What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Since we are on the subject of ankle bracelets, Ms. Stanwyck's in "Double Indemnity" deserves a shout out:

Double Indemnity haven't glanced recently but read somewhere that Fred MacMurry was once the highest paid
actor in Hollywood. Ms Stanwyck is a favourite lady thespian and like her co-star MacMurry could hold her own
and an entire film together.

The ankle bracelet wear is something to remark as film prop worn still I fail to find any significance for it.
I come from middle class stock, and lower midlands that truth told, so at Cambridge and Army patrician sons wore
gold signet rings left hand lesser finger. Family crest carved or whatever. Natural selection Darwinism prevailed
all thru this England yet. And the great landed estates all fall victim to the Crown.

 

[Fading Fast]

Fast please a little elaboration, do not leave me in the lurch over Lana's legs. Or her leg shackle.
Is this an American 'lower class' accessory? I failed to note any others worn, but paid this no mind.

I am far from an expert and hope others chime in, but the ankle bracelet, at least in the past and in some parts of the country, was considered "trashy" or "lower class."

The reason I'm hesitant in my wording is that I've learned, often times on Fedora, that these niche cultural things can mean different things, in different parts of the country and at different times.

To that point, I know I saw a movie once (whose name I have forgotten) where a very upper-class girl got one as a gift and it was considered a nice thing. But overall, I've seen them used in movies to signal "lower class."

 

[Edward]

Chanced across Rollerball (1975) on FreeVee last night. Remains a tremendous bit of cinema. One reason it hasn't dated badly is the use of classical music in the soundtrack (whereas the dreadful 2005 remake already sounds as dated as it is misconceived). The other big reason of course is that its treatment of celebrity culture remains not only relevant today, but much more widespread than only sport. It's interesting that it treats the idea of what is basically the internet as a corpoorate information control mechanism - a view that would have been sneered at twenty years ago, and perhaps much less so now. It is also spectacularly brutal, way more so than I remembered. Impressive how convincing the game sequences are - presumably this had a lot to do with why it was apparently the first big Hollywood picture to gives its stunt men an acknowledged, named credit at the end.

 

[Frunobulax]

I am far from an expert and hope others chime in, but the ankle bracelet, at least in the past and in some parts of the country, was considered "trashy" or "lower class."

The reason I'm hesitant in my wording is that I've learned, often times on Fedora, that these niche cultural things can mean different things, in different parts of the country and at different times.

To that point, I know I saw a movie once (whose name I have forgotten) where a very upper-class girl got one as a gift and it was considered a nice thing. But overall, I've seen them used in movies to signal "lower class."

I have to admit, I've never heard it associated that way. However, Hollywood may have a different take. I always found them attractive, but then lower class women are usually more fun, anyway.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. Fleeting youth privileged patricians introduced to maturity and tragedy.

 

[Fading Fast]

Bridge of Spies from 2015 with Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance and Austin Stowell


If the great Hollywood studios of old were still in business, they'd be making movies like 2015's Bridge of Spies. It has a hero, a strong cast, a historic geopolitical context and beautiful production qualities just like many of the classic movies from the 1930s and 1940s.

Steven Spielberg knows how to tell a good story and Tom Hanks knows how to act in one. Combined with a dramatic moment in history, these two pros deliver a movie, thankfully light on modern politics, that entertains from the first frame to the last.

While it takes some liberties, the broad sweep of the story is accurate. In 1962, after secret negotiations, the United States and the USSR (with its puppet state the GDR kicking in an innocent and stupid American kid) exchanged spies in a dramatic Cold War moment.

This was precipitated by the earlier arrest in the US of Rudolf Abel, played by Mark Rylance, on charges of spying for the USSR. The Brooklyn Bar Association asked attorney James B. Donovan, played by Hanks, to defend Able to make the upcoming trial look fair.

It's not so much that the US was planning a rigged trial, but it had a "come on, we all know he's guilty" attitude. Hanks as Donovan, though, in that great American tradition, puts up a spirited defence for an unpopular defendant, but loses, because well, Rudolf was guilty.

Donovan does, though, save Rudolf from the death sentence by arguing that the US might need him in a future spy exchange. This proves prescient when US Army pilot Gary Francis Powers, played by Austin Stowell, is shot down, well, while spying on the USSR.

The CIA, not wanting the appearance of the US Government negotiating directly with the USSR, asks Donovan to be an "unofficial" negotiator. This leads to the second half of the movie with Donovan in Berlin and not particularly safe as he's acting "unofficially."

The movie shines here as Spielberg beautifully recreates 1960s Berlin, divided between the East and West, while Donovan plays a regular guy rising to the occasion with more character and courage than his own government.

The US Government doesn't come across as evil, but simply more interested in winning the game than in the lives of the people involved. It's a form of realpolitik. But Donovan is having none of that, especially when he sees a historic event that firms up his convictions.

Riding an elevated train from East to West Berlin, at the moment the infamous Wall is being built, he sees German border guards shooting East German kids whose "crime" is trying to flee to the West.

When you have to build a wall and shoot your citizens to keep them in, you've ceded the moral high ground.

In the movie's best back-and-forth scenes, Donovan negotiates with the not-aligned Germans and Russians for both prisoners. He also, effectively, negotiates with the CIA to let him try to save both prisoners as the CIA is only interested in getting Powers.

The climax, when the two spies are exchanged on the Glienicke Bridge (the stupid American kid, who shouldn't have been in East Berlin at all, was passed at Checkpoint Charlie simultaneously), is already part of history, but it is still a tensely dramatic scene.

All wars seem overwrought once you know the outcome and they become part of history. Yet at the moment in the film when the two sides face off on that frozen and forlorn-looking bridge, with guns pointed and lives at stake, you feel how real it all was.

Spielberg is a movie maker and Hanks is an actor. In Bridge of Spies they created a beautiful film redolent of "old Hollywood" starring a real-life character, James B. Donovan, who lives every day with a moral clarity and fortitude few of us ever achieve.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Somehow I missed this. Hollywood can do a solid production when it wants.

All buzz surround stereo with Hanks. Sad, sordid. Mel Gibson has dared open Pandora's Box, God bless.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I liked Bridge of Spies a lot. And West Side Story. I absolutely LOVED The Fablemans.

It's not exactly a surprise that Steven Spielberg is an outstanding filmmaker - not since 1975! - but he seems to be on a particularly creative roll these days.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I liked Bridge of Spies a lot. And West Side Story. I absolutely LOVED The Fablemans.

Fablemans I've yet to see. The original West Side Story with Rita Moreno works for meself thanks but no.
Spies tempt but current buzz pits-puts paid certain sense I'll ever view. Tragic this.

Did you see Barbie-is there a subtext there where Ken is predator become victim?
We have to see Barbie-a second time no less for some tosh implicit whatever reason.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Nope, I haven't rushed to Barbie. The more popular something is, and the more I'm told how incredibly important it is at this cultural moment... the less motivated I am to go. I'm in no hurry to see Oppenheimer either, I haven't liked a Christopher Nolan film since The Dark Knight.

As someone who'd memorized the original cast album of West Side Story years before I saw the 1961 film, I was never a big fan of that film version. Spielberg's film (both because of his direction/production and Tony Kushner's revised book) is a major improvement in most regards. And dude, Rita Moreno's new character is the film's heart: she sings "Somewhere".

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

And dude, Rita Moreno's new character is the film's heart: she sings "Somewhere".

Rita was the heart of the original. Seriously, some films evade improve and despite all effort subsequent leave
discernible imprint like a mark of Cain howsoever lapsed time.

 

[Edward]

I liked Bridge of Spies a lot. And West Side Story. I absolutely LOVED The Fablemans.

It's not exactly a surprise that Steven Spielberg is an outstanding filmmaker - not since 1975! - but he seems to be on a particularly creative roll these days.

View attachment 542286

I've come to find his stuff so saccharine in recent years that I've largely stopped bothering with a project to which he is attached as director - fairly or no. He *has* done some fantastic stuff in the past. I found Ready Player One disappointing. I'd like to see his take on West Side Story, though - still waiting for it to come to "included with Prime".

 

[Fading Fast]

Penelope from 1966 with Natalie Wood, Ian Bannon, Dick Shaw and Peter Falk


On paper, Penelope should've been a hit. Natalie Wood, at the peak of her beauty and stardom, plays a free-spirited wife of an uptight bank president. Starved of his attention, Wood merrily pilfers from their rich friends and her husband's bank. How could it not be a hit?

It wasn't. Only Wood, Peter Falk as the understanding detective on her trail and the mid-1960s style shine in this often flat effort. Ian Bannen as Wood's buttoned-down husband and Dick Shaw as her insecure psychiatrist never sell you on their characters.

Rock Hudson or James Garner would have been perfect as the "dull" husband and Tony Randall or Gig Young would have brought the befuddle psychiatrist to life, but here, Wood just doesn't have the co stars needed to sell this 1960s take on a screwball comedy.

You still want to see it because Wood sparkles as the mirthful bandit; the opening sequence where she robs her husband's bank and then goes shopping at Bergdorf Goodman is pure joy. Her scenes with Falk, who's on to her - or is he? - have a playful vibe.

The forced episode that has Wood running around in her skimpy underwear - a bit daring for its day - has a modern #MeToo element that mars it, despite Wood's rockin' body. Still, like in a later flashback Greenwich Village bohemian scene, Wood's joy is infectious.

That Village scene also captures a culture about to pivot from The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit to the psychedelic 1960s as beatniks, folk singers (Wood performs a number) and suit-clad businessmen with their wives in evening gowns mix uncomfortably in a smoky cafe.

When the movie shifts away from Wood on her own or Wood with Falk, though, is when it gets bogged down. Shaw overplays his psychiatrist role so much he becomes goofy, while Bannen pings between being too serious in one scene and too slapstick in another.

Filmed on location in New York City, with many historic landmarks as backdrop and with an exaggerated mid-1960s style - an all-yellow Givenchy suit plays a key role - the movie is, for us today, a visually appealing time capsule of a culture at a turning point.

The climax, as it does in most screwball comedies, pulls all the threads together - the stealing, the failing marriage, the police investigation - and then resolves them in a too-easy manner. No one, though, watches a screwball comedy for the integrity of the plot.

Could a different director than Arthur Hiller have saved Penelope? Probably not as Hiller keeps the picture moving at a good clip and he understood that Wood and Falk were the two things working, but a director can't recast or shoot around the costars.

Penelope, despite all its flaws, is still fun enough because of Wood and Falk. It's just unfortunate because you can feel that a much better movie - a classic screwball comedy with 1960s characteristics - could have been made with better casting.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Vague remembrance but didn't Falk-always and everywheres-spot on remark her ''attractive wiggle'' to Ms Wood?
Falk had been a merchant seaman and brought a certain world weariness to acting that never ceases to attract notice.

The MGFS I always meant to see in its entirety besides the ten minutes snatched with the book. Jennifer Jones I believe
starred opposite Gregory Peck whom symbolized the married veteran class. A demographic culture in itself.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

The latest in the Chan-a-thon here in stately Shellhammer Manor is 1944's Black Magic, or Meeting at Midnight, wherein our wide-ranging Honolulu detective while on a "vacation from government business" agrees to help local PD investigate a baffling murder committed during a seance. Lt. Chan and some others pronounce it "see-ants.," while I grew up hearing "say-ants."
No Jimmy or Tommy Chan assisting Pop, but we have daughter Frances Chan, played by Frances Chan. Frances doesn't goof up to the degree of her brothers, but seems to exist to crack wise and sling slang at Pop, who struggles to follow the lingo of youth.
It seems a medium is fleecing bereaved folks with visits from their deceased loved ones, but it's all a racket, designed to milk the mourners of moolah. Right smack dab in the middle of seance the medium is shot, but without a sound; an autopsy reveals no bullet in the corpse. How can this be? Who did it, and why?
Well, sort of a spoiler alert: the solution to the murder involves so much heretofore unknown facts and background that I am convinced that no one could have figured out the plot. And the revelation seems hurried, like they were running out of film or time. Part of the fun of detective stories is seeing if you can piece together clues and hints and hit on the answers before the denouement, but here, I allege, we the viewer don't stand a chance.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Desperate Hours from 1955 with Fredric March, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Middleton, Arthur Kennedy, Dewey Martin, Gig Young and Mary Murphy


Acting, writing and directing talent elevates this "home invasion" movie above many of its peers in this perennially popular Hollywood genre.

In The Desperate Hours, Fredric March plays the father of an upper middle-class family - Martha Scott plays his wife, Mary Murphy; his nineteen-year-old daughter and Richard Eyer; his nine-year-old son - whose home is taken over one morning by just-escaped convicts looking for a temporary hideout.

Humphrey Bogart plays the leader of the gang, which includes Dewey Martin playing Bogie's younger brother and big Robert Middleton playing the "muscle" of the three.

Director William Wyler sets the tone early as Bogie's thuggish and scruffy gang appears completely out of place - like invaders - in the Marchs' clean and pretty house.

They randomly break things and look silly eating off of nice china at a comfortable dining room table with their guns resting next to their plates.

It's a long, tense movie as Bogie is waiting for his girl to come with money for their escape, while March is always looking for an angle that gets his family out of this safely. Meanwhile, the police, searching for the convicts, have no idea where they are.

Many of the usual home invasion things happen including innocent tradesmen and neighbors knocking on the door, the phone ringing too often and playmates and boyfriends showing up.

In a neat and tense twist, March and his daughter are allowed to go to work to keep up appearances, while his wife and son remain hostages. Meanwhile, young thug Martin eyes March's pretty daughter Murphy, especially when Murphy's boyfriend, played by Gig Young, comes knocking.

What centers and drives this one, though, is Bogie facing off against March as we see two acting pros draw you into their mano-a-mano story, where Bogie starts off cocky only to see March slowly begin to outmaneuver him.

Also engaging is the theme of criminals taking versus honest people earning. March has a job he goes to everyday to pay for the things his family has; whereas, Bogie and team take by force; the contrast could not be more stark.

This is further brought home when we see Martin begin to realize that his older brother has sold him on a bad philosophy - a life of crime and not being "the sucker." Martin can't help noticing the house's pretty curtains, comfortable furniture, well-stocked refrigerator and the general comity of the family - all things he's never had.

When Martin finally snaps at Bogie, who's played a father figure to him, and tells Bogie you never taught me how to get a home like this, the movie's theme is laid bare: hard work and honesty, not stealing, is the path to a better life.

It's a well-written script where we see even the police at odds as the lead detective, played by Arthur Kennedy, fights over priorities with his boss, played by Ray Collins.

Collins, with an eye on the upcoming election, simply wants what will be popular with the public, Bogie's gang dead or captured; whereas, Kennedy wants to do the right thing and put March's family's safety first.

It's a powerful scene that shows that even the police have conflicting and, sometimes, selfish motives that don't always nicely align with "protect and serve."

Almost every actor is outstanding in this one, but you want to keep a special watch out for Middleton's incredible performance as the lumbering, psychotic giant whose unpredictability combined with his menacing street smarts makes him the scariest member of the gang.

Maybe the end is a bit too cute and gimmicky, but it's also tense and dramatic as movies like this have to do their thing and deliver an emotional and action-filled climax.

The Desperate Hours is an engaging, albeit not groundbreaking picture. Still, with a smart script, Wyler at the helm and too-many talented actors to name, it's what a good movie should be: entertaining as heck with a small message tucked inside.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Missed this one sure. Bogie from Niven's account of him loved good well played chess.

Brad Pitt in Fury has interesting converse with the German women whose home he enters, bargains for a wash,
cooked eggs meal, then deals the daughter to his naive teen mate. War whether civil society or combat is actual chess.

 

[Fading Fast]

Love in the Rough from 1930 with Robert Montgomery, Dorothy Jordan and Benny Rubin


Love in The Rough is a schizophrenic early "talkie" that combines elements of a musical, slapstick/screwball comedy and vaudeville. These styles are all, somewhat, "held together" by a choppy poor-boy-loves-rich-girl story.

It's also an opportunity to see Robert Montgomery, a huge star of the 1930s, early in his career and in the type of role he would perfect as movie-making technology and style advanced throughout the decade.

Montgomery, here, plays a modest shipping clerk. His insecure boss, upon discovering that Montgomery is an outstanding golfer, invites Montgomery, incognito to avoid embarrassment, out to his fancy club for a week to give him tips to improve his game.

Along with his buffoonish friend and coworker, played by Benny Rubin, Montgomery decamps for the rarefied air of an exclusive country club to instruct his boss. Once there, though, he sees an attractive rich girl, played by Dorothy Jordan, and his plans change.

In terms of the plot, the rest of the movie plays out as most poor-boy-loves-rich-girl movies of that era did. Jordan, a pretty girl, but so-so actress, is mistakenly led to believe Montgomery is a shipping tycoon. He lets her think that as he wants to keep her interest.

They flirt, get close and, then, get serious, which leave Montgomery in the uncomfortable position of either having to come clean about his true station and risk losing Jordan or to marry her under false pretenses.

It all climaxes, as these types of stories almost always do, with the truth coming out, feelings being hurt, the parents - for better or worse - getting involved and then some deus ex machina untangling the mess.

That's the plot of Love in The Rough, but the plot is only part of the whole in this grab-bag-of-styles movie. There are also several "side shows," including a few musical numbers with "Go Home and Tell Your Mother" feeling a bit like a modern music video.

It's not quite a full musical, but the actors do break into song now and then. The actors, especially Rubin, also engage in short screwball-type skits where pottery is broken or people are "accidentally" hit with swinging golf clubs.

Finally, and this was a precode thing, too, there are several "ethnic" sketches as when Rubin and another actor do a short routine all in Yiddish. One has to wonder what percentage of the movie-going population ever spoke Yiddish.

Dated as the movie is, many of the clothes and much of the "country club" lifestyle in it has a modern Ralph Lauren feel. To this day, Lauren's company openly acknowledges that it gets inspiration from the movies, fashion magazines and newsreels of this era.

Love in The Rough was state of the art movie making for 1930. Yet in only a year or two, as talking-picture technology and storytelling rapidly advanced, it would seem dated with its awkward transitions and mishmash of styles that bordered on Vaudeville.

Today, it takes a little understanding of where movie making was in 1930 to appreciate Love in The Rough, a not-great movie, even in its day. But seen as a historic Hollywood curio, despite its "crazy" blend of styles, it is still moderately entertaining.


N.B. I like the movie's poster art so much, I used it for the picture with these comments versus my usual approach of using a pic from the movie. To this day, you will still see versions of that style of illustration popping up here and there.

 

[Fading Fast]

Tea and Sympathy from 1956 with John Kerr, Deborah Kerr, Leif Erikson, Darryl Hickman and Edward Andrews


Set in a New England prep school, Tea and Sympathy is surprisingly ahead of its time with its anti-bullying message and its only somewhat palliated look at a married man unable to acknowledge, even to himself, his homosexuality.

Written by Robert Anderson and directed by Vincente Minnelli, Tea and Sympathy belies the generally accepted view today that popular culture in the 1950s was only selling a story of happy heterosexual American families living the good life.

John Kerr plays the prep-school boy who doesn't fit in. He likes poetry, music and solitude, all things which affront the prep school's culture that says "real men" like sports, group activities and do not have too much interest in poetry or music as those are "sissy" things.

Kerr, shunned by most of the boys, forms a bond with the wife, played by Deborah Kerr (no relation), of his housemaster. This relationship, too, is viewed as suspect as why would a "healthy" teenage boy want to hang out with a married middle-aged woman?

Adding to the complexity, D. Kerr's husband, played by Leif Erikson, is a brawny schoolmaster and coach of several varsity teams. He's a "man's man" who buys into the prep school's "macho" culture, while proving his masculinity with feats of strength.

D. Kerr, who lost her first husband, a sensitive young man, in the war, thought Erikson had a similar sensitivity underneath his "manly" exterior. Yet after they married and came to the school, he's been all tough exterior, leaving Kerr feeling lonely.

Another wrinkle is that Erikson and J. Kerr's father, played by Edward Andrews, were former classmates. Andrews purposely placed his boy in Erikson's house as he asked Erikson to "straighten out" his "sensitive" son.

Andrews is narrow minded, but he, as shown in several scenes when he visits his son at school, believes his efforts to "straighten the boy out" are sincerely in his son's best interest. He, like Erikson, is no cardboard villain, but a man who can't see past his bias.

With that set up, we witness the prep-school culture wearing down J. Kerr's confidence to the point where he's questioning his own hetersexuality because he doesn't fit in with the other boys and their false-bravado talk about girls.

Anderson and Minelli smartly keep the story from becoming cliched as J. Kerr's roommate, thoughtfully played by Darryl Hickman, tries to help J. Kerr, but there is so much pressure on Hickman to conform, his own status is threatened by these efforts.

The main story has one early climax around J. Kerr's desperate attempt to prove his masculinity, to himself as much as to the others, with a "townie," but that event goes very wrong and spirals into the movie's denouement.

At the same time, we see Erikson and D. Kerr's marriage buckle as he just wants her to play the part of supporting housemaster's wife to her macho husband, while she wants the sensitive man she thought she married to, at least, reveal himself in private.

What becomes apparent with just a little interpretation is that macho Erikson is probably gay. His physical "romping" with the athletic boys, whose company he prefers to his wife's, and his "passionless" marriage fit a pattern that even 1950s audiences could understand.

It's an impressive storytelling juxtaposition where the "effete" boy is truly heterosexual, while the "macho" coach is, most likely, homosexual. Anderson and Minelli threw a lot in 1950s America's face with this one.

That aforementioned denouement brings both storylines together - no spoilers coming as you want to see this fresh - in a stunning way for a mid-1950s movie.

Tea and Sympathy is a bit too obvious in its writing and its color scheme is mid-century exaggerated. Yet for its day, it surprisingly and aggressively challenges several strong cultural gender norms.

It shows modern viewers that mid-century America wasn't as unaware of these issues - nor was mainstream culture a monolith of conformity - as is often assumed today. And this was a movie; the books of the era, as always, went much further in challenging convention.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

A definite draw card of a review Fast. And Ms Kerr adds her sparkle. Does seem like a pot boiler novel writ screen.

Bye posters, Oppenheimer's caught my eye as a collector piece. Elvis too. Such artwork. And Indy, controversy aside
so much history and story captured in eye blink art. Mouse House ought to do Snow White posters of its behind scene mess.