What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Edward]

So glad you finally got to it, Edward. I've loved it since I first saw it and got the DVD soon after. Personally, I like it far more than The Matrix - which I found meh enough to never bother to watch the sequels.

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It's a much cleverer picture than the Matrix, certainly. The latter I did see in the cinema, because in my early days in London I lived just round the corner from the Barbican Centre, whose cinema did £4 tickets every Monday night, and I used to go and see whatever was on, indiscriminately. I saw a lot of foreign and arthouse stuff I'd otherwise never have discovered that way, as well as some pictures that went big, really before the hype. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix were two in particular I saw because that's what happened to be on in those respective weeks; I'd heard of neither going in. The Matrix I thought was entertaining enough, but it didn't wow me. I certainly thought at the time it was vastly overhyped, even if I enjoyed it for what it was. (If you want a decent Keanu picture, I still believe John Wick is far superior fare.) Definitely avoid the sequels if you haven't seen them. The original picture was at least novel for its visual effects at the time. With the sequels, these had ceased to be surprising, and the story was very much dumbed down. Supposedly it was planned as a trilogy, but the original just felt far too self contained as a story for me for that to work. The sequels to some extent had to role back the progression of the Neo character, and by the time they got to the third one, it was so dated, lazy, and generic in its portrayal of the surviving humanity in a post-apocalyptic context, it was like watching somebody's bad fanfic of "Mad Max but cyberpunk".

Granted, Dark City did very much tick my aesthetic boxes, which might make me biased, but overall it's a far superior story, better told.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Never before heared of "Dark City", but it's noted.

 

[Harp]

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The Second Woman (1950) with Robert Young, Betsy Drake, Henry O'Neill, and John Sutton


Some movies fail but are still interesting, like The Second Woman. The ending is a mess (no spoilers coming) – inconsistent, full of holes, and a rug pull on the viewer – but darn it, the moody gothic noir vibe throughout and Betsy Drake's quirky performance still hold your interest.

Drake plays the niece of a woman whose neighbor is a moody architect, played by Robert Young. A year ago, with Young at the wheel, his fiancée died in a car accident the night before their wedding. Young's fiancée's father, played by Henry O'Neill, is also his employer.

Young and O'Neill have remained good friends, with O'Neill trying to help Young put the past event behind him. But a co-worker at the firm, played by John Sutton, proves the existence of frenemies long before the word was coined. He needles and undermines Young at every turn.

Drake and her aunt live in an old Gothic-style mansion – thick stone walls, cavernous and cold interiors, bus-sized pieces of furniture – but their neighbor, Young, being an architect, built himself a Frank Lloyd Wright-style house on a nearby outcropping overlooking the water.

His house looks light and airy – large glass windows, ocean views, sparsely decorated rooms, sleek mid-century furniture – but Young's brooding gives the house a heavy, sad feeling, especially with a creepy modernist painting of his dead fiancée hanging over the fireplace.

Despite all this, Drake likes, as in really likes, Young, but he's not thinking romance, as too many odd things keep happening to him. His favorite horse shatters its leg in its stall (something that almost never happens); his dog dies suddenly; and his creepy painting fades overnight.

At work, too, weird things happen, as when crucial documents are left out of a proposal he sent to a client, despite having sealed the envelope himself. With a physician and several close friends quietly questioning Young's sanity, Drake is at sixes and sevens trying to figure it out.

There are several scenes where Drake, convinced of Young's innocence and sanity, comes up against an authority figure who tells her she's wrong, but she is no girl to be put off with a firm speech or condescing figurative pat on the head. She keeps plowing forward.

Since she does actuarial work for an insurance company, she puts her very rational mind to work on solving these problems, but possibly every answer – the dog was poisoned, someone at the firm took the papers out – could also be explained by Young sabotaging his own life.

Yes, Drake wants Young to fall in love with her since she's already there, but you get the feeling this logical thinker would want to solve these mysteries anyway. Young, though, pings back and forth between anger and acceptance – it's another noir where the girl, not the guy, mans up.

That's really the plot. Tolstoy's "a stranger comes to town" in the form of Drake and she shakes things up searching for the answers just as Young is about to mentally go down for the count. Her research forces several truths to the surface that would have stayed buried without her.

The cathartic, admission-heavy climax, as noted earlier, is not very believable – your brain has to be told not to notice all the prior actions that don't easily tick and tie. Still you kind of enjoy the movie for its atmosphere and Drake's offbeat interpretation of her character.

Drake, who speaks as if she's always one breath behind or has something just about to get stuck in her throat, is an odd leading lady. Maybe she's pretty or maybe she's the girl who doesn't get asked to prom – you can see both perspectives. But she's got grit.

Add her grit and quirkiness to director James V Kern's lugubrious atmosphere and The Second Woman is a noir to see once, especially with Young and O'Neill both giving their usual professional performances. It misses in too many ways, but still, you won't shut it off.

Noir was so popular at this time, that even the second-tier ones have something to offer as real effort and resources went into these pictures: when they miss, like this one, there is still a lot of skill, proficiency, and thought showing up on the screen.

A most intriguing film and always your excellent review. I like a thinking man's picture, but really favor the thinking woman's film much more. A good chick flick set noir with a full twist spin the bottle plot, often proves best approach; something the second stringers do exceptionally well. And the handsome not quite beauty but neither plain janey, strong support character driving narrative is definitely tops with me. Also, RY in his prime before Dad Knows Best and Marcus Aurelius Gaius Welby ices down the cake.

 

[Worf]

"On The Beach" - Nuclear Apocalyptic doomsday Stories enjoyed a brief Heyday back in the Late 50's, early 60's. Considering the possibilities, people seem fascinated with descriptions of how it was all going to end. It was quite the cottage industry. OTB was one of the most popular of the genre.... so much so that everyone that came after, compared itself to OTB, though none I read ever came close save for "Fail Safe".. I guess the Pall of possible annihilation was so ever present it hung in the air like smog. Just Saw OTB on TCM. The Mandela effect of this one was quite strong. For some reason I swore it was filmed in Technicolor, of course it was shot in Glorious Black and White. Still quite affecting. One thing that didn't sit well with me is the Idea that mankind would go out with such a whimper. Bunkers are all the rage now as they were then. I can't believe that there was NO effort to save a remant of civilization? Other than that.... it's still a great and moving film.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

"On The Beach" - Nuclear Apocalyptic doomsday Stories enjoyed a brief Heyday back in the Late 50's, early 60's. Considering the possibilities, people seem fascinated with descriptions of how it was all going to end. It was quite the cottage industry. OTB was one of the most popular of the genre.... so much so that everyone that came after, compared itself to OTB, though none I read ever came close save for "Fail Safe".. I guess the Pall of possible annihilation was so ever present it hung in the air like smog. Just Saw OTB on TCM. The Mandela effect of this one was quite strong. For some reason I swore it was filmed in Technicolor, of course it was shot in Glorious Black and White. Still quite affecting. One thing that didn't sit well with me is the Idea that mankind would go out with such a whimper. Bunkers are all the rage now as they were then. I can't believe that there was NO effort to save a remant of civilization? Other than that.... it's still a great and moving film.

Worf

I enjoyed the book (which only read recently and commented on here #9,315 ) and the movie (I remember being impressed with Fred Astaire in a non-dancing role). As to your point about fighting for a glimmer of survival, it might have been different had the Southern hemisphere gone first, but who knows. I'll also put in a plug for the author, Nevil Shute, who is one of my favorite "undiscovered" ones from that era.

 

[Harp]

^ I seem to recall Ava and Gregory Peck in On The Beach, and a scene where her menage et moi proposition to Peck hit a snag with Greg, which took her aback. An adolescent attending a strict all male school, raging hormonal overdrive, I wondered how Greg could be so noncommittal reluctant to tangle with Ava....

 

[Fading Fast]

The Other Love (1947) with Barbara Stanwyck, David Niven, Richard Conte, and Gilbert Roland


Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
— Dylan Thomas


In The Other Love, Barbara Stanwyck shows once again why movie stars make a lot of money. What could have been an average soap turns into an absorbing melodrama that has you engaged simply because you care about Stanwyck (and her beautiful Edith Head wardrobe).

Playing a successful concert pianist, Stanwyck has to stop touring owing to tuberculosis and soon finds herself in an elite sanitarium in the Swiss Alps under the care of a handsome doctor, played by David Niven. He's reserved, charming, but also aloof and demanding.

The Alps, the beautifully appointed sanitarium where the patients dress for dinner as if they are on a transatlantic cruise ship, and the noted handsome doctor create a Hollywood dreamlike atmosphere that masks the real-world horror of the disease.

There is a back note of doom at the lovely-looking sanitarium because, before antibiotics, most people who had TB died of TB. A scenic setting, beautiful clothes, and handsome doctor do not change that, especially when all the handsome doctor wants you to do is rest all the time.

Odder still to us today, there was a prevailing ethos that it was right to lie to these patients about their condition to keep their spirits up and let them enjoy what life they had left. We don't see it that way today, but it was well intentioned then – it did, however, lead to a lot of obfuscation and deceit.

You'll also catch almost a film noir vibe now and then, as this insane practice leads to a lot of unnecessary deception between the staff and patients, with scenes of doctors and nurses whispering just out of earshot. Even Niven can seem conniving at times.

Stanwyck, used to getting her own way and looking healthy – like Garbo did dying of the same disease in Camille – still falls for Niven for a bit, but finally says enough when a handsome (they're everywhere) race car driver (even Hallmark wouldn't be this shameless) appears.

Richard Conte, out "handsoming" Niven, plays the driver who charms Stanwyck right out of her clothes senses the first night they go out as she leaves the sanatarium to live with him in Monte Carlo. Conte proves to be real and not a player, but so does the disease.

Showing again that concepts exist first and only later do we come up with names for them, watch Stanwyck's and Conte's minor car-accident meet-cute to see how a smart man never lets an opportunity to meet a beautiful woman go to waste.

When the disease re-emerges – maybe Niven was right about needing all that rest – Stanwyck is forced to face the consequences of her choices, leading to Act III.

Other than the forced drama left for the climax and a Hollywood-tweaked ending, that's the story, and it wouldn't work without Stanwyck. Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and a few other actresses of the era might have pulled it off too, but Stanwyck was a perfect choice.

She manages to be strong without being oppressively belligerent, a balance Crawford and Davis rarely pull off. Stanwyck bends a bit to others' will but you never feel she's fully submitted. When she finally says "enough!" it's fully in character.

The woman is a talented actress, but she also has a God-given screen believability that can't be bought or learned – hers, like Spencer Tracy's, was just anointed at birth.

The men here, Conte and Niven, are no slouches with both proving to have the screen fortitude to hold up against Stanwyck. It's also not hard to see the female audiences of the day going home wanting Stanwyck's wardrobe and choice of men, but without her nagging disease.

The hugely underrated Gilbert Roland pops up in a two-scene cameo playing a smarmy croupier that would have worked better had he been a kind-hearted one. While the entire sequence could have lifted out, it's still always good to see him in a movie.

Similarly to Camille, there is not very far philosophically to take a movie about a woman in love but dying – what point is there to prove? In Camille, the answer was the eternal love of the Romantic Era; in The Other Love, its Dylan Thomas raging against the dying of the light.


N.B. Look for Stanwyck's sequin-beaded reindeer sweater, which sounds messy, but is absolutely fantastic – as is her entire wardrobe. And while we're on the subject of good-looking props, note the brief appearance of Conte's insanely cool race car.

 

[Fading Fast]

Long Lost Father (1934) with John Barrymore, Helen Chandler, Donald Cook, E. E. Clives, and Claude King


Only in precode Hollywood could a father who abandoned his daughter when she was a child reunite with her when she's now a "fast set" girl, and potentially prove his love for her by cheating at gambling. It just tugs at the heartstrings. Oddly enough, Long Lost Father kind of does.

Before that improbable climax, the father, played by John Barrymore, and the daughter, played by Helen Chandler, have to reunite, which they do in London. She's rightfully dismissive of him; he's rightfully contrite – but abandoning your infant child is a big emotional chasm to surmount.

Most of this short movie is Barrymore, a (one hopes) former con man who fled Australia a step ahead of the police, playing the manager of a swanky London club where his daughter works as a chanteuse. This way she can get her daily hate in and he can get his daily act of contrition in.

Chandler has a nice, respectable physician fiancé, played by Donald Cook, but partly because she's young and partly because she wants to annoy her father, she parties hard with the rich-and-idle fast set when she's not working.

Amping up the tension is the local police inspector who keeps questioning Barrymore – and Barrymore's factotum and con man partner, played by E. E. Clives, whom Barrymore brought with him from Australia – about their time in the land down under.

Chandler, playing with her foolish rich friends, gets herself into a financial mess that could ruin her reputation – a big deal in that time and place. She's innocent, but looks guilty, which leads to the noted Barrymore gambling Hail Mary to try to save his daughter.

None of this story would work without two appealing stars in the lead roles. Barrymore and Chandler are not only appealing, they have wonderful father-daughter on-screen chemistry. Even when she's mad at him, their scenes together are charming.

Barrymore always plays a version of himself – a slightly inebriated rascal who skates by on his looks, personality, and quick wit – and it works wonderfully here. He's just old enough to be taking stock of his life – and fixing his relationship with his alienated daughter is job one.

Chandler, who innately reads sweetness, is only adequate at the bad-girl part of the role, but is perfect when playing the good daughter trying to understand and forgive her rapscallion, wayward father.

To see Chandler at her charming best, watch for the scavenger-hunt scene. She's supposed to be a bratty young adult here, but she's just too nice and her manners are too polite for her to read as anything but a harmless sc*mp.

If all you knew about Chandler was this movie, you could be forgiven for guessing she went on to have a long and successful career playing likable women, but personal demons, unfortunately, seem to have derailed her acting by the end of the 1930s.

Set in England but filmed entirely on RKO sets in California that won't fool anyone, it looks like the studio saved up its lunch money to pay for this one, but it really doesn't matter as you're here for the Barrymore-Chandler show.

They do get a nice assist from the noted Clives as Barrymore's friendly toady and Claude King as the Scotland Yard inspector who knows Barrymore's his man but he just can't wheedle the truth out of "The Great Profile" (Barrymore's nickname from his younger days).

If Hallmark and precode Hollywood had ever collaborated on a movie, this would be the result. The crooks aren't really bad people; wrongdoing doesn't have to be punished; and the family rift is fixable with charm and kindness. It's Hallmark, with precode characteristics.

We often think the world was different "back then," but other than some surface and cultural distinctions, human nature seems immutable. Families fight and those rifts are hard to repair in the real world, which makes pleasant movie tales of reunion evergreen.

Do you believe any of it? Not really and you don't care, as Long Lost Father is a nice fantasy to watch unfold. You want Barrymore and Chandler to have a good future in their made up world that, for just over an hour, lets you escape the harsher realities of the real world.

 

[Harp]

^^ I picked up the tubercle bacillus during a youthful Hawaii time, caught when I subsequently applied for a Chicago hospital clerk position soon after mainland return. A year of Isoniazid, which kicked my ***, but the Cook County TB clinic lung xrays remained clear. My Honolulu studio apartment was just up the street from where Frank Sinatra was waylaid by a pair of MPs in From Here To Eternity. And that's where the bug bit most likely. Anyway, I can relate to this life-altering diagnosis film and the terminal sentence imposed. I'll need to see this and absorb its plot and lovely Barbara Stanwyck over a generous measure of bourbon.

 

[Zombie_61]

"On The Beach" - Nuclear Apocalyptic doomsday Stories enjoyed a brief Heyday back in the Late 50's, early 60's. Considering the possibilities, people seem fascinated with descriptions of how it was all going to end. It was quite the cottage industry. OTB was one of the most popular of the genre.... so much so that everyone that came after, compared itself to OTB, though none I read ever came close save for "Fail Safe".. I guess the Pall of possible annihilation was so ever present it hung in the air like smog. Just Saw OTB on TCM. The Mandela effect of this one was quite strong. For some reason I swore it was filmed in Technicolor, of course it was shot in Glorious Black and White. Still quite affecting. One thing that didn't sit well with me is the Idea that mankind would go out with such a whimper. Bunkers are all the rage now as they were then. I can't believe that there was NO effort to save a remant of civilization? Other than that.... it's still a great and moving film.

Worf

Thank you for sharing this, Worf. It sounded interesting so I looked it up on the Internet Movie Database, then ordered the DVD through Amazon. The basic storyline is interesting enough, but put it in the hands of this cast and I'm surprised I'd not heard of it before.

 

[Fading Fast]

Thank you for sharing this, Worf. It sounded interesting so I looked it up on the Internet Movie Database, then ordered the DVD through Amazon. The basic storyline is interesting enough, but put it in the hands of this cast and I'm surprised I'd not heard of it before.

It's a very, very good movie. And, I agree, it's odd that it flies below the radar, especially with that cast. If you are so inclined, I'd encourage you to pick up a copy of the novel too – it's a good, smart, and quick read. My comments on the book are here: #9,315

 

[Harp]

Thank you for sharing this, Worf. It sounded interesting so I looked it up on the Internet Movie Database, then ordered the DVD through Amazon. The basic storyline is interesting enough, but put it in the hands of this cast and I'm surprised I'd not heard of it before.

I guess the flick's underlying catastrophic nuclear war case scenario might have had demonstrable lax box office muscle effect. I caught it on television while an adolescent because Ava Gardner was cast.

 

[Grandville]

Freaks by Tod Browning in Cinema-Format..a yearly reoccuring joy for the whole family!

 

[Fading Fast]

I guess the flick's underlying catastrophic nuclear war case scenario might have had demonstrable lax box office muscle effect. I caught it on television while an adolescent because Ava Gardner was cast.

Ava is looking a bit tired by this one, but still Ava.

 

[Harp]

Ava is looking a bit tired by this one, but still Ava.

She was even more splendid vintage in Night of The Iguana (1964).
Ava had a core ***uality similar to Ingrid Bergman and Yvonne DeCarlo that cast a spell over me, which physical beauty alone doesn't affect. Her personality wrapped elegance is a tornadic force, recognition of an inner life beneath the surface. The enigmatic riddle-wrapped mysterious woman Churchill attributed Russia.
When I was in law school, I applied for an open clerical post in the school's library, and two
women interviewed me-one, a Russian emigre who possessed this trait so abundantly I was bowled over. Flubbed it completely. And failed to secure the job.... So, it's a real phenomenon
with me....

 

[Worf]

Ava is looking a bit tired by this one, but still Ava.

Ahem.... Ahem Ah Say..... Son there's a great deal of difference between vintage.... and "tired". A 1950 Jaguar 120 DHC is vintage a junkyard Ford Pick up (unless restored) of the same year... is "tired".

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

Ahem.... Ahem Ah Say..... Son there's a great deal of difference between vintage.... and "tired". A 1950 Jaguar 120 DHC is vintage a junkyard Ford Pick up (unless restored) of the same year... is "tired".

Worf

You and Harp appropriately schooled me on that point.

 

[Harp]

A 1950 Jaguar 120 DHC is vintage....

Worf

After a heart attack and angioplasty, I was reading a Wall Street Journal article about
the Jaguar Motors corporation when a nurse told me to rise myself out of my hospital bed
and walk around some. So, glancing out the window upon a cold drizzly overcast day, I saw
a Jaguar exit the parking lot across the street. I immediately concluded this was a sign from
Heaven telling me that God wanted me to get a Jaguar for myself... Veritas, veritas.....
I scoured Ebay Motors for all continental United States available makes and dates; focusing
high end dealerships that I knew wouldn't accept junk trade ins. McGrath-Lexus in Chicago had a '94 Jaguar XJS convertible available with an India 6 cylinder engine that only gave 15 miles per gallon but with a low odometer weekend ride tally. I nailed it for $5,400 and drove
it for four years until some engine trouble and a little misunderstanding with the IRS collided
my busy schedule, prompting a dealer offload sale for convenience sake. When you have Uncle Sam on your ***, you truly have someone on your ***.

 

[EngProf]

After a heart attack and angioplasty, I was reading a Wall Street Journal article about
the Jaguar Motors corporation when a nurse told me to rise myself out of my hospital bed
and walk around some. So, glancing out the window upon a cold drizzly overcast day, I saw
a Jaguar exit the parking lot across the street. I immediately concluded this was a sign from
Heaven telling me that God wanted me to get a Jaguar for myself... Veritas, veritas.....
I scoured Ebay Motors for all continental United States available makes and dates; focusing
high end dealerships that I knew wouldn't accept junk trade ins. McGrath-Lexus in Chicago had a '94 Jaguar XJS convertible available with an India 6 cylinder engine that only gave 15 miles per gallon but with a low odometer weekend ride tally. I nailed it for $5,400 and drove
it for four years until some engine trouble and a little misunderstanding with the IRS collided
my busy schedule, prompting a dealer offload sale for convenience sake. When you have Uncle Sam on your ***, you truly have someone on your ***.

MY #1 impression/memory when I hear the (automotive) word "Jaguar", is of a fellow grad student in the school parking lot on a rainy/windy day standing beside his Jag with the hood up.

 

[Fading Fast]

Yellow Canary (1943) with Anna Neagle, Richard Greene, Albert Lieven, Lucie Mannheim, and Nova Pilbeam


What can you expect from a low-budget, black-and-white, British-produced, WWII propaganda film from 1943? Surprisingly, a lot, as Yellow Canary is a very good spy yarn with neat twists and characters you care about – and get this, most of it takes place in Canada.

Riffing on the real Mitford Sisters, Anna Neagle plays a young aristocratic Brit with Germany's WWII-era leadership sympathies who, in the opening sequence, signals to a German bomber. Authorities can't prove her guilt, but under heavy pressure, Neagle takes a ship to Canada to escape the scrutiny.

On board, she's the subject of much gossip of the "that's the traitor" type, which she only encourages by being supercilious. Neagle spurns the advances of a handsome Englishman, played by Richard Greene, while oddly befriending a Polish refugee, played by Albert Lieven.

There's also an excellent scene in which the Germany's WWII-era leaderships stop and board the ship, take a passenger off, and leave. The Captain assumes they'll then be sunk, but they aren't. It's an incredibly tense sequence done through anticipation and fear as very little actually happens.

Once in Halifax, Neagle seems to have a protector of sorts who gets her through customs and secures her a hotel room in the overbooked city. Both British and Canadian intelligence are interested in her; the former we now learn includes Greene, who keeps close tabs on her.

The next key piece of the puzzle has Neagle meeting Lieven's invalid mother, played by Lucie Mannheim, who befriends Neagle while sharing a tale about Halifax harbor's accidental destruction in World War One. Currently, the harbor is a strategic transfer point for the Allies.

The final puzzle piece, which you'll see coming, is that Mannheim and Lieven are Germany's WWII-era leadership spies feeling out whether Neagle is really pro-Germany's WWII-era leadership. When they become convinced that she is, they recruit her to help with their plot to destroy Halifax harbor now like it was destroyed in WWI.

That's the set-up for a really engaging Act III where all the spy twists and turns amp up. With pocket change for a special effects budget, director Herbert Wilcox, Neagle's real-life husband, shows how less can be more as the action is mainly implied, yet you're still quite engaged.

A ship loaded with explosives, a convoy ship ready to ram it, bombers in thick fog trying to sink it – it's exciting, but it's all done with very little actual footage. You're tensed up even though you know it's a propaganda film and you're pretty sure the good guys will win.

The Neagle-Greene-Lieven quasi spy-love triangle also goes down to the wire, with a wonderful climactic scene in which less is more. And whichever side you're on, you want Neagle on yours as she proves quite adept at spying, getting information, and surviving.

Also tossed in the mix is Margaret Rutherford playing, as she often does, a boisterous older British woman who obliviously says what's on her mind, ignoring "loose lips..." and all that. Rutherford was a mini British institution in this era, but she feels a bit forced in this one.

Greene, Lieven, and Mannheim are excellent in their roles, but this is Neagle's film, and her husband Wilcox films her to her advantage. Still, she's got the acting chops to pull off a complex role that will have you confused about her loyalties as you're supposed to be.

Filmed mainly in a studio, but with a good amount of establishing and framing footage from England and Halifax, Yellow Canary has a realistic enough feel to it if you're just a bit forgiving – said another way, they did a lot with a small budget.

Only one kind of movie gets made during a war: the kind that makes your side look smart, strong, and honorable, just like Yellow Canary does. But it does it with spirit, integrity, and an impressive cast that has it holding up well, even today, as engaging entertainment.


N.B. Fans of the talented and adorable – and adorably named – Nova Pilbeam should keep an eye out for her in the final scene playing Neagle's sister (another Mitford echo), whom she looks like. One can only wonder how the film would have worked had Pilbeam been in the lead.