill Creek boxes, but I will have to say this is one film where the cheapness... er, affordability... of Mill Creek damages the quality of the viewing experience. First, this film was in color, and like most old color films in public domain presentation, it looked much worse than contemporary black & whites. The colors were washed out and drab, and the film had many scratches-- not so annoying in B&W for some reason. Considering a good deal of the quality in this film lies in the photography of Paris, this is a major draw-back. Also, the copy used in this box had so many skips it was sometimes difficult to follow the dialog, which was muffled even at best. Oh well-- if you pay $10 for 50 movies, you're bound to have a clunker or two... Still not an entirely wasted experience. The direction and the acting somewhat make up for the other weaknesses, earning it Six stars out of Ten from me.