I Just Watched...

[Tikisoo]

I've noticed the ring before, not the finger it was on, but the size of it when he was in the fist fight with Chris (Ben Johnson) - ouch! 

 

You'll often see wedding bands worn by actors playing the role of a single person. No one forced them to remove it for realism of the role, they figured it wasn't that important.

 

Also, it seems to be an old tradition when a parent died the descendants would inherit their wedding rings and wear them. I often see an older person with a big elaborate band on their "wedded finger", ask about it & am told it was their parents' wedding ring. Only in the last 3/4 century or so have woman's wedding rings been a big diamond encrusted affair.

[darkblue]

Only in the last 3/4 century or so have woman's wedding rings been a big diamond encrusted affair.

 

The bloodier the better?

[LornaHansonForbes]

I know I really ought not to enter reviews for films that I cannot finish watching ( maybe someone can start a thread called I JUST (TRIED) TO WATCH, BUT NO...?)

But, in spite of a pretty funny opening and inspired credit sequence I only made it about half an hour into BANANAS.

 

I cringed during the child molestation joke, I fully bailed during the Woody Allen love scene.

 

Ick factor too high.

 

( although, they certainly get points for including the National Review on a rack of smut magazines.)

 

(Sorry Bogie, genuinely.)

 

PS: TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, RADIO DAYS, and SLEEPER are all excellent and very funny movies, so don't think I'm shutting myself off entirely just because it's Woody.

[scsu1975]

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967)

 

Very entertaining account of the famous rubout in 1929 Chicago. Jason Robards is a decent Al Capone, and thankfully, doesn’t try for an Italian accent. He does manage to get off a few choice phrases in Italian, but only my mother would understand them. He also wields a mean baseball bat. Ralph Meeker plays Bugs Moran, leader of the rival Chicago gang. The cast is loaded with familiar faces and future stars, and it seems like somebody gets bumped off every ten minutes. Harold J. Stone plays Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti and almost, but not quite, convinces me he could be Italian. George Segal has a riotous brawling scene with Jean Hale after he finds out she spent three grand on a fur coat. Their fight is on par with a WWE match. Joan Shawlee has a bit as a “streetwalking entrepreneur,” as we call it now. Jack Nicholson has one line, which he grunts out in a hoarse voice pre-Don Corleone. And you may even feel sorry for Bruce Dern in this film.

 

The movie was directed by Roger Corman, and features some of his stock players, including Dick Miller as one of the hit men.  Paul Frees supplies the narration, giving this a semi-documentary feel. But he is no Walter Winchell.

 

Definitely worth a look. It has been playing this month on Retroplex.

[Swithin]

I saw Denial (2016) and found it to be rather poor. A British neo-Nazi sues an American Jewish writer for defamation, in a UK court, where such cases are easier to bring. The characters are stereotypes. Rachel Weisz' Queens accent is over the top. The Brits are typical movie Brits. Harriet Walter, whom I adore on stage (What a Duchess of Malfi she was!), is cringe-making as a character who pops up regularly to represent the voice of all the Holocaust survivors residing in London. Tom Wilkinson is pretty good as the barrister. Timothy Spall is creepily effective as a British neo-Nazi "historian." I rather liked Andrew Scott. 

 

David Hare has done good work, as a playwright and (rarely) as a screenwriter. Denial is an exception. Maybe with an American writer and director, this could have been a decent film. The story deserved better treatment.

 

It's all rather loosely based on a true story, which is hard to believe.

[TomJH]

 

But what I noticed in SHANE the other night........

 

Shane had a RING on the "ring finger" of his left hand that I never noticed in all my previous viewings.  Can't tell if it was silver or gold, but it made me wonder. 

 

 

Alan Ladd wore his wedding ring in all his films.

[jtishere]

I just watched Albert Brooks' Modern Romance (1981), currently streaming on Netflix. Albert Brooks also co-wrote the script with Monica McGowan Johnson. He plays Robert, a Hollywood film editor, who is in a rollercoaster of a relationship with Mary, a bank executive. The film pretty much drops in on one go-round of what is clearly there standard cycle of breaking up and falling madly in love again.

 

It's quite a good film. Brooks is on the likeable side of neurotic, and Kathryn Harrold as Mary is quite charming. James L. Brooks plays the director of the film that Robert is editing (He later cast Albert Brooks in Broadcast News.), and Bruno Kirby plays Robert's co-worker, Jay. 

 

The film is full of memorable scenes, including a bit of an extended sequence with Robert at home after he takes quaaludes that is pure gold and quite a bit more underplayed than the quaalude scene in Scorcese's The Wolf of Wall Street. 

 

It was interesting to watch this film in the context of the way films and television tackle relationships today - it feels a bit of a precursor to modern relationship comedies. The humor can be subtle and sometimes requires patience but it can really pay off. It's a well-paced film, too. I heard/read somewhere that - of all people - Stanley Kubrick was a big fan of the film.

 

I also started watching Cleopatra (1963), but didn't get too far in before bedtime. I'll watch more tonight. I've been reading an Elizabeth Taylor biography and - outside of A Place in the Sun, Giant and The V.I.P.s - I really haven't seen her in film much. Naturally, I'm curious after reading the bio and figured this was as good a jumping point as any. 

[LornaHansonForbes]

I've only been watching SLANDER! for a little bit, and as I watch it I'm recalling that I seen it before. I just went to the listing on the schedule and was very surprised to see that Marjorie Rambeau played Steve Cochran's mother, I totally thought it was Ethel Barrymore. I mean, even after watching the scene I thought it was Ethel Barrymore. They looked and sounded an awful lot of like later on in their careers, but honestly I prefer Marjorie.

 

I was taken aback but how beautiful and downright sexy the actress playing Van Johnson's wife was and was similarly surprised to see that it was Ann Blyth!!

 

Totally did not recognize her, but man did she age well!!!!!!

[JamesJazGuitar]

I've only been watching SLANDER! for a little bit, and as I watch it I'm recalling that I seen it before. I just went to the listing on the schedule and was very surprised to see that Marjorie Rambeau played Steve Cochran's mother, I totally thought it was Ethel Barrymore. I mean, even after watching the scene I thought it was Ethel Barrymore. They looked and sounded an awful lot of like later on in their careers, but honestly I prefer Marjorie.

 

I was taken aback but how beautiful and downright sexy the actress playing Van Johnson's wife was and was similarly surprised to see that it was Ann Blyth!!

 

Totally did not recognize her, but man did she age well!!!!!!

 

Ann was only 29 years old when she made Slander so one would hope at that age she would look youthful.  

 

She was only 17 when she got her big break in Mildred Pierce  (assuming that is your basis for comparison).

[Fedya]

Paul Frees supplies the narration, giving this a semi-documentary feel. But he is no Walter Winchell.

Reed Hadley, who narrated those Fox docudramas of the 1940s, actually has a small role in this one, but I'd have to look it up to see which part he played.

 

I like the narration, since it makes it easier to figure out who's who and what's going on with so many characters. Since the movie is based on real events, giving away what happened to them doesn't really make a difference.

[Fedya]

I've only been watching SLANDER! for a little bit, and as I watch it I'm recalling that I seen it before.

MGM made some interesting (mostly black-and-white) programmers in the 1950s to help subsidize all those Freed Unit musicals.

[scsu1975]

Reed Hadley, who narrated those Fox docudramas of the 1940s, actually has a small role in this one, but I'd have to look it up to see which part he played.

 

 

Hymie Weiss

[LornaHansonForbes]

Ann was only 29 years old when she made Slander so one would hope at that age she would look youthful.

 

She was only 17 when she got her big break in Mildred Pierce (assuming that is your basis for comparison).

When I said that Ann Blyth "aged well" in SLANDER, I didn't mean she looked "old"- i did mean that she looked quite different than she did in Mildred, and quite clearly was a woman ( she passes quite well for a child in the early scenes of Mildred.)

 

I figured she couldn't have been too old since it was about 12 years after "Mildred" and she was not terribly old when she did that, she did look older than 29, but she was almost ageless in her beauty, and not just beautiful but SEXY too.

 

She was giving some hardcore, Linda Darnell REALNESS with the eyes.

[cigarjoe]

The Missing Person (2009) The Soft Boiled Detective

 

 

Brilliantly directed and written by Noah Buschel (Neal Cassady (2007), Glass Chin (2014), The Phenom (2016)). The film contains some interesting cinematography by Ryan Samul (Cold in July (2014). It also has a great jazz score compiled by Jim Black.

The film stars Michael Shannon as P.I. John Rosow, Frank Wood as Harold Fullmer, Amy Ryan as Miss Charley, Linda Emond as Mrs. Fullmer, John Ventimiglia as cabbie Hero Furillo, Margaret Colin as Lana Cobb, Paul Sparks as NYPD cop Gus Papitos, Yul Vazquez as Don Edgar, Paul Adelstein as attorney Drexler Hewitt, Kate Arrington as Jane Rosow. The great Joe Lovano appears doing a sax solo.

The Missing Person is one of the best Detective Films to come along in years. The story is smart and original, with a witty sense of humor. The dialogue crisp.  It's partly a fish out of water story as NYC native John negotiates Southern California, and partly a psychological drama. The film is also an entertaining riff on past detective films, The Narrow Margin, Murder My Sweet, The Big Sleep, the later Harper, Marlowe and even Pulp Fiction. There is there's also a nod to Edward Hopper's classic oil, New York Movie, 1939.

It's a fresh, realistic tack that this detective tale takes. This is exactly the kind of film that actually advances our Classic Hardboiled Detective into a believable place in today's world, it renews and resets the genre. He's not the P.I. on steroids. He's not the perfect knight in shining armor, he's damaged, jaded, anxious, weary, bordering on melancholia. The weight of some hidden world seems to be upon him. Our modern small time P.I. is also a bit of dinosaur around the new technology, he's an ex NYPD cop, and an alcoholic. Our updated P.I. is pickled and has soft boiled cool.

 

The Missing Person is a gem, another Noir lovers wet dream. The film is highly stylized and nicely accented with jazz pieces throughout. The mood and atmosphere created by director Noah Buschel is a marvel. I'll be sure to check out the rest of his films.

Michael Shannon is extraordinary as Rosow, his performance is understated as the haunted, damaged hero, who still retains a modicum of "cool". The rest of the supporting cast is excellent. The screencaps are from the Strand Releasing DVD. 9/10  Full review here in Film Noir/Gangster thread and with even more screencaps here http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-missing-person-2009-soft-boiled.html

[Sepiatone]

Alan Ladd wore his wedding ring in all his films.

 

Next time I watch CITIZEN KANE I'll keep a SHARP eye out for it.

 

Sepiatone

[LornaHansonForbes]

I forgot THE NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF POLICE SQUAD! was on last night and didn't tune in until the baseball game scene at the end. 

 

Damn, that is one funny movie.

 

(I ask: who among you has not hated someone so much that you wanted to see them fall 10 stories, be run over by a bus, then a steamroller, and then a marching band playing LOUIE! LOUIE! ?)

 

 

**and to any of you who say "not me" I say "LIAR!"

[TomJH]

Alan Ladd wore his wedding ring in all his films.

 

 

Next time I watch CITIZEN KANE I'll keep a SHARP eye out for it.

 

Sepiatone

 

Good luck.

 

[film lover 293]

"Hurry Sundown" (1967)--Starring Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, Robert Hooks, John Philip Law, and an all-star cast.  Directed by Otto Preminger, based on H.B. Gilden's bestseller.

 

Film is set in 1946 Georgia, just after WW II.  Henry Warren (Caine) is setting up a land deal to make himself richer and put his town on the map.  To complete the deal, he just needs two landowners, Reeve Scott (Hooks) and WW II veteran Rad McDowell (Law) to sell their land to him.  Neither one will sell.  The rest of the film is about Warren's attempts to make them sell, and about how everyone in this economic backwater is affected by that and racism.

 

Film's main problem is a rambling, diffuse script that attempts to fit a 900 page book into just over two hours.  When Preminger first announced he would be filming this book, he said it would be a four hour film; the final cut was two hours and twenty minutes.  Some performances have been noticeably cut; characters drop out of sight from the film without warning, plot threads are set up, then abruptly dropped.  The performances are all over the map, in terms of effectiveness.

 

The good: Jane Fonda, as Julie Warren, is unexpectedly good as the Southern girl who grows up and finally sees what a louse she's married to.  When angered, she oozes sarcasm overlaid with a  dose of Charm.  Madeleine Sherwood, as Eula Purcell, the woman who won the social lottery when she snagged herself a judge to marry, is very funny as she tries to improve her social and financial position.  Her best scene is when she throws a tantrum because her husband has jeopardized their daughters' wedding.  Diahann Carroll, as the sharp-witted schoolteacher from the North, is very amusing as she puts on an subservient act to get access to land records.  Robert Hooks is good, as is John Philip Law.

 

The problematic/impossible to tell: Michael Caine gets off to a dreadful start.  In his first scene he sounds like he came from London with stops in Little Rock and Savannah; his accent is SO bad I nearly gave up on the film in the first ten minutes.  He improves over the film, but he tends to overact all film long.  In his part as a Sheriff, George Kennedy is effective in a part that has noticeably been edited.  Burgess Merediths' part as Judge Purcell is so poisonously, obviously racist, that I don't see how anyone could play it believably.

 

Beah Richards, Rex Ingram, Faye Dunaway, Robert Reed are also in the film.  Hugh Montenegro's musical score sounds more like the 1960's than the 1940's, and Announces it's an Important Film.

 

"Hurry Sundown" was shot in Louisiana.  Preminger and some of the actors received death threats; tires were slashed; the production was protected by armed policemen.

 

Film is obvious, but is much better than its' reputation (It was one of the "50 Worst Films of All Time" in the 1978 book).  2.2/4

[Vautrin]

Another Woman (1988). Sad sack New York intellectuals,

take 35.

[Hibi]

Another Woman (1988). Sad sack New York intellectuals,

take 35.

 

LOL. I liked the music and Gena Rowlands was good......Sandy Dennis was funny in a small part. I'd forgotten she was even in it.....

 

 

The movie comes off more like a satire of a Bergman film than an American version of one........

[Vautrin]

LOL. I liked the music and Gena Rowlands was good......Sandy Dennis was funny in a small part. I'd forgotten she was even in it.....

 

 

The movie comes off more like a satire of a Bergman film than an American version of one........

I'm of two thoughts on this. Though he's done the same shtick in quite

a few films, they are enjoyable as little slices of life of a certain demo-

graphic and very few American directors are doing this. But he has

gone to the well maybe a few many times. And that rare time when

an apartment actually has a noisy neighbor. I did get a chuckle out of

David Ogden Stiers playing the younger version of John Houseman.

Something a bit weird about that. I believe Interiors was his first and

most obvious foray into Bergman and I've always found it hard to take

that one straight.

[darkblue]

"Hurry Sundown" (1967)--Starring Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, Robert Hooks, John Philip Law, and an all-star cast.  Directed by Otto Preminger, based on H.B. Gilden's bestseller.

 

Film is obvious, but is much better than its' reputation (It was one of the "50 Worst Films of All Time" in the 1978 book).  2.2/4

 

I had a buddy back in the early 70's who loved that movie. Thought it was one of the best movies he'd ever seen!

 

Trivia - do you realize that author K.B. Gilden is actually two people? Husband and wife.

[film lover 293]

darkblue--No, I didn't know H.B. Gilden was two people.  I tried reading Hurry Sundown when I was in my teens, but didn't get through it.  I'll have to try it again.  The film has enough good parts to recommend it, especially Madeleine Sherwood.  The films' end is like a declaration of war on the status quo. .

 

Premingers' biographer, Foster Hirsch, has a good account of the filming of "Hurry Sundown" in his bio of Preminger.  Last I saw on Amazon, it was under a dollar, w/o shipping and handling--or see if your library has it.  It's a good, enjoyable read.

[darkblue]

darkblue--No, I didn't know H.B. Gilden was two people.  I tried reading Hurry Sundown when I was in my teens, but didn't get through it.  I'll have to try it again. 

 

I don't understand why it was a best seller. It's a terribly-written novel. Does not flow well at all.

 

Stick with the movie.

[Sepiatone]

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, yet AGAIN!

 

Got it on disc AND an old VHS, but it was on(and nothing else interesting to me at the time) so I watched it.

 

I do take exception to when Ben mentioned, in his intro, the "brilliant" supporting cast, he mentioned everyone but KENNETH MARS, whose INSPECTOR KEMP was one of the film's high points for me.  LOVE that play with the "mechanical arm" and the "crowning touch" of wearing a monocle  over the patched eye!  

 

Sepiatone