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Post by jeffersoncody on Jul 21, 2021 21:45:54 GMT
You've got me lining up STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET for a rewatch  - been 40 years. Only vaguely recall the rape - for a similar sin in the suburbs romp I recommend NO DOWN PAYMENT from a couple of years earlier- this focuses on 4 young couples in a new housing estate and is much grittier - with a rape plotline. Mainly remember Novak being dreamy, plush production values and Matthau standing out. You post inspired me to dig deep into the back cupboard and pluck out the Blu Ray of NO DOWN PAYMENT - a film which I saw years ago but not in this quality. I had almost forgotten that I had this Blu Ray until i saw your post timshelboy. We watched it this evening. It looked a treat in HD on the Samsung flat screen; gleaming black white in the 2.35 : 1 aspect ratio. Five minutes in my better half told told me she was not sure she wanted to spend time with such shallow, unpleasant characters, but I pretended I didn't hear and she was soon sucked right along with me. In the midst of great unease, we got lost in it, what more can one ask from the movies. It was 105 minutes well spent and a trip to see the picture looking so damn good. Had great fun with the cast. And all this because I read your post and remembered the movie in the cupboard. Now, like you, I feel like watching STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET again, even though I have seen it on DVD somewhere in the last few years. As far as I know it's not on Blu Ray, but one of these days ... PS. Did you see this on the film's imdb trivia page? Bowie's take is a good one. In 1967, musician David Bowie cited this film in a letter to fan Sandra Dodd: "I was watching an old film on TV the other night called "No Down Payment" a great film, but rather depressing if it is a true reflection of The American Way of Life."
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Post by Doghouse6 on Jul 22, 2021 1:19:47 GMT
I'm more or less in agreement with your assessment of the titles you listed, except to say I liked Pushover a bit better than you did and Bell, Book and Candle a bit less. True, Pushover is no Double Indemnity, but it carried an air of grim desperation that I thought suited it well as MacMurray's scheme begins to unravel. For my taste, Bell, Book and Candle is lacking in the sort of energetic sparkle such a story requires.
Of the other Quine films I've seen, The Notorious Landlady is rather disorganized and unsure of where it's going, and I'm still not clear on what it's supposed to be about. The Solid Gold Cadillac has some charm, and it's nice to see Judy Holliday onscreen with Paul Douglas, who was her costar in the Broadway production of Born Yesterday.
But there's one Quine film that's sort of a guilty pleasure, and I've always enjoyed it: Sex and the Single Girl. It's completely absurd and played that way, with generous winks to the audience reminding them not to take such silliness anywhere near seriously. A throwback to screwball comedies of 25 years before with impersonations and mistaken identities, it's performed with an over-the-top and almost cartoonish sense that's not unlike the tone of some of the comedies of Richard Lester or Mel Brooks.
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Post by mikef6 on Jul 22, 2021 1:39:24 GMT
A solid director of solid entertaining movies.
Drive A Crooked Road is one of Mickey Rooney’s best. Rooney was a pretty egotistical guy, but his character here is sensitive about his height and Quine often puts him in shots that contrast him with much taller men.
I agree that Pushover is a perfectly acceptable second-tier noir. It is also worth seeing just for being Kim Novak’s first credited role.
Unlike directors today, Quine knew how to frame, shoot, and edit a dance number. Witness the justly famous “Alley Dance,” a competition between Bob Fosse and Tommy Rall in My Sister Eileen.
Bell, Book, and Candle ran a little long but I still relished seeing Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak together again.
Sex and the Single Girl gave me one of my favorite laugh lines. Tabloid reporter Tony Curtis boasts to his editor that, “All the dirty lies you’ve heard about me, ARE TRUE!
I described his work as “solid” above and the others I have seen match that. Journeyman work but competent. He gets the job done. Also seen and enjoyed: The World of Susie Wong and The Notorious Landlady (Kim Novak again). I haven’t seen any of his work after the mid-‘60s.
The Alley Dance. Bob Fosse in blue. As good as Rall is, I think Fosse has a few inches on him.
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Post by Hurdy Gurdy Man on Jul 22, 2021 3:52:18 GMT
Not sure that was a "rape" scene though - sexual threat and intimidation for sure. I thought what happened to her in the flashback definitely counts as a rape, even though the script tries to make it look as if she wanted it.
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Post by Hurdy Gurdy Man on Jul 22, 2021 3:55:18 GMT
The Solid Gold Cadillac has some charm, and it's nice to see Judy Holliday onscreen with Paul Douglas, who was her costar in the Broadway production of Born Yesterday. The Solid Gold Cadillac seems to be in the same mould as It Happened to Jane where a simple, practical woman takes on big business. I hope it does not disappoint me similarly when I get around to watching it. Paul Douglas has grown on me in the last year after Panic in the Streets and Angels in the Outfield.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Jul 22, 2021 5:00:00 GMT
The Solid Gold Cadillac has some charm, and it's nice to see Judy Holliday onscreen with Paul Douglas, who was her costar in the Broadway production of Born Yesterday. The Solid Gold Cadillac seems to be in the same mould as It Happened to Jane where a simple, practical woman takes on big business. I hope it does not disappoint me similarly when I get around to watching it. Paul Douglas has grown on me in the last year after Panic in the Streets and Angels in the Outfield. There's a thematic similarity between the two, but that's as far as I'd take it. As an urban story, Cadillac's tone is one leaning more in the direction of smartness, sophistication and sly satire, all of which are more to my personal taste (for whatever that's worth), rejecting the broader aspects of Jane's characters and events. None of those "S" adjectives I used above should come as any surprise when considering that the play from which it was adapted was co-authored by George S. Kaufman.
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Post by timshelboy on Jul 22, 2021 5:02:59 GMT
Not sure that was a "rape" scene though - sexual threat and intimidation for sure. I thought what happened to her in the flashback definitely counts as a rape, even though the script tries to make it look as if she wanted it. Oh sure I thought you were talking about the wife's unwelcome visitor!
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Post by timshelboy on Jul 22, 2021 5:16:21 GMT
RE NO DOWN PAYMENT Glad you and Mrs Jeff enjoyed it  Woodward certainly gave good "slattern" didn't she?.... and I thought the plot strand focusing on the casual racism of Barbara Rush & Pat Hingle quite interesting... only a dozen years after WW2 ended.
The octet of young stars frm NO DOWN PAYMENT (NB I think Jeff Hunter & Barbara Rush married in real life in 1957 ,,, but to others (Pat Hingle and Patricia Owens) in this movie
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Post by jeffersoncody on Jul 22, 2021 6:11:52 GMT
RE NO DOWN PAYMENT Glad you and Mrs Jeff enjoyed it Woodward certainly gave good "slattern" didn't she?.... and I thought the plot strand focusing on the casual racism of Barbara Rush & Pat Hingle quite interesting... only a dozen years after WW2 ended.
The octet of young stars frm NO DOWN PAYMENT (NB I think Jeff Hunter & Barbara Rush married in real life in 1957 ,,, but to others (Pat Hingle and Patricia Owens) in this movie
She sure did timshelboy. My missus said she reckoned the Chinese family would get to move into the empty house after the rapist's demise.
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Post by timshelboy on Jul 22, 2021 6:43:45 GMT
RE NO DOWN PAYMENT Glad you and Mrs Jeff enjoyed it Woodward certainly gave good "slattern" didn't she?.... and I thought the plot strand focusing on the casual racism of Barbara Rush & Pat Hingle quite interesting... only a dozen years after WW2 ended.
The octet of young stars frm NO DOWN PAYMENT (NB I think Jeff Hunter & Barbara Rush married in real life in 1957 ,,, but to others (Pat Hingle and Patricia Owens) in this movie
She sure did timshelboy. My missus said she reckoned the Chinese family would get to move into the empty house after the rapist's demise. as Pat & Barbara must be saying to each other over their Cheerios!
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Post by wmcclain on Jul 22, 2021 11:15:02 GMT
Bell Book and Candle (1958), directed by Richard Quine. A witch casts a love spell on her upstairs neighbor to spoil his engagement with an old rival. Paradoxically, she wonders if she could make it as a normal person... It has some good bits (James Stewart getting de-hexed) but is strangely low-key. They quickly assemble a little fantasy world but could have done more with the plot. Stewart was getting too old for the women he was paired with: Grace Kelly in Rear Window (1954), Kim Novak here and in Vertigo (1958) -- you could count her twice for Vertigo (1958). I think it is clear they are actually doing a bit "more" by suggesting another subculture, not witches. People who are invisible to the mainstream but who recognize each other. They have their own clubs. They are not suited to marriage, but yearn for a different, unhidden life. Twilight Time limited edition Blu-ray with isolated score and subtitles. 
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Woodward certainly gave good "slattern" didn't she?.... and I thought the plot strand focusing on the casual racism of Barbara Rush & Pat Hingle quite interesting... only a dozen years after WW2 ended.
