What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[MisterCairo]

The 40 Year Old Virgin.

"I have a question. Is it true that if you don't 'use it' you'll 'lose it'"?

"Is that a real question"?

"No..."

 

[Harp]

Two quick Shane-related comments.

In Billy Crystal's one-man show, he describes how in his childhood he was always surrounded by jazz musicians because his father and uncle ran a jazz record label. He tells of being taken to see Shane when he was a little kid... by Billie Holiday! When Shane rides off at the end and the kid's yelling "Come back, Shane!", Billie leaned over to little Billy and - with her vast experience of men - declared decisively, "He ain't never comin' back!"

Shane's director, the great George Stevens, is an interesting study. Before the war, he was a master of comedies and musicals (Swing Time, anyone?); after the war, he only made dead-serious films. The difference was that his war service included filming the liberation of concentration camps, and he went through serious depression after returning, not making another film until A Place in the Sun in 1951. (For more detail, see the outstanding Netflix documentary miniseries Five Came Back, about the war service and before/after of Stevens... and Frank Capra, William Wyler, John Ford, and John Huston.)

Rhett Butler never returned either.
Women have insisted to me that Butler came back and Scarlet scored but nada, zip zero. Gone With The Wind.

Huston filmed The Battle of San Pietro and the concentration camp documentary Testament.
The former film follows an infantry company in Italy and sears the soul. Rigor mortis occurs after a
couple of hours, can last a day, usually two at most before the graves registration teams bag the fallen.
Rigor seals death's appearance when sleep casts its guise over friends whom were known over time.
Huston expertly captures death armed with camera. Catches a lot of other significance seldom seen.

 

[Doctor Strange]

And don't forget Let There Be Light, Huston's postwar documentary about PTSD that was so disturbing the US gov wouldn't let it be shown until the 1980s.

It's interesting, because so many of Huston's best-known fiction films have an air of enjoyment and fun that's far removed from the seriousness of his war docs.

 

[Harp]

And don't forget Let There Be Light, Huston's postwar documentary about PTSD that was so disturbing the US gov wouldn't let it be shown until the 1980s.

It's interesting, because so many of Huston's best-known fiction films have an air of enjoyment and fun that's far removed from the seriousness of his war docs.

You raise an extremely interesting point about Huston-I suspect he endured an epiphany during the war
which indelibly marked the man and bequeathed an archival legacy seldom equaled.

The restriction placed on Light was unfortunate; all the more so because the issue was out there in the public
domain and PTSD was a fact.

 

[Fading Fast]

You raise an extremely interesting point about Huston-I suspect he endured an epiphany during the war
which indelibly marked the man and bequeathed an archival legacy seldom equaled.

The restriction placed on Light was unfortunate; all the more so because the issue was out there in the public
domain and PTSD was a fact.

No question about that ⇧. But it's odd, as (what we call today) PTSD sometimes made it to the early post-WWII movies. I recently posted about the 1946 movie "The Blue Dahlia" (here: #28559) in which a major part of its plot pivots on a returning WWII serviceman who clearly has PTSD. Also, 1946's "Till the end of Time" (here: #27446) isn't shy about PTSD. There were more, but clearly and for obvious reasons, there were film makers who wanted to tell that side of the story and an audience who wanted to see it.

 

[AmateisGal]

The Male Animal with Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland. I love watching Fonda do comedy.

Olivia: "What in the world have you been doing?"
Henry: "Drinking."

The 12th Man, a 2017 Norwegian film (on Netflix) about a Norwegian saboteur who escapes the Nazis and makes the perilous journey to neutral Sweden. The guy went through absolute hell. I mean, cutting off nine of your toes due to injury and frostbite with a knife?!? It's based on the true story of Jan Baalsrud.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"The Male Animal" is a perfect example of sophisticated Broadway comedy c. 1940. There are a lot of "filmed plays" that lose the essence of what made the show a hit in the interest of star power, but the casting in this picture is absolutely perfect. Jack Carson is the perfect foil for Fonda, and his blowhard characterization is never better than it is here.

I would love to have done this play myself when I was young enough to do it, but every time I'd suggest it people looked at me like I was speaking Sanskrit. Local theatre groups can be terribly narrow in their views.

 

[Harp]

Local theatre groups can be terribly narrow in their views.

I guess Lysistrata is out?

Steppenwolf did Lett's August: Osage County, but Chicago was probably the best locale.

 

[Haversack]

I guess Lysistrata is out?

But what if you could use the Beardsley illustrations for the lobby posters?

 

[Harp]

But what if you could use the Beardsley illustrations for the lobby posters?

Wilde, just Wilde.

Speaking of Oscar and all things lascivious I caught Karita Mattila's portrayal of Salome at the Met,
which featured a rather chaste rendition of the seven veils dance as performed in London and I thought
Beardsley overshot the drop zone. Can't always tell a play by the Beardsley illustrations.

 

[Fading Fast]

Rear Window from 1954 with James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr

The joy in watching a classic like Hitchcock's Rear Window for the fifth or sixth time in over a few decades - away from it just being a darn good movie - is focusing on things other than the main plot. This time, for me, it was Grace Kelly, someone eminently easy to focus on.

Surprisingly not stuck in my memory from prior viewings is that Kelly is pursuing a proposal from James Stewart, real hard, and he's resisting, real hard. He's on the far side of middle aged and she's Grace freakin' Kelly in her ethereal prime. Plus he's a just-getting-by photojournalist and she's a model and Park Avenue regular.

Yet, these two acting pros have you believing that she's willing to humble herself time and again before him and he genuinely doesn't want to get married to her, despite, shall I say it again, she's Grace freakin' Kelly. He doesn't believe she could adjust to his hardscrabble, adventure-driven lifestyle.

As difficult as it is to imagine ever feeling bad for Grace Kelly (or Tom Brady), you do feel bad for this prepossessingly gorgeous, but still rejected woman who tries everything including even bringing, unannounced, an overnight bag to win Stewart over.

To be clear, that's Grace Kelly saying she's here to have sex with you. Yet, while the rest of the male population would spontaneously combust at this point, he just sees her as a pretty thing that won't fit into his peripatetic and dangerous photojournalist life. It's not lighthearted, as you can feel her hurt.

Most of this happens before the main story really gets going. So, while you initially feel bad for Kelly, by the time you're considering that Stewart's neighbor may have killed his wife and might now be cutting up her body in the bathtub so that he can carry it out in several trips in a suitcase, Kelly's woes seem less important.

However, none of the Kelly-Stewart relationship stuff even stayed with me from the prior times that I've seen this one, as the main story is that gripping: Stewart, recovering from a broken leg, innocently watching his neighbors out the window, starts to suspect something is very wrong.

The voyeurism by proxy is delicious and when we, like Stewart, begin to distrust the neighbor, your mind is completely occupied sifting through clues everywhere. Even Kelly, unconvinced of Stewart's suspicions at first, has a wonderfully acted epiphany moment where you see her facial expression go from dismissal to dread in an instant.

Aided by his nurse and super-talented actress Thelma Ritter, Stewart and Kelly are in full amateur-detective mode, especially when Stewart's police inspector friend, Wendell Corey, all but ignores Stewart's importuning him to investigate. Neatly tying the two plot threads together, the climactic scene has immobile Stewart watching his presumed-precious girlfriend scale fire escapes and heroically confront a murderer to prevent his attempted getaway.

It is a heck of an effort even for Hitchcock as it all takes place on one set - a busy multi-apartment-building courtyard during a hot summer where everyone's shades are up, windows are open and lives are on display. Ranking Hitchcock films is hard, but Rear Window, with Grace Kelly believably suffering unrequited love and a man in a wheelchair solving a murder mystery from his living room window, is pretty impressive stuff even for the master director.

 

[Doctor Strange]

My favorite Hitchcock flick, period.

But you're right, one of the things that strikes oddly on repeat viewings is how cool Jeff is to Lisa's advances... until she ultimately proves herself to be more than just a beautiful socialite.

 

[Zombie_61]

I'd be interested to hear what you disliked about it. It felt very much like a modern Showa Era Goji movie to me.

For me, the problem is that I've seen too many of these movies too many times, and they have all become repetitive--the same scenes and story lines over and over again, and no one seems to have any new ideas. I have the same problem with the Marvel "superhero" movies; once the "action" starts I know it's going to be at least an hour of CG beings trashing a big city somewhere, and I'm immediately ready to go out and have a sandwich because I've seen it before.

 

[Harp]

^^^Speaking as a confirmed Irish bachelor who has made his share of mistakes,
at some point a man takes stock of his bachelorhood and reconciles himself to the life chosen,
or perhaps partially chose, and reconciles his past with the present tense for better or for worse.
Stewart himself married rather late in life, but seemingly adapted well to marriage and fatherhood.
The character he played recognized his lot and lifestyle and maturely assessed GK unlikely at least at first.
Hitchcock is always first rate and his eye for good material served him well.

 

[Worf]

Please remind me to do that in a couple of weeks. My laptop is currently in the shop for repairs and trying to "type" all of this on my cellphone is a huge pain in the backside.

Mwa ha ha... He said "backside". Sorry sometimes my inner snot nosed, 6 year old comes out.

Worf

 

[Touchofevil]

View attachment 317441
Rear Window from 1954 with James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr

The joy in watching a classic like Hitchcock's Rear Window for the fifth or sixth time in over a few decades - away from it just being a darn good movie - is focusing on things other than the main plot. This time, for me, it was Grace Kelly, someone eminently easy to focus on.

Surprisingly not stuck in my memory from prior viewings is that Kelly is pursuing a proposal from James Stewart, real hard, and he's resisting, real hard. He's on the far side of middle aged and she's Grace freakin' Kelly in her ethereal prime. Plus he's a just-getting-by photojournalist and she's a model and Park Avenue regular.

Yet, these two acting pros have you believing that she's willing to humble herself time and again before him and he genuinely doesn't want to get married to her, despite, shall I say it again, she's Grace freakin' Kelly. He doesn't believe she could adjust to his hardscrabble, adventure-driven lifestyle.

As difficult as it is to imagine ever feeling bad for Grace Kelly (or Tom Brady), you do feel bad for this prepossessingly gorgeous, but still rejected woman who tries everything including even bringing, unannounced, an overnight bag to win Stewart over.

To be clear, that's Grace Kelly saying she's here to have sex with you. Yet, while the rest of the male population would spontaneously combust at this point, he just sees her as a pretty thing that won't fit into his peripatetic and dangerous photojournalist life. It's not lighthearted, as you can feel her hurt.

Most of this happens before the main story really gets going. So, while you initially feel bad for Kelly, by the time you're considering that Stewart's neighbor may have killed his wife and might now be cutting up her body in the bathtub so that he can carry it out in several trips in a suitcase, Kelly's woes seem less important.

However, none of the Kelly-Stewart relationship stuff even stayed with me from the prior times that I've seen this one, as the main story is that gripping: Stewart, recovering from a broken leg, innocently watching his neighbors out the window, starts to suspect something is very wrong.

The voyeurism by proxy is delicious and when we, like Stewart, begin to distrust the neighbor, your mind is completely occupied sifting through clues everywhere. Even Kelly, unconvinced of Stewart's suspicions at first, has a wonderfully acted epiphany moment where you see her facial expression go from dismissal to dread in an instant.

Aided by his nurse and super-talented actress Thelma Ritter, Stewart and Kelly are in full amateur-detective mode, especially when Stewart's police inspector friend, Wendell Corey, all but ignores Stewart's importuning him to investigate. Neatly tying the two plot threads together, the climactic scene has immobile Stewart watching his presumed-precious girlfriend scale fire escapes and heroically confront a murderer to prevent his attempted getaway.

It is a heck of an effort even for Hitchcock as it all takes place on one set - a busy multi-apartment-building courtyard during a hot summer where everyone's shades are up, windows are open and lives are on display. Ranking Hitchcock films is hard, but Rear Window, with Grace Kelly believably suffering unrequited love and a man in a wheelchair solving a murder mystery from his living room window, is pretty impressive stuff even for the master director.

View attachment 317442

My favorite Hitchcock movie as well. I have watched this and North by Northwest so many times that Lady ToE rolls her eyes and says, “this movie, agaaiinn” and moves on.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

The Thin Red Line (1964) with Keir Dullea and Jack Warden, dir. Andrew Marton. I remember seeing this on network television a long time ago. Author James Jones worked on the screen play, so what we see might be close to Jones' vision of the story. I read the book after watching the film, and it was so long ago that I cannot recall enough of it to compare the two versions.
Last night, Seven Samurai (1954), dir. by Kurosawa Akira. Even at three hours-plus, it holds my attention like few other films.

 

[Fading Fast]

Slightly Dangerous from 1943 with Lana Turner, Robert Young, Walter Brennan and May Whitty

This one proves the value of stars, a view shared by its studio MGM, famous for claiming to have "more stars than there are in heaven." Take away the famous and talented actors in this one and you have, well, not much here but a very silly story.

Small-town girl Lana Turner, bored with her shopgirl job and going nowhere, moves to a big city without much of a plan. Once there, and adumbrating, by a decade, Judy Holiday in It Should Happen to You, she spends a chunk of her small funds on a glamorous makeover (I thought she looked cuter pre makeover). Then, through a series of happenstances that only make sense in the mind of a screenwriter, Turner ends up faking amnesia in order to be mistaken for the long-lost daughter of a millionaire - uh-huh.

And while that crazy plan, surprisingly, is working, her former hometown boss, Robert Young, comes looking for Turner as he needs to prove he didn't drive her to suicide, which is what most of her old town believes happened to her - uh-huh, again. But Young's presence and persistence in Turner's big-city life threatens her with exposure and the loss of her new wealthy family.

Most of the rest of the movie is Young trying to get Turner to admit her real identity even as a romance sparks between the two. Meanwhile, Turner tries to keep the lost-daughter charade going, especially as she and her new family, including father Walter Brennan and governess May Whitty, begin to form a real bond.

Sometimes movies are less silly on screen than they sound...not this one. You've probably figured it out already, but the plot is nothing more than a reason to give Lana Turner, rocking her famous "sweater girl" figure, a vehicle to advance her career. To that end, it was probably successful as it is mildly entertaining because of its deep pool of MGM acting talent and Turner's look-at-me body. If nothing else, Slightly Dangerous justified MGM's belief in its star system.

 

[Harp]

Slightly Dangerous from 1943 with Lana Turner

Sometimes movies are less silly on screen than they sound...not this one. You've probably figured it out already, but the plot is nothing more than a reason to give Lana Turner, rocking her famous "sweater girl" figure, a vehicle to advance her career. To that end, it was probably successful as it is mildly entertaining because of its deep pool of MGM acting talent and Turner's look-at-me body. If nothing else, Slightly Dangerous justified MGM's belief in its star system.

Artie Shaw is prominently featured on YouTube with sound and speech music/interview/biographic
capture, and in a biography on the Big Band leader Shaw himself recounts a South Pacific latrine scene
where the blunt Shaw, a master chief petty officer fronting an adhoc Navy band ordered by Admiral Halsey
for morale touring, encountered a lieutenant smartass who introduced himself by announcing that he always
wanted to shake the hand that once caressed Lana Turner's bosom. Shaw and Turner having divorced after
a brief prewar marriage. Shaw offered to go one better, offering a shake of another part of his anatomy....
that also related to his former wife.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I never saw "Speed". Should I?