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Captain Scarlett (1952)
One of the Worst Films I Have Ever Tried to Watch - Greene Fences Like a Clydesdale
I began watching this thing 30 minutes ago. I stopped watching this thing 15 minutes ago. I couldn't take it any longer. It has nothing going for it. You'd have to be drunk out of your mind to even laugh at this 'film'....except the 2 Munchkin soldiers bound together and swinging from a tree limb and yelling "Help!!!" like little girls.
First appearance of Richard Greene had his head tilted at an odd angle like a pud trying to escape from someone's trousers on a sunny day....and it grins.
Terrible directing, casting, music, color, acting, dialog, fencing, wit, choreography, costumes - even the scenery is awful.
Greene fences like a Clydesdale - clump clump clump.
"I am a stranger only to those who do not know me." Whoa. Great stuff.
I can't watch the rest. Even the chick is ugly.
Useless. At least back in VHS days, I could have taped over the film. With a DVD, all I have is a round pocket mirror or a frisbee of death.
Not worth what it cost me which was nothing.
The Maze (1953)
Very disappointing film...'and a bowl of tomahto soup'
I had heard about this film for years and didn't realize until last night that i had inherited a copy from my late friend's collection and it had been sitting on my shelf for more than 10 years.
He would type of his VHS video labels - very neat, but tough to read sideways. In this case, he had used VHS tape made by Polaroid and the word "Polaroid" was printed in much larger letters than his typed words "The Maze", so for years my eyes just swept right by it on the shelf.
His copy was taped from some TV station from their "The 1 O'Clock Movie". No clue where from.
So - that said - it was very disappointing. "The Maze" is a great title and I wish more of the action had revolved around the maze. The story was ridiculous and the ending even more so.
When the old lady saw the seaweed on the floor, I immediately thought "Lovecraft", but when she remarked "and a bowl of tomahto soup" I had to replay it twice. Is that what she really said? The blond lead was a total Marilyn Monroe clone (poor man's version) and Richard Carlson looked awful in that "I am ill or troubled" make-up.
Odd film.
ps - Someone had begun to tape RIDERS TO THE STARS after THE MAZE. RTTStars was directed by Richard Carlson, but sadly the tape was stopped.
Dancing in the Dark (1949)
Total misfire with near nothing going for it except the supporting cast and Powell
This looks like it was meant to be a June Have film...one that she turned down.
Dreadful film. Only worth watching for William Powell and people like Adolph Menjou. Mark Stevens - not so hot. Betsy Drake. The worst. Can't act sing or dance. Whines well. Magnificent cleavage, though. Yeah, right. You could play Scrabble on her 'chest'. No way any guy was going to wait two years for her. That dancing! Snakes on a plane.
Really, Bill Powell is the only reason to see the film, except to see how badly a play can be transfered to film in one case such as this - badly vs THE BANDWAGON just a few years later which is a masterpiece.
Destroyer (1943)
Another EGR winner - good cast, good story, good stuff!
Not a bad little Columbia film from 1943; unheralded, but brisk and well made.
EGR plays a retired naval officer now building ships during WW2. His old ship has been sunk and is being rebuilt. When it's done, he re-ups and gets assigned to the new incarnation of the USN destroyer, the John Paul Jones.
Through a connection, he aces out Glenn Ford from his position, though Ford is far more qualified and up-to-date in his naval knowledge.
EGR continues to irk everyone on the ship by riding them too hard and constantly babbling about the old JPJ. Finally, he strikes a fellow officer and is demoted and loses his position and must ask the re-instated Glenn Ford if he can even still serve on the JPJ. Ford doesn't like EGR, but says OK.
The ship has a couple of test shake out runs where many things go wrong and the ship is finally assigned mail duty instead of the much desired combat duty. Tired of EGR and embarrassed by the ship, many men request a transfer off the JPJ until EGR corners them all and tells them the history of JPJ the man and his ship's battle with a British ship. The men are riveted by the tale of the bravery of the man and his crew who, against all odds, defeat the British ship as their own ship burns and sinks before which JPJ had yelled his immortal line to the British when asked if he was surrendering - "I have not yet begun to fight".
The men stay on and find their ship in the middle of a battle with a Japanese submarine. The JPJ is torpedoed and is sinking and many of the man have abandoned ship as ordered. EGR asks permission to stay aboard to weld the damaged part of the ship....and they only have 2 hours before the Jap sub will surface and sink them for sure.
Can he do it?
Good male cast of characters- EGR Glenn Ford Edgar Buchanan Leo Gorcey Regis Toomey Edward Brophy Lloyd Bridges plus Marguerite Chapman as EGR's daughter.
Leo Gorcey gets a good quote at a dance as he asks a girl to dance with him - "Hey, squirrel. Wanna twirl?"
Edgar Buchanan at the same dance is asked by some woman what he will spend his paycheck on - 'Oh, I dunno. Some of it on beer. Some of it on women. The rest on something foolish, I guess'.
Robinson tells his shipmates about the British in the Revolutionary War - 'Don't let anyone kid you. Those Limeys could fight!'
And Leo Gorcey holds his own with EGR during the big JPJ story when EGR asks him to read the plaque that has the immortal line on it and Gorcey doesn't need to read it now and stares right up at the camera and EGR and quotes - "I have not yet begun to fight".
Some good special effects in the film and snappy dialog. Well worth viewing.
DESTROYER was issued on GOODTIMES HOME VIDEO in the 90s and wasn't easy to find then.
Fourteen Hours (1951)
Paul Douglas carries this film
It's been perhaps 15 years since I have seen this picture and despite the strong and competent cast of Hollywood favorites, it's Paul Douglas who carries this film on the strength of the sincerity and warmth he brings to his character.
Paul Douglas was 42 years old, entering middle age, before he made his first film of any consequence in 1949.
He came from a long career in radio as a very popular announcer at CBS in the 1930s and 1940s who was often the man at the mic for the Glenn Miller show for Chesterfield cigarettes. With Judy Holliday, he scored a major Broadway success in BORN YESTERDAY (though the film role went to Broderick Crawford). He was signed to a contract by 2oth Century-Fox and spent most of the next ten years successfully appearing in dramas, comedies, fantasies and even some science fiction before passing away prematurely in 1959.
FOURTEEN HOURS is typical of the appeal he brought to his many films. It's based upon a true incident, though the film is opened up for the sake of the large and screen-worthy cast.
Paul Douglas is a NYC cop pounding a beat who gets the call of a jumper on the 14th floor ledge of a downtown building. Once the experts appear, Douglas is sent back on the beat, but turns out the potential jumper doesn't want to talk to them. He wants to talk 'to that cop who was here before'. They find him, bring him back and the story continues from there.
It's not a faultless film, but that doesn't matter. It's a great period piece and a showcase for Douglas.
Excellent direction and camera work, including location shooting in a NYC long vanished.
I recommend it without reservation.
And cheers for Paul Douglas who has never gotten the acclaim he deserves.
Blue, White and Perfect (1942)
Better than the other Shayne Fox video releases so far
I'm working my way through the 4 film video package and this is the most entertaining one so far in my opinion. Not that it is a good film, but it has fewer drawbacks than the other two (Sleepers West & Michael Shayne, Private Detective.) The plot - Michael Shayne is following German agents who are stealing/smuggling industrial diamonds to Hawaii.
Of course, in all these drawn out MS melodramas, it takes him half the film to get on board and on with the show. Onboard, he meets George Reeves and reacquaints himself with an attractive woman. Everyone gets good service from steward Curt Bois.
As in all these MS films (so far), several scenes go on way too long with pointless dialog - presumably to fill out the storyline and running time. However, this film was less padded than the other two. Amen! Since MS and the ship are headed to Hawaii and there is a tag on the steamer trunks with a date in bold writing "Dec 6th", I thought they would be arriving the day before Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese. But, no......The film was released in early 1942 so I do not know what to make of the steamer trunk date.
The ending of the film has MS running off to Manila after a corpse falls out of a closet with a knife in his back and a mysterious note pinned to him. MS bids his sexy blond honey adieu and exits screen left for Manila. I dunno.......I don't expect much or try and dope out these films too much.
Good to see George Reeves in an early film. Mary Beth Hughes as MS' g/f looks good. Lloyd Nolan is good in all these films, I should add. The city sets in the early part of the film are nice. I'm not sure what the title means.
All in all - lightweight 'mystery' entertainment from the early 40s from a major studio.
Sleepers West (1941)
Unmysterious 'mystery' put me to sleep in the West
I just saw SLEEPERS WEST and it has little or no relation to a 'good film'. It's hilariously all over the map (haha) with completely improbable characters dropping in. The "farm woman" was a great example of that.
There are long stretches of the short film where the actors are pretty much on their own simply filling the film out while trying to be charming. The Louis Jean Heydt and Mary Beth Hughes characters just ramble their sad stories and histories to each other for no real reason. Nolan and Bari stay in there and keep throwing punches from beginning to end. At least Bari and Hughes are pretty. The train setting is nice. Some of the other MS films have snappy cars. I think I saw a LaSalle in MS-PD.
I ID'd 3 of the black actors, Ben, Mantan and Snowflake. They all were in so many films. And there was George Chandler as the rube with the car. He was head of the SAG once.
Bari and Hughes were in ORCHESTRA WIVES together.
That was one weird close up of LJH looking at MBH at one point.
Really not much one can say. Nice, crisp B&W! :) Anyway, it is pointless to attack and impossible to defend these paper-thin 'mysteries'. They are very disposable and if they had never been filmed, the world would be pretty much the same.
Garden of Evil (1954)
Highly over-rated except as a travelogue
Beautiful location photography and a good score by Bernard Hermann...and that about warps it up for GARDEN OF EVIL.
Gary Cooper seems very bored with his part.
Richard Widmark seems there for a vacation and doesn't want to get too worked up, either.
Cameron Mitchell and the Mexican dude really get excited over their thinly written parts.
And Susan Hayward, once again, gets a part that suits her non-acting ability.
Do Cooper or Widmark get any close-ups in this film? Almost everything in the film is a medium or long shot. They get chased by Apache Indians, but there is no visual way to really prove it. The camera seems about a mile away.
This is one of those vapid tales that seems to write itself in a rolling and banal manner.
Hayward comes charging into town to get help for her trapped husband in a gold mine. The boys ride out with her and it takes half the film for them to get there - perhaps a 3 or 4 days ride. It takes about 90 seconds for them to rescue him (Hugh Marlowe). They stay around the gold mine for a while and then ride back to town with Apaches on their trail.
And that's the picture.
These characters have little emotional involvement to involve *you* in the film. Why is everyone in the film so pre-involved with the other characters? They don't know each other. They have little or no history together. Does the film want us to believe that Susan Hayward is that alluring that these men become near instantly attached to her? She has nothing to offer except gold and sex.
The film is little more than a beautifully colored cartoon with nicely staged horse-riding sequences and gorgeous panoramas in Cinemascope.
Rawhide (1951)
A near total misfire of a western
Ever wonder why some films have faded from view and are little spoken of? RAWHIDE is a great example and contains many reasons for its general obscurity.
Things go wrong the moment Susan Hayward arrives on the scene. This woman cannot act and her character is completely overbearing and obnoxious.
This is simply a badly written story made worse by bizarre performances by Hugh Marlowe, Dean Jagger, George Tobias and the thoroughly freakish Jack Elam who is either the highlight or the low-light of the film.
Jack Elam gives all to his role with his eyes bugging out, licking his lips and his teeth, sticking out his tongue and his jaw and positioning his head in every freakish position that he can. And he gets close-ups! All he needed was to have his head spin around a la Linda Blair in THE EXORCIST.
Hugh Marlowe is awful and doesn't seem to realize he is in a movie.
Dean Jagger mutters much of the time as the semi-simpleton of Marlowe's band of gold robbers.
George Tobias plays an ethnic in the manner of El Brendel, yet looking like Alfonso Bedoya in THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE.
Tyrone Power does the best of all with a cookie-cutter character.
On the other hand, the location shooting in Lone Pine is very attractive and the digital restoration made the image quality look near to real life, but in black and white.
I can't envision myself ever watching this grueling film again.
Hear My Song (1991)
Sometimes quiet, sometimes laugh out loud comedy
Jolly fun as we get to see and hear Franc Sinatra, plus the potential of seeing Bing Krosby "with a "K"" as a disgruntled Franc Sinatra concert goer calls out from their seat.
A...ummm....'crafty' young music promoter must keep his girlfriend happy by finding the reclusive and out of country tenor Josef Locke who had romanced her mother (voted "Miss Dairy Goodness of 1952") back in the day and wishes to see him again.
The promoter heads for Ireland to find Locke and convince him to do just one more performance in England.
Problem is Locke cant come back to England because of a huge tax debt and a very eager and waiting tax collector.
Result = much fun and quite a bit of excitement.
Fine performances by all.
I saw this film once or twice about a decade ago, so please forgive and small diversions from the actual plot due to memory.
Jam Session (1944)
Not so hot Swing band review
It took me decades to finally view this film and I am glad I kept busy all those years for JAM SESSION is a bit of a miss-fire.
The fact that there is no story of consequence is moot point. The reason to see the film is the bands, singers and Ann Miller.
I must say that I have never seen Ann Miller look lovelier and more appealing. Sadly, she only gets one number at the end and it isn't a stunner.
The bands and the vocalists - a first rate line up of largely disappointing appearances with the emphasis on novelty tunes.
Armstrong - excellent.
Garber - much better then expected for Garber.
Rey - weird novelty number.
Powell - dreary comedy performance of a clever tune. What a waste of a good, forgotten band.
Barnet - the great Charlie Barnet band plays their immortal hit CHEROKEE. Well played, but no visual excitement.
Glen Gray/Casa Loma - same as above with NO NAME JIVE.
Nan Gray - OK
Jo Stafford and the Pied Pipers perform their old Tommy Dorsey hit, IT STARTED ALL OVER AGAIN. Excellent! Jo Stafford never looked better! She was 25 years old and looks right off the farm with a fresh face and big eyes to match her high hair do. An exceptional performance by Jo and the Pied Pipers in an unexceptional film. I think she hit 91 years old this year, so God bless her!
Clean. crisp photography.
That sums it up.
On the Avenue (1937)
Greatest strengths - Irving Berlin score, plus Dick Powell and Alice Faye
Songs include : He Ain't Got Rhythm - This Year's Kisses - You're Laughing At Me - The Girl on the Police Gazette Slumming On Park Avenue - I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
"On The Avenue" has been sitting on my video shelf for more than a dozen years - unwatched and overlooked. An oversight.
In spite of one of the other reviews above, the film is hardly the cinema tragedy painted by that reviewer.
Dick Powell, on loan out from Warner Brothers to Fox, Madeline Carroll and Alice Faye and The Ritz Brothers head an all star cast of Hollywood favorites - Joan Davis, Billy Gilbert, Alan Mowbray, Walter Catlett, George Barbier, Cora Witherspoon, Sig Ruman, Stepin Fetchit and others.
The production values are quite high, though the story in uninspired. Beautiful crisp blacks and whites fill the screen. Half a dozen hit tunes - some still performed 70 years later - written by Irving Berlin. Both Powell and Faye are in top voice and each get their share of tunes to introduce.
Alice Faye receives third billing under Powell and Carroll. This was likely one of the last times she would be billed as such - top stardom was right around the corner for her.
The dance routines are very 1930s and staged, somewhat generically, by Seymour Felix - lots of chorus girls and big stages. Sadly, "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", the most enduring song of the film, is kind of tossed away in a production number of modest proportions.
The Ritz Brothers are an acquired taste, perhaps. They do have some better moments in the film, especially so in the opening number where they are less zany than in the rest of the film. Dance skills? Absolutely!
Madeline Carroll is an attractive woman, but Alice Faye sings, dances and quietly radiant through-out the entire film.
There are some amusing similarities between this film and "Hollywood Hotel" another Dick Powell from 1937 - both are show business stories, Powell gets slapped in the face in both films by a stuck up girl and uses the same facial expression both times, Powell escorts his female star around the circumference of an outdoor fountain at night in both films, Alan Mowbray also appears in both films
It's not a great film or a great musical, but it is as entertaining as many musicals of the era with it's greatest strengths being its score and its 2 top performers, Powell and Faye.
American Masters: You're the Top: The Cole Porter Story (1990)
Informative with a good deal of scarce footage
This just ran here in Los Angeles on KLCS, our tenth run PBS style station where we catch the stuff we missed the first nine times around.
This one told much of Cole Porter and had a lot of fine vintage footage from films, radio, television and elsewhere - virtually none of it properly identified. (Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore in color singing and dancing in a production number; Bob Hope and Ethel Merman recreating one of their numbers together 20 plus years later - sources unnamed.) This program had it's parts being far greater than the sum of it's parts. I can't call it a 'good' documentary on the whole, but offering what it does, it succeeds.
Yes, it is too short, but some of the interviews towards the end were not entrancing. BUT - they were informative.
Have Rocket -- Will Travel (1959)
Mind numbing non comedy
Three Stooges - Have Rocket, Will Travel - 1959 This was the first feature length film to star the Stooges and it is pretty bad. It makes THE THREE STOOGES GO AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAZE (from 1963) look like a masterpiece.
The Stooges are janitors at a rocket place. They climb into a rocket and it goes to Venus. They meet some stuff there including a talking unicorn they call "Uni" which they bring back to Earth with them. "Uni" speaks like an average, pleasant person - 'Oh, hello. How are you? Lovely planet here. Hope you like it.' Hilarious.
Very few gags and so many of the scenes just go on and on and on.
The Stooges arrive back from space and the film is over as far as the story goes, but no one told that to the film makers for the picture continues for another 10 minutes or so at a party where nothing much happens. The Stooges leave the party and then the film is almost over.
High point of the film - the end where the Stooges sing a dapper little song about their journey. The Larry and Curly Joe hit Moe in the face with two pies. Brutal.
Another writer mentioned the fine musical score. Huh? The only music I even noticed were two classic tunes - I'LL TAKE ROMANCE and THERE GOES THAT SONG AGAIN, both of which are played at the party. And *that* really is the high point of the picture - music from old Columbia films.
The tall sexy blonde was nice.
Awful - a brand new VHS video from the 99 Cents Only store.
The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (1963)
Their Next to Last Starring Film
The Three Stooges Go Around the World In a Daze 1963.
This was the penultimate starring feature for the stooges and it is not very good.
I have avoided watching these late Stooges features b/c I figured they would not be very good. The Three Stooges Go Around the World In a Daze is regarded by some as their best late feature. Pity.
It's a 1963 release from Columbia and as such, it has a 'modern' look to it as compared to their 30s and 40s features that most of us now.
Moe and Larry are on hand looking fairly hale and hearty. I never noticed before how short Moe is. The valiant Joe DeRita is in here for Curly as Curly Joe. He tries, but he is rarely funny.
When you can isolate the funny moments in a film and have it come down to half a dozen, you know you don't have much of a comedy before you.
The film is a telling of the famous Jules Verne story - Around the World In Eighty Days. In this one, the grandson of the first intrepid traveler attempts, on a bet, to duplicate his grandfather's feat. The Stooges are in his employ as butlers. The other plot intricacies are not worth going into.
There are a few startling topical references in there with Larry, IIRC, making a reference to JFK's fitness program as they hike across country.
They have their exploits in various lands, but they are really filling time until the film says "The End" after about 80 minutes.
One laugh out loud sight gag - Curly Joe is in the ring with a sumo wrestler in Japan. As the big man staggers (or CJ goes to pin him - whatever), they hit the middle of the ring and it collapses inward in a concave manner. Funny! The other sight gag has the Stooges involved in a fight in a darkened warehouse. As the light repeatedly comes on and goes off, we see different moments in the fracas....in in that one funny moment, an arm comes out from the side of the screen and hits Moe in the face with it's fist. Well timed.
And those are the highlights of the film.
It's a good natured feature, harmless and benign.
Recognizable character actors - Murray Alper turns up as an Allied Van Lines truck driver.
There's not too much more to add. Nice effort by the Stooges and far from inept.
Song of the Islands (1942)
Grable in Technicolor in Hawaii
I never thought that this was one of the better Grable pictures and as I am taking a break from re-watching it for the first time in a decade I still hold to that original opinion.
The film has, if possible, too many character actors - Thomas Mitchell, George Barbier, Jack Oakie, Billy Gilbert, Hilo Hattie. And there is too much bickering.
OTOH, most of the songs are very tuneful, though undistinguished and the Technicolor is, as always, eye-popping.
The high points in the film are almost all Grable. If the film had been destroyed after the first reel, it likely would not have mattered because Grable's absolutely gorgeous entry into the film on a small outrigger just off shore of a tropical is breathtaking as is her brilliantly pretty face and figure.
And what a figure! All curves and plenty of them, looking delicious in clingy island dresses and hula girl out-fits. What a bundle! 5'4" (As I thought when looking at her while danced barefoot) and she measured in at 34 1/2-24-36 (self-described 1940).
She is singing "Sing Me a Song of the Islands" as she heads towards shore with her blonde hair blowing gently in the breeze as she softly offers the song in that vastly under-rated melodious and well modulated beguiling voice of hers. She's radiant with gleaming white teeth and big eyes as she sings the entire song in 90 seconds with the big Technicolor camera slowly zooms in from a medium shot to what becomes a near full lose up if her expressive face, never once breaking away...all in one shot.
I had a customer in my video store about 15 years ago who had not seen Song of the Islands since its original release in 1942 and all he remembered all those years was that opening shot of Betty Grable, her hair blowing in the tropical breeze and singing "Sing Me a Song of the Islands". Movie magic!
Victor Mature is in the film, too. He looks fine.
Hilo Hattie is the Hawaiian version of Charlotte Greenwood in the film; man hungry and doing her eccentric dances and songs.
As mention, it is not one of the 'great Grables' of the era, in spite of having the talented Walter Lang, who had directed some of Grable's best films in the 1940.
Unfortunately, what ever momentum the film has fairly comes to a halt about 50 minutes into the picture at which time there is little question (if there was ever any) about how the film will wrap up. The pictures weakest tunes are trotted out and Grable's last dance sequence is far from memorable.
Jack Oakie, playing Mature's sidekick (and only 39 years old at the time) manages to squeeze in a song and a romance for himself with a pretty island girl even younger than Grable and he and Hilo Hattie have the last laugh in the film. (Oakie frequently seems to get a special moment at the end of the films he is in. He had a big following and was extremely popular with everyone.) All in all...very lightweight stuff. Nice try by all involved. There's better Grables out there.
Now I'll go back and rewind the tape and watch that opening island sequence one more time. It's a freeze-framers delight!
Dance Hall (1941)
A Solid Slice of Early 40s America!
This is a terrific film. No masterpiece of film making, just lots of entertainment value and fun.
Sharpie dude Cesar Romero is the manager of a dance hall in an amusement park in Pennsylvania back in 1941. He drives a snazzy convertible car and spends the rest of his time punching out troublemakers at the dance hall, dancing and flirting with pretty girls to big Swing bands and gambling with his buddies. What a great life! Into the dance hall one night walks delicious singer Carole Landis. Romero is hooked from the moment he sees her.
Romero's nice guy buddy Joe plays the piano and leads the band at the dance hall with Romero keeping an eye out for his welfare in life. In the meantime, Joe has eyes for the cutie pie waitress in the restaurant of the hotel that everyone there seems to live in.
Landis begins her gig at the dance hall with a nice dissolve from her rehearsing one afternoon with Joe at the piano with her wearing ordinary street clothes to a sweet crane shot of her in a glamorous gown standing in front of a big band playing a Glenn Miller style ballad. All the boys and men in the house go gaa gaa over her as they ogle her while she sings "There's Something In the Air".
Landis keeps resisting Romero's advances and winds up walking home one evening along a country road after she and Romero have had a spat. Along comes nice guy Max and gives her a ride back to town. He's smitten, too.
The rest of the film revolves around more of the same plot and the picture is about as entertaining a "B" film as you could ever hope to see.
Lots of fine music from the beginning with the band playing some generic Swing number as crowds of people swarm into the dance hall.
There are any number of 'plug tunes' from other 20th Century-Fox pictures of the moment, as well as some nice Lindy Hopping by noted dancers Dean Collins and Jewel McGowan in what may be their only speaking roles on film - "Shoot the torso to me, Toots!" and "What are you, a chiropractor, anyway?" Immortality!
For what this film is and it's total lack of pretension, I rate it a nine out of ten.
If you enjoyed the Glenn Miller film ORCHESTRA WIVES (which featured both Romero and Landis, btw), you will likely enjoy DANCE HALL, too, for they both have that very mellow early 1940s ambiance of an America now long vanished.
Who Done It? (1942)
Absolutely one of their best films!
Oh, this one is so funny! It's got everything going for it with A&C in top form in a tight and tidy comedy/mystery that is filmed with style and flair.
Most of the film is set in a sharp looking Streamline Moderne radio station and studio. Crisp photography and great use of lighting.
Top flight cast with William Bendix a standout as an extremely dense police detective who is just about as dumb as Lou! The A&C routine with Lou trying to make a telephone call to "Alexander 2222" and having to deal with the operator is a riot from beginning to end. Even before the call - (phone calls were 5 cents back in those days from a pay phone) Bud tells Lou that he'll have to "drop a nickel" if he wants to make a call...so Lou drops a nickel on the floor! Hahaha! What a moron! Lou's facial expression at the end of the short "I'm thinking of a number between one and ten" is so fabulously stupid...and on multiple levels.
The film is beautifully paced and is a must see on video as opposed to a broadcast television copy where they have tended for years to cut the opening sequence in some markets.
This is one of the true handful of great A&C films and a good one to show to someone who have never seen A&C in action.
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: The Life Work of Juan Diaz (1964)
Creepy episode
Lots of the AH Presents hour long shows are not all that good, but this is one of the better ones that I have seen. It's just plain eerie and creepy and if you shudder when looking at dried corpses all lined upright on both sides of a catacomb, you will freak out! Nicely directed by Hitchcock favorite, Norman Lloyd (the man who falls from the Statue of Liberty in the AH film, "Saboteur").
The program has a bit of humor in it - very dry humor....and rather light...like the dried mummies it delves amongst.
I recall seeing a bit of this one when it first ran back in 1964. I was but a lad back then and I deemed this episode to spooky to watch by myself. Tonight was the first time I have seen it in more than 40 years.
The eyes of the mummy......don't let your impressionable children watch. Too freaky.
Twice Blessed (1945)
Enjoyable 40s teen film with great Lindy Hop sequences!
Fun film a la THE PARENT TRAP.
It's strong point is that it features 3 or more excellent Lindy Hop aka Jitterbug dance sequences done to big band Swing music by some of the best dancers around at the time.
Jean Porter, alive and reasonable still at this writing, also had a nice Lindy sequence in TIL THE END OF TIME with Guy Madison.
The Wilde Twins had a short career over at Metro.
Jimmy Lydon was starring in the HENRY ALDRITCH series over at Paramount.
Nice little MGM 'B" picture.
The director, Harry Beaumont, had been directing MGM films since the silent era.
Hawthorne of the U.S.A. (1919)
Lightweight and lighthearted adventure
I watched this last night. Wallace Reid was a major star back in the silent era.
This fun film has him winning a big pile of loot at Monte Carlo, then heading home with a buddy by motor car.
They stop over in some Baltic type town where revolutionaries are plotting the overthrow of a meek and mild king. Semi-gullible Wallace Reid decides to finance their revolt.
He meets the King's daughter and falls in love.
There's some amusing give and take between all the characters.
Reid and his traveling buddy introduce the locals to American slang and ideas.
The story takes it various turns and everyone comes out happy.
This film is pleasant stuff. No big deal. A nice lil' film that doesn't look quite as old as it is.
The print I saw had tinted scenes from beginning to end; red, green, blue, etc..according to mood of the scene.
The print I was seeing was fine - an 8 plus on a 1 - 10 scale.
I was surprised to see a black jazz band and singer in the film. 1919 is early times for jazz on film.
Wallace Reid was a pleasant looking dude...very American....he does a few physical stunts - kind of a combination of Douglas Fairbanks and Harold LLoyd.
The Robe (1953)
First time viewing of The Robe
I saw most of this film last night on a commercial-free religious channel.
I am not a great follower of 'biblical epics' and I don't have much basis for comparison. That said, this film was fairly entertaining and engrossing with nice performances by all. The only performance I thought was totally ludicrous was that of Jay Robinson, who played the emperor Caligua; just absurd posturing and high, strangle-voiced hysteria.
All in all, a sincere and properly reverent film with a nice feel for what it may have been like to be alive in ancient ages.