I Just Watched...

[film lover 293]

"Varan The Unbelievable" (1962)--Starring a combination flying squirrel/dinosaur/ knockoff of The Creature from the Black Lagoon/Horror of Party Beach.

 

Disappointing Japanese monster movie.  After the establishing shots of a city in panic, film spends the next, nearly unendurable 24 minutes in showing how that happened, mainly by nonstop yapping.  When the monster Finally makes his appearance, its' appearance changes from shot to shot.  It terrorizes the island it's on, stomping on toy villages, knocking over a toy truck with the letters "ka" (Tonka Toys?) on it. Then threatening a major city.  Will it be stopped?

 

Film Desperately needs a restoration.  Saw on archive.org.  1.8/4. 

[scsu1975]

"Varan The Unbelievable" (1962)--Starring a combination flying squirrel/dinosaur/ knockoff of The Creature from the Black Lagoon/Horror of Party Beach.

 

Film Desperately needs a restoration.  Saw on archive.org.  1.8/4. 

Sounds more like it desperately needs a defenestration.

[wouldbestar]

 

I saw no sign of the cancer that would lead to McQueen's death in his appearance here. The actor found out about the asbestos-related mesothelioma shortly after filming on The Hunter was completed. (He died of a heart attack following a brutal operation to have tumors removed in Mexico).

 

 

 

2.5 out of 4

 

I did not know what actually killed him; just that he was found dead in bed supposedly with an open Bible and glasses nearby.  It was well known that he had cancer and was trying treatments in Mexico that weren't approved in the U. S.; also he'd become interested in the afterlife now that the "grim reaper" was hanging around.  I guess his lifestyle wore out his heart and it couldn't handle the surgery.

[LornaHansonForbes]

"Varan The Unbelievable" (1962)--Starring a combination flying squirrel/dinosaur/ knockoff of The Creature from the Black Lagoon/Horror of Party Beach.

 

Disappointing Japanese monster movie.

Wow. Seems like it would take some real effort to make that combination you just described be "disappointing."

[film lover 293]

"Two Rode Together" (1961)--Starring James Stewart, Richard Widmark, Shirley Jones, and Linda Cristal.  Directed by John Ford.

 

One of Fords' last westerns, this is another view of "The Searchers"--except this time, everything goes wrong. Mayor Guthrie McCabe (Stewart) is persuaded to leave his town by Lieutenant Jim Gary (Widmark) for an unknown reason.  When they reach the fort, McCabe finds out the Army wants him to meet with Comanche chief Quanah Parker to swap merchandise for thirty some captives--and there's a time limit.  Film goes from there.

 

This is Stewart's film.  He effortlessly runs the gamut from cynical comedy to anger to pleading--he's excellent.  Widmark does well in a supporting role, and lets fly with some one liners of his own.  Jones does as well as possible in her underwritten role.  Cristal does very well in her part--if I say anymore, I'll give away the plot.

 

There are moments of hope, but overall, this is a deeply cynical film.  Very worth the watch.  3.4/4.

 

[film lover 293]

LornaHansonForbes--The film is disappointing because it's near non-stop talk for almost the first half of the film (It's one hour and seven minutes long).  The monster is--amusing looking, but there's just too much talk.  The fact that I saw a lousy copy was part of the reason for a low rating.  If the print was good, it would be a 2/4.

[Sepiatone]

DUEL (1971) on Svengoolie.

 

Haven't seen it in a long time, so I looked in.  LOVED it when I first saw it, and still do.  That unseen truck driver STILL gets me!

 

And the movie still gets newer audiences.  A nephew of mine, back when HE first saw it at age 9 off a tape of it I had, thought it was "Sort of cool".  That was back about 1987.  HE now has it on a disc he downloaded and burned some years ago.  And HE just a couple of months ago played it for HIS son, now 8, and THAT kid said HE thought it was "Kinda cool"!  

 

Sepiatone

[LornaHansonForbes]

LornaHansonForbes--The film is disappointing because it's near non-stop talk for almost the first half of the film (It's one hour and seven minutes long). The monster is--amusing looking, but there's just too much talk. The fact that I saw a lousy copy was part of the reason for a low rating. If the print was good, it would be a 2/4.

Ah yes... gotta love those classic monster / drive-in movies of the past where three fourths of the length are made up of two scientists talking in a laboratory or people dialing on rotary phones...

 

Really, I think the invention of touch-tone dialing killed the genre more than anything else.

[Sepiatone]

What I failed to mention was that before I tuned in to see "Duel", I watched COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER on TCM.

 

I originally went to see it to find out what all the "buzz" was about when it came out.  The ex and I were already Tommy Lee Jones fans from his days on ONE LIFE TO LIVE, and I liked SISSY SPACEK as an actress, and also, though not a country music lover, still had respect for LORETTA LYNN as a performer, and was curious to see what her life before and after was "sort of" like, feeling that most "biopics" were usually about 80% or less accurate.  But still enough to give an overall general idea.

 

I hadn't, like with "Duel", seen the movie for many a year, but still found it enjoyable.   I thought Ben's little story of how Spacek got a telegram from DOLLY PARTON congratulating her and sugeesting she could use the money to, "Get a boob job and do the DOLLY PARTON STORY pretty funny.  From what I've always seen of Ms. Parton on talk shows and other interviews over the years, it DOES sound like something she'd do. 

 

 

Sepiatone

[cigarjoe]

The Case Against Brooklyn (1958) Pseudo NYPD Noir

 

 

The story is a quasi police procedural, about the investigation of a breaking news story about police corruption infesting Kings County (Brooklyn). Police corruption was already addressed in earlier Noir films such as The Big Heat (1953) - Philadelphia, is probably the first film that comes to mind, but we also have The Turning Point (1952) -  Los Angeles, Rogue Cop (1954) - New York, and Shield for Murder (1954) - Los Angeles that all travel to some extent down the same track.

 

Darren McGavin is excellent, you can see why he was tagged to play Mike Hammer in the 1958-59 TV series, which BTY in case you are interested has quite a few noir-ish episodes The series is available on DVD.

 

Harris goes around with a chip on his shoulder, a hair trigger temper and a Colt .45 Automatic (too bad the Mike Hammer series didn't include the .45). The rest of the cast is good, my only small quibble is with the female leads, you mean to tell me Columbia couldn't come up with some of their better known female talent, Kim Novak, Anne Bancroft, Jayne Mansfield, Martha Vickers, or Felicia Farr? I guess they were cutting costs all down the line. The film uses plot points and stylistic devices from other films noticeably The Big Heat, and Desperate. It's entertaining enough, 7/10.

 

More screencaps from the SPHE DVD in Film Noir gangster thread and here http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-case-against-brooklyn-1958-pseudo.html

 

[scsu1975]

 

The Case Against Brooklyn (1958) Pseudo NYPD Noir

 

 

I've seen this, and it just jogged my memory. There is a scene with somebody using a remote control on their tv set, which surprised the heck out of me when I saw it.

[cigarjoe]

I've seen this, and it just jogged my memory. There is a scene with somebody using a remote control on their tv set, which surprised the heck out of me when I saw it.

Yea, it was a zenith remote.

[speedracer5]

I watched a lot of films recently, I just haven't had time to post much here.

 

The Great Dictator.  I watched this Charlie Chaplin film a week or so ago.  It was a pretty daring film considering the subject matter and the time in which it was released.  I must say that I prefer Chaplin's silent efforts over this film.  It was a little disconcerting to hear him speak.  Chaplin played two characters in this film: A Jewish barber who looked much like The Little Tramp and a dictator who suspicously seemed very much like Hitler.  There were some funny scenes, like when the dictator was running between all the rooms holding his various pursuits.  I liked that he was simultaneously posing for a painting and a sculpture at the same time.  The famous globe scene was amusing.  Other than that, this film didn't really do much for me.  I liked City Lights, The Kid and The Gold Rush better.  With that said, I am planning on recording Limelight that is airing on Tuesday. 

 

Brute Force.  I recorded this Burt Lancaster noir earlier this week.  It was pretty good.  I liked the grittiness of the film and it did contain one of my favorite film motifs--people in jail, even if it wasn't my preferred women in jail genre.  Lancaster was excellent as the prisoner who wanted to get out of the penitentiary.  Hume Cronyn was also good as the power hungry supervisor who got off on abusing his prisoners.  This film was surprisingly violent for a 1947 film.  I was disappointed that the ladies, Yvonne De Carlo and Ann Blyth didn't have bigger roles.

 

Primrose Path.  I really liked this Ginger Rogers and Joel McCrea movie that I recorded.  Rogers was excellent as the tomboyish young woman from the wrong side of the tracks who meets the more well off McCrea.  I also liked Henry Travers who portrayed "grandpa," the older gentleman that worked at the diner with Rogers and McCrea.  This film was pretty forward for 1940 as it involved themes of alcoholism and prostitution.  The woman who portrayed Rogers' grandmother reminded me of an older Bette Davis.  

 

The Marrying Kind.  I don't know about this film.  I like Judy Holliday and I liked the idea of the story: a series of flashbacks demonstrating how a couple ended up in divorce court.  However, I hated Aldo Ray who portrayed Judy's husband.  His character was horrible and I can see why she wanted to leave him.  I also didn't like how Judy and Aldo spent the entire film screaming at each other (and it wasn't even amusing like in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?).  The ending seemed a little rushed and all of a sudden the story was wrapped up in a tight little bow.  

 

Little Darlings.  I watched this 1980 teen sex drama last night.  I was a bit disappointed in the lack of scandal in this film.  I read that the film was rated R when it came out, but considering what content is in a rated R film now, Little Darlings was like PG.  Kristy McNichol and Tatum O'Neal were excellent as the teenage girls who bet each other that they will lose their virginity before the other.  I liked Matt Dillion though I hated his hair and I hated how he tucked his Marlboros under his sleeve.  The scene that I thought was the funniest was the scene where the little 10-year old girl was pushed into the bathroom to get condoms and she ends up ripping off the whole machine.  This film was very tame.  

[EricJ]

The Great Dictator.  I watched this Charlie Chaplin film a week or so ago.  It was a pretty daring film considering the subject matter and the time in which it was released.  

 

I must give credit where credit is due:

When he was making it, Chaplin was considered "shocking" for making a comedy protesting Hitler.  (As suggesting that Hitler was bad enough for us to get involved with was chiefly flag-waved by the left-leaning Communist communities, and was as Subversively Leftwing before 1941 as suggesting we should go to war).

Yet no one remembers that at the same time before 1940, the Three Stooges were already working on "You Nazty Spy", which was about as lowbrow yet still topic-specific that Hitler protests could be at that time.

 

Chaplin may not have been the "First comic ever to go after the Nazis" after all...  

[Fedya]

(As suggesting that Hitler was bad enough for us to get involved with was chiefly flag-waved by the left-leaning Communist communities, and was as Subversively Leftwing before 1941 as suggesting we should go to war).

American Communists were all for going after the Nazis up until the Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact in August 1939, at which point they suddenly turned on a dime. They suddenly turned again in June of 1941 when Hitler invaded the USSR.

 

Noted Hollywood Communist Dalton Trumbo actually wrote an isolationist agitprop novel, The Remarkable Andrew, that used the ghost of Andrew Jackson to try to convince people not to get involved in the war in Europe.

 

The Communists shouldn't have been blacklisted, but they should be remembered as the dupes and apologists for a monstrous ideology that they were.

 

(Leni Riefenstahl shouldn't have been blacklisted either, and should have been included in the Trailblazing Women series that TCM ran the past two Octobers.)

[EricJ]

American Communists were all for going after the Nazis up until the Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact in August 1939, at which point they suddenly turned on a dime. They suddenly turned again in June of 1941 when Hitler invaded the USSR.

 

Noted Hollywood Communist Dalton Trumbo actually wrote an isolationist agitprop novel, The Remarkable Andrew, that used the ghost of Andrew Jackson to try to convince people not to get involved in the war in Europe.

 

The Communists shouldn't have been blacklisted, but they should be remembered as the dupes and apologists for a monstrous ideology that they were.

 

 

"Red Hollywood" is a good documentary on the Hollywood Ten's contributions (of which Billy Wilder said "Only two were actually talented, the rest were just unfriendly"), and you can see there was a lot of very naive soapboxing on the part of Trumbo and other screenwriters that was trying to jump on the ideals without noticing the details--

Nowadays, we look at depictions of "Rich people are decadent", "Fascism has to be fought", and "Racing the crazy corporate rat-race for a promotion" as just easy audience-hook products of the Depression and the war, but they actually thought they were trying to get some message across to the Unenlightened Masses...."We were just too naive", one writer recalls.

 

Heard one reason that Vincent Price went from playing noir-cads at the studios to playing horror movie roles for House of Wax and Roger Corman was that Price had been on a Left-suspicion "gray-list" for speaking against Germany before the war, and job offers were becoming scarcer.

There were a lot of convenient excuses for demonizing anyone against 1940 isolationism, and Chaplin's own personal views didn't help the image any.

[EugeniaH]

I just finished watching Brute Force on dvd, via classicflix.com. Before I started this post I did a quick scroll through this thread, not expecting that someone else (Speedy) reviewed the same movie so recently. So apologies to Speedy in advance - my review is just a coincidence.

I have mixed feelings about this film. It's well made and the acting is good, but the storylines are trite. Obviously there's gonna be a plot for a prison break, and of course there's a prison guard who's abusive and power-mad. You watch this and think to yourself, you've seen one you've seen them all. To those who say, well, there's not much you can write about with a prison flick, I point to two much better stories: Riot in Cell Block 11 and The Birdman of Alcatraz, also with Lancaster.

[hamradio]

"Impact" (2009) the moon is on a collision course due to it's encounter with a brown dwarf remnant.

The military has the standard mindset... BLOW IT UP!!

 

Shoot the moon!

 

Missiles failed but the scientist did achieve splitting it in two.  Always like films with a happy ending.

 

 

 

Movie poster

 

 

 

Is this movie stupid or what.

 

 

Excerpt from Bad Astronomy link..

 

The verdict: if I have time, I’ll watch it, but I expect this to set a new nadir for astronomically-based TV that previously was occupied by the likes of"Doomsday Rock". But just to be safe, I’ll put my brain in a jar and bury it in the back yard first. No need to damage it any further after that trailer.

 

 

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/15/if-i-watch-this-i-hope-the-moon-will-hit-the-earth/#.WCBNudQrJgs

[Fedya]

"Red Hollywood" is a good documentary on the Hollywood Ten's contributions (of which Billy Wilder said "Only two were actually talented, the rest were just unfriendly"), and you can see there was a lot of very naive soapboxing on the part of Trumbo and other screenwriters that was trying to jump on the ideals without noticing the details--

I think it was Bud Schulberg (who named names) who said something to the effect that the Communists seemed very protective of free speech, until it was speech they disagreed with. Or something to that effect.

 

I've read that Dalton Trumbo tried to get anti-Communist stuff (like Koestler's Darkness at Noon) from being turned into movies.

[LornaHansonForbes]

I just finished watching Brute Force on dvd, via classicflix.com. Before I started this post I did a quick scroll through this thread, not expecting that someone else (Speedy) reviewed the same movie so recently. So apologies to Speedy in advance - my review is just a coincidence.

I have mixed feelings about this film. It's well made and the acting is good, but the storylines are trite. Obviously there's gonna be a plot for a prison break, and of course there's a prison guard who's abusive and power-mad. You watch this and think to yourself, you've seen one you've seen them all. To those who say, well, there's not much you can write about with a prison flick, I point to two much better stories: Riot in Cell Block 11 and The Birdman of Alcatraz, also with Lancaster.

 

Also THE BIG HOUSE (1930?) w/ Wallace Beery and Chester Morris- a film that delves into the psychology and interdependence of men in prison. It's the film that really put Beery on the radar.

 

Some people also like Howard Hawk's THE CRIMINAL CODE (ALSO 1930?) but to be honest, I found it really boring.

[LornaHansonForbes]

Noted Hollywood Communist Dalton Trumbo actually wrote an isolationist agitprop novel, The Remarkable Andrew, that used the ghost of Andrew Jackson to try to convince people not to get involved in the war in Europe.

 

 

Yeah, 'cause ANDREW JACKSON is someone whose advice and example we should all follow.

(eyeroll)

[film lover 293]

"Monty Python's Life of Brian" (1979)--Scattershot satire on the Biblical epics of the 1950's, film starts off well with animated credits, then slows down as some jokes hit, some miss.  Some of the best jokes are the most tasteless (also the ones I can't repeat here).  Pontius Pilate ("I pawdon Wodewick!")  makes a definite impression; the takeoffs on "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965) and the multiple jokes from "Ben-Hur"(1959) work well.  Your enjoyment will depend on your tolerance for tastelessness--I enjoyed it.

 

Twenty cast members played seventy odd roles.   Look for George Harrison.  3/4.

[Movie Collector OH]

"Impact" (2009) the moon is on a collision course due to it's encounter with a brown dwarf remnant.

The military has the standard mindset... BLOW IT UP!!

 

Shoot the moon!

 

Missiles failed but the scientist did achieve splitting it in two.  Always like films with a happy ending.

 

 

 

Movie poster

 

 

 

Is this movie stupid or what.

 

 

Excerpt from Bad Astronomy link..

 

The verdict: if I have time, I’ll watch it, but I expect this to set a new nadir for astronomically-based TV that previously was occupied by the likes of"Doomsday Rock". But just to be safe, I’ll put my brain in a jar and bury it in the back yard first. No need to damage it any further after that trailer.

 

 

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/15/if-i-watch-this-i-hope-the-moon-will-hit-the-earth/#.WCBNudQrJgs

 

Something for the stupid science thread.

[MarshaKatz]

I've been binging on the M*A*S*H marathon on the Sundance channel and have been enjoying myself thoroughly.  Took a break and watched "The Best Man", a film I've seen quite a few times and to me it hasn't lost its grit.  I googled the original Broadway Playbill and learned that Melvyn Douglas played Russell, Frank Lovejoy Cantwell and Lee Tracy former president Hockstader, the only member of the original cast to recreate his role in the movie version. The play was nominated for 6 Tony Awards including Best Play, and both Douglas and Tracy were nominated for Best Actor, with Douglas being awarded the Tony.

[Sepiatone]

"Monty Python's Life of Brian" (1979)--Scattershot satire on the Biblical epics of the 1950's, film starts off well with animated credits, then slows down as some jokes hit, some miss.  Some of the best jokes are the most tasteless (also the ones I can't repeat here).  Pontius Pilate ("I pawdon Wodewick!")  makes a definite impression; the takeoffs on "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965) and the multiple jokes from "Ben-Hur"(1959) work well.  Your enjoyment will depend on your tolerance for tastelessness--I enjoyed it.

 

Twenty cast members played seventy odd roles.   Look for George Harrison.  3/4.

 

I really liked that movie.  I partcularily liked the "Sermon on the Mount" segment( "WHAT?.  Blessed are the GREEK?") Whenever I've seen it re-enacted in other "serious" biblical efforts, I wondered at how COULD all those people REALLY hear what was actually being said?

 

Also the segment of the meeting of the zealots where one shouts, "What have the Romans ever given US?"  and  a few  speak up..."Roads"...Architecture"...Sanitation"...and so on. 

 

Sepiatone