WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[JackFavell]

Oh, and Birdy, I cried at Hannah Montana too. Don't feel bad.

[MissGoddess]

I just finished CAGED with Eleanor Parker. The last thing on my mind movie-wise
was a women's prison flick but I've heard so much about this one for years.

Anyway, it was excellent. John Cromwell directed and I don't think I have yet to see a
single movie of his I didn't like. I can't even say that about my favorite directors.

Eleanor Parker should have won the Oscar (did she?) for that performance. Man, I would
not have believed she had it in her to show so much range in a single film. She goes from
a (totally believablej) naive, frightened witless 19 year-old incarcerated for getting mixed up
in her husband's armed robbery attempt where he got shot. The money taken was returned
and was only $40 and change and they told her had it been $5 less she wouldn't even have
been charged for a felony. This is just in the first ten minutes and I was about as scared
by then as Eleanor.

By the end of the film she's put through the wringer but I never felt the movie was exploitative,
which I sometimes felt about a couple of pre-codes I've seen on the same subject. They
seemed to want to make a point about reforms and I warn anyone who sees it that there's
no Hollywood ending. I was impressed.

Hope Emerson is "dream" casting as the warden, Harper (Harpie?) and boy does she
fill those shoes like she was born to it, poor thing! lol! I still can't get over her name....

Lee Patrick, Agnes Moorehead, Ellen Corby and Jan Sterling co-star. It's pretty
uncompromising for a 1950 movie and I recommend it if you're in the mood for that
sort of thing.

[Birdy]

I did get to see UP last night and really enjoyed it. I should have insisted on that spoiler though, I had a bad feeling. I had guessed the general premise but couldn't predict a detail that really mattered to me. The 3D effects were fabulous, although the colors were darkened by the glasses, but we all had a great time, stuffed ourselves with popcorn and candy and I don't think I looked too racoonish when I left the theater. It was one of my favorite plots, that sometimes we find friends even when we don't want them!
B

[charliechaplinfan]

I've watched a few films over the last couple of days.

I Was A Male War Bride, I commented on this on the thread that had been started. I knew about the cross dressing but I hadn't realised the rest of it would be so funny, I'd never really had Ann Sheridan pegged as a comedienne but she was perfect foil for Cary. As for Cary, he's great at being outraged at petty beauracracy and at undignified situations. I was laughing form the minute he got into the side car.

Then I watched another war film Fires on the Plain, this was serious stuff, quite gruesome, involving cannibalism and the desperation of hunger,but as a film it's intention I thougt was to bring home the futility of the Japanese fighting when they were plainly getting beaten. The hero was a TB sufferer, who looked like the living dead, in fact he starved himself to get in shape for the part but he'd done it too well and ended up shutting down the shooting for 2 weeks. This has to go down as a great war film.

then I needed an uplift so today I watched Tale of Manhattan, it has a star studded cast including, Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers (with a strange hairstyle) Henry Fonda (their section was my favorite but only once Henry Fonda came into the scene) Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, Edward G Robinson, WC Fields and many more. The whole tale revolves around a dinner jacket and the film is split into 6 seperate stories, it was very enjoyable.

Thanks for the recommendations

[srowley75]

I just finished CAGED with Eleanor Parker. The last thing on my mind movie-wise
was a women's prison flick but I've heard so much about this one for years.
Anyway, it was excellent.

Hi MG,

Perhaps this isn't really much of a compliment, but of all the WIP (women in prison) films that have been made, Caged is probably the most respectable of the bunch. It's being kind to say that the genre (if it qualifies as one) is quite formulaic, and though Caged even trots out many of those conventions (e.g., the ingenue prisoner confined for an inconsequential or accidental offense, the coldhearted and sadomasochistic [often overtly lesbian] matron, corruption within the prison staff, catfights), I think the talent on display and the bold message both help to keep it more respectable than the low-budget fare. As you mention, Parker, Emerson, Lee Patrick, and even poor ill-fated Betty Garde are all good. It was released on DVD by Warner Home Video as part of a "camp cinema" set, but I don't think it really qualifies. True, there are some scenes that must seem wildly over the top to today's audiences (the head shaving scene springs to mind), but the film also has some important points to make that to me still seemed rather bold. I'm sure that even today, a shocking number of US citizens believe that prison should exist primarily to punish offenders rather than as a tool for rehabilitation.

John Cromwell directed and I don't think I have yet to see a
single movie of his I didn't like. I can't even say that about my favorite directors.

Your comment here led me to check out his filmography. He wasn't a bad director at that, though I really wasn't impressed with Dead Reckoning. Of Human Bondage deserves to be known for more than Bette Davis's breakthrough performance. And of course The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) is wonderful.

Eleanor Parker should have won the Oscar (did she?) for that performance.

Alas, for poor Eleanor, the competition was overwhelming. That year's contest was between Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson, and Judy Holliday (who won).

[charliechaplinfan]

I watched Black Fury starring Paul Muni and directed my Michael Curtiz. Paul Muni didn't really do it for me performance wise, partly his acting, partly his style. An interesting movie about labour struggles in the 1930's though.

[jdb1]

Hello, all. Over the weekend I saw several films on one of the religious cable channels, which runs absolutely ghastly prints of Classic Hollywood movies. I can only surmise that copies of these movies were given to this network for free.

Anyway, this past weekend I saw The Time of Your Life (1948), which stars James Cagney, his sister Jeanne, and was produced by their brother, William. I can't remember ever having seen this one, which I tend to confuse with every other movie set in a seedy bar.

In any event, I found this one OK, but not as good as it could have been. I'm wondering if the play itself is weak, or was it the screenplay (written in part by the playwright, William Saroyan), or was it the censors. There are several prostitutes involved, and Jeanne Cagney's character, Kitty, is a B girl herself.

So here we have Saroyan's typical slice of life genre piece, with many colorful, poignant, and/or scary characters coming in and out of the bar, a dive on the San Francisco waterfront. Everything comes out OK in the end, although as I read today, the play itself ends with a shooting and killing. In this movie, there is a shot fired at the bad guy, but the shooter misses.

I think one of the problems was, surprisingly, Cagney himself, who I felt was wrong for the part of the philosophical Joe, a rather mysterious man who hangs out all day in Nick's bar, and has pockets just stuffed with money, which he generously distributes to anyone in need. The problem as I saw it is that Cagney is too dynamic a screen presence to be the low-key and introspective Joe. Cagney put out far too much onscreen energy, in a part that cried out for James Stewart in his Ellwood P. Dowd mode.

Sister Jeanne, as well, didn't cut it for me. She wasn't bad, but she wasn't good enough, didn't dig deep enough as the unhappy hooker who wanted a nice little house somewhere. I was especially disappointed in a scene which should have been very lovely: at separate tables, Cagney and a beautiful, well-dressed woman strike up a conversation about Paris and lost loves. It was nice, but not very affecting. It should have been.

However, many other of the performers were right on the money. Jimmy Lydon, as a nearly hysterical, lovesick young man trying to get his girl on the phone was very good, and the dependable William Bendix, as the owner of the bar, was his usual Bendix self, except for not being too terribly believable as the Italian Nick. In one scene, Nick's old Italian mother comes in and regales him with a torrent of Italian, to which Bendix reacts with facial expressions alone, not even attempting to simulate speaking Italian. In another scene, a very cute, dark-haired girl peeks in, smiling, smiling, smiling, but saying nothing. "My daughter," says Bendix. Both scenes were very well done and should have set the tone for the rest of the movie, which was, actually very talky.

The tap dancer Paul Draper also appears as Harry, the guy who can dance to anything. He did dance wonderfully, but he was no actor, and Harry's attempts at humor fell flat (he makes sort of left-wing speeches while dancing, which are not at all funny, but are funny in their non-funniness, if you know what I mean). On Broadway, the part was played by Gene Kelly. How different that must have been.

The always wonderful Natalie Schaffer makes an appearce as the wife of a "slumming" couple. She did the refined but good-humored lady so very well. When cigars are passed out at the bar, she politely and gamely accepts one, and proceeds to light up.

To my mind, the best performance of the film was given by Wayne Morris, who played Joe's hanger on, a very sweet-tempered loser who runs all of Joe's eccentric errands and hangs onto his every word. He was a lot like Lon Chaney, Jr. in Of Mice and Men, only slightly smarter and sunny, rather than tragic.

So now I can say I finally got to see The Time of Your Life. I only wish I had liked it better -- compared to Hollywood's version of Saroyan's The Human Comedy, this one was something of a well-intentioned dud.

[charliechaplinfan]

I had a lovely afternoon, before I had to get the kids I treated myself to another viewing of Only Angels Have Wings, I walked on air on my way to school.

It did strike me as similar in parts to To Have and Have Not only Jean Arthur is as completely different to Lauren Bacall as Cary Grant is to Bogie. I'm not sure the part completely suited Jean Arthur, I didn't think the leads had quite as much chemistry as they should have. This is a complete change to the screwball comedies, I feel myself wishing that Cary had done more alpha male parts, I love his screwball antics but there's no hint of anything screwball here. I loved this film, it's worth noting that it has a great supporting cast, perhaps one of the best in the movies. Thomas Mitchell, how different can you get as the Kid from Mr O'Hara. Richard Barthelmess is well cast as the disgraced flyer, he looks weatherbeaten like his life as a flyer has been so hard. Rita Hayworth is better than I remember her.

Yesterday I watched Cover Girl only for my husband to watch the last few minutes and say that is what he hates about the film I watch, people singing unrealistically and skipping down the street. Well we don't agree on everything.
On second viewing, this film does lack perhaps because it doesn't have enough dance numbers especially between Gene and Rita, I love the song that is threaded through it 'Long ago and Far Away'. I love Gene dancing with his own shadow. I don't think gene had quite found his niche and Rita, she should have done more dance films. The colours too were a bit jarring in this film, I'm not sure all the clothes matched Rita's lovely hair. For all the criticism I still loved the movie.

I also saw Cry Havoc, I sat up as soon as I saw the cast, I knew I was in for a good movie and I wasn't dissappointed.

[mrsl]

So CharlieChaplinFan: What did you think of one of my faves - Cry Havoc?

Anne

[charliechaplinfan]

Well do you know when I wrote that, I didn't feel that I could do it justice, I thought it was marvellous, it's not often a war film gets made from a woman's perspective. I thought it very moving, particularly Margaret Sullavan, I thought she gave a fine portrayal as the wife of the never seen Lieutanant and the boss of the volunteers. I really liked Joan Blondell's character Grace, I think there was so much there that I have to watch it again to do it justice. I could imagine it making a good radio play too. I felt the terror of the Japanese's approach and I felt ashamed of my gap in understanding the Pacific war, I don't know enough about what happened in this area. Lastly, it gave me a great respect of the kind of women who would go far from home to help their wounded knowing that in doing so they would only be repaid by bed and board and sometimes you'd be lucky at that. Very very special women.

It's the second film I've seen in a week that deals with this theatre of war, the other bring Fires on the Plain a Japanese film made in the '50's.

I know I've missed things in my appraisal, I hope that does for now, I intend to watch it again. I really liked it, it had atomosphere. I don't blame you for saying it's one of your favorite films, it has much to recommend it.

[feaito]

Cry Havoc is an excellent film. Should be on DVD.

[MichiganJ]

Been dreading it for awhile, but I finally got the courage to watch the Iranian film Day Break. Films about capital punishment make me more than a little anxious, and Day Break is almost unbearably intense.

In Iran, capital punishment is based on Islamic Law, which holds "an eye for an eye". If a person is murdered, it is the victim's family that decides the fate of the murderer: either a full pardon; accepting a payment as compensation to the victim's family and a prison sentence (as determined by the courts); or execution. If they opt for execution, the victim's family must meet with the condemned man for a final opportunity for the condemned to plead his cause. On the actual day of execution, the family must be present and the next of kin must participate in the actual execution. But if the family fails to show, the execution is postponed. Day Break is about a condemned man awaiting his execution, and the repeated failure of the victim's family to show up. His internal agony, endlessly caught between life and death, is excruciating. The film is devastating, enlightening and profound and star Hossein Yari is amazing. Won't be getting much sleep tonight...

[charliechaplinfan]

My goodness, this is the kind of world cinema I dig up when scouring what's available from the DVD rental market. I've checked it's not available here. It definetly sounds like the kind of film that would grip me, leave me watching behind my hands and keep me awake all night. I speculate on how much sleep you got last night, or how bad your dreams were when you did drift off.

[mrsl]

I couldn't possibly watch that Day Break. I get too much into movies and feel the torment that the characters are portraying. i feel happy when they are happy, sad, scared, patriotic etc. and a movie about a persons' emotional woes just ruins me for the rest of the day, or night. I guess I see all those emotional occurrences in my own lifetime and relive them, so Day Break would not be a film for me to see, plus the fact that this sounds like it could actually happen, and I hate to think of people living in that kind of government.

The main reason I keep away from all horror movies, and why I hate the blood and guts films that are so prevalent today is, weird as it sounds, with all the crazies running around raping and murdering today, some of the horror stuff could actually happen. The funny thing is however, I have watched all three of the Destination films and enjoyed them. Maybe its because of the plot and the expectation of how they will carry out the deaths to coincide with what had been foretold. Although not exactly what I would call good films, the movies at least do have a plot and a plan of what is in store. I also love the disaster movies (old and new) like The Towering Inferno, Airport, (old) and Volcano and Dante's Peak - I'm always amazed at who still ends up alive at the end.

Anne

[charliechaplinfan]

I'm not good at horror unless it's very tongue in cheek. I'd be interested in Day Break precisely because it does happen, that kind of things brings me up short and makes me wonder many things about the human race and it's justice.