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| marantzo |
 Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 7:14 pm |
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| Boy, I can't wait to see The English Patient. If they have shown it already I will be so upset, because I planned to commit suicide after I've seen it. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 10:05 pm |
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carrobin wrote: I only got hooked on the Saturday morning flicks when I had my knee surgery in April, so I didn't realize TCM does this annually. But 24/7 still seems excessive, especially since so many of the movies are shown on TCM rather often anyway.
I used to work days on Saturday, which is how I managed to watch most of the Andy Hardy films. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 10:34 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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| I just checked through the TCM schedule for February and there's nothing that I really want to see, though there are some I might watch if they aren't up against something better (I've seen "The Thin Man" enough to repeat the dialogue along with Powell and Loy, but I might watch it again). And of course, they never show "The Fixer," for which Sir Alan was nominated. They're showing "Charly," though, for which Cliff Robertson won instead. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 11:06 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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whiskeypriest wrote: carrobin wrote: Whiskey -- I did see something about that, but I didn't take it as meaning 24/7. It is. They have done this every year for as long as I recall. For 31 days before the Oscars they show nothing but movies that hqve been nominated for at least one Oscar. Then back to the beloved regular.sked.
The irony is that there are scads of really bad movies that have been nominated for at least one award. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 2:15 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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I didn't realize TCM showed some good B flicks Sat around noon.
I could catch those here late at night maybe.
But my internet connection is pretty crappy these days, so might not be great.
Probably better watching those free films online.
I find if you let the film start and then hit pause the whole thing will load after a while and then you can watch without any pauses or choppiness. And there is a full screen option down at the bottom right.
I liked Inner Sanctum (1948).
It's kind of a noiry treatment of Shadow of a Doubt (1943).
A lot of the comic elements and character parts were amusing.
The lead is a little wooden in his attempt to be a mystery man.
And there is an odd framing story which I completely forgot about but does provide a good payoff at the end. The Twilight Zone should have ripped that off.
A few times in the film there were some nice misdirections.
And a smattering of good pulpy dialogue (the laconic lead tells the on-the-make blonde to shut-up thusly: "You're very beautiful when your lips aren't moving")
And the whole thing clocks in at a brisk 62 minutes.
Recommended.
(According to the IM Db, it is indeed public domain, as the copyright wasn't timely renewed)
Impact on the other hand was a bloated 1'45" and veers from one situation to another. Like Inner Sanctum, there also is a murder and a man who hides out in a small town and has a local woman fall for him. I can't really say too much since I did some personal editing by dozing during a middle 20 or 30 minute chunk. But it was easy enough to pick up the storyline and I moderately liked the final two acts -- though the lead male was kind of a mushball and not interesting. The two women were the show for me, though they have much smaller parts. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 5:58 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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| gromit--I have to catch Inner Sanctum. I agree about Impact (terrible title), which I think stars Brian Donlevy (whom you called a "mushball," pretty accurate IMO) and Ella Raines, who was in a thousand and one noirs but is forgotten now. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:21 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Not only is the title lousy, but the film has a very clunky opening and closing in which some omniscient voice-and-hand reads from the dictionary the definition of the word "impact" and relates it to two people/lives colliding. Maybe they should have been reading the definition of clunky instead.
I did like Ella Raines. She cleverly turns up as an auto mechanic, wearing white overalls and a white cap, and it's slowly revealed she is a woman at work. Turns out she owns the small-town gas station and continued working after her husband died in WWII. An nice period touch, as she is essentially a leftover from the Rosie the Riveter war days. Raines looks sweet and glowing in men's clothes, and later she's game helping in the investigation.
Helen Walker plays the scheming wife and is kind of ordinary in the early scenes, but does a nice job towards the end when she is hurling accusations and then on trial. Anna Mae Wong is also in the mix with a small part as a maid and "oriental."
If you want to see Inner Sanctum, here it is. |
Last edited by gromit on Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:27 am; edited 1 time in total
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:25 am |
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| I liked the old radio broadcasts of Inner Sanctum, which I'm guessing that movie is a spin-off of. Although those shows have the annoying habit of always explaining away logically all the supernatural events that occur. I realize this is a gothic tradition stretching from Ann Radcliffe to Scooby Doo, but I prefer horror stories that accept the supernatural as an actuality. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:30 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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| Yes, the film derives from the Inner Sanctum radio series. But I'm not familiar with that. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:41 am |
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If people are game, we could all watch one of these public domain films available on these here internets and discuss it together as a group. Might perk a little life into 3rd Eye. A slightly-over one hour B noir would work well.
I'm just getting ready to watch Suddenly a 1954 B film in which Frank Sinatra takes hostages and plots to assassinate the President.
Also, if anyone hasn't seen it, I'd highly recommend Dimitri Kirsanoff's silent film Menilmontant A youtube edition is available here.
I haven't checked the quality, but it's a 1926 film, so Youtube is probably good enough.
When Pauline Kael, longtime New Yorker film critic, was asked to name her favorite film, this was it. French silent film. (1925)
The opening scene is amazingly good. As in one of the best starts to a film ever. It's a somewhat experimental impressionistic film, just 38 minutes long. It's really terrific.
That would also be a fun choice for us to watch and discuss. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 11:11 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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My laptop at home is slow and undependable--I wonder if I could manage to watch "Inner Sanctum" here at the office...hmm.
Last weekend TCM had one good old film, "Crossfire," which I suppose had some Oscar connection but featured Robert Ryan and Robert Mitchum and Gloria Grahame, all of whom say "noir" to me. Robert Young was the police detective trying to solve the murder of a businessman (Sam Levine), who had been at a bar talking with some soldiers and had invited them to his place for drinks. (This was a 1947 movie, and Levine made an interesting comment to one soldier to the effect that when men have been trained to fight by hating a certain group, and then the war is over and they're deprived of that reason to hate, they often turn to hating something else.) It turned out to be a murder sparked by anti-Semitism, and there was a bit of preachiness involved but done well (good actors help a lot). |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 11:19 am |
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| Menilmontant is only 38 minutes long, so bring a sandwich and that's only a slightly long lunch hour. It's silent too, so nobody will know you are watching a movie. And in that case, why waste the good opportunity on a lunch time ... |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 11:23 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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| You've talked me into it, Gromit. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 12:25 pm |
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Crossfire is a terrific film. Ryan was nominated as supporting actor. It's an all-Robert movie--Ryan, Young, Mitchum. It was based on a Broadway show where the bigotry was against gays, if I'm not mistaken. In the movie it's anti-Semitism.
Suddenly sucks. It was remade recently, btw.
Great idea about the noir discussion. And gromit, thanks so much for the link. Will watch posthaste. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 3:16 pm |
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I saw Suddenly quite a while ago. I liked it when I saw it, I think. 
Crossfire was very good and I liked all the actors except Robert Young whom I have never liked. He was even worse when he went off the booze.  |
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