The Silver Screen Oasis

I was so glad to see Lawrence Tierney get what's coming to him....

a night on TCM.

I only watched Dillinger, but I've seen most of the other films before and was recording anyway. The violent, pulpy gangster biopic made me so happy I decided to go to bed right after it was over - in the afterglow, so to speak. How can you go wrong when the stars of the pic are Tierney, Marc Lawrence, Elisha Cook Jr, and Eduardo Cianelli? And they all get lots of screen time! I went to bed with a smile on my face.

I thought that Edmund Lowe looked remarkably like Lionel Barrymore, too, Bronxie. I think I actually gasped once at the beginning noting the resemblance. I enjoyed his smirky satisfaction when he set up Tierney to get him out of the way. Lowe had a neat mix of OCD calculation and flat stodginess that I suspect was part of the actor's makeup, rather than brilliant acting, but it really worked. You KNEW he was going to get it, though, when up against the younger, riskier, BAD and SEXY Tierney, it was just a matter of how and when.

I found the movie strangely thought provoking....but not so much so as to destroy the immense entertainment value. It didn't answer any of the questions in the Dillinger case, and I'm glad. They didn't give pseudo-psychological explanations for things that are inexplicable - like why Dillinger went bad. Why did Anne Jeffreys go for Dill in the first place, and why did she rat him out at the end? No answers here, just good fun, and thus the movie allowed you to come to your own conclusions (like Lawrence Tierney was damn sexy, but ultimately off his rocker, and he killed old people). I could watch it again and again. I probably shouldn't admit this, but I really loved the implied violence - imagining the horror of that waiter as the broken beer glass was shoved into him gave me perverse pleasure. Quite a shocker for 1945. I can see why it was so popular.

I liked BLUE better than the first time I saw it. WHITE and RED were also better, but none of them acted on my as viscerally as DILLINGER.

The violent, pulpy gangster biopic made me so happy I decided to go to bed right after it was over - in the afterglow, so to speak. How can you go wrong when the stars of the pic are Tierney, Marc Lawrence, Elisha Cook Jr, and Eduardo Cianelli? And they all get lots of screen time! I went to bed with a smile on my face.

JAXXXON!!! Your review - short and sweet and, yeah, uhmmm...visceral. Nice to read you.This made me chuckle. It must be so nice to be married to the nice guy you have, when you have these bad guys at your dvr's finger tips.

Lawrence Tierney. << SIgh! >> I guess I wouldn't have him any other way.

kingrat wrote:Monday has a couple of movies I missed at the festival, The Pawnbroker and The Italian Job (1969), so it's time to catch up with them.

Two great films. The Pawnbroker also has a nice soundtrack by Quincy Jones.

Hi, Jackie! Love, love, love your DILLINGER rapture/comments. When we first glimpse "Specs" resting on his prison bed, I was almost certain he was going to pull up a wheelchair from an offscreen corner of the cell, that's how profound the Lionel resemblance was to me, lol. Your description of Edmund's character and his personality as an actor is really spot-on, because, let's face it, nobody would put "charisma" and "Edmund Lowe" in the same sentence. This was a role where, consciously or not, he really exploited that lackluster aura -- a sadistic psycho underneath the soft-spoken, pipe-smoking facade. Actually more chilling and sinister than Larry!

Charisma and Edmund Lowe! Nope, I cannot come up with a sentence with those two polar opposites in it!

That being said, I love it when a director uses an actor's weaknesses to good effect. Like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix? where Neo is shown to be not very smart? There is something so great about feeling like you are in on the joke. I felt that Nosseck the director of Dillinger really zeroed in on something bland and old fashioned in Lowe's personality, highlighted it strongly and turned it into a stubborn, almost maniacal dislike of change that added a lot of menace to the character ...it made Lowe look better to me as an actor.

We can get a second chance to revel in the baaaaadness of Lawrence Tierney:



If you can, use your WATCH TCM app to re-visit the Tierney films TCM recently aired.

Wonderful comments. Great to see a visitor from The Bronx! I like DILLINGER a lot. Low budget? Low tech? Thank you! That intimacy makes the story that much more personal. Not that I'd want all movies to be that way. I admire John Milius' telling too. This is why we have different kinds of movies. There's room for everything!

I like the spider scene. Or is it some other kind of bug? The man is so stir crazy, a bug crawling on the wall looks intriguing, even threatening. Great scene! Lawrence Tierney, sexy? I guess you have to be a woman to get that one!

The Carol Reed film described by King Rat sounds fantastic. Good director, great cast, appealing story. I'd love to see it.

Well Masha,

Don't worry - I also didn't know it was gay pride month - in fact, after "June is Busting Out All Over", which I just heard yesterday on the radio, the whole month is gone tomorrow; so let's just smile and look intelligent and pretend we're 'with it'......

Larry

JackFavell wrote:Charisma and Edmund Lowe! Nope, I cannot come up with a sentence with those two polar opposites in it!

That being said, I love it when a director uses an actor's weaknesses to good effect. Like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix? where Neo is shown to be not very smart? There is something so great about feeling like you are in on the joke. I felt that Nosseck the director of Dillinger really zeroed in on something bland and old fashioned in Lowe's personality, highlighted it strongly and turned it into a stubborn, almost maniacal dislike of change that added a lot of menace to the character ...it made Lowe look better to me as an actor.

SPOILER ALERT!


I feel this way about the casting of George Brent in THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE. (although he already looked better to me as an actor when I first saw JEZEBEL)

I've never seen THE MATRIX. I get queasy in the company of Keanu Reeves.

Anyone see BAIT? Oh, my gosh, lol. I did, and then checked it out at imdb. Their mini-bio states that Hugo Haas was regarded as a "foreign Ed Wood". Exactly my impression while watching this turkey, a low-budget, drab, poorly acted (John Agar and Cleo Moore, oy!) cross between von Stroheim's GREED and THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. The most puzzling aspect of this so-called production was Cedric Hardwicke doing an hilarious prologue in the manner of Bela Lugosi from GLEN OR GLENDA.

Anyone see BAIT?

Yes. Why do you ask?

RedRiver wrote:Wonderful comments. Great to see a visitor from The Bronx! I like DILLINGER a lot. Low budget? Low tech? Thank you! That intimacy makes the story that much more personal. Not that I'd want all movies to be that way. I admire John Milius' telling too. This is why we have different kinds of movies. There's room for everything!

I like the spider scene. Or is it some other kind of bug? The man is so stir crazy, a bug crawling on the wall looks intriguing, even threatening. Great scene! Lawrence Tierney, sexy? I guess you have to be a woman to get that one!

The Carol Reed film described by King Rat sounds fantastic. Good director, great cast, appealing story. I'd love to see it.

Hi, Mike! Thank you! Oh gosh, I'm not remembering a spider scene in DILLINGER -- probably too busy ogling Lawrence Tierney, lol.

I recorded A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS and will watch it soon. Kingrat's comments on the film really whetted my appetite.

ChiO wrote:

Anyone see BAIT?

Yes. Why do you ask?