What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

I love "A Night to Remember" and, except for some special effects, prefer it over the Cameron take. It is not my favorite telling of that fateful night however. That honor goes to "Titanic" (1953) which features the sterling performances of Clifford Webb and Barbara Stanwick as a wealthy couple whose marriage is on the rocks. Only the presence of their young son keeps these two from taking axes to one another. There's also a minor shipboard romance involving a young Robert Wagner but that's just for window dressing. The twist at the end (I won't ruin it) is a gut punch far beyond either of the other films provide and that to me makes it a cut above.

Worf

I saw that one a long time ago as your description of the Stanwyck-Webb marriage rang a bell, but now I want to see it again.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I have to disagree with you Worf, I think the 1953 Titanic is interesting mostly for how many factual things it gets wrong... though I have to admit that its absurdly overwrought melodrama is kind of entertaining. But A Night to Remember has a lot more going for it as a depiction of the events.

Since we're the same age, how about this? The best thing about the 1953 flick is that it was in the Fox film library... and its decent model work and effects sequences were reused to good effect in the pilot episode of Time Tunnel.

 

[basbol13]

High Sierra

I just love that woman

 

[Worf]

I saw that one a long time ago as your description of the Stanwyck-Webb marriage rang a bell, but now I want to see it again.

I have to disagree with you Worf, I think the 1953 Titanic is interesting mostly for how many factual things it gets wrong... though I have to admit that its absurdly overwrought melodrama is kind of entertaining. But A Night to Remember has a lot more going for it as a depiction of the events.

Since we're the same age, how about this? The best thing about the 1953 flick is that it was in the Fox film library... and its decent model work and effects sequences were reused to good effect in the pilot episode of Time Tunnel.

Well FF, given your penchant for thorough and outstanding reviews, I'd love to see your comparison of the three films.

As for you Mr. Strange.... Stop messing with my memory! You're right, I think the first episode of "The Time Tunnel" featured the sinking of the Titanic. Didn't know that they reused the footage from that film it though.. Good catch!

I loved many of Irwin Allen's productions but after the second season they all tend to devolve into "BEM" (Bug Eyed Monster) of the week fare. "Lost in Space", "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"... etc... all got quite silly after a while. The Time Tunnel was an interesting premise like "Land of the Giants" that failed to go far.

Worf

 

[Doctor Strange]

The Batman on HBO

Eh, two and a half stars. Too long, relentlessly dark and grim (not a single chuckle), Pattinson underplays to the point of being a cipher, and most of the supporting characters (Alfred, Selina/Catwoman, Riddler, mob boss Carmine Falcone) have been better-written and better-played in previous Bat films/shows.

What I did like: This is young Batman in just year two of his war on crime - to me, this is a vastly more interesting verson of Bats than cranky fascist old man Affleck. Jeffrey Wright gives his usual solid performance as Lt. Gordon. And this film gives a lot of screen time to Batman and Gordon doing actual detective work, trying to figure out the killer's MO and next victim, which is a nice change from the overwrought gods vs. gods smackdowns of the recent Warners/DC flicks.

It's not an embarrassment - which is a step up in Warners/DC's handling of Batman - but it's not "better" than the Nolan or Burton films... or my beloved Animated Series.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Worf, we're on the same page re Irwin Allen. The b/w first season of Lost In Space is actually largely serious SF. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea started off well too. All of Allen's shows quickly got silly and kiddie-fied.

Luckily, Time Tunnel only had a single season, so it didn't devolve. And yeah, the 1953 Titanic's in the first ep. From its conception, that series was designed to use as much stock footage and props/sets from old Fox films as possible. The Time Tunnel itself was the only set built especially for the series.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And I strongly recommend the book "A Night To Remember," by Walter Lord -- which, even after nearly seventy years of Titanicmania, remains the definitive written account of the sinking.

 

[Doctor Strange]

You're right Lizzie, it's a great book.

 

[Fading Fast]

Gallant Lady from 1933 with Ann Harding, Clive Brooks, Janet Beecher and Otto Kruger


Pre-code movies often rip through multiple plot twists and an eye-popping number of taboo subjects in their short runtimes. Unhindered by the modern need to make every picture a statement or art, or both, these early 1930s movies just tossed in their viewpoints, mashed the accelerator pedal down and tried to entertain.

Gallant Lady has its flaws, but shyness isn't one of them as it takes on a startling number of controversial subjects, while its story zigs and zags with lightning speed.

Ann Harding plays a woman engaged to a daredevil pilot who is killed on an attempted transatlantic record flight. Immediately afterwards, while wandering aimlessly in a park, Harding is about to be mistakenly arrested for prostitution by an aggressive policeman when a man, played by Clives Brooks, comes to her rescue by pretending to be her boyfriend.

Back at his apartment, Harding learns that Brooks is a physician who was just release from jail after having served time for euthanasia - he wanted to stop his terminal patient's suffering.

When Brooks learns Harding's dilemma - she's pregnant and can't bring the "shame" of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy down on her "nice" family - he arranges to have a kind and decent couple he knows adopt the child without ever meeting Harding.

Brooks also finds a job for Harding with a female friend of his, played by Janet Beecher, who owns an interior decorating business. Beecher is silently carrying a torch for Brooks.

With that top-heavy setup, we fast forward five or so years to see Brooks just coming home after spending those years working (implied) on tramp steamers and drinking a lot. He then opens up a rizty veterinary clinic.

Harding, now a partner in the interior decorating business, goes abroad on a business trip hoping Brooks, who has been carrying a torch for her, will become interested in Beecher, who is still carrying a torch for Brooks. Phew. We're no more than half way through and things are only going to heat up from here.

In Italy buying for her business, Harding meets an Italian count who spends the rest of the movie pursuing her. She also, accidentally, meets her now five-year-old son. While not revealing her identity to him or his father, she changes her plans to return to the States early to be on the same ship with her son.

Back in America, the movie amps up some more as Harding gets closer to her son and his dad, played by Otto Kruger (did this man ever look young?), whose wife passed away a few years ago. Kruger, though, is engaged to a gold digger and shrew of a woman who hires Harding's firm to decorate what will be her and Kruger's home.

While Harding was away, Brooks, who seems to have given up the veterinary clinic, but not his love for Harding, started hitting the bottle hard again. Beecher, undaunted, continues to carry a torch for him.

All these open threads - a couple of unrequited loves, a gold digger lying her way into marriage, a biological mother hiding her identity from her son, a doctor turned alcoholic and an Italian count awkwardly hanging around - mash together for a bit at the climax, but only the main thread about Harding and the boy she gave up for adoption has any closure.

Gallant Lady bit off more than it could really chew, but strong acting carries it through. Harding - blonde, beautiful and delivering another wonderfully understated performance - is captivating as the heartbroken mother; Brooks is engaging as the smashed-up doctor with a kind heart; Beecher is pitch perfect as the pragmatic middle-aged woman better at business than love and Kruger delivers a nuanced performance as the often-clueless father trying to do the right thing.

For the record, this 1932 pre-code comprises pre-marital sex, adoption, euthanasia, alcoholism, unrequited love, a successful woman-run business, police aggression and a conniving gold digger, most of which would be topics that would be lightly or completely untouched when the Motion Picture Production Code was more thoroughly enforced from 1935 on.

Gallant Lady is a good movie with a too-complicated plot that leaves too-many threads untied at the end. Yet its strong cast and solid directing from Gregory La Cava hold it all together. Today, it's equally valuable as a reminder that many challenges and human failings, which unfortunately would be whitewashed from the screen in only a few short years, have always been with us.

 

[Fading Fast]

Little Man, What Now? from 1934 with Douglas Montgomery, Margaret Sullavan and Alan Hale


This American and raw pre-code is not only set in Germany, but feels like a German-made film as the story is based on a German novel and has style elements of early European cinema. (There is, also, an earlier German-made version of the movie.)

Germany's post-WWI depression was harsher than America's as reflected in the brutal job market seen in Little Man, What Now, where even those employed are threatened regularly by their bosses with dismissal for negligible reasons.

Not surprisingly, playing at the edges of this film is social unrest where we see soap-box speakers and popular rallies that use the word "equality," which seems to be a surrogate for communism.

Douglas Montgomery and Margaret Sullavan play a young, poor and attractive married couple trying to get a start in life, but his incompetence and the fierce economy conspire against then. At his first job, he has to lie and say he's single as his boss, think Scrooge trying to marry off a daughter, only hires single men.

After he's let go from that job, it's a series of modest ups and harsher downs for the couple as job opportunities are hard to find and hard to hold, especially since Montgomery, to be blunt, isn't very smart.

Sullivan, though, has a head on her shoulders, and makes some good deals and barters when absolutely necessary. But in a deep economic depression that requires laser-like focus on budgeting and finances, these two, especially Montgomery, have too much of a gentle dreaminess about them to do anything but struggle.

In an odd series of events, they spend time living at his stepmother's luxurious apartment only to be swindled a bit by her, whom they discover is really running a brothel.

Stalwart actor Alan Hale pops up as Montgomery's mother's fancy pimp who takes a liking to Sullivan - not hard to understand that - but he turns out to be kinda okay as he never pushes Sullivan too hard and does some modestly nice things to help the young couple out.

As the couple's struggles worsen, the movie takes on a Steinbeck harshness as we see homeless people in the streets desperate for a piece of bread, rallies violently broken up by the police and gentle Montgomery horrified to find he's thinking about violently using a knife or throwing a rock.

The message here isn't subtle: harrowing economic times can turn any human being feral. These ideas are raised yet never fully developed as the story turns back to the young couple who is now barely getting by living in a shack-like attic room above a small store.

There is a hint of promise at the end, but this is a downbeat movie reflecting a brutal time. The only optimism in Little Man, What Now? comes from Sullavan whose youth and beauty can't help projecting hope.

Maybe the movie's themes - especially, the social unrest angle - is muddled owing to censorship as pre-codes did face regional review boards and other pressures to tamp down aspects of their stories.

Or maybe Little Man, What Now's director Frank Borzage - who made several outstanding anti-Nazi films later in the decade - didn't want to make a pure message movie, but instead wanted to show a regular and likable couple, who are neither heroes nor villains, trying to cope in desperate times.

 

[MisterCairo]

Withnail and I for the official 103rd time.

 

[Worf]

The Batman on HBO

Eh, two and a half stars. Too long, relentlessly dark and grim (not a single chuckle), Pattinson underplays to the point of being a cipher, and most of the supporting characters (Alfred, Selina/Catwoman, Riddler, mob boss Carmine Falcone) have been better-written and better-played in previous Bat films/shows.

What I did like: This is young Batman in just year two of his war on crime - to me, this is a vastly more interesting verson of Bats than cranky fascist old man Affleck. Jeffrey Wright gives his usual solid performance as Lt. Gordon. And this film gives a lot of screen time to Batman and Gordon doing actual detective work, trying to figure out the killer's MO and next victim, which is a nice change from the overwrought gods vs. gods smackdowns of the recent Warners/DC flicks.

It's not an embarrassment - which is a step up in Warners/DC's handling of Batman - but it's not "better" than the Nolan or Burton films... or my beloved Animated Series.

Just watched it over two nights.... that gives you some idea how long this movie is. It's amazing how much lead can be sprayed in one persons direction and he never gets shot in the FACE! Dark, brooding... sometimes boring (Puddin' fell asleep during the first viewing and snored some during the second) I didn't love "Batman" but didn't hate it either... just meh... Nice set up at the end for the Joker but other than that... ehh. It's that as I age the idea of wasting almost 3 hours on a film that doesn't MOVE me is getting a bit galling.

Worf

 

[Edward]

The Batman on HBO

Eh, two and a half stars. Too long, relentlessly dark and grim (not a single chuckle), Pattinson underplays to the point of being a cipher, and most of the supporting characters (Alfred, Selina/Catwoman, Riddler, mob boss Carmine Falcone) have been better-written and better-played in previous Bat films/shows.

What I did like: This is young Batman in just year two of his war on crime - to me, this is a vastly more interesting verson of Bats than cranky fascist old man Affleck. Jeffrey Wright gives his usual solid performance as Lt. Gordon. And this film gives a lot of screen time to Batman and Gordon doing actual detective work, trying to figure out the killer's MO and next victim, which is a nice change from the overwrought gods vs. gods smackdowns of the recent Warners/DC flicks.

It's not an embarrassment - which is a step up in Warners/DC's handling of Batman - but it's not "better" than the Nolan or Burton films... or my beloved Animated Series.

I was keeping an eye out for your review on this one. We're waiting for it to fall down to 'included with Prime'. I really want the disco-vampire to surprise me, but there is a strong sense, alas, that it's just one retread too many on top of so, so many already. The big issue for me with DC is that whereas Marvel has been prepared to take risks with its 'other properties' (granted, in part because somebody else had Spiderman and the X Men for a bit), DC do the same old, same old Bats and Supes over and over and over - and when they do break out of that, they've made such a hash of it. Justice League was utterly dire, and as for Aquaman.... their biggest mistake there was even acknowledging that property exists, let alone making a film of it. Awful.

I agree with you that the perfect Batman is that of The Animated Series. All the punch of the Nolan conception (before it went off the boil with that silly, sentimental ending), all the style of Burton's outings.

And I strongly recommend the book "A Night To Remember," by Walter Lord -- which, even after nearly seventy years of Titanicmania, remains the definitive written account of the sinking.

Yes indeed. That, coupled with Robert Ballard's work on finding the wreck in the mid eighties.

Just watched it over two nights.... that gives you some idea how long this movie is. It's amazing how much lead can be sprayed in one persons direction and he never gets shot in the FACE!

I see your disco-vampire Batman, and raise you a full A-Team!

 

[Zombie_61]

Withnail and I for the official 103rd time.

Nuts. I've only seen Withnail and I once, when it opened here in the states back in 1987, and I remember liking it even though I had no idea who any of the actors were. Seeing your post reminded me of it, so I thought I'd order a copy for myself. Sadly, it isn't available for "Region 1" (North America) players unless you're willing to spend $200.

 

[MisterCairo]

Nuts. I've only seen Withnail and I once, when it opened here in the states back in 1987, and I remember liking it even though I had no idea who any of the actors were. Seeing your post reminded me of it, so I thought I'd order a copy for myself. Sadly, it isn't available for "Region 1" (North America) players unless you're willing to spend $200.

I envy you having seen it, not only in a theatre, but during its original run.

Found this used copy, NTSC (North America). I have the old Criterion dvd, and found a new bluray recenlty for about $60 Canadian.

https://www.amazon.ca/Withnail-I-Bl...id=1651449171&sprefix=withnail,aps,627&sr=8-1

I will keep looking.

 

[basbol13]

 

[Fading Fast]

To Be or Not to Be from 1942 with Jack Benny, Carole Lombard, Robert Stack, Lionel Atwill and Felix Bressart


To Be or Not to Be pushes farce as far as it can go without breaking, making this WWII propaganda film mocking Hitler and Nazism a goofy but fun-enough romp.

Carole Lombard and Jack Benny play a famous Polish husband-and-wife acting duo who are working on a satirical play about Hitler when Poland is invaded by Germany in 1939.

In response and for very obvious reasons, the acting troupe shelves the project. Also in response, a young military pilot and, now, resistance fighter, played by Robert Stack, who is an admirer of Lombard, and who drove husband Benny crazy with jealousy, escapes to England to fight for Poland.

Once there, Stack gives names of the Polish underground to "Professor Siletsky'' who is believed to be part of the Polish resistance. However, it is later learned he is a Nazi informant now back in Poland and about to expose the entire Polish resistance network to the Nazis.

Stack parachutes into Poland to stop Siletsky from giving the names of the resistance members over to the Germans. Once in Poland, Stack teams up with Lombard, Benny (who's still jealous) and the acting troupe.

From here, the movie is a series of pretty funny mix ups as the acting troupe uses its professional skills to masquerade as Nazis to stop Siletsky. It's a series of scenes of who are the real Nazis, who is the real Siletsky, whose beard is real, who has the "list of names," and on and on as the troupe tries to save the underground from exposure.

At times, the troupe tries to fool Siletsky into thinking he's turning over his information to the Nazis when it's really the acting troupe posing as Nazis. The troupe also makes Benny up to look like Siletsky so that he can give false information to the real Nazis. Several iterations of both charades take place in rapid-fire succession.

The real fun in this one is not so much the plot, which is less confusing than it sounds, than all the mocking of Hitler and the Nazis - exaggerated salutes, insane goose stepping, a fake Hitler popping up in silly places, etc.

Farce is tough to pull off as it can easily spiral into nonsense, but sharp writing, strong acting (if you only know the later Jack Benny, you'll be impressed with him here) and crisp directing from Ernst Lubitsch keeps To Be or Not to Be sailing along at a good clip without becoming completely absurd.

 

[Edward]

Finally caught up with No Time to Die last week. This took Craig's Bond full circle. Makes his hit rate mostly good (Casino Royale and Skyfall were great, Quantum and Spectre rubbish, this one pretty good). Its main flaw was the complete lack of motivation for the chief antagonist in the final act: I couldn't help feeling that something crucial there had been left on the cutting room floor. Surely the script - over which so many laboured for so long - couldn't have been taken to the shoot with such a glaring plot hole in it? Otherwise, pretty good fun. I enjoyed the ending immensely. Craig's films were the first Bond run that to me seemed to have any real sense of continuity to them - all the others seemed a basic reset-to-start. A big part of why Craig worked for me was because they finally called time on the previous twenty odd years of flailing about and pretending that Bond wasn't a dinosaur from another era, and actually tackled that head-on. This would be an excellent one to end the series on, though of course as with any big franchise there's no hope of such an artistic decision being taken while there's still money to be made flogging the brand. I would love to see something broader built in this world - a new, non-James Bond 007 (as we saw here, for a bit at least), or the James Bond name being kept on "in his honour" as a code identity for new agents going forward. Again, though, that would be a commercial risk to the extent that I don't expect to see them take. Still, we'll always have Connery and Craig (both great, if for different reasons).

 

[basbol13]

What can I say more about Cape Fear than what these 4 pictures say.

 

[Doctor Strange]

The original Cape Fear is a great, really disturbing flick. Personally, I like it better than Marty's 90s remake. And it's the only other movie where Mitchum is nearly as scary as he is in The Night of the Hunter.