|
Post by Jesse on Sept 5, 2017 9:36:46 GMT -5
The Bellboy (1960) Another film I've been meaning to watch for some time I think this holds up incredibly well especially for a directorial debut. There are a bunch of funny site gags and Jerry Lewis' facial expressions and mannerisms can't be matched. I thought the Stan Laurel impersonator was particularly good. There's a really interesting documentary about him called Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis (2011) that's worth watching whether you're a long time fan of his or unfamiliar with work. I think one of the most impressive things about him was that he was performing shows in his '80s until he sadly passed away recently.
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Sept 5, 2017 9:51:16 GMT -5
The Bellboy (1960) Another film I've been meaning to watch for some time I think this holds up incredibly well especially for a directorial debut. There are a bunch of funny site gags and Jerry Lewis' facial expressions and mannerisms can't be matched. I thought the Stan Laurel impersonator was particularly good. There's a really interesting documentary about him called Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis (2011) that's worth watching whether you're a long time fan of his or unfamiliar with work. I think one of the most impressive things about him was that he was performing shows in his '80s until he sadly passed away recently. Great film; love the bit where he's told to bring in the luggage from a Volkswagon and finds the engine in the wrong spot, then presents it to the owner.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Sept 5, 2017 12:10:57 GMT -5
The Getaway (1972) I've been meaning to watch this for awhile and honestly didn't enjoy it as much as I was expecting to. It definitely wasn't bad by any means but I wouldn't rank it as either Sam Peckinpah or Steve McQueen's strongest work. Unlike their other films that I've watched I'm not sure I see myself getting excited about rewatching this. I still thought it was entertaining though and there were some decent action scenes but I found it difficult to root for the protagonists during some of the film. Although by the climax I felt they were kind of great together in a Bonnie and Clyde sense having witnessed them go through so much together and in the end that's really what the film is about. There are also some really bizarre Sally Struthers scenes. It's been a while since I saw The Getaway but I recall enjoying it quite a bit.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Sept 5, 2017 12:13:32 GMT -5
The Bellboy (1960) Another film I've been meaning to watch for some time I think this holds up incredibly well especially for a directorial debut. There are a bunch of funny site gags and Jerry Lewis' facial expressions and mannerisms can't be matched. I thought the Stan Laurel impersonator was particularly good. There's a really interesting documentary about him called Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis (2011) that's worth watching whether you're a long time fan of his or unfamiliar with work. I think one of the most impressive things about him was that he was performing shows in his '80s until he sadly passed away recently. My favorite Jerry Lewis movie! I thought about DVRing it off TCM but I've seen it fairly recently and I decided to DVR a couple I've never seen before and The Nutty Professor, which I haven't seen since I was a kid.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Sept 5, 2017 12:27:14 GMT -5
I had a Jerry Lewis double feature and watched The Ladies' Man and The Nutty Professor last night. The Ladies' Man has a lot of funny parts and some great (but weird!) musical numbers. Lewis and Kathleen Freeman are both great and fun to watch. And there's a weird cameo with George Raft. Of course, there's also a few gags that are outdated, and like a lot of Jerry Lewis movies, there's also a couple of gags that I find it hard to believe were funny when the movie was made. (Prompting one of my sarcastic "Jerry Lewis movie" comments where I explain why it's funny. "Its funny because Southern people talk like they are mentally challenged and need the smart girl with glasses to translate so Jerry will understand.") But it's all part of the Jerry Lewis experience. You sit through the dumb stuff waiting for the funny stuff, and if you're lucky, the funny stuff will far outweigh the dumb stuff. And in The Ladies' Man, the funny stuff predominates, although a lot of it isn't laugh-out-loud funny. Sometimes it's just fairly WEIRD but highly entertaining nonetheless. And then there's The Nutty Professor, which is one of his best movies. There's a lot to love in The Nutty Professor. But one of the film's biggest assets is Stella Stevens. I love her so much! I also DVRed Boeing Boeing off the MOVIES! channel Jerry Lewis marathon but I haven't watched it yet.
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Sept 6, 2017 1:21:39 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Sept 6, 2017 16:25:33 GMT -5
"You can't handle the truth!" I've not seen Don't Give Up the Ship, but it sure looks like a set-up for Jerry with a lot of potential for comedy! The MOVIES! channel is showing a few more Jerry Lewis movies later in September. I might DVR The Delicate Delinquent just because I like the title. Last night I watched Boeing, Boeing (1965) with Jerry Lewis, Tony Curtis and Thelma Ritter. It's not your usual Jerry Lewis movie. It's based on a stage play, and quite a few actors of the era could have played Lewis's role. Tony Randall would have been a natural, for example. It's a sort of bedroom farce with a really dumb premise. Tony Curtis is a horrible horrible manipulative womanizer who, unfortunately, is supposed to be a charming rogue. He is a journalist for a wire service in Paris and he has an apartment that he shares with three airline hostesses, but none of them knows that the other two live there. (And he's engaged to all three of them.) You see, Tony Curtis has somehow synchronized their schedules (they work for three different airlines) so that only one of them is in Paris at a time. Each one of them is in a Paris for a day or two and then it's off to Montreal or San Francisco for a few days, often just a few hours before the next one returns. One is British and likes kidneys for breakfast. There's a big German girl who flies for Lufthansa and likes knockwurst and saukerkraut. And there's a petite French girl who likes a soufflé. And they are all really really dumb. Because otherwise, this doesn't work at all. It barely works as it is. I wasn't bored with it, and I was kind of charmed by how hard everybody was working to give this the best chance it could possibly have. Lewis, Curtis and Ritter are all great. And among the airline hostesses, I liked the German woman a lot. She was frequently hilarious. But I especially liked the Feenchwoman, Angelique, really indignant and mad and eventually she's had it up to here with Tony Curtis's stupid explanations for all the bananashenanigans. She should be mad at herself for not being suspicious a lot earlier. Thelma Ritter is just about the best thing about Boeing Boeing. She's the maid and cook, and she has to keep track of everything. She changes the portrait to whichever girl is in town, she has to keep track of what everybody eats, and she always moving drawers full of clothes from one chest to another. But the whole system is challenged and breaks down when the hostesses' schedules get changed! And it happens the same day that Jerry Lewis, a fellow journalist and colleague of Curtis, shows up because he's been moved from Berlin to Paris and cant get a hotel room. For very devoted Lewis fans only. Well, also for people who like me who get a kick out of marginal-to-bad 1960s comedies that don't make any sense and are really dumb.
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Sept 6, 2017 21:08:21 GMT -5
Delicate Delinquent is a little different. It's not a full on comedy, like you think. Jerry is a good kid who gets mixed up with a street gang, while Darrin McGavin is a cop who breaks up something they are involved in and nabs Jerry. It's been a long time; but, I believe Jerry trains to become a cop and then runs into the gang again. It's a bit more dramatic than many of his earlier films.
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Sept 6, 2017 23:10:47 GMT -5
Like most people my age, I saw a fair bit of Jerry Lewis on tv when I was a kid and was a big fan. One I remember liking in particular because of the science fiction angle was Visit to a Small Planet. I can't remember any details after all this time apart from a few vague images, but I have the impression it was a bit off-beat, almost like a Stranger in a Strange Land kind of thing with Jerry as the alien visitor.
How about the Lewis & Martin movies? I just watched their first one, My Friend Irma, on youtube a couple years ago for the first time and it was a lot of fun. One of these days I want to sit down and watch them all in order. The other ones I remember best are Artists and Models and Hollywood or Bust, which I saw on tv in the 90s. The others I haven't seen since I was a young kid in the early 70s or even late 60s so I don't remember much about them except that I liked them a lot.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Sept 6, 2017 23:54:08 GMT -5
Delicate Delinquent is a little different. It's not a full on comedy, like you think. Jerry is a good kid who gets mixed up with a street gang, while Darrin McGavin is a cop who breaks up something they are involved in and nabs Jerry. It's been a long time; but, I believe Jerry trains to become a cop and then runs into the gang again. It's a bit more dramatic than many of his earlier films. According to Wikipedia, it's Jerry's first movie without Dean. Apparently Dean objected to being cast as a policeman, so he was replaced with Darrin McGavin. I don't know if I'm going to watch it. I think I may have satisfied my Jerry Lewis fix for a while.
|
|
|
Post by Jesse on Sept 8, 2017 10:54:46 GMT -5
Fitzcarraldo (1982) I watched this for the first time as it aired on TCM recently. I had actually seen the documentary on the making of this film awhile ago and found it really interesting. It seems difficult to convey in words the sheer magnitude of what went into its production. Words like 'immense' and 'epic' seem to fall short in describing it. The story is about a rich eccentric played by Klaus Kinski who in his ambition to build an opera house in the Amazon rainforest hauls a massive riverboat over dryland through a mountain jungle. There are no special effects or miniature models used. Instead real people including hundreds of natives make the perilous journey performing the actual labor and putting themselves in very real danger to accomplish this. The cinematography is beautiful and there are some powerful and moving scenes throughout. The documentary is called Burden of Dreams (1982) it's really interesting and I highly recommend checking it out whether you plan on seeing Fitzcarraldo or not.
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 8, 2017 21:32:57 GMT -5
King Kong escapes? The Kong of steel? Sweet Christmas, this is like the ultimate Asylum movie!!!
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2017 22:34:57 GMT -5
King Kong escapes? The Kong of steel? Sweet Christmas, this is like the ultimate Asylum movie!!! One of my favorites as well too. I have it on DVD.
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Sept 9, 2017 1:12:44 GMT -5
Great movie, apart from the Kong suit. It also tied in with the King Kong cartoon.
And, yess, that is Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer as the boy, Bobby.
|
|
|
Post by Jesse on Sept 9, 2017 10:34:47 GMT -5
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) Pretty solid adaption that visually is very loyal to the F. W. Murnau silent film but with a twist ending. Klaus Kinski is super creepy as Count Dracula. The mood and atmosphere created by Herzog is spot on throughout.
|
|