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Post by politicidal on Apr 20, 2018 12:41:23 GMT
All the Money in The World (2017). Quite a good drama.
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Post by teleadm on Apr 20, 2018 16:09:38 GMT
A Farewell to Arms 1957, directed by Charles Vidor, based on Ernest Hemingway's novel, screenplay by Ben Hecht, starring Rock Hudson, Jennifer Jones, Vittorio De Sica, Oskar Homolka, Mercedes McCambridge, Elaine Stritch, Kurt Kasznar, Alberto Sordi and others. The last movie produced by David O. Selznick. About an English (Jones) nurse and an American soldier (Hudson) on the Italian front during World War I who fall in love, amidst the horrors surrounding them. Having read so many negative reviews about this movie, I wondered if it could be THAT bad, and I would say NO. It's not the great epic it desperatly want's to be, but it's not uninteresting and there are impressive scenery and scenes of drama buried in it, but some emotional scenes doesn't feel that interesting, only shallow. Beware! that it stretches out to 146 minutes. It's not a war movie, though there are a few war scenes. If Selznick wanted to outdo his Gone with the Wind I think he choosed the wrong novel to do so, the title sequence is very reminding of GWTW by the way. I can't compare it with the old 1932 version, since I've only seen that version in some crappy public domain version. A commercial and critical flop? With the critics it was, but commercially it apparently wasn't since it made around 25M USD worldwide (by the end of 1959) compared to costing around 4,5 M USD to make, but maybe the hopes were set higher. Plus, it only got one Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor (Vittorio De Sica). teleadm -- The bad reviews may be mainly Hemingway's ideals of what he wanted to see in the movie. Hemingway was a very close friend to Gary Cooper, and I think Hemingway always thought of him as the ideal male lead, as he was in the earlier 1932 version with Helen Hayes. He also thought that (at that time), Jennifer Jones was too old to play the Catherine Barkley role. On the other hand, Vittorio De Sica was ideal for the Italian doctor, and I am glad he received an Oscar nomination for that role (played in the 1932 version by Adolphe Menjou). I agree that this movie is much more polished and extended than the earlier version. Poor poor Selznick, so his great GWTW wasn't good enough for him?  . He wanted to outdo GWTW with a movie with Jennifer Jones in the lead? Didn't he try that with Duel in the Sun (1946)? Couldn't he just be happy with Gone with the Wind? GWTW still stands as the best movie ever made, IMHO.
I think by the time Selznick made A Farewell to Arms 1957, he didn't own GWTW anymore, because that was the original deal with MGM, if it was 10 or 15 years, I don't remember, after GWTW premiere they shared all profits somehow for a specific amount of years, and after that MGM owned 100% of GWTW. Hemingway had already sold the movie rights to his "A Farewell to Arms" novel, so he didn't have anything to say in any eventual remakes (if it included any eventual TV versions, I'm not sure), but Selznick payed Hemingway a certain amount of money anyway, but that was more of a publicity stunt, Hemingway didn't say anything nice about this movie anyway. John Huston was the original director of this version, and he might have been the best choice since he had proved that he could make movies out of what others called impossible novels, but Selznick's eternal PM's and micro-managing this production made Huston walk of this production, if he got fired or quited? well there are different stories, plus original cinematographer Oswald Morris got fired because he didn't make shots of Jennifer Jones that pleased Selznick.
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Post by Aj_June on Apr 20, 2018 17:46:02 GMT
I just finished watching Mystic River (2003) for the first time. I just don't know what to say. Great movie in terms of acting and direction but just left a pessimistic feeling. I know we live in an imperfect world but I felt sorry for Tim Robbin's character. I guess to get out of my pessimistic feelings and cheer myself I will have to watch a Jimmy Stewart movie now. Perhaps Harvey (1950) 
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Post by teleadm on Apr 20, 2018 17:53:24 GMT
I didn't just finish it; does last night count? We all have our work schedules, I do do a reflexion the next time I have the time to be here....
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Post by teleadm on Apr 20, 2018 17:55:40 GMT
I just finished watching Mystic River (2003) for the first time. I just don't know what to say. Great movie in terms of acting and direction but just left a pessimistic feeling. I know we live in an imperfect world but I felt sorry for Tim Robbin's character. I guess to get out of my pessimistic feelings and cheer myself I will have to watch a Jimmy Stewart movie now. Perhaps Harvey (1950)  You are absolutely right, some movies one have to be in the right mood to appreciate
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Post by teleadm on Apr 20, 2018 18:21:07 GMT
Madigan 1968, directed by Don Siegel, based on a novel by Richard Dougherty, starring Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens, Susan Clark, Harry Guardino, James Whitmore, Don Stroud, Michael Dunn and others. Super cool soundtrack by Don Costa, that reminds of many police series of the late 1960's and early 1970s theme music. Great New York location shots. It's two parallell stories, one about a bust that turns wry, the other about the top brass that might have have someone near that is corrupt. within 72 hours the story is told. Very loosly I would call it a crime thriller, but it relies more on characters. As a big fan of Richard Widmark, I like his tough but not without faults persona here Henry Fonda shows why he's Henry Fonda.' Both Inger Stevens and Susan Clark have rather thankless roles    I love how they wore hats back then, and smoked cigarettes in situations when they shouldn't
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Post by Doghouse6 on Apr 20, 2018 19:55:01 GMT
The Unsuspected (1947)  Employing a visual and thematic mood I call "glam noir," this stylish 1947 thriller incorporates elements of 1944's Laura, but extends itself from who-dun-it to who-dun-what to who's-really-whom to what-really-happened, and director Michael Curtiz loads it with atmospheric flair.       Claude Rains reveals yet another dimension to his seemingly inexhaustible supply of colorful characterizations as elegant radio mystery-story host Victor Grandison...  ...("Grandy" to intimates), who presides over an opulent manor befitting his name and is suddenly surrounded by unexpected deaths. Others of equal color in his orbit are sophisticated Constance Bennett as a loyal (maybe) assistant, Audrey Totter as an embittered, money-and-man-hungry niece, Hurd Hatfield as her hard-drinking wastrel husband, Joan Caulfield as another niece, recently perished in a maritime disaster (or did she?), Fred Clark as a helpful (perhaps) friend and associate and Ted North* as a mysterious stranger claiming to be the unknown-to-all husband of Caulfield (or is he?). *A curiosity: billed in this - and no other - film as Michael North, and preceded by "And Introducing" in both the credits and poster art above, it was the last of 22 films he made in a brief screen career lasting only 7 years, after which he became an agent. Beyond its senses of style and characterization, an element of what makes The Unsuspected so much fun are the layers it reveals by way of unanticipated revelations about these characters, their histories and motivations: they're the opposite of red herrings; just as viewers feel they have a fix on anyone's place in the scheme of things, artful curves are thrown about who they are or what they're actually up to. In construction, it's rather like a Columbo, in the sense that the killer's identity (while not explicitly revealed but at first copiously telegraphed) is really no surprise, and that the enjoyment is in the journey to an inevitable destination, with all the twists, turns, improvisations and byplay occurring along the way.
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Post by ZolotoyRetriever on Apr 20, 2018 20:12:46 GMT
teleadm: Interesting. Don't know why, but I'm just not at all familiar with that film. Happened to find a full-length copy of it on YT. Not the best transfer, but passable. I'll give it a look.
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Post by teleadm on Apr 20, 2018 20:43:47 GMT
teleadm : Interesting. Don't know why, but I'm just not at all familiar with that film. Happened to find a full-length copy of it on YT. Not the best transfer, but passable. I'll give it a look. Just so you know, whatever you find, on the net it was developed into a TV-series too, with feature length episodes
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Post by kijii on Apr 21, 2018 6:06:29 GMT
The Go-Between (1971)This movie is the third joint venture paring writer Harold Pinter and director Joseph Losey. The other two are The Servant (1963), and Accident (1967). This venture, combined with a top-notch cast, makes for a great film: No.56 of the BFI's Top 100. The photography of the English countryside setting is crucial to the movie. Michael Redgrave tells the story, in retrospect. It begins as a 12-year-old boy, Leo (Dominic Guard), comes to spend the summer of 1900 at a large English country estate. He is a guest there, and his relationship to the family is never made clear. We don't learn much about his background except what we overhear: that his mother is a widow from the city. As he is introduced at the family dinner table, he tells them that he knows magic and has conjured up curses on people, but this seems a game between him and the other boy his age on the estate, Marcus (Richard Gibson). As the two boys play, the rest of Marcus' family starts to emerge as Marcus tells Leo about them while pointing them out. We view their lazy hot summer's life as they attempt to occupy themselves with conversation, nature, art, culture, and games. Leo attempts to fit in with the family led by its matriarch, Mrs. Maudsley (Margaret Leighton). He also becomes attracted to Marus' older sister, Marian (Julie Christie) and develops a puppy love for her. (At one point he proclaims that he would do almost anything for her.) She, in turn, shows an admiration for him. One day as the family goes out for a swim, they encounter their lower-class neighbor, Ted Burgess (Alan Bates), who is trespassing on their property by swimming in their lake. Leo later meets Ted and is gradually taken into his confidence. At Ted's coaxing, he starts to secretly deliver notes to Marian, and she, in turn, returns notes to Ted, through Leo. Feeling 'out of the loop,' Leo wants to know more. He eventually asks Ted to tell him about sex ('spooning'). At almost thirteen and with no father to guide him, Leo has never been told the facts of life. Yet, he senses that he should know more and that Ted will explain it to him--though he never really does. When Marian becomes engaged to an upper-class gentleman, Ted seems displeased. However, after a brief break off in communications; Ted and Marian begin their secret exchanges again with Leo still acting as their dutiful Mercury-like 'go-between.' Then, on Leo's thirteenth birthday, he suddenly learns the shocking nature of his carried missives. This film, accented by Michel Legrand's score, has a mysterious, almost Gothic, feel about it. There seems to be something always missing, just out of view, waiting to be discovered. But, just as Leo is never made part of the secret, neither is the audience--until the surprising ending. (We, of course, can surmise "the mystery" that a 13-year-old fatherless boy from that era can only imagine or discover.)  
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Post by OldAussie on Apr 21, 2018 14:14:35 GMT
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Post by Matthew the Swordsman on Apr 21, 2018 23:08:49 GMT
Watched four short films from mid-1950s Australia. All four uploaded to YouTube by the National Film and Sound Archive.
Adelaide Advances, travelogue in colour (unfortunately, not very good colour). In Sydney this short accompanied the Clark Gable film The Tall Men (1955) at a cinema, on a bill which also featured Donald Duck cartoon Bearly Asleep (1955), a Movietone newsreel, and a short of undetermined title (it is listed as both Volcano Violence and Volcanic Violence depending on the newspaper. Neither title brings up anything on IMDb)
Brisbane City in the Sun, another travelogue in colour (again, not very good colour). In Sydney this short accompanied Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955) at a cinema, along with additional shorts Land of the Nile (not on IMDb, though an unrelated film with that title is listed on there), Donald Duck cartoon No Hunting (1955) and On To Paradise (also not on IMDb).
Millions for the Finding, dated documentary about mining. In Canberra this accompanied the Van Heflin film Tanganyika (1954) and a very obscure British comedy called His Excellency (1952) at the cinema. Also being shown on that bill was a Fox newsreel.
Ray of Hope, a dated and interesting documentary about the fight against tuberculosis. Theatrical release seems to have been limited (I suspect it was mostly shown in libraries, town halls, stuff like that), but I found one place where it got shown in a cinema: in Port Elliot in South Australia, where at a cinema it accompanied The Queen in Australia (1954), along with the Loretta Young film It Happens Every Thursday (1953), a Metro newsreel, and another short called Princely India (1948)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2018 3:25:56 GMT
The Merry Widow, from 1924, or 1925 whatever: This films all stagey and what not, I had trouble keeping track of where the story was taking place, or what all the characters' motivations were. I made it about 2/3 rds of the way through it's 2 hour 1 7 minute running time.
It was, Ok.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Apr 22, 2018 3:35:58 GMT
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Post by Matthew the Swordsman on Apr 22, 2018 4:50:35 GMT
I notice a theme there. I guess Elizabeth Taylor is a universal language.
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Post by kijii on Apr 22, 2018 16:13:38 GMT
Whipsaw (1935) I'm always happy to find good movies from the early 30s that are both entertaining and fun. Whipsaw is just such a movie. Sam Wood managed to direct two good movies between his two Marx Brothers movies: A Night at the Opera (1935) and A Day at the Races (1937). Whipsaw is one of them, and The Unguarded Hour (1936)--previously reviewed on this thread--is the other.
In Whipsaw, Myrna Loy (as Vivian Palmer) is a part of a group of international jewel thieves. Spencer Tracy (as Ross McBride) is a federal agent--or G-man as he might have been called then--assigned to track down some stolen pearls--legally purchased in London for $500,000--but cleverly stolen by the jewel thieves at the port of entry in NYC.
Assuming that Vivian Palmer will eventually lead to recovering the stolen pearls and apprehending the thieves, McBride poses as a tough guy and travels across the country with her. It's interesting how, while on the road together, both Tracy and Loy sneaked away from each other several times to make phone calls to their respective contacts--always on pay phones and always reversing the charges. (These pay-phone calls help us, the audience, to connect the thinking of either character at any given time in the story.)
I thought this movie was very good, with its many twists, turns, and misunderstandings until it leads us to its final conclusion. So, who is fooling whom, and where are those stolen pearls?
If this were a Hitchock movie, the four stolen pearls would be the macguffin and the cross-country chase would be a signature story-line ploy.
For a full synopsis of this crime drama WITH SPOILERS, see this link: www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/95588/Whipsaw/full-synopsis.html
In London, jewel collector Wadsworth purchases the famous Koronoff pearls for a sum of $500,000 from Monetta, who immediately assigns three bodyguards to escort Wadsworth and the uninsured jewels back to America. Despite the security, the pearls are stolen from Wadsworth by the Dexter mob amid the din of reporters covering the jewel sale at the New York customs office. Racketeer Ed Dexter and his accomplice, Harry Ames, are aided by the pretty Vivian Palmer, who is soon suspected of the theft when Chief Hughes of the Department of Justice links her to Wadsworth's minor automobile accident in Paris shortly before the theft. Assigned by Hughes to investigate the case, G-man Ross McBride poses as a fellow thug in order to win Palmer's confidence and infiltrate the mob. Hoping that she will lead him to Dexter, McBride stages a fake bust with another detective, who, for the benefit of Palmer, accuses McBride of being involved in the much-publicized jewel heist. McBride knocks the detective unconscious and uses the incident to convince Palmer that they must flee before the police come after them. McBride then drives Palmer to Kansas City. En route, Palmer and McBride realize that they are being followed, so they try to lose the men by driving to St. Louis instead. Meanwhile, rival mob leader "Doc" Evans and his man Steve Arnold, also after the Koronoff pearls, tail Palmer, hoping she will lead them to Dexter. Palmer, who does not know that Dexter has hidden the Koronoff pearls in the handle of her mirror, calls him and tells him that she has known McBride's true identity and his motives all along, but is willing to play along with his scheme in order to use him to keep Evans' men from approaching her. She also tells Dexter that she wants to go straight and part ways with the mob after splitting the take on the Koronoff job. Evans and Arnold trace Palmer's call to New Orleans, but they go there only to find that the jewels are with Palmer. Later, McBride and Palmer flee from St. Louis by car and find themselves stranded in a storm, forced to take refuge in the home of Will Dabson and his wife. When Mrs. Dabson goes into labor, McBride volunteers to brave the storm to fetch Dr. Williams. The doctor arrives in time for the delivery, and with the help of Palmer, who acts as midwife, they deliver twins. McBride and Palmer soon develop a romantic interest in one another and spend the night at the Dabsons. During the night, Palmer sneaks out to call Dexter and tell him that she is through with the racket and wants out. After McBride eavesdrops on Palmer's conversation, he reveals that he is a federal agent, and Palmer admits that she has known that all along. McBride, realizing that he has been "whipsawed" and softened by Palmer, calls his office to report that he is arresting her, but then tries to find a way out for her. When he kisses her, Palmer's mirror shatters, and the missing pearls fall out. Palmer tells McBride that she did not know the pearls were hidden in the mirror, but he does not believe her and insists on going through with the arrest. The next day, Evans and the Dexter mob show up, and Palmer, trying to protect McBride, lies and tells them that he is her husband. Palmer and McBride are given permission to leave, but the two only get as far as a diner when a shootout ensues. Following the gun battle, Palmer is jailed. She is released, though, when the police chief learns that she was used by the Dexter mob and Ames. McBride, who offered himself as a witness, turns in his shield for her, and they kiss.

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Post by kijii on Apr 23, 2018 5:50:03 GMT
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Post by Matthew the Swordsman on Apr 23, 2018 15:26:05 GMT
Just watched these two 10-minute Australian documentaries, from the National Film and Sound Archive's YouTube channel:
Power from the Snow (1955), about the building of a hydroelectric dam. Picture and sound quality are poor.
The Coalminer (1955), not surprisingly about coal miners:
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Post by kijii on Apr 23, 2018 16:48:10 GMT
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Post by Matthew the Swordsman on Apr 23, 2018 16:55:06 GMT
I just re-watched four more 1950s Australian short documentary films from the National Film and Sound Archive's YouTube channel. I enjoyed all four.
Valley of the Yarra (1956) - Documentary about the Yarra River.
Mountain Spring: The Flinders Range (1956), about the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. With overly dramatic music.
Escape the City (1956) - Lighthearted theatrical short about some national parks. Uploaded in higher resolution than the others, and looks much better as a result.
A Day at the Beach (1956) - Zero-budget classroom film for children between the ages of 6 and 8 years old.
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