Members

January 4 Dark Journey (London, 1937; Dist. in the US by United Artists) Source: Cohen Media Channel via Amazon Prime Not sure this is among the Korda films being aired by TCM this month. Intelligence/counterintelligence has never been a huge interest of mine, but a couple of years ago, I read a broad history book about the subject that tracks its development all the way from Old Testament times to the post-9/11 Middle East wars. It's an aspect of war that doesn't get taught in the high school history books, but it can affect the outcome of a battle just as surely as firepower superiority. And more recently I read a biography of Virginia Hall, a Baltimore blue blood who ended up unofficially heading MI6's undercover spy efforts in France during World War II. In addition to her life being in danger on a daily basis, she also faced a lot of sexism within her own ranks. She ended up working for British intelligence, because US intelligence was never going to give her a position more important than secretarial work, and even though she was clearly in charge of everything and the very best spy the service had, she got no official leadership position because these sorts of things just didn't happen for women. In this movie, Vivien Leigh plays a French spy in Sweden during World War I. Given the realities I've learned about women in the spy business by reading the Virginia Hall book, I would have to say this movie is pure fantasy in depicting the freedom Leigh's character has to operate and how sexism-free the plot is. That doesn't mean it's not an engaging movie. Leigh fronts as a Swiss dressmaker whose profession provides her access to all sorts of countries even during wartime. I'm a little unclear why there would be so many agents in Stockholm, which appears in the movie to be neutral, but her secret job is to embed coded messages in some of the dresses she picks up in Paris and deliver them to Stockholm. This is Leigh two years before Gone With the Wind, and it's probably the earliest performance of hers I've ever seen. I think she was about 21. Given how colorful she was in GWTW, it's a bit of a surprise to see how serious and stoic she is in this movie. Stockholm 1918 in this movie bears more than a little resemblance to Casablanca. It's a place where soldiers, exiles, spies, lowlifes and pretty girls of all nationalities intermingle. Oh, yes, it also has the presence of one Conrad Veidt, an actor I just haven't seen that much of. As something of a comic book historian, I know his face in The Man Who Laughs was the inspiration for the Batman villain the Joker. Like many artists and intellectuals, he left Germany during the rise of the Nazis. He also worked for Korda in The Thief of Bagdad and ironically played a number of Nazis in Hollywood to shed light on their tyranny. Casablanca was his next-to-last film. He died of a heart attack while playing golf at the age of 50. Here, Veidt is the head of an important branch of German intelligence, but he publicly pretends to be a disgraced refugee from his own country, a nobleman, but also a coward, philanderer and ne'er-do-well. I like his early scenes where women flock around him and are easily impressed by a parlor trick involving his ability to guess what a woman will say after he kisses her based on her nationality. Leigh is not so easily impressed and is more resistant to his charms. They get to know each other a little better when he brings one of his many mistresses to her shop. He woos her with relentless ardor, and she eventually softens. Of course, a revelation is coming that reminds of when Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer each suddenly realized the other's costumed identity in Batman Returns while dancing, a movie recently reviewed on this thread. I won't reveal any more of the plot. I did like the casting of Veidt, and it's interesting to see that Korda didn't need all his male romantic leads to look like Cary Grant. Veidt has a receding hairline and a handsome, if angular face, but I believed he was charming and sincere enough for Leigh to fall in love with him. She's sort of one-dimensional in this movie, but she makes us keenly feel the pressure she's constantly under. Total films seen this year: 9

The Lavender Hill Mob Blonde Crazy How to Beat the High Cost of Living Gambit (2012) Roxy Hart The Lemon Drop Kid Murder He Says BlackKlansman Family Plot The Gazebo The King of Comedy A Slight Case of Murder Stir Crazy Heathers Arsenic and Old Lace Kind Hearts and Coronets I Love You to Death Torchy Gets Her Man Fletch Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid The Sting Raising Arizona

They flopped it, too. Here you go. Pucker up.

Are you saying that you want to play with yourself? I do not think this is the proper forum to discuss such things.

Vivien Leigh & Sir Laurence Olivier Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee Barbara Stanwyck And Robert Taylor

Fun With Dick and Jane (prefer earlier version) The Original The Lady Killers and The Lavender Hill Mob Take The Money and Run Married to the Mob Prizzi's Honor

Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) The Hot Rock (1973)

In the album Miles Ahead, Miles Davis and Gil Evans' collaboration produced a sound unique in music. To me it's a fusion of the big band sound of the likes of Stan Kenton and Miles' own cool jazz. The soundest and coolest of these is a tune called "New Rhumba": It's sharp, clean, incisive. I imagine a slick, modern, mod tale, likely set in the 60s era of closely tailored suits, Givenchy, knife-edge style cars, and Jet-set travel; that follows a character or characters who move easily between different worlds of high finance, or society, the art milieux, or sleeve-rolled working classes. I only get a style, impression, but no plot. It may involve romance, or conflict, or the righting of a wrong, or push to make something good. All I know is this is killer music and there has to be a movie it can open for.

LOL Yeah, ya know, I guess that WAS pretty much what I was sayin' up there, huh! (...well, if you exclude the tennis racquet, anyway)

1 9 5 3

1 9 3 9

The Spiral Staircase

looks like... AFTER smoking the quarter pounder.

Well, all I can say here is that as an avid tennis player, I'm kind'a envious of Mr. Dillermand here being able to play the sport without the need of searching for an opponent... Heck, I could play any ol' time I WANT! BUT, other than THAT, I would have no additional envies of the guy. (...okay Sans, NOW let's see how long your thread here will last) LOL

ALL I DESIRE 1953

A Message to Garcia (1936)

Marlon Brando at his best!! If you can't wait until January 30th to see Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront on TCM, it's coming on PBS (channel 13 in New York) this Saturday, January 9th at 9:00 p.m. Love the music, lovethe cast and the rumble between Brando and Lee J. Cobb. (No Commercials) If you want to sing out loud, Grease will be on MOVIES (Channel 493, Fios in New York) Enjoy

Gleason, Joanna

I'm beginning to fall behind dramatically already in the first week of the year. I'm already about five movies behind, so I better either stop watching movies (probably not going to happen) or start writing some more reviews. January 4 Things to Come (London, 1936; dist. in the US by United Artists) Source: Amazon Prime I have a habit of occasionally crafting my own playlists based on TCM's nightly or monthly theme. I picked my own Alexander Korda double feature on Amazon Prime after I felt a little iffy about the schedule on the first night of his TCM month long feature. Now the movies I picked may both be airing later in the moth - I've forgotten - which will no doubt throw me off further. That's happened to me before with other themes. Anyway, this one was available for free with my membership, so I jumped on it. I'd seen it once before on TCM a number of years ago. The timing of this H.G. Welles adaptation is a little odd, as it begins in an "Everytown" that certainly resembles London on the brink of world war on Christmas Eve 1940. Real life England was already pretty well plunged into world war by that time. I wonder how audiences felt about coming out of their real life bomb shelters then going to the movies and seeing these allegorical Englanders running to bomb shelters. Of course, the movie quickly moves on from more contemporary scenarios and into the realm of science fiction, the first British science fiction film I'm reading everywhere. I'm giving a away a few plot points in the next couple of paragraphs. Stop reading if you don't want to know. The war in the film doesn't have an atomic bomb to bring it to an abrupt if not-so-tidy conclusion. In 1970, people are living in the ruins of Everytown under a despot (Ralph Richardson) who's trying to rebuild old World War I planes so he can annihilate a nearby hill tribe and take control of the entire area. The populace falls prey to a "wandering sickness" that causes the landscape to sort of resemble an episode of The Walking Dead. Given the times we're living in, I frankly don't care I ever see another plague or pandemic depicted in a movie. A coalition of scientists drop a "gas of peace" that pacifies the citizenry and finally ends the war. Ore is then mined and converted into girders, as the city slowly rebuilds. Another great leap into the future, and scientists are now ready to launch humans to the moon, much, much later than when it happened in real life. But there's a Luddite rabble-rouser who's opposed to any more scientific progress, believing it will to lead to even more deadly war. I guess Welles and the filmmakers thought this would be a powerful and threatening opponent to progress in the future, but other than the Unabomber, I'm not sure anti-technology has been much of a thing in the 85 years since this film came out. We have some of the same fears today that the original Luddites did technology was making our jobs obsolete, but at least it's keeping us distracted in our unemployment. All I have to do is look at every young person on the planet staring at their phones every moment they're awake, and I can see that technology won. Raymond Massey and Cedric Hardwicke play characters in each era depicted, engaging in their verbal battle of progress vs. peace over the span of centuries. How well respond to this movie probably depends on how much you can tolerate characters speaking in Big Ideas rather than anything resembling actual conversational dialogue. I didn't have much tolerance for it this viewing. I'm not going to say isn't an important or that isn't a good film. I'm just saying that depending on your tastes, you might it find it a little ... boring. Also, a little Raymond Massey goes a long for me, although I guess he's pretty well suited for this sort of speechifying. I do like the visual effects and the vision of the possible future. It's a fantastic movie to look at, maybe not so much to listen to. Total movies seen this year: 8

So you wanted to replace one horror story with another?

John Richardson, British Actor in 'She' and 'One Million Years B.C.,' Dies of COVID-19 at 86

Well, last night I watched the noir TOO LATE FOR TEARS '49 for the first time. Someone here had talked about it here & my library had a newly restored version-yay! This movie had me from the very beginning- a married couple is driving down the road when someone in another car tosses a sachel into the back seat of their convertible! They stop, look & the bag is full of MONEY! Realizing the mistake, another car chases them, but they lose him & drive home to discuss what to do. The husband is adamant they turn the money over to the police, but the wife gets a gleam in her eye...let's keep it! The entire movie now revolves around the wife's greed in keeping the money and not allowing anyone to get in her way. The story takes twists & turns that surprise me all the way through, but it is the performances that really elevate this movie to greatness. The star is Lizabeth Scott -a favorite- and boy is she outstanding in this one. Scott never looked prettier wearing a smooth platinum bob and a great wardrobe, oh and that smoky voice! Second tour-de-force is Dan Duryea who plays his typical gangster role but really gets to expand his repertoire with fabulous snappy dialogue & unusual emotion. Yeah, he's the cold, hardened gangster but Scott's charactor is so bad, she has HIM scared! I just loved Duryea's portrayal, especially when roughing up Scott. Some of the lines between them made me howl out loud! Honorable mentions go out to Arthur Kennedy as the husband and Kristine Miller as the husbands sister who lives next door. I couldn't take my eyes off her long bouncy hair! Don DeFore was outstanding as the "old Army Buddy" of the husband (Kennedy) who gets involved after taking a liking to his friend's sister & mistrusting his friend's wife (Scott) All strong performances that completely supported the story. The story. It takes all sorts of twists & turns, but never confuses. (I'm easily confused) You think you know how she's going to "get away" with it, then something unexpected happens. There was never a dull minute in this movie, it really was just a perfect noir. I'd say the quintessential noir. Watching classic movies for over 4 decades, I'm so afraid to have "seen them all". It was so wonderful to be excited over seeing & being surprised by a great movie for the first time!! So rarely happens. (one thing I noticed is how TINY Lizabeth Scott was-both in size & stature. Most notable in close ups, she had a tiny face compared to everyone else)

RUTH ROMAN?

https://theboot.com/singer-songwriter-ed-bruce-dead-dies/ Singer-Songwriter Ed Bruce Dead at 81 Singer-songwriter Ed Bruce, who wrote "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" and more classic country hits, has died. According to a press release from his representative, Bruce died in Clarksville, Tenn., on Friday (Jan. 8) from natural causes at the age of 81.

I also watched DEATH ON THE NILE ("Stop!") and EVIL UNDER THE SUN. It's true the plots are implausible at best, but great casts make them fun to watch. DEAR HEART (1965) I love GERALDINE PAGE in that part. CHURCHILL AND THE MOVIE MOGUL (2019) learned a lot! Followed by THAT HAMILTON WOMAN (1941) a movie I love. LISTEN, DARLING (1938) which is MGM corn incarnate - and cute as a button with a fascinating cast! Last night it was DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1931) which is the best version of that story I know. MIRIAM HOPKINS best part!

The Kaminski Method

With a tennis racket? Whatever your flex.

BELLE STARR'S DAUGHTER 1948

Long, Shelley

Keith, Brian

THE CHEATERS (1945) Next: YOUR CHEATIN' HEART (1964)

Imitation of Life (original) Next: Warner Bros. Comedy

YES! I watched this online because I am a huge Irene Dunne fan, and -oh my God- the soufflé just does *not* rise on this one!!! It’s been a good long while since I saw it, but I have a distinct recollection that I was unimpressed by the job the Director did, especially the way the shots are framed. A lot of medium range shots of two people talking and no camera movement at all. I mean if Michael Curtiz’d directed this film, at least it would’ve had MOVEMENT! BACK STREET Was directed by John M Stahl and I have never seen a film by him that I found to be completely satisfying. He did the original versions of “imitation of life” and “magnificent obsession,” as well as a second pairing of Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer in 1939 (not LOVE AFFAIR) that I can’t remember what it’s called, and “leave her to Heaven”– which is a film I like everything about except for his direction. (Sorry about the punctuation I’m posting with my phone)

HG Wells' two dabbles in screenwriting (along with The Man Who Could Work Miracles) remind you that Wells' novels, even his non-scifi British-class-system novels, were basically very well metaphor-disguised streetcorner propaganda pamphleteering for Comrade Wells' interest in the new wave of Socialism/Communism spreading through the London intelligencia at the waning years of the stagnated Victorian era. War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, Food of the Gods, all metaphorically deal with the class war, or British colonialism, or just the inevitable habit of man getting the urge to conquer the world and become tyrants if left to his own devices. Back in the isolationist 30's, those against WWII kept spreading fear that if we ever upgraded from the mess of WWI, WWII would end up being WWIII, and the end of civilization. Here, Wells spins a story of how feudal tyrant kings would rise again out of the rubble, unless a special secret cabal of politically enlightened folk dedicated to SCIENCE! and social progress was there to come to its rescue, in case of just such an emergency. Why, we might even go to the moon, if it weren't for those negative-Nancys crying about "the old ways", because they can't appreciate the future... 🙄 (I'll admit, I like George Pal pasting a Wells-esque anti-war metaphor onto the 1960 The Time Machine, but then, he knew how to be subtle about it.)

Speaking of Universal and the early Paramount films it controls: After the...events...of yesterday at the U.S. Capitol, I wish Universal would license The President Vanishes (1934) to TCM. It's not a great movie, but it has some interesting parallels to contemporary politics. Would make a great double feature with Gabriel Over the White House.

Our third western star is an actor who is very underrated, not too often discussed. GEORGE MONTGOMERY He was one of the handsomest men under contract at 20th Century Fox in the 1940s. The studio cast him in every genre. He did a romance drama with Gene Tierney. A musical with June Haver. A comedy with Ginger Rogers. And film noir. But he hit his stride as a freelancer in the 50s starring in many hit westerns.

BRANDY FOR THE PARSON (1952)

Up the Down Staircase (1960s) (pun intended ) next : a riot

Carter, Lynda

THE LAST OF MRS. CHEYNEY (1937)

MILLIE (1931)

Imbrie, Elizabeth -- Ruth Hussey in The Philadelphia Story

I actually wrote a paper for AP English in High School that MICHELLE PFEIFFER should have won the BEST ACTRESS OSCAR for BATMAN RETURNS and I 100% stand by that today. the film on the other hand...(makes wavy hand gesture) eh....

KISS ME KATE (1953)

I love when "Serial Mom" sticks it to Patty Hearst! I can forgive its faults just for that scene!

I love this film but I can see why people will have issues with TCM airing this. But it does fit the theme of the night.

I adore La La Land. I think it's very much a musical for millennials. Mia's speech to Seb at the end of the film really resonates with me as a millennial... "“No, maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m one of those people that has always wanted to do it, but it’s like a pipe dream for me. You know, and then you, you said it. You change your dreams and then you grow up. Maybe I’m one of those people and I’m not supposed to. And I can go back to school and I can find something else that I’m supposed to do. ‘Cause i left to do that. And its been six years and I dont want to do it anymore." And I think if people aren't part of this generation, it's hard for them to fully understand this. I have friends who are a generation ahead of me and there are a lot of things that they don't get about this film.