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We watched this a while back and I concur with your view on the two females. When Gable first appeared wearing his toooo tight safari shorts my wife burst into laughter and said they were the gayest shorts she had ever witnessed.....and then quickly added..."not that there is anything wrong with that"Caught a late night showing of the 1953 Clark Gable adventure "Mogambo" on TCM last night. This was my first time seeing this movie as a whole, and not as parts. Loved Ava Gardner's spunky, fun personality clashing with Grace Kelly's stuck-up, two timing activities. And then there's Clark Gable thinking with the wrong head and stuck in the middle with a clueless Donald Sinden. Beyond the romantic triangle, the film is a great adventure through the eastern African continent, and was shot entirely on location using a soundtrack captured while filming. Some fantastic vintage safari gear in this one too.
"The last king of Scotland"
Forrest Whitaker!!
James IV, surely???
;-)
After a great many years re-watched Peckinpaws "The Getaway". I like Steve McQueen, even in bad movies I always find him watchable. It was an okay movie, fun to watch an old Peckinpaw after so many years.
McQueen was good....Ali McGraw was terrible. How did she ever have a career let alone find stardom??? Part way through my wife announced "I don't care what happens to these two....they are both so unlikeable." I think for us that is the key to a movie.....do I care about the characters? Do I care about their future? The answer for this one was a clear no. We did not even care to see them get their possible comeuppance. The final scene with the two of them plus Slim Pickens I announced...."Well we finally found the ONE character in the movie that elicits my sympathy". It took 2 hours plus but we finally got there.
There is a plot device oft used in caper movies where the hero takes out the bad guy...sort of...knocks him out or some such but does not dispatch him or take his weapon. I always holler at the TV....shoot him!!!I watched a chunk of it on TCM yesterday and, agree, they are not "likable" crooks in this one, but as you imply, almost everyone else is even less likable so you kinda, sorta, maybe root for them. I also agree, and I can't fully explain it as he's not traditional movie star handsome, but there is something that makes Steve McQueen, as you said, watchable even in this mediocre movie.
There is a plot device oft used in caper movies where the hero takes out the bad guy...sort of...knocks him out or some such but does not dispatch him or take his weapon. I always holler at the TV....shoot him!!!
Because you know the bad guy will come back to life and it will bite the hero in the ass. It seemed that McQueen had a moment of compassion or something that stopped him from shooting the bad guy in the hotel hallway after just removing the ammo and throwing it in the room....take the ammo, take the damn gun...don't just leave it!!!! It was soooo obvious that this was foreshadowing something and would come back into play. It is a cheap device that arises in far too many movies and I think treats the viewers as dummies.
We are watching "The Man in the High Tower" and there was a pivotal scene where the hero hits the bad guy over the head with a 2x4 and they run away leaving the shotgun in place. It became so obvious why they did that as it set up the next dramatic scene.....all for effect....it is crap. Have not seen the movie 48 Hours. BUT I have "All Fall Down" scheduled to record this coming week!!! I knew it would show up .Oh God yes. My girlfriend and I regularly yell at the screen (not really, but you get it) "make sure he/she is dead."
Heck, McQueen made that mistake twice, the first time was when he should have made sure that Rudy was dead when he shot him at the farm in the ditch.
I get it, they need conflict and missed opportunities, etc., to make a story, but I agree, sometimes it just makes us, the viewers, feel like they are playing us for suckers.
First rule of killing someone in a movie or TV show, makes absolutely, positively sure he/she is dead.
Did you happen to notice that the hotel shoot-out scene in "The Getaway" was ripped off about ten years later in the movie "48 Hours?" I've seen both movies before, but this is the first time I noticed how similar those scenes are.
We are watching "The Man in the High Tower" and there was a pivotal scene where the hero hits the bad guy over the head with a 2x4 and they run away leaving the shotgun in place. It became so obvious why they did that as it set up the next dramatic scene.....all for effect....it is crap. Have not seen the movie 48 Hours. BUT I have "All Fall Down" scheduled to record this coming week!!! I knew it would show up .
His Girl Friday - watched it mainly for Rosalind Russell. Cary Grant sometimes seems wooden here and the palpably contrived plot and dialogue roll out with mechanical precision. Russell, as the fast talking Hildy, manages to craft an amazing and unforgettable characterization. Jennifer Jason Leigh's homage to Russell's performance in the Coen Bros, Hudsucker Proxy is a guilty pleasure.