What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Edward]

Couple of low-budget, recent horror flicks this week. Haunting of the Mary Celeste was dire - gentle reader, take my word for this: I watched it so you don't have to. Researcher has theory about the Mary Celeste. Charters boat to where it disappeared. All crew, including researcher, gradually disappear. Rubbish.

The Ghost of Winnifred Meeks is a nice, old-fashioned type slow-burn ghost story. Not a hugely complex plot, but enjoyable enough. Won't appeal to those who thing horror means jump-scares and gore, though.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Their better films -- "Diplomaniacs," "Hips Hips Hooray," "Cockeyed Cavaliers" -- have the same sort of vaudeville humor, but it's done with such a shameless, relentless energy that you can't help but laugh. The gay subtext is especially strong in one scene in Diplomaniacs, in which Bert Wheeler comes across as a sort of demented Jeanette MacDonald, and for pretty much the entire second half of "Peach O'Reno," where Wheeler flits around in extremely convincing drag. Their most outrageous film, "So This Is Africa," had one of the thickest files in the offices of the Production Code Administration, and helped to bring on full enforcement of the code by the Breen Office. Their best films, obviously, were pre-code, but they had occasional fun moments in the post-code era as well.

 

[Bushman]

Caught the new Top Gun movie last Sunday, and I enjoyed it a lot more than the original. Cruise is a (tiiiiny) bit less egotistical, and the movie doesn't date itself with an insane number of concurrent cultural references like the original did.

Watched the Eric Bana Hulk movie last night before bed. Forgot how bad it was. Bad CGI, crappy story, the excessive split screen is disorientating, and the acting is just... eugh!

I did a 7-day free trial for AppleTV to watch a few things. One of them is going to be that Tom Hanks U-boat hunter movie, Greyhound. Looking forward to it!

 

[Fading Fast]

...

I did a 7-day free trial for AppleTV to watch a few things. One of them is going to be that Tom Hanks U-boat hunter movie, Greyhound. Looking forward to it!

I look foward to your comments on it. I keep waiting/hoping "Greyhound" comes out of its Apple world so that I can see it. I assume, at some point, it will makes sense for Apple to rent it to HBO, or Netflix or Amazon or somebody, but who knows, maybe they want to keep it exclusive to drive signups.

 

[Bushman]

I look foward to your comments on it. I keep waiting/hoping "Greyhound" comes out of its Apple world so that I can see it. I assume, at some point, it will makes sense for Apple to rent it to HBO, or Netflix or Amazon or somebody, but who knows, maybe they want to keep it exclusive to drive signups.

It was pretty good. A bit basic plotwise, but it had good effects and that's really all it needed.

 

[Worf]

I had heard of them, but this is the first time I think I ever saw a full movie of theirs. Note, in my comments, I flipped Wheeler and Woolsey's roles, but a sharp reader at the TCM site where I also post these comments PM'd me, so I made the corrections above.

You????!!!!! Made a mistake???????! (Worf grasps chest.... sways in his seat, passes out stone cold on the keyboard with a loud Clack-Thunk!)

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

You????!!!!! Made a mistake???????! (Worf grasps chest.... sways in his seat, passes out stone cold on the keyboard with a loud Clack-Thunk!)

Worf

I appreciate the implication, but it happens quite regularly. I will note, that this forum - with smart, knowledgable people like you - has made me up my game. I try to fact-check myself carefully, but obviously, not carefully enough. I felt so stupid flipping Wheeler and Woolsey, especially since I had looked their pics up, but clearly wasn't paying attention.

 

[Worf]

I appreciate the implication, but it happens quite regularly. I will note, that this forum - with smart, knowledgable people like you - has made me up my game. I try to fact-check myself carefully, but obviously, not carefully enough. I felt so stupid flipping Wheeler and Woolsey, especially since I had looked their pics up, but clearly wasn't paying attention.

If that's the biggest mistake you made that day you're ahead of the game. It's also gratifying to see someone who's clearly into film ask for a Mulligan from time to time. Some folks (NOT me) can't ever admit to an error. I'm just so used to you being so detailed and knowledgeable that your comment really surprised me and... me being me... I just had to dip my oar in a bit.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

Three Loves has Nancy from 1938 with Robert Montgomery, Janet Gaylor and Franchot Tone


[The first two paragraphs below were copied from an earlier movie review I did as it fits here perfectly.]

In the good old days of the early 1930s ('30-'34), before the Motion Picture Production Code was strictly enforced, "pre-code" movies addressed all the normal things humans do carnally - pre-marital sex, casual sex, "extra" marital sex, unwed mothers, abortions (yes), etc. - in a pretty modern way, but with less of the gratuitous visuals that have turn many movies today into soft and not-so-soft porn.

Once the code was strictly enforced, inconsistently in 1934 and, then, (mainly) consistently from 1935 on, Hollywood's answer to the "no sex out of wedlock" edict was the "screwball comedy," an offshoot of the romantic comedy where farce and physical humor dominate and act as a loose-fitting surrogate for sexual desire and frustration.

Three Loves has Nancy is a by-the-numbers screwball comedy that kinda sorta works because the stars - Janet Gaynor, Robert Montgomery and Franchot Tone - at the center of this love-triangle movie have enough verve and appeal to just pull it off.

A "sophisticated" (read, shallow and pretentious) New Yorker and author of cynical popular fiction, played by Montgomery, in order to avoid his equally "sophisticated" girlfriend and her campaign to get engaged, goes on a Midwest book tour where he meets a cute, sincere "hillbilly," played by Janet Gaynor.

Gaynor, who was just jilted on her wedding day, irritates Montgomery with her earnestness and clumsiness, while she is too innocent to even see his condescension.

Gaynor then heads off to New York to find the fiance who abandoned her at the same time that Montgomery returns to the city as he gets the "all clear" sign (the marriage-pushing girlfriend left town) from his best friend and publisher, played by Franchot Tone.

The screwballness is amped up from here as Gaynor, through a series of mix ups (screwball comedies are always a series of mix ups), ends up staying in Montgomery's large penthouse where she informally becomes his cook. But Tone, who lives in the adjacent penthouse, "steals" her to be his cook when Montgomery feins annoyance with Gaynor.

From here, the movie is Tone falling in love with Gaynor, who is in love with Montgomery, who won't admit, even to himself, he's falling in love with Gaynor. Of course, Tone and Montgomery become jealous of each other. In another screwball requirement, Gaynor must defend her virtue a few times, but not really, as they are just light-hearted attempts as everyone is, deep down, a good guy in this one.

(Spoiler alert if you don't know that screwball comedies almost always end happily) The climax is Screwball Comedy 101 as Gaynor's "simple" folks come to the city to meet Tone's social registry parents, which goes about as well as expected. In the same scene, after some fisticuffs (more Screwball 101), Montgomery breaks down and tells Gaynor he loves her followed by a quick cut to the final scene of them leaving on their honeymoon.

Formulaic screwball movies were part of Hollywoods' effort to produce, under the restrictions of the Code, enough movies each year to keep the theaters supplied with pictures. Three Loves has Nancy is nothing more than another one of these tossed-together fluff pieces elevated a bit by its enjoyable cast.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

For reasons beyond my comprehension, I have been watching the Star Wars franchise in story order. They are available on Disney+. I do recall the charged anticipation of the first movie released in 1977, standing in line for 3 hours to watch it, stoking the excitement by chatting with the fans in line. That summer I saw it six times. Have owned it in multiple media, starting with VHS way back when. Now, with the touch of few remote control buttons, the whole magilla is available.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

View attachment 430490
Three Loves has Nancy from 1938 with Robert Montgomery, Janet Gaylor and Franchot Tone


[The first two paragraphs below were copied from an earlier movie review I did as it fits here perfectly.]

In the good old days of the early 1930s ('30-'34), before the Motion Picture Production Code was strictly enforced, "pre-code" movies addressed all the normal things humans do carnally - pre-marital sex, casual sex, "extra" marital sex, unwed mothers, abortions (yes), etc. - in a pretty modern way, but with less of the gratuitous visuals that have turn many movies today into soft and not-so-soft porn.

Once the code was strictly enforced, inconsistently in 1934 and, then, (mainly) consistently from 1935 on, Hollywood's answer to the "no sex out of wedlock" edict was the "screwball comedy," an offshoot of the romantic comedy where farce and physical humor dominate and act as a loose-fitting surrogate for sexual desire and frustration.

Three Loves has Nancy is a by-the-numbers screwball comedy that kinda sorta works because the stars - Janet Gaynor, Robert Montgomery and Franchot Tone - at the center of this love-triangle movie have enough verve and appeal to just pull it off.

A "sophisticated" (read, shallow and pretentious) New Yorker and author of cynical popular fiction, played by Montgomery, in order to avoid his equally "sophisticated" girlfriend and her campaign to get engaged, goes on a Midwest book tour where he meets a cute, sincere "hillbilly," played by Janet Gaynor.

Gaynor, who was just jilted on her wedding day, irritates Montgomery with her earnestness and clumsiness, while she is too innocent to even see his condescension.

Gaynor then heads off to New York to find the fiance who abandoned her at the same time that Montgomery returns to the city as he gets the "all clear" sign (the marriage-pushing girlfriend left town) from his best friend and publisher, played by Franchot Tone.

The screwballness is amped up from here as Gaynor, through a series of mix ups (screwball comedies are always a series of mix ups), ends up staying in Montgomery's large penthouse where she informally becomes his cook. But Tone, who lives in the adjacent penthouse, "steals" her to be his cook when Montgomery feins annoyance with Gaynor.

From here, the movie is Tone falling in love with Gaynor, who is in love with Montgomery, who won't admit, even to himself, he's falling in love with Gaynor. Of course, Tone and Montgomery become jealous of each other. In another screwball requirement, Gaynor must defend her virtue a few times, but not really, as they are just light-hearted attempts as everyone is, deep down, a good guy in this one.

(Spoiler alert if you don't know that screwball comedies almost always end happily) The climax is Screwball Comedy 101 as Gaynor's "simple" folks come to the city to meet Tone's social registry parents, which goes about as well as expected. In the same scene, after some fisticuffs (more Screwball 101), Montgomery breaks down and tells Gaynor he loves her followed by a quick cut to the final scene of them leaving on their honeymoon.

Formulaic screwball movies were part of Hollywoods' effort to produce, under the restrictions of the Code, enough movies each year to keep the theaters supplied with pictures. Three Loves has Nancy is nothing more than another one of these tossed-together fluff pieces elevated a bit by its enjoyable cast.

"these tossed-together fluff pieces" Well put, sir.

 

[Fading Fast]

Goldie Gets Along from 1933 with Lila Damita and Charles Morton


Goldie Gets Along is a story Hollywood knows well: a young, pretty, unhappy and starstruck girl runs away to Tinseltown with dreams of becoming a famous actress. Yet the movie's acting, directing and narrative are so bumpy that the elements never fully gel, resulting in an overall awkward picture, albeit with some engaging parts.

Lili Damita, better known as Errol Flynn's first wife, stars as the titular Goldie. We quickly learn that she was born and raised in France, but when her American mother, who was married to a French actor, died, the mother's family took the early teen Damita into their New Jersey home.

Five years later, Damita is now a wild teenager who likes movies, partying, boys and staying out late, which makes her a rebel in her strictly religious home. Damita's boyfriend, played by Charles Morton, is a local rich boy who wants to marry Damita and settle into suburban domesticity.

Damita is having none of it and hightails it out of the town with no money or plans other than to "get to Hollywood." With that quick early setup, the next part of Goldie Gets Along is a quirky road-trip movie as we see Damita hitchhike part of the way, steal a car at one point and, then, get involved in a beauty-pageant scheme that takes over a chunk of the movie.

In that scheme, she and a smarmy promoter go into small towns and convince the mayor to put up money for a local beauty pageant arguing it will attract business. Goldie then flirts with the judges, hinting she'll sleep with them if they vote for her. She wins and then she and the promoter skedaddle off to the next town to do it again.

All along, Damita is being pursued by the old boyfriend, Morton, who won't take no for an answer. Damita finally arrives in Hollywood where, what had been a campy road-trip movie, now becomes a "young girl struggles to make it in a tough picture town" movie.

It's a cynical look at early Hollywood with producers and studio executives coming off as insecure popinjays, while the casting departments are simply overwhelmed with wannabe actresses. Damita is down and out until a little chicanery on her part and a Hollywood connection from her still-following-after-her boyfriend combine to give her a break.

The climax is a clumsy attempt to tie all the threads together, especially, and most surprisingly, when this pre-code movie slaps on a very Motion Picture Production Code style ending. It undermines whatever small character and story consistency had been built up to this point.

It's hard to know what the production team of Goldie Gets Along was trying to do. It seems, in part, to be an attempt to build Damita up as the next Greta Garbo. It is Damita's energy and screen presence that drives (and saves) this sometimes wobbly effort - she has whatever it is that makes an actress a star.

As to being the next "I vant to be alone" megastar, she is pretty and has a heavy and husky foreign accent, but her obvious attempts, here and there, to mimic Garbo were her one false note.

Goldie Gets Along has the classic pieces of many movies: a Hollywood infatuated teenager (a real 1920s and 1930s cultural thing), a crazy road trip, a beauty-pageant scam, a contemptuous look at Tinseltown and a love-sick-boy-chasing-an-indifferent-to-him-girl tale. Yet it never commits to one style or message.

Equally damaging, it never decides on the real character of Damita as Goldie: is she a spoiled young dreamer, a focused-and-driven independent woman or a scammer and tease? She's definitely a pre-code woman, at least up until the end, but what kind? With a choppy story, the movie needed to create a main character the viewer is vested in, but right through to its contradictory ending, we never really know what Damita as Goldie is about.

Goldie Gets Along offers a modern audience some fun pre-code romping and early Hollywood tidbits, but unfortunately, overall, it is an inconsistent and unfocused effort.


N.B. A couple of those Hollywood tidbits are getting to see - early in their careers - regular 1930s character actor Nat Pendleton as a motorcycle cop and Walter Brennan, one of Hollywood's legendary character actors, as a frustrated waiter.

 

[MisterCairo]

The 2019 Downton Abbey film. Wife and I humming and hawing about seeing the new one in the theatre, or waiting for Netflix. After re-watching the last one, I am leaning towards waiting. Enjoyable fluff, should save the ticket price for something else.

 

[Worf]

The 2019 Downton Abbey film. Wife and I humming and hawing about seeing the new one in the theatre, or waiting for Netflix. After re-watching the last one, I am leaning towards waiting. Enjoyable fluff, should save the ticket price for something else.

Puddin' and I watched the original series and loved it... however we thought the movie, which we saw at the local art house, was awful.... A dreadful bore of a time. I had to be rib jabbed several times to prevent snoring. I'm gonna give the new one a hard pass.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

Breathless from 1960 with John-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg


At the time of its release, Breathless launched French "new-wave cinema." Its take on moviemaking was fresh, exciting, "dangerous," fun and youthful. Director Jean-Luc Godard said and showed something on screen in a new way.

Looking back, you can see and be impressed by all that, and see its influences - one assumes a young Quentin Tarantino saw this movie - but you also see its flaws. It can be pretentious and intentionally chooses style over substance.

The story in Breathless is simple: a good looking, stylish young criminal, played by John-Paul Belmondo, steals a car, kills a cop and then spends the rest of the movie in Paris avoiding the police, while trying to get money to get out of the city with his kinda girlfriend, played by Jean Seberg.

Belmondo is described as a small-time hood, but early on, we see him kill a cop and, later, viciously and callously knock a man out by hitting him in the head from behind just to steal his pocket money. These are not "small-time hoodish things;" the second is a violent physical attack and the first is murder.

It's hard to find sympathy for a cop killer, even in the 1960s when, here, it's not even masked as a political statement. Perhaps those sound like "bourgeois values," but wanton murder is not stealing bread when you are hungry.

Seberg, the girlfriend, is an American gamine. She's like a cute androgynous urchin with a pixie haircut dropped into a violent world. No one that innocent looking has any business being in a ruthless world of criminals, where evil can't be done away with by the wave of a magic wand. It's a brilliant juxtaposition, like putting Bambi inside Thunderdome.

While Breathless is a cops and robbers movie on the surface, it's really just a story to showcase a new style of movie making including hand-held cameras, improvised street scenes, jarring transitions, almost, but not, breaking the fourth wall, a jazzy soundtrack and a world populated by young, attractive and well-dressed criminals enjoying life.

Being French, there's also plenty of pseudo-intellectual angsty stuff: "I don't know if I'm unhappy because I'm not free, or I'm not free because I'm not happy." Those are problems only self-absorbed people can discuss over drinks at a nice cafe in the middle of the day, while the rest of us are too busy earning a living to worry about such things.

If that's not enough nonsense, there's this bored lament, "I'd like to think about something, but I can't seem to." Dear Lord God, these people need real problems. Or this gem, "I'm scared because I want you to love me, but at the same time, I want you to stop loving me. I'm very independent, you know." Uh-huh.

Today these flaws are easier to see as Breathless' "breathtaking" new style isn't fresh anymore. Flaws and all, and sixty years later, Breathless is still an engaging movie on its own and a piece of film history well worth seeing for its generational impact on cinema. It's beautifully restored black and white cinematography is also an incredible time capsule of early 1960s Paris.

 

[Fading Fast]

Drive a Crooked Road from 1954 with Mickey Rooney, Dianne Foster, Kevin McCarthy and Jack Kelly


Mickey Rooney is a talented actor. There, I said it. Yes, I cringe at his racist characterization of a Japanese man in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but it's hard to argue the man isn't a skilled actor. Even back in his child-star days of Andy Hardy fame, he delivered a powerful and nuanced performance in the 1943 WWII-homefront movie The Human Comedy.

In the B-noir Drive a Crooked Road, he is impressively convincing as "Shorty," the talented mechanic and weekend race-car driver who pines to drive in the big-name auto races in Europe, but lacks the necessary funds. He is also painfully shy around women, a fact the other mechanics brutally rib him about.

After we see him compete in small-time, local weekend races, skillfully fix cars at his weekday mechanic's job and, then, return to his sad boarding room at night, we understand the quiet but deep pain and loneliness of his life. We also understand that he is ripe pickings for a gang of bank robbers looking for a highly skilled getaway driver.

What does the gang use to hook this "poor sap" with? A Rita Hayworth look alike, played by Dianne Foster, who pops up at the repair shop one day with her broken car and her not-broken-in-any-way body. After showing some interest in Rooney - water to a man in the desert - he's gaga for her, which leads to the next step in the gang's plan: show him the money.

A cool, good-looking man, played by Kevin McCarthy, is presented to Rooney as Foster's pal. McCarthy then proceeds to befriend Rooney. McCarthy is the type of guy who usually makes fun of the pint-sized Rooneys of the world, if he notices them at all, but now, he and Rooney are buds.

With the sun shining in Rooney's world for the first time, McCarthy drops the bomb, "we want you to drive the getaway car for a bank heist," oh, and there'll be enough money in it for you to fund your racing career in Europe.

Being a normal, law-abiding human being, Rooney reacts with dismay and disgust. But McCarthy has saved the knockout blow for last: Foster really likes you dude, but a woman like her won't be happy living on the earnings of a low-paid mechanic.

McCarthy knows he's planted the seed, so in a friendly manner, he tells Rooney there'll be no hard feelings either way, to just think it over. McCarthy's a good con man, as even though you know he's playing Rooney, you kinda can't help liking him a bit.

After a very short time back in his drab life, Rooney announces he's in and quickly learns the details of the heist, which requires a professional racecar driver to cover the nineteen-mile twisting dirt getaway route in record time to beat an anticipated police roadblock once the crime is reported.

Director and co-writer Richard Quine and co-writer Blake Edwards know what they're doing as, in the simple but gripping heist scene, they have you rooting for the bad guys just because you don't want to see sad, but basically decent, Rooney get caught.

(Spoiler alert) Alas, this is the 1950s, so after some melodrama where Rooney learns that Foster has been playing him all along, everyone turns on everyone else, a few bad guys are killed and Rooney, still in love with Foster, is quietly captured. His arrest was anticlimactic: he had already died inside when he learned he was the dupe all along.

Drive a Crooked Road is one of the saddest noirs ever made. A basically good guy with a dream, but the looks of a garden gnome, lives a lonely life of quiet despair. He's picked on by most men and ignored by women.

Then, for a brief moment, the cool kids let him into their world - he's dating the pretty girl, while the big man on campus invites him to the party. All his dreams seem to be within reach, but it was all a scam to use and discard him. Sure, he should have known better, but maybe it's hard to see right from wrong when you've never had the spotlight shining in your eyes before.

 

[Worf]

View attachment 432240
Drive a Crooked Road from 1954 with Mickey Rooney, Dianne Foster, Kevin McCarthy and Jack Kelly


Mickey Rooney is a talented actor. There, I said it. Yes, I cringe at his racist characterization of a Japanese man in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but it's hard to argue the man isn't a skilled actor. Even back in his child-star days of Andy Hardy fame, he delivered a powerful and nuanced performance in the 1943 WWII-homefront movie The Human Comedy.

In the B-noir Drive a Crooked Road, he is impressively convincing as "Shorty," the talented mechanic and weekend race-car driver who pines to drive in the big-name auto races in Europe, but lacks the necessary funds. He is also painfully shy around women, a fact the other mechanics brutally rib him about.

After we see him compete in small-time, local weekend races, skillfully fix cars at his weekday mechanic's job and, then, return to his sad boarding room at night, we understand the quiet but deep pain and loneliness of his life. We also understand that he is ripe pickings for a gang of bank robbers looking for a highly skilled getaway driver.

What does the gang use to hook this "poor sap" with? A Rita Hayworth look alike, played by Dianne Foster, who pops up at the repair shop one day with her broken car and her not-broken-in-any-way body. After showing some interest in Rooney - water to a man in the desert - he's gaga for her, which leads to the next step in the gang's plan: show him the money.

A cool, good-looking man, played by Kevin McCarthy, is presented to Rooney as Foster's pal. McCarthy then proceeds to befriend Rooney. McCarthy is the type of guy who usually makes fun of the pint-sized Rooneys of the world, if he notices them at all, but now, he and Rooney are buds.

With the sun shining in Rooney's world for the first time, McCarthy drops the bomb, "we want you to drive the getaway car for a bank heist," oh, and there'll be enough money in it for you to fund your racing career in Europe.

Being a normal, law-abiding human being, Rooney reacts with dismay and disgust. But McCarthy has saved the knockout blow for last: Foster really likes you dude, but a woman like her won't be happy living on the earnings of a low-paid mechanic.

McCarthy knows he's planted the seed, so in a friendly manner, he tells Rooney there'll be no hard feelings either way, to just think it over. McCarthy's a good con man, as even though you know he's playing Rooney, you kinda can't help liking him a bit.

After a very short time back in his drab life, Rooney announces he's in and quickly learns the details of the heist, which requires a professional racecar driver to cover the nineteen-mile twisting dirt getaway route in record time to beat an anticipated police roadblock once the crime is reported.

Director and co-writer Richard Quine and co-writer Blake Edwards know what they're doing as, in the simple but gripping heist scene, they have you rooting for the bad guys just because you don't want to see sad, but basically decent, Rooney get caught.

(Spoiler alert) Alas, this is the 1950s, so after some melodrama where Rooney learns that Foster has been playing him all along, everyone turns on everyone else, a few bad guys are killed and Rooney, still in love with Foster, is quietly captured. His arrest was anticlimactic: he had already died inside when he learned he was the dupe all along.

Drive a Crooked Road is one of the saddest noirs ever made. A basically good guy with a dream, but the looks of a garden gnome, lives a lonely life of quiet despair. He's picked on by most men and ignored by women.

Then, for a brief moment, the cool kids let him into their world - he's dating the pretty girl, while the big man on campus invites him to the party. All his dreams seem to be within reach, but it was all a scam to use and discard him. Sure, he should have known better, but maybe it's hard to see right from wrong when you've never had the spotlight shining in your eyes before.

Your review of this film and how it's insights touched you leads me to suspect some personal knowledge about the lives and trials of "outsiders" and "also rans". Outstanding....

Worf

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Ocean's 11 (1960) directed by Lewis Milestone, who also gave us All Quiet on the Western Front, Of Mice and Men, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, and tons more. Starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Angie Dickinson, and a boatload of familiar faces.

Ex-Army commandos* reunite under the oversight of a vaguely felonious crime boss to rob multiple Las Vegas casinos on New Year's Eve. The first half of the story is setting up and character interplay, the actual heist is over comparatively quickly. Stick around to the end.

Breezy, well-paced, Technicolor, and 2.39 : 1 aspect ratio, what better way to say, "Howdy, weekend"?

Picked out by the Missus; she thinks she remembered it from long ago, but still enjoyed it a great deal. She also googled the term "e-o-eleven" sung by Davis: it means a perfect dice game that ultimately flops. I never knew that: ties in perfectly with the movie.

* Did the US military use the term "commandos" during WW2? I thought the Army used "ranger" and the Marines used "raider." Worf? Lizzie? Fading Fast?

 

[Trenchfriend]

I enjoyed "Das Boot - 1985 uncut TV series" (282 min nonstop) today first time with headphones!! Man, I finally should do more often!
When you got the right sound preset on your DVD-player ("Rock" or "Live"), it´s top notch!

 

[Fading Fast]

Ocean's 11 (1960) directed by Lewis Milestone, who also gave us All Quiet on the Western Front, Of Mice and Men, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, and tons more. Starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Angie Dickinson, and a boatload of familiar faces.

Ex-Army commandos* reunite under the oversight of a vaguely felonious crime boss to rob multiple Las Vegas casinos on New Year's Eve. The first half of the story is setting up and character interplay, the actual heist is over comparatively quickly. Stick around to the end.

Breezy, well-paced, Technicolor, and 2.39 : 1 aspect ratio, what better way to say, "Howdy, weekend"?

Picked out by the Missus; she thinks she remembered it from long ago, but still enjoyed it a great deal. She also googled the term "e-o-eleven" sung by Davis: it means a perfect dice game that ultimately flops. I never knew that: ties in perfectly with the movie.

* Did the US military use the term "commandos" during WW2? I thought the Army used "ranger" and the Marines used "raider." Worf? Lizzie? Fading Fast?

Good question that I don't know the answer to, but I bet Worf and/or Lizzie will.

I enjoyed your comments on the movie. These are my relatively recent ones on it: #27,877