What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Harp]

^^^Margaret Lindsay somewhat resembles that cutie pie perched on the ladder for whatshisname? cartoonist
posing as April Kane over in the ERA thread. A knockout gal.
Another home run review.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^Margaret Lindsay somewhat resembles that cutie pie perched on the ladder for whatshisname? cartoonist
posing as April Kane over in the ERA thread. A knockout gal.
Another home run review.

Good call as Ms. Lindsay would make a perfect April Kane (for Milton Caniff) as Lindsay is at her best when playing nice girls.

Thank you for the kinds words too.

 

[Harp]

Good call as Ms. Lindsay would make a perfect April Kane (for Milton Caniff) as Lindsay is at her best when playing nice girls.

Thank you for the kinds words too.

Well deserved. You and Lizzie are so instructive.

I may be showing my age and conservative mindset but since starting the ERA thread and reading
your film reviews and what Lizzie chips in, I have been quite surprised by my innate sentiment to
yesterday's decadence but also its restraint as compared to today's prurient culture.

The mystery of woman, singular and plural, femininity is enhanced by common sense restraint,
and the mystique leaves the heart athirst for the wine of love.

Detour immediately harkens the alluring beauty and impression of Ann Savage, a diamond facet
all the more brilliant, luminous as the moon, drowning the stars shimmering competing light.

 

[Fading Fast]

Well deserved. You and Lizzie are so instructive.

I may be showing my age and conservative mindset but since starting the ERA thread and reading
your film reviews and what Lizzie chips in, I have been quite surprised by my innate sentiment to
yesterday's decadence but also its restraint as compared to today's prurient culture.

The mystery of woman, singular and plural, femininity is enhanced by common sense restraint,
and the mystique leaves the heart athirst for the wine of love.

Detour immediately harkens the alluring beauty and impression of Ann Savage, a diamond facet
all the more brilliant, luminous as the moon, drowning the stars shimmering competing light.

These are pretty much my leans too as I find today's gratuitous sexuality in our culture to be forced and boring. My girlfriend and I joke when a show starts as to how long it will take for the girl and guy to get to it as you'll now see a couple who just met going at it almost as if the writers want to get it out of the way or, maybe, prove their "edgy" bona fides before they get down to the story at hand.

My libertarian leans says if people want to see sex all the time on TV and in movies, so be it, but it is usually most effective from a story-telling perspective when it is restrained in some fashion to build anticipation / tension.

Sometimes the restrictions of the '40s are silly, as we know several of these comic-strip (and movie) characters are having sex, so it would be good to acknowledge it. The best balance, IHMO (and I mean that, I don't have the answers), would be some blend of the two eras where sex is shown when it holistically fits the story and, also, restrained more than today to allow for the narrative to build naturally.

 

[Harp]

William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, appeared on Susskind's talk show way back when,
and he remarked that he preferred the 'Bogie-Bacall' collusion illusion but definitely not delusion
that "you know they did it," so why the hell dwell? Swell.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've seen so many movies, and so much sex in movies, that I've lost all awareness of it, except to notice when they've stuck it into a picture deliberately in order to guarantee a hard R rating -- and ensure it gets the box-office boost that comes with that. I'm convinced that most of the sex you see on the screen nowadays is for commercial reasons as much as for any pretense of art.

I prefer "incomplete" media to media that shows me everything. I prefer radio to television as a storytelling medium, and I get as much enjoyment out of a good silent picture as a talkie -- because I like being able to fill in the blanks in what I'm being given rather than having to take somebody else's vision straight up. Code-era films, and other media -- like our comic strips -- are good examples of "incomplete" media -- you know there's things being left out, they know you know there's things being left out, and you know they know you know there's things being left out, and that's really the whole point of it. Incomplete media forces you to participate in the creation of the story in a way you don't when everything is shown, everything is spelled out, everything is pushed out in front of you for you to just sit and passively consume.

 

[Harp]

^^^Exactamondo. Now, this begs the question, sure, no doubt, but I just gotta know.
....I have concluded that Bucky Wing played for Illinois, my own instinctual grasp of the game,
Illini alum and all that rigamarole. But what I really wonderblunderstillwonder if Bucky that punky
move-maker sweet talkin Chinrish (Chinese-Irish-trust me I know my own kind)Quarterback is lucky,
or throwing incomplete passes here? Is Hu-Shee a wide receiver or just a deceiver? And that approach
to Terry and that kiss? And what about that earlier bootleg fake rollout with Terry Bucky pulled?
If he was nine-and-goal he wouldn't have run that, if he was doing the old sneak routine....???
I mean they're singing Puccini here.

 

[Fading Fast]

To our ongoing discussion, "pre-codes," which were actually made under a lightly and unevenly enforced code - plus the states imposed their own inconsistent standards at this time as well - so not really "pre-code," but "less-severe code," are also a version of incomplete media.

They, too, would often imply and/or hint at things, but leave plenty blank for you to fill in. But having more leeway than when the code was strictly enforced, they didn't have to do obviously silly or forced things to avoid taboos such as sex out of wedlock or drug use, which make them more adult-like than the code-enforced movies that immediately followed them.

Also, while pre-code movies show a lot of scantily clad women and even drug use, they don't show show full-frontal nudity (with a few exceptions) or intercourse as is common today. To be sure, sometimes those things truly fit the story and work, but often they are simply there for, as Lizzie notes, the audience-grabbing attention.

That's why, overall (many exceptions), the pre-codes, IMO, struck a pretty good balance between honesty and restraint leaving you, yes, blanks to fill in, but not having to ridiculously deny the obvious things adults do.

 

[belfastboy]

Technically not a movie as it was serialized into 3 parts...."The Rainbow" a 1988 movie adapted from DH Lawrence's novel. It was interesting, not a great movie but I thought it really captured the 'feel' of Lawrence's writing. I thought Imogen Stubbs was wonderful as the lead character even though the character is one of the most annoying in English literature. I thought she did a great job for such a young actress until I looked her up and discovered she was 26/27 when it was filmed BUT she was playing a 16 yr old in the movie....fooled me! But then as my wife advised she couldn't have been a real teenager during the filming....not with those lesbian scenes and all the moonlit nudity.

 

[AmateisGal]

Lover Come Back with Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Another fun early 1960s sex comedy with this wonderful duo. I think I prefer Pillow Talk to this one, but it was a lot of fun nevertheless.

 

[Fading Fast]

Lover Come Back with Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Another fun early 1960s sex comedy with this wonderful duo. I think I prefer Pillow Talk to this one, but it was a lot of fun nevertheless.

Agreed, "Pillow Talk" is the better of the two as all they did in "Lover Come Back" is rearrange the elements from "Pillow Talk." In the same silly genre, I like "That Touch of Mink" too.

 

[Rats Rateye]

Though not a very pleasant movie by any means, I am however a huge history buff. So I took a chance and watched the WWII movie "Come And See". Without going into much, I'll just say that it's a very intense movie from the perspective of a young Belarusian boy, who is caught up in the horrors of war. Needless to say, I had to find something uplifting after watching that. So some choice videos starting with Jimpin' Jive, featuring the legendary Cab Calloway and the incredibly talented Nicholas Brothers followed.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Case of the Curious Bride from 1935 with Warren William, Margaret Lindsay, Claire Dodd, Allen Jenkins and, in one of his first movie roles, Errol Flynn

This early Perry Mason movie adaptation is fun in a very Warner Bros. warp-speed way that packs a ton of plot and characters into eighty minute.

Warren William basically plays one of his stock Warner Bros.' characters, but with the name of Perry Mason, yet it works as William is comfortable in Warner's warp-speed world. He's clearly having a lot of fun as the genius defense attorney and bon vivant who gets to tweak the police, mix it up with mobsters and charm the women while being a step ahead of everyone almost all the time.

He's not really the Mason of the books or of later incarnations, but if you don't take it any more seriously than the actors or director do, it's a fun romp. And while William is the star in command of this effort, Claire Dodd, as his whip-smart, gets-the-joke secretary, Della Street, lights up every scene she's in. She and William are movie-chemistry gold. This helps as William and female lead, Margaret Lindsay - William's falsely accused-of-murder former girlfriend and, now, client - never really click in this movie's one flat note.

The plot is confusing as heck: Lindsay's first husband (Flynn) was supposedly dead, but reappeared to blackmail Lindsay four years later when she remarries a wealthy man. This is a trick Flynn's character seems to have played on more than one woman, which makes for a lot of characters, false clues and dead ends that I stopped trying to follow closely about half-way through and, instead, just enjoyed the ride.

And the ride is fun as this movie's Mason's only scruple, once he decides his client is innocent (a Hollywood add, as, in the book, he doesn't really care if they are innocent or not), is to get him or her off by every honest and dishonest trick he can play. So, with side-kick and wonderful character actor Allen Jenkins doing the scut work, Mason gins up false alibis and evidence without a qualm. While the police work equally hard at exposing these machinations, it's clear no one is really concerned about the morality of it all.

With San Francisco providing a beautiful backdrop, the movie has Mason and company - and the police - running all over the city to "solve the case," but the real joy in this one is watching the actors exchange barbs, have fun, never slow down and look 1930s' cool as heck doing it. It's nothing more than a good, standard Warner Bros. effort of that period with the "Perry Mason" brand stamped on the cover, but that's more than enough to provide eighty minutes of entertainment.

 

[Rats Rateye]

Cool. I've never seen this one. Now all I have to do is find it somewhere. Where are you folks finding your movies? TCM?

 

[Fading Fast]

Cool. I've never seen this one. Now all I have to do is find it somewhere.

Keep your eye on TCM, it runs it from time to time.

 

[AmateisGal]

Cool. I've never seen this one. Now all I have to do is find it somewhere. Where are you folks finding your movies? TCM?

Yep! TCM is usually the only thing on in my house. It's the only reason I have cable.

Last night, the BF and I watched The Hunt for Red October. He'd seen it before; I had only seen parts of it. Really enjoyed it.

This morning, a 1988 comedy, Crossing Delancey. Sweet and funny.

 

[AmateisGal]

Agreed, "Pillow Talk" is the better of the two as all they did in "Lover Come Back" is rearrange the elements from "Pillow Talk." In the same silly genre, I like "That Touch of Mink" too.

I LOVE That Touch of Mink. Doris and Cary Grant have great chemistry, and I love it when she gets drunk and has the champagne bottle hanging on her toe. LOL

 

[Rats Rateye]

Will do. Thanks

 

[Harp]

I LOVE That Touch of Mink. Doris and Cary Grant have great chemistry, and I love it when she gets drunk and has the champagne bottle hanging on her toe. LOL

Have to say a word here for Please Don't Eat The Daisies.

Doris was charismatic and shared her screen chemistry with her co-stars, except I think Clark Gable.
I forget the film title, she was an evening English teacher, he a hard boiled newspaper editor.
All seemed a flat beer busted flush.

 

[Bushman]

The other night, I rented the John Wayne safari classic "Hatari!" on Prime Video. I've never seen this one, but I had been made aware that the capture scenes inspired the game trail scene in Spielberg's 1997 "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," which is one of my favorite movies. I could definitely see it.

The movie itself seemed a tad drawn out, but I didn't really mind because it was very fun, and kept me entertained from open to close.