Thunder on the Hill

A dire entrenching flood encompasses an unsuspecting village, and desperate peeps must swiftly find improvised accommodation at a local convent.

The industrious nuns run a spirited ship as they facilitate and extemporize, fortunately without interminable impositions grandiosely disrupting their heartfelt efforts.

Although a woman condemned for murder and about to be executed does arrive, notoriously regarded and somewhat embarrassed to be awkwardly engaged in social confines (Ann Blyth as Valerie Carns). 

Yet her aggrieved conversations bear exculpatory fruit, as a sympathetic nun believes her protests of innocence (Claudette Colbert as Sister Mary), and soon sets about finding her distraught betrothed and bringing him back to the nunnery by boat (Philip Friend as Sidney Kingham).

Soon the oddest detective film to ever be potentially considered film noir, spiritually emerges in the austere heights of a religious order dedicated to service.

The true identity of the guilty murderer having yet to be determined, serendipitous sleuthing and dogmatic deduction must altruistically absolve.

Fortunately, most of the town is expediently residing within the walls, so interviews can be conducted even though the weather is quite inclement.

And clues indeed materialize which fortuitously aid their compassionate endeavours, although rank and disbelief antiseptically quell the shamanistic tide.

I suppose on the one hand we find an age old symbol of old world dichotomies, wherein which traditional representations of gender discrimination uptightly abound.

'Tis true that at one alternative time there were less doors to freely walk through, and many institutions were therefore more robust due to a lack of external competition.

Yet within Sister Mary not so discreetly aids a countercultural phenomenon, a woman scandalously disregarded and about to be executed by the State.

She emphatically moves holistic heaven and high water through a genuine desire to see justice done, and thereby emancipates a forlorn soul judiciously condemned to prematurely pass.

Was director Sirk in fact intending to structurally distend sociocultural upheaval, through surreal suggestion subconsciously synergizing film noir with locally ascribed progressive inclinations?

I can't answer that question but as far as novelty is uniquely concerned, Thunder on the Hill presents convoluted cheek within the disputed conventions of film noir.

A lot of fun regardless if you're looking for something unlike anything else.

A critical reflection from a different time.

Bizarro upbeat romantic resonance. 

🍀

Written on the Wind

Two friends having grown up together remain collegially close as mature callings beckon.

Romance passionately translates reflections from one to the other, but Kyle (Robert Stack) seeks the damsel more readily, outmaneuvering alternative constructs.

His outlandish sister (Dorothy Malone as Marylee) has been in love with Mitch (Rock Hudson) for as long as she can remember, but he only sees her as family, which encourages rebellion.

They're some of the wealthiest peeps in Texas yet aren't detached or country club, preferring less ornate otherworldly enrichments to pretentious self-aggrandizement.

But young, Kyle seeks to raise young and encounters structural impediments, which leads to an excess o' corn, and generally swished saturation.

Mitch still loves Kyle's formerly blushing bride (Lauren Bacall as Lucy) but would never betray his friend, and even though she's somewhat flattered, she'll stay true to the bitter end.

The assiduous patriarch is none too impressed with the lackadaisical proclivities of his offspring, but he's too busy to run their lives, and they're far too independent.

Principled woe and abandoned happiness stoically blend within, to remain forever youthful, punishment Written on the Wind.

The first twenty minutes or so, the inspired improvised courtship, pull you in with literary enchantments, strictly spellbound as they subside, the austere tooth & nail.

Douglas Sirk holds things together enabling tragic tight-laced wonder, misfortune lamenting dreams, distressed dissolved exaggeration.

A solemn reverence for loyalty doesn't lack charming consistency, desire manifest and consequent yet forbidden barred ill-favoured.

The townsfolk hesitantly assert themselves to add poignant sociocultural depth, as demographics merge collide to interrogate what's left.

Acrimonious acclimations.

Antique shivers cloaked.

To have everything but what you want when it isn't even out of the question.

Friendly fusions immoderate misgivings distant lands picturesque pastures, if more had to be done perhaps everything would have seemed less demanding, like a light bit of sweet shushing distraction, honeysuckled spruce butterscotch haunts.  

A shake.

Camping.

Ye olde Yahtzee or Trivial Pursuit. 

Unconcerned with discourse immutable. 

Take it easy. 

Just the way things go.

A Scandal in Paris

Career criminals stretch out laidback in prison, as a fortuitous cake emerges, celebrations encoding style.

Having escaped they seek anonymity upon the open road, yet lend their images to a portrait depicting extant legend.

Soon they're reunited with Emile Vernet's (Akim Tamiroff) large outlaw family, who fears for their hard fought freedom, and recommends they join the army.

False identities are procured and they set off to aid Napoleon, still noticing jewels along the way whose brilliance generates temptation.

Years later they've left the service yet still scorn an honest living, and find themselves sheltered in a lavish chateau, presided over by the Minister of Police (Alan Napier as Houdon de Pierremont). 

They decide to rob him anyway and enact an audacious plan, switching the location of the jewels through agnostic sleight of hand.

The Prefect of Police (Gene Lockhart) cannot discover them and is relieved of duty, but Eugéne Vidocq (George Sanders) knows their whereabouts and leads the Minister straight indubitably. 

For his exceptional deductive skill he's generously rewarded, and given the post of Prefect of Police, securing Vernet's relatives jobs thereafter, at the bustling Bank of Paris. 

But his identity remains known to at least 2 adoring love interests, who fortunately enjoy his company, and seek not his instant ruin.

A Scandal in Paris invests striking charm with bewitching clever schematics, which assuage freeform displacements as a matter of upright cause.

Taking things too seriously is not so subtly critiqued throughout, even if Vidocq must watch his back as he nimbly cascades clout.

It seems too farfetched to believe yet is at least partially verifiable, taken from Vidocq's very own memoirs, the validity of which I cannot speak to.

He understood people well no doubt, a master of effortless seduction, freely winning hearts and minds through open-minded grand induction.

Those lacking social graces or appealing fanned conceit, fell swiftly to his daring bold and animate spry feats.

There's a series here within these reels commanding grand detection, each episode a marigold shy intimate selection.

Why not engage a stunning sleuth who once lacked honest virtue, to come to terms with pachyderms investigate the Dooku?

A stunning tale lightly regaled the shocking fluent candour, a charméd life akin to strife concocting goose and gander. 

Flavour.

What a life.