I Just Watched...

[LawrenceA]

Gai dimanche! (1935) - aka Fun Sunday! French comedy short from writers Jacques Tati & Rhum and director Jacques Berr. Two homeless guys (Rhum and Tati) devise a dubious scheme to make some quick bucks: rent a large vehicle and charge people for a luncheon trip to the countryside. 

This minor early effort from the great Tati is pretty standard silent-era comedy fare, with lots of physical slapstick humor. Collaborator Rhum was a famous clown and comedian at the time, and the duo have some chemistry, and could perhaps have been a successful ongoing screen duo. This short has a lot of promise but few laughs, though.  (5/10)

Source: FilmStruck.

[Bethluvsfilms]

5 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

Gai dimanche! (1935) - aka Fun Sunday! French comedy short from writers Jacques Tati & Rhum and director Jacques Berr. Two homeless guys (Rhum and Tati) devise a dubious scheme to make some quick bucks: rent a large vehicle and charge people for a luncheon trip to the countryside. 

This minor early effort from the great Tati is pretty standard silent-era comedy fare, with lots of physical slapstick humor. Collaborator Rhum was a famous clown and comedian at the time, and the duo have some chemistry, and could perhaps have been a successful ongoing screen duo. This short has a lot of promise but few laughs, though.  (5/10)

Source: FilmStruck.

Guy on the right sort of looks like Spencer Tracy!

[LawrenceA]

The Girl from 10th Avenue (1935) - Romantic melodrama from Warner Brothers/First National and director Alfred E. Green. Bette Davis stars as Miriam, a working class girl who happens to meet Geoffrey (Ian Hunter), a wealthy society man who has become a drunken wreck after his girlfriend left him and married another man. Miriam helps get Geoffrey's life back on track, and he marries her. She then struggles to fit into upper-crust society, while Geoffrey's ex sets her sights on him again. Also featuring Alison Skipworth, Colin Clive, Katharine Alexander, Phillip Reed, John Eldredge, Helen Jerome Eddy, Bill Elliott, and Mary Treen.

The script is pedestrian and the direction uninspired but the effort is saved by winning performances from all involved. Davis is sweet and sympathetic when needed, and hard-edged when called in, such as in a terrific confrontation scene in a crowded ritzy restaurant. Skipworth, as Davis's confidante, and Clive, as the sad sack married to Geoffrey's ex, are both noteworthy.   (7/10)

Source: TCM.

 

[laffite]

Interesting picture of a young Tati.

[shutoo]

Just finished watching Lady Bird...still sniffling.  Absolutely lovely picture that feels unaffected and doesn't resort to the usual 'coming of age' stereotypes.  Saoirse Ronan (who I honestly have never seen before) was terrific..in fact, there really wasn't a bad performance in the bunch.  Even though it was very small, the scene where Ronan and her mother (Laurie Metcalf..worthy of an Oscar nod) spend a Sunday touring through houses for sale--the big expensive homes 'across the track'-- shows us what Lady Bird never seems to understand: that she and the woman she's always battling aren't very different at all in what they want.  No matter when you were a teen, this is definitely worth watching.

[LawrenceA]

5 minutes ago, shutoo said:

Just finished watching Lady Bird...still sniffling.  Absolutely lovely picture that feels unaffected and doesn't resort to the usual 'coming of age' stereotypes.  Saoirse Ronan (who I honestly have never seen before) was terrific..in fact, there really wasn't a bad performance in the bunch.  Even though it was very small, the scene where Ronan and her mother (Laurie Metcalf..worthy of an Oscar nod) spend a Sunday touring through houses for sale--the big expensive homes 'across the track'-- shows us what Lady Bird never seems to understand: that she and the woman she's always battling aren't very different at all in what they want.  No matter when you were a teen, this is definitely worth watching.

Ronan was also very good in Atonement, Hanna, The Lovely Bones, and Brooklyn.

[shutoo]

9 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

Ronan was also very good in Atonement, Hanna, The Lovely Bones, and Brooklyn.

I guess I have seen her then...at least in Atonement 

[LsDoorMat]

Silence (1931) 7/10

The film starts with a middle aged man, Jim Warren (Clive Brook) awaiting execution as a prison band rehearses a lively number while the hammering of the gallows is heard in the background. Talk about the strange contrast. The prison warden and priest are telling Warren that they never believed he committed the murder and they are urging him to say what really happened. He refuses. At first. But then the warden leaves and the priest convinces him to tell him his story as a confession to a priest cannot be betrayed. So Warren tells his story, starting way back in 1909, twenty years before.

Apparently Jim was just getting out of jail for some thievery, but the police still don't have the loot. They think his girlfriend, Norma (Peggy Shannon), may have the goods, and when they find it in her apartment they put her in jail. Jim finds out and says he'll do anything to get her out of trouble. The woman who helped Jim get out of prison in the first place, Mollie (Marjorie Rambeau), says she can fix it but Jim must marry her. Apparently she has always carried a torch and doesn't care if the feeling isn't mutual.

The wedding day is bittersweet, because part of it is just hilarious. Clive Brook uses his naturally rather sullen looks to good effect here as there is a huge clamor of a pre-wedding celebration going on in Mollie's saloon. Mollie  tries to get Jim into the spirit of things showing him how she's redecorated the bedroom for him, but there hang the portraits of his two predecessors, Mollie's first two husbands, both of whom died in the same bed which will be his bed by the end of the day.

Meanwhile, Phil Powers is getting Norma out of jail. As Norma can speak of nothing but being reunited with Jim, and Phil knows of the bargain that has been struck, Phil thinks he can sneak Norma into Mollie's boarding house, help her collect her things, and get Norma out before she finds out what is going on. But that's not how it works out. When Norma learns Jim is marrying Mollie - remember she does not know why - she faints and is carried upstairs. Jim says he cannot go through with it to Mollie, who threatens him with the law. Jim doesn't care and goes upstairs to marry Norma, but it is too late. The alderman has just married Phil and a half conscious Norma (is this legal??) to one another.

Two decades pass and the child Norma was carrying at the time of their marriage - of which Phil had full knowledge - is born and grows into the spitting image of Norma. Phil and Norma also name her Norma??? Phil becomes very prosperous, owning a newspaper and real estate. Plus he is on a crusade to out a local crime boss. Young Norma is about to marry into - not just a wealthy family - but a socially prominent one.

Meanwhile Jim Warren has been working various pickpocket and shell game schemes to keep a roof over his head all of these years with his unseemly companion, Harry Silvers (John Wray). Nobody plays the early talkie Snidely Whiplash like John Wray, and this film is no exception. Jim has had nothing to nurse him through the lonely years but a photo of Norma from twenty years ago, and the letters she sent to him when he was in jail and he learned of her pregnancy. Now Harry is tired of being poor and always one step ahead of the cops, and he vocalizes a plot to blackmail Phil Powers into buying the letters so the two of them can retire in style. Jim reacts violently to the suggestion and says he'll kill anybody who jeopardizes his daughter's future. In these snobby eugenics believing times, Jim's daughter would be considered a social pariah if she was known to be the illegitimate child of a common thief. I'll let you watch and see what happens. Let me just say that this thing is not going exactly where you think it is, and its conclusion is an object lesson in why employees should wear badges with photo ID.

The acting in this Paramount film that feels somewhat like a poverty row film is well done. Paramount tried to give Clive Brook a chance in talking films, but his aristocratic British accent just did not go with what people expected given his silent roles. Here he almost pulls off an American urban street accent. At least I'm not wondering why this guy is not in a tuxedo as I had in some of his earlier talking roles. And something else unusual for the early talking films - when they go back in time people are actually dressed like it is 1909 not 1930. They actually got the early 20th century costume design right.

The only bad thing I can say is it feels like some of the film has been edited for television due to the production code although archives say it was never actually televised. The reason I say that is that it is not at all clear that Norma is pregnant with Jim's child until twenty years later when that fact is revealed. Nothing ever said in the copy I saw would lead you to that conclusion in the early part of the film.

[LawrenceA]

Goin' to Town (1935) - Anemic comedy from Paramount Pictures and director Alexander Hall. Mae West is Cleo Borden, a notorious dance hall girl who agrees to marry a two-gun outlaw in the wild west. After he's killed, she inherits his estate, which includes land that's oil rich, making her the wealthiest woman in the state. Despite all of her money, though, she lacks the refinement to attract suave Edward Carrington (Paul Cavanagh), so she sets out to "improve" herself. Also featuring Gilbert Emery, Marjorie Gateson, Tito Coral, Ivan Lebedeff, Fred Kohler, Monroe Owsley, Luis Alberni, Gino Corrado, and Grant Withers.

West's script lacks the high number of zingers present in her previous films, perhaps a symptom of the newly enforced production code. She also surrounds herself with a fairly undistinguished group of actors, many of whom look too blandly similar to make an impression.   (6/10)

Source: Universal DVD, part of Mae West: The Essentials Collection.

 

[CinemaInternational]

25 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

Goin' to Town (1935) - Anemic comedy from Paramount Pictures and director Alexander Hall. Mae West is Cleo Borden, a notorious dance hall girl who agrees to marry a two-gun outlaw in the wild west. After he's killed, she inherits his estate, which includes land that's oil rich, making her the wealthiest woman in the state. Despite all of her money, though, she lacks the refinement to attract suave Edward Carrington (Paul Cavanagh), so she sets out to "improve" herself. Also featuring Gilbert Emery, Marjorie Gateson, Tito Coral, Ivan Lebedeff, Fred Kohler, Monroe Owsley, Luis Alberni, Gino Corrado, and Grant Withers.

West's script lacks the high number of zingers present in her previous films, perhaps a symptom of the newly enforced production code. She also surrounds herself with a fairly undistinguished group of actors, many of whom look too blandly similar to make an impression.   (6/10)

Source: Universal DVD, part of Mae West: The Essentials Collection.

 

I still liked this one a lot finding it to be quite zippy, and as far as West comedies go, it still has more zing than her first Post-code film Belle of the Nineties (Which was a pale imitation of her better films)

[LawrenceA]

Hands Across the Table (1935) - Entertaining romantic comedy from Paramount Pictures and director Mitchell Leisen. Manicurist Regi Allen (Carole Lombard) has her sights set on landing a rich husband, one whom she'll hopefully meet on the job. Instead she runs into Theodore Drew III (Fred MacMurray), a playboy dilettante who only dates rich women. The two fall in love, naturally, but they face a lot of hurdles along the way. With Ralph Bellamy, Astrid Allwyn, Ruth Donnelly, Marie Prevost, Herman Bing, and William Demarest. 

Lombard is at her appealing best here, and she's the film's obvious highlight. I'm not much of a fan of MacMurray (outside of a couple of movies), and this role doesn't make me change my mind. However, I was impressed by Bellamy as a rich former aviator confined to a wheelchair. It's one of his better "third wheel" roles of the period.  (7/10)

Source: Universal DVD, part of Carole Lombard: The Glamour Collection.

[TomJH]

12 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

Hands Across the Table (1935) - Entertaining romantic comedy from Paramount Pictures and director Mitchell Leisen. Manicurist Regi Allen (Carole Lombard) has her sights set on landing a rich husband, one whom she'll hopefully meet on the job. Instead she runs into Theodore Drew III (Fred MacMurray), a playboy dilettante who only dates rich women. The two fall in love, naturally, but they face a lot of hurdles along the way. With Ralph Bellamy, Astrid Allwyn, Ruth Donnelly, Marie Prevost, Herman Bing, and William Demarest. 

Lombard is at her appealing best here, and she's the film's obvious highlight.

 

Carole really is a charmer in this film. For those film buffs not enamored with the shouting, manic Lombard to be seen in her most famous screwball comedies (My Man Godfrey, 20th Century) this gentler version of the actress may be the charm that wins them over.

Hands Across The Table is representative of Lombard at her romantic comedy best.

[EricJ]

How fortuitous to be discussing great screwball-comedy females--

Just in time for me to have finally finished up my Amazon Prime Christmas/Boxing Day queue to get around to Christmas in Connecticut (1945), which probably gets annual play on TCM for being a Warner movie--But which I hadn't seen, and only watched for it being one of the few "real" vintage holiday movies on free Prime besides Danny Kaye, Albert Finney and "Holiday Inn".

For those who haven't seen it, gee-whiz war-hero Dennis Morgan returns from the Navy, and housekeeping-editor Sydney Greenstreet comes up with the publicity stunt of letting him spend Christmas with Barbara Stanwyck as the magazine's Martha Stewart-like queen of the kitchen and entertaining, with her husband and baby on their idyllic farm in Connecticut...Problem is, he doesn't realize his magazine star is a big fat fraud, who lives in a single apartment and can't boil water.  With the help of restaurant uncle S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall who provided all her recipes, she has to come up with a husband, farm, baby and Christmas, while trying not to fall for the big lug.

Such fluff would normally be the stuff of Hallmark Channel Christmas cable rom-coms(which were cathartically she-savaged in a hilarious deleted SNL sketch last week), except that Barbara Stanwyck comes from the old screwball-comedy school of the Studio System days.  Back then, women really COULD be funny, get over it, as studios didn't want to sell their comedies to only half the audience, and actresses like Carole Lombard or Eve Arden had to be trained in the mechanics of classic mainstream studio comedy.

Here, Stanwyck plays the same cornered con-woman trying to fast-talk her way out of mounting last-second obstacles that she played in Preston Sturges' "The Lady Eve", Cuddles mangles his usual lovable English, Greenstreet shows a game John McGiver-like talent for comedy, and even Una O'Connor from the Universal Frankenstein movies has a funny shriek-free bit part as an overworked Irish housekeeper.

(And before some wag like Dargo or Fedya points it out, yes, I know the '92 cable made-for-Turner remake exists, with Dyan Cannon and Kris Kristofferson, directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger--No, I haven't seen it, and yes I know he did.  It sort of shows.)

[LawrenceA]

I Dream Too Much (1935) - Lightweight musical designed to showcase opera star Lily Pons, from RKO and director John Cromwell. Struggling American composer Johnny Street (Henry Fonda) is in France where he stumbles across naive, sheltered young woman Annette Monard (Pons). After a drunken night out, they wake up married, and decide to give it a go. Johnny is stunned to discover that Annette is a gifted operatic singer, in training since childhood, and after impresario Paul Darcy (Osgood Perkins) hears her, she becomes a leading star of the European musical stage, much to the annoyance of Johnny, who can't sell a song much less his opera. Also featuring Eric Blore (with a performing seal), Lucille Ball, Lucien Littlefield, Mischa Auer, Paul Porcasi, Gino Corrado, Billy Gilbert, Ferdinand Gottschalk, and Scotty Beckett.

Pons, a gifted singer, has trouble with her dialogue and her thick French accent makes understanding her a bit difficult at times. She seems like she's enjoying herself, but at age 37 at the time of filming she seems a bit old for her role. The romance is lacking in chemistry, and the comedy is weak, especially considering the talents of Blore and Ball. That leaves the songs: there's some classical-style opera, some operetta bits, and some pop tunes, but none made any impression. The "show-stopper" musical number at the end, featuring a fashion show, and one of the silliest choreographed group dance bits I've ever seen, brings some unintentional entertainment. This movie managed to nab an Oscar nomination, for Best Sound Recording.   (5/10)

Source: TCM.

[LawrenceA]

I Stand Condemned (1935) - aka Moscow Nights. World War One era spy drama and romantic triangle melodrama from GFD and director Anthony Asquith. Laurence Olivier stars as injured Russian army officer Ivan Ignatoff who, while recuperating in hospital, falls in love with nurse Natasha (Penelope Dudley-Ward). She loves him, too, only she's been promised in marriage to wealthy war profiteer Peter (Harry Baur). When Ivan gets into financial trouble, he gets targeted by secret spymaster Madame Sabline (Athene Seyler). Also featuring Lilian Braithwaite, Morton Selten, Sam Livesey, and Anthony Quayle in his debut.

This British production is very British in manner and speech, and I often forgot that I was supposed to be watching Russian characters. The great French star Harry Baur makes one of his few English-language appearances, and he'd played the same role in the French version made the year earlier. He's good in some scenes, but in others he goes "big" and seems a little hammy. Olivier is still finding his way, acting-wise, and he's not too impressive here, with his voice often going into upper registers, making him more laughable than anything. Dudley-Ward, while pretty, doesn't bring much to her role, either. She would later retire from acting after marrying director Carol Reed. My favorite performance was from Seyler as the kindly and duplicitous Madame Sabline.  (6/10)

Source: YouTube (the print is awful).

[TomJH]

10 hours ago, LawrenceA said:

I never heard of this film. But somehow the art in that poster puts me in a mood for a Sidney Greenstreet film.

[Swithin]

10 hours ago, LawrenceA said:

I Stand Condemned (1935) - aka Moscow Nights. World War One era spy drama and romantic triangle melodrama from GFD and director Anthony Asquith. Laurence Olivier stars as injured Russian army officer Ivan Ignatoff who, while recuperating in hospital, falls in love with nurse Natasha (Penelope Dudley-Ward). She loves him, too, only she's been promised in marriage to wealthy war profiteer Peter (Harry Baur). When Ivan gets into financial trouble, he gets targeted by secret spymaster Madame Sabline (Athene Seyler). Also featuring Lilian Braithwaite, Morton Selten, Sam Livesey, and Anthony Quayle in his debut.

Don't know it, but any film with Athene Seyler is certainly worth seeing!

[LawrenceA]

Lawless Range (1935) - B-western from Republic Pictures and director Robert N. Bradbury. John Wayne stars as John Middleton, a rodeo champ and all-around good guy. He's asked to check in on an old family friend a few towns over, but when he gets there, he gets embroiled in a fight against cattle-rustling bandits. Also featuring Sheila Bromley, Frank McGlynn Jr., Jack Curtis, Wally Howe, Julia Griffith, Yakima Canutt, Earl Dwire, and Glenn Strange.

This was one of a handful of westerns that tried to make Wayne into a "singing cowboy" star. The only problem was that Wayne couldn't carry a tune, so all of his songs are very obviously dubbed. He "performs" 2 or 3 solo numbers and takes part in one group song with the Wranglers. The plot is pure B-western standard stuff, and none of the supporting players stand out. This was my 100th John Wayne movie!  (5/10)

Source: YouTube (an atrocious print).

[NickAndNora34]

IMPACT (1949): starring Ella Raines, Brian Donlevy, & Helen Walker, with appearances by Charles Coburn and Anna May Wong. A decent film, I should say. Donlevy plays a wealthy manager? CEO? whose wife (Helen Walker) has a roving eye, unbeknownst to him. Walker and her boyfriend plot to murder Donlevy, and when the plans backfire, Donlevy hides out in a very small town and works as a mechanic under Ella Raines (who owns the joint). This film is very predictable, but enjoyable nonetheless. It was fun to see Coburn in a role I don't typically associate him with (whenever I see him or hear him, I think of "Piggy" from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953). 

The only other thing I've seen Raines in, is "Tall in the Saddle" (1944) with John Wayne. She's also one of the somewhat rare people whose features are quickly recognizable in black and white, meaning, you can tell how blue her eyes are, even though the film isn't in color. 

Score: 3/5

[laffite]

29 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

This was my 100th John Wayne movie!

You have my undying admiration.

[LawrenceA]

Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935) - Hilarious comedy from Paramount Pictures and director Clyde Bruckman. W.C. Fields stars as Ambrose Wolfinger, a henpecked husband who just wants to attend a wrestling match. His nagging wife (Kathleen Howard), his obnoxious brother-in-law (Grady Sutton), and his miserable mother-in-law (Vera Lewis) try to ruin his fun, but his daughter (Mary Brian) is in his corner. Also featuring Lucien Littlefield, Oscar Apfel, Carlotta Monti, Walter Brennan, and Tammany Young.

Fields constructs a number of great build-up comic scenarios which snowball into further and further hilarity. From the opening segment of his wife nagging him to come to bed to the arrival of burglars in the basement who get drunk and start singing, all leading to Fields himself somehow getting thrown in jail, to a later sequence where he gets chastised and ticketed by a succession of policeman for parking violations, each small moment or line feeds into the next in a masterful way. The capable supporting players are excellent foils, as well. This was the last credited directing job by silent film great Clyde Bruckman. Fields is said to have directed most, if not all, of the final film himself. Recommended.  (8/10)

Source: Universal DVD, part of W.C. Fields: The Classic Comedy Collection.

[CinemaInternational]

Currently Watching Waterloo Bridge from 1940. Vivien Leigh is as good as ever.

[TomJH]

Poppy (1936).

W. C. Fields's second screen adaption of his 1923 stage success, the previous version called Sally of the Sawdust, directed by D. W. Griffith.

Unfortunately this tale of a con man and his daughter, and his attempt to gain her an inherited estate, is one of the comedian's weakest films. Fields was ill during production from both the effects of his drinking, as well as a back injury. Perhaps that is why he is missing in so much of the production, and any of the scenes without him (many of them of a romantic nature between Rochelle Hudson as his daughter and Richard Cromwell as the son of a small town mayor) are fairly painful to endure.

As Professor Eustache McGargle, Fields is a pleasure to watch (though the doubling of him in any stunt scenes is really obvious). One of my favourite scenes occurs at a carnival when Fields and his daughter buy a pair of hot dogs and start eating them. In response to the vendor's request for payment Fields says that he will pay him at the end of his engagement at the carnival. When the vendor insists upon immediate payment Fields and his daughter place their half eaten hot dogs back on the counter.

"Listen, you tramp," the vendor shouts at the comedian, "how am I going to sell these again?"

"First you insult me," says Fields at his most indignant, "Then you ask my advice on salesmanship. You are a dunce, sir, a dunce!"

2.5 out of 4

 

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, LawrenceA said:

Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935) - Hilarious comedy from Paramount Pictures and director Clyde Bruckman. W.C. Fields stars as Ambrose Wolfinger, a henpecked husband who just wants to attend a wrestling match. His nagging wife (Kathleen Howard), his obnoxious brother-in-law (Grady Sutton), and his miserable mother-in-law (Vera Lewis) try to ruin his fun, but his daughter (Mary Brian) is in his corner. Also featuring Lucien Littlefield, Oscar Apfel, Carlotta Monti, Walter Brennan, and Tammany Young.

Fields, from his own bad experiences, always depicted wives as nagging battle-axes, sons or BIL's as irresponsible wastrel dips, and daughters/nieces as virginally sweet and unflaggingly loyal.

It's okay in small doses if we're talking "It's a Gift" or "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break", but Trapeze feels like Fields' intentional soapbox-screed propaganda against the social evils of wives and brothers-in-law.  I'm for all the other Fields movies in the boxset, but this one really leaves a sour taste in the mouth.  Like the old comedy saying, "Nothing kills the joke faster than the bloodthirsty personal desire to tell it."

[LawrenceA]

49 minutes ago, TomJH said:

Poppy (1936).

W. C. Fields's second screen adaption of his 1923 stage success, the previous version called Sally of the Sawdust, directed by D. W. Griffith.

Unfortunately this tale of a con man and his daughter, and his attempt to gain her an inherited estate, is one of the comedian's weakest films.

Disheartening to hear, as this will be the next Fields film I watch. It won't be for a couple of weeks until I get to my 1936 stack, but your review makes the proposition less appealing.