74 minute running time … silent picture … why Harold Lloyd isn’t as famous as Chaplin or Keaton is a mystery … great comedy, clever fun, crazy stunts, a real winner. John Farr recommended this and I second it … green-go!
Son & Silverstein
2020 Media Consumption Diary -- January
January
2020.01.31 … Watched … Dark Passage (1947) | Delmer Daves
2020.01.30 … Watched … He Walked By Night (1948) | Alfred Werker
2020.01.28 … Watched … The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) | Lewis Milestone
2020.01.27 … Watched … Kiss of Death (1947) | Henry Hathaway
2020.01.26 … Watched … My Darling Clementine (1955) | John Ford
2020.01.25 … Watched … You (2019) | TV S2E10
2020.01.24 … Watched … You (2019) | TV S2E9
2020.01.23 … Watched … You (2019) | TV S2E8
2020.01.22 … Watched … You (2019) | TV S2E7
2020.01.21 … Watched … You (2019) | TV S2E6
2020.01.21 … Read … Bomber’s Moon (2019) by Archer Mayor
2020.01.20 … Watched … You (2019) | TV S2E5
2020.01.20 … Watched … The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) | Tay Garnett
2020.01.19 … Watched … You (2019) | TV S2E4
2020.01.18 … Watched … You (2019) | TV S2E3
2020.01.18 … Watched … Shane (1953) | George Stevens
2020.01.17 … Watched … Detour (1945) | Edgar Ulmer
2020.01.17 … Watched … You (2019) | TV S2E2
2020.01.17 … Read … Good Girl, Bad Girl (2019) by Michael Robotham
2020.01.16 … Watched … You (2019) | TV S2E1
2020.01.13 … Watched … Booksmart (2019) | Olivia Wilde
2020.01.12 … Watched … The Stranger (1946) | Orson Welles
2020.01.10 … Watched … Double Indemnity (1944) | Billy Wilder
2020.01.09 … Watched … High Noon (1952) | Fred Zinnemann
2020.01.09 … Read … The First Rule (2010) by Robert Crais
2020.01.08 … Watched … I Wake Up Screaming (1941) | Bruce Humberstone
2020.01.07 … Read … Suspect (2013) by Robert Crais
2020.01.06 … Watched … Blow Out (1981) | Brian De Palma
2020.01.05 … Read … The Wanted (2017) by Robert Crais
2020.01.04 … Watched … Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) | Jack Arnold
2020.01.03 … Read … Taken (2012) by Robert Crais
2020.01.02 … Watched … The Marriage Circle (1924) | Ernst Lubitsch
2020.01.01 … Watched … Hustlers (2019) | Lorene Scafaria
2020.01.01 … Read … The Sentry (2011) by Robert Crais
Movies Watched -- Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
106 minute running time so at least ten minutes too long … Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, but the screenplay by Al Bezzerides, and there’s no story here, it’s just a mess … I’d seen this before years ago but had forgotten about it … nuclear secrets (1955 after all) and crazy dames, but it’s just junk … Hammer smacks some people around, punches a guy down a staircase … he’s pretty unflappable, which is nice. Glowing box copied both for Repo Man and Pulp Fiction. Criterion put it in their collection and John Farr liked it, but I say, give it a miss.
… you penny-ante gumshoe
Movies Watched -- Dark Passage (1947)
106 minute running time, so about ten minutes too long … started out sort of promising but then it became clear that the story was no good, pretty dumb … Lauren Baccall, though, wow… she’s beautiful and has this weird deep smoker’s voice that is really wonderful, I could watch her alone for hours … I wonder if she was in any truly good movies? Bogart is a likable little weasel, as usual, but I don’t know why he got as much work as he did, a bit of a mystery (and he was married to Bacall!?! Sweet Jesus). Wanted to recommend this one, but just can’t, the story is too ridiculous. John Farr liked it enough to recommend it though. My picks are the top 1% though, the creme de la creme.
Make you look like a bulldog or a monkey.
Movies Watched -- He Walked By Night (1948)
79 minute running time, so a tightly made movie … I enjoyed this one, true crime from 1948, sort of documentary style … the Coen brothers, I bet, borrowed the bullet removal scene in No Country for Old Men from this (see screencap below) … using the LA storm drain system for the chase scene / finale was really good … I can recommend this one, it’s a green-go. John Farr hipped me to it … as I’ve mentioned in the past Farr is an educated east coast white guy around my age, so we agree on many movies.
"He looked like such a nice kid."
Movies Watched -- The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
116 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long. More noir… Barbara Stanwyck, psycho female CEO of industry, and Kirk Douglas playing the drunken, cuckolded husband … funny scene where Van Heflin is talking to a girl and he gestures with his hands that the West is “this big,” meaning his penis — funny to see that in a 1940s movie (taking a jab at the censors no doubt) … story wasn’t that good, performances, pacing only so-so, Miklós Rózsa score wielded like a club … I don’t regret seeing it, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it, though John Farr did.
… you sounded just like your aunt used to.
Clay Blair, Jesus...
From the interview with John Toland on Booknotes:
“… when I graduated, as--I had offers from four of these places, and the--our president called me in and says, `Toland,' he said, `I hear you have all these offers. I'd like you to make one for my college. It's a little college called Williams College.' And he says, `You're going to love it because it's a rich man's college and you'll be the poorest boy that ever went there.'“
Movies Watched -- Kiss of Death (1947)
98 minute running time. Really enjoyed this movie, definitely a green-go recommended picture. Zanuck thought Victor Mature looked like the perfect “Italian thug,” but he’s a decent criminal who honors the code … some fun stuff with inverting the cops and criminals (“your side of the fence is dirtier than mine”). Richard Widmark over the top with his hyena laugh. Story is good, pacing is good, cinematography is good, all real locations (except for Luigi’s) is good. It’s just really well made and I recommend you see it.
I’ve got some bad news for you.
Movies Watched -- My Darling Clementine (1946)
97 minute running time. Myth making about Wyatt Earp and the shootout at the OK Corral. Many consider this a classic, and it’s true that setting it in Monument Valley is beautiful, but Henry Fonda is too small and too balding to work as the marshal in my mind … story is a bit of a mess too. There are some great scenes, like the dance at the church raising, but all things considered, I’m not going to recommend this one.
Will you oblige me, ma'am?
Movies Watched -- Picnic (1955)
115 minute running time so at least 15 minutes too long. This was a deeply weird movie from the mid-1950s, based on a play, interestingly weird, but still, whoa. William Holden and his tanned naked torso sending the women in a small town in Kansas into hysterics … Kim Novak can’t act and recall that Hitchcock used to call “that fat Polack” (he was a real bastard) … Holden is in his late thirties and Novak is 21 or 22 years old, so it doesn’t really fly, but it was neat to see how the town spinsters reacted to Holden … you don’t see depictions of sex-crazed/frustrated women that often, esp. in mid-1950s movies, but it was sort of wonderful. Novak’s hot little sister played by a Jewish-American Princess named Strasberg (her Dad was named Lee), which was nice to see — that part wouldn’t have worked if she were truly plain. This was a John Farr recommendation, and I’m glad I saw it, though I certainly wouldn’t recommend it myself (I only choose the top 1% after all).
This blogger wrote a little deeper review: “Picnic is about repressed sexuality and its corresponding price.“
You're a fake — the gutter is where you came from and the gutter is where you belong!