What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[LizzieMaine]

"Peyton" is a cursed film here, even though it was filmed just down Route 1. We've screened it here twice in sixteen years. The first time, it was from a beat-to-hell 35mm print made for television in 1968, and the color and contrast were all washed out. PLus the film stock itself had gone brittle, and it kept snapping as it went thru the projectors -- we had to literally be standing there with a splicer in hand to keep putting the film back together. The second time, it was a newly struck print straight from the Deluxe lab, but just after I hit the changeover to reel two, the lamp had a seal fail and turned cobalt blue. I had to shut the projector down immediately to prevent an explosion, and then had to do an emergency lamp replacement -- without taking the time to put on my protective gear -- while my assistant took the reel off projector one and threaded it onto projector two to keep the show going. We were actually booked to show it YET AGAIN, on March 15, 2020.

That was the day we had to close because of the pandemic, and we remained closed for fifteen months.

I have advised the theatre director and board that I will, under no circumstances, ever again permit That Film We Won't Even Name into my booth.

 

[Fading Fast]

What is there left to be said about Peyton Place that hasn't been said before?

Plenty.

Grace Metalious didn't write the great Amercan novel but the book serves sizzle sleaze galore.
And when you need a cheeseburger, you need a cheeseburger. And fries with that shake.
And mebbe afterwards, a cigarette and at least a little good old fashion converse.

I've read both sides of the Metalious argument - has it been definitively proved that she didn't write it? I have no personal bent either way.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Emperor (2020).

I hate it when they try to rewrite history, whether it's done to make for a "better story" or force symbolic content ("say something").

 

[Harp]

I've read both sides of the Metalious argument - has it been definitively proved that she didn't write it? I have no personal bent either way.

Rumor mill campus flotsam said supposedly by her former English Lit prof. Smacks of smart ass prof
envy, alcoholism, chalk allergy, contracted campus gonorreha. You know how those English Lit guys are like.
I had a Philosophy prof with all the above. Contagious track tenuritis.

 

[Worf]

I did a 2-fer about the end of the world....

"Don't Look Up!" - A scientist and his grad student find a comet that's.... you guessed it, about to blow planet earth up real good. They go to the appropriate governmental agencies only to find them concerned more about mid-terms, Supreme Court nominees and soft peddling. They try to leak the news via the media only to find that truth and information has long since given way to trends and "influence". Still they try and persevere as best they can. Folks on the left and right have beef with the film for.... reasons depicted in the film. But I found the film entertaining, thought provoking and most of all sad because of the bleak and true picture of us it paints so well.

"Only" - This hidden gem written and filmed BEFORE the current plague covers a pandemic caused by a passing comet (damn dem flashy space rocks!) that covers the earth with a strange ash. This ash... kills the female of EVERY species on earth quickly... very quickly. The subtle gravity of it strikes when our protagonists try to eat out (one last time) and are told "of course we ain't got no eggs". Why, cause there ain't no hens to lay em. A slow burn of a flick that won't appeal to all. You see what one man will do to keep his lover safe.... But when does life, no matter how safe, become a prison?

Worf

 

[MisterCairo]

Absolutely brilliant. One of the best rock docs I have ever seen.

Canadian production as well!

I saw this early last year, and hoped that ZZ Top would be touring. They WERE!

Dusty Hill died a couple of months later...

But they are continuing to tour, albeit in a truly sad condition. I have tickets to their show in London, Ontario Canada later this spring. Fingers crossed our current restrictions are gone by then. Cheap Trick is the opening act!

This one, this week.

 

[Fading Fast]

I Love Trouble from 1947 with Franchot Tone, Janet Blair and Glenda Farrell


After Humphrey Bogart helped to define the noir private-investigator role in 1941's hit The Maltese Falcon, Hollywood did its Hollywood thing of spitting out copycat versions for years. Some were quite impressive, as when Dick Powell transformed his entire career by playing Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet, but many were simply serviceable B-movie efforts like I Love Trouble.

Even in a B movie, Franchot Tone is an odd choice - weak chin, reedy voice, receding hairline - for a hard-boiled detective lead, but he has enough acting chops to do an okay job in the role. Probably realizing that Tone wasn't the ideal male lead, the studio added several very attractive women to the cast. Yet, two good B-movie stars do not equal one Mary Astor (The Maltese Falcon) or Veronica Lake (The Glass Key) - actresses aren't arithmetic.

Tone, though, gives it his all as the weary private investigator who is willing to get beat up a few times and risk going to jail to solve the case, the minimum requirements for a film-noir private investigator. Yet, when one pretty woman after another immediately falls for him, credibility is getting stretched a bit thin. Still, you kinda root for him to win, but what does that mean here?

Once you get past the only okay cast, you are left with an only okay story. As in many of these '40s noir-detective movies, the plot is too confusing to truly follow (an approach that reached its apotheosis in The Big Sleep).

In I Love Trouble, a wealthy (and cranky) husband hires Tone to dig into his missing, younger and pretty wife's past, which seems to be a bunch of changed identities as she moved through nightclub jobs in a few different states. There also is a stolen $40,000 in his wife's muddled history.

Thrown into this mix is a sister also looking for the absent wife as well as a former showgirl friend. At least, I think that's who they are, as I never fully sorted out everyone's connection. So, yes, you root for Tone, kinda, as you're never really certain who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in this one.

All the required noirish elements are here, though, including dark streets, Art Deco architecture, a blonde siren, cigarette smoke, thugs, heavies, truncheons, guns, cops who like and cops who don't like Tone, a couple of car chases and several dead bodies.

(Spoiler alert) It's not really a spoiler alert to reveal the climax, since many noir private-investigator movies end the same way. Tone assembles most of the suspects in his apartment to convince the always-a-step-or-two-behind police that he's innocent of all the murders while he exposes the real killer.

That's pretty much it. Cornell Pictures studio wanted to cash in on the noir private-investigator wave, so it brought together all the pieces of the popular sub-genre as best as its humble budget would allow. That resulted in an okay movie you should only watch if it happens to be on when you have an hour and a half to spare.

Eventually, Hollywood uses repetition to kill every goose that lays a golden egg (and then revives it later). It didn't do this to the noir private-investigator movie with I Love Trouble, but you could tell Hollywood was starting to get there.

 

[Harp]

Forty four years ago Anthony 'Big Tuna' Accardo, boss of the Chicago Outfit ordered a rogue
burglary element within his organized crime family to return stolen property back to a Chicago
jeweler, a friend and long standing mob protection payer. Tony Accardo was vacationing in California
so he simply telephoned this play in. Instead of complying, the rogue squad hit Accardo's River Forest
mansion tucked snug behind manicured lawns, schrubbery, and trees thirty miles west of Chicago.
Within ten months all eight men jack of this dissident thievery element were killed. Some died quickly,
several lingered until October. Bullets fired at the back of the head, found slumped behind the steering
wheel; or, beaten to death, strangled, throat slit open then stuffed inside the trunk of their car.
Hardly antiseptic, but cold bloodedly brutal and efficient. Somewhere in all of this is a script.
And, a motion picture.

 

[Fading Fast]

Quai Des Orfèvres from 1947


What an outstanding movie. Nobody can weave a love-triangle, a detective story and existential angst together in one film better than the French.

You really don't want to know too many details about Quai Des Orfèvres' plot ahead of time, as watching it unfold is part of the joy. It's well constructed and paced, with only a few holes.

Suzy Delair is a singer/performer with a jealous husband/accompanist, Bernard Blier. Delair is an innocent, but enthusiastic flirt trying to advance her career, in part, by flattering influential men, which drives her milquetoast-looking husband, Blier, insane with jealousy.

One night, Delair is at the home of a lecherous producer trying to get a film contract for herself when she takes offense at his unwanted advances. She cracks him over the head with a bottle of champagne, believes she's killed him and runs from the scene.

Unaware of that event, jealous husband Blier shows up later that night to confront the producer only to find him dead, so he runs from the house too. Lastly, Blier and Delair's friend, Simone Renant, after Delair tells her what she did, goes to the producer's house that same evening to retrieve a fur wrap Delair left behind and to obscure any incriminating-of-Delair evidence.

Renant is Blier's long-time friend, but she's also carrying an unrequited and somewhat hidden torch for Delair - God love the French. None of it is gratuitous; it's just real life.

From here, the plot is basically a crime drama as Louis Jouvet, a put upon, cranky, smart and bedraggled-looking police inspector, slowly and methodically drives what is now a high-profile murder investigation. Not helping Jouvet are his boss' demands for unrealistically fast results, while the press nips at Jouvet's heels.

The heart and soul in Quai Des Orfèvres, though, is not the very engaging investigation, but the personal relationships.

It's the mutual but misaligned love Delair and Blier have for each other. He can't see her flirtations are meaningless and she can't see how hurtful they are to him. They have a love many married couples would envy, but its gears keep grinding.

It's also the poignant and unrequited love Renant has for Delair, so much so, at one point, she tries to take the fall for Delair to keep her out of prison. That's some seriously unrequited love at work.

Finally, it is inspector Jouvet's love for his young son - we only know he came back from the colonies with him, but without the boy's mother. Jouvet is tender with the boy as we see him worry about his test grades or if he is warm enough when sleeping.

That the boy is black and Jouvet white is refreshingly unimportant to everyone. The relationship itself allows us to see Jouvet in a fuller and more-forgiving light when he, as he does often, browbeats a suspect.

The other beauty of Quai Des Orfèvres is its little nuances such as how, in a poor post-war France, it's quite common for people to wear their overcoats inside because, one assumes, there was, often, little heat.

Or it's the scary peek into French justice in the 1940s as we see the police conduct an aggressive investigation, but with warrants and lawyers for the suspects nowhere in sight.

It's also the well-paced and dense dialogue that includes several funny asides, which sound refreshingly like how people really speak. Yes, it's a movie, but after watching Quai Des Orfèvres you also feel like you've just spent time in 1947 France.

Lastly (minor spoiler alert), it's Blier, in moment of existential angst, attempting suicide in his jail cell from a combination of love for his wife (he wants to protect her) and lacking the will to go on without her. She might drive him blind with jealous rage, but she is also his reason for living.

Quai Des Orfèvres is one of those rare movie gems film buffs live for. We all know the "top-ten" or, even, "top-hundred films of all time" and we all have our personal "undiscovered" favorites that we watch over and over. Yet finding that wonderful movie you've never seen nor heard about (at least I hadn't heard about this one) is the exact moment a film buff waits, sometimes, years for.

Beautifully restored Quai Des Orfèvres is a cinematic treat: a love story cum crime story that is so real its intricate and well-constructed plot is less important than the humanity director Henri-Georges Clouzot so perfectly lims for us in this masterpiece.


N.B. @LizzieMaine Simone Renant character Dora Monnier's shirt with "DORA" on it is the best woman's top since Raven Sherman's soccer jersey.

 

[Harp]

Quai Des Orfèvres from 1947

N.B. @LizzieMaine Simone Renant character Dora Monnier's shirt with "DORA" on it is the best woman's top since Raven Sherman's soccer jersey.

Nota Bene- Sorry Charlie, ranks second to Sophia Loren's sleeveless sheer top in Too Bad She's Bad.

 

[Fading Fast]

Nota Bene- Sorry Charlie, ranks second to Sophia Loren's sleeveless sheer top in Too Bad She's Bad.

But this top, like Sherman's soccer jersey, is not about prurience - it's a personality statement.

For sheer tops, I'll take Ann Sheridan's in "The Man Who Came to Dinner."

Somebody at the Motion Picture Production Code was asleep at the wheel when they approved this one for release.

 

[Harp]

But this top, like Sherman's soccer jersey, is not about prurience - it's a personality statement.[/QUOTE.]

I never mentioned prurience in my earlier statement.
Sophia's sartorial standard is all about p.e.r.s.o.n.a.l.i.t.y.

 

[Fading Fast]

But this top, like Sherman's soccer jersey, is not about prurience - it's a personality statement.[/QUOTE.]

I never mentioned prurience in my earlier statement.
Sophia's sartorial standard is all about p.e.r.s.o.n.a.l.i.t.y.

My bad then, I made an assumption from your underlying of the world "sheer" that it was about prurience.

 

[Harp]

My bad then, I made an assumption from your underlying of the world "sheer" that it was about prurience.

Please allow assurances that my admiration for this Tuscan beauty is chaste and pure as driven snow.
Whatever pneumatic somatic issues which may exist are ancillary and quite irrelevant to her innate
charm, wit, and overall abundant sweetness.

 

[Harp]

Forty four years ago Anthony 'Big Tuna' Accardo, boss of the Chicago Outfit ordered a rogue
burglary element within his organized crime family to return stolen property back to a Chicago
jeweler, a friend and long standing mob protection payer. Tony Accardo was vacationing in California
so he simply telephoned this play in. Instead of complying, the rogue squad hit Accardo's River Forest
mansion tucked snug behind manicured lawns, schrubbery, and trees thirty miles west of Chicago.
Within ten months all eight men jack of this dissident thievery element were killed. Some died quickly,
several lingered until October. Bullets fired at the back of the head, found slumped behind the steering
wheel; or, beaten to death, strangled, throat slit open then stuffed inside the trunk of their car.
Hardly antiseptic, but cold bloodedly brutal and efficient. Somewhere in all of this is a script.
And, a motion picture.

I should have mentioned that Accardo felt some investigative heat emited from Chicago Police homicide
division detectives aided by FBI Chicago office agents, and so attempted to tie up the vengeful slayings
with a Machiavellian twist. He ordered both of his assassins killed. Also his houseboy. Another victim,
a friend of one of the burglars, just happened to be with his pal at the wrong time. This baker's dozen,
caught within a mob labyrinth, signified a possible coup revolt against Accardo. The various twists
and turns displayed easily rival the best of crime stories or cinema.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Suspicion (1941), dir. Alfred Hitchcock, with Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. The Missus had never seen it, and it had been years for me. If you've seen it, you know how good it is. If you haven't, Grant plays a ne'er-do-well and Fontaine a sheltered young lady who falls for Grant. Suspicious things happen and Fontaine is suspicious of her now-husband Grant. Even knowing what's what, I was taken in by the story-telling.
In complete contrast, The Rise of Skywalker (2019) dir. J. J. Abrams. We enjoyed it for light entertainment to pass the evening.

 

[Fading Fast]

Suspicion (1941), dir. Alfred Hitchcock, with Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. The Missus had never seen it, and it had been years for me. If you've seen it, you know how good it is. If you haven't, Grant plays a ne'er-do-well and Fontaine a sheltered young lady who falls for Grant. Suspicious things happen and Fontaine is suspicious of her now-husband Grant. Even knowing what's what, I was taken in by the story-telling.
In complete contrast, The Rise of Skywalker (2019) dir. J. J. Abrams. We enjoyed it for light entertainment to pass the evening.

Just watched "Suspicion" too. I've seen it a bunch of times, but it still engaged me from beginning to end for the reasons you note. One thing I noticed this time is how much this is really Fontaine's movie.

 

[Worf]

"The Suicide Squad (2021) - The first iteration of this film with Will Smith was an utter disaster. Not due to his acting ability but primarily due to a piss poor script and baffling direction. I give DC kudos for trying it a second time and this time going full "Marvel" with it's bright pallet and wonderful comedic take on the utter ridiculousness of Superhero teams. We were laughing and howling throughout! Can't wait for the return of "The Boys" to see where the wholesale deconstruction of the Superhero mythos goes next.

Worf

 

[MisterCairo]

"The Suicide Squad (2021) - The first iteration of this film with Will Smith was an utter disaster. Not due to his acting ability but primarily due to a piss poor script and baffling direction. I give DC kudos for trying it a second time and this time going full "Marvel" with it's bright pallet and wonderful comedic take on the utter ridiculousness of Superhero teams. We were laughing and howling throughout! Can't wait for the return of "The Boys" to see where the wholesale deconstruction of the Superhero mythos goes next.

Worf

We all watched this as well and loved it. I cannot recall what actually happened in the first film.

We are also now watching Peacemaker which follows on directly from the events of the newer film, and absolutely loving it too!

 

[Harp]

But this top, like Sherman's soccer jersey, is not about prurience - it's a personality statement.

For sheer tops, I'll take Ann Sheridan's in "The Man Who Came to Dinner."
View attachment 399695
Somebody at the Motion Picture Production Code was asleep at the wheel when they approved this one for release.

I have considered this garment--er--matter further. I retract all earlier claims submitted and wholeheartedly
concur. A lotta ommph here. The ayes have-er-eye-has it.