What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Trenchfriend]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Valley

 

[Fading Fast]

The Office Wife from 1930 with Dorothy MacKaill, Lewis Stone and Joan Blondell

• Early talky and pre-code with element of both that result in an good movie and an even more-interesting look at a moment in movie history

• There's no soundtrack, little action, few sets and a lot of talking - basically, they filmed a souped-up play done in a fast sixty minutes

• The subject is the "office wife" 1930 style: when a high-powered executive forms a bond with his secretary that is stronger and closer than the one with his wife, thus, threatening his marriage

• Stone (who is a bit too old for the role) plays a publishing exec who encourages one of his top authors to write about the "office wife," but then ends up living the experience. To wit, his new wife loses interest in him, in part, owing to his long hours at work, while his new secretary (MacKaill) develops a romantic interest in him (and vice versa)

• The rest is watching it play out - does he leave his wife for the secretary he's falling in love with (especially after he learns his wife is having an affair) and does his secretary leave her decent (if bumptious) boyfriend for her much older and wealthier boss? And since the movie's run time is all of sixty minutes, you don't have to wait long to find out

• Despite its crude, by today's standards, production quality, the story's timelessness engages as does MacKaill, a talented and wanly pretty actress

• But equally interesting are the pre-code curios such as:
  • A girl-on-girl, in-their-underwear, kiss (MacKaill and Blondell, see pic below)
  • A clearly lesbian author wearing men's-style suits and smoking cigars
  • MacKaill's inability to find a single bra to wear
  • Booze being readily consumed without condemnation despite Prohibition
  • Divorce accepted as just something that happens / not a big deal
  • In four short years, when the Motion Picture Production Code would be enforced, most of these situations would be verboten

• Visually, the trip to 1930 is time-travel fun with Stone's outer office a wonderful example of '30s high Art Deco

Pre-code early 1930s enjoying a girl-on-girl kiss (it created a bit of a stir when the TV show Friends had a girl-on-girl kiss in 2001 - this one was seventy-plus years earlier):

 

[Trenchfriend]

"The last king of Scotland"

Forrest Whitaker!!

 

[belfastboy]

Caught a late night showing of the 1953 Clark Gable adventure "Mogambo" on TCM last night. This was my first time seeing this movie as a whole, and not as parts. Loved Ava Gardner's spunky, fun personality clashing with Grace Kelly's stuck-up, two timing activities. And then there's Clark Gable thinking with the wrong head and stuck in the middle with a clueless Donald Sinden. Beyond the romantic triangle, the film is a great adventure through the eastern African continent, and was shot entirely on location using a soundtrack captured while filming. Some fantastic vintage safari gear in this one too.

We watched this a while back and I concur with your view on the two females. When Gable first appeared wearing his toooo tight safari shorts my wife burst into laughter and said they were the gayest shorts she had ever witnessed.....and then quickly added..."not that there is anything wrong with that"

 

[MisterCairo]

"The last king of Scotland"

Forrest Whitaker!!

James IV, surely???

;-)

 

[MisterCairo]

Hateful Eight last night, with my brother staying over the course of the last week.

Wish I had remembered it is nearly three hours long. I would not have suggested starting it at a quarter past ten at night...

 

[Edward]

James IV, surely???

;-)

That would be an ecumenical matter.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Law in Her Hands from 1936 with Margaret Lindsay, Glenda Farrell, Lyle Talbot and Warren Hull

B-movies can rise above their station to be outstanding films or they can be terrible efforts of weak acting, weak writing and weak directing. But a lot of them, like The Law in Her Hands, can be - with one big caveat - fun, quick (60 minute) "movies" that are really more like hour-long TV dramas.

Here, two young women (Lindsay and Farrell) - who worked their way through law school - graduate, quit waitressing, open a law office and try to find clients - tough to do in the Depression. The smarter of the two, Lindsay, is dating an assistant district attorney (Hull) who wants her to quit working, marry him and become a mother and homemaker. She resists (for God sakes, she just passed the bar) as her passion is to build a law practise, but despite their differences, they continue dating.

To smooth things over, Lindsay, a beautiful young woman whose every pore reads well-bred nice girl - but not spoiled - invites Manhattan-centric Hull out to her place in Brooklyn for dinner with this little gem of an exchange (the first sentence is a paraphrasing):

Lindsay: "If I can get you to leave Manhattan, come out to Brooklyn and I'll cook you dinner tonight."

Hull: "How far out in Brooklyn?"

Lindsay: "Oh, way out, where 'oil' is 'earl'."

That's it, but what an inside-New-York moment as she is basically telling him she lives in the part of Brooklyn where the dialect is full-on Brooklynese and Manhattanites rarely tread. It flies by, but it's great fun hearing Lindsay break from her WASP-perfect diction for one second to pronounce "oil" as "earl" with Brooklyn verisimilitude.

But back at the law office, with their practice not attracting clients and the furniture repo man knocking on the door, the women are offered a large retainer from a known mob boss (Talbot) that Lindsay's DA boyfriend has been trying to put away. After initially rejecting his offer, the women take on his business under certain conditions that allow them to think they are staying honest, but as we all know, you can't be a little pregnant.

From here, the women's practice thrives as Lindsay proves very good at lawyering for the mob, while her relationship with the boyfriend gets strained. But then, as we knew would happen all along, Lindsay and her mob-boss client have a come-to-Jesus moment when he wants her to defend the mob in a horrible child-poisoning case.

You'll guess the outcome ahead of time, but still, I have to note the following as a spoiler alert: Lindsay stands up to the mob even though it will hurt her business. Now, here's where the movie goes full-on Motion-Picture-Production-Code stupid.

After Lindsay - unwilling to fight dirty in this one - loses the case and her largest (but not only) client, she meets up with the DA boyfriend and, smiling like she means it (she's got a heck of an arresting smile), agrees to quit the law to become a homemaker and mother as he's wanted her to do all along. End of movie - puke.

It not only rings false, you can almost feel the Motion Picture Production Code stamp coming down on the film. A lot of women and men want to be homemakers - good for them, freedom of choice is a wonderful thing - but until this forced-auto-correct moment, everything about Lindsay's character said, "I want to succeed as a lawyer," as she comes alive preparing for cases and arguing in the courtroom.

Had this been a pre-code movie, Lindsay, like pre-code heroines Ruth Chatterton and Kay Francis (the latter's horrible diction balances out the universe for Lindsay's elegantly perfection diction) would have picked herself up from the floor, shaken off the dirt and gone back to work with, maybe, a pause for a "quicky" with her DA boyfriend. Now, that's how this fun-and-breezy B-movie / hour-long TV-style drama deserved to end.


N.B., Couldn't help but think of our @LizzieMaine and her very Brooklyn fictional couple Sally and Joe when the "earl" comment came up.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Breaking Point from 1950 with John Garfield, Phyllis Thaxter (a favorites less-well-known actress of mine), Juano Hernandez and Patricia Neal

"You got that stubborn stupid look on your face you always get when you're going to do something you know isn't right, but you're going to do it anyway cause that's the way you are." - Phyllis Thaxter to husband John Garfield (and God bless her)


That fantastic line is also a pretty darn good summary of The Breaking Point. Garfield, up against it as a commercial charter-boat captain behind on his boat payments and house rent and with a wife and two kids to support, basically, spends the movie making one desperately stupid choice after another all the while sporting an arrogantly dumb look on his face while doing so. Fair or not, Garfield is unable to accept that, despite being a war hero, he is failing in civilian life.

I didn't much like this movie the first time I saw it years ago, but am revising my opinion up, a lot, as the story holds together well, the emotions in it are real, raw and powerful and the acting is outstanding, starting with Garfield, but including the entire cast.

Right out of the gate, Garfield ignores the advice and offers of help and support from his kind and decent wife (Thaxter) and equally kind and decent best friend and crewman (Hernandez) as financial problems mount. Instead, on his own, he makes the fateful decision to transport illegal immigrants into the country (yup, nothing's new) for an out-sized payday.

While a lot more happens after that, that's the trigger moment as that's when Garfield crossed the Rubicon from honest struggling family man to criminal covering his tracks. Throw into the mix that, as he distances his wife, he develops a friendship with a young wayward and pretty woman, Neal, who, like the illegal charter does for his money problems, seems to offer him a way out of his collapsing emotional world.

But wife Thaxter is no wallflower; she sees the danger Neal poses to her marriage and she fights to keep Garfield, if not faithful, at least wanting to return to her. But Garfield is a one-man wrecking crew who, despite a horrible first experience at crime, tries again, while also continuing to play footsie with Neal (the Motion Picture Production Code wouldn't allow it, but we all get that he's really sleeping with her).

From here, it's all more bad decisions and bad outcomes. But you stay with it because you're seeing, ugly at times, but viscerally real life exposed. And nothing is more real than watching Thaxter fight to save her family with grit: if she could have wrestled her husband to the ground to stop him from making another bad decision, you know she would have. Instead she delivers the quoted-at-the-top, fire-all-weapons line to try and prevent her husband from doing more stupid things.

Meanwhile, in his own misguided way, Garfield tenaciously and tragically fights to survive the consequences of his bad decisions as we watch a proud man crumble under the weight of all his awful choices. And in the end (spoiler alert), no one wins as Garfield survives, but is physically and mentally broken, while his best friend has been murdered. Sure, Garfield's wife keeps her family together, but despite the happy Motion-Picture-Production-Code forced spin, what's really left of it?

If you do watch it, stay with it to the end to see the child-alone-on-the-pier shot. I won't spoil it by giving you the what and why of the scene, just note that you want to see it because it is one of the most heartbreaking and poignant moments in any movie.

Maybe the real theme of The Breaking Point is that a man needs his family to not be alone in the world. But I'll go with Thaxter's crushing quote as a darn good close second, which says, effectively, some men are so stubborn that they'll make stupid choices, even though they know they won't work, rather than lose face.

N.B., Pay attention to the performance of Juano Hernandez as Garfield's first mate as it's different but equally powerful to the one he gave in Young Man with a Horn. This man is an actor. Had he worked at a time when there were more opportunities in film for black men, you have to believe he'd have been a major star.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Another excellent Juano Hernandez performance: Intruder in the Dust (1949).

 

[belfastboy]

After a great many years re-watched Peckinpaws "The Getaway". I like Steve McQueen, even in bad movies I always find him watchable. It was an okay movie, fun to watch an old Peckinpaw after so many years.

McQueen was good....Ali McGraw was terrible. How did she ever have a career let alone find stardom??? Part way through my wife announced "I don't care what happens to these two....they are both so unlikeable." I think for us that is the key to a movie.....do I care about the characters? Do I care about their future? The answer for this one was a clear no. We did not even care to see them get their possible comeuppance. The final scene with the two of them plus Slim Pickens I announced...."Well we finally found the ONE character in the movie that elicits my sympathy". It took 2 hours plus but we finally got there.

 

[Fading Fast]

After a great many years re-watched Peckinpaws "The Getaway". I like Steve McQueen, even in bad movies I always find him watchable. It was an okay movie, fun to watch an old Peckinpaw after so many years.

McQueen was good....Ali McGraw was terrible. How did she ever have a career let alone find stardom??? Part way through my wife announced "I don't care what happens to these two....they are both so unlikeable." I think for us that is the key to a movie.....do I care about the characters? Do I care about their future? The answer for this one was a clear no. We did not even care to see them get their possible comeuppance. The final scene with the two of them plus Slim Pickens I announced...."Well we finally found the ONE character in the movie that elicits my sympathy". It took 2 hours plus but we finally got there.

I watched a chunk of it on TCM yesterday and, agree, they are not "likable" crooks in this one, but as you imply, almost everyone else is even less likable so you kinda, sorta, maybe root for them. I also agree, and I can't fully explain it as he's not traditional movie star handsome, but there is something that makes Steve McQueen, as you said, watchable even in this mediocre movie.

 

[belfastboy]

I watched a chunk of it on TCM yesterday and, agree, they are not "likable" crooks in this one, but as you imply, almost everyone else is even less likable so you kinda, sorta, maybe root for them. I also agree, and I can't fully explain it as he's not traditional movie star handsome, but there is something that makes Steve McQueen, as you said, watchable even in this mediocre movie.

There is a plot device oft used in caper movies where the hero takes out the bad guy...sort of...knocks him out or some such but does not dispatch him or take his weapon. I always holler at the TV....shoot him!!!

Because you know the bad guy will come back to life and it will bite the hero in the ass. It seemed that McQueen had a moment of compassion or something that stopped him from shooting the bad guy in the hotel hallway after just removing the ammo and throwing it in the room....take the ammo, take the damn gun...don't just leave it!!!! It was soooo obvious that this was foreshadowing something and would come back into play. It is a cheap device that arises in far too many movies and I think treats the viewers as dummies.

 

[Fading Fast]

There is a plot device oft used in caper movies where the hero takes out the bad guy...sort of...knocks him out or some such but does not dispatch him or take his weapon. I always holler at the TV....shoot him!!!

Because you know the bad guy will come back to life and it will bite the hero in the ass. It seemed that McQueen had a moment of compassion or something that stopped him from shooting the bad guy in the hotel hallway after just removing the ammo and throwing it in the room....take the ammo, take the damn gun...don't just leave it!!!! It was soooo obvious that this was foreshadowing something and would come back into play. It is a cheap device that arises in far too many movies and I think treats the viewers as dummies.

Oh God yes. My girlfriend and I regularly yell at the screen (not really, but you get it) "make sure he/she is dead."

Heck, McQueen made that mistake twice, the first time was when he should have made sure that Rudy was dead when he shot him at the farm in the ditch.

I get it, they need conflict and missed opportunities, etc., to make a story, but I agree, sometimes it just makes us, the viewers, feel like they are playing us for suckers.

First rule of killing someone in a movie or TV show, makes absolutely, positively sure he/she is dead.

Did you happen to notice that the hotel shoot-out scene in "The Getaway" was ripped off about ten years later in the movie "48 Hours?" I've seen both movies before, but this is the first time I noticed how similar those scenes are.

 

[belfastboy]

Oh God yes. My girlfriend and I regularly yell at the screen (not really, but you get it) "make sure he/she is dead."

Heck, McQueen made that mistake twice, the first time was when he should have made sure that Rudy was dead when he shot him at the farm in the ditch.

I get it, they need conflict and missed opportunities, etc., to make a story, but I agree, sometimes it just makes us, the viewers, feel like they are playing us for suckers.

First rule of killing someone in a movie or TV show, makes absolutely, positively sure he/she is dead.

Did you happen to notice that the hotel shoot-out scene in "The Getaway" was ripped off about ten years later in the movie "48 Hours?" I've seen both movies before, but this is the first time I noticed how similar those scenes are.

We are watching "The Man in the High Tower" and there was a pivotal scene where the hero hits the bad guy over the head with a 2x4 and they run away leaving the shotgun in place. It became so obvious why they did that as it set up the next dramatic scene.....all for effect....it is crap. Have not seen the movie 48 Hours. BUT I have "All Fall Down" scheduled to record this coming week!!! I knew it would show up .

 

[Fading Fast]

We are watching "The Man in the High Tower" and there was a pivotal scene where the hero hits the bad guy over the head with a 2x4 and they run away leaving the shotgun in place. It became so obvious why they did that as it set up the next dramatic scene.....all for effect....it is crap. Have not seen the movie 48 Hours. BUT I have "All Fall Down" scheduled to record this coming week!!! I knew it would show up .

Really excited to hear your opinion on "All Fall Down." As noted, it's not a fun movie - but some real, raw emotions are on display.

 

[MisterCairo]

The other night with my brother over we were humming and hawing over what to watch late one night. Popped in The Mask, hadn't seen it in ages. What a hoot! So funny as well to see Cameron Diaz with a figure...

 

[Seb Lucas]

His Girl Friday - watched it mainly for Rosalind Russell. Cary Grant sometimes seems wooden here and the palpably contrived plot and dialogue roll out with mechanical precision. Russell, as the fast talking Hildy, manages to craft an amazing and unforgettable characterization. Jennifer Jason Leigh's homage to Russell's performance in the Coen Bros, Hudsucker Proxy is a guilty pleasure.

 

[MisterCairo]

Layer Cake, the not the third film in the Lock, Stock trilogy, which brought Daniel Craig to the attention of Barbara Broccoli and saved the Bond franchise.

A must see London gangster flick with a great cast, many in small roles who went on to bigger things - Tom Hardy among them. You will not recognize Ben Wishaw (Q in Bond and the voice of Paddington Bear) or his Paddington colleague Sally Hawkins.

 

[Fading Fast]

His Girl Friday - watched it mainly for Rosalind Russell. Cary Grant sometimes seems wooden here and the palpably contrived plot and dialogue roll out with mechanical precision. Russell, as the fast talking Hildy, manages to craft an amazing and unforgettable characterization. Jennifer Jason Leigh's homage to Russell's performance in the Coen Bros, Hudsucker Proxy is a guilty pleasure.

One of my top-ten-of-all-time movies with Russell's performance being the key. It's her movie from beginning to end. To be sure, you are spot on, humans can't and don't talk that perfectly fast while firing out one sizzling line after another, but IMO, that's the beauty here. It's not suppose to be true to life, but an enjoyable fantasy of what life would be if people could have their words and barbs written ahead of time so that they could be memorized and delivered with heat-seeking precision. I've never seen "Hudsucker Proxy" but will now keep an eye out for it.