A quick three chairs for PERFECT FRIDAY (1970)

I love a good heist movie, and there's no better era for them than the late 60's and early 70's, when Mod stylings and twist endings abounded.  This one has slipped through the cracks, so much so that I only found out about it in researching the great Theatre of Blood, required viewing for fans of black comedy, Shakespeare and Vincent Price.  Specifically, I was looking into Anthony Greville-Bell, a man with a fabulously British name who co-wrote this as well as the oddly excellent thriller The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie (which I'll get to in good time).  I can't speak to how much he actually contributed to this screenplay or the others but in my mind a man with a name that clever should have contributed to the quirkiness and smart dialogue of these movies.  And while Perfect Friday is the most conventional of the three movies it's a great little caper for an empty afternoon.

Mr. Graham (Stanley Baker) is the deputy manager at a London bank, stiffly professional and secretly fed up.  Enter Lady Dorset (Ursula Andress), whose light accent and Andressness swiftly sucks Graham into an affair that births a crazy idea: use the inside connection to rob the bank.  The sadly foppish Lord Dorset (a young David Warner) gets involved as the third party, and as the plan is formed it seems each of the men want to make off with the money and Lady without the other's being any the wiser.  Of course, the snazzy heist sequence.  Of course, a race to the airport.  Of course, a twist ending that assures a moral-minded censor office that even though they get away with it, they don't REALLY get away with it.

Though the plot has an assembly line feel, I have the advantage of ignoring that if the Knack is present.  Perfect Friday floats above a stock plot through simple panache and tight technique, meeting the action's inherent fun with surprisingly sharp photography, off-kilter editing tricks, knowing restraint and an infectious, enthusiastic soundtrack.  The performances are all effortless and perfectly played off each other, and the pacing never falters, especially in the heist sequence itself, proving once again that real tension can be made through a lack of music rather than a girth.  An early Spring setting meets the performances and the bank's minimalist 70's futurism for a crisp, satisfying mood, a fine counterpoint to the outlandish feel of older capers like Ocean's 11 and Who's Minding the Mint?  Everything points to a nifty, fittingly British confidence, leaning over and whispering sweet nothings into your ear.

Never available on video in the U.S., Perfect Friday may need a bit of digging to find, but I'm sure torrenting and iOffer have you covered.  The boot I viewed was sourced from a widescreen BBC broadcast and looked great, so if you can get that one go for it.  I wasn't able to find it on YouTube but I did find a trailer for a recent PAL DVD/Blu-Ray release, so if you've got a region-free DVD player you've got yourself a winner.  It probably won't become your favorite caper but it still put a grin on my face, like an unexpected free latte or finding five bucks in a gutter.  Do as you will and remember to make a smooth getaway.

~PNK

Point and Line to Joy: the Animation of Paul Glabicki

It occurs to me that there hasn't been nearly enough animation on this blog.  Sure, I began with my favorite animated movie of all time but that's no excuse for slacking off.  The animators sure haven't been slacking, and you're (I'm) just bringing the whole enterprise down (as this is the first post here in about a month).  Animation is really, really time consuming, its efforts only fully understood by its practitioners, and when it gets experimental or somebody dares to make a short film in this day and age festival curators are the only people who give it a shot.  Though I'm not a junkie for animation festival compilations I've admitted myself into AA (Animataddicts Anonymous) for future reference; those lonely-looking discs and tapes are goldmines of creativity and joy, showcasing some of the most astounding work in the medium and a heck of a lot of variety.  Seriously, just rent any one of them (like The Animation Show, anything from the National Film Board of Canada, anything from Expanded Entertainment) and have a blast with the illusion of movement.  With that said, I don't know if anything by our friendly artist today has shown up on those comps, but he did get a solo tape (The Paul Glabicki Animation Tape) from the arthouse distributor Facets Video, and if you'll click any of my links it'll show the Amazon page for it (used, O.C.(of course)).  Don't worry, I've supplied free stuff below, as well as the rest of the article.

Paul Glabicki is a multi-media artist who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh, and is seen up top with the best background for a Jefferson Airplane show I've seen since Woodstock.  Swerving through not only animation but also painting, photography, sound design and installation art, Glabicki has made a name for himself internationally via his profound exploration of geometry (hence the Kandinsky joke in the title).  Not just geometry with lines but also psychological association of line and form, and how formal relationships work in other mediums such as language and memory.  If you just went slack-jawed I'll give you a second to pick your chin up off the floor, because what I'm going to show you is fun.  FUN.  When was the last time geometrical experiments were fun, aside from Donald in Mathemagic Land (and do watch that, it's amazing)?  Glabicki not only dives into linework with enormous skill but also with enormous entertainment value.  Edwin Abbott won't know what hit him.

Those of you dorky enough to know a bit of history of early fantastic film (or happened to see Hugo) will notice the Man in the Moon from George Méliès's Le Voyage dans la lune as one of the two central repeated images.  If you're a superdork like me and recognized Winsor McKay's Gertie the Dinosaur as the other your toaster oven is in the mail.  Small polygons and seemingly random strings of letters and numbers fly across the screen, and I'd look close to catch a guy at the bottom center of the frame.  Each new sound collage brings a new dimension and humor to the cycle, the third one pushing the short into Don Hertzfeldt territory with the use of Italian opera.  The linework is fantastic, so fantastic that you'd think computers had to have been used.  Nopez.  All by hand.  Including that cartoony little fall-apart at the end.  I can't even draw a circle freehand, and Pauly's kicking graphs and taking names.  And that's just before he started working in kitchen tables.

(sorry about the video decay)

Object Conversation explodes sound and language in a series of bracing and humorous sound collages, accompanied by lively blueprint-esque animations.  The fixed yet constantly shifting tableaux allow the viewer to focus on different elements of the frame, and encourage repeated viewings to catch all the interplay and allusion on display.  The effect is a little indescribable, but is highly reminiscent of the Beatles' "Revolution 9" as seemingly improvisatory collage art.  As with Five Improvisations the line work is fantastic and beautifully 3-D, making up for the lack of color with movement and definition.  There's so much going on it's impossible to talk about specific moments, but it's never overwhelming, maintaining a perfectly watchable balance of elements (unlike a lot of complex film art that ends up being confusing and therefore dull).  I think my favorite detail is the pair of scissors that closes and cuts a bunch of lines behind it, sending them falling down in impeccable slow motion.


Despite the recognition he received for these films his IMDB list is only five items long, four of which were collected on The Paul Glabicki Animation Tape, released in the 90's by Facets Video and never released to DVD.  I would highly recommend tracking it down if you have a working VCR, as the other two films on the tape are larger and even better than these two, especially his 30 minute magnum opus Film-Wipe-Film.  He's continued working in other mediums, and what I've seen is quite cool and worth investigating.  I'll close with a collaborative piece he contributed to called Academy Leader Variations (1987), a fantastic collection of unique countdowns by an international animation roster (including the jawdropping Swiss paint-on-glass animator Georges Schwizgebel).  According to YouTube his film is number 15, but in reality it's number 7 (you'll know).

~PNK