I Just Watched...

[Hibi]

18 hours ago, TomJH said:

The Long Haul is one of those good gritty little dramas that deserves to be better known. Mature's flawed everyman truck driver is someone to root for, while Diana Dors, who looks like a man trap, plays a character who is quite sympathetic and appealing. A fine little effort, with one of Mature's most effective performances.

Yes, agree. I caught this on a Dors tribute night a few months back........

[Hibi]

On 8/19/2018 at 12:10 AM, LawrenceA said:

I watched a few more from 1957:

Funny Face - Colorful musical about fashion photographer Fred Astaire making a supermodel out of beatnik bookworm Audrey Hepburn. You'd be hard-pressed to combine more elements that I don't care about into one film: musicals, haute couture fashion, and the "romance" of Paris. As such, this was most definitely not made for me, but I felt compelled to watch it as I'm trying to see all of the more famous musicals, as well as the films of Audrey Hepburn. This isn't one I'll ever be revisiting, and by the time Kay Thompson sings "Clap Yo' Hands", I was looking for something to throw at the TV.    (5/10)

Hell Ship Mutiny - Bargain-basement seafaring adventure starring Jon Hall as a roaming sea captain who gets involved with saving some island villagers from evil treasure hunters John Carradine and Mike Mazurki. Also featuring Peter Lorre and Salty the Chimp. This was a pilot for an unsold TV series to be entitled Knight of the South Seas. As such, it looks like cheap television. Lorre, as an island commissioner, shows up late in the game looking sweaty and overweight.    (5/10)

Hellcats of the Navy - More water-logged cinema, this time a WW2 submarine tale featuring a sour-faced Ronald Reagan as a sub captain who angers his crew, chiefly executive officer Arthur Franz, when he's forced to leave a crewman behind during an enemy engagement. Reagan tries to win the men over, while also making time with nurse Nancy Davis. This corny, cliched time-waster would have been virtually forgotten if not for the appearances of the future POTUS & FLOTUS.    (5/10)

Il Grido - Sparse, bleak Italian drama from director Michelangelo Antonioni starring Steve Cochran as a blue-collar laborer who leaves his small town after his scandalous affair with his sister-in-law Alida Valli is exposed. Cochran, bringing along his young daughter, tramps across the countryside looking for work, finding temporary shelter with a succession of women, but always moving along towards...? This is an excellent examination of a man who can't find his place in the world, a situation I can sympathize with, and as such I was genuinely moved. Some may find this too downbeat, but I liked it, if that's the right word. Recommended.   (8/10)

Island in the Sun - Based on a bestselling book and coming out right when the calypso music craze was getting into full swing in the U.S., this overheated soap opera was a major hit, one of the top ten of the year. Set on a fictional Caribbean island, the story follows various romantic entanglements and political clashes between the wealthy white minority and the larger black working class. The large cast includes James Mason, Harry Belafonte, Joan Fontaine, Dorothy Dandridge, Joan Collins, Stephen Boyd, Michael Rennie, John Williams, and Diana Wynyard. The movie looks nice, with vibrant colors and lush tropical scenery in CinemaScope grandeur, but the various dramas are strictly night-time soap material.    (6/10)

 

Cant believe your review of Funny Face! One of my FAVORITE musicals!

[Hibi]

20 hours ago, LawrenceA said:

Yeah, I know I'm a grouch when it comes to musicals. I just couldn't get into Funny Face at all, but as I said, it wasn't made for my tastes, and I acknowledge that it has many fans. I don't begrudge anyone liking movies that I didn't, as life would be much sweeter if I liked them all.

Island in the Sun has a lot of interracial romance, of various types and with various implications. It's still very tame and timid in its depictions, but it was groundbreaking for the time. I read that Joan Fontaine got a ton of hate mail because of it.

Fontaine complained in her memoirs that they cut much of her love scenes with Belafonte out of the finished film.

[Hibi]

2 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

and Bessie Love was wonderful in her pretty substantial supporting part too.

LOL. I wonder how she got into this movie? Maybe Schlesinger liked her?

[JamesJazGuitar]

4 minutes ago, Hibi said:

LOL. I wonder how she got into this movie? Maybe Schlesinger liked her?

Why not;  Daniel Day-Lewis is in the film.

 

[rosebette]

On 8/18/2018 at 9:28 AM, LornaHansonForbes said:

I watched KONGO (1933) with LUPE VELEZ and WALTER HUSTON on TCM ON DEMAND.

It was NUTS.

Reminded me a lot of HENDERSON THE RAIN KING, only trashy and not boring (although they're neck and neck in the department of condescension.).

although she is second billed Lupe has more of a large supporting part, but she makes the most of it (and apparently made the most of the local supply of baby oil, she is POSITIVELY LUBED in this thing.)

It's a remake of a LON CHANEY pic and HUSTON GOES BANANAS in the part; in the years after CHANEY'S death, it seems as if a few older leading men in HOLLYWOOD tried to pick up the CHANEY MANTLE by tackling some of his former triumphs. It is a RAW, INSANE, UNHINGED performance- at times, he looks more like THE DEVIL HIMSELF than he does in THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER.

VIRGINIA BRUCE is in this, and she is lovely, even (in moments) after her character has become a drug addict (the hair in her later scenes was a major influence on VERONICA LAKE I think)

The second male lead was kind of cute, but not a good actor. i did not recognize him. THE SKELETON FROM THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL has an important early part as well.

THIS THING RUNS AN ASTOUNDING PARALLEL TO THE SHANGHAI GESTURE (1941), also starring Huston- although saying too much else would be a spoiler. although they are both delightfully bad movies.

R a p e  is strongly implied. Adultery and prostitution openly discussed. Violence is everywhere. There's drugs galore. Multiple ritual sacrifices and Lupe's head gets sawed off in a REALLY CONVINCING magic trick (the last one is not a spoiler, honest)

I bet they LOVED this one in Pomona!

Saturday, my husband and I debated about whether to watch this one or the premiere of the Churchill bio, Darkest Hour, on HBO.  Fearing we might fall asleep during the Churchill film, we decided to climb into the sewer and watch Kongo, especially after reviews stating that it was about the most depraved precode ever.  We were rewarded, feeling as if we needed a bath after viewing it (which most of the characters of that movie seemed to need, too!).

[Hibi]

18 minutes ago, jamesjazzguitar said:

Why not;  Daniel Day-Lewis is in the film.

 

I wonder how that happened too. I dont think Bessie was really working at her age. I'll check imdb........

[speedracer5]

22 hours ago, rosebette said:

Lawrence, I must assert that you underestimate Funny Face, which I find a delightful film.  Perhaps I'm a little prejudiced because I just went to Paris for the first time in my life, and couldn't get "Bonjour Paris!" out of my head.  I think Kay Thomson lends great energy to this movie, Audrey Hepburn is charming, the color and clothes are magnificent, as is the Gershwin score, and Astaire's dance with his raincoat is worth as many views as "He Loves and She Loves."

I love Funny Face.  Kay Thompson is fantastic and I wish she had been in more films.  Apparently she didn't like making movies which is why she has so few on her resume. The photography session between Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire is the highlight of the movie for me.  The "Clap Yo' Hands" song is one of my favorite parts of the film.  This movie is one of my absolute favorite musicals.

[LawrenceA]

I have a feeling that if I don't like a movie, perhaps I should keep it to myself.

[LawrenceA]

Just now, LawrenceA said:

I have a feeling that if I don't like a movie, perhaps I should keep it to myself.

On second thought, movies I love get ragged on all the time around here, so never mind. I thought Funny Face was terrible, and Kay Thompson and "Clap Yo' Hands" were the worst parts!

[TomJH]

6 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

I have a feeling that if I don't like a movie, perhaps I should keep it to myself.

Not at all, Lawrence. Be yourself, as you always are.

We all appreciate differences of opinion. As you know there are a lot of fans of certain stars here, Hepburn a prime illustration of it. Knock one of her films (and Funny Face will bring out the Astaire fans, as well-double whammy) and, well, others may speak up.

I'm not a particular fan of Funny Face either. It's just not my cup of tea.

 

P.S.: Oops, now I see you are speaking for yourself. Forget what I said. You don't need me to tell you to be yourself.

[Princess of Tap]

49 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

On second thought, movies I love get ragged on all the time around here, so never mind. I thought Funny Face was terrible, and Kay Thompson and "Clap Yo' Hands" were the worst parts!

 

51 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

I have a feeling that if I don't like a movie, perhaps I should keep it to myself.

Larry, nobody loves musicals more than I do.

But I think that people have a right to have different interests and viewpoints.

I particularly like your reviews about genres that I don't know anything about.

So I look forward to reading them and I hope you continue to write them on this website.

 

[laffite]

1 hour ago, LawrenceA said:

On second thought, movies I love get ragged on all the time around here, so never mind. I thought Funny Face was terrible, and Kay Thompson and "Clap Yo' Hands" were the worst parts!

A story I read years and years ago about Eisenhower playing golf. Ike complained about not getting length on his drives. Someone told him you gotta loosen up and let it go. So Ike took his hat off and threw it on the ground, unbuttoned the top two button of his shirt, kicked his shoes off, bent over sticking his arse out in a most unseemly manner, looked down the fairway and hit straight as arrow 250 yards down the fairway. And that was distance back in those days.

[LawrenceA]

1 hour ago, Princess of Tap said:

 

Larry, nobody loves musicals more than I do.

But I think that people have a right to have different interests and viewpoints.

I particularly like your reviews about genres that I don't know anything about.

So I look forward to reading them and I hope you continue to write them on this website.

Yeah, as I said in my initial post about Funny Face, I recognize that it was not made for me, and I know it has a large fan base. Breakfast at Tiffany's is another Hepburn film that is beloved that I didn't care for at all. As Tom said, it's just not my cup of tea. I never know until I watch it if I'll like it or not, as I try to go in with an open mind even if the genre or subject matter aren't to my interests. Often times I end up not liking the film, but occasionally one will surprise me and be very enjoyable, even if all of the wrong factors are in place. And their are Audrey Hepburn movies that I do like (Roman Holiday, Sabrina, The Nun's Story, Charade, How to Steal a Million, Wait Until Dark, Robin and Marian), and I like many Fred Astaire movies, too. 

[LawrenceA]

Due to a host of real-world issues I had to deal with, I only got around to one 1957 movie today:

Mother India - Indian Hindi-language epic that's considered one of the greatest films ever in that country. A new wife (Nargis) tries her best to be the best possible woman to her husband and her village. The newlyweds struggle to survive as subsistence farmers in debt to a venal landowner, and their lives become even tougher as they begin having children. Various disasters, including family deaths and injuries, as well as flooding, threaten to doom the family and their village, but the bride/mother always perseveres in the face of hardship. 

This nearly 3-hour family melodrama is also a musical, with nearly half of the running time spent in song. The version I watched had excellent English subtitles during the dialogue scenes, but none for the songs, so the meaning of them was lost. However, after a while I began to enjoy them a bit just for their tonal quality, like listening to an opera. The film was meant as a repudiation of an English book of the same title that harshly criticized Indian culture. The wife/mother character is crafted to be an exemplar of Hindu womanhood. As such the film has a didactic quality that oftem overwhelms the attempts at real human drama. It was an interesting movie in many regards (it makes no concessions to non-Hindu Indian viewers, and one has to figure out the culture as one is watching the movie), but not one I'll likely revisit. In it's native land, it is said to have played theaters continuously from its release in 1957 into the 1990s!     (7/10)

[laffite]

23 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

Mother India -

I posted recently on the Bogie's foreign language thread a movie I had seen in childhood that I have never been able to find. I wonder if this is it. The only thing though, I don't remember the music. Is this Bollywood or perhaps something close but different? I abhor Bollywood and I have often been disappointed while watching a movie that seems good and then, alas, break into song. An immediate deal breaker for me. Also, my movie was, I'm quite sure, in black and white. The poster shown on Netflix (it's under SAVE so it is not available) is in color, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the movie is ... right?

[LawrenceA]

1 hour ago, laffite said:

I posted recently on the Bogie's foreign language thread a movie I had seen in childhood that I have never been able to find. I wonder if this is it. The only thing though, I don't remember the music. Is this Bollywood or perhaps something close but different? I abhor Bollywood and I have often been disappointed while watching a movie that seems good and then, alas, break into song. An immediate deal breaker for me. Also, my movie was, I'm quite sure, in black and white. The poster shown on Netflix (it's under SAVE so it is not available) is in color, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the movie is ... right?

Mother India was in color, Technicolor, to be exact. I read your post in the Foreign Language movie thread, and thought of this movie, but since you didn't mention either the color or the music, I thought it must not be the one you were referring to. Some of what you mentioned sounded like Satyajit Ray's Aparajito aka The Unvanquished, but that isn't too long (113 minutes), and there was a lot of emphasis on the son as well as the mother.

As for Bollywood, I'm not sure. Wikipedia defines Bollywood as any Hindi-language Indian movie, which would certainly apply to Mother India, and they are often musical, as is this film. So I guess it is Bollywood. Wikipedia has this to say concerning this movie in their history of Bollywood: 

"Mehboob Khan's Mother India (1957), a remake of his earlier Aurat (1940), was the first Indian film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, which it lost by a single vote. Mother India was also an important film that defined the conventions of Hindi cinema for decades."

[EricJ]

6 hours ago, LawrenceA said:

Yeah, as I said in my initial post about Funny Face, I recognize that it was not made for me, and I know it has a large fan base. Breakfast at Tiffany's is another Hepburn film that is beloved that I didn't care for at all. As Tom said, it's just not my cup of tea. I never know until I watch it if I'll like it or not, as I try to go in with an open mind even if the genre or subject matter aren't to my interests. 

As long as you know the difference between your not liking it, and the movie not being likable.

I didn't go into Tiffany's overwhelmingly interested either, and only watched it for AFI-classic completism:  My review was also pretty scathing, but only because I felt that the movie was overpraised for the wrong reasons--yes, Audrey's gloves are pretty, but she's maddeningly unsympathetic as a character--and I also wanted to be iconoclastic enough to strip some boxer shorts off the emperor.  That's not the same as calling it "Two hours I'll never get back", or laying my own grudges into the movie as "worthless", or that I wanted to "throw things at it", as I didn't think it was bad-bad, just frustrating.  Whether I wanted to throw things at Holly, OTOH...

Remember the old saying, "The critic doesn't say he 'hated' the movie, he asks, 'Why wasn't it BETTER?'"  (From the same guy who gave us the "Two hours I'll never get back" phrase.)

[TomJH]

The Jungle Princess (1936)

The first of Dorothy Lamour's sarong films, as well as the popular feature which made her a star, this Paramount production remains undemanding escapist fare.

Set in Malaya, rather than a South Seas island, it starts by showing how a young girl is orphaned after her village is attacked by elephants (a sequence edited from Cooper/Schoedsack's Chang) and her grandfather killed by a tiger. Years pass and the little girl (she sure knew how to fend for herself, apparently) is now a beautiful, laughing Dorothy Lamour roaming the Malayan jungles, her home a cave, her companions a chimp and a tiger.

One day tiger hunter Ray Milland shows up on the spot, gets knocked down by her tiger (there's a magnificent, breath taking shot of a tiger clearing some bushes then running and leaping directly at the camera - again, I assume, taken from Chang) and saved by Lamour. She takes him to her cave and it isn't long before jungle girl Dottie makes her interest in Ray pretty obvious. Milland, who has a fiancee, tries his best to be charming as a guest while also holding onto his virtue.

Anyway, after a lot of Ray and Dottie having a fun time in a jungle paradise stuff passes they eventually wind up back in the Malaysian camp where "civilization" reigns. Except that it is here that the few dramatic conflicts this film offers will emerge. On a superficial level, there will be the competition for Ray between Dorothy and Milland's fiancee (Molly Lamont).

Of more significance, however, will be the superstitious villagers, headed by Ray Mala, looking a lot more like an Inuit or South Seas Islander (he was actually born in Alaska) than a Malaysian. They are not happy, rather understandably, about Dorothy's large pet tiger who showed up with her, and regard her as his demon companion. As a result, things will get very sticky for Lamour, the tiger and everyone else before this film comes to an end.

The Jungle Princess reminds one of the MGM Tarzan series in some respects. There is the "comical" chimp companion for starters. Not only will there be an elephant stampede but also a village attacked by screaming monkeys who will tear huts and roofs apart. The supporting cast includes a sword wielding Akim Tamiroff as a muscular villager working for Milland and the other Englishmen, as well as Lynne Overman. Milland and Overman will be reunited with Lamour in a similar sarong effort, this time filmed in Technicolor, Her Jungle Love. In that particular one Ray gets to teach Dorothy how to kiss, while Overman gets a chimp interested in him.

Lamour would appear in seven sarong films, which pretty well ran their course in popularity by the end of the war, but references to them would appear in her popular "Road" comedies with Crosby and Hope. She wears a sarong in Road to Singapore. Later there will be a sequence in Road to Utopia, a film set in a snowy Alaska, in which Bing and Bob, as they see Dorothy approaching them in a fur coat see that coat briefly transform into a sarong. Finally, of course, there would be Road to Bali in 1952, a spoof on the South Seas films that had made Lamour a star.

The Jungle Princess has been released as a DVD as part of Universal's Vault Series in a very nice looking print.

2.5 out of 4

[LornaHansonForbes]

11 hours ago, LawrenceA said:

I have a feeling that if I don't like a movie, perhaps I should keep it to myself.

Or come sit by me....

(steeples fingers, grins wickedly)

[LornaHansonForbes]

15 hours ago, Hibi said:

LOL. I wonder how she got into this movie? Maybe Schlesinger liked her?

between this and DAY OF THE LOCUST, I can tell you one thing for sure about SCHLESINGER: HE GREW UP WATCHING AND REWATCHING AND SCREENING AT HOME ALL THE CLASSICS (and even the b-flicks and obscurities that fell between.)

He nails the "1930's" sensibility and way of filming as good as (if not better than) anyone working decades after the fact, while staying true to his own time.

I bet he even had a print of LETTY LINTON.

[Tikisoo]

I abhor Bollywood and I have often been disappointed while watching a movie that seems good and then, alas, break into song.

Thanks Lawrence for posting about MOTHER INDIA and explaining why it wasn't your cup of tea. I completely understand your dislike of this style a movie, while it's my ultimate favorite! This is exactly why everyone needs to posts explanations of their opinions of why the did or didn't like about a movie!
Indian culture is familiar to me and much info can be gleaned knowing the symbolic moves in the dances (think of Hawaiian Hula) The song/dance numbers illustrate the emotions of the charactors feelings. I suspect Princess Of Tap feels the same way about musicals.

I dislike Westerns. I dislike seeing the way horses are treated, I find revenge a pointless, tiresome plot. At least in many Westerns, the violence is kept to a "pretend" level. I will watch an occasional Western, but suspect I'm harder on it than most for personal reasons. We're ALL like that, in our tastes- that's what makes this board interesting!

[Hibi]

1 hour ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

between this and DAY OF THE LOCUST, I can tell you one thing for sure about SCHLESINGER: HE GREW UP WATCHING AND REWATCHING AND SCREENING AT HOME ALL THE CLASSICS (and even the b-flicks and obscurities that fell between.)

He nails the "1930's" sensibility and way of filming as good as (if not better than) anyone working decades after the fact, while staying true to his own time.

I bet he even had a print of LETTY LINTON.

It appears Bessie was still working playing old ladies in bit parts at the time. (She had lived in England for years).  Schlesinger had a spotty career, but directed some noteworthy ones in the beginning.......Day of the Locust is one I wish TCM would show. A forgotten film nowadays, that deserves exposure.

[Hibi]

12 hours ago, TomJH said:

Not at all, Lawrence. Be yourself, as you always are.

We all appreciate differences of opinion. As you know there are a lot of fans of certain stars here, Hepburn a prime illustration of it. Knock one of her films (and Funny Face will bring out the Astaire fans, as well-double whammy) and, well, others may speak up.

I'm not a particular fan of Funny Face either. It's just not my cup of tea.

 

P.S.: Oops, now I see you are speaking for yourself. Forget what I said. You don't need me to tell you to be yourself.

 

Not to mention Stanley Donen fans..........

[rosebette]

A Town Like Alice - This movie is a gem, not for Peter Finch, who is very good in it, but for the outstanding performance by Virginia McKenna and the ensemble cast of women.  I found this movie compelling and moving.  I had seen the British miniseries many years ago on public TV and wondered if a film could do this story justice, but I ended up being just as riveted, even though I knew how it would turn out.   The movie also had a balanced depiction of the Japanese in the character of the Japanese sergeant who accompanies the women on their trek.