Track the Films You Watch (2005) - Page 51

SteveGon · 08-28-2005, 09:02 PM

Eh, Armin beat me to it. Eureka's Masters of Cinema is a line to watch - they've got some really interesting titles coming out.

Adam_S · 08-28-2005, 09:26 PM

I'm hoping Criterion releases some of the Fox Ford titles, perhaps even inclusive of some of the masters silent works (such as iron horse).

Michael Elliott · 08-28-2005, 10:27 PM

I'm not sure what I'll do if Criterion releases them. If they do, hopefully they'll release them in some sort of box set and keep the price down. I'd certainly much rather pay the $10 to Fox instead of $25+ to Criterion. IMO, when Fox gets it right they can be just as great as Criterion especially in the price tag. I'm not expected Fox to do a Warner type release with some of these films but at the very least I wish they'd do what Universal has been doing with their older titles.

I was getting ready to order THE IRON HORSE from Xploited but held off hoping for a R1 release.

The same thing is true for Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING, which I'm dying to see. Any rumors on this one? I've been looking at the R2 disc for a while now but it's open matte and I'm not too sure of the OAR.

08/27/05

Assignment Terror (1969)

Incredibly bad film should have been great fun or at the very least so bad it’s good but sadly the film is just downright bad. An alien/mad scientsist (Michael Rennie) brings back to life Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, a mummy and the wolf man (Paul Naschy) to destroy the Earth but his plan backfires. The monsters here are the very worst I’ve ever seen with the monster only having face makeup, the mummy looks like an actor wrapped in toilet paper and Dracula appears drunker than Rennie himself in his last film.

Invisible Menace, The (1938)

Slightly entertaining whodoneit about a body being found at a military institution and the investigation that follows. I’ve probably seen about thirty of this type of film this year and it’s really no better or worse than the others. Boris Karloff gets top billing even though he isn’t in the film that much. The supporting players are decent but the film drags even at 54-minutes.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

A naïve Jeff Smith (James Stewart) gets elected to Senate and travels to Washington only to learn he’s the only honest man in town. Here’s another film that I hadn’t seen for around fifteen years and again it’s certainly better than I remembered and probably suits me better now as an adult than when I was a kid. While I think there are some weaknesses in the first half of the film and while it could have been cut down a tiny bit, there’s no denying the shire power of the second half, which in my opinion is perhaps some of the greatest stuff ever filmed. This is all due to the incredible performance from Stewart whose speech is so heartfelt and emotional that’s it’s impossible not to feel for him. Claude Rains is equally brilliant as one of the greatest screen villains in history. A remarkable film to a remarkable year.

It Happened One Night (1934)

Here’s another Frank Capra film I hadn’t seen since last seeing Mr. Smith but this one here didn’t work as well for me. It was funny that the Robert Osbourne intro talked about the stars not wanting to do this film because they felt the script was weak and I must say I agree with them. Even for 1934 this “story” wasn’t that original and nothing we hadn’t seen before. The only things going for the film are Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, both who certainly deserved their Oscars. The “adventure” of the film is very funny but the final forty minutes drag at a snails pace and it became quite frustrating as the film kept going and going even though we knew where it was going.

08/28/05

Son of Dr. Jekyll, The (1951)

Dr. Jekyll’s son (Louis Hayward) goes back to the laboratory to try and prove his father wasn’t a monster. The performances in the film are actually pretty good and the first transformation scene is effective but that’s pretty much it. The rest of the film is way too talky and it doesn’t help matters that the talk is silly and uninteresting. The twist ending can be spotted early in the film so the mystery angel doesn’t work either.

Crime School (1938)

The Dead End Kids gets sent off to reform school where they’re beated and abused by the warden but a do-gooder (Humphrey Bogart) decides to clean things up and help the kids. This film isn’t in the same league as Dead End, Angels With Dirty Faces or They Made Me a Criminal but it still works due to some unique casting. At first it’s rather weird seeing Bogart playing the nerdy good guy but this wears off and he’s actually pretty damn good in the film. After watching this I somewhat wished he had played more good guys that didn’t use their muscles all the time.

Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, The (1938)

Extremely weird and bizarre gangster film from Warner that spoofs their other gangster films. A doctor (Edward G. Robinson) decides to start robbing so that he can study criminal’s in the heat of the job. In order to get better tests done he joins a gang being run by Claire Trevor and the dangerous Humphrey Bogart. This film’s suppose to be a comedy but it’s a tad bit too strange to work as that but it remains an entertaining movie due to the three stars. Co-written by John Huston.

Invisible Stripes (1938)

Another Warner gangster film this time a gangster (George Raft) gets paroled and plans on going straight until he overhears his younger brother (William Holden) thinking about entering the racket so that his new wife can have a better life. To prevent that from happening Raft goes back into the racket with the help of #1 guy (Humphrey Bogart). Great performances and chemistry between Raft and Holden with good support from Bogart really pushes this one over the edge. The nice story and backslap at the parole board are interesting and the various shoot outs and bank robberies are filmed perfectly. A couple of The Dead End Kids (including Leo) have a funny cameo.

Haggai · 08-28-2005, 10:32 PM

The Sand Pebbles (1966) 8/10
Robert Wise's 1920s-period piece has an excellent cast, terrific production values, and some powerful sequences. The scene that's always excerpted in Steve McQueen documentaries is very brutally effective, and overall it's certainly one of his best performances. A great battle scene near the end stands out as well. The very long run-time (3 hours) doesn't drag too much, and although a few subplots are pretty sentimental, I didn't think any of them felt unnecessary. Some of the story elements seem a bit confused at the end, particularly with regards to the character of the missionary, and a decision that McQueen's character claims to make in the midst of the last sequence. But all in all, it's an involving and memorable movie.

The Dam Busters (1954) 8/10
This British WWII classic has some unfortunately dated special effects near the end, but the compelling story moves very well the whole way through. Michael Redgrave's excellent and straightforward performance gives an honest feeling to the role of a determined scientist who simply wanted to do everything he could for the war effort, and the fighter pilots are movingly portrayed with little personal details that don't stumble into sentimentality.

The Killer (1989) 8/10
Having seen this once several years ago on DVD, I went to a museum screening to check it out again. I remember thinking after that first viewing that the dramatics were overly turgid, but now I think those aspects of it mostly work quite well, as the insanely over-the-top violent action scenes can be about as reasonably matched with operatic melodrama as they can with broad comedy (a la Hard Boiled). But the cornball ballads are a bit much, as is the religious iconography, which is just too ludicrous to pull off, even for a movie that's as wild as this one is. Fantastic action, of course, and lots of it, including a wonderfully inventive and entertaining scene--the one with the cop and his partner facing off with Chow in the girl's apartment--that plays all the way through with everyone pointing their guns at each other, but with no shots being fired at all!

Paid (1930) 5/10
What better follow-up could there to be a museum screening of The Killer than another museum showing...an early Joan Crawford talkie? Well, I guess a lot of things could have been better. Working-class girl Joan goes to prison because her employer unjustly accuses her of theft, and when she gets out, she joins up with some other ex-cons for big money scams, while she plots her revenge against the employer. Apparently their scams involve various kinds of blackmail, with Joan always managing to set things up so that they operate within the letter of the law, but this wasn't very clearly or compellingly established. The audience clapped for some of the campily dramatic script moments involving Joan, and while I thought the second half of the movie had some decent parts to it, the first half was marred by some inept story-telling that rarely made things very clear until after they had happened. And the whole thing is largely static visually, maybe less so than many other early sound films, but still not much to contribute to whatever interesting story elements there are.

SteveGon · 08-29-2005, 07:08 AM

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The same thing is true for Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING, which I'm dying to see. Any rumors on this one? I've been looking at the R2 disc for a while now but it's open matte and I'm not too sure of the OAR.

I'm pretty sure TVS was filmed 1.37:1 and the R2 disc is a good one.

Re: The Dam Busters - dated F/X yes, but they're fun to compare to the Death Star attack sequence in Star Wars (the former inspired the latter).

Jim_K · 08-29-2005, 07:23 AM

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Jim, I didn't know that about ABT2. To me it just plays so clearly as a comedy that I assumed that was it's intended purpose.

Robert Crawford · 08-29-2005, 07:35 AM

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Wooden historical drama from the makers of King Kong. I guess I’m going to own this with the upcoming Kong set. Yippie.