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Post by dianedebuda on Apr 20, 2024 13:32:25 GMT
The Rat Race from 1960 with Tony Curtis, Debbie Reynolds, Jack Oakie, Don Rickles and Kay Medford ... Jack Oakie plays the nice owner of the local bar ... Kay Medford plays a cynical regular patron of the bar. These two function as older reflections of what Curtis and Reynolds might become.
The only miss in the movie is that, other than for a few exterior Times Square shots, it wasn't filmed in New York. For a movie that didn't hold back many punches for the era, it needed the true grit of on-location New York City filming to complete its realism.
Good review.
I watched this a week or so ago & remember that almost everything is interior shots and didn't feel like it was lacking on-location realism. Disclaimer: I've never been to New York or lived in a really big city. Ok, I did change planes there in 1978 on my way to/from Europe. 😆
I don't generally like this type of bleak side of life movies/books, but watched because I enjoy the leads. I thought both of them did well 'cause I felt so sorry for Curtis when he got snookered and surprised at the depth of will still existing in downtrodden Renolds to give him a break. Oaklie and particularly Medford were great as reflections of the possible future for the leads like you mention.
Will never be a favorite movie for me, but I too can recommend it being worth one's viewing time.
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Post by BunnyWhit on Apr 20, 2024 15:29:46 GMT
Her dancing dreams have been reduced to working as a taxi dancer in a club run by a thuggish pimp played by Don Rickles. Rickles gets to show his dramatic acting chops here as he tries to financially squeeze Reynolds into prostitution.
Thanks for giving Don Rickles a shoutout. I feel Rickles often does not get the credit he deserves for his dramatic work. He was a fine actor, and that hockey puck left us with some great work.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Apr 20, 2024 16:28:08 GMT
I enjoy The Rat Race for its jazz music vibe. I do wish it had a few more musical scenes but overall a gritty film with fine work by the 3 leads betters known for light comedy.
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Post by I Love Melvin on Apr 21, 2024 21:53:55 GMT
Her dancing dreams have been reduced to working as a taxi dancer in a club run by a thuggish pimp played by Don Rickles. Rickles gets to show his dramatic acting chops here as he tries to financially squeeze Reynolds into prostitution.
Thanks for giving Don Rickles a shoutout. I feel Rickles often does not get the credit he deserves for his dramatic work. He was a fine actor, and that hockey puck left us with some great work. Rickles was also excellent in the Carl Reiner comedy Enter Laughing (1967). It was a comic role, but totally without schtick and the guy turned out to have a real heart.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 25, 2024 10:41:07 GMT
Escape from 1940 with Robert Taylor, Norma Shearer, Conrad Veidt, Alla Nazimova, Felix Bressart and Philip Dorn
It is legitimate to criticize Hollywood's "approach" to the German market prior to America's entry in WWII, but several anti-Nazi movies did get made, even if Tinseltown tried to thread the needle by not using the words "Germany" or "Nazi" in these pictures.
The best of these efforts is MGM's 1940s The Mortal Storm, but Escape, also from MGM that year, showed Nazi German (you know it is, even if those words are never used) as a frightening police state where individuals have no genuine rights or freedom.
Robert Taylor plays an American who has come over to find his missing German mother, played by Alla Nazimova. Nazimova, a German citizen who married an American, came back to Germany to sell an old family home. She planned to quickly return to America.
Taylor, playing very much to his personal acting brand, is the brash, young and pushy American who can't believe everyone doesn't want to help him find his mother. It takes a long time for Taylor to realize the frightening police state that Germany has become.
His mother's old friends and servants, like one played by Felix Bressart, are hesitant to help as they know they could wind up in a concentration camp just like Nazimona. Nazimona ran afoul of the state by trying to wire the proceeds of her house sale out of the country.
That is the big thing that Escape gets right: It shows how even decent individuals live in non-stop abject fear as everything one does or says is questioned in a totalitarian state where the individual has no rights. The country itself becomes just one big prison.*
Taylor's quest is one we sadly are now quite familiar seeing in WWII movies. He is hounded and threatened by "political officers" (the SS), turned away by bureaucrats and cold-shouldered by everyone else, except for a few brave souls.
A Nazi doctor, played by Philip Dorn, Bressart and Norma Shearer playing an expat American widow of a German count all, with reservations at first, try to help Taylor rescue his mother who is scheduled to be executed shortly.
Shearer gives one of her career's best dramatic performances in this one. The silent film mannerisms that stayed with her into the "talkie" era are all but gone; instead, her performance as the American trying to help Taylor without exposing herself is gripping.
She, like so many in Germany, just wants to live her life free of politics, but that is impossible in a police state, so she has taken a German General, played by Conrad Veidt, as a lover. He provides the "protection" that allows her to run her cosseting girls finishing school.
Most of the movie is Taylor running into brick walls and being threatened as he tries to find out what happened to his mother. The ensuing rescue plan is far-fetched, but it serves to highlight the fear enveloping the country owing to the evil of the fascist state.
The down-to-the-wire tension in the story is all Hollywood, but you'll be rooting hard for Taylor and Nazimova to escape and Shearer, Bressart and Dorn to not be arrested.
Veidt, who played German officers in films for years, is excellent as the general who wants to keep his lover, Shearer, protected, but he has no intention of letting Nazimona escape. Veidt brings some humanity and complexity to a role that could easily be two dimensional.
Dorn is outstanding as the "Nazi" doctor who was probably a good, moral physician before the Nazis came to power. It's easy to say how brave one would be when watching a movie, but Dorn's measured actions are a more accurate portrayal of real-life bravery.
Escape, today, is still a good attempted-rescue drama, but its real value is its small place in history. Hollywood didn't always acquit itself admirably in the years leading up to WWII, but movies like Escape argue that Hollywood did, sometimes, find its backbone.
*There is no better visual instantiation of a totalitarian state becoming a prison than East Germany, which notoriously built a wall to keep its citizens from "escaping." Just like in a prison, East German guards shot those citizens who tried to breach the prison's walls.
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christine
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Post by christine on Apr 27, 2024 2:07:39 GMT
I just finished watching TOOTSIE 1982 on TCM this evening. I'd forgotten what a funny movie it is! I laughed so hard I was crying! I think that's what a good film should do - move you somehow. Whether it's laughter/enjoyment, inspiration or wonderment! Had myself a good time tonight!
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Post by lonesomepolecat on Apr 28, 2024 6:01:45 GMT
I just rewatched IT HAPPENED TO JANE and love it more every time I watch it. The "stick it to the man" plot is so satisfying. Getting your own train sounds really fun. Eating lobster looks delicious. I wish Jack Lemmon made more movies with Doris Day because I feel like they're a great team. I also appreciate the New England location shooting -- it really makes a difference to me that it's not just L.A. -- the town becomes a character, not just the townspeople, but the buildings. Also, I am so jealous of those kids for getting lobster for a scout cookout! I have two beefs with this movie. #1 the lame title -- our family thought of calling it "Old 97" after the train they acquire. Beef #2 is the weird fashion of Olden Times of wearing knee high socks with shorts. What is the point of wearing shorts at all? Anyway, very satisfying movie.
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Post by NoShear on Apr 29, 2024 20:25:49 GMT
Escape from 1940 with Robert Taylor, Norma Shearer, Conrad Veidt, Alla Nazimova, Felix Bressart and Philip Dorn
It is legitimate to criticize Hollywood's "approach" to the German market prior to America's entry in WWII, but several anti-Nazi movies did get made, even if Tinseltown tried to thread the needle by not using the words "Germany" or "Nazi" in these pictures.
The best of these efforts is MGM's 1940s The Mortal Storm, but Escape, also from MGM that year, showed Nazi German (you know it is, even if those words are never used) as a frightening police state where individuals have no genuine rights or freedom.
Robert Taylor plays an American who has come over to find his missing German mother, played by Alla Nazimova. Nazimova, a German citizen who married an American, came back to Germany to sell an old family home. She planned to quickly return to America.
Taylor, playing very much to his personal acting brand, is the brash, young and pushy American who can't believe everyone doesn't want to help him find his mother. It takes a long time for Taylor to realize the frightening police state that Germany has become.
His mother's old friends and servants, like one played by Felix Bressart, are hesitant to help as they know they could wind up in a concentration camp just like Nazimona. Nazimona ran afoul of the state by trying to wire the proceeds of her house sale out of the country.
That is the big thing that Escape gets right: It shows how even decent individuals live in non-stop abject fear as everything one does or says is questioned in a totalitarian state where the individual has no rights. The country itself becomes just one big prison.*
Taylor's quest is one we sadly are now quite familiar seeing in WWII movies. He is hounded and threatened by "political officers" (the SS), turned away by bureaucrats and cold-shouldered by everyone else, except for a few brave souls.
A Nazi doctor, played by Philip Dorn, Bressart and Norma Shearer playing an expat American widow of a German count all, with reservations at first, try to help Taylor rescue his mother who is scheduled to be executed shortly.
Shearer gives one of her career's best dramatic performances in this one. The silent film mannerisms that stayed with her into the "talkie" era are all but gone; instead, her performance as the American trying to help Taylor without exposing herself is gripping.
She, like so many in Germany, just wants to live her life free of politics, but that is impossible in a police state, so she has taken a German General, played by Conrad Veidt, as a lover. He provides the "protection" that allows her to run her cosseting girls finishing school.
Most of the movie is Taylor running into brick walls and being threatened as he tries to find out what happened to his mother. The ensuing rescue plan is far-fetched, but it serves to highlight the fear enveloping the country owing to the evil of the fascist state.
The down-to-the-wire tension in the story is all Hollywood, but you'll be rooting hard for Taylor and Nazimova to escape and Shearer, Bressart and Dorn to not be arrested.
Veidt, who played German officers in films for years, is excellent as the general who wants to keep his lover, Shearer, protected, but he has no intention of letting Nazimona escape. Veidt brings some humanity and complexity to a role that could easily be two dimensional.
Dorn is outstanding as the "Nazi" doctor who was probably a good, moral physician before the Nazis came to power. It's easy to say how brave one would be when watching a movie, but Dorn's measured actions are a more accurate portrayal of real-life bravery.
Escape, today, is still a good attempted-rescue drama, but its real value is its small place in history. Hollywood didn't always acquit itself admirably in the years leading up to WWII, but movies like Escape argue that Hollywood did, sometimes, find its backbone.
*There is no better visual instantiation of a totalitarian state becoming a prison than East Germany, which notoriously built a wall to keep its citizens from "escaping." Just like in a prison, East German guards shot those citizens who tried to breach the prison's walls. Of course, Fading Fast, I was curious how your review of Norma Shearer would read... Because, as was pointed out in in the intro on T CM, Norma Shearer took the less substantial role in terms of on-screen time, there's some frustration for fans of the actress wanting to see more of her in the 1940 movie. However, this absence in parts gives the Shearer character an aloofness which works because, indeed, the countess is at once helpful yet aware of her precarious situation.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 29, 2024 21:13:44 GMT
Escape from 1940 with Robert Taylor, Norma Shearer, Conrad Veidt, Alla Nazimova, Felix Bressart and Philip Dorn
It is legitimate to criticize Hollywood's "approach" to the German market prior to America's entry in WWII, but several anti-Nazi movies did get made, even if Tinseltown tried to thread the needle by not using the words "Germany" or "Nazi" in these pictures.
The best of these efforts is MGM's 1940s The Mortal Storm, but Escape, also from MGM that year, showed Nazi German (you know it is, even if those words are never used) as a frightening police state where individuals have no genuine rights or freedom.
Robert Taylor plays an American who has come over to find his missing German mother, played by Alla Nazimova. Nazimova, a German citizen who married an American, came back to Germany to sell an old family home. She planned to quickly return to America.
Taylor, playing very much to his personal acting brand, is the brash, young and pushy American who can't believe everyone doesn't want to help him find his mother. It takes a long time for Taylor to realize the frightening police state that Germany has become.
His mother's old friends and servants, like one played by Felix Bressart, are hesitant to help as they know they could wind up in a concentration camp just like Nazimona. Nazimona ran afoul of the state by trying to wire the proceeds of her house sale out of the country.
That is the big thing that Escape gets right: It shows how even decent individuals live in non-stop abject fear as everything one does or says is questioned in a totalitarian state where the individual has no rights. The country itself becomes just one big prison.*
Taylor's quest is one we sadly are now quite familiar seeing in WWII movies. He is hounded and threatened by "political officers" (the SS), turned away by bureaucrats and cold-shouldered by everyone else, except for a few brave souls.
A Nazi doctor, played by Philip Dorn, Bressart and Norma Shearer playing an expat American widow of a German count all, with reservations at first, try to help Taylor rescue his mother who is scheduled to be executed shortly.
Shearer gives one of her career's best dramatic performances in this one. The silent film mannerisms that stayed with her into the "talkie" era are all but gone; instead, her performance as the American trying to help Taylor without exposing herself is gripping.
She, like so many in Germany, just wants to live her life free of politics, but that is impossible in a police state, so she has taken a German General, played by Conrad Veidt, as a lover. He provides the "protection" that allows her to run her cosseting girls finishing school.
Most of the movie is Taylor running into brick walls and being threatened as he tries to find out what happened to his mother. The ensuing rescue plan is far-fetched, but it serves to highlight the fear enveloping the country owing to the evil of the fascist state.
The down-to-the-wire tension in the story is all Hollywood, but you'll be rooting hard for Taylor and Nazimova to escape and Shearer, Bressart and Dorn to not be arrested.
Veidt, who played German officers in films for years, is excellent as the general who wants to keep his lover, Shearer, protected, but he has no intention of letting Nazimona escape. Veidt brings some humanity and complexity to a role that could easily be two dimensional.
Dorn is outstanding as the "Nazi" doctor who was probably a good, moral physician before the Nazis came to power. It's easy to say how brave one would be when watching a movie, but Dorn's measured actions are a more accurate portrayal of real-life bravery.
Escape, today, is still a good attempted-rescue drama, but its real value is its small place in history. Hollywood didn't always acquit itself admirably in the years leading up to WWII, but movies like Escape argue that Hollywood did, sometimes, find its backbone.
*There is no better visual instantiation of a totalitarian state becoming a prison than East Germany, which notoriously built a wall to keep its citizens from "escaping." Just like in a prison, East German guards shot those citizens who tried to breach the prison's walls. Of course, Fading Fast, I was curious how your review of Norma Shearer would read... Because, as was pointed out in in the intro on T CM, Norma Shearer took the less substantial role in terms of on-screen time, there's some frustration for fans of the actress wanting to see more of her in the 1940 movie. However, this absence in parts gives the Shearer character an aloofness which works because, indeed, the countess is at once helpful yet aware of her precarious situation. I agree. I think the character is well written as she wants to help, but at least initially, is cautious in her approach, the way real people are. And, as noted, I thought Shearer's interpretation often character was spot on and, IMO, one of her best performances. Yes, it isn't her biggest roles, but it it is a major one where the entire climax pivots on her behavior several times.
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Post by NoShear on Apr 29, 2024 21:43:27 GMT
Of course, Fading Fast, I was curious how your review of Norma Shearer would read... Because, as was pointed out in in the intro on T CM, Norma Shearer took the less substantial role in terms of on-screen time, there's some frustration for fans of the actress wanting to see more of her in the 1940 movie. However, this absence in parts gives the Shearer character an aloofness which works because, indeed, the countess is at once helpful yet aware of her precarious situation. I agree. I think the character is well written as she wants to help, but at least initially, is cautious in her approach, the way real people are. And, as noted, I thought Shearer's interpretation often character was spot on and, IMO, one of her best performances. Yes, it isn't her biggest roles, but it it is a major one where the entire climax pivots on her behavior several times. Interesting to note, Fading Fast, that Norma Shearer does not initially impart the break from the earlier established style you mentioned occurs within the movie: Her first scene includes that infectious laugh of Shearer's.
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Post by NoShear on Apr 30, 2024 0:30:54 GMT
Wrong section - sorry!
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Post by dianedebuda on Apr 30, 2024 14:23:58 GMT
it isn't her biggest roles, but it it is a major one where the entire climax pivots on her behavior several times. I look at this as kind of like what Eli Wallach said about his decision on taking his The Magnificent Seven 1960 role. The actual screen time for Calvera was small, but the screen presence was huge 'cause everyone else in the film was always talking/thinking about him.
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Post by Fading Fast on May 2, 2024 10:23:46 GMT
Born to Kill from 1947 with Lawrence Tierney, Claire Trevor, Elisha Cook Jr., Esther Howard, Walter Slezak, Audrey Long and Phillip Terry
Sex, money and murder, just not in that order, drive everything that happens in Born to Kill, a dark, even for film noir, offering from RKO Studios starring Lawrence Tierney and Claire Trevor.
Tierney plays a handsome sociopath who doesn't even try to seduce or charm other people; he lets his raw masculinity alone do that. And it works, as it does on his personal factotum played by Elisha Cook Jr., who spends all his time trying to cover up Tierney's murders.
After Tierney kills his girlfriend and her lover in cold blood, he flees Reno for San Francisco leaving Cook Jr. behind to mop up. On his way to San Fran, Tierney meets a freshly minted divorcee, played by Claire Trevor.
As happens to almost every woman, Trevor can't get her clothes off fast enough after meeting Tierney (all implied, of course, in this era). The hitch is that she's also engaged to a nice and very wealthy milquetoast of a man, played by Phillip Terry.
So when Tierney shows up at Trevor's rich half sister's house, he simply switches horses and marries the sister, played by Audrey Long, who, along with Terry, are the only nice people in the movie.
Two added wrinkles, though, also followed Tierney to San Fran. One is a friend, played by Esther Howard, of the woman Tierney murdered in Reno and the other is the private detective, played by Walter Slezak, Howard hires to find her friend's murderer.
It's complicated, but the stage is now set with Tierney married to the nice sister, Long, but still having some version of hate-sex with the conniving sister, Trevor. Meanwhile, Trevor and Cook Jr. try to protect Tierney from Howard and Slezak. People just do this for Tierney.
This not very believable story then takes a few wild twists, which include possibly the oddest mano-a-mano cagematch ever in noir history when pipsqueak Cook Jr. faces off against matronly Howard. Howard, surprisingly, has some game.
Eventually, though - especially with Slezak as an amoral but dogged, Bible- and Shakespeare-quoting private detective tracking all the bad behavior - it comes down to Trevor, Tierney and the police. It's 1947 and murder can't pay, on screen anyway.
Tierney's character is full-on psychotic as the smallest perceived-by-him slight to his manhood sets him into a rage that can easily spiral to murder. He also lacks any of the charm that psychotics usually use to manipulate the world to their will.
The man is so unpleasant to everyone, it's hard to believe anyone, even Cook Jr., who might have sexual feelings for him, or Trevor, who only has sexual feelings for him, would put up with the abuse. And it is harder still to see why nice sister Long would marry him.
If you put that aside, and that's a heavy lift, and just enjoy the story as presented, the acting is impressive: Trevor, Slezak, Cook Jr. and Howard all create characters who will stay with you, but Tierney's is too one dimensional to touch you in any meaningful way.
Tierney is so sick, he should have been institutionalized; Trevor, though, is rational, but evil. Her lust for money had her about to marry a man she didn't love or even respect, until her lust for, well, lust made her take her eye off the money. This really is Trevor's movie.
All this carnal passion, greed and murder is ably steered through an unpretentious noir atmosphere by director Robert Wise. Wise doesn't have the reputation of the "big" directors, but his pictures are almost always smart and engaging ones that let the actors shine.
Born to Kill is a type of art: it isn't a representation of life as it is, but a stylized look at how sex, money and murder can warp people. Its lead characters, though, are so evil - so devoid of any morally redeeming characteristics - that you wonder how the censors let this one slide by.
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Post by NoShear on May 6, 2024 17:03:52 GMT
"THE FIRST AUTO" contains some elements surreal enough to suggest that David ERASERHEAD Lynch had possibly viewed the 1927 synchro sound movie during or in advance of his own work.
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Post by Fading Fast on May 8, 2024 10:01:24 GMT
Courage for Every Day from 1964, a Czechoslovakian film
Is Courage for Every Day a good movie? It is praised for being part of the "Czech New Wave" of cinema and for being a daring movie to make under communist rule. Those things are probably true, but they don't, alone, make Courage for Every Day a good movie.
Jarda as a young man believed in the "people's revolution." He was part of the youth movement that supported it, but now, over a decade later, with Stalin dead and a younger generation disillusioned with life under communism, Jarda is feeling lost.
Even his pretty girlfriend, Vera - he sneaks into her apartment at night to sleep with her and then sneaks out in the morning - seems disappointed in the man he is now. She sees that his support for "the revolution" makes him look stodgy and out of touch.
Jarda works at a manufacturing plant where the younger kids openly laugh at him for his party loyalty. A local reporter even follows Jarda around for a bit as Jarda was once "an up and comer," but this only serves to emphasize how unimportant his life has become.
Jarda gives speeches at what look like union halls, but few listen as they are much more interested in the entertainment part of the show. Jarda's family, too, seems to realize he's fallen short of his promise.
The movie is shot in a semi-documentary style. Everything here is rundown and shabby. Life looks dreary in Czechoslovakia; not brutal, just poor and dreary. The people seem to have lost hope, but only the teenagers and young adults are angry about it.
The apartment houses are dirty and dilapidated. The manufacturing plant is running, but it looks as if maintenance stopped a decade ago. The cars are mainly junky and cheap and the landscape, even the woods, has a hazy, grimy appearance.
This is a slice of life movie as the only narrative arc - and the only character growth we see - is Jarda's realization that his life has amounted to nothing; that his early belief in communism has sold him out as he approaches middle age.
For that reason, it is a statement film and, perforce, it makes its statement in a roundabout enough way to, apparently, have made it past the communist censors. For that, the filmmakers deserve kudos for both their skill and courage.
But the movie's semi-documentary style is boring as all heck. It spends most of its time on atmosphere shots and mundane dialogue. Scenes go on where the point - life is drab here and the people have all but given up - has long since been made.
You wait for something to happen, but the few key moments - Jarda gets further disillusioned with communism or Vera gets further disillusioned with Jarda - have no punch. Whatever the heck Czech "New Wave" is, if this is it, it's hard to be impressed.
So is Courage for Every Day a good movie? Does the movie entertain as it makes its message - no. Did it take courage to make - as noted, yes. Is it an important movie - maybe. Is it a good movie - no.
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