Vautrin
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Posts posted by Vautrin
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16 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:
Yes it does. It is set in 1935/36, and I make a few jokes about what a strange, pressed-together mishmash of people the country is and how the trains never run on time and there is no sense of national identity. Honestly, it's more of a statement on AMERICA TODAY than CZECHOSLOVAKIA, 1936- but I'LL LET YOU IN ON A SECRET: I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO EASTERN EUROPE OR RUSSIA!
Totally pulled a lot of this out of my butt.
HITLER'S MADMAN (1943)- which I saw in DECEMBER 2016- was, in many ways, THE SPARK THAT LIT THE FIRE when it came to my idea; in fact, the fictitious village in my story is mentioned as being "40 miles from Lidice."
That time and place certainly makes for a lot of dramatic possibilities.
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1 hour ago, Dargo said:
Yep, hard to believe the pretty much pedestrian direction of this film, and which often reminded me of an old Perry Mason TV episode, was done by one of the truly great and often groundbreaking directors of early cinema, alright.
(...and also hard to believe what Eddie said in his intro about "some people think this might have been one of Lang's better American efforts"...can't image that at all either)
It certainly has all the visual flare of a Perry Mason episode, not very much. The short running time helps a
little. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but I would find it hard to rank this as one of his better
American movies. Maybe by this time the old boy was running on close to empty. A person of Lang's talent
can afford a miss like this one.
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I remember seeing this one a long time ago. I couldn't remember the exact twist ending. I thought it was that
Andrews had actually committed the murder, but I wasn't 100% sure. Frankly, it was hard to believe a smart
guy like Andrews would allow himself to get trapped into cooperating with Balckmer in that particular
murder. But then again he was dumb enough to use the real name of the victim when talking to Fontaine.
Back on the path to the chair, dummy. Yes the direction was mostly ho-hum, though the puzzle piece plot
of the movie makes that secondary to a certain extent. Barbara Nichols is okay, but I found her dancer
friend to be sexier. Finally, the Blackmer character would be pleased to know that now 22 states have no
death penalty, many of which abolished it in the last twenty years.
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4 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:
an irony of this is that my screenplay is- I **** you not- set in CZECHOSLOVAKIA and- while the script is in English- IN THE "STAGE DIRECTIONS" I OFTEN SPECIFY THAT certain characters at times are speaking GERMAN, RUSSIAN, HUNGARIAN and ROMANI.
I even googled popular ROMANI phrases.
Interesting. So I assume it takes place before Czechoslovakia split into two countries. Despite my light-hearted
tone, anyone who completes a play, novel, or other work of literature to their own satisfaction is to be congratulated.
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Last I heard they were in a recycling center just outside of Chicago.
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4 hours ago, Dargo said:
Although ya know Vautrin, you might still be successful in this endeavor if you know anything at all about cuckoo clocks.
Well, according to Harry Lime anyway.
(...and btw Lorna, good on ya...nice to see you stuck with it, finished your manuscript and had it published...I'm now reminded of that time I once told you that you have the talent to make even some of the mundane of things a very entertaining read, and so you shouldn't have been at all "surprised that it came out of you" as you mentioned above...nope, not at all)
That will be one of the purposes of my novel-restoring the cuckoo clock to its rightful place in
Western art and time keeping.
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For the past couple of years I have been working on the great Swiss novel. This is
a somewhat difficult task as I am not fluent in French, Italian, German, or Romansch.
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5 hours ago, jamesjazzguitar said:
Like Joe, I'm really enjoy Cry of the City, and as you note, while nothing very original, it was well done (on all levels; direction, acting, photography, score).
I really don't see much of the Manhattan Melodrama aspect since the detective wasn't a big-wig, and they were never in love with the same gal.
There is the Dead-End (Bogie, McCrea), connection but mom, doesn't reject her bad-boy until the end so.
For me the films takes various themes from prior films and weaves them into a story that, while seen before, keep me interested into what was clearly a forgone conclusion.
The MM connection was just the basic plot of two kids from the same neighborhood, one grows up to be
bad and the other to be good. Not much of a connection as we don't see them as youngsters and only see
that as adults they had known each other for a long time. Yeah, you know the production code meant
that Conte would come to a bad end. The gritty big city at night vibe has been done before too, but still
this movie does it very effectively.
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The Lady from Shanghai is one of those films I've seen a number of times, so if I'm in the mood I'll watch
it again, if not I won't. Last night I wasn't. Cry of the City was pretty good, nothing very original, but
well done. In Maltin's book, he or whoever wrote the entry said it was a rehash of Manhattan Melodrama.
Yeah, sort of, but it didn't have those dull flashbacks about how the bad kid shoplifts from the corner
drugstore and the good kid refuses to join in and so on. Yeah, we get it. Cry of the City just shows that
Mature has known Conte and his family for a long time. I was impressed by that one shot at the end
where we see the dead or near dead Conte holding the knife in his hand and not moving.
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The INSP network, which shows reruns of The Virginian, has been running a PSA about the COVID-19
virus with James Drury and several other actors. It must have been shot very recently. Yeah, the ownership
of the Shiloh ranch changed pretty frequently, especially in the last few seasons as older actors died.
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I figured the baby wasn't their biological child but a Lebensborn adoption, the result of a wild and
crazy night at SS headquarters nine months earlier.
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4 hours ago, YourManGodfrey said:
I thought the camerawork, use of shadows, etc was really well-done, but outside of that, I didn't really get into it. I ended up zoning out towards the end when everything started to get exciting. I did like how you never really saw who was chasing them. It gave off a very expressionist vibe to me.
Yes the visuals add something to the movie, though I think that after a while they become somewhat obvious.
I think the best sequence was the mob cutting through the theater curtain as Griselle makes a run for it and
the pursuit across the muddy field. Not a bad movie, just one that didn't make much of an impression on me.
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A touch above the usual anti-Nazi flick. The Baron gave the whole thing a little touch of class,
though he didn't seem as sinister as he could have. And the usual street fighting thugs weren't
around, which made a things a bit dull. I found the plot not very believable, I mean even more
unbelievable than the standard unbelievability of Hollywood movies. Schulz should have figured
out after the Baron's last visit that he was in deep doo doo and gotten the hell out of Munich.
Maybe his nerves were just too addled to figure that out. Sure there were some interesting
visual touches, but they seemed too familiar and well worn. I sort of checked them off in my
mind as they appeared one after another. Got it. I can see why Address Unknown, though it has
a few interesting points to it, isn't better known or more popular.
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To commemorate this great actor's birthday, I will drink a full bottle of corn **** tomorrow.
Happy birthday Mr. Tracy.
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I think the senior citizens would have been prudent to hire Mifune to guard their meds and masks.
He would probably do so for some rice and sake. OAN, Yojimbo proves that the guy who brings
a gun to a knife fight doesn't always win.
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Many of the 1970s Warhol/Morrissey flicks were set in NYC.
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6 hours ago, EricJ said:
Yep--Criterion Channel, of course, had the whole collection.
Which, of course, makes me think of the sweet, civilized ladies who don't want nasty old Mifune to kill people, from Sanjuro. That, and:
Sort of disappointing--I read the title and wondered whether TCM had dug into the other stash of Japanese films now PD'ing on streaming/Prime, like Beautiful Dreamer, Project A-Ko and Galaxy Express 999. 😎
Most, if not all of them, were Kurosawa movies too. I doubt sweet old ladies would be caught dead in that hotel.
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I thought the schedule and the intros made it obvious. It was a celebration of Toshiro Mifune's 100th
Birthday. It did last all day. Unfortunately, I had some business I had to take care of so I missed most of
them, though I have seen them before. I did catch Yojimbo again. In my mind I'm picturing the reaction
of old ladies as they watch Mifune scratch himself and kill dozens of people with his sword. Yikes.
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I saw The Innocents and The Snake Pit on the schedule. They also had two movies from the 1970s.
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1 hour ago, slaytonf said:
Not too hard to like TDTESS (the original). What is FMC?
One of the best sci-fi movies of the 1950s IMO. I was in a TDTESS trance for a few weeks. I know Fox Movie
Channel has changed its name, but I couldn't remember exactly what to. I should pay more attention to the
3 a.m. to 3 p.m. line-up. They did the same thing with Laura back in the not so distant past.
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FMC used to show some of the studio era movies a number of times a week. Not sure if they do that
anymore. They showed The Day the Earth Stood Still in that manner and I became addicted to watching
if as often as possible. It helps if one likes the film in the first place.
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6 hours ago, Sepiatone said:
SURE it does!
Just like holding your cigarette underhand somehow is supposed to make one more sinister.
But too only if you "alzo" speak "wiss zee German AGZENT"!
Sepiatone
The Germans can usually pull if off with or without the cig holder. Whenever I hear some guy is the "brains" of the
outfit, I know the outfit will probably be in trouble.
Happened to see Hank Worden playing a small part on Green Acres last night.
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16 hours ago, Sukhov said:
What struck me as really odd is that he shoots the cop in the chest at point blank range but he doesn't immediately die.
Hollywood Bullets. Didn't he shoot the cop a second time just to make sure?
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5 hours ago, jamesjazzguitar said:
I view this from a very different angle; Lacey was just as cynical of cops as the Lt. Sims was of ex-cons based on their life experiences.
Lacey's wife advised him to call the police but he doesn't because he doesn't trust them. Lt. Sims mentions more than once the 2 years Lacey has been out and "clean". That he married a good-gal and that he had a good job at a profession he was good at. These things were noted to illustrate that the detective was aware Lacey wasn't just another typical hood, BUT, Sims being jaded just couldn't fully accept that. The line by the detective at the end was admission that he now got-it; Lacey could trust him and he would trust Lacey.
But an ex-con doesn't have the legal power a cop has to screw up your life. Sims couldn't figure out until the end
that Lacey was acting under duress. If someone put me through the wringer like Sims did to Lacey I sure as hell
wouldn't call him for help.
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But too only if you "alzo" speak "wiss zee German AGZENT"!
Well, I went and did it.
in General Discussions
Posted
Just about anything can be funny, though not everybody will be along for the ride. I truly think the country will be
back to normal fairly quickly once Trumpy Bear is gone. Of course it will take longer if the sentence is eight years
instead of four. I remember as a kid our teacher assigned the class to write their own play/puppet show, breaking
up the class into four or five groups. Our group came up with Dracula vs. The Beverly Hillbillies. The older I get,
the better it sounds.