I Just Watched...

[Allhallowsday]

THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944) Ollie is a jerk. After the first and LEOPARD MAN in recent days, this one pales. Still love it.

[Fedya]

Fedya, I always thought Sleepy Hollow was part of upstate New York, the Adirondack region.

Nope. It's in Westchester.

I recently watched The Famous Ferguson Case, a Joan Blondell pre-Code about the yellow press. It's a programmer, so not as good as Five Star Final or The Front Page, but pretty good in its own right. Anyhow, the movie is set in Cornwall, NY. There is a Cornwall(-on-Hudson) down in Orange County, but the movie makes a comment about a character being surprised something is available north of Albany.

And I thought I posted this yesterday evening, but it's not showing up.

[Allhallowsday]

..."Empty Tin" also had Warren Stevens, who was apparently born to play untrustworthy guys in business suits.

"I couldn't agree more...!"

[Grumpytoad]

Have had a good run watching French movies lately. Best so far was:

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo play the leads involved in a bittersweet romance.

It is such a unique movie. I can't decide if the lush colours of the film is the best part, or if it's the luxurious music score.

Also special is that everyone in the movie sings their lines-no exceptions. At first I found this off-putting and distracting. Admit I never warmed up to the concept. But eventually got used to it.

By having to sing every word, all the actors had to rely solely on body language to convey their characters emotions.

Strikes me as a crazy hard thing to do, so admire the overall quality that the cast achieved with it.

Deneuve and Castelnuovo were excellent at it. Anne Vernon, who played Deneuve's mother in the movie, came close to equalling the two leads effort.

After viewing, came across a nice little video from the Criterion Collection explaining the films restoration-worth seeking out.

[TikiSoo]

Anyhow, the movie is set in Cornwall, NY. There is a Cornwall(-on-Hudson) down in Orange County, but the movie makes a comment about a character being surprised something is available north of Albany.

It's kind of similar to "Bedford Falls" in It's A Wonderful Life. There's a Bedford NY in the Hudson Valley and Seneca Falls upstate. Seneca Falls is where the inspiration for the story took place.

Last night our movie group screened Dinner at Eight '33. All of us have seen it, but 99% of our audience had never seen it before!
Our president's intro included stories of Cukor's hesitancy in directing John Barrymore playing a drunken has-been & Barrymore's professionalism and creativity that brought the charactor life. You could have heard a pin drop in the room during his dramatic climactic scene.

I do think the downbeat ending and no dinner took our audience by surprise as there was only a smattering of applause at The End. I know the first time I saw it was surprised it ended kind of abruptly. But everyone laughed in all the right places, "...my skin's too delicate to expose" and Carlotta's "nasty" dog. And of course, the wholly satisfying last line brought an outburst-


Apparently, Harlow & Dressler got along very well and Jean apparently learned much from observing her elder, experienced companion. If anyone ever says Harlow can't act, just listen to her delivery of her last line-just as memorable as Dressler's, I'd say.

[Detective Jim McLeod]

Bonnie Scotland (1935) TCM-6/10

Laurel & Hardy go to Scotland to claim an inheritance, they end up in the army.

I finally saw this one, I have now seen every L&H film, except for the two which are lost - Hats Off (1927) and Rogue Song (1930). This was a significant film in the team's career, they switched exclusively to feature length films starting with this one. They had done a few others in the past but made mostly shorts. This one had a romantic subplot but the team had several very funny bits. James Finlayson plays a short tempered sergeant major, he was a real Scotsman so this gave him a chance to play one on screen for a change.

[Allhallowsday]

...
Last night our movie group screened Dinner at Eight '33. All of us have seen it, but 99% of our audience had never seen it before!
Our president's intro included stories of Cukor's hesitancy in directing John Barrymore playing a drunken has-been & Barrymore's professionalism and creativity that brought the charactor life. You could have heard a pin drop in the room during his dramatic climactic scene.
...
Apparently, Harlow & Dressler got along very well and Jean apparently learned much from observing her elder, experienced companion. If anyone ever says Harlow can't act, just listen to her delivery of her last line-just as memorable as Dressler's, I'd say.

I love DINNER AT EIGHT! The performances are all wonderful (excepting possibly WALLACE BEERY who's nonetheless perfect as a blowhard. ) JOHN BARRYMORE is a god! Who knows how far JEAN HARLOW may have gone?


I just watched GOLDFINGER (1964) which is still great fun, stupidly implausible, and Bond does take a swipe at a then popular recording act called THE BEATLES.

[jamesjazzguitar]

...
I just watched GOLDFINGER (1964) which is still great fun, stupidly implausible, and Bond does take a swipe at a then popular recording act called THE BEATLES.

Funny, but last week, that Bond crack at The Beatles was a discussion topic at the Jazz Guitar Forum. My POV was that the screenwriters could have selected any popular rock act since the overall purpose of the crack was to show that Bond was from a prior generation: more Sinatra and cool swing, than rock and roll (in ways that go beyond just music).

[Allhallowsday]

...Funny, but last week, that Bond crack at The Beatles was a discussion topic at the Jazz Guitar Forum. My POV was that the screenwriters could have selected any popular rock act since the overall purpose of the crack was to show that Bond was from a prior generation: more Sinatra and cool swing, than rock and roll (in ways that go beyond just music).

Good point. It proves what the term "dated" means. It's worth pointing out that before the end of the decade that "then popular recording act" was embraced as superior songwriters, admired by all types of musicians, and covered by other recording artists... like FRANK SINATRA.

[Bronxgirl48]

DINNER AT EIGHT never gets old! Always have to watch when it's on. I am particularly fond of Billie Burke's "Crabmeat!"

[Bronxgirl48]

DINNER AT EIGHT never gets old! Always have to watch when it's on. I am particularly fond of Billie Burke's "Crabmeat!"

[Masha]

The First Nudie Musical (1976)

From IMDb.com:
"The son of famous studio owner is forced to make porno films to keep the bankrupt studio from being made into a shopping center. In an attempt to get back on the high ground he makes a nudie musical."

Watching this movie fulfills my annual minimum requirement of campy, low-budget, softcore-porn comedies.

Warning: this movie includes nudity! Male and female. Front, back, sideways and it would not surprise me if there was an upside-down shot which I missed.

This movie is truly funny if you come to it with no prejudice against public sex and you can attain a moderate suspension of disbelief. The jokes are broad and silly. Their primary virtue is that I did not foresee many of them. The set-ups for situational humour are smooth.

One of the leads is Cindy Williams just before she began working on some sitcom which increased her popularity. She does not disrobe but she is sufficiently comfortable around nudity that she has perfect aplomb while trading barbs with an actress who just walked out of a scene and it totally nikkid.

7.4/11

This movie is available for viewing for free with commercials on: TubiTV.

[TikiSoo]

Last night I began watching my September recordings. I started with a 66 minute "filler" Panama Lady '39. I only recorded it to see early Lucille Ball and Allan "Rocky" Lane, since I had lost my copy of them together in '39's Twelve Counted Hours


So glad! Maybe it was just my mood but I loved Panama Lady! It was a typical programmer about a dancing girl stuck in Panama who gets tangled up with Lane's shady/dangerous oil drilling operation-a remake of Panama Flo '32.

Lane is victim to pick pockets after boasting about his wealth and drinking so much he passes out. He blames Lucy and tells her she can pay him off by being his "housekeeper". He tells her he's hoping to find oil there and Lucy's retort, "I'm finding plenty of oil here!" is a glimpse of her comic genius to come.

Rocky Lane's voice is far too young to recognise HIS genius career as the voice of Mr Ed, but you can absolutely see (or hear) his talent of expression & delivery. He is equally broad and expressive in his face and body movement, and is a joy to watch.
Lane has similar looks to fellow cowboy but very bland Randolph Scott-why Scott became such a famous beloved actor, I'll never understand.


This movie was no great film-of-the-year but the lead talents elevated a so-so story to very enjoyable.

Hollywood would be better served ramping down trying to make every movie a "blockbuster" and go back to these cute, short double features that were cheaper to make & provided great training ground for talent. It worked far better than television shows, which is pretty much non existent at this point.

[HoldenIsHere]

DINNER AT EIGHT never gets old! Always have to watch when it's on. I am particularly fond of Billie Burke's "Crabmeat!"

I was really hoping DINNER AT EIGHT would be available on Watch TCM after it aired "live" this week, but it wasn't.

It's only Jean Harlow movie from Monday morning that didn't make it to Watch TCM!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!