green papaya
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,261
- Location
- California, usa
"Somewhere I'll Find You" 1942 staring Clark Gable and Lana Turner.
- A combined WWII propaganda film and love triangle where the propaganda is heavy-handed (to be fair though, what '42 propaganda film wasn't?), but the real excess was the ridiculously confusing gamesmanship in the love triangle
- Gable and his brother play reporters both, at times, vying for Turner's - also a reporter - affections
- But Gable, the older brother, sometimes seems to be trying to show his younger brother that Turner's not a "good" women, sometimes he seems to be going after her for himself, sometimes he seems to just want to bed her, sometimes he wants to marry her and all of that gets cycled and repeated too many times to keep it straight
- And while the younger brother plays it right down the fairway - he wants to marry Turner - Turner is also all over the map - good woman / hates Gable / loves Gable / bad women and on and on
- After awhile, I didn't care as long as the younger brother - the only one not playing a game - didn't get hurt
- The war / propaganda story is pretty good - shows the US attitude toward the war prior to Pearl Harbor as being mixed (which it was) and then, as a propaganda film does, becomes "we're all in" once Dec 7th happens
- The time-travel / period details are great - the clothes, cars, architecture, etc. are Fedora Lounge fun (the vacuum tube message system and dictaphone were office scene treats)
- Gable will always be a mystery to me. I know he was the "king" of Hollywood and the box office receipts back that up - and there is no question he can power through dialogue and is a presence on screen - but he always comes off as acting to me. He's always playing Gable - the big, powerful, (in his mind) sexual man. And his gestures always seem scaled to the theater, but too loud, too obvious for film.
One of my favorites!
I've planted myself in front of Turner Classic Movies all day and haven't regretted it a bit.
I've watched:
Nazi Agent
Hotel Berlin
Saboteur
Across the Pacific
and currently watching Twelve O'Clock High. I'm sure to be here when Tora! Tora! Tora! is on, as well!
I was outside and busy as a bee yesterday, so I figure I earned a day inside being a couch potato! (Plus my rheumatoid arthritis has been pretty painful).Sure you're not rooted into that couch? Get out! Breathe some fresh air! Shake da dirt off'n yer roots.!
Worf
I've planted myself in front of Turner Classic Movies all day and haven't regretted it a bit.
I've watched:
Nazi Agent
Hotel Berlin
Saboteur
Across the Pacific
and currently watching Twelve O'Clock High. I'm sure to be here when Tora! Tora! Tora! is on, as well!
I've planted myself in front of Turner Classic Movies all day and haven't regretted it a bit.
I've watched:
Nazi Agent
Hotel Berlin
Saboteur
Across the Pacific
and currently watching Twelve O'Clock High. I'm sure to be here when Tora! Tora! Tora! is on, as well!
Sorry you're a hurtin' my dear. That's NEVER a good thing. Go ahead... take root!I was outside and busy as a bee yesterday, so I figure I earned a day inside being a couch potato! (Plus my rheumatoid arthritis has been pretty painful).
Check out The Rains of Ranchipur - the same story remade in the fifties with Lana Turner, Richard Burton, Michael Rennie, etc.
I haven't seen the 1939 version yet, so I can't compare. Someday!
I was pretty unimpressed with the later version. And ultra-Brit Richard Burton playing the Indian doctor is kind of hard to take these days.
Taking it in the context of a '39 movie, I thought it was good and nearly on par with "The Letter" if that helps for comparison.
While there are notable exceptions (Hitchcock's movies for one), the '50s seemed a step down in movie making vs the '30s and '40s overall. The money spent on scenes and effects was clearly greater in the '50s, but the stories, acting and writing seem - again, overall, as there are many individual exceptions - stronger in the '30s and '40s for me.
I've never seen the film all the way through, but I've read the David Westheimer novel many times since I bumped into it at age 15. A dynamite story.