What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Worf]

In a similar vein, my fave is Charles Laughton in "This Land is Mine". His transformation from sniveling Mamma's Boy to eloquent martyr and patriot is one for the books. Tears of rage and admiration every time I see. it.

Worf

And as for who knew what and when concerning the holocaust I KNOW you're not that naïve where money, hatred and politics intersect.

 

[Fading Fast]

In a similar vein, my fave is Charles Laughton in "This Land is Mine". His transformation from sniveling Mamma's Boy to eloquent martyr and patriot is one for the books. Tears of rage and admiration every time I see. it.

Worf

And as for who knew what and when concerning the holocaust I KNOW you're not that naïve where money, hatred and politics intersect.

You and I have sung the praises of "This Land of Mine" before, which is one of my favorite Laughton films, Maureen O'Hara films, and "not really discovered" WWII propaganda films.

 

[Fading Fast]

Hell Harbor from 1930 with Lupe Velez, Jean Hersholt, Gibson Gowland, and John Holland


Hell Harbor – A port in the Caribbean – Once upon a time a stronghold for the bloodthirsty Pirates, who roamed the seven seas.

With that opening note, Hell Harbor, an early "talkie" from one of the Poverty Row studios, is off and running with its challenged production qualities and thin, boilerplate story, but also with an uneven yet good cast that includes the movie's one secret weapon – Lupe Velez.

Velez plays the "wild child" island daughter of an abusive man, played by Gibson Gowland. Gowland, early in, murders a man in cold blood to steal his money. He is also about to sell Velez to a slimy older trader, played by Jean Hersholt, who wants her for his wife.

Velez, stuck on this godforsaken island dreams of going to Havana as this is no Caribbean paradise, but a poor, crooked port town with seemingly little rule of law or sanitation. Havana makes sense as, in the 1920s, pre communism, it was considered the "Paris of the Caribbean."

Further complicating matters, Hersholt saw Gowland kill the man because the murdered man is the one Hersholt just paid a lot of money to for several pearls that Hersholt plans to quickly resell at a profit.

The deal Gowland and Hersholt strike has Hersholt agreeing not to tell the authorities that he saw Gowland kill the man. Additionally, Hersholt will pay Gowland the proceeds from the sale of the pearls – all in return for Velez' hand in marriage.

As touching a love story as that is, pretty, young, willful, and hopeful Velez says no, despite threats and one attempted beating from Gowland. Her only real out, though, is an American trader, played by John Holland, who just sailed into port.

Velez throws herself at Holland – "marry me and take me to Havana –" but Holland has no interest in the "crazy girl." He is, however, moderately interested in buying Hersholt's pearls, which keeps him in her orbit, but he knows Hersholt is shady.

That is the somewhat convoluted setup, which frames the entire short movie. Velez, with one card to play, keeps trying to get Holland to fall in love with her. There are a few cute scenes of this unrefined girl trying awkwardly to seduce wordly and honorable Holland.

For a nice change – especially in a precode film – Holland doesn't try to take advantage of her. He even begins to feel sorry for her, until a misunderstanding has him thinking she's in cahoots with Hersholt to cheat him.

From there, it's a short hop to a long, confusing climax that includes everything from a bar rumble, to a knife-versus-*** fight, to a damsel – Velez – locked in a tower. It's not as interesting as it sounds, but it's an okay ending sequence.

Nothing in this poor-quality production – in need of a restoration that probably isn't coming – is as interesting as it sounds, other than Velez' unbridled passion. She's a cute ball of energy screaming, laughing, running, jumping and seducing (poorly), all with runaway enthusiasm.

Gowland is good as her despicable father – he really seems descended from cutthroats – and Hersholt is excellent playing a man no normal father would let near his daughter. Holland, while a bit wooden, is okay playing a poor man's Joel McCrea. It's a surprisingly good cast.

Director Henry King, who would go on to have a long and distinguished career, does what he can with his tiny budget and early talkie technology to make it an engaging story. He succeeds in small spots – but King wasn't listing this one high up on his resume.

Today, Hell Harbor is only a movie for film students who want to see an early talkie or for die-hard Velez fans. If you don't fall into one of those two categories, you'll probably find this one a bit of a slog.


N.B. In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a mother tries to force her daughter to marry a noxious man in order to keep the family financially secure, but the daughter pursues a better man who initially has no interest in her. Hell Harbor is really a poor Caribbean version of Pride and Prejudice.

 

[Fading Fast]

Pale Flower from 1964, a Japanese film


In films like Don't Touch the Loot (1954) and Rififi (1955), the French created a cool, stylized world of film noir that never existed, but looks so appealing you enjoy escaping to it for a few hours. It's also a world where crime is so captivating, your moral gyroscope spins off center.

Japan, too, created its own style of noir, but as seen in Pale Flower, it's a darker nihilistic world where criminals, gamblers, addicts, and thrill seekers intersect in the shadowy neighborhoods populated by criminal gangs, where only a marginal police presence exists.

At the opening, a hitman, Muraki, is released from prison after three years and returns to his old neighborhood to see that it has and hasn't changed. It's still a turf battled over by crime syndicates, but his old gang has merged with its former rival to resist an outside gang trying to muscle in.

Muraki is afforded respect even from the top bosses for serving time and keeping quiet, so he is accepted into the merged syndicate with all past animosities wiped out. Still, in his – even for a Japanese man – laconic and unemotional way, he struggles to find his place in this new world.

Single but now middle-aged, and with time on his hands, Muraki is drawn to the late-night illegal gambling dens. There he meets an oddity for places usually populated by older men: a young pretty woman, Saeko, who plays with, atypical for the Japanese, outward verve.

Saeko appears wealthy, but she also runs out of money periodically, making you wonder if the monthly check from daddy hasn't arrived yet. She's a thrill-seeking night owl who drives her cool Renault sports car at a death-wish speed, which might be a true desire and not an idiom.

Despite outward differences – Muraki's reserved, she's effusive – both are danger addicts who seek out the risk of high-stakes gambling – the gambling-den scenes crackle – and driving fast. She's also into drugs and he's a hitman – these are not home-by-ten people.

Both also carry a kind of existential angst or yearning or unease with normal life that has them emotionally unsettled and drawn to each other in an extra-dimensional way. It's not really about ***, love, or romance, but seeing life in some distorted but similarly broken way.

Muraki already has a girlfriend, Shinko, but he has encouraged her to marry a co-worker who proposed, so she can lead a normal life, not a life on the edge with him. His relationship with Saeko, though, stays platonic but intimate as they gamble and drive fast through the evenings.

There is a narrative arc involving Muraki potentially executing another hit, but his post-prison life of tough-guy ennui is the zeitgeist of the movie. It's the theme, aura, and meaning of Pale Flower and it's stylistically captivating.

All the noir tropes are here, but amped up in this claustrophobic Japanese city with its shoulder-to-shoulder janky buildings, overabundance of neon signs, narrow alleyways, and, often, rain-soaked streets. It's so dystopian, it sometimes looks and feels like Blade Runner.

It's also cool sartorially, as the men are mainly dressed in sharply tailored 1960s suits and the women beautifully coiffed and attired. Muraki lives in a dump, but dresses like James Bond, matched by Saeko's perfect grooming and crisp, often monochromatic or color-block outfits.

Noted director Masahiro Shinoda shot his noir on the crowded streets of Tokyo and Yokohama, giving the movie a gritty realism despite its intentionally over-stylized visual. It's a visual enhanced by a jazz-meets-classical score, carefully aligned to many sequences.

None of this would work, however, if not for the actor Ryô Ikebe imbuing Muraki with a hauntingly stoic yet engaging mien that makes you care about a man who is, stripped of his cool look, a psychotic hitman.

Mariko Kaga, as Saeko, also takes a stock character – a spoiled thrill seeker – and makes you care. She's technically – maybe – a femme fatale, but she's so mentally warped she is as deadly to herself as she is to the men in her orbit.

Pale Flower is film noir with distinctly Japanese characteristics. America created noir and then – by proxy, through indigenous directors – exported it around the world, with each country putting its own stamp on the form.

In France, it's an enticing, elegantly cool world of beautiful, flawed characters who live apart from normal people. In Japan, it's a much darker, nihilistic version that, despite having a visual appeal, never has you wishing for a second you'd want to live anywhere near it.

 

[Fading Fast]

Strange Alibi from 1941 with Arthur Kennedy


You have to love the brazen confidence of Warner Bros. in the pre-war era, for no other studio would turn out a sixty-three-minute B movie like Strange Alibi. An undercover cop, a crooked police captain, a *****tic prison guard, a dead witness, and more drive this crazy, engaging picture.

Today there is a lot of protection for undercover cops to prove they are employed in legitimate police work, but here Arthur Kennedy plays a policeman who, under the sole direction of the chief of police, appears to go rogue and join the mob to get evidence against the syndicate.

The one teeny-tiny problem is that only the police chief knows that Kennedy is undercover. So when the mob kills the chief and frames Kennedy for the hit – he was getting close to exposing the high-level police brass in the mob's pocket – Kennedy is soon on his way to prison for murder.

All that happens in, maybe, twenty fast minutes, but Warners was only starting. Now Kennedy, with just his girlfriend on the outside, has to find a way to prove his innocence and not get killed by his fellow prisoners – many of whom he put there when he was a policeman.

He also has to avoid getting tortured by the *****tic prison guard, played with gleeful cruelty by Howard Da Silva. Briefly, Strange Alibi becomes another Warners 1930s staple: the brutal world of Depression-era men's prisons, with hard screws, harder convicts, and cheap life.

It might be "just an old" movie, but if you're not scared of Da Silva, you maybe should talk to a professional about your ability to empathize. *****tic screws would become a stock character of prison movies, but Da Silva – as **** of the walk here – cedes little to those later incarnations.

Warners really lets it all rip then with a breakout, a long and exciting car chase/*** battle, clandestine waterfront meetings, and a big showdown in the governor's private home, with one final *** battle to go. Phew.

The amazing thing is, if you're a bit forgiving – okay, more than a bit – it's a fun and often tense ride that still works today in a retro cool way. Much credit is owed to the cast, with Kennedy front and center as he shows here why he'd go on to have a long and successful career.

It takes a skilled actor to carry a wild script like this over its bumps and through its sharp turns without becoming comical. Kennedy, even this early in his career, has that acting gravitas. Cliff Clark, Florence Bates, Charles Trowbridge, and other Warners regulars deserve a hat tip too.

Credit also to the production team of Warners B-unit, as, for the day, the effort is professionally done. ******s flying, cars crashing, trains racing, and bodies flailing all have a verisimilitude that makes you wonder if the actors even had stunt doubles.

You can almost hear notorious skinflint and studio head Jack Warner saying, "Eh, they are only actors in our B unit, we can replace them – heck, probably for less money."

The plot veers into all but make-believe toward the end, but you don't care, as by then, you've bought into the crazy crime-underworld-crooked-police gestalt of Strange Alibi and just want to see the good guys win. It's not art, but pure B-movie entertainment done very well.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Just back from an early evening screening of Nosferatu - one of two versions I've seen recently. There's one on Amazon Prime in the UK (I think - unless it was Netflix?) I watched a few weeks ago. Also made in 2024, that version aims to have the feel of a 1930s, talkie remake of the 1922 original (which would of course not have been possible in those days after the court case). It's okay, if not quite as successful at pulling off the trick of appearing to be a genuine old piece as the masterwork of that ilk, David Lynch's The Elephant Man.

The more well known cinematic release is interesting. Dark brooding and gothic, it feels something akin to what a Hammer Horror picture might be like in 2025, evolved beyond the high camp into something more serious, but still fun. It's interesting how it has mostly followed Murnau's lead, but with some characters added back in (under alternative names, though) and other bits that are pure Stoker, and yet others that are of its own invention. I particularly enjoyed the tabby cat called Greta - felt like a cosmic nod to my own, dear departed Greta cat who ascended to Kitteh Valhalla in 2022. The bit that intrigued me perhaps most was actually the look of the nosferatu itself, which while it remained ugly throughout (consistent with Murnau and earlier vampire literature), in the early stages it is probably the closest I've seen depicted in film to Stoker's description of Dracula. It's not the definitive version of Dracula by any means, but as a piece which draws from both Stoker and Murnau, and adds its own spin on the lore, it has its place in the vampire cinema canon imo.

Watched this last evening, grabbed it from the library without knowing anything about it, generally enjoyed it a lot especially given that I had re-read Stoker's book last year so it was fresh in my mind. The dvd had the extended version and that's what I watched. The atmosphere was exactly what I've been wanting from a Dracula or Dracula-adjacent film but really haven't seen yet. Some of the alterations to the story and characters threw me off a bit at first but I accepted it quickly (much like there have been many variations of Sherlock Holmes which capture the atmosphere while still changing canon story elements).

I'm still waiting for a serious, frightening adaptation of Carmilla which I'm not going to claim Stoker copied, but... Anyways, it has a different tone in many ways.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Lifelong Dracula fan here... Eh, it didn't really work for me. No question that it's well made, but I didn't feel that it brought enough interesting new material or that special an unique approach to quite justify another telling. For me, anyway.

I've liked each of Robert Egger's films less than the preceding one. I still think The VVitch is his best.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Firebird from 1934 with Verree Teasdale, Richard Cortez, Lionel Atwill, Anita Louise, Dorothy Tree, Helen Trenholme and C. Aubrey Smith


The Firebird ambles along as okay entertainment, only to deliver a really good punch at the end. It would have, though, been a much better movie had it brought forward some of the wrenching human emotion and plot complexity it has on display in that climax.

The Firebird starts out seemingly as a story about the tenants of a luxury apartment house only to later morph into a murder mystery. All along, it could have used a soundtrack – a pretty common feature for movies by 1934.

Set in Vienna and centered around a luxury apartment house, the story follows a successful, lecherous actor – played by Richard Cortez – whose autograph attracts teenage girls and whose unwanted advances target a fellow tenant.

Verree Teasdale plays that tenant, a middle-aged and very proper upper-class married woman with a teenage daughter, played by Anita Louise. Her husband, played by Lionel Atwill, is a highly respected, retired diplomat.

Atwill and Teasdale have carefully sheltered their now-young-adult daughter. They discourage her from listening to her favorite piece, Igor Stravinsky's "The Firebird," as they believe it is too "radical" and "stirring." It's Footloose 1934 Vienna style.

For the last one-hundred-and-fifty years, at least (and really, forever, as writings from Ancient Greece and Rome reveal), parents have lamented the "wildness" and lack of respect for values and morals their children display. It's an evergreen parental lament.

Despite being in her late teens, Louise still has a live-in chaperone – played by Helen Trenholme – a mix of maid, governess, and watchdog, there to ensure she toes the family line. Trenholme's role is small, but she makes an impression.

Cortez, when he's not hitting on everything wearing a skirt, is busy avoiding his ex-wife’s alimony payments. The ex-wife, played with wonderful verve by Dorothy Tree, though, is having none of that nonsense. Their scenes are pure fun as she has his number.

So offended by Cortez' rudeness, Atwill decides to move his family out of the building, but before he can, somebody shoots and kills Cortez. In a just world, we'd all just say "good" and move on – but the law has to do its thing, so an investigation begins.

Led by an old, thoughtful, and professional police investigator, played by C. Aubrey Smith, the movie finally kicks into gear as he starts to peel back the pretty facade of the luxury apartment house's respectable denizens.

To avoid spoilers, which is hard but necessary with this one as the fun is seeing the twists and turns happen fresh, know that Smith's quietly relentless questioning and a "shocking" reveal will flip everything around a few times in the well-done climax.

The biggest flaw in the movie is that it didn't plant any early clues that might have hinted at the surprise ending (or this reviewer missed them). It's still impactful, but it lacks the "ah-hah" moment when the viewer connects the dots back to an earlier scene.

There's a lot of acting talent packed into this Warner Bros. offering. In addition to the already noted stars, Hobart Cavanaugh plays Cortez' agent/flunky, Robert Barrat plays the apartment house's manager, and Asta from The Thin Man series plays Cortez' dog.

The Firebird, badly in need of a restoration, often feels like a stage play and is probably too slow moving for modern audiences – but if you stay with this short movie, the emotional ending makes it worthwhile.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly from 1966 with Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef


For those unfamiliar, spaghetti Westerns are riffs on the American Western, produced mainly in Italy during the 1960s and 1970s.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is one of the defining spaghetti Westerns – its characters, themes, music, and zeitgeist are all considered iconic today.

For the movie, co-writer and director Sergio Leone created a stylized Western that expanded instead of mimicked the classic Hollywood tropes, so much so, subsequent American Westerns and even non-Western movies often reflect its influence.

Set during the Civil War, the plot is complex and confusing, but stripped to its core, it’s about three men – Clint Eastwood as “the good,” Lee Van Cleef as “the bad,” and Eli Wallach as “the ugly” – searching for buried gold while the North and South fight it out around them.

The plot and the gold – the latter, a MacGuffin – only matter because it gives the men a reason to interact, fight, form temporary alliances, deceive each other, and even try to kill each other in their quest for the yellow metal.

The movie's heart is its stylized characters, with Van Cleef playing "the bad" – the singularly focused and most cold-blooded but least-developed character of the three. He's more of a catalyst to the core Eastwood-Wallach dynamic than a third leg of their stool.

Eastwood, in an image-forming role, is not a "good" man in the traditional sense, but more of a taciturn, skilled ***fighter, with a strong personal code of honor and aura of integrity. He also looks iconically Western cool with his classic outfits and long lean silhouette.

It is Wallach, the "ugly," though, who defines the movie as the neurotic, selfish, cunning, resilient, and loquacious "Mexican bandit." His psychotic pursuit of the gold and sociopathic behavior is so circusy over the top, that you – almost – root for this crazy man to succeed.

It is also Wallach's complicated relationship with Eastwood – they partner when they aren't holding each other prisoner, with Wallach a bit in awe of Eastwood, but also feeling arrogantly superior to him at other times – that forms the complex, almost "buddy picture" soul of the movie.

It is the only relationship you ultimately care about throughout the movie's long journey with many side adventures, like the crazy one when the boys all but "walk through" a grueling Civil War battle as if they are casually auditing a college course.

Framing it all is composer Ennio Morricone’s iconic, tightly integrated score – think haunting whistle – and Tonino Delli Colli’s sweeping cinematography, which gave the film an epic, innovative feel. Both are now considered genre-defining.

The climax, with a perfect three-way Mexican standoff between the good, the bad, and the ugly – with alternating sweeping long shots and tight close ups – provides a singular coda for the movie's oddly irreverent comment on life being man versus man driven by greed and distrust.

More broadly, with an echo reaching back to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and forward to directors like Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie, themes of senseless violence, greed, and temporary alliances give the film an overriding spirit of anomie.

Like most paradigmatic change, the picture came from outside moviemaking's main ecosystem at the time – from outside Hollywood. Think for a moment of the odd yet wonderful cross-cultural pollination that had American Westerns being made in Italy.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly earned its iconic status the hard way by doing almost everything right and in a new and fresh manner. It's engaging but not always easy viewing – a reality of many classic movies.

 

[Fading Fast]

Aces High from 1976 with Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Plummer, Colin Firth, and Ray Milland


Almost all anti-war films are important because they are anti-war, but they all also suffer from an unanswerable challenge: who fights the Germany's WWII-era leaders and Stalins of the world if those dictators don't abide by the anti-war message, which one very much doubts they will?

Knowing that an anti-war film won't solve the problem of warfare, what's left is whether it's a well-done effort or not. Aces High falls decidedly on the well-done side of the ledger, even if it gets a bit clichéd and obvious at times.

What it does well is show the insanity of being a fighter pilot during World War I. Set at a remote airfield in France, a small squadron of English pilots come and go, sadly, mainly to their death owing to an incredibly high casualty rate necessitating a constant stream of replacements.

Malcolm McDowell plays the squadron's young leader who is a functioning alcoholic having been driven to drink by the pressures of both flying combat and commanding other men. At first, his surly personality might put you off, but by the end, you'll see that it is well earned.

He's a good man in an impossible situation slowly breaking, just like one of his pilots who claims an imaginary disease to get out of flying. McDowell is hard on him, but in that era and in that situation, if he isn't, how can he command?

All the tics of men facing death daily are here: an outer shell of indifference, even jocularity toward death mixed with moments of crushing sadness as the shell, often in private while confessing one's fears to one's close friend, cracks.

Early on, a young enthusiastic recruit, played by Peter Firth, tells McDowell he had his family pull strings to get him assigned to McDowell's squadron. McDowell, who spoke at Firth's graduation and is Firth's sister's fiancé, is a hero to Firth, which only makes McDowell feel worse.

Serving as a surrogate father to the squadron is the middle-aged second-in-command officer, played by Christopher Plummer. He tries to manage the unmanageable emotional extremes rightly experienced by the young pilots.

As in movies like Dawn Patrol (both the 1930 and 1939 versions), the hell of nearly daily aerial combat is impressively depicted, even with a modest budget and the limitations of 1970s special effects.

The combat scenes capture the terror, randomness, and sudden death of WWI aerial combat, so much so you wonder how they get the men to keep going up. Yet, most do, except for the small number who understandably crack.

A few scenes attempt to depict the callousness of the high command, but when one scene shows a general, played by Ray Milland, calculating that risking a few pilots to get crucial photographs of the front could save thousands, you hate that you agree with him.

Back at the squadron, though, Milland's decision means near certain death the next day for several men, prompting a trip into town for drinking and whoring the night before. Again, you can't begrudge the men their rough, almost cold-blooded approach to "partying."

The ending – no spoilers coming – is powerfully done. Director Jack Gold smartly shifts the climax from an impressive aerial combat scene to a poignant epilogue, with new and young pilots – boys, really – arriving enthusiastically ready to fight for king and country.

MacDowell is outstanding as the alcoholic commander – a young man himself asked to make decisions no young man should have to – as are Plummer and Firth. All the roles are written a bit two-dimensionally, but these talented actors still create characters you care deeply about.

There were no answers then and there are no answers now as being anti-war only works if everyone on planet earth agrees with you; otherwise, it's a simplistic take that lets the bad guys win, leaving the world worse off.

Still, you know deep in your soul that these movies are important even if all they do is raise their hand ineffectively for humanity. Maybe it is a bit of moral preening as the critics say, but wouldn't it be worse if they weren't made?

Knowing that an anti-war film won’t solve the problem of warfare, what’s left is whether it succeeds in engaging us emotionally and morally. Aces High may not offer solutions, but its portrayal of the insanity and futility of war remains powerfully compelling.

 

[Fading Fast]

Lovers Courageous from 1932 with Robert Montgomery and Madge Evans


A movie about two lovers struggling through poverty can seem like the plot of every third precode picture, but playwright Frederick Lonsdale smartly adapted his theatrical story for the big screen. Yes, it still feels a bit stagey, but so did many of those early 1930s pictures.

Lovers Courageous is helped along tremendously, though, by stars Robert Montgomery and Madge Evans embodying with spirit their almost clichéd roles of poor boy with wanderlust and rich girl who won't marry money just to make her family happy.

At the opening, an Englishman, played by Montgomery, rejects his father's plans for him to become a postal clerk. Instead, he travels the globe taking any job he can. The story kicks into gear when, now a clerk in a South African tobacconist shop, Montgomery meets Evans.

Evans plays the daughter of a wealthy and socially prominent admiral in the Royal Navy, presently stationed in South Africa. She has, back in England, the boringest and most ignorantly pompous lord England ever produced – and that's saying a lot – for a fiancé.

When Evans stops in to the tobacconist to buy cigarettes, she is immediately attracted to handsome, carefree Montgomery and he to the pretty, down-to-earth Englishwoman. They flirt, date, talk, fall in love, and then face reality.

Or reality is forced on them when Evans' parents, afraid their daughter might do something insane like marry a poor boy for love when she's engaged to a wealthy English lord, create a pretext to send her back to England, the lord, and marriage – and away from Montgomery.

Fast-forward, and Montgomery gets back to England, too, prompting Evans to jilt the lord right before their marriage for the unemployed playwright (Montgomery's career plan). Evans' father disowns her as the young couple marries and tries to make a go of it.

Lovers Courageous is now firmly in Depression Era precode storyland as the newlyweds struggle to pay the rent and buy food because Montgomery's manuscripts keep getting rejected. Eventually, everything gets pawned and a little pilfering takes place, but still, the money runs out.

Act Three and the epilogue are not really surprises but, like most sequences in this smart picture, they're well done even if a bit rushed and too easy.

What makes this by-the-numbers story work is Lonsdale's witty, often crackling dialogue, and Evans' and Montgomery's sincere and playful delivery. Note this exchange when now-disowned-by-her-parents Evans suggests staying with Montgomery prior to their marriage.

Montgomery: "...where are you going to stay until we get married?"
Evans: "Well, I'll stay here."
Montgomery: "Oh, you can't do that."
Evans: "Oh, don't talk nonsense."
Montgomery: "But..."
Evans: "If you say another word, I'll pop into the bed now." (Pointing to Montgomery's bed.)
Montgomery: "Don't you dare."
Evans: "Oh, what a prude you are."

What the above words don't capture is the nonchalant verve with which Evans delivers her – for the era – risqué suggestion. It's fun, flirty and real – and a reminder that life was hardly as buttoned down as movies produced after the Code was enforced make it appear.

Montgomery matches her with a youthful vibe that brings Lonsdale's words to life. It's not hard to see why Evans falls for him – but when things get tough, Montgomery and Evans shift gears to reflect the dispiriting and debasing pressures of poverty in a believable way.

The two stars are helped along by strong performances by Roland Young as Evans' good friend and Frederick Kerr as her imperious father. The latter has no truck with this "marry-for-love nonsense." Still, he's no cardboard villain, just a man of his time who knows what he believes.

It's 1932, so there's plenty of early talkie clunkiness to the picture. Plus director Robert Z. Leonard – who is excellent at creating touching and, at other times, tense intra-scene moments – hadn't yet mastered scene-to-scene transitions in movies as well as one might have hoped.

Lovers Courageous is not a classic, but a better-than-average precode that elevates its ordinary plot with sharp dialogue, believable characters, and talented actors. It's just fun and engaging entertainment, like good movies are meant to be.

 

[Fading Fast]

Dangerous Corner from 1934 with Virginia Bruce, Melvin Douglas, and Conrad Nagel


It's easy to see how the J.B. Priestley play Dangerous Corner was better than the movie, as this early "sliding doors" picture is dialogue heavy and hard to follow. You'll wish the main characters, who talk about each other a lot, wore name tags – or that they had handed out a chart at the start.

At a high level – going deeper takes you into a cat's cradle of a story – a group of friends, who are partners or whose spouses are partners in a publishing company, are having dinner a year after another partner committed *******, following the disappearance of bonds from their company's safe.

As they gather for post-dinner drinks, the radio blows a tube. Not having a replacement, a game of "tell the truth" takes place. Bad move. But first, there is an overly obvious theme alert: a client of the firm is also present whose latest novel is titled Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.

We are thus in for a truth-spilling-out evening, and boy does it ever. To avoid spoilers, just know that not everyone is faithful to his or her spouse; not everyone really likes everyone else; and the bonds' disappearance and the subsequent ******* aren't honestly buttoned down.

Another thing to know is that at some point, a "sliding doors" moment occurs, and we see an alternative evening where not all the truths and recriminations flow – which argues that maybe it is better to let sleeping dogs lie.

That is the premise of this very stagey movie. It's so stagey, you'll think they could have saved money by just filming one of the theatrical performances, since the movie mainly takes place on a couple of sets, with the actors entering and exiting as if the set were a stage.

It's also incredibly talky, which works better in a theater than a movie, as the latter cries out for more use of space and movement; theater audiences, conversely, know the actors are going to, mainly, talk to each other all night.

Still, with a talented cast, including Virginia Bruce, Melvin Douglas, and Conrad Nagel, there are interesting moments and well-acted scenes. Douglas is the most natural on screen as almost all of the others are still carrying around some stage-acting tics.

Top-billed Bruce is good, but she too feels a bit stagey here and never fully hits her stride. Some of the fault lies with director Phil Rosen who, despite not having a theater background, seemed content to film his picture more as a play than a movie.

Maybe the story was daring in its day with all these truths spilling out because of one quirky event – the radio tube blowing out – juxtaposed with an alternate timeline where the truths don't spill out. Yet the premise in these types of movies always sounds better than the execution.

In Dangerous Corner, the "switch back" timeline feels like a rug-pull on the viewer, but the intent is to argue that society is better off letting sleeping dogs lie – letting some truths stay buried. Maybe, nay, probably, but the trick as always is which truths and who decides?

As a movie curio with several talented stars, Dangerous Corner is worth one watch, but be prepared to spend a lot of time trying to keep the characters and convoluted story straight.

 

[Fading Fast]

Big Deal on Madonna Street from 1958, an Italian film


Some heist films are deadly serious affairs like the film noirs The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Rififi (1955), and some are more romcom romps like Gambit (1966) or How to Steal a Million (1966), but the heist film Big Deal on Madonna Street goes its own way as an Italian farce.

Helmed by noted Italian director Mario Monicelli and with future stars Claudia Cardinale and Marcello Mastroianni in supporting roles, as well as Vittorio Gassman in a leading role, the talent pool is deep in this almost whimsical Italian effort.

Several young misfit Italian men – men who don't like to work – after "borrowing an idea," hatch an absolutely idiotic scheme to rob a pawn shop. They then spend most of the movie haphazardly planning their heist as if ten-year-olds had watched Rififi and then tried to do it on their own.

The "plan" is to rob a pawn shop by breaking through the "weak" wall of an adjacent apartment and then to "crack open" the shop's safe. It's an idiotic plan because these dopes think they've all but solved the heist by getting in the pawn shop, even though that's where it really begins.

Even a poorly thought-out heist – and this is a poorly thought out one – requires a decent amount of planning. Here, the "planning" takes up most of the movie until Act Three where the bumbling thieves actually attempt the crime.

You'll want to see that act and the climax fresh, but know that when thieves take a break right in the middle of their crime to eat pasta – and to discuss in detail if it needs more olive oil – these are not professionals.

That vignette during the heist is the movie's best scene. It tells you all you need to know: These are not serious men, but indolent and, almost, nice guys who only planned a heist because they are too lazy to do real work and too stupid to be real criminals.

That is par for the course, though, as all along, the men – really man-children – have trouble staying focussed. One is busy caring for his infant daughter because his wife is currently in jail. But get ready for it, he leaves the girl with the mother in prison so that he can focus on the heist.

All you can think of is how in God's name do Italian prisons allow that? But there is more crazy, including a scene where a professional safecracker attempts to tutor the boys on equipment that looks older than the invention of modern safes themselves.

Another complication that arises: the apartment adjacent to the pawn shop, originally believed to be vacant, is now occupied by two elderly women and their maid. This prompts Gassman, the closest thing the gang has to a leader, to start romancing the maid, but with mixed success.

For fans of Cardinale – she plays the cloistered virgin sister of one of the crooks – know that her role is small. And while – at twenty years old – she's still sporting some baby fat, she looks bombshell young. Her scenes, while brief, provide a needed boost of humor and prurience.

Fans of Mastroianni will be happier that his role is bigger, but still, he's just part of an ensemble cast headed up by Gassman. He isn't the commanding presence here he often is; nevertheless, he has a comfort in front of a camera that loves him.

Director Monicelli gets close in a few scenes, but overall – thankfully – he doesn't let his movie descend into slapstick. Instead, he keeps the vibe lightly farcical, but serious enough that you kinda care about the boys. It's a good balance in a movie that risks becoming silly or stupid.

Shot all around Rome and in beautiful black and white, Big Deal on Madonna Street is a post-war time capsule for us today. If you like farcical mid-century Italian heist movies, this is the one for you – for the rest of us, it's an enjoyable enough romp driven by some harmless crooks.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Bedford Incident from 1965 with Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, and Martin Balsam


The Hunt for Red October is the best fictional Cold War submarine movie, just as Das Boot is for World War II – but how about a submarine movie where you never see the sub? The Bedford Incident is set entirely aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer stalking an all but never seen Soviet submarine.

Made at the height of the Cold War, "what if" movies like The Bedford Incident, Fail Safe (1964), and Seven Days in May (1964) – amongst others – captured and heightened Americans' fears of an accident – or rogue agent – setting off a nuclear armageddon.

It's an armageddon that thankfully never happened, other than on screen. The potential rogue agent here is the captain of the Bedford itself – a destroyer, tracking on sonar, a probable Soviet submarine off the coast of Greenland that might have strayed into NATO waters.

The Captain, played by Richard Widmark, has his crew wound tight, as a dangerous game of cat and mouse plays out amidst icebergs, sonar pings, and political fear. His smart, quirky sonar expert is nearing a breakpoint as is a young ensign whom Widmark rides hard.

Widmark isn't a mentally unhinged captain like Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, but an intelligent, well-trained, and highly focused leader who might, though, be just one unhealthy degree too committed to smoking out the Soviet Submarine.

Two foils – Sidney Poitier, playing a photojournalist the Navy invited onboard, and Martin Balsam, playing the ship's new doctor – as outsiders, see the unstable atmosphere on the vessel. But Widmark is too determined to hunt his prey, to see the withering environment.

The movie is a series of escalations and then wait-and-see sequences as Widmark tracks, loses, hunts, and finds the Soviet sub – while keeping his ship often at general quarters, as he responds angrily to any orders received that, effectively, tell him to back off a bit.

As the tension builds, something director James B. Harris does slowly but smartly, the movie steams into Act Three and the potential spark to World War III. You'll want to see the well-done climax fresh as Harris puts his spin on this popular-at-the-time genre/parlor game.

Poitier, as always, is excellent, here playing the photojournalist with an outsider's conscience questioning Widmark's methods. The man, thankfully for once in a race-agnostic role, just radiates integrity as he tries to balance his concerns with his all-but-powerless position on the ship.

Balsam, an impressively natural actor, sees the problem, but his responsibility as the ship's medical officer is to show how Widmark's dominating personality can shut down helpful and necessary signals from his crew – a reveal Widmark has no interest in recognizing.

There are more performances that deserve mention, including the outstanding character actor Wally Cox as the sonar expert on the brink of cracking, and James MacArthur as the ensign and firing officer who becomes dangerously befuddled under Widmark's enervating riding.

Despite the strong cast and well-written story, this is Widmark's movie, and the actor is more than up to the task. He underplays his obsession like a more thoughtful Ahab, so you never hate or dismiss him – but slowly you and, tellingly, he realize he might be the problem.

The actor has the incredible ability to show you when, and almost what, he is thinking – they probably can't teach that in acting school. Time and again, the movie pivots on his decision, which can seem ardent, but never unhinged. It has to be a top-five performance for Widmark.

Shot in black and white, it's amazing how much tension, perspective, and political philosophy can be wrung out of a small budget. You often forget you're watching a movie as you feel like you're an observer on a slightly claustrophobic destroyer hunting a sub in the Cold War.

The Cold War – which seemed like "everything" for decades – has come and gone so long ago that middle-aged men and women today only know it as history or through movies like The Bedford Incident, which argues for its importance as a cultural artifact.

Ironically, good movies like The Bedford Incident often fall off movie fans' radar – and, to be fair and as noted, there are better similar movies. Still, with its stellar cast and powerful historical Cold War perspective, it deserves more attention today.

 

[Fading Fast]

@Trenchfriend, No comment on a movie review in which I mentioned "Das Boot" just for you?

Have you seen "The Bedford Incident?"

 

[Trenchfriend]

Have you seen "The Bedford Incident?"

Didn't know about it, before.

 

[Fading Fast]

Didn't know about it, before.

When you can, check it out. Based on the movies you like, I think you'd like this one.

 

[Edward]

The Courier (2020, via BBC iPlayer) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8368512

Benedict ***berbatch plays Greville Wynne, in the true story of a British businessman who, due to his regular trips to Eastern Europe for business, was in 1960 recruited by the CiA to act as a go-between with a disillusioned Russian agent who sought to collude with the West in order to de-escalate nuclear tension. The film runs up to and includes the work both were part of behind the scenes, which ultimately defused the Cuban Missile Crisis. Seems fanciful, but absolutely a true story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greville_Wynne (Though Wynne would later mythologise himself somewhat). Worth seeing. Not only for the story, which is a good one and well told, but also for the perfectly-pitched portrayed of Britain in the early 1960s, not much changed since 1945.

Also recently rewatched a couple of 2023 pictures I loved at the time - Barbie, and Wes Anderson's Asteroid City. Both were discussed at length on here at the time. Many long term Anderson fans felt the latter was weaker than his other output, though tbh it remains my favourite of what I've seen on his work (all of which I've enjoyed). I'm still on the hunt for house slippers like the ones Edward Norton wears in the writer's sequences in the cabin. Roared with laughter all over again at Barbie. Great fun. So many nice little visual jokes, and the skewering of meninism was bang on. Particularly funny was a gag I'd forgotten from first time round, where the executive tells Ken "we still do patriarchy, we're just less obvious about it now." I do tend to like Greta Gerwig's sense of humour.

 

[EngProf]

It's a close matter-of-taste, but I think "Bedford Incident" is the best Cold-War sub picture.
Even though I have seen it MANY times, I still want to yell "Don't Do It!!" at the climax.
The other movies mentioned are very good, but this one is my favorite.
All the actors you mentioned were at the top of their game for this one.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Last night I watched SHATTERED GLASS from 2003 about a journalist for The New Republic who was found to have fabricated many of the articles he wrote. I found this film a pleasant watch, thanks to a really good cast. It's just a bunch of people talking or arguing for 90 minutes, which I often enjoy in movies!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shattered_Glass_(film)