What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Doctor Strange]

British Agent, a 1934 drama with Leslie Howard and Kay Francis set during the WWI and the Russian Revolution - DVR'd from TCM, of course.

Gee, another early Leslie Howard vehicle that leaves me cold. And I've long been immune to whatever made Kay Francis a star. Their love-at-first-sight-even-though-they-work-for-opposing-sides romance is heatless and unbelievable. This is a badly written, unconvincing-backlot-Russia film that's mostly worth watching for the familiar character actors in supporting roles, including an impossibly young Cesar Romero.

I know that Howard's great roles - The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Petrified Forest, GWTW - are still ahead of him at this point, but he's pretty bland and unappealing in this and his other early films I've watched recently. At least for me, I'm discovering that he was a less accomplished and charismatic actor than I thought, not more.

 

[Fading Fast]

British Agent, a 1934 drama with Leslie Howard and Kay Francis set during the WWI and the Russian Revolution - DVR'd from TCM, of course.

Gee, another early Leslie Howard vehicle that leaves me cold. And I've long been immune to whatever made Kay Francis a star. Their love-at-first-sight-even-though-they-work-for-opposing-sides romance is heatless and unbelievable. This is a badly written, unconvincing-backlot-Russia film that's mostly worth watching for the familiar character actors in supporting roles, including an impossibly young Cesar Romero.

I know that Howard's great roles - The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Petrified Forest, GWTW - are still ahead of him at this point, but he's pretty bland and unappealing in this and his other early films I've watched recently. At least for me, I'm discovering that he was a less accomplished and charismatic actor than I thought, not more.

"British Agent" is not great, but for better early - I'd go so far as to say very good pre-code and very good Howard - try to catch "A Free Soul" or "Animal Kingdom" (both on regular TCM rotation) as they are pre-code Howard at his best. "Of Human Bondage" and "Pygmalion" are also very good. You, unfortunately, seem to be catching all of his weaker offerings. That said, Lionel Barrymore is the best part of "A Free Soul." After you've seen those, I think (hope) your opinion of Howard might go up.

As to Kay Francis, she is definitely an acquired taste, but I'd recommend "Mary Stevens M.D.," "Trouble in Paradise" and "One Way Passage" to see Francis at her pre-code best. And that's the key - whatever Francis had, it comes out best in pre-code. In the code, she comes across as lost, with "In Name Only" being an exception.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Oh, I've seen The Animal Kingdom - also blah. I agree that Howard's better in Of Human Bondage and Pygmalion (but that's from several years later) and the other films I've mentioned. I've seen Trouble In Paradise too. I'm sorry, Kay Francis just leaves me cold.

And I'm not one of those big pre-code fans, endlessly fascinated by the divide. I think its importance has been blown out of proportion. It's interesting, sure, but I'm not gonna react all that differently to a film just because it's pre-code.

 

[2jakes]

"Stand By Me", the other night.

"I never had any friends later like the ones I had when I was twelve.
Jesus, does anyone?"

 

[3fingers]

I watched No Down Payment this afternoon on YouTube. I agree it has innumerable flaws and isn't a very good movie, but it's a scathing indictment of the mindset portrayed and the people who tirelessly attempt to manipulate us into thinking we deserve this, that or the other and will be happy and content if only we have........
The story is as old as time, but it isn't usually delivered with a ball bat as it is here.

 

[Touchofevil]

“Harper” on TCM. Based on the character Lew Archer created by author Ross MacDonald. Not nearly as entertaining as the novels, but entertaining enough for me to watch once again. Paul Newman is not a bad choice for the lead character Harper/Archer. It would have been nice to see him in more Harper/Archer movies.

 

[Fading Fast]

I watched No Down Payment this afternoon on YouTube. I agree it has innumerable flaws and isn't a very good movie, but it's a scathing indictment of the mindset portrayed and the people who tirelessly attempt to manipulate us into thinking we deserve this, that or the other and will be happy and content if only we have........
The story is as old as time, but it isn't usually delivered with a ball bat as it is here.

I watched it again yesterday. As you said, it's got a ton of flaws, and it ain't subtle, but its relentless condemnation of young mid-'50s America striving for "the American Dream" is so smash-mouth that it works in a Saint Valentine's Day Massacre sort of way.

 

[rocketeer]

Watched Assault on Precinct 13 on TV.
Not really into these types of movies/films but the Name John Carpenter made it worth a look.
Not the greatest quality, I don't know how they transmit like this, surely not videotape but it had the look of a tape in my home player but without the noise lines.
The film reminded me of a sort of cross between Hitchcocks The Birds, The Warriors and a number of other at night action movies of that era.
Have to say the killing of the little girl was an eye opener, was there some kind of unspoken rule on gratuitous killing of children unless it was some kind of true life documentary/film?

 

[2jakes]

Sherlock Holmes (1916)

Starring William Gillette who is responsible for creating the look of "Sherlock Holmes" (hat,pipe) which has come
to define the movie character in some later Sherlock films.
This film is noteworthy in that it's one of the earliest attempts at using camera pan and tracking shots indoors.

 

[Zombie_61]

Watched Assault on Precinct 13 on TV. Not really into these types of movies/films but the Name John Carpenter made it worth a look. Not the greatest quality, I don't know how they transmit like this, surely not videotape but it had the look of a tape in my home player but without the noise lines...

Assault on Precinct 13 was John Carpenter's second feature length project as a Writer/Director, and it had an estimated budget of only $150,000. This was in an era when other "low budget" movies like Taxi Driver and Rocky had budgets of at least $1,000,000, so Carpenter made the most of what he had to work with.

...Have to say the killing of the little girl was an eye opener, was there some kind of unspoken rule on gratuitous killing of children unless it was some kind of true life documentary/film?

Legend has it that the MPAA threatened to give the movie an "X" rating if the "Ice Cream truck" scene wasn't removed. The distributors advised Carpenter to remove the scene in the version of the movie that was presented to the MPAA in order to get the desired "R" rating, then release the movie with the scene intact. That worked, but, yes, graphic scenes of extreme violence against children have almost always been frowned upon for obvious reasons.

 

[2jakes]

Illicit (1931) Barbara Stanwyck

This is the babe’s first movie as a star. Good performance, but agree with
the critic’s....
“supporting cast, particularly Charles Butterworth, steals the show
as an amiable drunk whose bark is worse than his bite.”

One scene shows a newspaper clipping of their plans.


Really?

Not sure I’d want to advertise that my place is empty.

 

[Zombie_61]

...One scene shows a newspaper clipping of their plans.
View attachment 125180

Really?

Not sure I’d want to advertise that my place is empty.

I see people post this kind of information on Facebook quite often, and I don't know what they're thinking. "Hey gang, we're leaving on Thursday to visit our relatives half-way across the country, and we won't be back for two weeks." While you're at it, why don't you post your address and leave your doors and windows unlocked while you're gone?

 

[Formeruser012523]

I see people post this kind of information on Facebook quite often, and I don't know what they're thinking. "Hey gang, we're leaving on Thursday to visit our relatives half-way across the country, and we won't be back for two weeks." While you're at it, why don't you post your address and leave your doors and windows unlocked while you're gone?

Wasn't there a joke website about this called "pleaserobme.com" or something? lol

 

[rocketeer]

I see people post this kind of information on Facebook quite often, and I don't know what they're thinking. "Hey gang, we're leaving on Thursday to visit our relatives half-way across the country, and we won't be back for two weeks." While you're at it, why don't you post your address and leave your doors and windows unlocked while you're gone?

I would think that well to do people in any country usually have staff keeping the place running, unlike 'Normal' day to day folks that go to work, come home, go out to an event in the evenings etc.
Were it to be announce that the Queen of England was off on a cruise to Africa or Australia for three months, or even popping out for her grandsons wedding would not make Buckingham palace and easy option to rob. Probably knock on a few doors around Windsor and you may find all the neighbours were standing in the high street

 

[Doctor Strange]

Last night's film was Goodbye Christopher Robin, a recent biopic about A.A. Milne and the creation of the Winnie-the-Pooh books.

I didn't really know this story, and it was reasonably interesting and well done. Very good performances by Domhnall Gleeson (Milne) and Kelly Macdonald (Christopher Robin's nanny)... and a surprisingly one-note one from Margot Robbie (Mrs. Milne). Among other things, it's about how difficult growing up was for the real Christopher Robin - a huge celebrity when he was still very young, then endlessly bullied at school and in the service.

This would make a good double feature with Renee Zellweger's Miss Potter, both films about British children's books writers. Or maybe with Testament of Youth, as Milne was another of that generation of authors who spent the rest of their lives trying to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in the Great War.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I see people post this kind of information on Facebook quite often, and I don't know what they're thinking. "Hey gang, we're leaving on Thursday to visit our relatives half-way across the country, and we won't be back for two weeks." While you're at it, why don't you post your address and leave your doors and windows unlocked while you're gone?

Remember the days when people were advised to stop their milk delivery, newspaper delivery, and mail delivery while they were away so that Golden Era burglars wouldn't notice they were gone?

 

[Fading Fast]

We watched two movies that we bagged on about an hour in not because they were terrible, they just weren't great and, more to our motivation, the style of the movies wasn't working for us.

"Crooked House -" Based on an Agatha Christie story, it's set in a big old English mansion (think Downton Abbey) with a very Agatha Christie-look and feel - everyone acts a little suspicious, so everyone is a suspect while the story felt like a radio murder mystery play. About an hour in, we realized we weren't listening to it but were enjoying looking at the beautiful house and, overall, good period details; however, that wasn't enough to keep us watching.

"Queen of the Desert -" a biopic based on the life of Gertrude Bell. While she is famous for being an English woman who immersed herself in the MidEast's culture, religion and tribes in the early 20th Century - becoming a source of tribal and regional knowledge for the British Government, the first hour of the movie was all but a love story between Bell and a British officer which only highlighted how miscast nearly fifty-year-old Nicole Kidman was to play the in her mid-twenties Bell. But the real issue was the lack of connect to / immersion in the Middle East which, IMO, is the interesting part of her life. It might have gotten to that - it's a two-plus hour movie - but we didn't stay around.

 

[Doctor Strange]

While not blind to its faults, I liked Queen of the Desert more than you did.

And it eventually DOES get to her fearless travels around the desert, her comradeship with T.E. Lawrence, and her huge importance to the establishment of post-WWI monarchs/countries in the region. She has another almost-romance with Damian Lewis... and Kidman has slightly more chemistry with him than with James Franco earlier in the film. But the point of both troubled relationships is that she had a greater destiny than being someone's wife: protecting the Bedouins' interests from the imperialist powers.

 

[Zombie_61]

Remember the days when people were advised to stop their milk delivery, newspaper delivery, and mail delivery while they were away so that Golden Era burglars wouldn't notice they were gone?

We still have our local post office hold our mail if we're planning to be away from home longer than two or three days. But, yes, newspaper and milk deliveries have gone the way of the dodo.

 

[3fingers]

Remember the days when people were advised to stop their milk delivery, newspaper delivery, and mail delivery while they were away so that Golden Era burglars wouldn't notice they were gone?

You can never be too careful. Guys like this were all over the place back then. Especially in B comedies.