I Just Watched...

[CinemaInternational]

3 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

I had a very good friend whose younger sister did not want to see “La Confidential” because she did not want to see a French film.

[yes, she pronounced it “Lah con fih den shee al.”]

Well, if she missed it, she missed out on one of the best films of 1997, a year that was definitely uneven for films....

[CinemaInternational]

6 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

 

(my new rubric for assessing modern films is now: "does it feature a nude MERYL STREEP getting eaten by a giant chicken at any part?", if the answer is "no," then I am willling to proceed....but cautiously.)

Meryl Streep turned down being crushed by the Nancy Reagan chandelier in 1996, but accepted being eaten stark naked by a chicken in 2021. Go figure. The declining of standards.

[LornaHansonForbes]

18 minutes ago, CinemaInternational said:

Meryl Streep turned down being crushed by the Nancy Reagan chandelier in 1996, but accepted being eaten stark naked by a chicken in 2021. Go figure. The declining of standards.

I’d like to think that somewhere in Manhattan, there’s a small studio apartment, and in it,Faye Dunaway is sitting in a recliner eating cake frosting out of the container and obsessively rewatching the ending of DONT LOOK UP on loop …

[speedracer5]

16 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

I’d like to think that somewhere in Manhattan, there’s a small studio apartment, and in it,Faye Dunaway is sitting in a recliner eating cake frosting out of the container and obsessively rewatching the ending of DONT LOOK UP on loop …

I can see this. It was Faye’s birthday yesterday. 

[sewhite2000]

1/3 Raffles (Goldwyn/United Artists, 1930)
Source: TCM

Very early career effort from Kay Francis on Night One of her SOTM run. She was only about 24, I think, and this was before her days as queen of the Warner's lot. There's at least one still I'm looking at on imdb where her girlish appearance conceals some of the more distinguishable Kay Francis features that her face grew into, although she already looks like fully formed Francis (try saying that three times fast) to me in some other photos.

Raffles; the Amateur Cracksman was first a novel by E.W. Hornung, then a play, then a movie. I'm not sure I know what "cracksman" means exactly. It's a term too ancient for me to recognize, but I assume it has similar origins as the word "safecracker". The ever-debonair Ronald Colman is the title character. I believe he's a professional cricket player but has also enjoyed moonlighting as a thief, confounding the police. Now, however, he's about to get married - to Francis - and plans to leave his criminal career behind. However, the dire financial circumstances of a friend (Branwell Fletcher) compel him to get his hands on a treasure one more time, and he takes the opportunity to rob a mansion where he's been invited as one of many guests to a fabulous weekend party, the kind where the men spend the days playing cricket and the women spend them watchng the men; then at night, everyone puts on their dress clothes, and there's a fabulous dinner. I've always been kind of fascinated by these manor estate parties. They've been depicted in movies all the way from Rules of the Game to Gosford Park, and I suspect there are a few of them in Downton Abbey, a show I've never seen.  A nice setting for a play, no doubt, and it works for a movie as well. Complications arise as a police inspector (David Torrence) is a guest at the party and also when Francis shows up.

I've read online that this was the last Goldwyn film shot in both silent and talkie versions. I recall some years ago Nipkow pretty much losing his mind when TCM  showed the silent version of All Quiet on the Western Front. This seems to have been a common practice in those years at the very end of the '20s and very beginning of the '30s, making both versions one after another to try to appeal to as broad an audience as possible before talkies invariably won out. The new sound technology hadn't had all the kinks worked out of it yet. There's audible hissing, more notable because of the lack of incidental music. I'm reading one poster on imdb claiming that these very early sound movies were typically shot with a fuill orchestra just off camera becaue the process of dubbing in orchestra music for a soundtrack hadn't been invented yet. I'm not smart enough to confirm that claim - no doubt many members of these message boards know. Regardless, the dialogue is easy to understand - much more so than a lot 1930 film I've seen - and the quality of the sound doesn't wildly fluctuate like other films of the era.

Colman - who was also the original Bulldog Drummond on film - is suitably debonair and cunning. He conveys a lot with his facial expressions, a skill he probably developed in the silent era. You can see how conflicted he is about the situation fate has placed him in, but he's also supremely confident in his own abilities and wryly amused by the efforts of the police to capture him. There's even some pre-Code comedy as he has to deftly yet graciously sidestep the amorous advances of the lady of the manor (Alison Skipworth), all the while he's trying to rob her. Colman was well suited for the transition to sound with his mellifluous voice. John Gilbert is the cliched example of the big-time silent star whose career was ruined when people had to listen to him talk (although I've read many board members protest that this wasn't actually the case). And a word or two about Francis, since she's SOTM. She's called upon for little more than to be eye candy in this early role, and she does just fine with those expectations, though I don't think we see a lot of the qualities that would make her a star in just a couple of years. 

The director is the French-born George Fitzmaurice, with whom I wasn't terribly familiar. He also  made The Bad One with Edmund Lowe and Dolores Del Rio and The Devil to Pay!, again with Colman as well as Loretta Young and a dog that looks an awful lot like Asta. Of course, this movie got remade in 1939 with David Niven and Olivia DeHavilland.

Total films seen this year: 9

  

[LornaHansonForbes]

32 minutes ago, speedracer5 said:

I can see this. It was Faye’s birthday yesterday. 

I DID NOT KNOW THAT!

thank you!

[Katie_G]

...1954   Directed by Kurt Neumann   1 hr. 34 min.

Synopsis: An American carnival in Germany sets the scene for sin, sex and melodrama.

This makes is sound more exciting than it is. It's basically the old love triangle trope with the carnival merely as a backdrop.
Anne Baxter's German accent came and went, but at least she tried. She plays a high-dive performer who, from 50 to 100 feet up, somehow lands in a kiddie pool without breaking her neck.  Her partner is one point on the triangle, but of course she's in love with bad-boy Steve Cochran, whose role as carnival barker only serves to remind me once again of a poor man's sleazier Tyrone Power.  5.5/10

 

 

[rosebette]

I watched Irene (1940) this week, which I found a light but charming effort.  I found Anna Neagle extremely engaging, a talented actress and dancer.  Her soprano is a bit on the thin side but sufficient for the material.  After seeing Irene, I found a youtube clip of her dancing to "Who?" from Sunny with Ray Bolger -- they are both so graceful together they look like angels.  The Scarecrow -- who would've thought it?

I read up on Neagle and found out that she was a major star in the UK until the early 50s, really the reigning queen of their movie industry, particularly in musicals.  I happened to have a DVD I bought online a few years ago, Lilacs in the Spring (1954) which I had purchased because I wanted to see Errol Flynn in an offbeat performance that features him doing a musical  number, but when I had first viewed it, didn't pay much attention to Neagle or her musical numbers.  So I popped it in last night for a second viewing.  It's a faded print and a "mixed bag" as a film, but I was surprisingly delighted by it.  Although Neagle was 50 when she made it, she is playing much younger, and she does look more 35ish, but still moves like a sylph, or in a later flapper number, like a graceful jazz baby.  (Flynn was actually 5 years younger than she was, and looks at least 15 years older).  I think about all the praise Fred Astaire got for maintaining his dancing style and vigor into his 50s and 60s, but this lady certainly matches that.  Granted, she did not have a say or role in her own choreography, as Astaire did, but I was rather surprised that this woman is now largely forgotten by cinema audiences.    The two dream sequences, one in which she is Nell Gwynn and one where she is a young Queen Victoria, are apparently reprises of earlier roles, and I did some reading of her portrayal of Nell Gwynn in the 1934 film and would certainly like to see that.   Even in Lilacs, she is saucy and energetic.   Apparently she was so ribald in the earlier movie that the film was censored for American audiences, but I don't think any prints are extant.    Graham Greene reviewed it and reportedly said she was the cutest thing in breeches.   The other source of pleasure in Lilacs is Errol Flynn, doing a music hall number, and later giving us some sensitively underplayed reaction shots in some emotional moments, providing us with a taste of what could have  been in later roles if he had laid off the sauce.    He is a charming but lovable rascal of a husband and father, a beautifully natural performance for him.  There are also a few "in" jokes about his movies, both by Flynn and a couple of the other characters; some are about Burma, but I don't want to spoil those for you.

In any case, I certainly want to dip into the canon of Neagle's earlier films, if any can be found.

[omm]

Who on earth names their kid Berry Berry?

[JamesJazGuitar]

23 minutes ago, omm said:

Who on earth names their kid Berry Berry?

[HoldenIsHere]

On 1/15/2022 at 10:38 AM, LornaHansonForbes said:

(my new rubric for assessing modern films is now: "does it feature a nude MERYL STREEP getting eaten by a giant chicken at any part?", if the answer is "no," then I am willling to proceed....but cautiously.)

Okay, based on this post, I decided to check out on the ending of DON'T LOOK UP just to see if  a nude Meryl Streep  really does get eaten by a giant chicken.  She does.

Now I might actually watch the entire movie at some point.  I wasn't necessarily planning on watching it before. 

I am a fan of Meryl Streep by the way.

[HoldenIsHere]

On 1/15/2022 at 5:00 PM, CinemaInternational said:

Meryl Streep turned down being crushed by the Nancy Reagan chandelier in 1996, but accepted being eaten stark naked by a chicken in 2021. Go figure. The declining of standards.

To be fair, it was a body double and not really Meryl Streep who was naked in DON'T LOOK UP.

[HoldenIsHere]

On 1/15/2022 at 5:33 PM, speedracer5 said:

It was Faye’s birthday yesterday. 

[King Rat]

49 minutes ago, JamesJazGuitar said:

It's been a long time since I read the James Leo Herlihy novel, and I can't remember if the name is ever explained. In any event 1) the name Berry-Berry drives most viewers Berry-Berry crazy and 2) the William Inge screenplay insists on using the name over and over again. I believe we're supposed to think of the disease beriberi, for the Warren Beatty character brings sorrow to all those around him. When he tells his kid brother he hates life, he isn't joking.

The 1950s/early 60s was the era when people worried about ineffectual or absent fathers/domineering mothers, reflected in movies like Teresa, Rebel Without a Cause, David and Lisa, and All Fall Down. Sometimes this is a cue for concerns about mothers turning their sons homosexual, obviously not the case with Warren Beatty (I won't use his character's name again). Instead, he simply treats women badly, including physical violence. The novel includes a scene with younger son Clinton having sex with a woman in Key West, so apparently Mom didn't turn him gay, either.

The novel is no more explicit about Echo's sexuality than the film. The fact that she's gorgeous, unmarried, thirty, and a virgin might lead us to think in a certain direction. The boy she says she loved--who didn't want her sexually and killed himself--was, one gathers, gay. Unfortunately, All Fall Down doesn't give us nearly enough Eva Marie Saint or Warren Beatty and too much Angela Lansbury, who is believable, but we got the point six scenes ago.

Whatever the imbalance of the screenplay, the acting and directing are first-rate. Brandon de Wilde is flat-out wonderful as the kid brother, another role that could be tiresome without such believable acting.

[Grumpytoad]

First time watching Blood Simple. Also my second neo-noir. Stylish. As much a horror film as it is noir.

A real  cesspool of humanity, and I mean that as a compliment. Murder and infidelity always makes such a beautiful pairing in the movies. 

I never would have guessed that using shadows in a color film would have such a great impact. I figured only black and white film would have worked. 

Barry Sonnenfeld, who went on to direct comedies was the cinematographer. He used a huge number of closeups, which really intensified the emotional levels  the actors displayed. 

Best performance was by Frances McDormand. The way she expressed herself facially was extraordinary. Couldn't take my eyes off her.

M. Emmet Walsh was terrific too. I don't know if playing such a low life is difficult, but I do know that meeting such a person in real life would really make my skin crawl. 

Not familiar with John Getz. Did a good job of conveying fear, but would not put him at the same level as McDormand or Walsh. 
 

Dan Hedaya. I honestly do not know how to evaluate him here. I looked up his movie roles. I've seen him in five productions and do not remember him in any of them. The thing is, he played a recurring character on t.v. in Cheers, and that I remember very well. The role was as a buffoonish mobster, which WAS funny. The character he played in this picture was anything but. Every time I saw him on screen, his t.v. role got in the way for me. He was good, but  I can't say how good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tikisoo]

11 hours ago, King Rat said:

I believe we're supposed to think of the disease beriberi,

Mmmm never thought about that before...I think you may be right.

11 hours ago, King Rat said:

Sometimes this is a cue for concerns about mothers turning their sons homosexual,

Ugh. There seems to be some kind of trope about a boy brought up by a single mother is going to end up in trouble in one way or another; gay/violent/addicted, etc.  Imagine-sexuality on the same level with violence.😱

It's as if Hollywood was warning women not to have children without a man present, even if not the father, because women alone were incapable or raising a child -especially boys- successfully. 

The widowed* male charactor with children unabashedly seeks a woman to help raise them. The trope is they fall in love & she becomes their Mother since she loves them already. *(Widowed because the only way a man would get custody)

[Fading Fast]

 

Sinner Takes All from 1936 with Bruce Cabot and (the adorable) Margaret Lindsay.

 

 

Sinner Takes All is a solid B movie in the very-popular 1930s mystery genre. B movies, with their short runtimes, small budgets, action-packed repeatable plots and likable tier-two actors were the TV shows of their day. Like many TV shows from the 1960s through the 1990s, they were visual comfort food: you knew what to expect and you got it. 

 

Sinner Takes All (a basically meaningless title) is another harmless mystery story where the fun is not the silly, unbelievable plot, but watching likable actors play easy roles. Equally enjoyable is watching the two attractive leads, Bruce Cabot and Margaret Lindsay, fight like they're not going to fall in love, while we, the audience, know all along they will. 

 

Yes, there is a story here and it's an iteration of many B movie mysteries. A wealthy family's three adult children simultaneously receive anonymous, threatening letters right before one of them is murdered (Depression Era audiences loved movies about wealthy families).

 

The family lawyer and his young assistant, Cabot, are called in to work with the police to both protect the remaining two siblings, one being Lindsay, and to solve the murder. Thrown into the mix is the popular-in-movies-back-then news reporter who forces his or her (often a her) way in to help solve the murder and "scoop" the other papers. 

 

From here, as in many of these 1930s mysteries, there are a bunch of suspects, even more clues, a few additional murders, much running around, several fist and gun fights plus a couple of false arrests, while as noted, the leads argue as they fall in love. 

 

Playing to the B movie-mystery formula, all the suspects are gathered together at the end, in an elegant salon (think a poor-man's The Thin Man), as the murderer is tricked into revealing himself or herself. 

 

These B movies, like Sinner Takes All, are fun today in pretty much the same way they were fun in the '30s, as not-challenging entertainment where the real hook is the stars themselves, plus getting to feel "smart" as you figure the mystery out before the cops do. Additionally, for us today, there's wonderful time travel to the 1930s, including the period's cars, clothes, architecture and, in this one, a cool roadside nightclub. 

 

 

[rosebette]

3 hours ago, mkahn22 said:

Sinner Takes All from 1936 with Bruce Cabot and (the adorable) Margaret Lindsay.

 

 

Sinner Takes All is a solid B movie in the very-popular 1930s mystery genre. B movies, with their short runtimes, small budgets, action-packed repeatable plots and likable tier-two actors were the TV shows of their day. Like many TV shows from the 1960s through the 1990s, they were visual comfort food: you knew what to expect and you got it. 

 

Sinner Takes All (a basically meaningless title) is another harmless mystery story where the fun is not the silly, unbelievable plot, but watching likable actors play easy roles. Equally enjoyable is watching the two attractive leads, Bruce Cabot and Margaret Lindsay, fight like they're not going to fall in love, while we, the audience, know all along they will. 

 

Yes, there is a story here and it's an iteration of many B movie mysteries. A wealthy family's three adult children simultaneously receive anonymous, threatening letters right before one of them is murdered (Depression Era audiences loved movies about wealthy families).

 

The family lawyer and his young assistant, Cabot, are called in to work with the police to both protect the remaining two siblings, one being Lindsay, and to solve the murder. Thrown into the mix is the popular-in-movies-back-then news reporter who forces his or her (often a her) way in to help solve the murder and "scoop" the other papers. 

 

From here, as in many of these 1930s mysteries, there are a bunch of suspects, even more clues, a few additional murders, much running around, several fist and gun fights plus a couple of false arrests, while as noted, the leads argue as they fall in love. 

 

Playing to the B movie-mystery formula, all the suspects are gathered together at the end, in an elegant salon (think a poor-man's The Thin Man), as the murderer is tricked into revealing himself or herself. 

 

These B movies, like Sinner Takes All, are fun today in pretty much the same way they were fun in the '30s, as not-challenging entertainment where the real hook is the stars themselves, plus getting to feel "smart" as you figure the mystery out before the cops do. Additionally, for us today, there's wonderful time travel to the 1930s, including the period's cars, clothes, architecture and, in this one, a cool roadside nightclub. 

 

 

I really enjoy those Warner programmers and had seen this one on TCM On Demand, but avoided it due to my extreme distaste for Bruce Cabot.    I find him bland and unlikeable.   I heard that he was kind of a heel in real life.  I have to admit that if my favorite pre-code and B Warners' actor, Warren William, was in the part, I'd probably love it.

[Fading Fast]

1 minute ago, rosebette said:

I really enjoy those Warner programmers and had seen this one on TCM On Demand, but avoided it due to my extreme distaste for Bruce Cabot.    I find him bland and unlikeable.   I heard that he was kind of a heel in real life.  I have to admit that if my favorite pre-code and B Warners' actor, Warren William, was in the part, I'd probably love it.

I'm with you on all you said. Williams is a a wonderful actor and a big star that's been all but forgotten today. "Sinner Takes All" was a B-team effort; hence Lindsay and Cabot and not Davis and Williams. It's not a fair way to judge a person, but Cabot looks to me the kid who bullied the weaker kids in gym class. 

[JamesJazGuitar]

2 minutes ago, rosebette said:

I really enjoy those Warner programmers and had seen this one on TCM On Demand, but avoided it due to my extreme distaste for Bruce Cabot.    I find him bland and unlikeable.   I heard that he was kind of a heel in real life.  I have to admit that if my favorite pre-code and B Warners' actor, Warren William, was in the part, I'd probably love it.

I hear you about Bruce Cabot,  of course sometimes having an unlikeable screen persona is what the director is looking for.

One movie I'm sure you enjoy is Fallen Angel.   (well at least the scene where ex-cop Brickford does a number on Cabot).

 

[rosebette]

2 minutes ago, JamesJazGuitar said:

I hear you about Bruce Cabot,  of course sometimes having an unlikeable screen persona is what the director is looking for.

One movie I'm sure you enjoy is Fallen Angel.   (well at least the scene where ex-cop Brickford does a number on Cabot).

 

Yes, but that has Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell to redeem it.  I like Cabot in Dodge City, where he plays the villain, but I don't  like him in roles where he is the hero.  Apparently in the 1950s, he pulled some dirty tricks on Errol Flynn, who was supposed to be one of his friends.  I don't even like him in Ann Vickers with Irene Dunne.  I can't understand why such and intelligent and classy gal would give up her virtue to that guy, even though he's playing a soldier.  

[Bethluvsfilms]

55 minutes ago, rosebette said:

I really enjoy those Warner programmers and had seen this one on TCM On Demand, but avoided it due to my extreme distaste for Bruce Cabot.    I find him bland and unlikeable.   I heard that he was kind of a heel in real life.  I have to admit that if my favorite pre-code and B Warners' actor, Warren William, was in the part, I'd probably love it.

Was he really a jerk in real life? I'm not saying it couldn't be true, but it could be he may have been just a little bit too convincing in bad guy roles that it's hard to shake that image off, regardless of the true nature of his character.

I enjoy watching Cabot onscreen myself.  

More  often then not, I believe you're better off not getting to know any celebrity in real life.  9 times out of 10, I suspect you're going to be disappointed.

I think I would make an exception in the case of Jack Lemmon, he struck me as a very honest, down-to-earth type of guy.

 

[TomJH]

48 minutes ago, rosebette said:

Yes, but that has Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell to redeem it.  I like Cabot in Dodge City, where he plays the villain, but I don't  like him in roles where he is the hero.  Apparently in the 1950s, he pulled some dirty tricks on Errol Flynn, who was supposed to be one of his friends.  I don't even like him in Ann Vickers with Irene Dunne.  I can't understand why such and intelligent and classy gal would give up her virtue to that guy, even though he's playing a soldier.  

Flynn, after his Aussie and New Guinea up bringing forged his personality, liked to hang out with rough 'n ready stunt man types during his Hollywood years. Cabot, one of those boozy, womanizing types with whom he felt comfortable,  he regarded as a particularly close friend and he paid a price for it in 1953 after the William Tell film fell apart and Cabot took possession of some of Errol's clothes and car for payment for his participation on the film. According to Errol's autobiography, Cabot also bragged about it at the time. Flynn said he was afraid of bumping into him because, with all his financial issues, it was no time to also be hit with a murder rap.

The reality is that Flynn always knew Cabot was a bit of a coarse (particularly when drunk) snake in the grass. He just didn't expect that the viper would ever bite him.

[rosebette]

8 minutes ago, TomJH said:

Flynn, after his Aussie and New Guinea up bringing forged his personality, liked to hang out with rough 'n ready stunt man types during his Hollywood years. Cabot, one of those boozy, womanizing types with whom he felt comfortable,  he regarded as a particularly close friend and he paid a price for it in 1953 after the William Tell film fell apart and Cabot took possession of some of Errol's clothes and car for payment for his participation on the film. According to Errol's autobiography, Cabot also bragged about it at the time. Flynn said he was afraid of bumping into him because, with all his financial issues at the time, it was no time to also be hit with a murder rap.

The reality is that Flynn always knew Cabot was a bit of a coarse (particularly when drunk) snake in the grass. He just didn't expect that the viper would ever bite him.

Somehow that picture of Cabot and the rather scornful sidelong glance is partner is giving him says it all.

[TomJH]

1 minute ago, rosebette said:

Somehow that picture of Cabot and the rather scornful sidelong glance is partner is giving him says it all.

I know, that look Cabot's date is giving him says a lot. And Bruce looks even more like a hee honk than usual here.