What was the last movie you saw?

[Randy M.]

I think High Sierra is considered his breakout role because it all depends on Bogart where The Petrified Forest has Bette Davis and Leslie Howard. Not long after was The Maltese Falcon and after that Bogie was a leading man.

Randy M.

 

[Randy M.]

Get Carter (1971) Dir. Mike Hughes; starring Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, Britt Ekland

The pre-movie introduction on Turner Cable Movies (i.e., in the U.S., "the old movie channel") warned about the level of violence, which was shocking for its time. Now it doesn't look that violent, but the violence leaves a mark -- this isn't fantasy violence where a bulldozer smashes someone and they walk away rubbing their jaw, ready to throw their own haymaker. When someone is beat up, he looks bruised and battered. When someone is stabbed, he bleeds.

Get Carter apparently wasn't that well-received at the time, but has become something of a cult movie, influencing later filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino. Caine is a professional fixer and hitman, uncaring about the damage done to the people who help him, and intent on doing damage to his targets. His targets are those responsible for killing his brother. Carter doesn't know why, isn't sure who, but he won't stop digging until he finds out. Meanwhile, he does show a bit of concern for his niece, who doesn't quite know how to take him. The one time he shows any real emotion, though, is when he finds the why of his brother's death.

Given the reasons for his brother's death and the amorality of the people involved, you begin to root for Carter and the rough justice he doles out. And then Hughes and Caine remind you of who he is and the utter void where his empathy should be. All in all, an uncompromising and even uncomfortable movie to watch. Quite a good movie, if you can stomach that sort of thing.


A Woman's Secret (1949) Dir. Nicolas Ray; starring Maureen O'Hara, Melvyn Douglas, Gloria Graham

Odd combination of a mystery and what at the time would probably have been thought of as a woman's film. O'Hara is a singer who lost her voice, mentoring Graham who has become quite successful under her tutoring. But Graham is tired of it, feels absorbed into O'Hara's dream and losing herself. There's a fight, a gunshot and Graham is wounded. Why? There's a great deal of dithering over the why. O'Hara tells a story her good friend, Douglas, thinks is hooey. Graham is unconscious or recovering, and the doctor won't let her be questioned for a good 2/3s of the movie.

O'Hara is better than this material, and she's lucky John Ford and others liked her enough to give her less thankless roles. Douglas is good, his gruff, sarcastic humor offsetting the melodramatics. Graham is terrific. An early role, she pivots from young and dumb to sly with ease. As well-known as she became, as many good movies as she made, I'm not sure she really got her due as one of the better actresses of her time.

Still, by the half-way point the movie is stolen by Jay C. Flippen and Mary Phillips, two old pros playing Inspector Fowler and his wife, Mary. I wish these two had been given a sequel or three and worked into low-rent Nick and Nora Charles. Flippen and Douglas have some good scenes, but with his detective-story reading wife, Inspector Fowler shines. The resolution of the mystery isn't all that interesting, but the interplay between Flippen and Phillips is entertaining and funny, as though Ray and the others involved in the movie realized how over-wrought the beginning was and decided mid-way to make a comedy instead.


Randy M.

 

[HanaBi]

Get Carter (the original, and not the appalling remake), is a typical British no-nonsense thriller of the 70s, that makes the likes of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry look like the caricature it really is!

But what is very memorable about the film (not least the shock ending), is the rolling credits at the beginning, and Caine's train journey to Newcastle. The musical score for that opening is absolutely amazing!

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Tam Lin AKA The Devil's Widow (1970)

The only film directed by Roddy McDowall. Sold as a horror movie, but it's more of an offbeat psychological melodrama. Ava Gardner, in her late forties, stars as a super-rich woman who takes a series of lovers half her age. She also has an entourage of young mod/hippie types who party endlessly at her expense. Her latest boy toy wants to leave her for the local vicar's daughter. Not a good idea, as the lovers who leave her have a habit of dying in violent ways. Nothing overtly supernatural happens, although some weird stuff occurs through the eyes of a drugged victim. Loosely based on an old Scottish ballad. Lots of gorgeous scenery, groovy costumes, folk/rock music, and some eccentric directorial touches. (There's a scene which suddenly turns into a series of freeze frames.) Moves at a very leisurely pace until the frenzied ending. Worth a look.

 

[HanaBi]

Inception (2010)

Summary (with full credit to Rotten Tomatoes) -

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) doesn't steal things, he steals ideas. By projecting himself deep into the subconscious of his targets, he can glean information that even the best computer hackers can't get to. In the world of corporate espionage, Cobb is the ultimate weapon. But even weapons have their weakness, and when Cobb loses everything, he's forced to embark on one final mission in a desperate quest for redemption. This time, Cobb won't be harvesting an idea, but sowing one. Should he and his team of specialists succeed, they will have discovered a new frontier in the art of psychic espionage. They've planned everything to perfection, and they have all the tools to get the job done. Their mission is complicated, however, by the sudden appearance of a malevolent foe that seems to know exactly what they're up to, and precisely how to stop them.

Quite a thought-provoking adventure yarn, that may take a 2nd viewing to fully get to grips with in terms of the underlying theme of dreams within dreams within dreams, and the actions & reactions thereof.

Nice performances from all the lead players, although Michael Caine's cameo seems wasted. Tight direction from Chris Nolan as per usual, although I really did not like the last 20 minutes or so as it resorted to type in terms of typical bad guys chasing/shooting good guys in some very improbably locations.

A good score and decent sfx that don't distract too much.

There are rumours of a sequel. If Nolan is at the helm, then it should be something to look forward too.

3/5

 

[Jeffbert]

Young Frankenstein (1974) Appropriately in stunning monochrome, and apparently using some of the props from the original Frankenstein film, Mel Brooks parody still holds up well.

Glory Alley (1952) not exactly a musical, but has some bits in it. Socks Barbarossa (Ralph Meeker) is a boxer who has a great career ahead of him, and just as the fight is about to start, he looks at the lights above, and the crowd surrounding him, and quits. We do not learn his reason, until near the end. 'The Judge' Evans (Kurt Kasznar), who had been supportive of him, now criticizes him, and wants nothing to do with him. He forbids his daughter, Angela Evans (Leslie Caron), from having anything to do with him.

The Judge, has been blind for 12 years, and KK really comes across as convincing. I have seen Kurt Kasznar in very few films, and best remember him for his rip-off of Dr. Smith role in Land of the Giants. Very dramatic performance.

So, having made so many enemies by forsaking the ring as he did, Meeker joins the Armed Forces, and goes to Korea, earns a medal, And a very distinguished one, I have forgotten which, comes home to a hero's welcome in New Orleans, and a few weeks later, he is forgotten, but still loathed by KK.

Meeker's character eventually regains KK's respect, but that is a spoiler that I must decline.

Long before Fonzie slugged a jukebox, a character named Jabber (Pat Goldin), made free phone calls by pounding the payphone.

Other supporting characters include Shadow Johnson (Louis Armstrong), KK's aide, Peppi Donnato (Gilbert Roland), who owns the local bar, Sal Nichols "The Pig" (Dan Seymour), the gangster, who does not do much gangster stuff.

Our Man in Marakesh / Bang! Bang! You're Dead! (1966) Tony Randall in a spy spoof? Who'd a thunk? So, he is a businessman there in that place, who, by sheer chance, becomes involved in spy stuff. No shoulder holster, no Aston Martin, but a fairly decent film, if you have nothing better to do.

Chief Inspector Dreyfus, er, Herbert Lom as the villain, Terry Thomas as a good guy. Several scantily clad females, and more than a few well-armed men, some wearing turbans, round out the cast. Lom is waiting for a courier carrying a light brown briefcase, just like the one Randall has.

 

[REBerg]

Mortal Engines
Who would have thought that steampunk would be so relevant in 1,000 years? I enjoyed this immensely. Plus, having Jihae and Frankie Adams among the cast made the film seem like a scifi reunion.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Groovy Bloodsuckers Double Feature:

The Vampire Happening (1971) (The original German title seems to mean "Bitten Only At Night.")

West German comedy directed by Freddie Francis, Oscar-winning cinematographer and director of many Hammer films. This isn't one of his better efforts. Mostly it's a lame attempt at spoofing vampire movies. A blonde actress inherits a spooky old castle. A portrait of her great-grandmother looks just like her, but with black hair. Actress lets her ancestor out of her tomb, leading to an outbreak of vampires at the local seminary and the nearby girls' school. The fact that the actress sometimes wears a black wig, and the ancestor sometimes wears a blonde wig, makes for much confusion. It all leads up to a huge, psychedelic costume party of vampires at the castle, with Count Dracula showing up in a helicopter. Tons of topless women throughout the film. Lots of pointless scenes, and some really odd moments. The weirdest is when an Asian vampire, dressed in a Mao suit, is reading a little red book. It gets shoved into the mouth of another vampire (never mind why) and turns white, as if it were drained of blood. The whole thing is sort of like a poor imitation of Roman Polanski's Dance of the Vampires AKA The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck. (Ferdy Mayne, who played the main vampire in that film, plays Count Dracula here, adding to the resemblance.)

The Velvet Vampire (1971)

Arty, offbeat variation on the theme. It begins with the title character walking in Los Angeles at night. She is attacked by a biker thug, but quickly kills him with his own knife and walks away unconcerned. This has nothing to do with the plot, really, but establishes her character. She goes into an art gallery, chats up a young, rather vapid married couple of the California Blond(e) type, and invites them up to her home out in the middle of the desert. Killings and seductions follow, as well as surreal dream sequences. There are a lot of striking visuals. Very little of the usual vampire lore shows up. The title character has no fangs, walks around in the desert sun, and sees herself in mirrors. The film's only serious flaw is that the female half of the young couple, who is really the protagonist, is portrayed by a very poor actress with an annoying voice.

 

[HanaBi]

Outrage (2010) - Takeshi Kitano

Summary (full credit to Rotten Tomatoes)

In a ruthless battle for power, several yakuza clans vie for the favor of their head family in the Japanese underworld. The rival bosses seek to rise through the ranks by scheming and making allegiances sworn over saké. Long-time yakuza Otomo has seen his kind go from elaborate body tattoos and severed fingertips to becoming important players on the stock market. Theirs is a never-ending struggle to end up on top, or at least survive, in a corrupt world where there are no heroes but constant betrayal and vengeance

After a rather disappointing few releases during the first decade of 2000, Kitano returns to a genre most of his fans - myself included - know and admire him for: that of the Yakuza.

Kitano plays a minor under-boss, who is sent out to kill or threaten rival gangs; but he too is subsequently betrayed by his own boss - hence the outrage!

This film is the first of the Outrage trilogy, and to my mind is the best as it establishes the main elements and characters throughout. That said this doesn't even come close to his more remarkable Yakuza films such as "Sonatine" (1993) and "HanaBi" (1997), both of which were more character-driven, with a lot more soul that you could empathize with.

In Outrage, we just have gangsters killing rival gangsters chiefly over drug territory and/or internal treachery & disloyalty. Not helped by a corrupt police detective who in the pocket of the biggest Yakuza gang in town.

A good performance by him, although i get the impression he was doing it more to revitalize his flagging career. Which I believe he has done, even if the film itself is rather generic and uninvolving.

3/5

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Misunderstood Young Men and Their Fast Cars Double Feature:

Teenage Thunder (1957)

Guy lives with his straight-laced father and kindly aunt. Dad won't let the car-obsessed kid have a hot rod. Understandable, because in an early scene his sweet girlfriend lets him drive her brother's car, and he winds up going eighty miles per hour on a city street, leading to a run-in with the cops. Guy gets mocked by another teen because of his lack of wheels. He agrees to have a game of chicken with him. How can he do this without a car? By running an elaborate scheme that lets him "borrow" a vehicle from a car lot. Nobody gets killed in the chicken game, but the guy gets in more hot water with the police. Later he "borrows" a hot rod from a garage owner so he can compete in the Big Race. (Mind you, this is our Hero doing all this.) It's kind of like a low budget version of Rebel Without a Cause with drag racing. Marred by a really lousy title song, "Teenage Kisses," which is an utterly sappy ballad.

Hot Rod Rumble (1957)

Guy walks into a party held by the car club to which he belongs in search of his girlfriend, who just broke up with him. This almost leads to a fight. The club barely tolerates the hot-tempered fellow, because he's such a good driver and mechanic. Girlfriend goes off with another guy in his car, they get driven off the road by somebody, guy gets killed, the girlfriend winds up in the hospital. Everybody, including the viewer, thinks her ex did it, but we quickly find out it was another guy. Rest of the film has the falsely accused fellow trying to clear his name, while also getting ready to win the Big Race. It's pretty much a crime drama with drag racing. Helped by a cool jazz soundtrack which creates a film noir mood.

 

[HanaBi]

The Club (1980 - Australia) - Jack Thompson

A rather amusing drama concerning the problems on and off the field of a struggling Aussie Rules football team, and its hopes of making the finals.

Ever dependable Thompson plays the embittered coach, who is not only under pressure to deliver results from an impatient board, but is also trying to keep his players in line with the arrival of the club's most expensive player, who is young, arrogant, won't listen to anyone and only plays when he feels like it!

On top of all that, the players threaten to strike if the board fire Thompson, while the chairman of the board itself finds his own job on the line as well!

This film has everything: boardroom politics, player mutinies, supreme egos, some comedy... oh, and some actually football here and there too!

A hugely entertaining little gem of a film, and probably one of Thompson's best performances as the under-siege coach!

4/5

 

[Cathbad]

Victoria reminded me there was a movie on yesterday that I was going to watch - Pink Cadillac... but then a nap happened.

 

[Jeffbert]

Misunderstood Young Men and Their Fast Cars Double Feature:

Teenage Thunder (1957)

Guy lives with his straight-laced father and kindly aunt. Dad won't let the car-obsessed kid have a hot rod. Understandable, because in an early scene his sweet girlfriend lets him drive her brother's car, and he winds up going eighty miles per hour on a city street, leading to a run-in with the cops. Guy gets mocked by another teen because of his lack of wheels. He agrees to have a game of chicken with him. How can he do this without a car? By running an elaborate scheme that lets him "borrow" a vehicle from a car lot. Nobody gets killed in the chicken game, but the guy gets in more hot water with the police. Later he "borrows" a hot rod from a garage owner so he can compete in the Big Race. (Mind you, this is our Hero doing all this.) It's kind of like a low budget version of Rebel Without a Cause with drag racing. Marred by a really lousy title song, "Teenage Kisses," which is an utterly sappy ballad.

Hot Rod Rumble (1957)

Guy walks into a party held by the car club to which he belongs in search of his girlfriend, who just broke up with him. This almost leads to a fight. The club barely tolerates the hot-tempered fellow, because he's such a good driver and mechanic. Girlfriend goes off with another guy in his car, they get driven off the road by somebody, guy gets killed, the girlfriend winds up in the hospital. Everybody, including the viewer, thinks her ex did it, but we quickly find out it was another guy. Rest of the film has the falsely accused fellow trying to clear his name, while also getting ready to win the Big Race. It's pretty much a crime drama with drag racing. Helped by a cool jazz soundtrack which creates a film noir mood.

TCM ran a block of these hot hod/ rock & roll films about a year ago. I watched a few of them. These scenarios seem familiar, though the titles do not.

Morituri (1965) Robert Crain (Marlon Brando) is a German living in India during WWII, he wants nothing to to with war, etc. One day, a British Officer tells him that he must work for them, and disable the scuttling charges on a German merchant ship carrying 700 tons of rubber from the far East to Europe. His incentive, they will rat him out to Germany if he does not. Exchange him for allied POWs. Not a happy end for him.

So, he is given falsified papers, and put on the ship as a passenger. Captain Mueller (Yul Brynner), treating him as a passenger, though he is wearing as SS insignia, restricts his movements on the ship to areas where the scuttling charges will not be located. So, now he must somehow find, and disable these bombs without drawing attention to himself; quite a task, indeed.

Supporting cast includes Esther (Janet Margolin), one of a dozen survivors of a torpedoed ship who were taken prisoner by the sub that shadows the freighter as its hidden escort, Colonel Statter (Trevor Howard), who questions the legitimacy of MB's credentials and presence when his ship unexpectedly rendezvous with YB's.

Complicating matters, the ship's doctor, Ambach (Wally Cox), is a morphine addict, some of the crew are political prisoners, including the Donkeyman (Hans Christian Blech), who makes an attempt on MB's life.

I never even heard of this film, until putting it on the recording schedule. Definately, a different type of war movie. Fared poorly in the theaters, lost money. I liked it, though.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Similar Sounding Psychological Shockers Double Feature:

Schizo (1976)

We begin with a voice-over narration which makes the usual mistake about confusing schizophrenia with multiple personality disorder, thereby dropping a strong clue about the movie's already predictable Shocking Twist Ending. The plot starts with a middle-aged guy reading a newspaper article about an ice skater getting married. This upsets him badly, and he leaves wherever he is to go track her down. This leads to him doing creepy things like leaving a bloody knife next to her wedding cake. We get our back story pretty quickly. It seems that the ice skater, as a little girl, saw her mother knifed to death by her lover, who is now the middle-aged stalker. Murders of people near and dear to the ice skater follow. There are a few hints that the ice skater is mentally unbalanced herself as well. In particular, during a seance, the psychic gets possessed by the dead mother and undergoes weird physical changes. As there are no other supernatural elements in the plot, I have to assume this is a hallucination, which would go along with the Shocking Twist Ending. Notable for some bloody, gruesome murders.

Schizoid (1980)

An advice columnist for a newspaper gets anonymous letters threatening her life. Meanwhile, some of the women in her therapy group get murdered with scissors. Could the two events be related? Tons of suspects and red herrings abound. In particular, there's Klaus Kinski as the leader of the therapy group, who seems to be having affairs with most of his female patients. For one thing, he's Klaus Kinski. For another, he has a very uneasy relationship with his teenage daughter, who is seriously disturbed by the death of her mother some time ago. The best scene in the film is when she puts on her mother's clothing, jewelry, and makeup as her father has a dinner date with the advice columnist. Most of the rest of the movie is forgettable. Notable for a really lousy synthesizer soundtrack.

 

[HanaBi]

Blue Thunder (1983) - Roy Scheider.

Summary (credit to Rotten Tomatoes)

A former Vietnam chopper-pilot (Scheider) is now in charge of a special high-tech helicopter that was designed to quell possible terrorist attacks during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. A bitter enemy makes plans to destroy this high-tech copter and bring about an armed takeover of the U.S.

Typical 80s action thriller, that lets the hardware and the bullets wash over the weak plot and predictable ending. This film reminded me of Clint Eastwood's Firefox from a year earlier revolving around advanced fighter planes and the ongoing Cold War paranoia of the time.

Both films look incredibly dated, but unlike Eastwood's solid profile I wasn't overly convinced by Scheider as a lead actor. He is great when partnered by the likes of Gene Hackman or Robert Shaw, but he feels lightweight on his own.

But if its action and a make-it-up-as-you-go-along plot you like, this will amuse you for a couple of hours.

2/5

 

[Toby Frost]

Bandersnatch - 2018

Assuming this qualifies as a film, given that it's also a sort of TV special episode and a primitive game. I felt that it didn't work well enough as a drama or an interactive experience. Interesting, but ultimately rather forgettable. You could get much the same thing from playing Bioshock Infinite.

 

[Jeffbert]

TWO FEMALE SPACE VAMPIRE FILMS from last night on TCM:

Life Force (1985) has a naked female wearing nothing but strategically placed shadows, sucking the [drum roll, please] life force out of her victims. I am unfamiliar with the cast, so, nothing more to say-- oops, there are some interesting things that happen to the apparently dead victims.

Queen of Blood (1966) A.I.P. Why have I never heard of this until now? In the futuristic world of 1990, there is a moon base (not called ALPHA), and a mission to Mars. There are two rockets Oceana I & II designed to carry 3 astronauts from the moon to Mars, but only one is currently ready to go. There is a smaller rocket, which carries two. Dr. Farraday (Basil Rathbone), is on the moon, and learns of a spaceship from another star system crashed on Mars. Apparently, the aliens are calling for help. Being good neighbors, and unaware of the theme that TCM is showing, he sends two men & one woman to Mars to rescue the aliens.

Paul Grant (Dennis Hopper) and Laura James (Judi Meredith) are among the crew on the rocket to Mars. Allan Brenner (John Saxon) & one other, take the two man rocket to one of Mars' moon, which just happens to be the site where the alien spaceship had landed. It turns out that that was not a happy coincidence.


In both films, the vampire woman uses a form of hypnosis to prepare her lunch.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Lifeforce is, of course, most notable for the naked Space Vampire. Other than that, I found it to be a flashy Quatermass-type story, with a confusing flashback structure that wrecked the narrative flow.

Queen of Blood is surprisingly enjoyable for a film frankensteined from a Soviet movie, with added American footage. The title character is quite striking.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Candy (1968)

Surreal, campy, satiric sex comedy with an amazing cast. Begins with special effects (by Douglas Trumbull, fresh from 2001: A Space Odyssey!) which imply that our heroine, Candy Christian, is an alien. Or maybe that's just a daydream Candy is having, as she sits in a class being taught by her father (John Astin!). Candy is a high school student with long, straight blonde hair and gigantic blue eyeballs. She has a baby-doll voice and is a true innocent, an angel in microskirts. The convoluted plot begins when a world-famous poet (Richard Burton!) shows up at the high school, treated like a rock star. (Funny bit here: He always has his hair and scarf stirred by the wind, even when he's indoors.) This sets the pattern for the rest of the film. Candy keeps encountering (for various reasons far too complicated to go into) men who take sexual advantage of her. (Amazingly, there isn't a lesbian scene. but we do get a slapstick sequence at a club for drag queens.) Let's just note that her various abusers include a Mexican gardener (Ringo Starr!), an Army general (Walter Matthau!), a brain surgeon (James Coburn!), a hospital administrator (John Huston!), the hunchbacked leader of a gang of art thieves (Charles Aznavour!) who can climb walls like Spiderman, and who escapes from the cops by jumping through a wall which turns into green liquid (???) and an Indian guru (Marlon Brando!) whose holy temple is inside a truck. It all leads up to the Shocking Twist Ending:

Spoiler

Candy goes into the desert and meets a figure disguised in robes and a painted face. Only as they have sex does she recognize him as her father. The incest theme isn't as much as a surprise as it might be, since we've already seen her uncle (John Astin again!) lusting after her. Then we see all of the various cast members in a field, fooling around, and Candy ascends back into space. Or something.

Swedish teenage beauty queen Ewa Aulin, as Candy, is either the world's worst actress, or does an absolutely brilliant job capturing the character's kindhearted naivete in a world full of lechers who only want to use her as a sex object. The film is way too long for its own good -- over two hours! -- and a lot of sequences are tedious. But along the way you've got some biting satire, some funny performances, allowing for appropriate overacting by all involved -- Brando is a hoot -- and some genuine weirdness.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Choppers (1961)

No, it's not about motorcycles. The Choppers are a gang of teenage hoodlums who look for cars that have run out of gas and left by their drivers on isolated roads. (Apparently this happens a lot.) Before the drivers can get back with some gas, they've dragged the car somewhere else and gone to work on it with blowtorches and such. They sell the parts to an auto salvage guy (B favorite Bruno VeSota, by far the best actor here.) The cops get help from an insurance investigator and his quarter-century younger secretary/girlfriend, played by a Playboy model of the time. She uses her feminine wiles at one point to get important information about the gang. Pretty sedate for most of the less-than-an-hour running time, although the climax is surprisingly violent. Notable for being the first film to feature Arch Hall, Jr., of Eegah! fame. Arch Hall, Sr., wrote this thing, and has an uncredited role as a reporter, the film's narrator. Since it's got Arch Hall, Jr., in it, we get to hear three of his songs. One of them has the memorable lyrics Monkeys in my hatband/I can do a handstand. Probably the only crime film I've ever seen where a chicken feather is the clue that breaks the case.