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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 3, 2014 12:52:43 GMT -5
I watched most of The Jazz Singer (1927) last night. It's more entertaining than some might expect. But it is SO WEIRD! The 1920s was a long time ago.
How's this for a minor weird thing about The Jazz Singer? Charlie Chan plays Al Jolson's father! |
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 3, 2014 13:05:12 GMT -5
I like to watch movies that I've seen before, for a number of reasons. Recently, I've re-watched The Maltese Falcon, Shane, Serial Mom, Kill Bill, Vol. 1, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But I decided to see if I could stay away from watching stuff I've already seen. For a while. The next ten movies I watch will be things I'm seeing for the first time.
Last night, I started off with Thieves Like Us, a 1974 film directed by Robert Altman. (Have I ever told you how much I love Gosford Park?) Thieves Like Us stars Keith Caradine, Shelly Duval and Louise Fletcher. It's the Depression and Keith Caradine is in a little gang going around Mississippi and robbing banks. The gang hides out with relatives and friends of the outlaws. Caradine starts up a romance with Shelly Duval, the young cousin of one of the bank robbers. It doesn't end well for the outlaw.
I enjoyed it. I think I gave it 8 stars on IMDB.
Keith Caradine and Shelly Duval are so young! Caradine is an actor I always like, but I'm sometimes a little iffy on Duval. She's very good here, though.
Lots of old-time radio! The radio is always on, it seems, and it helps give the film a lot of 1930s atmosphere. There's even a bit with Father Coughlin!
Also, Tom Skeritt and John Schuck! |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 3, 2014 13:25:39 GMT -5
Last night, I started off with Thieves Like Us, a 1974 film directed by Robert Altman. (Have I ever told you how much I love Gosford Park?) Thieves Like Us stars Keith Caradine, Shelly Duval and Louise Fletcher. It's the Depression and Keith Caradine is in a little gang going around Mississippi and robbing banks. The gang hides out with relatives and friends of the outlaws. Caradine starts up a romance with Shelly Duval, the young cousin of one of the bank robbers. It doesn't end well for the outlaw.
I enjoyed it. I think I gave it 8 stars on IMDB.
Keith Caradine and Shelly Duval are so young! Caradine is an actor I always like, but I'm sometimes a little iffy on Duval. She's very good here, though.
Lots of old-time radio! The radio is always on, it seems, and it helps give the film a lot of 1930s atmosphere. There's even a bit with Father Coughlin!
Also, Tom Skeritt and John Schuck! is based on the novel by Edward Anderson. It's really about the only thing he's known for as a writer and then it's known only amongst folk who delve deep into literary noir. I wrote the following on Goodreads... "Raymond Chandler declared this one of the great forgotten novels of the 1930s. I'm not going to argue with Chandler. Anderson gives us a look at depression era bank robbers in Oklahoma and Texas. It was fertile ground with Bonnie & Clyde, Dillinger, et. al. having been all over the newspapers. Anderson looks at a trio of escaped convicts who are robbing banks in Texas, before shifting the focus to a single character Bowie Bowers. The shift allows us to get a better glimpse in to the thought processes of the character, something that wouldn't have been possible with three protagonists in such a short novel. There is a bit of a working class cant that the robberies are justified because the banks can afford it. The bankers, lawyers, police are "thieves like us." An unfairly forgotten proto-noir. Thanks to the Library of America for making it readily available." It's a good read. Definitely recommended. |
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Post by Jasoomian on Sept 3, 2014 22:53:39 GMT -5
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)Really fun film from John Carpenter. Kurt Russell, Kim Catrall, and James Hong in a mystical underground caper. Car chases, kung-fu fighting, nice fantasy fx. There's no real message there or thinkpiece here, and it's not as good as Carpenter's masterwork "They Live," but it still gets two thumbs up. Encore is showing this in 16:9 pan&scan, so you'll need to find the DVD to see it in proper 2.35:1. PS. IDW has recently launched an original comic-book series for this title. |
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Post by MDG on Sept 4, 2014 15:25:07 GMT -5
Thieves Like Us is based on the novel by Edward Anderson. It's really about the only thing he's known for as a writer and then it's known only amongst folk who delve deep into literary noir... It's a good read. Definitely recommended. It's the basis of the classic noir They Live by Night. |
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Post by dupersuper on Sept 4, 2014 20:24:40 GMT -5
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)Really fun film from John Carpenter. Kurt Russell, Kim Catrall, and James Hong in a mystical underground caper. Car chases, kung-fu fighting, nice fantasy fx. There's no real message there or thinkpiece here, and it's not as good as Carpenter's masterwork "They Live," but it still gets two thumbs up. Encore is showing this in 16:9 pan&scan, so you'll need to find the DVD to see it in proper 2.35:1. PS. IDW has recently launched an original comic-book series for this title. Issue 4 came out yesterday. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 5, 2014 13:45:02 GMT -5
A couple of days ago, I watched an early Betty Grable movie called The Days the Bookies Wept. It was listed on TCM On Demand and it was only 65 minutes and I thought I'd give it a try. Some of these obscure movies can be pretty entertaining or weird, and at 65 minutes, I thought it was well worth taking a chance on it. Also, I haven't seen very many Betty Grable movies. Aside from her cameo in an Astaire/Rogers movie (or is she in two of them?), I can only think of How to Marry a Millionaire and I Wake Up Screaming. Grable was one of the cutest girls of the 1940s, but she doesn't seem to have made the kinds of movies that I watch a lot, but I'm always interested in finding out more about some of the stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
The Day the bookies Wept is a comedy about a bunch of cab drivers who pool their dough and buy a racehorse. One of the cabbies (Ernest) is a guy who raises pigeons, so the other cabbies decide he should be the guy who goes to Kentucky and buys the horse and then trains it. (Because he's good with animals, I guess.) He gets duped into buying a horse named Bourbon. The joke is that Bourbon is an alcoholic who will only race well if he's drunk or if he thinks he's going to get beer at the end of the race. (Ha ha.) The whole project is a disaster until they find out his secret at the end of the movie.
Ernest is a dopey guy (kind of a Lou Costello type) who is treated pretty badly by the other cabbies. Betty Grable is his girlfriend. She's actually pretty good in this. You can see her star power. And this movie has a few good moments. But I was very glad that it was 65 minutes instead of 75 minutes.
Next: I watched Runaway Train last night, and I will write about it later. It's a great movie. When I saw the name "Eric Roberts" I was thinking "Tony Roberts" and I kept waiting for the guy who was in several of Woody Allen's best movies. I was a little disappointed when I realized my mistake, but Eric Roberts' weird performance ended up just adding to this bizarre masterpiece. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 5, 2014 16:47:39 GMT -5
Runaway Train (1985) Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky. With Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca DeMornay. Danny Trejo makes his film debut in an uncredited role.
I want to say as little as possible because I went into this knowing very little about it and I enjoyed it immensely. Surprises at every turn. Great movie.
It's a little bit on the weird side though. I laughed out loud at some of the dialogue by Jon Voight and Eric Roberts because it was crazy. It got crazy. But that's part of what this movie is. It gets crazy. You have to accept that. I wondered if they ever thought about making fun of this for MST3K, but if they ever did that, it would be, by far, the best movie ever to get the MST3K treatment.
It was based on a screenplay by Akira Kurosawa for a project that Kurosawa couldn't get off the ground in the late 1960s. (It was originally planned as Kurosawa's first color project.) One of the credited screenwriters for the finished project is Paul Zindel, who wrote "The Pigman" and "The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-In-the-Moon Marigolds."
It was nominated for Best Picture by the Academy for 1985, and Voight and Roberts were both nominated for their performances. (If you heed my recommendation and watch Runaway Train, take note of the way that Eric Roberts often sounds almost exactly like Brak from Space Ghost: Coast-to-Coast. This resemblance was cracking me up at times.)
A unique cinema experience. Highly recommended for people who like unique cinema experiences. |
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Post by Jesse on Sept 5, 2014 20:11:05 GMT -5
The Devil Commands (1941)  This is a gem of a b-movie with a great performance from Boris Karloff and a lot of interesting visuals. Edward Dmytryk sets the mood perfectly with the opening shot of a creepy house during a thunder storm. The film is narrated by Amanda Duff who plays Karloff's daughter. Karloff plays a scientist who invents a machine that records human brain waves. After his wife is killed he discovers her brain waves are still being recorded and becomes obsessed with making contact with the dead. He comes under the influence of a shady fortune teller and accidentally injures his servant Karl. When his housekeeper discovers the truth about his experiments she is accidentally killed which attracts the attention of the local sheriff. The film climaxes when an angry mob storms his home during an experiment involving his own daughter. 
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 5, 2014 22:13:13 GMT -5
The Devil Commands (1941) This is a gem of a b-movie with a great performance from Boris Karloff and a lot of interesting visuals. Edward Dmytryk sets the mood perfectly with the opening shot of a creepy house during a thunder storm. The film is narrated by Amanda Duff who plays Karloff's daughter. Karloff plays a scientist who invents a machine that records human brain waves. After his wife is killed he discovers her brain waves are still being recorded and becomes obsessed with making contact with the dead. He comes under the influence of a shady fortune teller and accidentally injures his servant Karl. When his housekeeper discovers the truth about his experiments she is accidentally killed which attracts the attention of the local sheriff. The film climaxes when an angry mob storms his home during an experiment involving his own daughter. I remember this. It's been a while, but I remember it as being a pretty cool little horror film. But Boris made so many of them! Aside from the obvious ones for Universal, there's also The Ghoul, The Walking Dead, The Black Room, The Man Who Lived Again, The Man They Could Not Hang, The Ape and so on and etc.
I sometimes have trouble remembering which is which and whether I've seen them or not.
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 5, 2014 22:39:58 GMT -5
Illicit (1931)
Directed by Archie Mayo
With Barbara Stanwyck, Ricardo Cortez and Joan Blondell
I think I may have broken my rule about not watching movies I've seen before (for a while). Illicit seemed a little familiar when I started watching it, but I thought maybe I was mixing it up with some other early 1930s movie about a woman who questions the necessity of marriage, maybe something with Norma Shearer? By the time I had watched it all, I was pretty sure I had seen it, but it made so little impression that I didn't remember it. (And I'm still not 100% sure that I've seen it already.)
I think I may have watched it several years ago when TCM was running Barbara Stanwyck movies all month. I had only seen a few of her movies at that point (I had been a fan of Night Nurse and Double Indemnity for a long time), so I put a bunch of her movies on the DVR and then I would have a Barbara Stanwyck marathon on my day off. (Among the films I saw at this time were Night Nurse (yep, it was great to see it again and I had it on the DVR for over a year), Ladies They Talk About (a prison movie! With Lillian Roth!), The Miracle Woman (loosely based on Aimee Semple McPherson), Annie Oakley, a murder mystery with George Sanders trying to kill her, and a romance with Clark Gable as her race car driver boyfriend.) So I might have watched Illicit during that time and didn't remember it because it just didn't really match up with the competition.
Illicit is about a woman who has a philosophy about marriage, that it ruins relationships and is a tradition-bound practice that she's not really interested in. Her boyfriend goes along with her ideas because they're having fun and they love each other, but he doesn't really have the guts to go against the views of society. Barbara Stanwyck and her boyfriend do give in eventually and get married.
And it turns out that she's absolutely right. The honeymoon period ends and they get bored and annoyed with each other. Complications ensue. Old boyfriends and old girlfriends return. Barbara moves back to her own apartment and says she wants to continue the relationship and to stay married, but on her own terms. He agrees, at the end of the film, but I get the idea that same old social pressures that made them bow down in the beginning of the movie are not going to end just because the picture does.
Not bad. It's not boring, it's just not that memorable. Maybe it was a big deal in 1931, but if you want to see some pre-Code Hollywood, see A Free Soul or The Divorcee. Or Night Nurse. Or Baby Face. Or anything with Jean Harlow. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 5, 2014 22:51:55 GMT -5
Footlight Parade is on TCM right now. I just watched the number where they're all dressed as cats and I'm so tempted to watch the whole thing. Cagney is great! And look at Joan Blondell and Ruby Keeler! So cute!
This is highly recommended for ALL film buffs, even if you don't like musicals. This is not a normal musical. This movie is OFF THE HOOK!
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 6, 2014 13:19:46 GMT -5
Ride Lonesome (1959) Directed by Budd Boetticher With Randolph Scott, Karen Steele, James Best, Pernell Roberts, Lee Van Cleef and James Coburn
Did anybody here ever watch The Middleman? It was a TV show from 2008 that was based on a comic book about a dude (The Middleman) and his assistant Wendy Watson (called Dub-Dub) and they fought aliens and demons and zombies and whatever and tried to keep the existence of such creatures from leaking to the public. It's a lot like Men in Black, except better (IMHO). There were only about 12 episodes.
In one show, the Middleman is talking about going to a revival house to see "Ride Lonesome." This is a 1959 western with Randolph Scott that I'd never heard of before. The Middleman talks about how much he loves Randolph Scott and how much loves the movie and everything Randolph Scott stands for, mostly duty and honor.
And that's why I've been meaning to watch "Ride Lonesome" for the last few years.
I don't want to say too much about it. It's pretty good. And look at that cast! I didn't know who was in it aside from Randolph Scott so it was a pleasant surprise to see James Best (of "The Dukes of Hazzard" and several "Twilight Zone" episodes), Pernell Roberts (of "Bonanza" and "Trapper John, M.D."), Lee Van Cleef and James Coburn (in his movie debut).
Randolph Scott is a bounty hunter taking a murder suspect (James Best) back to the city of Santa Cruz to be hanged. The suspect's brother (Lee Van Cleef) leads a gang of thugs who will happily kill Randolph Scott. Mescaleros are marauding in the desert. Along the way, Scott is joined by Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts and James Coburn. They have to get across the desert to Santa Cruz before they get killed by the thugs, the Indians or the desert heat. But for some reason, the bounty hunter seems to be taking his own sweet time ...
It's a fun way to spend 72 minutes. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 6, 2014 14:31:43 GMT -5
I've been so remiss with my Classic Movie postings but outside projects kept me extremely busy to the point of not actually watching any movies for 2 whole weeks. Well, I'm getting back to being able to view some again but between the Underground Comix posts and other activities I'll probably not be as prolific or detailed as before, at least for awhile
I do want to mention my viewing 1929's Pandora's Box and the stunning performance of lead actress Louise Brooks. The Criterion DVD also comes with a 1 hour doc on her life. Both her performance and bio are fascinating to say the least
The 1992 Italian film Flight Of The Innocent was also thrilling. Its about a young boy, a child from a family of kidnappers. His family had beemn totally massacred by another crime family and the young boy is now on the run
Also enjoyed the 2 Chevy Chase films: Fletch and Fletch Lives. Using the words enjoyed and Chevy Chase in the same sentence is a rarity
The Disney animated version of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame was quite good
Bob Hope and Lucille Ball teamed up for 1960's The Facts Of Life. Not a bad movie, typical of early 60s films that revolve around sex but because of the movie code, the characters can't ever have it. I've also come to believe that after Lucy divorced Ricky, she stopped being naturally funny
1933's From Headquarters with George Brent was interesting solely for the police procedures for crime detection of that time. It shows the first time on film the use of an IBM punch-card computer
Of more recent vintage and fine viewing experiences were EdTV, Mumford and Matt Damon's The Informant
Well. I'm now caught up
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 6, 2014 14:43:49 GMT -5
Pandora's Box is one of my very favorites. Somewhere in the Top Ten for sure. I don't know how many times I've seen it. When I lived in L.A., it would show at the New Beverly Cinema or at the Silent Movie, and I would go see it every time it showed. (Usually with Diary of a Lost Girl, which I've seen three or four times.)
Louise Brooks is also great in Beggars of Life, Prix de Beaute and the very rare W.C. Fields silent film It's the Old Army Game.
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