Hail Caesar!

For their latest collaboration the multi-Oscar winning Coen Brothers have produced a full-blown comedy that, like many of their films, is based around a botched crime job, although in this instance they treat this as a rather insignificant plot twist which they never really bother to follow through. Instead the focus is on an over-worked 'fixer' of a large Hollywood Studio in the early 1950's who must make sure all the movies there are churned out on time and within budget, whilst at the same time keeping his coterie of difficult and temperamental movie stars happy and working.

Based on the real life of Eddie Mannix who was at one time General Manager of the vast MGM Studios,  the movie is a kind of tongue-in cheek love story to the glamorous days of an old-fashioned Hollywood.  Mannix, superbly played by Josh Brolin, is the anchor to the whole piece which is essentially 28 hours in his rather manic life.  From fixing up the pregnant unmarried DeeAnn Moran (Scarlett Johansson) who is an aqua star in the mode of Esther Williams, to rescuing ingenue Gloria DeLamour (Natasha Bassett) from the clutches of a French Postcard Photographer, is all in a day's work for him.

This however all pales into insignificance when the studio's biggest star the nice-but-dim Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), disappears whilst in the middle of shooting the studio's hammy religious epic "Hail Caesar.''  It turns out that he has been kidnapped by a friendly bunch of communist screenwriters who are disgruntled with the studio system, and who (naturally) are controlled by the evil influences of Russia as all the panic mongers thought back then.  

Whilst Mannix is trying to resolve this problem, he has all the Studio bosses in NY that he must answer too in his daily phone call, and when they insist that he cast one of the studio's biggest box-office draws who is a singing cowboy in a elegant costume drama, he has no choice than to comply. However Hobie Doyle (an exceptionally wonderful Alden  Ehrenreich) has a great deal of trouble just stringing words together in a sentence and his struggle with his new role makes for one of the funniest scenes in the movie when his director Laurence Laurentz (a terrific Ralph Fiennes) tries to get him to manage to say the simplest of lines.

The Coens touch on most of the Hollywood stereotypes of the period and at times this rather uneven movie of theirs is nothing more than a series of somewhat isolated incidents just strung together. Some of them work extremely well such as Burt Gurney’s (Channing Tatum) delightful big song and dance routine in the style of Gene Kelly, whereas the usually reliable Tilda Swinton’s performance as a pair of twin gossip columnists a la Hedda Hopper falls rather flat, despite her rather stunning hats. The high points do at least give the overall impression that it is an enjoyable and funny film even though it is far from the best that the brothers have made. They manage to cram in a lot of action with very little real plot into quite a fast paced 106 minutes, but at times it seems that the Coens have not so much been inspired by the original classic Hollywood but more by the master of high camp Mel Brooks and his classic gem of a movie "Blazing Saddles" from 1974.    

★★★★★★★

STIFF UPPER LIPS

I discovered this amusing parody of all those Merchant/Ivory British period costume dramas when researching the work of late great Peter Ustinov, and it rather tickled me to be reminded of how very silly Brit comedies can be.   This one is like an EM Forster novel (with a nod to Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice') filmed as if it is an extended Monty Python Sketch, but not quite as funny.

The story is of an aristocratic family consisting of Edward a rather stupid Upper Class twit who's a student at Cambridge, and Emily his 22 year old sister who's intent on getting married and losing her virginity (although not necessarily in that order), and their spinster Aunt Agnes who has acted as their Guardian and the Mistress of the Ivory Hall their Stately Home since their parents died. Edward's best friend was being lined up as Emily's suitor, but he naturally had the hots for Edward instead, which was fine with Emily as once she had caught sight of a local yokel naked she had her eyes set on bigger things.

The family set off for Italy for a vacation (a la 'A Room With a View') and the on to India (a la 'Passage to India') and that's where the rather trite plot falls apart completely.  A pity that as it is also  where we finally get to meet Horace an old plantation owner and avid defender of the British Raj played by Peter Ustinov. It's still a real treat to see him, and he makes the most of the odd dialogue they give.

I should mention that Aunt Agnes is played by the hilarious Prunella Scales who was actually in the real mccoy i.e. 'Howard's End', and Edward her nephew is played by her real-life son Samuel West who was also with his Ma in 'Howard's End' too.

I so wanted to like this one more ... and there were some ingenious hilarious touches especially ones played by Frank Finlay as the greatly put-upon butler Hudson .... but on the whole, it was a real wasted opportunity.  With its cast and its concept and its wealth of period costume oddities to take aim at its should have been side-splitting funny, rather than just mildly amusing.

If you are a Merchant Ivory fan and have a wicked sense of humor, or you are a big admirer of Mr Ustinov, then you wil still want to check this one out of Netflix.  It will make you titter.

★★★★★★