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What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

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17,215
Location
New York City
TrialStill2.jpg
Trial from 1955 with Glenn Ford, Dorothy McGuire, Author Kennedy and Juano Hernandez

A movie that starts out as a progressive-for-the-era look at racial prejudice through the common device of the trial of a young minority - a Mexican boy, in this case - accused of murdering a young white girl morphs pretty aggressively into a story about the communist party in America cynically using the trial as a fundraiser and moral cause celebre to advance its objective of a global communist revolution.

Holy cow, but yes, that's the plot and while overwrought, it does a darn good job of showing almost everyone in a mendacious light. That list starts with many of the "good" white townspeople who want the "Mex" lynched - "hey, we all know he's guilty, so let's just do it." Thwarting them are an idealistic law professor, Ford, "summering" as a practicing lawyer, the firm's senior partner, Kennedy, and their paralegal, McGuire.

At this point, it's a pretty by-the-numbers legal drama challenging America's justice system to live up to its own ideals when everyone knows the outcome they want ahead of time. And because the senior partner wants to travel across the country to raise funds for the trial, he turns the courtroom defense over to the newbie law professor.

Initially, this move kinda makes sense as the Mexican boy's family has no money and robust defense cases are expensive. But when Ford is called away from his case preparation by Kennedy as Kennedy "needs" him to speak at a fundraiser, Ford is all but tricked into speaking at a communist rally - yes, to raise money for the defense, but also in support of "the communist cause."

He's no communist, so disgusted, Ford returns to his case preparations, but is issued a subpoena by The House Un-American Activities Committee. Now, paralegal McGuire, who we learn once dabbled in communism in college and helped Kennedy in his radical efforts for years, explains the real game to Ford: Kennedy is a true-believer communist who is using the Mexican boy's plight as a massive fundraiser for communism (with only a small amount of the proceeds going to the defense).

At this point, you need to regulate your breathing just to keep up with all the big-issue bombshells falling, but you don't get a chance as the trial begins in this white town itching for a conviction presided over by, hold on, a black trial judge, Juano Hernandez. Seriously, writer Don Mankiewicz and director Mark Robson somehow decided they could boil a full ocean of social issues in an hour and forty-five minutes.

After the usual trial machinations - juror bias (against the Mexican boy) exposed, tendentious testimony (against the Mexican boy) debunked, "objection" screamed a million times - Ford is about to rest for the defense in a case that looks good, at this point, for his client, the young Mexican boy. But in swoops Kennedy (he's still the lead defense attorney) who, sensing the Mexican boy will be found innocent, overrules Ford and puts the kid on the stand - wait, what? Why is Kennedy undermining his own case?

Once again, it is McGuire who explains that Kennedy wants the kid convicted as he can then milk the boy's "martyr" status for more money for the communist party - the kid be damned. (Spoiler alert) After the boy is overwhelmed on the stand by the prosecuting attorney (the exact reason why Ford didn't want to put the boy on the stand), a guilty verdict is handed down and the movie ramps up again.

(More spoiler alerts) Ford, now fuming with indignation, pulls some post-conviction-but-pre-sentencing legal machination to get the boy, a minor, off with, effectively, a slap on the wrist, which will undermine Kennedy's fund-raising-martyr strategy. This move pits Kennedy against the judge where Kennedy viciously tries to goad the black judge to overreact by accusing him of racial bias. Kennedy is angling for a mistrial - as noted, Mankiewicz and Robson have no fear that they can't manage every explosive social issue in America, at this time, in one movie.

(And even more spoilers - a lot happens in this movie) Judge Hernandez (see the postscript) doesn't take the bait and hands down a light sentence. Now victorious and clearly no communist stooge, the chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, effectively, drops his subpoena of Ford as, it's explained, the smarmy Chairman only wants easy targets he can use to advance his political career.

Okay, so let's go to the scoreboard. The "good" white people of the town wanted to lynch a Mexican boy. The liberal lawyer who took the case pro-bono turns out to be a communist cynically using the trial to advance the party's objectives in America. He and the party actually want the boy given the death sentence so that they can use his death as a cause celebre for fundraising. And the chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee is revealed to be a cynical political opportunist wrapping himself in the flag only for his own career gain.

One the plus side, though, an idealistic law professor and a black trial judge (in 1950s America) were able to leverage the philosophical ideals of justice embedded in the American legal system to prevent a complete travesty. There is, believe it or not, more - a love triangle between Kennedy, Ford and McGuire, cohabitation without marriage (again, in the '50s) and the Mexican boy's mother's complex motives - but you now have the big picture in this insanely ambitious movie.


P.S., Juano Hernandez is possibly the most-talented "unknown" actor of the era. As a black man, he sadly wasn't given the opportunity to be the leading man he should have been, but his performances have such nuance and integrity that each Hernandez effort leaves an impression. Beside his incredible work in this movie, see him elevate every scene he's in, in Young Man with a Horn and The Breaking Point.
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Messages
10,847
Location
vancouver, canada
"Edie" a Brit/Scottish production filmed in the Scottish Highlands in the little town of Lochinver (a wonderful little town, NW of the Highlands) We watched it for scenery and to revisit a favourite little town. It is a sweet 'small movie'. Sentimental, a bit forced tear jerky, but overall a good little movie and a decent way to spend a rainy cold Sunday night.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
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33,755
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
P.S., Juano Hernandez is possibly the most-talented "unknown" actor of the era. As a black man, he sadly wasn't given the opportunity to be the leading man he should have been, but his performances have such nuance and integrity that each Hernandez effort leaves an impression. Beside his incredible work in this movie, see him elevate every scene he's in, in Young Man with a Horn and The Breaking Point.
View attachment 293526

Hernandez was also a prominent figure in radio -- in 1933, he collaborated with folklorist Roark Bradford in a series based on the stories of John Henry that was, according to the reviews of the time, unlike anything the medium had seen up to that time in the depth of its characterizations. Unfortunately for Hernandez's legacy, the bulk of his radio work no longer survives, and much of what does is routine stuff where he plays a jungle native or some other such role -- but I've never heard a broadcast of his that he didn't improve just by being in it. He was also the rare example of a Black radio actor who wasn't confined to playing only Black roles.

https://radiogoldin.library.umkc.edu/Home/RadioGoldin_Records?searchString=Hernandez, Juano&type=Artists&count=107
 
Messages
12,734
Location
Northern California
"Black Christmas" - This 1975 proto-slasher has more holes than my last pair of Combat Boots. Decent cast wasted on a film that had all the elements to be a classic. BUT, the twist was weak, the ending was silly, the cops, even the smart ones, are dumb beyond belief and in the end the whole film falls in on itself. You never find out who's doing the killing and more importantly... WHY? Even the classic slashers of the 80's they at least gave you some reasoning no matter how flimsy. What a waste of 90 plus minutes of my life.

Worf

PS - Any puns or cheap jokes about the... title and the original poster will be folded, spindled and mutilated... strictly in keeping with the spirit of the season...

I saw this as a kid with friends at a drive-in. Had no idea what we were going to see, but it was Grizzly and Black Christmas. Neither was a movie I would have chosen. Way back then, I felt it was a waste of my life.
:D
 
Messages
17,215
Location
New York City
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While the City Sleeps from 1956 with Dana Andrews, George Sanders, Ida Lupino, Vincent Price, Sally Forrest, James Craig and Thomas Mitchel

Billed as a film-noir crime drama, it's really a soap-opera crime drama with a splash of noir.

When media mogul Amos Kyne dies, his son, smarmy playboy Vincent Price takes over and puts Kyne Media's top three men in competition to be his executive director. With a serial killer currently stalking New York City, the one who can bring him "the scoop," will get the new position.

Cagey head of Kyne Media Newswires, George Sanders, gruff editor, Thomas Mitchel and polished executive lackey, James Craig, are the contenders, with golden-boy reporter Dana Andrews helping Mitchel, the real "newsman" of the three.

And while the movie opens with a chilling murder of a single woman in her apartment by the serial killer, the picture, overall, devotes more time to the drinking, bed hopping, gossiping and backstabbing of the newsroom men and women than solving the mystery.

You'll need a scorecard to keep track of the sexual and political betrayals as, for example, women's features writer Ida Lupino makes and breaks alliances frequently, while she seems to proposition Andrews for a one-night stand mainly to dynamite his engagement to younger and prettier Nancy Forrest just for the sport or perverted principal of it. (While the Motion Picture Production Code forced Andrews, afterwards, to say they "only kissed" on the night he more than canoodled with Lupino, the audience got what really happened.)

When these newspaper men and women aren't hopping in and out of bed or plotting to undermine each other, they head over - day and night - to the nearby bar to fire back a lot of booze. While the Picture Code was strict about wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, it seemed fine with endless rounds of drinks being guzzled by everyone, all the time.

Playing on in the background of this alcoholic and sexual haze is a ferocious fight for the executive job as everyone scrambles to find the killer. Unfortunately, director Fritz Lang or the writers never settled on which story they wanted to tell - the hunt for a serial killer or the newsroom shenanigans - so the tone of the movie keeps pinging back and forth from serious crime drama to salaciously fun soap opera.

The predictable Code-driven end (spoiler alert) - hero-reporter Andrews captures the killer and gets his waits-till-she's-married good girl back - is inconsistent with the more real-to-life tawdriness of the rest of the movie. And while the Kyne newsroom is clearly a set, it still provides a time-capsule peek at how the 1950s news business was awkwardly adjusting to TV while trying to keep its newspapers and wire-services relevant. The movie's a bit of a mess, but overall, still has enough good to make it worth the watch.
 

Harp

I'll Lock Up
Messages
8,508
Location
Chicago, IL US
^^^I always found Ida Lupino a gorgeous knockout, and, as a film director she intimidated
male directors with lesser talent. Lupino combined extraordinary feminine charm/wiles and innate talent.
 
Messages
17,215
Location
New York City
^^^I always found Ida Lupino a gorgeous knockout, and, as a film director she intimidated
male directors with lesser talent. Lupino combined extraordinary feminine charm/wiles and innate talent.

You'll only get agreement from me as I'm very impressed with her career, talents and looks. She can carry an entire movie as she does in "The Hard Way" (comments here: #28001) and/or hold her own with mega stars like she does in "High Sierra" with Bogie. And she just looks smart.
 
Messages
17,215
Location
New York City
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The Front Page from 1974 with Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Susan Sarandon and a ton of sitcom and movie character actors from the '50s-'70s

This is Hollywood's third go at the same story as the movie was made in 1931 as The Front Page with Pat O'Brien and Adolphe Menjou and in 1940 as His Girl Friday with Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant. The '31 version is very good if you can deal with its early talky clunkiness, but the '40 version is, IMHO, one of the top-five- or ten-best movies ever made.

The basic story is the same in all three: an unscrupulous, hard-driving editor tries to prevent his best reporter from quitting to get married right in the middle of a sensational death-row hanging story he (or she) is covering. The '40 movie flipped the star reporter's sex from male to female, amping up this key reporter-editor relationship with sexual tension, which Grant and Russell - with rapid-fire dialogue and incredible chemistry - exploit to its fullest.

But for some reason, this 1974 version flips the reporter's sex back to male, which took much of the spark out of the leads' relationship. A remake should do one of two things: one, simply be a superior movie to the first as the '40 version of The Front Page is to the very good '31 version or, two, doing something interesting or fun with the remake as High Society does as a star-studded musical remake of The Philadelphia Story.

But nothing is better or more interesting in this 1974 version of The Front Page. Director Billy Wilder seemed to be channeling his inner Woody Allen as the movie's imbued with a New York shtick (despite being set in late 1920s Chicago) that takes itself even less seriously than the other two reasonably lighthearted versions. At points, its slapstick felt almost like intentional parody.

Too often, Wilder also takes the focus off of the editor and reporter's relationship to spend time on the mundane death-row-hanging story with its red-scare overtones. Hitchcock knew that movies like this should use the MacGuffin (the thing advancing the plot) to draw attention to the characters human foibles and challenges and not vice versa.

Leads Jack Lemmon as the reporter and Walter Mathou as the unscrupulous editor do have some good exchanges, but they never rise to a Russell-Grant level of brilliance. Heck, of the three versions, the exchange of dialogue is the slowest in this one - a real surprise as machine-gun repartee is the other versions' stylistic raison d'être.

If those two earlier versions hadn't been made, 1974's would be an okay movie on its own. But with two better cognates already out there, '74's feels hollow and tired. Not helping things was an awful performance by Carol Burnett in the role of the condemned man's hooker friend. Conversely, for a 1970s movie set in the '20s, the period details were above average. There are worse movies, but one's time would be better spent watching either of the two earlier versions.
 

Worf

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,207
Location
Troy, New York, USA
Our Christmas Cavalcade of Horror continues with a couple of weird ones.

"Body Melt" - This OZ offering is strange beyond belief but it keeps you gasping and laughing from beginning to end. Over the top levels of body horror and gore combined with outrageous humor. If you want a laugh, pointed social commentary and ridiculous special effects this is your flick.

"The Keep" - Sigh... what this film could've been. Great actors, Tangerine Dream soundtrack and Michael Mann with a vision. A 3.5 hour vision that the studios forced him to butcher into less than 2. So burned by the experience he refuses to discuss it to this very day. No version of his original cut remains. Nazi's, Golems, angels... all set in the Carpathian Mountains in 1941. Mercy.

"Ghosts of War" - This recent film depicts a squad of US Airborne soldiers sent to secure a French chateau after D-Day. Once they arrive they realize that the soldiers they've come to relieve can't wait the get the hell out of there. Some wouldn't even sleep in the house. Spookiness ensues but as a vet I can tell that things aren't quite right. Unit patches are wrong, references are made to books and films from the 50's and later and a larger unit would've been sent to hold such a strategic point. Also, although being in France, enemy units are said to be approaching from towns in Germany 100's of miles away. I chalked this up to sloppy and cheap film making until the twist at the end when revelations make the preceding movie make some kind of "sense". Not the best I've seen but certainly not the worst.

Worf
 

Harp

I'll Lock Up
Messages
8,508
Location
Chicago, IL US
^^^Ghosts of War sounds like a half baked Twilight Zone episode, which always packed some punch.
A favorite TZ episode featured a modern US Army armor tank wandering about Montana
and stumbling into 1876 Little Bighorn territory. And, of course, the 7th Cavalry at Last Stand hill.
The residual crew-one having caught an arrow in the back earlier-climb out and join the fight,
armed with M-1 carbines, and the sarge has a .45 Colt. Later, another tank shows up at the
modern battle sight, presumably searching for the now lost tank. The memorial obelisk is read,
and the missing tankers' names are inscribed therein. A real hebbiejebbie moment that.
 

Worf

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,207
Location
Troy, New York, USA
^^^Ghosts of War sounds like a half baked Twilight Zone episode, which always packed some punch.
A favorite TZ episode featured a modern US Army armor tank wandering about Montana
and stumbling into 1876 Little Bighorn territory. And, of course, the 7th Cavalry at Last Stand hill.
The residual crew-one having caught an arrow in the back earlier-climb out and join the fight,
armed with M-1 carbines, and the sarge has a .45 Colt. Later, another tank shows up at the
modern battle sight, presumably searching for the now lost tank. The memorial obelisk is read,
and the missing tankers' names are inscribed therein. A real hebbiejebbie moment that.
I remember that episode well. One of my faves is the U-boat captain doomed to roam the seas on a ship he sunk. Knowing that he'll be killed by himself, over and over again... Ooof.

Worf
 
Messages
17,215
Location
New York City
Somehow I missed that episode, but will track it down. Rod Serling, ex-boxer, ex-Airborne was an original.

If you don't have access to it another way, on 12/31 at 9:15am (EST), the SyFy channel is running that episode, "Judgement Night." My guess, since it's a New Years marathon, it's running nationwide and you can see it in Chicago (just check the exact time as that can shift from zone to zone and provider to provider).
 

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