Pygmalion (1938) Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller

Snobby Professor of languages Howard makes a bet that he can transform a grubby London street flower seller into a lady of society

Original film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's play, later remade as My Fair Lady, later updated to Pretty Woman et al.
I actually preferred this to the Rex Harrison/ Audrey Hepburn musical. I think the two leads here capture their roles perfectly and the film is both amusing and briskly paced instead of overblown. Leslie Howard was a co-director for the film and the camera angles employed are quite interesting

It's also the first British film allowed to use the term "bloody". There is a great spot-of-tea scene as well. And it's a Criterion. Bloody good show

I fell a little behind so here's some summaries of the movies I've seen recently.

Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982) - I like this as much as ever but I can see why my nephew (he's 13) wasn't all that thrilled by it. He has no emotional attachment to Montalban, Shatner, Nimoy, Kelly, etc., so he has to judge it by what he can see on the screen and it's a bit slow by the action-movie standards he's used to. And though I think the special effects are great, he's used to something a lot different, so he makes sarcastic comments like "Yeah, it really looks like they're in space!" He looked at his phone a lot, so I told him he couldn't really judge the movie because he didn't actually watch the movie. (It pisses him off when I say this, but not enough to watch the movie.) But he did sit through the whole movie, which means he was mildly entertained. He's not shy about getting up and leaving when he's bored.



Rhubarb (1951) - My nephew redeemed himself by watching Rhubarb. I told him it was a movie about a cat who owns a baseball team and he was in like Flynn! He put his phone down and watched the whole movie and asked me to find more movies like this! My brother - whose taste in classic films is rather limited to the best films of William Powell, Veronica Lake, Cary Grant and a few 1950s French films - is frequently rather dismissive of many of the obscure films I turn up, but he started watching Rhubarb with us and said it was a pretty good movie. It stars Ray Milland, Gene Lockhart and William Frawley. Jan Sterling has some hilarious scenes. It's frequently pretty crazy though it's not really laugh-out-loud funny that often. Strother Martin and Leonard Nimoy appear as baseball players.

F for Fake (1973) - This is the last film that Orson Wells completed as a director. It's a documentary about fakes, with an emphasis on art forgery. There's more to it than that, of course, and I love it! I've seen it a few times over the years. I noticed it was on TCM On Demand a few days ago and I figured it was time to see it again. It's not for everyone, and I don't think you can tell whether you'll like it or not until you watch it.



Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) - One of my favorite Ingmar Bergman movies! I saw it about seven or eight years ago and I've been wanting to see it again. I still love it! Harriet Andersson is one of my biggest screen crushes ever! Highly recommended for Bergman fans who've never seen it! It doesn't get as much attention as Wild Strawberries or The Seventh Seal, but it should!

Michael Shayne, Private Detective (1941) - I never heard of the Michael Shayne film series until a year ago or so, but I've come to really look forward to them. Lloyd Nolan is Shayne, and he is in many ways a typical smart-mouth private detective in the style of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. But the dialogue is hilarious and the plots are tightly constructed and Nolan has his own twist on the stereotype.

A Farewell to Arms (1932) - I don't know. I watched it without getting bored but I can't say it was very good. Gary Cooper plays the same character he always plays, and that character works as well as anything when the movie is good to great. But it's not particularly scintillating here. Helen Hayes is pretty good. Adolph Menjou is very lively but you really really want to see Gary Cooper punch him in his stupid fat fake-Italian accent.

I loved this movie, and kick myself that I didn't remember to DVR it today. Husband and wife football coaches: a riot!

I too love those kinds of movies. A real favorite is Navy Blue and Gold (1937), with Lionel Barrymore, Samuel S. Hinds and Jimmy Stewart nine years before they are all in It's A Wonderful Life. Robert Young, Billie Burke and Tom Brown also star. Sappy, senimental, but at least makes no bones about being anything but. Great fun: big game, elderly coach, student escapades, a dark secret, redemption at last, all the usual stuff.

Addendum: Good News (1947) with Peter Lawford, Mel Torme and June Allyson, and the outstanding, unforgettable, but terribly un-PC "Pass That Peace Pipe" number, is also "good of this kind," as NY Times reviewer Howard Thompson used to say.

Oooh, that's a good one. I swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker!

Alllyson is a little bit spunkier than her often tearful persona usually allows. Lawford can't sing a lick, of course. I think it's the absolute artificiality of this movie that I enjoy. Yeah, can't get enough of "Peace Pipe." So-o-o-o out there.

Great Expectations (1946) Directed by David Lean  John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Alec Guinness, Bernard Miles

Adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic novel of the poor young lad named Pip who happens upon an escaped convict and does him an act of kindness. The tale follows Pip through his years as a blacksmith apprentice and his grooming as a gentleman by a mysterious benefactor

Ah, Junior High School days and the forced reading of musty archaic novels for English class. Silas Marner almost killed my joy for reading and I didn't take well to Great Expectations either. Fortunately A Tale Of Two Cities I grudgingly enjoyed although I would have rather been reading some Amazing Spider-Mans instead. So has my maturing changed my opinion of this Dickens story, at least as the filmed version goes

Oh yes indeed it has. In the hands of a master director such as David Lean (one of the greatest directors ever) I very much was caught up with this movie. Leans stark camera work catches the eye especially in the scenes in the English marshes or within the musty Gothic mansion.

Bernard Miles is a frightening character as the escaped convict. This is also the first major role for Alec Guinness, his first speaking part.

Highly recommended and , you probably know whats coming next, it's a Criterion DVD production . Have not run out of them yet

I appreciate the corrections and the additional comments. I write these up very late at night after the viewing and I'm a bit punchy

I'm a product of the NYC public school system from 50 years ago and I still bristle at what the Board Of Education chose as required reading for literature in. I believe, 7th or 8th grade. Silas Marner came first, and was such a slog to get through, totally unidentifiable to what a modern city kid experiences and such archaic language and style. Next on the syllabus was Thomas Hardy's Return Of The Native which was pretty much the same. These were followed by Dicken's novels which were more pleasing but after those first two I had an automatic distaste for the classics. Thankfully I grew out of it. I'm sure many others carried that distaste for the rest of their lives.

Maybe things have changed in the ensuing years and more modern and relatable classics have been chosen to "break in' the kiddies, like Catcher In The Rye, To Kill A Mockingbird and others of that ilk before tackling the centuries old novels. Encouraging the joy of reading should be a primary focus. 

Knowing you're a teacher I'm curious of your opinion. I do hope that they completely dropped Silas Marner.