Posts filed under 'Classic movies'
May 4th, 2009
If you happen to have Turner Classic Movies on your cable line-up, you can check out one of my favorite movies at 8:30 tonight: 1948’s THE BIG CLOCK.
Set almost entirely in a (then) ultra-modern office building, THE BIG CLOCK is a suspense thriller that delivers plenty of tension and danger but somehow manages to be funny — and fun — at the same time. Ray Milland plays George Stroud, a magazine editor working for publisher Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton). When Janoth kills his mistress and Stroud happens to witness the crime, Janoth (not knowing it was Stroud who saw him) assigns Stroud to track down that man, claiming he must be the murderer. In other words, the movie is all about a man searching for himself while he’s desperately trying to divert all attention away from himself. (If the plot sounds familiar, that’s because it was used for the Kevin Costner thriller NO WAY OUT.)
It’s very entertaining, with plenty of lightning-quick plot twists, quirky characters (including Laughton’s real-life wife, Elsa Lanchester, as a kooky artist), and dark corners you think Stroud can’t possibly back himself out of. Plus it features a young Harry Morgan — M*A*S*H’s Col. Potter — as Janoth’s creepy thug. The movie looks great, with some amazing sets and slick direction from John Farrow (Mia’s dad — Mia’s mom, Maureen O’Sullivan, plays Milland’s wife).
Here’s the amusing trailer:
April 24th, 2009
Just because it’s so danged funny, here’s a bit of W.C. Fields doing what he does best in perhaps his greatest movie, THE BANK DICK…
And yes, that’s Stooge Shemp Howard as Joe the bartender.
April 22nd, 2009
As part of his “Black and White World” series, columnist and blogger James Lileks looks back fondly on the Jimmy Cagner newspaper movie, PICTURE SNATCHER.
It’s a great bit of pre-Code Cagney, with our hero acting plenty sleazy in his pursuit of news photos. As a bonus, it has Ralph Bellamy as an editor who sips booze at his desk from a paper cup and Sterling Holloway (Winnie the Pooh himself) as a journalism student.
Not only do they not make movies like this anymore, they don’t make newspapers like this anymore, either.
If reading Lileks’ enthusiastic write-up makes you want to see PICTURE SNATCHER for yourself, don’t worry — it’s available on DVD. (It’s also available in the third volume of the Warner Gangsters Collection, which I highly recommend.)
April 17th, 2009
As part of its 15th anniversary celebration, Turner Classic Movies (the greatest movie channel in the history of the universe, incidentally) has compiled a list of the most influential films of all time. In chronological order, they are…
1. BIRTH OF A NATION
2. BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN
3. METROPOLIS
4. 42 STREET
5. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
6. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
7. GONE WITH THE WIND
8. STAGECOACH
9. CITIZEN KANE
10. THE BICYCLE THIEF
11. RASHOMON
12. THE SEARCHERS
13. BREATHLESS
14. PSYCHO
15. STAR WARS
I’ve seen all but one (THE BICYCLE THIEF), and I’ve have to argue, this is a pretty influential bunch. PSYCHO, in particular, shaped horror movies (and even non-horror movies) for decades after its release. You can read the reasons behind the picks here.
April 6th, 2009
This week, The Movie Man steps back into the past to review a great DVD collection of Our Gang shorts. Like I say nin the column, these things are timeless — my daughter is as old as Spanky was 75 years ago, and she still thinks the Gang’s antics are hilarious.
Here’s the written version of the review, and here’s the video version – complete with classic clips of Spanky and Stymie.
March 31st, 2009
The crowd begins to get ugly in a scene from HEROES FOR SALE.
This week’s DVD column is a review of the third FORBIDDEN HOLLYWOOD collection from Warner Bros. This one collects six films from the Pre-Code era of the early 1930s, all of them directed by the legendary William Wellman. My column, which you can find here, concentrates mostly on two 1933 films — HEROES FOR SALE, a stark drama about a returning World War I veteran, and WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD, which shifts the focus to teens who become homeless during the Great Depression.
Here’s a link to the video review, with plenty of clips from HEROES FOR SALE.
March 30th, 2009
Back in 1938, artist Henry Major provided the caricatures for a book called HOLLYWOOD that featured text by humorist Arthur “Bugs” Baer. There were only 800 copies printed, but thankfully one of them wound up in the hands of Rick Saunders, who shares them on his Henry Major-focused blog, The Gay Philosopher. Here are a few of my favorites…
Fred MacMurray (long before MY THREE SONS)
Mickey Rooney
Spencer Tracy
Do yourself a favor and check out the rest of them here. It’s amazing what a talented caricaturist can do with a few well-placed lines.
Special thanks to my pal (and fellow old movie fan) Wayne Harold for the link to this site.
March 30th, 2009
Got an e-mail this morning from a reader who’s looking for a movie, but isn’t sure which one he’s looking for. I’m still trying to track this one down, but in the meantime, I thought I’d throw the question out to the vast Movie Man readership. Here’s what he says about this elusive film…
“The movie took place in either the 1940’s or 50s (and seemed to have been filmed then; it was in black and white).
It ended dramatically with one of the star actresses (blonde…..could have been Lana Turner, but I’ve been unable to find such a film with her in it) actually going to the gas chamber. The gas chamber scene was unusually graphic, showing a plunger going into some sort of liquid, sphewing out steam as the female star was blindfolded and struggling with last breaths.
Before she went to the gas chamber the woman was in prison. I seem to remember that she was there for allegedly killing her daughter or a little girl, who had a fascination with Lana Turner and Ava Gardner; the girl would sing their names together often.
Before her execution, the woman was treated poorly by fellow prisoners for killing a child.
I believe the woman was actually innocent of the crime.
There was another female co-star.”
Any guesses?
March 23rd, 2009
This is from Glenn Erickson’s invaluable DVD Savant column. As a true classic movie aficianado, Glenn is all over the news about these films, and he got some important info straight from Warner Bros.
George Feltenstein just wrote me with this: “The goal is to eventually make EVERYTHING available, but obviously that will take a lot of time, and a lot of money. I set out some ground rules. Everything HAS to be Original Aspect Ratio, and 16×9 if widescreen. No 4×3 Letterbox. No Pan ‘n’ Scan. I also wanted consumers to be able to preview the master before the buy, so they’d understand what they were buying.”
It’s great to hear that even in these bare bones releases, the movies will be seen as they were meant to be seen.
March 23rd, 2009
BEAST OF THE CITY, a great Pre-Code crime movie that Warner Bros. is releasing as part of its new program.
There are hundreds (thousands?) of movies sitting in the vaults of the studios, all with a few fans, but few with enough fans to merit a full-scale DVD release. Well, Warner Bros., the studio that owns the rights to many of these movies, is opening those vaults and selling the films on a made-to-order basis.
Starting today, 150 movies from the silent era to the 1980s go on sale, everything from I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI to Emilio Estevez’ WISDOM. Digital downloads are $14.95, and actual DVDs are $19.95. Here’s a link to the site.
From the AP report:
Many of the titles Warner is releasing in the new venture have made the rounds on another Time Warner subsidiary, the Turner Classic Movies cable channel, and on VHS. But the studio will keep mining a 6,800-feature film library, amassed when Ted Turner bought Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s archive in 1986, which in turn was bought by Time Warner a decade later.
Twenty more films or TV shows will be added to the program of re-releases each month, with 300 expected by year’s end. To put it in perspective, the studio has released only about 1,100 movies on DVD since the technology was spawned 12 years ago.
“There are still thousands of movies that we own that consumers haven’t been able to get,” said George Feltenstein, senior vice president of theatrical catalog marketing for Warner Home Video. “I expect that we’ll be selling thousands of copies of every title over a period of time, and making a lot of people really happy.”
Heck, I’m happy. Very happy!
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