Random Thoughts

Midnight. Mitchell Leisen. 1939.

Claudette Colbert! I like her.

This movie gets off to a really great start: Everything is explained in a couple of sentences and then we’re off. Colbert is a lot of fun to watch, too.

I’m all in.

This movie is a lot of fun. It’s got a great set-up: A grifterish, but still somehow sympathetic woman (just by being Claudette Colbert), trying to make her way through Paris. It could seem like a nightmarish situation, but the Don Ameche character works like a safety net — surely he’s a benign character? So it’s lessening the tension, making things more fun.

This is delicious! The plot is so contrived; I love it.

Oh! Billy Wilder is a co-writer on this! That explains the high concept, high fun thing going on here.

But I mean… this has got John Barrymore and Mary Astor and Hedda Hopper…

I don’t understand why I haven’t seen this before. It’s fabulous!

Oh, Barrymore died a couple years later.

OK, the movie gets a bit bogged down in the plot in the last third — it has to go through all the bits you think it has to go through for it to resolve into the ending you know it going to happen — but every scene is plenty amusing.

It could have had a bit more zing in the pacing.

Monty Woolley!

This blog post is part of the 1939
series.

The Little Princess. Walter Lang, William A. Seiter. 1939.

So this is the tenth week of 1939… so we’re into March?

And this movie is in colour!

Oh, they’re using the Boer War (turn of the century? the previous one?) as a proxy for the war that’s currently brewing in Europe?

This movie is quite amusing… But… it doesn’t have that zing you (that is, I) expect? Every scene is like… “yes, this is good… but…” There’s just something that’s lacking here. It needs to be funnier, or more dramatic, or something.

Even the dance scenes are so lacklustre! It’s like they haven’t even rehearsed the moves — nothing is synchronised.

It’s so weird: This had to be a pretty expensive movie, and it’s just kinda amateurish?

The set designs are awesome, though.

This blog post is part of the 1939
series.

Oklahoma Kid. Lloyd Bacon. 1939.

But… but… that’s… that’s…

It is! It’s Bogart!

What’s he doing in this cheapie western? Was this before he became famous?

Ah, right, he was doing all these things in the 30s until his big break in 1941, I guess.

Because this is a Cagney vehicle.

This isn’t a very good movie? I mean, I’m having a hard time paying attention, because the plot is just very… I don’t even know what the plot is.

But Cagney can play the guitar? That’s something.

And sing Rock-a-bye Baby in Spanish.

What’s with the hairdos?

OK, I have to admit to tidying up the kitchen while this movie was droning on, because I’ve totally lost interest. It’s just such a … nothing of a movie. There’s nothing really wrong with it: The performances are standard, the cinematography is workmanlike, the lines they deliver are totally… fine?

There’s just nothing here that’s interesting. I mean, except Cagney’s twitchy, whimsical performance, but that only goes so far.

This blog post is part of the 1939
series.