?Directed by Orson Welles? ?Written by Sherwood King, Orson Welles?
The review:
Orson Welles does an Irish accent and takes the noir film to a bunch of sunny locals for an interesting night at the cinema.* Everyone really dug into their characters, none more so than Glenn Anders, who played his part with a sweaty dedication. There were also twists a plenty, and some dramatic visuals as befits the dude who made Citizen Kane.**
The verdict: Good
Cost: Free via TV Time app on Roku TV (But get ready to see the same commercials repeated.) Where watched: at home
Consider also watching all of the Filmspotting 40’s Noir Marathon movies:
*So much sun and fun! (But that underbelly of darkness followed them, don’t worry) I loved that we seemed to be getting location shots, rather than sound stage shots. **”This movie is awesome!” I cackled aloud near the end.
Questions:
What did you think of the treatment of all the people of color who wandered through this film?
What are your favorite Rita Heyworth and Orson Welles movies?
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
Columbia Pictures boss Harry Cohn told Orson Welles he would never again hire one man to produce, direct and act because he could never fire him.
Also this:
In the aquarium scene, the tanks were shot separately, enlarged, and matted in to make the sea creatures appear more monstrous and loom closer to the actors.
?Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer? ?Written by Martin Goldsmith?
The review:
There are three reasons to watch this film and the least of the reasons is that it’s 68 minutes, so it won’t take much of your time. The other two have to do with the road trip conundrum* and the incredible performance by Ann Savage.** I can’t say I know a ton about noir, but I can say that this film is a great place to start, if you are among the noir curious.***
The verdict: Recommended
Cost: free from the Multnomah County Library (I even got the Criterion Collection version.) Where watched: at home
*Though “back in the day” is often portrayed as a time when hitchhiking was a thing that everyone did, Tom Neal’s character mentions how hard it’s been for him to get a ride. **She doesn’t appear until the movie is nearly halfway over, but man, does she make this film work. ***And like I said, 68 minutes!
Questions:
What was Al Roberts first misstep?
How you would have navigated this particular jam?
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
The budget PRC gave director Edgar G. Ulmer for this film was so small that the 1941 Lincoln Continental V-12 convertible driven by Charles Haskell was actually Ulmer’s personal car.
?Directed by Otto Preminger? ?Written by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Renhardt?
The review:
Dana Andrews* is our hard-boiled detective investigating the murder of Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney,**) a charismatic and beloved career woman shot in her apartment. Like all good noirs, somthin’ ain’t right and we can place our bets as we learn more about Laura through flashbacks narrated by Clifton Webb,*** Vincent Price,**** and others. This movie has great dialog and a great twist I didn’t see coming that made this a very satisfying story.
The verdict: Good
Cost: $3.99 via Google Play (I could have gotten it from the library, if I had planned ahead.) Where watched: at home
*I found him to be flat in this, though I’ve liked him in State Fair and his performance in The Best Years of Our Lives (that movie is slow, though and I don’t recommend it.) **Incredibly likable! ***The single-and-fussy (and you can use your 1940s translator to understand what that really means) columnist who adores Laura. ****He was once young!
Questions:
It might be fun to have a marathon featuring movies from the 40s through the 60s with women who have careers. What comes to mind?
Would you have dated Shelby Carpenter?
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
Despite the Oscar snub of the score, David Raksin’s music proved to be so popular that the studio soon found itself inundated with letters asking if there was a recording available of the main theme. Soon, sheet music and recordings of the instrumental music were released and proved to be a huge hit with the public.
?Directed by Frank Tuttle? ?Written by Albert Maltz, W.R. Burnett?
The review:
Well this is a delightful mishmash of oddities.* Alan Ladd plays it tough as Raven, who has no room for anyone** and is the titular gun for hire. Veronica Lake doesn’t exactly dazzle as a performer, though she does make an impression*** and when the two come together, they do capture the eye.
The verdict: Good
Cost: $3.99 via Google Play Where watched: at home
*It’s noir, there are two full music and dance numbers, there’s a spy plot, and a wealthy and weird rich guy. **Though he does like cats.**** ***Singing, dancing, and magic tricks? So many things crammed into one routine. This was my first time seeing a Veronica Lake performance. After hearing about her glamour for 40+ years, I have to say I was underwhelmed. Yes to the amazing hair. But she also looks like one of those underfed kids from Appalachia. Beauty standards. They don’t hold. ****Speaking of cats, one of them will be killed in the course of this movie. It happens off screen and didn’t bug me the way things like this usually do.
Questions:
Was this movie just a little too odd?
How did you feel about the ending?
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
In Graham Greene’s novel, Raven’s psychological motivation for becoming a killer was that his mother disfigured his face. Paramount could not mess up Ladd’s handsome mug, so it was changed to his aunt disfiguring his wrist with a red hot poker.
?Directed by William Wyler? ?Written by Howard Koch?
The review:
From the first dramatic scene to the last, this movie is plenty of fun.* Bette Davis is both flip and overwhelmed as a woman who had to kill her neighbor when he tried to assault her.** But once a letter floats to the surface, we see the difficult choices her lawyer must make.***
The verdict: Good
Cost: $2.99 via Google Play Where watched: at home
Further sentences:
*Death comes in both of those scenes, so we’re not talking barrel of laughs fun, but there’s something about how overwrought everything is that is so incredibly enjoyable. **So she says. ***All leading to a very dramatic ending. Note: This was filmed in the 1940s and is set on a rubber plantation. In terms of racist portrayals it’s not great. I’ve seen much, much worse though.
Questions:
What was your turning point?
What did you think of Victor Sen Yung’s portrayal of Ong Chi Seng?
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
The first scene that William Wyler shot was the famous opening shot in which we see Leslie shoot Geoffrey Hammond. The opening shot, which lasted two minutes on screen, took an entire day to film, and that was before even a single word of dialogue was spoken. The studio expected him to shoot at a rate of 3-4 script pages a day, but the opening shot reflected a mere paragraph on page one.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Written by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison
The review:
Rebecca has the usual problems one runs into with a film older than my social-security-collecting parents,* but that shouldn’t keep you from watching it. It’s a whole atmosphere, from the first line** to the last, iconic image, and so much of what’s fun about the atmosphere is the head housekeeper stink-eye provided by Judith Anderson. This is a great intro to Hitchcock, both for the universality of feeling being in over one’s head and for the Hitchcock camera angles.
The verdict: Recommended
Cost: Free via DVD copy from the Multnomah County Library. That copy kept freezing, so I also watched part of it via TV Time, the Roku channel that shows old movies and has commercials. Then the internet dropped out, so I went back to the DVD. It was a journey. Where watched: at home
*Older man treating the woman he loves like a child, the woman in question wandering through her life, the couple “falling in love” in the time it takes a rich lady to recover from pneumonia, the proposal that was a put down, etc. The infantilization of women in classic films is sometimes hard to take. **”Last night, I dremt I went to Manderley again” gave me chills and when paired with the visual and the distant tone in Joan Fontaine’s voice throughout the monologue, propels this first line right to the same territory as: “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.”*** ***Goodfellas. AFI has neither of these quotes on its list of top 100 movie quotes, but what do they know?
Questions:
What would your reaction have been, coming home to Manderly?
It’s weird that there aren’t any titles used, eh? Like is he a lord, or a commoner from a very rich family?
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
The first movie that Sir Alfred Hitchcock made in Hollywood, and the only one that won a Best Picture Oscar. Although it won Best Picture, the Best Director Award that year went to John Ford for The Grapes of Wrath (1940).
For those interested, back in the 90s, I watched an interesting documentary called Hitchcock, Selznick and the End of Hollywood. I really liked the comparison between the two men and it’s worth searching out. It seems to be an episode of American Masters.
Full opening quote: (Though more fun to watch. I’ve got it queued up here.)
Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter for the way was barred to me.
Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden, the supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done. But as I advanced, I was aware that a change had come upon it. Nature had come into her own again, and little by little had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers, on and on while the poor thread that had once been our drive.
And finally, there was Manderley. Manderley, secretive and silent. Time could not mar the perfect symmetry of those walls. Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, and suddenly it seemed to me that light came from the windows.
And then a cloud came upon the moon and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face. The illusion went with it. I looked upon a desolate shell, with no whisper of a past about its staring walls. We can never go back to Manderley again. That much is certain. But sometimes, in my dreams, I do go back to the strange days of my life which began for me in the south of France…
Top movies watched in 2018 from individual decades
I like some structure to my movie watching. But only some.
I’ve got a scratch-off movie poster* that had me chasing some old classics in 2018, plus some catch up viewing for Filmspotting Madness, 2000s edition. That meant that I watched some things from decades other than the current one.
Oh, and there was a movie that was scheduled to be released that had three previous versions. I couldn’t let that opportunity go by.
Here are my favorite old favorite discoveries in 2018
Janet Gaynor is Esther Blodgett, an aspiring actress and Frederic March is the aging alcoholic actor who wants Ms. Blodgett to be the film star she’s always dreamed of being.
While there was a lot of subject matter that usually would sink the film for me (May-December romances, falling in love with an alcoholic) I adored this film.
John Huston’s classic is a classic for a reason. You may be intrigued because it’s a Humphry Bogard film, but John Huston cast his own father as Howard, the old gold prospector delighted to be out in the gold fields again. Howard steals the show.
1950s
6 movies watched from the 1950s I really hit the jackpot with this decade
Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly
Directed by
Fred Zinnemann
Five stars.
Gary Cooper doesn’t have much time to raise up a posse to greet Frank Miller, the criminal Cooper sent to prison several years before. But it shouldn’t be too hard. After all, everyone remembers how bad things had been when Frank Miller was around.
A publicity still from the 1950 Academy Award®-winning drama “All about Eve” features (left to right): Gary Merrill, Bette Davis, George Sanders, Anne Baxter, Hugh Marlowe and Celeste Holm. “All about Eve” received a record 14 Academy Award nominations and won six Oscars®, including Best Picture. Restored by Nick & jane for Dr. Macro’s High Quality Movie Scans Website: http:www.doctormacro.com. Enjoy!
Five stars.
If you’re like me and your only exposure to this movie is a few quotes, well then “fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.” Bette Davis is amazing, as is the rest of the cast.
Billy Wilder, Marlenia Dietrich, Tyorne Power, Charles Laughton. Big names! And a big story of a lawyer defending his client from a murder charge. Best enjoyed if you know nothing about the film. Do you like courtroom dramas? Queue this one up!
Okay so 2018 was the year I spent a goodly amount of time gushing over three of the four versions of this movie. But there is a good reason for that! This time, Judy Garland plays the aspiring actress and James Mason plays the alcoholic has-been. And Judy Garland was a force. Watch the below scene and see if you don’t want to invest another another 150 minutes in this movie.
1960s, 1970s, 1980s
For these decades I have no movies to recommend. I didn’t watch any movies from the 60s, only one from the 70s (that was the terrible version of A Star is Born) and only two in the 80s.
Four stars. This film isn’t going to be for everyone. You’ve got to be a fan of stories incrementally told while not a lot of action happens. In fact, the action that mostly happens is young men in the French Foreign Legion doing training exercises in the sun. But watching young, fit men work out isn’t the worst way to spend your time. And if you are like me, the ending scene with Denis Lavant will captivate you.
2000s
I watched 18 movies from the ‘aughts in 2018. Only one of them was a five-star movie.
Five stars. Eleven actors, all at their sparkly best. A heist plotted against a guy who deserves to lose his money. Julia Roberts. This film is the filmiest of films and so much fun. Get the team together, get the plan together, execute the plan, deal with the fallout. It’s hard to stop smiling while watching this.
Further sentences:
*It appears that my version of Pop Chart’s 100 Essential Films Scratch-off Movie Poster has been substituted for this one. Most of the movies look the same, though. Oh, but they added Lady Bird (my #1 movie of 2017) Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley for the win!) and Black Panther (If you’re only going to see one Marvel film, this is it). Good choices.
Since they don’t make movies like Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly’s On the Town anymore, this movie gets a pass on a lot of things.* But it does have great musical numbers*** and that great color saturation that comes with movies from the (almost) 1950s. There are musicals where the story, song and dance meld together into a cohesive wholes and then there is this type where the story is something to pass the time while waiting for the next musical number.
The verdict:
Good, though only because I gave it a pass on a lot of things
Cost: free from library Where watched: at home as part of Filmspotting’s Stanley Donen marathon.
Consider also watching:
Singing in the Rain
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers****
Chicago
The Sound of Music
Further sentences:
*Outmoded social norms,** a bit too long, a lack of even one very good song. **Although the character of Brunhilde Esterhazy reminded me a lot of Melissa McCarthy’s character in Bridesmaids. ***I cringed through “Primitive Man” but did enjoy Ann Miller’s awesome green dress with the plaid lining. ****Also a cringe-y plot, but with amazing dancing, great songs and a cohesive story.
Favorite IMDB Trivia Item:
There was a real-life version of the “Miss Turnstiles” contest in New York City. “Miss Subways” was a beauty contest run by the New York Subways Advertising Company from 1941 to 1976. Subway cars featured posters of pretty young women who lived and worked in New York. Link is here.
