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What Was The Last Movie You Watched?
- Thread starter Amy Jeanne
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cw3pa
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"The Big Combo" (1955) with Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte & a 30 year old Lee Van Cleef.
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On the Waterfront on TCM
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Caught the tail end of it this morning - that movie deserves all the accolades it gets. While a bit preachy at times, its dialogue is overall so good and the scenes so powerful, that one forgives its occasional excess.
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Watched "Across the Pacific" (DVR'ed from TCM) with Humphrey Bogart, Sidney Greenstreet and Mary Astor. (Spoiler alert - I'm going to give the plot away if you haven't seen it). The basic story is, during WWII, Bogart plays a "disgraced" America soldier who is really working undercover to spy on Greenstreet - playing his usually cocky villain role with aplomb - who is working for the Japanese and planing to bomb the Panama Canal. Mary Astor is involved somehow - for good or evil - but she is on the same boat that Bogart and Greenstreet travel on to Panama and she has the obligatory affair with Bogart.
Most of the movie is the boat trip where we watch Bogart, Astor and Greenstreet play a game of cat an mouse and shifting alliances while some other minor characters come in and out as the audience is still trying to figure the plot out. Then, after all three disembark in Panama, the climax comes as we see that Mary Astor - helping her alcoholic father - was blackmailed (maybe, maybe not) into helping Greenstreet, while Bogart - after a few blows to the head - thwarts the scheme.
The entire move feels like the writers, producers and directors said to themselves "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon" were successful movies, so lets take a lot of elements from those movies, put them in this one and we'll have a successful movie. Some scenes seem ripped right out of both of those movies with the effect being that you feel like the writers, producer and director are playing us a bit for fools. Instead of just making what is a good movie, they tried so hard to capture the magic of "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon" that it cheapened their effort.
Good movie - could have been better without the cheap copycat stuff.
Most of the movie is the boat trip where we watch Bogart, Astor and Greenstreet play a game of cat an mouse and shifting alliances while some other minor characters come in and out as the audience is still trying to figure the plot out. Then, after all three disembark in Panama, the climax comes as we see that Mary Astor - helping her alcoholic father - was blackmailed (maybe, maybe not) into helping Greenstreet, while Bogart - after a few blows to the head - thwarts the scheme.
The entire move feels like the writers, producers and directors said to themselves "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon" were successful movies, so lets take a lot of elements from those movies, put them in this one and we'll have a successful movie. Some scenes seem ripped right out of both of those movies with the effect being that you feel like the writers, producer and director are playing us a bit for fools. Instead of just making what is a good movie, they tried so hard to capture the magic of "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon" that it cheapened their effort.
Good movie - could have been better without the cheap copycat stuff.
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Doctor Strange
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I believe that director John Huston left in the midst of production for his war service without having finished the script, which accounts for some of the film's improvised, not-quite-thought-through feel.
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The TCM host said that Huston did leave and whoever replaced him to finish the movie did not get any official credit. Nice memory. And while I'm sure you are right that it contributed to some of the garbling, I still think they were trying to hard to copy "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon."
Doctor Strange
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No doubt. One thing that remains true of Hollywood today is, if it worked already, make something very similar! But bear in mind that during the war, Casablanca was not yet considered the deathless classic that it is now, just another Bogart picture from Warners. And while Bogart was definitely a star, the Bogie cult was still decades off.
I was annoyed recently when a character on Masters of Sex used the "We'll always have Paris" line. Casablanca did not become a beloved, widely quoted film until a decade later. (I was a kid in the sixties, and I observed the growth of the Bogart cult among young people and the enshrining of Casablanca as a masterpiece firsthand.)
I was annoyed recently when a character on Masters of Sex used the "We'll always have Paris" line. Casablanca did not become a beloved, widely quoted film until a decade later. (I was a kid in the sixties, and I observed the growth of the Bogart cult among young people and the enshrining of Casablanca as a masterpiece firsthand.)
Edward
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Casablanca is a fascinating piece. Conceived and made as a propaganda piece, really, yet somehow so much more than the sum of its parts. That scene with the.... competitive singing... beautifully made: in the hands of one of today's Hollywood hacks like Spielberg or whoever, I dread to think how it would have played out. And the quality of all the performances gives it real gravitas. What really sells it for me, though, is the humour. So many great gags, and throwaway laughs...
Last film I watched was Memento. Cracking stuff.
Last film I watched was Memento. Cracking stuff.
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Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
We were feeling Christmas in August, so whiskey and this movie seemed like a good idea.
We were feeling Christmas in August, so whiskey and this movie seemed like a good idea.
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That was Vincent Sherman, who had a fairly decent career as a film and television director.
Particularly from Claude Rains, who just about steals every scene he's in.
Edward
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Completely. My favourite line is, I think, "I think you killed a man, but that's the romantic in me." It's all in the delivery.
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Precisely!
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I have watched it so many times yet I have to watch it every time I stumble across it.
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Gregg Axley
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Droppo!!!!!!!:eusa_doh:Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
We were feeling Christmas in August, so whiskey and this movie seemed like a good idea.
The regular version or the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version?
I'm not sure I can watch the regular one straight.
Oh wait, you mentioned Whiskey, that helps.
Worf
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^^^^^ You see THAT'S my problem. I don't drink or get high (at least on purpose) and, as a teatottler, I don't have the benefits of inebreation to help me through some of life's lesser movies. I'm sure that corn licker would make all manner of drivel tolerable.... sigh... I'll just never know.
Worf
Worf
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You have been missed these past few days as many movie and TV show commentaries were screaming out for your input. Also, as someone who does imbibe, I have found it to have only a very modest ability to make a bad movie more tolerable. Now I know, though, that if we ever wind up in the same city, instead of having a beer together, it will be a soda - either way, it will be a great conversation.
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Realized I wasn't specific enough. Your thoughts on the TV show "Manhattan" are needed on that thread, as well as, on the "He Chose the Wrong Woman Thread" and on the favorite TV thread there's been a great discussion of "Hell on Wheels" going on where your contribution would be great (although, I don't remember if you watch that show or not).
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