Calling all Classic Film Lovers!

Looking at the page, Night Train to Munich desperately needs a better summary.

Imma work my magic then.

EDIT: Well, it's a bit better now. At least we now know what the plot's about!

edited 4th Jan '18 5:35:46 PM by LongTallShorty64

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."

Good work.

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Watched a charming Laurel and Hardy feature, The Flying Deuces. Stan and Ollie join the French Foreign Legion. It's amazing how well Laurel and Hardy films hold up.

I assume you mean just the Hal Roach films, and not the crappier ones they made during WWII and after?

"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."

I have never seen any of the L&H films made after 1939. I understand they're pretty bad.

I'm watching Holiday Inn, which I love but it's never quite made the list of my favorite musicals - I find the female leads dull and forgettable. They're not bad, but they seem to drag down every scene they're in. What I wouldn't give to raid Easter Parade for Ann Miller and Judy Garland!

edited 7th Jan '18 9:14:47 AM by Tarlonniel

Gone to Faerie, no forwarding address. (AO3)

TCM's 31 Days Of Oscar schedule is up (has been for a while actually).

This time they're doing a different award every day. If you want to watch the most anti-American film ever made you can treat yourself to documentary Hearts and Minds. If you want to watch the absolute worst Best Picture winner ever, you can watch that turdbucket Cimarron. I'm happy about finally getting a chance to see Darling. Unfortunately most of the Foreign Language and Documentary Feature films they're running are things I've already seen.

After reading up on it, I must say Hearts and Minds sounds interesting. I may have to watch it at some point. Thanks for the recommendation!

Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.

Yeah, never heard of it before. But it looks really good. I'm gonna check it out, too.

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."

I watched Hearts and Minds and, honestly, I was shocked by the anti-American tone to it and the willingness to portray the United States as a malevolent actor. I'm no wingnut, I'm no Trumper, but man...they paint a POW who spent six years in the Hanoi Hilton as a racist, well sure, it's bad to use racial slurs to describe Vietnamese people but the dude had just gotten out of a goddamn POW camp. And there are shots of a high school football game that have no connections with Vietnam at all but do serve to make Americans look stupid and loud. It's a very very angry movie, and a powerful one, and I agree with about 95% of it other than what I just mentioned above.

It was certainly wildly different that the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone of that Ken Burns series, The Vietnam War. It was shocking to me to watch that movie and think about how it not only got distributed but won an Oscar.

Anyhoo, not in our time period. When we get closer to Feb. 1 I'll start making posts about what's running. Citizen Kane runs on the day dedicated to Best Screenplay.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I made a page for Algiers, a movie that was a big deal back in 1938 but has since been almost wholly forgotten. Huge influence on Casablanca, made Hedy Lamarr a star. Was amused to read up a little on Algiers and read a lot of talk about how Hedy Lamarr couldn't act. I didn't think she was that bad. Lana Turner strikes me as a better example of someone who really could not act at all but was glorious eye candy on screen.

Anyone have Amazon Prime? They're running The Firemen's Ball, a film from Czechoslovakia from late in our time period. Directed by Miloš Forman who of course later became hugely successful in America.

I am only mildly annoyed that I discovered this long after I paid for an out-of-print DVD of this film.

I never understood the Lana Turner appeal.

I forgot that it's 2018, the centennial of the end of WWI (well, officially in November, but still). State your favourite WWI classic films!

edited 12th Jan '18 6:51:36 AM by LongTallShorty64

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."

Never understood the Lana Turner appeal?

Ridiculously sexy. Couldn't act to save her life. But very very sexy.

As for World War I classic films, you have to start with The Big Parade.

Dunno, she's pretty for sure, but nothing exceptional in the world of other beauties from the era. Also, this isn't her fault at all, but MGM/Meyer's weird fetish for turning natural brunettes into stock blondes makes me irrationally angry.

The Big Parade and All Quiet On The Western Front are the war movies in which all war movies are measured by.

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."

Paths of Glory should also be counted as a classic, methinks.

And, if one looks outside the European battles, then Lawrence of Arabia fits (it is, after all, about the Arab Revolt - I suspect the Middle Eastern theatre during the War would've been ignored almost entirely by most of the people and Western popular culture, if not for T. E. Lawrence and his actions).

edited 12th Jan '18 4:34:48 PM by Quag15

Oh, man... I hate war movies... wait, Wings! That's one I loved.

Gone to Faerie, no forwarding address. (AO3)

I'll have to disagree about Turner. I think she was one of the great sexpots of the era, honestly. But an awful awful actress, pretty much never saw her convincingly emote.

All Quiet on the Western Front was the first great talking film. Not without its early-talkie creakiness, like that one scene where they're all sitting under a tree or something and delivering some very stilted dialogue about the futility of war. But overall a really great film with tremendous power. The scene where they're huddled into a shelter during a French artillery attack and the soldiers start losing it really stuck with me.

Random trivia: the dying French soldier that Lew Ayres shares a shell hole with is Raymond Griffith, who was a big comedy star in the 20s but had a voice damaged by scarlet fever in childhood.

There's a highly regarded German film called Westfront 1918 that I've never seen.

Paths of Glory is amazing. Kubrick was, I dunno, 30 years old. Really made a huge impression.

Just watched a W. C. Fields short called The Dentist.

Guess what, he's a dentist. There's this one scene where a good-looking woman coming in who needs a tooth pulled. W.C. is trying to yank the tooth but having difficulty. He winds up between the woman's legs, with one of her thighs on each of his hips as he's humping away trying to pull the tooth. But he still can't get it, and he winds up yanking her out of the dentist's chair, and they wind up staggering around the room with the woman facing him with her legs wrapped around his waist, as he's trying to yank the tooth. While she's moaning—in pain, of course. Finally he yanks the tooth and she collapses on the floor in a heap.

In short, one of the most amazing examples of Visual Innuendo I have ever seen, and this in a W.C. Fields short film. Absolutely the dirtiest thing I've seen from The Pre-Code Era, and that includes everything in Smarty.

Wow, you weren't lying...

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."

Funny, I just got done [re]watching The Dentist too. Apparently the scene with the woman in the dentist’s chair was one he did on stage for years.

Incidentally, if you have not seen It’s a Gift yet, you should. It’s always been in my top 10 funniest films of all time.

Recently watched the WWII-era British film Bees in Paradise. Some fighter pilots crash-land on an island populated by an all-female society. Very silly, very fluffy but also very entertaining. Considering when it was made, it could have been grossly sexist, but the film trades in satire for light comedy. Most of the film features the women coming to the men’s rescue! Arthur Askey was the unlikely star. I found him so charming that I have decided that I need to see more films with him in them.

Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883!

I liked It's a Gift. I liked that the Fields character had some pathos to him, wasn't just the sarcastic drunk of The Bank Dick—not that The Bank Dick wasn't funny, it was, just that Fields's character had more depth in It's a Gift.

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Watched Don't Make Waves, a Tony Curtis sex comedy from right at the very end of our era. It's probably most famous for having Sharon Tate in the movie. Pretty bad, really, but it has its moments. It also has some interest for coming out right at the end of The Hays Code and showing how Hollywood censorship was changing. You couldn't show nudity quite yet, but you could show Sharon Tate bouncing up and down on a trampoline, with slo-mo, and with freeze frames.

I think the 1960s were the nadir of Hollywood. Movies kind of started going downhill in the fifties when the studios collapsed, and in the '60s it just got worse as some of the great holdovers like Hitchcock and Wilder started to fade out. Basically the last few years of our era are the worst.

You've got something there in terms of drop in quality of Hollywood fare. Personally, I've always found it difficult to understand what positives censorship gave other than to force writers/directors to make some of the funniest, subversive things I've ever seen. But then you get these 60s films that show off their freedom but to what artistic end other than "we can do/show this now"?

On a different note, what amuses me most from the late 60s is the weird editing. It's like everyone was inspired by the jump cuts in Breathless but just went to town with it and you get some dated and strange cuts I've only seen in those "hip" 60s films. I guess there was freedom from the restrictiveness of traditional editing, but it's so dated and you can just look at it and go "this is so 60s, it hurts."

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The Criterion Collection is releasing a new restored version of The Awful Truth!! I'm not too impressed with the extras, however, since it doesn't look like much. But I'll probably get it for those sweet essays. You know what movie needs desperate restoring from Criterion? Love Me Tonight. That film deserves the treatment.

edited 16th Jan '18 4:11:37 PM by LongTallShorty64

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."