I Just Watched...

[EP Millstone]

Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965) Tubi-8/10

A discotheque hostess (Juliet Prowse) is terrorized by obscene phone calls.

This is a sometimes sleazy, exploitative film but I love it. Sal Mineo plays the caller who is also a busboy in Prowse's disco, he is excellent. Elaine Stritch is Prowse's lesbian boss. Comedian Jan Murray plays a vice cop who plays tapes of sex assault victims while his ten year daughter is listening in the next room. There are several songs played in the club, co written by Bob Gaudio, who was one of the Four Seasons, the songs are all catchy and could have been actual hits in the 1960s. The hypnotic title song is memorable too. There are also some great on location NYC scenes of Broadway and Times Square, then just starting to descend into sleaze.

I also dig Who Killed Teddy Bear?

My Favorite Vignette in Who Killed Teddy Bear?


Who Killed Teddy Bear (1965) Movie Review: Sal Mineo Is Charismatically Perverse Antihero

"We’re all animals, Dave.” Who Killed Teddy Bear

Who Killed Teddy Bear, A Fascinating Chronicle of Wagner-era Times Square

Eddie Muller's Take on Who Killed Teddy Bear?

cigarjoe's Noirsville Review

[Swithin]

I'm resurrecting my very popular I Just Watched... thread from the old TCM site. Despite being under the "Movies and Features on TCM" section of this forum, I want to make it clear that this thread is intended to be a casual discussion of anything that people have watched recently. The movie did not have to have aired on TCM. My old thread was popular because the conversation flowed organically, as it segued from one conversation to another, or there might have been a few conversations going on simultaneously.

Speedy, thank you for resurrecting your venerable and useful "I Just Watched" thread. Although there may be other similar threads here, I prefer yours for several reasons:

1. I like the continuity between what we've lost and what's here on the SSO;

2. The two similar threads, mentioned by EP Millstone, have the word "films" in the title. If I may be pedantic, your thread can refer to television and other formats as well.

3. The genre forums here are nice, but there are films that don't neatly fit snugly into any given genre; also a discussion of any given "genre" film can morph into other genres as well.

So thank you Speedracer!

Cuthbert (Swithin)

[Detective Jim McLeod]

[quote="EP Millstone" post_id=167716 time=1670599894 user_id=349011]
[quote="Detective Jim McLeod" post_id=167703 time=1670594184 user_id=349085]
Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965) Tubi-8/10



My Favorite Vignette in Who Killed Teddy Bear?


Great dance scene and I really love that song, since I love that mid 1960s period in music.

[Swithin]

Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965) Tubi-8/10

A discotheque hostess (Juliet Prowse) is terrorized by obscene phone calls.

This is a sometimes sleazy, exploitative film but I love it. Sal Mineo plays the caller who is also a busboy in Prowse's disco, he is excellent. Elaine Stritch is Prowse's lesbian boss. Comedian Jan Murray plays a vice cop who plays tapes of sex assault victims while his ten year daughter is listening in the next room. There are several songs played in the club, co written by Bob Gaudio, who was one of the Four Seasons, the songs are all catchy and could have been actual hits in the 1960s. The hypnotic title song is memorable too. There are also some great on location NYC scenes of Broadway and Times Square, then just starting to descend into sleaze.

I first saw Who Killed Teddy Bear at the Film Forum several years ago. I went twice -- I loved the film. What a cast! And Times Square in the pre-Disney-fied days! I guess my favorite line -- and one of the great double entendres -- is spoken by Elaine Stritch to Juliet Prowse: "I DIG FUR!"

[speedracer5]

Ivy (1947)

Joan Fontaine plays the titular character, Ivy Lexton, who aspires to have the finest things in life. At the beginning of the film, she sees a fortune teller (played by Una O'Connor) who predicts that Ivy will come into a fortune and also have a new man in her life. Then the fortune teller has another vision which she can't quite see. Ivy, having heard what she wanted to hear, leaves excitedly. Then the fortune teller's last vision becomes clear and she predicts that Ivy will also have a dark future ahead (or something to that effect). This provides the ominous foreshadowing for the remainder of the film.

Ivy is married to Jarvis (Richard Ney) who it seems used to be wealthy, but Ivy has since spent all his money. Jarvis is well meaning and a bit of a dope as he doesn't seem concerned that Ivy is spending money faster than he can earn it. Later, Ivy meets Miles Rushworth (Herbert Marshall) a wealthy, but married man. Ivy has her sights set on becoming Miles' wife. She also has a lover on the side, Dr. Roger Gretorex (Patric Knowles). Ivy eventually concocts a scheme that will get rid of Jarvis and frame her lover, Roger, for his murder.

This was a great movie. I'd never heard of it before until I heard it recommended on like four different podcasts within a span of a couple weeks. I found the film streaming on Internet Archive and managed to cast it to my TV so I didn't have to watch it on the computer. Anyway, the plot moved rather slowly and I didn't expect it to take place during the Edwardian England period. Joan Fontaine's performance was very subtle. She only gives glimpses of her character's true nature, until the deed is done. Fontaine's mousy, quiet demeanor works well as it seems easy to see how she could con her way into the hearts of all of these men.

I also re-watched IVY very recently. I agree that Joan Fontaine's performance is brilliantly subtle. Joan Fontaine is now one of my favorite female actors. I had not seen any of her movies until I saw them on TCM. Joan Fontaine's acting, in my opinion, is amazingly "real." In IVY as well as in THE CONSTANT NYMPH and REBECCA, she has such a natural, spontaneous-seeming delivery that is in stark contrast to the patterned deliveries that were typically found in movies in that era. Fontaine's performance is all the more amazing in that she can act on this "real" level and still make it work in the context of an "old Hollywood" movie.

The first time I saw IVY I initially thought that the Dr. Gretorex character played by Patrick Knowles was going to be a villain of the story. This ambiguity made his character more complex. I thought Lucile Watson was very good as the mother of Dr. Gretorex.

I think that IVY would make a great double feature with MY COUSIN RACHEL, which stars Joan Fontaine's real-life sister Olivia de Havilland in the title role. In both movies, the sisters play women who possibly killed their husbands by poisoning

I had never even heard of Ivy recently until I heard it talked about multiple times. I am not sure why it isn't played more. I understand that it's Universal, so it's not one of the studios that TCM has easy access to, but it's not like they've never played Universal films before. Because of the previous knowledge I had of the film, I knew going in that Ivy was going to be the villain; but I didn't know the role that the male cast members would play until I got into the film. I did enjoy Lucile Watson's performance. She always seems to play the nagging mother. I also enjoyed seeing Olivia de Havilland and Joan's mother in her small role, as well as Norma Varden, or "Poor Mrs. Benson" as I call her. There's an episode of I Love Lucy with Varden, where she plays Lucy and Ethel's neighbor, Mrs. Benson. Lucy wants to upgrade into a 2-bedroom apartment and she and Ethel decide to take advantage of Mrs. Benson's grief over her daughter's recent marriage and subsequent empty nest syndrome, and convince her to trade apartments into The Ricardos' 1-bedroom apartment. Lucy and Ethel feign sympathy by saying "Poor Mrs. Benson..."

Joan Fontaine is now one of my favorites as well. I used to be indifferent to her, as she always seemed kind of meek and mousy to me, but I'd only seen her in The Women and Suspicion. Her meek/mousiness works for Rebecca and she was fantastic in that. I enjoyed The Constant Nymph, but it did take a little bit of suspension of disbelief to believe her as a child. The film that changed it for me was Letter From an Unknown Woman. I loved that movie. It was fantastic. I recommend it if you haven't seen it. She's also really great in Until They Sail with Jean Simmons, Piper Laurie, Sandra Dee and Paul Newman.

I haven't seen My Cousin Rachel. I will need to put that on my list. I always get that fim confused with the movie, Rachel and the Stranger, with Loretta Young and Robert Mitchum.

[speedracer5]

On the TCM board I never used the genre films because I didn't feel that there was traffic. Here, however, a genre post gets a front and center that the TCM did not have, being highlighted on the Most Recent Topics.

I am thrilled this thread has been resurrected because it will encompass ANY movie seen: any genre, time period, etc so we can learn all about a variety of movies.

Thank you, Tiki. I was proud of the success of my thread. I knew it just infuriated a certain someone because it was much more successful than any of the threads that he started. It's because I just let the conversation flow naturally. He killed so many threads because he wanted to force the conversation to fit whatever agenda he had.

[speedracer5]

I'm resurrecting my very popular I Just Watched... thread from the old TCM site. Despite being under the "Movies and Features on TCM" section of this forum, I want to make it clear that this thread is intended to be a casual discussion of anything that people have watched recently. The movie did not have to have aired on TCM. My old thread was popular because the conversation flowed organically, as it segued from one conversation to another, or there might have been a few conversations going on simultaneously.

Speedy, thank you for resurrecting your venerable and useful "I Just Watched" thread. Although there may be other similar threads here, I prefer yours for several reasons:

1. I like the continuity between what we've lost and what's here on the SSO;

2. The two similar threads, mentioned by EP Millstone, have the word "films" in the title. If I may be pedantic, your thread can refer to television and other formats as well.

3. The genre forums here are nice, but there are films that don't neatly fit snugly into any given genre; also a discussion of any given "genre" film can morph into other genres as well.

So thank you Speedracer!

Cuthbert (Swithin)

Thank you, Cuthbert aka Swithin! I appreciate the kind words. Those who do not wish to participate in my thread are more than welcome to participate in one of the other existing ones. I don't think my thread is hurting anything and I knew that the veterans of the TCM forum would appreciate it. I just need to remember to come to this board, it isn't yet part of my internet routine!

[Masha]

Chapter Two (1979)

A cigar store Indian still in mourning for the wife he bored to death meets a beautiful and charming lady who recently kicked her worthless husband to the curb. Their passionate whirlwind romance would be perfect if he was not introducing complications at every turn because he loves being miserable much more than he loves her.

Marsha Mason is beyond perfection. She and Neil Simon were of a hive mind and so her lines are natural to her and carry even the most subtle nuances better than a real person living through the situation could. It helps greatly that she is so sweet that I just want to eat her up.

Valerie Harper was quite a surprise as a sex bomb. This role is the one which caused me to take her seriously as an actress.

James Caan as the aforementioned wooden statue handles comedy with all the skill, talent and aplomb of a drunken toddler catching eels in a marsh during a thunderstorm.

Joseph Bologna might have been quite wonderful if only he had backed off a bit from acting like himself.

I love Neil Simon very much. I am sorry to say that I am not a fan of this work. The structure is: neutral->set-up->perfection->denouement on a line-by-line basis. It is assured by this that one spoken line in every four is wonderful and shows his genius but it becomes nearly a boring cadence. It becomes particularly unsatisfying when one of the secondary actors does not deliver the line with perfection and betrays our expectation of heady wit.

5.8/11

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

[CinemaInternational]

Chapter Two (1979)

A cigar store Indian still in mourning for the wife he bored to death meets a beautiful and charming lady who recently kicked her worthless husband to the curb. Their passionate whirlwind romance would be perfect if he was not introducing complications at every turn because he loves being miserable much more than he loves her.

Marsha Mason is beyond perfection. She and Neil Simon were of a hive mind and so her lines are natural to her and carry even the most subtle nuances better than a real person living through the situation could. It helps greatly that she is so sweet that I just want to eat her up.

Valerie Harper was quite a surprise as a sex bomb. This role is the one which caused me to take her seriously as an actress.

James Caan as the aforementioned wooden statue handles comedy with all the skill, talent and aplomb of a drunken toddler catching eels in a marsh during a thunderstorm.

Joseph Bologna might have been quite wonderful if only he had backed off a bit from acting like himself.

I love Neil Simon very much. I am sorry to say that I am not a fan of this work. The structure is: neutral->set-up->perfection->denouement on a line-by-line basis. It is assured by this that one spoken line in every four is wonderful and shows his genius but it becomes nearly a boring cadence. It becomes particularly unsatisfying when one of the secondary actors does not deliver the line with perfection and betrays our expectation of heady wit.

5.8/11

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

I think I liked it more than you (I found it to be very touching), but I agree that Marsha Mason's soulful performance is the best thing about this film

[TikiSoo]

Thanks Masha, I'll give that one a try.

After the disaster that is TROLL (2022) the new Netflix shoot em up, I decided to revisit the original, Norwegian TROLLHUNTER 2011. Even though it's my third time seeing it, I still loved it, with every Troll encounter still seemed fresh to me.

In contrast to the new one, the original is shot in a "found footage" style, now rather cliché for modern films, but it very much suits this movie. THIS movie has a story which begins with college students trying to cover a story about illegal bear hunting. They follow this mysterious poacher into the bleak but beautiful Northern Climes, the cold isolation adding much atmosphere.

Then the kids realize this seemingly crazy poacher is actually controlling the wild Troll population, they think he's nuts, Trolls are "fairy tales" until they see one. And another and they even foray into a cave full of Trolls! I love how the Trollhunter speaks seriously of different Troll species, their territories & habits just as any zoologist would.

The dramatic lighting and stark landscape add much to the believability, assisting the CGI monsters by not always being in focus or completely in frame. There are several lighthearted moments that break the tension-for example- the kids have to slather icky Troll Slime over themselves to cover their scent. And while there's a lot of tension, it's not really bloody or scary and think most kids would enjoy it, although they'd have to read subtitles.
Just look at the poster...the artists knew if they softened the "blacks" of the Troll he would look larger & farther away. You don't see that in Hollywood CGI superhero movies, everything's made super crisp/clear and therefore less "believable".

[Bronxgirl48]

I haven't seen My Cousin Rachel. I will need to put that on my list. I always get that fim confused with the movie, Rachel and the Stranger, with Loretta Young and Robert Mitchum.
[/quote]

speedracer, MY COUSIN RACHEL is right up your alley I think, with a fascinatingly subtle performance from Livvy. Not sure but I believe this movie can be seen on YouTube. I would love to hear your invaluable take on it.

[KayFrancis]

Bronxgirl and Speedy, My Cousin Rachel is shown on FXM.. if you get FXM it's On Demand now, probably will be there for at least a week.

[speedracer5]

Bronxgirl and Speedy, My Cousin Rachel is shown on FXM.. if you get FXM it's On Demand now, probably will be there for at least a week.

Thanks Lav! Or I guess I should call you Kay now. I don't have FXM unfortunately. But I do see that I can rent this movie on Amazon Prime. I'll have to check it out. It looks like this film was remade in 2017.

[HoldenIsHere]

Ivy (1947)

Joan Fontaine plays the titular character, Ivy Lexton, who aspires to have the finest things in life.

I also re-watched IVY very recently. I agree that Joan Fontaine's performance is brilliantly subtle. Joan Fontaine is now one of my favorite female actors. I had not seen any of her movies until I saw them on TCM. Joan Fontaine's acting, in my opinion, is amazingly "real." In IVY as well as in THE CONSTANT NYMPH and REBECCA, she has such a natural, spontaneous-seeming delivery that is in stark contrast to the patterned deliveries that were typically found in movies in that era. Fontaine's performance is all the more amazing in that she can act on this "real" level and still make it work in the context of an "old Hollywood" movie.

Joan Fontaine is now one of my favorites as well. I used to be indifferent to her, as she always seemed kind of meek and mousy to me, but I'd only seen her in The Women and Suspicion. Her meek/mousiness works for Rebecca and she was fantastic in that. I enjoyed The Constant Nymph, but it did take a little bit of suspension of disbelief to believe her as a child. The film that changed it for me was Letter From an Unknown Woman. I loved that movie. It was fantastic. I recommend it if you haven't seen it. She's also really great in Until They Sail with Jean Simmons, Piper Laurie, Sandra Dee and Paul Newman.

I like UNTIL THEY SAIL. It stars some of my favorite female actors as sisters: Joan Fontaine, Jean Simmons (love her!), Piper Laurie (I always associate her with her role as Carrie's mother in CARRIE) and Sandra Dee. I know Sandra Dee and her movies were often dismissed as "fluff" on the TCM boards, but I love her and enjoy her movies a lot. UNTIL WE SAIL was her first movie. She was only 15 years old when the movie was released, and she's fantastic as the youngest of the Leslie sisters. That a kid from New Jersey was able to convincingly convey complex emotions of a New Zealand girl and hold her own with Joan Fontaine and Jean Simmons is astounding.

Sandra Dee's character refers to the serious older played by Joan Fontaine as "Iceberg Annie." One of my favorite moments in the movie is when Sandra Dee's character tells Jean Simmons's character that Iceberg Annie is "necking her head off" with an American soldier.