Want to buy or sell something? Check the classifieds
  • The Fedora Lounge is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

I tell you what, JP, that movie looks educational. LOL

I was wondering when someone would say something. lol lol
Just like the 70s though---it was sold with that movie poster but you never saw that scene---not even for five seconds---darn it. :p
This was more like what you got:


We also saw 1/4 of The Devil's Hand. The movie poster tomorrow when we finish it. :p
 
Messages
17,190
Location
New York City
I just watched "Lifeboat" last night and, as with all great movies that I've seen several times, albeit over twenty or thirty years, something hits me fresh each time. This viewing it was Tallulah Bankhead's performance (and the number of "Ls" in her first name). My memory of her overall is that she seems to float around the 1930s and early 40s as a part-time actress and a part-tiime Bright Young Thing, but not much more. However, her performance in "Lifeboat" is strong. It stars a bit cardboard as the rich woman "inconvenienced" by her ship having been sunk by a German U-boat and, like the Howell's from "Gilligan's Island," she has all her rich-person stuff with her, but once the movie gets going her acting picks up.

She shows a more human side as the trials in the boat increase; she engages the German with Cosmopolitan comfort that, initially, she also subtly uses to dismiss the unwashed masses in the boat who are suspicious of the German; she balances her old friendship with the wealthy businessman and her budding friendship with the sailor convincingly, and her transition when she realizes the German's treachery and the ignorance of her own haughtiness is nuanced and believable. I just looked her up on IMDB and - as suspected - she didn't do that many movies, but I will now look to see them as they pop up.
 

Worf

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,206
Location
Troy, New York, USA
"The Public Enemy" - For some reason I find Cagney the least believable of the Warner's "Big Three" of Gangsterism. Bogart had one of the scariest deadpan's ever. His Duke Mantee of "The Petrified Forest" was as unique and chilling an introduction to a mobster as ever filmed. Robinson's "Little Ceaser" is equally impressive. Cagny's lead Debut in TPE leaves me a little flat. He comes across as more punk than pro more "palooka" than puncher. He has a presence on screen but he lacks "menace" or as I'd like the put it... the weight of malevolence.... Still a decent flick though.

Worf
 

rjb1

Practically Family
Messages
561
Location
Nashville
One problem with Cagney in "The Public Enemy" is that he's just too small for the role. It doesn't seem plausible that he could physically push so many people around. I do like the movie a lot, but have to add an extra measure of willing suspension of disbelief.
 

Chasseur

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,494
Location
Hawaii
"The Public Enemy" - For some reason I find Cagney the least believable of the Warner's "Big Three" of Gangsterism. Bogart had one of the scariest deadpan's ever. His Duke Mantee of "The Petrified Forest" was as unique and chilling an introduction to a mobster as ever filmed. Robinson's "Little Ceaser" is equally impressive. Cagny's lead Debut in TPE leaves me a little flat. He comes across as more punk than pro more "palooka" than puncher. He has a presence on screen but he lacks "menace" or as I'd like the put it... the weight of malevolence.... Still a decent flick though.

Worf

I can see what you mean. Truth be told I'm not a huge fan of the Gangster films. I'd rather watch Cagney dance than be a tough guy. A little off topic, but I've found the same with Joe Pesky in Good Fellas and Casino. Seeing a little annoying guy who look more at home being a discount mattress salesman than doing the fake pyscho-thing and killing people with disposal pens really strained my sense of disbelief...
 

Worf

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,206
Location
Troy, New York, USA
I can see what you mean. Truth be told I'm not a huge fan of the Gangster films. I'd rather watch Cagney dance than be a tough guy. A little off topic, but I've found the same with Joe Pesky in Good Fellas and Casino. Seeing a little annoying guy who look more at home being a discount mattress salesman than doing the fake pyscho-thing and killing people with disposal pens really strained my sense of disbelief...

That's too funny... "discount mattress salseman"! Pesci I find totally believable as a psycho nut-job. In my neighborhood the little crazed guy were the one's always causing trouble and guy's you never wanted to mess with because they had no boundaries and being so small could never afford to lose. Fair or foul they had to win. If you beat em with your fists, they cut you, beat em with a blade they shoot you. Part of their ability to get away with such violence is that the average person never looks for it from a "little guy". Big guys like me NEVER if ever went looking for trouble.

Worf
 

Worf

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,206
Location
Troy, New York, USA
I just watched "Lifeboat" last night and, as with all great movies that I've seen several times, albeit over twenty or thirty years, something hits me fresh each time. This viewing it was Tallulah Bankhead's performance (and the number of "Ls" in her first name). My memory of her overall is that she seems to float around the 1930s and early 40s as a part-time actress and a part-tiime Bright Young Thing, but not much more. However, her performance in "Lifeboat" is strong. It stars a bit cardboard as the rich woman "inconvenienced" by her ship having been sunk by a German U-boat and, like the Howell's from "Gilligan's Island," she has all her rich-person stuff with her, but once the movie gets going her acting picks up.

She shows a more human side as the trials in the boat increase; she engages the German with Cosmopolitan comfort that, initially, she also subtly uses to dismiss the unwashed masses in the boat who are suspicious of the German; she balances her old friendship with the wealthy businessman and her budding friendship with the sailor convincingly, and her transition when she realizes the German's treachery and the ignorance of her own haughtiness is nuanced and believable. I just looked her up on IMDB and - as suspected - she didn't do that many movies, but I will now look to see them as they pop up.

Very masterful and thoughtful post. I admired Hitchcock in how he "walked the tightrope" with the characters in this film. How do you make a bomb throwing Bolshevik, a Capitalist and a woman of privilege unite in violence... put em in a lifeboat with a member of "the master race". Well played.

Worf
 
Messages
12,005
Location
Southern California
One problem with Cagney in "The Public Enemy" is that he's just too small for the role. It doesn't seem plausible that he could physically push so many people around. I do like the movie a lot, but have to add an extra measure of willing suspension of disbelief.
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." My dad and one of my uncles were only in the 5'6"-5'7" height range, but I've heard stories about their younger days (from relatives who would know) that taught me to never underestimate someone because of their size.
 
Messages
17,190
Location
New York City
Very masterful and thoughtful post. I admired Hitchcock in how he "walked the tightrope" with the characters in this film. How do you make a bomb throwing Bolshevik, a Capitalist and a woman of privilege unite in violence... put em in a lifeboat with a member of "the master race". Well played.

Worf

What is also interesting in that scene is watching a very liberal elitist capitalist (a creature of the 1940s that seems the progenitor for Silicon Valley capitalists today) take an active part in killing the German. Until that violent spasm, he is all about making speeches about the philosophy of bringing people to fair trials and other angst-ridden hand wringing that the others in a lifeboat - a lifeboat they are only in because a German U-boat had torpedoed their ship - aren't suffering from. It's a timeless moral question - what actions / judgements / retributions in war time and applied to enemies are acceptable that would not be acceptable if applied to our own citizens in a civilian setting? And secondly, when tested and immediately faced with the horrors of war and others willing to kill you, how do your emotions and values change? Great movies never lose their relevance.
 

stevew443

One of the Regulars
Messages
145
Location
Shenandoah Junction
Yesterday my sweet wife and I enjoyed watching The Wizard of Oz in IMAX and 3D. It was like seeing it for the very first time. There were only 7 other people in the theater so it was like a private showing. I laughed so hard at Bert Lahr I had tears running down my face.
 
220px-The_Devil's_Hand.jpg
 

Forum statistics

Threads
109,097
Messages
3,074,081
Members
54,091
Latest member
toptvsspala
Top