The guilty is innocent unless proven otherwise!

The Enforcer 1951

This obscure film is one of those early films on hitman and people could not stomach the fact that a job could exist just to kill off somebody. An untiring effort by a dedicated Assistant District Attorney (ADA) to nail the boss of the organization against all odds and a pile of dead potential witnesses is the thrust of this show.
Humphrey Bogart is the ADA who is seen working round the clock, wearing a bow-tie even way past night. Rather than working within the confines of his office within the boundary of the law, this guy seem to swashbuckling his way around the streets trying to nab culprits!
Ricco is apprehended to testify against Mendoza, the gangster who is wanted for myriad of crimes. The highly agitated witness flips when an attempt is made on his life and he falls to his death, leaving ADA's case hanging.
Having his only witness dead and his case reaching a dead end, the ADA goes through the case files to pick up points that they had missed....
In a series of flashbacks the other witness' stories are compiled through the case files and taped interview. Bit by bit, further evidence is revealed and finally the truth comes out. One of killed witnesses was of mistaken identity.
The witness was identified and brought to the court to give evidence against Mendoza.
This film is based on the a real life case from the police files named 'Murder Inc.'.

Quotable quote
Our kind of law is designed to protect the innocent. It is not enough that we know a man is guilty. We have to prove it.

Out of sight, out of mind?

The Bakery girl of Monceau (La Boulangère de Monceau, French; 1963)

Written and Directed by: Éric Rohmer

This 23 minute mini presentation is the first of Rohmer's six series of 'Moral Tales'. These moral tales are not meant to appear overtly preachy or the actions to be good or black, but meant to stimulate our thinking faculty. Inevitably, the answers are never black or white depending on your morals.
This offering is a narrative of a law student who is mesmerized by a lady (Sylvie) who passes through his path daily. After much hesitation and shyness, he managed to build some courage to talk to her amidst an accidental bump into her at a pedestrian crossing. Then she disappears. The protagonist, Bertrand, goes wandering around the vicinity that she was usually spotted during his free time trying to locate her, in between his preparation for his examinations.
During these walks, he would regularly stop at a bakery for snacks. After many visits, he started fancying the girl at the bakery (Jacquiline). He started flirting with her. He made a date with her.
Just before the date, the missing lady appears. She had been home bound for three weeks after a foot condition. They continued their relationship right where they had stopped before. He finds her sharing his same frequency, unlike the girl from the bakery. Pretty soon, they get married.
The girl from the bakery is no more in the picture as she was going off to work elsewhere anyway!
I suppose what the writer is saying is the concept of love is a very fickle one. At one moment, you think, with the raging hormones and the irrational impulses of the mind, that she is the one for you and you would die for her. And the next moment, out of sight out of mind. With nothing binding them together, the eyes wonder and they make do with what is within their reach. So much for Romeo and Juliet kind of love saga....

Study of a fractured marriage

A Married Couple (Canada, 1969)
Director: Allan King

At one look, this film looks like a tutorial presentation in a class of psychology. It is shot like a documentary show. Apparently, the filming was done in the household of Billy and Antoinette Edwards who were undergoing a rough patch in their one and half years of marriage. All in all they had been a couple for more than 8 years.
This movie may not appeal to those who are looking at the silver screen as an outlet to release for their day to day woes as it is quite cerebral.
Allan King, a sort of a rebel filmmaker from Canada usually makes quirky non stereotypical flicks, even rubbing the censors on the wrong side.
It narrates the day to day life of ad-man Billy (40) and his home-maker wife Antoinette (10 years his junior). The camera moves into their living room and bedroom recording all their intimate moments as well as their tiffs. This movie must be a precursor to today's reality TV. They have a 1year old son and a dog.
The crisis in the relationship must have stemmed from the fact that Antoinette, a young girl when she met Billy, was mesmerized with his knowledge and smartness. As she grew older, he became not good enough. She could think for herself. Billy, comfortable with the role of the head of the family, bringing home the bacon and garnering respect from wife, cannot stomach his wife as equal. Hence, the squabbles over trivial matters arose.
Billy tries to mend the relationship through professional help but the  lack of sexual prowess on his part also fails to help to improve the situation.
They were almost at a stage of a trial separation but the film ends with the couple reconciling.
Unfortunately, in real life, 3 years after the release of the film, they were divorced. Antoinette went to remarry and stayed married for a very long time.

Reconcile your past before you pass

Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället, Swedish; 1957)

Directed and Written by: Ingmar Bergman

After a certain age, we of the older generation would tend to walk around with a chip on our shoulder, are conceited with ourselves, thinking of others as not worthy of our acquaintance. We think that whatever we had done was just right and it helped to pave our own and other peoples' life. An occasional smack on the head and humbling experience will definitely make us more grounded. Sometimes, it is important for us to accept the fact and make amends to be at peace with our love ones!

This, in essence is the gist of the movie by the legendary Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman.
Prof Isak Borg is a cranky 78 year old widower who lives alone with his maid in his big house. He is short tempered sharing a love-hate relationship with his live-in old maid (and it is nothing romantic) of many years. He is to be feted with an honorary doctorate from University of Lund for his 50 years in medical field.

At the last minute, after a bizarre dream where he crawled out of a coffin, he decides to drive to his destination instead of his initial plan to fly. His daughter-in-law, Marianne, who is going through a rough patch with her husband (Isak's only child), decides to follow Isak.

Along the journey, they meet characters that remind Isak of his childhood and adulthood to make himself aware that he had not been the best person in the world.

Prof Isak decides to stop, along the way, at a summer house where he used to spend his summer as a child. Taking a siesta under a tree, he is cradled back to his childhood where he is a spectator to all the happenings of a particular summer. His cousin, Sara, who was romantically linked to Isak had a tough time trying to choose between the smart Isak and his fun filled outgoing brother, whom she finally chose.
They (Isak and Marianne) pick up a trio of teenagers who were hitchhiking to Italy. Just as in his case, the girl of the trio has a tough time deciding to choose between a minister and a fun filled guy.

They later have to pick up a feuding couple (a fretfully irritating husband and a mentally unstable wife) after they crashed into their car. Isak sees himself in the couple and realises how painful he must have been to his wife. The feuding couple were such a nuisance that they had to be dropped half-way in the middle of nowhere! In another forty wink episode, he visualizes his wife engaged in an extramarital liaison.

Isak also stops at a gas station whose owners sing praises of Isak when he was a general practitioner in the country side.
Stopping at his mother's house, Isak realizes that his fussy temperament must have come from his annoyingly domineering mother. He later sees the same trait in his son (Marianne's husband).

The conferring event turned out to be such a non-event after all. He feels not so proud of his achievement. Back after the event, in his son's home, he gets the good news that his son and wife have reconciled their differences.
Isak also expresses his apologies and appreciation to his maid who had put up with all his temper and idiosyncrasies.
He goes to bed, a happy man. He does not die in his sleep but sleeps with a smile painted on his face. He had made peace with himself and the people around him.
A good intelligent show with many issues close to our heart which needs pondering...

Our social relationships are limited, most of the time, to gossip and criticizing people's behavior. This observation slowly pushed me to isolate from the so-called social life. My days pass by in solitude.

Where everyone is happy?

Picturesque or what?

40years ago, during my Boys' Brigade (2nd Penang Company) days, a recurring lure for the privates to aim higher in their performance was a trip to the scenic island of Tioman where colourful fishes swimming in crystal clear sea water apparently fed from your hands. I always thought these type of scenes were only confined to Jasque Costeau's documentaries or the National Geographic magazines!
Well, 40 years later, I found out that such a sanctuary actually exists right in our backyard. Of course with all things in the world, with us leaving our carbon foot prints, people say that with building of resorts and modernization, this tropical beauty with its flora and fauna had been brutally marred.

Ikan Kekek Mak Iloi Iloi!

Life is a beach?

At the ground level, it is a simple island with simple people leading simple lives and smiling a lot with their simple amenities and abodes. It reminded me of a scene from the 1970s TV series, Fantasy Island - the small airstrip with lush greenery surrounding it, the buggy vehicles and the floral batik attire donned by the workers.
I suppose everyone would be happy when they can see money. The locals are happy when kwailohs dish out moolah for the services, for the fresh seafood at the food stalls and tours, which with their earning power is everything is worth peanuts; the entrepreneurs are happy as they stash their good money to good use and they justify their rape and degradation of nature with pathetic attempts at conservation as they continue to pour their effluents into the sea; the politicians are happy as long the local populations do not fight for their bigger piece of the cake.

Da plane! Da plane!

And the visitors go back happy that they can still be king somewhere in the world, if not in the own confines. When holidays end, they realize that they were never in Fantasy Island after all. Unlike Mr Roarke and Tatoo's 'Fantasy Island' where their guests go back rejuvenated with a clear path to follow in front of them after their visits there, for these visitors it is back to life, back to reality, come Monday!

Sure, steady and steadfast!

I wonder how many told 'The Turbaned Tornado'

to retire at 89 and instead play hide and seek
with his grandchildren when he actually embarked

on his first marathon in London in 2000!

Just the other day, whilst immersed in my weekly LSD and my brain soaked in cathecolamines and endorphines, a middle aged seasoned lady runner just whisked pass me. She must be in her middle age with her thick wavy pony tailed silvery hair. Being as typical as a Malaysian can be, I followed my first impulse to compartmentalize her into her ethnicity, which I figured that she must be a Malay Muslim.

I gathered from her lone wolf individual runs that she had been doing, (I never start a conversation with her, I just assume from deductions and assumptions), that she must a loner.

She must have had detractors who must have tried to convince her to don the chastity exhibiting head scarf. There must have been pressures for her to dye her silvery hair to something to the shade near ebony or mahagony.
And naysayers must have discouraged her from running with all the fear mongering talks of injury, theft, assault or even molest.

Ikut Resmi Padi, Makin Berisi Makin Tunduk

Despite all that, she must have stood adamant on her ground, insisting that she would do what she wanted to do.
Nobody has answers for anything in this world. Those with skeletal knowledge of a certain field would boasts of this and that. The more knowledge you have, the more confused and unsure you would be as more answers breed more questions.
I takes a lot of guts and ability to withstand brickbats to stand steadfast on your beliefs.

MM's first main role

Don't Bother to Knock (1952)

After 17 attempts at stardom, Marilyn Monroe finally got a breakthrough this 1h37m thriller film. Here she plays the role of a babysitter from hell who has issues with depression after her pilot boyfriend dies. Her acting proved to Hollywood that she is not just a bimbo, but one who could act. Sadly, we later discover that she was fighting these same problems in her personal life.

The movie is set in a hotel in New York where a pilot (Jed) is trying to reconcile with his bar singer girlfriend (Lyn). She wants to end their relationship after finding out that he is actually not so caring.

In the same hotel, Mr and Mrs Jones who is to attend Mr Jones' celebratory dinner, receive Nel (Marilyn Monroe), a babysitter. The elevator man, Eddie, her uncle, is trying to get a new start for Nel, a country girl.

The courteous, soft-spoken Nel gets on her business. She is impressed with the lavish lifestyle of the Jones. She dons Mrs Jones attire and perfumes.

Meanwhile, Jed who failed to patch up with his beau returns to his room. He lays his eyes on the pretty girl across his room (Nel). The naive Nel calls him over.

She plays along the tune as the occupant of the room till the sleeping child blows the cover! Soon Jed realises that the girl is not normal. When Jed mentions that he is a pilot, Nel insists he is her boyfriend who did not die after all!

One thing leads to another, and she becomes more irrational. She almost pushes the child she is babysitting and later gags her away. Eddie is also hit on the head.

Finally, after much melodrama, Nel is sent back to a sanatorium where she was discharged from. Seeing how Jed handled the whole situation in a caring manner, Lyn changed her mind and reconciled with Jed.

This low key movie did not stir a great rave, but it did manage to cast Monroe in meaty roles in subsequent films.

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