Vera Godfrey
Practically Family
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State Fair (1945) One of my favorites that I rewatch often. With Jeanne Crain, Dick Haymes, Dana Andrews, and Vivian Blaine. Even a small part with Henry Morgan.
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What Was The Last Movie You Watched?
- Thread starter Amy Jeanne
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Satan Met a Lady (1936). This is the second attempt to bring Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel "The Maltese Falcon" to the silver screen, but it's very loosely based on Hammett's work and was intended as a comedy/spoof of the story. Ted Shane (Warren William in the "Sam Spade" role) returns to his former partner Milton Ames (Porter Hall) and his detective agency after he's "run out of town" for being a troublemaker. He's almost immediately hired by Valerie Purvis (Bette Davis) to find someone, quickly becomes a murder suspect on the search for this movie's MacGuffin (a ram's horn allegedly filled with gems), and the usual shenanigans ensue. It's mildly interesting as a bit of cinema history trivia, but not a particularly good movie. In fact, Bette Davis claimed in her biography that she thought it was "junk" and was forced to work in the movie because she needed the salary.
In the original book "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson, the bad-guys/creatures were vampires, not zombies. They couldn't stand mirrors or garlic, and could only be killed with a wooden stake in the heart. However, these vampires are that way due to germ infection, not supernatural causes. (They can't turn into flying bats, etc.)
The 2007 movie apparently REALLY changed things if it had zombies as the villains.
As a great fan of the book, the best movie version was the one that stuck closest to the original plot: "The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price (1964). However, it was made in Italy, and the production values seem to indicate that the producer and director pooled their pocket change to finance the movie. However, since Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay it is quite "authentic" with respect to the book, and is pretty good if you watch it for the ideas and look beyond the production quality.
Charlton Heston made "Omega Man" as a second version of the book/movie in 1971. More of an action movie and with less fidelity to the book...
LizzieMaine
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"Downfall," the definitive Hitler-In-The-Bunker movie, made in Germany in 2004.
I have dim memories of seeing this film once before, around when it first came out, but over the years since then those memories have been buried under an avalanche of You Toob "Hitler Rants About..." parody videos that have managed to turn the whole picture into something approaching a wacky sitcom. And I don't have a problem with that -- I think the most effective way to cut Nazis down to size, aside from sending Zhukov after them, is to laugh in their faces at their strutting, preposterous Herrenvolk arrogance, and I'm a big fan of any such deliberate trivialization of, not what the Nazis did, but of exactly the kind of people, the kind of low-grade mediocre pisswipes, that they actually were.
And, viewing the original "Downfall" again, and trying to divorce it from the context of a thousand parodies, the film seems to do exactly that. These Nazis -- and especially the recently-late Bruno Ganz's extraordinary portrayal of Hitler -- are a gang of nonentities. Scrabbling, grubbing, pathological little men who have somehow wormed their way to power and have exercised it in the manner of a bunch of inadequate teenagers. There are no Colossi of Evil here, no comic-book supervillians, no monsters. Ganz plays Hitler exactly as he really was -- a short, bad-natured, flatulent malcontent from the gutters of Austria with a peculiar gift for inflaming the passions of halfwits. And that's who surrounds him -- his vain, blubbering, delusional generals, his groveling, sycophantic staff, and a few so-called "good Germans" who stick to him thru some ridiculous idea of "honor."
The film is based on Joachim Fest's short, eloquent book "Der Untergang," which stands as the definitive study of the Fuhrerbunker and its occupants, and also on the memoirs of Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge, who is here portrayed as a wide-eyed innocent who only dimly grasps the situation in which she finds herself. The rest of the bunker entourage is well-portrayed by an assortment of fine German film and television actors, but it's Ganz who dominates every frame of the film. Hitler's been played on screen by everyone from Anthony Hopkins to Moe Howard, but never have I seen, nor will there ever be a portrayal to equal this one -- Ganz gives you a Hitler who's spent his whole life denying his own incompetence, blaming everyone but himself for his failures, and giving no one but himself credit for his accomplishments, and you find yourself wondering how it was possible that such a creature could ever exist. And then you look at the grovelers and the climbers and the petty nothings that surround him and it all comes into focus and you see how easy it would be for history to repeat itself.
This is a great film. If you've never seen it, make a point of doing so.
I have dim memories of seeing this film once before, around when it first came out, but over the years since then those memories have been buried under an avalanche of You Toob "Hitler Rants About..." parody videos that have managed to turn the whole picture into something approaching a wacky sitcom. And I don't have a problem with that -- I think the most effective way to cut Nazis down to size, aside from sending Zhukov after them, is to laugh in their faces at their strutting, preposterous Herrenvolk arrogance, and I'm a big fan of any such deliberate trivialization of, not what the Nazis did, but of exactly the kind of people, the kind of low-grade mediocre pisswipes, that they actually were.
And, viewing the original "Downfall" again, and trying to divorce it from the context of a thousand parodies, the film seems to do exactly that. These Nazis -- and especially the recently-late Bruno Ganz's extraordinary portrayal of Hitler -- are a gang of nonentities. Scrabbling, grubbing, pathological little men who have somehow wormed their way to power and have exercised it in the manner of a bunch of inadequate teenagers. There are no Colossi of Evil here, no comic-book supervillians, no monsters. Ganz plays Hitler exactly as he really was -- a short, bad-natured, flatulent malcontent from the gutters of Austria with a peculiar gift for inflaming the passions of halfwits. And that's who surrounds him -- his vain, blubbering, delusional generals, his groveling, sycophantic staff, and a few so-called "good Germans" who stick to him thru some ridiculous idea of "honor."
The film is based on Joachim Fest's short, eloquent book "Der Untergang," which stands as the definitive study of the Fuhrerbunker and its occupants, and also on the memoirs of Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge, who is here portrayed as a wide-eyed innocent who only dimly grasps the situation in which she finds herself. The rest of the bunker entourage is well-portrayed by an assortment of fine German film and television actors, but it's Ganz who dominates every frame of the film. Hitler's been played on screen by everyone from Anthony Hopkins to Moe Howard, but never have I seen, nor will there ever be a portrayal to equal this one -- Ganz gives you a Hitler who's spent his whole life denying his own incompetence, blaming everyone but himself for his failures, and giving no one but himself credit for his accomplishments, and you find yourself wondering how it was possible that such a creature could ever exist. And then you look at the grovelers and the climbers and the petty nothings that surround him and it all comes into focus and you see how easy it would be for history to repeat itself.
This is a great film. If you've never seen it, make a point of doing so.
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Yes, a great film and perhaps Ganz' best work
Julian Shellhammer
Practically Family
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Men In Black International - well within the MIB eco-system, dazzling CGI, self-deprecating humor, and fun twists.
Here at home, Merrill's Marauders, through the TCM app, directed by Sam Fuller, with Jeff Chandler, Ty Hardin, and a great many more. Enjoyable character interaction along with the action sequences.
Here at home, Merrill's Marauders, through the TCM app, directed by Sam Fuller, with Jeff Chandler, Ty Hardin, and a great many more. Enjoyable character interaction along with the action sequences.
ChiTownScion
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It's precisely because Bruno Ganz's portrayal was so close to historical reality that those You Tube parodies are so successful. An actor who had hammed it up, or turned Hitler into a two dimensional villain (as so many have) could not have given comedy such fodder. Such fodder only lies in reality, if the aim is to knock someone as diabolical as Hitler off his pedestal.
I give Anthony Hopkins a lot of credit for being the one who cleared the timber, so to speak, for a performance such as Ganz to have finally taken place. Hopkins, as I recall, took heat from some who presented a Hitler who was too human, a Hitler with more personality range than the usual Hiss! Boo! villain portrayal. Someone who creates the magnitude of evil that took millions from many nations to defeat had to, at the very least, possess enough dimension to do what he did. Ganz pulled it off as much in the scene where he was gentle and almost fatherly to newly hired stenographer Traudl Junge as he did when he was ranting to Jodl, Keitel, Krebs, and Burgdorf about Steiner's failure.
Evil that is immediately recognizable as evil is bad enough: when the most educated and culturally advanced of nations can be seduced to the end of losing the lives of millions of their own citizens (let alone millions from other nations) we need to be afraid, very afraid, of what may lie ahead. Bruno Ganz's performance brings that lesson home to us with the impact of a pile driver.
Doctor Damage
I'll Lock Up
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I've long maintained that fast zombies would be less scary in real life than slow zombies, because the fast ones will kill you in seconds and then it's over before it really starts, whereas the slow ones will keep coming and kill you eventually, someday. Remember, you need to sleep but they don't. You need to take a rest and they don't. You need to heal from injuries but they don't. You need to find food and supplies but they don't. It's very much a tortoise & the hare thing. Of course on the silver screen slow doesn't have the same zing.
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The Glass Key from 1942 with Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and Brian Donlevy
- We think of that era (the '40s) as a more innocent time, but this movie's entire premise is that, in a major city, the mob completely controls the politicians while the mob and politicians, combined, completely control and corrupt the police and DA's office - pause on that for a moment - as a major Hollywood release, this movie hardly argues that America was or saw itself as innocent
- Adding to the "innocent time" canard - William Bendix plays a sociopathic mob "enforcer" who clearly lives for torturing and killing others (Tarantino could of thought this guy up)
- I've seen this movie several times and could probably suss out the real plot if I had to, but it's not worth the effort (think "The Big Sleep" or any Hitchcock movie); instead, you "get it," mobsters and corrupt politicians fight and form temporary alliances at the expense of the public and, as noted, with the police in their pockets - meanwhile, ever guy wants to sleep with Veronica Lake - the real fun is watching the style and passion of it / the details don't matter
- Veronica Lake is ridiculously beautiful, but I'm challenging her IMDB height of 5'2" and making the over-under 5' and my money's leaning to under
- Maybe it was only Hollywood, but the mobsters and politicians dress as if they had stepped out of an Apparel Arts spread - there's even a long scene where a mid-level mob guy (Ladd) is packing to move and he has a wardrobe of suits, ties, etc. to rival Beau Brummell - and he's not considered a dandy - it argues the entire culture around clothes and dressing for men was just that different from today
- When I was a kid, well before I knew what "film noir" was, I liked this movie as, dated as aspect are, it holds up because it puts real human nature on display - integrity, corruption, friendship, cheating, sexual passion, and on and on - it's all there in a real and raw way
- Sure, now, I know it's called "noir," but that's whatever, it works because it's just a heck of good movie
N.B., The Glass Key is a solid film version of a Dashiell Hammett novel; also, it's one of four pairings of Ladd and Lake (my favorite is probably "The Blue Dahlia," but every movie they are in together is good).
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Doctor Strange
I'll Lock Up
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On Amazon Prime, a documentary called Hollywoodism based on Neil Gabler's book An Empire of their Own, which I'd read a long time ago. I'm not a big fan of Gabler in general (his Walt Disney biography, which has been anointed as the "official" one, is very long but inferior to several others in terms of really understanding what made Disney tick - and the art of animation in general) but this is pretty interesting stuff.
The thesis is that the small group of studio moguls who essentially invented the movie business - all European Jews born within a 500-mile radius who fled anti-Semitic persecution in their youth - created what we think of as the American Dream in their movies... which eventually was so pervasively influential in the public mind that it became the actual American Dream. A quick look at the documentary's talking head quotes on IMDB will get most of it across (though it's well worth watching if you have time):
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0141163/quotes
The thesis is that the small group of studio moguls who essentially invented the movie business - all European Jews born within a 500-mile radius who fled anti-Semitic persecution in their youth - created what we think of as the American Dream in their movies... which eventually was so pervasively influential in the public mind that it became the actual American Dream. A quick look at the documentary's talking head quotes on IMDB will get most of it across (though it's well worth watching if you have time):
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0141163/quotes
Julian Shellhammer
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Georges Melies' A Trip to the Moon (1902). Over the years, have seen it on things like PBS, or in a film class, but never noticed that Melies had the actors wave their arms and jump in place in the mostly static shots. It is an effective way to capture the eye without camera movement. Still an astonishing film when you consider Melies was inventing a lot of what we see.
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Nightmare Alley from 1947 with Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray and Helen Walker
This is what you get when you move noir off the gritty streets of NYC or San Fran and drop it in - let's just say it - the always-a-bit-creepy world of traveling carnivals.
With classic and slightly menacing carnival music playing on in the background, we meet Power's character - an abused orphan with Christianity beaten into his brain but not heart - now a young man and trying to find fame and fortune by convincing a former husband and wife (Blondell) "mentalist" team (as in "what am I holding in my hand oh great Santini" / "it is a blue purse") to teach him their valuable word code so that they can rebuild the act, now-struggling owing to the husband's alcoholism.
Power is a force of nature who, in a "did he / didn't he" scene equal to the tree-branch-diving scene from A Separate Peace, supplies the alcohol that finishes off the husband allowing Power to partner with the ex-wife (one of several women he's, umm, on friendly terms with throughout the story).
From here you need a score card as pitches and hits pile up quickly including a forced marriage for Power to a beautiful and loyal wife (Coleen Gray, we should all be forced into this type of marriage), fame and money flowing in from the resurrected act, a psychiatrist/con artist partnering with and playing Power for big-time money from the society world they both now traffic in, dizzying heights of success, moral qualms for the wife, con-games wrapped inside con-games, gunfire, cops, last-minute escapes and a gut wrenching, full-on-noir fall back to the gutter with dreams shattered, lives broken and a Christian ethic marginally resurrected or, at least, reaching a hand into the pit of despair to offer a way up.
If noir at its best is dark atmosphere combined with dark souls motivated by dark morals rising and falling in a brutal world of rough justice or no justice or, just maybe, biblical justice that's hard to see amidst the darkness, then Nightmare Alley belongs up near the top of the list of noir greats.
N.B., Nightmare Alley has a darn good con-gets-conned scenario highlighting an amazing contradiction of the con world: a con can get conned, but it takes a better one as - at some crazy level - the great cons almost believe their own lies, which makes them susceptible to an even better con's lies. And in this case, wrap the meta-con inside the beautiful and smarter-than-Power Helen Walker (who plays a femme fatale with a frightening charm that can turn on a dime into vicious selfishness) and womanizing Power doesn't really stand a chance.
Edward
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The Death of Stalin on Netflix. A total joy... not least for the way it uses vicious satire to amp up the horror of much of what Stalin and his successors got up to by showing just how ordinary it became.... to men in charge who were quite ordinary themselves.
Also the actor portrsaying Stalin reminds me of Alan Sugar quite a lot. Amusingly enough, Alan Sugar's public persona has always reminded me a lot of Stalin's pettiness, so full circle...
I remember catching that when it was a case of the only English language television that evening in a hotel room in Beijing in 2006. I was pleasantly surprised; I think I was expecting a rubbish remake of the Michael Cainwe original (favourite bit: Noel Coward's guest spot as the queeny prison governor), but aside from the title and the cars (well.... a modern approximation thereof!), there was no real relation between the two.
Herself is much more fluent in that period of English history than I am; according to her, there's nothing historically incorrect in it - though obviously the personal motives and emotions are somewhat specualtion.
I'm keen to see that one myself - mainly forf the cast. I'll watch anything with zombies in it at least once, and anything with Bill Murray at least twice... a few other favourites in there too - especially Buscemi.
As Robert Kirkman will be the first to tell you, the reql walking dead - and the most interestnig and threatening thing in any zombie picture - are the survivors, not the zombies.
Legend, mn. Not really zombies as such, but they did veer into some commality with zombie behaviour.
More hive-mind vampires, a la Stakeland, or Salem's Lot before they kill off the principle vamp.
Price is the one I have yet to see. Heston's is fun, but not exactly.... cerebral.
Also the actor portrsaying Stalin reminds me of Alan Sugar quite a lot. Amusingly enough, Alan Sugar's public persona has always reminded me a lot of Stalin's pettiness, so full circle...
I remember catching that when it was a case of the only English language television that evening in a hotel room in Beijing in 2006. I was pleasantly surprised; I think I was expecting a rubbish remake of the Michael Cainwe original (favourite bit: Noel Coward's guest spot as the queeny prison governor), but aside from the title and the cars (well.... a modern approximation thereof!), there was no real relation between the two.
Herself is much more fluent in that period of English history than I am; according to her, there's nothing historically incorrect in it - though obviously the personal motives and emotions are somewhat specualtion.
I'm keen to see that one myself - mainly forf the cast. I'll watch anything with zombies in it at least once, and anything with Bill Murray at least twice... a few other favourites in there too - especially Buscemi.
As Robert Kirkman will be the first to tell you, the reql walking dead - and the most interestnig and threatening thing in any zombie picture - are the survivors, not the zombies.
Legend, mn. Not really zombies as such, but they did veer into some commality with zombie behaviour.
More hive-mind vampires, a la Stakeland, or Salem's Lot before they kill off the principle vamp.
Price is the one I have yet to see. Heston's is fun, but not exactly.... cerebral.
Edward
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Outstanding film. Wasn't it also very significant in Germany - as the first major German lanuguage film to take this on or some such?
Didn't like the previous efforts in that franchise (waste of Tommy Lee Jones, and it's a rare Will Smith turn I can take - I like his dramatic acting more, never cared for his comedy), but I'm tempted by Chris Hemsworth in this.
Absent human intervention, a zombie will keep going until its brain rots away. Obviously its ability to propel itself forward will deplete as the rest of the body rots... I would postulate that the fresher ones are faster movers, but slow down markedly quickly after a week or two's rotting. The most distrubing thing to me would be to be killed by a moment's carelessness, being bitten while distracteed, or not realising you are cornered until too late. THe zombie's advantage is that, weak as they are individually, in a herd they only need land one bite or scratch that breaks the skin, while you have to get a good headshot.
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Daughters Courageous from 1939 with Fay Bainter, Claud Rains, John Garfield, three Lane sisters and Donald Crisp
If Hallmark movies had some bite, they'd be more like Daughters Courageous.
Twenty years ago, husband (Rains) deserted his wife and four infant daughters, but when we join the family today - living in a wonderful home up on a cliff overlooking the ocean - they've long since overcome that blow and are happily looking forward to their middle-aged mom's (Bainter) coming nuptials to an unassuming local banker (Crisp), while several of the daughters are dating nice young men - all a little too Hallmark at this point.
But it does work as the daughters' infectious energy - led by the eldest, the insanely cute Buff Masters (played by Priscilla Lane)* - draws you into their world - the girls are in community plays or chasing boys or going swimming or riding or something with such enthusiasm that you're excited for then. And of course, it's all amped up now owing to their mother's pending marriage to a man the girls clearly embrace as a father figure.
But then two disrupting winds blow into their lives: Global-vagabond pater returns while local bad-boy (Garfield) catches the eye of ring-leader sister Buff. Rains, the father, is back, he tells us, worn out from his wandering and looking to reclaim his family while Garfield plays the youthful doppleganger of Rains - a young man with too much wanderlust to take on conventional roles - worker, boyfriend, husband, etc.
You get all of that in about the first half hour and then watch it unfold. It's more than surface happy in this family as you believe the good will and positive outlook of the aptly titled Daughters Courageous is not just surface deep. They face these life-changing challenges with quiet grit, a strong moral compass and an open mind - all a testament to the love and considered upbringing provided by their mother.
Will the mother step away from her stable banker fiancee to remarry Rains (he asks her to) who is darn charming as the contrite wayward husband and father returned home to make good? Will Buff - all sunshine-and-happiness Buff - run away with sardonic Garfield, potentially repeating her mother's mistake? The tension rises just enough and the uncertainty holds throughout to keep you engaged and to keep this one from being too easy / too predictable / too Hallmark to enjoy.
* It's not often when you can replace a character's name for his or her real-life name and come away with the same affect, but, in this case, either name - Priscilla Lane or Buff Masters - works as both scream 1930s American girl next door. I think Buff Masters has a bit more punch, but either one fits Ms. Lane's apple-pie looks and general sparkle to a tee.
Vera Godfrey
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My Sister Eileen (1942) with Rosiland Russell, Janet Blair, and a cameo by the Three Stooges. It was a fun watch.
Worf
I'll Lock Up
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There's a couple of others I'd put in there on Dunkirk. One was a T.V. movie IIRC called "The Snow Goose" released in 1971. A hunchbacked recluse who tends a local lighthouse girl helps her care for a wounded goose who befriends him. When he sets off for Dunkirk (his deformity denying him any other service) the Goose accompanies him. He loses his life but the bird returns. Survivors mention how many times he ferried soldiers to larger craft, recognizing him only by the goose sitting proudly on the bow of his boat. Only saw it once but the film has never left my mind. Won a Golden Globe that year as well.
Another movie where Dunkirk is ancillary to the plot was 2007's "Atonement". The male lead winds up on Dunkirk after shenanigans between 2 sisters leads him to leave for the Army. Told in flashback the story is strong and sad and the twist at the end is stunning. Great scenes though of troops trapped on the beach. Just my 2 cents.
Worf
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On TCM right now, the lighthearted The More the Merrier from 1943 with 43 year old Jean Arthur prancing around with a bare midriff driving 37 year old Joel McCrea nuts.
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A Netflix offering "Killing Heydrich". A well constructed retelling of the killing of a top Nazi leader. I watched it and during the climactic ending I could not shake the thought...."I have seen this movie before." Checked IMDB today and while it was not this movie it was an earlier movie about the same history.....(Anthrodpoid, with Cillian Murphy, 2016). Both good movies.
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