tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36184460168629960272024-03-12T18:45:59.629-07:00Cinema OCD Media RoomJennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-87113890349897992172010-02-22T11:52:00.000-08:002010-02-22T12:46:27.896-08:00Not Seeing Avatar?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqT7eQuh-BmhGHXWpcuvR4HoBcrXVvUS0WWi7LE-MsyWsNRSd32GKGsslkqq8BUI5PSldJx6PTqlIfvyP6C-7lX10Su7hdXKcfUeu7gX9Ek8jB9N3NPFn_pBn2uZyUhy5w5puAKwYiMbE/s1600-h/forbiddenplanet.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 260px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqT7eQuh-BmhGHXWpcuvR4HoBcrXVvUS0WWi7LE-MsyWsNRSd32GKGsslkqq8BUI5PSldJx6PTqlIfvyP6C-7lX10Su7hdXKcfUeu7gX9Ek8jB9N3NPFn_pBn2uZyUhy5w5puAKwYiMbE/s400/forbiddenplanet.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441158691668513410" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Forbidden Planet: Just one of the many movies I'd rather be watching than Avatar.</span><br /><br />I don't really have anything against James Cameron or mega blockbusters. I don't hate Avatar. (How could, I haven't seen it.) I just don't have any interest in seeing this movie. I felt the same way about Titanic, and I managed to avoid seeing that. When Titanic took over the world, I made a little web page, "The last people on Earth who haven't seen Titanic." So I thought I'd do it again.<br /><br />Maybe it's just that I don't like being bossed around. So many people have said, "oh you have to see Avatar." That kind of word of mouth praise, just works in reverse for me. Please don't flood this page with comments about how great <span style="font-style: italic;">Avatar</span> is, ok. I just don't care. If you do want to comment about some other sci fi movies, classic film or even movies in general, then please, by all means, go for it.<br /><br />I'm also starting a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#%21/group.php?gid=323964546914">Facebook</a> group as a place for people to hang out who are not seeing Avatar. It's gonna be a whole thing, I promise.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-69394149582236738642009-08-02T16:23:00.000-07:002009-08-03T19:23:18.184-07:00Secrets of a Secretary (1931)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWdYDUhBvuM45Yo8XzaRS7rPbf3lRjq1TKLoCqBEUEIYWpXnt9kw7YwrdfL8tePeWCUTReiWRws5wUmM8CXnnQQzr8Fep_0PA20w6wgitorGnGzUoBA3Tzw_hk6Hc8dzrVbEJ7MkZ43gs/s1600-h/Secretary.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 319px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWdYDUhBvuM45Yo8XzaRS7rPbf3lRjq1TKLoCqBEUEIYWpXnt9kw7YwrdfL8tePeWCUTReiWRws5wUmM8CXnnQQzr8Fep_0PA20w6wgitorGnGzUoBA3Tzw_hk6Hc8dzrVbEJ7MkZ43gs/s400/Secretary.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365928183125664818" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Claudette Colbert and Herbert Marshall in Secrets of a Secretary. Thanks to Trouble in Paradise for the image.</span><br /><br /><br />Claudette Colbert plays, Helen Blake, the secretary in question, whose secrets include: an ill-advised marriage to an fortune-hunter who left her to become a gigolo the moment he found out her father was broke, the fact that her employer is cheating on her fiancee, that she is in love with said fiancee and he is in love with her. It gets even more complicated when its revealed that her employer's lover is none other than her not-quite ex. Herbert Marshall plays the fiancee, an English Lord Danforth who gets stood up so much that he falls in love with the secretary whose job it is to continually inform him that her boss has been detained by some mysterious engagement or another. The film is unusually frank, even for pre-code and one sequence inter-cut Lord Danforth and Helen enjoying an innocent dinner while Helen's boss, Sylvia Merritt visits her lover's seedy hotel room.<br /><br />Later that night, Helen and Lord Danforth decide to go dancing at the club where her ex now works. There's a great moment when Helen realizes the cheesy crooner in the floor show is her husband. Lord Danforth sneers at the gigolo, laughing about the kind of man who would do such things and the kind of woman who would be taken in by him. The irony is that his fiancee was with the guy hours earlier and of course, Helen, looks particularly miserable as she reveals that he's her husband. I have a perverse love of these kinds of scenes in movies and especially when they happen to Herbert Marshall. He always underplays, and its wonderful to watch him squirm quietly as he processes this plot complication and attempts to find something to say to Helen that will make him seem less of an ass.<br /><br />Mary Boland plays Sylvia Merritt's socially obsessed mother and though she gets little screen time, as always, she makes it count, providing the film's only comic relief. It's a sad commentary on the lack of longevity for female actresses, that though she was only ten years older than the romantic lead in this film, she ends up playing his mother-in-law to be.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Secrets of a Secretary</span> depicts a woman working, earning her living and freeing herself of relationship mistakes. Her job is somewhat humiliating given that a few years earlier she was herself attending the types of parties for which she now sends out RSVPs on behalf of someone else. She describes herself as "an upper servant" and it reminds me of the fact that the boss falling for his secretary is merely an updating of the old "master of the house falls for his governess" plot. Though there is that fairytale aspect to the story, there isn't the feeling that the heroine can't manage by herself. Indeed, it is only after she deliberately makes herself prime suspect in her husband's murder in order to preserve Lord Danforth from scandal, that she really needs the guy's help.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-29999120693720244092009-07-29T07:35:00.000-07:002009-08-04T07:18:13.968-07:00In Priase of Mediocrity: Girls Dormitory<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd7i6RZ0YAu6o_ROIEAwjyrsc8gmTszHcPSrzu2Qq4Sxghr3y6fCRMR64o6OxkmebTSFeE1HTfagstV92DMpSa8DsapoVlSCNK8uAI0svlsx-CEh9Clfu7LhOBlLLmHhl89y0mhBAdJ8o/s1600-h/Herbie31.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 295px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd7i6RZ0YAu6o_ROIEAwjyrsc8gmTszHcPSrzu2Qq4Sxghr3y6fCRMR64o6OxkmebTSFeE1HTfagstV92DMpSa8DsapoVlSCNK8uAI0svlsx-CEh9Clfu7LhOBlLLmHhl89y0mhBAdJ8o/s400/Herbie31.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363894747895833250" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />A good film is always a joy to watch. Sometimes a bad film can be a joy just because it's fun to mock it or to laugh at the unintentional humor. But I want to talk about something that is rarely loved--the mediocre film. The main joy that I get from mediocre films is re-writing them in my head. Often these movies have a great deal of potential and you can see where the writers went wrong. The Norma Shearer/Herbert Marshall melodrama, <span style="font-style: italic;">Riptide</span>, for example was just begging to be produced as a comedy. I spent more time imagining the scenes re-written as farce than I did watching the movie. Any movie is worthwhile that lingers in your mind for more than the run-time of the film. This probably accounts for why I give so few negative reviews to films on my blog.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Girl's Dormitory </span>(1936) had every promise of being a bad film: a somewhat lurid title, the whiff of scandal, and an unseemly love triangle between two teachers and a pupil at a vaguely European boarding school. Perhaps if this film had been made a few years earlier it could have really sunk deep in the swamp of these tantalizingly tawdry motifs. It might have even elevated itself to the status of legendary camp or better yet, it could have miraculously become a good film. It might have actually made an honest exploration of the various power imbalances inherent in May-September romances. It could have been "Lolita" ahead of its time. Simone Simon would have made an astoundingly effective Lo. Though she was 26 in 1936, she came off as younger even than the 19 years she is supposed to be in the film. She also has a worldliness about her that it is probably simplistic to describe as merely "French," an epithet hurled at her in one scene. She instinctively knows that her older, stodgy, quarry is going to need more prodding than usual. It's too bad for the film that her rival doesn't have those same Gaelic instincts. Speaking of Lolita, there is even a creepy scene in the movie where Herr Director Stephen Dominik (Herbert Marshall) talks with nostalgia about what Marie (Simon) was like when she came to the school at age 15. Another scene, in which Marie unceremoniously dumps Dominik, shows me that the filmmakers understood some of these imbalances but weren't brave enough to spell them out. Marshall creates Humbert Humbert twenty years before Nobokov even dreamed of him, briefly, in that scene as a mixture of heartbreak, humiliation and utter desperation plays across his face.<br /><br />What we are left is a post-code romance that is set-up to be fairly formulaic and even there it could have turned out to be a better movie than it did. Everything in the movie is crying out for Dominik to realize his mistake and admit that he's in love with fellow teacher, Anna, ably played by Ruth Chatterton. With more loose ends than an old tapestry, a very short run-time at under 80 minutes, it seems like the filmmakers just panicked and left the audience with an unsettling, contrived "happy" ending between Dominik and Marie. This is further confused by the presence of a very young Tyrone Power whom I was completely convinced was brought on board in the final reel to remove the young girl from the neck of our very middle-aged hero. (Marshall was actually 46 when he made this movie, though he makes a fairly convincing 37. He did have a baby face. ) I guess I wanted <span style="font-style: italic;">The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer</span>: the uncomfortable older man played for laughs juxtaposed with a comically serious young heroine. I would have even been happy with the story left as melodrama, as long as it had a different ending, not so favor of youth and beauty.<br /><br />One of the more glaring unresolved plot dilemmas is the investigation into Marie's supposed affair which is sparked by a pretend love letter she writes to Dominik. After a group of hard-nosed faculty threaten to call the girl's invalid mother into the school, she runs away in a rainstorm, Bronte style, nearly jumps off a cliff and spends enough of the night unchaperoned in a cabin with the good Herr Director to cause suspicion. Instead of seeing this as an admission of guilt or evidence of a deeper conspiracy, these teachers, whose actions were unbelievably prosecutorial to begin with, suddenly have a change of heart and see her disappearance as proof that she wasn't guilty. It gets worse. Dominik is made aware that Anna is in love with him, but this revelation has no effect on him, despite the three or four scenes to the contrary earlier in the film. I can see problems for his character either way he chooses to go. Sting didn't write "Don't Stand So Close to Me" in a vacuum. This situation could pretty much wreck his career no matter what. There is a narrow ledge that comedy walks to rid itself of the taint of unfair scandal, and it usually involves a public trial in which the true feelings of all the characters are revealed. Frank Capra knew this which is why he employed the device so often. Though the movie had a golden opportunity for such a set-piece through the investigation, it is never utilized.<br /><br />The few people whom I've seen comment on this film have felt that it simply puts forth outdated mores. When one of the teachers says "After all, she is 19. My mother had two children by the time she was that age," it caused me to involuntarily squirm in my seat. Perhaps audiences in 1936 were OK with characters marrying young or more ready to accept the idea of an older man with a much younger woman, but I still think they would find the notion that a middle-aged man would throw over the very attractive and devoted colleague for a girl half his age to be a bit foolish. I can't imagine that audiences would buy the way in which Chatterton gracefully bows out, counseling both of them as her friends as an acceptable fate. It's made worse by the fact that all this is done off-screen and is summed up in an after-the-fact conversation at the end of the film. And what about the disadvantages for Marie? Is she going to wake up some day at 35 and find her self married to an old man? I simply refuse to buy the "outdated" argument. The mores described in this movie are more than just outdated, they are simplistic, wrong-headed and they must have appeared so, even in 1936. Indeed, the contemporaneous <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C00E5D7143CE53ABC4151DFBE66838D629EDE">New York Times review</a> says as much, while going on at length about the charms of Si-MOAN Si-MOAN.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-38867714217028021662009-03-03T15:01:00.000-08:002009-03-03T18:52:56.934-08:00Fandom Secrets: Classic film edition<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8v-tcr8cYPyIQyO_FPOLxXcaoxqBAJZJDDX97lNcimDr8ZYlp7VWXoHJPAVmSFf5iz9U0nlfjnHkoRbV_17pxOIxyrmBGzJZNorLRtecdf7LKAnHJmXEcihyvfz3vA1zZOdZC3SCzFQA/s1600-h/ILUMrGrant.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8v-tcr8cYPyIQyO_FPOLxXcaoxqBAJZJDDX97lNcimDr8ZYlp7VWXoHJPAVmSFf5iz9U0nlfjnHkoRbV_17pxOIxyrmBGzJZNorLRtecdf7LKAnHJmXEcihyvfz3vA1zZOdZC3SCzFQA/s400/ILUMrGrant.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309103784323302978" border="0" /></a>Grey Coupon (best screen name ever) on the skiffy Battlestar boards recently posted a link to this awesome website <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/fandomsecrets">fandom secrets</a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/fandomsecrets">.</a> People log in anonymously and post secrets that they would never want to admit to their fandoms. Most of the postings are about obscure anime or <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Who</span>, but the occasional classic movie secret pops up.<br /><br />So I decided to start my own secret <a href="http://jennythenipper.livejournal.com/2075.html">livejournal community</a> where you can log in anonymously and post stuff about classic movies that you maybe don't want to admit to people who know your online self. Truth be told, I've already told all the world all my worst classic film secrets. If you don't believe me, I direct you to the following posts about <a href="http://cinemaocd.blogspot.com/2008/08/he-tasks-me-people-he-heaps-me.html">Gregory Peck</a> and <a href="http://cinemaocd.blogspot.com/2008/09/sub-mission-tribute-to-submarine-movies.html">Submarine films</a>. I may throw a few up there myself just to get you started. The one I posted here came from Fandom secrets, though for the life of me I can't imagine a fandom where people would ridicule you for preferring Cary Grant over the stars of <span style="font-style: italic;">Pirates of Caribbean</span>. Perhaps its that this person is very young and feels embarrassed that they have a crush on a dead guy. Welcome to my life, anonymous 14-year -old POTC fan, welcome to my life.<br /><br />While we are on the topic, I'd like to say that I actually invented my own fandom secrets, when I was a teenager. I kept a photo album with all my weird celebrity crushes called "secret loves." There was the movie star that I adored (<a href="http://www.theoldcorner.org.uk/sources/photographs/web_size/section_pics/press/REFS_article_RollingStone160884-2.jpg">Bill Murray)</a> even though he was way outside the realm of traditionally handsome. There was the couple I shipped because I worshipped her fashion sense and his taste in old movies (<a href="http://www.lacoctelera.com/myfiles/ydesperte/remington.jpg">Laura Holt and Remington Steele</a>), the dead guys (<a href="http://www.doctormacro1.info/Images/Olivier,%20Laurence/Olivier,%20Laurence_01.jpg">Laurence Olivier</a>, <a href="http://www.doctormacro1.info/Images/Grant,%20Cary/Annex/Annex%20-%20Grant,%20Cary%20%28Gunga%20Din%29_04.jpg">Cary Grant</a>) and the handsome and distinguished newscaster who was only a few years younger than my dad (<a href="http://assets.hulu.com/shows/key_art_tom_brokaw_reports.jpg">Tom Brokaw</a>). About that last secret, I will now confess in this very public space that when I visited Mount Rushmore as a teenager I made my friend sit through the entire educational film at the visitor center because it was narrated by a certain South Dakota native.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-56682526777760249322009-02-23T09:57:00.000-08:002009-02-23T16:40:49.031-08:00Dracula '79<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwZSeqhDuhNP8l-7macPvOU9IUv4vlVWyxcyuo0x1iiYapbop0WTYc9yzWWpI99-ki-ywWsF4Pbnh27h8XvluK45N9vETPiTwYF9kalofzL6G5qNke23RvhwBsoD7NjNnvKe3jdL_ZJMk/s1600-h/frankrd.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 305px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwZSeqhDuhNP8l-7macPvOU9IUv4vlVWyxcyuo0x1iiYapbop0WTYc9yzWWpI99-ki-ywWsF4Pbnh27h8XvluK45N9vETPiTwYF9kalofzL6G5qNke23RvhwBsoD7NjNnvKe3jdL_ZJMk/s400/frankrd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306056995664268018" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Night Fever: Frank Langella oozes an oily charm as Dracula. His seductions are aided by the smoke machine that follows him around.</span><br /><br />This movie came up in my Tivo's fortnightly scan for Laurence Olivier. Though this is a dangerous period for his films since he was in the habit of acting for anyone who paid him to help abate personal debt, I thought it would give it shot since it also stars Frank Langella who is in the news these days because of <span style="font-style: italic;">Frost/Nixon</span>. I was pleasantly surprised to find that <span style="font-style: italic;">Dracula</span> (1979) wasn't as cheaply made or poorly acted as I expected. To the contrary, the whole cast is excellent, the script, though not true to Bram Stoker, is at least intelligent and the production values are first-rate.<br /><br />Director John Badaham (<span style="font-style: italic;">Saturday Night Fever</span>) has a leaden touch when it comes to creating a gothic atmosphere with a gloomy washed out color pallet, acres of spiderwebs, bug eating coffin bearers and an elaborate insane asylumn set. Sometimes his effects connect with the viewer to produce genuine horror, such as the scenes of the madhouse in an electrical storm or Dracula crawling up and down buildings, but other times it all just a bit much. The most successful aspect of the movie is the relationship between Dracula and his intended victim/bride Lucy (Kate Nelligan). The pair have genuine chemistry and when she arrives at his run-down abbey for an ill-advised dinner the mood shifts from spooky to romantic.<br /><br />The script moves the setting from Victorian era forward twenty or thirty years to the the early twentieth century to give more a leeway to turn Lucy into a headstrong, modern heroine. Trevor Eve gives a subtle performance as Lucy's fiancee, Jonathan Harker, who can't quite wrap his Edwardian man-brain around the fact that his girl would prefer to sleep in a coffin with the undead than wait out their long engagement.<br /><br />As I watching the movie I got the feeling that I had seen it before. The love scene with Dracula in Lucy's room with its <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr8D6Ysg05g">cheesy effects sequence</a> seemed familiar. After a bit of research, I think I was remembering <span style="font-style: italic;">Love at First Bite </span>(1979) which had a comic version of this scene. The spoof film had an inspired piece of ironic casting with supernaturally tan George Hamilton as the Count.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-31008088187877585042009-02-22T16:33:00.000-08:002009-02-22T20:22:32.815-08:00The Phantom Menace (1999)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0s_2UYMB9HkQgym3FR7s8pre1kh15j0PNegjHMGsRGPW6EUiJ8443f-GKDKyxVipPQOrt2PvEXLI1VY0wi7M9xswBxH-9Pkns9IrfGJq4P-3402aN17PwE9RZ5fNcCZhq4F9w21d0sKY/s1600-h/QuiGonJinnV3Wallpaper.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0s_2UYMB9HkQgym3FR7s8pre1kh15j0PNegjHMGsRGPW6EUiJ8443f-GKDKyxVipPQOrt2PvEXLI1VY0wi7M9xswBxH-9Pkns9IrfGJq4P-3402aN17PwE9RZ5fNcCZhq4F9w21d0sKY/s400/QuiGonJinnV3Wallpaper.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305794073479084482" border="0" /></a>This movie is ten years old. Wow. Ten years since George Lucas went from creator of beloved universe to "childhood memory rapist" as some of the most disappointed fans put it. Ten years since the greatest confluence of hype and mediocrity in the history of cinema. Had Lucas made a decent movie in that ten years, all would be have been forgiven, but sadly the other to "prequel" movies were just as deeply flawed in different ways as "Episode One."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Phantom Menace</span> was always my favorite of the prequels because though it is long, uneven, busy, overblown and creaky it had a few advantages over the later installments. The twenty year hiatus allowed Lucas to indulge the audience a bit in seeing the origins of characters from the original trilogy. The later installments do this as well, but it seemed more ok, somehow to indulge in this one. The first time R2 saves the day, a character actually shouts, "that little droid did it!" Moments like that worked for me in 1999 and they are still fun. <span style="font-style: italic;">Phantom Menace</span> also has Liam Neeson, which the later films do not. By being the first Jedi in his prime that we'd seen, fans finally got to do more than just dip their toe in lightsaber fights, mind tricks and that special combination of kung fu and pseudo religion that we'd been teased with in the original trilogy.<br /><br />I dragged Episode One out recently because my kid plays with my Star Wars toys and he has taken a shine to a twelve inch figure of Qui Gon. He was so happy to find out that there was a "Qui Gon movie" as he calls it, that I dug it out for him, even though I was pretty sure it was a little old for him. Maybe it's just not old enough since he was bored a great deal. He watches <span style="font-style: italic;">Cars</span> which is just as long and more character-driven. He liked certain action set pieces, but there are too many talky meeting scenes that aren't really made any more bearable by the fact that the people in them are crazy long-necked aliens. They still suffer from <a href="http://cocdmedia.blogspot.com/2009/02/dam-busters.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Dam Busters</span> syndrome.</a><br /><br />The effects were a major selling point of the movie and I think they still hold up. I'm no huge expert in this area, though. I still watch the unadulterated Original Trilogy (no special editions, thank you) without being bothered by the effects. Heck I watch Errol Flynn movies and am not bothered by the effects. The film is busy, but not as cluttered as the last two installments in the prequel trilogy.<br /><br />George Lucas really only has one way of ending a movie. An outnumbered squadron of underdogs must blow something up (a death star, a shield generator, a control ship, a series of Dams that provide hydroelectric power for Nazi Germany....oh wait, that was Dam Busters again) before a bunch of other characters get wiped out. There will be spectacular effects as the squad moves through a purpose-built landscape that only exists to give some variety for the matte painters and to tantalize the viewer with how spectacular it all is. This may sound harsh, but I really mean it as a compliment. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies are to dancing on improbable staircases what Jedi Knights are to fighting in reactor cores. Any franchise with a successful formula has to simply shuffle the elements and give the people what they want. In that respect, The Phantom Menace is more of a success than a failure.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-28806597819610235862009-02-22T15:46:00.000-08:002009-02-22T16:33:05.363-08:00Dead Again<img alt="http://celluloidheroreviews.com/images/dead-again-1.jpg" src="http://celluloidheroreviews.com/images/dead-again-1.jpg" /><span style="font-style: italic;">Dead Again </span>(1991) is an innovative and intelligent contemporary noir film directed by Kenneth Branagh with a really original premise. I'm not going to go into the plot in depth, because watching it unravel is one of the joys of this film. I will tell you that Kenneth Branagh plays a detective, Mike Church, who tries to help an amnesia victim (Emma Thompson) recover her memories with the help of a hypnotist (Derek Jacobi). Andy Garcia and Robin Williams have interesting small parts and Seinfeld fans may be surprised to see "Newman" (Wayne Knight) turn up as Church's assistant.<br /><br />The movie takes on the conventions of noir, and most of the familiar tropes are here: a beautiful, possibly deadly lady in distress, supposedly helpful people leading the detective astray, and lots of scenes of driving around Los Angeles chasing down leads. The plot has enough twists for a couple of M. Night Shyamalan movies and benefits from an amazingly able cast. If anything the acting talent is almost a bit distracting. Not that they over- play their roles, but it can be difficult to forget that you are watching some of the most accomplished Shakespearean actors alive doing what amounts to a pulp thriller.<br /><br />I think the reason Branagh, Jacobi and Thompson were drawn to the material is that it becomes a philosophical meditation on reality and imagination and deals with a lot of themes that are present in <span style="font-style: italic;">Hamlet</span> in particular. What is sanity? What is reality? What is the point of revenge? Once a cycle of murder and revenge is set in motion, can anything stop it? Do we have free will or are we the pawn of fate? What if we are just acting out a drama that has occurred before? Is there an afterlife and can it connect with this life? Who is real and who is a "player?" All that sounds like pretty heady stuff for noir, but I promise that the <span style="font-style: italic;">Dead Again</span> is completely entertaining in a surface way as well.<br /><br />The ending of the movie is a bit of a mess. The final action is 30 seconds drawn out to five minutes of slow motion with confused editing. I could see that Branagh was aiming for a bit of <span style="font-style: italic;">Vertigo</span> mixed with <span style="font-style: italic;">Spellbound</span>, but he is no Alfred Hitchcock. There are worse sins than for a movie to be too ambitious and the strength of <span style="font-style: italic;">Dead Again</span> is that you probably be thinking about it long after it's over.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-74244009150115654602009-02-21T16:42:00.000-08:002009-02-22T15:44:55.304-08:00The Dam Busters<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqFTDDGrMHbFDBrhOPaw-ew4qLR6GQmt7LEImYhz8XqeuRvCRbautVjHmzMOy-Q3tTbfDG1MqA2lWASBL8Kf9X5nbhPCwP7gmOVUetXCD0gg0MAKWSLdD4PY0gCg5G8ZwABiCsy16lEeM/s1600-h/005a.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 244px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqFTDDGrMHbFDBrhOPaw-ew4qLR6GQmt7LEImYhz8XqeuRvCRbautVjHmzMOy-Q3tTbfDG1MqA2lWASBL8Kf9X5nbhPCwP7gmOVUetXCD0gg0MAKWSLdD4PY0gCg5G8ZwABiCsy16lEeM/s400/005a.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305422031940188962" border="0" /></a>My husband maintains that this movie plays continuously on Saturday afternoons back in the old country (The United Kingdom) and that watching it one should imagine you are without the myriad of tivo, cable and download options you have and just pretend that it's either this, cricket or a Welsh language documentary about cheese production. If you can pull this off then<span style="font-style: italic;"> The Dam Busters</span> is jolly enjoyable. If not, you can always focus on counting the number of pointless procedural meetings that are "dramatized" and form the bulk of the "suspense" in the first half of the movie. I found myself thinking of <span style="font-style: italic;">Lawrence of Arabia</span> quite a bit during <span style="font-style: italic;">Dam Busters</span> because in that movie these sorts of scenes are actually entertaining. Remember the scene where he goes before General Allengate and Allengate says, "I know you're well educated Lawrence, it says so in your dosier." At this point my husband wondered why I was chuckling to myself when nothing funny was happening on screen. On screen Michael Redgrave was explaining something complicated about physics to a room full of people who were pretending to care.<br /><br />Another faintly amusing way to pass the time during Dam Busters is to drink every time Richard Todd says the name of his dog in the film. The name of his dog is the n-word. Yeah, I know. Is that really necessary for historical accuracy? Can't they dub that out now? It's one of those occasions where you drink to forget as much as play the game.<br /><br />I recorded this movie because it has Michael Redgrave in it. He gives a decent performance as the engineer who invented the bombing technique which ultimately destroyed the critical German dams. To be honest, he doesn't have much to do as an actor. Mostly it amounts to him standing around in meetings looking anxious.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSKlaFzGDylVO_MvrjTNfLxNLcnXPRaSYEpFAbPRxwQgwNbs-fCwYBLn7TJTbz7DL24yP-bAT7VdPNh2PQIiVGNU53u_0oC4b7X_7AkpJ810n0cFVLVAAa38vu8ECfy3JMeG2LTLgPtqc/s1600-h/dam_busters_xl_01--film-B.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 306px; height: 230px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSKlaFzGDylVO_MvrjTNfLxNLcnXPRaSYEpFAbPRxwQgwNbs-fCwYBLn7TJTbz7DL24yP-bAT7VdPNh2PQIiVGNU53u_0oC4b7X_7AkpJ810n0cFVLVAAa38vu8ECfy3JMeG2LTLgPtqc/s400/dam_busters_xl_01--film-B.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305422867129528626" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Umm, I have no idea who this actor is.</span><br /><br />The dam busting scenes use some innovative in-camera special effects. Some of these look pretty badly dated, but I found the effects a welcome relief from the scenes of the interiors of the bombers since these are all exactly the same. The problem is that for historical accuracy all the actors have to wear full face oxygen masks. It's kinda hard to communicate complex emotion when you don't know who is talking and all the actors are limited to using only the upper third of their faces. I guess it works well enough because all they have to communicate will be repeated via telegraph back to the war room where it will be reacted to by the generals and poor Michael Redgrave who is really giving his anxious face a work out.<br /><br />I'm sure there are people out there who love <span style="font-style: italic;">Dam Busters</span> and will find my review hateful. That's probably fair enough since I do think the movie does a good job of telling the story that it is trying to tell and making a complex topic and a big cast of characters into something that can be followed. Of course, a straight forward documentary (in English please, no Welsh) would probably do just as well and all those tedious meeting scenes could be summarized quickly instead of playing out in real-time.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-66219226940798453782008-11-18T11:37:00.001-08:002008-11-18T11:39:23.108-08:00Bhowani Junction (1956)I was going to a full blog post about this, but I just can't. It's pretty awful. The script is very complex and full of historical detail which would be fine except that it is written in a way that every piece of dialog is telling you some important piece of background or plot exposition. Add to that, an intrusive voice-over soundtrack just in case you didn't understand what was just said in dialog. This isn't a movie it's a treatise.<br /><br />The movie follows the events around a rail station in India during the period of transition when the British were leaving India. It deals with non-violence, terrorism, racism, romance, date rape and about ten other things I've probably forgotten already.<br /><br />Stewart Granger and Ava Gardner have both been better. Granger seems a bit out of his depth and Gardner is just too one note throughout the whole thing. I loved her in <span style="font-style: italic;">On the Beach</span>. Here, she is just shrill. The issues her supposedly bi-racial character faces, are complex but her reaction is to get mad and shout at everyone all the time. My son came in when I was watching this movie and he sad, "lady is angry" and left. That pretty well sums up Ava's acting in this one.<br /><br />The direction is quite good as one would expect from Cukor. The location shooting is nice and in that respect the movie feels quite far ahead of its time. It doesn't have that 1950s travelogue feel to it. It feels more like a David Lean picture, except that the script is so bad. Recommended mostly for Cukor or Garner completists.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-62996348923971629612008-08-27T10:06:00.000-07:002008-08-27T10:29:38.745-07:00Dangerous Men: Pre-code Hollywood and the Birth of Modern ManMick LaSalle's excellent follow-up to Complicated Women is as much about evangelizing on behalf of his favorite actors as it is about proving his theme. Just as Complicated Women sung the praises of Norma Shearer, Ann Harding, Miriam Hopkins and other lesser known actresses of the pre-code era, so Dangerous Men delves into the work of Richard Barthelemess, William Warren and Lee Tracy. Of course, LaSalle must deal with Frederick March, Clark Gable, Edward G. Robinson and Jimmy Cagney just as he had to talk about Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich in his first book. One gets the sense that his real joy is bringing people to these lesser-known actors and their films. His opinions and analysis of Frederick March's films have made me want to go back and look again at several of his movies, such as <span style="font-style: italic;">Merrily We Go to Hell </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Eagle and the Hawk</span>. I'd watched both of these films once years ago because Cary Grant has small parts in them. I seem to remember that I though both movies were good, but since Cary's parts were so small, I really didn't ever bother to think of them again.<br /><br />As in his first book, Dangerous Men does an excellent job of setting the historical and cinematic backdrop for the pre-code era. This is where his book is probably most valuable for someone of our era, trying to understand these movies. Yet, the author is certainly at his most entertaining when he is letting his critic's wit loose on some of the lesser movies of this era. His writing on <span style="font-style: italic;">The Devil and the Deep </span> had me laughing out loud and wishing I'd thought of half the pity comments he made on the film. Though I wish he liked Gary Cooper more or had anything to say about Cary Grant or William Powell in this period, I can't help but love a writer who is so completely unafraid of holding an unpopular opinion about such an American Institution as Gary Cooper. (In a recent podcast, he drew the wrath of his core audience and co-host when he said that watching Judy Garland was "torture" and that <span style="font-style: italic;">Top Hat</span> was superior to<span style="font-style: italic;"> Singin' in the Rain</span>.)<br /><br />I'm looking forward to working my way through the films he discusses in his book, even though they will certainly add to my already over-burdened Tivo.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-40085933633015221372008-08-27T09:47:00.000-07:002008-08-27T10:06:40.241-07:00Ever in My Heart (1933)<span style="font-style: italic;">Ever in My Heart</span> is the story of Anne Archer (Barbara Stanwyck) a wealthy young woman who falls in love with Hugo, a young German professor (Otto Krueger) who arrives in tow with her fiancee Jeff (Ralph Bellamy) when he returns from a long trip abroad. Poor Ralph. Always the fiancee, never the groom. Anne and Hugo take one long look at each other and next thing we know she's sitting on the floor while he sings love songs to her in German. Ever the good sport, Jeff, steps aside and the couple are married. Things go well and the couple are truly happy as they proudly refuse any money from Anne's family. Then in one of those Mad Max turnabouts everything goes very wrong very quickly: their child dies of a fever, their dog gets killed by a gang of ruffians, Hugo is driven out of his job by anti-German sentiment as the U.S. enters WWI and the couple are literally starving. Rather than changing his name and accepting a job from his in-laws, Hugo abandons Anne and goes back to Germany. At this point, it seems like this is a typical anti-war movie of the period, sending the message that as Hitler stirred Germany, America should stay out of European wars. But <span style="font-style: italic;">Ever in My Heart</span>, though sometimes trite and manipulative, is at least layered enough to make things not that straightforward. Anne and Jeff join the war effort and Anne becomes, quite gung ho, though she nevers buys into to Anti-German propaganda the way those around her do. This part of the movie reminded me a lot of the typical World War II movie where a woman joins the WACS, except for the ending. When she inevitably meets up with Hugo again it is under surprising circumstances. Stanwyck and Krueger are really excellent throughout and especially in the end. They really sell the films conclusion, and I was pleasantly surprised that I could not guess the ending at all.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-5338671925912973252008-08-27T09:21:00.000-07:002008-08-27T09:47:00.571-07:00Ten Cents a Dance (1931)The story of a "taxi dancer" named Barbara (Stanwyck) who meets rich Mr. Carlton (Ricardo Cortez) at her job and has to choose between his "friendship" and marriage to a well-educated looser, Eddie (Monroe Owesley). She goes the good girl route and lives to regret it as her husband turns out to be a cheat, a liar and a thief and just all around jerk face. Eddie's an interesting villain in that he presents himself as being a well-mannered gentle sort of fellow but behind the scenes he's as manipulative as they come. And yet he's also sincere. He actually believes all the hard luck stories he gives people. The idea that Barbara Stanwyck could fall in love with such a guy, even if he presents the appearance of the opposite of the sort of guy she meets at work, is just really hard to swallow. Even harder to believe is that she sticks with him as long as she does. She soldiers through and he gets worse and worse and the audience waits impatiently for inevitable melt-down. When it comes, it's a doozy, though somehow not quite enough. By that point I was really hoping she'd actually belt him as she threatens to do earlier in the film. It doesn't help much that Owesley is probably the least attractive of all the fairly unattractive leading men in this run of pre-code Stanwyck films. Had Eddie an ounce of charm than I could see her falling for him and the story about her struggle to help support their income with part-time work might be more compelling. At the very least the movie makes a strong case for women being able to work in more respectable jobs. Though Barbara escapes the degradation of her job by marrying Carlton at the end, it's very clear that women didn't have a lot of legitimate options when once or twice in the story prostitution is hinted at and one of Barbara's co-workers reminds her that working for a dime a dance is at least legal. <span style="font-style: italic;">Ten Cents a Dance</span> also points out how unfair it is for society to dictate that men be the sole breadwinners by showing just how helpless women who don't work outside the home are when dealing with a spendthrift, good for nothing like Eddie.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-72116095276384774162008-08-24T15:47:00.000-07:002008-08-24T16:01:27.294-07:00The Locked Door (1929)Barabara Stanwyck's first talkie is mostly of interest because it was Barbara Stanwyck's first talkie. Rod La Roque, who played opposite to Norma Shearer in <span style="font-style: italic;">Let Us Be Gay</span>, is also present this time as the villain. La Roque is far better in this capacity and although his speech is still somewhat affected, his timing is better as the smarmy wolf, Devereaux. The Locked Door is particularly dated because it takes a mini history lesson to understand a big chunk of the plot. Filmed before the end of prohibition when ships moored off the coastlines of major cities were convenient ways to skirt the drinking laws and where nice girls didn't go with strange men. For once Barbara plays a naive young lady who trustingly accompanies her boss's son on one such a notorious cruise. Her virtue is only just saved by a raid as Devereaux traps her in a private dining room and presents her with the first of several locked doors. Later after she is happily married to her new boss Lawrence Regan, (William Boyd) Devereaux turns up on the arm of her new sister in law. ZaSu Pitts makes a fairly unfunny attempt at comic relief about midway through the action which becomes increasingly melodramatic till its conclusion. I think the Locked Door is mainly of interest to Stanwyck fans and though she was not proud of her work in it, she stands out of the crowd anyway.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-2062511992050053062008-08-24T15:24:00.000-07:002008-08-24T15:42:52.116-07:00The Bitter Tea of General Yen<span style="font-style: italic;">The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)</span> is a bizarre, exotic adventure set in Shanghai, which gave Frank Capra chance to dress his star, Barbara Stanwyck, up in amazing Mandarin Fashions and look seductive. It is often compared to Marlene Dietrich's The Lady from Shanghai. Though Babs plays a missionary in this one and Dietrich's Shanghai Lily couldn't be further from that profession. Megan Davis gets kidnapped on her wedding night by a Chinese warlord, General Yen (Nils Asther, a Dane in unconvincing make-up) after she and her husband try to rescue a trainload of orphans. At first Megan resists General Yen, but after a dream in which she imagines him by turns in Western clothes and sensitively sophisiticated and by others as as a monstrous charicature, she begins to soften to his charm. She interferes when he plans to have one of his concubines executed for disloyalty and he challenges her faith by telling her he will let the woman live, but take Megan's life instead if there is another betrayal. In true pre-code fashion the worst of humanity is confirmed and romantic love triumphs in spirit at the conclusion of the film. Stanwyck is a bit out of place in the settings and if feels wrong to have her sitting around looking glamorous all the time. Even further from home, is Frank Capra. With no humor and no uplifiting statement about humanity in crisis, I can't imagine what he was thinking.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-64316687615967921962008-08-24T15:06:00.000-07:002008-08-24T15:23:58.456-07:00The Night Nurse (1931)<span style="font-style: italic;">The Night Nurse</span> might be the quintessential pre-code film. It was made at Warner Brothers a studio that in the early thirties had the reputation of being the poor cynical younger brother of MGM, and not quite so down and out as Columbia. It's got sex, violence, a worldly wise view of morality and Barbara Stanwyck and Clark Gable before they became screen legends. It was also directed by the great William Wellman (<span style="font-style: italic;">Wings, The Public Enemy</span>) who keeps thing everything hopping at a lively pace and gives us some camera acrobatics, in the form of an Ambulance eye view of the city streets. Barbara Stanwyck plays Laura Hart, a young idealistic nurse who tries to play by the rules. Her best friend, the more worldy Maloney, (Joan Blondell), rolls her eyes through her Florence Nightengale pledge and does her best to keep Laura out of grasp of the interns who regard the stable of nurses at a teaching hospital as their private property. One night in the emergency room, Laura patches up a bootlegger (Ben Lyon) with a gunshot wound and "forgets" to the proper paperwork. Taking this risk she earns his undying gratitude and love, a connection which will continually save her bacon as she gets mixed up in a murder scheme to rob two little heiresses and their mother. Clark Gable plays Nick, the Chauffer, and chief villain. Gable is threatening force, looking a tad like a Nazi in his shiny boots and chauffer's jodpurs. He's wastes no time in roughing up Laura when she threatens to expose his scheme. I'm glad didn't wind up playing villains in films, but it's interesting to see that he could do that job just as well as the lovable rogue who floutes the rules and saves day.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-20261866736270935792008-08-23T15:10:00.000-07:002009-07-09T14:38:00.963-07:00Forbidden (1932)Forbidden is probably the best quality movie that Stanwyck made in the pre-code era. Barbara Stanwyck, Adolphe Monjou and Ralph Bellamy are all excellent in it, the production values stellar and the direction is by Frank Capra. The script is over-worked and tends toward melo-drama, but the first half is quite light and fun. Stanwyck is famous for her melt-down scenes where she lets loose and lets someone have it with a barrage of emotional yelling. Almost every pre-code Stanwyck has a melt-down, some have several. In Forbidden the melt-down comes early on. Stanwyck plays an over-worked librarian who gets driven over the dge by a bout of spring fever. The mild mannered "four eyes" decides to cash out her life savings and go on a swanky cruise to Havanna, but first she lets her co-workers have it screaming, "I wish I owned this library! If I did, I'd take and ax and chop it to pieces. Then I'd set the pieces on fire and dance around with a ukelele!!" Capra has lots of wonderful boss-telling-off scenes in his movies. Another favorite is Clark Gables "tub of mush" telegram in It Happened One Night. Deep in the Great Depression, Lulu's behavior is almost unimaginably irresponsible. Those lucky enough to have jobs were unlikely to behave that way in them and those lucky enough to have life-savings were unlikely to blow them on cruises. But what are the movies for if not for fantasy?<br /><br />Stanwyck glams it up for the boat, but she still boards the ship alone and eats dinner alone every evening. One night, she returns to her cabin alone and sad and finds a man passed out drunk in her bed! In real life security would be called and possibly lawsuits filed. But in the movies, this twist of fate means that she would meet the love of her life, Bob Grover (Adolphe Menjou). Lulu and Bob fall madly in love on their trip to Havanna. Their is a very beautifully photographed scene of them riding horses in the surf (a scene which led to a real-life riding accident and years of back problems for Stanwyck). After their vacation, Lulu moves to the city and finds a job at a newspaper. There she meets a tough guy reporter (Ralph Bellamy), who spends most of his time trying to get a date with her. Bellamy is actually quite likeable and charming in this role and as the film goes on its difficult to see why Bob Grover has such a hold over Lulu.<br /><br />One evening Bob comes to visit wearing a carnival mask. He has brought one for Lulu and the pair act out a little domestic play until Bob breaks down and delivers the bad news: he's married and there's no chance for divorce. Lulu breaks things off, but she's pregnant and she makes a go of raising her child alone. In a completely improbable turn of events, Lulu and Bob reunite, the reporter finds out Bob, a prominent politician has a love child and to avoid a scandal, Lulu lets Bob and his wife adopt the little girl. To see Stanwyck's who's worked so hard to assert Lulu's independence, it's difficult to watch her subvert her own needs so thoroughly to a fairly unworthy subject. Love triumphs, I suppose, but there is something about the whole last half of the film that feels forced. The first half of the movie fore-shadows Capra's later and greater comedies, while the second half reminds us just far Hollywood had to go before it created a part that was ready for everything Barbara Stanwyck had to offer.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-18790352498399035262008-08-20T09:09:00.001-07:002008-08-20T09:15:11.510-07:00Babyface3/5<br /><br />If you want wicked pre-code content, look no further than <span style="font-style: italic;">Babyface</span>. Barbara Stanwyck plays Lily, a young woman trapped in a sexual slavery in her father's speakeasy. One of the customers a German professor, tries to get her to read Nietsche. (For a little while I thought this was going to turn into the Blue Angel, but no...) Eventually his lectures sinks in and after her father is killed in an accident she and the maid, Chico (Theresa Harris) flee to the big city. On the way Lily offers herself to a railroad worker in order to prevent being thrown out of a boxcar and arrested. From then on a pattern emerges: Babyface sees a man with something to give, she gives him a come hither look, drags him to an empty office or in one case, the ladies room, gets whatever favor she needs in return for hers and then moves on, ruthlessly. She "works" her way through a banking empire, including a very young John Wayne, this way until she marries the president, Courtland Trenholm (George Brent). This is where the movie goes south a bit, because I didn't really buy the love story between Lilly and Courtland which is given very little screen time. She doesn't really seem to care any more for him than she does any of the others. Also I was annoyed that after so many years of faithful service and companionship Chico gets abandoned on a boat so that she can rush home to her husband. The turn about was too sudden and I kept asking myself, "what about Chico?" at the end.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-29403462338082789632008-08-20T09:02:00.000-07:002008-08-20T09:07:33.687-07:00Shopworn (1932)3/5<br /><br />Stanwyck plays a Kitty Lane, a girl who after her father is killed is forced to go live and work with her sister, whose husband owns a cheap diner on a college campus. She goes to work as a waitress sassing all the college boys and her oppressive, annoying brother in law. Eventually she meets a nice rich college boy (Regis Toomy) who wants to marry her, but the guy's hypochondriac mother refuses. The mother has her arrested on a prostitution charge and she is sent to a reformitory where she is worked to exhaustion. After she gets out, she works her way up from show girl to Broadway star (in an amusing 20 second montage of showbills). This is Barbara Stanwyck at her toughest telling off everyone every few minutes. My favorite scene is when she gets arrested and goads the police who mistakenly imagine she will come quietly "Come in here copper, and earn your pay!" I love the opening of the film, when moments after defending her choice to wear high heeled shoes to work, she runs across a mountain stream in them to get the site of her father's accident. The romantic plot is a bit plodding and I don't care much for Toomy or his character in this film. But <span style="font-style: italic;">Shopwor</span>n is certainly worth watching to see Stanwyck at her spunky best.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-10669849756996277212008-08-20T08:48:00.000-07:002008-08-20T09:01:48.243-07:00Illicit (1931)3/5<br /><br />You know this is the age old story of a couple who are in love, having sex and the girl doesn't want to get married. Wait, you say, that's not the age old story! This twist on an age-old story is what makes this classic pre-code and give it such a racy title. This "illicit" relationship we are to understand when the film opens has been going on for a while and he's starting to get anxious to settle down. The opening act, a typical evening with Dick (James Rennie) and Anne (Barbara Stanwyck) is very amusing and engaging and sustains our interest in these characters for the next 90 minutes, well almost (truth be told, I found the last half hour pretty dull). The romance between is mostly sweet and there is nothing really dangerous implied. Though the movie is dated, it does deal with the topic in an honest way. I think even today couples manage to live together more or less while maintaining a careful balance with their parents and other traditional forces. Another interesting twist is that Dick's father is quite sympathetic to them and it is their friends who are getting married off themselves that put the most pressure on the couple. I also could sympathize with the fact that one of the reason Anne doesn't want to get married is that she doesn't want to have children right away and this is something families inevitably begin campaigning for the minute a couple are wed. There are ocf course romantic rivals, but there is little suspense that the main characters won't find their way back in the end. If <span style="font-style: italic;">Illicit</span> were just a bit funnier it would be a classic comedy and if it were a bit more intense as a drama it would be a classic in that realm as well.<br /><br />Stanwyck gives a more restrained performance than usual and indeed her character is a change from her usual wise girl from the streets. Now she is a wise girl from society, but she still plays smart and sexy better than anyone I can think of. Rennie was a surprise to me, he is a lot more likable and interesting than her usual leading men from this period. I looked him up and after starring in this and a few other pictures he must have gone back to Broadway. He returned to the movies at the start of the Second World War, and he had supporting roles in a few big movies like <span style="font-style: italic;">Now Voyager</span>.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-57445665610881598402008-08-20T07:19:00.000-07:002008-08-20T07:22:17.438-07:00The Cowboy and the Lady4/5<br /><br />Gary Cooper made a career out of Westerns. He was a real-life cowboy from Montana who went to Hollywood to do stunt riding and then became a star. He also made almost a second career out of deflating his own myth. This is the first entry in a series of films that includes <span style="font-style: italic;">The Westerner</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Along Came Jones</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">High Noon</span>. Cooper and Oberon are both pretending to be something they're not. Oberon is a society dame pretending to be just another Rodeo groupie and Cooper is sensitive soul trapped in the life of a womanizing roughneck. This may not be a true Western as it has a contemporary setting and is really more about the jaded life a show business, but it is funny and sexy and has an above average script. My main exposure to Oberon was in Wuthering Heights and I was pleasantly surprised that she could handle light comedy. This fun little movie is in my top ten favorite Gary Cooper films.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3618446016862996027.post-52109853253226823882008-08-20T06:38:00.000-07:002008-08-20T06:41:19.882-07:00Welcome to the libraryI've created this media room as a supplement to Cinema OCD as a repository of reviews of books about filmstars, film and of course films. I will be importing online reviews from my Netflix account and my old web page, the Crackpot Critic as well as creating new content on a regular basis.Jennythenipperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04570881559181199994noreply@blogger.com1