What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

Cloudburst from 1951 with Robert Preston, Elizabeth Sellers and Colin Tapley


Post-war British cinema tells stories slightly differently than American cinema as the British efforts are usually quieter and more layered than the American ones with their penchant for noisier drama and elaborate special effects.

Cloudburst, a British-noir-detective-story combination with a romantic overlay and several murders, goes about its business with a wonderfully British stiff upper lip. A happily married middle-aged couple who, it is implied, met in a concentration camp during the war have a bond that exceeds one from a normal marriage owing to that harrowing start.

When his pregnant wife is killed in an apparent hit and run accident, husband Robert Preston immediately shifts gears from a loving spouse to a man on an all-consuming personal revenge mission. In a movie construct that's been used before and after, we see a man going rogue, who we then learn is no ordinary man.

He is a former British spy and cryptologist. A man who has been trained by his government to conceal his identity, to hunt down enemies, to engage in hand-to-hand combat and to use everything at his disposal as a weapon. He is a dangerous man.

Being British, Preston goes about his hunt for the two who were in the car that killed his wife with a surface calm masking an internal fervor. As he uses all his espionage skills and connections, including former members of his WWII underground team who are still loyal to him, we see an individual frighteningly equipped to kill in a "what did the government create in this man'' way.

Matching wits with Preston is the relentless, yet outwardly placid British police superintendent who finds his way to Preston based on a seemingly innocuous clue, a note written in code accidentally left at the scene of one of Preston's revenge murders. The inspector asks Preston to decode the note in hopes it will lead to the killer.

We, thus, have Preston, a famous cryptologist, now working with the police to find the murderer, who he just happens to be. So while Preston appears to be helping the police to find himself, he, naturally, uses his role as consultant to the police to try to throw them off course. (This is an effective plot construct that has been employed often in movies like, for example, 1987's No Way Out).

(Spoiler alert) The rest of the movie is super smart Preston keeping the super-smart police inspector at bay just long enough for Preston to complete his revenge mission. When it's over, Preston has extracted all the revenge he wanted just as the police finally put all the pieces together and come to arrest him.

Cloudburst is, more than anything, a deeply sad movie. The lives of a good man and woman are destroyed when the man's wife is seemingly senselessly killed. While we are rooting for Preston to get away with his revenge killings (sorry, but we are), you see at the end, he simply doesn't care if he gets caught as long as he completes his mission. He, effectively, died the day his wife and unborn child were killed.

Kudos, once again, to post-war British cinema for delivering, in Cloudburst, a solid effort, on a small budget with quintessentially understated British style.

 

[Worf]

Saw this one about a year ago. It was as you so ably describe... exhilarating, suspenseful and ultimately sad all at the same time. I believe England was still in it's "hang em' high" stage of Capital Punishment at that time so Preston would soon be meeting his wife in the afterlife. Good flick in glorious Black and White.

Worf

 

[belfastboy]

Joachim Trier's newest "The Worst Person in The World". I loved it, my wife was firmly in the 'meh' camp. Not a likeable main character and that is what stopped my wife....she did not care what happened to her. I, even though she was a very unlikable character, was at least interested in the story arc. Exceptionally well acted.

 

[Monitor]

I just got here to recommend "The Green Knight", which I saw yesterday and it is the most profound cinematographic experience I recall witnessing in I don't know how long. I am having great difficulty understanding why do people find the movie pretentious, ambiguous, etc., etc., as the story and the theme is as perfectly straightforward as it can be, with literally nothing left for interpretation - Which is precisely why it resonates with me so immensely. But that is all I can say without venturing into spoilers so I can only say, please watch this movie.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Um, I was once an English major who could read Middle English, and I have devoured every bit of King Arthur lore ever filmed (and plenty of books too)... and I had to go to the Wiki page on The Green Knight immediately after watching it to make sense of the story.

It IS pretentious and ambiguous. That doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile and fascinating. But it's annoyingly, purposefully obscure on a lot of its characters and plot points. And why leave the ending so disturbingly ambiguous when it isn't in the original tale?

I could also make the argument that Gawain and mother, played by Indian-born actors, just seem wrong to be in Arthur's Britain, but fine: it's fantasy, not history. Still, it kept pulling me out of the immersive experience.

I had high hopes, because I LOVED the director's previous film, A Ghost Story. Alas, I found The Green Knight to be beautiful and interesting, but a mess. An even weirder take on the Matter of Britain than Boorman's Excalibur, which is saying something.

 

[Monitor]

Um, I was once an English major who could read Middle English, and I have devoured every bit of King Arthur lore ever filmed (and plenty of books too)... and I had to go to the Wiki page on The Green Knight immediately after watching it to make sense of the story.

It IS pretentious and ambiguous. That doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile and fascinating. But it's annoyingly, purposefully obscure on a lot of its characters and plot points. And why leave the ending so disturbingly ambiguous when it isn't in the original tale?

I could also make the argument that Gawain and mother, played by Indian-born actors, just seem wrong to be in Arthur's Britain, but fine: it's fantasy, not history. Still, it kept pulling me out of the immersive experience.

I had high hopes, because I LOVED the director's previous film, A Ghost Story. Alas, I found The Green Knight to be beautiful and interesting, but a mess. An even weirder take on the Matter of Britain than Boorman's Excalibur, which is saying something.

In discussing this movie with a number of people, many of whom share opinions very similar to what you had just wrote, I have realized that perhaps it all comes down to different paths in life because I, as someone who is even worse than the movie version of Gawain, found the plot of The Green Knight so intimately clear that I still cannot get it out of my mind for more than a few minutes. . .

I'm curious, what is it that you found ambiguous or obscure about the plot? To me, every one single part of it was crystal clear to me, including the ending which leaves, I am pretty sure, absolutely nothing open to interpretation.

Gawain dies.

The rules of the game were stated plainly by The Green Knight himself, at the beginning of the film; Be it a scratch on the cheek or a cut on the throat, I will return what was given to me, and then in trust and friendship we shall part.

Gawain chose to cut The Green knights head off thus, as stated in the rules of the game, this would have been - And indeed has been - Gawain's fate, the moment he accepted the challenge. Should he, of course, continue to play the game. Which he did.

And it was just a game. Even the King said so.

Because Gawain did not had to go to the Green Chapel & face the Knight. He didn't need to have his head cut off. The Green Knight wouldn't have come for him. Nothing would have happened. That's not the point.

The point of the movie is that nothing in Gawain's life prior to the game, the challenge, mattered. Likewise for the vision of what was to become of his life, had he ran away. All if it, it was, is and will be meaningless; Except for the game.

 

[Edward]

Saw this one about a year ago. It was as you so ably describe... exhilarating, suspenseful and ultimately sad all at the same time. I believe England was still in it's "hang em' high" stage of Capital Punishment at that time so Preston would soon be meeting his wife in the afterlife. Good flick in glorious Black and White.

Worf

Yes, as memory serves, reform only began as late as 1957, when the death penalty was limited to certain categories of murder. It was suspended for a period of five years in 1965, which was then made permanent in Great Britain in 1969, and Northern Ireland as late as 1973. One of the foremost opponents of the 1965 Act was an uncle of one of the victims of the Moors Murderers; standing as a candidate in the 1966 general election, he won 13.7% of the vote in the relevant constituency running on a single-issue platform of being explicitly pro-hanging, a then record high for an independent candidate of 5,000 votes. For certain very specific military offences, the death penalty was available in the UK as late as 1998. Definitely not normalised by now in the way it would have been in 1951, though.

Um, I was once an English major who could read Middle English, and I have devoured every bit of King Arthur lore ever filmed (and plenty of books too)... and I had to go to the Wiki page on The Green Knight immediately after watching it to make sense of the story.

It IS pretentious and ambiguous. That doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile and fascinating. But it's annoyingly, purposefully obscure on a lot of its characters and plot points. And why leave the ending so disturbingly ambiguous when it isn't in the original tale?

I could also make the argument that Gawain and mother, played by Indian-born actors, just seem wrong to be in Arthur's Britain, but fine: it's fantasy, not history. Still, it kept pulling me out of the immersive experience.

I had high hopes, because I LOVED the director's previous film, A Ghost Story. Alas, I found The Green Knight to be beautiful and interesting, but a mess. An even weirder take on the Matter of Britain than Boorman's Excalibur, which is saying something.

Arthur would originally, in reality, have been in the immediate post-Roman period, so the aesthetic is always off. There were, though, people of varying ethnicities in England at that time as a result of the Roman Empire I believe. IT was definitely a more obscure take on the tale in some regards, though - I liked how they ended it, which kept to the original theme of integrity (albeit that this version of Gawain was far from the shining light of virtue who turned out to have feet of clay per the original tale, as distinct from this one who was a bit of a hopeless case who discovered his integrity) but I wish they'd stuck closer to the original in terms of how he gets the belt and a range of other bits. They simplified the story there in a way which I felt somewhat reduced the stakes and just felt a bit rushed. Imperfect, overall, though I still liked it. Certainly true that the definitive version of this - and, for that matter, any other - Arthurian tale is yet to be made. Still, nice to see a work taking in the earlier, Gawain period rather than the domination of the Lancelot tales.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I don't want to clog up this thread with comments on The Green Knight, but here are a couple of the things that bothered me:

Gawain's mother (who is never identified as Morgan Le Fay, only referred to as the king's sister [why?]) is the one who casts the spell/runes that apparently bring forth the Green Knight. Why? Especially since it's her own son who will answer the Knight's challenge (and seeing the future is one of her skills in some tellings).

The ending. In the story, the Knight nicks Gawain's neck but spares him since he displayed honor in honoring an agreement that would be his death. Sure, this version of Gawain is pretty undeserving, but leaving the ending ambiguous (you seem sure that he dies, but we don't see the axe fall) was not satisfying.

Edward is of course correct that there's no definitive interpretation of the Arthur/Camelot stores, which overlap and contradict each other: there never will be. I'm not saying this version of the story is WRONG, just that it didn't work for me. I didn't identify with any of the characters, nor do I think this take on the tale illuminates much of anything for us to take away.

But apparently it really touched you, so I guess I have admit again that I'm a pretty harsh critic.

 

[Fading Fast]

Tokyo Twilight from 1957, a Japanese movie with English subtitles


TCM has run a series of these post-war Japanese movies. Their style is, overall, slower, with little action and more talking and showing of daily life than American movies, even from the same time period. Yet, if you can "get into" them, most are well-done efforts exploring basic human struggles that transcend any particular culture, while also being an incredible look at post-war Japanese society.

Of these movies, Tokyo Twilight is writer and director Yasujiro Ozu's most kitchen-sink-like effort. While Ozu specializes in "small" movies about quiet family conflict, he usually keeps the melodrama under control, but in this one, he goes all in with the soap suds.

A middle-aged, middle-class single father has his hands full with two daughters. One is married in her twenties but has moved back home with her infant daughter as she's not getting along with her husband. The other is a troubled late-teen, a Japanese version of a rebel without a cause.

Setsuko Hara, the older, married daughter, tries to anchor the family as a surrogate mother. We only learn about half way through, that the mother/wife had an affair and left her husband and daughters when the girls were still infants.

Aneko Arima, the female Japanese James Dean here, quit college, stays out late, runs around with a "bad" crowd and, generally, disobeys her father. Yet, this is teenage rebelling with Japanese characteristics as there is all but no yelling and very little back talking.

The daughter simply refuses to answer her father's and sister's questions as she sits in a deferential position. Despite having seen several of these movies, it wasn't until Tokyo Twilight that I noticed the parallels between Japanese culture and American Wasp culture.

Both value a surface calm and respect that dislikes outward shows of emotion or conflict. Hence, small gestures, like not answering a direct question or the shrugging of one's shoulders, take on large meaning. Despite many differences, the parallels between the two cultures is fascinating to see.

Being part of this reserved culture, when rebel daughter Aniko discovers she's pregnant, telling her father or sister is out of the question, at least initially. Worse, her "bad boy" boyfriend is avoiding her even before she tells him the news. When she does tell him, he remains distance and suggests an abortion, yup, an abortion.

Amping up the melodrama, it is about now that the mother the girls haven't seen since they were infants pops back up in Tokyo bringing with her all the angst and recriminations a mother who "abandoned" her children brings.

There is a lot more soap opera from here, with a couple of very surprising and modern twists, but both are better left to be experienced fresh on screen.

Also enjoyable in Tokyo Twilight are the fun little insights into Japanese culture such as when a store owner, whose customer is hit by a street car after she leaves his shop, takes her to the hospital and stays with her as he notes it is his obligation because she was his customer. That is a cultural difference.

These Japanese movies, stylistically, differ greatly from modern movies. Ozu and other Japanese directors of that time let scenes play out, almost seemingly "wasting" time on unimportant events like following someone down a corridor after they leave a room.

Today's style is all "cut" to the next interesting moment as fast as possible, probably because the director is afraid he'll lose his video-trained audience if there is one "boring" second.

The result is many movies today feel more like rapid images of life than life itself. In these "slower," older movies, the pace better mimics how we experience normal living. Done well (too much and it is boring), you are more engaged with the story as it reflects how life happens versus the "flashing by" scenes of today's movies.

If you are new to these Japanese movies, Tokyo Twilight might not be the best first one, but director Ozu's movies aren't a series, so you can jump in anywhere. If you do choose Tokyo Twilight, you'll get more soap opera than in many of his other movies, but still with engaging characters and honest human drama.

 

[Acchimp]

„Kingsman - The Golden - Circle“

Just saw the new installment in the Kingsmen franchise, The King’s Man. A typically great performance from Ralph Fiennes, in an interesting bit of historical fiction like Robert Downey’s Sherlock Holmes.
Though oddly framed in some sexual situations, the film is a fun adventure in the past with a bit of historical melodrama for good measure. Ralph elevates the film to one of the best of the franchise and made the film a joy to watch.

 

[Touchofevil]

Right now, Casablanca on TCM. Although I have had it on in the background many a time over the past few year, it has been some time since I have actually watched it. Claude Rains steals the show. I thoroughly enjoyed it as if I was viewing it for the first time. A nice start to the day.

 

[Edward]

I don't want to clog up this thread with comments on The Green Knight, but here are a couple of the things that bothered me:

Gawain's mother (who is never identified as Morgan Le Fay, only referred to as the king's sister [why?]) is the one who casts the spell/runes that apparently bring forth the Green Knight. Why? Especially since it's her own son who will answer the Knight's challenge (and seeing the future is one of her skills in some tellings).

The ending. In the story, the Knight nicks Gawain's neck but spares him since he displayed honor in honoring an agreement that would be his death. Sure, this version of Gawain is pretty undeserving, but leaving the ending ambiguous (you seem sure that he dies, but we don't see the axe fall) was not satisfying.

Edward is of course correct that there's no definitive interpretation of the Arthur/Camelot stores, which overlap and contradict each other: there never will be. I'm not saying this version of the story is WRONG, just that it didn't work for me. I didn't identify with any of the characters, nor do I think this take on the tale illuminates much of anything for us to take away.

But apparently it really touched you, so I guess I have admit again that I'm a pretty harsh critic.

I really liked that the ending was left sort of obscure. I agree that we don't know for certain he dies - it could well be that the green knight would simply 'mark' him. In this version, of course, it becomes a mark of dignity rather than one of shame - am I misremembering the original (it's been years...) in this regard, or wasn't Gawain himself embarrassed, feeling he'd let himself down by wearing the 'cheat' belt?

I can see why they didn't bring in the issue of Morgana as Morgana. It's a neat touch for those of us who "know", but to explain that end of it to a fresh audience is probably a whole extra complication that would only distract from the narrative. That said, it does leave her summoning the knight somewhat odd. In a small number of respects, much as I enjoyed it overall, I can't help but wondering whether there were a few scenes nixed from the final cut that would have made more sense of that.

 

[Harp]

View attachment 408160
Anatomy of a Murder from 1959 with James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Eve Arden, George C. Scott and Arthur O'Connell


While Anatomy of a Murder isn't a perfect movie, it's pretty darn close. A "country" lawyer, Jimmy Stewart, defends an Army lieutenant accused of killing the man whom he and his wife, Lee Remick, claim raped her.

Stewart is disadvantaged and outgunned at every step: his client, Ben Gazzara, can't pay him and is an arrogant manipulator; the client's wife, Remick, not helping her husband's case at all, is overtly sexual and flirty, even with Stewart; the prosecutorial team has brought in the big-gun prosecutor, George C. Scott, from Lansing (Michigan's Capital); whereas, Stewart's elderly law "partner," Arthur O'Connell, seems more interested in booze than legal precedents.

A good script about an engaging courtroom drama centers the story, but the real joy in this one is the characters. Stewart is the laid-back lawyer who'd rather fish than submit petitions. Likable Stewart is the attorney you wish truly existed - a good guy not looking to run up the holy grail of the legal profession today, billable hours, but who really cares about his client.

Stewart's hasn't-been-paid-since-God-knows-when office assistant (Stewart would pay her if he had money) Eve Arden is loyal because she believes in Stewart. She knows what he needs from her before he does, plus she's sarcastic as heck.

With all three - Stewart, Arden and regularly soused O'Connell - working out of Stewart's run-down house, it's a David versus Goliath story, especially when we meet the slick and cocky prosecutor George C. Scott.

Scott sees the courtroom as a chessboard where he's used to being several moves ahead of his competitor. Yet, almost every time he seems to have the "hayseed" Stewart checked, Stewart reminds us that the lawyer in the more-expensive suit isn't necessarily the smartest guy in the courtroom.

Stewart's biggest challenge, however, is his client, Gazzara, a thoroughly dislikable man who probably beats his wife and seems quite capable of shooting a man in cold blood with intent while not being the least bit insane if he believes the man raped his wife.

So when he and Stewart settle on an "irresistible impulse" defense (an offshoot of insanity), you want Stewart to win so that he can resurrect his career, not because you care about Gazzara. You almost want Stewart to win but Gazzara to still be found guilty. Unfortunately, that would exceed the structural limitations of verdicts.

The final piece of this puzzle is Gazarra's ridiculous cute and sexy wife, Lee Remick, who never lets us fully in on her game. Is she the mentally and physically abused wife who puts on a good front but lives in abject fear of her husband?

Or do she and Gazzara have some sick codependent relationship where she intentionally flirts with other men to goad her husband, with the resulting violence being part of their sexual connection? You'll probably ping back and forth a few times on that one.

Director Otto Preminger is in full command of his material here, smartly leaving almost everything grey about the case as it often is in real life, but still giving you a hero to root for in Stewart. Anatomy for a Murder is a long movie that flies by as every scene engages and every character comes alive.


N.B. The Motion Picture Production Code didn't die on one particular day; it slowly lost its grip. Prior to Anatomy for a Murder, rape, panties and semen where all words that had been used in movies before (mostly quiety and accompanied by giggles or tsk-tsking), but never before had all three figured so prominently and seriously in a movie as they do here.

Back in the day before cell phones, vcr, CD when televised films were shown over free dog run channels
WLS Chicago periodically ran Anatomy Of A Murder; unfortunately I never caught this flick first inning
but managed to snatch occasional snippets such as the sidebar betwixt Judge, Scott, and Stewart
wherein 'panties' were decided verbal admit, and a few other bits n' bobs, even so, drawing a bead
on the Lee Remick character proved near impossible. Juliet or Jezabel, or Bathsheba; or Kate from
Shakespeare's Shrew? She seemed to be sighted on Stewart, and at the end a bag of her lingerie
was left his car I recall. Dunno. And backstretch rumor had it that the film court judge was actual
learned in real life. Lotza pizzazz to go round the rosy here, trouwaz I was too lazy to hunt it all
down inside the library. Way back whenz I would enter the university library at dawn darkness
and emerge at evening twilight. No internet so we had to walk ten miles to get to school...

 

[Fading Fast]

Back in the day before cell phones, vcr, CD when televised films were shown over free dog run channels
WLS Chicago periodically ran Anatomy Of A Murder; unfortunately I never caught this flick first inning
but managed to snatch occasional snippets such as the sidebar betwixt Judge, Scott, and Stewart
wherein 'panties' were decided verbal admit, and a few other bits n' bobs, even so, drawing a bead
on the Lee Remick character proved near impossible. Juliet or Jezabel, or Bathsheba; or Kate from
Shakespeare's Shrew? She seemed to be sighted on Stewart, and at the end a bag of her lingerie
was left his car I recall. Dunno. And backstretch rumor had it that the film court judge was actual
learned in real life. Lotza pizzazz to go round the rosy here, trouwaz I was too lazy to hunt it all
down inside the library. Way back whenz I would enter the university library at dawn darkness
and emerge at evening twilight. No internet so we had to walk ten miles to get to school...

Welcome back - so glad to see you posting again. Hope all is well.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Das Boot - 1985 uncut TV series (282 min nonstop), english synchro.

 

[Harp]

Welcome back - so glad to see you posting again. Hope all is well.

Thanks, all good. Banished thirty days confinement post stockade, ban lifted today so I am back.
My bad. Cannot say wasn't warned and had ample rope thrown courtesy staff, so I have no one
other than myself to blame. Although appreciative of slack cut I went across the line gushing about
Erin Burnett, a fair colleen red haired Irish rose whose beauty strikes lightning, liberal limerick herself
most definitely is. A lovely rose shamrock all the more wonderous amidst tragedy.

 

[Harp]

Das Boot - 1985 uncut TV series (282 min nonstop), english synchro.

A month or two ago my brother-in-law and I watched Grayhound, a WWII convoy study of American destroyer
escort Atlantic against German submarines intent on search and destroy patrol-torpedo mayhem.
Fantastic cat-and-mouser; right up your alley Trench.

 

[Doctor Strange]

A couple of recent films:

After Yang - a "soft" science fiction film set in a near future after humanoid robots have been perfected. When Colin Farrell's young-adult robot Yang, who has functioned as "older brother" to his very young adopted-from-China daughter for years, malfunctions, she's inconsolable, and losing Yang throws off the entire family dynamic. In his quest to repair Yang, Farrell discovers that there's more to family and humanity than he understood. I liked this one a lot, it handles its story with skill and great sensitivity.

The French Dispatch - Wes Anderson's latest. You know, I liked Anderson's early films, but as his peculiar little stylistic flourishes came to overwhelm the storytelling, he lost me. I only half-liked Moonrise Kingdom, actively disliked The Grand Budapest Hotel, hated Isle of Dogs... and this one just flummoxed me. Anderson is now so deep into his own bizarre viewpoint that emotional truth eludes him as much as anything resembling realism.

Yeah, all the symmetrical square compositions are beautiful. I feel churlish complaining about a film that is so well production-designed and photographed on film - much of it in the old square aspect ratio and gorgeous black and white (coincidentally shot on Kodak Double-X, a venerable emulsion that I've recently been shooting in my own 35mm still cameras). And yeah, the cast is stacked with great actors, all superbly costumed and styled. In theory, a film that's a love letter to the old New Yorker magazine (which I grew up reading, my folks had a subscription for decades) and old-school reporting in general should be right up my alley...

But I hated it. I hated every character in it. I hated every overwrought sequence. I hated every oh-so-clever bogus bit of French bushwa. (The ficticious city it takes place in is called "Ennui sur Blase" - "Boredom on Jaded") Ugh.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Scarlet Pimpernel from 1934 with Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massey and Nigel Bruce


Early 1930s period movies have their challenges, including wildly inaccurate portrayals of the period's history, culture, social norms, clothing, etc., which can make them a silly slog. The Scarlet Pimpernel, despite having those challenges, overall, rises above them with a good story, smart dialogue and outstanding acting.

It's not going to be for everyone, but the tale of an English nobleman who leads a group of like-minded peers on raids into France to rescue French aristocrats sentenced to be guillotined during Robespierre's Reign of Terror, has a Robinhood style joie de vivre to it.

Leslie Howard, (switching metaphors) in an early Batman echo, is a foppish swell by day in England, but the roguish and heroic Scarlet Pimpernel by night when he leads his raids. His obligatory maiden, in a quirky twist, is his estranged French wife, Merle Oberon, who is worried about her family and friends back in her home country.

She can't understand her husband Howard's dandy pursuits and indifference to her concerns, while he has to hide his heroism from her to maintain his secret identity (it makes about as much sense as the Batman-Bruce Wayne thing, but you just go with it). These two clearly want to still be in love with each other, but can't find their way there.

The conflict in the movie, shifting back to the Robinhood metaphor, is Raymond Massey as the Sheriff of Nottingham of the story, but here he's a French diplomat and spy sent to England to find and capture or kill the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Amping it all up, Massey blackmails Oberon over her brother who is being held in a French prison and is slated for the guillotine. In return for sparing her brother, he wants Oberon to help him find the Scarlet Pimpernel, which she does, not knowing she's leading Massey right to her husband. As in all good swashbucklers, it climaxes with a dramatic face-off where the evil protagonist, Massey, has captured the hero and his damsel.

What keeps this one going is Howard clearly having fun as both the foppish neerdowell nobleman by day and the devil-may-care Pimpernel at night. He shifts from one character to the other, sometimes intra-scene, with impressive adroitness. Howard is matched nicely by under-rated Raymond Massey who brings much needed gravitas to a movie that could easily have spun into farce.

Also helping is some witty dialogue, reasonably engaging action scenes and several enjoyable character actors including Nigel Bruce as the bumbling Prince of Wales. The Scarlet Pimpernel is a bit clunky, but for 1934, it is a respectable early swashbuckler in a decade that saw some of the greatest swashbucklers Hollywood ever made.

 

[Bushman]

Last night I watched "Chaplin," directed by Richard Attenborough, and starring Robert Downy Jr as the title character. There's some sort of humorous irony to casting Geraldine Chaplin (the daughter of Charlie Chaplin) to play Chaplin's mother.

Then I watched "Hitchcock" starring Anthony Hopkins in the title role.

I very much enjoyed both.