Film Discoveries Of 2019 

For the last couple of years, actually since I first discovered the site, I’ve been loving the “Film Discoveries of...” series on Rupert Pupkin Speaks. Founder of the site, Brian Saur (whose Pure Cinema Podcast is probably the best movie podcast out there) and his contributors always deliver these amazing lists and show some well-deserved appreciation for movies that don’t get their fair share of exposure. I always enjoyed reading these lists so much, I decided to make one myself. Because my absolute favorite discoveries of the year are mostly movies that everyone besides me has already seen years ago, I decided to mainly focus on movies that I think are underrated, underseen or underdiscussed in some capacity. 

Day of the Outlaw (1959, André de Toth) 

This movie stars Robert Ryan (known for the Western Grand Cru: The Wild Bunch) as Blaise Starett, a coarse cattleman who operates in a small, remote town somewhere in Wyoming. He is about to shoot local farmer Hal Crane (Alan Marshall), supposedly over some futile feud about barbed wire fences but in reality he is entertaining an affair with Crane’s wife and he wants his rival out of the way, when Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives) and his gang of thieves enter the picture and hijack the town in order to hide from the cavalry and the snow blizzard that is raging outside. Bruhn's posse is eager to go on a bender and have its way with the town's women, but their leader won't let them. He is a former cavalry officer, has some sense of honor left, and he has given the town his word they won't harass the inhabitants, and he needs his men sober in case of emergency. His entourage reluctantly agrees, because they fear their leader. Ives, channeling a bit of an eighties' Jack Nicholson vibe here, has indeed quite a powerful presence, with his eyes always spurred wide open, never blinking, giving the impression that he is aware of every move that is made in this town. But Bruhn is wounded and hasn’t got long to live, and once he is out of the picture, there is no way stopping these men... 

Day of the Outlaw has a brutal, nasty feeling to it, without ever really showing us anything. The promise of violence is more than enough to keep the tension up. Every move the lead characters make could have the same impact as lighting a match next to a gas pump. Robert Ryan, a man with such a worn-out look in his face that was capable of conveying self-loathing like no other, sees his chance to save the town and possibly distinct himself of these brutes of which, considering what perspective you have, you could easily accuse him for being no better than. Recommended if you occasionally enjoy your movies to be bleak and nihilistic, which apparently comes with the territory of a western in a snow landscape. 

 

Reign of Terror (1949, Anthony Mann) 

Also known by the name The Black Book, this is an early movie by Anthony Mann made a few years before he would start his famous collaboration with James Stewart and would go on to make western classics like Winchester ‘73 and The Man From Laramie. He takes a noir approach to an historical thriller, with some riveting action sequences and an evident anti-McCarthyism slant, but what really impressed me was William Cameron Menzies' production design, who brings a haunting quality to the French revolution. 

The plot of this is a bit too dense to explain quickly, so I’ll just say that it’s about trying to obstruct rise of an upcoming dictator called Maximilien Robespierre, and doing so involves a certain “Black Book” that contains all the names of his accomplices he wants to execute once he gains power. The French resistance hopes that if they get their hands on this book, they could strip Robespierre of his entourage, but the book has gone missing. I can promise you political intrigue, espionage, sharp dialogues, enervating chase sequences and a central mystery that will tickle your imagination. It’s a thrill ride and just an enormous amount of fun and if nothing that I just mentioned piques your interest I don’t know what will. Just an excellently crafted B-movie in the classic sense of the word. 

The Second Civil War (1997, Joe Dante) 

A movie from 1997 that perfectly satirizes our current political climate, which makes it even more impressive than if it were made right now. It made me question how much of what is happening at the moment is really unique to our times and if history isn’t just a long string of variations of the same events repeating each other all the time. 

In this made for HBO movie, Beau Bridges seems to almost literally play Donald Trump in his role of Idaho Governor Jim Farley, who is at the verge of starting a second civil war (hence the title) when ordering his state’s National Guard to close its borders so to not let any more immigrants in, especially a batch of orphans that are already on their way from Pakistan. Meanwhile, the President of the United States (Phil Hartman) seems to be an equally ineffectual leader, whose chief political adviser (James Coburn) is more concerned with how this matter will affect the president’s image than he is worried about the good of the country. In the meantime, the “NN cable network” is reporting these events and influencing them at the same time. News director Mel (Dan Hedaya) attempts to time certain news stories as to get the absolute most out of his ratings, while his staff, that includes among others James Earl Jones, Ron Perlman and a surprisingly tolerable Denis Lear, becomes polarized over the political issues involved in the conflict between the Governor and the President. 

Joe Dante always had a satirical edge to him even when he was making studio genre fare, and in this he isn’t as solely focused on one side of the political spectrum as you might initially expect with that kind of premise. Of course, the movie’s commentary is quite heavy-handed, but since we clearly haven’t learned from what Dante was already addressing more than 20 years prior, perhaps subtlety shouldn’t be our biggest concern when it comes to bringing this kind of message across. 

 

Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1960, Bert Stern & Aram Avakian) 

Certainly one of the best concert films I’ve ever seen and just a movie that I can put on at any moment and that will lift my spirits up immediately, to a point that I often put it on in the background during breakfast to start my day the right way. Besides featuring a bunch of amazing performances by some of the greatest musicians to have ever lived (like Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Thelonious Monk, Chuck Berry and many more), there is a specific mood to Jazz on a Summer’s Day that makes you feel like you’re a part of the entire event. You feel like you live in this town and you are sitting in the audience on a hot and sticky summer day, getting perhaps a bit tipsy but mostly you are enamored by what is happening on the stage. Directors Stern and Avakian take this specific fly-on-the-wall documentary approach, but mix it with some surreal flourishes to cap it off. 

This is probably the most acclaimed title of all the movies on this list, it was even selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry back in 1999 already, but I get the sense that it barely comes up in conversations nowadays, to the extent that it has barely more than 500 views on Letterboxd and most people I talk to haven’t even heard of it. This movie, just like the wonderful artists it puts on a pedestal, doesn’t deserve to be forgotten in time, but to be celebrated forever. 

Terror in a Texas Town (1958 (Joseph H. Lewis) 

This year I truly got into westerns and this is one of those smaller, unknown ones from an era where Hollywood produced seemingly nothing but westerns, and that really stuck with me. Terror in a Texas Town is the kind of movie that hooks you with a cool, B-movie premisse, a duel where one man is armed with a gun and the other with a harpoon, and then delivers something far more layered and almost noir-ish in its execution. 

The movie is about how a small town is getting fraud by the wealthy McNeil (Sebastian Cabot) who has a criminal past and tries to gain the property of the small ranchers who live there by all means necessary since he has found out there is oil underneath it. For those who don’t want to sell their land voluntarily, he hires gunfighter Johnny Crale (Nedrick Young). Crale is an interesting henchman. He is dressed like the grim reaper and there is something very threatening about him, while simultaneously he has a certain fragile quality as well. The first man he kills an older, Swedish man, but a few days later his son played by Sterling Hayden shows up, who is completely oblivious to the fact that his father died and that he is now the rightful owner of the ranch, which means he is now a possible target for the same people who murdered his father. 

The story behind Terror in a Texas Town might be equally as fascinating as the movie itself. Director Joseph H. Lewis, known for movies like Gun Crazy and The Big Combo, was set to retire when he got his hands on the script for this through his actor friend Nedrick Young. Young was a blacklisted actor, and so was the man who wrote the screenplay, Donald Trumbo, so evidently no one was jumping at the opportunity to direct this movie, except for Lewis who was excited by what he read and for who this was going to be his last movie anyway so he had nothing to fear. A lot of westerns from this time period had clear anti-McCarthyism themes, but this whole movie could be seen as the ultimate middle finger to Joseph McCarty and everything he enabled. 

 

Dutchman (1967, Anthony Harvey) 

A middle-class black man (Al Freeman Jr) is sitting alone on an empty train. He looks out the window and notices a beautiful young white woman (Shirley Knight) waiting at the station. She is clearly eyeing him up. The man is surprised by this at first, but then goes back to his paper. Before he realizes it, the woman has entered the train and creeped up behind him. She immediately starts to seduce him in a very aggressive manner, very playful at first, but then starts to provoke him, pushing him over the edge... And slowly this story of a meet cute between two young people turns into a tale of how white supremacists view, treat, use and appropriate black people. 

Dutchman is based on the notorious play of the same name by Amiri Baraka, who also wrote the screenplay adaptation for this. Considered too radical for American movie studios at the time, it eventually got produced overseas, so they build the inside of New York train wagon at a British studio lot. Features a haunting score by John Barry (composer of many James Bond films) making the entire thing feel like a horror movie, and I guess in the end it eventually becomes one. Once you’ve seen it, you will realize how it must’ve been a pretty big influence on Jordan Peele when making Get Out. 

 

Boat People (1982, Ann Hui) 

A Japanese photojournalist played by George Lam revisits Vietnam after the Liberation and learns some harsh truths about its regime and its “New Economic Zones”. Along the way he befriends a young girl played by Season Ma and a young man who desperately wants to escape Vietnam by all costs, played by Andy Lau who was at that time still a newcomer. 

It was truly refreshing to see a movie about the Vietnam War and its aftershocks that for once isn't told from the perspective of the Americans.  At first Boat People feels like a rather standard melodrama but after a while you realize the movie is actually being brutally plain and straight-forward in painting something we all need to see and learn about the conditions of this country. George Lam’s photographer may seem like somewhat of a blank slate initially but in the way Hui uses him he becomes a vessel for images. His journey is completely secondary in relation to what he sees. The last 15 minutes of this are just heartbreaking but it is the only logical ending for what we have seen prior. 

 Nobody’s Business (1996, Alan Berliner) 

A great, rather short documentary, wherein director Alan Berliner tries to interview his father about his family history, who in his turn maintains there is nothing worth noting about their life story. There is this really interesting tension between a son trying his damn hardest to express his love and interest in his father's life, and old man Berliner who refuses to accept this sign of affection from his son. Oscar Berliner is at a point in his life where he lost any kind of curiosity or will to change his way of thinking, yet it would be inaccurate to call him bitter. He clearly loves his children and grandchildren, and seems somewhat content with how is life is now, despite certain losses and disappointments that are inevitable when you've lived a long life. He just seems afraid to get hurt once he might open up. 

What could've easily been an unremarkable piece of navelgazing, is in fact able to achieve a certain sense of universal resonance. 

 Malpertuis (1971, Harry Kümel) 

I couldn’t possibly make a list like this in good conscience without mentioning at least one movie from my home country, Belgium. This one is directed by Harry Kümel, who is most well-known for directing the erotic vampire classic Daughters of Darkness from 1971, and this is the other movie he made that year, that I would call to be the better one of the two. Baroque, grotesque, and injected with a healthy dose of camp, Kümel's fable is something to marvel at. With its extensive sets and masterful staging, we are lured into the vast, decaying ruins of Malpertuis, with its spiral staircases that seem to ascend and descend into infinity and dusty corridors that twist and turn in odd ways. I won’t get into the story too much because it’s way more fun when you are surprised by the mystery, so don’t even read the synopsis on Letterboxd, which totally spoils the main twist. 

I watched the Dutch cut, which is apparently longer and busier, stocked with weird edits and a waking-dream-within-a-dream sequence that was deleted from the version that originally premiered at Cannes. The movie also features a small yet significant part played by Orson Welles (who apparently was a real pain on set) but in the version I watched he was dubbed by a Dutch actor, which I think only adds to the other-worldliness of it all.