What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Doctor Strange]

Excellent review FF, the only thing I'd add is that Robert Anderson wrote this as a play first, in 1953. Broadway theater (and books) in those years was far ahead of films in dealing with such issues: there was no restrictive Production Code. And the generation that came back from fighting WWII had their eyes opened about many "taboo" subjects, as demonstrated in so many then-shocking-now-classic postwar novels/plays, etc..

But yeah, this film was a pretty gutsy treatment of the material back in 1956. I've always adored Deborah Kerr, and she's excellent here, as usual.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Catching up on movie-watching, it was It Happened One Night (1934), followed by Remember the Night (1939, released January of 1940), the former via streaming, the latter via blu-ray.
IHON is certainly familiar to the Fedora Lounge crew; I'll only say I had forgotten how sharp the dialogue was, how director Frank Capra used softer focus to take us into a luminous romantic roller-coaster, and how flawlessly the actors deliver their parts.
Remember the Night, however, was sort of mixture of road picture, rom-com, and serious drama. It was purchased under the apprehension that it was a Christmas movie, one to add to the Shellhammer cavalcade of Christmas viewing. The setting is basically from just before Christmas until a little past New Year's Day. Star Barbara Stanwyck is arrested for shop lifting, Fred MacMurray is the DA prosecuting the case, and Beulah Bondi is mom back in Indiana. The trial is postponed until after the holidays. Fred covertly covers bail for Barbara, who ends up in his life, when Fred invites her to join him in a road trip to his home back in Hoosier-land. Turns out she's from the same area!
Fred's character is a unicorn, not naive, but sort of square-shooter country guy, who wants to truly be kind to Barbara, who as a hardened thief can't believe he's on the level and really that squeaky-clean.
We will not spoil the ending, only to say it is not a screw-ball wrapping-up of wackiness, nor is there any riding off into the sunset. It's still a society in the Thirties, with a production code, and justice to be upheld. The Missus and I were sort of let down.
Preston Sturges wrote the story, which presents some witty repartee and interesting characters; the opening courtroom scene shows the defense attorney rambling on in histrionics for quite a while, and we don't know if we owe this to Sturges or director Mitchell Leisen.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I missed Asteroid City and its London exhibit. Absolutely cannot do a Barbheimer. Must see Oppenheimer again.
And I need its poster. That scalp is mine with the two ELVIS scrolls for my new collection. And Indy what.
Mouse House absolutely screwed the pooch with Snow White.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Boot - 1985 uncut

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Love in the Rough" is interesting to compare with Paramount's "Follow Thru," another 1930 musical-comedy with a golf theme -- sports-themed musicals were an interesting subset of the musical craze that blazed brightly thru 1929-30 before burning itself out. All the tropes are pretty much the same, but "Follow Thru" has the advantage of being shot entirely in Technicolor, which does well by the long shots of golf greens and such. Buddy Rogers and Nancy Carroll do their usual schtick as the romantic leads, but Jack Haley and Zelma O'Neal steal the show as the comedy couple.

"Follow Thru" is trapped in legal tangles, and has never been shown on television or released on (legal) home video, but it plays theatrical revivals ocasionally. If one turns up near you, go see it -- it's a delightful bit of colorful fluff.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Love in the Rough" is interesting to compare with Paramount's "Follow Thru," another 1930 musical-comedy with a golf theme -- sports-themed musicals were an interesting subset of the musical craze that blazed brightly thru 1929-30 before burning itself out. All the tropes are pretty much the same, but "Follow Thru" has the advantage of being shot entirely in Technicolor, which does well by the long shots of golf greens and such. Buddy Rogers and Nancy Carroll do their usual schtick as the romantic leads, but Jack Haley and Zelma O'Neal steal the show as the comedy couple.

"Follow Thru" is trapped in legal tangles, and has never been shown on television or released on (legal) home video, but it plays theatrical revivals ocasionally. If one turns up near you, go see it -- it's a delightful bit of colorful fluff.

Wow, that is early for a full Technicolor production. Unfortunately, the once robust NYC revival movie theater scene has withered to a few, but one still never knows what might pop up.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Wow, that is early for a full Technicolor production. Unfortunately, the once robust NYC revival movie theater scene has withered to a few,

A few weeks ago I considered a jaunt to New York for Travers weekend but circumstances here, UK travel issues what
and migrant difficulties there imploded for put paid all of it. Bollicks-brains British Air is a NHS subsidiary I swear.
I'd have tried for Broadway or off with a flick or two on the chance. Pizza. Thick cut chips.
I did succeed in folding down the lawnchair on Barbie. Told Glyn I'd done my duty for king and country the first time
over at IMAX and she and girl mates can make night of it. She hated Oppenheimer. So much the better.

 

[Fading Fast]

Phaedra from 1962 with Melina Mercouri, Anthony Perkins, Raf Vallone and Elizabeth Ercy


Stepson Alexis (Anthony Perkins) to his stepmother: "I don't call you 'mother,' do I?"
Stepmother Phaedra (Melina Mercouri) who is sleeping with Alexis: "If you do, I'll kill you."


Phaedra, director Jules Dassin's 1960s take on a Greek tragedy, needs to be seen in that historical storytelling vein to be understood. Otherwise, our modern view will interpret the material as a soap opera where a few characters make some very stupid decisions.

A Greek and traditionally masculine shipping tycoon, played by Raf Vallone, very much loves his second wife, played by Melina Mercouri. He showers her with gifts, love and attention when he's not off closing another big business deal.

Vallone asks Mercouri to fly to London to bring his somewhat estranged son from his first marriage, played by Anthony Perkins, home to Greece for the summer. Vallone wants to bring the boy into the business.

Forty-year old Mercouri, who is bored with her pampered life and turned off by her husband's public and private affections, goes to London and meets twenty-four-year-old Perkins for the first time. Quickly, the two begin a physically passionate affair.

Since Mercouri and Perkins are stepmother and stepson, it's one removed from a full Oedipal thing. But come on, were there no others these two very attractive people could have found to sleep with?

Taking a few-thousand-year-older perspective, we'll say these two were overcome with an all-consuming love and passion for each other, which we know, being a Greek tragedy, won't end well.

The rest of the movie is watching the tragedy slowly and painfully unfold. With all three - Mercouri, Perkins and unaware Vallone - living together in the same house in Greece for the summer, the movie ticks toward disaster.

Perkins and Vallone get along better than usual as Perkins tries to play the role of the good son willing to go into his father's business. Heck, he's banging his father's wife, so he figures he has to throw the old man a bone.

Perkins, kidding aside, feels guilt one minute and not the next. He is a young man not fully able to process how horrible he's behaving.

Mercouri, who should know better, however, appears to have no deep feelings for anyone other than herself. Her selfishness is not materialistic, but weirdly spiritual as she seems, Greek tragedy like, to almost want to smash up her life.

Amping all the passions up and pushing the movie toward a conclusion, at his dad's urging, Perkins begins dating the very young and very pretty daughter, played by Elizabeth Ercy, of his dad's business rival.

This drives Mercouri, well aware of her aging skin, insane with jealousy. It makes unaware dad, though, happy as a marriage between "the kids" could also help merge the two businesses.

All of this is set against the beautiful backdrop of a modern-day Greece still dotted with buildings and ruins of its ancient glory. Director Dassin knew he needed this setting to remind audiences of the history and context of a Greek tragedy.

His picture does take a brief turn to the modern when Perkins begins dating Ercy, with background rock and roll music and Perkins zipping around Greece in his awesome new Aston Martin, a gift from dad. Yet it quickly turns back to "ancient Greece" as the climax approaches.

That climax (no real spoilers coming) includes all aspects of a Greek tragedy: a chorus to comment, secrets exposed, family members at each other's throats, death, suicide, and a business crisis as a crushing fall must follow hubris.

Vallone is good as the powerful but wronged husband and father, yet this is Perkins' and Mercouri's movie. Perkins is a bit awkward here, but he had a vogue back then as a young man seducing older women (see him win over Ingrid Bergman in 1961's Goodbye Again).

Mercouri plays her character as tragic from the first frame. A modern take is that she's spoiled, but an Ancient Greek take is that great passion drove her to tragedy. Looking old for the role, Mercouri's sad disaffection and often gloomy presence owns every scene she's in.

Phaedra is an odd film that oscillates between being off-putting one moment and engaging the next. It's more interesting than good. Yet you can't help respecting Dassin's attempt to bring a modern take on a Greek tragedy to the screen, even if it doesn't fully work.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Perkins had a credible niche character quality and his tragic role in O'Neill's Desire Under The Elms with Sophia Loren
and Burl Ives where he also horns dad, is probably his best take as jack-the-lad but infanticide is too tragic an act for
mortal lust, so the actual plot tips play turned fim over on its arse. The gallows await mail order bride and step son,
with Ives alone and solitaire standing his ground. Some playwrights like O'Neill, Synge, Keats, Shaw dared much,
but Greek tragic is heavily thematic script not easily accomplished even with extraordinary talent and best intent.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Several

"Love in the Rough" is interesting to compare with Paramount's "Follow Thru," another 1930 musical-comedy with a golf theme -- sports-themed musicals were an interesting subset of the musical craze that blazed brightly thru 1929-30 before burning itself out. All the tropes are pretty much the same, but "Follow Thru" has the advantage of being shot entirely in Technicolor, which does well by the long shots of golf greens and such. Buddy Rogers and Nancy Carroll do their usual schtick as the romantic leads, but Jack Haley and Zelma O'Neal steal the show as the comedy couple.

"Follow Thru" is trapped in legal tangles, and has never been shown on television or released on (legal) home video, but it plays theatrical revivals ocasionally. If one turns up near you, go see it -- it's a delightful bit of colorful fluff.

Several lifetimes ago, I chanced to see Follow Thru at a UCLA screening. I recall it being great fun, and in pre-VHS, -dvd, -cable, and -streaming, there was a sense of watching something that was virtually impossible for us to see anywhere else.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

The next two offerings for the Charlie Chan Project were The Jade Mask (1945), dir. Phil Rosen, and The Scarlet Clue (1945), also dir. Phil Rosen. The former finds our hero, now promoted to Inspector Chan, called in to investigate the murder of a quirky scientist who works on valuable research connected to the war effort. We meet No. 4 son Eddie ("Please, Father, call me Edward"), a cerebral college guy who still blunders per sibling Jimmy and Tommy. It seems Chan is a "federal agent" (it must be the Secret Service; see CC in the Secret Service.)
The title refers to life masks of the scientist's staff and relations, which were made to identify suspects should said staff and relations disappear with the scientist's plans. There's a higher body count than usual, as suspects are bumped off by the real villain in an attempt to stay undetected, but the Inspector does piece together the evidence for the solution.
The latter takes place in the Cosmo Radio Company, which also broadcasts television. Most of the story has Chan and son Tommy (Benson Fong) traveling around the building, visiting studios and offices on various floors. The gizmo of vital government importance is a fabulous radar, which an enemy of our government would like to steal. If it's so valuable, why is all the research done in a non-secure office building, instead of Los Alamos?
A clever plot device is the use of a teletype machine whereby the ringleader of the would-be thieves sends directions and brow-beatings to the lackeys. There is no face-to-face contact within the gang, which creates a challenge to law enforcement in tracking down the mastermind. Yes, you probably won't guess the identity of the villain.

 

[Worf]

"They Cloned Tyrone" - This Netflix original is one of the most thought provoking film I've watched in a long time. One part "urban" drama (pimps, pushers and prostitutes), one part sci-fi thriller and one part conspiracy fueled fantasy. All three of these elements are mixed together in a potent film that (although a bit on point at times) had me laughing, crying and thinking for days afterwards. If you can get past the first 30 minutes things then go sideways in interesting and frightening ways. If you know anything of America's history of "experiments" on it's Black population over the centuries then some of the conspiracies raised here are not that far fetched. A great watch as far as I'm concerned.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

Whirlpool from 1950 with Jose Ferrer, Gene Tierney, Richard Conte and Charles Bickford


To truly enjoy Whirlpool, one has to truly believe in hypnosis to the point where the hypnotized person can steal something, drive somewhere, hide the stolen goods, all while under hypnosis, and then truly not remember what they did when they come out of the hypnotic trance.

That is some serious hypnosis we're talking about.

Whirlpool also asks you to fully believe in Freudian psychoanalysis in the way mid-century movies completely believe in Freudian psychoanalysis.

In that post-war movie era, almost every adult disorder is thought to be the result of a repressed childhood trauma waiting to be brought back as a conscious memory by a competent psychoanalyst, which then "cures" the patient.

If you see hypnosis and psychoanalysis as hypnotists and doctors adjusting dials on the human brain to get things "just right," then Whirlpool is the movie for you.

If not, the plot will seem hokey, but the movie's outstanding acting, several engaging scenes and Otto Preminger's solid directing still make it an enjoyable, if sometimes, silly watch.

Gene Tierney plays the wife of a successful psychoanalyst, played by Richard Conte. When she, a very respectable and wealthy woman, is caught shoplifting in an upscale department store, a strange and confident man, played by Jose Ferrer, comes to her rescue.

We later learn he's a hypnotist who scams, mainly, wealthy women out of money. Tierney is clearly his next mark, but she seems very aware that he could be a con artist. His one hold on her, though, is that she doesn't want her husband to learn she's, possibly, a kleptomaniac.

Ferrer, brilliantly contorting the usual blackmail plan, slowly takes control of Tierney through hypnosis, which leads to Tierney's life being upended as Ferrer is playing a long-ball game that leads to Tierney being suspected of murdering an enemy of Ferrer's.

From here, the movie is Tierney's husband, Conte, trying to understand what the heck has been going on with what he thought was his happily married and emotionally stable wife, while the police, led by Charles Bickford playing a detective, investigate the murder.

Conte, who usually plays very "ethnic" types, often mobsters, is very good here as a kind husband and smart doctor who finds his life and marriage blowing up before his eyes.

Bickford, as always, is excellent as the brusque and laconic detective having a hard time understanding all the hypnosis and psychoanalysis mumbo jumbo when the facts point so clearly to Tierney.

Tierney, herself, is in her acting sweet spot here as she was born to play an aloof, unemotional woman under hypnosis. Heck, she played most of the roles in her career that way, even the ones not calling for her to look vacant and removed.

Ferrer gives the standout performance in this one as the smooth, oleaginous hustler pulling all the strings, always having a plan and, seemingly, always one step ahead of everyone else. You hate him, but he's the most interesting character in the movie.

To fully enjoy Whirlpool's plot, climax and resolution, you have to share the aforementioned complete confidence in hypnosis and psychoanalysis that mid-century movies seemed to have.

If you don't, there are still quite a few good scenes, including the one where Ferrer rescues Tierney at the department store and the one where he "doesn't" blackmail her, to keep you engaged.

Those, combined with several good performances and Preminger's steady directing, mean even skeptics of hypnosis and Freud will enjoy this noirish curio of a picture.

 

[Frunobulax]

"They Cloned Tyrone" - This Netflix original is one of the most thought provoking film I've watched in a long time. One part "urban" drama (pimps, pushers and prostitutes), one part sci-fi thriller and one part conspiracy fueled fantasy. All three of these elements are mixed together in a potent film that (although a bit on point at times) had me laughing, crying and thinking for days afterwards. If you can get past the first 30 minutes things then go sideways in interesting and frightening ways. If you know anything of America's history of "experiments" on it's Black population over the centuries then some of the conspiracies raised here are not that far fetched. A great watch as far as I'm concerned.

Worf

I didn't realize it was Netflix. I was treated to some trailers scrolling Instagram a month or so ago and it caught my eye, but I thought it was going to be a theater release.

I'll check it out.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

^ Preminger directed Whirlpool, lost my thought, another film. An ''Alfie.'' There is a nurse over here whom murdered
infants under her care. Not followed it much there is some controversy but I thought it had something to do with hypnosis. I imagine this tragedy may yield book and film, quite sordid with fingers pointed NHS. Politics always and everywhere in the UK it seems and the incompetents simply resign and walk away and romanaclef themselves,
barely literate resignation letters add to mix yet. Ought to be a film about these cretins.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Letter from 1940 with Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, Victor Sen Yung and Howard Joyce


Based on a W. Somerset Maugham play, directed by William Wyler and starring Bette Davis, The Letter more than lives up to all the talent behind it.

We know immediately, owing to the memorable opening scene of Bette Davis emptying her handgun into someone, who committed the murder at the heart of The Letter.

The movie, though, is still a mystery, as we, initially, don't know why she shot someone, nor who the victim is. We also won't know for a long time how the British legal system will adjudicate the shooting and whether the Singaporeans will accept the British ruling.

Ms. Davis plays the wife of a British manager, played by Herbert Marshall, of a rubber plantation in Singapore. She claims she shot the man, another Brit and friend of the family, in self defense because he was forcing himself on her on a night that Marshall was away.

Davis' immediate recounting of the facts to the police is almost too exacting and too perfect, as are her controlled emotions. But back then, personal control, especially in times of crisis, was the British ideal, so everyone seems inclined to believe her.

What then unfolds is an engaging story involving Davis' marriage, Marshall's all but unshakable faith in his wife, an affair ending badly, an interracial marriage (at a time when that meant something) and the strained relations between the ruling British and the Singaporeans.

A revealing note, the titular letter, is dropped right in the middle of the investigation, changing everything and brutally testing Davis' lawyer's, played by Howard Joyce, legal ethics.

In a brilliant bit of storytelling and movie making, the conflict appears settled several times, only to surprisingly reappear again and again, right up to the last scene.

Through it all, this is Davis' movie. Her character, a master of poised deception, manipulates everyone around her with an impressively calm ruthlessness. It is one of Davis' career-best performances

Marshall is very good, too, as her unaware and loving husband. It is her lawyer Joyce, however, who proves Davis' equal as their scenes are like tense chess matches with each maintaining his or her British reserve while relentlessly probing the other for weaknesses.

These are people whose lives are being ripped apart and whose moral values are being severely tested, but they still dress for dinner and calmly discuss the latest club gossip.

Amping everything up is Joyce's Singaporean legal assistant, played by Victor Sen Yung, who wields his smarmy deference to the British like a machete. He has ample opportunity to express his seething British antipathy as the negotiator for the owner of the all-important letter.

By today's standards, we could denounce the presentation of the Singaporeans, but the British are shown to be equally venal and deceptive, just in their own cultural way. A fair assessment is that Maugham put human nature on trial in The Letter and it didn't do so well.

While obviously shot on sets, this A picture from Warner Bros still has an evocative "British Colonial" look and feel (with a little too much polish) that helps to highlight the underlying tension between the two cultures.

The Letter is a version of the very old story of an illicit love affair gone wrong, but taken to an extreme motivated by William Congreve's searing axiom "heaven has no rage like love to hate turn, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

Today, The Letter doesn't get the attention that other classics from its era do. Still, its sharply written and taut story, crisp directing, engaging performances and timeless themes make it one of the era's outstanding movies and one that deserves more modern-day appreciation.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I once made remark in college refectory whence Hell's fury like a woman scorned.
Tongues did lash and wag this young fool knave. Maugham's The Painted Veil is another missed film adapt
and both this Davis masterpiece and Veil---Edward Norton I believe plays the horned man who leads his
errant wife through laboured route to fidelity, would make splendid viewing.

-if haven't heard Laufey sing please do. Such a lady, sweet, elegant, angelic voice. Just a rose so exquisite.

 

[Fading Fast]

I once made remark in college refectory whence Hell's fury like a woman scorned.
Tongues did lash and wag this young fool knave. Maugham's The Painted Veil is another missed film adapt
and both this Davis masterpiece and Veil---Edward Norton I believe plays the horned man who leads his
errant wife through laboured route to fidelity, would make splendid viewing.

-if haven't heard Laufey sing please do. Such a lady, sweet, elegant, angelic voice. Just a rose so exquisite.

I agree, there are some overlapping themes in "The Painted Veil" and "The Letter." I saw the Norton version when it came out and thought it was outstanding. The '34 version of TPV is good, too, but the '06 version more than held its own with it.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

You Can't Take it With You (1938) directed by Frank Capra, screenplay by Robert Riskin, from a play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, and Edward Arnold.

Leapin' Lizards, Sandy, with the stellar talent involved on both sides of the camera it is no wonder this movie trucks ahead full speed, with the occasional breather to wax philosophic about money, greed, friendship, and assorted tangential topics. Four generations of family at Chez Shellhammer enjoyed the story, with great-grandpa joining in.

Indescribably Big Business schemes to buy up some homes in order to build a munitions factory and make trainloads of money, but the Vanderhofs, led by grandpa Barrymore, won't sell, and the surrounding neighborhood is safe so long as the Vanderhof house isn't sold. Edward Arnold is A.P. Kirby, powerful industrialist who wants that house to seal the deal for the factory, James Stewart is A.P, Jr., destined to inherit his dad's empire, and Jean Arthur works in the Kirby office.

Well, romance tangles up the plot, plain folks are struggling to stay above water in an America recovering from the Depression, wealthy business tycoons who turned their backs on ethics and fellow-humans years ago care only for more and more wealth, and we watch the conflict between greed and humanity unfold

The playwrights, the screenwriter, and director all wear their idealism on their sleeves, but it's so sincere, so whole-hearted that we buy into the message ("money isn't everything") and cheer on the folks who dare to break step with the make-a-buck society.

A number of times we called out themes, actors, and plot devices that showed up about eight years later in It's a Wonderful Life. The film-student-I never-was tracked how Capra excellently sets up and runs crowd scenes (cf. 1932's American Madness as early example). We all applauded at the end.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I agree, there are some overlapping themes in "The Painted Veil" and "The Letter." I saw the Norton version when it came out and thought it was outstanding. The '34 version of TPV is good, too, but the '06 version more than held its own with it.

Maugham, quite opposite from Fitzgerald was 'easier' translation to film, although I find both men equally
accessible with the right approach. Your remarks regard Veil brought another of Maugham's literary efforts
to mind, The Razor's Edge, done by Tyrone Power then later Bill Murray who gave Maugham a real run for his
money by capturing the essence of character. Another author, Hemingway penned The Sun Also Rises that
Power did splendidly. Errol Flynn was in either Edge or Sunrise as cameo, but cannot recall now.