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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 13, 2015 13:39:14 GMT -5
Leave Her To Heaven (1945) Gene Tierney, Cornell Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price
Technicolor psychological drama. Gene Tierney at first seems like the perfect wife. Beautiful, rich, totally loving and devoted. She wants nothing more than to be alone with her new husband Cornell. Maybe a bit too devoted, she bristles if anyone else is around. That includes Cornell's crippled young brother or Gene's own sister. In fact, if you disturb Gene's time with her husband, you have a penchant for disappearing-forever.
Vincent Price, as Gene Tierney's former beau and now a district attorney is deliciously over-the-top in his prosecution of a murder case. Cornell is pretty stiff at this stage of his career. Tierney is great, even when the film slowly moves along in the first half, she's well worth watching
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 13, 2015 13:46:07 GMT -5
Leave Her To Heaven (1945) Gene Tierney, Cornell Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price Technicolor psychological drama. Gene Tierney at first seems like the perfect wife. Beautiful, rich, totally loving and devoted. She wants nothing more than to be alone with her new husband Cornell. Maybe a bit too devoted, she bristles if anyone else is around. That includes Cornell's crippled young brother or Gene's own sister. In fact, if you disturb Gene's time with her husband, you have a penchant for disappearing-forever. Vincent Price, as Gene Tierney's former beau and now a district attorney is deliciously over-the-top in his prosecution of a murder case. Cornell is pretty stiff at this stage of his career. Tierney is great, even when the film slowly moves along in the first half, she's well worth watching This sounds really good! I always avoided it because I thought it was one of those movies where somebody gets a fatal illness, like Dark Victory, which I do not like at all.
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Post by gothos on Aug 13, 2015 16:05:45 GMT -5
From what I heard, and you'd have to pay me to actually observe, Robin Williams made a few movies after Being Human that were so much worse. Patch Adams, Death To Smoochy I love Death to Smoochy I thought it was OK; it didn't bore me to death like the above description of BEING HUMAN. And Jon Stewart wasn't as bad in it as he always claims.
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 13, 2015 23:32:04 GMT -5
Leave Her To Heaven (1945) Gene Tierney, Cornell Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price Technicolor psychological drama. Gene Tierney at first seems like the perfect wife. Beautiful, rich, totally loving and devoted. She wants nothing more than to be alone with her new husband Cornell. Maybe a bit too devoted, she bristles if anyone else is around. That includes Cornell's crippled young brother or Gene's own sister. In fact, if you disturb Gene's time with her husband, you have a penchant for disappearing-forever. Vincent Price, as Gene Tierney's former beau and now a district attorney is deliciously over-the-top in his prosecution of a murder case. Cornell is pretty stiff at this stage of his career. Tierney is great, even when the film slowly moves along in the first half, she's well worth watching That scene with her brother-in-law in the lake is cruelty incarnate.
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 13, 2015 23:36:17 GMT -5
Leave Her To Heaven (1945) Gene Tierney, Cornell Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price Technicolor psychological drama. Gene Tierney at first seems like the perfect wife. Beautiful, rich, totally loving and devoted. She wants nothing more than to be alone with her new husband Cornell. Maybe a bit too devoted, she bristles if anyone else is around. That includes Cornell's crippled young brother or Gene's own sister. In fact, if you disturb Gene's time with her husband, you have a penchant for disappearing-forever. Vincent Price, as Gene Tierney's former beau and now a district attorney is deliciously over-the-top in his prosecution of a murder case. Cornell is pretty stiff at this stage of his career. Tierney is great, even when the film slowly moves along in the first half, she's well worth watching This sounds really good! I always avoided it because I thought it was one of those movies where somebody gets a fatal illness, like Dark Victory, which I do not like at all.
It's a bizarre mix of Douglas Sirk-ish melodrama and film noir, with a protagonist who anticipates Glenn Close's character in Fatal Attraction, et al. And the title comes from the Ghost's instructions in the first act of Hamlet.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2015 8:26:10 GMT -5
Leave Her To Heaven (1945) Gene Tierney, Cornell Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price Technicolor psychological drama. Gene Tierney at first seems like the perfect wife. Beautiful, rich, totally loving and devoted. She wants nothing more than to be alone with her new husband Cornell. Maybe a bit too devoted, she bristles if anyone else is around. That includes Cornell's crippled young brother or Gene's own sister. In fact, if you disturb Gene's time with her husband, you have a penchant for disappearing-forever. Vincent Price, as Gene Tierney's former beau and now a district attorney is deliciously over-the-top in his prosecution of a murder case. Cornell is pretty stiff at this stage of his career. Tierney is great, even when the film slowly moves along in the first half, she's well worth watching That scene with her brother-in-law in the lake is cruelty incarnate. That scene bothers me so much watching the 1st time and I just don't have the justification of watching it again. To be honest with all of you here - I consider this is the worst Gene Tierney movie that I ever seen and that scene just kills it. Sorry Members, I just can't stand watching it again! Once is enough.
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 14, 2015 13:12:14 GMT -5
I watched Pocketful of Miracles (1961) last night and I was kind of blown away by it.
I had heard of it before but I didn't know too much about it. If I had known it was based on a Damon Runyon story, I'd have watched it a long time ago! I watched it because Bette Davis is in it, and she's an actor (like Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck) that I know I can count on, so I keep my eyes open and DVR just about any movie with Bette Davis.
And I was very glad I put Pocketful of Miracles on the DVR. It's a remake of a 1933 film titled Lady for a Day (I've never seen it), which is based on a Damon Runyon story.
It's the story of a gangster (a nice Damon Runyon gangster, not a bad Tony Montana gangster) who always buys apples from a street person named Apple Annie (Bette Davis). The gangster (Glenn Ford) thinks that Annie's apples are good luck for him. When he's in negotiations with the syndicate for his new territory after the end of Prohibition, he needs to buy apples from Annie every day because he needs all the luck he can get.
But Annie has a secret. Though she is the beggar queen of Broadway, dresses in rags and lives in a hovel, she takes her mail at the prestigious Marberry Hotel. She has a secret daughter (Ann-Margaret) who lives in Europe and Annie has been sending her most of the money she begs and writing her letters claiming to be a New York matron, a member of the Manhattan aristocracy.
Annie's world is on the verge of falling apart when she discovers that her daughter is engaged to be married (to the son of a Spanish count) and she is coming to New York with her fiancé and his father to meet Annie.
The gangster goes to great lengths to protect his good luck charm, and that's the heart of the movie.
The first hour has a few bad patches. Glenn Ford was the producer and he was also apparently dating Hope Lange (playing the gangster's girlfriend Queenie) and he seems to have expanded her part to get her more screen time. (I suspect the Queenie subplot might have been lifted from another Damon Runyon story). There were a couple of times in the first hour where I wondered if I would be able to finish the whole movie. It was way too early in a 135-minute movie to be as restless as I was.
But there's still some good scenes in the early part. Peter Falk is Glenn Ford's right-hand man, and he's hilarious. And there's a few good scenes with the Broadway beggars. One of them is Angelo Rossitto. I love seeing Angelo Rossitto! He's a dwarf actor who's career started in the 1930s (he's the one that gets the champagne splashed in his face during the wedding scene in Freaks) to the 1980s (he's in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome). He's also in a quite a few movies with Bela Lugosi. He pops up quite a bit in a lot of movies and I love seeing him.
About an hour into the movie, Glenn Ford moves Annie into a penthouse at the Marberry Hotel and he starts footing the bill for a massive deception. This is where the movie really takes off. Everett Edward Horton (whose voice we all know from the Fractured Fairy Tale" segment on Bullwinkle) is the butler and he is absolutely hilarious. His scenes with Peter Falk are simply fun to watch.
And then Thomas Mitchell is recruited to masquerade as the second husband Apple Annie has been writing about in her letters to her daughter. You heard right! Scarlett's father from Gone with the Wind! Uncle Billy from It's a Wonderful Life! Pat Garret from The Outlaw! He has a lot of good scenes in this movie, including one fun scene with Peter Falk.
One of the great things about this movie is the great blend of actors from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. In addition to the people I've already mentioned, you also get Arthur O'Connell, Ellen Corby, Barton MacClane, Frank Ferguson, Jack Elam, Mike Mazurki, Jerome Cowan, Doodles Weaver, Sheldon Leonard and a bunch of people whose names I forget.
Also, it's Frank Capra's last film. I have mixed feeling about Capra. He did a few movies I love (It's a Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night), but some of his movies, even some of his highly acclaimed movies (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) are just a bit too cliché-ridden and, frankly, kind of stupid.
But Pocketful of Miracles was a fine way to end a career.
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 14, 2015 13:43:00 GMT -5
I have mixed feeling about Capra. He did a few movies I love ( It's a Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night), but some of his movies, even some of his highly acclaimed movies (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) are just a bit too cliché-ridden and, frankly, kind of stupid.
The Hoosier X whose opinions I respect so highly would never utter such blasphemy. I may have no recourse but to summon an exorcist.
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 14, 2015 14:20:16 GMT -5
I have mixed feeling about Capra. He did a few movies I love ( It's a Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night), but some of his movies, even some of his highly acclaimed movies (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) are just a bit too cliché-ridden and, frankly, kind of stupid.
The Hoosier X whose opinions I respect so highly would never utter such blasphemy. I may have no recourse but to summon an exorcist. I've seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington TWICE. The second time I was hoping to see what I might have missed the first time. There's no nuance, there's just a lot of government-bashing, as if the common man (you know, the guy who votes for the people that run the government) has some sort of magical nobility.
Capra's run-amok magical populism is just as naïve as the idea that government will solve all our problems. (And NOBODY thinks government will solve all our problems outside of straw men being thrown together and picked apart by the deep thinkers of the mainstream media.)
And Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Ugh. I saw it six months ago and I still have a headache from all the eye-rolling. Mr. Deeds is a smug populist bully. And he's even worse later in the movie when he goes into self-pitying mode. (I felt really bad for Jean Arthur, who was really good in this insufferable, preachy, smug movie.)
(I love talking about Capra! There are a lot of Capra fans who really love two or three of his most-famous movies who are fairly hostile to one or two of his other movies, but the ones they love or hate are all totally different! (Although I must admit that Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is almost universally loved. I'm definitely in the minority on that one. It's view of government is just too simplistic to be at all useful as criticism and I just can't buy into it the way I can do with a lot of other movies.)
I do like the remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, although it's tragic that we only got to see a few minutes of it on The Simpsons. If they really made it, it would be Mel Gibson's best movie.
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 14, 2015 14:26:25 GMT -5
I guess I should add that I love You Can't Take It With You and I'm fairly indifferent to the story of Meet John Doe, though I do like the performances of Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Brennan.
And I usually like Gary Cooper. Pride of the Yankees and Sergeant York are two of my favorite movies. But something seems to go off the rails (for me anyway) when Cooper is in a Capra movie.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 14, 2015 14:32:05 GMT -5
Methinks too much Ted Cruz bad voodoo has rubbed off on Hoosier, tainting his heart for the love of Capra. Yes, an exorcism is in order
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 14, 2015 14:42:13 GMT -5
High and Low (1963) D-Akira Kurosawa Toshiro Mifune
An executive for the National Shoe Co. (Mifune) has mortgaged everything he owns to raise money to buy out his company. Suddenly an attempt is made to kidnap his son. But the kidnapper has made a mistake and kidnapped Mifune's chauffers' son instead. Still, the kidnapper demands ransom from Mifune, just about all his savings. Will Mifune comply to save someone else's child at the risk of being completely bankcrupt?
Based on the novel King's Ransom by Ed McBain. This is a great crime thriller and superb police procedural. The first hour all takes place in Mifune's living room with his dealings with the rival shoe exects, the kidnapping discovery and telephoned ransom demands. The next 90 minutes focuses on the meticulous methods conducted by the detectives to track down the villain. Kurasawa and Mifune always make a great pair and this movie never falters through it's epic length. Even if you usually shy away from Japanese films, this is a must see
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 14, 2015 14:52:26 GMT -5
The Last Seduction (1994) Linda Fiorentino, Bill Pullman, Peter Berg
Noirish erotic crime thriller. Bill Pullman deals prescription drugs to supplement his yuppie lifestyle and has just completed a $700,000 deal. But while taking a shower at home, his wife Linda absconds with the loot and Bill has to deal with the loansharks who demand the money he owns. Linda plays the most self-centered, unscrupulous hottie even seen on the silver screen. She flees to Buffalo NY and uses young Peter Berg as both a sex object and naïve partner in her murder-for-profit schemes.
This is what a femme fatale is all about. For some unknown reason, Linda Fiorentino has hardly done any acting in films or TV the last 15 years. A shame. Enjoy this movie for her best role
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 14, 2015 15:02:48 GMT -5
The Last Seduction (1994) Linda Fiorentino, Bill Pullman, Peter Berg Noirish erotic crime thriller. Bill Pullman deals prescription drugs to supplement his yuppie lifestyle and has just completed a $700,000 deal. But while taking a shower at home, his wife Linda absconds with the loot and Bill has to deal with the loansharks who demand the money he owns. Linda plays the most self-centered, unscrupulous hottie even seen on the silver screen. She flees to Buffalo NY and uses young Peter Berg as both a sex object and naïve partner in her murder-for-profit schemes. This is what a femme fatale is all about. For some unknown reason, Linda Fiorentino has hardly done any acting in films or TV the last 15 years. A shame. Enjoy this movie for her best role I saw the last half of The Last Seduction many years ago and I've wanted to see the whole thing ever since because what I saw was so intriguing.
Linda Fiorentino made a film called Jade a few years later. I loved it! It was kinda crazy and kinda dumb, almost like they were intentionally making fun of movies like The Last Seduction.
My favorite Linda Fiorentino movies is The Moderns. Paris. The 1920s. Hanging out with Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. Keith Carradine. John Lone. Wallace Shawn. Geraldine Chaplin. I used to listen to the soundtrack (one of the last things I bought new on vinyl!) all the time.
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 14, 2015 15:07:04 GMT -5
High and Low (1963) D-Akira Kurosawa Toshiro Mifune An executive for the National Shoe Co. (Mifune) has mortgaged everything he owns to raise money to buy out his company. Suddenly an attempt is made to kidnap his son. But the kidnapper has made a mistake and kidnapped Mifune's chauffers' son instead. Still, the kidnapper demands ransom from Mifune, just about all his savings. Will Mifune comply to save someone else's child at the risk of being completely bankcrupt? Based on the novel King's Ransom by Ed McBain. This is a great crime thriller and superb police procedural. The first hour all takes place in Mifune's living room with his dealings with the rival shoe exects, the kidnapping discovery and telephoned ransom demands. The next 90 minutes focuses on the meticulous methods conducted by the detectives to track down the villain. Kurasawa and Mifune always make a great pair and this movie never falters through it's epic length. Even if you usually shy away from Japanese films, this is a must see I love this movie! Kurosawa is my favorite director. He made one great movie after another. This is definitely in my top five for Kurosawa, right up there with Yojimbo, The Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and Dersu Uzala.
If you like High and Low, you'll probably like the noirish Stray Dog, about a policemen (Toshiro Mifune) who loses his gun and has to get it back.
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