Vautrin

Even when it occurred it seemed a bit silly to me, but I was only about ten or eleven years old so I didn't think that much about it. Yes, it's another minor rite of passage that has gone the way of others. I was never much of a coffee drinker and now don't drink it at all. I have to confess I drink tea during the cold months with lots of sugar, which is definitely not a good thing.

Aside from the silliness of the whole idea of masculinity having anything to do with what beverage one drinks, one's first drink of coffee used to be a big deal. I remember having a friend whose family made a big thing out of his sister having her first cup of coffee. I guess she was 16 or 18. They went through a whole celebration of the event. You'd think she had just graduated from college with honors.

Even Christians take their clothes off once in a while. I will wait until it shows up again, though Biblical epics aren't my favorite genre. The dance of the naked moon looks more like the dance of acid reflux, but maybe you had to be there.

Sally Rand is listed for the part of the crocodile's victim, uncredited, on imbd. I was only referring to the woman menaced by the ape. I haven't seen the movie in a long time, so I'll have to check it out if it shows up again on TCM. Until then, I'll stick with Landi.

The scantily flower-clad lady in The Sign of the Cross who failed in her goal to convert the ape to Christianity is Elissa Landi, an Austrian actress who appeared in a number of Hollywood films in the 1930s.

I couldn't figure out if Joan was showing or not. From one angle it looked like she was, from a different angle, maybe not. I've seen it on another medium and then it was an obvious yes, not so on my TV. Keep 'em guessing. Her first mistake was letting sleazebag Duryea into her apartment. She should have called his bluff. But nooooooo. Okay, the poison didn't pan out, but she could have had him back the next night and tried another method. While the characters are similar to those in Scarlet Street, there are some differences. Eddie isn't a henpecked, apron wearing hubby with an old harridan for a wife, and Joan isn't as manipulative and untrustworthy as she was. Dan is mostly the same old bastard though. Those gentlemen's clubs. Too full of cigar smoke for my taste and you'd probably run across a lot of tiresome bores too. You don't have to join a club to do that. And what's up with Gotham College? A middle aged man who is only an assistant professor and then is promoted to head of the psychology department. Bet it advertises on matchbooks covers and in the back pages of The Police Gazette.

Cartwright was from back East so his tastes may have been a bit more refined than if he had been born in a Nevada mining camp. Then he made a pile of money and was at home with all things frou-frou, which is not to say Ben didn't like a good belt of whiskey too.

Yeah, he should have taken a chance to shoot them as soon as he could. Of course that would have put a premature end to the movie, but it surely would have been satisfying, just as satisfying as the girlfriend pumping McGraw full of lead at the end.

Don't think I've seen that one. Fairly graphic for the time, though nothing compared to what they would do with it today.

Maybe they had to settle for the chocolate sauce aftermath.

Yeah things were different in 1949. I was surprised they showed the bullet hitting McGraw when he was already on the ground and you can see the impact it makes on his body, so I'm not surprised they didn't show the next few bullets in the same way. In its own way this would have been just as graphic as Bonnnie and Clyde, as you would have seen McGraw getting it one shot at a time unlike the flurry of bullets that kill Bonnie and Clyde.

Yes. I think she shot him the first time and that put him on the floor. Then we see McGraw hit by her second shot when he is down. Then they cut away to her gun when she fires another couple of shots. It would have been much more graphic to see those bullets hit McGraw's body. I think Joe was a bit green and didn't realize how bad the gang was, or else he would have shot them when he had the chance. Finishing last in a very permanent way. No wait till next year.

Poor dumb old Joe the van driver from The Threat. He had a gun and the crooks were asleep, but Quick Draw McGraw managed to use Joe's innocence to talk him down and not surprisingly then kill him. The only way to get rid of guys like McGraw was to take out that gat and shoot him and his two buddies ASAP. But I can see why the kid didn't take that approach. Big mistake. I didn't find The Threat much more cruel than many noirs. The short running time helped, as I think things would have become boring in the hostage part of the movie if things had gone on much longer. Cruel would have been watching his former girlfriend pump more than one bullet into McGraw, but they stopped at one. Too bad.

I remember when I was a kid the local channel afternoon movie would occasionally show an Andy Hardy movie. I got kick out of them with the old time fashions and cars and Andy's slang. They're still entertaining, but not as much as when I first saw them.

Mommy did it. Mommy, mommy, mommy. I don't remember seeing this one before. Fairly entertaining, though it gets a bit repetitious in the middle. Yeah, the nutso likes to go around shooting women. We get it. I always love it when there is a short text introduction to a movie that is basically an exploitation flick to make it seem as though it's really more of a public service than a crime movie. Okayyyy. Some good visuals of the underbelly of SF and whimsical ones of Eddie getting up close and personal with his rifle. Mommy. I thought that might have been Wally Cox, though he wasn't in the scene very long. I suppose a rat fink like Dmytryk was a bit of a sniper himself, targeting his former friends, though with less lethal results.

I only saw BUtterfield 8 once a while back, but when it turns up again I'll watch it, at least the last few minutes.

We used to cross the TZB over the river and through the woods to grandmother's (and grandfather's) house every month or so. I will miss the old one no matter how the new one looks.

Well done and efficient for getting everything covered in one hour, and not feeling that things were rushed. Another cop with a Murphy bed. Hmmm. And another scene that's a bit risque but can't go too far due to the Code. Both feet on the floor now. The plot isn't anything original, but good enough. I suppose there could have been a bit more background on the Judge, but one look at four eyes and his ugly mug and that's a shortcut way of saying Of course this guy's as nutty as they come, just take a look at him. And in movies where the psychos are given more explain time, one grows weary of the constant whining about mommy. Back in the days cops weren't as careful as they are now. Twenty years later, Joe Friday wouldn't get caught wearing a pair of gloves. That's for sissies. Or pot smoking hippies.

Corn Hole was a joke. I'm sure it had Corn in the name somewhere. Quite often they have events in this area and corn hole the game is listed as one of the attractions. I laugh every time I see it. No thanks, I won't be going.

I usually don't look ahead, waiting to be surprised a bit on Saturday night. I'm pretty sure I haven't seen this one. Just that fact is a plus. So is this film was made without the participation of any ice skaters. Hallelujah.

I don't usually look to see what the noir film will be, but I took a peek. I haven't seen it either, and if it turns out to be a lemon, you've only lost an hour of time.

Yeah, just have to wait till next week.

Yeah, it was hard to get very excited about this one, even with not having seen it before. That long scene where she spends the night and they blather on for who knows how long was deadly. A few good parts, but on the whole pretty mediocre. Hey, they can't all be winners.

I'm guessing a lot of film buffs saw that one coming, though it's more of the usual romantic comedy ending. No big deal. Her spending the night in his place was a bit interesting, but of course they couldn't do anything with it at that time. Eddie mentioned in his outro that Belita was in a few plays after her movie career ended, including Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. I don't think they could have put an ice skating scene into that one.

A new noir sub-genre--ice skating noir. Too slow and talky for the first hour. Things improved a little when the lawyer was killed and Belita went on the run. I didn't think she did any of the crimes she was accused of since she was one of the most mild-mannered noir ladies around. Some of the visuals were good, but overall this thing was on the dull side. And that corny Hollywood ending. I would complain about it more but I saw it coming when Foster opened his apartment door, yep she'll be in there and she was. And couldn't this poor guy even afford a bedroom? And Belita in The Cherry Orchard? Would have loved to have seen that.