Give Us This Day (1949)

As Good As It Gets

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

This movie does have some great noirish/neorealist visuals, and it tells a story that is refreshingly free of Hollywood's sugar-coating, which was only possible because it was essentially an independent foreign film. But some of the scenes go on for much too long (the wedding, especially), and I found the exaggerated acting and unrealistic dialog to be more fit for the stage than for the silver screen.The dialog was particularly distracting, and it seemed to get worse as the movie went on. Most of the characters were either Italian-Americans or Italian immigrants living in New York in the twenties and thirties, but their dialog sounded like they were practicing lines for a Shakespeare play while they mixed cement and laid bricks. Toward the end I was laughing, and not because the filmmakers wanted me to. I guess the stilted poetry could be defended by saying that the characters would have been speaking Italian, and the dialog is a literal translation of how they would really talk. But it absolutely did not work for me.Another line of dialog made me laugh for a different reason: the main character's son, born and raised in New York in the 1920's, suddenly picks up a lovely lilting British accent. I'm only guessing this had something to do with the fact that the movie was made in England.I give this movie an 'A' for effort and intention, but a considerably lower grade for execution.

Hounded out of the States as a Commie (fellow DGA member Sam Wood outed him), Edward Dmytryk actually made (in the U.K.) that left-leaning agit-prop proletariat 'noir' HUAC vainly searched Hollywood for. The film never got a proper American release, Dmytryk returned, 'named names,' served time, & found himself upgraded to 'A' projects which never lived up to his promising early 'B' stuff. Pietro Di Donato's once influential novel tells a fatalistic story of an Italian/American brick layer, always on the verge of better times, who loses his soul when he rises to foreman during tough depression times. Dmytryk does some impressive work within the restrictions of an indie U.K. production, but he's ultimately defeated by a twice too earnest script and a lackluster cast that has to work overtime to fake that Brooklyn flavor. Five years on, another HUAC alumni, Elia Kazan, would get this sort of thing right in ON THE WATERFRONT, which you may have heard of.

After many years in political purgatory, the film version of Pietro Di Donato's masterpiece CHRIST IN CONCRETE comes to beautifully restored DVD. The story of a humble bricklayer (Sam Wanamaker) who wants only the best for his family, and is briefly seduced by becoming "managment" holds up beautifully. Wanmaker is a wonderful, natural actor (I kept thing Actor's Studio before there was such a thing!) and though I had known him in later years, I never realized how dynamic he was as a leading man. (No surprise then that his daughter Zoe is one our finest actors.) Lea Padovani is magnificent, and the rest of the cast give superb performances as well. (What a kick it is to see William Sylvester, Dr. Heywood Floyd of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY as a young man in his first film!)The director, Edward Dmytryk, clearly influenced by Greg Toland as well as the neo-realismo films of the time, uses fascinating camera angles, moody lighting and a steady pacing that makes the nearly two hour running time seem half that time.I had loved the novel and had always wanted to see the film. What a joy it is to finally see it in near pristine condition. Thank you ALLDAY films for finding and restoring this masterpiece. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED................

This rarely seen, hard-hitting film combines Depression-era melodrama with noir and social realist sensibilities. A Brooklyn bricklayer struggles to fulfill the American Dream, but his efforts seem increasingly futile in the face of modern capitalism's socioeconomic indifference. Features impressive acting, cinematography, and writing; unforgettable opening and closing sequences. Christ in Concrete was made in England by the exiled director Edward Dmytryk, one of the blacklisted Hollywood 10.