Calling all Classic Film Lovers!

Also watched Craig's Wife, the 1936 movie version of the Pulitzer-winning play. Apparently it was Rosalind Russell's Star-Making Role. She plays a rich society wife with a major case of housekeeping OCD, who believes that she has to secure a husband and tame him because society offers her no other way of being financially secure.

No doubt there's a great piece of feminist criticism about the story. Also made more loosely as Harriet Craig with Joan Crawford in 1950.

Capra really wanted to win an Oscar for Bitter Tea, but it was a flop critically and commercially. This movie hits all the right points, yellowface notwithstanding: Capra went all out on the set designs and Joseph Walker really did some great haunting, moody cinematography. If I remember correctly, it was Paramount's most expensive film up to that point.

Watched some new-to-me movies:

• Night Song: Dana Andrews is a bitter Blind Musician and Merle Oberon is a socialite that wants him to continue writing music because she thinks he has a lot of talent. Ethel Barrymore is in a supporting role as Oberon's aunt, and she gets all the best Deadpan Snarker lines. This movie, like City Lights, has that weird trope where having a permanent disability is very easy to reverse. This film didn't give any details, but I don't think blindness is very easy to cure. Anyways, I liked this romantic drama, and it had some damn fine music.
• Here Comes Mr. Jordan: Another fantasy/romance story, but with Robert Montgomery and Claude Rains, and I liked it for the most part. It's an interesting take on life and death, and people living on in others.
• Lucky Star: This is probably my favourite out of the three movies. Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell are adorable together in this gem of a movie. This is my first Borzage, and I liked what I saw, so I'll probably watch more of his films. I didn't mind the The Power of Love making Tim able to walk again even if it's kind of silly, but it works. I know that in another Borzage movie he comes back from the dead because of The Power of Love, but I'll have to see how that one works. Also, the music was really good. I hate when silents have boring rinky-dinky piano scores.

edited 21st Aug '17 7:58:55 PM by LongTallShorty64

Watched Napoleon (1927) and made a page for it. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's a terrible shame the sequels were never made.

How'd you watch that? DVD? Streaming somewhere?

The British Film Institute released it on Blu-ray and their streaming service last year.

Marni Nixon was hardly the only woman to dub for Hollywood stars when they sang. In fact, it was a common practice.

Now be warned. There will be times where you will think "Wait, why did they dub her? She can sing!"

edited 22nd Aug '17 12:28:10 PM by DS9guy

I know I saw Napoleon once a very long time ago, but all I can remember is the "triptych" bit.

The Triptych sequence is definitely the film's Signature Scene. It's incredible 90 years later on a TV screen, so I can't even begin to imagine what it must've been like in the cinema back then.

The 1973 version of Lost Horizon was a musical?!?!?! That's what Aldo was warning us about.

Regarding post #2332 above, they should bring back dubbing. Why make Emma Watson try and warble a song, then Auto Tune the crap out of it, and still get something that sounds mediocre? Hire a singer.

Alternatively, get someone who can both act and sing.

Yes, it was, and it was supposedly really, really awful as well. (It isn't even a musical until about forty-five minutes in, when they get to Shangri-La and the shitty Burt Bacharach numbers begin. Read Roger Ebert's review for a taste of what it was like.)

Now I think you can realize why the musical was largely dead after the inundation of crappy roadshow films in the late 60s.

Last I heard they still did dubbing for musical numbers in Bollywood films, but these days in America people won't stand for it, unless it's in a Disney film, and I don't think they even do that anymore.

edited 22nd Aug '17 4:01:50 PM by Aldo930

I really don't get it: we barely have triple threats anymore, and they were rare even in their heyday, why not just dub the great actor who can't sing for shiitake? Too bad they can't dub dancing because in the musical extravagance of last year, the dancing was absolutely laughable.

edited 22nd Aug '17 7:15:49 PM by LongTallShorty64

I really couldn't care less. Good singing is good. I'm not gonna begrudge a studio hiring Emma Watson if they think it will help their movie sell tickets, just hire somebody else for the singing.

Watched Boudu sauvé des eaux (a.k.a. Boudu Saved from Drowning). I absolutely loathed the title character. He's completely insufferable in general and an unrepentant rapist to boot. The movie did get one big laugh out of me, however. Towards the end, we find out that Boudu's first name is Priape – which is fitting, because he really is a huge dick.

Watched Marie Curie biopic Madame Curie. One of the better 1940s biopics I've watched.

Is it better because it's accurate or because it's just a good script?

Pretty good script. And Garson and Pidgeon were just so good together.

I love just about anything with Greer Garson in it. She's always good and she has a distinctive look and style which I find very interesting.

The scene where it slowly dawns on them that there's a third element unknown to science in the pitchblende is pretty darn exciting. Not easy to do with scientists in a lab.

Work page: La Ronde. Enjoyed the heck out of this movie. Lots of very attractive people bantering and having sex with each other. I particularly enjoyed the Greek Chorus, No Fourth Wall character.

Creator page: Rosalind Russell

I didn't know Russell went to Uni for acting. That's really rare during the Golden Age.

I finally watched White Heat. For some reason, I couldn't get past the five minutes when I tried to watch it a few years ago. But I thoroughly enjoyed it now: Cagney is so menacing.

Cagney is fantastic in that movie. I think it's a fascinating contrast with The Public Enemy. He's a violent gangster in both movies, but in The Public Enemy it's Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster! mode—living the high life, the fun of shooting people, the hot blonde moll in the person of Jean Harlow. In White Heat he's a violent gangster, he has fun shooting people, and he has a hot blonde moll in the person of Virginia Mayo, but he's a raging psychopath.

And the hot moll is a treacherous and manipulating woman who'd sell him out if she could.