What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

My recorded-from-TCM feature last night was The Woman In White (1948), with Eleanor Parker, Alexis Smith, Agnes Moorehead, Sydney Greenstreet, and an impossibly young Gig Young.

Eh, though it's based on a famous nineteenth-century novel that's considered one of the progenitors of the mystery genre, it only barely held my interest. Not essential.

It's been a long time, but I remember wanting to like it much more than I actually liked it.

I did catch a little of "Mighty Joe Young -" yesterday. We had people over, so I could only catch bits of it, but now I want to see it from start to finish (I've seen bits and pieces before, but I've never given it a proper viewing). Looks like they gave the ape a lot of personality.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's probably the best of the giant-gorilla-movie genre when it comes to really making the monkey a sympathetic character.

 

[Fading Fast]

That's probably the best of the giant-gorilla-movie genre when it comes to really making the monkey a sympathetic character.

I caught the scene where the gorilla is being driven in the back of a truck and he's just twiddling his fingers on top of his hips to pass the time - very anthropomorphic cute.

TCM has an alert feature that emails you when a scheduled movie is coming up, but not one that isn't on the schedule - they need to work on that.

 

[Zombie_61]

..."Panic in the Streets" 1950 staring Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jack Palance and Zero Mostel

Palance has a psychotic menace that is genuinely scary as he underplays it but you know it's there...

I recorded Panic in the Streets weeks ago but haven't had the time to watch it yet. Richard Widmark has reportedly stated that Jack Palance was "...the toughest guy I ever met. He was the only actor I've ever been physically afraid of."

This might stem from on-set incidents while filming the movie. In the scene when Palance hits Widmark on the head with a gun he used a rubber "stunt" prop during rehearsals, but used a real gun when the cameras were rolling and rendered Widmark unconscious for 20 minutes. Widmark also commented Palance would get into character by beating on Zero Mostel off screen and that Mostel was so bruised that he had to go to the hospital after the first week of filming.

 

[belfastboy]

This might not fully qualify but yesterday we went to the theatre to see "King Lear" a Brit National Theatre production starring Ian McKellan. A lot cheaper than flying to London but I have to say I did not love it. Really did not get McKellan as Lear. He played it more as a doddering old man totally without the menace or darkness that I have seen from other Lear's. I have the 1971 movie recorded and we will see what Paul Scholfield has to offer.

 

[3fingers]

The Solid Gold Cadillac. Judy Holiday is a ditzy girl who inherits 10 shares of stock in a company and stirs up trouble at the annual meeting for the crooked board of directors. Paul Douglas is the founder of the company leaving for a government post. Together they find a way to oust the thugs and live happily ever after.
If you want a bit of light entertainment, and can suspend your need for believability, this will fit the bill.
I enjoyed it very much.

 

[Worf]

Three on a Match" 1932 staring Joan Blondell, Warren Williams, Ann Dvorak and Betty Davis (looking new, dewy and lithe)

• Wife (Dvorak) has it all (in the Depression!) - a good, loving, handsome husband (in a surprising role for Williams), healthy young son, money, looks and social status, but throws it all away from ennui leading to a pointless affair with a loser
• Her childhood friends - Davis and Blondell - try to save her, but she's in pedal-to-the-metal-bad-decision mode and ends up a junkie (pre-codes didn't hide real life)
• Throw in a pre-stardum appearance from Bogie, the movie's 63 minute warp speed, some soap-opera plot twists and it's well worth the watch for the good story and great time travel

I saw this one as well. I figured it was pre-code. No punches pulled here. The only thing I hated was the ending. Here I was primed for a desperate shootout twixt a room full of gangster's facing the chair and the forces of the law and what did I get??? Nuthin'! Nada! Zip! Just a cut scene to a happy ending! Are you kiddin' me??? Where was my hail of bullets flying, fire spttin' Tommy Gun wielding coppers and grim faced desperados blasting away with twin 45's? Where I ask you where???? I was robbed!

Worf

 

[1967Cougar390]

I watched The Man Who Came to Dinner this evening. It’s a wonderful comedy film starring Bette Davis and Monty Woolly as the main character Mr. Whiteside. He has a know it all attitude along with a sharp tounge because he a radio celebrity, so he gets and says whatever he wishes. It’s the 1940’s comedy at it’s finest.

Steven

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's a rather elaborate satire on Alexander Woollcott, member of the Algonquin Round Table and crony of George S. Kaufman, who really captured Woollcott's creampuff-filled-with-acid persona. Monty Woolley played the role on Broadway as in the film, but Woollcott himself actually played the role on stage during some of the road-company productions, a fact that makes you wish someone had thought to cast him in the film.

Woollcott was indescribable on the air -- he had an unctuous, prissy voice, and his broadcasts were a mix of drippy Victorian sentiment, literary criticism, and the occasional bit of hard news commentary (he lost his sponsor in 1935 because he refused to go easy on Mussolini.) Woolley doesn't make any effort to imitate Woollcott's real voice, but his other mannerisms and general personality are a pretty close copy of the real thing.

"Sheridan Whiteside's" cronies in the play and film are all based on other theatrical personalities of the time -- Lorraine Sheldon is Gertrude Lawrence, Beverly Carlton is Noel Coward, and "Banjo" is Harpo Marx. The bit of casting inspiration which put Jimmy Durante -- the least Harpo-like man who ever lived -- in the role of Banjo for the movie is nothing less than extraordinary.

 

[Fading Fast]

I saw this one as well. I figured it was pre-code. No punches pulled here. The only thing I hated was the ending. Here I was primed for a desperate shootout twixt a room full of gangster's facing the chair and the forces of the law and what did I get??? Nuthin'! Nada! Zip! Just a cut scene to a happy ending! Are you kiddin' me??? Where was my hail of bullets flying, fire spttin' Tommy Gun wielding coppers and grim faced desperados blasting away with twin 45's? Where I ask you where???? I was robbed!

Worf

You've seen too many Tarantino movies.

Kidding aside, I do agree that they seemed to have been setting up for a bullets-flying ending, but alas.

Overall, though, a good movie with the descent into junkiehood - and all the drug references - also being Tarantino-like. I want to see more Dvorak movies now.

I watched The Man Who Came to Dinner this evening. It’s a wonderful comedy film starring Bette Davis and Monty Woolly as the main character Mr. Whiteside. He has a know it all attitude along with a sharp tounge because he a radio celebrity, so he gets and says whatever he wishes. It’s the 1940’s comedy at it’s finest.
View attachment 145933

Steven

I have come to love this movie as it's one of those that I thought was okay the first time, but once I started catching all the inside-jokes and snide asides (all the stuff Lizzie knows ten-times better than I) on subsequent viewings, I became a huge fan.

Davis is the perfect foil for Woolly and it's great to see her playing a surface diffident character but with grit when she needs it.

And I'm just going to say it, it is aggressive how obvious it is that Sheridan did not come within a football field of a bra in any of her scenes.

It's one of my favorite quirky Christmas movie.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Solid Gold Cadillac. Judy Holiday is a ditzy girl who inherits 10 shares of stock in a company and stirs up trouble at the annual meeting for the crooked board of directors. Paul Douglas is the founder of the company leaving for a government post. Together they find a way to oust the thugs and live happily ever after.
If you want a bit of light entertainment, and can suspend your need for believability, this will fit the bill.
I enjoyed it very much.

Similar to both "Born Yesterday" and "It Could Happen to You." They had a formula for Judy Holiday movies and they stuck to it most of the time.

They don't have male leads like Paul Douglas anymore. Not classically handsome, but a look and presence that said "leading man," and a versatility that had him playing good and bad guys in serious, romantic and comedic roles.

 

[Fading Fast]

A little bit ago, TCM ran a MGM promotional film from '64 in which MGM showed promo shorts (about three minutes each) of soon-to-be released or in-production movies.

The entire film ran for about a half hour showcasing about ten different movies.

Question: where did they show this film in '64 - in the movies (seems pretty long for what today we'd call trailers) or on TV (didn't feel TV-y at all) or in some other venue?

 

[3fingers]

I believe those films were made to show theater owners what the studio had coming out. They weren't for public consumption. I would guess they were sent to theaters, but I suppose they could have been shown at industry gatherings as well.

 

[Worf]

You've seen too many Tarantino movies.

Kidding aside, I do agree that they seemed to have been setting up for a bullets-flying ending, but alas.

Pbbbst! I give you the Raspberries! Tarantino... hell Pre-code movies had folks pullin' iron and throwin' lead all over the place! I ain't askin' for nuthin' extra! Just gimme what you had going on in every OTHER Bogart film at the time! You know... murder... menace and mayhem! The Three Wise Men of Hollywood!

Worf

 

[Zombie_61]

I recorded Panic in the Streets weeks ago but haven't had the time to watch it yet...

I rectified this last night. Not a bad movie and worth seeing, but to me the story felt a little unbalanced as if the writers had an unfinished "plague" story and an unfinished "local gangster" story and tried (not quite successfully) to merge the two together. If anything it was the performances, not the story, that held my interest, particularly that of Barbara Bel Geddes as Lt. Cmdr. Reed's (Richard Widmark) neglected wife Nancy. She breathed some life into what could have been a thankless role in the hands of a lesser actress.

 

[Touchofevil]

Right now, Across the Pacific on TCM. I been off-and-on distracted throughout the movie, but enjoy what I have seen.

 

[Fading Fast]

Right now, Across the Pacific on TCM. I been off-and-on distracted throughout the movie, but enjoy what I have seen.

It works better that way than as a movie in full.

How'd the doctor apt go re the heel?

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

We've been using the holiday's long weekend to catch up on some TCM DVR'd films:

"Random Harvest" 1942 staring Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman

• The plot is either romantically ethereal or contrived - I felt both ways at different times during the movie
• This is Greer Garson's movie - she is fully engaged, appears to be having a great time while, also, carrying the weaker parts forward on her back
• Ronald Coleman, who I like as an actor, is too old for the role and never seems to fully commit to his character
• While the sets were well done, the all-shot-on-sets approach contributes to the, as mentioned, partially contrived feel

"Panic in the Streets" 1950 staring Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jack Palance and Zero Mostel

• A well-done police/detectve movie that feel like a documentary - a style that seemed popular at that time
• Widmark gives one of his stronger performances
• Douglas could play a cranky police captain in his sleep and still do it better than most
• Palance has a psychotic menace that is genuinely scary as he underplays it but you know it's there
• Zero Mostel (that's quite a name) brings depth and emotion to what could have been a two-dimensional side-kick role
• Bel Geddes makes the "supportive wife" cliche feel less cliched and more passionate - I would have bet she'd have had a bigger career going forward (than she did) if I had just walked out of this film in '50

"Three on a Match" 1932 staring Joan Blondell, Warren Williams, Ann Dvorak and Betty Davis (looking new, dewy and lithe)

• Wife (Dvorak) has it all (in the Depression!) - a good, loving, handsome husband (in a surprising role for Williams), healthy young son, money, looks and social status, but throws it all away from ennui leading to a pointless affair with a loser
• Her childhood friends - Davis and Blondell - try to save her, but she's in pedal-to-the-metal-bad-decision mode and ends up a junkie (pre-codes didn't hide real life)
• Throw in a pre-stardum appearance from Bogie, the movie's 63 minute warp speed, some soap-opera plot twists and it's well worth the watch for the good story and great time travel

"What Price Hollywood?" 1932 Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman and Neil Hamilton

• While having some '32-we're-still-learning-how-to-make-talkies clunkiness, what's good is so good that it overcomes that messiness to be one of the best versions of "A Star is Born" ever made (I haven't yet seen 2018's entry)
• Bennett powers this one forward, but Sherman's once-famous-director-now-failing-drunkard performance matches hers
• Bennett's young, rich boyfriend - whose voice you'll immediately recognize - is played by TV's future Commissioner Gordon from "Batman -" he's a bit stilted but it's fun to see him at a different time in his career and in a different role
• Some great early inside-Hollywood scenes that - along with the cars, architecture, clothes and technology - makes this Fedora Lounge heaven

FF, What Price Hollywood? stands apart as a Tinseltown-looks-at-itself film. Snappy banter, sets designed to impress the patrons who plunked down two bits for a breather from reality, and some harsh people and some harsh life situations make this one of my all-time classics. Yes, the production is definitely 1932, and it's part of its world view, but as film-making it rises above its boundaries. Cukor's flash edit when Lowell Sherman ends it all is mind-boggling for that era.

 

[3fingers]

Two from Hal Roach. Miss Polly and Mixed Nuts.
80 plus years later, still funny.

 

[Formeruser012523]

Logan

Before it started I even questioned whether or not I should, but I thought, why not? & when the credits rolled I actually found myself laughing and asking myself "what the ____ did I just watch?" Can't say I have a lot of thoughts on this one. Was never a big X-Men fan or especially a fan of The Wolverine (or Hugh Jackman, though he pulled it off).

Though, I knew when they agreed to dinner with Eriq La Salle's "family" it was a bad idea and almost bailed on the entire movie (and probably should have).

Whoever the little girl is who played Laura has CHOPS! She'll turn up again, if she hasn't already. I was more impressed by her than anything or anyone else in the entire movie. Here's hoping she won't grow up to be a mess. Or get typecast and only put in sci-fi/fantasy.

Now I need to go back in time for my entertainment again and get away from all this CGI and blood and guts and gore. It's exhausting.