What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

Easily, he does. The rest of the cast (Scarlet Street) is somewhat forgettable next to him. He is entertaining in most of what I have seen him in. Still, it was a fine enough watch with a cup of coffee on a early Sunday morning.

"Tales Of Manhattan" from '42.

This movie, similar to "The Yellow Rolls Royce," follows the "life" of an object, in this case, a dinner jacket, as it is passed, sold, stumbled upon by a succession of owners. Basically, it allows for a series of loosely tied vignettes all of which are just okay in this movie, but the one that rises slightly above is the one with Edward G. Robinson.

This work-a-day movie is ambling through its third short story when Robinson takes over and tells his character's life story for about six or seven minutes. It's just him speaking and he fully engages you. It is story telling stripped to its core - a man just standing there talking. With all that movies had at their disposal, even in '42 - scenery, props, special effects, stunts, music score, etc. - the highlight of this movie was nothing more than a man on a stage talking. Robinson is one of the greats.

Interestingly, the last vignette was a bold-faced advocacy for socialism. I wouldn't be surprised if this movie was looked at when the gov't was investigating Hollywood for communist sympathies.

And on the fun front, a very young, very beautiful, very "Orson Welles and Hollywood hasn't worn the glow off her youth yet" Rita Hayworth appears in the first short story.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Rewatched the 1936 After the Thin Man, the first of the sequels to The Thin Man with William Powell and Myrna Loy. It is still funny, still a good mystery. From a fairness-to-the-viewer standpoint, the filmmakers do cheat. The essential clue to the murderer's identity is viewed by Nick Charles, but it is not shown to the viewer. But the film sports a long tense sequence where, sober for a change, Nick does some actual detective work; and there are echoes of the Ellery Queen style in it, as the solution turns on a question of who knew what when. There is another joy to the film as well, but I don't want to spoil it.

Dancer the nightclub owner: "How many places have you been thrown out of, Mr. Charles?"

Nick Charles, to Nora: "Just how many places is it now, Mrs. Charles?"

Nora: "How many places have you been in, Mr. Charles?"

 

[AmateisGal]

My annual Easter viewing of The Ten Commandments. I did not know that the baby who plays Moses as an infant was Charlton Heston's real life son.

 

[Fading Fast]

In one of those TCM fortuitous moments, I tuned into "Ben Hur" yesterday, literally, just as the chariot scene was starting. Still engrossing after all these years and all the times I've seen it before. It had to blow people away back when it was released.

 

[Doctor Strange]

The chariot race was mostly directed by genius stuntman Yakima Canutt. As should be abundantly clear from the rest of his filmography, William Wyler was an "actor's director" who thrived on dramatic conflicts... and not really a creator of action sequences or spectacles.

Fun factoid about this film: Wyler's direction to Heston was that Judah and Messala were "lifelong best friends", but his private direction to Stephen Boyd was that they'd had a homosexual relationship in their youth. (Wyler allegedly said, "Don't tell Chuck, because he'll fall apart".) Of course, this had to be just subtext back then, but it is visible in Messala's sometimes too-emotional responses throughout the story.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You could argue that that subtext is even more pronounced in the 1925 silent version, with Ramon Novarro (who actually was gay) and Francis X. Bushman (who wasn't.)

 

[Doctor Strange]

I haven't watched the silent version in like 40 years - and when I did, I think I was mostly focused on its groundbreaking effects work - but I'll certainly take your word for it!

 

[Fading Fast]

You could argue that that subtext is even more pronounced in the 1925 silent version, with Ramon Novarro (who actually was gay) and Francis X. Bushman (who wasn't.)

It's interesting today to see gay men, like Cesar Romero or Walter Pidgeon, who had mannerisms that (I know I'm on thin ice here, but am truly not trying to be offensive*) today are more commonly associated with gay men, play "manly" roles despite still showing these mannerism in their movies.

In "Tales of Manhattan," just saw it yesterday, Romero plays a playboy about to marry Ginger Rogers. He practically skips when he walks or runs several times and shows other signs that, today, can be associated with gay men. But back when it was released in the '40s, I guess, it flew by most Americans, but was probably caught by those more aware.

It's just funny as today, no leading male - gay or straight, but playing a straight role - would act that way unless the role specifically called for it. It makes you wonder if it wasn't a bit of intentional subversion or below-the-radar protests on the part of those gay men back then.


* Not all gay men have these mannerisms and not all men who have them are gay, but there are some mannerisms that do seem more common in gay men. If that's wrong of me to say, then so be, it is meant with no rancor or disparagement, it is just how I have experienced life. And the gay men I know today are the most brutal about pointing those characteristics out in other gay men.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There were a few gay actors who deliberately turned up the "nancing" as it was called at the time for comedy effect -- Franklin Pangborn, Johnny Arthur, and Grady Sutton are three prominent examples from the thirties who were well known for playing fussy, effeminate comedy roles. This type of thing is seen today by many critics as being in the same league as Stepin Fetchit or Willie Best in terms of the deliberate playing up of negative stereotypes, but it was a standard trope of the times, and people didn't seem to give it a lot of thought in terms of "OMG THAT PRISSY GUY WITH THE CARNATION SLEEPS WITH MEN!"

Johnny Arthur was the flamingest flamer who ever flamed a flame in many of his movie roles -- if you ever get a chance to see the 1929 version of "The Desert Song," he gives a performance that may be the campiest thing ever put on film before the 1960s. And yet, right in line with what you point out, he turned up in the late thirties as Darla's put-upon but happily married dad in the "Our Gang" comedies, just as fussy as ever, and you have to marvel at the suspension of disbelief. Sometimes they even seem to be consciously playing games with the audience in using actors like these in certain roles. Johnny Arthur turns up yet again in a 1934 Warner musical called "Twenty Million Sweethearts," where he plays the ever-mincing personal secretary of a Hollywood glamour-gal -- only to be revealed as her secret husband, after he gets roaring drunk and gets into a violent brawl with a room full of newspaper reporters.

And then you have somebody like Clifton Webb, who comes across as obviously gay in every film he was ever in, and yet on Broadway he danced one of the most sexually-torrid musical numbers ever seen on stage opposite Libby Holman -- who was completely and openly bisexual. Prewar show business was an environment where anything went. You do have to wonder how many people in the audiences really understood that.

 

[Worf]

In one of those TCM fortuitous moments, I tuned into "Ben Hur" yesterday, literally, just as the chariot scene was starting. Still engrossing after all these years and all the times I've seen it before. It had to blow people away back when it was released.

I caught it right before the sea battle and finished out the rest.

"You're all condemned men. We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well and live!"

I kept this quote on the outside of my cube for about 20 years before retirement... Some of my supervisor's did NOT think it was funny!

As for the silent version, obviously pre-code, I love the scene where the Pirate Captain confronts a proud Roman Prisoner...

"From Rome you came and back to Rome I'll send you... after a fashion..."

Next time you see him he's tied to ram of the ship and then driven head first through the side of a Roman Galley.

Worf

 

[Worf]

Fun factoid about this film: Wyler's direction to Heston was that Judah and Messala were "lifelong best friends", but his private direction to Stephen Boyd was that they'd had a homosexual relationship in their youth. (Wyler allegedly said, "Don't tell Chuck, because he'll fall apart".) Of course, this had to be just subtext back then, but it is visible in Messala's sometimes too-emotional responses throughout the story.

I saw this in the documentary "The Celluloid Closet" . But according to that film is was Gore Vidal (or so Vidal says) who told Boyd to play it like Heston was his boyhood lover. Further subtext is given by Masala's obvious relationship to his second in command who's distress at the chariot race is even more telling, obviously being Masala's current lover.

Worf

 

[Worf]

My annual Easter viewing of The Ten Commandments. I did not know that the baby who plays Moses as an infant was Charlton Heston's real life son.

I mistakenly believed (or rather fervently hoped) that they'd finally stopped showing this turkey. But it seems they showed it on Saturday rather than Sunday, as was the usual time slot. What ARE the ratings for this hunk of junk? Why do they insist on showing it? It's not like it's "The Wizard of Oz" or "It's a Wonderful Life", two annual showings that at least have some cinematic value.

Worf

 

[AmateisGal]

I mistakenly believed (or rather fervently hoped) that they'd finally stopped showing this turkey. But it seems they showed it on Saturday rather than Sunday, as was the usual time slot. What ARE the ratings for this hunk of junk? Why do they insist on showing it? It's not like it's "The Wizard of Oz" or "It's a Wonderful Life", two annual showings that at least have some cinematic value.

Worf

It is a well-beloved movie for many. I know I thoroughly enjoy it. Is it melodramatic? Perhaps. But it's an epic in so many ways - from the locations (Egypt) to the extras (a cast of thousands) to the costumes. The story itself is incredibly dramatic, as well.

http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/15/15243480/ten-commandments-movie-of-week-passover-easter

 

[Harp]

It is a well-beloved movie for many... The story itself is incredibly dramatic, as well.

and Eddie Munster's mom is in it too.

 

[Benzadmiral]

It is a well-beloved movie for many. I know I thoroughly enjoy it. Is it melodramatic? Perhaps. But it's an epic in so many ways - from the locations (Egypt) to the extras (a cast of thousands) to the costumes. The story itself is incredibly dramatic, as well.

http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/15/15243480/ten-commandments-movie-of-week-passover-easter

And another great character role for Edward G. Robinson. I too happened across the film last Saturday night, and started to say, "Robinson was miscast" -- but then he appeared next to Vincent Price as the Master Builder, and I found him as believable a sycophant as any mini-tyrant could ever want. The same actor who was parodied as Little Caesar could also play an ancient Egyptian, a milquetoast husband, and a college professor, and do them all superbly.

 

[MisterCairo]

Daddy's Home with Will Farrell and Mark Wahlberg.

A hoot.

 

[green papaya]

PATHS OF GLORY starring Kirk Douglas

A World War I French colonel defends three soldiers picked to be shot for a general's blunder. Directed by Stanley Kubrick

 

[Fading Fast]

And another great character role for Edward G. Robinson. I too happened across the film last Saturday night, and started to say, "Robinson was miscast" -- but then he appeared next to Vincent Price as the Master Builder, and I found him as believable a sycophant as any mini-tyrant could ever want. The same actor who was parodied as Little Caesar could also play an ancient Egyptian, a milquetoast husband, and a college professor, and do them all superbly.

And an almost pre-Columbo Columbo as a somewhat surface-bumbling insurance claims adjustor with a whip-smart brain underneath in "Double Indemnity." For my money, he's the best part of that very good movie.

 

[Fading Fast]

View attachment 72281

PATHS OF GLORY starring Kirk Douglas

A World War I French colonel defends three soldiers picked to be shot for a general's blunder. Directed by Stanley Kubrick

A movie that deserves all the accolades and attention it gets. As good as Douglas is in it, Menjou is even better as the super smarmy general.

 

[Benzadmiral]

And an almost pre-Columbo Columbo as a somewhat surface-bumbling insurance claims adjustor with a whip-smart brain underneath in "Double Indemnity." For my money, he's the best part of that very good movie.

I never got a Columbo or bumbling vibe off of Robinson's Keyes -- merely that he is whip-smart, as you say, and utterly dedicated to his work. You can't imagine him having a wife and kids, for example (and that lack might be why he takes Walter, MacMurray's character, under his wing).

I've mentioned before that after this film, Robinson got in touch with James M. Cain, the author of the novel, and asked him to write another story -- maybe a novel, maybe a screenplay -- featuring Keyes. Now that would have been something!