What movie did YOU just FINISH watching?

Once Upon a Dream (1949).  Extremely silly comedy in which Googie Withers is the wife of an army officer who dreams that her husband’s very efficient manservant has kissed her and thinks it really happened leading to a lot of misunderstandings.  Obviously meant to be wh8msically charming, but I just found it irritating.  

Letter to Three Wives (1949). three women receive a letter from another woman telling them she has run off with one of their husbands, but they don’t know which one. Quite an interesting film. Kirk Douglas very good as one of the husbands. Good ending.

Deadline USA? EDIT  Oh, wait. Maybe, The Enforcer?

I Met Him In Paris (1937). Claudette Colbert as an American girl visiting Paris for the first time and meeting two American men (Melvyn Douglas and Robert Young) who both fall for her. They all go to Switzerland together and play around in the snow. A romantic comedy that isn’t funny or romantic enough.

An already ill looking - but still capable Bogie and a brilliant Rod Steiger in The Harder They Fall (1956).

Murder in the First 1995, based on a real case that happened on Alcatraz. 

Reap the Wild Wind (1942).  A ripping yarn of seafaring folk.  Feisty Paulette Goddard runs a salvage business and is loved by two men, tough ship’s captain John Wayne and suave lawyer Ray Milland, who does a ventriloquist act with his little dog.  Dastardly wrecker Raymond Massey is up to no good.  And there is a giant squid as well.  

Quantum of Solace (2008).

Two William Powell movies, one yesterday and one today.
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Yesterday’s was a rewatch of Shadow of the Thin Man, 1941, dir. W.S. Van Dyke.



My ranking of the Thin Mans would probably go in release order. The original Thin Man is one of the greatest movies ever made, After the Thin Man has some amazing comedy in its first half but kind of falls apart in its second, Another Thin Man is a neat mystery with some good lines but not as funny as the first two, The Thin Man Goes Home never convinces us of the backstory it gives Nick, and Song of the Thin Man goes out of my mind the moment after I finish it.

And Shadow, right between Another and Goes Home, is smack dab in the middle. It has one fantastic comedy sequence (from which the gif above is taken), with Nick and Nora driving on the bridge—but only that one. It has the kid, who’s kinda annoying but doesn’t get much screen time. (Asta probably gets more.) It has Myrna Loy being absolutely adorable, as usual, and saying at Nick’s summation, “Nicky, I can’t stand it! Was it me?” It has an interesting (if unconvincing) detective-work sequence scripted by the cousins behind the Ellery Queen books, who were uncredited.

Other than some lines and that driving scene, which displays Loy and William Powell’s chemistry beautifully, nothing in the movie is particularly memorable. That I enjoyed it once again, while acknowledging its flaws, is a tribute to Loy, Powell, and director Van Dyke, who helmed the series since the beginning. Sadly, this was Van Dyke’s last Thin Man; he died in ’43.
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Tonight’s was The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, 1937, dirs. Richard Boleslawski, George Fitzmaurice (uncredited), and Dorothy Arzner (uncredited).



Con-artist comedy, a (sub-)genre I love. Incredible cast: Powell, Frank Morgan, Nigel Bruce, Jessie Ralph, Robert Montgomery, and, oh yes, Joan Crawford. One of the scenarists was one of the greatest ever screenwriters, Lubitsch favorite Samson Raphaelson.

And the movie stinks. OK, maybe that’s too harsh: The opening 10 mins. or so don’t bespeak greatness, but they have some first-rate comedy lines that seem Raphaelsonian. After that, though, the pace grinds to a snail’s, Powell gets almost nothing to do (yet gives a fine, slightly sinister performance all the same—what a talent he was), Bruce gets almost nothing to do, the shots are blandly, basically composed, and nobody gets a single funny line.

Also, pet peeve: Morgan, Ralph, and Montgomery are all supposed to be English but sound as American as apple pie, Uncle Sam, and the Stars and Stripes on the Fourth of July. For some reason that kept taking me out of this story, yet Montgomery’s playing Lord Peter Wimsey in Haunted Honeymoon didn’t bother me a bit. Not sure why.

Now, this picture had a crazy production: Original director Boleslawski died during filming, replacement Fitzmaurice bowed out, and Arzner completed it. Wow. With all that going on behind the scenes, I’m not surprised Mrs. Cheyney is not especially good. But oh, with that cast, how I wish it were.