What Classics Did You See Last Week (November 5-11)
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Film General
spiderwort — 2 years ago(November 11, 2023 03:26 PM)
Modern films are welcome as well as classic films and those from any other viewing mediums. All comments, recommendations, and images are welcome, too.
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spiderwort — 2 years ago(November 11, 2023 03:30 PM)
Chocolat
- My first viewing, and I loved it! Beautifully directed by the extremely talented, too often overlooked Lasse Hallström. Nominated for five Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actress (Juliette Binoche), Best Supporting Actress (Judi Dench), best adapted screen play and best music. Why Hallström was ignored just proves my point. Don’t know how I missed it all these years, but I’m so glad to have seen it now. Highly recommended.
Rewatches:
One of my personal favorites, adapted from the William Saroyan novel I also love. Highly recommended.
And not great but always enjoyable, recommended for its cast and entertaining story:
- My first viewing, and I loved it! Beautifully directed by the extremely talented, too often overlooked Lasse Hallström. Nominated for five Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actress (Juliette Binoche), Best Supporting Actress (Judi Dench), best adapted screen play and best music. Why Hallström was ignored just proves my point. Don’t know how I missed it all these years, but I’m so glad to have seen it now. Highly recommended.
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EdwardVP — 2 years ago(November 11, 2023 03:48 PM)
First of all, welcome back Spiderwort. Pygmy Lion and Rufus T have held the fort well while you've been away but it's so nice to see you back where you belong.
THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943)
A young girl goes in search for her older sister in New York. Things soon get menacing after she realizes she is dealing with a dangerous cult. There some really good creepy scenes in this morbid chiller.
LADY OF BURLESQUE (1943)
Barbara Stanwyck must be the best all-rounder actress of all time. Here she sings and dances the shimmy in a Burlesque show. There is a murderer at the theater where there are some rivalries among the show girls. -
spiderwort — 2 years ago(November 11, 2023 04:00 PM)
Thank you for your kind comments, Edward! I have so little time these days, and I still don't have time to comment on everyone's posts, but I'm grateful for all contributions. And I enjoyed both of your films, especially LADY OF BURLESQUE, because Stanwyck is one of my most beloved actresses, and one of the best, in my opinion. Also, for those who don't know, the film is based upon a novel by none other than Gypsy Rose Lee. I find that most interesting, indeed.
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PygmyLion — 2 years ago(November 12, 2023 01:53 AM)
Road to Paradise
(1930) - Loretta Young, Jack Mulhall - Loretta Young plays two women, who look alike. One is rich and one hangs with thieves. A treat for Loretta Young fans, but perhaps others should skip it - 8
A Woman's Secret
(1949) - Gloria Grahame, Maureen O'Hara, Melvyn Douglas - 6
Crossfire
(1947) - Roberts: Young, Mitchum, and Ryan, Gloria Grahame - 7
Song of the Thin Man
(1947) - Myrna Loy, William Powell, Gloria Grahame - 7
The Swan
(1956) - Grace Kelly, Alec Guinness, Louis Jourdan - 7
Lilly Turner
(1933) - Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Frank McHugh - 7 -
ZolotoyRetriever — 2 years ago(November 12, 2023 06:58 AM)
Hi, Spiderwort. Good to see you again. You've been missed around here. I can understand and relate to your being busy, though… with that in mind, I myself have been too busy to do much movie watching. But I did manage to fit in a few this past week:
Hitchhike!
(1974) - an ABC MOTW (Movie of the Week), starring Cloris Leachman and Michael Brandon. Leachman plays a woman driving from L.A. up to San Francisco to visit her sister. Just as she gets going on the trip, she impulsively stops to pick up a hitchhiker, played by Brandon. Turns out, he is a psychopath who has just murdered his beautiful stepmother (Sherry Jackson), and is trying to skip town.
This is a very good one IMHO… Leachman and Brandon are both spot on: Leachman portraying a kind, sympathetic woman trying to help a guy out, Brandon portraying a cold, troubled and manipulative killer who may, or may not, kill again. The So. Cal scenery - driving along the Pacific coast - is great. The police getting involved in the case add to the tension, which builds to an interesting climax.
The Girl on the Late, Late Show
(1974) - Made for TV movie from 1974 that I watched on YouTube. A New York-based television producer (Don Murray) decides to find out the whereabouts of a former movie actress (Gloria Grahame) whose career has long since faded. He heads off to Hollywood to investigate. He discovers that his inquiries have set off a string of murders.
This one is above average, at least to me. It deals with a faded star of the classic film era, and, it includes a few guest stars who made their name in Hollywood during the classic period: Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Yvonne DeCarlo, John Ireland, Ralph Meeker, and others. Some of the more contemporary actors are good, too: Joe Santos, Sherry Jackson, Burt Convy, et al.
On YouTube the picture and sound quality of this film isn't the best - in fact I had to select CC (closed captioning) to help me decipher various bits of unintelligible dialogue, but CC has its shortcomings: not everything was correctly translated. Oh well, I found it to be a very good movie just the same.
Rampage
(1963) - starring Robert Mitchum, Jack Hawkins and Elsa Martinelli as a trio of hunters who travel to Malaysia (in reality it was filmed on location in Hawaii) in order to trap some exotic big game animals for delivery to a German zoo. I'm not finished with this one yet, but so far it's not bad - except for the less than clear picture and sound quality (this pertains to available prints online - none of them are really great transfers… oh well). Unfortunately I don't see CC available for this one, so I'm doing the best I can. Some of the dialogue here and there is unintelligible to me. -
spiderwort — 2 years ago(November 12, 2023 02:54 PM)
Thank you, Zolo. And I wish I could respond to everyone, but I do read all the posts. I've seen none of your titles, but I so wish I'd seen the Cloris Leachman one. She was a truly remarkable actress and a wonderful soul whom I had the good fortune to work with back in the day. I miss her still.
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Rufus-T — 2 years ago(November 12, 2023 06:59 AM)
Scarlet Street (1945)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038057/
Stuck in an unhappy marraige, another Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett collaboration like The Woman in the Window. I like this one evne more.
Edge of Doom (1950)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042428/
On the run, An impulsive and impoverished young man wanted a big funeral for his mom. Problems resulted. Interesting story, but the the young man gets a bit of annoying. Some miscasts, like Dana Andrews playing a pastor.
Woman on the Run (1950)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043142/
Ann Sheridan played the wife of a witness to a murder, who is disappeared. Very much Hitchcock like.
Dangerous Passage (1944)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036741/
A guy traveled on a ship to collect his inheritance, but ran into questionable people. Interesting story, but cheap quality.
Suddenly (1954)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047542/
Assasination attempt on the President in a small town named Suddenly. LIke a play, but very intense. Hard to go wrong with this one when starring Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden.
He Walked by Night (1948)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040427/
Following the cop procedure in capturing a cop killer. Narrated like a documentary, which took away some impact of the story.
Kansas City Confidential (1952)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044789/
A guy got mistaken for a bank robbery and decided to search for the real robbers. I did not care for it that much the first time. I don't remember why. Must be because of lots of question decision among the characters. I enjoyed much more this time around.
The Big Caper (1957)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050190/
Planning a heist, the big boss' girlfriend falls for a guy falls as they pretended to be married couple during the planning. I liked it a lot.
Behind Green Lights (1946)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038346/
A whodunit, while a politician tried to frame the daughter of the opposition during an election. Short, but effective. -
PygmyLion — 2 years ago(November 12, 2023 03:48 PM)
That is a pretty good group of movies from a period where I have watched a lot of movies. The only one that I am sure that I've seen is
Kansas City Confidential
, but probably I have seen 1 or 2 other ones.
It's been a while since I saw
Kansas City Confidential
, the thing I remember about it is having a top group of bad guys: Lee Van Cleed, Jack Elam, and Neville Brand led by Preston Foster.
That Ann Sheridan one,
Woman on the Run
, sounds particularly interesting. Perhaps i have seen it, but even if so I'm ready for another viewing. -
Rufus-T — 2 years ago(November 12, 2023 10:37 PM)
Thanks. Yeah, Kansas City Confidential and Woman on the Run were awesome. Ann Sheridan really shined in Woman on the Run. Besides these two, the other one I highly recommended is Suddenly. They are all good though. I saw all these in Amazon Prime. If you are a member, you can catch them all there.
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unex — 2 years ago(November 13, 2023 01:19 PM)
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) - The third in a trilogy, a series of vignettes of mundane situations that become surreal. Every shot looks like an Edward Hopper painting. If you don't like one scene it will change into something different and unrelated soon enough which might be more to your taste. In that way the movie despite lacking a plot can keep you watching.
The Cotton Club (1984) - A lot of people think Coppola lost something after Apocalypse Now but I liked this movie. I think it would have been better received in the 70s. People might have been tired of gangster movies by then.
Under the Sun (2015) - Rewatch. A documentary about North Korea. The filmmakers were in North Korea to shoot an officially approved documentary and were able to shoot a lot of other footage undercover. You get a few rare looks at life in Pyongyang. At least one of the scenes could have been taken from A Pigeon… The same composition, same low-key surreality.