Movies Watched -- Young Man with a Horn (1950)

112 minute running time so about 15 minutes too long … Kirk Douglas plays a good fake trumpet … Harry James played the trumpet parts and that really is Doris Day singing … I liked this one, Lauren Bacall plays a great crazy hot rich girl … the only drugs you see are alcohol, none of the cocaine and heroin and other hard stuff that drove the jazz scene… this is a green-go, recommended movie… this was a David Lehman recommendation and I thank him for it.

Jazz is purely African … it’s a sort of cheap mass-produced narcotic

Movies Watched -- Real Life (1979)

99 minute running time … Albert Brooks had kind of a cute idea, but the execution isn’t great … ahead of his time with the reality TV show angle … some of the bits are very funny, but as a whole, I wasn’t thrilled with it… Charles Grodin plays early Charles Grodin.

Movies Watched -- Me, Myself & Irene (2000)

116 minute running time with very long end credits so maybe only 10 minutes too long … Jim Carrey madcap and lewd comedy (Farrelly Bros.), it’s funny but you have to be in the mood for it … I’ve always loved Renée Zellweger, I wonder if there are guys who aren’t attracted to her? Probably not. This is over 20 years old now, sheesh, time flies…

The supplies

Movies Watched -- Murder By Contract (1958)

81 minute running time … unusual movie, B picture from Columbia, super low-budget but that doesn’t mean it’s bad ... the politics of it were interesting to me, Irving Lerner directed and you can quickly see why he was blacklisted … it’s not a green-go because the story and writing and acting aren’t great, but there is something special about it, so if you’re a true 50s film buff, you should see it. This was a Jonathan Rosenbaum recommendation, and I’m not sorry I saw it. There’s a short blurb on the DVD by Martin Scorsese talking about how much the movie influenced him.

And what do they do to the guy that throws a grenade, fires a mortar shell, aims a navy gun, drops the airplane bomb, or presses a button that sends a missile 5,000 miles with a hydrogen warhead?

Movies Watched -- Man of the West (1958)

100 minute running time… I liked The Naked Spur and Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote that he thought Man from the West was Anthony Mann’s greatest western, but I wasn’t thrilled with this… Gary Cooper is too old and he sort of phones in his performance, his heart wasn’t in it (he was dying of cancer after all) … I didn’t realize Julie London the singer was also an actress… Lee J. Cobb chews up the scenery, overacting in every scene (King Lear, I guess) … there were probably a lot of hidden messages in this movie, but I didn’t care … ridiculous fistfight with young Jack Lord where Cooper tries to strip him after beating him (fey Farr: “the famously gritty, rough-and-tumble fight scene”) … I just didn’t think the story was any good, and the acting was so-so. John Farr recommended it too, but I say give it a miss.

“At the time of release, the film was largely panned by American critics [RIGHTFULLY SO!], but it was praised by Jean-Luc Godard [ OH NO, NOT THE FRENCH NEW WAVERS]. Decades after the film's release, it has gained a cult following [OF SUCKERS] and greater acclaim, with film historian Philip French [WHO?] claiming the film to be Anthony Mann's masterpiece [GOD, NO], containing Cooper's finest performance. [NO, THAT WOULD BE HIGH NOON, SIX YEARS EARLIER]”

Julie London and her lovely décolletage

Movies Watched -- They Live (1988)

94 minute running time … John Carpenter movie (the guy who made Halloween) … I think Carpenter was an old hippie who hated the Reagan era and yuppies … this stars Rowdy Roddy Piper, a pro wrestler, maybe he thought he’d break into the movies this way … low budget, bad acting, cheapie special effects, weird and ultimately kind of dumb story, some shotgun violence, a strange alleyway pro wrestling-ish fight scene … I guess this is probably a “cult classic” in some quarters, but you can give it a miss. No idea how it ended up in my queue… surely not a David Lehman reco…

- So your name's Holly? - Holly Thompson. That's a pretty name.

Movies Watched -- L'enfance Nue (1968)

In French. 83 minute running time. A story about a French foster child, a handsome little psychopath named Francois, kind of looked like the kid from The 400 Blows (1959) (which I didn’t like) … anyway he’s a little monster, but not always, so it’s tough to hate him completely … he’s just a screwed-up 10-year-old … I didn’t hate this, but I wouldn’t call it entertaining. I can see why Criterion saved it, since it’s Pialat’s debut movie…

That is Raoul, not Francois, with Agnes, the one attractive female in the movie

Movies Watched -- The Naked Spur (1953)

92 minute running time … I’m not a fan of Westerns generally, but this one wasn’t bad, in fact I’m close to recommending it. Jimmy Stewart, Janet Leigh (pre-Psycho, pre-mom to Jamie Lee Curtis) … villain is played by that big handsome bastard, Robert Ryan, who has a great smartass smirk throughout this movie… filmed in Technicolor in the Rockies, I guess I’ll make it a green-go, John Farr also liked it.

Anthony Mann made two more movies that are in my Permanent Collection: “He Walked By Night,” and “The Furies.”

Can you do me?

Movies Watched -- The 7th Victim (1943)

71 minute running time … Val Lewton (Vladimir Ivanovich Leventon, a Russian Jew) “horror” movie for RKO with Jacques Tourneur (the son of a famous French filmmaker) directing … the story wasn’t any good (demonic cults, come on), but it wasn’t super terrible for a “B” movie … the best Val Lewton movie that I’ve seen is Cat People (part of my permanent collection). You can give this one a miss, unless you’re a Lewton / Tourneur completist.

Not Janet Leigh, 17 years before Psycho

Movies Watched -- The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965)

112 minute running time which means it’s 12 minutes too long and I do wish they had tightened this one up a bit because it’s a good story with some really excellent writing (John le Carré) pretty well told … despite being overly long and plodding at times, this is a green-go, recommended movie. Richard Burton a stage actor, but he does chew up the scenery too badly here. Claire Bloom of course is Jewish. Both John Farr and David Lehman also recommended it, and now I do too.

We're witnessing the lousy end to a filthy, lousy operation to save Mundt's skin... to save him from a clever little Jew

Spoiler:

What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not. They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me. Little men, drunkards, queers, henpecked husbands... civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong? Yesterday I would have killed Mundt because I thought him evil and an enemy. But not today. Today he's evil and my friend. London needs him. They need him so that the great, moronic masses you admire so much... can sleep soundly in their flea-bitten beds again. They need him for the safety of ordinary, crummy people like you and me.