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| marantzo |
 Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 10:04 pm |
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billyweeds wrote: Gotta see White Heat. Of course I've seen clips of the final scene, and it looks amazing.
There are many standout scenes and that one just wraps it up...well...with a bang!
The cast is terrific and involves so many of my favourites from that era, big and small.
White Heat, The Big Heat, The Big Sleep, a great triple header and each a marvellous viewing experiences in their own way. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 10:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| The Big Heat is fantastic, but I've never been a big fan of The Big Sleep. The plot is just tooooo convoluted. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:32 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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Betsy Blair, who has a role in Il Grido, just passed away in March. She was blacklisted, but got through that okay because she was married to Gene Kelly (an all-American pinko).
Her 2nd husband was director Karel Reisz (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The French Lieutenant's Woman)
Here's a nice obit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/mar/16/betsy-blair-obituary
Marty was her breakthrough/comeback performance. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 5:14 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Betsy Blair was a good friend of some of my friends in London. They absolutely loved her, and Karel. Her performance in Marty was very special. (That movie holds up remarkably well for a movie that has every right to be dated. Blair and Ernest Borgnine have a rare chemistry, and together and individually they are great.) |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 11:48 am |
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I saw Marty on TV a couple of mopnths ago and thought the same thing. It held up very well. In fact I liked it better than the other time I saw it. When it was released. Of course I was pretty young then and A Streetcar Named Desire was more like the movies that excited me.
The convolutedness of The Big Sleep is something that I find sort of entertaining. I guess everyone knows the anecdote about Chandler being asked to explain what was happening. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 11:57 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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| I absolutely adore The Big Sleep despite having almost no clue what actually happens in it. The chemistry between Bogart and Bacall, Martha Vickers, just the whole look and feel of it.... |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:31 pm |
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I also adore The Big Sleep. I watched again the other night and still don't know what happened. But the performances draw me to it, time and again.
I've often wondered why Martha Vickers never became a big star. She is charisma personified. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:43 pm |
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Location: Houston
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I'm not crazy about The Big Sleep, but I'm not crazy about Bacall, period. The book isn't bad, if you can get past the gay bashing. And a lot of ridiculous plot contrivences.
For instance, a key ingredient in the plot is a porno book lending library. People who belong are terrified about their connectiong being revealed. But if that were the case, who on earth would put their name on a list for such a lending library. What if the cops busted it? What if the owners had a tendency to blackmail? And since it isn't a public library, or a good service enterprise, there's likely a big fee to join and a big fine if you returned the item late. Wouldn't people worried about their identity being revealed just purchase the books anonymously, though cash transactions. Were there really ever porno lending libraries anywhere? |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:47 pm |
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Joe Vitus wrote: I'm not crazy about The Big Sleep, but I'm not crazy about Bacall, period. The book isn't bad, if you can get past the gay bashing. And a lot of ridiculous plot contrivences.
For instance, a key ingredient in the plot is a porno book lending library. People who belong are terrified about their connectiong being revealed. But if that were the case, who on earth would put their name on a list for such a lending library. What if the cops busted it? What if the owners had a tendency to blackmail? And since it isn't a public library, or a good service enterprise, there's likely a big fee to join and a big fine if you returned the item late. Wouldn't people worried about their identity being revealed just purchase the books anonymously, though cash transactions. Were there really ever porno lending libraries anywhere? |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:51 pm |
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Location: Houston
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| If Chandler were writing satire, it'd be different. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 5:10 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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| Oh. Is that it? I was thinking more or less along the lines that when someone is annoyed by the lapses from strict logic that are present in pretty much any movie - particularly thrillers - it is usually because they do not like the movie, not why they do not like the movie. Even if the person is unlikely to recognize it. Everyone suspends disbelief for the movies that work for them. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 5:40 pm |
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I agree that people forgive the lapses in a movie they like. But my argument in the De Palma forum hasn't been about forgiving lapses but as not percieving them as lapses to begin with--which is a different argument. De Palma makes Pop movies, not naturalistic thrillers.
It's the same reason no one is concerned that there's no one in the room to hear Kane say "Rosebud" right before he dies. The "mystery" of Rosebud, and the device whereby that question comes to people making News on the March just isn't relevent to what Citizen Kane is about.
And who complains about the resolution to the mystery in Murder By Death? No one, because it's a satire. But a lot of people complain about the resoultion to Murder on the Orient Express (the book, at any rate) because it's a serious mystery and fans expect both a more complex plot and one with an less easy resolution. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 6:13 pm |
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Location: New York City
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| When you have a couple of hours to spare, look at the scene between Bogart and Dorothy Malone in the bookstore in The Big Sleep and then look at the scene where Kirk Douglas directs Lana Turner in the bookstore scene in The Bad and the Beautiful. If you don't think there's a tie-in, I'll be surprised. Minnelli was riffing on Hawks. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 6:14 pm |
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Well, your example is a different matter; with a whodunnit the resolution is the point. If the reveal is not satisfactory, the whole thing is pointless. I mean, a Perry Mason mystery that ends with Mason saying "The murderer is... You! In the back row! No, not you! That guy, in the grey shirt, next to you!" or an Agatha Christie that ends with Hercule Poirot throwing up his hands and saying, "Screw it. Everyone did it!" is not going to be satisfactory because the whole work hinges on that moment, and if it's a cheat, the whole work falls.
For a movie whose point is something other than the reveal, though, it's different. The set ups and steps of the plot, the human conduct that moves the picture along, the steps the characters take to get to the conclusion.... Those can be criticized, at some point, in any movie because no movie can really express human actions precisely and be, well, all that interesting. If the movie does not work for you, those things are glaring. If the movie does work for you, you'll always find a reason to ignore even the most glaring fault.
I use "you" in the generic. I have no dog in the fight in the DePalma forum; my memories of that movie are so dim as to not even really qualify as "memories." |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 7:00 pm |
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Thannks for clarifying the "you" but Kane isn't a whodunnit, so obviously the issue of what is relevent to what genre goes beyond that. The revelation of "Rosebud" is whispered in an empty room, so no one could here it, so the plot couldn't really happen. But no one minds (even people who don't like Kane don't use this as an issue of complaint), because realistic plot is not what Kane is about.
Or another example: the cops in Breathless are really lazy. In real life they'd be fired. In a naturalistic movie, the issue would be addressed by either a hard-working cop or their superiors. There would have to be some sort of explainaiton to make it work. Godard isn't making a realistic movie. He's paying hommage to B movies and those are "going through the motions" B movie cops. We accept that they are always two steps behind Belmondo until the end, and we don't mind because we know that's how the genre worked that Godard is celebraing. |
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