I Just Watched...

[CinemaInternational]

also noteworthy:

in her review of CABARET from 1001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES, PAULINE KAEL refers to the songs as "metallic"- it's not in a disparaging way, but I'm not entirely sure it's a completely apt adjective.

of course, in the same review, she also refers to JOEL GREY as "THE DEVIL DOLL EMCEE" which goes to show- when PAULINE hits the nail on the head, she drives it clear into the wood.

You know, I have several of her books of full-length reviews. Maybe I should share them sometimes.....

[CinemaInternational]

Anyway, i saw a noir earlier today from 1951 called The Scarf. It reunited two of the supporting players (John Ireland and Mercedes McCambide) of All the King's Men in a psychological study of a man, convicted of his wife's murder, (Ireland) who escapes from a mental asylum and tries to piece together what happened while suffering from some mental hangups, leaving the question of if he did or not quite mysterious. MacCambride plays a woman he meets who helps him to find the truth. It's an unusual introspective little film, but the two leads work brilliantly together, which helps make this into a pretty good film.

[Lorna]

also noteworthy:

in her review of CABARET from 1001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES, PAULINE KAEL refers to the songs as "metallic"- it's not in a disparaging way, but I'm not entirely sure it's a completely apt adjective.

of course, in the same review, she also refers to JOEL GREY as "THE DEVIL DOLL EMCEE" which goes to show- when PAULINE hits the nail on the head, she drives it clear into the wood.

You know, I have several of her books of full-length reviews. Maybe I should share them sometimes.....

I apologize if this is too much information, but…

I kePT my copy of 1001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES in the bathroom.

It’s pretty much where I read the entire thing. And re-read it. In fact, it split in two along the spine and I lost all the reviews from “S” on.

Probably should order a new copy or maybe another one of her books.

[jamesjazzguitar]

Anyway, i saw a noir earlier today from 1951 called The Scarf. It reunited two of the supporting players (John Ireland and Mercedes McCambide) of All the King's Men in a psychological study of a man, convicted of his wife's murder, (Ireland) who escapes from a mental asylum and tries to piece together what happened while suffering from some mental hangups, leaving the question of if he did or not quite mysterious. MacCambride plays a woman he meets who helps him to find the truth. It's an unusual introspective little film, but the two leads work brilliantly together, which helps make this into a pretty good film.

This about The Scarf from film critic Manny Farber:

Producer-directors Ewald André Dupont and Isadore Goldsmith glamorize a singing waitress, a turkey-raising hermit, a jaundiced metaphysical barkeep, and a morose amnesiac fugitive from a desert asylum...Dupont and Goldsmith turn their tinny proletarians into sententious talkers, dubbing them with names like “Level Louie” and “Cash-and-carry Connie" and having them oscillate their eyeballs in a sophisticated version of Griffith’s pantomime. It sounds awful but it’s kind of interesting.

[CinemaInternational]

also noteworthy:

in her review of CABARET from 1001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES, PAULINE KAEL refers to the songs as "metallic"- it's not in a disparaging way, but I'm not entirely sure it's a completely apt adjective.

of course, in the same review, she also refers to JOEL GREY as "THE DEVIL DOLL EMCEE" which goes to show- when PAULINE hits the nail on the head, she drives it clear into the wood.

You know, I have several of her books of full-length reviews. Maybe I should share them sometimes.....

I apologize if this is too much information, but…

I kePT my copy of 1001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES in the bathroom.

It’s pretty much where I read the entire thing. And re-read it. In fact, it split in two along the spine and I lost all the reviews from “S” on.

Probably should order a new copy or maybe another one of her books.

I'm giving you a link to an account on Letterboxd. Someone (not me) has been typing in Pauline's old full-length reviews of films from the 60s to the very early 1990s. 391 such reviews are up. Certainly, there are many more that are missing, but this is a start. Several more reviews seem to be added every week.

https://letterboxd.com/notpaulinekael/films/diary/

[Swithin]

You know, I have several of her books of full-length reviews. Maybe I should share them sometimes.....

I'm giving you a link to an account on Letterboxd. Someone (not me) has been typing in Pauline's old full-length reviews of films from the 60s to the very early 1990s. 391 such reviews are up. Certainly, there are many more that are missing, but this is a start. Several more reviews seem to be added every week.

https://letterboxd.com/notpaulinekael/films/diary/

Thanks for the link. I just read her review of The Sheltering Sky, a film about which I have fond memories but which I haven't seen in 30 years. Her review of the film is certainly OTT, but I enjoyed reading it. Now I want to see the film again. I look for gay subtexts all over the place, but I'm not sure I spotted it in The Sheltering Sky. The idea of Port Moresby as a repressed homosexual who is sort of channeled by his wife Kit after his death, and in having sex with the Tuareg fulfills Port's gay fantasy, is interesting. Not to mention the fact that Kael seems to think that the Moresbys reflect Paul Bowles's own fantasy.


Debra Winger with the Tuareg

[Lorna]

also noteworthy:

in her review of CABARET from 1001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES, PAULINE KAEL refers to the songs as "metallic"- it's not in a disparaging way, but I'm not entirely sure it's a completely apt adjective.

of course, in the same review, she also refers to JOEL GREY as "THE DEVIL DOLL EMCEE" which goes to show- when PAULINE hits the nail on the head, she drives it clear into the wood.

You know, I have several of her books of full-length reviews. Maybe I should share them sometimes.....

Just a correction, it’s actually 5001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES, not 1001. (My bad)

(Boy, I bet Pauline would be just thrilled with me – I admit to keeping her book in the toilet, desecrating it, and then I get the title wrong to boot.)

[Hibi]

Anyway, i saw a noir earlier today from 1951 called The Scarf. It reunited two of the supporting players (John Ireland and Mercedes McCambide) of All the King's Men in a psychological study of a man, convicted of his wife's murder, (Ireland) who escapes from a mental asylum and tries to piece together what happened while suffering from some mental hangups, leaving the question of if he did or not quite mysterious. MacCambride plays a woman he meets who helps him to find the truth. It's an unusual introspective little film, but the two leads work brilliantly together, which helps make this into a pretty good film.

Wasn't this on Noir Alley awhile ago? I think so.

[Lorna]

I also checked out FIVE STAR FINAL (1931) on THAT CERTAIN CABLE NETWORK, it shows up every OSCAR TRIBUTE SEASON because it was nominated for BEST PICTURE and NUTHIN' ELSE, nonetheless, it is one of my favorite Precodes and an astounding example of the LEAPS AND BOUNDS that had been made in SOUND RECORDING and SOUND EFFECTS and DIALOGUE and ACTING and BLOCKING in the brief time since TALKING PICTURES changed the game just two(ish) years before- they even work in a couple of swear words that are masked by doors slamming or glass breaking.



(AS A GENERAL RULE: any film that starts with A SHOT OF AN ELABORATE NETWORK OF WIRES feeding into a room of young female operators answering giddily into CANDLESTICK RECEIVERS is in all likelihood one that I am going to LOVE.)

There was one actress playing a TELEPHONE OPERATOR who was A DAMN HOOT- she came off like BETTE DAVIS'S KID SISTER WHO FELL DOWN A WELL AT AN EARLY AGE- and she does a lot to lighten the mood when it gets heavy. i tried to find a pic, but alas could not.

I love this movie, I love EDWARD G ROBINSON who should have been nominated for BEST ACTOR and I love ALINE MACMAHON and BORIS KARLOFF-who is more GHOULISH in this as an unethical newspaper reporter than in many of his later movies where he played literal ghouls.

the only false note is the performance of the woman playing the MURDERESS who is EXPOSED BY THE NEWSPAPER- she's playing to the back rows, but in a film this early, that's to be expected.

the film's central story of EXPLOITING PEOPLE FOR NEWS is truer than ever, even if the trappings are a little faded and worn.

[kingrat]

Since we were talking about Wings Hauser, of all people, I remember when he replaced James Houghton as Greg Foster on The Young & the Restless. Now James Houghton was a very handsome young man, but as a Yale-educated lawyer somewhat less than convincing. Let's just say that Wings Hauser was even less convincing.

[Detective Jim McLeod]

The Mad Bomber (1973) Youtube-5/10

A man with a grudge against society plants bombs and terrorizes the city.

This was later retitled The Police Connection. It's not very good but there are three great former TV stars in the main roles. Chuck Connors (The Rifleman) plays the title role. Vince Edwards (Ben Casey) is the Dirty Harry type cop on his trail. Neville Brand ( The Untouchables) has one of his sleaziest parts as a rapist who can identify the bomber.

It was directed by Bert I. Gordon, famous for 1950s and 1960s exploitation films like The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) and Village Of The Giants (1965). The version I saw on Youtube was an edited for TV one, I heard the uncut print has some graphic rape scenes with full nudity and gore.

What I liked best was the scenes where Connors, who has a big chip on his shoulders, gets into some angry and hilarious encounters with people he comes in contact with. When a driver honks his horn at him, Connors grabs the keys out of the ignition and tosses them in a mailbox! He also berates a waitress for not looking him in the eye while taking his order. Below is the opening scene which gives you an idea of his character.

[Hibi]

Since we were talking about Wings Hauser, of all people, I remember when he replaced James Houghton as Greg Foster on The Young & the Restless. Now James Houghton was a very handsome young man, but as a Yale-educated lawyer somewhat less than convincing. Let's just say that Wings Hauser was even less convincing.

Didn't Houghton become a writer on the show? I wasn't happy with the replacement. The other brother too. (Snapper?) I liked the original better. I watched that show for awhile in the 70s. He seemed to make a good living on Murder, She Wrote later on. Seemingly on almost every season (up there with RIchard Beymer). How can you have any respect for someone named Wings??? LOL!

[CinemaInternational]

The Rose Garden (1989)

Sometimes, one comes across a film with good intentions that also, unfortunately, is not the best put-together. One wishes to grant it some leeway, or simply to like it, because its heart is in the right place, but at the same time, as in this film's case, the pacing is sluggish and the film itself is visually undistinguished, almost like a TV movie. There are still good things here, but if it had been done with more finesse, it could have been something more. The film stars Liv Ullmann as a female attorney, estranged from her husband (Peter Fonda, weirdly cast with a German accent), who witnesses a brutal physical paroxism. She soon learns that the man who launched the attack was a Holocaust survivor (Maximillian Schell), and that the one he attacked was a Nazi high commandant who had killed hundreds of children by bacterological means.... And one of those victims was Schell's sister. Ullmann then agrees to represent Schell in court, and I think that anyone can guess what happens in the end given that it takes place in Germany, where they still want to shrink from their guilt.... Ullmann gives a marvelous performance that is the main reason to take a look at this, but this could have been a much more impactful film had the film been put together with more flair.

[CinemaInternational]

Since we were talking about Wings Hauser, of all people, I remember when he replaced James Houghton as Greg Foster on The Young & the Restless. Now James Houghton was a very handsome young man, but as a Yale-educated lawyer somewhat less than convincing. Let's just say that Wings Hauser was even less convincing.

Didn't Houghton become a writer on the show? I wasn't happy with the replacement. The other brother too. (Snapper?) I liked the original better. I watched that show for awhile in the 70s. He seemed to make a good living on Murder, She Wrote later on. Seemingly on almost every season (up there with RIchard Beymer). How can you have any respect for someone named Wings??? LOL!

Houghton did indeed later serve as a writer on Young and the Restless and Bold and the Beautiful. He had also been on the first four seasons of Knots Landing, but his character there was one of the show's most nondescript characters (albeit an integral part of the show's original four couples conceit).

As for Wings Hauser, in addition to Murder, She Wrote, I remember him chewing up scenery in the nutty noir Tough Guys Don't Die, where he got done in in the end by his character's wife, played by Isabella Rossellini. (Rossellini sure knew how to pick them in the movie....her ex-boyfriend was Ryan O'Neal and her character slept offscreen with Penn Gillette)

[Hibi]

The Rose Garden (1989)

Sometimes, one comes across a film with good intentions that also, unfortunately, is not the best put-together. One wishes to grant it some leeway, or simply to like it, because its heart is in the right place, but at the same time, as in this film's case, the pacing is sluggish and the film itself is visually undistinguished, almost like a TV movie. There are still good things here, but if it had been done with more finesse, it could have been something more. The film stars Liv Ullmann as a female attorney, estranged from her husband (Peter Fonda, weirdly cast with a German accent), who witnesses a brutal physical paroxism. She soon learns that the man who launched the attack was a Holocaust survivor (Maximillian Schell), and that the one he attacked was a Nazi high commandant who had killed hundreds of children by bacterological means.... And one of those victims was Schell's sister. Ullmann then agrees to represent Schell in court, and I think that anyone can guess what happens in the end.... Ullmann gives a marvelous performance that is the main reason to take a look at this, but this could have been a much more impactful film had the film been put together with more flair.

I've never heard of this film.