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Post by topbilled on Feb 19, 2023 21:26:58 GMT
Thanks everyone for joining us today!
As always, had fun.
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Post by Fading Fast on Feb 19, 2023 21:27:46 GMT
Great pick Topbilled.
Thank you all, I had a really fun time.
It's a very good group we have.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 19, 2023 21:29:25 GMT
Pamela Kellino, also known as Pamela Mason.
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Post by Fading Fast on Feb 20, 2023 16:18:47 GMT
After yesterday's enjoyable Sunday Live viewing of The Upturned Glass, I wrote the below comments.
The Upturned Glass from 1947 with James Mason, Pamela Kellino, Rosamund John and Ann Stephens
Held up against the standard of believability, The Upturned Glass has many issues, but as an entertaining morality tale inside a noirish English wrapper, it's quite engaging. However, its heavy reliance on flashbacks, and some intentionally misleading scenes, makes its story a bit confusing to follow at times.
James Mason plays a leading brain surgeon who also teaches at a medical school where we meet him giving a lecture on the psychology of murderers, most of whom, he says, are insane.
He then tells the class about one murderer, though, who planned out a homicide rationally and methodically to exact revenge on a person who was able to avoid prosecution for a murder she committed.
As he is telling the story, the movie often fades into flashbacks where we quickly learn that the tale is about Mason himself.
Mason, who is married, had an affair with a married woman, played by Rosamund John, whom he met when he performed a cutting-edge eyesight-saving surgery on her twelve-year-old daughter, played by Ann Stephens.
Both Mason and John are "separated" from their spouses in a 1940s English way, meaning their affair was "okay" as long as they carried it out with the proper discretion. Then John seemingly commits suicide by jumping out of a window leading a disbelieving Mason to conduct his own investigation.
Mason discovers that John's sister-in-law, played by Pamela Kellino was with John almost up to the moment that John putatively committed suicide. (In real life, at this time, James Mason was married to Pamela Kellino. Kellino also wrote the movie's screenplay based on a story by John Monaghan.)
The flashback part of the story now gets more tangled and less believable, but it's the heart of the movie's morality tale.
Mason learns that Kellino is a luxury-loving society woman who's always in debt. He comes to believe she pushed her sister-in-law out of the window, despite an inquest clearing Kellino of any charges.
Mason, as he relates his roman-a-clef story to his students and as we see in flashbacks, begins to date Kellino to confirm his conviction that she's guilty of murder, which, when he does to his satisfaction, motivates him to plan her murder.
What happens from there requires the audience to accept several leaps of faith as the story almost becomes comical when Mason's plan goes horribly wrong.
To avoid spoilers, we'll stop recounting the plot here, other than to note, the movie, which makes liberal use of England's famous fog, becomes more noirish toward the end.
The "big" question the movie asks is if it's moral to murder someone if you know that person escaped justice for the murder of someone else?
The question is all dressed up, here, in Mason's urbane polish and sophisticated psychological-sounding logic, but distilled down to its core element, it's still the age-old "taking the law into your own hands" argument or, even more raw, the vigilante-justice argument.
James Mason, Pamela Kellino and Rosamund John are so good that you just enjoy the picture and, often, forgive the movie its failings and incredulous plot twists as you are passionately involved with all of their life stories.
Kellino, dressed to the nines and blasé about her selfishness, is engaging because she's so honest about her shortcomings. Rosamund is incredibly warm and sympathetic as a caring mother having an affair with her daughter's physician.
Mason, himself, captures our attention because we struggle to watch this highly intelligent man, who seems to have it all, go insane with revenge before our eyes.
It's another example of something Hitchcock understood: audiences care much more about whether the characters touch them in a meaningful way than they do about the verisimilitude of the story.
The Upturned Glass is solid post-war English filmmaking where its beautiful black and white cinematography, smart and wordy script, noirish atmosphere and talented acting and directing cover for a plot that falls apart a bit if you think too hard about its believability.
N.B. Keep an eye out for Brefni O'Rorke's small but outstanding performance in the role of the bitter and cynical country doctor, a character at odds with the typical Hollywood stereotype of the caring and selfless country doctor. His cynicism, though, serves a purpose, as it allows him to quickly see into Mason's character, leading to O'Rorke making a surprising moral choice at a critical turn in the story.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 20, 2023 16:41:33 GMT
Great review, Fading Fast. First, I love the two photos you selected. Especially like how you explained the way we get wrapped up in the characters' particular lives.
One thing that really struck me about this film and it comes through even stronger on repeat viewings is how much realism was put into it. Mason's character speaks like an actual doctor, and we see him perform two involved surgeries. The story is deliberately slow in the beginning so we can soak in the details of what these people do and how they regard their respective places in society. Even the caretaker at the estate is fleshed out, so we know how he spends his time when he's not working. He doesn't speak like a stereotype, but like a man who has devoted his life to service but yet has his own opinions about the upper class rich folk who've employed him for decades.
The country doctor is definitely not Lionel Barrymore in Dr. Gillespie mode, and Mason is definitely not playing Dr. Kildare. These are people grappling with profound moral dilemmas.
The center point is the murder scene where Mason offs Kellino, which interestingly has a prelude (something I mentioned in my review). We see her get killed twice on screen. The first time is not really her murder, since it's his fantasy of how her murder will play out. Though of course, when it happens, things don't go exactly as he'd planned.
I love the fact that in the same way we don't know Mrs. Robinson's first name in THE GRADUATE, we don't know the real name of Mason's character. He tells his students this story is about a man named Dr. Michael Joyce. During a high-society party scene, he is passed off as being someone called Peter. And later when he saves the life of the girl involved in the roadside accident, the mother asks his name, but he's conveniently interrupted and never has a chance to tell them, or us. That creates a deeper mystery about him.
It would actually be interesting if he was really just a college professor who liked going out and playing doctor with instruments he'd stolen from a real doctor. That the part where he'd performed eye surgery in the beginning, and his whole relationship with Rosamund John's character was pure fiction...a way of explaining why he wanted to get rid of his lover Kellino, which then led to him performing a real surgery on his way to disposing her body.
I guess my point is there's a lot we don't know about him, and we are expected to trust what he's telling his students and telling us the viewer, but is he actually a very reliable narrator? After all, he's insane.
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Post by Fading Fast on Feb 20, 2023 17:08:55 GMT
Great review, Fading Fast. First, I love the two photos you selected. Especially like how you explained the way we get wrapped up in the characters' particular lives.
One thing that really struck me about this film and it comes through even stronger on repeat viewings is how much realism was put into it. Mason's character speaks like an actual doctor, and we see him perform two involved surgeries. The story is deliberately slow in the beginning so we can soak in the details of what these people do and how they regard their respective places in society. Even the caretaker at the estate is fleshed out, so we know how he spends his time when he's not working. He doesn't speak like a stereotype, but like a man who has devoted his life to service but yet has his own opinions about the upper class rich folk who've employed him for decades.
The country doctor is definitely not Lionel Barrymore in Dr. Gillespie mode, and Mason is definitely not playing Dr. Kildare. These are people grappling with profound moral dilemmas.
The center point is the murder scene where Mason offs Kellino, which interestingly has a prelude (something I mentioned in my review). We see her get killed twice on screen. The first time is not really her murder, since it's his fantasy of how her murder will play out. Though of course, when it happens, things don't go exactly as he'd planned.
I love the fact that in the same way we don't know Mrs. Robinson's first name in THE GRADUATE, we don't know the real name of Mason's character. He tells his students this story is about a man named Dr. Michael Joyce. During a high-society party scene, he is passed off as being someone called Peter. And later when he saves the life of the girl involved in the roadside accident, the mother asks his name, but he's conveniently interrupted and never has a chance to tell them, or us. That creates a deeper mystery about him.
It would actually be interesting if he was really just a college professor who liked going out and playing doctor with instruments he'd stolen from a real doctor. That the part where he'd performed eye surgery in the beginning, and his whole relationship with Rosamund John's character was pure fiction...a way of explaining why he wanted to get rid of his lover Kellino, which then led to him performing a real surgery on his way to disposing her body.
I guess my point is there's a lot we don't know about him, and we are expected to trust what he's telling his students and telling us the viewer, but is he actually a very reliable narrator? After all, he's insane. I want to watch this one again as I know I missed stuff, especially since I was typing and responding at the same time.
I remember that there was an early focus on the students in the classroom (even as detailed as showing one pointing out an empty seat to another), but in my memory, I can't see why the director chose to do this as the students become very unimportant other than toward the end when one calls Mason out.
I liked that opening scene, but it made me think the students were going to be more important to the story than they were.
I like your revised take - Mason faking being a doctor and even conducting surgery and creating even wilder tales for his students - very much, but it is darn good, too, the way it was done as it takes you a long time to get that he's nuts.
I also loved the two female leads in very different ways: John is the woman I want to meet; Kelliso is the woman I want my worst enemy to fall in love with. Kidding aside, they are a wonderful contrast.
And while it was a bit abrupt, the change in tone after the murder and the scene with the country doctor was fascinating.
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Post by Fading Fast on Feb 20, 2023 17:14:01 GMT
Also, thank you for your comments on the pics I chose. I really wanted to use one of Rosamund John as she's my latest screen crush, but the two I found so fit the movie and what I wrote that I went with them while mooning over John's pictures silently.
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Post by Andrea Doria on Feb 20, 2023 18:35:16 GMT
I'm enjoying this morning-after discussion from both of you. One way I know a movie is really good is if I'm still thinking about it the next day.
Since Fading Fast is mooning over Miss John, I'll admit how much I enjoyed the very many scenes of James Mason, beautifully dressed, drifting elegantly from room to room and floating down the stairs like a male version of Lana Turner in the Ziegfeld Follies.
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Post by Fading Fast on Feb 20, 2023 19:28:14 GMT
...James Mason, beautifully dressed, drifting elegantly from room to room and floating down the stairs like a male version of Lana Turner in the Ziegfeld Follies. LOL
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Post by topbilled on Feb 20, 2023 23:02:25 GMT
One thing I forgot to say in my earlier comments is that when Mason's character is telling the students about Kate's death, before it happens, that can be read as a fantasy or as a flashforward. Meaning we have a flashforward inside a flashback.
This film plays with the timeline a bit, and I think the result is we are kept slightly off balance. It adds to the suspense.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 21, 2023 14:51:43 GMT
I'm enjoying this morning-after discussion from both of you. One way I know a movie is really good is if I'm still thinking about it the next day.
Since Fading Fast is mooning over Miss John, I'll admit how much I enjoyed the very many scenes of James Mason, beautifully dressed, drifting elegantly from room to room and floating down the stairs like a male version of Lana Turner in the Ziegfeld Follies. How funny.
Andrea, I sent a message to you yesterday, not sure if you saw it...did you want to select a few melodramas for the month of March? If that is too much 'work,' then I think Fading Fast had some ideas in mind.
I will be creating the thread for our next selection in February, Douglas Sirk's classic melodrama ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS.
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Post by Fading Fast on Feb 21, 2023 18:27:29 GMT
I'm enjoying this morning-after discussion from both of you. One way I know a movie is really good is if I'm still thinking about it the next day.
Since Fading Fast is mooning over Miss John, I'll admit how much I enjoyed the very many scenes of James Mason, beautifully dressed, drifting elegantly from room to room and floating down the stairs like a male version of Lana Turner in the Ziegfeld Follies. How funny.
Andrea, I sent a message to you yesterday, not sure if you saw it...did you want to select a few melodramas for the month of March? If that is too much 'work,' then I think Fading Fast had some ideas in mind.
I will be creating the thread for our next selection in February, Douglas Sirk's classic melodrama ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS. Andrea, I'd love for you to choose as I think you'd enjoy it and I'd be excited to watch your selections. If you have any question, please let me know here in this thread or PM me as I'd be glad to help or just chat about it with you.
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Post by Andrea Doria on Feb 21, 2023 19:59:23 GMT
Well, first of all, thanks for asking me to choose. I really don't feel very qualified because you two know so many more movies than I do and if I thought I'd discovered something you'd probably have already seen it a dozen times.
That said, I would like to suggest, "Stella Dallas," just because it's a favorite of mine and I think it would be fun to watch with the group.
Maybe just that one in March and then back to you two picking?
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Post by Fading Fast on Feb 21, 2023 20:07:17 GMT
Well, first of all, thanks for asking me to choose. I really don't feel very qualified because you two know so many more movies than I do and if I thought I'd discovered something you'd probably have already seen it a dozen times.
That said, I would like to suggest, "Stella Dallas," just because it's a favorite of mine and I think it would be fun to watch with the group.
Maybe just that one in March and then back to you two picking? "Stella Dallas" is a great choice - how wrong can you ever go with Ms. Stanwyck.
I'm all for kicking March off with that one and if you have some other choices, throw them out there. We've done some popular and some obscure ones. It can be either.
Put three more ideas on the table, and you'll have March done.
Still chuckling about your James Mason line. My girlfriend of twenty-five years would leave me in a second for him, but then of course, Mason would have to worry about Gary Cooper showing up and stealing her away.
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Post by Andrea Doria on Feb 22, 2023 15:38:49 GMT
Here are a couple more ideas for March, but keep in mind, I have no idea how to find a good copy or even if it's possible. Feel free to nix anything you think might not work well.
Peter Ibbetson 1935, Gary Cooper, Ann Harding, 1 hour 25 minutes.
Dodsworth 1936, Walter Houston, Mary Astor, 1hour 41 minutes.
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