Julian Shellhammer
Practically Family
- Messages
- 894
711 Ocean Drive (1950) with Edmond O'Brien, Joanne Dry, and Otto Krueger, dir. by Joseph Newman.
Did someone review this a little while back?
If not, O'Brien is a telephone installer and electronics pro who joins up with a bookie operation to modernize their racket. But O'Brien is ambitious, a virtue in any other field except crime, and his climb to the top is fraught with danger.
It drives to the climatic denouement at Boulder Dam, maybe not as gripping as Mount Rushmore or the Statue of Liberty, but interesting nonetheless.
Cry Vengeance (1954) directed by and starring Mark Stevens, with Martha Hyer and former child radio actor Skip Homeier, who looks for all the world like Billy Idol. Railroaded cop Stevens tracks down those who framed him into a San Quentin sentence, tracing the leads to Ketchikan, Alaska, still a territory at the time. Those who confront Stevens get a rapid and vicious beat-down, which happens about four times in less than an hour and a half. When he finally connects with the bad guys, does he reap vengeance? We won't tell.
Sunset Boulevard (1950) co-written and directed by Billy Wilder, with William Holden, Gloria Swanson, and Erich von Stroheim. We watched this after viewing Remember WENN's spoof, The Sunset Also Rises. The Missus did not recall ever having seen the movie, so we tracked it down.
How in the world did Hollywood let this be made? The core of the story is septic delusion, working an angle, clawing out of the role of a peripheral cog in the dream factory assembly line, ethical and moral fluidity, and on and on.
Struggling screenplay writer Holden connects with once-great screen star Swanson, who wants him to re-write her script for a comeback. Real movie personalities mix with Wilder's characters, swirling together verisimilitude with caricature in a peek into the movie world.
I am assuming almost all regular FL'ers have seen this, so I won't go on. Breath-taking film-making.
Did someone review this a little while back?
If not, O'Brien is a telephone installer and electronics pro who joins up with a bookie operation to modernize their racket. But O'Brien is ambitious, a virtue in any other field except crime, and his climb to the top is fraught with danger.
It drives to the climatic denouement at Boulder Dam, maybe not as gripping as Mount Rushmore or the Statue of Liberty, but interesting nonetheless.
Cry Vengeance (1954) directed by and starring Mark Stevens, with Martha Hyer and former child radio actor Skip Homeier, who looks for all the world like Billy Idol. Railroaded cop Stevens tracks down those who framed him into a San Quentin sentence, tracing the leads to Ketchikan, Alaska, still a territory at the time. Those who confront Stevens get a rapid and vicious beat-down, which happens about four times in less than an hour and a half. When he finally connects with the bad guys, does he reap vengeance? We won't tell.
Sunset Boulevard (1950) co-written and directed by Billy Wilder, with William Holden, Gloria Swanson, and Erich von Stroheim. We watched this after viewing Remember WENN's spoof, The Sunset Also Rises. The Missus did not recall ever having seen the movie, so we tracked it down.
How in the world did Hollywood let this be made? The core of the story is septic delusion, working an angle, clawing out of the role of a peripheral cog in the dream factory assembly line, ethical and moral fluidity, and on and on.
Struggling screenplay writer Holden connects with once-great screen star Swanson, who wants him to re-write her script for a comeback. Real movie personalities mix with Wilder's characters, swirling together verisimilitude with caricature in a peek into the movie world.
I am assuming almost all regular FL'ers have seen this, so I won't go on. Breath-taking film-making.
