What was the last movie you saw?

Morocco (1930) Légionnaire Tom Brown (Gary Cooper) has difficulty following orders, & ends-up in the brig. Eventually, he meets Mademoiselle Amy Jolly (Marlene Dietrich) who is not only interested in him, but also Monsieur La Bessière (Adolphe Menjou). Eventually she becomes engaged to the latter, though preferring the former.


Interesting film. 8/10
 
High Wall (1947) Oops! Should have watched this one last week. Another NOIR ALLEY presentation, though it lacks certain elements common to most noir.

Steven Kenet (Robert Taylor) has apparently strangled his wife, and finds himself in the funny farm. He had suffered certain brain damage, had it treated, then this incident. He claims there are gaps in his memory, & Muller had talked a while about films featuring amnesia, and repressed memories, etc.

Dr. Ann Lorrison (Audrey Totter), who works at the booby-hatch, advises him that though he seems content to remain there, citing three square meals daily, etc., Kenet's son, who was 4, last time he had seen him, before going to war, will be placed in an orphanage. If he submits to narcosynthesis treatment, which I interpret as truth serum, he can at least be sent to prison, & be in a better position to help his son. He initially refuses, but eventually consents.

The treatment reveals that his wife's employer Willard I. Whitcombe (Herbert Marshall) was in those memories, & Kenet suspects that he may be the murderer.

Interesting film, & may be my first time seeing it, as nothing resonated.

8/10.
 
Morocco (1930) Légionnaire Tom Brown (Gary Cooper) has difficulty following orders, & ends-up in the brig. Eventually, he meets Mademoiselle Amy Jolly (Marlene Dietrich) who is not only interested in him, but also Monsieur La Bessière (Adolphe Menjou). Eventually she becomes engaged to the latter, though preferring the former.


Interesting film. 8/10

And controversial in its day. Dietrich's shown wearing a tux (she wore it well) and during her act, kissing a woman in the audience. Talk about pushing the boundaries ...
 
Not really. Hammett was the first I know of to use the man who comes to town playing opposing forces against each other to wipe them out. In Hammett's case, a portly operative from the Continental Detective Agency.

And I'm not the first to note the similarities in the plots.
But red harvest is a cop story isn't it? Certainly not a spaghetti western lol
 
But red harvest is a cop story isn't it? Certainly not a spaghetti western lol
but the plot elements transcend the genres!
But red harvest is a cop story isn't it? Certainly not a spaghetti western lol
But the plot elements transcend the genres!
 
Detour (1945) Wonderful! What a great example of Noir! Made by PRC, which our host Muller said had two meanings, one of which was Pretty Rotten Crap. :LOL: But, this film is an exception!

Yes, Detour is amazing. Tiny budget, but it really carries an impact. The scene in which the woman turns to look at the man while they're in the car is enough you jump out of your seat. She doesn't have to say anything, just look at him.
 
HOUSE OF EXORCISM -1975 - Having seen Lisa and the Devil first, it was jarring to see this slap and dash edited version when I first saw it--all the more shocking that they found such a good lookalike for Elke Sommer. But then I came across an audio commentary she did for the film--and it really was her throwing up, shaking and cursing, biting priests on the leg. It's such a polar opposite in sensibility to the original version.
 
The last movie I saw was Oppenheimer. I was really impressed by the storytelling and the performances—especially Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer. The way it explored the moral dilemmas of creating the atomic bomb was both thought-provoking and intense.
 
I've got slightly mixed feelings about Detour. Obviously it's dated, but even so it's got a slightly wonky quality, as if made really well by amateurs. The villainess is played in a really full-on, almost cartoony way - not so much a femme fatale as a femme really ticked off. She reminds me of bitchy "bad girls" in old comedies about Hollywood - "Now youlookahere, buster!" - and the fact that she doesn't have a full backstory is definitely a plus. I agree with @Victoria Silverwolf that the bit in the car is really quite surprising, where she looks around like an android powering up. Not a refined film, but one with a crude and slightly crazy power, and it never outstays its welcome.
 
I watched The Boy and the Heron. Loved the first half but the second, though visually beautiful, didn't work for me. It was like hearing a master storyteller relate their own dream -- I could admire the craft but couldn't connect with the personal dream-logic. There seemed to be a lot of echoes to earlier films, especially Princess Mononoke, which just made me wish Miyazaki had made another like that.
 
DREAM NO EVIL - 1970- Strange story that isn't really a horror film and not really much else. Girl from an orphanage seeks to find her father after living with a traveling faith healer family where she dives off a high platform into an airbag as part of the act. She finds her father through a funeral home embalmer who also runs a brothel for elderly men in a hotel. But he is dead--until she puts her hand on him and he resurrects. It gets weirder from there, with a voiceover leftover from the 1950s to add an antiquated melodramatic touch. The cast has familiar faces like Edmund O'Brien, Michael Pataki, and Marc Lawrence. It doesn't add up to much--not quite enough to make cult film status although it was recently released in Blu-Ray.
 
Zone Troopers (1985)

Small group of GI's from central casting -- tough, no-nonsense Sergeant, young Private, older Corporal, civilian war correspondent -- are lost behind enemy lines somewhere in Italy in 1944. They stumble upon a German encampment.

Oh, and there's a gigantic alien spaceship that's crashed nearby.

The combination of familiar war movie tropes and old-fashioned science fiction makes for low budget fun. The wrecked spaceship is impressive, and I'm glad they made it look like a finned rocket ship like something from the cover of a 1940's issue of Astounding rather than a flying saucer.

There's humor, but it tends to be low key. Hitler shows up, and gets punched in the face by one of the GI's. An alien gizmo creates an (illusory?) 1940's sultry dame (the only woman in the film) for one of the Gi's to smooch on. But it's mostly played straight.

Big Band music and a final credit that says "Buy War Bonds" add to the feeling.

Better than I expected.
 
Cowards Bend The Knee (2003)

A surreal story about the secret life of a hockey player who believes that he has the hands of a murderer, told in the style of a pre-talkies silent film, together with title cards and piano soundtrack. It's hard to know what to say about this except that it is totally weird, and not in a very good way. There are a couple of very NSFW moments. Apparently it got good reviews from the critics. I think a very kind description would be "experimental".
 
A thought about Detour. The real core of the story is Vera, its villain, and without her it would be a much weaker film. It strikes me that a remake would probably get her wrong: she's neither seductive nor a criminal genius - in fact, her final plan is pretty stupid, as the hero points out. She's just a thoroughly unpleasant, driven person who happens to turn up. Her lack of backstory is a strength, too: like Furiosa in Fury Road, she doesn't need an explanation, and the modern obsession with explaining every character would probably ruin her.
 
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) As I stated a few pages earlier, this is my favorite A&C film. I was just going to run the Ben M comments, then decided to watch the animated opening, then the scene in the museum, then, the whole thing.

I thought the demise of both the Wolfman & Dracula was odd; knowing it takes silver to kill W, and requires a stake through the heart to destroy D. But, here, both just fell off the balcony, and into the water!?

Oh, & the Monster, Junior, as C calls him, is trapped on the dock by a wall of flames. What does he do? walks right into them!? Hmm., this seems unlikely behavior, as he fled fire in the fist Frankenstein film.

8/10


The Wolfman (1941) Bela Lugosi is TCM's man of the month, & I used TCM's streaming to watch the comments on the films from 10/02. Once I realized how short the film was, I watched it also. Less than 75 minutes, including the comments before & after.

So, Lugosi's role is small, but tough; sometimes that happens.
Lawrence "Larry" Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) was away in America for over a decade, & returns home to Wales, and has no idea what will happen. He had just met a lovely young woman,
Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers), and though she has a boyfriend, she and her friend Jenny Williams (Fay Helm) go out with him. There just happens to be a group of travelling gypsies in town, & just for fun, they go to have their fortunes told. Bela (Bela Lugosi), is the one who does the fortune-telling, & Williams his 1st customer, and what does he see when he examines her palm? A pentagram! Soon, he will transform into a werewolf, & rip out her jugular vein; Talbot will beat him to death with a silver-tipped cane; but not before Bela bites him. He is now the Wolfman!:eek:

Supporting cast/characters:
Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains); Dr. Lloyd (Warren William); Captain Paul Montford (Ralph Bellamy); Maleva, the Romani sorceress (Maria Ouspenskaya).

The part I had forgotten is that once Talbot accepts that he is a wolfman, he cannot convince anyone of it. His own father thinks he has been deluded by the gypsies. The same element was in A&C Meet F.

9/10
 
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The Scalphunters (1968) Joe Bass (Burt Lancaster) is a fur trapper, with a season's full of pelts, robbed by Two Crows (Armando Silvestre) and his associates, who are then massacred and scalped by the bad guys lead by Jim Howie (Telly Savalas), who make their living collecting money for scalps of Indians. Two Crows, not wanting to merely steal the pelts, offers Joseph Lee (Ossie Davis), in exchange for them. Bass wants nothing to do with a slave, until Two Crows suggests he would slit Lee's throat, if Bass refuses the deal. Bass & Lee both witness the massacre from atop a hill, neither knows that Two Crows has escaped.

The whole film depicts Bass' unsuccessful attempts to regain the pelts, and, at the end, accept Lee, not as an inferior, but, an equal.

Supporting cast/characters: Kate (Shelley Winters) as Howie's wife/girlfriend?

8/10
 
The Best Man (1964) Two, count 'em, 2 candidates for the unnamed party's Presidential campaign are the main characters, One
William Russell (Henry Fonda) is the wealthy one, while the other Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson) was born to a less-well-to-do family. The party's former President, Art Hockstader (Lee Tracy) privately supports both, telling each that he is behind him, until one slings a bit too much mud.

Among the accusations each flung at the other was the one thing that could not be mentioned in 1964, and the euphemism 'degenerate' was used. :eek: The other guy's accusation against his opponent was that he had been treated for a certain mental condition a few years ago.

This film was shown as part of TCM's 100 most significant/important political movies, & featured Ben M. & his brother in opening & closing discussions.

8/10
 
Three Days of the Condor (1975) Joseph Turner (Robert Redford) works for a certain branch of the CIA, which is responsible for reading literature to find ideas that might inspire bad guys. One fine day, while he is out buying lunch for the gang, some very naughty men gain access to the place, and slaughter everyone present. Joubert (Max von Sydow; guy who plays Chess with the Grim Reaper), is one of the contract killers.

So, the poor guy, Turner, codenamed Condor goes about dodging assassins, etc., and wondering why somebody wants him dead.

Another one of TCM's 100 most important political films.

9/10
 

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