VINTAGE MOVIES

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Mystery Train (1989, 110 minutes)

A young Japanese couple infatuated with ’50s American culture has arrived in Memphis on the train in search of a rockabilly scene that vanished three decades earlier. Decked out in a green sports coat, loose black slacks and an Elvis Presley haircut, Jun (Masatoshi Nagase) prefers Carl Perkins to “the King.” In love with Elvis, Mitsuko (Youki Kudoh) wears a black leather jacket whose back screams out something lost in translation: “Mister Baby.” They drop by the original home of Sun Records, the same studio used by Presley, Perkins, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis. “She talked too fast,” complains Mitsuko afterward of the tour guide’s machine-gun delivery.

With high-rise hotels and the nightlife of Beale Street off in the distance, they walk down cracked sidewalks through a deserted neighborhood of boarded-up movie theaters and dilapidated shops before arriving at the seedy Arcade Hotel. The desk clerk (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins) is dressed in a flaming-red hipster’s suit with a black tie and a crimson shirt. The bellboy (Cinqué Lee), with a bellboy’s pillbox hat perched atop his Afro, tells the clerk, “At the time of his death, if Elvis was on Jupiter, he’d have weighed 648 pounds.”

Mitsuko asks in broken English if they have a cheap room and, straight from a Berlitz tourist’s handbook, she tells the clerk politely that the price is too high even before he can quote a figure. “All rooms for two people are the same rate, $22 payable in advance,” he says. Jun peels cash from his wallet, and the clerk hammers the bell for the startled bellboy, sitting right next to him, and barks out, “Room 27.”

A “starving-artist’s” portrait of Elvis glares down at the double bed in room 27. “No Carl Perkins, and no TV,” notes a disappointed Jun. The bellboy stands awkwardly near the door, expecting a tip. “Please wait,” says Mitsuko, rummaging through their tomato-soup red Samsonite suitcase. She hands him something shiny and purple. “This plum is from Japan,” she says excitedly. As he retreats bewildered downstairs, she tells him, “I like your hat.”

“I don’t think you should eat that thing,” warns the desk clerk. “You’re probably right. I ain’t gonna eat that thing,” says the bellboy. The desk clerk pops the fruit into his mouth. “Hey, my plum!” says the bellboy.

With a blue moon shining in the window, Mitsuko asks her companion, “Why do you look so sad?” She fishes a lipstick from her purse and layers it on heavily. While kissing him, she smears the red makeup all over his mouth, leaving him with a garish clown’s grin painted over his melancholy mug. Unmoved, Jun puts a cigarette between his lips, and Mitsuko lights it, then returns the lighter to his shirt pocket, using nothing but her toes.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Deliverance (1972, 109 minutes)

What was planned as a leisurely weekend voyage by canoe down a majestic waterway carved into the Georgia outback turns into a desperate struggle for survival. Four city dwellers are intent on seeing the pristine Cahulawassee River before it’s ruined by the construction of a dam downstream to create hydro-electric power. “You wanna talk about the vanishing wilderness?” says Lewis. “This is just about the last, wild, untamed, unpolluted, un-fucked-up river in the South. They’re drownin’ this river. It’s just gonna be a big, dead lake.”

Ed (Jon Voight) has convinced Lewis (Burt Reynolds), an experienced bow-hunter, to lead a group that also includes wilderness neophytes Bobby (Ned Beatty) and Drew (Ronny Cox). The foursome has traveled deep into hillbilly country to hire someone to drive their vehicles, a land rover and a station wagon, to the end of their journey. “I’ll have you back in Atlanta by Sunday afternoon, in time to watch the football game,” says Lewis.

“We may just be at the end of the line,” says Bobby smugly as he kicks at a pile of junk in front of a rustic home that doubles as a filling station. “Hey, not so loud. Let’s not upset these people,” warns Ed, as Lewis leans on the horn to roust somebody. “Hey, mister, I love your hat,” smirks Bobby at the old geezer pumping gas who’s pulled the brim of his battered stetson down around his face. “You don’t know nothin’,” says the old-timer.

With vague directions, Lewis finds the log cabin of the Griner brothers. “Can you and your brother drive two cars down to Aintry for us?” asks Lewis. “Fer what?” replies the surly Griner. “Me and my buddies are takin’ a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee,” explains Lewis. “A canoe trip! What the hell you wanna fuck around with that river for?” “Because it’s there,” answers Lewis pompously. “It’s there all right,” says Griner. “You get in there and can’t get out, you gonna wish it wasn’t.”

The Griner boys agree to drive the two cars for forty bucks and hop into their rusted-out tow-truck. Lewis cuts them off in the land rover, determined to find the river on his own. “You don’t think we oughta let them show us where the river is?” asks Ed. “If I thought that, I’d let them go first,” says Lewis, who pulls into a dead-end and has to back up. “Where you goin,’ city boy?” says one Griner. “It ain’t nothin but the biggest fuckin’ river in the state!” carps the other.

Sensing the river over the engine’s racket, Lewis slams on the brakes and climbs cat-like over a fallen tree trunk. “This is it,” he says, pulling back a branch to reveal the sleepy grandeur of the Cahulawassee. It will not remain peaceful for long.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Vertigo (1958, 128 minutes)

With the seldom discussed topics of mental illness and suicide at its heart, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo was panned by critics and ignored by movie-going audiences upon its release. It’s now considered one of the prolific director’s most enduring works.

Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) had to retire as a detective with the San Francisco Police Department after his sudden attack of vertigo while chasing a suspect across a Victorian rooftop caused a uniformed officer to plunge to his death. “I had to quit,” he tells Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes), the girl hopelessly in love with this confirmed bachelor. “I wake up at night seeing that man falling from the roof. I have acrophobia. Heights make me dizzy. Boy, what a moment to find out I had it!”

Hearing of Ferguson’s retirement, old college friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), now managing his in-laws’ shipbuilding interests, asks Scottie to shadow his young wife. “Do you believe someone out of the past can take possession of a living being?” a troubled Elster asks Ferguson. “I believe this has happened to my wife. She’ll be talking to me, a cloud comes over her, and suddenly she’s someone I don’t know.” Elster says he followed her last week to Golden Gate Park, five miles away, where she just sat all day by the lake. “But the speedometer on her car showed she’d driven 94 miles. Where does she go?” he asks.

Behind the wheel of his two-door DeSoto the next morning, Scottie tails the green Jaguar sedan of Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak) as she drives to Mission Dolores. He follows her into the church’s cemetery and watches her standing before the gravesite of Carlotta Valdes, who died in 1857. The mysterious wife then visits the Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, where she sits on a bench staring at a portrait of the same Carlotta Valdes. She’s brought a spray of pink roses, similar to the one held by the girl in the picture. Both women wear their hair with the same tightly rolled twist in the back.

A baffled Ferguson reports his findings to Elster who reveals that Carlotta was his wife’s great grandmother. “Madeleine’s grandmother went insane and took her own life. Her blood is in Madeleine,” says Elster somberly.

In the morning, Madeleine drives through the Presidio out to old Fort Point, an abandoned military installation at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. After tossing rose petals into the foam, without any warning, she jumps into the swirling water below. Scottie immediately leaps in after her. With the girl barely able to keep her head above the icy water of San Francisco Bay, he tows her to safety, revives her back at his apartment—and the mystery of Madeleine Elster begins to unspool.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

The Last Detail (1973, 105 minutes)

The Last Detail catches Jack Nicholson, one of the 20th century’s most accomplished actors, at an early creative peak. Only a few years after his eye-opening appearances in Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, Nicholson’s 1973 work in The Last Detail is an excellent precursor to his performances in Chinatown and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, over the next two years.

Two Navy lifers, petty officers Buddusky (Nicholson) and Mulhall (Otis Young) are detailed to escort Meadows (Randy Quaid), a bumbling, teenage doughboy of an enlisted man, to the Portsmouth Naval Prison in New Hampshire.

“You are one lucky son of a bitch, bad-ass,” says his chief petty officer (Clifton James) to Buddusky, explaining that seaman Meadows has drawn an eight-year prison sentence and a dishonorable discharge. “Jesus Christ! What’d he do, kill the Old Man?” asks Buddusky. “Didn’t kill nobody. Robbery. Forty dollars,” says the chief. “You’re shittin’ me!” says Mulhall. “I wouldn’t shit you. You’re my favorite turd,” answers the chief. “He lifted a polio-contribution box. It’s the Old Man’s old lady’s favorite do-gooder charity. It’s good duty for you guys. You get to go to Washington, New York, Boston,” says the chief, handing over pistols to the fortunate pair, now designated as Shore Patrol.

By the time the threesome is dropped off at the Greyhound bus station, Buddusky and Mulhall have hatched plans to fast-track Meadows to Portsmouth in two days, then spend his unused per diem on a leisurely return to their base in Virginia. “You have to go to the head, Meadows?” asks Buddusky, chewing gum. “No, sir,” replies the prisoner, now in handcuffs. “Be sure, because from now on, whenever you do have to go, one of us has to go with you,” warns Buddusky. “I’m not gonna kill myself,” says Meadows quietly.

The soft-hearted pair of guards has changed plans by the time they get off the train in Washington. They remove Meadows’ handcuffs and decide to buy him a beer in a nearby bar. “Lemme see an ID. The kid ain’t old enough, The law says I have to serve him,” says the bartender, pointing at Mulhall who is black. “I’ll tell you what you have to do, citizen bartender,” says Mulhall. “You take your beers and shove ‘em up your ass, sideways!”

“You try anything and I’ll call the Shore Patrol,” says the bartender. “I am the motherfucking Shore Patrol!” screams Buddusky, pulling out his service pistol. “Now give this man a beer!” Trying to defuse things, Meadows mumbles, “I don’t really want a beer.” “You’re gonna have a motherfucking beer!” answers Buddusky. As they run from the joint, laughing, Mulhall and Meadows tell Buddusky, “You are one bad ass!” Nodding at Meadows, Buddusky replies, “You ain’t leavin’ D.C. until you get a bellyful of beer!”

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Tunes Of Glory (1960, 106 minutes)

Acting Colonel Jock Sinclair, a rough-hewn yet popular commanding officer of a Scottish highland regiment in the post-World War II days, drinks, sings and dances with his men, sometimes to excess. Sinclair, played to the hilt by Alec Guinness sporting a flaming red military brush-cut and mustache, has called in two of the regiment’s best pipers to liven things up in the officer’s mess. He singles out one young subaltern (second lieutenant) who’s attempting to smoke a cigarette. “For God’s sake, MacKinnon, smoke that thing like a man! Stop puffing at it like a ruddy debutante. Go on, laddie, draw it in.” When MacKinnon coughs violently after inhaling, the rest of the officers laugh heartily.

To everyone’s surprise, Sinclair announces he’s about to be replaced by Colonel Basil Barrow, Oxford-educated and, apparently, a stickler for regulations. A man who’s pulled himself up by his bootstraps through the ranks, Sinclair makes it perfectly clear that the officer he already refers to as “the Barrow boy” (a street peddler who sells goods from a wheelbarrow) is the wrong choice to command this storied unit.

When Barrow (John Mills) arrives a day early at his new posting, he’s surprised to walk in on an unruly, all-male traditional dance session whose war whoops and rowdy behavior can be heard from outside the barracks. “Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Barrow,” says the new Colonel, dressed like a college professor, as the raucous dancing grinds to a sudden halt. “He might have given us some warning,” mutters one officer. “Do you fancy the waistcoat?” whispers another.

“And now, Colonel, may we have permission to resume the dance that was interrupted? There’s nay carrying on like this every night. This is my farewell party,” says Sinclair, although he’s not going anywhere. “Oh, please, I’m not here officially until tomorrow,” says Barrow, good-naturedly. “You’ll join us in a drink?” says Sinclair as he escorts Barrow into the officers’ lounge. “Straight or with water?” asks Sinclair of Barrow’s whiskey preference. “I’d rather have a soft drink, if I may,” says Barrow. “Not a whiskey? But we all drink whiskey in this battalion,” replies Sinclair. “I’m afraid whiskey doesn’t agree with me,” says Barrow. “A lemonade for the colonel,” says a disappointed Sinclair to an orderly.

Sinclair lets the thin veil of courtesy slip when his new commander mentions his university connections. “Well, I came in the other way: boot boy, band boy and Barlinnie Jail. Armistice night, 1933, dead drunk and disorderly. And what did you say you did before?” asks Sinclair, turning the screw. “I didn’t. Like you, Sinclair, I was in jail,” replies the Colonel. “A prisoner of war camp, eh? Officers’ privileges and amateur dramatics,” smirks Sinclair. “I think I would have preferred Barlinnie Jail,” snaps Barrow. “Good night!”

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Blade Runner (1982, 117 minutes)

It’s the 21st century, and Los Angeles has devolved from the land of sunshine and palm trees to a place where thick black clouds and ground fog permanently choke a congested city where the only way to expand is upward. Immense blasts of industrial fire randomly scorch the skies as toxic rain pelts down on the huddled masses milling in the streets. A benevolent voice from above advertises, “A new life awaits you in the Off-world, a glorious chance to begin life anew in a golden land of opportunity and adventure.”

The Nexus 6, a robot almost indistinguishable from a human, has been engineered by the Tyrell Corp. that’s as stronger than and at least as intelligent as the scientists who created it. It has now been outlawed after a bloody Off-world mutiny. Blade Runner police units have been assigned to track down every one of these robots, called replicants, and “retire” them on the spot.

An ex-cop, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is threatened with arrest and forced to cut short his meal of Japanese noodles at the counter of a street vendor by a brusque police officer who doesn’t speak English. Deckard is flown up to his old office in a black-and-white cruiser that easily navigates around a maze of skyscrapers.

“You wouldn’t have come if I’d asked you to,” says Captain Bryant (M. Emett Walsh), Deckard’s former boss, trying hard to be pleasant. “Replicants jumped a shuttle Off-world and killed the crew and passengers.” “Embarrassing,” says Deckard unsympathetically. “No, not embarrassing,” retorts Bryant, showing him a mug shot of Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), leader of the four wanted replicants. “No one’s gonna find them down here. You’re gonna spot ‘em and air ‘em out.”

Shaking his head, Deckard says, “I don’t work here any more. Give it to Holden. He’s good.” “I did,” says Bryant. “He can breathe OK as long as nobody unplugs him. I need you, Deck. I need the old blade runner. I need your magic.” Deckard begins to walk out the office door. “Stop right where you are!” demands Bryant. “You know the score. If you’re not cop, you’re little people.” Deckard sinks back into the chair. “No choice, huh?” “No choice, pal.”

In the offices of the Tyrell Corp., Deckard meets Rachael (Sean Young), an attractive assistant to Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel). “Have you ever retired a human by mistake?” she asks. “No,” answers Deckard. At Tyrell’s request, Deckard gives Rachael the test police use to spot replicants. After a thorough screening, Deckard verifies the girl’s artificial origins in spite of her “human” responses. “We give them a past that creates a cushion for their emotions to control them better,” says Tyrell. Alas, it’s an upgrade developed too late to help round up the dangerous fugitive replicants.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

The Conversation (1974, 113 minutes)

It’s a blustery autumn afternoon in San Francisco’s Union Square, and local mime Robert Shields, in white-face and a comical military uniform, is annoying the tourists, as usual. High on the rooftop of The City of Paris, a man in headphones perched behind the neon sign of the ladies’ clothing store is aiming a long barrel at a young couple down in the square. He shifts the sniper-scope crosshairs from Ann (Cindy Williams) to Mark (Frederic Forrest). In between bleeps, he picks up scraps of their conversation, and you realize this isn’t a rifle. It’s an extremely powerful directional microphone.

Surveillance is the name of the game, and Harry Caul (played by a tightly wrapped Gene Hackman) is the best in the business. Sporting an awkward mustache and dressed in something off the rack from J.C. Penney, Harry walks around the square to overhear dialogue between the targeted pair, while Stan, his assistant (John Cazale), rolls tape back in the van. Shields mocks the way Harry drinks coffee from a cardboard cup, the last thing a professional snoop wants while he’s working: attention.

“Look, that’s terrible,” says Ann as she spots an old man passed-out in the square. “He’s not hurting anyone,” replies Mark. “Neither are we,” says Ann. “Everytime I see one of these old guys, I always think the same thing. He was once somebody’s baby boy, and he had a mother and a father who loved him. And now he’s half-dead on a park bench.”

The next morning, Harry enters a seemingly abandoned brick warehouse in S.F.’s industrial district and takes the freight elevator upstairs to his “office,” where he keeps all the latest devices used by a professional eavesdropper. As he begins to assimilate the data from yesterday’s job, Stan asks, “Who’s interested in these two, anyway, the Justice Department? These kind of tapes always put me to sleep.” Irritated, Harry snaps back, “Since when are you here to be entertained? Your work’s getting sloppy, Stan.” Now sulking, Stan takes off on his motorcycle.

Able to better concentrate alone, Harry homes in on the missing pieces of the conversation by filtering out the racket of a conga drummer. Finally, he hears a previously inaudible exchange by the “marked” couple. “I think he’s recording my telephone conversations,” says Ann. “He’d kill us if he got the chance,” replies Mark, adding, “Later in the week. Sunday, maybe.” Ann answers, “Sunday, definitely.” Mark says portentously, “Jack Tar Hotel, three o’clock, room 773.” It’s info enough to give Harry second thoughts about the job he’s just completed.

Before Cazale died prematurely in 1978, he appeared in only five feature films: The Conversation, The Godfather I and II, The Deer Hunter and Dog Day Afternoon. All five were nominated for a best-picture Oscar.

MAGNET’s Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Los Olvidados (1950, in Spanish with English subtitles, 85 minutes)

The sociopathic street kids portrayed in Luis Buñuel’s Los Olvidados (“the forgotten”) make the troubled teenagers from 1955′s Rebel Without A Cause seem like country-club brats by comparison. Born in Spain in 1900, Buñuel befriended both Salvador Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca in college before becoming a citizen of Mexico. Though some of Buñuel’s films are similar to the Italian school of neo-realism (cheaply shot on location with unknown actors and working-class themes), there are touches of surrealism found in his work, as well.

A pack of kids, ranging from 13 to 16, are playing bullfight games with each other in a Mexico City square when the word gets out: El Jaibo has escaped from reform school. “Working is for donkeys,” says one of the punks as he passes around a pack of cigarettes.

Six inches taller than the rest, the rail-thin Jaibo (Roberto Cobo) is dressed in overalls with no shirt when he rejoins his former buddies. “What’s it like inside? Is it cool?” asks the shorter Pedro (Alfonso Mejia). “The street is better. That’s why I escaped as soon as I could,” says Jaibo, always on the lookout for passing police cars. “Were you inside because of Julian?” asks Pedro. “That rat! He’ll get what’s coming to him,” sneers Jaibo. “I learned a lot in jail. Do as I say, and you’ll always have money.”

Jaibo takes his boys into the marketplace in search of easy cash. They find an old blind street musician with a guitar, a drum and a rack of wooden pipes around his neck, introducing a song: “This is from the time when women stayed home instead of going out and cheating on their husbands.” The boys follow the old man home and gang up on him, tripping him and slamming a large rock through his drum, then taking his cash.

Later, a legless beggar on a small platform with wheels accidentally bumps into El Jaibo. Enraged, his boys lift the amputee from his cart and toss him onto the sidewalk like an upside-down turtle. Jaibo runs off with the man’s cart and pushes it as far as he can down a steep hill.

Pedro leads Jaibo to the place where Julian (Javier Amezcua) works. “I spent a year in jail because of you,” Jaibo shouts at Julian. “If I’d turned you in, I’d say so,” reasons Julian. Believing Jaibo is incapacitated because his arm’s in a sling, Julian turns away. But Jaibo has a large rock concealed inside the bandage and brings it down on the back of Julian’s head. He finishes off the unconscious boy with a stout tree limb. Always thinking, Jaibo splits Julian’s money with Pedro to make him an accomplice. “I’ll get 10 years and you’ll get five if we’re caught,” he warns.

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Shampoo (1975, 109 minutes)

The Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” slowly fades in over a black background. Softly groaning, Felicia (Lee Grant) begs, “Please put your hand up there and hold it.” Just as she starts to lose control, the phone rings. A small spotlight illuminates George’s tired face as he picks up and says, “Oh, when did you get back in town? Come by the shop tomorrow and say hello.” Felicia urges George, “Just tell them you’re sleeping.” As she drags him back to bed, the phone rings again. “Oh shit! What are you doing?” she demands as George hangs up after a brief conversation and begins to pull on his pants. “This girl is different,” he explains of his late-night caller. “She has attacks, something to do with her pancre-ass.”

Flying under the vigilant radar of boyfriends and husbands thanks to his occupation, hairdresser George Roundy is sleeping with most of his clients. Played by an insatiable (and shaggy-headed) Warren Beatty, George has a dance card so full he’s all but falling asleep astride his 750-cc Triumph motorcycle as he zips through the Hollywood hills from one bed to another.

A needy girlfriend, Jill (Goldie Hawn), frequently breathes into a paper bag to relieve panic attacks as she decides whether to fly to Egypt for a film project. “I have these dreams that someone is trying to get me,” she tells George. Munching on an apple, George warns her, “The only one who’s gonna get you is me!” as he tosses the apple over his shoulder and chases her into the bedroom.

Tired of working at someone else’s beauty shop, George needs cash to open his own salon. “Rates raise independently of tight money,” a loan officer explains to him. George grins as if he understands. “What sort of references do you have, Mr. Roundy?” asks the banker. “References? I do Barbara Rush … her hair,” replies George. “I was talking about credit references,” says the banker. “I don’t know what a financial statement is,” says George. “But I’ve got the heads, the customers. I’m the one they want. They come to me.”

The bank officer turns off the charm. “I’m sure they do,” he says. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? How do you expect to loan me money if you don’t know the first thing about my business?” asks George, becoming agitated. “I don’t. Good morning, Mr. Roundy,” he says, tossing George’s crumpled application into the wastebasket. George bends down, looks the banker in the eye and says, “Thank you. Asshole!” He stomps out of the bank, rips off his coat and tie, slings them into a garbage can, then picks up the garbage can and body-slams it into the concrete as a shower of bottles and cans rolls aimlessly into the parking lot.

MAGNET’s  Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

From Here To Eternity (1953, 118 minutes)

Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt arrives at his new post, a Pearl Harbor army base, to find his reputation as a prize-fighter has preceded him. A lone wolf who won’t be bullied, Prewitt once blinded a friend while sparring and has given up boxing. But that’s the reason for his transfer, Capt. Dana “Dynamite” Holmes informs Prewitt. He’s needed to help win the battalion championship boxing trophy for 1941. “You might as well say stop war because one man got killed,” an exasperated Holmes barks at his intransigent recruit.

“If a man don’t go his own way, he’s nothing,” says Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) to Holmes’ right-hand man, First Sgt. Milt Warden (Burt Lancaster), explaining why he won’t fight. “Maybe in the days of the pioneers he could go his own way, kid, but today you gotta play ball,” says Warden.

Holmes (Philip Ober) orders the rest of his NCOs, all members of the boxing squad, to give his potential middleweight “the treatment” to force him to change his mind. When Prewitt excels at field-assembling his M1 rifle, one of Holmes’ boxers gives him “seven times around the track at double-time” because his rifle’s rear site is out of adjustment. Every minor infraction by the reluctant boxer is met with double-punishment.

To complicate matters, Warden is thinking of making a play for Holmes’ lonely wife while the Captain is chasing after loose women in town. “All you do is sit around sweating over papers, sergeant,” says Holmes on his way out the door. “You ought to get out more, yourself.” Glancing at a photo of Karen Holmes on the Captain’s desk, Warden replies, “I’ve been considering it, sir.”

As Warden and Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr) meet discreetly on a park bench, she warns him, “Don’t be gallant, sergeant. If you think this is a mistake, come right out and say so.” Warden snaps back, “Do you think I’d be here if I thought it was a mistake? I’m taking a chance on 20 years in Leavenworth by making a date with the company commander’s wife.”

Private Angelo Maggio (a wiry Frank Sinatra) and Prewitt, out on a rare day-pass, head to town for some female companionship at the New Congress Club. At a bar later, a drunk Maggio complains about the noisy piano-playing of “Fatso” Judson, the base’s stockade sergeant. “I’ll play loud as I want, you little wop!” says Judson (a sadistic Ernest Borgnine). “Only my friends call me that!” says Maggio, clocking Judson from behind with a stool. Warden jumps between the two to defuse things: “Killers, huh? I’d trade the pair of you for a good Campfire Girl.” Judson backs off, leering at Maggio and warning, “Tough monkey! Guys like you wind up in the stockade. Someday you’ll walk in, and I’ll be waiting.”

MAGNET contributing editor Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Repo Man (1984, 92 minutes)

A dayglo roadmap of New Mexico flashes on the screen, accompanied by Iggy Pop’s bone-crushing punk version of the “Repo Man” theme. This must have been how teenagers felt in 1954, hearing Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock” over the opening credits of The Blackboard Jungle, an exhilarating validation of music uniquely their own. Most of Repo Man‘s soundtrack features the electrifying punk/surf/Chicano hybrid of L.A. combo the Plugz.

The map shows the progress of a ’64 Chevy Malibu, making its way from onetime nuclear test-site Roswell, N.M., to Los Angeles. A motorcycle cop pulls the car over in the Mojave desert for erratic driving. “What have you got in the trunk?” the cop asks the obviously impaired driver, wearing sunglasses with one lens missing. “Oh, you don’t want to look in there,” mutters the professorial J. Frank Parnell (Fox Harris), humming to himself. The cop opens the trunk, is bathed in excruciating light, then is instantly atomized. Oblivious, Parnell continues driving west, leaving behind only a pair of smoking police boots.

Two teenagers are stocking shelves in an L.A. supermarket with generic cans of sliced peaches. One of them, Kevin (Zander Schloss), is absent-mindedly singing a current TV jingle: “I’m feelin’ 7-Up.” Otto (a buzz-cut-wearing Emilio Estevez) protests by slathering a sticker from a price-gun over a lens from Kevin’s glasses. “It’s been brought to my attention,” says his boss to Otto, “that you’re not paying attention to the way you space the cans.” Otto says, “Fuck you!” to his boss and shoves Kevin into a stacked pyramid of canned peaches before stomping off.

Now out of work, a depressed Otto sings Black Flag’s “TV Party Tonight” (“We’re dedicated to our favorite TV shows: Saturday Night Live, Monday Night Football, Gilligan’s Island“) while kicking a can down a street in the nasty part of town. Sitting in a car parked next to a junkyard, Bud (Harry Dean Stanton) hollers out, “Hey, kid, you want to make 10 bucks?” “Fuck you, queer!” answers Otto. “You got me wrong, kid,” says Bud, explaining he has to get both his cars out of “this bad neighborhood” and offering Otto $25 to drive the other one.

Back at the office of Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation, a grizzled veteran laughs at Otto’s name. “Auto parts?” he says, tossing the kid a brew. “I ain’t gonna be no repo man,” says Otto, now wise to their game. “Too late, you already are,” says Marlene, the secretary, slipping him some cash. “How much do I get paid?” the neophyte asks Bud. “You might make five grand for a $50 thousand Porsche. It helps if you dress like a detective, kinda square. That way people think you’re packin,’” Otto asks, “Are you packin’?” Bud replies, “Only an asshole gets killed over a car.”

MAGNET contributing editor Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Singin’ In The Rain (1952, 102 minutes)

It’s 1927, and talking pictures, for better or worse, are about to give the silent-film era a voice with the release of The Jazz Singer, the first “talkie” feature. For Hollywood matinee-idol duo Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont, that could be a problem. When introduced on the red carpet for opening night of their lightweight palace romance, The Royal Rascal, as “the couple as familiar to American households as bacon and eggs,” Lockwood (Gene Kelly) does all the talking.

The reason Lamont (Jean Hagen, in the role of a lifetime) remains silent becomes painfully clear when she lets off steam once the couple is out of public earshot. “What’s the big idea!” she bellows in a New Jersey screech that would shatter glass. “Can’t a girl get a word in edgewise? They’re my public, too! What’s wrong with the way I talk?” Lamont demands that someone from Monumental Studios should write her a short speech the next time the pair appears in public. “Sure, why don’t you go back out there now and recite The Gettysburg Address?” needles Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor), Lockwood’s sharp-witted second banana.

Mobbed on the sidewalk by movie fans, Lockwood escapes by vaulting to the roof of a passing trolley bus, then leaping into the roadster of a startled Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). “I’ve seen that face before!” she screams. “You’re a famous gangster!” A nearby traffic cop calms her down: “Why it’s Don Lockwood. It’s your lucky day, miss.” Selden repays Lockwood for scaring her by dismissing his film career as “not really acting,” then miming three “emotions” with open hands framing her face. She will be moving to New York soon to work in the legitimate theatre. “Right, the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet,” mocks Lockwood. “And King Lear, you’ll need a beard for that one.”

At a party thrown by studio boss R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell), Lockwood is shocked when Selden pops out of a cake to sing and dance in a chorus line. “Well, if it isn’t Ethel Barrymore,” he smirks. Weary of his jibes, Selden picks up a gooey layer-cake, takes dead-aim and says, “Here’s something I’ve learned from the movies.” Lockwood ducks, but the airborne pastry hits the sputtering Lamont square in the chops.

What sets Singin’ In The Rain apart from other great Hollywood musicals isn’t necessarily the songs from Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, but the gravity-defying dance routines by Kelly, O’Connor and Reynolds, choreographed by Kelly. O’Connor’s wall-climbing solo for “Make ‘Em Laugh” is spectacular. All three show finely tuned athleticism skipping up stairs and tipping over couches to “Good Morning.” Then there’s Kelly’s magical number for “Singin’ In The Rain,” a five-minute tour de force with just an umbrella, a lamp post and a few puddles from a backlot rainstorm.

MAGNET contributing editor Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

MASH (1970, 116 minutes)

When two hotshot young surgeons arrive at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital at the height of the Korean War, the “combat zone” is effectively expanded to include the helter-skelter daily life of this ramshackle medical outpost, only three miles from the front lines. Captains Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and Duke Forrest (Tom Skerritt) show up in a stolen Jeep to find a cockeyed paradise at their new posting: from an able (and willing) staff of surgical nurses to a bountiful supply of drugs and plenty of booze. Although the grueling 12-hour shifts, operating on gravely wounded Army personnel in conditions that seem more like a slaughterhouse than a sterile U.S. hospital, are taxing, the two doctors prove they have what it takes.

The only fly in the ointment is their bunkmate (and inferior fellow surgeon) Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), a martinet who neither drinks nor womanizes. But the newest “chest cutter,” Trapper John McEntyre (Elliott Gould in a Pancho Villa mustache), is just what Hawkeye and Duke ordered. “I would love a martini,” replies Trapper John to Hawkeye’s civilized inquiry. “I think you will find these accommodating,” says Hawkeye. “Don’t you use olives?” asks Trapper, fishing a jar of the briny delicacies from his jacket.

A new head nurse, Major Houlihan (Sally Kellerman), is escorted from a helicopter by Duke, bent-over with hands clasped behind his back, a la Groucho Marx. Such foolishness is lost on the no-nonsense Houlihan, who aligns herself with Major Burns. “I think of the Army as my home,” she tells a puzzled Hawkeye, as the compound’s PA blurts out “The Darktown Strutters’ Ball,” sung in Japanese.

As the three surgical amigos toss a football around after-hours, Hawkeye smiles, recalling the day he intercepted an ill-advised pass by Trapper for the game’s only points to beat Dartmouth in the final seconds. “Lucky your mouth wasn’t open. The ball would have got stuck in your throat,” smirks the former quarterback.

Hawkeye finds a way to make fools of Burns and Houlihan with one fiendish stroke. “Looks like Dr. Frank is doing a bit of dilatation tonight,” says Hawkeye after discovering the couple will rendezvous in Burns’ tent to do what comes naturally. Hawkeye rigs up a live feed to broadcast their groaning liaison over the camp’s PA. “My lips are hot, Frank. Kiss my hot lips!” moans Houlihan, unknowingly selecting “Hot Lips” as her own permanent Army sobriquet.

MASH‘s infectious irreverence struck a sympathetic chord with those disillusioned by the Vietnam War. Nothing may have stuck in the craw of the U.S. power structure quite like a drunken chorus of doctors and nurses blowing off steam with an improvised version of “Hail To The Chief”: “Hail to the chief/He’s the best of all the surgeons/He took his orders/And shoved them up his rectum.”

MAGNET contributing editor Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

The War Of The Worlds (1953, 86 minutes)

An immense fireball blazing across the night sky crashes into the foothills near a small town on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and the locals write it off as nothing more than a stray meteor. When three men are stationed to spend the night near the red-hot, earth-encrusted projectile, they are astounded to see a large disc unscrew from its topside and a metallic, snake-like hose with a sinister cobra head emerge from the opening. The three men show the alien craft they mean no harm by waving a white flag made from a sugar sack and shouting, “We welcome you.” The snake-like device zeros in and fires a lethal heat-ray that instantly turns the trio into charcoal dust.

Already in the area on a fishing trip, Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry), a Pacific Tech scientist with experience in nuclear weapons, is called in by local police to help investigate. As a growing alien force begins to rumble down in the valley, Forrester’s square-dance partner from last night, Red Cross volunteer Sylvia Van Buren (Ann Robinson), serves coffee and doughnuts to the army personnel now assembling.

Upset that the military intends to destroy the aliens first and ask questions later, Sylvia’s uncle, Pastor Matthew Collins (Lewis Martin), wants to communicate with the visitors. “If they’re more advanced than we are, they should be nearer the Creator,” he says before stepping into the line of fire while reciting the 23rd psalm: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” In a questionable public-relations move, one of the hovering manta ray-shaped alien vehicles atomizes the man of God with its heat beam.

When the Air Force’s top-secret Flying Wing drops an atom bomb on the aliens and the manta-ray machines emerge from the radioactive dust unscathed, the human race seems doomed. Mother ships have landed in every major city around the world, and no one can stop them. Forrester and Sylvia, trying to get back to his think-tank colleagues in L.A. to create some kind of effective anti-Martian weapon, are pinned down, instead, in the basement of a deserted farm house as Martians patrol all around them.

The War Of The Worlds was the first earth-invasion movie where extraterrestrial forces targeted large cities, then sent out smaller units to mop up peripheral resistance. It’s a blueprint followed by many similar films, from Independence Day and District 9 to Battle Los Angeles and current TNT series Falling Skies.

Inspired by H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel, Orson Welles directed a 1939 radio play of The War Of The Worlds that convinced many terrified listeners the American East Coast had been overrun by a Martian invasion. With its exemplary, Oscar-winning special effects, the 1953 film easily outpoints an overcooked 2005 remake that gets mired down in gore.

MAGNET contributing editor Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

The Public Enemy (1931, 84 minutes)

James Cagney smashes a grapefruit into the unsuspecting face of his girlfriend Kitty (Mae Clarke), and it becomes one of the riveting images of the early talking-pictures era. But The Pubic Enemy has a lot more going for it than a brief episode of breakfast rage. Anyone searching for the headwaters confluence of organized crime and the American family, as portrayed in Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy and, more recently, on HBO series The Sopranos, shouldn’t overlook this explosive 1931 film.

To the ironically innocent strains of “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles,” Tommy Powers and Matt Doyle, both about 13, are drinking from a bucket full of beer in a Chicago alley. It’s 1909, and the boys have caught an earful from a girl who’s just discovered that her roller skates are stolen goods. “Your old man’s in jail for swiping pigeons,” Tommy tells her, defensively. “That’s where you’ll be one day, Tom Powers,” she answers. “I ain’t there yet, but if I do go, it won’t be for swiping pigeons,” he vows.

Six years later, Tom (a leering Cagney) and Matt (Edward Woods) are offering stolen pocket watches to Putty Nose (Murray Kinnell), the local fence. “I thought you might bring your brother Mike,” says the fence. “That sucker? He’s too busy going to school,” answers Tom. Putty Nose has a surprise for his two light-fingered proteges, about to graduate into the world of armed robbery. “It’s a Christmas present from Santa Claus with best wishes for a prosperous new year,” he says, handing each young man a loaded revolver. The two novices kill a cop in self-defense on their first job, a bungled fur heist.

It’s now 1920, and the constitutional prohibition of liquor is about to unwittingly kick off a golden age of criminal prosperity. Tom and Matt are working for racketeer Paddy Ryan (Robert O’Connor) as enforcers, hired to rough up uncooperative bar owners. Catching on fast, Tom slaps the face of a reluctant customer while telling him, “If you don’t take our beer, somebody will kick your teeth in, one at a time.”

Tom’s brother Mike (Donald Cook) has returned from the trenches of World War I with a bad case of shell-shock. He finds Tom flush with a new car, sharp clothes, loose women and money to burn. And he makes it clear he knows just where it’s coming from. “Your hands ain’t so clean,” Tom fires back at Mike during a welcome-home family dinner. “You killed and liked it! You didn’t get those medals by holding hands with the Germans.” Tom angrily orders his mother to send all his clothes to the Washington Arms Hotel and stomps out of the house. His next trip back home to his mother and his brother will turn out to be even more momentous.

MAGNET contributing editor Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’30s through the ’70s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

The Green Man (1956, 80 minutes)

Harry Hawkins, a man with as many aliases as there are English seaside towns (he goes by “Mr. Margate” and “Mr. Ramsgate” here) has an unusual occupation. He’s a paid assassin who only accepts assignments to terminate larger-than-life characters; as he sees it, “those overblown balloons crying out to be popped.” The genteel manner of Hawkins (played by a craggy-faced Alastair Sim) makes him unthinkable as a suspect in such foul play.

He takes pains to kill his victims in an artistically creative fashion: a ceremonial kick by a Latin American dictator of a soccer ball with a bomb inside, a lethal charge placed under the gavel of a windbag tycoon. Hawkins’ latest assignment, from a certain Middle Eastern nation, is to eliminate Sir Gregory Upshott (Raymond Huntley), a British cabinet minister. Sir Gregory’s personal secretary has let slip that her boss will be dallying with Joan (Eileen Moore), a girl from the typing pool, this weekend at The Green Man hotel in New Cliff. Hawkins plans to fulfill his contract at the resort with explosives neatly placed inside a radio.

“When fate takes a hand, she sometimes chooses the meanest of instruments,” laments Hawkins as narrator. Enter the perpetual thorn in his side, William Blake (George Cole), a neophyte vacuum-cleaner salesman, burning not so bright. And yet, not so clueless as to ignore Hawkins’ girlfriend, stuffed inside a piano to keep her silent.

The newly engaged Ann Vincent (Jill Adams) wanders in on Blake as he’s preparing to demonstrate “the little wizard of the carpet” in her living room. They are shocked to find fresh blood on the rug, suspect a murder has been committed and hide under the bed upstairs when they hear someone at the front door.

“Ann, who is this fellow and what are you doing with him under the bed?” blusters Reginald (Colin Gordon), Ann’s pretentious fiancé, home from his job as a BBC newsreader. “I came here to demonstrate a vacuum cleaner,” explains Blake. “Under the bed?” shouts Reginald, blowing a gasket. “Well, we do have attachments for that,” Blake retorts, limply. “By heaven, I’d thrash the life out of you if I didn’t have to read the nine o’clock news,” spouts Reginald, stomping off.

Blake and Ann drive straight to The Green Man to warn Sir Gregory of impending doom, arriving just as Charlie Boughtflower (a paranoid philanderer played by Terry-Thomas) is checking in. Sir Gregory and Joan are about to order from The Green Man’s limited dinner menu. “I ask you, is this the only country in the world that would attempt to start the gastric juices flowing with the repellant words ‘chopped toad?’” sighs Sir Gregory. Just before the bottom falls out of their romantic little weekend, a nervous Joan places her dinner order: “I’ll have the chopped toad.”

MAGNET contributing editor Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’30s through the ’70s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

Marty (1955, 90 minutes)

“Hey, Marty, whaddaya feel like doin’ tonight?” “I dunno, Angie, what do you feel like doin’?” answers Marty Piletti, a stocky, 34-year-old Italian-American butcher and resigned bachelor who lives with his mother in the Bronx. It’s the same old conversation Marty (Ernest Borgnine) and his best pal Angie (Joe Mantell) have every weekend. You can almost hear Frank Sinatra crooning, “Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week” in the background.

Marty’s been taking heat from all sides lately, first from a customer at the butcher shop as he’s carving her a flank steak: “When you gonna get married, Marty? You should be ashamed of yourself when all your brothers are married and have children.” He’s also been getting an earful from his mother (Esther Minciotti) about spending all his nights at home. “Whatever it is that women like, I ain’t got it,” Marty snaps at his mother.

But mama has other ideas. Marty’s cousin has told her of a “nice place” where he might meet girls. “Tommy says you should go to the Stardust Ballroom down on 72nd Street. It’s ‘loaded with tomatoes.’” Chuckling at the hip vegetable reference, Marty explains he’s been there many times with no success. “I’m just a fat little man. I’m ugly. I’ll stay home tonight and watch The Hit Parade on TV.”

With no better prospects, Marty and Angie wind up going “stag” to the Stardust. After getting cold-shouldered by a potential dance partner, Marty is approached by a man with a roving eye who offers him five bucks if he’ll “take this dog off my hands.” The rejected blind-date is Clara (Betsy Blair), a 29-year-old schoolteacher from Brooklyn, who tells Marty she’s been to the Stardust before and “spent an hour and a half with my hands in my lap.”

Unlikely matchmaking is a scenario Hollywood has used often, most recently in Jack Goes Boating with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Ryan. The pairing of Marty and Clara, in her string-tie and Peter Pan collar, strikes sparks. “I’ve begun to cry a lot lately,” admits Clara while they’re dancing. “Me too, I’m a big crier,” says Marty, with a girl in his arms, at last. Marty talks incessantly as the pair goes out for a bite to eat. “You get kicked around long enough, and you get to be a professor of pain,” he rambles. “Maybe dogs like us ain’t such dogs as we think we are. You know, you’ve got a real nice face.”

Playing Marty was a complete character reversal for Borgnine, seen as “Fatso” Judson, the leering, gap-toothed stockade sergeant who enjoyed brutalizing a skinny little Frank Sinatra in 1953′s From Here To Eternity. Two years later, Marty nabbed four Oscars, including best picture and the best actor award for the versatile Borgnine.

MAGNET contributing editor Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’30s through the ’70s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every Friday.

The Ladykillers (1955, 91 minutes)

The funniest British caper film ever, the original 1955 version of The Ladykillers (revisited in 2004 by the Coen brothers), begins with one of the oldest clichés in gangster cinema: criminals toting violin cases. Rather than machine guns, the luggage in question here is stuffed with £60 thousand in cash, stolen from an armored car by the five mysterious men renting a spare room in London from Mrs. Wilberforce (a sweet little old lady played by 77-year-old Katie Johnson).

Herbert Lom as Louis, looks (and sounds) like Yul Brynner and admits to disliking old ladies. Cecil Parker is a nervous Major Courtney, panicking in a phone booth when Mrs. Wilberforce, unknowingly carrying the loot in a large trunk, stops her taxi to brandish her umbrella at a man abusing a horse for eating fruit from his pushcart. Peter Sellers, as young East End tough Harry Robinson, notes after the uproar, “Within 10 minutes, Mrs. Wilberforce put three men out of business.” Danny Green is One-Round, the punch-drunk ex-boxer who dislikes being called “stupid.” And Alec Guinness, sporting an Alastair Sim-like, XXL set of false teeth, is Professor Marcus, the heist’s mastermind, on the verge of cracking under the strain.

Posing as a classical string quintet, the bungling gang pretends to rehearse at the spinster’s ramshackle house, perched on a cul de sac over a train line from King’s Cross station, whose constant rumble makes pictures in her house hang crooked. Once they’ve lugged the cello and violin cases up the stairs of “Mrs. Lopsided,” they cue up a record by classical composer Luigi Boccherini and hatch their plans.

Mrs. Wilberforce has a special relationship with the local police who patiently listen to her stories, then politely send her on her way. The coppers are only too happy to deliver her trunk, abandoned at the site of the horse and fruit-cart debacle, right to her front door. “The bogies brought it home for her,” a nonplussed Harry tells the Major.

With the getaway car running, it looks like a successful conclusion to the big caper, until One-Round gets his cello case snagged in Mrs. Wilberforce’s front door. “Ring the bell, stupid!” shouts Louis as the ex-pugilist gives the case a vicious yank. When the old lady opens the door, all the cash goes fluttering in the breeze—and the lightbulb finally goes on over her head.

The desperados try to convince her not to go to the police. “You carried the ‘lolly’ for us,” says Harry. “You’ll wind up sewing mail bags for the rest of your life.” But Mrs. Wilberforce is determined to do the right thing. The only way out, the gang reckons, is to bump off the old lady. But does anyone have the steely nerve to do the job?