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What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

vitanola

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,254
Location
Gopher Prairie, MI
"The King Of Jazz"

Paul Whiteman's Orchestra, Bing & the Rhythem Boys, John Boles, Venuti & Lang, the Russel Market Girls and two strip Technicolor. What's not to like?
 

C44Antelope

One of the Regulars
Messages
279
Location
just past the 7th tee
The Guns of Navarone
The aging mountaineer Gregory Peck who hasn't climbed in 5 years,
The demolitions expert David Niven who is sick of war and killing,
The team leader Anthony Quayle who knows the mission must succeed,
and the tortured Anthony Quinn who vows to kill Gregory Peck as soon as the war is over (which is of course the reason Peck stared in "MacArthur");
plus a few others,
a traitor,
some Greek resistance fighters,
a Greek wedding party,
James Robertson Justice,
and a bunch of Nazis... Now there's a movie!

And to quote John Candy and Joe Flaherty from the "Farm Film Report" on the old SCTV show... "It blowed up real good."
 

Feraud

Bartender
Messages
17,190
Location
Hardlucksville, NY
Well, her husband had just been involved in a sexual scandal, so in a way Astor was considered "hot" property at the time. That quote you mentioned is a good one. Lorre's tirade against Greenstreet is also memorable.
Casting based on celebrity drama...It's good to see some things never change. ;)
As much I as enjoy Huston's film I hate the female casting and how the studio removed any sexuality from his version. The femme fatale is the lynchpin for the story and Huston's version has minimal sexual attraction between the men and women. The studio barely allowed a dull, rote idea of sexual attraction in Huston's version. It undermines the logic of the film, particularly Spade's big speech to Brigid at the end of the film.

The female roles are the weak link of the Huston version yet a strong point in the 1931 film. The 1931 Maltese Falcon cast Bebe Daniels as Ruth Wonderly, Una Merkel as Effie, and Thelma Todd (yowza!) as Iva Archer. In this case it is not hard at all to understand why Spade fell for Iva with Thelma Todd is filling the shoes! Compared to Thelma Todd, Gladys George looks positively grandmotherly in Huston's film. Are we expected to believe Spade went behind his friend's back for this dame? Not likely! I can see how Bebe Daniels might cause a guy to break a few laws to help her.
 

Widebrim

I'll Lock Up
The female roles are the weak link of the Huston version yet a strong point in the 1931 film. The 1931 Maltese Falcon cast Bebe Daniels as Ruth Wonderly, Una Merkel as Effie, and Thelma Todd (yowza!) as Iva Archer. In this case it is not hard at all to understand why Spade fell for Iva with Thelma Todd is filling the shoes! Compared to Thelma Todd, Gladys George looks positively grandmotherly in Huston's film. Are we expected to believe Spade went behind his friend's back for this dame? Not likely! I can see how Bebe Daniels might cause a guy to break a few laws to help her.

Good point, especially about Todd compared with George; the latter is kind of "plain" looking. The male cast in Maltese Falcon, though, is superb.
 

Chasseur

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,494
Location
Hawaii
Maltese Falcon. I love this movie for a dozen reasons, Ward Bond for one. "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it" is another... But when the secretary says Mary Astor is a knock out, I think it's creative license. She's not a mud fence, but "knock out"? C'mon now.

Yes that has always bothered me in the back of my mind while watching the film. As Feraud was saying in his response I need to go back and watch the 1931 version again.
 

vitanola

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,254
Location
Gopher Prairie, MI
And don't forget the guy with the bicycle pump. They couldn't get Bix, but that guy almost makes up for the loss.

Wilbur Hall, who was also Whiteman's first chair trombone at the time. It was he who triple-tounged "Nola" in the opening "Meet the Boys in the Band" sequence.

Hall was a pretty tasty soloist, who was unfortunately overshadowed by the inimitable Jack Teagarden.
 

Widebrim

I'll Lock Up
Sullivan's Travels (1941, Paramount), with Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake, written/directed by Preston Sturges. A well-known, pre-Pearl Harbor comedy, which actually takes a dramatic turn the last 20 minutes. Ostensibly, it is about director McCrea who poses as a hobo to find out how the poor live, so that he can make a film about social iniquity (more or less). On the way, he picks up Lake, who wants to leave Hollywood for home after an unsuccessful try at the movie business. For those people who think that Veronica Lake was only capable of glacial performances like those in This Gun For Hire and The Blue Dahlia, they should see her come to life in this movie. (And, boy, did she look cute when she let her hair down in her famous peek-aboo style.) Everybody in the film (except the 13-year-old "drag racer") is lampooned (and, in a way, so is the audience), and you're not always sure where the movie is going. The scene that sticks out for me is when the pastor of a Black church tells the congregation that a (mostly White) chain gang is going to watch a movie with them. He says that the congregants should treat the latter with respect, because they are all God's children; then while said chain gangers march through the building, the congregation sings "Let My People Go." Incredible sequence for the time.
 

DNO

One Too Many
Messages
1,815
Location
Toronto, Canada
84 Charlie MoPic.

Exceptional film with outstanding performances by a relatively unknown cast. All done on a small budget. May well be the best film on the American experience in the Vietnam war.
 

C44Antelope

One of the Regulars
Messages
279
Location
just past the 7th tee
I have never seen Sullivan's Travels & have wanted to. I have always enjoyed Joel McRae, and Veronica Lake... Ooo mama.

I watched To Have and Have Not tonight. "Was you ever bit by a dead bee?"

For those not familiar, Bogie, Bacall, Walter Brennan, Hoagy Carmichael, Sheldon Leonard and Vichy heavies in Martinique in 1940. Not too mention a really bad fisherman with a great pith helmet
 

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