What was the last movie you saw?

The 39 Steps (1935) - Hitchcock really was a genius director wasn't he? A total arsehole of a man by many accounts but a genius director. Watched with Number Two Daughter who mentioned the other day she had never seen any of his films. As I'm reading the book at the moment (which is awful, and taking me far longer to finish than it should because it is) this seemed an ideal place to start. She enjoyed it immensely. I had forgotten how funny it was and, as I deliberately didn't mention the fact that scenes were shot just up the road from where we live, the sudden appearance of familiar local scenery came as a pleasant surprise to her as well.
 
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The Wilby Conspiracy (1975)

Action film set in South Africa under apartheid. Sidney Poitier is an activist just out of prison with the help of his lawyer, a white woman. With her boyfriend (Michael Caine) they leave the courtroom to celebrate. The South African cops harass Poitier for not having a pass (because he's just out of prison), a struggle starts, a cop attacks the lawyer, Caine explodes and attacks the cop. Poitier and Caine then go on the run from the cops, and, more importantly, the security folks, led by our head villain, Nicole Williamson, an arrogant racist who clearly thinks he's the hero. Besides having to drive from Capetown to South Africa in order to escape the country, the pair are involved with hidden diamonds to be used to finance the rebellion.

The suspense never stops, and Williamson is one step ahead of the good guys all the way. Lots of plot twists and tense sequences follow. There's a dangerous descent into a sinkhole, an attempt by a private plane to evade South African jet fighters, and a bunch more stuff. Pretty brutal end scene, too. Inherently political to some extent, of course, but mostly a thriller.
 
The Organization (1971)

Third and last outing for Sidney Poitier as homicide detective Virgil Tibbs, after In the Heat of the Night and They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! A bunch of folks pull off an elaborate heist of a huge pile of heroin, but only because they want it off the streets. The guy they kidnaped so he could open the vault gets killed after they leave by somebody else. They contact Tibbs to tell him what happened. What follows is organized crime killers after the vigilantes and Tibbs tracking down the killers. Not the most plausible plot in the world. Pretty typical crime story of the time.
 
Arn: The Knight Templar (2007)
A Swedish film that is a both fictionalised and romanticised, telling of events both in Scandinavia and the Crusader states at the end of the twelfth century. The second part of the movie concentrates on the north and covers palace intrigue and the inevitable battle for the crown of the land that will ultimately become Sweden.

A pretty decent three hours of viewing that is neither groundbreaking nor earth shattering, but a decent watch nonetheless. It might be paced a little on the slow side but this is made up for in the quality of photography and some beautiful scenery. Anybody who likes epics like Ben Hur and other movies of that ilk should like this one.
 
NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT 1973 -- The only film made by Christopher Lee's production company pairs him with Peter Cushing in an X-Files kind of story that is rather fiendish when you get the final revelations-the first time I saw it, the plot twist was quite horrific. What is interesting in rewatching is that this came out months before the Wicker Man--and yet it has a similar finale scene (I think Lee even wears the same jacket in both films), and the story centers on a girl with some kind of sinister trauma. The Exorcist was months away as well.
 
Young British Women Seek the Glamorous Life in London in the Early Sixties But Things Don't Work Out Well Double Feature:

Bitter Harvest (1963)

Our heroine works for her father in a tiny shop in a small Welsh village. Dad is about to have her move in with two elderly maiden aunts, threatening to make her life even more dismal. While out with a gal pal in Cardiff, a couple of guys pick them up and get them drunk. The gal pal gets home safely, but our protagonist wakes up naked in a bed in a flat in London, not even remembering how she lost her virginity. More humiliating is the fact that she's not even in the seducer/rapist's flat, but in that of his buddy.

Without resources in the big city, our movie's Nice Guy helps her out after she claims to be pregnant. (She also lies about being a model.) Love blooms on his end, while she pursues fame and fortune by yielding to the advances of an entertainment mogul. All of this is told in flashback as we see our elegantly attired but dead drunk main character smash up what is clearly her "kept woman" flat, tossing her huge closetful of fancy gowns out the window, breaking mirrors and bottles of booze, etc. Don't expect a happy ending.

The Beauty Jungle AKA Contest Girl (1964)

Newspaper man convinces three young woman at a beach holiday to enter the resort's tiny beauty contest. Our heroine wins the glorious prize of five pounds and a chance to go on to a slightly bigger contest. With the newspaper guy as business manager, she is transformed from an ordinary pretty young woman into a spiked heel wearing bleached blonde and goes from one victory to the next. The shame of her bikini-clad photographs in the paper cause her to lose her fiancé and to become estranged from her family. Moving on from local contests to the big time in London, she becomes driven to win the big prize at the international level.

Meanwhile, the newspaper man loves her unrequitedly, but she's all business. She even offers herself to him, but, gentleman that he is, he refuses because she doesn't love him. At the ultimate contest, she does give herself to one of the judges; but will this be enough to earn her the prize over the sly, cynical Miss Peru? There's a nice bit of irony at the very end involving her kid sister.
 
KGeo777 said:
NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT 1973 -- The only film made by Christopher Lee's production company pairs him with Peter Cushing in an X-Files kind of story that is rather fiendish when you get the final revelations-the first time I saw it, the plot twist was quite horrific. What is interesting in rewatching is that this came out months before the Wicker Man--and yet it has a similar finale scene (I think Lee even wears the same jacket in both films), and the story centers on a girl with some kind of sinister trauma. The Exorcist was months away as well.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the heads up. On my 'got to watch this soon;' list.
 
ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP
Hollywood just doesn't make enough zombie comedies.
This sequel is as funny as the first. I hope they continue this once-per-decade tradition with Zombieland 3 in 2029.
 
KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS (1948) Just love that title!

NOIR ALLEY'S submission for last week; just watched it today. Another one I cannot recall having seen before! :D

A few years after WWII, American William Saunders (Burt Lancaster), is the last guy to leave an English pub, & does not take kindly to the proprietor insisting he leave, so, he slugs him. The bartender falls backward, & bonks his noggin on something; oops, he is dead. Frightened, Saunders flees. He evades the pursuers, and (&) ends up climbing into the window where Jane Wharton (Joan Fontaine) is sleeping. She awakens, and conflict, etc.
...

Harry Carter (Robert Newton) is out to use his knowledge of the bartender's death to pressure Saunders, who now drives a truck for the clinic where Wharton works (as a nurse?). Carter wants a truckload of medicine, including penicillin, for selling black market on the continent. (surprised Muller did not compare this film to The Third Man, because of this element).

I was surprised at the ending, given the Hayes Code, etc. Also, a bit disappointed that Muller had nothing to say about the cat o nine tails incident, when Saunders was imprisoned for a much milder offense! 18 lashes, in 20th century Britain. I had no idea.

A very satisfying film, only gripe is the lack of closed captions.
 
Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964)

Mildly salacious farce. Director and co-writer Tommy Noonan plays himself as an actor in need of a job. Blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren plays a character named Saxy Symbol, which gives you some idea of the level of humor. She and her two platonic male roommates hire Noonan to visit their psychiatrist and pretend to have their symptoms so they can save money. The psychiatrist assumes he has three personalities, accidentally broadcasts their sessions across the nation, he becomes a sensation, hijinks ensue.

The black-and-white film occasionally breaks into color briefly during its sexier moments. Van Doren sings a song about being a stripper; Van Doren takes a bath in beer; the beautiful female psychiatrist is shown the way she might appear in a girlie magazine, as imagined by her male associates.

There's so little plot that they have to throw in a slapstick robbery to fill up time. You have to have a very high tolerance for wacky comedy to really enjoy it.
 
The Banshees of Inisherin

Dark Comedy, mixed with existential, melancholic subject matter. Great Cinematography, score and performances.









 
Exodus (1960), with Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson, et al., including David Opatoshu, who played a role with considerable dignity in the Star Trek teleplay "A Taste of Armageddon."
 
Please Don't Eat My Mother! (1973)

Short review: The dirty version of The Little Shop of Horrors.

Guy buys a tiny talking plant for a dollar. It grows, while going from feeding on insects to frogs to cats and dogs to people. Mom does get eaten well before the end. Meanwhile, the guy spies on couples. Tones of female flesh, and the sex scenes are right on the border between soft and hard. Despite that, this is an utterly dreary effort, devoid of any trace of wit in its feeble attempts at comedy. The plant is a really lousy prop. Instead of seeing the victims being eaten, we just see the victims approach the plant, then the camera cuts away, then the victim is gone.
 
Mansion of the Doomed (1976)

Richard Basehart, of all people, has the Mad Scientist role in this grim variation on the Eyes Without a Face theme. He's a surgeon whose daughter is blinded in a car accident. Basehart figures that only transplanting entire eyes from a living subject will cure her. The first donor is the daughter's fiancé, which raises some interesting issues. The operation works, but only temporarily. More victims follow as he tries to perfect the technique. Basehart doesn't kill the donors, out of a twisted sort of morality, but keeps them prisoners in the basement. (Fellow veteran actor Gloria Graham is on hand as his loyal nurse, who thinks it would be better to put them out of their misery.)

As you'd expect, there are some gruesome gore scenes of eye surgery and the eyeless victims. Somehow, however, the film seems less exploitative than it might have been. Part of that is due to Basehart's quiet, sincere performance. Much creepier than the bloody sequences is the scene in which Basehart decides that young eyes would be the best to use, so he starts talking to a little girl . . .

Recommended for horror buffs who don't mind a serious, unrelievedly grim mood.
 
Dark Waters [2019 Todd Haynes]
It is the decade and more long real life tale of a lawyer trying to get justice because of poisoned water that is killing people and animals and leading to birth defects and the company responsible [DuPont] knowing about the possible dangers and doing nothing about it.
Starting with a favour to a friend of his grandmother a lawyer played by Mark Ruffalo tries to get a bit of information from DuPont. When he is given the brush off, his interest is piqued and he starts to dig and cannot believe what he finds.
The cast is great. The aforesaid Mark Ruffalo, along with Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, and Bill Pullman to name but a few.
As seems to be the case in these “real life” films some of the actual people depicted in the film are also seen in the film and this is revealed in the closing credits.
The film is well paced and tightly written.
It is perhaps not a film I'd re-watch to quickly, but I think it is worth at least one look
 
Giant from the Unknown (1958)

Given my insatiable hunger for cheap horror/science fiction/monster movies since childhood, I certainly had already seen this one decades ago. Rewatched with wisecracks from the folks at Rifftrax, it proves to be a typical example of its kind. Plot: Huge Spanish conquistador awakens after centuries in suspended animation and goes on a rampage. Huge plot hole: We're told about animal slaughter and at least one murder before the Giant from the Unknown comes out of the ground where he's been buried for five hundred years. Not a great film, but not as goofy as the director's other movies of the genre (She Demons, Frankenstein's Daughter, and Missile to the Moon.)
 
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