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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2016 16:08:15 GMT -5
Yesterday I watched Burnt Offerings--a creepy movie featuring Bette Davis and starring Oliver Reed and Karen Black. It wasn't what I was expecting and I was pleasantly surprised. Had the same experience when it came out. Went thinking it would be campy, but it wasn't bad at all. And that chauffeur. Jokeresque grin on that creep. The chauffeur and the casket! I was surprised that this was a Dan Curtis (of Dark Shadows fame) production and that he had Robert Cobert who composed for DS compose the score for Burnt Offerings. A great movie with atmosphere, unease throughout, and genuine creepy scenes without being over the top. In several of the scenes, Oliver Reed looked truly terrified.
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Post by Prince Hal on May 23, 2016 16:17:26 GMT -5
Had the same experience when it came out. Went thinking it would be campy, but it wasn't bad at all. And that chauffeur. Jokeresque grin on that creep. The chauffeur and the casket! I was surprised that this was a Dan Curtis (of Dark Shadows fame) production and that he had Robert Cobert who composed for DS compose the score for Burnt Offerings. A great movie with atmosphere, unease throughout, and genuine creepy scenes without being over the top. In several of the scenes, Oliver Reed looked truly terrified. It's too bad Reed drank so much and just slipped into that growly gruff style in virtually everything he did, because he had some real moments in his heyday. (Ever seen him in The Devils?)
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2016 8:07:16 GMT -5
The chauffeur and the casket! I was surprised that this was a Dan Curtis (of Dark Shadows fame) production and that he had Robert Cobert who composed for DS compose the score for Burnt Offerings. A great movie with atmosphere, unease throughout, and genuine creepy scenes without being over the top. In several of the scenes, Oliver Reed looked truly terrified. It's too bad Reed drank so much and just slipped into that growly gruff style in virtually everything he did, because he had some real moments in his heyday. (Ever seen him in The Devils?) I haven't, but I am going to keep an eye out for it. I also want the see the werewolf movie he was in during the early 60s. I read up on him after watching Burnt Offerings. Seems he was quite the drinker. I thought I could put it away in my college days, but I think I would have died trying to keep up with Oliver Reed!
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Post by Prince Hal on May 24, 2016 8:13:05 GMT -5
It's too bad Reed drank so much and just slipped into that growly gruff style in virtually everything he did, because he had some real moments in his heyday. (Ever seen him in The Devils?) I haven't, but I am going to keep an eye out for it. I also want the see the werewolf movie he was in during the early 60s. I read up on him after watching Burnt Offerings. Seems he was quite the drinker. I thought I could put it away in my college days, but I think I would have died trying to keep up with Oliver Reed! Here it is, I think: And yes, he was a notoriously ugly, angry drunk, I'm afraid. I loved him in The Three (and Four) Musketeers, and as Bill Sikes in Oliver! Not a guy you'd want to mess with.
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Post by Hoosier X on May 24, 2016 8:37:08 GMT -5
No discussion of Oliver Reed's career would be complete without mentioning this: With Oliver Reed, Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas. I love the fight on the zeppelin at the end! The zeppelin doesn't have glass in the windows! I looked it up and found out that that's accurate for early zeppelins.
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Post by Prince Hal on May 24, 2016 9:04:59 GMT -5
No discussion of Oliver Reed's career would be complete without mentioning this: With Oliver Reed, Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas. I love the fight on the zeppelin at the end! The zeppelin doesn't have glass in the windows! I looked it up and found out that that's accurate for early zeppelins. Haven't seen this, but it sounds liek a good one. At the very least, it is one more movie with a zeppelin scene, like Last Crusade, Sky Captain, Flyboys (IIRC), Zeppelin (natch), Wings (I think) and most definitely Hell's Angels:
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Post by Hoosier X on May 24, 2016 9:41:15 GMT -5
No discussion of Oliver Reed's career would be complete without mentioning this: With Oliver Reed, Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas. I love the fight on the zeppelin at the end! The zeppelin doesn't have glass in the windows! I looked it up and found out that that's accurate for early zeppelins. Haven't seen this, but it sounds liek a good one. At the very least, it is one more movie with a zeppelin scene, like Last Crusade, Sky Captain, Flyboys (IIRC), Zeppelin (natch), Wings (I think) and most definitely Hell's Angels: And don't forget Dirigible (1931) with Fay Wray. It's about an expedition to the South Pole in a dirigible. And it's directed by Frank Capra.
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Post by Hoosier X on May 24, 2016 9:47:49 GMT -5
Two of my Holy Grail movies have turned up on YouTube - Jungle Woman (1944) and Jungle Captive (1945).
These two have been very hard to find. I've been checking YouTube periodically for years hoping they'd show up, and somebody posted them in January.
I watched Jungle Woman yesterday afternoon. It's so dumb, but it has J. Carroll Naish and Acquanetta. I will watch pretty much anything with either of them in it. Acquanetta is one of my favorite hilarious actors.
Expect a more full review of both films after I see Jungle Captive.
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Post by Prince Hal on May 24, 2016 10:10:10 GMT -5
Haven't seen this, but it sounds liek a good one. At the very least, it is one more movie with a zeppelin scene, like Last Crusade, Sky Captain, Flyboys (IIRC), Zeppelin (natch), Wings (I think) and most definitely Hell's Angels: And don't forget Dirigible (1931) with Fay Wray. It's about an expedition to the South Pole in a dirigible. And it's directed by Frank Capra. Wasn't aware of that. There's a must-see for my list! Oh, and how could I leave out The Rocketeer?!
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Post by Hoosier X on May 25, 2016 13:00:48 GMT -5
I'm beginning to suspect that this movie is solely responsible for the great lack of movies about the American Revolution in our national cinema. So last night I watched The Howards of Virginia (1940). After I finished my quest to see all of Cary Grant's films from 1941 on, I really wasn't that concerned with continuing on with the 1930s. I've seen all his important 1930s films and a few that are entertaining but not particularly important, but there are more than 20 I haven't seen and I decided to give it a rest for a while. Maybe later. But I had noticed that I'm only missing two movies from his 1937 to 1940 catalogue - In Name Only and The Howards of Virginia - and TCM helpfully scheduled The Howards of Virginia so I DVRed it. It has a bad reputation, and it's not undeserved. It's not all THAT bad. It's kind of stupid. But I didn't find it hard to watch. I was rolling my eyes a lot and feeling bad for Cary Grant for getting attached to this project. I've never seen him look so lost. I'm guessing he had a lot of trouble understanding the part and why he was cast. It starts in the American colony of Virginia in the 1750s, and the father of Matthew Howard (the child who will grown into Cary Grant) is killed in the French and Indian War. His best friend is young Thomas Jefferson, played as a grown-up by Richard Carlson (who we all remember from The Creature from the Black Lagoon). The years pass and things happen. Matthew Howard marries an aristocratic young lady from Williamsburg and takes her with him to the wild country of western Virginia where he builds her a plantation in the wilderness. They have children. Howard is elected to the House of Burgess. The Stamp Act. The Boston Massacre. Eventually, the American Revolution is upon them. I found it watchable but not particularly compelling. Sir Cedric Hardwicke is in it as Cary Grant's disapproving brother-in-law. There's a cameo with actors playing Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, von Steuben and Anthony Wayne. It's not Cary Grant's worst movie. (That dubious distinction still belongs to Dream Wife.) But it strikes a sour note at a time in his career when he seemed to be on a roll. For very devoted Cary Grant completists only.
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Post by Hoosier X on May 26, 2016 18:21:44 GMT -5
Today on YouTube Theatre: Jungle Woman (1944) and Jungle Captive (1945). These movies are hilarious! I saw Captive Wild Woman (1943) a few years ago and it jogged my memory and reminded me that I'd seen it as a kid. GAWD, it's hilarious! I can't believe I'd forgotten such a crazy movie! I must have been REALLY little. John Carradine is the mad scientist. Martha Vickers (Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep) is a young woman being treated for a glandular condition who provides the glandular excretions for the mad scientist's experiments. Evelyn Ankers is her sister. Milburn Stone (most famous as Doc on "Gunsmoke") is her lion-tamer boyfriend. And Acquanetta is Paula Dupree, the Ape Woman! Acquanetta is HILARIOUS! She is almost entirely emotionless and deadpan - right up until the moment when SHE GETS MAD AND TURNS INTO A GORILLA LADY! I love her so much! Actually, this whole cast is great! I love them all so much! They made two sequels, Jungle Woman and Jungle Captive. I've been wanting to see them for many years but they seem to be kind of hard to find. I was in the habit of checking YouTube fairly regularly to see if they had popped up. And finally, THEY ARE THERE! Acquanetta, Milburn Stone and Evelyn Ankers returned for the first sequel. And J.Carroll Naish is the kindly doctor who admits Paula into the sanatorium when she is found wandering around after the first movie. This turns out to be a mistake. Unfortunately, Jungle Woman has too many flashbacks and much of the film takes place at an inquest. So we have too many scenes where the magistrate is calling people to the stand and asking them questions. And the witness says "Let me see, it all started when the doctor came to ask me about the new patient ..." and then the movie comes back for a few minutes. Still, it's one of the few Universal pictures I hadn't seen, so I was happy to see it. And it's only 70 minutes! Acquanetta did not return for Jungle Captive. Instead, we get Vicky Lane as Paula Dupree the Ape Woman. She's even more listless and emotionless than Acquanetta. We also get Otto Kruger (from Dracula's Daughter) as the mad scientist. And Phil Brown as the scientist's unwitting assistant. I thought he looked familiar. I was very surprised to find out where I knew him from. Thirty years later, he played Uncle Owen in Star Wars! The mad scientist's sinister henchman is Rondo Hatton! You remember him, right! So even lacking the presence of the divinely hilarious Acquanetta, Jungle Captive is a wonderfully silly movie that makes no sense and doesn't seem to have much of a point but is very entertaining for a little over an hour. If you love Universal horror movies, you shouldn't miss these. If you're a movie buff with no special focus on Universal horror, then you can probably give these movies a pass.
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Post by Hoosier X on May 26, 2016 18:40:04 GMT -5
And I watched King Solomon's Mines (1950) this afternoon. It's OK. It must have been impressive when it opened, in color, filmed in Africa, based on an H. Rider Haggard novel, starring Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr. It was nominated for Best Picture in 1950, up against Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve, Born Yesterday and Father of the Bride. (I'm looking at some of the 1950 movies that could have gone into the spot - The Asphalt Jungle, Gun Crazy, Harvey, The Gunfighter, In a Lonely Place, Panic in the Streets, Winchester '73. That's just for starters.) But King Solomon's Mines was wildly popular when it came out. According to Wikipedia, it was the top-grossing film of 1950! Wow!
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Post by Hoosier X on May 27, 2016 13:28:37 GMT -5
Jayne Mansfield is in it. Everything else is just movie trivia. I watched Illegal (1955) last night. Edward G. Robinson is an ambitious district attorney who will do anything to win a case. He sends Dr. McCoy (DeForrest Kelly, I mean) to the chair, and his assistant tells him, "on that evidence, only you could have got the death penalty, boss." And within about two minutes, an iron-clad deathbed confession proves the condemned man is innocent. Oops. And because justice is swift, they pull the switch while Edward G. is trying to call the prison to tell them to call it off. There goes Edward G.'s chances at being governor! (Was there ever really a time when sending an innocent man to death could HURT a political career?) He becomes an alcoholic but eventually pulls himself out of the bottle in order to become a criminal defense attorney ... and he'll still do ANYTHING to win a case! In one scene, he punches a witness and knock him unconscious ... in court! The jury loves it! In another scene, he drinks the poison that the prosecution considers it's main evidence. The jury loves that as well. The prosecutors ask for a recess and Edward G. goes and has his stomach pump. (It seems that no one on the district attorney's staff knew that the poison takes 45 minutes to work. I loved it while I was watching it. I still love it! But I didn't really notice how silly it was until I had a chance to think about it. Silly silly silly. One of his assistants is Hugh Marlowe, who I keep getting mixed up with Richard Carlson. Carlson has been in two movies I saw this week - The Howards of Virginia and King Solomon's Mines. Hugh Marlowe is famous for All About Eve. Albert Dekker is the local mob boss. Ellen Corby is Edward G.'s secretary. And Jayne Mansfield, in her second film, is the mob boss's girlfriend, and she ends up as Edward G.'s main witness when he has to defend Nina Foch, who has been his friend and associate for years and is now facing a first-degree murder rap. Lots of fun. A too much ignored legal thriller from the 1950s.
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2016 20:54:19 GMT -5
I'm watching the Battle of the Bulge and later on The Longest Day on TCM and those two movies were part of the Robert Ryan Movie Features that Turner Classic Movies is showing this month.
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Post by Hoosier X on May 28, 2016 12:13:21 GMT -5
I'm watching the Battle of the Bulge and later on The Longest Day on TCM and those two movies were part of the Robert Ryan Movie Features that Turner Classic Movies is showing this month. I love both those movies! I DVRed Men in War because I've never seen it and I plan to watch it this afternoon. Right now I'm watching Haunted Gold (1932), one of those wonderfully silly hour-long westerns John Wayne made early in his career. This is one of the best!
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