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Watched on Friday May 23, 2025.

Before he was the crazed naval skipper in Mutiny on the Bounty, Charles Laughton, in his Hollywood debut (he gets an extended intro in the credits), played an insane submarine commander here. … What Laughton does with his face and body as Tallulah Bankhead’s husband, crazy-jealous first of Cary Grant and then Gary Cooper, seems prep work for Hunchback of Notre Dame. (Simon Callow, in his Laughton bio, calls his acting here obvious and banal.) … Cooper is as beautiful and stilted here as in Morocco. (OTOH, Callow calls Cooper’s line readings “nearly wooden” and says Laughton always praised Cooper as the consummate movie actor.) … Director Marion Gering and cinematographer Charles Lang make some interesting camera choices (there’s one extreme Laughton closeup that’s 😳). … I read Grant was originally cast in the Cooper role. Sounded good to me.

Watched on Tuesday May 20, 2025.

Watched this for Melvyn Douglas (a favorite) and the Douglas-Joan Crawford pairing, the first of their four movies I’ve seen. … Some nice lines and funny bits as boss lady Crawford comes down from her pedestal, but it’s slow getting there despite its not-crazy runtime. … Crawford is her most assured marching around barking orders, less convincing (but her prettiest/hottest) literally letting her hair down. … Also, Roland Young has a funny scene putting up his dukes, brave Allen Jenkins does an uncomfortable jitterbug with Crawford (Me: “That looks like it might hurt”), and Douglas breaks the fourth wall. … Wondered how the actors got on off stage; in his autobiography, Douglas appears to suggest Crawford was always performing.

The scene that sticks with me days later has the drunken mess Serge give such a stark, clear-eyed view of the town’s grim fortunes.

Watched this at our small local theater, which is showing a few Billy Wilder movies over the next few months — Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, and Ace in the Hole still to come.  … The takeaways: Again, the music hits harder in a theater, and, unlike in my house, people are laughing. … I expected the big office shots to play bigger on the big screen, but they didn’t, maybe because the surprise element was gone on rewatch. … The other small takeaway this time: Sure was a lot of public canoodling at the office Christmas party. Different time, I guess.

Came into this one cold, both the movie and the director, though I did know his name. As others note, it’s part Hitchcock, part Christie, in a country mansion. Part of the fun/suspense was my being clueless about Chabrol’s work and how comical or serious-creepy he might go. … Nice use of Hitchcock’s TV tune. … Looking up and watch-listing other Chabrol films, a few on Criterion.

This one, Robert Benton’s directing debut, was getting a number of mentions after his death this week as a lesser-known gem among his works. … Amid a romp of a revisionist western there’s an almost shocking killing similar to the brutal turn in Bonnie and Clyde, also cowritten by Benton. … The prairie landscape here (director of photography Gordon Willis) stands out. … Good Jeff Bridges and, in a smaller role, David Huddleston, who is kind of fun. … Looking up Barry Brown (new to me, also in Peter Bogdanovich’s Daisy Miller), who would die by suicide just a few years later.

Maybe two late scenes too many — one, maybe two perfectly fine endings were right there, but it wants to go deeper. … Naomi Watts is swell and the dog is, too. I’m pretty sure he was pulling off a subtle scripted limp and was looking forlornly for Bill Murray throughout the movie. … Also with Constance Wu as a somewhat difficult ex-wife.

That was a ride. Some old reviews of Cy Endfield’s movie fault the absurdity of it all, but it seems I didn’t give it a second thought. Truckers driving like bats outta hell? Sure, why not? … Liked the cast, with Patrick McGoohan (whom I’d just seen playing Iago in a British jazz update of Othello) and William Hartnell two good villains, PM a particularly hammy-nasty bully. … Didn’t realize that was Peggy Cummins from Gun Crazy.

Light wartime caper with everyone appearing to have a good time in George Sanders’ fourth and final Falcon movie. (He wanted out.) I’d say Tom Conway, Sanders’ elder brother, is an able-enough successor, looking and especially sounding like Sanders, though Sanders’ absence is felt when he’s gone for a good chunk of the movie. … A nice surprise seeing Russell Metty (I’m a fan) in the credits as the cinematographer. There’s a well-done scene when the brothers first meet. … Keye Luke does a nice sendup of the Asian-servant stereotype. … The ending seems a big miss. Sanders is tossed off the boat with barely a ripple.  Me: “Wait. That’s it?”

A well-staged Othello set in the jazz world of 1960s Britain, with thunder, lightning, and good camera work and editing. … Patrick McGoohan makes a very good Iago. (I don’t know the actor, maybe Harry Towb?, but, in a small role, there was a very funny Smithers yes man.) … Looking up director Basil Dearden’s other work. Sapphire and Dead of Night look good.

I’d seen a positive film festival mention of this one a while back and expected better. … Liked Youn Yuh-jung (“what’s going on here?”) and Joan Chen 🥰 but found a couple of the lead characters off-putting and never warmed to them. A couple of things they said and did felt like clumsy plot turns and made me think they barely knew their SOs. … I like Ang Lee’s earlier version. … That baby was an exceptionally good cryer, though.

Watched on Thursday May 8, 2025.

My favorite De Palma movie, the full-blown Philly-ness pushing it above Dressed to Kill and The Untouchables. (I lived in a rent-friendly loft three doors down from John Travolta’s apartment in the movie. I loved that place — great fifth-floor view of the Ben Franklin Bridge, like something out of a movie.) … Always surprised how interesting the nuts and bolts of filmmaking is here. … First time noticing the red and blue color scheme. … Ang Lee borrow that firework scene in Brokeback Mountain? … Very good Travolta, very creepy Lithgow. … Nancy Allen is cute as heck, sorry she doesn’t make more movies, but I’m not sure the voice quite works. She does nail the scream, though.

Been high on Charles Laughton lately and watched this after reading a Geena Davis interview in the NY Times Book Review. She calls Laughton her favorite actor and mentions Simon Callow’s bio (a copy I ordered is now on its way). … The film, a best-movie Oscar winner and the year’s box-office champ, works best on the boat; the Tahiti part of the story is a harder sell. … Nice angry tension between Laughton and Clark Gable. … As psycho-ship-commanders-at-sea tales go, I would rate Robert Ryan and Terence Stamp in 1962’s Billy Budd a cut above.

Watched on Monday May 5, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 3, 2025.

I tuned right out whenever Sam Waterston went heavy, but I kinda liked the movie, and the casting is Donnie Darko or White Lotus level.

Watched on Thursday May 1, 2025.

Well-told British noir from Edward Dmytryk in his first film after his Hollywood blacklisting, part of a couple of Criterion noir collections. … Guessing I’d watchlisted it for Naunton Wayne, often a movie bright spot and here playing a Scotland Yard Columbo years before Peter Falk. … Liked Phil Brown (a Bryan Cranston vibe?), playing the unlucky target of a creepily even-keeled, homicidal husband (Robert Newton), who’s finally had it with his wife’s affairs. … (It appears Brown, like Dmytryk, suffered his own blacklisting and also relocated overseas.) … Nino Rota score. … A couple of plot turns are nastier than I might have expected.

Watched on Wednesday April 30, 2025.

More serious, including one gut punch, and not the intended or unintended cheese I might have expected given later aviation disaster movies like the Airport series (Karen Black flies a 747!) or actual spoofs like Airplane! … A good cast but not a lot of familiar faces to me. … Looking up the director, Cy Endfield, who had moved to England after being blacklisted in the States. I liked his The Sound of Fury, and his Hell Drivers is listed as a Criterion favorite. … Early on it did seem every man on the plane was hitting on a female enger. … Biggest cockpit ever?

Again, Team Aherne, but W.S. Van Dyke’s mostly tough-to-swallow romantic comedy from Joseph Mankiewicz’s script works best when Joan Crawford briefly cuts loose into a furniture-throwing holy terror. Now, that I buy. Looked kinda cathartic. … Also with a likable Frank Morgan and Jessie Ralph scary even before she appears playing it dialed up to 11 or 12.

Noirish western with a crisp look and script, though, like The Big Sleep, I lost the plot line toward the end. But no matter (also like The Big Sleep). … That Dick Powell was a movie star remains a head-scratcher to me (not a criticism).

One of those movies, like Arsenic and Old Lace, that others are charmed by but that bring out the buzz kill in me. … Watched this after hearing the very funny Stanley Donen episode of Karina Longworth’s latest podcast series, on great directors’ final years. I believe she likes the movie more than I do. I appreciate middle-age or later love stories, I’m a boomer myself, but it’s slow going and the Cary Grant character is a tough one. Ingrid is lovely and faultless, though, and all four of the ing actors are fine. David Kossoff is kinda hilarious in his 40 or so seconds of screen time in a part that usually goes to Byron Foulger. … IMDb says this was Grant’s favorite of his films. (Did he watch his dance?) It’s said to be Nora Ephron’s favorite movie, too.

Third or fourth or fifth viewing, and I still watch the first half hour or so with a stupid smile at all of Orson Welles’ choices, from casting to camera angles. … This time, now that I’m a die-hard Gilbert Roland fan, I wondered how he might have fared as Vargas.

A couple of King Vidor silent dramas were among my best finds last year, so gave this one, a gentle silent spoof of Hollywood, a try. (Gloria Swanson and Valentino were said to have been among its targets.) It’s nicely done, loaded with cameos — some I recognize (Charlie Chaplin, a quite dashing John Gilbert) and some I don’t. … First watch of a Marion Davies movie. I knew of her reputation as a gifted if forgotten comedienne but was surprised how good and game she was. The affable mugging is not so far from Lucille Ball’s Lucy Ricardo. (There’s a nice, unusual bit where Davies also appears as “Marion Davies.”) … Like biopics that inevitably turn darker, it’s less fun for a spell in the late going as Davies’ actress character gets a swelled head. But there’s a nice final turn back on track, as it happens featuring Vidor himself.

Was looking for They Knew What They Wanted, a Charles Laughton-Carole Lombard movie (now there’s a pairing), but couldn’t find it, so ended up here, a highly regarded, somewhat lesser-known Jean Renoir wartime film. Enjoyed the heck out of watching Laughton’s acting choices playing a meekling teacher eventually finding his way toward resistance. … Liked George Sanders, Walter Slezak, and, in a smaller part, George Coulouris, too. Felt as if Slezak in particular was operating on Laughton’s wavelength.

Watched on Saturday April 19, 2025.

Watched this after a customer at the bookstore asked for fiction recommendations, and I gave her Julian Barnes’ Booker winner, on which the film is based. (I also reread the novel in case she comes back to thank/blast me.) … It’s an OK adaptation, though the early going’s mix of past and present seems both underdeveloped and unnecessarily complicated (I’d think reading the book first does help). … Like the novel, the movie leaves a central question open (there are two possible answers, though not really, says me). … Good Jim Broadbent and, in an expanded daughter role, Michelle Dockery. Also with the ever-enigmatic Charlotte Rampling.

Digging deep into the YT vault for this one to mark Rod Steiger’s centenary. Probably should have gone with a rewatch of one of his good ones (I like the lesser-known Across the Bridge). … It’s disappointingly low-key Steiger, who at times sounds like Brando and I’d say has one good scene. … Overall, John Farrow’s movie is a bit of a slow-to-get-going dud that picks up toward the end. … Detecting not much chemistry between Steiger and Diana Dors (they are said to have saved that for off set 😏), as I guess the script intended. … Technicolor is Dors’ friend here (do want to see her in B&W), but as the murderous wife she seems a rather dull bombshell. … Also with Beulah Bondi, Tom Tryon as Dors’ lunkhead lover, and Arthur Franz as Steiger’s priest brother (liked him in The Sniper). … Cinematography by Lucien Ballard.

Ordinarily, Edward G. Robinson is king, but I didn’t connect with this one, part of Criterion’s John Farrow noir collection. I guess I saw little suspense. (Best scene: the hand behind the moving curtain 😂.) … I did like Gail Russell, though; found her a lovely, warm presence. Not too familiar with her other work, so did a little reading, finding a life ruined early by alcohol.

Sad face. Liked the first two in the series a lot (I often recommend the opener) but couldn’t get my bearings on this one. … Good to see a couple of the actors again, though. … It’s possible I’d get it on a rewatch.

Ava Gardner is all kinds of gorgeous and cinematographer Russell Metty, a B&W ace, has some nice camera work in this one. … Feels as if the movie asks more of George Raft, whom I usually like, than he can deliver. … I’m always expecting Gardner, looking like *that,* to have a smokier voice, like Lauren Bacall. … The movie stuffs its plot in the final 30 or so. … Pretty good police car chase. … I wondered how Raft and Gardner got along on set. She wrote in her book he was a sweetheart.

None of the pre-code fun the title might suggest, and David Manners is a tough watch, but the movie zips along and Loretta Young is 🥰. Hard to believe she’s just 19 here. … Hat tip to George Brent and Louis Calhern’s scene on the operating table. Hilarious. … Always good to see Roscoe Karns.

At 50 minutes, it feels like a well-told, open-ended short story. … A young man arrives at a down-and-out factory about to close, tasked with dismantling some Rube Goldberg-looking machine. (It’s not clear what the factory is, but someone is always carrying around a stray pipe.) He puzzles some of the factory men (all are men), arouses others. (I misread one of the guys.) In an American western, he’s the stranger who draws suspicious looks while riding into town. … The movie looks good, contrasting the warm glow of the sun with the empty grayness of the factory and the workers’ futures. And from the final  long shots, it appears there are a number of these factories. … Part of Criterion’s Alain Guardaurie (new to me) collection.

Looked for something on Allan Dwan’s 140th birthday (I like his Frontier Marshal version of the Tombstone story and his odd com High Tension a lot) and landed here, mostly after seeing Ray Milland’s bad-guy romp through Alias Nick Beal. … All three leads are fine in this color western noir. Milland is a lower-key, deadlier bad guy here, with a couple of surprisingly nasty killings and an almost comical gun toss to Anthony Quinn’s forehead. … There’s another Dwan flaming redhead in Debra Paget (reminded of Arlene Dahl and Rhonda Fleming from an earlier Dwan watch). … Cool little car. … Trigger warning for the obligatory rattlesnake. … And a 15-second-or-so scene for Byron Foulger, who apparently may yet become my most watched LB actor.

Rewatching in a theater in Doylestown, Pa. (home of The Brutalist), part of a series on movie scores, five stars this time.

First watch in a new month of Criterion offerings, part of a John Farrow collection. I went with the Thomas Mitchell one (better reviews) over the Edward G. Robinson one. … Ray Milland is terrific in the Faustus-based noir, appearing to have a ripping good time, and I liked Audrey Totter, too. … Kinda disorienting to see George Macready not playing a creep.  … I did wonder how they’d pull off an ending. “Well that was easy.”

James Cagney is the better actor, but George Raft is more fun to watch here. Cagney at some point was to have played the gangster but switched roles when Raft came aboard. Guessing he could have chewed the heck out of that part. … Felt as if the story slipped away from the director for a while. … OK collection of ing-cast mooks playing inmates and prison guards, though maybe a few tough to tell apart. (That’s not a problem with Maxie Rosenbloom, who has a bit of Dave Bautista about him.)

Watched on Sunday March 30, 2025.

It’s too bad Cary Grant and Carole Lombard didn’t make a comedy together. Instead, after a breezy opening (he’s playful; she’s more than his match), we get a basic soap, still watchable for the two stars. Lombard seems especially committed to the script, though I imagine her howling with laughter whenever filming stops. … Usually not a fan of Kay Francis’ hammy stiltedness (says me), but it’s OK here. (Nice cut to the Halloween witch after Grant’s phone call to her.) … Have said it before: Wish I could look that good in a suit. …. Bug-eyed Grant on his sickbed? Never seen that before. … Couple of good ing players (looking up Alan Baxter, who has a funny soused scene; I don’t him from The Set-Up) and, briefly, Byron Foulger. … I read Katherine Hepburn was originally cast, but Lombard was signed after Bringing Up Baby bombed. Thinking that was a good call (no knock on BUB).

Watched on Tuesday March 25, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday March 25, 2025.

When it’s a meet-the-parents nightmare that happens to be in some kind of haunted house, it’s very watchable. When it tries to explain it all, it loses me. … Crazy cast, though, which is what drew me to it on Max. Good-sport prize to Brian Cox, willing (or very well-paid) to do *all that.*

What Carole Lombard is doing here is very funny — for me maybe even better than My Man Godfrey — but I wasn’t much taken with the story (and I’m a fan of old ocean-liner flicks).

One of those nights, so found something to rewatch. … His wife’s a saint, the kids adorable, and Gottfried much more physically frail than I’d have expected. … Something I noticed this time was his sister seems to have been a talented photographer. … I miss the podcast and its off-the-beaten-path assortment of guests. …The Ron Leibman/Jessica Walter episode is one I , and Richard Kind a good guest, among a number of others.

Reading the comments, many calling the movie sexy. “Oh, I thought maybe it was just me.”

Digging deeper into Johnnie To’s work after seeing The Mission. … This one includes a tribute to Kurosawa, To’s own master, and references Sanshiro Sugata, an early Kurosawa work. (Been a while since I’d seen it, so missed the connections, though I do one showdown. Looking back at my review of that film, I wrote: “That throw and body flying through the air, noice.” … When To’s bodies aren’t flying, sending bar furniture and glasses exploding, there are a couple of great quieter scenes (the game-hall setup, a couple of mad runs with money, reaching for a red balloon). … Favorite player: Eddie Cheung, pulling off a nice mix of menacing and comical. … Couple of Criterion extras, and found a clip of the director paying a grateful visit to the Criterion Closet (he picks Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, Kobayashi’s Harakiri, the Three Colors trilogy, Scorsese’s Raging Bull).