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Post by topbilled on Sept 5, 2024 20:00:55 GMT
The restored copy of COTTAGE TO LET that Fading Fast mentioned can be viewed on YouTube:
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nickandnora34
Full Member
Just a grease spot on the L&N
Posts: 102
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Post by nickandnora34 on Sept 5, 2024 21:33:23 GMT
Murder My Sweet (1944)
Dick Powell, Anne Shirley, Claire Trevor, Mike Mazurki, Otto Kruger. 3.5* out of 5*  Something I found quite fascinating about this particular installment in the Philip Marlowe film series, is the fact that Powell's Marlowe seems to get knocked about a significant bit more than Bogie's Marlowe. I don't recall Bogie getting knocked out or beat up even once in The Big Sleep... Someone please correct me if I'm wrong... Powell gets coshed on the head twice, temporarily blinded, and locked up in a strange house for days while unconscious; I think this is a little more believable than Bogie. Powell wise-cracks so much I'm surprised he doesn't get hit over the head with every encounter he has with a suspect or a cop.   In short, Marlowe is tasked with finding Mazurki's ex girlfriend Velma, accompanying a playboy to a jewelry "buyback", while also attempting to recover an expensive jade necklace that has been presumably stolen during a robbery. The playboy ends up murdered, and Marlowe tries to solve the case, while being convinced that the three jobs he has been hired to do are related to each other.
This is only the second film of Anne Shirley's that I've seen, and unfortunately, she retired from acting right after this film was released, and to top it all off, 8 of her early films are considered LOST. I will admit I was a little saddened by this information, but I want to try to at least watch her in "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (aka All That Money Can Buy). Claire Trevor was quite good in this as the femme fatale; I've seen her, of course, in "Key Largo" with Bogie and Bacall, and "Raw Deal." 
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Sept 5, 2024 23:35:37 GMT
In The Big Sleep Bogart's Marlow gets beaten very badly by Eddie Mars hoods. Elisha Cook (Jones) observes the beating. One of the great scenes in the film is when Jones goes to Marlow after the beating and tries to sell Marlow information. Marlow is upset that Jones didn't intervene.
Jones says to Marlow he lets a man play his hand and that he is no kibiser. (I don't know what the term means and I'm sure I'm not spelling it correctly).
As for Murder My Sweet: fine early cycle noir film with a great cast and who I find to be the most iconic noir dame, Claire Trevor. Anne Shirley is a cutie and many of her early films are well worth seeing. E.g. as Stanwyck's daughter in the weepie Stella Dallas (1937), Saturday's Children with a young John Garfield, and as the friend of Olivia DeHavilland (I think the two gals look very similar), in Government Girl (1943).
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nickandnora34
Full Member
Just a grease spot on the L&N
Posts: 102
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Post by nickandnora34 on Sept 6, 2024 1:42:49 GMT
In The Big Sleep Bogart's Marlow gets beaten very badly by Eddie Mars hoods. Elisha Cook (Jones) observes the beating. One of the great scenes in the film is when Jones goes to Marlow after the beating and tries to sell Marlow information. Marlow is upset that Jones didn't intervene. Jones says to Marlow he lets a man play his hand and that he is no kibiser. (I don't know what the term means and I'm sure I'm not spelling it correctly). As for Murder My Sweet: fine early cycle noir film with a great cast and who I find to be the most iconic noir dame, Claire Trevor. Anne Shirley is a cutie and many of her early films are well worth seeing. E.g. as Stanwyck's daughter in the weepie Stella Dallas (1937), Saturday's Children with a young John Garfield, and as the friend of Olivia DeHavilland (I think the two gals look very similar), in Government Girl (1943). Thank you for the info re: Big Sleep, james! I couldn't remember for the life of me if he'd been beaten up or not. Could you be referring to the Yiddish word "kibitzer" by any chance? Definition: one who offers unwanted advice or commentary. |
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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 6, 2024 7:11:47 GMT
My guess is the word is "kibosher -" the below definition is from "The Free Dictionary." I bolded the definition that I think fits best for "The Big Sleep" as I believe Jones is saying I don't get involved in stopping what others are doing even if what they are doing is beating you up. Clearly, the assumption is that a "kibosher" is someone who "kiboshes" something.
kibosh
1. noun A stop to or a check on something. Used almost exclusively in the phrase "put the kibosh on (something)."
The boss finally put the kibosh on our two-hour lunch meetings.
2. verb To put a stop to something or check it in some way.
You'd better kibosh that nonsense before it gets you in trouble.
put the kibosh on (something)
To impede, spoil, or prevent something from happening or continuing.
News of unrest in the area really put the kibosh on our plans to vacation there.
The manager put the kibosh on our staff party, saying it would cost too much.
See also: kibosh, on, put
I was curious about the origin of the world, but I found very little, most explanations were like this:
Where does the noun kibosh come from? The earliest known use of the noun kibosh is in the 1830s. OED's earliest evidence for kibosh is from 1834, in the Standard (London). kibosh is of unknown origin.
But I also saw this, so kudos to nickandnora34:
The origin of kibosh is unknown — though many people think it's Yiddish, the word's earliest use was probably in an Irish neighborhood in London in the early 1800s. "Kibosh." Vocabulary.com
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Post by BunnyWhit on Sept 6, 2024 15:49:38 GMT
In The Big Sleep Bogart's Marlow gets beaten very badly by Eddie Mars hoods. Elisha Cook (Jones) observes the beating. One of the great scenes in the film is when Jones goes to Marlow after the beating and tries to sell Marlow information. Marlow is upset that Jones didn't intervene. Jones says to Marlow he lets a man play his hand and that he is no kibiser. (I don't know what the term means and I'm sure I'm not spelling it correctly). As for Murder My Sweet: fine early cycle noir film with a great cast and who I find to be the most iconic noir dame, Claire Trevor. Anne Shirley is a cutie and many of her early films are well worth seeing. E.g. as Stanwyck's daughter in the weepie Stella Dallas (1937), Saturday's Children with a young John Garfield, and as the friend of Olivia DeHavilland (I think the two gals look very similar), in Government Girl (1943). Thank you for the info re: Big Sleep, james! I couldn't remember for the life of me if he'd been beaten up or not. Could you be referring to the Yiddish word " kibitzer" by any chance? Definition: one who offers unwanted advice or commentary. |
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Sept 6, 2024 18:32:14 GMT
Thanks all for that information on what Jonesy says in that scene in The Big Sleep. I'm fairly sure he says "kibitzer" (I'm seen the film at least 30 times!) but how Jonesy uses the term matches more to "kibosh", since Joney didn't try to prevent the beating or at least shorten it, but instead just watched it.
Maybe Jonesy wasn't well versed in Yiddish!
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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 10, 2024 9:13:26 GMT
Seven Days... Seven Nights from 1960, a French film
It is not hard to understand why a pretty, young mother would be deeply bored with her opulent life married to a cold, middle-aged industrialist and stuck in a dreary factory town with no similar women to befriend and nothing, not one thing to do all day.
But it takes a Paris intellectual like Marguerite Duras, author of the novel on which Seven Days... Seven Nights is based, to turn the situation into such a deep, personal existential crisis that the young mother would identify with a female murder victim she sees at a crime scene.
A normal person would realize they had made a bad marriage, but not feel a meaningful connection to an anonymous dead person. Yet a French existentialist, channeling her inner Sartre, is able to see her existence reflected in the lifeless body of the murder victim.
The young wife, played by Jeanne Moreau, obsesses about the murder, so much that she visits the scene of the crime – which is nearby to where she takes her adolescent son for piano lessons – several times. There she meets a young man, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Belmondo, a worker in Moreau's husband's factory, seems depressed by life in a similar way to Moreau, but with maybe a flicker more of hope than she has. He also, for some reason, has a lot of free time to walk around and do nothing – for a man with a job.
To appreciate what happens from here, you have to appreciate the French existential gestalt of all this as most of the movie is Moreau just walking around the town, its parks, and woods by herself or with her son – sometimes with Belmondo, and sometimes not.
Director Peter Brook set all this walking around in a dreary-looking town with a dreary-looking park and a dreary-looking surrounding woods made drearier by the heavy feel of the black-and-white cinematography. It all looks like a sad daguerreotype photograph hanging in a museum.
This stark black-and-white visual deepens the film's sense of isolation and existential gloom, with its many shadows and bleak landscape reinforcing the emotional detachment of the characters.
If you didn't have an existential issue coming into the movie, you might leave with one as all Moreau and Belomondo do while walking around is talk in circles about the murder victim or their lives in an often obfuscating but depressing way.
They do make an interesting visual contrast, though. Moreau is beautifully dressed and impeccably groomed, while Belomondo is a bit scruffy and lugubrious in his heavy dark raglan wool overcoat. Both, though, have a deeply dispirited mien that cast a pall over the entire movie.
Yet there is oddly something captivating about all this mundane sadness dressed up as a philosophical work of art. You feel Moreau's loneliness in a profound way. A well-dressed and well-coiffed woman walking around a bleak landscape does look lost, small, and hopelessly sad.
In the climax, and that is being generous to a modest story arc that never travels very far, Moreau walks out of a fancy dinner party she and her husband are giving for the few other wealthy people in this town, so that she can, once again, visit the murder scene and Belmondo.
Being an artsy and angsty French film, she and Belmondo, who have a tiny sexual spark between them, never take it anywhere mainly because they both seem too depressed to get up the energy to have sex. Instead, they enjoy just looking and feeling sad, apart or together.
There is a final scene that ever so slightly wraps things up, but the real point of Seven Days... Seven Nights is the deep inner emptiness Moreau and Belmondo feel about life. It's not a stretch to say that Moreau identifies with the dead woman because she feels dead inside.
You can draw more philosophical metaphors - a film major could go to town on them - if you want, and if that's what you enjoy doing, this is the movie for you. For most of us, the movie is more of a time capsule, not of France, but of a style of artsy French cinema from that era.
Today, you'll either enjoy this trip to post-war French existential filmmaking or not, depending on your personal tastes. It has an odd appeal at times, but you really have to be in the mood for an hour and a half of two people unhappily and indirectly exploring the meaning of their existence. |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Sept 10, 2024 12:58:26 GMT
Seven Days... Seven Nights from 1960, a French film
It all looks like a sad daguerreotype photograph hanging in a museum.
.............
If you didn't have an existential issue coming into the movie, you might leave with one....
.............
Yet there is oddly something captivating about all this mundane sadness dressed up as a philosophical work of art.
.............
In the climax, and that is being generous to a modest story arc that never travels very far, Moreau walks out.....
...............
You can draw more philosophical metaphors - a film major could go to town on them - if you want, and if that's what you enjoy doing, this is the movie for you.
This is some of your best writing, Fading Fast, and the overall effect is that you're making me want to take a (slow) walking tour of this sad museum. At least it seems to have committed to the integrity of the source material, which isn't always true of film adaptations, especially ones aimed at a commercial market. In 1960, though, there was what could be called a secondary market, the "art house", and most college campuses and many communities had a "film society" to screen films like this, so in that sense I guess it could be said Peter Brook knew what he was doing. John Waters has made it impossible for me to ever hear Marguerite Duras' name without thinking of his genius bit in Polyester (1981), in which Divine and Tab Hunter attend, in formal attire, a "dusk to dawn" screening at a drive-in of a triple feature of her "hit" movies, with a snack bar stocked with champagne and caviar, a simultaneous homage to and takedown of Ms. Duras' appeal. Sorry to take up so much space with this, but it really cracks me up.   |
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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 10, 2024 13:30:20 GMT
Seven Days... Seven Nights from 1960, a French film
It all looks like a sad daguerreotype photograph hanging in a museum.
.............
If you didn't have an existential issue coming into the movie, you might leave with one....
.............
Yet there is oddly something captivating about all this mundane sadness dressed up as a philosophical work of art.
.............
In the climax, and that is being generous to a modest story arc that never travels very far, Moreau walks out.....
...............
You can draw more philosophical metaphors - a film major could go to town on them - if you want, and if that's what you enjoy doing, this is the movie for you.
This is some of your best writing, Fading Fast, and the overall effect is that you're making me want to take a (slow) walking tour of this sad museum. At least it seems to have committed to the integrity of the source material, which isn't always true of film adaptations, especially ones aimed at a commercial market. In 1960, though, there was what could be called a secondary market, the "art house", and most college campuses and many communities had a "film society" to screen films like this, so in that sense I guess it could be said Peter Brook knew what he was doing. John Waters has made it impossible for me to ever hear Marguerite Duras' name without thinking of his genius bit in Polyester (1981), in which Divine and Tab Hunter attend, in formal attire, a "dusk to dawn" screening at a drive-in of a triple feature of her "hit" movies, with a snack bar stocked with champagne and caviar, a simultaneous homage to and takedown of Ms. Duras' appeal. Sorry to take up so much space with this, but it really cracks me up.
Having gone to college in the '80s and then having moved to NYC in the late '80s, I remember those "art house" theaters well. They definitely filled a niche even if some of their offering were off the wall.
I am not familiar with "Polyester," but will keep an eye out for it now.
I thought of you yesterday when I watched the first half of so of "She's Working Her Way Through College" with Virginia Mayo, as she has several nice numbers in it, one in which she and Gene Nelson dance across the tops of those old-style student desks. It's really well done and I thought, I Love Melvin must know this one and I bet he loves it. Here it is:
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Post by NoShear on Sept 10, 2024 13:35:43 GMT
Seven Days... Seven Nights from 1960, a French film
It all looks like a sad daguerreotype photograph hanging in a museum.
.............
If you didn't have an existential issue coming into the movie, you might leave with one....
.............
Yet there is oddly something captivating about all this mundane sadness dressed up as a philosophical work of art.
.............
In the climax, and that is being generous to a modest story arc that never travels very far, Moreau walks out.....
...............
You can draw more philosophical metaphors - a film major could go to town on them - if you want, and if that's what you enjoy doing, this is the movie for you.
This is some of your best writing, Fading Fast, and the overall effect is that you're making me want to take a (slow) walking tour of this sad museum. At least it seems to have committed to the integrity of the source material, which isn't always true of film adaptations, especially ones aimed at a commercial market. In 1960, though, there was what could be called a secondary market, the "art house", and most college campuses and many communities had a "film society" to screen films like this, so in that sense I guess it could be said Peter Brook knew what he was doing. John Waters has made it impossible for me to ever hear Marguerite Duras' name without thinking of his genius bit in Polyester (1981), in which Divine and Tab Hunter attend, in formal attire, a "dusk to dawn" screening at a drive-in of a triple feature of her "hit" movies, with a snack bar stocked with champagne and caviar, a simultaneous homage to and takedown of Ms. Duras' appeal. Sorry to take up so much space with this, but it really cracks me up. Some nice writing of your own here, I Love Melvin: "...the overall effect is that you're making me want to take a (slow) walking tour of this sad museum." |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Sept 10, 2024 13:53:37 GMT
I thought of you yesterday when I watched the first half of so of "She's Working Her Way Through College" with Virginia Mayo, as she has several nice numbers in it, one in which she and Gene Nelson dance across the tops of those old-style student desks. It's really well done and I thought, I Love Melvin must know this one and I bet he loves it. Here it is:
Thank you for that, but you buried the lead: Ronald Reagan sings! Momentarily and not very well, but at least he got into the spirit. I like both of these stars and the next year they reteamed for She's Back on Broadway, not exactly a sequel, but obviously meant to follow in the footsteps of this one. I know there can be an element of lowbrow to musicals sometimes, but there's something restorative about the best of them too, perfect for my waning years, so thanks. |
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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 10, 2024 14:19:49 GMT
I thought of you yesterday when I watched the first half of so of "She's Working Her Way Through College" with Virginia Mayo, as she has several nice numbers in it, one in which she and Gene Nelson dance across the tops of those old-style student desks. It's really well done and I thought, I Love Melvin must know this one and I bet he loves it. Here it is:
Thank you for that, but you buried the lead: Ronald Reagan sings! Momentarily and not very well, but at least he got into the spirit. I like both of these stars and the next year they reteamed for She's Back on Broadway, not exactly a sequel, but obviously meant to follow in the footsteps of this one. I know there can be an element of lowbrow to musicals sometimes, but there's something restorative about the best of them too, perfect for my waning years, so thanks. |
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Sept 10, 2024 15:19:44 GMT
Watching Reagan in She's Working Her Way, made me say, "this guy needs to find another profession, maybe politics?".
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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 12, 2024 9:57:52 GMT
The Tattered Dress from 1957 with Jeff Chandler, Jack Carson, Jeanne Crain, Elaine Stewart, George Tobias, Edward Platt, and Edward Arnold
Some B movies are so good, so professionally done, they rise to A-picture status; other Bs, however, are very good movies that stay in their B sandbox, like The Tattered Dress.
One thing that does rise to A-picture status here is Jack Carson's nuanced and incredibly frightening performance as an "affable" small-town sheriff with a fragile ego. It is an ego, when exposed, that reveals the danger of law enforcement concentrated in the hands of one evil man.
Carson usually plays a stock character - a nice, kinda-dumb big guy - but here he gives a career performance in a movie with a surprising number of strong performances, especially for a small-budget, short-runtime effort about the law, ethics, justice and personal values.
A big-time New York City lawyer, known for getting his guilty but wealthy clients off with courtroom skill and legal trickery, played by Jeff Chandler, comes to a small California town to defend a wealthy man charged with killing his trampy wife's either lover or attacker.
The man killed was a local college football hero and the protégé of the small town's sheriff, played by Carson. This becomes a "two-trial" movie as Chandler successfully gets the man off by deboning Carson on the stand, but then Chandler himself is charged with witness tampering.
We quickly learn that Carson, in cahoots with one of the jurors from the first trial, played by Gail Russell, who is Carson's secret girlfriend, is trying to frame Chandler. Carson wants revenge for being made to look the fool on the stand by Chandler.
Chandler, with his world turned upside down as he's now in the role of a defendant, tries desperately to find exonerating evidence. Meanwhile, his estranged wife, played by Jeanne Crain, shows up to support him even though Chandler has been an unfaithful husband.
It becomes a mano-a-mano affair as Carson is out to destroy Chandler any way he can. Chandler quickly realizes that Carson, who framed him via a rigged poker game, controls all the levers of power in this small town.
A lot of violence follows as Carson will stop at nothing to destroy Chandler, while Chandler, like any good defense attorney, has endless reserves of fight in him. The battle jumps the shark a few times, but still, it's an engaging bar-room-brawl taking place in and out of the courtroom.
It's also another entry in the long list of movies about corrupt law officers who don't serve their community, but rule it with an iron grip. The twist here is that Carson is so good at playing a humble and likable guy that few ever realize he has an iron fist.
For a B movie, the performances are impressive. Russell is outstanding as Carson's conflicted partner. A pivotal scene in the second trial, where she, as a witness, withstands Chandler's withering attacks, could be taught in acting school.
Elaine Stewart, playing the trampy wife with a body that won't quit and that she won't let you ignore, is more than just eye candy. Unfortunately, Jeanne Crain, a talented actress, isn't given much to do here but look good in tight-fitting dresses and "support her man."
George Tobias, as Chandler's loyal friend, Edward Platt, as a newspaperman who plays Chandler's conscience, and Edward Arnold, as a smarmy high-priced attorney, all show why they had long and successful careers as supporting actors.
Chandler, too, justifies his successful career here, having to run a range of emotions from self-satisfied bigwig attorney to a humbled and frightened man looking at everything he built being torn down by someone he thought of as a local buffoon.
But it is Carson who walks away with the movie. He's so good at playing the affable sheriff that even after you know he's evil, his aw-shucks act almost sucks you in. He flips back and forth between his two personas with an impressive ease and believability. The man is an actor.
The Tattered Dress has a lot to say about legal ethics - it doesn't like lawyers who manipulate the system to get wealthy, guilty clients off and it loves pro-bono work for one of Hollywood's favorite victims, the falsely convicted man - but it says nothing controversial or original.
The challenging slant in this one is that Chandler is not a likeable guy, but he plays within the law. Yes, he manipulates the justice system for his own selfish advantage – to make money by getting rich clients off – but that is a moral, not legal corruption.
When Chandler then finds himself a defendant, we, the audience, are forced to look hard at our own convictions. We don't much like Chandler, but we dislike corrupt sheriffs and men being framed even less. It takes us into the wonderful gray area of morality, where life gets interesting.
Shot in black and white and on a small budget, director Jack Arnold assembled a surprisingly strong cast that made this good, but not great courtroom drama story an enjoyable and, at times, gripping B movie, because the actors create compelling characters you care about.
Coming toward the end of the peak of the mid-1950s crime-drama movie rage, and just as the low-budget storytelling baton was about to be passed to TV, The Tattered Dress shows that the genre still had some creative fuel in the tank. |
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