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#1
Bad Movies / Re: RECENT VIEWINGS (Bad Movie...
Last post by lester1/2jr - Today at 03:41:53 PMI remember that movie as being particularly over the top. Tierney was infamously cast in a lot of stinkers. Certainly "The Shanghai Gesture" comes to mind.
#2
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by lester1/2jr - Today at 03:26:35 PMDark Eyes of London (1939) aka Human Monster - This has elements of Dracula and Bowery at Midnight and I would definitely see both of those first, but it was not boring and I enjoyed watching it.
Bela Lugosi is, like in Bowery at Midnight, a fake philanthropist, who uses a home for the blind as a base for his nefarious nefariousness. He has the brutal, cult leader persona from Dracula and his secretary's blank countenance reminded me immediately of one of Dracula's wives. 1939 is still early enough to have that inimitable early horror energy, though and the end in particular definitely has some "shocking for it's time" stuff. Norwegian blonde Greta Gynt was an excellent choice as the main protagonist, besides of the police.
Lugosi was evil, Gynt was pretty, and I liked all the blind people being part of the story.
4.5 /5
It's not quite a classic and some of the plot stuff was a little silly, but lots of memorable imagery and dark (real life dark, not guys in cloaks) vibes.
Bela Lugosi is, like in Bowery at Midnight, a fake philanthropist, who uses a home for the blind as a base for his nefarious nefariousness. He has the brutal, cult leader persona from Dracula and his secretary's blank countenance reminded me immediately of one of Dracula's wives. 1939 is still early enough to have that inimitable early horror energy, though and the end in particular definitely has some "shocking for it's time" stuff. Norwegian blonde Greta Gynt was an excellent choice as the main protagonist, besides of the police.
Lugosi was evil, Gynt was pretty, and I liked all the blind people being part of the story.
4.5 /5
It's not quite a classic and some of the plot stuff was a little silly, but lots of memorable imagery and dark (real life dark, not guys in cloaks) vibes.
#3
Bad Movies / Re: RECENT VIEWINGS (Bad Movie...
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 01:03:33 PMLEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945):
Produced by Daryl Zanuck, this is a good example of the problem I have to one degree or another with many movies from the 1940s. It looks great in all regards, is performed competently, and feels like a compelling, significant film - but at some point I realized I had simply no idea what was happening or why.
A portentous prologue segues us into a feature-length flashback where the implausibly lovely and glamorous Gene Tierney meets (and negs) kinda' goofy novelist Cornel Wilde but then apparently falls in love with him anyway after she discovers he's famous, marries him and agrees to care for his invalid brother, and lets him knock her up. All of this takes an hour or more of screen time and (in spite of Tierney's allure) eventually grows stultifying. Zanuck and company must've recognized this, because midway through Tierney is abruptly revealed to be a secret sociopath and characters begin having unexpected accidents.
Okay, now we have a plot, at least - except, again, each new development feels like the screenwriters were making them up spontaneously over cocktails. The film culminates in a long courtroom trial which feels very much besides the point because Tierney isn't the one on trial and isn't even in this climactic sequence. 
Then we're back in "the present" and the whole framing sequence serves to just tack on a seemingly perfunctory romantic happy ending.
Tierney is admittedly pretty good as a cold-blooded reptilian (a role she essayed in the similarly long and pointless RAZOR'S EDGE around the same time) and her LAURA co-star Vincent Price (amusingly sans moustache) shows up as the prosecutor. In the 50s and 60s Wilde would recreate himself as a proto-action hero in a handful of wild (heh) self-directed vanity projects, but he's kind of wimpy in this. The sets, locations, hair and wardrobe, et all do look lovely (the print I watched was in sometimes appealing, sometimes fugly color, but maybe it was colorized after the fact in the 80s or something). But the whole undertaking is neither fish nor fowl - not a thriller, not actually romantic, not compelling beyond one's passing curiosity about where the plot may be headed (nowhere, as it turns out).
Best I can tell, LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN was an expensive excuse to nominally make something called a Hollywood Studio Picture so that audiences could pay to sit in front of it for two hours and then leave and claim to have seen it. 2.5/5 I felt empty at the end.
Produced by Daryl Zanuck, this is a good example of the problem I have to one degree or another with many movies from the 1940s. It looks great in all regards, is performed competently, and feels like a compelling, significant film - but at some point I realized I had simply no idea what was happening or why.
A portentous prologue segues us into a feature-length flashback where the implausibly lovely and glamorous Gene Tierney meets (and negs) kinda' goofy novelist Cornel Wilde but then apparently falls in love with him anyway after she discovers he's famous, marries him and agrees to care for his invalid brother, and lets him knock her up. All of this takes an hour or more of screen time and (in spite of Tierney's allure) eventually grows stultifying. Zanuck and company must've recognized this, because midway through Tierney is abruptly revealed to be a secret sociopath and characters begin having unexpected accidents.
Okay, now we have a plot, at least - except, again, each new development feels like the screenwriters were making them up spontaneously over cocktails. The film culminates in a long courtroom trial which feels very much besides the point because Tierney isn't the one on trial and isn't even in this climactic sequence. Then we're back in "the present" and the whole framing sequence serves to just tack on a seemingly perfunctory romantic happy ending. Tierney is admittedly pretty good as a cold-blooded reptilian (a role she essayed in the similarly long and pointless RAZOR'S EDGE around the same time) and her LAURA co-star Vincent Price (amusingly sans moustache) shows up as the prosecutor. In the 50s and 60s Wilde would recreate himself as a proto-action hero in a handful of wild (heh) self-directed vanity projects, but he's kind of wimpy in this. The sets, locations, hair and wardrobe, et all do look lovely (the print I watched was in sometimes appealing, sometimes fugly color, but maybe it was colorized after the fact in the 80s or something). But the whole undertaking is neither fish nor fowl - not a thriller, not actually romantic, not compelling beyond one's passing curiosity about where the plot may be headed (nowhere, as it turns out).
Best I can tell, LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN was an expensive excuse to nominally make something called a Hollywood Studio Picture so that audiences could pay to sit in front of it for two hours and then leave and claim to have seen it. 2.5/5 I felt empty at the end.
#4
Off Topic Discussion / Re: The Random Crap From Aroun...
Last post by LilCerberus - Today at 11:10:06 AMWATCH: Interviewers have creative new way to filter out North Korean spies applying for tech jobs
https://notthebee.com/article/job-interviewers-come-up-with-the-absolute-best-way-to-filter-out-north-koreans-spies-applying-to-tech-positions
https://notthebee.com/article/job-interviewers-come-up-with-the-absolute-best-way-to-filter-out-north-koreans-spies-applying-to-tech-positions
#5
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by Trevor - Today at 11:02:05 AMTHE WOMAN IN BLACK (1989)
F*****g hell 😳😳😳😳😳😳
F*****g hell 😳😳😳😳😳😳
#6
Good Movies / Re: London After Midnight
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 09:41:31 AMThe ratio of preserved silents to lost silents generally is staggering. I realize filmmaking was only 2-3 decades old but producers and distributors were crazy careless with that stuff. I mean, same w/ archival video through the 60s and 70s (lost DOCTOR WHOs et al). Totally wild that people figured no one would ever care to watch those things ever again.
While looking for LAM info I also learned that PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC was "lost" until 1981. (I was 4yo, so for my purposes it had never been lost, obv.) That's crazy - POJOA is almost certainly the greatest film of the silent era - or at least the greatest one we can watch today. Who knows if there's one that's just as good or better but is locked in a custodial closet in another Norwegian mental hospital?
old but producers and distributors were crazy careless with that stuff. I mean, same w/ archival video through the 60s and 70s (lost DOCTOR WHOs et al). Totally wild that people figured no one would ever care to watch those things ever again. While looking for LAM info I also learned that PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC was "lost" until 1981. (I was 4yo, so for my purposes it had never been lost, obv.) That's crazy - POJOA is almost certainly the greatest film of the silent era - or at least the greatest one we can watch today. Who knows if there's one that's just as good or better but is locked in a custodial closet in another Norwegian mental hospital?
#7
Games / Re: Movie Title Chains
Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 09:35:29 AM2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams
#8
Games / Re: Answer the question with a...
Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 09:32:41 AM
How did you meet your significant other?
#9
Bad Movies / Re: Generate Movie Poster with...
Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 09:02:18 AM
Copilot doesn't seem to have any issues with drug references.
#10
Television / Re: TV characters you hated?
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 08:39:58 AMI agree. I feel similarly about Jerry of "Tom &...". Persistent harassment and/or abuse/mutilation of cats is not an endearing character trait.
Lotta' unlikeable WB characters, actually. Foghorn Leghorn is a pompous @$$, Pepe LePew is a sex pest...
Lotta' unlikeable WB characters, actually. Foghorn Leghorn is a pompous @$$, Pepe LePew is a sex pest...