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LongTallShorty64 Frumpy and grumpy Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
Frumpy and grumpy
#2151: May 12th 2017 at 3:32:30 PM

In the ongoing saga that is my summer vacation, I have started cleaning out my PVR which has over 100 films that I haven't watched yet. So why not make it a thing? I'm trying to watch a new film every day and make a wiki page if possible, but it's kind of tough. Anyways, here's what I've recently watched.

Long Tall Shorty cleans out her PVR:

  • In Name Only: Pretty good drama. Carole Lombard rarely did them which is a shame since she's really good here. Kay Francis brings the bitchiness as a wife who won't give Cary Grant a divorce to marry widowed artist, played by Lombard. The Power of Love conquers all! This film wasn't anything too special even if it comes from the coveted year of 1939, but Grant and Lombard had good chemistry together and it's nice to see Francis in a film from the late thirties.
  • In This Our Life: John Huston's second film (in which he directs) starring Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, and George Brent. De Havilland is the good sister (almost too angelic) while Davis is completely spoiled and awful. She steals De Havilland's husband and then doesn't regret the fact that he kills himself. Oh, and she flirts with her sister's fiance and tries to get him back (she was engaged to him before she ran off!). The thing that annoyed me about this movie is that Davis gets the stupid old hollywood ending where she dies for being evil. She should be brought to justice, dammit! This is probably on par with the evilness of the mother she played in The Little Foxes. (On the gossipy side, is this where Huston and De Havilland met and began their affair?)

edited 12th May '17 3:34:37 PM by LongTallShorty64

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#2152: May 13th 2017 at 4:26:55 AM

I think I remember reading once that de Havilland and Davis wanted to flip their parts around and let Olivia play the bad sister.

But Warners wouldn't go for it. AFAIK Olivia only played villains twice, in her Evil Twin part in The Dark Mirror and her role in Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

LongTallShorty64 Frumpy and grumpy Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
Frumpy and grumpy
#2153: May 13th 2017 at 9:35:04 AM

Warners really was the pitts, wasn't it? A lot their big stars started litigation cases against them (Davis, Cagney, and De Havilland).

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#2154: May 13th 2017 at 5:48:57 PM

I think every star that Warner Bros employed in their heyday either sued them, wanted to sue them, or just plain shoot the heck out of the studio bosses.

jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#2155: May 13th 2017 at 8:21:05 PM

Warners was on the cutting edge of artistic endeavor in those days, I think; overall I'll take them over MGM. But yeah, not so good with the labor relations.

jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#2156: May 13th 2017 at 8:23:46 PM

I haven't seen The Dark Mirror in a long long long time—how long? I watched it on VHS—but it was a hoot. I remember they showed Olivia's Evil Twin character was evil by having her light up a smoke.

LongTallShorty64 Frumpy and grumpy Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
Frumpy and grumpy
#2157: May 13th 2017 at 8:32:47 PM

Warner's style was pretty progressive even if they were pretty awful for labour relations as you mentioned.

For example, in In This Our Life they have some sly commentary about a white woman being able to easily use her African American servant/odd job boy as a scapegoat and get away with it. Of course, this comes directly from the source material, but they kept it and didn't hide away from it.

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
LongTallShorty64 Frumpy and grumpy Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
Frumpy and grumpy
#2158: May 13th 2017 at 8:35:00 PM

But...everyone smokes in old movies: it's like breathing. Though smoking does certainly add an air of "cool" a good girl wouldn't have.

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#2159: May 14th 2017 at 7:48:57 PM

[up]I have two favorite nominees for best Everybody Smokes moment.

Well, two from the classic movie era, that's not counting George Carlin smoking away onstage on the first episode of Saturday Night Live or the NBC News dudes who were smoking up a storm on the live desk on November 22, 1963.

But from our studio cinema age...

  1. Bette Davis smoking in Dark Victory. While she is in a hospital bed. Awaiting surgery for brain cancer.
  2. John Garfield's wife lighting him up a smoke in Four Daughters, while he is in a hospital, while he is dying from trauma suffered in a car accident. Garfield croaks before his wife can stick the cigarette in his lips.

edited 14th May '17 7:49:20 PM by jamespolk

jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#2160: May 14th 2017 at 10:14:25 PM

Do we make work pages for every film we watch, or only those that are interesting and/or good?

Watched a Clark Gable flick called They Met in Bombay and didn't make a page for it. In fact, I didn't even finish it. Seemed like it should be interesting, Gable was paired with Rosalind Russell for the only time, Peter Lorre had a part as a Chinese dude. And Gable & Russell were jewel thieves. But it was really paint-by-numbers and poorly plotted. In one scene they're in a high-speed car chase fleeing from the hotel detectives. Poof, there's a cut to Gable and Russell in a rowboat about to board a ship, hours later, no clue how they evaded pursuit. Meh.

The next movie I watched was They Made Me a Criminal, which I did make a page for. John Garfield is a boxer unjustly accused of murder who becomes a fugitive and winds up on a farm in Arizona that's being used as a reformatory for troubled youth. The Dead End Kids are the troubled youth. Some really cliched dialogue and Claude Rains is miscast as an NYPD homicide detective, but I still liked it. It was directed by, believe it or not, Busby Berkeley, despite not having one single song.

TompaDompa from Sweden Since: Jan, 2012
#2161: May 15th 2017 at 12:41:56 AM

[up][up] My favorite moment is the doctors in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) marveling at how much more advanced Martian medicine is... while smoking.

Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
LongTallShorty64 Frumpy and grumpy Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
Frumpy and grumpy
#2162: May 15th 2017 at 4:04:26 AM

I don't always make wiki pages for films I've seen, either for dullness or for not being worth it. It's a case by case sort of deal: if I see there's even the smallest merit, I'll make a page. I might make wiki pages for small, "insignificant" films because I want to add films to an actor's wiki, too. For example, the Gable/Lombard movie was alright but I made a page for it because a) it has the uniqueness of having Gable and Lombard together and b) Carole Lombard has a sad lack of films on here and I want to build it up.

Or I can just throw all that reasoning out the window and make a page just because I liked the name of the movie.

edited 15th May '17 4:16:32 AM by LongTallShorty64

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
TompaDompa from Sweden Since: Jan, 2012
#2163: May 15th 2017 at 5:05:37 AM

I rarely create pages. I did for Smiles of a Summer Night and Detour because I found them interesting, but those are the only ones I can recall right now.

Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#2164: May 17th 2017 at 5:35:30 PM

I'm fighting my way through Breathless. So boring! Scene after scene after scene with nothing but talking. There's this one scene where they're lying around in Jean Seberg's apartment and talking and it lasts forever.

Quag15 Since: Mar, 2012
#2165: May 17th 2017 at 6:45:15 PM

[up]Well, it is a Godard movie, what were you expecting?

Though, granted, his best movies were yet to come when that one was released.

edited 17th May '17 6:46:10 PM by Quag15

LongTallShorty64 Frumpy and grumpy Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
Frumpy and grumpy
#2166: May 17th 2017 at 6:49:16 PM

I remember watching it a while ago. Yeah, important jump cuts, blah, blah, the French New Wave, and their oh-so seriousness, but on reflection, I don't like it. Maybe it's just Goddard, because I liked The 400 Blows so much more.

I also haven't watched any other Goddard, so I'm pretty ignorant, but that movie turned me off.

edited 17th May '17 6:50:03 PM by LongTallShorty64

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#2167: May 17th 2017 at 7:03:40 PM

[up][up]I was expecting a story, I guess. All very cool and stylish and Jean Seberg looks great in sunglasses, but nothing happens.

edited 17th May '17 7:04:07 PM by jamespolk

jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#2168: May 18th 2017 at 8:04:49 AM

My experience fighting through the interminable tedium of Breathless was compensated by watching a great Japanese movie from 1959 called Odd Obsession.

A man at retirement age can't get it up anymore and can't satisfy his hot wife who's a quarter-century younger than he is. But he discovers that jealousy turns him on. So he starts pushing his wife at the handsome young family doctor. Disaster ensues.

The Erotic Film genre has a lot of garbage in it but this movie was excellent. I was amazed at how good it was and couldn't help but think about how Hollywood couldn't have come within a hundred miles of this material in 1959. Inspired me to make a creator page for Machiko Kyo, who plays the hot wife, and is best known for being the female lead in Rashomon.

LongTallShorty64 Frumpy and grumpy Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
Frumpy and grumpy
#2169: May 19th 2017 at 8:24:53 PM

The saga continues...

Long Tall Shorty slowly cleans out her PVR:

  • Saw the The Petrified Forest. Interesting drama. The only complaint I have is that it's pretty obvious this was first a play, not only for the camera's movement or lack thereof, but how it has that playwright stamp on it. Can't put my finger on it exactly, but those musings on life and love has a play quality. I guess it helps that there's also a title card stating it's based on a play, but without it, I still could've guessed. Leslie Howard is always a plus for me and it's nice to see Bette Davis in a non-bitchy role. Bogart is great here and his most memorable gangster role, I think. He's got all these interesting mannerisms going on. Apparently, Howard and Bogart both played the roles in the stage version and Leslie was guaranteed the movie part but not Bogart, so he demanded that get the part or he'd leave. They remained good friends until Howard's death.

edited 19th May '17 8:26:31 PM by LongTallShorty64

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#2170: May 20th 2017 at 8:21:36 AM

Leslie Howard is always a minus for me, and I agree that The Petrified Forest was rather stage-bound, but I still liked the movie. Humphrey Bogart's first big part.

Quag15 Since: Mar, 2012
#2171: May 20th 2017 at 8:40:11 AM

Added an image to Howard's page, but it might be a bit big.

edited 20th May '17 8:40:32 AM by Quag15

jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#2172: May 21st 2017 at 7:00:00 AM

Made a page for a Gable-Harlow vehicle called Hold Your Man. It's an odd little movie with a Halfway Plot Switch. First part is lighthearted romance with Gable and Harlow as a couple of con artists. Then halfway through Gable accidentally kills a guy and it becomes more conventional 1930s melodrama.

LongTallShorty64 Frumpy and grumpy Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
Frumpy and grumpy
#2173: May 21st 2017 at 7:28:13 AM

I watched this film a while ago and found it pretty unremarkable.

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
LongTallShorty64 Frumpy and grumpy Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
Frumpy and grumpy
#2174: May 23rd 2017 at 9:56:06 AM

Saw and made a page for this interesting little noir called Road House with Ida Lupino and Richard Widmark.

Basically, a Love Triangle set up between Widmark, Lupino, and Wilde. Widmark isn't Kiss of Death crazy here, but he's pretty delusional and scary.

Lupino is slowly becoming one of my favourite underrated actresses of the golden age. She sang in this one!

edited 23rd May '17 9:56:49 AM by LongTallShorty64

"It's true that we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman."
jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#2175: May 23rd 2017 at 9:54:03 PM

Creator page: Montgomery Clift

Work page: The Sundowners, with Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr playing married Australians herding sheep across the Outback. Pretty good.


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