What classics did you see last week, Jan 16 to Jan 22?

Is it TOPPER? Connie and Cary?

First Viewings:

Yesterday's Enemy (1960) 6/10

Tarantula (1955) 4/10

California (1947) 3/10

The Virginian (1946) 5/10

Miami Expose (1956) 6/10

Jungle Cruise (2021) 7/10

Copshop (2021) 6/10

Repeat Viewings: 

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) 8/10

I only managed to watch two movies last week. One was really good, one was really...not.

Can you guess which was which?

Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017).



Pan (2015).

Here is what Tele has seen lately:


The Great Wall 2016 directed by Yimou Zhang.
A rather boring CGI action extravaganza that plays with the idea that The Great Wall of China wasn't originally built to keep the Mongols away, but some advanced creatures from outer space that time later forgot about.
Not for me.


Slaughter 1972 directed by Jack Starrett.
Hip blaxploitation action movie about a former Green Beret (Jim Brown) who after parts of his family is blown up in a car bomb decides to avenge their deaths, killing mob members randomly, and destroying a Federal operation. Squeezed to work for the Feds our hero travels to Mexico, since that is were the Italian mob members resides, with casinos and horse racing, plus some advanced data punch card scams.
Lots of fights with fists, gun play and a well-made car chase near the end.
Not great but rather entertaining, if one takes it for what it is, and thankfully unpretentious.
The N-word flies wildly here, but such are some characters written, that they are racists. A Black Jim Brown at a secret casino, the mob don't won't that kind of clientele there, no matter how much money he spends.


Fitzwilly 1967 directed by Delbert Mann and based on a novel by Poyntz Tyler.
Here is another tale about scams, but this time in a more friendly environment and the money goes to welfare.
A butler (Dick van Dyke) and his staff has been wheeling and dealing to make ends meet, since his eccentric aged philanthropist (Dame Edith Evans) employer sends money far and wide to anything that sounds like welfare, not knowing that she is actually flat broke since her husband died many years ago, so the butler and his staff have come up with a way of scamming real millionaires and department stores. I have to admit that I didn't manage to work out how the scams actually worked. Anyway it apparently has worked for many years like a well oiled machine, until one day when something rocks the boat, the old Lady decides she needs a personal secretary to help her write a phonetic dictionary for people who can't read. The secretary is the outsider that rocks the boat.
Many likable actors and actresses here, but the laughs are a bit too few and too far between, though it rambles along in an friendly even pace, but I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed, considering all those talents the was assembled here.


The Slender Thread 1965 directed by Sydney Pollack (his directorial movie debut) and based on an article by Shana Alexander.
Trying to catch up with Sidney Poitier movies, and this one was another I had never seen before.
College volunteer (Poitier) working alone at the crisis center one evening, receives a telephone call from suicidal caller (Anne Bancroft), and has to keep talking to her so they (Phone company) can trace were she is calling from and hopefully help her since she has swallowed too many barbiturate pills already. A rather sweaty thriller-like drama.
It's interesting to see how long it used to take once, to trace phone calls, before wireless and computers, when calls came via wires and different relay stations.
I liked this one, my only complaint is that it was a bit too long for it's story, but after all, it was a movie debutant who directed it.


L'orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock aka The Horrible Secret of Dr. Hichcock and many other names, directed by Riccardo Freda.
Italian horror before Giallo, about Dr Hichcock who after loosing his wife movies to London for many years, and return back to his mansion with a new wife, and then spooky things begins to happen, and is his former wife actually dead... the mansion also houses a creepy housekeeper, a bit like Mrs Danvers from Rebecca.
It had great color schemes and shades, cinematography and camera angles, but story wise I would say that it was just rather OK, on the other hand, it had Barbara Steele as wife number two.
Watched an Italian version that was easy to follow with English subtitles.


Harvey 1950 directed by Henry Koster and based on a play by Mary Chase and Oscar Brodney.
Hadn't seen this one since the 1980's and apparently only remember small fragments so it was nearly, except a few scenes, like seeing something new.
It was based on a very popular Broadway comedy that run from 1944 to 1949 and closed after 1,775 performances. James Stewart had temporarily played the lead, though the role was first played by Frank Fay, so Stewart was familiar with the role of the eternally optimistic Elwood P. Dowd who has a very special friend, a giant invisible white rabbit.
A giant invisible white rabbit is not easy for his sister and her daughter as they tries to have some sort of social life, and they tries to isolate him at an insane asylum, but that is easier said than done...
This movie oozes charm all over it, and I sat there with a big smile on my face most of the time.
It won an Oscar for supporting actress Josephine Hull (playing Elwood's sister), and Stewart was nominated for leading role.
As a side note: I was in London I guess in 1975, there was a lot of posters around town with "James Stewart in Harvey" playing at some theatre that I have now forgotten the name of, so he must have returned to the role many years later.


Night Monster 1942 directed by Ford Beebe (a director who mostly did quickie westerns during his career). 
Lionel Atwill was actually billed above the title but under Lugosi in the title sequence, but this poster might be after Atwill's naked party scandal.
The reason I looked this movie up was because of Nils Asther, who I had just read up and wrote about, though he was the seventh billed name actually has a much larger and more important to the plot role than both Lugosi and Atwill, in fact most of the other billed actors have larger and more important parts than those two.
Atwill is killed off rather early and Lugosi plays a butler. It was actually rather fun to see Lugosi in a relatively normal role for once.
It's a spooky house/mansion mystery/horror near a swamp, many people gathering there for dinner and stay the night, but then the murders begin, one after one people are murdered, and there is also something lurking in the nearby swamps, it's so hideous that even the frogs stops quacking! The local police tries to figure it all out, is it the Psychiatric doctor (Irene Hervey), the horny chauffeur (Leif Erickson), the house maid (Doris Lloyd) the cripple (Ralph Morgan), the cripple's fragile sister (Fay Helm), the Hindu fakir yoga mystic (Nils Asther) or something more hideous... Well this time the butler didn't do it, that much I can give away.
Not a bad little B-spooky house/mansion movie from Universal that runs under 75 minutes, but thanks to the billing, fans of Lugosi and Atwill might be disappointed.



Well that was all from me this week!

The second time around for:

The Macomber Affair / Zoltan Korda (1947). Adapted from a well-known short story by Ernest Hemingway (“The Short And Happy Life of Francis Macomber”), the script explores some complex human relationships. Robert Wilson (Gregory Peck) is an experienced and expensive “white hunter” and trophy guide to wealthy Americans. His current clients are the Macombers, Francis and Margaret (Robert Preston and Joan Bennett). There are obvious strains in the Macomber marriage and for Francis they seem to involve issues of “what makes a man” – what is masculinity? Things come to a crisis when Francis drops his rifle and runs in the face of a charging lion. Now he has double reason to assert his courage. The film is structured with a framing device and the major portion of the story is told in flashback. So we already know at the start the Macomber is dead and was shot by his wife in the heat of the chase. Was it deliberate or accidental? What is Wilson’s culpability for giving into Margaret’s advances? Just a little bit too much is explained away in the final minutes, but the mystery of an individual marriage remains unresolved. This excellent film has sort of fallen by the wayside over the decades but it is one of the best of its year and should be seen and remembered. Fine acting by all, especially, Robert Preston. The romantic and effective musical score is by Miklós Rózsa. B&W Cinematography is by Karl Struss (Journey Into Fear, Wonder Man).

PERSONAL NOTE: I love it that modern African trophy hunters now get regularly shamed on social media for their thrill killing of innocent lions, giraffes, and elephants.





A one new entry

Around The World In 80 Days (2021). The first two (of eight) episodes. I guess the first question that comes up in a new version of a classic book and/or movie is “What have they changed?” The answer for this mini-series is: almost everything. We are at once introduced to Philias Fogg (David Tennant) a shy middle-aged 19th century man of wealth who is practically a hermit, existing mainly at his home and his exclusive club. When he mentions that he agrees with a newspaper article predicting that with all the new technology available in 1872, a person could circumnavigate the globe in just 80 days, one of the club bullies challenges him to try it. Impulsively, he makes a large wager that he can. He leaves with two companions, his new French valet, Passepartout (Ibrahim Koma) and a plucky would-be woman reporter, Abigail Fix (Leonie Benesch, The Crown) who not only have issues of their own but have to constantly encourage Fogg, who has no confidence in himself. The first two episodes (of 55 and 40 minutes) are expensively produced with convincing historical settings and marvelously acted, especially by Tennant who again shows himself to be one of the most versatile actors working today.

ROAD TO PERTH (2021). My Rating: 7 out of 10. This little Aussie indie is unlikely to find much of an audience outside of festivals, but it's a subtle and affecting film.





THE WAR BELOW (2021). 6 out out of 10. Good low budget WW1 film based on a true story. 

 



LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR (1977). My Rating: 9 out of 10. Very Highly recommended.

  









THE RUTHLESS FOUR (1968). 7 out of 10. Recommended to genre fans, this (above average) spaghetti western take on Treasure of the Sierre Madre features a striking, creepy turn by Klaus Kinski, playing a character to whom the George Hilton character is seemingly in sexual thrall.  




 

APACHE AMBUSH (1955). 5 out of 10.