What movie did YOU just FINISH watching?

THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 1924 - Wanted to catch this since Siskel and Ebert did a show which talked about it and finally got to it for its 100th anniversary.
Very memorable and influential fantasy film.

PRINCE VALIANT - 1954 - repeat--The knight action is this is really high quality although the accents of much of the cast are grating. Robert Wagner might look goofy in his wig but he displays quite the athleticism and the sword duel between him and James Mason is effectively staged. The frequent mention of Christianity seems rather forced though. Some feel it should have been more humorous but I like the fact that it is played straight (despite the accents wrecking the mood).

I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL - 1960 -- A variation on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre with John Drew Barrymore as Dobbs, being haunted by the death of a fellow diamond thief and losing his mind from it. Twist ending (although influenced by TTOTSM).

The Swimmer (1968)

The Missouri Breaks (1976)

In another thread today I spoke of the "Poverty Row"-type but historically important film studio in my small home town. I mentioned one family connection, but forgot to mention another. My elder brother was briefly employed there but was let go because he would persistently point out (and mock) the egregious errors in continuity and was deemed a troublesome smartass.

By coincidence, I just watched two low-budget movies on YouTube and found they were both made there. I do not know enough about cinema history to know whether they were strictly "quota quickies" but, if not, they were certainly in that tradition. A fading US B-list actor or a less faded US C-list actor as lead, either in hope of recognition Stateside or perhaps for some tax or union advantage there, and minimal expenditure on rehearsal and retakes, so lots of continuity errors. They exemplify the top and bottom ends of the studio's budgeting, but I quite enjoyed them both.

Top-end was Beyond This Place (1959) dir: Jack Cardiff. Cardiff was a brilliant cinematographer and no mean director (Young Cassidy [1965] where he took over from the sick John Ford, Sons and Lovers [1960], and The Long Ships [1964]). The DoP was Wilkie Cooper, who had shot some very good films, but he raised his game under Cardiff's direction.

The fading US star is Van Johnson, supported by Vera Miles who I had always assumed was a Brit who later moved to the US, but I now see that she was a Texan. Her English accent here is perfect.

The plot is similar to many other such movies. A Yank comes to England and gets involved in solving a mystery which the plodding British police have given up on, all the time working to a deadline. In this case he has four days before rejoining his ship. His estranged father, serving a life sentence for a murder he did not commit, is played by the usually genial Bernard Lee as brutalized by prison life. Jean Kent plays the femme fatale and there is a good roster of British character actors in support. Based on a novel by A J Cronin, it also makes a pitch for prison reform and the abolition of flogging (which was ended soon after) like other movies of the '50s.

It reminded me a bit of Losey's Time Without Pity {1957} where the father (Michael Redgrave) has only a few days to save his son from execution. Not that Bernard Lee is any danger of being offed. Indeed the casual way he is released at the end is ridiculous, but that is Poverty Row (UK style) for you.

london777 and Prime etc.

Just to set the record straight, Vera Miles was born in Boise City, Oklahoma, in its panhandle, which is very close to Texas. But she grew up in Kansas and was "crowned Miss Kansas in 1948 and was the third runner-up in the Miss America contest." LINK. I knew she was born in Oklahoma, but I also thought she grew up there. Little did I know.

Thank you. My apologies.

Random Harvest with Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman