What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Doctor Strange]

Great review of Zenda, FF. It's a fun film.

The only thing I'd add is mention of the 1952 remake with Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, and James Mason. It's literally a shot-for-shot remake using the same script with only tiny changes, but this time in color, plus added MGM gloss. However, despite a game cast it is less inspired and less fun than the 1937 version. But it's definitely worth a look for comparison. (So is the silent version from 1922.)

And of course the switch-the-lookalike-with-the-king plot has been used numerous times, notably being parodied in a long segment of 1965's The Great Race.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Saint in New York (1938) with Louis Hayward, Kay Sutton, and Paul Guilfoyle


The Saint in New York is the first entry in the long-running RKO B-movie series (nine movies in all, with an asterisk) based on the Leslie Charteris books – a series that would see the Saint played by three different actors: Louis Hayward, George Sanders, and Hugh Sinclair.

In this debut, RKO went with handsome Hayward, who brings a spirited vibe that exceeds the book's but is enjoyable on screen. For a more polished representation of the literary version, look for one of the Sanders films as he somehow is more Saint than even Charteris' Saint.

Kidding aside, Hayward is fun in the role, but he shares the fun ingredient with Paul Guilfoyle, who doesn't steal a scene but adds so much quiet verve to it that you wish he had a bigger role. Rarely has a henchman with a small role added so much to a movie.

Hayward as the Saint is brought to New York City at the behest of the bigwigs to use his "special" skills to stop a mob-run crime wave that the police are powerless to end because the mob has a lawyer who always gets the big bosses out.

This next step is handled so matter-of-factly that it almost slips by: an emissary of the police commissioner gives Hayward a list of mob bosses to "take care of." Hayward gets approval to handle it "his way," and next Hayward is killing mob bosses with abandon.

Two things stand out with the first being how in God's name did this state-sanctioned vigilante justice get past the Motion Picture Production Code? Married people had to have twin beds, but a rogue outsider could be hired by the authorities to kill people they deem criminals?

The second standout point is how much harsher this is than the screen vigilantism of the 1970s – the zenith of the vigilante-justice movie with New York City often serving as the locus of urban crime – as in those movies the police usually made at least a token effort to stop vigilantism.

With his get-out-of-jail-free card in hand, Hayward spends the bulk of Act II killing mobsters while nearly getting killed himself several times. It's the heart of the action part of the picture, which, for a B movie with a short runtime, is well done.

There are several scenes of Hayward matching wits and nerves with mob bosses and their henchmen, which brings our boy Guilfoyle into the movie as an observant, not bullying henchman. He all but gives a running commentary on Hayward's nerve, style, and skill.

Hayward, even when captured, is cocky and confident, which so impresses Guilfoyle, he notes it out loud to the displeasure of the other mobsters and henchmen. When Hayward spouts a few lines of poetry despite facing death, Guilfoyle is awestruck in his simple manner.

It's movie gold with the only mistake being that neither RKO or director Ben Holmes saw and expanded on it. Somebody finally realized this guy had something, as Guilfoyle was brought back playing another character in two subsequent Saint movies.

Kay Sutton, who is very 1930s/40s movie-star pretty, plays a love interest for Hayward, but the storyline is not well developed. To a modern viewer (and probably most in 1938, too), these are just two good-looking and smart people who want to get naked together in the same bed.

Being B movies, these Saint serial flicks were kind of tossed off, but still, with good source material, a professional cast, and a real studio behind them, they hold up pretty well as entertainment today for those who enjoy movies from this era.

Sure, it's almost a parlor game for old movie fans to debate who was "the best" Saint (pity poor Hugh Sinclair, as he gets almost no votes), but the real fun is just seeing Charteris' antihero portrayed on screen with a cast of interesting actors.

After playing the title role in The Saint in New York, Hayward would only return to the role one more time, fifteen years later, in the last film in the series (it's not really RKO's at this point). Like the series itself, Hayward looks more mature and a bit tired by then.

To see him and the series at its original freshness, The Saint in New York is a good one to begin your Saint journey.

 

[Fading Fast]

Bombshell from 1933 with Jean Harlow, Lee Tracy, Frank Morgan, Louise Beavers and Franchot Tone


Screwball comedies, a staple of the 1930s, are an acquired taste to modern viewers. The jokes, situations, emotions and antics are so exaggerated that the entire movie can look silly to us today, yet it was a movie language audiences understood during the Depression.

Bombshell is a full-on screwball comedy that mocks Hollywood stardom and the studio system that enables it with Jean Harlow playing the "It Girl" of the moment, in a role that had a bit of an uncomfortable parallel to her own life.

Here, Harlow plays a huge star with adoring fans, blood-s*cking relatives and a studio press agent whose entire job seems to be to present her to the public as a glamorous star with an exciting and risque romantic life.

In truth, Harlow's life is controlled chaos that is only controlled because of her ample money and the studio's resources. Her father, played by Frank Morgan, is her "business manager," but he's really just a drunkard who spends her money. Not a bad guy, but a leach.

Worse is Harlow's gambling brother and her crooked secretary who steals her money and possessions. Everything is exaggerated with Harlow's three big dogs bouncing around the house, an exasperated maid, played by Louise Beavers, and paparazzi everywhere.

From a crazy butler who spills on Harlow, to the aforementioned dogs knocking everything over, to police arrests, to an attempted baby adoption that falls apart when Harlow's true household spills out during her "interview," it's full-force 1930s screwball comedy.

The studio's press agent, played by Lee Tracey, attempts to control Harlow's image to the public, while keeping Harlow reasonably content so that she'll complete her next picture. But Harlow's at a breaking point.

After a failed relationship with a conniving "Prince," another person after her money, Harlow wants to quit. Nobody but Harlow wants this as she supports all her relatives and her large staff, plus her pictures make money for the studio.

Since a movie needs a story arc, Harlow does "quit" for a bit when she runs away to a spa. There she meets a "respectable" man from Boston, played by Franchot Tone, who doesn't even recognize her as a movie star. Finally, she thinks, "I can be loved for myself."

Tracy and Harlow's family then show up at the spa leading to all sorts of screwball antics. Harlow attempts to act prim and proper when meeting Tone's family, but that is impossible with the circus that is her family and entourage in tow.

There's a neat little twist to this part of the story that is best to see fresh, but it only emphasizes the duplicity of the studio. This is not a "the studio is really a good and caring company" story. Hollywood gets raked over the coals in this one.

There's also a fun "inside Hollywood" moment where Harlow, as star Lola Burns, visits the set of the movie her character is shooting, which is Red Dust. Harlow, in real life, played the female lead in Red Dust, so it's a small "inside Tinseltown" joke.

The plot, though, is not the point of the movie. You watch it to see the crazy life of a top movie star. To see hairdressers, makeup artists, press agents, maids, secretaries, directors and others coddle her while also using her. There's an element of codependency to all this.

If you want to take it seriously, Harlow is no victim. She's paid a lot of money to do a job and she's hardly the first wealthy person who has to put greedy relatives, "friends," staff and business associates in their place.

The humor here is that she fails to do so in part because she's a good-hearted person and in part because she's lazy as it's a lot of work to take control of a sprawling empire. So instead, she's "put upon" by everyone as she tries to go about her day.

Tracy's the counterpoint to Harlow's exasperation. He's the studio guy who "manages" her image, while helping to solve her personal problems. Talking faster than an auctioneer, Tracy spins lies to everyone as he tries to keep Harlow appeased and her image intact.

There's a subtext about Harlow and Tracy being in love, but no sentient human being believes a character like Tracy's is really capable of a mature adult relationship and, in truth, Harlow's character probably isn't either.

Harlow is outstanding in this role as, ironically, she had some leachy relatives herself, so the character wasn't a stretch. Plus, Harlow's acting sweet spot is a part where she tries to act refined, but her yelling, shrieking voice comes out when it all gets to be too much.

Tracy, too, is on brand here as he was born to play a fast-talking con man: a reporter lying his way into a crime scene, a carnival barker, a genuine con man or a press agent are all roles he excelled at. He irritates you, but you kinda like the guy too.

Bombshell is an early example of Hollywood vilifying itself. The industry is so greedy, it is often willing to air its own dirty laundry for a buck. See the multiple versions of A Star is Born (1937, 1954, 1976, and 2018), plus The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) or The Player (1992) for other examples.

Today Bombshell requires one to have an appreciation of the language of screwball comedies. Audiences weren't stupid or silly back then, they just understood all the exaggeration was a style of storytelling that today has little currency with audiences.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Big Lift (1950) with Montgomery Clift, Paul Douglas, and Cornell Borchers


Maybe it needs documentary treatment and today's excite-me-every-second audience probably wouldn't stand for it, but a movie about the Berlin Airlift has never really been made. Yet as a stand-in, The Big Lift has something to say for itself.

It's more of a mashup of the airlift politics and mechanics at a high level with a melodrama about two German women and two American military personnel involved romantically in Berlin. The result is an entertaining movie that just misses being great.

Montgomery Clift and Paul Douglas play the American Air Force "guys" who are dating German women, which – filmed mainly in Berlin – gives the viewer a realistic look at the bombed-out cities, where just carting away piles of bricks provides daily employment for many Germans.

Douglas is a Germany's WWII-era leadership-hating, thus German-hating, sergeant in part because he was abused in a POW camp. Fair or not, endure torture, and then see how forgiving you'd be later. Clift, conversely and on brand, is the sensitive guy who wants to put the past behind and get along.

While the core story is Clift's relationship with a pretty German woman, played by Cornell Borchers, the framing of the movie is the lift itself – one of the most impressive airlifts and American and British military feats of all time.

The very quick-and-dirty history is that Berlin was divided after WWII into four zones – US, USSR, UK, and France – but in 1948, Russians "blockaded" all ground transport into the city, which (incredibly oversimplifying) necessitated the Allies airlifting in everything the city needed.

The quantities of food and other supplies required and the logistics of flying hundreds of planes daily, to airports that were frequently fogged in, were overwhelming. Yet the Allies were eventually so successful that the Russians, now losing the propaganda war, lifted the blockade.

All that plays on not quite in the background, but it assumes not unreasonably that a 1950 audience would be familiar with the details, so little of it is explained. The incredible stock footage and additional scenes for the movie give you a sense of the herculean task.

Back on the ground, Douglas bullies his way past Germans and also bullies his nice German girlfriend, while Clift treats Borchers with respect. Writer and director George Seaton eventually and harshly tests each man's presumptions.

You'll want to see fresh how all that works out – and there's a good but textbook message in there – yet the real value in the film is in all the framing. Not just the planes landing and taking off in fog guided by early radar – which are incredible scenes – but in the city itself.

It's an American Cold War propaganda film where the West (led by America) is good and the Russian commies are bad, but the discussion of details like spying – the Russians prefer spy reports to honest published figures – is fantastic. It's the Cold War writ large and small.

In a generation or two at most, the Cold War will be a history-book affair only. Then and for those who didn't live through it, movies like these are an important capture of the genuine fear and antipathy on both sides that drove the war back when nobody knew how it would turn out.

Seaton struck a good balance between documentary style and melodrama as the movie ticks back and forth between the airlift itself and Clift's and Douglas' affairs. There's value in just seeing how the city survived with sparsely stocked stores and a robust black market.

Watching the ragamuffin kids – all the extras and most of the actors were locals or American military personnel – sc*mpering for a discarded cigarette to trade or begging for a piece of candy reminds you that not all the Germans who were paying the price also started the war.

Credit to Seaton though as he didn't shy away from reminding us that some did start it, some were true believers in the Germany's WWII-era leadership "cause," and some simply looked the other way when things were going well – "don't ask any questions." Those Nuremberg rallies weren't empty.

The Big Lift is very good – better than its reputation – but it falls short of greatness. Maybe it should have chosen one focus; maybe it should have been less propaganda-like; or maybe it's really hard to make a truly great movie about an airlift.

Despite falling short of greatness, as a movie and, more importantly, as a piece of history, its value will only grow over time.

 

[Fading Fast]

Murder! (1930) with Herbert Marshall and Norah Baring


Some movies from 1930 (the first year when talkies dominated Hollywood releases) are still entertaining today, but most require a willingness to engage the film in the context of its new technology. Murder! has those challenges, but it is also one of the first talking pictures from famed director Alfred Hitchcock.

To get the truth out of the way, Murder! is not a great picture. Even in the context of 1930, the production is clunky and the story is overly constructed or, said more simply, it's too cute. Still, it's fascinating to see what Hitch was doing as talking pictures were coming into being.

The movie explores themes – an innocent person arrested and a passionate investigation for the truth – which Hitchcock would return to time and again. Here, the innocent man is a woman found in a room with blood on her – and the murder weapon and victim's body beside her.

Norah Baring plays the woman, a stage actress who claims she has no memory of the murder, so she puts up no defense. Still, Herbert Marshall, playing a juror, believes she's innocent, but is badgered into voting to convict in part because he has no proof, just feelings.

That setup sees Marshall – playing Sir John, a respected actor and producer – spend the movie investigating the murder anew despite the verdict in the case having already been rendered. His investigation takes him behind the scenes and into the private lives of Baring's acting troupe.

The story gets complicated with Marshall, an actor and producer, investigating an actress and acting troupe he knew even before the trial to advance his investigation. Separately, one wonders if British justice would have allowed that conflict of interest in a juror back then?

It's no spoiler to note that Marshall eventually unearths new evidence that exposes the real killer, which involves issues of identity and race (in the source novel, it involves ***ual orientation). Its climax is Hitchcockian and not that believable – but most of his weren't.

The true killer makes a full confession – also a Hitchcockian theme. He liked his criminals to make a loud and public cathartic confession – as an example, in To Catch a Thief, many years later, the true cat burglar confesses loudly as she dangles from a rooftop.

Here, the death is loud and public, but the confession is in the form of notes written to perfectly exonerate Baring, giving the picture an overly constructed or "cute" feeling as real life rarely wraps itself up so neatly. The epilogue (no spoilers coming) is even more "cute."

In need of a restoration (it's surprising that an early Hitchcock film hasn't been restored), the picture is hazy. Being an early talkie, it is also stagey with awkward transitions and bumpy sound throughout. It is like seeing the transition from silent to sound in real time.

Still, you can see Hitch playing around with sound as he makes ample use of voice-over narration to allow us to hear Marshall's thoughts. In other scenes, "offstage" band music and theater sounds are used as background to emphasize actions.

Marshall is the standout actor here – he's relatively young, handsome, and in command of his craft. His lowkey style is perfect for movies, making him seem natural compared to the over-gesturing and too loud stage actors who haven't yet fully transitioned to sound.

Murder! today is for the old movie buffs, Hitchcock completists, or true cinema historians. For everyone else, the movie is too clunky to enjoy as pure entertainment — but as a snapshot of cinema itself stumbling from silence into sound, while a future master director hones his craft, it has a value that goes beyond the film’s flaws.

 

[Fading Fast]

Crime of Passion (1956) with Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, and Raymond Burr


This is why movie stars get paid a lot of money. The plot of Crime of Passion is a mess and the lead character makes several hard-to-believe choices, but Barbara Stanwyck is just that good – with Sterling Hayden and Raymond Burr assisting – that you enjoy the movie anyway.

This late-cycle noir is as much a crime drama as a noir, reflecting a trend in the 1950s when shadowy noir evolved into brighter fare (which played better on TV – a second revenue stream). They often became semi-documentary stories about people doing bad things.

Barbara Stanwyck, here, does several bad things, but all of it rests on her own questionable decision-making. She starts out as a reporter doing "women stories" on a San Francisco paper, but cracks a murder case by using her "advice" column to help the police find the killer.

The police on the case are two detectives, one of them played by Sterling Hayden, who come from Los Angeles to make the arrest and, in Hayden's case, to fire up Stanwyck's libido.

Crazy decision number one comes when Stanwyck is offered an impressive job on a New York paper at the same time that Hayden proposes marriage. Hayden's a nice, big lug of a guy, but anyone can see that Stanwyck will quickly grow bored of his simple cop life.

Thinking not with her head, Stanwyck chooses marriage and boredom. Some of the best scenes are watching her about to explode from the insipid conversation the other cop wives have at their weekly socials.

With nothing challenging to do, she takes on Hayden's career as a mission, but the guy is happy just being a detective and eventually collecting his pension. So Stanwyck decides on her own to promote her smart, but not ambitious, husband, leading her to several crazy decisions.

You'll want to see it fresh from here, but know that pint-sized Stanwyck is not above acting irrational: causing a car crash, lying to everyone – her hubby included – and engaging in some noir-perennial femme fatale bad behavior that eventually leads to a short but intense Act III.

Through it all, two things keep it going: Stanwyck and her male co-stars. Stanwyck is just that good that you believe the unbelievable from her. You start to convince yourself that maybe a boring marriage could drive a sane woman to do insane things – calling Betty Friedan.

You are also emotionally invested in Hayden, a man who reads integrity with every fiber of his being. Here, he's not his usual intense self, but a good cop and husband who waited a long time to marry and finally chooses the absolutely wrong wife.

He's one of those rare actors who can portray thinking on screen, so we watch the calamity that is his marriage slowly and painfully dawn on him. We can't help aching for this good man. Nobody is aching for Raymond Burr, though, who plays a guy drawn into Stanwyck's web.

Burr, in the role of the senior police inspector, would probably have gone through life being just a normal guy had she not seduced him. But credit to him, he more than holds his own against her fiery temper and delivers the best line in the script:

"The game's over. In my book, you wind up with enough chips. Now pick 'em up and go home."

But Stanwyck doesn't think they are enough chips and she expresses her displeasure in a manner consistent with how many aggrieved femme fatales have before.

It's disappointing that so many noirs became visually less dark crime dramas to make them easier to see on TV. Crime of Passion would have played better with a traditional noir atmosphere. The Burr-Stanwyck face-off scene noted above benefited from that treatment.

You'll also notice the ending is abrupt, which could have been budget driven or, possibly, Code driven as the modest amount of uncertainty at the end would have been wrapped up in a way the Code didn't like, so the writers and director avoided it altogether.

Crime of Passion is a serviceable late-cycle noir made better by its stars – its femme fatale leading lady star, Barbara Stanwyck, in particular. Combined with a decent amount of on-location shooting around Los Angeles, it's also a nice mid-century time capsule.

Classic noir and classic Stanwyck deserved better material and less lighting, but like a noir character, you don't always get what you want or deserve, you get what life dishes out.

 

[Fading Fast]

Merrily We Go to Hell from 1932 with Sylvia Sidney and Fredric March


Fredric March plays an irresponsible newspaperman with a broken heart, a fondness for the bottle, and a dream of becoming a playwright. Sylvia Sidney plays a sweet heiress bored with her father-approved "suitable" rich boyfriends – then she meets unsuitable March.

With a title like Merrily We Go to Hell, you know you're in precode land, but this is thoughtful precode land where alcoholism and extramarital affairs have real, painful consequences. Tweak the details, and this movie could be remade today, as these are evergreen human challenges.

March senses something genuine in Sidney, and she senses he's a man she can fix, which will give her frivolous life purpose. Against her father's hortatory advice, she marries March and all goes well for a bit as he stays off the bottle, while she gets him to take his playwriting seriously.

When his play is produced, success brings two demons back into his life: an actress who broke his heart and, demon number two, alcohol – his way of coping with demon number one. Now, the movie's director, Dorothy Arzner, flexes her precode muscles.

March starts cheating and argues with Sidney that they should have an open marriage. To March's eventual regret, she agrees as he watches Sidney open up her side of the marriage with drink, partying, and s*x with good looking men, including Cary Grant in a small early role.

Arzner's touch is smartly nuanced here, as she juxtaposes the partying with real emotions. Smiling Sidney is happily dancing, but a telling closeup reveals her deep sadness.

Sidney's performance itself is Oscar worthy as she exhibits an incredible range of emotions with few histrionics, but telling body English (the woman can fold in on herself poignantly when hurt) and subtle facial movements.

When she finally tells off March, it's done so calmly, despite the fact that we know she is seething, that you are on the edge of your seat. It's drama – maybe melodrama – but it feels like you're watching real life unfolding on the screen.

March holds his own with Sidney playing a pl*yboy but also a confused, often selfish man who can't control his drinking or his broken heart. You'll be very mad at him at times, but he's no cardboy bad guy. These are characters you know, as you've met similar ones in your own life.

The cast is strong overall with a few interesting supporting characters, but this is Sidney and March's movie: it's their story, their marriage, their eventually open marriage, their failing marriage, their breakup, and their, well, you'll just have to watch to find out the rest.

It's complex life on screen, foreshadowing the similar failed attempts at open marriages in the 1970s. That later decade is chockablock with movies about marriages that broke from affairs, revenge affairs, "wife swapping" and other "free love" tropes, often fueled by too much alcohol.

Movies like 1970s Loving, 1971's Carnal Knowledge, and 1978's (the awfully titled) An Unmarried Woman show how marriages in the 1970s were getting bounced around by affairs and "the new ***ual freedom." The 1970s was a pretty loud echo of the 1930s.

Precode fans will also notice a similar story arc in Merrily We Go to Hell to the better-known movie, 1930's The Divorcee. Movies both reflect and amplify culture, which is why similar films often appear at the same time.

Merrily We Go to Hell should be better known as it deals with these issues as thoughtfully – maybe more so – than The Divorcee. Plus, March's and Sidney's, the latter in particular, performances are subtle, nuanced, and modern.

Movies at their best capture real life boiled down to its meaningful moments, which is exactly what Merrily We Go to Hell does – and why it remains a relevant and moving film today. Times don't always change as much as we think.

 

[Touchofevil]

Noir Alley this morning on TCM. Edmond O’Brien in Shield for Murder (1954). A solid and entertaining movie. It has played a numbers of times d the past year on FMC. Different than many noirs (won’t give away specifics) and worthy of a viewing.

 

[Fading Fast]

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) with Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, and Rose Hobart


A man doesn't want to wait months to have s*x – so he becomes a monster to fulfill his desires. There are other moving parts and ideas, of course, but that is essentially the core premise of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a story tailor made for precode cinema.

Despite the common perception, there was censoring going on in the precode era: both from regional boards ("you want to show this movie in our state, you'll have to cut...") and self-censoring to preempt a stricter government effort. The Code was, after all, self-censoring too.

Based on the mind-numbingly s*xually gratuitous movies we see today, this lighter precode censoring might have struck the best balance, as its modicum of restraint in what is said and shown is more powerful than the soft p*rn many movies have become.

That restraint also reflects real life, as everyone doesn't hop into bed every second and people do think about, agonize over, and even have guilt about s*x, and crime, and violence, and all sorts of sin, which make precodes more realistic than many modern or Code-era movies.

The well known plot set-up of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sees a handsome and successful young physician in Victorian England, played here by Fredric March, engaged to a pretty society woman, played by Rose Hobart, but her father wants them to wait months before they marry.

March, as Jekyll, really, really, really doesn't want to wait. He has four options: wait, talk Ms. Hobart into premarital hanky panky, go to a high-end brothel (like many Victorian men did), or invent a potion that splits his personality into normal him and s*xually wanton beast him.

So of course he tries the insane fourth option where he becomes "Mr. Hyde," a neanderthal-like-looking beast who preys on a prurient dancehall singer, played by Miriam Hopkins, whom the normal doctor side of his personality had recently met and flirted with.

That flirting scene is precode genius and compromise at its best. Hopkins slowly undresses for a just off-screen March as the doctor is going to examine her. Hopkins tosses each piece of underwear toward the doctor with a giggle and then pops under the covers naked. Jesus.

Once March drinks the potion that makes him Hyde, the movie pings back and forth between Hyde being all testosterone on Hopkins and March disappointing Hobart, often when he's unexplainably absent from some social event, because he's Mr. Hyding Hopkins all over the bed.

You can't help but laugh when you step back and see that the movie is basically a metaphor for a man wanting s*x and not wanting to wait. Everything else is technique. The climax, no spoilers coming, addresses if a man can survive with his s*x-drive completely untrammeled.

Director Rouben Mamoulian's 1931 accomplishment is impressive. With innovative camera angles, split-screen transitions, haunting lighting and shadows, too many shots of "symbolic" statues, and impressive makeup, he brought the story and the s*xual beast to life.

None of this would have made it a great movie, though, without March's riveting performance as the staid doctor and the lascivious beast. March won his Oscar for the role the old-fashioned way, by so completely embracing a character, you often forget there is an actor behind him.

The other performance of note belongs to Ms. Hopkins who becomes Hyde's s*xual plaything. Her early flirtation with Jekyll is the perfect blend of fun and coy s*xual foreplay. Her later response to Hyde the unrestrained beast gives the movie the conflicted fear the story demands.

Had he lived to old age, author Robert Louis Stevenson could have seen his literary creation brought to life. One imagines he would have been pleased as the essence of the book was captured on screen – or hated it like many authors hate every movie version of their work.

Realizing it had gold in its hand, Hollywood would film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde many more times, helping to make it a cultural touchstone – a touchstone used by many who probably have never read the book or seen the movie.

And why not? Boiled down, the story is about one thing, unbridled s*xual passion: something every human being understands whether they've read Stevenson or not. That precode Hollywood captured it so well is a tribute to the timelessness of carnal desire.

 

[Fading Fast]

Waterfront Women (1950) with Robert Newton, Kathleen Harrison, Avis Scott, Susan Shaw, and Robin Netscher


Most date the start of the British kitchen sink genre – movies about poor, angry young men growing up with little opportunity in Britain's rigid class system – to the mid-1950s, but nothing springs de novo, as Waterfront Women from 1950 already has many kitchen sink qualities.

Set between the world wars and shot in Liverpool – England's busy, hardscrabble, grimy port town – Robert Newton plays the husband and father you don't want. With a wife and two young daughters, Newton, a merchant sailor, signs onto a ship one day and never comes back.

The scene when he leaves is quietly crushing. He's too cowardly to face his wife, so he tells his adolescent daughter that he's going away for a few months, but even she, who would be played by Avis Scott as an adult, intuits he's abandoning them. Her later-in-life hardness is understandable.

Newton's wife, played by Kathleen Harrison, rolls up her sleeves and raises her two daughters, plus a son born several months after Newton leaves. With that background, most of the movie takes place when the daughters, played by Avis Scott and Susan Shaw, are young women.

Harrison is amazingly not bitter; she's even a bit nostalgic for her husband, which is Christ-level forgiveness – a forgiveness seething-with-resentment daughter Scott is having none of. Pretty daughter Shaw, conversely, is too busy trying to hook a rich husband to dwell on the past.

The son, played by Robin Netscher – whose ridiculous first name is George Alexander, which the family stubbornly insists on calling him – is a quiet, smart kid. He gets picked on, but he also just received a full scholarship to college when those weren't handed out like after-dinner mints.

These are poor people living in a shabby flat with barely enough money to pay the rent. It's a just-scraping-by existence, with Scott – who also narrates, so we are biased toward her view – frustrated that her mom is so passive and annoyed that her sister is frivolous and selfish.

Scott's boyfriend, played by a young Richard Burton, is a ship's engineer who wants to marry Scott, but then the Depression hits, and he can't find employment for a long time. Shaw meanwhile is working her rich boyfriend for a ring, while he is working her for s*x.

It's into this family dynamic "good old dad" Newton returns flat broke and all but unemployable, but with his ego undaunted. His return – mom is almost happy, Scott is livid, and Shaw is indifferent – sets off a series of events that will knock the family about one more time.

It's a "slice of life at a turning point" movie that engrosses you with characters whom you come to care about. The mom wanted to be a good wife and mother, but got cheated out of it by her selfish husband. Oddly, she seems sad but not embittered by the experience.

Scott you know will take care of herself with Burton as she grew up clawing a living out of fallow earth. Netscher will get out through education, but you wonder if Shaw will turn her good looks into her meal ticket or not as she seems to overplay her hand.

In another brutal scene, once her selfish boyfriend sees who she is, he coldly says, "Get out of here, I tell ya, and you can go back to your slummy home on your own two feet;" he won't even drive her back. You wonder whether, despite her pulchritude, her greed will always be her undoing.

Now restored – with its beautiful black-and-white cinematography looking clearer than real life – the on-location shooting is incredible time travel. You feel the grittiness and poverty of what was the boyhood home of all four Beatles.

Waterfront Women is a solid work-a-day movie. Its hard-boiled reality feels old-hat to us now, but it was a bit ahead of its time as England's full-force kitchen-sink-drama movement was still half a decade off.

 

[Trenchfriend]

1984 (1984), german synchro (Dominic Muldowney score).

 

[Worf]

View attachment 764208
The Big Lift (1950) with Montgomery Clift, Paul Douglas, and Cornell Borchers


Maybe it needs documentary treatment and today's excite-me-every-second audience probably wouldn't stand for it, but a movie about the Berlin Airlift has never really been made. Yet as a stand-in, The Big Lift has something to say for itself.

It's more of a mashup of the airlift politics and mechanics at a high level with a melodrama about two German women and two American military personnel involved romantically in Berlin. The result is an entertaining movie that just misses being great.

Montgomery Clift and Paul Douglas play the American Air Force "guys" who are dating German women, which – filmed mainly in Berlin – gives the viewer a realistic look at the bombed-out cities, where just carting away piles of bricks provides daily employment for many Germans.

Douglas is a Germany's WWII-era leadership-hating, thus German-hating, sergeant in part because he was abused in a POW camp. Fair or not, endure torture, and then see how forgiving you'd be later. Clift, conversely and on brand, is the sensitive guy who wants to put the past behind and get along.

While the core story is Clift's relationship with a pretty German woman, played by Cornell Borchers, the framing of the movie is the lift itself – one of the most impressive airlifts and American and British military feats of all time.

The very quick-and-dirty history is that Berlin was divided after WWII into four zones – US, USSR, UK, and France – but in 1948, Russians "blockaded" all ground transport into the city, which (incredibly oversimplifying) necessitated the Allies airlifting in everything the city needed.

The quantities of food and other supplies required and the logistics of flying hundreds of planes daily, to airports that were frequently fogged in, were overwhelming. Yet the Allies were eventually so successful that the Russians, now losing the propaganda war, lifted the blockade.

All that plays on not quite in the background, but it assumes not unreasonably that a 1950 audience would be familiar with the details, so little of it is explained. The incredible stock footage and additional scenes for the movie give you a sense of the herculean task.

Back on the ground, Douglas bullies his way past Germans and also bullies his nice German girlfriend, while Clift treats Borchers with respect. Writer and director George Seaton eventually and harshly tests each man's presumptions.

You'll want to see fresh how all that works out – and there's a good but textbook message in there – yet the real value in the film is in all the framing. Not just the planes landing and taking off in fog guided by early radar – which are incredible scenes – but in the city itself.

It's an American Cold War propaganda film where the West (led by America) is good and the Russian commies are bad, but the discussion of details like spying – the Russians prefer spy reports to honest published figures – is fantastic. It's the Cold War writ large and small.

In a generation or two at most, the Cold War will be a history-book affair only. Then and for those who didn't live through it, movies like these are an important capture of the genuine fear and antipathy on both sides that drove the war back when nobody knew how it would turn out.

Seaton struck a good balance between documentary style and melodrama as the movie ticks back and forth between the airlift itself and Clift's and Douglas' affairs. There's value in just seeing how the city survived with sparsely stocked stores and a robust black market.

Watching the ragamuffin kids – all the extras and most of the actors were locals or American military personnel – sc*mpering for a discarded cigarette to trade or begging for a piece of candy reminds you that not all the Germans who were paying the price also started the war.

Credit to Seaton though as he didn't shy away from reminding us that some did start it, some were true believers in the Germany's WWII-era leadership "cause," and some simply looked the other way when things were going well – "don't ask any questions." Those Nuremberg rallies weren't empty.

The Big Lift is very good – better than its reputation – but it falls short of greatness. Maybe it should have chosen one focus; maybe it should have been less propaganda-like; or maybe it's really hard to make a truly great movie about an airlift.

Despite falling short of greatness, as a movie and, more importantly, as a piece of history, its value will only grow over time.

Wow talk about coincidence! Puddin' had never seen or heard of this Film. I noticed it was on TCM and I said You have to watch it. She tried to demure but I told her, that it had one of the most tragic twists. I'd ever seen in a Drama. When I was in uniform and part of a Headquarters Command unit I was sometimes tasked with reviewing "Request for Marriage" paperwork. There were more than a few times I wondered if the the starry eyed G.I. in front of me itching to marry some girl he'd met "In the Ville" was seeing the same woman I was looking at. But it wasn't and is not my Job to judge. Most of the time I just processed the paper work and let the Officers or the "Holy Joe" talk to him about the consequences of his intentions. Seeing that process from the other side was hard. I wondered what I would do if the shoe was on the other side. Would I seek a marriage if it would get me out of some war ravaged "Hell Hole" and over to the "Land of the All-NIght Hamburger"?

Worf

 

[Edward]

Something of a rewatch for me, albeit likely around 45 years after an original chance encounter on broadcast television: X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), via Amazon Prime. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057693/

Very much a film of its time in that it combines its sci-fi presence with a blend of innocence and yet also is unafraid to ten to the downbeat. It's hard to imagine a film made these days about a scientist who discovers a chemical which can give him X-Ray vision dealing with developing a super-power as a negative. I suppose the nearest was the 2020 version of The Invisible Man, wherein Elizabeth Moss plays a woman whose stalker ex develops an ability to become invisible, with horrific results. That was very much more into horror rather than sci-fi to me, and not so much the story of the invisible individual, who was more of a plot device to tell a story about abuse. (Good picture, though.) X is a different beast, more of a tragedy of getting what you wish for and it being a nightmare. It's a really intelligent story well told, and I'm very glad it's not been remade and played for laughs. A lot of its power is down to the central performance of Ray Milland as Dr James Xavier. The supporting cast are great, but his central turn as a man slowly driven to despair as he realises too late how his new power has gone horribly wrong while it drives him mad is beautiful. The final scene, a chunk of which takes place in a revival tent (not something you'd see now unless played for cheap laughs), is really nicely paced. A nice re-encounter with an old picture many scenes of which I recalled beat for beat. Not without a gentle humour in some scenes at the start, but a powerful tragedy all the same. One of Roger Corman's less obviously Roger Corman pictures. I love Corman's style, but this isn't his normal cartoony approach, imo.

 

[Fading Fast]

Wow talk about coincidence! Puddin' had never seen or heard of this Film. I noticed it was on TCM and I said You have to watch it. She tried to demure but I told her, that it had one of the most tragic twists. I'd ever seen in a Drama. When I was in uniform and part of a Headquarters Command unit I was sometimes tasked with reviewing "Request for Marriage" paperwork. There were more than a few times I wondered if the the starry eyed G.I. in front of me itching to marry some girl he'd met "In the Ville" was seeing the same woman I was looking at. But it wasn't and is not my Job to judge. Most of the time I just processed the paper work and let the Officers or the "Holy Joe" talk to him about the consequences of his intentions. Seeing that process from the other side was hard. I wondered what I would do if the shoe was on the other side. Would I seek a marriage if it would get me out of some war ravaged "Hell Hole" and over to the "Land of the All-NIght Hamburger"?

Worf

It's very cool that you have that indirect connection and experience.

And, yes, that is one heck of a twist. Even though we, the viewer, know it is coming, watching Clift get hit over the head with is something.

 

[Touchofevil]

The visuals of Sweet Smell of Success are superior throughout this excellent movie, but that last minute is the tops.

 

[Fading Fast]

Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956) with Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor


Sci-fi movies had a nice burst of popularity in the 1950s, giving us iconic stories and images that still have an echo today. As a stand-alone movie, Earth vs. The Flying Saucers is okay, but as part of the larger sci-fi movie wave, it's a fun contributor.

Hugh Marlowe plays a brilliant scientist with a new bride, played by Joan Taylor, who encounters a flying saucer on his honeymoon. "I know, I know dear – I want to do it too – but as a scientist, I have to look into this alien invasion thingy first." "Fine, whatever."

Kidding aside, Taylor, also a scientist/researcher, partners with her husband to investigate their sighting, but before long the ship and others are back and attacking her and her husband's government research lab and rocket-launch facility.

Despite evidence that the aliens tried to reach out first, the military responds the way it responds in almost every 1950s sci-fi movie: with obtuse overconfidence that its b*llets, bombs, and missiles will work against an alien so advanced that it's mastered interplanetary travel.

Amazingly, the military treats the alien invasion like it was just another country coming across the border. It fits the movie's narrative, but one hopes military leaders then and now are a lot smarter than how they are usually portrayed in these 1950s pictures.

With Marlowe recognizing the limitations of those weapons, most of the movie from here becomes a race to invent a weapon to defeat the aliens who are expected to come back soon, while plans to evacuate Washington DC and other major cities are implemented.

From a plot perspective, not much more happens until Act III, when the aliens invade en masse and defeat the military's conventional weapons, leaving – as you knew it would all along – Marlowe's miracle weapon as Earth's last chance.

Sound familiar? It should, as numerous movies and TV shows have used variations of that plot since. To be fair, it was hardly original even in 1956. What was original for the era were the super-cool "rotating" flying saucers. Flying saucers had been around, but these are better.

Designed by special-effects legend Ray Harryhausen, the saucers were given a counter-rotating "motion" (the famous spin of the saucers) that appears to be powering their flight, while using stop-motion animation and superimposing filming to have them attack Earth.

Yes, it looks a bit hokey by today's standards, but with a little historical perspective, you can appreciate how cool these OG sci-fi special effects looked to a 1950s audience not raised on all the sci-fi future generations would see.

With that perspective, the scenes of the flying saucer first showing up on Marlowe and Taylor's honeymoon and later in the major attack scenes are well done. CGI has spoiled us for a time when special effects required more than smart coding.

There is a little melodrama around Marlowe and Taylor's new marriage, with both being good enough actors to wobble through the clumsy script lines, but the movie is all but summarized by its title: the Earth is invaded by flying saucers and fights back.

Other than a few tossed-off lines and vague comments, the deeper philosophical ramifications of life existing on another planet aren't scientifically explored here as everyone is too busy trying to kill the aliens.

All these themes, though, would eventually contribute to the corpus of sci-fi thought, but in Earth vs. The Flying Saucers they are still in the intellectual penumbra.

While The Forbidden Planet (1956) is rightly acknowledged as the main influence on the original Star Trek TV series, all these 1950s efforts helped to lay the foundation for that groundbreaking show and the next generation of sci-fi shows and movies.

Today you watch Earth vs. The Flying Saucers to dig a bit into sci-fi movies' archaeological soil. It will remind you of how far we've come, but also what a part of 1950s pop culture, when a large percentage of the population went to the movies regularly, looked like.

For perspective, it was only about fifty years earlier when Georges Méliès' 1902 A Trip to the Moon - with its iconic picture of a rocket impaling the lunar surface – was cutting edge.

 

[Worf]

It's very cool that you have that indirect connection and experience.

And, yes, that is one heck of a twist. Even though we, the viewer, know it is coming, watching Clift get hit over the head with is something.

"Hit Over the Head" Wow.... that's both and understatement and perfect description of what happened to the poor guy!

Worf

 

[Worf]

View attachment 766449
Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956) with Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor


Sci-fi movies had a nice burst of popularity in the 1950s, giving us iconic stories and images that still have an echo today. As a stand-alone movie, Earth vs. The Flying Saucers is okay, but as part of the larger sci-fi movie wave, it's a fun contributor.

Hugh Marlowe plays a brilliant scientist with a new bride, played by Joan Taylor, who encounters a flying saucer on his honeymoon. "I know, I know dear – I want to do it too – but as a scientist, I have to look into this alien invasion thingy first." "Fine, whatever."

Kidding aside, Taylor, also a scientist/researcher, partners with her husband to investigate their sighting, but before long the ship and others are back and attacking her and her husband's government research lab and rocket-launch facility.

Despite evidence that the aliens tried to reach out first, the military responds the way it responds in almost every 1950s sci-fi movie: with obtuse overconfidence that its b*llets, bombs, and missiles will work against an alien so advanced that it's mastered interplanetary travel.

Amazingly, the military treats the alien invasion like it was just another country coming across the border. It fits the movie's narrative, but one hopes military leaders then and now are a lot smarter than how they are usually portrayed in these 1950s pictures.

With Marlowe recognizing the limitations of those weapons, most of the movie from here becomes a race to invent a weapon to defeat the aliens who are expected to come back soon, while plans to evacuate Washington DC and other major cities are implemented.

From a plot perspective, not much more happens until Act III, when the aliens invade en masse and defeat the military's conventional weapons, leaving – as you knew it would all along – Marlowe's miracle weapon as Earth's last chance.

Sound familiar? It should, as numerous movies and TV shows have used variations of that plot since. To be fair, it was hardly original even in 1956. What was original for the era were the super-cool "rotating" flying saucers. Flying saucers had been around, but these are better.

Designed by special-effects legend Ray Harryhausen, the saucers were given a counter-rotating "motion" (the famous spin of the saucers) that appears to be powering their flight, while using stop-motion animation and superimposing filming to have them attack Earth.

Yes, it looks a bit hokey by today's standards, but with a little historical perspective, you can appreciate how cool these OG sci-fi special effects looked to a 1950s audience not raised on all the sci-fi future generations would see.

With that perspective, the scenes of the flying saucer first showing up on Marlowe and Taylor's honeymoon and later in the major attack scenes are well done. CGI has spoiled us for a time when special effects required more than smart coding.

There is a little melodrama around Marlowe and Taylor's new marriage, with both being good enough actors to wobble through the clumsy script lines, but the movie is all but summarized by its title: the Earth is invaded by flying saucers and fights back.

Other than a few tossed-off lines and vague comments, the deeper philosophical ramifications of life existing on another planet aren't scientifically explored here as everyone is too busy trying to kill the aliens.

All these themes, though, would eventually contribute to the corpus of sci-fi thought, but in Earth vs. The Flying Saucers they are still in the intellectual penumbra.

While The Forbidden Planet (1956) is rightly acknowledged as the main influence on the original Star Trek TV series, all these 1950s efforts helped to lay the foundation for that groundbreaking show and the next generation of sci-fi shows and movies.

Today you watch Earth vs. The Flying Saucers to dig a bit into sci-fi movies' archaeological soil. It will remind you of how far we've come, but also what a part of 1950s pop culture, when a large percentage of the population went to the movies regularly, looked like.

For perspective, it was only about fifty years earlier when Georges Méliès' 1902 A Trip to the Moon - with its iconic picture of a rocket impaling the lunar surface – was cutting edge.

View attachment 766450

Ray Harryhausen at the top of his game. I loved how They mocked some of his Footage in "Mar's Attack's" decades later. Particularly when two martian Death Machines start tossing the Washington Monument back and forth till they finally drop it on the a group of scrambling Boy Scouts!

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

No More Orchids (1932) with Carole Lombard, Lyle Talbot, Walter Connolly, C. Aubrey Smith, and Louise Closser Hale


Some precodes aren't great movies, but they are so wonderfully precode you enjoy them anyway. No More Orchids is just that: not a great movie, but it is so wonderfully – fully, completely, and enjoyably – precode that you just let it wash over you as a fun, silly story.

Precode, to many, means salacious – and there's a little of that here, as Carole Lombard's character jumps in front of her wedding license for some coeducational-bedroom fun – but it can also mean a realistic portrayal of drinking, money, ethics, and the foibles of the rich.

Lombard here plays the spoiled granddaughter of an extraordinarily wealthy man, played by C. Aubrey Smith. She's the type of flapper terror that has ocean liners held up for her because "grandad" is a major investor in the line.

After pulling just that stunt and arriving on a luxury liner headed for New York, she meets a young handsome lawyer, played by Lyle Talbot. Because he initially has no interest in pretty her – what man could have such conceit! – she pursues him with determination.

Being young, pretty, and spoiled by an indulgent grandfather, she's used to getting whatever she wants. Talbot, though young and attractive like her, is also hardworking – he started with nothing – as that's how he's gotten what little he has.

He's attracted to her, but believes they'd have no future, as he won't be kept and she won't live on his income. That premise is used in many precodes, but the extra wrinkle here is Lombard's father, played by Walter Connolly, is Smith's not-beloved son-in-law and he's in financial trouble.

The last piece of the puzzle is Smith's grand plan for Lombard: he wants her to marry into royalty, with a nuptial he has all teed up to a boring prince. Lombard, however, especially after meeting Talbot, is trying to buck her grandfather.

You don't need to go to screenwriters school to see that Smith will use Connolly's need for money to force Lombard into a marriage she doesn't want. She, Connolly, and Talbot all want one thing, but granddad controls the purse strings, and Lombard loves her father.

That's it for the plot, with the climax being of course Lombard about to marry the prince unless dad can pull a financial rabbit out of his hat. It's a good enough plot, but the real fun here are the personalities.

Lombard, as almost always, plays a "slightly ditzy on the surface but smart underneath" young woman who has more grit than expected – it was her acting brand, and she built it well. In a few years, she'd become the queen of the screwballs in part because of the foundation she established in movies like this.

Here, it's her relationship with Connolly that makes the movie sparkle.Their scenes together – joking at breakfast, strategizing against grandad, sacrificing for each other without telling the other – are movie gold: they have wonderful screen chemistry. Every father and daughter would kill to have that kind of love and joy in their relationship.

Talbot, who was often cast as the heavy, or bad boy, or drunk – on loan here from his home studio Warners – is allowed to play a good guy. While he's a bit wooden in a few scenes, he shows more range than Warners let him attempt, making him fun to watch.

The other fun character is Louise Closser Hale, as Lombard's paternal grandmother, who gets the joke, enjoys a drink (or three), and fights hard for her family against Lombard's string-pulling maternal grandfather, Smith. Hale has got more spirit in her than most people half her age and only in a precode, would a grandmother be allowed to drink with such not-scolded joy.

Look for her scenes with Talbot, which against all logic, have a pleasant verve as these two – despite being several generations apart – seem to genuinely like each other as they plot to find a way to get him together with Lombard.

Filled with a lot of rich-people-in-the-Depression lifestyle eye candy – V12 cars, mausoleum-sized mansions, silk gowns, dinner jackets, speedboats and airplanes – the movie says precode in appearance. It's fun as a Hollywood time capsule (read, not totally accurate) for us today.

Also note all the drinking, the – for the day – casual attitude toward s*x, the corruption that goes unpunished, and the mocking of convention that would not happen after 1934 when the Motion Picture Production Code was more fully enforced. Even the ending has a precode sense of freedom.

It's multiple decades later, and you know it's a made up story, but darn it, you're rooting for Lombard to marry Talbot and not the dull prince. You want her father and grandmother to be happy and Smith to fail in his Machiavellian plans.

No More Orchids is better than it should be, with its off-the-shelf story elevated because you care about the characters. No normal person should be concerned if a spoiled, fictional rich girl has to marry a prince or the man she loves, but because of the magic of precode Hollywood, you do.

 

[Zombie_61]

View attachment 766449
Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956) with Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor...

Out of all of the 1950s Sci-Fi "alien invasion" movies I've seen, this one is still my favorite. No hammy acting, a little tongue-in-cheek, the "flying saucers" look what we might have expected in the 1950s from interplanetary life forms landing on Earth, the aliens themselves are bi-pedal and humanoid in appearance so they wouldn't be too scary when Elmo encounters 'em on his way to drain the still, and so on, and so on. Not the best sci-fi movie ever made, but I like it.