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| marantzo |
 Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2013 6:46 pm |
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| I saw The Trouble With Harry on one of our Friday movie Nights. I found it light-hearted and sort of funny, but the thing that I remember most, was wondering who that teen-aged (?) girl was. It was awhile before I knew who Shirley MacLaine was. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2013 7:00 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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Harry is pretty mediocre Hitch. But that is a relative term.
TCM just did Vertigo and is on to Rear Window. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2013 8:05 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Let's translate Whiskey's comment into something resembling English: Harry is a flat-footed attempt at comedy at best, a hopeless attempt at off-beat humor that never finds any beat at all.
It reminds me of those floundering attempts at comedy The Twilight Zone used to attempt. Which is interesting, since both Hitchcock and Serling's crew have a real affinity for comedy within a suspense/terror narrative. But when they go for a flat-out "comic" approach, they all flounder. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2013 8:16 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| We rented three early TV Hitches. Unwatchable. Then when the comedy came in, they became even more unwatchable. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2013 9:38 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Just finished watching "Rear Window" yet again--certainly one of the best Hitchcocks, though I still love "NxNW" most. TCM host Osborne said that "Vertigo" has been named best film of all time by Sight & Sound magazine (I didn't know that was still being published), and was listed as number nine on an American master list, but I just don't find it that appealing. And the ending is too abrupt. And the real villain evidently gets clean away. Not satisfying. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2013 10:30 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Ship of Fools: "Grand Hotel" kind of film on an ocean liner headed to a Germany which is about to to be taken over by the Nazis. Below decks are a bunch of Spanish itinerant workers being returned home due to failure in sugar plantations (because of the Depression). Lots of preshadowing of Nazi Germany, but there are plenty of side stories. Vivien Leigh gets top billing although she's not all that good and there are several characters who get more screen time. At least she gets to beat the crap out of Lee Marvin, which is worth seeing.
The real stars are Simone Signoret as a drug addicted countess being sent to prison for arming rebels, and Oskar Werner as the ship's doctor who treats her. Just about any scene with either of them, and every scene with both of them, is pure gold. Michael Dunn is our host, is good-hearted and doesn't indulge in soap operatics. All three got well-deserved Oscar nominations. I never realized Michael Dunn was an Oscar nominee. I remember him as Mr. Big in Get Smart.
One of the subplots involves Elizabeth Ashley and George Segal as kids who love each other in bed and have serious problems out of bed. Oddly, the film never deals with the fact that she's probably a much more talented artist than he is. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2013 11:56 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Rear Window is my favorite film, period. Vertigo and NxNW are great as well. Family Plot is very underrated--a comic, suspenseful gem with great performances by Barbara Harris and Bruce Dern, whose on-screen chemistry is terrific. The Trouble with Harry is just as Joe describes--unutterably, unbearably twee though not unwatchably, since the color photography of fall in New England is knockout. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 12:53 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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I think it's just wonderful that Hitchcock made SO MANY good films...worth seeing over and over again.
I thought Macy was in Mamet's film Edward? House of Games blew me away when I first saw it. Especially Joe Mantegna who has replaced Mandy Pat. on Criminal Minds. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 7:45 am |
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carrobin wrote: Just finished watching "Rear Window" yet again--certainly one of the best Hitchcocks, though I still love "NxNW" most. TCM host Osborne said that "Vertigo" has been named best film of all time by Sight & Sound magazine (I didn't know that was still being published), and was listed as number nine on an American master list, but I just don't find it that appealing. And the ending is too abrupt. And the real villain evidently gets clean away. Not satisfying.
Carrobin, like you, I did not find Vertigo that appealing either.
"...color photography of fall in New England is knockout."
Beside my wondering who the young Shirley MacLaine was, I remember clearly, the fall colours in New England. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 7:56 am |
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| Car, I saw Lifeboat only once, when I lived in Paris, and I liked it too. I think it is better on the big screen, because you actually feel like you are in the lifeboat. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:00 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Watched two docs about two NY photographers.
Bill Cunningham and Bert Stern couldn't be much more different personalities.
Bill is self-effacing, ascetic, never had a romance, never sold out, knew everybody in the fashion world. Bert is an egotist, woman-chaser, started off doing ads and moved on to celebrities for Vogue, knew everyone in the celeb world.
Cunningham tries to catch real moments and is best-known for his NY Street Scene fashion photos for the NYTimes. Stern is more cunning in creating arty imaginative staged photos. Bill is interested in the clothes, the fashion; Bert interested in the celebs and nudes (including famously taking nude pics of Marilyn Monroe). They were both born in 1929, just in time for the Great Depression, and both had a doc made about their life in 2010. Live long enough and you get to see a new Depression and get to be the subject of a documentary. Bert Stern just died in late June. Bill I presume is still biking Manhattan (the film was from 2010).
I liked the Bill Cunningham, New York doc better because Bill is a more likeable guy, very upbeat, and just generally loves his work . He's a real NY character, for much of his adult life he lived in a shoebox apartment in Carnegie Hall (really!) and rode his bicycle all around the city (he only had 28 of them stolen). Bert Stern is also a NY character, but more complex and manipulative and selfish. Entering his 80's in the doc Bert Stern: Original Mad Man, he has a much younger wife -- he started photographing her when she was 13 -- and pals around with two noisy twins around his wife's age. He tries, sort of, to get them all to be friends.
Bert Stern mentions something interesting about his mentor teaching him that art all comes down to triangles and that triangles are what is interesting. We see a half dozen photos of his applying this principle, but it isn't further discussed. Has anyone heard of this before? Well there is one follow-up, Bert saw a prima ballerina, liked the triangles she could form, pursued and married her. She's rather distant and detached form anything to do with Bert, referring to him as "sperm donor" for my children.
Anyway, neither of these docs are mindblowing, and they both are rather conventional in style, but it is interesting to see the photos, and fashion and celebs, and meet the men behind this. Maybe most people would prefer to have a drink with Bert, especially since Bill doesn't drink, but Bert's dead and was sort of a jerk anyway, so I'll have some water in a rundown cafe with Bill ... |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:25 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Syd--You are certainly right about Vivien Leigh not being very good in Ship of Fools. Signoret and Werner were the best things about the movie, but that's not saying much, since the whole enterprise was a steaming pile or dung, or as we used to say around here, sucked b.v.c. (And don't ask me for a translation.) |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:35 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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The Butterfly Variable Capacitor, often used in antenna tuners, is rather unpleasant to suck.
Figures a photographer who liked nudes would favor the triangle theory of aesthetics. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:35 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:51 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: http://www.bvc.co.uk/history.html
ROTFLMAO. |
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