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dmmiller23
Reviews
Vessel of Wrath (1938)
A charming little gem of a film
I downloaded this movie free from the internet the other night, and was just charmed by it. I'd read somewhere that Laughton's performance was particularly notable in it, and yes, he delivers on the difficult job of playing a lovable scoundrel. In what could have been a one-note portrayal, he adds layers of nuance to a what is also a rather physical role. His drunken muttering is as revealing as it is spot-on.
Elsa Lanchester (Laughton's real-life wife) also shines, rolling her R's throughout as a prim missionary teaching Indonesians how to recite "Here we go gathering nuts in May." The only other role of hers that I (and everyone else) is familiar with is as the Bride of Frankenstein, but here you could see she has a subtle knack for comedy. Actually, I couldn't get that film (and Laughton in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame") out of my mind while watching this one, except here it is Laughton who plays a sort of monster!
The Parallax View (1974)
What a surprising bore!
I really looked forward to finally watching this film, which I'd heard referred to for years. What a disappointment! Where did this film ever get a reputation as a great political thriller? Not only is the plot hole-ier than hell, but scenes that should be trying to build suspense seem deliberately dull and poorly timed. Too many details are never explained, and the viewer is left in the dark scratching his head. Hitchcock always advocated giving the audience the information it needed to be gripped by what was going on--i.e. letting it be known that a bomb was about to explode unexpectedly. In Parallax, a bomb goes off on a ship with no warning. WTF? And you gotta admit that Beatty is sleepwalking through this. And what's the deal with the old newspaper editor--apparently he is the only employee there. And the whole "brainwashing" sequence comes off being dropped into the film as an excuse for someone to do an artsy-fartsy montage of images from Life magazine. Uh, what's your point?