What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

Is My Face Red from 1932 with Richard Cortez, Helen Twelvetrees and Zazu Pitts


Hollywood in the 1930s churned out many movies about the newspaper business, which, along with radio, was the social media and internet of its day.

Away from the true standouts, like The Front Page, most of them just blend together. Still, you couldn't be a male or female lead back then without having worked for a newspaper in one or several pictures.

Richard Cortez gets his chance at a newspaper role in Is My Face Red. Cortez plays a Walter Winchell-like reporter who writes a popular column that traffics in salacious details about the foibles of the rich and famous.

Cortez is loud, brash, cocky and obnoxious, all things that you guess he was even before success went to his head.

A lot of his "inside dope" comes from his taken-for-granted girlfriend of five years, a Broadway chorus girl played by Helen Twelvetrees.

The main and thin story in this one has Cortez witness a real murder in which the killer threatens Cortez’s life if he prints the story, which the arrogant Cortez does to further his career.

The other storyline has Cortez kinda falling for a spoiled society girl whom he gives the engagement ring he had just taken from Twelvetrees to get remounted. That seriously coldhearted act rightfully knocks Twelvetrees off her heels.

The reason the stories sound so thin in Is My Face Red is because Cortez is supposed to carry the entire movie on his personality and screen presence, like Warren William or Lee Tracy would have in the role.

Cortez unfortunately isn’t that magnetic and, in fairness to him, his character is neither a hero nor a villain here, but just a vain, selfish man whose bad behavior is more boring than rousing.

The other thing meant to energize the movie is the excitement of a newspaper business fervent for headlines and scoops.

The movie does a little better here, in part, because of Cortez' smarter-than-him secretary played by Arline Judge, who fully has Cortez' number, and in part, because of the paper's switchboard operator played by tired, nasally and unawarely sarcastic Zazu Pitts.

Twelvetrees' charm also helps the picture along, but you keep wondering what this bright and beautiful young woman sees in conceited Cortez. Five years is a long time not to wake up.

The climax is neither dramatic nor character changing, but instead ties a neat bow on a story that didn't deserve one.

Is My Face Red is at its best when it's just showing the sleazy newspaper business being its sleazy self. But even with able assists from all the female leads, Cortez and the weak story just don't have enough to carry this one successfully over the finish line.

 

[Edward]

Just back from a work trip to Beijing, which entailed the usual time to watch a few movies. Those most pertinent tog interests here would have been:

Defiance (2008) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034303/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_accord_2_cdt_t_58 A semi-rewatch via BBC iPlayer. The last time I saw this one, funnily enough ,was also a Beijing trip, but back then it wasn't downloadable, so I saw half of it in the lounge pre-flight, then when I got back it was no longer available. An interesting picture based on the story of three Jewish brothers in Belarus who became involved in resistance to the Germany's WWII-era leadership occupation, and managed to keep a sizeable encampment of Jewish people hidden in the forests and safe from the Germany's WWII-era leadership camps. Well made, and an angle on the War that isn't so often portrayed in Western media. Holds up.

The Wooden Horse (1950), again via BBC iPlayer. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043147/?ref_=fn_t_1 Although very much familiar with the real story, involving the use of a gym-horse to disguise the digging of an escape tunnel from Stalag Luft III, I had never actually seen this film. Made less than a decade after the events it portrays, the tone of this pictured is very different to the much-romanticised (to put it kindly) 1960s British WW2 pictures where the narrative began often to blend into a much more simplified mythology. Fun as The Great Escape (1963) undeniably is, it's am much more Hollywood affair than this, up to and including the creation of the fictional Virgil Hilts at the behest of the studio, in the belief that otherwise it would have a limited appeal to the American market. Being made much closer the time, the look of the picture feels much more authentic: no sixties haircuts on the leads, nor narrower Sixties uniforms standing in for wartime. There are some, small liberties taken with the original story, most particularly the location in which they initially find themselves after escaping the camps, reportedly partly to do with filming concerns and the challenges of dealing with the Soviet sector. A plus is that with the smaller nature of this escape than that featured in the Macqueen picture, there's more time spent with the lead characters rather than an ensemble, which in some sequences raises the emotional stakes. A nice picture, well worth seeing in and of itself, but also for the somewhat different feel of the British sense of identity via WW2 as compared to the Sixties war-picture boom.

Lastly to mention here, The Legend of 1900 (1998) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120731/?ref_=fn_t_2 This one completely passed me by until I chanced across it on the plane. I enjoyed it very much. Whether you might will depend largely on your tolerance for the somewhat whimsical set-up. It's not the full Benjamin Button, but you do have to go into it with a certain acceptance of the situation. Mr 1900 (the name is explained in plot) was found as a newborn, abandoned on an ocean liner, on 1 January, 1900. Taken in by a stoker and raised largely in the boiler room, he is eventually discovered to be a musical prodigy and becomes the piano player in the ship's orchestra, living his entire life on the liner without ever setting foot on land, or, indeed, officially existing anywhere on any state's records. It's a cute enough story that could easily have been a lost Scott Fitzgerald story; it's not hard to imagine a parallel world where this English language medium Italian picture was made as a Wes Anderson piece. If you like a little whimsy and something light with beautiful costuming that spans the 1900-c.1944 period, it's worth seeing.

 

[Harp]

^ Steverino's fictional Virgil Hilts in The Great Escape seems to have been drawn from several
American prisoners of composite character; malleable, if not motorcycle borne, who gave substance
to script. When I served in the US Army during Vietnam, it wasn't unusual to meet older non commissioned and commissioned officers whom had served during the Second World War. One master sergeant had actually
escaped Wermacht Stalag confinement. I learned that a Special Forces colonel named Sage, for whom ''Robin Sage,''
a Special Forces training test had partially been christened after, had been one such character.

 

[Fading Fast]

For the Defense (1930) with William Powell, Kay Francis, Scott Colton, and William B. Davidson


William Powell didn't just spring up one day as the iconic Thin Man; he had been playing suave sophisticates who dabbled in crime for years as he does in For the Defense, playing a defense attorney whose skill is getting high-profile criminals off on technicalities only he can find.

This makes him popular with the mob and well-known to the public, but notorious to law enforcement officials who feel cheated when he frees a prisoner or successfully defends an infamous gangster. Powell, as he does in his Thin Man role, basks in all the attention.

He's not a happy man, though, as he refuses to marry his girlfriend, played by Kay Francis. His incoherent reasoning is something about not being the marrying kind, but still loving her monogamously and deeply. Francis does not take this in the intellectual spirit that Powell does.

After that rejection, Francis goes for a ride with another man, played by Scott Colton, whom she's been seeing. He asks her to marry him, but Francis, behind the wheel, accidentally hits and kills a pedestrian. Colton convinces her to flee as he stays and accepts responsibility for the crime.

With Colton now on trial for murder, Francis pleads with Powell to defend him. Powell doesn't even know Francis was with Colton that night, but he knows Colton wants Francis, which is enough to make him dislike the man. Francis, though, persists and Powell takes the case.

Eventually all the truths spill out, forcing Powell and Francis to make some tough decisions. One of those could go horribly wrong for Powell who has a 1930s form of integrity: I might nibble at the edges of what is legal sometimes, but I always honor my word and defend my clients.

Today, our heroes defend the underdog, fight the powerful, and don't care about money for themselves, but in the 1930s, heroes fought for their friends (even if they were rich), their word (truly their bond), and their view of honor (not always aligned perfectly with the law).

For a modern audience, this can make these 1930s melodramas almost hard to fathom, but Depression-era audiences understood the language, which is why Powell could be a bit of a scoundrel and sybarite and still be a hero.

Rounding out and upping the emotional drama is a district attorney, played by William B. Davidson. He is tired of Powell's courtroom tricks getting defendants off, so when Powell, out of honor to Francis, is caught too far over the line, Davidson pounces.

The story is obviously constructed and not particularly original, but Powell always brings a spirit to these roles that audiences love. He isn't quite an antihero, but he has an edge and a moxie that would culminate in his popular Thin Man character.

Here, though, as in several of his Paramount pictures, his co-star and love interest is Kay Francis, one of early talking pictures' biggest and quirkiest stars. With helmet hair, a tall boy's body and a garbled way of speaking, Francis was appealing to audiences until she wasn't.

Her actions, here, batter Powell's nice world off its successful trajectory, but what matters, as with Myrna Loy in the Thin Man series, is that audiences enjoyed seeing these two together. On-screen chemistry is so valuable that even modest pictures become enjoyable when it works.

The precode 1930s is chockablock with these quick morality plays that didn't tie everything up in a neat bow. This one ends in a mess that you probably won't like and that the later Motion Picture Production Code would never allow, which is part of the value of precodes.

For the Defense is in need of a restoration, has clunky early talkie technology, and has a value system that will seem strange to modern audiences, but for completists of precodes, Powell, or Francis, it's still worth one watch for its typical period tale and star pairing.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Rosalie (2023)

 

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Rosalie (2023)

What did you think of it?

 

[Trenchfriend]

What did you think of it?

It was really interesting. But it's probably better in orginal tone.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Escape From Alcatraz (1979).

Perfect thriller!

 

[Webguy]

Disclosure Day (2026) by Steven Spielberg.

Well directed but the script I was overlong, tedious and did not make too much sense.
I would not recommend spending money for this. Watch it for free when it's out on streaming.

 

[Trenchfriend]

How Scarface (1983) sounds in german synchro!

https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/041133-000-A/scarface/

 

[Trenchfriend]

Around The World In 80 Days (1989).

Pierce Brosnan, mh...

 

[Trenchfriend]

L’eclisse (1962)

Early 60s, but so up to date!

 

[Fading Fast]

The Priest's Wife (1970) with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni


If you had to choose a woman in 1970 to tempt a priest over his vow of celibacy, Sophia Loren would not be a bad choice at all. She is thirty-six and still fully built for speed with a smile that enchants. But why would she want a priest? Two words: Marcello Mastroianni.

Do men that look like him, or Richard Chamberlain, or Montgomery Clift ever really become priests other than in films? Who knows, but in The Priest's Wife and other similar movies, they do and then they are tempted by women like Sophia Loren, Rachel Ward, and Ann Baxter.

As if a vow of celibacy isn't hard enough, along comes Sophia Loren to take a hard run at you. It could drive you from the Church. Effectively, that is the plot as Loren plays a woman who just found out her boyfriend, despite dating her for four years, has been married all along.

Having discovered that she, unbeknownst to her, is "the other woman," Loren is out to make a statement in the opening scene where she uses her little Italian car to express her displeasure to her boyfriend while he's in his little Italian car. His car did not fare so well.

That behavioral statement of Loren's did not, however, have the cathartic effect one might have hoped as the distraught woman then attempts su*cide, calls a help line, falls for the voice of "the professor" she talks with, and finally discovers he's a priest.

This would stop most women, but not Loren who is still so rattled from her four-year adventure in being deceived that she somehow convinces herself this is a good idea as the priest, played by Mastroianni, clearly isn't married. True, but there is a flaw in the first derivative of her logic.

Loren, though, a single woman in her thirties in Italy at a time when women weren't single in their thirties in Italy, is either, as we say today, thinking outside the box or insane – the movie will convince you it's some of both.

What about Mastroianni? Left alone, he'd have just gone on being a nondescript Catholic priest doing some good in his shabby neighborhood and probably not thinking much about women in a carnal way. But when Sophia Loren says she wants to sleep with you, Mama Mia!

How does all this play out in a nearly two-hour movie? Awkwardly, but often quite humorously and with some genuine drama and pathos. Director Dino Risi has a good touch that keeps the picture light, but never campy and sometimes it becomes a bit deep and even a bit dark.

Look for the scene where Mastroianni takes Loren to meet his dirt-poor farming family, and she shows up dressed very pop-1970s in loud colors and pants. It's "a touch" out of place on a farm that looks like it is still living in the 1800s. "Do you have running water?" "No."

The movie is really a dressed-up romcom. This is proved in Act II when the couple decides to marry, but Mastroianni first has to get permission from the church for a "laicization" – the loss of clerical status. Then, he and Loren can be married in the Catholic Church. Dear Lord.

Every step along the way is an opportunity for comedy. Loren is the force behind this affair, so she keeps popping up in Mastroianni's life. This creates havoc for the somber man of the cloth as he has to explain why va-va-voom Loren, in bright-colored clothes, keeps coming around.

There is no way in any setting for this couple to be inconspicuous, but in a reasonably small Italian village, their story, just their presence, is much better than any other gossip the town could imagine. Deny it all you want, "there goes the priest with his girlfriend."

Eventually, Act III amps everything up while doing two rug pulls on the viewer that you want to see fresh. There is no easy way to square this crazy circle, but the fun is watching Loren try her heart out.

It really is Loren and Mastroianni who make this ridiculous premise work in a reasonably lighthearted way. Mastroianni creates a priest who doesn't want this to be happening to him, buuut, he isn't sure he wants it to stop. It's a wonderfully understated performance.

Loren is the full driver – alive with s*xual and predatory energy – as she wants to get married and have a baby with a clock loudly ticking. Her comedic timing and general acting skills are on glorious display, so much so her body and beauty only play a supporting role.

Her general approach is to keep coming on to Mastroianni quietly but persistently in a manner that she can often claim is him mistaking friendship for advances. Watch for the scene in the Italian restaurant where he simply can't take it anymore and leaves.

Shot on a combination of soundstages and locations around Italy, the exterior scenes – from the small village where Mastroianni teaches to the iconic images of Rome and the Vatican – make the film a good time capsule of 1970s Italy.

Today, The Priest's Wife only works if you can appreciate the significance, in that era, of a Catholic priest in Italy considering dating, let alone marrying, anyone. Credit to Loren, Mastroianni, and Rosi for striking a thoughtful balance between humor and respect to pull it off.

You can read a political statement here because it is here, as on more than one occasion the "should priests be allowed to marry" argument is made favorably. Okay, so somebody had that ax to grind, but the real fun in this one is the fun, not a debate this movie will never affect.

 

[Harp]

^ I once considered the Roman Catholic priesthood as a young man but decided celibacy was beyond me.
However, while in my forties, single, and between employed statehood, I considered the matter further;
eventually interviewing with the diocese of Rockford, Illinois. After a rather torturous vetting, which left some scars, sponsorship at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut was offered. The entire process for late vocations is difficult, and, the see's vocations director had proved a bit much, opposing my candidacy on the sly, which was manifest during a subsequent sit down with the chancery monsignor. During this protracted vetting process, other secular opportunity was necessarily also sought, with a federal employment offer received on the heels of seminary sponsor.
I elected to remain within the laity.

I can sympathize with the MM character, though the film is a rather taut stretch overall. Sophia is a Bathsheba without Uriah, and MM impales his priesthood on a rose thorn. Mais, c'est la vie.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Volver (2006), now on Arte.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Boys from Brazil (1978) with Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason, Lilli Palmer, Steve Guttenberg, Denholm Elliott, and Rosemary Harris


The Boys from Brazil has pieces of a great movie, including an incredible cast and a first half that pulls you in with outstanding directing by Franklin J. Schaffner, but the overall premise, once revealed in the second half, is not believable enough to deliver on the first half's promise.

While it’s a chilling departure to see Gregory Peck playing the warped Dr. Josef Mengele – and James Mason is excellent playing a senior N*zi revanchist – Laurence Olivier’s portrayal of an aging Jewish Holocaust survivor turned N*zi hunter is the movie's heart and soul.

All those pieces and more don't immediately reveal themselves as Schaffner kicks things off with some gripping action/drama that gets explained in subsequent scenes. What you know is there are some N*zis up to no good in Brazil and an "old Jew" in Austria who hunts them.

A young Jewish man, played by Steve Guttenberg, is the connection as he spies on the Brazilian N*zis and sends his findings to Olivier. Olivier, though, is skeptical – he's old, tired, and has seen his share of exaggerated reports and over-enthusiastic N*zi hunters before.

Eventually, Olivier begins believing and starts doing the legwork to uncover what the Brazilian N*zis are up to. Meanwhile, they go on a killing spree, but only of a certain type of man, a civil servant, and only in a certain age group. Working backwards, Olivier starts to connect the dots.

His weary but methodically relentless approach, once he believes there's something there, is compelling. Starting from his rundown apartment with all but no funds, he travels halfway around the world trying to unravel the plot. But what is the plot? (No spoilers coming.)

Down in Brazil at an impressive compound, Peck, playing Mengele, is gruesomely excited about something big that requires all the killings he's ordering. But even he has to answer to some N*zi high command somewhere, whose representative is Mason.

Peck's world also shows he's continued his psychotic experiments with no care for the wrecked lives and broken people he leaves in his wake. But how does all this connect to his current kill list and Olivier's investigation?

Eventually, after more killings – watch for the one on the dam, as it is such a well-filmed, albeit chilling, vignette it could almost be its own short film – and Olivier's disruptive investigation, the antagonists meet in a climactic battle between, sadly, the "old Jew" and the old N*zi.

Unfortunately, by then, most of the energy has left the movie as the reveal that you'll still want to see fresh – you might even figure it out ahead of time – is forced and not interesting. It's a shame as there was such a good first half to the story.

It shows, though, what acting talent can accomplish. You're fully engaged with Olivier, Peck, and Mason when any one of them is on screen: these are men who know how to "get into character." Watch for Olivier's scene interviewing the former concentration guard, now in prison herself.

Yes, he is an "old Jew," and yes, he's tired, but also, he is a man of inner strength and impressive intelligence, which all comes out in the prison interview scene. Even exhausted and trying to be non-confrontational, he shows he's not a man to poke too hard.

The rest of the cast – which includes the talented actors and actresses Lilli Palmer, Denholm Elliott, and Rosemary Harris making what are effectively long cameos – deserve mention too as the acting ability runs so deep that most scenes offer some engagement, even the sillier ones.

Today, it's interesting to see these WWII ghosts fighting out a shadow war in the 1970s. But it is all part of the WWII "what if" genre. What if Germany's WWII-era leader wasn't really dead or the Germans had won or...? It's smaller today, but there is still a cottage industry in these books and movies.

The World War II generation has all but died off. Even many of its children, children who felt the war passionately, are leaving us, making WWII no longer a cultural touchstone – a shared lived experience. Yet still, it stands as the defining historical event of the 20th century.

Movies like The Boys from Brazil can no longer rely on a built-in audience, but must earn their viewers the hard way with a complete and engaging story, a talented cast, and strong production qualities.

Had the movie had a strong second-half story – an engaging resolution equal to all the tension built up in the first half – it would be a classic of the genre. Instead, it's a heck of a good tale that falls short of greatness, but for fans of the genre and its stars, it's still a film well worth seeing.

 

[Worf]

Obsession (2026) - Wow! I don't use terms like "Instant Classic". I believe that to be somewhat oxymornic. However there are some movies you see once and immediately know that folks will be talking about this specific film for decades if not forever. The ground trod is familiar but tackled with aplomb and intensity. A great rental.

 

[Fading Fast]

Youth in Fury (aka Dry Lake) from 1960, a Japanese film


There is a plot to Youth in Fury, a "new wave" effort from director Masahiro Shinoda, but the plot is the least interesting thing about the movie. Instead, you come for a look at a couple of slices of life about the young in early 1960s Japan. These are, however, two unhappy slices.

One is the politically active college youths – in every society and in every period, this is almost guaranteed to be an insufferable group of kids – who know how to fix a world they just discovered exists, so they plan "major" protests: here, to stop a US-Japanese security treaty.

The other slice, also almost guaranteed to be insufferable, is the clique of rich college kids who party, have s*x, and enjoy plenty of luxury items on mommy and daddy's money while complaining about their parents, the meaninglessness of life, or some such garbage.

Those are things you have time to do when your parents give you money and you don't take your studies seriously. As in the West at this time, the in loco parentis responsibilities of schools seem over, so the kids do what they want, which works out about as well as that usually does.

One young man, Shimojô, bridges these two groups because he's the kid everyone wants to be friends with, seemingly, because he's "cool," which here seems to mean angry, aloof, rude, selfish, and destructive. He's average looking, but the women line up to have s*x with him.

Watch for the scene where Setsuko comes up to Shimojô complaining that he never calls her anymore before asking him to go "hang out" with her right then. When he asks her why, her response is, paraphrasing, "do you have to make me say it?" That's some raw stuff for 1960.

On the political side, the student union is trying to organize a protest against the noted peace treaty fearing that in an all-out US-USSR war, Japan will now be a target of Soviet bombers. It seems so trivial now, and Japan had little choice, but youthful passions are in full fury.

The adults here are no better. The politicians are on the take or bribing someone, while many of the men also have mistresses or frequent prostitutes. One even arranges with a recently widowed mother to "take care of her family" in return for regular "time" with her teenage daughter.

Did all of these things go on? Of course they did, but the real question is if they were the defining characteristics of the country or a corner of its urban tangle. Evidence argues heavily they were just a corner of its urban tangle. The West had similar unattractive corners in 1960.

To that point, Shimojô is a ruder, angrier mashup of James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953). Raising young men and women is never easy and the postwar years were no exception, apparently, in every country.

The young women here, especially considering how conservative Japanese culture was overall, are quite liberated, clearly, s*xually, but also in their outlook and aspirations. They are studying for real careers and call BS on the boys without hesitation. And they drink like fish.

Shot in color and with a hint of "guerilla" style filming – handheld cameras capturing the actors live on location without closing the streets off – Youth in Fury is considered part of Japan's new wave cinema (like most countries' new wave filmmaking at that time).

Other than the, honestly, despicable Shimojô, the one character who stands out is Yoko, an attractive young woman whose father killed himself owing to political corruption, shattering his family (her mother is the widow noted earlier) and Yoko's upper middle-class world.

Despite having a yen (tee-hee) for Shimojô, she's a level-headed young woman trapped between the corruption of her father and the nihilism of the students she hangs out with. Her performance is nuanced and moving in a movie that often feels blunt and obvious.

Watch for the scenes toward the end when she tries to reach Shimojô, who is impervious to other people's suffering, to see an actress unwrapping layers of her emotions. She elevates the movie, explaining why she went on to have a long and noted career in Japanese cinema.

If these types of movies – angry youth without thoughtful direction – appeal to you, Youth in Fury is a good Japanese example preceding the full-force youth rebellion that would soon gather speed before petering out later in the 1960s.

 

[Edward]

^ Steverino's fictional Virgil Hilts in The Great Escape seems to have been drawn from several
American prisoners of composite character; malleable, if not motorcycle borne, who gave substance
to script. When I served in the US Army during Vietnam, it wasn't unusual to meet older non commissioned and commissioned officers whom had served during the Second World War. One master sergeant had actually
escaped Wermacht Stalag confinement. I learned that a Special Forces colonel named Sage, for whom ''Robin Sage,''
a Special Forces training test had partially been christened after, had been one such character.

As memory serves, Hilts was based on a number of Americans who had been involved in escapes. There had been some American officers at Stalag Luft III involved in the early stages of this tunnel project, who were undoubtedly an influence ,though they had all been moved to another camp some time before the breakout.

Still, it's a great picture, and Macqueen really does give a stand out performance. i expect it has also sold an awful lot of A2s to subsequent generations as well.

 

[Harp]

Still, it's a great picture, and Macqueen really does give a stand out performance. i expect it has also sold an awful lot of A2s to subsequent generations as well.

I had the opportunity of bidding on the Eastman A2 worn by the actor who portrayed Winters
in Band of Brothers-cannot recall his name-but passed for some reason. I understand the postwar sartorial craze highly favored the famed A2; revered especially by veterans who served in other than Air Corps billets, and the jacket took the college campus GI Bill route.