What Classics Did You See Last Week (December 3-9)
-
PygmyLion — 2 years ago(December 10, 2023 03:10 AM)
49th Parallel
(1941) - Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, Raymond Massey, Glynis Johns, Eric Portman - A group of Nazi submariners get stranded in Canada when their submarine is sunk and they try to make it back home. Olivier, Johns, Howard, and Massey appear at different parts of the movie - 8
Bachelor Party
(1957) - Don Murray, Jack Worden, Carolyn Jones - Carolyn Jones was nominated for an Oscar for a short role as "The Existentialist" - 7
Bataan
(1943) - Robert Taylor, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Nolan, Robert Walker, Desi Arnaz, Kenneth Spencer - Robert Taylor and a small group of soldiers blow a bridge and then try to prevent the Japanese from rebuilding it, thus slowing the Japs down during the allies retreat to Bataan. (Happily, the Japanese left their mortars and artillery behind and couldn't shell the group's position.) Interesting for the period, Spencer plays a black soldier among the group - 7
Grand Hotel
(1932) - Greta Garbo, Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery - 7
All I Desire
(1953) - Barbara Stanwyck, Richard Carlson - Discussed on thread:
https://www.filmboards.com/board/t/Favorite-films-set-in-early-1900s-America-(1900s-into-the-1920s)-3445981/- 7
Black Angel
(1946) - Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre - solid film noir - 7
I Was a Male War Bride
(1949) - Cary Grant, Ann Sheridan - comedy. Grant, a French officer, marries Ann Sheridan, a WAC, but has trouble returning to America with her, because the system is set up just for war brides - 7
- 7
-
spiderwort — 2 years ago(December 12, 2023 02:30 PM)
I've seen all your titles, PL, and generally agree with your assessments. Just wanted to add that even though although it's not great, I happen to love I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE. I'm a big Cary Grant fan (who isn't?), but I'm also a huge fan of Ann Sheridan. I love her in everything, including this sometimes silly but very charming Howard Hawks endeavor.
-
PygmyLion — 2 years ago(December 12, 2023 08:57 PM)
I understand your rationale fully. I'm not quite as big an Ann Sheridan fan though, although she is good. But you take a movie like
Notorious
with Grant and Ingrid Bergman or
The Bishop's Wife
with Grant and Lorreta Young, the pairing of an actor and actress both whom I particularly like, and it adds greatly to my enjoyment of the movie. Perhaps a bit of a synergistic effect. -
spiderwort — 2 years ago(December 13, 2023 01:24 PM)
Oh, do I get the Cary Grant thing! With Bergman and Loretta Young especially, but actually with almost anyone – Myrna Loy comes to mind, too, among many others. Synergy is a good word, and Grant was a master of creating it.
-
Rufus-T — 2 years ago(December 10, 2023 05:47 AM)
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169102/
Despite not knowing anything about cricket, I love this movie about farmers waged their livelihood on playing a game of cricket against their governing people
GoldenEye (1995)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113189/
First of the Pierce Brosnan James Bond. Up and down and not the best, but enjoyable nevertheless
Cop Land (1997)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118887/
Sly Stallone played a sherriff to go against the corrupted cop system in a small town in New Jersey. High Noon-ish. The role fitted Stallone perfectly. Harvey Keiter especially good playing the corrupted cop ring leader. De Niro also great playing the officer in NYC asking for Stallone help in uncover the corruption.
Midnight Run (1988)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095631/
Fun and funny, with much action, buddy adventure kind of movie with De Niro playing a bounty hunter bringing a witness accountant, Charles Grodin, back against target from every which way, the mob and the FBI
Andhadhun (2018)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8108198/
A "blind" pianist got himself into some sticky situation that involved murder, infidelity, and kidney harvesting. Suspenseful, and wacky at times. -
unex — 2 years ago(December 11, 2023 01:11 PM)
That Man from Rio (1964) - They call it a Bond spoof. The bar for qualifying as a Bond spoof is low. No strict spoof of the character of James Bond is required, just international intrigue—not necessarily espionage related—and exotic locales. These types of movies are more about the novelty of international travel than spoofing a Bond movie which didn't take themselves seriously enough to need spoofing anyway. This movie has the actor who played Largo in Thunderball, but a year before that movie came out. It's a fun movie.
Jamaica Inn (1939) - Hitchcock hated it, Daphne de Maurier hated it, Hitchcock fans hate it, but I liked it. It has a good main villain. Every other villain showed at least a little humanity but he was a pure psychopath. -
Doghouse-6 — 2 years ago(December 11, 2023 09:10 PM)
I'm a Hitchcock fan, and I like
Jamaica Inn
too.
For years, I avoided it due to Hitch's derision, but was pleasantly surprised because I was expecting so little. Laughton was over the top - that's often much of the fun of his performances - but it was full of the director's recognizable touches, and I enjoyed it enough to revisit it more than once.
Poe! You are…avenged! -
Doghouse-6 — 2 years ago(December 12, 2023 10:52 PM)
Again, full disclosure: it's not top-drawer Hitchcock by any means. But it is nowhere near as poor or negligible as the director made it out to be.
My two-bit psychological analysis is that Hitchcock's disdain for the film was really only a reflection of latter-day disappointment in himself for his half-hearted efforts. Had he not already made a commitment to Selznick stateside and been in a hurry to wrap up his final one in England, he might have been more invested in the film and, possibly, in restraining Laughton. As a result, it ends up being a Laughton picture at least as much as a Hitchcock one. And from what I know about Hitchcock, that may well have been his biggest objection.
But I'm on record with assertions that every Hitchcock picture offers things of interest and value, and this one offers more than some other of his lesser efforts.
Poe! You are…avenged! -
spiderwort — 2 years ago(December 13, 2023 01:22 PM)
Thanks for the clarifications. And based upon your general comments and those of
@unex
, I have a feeling I'm missing something by not seeing it, so I'll give it a go the next chance I have. I'm surprised I've haven't seen it already anyway. -
Doghouse-6 — 2 years ago(December 13, 2023 03:52 PM)
Yes, I remember. Once Hitchcock had settled on his evaluations and anecdotes to represent any of his pictures, they tended to remain unaltered over the years.
He never spoke much about other directors, and even more rarely by name, but I'd love to know what his opinion was of Laughton as a director, and his boldly-stylized and astonishing
Night of the Hunter
.
Poe! You are…avenged!