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Post by cineclassics on Jan 5, 2023 23:07:31 GMT
 Caught this on Criterion, featuring Joan Bennett this month. Pretty Solid flick. Scarlet Street in recent years has been kind of reevaluated and it's now considered by many as a top-tier film noir. I agree, although another Fritz Lang film noir, Women in the Window, which has the same core cast of Robinson, Duryea and Bennett, is comparable in quality. In 1944, when Woman in the Window was released, it received as good an overall critical consensus as Double Indemnity. Yet in the years since, its reputation has diminished a bit because folks seem to dislike the controversial ending. But back to Scarlet Street; this is one of the many films that highlights Edward G. Robinson's versatility as an actor. He is known as a great gangster actor because of his roles in Little Caesar, Key Largo, etc., but he had great range. Dan Duryea is incredibly convincing as a slimy degenerate, and Joan Bennett has that unique quality to reel in an audience with her glamour and screen presence and then turn on the femme fatale persona. She's great in Women in the Window as well. |
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Jan 6, 2023 0:25:00 GMT
Caught this on Criterion, featuring Joan Bennett this month. Pretty Solid flick. Scarlet Street in recent years has been kind of reevaluated and it's now considered by many as a top-tier film noir. I agree, although another Fritz Lang film noir, Women in the Window, which has the same core cast of Robinson, Duryea and Bennett, is comparable in quality. In 1944, when Woman in the Window was released, it received as good an overall critical consensus as Double Indemnity. Yet in the years since, its reputation has diminished a bit because folks seem to dislike the controversial ending. But back to Scarlet Street; this is one of the many films that highlights Edward G. Robinson's versatility as an actor. He is known as a great gangster actor because of his roles in Little Caesar, Key Largo, etc., but he had great range. Dan Duryea is incredibly convincing as a slimy degenerate, and Joan Bennett has that unique quality to reel in an audience with her glamour and screen presence and then turn on the femme fatale persona. She's great in Women in the Window as well. SPOILERS for Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street: I believe the endings for both films is the reason one film is now considered to be top-tier while the other is secondary. The it-was-just-a-dream ending can make it kind of hard to want to see a film more than once, while the ending of he-got-away-with-murder makes Scarlet Street historic (as it relates to the Production Code). I really enjoy both films. Of course we have 3 iconic noir actors. (with Eddie being the least iconic). As for the Women in the Window ending; I say that this was an unsophisticated way to comply with the Production Code. But I don't fault Lang; He got away with violating it with Scarlet Street and didn't wish to hold up release of WITW by having the screenwriter come up with a way to get around the Code without having to do retakes or make major changes to the storyline. |
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Post by Andrea Doria on Jan 6, 2023 2:00:15 GMT
I have left Richard Basehart behind and run off with his wife.
I just watched Valentina Cortese with Richard Conte in Thieves Highway.
It's all about truckers getting Golden Delicious apples from the orchards to the city. It sounds boring, but there are accidents, trucks exploding in flames, making money, losing money, being beat-up for money, and a surprising romantic plot.
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Post by cineclassics on Jan 6, 2023 2:04:29 GMT
Scarlet Street in recent years has been kind of reevaluated and it's now considered by many as a top-tier film noir. I agree, although another Fritz Lang film noir, Women in the Window, which has the same core cast of Robinson, Duryea and Bennett, is comparable in quality. In 1944, when Woman in the Window was released, it received as good an overall critical consensus as Double Indemnity. Yet in the years since, its reputation has diminished a bit because folks seem to dislike the controversial ending. But back to Scarlet Street; this is one of the many films that highlights Edward G. Robinson's versatility as an actor. He is known as a great gangster actor because of his roles in Little Caesar, Key Largo, etc., but he had great range. Dan Duryea is incredibly convincing as a slimy degenerate, and Joan Bennett has that unique quality to reel in an audience with her glamour and screen presence and then turn on the femme fatale persona. She's great in Women in the Window as well. SPOILERS for Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street: I believe the endings for both films is the reason one film is now considered to be top-tier while the other is secondary. The it-was-just-a-dream ending can make it kind of hard to want to see a film more than once, while the ending of he-got-away-with-murder makes Scarlet Street historic (as it relates to the Production Code). I really enjoy both films. Of course we have 3 iconic noir actors. (with Eddie being the least iconic). As for the Women in the Window ending; I say that this was an unsophisticated way to comply with the Production Code. But I don't fault Lang; He got away with violating it with Scarlet Street and didn't wish to hold up release of WITW by having the screenwriter come up with a way to get around the Code without having to do retakes or make major changes to the storyline. How prominent was the "it was all a dream" ending though in 1944? I can't recall a film that utilized this method of storytelling prior, although I'm sure it had been used. I think the novelty of that method over the many decades has conditioned audiences to describe it as a bit of a cheap way to end a film, but in 1944, perhaps it was a daring decision and judging by the critical reception, it wasn't seen as problematic at the time. Also, the in camera trick that was used by Fritz Lang was incredible to make it seem like one take when the surprise ending is revealed to the audience. |
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Post by sewhite2000 on Jan 6, 2023 3:04:24 GMT
www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/16639/inherit-the-wind/#overviewWell, I can post a link to a web page containing a still from the movie (from the TCM Website), but I still haven't mastered the challenge of actually posting an image in a thread. I'll keep trying in the future. Anyway ... 1/2/23
Inherit the Wind (United Artists, 1960) Source: TCM A full disclosure first: I'm pretty much an agnostic, though as the old saying goes, "There are no atheists in foxholes". I've never been in a foxhole, but I have faced situations in my life that made me desire a satisfactory resolution so badly that prayer is one of the techniques I've resorted to. But that's sort of a cheat on my part, more like covering all bases and not actually an expression of genuine faith. It's also no doubt rooted in my upbringing and the things I was taught as a child in an area of the Bible Belt maybe only slightly more progressive than the one depicted in the movie. They still resonate with me on occasion at some level. If there is indeed a supreme being, I'm quite sure that He/She/They/It finds my ruse pretty transparent. This movie uses the terms "atheist" and "agnostic" pretty interchangeably, which was probably actually done a lot in 1925 (and probably still in 1960), but my understanding is that declaring one's self an atheist, Madeline Murray O'Hare style, is both to be in-your-face political and to actively express a disbelief in the existence of God. I just don't know. I don't have any proof, and I've never really embraced the concept of faith. I gave up on Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny pretty early in life with no truama. God was harder to let go, still is sometimes, because of fear of Hell, which was neatly instilled in most of my playmates and myself in more subtle fashion than the way the Claude Akins character does it in the movie. But sometime in college, I became comfortable with the label of "agnostic". I really don't discuss it with anyone I know personally, because it would upset and worry 90 per cent of them. I AM from the Bible Belt. It's not a topic I do a lot of soul-searching over or devote much thought to. I say all the above not to throw my belief (nonbelief?) system in anybody's face nor to generate a big discussion on the matter, but rather to give an indication of the perspective I bring into a viewing of the movie, which after all is what this post is really supposed to be about. I first saw Inherit the Wind in my junior English class in high school. Back in the '80s, the new technology of videotape instituted some kind of reward system in the junior high and senior high schools I attended, pretty much exclusively in English and history classes. Spend a month reading Rebecca and take a test on it, then you get two "free days" to sit in class and watch the movie version. Spend two weeks studying the Alamo in Texas history (yes, there actually is such a thing, still) or Watergate in US history, and then you get two or three days to watch the John Wayne movie or All the President's Men. Heck, pretty much my entire introduction to the very concept of classic movies came from these classes. Now why in the world we ever watched Inherit the Wind in English class, I have no idea. I don't recall that we read the play, although who knows, we may have. It was a long time ago. Being based on a real incident, it seems more suited for history class, but I definitely remember it being English class. It was a personal favorite movie of our teacher, I think. This being the Bible Belt, even in 1986 or whatever, I'm kind of surprised in retrospect that there wasn't an outcry from parents over the showing of "atheist filth" (think those words are used in the movie). This sort of outrage seems more prevalent now than it was then. Slightly relevant aside: our biology teacher also gave a mission statement before teaching us evolution 60 years after the Scopes trial that creationism was a nice fantasy, but fantasy in his opinion was what it definitely was, and the things he was about to teach us were fact. Heck, it all sounds absolutely enlghtened, as if the Age of Reason had broken out in East Texas in 1986, but there was plenty of contrary information circling at the time as well. I was out the first of the two days we watched Wind, so I think we were already up to the point where Tracy puts March on the witness stand by the time I started. I got to see the dramatic crux of the picture at least, and given just a cursory background by my teacher, it was easy to figure out what was going on, although I was confused about who the Gene Kelly character was exactly. His importance in the final scene indicated to me I'd missed something about him since he wasn't terribly active in the trial scenes. I was most blown away by the presence of Harry Morgan as the judge, being a big M*A*S*H fan - "Holy crap, that's Colonel Potter!" I may have even whispered to myself. That was the sum of my knowledge of his career in those days. But I think more signifiantly my viewing of the (second half) of the movie may have started some deep thinking on my part that eventually led to the decisons I made in college. All the business about Cain's wife and the "begats" and what was the length of a Biblical day opened my eyes for the first time that maybe the Bible was fallible or at least open to interpretation by whoever's reading it. And when Tracy asked "How do you know God didn't spake to Charles Darwin?" hit me like a thunderbolt. I also remember a couple of years later watching Marilyn Manson (no longer given much validity, if he ever was, thanks to Hashtag Me Too) on Bill Maher's original ABC show paraphrasing Tracy by saying "The Bible is a good book ... The Cat in the Hat is also a good book." I thought at the time and still do, that while he made me laugh, it was an unnecessarily glib and derisive comment, but Tracy's point in the movie was well taken by me that there are plenty of books that give us more well rounded knowledge. Okay, I've rambled long enough about my personal experiences. Probably not much need for lengthy exposition of background or plot amongst a crowd this knowledgeable. Inherit the Wind is, of course, a fictionalized accout of the Scopes Monkey Trial held in Tennessee in 1925 in which a high school biology teacher was placed on trial for teahing the theory of evolution, expressly forbidden by state law in an era and an area where "separation of church and state" held little meaning. The case grabbed national headlines, particularly after opposing counsels were selected - the prosecution represented by William Jennings Bryan, a four-time presidential candidate for both the Democratic and Progressive parties (only three times in the movie, but I"m pretty sure it was four in real life) and secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson and from everything I've read a social liberal on many fronts but also a preacher who found the theory of evolution not progressive but contrary to the revealed word of God. Meanwhile, the newspaper publisher H.L. Menken brought in the defense attorney, noted agnostic and liberal Clarence Darrow. These larger than life luminaries are played in the film by very famous actors, and in both the film and the play from which it's adapted, they're given fictionalized names. Darrow, played by Spencer Tracy, is Henry Drummond; Bryan, played by Frederic March, is Matthew Harrison Brady (I think there was a real life Matthew Brady who was an early pioneer of photography?); and Menken, played by Gene Kelly, is E.K. Hornbeck. I like how there was congruence in the nomenclature - March's character, like Bryan, goes by his full three names, while Kelly's character, like Menken, goes by his initials. No attempt at all to further disguise who these people were supposed to be. Dick York, a few years away from being Darren No. 1 on Bewitched, is the teacher on trial, while Claude Akins is the widower local pastor whose grown daughter (Donna Anderson) is engaged to the teacher, much to Akin's unhappiness. He goes much more for the fire and brimstone fear tactics than the March character, and this is spotlighted in one of the movie's strongest scenes, which I intend to elaborate on in a moment. March's real-life wife Florence Edridge plays Brady's on-screen wife, who's loyal and supportive but who also appears ironically in some ways to be guided by a stronger moral compass and who's also exceedingly fond of Drummond - not in a salacious adultery kind of way, but they've become dear friends over the course of many years, and her best scenes are with March and Tracy independently. Then there's the aformentioned Harry Morgan, and I don't think I could identify anyone else in the cast by name, though some of the faces look familar from years of watching TCM (oh, wait, Norman Fell shows up in the final scene as a radio announcer). it was produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, to whom the night was devoted, the master of films with social relevance and I think the only director Tracy worked with in the '60s. I assume the play takes place entirely in the courtroom (one set!). The movie opens up the action just a tad with the arrest of the teacher in the opening scene, scenes at the boardinghouse where most of the principals are staying, an extended outdoors scene showing the spectacle accompanying Brady's arrival and the aformentioned scene of a revival meeting that spotlights March and Aiken. Guess I'll go ahead and discuss that scene, key to the movie. It's the one where March/Brady quotes the Bible passage that comprises the film's title. And there's a lot of hoopla about Tracy's performance - Kelly, eager to take his role not only to have a non-singing, non-dancing part, but also to work with the two multiple Oscar winners, apparently described it as 'magic", saying he learned much about technique from interacting with March, but that there was nothing to learn from Tracy, who was so instinctive, it didn't even seem like he was acting. Burt Reynolds, who got to witness some of the filming, says essentially the same thing in his TCM between-features piece on Tracy. But I think I'm going to mostly talk about March. He's sort of the butt of the joke for much of the movie - Tracy/Drummond is constantly one-upping him in the courtroom scenes, and Kelly/Hornbeck is forever dropping one liners that ridicule March/Brady - and usually all he gets to do in response is scowl a bit. It's hard to argue that the film doesn't take sides, placing March/Brady in the position of being wrong. But when he's faced with the hellfire histrionics of Akins at the revival meeting, he garners sympathy by saying hey, we don't need to be THAT zealous to win the case. I liked the effort to make him more three-dimensional. Of course, the film makes him out to be a heel after all when, after garnering some empathy from the teacher's fiancee, he uses her words aginst her to be unfairly publicly vindictive of the teacher during the trial. Finally, at the end, he's just kind of pathetic (though he's given some redemption by Tracy in the final scene). I'm not sure I like everything that was done with his character, but March plays the full range of who Brady is with brilliance at every moment. As for the message of the movie itself, it's more sympathetic to the believers than one might expect. There are many moments that resonate with me, like when York says the way the Bible is preached in this little nook of the world "is not necessarily the Christian religion everywhere". Other bits, like the final scene when Tracy gets venomous toward Kelly and symbolically gives the Bible and Origins of the Species equal weight before striding off to the refrains of 'His Truth is Marching On", are more than a little heavy-handed. Kelly is more or less a walking sneer full of self-important bon mots for 90 per cent of his performance, and I guess that's what he thought he was supposed to do. I liked small bits where he briefly drops his facade, such as his bafflement over Tracy's mysterious smile when he holds the Bible in his hands, or when after Tracy tells him in the final scene nobody will be at his funeral, he replies, "Oh, yes there will. YOU'LL be there," the closest he comes to actual human warmth in the whole movie. I didn't talk much about Tracy, an actor I admire very much. He was great, too - I very much like the way he delivered most of his courtroom monologues - he kept them vital and compelling and strayed away from being (can't think of a better word) preachy. This is a film that is SO much about its performances and its ideas, that I'm struggling to think of something to say about its production values. I liked the black-and-white cinematography very much, and Kramer and the art director (s?) masterfully capture the claustrophobic feel of the small town. Okay, that was a very long recap/review. Apologies. Running out too much at the mouth has torpedoed my efforts to completely get through previous years. The next couple of movies I talk about I'll try to counterbalance this word slaw with more brevity. Total movies seen this year: 3
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Post by topbilled on Jan 6, 2023 3:42:32 GMT
I decided to do something different this year. Every night I am watching the same movie. I want to see how long it takes for me to get sick of this movie.
But I don't think I will get sick of it, because I really love this movie.
S E V E N K E Y S T O B A L D P A T E (1 9 3 5)
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 6, 2023 8:40:59 GMT
www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/16639/inherit-the-wind/#overviewWell, I can post a link to a web page containing a still from the movie (from the TCM Website), but I still haven't mastered the challenge of actually posting an image in a thread. I'll keep trying in the future. Anyway ... 1/2/23
Inherit the Wind (United Artists, 1960) Source: TCM A full disclosure first: I'm pretty much an agnostic, though as the old saying goes, "There are no atheists in foxholes". I've never been in a foxhole, but I have faced situations in my life that made me desire a satisfactory resolution so badly that prayer is one of the techniques I've resorted to. But that's sort of a cheat on my part, more like covering all bases and not actually an expression of genuine faith. It's also no doubt rooted in my upbringing and the things I was taught as a child in an area of the Bible Belt maybe only slightly more progressive than the one depicted in the movie. They still resonate with me on occasion at some level. If there is indeed a supreme being, I'm quite sure that He/She/They/It finds my ruse pretty transparent. This movie uses the terms "atheist" and "agnostic" pretty interchangeably, which was probably actually done a lot in 1925 (and probably still in 1960), but my understanding is that declaring one's self an atheist, Madeline Murray O'Hare style, is both to be in-your-face political and to actively express a disbelief in the existence of God. I just don't know. I don't have any proof, and I've never really embraced the concept of faith. I gave up on Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny pretty early in life with no truama. God was harder to let go, still is sometimes, because of fear of Hell, which was neatly instilled in most of my playmates and myself in more subtle fashion than the way the Claude Akins character does it in the movie. But sometime in college, I became comfortable with the label of "agnostic". I really don't discuss it with anyone I know personally, because it would upset and worry 90 per cent of them. I AM from the Bible Belt. It's not a topic I do a lot of soul-searching over or devote much thought to. I say all the above not to throw my belief (nonbelief?) system in anybody's face nor to generate a big discussion on the matter, but rather to give an indication of the perspective I bring into a viewing of the movie, which after all is what this post is really supposed to be about. I first saw Inherit the Wind in my junior English class in high school. Back in the '80s, the new technology of videotape instituted some kind of reward system in the junior high and senior high schools I attended, pretty much exclusively in English and history classes. Spend a month reading Rebecca and take a test on it, then you get two "free days" to sit in class and watch the movie version. Spend two weeks studying the Alamo in Texas history (yes, there actually is such a thing, still) or Watergate in US history, and then you get two or three days to watch the John Wayne movie or All the President's Men. Heck, pretty much my entire introduction to the very concept of classic movies came from these classes. Now why in the world we ever watched Inherit the Wind in English class, I have no idea. I don't recall that we read the play, although who knows, we may have. It was a long time ago. Being based on a real incident, it seems more suited for history class, but I definitely remember it being English class. It was a personal favorite movie of our teacher, I think. This being the Bible Belt, even in 1986 or whatever, I'm kind of surprised in retrospect that there wasn't an outcry from parents over the showing of "atheist filth" (think those words are used in the movie). This sort of outrage seems more prevalent now than it was then. Slightly relevant aside: our biology teacher also gave a mission statement before teaching us evolution 60 years after the Scopes trial that creationism was a nice fantasy, but fantasy in his opinion was what it definitely was, and the things he was about to teach us were fact. Heck, it all sounds absolutely enlghtened, as if the Age of Reason had broken out in East Texas in 1986, but there was plenty of contrary information circling at the time as well. I was out the first of the two days we watched Wind, so I think we were already up to the point where Tracy puts March on the witness stand by the time I started. I got to see the dramatic crux of the picture at least, and given just a cursory background by my teacher, it was easy to figure out what was going on, although I was confused about who the Gene Kelly character was exactly. His importance in the final scene indicated to me I'd missed something about him since he wasn't terribly active in the trial scenes. I was most blown away by the presence of Harry Morgan as the judge, being a big M*A*S*H fan - "Holy crap, that's Colonel Potter!" I may have even whispered to myself. That was the sum of my knowledge of his career in those days. But I think more signifiantly my viewing of the (second half) of the movie may have started some deep thinking on my part that eventually led to the decisons I made in college. All the business about Cain's wife and the "begats" and what was the length of a Biblical day opened my eyes for the first time that maybe the Bible was fallible or at least open to interpretation by whoever's reading it. And when Tracy asked "How do you know God didn't spake to Charles Darwin?" hit me like a thunderbolt. I also remember a couple of years later watching Marilyn Manson (no longer given much validity, if he ever was, thanks to Hashtag Me Too) on Bill Maher's original ABC show paraphrasing Tracy by saying "The Bible is a good book ... The Cat in the Hat is also a good book." I thought at the time and still do, that while he made me laugh, it was an unnecessarily glib and derisive comment, but Tracy's point in the movie was well taken by me that there are plenty of books that give us more well rounded knowledge. Okay, I've rambled long enough about my personal experiences. Probably not much need for lengthy exposition of background or plot amongst a crowd this knowledgeable. Inherit the Wind is, of course, a fictionalized accout of the Scopes Monkey Trial held in Tennessee in 1925 in which a high school biology teacher was placed on trial for teahing the theory of evolution, expressly forbidden by state law in an era and an area where "separation of church and state" held little meaning. The case grabbed national headlines, particularly after opposing counsels were selected - the prosecution represented by William Jennings Bryan, a four-time presidential candidate for both the Democratic and Progressive parties (only three times in the movie, but I"m pretty sure it was four in real life) and secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson and from everything I've read a social liberal on many fronts but also a preacher who found the theory of evolution not progressive but contrary to the revealed word of God. Meanwhile, the newspaper publisher H.L. Menken brought in the defense attorney, noted agnostic and liberal Clarence Darrow. These larger than life luminaries are played in the film by very famous actors, and in both the film and the play from which it's adapted, they're given fictionalized names. Darrow, played by Spencer Tracy, is Henry Drummond; Bryan, played by Frederic March, is Matthew Harrison Brady (I think there was a real life Matthew Brady who was an early pioneer of photography?); and Menken, played by Gene Kelly, is E.K. Hornbeck. I like how there was congruence in the nomenclature - March's character, like Bryan, goes by his full three names, while Kelly's character, like Menken, goes by his initials. No attempt at all to further disguise who these people were supposed to be. Dick York, a few years away from being Darren No. 1 on Bewitched, is the teacher on trial, while Claude Akins is the widower local pastor whose grown daughter (Donna Anderson) is engaged to the teacher, much to Akin's unhappiness. He goes much more for the fire and brimstone fear tactics than the March character, and this is spotlighted in one of the movie's strongest scenes, which I intend to elaborate on in a moment. March's real-life wife Florence Edridge plays Brady's on-screen wife, who's loyal and supportive but who also appears ironically in some ways to be guided by a stronger moral compass and who's also exceedingly fond of Drummond - not in a salacious adultery kind of way, but they've become dear friends over the course of many years, and her best scenes are with March and Tracy independently. Then there's the aformentioned Harry Morgan, and I don't think I could identify anyone else in the cast by name, though some of the faces look familar from years of watching TCM (oh, wait, Norman Fell shows up in the final scene as a radio announcer). it was produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, to whom the night was devoted, the master of films with social relevance and I think the only director Tracy worked with in the '60s. I assume the play takes place entirely in the courtroom (one set!). The movie opens up the action just a tad with the arrest of the teacher in the opening scene, scenes at the boardinghouse where most of the principals are staying, an extended outdoors scene showing the spectacle accompanying Brady's arrival and the aformentioned scene of a revival meeting that spotlights March and Aiken. Guess I'll go ahead and discuss that scene, key to the movie. It's the one where March/Brady quotes the Bible passage that comprises the film's title. And there's a lot of hoopla about Tracy's performance - Kelly, eager to take his role not only to have a non-singing, non-dancing part, but also to work with the two multiple Oscar winners, apparently described it as 'magic", saying he learned much about technique from interacting with March, but that there was nothing to learn from Tracy, who was so instinctive, it didn't even seem like he was acting. Burt Reynolds, who got to witness some of the filming, says essentially the same thing in his TCM between-features piece on Tracy. But I think I'm going to mostly talk about March. He's sort of the butt of the joke for much of the movie - Tracy/Drummond is constantly one-upping him in the courtroom scenes, and Kelly/Hornbeck is forever dropping one liners that ridicule March/Brady - and usually all he gets to do in response is scowl a bit. It's hard to argue that the film doesn't take sides, placing March/Brady in the position of being wrong. But when he's faced with the hellfire histrionics of Akins at the revival meeting, he garners sympathy by saying hey, we don't need to be THAT zealous to win the case. I liked the effort to make him more three-dimensional. Of course, the film makes him out to be a heel after all when, after garnering some empathy from the teacher's fiancee, he uses her words aginst her to be unfairly publicly vindictive of the teacher during the trial. Finally, at the end, he's just kind of pathetic (though he's given some redemption by Tracy in the final scene). I'm not sure I like everything that was done with his character, but March plays the full range of who Brady is with brilliance at every moment. As for the message of the movie itself, it's more sympathetic to the believers than one might expect. There are many moments that resonate with me, like when York says the way the Bible is preached in this little nook of the world "is not necessarily the Christian religion everywhere". Other bits, like the final scene when Tracy gets venomous toward Kelly and symbolically gives the Bible and Origins of the Species equal weight before striding off to the refrains of 'His Truth is Marching On", are more than a little heavy-handed. Kelly is more or less a walking sneer full of self-important bon mots for 90 per cent of his performance, and I guess that's what he thought he was supposed to do. I liked small bits where he briefly drops his facade, such as his bafflement over Tracy's mysterious smile when he holds the Bible in his hands, or when after Tracy tells him in the final scene nobody will be at his funeral, he replies, "Oh, yes there will. YOU'LL be there," the closest he comes to actual human warmth in the whole movie. I didn't talk much about Tracy, an actor I admire very much. He was great, too - I very much like the way he delivered most of his courtroom monologues - he kept them vital and compelling and strayed away from being (can't think of a better word) preachy. This is a film that is SO much about its performances and its ideas, that I'm struggling to think of something to say about its production values. I liked the black-and-white cinematography very much, and Kramer and the art director (s?) masterfully capture the claustrophobic feel of the small town. Okay, that was a very long recap/review. Apologies. Running out too much at the mouth has torpedoed my efforts to completely get through previous years. The next couple of movies I talk about I'll try to counterbalance this word slaw with more brevity. Total movies seen this year: 3
This, "I liked small bits where he [Kelly] briefly drops his facade, such as his bafflement over Tracy's mysterious smile when he holds the Bible in his hands, or when after Tracy tells him in the final scene nobody will be at his funeral, he replies, "Oh, yes there will. YOU'LL be there," the closest he comes to actual human warmth in the whole movie." is so spot on. |
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 6, 2023 8:53:26 GMT
I have left Richard Basehart behind and run off with his wife.
I just watched Valentina Cortese with Richard Conte in Thieves Highway.
It's all about truckers getting Golden Delicious apples from the orchards to the city. It sounds boring, but there are accidents, trucks exploding in flames, making money, losing money, being beat-up for money, and a surprising romantic plot.
Kidding aside, "Thieves' Highway" is a good noir, especially since I've come to really enjoy Lee J. Cobb's chewing-on-all-the-scenery acting style.
Your movie-star gender-fluid philandering has probably made Mr. Basehart feel like he did when he was married to Joan Collins in "The Good Die Young," another good Basehart movie, but Lawrence Harvey is the main male lead in this one (comments here: "The Good Die Young" ).
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Post by Andrea Doria on Jan 6, 2023 12:35:48 GMT
Thanks for the Review, Sewhite. As a believer, I particularly appreciated this paragraph. I always watch, "Inherit the Wind" waiting for that part because my Presbyterian/Episcopalian, liberal Christian background leans more toward looking at the Old Testament as the history of man's fumbling attempts to connect with God. We don't see a conflict with science, but, rather, marvel at the many occasions where they agree in spite of the Bible being written so long ago and passed through word of mouth for a thousand years before that.
I agree with you and Fading Fast about Gene Kelly.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Jan 6, 2023 17:52:37 GMT
With regards to Inherit the Wind and the actor\acting: How much of the actor's personal believes impacted how they portrayed the character they were playing? In theory, it should be zero, but last time I checked actors are human beings. Take the comments on Gene Kelly: was he instructed by the director\producer to come-off the way he did; I.e. how much freedom was he given as it relates to how to portray the non-believer? Same goes for the other major roles.
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Post by marysara1 on Jan 6, 2023 18:48:10 GMT
With regards to Inherit the Wind and the actor\acting: How much of the actor's personal believes impact how they portrayed the character they were playing? In theory, it should be zero, but last time I checked actors are human beings. Take the comments one Gene Kelly: was he instructed by the director\producer to come-off the way he did; I.e. how much freedom was he given as it relates to how to portray the non-believer? Same goes for the other major roles. |
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Post by shutoo on Jan 8, 2023 4:25:32 GMT
I decided to do something different this year. Every night I am watching the same movie. I want to see how long it takes for me to get sick of this movie.
But I don't think I will get sick of it, because I really love this movie.
S E V E N K E Y S T O B A L D P A T E (1 9 3 5)
But have you seen the 1983 version, House of the Long Shadows ?  |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 8, 2023 15:11:37 GMT
I decided to do something different this year. Every night I am watching the same movie. I want to see how long it takes for me to get sick of this movie.
But I don't think I will get sick of it, because I really love this movie.
S E V E N K E Y S T O B A L D P A T E (1 9 3 5)
But have you seen the 1983 version, House of the Long Shadows ? |
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Post by dianedebuda on Jan 8, 2023 16:18:31 GMT
I kind of did that with The Russia House (1990) playing it late night while I worked puzzles. Think it was nearly 3 months straight. Gee, been a while, so maybe tonight... 😆 |
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Post by cineclassics on Jan 8, 2023 22:34:12 GMT
 Bad Day at Black Rock. Is it film noir? Is it a western? It's debatable but what isn't debatable is the quality of the film itself. Great ensemble casting, really just an embarrassment of talent: Walter Brennan, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Erenst Borgnine,and of course, the lead anchor of the ensemble, Spencer Tracy. The tension is thick in several scenes, and the unique desert setting, isolated from the rest of civilization, creates a character unto itself.
Is this the first movie to focus on the mistreatment of Asian-Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor? |
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