Nine fine features under ninety minutes
Sometimes, you don’t want a heavy meal, but you don’t want a snack either. And the filmic equivalent of the cobb salad is a feature under 90 minutes. Here’s a few to check out. Some are classics, some underappreciated gems. But all of them will get you to bed before midnight, even if you start at 10:30.
High Noon (1952) Amazon | IMDB
Length: 85 min.
What’s it about: There’s a clock in almost every scene of this 85 minute western, as Sheriff Gary Cooper waits for the noon train to bring an newly released outlaw seeking revenge. And there’s no posse to be had, anywhere in town. His friends tell him to leave while he’s got a chance, and his beautiful Quaker bride is urging passive resistance. Pimpin’ ain’t easy.
Why it’s so short: Tight pacing, and it’s almost real-time, although the editing fudges the actual minutes a bit. It was even shot in 28 days.
What you might not know: Even though the plot might sound like a GOP scare commercial, it’s an allegory for the red scare of the fifties. For this reason, John Wayne hated the movie.
Primer (2004) Amazon
Length: 77 min.
What’s it about: Two guys with a startup invent a time machine, then use it to make money daytrading. Sure, it sounds like an allegory for the nineties tech bubble. But you’ll love this movie for the complexity of the plot, which has enough paradoxes and alternate realities to make Back to the Future II look like Snakes on a Plane.
Why it’s short: You’ll need an extra 20 minutes to flip through the DVD scratching your head.
What you might not know: People have created web pages devoted to the timeline of this movie. Also, it was made for $7000, and without the use of time-travel-based day trading.
Rope (1948) Amazon
Length: 80 minutes
What’s it about: Inspired by Neitzsche, two young men murder a third and invite Jimmy Stewart to dinner, for the sheer fun of it all. While it’s never stated, the whole thing is rife with a subtle homosexual context. For instance, they’re two clean-cut thin men having a dinner party in a New York apartment. Based on the famous Leopold and Loeb case, it’s basically a really good "ripped from the headlines" episode of Law and Order.
Why it’s short: It’s mostly filmed to seem like one long take. (Wikipedia details the cuts) This must have been tiring.
What you didn’t know: While it seems to be a real-time film, it covers 100 minutes of fictional time in 80 minutes of film time, by artifically shortening certain events, like the sunset or the formal dinner. Scientific American analyzed the methods of time compression in a September 2002 issue.
Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) Amazon
Length: 89 min.
What’s it about: Yet another real-time thriller. Here, the action is centered around spoiled wealthy invalid Leona’s bedroom: at the beginning, she overhears the plans for her own murder. Turns out her pathetic, bitter husband isn’t satisfied working for daddy, and has decided to kill the bedridden goose that lays the golden eggs. Despite the general absence of ceiling fans and fedoras, this is considered one of the classics of film noir.
Why it’s short: If you can listen to Barbara Stanwyck screaming into a telephone for more than 89 minutes, be my guest.
What you didn’t know: Wrong numbers used to have intelligble conversation. Now it’s just a drunk man looking for someone named Chastity. Or maybe that’s just me.
Pickup on South Street (1953) Amazon
Length: 80 minutes
What it’s about: Richard Widmark plays Skip McCoy, a smart-alecky pickpocket who has somehow landed waterfront property in Manhattan. He’s gets embroiled in a communist plot when he accidentally steals microfilm from a dame named Candy. For an extra Smallist bonus, he cools his beers by lowering them by rope into the river. Saves space and energy!
Why it’s short: Non-existent budget. It was concieved as a throwaway b-movie, to exploit the Red Scare at its height.
What you didn’t know: As in Clue, Communism is just a red herring — they needed bad guys bad enough to make a pickpocket turn good, and Nazis were passé. In fact, when it was translated into French, they became drug smugglers.
Frankenstein (1931) Amazon
Length: 71 minutes
What it’s about: Mad scientist figures out how to reanimate dead tissue. And it would’ve worked, except his personal assistant steals a cut-rate brain. The moral: God’s supposed to be omniscient. If you’re playing Him, make sure to at least keep tabs on your staff.
Why it’s short: The depression was on, and Universal was strapped for cash. So they cut out all the Antarctica crap from the Mary Shelley novel. And if you’ve seen any other versions of the film, you’ll realize that this was a good move.
What you didn’t know: Bela Lugosi, not Boris Karloff, was originally supposed to play the monster. But he insisted on doing his own makeup, and didn’t want to play a monster that didn’t speak.
Polyester (1981) Amazon
Length: 86 minutes
What it’s about: The Goldilocks of John Waters movies, not as tame as Hairspray, but a lot more watchable than the purposefully revolting Pink Flamingos. A send-up of "womans films" of the fifties, Polyester is the story of a housewife’s crumbling life. Her husband is cheating, her daughter’s a slut, and her son has a foot fetish who enjoys stamping on women’s feet at the mall. But it all changes when Tab Hunter arrives… or does it? Filmed in "Odorama", the theater audience was given scratch and sniff cards with ten numbered spots. As the movie played, a number would flash on the screen and the audience would smell that spot.
Why it’s short: Either ran out of odors, or money.
What you didn’t know: John Waters knew a good women’s film when he saw one, and based the lighting and production design on the films of Douglas Sirk, which have recently seen a rekindling of interest.
Miracle Mile (1988) Amazon
Length: 87 minutes
What it’s about: I’ve always been a fan of this neat little nuke movie. Anthony Edwards falls in love, and then misses his first date. He’s mulling over his screw-up when he gets a mysterious phone call from a missile silo, suggesting that a nuclear exchange is about to take place. Now he’s gotta patch it up with his new girl and survive the apocalypse. It might be sacrilege to compare this with Scorcese’s After Hours, but the all-night-coke-binge pacing is similar — just substitute downtown LA for SoHo. And since the expectations are much lower with a no-name director, it almost feels fair.
Why it’s short: It’s realtime, after the phone call. So figure 15 minutes til the Russkies know, another 10 for them to respond, and then another 45 for the incomings to arrive.
What you didn’t know: Well, you probably didn’t know anything, since Miracle Mile is pretty obscure. But watch for the Howard Johnson color scheme. The director’s has a pretty sharp sense of style, for a guy who ended up doing Lizzie McGuire episodes.
Modern Times (1936) Amazon
Length: 87 minutes
What it’s about: The twentieth century is no place for a little tramp. Unable to function as a cog in the wheels of industry, Chaplin’s worker keeps getting arrested, committed, or branded a communist. Along the way he falls for a waif stealing a loaf of bred. In those days waifs still ate carbs.
Why it’s short: Ran out of ways the Man could keep him down.
What you didn’t know: This was made well after the end of the silent era, but Chaplin wasn’t quite ready to let go of the format. So it’s a sound film, with effects and music, but no dialogue is spoken, and title cards are still used.
Well, that’s it for now. There’s plenty more where that came from, so look for another nine in the future. And if you have any other suggestions, post a comment!
May 29th, 2007 at 7:25 am
I saw Le Bonheur this weekend - 85 minutes of bright colors, domestic bliss, and tragedy. Turns out the French were thirty years ahead of us on the ironic possibilities of a film called Happiness.