What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Zombie_61]

...Fay Wray looks great as a brunette (despite being iconically burned into my brain as King Kong's blonde)...

Fay Wray's natural hair color was dark red/auburn, which would photograph as brunette on black-and-white film. She obviously bleached it blonde for certain roles and I think it looked good either way, but I think the blonde complemented her comparatively pale complexion better.

 

[AmateisGal]

Lauren Bacall Day yesterday on TCM so I watched Designing Woman, The Big Sleep, and Key Largo.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Fay Wray's natural hair color was dark red/auburn, which would photograph as brunette on black-and-white film. She obviously bleached it blonde for certain roles and I think it looked good either way, but I think the blonde complemented her comparatively pale complexion better.

Fay screams in two-color Technicolor in "The Mystery of the Wax Museum."

 

[Fading Fast]

For what has to be the seventh or eighth time in thirty or so years, I watched "The Fountainhead." Ayn Rand's stylized writing works for many in her novels (others hate it), but for this fan of Rand's books, on screen, it just doesn't work.

But what does work is the incredible style of the movie. Despite a seemingly modest budget (the special effects are almost embarrassing), the set designs are stunning and the architecture impressive. Combined with the thoughtful outfits of each character (smartly aligned to the narrative arc) - and with dramatic lighting and camera angles to match - the movie is visually impressive - especially once you no longer need to focus on the dialogue.

It also doesn't hurt that Gary Cooper (a bit too old for the part, but still, he's Gary Cooper) and "everything youth and beauty have to offer" Patricia Neal are dazzling together and very "Randian" in their angular features and long, lithe bodies. Now that I don't expect the story to hold up to the book in any serious way, I find myself enjoying the movie simply for its style (and the occasional good burst of Randian ideology scoring a bullseye on a liberal target that Hollywood usually idolizes).

 

[LizzieMaine]

The first time I saw that, I thought it was the most explicitly Freudian movie I'd ever seen with all its rising shafts and throbbing drill-hammers and such. And then I read up and learned that this was deliberate on the part of director King Vidor, who, while politically sympathetic to Rand, also had his own definite ideas about how to present the material. It's a picture inextricably tied to the particular American zeitgeist of the time when it was made -- "let's see 'em call Jack Warner a pinko *now!*"

 

[Fading Fast]

The first time I saw that, I thought it was the most explicitly Freudian movie I'd ever seen with all its rising shafts and throbbing drill-hammers and such. And then I read up and learned that this was deliberate on the part of director King Vidor, who, while politically sympathetic to Rand, also had his own definite ideas about how to present the material. It's a picture inextricably tied to the particular American zeitgeist of the time when it was made -- "let's see 'em call Jack Warner a pinko *now!*"

The sexual symbolism is so heavy that Vidor must have had back problems for years afterwards from carrying it during production. While Vidor might have driven the movie's sexual, um, perspective, Rand, too, had - how shall we say this - strong, atypical sexual views (as we always note, nothing is really original; in this case, "Fifty Shades of Grey" wasn't breaking any new ground) that come through in her art as well.

Despite the politics not being Warner politics (at least as portrayed in many of its movies), it is full-on Warner style in a very good way (other than the smash-mouth Freudian stuff). I enjoy it now as I don't expect the philosophy to be presented well - once I got over that, I found the movie to be very fun stylistically as the architecture, clothes, lighting and camera angles - and pacing - are very cool, very of that moment, but it all still works today. Gail Wynand (played by the awesome Raymond Massey) has possibly the most over-the-top Deco-meets-Mid-Century-Modern office ever (the scale alone is overwhelming).

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've often wondered how that picture would have turned out with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who were Vidor's first choices for the leads, but Rand kiboshed that.

I think it might have been in Rand's contract that all of the architecture shown as that of "Roark" was to be strictly styled in the manner of Frank Lloyd Wright.

 

[Formeruser012523]

I've often wondered how that picture would have turned out with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who were Vidor's first choices for the leads, but Rand kiboshed that.

Surprised any author would have say over casting choices in their movies. I would assume that's far from the case today. Wonder what it was about Bogie and Bacall she didn't like?

 

[Fading Fast]

Surprised any author would have say over casting choices in their movies. I would assume that's far from the case today. Wonder what it was about Bogie and Bacall she didn't like?

From what I've read, Rand was a force of nature and drove a hard bargain with the studio including getting to pick the stars - as Lizzie notes. At that moment in time, owing to the outsized success of "The Fountainhead," she had the clout to get a lot (not all) of what she wanted from the studio.

Also, and I emphasize this is just based on my memory of things I've read over the years (so, who really knows), but Rand says she pictured Cooper in the role even at the time she was writing the novel. Apparently, at the time of the casting of the movie, she thought Neal was a perfect Domonique. As I alluded to in my first post, if you read the novel's description of the characters, Cooper and Neal fit them very closely; Bogie, in particular, did not.

...I think it might have been in Rand's contract that all of the architecture shown as that of "Roark" was to be strictly styled in the manner of Frank Lloyd Wright.

That would not surprise me as - having just seen the movie - all of "Roark's" architecture strongly resembles Wright's with a couple of buildings being clear ripoffs.

 

[Fading Fast]

I've often wondered how that picture would have turned out with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who were Vidor's first choices for the leads, but Rand kiboshed that....

Different in some ways of course, but the stylized dialogue would still be there which, IMO, is the reason the movie doesn't really work.

 

[2jakes]

Double Indemnity (1944)

Enjoyed it in spite of that horrid wig and sunglasses that kept shifting in and out of it.

Note: Small canvas basket grocery carts which reminds me of stores
of my yute!

 

[Fading Fast]

Double Indemnity (1944)
View attachment 133713
Enjoyed it in spite of that horrid wig and sunglasses that kept shifting in and out of it.
View attachment 133714
Note: Small canvas basket grocery carts which reminds me of stores
of my yute!

Just watched bits and pieces of it on TCM - Robinson steals every scene he's in (without trying, he's just that good).

 

[LizzieMaine]

Nevertheless, dead men don't wear plaid.

 

[2jakes]

Just watched bits and pieces of it on TCM - Robinson steals every scene he's in (without trying, he's just that good).

I kept thinking of "My Three Sons" 60s tv series.

I like Fred but in "Double Indemnity"...
it was like a featherweight boxer in an arena with heavyweights
Robinson and Stanwyck!

 

[Fading Fast]

"The Call it Sin" 1932 starring Loretta Young, David Manners and George Brent

• Early pre-code that moves along at a fast clip while highlighting that nothing is new
  • New York businessman drops into "fly-over" country with all the "coastal" attitude that today's politics reflect as he snickers at the lack of drink and the real commitment to religion on Sundays of these "bumpkins"
  • Also not new - #MeToo - as Broadway show producers take advantage of young girls trying to build careers
    • But it does refute the view that everyone was fine with it or looked the other way as it was clearly denounced by the movie's writers and several powerful characters in the movie try to thwart it - nothing is ever black and white and today's heroes aren't as fresh or brave as they think

• Also not new: the NYC businessman is engaged, a detail he conveniently leaves out as he pursues a ridiculous combination of youth and beauty in Loretta Young - the earnest country girl with dreams of a living in NYC

• That's all early set up for a story that feels a bit less engaging when Young moves to NYC to make a new life for herself and pursue the businessman - both of which prove hard to do as it's the depression and she discovers he's married

• After that, it's all girl tries to make it in showbiz and avoid the man she loves while maintaining her integrity

• Nothing groundbreaking - and the not-very-believable ending hurts it - but enjoyable enough for its 1-1/4 hour runtime

 

[1mach1]

Ending the summer on this note.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"The Call it Sin" 1932 starring Loretta Young, David Manners and George Brent

• Early pre-code that moves along at a fast clip while highlighting that nothing is new
  • New York businessman drops into "fly-over" country with all the "coastal" attitude that today's politics reflect as he snickers at the lack of drink and the real commitment to religion on Sundays of these "bumpkins"
  • Also not new - #MeToo - as Broadway show producers take advantage of young girls trying to build careers
    • But it does refute the view that everyone was fine with it or looked the other way as it was clearly denounced by the movie's writers and several powerful characters in the movie try to thwart it - nothing is ever black and white and today's heroes aren't as fresh or brave as they think

• Also not new: the NYC businessman is engaged, a detail he conveniently leaves out as he pursues a ridiculous combination of youth and beauty in Loretta Young - the earnest country girl with dreams of a living in NYC

• That's all early set up for a story that feels a bit less engaging when Young moves to NYC to make a new life for herself and pursue the businessman - both of which prove hard to do as it's the depression and she discovers he's married

• After that, it's all girl tries to make it in showbiz and avoid the man she loves while maintaining her integrity

• Nothing groundbreaking - and the not-very-believable ending hurts it - but enjoyable enough for its 1-1/4 hour runtime

I always enjoy watching what Warners does with Loretta Young in these early pictures. She's sort of like the pre-code Priscilla Lane.

 

[Formeruser012523]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

This was a strange one. Can't believe it took me so long to finally see it. Would you really erase anyone from your memory if you could? A cool concept and expertly done.

 

[Fading Fast]

I always enjoy watching what Warners does with Loretta Young in these early pictures. She's sort of like the pre-code Priscilla Lane.

She's too innocently, even angelically, pretty to scuff up the way they would Davis, Crawford, Stanwyck or others.

The three latter are all beautiful women, but the studios had no scruples about casting them as gold diggers, whores, criminals, etc. - but who'd believe lit-from-within (and above, cue the angelic music) Young would do those things? Norma Shearer could have unplanned sex with one man on the way to having planned sex with another, but not Young.

I can't picture Young in the Davis role in "Of Human Bondage," but Stanwyck or Crawford could have done it. Maybe that's why Young's career, just calling it straight, was much less than those other women's. But, heck, she owned the role of the Bishop's wife in "The Bishpo's Wife" and that's not a bad legacy.

 

[Trenchfriend]

ST: Nemesis

Nope, will probably never get me.