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Post by louise on Jan 24, 2020 9:43:32 GMT
Seven Days to Noon (1950). Melodrama with Barry Jones as a nuclear scientist who suffers a nervous breakdown and decides to steal a bomb and threaten to blow up London unless the British government agrees to nuclear disarmament. Rather heavy going, some light relief provided by Olive Sloane as the lady Jones and his bomb end up staying with.
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Post by teleadm on Jan 24, 2020 19:33:47 GMT
Jubal 1956, directed by Delmer Daves. It's Shakespeare's Othello on the range! but it's not turgid at all. Ernest Borgnine plays a good-hearted if clumsy cattle baron who save a man and takes care of him, a man that has been on the run for most of his life, played by Glenn Ford, and is offered a job ase foreman on the range. Trouble is there is someone else who had his own ideas, played by Rod Steiger, who his hot for Borgnine's wife... Delmer Davis made a handfull of interesting western movies in the later part of 1950s before he made made thick brick novels movies. Glenn Ford at his most tightliped and Ernest Borgnine as the catlle baron are both great, Steiger is a bit too obvious as the bad gay, using a strange dielect, and minor but intersesting roles was care of by Harry Carey Jr, as one of the few who dares to question Steigers charcters real intentions, and Charles Bronson, who plays an early good guy here, who also knows the truth. Made in the Beautiful outdoors of Grand Tetons in Wyoming, without back projection.
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 24, 2020 20:01:39 GMT
While I don't agree with your oppinions this time, I agree it would have been more interesting if Scorcese had done a more B-movies version. What is there to disagree with? The victim and daughter do have more to do in the remake--and the rape and hospital scenes are intense in performance. I am not suggesting the remake is superior, just showing that they didn't just remake it, they brought new things to it (like the Fly remake or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Blob). I think this is the only Scorsese film I have seen where main characters change in the story-and for the better presumably. So the daughter starts out kind of dumb but gets resourceful--and the mother and father also seem to purge themselves of their animosity. In most Scorsese movies the central character is a criminal who doesn't change. Even Max Cady went through a transformation (in prison). I was surprised to find out Lewis was Geoffrey Lewis' daughter-for years I assumed her father was Jerry Lee Lewis!
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 24, 2020 20:36:11 GMT
Please Primemovermithrax Pejorative, it was just a personal remark that I would never try to empower others with! I'm not here to make enemies, only for our love for movies where we might disagree from time to time! But I am not arguing! I don't where the disagreement is!
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Post by louise on Jan 25, 2020 15:33:45 GMT
The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950). A boys school by mistake gets a girls school billeted on it, causing great confusion. Alistair Sim and Margaret Rutherford hilarious as the two head teachers at loggerheads with each other.
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Post by louise on Jan 25, 2020 18:47:54 GMT
The Great Lover (1949). Bob Hope is escorting a group of boy scouts home from a trip to Paris. On the ship he gets involved with a serial killer (Roland Young) who targets Hope as his next victim. He also falls in love with a countess (Rhonda Fleming). Quite amusing.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jan 26, 2020 4:16:06 GMT
Recently read one of George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman books, Royal Flash, for the first time, and loved it just as much as I’d expected to. (It hits nearly every one of my interests, and Flashy is the best kind of rogue!) So, of course, had to watch the 1975 movie version, the only Flashman book that’s been adapted. Directed by Richard Lester, with whom I have a weirdly mixed track record: I liked The Return of the Musketeers, thought his version of Superman II was better than Richard Donner’s, was disappointed by the first two Musketeers movies, positively despised his painfully unfunny, horribly chopped-up adaptation of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to to the Forum (all the worse because the musical is so good), and have somehow managed to go my whole life without seeing the Beatles movies. Script by Fraser himself. With Malcolm McDowell as Flashy, Oliver Reed as Bismarck, and Britt Ekland as a duchess. Also, an Alastair Sim cameo! Plot: Capt. Harry Flashman is a wimp and a rascal who everyone thinks is a great war hero. Through a ridiculous series of circumstances, he’s kidnapped by Bismarck and forced to impersonate a Danish prince (spoofing The Prisoner of Zenda). Hilarity ensues. Not entirely sure what to say about this one, except that it’s extremely Lester-esque, and that’s not really a good thing. Starts off with a bang, extremely funny take-off on Patton that quickly reveals how cowardly and stupid Flashy is. Gets dull for a while until the boxing scene and makes a monumental script problem (which I guess has to be Fraser’s fault, surprisingly) of skipping forward four years all of a sudden and for no apparent reason, which messes up the whole flow of the movie. Regains its tracking when Reed comes back to play a big part, training Flashy on how to impersonate the prince. Skips around too much, should have had a better, cleaner script. Anticlimactic ending, odd because Fraser’s book ended so well. Lester’s direction stinks, as usual. He cuts at all the wrong times, his transitions are weak, he has this inexplicable tendency to shoot comedy scenes in shots so long that you can hardly see the actors. Every movie he did, even the ones I like, has longueurs, and this is no exception. And that’s all too bad because Royal Flash has some extremely funny jokes, most of which taken from Fraser’s book but some of which are new. For his part, Fraser made that glaring four-year-jump error and was too faithful to his book in the wrong ways (we didn’t need this many characters, and it should have been more focused), but at least his script’s always moving. McDowell physically looks too weak for Flashy, who’s supposed to be a coward but look like a great hero. Bad performance from a miscast Florida Bolkan as Lola Montez. Decent Oliver Reed performance as the Iron Chancellor. One of the weirdest things about this is that it had to have inspired Mike Myers for Austin Powers. Some of the jokes are identical, and of course Lester’s D’Artagnan (Michael York) ended up as Powers’ Basil Exposition. All in all, it’s something of a disappointment as a movie, and the book is much better, but in some places it’s genuinely hilarious, so…as with Lester’s movies in general, I’m mixed on it?
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 26, 2020 8:58:34 GMT
Footsteps in the Dark (1941). Was amusing! And Fred Mertz had a big role.
Russian Roulette 1975 -- George Segal is an unlikely RCMP officer in Vancouver British Columbia. Surprisingly action-oriented finale for dreary rain-soaked Vancouver in the pre-Expo 86 days when Hollywood productions were ramped up. There's more of the city shown than in the Groundstar Conspiracy from a few years earlier but trying to refashion Vancouver as a stand-in for New York or another big US city with international espionage and disgruntled cops just does not fit the locale. On IMDB there was a complaint the city looked very gloomy and depressing....um yeah? Much of the time the place does not resemble a tourism commercial.
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Post by RiP, IMDb on Jan 26, 2020 10:42:47 GMT
Fathom
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Post by louise on Jan 26, 2020 15:36:42 GMT
The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963). The crooks of London find to their dismay that a gang disguised as policemen are stealing all their loot. Peter Sellers is master crook 'Pearly' Gates whose cover is being a successful fashion designer (so successful that you wonder why he bothers with being a crook). In desperation the London gangs go into partnership with the police to catch the fake policemen. Quite funny.
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Post by millar70 on Jan 27, 2020 8:17:44 GMT
Joker (2019)
Joaquin Phoenix, Robert Deniro Directed by Todd Phillips
Wow!
Incredible film, beyond harsh and dark, this is heavy stuff indeed. Never thought anyone could top Heath Ledger, but damn if Phoenix doesn't go full-tilt to do just that. If this guy doesn't get an Oscar next week, call the police because a robbery has been committed. Kudos to Todd Phillips for expertly nailing the look and feel of 1981 New York City.
This is one that will be studied and discussed for decades to come. Don't let the kids watch it, though, not for the weak of heart.
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Post by RiP, IMDb on Jan 27, 2020 11:39:58 GMT
The Flesh EATERS (1964).
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Post by louise on Jan 27, 2020 13:32:33 GMT
Road to Morocco (1942). My favourite Road movie, with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby double crossing each other as usual.
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Post by louise on Jan 28, 2020 16:05:01 GMT
Rebecca (1940). Melodrama with Laurence Olivier as the enigmatic Maxim de Winter and Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs de Winter, obsessed with her husband's first wife, Rebecca. Judith Anderson as the formidable housekeeper Mrs Danvers. A good film which sticks reasonably closely to the original novel, except for one major plot change which weakens the ending considerably.
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Post by louise on Jan 29, 2020 12:21:24 GMT
Bringing Up Baby (1938). Completely crazy comedy.
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Post by RiP, IMDb on Jan 29, 2020 12:51:53 GMT
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 31, 2020 8:13:39 GMT
KILL THE WICKED! 1967
Warning-catchy title song.
That's the price of gold! Gold will fool you! Gold will rule you! Everything you say you'll say with a gun you'll never trust anyone that they will know, that's the Price of Gold. So don't you sell your soul for gold,
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Post by louise on Jan 31, 2020 14:18:09 GMT
Spellbound (1945). Ingrid Bergman is a psychiatrist who finds herself trying to unravel the mystery of patient Gregory Peck who thinks he has murdered someone but may not have. Quite an interesting story.
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Post by louise on Jan 31, 2020 18:08:27 GMT
I See A Dark Stranger. Deobrah Kerr as a patriotic young Irish woman who wants to fight the British, and is recruited to be a Nazi spy. Quite entertaining.
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Post by teleadm on Jan 31, 2020 21:58:53 GMT
Twelve O'Clock High 1949 directed by reliable Henry King. After reading a lot of praise for this movie here on "Classics", I suspected that I might have got this movie totally wrong, it's not a talkative WWII action movie with very sparse action. This is not a war action movie, this is a war drama that takes place were the the action is elsewhere, concearing wat happenes on the ground, and the mechanisms of motions and emotions it sets moving from top brass to a simple chauffor. Now I got it, and this a top top notch WWII movie, not so much about the battles won, but how to survive them and carry on, and how to block personal feelings, something this movie shows is imossible, since even the rock hard granite cracked under strain.
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