What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Edward]

If I could just fidn five minutes free from work I would!

I am in that exact position with Line of Duty and Marcella. I need to go back and watch at least the last three episodes or so of the last season I watched..

My other half has rewatched LOD ahead of all new series - I think I'm gonig to do that as well. I'm not sure if number 5 is gonig to be the final series or not, but it's certainly going to be a closer to some narrative arcs that go back to the beginning.

 

[Trenchfriend]

"Werner - Beinhart" (1990)

"The first human word":

2001 - A Space Odyssey

 

[MisterCairo]

Which is understandable, of course - albeit that there's a certain irony in those who provided the creative entertainment that has gotten most people through lockdown being bracketed as "non-essential".

BC getting back on track:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/brit...film-industry-1.5627882?__vfz=medium=sharebar

 

[Touchofevil]

Currently and once again, The Maltese Falcon on TCM. It is hotter than I like outside so for the moment this film suits me fine.

 

[Touchofevil]

Ha!!!! All you folks jonesin' and gripin' about your fave show being "struck down" by the hoogee googee. You should be happy! You've all the time in the world now to learn a hobby! Learn that foreign language you've let languish since High School!

'Ou et le sal de bain?"

Take up woodworking.... Practice swimming in the bath tub... you know good stuff!

The ever helpful Worf

The yard, my oasis, is looking sweeter than ever. Grass is green as can be, the deck freshly stained, plants are thriving, the patio glistening with a fresh coat, tikis and other decor painted anew, everything that is to be trimmed is, annnnnd it’s all waiting for me with a bucket full of ice syrrounding Angry Orchards, some tunes, and a good story!

 

[Fading Fast]

Currently and once again, The Maltese Falcon on TCM. It is hotter than I like outside so for the moment this film suits me fine.

Me too, I refuse to admit how many times I've seen this movie (nor do I even know the count).

 

[Fading Fast]

I recently re-watched the outstanding movie Ford v Ferrari (original comments here:#27140).

I noted the first time that the story is basically an Ayn Rand novel not written by Ayn Rand. Watching it again only reinforced that view.

So, in that spirit, here's how the characters in Ford v Ferrari align to Rand's famous novel and movie The Fountainhead.

Race-car driver Ken Miles is architect Howard Roark, the brilliant individualist who has his own vision for how his job should be done and won't "play the game" of getting along and compromising when he feels that his and his work's integrity are at stake. He is everything the collective, the commune, the state, the bureaucracy hates as he won't bow to its edicts while his existence rebukes its ideology of "collective" work, achievement and responsibility.

Race-car builder Carroll Shelby is editor Gail Wynand, the man who understands the value of the Ken Miles' and Howard Roarks of the world, but doesn't have the strength of character (Wynand) or opportunity (Shelby) to be one himself. Instead, he becomes the individualist's most passionate supporter fighting the collective on behalf of the individual.

Ford executive Leo Beebe is evil socialist Ellsworth Toohey, the man who hates - absolutely loathes - and tries to destroy the individualist. Toohey/Beebe's skill is "playing the game" of manipulating others - sucking up to those above / browbeating those below. He has an abject fear of those with true creative talent, genius and individual spirit, in part, because he can't really manipulate them and, in part, because their skills belittle by comparison his smarmy "people and process" skills.

Lee Iacocca is pandering architect Peter Keating, the man who works for a group-think collective, Ford in Iacocca's case. He tries to be an individualist, but compromises too often. Finally, crushed by the collective's soulless hatred of true independent thought and ability, he hires an outsider, an individualist, to do the work his Borg can't (Keating hires Roark to build a housing project in Keating's name and Iacocca hires Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles to win Le Mans for Ford).

Henry Ford II could have been Roger Enright, the man who runs a company, but knows he needs an individualist like Roark or Miles to accomplish something brilliant. However, "The Deuce" couldn't really, truly give up control, so he keeps sicking his corporate stooges on Miles. Conversely, Enright "gets it," he knows that if you hire a genius, you then have to, like with any great thoroughbred, just let him run.

Finally, Mollie Miles is Dominique Francon, the woman who not only sees and understands the individualist (and marries one), she has the talent herself to be one. Fortunately, Mollie appears to have Dominique's talents without her, um, odd sexual behaviors.

 

[GHT]

The late night movie on the BBC last night was: McFarland, USA. A 2015 American sports drama film. Loosely based on the true story of a 1987 cross country team from a mainly Latino high school in McFarland, California, the film stars Kevin Costner as Jim White, the school's coach, who leads the team to win a state championship.

After that awful film, Robin Hood, I was reluctant to watch Kevin Costner, but he surprised me, I actually found the film enjoyable, all the more so because the BBC doesn't run adverts. Today I looked up the history and the fact from fiction, it seems that the outline of the tale, that Latino kids cannot break the glass ceiling, is much in keeping with Jim White's experience.

 

[Worf]

"Doctor Sleep" - This "sequel" to Stephen King's "The Shining" was far better than I expected. Well filmed, with great acting all around we found it very entertaining despite its 2.5 hour run time. The only scene I'd have shortened would be near the end when he "wakes up" the Overlook Hotel. My fave scenes were when one of the "vampires" dies of old age (but man he had a good run), the soliloquy said over him was fascinating. Also when the two female leads go at it for reals, their battle on the "astral plain" was truly amazing. Don't let the idea of a "Shining" sequel put you off this is a good film.

Worf

 

[belfastboy]

"The Stalking Moon", 1968 offering. Gregory Peck, Eva Marie Saint in an okay movie. Predictive, stereotypical characters but very watchable...mostly cuz I like Peck so much....not much asked from EvaMarie and she delivers.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Love Affair (1939), dir. and story by Leo McCarey, with Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, and many more. Remade by McCarey in 1957 as An Affair to Remember, which itself became sort of a running gag in Sleepless in Seattle. Lushly romantic; we enjoyed it.
NB: IMDb mentions a 1994 remake by Warren Beatty: we have not seen it.

 

[Fading Fast]

Love Affair (1939), dir. and story by Leo McCarey, with Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, and many more. Remade by McCarey in 1957 as An Affair to Remember, which itself became sort of a running gag in Sleepless in Seattle. Lushly romantic; we enjoyed it.
NB: IMDb mentions a 1994 remake by Warren Beatty: we have not seen it.

I've seen the three you mentioned, but not the Beatty one either which is odd as I usually give the remakes a shot (at least when they hit cable).

 

[EngProf]

View attachment 244363
I recently re-watched the outstanding movie Ford v Ferrari (original comments here:#27140).

I noted the first time that the story is basically an Ayn Rand novel not written by Ayn Rand. Watching it again only reinforced that view.

So, in that spirit, here's how the characters in Ford v Ferrari align to Rand's famous novel and movie The Fountainhead.

Race-car driver Ken Miles is architect Howard Roark, the brilliant individualist who has his own vision for how his job should be done and won't "play the game" of getting along and compromising when he feels that his and his work's integrity are at stake. He is everything the collective, the commune, the state, the bureaucracy hates as he won't bow to its edicts while his existence rebukes its ideology of "collective" work, achievement and responsibility.

Race-car builder Carroll Shelby is editor Gail Wynand, the man who understands the value of the Ken Miles' and Howard Roarks of the world, but doesn't have the strength of character (Wynand) or opportunity (Shelby) to be one himself. Instead, he becomes the individualist's most passionate supporter fighting the collective on behalf of the individual.

Ford executive Leo Beebe is evil socialist Ellsworth Toohey, the man who hates - absolutely loathes - and tries to destroy the individualist. Toohey/Beebe's skill is "playing the game" of manipulating others - sucking up to those above / browbeating those below. He has an abject fear of those with true creative talent, genius and individual spirit, in part, because he can't really manipulate them and, in part, because their skills belittle by comparison his smarmy "people and process" skills.

Lee Iacocca is pandering architect Peter Keating, the man who works for a group-think collective, Ford in Iacocca's case. He tries to be an individualist, but compromises too often. Finally, crushed by the collective's soulless hatred of true independent thought and ability, he hires an outsider, an individualist, to do the work his Borg can't (Keating hires Roark to build a housing project in Keating's name and Iacocca hires Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles to win Le Mans for Ford).

Henry Ford II could have been Roger Enright, the man who runs a company, but knows he needs an individualist like Roark or Miles to accomplish something brilliant. However, "The Deuce" couldn't really, truly give up control, so he keeps sicking his corporate stooges on Miles. Conversely, Enright "gets it," he knows that if you hire a genius, you then have to, like with any great thoroughbred, just let him run.

Finally, Mollie Miles is Dominique Francon, the woman who not only sees and understands the individualist (and marries one), she has the talent herself to be one. Fortunately, Mollie appears to have Dominique's talents without her, um, odd sexual behaviors.

Let me say up front that I haven't seen the movie, but my suggested subtitle for it may illustrate why:
"What if Ford Won Le mans and No One Cared"
I was right in the midst of the car culture of the Sixties, when Ford, GM, and Mopar (Dodge and Plymouth) were competing for performance wins and the resulting customer purchases by the Baby-Boomer car nuts (me and my pals).
The problem from Ford's perspective was that they were on the short end of both goals (winning and selling). To be very specific: The 1964 Daytona 500 was won by Plymouth - positions 1, 2, 3 - and it wasn't even close.
At the 1964 National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) US Nationals (biggest drag race of the year), of the stock-class 16-car final-field, 15 of the positions were held by Mopar, with only one for Ford.
On the street the odds were just about the same, with GM being the performance leader in that arena. The GTO was introduced in 1964 and GM had been dominating high-performance/street-racing for a few years before that. (Do a search for the song "409" by the Beach Boys. That was the engine displacement of the 1962 Chevy.) (Also see "Little GTO" by Ronnie and the Daytonas.) The brand loyalty was so great that people bought records/songs about their cars.
(Mopar's street performance was excellent, also, there just were not as many of those on the road.)

However, the Ford executives - Henry II and etc. - thought that if they won Le Mans (and Indy in 1965) that all of us performance kids would switch loyalties and buy Fords.
The big problem was that NONE of the equipment or technology from the very expensive race wins was applied to, or was usable in, the standard Fords on the street or NASCAR track, even the alleged high-performance versions.
In that era "Hot Rod Magazine" wrote a scathing editorial criticizing the Ford execs for wasting so much money on Le mans and Indy and yet providing nothing for the average (performance) Ford owner.
In those days there was a car-guy saying: "There's no substitute for cubic inches." - meaning that a bigger engine is a better engine. However, there was a semi-serious modification of that saying that went: "The only substitute for cubic inches is cubic money."
That meant that if you spent enough money on a racing effort you would likely win.
The feeling of the average car-guy on the street was that Ford had cubic money (and spent it) and therefore they could beat Ferrari - and did. Of course... So what... Ho hum... Dog bites man... No news here... No increase in sales, either...

This is a very long way to get to a question about the movie: Did it include any of the "back-story" about why Ford wanted to compete at Le Mans in the first place and what they hoped to get out of it? (And did they get what they wanted - beyond the win itself?)

 

[Fading Fast]

Let me say up front that I haven't seen the movie, but my suggested subtitle for it may illustrate why:
"What if Ford Won Le mans and No One Cared"
I was right in the midst of the car culture of the Sixties, when Ford, GM, and Mopar (Dodge and Plymouth) were competing for performance wins and the resulting customer purchases by the Baby-Boomer car nuts (me and my pals).
The problem from Ford's perspective was that they were on the short end of both goals (winning and selling). To be very specific: The 1964 Daytona 500 was won by Plymouth - positions 1, 2, 3 - and it wasn't even close.
At the 1964 National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) US Nationals (biggest drag race of the year), of the stock-class 16-car final-field, 15 of the positions were held by Mopar, with only one for Ford.
On the street the odds were just about the same, with GM being the performance leader in that arena. The GTO was introduced in 1964 and GM had been dominating high-performance/street-racing for a few years before that. (Do a search for the song "409" by the Beach Boys. That was the engine displacement of the 1962 Chevy.) (Also see "Little GTO" by Ronnie and the Daytonas.) The brand loyalty was so great that people bought records/songs about their cars.
(Mopar's street performance was excellent, also, there just were not as many of those on the road.)

However, the Ford executives - Henry II and etc. - thought that if they won Le Mans (and Indy in 1965) that all of us performance kids would switch loyalties and buy Fords.
The big problem was that NONE of the equipment or technology from the very expensive race wins was applied to, or was usable in, the standard Fords on the street or NASCAR track, even the alleged high-performance versions.
In that era "Hot Rod Magazine" wrote a scathing editorial criticizing the Ford execs for wasting so much money on Le mans and Indy and yet providing nothing for the average (performance) Ford owner.
In those days there was a car-guy saying: "There's no substitute for cubic inches." - meaning that a bigger engine is a better engine. However, there was a semi-serious modification of that saying that went: "The only substitute for cubic inches is cubic money."
That meant that if you spent enough money on a racing effort you would likely win.
The feeling of the average car-guy on the street was that Ford had cubic money (and spent it) and therefore they could beat Ferrari - and did. Of course... So what... Ho hum... Dog bites man... No news here... No increase in sales, either...

This is a very long way to get to a question about the movie: Did it include any of the "back-story" about why Ford wanted to compete at Le Mans in the first place and what they hoped to get out of it? (And did they get what they wanted - beyond the win itself?)

Great post. I love your experience with and comments on the car culture of kids in the '60s.

To your question, the movie did provide a backstory (no idea if it is the real backstory). As presented in the movie, the idea to compete at Le Mans was started and driven by Lee Iacocca. His view, which touches on some of your comments, was that winning at Le Mans would garner the passion, interest, loyalty (and sales) of the teenagers (the first in history with money, from their parents, to spend on cars).

That was the catalyst, but as the movie progresses, the real passion to win comes from Henry Ford II's desire to beat Ferrari after a failed attempt by Ford to buy Ferrari was seen as a hard snub from Ferrari to Ford. So what started as a business decision morphed into a vanity/revenge project for the Deuce.

Again, all that is how it was presented in the movie. I read the book, but that was ten or so years ago and I don't remember if it offered a different reason.

 

[Worf]

Let me say up front that I haven't seen the movie, but my suggested subtitle for it may illustrate why:
"What if Ford Won Le mans and No One Cared"
I was right in the midst of the car culture of the Sixties, when Ford, GM, and Mopar (Dodge and Plymouth) were competing for performance wins and the resulting customer purchases by the Baby-Boomer car nuts (me and my pals).
The problem from Ford's perspective was that they were on the short end of both goals (winning and selling). To be very specific: The 1964 Daytona 500 was won by Plymouth - positions 1, 2, 3 - and it wasn't even close.
At the 1964 National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) US Nationals (biggest drag race of the year), of the stock-class 16-car final-field, 15 of the positions were held by Mopar, with only one for Ford.
On the street the odds were just about the same, with GM being the performance leader in that arena. The GTO was introduced in 1964 and GM had been dominating high-performance/street-racing for a few years before that. (Do a search for the song "409" by the Beach Boys. That was the engine displacement of the 1962 Chevy.) (Also see "Little GTO" by Ronnie and the Daytonas.) The brand loyalty was so great that people bought records/songs about their cars.
(Mopar's street performance was excellent, also, there just were not as many of those on the road.)

However, the Ford executives - Henry II and etc. - thought that if they won Le Mans (and Indy in 1965) that all of us performance kids would switch loyalties and buy Fords.
The big problem was that NONE of the equipment or technology from the very expensive race wins was applied to, or was usable in, the standard Fords on the street or NASCAR track, even the alleged high-performance versions.
In that era "Hot Rod Magazine" wrote a scathing editorial criticizing the Ford execs for wasting so much money on Le mans and Indy and yet providing nothing for the average (performance) Ford owner.
In those days there was a car-guy saying: "There's no substitute for cubic inches." - meaning that a bigger engine is a better engine. However, there was a semi-serious modification of that saying that went: "The only substitute for cubic inches is cubic money."
That meant that if you spent enough money on a racing effort you would likely win.
The feeling of the average car-guy on the street was that Ford had cubic money (and spent it) and therefore they could beat Ferrari - and did. Of course... So what... Ho hum... Dog bites man... No news here... No increase in sales, either...

This is a very long way to get to a question about the movie: Did it include any of the "back-story" about why Ford wanted to compete at Le Mans in the first place and what they hoped to get out of it? (And did they get what they wanted - beyond the win itself?)

Yeah... what you say is correct.... till the Mustang came along... Then Ford was squarely back in the game. Why do you think they called em "Pony Cars"?

Worf

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Bodyguard (1948) with Lawrence Tierney and Priscilla Lane. We watched the 62 minute version; there is supposed to be a 75 minute version somewhere. Some plot gaps, probably due to edits, did not slow down the story for us.
Tough former cop Tierney reluctantly takes a bodyguard job, and discovers some questionable doings in the meat packing industry. His girlfriend Lane tracks down the clues in dusty old files, and endangers herself by following the suspects.
Yes, a B picture, but fun nonetheless.

 

[belfastboy]

"Reflections in a Golden Eye"....the movie was worth watching and Huston called it his best movie with each scene approaching perfection but somehow it missed the mark for me. It seems to me the material deserved a better treatment somehow. Perhaps it was its overwhelming melodramatic feel to it...each scene was presented as melodramatic, foreboding, with no respite. The performances were good except for Liz Taylor.(other than Cat on a Hot Tin Roof I think all her performances have been laughingly bad). I think she was the Meryl Streep of her generation...highly acclaimed mediocrity .....in my opinion.

 

[Fading Fast]

I Want You from 1951 with Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, Mildred Dunnock and Robert Keith

Under the strict Motion Picture Production Code, Hollywood writers and directors used a few tricks to, occasionally, make the movies they wanted to make. One way is they would tell one story and, then, right at the end reverse the outcome to satisfy the Code, while hoping the audience would see the "unreversed" story as the real one (The Flame Within is one of many examples). Another legerdemain was to embed the real movie inside an "acceptable" larger movie and hope the censors, but not the public, would miss it (see Young Man with a Horn as, possibly, the best example).

In I Want You, director Mark Robson and the writers employ the volte-face technique to take a cynical look at America's patriotism and its young men's willingness to fight for their country by flipping the end of the movie to a code-acceptable pro-American-military way. Robson uses the story of how one family deals with the pending draft of a son from the aborning Korean war to tell his meta tale.

Upon that son receiving a draft notice, his mother (Dunnock) is ripping mad that she might lose another son (she lost one to WWII) and doesn't give a hoot about "obligations," "duty," etc., as she simply doesn't want to lose another son. The son (Granger) also has no interest in risking dying for some "far away place" and is outright dismissive of all the patriotic speeches he's given by the adults. At the draft board, he tears into the older board members for sending young men off to die while they sit safely at home. At this point, this is no rah-rah let's-go-fight movie.

Granger's father (Keith), a WWI veteran, who proudly displays all his triumphant war paraphernalia in his living room, gives his son mild and canned speeches about being a good soldier that his son completely dismisses. Sitting in the middle of this is the son's older brother (Andrews), a WWII veteran, who, as the owner of a local engineering firm, has the power to exempt employees by designating them "essential" workers.

While Andrews' mother is pushing him to do just that for Granger, another employee's father (a widower with only one son) importunes Andrews to do the same for his son. Let's just call it what it is, parents are looking for any angle or loophole to get their sons out of having to serve. Added into the mix, a former military buddy wants Andrews to re-enlist, as the friend just did, because, he says, the Army needs men with their combined military experience and engineering skills. Andrews, initially, is all but hostile to the idea.

All this subversion percolates in the first two-thirds of the movie culminating in a gut-wrenching scene where wife Dunnock smashes husband Kieth's WWI military paraphernalia as she screams that she knew it was all bought in a New York City pawn shop because her husband never saw battle. She's right; he's ashamed that he lied all those years, but is relieved that the secret is finally out. And decades of movie-making norms were tossed overboard as one military-hero narrative took a brutal body blow.

That is also the money scene in the movie: a mother loudly and defiantly says "no mas" to the macho war ethos of her husband. If they gave Oscars out for just one scene, Dunnock would have had 1951's award all sewn up.

To be fair, though, both sides of the arguments for and against serving are presented throughout; however, as noted, the "against" side has the upper hand for most of the movie. But this being 1951 and not 1971, everybody starts to play their assigned roles as the movie wraps up. And, yes, there's a bunch of soap opera stuff about young, middle-aged and older love all being stressed by the war that plays out alongside the I-don't-want-to-fight story that dominates.

As always, reality and history are more complex than the shorthands we carry around in our heads. To wit, even back in the "conservative 1950s," with the Motion Picture Production Code in place and cultural norms tilted toward public displays of patriotism, movies still found ways to get out counter-cultural messages and challenges to the prevailing moods and conventions, as was done in I Want You.


@Worf, if you haven't yet seen this one, I think it would be right up your alley.

 

[Worf]

View attachment 244872
I Want You from 1951 with Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, Mildred Dunnock and Robert Keith

Under the strict Motion Picture Production Code, Hollywood writers and directors used a few tricks to, occasionally, make the movies they wanted to make. One way is they would tell one story and, then, right at the end reverse the outcome to satisfy the Code, while hoping the audience would see the "unreversed" story as the real one (The Flame Within is one of many examples). Another legerdemain was to embed the real movie inside an "acceptable" larger movie and hope the censors, but not the public, would miss it (see Young Man with a Horn as, possibly, the best example).

In I Want You, director Mark Robson and the writers employ the volte-face technique to take a cynical look at America's patriotism and its young men's willingness to fight for their country by flipping the end of the movie to a code-acceptable pro-American-military way. Robson uses the story of how one family deals with the pending draft of a son from the aborning Korean war to tell his meta tale.

Upon that son receiving a draft notice, his mother (Dunnock) is ripping mad that she might lose another son (she lost one to WWII) and doesn't give a hoot about "obligations," "duty," etc., as she simply doesn't want to lose another son. The son (Granger) also has no interest in risking dying for some "far away place" and is outright dismissive of all the patriotic speeches he's given by the adults. At the draft board, he tears into the older board members for sending young men off to die while they sit safely at home. At this point, this is no rah-rah let's-go-fight movie.

Granger's father (Keith), a WWI veteran, who proudly displays all his triumphant war paraphernalia in his living room, gives his son mild and canned speeches about being a good soldier that his son completely dismisses. Sitting in the middle of this is the son's older brother (Andrews), a WWII veteran, who, as the owner of a local engineering firm, has the power to exempt employees by designating them "essential" workers.

While Andrews' mother is pushing him to do just that for Granger, another employee's father (a widower with only one son) importunes Andrews to do the same for his son. Let's just call it what it is, parents are looking for any angle or loophole to get their sons out of having to serve. Added into the mix, a former military buddy wants Andrews to re-enlist, as the friend just did, because, he says, the Army needs men with their combined military experience and engineering skills. Andrews, initially, is all but hostile to the idea.

All this subversion percolates in the first two-thirds of the movie culminating in a gut-wrenching scene where wife Dunnock smashes husband Kieth's WWI military paraphernalia as she screams that she knew it was all bought in a New York City pawn shop because her husband never saw battle. She's right; he's ashamed that he lied all those years, but is relieved that the secret is finally out. And decades of movie-making norms were tossed overboard as one military-hero narrative took a brutal body blow.

That is also the money scene in the movie: a mother loudly and defiantly says "no mas" to the macho war ethos of her husband. If they gave Oscars out for just one scene, Dunnock would have had 1951's award all sewn up.

To be fair, though, both sides of the arguments for and against serving are presented throughout; however, as noted, the "against" side has the upper hand for most of the movie. But this being 1951 and not 1971, everybody starts to play their assigned roles as the movie wraps up. And, yes, there's a bunch of soap opera stuff about young, middle-aged and older love all being stressed by the war that plays out alongside the I-don't-want-to-fight story that dominates.

As always, reality and history are more complex than the shorthands we carry around in our heads. To wit, even back in the "conservative 1950s," with the Motion Picture Production Code in place and cultural norms tilted toward public displays of patriotism, movies still found ways to get out counter-cultural messages and challenges to the prevailing moods and conventions, as was done in I Want You.


@Worf, if you haven't yet seen this one, I think it would be right up your alley.

I think I reviewed this one a few months back. You're right... they laid it out... "between the lines" pretty well in this one. Korea, particularly in the early days, was no clam bake. Much like in the Philippines in WWII America and it's allies were on the back foot right off the bat. When I was posted there in the 70's every hill from Seoul to the DMZ was still nothing but blasted rubble. People were dying in vast numbers and going there, much like Nam, a decade and a half later, was an iffy proposition. I don't blame the kid for not wanting to go or his mother for not wanting him to go. I doubt most of the country even knew where Korea was. Of course they had to toe the line in the end. They'd have been up before the HUAAC so fast their heads would still be spinning if they hadn't. Sigh... what a mess. Decent film though...

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

I think I reviewed this one a few months back. You're right... they laid it out... "between the lines" pretty well in this one. Korea, particularly in the early days, was no clam bake. Much like in the Philippines in WWII America and it's allies were on the back foot right off the bat. When I was posted there in the 70's every hill from Seoul to the DMZ was still nothing but blasted rubble. People were dying in vast numbers and going there, much like Nam, a decade and a half later, was an iffy proposition. I don't blame the kid for not wanting to go or his mother for not wanting him to go. I doubt most of the country even knew where Korea was. Of course they had to toe the line in the end. They'd have been up before the HUAAC so fast their heads would still be spinning if they hadn't. Sigh... what a mess. Decent film though...

Worf

Based on this ⇧, I went back just now to find your review. Seeing it reminded me that I had read it as I remember this gem:

""I Want You" - A middling RKO affair made in 1950 or '51 about the effects of the Korean War and Cold War on a small town. Post Card, Post War America finds itself rudely shaken from its fat, happy slumber by gun totin' communists over across the sea..."

Well said.