What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Formeruser012523]

Doo tell! Doo tell! Enquiring minds hasta know!

Worf

Ugh. An awful blackface scene with Bing. Think it was a number called "Abraham." And even the band was in it. I changed the channel. But Ben Mankewhatever warned the audience beforehand that it would be there because TCM shows their movies uncut. Like that made it any better.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That may be the single most tone-deaf blackface number in the history of talkies, especially the bits where they cut in Louise Beavers singing to her kids offstage, because it thinks it's "inspiring" and "patriotic" and is completely unaware of how patronizing it is, even by 1942 standards. There were plenty of critics at the time who noticed this and pointed it out.

The only possible contender for sheer squickiness is the "Goin' To Heaven On A Mule" number in "Wonder Bar," but that one, at least, was conscious of how over-the-top it was, and it didn't try to pretend to be "uplifting."

 

[bluesmandan]

Don't ever watch Holiday Inn.

My wife really likes that one...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Fading Fast]

A couple of Jimmy Cagney movies.

Blonde Crazy from 1931 staring Jimmy, Joan Blondell and Louis Calhern (young and smarmy as ever)

• Solid, fast-paced pre-code about con men and woman with several well-executed cons showing, once again, nothing is new and that the human imagination for separating people from their money - honestly or dishonestly - knows no bounds

• Cagney is still mastering "Cagney" as he doesn't have his screen persona fully flushed out yet, but you can see it developing - it's worth watching for this alone and, heck, even inchoate Cagney is still incredible

• Joan Blondell - Cagney's reluctant partner and con-woman ingenue - reminds me of Renee Zellweger as neither were leading-lady beautiful, but used personality and spirit to pull it off for awhile

• Great Fedora Lounge time travel including wonderful scenes at a racetrack, several grand hotels, a jewelry store and a pawnshop (three balls and all), as well as, outstanding period automobiles, clothes and architecture / also some precode prohibition-ignoring, scantily-clad-dressing and woman-in-bathtub fun

Love me or Leave Me from 1955 with Jimmy, Doris Day and Cameron Mitchell

• While it has good parts, it never adds up as a movie as it pivots between being light hearted and serous too many times with the only proper approach to the life of singer Ruth Etting and her gangster manager/husband being seriousness

• Despite its flaws (and too much damn '50s movie color), with Day belting out songs (nothing subtle about her singing) and Cagney, now in full-flourish Cagney form, it has enough entertainment value for one viewing

• Watching 1950s movie making do a 1920s period piece is painful as the sloppiness is obvious to our well-trained-for-period-perfect modern-viewing eye

 

[LizzieMaine]

I saw "Love Me Or Leave Me" a long time ago, and the lingering memory of it for me is how very little like the actual Ruth Etting Doris Day sounds. Etting was kind of a throaty contralto, and while Day can get the range, she never quite manages the back-alley vibrato that gave Etting's voice its grimy edge. You could buy the idea that Ruth Etting really was an exhausted taxi dancer, but it's hard to imagine La Doris in such a setting. Her voice is just too crisp and her style is just too 1950s to work for me.

Etting herself was alive and well at the time the movie was made, and I wish she'd agreed to dub the songs a la Jolson in "The Jolson Story." But I imagine Day wouldn't have wanted that.

 

[Fading Fast]

I saw "Love Me Or Leave Me" a long time ago, and the lingering memory of it for me is how very little like the actual Ruth Etting Doris Day sounds. Etting was kind of a throaty contralto, and while Day can get the range, she never quite manages the back-alley vibrato that gave Etting's voice its grimy edge. You could buy the idea that Ruth Etting really was an exhausted taxi dancer, but it's hard to imagine La Doris in such a setting. Her voice is just too crisp.

The movie failed as an accurate portrayal of her life on many fronts. It wasn't until about half way in that the director dropped the light-hearted approach and began to dig in, a bit, to the story of a woman controlled by the man who helped make her but who was now draining her dry emotionally.

You have a deeper understanding of voices than I do, but I get your point that Day lacks the torn-and-frayed grit of Etting's voice as Day does one thing, and one thing well, with her voice - she belts out a song with clarity and resonance.

I could see Etting's life story being made by an indie producer and the result showing up in your theater, but maybe she's too far out of memory for even that. However, her story is perfect for today's fascination with broken lives.

P.S. "Murder on a Honeymoon" is on TCM right now. Gleason and Oliver are great together.

 

[GHT]

Saturday afternoon TV can be so boring, but today I enjoyed a treat: Michael Caine in The Ipcress File. Last week I watched the first in the Harry Palmer series, Funeral in Berlin. Maybe it was out of nostalgia, or maybe the old cars enthralled me, but it was a highly watchable movie, especially as it was shown on the BBC. (no adverts.)

I have to get out or her Ladyship won't be getting a visit from Santa, but the weather is atrocious, and the film just locked me in right from the start. I'll get her a gift later, after all, I procrastinate over Christmas every year, why should this one be any different?

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's actually been talk of doing a "Love me Or Leave Me" remake, and I think if Amy Winehouse were still alive, she's the one who could have done it. Nellie McKay might also be able to tackle it, but she's probably not big enough of a name to sell the picture unless they find some A-lister to play Moe The Gimp. Wonder what Matt Damon's doing?

 

[Worf]

Ugh. An awful blackface scene with Bing. Think it was a number called "Abraham." And even the band was in it. I changed the channel. But Ben Mankewhatever warned the audience beforehand that it would be there because TCM shows their movies uncut. Like that made it any better.

That may be the single most tone-deaf blackface number in the history of talkies, especially the bits where they cut in Louise Beavers singing to her kids offstage, because it thinks it's "inspiring" and "patriotic" and is completely unaware of how patronizing it is, even by 1942 standards. There were plenty of critics at the time who noticed this and pointed it out.

Well I asked fer it... so's I gets it! Hokay... thanks for the head's up. I've never seen "Holiday Inn" as I can remember... now I'm glad I didn't. Hrrrm.

Worf

 

[Touchofevil]

Like you, I've seen it too many times to count and, as we've talked about, a great time capsule of the period. Very Mad Men.

How goes the healing?

Thanks for asking. The doctor says it’s coming along nicely. As the swelling has come down more pain/discomfort has shown up. The most annoying part is the lack of mobility. Nonetheless, I am doing well and fortunate that it wasn’t worse.

 

[Fading Fast]

Not every pre-code was risqué or rule-breaking, some were just good movies that today would warrant nothing more than a PG-13 rating at worst. Happiness Ahead, from 1934, staring Dick Powell, Josephine Hutchinson and John Halliday (you might not know the name, but you'd recognize him as he regularly played affable older rich men) is just such a movie - it's fun, doesn't ask too much of its audience and doesn't explore any social ills, sexual escapades or criminal activity as so many pre-codes do so well.

That said, what it does instead is employ a constant Hollywood meme - that the rich do not have fun, their parties and lives are stultifying and many of them are mean and selfish people while the poor do have fun, their entertainment is "authentic," their lives are rich and real and most of them are kind and selfless - and uses it to launch another standard Hollywood plot device of the rich girl "slumming" it amongst the working class to find meaning in her life. (Heck, James Cameron was so taken with the hackneyed idea that the rich are horrible and the poor noble that he used it as the core of his movie on the Titanic versus the much-more interesting and real story of the big ship.)

None of it was new, even then, but it's well executed and engaging as Powell does his, at that time in his career, crooner / actor combo as the lead (foreshadowing Elvis by twenty five years). He's the poor boy trying to get a start in business who meets incognito society-girl Hutchinson (she comes as close to sparkling as a human being can - maybe not beautiful, but the word "vivacious" might have been invented just for her). As expected with this story, all the usual contretemps ensue - she's nearly outed when her two worlds overlap, her attempts to help him backfire and nearly undermine their relationship, some in her family try to thwart her, etc. - but a reasonably tight script, a fast pace and enjoyable actors make it a good 86 minute investment.

Add in, what might have been the first Post-it Note ever - an envelope with a note written on the outside, licked and stuck on a door - some of-the-era songs that grow on you, possibly the best camel hair coat a woman ever wore and a time-travel-perfect roller-skating scene and the by-the-numbers plot doesn't matter as it's all just good fun. Finally, one day, it will be explained why it is ennobling and applauded when someone tries to improve his or her economic state by working hard / starting a business / saving and investing / etc., but when someone does those thing successfully he or she becomes the ignoble and denounced rich.

 

[1967Cougar390]

It was a cold and rainy weekend so I was able to watch some great classic movies on TCM. The Maltese Falcon was super, I’m not sure how I’ve missed viewing it in the past. Humphrey Bogart portrayed Sam Spade wonderfully, his quick witted humor and stories that kept him one step ahead of the bad guys as well as the police made me smile and laugh.

Steven

 

[Fading Fast]

I have 1972's "The Getaway" on mute in the background as I work (it will be slow through year end) and I noticed that Ali MacGraw would have been a perfect pre-code actress - pretty, languid body, very modestly endowed, (from memory) husky voice and an aversion to underwear. She'd have been quite at home in early '30s pre-codes.

 

[MissMittens]

A couple of Jimmy Cagney movies.

Blonde Crazy from 1931 staring Jimmy, Joan Blondell and Louis Calhern (young and smarmy as ever)

• Solid, fast-paced pre-code about con men and woman with several well-executed cons showing, once again, nothing is new and that the human imagination for separating people from their money - honestly or dishonestly - knows no bounds

• Cagney is still mastering "Cagney" as he doesn't have his screen persona fully flushed out yet, but you can see it developing - it's worth watching for this alone and, heck, even inchoate Cagney is still incredible

• Joan Blondell - Cagney's reluctant partner and con-woman ingenue - reminds me of Renee Zellweger as neither were leading-lady beautiful, but used personality and spirit to pull it off for awhile

• Great Fedora Lounge time travel including wonderful scenes at a racetrack, several grand hotels, a jewelry store and a pawnshop (three balls and all), as well as, outstanding period automobiles, clothes and architecture / also some precode prohibition-ignoring, scantily-clad-dressing and woman-in-bathtub fun

Love this movie!

 

[MissMittens]

Well I asked fer it... so's I gets it! Hokay... thanks for the head's up. I've never seen "Holiday Inn" as I can remember... now I'm glad I didn't. Hrrrm.

Worf

I'm with Lizzie, it's completely tone-deaf. It's a Blackface routine to celebrate Lincoln's Birthday, the premise being the trope "Lincoln freed the slaves".....but perhaps equally offensive, is the literal and figuratively named character, "Mammy", played by Louise Beavers. The most confusing part of all is that Bing made sure throughout his career that he got any Black people in his productions equal billing with white actors with similar screentime, including Beavers. He and Louis Armstrong were lifelong friends, and he got Armstrong many roles including his first Hollywood performance, and argued with studio bosses to make it happen. Just shows how insidious racism truly is.

It's a real shame, because the premise of the movie was good and it was fun up to that point, and before that nonsense it was arguably better than "White Christmas," but the casual racism and Cosby's blackface makes it completely unwatchable.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You'll find quite a few blackface performers who were rather militantly anti-racist by the standards of their time -- Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor fought for African-American performers to have equal status in the stage and radio unions of their time, and Cantor got into a rather ferocious controversy in early television thru the simple act of loaning Sammy Davis Jr. his handkerchief during a performance. NBC was flooded with angry telegrams from the folks down in the Hookworm Belt, and Cantor's response was to have Davis on again for his next show, and to, again, offer him his handkerchief. Of such moments were the small steps of racial progress made.

A lot of the blackface scenes you saw in movies by the early forties were intended to be "nostalgic" -- professional minstrel shows were pretty much extinct by the first decade of the 20th Century, and they lived on for the most part only as amateur events like you'd see at a lodge hall or a high school in a small town (the last such show I have positive confirmation of was performed in 1976!) But there was a lot of "nostalgic appeal" for the generation that remembered the old days of the form, and that's the audience that moviemakers were shooting for by including such bits. There are exceptions -- Fred Astaire's "Bojangles of Harlem" number in "Swing Time," from 1936, makes no reference to old-time minstrelsy in its style or its performance, other than thru Bill Robinson's own roots in the form. But otherwise, when the burnt cork came out it was generally intended as a "Good Olde Days" type of thing for middle-aged white people who were kids in the 1890s more than any reflection of contemporary entertaintment styles -- and that layer of misbegotten nostalgia makes it even more obnoxious when seen today.

 

[Fading Fast]

Love this movie!

It was my first time seeing it and I enjoyed it very much. What I love about pre-codes is how so many of them feel contemporary just adjusted for the time period versus the false construct of so many movies done once the code was enforced.

Basically, "Blonde Crazy" is a movie about grifters. It has several Tarantino-type features including fast dialogue and crooks living "normal" lives while seeing their crimes as just a business / a way to make a living (and not in a mob manner, but in a "I got to make a living, too" manner).

I love "Bringing up Baby," but its story, like so many code-enforced movies, is all fake and forced versus the real feel of "Blonde Crazy" (recognizing that all movies take a lot of liberties with real life).

 

[Touchofevil]

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Yet another movie I have seen many a time. A very good cast. A very entertaining story. And beautiful cinematography. Well worth a watch if you have yet to do so.

 

[Worf]

I'm with Lizzie, it's completely tone-deaf. It's a Blackface routine to celebrate Lincoln's Birthday, the premise being the trope "Lincoln freed the slaves".....but perhaps equally offensive, is the literal and figuratively named character, "Mammy", played by Louise Beavers. The most confusing part of all is that Bing made sure throughout his career that he got any Black people in his productions equal billing with white actors with similar screentime, including Beavers. He and Louis Armstrong were lifelong friends, and he got Armstrong many roles including his first Hollywood performance, and argued with studio bosses to make it happen. Just shows how insidious racism truly is.

It's a real shame, because the premise of the movie was good and it was fun up to that point, and before that nonsense it was arguably better than "White Christmas," but the casual racism and Cosby's blackface makes it completely unwatchable.

You'll find quite a few blackface performers who were rather militantly anti-racist by the standards of their time -- Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor fought for African-American performers to have equal status in the stage and radio unions of their time, and Cantor got into a rather ferocious controversy in early television thru the simple act of loaning Sammy Davis Jr. his handkerchief during a performance. NBC was flooded with angry telegrams from the folks down in the Hookworm Belt, and Cantor's response was to have Davis on again for his next show, and to, again, offer him his handkerchief. Of such moments were the small steps of racial progress made.

A lot of the blackface scenes you saw in movies by the early forties were intended to be "nostalgic" -- professional minstrel shows were pretty much extinct by the first decade of the 20th Century, and they lived on for the most part only as amateur events like you'd see at a lodge hall or a high school in a small town (the last such show I have positive confirmation of was performed in 1976!) But there was a lot of "nostalgic appeal" for the generation that remembered the old days of the form, and that's the audience that moviemakers were shooting for by including such bits. There are exceptions -- Fred Astaire's "Bojangles of Harlem" number in "Swing Time," from 1936, makes no reference to old-time minstrelsy in its style or its performance, other than thru Bill Robinson's own roots in the form. But otherwise, when the burnt cork came out it was generally intended as a "Good Olde Days" type of thing for middle-aged white people who were kids in the 1890s more than any reflection of contemporary entertaintment styles -- and that layer of misbegotten nostalgia makes it even more obnoxious when seen today.

I'll never be part of the "let's ban films, books or rewrite history because we find it offensive" brigade. It is what it is, and it was what it was. From "Birth of a Nation" to "Gone With the Wind" to whatever else falls into that category. I CAN separate the artistry from the message when I have to or want to... but I often find myself skipping films on race relations because the wounds are too deep... I never saw "Driving Miss Daisy" because my Dad had been a chauffer between the wars and his stories didn't match that "reality". I never saw "The Help" because my mother WAS the help. I didn't watch "Selma" because I was alive and aware then... I saw those beatings on T.V. in REAL TIME I have to be in a particular frame of mind to relive that 50's and 60's.

Worf

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've never been able to watch "Birth of a Nation" all the way thru. I got thru the first half, but the second half was just too much to bear. There's "context of the times," and then there's "hate propaganda disguised as history by a generation of people who were willfully distorting facts to promote a lie." And it isn't historical presentism to take that view: a great many people realized this in 1915, and fiercely opposed the film.

A rapper by the name of "DJ Spooky" does a really powerful, defiant "reimagining" of BOAN, reediting the film and adding his own original musical score to subvert its original intention, and we actually looked into getting him up here to it at our place. That's the only way I'd ever project that film on any screen with which I was associated.