What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

Doctor Strange · May 27, 2015

Boy, I loved that movie as a kid!

And Fading Fast, keep in mind that Adventures of Superman had an incredibly small budget (e.g., they always wore the same clothes so that they could reuse shots of entering/leaving the Planet building and getting in/out of cars) and comes from a time when the concept of reruns didn't really yet exist. It never occurred to the producers that episodes would be watched repeatedly and compared when they were making it. Furthermore, it was considered a kiddie show after the first season (which was closer to film noir), and it's a safe bet that they didn't think a child audience would notice... or eventually grow up and notice.

I love the series - it's the Superman of my youth - and I have the first (b/w) half on DVD... but it's a relic. I couldn't even get my kids to watch it, they found it too slow-moving, hated the primitive effects, silly villains, etc.

1mach1 · May 27, 2015

House of Wax (1953)

Fading Fast · May 27, 2015

Doctor Strange said:
Boy, I loved that movie as a kid!

And Fading Fast, keep in mind that Adventures of Superman had an incredibly small budget (e.g., they always wore the same clothes so that they could reuse shots of entering/leaving the Planet building and getting in/out of cars) and comes from a time when the concept of reruns didn't really yet exist. It never occurred to the producers that episodes would be watched repeatedly and compared when they were making it. Furthermore, it was considered a kiddie show after the first season (which was closer to film noir), and it's a safe bet that they didn't think a child audience would notice... or eventually grow up and notice.

I love the series - it's the Superman of my youth - and I have the first (b/w) half on DVD... but it's a relic. I couldn't even get my kids to watch it, they found it too slow-moving, hated the primitive effects, silly villains, etc.

Everything you said makes sense and certainly is consistent with what I see, but like you, it is the Superman of my youth (although, in re-runs). Thus, despite all its flaws, there is still something engaging (which, for me today, is probably the time travel to late '50s Metropolis).

Fading Fast · May 27, 2015

AmateisGal said:
Doing better and back at work. Thanks.

Yeah, I think the role of "Superman" stereotyped him forever, just like Matt LeBlanc's role as Joey from "Friends" did for him. I tried watching LeBlanc in a serious role and I kept waiting for him to grin and say, "How YOU doin'."

I feel the same about Elaine, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, from "Seinfeld." I've recently seen her in re-runs of a sitcom she did a few years back, "The New Adventures of Old Christine," where she plays a divorced mom and all I keep thinking is what is Elaine doing playing this character.

Either luck or skill, but that didn't happen to Jennifer Aniston. While most of her movies are okay at best (and some are pretty awful), I don't think of her as "Rachel" anymore.

Glad you feel better.

jamespowers · May 27, 2015

1mach1 said:
House of Wax (1953)

Nice one. They look so life like.

jamespowers · May 27, 2015

Touchofevil said:
My favorite scene in a very entertaining movie. Mitchum delivers that line and scene so very well.

"I am looking at a tin star with a drunk pinned to it."

Doctor Strange · May 27, 2015

Fading Fast said:
Everything you said makes sense and certainly is consistent with what I see, but like you, it is the Superman of my youth (although, in re-runs). Thus, despite all its flaws, there is still something engaging (which, for me today, is probably the time travel to late '50s Metropolis).

I'm a bit too young to have seen it in the original run myself, but I watched it from the early sixties... and it mystified me why everyone on it wore those huge double-breasted suits and wide-brimmed hats when hardly anyone else I saw on TV looked that way! Two things I loved (and still love) about George Reeves: His Superman was mature and paternal - not 27 years old like all the subsequent actors - and it gave him a certain comforting authority. And his Clark Kent is still my favorite take on the character: not an overplayed, bumbling oaf like Christopher Reeve's, but a serious journalist feared by the Metropolis underworld just for his work as a crusading reporter. You could see why Jimmy Olsen looked up to him.

That series also had my favorite Lois Lane in the first season's tough-as-nails Phyllis Coates. (Sure, Noel Neill is sweet, but she's not a fit consort for freakin' Superman.) The only other version that comes close is Dana Delany in the Animated Series. (I liked Amy Adams in Man of Steel too... but I had so many other problems with that film!)

Fading Fast · May 27, 2015

Doctor Strange said:
I'm a bit too young to have seen it in the original run myself, but I watched it from the early sixties... and it mystified me why everyone on it wore those huge double-breasted suits and wide-brimmed hats when hardly anyone else I saw on TV looked that way! Two things I loved (and still love) about George Reeves: His Superman was mature and paternal - not 27 years old like all the subsequent actors - and it gave him a certain comforting authority. And his Clark Kent is still my favorite take on the character: not an overplayed, bumbling oaf like Christopher Reeve's, but a serious journalist feared by the Metropolis underworld just for his work as a crusading reporter. You could see why Jimmy Olsen looked up to him.

That series also had my favorite Lois Lane in the first season's tough-as-nails Phyllis Coates. (Sure, Noel Neill is sweet, but she's not a fit consort for freakin' Superman.) The only other version that comes close is Dana Delany in the Animated Series. (I liked Amy Adams in Man of Steel too... but I had so many other problems with that film!)

- As a kid, watching these in late '60 / early '70s, I very clearly remember thinking everyone must have dressed that way in the '50s and thinking it was much cooler than the ******-ish mess of clothing people were wearing. My Dad - 6'4" / 220 lbs. with black hair slicked down with hair tonic (never changed his style) and (I kid you not) Clark Kent glasses, broad shoulders and similar features - looked very much like George Reeves - but in single breasted suits.

- Great points on both a mature Superman and Clark Kent as a feared reporter (which is leveraged well for the plots). I was so turned off by Christopher Reeve's Superman that I haven't watched a movie version since, but have enjoyed the animated series.

LizzieMaine · May 27, 2015

Those characterizations were carried over directly from the Superman radio series of the 1940s, where Bud Collyer portrayed Clark Kent as a hard-nosed investigative reporter who was fully capable of roughing up a suspect all by himself, and Joan Alexander's Lois Lane was both tough and mouthy. The connecting link was that Robert Maxwell and Allen Duchovny, who had produced the radio series, were also the initial producers of the TV program.

Maxwell was the head of "Superman, Inc.," the company established in 1940 to handle merchandising rights for the character, and Duchovny was the publicity manager for Detective Comics, Inc. Maxwell had been a pulp writer before he got into merchandising, and he wanted to bring that sort of feel to the characters, and he hired Jack Johnstone, a veteran radio writer/director, to carry out that vision for Superman on radio. Although Johnstone wasn't directly involved with the TV show -- he went on to produce and write "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar" for CBS radio -- Maxwell and Duchovny's involvement ensured that his general concepts would be carried forward into television.

Fading Fast · May 27, 2015

Three points:

Lizzie, I know you are tired of hearing this from me, but you have to write a book or make sure your mind is cryrogenically frozen for posterity - we can't afford to lose all your knowledge and historical information

If it can't be done publicly then can someone private message me as to what the heck was wrong with the word I type in my above post. It is not - in anyway I know - a "bad" or offensive work nor did I intend to use it in antagonistic way. I was sincerely referencing the prevailing style of dress at the time.

I forgot to mention in my post that my Dad's Superman looks did not pass through to me - I'm 6'1", 150 lbs and have shoulders that I've never had to scrunch in, in my life. But I did get his somewhat weak eyes, bad back and flat feet - yea for me.

Worf · May 28, 2015

The Tanks are Coming - Rah rah WWII tank movie from 1951. Think of it as the "negative exposure" of last years "Fury". In this film a new crew loses it's Sgt./ Tank Commander and his replacement is a tough as nails veteran who's been fighting Nazi armor since North Africa. He does to the crew what Pitt does to his rookie in about the same way, cept for the killing of unarmed prisoners of course. In the end they all survive, including their German American gunner (whom they affectionately call "Heinie" throughout the entire film) and the Sgt refuses a promotion to stay with his crew. The worst bit of fiction in this one is that they get a new tank for the last drive into the heart of Germany, a modern tank fitted with a Tiger Tank killing '90 mm canon. This wonder tank was actually a model not introduced till well after the war. Both movies are set in roughly the same time period and cover the same ground in vastly different ways.

Worf

Worf · May 28, 2015

"The Steel Helmet" - Sam Fuller's masterpiece put out the same year as the movie above except this one is definitely not "Rah Rah" in any shape or fashion. Both sides kill prisoners, a captured Communist North Korean rightly questions Black and Japanese American soldiers why they were fighting for a nation that actively oppresses them and barely tolerates them except when there's killing to be done. Civilians are killed and war is shown for the slaughter it truly is, all rhetoric swept aside. The film was so "different" that the Army called Fuller on the carpet for his portrayal of American soldiers killing unarmed prisoners. Fuller, a decorated combat veteran of WWII said he put it in there because that's what happened and he produced testimony from his Commanding Officer to prove it. He then stood up and left the hearing. Despite the low budget it's one hell of a combat picture.

Worf

Zombie_61 · May 28, 2015

Doctor Strange said:
...I love the series - it's the Superman of my youth - and I have the first (b/w) half on DVD... but it's a relic. I couldn't even get my kids to watch it, they found it too slow-moving, hated the primitive effects, silly villains, etc.

With those reasons for not liking Adventures of Superman, you definitely don't want to show them the Batman serials from 1943 and 1949. lol

Doctor Strange · May 28, 2015

Ironically, back when my son was around 6 or 7, AMC used to show the Kirk Alyn Superman serials on Saturday mornings and we would watch "serial Superman" together. (I'm sure he thought it was "cereal Superman"!) He liked it THEN.

Of course, I grew up avidly watching the old serials - Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Commando Cody, Captain Marvel, Undersea Kingdom, Phantom Empire... They were standard afternoon kids show fare on local NYC channels in the early sixties. For some reason, I didn't see the Superman and Batman serials until much later.

cw3pa · May 28, 2015

"The Gods Must Be Crazy" (1980) through Amazon Prime. A funny story about a bushman's attempt to return an evil Coke bottle to the gods, and his encounters with "civilization".

jamespowers · May 28, 2015

cw3pa said:
"The Gods Must Be Crazy" (1980) through Amazon Prime. A funny story about a bushman's attempt to return an evil Coke bottle to the gods, and his encounters with "civilization".

Geez, it has been decades since I first saw that. lol lol it is a very funny film.

Fading Fast · May 28, 2015

Last night I watched fifteen minutes of the 1969, Peter O'Toole version of "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" as that was all I could take of a musical version of this movie with its '60s influences seeping through.

I've always enjoyed the 1939, Robert Donat version and didn't even know there had been a remake. While the '39 version is a bit mawkish, it is a solid movie. This '60s version (at least the part I saw before I couldn't take anymore) was, one, a musical (with Petula Clark and others singling some not good songs) and, two, part period (and very pretty) and part '60s that was jarring (and not intentionally).

There is no reason to remake "Goodbye Mr. Chips." Movies like that, "Mrs. Miniver," and, say, "Going My Way" were done well but belong to their time.

Has anyone else seen the '60s version and had other thoughts - did I not give it a fair shot (after the second song, I simply couldn't watch it anymore)?

Wally_Hood · May 28, 2015

No Holds Barred (1952), one of the Bowery Boys movies. Marjorie Reynolds plays a sort of crooked sports promoter. Mrs. Hood spotted her as Linda Mason from Holiday Inn.

LizzieMaine · May 29, 2015

I've always admired the Bowery Boys series for being able to get endless variations out of just a handful of basic plots, and to do so quite entertainingly. They were regular Saturday morning fare when I was in my teens, and I think I saw all of them at least three times. For my money Gorcey and Hall were far funnier on a ten-cent budget than Martin and Lewis ever were on a million dollar budget. And you'll never convince me that Gleason and Carney didn't poach bits of their business too.

Bushman · May 29, 2015

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (again) Been binge watching this one a lot lately. I pick up a lot of new symbolism with each rewatching. It's still one of my favorites from last year.

What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

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Fading Fast

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