Lynda Carter Watch: Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976)

they misspelled Lynda Carter's name.  Well done, person in 1976.

Watched:  02/07/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's - and very much so

Director:  Mark L. Lester.  Go figure!

So, this came up on Prime, and I'd been meaning to watch it because it starred a pre-Wonder Woman Lynda Carter (reason enough), and then I found out it co-starred Marjoe Gortner, who you may remember from Starcrash.  And then the movie started and it said it was directed and produced by Mark L. Lester, and my brain about melted, because he's the guy who brought us one of my favorite movies: Commando.

Here's the thing - I wasn't expecting a ton out of this movie and was pretty sure I wouldn't finish it - but it was... okay?  Fine?  Nowhere the disaster I was expecting.  Like, it's a legit movie trying to do a thing, and it's competent, which I figured it would be when I saw Lester's name attached.  Which, honestly, was maybe a little disappointing, because I figured it was going to be terrible enough for a Friday night screening.  But, alas, it is not.  

Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976) is part of the trend of movies that's -frankly - existed since the gangster pictures of the 1930's, but returned in force as stories of misfit individuals railing against normalized society (and winding up on the wrong side of the law).  The genre exploded with the counter culture adopting the idea with Cool Hand Luke and Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, and this movie borrows heavily from the latter film.

Bobbie Jo is a car-hop in New Mexico when she meets Lyle Wheeler, a smart but possibly crazy guy who idolizes Billy the Kid.  She's had it with her nagging mother and humdrum life, and decides Marjoe Gortner is her ticket out.  As one does.

The movie does a pretty good job of bringing the "crime spree" part up a bit later in the movie, letting Bobbie Jo and Lyle find their groove, do some peyote, and get up to basic shennanigans before it becomes clear Lyle stole the very cool muscle car their driving, and he's got no real jobby job.  They recruit Bobbie Jo's sister, her boyfriend and a nerdy pal and hit the road, eventually deciding to do some crimes - which Bobbie Jo is *delighted* about.  It's all fun and games.

There's a Buford T. Justice cop that goes in hot pursuit (which frankly makes no sense as he'd be leaving his jurisdiction, the FBI is nowhere to be seen, and he winds up accidentally killing a bunch of innocent people - which is never mentioned again).  

Anyway, the movie is predictable enough, because it wants to show that an outlaw like Lyle is too good or too much for this world, and Lynda Carter must survive in order to mourn him, gorgeously.  

It does feel a bit too reminsicent of Bonnie and Clyde at times, but I'm not entirely sure how you avoid the comparisons when it's two stories of outlaw lovers robbing places and trying to stay ahead of the law in the open spaces of the West.  You're gonna face some convergent evolution, even if you never saw Bonnie and Clyde.  

Watching the movie does make you wonder: wait, how was Lynda Carter *not* a bigger deal when she hit Hollywood?  Famously, she had less than $100 left when she was cast for Wonder Woman and otherwise wasn't finding any work.  This film was released in 76', and WW originally aired in 75', and I'm honestly not sure which shot first.    Wonder Woman premiered in late 75 and this movie came out in March of 76' and was an indie picture, so could have take a while to get assembled.  But before all that, her work is spotty.

Carter can sing, she can dance, she can act, and she - frankly - looks like Lynda Carter.  Maybe she didn't have the right mid-70's earthy qualities movies were looking for?  She's more old school in her approach than, say, Faye Dunaaway, but it sure *seems* like someone would have been smart enough to work with her.  Carter's part here is underwritten - she's mostly there to tell the audience that Lyle is sympathetic and not a sociopath (he is obviously a charistmatic sociopath, but I'm not sure the movie knows this, and thinks he's romantic).  But if you're more used to the polished Lynda Carter, it's a kick to see her getting high and playing with guns.  

Anyway - for a movie I was expecting to mostly suffer through, it was okay.  Maybe not the first thing I'd direct you to, but.  Anyway. 

Watch Party Regret Watch: Mannequin 2 - On the Move (1991)

Watched:  02/05/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing: First

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Stewart Raffill

This movie wasn't very good.  Jenifer agrees.

These days, if a movie does well, studios understand that if they're going to make a sequel to a popular-ish film, the *best* thing to do is to try to go bigger and better.  Give the audience a reason to get them to come back.  However, Mannequin 2: On the Move (1991) is very much of the era where the reason for a sequel to exist was so that as many pilot fish left over from the first film can gorge themselves on the good will of the first movie and not care at all if the sequel will be worth the film it's printed on.

Pretty much nobody is back from the first movie - and I don't just mean Andrew McCarthy and Kim Cattrall.  The actual producers, up and down, aren't the same.  The director is new.  You have the same store as the location, and you have Meshach Taylor back as "Hollywood".  That's it.  So no one cares, no one is trying, and the end product may be less than ideal.

Anyway, there MUST have been a script, because there are costumes and whatnot, so someone knew what they'd need for shooting.  But it sure doesn't feel like there's a script - it feels like people dicking around in front of the camera.  Except for Kristi Swanson, who is actually at least trying here (despite a bizarre wig that seems inspired by a Rick James groupie's hair).  And, yeah, Meshach Taylor, but he was kind of dicking around in the first movie, too.

But there's only small bits in the 90 minute run time that actually reach the level of "funny bit" or "joke that might make one crack a smile".  The rest is weird mugging no one asked for and maybe one of the lest charismatic leads I can remember in anything that wasn't one of those movies with people fighting in a sci-fi wasteland.  And the weird thing is:  normally that guy is fine.  He's been in lots of stuff - stuff you've seen.  But here - he's working with nothing, and I guess that was a problem.

I don't regret making other people watch the movie.  At least we all suffered together.

Noir Watch: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Watched:  02/06/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  unknown

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Tay Garnett

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) is among the top ten films I'd recommend in a "what you need to know about noir" seminar.  It's got an earned place among the noir canon, and even though I've read the book and seen it half-dozen times, I find myself thoroughly enjoying every time I return to it.  It simply works.  

It shares a certain headspace with Double Indemnity, which makes sense as both started as novels by James M. Cain.  There's not just a gritty realism in how characters are and behave, it's matched by the worlds Cain created that seem not far off from our own.  Roadside diners, insurance offices.  Heck, throw in Mildred Pierce and you're in the suburbs and building up comfortable eateries.  

All it really takes is infatuation to become an obsession, and everything can go off the rails.  

Friday Night Amazon Party: Mannequin 2 - On the Move

 

You. Will. Know. Pain.

Day:    02/05/2021

Time:  8:30 PM Central

Source:  Amazon Watch Party

Link here to watch, friendos

I've never seen this.  It's a 13% critics score on RT.  Metacritic doesn't even register it.

It's the second in a series of movies that asks "hey, would you @#$% a store mannequin?" and tells the tale of yet another fellow who absolutely would.

Noir Re-Watch: The Unsuspected (1947)

Watched:  02/03/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  4th?

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Michael Curtiz

Michael Curtiz directed innumerable good to great movies, and we find ourselves watching his output a few times per year one way or another, but since finding The Unsuspected (1947) as part of my "let's watch all the Audrey Totter stuff we can find" quest, I'm a little surprised it just isn't more widely discussed.  The cinematography alone is noteworthy, courtesy industry veteran Elwood Bridell.  Add in a Franz Waxman score, and multiple hooks for a story, and it already has plenty to recommend it before you point out Claude Rains stars.

Ida Watch Party Watch: Jennifer (1953)

Watched:  02/01/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Joel Newton

Co-watched w/ JeniferSF

A thriller which lifts elements from plenty of Gothic mysteries, borrows from noir, and has an ending that's maybe whatever the opposite is of deus ex machina, Jennifer (1953) has some great things going for it, but was not my cup of tea, exactly, but I found myself actually fairly wrapped up in the mystery.

Starring the lovely and talented Ida Lupino, with photography by James Wong Howe (one of the best to ever DP a movie), it still feels oddly like a B- picture, and maybe it was.  The film runs (blessedly) short, relies upon a small cast where Lupino is the biggest star, and we see only a handful of locations.   

Lupino wasn't quite done with movies at this point, and two of my favorite of hers follow this one: Private Hell 36 and the phenomenal The City That Never Sleeps.  She'd just come off two great films with Robert Ryan, Beware, My Lovely and the icy On Dangerous Ground.  By the time she hit her 40's in the late 1950's, she was more or less transitioning to TV where she'd remain for the rest of her career - as, at the same time, she took to directing as much or more than acting.*

Friday Watch Party: Return of the Swamp Thing (1989)

Day:  Friday - 01/29/2021

Time:  8:30 Central

Where:  Amazon Prime

Link here 

 

I've only seen this once. Back in high school, I think my sophomore year.

My mom was having some sort of gathering of her friends in our living room, so my dad and I got banished to the upstairs TV room (affectionately known as "Slippy Village"). My dad and I are a real braintrust when it comes to picking movies, and so it came to be that we settled on Return of the Swamp Thing. I recall we had to keep turning it down because of lots and lots and lots of machinegun fire, and we did not wish to upset my mom and her pals.

I also vaguely remember having to also explain to The Admiral, "no, Heather Locklear is a real actor.  No, seriously.".  

Anyway, let's all enjoy a talking salad and his friend.

 

Noir Watch: The Breaking Point

Watched:  01/28/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950

Director:  Michael Curtiz

Based on a Hemingway novel I haven't read,* To Have and Have Not, The Breaking Point (1950) stars John Garfield, Phyllis Taxter and a smooth as hell Patricia Neal - all under the direction of the great Michael Curtiz.  

I honestly thought I'd seen this one, so I let it sit on my DVR - but I hadn't.  It bares very little resemblance to the film that borrows the novel's name, the famed Bogart and Bacall vehicle, which I recommend.  You could double-bill them and it'd be an interesting ride.  

As I understand it, the movie strays from the novel in several key ways, but as a noir - it fits perfectly when it comes to theme and occasionally dabbles in the look and feel, which is a tough sell when you have a lot of daytime story on boats and piers.  But.  

Garfield plays the captain of a fishing charter who, paired with his pal Wesley (Juano Hernandez), is scraping by in tough times.  They pick up a wealthy client who ditches them and his lady-friend, Patricia Neal, in Mexico without payment.  Forced into a corner, Garfield agrees to take on a group of Chinese immigrants to smuggle into the country - but things go poorly.  From there, things just keep escalating.  Because: noir.

As a noir, it fits like a glove.  Our character is forced into a corner, gets in over his head doing something he doesn't want to do.  Neal isn't a femme fatale, but she's a fascinating distraction and her appeal demonstrates Garfield's duality, when he has Phyllis Thaxter at home, offering love, support and a way out.  

Honestly - it's just a damn good movie, surprisngly progressive with some of its characters, and has maybe one of the gut-punchiest endings I can remember seeing in a movie in off TCM in a long time.  The themes are absolutely universal/ timeless.  Garfield is so *human* in the film, his driving insecurities and stubbornness in the face of reality so relatable (at the expense of the people who love him), it's a remarkable feat of story, script, acting and direction.  

Highly recommended.

*I've only read a smattering of Hemingway, but I don't have time for the "he wasn't that good" chatter the kids are so fond of. Your inability to relate to any fiction where people don't have access to a television that is not YA fantasy is not my problem.

Musical Watch: Pal Joey (1957)

Watched:  01/26/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  George Sidney

So, sometimes you watch a movie and it doesn't work out.  I did take a note that this movie, on paper, seems to have everything going for it, but it isn't well remembered.  Which, you know, can often mean something.  Starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak, and from George Sidney who has a list of quality directorial credits as long as your arm, it shoud have been a cinch.  But.

Pal Joey (1957) could be retitled Pal Joey - A Study in The Male Gaze or That's Problematic!  And this is coming from the guy who stands on soapboxes about modern audiences learning from and understanding the societal frameworks of a year in which a film was released.  

But we don't get thirty seconds into the film and our hero is being accused of trying to both get a minor drunk and maybe sleep with her.  Another two minutes in and blatant racism.  And then 90 minutes of misogyny and every possible shot they can get of the female form.

Comedy Watch: Anchorman - The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

Watched:  01/24/2021

Format:  I lost my DVD somehow.  So, Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Adam McKay

Maybe the best thing about Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), other than that Jamie - 17 years later still wanders around the house quoting the movie - is that it's a generous ensemble movie.  Heck, for the first time, I noticed Missy Pyle shows up for two seconds at the end and gets a line.  But, yeah, while the star is of course Will Ferrell, virtually every speaking role has someone who either was or became a person worth noting, and everyone is given something like an opportunity for a laugh and delivers.  

Hence - we all get a 90 minute movie that never really gets dragged down by too much plot.  Everything is an opportunity to be silly.  Even a fight between Veronica Corningstone and Ron Burgundy that gets nasty (and probably some of the name calling would get cut in 2021) becomes absolutely absurd as Christina Applegate hurls a typewriter at Ron and Champ is holding the crowd back with "they're just talking...  they're just talking....".  It's good stuff.

I know it's been a while since I've watched the movie in its entirety - and in the intervening years, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series.  And in Game 7 of that series, 1B Anthony Rizzo was famously caught saying "I'm in a glass case of emotion" to catcher (now manager!) David Ross and Tommy LaStella (who played everywhere, and whom I miss a lot).

  

So, yeah, it's still a lot of fun.  You forget half the people who are in the movie.  Danny Trejo, Kathryn Hahn (who actually rocks 70's hair), Fred Armisen, the great Fred Willard...  the list just goes on and on.

And, while we can all acknowledge the main four male leads, Applegate deserves a mountain of praise for the very specific take she brought to Veronica Conringstone that I find hysterical.  Were we ever to meet, I'd insist she tell me whatever I'm up to "is Grade-A baloney".  

PODCAST: "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982) - A Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ SimonUK and Ryan

 

Watched:  01/22/2021

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade: 1980's

Director:  Nicholas Meyer

for more ways to listen 

SimonUK and Ryan boldly get into a movie about aging, space pirates, sacrifice and making grown men cry when their space pal is taken out. We're tasked with talking about what a big deal this movie is for us, personally, as well as what it meant for Star Trek as a franchise. 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 136: "Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan" (1982) - Signal Watch Canon w/ SImonUK and Ryan

Music

Main Title - James Horner, Star Trek II OST

Epilogue, Closing Credits - James Horner, Star Trek II OST

Playlists

Signal Watch Canon

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

SimonUK Cinema Series

The Signal Watch PodCast · SimonUK Cinema Series

Noir Watch: Witness to Murder (1954)

Watched:  01/23/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Roy Rowland

I think Jamie has become a full Barbara Stanwyck fangirl, and that's a feature, not a bug.  So, I used that to leverage spending our Saturday night watching Witness to Murder (1954), a great small-scale thriller with two terrific leads in Stanwyck and George Sanders - an actor I realize I may see in more movies by happenstance than anyone else.  

Our plot seems derived from Rear Window, but this movie came out just before the Hitchcock classic, and the structure is very different.  Before the credits finish rolling, Stanwyck awakens in the night and happens to look across the way out her window just in time to see a neighbor choking a woman to death.  Naturally, she calls the police, but the murderer, George Sanders, has figured what's happening and manages to stash the body when the cops drop by.

From here it's a game of cat and mouse, with Stanwyck certain of what she saw, but with no evidence to back her up and Sanders out-maneuvering her, and, in fact, beginning to plot against her.

The real villain of the movie is, curiously, 1950's attitudes about gender roles and women and their crazy lady brains not being good like man brains.  Curiosuly, this is focused through our upright cop/ love interest played by Gary Merrill (who never actually seems worthy of the attention of Stanwyck, but we'll just let that one go), as well as his parter played by Jesse White and the police Captain.  Sanders is able to leverage their "well, she has a crazy lady brain" predisposition against Stanwyck repeatedly and to to great effect.  

Muller took time in his post-movie wrap up to give modern critics a bit a knuckle-wrap for calling the movie "unrealistic", and I can't be sure how I would have thought of the film had he not made sure we thought hard on this before and after.  But here's what I know (SPOILERS) - putting inconveniently brash or argumentative spouses and children in psych wards was all the rage for a good chunk of the 20th century.  With psychology on the rise in post-war America, and using science as a blunt instrument, it didn't take much to get someone tossed in a hospital.  

It's played up for dramatic effect, I guess, but I think the most frustrating bit is that Stanwyck keeps cozying up to the detective who "wants to believe her", but just can't.  And, frankly, the script and Sanders himself do a great job of giving him the upper hand as the devious sociopath versus Stanwyck just being smart and plucky.  But, yeah, you want to have Stanwyck just give that cop the business, and it just doesn't happen.

IE: I agree with Muller that this movie is not "unrealistic" in how folks dismiss a single, late-night witness to a murder that doesn't appear to have happened to a body that no one has seen.

You don't need me to tell you Stanwyck is great in this, or that Sanders is terriific as the killer (and, btw, he's a Nazi, too!).  The direction is fine, but with John Alton as the DP, the movie looks like a million bucks based on some of those set-ups alone.  

I find myself digging thrillers like this.  This same script would have turned into something tedious by the late 1980's and through to today, with a post, Athony Hopkins killer and a chase scene that would go on for, like, a year.  I feel like Crawford's Sudden Fear is in a similar vein of small-scale thrillers from this era, or even Lupino and Ryan in Beware, My Lovely.  

Here's to hoping Jamie continues to volunteer her time for more Stanwyck pictures, because Barbara made, like, 100 movies.  I'm sure we'll keep finding good stuff.

Angry Animal Watch: Day of the Animals (1977)

Watched:  01/22/2020

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1970's

Director:  William Girdler

I think the *weirdest* thing about this movie is that it genuinely feels like famed filmmaker James Nguyen of Birdemic fame may have taken inspiration from Day of the Animals (1977) for his 2010 opus.   The second weirdest thing is seeing Leslie Nielsen in what was likely one of his last dramatic roles before drifting into his particular brand of comedy (of which I am a tremendous fan).  

This movie is not a sequel to, but is a spiritual partner to, 1976's Grizzly by the same director and both films feature Richard Jaeckel (a classic "oh, THAT guy" actor).   Both are about humans in the woods with animals out of control, I guess.  But the scale here is much larger/ more hilarious.

Our plot:  a bunch of people have signed up for a "survivor's" trek through the wilderness, but are all dressed like they're headed for the supermarket.  Over the course of a few days they'll rough it in the mountains of California, but reports are coming in that animals are acting funny.  We're introduced to our parade of stereotypes/ tropes, all of whom explain who they are as they come down the exposition line at the beginning.

Well, crazy thing, the ozone is bad something something, higher elevations, and the animals have become homicidal.  I mean, MORE homicidal.*  They particularly have it in for us slow-moving humans.   

Anyway - the movie is a bit of a mess, but has two major thrusts - 1) the escalating attacks on the walking person buffet, and 2) the interpersonal conflict that needs to arise in any of these films.  In our case, it's the increasingly irritable ad man played by Nielsen who winds up shirtless and baying at the moon before the film is over.

There's an indication that things have gone awry in the sleepy mountain town where our adventure begins, but the budget wasn't there to show too much of that, so all we get is the aftermath and the indication that SOMETHING happened.  But, yeah, there's a storyline for the Sheriff that just abruptly ends.  We sort of get a story about a little girl who is maybe the only survivor of... something?  And a deeply unsatisfying story about a pair of quarreling lovers that, against all common sense, leave the group after being attacked by a goddamn wolf.  And, man, why anyone would follow Leslie Nielsen's character in this movie is impossible to understand.  

And, yes, for reasons unexplained, the entire multi-day crew of people has no radio to call down in need of help.  Which seems like an oversight.

But the women's hair and make-up remains on point despite a half-a-week of running from cougars.

Anyway - what the movie does have are frequent animal attacks, and from a wide array of animals.  If you're like me and enjoy movies about people losing to the Wild Kingdom, and only a few escaping to look traumatized afterwards: I have a great movie for you.

*Animals tend to eat other animals and people if you give them a chance, really.  

Friday Amazon Watch Party: Day of the Animals

Day:  01/22/2021

Time:  8:30 Central

Amazon Prime Streaming

Link Here for a watchin'

I have never seen this.  It looks insane.  It is free to watch with Amazon Prime.  

And it is one of my favorite themes in movies:  animals turning on humans, to eat them, hopefully

JOIN US AS THE POODLES TURN ON MANKIND

Noir Watch: The Glass Key (1942)

Watched:  01/16/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on DVR

Viewing:  Not sure

Decade:  1940's

Director:   Stuart Heisler

Measured by the fact I think this is the fourth time I've seen this movie, you can take it at face value - I think pretty highly of The Glass Key (1942).  But, it is based on a novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett, co-stars Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, and has a large supporting role for William Bendix - w, yes.  I'm pre-disposed to like the film.  

We're going to cover Miller's Crossing on the podcast at some point, an early 90's Coen Bros. film, and one of my personal canon.  I think I was in early college when I read my first Hammett on JAL's recommendation and got a few pages into Red Harvest before saying "wait a minute, maybe the Coen Bros. weren't so darn clever after all...".   Because, honestly, Miller's Crossing is the love child of The Glass Key and Red Harvest, both Hammett books.*

I did read The Glass Key before seeing this film (and just learned via Eddie Muller there's an earlier version starring George Raft - which may lead to me skipping it) - and, sure, the book is better, yadda yadda.  But, the film is terrific all on its own - a twisting, double-double-crossing political/gangland yarn that adds up perfectly, but the first time through can be hard to keep track of all the parts of the equation.  

Ladd plays the lieutenant to a political boss who, upon meeting the daughter (Lake) of a reform candidate  decides to back the reform candidate.  This gets his boss crosswise with another, shadier, political boss, and all of a sudden Lake's brother winds up dead on the street.  

The movie has a similar tone to a Hammett novel when it comes to casual brutality and unsavory characters.  That includes our lead, who never really throws a punch, but he's not exactly a knight in shining armor as he works angles, falls out with his boss, and tries not to fall for Lake.

The movie is difficult to discuss, but the characters in it are terrifically drawn, each instantly knowable in broad strokes, even if in the framework of the story, they're all capable of anything - which is part of what keeps the mystery of the story rolling.  

Frankly, this is a "could be a TL;DR post" kind of movie, and I'm not going to do that.  Maybe I'll podcast this movie one day instead.  But in the meantime, I highly recommend the film.  Just go with that. 

*and a bit of visual flavoring from The Conformist

Pirate Watch: Against All Flags (1952)

Watched:  01/15/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1950's

Director:   George Sherman

I have previously discussed this movie, including just last year.  

I believe that right up properly expresses my appreciation and major points I'd make about the movie.

Noir Watch: The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)

Watched:  01/15/2020

Format:  TCM on DVR (Noir Alley)

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Robert Siodmak

I'd been wanting to see this one for a while, so I'm glad it came on Noir Alley.  Directed by Robert Siodmak (one of those names that means this should be, minimum, pretty good), starring George Sanders, Ella Raines and Geraldine Fitzgerald and - a more recent interest - produced by Joan Harrison - it had a lot of elements that made it worth at least a look.

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945) centers on a man aging into permanent bachelorhood as he pays the way for and cares for his two sisters - one a widow and the other an invalid.  The family fortune disappeared in the Depression, leaving the siblings scraping by in the rambling house that is a reminder of better times.  "Uncle Harry" (Sanders) meets a co-worker in from New York (Ella Raines) and the two spark an interest.  

However, one of the sisters isn't quite ready to let Harry go.  And things get weird.

The movie was made at the tail end of WWII (released pretty much the weekend after VJ Day), so it's got some similarities to other WWII-era films in that the cast is female-centric and the dashing male lead is George Sanders.  It takes place in limited spaces (based on a play, so there's that) and overall feels initimate and somewhat scaled down.

It's as easy to call this a melodrama as a noir, but I can see why Joan Harrison would have been interested in the script.  The characters are interesting and imperfect - no one (not even Raines) is a saint, and there's some genuine weirdness going on that goes beyond just sisterly affection.*  But, at the same time, Raines' character feels shockingly direct regarding her interest in Harry - she's no coy young lady, even when asked specifically to play that role.

As I thought - direction and performances were terrific, Sanders is in great form, and Geraldine Fitzgerald is note perfect.  But despite the actual warning not to spoil the ending they literally tag onto the end of the movie, I'll say:  the studio enforced ending that led to Harrison's parting with Universal and Siodmak shooting the bird at the studio is... awful.  The movie builds and builds to something absolutely mind-scrambling, and then... we get this cheesy ending.  But, you know, when they were wrapping this thing up, we were still fighting in Japan.  I get that maybe they wanted something that wasn't so depressing.

So, it makes it hard to actually recommend the movie.  It's a solid film right until, literally, the last minute, and then everything falls apart.  Did not like.

During the intro and outro, Eddie was joined by scholar Christina Lane - who has too many credentials for me to get into here - but she's an accomplished film academic.  I just picked up Lane's book on Joan Harrison and plan to crack it this weekend.  So - while I've seen a lot of Harrison's movies over the years, I'm looking forward to reading about the actual woman who made them happen (I also recently picked up Phantom Lady on BluRay and keep intending to show it to Jamie, and then I forget).

*that lady in the negligee is not the romantic subject of the film

Watch Party Friday: Against All Flags

Day:  Friday 01/15/2021

Time:  8:30 Central

Where:  Amazon Prime Streaming

Link is here

Yar.  I'm making an executive decision, and watching pirates in glorious technicolor, we will be.  

Errol Flynn!  Anthony Quinn!  Maureen O'Hara becoming the living embodiment of "get you a girl who can do both"!

No swash shall go unbuckled!  No Roger shall go un-Jolly'd!  We're taking to the piratey seas!

Française Regarder: Amelie (2001)

Watched:  01/13/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming - CBS All Access

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Jean-Pierre Jeunet

I think if I'd seen this when it came out, I would have been in my 20's, the techniques used would feel fresher, the gnome thing would not yet have been co-opted by a travel company and become a well know spokesperson, and I would have also walked out of the cinema dazed and delighted, feeling like I'd seen *something*.  Alas, now I am old, and my heart turned to stone.  The whimsy of youth is not what it was, nor the CGI of yesteryear.  

Amelie (2001) is very, very cute.  I bare it no ill will - it sets out to do a thing - a sort of almost magical realism thing - and incorporate CGI and other visual effects to give us picture-book insight into what the characters are going through.  And, in a very weird way, it's like a better version of some goofy 90's stuff like The Butcher's Wife where a particular person in a neighborhood makes all of the kooky characters go through a change before that character goes through a change themselves and we all learn a lesson about love/art/being silly.  You also get similar characters in, say, Batteries Not Included*, but no magical fairy girl to make it all happen.

The movie is not about falling in love.  Like most movies that pitch themselves that way, it's a movie about infatuation that kinda works out.  And that's okay - there's a place for that.  THAT it does very well.  It's two whack jobs circling each other until they finally collide.  Not my cup of tea, but it didn't fail.

It's genuinely better than most of the "neighborhood" movies in technique, ideas, visuals, etc...  but I just didn't really ever care about anyone on the screen.  Including Amelie.  And we are supposed to adore Amelie.  And, at age 26, I would have been *very* into a lovely girl with a Louise Brooks bob and who was demonstrably, cripplingly quirky.  Now...  eh.  

And, per the movie, I need a little bit more than a well edited beginning where they're literally telling as much as they're showing.  At the end of the day, you're telling a story or stories, and, aside from Amelie's father, I didn't get any sense of *closure* with the other characters.  Things happen, yeah - but we have whole storylines started that don't really go anywhere.  It feels like glimpses of anecdotes you never quite get to hear completed.  We spend so much time setting them up, and then... 

That said - I know people are bananas for this movie, so I'm missing something.  

*which has little mechanical aliens and is just adorable

WW2 Watch: Where Eagles Dare (1968)

Watched:  01/13/2021

Format:  TCM on my DVR (where it had been languishing)

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1960's

Director:  Brian G. Hutton

While these days certain people would raise their hands and complain this is cancel culture, sometimes it's a good move to just watch a movie where we blow up a bunch of Nazis.  

Seemingly torn from one of those men's adventure magazines of days of yore, When Eagles Dare (1968) follows the completely insane mission of Richard Burton in a rare action role as he pairs with a "in his prime" Clint Eastwood and with a handful of other people, invade a mountain castle Nazi fortress and then blow it the hell up.  

There's a hell of a lot more to the movie - it's really an espionage caper - but I don't want to spoil it if you've not seen it.  But expect lots of machineguns, an unreasonable amount of dynamite, and the unlikely prospect of Richard Burton physically outperforming a 1968 Clint Eastwood.  It had some astounding scenes on some cable cars, a bus ride you won't forget, and lots and lots of uses for a rope with a clip on one end.

In addition to Burton and Eastwood, the movie also stars Mary Ure, and has Ingrid Pitt in a smaller role.  In fact, Pitt appears on screen for several scenes in the back half of the movie, but for some reason, she has no lines and is given nothing to do.  It's honestly kind of weird.  I half think they forgot to write her character in, and then someone thought "we actually need to logically have her here, but we don't want to pay the writer for more scenes" or something.I've certainly heard of similar things happening.*

The *lack* of screentime for Ingrid Pitt in this movie is maybe my only real beef with it.  But that's a beef with all movies, but, like, two.

let the St. Pauli Girl speak!

Anyway - this movie is all plot and action with a minimum of character.  It's a super-tight thrill ride kind of flick, and delivers on its promise.  

*apparently a big driver for why you don't hear someone tell Capone about a character dying in Untouchables in one of the most famous scenes in that movie is not artistry - that's a glad happenstance.  Rather, they couldn't get David Mamet back to write that scene when they knew they needed it.