What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

What? Another day of Bond? Yes, more Bond in the background. The Spy Who Loved Me starring Roger Moore. The cheesiness, the quality, the silliness of post Connery Bond is so much more obvious when watching days of a Bond Marathon. For me, the funkiness of the seventies music does not compare favorably with that of the sixties. It’s just one more reason Sixties Bond is my favorite.

And Bond's 1970s clothing is terrible. The suits are still incredibly well tailored but the colors, fabrics, and proportion of the lapels, etc., are awful – and let's not even talk about the "leisure" clothes.

Yet, as you note, all those Connery '60s movies have clothing that mainly hold up. Much of it could be worn today.

 

[Touchofevil]

And Bond's 1970s clothing is terrible. The suits are still incredibly well tailored but the colors, fabrics, and proportion of the lapels, etc., are awful – and let's not even talk about the "leisure" clothes.

Yet, as you note, all those Connery '60s movies have clothing that mainly hold up. Much of it could be worn today.

Especially the suits worn by Connery. Sharp looking even today. Then there are haircuts dur Connery’s time compared to the atrocities of the seventies. Too often the mops adorning the melons of the seventies looks like a mop or wig. They would be much better off with a Yul Brynner cut.

 

[Touchofevil]

Something on Noir Alley on TCM this morning. It hasn’t really caught my interest, but it is nice enough for background company while perusing The Fedora Lounge. (It’s Postmark for Danger) Will probably switch over to Live and Let Die on Ovation’s Bond Marathon. Watched it yesterday but it will be fine for background entertainment.

 

[Touchofevil]

Okay, more Bond. The Living Daylights (1987) with Timothy Dalton as Bond. Not the worst Bond but I enjoyed Dalton more in Hot Fuzz. The eighties, like the seventies, does not compare well with the Bond of the sixties.

 

[Fading Fast]

Sidewalks of New York from 1931 with Buster Keaton and Anita Page


It's impossible to talk about Sidewalks of New York without talking a bit about Buster Keaton's career, which peaked when he wrote, directed, and starred in his silent films of the 1920s. His brand of deadpan, slapstick comedy with heart was their defining feature.

It's no original thought to note that when he signed with MGM in the "talkie" era, the true magic was lost from his movies. Some – like Doughboys (1930) and The Passionate Plumber (1932) – were still kinda funny in a forgiving way, but others turned into a holy mess.

Sidewalks of New York falls on the holy mess side of that continuum. The plot, which doesn't matter as you come for Keaton, has Keaton playing an unaware slumlord who opens a gym for the boys in his tenements, mainly to attract the attention of the older sister of one of the boys.

The older sister, played by Anita Page, naturally initially dislikes Keaton – who doesn't dislike their landlord in a 1930s movie? – but as per his personal brand, Keaton pursues her incessantly despite all the rejection.

While that story plays out, the other storyline is the standard 1930s one about "slum" kids just needing a place to play to get them off the streets and, presto!, they'd become good kids. So wealthy Keaton funds a gymnasium for the boys.

Woven into that second storyline are a bunch of local hoods who use some of the boys, including Page's idiot brother, as flunkies and patsies for their low-rent gangsterism. Yes, it's a yawn of a story, but the plot only exists as a frame for Keaton's humor.

The problem is his humor doesn't work well inside this MGM vehicle. Keaton's unaware, bumbling, slapstick delivered repeatedly with a deadpan expression rapidly wears thin. There are flashes of Keaton brilliance, but it's not close to being enough.

How many times can you watch Keaton trip over himself, get knocked down, or get bonked on the head? How many times can you watch him get beat up in a fight, but also get in a bunch of insanely lucky blows, all while he looks clueless? Most of the humor falls flat and tires quickly.

There are also scenes of him unable to carve a duck, so it goes sliding all over the place, and a particularly long and painful scene of Keaton playing an unaware actor in a show the "slum" kids put on where he might be shot when a prop g*n is swapped with a real one.

This humor, if done well, had currency in the 1930s, but today, other than very selectively and in very small doses, it has absolutely no currency. Its failure to work contemporaneously in this awkward 1930s movie means it can be punishing for a modern audience.

Keaton was a major talent who would have probably adjusted over time to the talkies if left to his own devices. Yet as great as the large studio system could be at assembling all the pieces to make a movie, it sometimes couldn't align itself with a one-off, quirky talent.

It doesn't help either that Page's character is – what's the term for it – a "witchy" shrew. She screeches at Keaton when his efforts don't help her good-for-nothing brother, making you wonder why Keaton would put up with her for five seconds let alone the entire movie.

In some of Keaton's talkies, the female co-star saves the picture. Irene Purcell is bossy but also cute and engaging in The Passionate Plumber and Sally Eilers is charming and spunky in Doughboys, which as stupid as it is, also has an okay anti-war storyline.

Sidewalks of New York, though, has nothing to rescue it. If you're a Keaton completist, of course you'll watch it, but otherwise, throw a dart at Keaton's movie resume and you'll almost certainly do better.

With the coming of talkies, Keaton needed a different road to travel in the 1930s, but he chose the MGM one with unfortunate results.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Keaton's MGM talkies are a hard go, but at least in this one he doesn't have to reckon with Jimmy Durante.

You'll find a much more satisfying talking Keaton in the two-reel shorts he did for Educational Pictures after MGM dumped him. He was still drinking when he made these, but he was usually sober enough, and more important, unencumbered enough by studio meddlers, to turn out some decent work.

 

[Fading Fast]

Keaton's MGM talkies are a hard go, but at least in this one he doesn't have to reckon with Jimmy Durante.

You'll find a much more satisfying talking Keaton in the two-reel shorts he did for Educational Pictures after MGM dumped him. He was still drinking when he made these, but he was usually sober enough, and more important, unencumbered enough by studio meddlers, to turn out some decent work.

I've heard about these two-reel shorts, but have never sought them out. It is now on the to-do list. Thank you.

I saw "What! No Beer?" recently and agree, Durante and Keaton do not mix at all. It was a painful movie to sit through.

 

[Zombie_61]

Okay, more Bond. The Living Daylights (1987) with Timothy Dalton as Bond. Not the worst Bond but I enjoyed Dalton more in Hot Fuzz. The eighties, like the seventies, does not compare well with the Bond of the sixties.

I had never heard of Timothy Dalton before he was cast for this movie. I can't say I was impressed by his performance; he seemed to be bored and didn't quite have that "spark" that Bond should have.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Tamarind Seed (1974) with Julie Andrews, Omar Sharif, and Sylvia Syms


The Cold War was a gift to storytellers as its binary dynamic made for classic face-off plotlines full of philosophical arguments and spy intrigue. Sure, the world was possibly on the brink of nuclear annihilation, but some great novels and movies were created.

Two diametrically opposed, incompatible ideologies – the West's individual freedom, private ownership, and free elections versus Communism's collectivist ownership and class-based framework – spent half a century trying to topple each other in a geopolitical chess game.

Only through proxies did the US and the USSR occasionally meet in open conflict; instead, the Cold War was fought as a game of espionage and intrigue, with each trying to covertly undermine the other while aggregating countries, resources, and technology to its side.

That is the framework behind The Tamarind Seed – a love story set against a backdrop of that espionage, plus patriotism, venality, s*xual passions, and humanity. All that plays out as Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif fall in love despite staring across a great philosophical divide.

Andrews plays a personal secretary to an important man in the British Secret Service, while Sharif plays a colonel in the USSR's equivalent. He's working as an attaché in London, but they meet in Barbados, seemingly by chance, as both are on vacation.

Is it by chance, though? Yes, on Andrews' side; but what about Sharif's? It feels that way, but that's the problem with espionage, it makes everything suspect – a theme that dominates the picture. Once back in London, their "affair" gets twisted into a brutal game of spy-vs-spy.

It's a complex movie driven by a high-level mole in the British Secret Service and a purge in the Soviet branch of the same in London, both of which smash into Sharif and Andrews' affair because the big players will manipulate anything and anyone for an advantage.

Director Blake Edwards (Andrews' real-life husband) balances this spy intrigue with melodrama, starting with a top British official who has a combative marriage because he's g*y – his wife felt betrayed when she learned this – but they still share his career aspirations.

The wife, played by Sylvia Syms, should have at least garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress playing a woman who wields immense power through her marriage – a role no longer allowed by our politics, but one that existed throughout history.

Her scenes are so engaging, you forget that Andrews and Sharif are the main story when Syms is on the screen. You just want to see how her complex marriage and vicious behind-the-scenes manipulation will work out. She yields little to another famous fictional Brit: Lady Macbeth.

It's hard to avoid spoilers, so just know that several affairs, a few betrayals, and some intense spy machinations will drive the plot as Andrews appears the only honest and open person in the entire movie, probably because she's not a spy, attaché, or diplomat.

Centering it all, though, is not the spy intrigue, but Andrews' love affair with Sharif. While she seems sincere, what is he? The man is Russian – not in a Soviet way (except for necessary appearances) but in a "Mother Russia and all her suffering lives deep in his soul" way.

Think of the great 19th-century Russian novelists – Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, etc. – and the pain, hope, anguish, and joy they express. They are writing about men in full – men like Sharif. But a man in full is a complex man to love and be loved by. Good luck with that, Ms. Andrews.

For a 1970s movie, the style has an early Bond-movie overlay, with better clothes than most 1970s pictures. While fifteen minutes could have been edited out, the long movie moves at a good clip with most scenes advancing the plot, or a theme, or they are just entertaining.

You'll want to pay particular attention to Edwards' use of color as he bathes the screen in red when he wants to emphasize Sharif's Sovietness; whereas the Barbados scenes, in particular, have a sunnier, lighter feel as, for a time, they are an escape from the oppressive spy war.

At thirty-seven, this was Andrews' first movie in five years, and she lost nothing in talent or looks over that time. It matters because – as important as Sharif is – this is her picture. She sits firmly in Western ideology, but outside the "inside" game of espionage, giving the movie air to breathe.

Three-plus decades after the Cold War ended, it is now slipping into history as a few younger generations have already grown up without its framing. This makes these Cold War "relic" films important cultural time capsules for those trying to understand the past.

The Tamarind Seed is meaningful in that cultural context, but it's also just a darn good picture that pulls you in early and holds onto you throughout. An East-meets-West romance amidst a swirl of clashing ideologies creates a heck of a love story.

 

[Jon Crow]

I had never heard of Timothy Dalton before he was cast for this movie. I can't say I was impressed by his performance; he seemed to be bored and didn't quite have that "spark" that Bond should have.

Timothy Dalton was much more spectacular as Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights or later in Penny Dreadful

 

[Fading Fast]

I Am Waiting (1957) A Japanese film


What would an American film noir B movie look like if it were better than an average B (as many were), but made in Japan? I Am Waiting is the answer, as this directorial debut from Koreyoshi Kurahara rises above its modest budget, all with Japanese characteristics.

Late one night, a young man, Jōji, finds a despondent young woman, Saeko, attempting suic*de. He rescues her and brings her back to his modest bar and restaurant, where she stays and works for a bit as she gets her mental state back in order.

That's not a bad story, but there is so much more. Jōji is waiting for news from his brother who went to Brazil to start a farm with the plan that Jōji will join him once he gets it established. Jōji is nursing a deep emotional wound that has him hoping to start life over in a new country.

Saeko, too, has a deep emotional wound – one that had her attempting suic*de – but she has no escape plan other than to fight her way through. That's hard though as her life is tangled up with a group of mobsters who own the bar where she sings – and the mobsters want her back.

You want to let the story unfold without spoilers, but it's fair to note that the emotional wounds both Jōji and Saeko are carrying are very similar, but – and this is the surprise – they have nothing to do with a broken heart. This is no Japanese Hallmark noir.

When the mobsters come looking for Saeko, Jōji gets pulled into that fight, only to find that he has some indirect ties to the mobsters' world anyway. His and Seako's redemption will depend on his "straightening his account" with the mobsters.

That, though, is for Act Three. Until then, the movie is a thoughtful look at two battered people trying to right their internal ships, surprisingly not by falling in love with each other. Yes, they know they could, and even talk about it, but something in Jōji, in particular, is against it.

He wants to find out what happened to his brother – his brother hasn't sent a letter or responded to Jōji's letters since he left. Then he will wrap up his life in Japan and head to Brazil. To him – scarred by a past love – a love affair is the last thing he needs in his life right now.

Saeko is open to one, but she too is hesitant. She's also resentful of Jōji's rejection, so their potential love stays at arm's length as they live and work in the bar/restaurant together. That tension alone gives the movie an emotionally engaging edge.

It's matched though by the always circling mobsters who want what mobsters always want: everything they can get their hands on and in any way they can get it without being caught by the police. That gives the movie a raw and violent edge.

This all takes place in a Japanese noir universe of a rundown waterfront, where Jōji's restaurant is, and a crowded city, where the mobsters live. It’s crowded in the way many dense, postwar Asian cities stack rickety buildings atop one another along narrow streets, overlit by neon.

One is so depressing and the other so energetically seedy that you know you too would have emotional issues if these were the limits of your world. There are many elements to noir, but visually capturing physical and emotional despondency is part of its main aesthetic.

Director Kurahara and cinematographer Kuratarô Takamura had clearly seen their share of American noir, as the lighting, camera angles, and vibe in their movie say noir, although, the exaggerated, out-of-synch punching sounds in the climactic fight, unfortunately, are cheesy.

The acting is overall good, but uneven, with Saeko, played by Mie Kitahara, quietly capturing the camera's attention in the way top stars do. Jōji, played by Yûjirô Ishihara, overacts a bit, but also shows that star thing, too, as the camera can't help noticing him.

You'll also want to look for Jōji's friend, an aging, alcoholic doctor, played by Isamu Kosugi, who plays the wise, loyal compatriot to Jōji the way Walter Brennan or Allen Jenkins would in an American noir. It's a small but standout performance.

You care about Jōji and Saeko, which – do you care about the characters – is pretty much all that matters in any movie. You want things to end well for them, but being noir, you just don’t know, as there is an unsettling edge that runs through the picture.

I Am Waiting is also another of the many examples of noir being an international language. Each country did it in its own way – the Brits are less downbeat; America is violent; and, here, Japan is despondent – but it is all noir because all societies have a dark side.

 

[Zombie_61]

Timothy Dalton was much more spectacular as Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights or later in Penny Dreadful

I haven't seen "Wuthering Heights", but I agree with you about his performance in Penny Dreadful.

 

[Edward]

And Bond's 1970s clothing is terrible. The suits are still incredibly well tailored but the colors, fabrics, and proportion of the lapels, etc., are awful – and let's not even talk about the "leisure" clothes.

Yet, as you note, all those Connery '60s movies have clothing that mainly hold up. Much of it could be worn today.

The Roger Moore era was, I think, the very early stages of the Bond machine entering a long period of not quite knowing what it was: perhaps not as dated as it had become by the 90s, but certainly entering a point where it felt the need to keep upping the stakes with each outing. With Moore, they moved away from Connery's looks, which while contemporary were also very classic-inspired, certainly not the full-fashion vibe they leaned into with Moore, which became one of the reasons the Moored films look much more painfully dated now than many others (probably only equalled by Dalton).

 

[Zombie_61]

The Roger Moore era was, I think, the very early stages of the Bond machine entering a long period of not quite knowing what it was...

The first Bond movie I saw was Mr. Moore's first outing as Bond in Live and Let Die. When it was finished, I sat there somewhat astonished that anyone would think this wrinkly old fart could believably portray a working secret agent. Terrible!

 

[Edward]

The first Bond movie I saw was Mr. Moore's first outing as Bond in Live and Let Die. When it was finished, I sat there somewhat astonished that anyone would think this wrinkly old fart could believably portray a working secret agent. Terrible!

Moore was, by all accounts, a lovely guy, but for me he was no way a replacement for Connery. Connery looked like a killer. Moore was more Mike Myers than Connery (if you'll excuse the anachronism). The first replacement for Connery that really convinced me was Craig. It was also in Craig's era that Bond finally found its feet again, even if the films were 50/50. I loved that they had the audacity to let bond die as well, even if them immediately pulled the rug out from under it with the hackneyed old "James Bond Will Return" legend. Pity they didn't keep Blofeld as the final act villain, though - Remi Malik's character felt rather flat after that, and unlike Blofeld I never felt there was and proper motivation there.

 

[Fading Fast]

Dr. Monica from 1934 with Kay Francis, Warren William, Jean Muir, and Verree Teasdale


Even though Dr. Monica carries a precode date, old movie fans will recognize the heavy hand of censorship (it started ramping up in the second half of 1934) in this tale of lust, passion, compromise, affairs, suic*de, and more – all things the Motion Picture Production Code hated.

After all the slicing and dicing of the film by the censors, what's left of this Warner Bros. effort starring Kay Francis is fifty-three minutes that only really make sense if you fill in the blanks yourself where scenes were obviously trimmed back or cut completely.

It starts out promisingly enough with Francis in another glamorous role as a noted obstetrician (in pecode land, like in real America at that time, women held many types of jobs and degrees) married to a handsome and successful author, played by Warren William.

Francis can't conceive, which puts a wobble in their marriage, especially when William steps out with Francis' friend, played by Jean Muir. It's all a blur, as moviegoers weren't supposed to know adults have affairs, so much of the exposition of the affair landed on the cutting room floor.

We then learn by inference that William broke off with Muir because he realized he truly loves his wife. This is, of course, nice for Francis and for her and William's marriage, but it leaves Muir adrift.

So far, it's a half-buried love triangle where Muir and Francis' friend, played by Verree Teasdale, know the full story, but not Francis. Teasdale does her best to right the ship for all, but Muir can't get over William.

William, for his part, floats in and out of scenes always smiling – and why not, he's sleeping with two pretty women, both of whom love him. Plus, Muir would rather go to her grave than expose him to wife Francis. Putting right, wrong, and feminism aside, she's a heck of a mistress.

With William having returned to Francis, all this would have faded away, but then Muir discovers she's pregnant at a time when single women didn't get pregnant, well, officially anyway.

Still not knowing the identity of the baby's father, Francis ships her good friend Muir off to the country, a thing rich people did then with pregnant single women. Francis herself will deliver the baby, which just happens to be her husband's love child. (Cue "Love Child" by The Supremes.)

With that insane setup, Act Three lets the melodrama rip even more. Finally, the resolution is so tidied up by the censors that you are left a bit dazed by the unreality of it all. Still, these are top actors, so they somewhat fireman carry this censor-addled story over the finish line.

Francis played this type of role so many times, she probably just intuited the dialogue correctly. The same for William who specialized in loveable rogues in this era. Muir, a beautiful actress, plays her love-sick adulteress a bit dour, but who knows what of her performance was cut out.

Teasdale, too, is a strong actress who often played these sorts of melodrama sherpa roles, but like everyone here, her character appears choppy because the editing is so choppy thanks to the relentlessly persnickety censors.

The shame is, you know there not only is a better movie here, but it was made and then shredded. Even in that original form, Dr. Monica wasn't Shakespeare, but probably a darn good precode melodrama.

Maybe one day the rest of this "half lost movie" will be found – stranger things have happened.

 

[Jon Crow]

I haven't seen "Wuthering Heights", but I agree with you about his performance in Penny Dreadful.

Fine acting from all in Penny Dreadful, especially Roy's son Rory Kinnear

 

[Jon Crow]

Moore was, by all accounts, a lovely guy, but for me he was no way a replacement for Connery. Connery looked like a killer. Moore was more Mike Myers than Connery (if you'll excuse the anachronism). The first replacement for Connery that really convinced me was Craig. It was also in Craig's era that Bond finally found its feet again, even if the films were 50/50. I loved that they had the audacity to let bond die as well, even if them immediately pulled the rug out from under it with the hackneyed old "James Bond Will Return" legend. Pity they didn't keep Blofeld as the final act villain, though - Remi Malik's character felt rather flat after that, and unlike Blofeld I never felt there was and proper motivation there.

Pierce Brosnan got offered the part years before he did but he was under contract in Remington Steele

 

[Edward]

Pierce Brosnan got offered the part years before he did but he was under contract in Remington Steele

Brosnan could have been a great Bond if they'd known what they were doing with him. Unfortunately in that era it felt like they were tending to self-parody without the confidence to really lean into it, ending up with just pastiche. What I really liked about Craig was how they acknowledged the old, cold warrior as something of an anachronism is today's world, and leaned into that.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Has anyone seen the Bond-parody "Casino Royale" from 1967?