There’s a great adjective that writerly types love to hear used in character descriptions: Runyonesque. The very word sounds like a mix of street carnival and high society—a place where poetry and burlesque find a shadowy corner to canoodle. Coined to describe the people who populated the stories and columns of ’30-era New York newspaperman Damon Runyon, the term has grown to cover any number of lovable rogues, horse track hopefuls and sots.
For filmgoers, it’s a word most applicable to the 1955 musical comedy Guys and Dolls, screening this Friday and Saturday at Memorial Hall in Shelburne Falls. Based mainly on the Runyon short story “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown” and featuring a stylized script polished by an uncredited Ben Hecht (Some Like It Hot), in the screen adaptation of the stage play just about everyone is on the make.
Frank Sinatra stars as Nathan Detroit, inveterate gambler and host of a floating craps game in need of a new home. With the local police keeping an eye on his usual haunts, Detroit strikes a deal with a local garage owner—and then proposes a thousand-dollar bet with buddy Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) that he hopes will cover the rent on the garage. The bet? That Masterson can’t get Sarah Brown—leader of a Salvation Army-like street mission that opposes gambling—to agree to have dinner with him. In Havana.
Upping Detroit’s stress level is longtime fianc?e Adelaide, who wants their 14-year engagement to finally lead to a wedding, and Lieutenant Brannigan, the cop charged with breaking up the game. To help make sense of it all, Frank Loesser’s great songs make frequent appearances, with hits like “Luck Be a Lady,” “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ The Boat,” and “Fugue for Tinhorns” carrying us along. To get filmgoers in the mood, local lounge legend Lenny Zarcone will perform his Sinatra tribute act at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
*
Also this week: A more recent adaptation comes to Amherst Cinema this week when it opens The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest, the final installment in the Millennium Trilogy. Based on Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s bestselling books, the films—about an investigative journalist and a dark, brilliant young woman who team up to fight a corrupt government—have bucked the recent trend among franchises, which calls for releasing new films only every year or two (see Harry Potter, who must be doing his PhD dissertation at this point). By bringing out all three within a single year, the people behind the Millennium films have neatly recreated the feverish page-turning sensation of the original books.
In this installment, helmed by returning director Daniel Alfredson, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is struggling to survive after an attempt on her life. Trapped in the intensive care unit of a Swedish hospital, she wonders what a recovery would bring; once well enough to leave, she must stand trial for three murders. While her journalist friend Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) tries to help prove her innocence, Salander plots revenge against the man who tried to kill her.
*
And finally this week, one of cinema’s great adaptations gets another showing when Hadley’s Cinemark brings in A Clockwork Orange for its Friday Night Rewind series of midnight screenings. One of those rare films that seems more and more relevant as time passes, it remains as shocking and fresh as it did. After spending a night with young Alex and his droogs, you’ll never hear Beethoven the same way again.
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.