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Post by tartanphantom on Apr 24, 2023 22:04:11 GMT -5
ps if she likes the noir stuff, try the James M Cain films: Mildred Pierce, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity ...or for fun, Steve Martin's Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, where he works opposite clips from the noir classics.
You can thank me later.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 24, 2023 22:18:29 GMT -5
Night of the Hunter has entered the chat.
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Post by tartanphantom on Apr 24, 2023 22:24:13 GMT -5
Night of the Hunter has entered the chat.
Oh yeah-- and to think that at one time Charles Laughton thought he did a terrible job of directing. So much so that he never directed another film. What was he smoking? Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and it has proved to be a landmark film noir production... even though it totally flopped when the film debuted. The evil of Mitchum's portrayed character is palpable under Laughton's direction.
BTW... any time I want to creep my wife out, I just start singing "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" in my best Mitch voice, (counselor!). She says it gives her the heebie-jeebies due to recalling Mitchum's character from the film. I can't even get her to watch it again.
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Post by Prince Hal on Apr 25, 2023 6:11:22 GMT -5
I was sticking to private-eye stuff, or ones that hewed close to the genre, but every film you mentioned in both posts is a keeper. Along the lines of "Beat the Devil," let me add "Across the Pacific," which reunites Bogey, Mary Astor, and Sydney Greenstreet in another genre-bender directed by John Huston and Vincent Sherman, who finished up the picture after Huston left for the service. Sherman had directed "All Through the Night." Just thought of another Bogey wartime movie,"Passage to Marseille,"in which he is is by turns idealistic, embittered, cynical, courageous, loving and noble and believable throughout.
What, you mention Huston but no love for this one? I think the dynamic between Bogart and Hepburn is surprisingly effective.
And don't get me started on the source material. Forester is one of my favorite authors.
Because cody starbuck had already mentioned it. Besides, Rob was originally asking for Bogart private-eye pictures, not a list of every movie he made. Otherwise I’d have mentioned “The Oklahoma Kid.”
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Post by Hoosier X on Apr 25, 2023 21:28:43 GMT -5
Tonight I am watching Zatoichi at Large (1972).
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 26, 2023 7:38:13 GMT -5
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), directed by Roger Corman.
Who doesn't love a Vincent Price horror film? Who doesn't like those perpetual thunderstorms that always sound the same and occur even when the skies look relatively clear?
I only vaguely remember the Edgar Allan Poe short story, but it was obviously much developed by screenwriter Richard Matheson. And I must admit that I did not figure out what was going on before the film's climax. It was a pretty good twist, too!
John Kerr was in that one too (I seem to randomly select films in which he appears, recently) and I quite enjoyed Luana Anders' performance.
I can see this kind of movie influencing the writers who gave us so many DC horror comics a few years later! The gothic feel, the Spanish Inquisition (didn't expect that, uh?), the torture chambers and the cobwebbed secret passages are a world all of their own.
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 26, 2023 11:07:19 GMT -5
The Poe films are about the only good ones that Corman directed, himself. He produced some good ones, with other directors, but of his own body of work, those are the gems.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 29, 2023 7:40:23 GMT -5
I learned this morning that Eva Green was the daughter of Marlène Jobert. I loved Jobert in movies like Le Secret, and I'm always surprised when successive generations of a family give us equally gifted thespians.
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Post by Hoosier X on Apr 29, 2023 8:52:46 GMT -5
Last night I watched The Conqueror (1956).
I had heard it was bad, but I was not quite prepared for THAT!
I’ve seen a lot of bad movies in my life. But The Conqueror is the only movie I’ve ever seen that made me feel like I had been murdered.
John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendariz, Agnes Morehead, William Conrad, Lee van Cleef, Thomas Gomez, John Hoyt
Produced by Howard Hughes and directed by Dick Powell.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 29, 2023 9:16:24 GMT -5
Last night I watched The Conqueror (1956). I had heard it was bad, but I was not quite prepared for THAT! I’ve seen a lot of bad movies in my life. But The Conqueror is the only movie I’ve ever seen that made me feel like I had been murdered. John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendariz, Agnes Morehead, William Conrad, Lee van Cleef, Thomas Gomez, John Hoyt Produced by Howard Hughes and directed by Dick Powell. So bad it was cursed.
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Post by Hoosier X on Apr 29, 2023 9:19:38 GMT -5
Last night I watched The Conqueror (1956). I had heard it was bad, but I was not quite prepared for THAT! I’ve seen a lot of bad movies in my life. But The Conqueror is the only movie I’ve ever seen that made me feel like I had been murdered. John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendariz, Agnes Morehead, William Conrad, Lee van Cleef, Thomas Gomez, John Hoyt Produced by Howard Hughes and directed by Dick Powell. So bad it was cursed. The people who made it wished they had died of cancer BEFORE they made it.
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Post by Rob Allen on Apr 29, 2023 16:53:27 GMT -5
My wife really liked Casablanca. The DVD had three extras: a commentary by Roger Ebert, a short about the making of the movie, and a biography of the director. Michael Curtiz. She watched each of them three times before she was ready to move on.
The next DVD in the box was Citizen Kane. She could see that it was technically well-made but found all of the characters completely unlikable. She bailed about a half-hour in. She didn't want to spend time with those people.
The last DVD in the box was Psycho. That one, she never intended to take out of the box. She knows enough about it to stay away from it.
The box went back to the library today.
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 29, 2023 19:55:14 GMT -5
My wife really liked Casablanca. The DVD had three extras: a commentary by Roger Ebert, a short about the making of the movie, and a biography of the director. Michael Curtiz. She watched each of them three times before she was ready to move on. The next DVD in the box was Citizen Kane. She could see that it was technically well-made but found all of the characters completely unlikable. She bailed about a half-hour in. She didn't want to spend time with those people. The last DVD in the box was Psycho. That one, she never intended to take out of the box. She knows enough about it to stay away from it. The box went back to the library today. Yeah, for all the acclaim, if find the entirety of Kane to be a bit of a slog. It's brilliant in pieces; but, I don't think they totally gel. I think a lot of film critics/students get too caught up in the technical innovations and look, vs the storytelling. It is hard to root for anybody in the film. I loved SNL's parody, back in the early days, with Kane's "other last words:" You get bits and pieces, with each person. The first is "roast beef;" then "Henri" and "with mustard." By the end, you see Kane and his newspapermen getting sandwiches from a delicatessen and Garret Morris is the delivery guy, asking "Who had the roast beef, on rye, with mustard?" The whole thing is set up at each episode with Dan Ackroyd, as Kane, eating a sandwich, in the scene and commenting about how good it is. They also did a great parody of Psycho, as Tony Perkins guest hosted and they did a commercial for the Norman Bates School of Motel Management.
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Post by Hoosier X on May 1, 2023 19:19:43 GMT -5
Today, I’m watching Silent Running (1972).
I’ve seen about half of it. It’s pretty great!
I can hardly believe I’ve never seen it before.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 1, 2023 21:58:54 GMT -5
Today, I’m watching Silent Running (1972). I’ve seen about half of it. It’s pretty great! I can hardly believe I’ve never seen it before. Yeah, I'm hard pressed to go to "great;" interesting, with memorable stuff, but not what I would call a "classic." Bruce Dern is always good, no matter the quality of the film, but I have always found him creepy, no matter how sympathetic the role, especially after stuff like his appearances in Gunsmoke and, especially The Cowboys (the man murders John Wayne!). He could play Albert Schweitzer and I would be waiting for him to knife someone in the back and laugh about it. Technically, it's great and the design is interesting and the eco-message is strong; but......I don't know, it just didn't sustain my interest all the way through. Parts would grab me and parts would bore me and it just never seemed to come together, as a story. I like a lot of the more cerebral late 60s/early 70s sci-fi; but, I was also happy when Lucas brought in the Saturday matinee thrills. Mostly, I was glad to see him create ILM to up the special effects game so that you didn't need the director to be so involved, like Trumball had to be, on that one, or Kubrick in 2001. I kind of feel that Peter Hyams was a bit better in bridging the gap between a Kubrick and a Lucas vibe to sci-fi than Trumball was; certainly about the storytelling and the actors. Both Outland and 2010 are more my thing than Silent Running or The Black Hole (though that is a different problem).
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