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Post by Fading Fast on May 31, 2024 9:30:36 GMT
Diabolique, a French film from 1955 with Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot and Paul Meurisse
Set in a dreary French boarding school, the film follows two teachers: the principal's wife (played by Vera Clouzot) and his mistress (played by Simone Signoret). Together, they plot to kill the principal who has mentally and physically abused both of them.
Like most of these elaborately plotted murder stories you can punch holes in the plot, but you won't care as Diabolique is about style, motive, emotions and tension – elements that it gets very, very right.
You immediately know you're in a French movie as wife Clouzot, who suffers from a heart condition, and mistress Signoret, who's strong as an ox, get along as half friends and half frenemies - that's not how American women would do it.
The principal, played by Paul Meurisse, is such a nasty and abusive man, you can almost understand how Clouzot and Signoret would bond – and bond they must to put their murderous plan into action.
The first half of the movie involves all the machinations, feins and nail-biting moments involved in the women's elaborate plan to murder Meurisse, while creating an alibi for themselves.
Poisoned wine, a bathtub drowning, a body stuffed into a huge wicker basket and a night-time splashing of a body into a bilgey swimming pool are all part of the way-too-complicated plan that makes for incredibly tense viewing.
The second half of the movie is the anything-but-quiet waiting for the body to be found and seeing if the women's alibi will stand. Unfortunately, strange things immediately begin happening, making the women wonder if Meurisse is really dead or if someone is taunting them.
The suit he was drowned in comes back from the dry cleaner; his body isn't found when the pool is drained and a student even claims to have seen him. Clouzot, the weaker of the two, starts to come unglued as iron-willed Signoret tries to buck her up.
Intensifying the suspense, a retired French detective, affable but unrelenting, latches onto the story and Clouzot. He asks every question the women don't want asked and looks into every corner they don't want looked into, but so far, their story is holding up.
Without giving spoilers, the last ten minutes are outstanding. Clouzot begins to break down physically and emotionally in the dark, dank school, which now feels more like a haunted mansion than a place of learning.
Director Henri-Georges Clouzot (yes, Vera's husband) shot his movie in a crisp black and white that makes even sunny days seem a bit moody. Each scene is artistically lit and choreographed, making the picture a visual treat.
Beautifully framed, the women, driving to Signoret's hometown (to kill Meurisse) in their ridiculously undersized truck, look like a darker and much-more-troubled version of Thelma and Louise.
Director Clouzot created a depressing and foreboding atmosphere throughout to match the lives of his starkly and evocatively drawn characters. The sense of dread never lets up.
You hate Meurisse because he isn't cardboard evil, but thoughtfully and completely selfish, egotistical and nasty. You feel deeply for Clouzot, a pretty, mousey woman with a weak heart whose Catholic faith, for good reason, haunts her conscience throughout.
Signoret, though, owns the picture. She's everything Clouzot isn't. She looks like she's never been sick a day in her life and she's not going to let faith or "morals" get in the way of killing Meurisse. Plus the woman knows how to wear a pair of sunglasses.
These are three outstanding performances that have you forgetting the principals are actors playing parts as you're just absorbed in the story. That's the beauty of Diabolique: intellectually, you know it's unrealistic, but its style, tension and acting deeply draw you in anyway.
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Post by Andrea Doria on May 31, 2024 11:02:26 GMT
I watched LITTLE MISS BROADWAY (1938) today. I had never seen it before. Of course it's a "kid's movie," but the adults are written and performed very well. It was fun to see Edna May Oliver as the villainess of the piece. It occurs to me that people fawn over Shirley Temple and associate her with being a cute adorable little waif in these movies of hers from the 1930s...but she was actually a very sharp comedienne. The stuff they give her to do, and the way she does it, is quite hilarious. I really enjoyed this movie!
I will be posting my review in the Neglected Films section in a few days.
I'm always amazed at Shirley's dancing. She doesn't just know the, often complicated, steps, she adds her own distinctive style and her rhythm is perfection. |
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Post by NoShear on May 31, 2024 14:55:35 GMT
I was just watching Have Gun Will Travel. The local farmers didn't welcome and were thus mean to foreigners, that were also farmers, who came from southern eastern Europe. Well, these local farmers wheat crops were dying due to disease. The two end up getting along, and the show ends with Paladin telling the local farmers that these foreigner's wheat crops didn't suffer the same disease to their crops because they used seeds from their homeland, Crimea. The foreigners decide to give the local farmers free seed as a way to make them part of this American community. Thus, Ukrainians helping out Americans in the old west! A newcomer to HAVE GUN - WILL TRAVEL, I recently caught the episode entitled "Fogg Bound", jamesjazzguitar, and was surprised that the series strayed that far off the range. |
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on May 31, 2024 19:56:56 GMT
Yesterday I watched Zane Grey, a T.V. western, hosted by Dick Powell. The episode was from 1960. The stars were Claudette Colbert and Jeff Morrow.
I assumed Colbert was going to be playing a grandmother or at least a much older mother, but she was the mother of an under-10-year-old boy. (Morrow was the father). As TB mentioned in another thread, T.V. shows in black and white were very forgiving to older actors. E.g. While Colbert was 57 when this episode was made, she could pull off an under-40 mother role (barely). If in color, it wouldn't have worked at all.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jun 2, 2024 10:02:36 GMT
Singapore Woman from 1941 with Brenda Marshall, David Bruce, Jerome Cowan and Virginia Field
Singapore Woman is a 1941 B movie remake of the 1935 A picture Dangerous. Despite the B version's shorter runtime, smaller budget and mainly tier-two cast, it maintains much of the A picture's punch because of female lead Brenda Marshall.
Marshall plays the daughter of a wealthy owner of a tin mine in Singapore. After a married man she was having an affair with kills himself when Marshall breaks it off, the man's widow puts a curse on Marshall that she says will ruin any man in Marshall's life.
Fast forward a couple of years and Marshall is a broke alcoholic as her father died after his business went bankrupt. Additionally, several men Marshall has dated have died or suffered misfortune. Marshall is now the shunned "jinx" of colonial Singapore.
David Bruce plays a young, handsome rubber plantation owner who had briefly met Marshall years ago. He got his start in business with capital provided by Marshall's father. (Note, this is a better motivation for his character to help Marshall, than the weaker one in the original movie version.)
Thus when he sees wan, unkempt Marshall drinking in a seedy bar, and despite warnings from his society friends, he tries to help her. Bruce all but fireman-carries a very inebriated Marshall back to his plantation late that night to give her a clean, safe place to sleep.
When she awakes the next morning, bitter Marshall is ungrateful and angry as she spitefully demands a drink, while breaking a few things in the house and insulting Bruce and his housekeeper.
Bruce lets all this go as he leaves Marshall in the care of his housekeeper because he has to go into town to meet his fiancée, played by Virginia Field. He hasn't seen Field in two years as she stayed in England while he built up his rubber plantation.
Bruce's good friend, played by Jerome Cowan, like others, warns him against associating with Marshall, especially with his fiancée now in town. Good guy Bruce, though, won't give up on Marshall, but he does hide her from Field – the man's not crazy.
Bruce now has to juggle his prim fiancée in town and his sultry slattern houseguest. It's a neat twist on the age-old love triangle with English colonial characteristics.
That's the darn good setup which probably made Warner Bros., the studio that made both versions of the movie, realize it had such a powerful story on its hands that it could recycle it. Placing it in Singapore proved to be a better setting than the original movie's New York City one.
Marshall, staying at Bruce's plantation, starts to sober up and clean up a bit as she remembers what a normal life looks like. In no time, she and Bruce are tossing the sheets around (you have to read between the lines, but that's what's happening).
Bruce then borrows money to put Marshall's deceased father's bankrupt tin mine back into production, so that Marshall can regain her wealth, position and self esteem. The only problem is what to do with the fiancée who still wants to marry Bruce.
Whether intentionally or not, Field plays her good-girl society fiancée so stuck up and cold that had Bruce been given the choice of her, Marshall or no sex, Field would have been the third pick.
Further complicating matters, a presumed dead conniving ex husband of Marshall's pops up to claim both his wife and her, now, profitable tin mine. It's a short picture, but Warner Bros., as always, stirred in a lot of plot twists.
It's also one of those stories where true love is more important than social conventions as you're rooting for Bruce and Marshall, even though the fiancée genuinely has first dibs on Bruce. Romance conquering convention is Hollywood's number one or two most-popular theme.
The production only rises above its low budget and too fast runtime, though, because Marshall completely sells you on her fallen woman character. She transforms from cosseted daddy's girl, to drunkard slut, to reformed, wiser woman with spirit and believability.
It helps that her dark sultry looks are perfect for her character's wastrel phase. It's also revealing to see Hollywood not dolling her up during that phase - less makeup, flat hair, worn clothes - as her true beauty still comes through since there is no way to make her look bad.
Singapore Woman’s tense love triangle, which has all three parties twisting hard at points, draws you in. Yet it is Brenda Marshall’s riveting performance, combined with the film’s atmospheric setting and intriguing plot twists, that make it a standout B movie. |
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Post by topbilled on Jun 3, 2024 0:50:44 GMT
Fading Fast mentioned SINGAPORE WOMAN to me recently and asked if I had seen it. I had not. I just finished watching it this afternoon...
First, I enjoyed it very much (more than the original). It's very fast-paced and I agree, Brenda Marshall does an excellent job. She certainly can't be accused of going through the motions, every scene had a spark in it...she felt the emotions of every line. The scene where she broke the mirror was riveting. Definitely a case of an A-caliber actress bolstering a B-script and giving it more than it probably deserved.
It was interesting to see how they re-used sets from THE LETTER. And we have Alexis Smith in an early bit role as Jerome Cowan's secretary. I didn't realize the leading man David Bruce had been under contract for awhile at Warners. I associate him more with the later films he did under contract at Universal, including several with Deanna Durbin.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jun 3, 2024 8:20:41 GMT
Fading Fast mentioned SINGAPORE WOMAN to me recently and asked if I had seen it. I had not. I just finished watching it this afternoon...First, I enjoyed it very much (more than the original). It's very fast-paced and I agree, Brenda Marshall does an excellent job. She certainly can't be accused of going through the motions, every scene had a spark in it...she felt the emotions of every line. The scene where she broke the mirror was riveting. Definitely a case of an A-caliber actress bolstering a B-script and giving it more than it probably deserved.
It was interesting to see how they re-used sets from THE LETTER. And we have Alexis Smith in an early bit role as Jerome Cowan's secretary. I didn't realize the leading man David Bruce had been under contract for awhile at Warners. I associate him more with the later films he did under contract at Universal, including several with Deanna Durbin.  |
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Post by Fading Fast on Jun 4, 2024 10:57:02 GMT
Please Don't Eat the Daisies from 1960 with Doris Day, David Niven, Janis Paige, Spring Byington, Richard Haydn and Jack Weston
Hollywood made many lighthearted battle-of-the-sexes romcoms around this time, but even these movies needed some real bite to fully work. And if the romcom couple involved is married, the marriage has to look truly rocky to give the story some friction.
Please Don't Eat the Daisies is pleasant as all heck, but it doesn't have the courage of its convictions to make it a great battle-of-the-sexes romcom. It's funny, often witty and its leads are incredibly likeable, but you never buy that their marriage is wobbling.
Doris Day plays, as always, the nicest singingest mother who is the wife of a charming and only a tiny bit grouchy man played by David Niven. Niven, a drama professor, just took a job as a Broadway theater critic at a major New York City newspaper.
Theirs is the marriage you want. They genuinely like being with each other, can pleasantly complete each other's sentences and have a rhythm to their homelife that makes their small NYC apartment, crowded with four young boys and a large, lazy dog, chaotic but happy.
The problem comes as Niven, heretofore an obscure professor, becomes a popular critic after he pillars a play. Even though we know Niven is a fair man, he gets a reputation as a critic who enjoys "destroying" playwrights and actors.
At the same time, Day is pushing to have the family move to “the country,” which Niven doesn't want since he's becoming "the toast of Broadway." As is true today, many young NYC families, needing more space, kid themselves into calling the suburbs “the country.”
That sets up what little plot conflict there is: Day is a bit put off by Niven's new professional snarkiness, which is really tame, while Niven is irritated about having to move to the suburbs and commute into the city.
There are a few more wrinkles, one involves Janis Paige playing a stage actress whom Niven lambasted, but her idea of revenge is hitting on him to break up his marriage. In truth, though, she's a nice woman who really doesn't want to do any harm.
Another wrinkle has Day starring in the kids' school production of a play that, unbeknownst to her or Niven, Niven wrote in college. It's an awful play that an angry Broadway producer, whose play Niven criticized, is trying to use to embarrass Niven.
If that sounds silly and convoluted that's because it is. While the "climax" tries to sell us on the idea that the marriage is on the rocks, Niven never shows any real interest in Paige and Day never really believes that Niven would be unfaithful.
What you are left with is two really nice people who have a good marriage. Yet it is one with all the bumps that even good marriages have, especially when you throw four young boys and a big lummox of a lovable sheepdog in the mix.
You're also left with a lot of funny and witty scenes, sharp dialogue and great on-screen chemistry between Day and Niven. It's almost like a series of good sitcom episodes strung together. (Not surprisingly, the premise was subsequently turned into a TV sitcom.)
The supporting actors all add to the movie's easy-going chemistry. Spring Byington as Day's quirky but good-hearted mom, Richard Haydn as Day and Niven's best friend and Jack Weston as a taxicab driver wannabe playwright are fun and pleasant characters.
The early scenes of Niven adjusting to his new job as Day manages the household, while still meeting Niven for lunches and dinners, are the movie's highpoints. Their banter is sharp and funny and the entire atmosphere is New York City mid-century cool and enjoyable.
The later plot twist of moving to "the country," which becomes a harmless version of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, loses some of the movie's spark, but it does allow Ms. Day to belt out a few songs as she rehearses for her kids' school play.
Please Don't Eat the Daisies is too nice to even rise to the level of a true battle-of-the-sexes romcom. But darn it, Niven, Day and their sheepdog are so freakin' likable and the script has enough good barbs, that you can't help enjoying this harmless piece of fluff. |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Jun 4, 2024 12:48:28 GMT
Please Don't Eat the Daisies is pleasant as all heck, but it doesn't have the courage of its convictions to make it a great battle-of-the-sexes romcom. It's funny, often witty and its leads are incredibly likeable, but you never buy that their marriage is wobbling.
.......................................
You're also left with a lot of funny and witty scenes, sharp dialogue and great on-screen chemistry between Day and Niven. It's almost like a series of good sitcom episodes strung together. (Not surprisingly, the premise was subsequently turned into a TV sitcom.)
We probably all like this movie to some extent, some more than others of course, and you've really put your finger on what's to like and not to like about it. The kids are basically used for clever sight gags but, because the movie is so invested in them, the parents' relationship can't be in any believable jeopardy. It wants to have it both ways but really ends up having it only one way, which is fine for a popular family entertainment, but you're right that it could have been more and we know that Doris (and Niven and Paige, etc.) were capable of giving more. The sitcom analogy is very apt. |
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Post by Fading Fast on Jun 4, 2024 13:16:00 GMT
Please Don't Eat the Daisies is pleasant as all heck, but it doesn't have the courage of its convictions to make it a great battle-of-the-sexes romcom. It's funny, often witty and its leads are incredibly likeable, but you never buy that their marriage is wobbling.
.......................................
You're also left with a lot of funny and witty scenes, sharp dialogue and great on-screen chemistry between Day and Niven. It's almost like a series of good sitcom episodes strung together. (Not surprisingly, the premise was subsequently turned into a TV sitcom.)
We probably all like this movie to some extent, some more than others of course, and you've really put your finger on what's to like and not to like about it. The kids are basically used for clever sight gags but, because the movie is so invested in them, the parents' relationship can't be in any believable jeopardy. It wants to have it both ways but really ends up having it only one way, which is fine for a popular family entertainment, but you're right that it could have been more and we know that Doris (and Niven and Paige, etc.) were capable of giving more. The sitcom analogy is very apt.
A thing I didn't bring up in my comments that looks really odd to us today is that they lock the littlest kid in a cage. It's very clear these are good, loving parents who are not punishing or abusing the boy, but it's uncomfortable to see. Was that really a thing back then? I grew up in the '70s and don't remember that.
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Post by christine on Jun 4, 2024 14:28:51 GMT
I don't know about locking kids in cages, but my parents put my brother in a - what was called a play pen at that time (early 60's). It was basically a cage without a top!
I remember my mom popping my brother in there when her hands were full or she was busy in the kitchen. I also remember the play pen being outside in the backyard.
My brother is 3 years younger than I am. I don't know if my parents ever had one for me but I don't think so.
My parents were never abusive to us, as a matter of fact, I always felt that my mom was over protective of us sometimes.
I think that was just a thing in the late 50's and early 60's.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jun 4, 2024 14:36:03 GMT
I don't know about locking kids in cages, but my parents put my brother in a - what was called a play pen at that time (early 60's). It was basically a cage without a top! I remember my mom popping my brother in there when her hands were full or she was busy in the kitchen. I also remember the play pen being outside in the backyard. My brother is 3 years younger than I am. I don't know if my parents ever had one for me but I don't think so. My parents were never abusive to us, as a matter of fact, I always felt that my mom was over protective of us sometimes. I think that was just a thing in the late 50's and early 60's.
And like you noted, there is no question that these are good and not in any way abusive parents. I guess it was a thing then.
Thank you for the color. |
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Post by BunnyWhit on Jun 4, 2024 19:13:29 GMT
My favorite bit of the "sharp dialogue/ "good barbs" you mentioned, FadingFast, comes when Suzie Robinson (Spring Byington), Mackay's (David Niven) mother-in-law, arrives at his hotel to find that Joe (Jack Weston) and Deborah Vaughn (Janis Paige) are there. She gives Deborah Vaughn quite a look, to which the response is, "I wasn't here first."
Suzie retorts, "Make sure you don't leave last."
Both of them play it to perfection.
I might also mention that Janis Paige gets to drop one of those remove-the-mink-to-reveal-the-dadgum-backless-gown bits -- which completely knocks me out every time. Just look at her almost wearing that dress!
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Post by Fading Fast on Jun 4, 2024 20:55:22 GMT
" Just look at her almost wearing that dress!"
LOL
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Post by Fading Fast on Jun 8, 2024 10:02:51 GMT
Take Aim at the Police Van a Japanese film from 1960
Japanese director Seijun Suzuki is known for making a series of B movies cult classics in the 1950s and 1960s that incorporated elements of film noir and crime drama overlaid with Japanese culture and surrealism.
Take Aim at the Police Van is an accessible Suzuki effort as the surrealism doesn't overwhelm the story. Despite a somewhat confusing plot, it's still a reasonably straightforward crime drama with engaging characters and, for the time, a lot of action.
When a police van transporting convicts to prison is attacked by a sniper and two prisoners are killed, the prison guard on the van, Tamon, is held responsible and suspended for six months.
It is very Japanese to hold someone in charge responsible for bad things that happen on his or her watch even if, as in this case, he did nothing wrong as he did not have the resources to stop the attack. A culture's gonna culture.
On suspension, Tamon tries to track down the killer as he wants to clear his name. What follows is a man of integrity slowly exposing a vicious world of sex trafficking wrapped inside a family business power struggle.
The movie gets hard to follow if you try to neatly tick and tie all that happens as characters come and go, plus it's intentionally confusing so that the viewer experiences the investigation as Tamon does.
It's easier to keep straight at a high level. We quickly learn that the van shooting is tied into a modeling agency that is really a front for a sex trade business, which includes the ugly immorality of pressuring young and vulnerable girls to become "working" women.
Further complicating the story, the head of the business is "away," so his young pretty daughter is trying to run the business, but other senior executives are trying to push her aside. Behind it all is the shadowy figure of Akiba, he's powerful but elusive.
That makes the story sound more straightforward than it is as we mainly see the movie from Tamon's bottom-up investigative point of view as he encounters thugs trying to stop him, young women trying to seduce him and "businessmen" trying to kill him. The scenes fly by.
Tamon meets a pretty young girl who loves American rock 'n' roll. She seems like a happy teenager until we learn that she's being pressured into the sex trade. Tamon tries to help her, but he's one man against a powerful organization.
Tamon later gets close to learning something from one of the "models," only to find her killed with an arrow through her breast. The action continues to amp up, which includes an improbable but gripping scene with a gasoline tanker about to be set on fire.
It works because of its style. The men are almost all dressed in Rat Pack cool suits and ties, and the women wear a variety of clothing from traditional Japanese dress to slutty cocktail attire depending on the who, what, when and where.
It's surrealist escapism to a visually engaging and stylish world of crime, violence and sexual imagery. Like American or French film noir, real Japan probably never was this cool, sexy or wantonly violent, but that's part of the film's appeal.
It would be hard to believe that modern directors like Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie weren't inspired by Suzuki's work as their films, too, create elaborately stylish, appealing and unrealistic worlds where crime, sex and a warped sense of honor do battle.
Take Aim at the Police Van is a film noir/crime drama with very Japanese characteristics. Go in expecting a confusing but cool-looking world of well-dressed hoods, warped morality and licentiousness and it's a fun ride through mid-century Japanese cinema.
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