I Just Watched...

[CinemaInternational]

I don't know how many people here have subscriptions to premium channels, but around here, to get TCM, you have to get the mid-grade cable package that includes HBO and Showtime. If there are any other Showtime subscribers here, I feel a need to perform a public service by stating that one film they just added, 1994's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, is staggeringly dreadful and should be avoided like the bubonic plague. First of all, it seems as though it was made as a response to Francis Ford Coppola's fevered, intense, and satisfying version of Dracula in 1992, and Coppola was back on board as a producer here, while this time Kenneth Branagh was the director. Branagh has made some very fine films over the years. This one definitely isn't one of them. Just to start, the title is way off. This is a freewheeling version of the Shelley tale, incorporating the grim fates of virtually every character that was in the book, but otherwise tearing it up and going with an uncomfortable melding of the James Whale films of the 30s with some Shelley elements spoiled by truly repulsive violence and the pacing of an arthritic snail. The camera might spin about a lot, the musical score is shrill in its incessant persistence, but this film is as dead as can be. It sags for just over two hours, and with the exception of one or two moments, it never comes alive. It tries to be florid, but it has no energy, no zip. The Oscar-nominated makeup is disgusting and repellent. Branagh is a cipher as the doctor, Robert De Niro can't shake his familiar mannerisms as the monster (and did the monster have to be stark naked for the first few minutes onscreen?), and what happens to Helena Bonham Carter in three different ways in quick succession late in the film might be the worst and most sadistic onscreen abuse of an A-list actress in a major studio film in the entire 20th century. The rest of the cast, which includes Tom Hulce, Ian Holm, Aidan Quinn, and John Cleese have nothing to do. This film has no scares, no wit, no pacing, no charisma, no reason for being. It is a cataclysm of gargantuan proportions.

[dianedebuda]

So I guess you didn't like the film, CI?

[CinemaInternational]

So I guess you didn't like the film, CI?

Definitely not. Very few films have ever been on my bad side so much as that one....

[dianedebuda]

Definitely not. Very few films have ever been on my bad side so much as that one....

Yeah, kinda got the impression that the only positive thing for you was maybe that the title was spelled correctly.

[HoldenIsHere]

It's possible that those of us who were once small boys have a particular fondness for A CHRISTMAS STORY. The mastery of tone in the film is exceptional. Ralphie learns a little bit about life, but nothing is underlined or italicized. The things you anticipate the most--the visit to Santa, the Little Orphan Annie decoder ring, even the Red Ryder B.B. gun--may not turn out the way you expect.

If anyone misses the message of the film, especially those who aren't drawn to it, let me make it clear: BE SURE TO DRINK MORE OVALTINE.

Indeed!

As Ralphie so aptly put it:
"A crummy commercial? Son of bi**h!"

[Swithin]

I don't know how many people here have subscriptions to premium channels, but around here, to get TCM, you have to get the mid-grade cable package that includes HBO and Showtime. If there are any other Showtime subscribers here, I feel a need to perform a public service by stating that one film they just added, 1994's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, is staggeringly dreadful and should be avoided like the bubonic plague. First of all, it seems as though it was made as a response to Francis Ford Coppola's fevered, intense, and satisfying version of Dracula in 1992, and Coppola was back on board as a producer here, while this time Kenneth Branagh was the director.

I did not see the Frankenstein you mention and will continue to avoid it. Nevertheless, I must disagree about Coppola's Dracula, which I found to be rather tedious, not to mention cheap-looking. I saw it at the Paris Theater, NYC, a year or so ago.

However, I highly recommend the National Theatre's production of Frankenstein, which is now on YouTube. The roles of the Monster and Dr. Frankenstein were alternated at each performance, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller. In this performance, the Monster is played by Cumberbatch. Try to watch the birth of the Monster at the top of the film. It's an amazing bit of stagecraft, though I've only seen it streamed. Directed by Danny Boyle.

https://www.schooltube.com/watch/offici ... hdbyk.html

[HoldenIsHere]

I don't know how many people here have subscriptions to premium channels, but around here, to get TCM, you have to get the mid-grade cable package that includes HBO and Showtime. If there are any other Showtime subscribers here, I feel a need to perform a public service by stating that one film they just added, 1994's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, is staggeringly dreadful and should be avoided like the bubonic plague. First of all, it seems as though it was made as a response to Francis Ford Coppola's fevered, intense, and satisfying version of Dracula in 1992, and Coppola was back on board as a producer here, while this time Kenneth Branagh was the director.

I did not see the Frankenstein you mention and will continue to avoid it. Nevertheless, I must disagree about Coppola's Dracula, which I found to be rather tedious, not to mention cheap-looking. I saw it at the Paris Theater, NYC, a year or so ago.

However, I highly recommend the National Theatre's production of Frankenstein, which is now on YouTube. The roles of the Monster and Dr. Frankenstein were alternated at each performance, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller. In this performance, the Monster is played by Cumberbatch. Try to watch the birth of the Monster at the top of the film. It's an amazing bit of stagecraft, though I've only seen it streamed. Directed by Danny Boyle.

https://www.schooltube.com/watch/offici ... hdbyk.html

The production of FRANKENSTEIN was one of the National Theatre Live events that was shown at Northwestern University as part of their Stage On Screen series.
I didn't attend that particular screening, but I have enjoyed a number of the National Theatre Live plays.

[Allhallowsday]

DECEPTION (1946) This was on Noir Alley at TCM and I watched it again because CLAUDE RAINS is the reason to watch. Lots of fun.

[Allhallowsday]

THE LEOPARD MAN (1943) on TCM this afternoon. Maybe my favorite of those 40s VAL LEWTON produced Horror films (this one directed by JACQUES TOURNEUR).

[Allhallowsday]

BLACULA (1972)

[Bronxgirl48]

THE LEOPARD MAN (1943) on TCM this afternoon. Maybe my favorite of those 40s VAL LEWTON produced Horror films (this one directed by JACQUES TOURNEUR).

Great set-pieces in THE LEOPARD MAN! My favorite Lewton varies -- This week it's I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE but it could change and become THE SEVENTH VICTIM, THE BODY SNATCHER, or THE LEOPARD MAN very shortly. I'm extremely fond of CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE because I'm always drawn to upstate New York and the Sleepy Hollow region, although Kent Smith, continuing his utter cluelessness from CAT PEOPLE, is one of the screen's worst fathers to sweet dreamy Amy Carter. "Yes, I see her too!" Took you long enough, Ollie.

[Allhallowsday]

...Great set-pieces in THE LEOPARD MAN! My favorite Lewton varies -- This week it's I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE but it could change and become THE SEVENTH VICTIM, THE BODY SNATCHER, or THE LEOPARD MAN very shortly. I'm extremely fond of CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE because I'm always drawn to upstate New York and the Sleepy Hollow region, although Kent Smith, continuing his utter cluelessness from CAT PEOPLE, is one of the screen's worst fathers to sweet dreamy Amy Carter. "Yes, I see her too!" Took you long enough, Ollie.

I agree about KENT SMITH in CURSE, but he works perfectly for me, clueless as he typically is. I also have a particular fondness for CURSE too, but I also love THE SEVENTH VICTIM...

[Bronxgirl48]

I always find the so-called "good" people in these Lewton films very noir-ishly flawed, so that what initially appears to be an apparent simplistic black-or-white clash between light and darkness shows us the gray areas of our human soul that identifies more than it wants to with its "evil" counterparts. Kent, Jane Randolph in CAT PEOPLE (both are very cruel to Simone in their own passive-aggressive ways) and also in CURSE, although there less so with Jane but ten times more with the clueless Kent (yeah, Smith's "All-American" self does work -- "I've never been unhappy before"); Henry Daniell's arrogance and selfishness in THE BODY SNATCHER; Phyliss Brooks and Dennis O'Keefe obsessed with their own careers in THE LEOPARD MAN; Anna Lee's (initial) diffidence to the mentally ill patients in BEDLAM;
(although I would have to dig deeper with Marc Cramer and Ellen Drew in ISLE OF THE DEAD, also Kim Hunter in THE SEVENTH VICTIM and Russell Wade in GHOST SHIP -- these goodniks on the surface don't seem to have any hidden disturbances)

[jamesjazzguitar]

The Perry Mason episode we watched today, THE CASE OF THE DEADLY DOUBLE, starred Constance Ford as a "two faces of Eve" character. Her alter ego was a sexy minx, if you can believe it! If you've never seen Connie all glammed up, you have to see this episode. She looked remarkably good. No wonder her gangster lover, none other than Murray Hamilton, was so crazy about her.

Saw Constance Ford on Gunsmoke yesterday on the episode Wagon Girls. She played the slightly older woman lead of the 20 something gals traveling with a creepy and greedy wagon master. Ford's character falls for Matt Dillon big time, and is very open about it. I always find how Ford plays her characters interesting. She plays the been around the block, tough, but vulnerable gal, to a T.