Saturday, January 16, 2021
Noir Watch: The Glass Key (1942)
Noir Watch: The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)
Friday, January 1, 2021
Christmas Noir Watch: Cover-Up (1949)
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Watch Party Watch: Guest in the House (1944)
- 3 great 1940's hairstyles on lovely women
- 1 coocoo bananas psycho
- Multiple dum-dums who clearly never met a Mean Girl
- 1 Margaret Hamilton reminding you why it was hard for her to find work after Wizard of Oz seared her into your mind as a broom-riding funster
- 1 wife who is wildly tolerant of 1 husband who is clearly banging his model no matter what the script tries to tell us
- 1 man who has all the appeal of a soaked Ralph Bellamy that is, because filmed during wartime, the only man around sold to us as a real dream boat
- 1 bird pining for the fjords
Sunday, December 20, 2020
Holiday Watch: Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Saturday, December 19, 2020
Noir Christmas Party Watch: Lady in the Lake (1947)
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Holiday Watch: Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Noir (on Ice!) Watch: Suspense (1946)
Sunday, November 29, 2020
Noir Watch: Fear (1946)
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Spooky Noir Watch: The Seventh Victim (1943)
Monday, October 12, 2020
PODCAST: "The Wolfman" (1941) and "Curse of the Werewolf" (1961) - Universal/ Hammer Halloween 2020 w/ SimonUK and Ryan
Watched: Wolf Man 09/26/2020 Curse of 09/27/2020
Format: BluRay/ Amazon Streaming
Viewing: Unknown/ Second
Decade: 1940's/ 1960's
Director: George Waggner / Terence Fisher
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Disney Attempt-at-Spooky Watch: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Watched: 10/04/2020
Format: Disney+
Viewing: I'm calling it a first for the whole movie
Decade: 1940's
Director: James Algar, Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kenney
Saturday, October 3, 2020
Noir Watch: They Won't Believe Me (1947)
An interesting noir with a series of curious twists and a solid cast. Presented on TCM's Noir Alley, host Eddie Muller brought in author Christina Lane who recently released a book on the film's producer Joan Harrison, Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock (which would make a welcome Christmas gift for us at Signal Watch HQ). Harrison is worth discussing for her path into the film business, sensibility she brought to Hitchcock's story-telling, and... frankly, some of the other movies she's produced - including Phantom Lady* and Ride the Pink Horse - are fantastic and owe a lot of their story strength and sensibility to Harrison.
They Won't Believe Me (1947) is framed with a murder trial. Young is the defendant, and he's telling his tale/ spilling his guts from the witness stand, trying to explain what really happened, and which looks, honestly, really, really bad for him.
Monday, September 21, 2020
Noir Watch: Danger Signal (1945)
Watched: 09/19/2020
Format: Noir Alley on TCM
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
PODCAST: "Fantasia" (1940) and "Fantasia 2000" (1999) - a Disney History PodCast w/ NathanC and Ryan
More places to listen
Music:
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Ann Miller/ Lucille Ball Watch: Too Many Girls (1940)
Monday, September 7, 2020
Noir Watch: The Unfaithful (1947)
Watched: I dunno. A couple of months ago.
Sunday, September 6, 2020
Watch Party Watch: The Red House (1947)
Watched: 09/02/2020
Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: First
Decade: 1940's
Director: Delmer Daves
In a lot of ways, I'd categorize The Red House as "American Gothic". The story has DNA in Jane Eyre and other books about recluses living with a mystery.
The film stars Edward G. Robinson as a a farmer who keeps mostly to himself (he cohabitates with a niece and his sister, played by Judith Anderson of Rebecca fame). His niece brings a classmate over to see if he can work the farm to assist Robinson, who is aging and can't do what he used to, especially as he has an artificial leg. The teen is warned to stay away from some woods near the house, and not cut through them for an obvious shortcut.
In general - I liked the film. It's got a sort of twisty mystery, and at least the female heroine was likable (jury is out on the male lead). Robinson and Anderson are terrific, and Rory Calhoun is a lot of fun as a dick-swinging country boy after the male lead's girl (played by chanteuse Julie London, who seems like 10x too much woman for the male lead).
Glad Jenifer chose it because I might have easily missed this one.
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Noir Watch: Journey Into Fear (1943)
Watched: 08/25/2020
Format: TCM on DVR
Viewing: First
Decade: 1940's
Director: Norman Foster
Show on TCM as part of "Summer Under the Stars", Journey Into Fear (1943) was pitched as a Dolores Del Rio movie, and as I'd never seen a Dolores Del Rio movie and just knew who she was via a general awareness of classic film and talent.
Well, first, Dolores Del Rio was a delight, and I look forward to watching her in more movies. But I was also deeply curious as the film had Agnes Moorehead, my fave Joseph Cotten, and Orson Welles. And if you're like "hey, that sounds like a Mercury Theatre production..." you are not wrong!
Honestly - this movie was terrific and I'd watch it again in a heartbeat. It's a bit before the noir movement, but it features an everyman getting in way over his head by circumstance (but not obsession, which leaves me on the fence for calling it 100% noir). There is a foxy dame (Del Rio) who is not his wholesome and unhelpful wife, shady characters abound, and the aesthetic kind of hollers noir.
Cotten plays a munitions engineer on loan from the US to Turkey. The Nazis figure if they bump him off, it sets the Turks back months or a year in Naval military advances. And all Cotten wants to do is stay in the hotel with his wife - when he's whisked away by a cloying company man. At a nightclub he's nearly missed as the target of an assassination attempt. Welles, playing a bombastic head of the Turkish security forces makes moves to get him out of the city to meet up with his wife later.
The boat which Cotten takes is full of folks who don't travel luxury class or in refined circles - and it's pretty great.
There are a lot of really clever bits and touches that give the film character and texture. Cotten himself wrote the screenplay, and he has a real knack for it. The ending isn't even all that tidy, and we see his character go through a chance and arc. But other characters are so well imagined (the businessman who became a Socialist to annoy his overbearing wife is brilliant), it's just a delight to watch.
I'd honestly love to watch it with an audience as there's plenty for classic film fans to chew on.
As a wartime movie, it's interesting none of these players served, and you get a bit of that "we're all on the same side here" stuff that makes wartime movies in non-American locales so interesting. Before 42 and after 45, its tough to say that characters like Welles' Turkish character would be ancillary heroes of the film. We'd return to making those characters untrustworthy and antagonistic.
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Ann Miller Watch: Hit the Deck (1955) and Reveille with Beverly (1943) and The Great American Pastime (1956)
shut the hell up, Tom Ewell |
Watched: 08/8 (HtD), 08/9 (RwB), 8/11 (GAP)
Format: Ann Miller Day of TCM
Viewing: First for all 3
Decade: 1950's, 1940's
Look, I've been clear about the whole Ann Miller thing, and I'm not going to apologize for it.
It's August, and therefore "Summer Under the Stars" time on TCM, which means 24 hours of movies from one actor each day all month. And this last week featured Ann Miller day, and here we all are.
Three very different movies.
Hit the Deck (1955) is pretty clearly a "I like Guys and Dolls" and "wow, was On the Town a decent movie" mash-up. I dunno. It was fine. Little Debbie Reynolds is cute as a button. Ann Miller got a couple of numbers. It's okay. It has a lot of deeply sexist set-up that kind of unravels in a pleasant way and has a great few numbers by the women in the movie. And it's always great to see Russ Tamblyn. And I need to look into this Kay Armen. She was terrific.
Reveille with Beverly (1943) is war-time spirit-boosting propaganda and was one of the movies that was essentially an excuse to do a musical variety show with everyone from Duke Ellington to Bob Crosby. Ann Miller plays a feisty and insanely perky radio host. The film, however, ends on a very strange pivot as they remind you, all the soldiers are going off to war - and it was this odd, incredibly sad transition, with Beverly still in her show costume watching them go.
The Great American Pastime (1956) is a post-war movie trying to recapture some of the magic of Seven-Year Itch and reminding me "I don't particularly care for Tom Ewell". What could have been a Bad News Bears instead is kind of a sitcom dad who seems oblivious to the fact he's married to Anne Francis and that Anne Francis has decided Ann Miller is a sexual threat (she is not, which... I mean). Anyway - the movie felt really under-written and I kind of hated the way they wrote Tom Ewell's son. Seemed like a dopey ingrate.
But Ann Miller looked great in all of these movies. So.