What Classics Did You See May 5 - 11

Mystery frame: maybe Young Mr. Lincoln (1939).

You're burning up. So close.

Untamed Women / W. Merle Connell (1952). I joined a fun group on Facebook called 50s Sci-Fi - Keep Watching the Skies! (Yeah, still using Facebook. Never gone near Reddit, Tik-Tok, or Instagram). That’s why these low budget shlocky films have turned up a few times in the past few weeks. This one has a clunky script, stilted acting, and acres of stock footage, but in something like the films of Ed Wood, it has a sort of kooky energy that makes it watchable.
    What we have here is yet another unknown land where modern people encounter a prehistoric landscape where dinosaurs still live and, sometimes, as here, early humans. A WWII American bomber crew has to ditch in the ocean, but escape into an inflatable boat. They drift to an unknown island where they encounter a camp of prehistoric dynamite babes who take them prisoner. Oh, did I mention the women speak English (the script tries to explain this). The women do a silly dance, try to exile the men into a wilderness of monster animals, and then get the men back to help replenish their population. But this is 1952 so they never get to do what they got them back to do.
    The production company is something called Jewell Enterprises Inc. I couldn’t find out much about them except they got the job in 1956 of taking the 1954 Japanese film “Gojira,” editing it down, shooting additional footage with Raymond Burr, and integrating it into the original film for better appeal to an American audience. The result was “Godzilla, King of the Monsters!” (don’t forget that exclamation point!). The production company is something called Jewell Enterprises Inc. I couldn’t find out much about them except they got the job in 1956 of taking the 1954 Japanese film “Gojira,” editing it down, shooting additional footage with Raymond Burr, and integrating it into the original film for better appeal to an American audience. The result was “Godzilla, King of the Monsters!” (don’t forget that exclamation point!).






Invasion Of The Body Snatchers / Don Siegel (1956). What new can be said about this powerful movie? Others have tried to say something in remakes and I know there is a lot of love for the 1978 Philip Kaufman version, but for me, this is the ONE.
Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is puzzled that so many people in his small town of Richfield are saying that their husbands, uncles, friends, etc. have been replaced with imposters until one night he and his girlfriend Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) are called to the home of friends Jack and Teddy Belicec (King Donovan, Carolyn Jones). They have found in their house what appears the corpse of a man who greatly resembles Jack but whose features are not “finished” – close to blank. This begins a tale of horror and paranoia.
    The Pod People. Still a metaphor for crowds who follow leaders blindly. This film was made during the Red Scare causing histrions to debate which are represented by the Pod People, the communists secure and dogmatic in their ideology or Sen. McCarthy and HUAC with their insistence on political conformity? Or both? Or maybe the film it can stand alone as a massively effective thriller? Wait. What? You expect ME to answer that?






Dr. Bennell drives this gorgeous 1955 Ford Fairlane. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Today’s cars are the automotive world’s version of the Pod People.


Charlie, the gasman, who gets one camera shot, is future director Sam Peckinpah.


Quatermass 2 / Val Guest (1957). After the titles, a car speeding down a road barely misses a crack-up with the automobile driven by Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy). The car’s passenger has a strange burn on his face. The driver refuses help and leaves. Scientists working with the professor show him some strange radar readings that seem to be meteorites coming to Earth in the same area where the man got his burn. Quatermass and a colleague visit the area and discover a mysterious factory guarded by an armed security squad. When he tries to get answers, he meets resistance and hostility from all sides. It seems as if a lot of people at all levels of authority are being somehow controlled by a malevolent force so one never knows who can be trusted so along with the race against time to same life on Earth there is a level of “Invasion Of The Body Snatchers” paranoia. Titled “Enemies From Space” in the Americas.





Déjà Vu / Tony Scott (2006). In New Orleans on Fat Tuesday, a powerful explosion destroys the Canal Street Ferry killing 543 people. ATF officer Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) believes that a woman, Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton), thought to have been killed in the bombing was killed earlier and her killer is the bomber. He partners with FBI Agent Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer) and his hand-picked team to track down the terrorist with the latest sophisticated and highly secret surveillance tech. The first hour of this thriller appeals to the mind as amazing new technology is revealed to Carlin. The second hour, though, takes a left turn into science fiction and goes into straight action mode, but still engages the intellect as Carlin has to navigate time travel complications and paradoxes as he races to stop the ferry sinking and save Paula’s life.
    Denzel is likable and charismatic as usual and I really liked the performance of Paula Patton, who I had never seen before. Val Kilmer is not given much to do which is a disappointment. Among American movies, “Déjà Vu” was #41 at box office. An engaging action/sci-fi/crime film mash-up.





The Greatest Hits / Ned Benson (2024). The first few minutes of this movie were throwback indie from the first decade of this century. The music. The montage of a couple in love. Moody shots of L.A. at night. I almost bailed early but didn’t and very much to my surprise I really liked this little, modest film.
    Harriet (Lucy Boynton) has been grieving for 2-years after a horrific traffic accident that killed her husband, Max (David Corenswet). Lucy suffered a severe head injury. Now, every time she hears a song that she had heard with Max, she travels back to the time and place the song was playing – or does she? Are they hallucinations? She believes that if a song can transport her to the past, there should be a song that will somehow let her save Max’s life. Complicating matters is that she is drawn to David (Justin H. Min) who she meets in her Grief Therapy Group.
    This made me think of two other movies I love. The first is “Safety Not Guaranteed” (2012), also about a maybe time traveler with possible mental health issues and the second is “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind” (2004) which teaches us that the heart wants what it wants even if it doesn’t even remember it wants it.
There is an abrupt black-out ending that made me go, “What!” and then one second later think, “Perfect.”
David Corenswet who plays Max in the flashbacks has since been cast in the lead for the next Superman movie due in 2025.





She-Wolves: England’s Earliest Queens
“Matilda and Eleanor” Episode 1 (March 7, 2012)
“Isabella and Margaret” Episode 2 (March 14, 2012)
“Jane, Mary and Elizabeth” Episode 3 (March 21, 2012)
.................Series Completed

The Brokenwood Mysteries
“Leather and Lace” Season 2, Episode 1 (September 27, 2015)

Lewis
“Expiation” Season 1, Episode 3 (July 6, 2008)
………………………………….Season 1 Completed

The Edible Garden
“Salads” Episode 2 (April 13, 2010)

Well it's Eurovision night in Putin-free Europe and Australia, and the event is held where I live. We have heard helicopters hovering over the city for two weeks now. We will hear 600 songs, thinks it's actually 26, but feels like 600, most of them thankfully forgotten tomorrow.

Thanks for hosting mikef6

Mystery frame, well if Lincoln might be a clue...

Here are the movies Tele have lately seen...


The Land Girls 1998 directed by David Leland and based on a novel by Angela Huth.
During World War II, the organisation "The Women's Land Army" recruited women to work on British farms while the men were off to war. We follow three "Land Girls" as they adjust to life at a farm, even finding love. In happiness and sorrows. Grumpy old farmer don't like what's forced on him, but when the three girls shows their skills warms up to having them around, his son warms up in another way.
Don't understand the harsh critic this movie got, since I thought it was rather entertaining, and the scenery is beautiful.
Nice to see Rachel Weisz as one of the girls before becoming famous.


Aliens 1986 directed by James Cameron.
Rescued after 57 years floating in space, Ellen Ripley learns that the planet that she escaped from is now colonized by big bussiness. Things go wrong at that planet and Ripley reluctantly has to return since she might be the only one who knows how to deal with this certain alien species. I actually liked this sequel better than the original movie, maybe because more is visible through different lightning.
Bill Paxton plays such an anoying character that I wished he was killed off early by the alien.
Sigourney makes a great female hero.
The movie is a tad too long.


Alaska Seas 1954 directed by Jerry Hopper.
Salmon fishing had to be restricted and regulated since there was danger of the fish going extinct, something black marketeers cares less about.
Robert Ryan plays one of his costumary slimy bad guys who works for those who pays best, against him is Brian Keith who helps seeing to that  fishers follows the allowed quotes. In the middle is Jan Sterling who loves them both in different ways.
Nearly plays out like a western movie, but exhanging cattle thieves for salmon thieves.
Some impressive second-unit footage up in Alaska, otherwise it's pretty standard.
Good enough for a lazy Sunday.


The Black Arrow 1948 directed by Gordon Douglas and based on a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Swashbuckler taking place after the war of the roses.
Young nobleman returns from the War of the Roses to find his father murdered, a fugitive family friend blamed, and his uncle occupying his estates. Yes! It's a Robin Hood clone and Robin is even mentioned in the plot.
Thanks to some actors it was actually a bit better than I thought it would be.
The big surprice was seeing veteran suporting actor Edgar Buchanan, skipping his usual drunk sidekick image, and playing a very resourceful character and master archer of bow and arrows, when the heroes discuss what to do, his character just says follow me...and he fixes things.


The Paleface 1948 directed by Norman Z. McLeod and based on all Western movies made before this one.
Calamity Jane is forced to work undercover to expose guns and explosive smugglers and through circumstances as the only way out play romantic to an incompetent dentist.
Seeing a movie I remember seeing in the early 1970's, that was a laughfeast back then, I have some awareness that I might not like it seeing it again. First time in color we had black/white TV back then.
Maybe not the laughfeast I remembered, but still rather entertaining in spots.
Objections have been made how native Americans are treated in this movie, remember it's a parody!


Laura 1944 directed by Otto Preminger and based on a novel by Vera Caspary.
I hope I don't have to mention the plot since it could be revealing.
When it goes with classic movies, one needs to refresh memory from time to time, for me I hadn't seen it since the middle 1980's.
And I had totally forgotten the whole plot, so it made it rather fresh for me, I knew who did it, but the way to expose I had totally forgotten.
Dana, Gene, Clifton, Vincent, Judith what's not to like.

mikef6

Mystery frame, could be Louis Jean Heydt but can't find any pics were he smiles, but he was blond and had a high hairline, if so it could be...