Ok, this movie is done but i’m still not quite finished. I’m not sure about bloggin’ either, this is my first one and i can’t decide what’s the proper captialization policy. is it more a paper, or more an e-mail? Sometimes, I write like the blog is formal. Other times, i write like i write to my friends. haven’t decided. bear with me for now, please.
Alright, to the film. The best part had to be the part at the end with Jeff and Ed in Jeff’s room. All of a sudden, there was acting! Well, for Jeff at least. He played the part so ridiculously well, his character suddenly came to life like some frankenkingkong. Bendix’ face moved from and angry drunken lout to a mask from a Greek tragedy and back, glorious. What a guy, Jeff. Only in Jeff did we get to see some of Hammett’s Freudian, psychological themes coming out. Sorry, sorry. He is so obsessed with Ed, like someone else was saying, (I don’t know how to link yet, it was on the blog “The Woman Who Could Handle Them All”), Ed dominates everyone. Jeff might just want as good a friend as Paul, might be jealous… or it might be something more primal. His homoerotic and sadistic attraction to Ed makes him the only tormented character in the story. Ed just uses him. It’s hard when the story isn’t in the main characters. I’d like to see Jeff the Goon or something. That said, I find that the homoerotic and sadistic are unfairly paired in many characters in literature and film. Just those old morals still hanging around, but it is exhausting. My friend is about to show up here in the ol’ Bushnell, so I’ll wrap this for now, and maybe add some technical observations later. Another real question remains: Why is eveyone obsessed with Alan Ladd’s Ed? He’s boring. It would take a heck of an actor to do the part justice, someone with real charisma. It doesn’t make sense that everyone is crazy about such a stonefaced, bland character.