What Classics Did You See Last Week, Mar 17 - 23

Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo / Eugene Forde (1937). This was the 19th (of 42) in the Charlie Chan series. It was also the final portrayal of Chan (and last movie of any kind) by Swedish-American actor Warner Oland who, during the filming of the next Chan, had a mental breakdown. He eventually returned to Sweden where he died in 1938.
    This is one of the “good” Chans, by which I mean the Honolulu detective solves the case by putting together clues instead of the uninspired cop-out of setting a trap so the killer will reveal him/her self.
    Charlie, in Monte Carlo with Number One Son, Lee (Keye Luke), finds himself in the middle of a high finance rivalry that results in murder and robbery. Suspects abound and everyone of them hides a secret and acts guilty. Virginia Field as the girlfriend of the secretary to one of the rivals gives the movie a sexy jolt. The one drawback is the barely tolerable “comic” performance of Harold Huber who plays the Chief of Police of Monte Carlo. How could someone this dumb ever rise in the ranks of the police? Even worse is his phony baloney French accent when speaking English, Very annoying. Still, Huber aside, Chan Fans will enjoy this.
    Epilogue: After Orland left his last movie unfinished, the studio (Twentieth Century Fox) didn’t hesitate. They brought in Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto and plugged him into the Charlie Chan script, even leaving Keye Luke as Lee Chan in as Moto’s sidekick. The movie became “Mr. Moto’s Gamble” and was released in April 1938.





Sirocco / Curtis Bernhardt (1951). Another Santana Productions (Humphrey Bogart’s own independent company) film that came and went quickly in theaters. It was the fifth of seven pictures released by Santana. According to Bogart biographer Eric Lax, however good the actors and writers were, the problem at Santana was its inability to compete with major studios for quality sources. Bogart tried to get both “The Desperate Hours” and “Detective Story” but lost them both to Paramount.
    Bogart’s character in “Sirocco,” Harry Smith, is a war profiteer in Damascus during the French occupation of Syria in the 1920s. The French are trying to put down a rebellion and stop people like Smith from selling to both sides: food to the French and guns and ammo to the Syrian rebels. Smith is a pretty bad person who, even though, he does make a noble choice at the end, is rather far from the Bogart persona of the cynical man before turning hero at the right moment. That journey belongs to Col. Feroud (Lee J. Cobb), Head of French Intelligence. Cobb is quiet good here. Feroud’s girlfriend is Violette (Swedish actress Märta Torén,) who makes friends with Smith because he can help her get out of the city. Toren is also very good. Her performance, and Cobb’s, are the best in the movie.
    Mainly for Bogart completists.





The Magnetic Monster / Curt Siodmak (1953). A pretty good one of the Atomic Monster B-movies of the 1950s and 1960s, but instead of mutant insects we have radiation causing a usually stable element to completely change its properties and turn into a highly unstable new magnetic element that must absorb more and more energy, doubling its mass every 11-hours.
    Richard Carlson and King Donovan play the scientists who must come up with a way to stop this threat to the entire world. One of the pluses of this science fiction movie is that it has a lot of science in it. Some of the science may be made up, but numbers, measurements, and scientific terms fly through the film. There are several popular character actors who are seen throughout the movie: Billy Benedict, Byron Foulger, Kathleen Freeman, and Strother Martin as the co-pilot of a passenger plane. The screenplay is by director Curt Siodmak and producer Ivan Tors.





City Of Ember / Gil Kenan (2008). Based on the first book of a children’s trilogy by Jeanne DuPrau. Initial reviews were mixed, trending to bad. Most reviewers who pointed out plot holes and inconsistencies didn’t seem to realize that this is a fantasy tale that had been written for children from 8 to 12 years old. The movie does have some problems (an abrupt ending, for one) but is engaging and fun with a great production design and underscore.
    The main character is Lina Mayfield (Saoirse Ronan) who lives in Ember, a city far underground that has existed for 200 years, lighted by huge lamps far overhead and fed from huge warehouses of food. Important information from the founders warning the residents of an expiration date had long been lost. Now, lights were going out and food shortages were occurring. Lina and friend Doon Harrow (Harry Treadaway) believe there is a way out of Ember but are thwarted by the corrupt mayor (Bill Murray). Also with Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, and Toby Jones.





Star Trek: Prodigy
“Asylum” Season 1, Episode 11 (October 27, 2022)
“Let Sleeping Borg Lie” Season1, Episode 12 (November 3, 2022)
“All the World's a Stage” Season 1, Episode 13 (November 10, 2022)
“Crossroads” Season 1, Episode 14 (November 17, 2022)
“Masquerade” Season 1, Episode 15 (November 24, 2022)
“Preludes” Season 1, Episode 16 (December 1, 2022)
“Ghost in the Machine” Season 1, Episode 17 (December 8, 2022)
“Mindwalk” Season 1, Episode 18 (December 15, 2022)
“Supernova, Part 1” Season 1, Episode 19 (December 22, 2022)
“Supernova, Part 2” Season 1, Episode 20 (December 29, 2022)
………………………………Season 1 Completed

A really excellent series. Animated. 24 minutes each episode.

The Chelsea Detective
“The Wages of Sin” Season 1, Episode 1 (February 7, 2022)
“Mrs. Romano” Season 1, Episode 2 (February 14, 2022)

Midsomer Murders
“Dark Autumn” Season 4, Episode 5 (September 16, 2001)
“Tainted Fruit” Season 4, Episode 6 (September 23, 2001)
………………………………….Season 4 Completed

The Brokenwood Mysteries
“Playing the Lie” Season 1, Episode 3 (October 12, 2014)

England's Forgotten Queen: The Life and Death of Lady Jane Grey
Season 1, Episodes 1, 2, 3 (January 9, 10, & 11, 2018)

Three episode, one-hour each, documentary series. Very well done.

The Czech poster is for Invention for Destruction (Czech: Vynález zkázy) aka The Fabulous World of Jules Verne from 1958. It is a pastiche of Verne stories designed according to the original illustrations and filmed in the style of Georges Méliès from the beginning of cinema.

Re-watched two of my all-time favorites:

Notorious



Meet John Doe (1941)

spiderwort

“Notorious” is such a great film. Hitchcock seemed to get away with more under the Production Code than most other directors, often by his directing of actors whose expressions and actions convey more than what was in the script given to the Breen office for approval (e.g. the “kissing scene”). "Notorious" with its fairly plain talk about Ingrid Bergman's mission to get close to Claude Rains makes this film perhaps the most sexually explicit under the code up to that time and maybe for many more years to come - besides just being a great movie overall that, to my mind, reaches masterpiece status.

Thanks for hosting mikef6

Here are the movies that Tele have lately seen...


American Virgin 2009 directed by Clare Kilner.
An abolutely abstinent girl get's a breaking all-rules girl as roommate at college.
Called a comedy and have a sort of fake message, but it's all about tits, tits, tits and I'm not talking about the birds.
Absolute garbage that some idiot at a local Swedish TV channel thought was suitable for prime time viewing. Maybe for horny teen boys.


Gwoemul aka The Host 2006 directed by Bong Joon Ho.
After years of polluting a strange creature emerges from Seoul's Han River.
Hailed by some critics, though I wasn't that impressed back then when it was new.
Watching it again I've changed my mind a bit. We don't follow how the authorities fight the monster, we follow a rather dysfunctional family suddenly having to rise above expectations, in their own way, since a daughter thought dead have for some reason been spared by the monster, maybe for an evening snack.
Something I've learned over the years watching South Korean movies, some main characters just have to die before the end titles, and so it happens here.
I've raised the points a bit for this movie.


The Freshman 1990 directed by Andrew Bergman.
A NYC film student is conned into make errands to a Godfather lookalike, smuggling endangerous species.
A bit of an off-beat comedy that worked very well with me, with movie references not just toward The Godfather but other movies too.
Seen it before and enjoyed it this time too.


For Your Eyes Only 1981 directed by John Glen and based on characters created by Ian Fleming.
Bond must find a British encryptographer from a sunked ship outside coast of Albania, or all hell will brake loose in the wrong hands.
After the Bond space adventure this is nearly gadget free, and more to the ground, and much better though lacking a more famous actor playing the main villain.
Not gonna beat around the bush, I enjoyed this revisit.
The Swedish title was translated to English From a Dead Point of View.


The Outlaw Josey Wales 1976 directed by Clint Eastwood and based on a book by Forrest Carter.
Wales sees his family slaughterd and his farm burned down, joines confederate guerilla movement, refuse to surrender, and becomes a man with a price on his head.
After the first 15 minutes I didn't like this at all but to my surprice it get's better as the story moves along, even bitter loners find friends at the strangest places.
After a shaky start much better that I thought it wouldn be.


All I Desire 1953 directed by Douglas Sirk and based on a novel by Carol Ryrie Brink.
Celebrated actress at turn of century returns to her old home town, family and kids she left behind. Trouble is she wasn't a celebrated actress.
Not my kind of movie, but it stars Barbara Stanwyck and she's always worth watching no matter what.

Well that was all from me!

Harold Robbins' Stiletto 1969 -For some reason they always put Robbins in front of the title but was really that much of a draw? Seems like he was heavily promoted and then zilch. But that describes this film quite well--a zilch. It stars Alex Cord who was not meant to be a leading man and yet he had a few starring roles in the late 60s including The Brotherhood which was remade a few years later --- Cord was a returning GI who ends up in the family mafia business--and his character was portrayed by Al Pacino in the remake. He was alright in some supporting roles but just not meant for the leading man. In this case Patrick O'Neal is his co-star who is not quite the leading man type either. The plot involves a criminal who gets recruited by the mafia as a hit man and he goes around like James Bond stabbing people in the back with a (take a guess). What makes this film interesting is how many people appear in supporting parts or uncredited who ended up bigger names than Cord or O'Neal. There's Roy Scheider, Lincoln Kilpatrick (playing a character named Hannibal Smith--I love it when a plan comes together), Antonio Fargas, James Tolkan, Olympia Dukakis, Raul Julia, Charles Durning, M. Emmet Walsh--I spotted Diane Muldaur as well--IMDB doesn't have her listed. And Peter O'Toole appears too. It's not a good or even fair movie but memorable for the showcase of familiar faces.

FIRST TIME VIEWING

Vice Squad (1953, Arnold Laven)
Fun film noir with multiple stories converging at the vice squad headquarters. Not the most cinematic but easy to watch.
6.5/10

REPEAT VIEWING

Nightfall (1956, Jacques Tourneur)
Blu ray
Top shelf noir with an innocent man reconstructing the events that led him to be on the run. Very cinematic and with an interesting lead performance.
7.5/10