What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[LizzieMaine]

Watching "Nothing Sacred" (1937) on TCM right now - Carol Lombard looks great, the Technicolor looks absolute horrible, absolutely simply horrible. It's so loud and forced, that it's killing the movie for me.

They really hadn't figured out yet how to handle the three-color process at that point, and Natalie Kalmus's rather philistine tastes didn't help much with the color design.

For a long time all you could see of the color in this film was a queasy Cinecolor reissue print made in the 1940s that converted the image to a blue-orange two-color process, and made it look awful, so there was a lot of anticipation when a proper three-color restoration was done. Unfortunately, the restoration was done in 1999, when digital restoration was in its infancy -- and the restorers may well have done as much harm as good, since all they had to work from as a color guide was a degraded 1937 nitrate release print I think it's safe to say that even with the restoration nobody's really seen the film as it was intended to look since it was first released. But even if a pristine original print turned up, it would still look garish -- because that's what Natalie Kalmus thought the process should look like.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Dunkirk"

I went in not liking it, in part, owing to the comments here at FL and, in part, the reviews in general. I expected to be frustrated by the lack of historical context or opinion and annoyed at the wear-you-down battle scenes.

Well, expectations might be almost everything. While not a great movie, I think it is a solidly engaging and, at times, outright enjoyable one.

Its greatest strength is its breathtaking scenes (and scenery) and ability to put you in the middle of them. And its starkness of story makes you appreciate its limited moments of warmth and human touch - which includes almost everything about the father of the small flotilla boat and Commander Bolton's detached but heartfelt and intense passion for saving his men.

I wonder what someone without a working knowledge of the Battle of Dunkirk would think about it? Would they just "go with it" and root for the service men on the beach and "feel" the bigger picture drama or would they be frustrated by the lack of context and story?

Had I not read about "Dunkirk" before seeing it, the lack of those traditional movie markers would have bothered me, but knowing they wouldn't be there - and knowing the historical context - I just took it as it came and enjoyed its intensity, visual beauty and starkness. It's a movie, IMHO, that could only have been made after all the other WWII movies that came before it were already made so that a "movie in a different mold" would be interesting and acceptable.

 

[Fading Fast]

They really hadn't figured out yet how to handle the three-color process at that point, and Natalie Kalmus's rather philistine tastes didn't help much with the color design.

For a long time all you could see of the color in this film was a queasy Cinecolor reissue print made in the 1940s that converted the image to a blue-orange two-color process, and made it look awful, so there was a lot of anticipation when a proper three-color restoration was done. Unfortunately, the restoration was done in 1999, when digital restoration was in its infancy -- and the restorers may well have done as much harm as good, since all they had to work from as a color guide was a degraded 1937 nitrate release print I think it's safe to say that even with the restoration nobody's really seen the film as it was intended to look since it was first released. But even if a pristine original print turned up, it would still look garish -- because that's what Natalie Kalmus thought the process should look like.

Thank you - as always, great inside and detailed information. I was so put off that I turned it off less than an hour in.

Since, as you said, we'll probably never see it as it was meant to be (and that version doesn't sound wonderful anyway, but would - at least - have historical integrity) just "uncolorize" it and put out a respectable B&W version.

I'm half kidding, but it would be interesting to see it that way, which, if I saw it as a kid (don't remember doing so), is how I would have seen it on the B&W TV I used to watch all the old movies they played on Saturdays and Sundays back then.

 

[Fading Fast]

I was disappointed we didn't get Wonder Wheel, which was the first Allen picture we've skipped since 2005. Usually they show up on our screen every September like a bottle of milk on the doorstep, and they usually do a good business. But for whatever reason, Wonder Wheel didn't show up here, and from the reviews, I guess we didn't miss too much. But I'd still like to have seen it, both for the setting and for Kate Winslet, who I've been a fan of since "Heavenly Creatures." But I get the feeling that Woody is nearing the end of the line, and that there won't be too many more films forthcoming from him.

It popped up recently for "free" on our Amazon Prime account, so we'll watch it soon and I'll report out. I have to admit I was mixed on Winslet until she won me over in "The Reader," a movie she completely carried and one that would have failed in the hands of any less of an actress.

 

[Doctor Strange]

As an Allen completist, I did watch Crisis in Six Scenes. And I agree, it's unwatchable.

Kristin Stewart has shown repeatedly that she's a good actress, Jesse Eisenberg, not so much. But I didn't believe either one of them as 1930s people in Café Society. At least Eisenberg was better in this than in To Rome With Love, which I think is a serious contender for Allen's worst movie.

Lizzie, I suspect you didn't get Wonder Wheel because it's an Amazon production, and at some level they're not that interested in the arthouse circuit. Have you shown any of their other features?

And I agree that Kate Winslet is always worth watching, even in projects that don't really work. I've also loved her since Heavenly Creatures and Sense and Sensibility.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It actually did circulate in B&W for TV in the 1950s and 1960s -- many Technicolor films were printed down to 16mm using just the magenta negative to create a low-contrast black-and-white version. A lot of the early two-color process films survive only in this form.

The B&W printing of "Nothing Sacred" led to problems years later when they went to do the restoration -- the magenta negative for the first reel was never returned to the vault and was long lost by the time the restoration team came around to put the film back together again. The restored version now shown used the first reel of the 1937 nitrate instead of going back to the negatives, and is noticeably fuzzier when you watch the finished product.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As an Allen completist, I did watch Crisis in Six Scenes. And I agree, it's unwatchable.

Kristin Stewart has shown repeatedly that she's a good actress, Jesse Eisenberg, not so much. But I didn't believe either one of them as 1930s people in Café Society. At least Eisenberg was better in this than in To Rome With Love, which I think is a serious contender for Allen's worst movie.

Lizzie, I suspect you didn't get Wonder Wheel because it's an Amazon production, and at some level they're not that interested in the arthouse circuit. Have you shown any of their other features?

Occasionally we get a few -- not many, but some. I suspect part of the reason we didn't get WW is that the distribution might have been ramped back in view of the news stories swirling around Allen at the time of the film's release. I know our director, who is not a fan of Allen's off-screen reputation, would likely not have exercised an unusual effort to get the film.

 

[Fading Fast]

It actually did circulate in B&W for TV in the 1950s and 1960s -- many Technicolor films were printed down to 16mm using just the magenta negative to create a low-contrast black-and-white version. A lot of the early two-color process films survive only in this form.

The B&W printing of "Nothing Sacred" led to problems years later when they went to do the restoration -- the magenta negative for the first reel was never returned to the vault and was long lost by the time the restoration team came around to put the film back together again. The restored version now shown used the first reel of the 1937 nitrate instead of going back to the negatives, and is noticeably fuzzier when you watch the finished product.

You are spot on as part of what made the movie so irritating to watch yesterday was its fuzziness which grated next to the turned-up-to-the-max color. I'll take any of those incredibly crisp and clear B&W films of the '40s and '50s (the Brits, in particular, were really, really good at it) versus the blurry mess of colors of "Nothing Sacred."

Lizzie, two movies I've seen recently that I bet would / did play well in your theater was the silly (stupid) but visually pretty "Under the Tuscan Sun" and the intense, interesting and odd "Phantom Thread." Did you show either of those / how were they received?

 

[Fading Fast]

As an Allen completist, I did watch Crisis in Six Scenes. And I agree, it's unwatchable.

Kristin Stewart has shown repeatedly that she's a good actress, Jesse Eisenberg, not so much. But I didn't believe either one of them as 1930s people in Café Society. At least Eisenberg was better in this than in To Rome With Love, which I think is a serious contender for Allen's worst movie.

Lizzie, I suspect you didn't get Wonder Wheel because it's an Amazon production, and at some level they're not that interested in the arthouse circuit. Have you shown any of their other features?

And I agree that Kate Winslet is always worth watching, even in projects that don't really work. I've also loved her since Heavenly Creatures and Sense and Sensibility.

I didn't start out that way, but have become a big fan of Stewart acting - she's the only thing that made "Personal Shopper" watchable. We'll just have to agree to disagree on her believability in CS. I also thought Blake Lively, in too small a role, was outstanding in it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Early Technicolor printing gave extremely mixed results -- each print had to be, essentially, hand-crafted by expert technicians, and when there was a rush of work, the final product often didn't look all that good. Unfortunately the surviving print of "Nothing Sacred," which was David Selznick's personal vault copy, must've gone thru the plant on the Friday of a busy week. You could go to any Technicolor film playing in several different theatres in the 1930s and see an entirely different level of quality on each screen. That inconsistency was an unfortunate consequence of the precision nature of the process, and is one reason why color didn't become universal until after three-color Technicolor was replaced by simple processes like Eastmancolor.

We got both those films, and had decent results with "Tuscan Sun," but, to my surprise, "Phantom Thread" didn't do all that well. We had bad weather that week, which might have been part of it, but a lot of people who attended said they found the characters irritating beyond reason.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Yes, "Allen's off-screen reputation" is a problem. I find it especially sad that a vast amount of young people are totally closed-minded, thinking him only a worthless pervert. Separating the person from the artist has always been a problem, and it's often the case that genius in one area often includes severe personal failings in others. I sincerely hope the many good/great films he's made over a 50-plus-year-career will be what's remembered in the long run.

And I've been hip to Stewart for a long time, since her early supporting roles in stuff like Adventureland and In The Land Of Women. Long before her more recent classy indie projects like Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper and Certain Women (a film I gave a bad review here... but I have found myself thinking back on it a lot.)

 

[Fading Fast]

Early Technicolor printing gave extremely mixed results -- each print had to be, essentially, hand-crafted by expert technicians, and when there was a rush of work, the final product often didn't look all that good. Unfortunately the surviving print of "Nothing Sacred," which was David Selznick's personal vault copy, must've gone thru the plant on the Friday of a busy week. You could go to any Technicolor film playing in several different theatres in the 1930s and see an entirely different level of quality on each screen. That inconsistency was an unfortunate consequence of the precision nature of the process, and is one reason why color didn't become universal until after three-color Technicolor was replaced by simple processes like Eastmancolor.

We got both those films, and had decent results with "Tuscan Sun," but, to my surprise, "Phantom Thread" didn't do all that well. We had bad weather that week, which might have been part of it, but a lot of people who attended said they found the characters irritating beyond reason.

I was surprised that I liked "Phantom Thread" (could have done without the weird ending), but found the characters well developed and interesting even if like almost no-one I've ever met - and in a world I know almost nothing about. I agree with your audience to an extent, they were sometimes irritating. But the darn movie was just so beautiful to see that it covered for some boring scenes and its overall slowness. What did you think of it?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I thought it was beautiful to look at, but, yes, there were a few characters I wanted to punch in the face. I guess that's the sign of a well-made film -- the characters move you one way or another. I'd rather see a picture full of irritating characters than a film with cardboard figures provoking no emotional response at all.

 

[Fading Fast]

I thought it was beautiful to look at, but, yes, there were a few characters I wanted to punch in the face. I guess that's the sign of a well-made film -- the characters move you one way or another. I'd rather see a picture full of irritating characters than a film with cardboard figures provoking no emotional response at all.

"a film with cardboard figures provoking no emotional response at all."

Ah, "Under a Tuscan Sky."

 

[Fading Fast]

Yes, "Allen's off-screen reputation" is a problem. I find it especially sad that a vast amount of young people are totally closed-minded, thinking him only a worthless pervert. Separating the person from the artist has always been a problem, and it's often the case that genius in one area often includes severe personal failings in others. I sincerely hope the many good/great films he's made over a 50-plus-year-career will be what's remembered in the long run....

The norm in my parents' generation seemed to be to sweep the bad personal stuff under the rug and just judge the artist by his work (and even whitewash his or her personal life to make it easier to do so).

"My" generation brought out all the personal stuff - it's when we learned about this or that artist's drug use, sexual oddness, etc. - but the standard of judging an artist by his or her work still, overall, held. Yup, Elvis did some weird things, but man his music was impressive or Crosby might have been a bad, even abusive, father, but he could sing and act.

Today's generation seems to be less willing to separate the two and has made the personal part of the judgement. That's all new, so IMHO, it's too early to tell if it will hold. But for many young people today, if you cross a line in personal behavior, they won't or can't separate it from that artist's work.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's cyclical. There were quite a few performers in the 1920s whose careers came to an end, or were severely curtailed, due to their off-screen habits, or allegations of their off-screen habits, with Roscoe Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, Mary Miles Minter, and Wallace Reid among the most prominent, with "morality crusaders" banning their films from the screen regardless of the validity of the accusations against them. All this of course happened at a time when the private habits of many of the accusers could not, perhaps, sustain a close scrutiny -- William Randolph Hearst was one of the most scabrous human beings of the twentieth century -- suggesting more than a whiff of fetid public hypocrisy behind it all. There was a ravenous tabloid press in the 1920s that eagerly consumed every possible tidbit of show-business scandal, and played a large role in the movie industry's movement toward the Production Code. There really isn't anything going on now that wasn't going on just as furiously ninety-five years ago.

The 1940s and 1950s, seemed a bit more tolerant of public scandal, depending more on the politics of the performer than on the deeds of which the performer was accused -- Errol Flynn still made pictures after being charged with statutory rape, but Charlie Chaplin, the greatest genius film had ever known up to that time, was hounded out of the country over morals accusations. The difference, of course, was that Flynn knew how to wave a flag when he had to, and Chaplin refused to do so.

There was also a pretty distinct line between what men were allowed to get away with and what was expected of women. A man like Flynn could sleep around all he wanted, and even if it got out, the Hollywood culture of the time would grin indulgently and say "oh, that rake, snicker snicker nudge nudge." But a woman with a taste for random sex was tarred with the "whore" brush in Hollywood if it suited the people who owned her contract to so tar her, and that would spell the end of her career. The fate of Alice White, an early talkie star at Warners who decided she didn't want to play ball with the studio executives anymore and found herself "slutted out" in the fan press and her career shattered as a consequence, is a good example of Ye Olde Double Standard at work.

 

[Zombie_61]

"Dunkirk"...I wonder what someone without a working knowledge of the Battle of Dunkirk would think about it? Would they just "go with it" and root for the service men on the beach and "feel" the bigger picture drama or would they be frustrated by the lack of context and story?...

If I ever have the opportunity to see the movie, I'll let you know. I have what I call a "very casual" interest in World War II and the era in which it played out and can't recall ever hearing of the Battle of Dunkirk until they started promoting the movie, so I'm your perfect guinea pig.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Off TCM, Eleven Men and a Girl (1930), being a college football team and the the college president's daughter, played by Joan Bennett. Perhaps more widely known as Maybe It's Love, a hit song featured several times in the movie. The clever hook is that the mythical college's team is played by the actual All-America team of 1930. Joe E. Brown and James Hall play members of the team.
Super cool see the gird-iron stars of that day, but even more so were shots of a game played at what I think may have have been The Rose Bowl stadium.
Also, there was a least one player, Bill Banker of Tulane, who played without a helmet. Helmets were not mandatory equipment in college football until 1939, but still, given the physicality and the violence of the game, it was surprising to see a player without even the low-level of protection offered by that era's helmets.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Yes, "Allen's off-screen reputation" is a problem. I find it especially sad that a vast amount of young people are totally closed-minded, thinking him only a worthless pervert. Separating the person from the artist has always been a problem, and it's often the case that genius in one area often includes severe personal failings in others. I sincerely hope the many good/great films he's made over a 50-plus-year-career will be what's remembered in the long run.

wtf??

 

[Fading Fast]

It's cyclical. There were quite a few performers in the 1920s whose careers came to an end, or were severely curtailed, due to their off-screen habits, or allegations of their off-screen habits, with Roscoe Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, Mary Miles Minter, and Wallace Reid among the most prominent, with "morality crusaders" banning their films from the screen regardless of the validity of the accusations against them. All this of course happened at a time when the private habits of many of the accusers could not, perhaps, sustain a close scrutiny -- William Randolph Hearst was one of the most scabrous human beings of the twentieth century -- suggesting more than a whiff of fetid public hypocrisy behind it all. There was a ravenous tabloid press in the 1920s that eagerly consumed every possible tidbit of show-business scandal, and played a large role in the movie industry's movement toward the Production Code. There really isn't anything going on now that wasn't going on just as furiously ninety-five years ago.

The 1940s and 1950s, seemed a bit more tolerant of public scandal, depending more on the politics of the performer than on the deeds of which the performer was accused -- Errol Flynn still made pictures after being charged with statutory rape, but Charlie Chaplin, the greatest genius film had ever known up to that time, was hounded out of the country over morals accusations. The difference, of course, was that Flynn knew how to wave a flag when he had to, and Chaplin refused to do so.

There was also a pretty distinct line between what men were allowed to get away with and what was expected of women. A man like Flynn could sleep around all he wanted, and even if it got out, the Hollywood culture of the time would grin indulgently and say "oh, that rake, snicker snicker nudge nudge." But a woman with a taste for random sex was tarred with the "whore" brush in Hollywood if it suited the people who owned her contract to so tar her, and that would spell the end of her career. The fate of Alice White, an early talkie star at Warners who decided she didn't want to play ball with the studio executives anymore and found herself "slutted out" in the fan press and her career shattered as a consequence, is a good example of Ye Olde Double Standard at work.

This a true and smart. That said, and every generation has it exceptions and contradictions, there does seem to be a "default" setting for a time period that changes over time with more or less being acceptable. I think I described my parents' generation incorrectly in that they were willing (I think they wanted) - with a compliant press - not see or hear the bad stuff, but if it did come out, then so did inconsistent judgement. But given their druthers (a term for our disappearing term thread), I think they wanted heroes / stars / artists without hearing the muck and preferred it that way.

By the time my generation came along, those raised after the late '60s, we saw it all - it was all put out there, but also, rightly or wrongly (and, of course, with exceptions and contradictions) kinda forgiven. Most thought that Michael Jackson was probably not completely innocent with all that happened with kids in his house, but IMHO, the public, overall, separated that out and - rightly or wrongly - loved him as an artist. If Jackson's same scandals broke right now, I think his value as an artist would take a hit too as, today, as noted before, it is all added up in the same column of the ledger - society's default setting is less forgiving right now.