Hidden Treasures - Week of Dec. 10th

For this week’s Hidden Treasures, I offer up four little-known films which left such an impression that they appear on my list of the best movies of all time.

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953)
Director Samuel Fuller was one of the great cinematic personalities of all time, and PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET ranks among his finest films. Richard Widmark stars as a pickpocket who inadvertently lifts a stolen Government microfilm from Jean Peters’ purse, and as a result has both the FBI and a dangerous gang of foreign agents tracking his every move. Widmark’s pickpocket is certainly one of the greatest anti-heroes in motion picture history, a character so callous that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who objected to the “unpatriotic” attitude of PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET, appealed to Fuller and Fox studio head Darryl Zanuck to edit the film. Fortunately, they both refused to do so.

CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994)
I fell in love with Wong Kar-Wai’s CHUNGKING EXPRESS on the first viewing, and it’s lost none of its charm or appeal over the countless times I’ve seen it since. The plot revolves around the love lives (or lack thereof) of a pair of Hong Kong policemen, played by Takeshi Kaneshiro (HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS) and Tony Leung Chiu Wai (HERO). Presented as two separate stories, each man will lose the love of their life, and then be given a chance to find love again. Fun with a capital “F”, CHUNGKING EXPRESS has such a vibrant energy, in both pacing and execution, that I predict you, too, will be taken by its charms. Of all the films I’ve presented in Hidden Treasures thus far, this one is my absolute favorite.

ALICE’S RESTAURANT (1969)
Based on a popular song by Arlo Guthrie, Arthur Penn’s ALICE’S RESTAURANT is a veritable time capsule of the late 1960’s, when the counter-culture challenged societal norms at every turn. A young man (played by Guthrie himself), looking for a place he can call home, travels to Massachusetts to live in an abandoned church run by his good friends, aging hippies Ray (James Broderick) and Alice (Pat Quinn). Yet the film is far from a rallying cry for the “Tune In, Turn On and Drop Out” movement. In fact, what’s most appealing about ALICE’S RESTAURANT is that it gives us both sides of the coin, convincingly presenting the argument that not all of life’s problems can be solved by leaving society behind. Guthrie is surprisingly good in the lead, and director Penn injects a nice blend of frivolity and high drama to ensure ALICE’S RESTAURANT is engaging form start to finish.

RATCATCHER (1999)
Director Lynne Ramsay’s debut feature, RATCATCHER is the story of James (William Eadie), a twelve-year-old Scottish boy who faces a number of problems in his life, not the least of which is the knowledge that he was personally responsible for the death of a friend. Set as it is in the slums of Glasgow, when a garbage collector’s strike left trash piling up in the streets, you might conclude that this film is a real downer. Yet for all its tragic trappings, the main thrust of RACTCATCHER is seeing the world through the eyes of a child. Like MORVERN CALLAR, Ramsay’s sophomore effort, RATCATCHER opens with a tragedy, but where MORVERN CALLAR was a study of how its tragedy changed one woman’s life forever, this film is about overcoming misfortune, moving beyond reality to a place where a child’s dreams can run wild. Through the darkness of the world it has created, RATCATCHER provides a glimmer of hope in an endless sea of despair.