I Just Watched...

[txfilmfan]

1 hour ago, TikiSoo said:

Is that Joan Blondell and Ann Southern?

I often mix up which one stars in a movie, but can tell them apart once I see them.

Yes, it's Blondell and Sothern.

[Bronxgirl48]

18 hours ago, Fading Fast said:

 

The Scarlet Pimpernel from 1934 with Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massey and Nigel Bruce

 

 

Early 1930s period movies have their challenges, including wildly inaccurate portrayals of the period's history, culture, social norms, clothing, etc., which can make them a silly slog. The Scarlet Pimpernel, despite having those challenges, overall, rises above them with a good story, smart dialogue and outstanding acting. 

 

It's not going to be for everyone, but the tale of an English nobleman who leads a group of like-minded peers on raids into France to rescue French aristocrats sentenced to be guillotined during Robespierre's Reign of Terror, has a Robinhood style joie de vivre to it. 

 

Leslie Howard, (switching metaphors) in an early Batman echo, is a foppish swell by day in England, but the roguish and heroic Scarlet Pimpernel by night when he leads his raids. His obligatory maiden, in a quirky twist, is his estranged French wife, Merle Oberon, who is worried about her family and friends back in her home country. 

 

She can't understand her husband Howard's dandy pursuits and indifference to her concerns, while he has to hide his heroism from her to maintain his secret identity (it makes about as much sense as the Batman-Bruce Wayne thing, but you just go with it). These two clearly want to still be in love with each other, but can't find their way there.

 

The conflict in the movie, shifting back to the Robinhood metaphor, is Raymond Massey as the Sheriff of Nottingham of the story, but here he's a French diplomat and spy sent to England to find and capture or kill the Scarlet Pimpernel.

 

Amping it all up, Massey blackmails Oberon over her brother who is being held in a French prison and is slated for the guillotine. In return for sparing her brother, he wants Oberon to help him find the Scarlet Pimpernel, which she does, not knowing she's leading Massey right to her husband. As in all good swashbucklers, it climaxes with a dramatic face-off where the evil protagonist, Massey, has captured the hero and his damsel.

 

What keeps this one going is Howard clearly having fun as both the foppish neerdowell nobleman by day and the devil-may-care Pimpernel at night. He shifts from one character to the other, sometimes intra-scene, with impressive adroitness. Howard is matched nicely by under-rated Raymond Massey who brings much needed gravitas to a movie that could easily have spun into farce. 

 

Also helping is some witty dialogue, reasonably engaging action scenes and several enjoyable character actors including Nigel Bruce as the bumbling Prince of Wales. The Scarlet Pimpernel is a bit clunky, but for 1934, it is a respectable early swashbuckler in a decade that saw some of the greatest swashbucklers Hollywood ever made. 

 

 

 

 

"They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere.  Is he in Heaven or is he in Hell?  That damned, elusive Pimpernel!"

Leslie is even more charming in PIMPERNEL SMITH (1941).

[Bronxgirl48]

[Bronxgirl48]

EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, so delightful.

A tacky 1970's group of would-be investors interested in unscrupulous real estate agent Joan Collin's Florida beachfront property get more than they bargained for when mutant ants come a-crawlin'. 

"DEAR GOD THEY'RE HERDING US LIKE CATTLE!!!"

It's no picnic.

 

[Bronxgirl48]

On 3/22/2022 at 10:10 PM, Swithin said:

I used to confuse Weird Woman, Captive Wild Woman, Voodoo Woman, and a few others.  Weird Woman is based on The Conjure Wife, a story which also inspired Burn Witch, Burn. Captive Wild Woman also stars Evelyn Ankers. Voodoo Woman is the trashiest of the lot, about a greedy woman from Pittsburgh (played by Marla English) who goes to Africa to find gold and ends up like this:

 

The way I look and feel without my morning cup of Taster's Choice coffee.

[coffeebits]

Last night's movie was French Connection II -- apparently the first sequel to feature a numeral directly following the title. Didn't have the same raw energy as the first film, but was still more or less entertaining. The prolonged detour into drug rehabilitation was an interesting decision!

[CinemaInternational]

1 hour ago, coffeebits said:

Last night's movie was French Connection II -- apparently the first sequel to feature a numeral directly following the title. Didn't have the same raw energy as the first film, but was still more or less entertaining. The prolonged detour into drug rehabilitation was an interesting decision!

One of the few sequels better than the original....

[Swithin]

Mrs. Miniver (1942) is a perfect movie.

[King Rat]

31 minutes ago, Swithin said:

Mrs. Miniver (1942) is a perfect movie.

The last photo is one of my favorite endings to a movie.

[Tikisoo]

11 hours ago, King Rat said:

The last photo is one of my favorite endings to a movie.

Somehow reminds me of WAR OF THE WORLDS last scene..

[filmnoirguy]

I just watched....oh, wait!  I just deleted King Richard from my Netflix queue WITHOUT watching it.

[JamesJazGuitar]

1 hour ago, filmnoirguy said:

I just watched....oh, wait!  I just deleted King Richard from my Netflix queue WITHOUT watching it.

 

[Sepiatone]

Can we be sure that WASN'T staged?

I mean, Bette didn't make fun of Olivia's husbands hair, did she?   

Sepiatone

[Fedya]

 

[LornaHansonForbes]

whew.

i went and broke a promise I made to you guys and went and watched A MODERN FILM, and a remake of one I am fond of at that- KENNETH BRANAGH'S long-delayed remake of AGATHA CHRISTIE'S DEATH ON THE NILE

It's on HULU.

It wasn't good, but it wasn't bad- really, the only outright complaint I have is that SOMEONE THINKS YOU HAVE TO HAVE THESE LOOP-DE-LOOP CGI/DRONE SHOT VISUALS where the camera, for example, follows the boat anchor down to the riverbed and the only answer the makers have as to "BUT WHY?" is "well, because we can."

Not gonna lie, I watched it 100% for JENNIFER SAUNDERS- she's reteamed with an anachronisticly coiffured DAWN FRENCH as MRS VAN SCHUYLER and BOWERS, there's a nice reveal scene where their secret comes out, but they rarely have any funny lines to say, nonetheless SAUNDERS was really terrific and actually did some real acting which it has been a while since I've seen in one of these types of joints.

They take an odd approach to the MRS OTTERBOURNE character (ANGELA LANSBURY in the film) by making her a black jazz and blues singer- but honestly, the actress who played her SOPHIE OKONEDO (sp?) was utterly marvelous.

Besides the performances of those two ladies, there's not much else...the scenery in many cases is not even genuine, there are moments where you can tell the actors are in front of a green screen and it is quite distracting.

also ARMIE HAMMER is a terrible terrible actor (and probably person).

also the ending is the exact same as the original.

however, I did like the music a lot.

BRANAGH did not make an interesting OR LIKEABLE or compelling POIROT though.

still, didn't hate it!

so there's that.

[EricJ]

4 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

It wasn't good, but it wasn't bad- really, the only outright complaint I have is that SOMEONE THINKS YOU HAVE TO HAVE THESE LOOP-DE-LOOP CGI/DRONE SHOT VISUALS where the camera, for example, follows the boat anchor down to the riverbed and the only answer the makers have as to "BUT WHY?" is "well, because we can."

BRANAGH did not make an interesting OR LIKEABLE or compelling POIROT though.

And why was Branagh making another Agatha Christie film?  Well, because he can, and was "supposed" to, like the other one did.  Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be any reason for it to exist, but then, the '79 Death on the Nile was such a generic mystery, there didn't seem to be any reason for that one to exist, either, except as "More stuff after '74's Orient Express".

(In Hollywood, you're not only "as good as your last film", you are your last film, and studios and analysts literally  expect you to remake it for the rest of your career.  Until you have another hit and they expect you to remake that till kingdom come.)

 And as for why Branagh felt the need to play Poirot in the first place, given the dog's-breakfast he made of the "Sleuth" remake, I'm guessing Branagh was wishfully making some inaccurate...assumptions about Poirot's personal life, just because he happened to be fussy and foppish.  Hercule himself would be quick to dispel them.

[Eucalyptus P. Millstone]

4 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

i . . . watched . . . KENNETH BRANAGH'S long-delayed remake of AGATHA CHRISTIE'S DEATH ON THE NILE . . .

Death on the Nile was the second movie that I've seen at a movie theatre this year. The first was The Cursed. Both movies begin exactly the same way: in battlefield trenches during World War I.

I thought Branagh's take on Christie's thriller was just "Meh" and a disappointing follow-up to his Murder on the Orient Express. I'm not particularly an Agatha Christie fan* -- never read her fiction. So I don't know if Sir Kenneth's adaptation is faithful to its source. In Death, his second outing as Hercule Poirot, Branagh provides an explanation for his outlandish facial hair. I don't know if the backstory was Branagh's invention or he was hewing to Christie's description. Whichever, it is, to me, a ridiculous look.

I was neither impressed by nor fond of the mother and daughter act portrayed by Sophie Okonedo and Letitia Wright. I dig jazz, but a little of Okonedo's vocal stylings went a long way with me. I suspect that the characters are radically different from Christie's conceptions and modernized to fit the 21st century notion of "Strong, Empowered Women." I was impressed by Russell Brand whom I initially did not recognize.

All in all, I prefer the 1978 version, Angela Lansbury and Olivia Hussey, and especially Peter Ustinov** as Christie's "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep."

4 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

. . . also ARMIE HAMMER is a terrible terrible actor . . .

. . . which made pairing him with Gal Gadot (his equal, acting-wise) perfect casting.

* Although I have been enjoying boob tube Agatha Christie adaptations starring Peter Ustinov as Poirot on Tubi.

** "When Rosalind Hicks, Agatha Christie's daughter, first saw me, she said, 'That's not Poirot.' I said, 'It is now, My Dear.' " --  Peter Ustinov, IMDb

 

[Fading Fast]

 

The Good Die Young from 1954 with Laurence Harvey, Richard Basehart, Stanley Backer, John Ireland, Gloria Graham and Joan Collins.

 

 

The Good Die Young is a kitchen-sink and crime-drama mashup done in a noirish style with an almost The Twilight Zone overlay - phew. Like the better all-in-one gadgets, it doesn't do any one thing great, but it is serviceable.  

 

Set in London, we meet four men whose lives are falling apart. One, Stanley Baker, is a middle-aged boxer who retired and immediately lost his modest savings while he had to have his hand amputated owing, in part, to an injury sustained in the ring. He needs money.

 

The second, Richard Basehart, is an American office worker who, effectively, quit his job to come to London to get his wife, Joan Collins (never looking better) to come back home. She's been taking care of her hypochondriac and passive-aggressive mother. Yet, after a few setbacks in London, he no longer has airfare home for them. He needs money. 

 

A third is a military pilot, John Ireland, whose actress wife, Gloria Graham, is openly flaunting her affair in front of her husband. He believes if he could afford to support her in the upscaled lifestyle she prefers, he could win her back. He needs money (or, better, a different wife).

 

The last one is playboy, Laurence Harvey, whose profligacy has burned down his money bridges to both his wealthy father and successful artist wife. With a check he wrote to pay off his most-recent gambling debt about to bounce, he needs money.  

 

After all that kitchen-sink drama, these four coincidentally meet over the next few weeks in the local pub where cocky and creepy Harvey tries to talk the other three into robbing a mail truck he knows will be carrying ninety-thousand pounds. While first laughing him off, the other three ultimately face the decision of becoming criminals or not: they do not choose wisely.

 

The Good Die Young now slips into both noir and The Twilight Zone mode as these men, who would have led honest lives if not pushed to the wall, after much angst, agree to go along with Harvey's slapdash plan. Harvey is a good salesman, but he's got a shoddy product. 

 

(Minor spoiler alerts for the next two paragraphs as it's not a big surprise.) We know what is going to happen next: these four are going to fail, but still, you're engaged in watching it painfully unfold. You're not quite rooting for them to succeed, but you can't help feeling bad as you know they (with the exception of Harvey) only ended up tumbling down to this level of desperation owing to a lot of not-good things happening in their lives in rapid succession. 

 

The "heist" itself is so sloppy that it's almost comical as a policeman walks right into it at the start, which just leads to one fatal mistake after another. As it all falls apart, a flash version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre plays out as greed and deceit amongst the gang members delivers the deathblow. 

 

The denouement is less noir than The Twilight Zone as you almost expect the closing scene to be the four men meeting up in the pub like they did early on with one of them saying, "You won't believe this crazy dream I had, now don't laugh, but we tried to hold up a mail truck..."

 

The Good Die Young is a small-budget effort with some real star power that mixes too many styles, but still works in a morality-tale way. 

 

 

 

 

[JamesJazGuitar]

12 hours ago, Fading Fast said:

The Good Die Young is a kitchen-sink and crime-drama mashup done in a noirish style with an almost The Twilight Zone overlay - phew. Like the better all-in-one gadgets, it doesn't do any one thing great, but it is serviceable

Very nice write-up!      I recently saw this  film (don't recall where),  but missed the first 15 minutes or so;  I like the group of actors and while the robbery was almost comical in how poor the gang pulled it off,   how they turned on each other was interesting.    Basehart has a moving  dying scene.  

[Fading Fast]

24 minutes ago, JamesJazGuitar said:

Very nice write-up!      I recently saw this  film (don't recall where),  but missed the first 15 minutes or so;  I like the group of actors and while the robbery was almost comical in how poor the gang pulled it off,   how they turned on each other was interesting.    Basehart has a moving  dying scene.  

Thank you for the kind comment. It's an odd but enjoyable movie,  mainly because of the the talented actors. As you noted, Basehart's dying scene is very good. 

[Eucalyptus P. Millstone]

18 hours ago, Fading Fast said:

The Good Die Young from 1954 with Laurence Harvey, Richard Basehart, Stanley Backer, John Ireland, Gloria Graham and Joan Collins.

For those whose appetite to watch The Good Die Young has been whetted by Fading Fast's crackerjack critique .  .  ,

 

[King Rat]

6 hours ago, Eucalpytus P. Millstone said:

For those whose appetite to watch The Good Die Young has been whetted by Fading Fast's crackerjack critique .  .  ,

 

That is quite a good cast.

[TomJH]

On 3/30/2022 at 10:11 PM, Fading Fast said:

 

The Good Die Young from 1954 with Laurence Harvey, Richard Basehart, Stanley Backer, John Ireland, Gloria Graham and Joan Collins.

 

 

The Good Die Young is a kitchen-sink and crime-drama mashup done in a noirish style with an almost The Twilight Zone overlay - phew. Like the better all-in-one gadgets, it doesn't do any one thing great, but it is serviceable.  

 

Set in London, we meet four men whose lives are falling apart. One, Stanley Baker, is a middle-aged boxer who retired and immediately lost his modest savings while he had to have his hand amputated owing, in part, to an injury sustained in the ring. He needs money.

 

The second, Richard Basehart, is an American office worker who, effectively, quit his job to come to London to get his wife, Joan Collins (never looking better) to come back home. She's been taking care of her hypochondriac and passive-aggressive mother. Yet, after a few setbacks in London, he no longer has airfare home for them. He needs money. 

 

A third is a military pilot, John Ireland, whose actress wife, Gloria Graham, is openly flaunting her affair in front of her husband. He believes if he could afford to support her in the upscaled lifestyle she prefers, he could win her back. He needs money (or, better, a different wife).

 

The last one is playboy, Laurence Harvey, whose profligacy has burned down his money bridges to both his wealthy father and successful artist wife. With a check he wrote to pay off his most-recent gambling debt about to bounce, he needs money.  

 

After all that kitchen-sink drama, these four coincidentally meet over the next few weeks in the local pub where cocky and creepy Harvey tries to talk the other three into robbing a mail truck he knows will be carrying ninety-thousand pounds. While first laughing him off, the other three ultimately face the decision of becoming criminals or not: they do not choose wisely.

 

The Good Die Young now slips into both noir and The Twilight Zone mode as these men, who would have led honest lives if not pushed to the wall, after much angst, agree to go along with Harvey's slapdash plan. Harvey is a good salesman, but he's got a shoddy product. 

 

(Minor spoiler alerts for the next two paragraphs as it's not a big surprise.) We know what is going to happen next: these four are going to fail, but still, you're engaged in watching it painfully unfold. You're not quite rooting for them to succeed, but you can't help feeling bad as you know they (with the exception of Harvey) only ended up tumbling down to this level of desperation owing to a lot of not-good things happening in their lives in rapid succession. 

 

The "heist" itself is so sloppy that it's almost comical as a policeman walks right into it at the start, which just leads to one fatal mistake after another. As it all falls apart, a flash version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre plays out as greed and deceit amongst the gang members delivers the deathblow. 

 

The denouement is less noir than The Twilight Zone as you almost expect the closing scene to be the four men meeting up in the pub like they did early on with one of them saying, "You won't believe this crazy dream I had, now don't laugh, but we tried to hold up a mail truck..."

 

The Good Die Young is a small-budget effort with some real star power that mixes too many styles, but still works in a morality-tale way. 

 

 

 

 

Very nice review, Fading Fast. You made me want to see the film, even with the presence in it of an actor I can't stand. What I'm about to say doesn't apply to your review but to  a followup comment made by another poster who blurted out a reference to a specific actor's death scene in the film.

Posters, PLEASE DON'T DO THAT! (at least without a spoiler alert). I'm amazed it's necessary to still have to even make that request for some.

[Tikisoo]

I finally watched THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT, 1994. It was actually great to see it several decades after leaving Australia & a career in the fashion industry, where I worked alongside cross dressing/trans entertainers. 

This is basically a "road trip" movie, where 3 performers travel across the Australian Desert (Outback) to perform a gig. The three pretty much only know each other from local stage work, so the movie is about their discoveries of each other & themselves-bringing along the viewer.

The three principle actors were fabulous: Terrence Stamp is a transgender woman who just lost her partner to Aids, Hugo Weaving is the drag queen who landed the job in Alice Springs & Guy Pearce plays a younger, defensive & obnoxious drag queen whom is very unlikeable, but the tension is needed for the story.

They meet all sorts of adventures along the way, mostly hostility towards "gays" which reminded me of what life was like for the community in the '90's. One of the most touching scenes for me was their visit with Aborigines who were first confounded by them but quickly won over by an impromptu performance. Art communicates better than words.

The performances are silly, the costumes even sillier but that is the 90's drag scene. As rude & off putting as the younger guy (Pearce) is, he is often singing, gesturing & performing in the bus for no one but himself, illustrating his true joie di vivre- only "allowable in public" when dressed as a woman, on a stage. The biggest takeaway from this movie is how much acceptance & progress we have made in the past 25 years. 

The guys are catty, exaggerated & fey, which thankfully is no longer typical behaviour. Like punk rockers of the time, drag was all about shocking cultural norms with outrageousness and these guys enjoyed dressing in drag & shocking those on the street...my favorite being this pink & orange flip flop ensemble-

It was great seeing my beloved Australia looking just as I remember;  run down Victorian Colonial towns with small, unheated red tile roof homes. (pictures of my old stomping grounds show the Victorian trifles have been replaced with glass skyscrapers)

But like La Cage Au Folles, you don't have to be gay to enjoy this movie. It's simply a story about 3 drag performers and how they dealt with life in a newly uncloseted environment. A road trip movie -in retrospect- about cultural transition.

A costume worth repeating....

[Peebs]

1 hour ago, TikiSoo said:

I finally watched THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT, 1994.

It won Best Costume Design at the Oscars that year.  I remember the designer wore a dress made of gold American Express Cards: