What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Worf]

^ Twelve O'Clock High and a PBS British series import, A Piece of Cake top my list.
Cake captures a RAF spitfire outfit flying prewar wooden propeller planes with guns
incorrectly haronized at a longer distance. If haven't seen, Cake should be available
and James Salter's The Hunters is a primer on combat psychology during Korea.
Salter flew Sabres in the Korean War. Also, Coram's Boyd offers a more telling in depth
fighter profile, excellent and well focused read.

I've watched "12 O'clock High" a million times and own it on DVD. I loved "A Piece of Cake" so much I bought that one as well. However I've not seen the latter in years. Gonna have to dig em out and take a gander. I also loved "Danger UXB". Though not about aerial combat it is a fascinating portrayal of British Explosive Ordinance Disposal during the war. That's another one I picked up... and another I've got to find and dig out. They might not even play on my gear they're so old. Thanks for the reminder.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

I've watched "12 O'clock High" a million times and own it on DVD. I loved "A Piece of Cake" so much I bought that one as well. However I've not seen the latter in years. Gonna have to dig em out and take a gander. I also loved "Danger UXB". Though not about aerial combat it is a fascinating portrayal of British Explosive Ordinance Disposal during the war. That's another one I picked up... and another I've got to find and dig out. They might not even play on my gear they're so old. Thanks for the reminder.

Worf

We watched the entire "Danger UXB" series (guessing) a decade and a half ago. Really enjoyed it.

 

[Harp]

Mary Poppins

Long time ago, the mail chopper brought the Julie Andrews film up. Only I and our tomcat detachment
mascot Motherfu...r knew this, so I told everbody we got a definite R bordering on X, like just the Rio Grande
a mere ribbon river separating this bad boy flick. Spread like wildfire. When I turned the projector on and
the numbers started scrolling down I knew I was about to get my ass kicked.

I DID. but laughed my ass off.

 

[MisterCairo]

Something with Jason Statham in it. On Netflix. I think Guy Ritchie directed. Armoured car heist flick. Fun enough.

 

[MisterCairo]

Just checked. Called Wrath of Man.

 

[Harp]

I loved "A Piece of Cake" so much I bought that one as well. However I've not seen the latter in years. Thanks for the reminder.

Worf

A Piece of Cake is based on Derek Robinson's novel by the same title.
Dovetail nice fit with flick and even better if you've been away for a few years.

 

[Fading Fast]

Kiss Me Deadly, released in 1955, is based on the Mickey Spillane novel of the same name. It stars Ralph Meeker, Maxine Cooper, Cloris Leachman, Paul Stewart, Marian Carr and a 1954 Corvette.


Plot summary: A lot of noir stuff happens because of something related to a woman who escapes from a mental hospital.

Until just before the end of Kiss Me Deadly, you really don't know much more than that. The "something related to the woman" is a macguffin*, but even Hitchcock let you know what the macguffin was. Yet here, Spillane and director Robert Aldrich keep you in the dark until the picture is nearly over.

Sure, you can follow the plot a bit more than just implied, but this being my first time through this very complex noir movie, even when it was over, I didn't put all the pieces together. Yet that didn't prevent me from greatly enjoying all the cool stuff that happens along the way.

Confusing Kiss Me Deadly works because Ralph Meeker, as Mike Hammer, takes you on an intense trip through noirland. The movie shifts into high gear right out of the shoot and rarely slows down.

In the opening scene, a naked-under-her-trench-coat blonde, Cloris Leachman, the asylum escapee, is running along a highway when she aggressively flags down a driving-by Hammer before jumping in his very cool Jaguar. Soon after, the bad guys run them off the road; his car is destroyed; the blonde is killed, but an injured Hammer survives.

Weep not for the Jag, as waiting in the wings is an insanely cool 1954 Corvette in which Hammer speeds all over Los Angeles trying to figure out who was behind the highway hit job on him and the girl. But first, he has to remove the bomb in the Vette that was supposed to explode when he started it up. What is it all about?

Right after his highway "accident," his detective "friend" and the rest of the police ride Hammer hard for answers, but he doesn't give them any. One feels it's because he has a general dislike of the police and because he doesn't have the answers anyway.

Instead, after giving the police a Heisman, he and his assistant, Velda Wickman, played with sensual verve by Maxine Cooper, launch their own throwing-punches-in-the-dark investigation.

Wickman is the kinda cute girl who becomes insanely attractive when you see how smart and loyal she is - she's the one you marry. Of course, her not subtle proposition to Hammer of just such an idea falls on deaf ears, but that doesn't stop him from whoring her out (yes, literally) for information. Some men get better women than they deserve.

The rest of the movie is Hammer pushing on everyone as he tries to figure out who the blonde that jumped in his car was and why she got killed.

Whatever the reason, it's clear some mob or underworld group is involved as they keep trying to bump off Hammer (remember the bomb in Vette), or pay him off, or rough him up, or throw an attractive woman at him as a distraction (naturally, that last one is the only strategy that almost works).

Along the way, Hammer takes us through the seedy noir sights of LA - boxing gyms, dive bars, tenements and parking garages. But this dark phantasmagoria of the City of Angels also reveals a few of the high-end spots - a fancy nightclub, a private estate and an exclusive athletic club (a stark contrast to the down-market boxing gym).

Most of the good guys populate the grittier places where Hammer has his friends and connections (one wonderfully portrayed by the outstanding actor Juano Hernandez). The bad guys, conversely, live and move in the fancy places that Hammer has to push his way into, only to be thrown out of later.

It's all classic noir as Hammer beats up a few people and gets beat up himself, is held hostage where he's injected with sodium pentothal (a surprisingly common thing in 1940s/1950s noirland), beds a few women (not shown, the Motion Picture Production Code and all, but we get it) and angers the police more than once.

After leaving us in the dark for almost ninety percent of the movie, Kiss Me Deadly races to a conclusion (spoiler alert) revealing the macguffin to be a box containing a radioactive isotope stolen from the Manhattan Project.

Exactly how it all ties together isn't fully explained (at least I didn't get it on this first viewing), but we understand the motivation for all the chasing and fighting and killing and subterfuge is to get this isotope to then, one assumes, sell it to an enemy government.

The conclusion is pretty dramatic, but you'll want to see it without any advanced knowledge. I have to leave it to the Spillane/Hammer fans to comment on the movie's adherence to the novel and its famous private investigator, but as a standalone picture, even though it's confusing as heck, Kiss Me Deadly is an intensely enjoyable noir romp through mid-century Los Angeles.


*In fiction, a "macguffin" is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself. The term was originated by Angus MacPhail for film, adopted by Alfred Hitchcock, and later extended to a similar device in other fiction. [From Wikipedia]

 

[belfastboy]

"Dreamland" with Margot Robbie and the kid from Peaky Blinders. Cliched, bad Texas accents, improbable time lines.....I think I will stop there.....The fun part was watching Travis Fimmel and saying repeatedly to my wife.....we have seen this guy but where? Turns out he is also Ragnar from Vikings. I recognized his facial ticks masquerading as acting technique. Did I say it was a waste of time?

 

[Harp]

"Dreamland" with Margot Robbie and the kid from Peaky.... Did I say it was a waste of time?

If Margo is in it, it's wonderful.

 

[belfastboy]

If Margo is in it, it's wonderful.

She played a wounded bank robber on the run hiding in a barn. My wife was curious how she managed to get her makeup so perfect each morning. My wife said that she can't get it that good in her perfect bathroom let alone a bathroomless barn with no running water and NO mirror!!!!

 

[Harp]

^A wounded bank robber I would imagine to be more concerned with wound care
management than makeup; all the more so when hiding inside a barn where bacterial
infection lurks...script doctors no doubt addressed this matter.

 

[Fading Fast]

Play Girl from 1941 with Kay Francis, Nigel Bruce, Mildred Coles and Margaret Hamilton


MGM studios signed Kay Francis up for a seven-year contract just when her batting average was about to plunge, uh, people stopped going to see her movies. It happens - ask any baseball team, ever.

In response, MGM, hoping she'd quit, put her in lousy pictures or loaned her out to other studios to be in lousy pictures. It didn't work; Francis showed up for her lousy pictures and collected her paycheck. Good for her.

Play Girl is better than a lousy picture, but only somewhat. Francis plays a gold digger whose modus operandi is to get engaged to wealthy men and then, when they discover who she really is, have them or their father's pay her off to go away. After a couple decades of this, she's aging out of her profession, but has no savings.

So she finds a young, pretty protegee, Mildred Coles, to train to do the same thing. Coles goes along half-heartedly because she really just wants to find a good guy to marry.

For her first assignment, Coles succeeds in bilking some money out of wealthy, older and silly Nigel Bruce. He writes out a big check when Francis tells him Coles is going to sue him for breach of contract as she believes Bruce implied he would marry her.

If you're wondering how all this got by the Motion Picture Production Code, the answer is it's all handled in an almost screwball comedy way in which no one seems to really be taking any of it seriously.

That's also why the movie doesn't work: what's the point of a team of con-artist women if they are really nice girls who don't truly do bad things except to very wealthy and silly men who don't seem to really mind being taken advantage of.

(Spoiler alert, I guess) It all ends happily, but you're not particularly vested in the characters by then. The only really good thing in Play Girl is Margaret Hamilton, The Wicked Witch of the West, as Francis' maid and confidant. She brings her wonderful brand of dismissive sarcasm to an otherwise too-fluffy effort.

I like that Kay Francis, essentially, stared down Louis B Mayer and collected her paycheck, but that's no endorsement of this frivolous movie.


N.B. Hollywood, not surprisingly, in its pre-code Era, put out a much better movie under the same title, but with a completely different story and starring young, lithe and talented Loretta Young (comments on 1932's Play Girl here: #28,017 )

 

[Worf]

"Bataan" - One of those rare WWII pieces that show the dark early days of the war in the Pacific where victory was NOT assured and Japan had yet to face a major defeat. Robert Taylor inherits a mixed group of US and Philippine soldiers tasked with blowing up a bridge to slow down the Japanese advance. It is implied that they're also to delay the enemy thereafter as long as practicable. Much like "The Lost Patrol" air attacks, snipers etc... whittle down the small detachment man by man with graves marking losses. Unlike the earlier film there is no "happy ending" here. The combat is brutal, visceral and often hand to hand. And you know that there is to be no quarter asked nor any given. Along with "They Were Expendable" and "Wake Island" you see just how touch and go the early innings of that contest were.

Worf

 

[belfastboy]

^A wounded bank robber I would imagine to be more concerned with wound care
management than makeup; all the more so when hiding inside a barn where bacterial
infection lurks...script doctors no doubt addressed this matter.

The truly amazing aspect is the kid that lived on the farm extracted the bullet from her thigh, sewed up the wound and in a few days time she was running flat out from the sheriff. She cute and an amazing quick healer.

 

[Fading Fast]

Of Human Bondage from 1964 with Laurence Harvey, Kim Novak, Robert Morley and Roger Livesey


Thirty years after its first effort, Hollywood took its third swing at Of Human Bondage (I haven't seen the second attempt done in 1946). This effort is a more-nuanced one than the impressive Bette Davis and Leslie Howard picture from 1934 (comments here: #28,904 ).

Whatever version you see, know this is not happy viewing. The basic story outline from the W. Somerset Maugham book is the same in the 1934 and 1964 versions: a club footed "gentleman" falls for a "common" waitress, but instead of him bringing her up in the world, she does everything possible to bring him down.

Insecure about being a "cripple" (the accepted terminology of the time), medical student Laurence Harvey pursues Cockney waitress Kim Novak who manages to make a stunningly bad string of decisions for the next several years.

She alternates between rejecting Harvey while also embarrassing him by pursuing other men in front of him and, occasionally, being nice and, almost, coming on to him. Most men would have walked away after the first or second insulting event, but not Harvey; he's in for the long haul with her, come what may.

What comes is an incredible amount of abuse. When she rejects his marriage proposal with derision, goes off to marry another man and, then, returns to him unwed but pregnant, he provides a room for her. After she gives birth to another man's baby, he pays for its care. What? Yup, that's what he did and she isn't even "dating" (sleeping with) him.

She then leaves him again, this time for his best friend, only to turn up later as a streetwalker where, once more, Harvey rescues her and her baby in return for, well, nothing but brief moments of kindness wrapped inside more abuse.

After she destroys his apartment and his artwork (the thing she knows is most precious to him), she turns up later in his hospital sick with syphilis. Yet again, he tries to help her, but she rejects his help.

Finally, she returns to the hospital where he comes to her on her deathbed and promises to honor her request for a "proper" funeral. If I were Harvey, no promise would be necessary, as I'd gladly pay to bury the woman at this point just to make sure she is dead.

In this 1964 version, Novak plays the role of the waitress with more nuance than Bette Davis' full-force evil version in 1934. It makes it modestly easier to understand why Harvey puts up with it all, but there really is no explanation other than blind passion or addiction or obsession or, well, "human bondage."

Harvey plays his version of a man obsessed about a woman with a Yuri-from-Doctor Zhivago thoughtfulness. He, like Boris Pasternak's kind and sensitive Russian poet-doctor, tries, with an emotional detachment, to understand why people behave badly, even when they are behaving badly toward him.

The combination of Novak's and Harvey's more layered portrayals than Davis' and Howard's in 1934, makes this version less demoralizing on the surface. But it is equally powerful in its exposition of good smashing into evil on the field of human relations.

Blindly loving a person who mistreats you - even after you know it - is a form of "human bondage." Today we call it some version of an "abusive relationship," but it's the same theme of Maugham's powerful tale penned over a hundred years ago. Nothing is really new; we just see and understand things differently in different times, which is what these various movie versions of, Of Human Bondage reveal.

 

[Fading Fast]

Cast a Dark Shadow from 1955 with Dirk Bogarde, Margaret Lockwood, Mona Washbourne and Kay Walsh


Whether the writers and director intentionally included them or not, there are strong echoes of the movies Suspicion, Night Must Fall, The Postman Always Rings Twice and, even, Angel Face in Cast a Dark Shadow.

But those are issues for modern fans of old movies who have seen them all several times. Back in 1955, when Cast a Dark Shadow was released, movie goers, maybe, had seen each of those earlier pictures once or twice when they had been released a half-a-decade or longer ago. They were probably distant memories by the time Cast a Dark Shadow came out.

Hence, its echoing plot twists and storylines wouldn't have mattered to a 1955 movie goer, which should have made Cast a Dark Shadow a more original ride for them, than it is for us today.

Young, handsome Dirk Bogarde is married to much-older and wealthy Mona Washbourne. But Bogarde isn't content living a comfortable life with his elderly wife, so when he overhears she is updating her will, he panics and, well, kills her. He did it so well, he gets away with it, despite her lawyer, Robert Flemyng, not believing it for a second.

Oh if only he had waited, as Washbourne was actually planning to leave all her money to Bogarde, but he killed her before she could, so our murderous gigolo needs another rich wife.

In the first plot flaw, he chooses a non-murderous female version of himself, Margaret Lockwood, who waited until her wealthy spouse died of natural causes to obtain riches. Bogart would simply have been too smart to marry another scammer, even if she was rich. And she should have been too smart to marry him.

Stuck in a marriage in which he can't bilk money from his wife, he now needs a third older rich woman, so enter Kay Walsh. Walsh is a wealthy widow; Bogarde knows the water he swims in best.

Cast a Dark Shadow gets a little muddled here as Bogarde is already married to Lockwood, with one suspicious murder under his belt, so how is he going to profit from Walsh?

The real fun is watching young, conniving and psychotic Bogarde try to do the impossible with aplomb. He is a despicable murderer, yet you are engaged with him. Worse, you believe that Lockwood, who has his number, likes and, maybe, loves him. The guy's got something going on.

Just like in Night Must Fall, the plot is bumpy at best, but it's the window into the mind of a killer, Robert Montgomery in that one, that keeps you engaged. Hitchcock milked a similar thread in Suspicion, but ramped it up as, in that classic, you don't know if Grant is a murderer or not until the final scene.

In Angel Face and The Postman Always Rings Twice, like in Cast a Dark Shadow, we see smart murderers go to the well once too often and end up paying the price, just not necessarily for the crime they actually committed. All movies are variations on earlier themes.

Cast a Dark Shadow has a pretty neat surprise at the end that's better left unsaid for first-time viewers. Unfortunately, though, it also has a not very believable last-minute resolution.

Yet the movie isn't really about its plot flaws or "ah-hah" moments; instead, Cast a Dark Shadow is about Bogarde scrambling from woman to woman to strike it rich. It is also about seeing each female lead - Washbourne, Lockwood and Walsh - either being manipulated by or manipulating Bogarde in a constant game of real-life chess.

Cast a Dark Shadow doesn't break new ground, but as with so many post-War British movies, a good story, a talented cast and smart directing produced an enjoyable movie on a limited budget.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Last night I watched the 2020 movie Disturbing The Peace starring Guy Pearce. It's set in a small midwest US town and Pearce plays a US Marshall who is policing the town as a semi-banishment after accidentally shooting his partner a decade before. Biker gang rolls into town to rob the bank, shenanigans ensue, Pearce must pick up a gun again to stop them. It was clearly filmed on a modest budget, probably over a long weekend, and has the feel of an episode in a tv series rather than a film. Bad reviews from what I can see, but I enjoyed it for what it is.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Snows of Kilimanjaro from 1952 with Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Susan Hayward


In The Snows of Kilimanjaro, a lot of slow stuff happens slowly with stilted dialogue.

If you know nothing about Ernest Hemingway's life, the above is how The Snows of Kilimanjaro would appear. Gregory Peck, as Hemmingway's doppelganger, is dying of gangrene at a safari camp in Africa waiting for a rescue plane, while he and his second wife, Susan Hayward, argue off and on about his past relationships seen through his fever-induced flashbacks.

Mainly, they argue about his first wife, Ava Gardner (talk about a tough act to follow) and Hayward's insecurity that Gardner was Peck's one true love, which she probably was. This is only interesting when you realize Hemingway is talking, somewhat, about his relationship with his first wife Hadley.

Peck and Gardner (Hemingway and Hadley by proxy) married when Peck was still an unknown writer. His ensuing success fueled his ego and desire to travel to experience the world, while Gardner just wanted a simple home life in which they could raise kids.

Being young and passionate, these fissures eventually tear their marriage apart. Yet, with the mellowing and perspective of time, comes regret. That's hard for Peck, but it really rattles Hayward who begs Peck to tell her she's not the consolation-prize wife, which she is, despite his denials.

Along for the failing-marriage ride are several de rigueur Hemingway biographical touchstones: he goes to Spain to see the bullfights, hunts big game in Africa, has an affair or two and was, effectively, an embedded correspondent in the Spanish Civil War.

All were done, in some way, as part of Hemingway's diffidence-inspired quest to prove he was a real man (according to his view), despite earning his living in the epicene profession of writing.

Hemingway's well-known sexism is also on display (this is not modern revisionism, as he was a pig even by the standards of his day), for which he deserves some grudgingly given honesty points as the writer of this not-flattering autobiographical roman a clef.

Director Henry King carries over from the book Hemingway's aggressive use of symbolism, which is one of the reasons he's popular with English teachers, or was anyway.

Almost everything from the title (the snow represents moral purity and the challenges of reaching the summit of one's life) to the vultures and hyenas that circle the safari camp waiting to feed on his dead carcass (no explanation needed) echo themes and plotlines in the story.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro is a better movie in theory than in practice. In theory, it brings to life one of Hemingway's more-well-known short stories, while laying bare many of his relationship successes and failures. But in practice, it's sluggish and boring in many spots. Even Hemingway's dialogue, powerfully spartan on the page, often feels awkwardly constructed and forced on screen.

If you didn't have a working knowledge of Hemingway's life story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro would seem tedious to the point of almost being meaningless. With a working knowledge, it's a passable effort providing some insight into the famous writer's personal life.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Vera Cruz (1954) again. On Prime. One of my favorite films. Gary Cooper as a Civil War veteran and Burt Lancaster as the leader of a cowboy mob meet up and become mercenaries for "Emperor" Maximilian in Mexico. But money gets involved and changes everything.
Director Robert Aldrich's screen-filling close-ups and lingering shots of people staring at other people must have influenced Sergio Leone.
The movie is partly character-driven and an action movie as well. An outstanding sequence is the wagon convoy fleeing from an ambush in a small village that has a breath-taking tracking shot that barrels along parallel to the action, then swoops after the dozens and dozens of extras on galloping horses as they pour out onto a vast open plain. It's sort of a cavalry charge, but the riders are fleeing an attack, not charging the enemy.
If you have time on your hands, look it up on IMDb and check out the remarkable supporting cast.

 

[Fading Fast]

Journey for Margaret from 1942 with Robert Montgomery, Fay Bainter, Margaret O'Brien and Laraine Day


"You're a psychologist, do you think I'm crazy?"

"Who isn't?"


Journey for Margaret is a quirky entry in the WWII propaganda movie genre. Foreign correspondent Robert Young and his wife Laraine Day, as a result of Young's assignments, seem inured to the carnage of WWII having fled country after country just ahead of Hitler's army.

Even when Day gets pregnant, this globetrotting-to-and-from-danger couple takes it happily in stride as they are excited for the baby whom they plan to bring along on their adventures.

With her husband now working out of London during the Blitz, Day loses the baby when she's injured in an air raid. This takes all the verve out of the couple as Day embarks for her family in America to recover while dispirited Montgomery stays on in London to continue covering the war.

For one of his first London assignments after Day leaves, Young is given a "human interest" story about an orphanage that takes in children made parentless by the Blitz (a fluff piece to this war-hardened correspondent).

Not quite immediately, but pretty quickly, Young finds himself engaged with the children, two in particular, a young boy and a girl, Margaret O'Brien. After a few coincidences bring him back into contact with the children, we all know what is going to happen, but first Young has to catch up with us.

While Young waffles, the mistress of the orphanage, wonderfully played by Fay Bainter, delivers the retort at the top to Young's query about his sanity as he considers adopting two of the children.

With Young now fully onboard, he has to check with his an-ocean-away wife. After an innocent misunderstanding because it is a communication era of letters, wires and unreliable overseas calls, she gets behind the decision.

Then it's the usual red tape to get permission to adopt and take the children to America. Being a movie, there's also some forced Hollywood drama, including (minor spoiler alert as this movie has "It Will All Work Out" stamped on it from the beginning) a last-minute save at the airport that allows Montgomery to take both children with him.

Made in 1942, Journey for Margaret breaks with most of the "we will win" propaganda films of that early time in the war to encourage Americans to adopt orphaned war children. It's a serviceable, if too-obvious story that holds together because of the talents of Young, Baintor and aborning child-star O'Brien.