WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[JackFavell]

I really love IT HAPPENED TOMORROW fer. I think it has just the right balance of comedy and charm, and I love the way Powell and Darnell work in this little sleeper of a movie. It's quite wonderful, I think. Surprising it isn't better known, but then maybe not, since whimsical period pieces are not to everyone's taste. lately I have been really going for unpretentious films like this one more than the ones touted as being great.

[feaito]

I really love IT HAPPENED TOMORROW fer. I think it has just the right balance of comedy and charm, and I love the way Powell and Darnell work in this little sleeper of a movie. It's quite wonderful, I think. Surprising it isn't better known, but then maybe not, since whimsical period pieces are not to everyone's taste. lately I have been really going for unpretentious films like this one more than the ones touted as being great.

100% Agreed; I'm that same mood too

[charliechaplinfan]

I'm half way through watching The Prince and The Showgirl, I felt compelled to watch it after watching My Week With Marilyn. My first impressions are that Laurence Olivier was far more presentable than the way Kenneth Branagh played him, he's quite smart and attractive something I didn't think Branagh pinned down. The contrast between Marilyn and Larry is that of very theatrical and cinematic perfection but I guess it was meant to be that way. I couldn't imagine Vivien playing the role at this point in her life but I could imagine her being excellent on stage, Marilyn is good casting. I can't wait to watch them remainder.

I watched The Help last night, I really liked it because I'm a huge fan of the book but I found the story truncated, I should imagine someone watching with no knowledge of the book would find it disjointed. The story of the maid Minnie and her employer Celia is really condensed as is Elizabeth's role and Miss Hilly is far worse in the book. It does show a woman's world that I wouldn't really have known about and positions it at a crucial point in the civil rights movement. The book took me no time at all to read, that would be my recommendation, then watch the movie, if you can.

[RedRiver]

I simply couldn't sit through THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL. Maybe that's why I'm not motivated to see the new film. It's not a bad movie. It's just cold. It didn't excite me. THE HELP is pretty good, but it's too long. Most of the story is interesting. But enough already. Let it go! Comparisons to DRIVING MISS DAISY are inevitable. The older movie is better.

[charliechaplinfan]

I've never seen Driving Miss Daisy, the book of The Help was brilliant but undoubtedly written for women.



I finished watching The Prince and the Showgirl, I saw this a long time ago but my memory of the movie is hazy, it wasn't at all as I remembered it, it was far wittier and I enjoyed all the characters. I'd forgotten just how much I liked Laurence Olivier and how good he is in theatrical pieces, I'd forgotten how much I liked watching him. I've no idea if the showgirl was originally American, having been played by Vivien I'm presuming the nationality was changed for American but there is a delightful line about no one being able to arrest her when she over hears a plot because she's American. If you didn't know it was a fraught set you'd never have guessed. Marilyn is delightful and in this role given a chance to show her full comedic talents, she handles the light comedy so well, after watching One Week With Marilyn it would seem that Larry didn't need to alter his off screen persona to play the regent. Of course it is delightfully silly in places, when she sits on the stairs at the palace ball, when she softens the regent to the extent that he's kissing his son.

My favourite moment was after Elsie has been waving to her friends from the parade, like a child and suddenly he softens and gives her just a hint of a smile.


I enjoyed the movie because of the drawing room comedy of Terence Rattigan, the fun being had with the carpathians and diplomats in general but mainly because of the persona of the two stars, there ways, different, their impact, considerable. I understand why Sir Laurence would have felt that he had all the technique and knowledge yet he couldn't deliver what Marilyn achieved but his character wasn't meant to, I was as quite enraptured with the regent as Elsie was.

My Week With Marilyn was an enjoyable film but I felt it was for movie lovers, the leads were played admirably but they just don't have the same something that the originals do

[JackFavell]

I actually had the opposite feeling, Alison, that My Week with Marilyn was NOT for movie lovers, instead for a mass public who wants to see Marilyn 'the way it really was' whatever that means, even if it means it's not Marilyn herself, but a stand in. I got the impression that except for the obsession with Marilyn, the filmmakers had no idea of what any of the stars were really like, just used the book as a jumping off place to adore the IMAGE of Marilyn, which the book succeeds at building up even more.

[charliechaplinfan]

My feeling was that you would need some knowledge of the people and the background itself. It's so true though that many of those fans would be Marilyn only fans, the other people weren't represented properly, even though names like, Olivier, Leigh and Miller were huge in their own fields, I think at least Branagh tried with Olivier to get him right. I just felt that a viewer who came to it with no knowledge would be even more clueless afterwards. It does build on the Marilyn legend but ultimately I didn't think it showed her in a good light. I've read what Arthur Miller said about Marilyn inTimebends, he was taken very much out of context in the film, sure he felt that later but this was early married life.

Then when I watch The Prince and the Showgirl I can't believe that Marilyn was anything but innocent and somewhat childlike in her personality. There's one thing, the real film is far better than the pretend.

[JackFavell]

Oh yes, of course you are right, Alison, I see now what you were saying. Yes, I had a hard time watching the recreations of the Prince and the Showgirl scenes in the newer movie, they just seemed lifeless and posed compared to the actual MM/Olivier version.

[feaito]

"The Prince and the Showgirl" (1957) has always been a personal favorite ever since I watched it when I was 12 years old? All the performances are memorable, and dear Martita Hunt is a hoot!

[feaito]

And besides, Marilyn radiates a special serene beauty in this particular film.

[feaito]

Over this weekend I have watched:

"Fantasia" (1940), perhaps a long feature and all the sequences not equally awesome for some, but for me it's flawless due to all the work, craftsmanship, effort and love put into this project. I never cease to be amazed when watching it and the Blu Ray edition is perfect. Arguably Disney's finest and most unique film. A visual delight and a one-of-a-kind experience.

The first episode of the series "The Buccaneers" (1995) based upon Edith Wharton's unfinished novel of Nouveau Riche Americans hunting husbands in Old England; they have looks and money; the British men have pedigree, castles and connections. Entertaining so far and the leading actresses are very beautiful to look at.

[Rita Hayworth]

Over this weekend I have watched:

"Fantasia" (1940), perhaps a long feature and all the sequences not equally awesome for some, but for me it's flawless due to all the work, craftsmanship, effort and love put into this project. I never cease to be amazed when watching it and the Blu Ray edition is perfect. Arguably Disney's finest and most unique film. A visual delight and a one-of-a-kind experience.

This is my favorite Disney Animated Movie of ALL time ... feaito!

[charliechaplinfan]

My Dad loves Fantasia, I remember being dissappointed as a youngster, well I think I was expecting some kind of fairy tale but I certainly appreciate it now.

Wendy, the comparison of the scenes in the later film has no bearing on the actual movie, that's true. My Week With Marilyn was quite star studded but it just reminds me about how much I like classic movies in comparison to modern ones.

This morning I watched Black Widow made in 1954 with Ginger Rogers who looks absolutely fantastic, Van Heflin a perfromance here I enjoyed, he doesn't always strike me this way, Gene Tierney what a serene beauty she has and George Raft looking better in Cinemascope than in black and white, perhaps it's that olive complexion and silverly hair but he looked good. Peggy Ann Garner is the victim in this murder mystery and Reginald Gardiner is Ginger's husband. Unbelievably, Van Heflin plays an incredibly niave Broadway producer who takes a girl out to lunch whilst his wife, Gene Tierney is away and then lets he ruse his apartment for writing her plays, when she's found dead just as his wife returns home from her mothers he seems the only plausible suspect. Ginger Rogers is a Broadway star employed by Heflin who also lives in the same apartment block, George Raft plays the cop who's sent to invesigate. There's enough about the plot to keep guessing at in the whodunnit the pleasure also comes from the beautiful colours, Ginger and Gene's stunning wardrobes and looks and watching the raft of stars (sorry no pun intended ) in this technicolour extravaganza.

[RedRiver]

BLACK WIDOW has been the target of some crticism on some message boards, but I don't have a problem with it. Is it one of the great mystery films? Of course not. Sidney Greenstreet's not in it! It's not based on a story by Cornell Woolrich. But it's entertaining, colorful and glamorous. I had a good time watching it.

[feaito]

This morning I watched Black Widow made in 1954 with Ginger Rogers who looks absolutely fantastic, Van Heflin a perfromance here I enjoyed, he doesn't always strike me this way, Gene Tierney what a serene beauty she has and George Raft looking better in Cinemascope than in black and white, perhaps it's that olive complexion and silverly hair but he looked good. Peggy Ann Garner is the victim in this murder mystery and Reginald Gardiner is Ginger's husband. Unbelievably, Van Heflin plays an incredibly niave Broadway producer who takes a girl out to lunch whilst his wife, Gene Tierney is away and then lets he ruse his apartment for writing her plays, when she's found dead just as his wife returns home from her mothers he seems the only plausible suspect. Ginger Rogers is a Broadway star employed by Heflin who also lives in the same apartment block, George Raft plays the cop who's sent to invesigate. There's enough about the plot to keep guessing at in the whodunnit the pleasure also comes from the beautiful colours, Ginger and Gene's stunning wardrobes and looks and watching the raft of stars (sorry no pun intended ) in this technicolour extravaganza.

Dear Ali,

I saw "Black Widow" last year and I liked it very much, though I found George Raft miscast; here's what I wrote:

Last night I watched the interesting Nunnally Johnson directed drama “Black Widow” (1954).

Van Heflin stars as a Peter Denver, a Broadway producer married to a famed Broadway actress (played by Gene Tierney) and who’s producing a play starring another Broadway star Lottie Marin (Ginger Rogers playing a true bitchy character) who’s married to Brian Mullen (Reginald Gardiner; very good in the role of the “worthless” husband…in fact he’s called by everyone Mr. “Marin”..). The Denvers and the Mullens live in the same building in almost identical apartments and their relationship is a bit “strained” to say the least, especially between Peter & Lottie.

Enter a young and hopeful writer –Nanny Ordway- played by a grown-up Peggy Ann Garner (of “Jane Eyre” (1943) and “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” (1945) fame) who’s very good playing this duplicitous character who turns Denver’s world upside down with her scheming. I won’t give away more about the plot.

The film is a Crime Drama with Noir aspects, but the wonderful color by De Luxe, detracts from a more Noirish “atmosphere”. The film is glossy, beautifully shot in widescreen and the print I saw is full of vibrant colors which do not really suit the storyline. There are some wonderful shots of the city of New York. I think that the film would have been better served if shot in B&W and with a different, more dramatic score. It’s too glossy and good looking IMO.

Van Heflin is very good as Peter Denver; Gene Tierney has little to do but look beautiful; Reginald Gardiner gives an interesting performance and Ginger Rogers…well I am confused here….she gives a strong performance, but I felt that she was miscast and overplaying sometimes…whereas on others I felt she was giving a superb performance. I’d like to hear what others have to say about this.

Peggy Ann Garner surprised me with her complex portrayal of an apparently confused youth who has everything quite clear, it turns out…her hairstyle isn’y very becoming to her beautiful features and she looks older than her actual age.

George Raft plays a police detective and is also miscast in my opinion. Otto Kruger is very good as Nanny’s uncle, who plays an actor featured in Lottie’s running play. Cathleen Nesbitt plays the Denvers’ maid. Hilda Simms, has a short scene with Van Heflin and gives a super cool performance as a waitress who knows Nanny and “enlightens” Denver about her whereabouts….she was a beautiful black actress, with great experience on stage and thank heavens she’s given a non-stereotypical role; It would been great if she had been featured in more important roles in other films, because she definitely had talent and screen presence. A young Aaron Spelling plays a small role which is pivotal to Peter Denver (Van Heflin).

In all a worthwhile picture.