AmateisGal
I'll Lock Up
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Oh yes, I've made exceptions for those two. I've watched "His Girl Friday" and the fast moving dialogue irritates me. (Sorry!). I've seen "Jezebel," as well.
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What Was The Last Movie You Watched?
- Thread starter Amy Jeanne
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- New York City
As the saying goes - different strokes.... If you do watch any of the others, love to hear your thoughts. I think you'd like some of them.
Julian Shellhammer
Practically Family
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- 858
Ransom! (1956) w/ Glenn Ford, Donna Reed, Leslie Nielsen, and a host of others. Kept thinking it was a film version of a play, being pretty much confined to a house, but then found out it was a remake of a tv show from The United States Steel Hour from a couple years earlier.
Krakatoa, East of Java (1968) with Maximilan Schell. Please, don't judge me.
Krakatoa, East of Java (1968) with Maximilan Schell. Please, don't judge me.
Julian Shellhammer
Practically Family
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- 858
Last night, The Postman Always Rings Twice, with Lana Turner and John Garfield.
Right now it's Dolittle with Robert Downey, Jr., because the grandkids are here.
Right now it's Dolittle with Robert Downey, Jr., because the grandkids are here.
Feraud
Bartender
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No judgement from me. I would list this as one of my guilty pleasures. It's very hokey in parts but I kind of like it!
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- New York City
The Seventh Veil from 1945 with Ann Todd, James Mason and Herbert Lom
A bit slow in places, but overall an enjoyable if odd psychological melodrama (I guess that's a thing) that smartly uses Ann Todd to patch over any weaknesses. She plays the orphaned young teenage ward of an aloof non-blood uncle who recognizes and promotes her incipient talent as a pianist.
As her talent emerges - through her hard work and his smart and relentless coaching efforts - he emphasizes to her the value of her hands as the tools of her art, but this happens inside a prickly relationship where Todd all but begs for affection which Mason all but can't give. This working dysfunction is challenged when seventeen-year-old Todd falls in love with a popular local band leader (Lom), but Mason kiboshes that as he, her legal guardian until she is 21, won't consent to her marriage.
From there, their relationship, not surprisingly, becomes somewhat embittered, but her career takes off, somewhat papering over the tension. Years later, even after she is legally free, Todd stays with Mason as some odd bond holds these two together - love, hate, respect, habit - who knows, I guess that's why it's a "psychological melodrama."
Then enters another man; Todd falls in love again; Mason tries to thwart their plans, but fails this time. As the young couple escapes, they have a car accident resulting in Todd's all-important hands getting burned. Todd suffers some sort of mental breakdown even though the injury to her hands is minor and temporary. She tries to commit suicide and winds up under the care of a modern-thinking-for-1945 psychiatrist (Freud, dreams, repressed fears, etc.)
The movie actually opens here with most of the story told through flashbacks that Todd has while under hypnosis (it's 1945 and this is what smart psychiatrists did and, in movies, hypnosis works). From here, it's Todd struggling with her mind, Mason trying to dismiss the psychiatrist, the fiancee hanging around waiting for Todd to "come back to him" and a lot of Todd's angst and repressed feelings coming out.
Finally, we have the emotional breakthrough resulting in Todd able to play the piano again. Now, to complete her recovery, she must choose which of the men she truly loves: Mason, the fiancee or the old-flame bandleader (whom the psychiatrist finds to help Todd). And her choice is surprising. To wit, The Seventh Veil is rightly billed as a psychological melodrama as it has plenty of Freud and plenty of soap opera.
It's not bad - kinda a poor-man's Spellbound (also a psychological melodrama from the same year - movie themes do have a vogue). And The Seventh Veil gets over its slow part owing to Todd's arresting beauty and serious acting talent.
Considering that her beauty is a combination of blondness, chiseled features, haunting eyes, glowing skin and aloofness, one wonders why Hitchcock, a connoisseur of icy-cold blondes, only worked with Ann Todd one time, in The Paradine Case.
In fact, The Seventh Veil, a reasonably well-done psychological melodrama, could have used a little help from the master director to speed it along in spots and add some oomph in others. Ironically, he was tied up making its movie cognate Spellbound at the same time. That's The Seventh Veil's loss, but still, it's worth the watch for the story and for Todd.
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"The Shootist"....never a big fan of John Wayne but this was worth my time. He was great. Even Opie was worth watching.
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- Germany
Dune (1984).
Naaah...
Naaah...
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- New York City
On The Waterfront from 1954 with Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Maulden, Lee J. Cobb and Rob Steiger
Despite having a bit too neatly and nicely tied-up ending, this one's a classic for a good reason: it tells a story of deep, ruthless and cynical union, mob and political corruption - payoffs, kickbacks, muscle, favoritism - crushing the union men and local businesses (via "protection" money) who provide the funds for it all.
While you get the big picture - the union bosses, literally, counting the ill-gotten money and paying it out to the favored (who enforce the entire racket) - the story is poignantly personalized by the plight of slow-but-not-stupid Terry Malloy (Brando) who was all but born into the corrupt system and only starts to see its evil when he unintentionally fingers his good friend to be rubbed out.
And even then, it takes his friend's seraphic sister - the insanely clean and blonde Eva Marie Saint, the only thing in the entire movie that doesn't look soiled by the waterfront (literally and figuratively) - furiously pushing Brando's conscience to help her find the killers, to help him see that he wants to find the killers, to help him see the rot of the system he's part of.
She does get some help from a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-throw-a-punch Catholic priest (Mauldin) learning the difference between preaching from the pulpit and getting out amongst his flock and doing what is, effectively, waterfront missionary work. It's a very pro-religion movie, but this is no from-a-distance spiritualistic religion. Maudlin stands with the men quoting the bible to criticize their passivity to corruption and he denounces the union bosses right to their faces with more bible quotes when they steal and bully. And, as noted, when necessary, priest Mauldin will land a right to someone's jaw - think Jesus turning over the money-changers' tables.
And it all comes down to this for every single man on the waterfront: play along with the corruption and get what you can from the system (work that day, a better or easier job, more pay, some skim of the take, a not smashed-in head, etc.) or fight it and risk your life and limb, literally.
Terry, whose brother (Steiger) is a bigwig in the union, plays along as that's what he knows until the afore-noted death of his friend and the ensuing badgering from Saint. We also learn that Terry was a boxer with a future until he was told to take a dive in his big match because the union bosses bet on his opponent (the source of the famous "I coulda been a contender" line). And this past grievance resurfaces in Terry's mind while he's digesting his part in his friend's death - all the while with angelic and persistent Saint nipping at his heals and libido - leading Terry to slowly, but with growing anger, see he's part of an evil system.
While Terry is a strong physical man - a former boxer and stevedore - he's really a gentle giant who, as a hobby, raises homing pigeons with care and compassion. As the union/mob sees Terry slipping way - and afraid he'll testify against them at upcoming hearings - they send him a message by killing all his pigeons, completing the symbolism of the average union worker being nothing more than a pigeon to the bosses.
From here, there's another breakpoint for Terry (too much of a spoiler to tell) until he goes full force against the union by testifying at the very 1950's-era televised trial of mob and union corruption. Then it's the climatic waterfront confrontation - Terry versus the big mob boss (Cobb) / good versus evil - and a pleasing and just-a-bit-too simplistic ending.
Two more pluses, the movie excels at connecting small dots - if Terry fingers the mob, his brother's life is at risk / if Saint pushes for an investigation, her aging father won't be chosen for work anymore. It's well done story telling that shows how it all works - the rubber hits the road in this one very clearly. And, lastly, the acting is insane - Brando, Saint, Cobb, Steiger, Maulden and others - all deliver intense and passionate performances as did the cinematographer whose work in black-and-white made the grime and depredation of the waterfront another character.
Yes, the wrap-up is too easy, but for a 1954 picture, you can't ask for much more reality than this. Director Elia Kazan more than deserved his Oscar as did the recipients of the seven other Oscars awarded to On The Waterfront.
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I have that recorded and on the plan to watch tonight....not a big SciFi fan but my wife loved the book.Dune (1984).
Naaah...
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The end of "The Great Escape."
McQueen goes into the cell, the guard locks the door and starts to walk away, the sound of McQueen bouncing the ball off the wall is heard, the guard pauses, listens and, then, goes on.
That is a heck of an ending.
McQueen goes into the cell, the guard locks the door and starts to walk away, the sound of McQueen bouncing the ball off the wall is heard, the guard pauses, listens and, then, goes on.
That is a heck of an ending.
- Messages
- 12,734
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- Northern California
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- 12,734
- Location
- Northern California
We tried watching a few recently popular movies, but made it through only one of them. We have have found it harder to make it through most movies in recent years. We find more good series to watch instead.
- Messages
- 16,862
- Location
- New York City
We tried watching a few recently popular movies, but made it through only one of them. We have have found it harder to make it through most movies in recent years. We find more good series to watch instead.
Agreed, overall, we've found the quality of the better TV shows superior to the better movies. "Babylon Berlin" and "Man in the High Castle," for example, are overall better than most of the award winning or highly touted movies we've seen in the last few years.
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We believe that one big reason is that two hours isn’t long enough to do a good story the right way. Also, too many movies seem slapped together by lesser talent than what we are seeing in series.
Worf
I'll Lock Up
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"WestFront 1918" - This German telling of life on the Western Front by G.W. Pabst is pretty good. Made the same year as "All Quiet on the Western Front" it tells a similar story of men, combat, Germany in shambles and the futility of the War. Deemed extremely realistic and Pabst first "talkie", it caused a sensation in the cinema. Of course the Nazi's banned it in 1933 but that's no surprise with it's strong anti-war sentiment. Made on a modest budget so it doesn't have the grandeur of its more famous cousin but I enjoyed it all the same.
Worf
Worf
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- Germany
Das Boot - uncut TV series 282 min., english synchro.
All actors dubbed themselves, except Martin Semmelrogge.
All actors dubbed themselves, except Martin Semmelrogge.
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