What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

Intriguing cinematic theorems regarding On Dangerous Ground, which serves a spliced postulate cord
stitched to a lady's inexplicable late entrance however seemingly scripted by its prologue.

Took a gander at lovely Jeff Donnelly; lady fair whom I never knew existed. And that shot of GG
with Bogie, conical-pensive, concerned all wrapped inside a blouse....just like Burma.
But back to Jeff. She has an understated elegance and her beauty is of a quiet subtle effect,
eyes a man could drown in and undeniable depth of character.

Donnelly is quite a contrast to Grahame in the movie as Grahame is loudly pretty; whereas, Donnelly's beauty is almost hidden. To be honest, I think I missed it the first time I saw the movie.

Good call regarding Grahame - she'd have made a wonderful film version of Burma.

 

[Harp]

Donnelly is quite a contrast to Grahame....
... Grahame - she'd have made a wonderful film version of Burma.

I was thinking the same thing. Burma has a certain depth and a most apparent desperation.
GG could capture this facet quite easily with her range. And the allure too-at no extra charge.

I second Donnelly as April Kane although she might be too mature for the role.
Jeff is a very impressive on-camera persona. She cast quite a shadow over that snap shot picture.
And I never heard of her?????

 

[Fading Fast]

Exodus from 1960 with Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Sal Mineo, Peter Lawford, Lee J. Cobb and a bunch of other impressive actors


The late 1950s into the 1960s was the era of the Hollywood epic: very long movies about major historical events with tons of stars and, usually, a sweeping love story at the center of it all. Not surprisingly, epic novels were also quite popular at this time.

Exodus was released smack in the middle of the epic movie's popularity. It's no Doctor Zhivago (my pick of the epic litter), but a solid entry, with a serviceable story, impressive cinematography and quality acting. Yet it never rises above being just a good movie.

Based on a Leon Uris novel of the same name and directed by Otto Preminger, Exodus is a professional effort through and through delivering an uneven, but overall, engaging story about the founding of the state of Israel. As historical fiction on a still contentious issue, we'll leave the politics alone and just focus on its value as a movie.

The first half is the story of how a ship of Jewish refugees, effectively, stranded in a port in Cyprus in 1948, led by Jewish rebel leader Paul Newman, tries to break a British blockade attempting to force the ship to dock and turn its passengers back over to the British. The Jews are trying to make Israel a fait accompli, while the British are trying to exit Palestine in a controlled and honorable way.

Newman's goal is to take the ship of refugees to Palestine to help in the founding of the Jewish state. Since England doesn't want a public relations' disaster on its hands, its superior military capabilities are checked in this battle of wills by the risk of world condemnation that would follow any tragedy.

The standoff evolves into a slow game of human chess - the refugees begin a hunger strike, the British offer the ship food and medicine - as the British politicians behind the scenes struggle to find a face-saving solution.

This is also when Newman meets young, blonde, Christian American war widow Eva Marie Saint who has taken an interest in adopting a Jewish refugee girl. But the refugee girl only wants to go with Saint to America if there is no chance she can reunite with her missing-for-years-and-maybe-dead father whom she believes might be in Palestine. This keeps Saint near the girl and, conveniently, Newman.

Newman and Saint give it their all, but they never develop the chemistry, the spark of passion, that is supposed to drive their personal relationship. A personal relationship that is buffeted from the start by geopolitical events and their very-important-at-that-time-and-in-that-place religious differences.

(Spoiler alert, I guess, but there was no other outcome possible if the movie was going to advance.) The first two-or-so hours ends with the British conceding and letting the ship go to Israel. As a movie moment, it is inspiring. Had the movie stopped there, it would have been an effective story, albeit, not an epic, so on we march.

Once in Palestine, the movie becomes the story of the formation of the Jewish state including Britain's increasingly untenable presence, the Jews' ramshackle preparations for independence, the UN vote for partition and the immediate attack by neighboring Arabs.

It's reasonably well done with Newman now leading the Jewish military effort while trying to unite the different factions of Jews within Israel. The shadow of the Holocaust looms large as does the schism statehood causes between the small number of Jews and Arabs that had been getting along.

The Newman-Saint love story advances mainly as a metaphor of how Jews and Christians (and maybe even Arabs) can find common ground since all people are really the same under their labels. When a love story becomes a parable, the love story on a personal level usually suffers, as it does here.

The first half of Exodus has a tight and engrossing narrative that builds to a powerful climax; the second half tries to do too much resulting in an somewhat unwieldy and less-satisfying story. It's still worth seeing once, but at over three-and-a-half hours, Exodus is a one-viewing-and-done epic.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Malèna (2000)

Man, that could have been a great epic movie, if they hadn't done all these stupid overexcited scenes!

 

[Harp]

^^^Another killer diller once-and-done review. No need for any further backslog but cannot resist
a remark about the Newman-Saint lack of spark. Saw this flick when I was a kid and this particular candle
never ever lit, much less enflamed any real passion.

 

[AmateisGal]

Larceny, Inc. because I needed something thoroughly fun and enjoyable to watch. Edward G. Robinson delivers some awesome one-liners in this!

 

[Trenchfriend]

1985's Das Boot - uncut TV series (282 min nonstop), yesterday.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Bribe from 1949 with Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Vincent Price, Charles Laughton and John Hodiak


Until now, I'd only really known the mid-'50s-to-early-'60s Ava Gardner of the Sinatra era. There's nothing wrong with that Ava Gardner: well fed, well proportioned, ridden hard and put away wet a few times, but still ready to go.

However, The Bribe shows us there is an earlier version, a lithe version, a fresher version, albeit even then, with a few wear marks. But still, this version makes you forget, not only Sinatra, but (horrors) Mickey Rooney and only think about fun, frolic and Ava Gardner.

Surprisingly, I like The Bribe more than TCM's Noir Alley host and fanboy Eddie Muller, which hasn't happened before. Yes, as he says, the story rolls out slowly, even too slowly, but it's a pretty good story, which becomes better as, later on, Charles Laughton gets more screen time. And there's always Ava Gardner to look at until the pace picks up.

Special government agent Robert Taylor is sent undercover to investigate a ring trafficking in stolen government airplane engines (that is one boring MacGuffin) working out of a small island off the coast of Latin America.

Once in this tropical o̶a̶s̶i̶s̶ hot, humid and claustrophobic backwater, Taylor meets Gardner, a singer in smokey room (hat tip to Journey), married to John Hodiak, a ring member, but Gardner doesn't know that about her husband yet. Taylor also meets the ring's head man, oleaginous Vincent Price, who claims to be an investor. Immediately suspicious, Taylor spends the first half of the movie trying to connect Hodiak and Price to the smuggling ring.

The plot pivot is Taylor falling for Gardner and vice versa as Hodiak, a drunken failure of a husband, gives Taylor the opening to be the sincere, understanding friend to Gardner, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a marriage like this?"

We'll fast forward through a lot of plodding investigation and flirting and canoodling between Taylor and Gardner to the final quarter of the movie where Taylor has the ring kinda figured out. But he also wants Gardner for himself and doesn't know how she fits in, if at all. Basically, he wants to bust up the ring without also busting up his chance with Gardner.

In the background, until now, is the ring's fix-it factotum, fat, shady Charles Laughton (stealing every scene he's in by dint of talent and presence). On Price's orders, he tries to bribe Taylor to look the other way as the ring is about to move a big shipment of airplane engines through.

Laughton's passive aggressive offers and feigned indifference is what acting is all about. It's early "method acting" before it was called that, but good acting is also just good acting.

When Laughton discovers he can't bribe Taylor with money, he tries to bribe him with Gardner, carrot and stick like, either offering her up as the prize if Taylor will play along or threatening to tie her to her corrupt husband so she'll go down with the ring if he won't. It might have taken most of the movie to get here, but Laughton's negotiating scenes with Taylor are intensely engaging and worth the slow buildup.

After that, the conclusion - including poison, murder, a doublecross, a few gunfights and a bunch of dead bodies - whips by. It's a slow, slow, slow, slow, then fast, faster movie with (spoiler alert) Gardner and Taylor the only two left standing (at least until they can be alone).

Every complaint TCM's Muller has is true: The Bribe moves along slowly for too long, Taylor and Gardner don't give off any sparks and the story is off the shelf, but with Laughton driving the last quarter of the movie, it quickly becomes captivating. Plus, Ava Gardner alone, at her youth and beauty peak, makes it worth the watch.

 

[Harp]

^I'd watch this just to see Laughton.

 

[AmateisGal]

^I'd watch this just to see Laughton.

I'd watch it just to see Robert Taylor! We make 'em gorgeous here in Nebraska!

 

[Fading Fast]

^I'd watch this just to see Laughton.

You are spot on. He is that insanely good in it. Shame his role is small until the last quarter of the movie.

 

[Fading Fast]

I'd watch it just to see Robert Taylor! We make 'em gorgeous here in Nebraska!

I know you are a fan, which is why I chose that top picture of him as he's looking pretty darn cool in that shot.

 

[Fading Fast]

Unholy Partners from 1941 with Edward G. Robinson, Edward Arnold, William T. Orr, Lorraine Day and Marsha Hunt


What would a pre-code-in-spirit movie about mob corruption and tabloid journalism duking it out in the Roaring Twenties look like if made under the Motion Picture Production Code? Well, funny you should ask, as MGM took a swing at answering that question with Unholy Partners in 1941.

Right after WWI, tabloid editor and returning soldier Edward G. Robinson launches a newspaper with the backing of mob boss Edward Arnold. The partnership has a twisted morality as Robinson will print staged pictures and stories he's all but created, but refuses to buckle to pressure from Arnold to withhold unfavorable stories about the mob. Apparently, you can be a little bit pregnant.

Serving as Robinson's conscience is both his young WWI buddy and cub reporter, William T. Orr, and his secretary and right arm, Loraine Day (never looking better). Whenever Robinson gets out over his ethical skis, this pair reminds him that there is something called morality.

The movie clicks along with Robinson and Arnold continually throwing sharp elbows at each other as their joint paper becomes more successful, making Arnold more inspired to leverage its influence for his mob's benefit. Simultaneously, the success of the paper makes Robinson want more independence from his corrupt partner Arnold.

Driving the confrontation we know is coming, Arnold is forcing pretty, young Marsha Hunt to sleep with him (that takes a little reading between the code's lines to see, but it's happening) to protect her father from a gambling debt he owes to Arnold.

Trying to help Hunt by getting leverage over Arnold, Orr, who's smitten with Hunt, uncovered corruption in an Arnold-owned insurance company. In the climatic scene, Arnold and Robinson face off over the ownership of the paper that Arnold now needs to print false stories to protect his corrupt insurance business.

(Spoiler alert) Arnold and Robinson fight, both go for the gun and down goes Arnold. If this was pre-code-movie world, when this movie should have been made, it would have been over except for Orr now getting the pretty girl and Robinson marrying pining-for-him Day, while the tabloid paper goes on to further shady success. You know, a good healthy end to a pre-code movie full of messy morality.

But since it's 1941, MGM had to force an awkward ending to tie up all the immoral loose ends. (Spoiler alert again) So, ethically challenged Robinson, after giving a long boring speech about morality, dies in a silly plot twist about a transatlantic record-breaking flight, leaving Day, Orr and the paper to carry on without him. Sigh.



N.B. By 1941, Hollywood had exhausted just about every imaginable story combination of Edward G. Robinson, Edward Arnold, newspapers and the mob.

 

[Harp]

^^^A film with some meat on the bone to chew. Modern day journalist practice has been so perverted
by progressives; together with a Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court unwilling to defend the First Amendment,
Jefferson, were he alive today might very well withdraw his famed claim about democracy and its need for a
vigilant, vibrant free press.

This is not partisan bicker or bile. Democracy absolutely requires veracity and intelligent vigilance
from a free press, Jefferson was absolutely correct in this regard, but how far have reasonable public
expectations and professional standards fallen. And the Court, eager and willing to enjoin fashionable
societal fray to suit mercurial fancy must adhere to a stricter standard of constitutional fortitude.

Together, a responsible Court and a free press are absolutely required to hold democracy secure.

 

[Edward Reed]

Only Angels Have Wings (1939) Cary Grant, Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth
Adventure has a new name! Geoff Carter!

Rough daring do and danger with plenty of chemistry, cool lines, male bonding machoism and sassy babes. A likable film. I believe this is Rita's first major part.

 

[Edward Reed]

View attachment 356926
The Bribe from 1949 with Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Vincent Price, Charles Laughton and John Hodiak


Until now, I'd only really known the mid-'50s-to-early-'60s Ava Gardner of the Sinatra era. There's nothing wrong with that Ava Gardner: well fed, well proportioned, ridden hard and put away wet a few times, but still ready to go.

However, The Bribe shows us there is an earlier version, a lithe version, a fresher version, albeit even then, with a few wear marks. But still, this version makes you forget, not only Sinatra, but (horrors) Mickey Rooney and only think about fun, frolic and Ava Gardner.

Surprisingly, I like The Bribe more than TCM's Noir Alley host and fanboy Eddie Muller, which hasn't happened before. Yes, as he says, the story rolls out slowly, even too slowly, but it's a pretty good story, which becomes better as, later on, Charles Laughton gets more screen time. And there's always Ava Gardner to look at until the pace picks up.

Special government agent Robert Taylor is sent undercover to investigate a ring trafficking in stolen government airplane engines (that is one boring MacGuffin) working out of a small island off the coast of Latin America.

Once in this tropical o̶a̶s̶i̶s̶ hot, humid and claustrophobic backwater, Taylor meets Gardner, a singer in smokey room (hat tip to Journey), married to John Hodiak, a ring member, but Gardner doesn't know that about her husband yet. Taylor also meets the ring's head man, oleaginous Vincent Price, who claims to be an investor. Immediately suspicious, Taylor spends the first half of the movie trying to connect Hodiak and Price to the smuggling ring.

The plot pivot is Taylor falling for Gardner and vice versa as Hodiak, a drunken failure of a husband, gives Taylor the opening to be the sincere, understanding friend to Gardner, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a marriage like this?"

We'll fast forward through a lot of plodding investigation and flirting and canoodling between Taylor and Gardner to the final quarter of the movie where Taylor has the ring kinda figured out. But he also wants Gardner for himself and doesn't know how she fits in, if at all. Basically, he wants to bust up the ring without also busting up his chance with Gardner.

In the background, until now, is the ring's fix-it factotum, fat, shady Charles Laughton (stealing every scene he's in by dint of talent and presence). On Price's orders, he tries to bribe Taylor to look the other way as the ring is about to move a big shipment of airplane engines through.

Laughton's passive aggressive offers and feigned indifference is what acting is all about. It's early "method acting" before it was called that, but good acting is also just good acting.

When Laughton discovers he can't bribe Taylor with money, he tries to bribe him with Gardner, carrot and stick like, either offering her up as the prize if Taylor will play along or threatening to tie her to her corrupt husband so she'll go down with the ring if he won't. It might have taken most of the movie to get here, but Laughton's negotiating scenes with Taylor are intensely engaging and worth the slow buildup.

After that, the conclusion - including poison, murder, a doublecross, a few gunfights and a bunch of dead bodies - whips by. It's a slow, slow, slow, slow, then fast, faster movie with (spoiler alert) Gardner and Taylor the only two left standing (at least until they can be alone).

Every complaint TCM's Muller has is true: The Bribe moves along slowly for too long, Taylor and Gardner don't give off any sparks and the story is off the shelf, but with Laughton driving the last quarter of the movie, it quickly becomes captivating. Plus, Ava Gardner alone, at her youth and beauty peak, makes it worth the watch.

View attachment 356927

Wow, on your review I watched it tonight and liked it quite a bit and yes, indeed Laughton stole the film. his nuance made for such a great crass and unkempt character that had a lot of texture and realism that grounded the ensemble in a way that Robert Taylor's character didn't really do. Ava Gardner's character was raw and flawed and felt genuine. Everyone was convincing. Vincent Price didn't feel out of place in this roll which I was personally worried about being I am only familiar with his macabre genre. The climatic resolution was something I had not ever seen before but would have liked to have seen Carwood go up in flames... I fully expected it actually but was disappointed when he was just shot. Like the flick quite a bit and now reading the lambasting from the critics of the time! they hated that movie! lol!

 

[Fading Fast]

Wow, on your review I watched it tonight and liked it quite a bit and yes, indeed Laughton stole the film. his nuance made for such a great crass and unkempt character that had a lot of texture and realism that grounded the ensemble in a way that Robert Taylor's character didn't really do. Ava Gardner's character was raw and flawed and felt genuine. Everyone was convincing. Vincent Price didn't feel out of place in this roll which I was personally worried about being I am only familiar with his macabre genre. The climatic resolution was something I had not ever seen before but would have liked to have seen Carwood go up in flames... I fully expected it actually but was disappointed when he was just shot. Like the flick quite a bit and now reading the lambasting from the critics of the time! they hated that movie! lol!

I'm so glad you enjoyed it. It's funny that we both did, but as you note, it was not embraced in its day. Good call on Laughton grounding it in a way that Taylor didn't. Those scenes toward the end when he negotiates with Taylor are crazy good.

As you also note, Price was very good. He was a much more versatile actor in his day than his later reputation would lead you to believe.

 

[Fading Fast]

Only Angels Have Wings (1939) Cary Grant, Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth
Adventure has a new name! Geoff Carter!

Rough daring do and danger with plenty of chemistry, cool lines, male bonding machoism and sassy babes. A likable film. I believe this is Rita's first major part.
View attachment 357720 View attachment 357721 View attachment 357722 View attachment 357723 View attachment 357724 View attachment 357725 View attachment 357726 View attachment 357727 View attachment 357728

I love this movie. Fast moving, entertaining and an outstanding cast.

 

[Harp]

Ava Gardner, much like Gena Rowlands to some extent, did have a post-youth dower matron
career period when she came out of retirement and London recluse for a few roles. I am thinking
past Night of the Iguana, or Barefoot Contessa to 55 Days in Peking and Earthquake.
The latter she was miscast as Lauren Greene's daughter, far too too long in the tooth....
Late middle age weight and just other bits and bobs pushed her off the glamour game board
and it was noticeable, affected her performance. I think she was at her true height in Iguana,
a woman enflamed with passion and a torn heart, and she more than held her own opposite
Richard Burton. I never fell in love with her like I did Ingrid Bergman (hook, line, sinker, fishing pole, tackle box),
but her presence always caught me off-guard. For a rube gal out of North Carolina she made an indelible mark.

 

[Edward Reed]

... I never fell in love with her like I did Ingrid Bergman (hook, line, sinker, fishing pole, tackle box)....

Yep!!!! always and forever!