What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

In This Our Life from 1942 with Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Charles Coburn, George Brent, Ernest Anderson, Frank Craven, Dennis Morgan, and Hattie McDaniel


Warner Bros. churned out several of these A-picture southern-family melodramas in this era, with In This Our Life being, perhaps, the most melodramatic of them all. Naturally, it starred the queen of the Warner's lot, Bette Davis.

Warner Bros. also included other big names – Olivia de Havilland, Charles Coburn, Dennis Morgan, and George Brent – had John Huston direct, and then just let the story rip. Yet it also layered in a very forward-looking civil rights message – wonderfully – right out in the open.

Bette Davis plays the spoiled daughter of a no-longer-rich father, played by Frank Craven. She's also the niece of the man who ruined her father – played by Charles Coburn – who spoils her, Davis, rotten (those are carefully chosen words).

At the movie's opening, Davis jilts her fiancé, played by George Brent, at the altar and then runs off with her sister’s husband. De Havilland plays Davis' sister; Morgan plays the husband who leaves de Havilland for Davis.

Selfish Davis then drives Morgan to drink and *******, which leads to her returning home to take another run at Brent – now married to de Havilland. For those keeping score, Davis is now trying to steal another of her sister's husbands.

All this is awful enough, but it gets worse when Davis, angry at being stood up by Brent – who isn't falling for her like she expected – drives her car in a blind rage and hits a mother and daughter. The daughter is killed; the mother is badly injured, and Davis flees the scene.

There's more, though, as Davis then sets up a young black man, played by Ernest Anderson, to take the fall for her crime. Anderson had worked for Davis' family, but is now working for Brent, a lawyer, because he, Anderson, is studying to become a lawyer himself.

Davis is unbelievably ruthless in trying to blame Anderson, but de Havilland and Brent stand by him. For 1942, this is an amazing pro-civil-rights story that isn't "slipped in" as they often were, but is right out in the open forcing you to see how brutally unfair it all was.

Davis, as the force-of-nature bad sister, and de Havilland, as the sweet and kind one, are wonderful antagonists – just as Coburn, playing the ruthless businessman, and Craven, playing the kind but weak man, mirror the sisters.

These are acting professionals who can take good, not great material and, under Huston's smart directing, make the movie seem better than it is.

A note must also be made of Anderson's moving performance as a young black man trying to become a lawyer. When "the system" turns against him, his apathetic despair is heartbreaking, demonstrating how beaten down his race rightfully felt at this time – especially in the South.

In This Our Life is fun melodrama as you get to hate the bad guys, Davis and Colburn, and root for the good ones, de Havilland, Brent, Craven and Anderson. It would be nothing more than high-gloss fluff, though, if not for its ahead-of-its-time civil-rights statement.


N.B. Look for an early scene where talented Hattie McDaniel, playing the family's maid, without any rancor, absolutely destroys lovely Olivia de Havilland with a matter-of-fact one-word comment about de Havilland's looks. The comment is hilarious – it leaves de Havilland dumbstruck as McDaniel blithely walks away. See the scene here: https://www.google.com/search?clien...#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:597e40a4,vid:NVN05kYaujw

 

[Fading Fast]

The Girl from 10th Avenue from 1935 with Bette Davis, Ian Hunter, and Alison Skipworth


Using a plot that Hallmark still uses today, Warner Bros. – employing the studio's trademark 1930s grit – demonstrates in The Girl from 10th Avenue what talent behind and in front of the camera can do with a classic "boy meets girl after one had been jilted" story.

Kicking it off, a young, jilted social registry gentleman, played by Ian Hunter, is standing disruptively inebriated out front of the church where his former fiancée is getting married. A young shopgirl, played by Bette Davis, deftly guides him away before the police get involved.

Now sitting together in a café, Davis learns Hunter is still pining for his ex and trying to drink his sorrows away. Despite having done her good deed and attempting to get away, Hunter clings on to Davis until, fast forward, both drunk, they get married that night.

That Code-required setup allows Hunter and Davis to live together, which, in the precode era, they would have just done sans license. Yet, the quickie marriage works for the story as it allows the conflict not to center on the tired "will he or won't he marry me?” cliché.

The plot, instead, revolves around whether Hunter will realize that he's lucky to be married to Davis. Davis, meanwhile, with the help of her friend, played by Alison Skipworth, tries to learn "proper social manners" so she won't embarrass her husband in front of his society friends.

It doesn't sound like much, but the charm and appeal in this one is in the details. It's in Davis being genuine in her offer to Hunter to let him out of their marriage "no strings attached" at any time. She's no bounder or gold digger, which is refreshing and makes you root hard for Davis.

The charm is also Hunter, who is so lost in his confused feelings for his former fiancée that he, while being very nice to Davis, doesn't understand what a good wife she is. He's so confused, he's susceptible when his scheming ex, despite still being a newlywed, tries to win him back.

The full-force charm and appeal of all this comes out in a fantastic "confrontational" scene in a swanky restaurant where Davis, having studied hard and with Skipworth by her side offering support and guidance, confronts Hunter's ex in some crazy game of social one-upmanship.

With everyone dressed to the nines, it starts with haughty glances between tables, escalates to coded-society words, then to raw honest barbs, and finally, to a grapefruit flying through the air. It's such a good scene, you'll want to go back and watch it again.

The fallout is forced Hollywood drama because movies need an Act III where everything climaxes in even more drama as all the truths and emotions spill out. However, with skilled writing, directing, and acting, these climactic scenes, which could have been hokey, work well.

You care what happens to these characters because they've exposed themselves emotionally, which has you believing in their sincerity. Hunter is a tier-two star, but here he does well as the big, handsome man whose emotional gyroscope has been scrambled by a conniving woman.

It's Davis' movie, though, and the talented actress is at the top of her game, playing most scenes calmly as called for by her smart, low-key character. But of course, when it's time, and it gets to be time eventually, she can go "full Davis" and completely own the screen.

Davis’ character also travels the greatest growth arc, going from a “shopgirl” a bit awed by Hunter and his society friends to a woman who sees that they, in her wonderful 10th Avenue phrasing, aren’t “such a much.”

Hunter's character grows, too, but it is more an awakening than a journey. Eventually he sees his ex for the selfish woman she is and Davis for the kindhearted one she is. Hunter was always a good guy; he just needed to get his understanding of women sorted out.

Skipworth deserves note, too, playing Davis' friend and mentor as the movie needs her – a former Florodora Girl – to help bridge the social divide between husband and wife. Only an actress of her caliber could deliver the comic relief and emotional support the role requires.

Davis might own the noted restaurant scene, but it doesn't work without Skipworth's guiding hand and perfectly timed snide and funny asides. She's an old pro meeting a young talent in a scene that shows two actresses, from different generations, in perfect acting sync.

Today, movies like The Girl from 10th Avenue get shuffled off to made-for-TV-movie land with small budgets and good-but-not-great acting talent and production qualities. It's funny, however, to see that a standard Hallmark script like this dates back to, at least, the 1930s.

Warners showed here what a first-rate studio – even with a limited budget, as this is not really an A picture – can do with an outstanding cast, a skilled director, and excellent (for the day) production qualities for an off-the-shelf story.

This was not a blow-you-over picture in 1936, nor is it one today, but it is still a quietly entertaining one – it is what Hallmark tries to do, but often falls short. That's not bad for a movie getting close to its hundredth anniversary.

 

[2 Days Dubai]

View attachment 710129
In This Our Life from 1942 with Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Charles Coburn, George Brent, Ernest Anderson, Frank Craven, Dennis Morgan, and Hattie McDaniel


Warner Bros. churned out several of these A-picture southern-family melodramas in this era, with In This Our Life being, perhaps, the most melodramatic of them all. Naturally, it starred the queen of the Warner's lot, Bette Davis.

Warner Bros. also included other big names – Olivia de Havilland, Charles Coburn, Dennis Morgan, and George Brent – had John Huston direct, and then just let the story rip. Yet it also layered in a very forward-looking civil rights message – wonderfully – right out in the open.

Bette Davis plays the spoiled daughter of a no-longer-rich father, played by Frank Craven. She's also the niece of the man who ruined her father – played by Charles Coburn – who spoils her, Davis, rotten (those are carefully chosen words).

At the movie's opening, Davis jilts her fiancé, played by George Brent, at the altar and then runs off with her sister’s husband. De Havilland plays Davis' sister; Morgan plays the husband who leaves de Havilland for Davis.

Selfish Davis then drives Morgan to drink and *******, which leads to her returning home to take another run at Brent – now married to de Havilland. For those keeping score, Davis is now trying to steal another of her sister's husbands.

All this is awful enough, but it gets worse when Davis, angry at being stood up by Brent – who isn't falling for her like she expected – drives her car in a blind rage and hits a mother and daughter. The daughter is killed; the mother is badly injured, and Davis flees the scene.

There's more, though, as Davis then sets up a young black man, played by Ernest Anderson, to take the fall for her crime. Anderson had worked for Davis' family, but is now working for Brent, a lawyer, because he, Anderson, is studying to become a lawyer himself.

Davis is unbelievably ruthless in trying to blame Anderson, but de Havilland and Brent stand by him. For 1942, this is an amazing pro-civil-rights story that isn't "slipped in" as they often were, but is right out in the open forcing you to see how brutally unfair it all was.

Davis, as the force-of-nature bad sister, and de Havilland, as the sweet and kind one, are wonderful antagonists – just as Coburn, playing the ruthless businessman, and Craven, playing the kind but weak man, mirror the sisters.

These are acting professionals who can take good, not great material and, under Huston's smart directing, make the movie seem better than it is.

A note must also be made of Anderson's moving performance as a young black man trying to become a lawyer. When "the system" turns against him, his apathetic despair is heartbreaking, demonstrating how beaten down his race rightfully felt at this time – especially in the South.

In This Our Life is fun melodrama as you get to hate the bad guys, Davis and Colburn, and root for the good ones, de Havilland, Brent, Craven and Anderson. It would be nothing more than high-gloss fluff, though, if not for its ahead-of-its-time civil-rights statement.


N.B. Look for an early scene where talented Hattie McDaniel, playing the family's maid, without any rancor, absolutely destroys lovely Olivia de Havilland with a matter-of-fact one-word comment about de Havilland's looks. The comment is hilarious – it leaves de Havilland dumbstruck as McDaniel blithely walks away. See the scene here: https://www.google.com/search?clien...#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:597e40a4,vid:NVN05kYaujw

'If you ain't eating Wham you ain't eating ham.''

 

[2 Days Dubai]

Finished Casablanca.

Few films affect me so hard and much that I never tire of watching them. And, of course, the lessons honor inflicts heart, mind, and soul with arguably an intoxicating woman who will steal scene and sense so completely only adds unmatched beauty, grace, and such exquisite elegance.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Rounding up the latest batch of film-viewing, here at the stately Shellhammer estate-

Mad Holiday (1936) with Edmund Lowe as movie actor Philip Trent, Elissa Land as Peter Dean, a nom de plume for her mystery novels, and a gaggle of familiar faces, with Zasu Pitts, Ted Healy, and Edgar Kennedy the most prominent.; dvr'd from TCM. Lowe is the screen portrayer of Dean's urbane detective: Lowe wants a vacation and a break from the role, and takes a cruise. Dean tags along. Crimes erupt, centered on a fabulous diamond. There are some actual plot-twists that sort of caught us off-guard. High-speed wise-crackery moves the story along. The Missus, not knowing Healy's history with Larry, Moe, and Curly, commented, "He's doing Three Stooges stuff." A press of the pause button, and there was a short history of Ted Healy and His Three Stooges.

Out of the Past (1947) with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas, via dvd. A checkered past catches up with Mitchum, who was hired by affable criminal Douglas to find Douglas' objet d'amour Greer. Things get complicated, as we see in a flashback narrated by Mitchum. I don't think I have to tell anyone on this thread about the story, it is so well-known.

Moneyball (2011) through the Vidangel filtering service. Brad Pitts, as general manager of the Oakland A's, wanted to change baseball, and even though his team fell short of the World Series, he did indeed change baseball with the statistics-based strategy.

 

[Fading Fast]

Rounding up the latest batch of film-viewing, here at the stately Shellhammer estate-

Mad Holiday (1936) with Edmund Lowe as movie actor Philip Trent, Elissa Land as Peter Dean, a nom de plume for her mystery novels, and a gaggle of familiar faces, with Zasu Pitts, Ted Healy, and Edgar Kennedy the most prominent.; dvr'd from TCM. Lowe is the screen portrayer of Dean's urbane detective: Lowe wants a vacation and a break from the role, and takes a cruise. Dean tags along. Crimes erupt, centered on a fabulous diamond. There are some actual plot-twists that sort of caught us off-guard. High-speed wise-crackery moves the story along. The Missus, not knowing Healy's history with Larry, Moe, and Curly, commented, "He's doing Three Stooges stuff." A press of the pause button, and there was a short history of Ted Healy and His Three Stooges.

Out of the Past (1947) with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas, via dvd. A checkered past catches up with Mitchum, who was hired by affable criminal Douglas to find Douglas' objet d'amour Greer. Things get complicated, as we see in a flashback narrated by Mitchum. I don't think I have to tell anyone on this thread about the story, it is so well-known.

Moneyball (2011) through the Vidangel filtering service. Brad Pitts, as general manager of the Oakland A's, wanted to change baseball, and even though his team fell short of the World Series, he did indeed change baseball with the statistics-based strategy.

I, too, recorded "Mad Holiday" and, despite its flaws, really enjoyed it for the "high-speed wise-crackery" you note and for Elissa Landi.

Agree with your comment on the other two movies as well.

 

[2 Days Dubai]

Agree with your comment on the other two movies as well.

Out of The Past is a rough ride with an abrupt ending. Have to take another look soon.

Moneyball the Michael Lewis book, like Liar's Poker, remains unmatched by film adaptation.
However, Pitt's swing at Moneyball hit a homer. A classic fit snug tight within genre.
Lewis is the new Fitzgerald, hard difficult film capture. But Redford's Gatsby ain't bad, proving Fitz is doable with right approach.

 

[Flos]

King of New York. Christopher Walken and Lawrence Fishburne were amazing in that film!

 

[Fading Fast]

In the French Style from 1963 with Jean Seberg, Stanley Baker, Addison Powell, and Philippe Forquet


A pretty, young, aspiring American painter moves to Paris and falls for a handsome young boy. But when her art and the boy fall short, she drifts into the “international set” of young, bohemian artists, models, and writers whose shared currency is style, detachment, and intellectual snark.

Petite and pretty Jean Seberg plays the nice American from Chicago who comes to Paris wide-eyed and sincere, but after a few mule kicks, she toughens up – though not necessarily in a way that will help her. The later arrival of her father forces that thought to the surface.

Before that, however, In the French Style spends about an hour, which is a half hour more than it needed, on Seberg's early love affairs with both Paris — including the cliché of an artist’s garret — and a handsome boy played by Philippe Forquet.

In their first glow, Paris and the boy are everything a Midwestern American girl could have dreamed of back home in Chicago. Both, though, eventually go awry.

Seberg, now making a modest living modeling, drifts into the "international set" of arrogantly confident and reflexively anti-establishment – but only as a faux posture – young men and women who party, "discuss ideas," and have casual *** as a way of life.

Seberg's dad, played by Addison Powell, flies over from Chicago to try to knock some sense into his wayward daughter's head. What makes his scenes shine is that he avoids being a cliché. He doesn't denounce her, her lifestyle, or her friends – he's no thundering father.

He, instead, challenges her to see her future. Paraphrasing, "you're happy, your friends are interesting, having casual *** is no big deal, and that's all good for now. But where do you see yourself in five years?"

Addison, who looks like the prototype of John Slattery's portrayal of Roger Sterling on Mad Men, smartly took away most of Serberg's ammo by not denouncing her current lifestyle. These scenes are so good – so well written – you'll want to watch them again.

No child ever took a parent's life-changing advice on the fly, so there's still an Act III left where Serberg, with dad's advice echoing in her head, starts to see her life as an outsider, which leads to some tough questions and choices.

Part of that includes Stanley Baker playing a handsome international journalist with whom she has an ongoing but open love affair as he flies off on assignments (and to random women) for months at a time. Lonely when he's gone – dad's advice just keeps gnawing away.

This hardly original story – a pretty young daughter sews some wild oats away from home – works because it is sincere. It helps that it is beautifully filmed on location (and, now, restored), making it a wonderful time capsule of early 1960s Paris.

It also works because Seberg is well cast. Still the pretty young thing from Breathless, but with her hair grown out, she reads American: not, though, the ugly tourist version, but an American who can become part of Parisian culture. It is Seberg's movie from beginning to end.

She's more than up to the task as the actress runs the gamut of emotions and personalities – from somewhat insecure American to sophisticated jet setter – believably because there's always a constant center of decency to her portrayal. The girl has character, even at her lowest.

Forquet and Baker are both good, and good looking, but these men exist as props for Seberg's journey of self-discovery. This woman-focused picture was made well before we had all the modern culture wars: offering evidence that the past is more complex than we think.

In the French Style flies below the radar today. Yet its thoughtful and stylish look at a young woman coming of age in Paris – and its beautiful capture of the City of Lights – make it a find for fans of classic cinema who wondered what happened to the gamine from Breathless.

 

[Fading Fast]

Easy to Love from 1934 with Adolphe Menjou, Genevieve Tobin, lovely Mary Astor, Edward Everett Horton and Patricia Ellis


Easy to Love is a pre-code "bedroom farce" that comes at you like it was shot out of a cannon, as its silly "bedroom hopping by the rich and stupid" plot speeds by in about an hour. Yet for light entertainment, its appealing Warner Bros. stars make it a fun quickie.

Adolphe Menjou plays a rich married man having an affair with a woman played by lovely Mary Astor, possibly the only reason a man would step out on Menjou's wife, the charming Genevieve Tobin.

One could say Astor lured Menjou with her bralessness, but Tobin shares her bra-free joie de vivre. As to Menjou himself, he had a 1930s-style charm, but you will spend part of the movie wondering why either of these pretty women are making such a fuss over him.

Complicating matters further – complications are a bedroom farce's stock-in-trade – Astor and Tobin are good friends. Another twist is that Menjou's best friend, played by Edward Everett Horton, has a thing for Tobin.

The bigger wrinkle, though, is that Menjou and Tobin's daughter, played by the adorable Patricia Ellis, wants to get married before – umm, well, uh, "fully experiencing life" – mainly because she thinks her parents have had such a long and happy marriage.

When Tobin realizes what her husband is doing, she hires a private detective to confirm it. That leads to Tobin showing up at Astor and Menjou's love nest, where – with Menjou hiding in the closet – she tweaks Astor about her "anonymous" paramour.

Astor plays the scene with pitch-perfect comedic timing as, on the fly, she tries to hide all evidence from Tobin that her husband is hiding there. It's old material even for 1934, but in the hands of these talented actors, it still generates some genuine laughter today.

That's all Bedroom Farce 101 – as is Menjou being offended when Tobin tells him she's stepping out on him with Horton. She isn't – both because her not cheating fits the story and because no woman in recorded history ever cheated on anyone to be with Horton.

There's more of the same until daughter Ellis gets wise to her parents' shenanigans and threatens to just "live with her boyfriend," since her parents, obviously, don't really care about marriage. All of a sudden, the parents care again about "morality."

That leads to the very silly and complicated climax where – as is the wont of the bedroom farce – far too many people wind up in one bedroom, with a befuddled justice of the peace wondering why any of these crazy people want to be married.

Easy to Love is wonderful Depression-era eye candy filled with mansions, luxury apartments, couture outfits (Ellis wears a killer white suit), V-16 cars, butlers (Robert Grieg is pitch-perfect as Menjou's deadpan manservant), and Art Deco design everywhere.

There’s nothing new in Easy to Love, but Menjou, Astor, Tobin, Horton, and Ellis are so darn likable and talented, and the movie whips by so quickly you enjoy it despite knowing how silly it really is. Proof again that Warner Bros. knew its business back in the 1930s.

 

[Fading Fast]

All Night Long from 1962 with Paul Harris, Patrick McGoohan, Marti Stevens, Betsy Blair, and Richard Attenborough


Some movies are better in theory than in their realization on screen, and better in parts than their whole. That doesn't make them bad movies, just somewhat disappointing, as you feel there's a more engaging movie hiding inside the picture that was made.

All Night Long is a good version of Othello set in the early 1960s jazz scene in London. With an impressive roster of actors and jazz musicians and a script all but penned by William Shakespeare, there is a lot to like here, but it soars less than you expect.

The mixed-race couple from Othello is portrayed by Paul Harris, playing a successful jazz band leader, and Marti Stevens, playing his wife, a successful singer who gave up her career at his request when they married.

The plum role of the conniving Lago goes to Patrick McGoohan, who runs with it so well you'll want to take a shower after the movie just to feel clean again. He is smarminess on steroids trying to manipulate everyone for his own agenda. His selfish cruelty is gloved brutality.

The woebegone role of McGoohan's wife is played by Betsy Blair. Blair perfectly captures the deep sadness of a woman who knows her love is squandered on a bad man, but still, she can't help herself. It's a soul-crushing waste of a life.

Overseeing events is Richard Attenborough, playing a wealthy jazz fan who hosts the party where all the tragedy unfolds – a party that also includes Keith Michell in the Cassio role.

For jazz fans, early greats, including Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus, and Johnny Dankworth, play at the party – other still-impressive but less-well-known jazz talents are there too. For the jazz aficionados, the music alone is worth the ticket price.

There is still the famous story, though, and it is good – quite intense at times – despite often feeling like a filmed stage play, with all but a few scenes taking place on one set. The directing and acting feel more stage-like too, as the entire effort looks like it's set in a large theater.

Some of the scenes, however – when McGoohan is getting inside Harris' head or the payoff scene when Blair outs her husband's mendacity – have you fully engaged. But others lose energy causing your attention to drift. The lulls in the on-screen party feel like lulls in the film.

That is the flaw throughout: It doesn't knit together. You'll like a scene; you'll like a jazz number; and you'll like the cool zeitgeist, but the film's connective tissue doesn't work. It’s as if you’re watching a stage play in rehearsal, before all the parts have come together.

Today, the music and style are a wonderful capture of the moment just before "the sixties" hit: so despite being artists, the men are in suits and ties or dinner jackets, and the women are in evening gowns or fancy dresses, with perfect bouffant hairdos.

Conversely, the marijuana that is almost casually used and the wonderful indifference to several mixed-race couples remind you the wave of cultural change is coming. It also says London, at that moment, was ahead of New York on the au courant curve.

All Night Long should be a better movie than it is. The Jazz score, played by jazz greats; the riff on Shakespeare, played by top English actors; and the wonderful capture of early 1960s London are so good, you can only wonder why they add up to less than the sum of their parts.

 

[2 Days Dubai]

View attachment 710882

In the French Style from 1963 with Jean Seberg, Stanley Baker, Addison Powell, and Philippe Forquet


A pretty, young, aspiring American painter moves to Paris and falls for a handsome young boy. But when her art and the boy fall short, she drifts into the “international set” of young, bohemian artists, models, and writers whose shared currency is style, detachment, and intellectual snark.

Petite and pretty Jean Seberg plays the nice American from Chicago who comes to Paris wide-eyed and sincere, but after a few mule kicks, she toughens up – though not necessarily in a way that will help her. The later arrival of her father forces that thought to the surface.

Before that, however, In the French Style spends about an hour, which is a half hour more than it needed, on Seberg's early love affairs with both Paris — including the cliché of an artist’s garret — and a handsome boy played by Philippe Forquet.

In their first glow, Paris and the boy are everything a Midwestern American girl could have dreamed of back home in Chicago. Both, though, eventually go awry.

Seberg, now making a modest living modeling, drifts into the "international set" of arrogantly confident and reflexively anti-establishment – but only as a faux posture – young men and women who party, "discuss ideas," and have casual *** as a way of life.

Seberg's dad, played by Addison Powell, flies over from Chicago to try to knock some sense into his wayward daughter's head. What makes his scenes shine is that he avoids being a cliché. He doesn't denounce her, her lifestyle, or her friends – he's no thundering father.

He, instead, challenges her to see her future. Paraphrasing, "you're happy, your friends are interesting, having casual *** is no big deal, and that's all good for now. But where do you see yourself in five years?"

Addison, who looks like the prototype of John Slattery's portrayal of Roger Sterling on Mad Men, smartly took away most of Serberg's ammo by not denouncing her current lifestyle. These scenes are so good – so well written – you'll want to watch them again.

No child ever took a parent's life-changing advice on the fly, so there's still an Act III left where Serberg, with dad's advice echoing in her head, starts to see her life as an outsider, which leads to some tough questions and choices.

Part of that includes Stanley Baker playing a handsome international journalist with whom she has an ongoing but open love affair as he flies off on assignments (and to random women) for months at a time. Lonely when he's gone – dad's advice just keeps gnawing away.

This hardly original story – a pretty young daughter sews some wild oats away from home – works because it is sincere. It helps that it is beautifully filmed on location (and, now, restored), making it a wonderful time capsule of early 1960s Paris.

It also works because Seberg is well cast. Still the pretty young thing from Breathless, but with her hair grown out, she reads American: not, though, the ugly tourist version, but an American who can become part of Parisian culture. It is Seberg's movie from beginning to end.

She's more than up to the task as the actress runs the gamut of emotions and personalities – from somewhat insecure American to sophisticated jet setter – believably because there's always a constant center of decency to her portrayal. The girl has character, even at her lowest.

Forquet and Baker are both good, and good looking, but these men exist as props for Seberg's journey of self-discovery. This woman-focused picture was made well before we had all the modern culture wars: offering evidence that the past is more complex than we think.

In the French Style flies below the radar today. Yet its thoughtful and stylish look at a young woman coming of age in Paris – and its beautiful capture of the City of Lights – make it a find for fans of classic cinema who wondered what happened to the gamine from Breathless.

James Salter's A Sport and A Pastime dovetails this as de rigueur mandatory beach reading.
Having lived in Europe for a few years, France and Paris were requisite but an innate peripatetic wanderlust forced postwar soul searching elsewhere. I settled in Honolulu for what had been intended permanent, before island fever gripped for a four season year. I should have beelined Columbia and Morningside Heights but settled back Chicago Southside and University of Illinois-Chicago where I had a scholarship.
Still, Salter hits hard this expatriate heart. And being a New York lover Chicagoan, my misspent youth yet still chaffs my heart. Salter is equally screwed up and his tone and depth are most remarkable.

 

[Fading Fast]

Twilight of Honor from 1963 with Richard Chamberlain, Claude Rains, Joey Heatherton, Nick Adams, Joan Blackman, and James Gregory


The easy way to bookmark Twilight of Honor in your mind is to think of it as a younger, less-muscular brother of Anatomy of a Murder (1959). In both movies, a military man, with a ****tish spouse, is accused of murdering a popular local figure he believes was canoodling his wife.

The focus in both movies is on the poor defence attorney stuck having to defend a man "everyone knows is guilty." In Twilight of Honor, set in New Mexico, the film also puts that region's more parochial "justice system" on trial.

Here, a young, handsome Richard Chamberlain plays the lawyer assigned by the court that unenviable task. Chamberlain's famous lawyer mentor, played by Claude Rains, lobbied quietly – some unofficial conversations were had – to get Chamberlain assigned.

Rains wants to get Chamberlain, who was widowed a few years ago, out of his funk as both a lawyer and a man. So retired Rains works as a sort of behind-the-scenes second chair, aided by his comely daughter, played by Joan Blackman, who has a thing for Chamberlain.

That's all the emotional storyline stuff, but the plot is Chamberlain trying to prove that a young former U.S. Air Force enlisted man, played by Nick Adams, didn't kill a wealthy man for money. The wealthy man had picked up Adams and his wife while they were hitchhiking.

A key piece of the puzzle is Adams' wife, played by Joey Heatherton in her big-screen debut. She is a ***ually provocative blonde who enjoys two things: firing up men's libidos and getting money. As we know, those two things have a way of commingling with not-good results.

The man Adams supposedly killed, played by Pat Buttram, was a popular businessman, which leaves the community ready to lynch Adams. This is one of Hollywood’s absolute favorite stories to tell, with 12 Angry Men (1957) probably being its most famous version.

Told here through multiple flashbacks, the story gets a bit hard to follow as the frequent jumps between past events and the courtroom proceedings occasionally muddy the timeline. Now and then, you'll find yourself thinking, "where am I in this story?"

It helps to just keep the big picture in mind, which starts with Heatherton being a lousy, selfish, wanton wife who openly mocks her husband – Adams – who is a slavish puppy dog to her despite her abuse. It's sad, but that's a pretty effective framing of the central conflict.

Into that unstable mix enters Buttram, the man who picks them up while they are hitchhiking. He is a lecherous old guy who openly pursues Heatherton in front of Adams. She encourages this, while Adams pathetically tries to get her to behave.

Then follows a murder in a cheap hotel, an arrest much later when Heatherton turns her husband in – conveniently right after reward money is announced – and a "trial" setup that seems like just a formality on the path to putting Adams in the electric chair.

The court case is the center of the story and it's done pretty well even if you'll get confused a few times about some of the nuances of the law. You'll also question the judge's objectivity and you'll come to despise the "special prosecutor," played by James Gregory.

Gregory, with his trademark gravelly voice, sees this case as a popularity contest he's already won in advance, which will serve as his stepping stone to the governor's mansion. He often plays this type of obnoxious self-aggrandizing character for a reason – he's very good at it.

You will like Chamberlain, whom MGM was trying to shepherd from his successful TV role playing Dr. Kildare to a big-screen career. It never really happened, but still, Chamberlain is fine here, despite being overshadowed by old pro Rains whom the big screen loves.

For the era, the picture is a bit provocative, with the court case pivoting on such usually "not to be discussed on screen" subjects as sleeping in the ****, infidelity, impotence, and prostitution. Today, it all feels tame, but in its day, it had some envelope-pushing street cred.

Its style also feels a bit like a well-funded made-for-TV movie, which makes sense as director Boris Sagal did most of his work on the small screen. His pacing, camera angles, lighting, and transitions often feel more TV than movie like.

Twilight of Honor is an enjoyable, if not that original, story told by talented actors who keep you engaged – Heatherton, in tight-fitting clothes, does her best to do that visually – despite a few too many flashback sequences and a few wandering story threads.

If you haven't seen it yet, start with Anatomy of a Murder to see a better version... or maybe not. Perhaps you want to see this one first, and then step up in class to Anatomy.

 

[Fading Fast]

Shopworn from 1932 with Barbara Stanwyck, Clara Blandick, and Regis Toomey


Shopworn is just a run-of-the-mill precode, but its "rich boy meets poor girl and mother objects" story is elevated above its clichés by Barbara Stanwyck's sincere, thoughtful, and moving performance. It's a "come for the movie, stay for the actress" effort.

Stanwyck plays a waitress in a college-town diner where she meets a rich, nice, but naïve mama's boy, played by Regis Toomey. Their affair is sweet until mama, played by Clara Blandick, gets wind of whom her boy is dating and conspires with a local judge to break them up.

There are a few components to the scheme, but after Blandick unjustly wields the law against Stanwyck and emotionally blackmails her son, Stanwyck is sentenced to a few months in a women's reformatory, while Toomey is carted off to Europe by Blandick.

With only her aunt, played by Zasu Pitts – who is in a bad marriage and can’t do much to help – in her life when she gets out of prison, Stanwyck goes to New York. She gets a job in a chorus line and quickly becomes a successful showgirl – she's a bit notorious, but sought after by men.

A few years go by and Toomey is now a successful doctor with the social registry practice his mother wanted, but he's single and starting to tire of mama's apron strings. The stage is now set for Act Three, the reunion sparked by Stanwyck's slightly scandalous return to her old town.

When the former lovers meet, the spark is still there, especially after Stanwyck gets some much deserved bitterness off her chest, but mama is still there, too, and seemingly still willing to do anything to keep them apart.

It's an incredibly forced and melodramatic climax, but you're all in, hoping Stanwyck, in particular, will get her much-deserved happily ever after. That is the movie in a nutshell: forced and overly melodramatic (and obvious), but darn it, you'll love Stanwyck.

The actress conveys integrity, fortitude, and vulnerability in a performance that makes trite dialogue and cringe-worthy scenes feel meaningful and real. You care what happens to this woman because you respect and like her.

Stanwyck has so many good scenes, from an early one where she throws money in Blandick's lawyer’s face to the climactic battle with Mama Bear herself – where Stanwyck gives an acting masterclass by believably running through every emotion – that you watch the movie just to watch her.

Her only real competition, both in the story and in their scenes together, is Blandick, who knows how to play a mean, protective mother as well as anyone. You won't like her, but you'll care what happens to her and you can't not watch her when she's on screen.

Toomey is fine as the love interest, but he's just a prop for Stanwyck and Blandick to fight over as he's too nice and simple. Even when he kicks up his heels, you know it's going to be one of the two women who will decide what happens to him every time, right through the climax.

Rounding out the cast, the wonderfully named Zasu Pitts eventually leaves her husband to serve as Stanwyck's friend and factotum. Pitts isn't crucial to the plot, but she adds her typical lighthearted, world-weary asides to the movie's overall vibe.

Running on throughout is a precode ***ual honesty without gratuitousness, as the *** here – post-prison Stanwyck advances her career and lifestyle with physical relationships with wealthy men – is implied, accepted, but not shown.

Precodes have a reputation for salaciousness, and sometimes they are, but most, like Shopworn, just have an honest portrayal and acceptance of *** that would disappear once the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced. It's a refreshingly open-minded take.

At just over an hour, with a small budget and a standard Depression-era story, the reason to watch Shopworn today is to see a young Stanwyck prove that she had already mastered her craft.

The tough-but-vulnerable woman she plays here foreshadows the complex roles that would define her career, from Baby Face to Stella Dallas to Double Indemnity. It also helps explain her six decades of success in a fickle and unforgiving business.

 

[Flos]

There Will Be Blood. Never get sick of watching this one. Daniel Day-Lewis is the kind of actor that makes you forget he’s an actor!

 

[Fading Fast]

The Star from 1952 with Bette Davis, Sterling Hayden, and Natalie Wood


"There are no second acts in American lives" — F. Scott Fitzgerald


Despite Fitzgerald's famous quote, America is all about second acts – for many, coming to America itself was a second act. The thing about second acts, though, is you have to want one; you have to fight for one; and you have to take what you can wring out of it.

In The Star, Bette Davis plays a former Oscar-winning actress aging out of leading-lady roles, which would be no big deal if she'd accept the many second acts available to a former top star – but Davis is tragically unwilling to be anyone but Norma Desmond without the large bankbook.

The strong opening scene shows Davis standing outside the auction house that is selling her former "movie star" possessions due to bankruptcy. In the background, we hear the auctioneer hawking the line about what a star Davis "was."

As the present unfolds, the details of the past are revealed – she had huge expenses as she lived like "a star," she supported a sister with a ne'er-do-well husband, and her ex-husband received a large divorce settlement.

She also self funded three box-office flops. Entrepreneurial courage has both upside and downside.

The unfolding present includes her only child, a teen played by Natalie Wood, living with her ex and his new wife because Davis doesn't have the money to keep her even when it's her turn. Then it gets much worse.

A DWI arrest with the accompanying bad publicity, eviction from her modest apartment, and her own temper alienating the friends and former business associates trying to help her all follow. However, one life raft appears in the form of a handsome, burly man who owns a shipyard.

Sterling Hayden plays the life raft: a successful hands-on owner whom Davis once helped out when he was a young man by trying to turn him into an actor. With a preternatural calmness, Hayden attempts to steer the irrational and often ranting Davis to some rational decisions.

The script veers into a few extremes – Davis takes a sales job in a department store – and then some exaggerations about how Davis sabotages her own screen test for a supporting role, but it all fits the theme of a woman who won't adjust to a comedown and accept her second act.

The climax and denouement come fast, but the point has already been made. So whether Davis in the future will just hide away in Hayden's nice world or take advantage of her still very good career opportunities is not that important.

The actress received an Oscar nomination for the role, which required her to power through a wide range of emotions and several personal crises. With Davis you get the combination of a great actress and one of the great screen personalities of all time – both of which are on heavy display here.

Even if only alone with her thoughts late at night, the picture’s theme of a former movie-studio queen having to accept the inevitable career slide to supporting roles had to touch a raw nerve or two with the real-life, middle-aged Davis, who was facing the same career challenge.

Nicely complementing Davis’s performance is Hayden, playing against his laconic tough-guy persona as a sensitive man who nurses her through a life crisis. Somehow he manages to be tender without appearing effete, as the man simply reads character and toughness.

Some of the movie's most touching scenes are Hayden alone with Davis or alone with Davis and daughter Wood, as that's when the movie steps away from Hollywood – with its business-driven neuroses – and shows Davis, in particular, as a real person.

This is not an anti-Hollywood picture like The Bad and the Beautiful, as several friends and colleagues try to help Davis make what should have been an almost seamless transition to supporting roles. But the old saw is right: you can't help someone who doesn't want help.

The black-and-white cinematography in The Star matches the classic Hollywood look the movie demands, as it unfolds like a long-play newsreel on the life of "former star...." You can almost hear the noted narrator Lowell Thomas intoning as Davis' life bumps along.

Fitzgerald's famous quote, "There are no second acts in America," ironically comes from his notes for The Last Tycoon – his satirical look at Hollywood a few decades before this movie.

Fitzgerald himself had a few second acts, but none as great as his first one – the boy-genius moment. Maybe he and Davis are just lamenting a second act that doesn't rise to the greatness of their first one. It's tough, but sometimes, you can only wring so much out of a second act.

 

[EngProf]

I may be the only person in the world who had never seen "Jaws", so I watched it on network TV last Friday.
Interspersed between ~50 commercials, I was amazed at how bad it was.
Jut a few items:
The boat has a hole knocked in it and takes on about 4 feet of water. Most boats keep on taking in water until they sink. (Basic physics, you know...)
The marine biologist was the one who didn't know what a whale sounds like. It would have been far more logical for the landlubber police chief to ask what the noise was.

For Robert Shaw to break the radio was stupid, but might be justified since he was half-crazy.
However, they were NOT on a secret mission so the Coast Guard would check on the them if they didn't radio in.
Beyond routine checks, the Chief had a girlfriend who would certainly go and report to the CG that Larry, Curly, and Moe had sailed off on a leaky old boat and that some responsible adults should go check on them.
The above just a sampling, but the final nonsense is that scuba tanks don't explode as if they were filled with dynamite. (high-pressure tanks can be dangerous, but not like that.)
Add one more Spielberg BAD movie to the list:
"Jaws"
"Close Encounters"
'Saving Private Ryan"
"1941" (Could anyone else make a movie (alleged "comedy") with John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd that has NO humor in it?)

 

[Fading Fast]

The Secret of the Blue Room from 1933 with Lionel Atwill, Gloria Stuart, Paul Lukas, Edward Arnold, Onslow Stevens, Elizabeth Patterson, William Janney, and Robert Barrat.


Today, it’s a bit hokey and clichéd, but for 1933, The Secret of the Blue Room is a solid murder mystery set, as so many were back then, in an eerie gothic castle, with a lugubrious butler, secret passageways, and a moat locking people in... and out.

Helping you get in the spirit of this thoughtfully produced Universal Pictures effort is a fine cast featuring Lionel Atwill, Gloria Stuart (a few years before she appeared in Titanic), Paul Lukas, Edward Arnold, Onslow Stevens, Elizabeth Patterson, William Janney, and Robert Barrat.

Stuart plays Atwill’s daughter and the belle of the castle, with three suitors jockeying for her affections: Lukas, a middle-aged Naval officer; Onslow, a young, cocky newspaperman; and Janney, an even younger man seemingly most smitten with Stuart.

On Stuart's twenty-first birthday, they all gather in the castle to celebrate. During the party, Atwill tells the story of the castle's "blue room," where two decades ago, on three separate nights, three people were murdered.

To prove his courage versus his more impressive rivals, Janney challenges them each to stay alone in the blue room for a night. He proposes to go first and is found missing and presumed dead the next morning. The open window indicates he fell or was pushed into the moat.

Stevens, incredibly, agrees to go next, even though any mature, thoughtful man would have run screaming into the night like a little kid rather than sleep in that room. But off he goes and he is found shot dead the next morning.

Amazingly, it took two deaths, not one, but Atwill finally calls in the police, which brings the local commissioner, played by Arnold, to the castle. Now, all the pieces are assembled for a classic whodunit in the creepy castle, with the smart detective questioning everyone.

The investigation is one of many feints with more than half the suspects looking guilty at one point. Additionally, odd occurrences and behaviors are revealed under Arnold's professional grilling – in a time when the police didn't worry much about suspects' rights.

A chauffeur, a cook – played with annoying whininess by Patterson – a mysterious man, the butler (of course), a maid, and Atwill himself are all suspects, and all seem to have had opportunity and, maybe, motive. Also, almost all lie to Arnold.

Eventually, Lukas, with Arnold’s help, tries to set a trap for the murderer. Of course, that means Lukas must now spend a night in the blue room as bait – with all the risk it entails, but also the opportunity to catch the murderer.

There have been so many movie riffs on this story since, it is hard to appreciate it in the context of 1933, when it was fresh and scary, but it was. Director Kurt Neumann created a frightening early-1930s atmosphere of ominous shadows, haunting music, and creepy behavior.

It's a classic scary castle, but it only became a classic because of well-done movies like this one, all shepherded by talented actors – starting with Lukas, Atwill, and Arnold. Those three, in particular, have the on-screen stature to make you believe a plot-hole-riddled story like this one.

Stuart is fine as the pretty girl who can scream when scared, but even in the 1930s – especially in the precode era when this was filmed – women were doing a heck of a lot more on screen than falling into a man's arms when they were frightened.

A modern viewer expecting to be scared by The Secret of the Blue Room will be disappointed as it's all been done better and more elaborately since. But for a film fan, who enjoys seeing the progenitors of a genre, it's a good look at an early classic gothic whodunit picture.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Das Millionenspiel (1970)

Straight, hard-boiled, fictional groteske about commercial TV's reality shows and it's audience morale in the near future of the 2000s.

A movie like punch right in the face!

 

[ChewingWax]

JAWS... again