What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

I saw Ziegfeld Girls (1941) last night. A great movie with an all-star cast- James Stewart, Heady Lamarr, Lana Turner, and Judy Garland. The three girls play showgirls in the "Ziegfeld Follies," and the movie follows their lives from the time they get the job. It is mostly a drama, and shows how hard it is to keep up with being a "Ziegfeld Girl," and how it affects their lives and relationships. As someone puts it in the movie, being a Ziegfeld Girl is living life at a mile-a-minute. There are lots of excellent songs, dances, and performances, too. Judy Garland sings a couple, including "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" and "Minnie From Trinidad," which is one of my favorites from a Judy Garland CD I've been listening to, so was really cool to see it performed with all the sets and costumes. This movie must have had a big budget, and the costumes and sets are just spectacular. I highly recommend seeing it!

Decided to drop in one of my all time favorite classics that withstood the test of time. Still engaging and an engrossing film.
But Sometimes its just a matter of taking the time to drink in the most beautiful woman to have ever walked this Earth.

Swing Girl said:

I saw Ziegfeld Girls (1941) last night. A great movie with an all-star cast- James Stewart, Heady Lamarr, Lana Turner, and Judy Garland. The three girls play showgirls in the "Ziegfeld Follies," and the movie follows their lives from the time they get the job. It is mostly a drama, and shows how hard it is to keep up with being a "Ziegfeld Girl," and how it affects their lives and relationships. As someone puts it in the movie, being a Ziegfeld Girl is living life at a mile-a-minute. There are lots of excellent songs, dances, and performances, too. Judy Garland sings a couple, including "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" and "Minnie From Trinidad," which is one of my favorites from a Judy Garland CD I've been listening to, so was really cool to see it performed with all the sets and costumes. This movie must have had a big budget, and the costumes and sets are just spectacular. I highly recommend seeing it!

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Great choice! Judy was one of, if not the most hardest working talents in the golden years and she always put in 110%. I really enjoy seeing her films. She’s great in Mickey Rooney’s Andy Hardy films. Judy Garland was only in three of the "Andy Hardy" series but she’s adorable in them.

MisterCairo said:

Did they ever get a bigger boat?

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Nope. It would not have mattered if they did because they would have just gotten a bigger shark.

Edward Reed said:

its just a matter of taking the time to drink in the most beautiful woman to have ever walked this Earth.

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To avail Sapphic poetic verse:
The rose is the eye of the flowers, the lightning of beauty.
Sappho, Song of The Rose

Ingrid Bergman's beauty struck lightning. And her character Ilsa is a lady possessed of regal heart
and soul whose immeasurable beauty emanates within, a woman to admire for her grace, elegance, character.

Rick of course correctly spelled out all particulars, love exacts truth whatever cost incurrence.

If you haven't read The Making of Casablanca; Bogart, Bergman, and World War II by Aljean Harmetz
treat yourself to a very intriguing story within the film. Published in 1992, Harmetz had access to any
number of folk still alive who had a hand in Casablanca's production.

Harp said:

To avail Sapphic poetic verse:
The rose is the eye of the flowers, the lightning of beauty.
Sappho, Song of The Rose

Ingrid Bergman's beauty struck lightning. And her character Ilsa is a lady possessed of regal heart
and soul whose immeasurable beauty emanates within, a woman to admire for her grace, elegance, character.

Rick of course correctly spelled out all particulars, love exacts truth whatever cost incurrence.

If you haven't read The Making of Casablanca; Bogart, Bergman, and World War II by Aljean Harmetz
treat yourself to a very intriguing story within the film. Published in 1992, Harmetz had access to any
number of folk still alive who had a hand in Casablanca's production.

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wow thanks for the heads up on that! I will get The Making of Casablanca; Bogart, Bergman, and World War II. Thank you!

After hunting for years to see it again, I finally discovered Robert Rodriguez' 1994 made-for-tv film Roadracers on Youtube. Cracking little flick. A coming of ageish rockabilly picture, very much like a darker CryBaby, shorn of Waters' optimism. A small town setting where you conform, get out, or die. Excellent soundtrack (much of it Link Wray), selected by the same folks who did the Pulp Fiction music. Nice also to see David Arquette in a role in which he gets to play it cool rather than being the goofy, butt of the joke as he has been in most of his roles.

Vertigo from 1958 with Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes


Let's get "The Greatest Movie Ever" thing out of the way first, since, for many years, Vertigo held that title according to one popular ranking. But that phrase means all but nothing as there is no linear, definitive movie meter or scale.

I'm happy to talk about my favorite movies, but that, like all this ranking stuff, is mainly opinion. I don't even think Vertigo is Hitchcock's best movie, but it is a heck of a picture.

I've enjoyed it more the last few times I've seen it since I no longer have the weight of thinking I'm watching "The Greatest Movie Ever" pressing on me. (That's the same reason why I now enjoy Citizen Kane.)

It's almost all spoiler alerts from here. At its core, Vertigo is a good-husband-kills-his-rich-wife story in a very creative way, but talk about a MacGuffin as, half the time during the movie, you forget that's the ostensible plot.

Instead, you have retired middle-aged detective Jimmy Stewart, retired because he suffers from vertigo, obsessing over his friend's rich wife, Kim Novak, in an almost creepy way. But then, Novak, with her odd preoccupation with a lookalike ancestor from a hundred years ago, is a bit creepy too.

These two are only thrown together when Stewart is hired by his old school buddy, Novak's husband, to find out what is going on with Novak. The husband claims he's worried that his wife's mania with her ancestor, who committed suicide at Novak's present age, is becoming a danger to herself.

For at least half the movie, you really don't quite know what is going on as the camera watches Stewart watching Novak who, oftentimes, sits watching a portrait of her ancestor before she goes off and does something crazy, like jumping into San Francisco Bay.

It's only after you know why this is happening that it truly holds your interest, which is why the movie is better on subsequent viewing. Because of the confusion, you don't even fully notice how casually Stewart begins an affair with Novak. This means he's having an affair with his friend and client's wife. The censors were probably as confused as everyone else when they let that slip by.

The only voice of reason in this one is Stewart's gal pal Barbara Bel Geddes whose unrequited love for Stewart goes from harmless and cute to painful and heartbreaking when she sees Stewart is obsessed with younger and prettier Novak.

Bel Geddes' unspoken plan seems to have been to get Stewart simply by being the last [wo]man standing in his life, but then Novak sweeps in and crushes Bel Geddes' hopes. It's clearly a theme Hitchcock enjoyed exploring as he tucked unrequited love into several of his movies.

But back in Vertigo's crazy town and after a big chunk of time spent on all the aforementioned watching, the movie's two threads - Novak's mystical-like fascination with her ancestor and her husband's pragmatic hiring of Stewart - come together.

Here, Stewart's vertigo - it's the title of the movie for a reason - prevents him from stopping Novak when she finally commits (or does she?) the suicide she's been toying with all along.

After that, Hitchcock whips up another round of suspense when Stewart, who is spiraling into depression with Novak gone, meets and begins dating a Novak lookalike.

He then obsessively and disturbingly starts making this woman dress and do her hair like Novak. The final Hitchcock twist, which does a good job of tying up a lot of still dangling threads, doesn't disappoint, but let's leave that unsaid if you haven't seen it.

The real plot and theme in this one - the only thing that is truly going on - is a man obsessing over a beautiful blonde woman. Everything else exists to advance or explore this thread.

Based on Hitchcock biographies, this is probably his most personal movie as obsessing over blonde women seemed to be his thing. If so, the master director took something close to his heart and covertly made it into a cinematic masterpiece.


N.B. I love black and white movies, but Hitchcock brilliantly uses color in Vertigo to advance its theme and deliver a ridiculously stylish movie. It's, thankfully, not the amped-up Technicolor of the day, but, at times, a slightly muted one that echoes the confused dream-like state of much of the picture. Yet, when needed, the color becomes crisp and sharp but never garish. Hitchcock was in complete control of every aspect of his movie-making efforts.

Black and white on blonde, this look doesn't happen by accident:

Rear Window is my favorite Hitchcock flick, but Vertigo is a close second.

I recall seeing it as a kid in the mid-sixties when it first ran on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies... and being really mystified by it compared to other Hitchcock films I'd seen. It's worth recalling that it was NOT immediately declared a Hitchcock masterpiece by the critics, its reputation didn't start rising until after the publication of Hitchcock/Truffaut in 1967. It went up much more after Hitchcock's death and the publication of biographies (like Donald Spoto's The Dark Side of Genius) telling of his obsessive treatment of his leading ladies, when it became clear that Vertigo was much closer to the inner Hitch than his other films.

FF, the one thing you didn't mention in your review is Bernard Herrmann's hypnotic score, which masterfully accompanies this strange story and does a lot of the emotional heavy lifting (e.g., the love theme in that incredible wraparound shot where the apartment becomes the barn for Scottie.) And it sets the dizzying tone right in the Saul Bass title sequence.

Oh, and here's another interesting point: At the start of the film, we never see Scottie rescued from the rooftop, he's still hanging there after the policeman falls - it just cuts away. There's a school of criticism that believes the entire story from that point onward, with its odd dream logic, is in Scottie's imagination while he's hanging there!

"I saw the Light"...the biopic of Hank Williams starring a bloody Brit actor. But was gobsmacked to find out Hiddleston actually did the singing too. I didn't think so while watching as the on screen singing was lip sync. But the credits rolled and there he was. It was an OK movie, not great, but filled me in on his life which I knew little about. But I sure knew all his songs, most of the words too!

Vertigo

Perhaps a bona fide classic. Always on my to see list-all the more so with gorgeous Kimberly.
But, sad-to-say the plot twist twisted plot leaves me ice cold. Sooner or later will give it a go.

Harp said:

To avail Sapphic poetic verse:
The rose is the eye of the flowers, the lightning of beauty.
Sappho, Song of The Rose

Ingrid Bergman's beauty struck lightning. And her character Ilsa is a lady possessed of regal heart
and soul whose immeasurable beauty emanates within, a woman to admire for her grace, elegance, character.

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I was remiss earlier by not mentioning the late actress Jennifer Jones, costar with William Holden
in Love Is A Many Splendored Thing. A more exquisite rose seldom graced the screen.

Harp said:

I was remiss earlier by not mentioning the late actress Jennifer Jones, costar with William Holden
in Love Is A Many Splendored Thing. A more exquisite rose seldom graced the screen.

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She is stunning in that, but the movie never really gets out of second gear (from a distant memory anyway).

Fading Fast said:

She is stunning in that, but the movie never really gets out of second gear (from a distant memory anyway).

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Certain films leave indelible scars. Not mere impressions or favorite memories. Days of Wine and Roses,
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. To Kill A Mockingbird. Books, poetry can inflict mortal wounds.
Human relation with fate, choice, acceptance or denial. A core issue is love, and in the film LIAMST
fate intrudes, claims a man, leaving a woman survivor to accept and continue life's journey alone.
And the death of love itself, or the death of God in the mind of an adult, or, in a certain book,
the mind of a child. Too often now, of course, certain topics are taboo. Flaubert is pilloried for
Madame Bovary, a less than flattering portrait of a woman. Thre late author Harper Lee censured for her
admirable male protagonist in To Kill A Mockingbird.
Corrective progressiveness is deliberate avoidance of truth.

The Sellout from 1952 with Walter Pidgeon, John Hodiak, Karl Malden and Thomas Gomez


The Sellout starts out as a solid entry in the early 1950s crime-drama genre. A crusading newspaper editor initiates an investigation into a corrupt local sheriff who runs his district like a shakedown fiefdom (think of the mob with policing power). While The Sellout is enjoyable overall, by the last quarter or so, it loses most of its grit as it becomes a two-dimensional good-guys-vs-bad-guys story.

Even so, its strong start combined with its impressive cast make it worth the watch. When newspaper editor Walter Pidgeon and a co-worker are hauled off to jail after a very minor traffic incident in sheriff Thomas Gomez' county, Pidgeon doesn't reveal his identity. He and his friend are roughed up in jail, face trumped up charges, and then ridiculously high bail is set for Pidgeon while his co-worker is sent to a work farm until his trial date.

Once out, Pidgeon starts the aforementioned newspaper campaign to expose the graft, extortion and malfeasance in Gomez's county. After Pidgeon accumulates an extensive dossier of corruption, the state's attorney general's office sends assistant AG John Hodiak down to pursue a criminal prosecution.

All of a sudden, though, Pidgeon disappears as do his records, while Hodiak struggles to get anyone to talk out of fear of reprisal from the sheriff. With the help of an honest local cop, a very young Karl Maulden, Hodiak keeps pushing hard, but struggles to get anyone who will speak on the record.

Up until now, about three quarters in, The Sellout is a solid B movie, but the last quarter is too black and white where bad guys like Gomez become cardboard versions of themselves, while the good guys start spouting aphorisms about justice and the constitution.

(Spoiler alert) The climatic courtroom scene - with Pidgeon returning to save the day - is too neatly wrapped up as a morality tale with the guys in the white hats winning and the guys in the black hats getting theirs.

Considering the number of similar movies produced in the postwar era (see 1951's The Racket or 1952's The Captive City) exposing local government and mob corruption, usually the two were mutual enablers, it had to be a big problem in the country.

A country that had just lost nearly three hundred thousand of its young men to free the world from megalomaniacal dictators bent on world domination, probably didn't have a lot of patients with local quasi-dictators who degraded freedom via graft and corruption protected by a government on the take.

Movies like The Sellout, imperfect as they are, still provide a neat window into postwar America. Plus the clothes, cars and architecture on display in crisp black and white is wonderful time travel for us today.

Dancing Lady from 1933 with Joan Crawford, Clark Gable and Franchot Tone


The three most-common movies in the 1930s were a mobster's rise and fall, a newspaper's rise and fall and a Broadway show's difficult rise and probable fall.

A subgenre of the Broadway-show movie is the desperate-to-break-into-showbiz-ingenue story. Heck, it's hard to name a 1930s female star who wasn't in a I-want-to-break-into-showbiz movie (Katherine Hepburn alone did two, Stage Door and Morning Glory).

Dancing Lady is a serviceable pre-code version of the will-the-show-rise-or-fall movie mashed up with the young-dancer-desperately-trying-to-break-into-Broadway story.

Crawford is the ingenue pursued by nice playboy Franchot Tone who secretly funds a show to give Crawford her Broadway break. The director of the show, cranky and demanding Clark Gable, begins to fall for Crawford, and she, him, which sets up a by-the-numbers love triangle to spice up the standard 1930s plot.

Crawford likes Tone, but worries her humble background won't fly in his Park Avenue world. She wonderfully summarizes her self-believed inferior status to Tone via a diction distinction: I'm a "dems," not "those" girl.

Once she meets Gable, her passion for Tone wanes, but not only does Tone keep trying, Crawford plays along as she's smart and calculating enough to know that he could provide a financial lifeboat if her career fizzles.

Her real passion is reserved for bull-in-a-china-shop Gable who, in a typical can-we-keep-the-show-afloat move, plows all his personal money in to sustain it when Tone, trying to convince Crawford to marry him, covertly pulls his money out so her career will fail. If you've never seen one of these movies before, the conclusion might surprise you, but it's pretty standard stuff.

MGM threw almost everything it had at this pre-code. In addition to the three big-name leads, there are plenty of scantily clad women, plenty of sexual innuendo, plenty of expensive sets and plenty of elaborately choreographed numbers.

Pulling out all the stops, MGM also has The Three Stooges in here as stagehands doing, well, Three-Stooges-as-stagehands stuff. Finally, song-and-dance man Fred Astaire pops up to sing and, more importantly, dance with Crawford as she prepares for her big Broadway debut. Watching Crawford dance, even to this untrained eye, makes clear it's a good thing she can act.

Despite all the firepower and budget, the movie feels okay, but surprisingly "small," as if it was a B movie mistakenly given A-movie treatment. Heck, tight-fisted Warner Bros. would have taken out most of the frills, tossed in a few more plot twists (Warners loved more plot) and produced a better movie for half the money.

Still, it's fun to see Crawford and Gable being all youth and beauty especially since, in Dancing Lady, they are clearly having fun being all youth and beauty with each other.

"The Father" w/ Anthony Hopkins & Olivia Colman. A very interesting movie about a very difficult subject. Of course very well acted, adapted from a stage play it was well written. I really liked the movie's structure even though it was jarring at first in the end it worked so well and was a bold move. Great movie well worth the time.

I Married a Witch (1942)
Veronica Lake is a fine actress... but who knew she had such comedic timing and so much charm!
A fun film and I have to say I had a number of laugh out loud moments. This was a delightful film and if you've never been bitten by the Veronica Lake bug you are sure to be infatuated with her after seeing this film! what a charmer! She was a tiny powerhouse!
"Goodbye, Jennifer, be a bad girl."

Daniel: "Jennifer, what's that curse thou wast chattering about?"
Jennifer: "Each Wooley must marry the wrong woman."
Daniel: "Ha! What a curse! Every man who marries... marries the wrong woman. True suffering cometh when a man is in love with the woman he cannot marry!"

Edward Reed said:

I Married a Witch (1942)
Veronica Lake is a fine actress... but who knew she had such comedic timing and so much charm!
A fun film and I have to say I had a number of laugh out loud moments. This was a delightful film and if you've never been bitten by the Veronica Lake bug you are sure to be infatuated with her after seeing this film! what a charmer! She was a tiny powerhouse!
"Goodbye, Jennifer, be a bad girl."
View attachment 351016
Daniel: "Jennifer, what's that curse thou wast chattering about?"
Jennifer: "Each Wooley must marry the wrong woman."
Daniel: "Ha! What a curse! Every man who marries... marries the wrong woman. True suffering cometh when a man is in love with the woman he cannot marry!"

View attachment 351014
View attachment 351015

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Fun movie and, agree, Lake was a talented tiny powerhouse. You might enjoy this autobiography of hers: #8581

Fading Fast said:

Fun movie and, agree, Lake was a talented tiny powerhouse. You might enjoy this autobiography of hers: #8581

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I just read your review! awesome! I was only slightly aware of her self destructive flaws but I didn't know how redundant her foolish habits were. I can see how she would fall into the Hollywood ego trap being so young and so in demand so quickly. That sort of super-stardom can mess with your mind and perspective. The higher they fly the harder they fall.. and she did so, so many times. I prefer knowing only just enough about the real person... I prefer to keep my idealized and romanticized fantasy of the Hollywood golden-age stars even though I know they were human just like anyone else. I feel for them. Their legacy endures.