|
|
Post by dianedebuda on Oct 21, 2022 13:38:29 GMT
With homage to the TCM Forum's thread...
Starting to clear off my backlog of recorded movies this last week or so. Some are new to me, some not. Synopsis are from cable listings.
Cell (2000) An FBI agent (Vince Vaughn) asks a psychologist (Jennifer Lopez) to enter the mind of a serial killer (Vincent D'Onofrio) in hope of finding his current captive.
An OK film to me. Nothing particularly exciting or boring here.
Live Free or Die Hard (2007) John McClane (Bruce Willis) grapples with a villain who plans to shut down the United States by attacking the country's vulnerable computer infrastructure. New to me, but have seen other Die Hard films. After a couple of days, remember it as fitting in well with the rest of the DH family, but nothing more.
Yentl (1983) A young woman (Barbra Streisand) charms her bearded roommate (Mandy Patinkin) and a merchant's daughter (Amy Irving) while posing as a Talmudic schoolboy in circa-1900 Poland. Have seen this several times. Still find it well made and enjoyable. A couple of songs from Michel Legrand's score are memorable for me: Papa, Can You Hear Me? and The Way He Makes Me Feel. Think this film was my introduction to Amy Irving.
The King and I (1956) A young Victorian widow (Deborah Kerr) goes to Siam to teach the king's (Yul Brynner) children. Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein. An old favorite. I'm a Yul Brynner and a Deborah Kerr fan, so how could I go wrong here? Love the music and costuming is stunning.
Earthquake (1974) An architect (Chariton Heston) tries to rescue his estranged wife (Ava Gardner) and find his mistress after an earthquake hits Los Angeles. Big name cast, but barely average movie in the disaster genre to me. Hadn't seen it in a long time and noticed this time how young the mistress, Genevieve Bujold, looked. Enjoyed Walter Mathau's cameos and John Williams' score.
Down Argentine Way (1940) A rich, blond New York show-jumper (Betty Grable) follows the son (Don Ameche) of a horse breeder back to Argentina. A fun 40s musical with little story to support the songs and dances. Carmen Miranda doing her thing. Nothing outstandingly good or bad, but goes well with a margarita.
|
|
|
|
Post by BingFan on Oct 21, 2022 18:47:12 GMT
We just watched War of the Worlds (1953) as part of our pre-Halloween viewing. I know that this isn’t the typical horror-movie fare usually associated with Halloween, but my wife and I find it more than sufficiently creepy to fit the bill.
|
|
|
|
Post by Fading Fast on Oct 21, 2022 21:23:55 GMT
So Ends Our Night from 1941 with Fredric March, Glenn Ford and Margaret Sullavan
Casablanca famously opens with the description of a trail of haggard and desperate refugees fleeing Europe owing to the Nazi conquest of the continent. But before the Nazi had taken over almost all of Europe, refugees were fleeing Germany, and other countries it subsequently invaded, in a frantic attempt to remain free of Nazi subjugation.
So Ends Our Night looks at these refugees who, as persons without a state, had no legal right or way to live anywhere. For 1941, before all the horrors of WWII where fully known and for a Hollywood that had been timid throughout the 1930s to hurt its business in Germany, it's one of the few hard-hitting anti-Nazi movies that was made before the US entered WWII.
Fredric March plays a German who, as a member of the resistance, escapes a concentration camp and flees Germany paperless (no passport, visa, etc.). He is, effectively, forced to leave his sickly wife behind. A Gestapo officer, played by Erich von Stroheim, offers March a passport if he'll name fellow resistance members' names, but March refuses.
Now illegally in Austria before it was conquered by Germany, March meets a young refugee, played by Glenn Ford, who fled Germany because he is half Jewish. After being chased out of Austria by the authorities - they have no legal right to be there - Ford and March, now illegally in Prague, meet another refugee played by Margaret Sullavan.
Sullivan had to leave her middle-class life in Germany behind because she is Jewish. Ford and Sullavan, both young, are attracted to each other, but their relationship takes time to develop as the demands of survival trump romance for these desperate kids.
From here, So Ends Our Night documents all the small and big travails and challenges experienced by March, Ford, Sullivan and other refugees trying to survive - trying to earn a living for food and shelter - in states where their very existence is illegal.
With no passports or visas, they can't get jobs in the open and, of course, the market for illegal labor is flooded with refugees. They also have to maintain a constant vigilance for the police who would arrest them, which would lead to deportation after time spent in jail.
Along the way, they meet some kind people who help them, but also, many people who cheat or expose them. They move from one rooming house or barn to another and from one country to another in a fruitless search for a place to live something that approaches a normal life.
As refugees, instead, every day is lived in constant fear, yet, and this is amazing, they manage to keep much of their humanity. We see them sharing their small amount of food with someone who has none or singing along to an upbeat song because there is still some hope inside them.
March is a survivor who finds ways to make money, which, as the self-appointed surrogate parent to Ford and Sullivan, he kindly shares. Being (one assumes) written and filmed before France was conquered, France is seen as a possible sanctuary by these refugees, but we sadly know how that will end.
It will end as represented in the famous refugee trail seen in the opening of Casablanca. This makes So Ends Our Night, effectively, a precursor movie that explains the origins of that famous movie's harrowing trail of humans.
Owing to its small budget and being an independent production, So Ends Our Night lacks the professional and polished production quality of a major studio offering, but stars March, Ford and Sullivan deliver passionate performances that personalize the plight of the refugees.
With von Stroheim very effectively representing Nazi evil, So Ends Our Night is a solid and early entry in what would become a long and, sadly, very necessary line of movies documenting and exposing Nazi atrocities. |
|
|
|
Post by BingFan on Oct 21, 2022 22:56:05 GMT
I only saw part of So Ends Our Night but found it very interesting. I often find stories about civilians during WW II interesting, whether the civilians are European refugees or folks on the American home front. (I think that aspect is part of the attraction of Casablanca for me.).
I hope TCM shows it again so that I can see the full movie.
|
|
|
|
Post by umopapisdn on Oct 22, 2022 3:15:38 GMT
I only saw part of So Ends Our Night but found it very interesting. I often find stories about civilians during WW II interesting, whether the civilians are European refugees or folks on the American home front. (I think that aspect is part of the attraction of Casablanca for me.). I hope TCM shows it again so that I can see the full movie. is available on WatchTCM until 11/17/2022 if that helps. I also saw a part of it and was interested enough to put it on my November watch list. |
|
|
|
Post by BingFan on Oct 22, 2022 14:04:00 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by hoganman1 on Oct 22, 2022 15:50:37 GMT
I'm embarrassed to say I watched THE ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN this week on MOVIES! It's terrible but took me back to my youth. So many of the scifi films from the 50s and 60s were awful. However, some were quite good. I think the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is my favorite. THEM was pretty good too.
|
|
|
|
Post by thompson on Oct 22, 2022 16:37:30 GMT
Testing one two three.
|
|
|
|
Post by BingFan on Oct 22, 2022 16:43:15 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by dianedebuda on Oct 22, 2022 16:45:05 GMT
Oh, Oh, I know that one! One, Two, Three (1961) An American political comedy film directed by Billy Wilder and written by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond. Cagney with rapid dialog.  |
|
|
|
Post by thompson on Oct 22, 2022 16:58:24 GMT
Wow, thanks for letting me join the group. All the other joints turned me down. I’m a refugee from the Noir Alley thread on the TCM message board which is shutting down soon. I got scolded a lot there for veering off topic, but that’s my nature.
|
|
|
|
Post by LiamCasey on Oct 22, 2022 17:13:05 GMT
I'm embarrassed to say I watched THE ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN this week on MOVIES! It's terrible but took me back to my youth. So many of the scifi films from the 50s and 60s were awful. However, some were quite good. I think the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is my favorite. THEM was pretty good too. Nipkow would be proud of you! |
|
|
|
Post by thompson on Oct 22, 2022 17:16:38 GMT
To me, the greatest scene in cinema is Sterling Hayden with a shirt tail out and no blood left in him, the final scene of Asphalt Jungle, with the horses sniffing him when he’s dead. And poor Doll, she was a true trooper,
|
|
|
|
Post by Fading Fast on Oct 22, 2022 17:48:26 GMT
To me, the greatest scene in cinema is Sterling Hayden with a shirt tail out and no blood left in him, the final scene of Asphalt Jungle, with the horses sniffing him when he’s dead. And poor Doll, she was a true trooper, |
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Oct 23, 2022 15:14:16 GMT
I enjoyed reading Fading Fast's comments about SO ENDS OUR NIGHT.
Erich Von Stroheim tends to be remembered more as a director, specifically for the epic GREED, but he was a fine character actor. He's great as a gangster collaborating with the Nazis in STORM OVER LISBON. And he's fun alongside Gloria Swanson in SUNSET BLVD.
|
|
