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| marantzo |
 Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 11:15 pm |
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Rod wrote: I was watching Giant, but had to cry uncle somewhere in the second hour. Apart from Jimmy Dean's terrific physical characterization of resentful roughneck Jett Rink, and George Stevens trying desperately to make like this is some great work of art, there's no earthly reason to watch this film. Bland, plastic characterizations matched by bland, plastic performances by Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, who, initially, lends a disarming gentleness to his western macho icon, but quickly discards this for a nauseating pomposity. A major problem is I don't know who I'm supposed to root for. Sure, Jett's violent and uncouth, but I still sympathise more with his desperate attempts to mak something of himself than with the Benedict's American-Aristocrat self-satisfaction which, the plot arc implies, would be entirely okay if they could just learn to be a touch less racist.
On this, we are in full agreement. What a bloated piece of nothing that movie is. The pillow talk between Liz and Rock is the most excrutiatingly boring scene I have ever seen. Outside of Dean and Mercedes McCambridge there waszn't a thing to watch in this borefest. What a sad way for Dean to go out, on a vehicle like this. And he was very good, who wouldn't root for him? It didn't matter if he was portrayed as the devil himself, he was the only one who made this colossal nothingness the least bit watchable. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 11:37 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
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Location: SF Bay Area
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marantzo wrote: .....The pillow talk between Liz and Rock is the most excrutiatingly boring scene I have ever seen..... |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 11:49 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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yambu wrote: marantzo wrote: .....The pillow talk between Liz and Rock is the most excrutiatingly boring scene I have ever seen..... He was in about forty films in the Fifties. Other than the movie Pillow Talk, I don't remember him being very good in any of those I saw.
Sacrilege!
MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION. WRITTEN ON THE WIND. TARNISHED ANGELS.
The embodiment of the Sirkian (anti-) hero. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:08 am |
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| Sirk's main characters were the women. The men were ciphers, which fit Hudson perfectly. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:19 am |
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marantzo wrote: Sirk's main characters were the women. The men were ciphers, which fit Hudson perfectly.
Gary -- that's EXACTLY what I mean. I agree 100%.
For example, look at Robert Stack in WRITTEN ON THE WIND or TARNISHED ANGELS. He's just another bland male (like Hudson). |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 1:42 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| Robert Stack in WRITTEN ON THE WIND is hardly bland. He's Widmarkian in his weirdness. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:27 am |
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Marc wrote: Robert Stack in WRITTEN ON THE WIND is hardly bland. He's Widmarkian in his weirdness.
Robert Stack always seemed rather wooden to me. He played a bullfighter in Boetticher's first picture.
He came from an old family and was a Calif. blueblood.
He did a great job of keeping his looks thruout his career - perhaps with a little help. His wife Rosemarie also managed to look quite beautiful in an almost Dorian Gray kind of way.
He was terrific in the TV series "The Untouchables."
And he really came into his own in "Unsolved Mysteries." He was known as the his "creepy voice" on that show - which was one of my favorites.
I guess one could call Stack weird.
Widmark was quirky - and seemed to bridge that fine line between off-beat handsome and downright scary. A truly unique persona. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 7:57 am |
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| The first time I saw Widmark was at a Saturday matinee at a theatre that used to show second run movies and revivals. It was the theatre that I saw most of the classic horror movies. The double bill that Saturday was Kiss of Death and Road House. He was one scary character in Kiss of Death and that evil snicker was unforgettable. Then when he made his first appearance in Road House and snickered, my friend and I and most of the audience laughed to see the same character in both movies. I don't remember if it were me or my friend who said, "Oh good he's in this one too." It was also the first time I had seen Ida Lupino too, and heard her sing, for the first and only time. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 9:56 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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Has anyone seen The Wedding Party (1969)?
DeNiro's first feature film, and the first film directed by Brian DePalma (actaully co-directed). I'm not too big on DePalma, but I find director's first efforts very interesting. Judging by IMDB, the film sounds kind of shaky though. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:23 am |
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Location: Shanghai
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I'm a big fan of Fritz Lang's famous early films (Dr. Mabuse The Gambler, Metropolis, M). But I've seen very few of his talkies, especially the later westerns and noirs. Even from the silent era, there are many that I've missed.
So I was quite excited to stumble upon Liliom (made in France in 1934) and Fury, Lang's first American film made in 1936.
Liliom is a pretty amazing film. Charles Boyer portrays a spirited but doomed working man/petty thief. He treats his girlfriend and later wife like total crap, and she loves him in spite of/because of that. The whole thing is a good romp, with a good deal of the action occurring at a carnival where Boyer sometimes works (and sometimes bops the female boss). Apparently, the story is the same as Carousel, and derives from a famous Hungarian play. SPOILER One of the oddities of the film is that after Boyer dies during a holdup, the movie shifts gears and he is brought to heaven by two white-faced, black-suited angels, who look more like circus performers of some sort. And then Boyer's ghost has to atone for his failings on Earth. *End of Spolier* So what looks like a shortish 85 minute film extends for another half-hour. A nice treat (though I notice that there was a scaled down US version of 85 minutes, which I'm assuming means no heaven for Boyer's bad boy).
The better known Fury stars Spencer Tracy in a tale of vengeance, first by a lynch mob then by an individual. It's not that great a film, but is interesting and has its moments. The film has a number of different moods. First it's a love story of two innocents who have to separate to different cities to earn money . As they try to re-unite to marry, Tracy gets picked up by the police en route, as he matches the basic description of a kidnapper. The small town where he is held gets wind that a criminal is there, and after a little drunken incitement, a full-fledged mob goes fully wild. Interestingly, given the goings-on in Europe and Germany in particular, Lang shows the politicians as too timid and calculating to take decisive (or any) action until it's too late.
There are some rather creaky plot points that move the story along and Tracy overacts a good deal. The transformation in his character is over-the-top as well, as the honest and fundamentally decent Tracy character morphs into a hard-boiled calculating gangster type, as if he borrowed James Cagney's brain from Warner Brothers. And while he schemes and snarls behind the scenes, teh movie changes over into a courtroom drama. A nice added touch is that most of the 22 lynch mob defendants are caught on film during the riot. So film itself helps indict them. An echo of M is present at times. It's clearly a message film, and the ending is abrupt, and doesn't worry about loose ends or legal proceedings, but just instead standing up for what is right.
I guess what impressed me most is the way that Lang takes a bunch of ideas and themes percolating in other films and in the culture and blends them together in unexpected ways. Also, both films seem like they are heading towards short predictable endings, and then Lang has them veer off in unexpected directions. As evidenced by Metropolis and the two-part first Dr. Mabuse, Lang liked his films, long, complex and unpredictable. Liliom is a better film than Fury, but both have some interesting camera angles and lighting that identify Lang's deft direction. I particularly liked the stylized close-up reaction shots during the mob's rampage in Fury.
Now I should go back and re-watch The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. From 1933, it's Lang's last German film, and the film which immediately preceded these two. Hopefully more Lang will continue to surface. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 11:27 am |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 1:16 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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gromit wrote: I'm a big fan of Fritz Lang's famous early films (Dr. Mabuse The Gambler, Metropolis, M). But I've seen very few of his talkies, especially the later westerns and noirs. Even from the silent era, there are many that I've missed.
One of my favorite movies is Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (it was a two-parter in the German version, The Gambler and Inferno). I've also stumbled upon Lang's The Blue Gardenia, which was kinda fascinating (especially with Raymond Burr as Mr. Evil Guy). Definitely worth digging up. |
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| Trish |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 2:12 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 2438
Location: Massachusetts
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| Just saw Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (Joan Plowright) - really a wonderfully tender film. About an elderly Scottish woman who takes up residence at the Claremont Hotel (in London) hoping to see more of her grandsom and take in the interesting cultural activities she expects this big city offers. Things do not live up to expectation - but by fate she meets and befriends a young man. I really enjoyed this film - one of my favs that came out in 2006. Plowright is great. See it |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:10 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Gromit,
I'm smiling a little that you thought Liliom was about to end at the hold up scene. Mainly because Carousel is so famous, and the plot is almost the same (though moved to New England, and the resolution is...different). In it's day, Liliom was one of the most famous and popular plays in the world, one reason Rodgers & Hammerstein almost didn't make a musical of it. It gave Molnar his international reputation, and he was considered a major playwrite for about the first half of the 20th century. Of course, today few people have any idea who Molnar is, let alone Liliom. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:17 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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And I swear I cleaned out my cookies. Oh well.
Joe - Could you repost in Music and Theater. I have some questions that don't really belong here. |
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