Random Thoughts

I knew they had short ties back in the 40s, but…

This is a B movie from that box set where all the other B movies I’ve been watching. And as usual, it’s set in a vaudeville theatre, so that the movie makers can just film a bunch of stage actors and then pretend that there’s a plot between the bits.

This has a more substantial scripts than most of these movies….

It’s not a particularly inspiring movie. I can’t even work up enough enthusiasm to dis this thing.

It’s just meh.

Doll Face. Lewis Seiler. 1945.

Popular movies in December 1945 according to IMDB:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	10378	7.9	Scarlet Street
	8223	7.7	Leave Her to Heaven
	511	7.5	The Red Dragon
	5682	7.4	The Bells of St. Mary’s
	2765	7.3	A Walk in the Sun
	6031	7.3	They Were Expendable
	1337	6.7	Cornered
	216	6.6	Pink String and Sealing Wax
	392	6.5	The Stork Club
	1917	6.4	Caesar and Cleopatra

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

Oh, Billy Wilder. I wasn’t quite aware that he had done a film noir, I think? I’ve seen all his 50s/60s comedies…

This movie won all the Oscars, and confirms most of my prejudices against those movies. It’s about a tedious alcoholic doing tedious alcoholic things, but very dramatically.

So much drama.

It’s not that Ray Milland is bad at being a drug fiend, shooting up marijuana into his eyeballs, er I mean, hitting the sauce hard, but…

It’s Oscar bait in all the worst ways.

As boring as listening to a real-life drunk.

I like the guy playing the bartender.

Heh heh:

Once The Lost Weekend was completed, it was shown to a preview audience, who laughed at what they considered Milland’s overwrought performance, and the studio actually considered shelving the film. Part of the problem was that the print shown at the preview didn’t have Miklós Rózsa’s original musical soundtrack, but instead had a temporary track containing upbeat jazz music.

I can just picture it. Yakety Sax playing while Milland is sweatily crawling on the floor looking for a bottle of booze.

That sounds like a better movie than this is.

The Lost Weekend. Billy Wilder. 1945.

Popular movies in November 1945 according to IMDB:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	27366	8.1	Brief Encounter
	26215	8.0	The Lost Weekend
	6174	7.7	‘I Know Where I’m Going!’
	2677	7.6	Road to Utopia
	10343	7.4	Detour
	3286	7.2	Fallen Angel
	1235	7.1	My Name Is Julia Ross
	1104	7.0	The Seventh Veil
	310	6.9	Allotment Wives
	477	6.8	Danger Signal

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

Oh, this is the Agatha Christie thing! I’ve seen a bunch of versions and read the book etc, but I don’t think I’ve seen this version before. And I’ve forgotten who the murderer is. How delightful.

At first I thought that they had embellished the novel greatly (as they usually did back in the days; all the script writers seemed to think they were more clever than Christie (spoiler: they weren’t)), but I think that’s wrong? This movie seems the most genuinely Christie-like movie of the early ones I’ve seen, although René Clair has added some comedy bits. I think.

This bluray restoration is… OK? I mean, they’ve preserved every last bit of grain from the film? Perhaps overdoing it? But there’s an annoying flickering effect: It’s like there’s a very very regular dimming thing going on: It’s like it cycles between dark and light four times per second. It’s not horrible, but it’s something that should have been fixed.

This is a very enjoyable watch. So many genteel murders.

And Then There Were None. René Clair. 1945.

Popular movies in October 1945 according to IMDB:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	34220	7.6	Spellbound
	9637	7.6	And Then There Were None
	533	7.2	Kitty
	2515	7.2	Pursuit to Algiers
	744	7.1	Perfect Strangers
	1873	7.0	Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood
	284	6.9	Strange Confession
	741	6.7	Week-End at the Waldorf
	544	6.5	The Dolly Sisters
	1139	6.4	The Spanish Main

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

Surely I’ve seen this Joan Crawfordaganza before, but it really doesn’t seem very familiar…

This is the Criterion-restored DVD version. It’s good, but it doesn’t look as brilliant as their best restorations do. The blacks never go down to full blackness, so everything is a bit washed out… but perhaps that’s what the director was going for.

And speaking of directing: This film is one awesome film noir show after another. It’s really quite astounding. Everything underlines the tension and the mystery; everybody’s smoking all the time; all the guys crack wise and all the gals are gorgeous.

It’s noirer than noir. Well, at least the framing section is: The main part of the movie is a flashback to brighter times, and the cinematography changes radically.

There’s no menzion of ze var except for one guy saying that “nylons are out for the duration”, which I assume is about stocking shortages…

I guess it’d be extremely easy to make a parody of this movie, because it’s so over the top and bits of the storyline are so… well… clichéd. Like the very-much telegraphed sex/death thing. But the melodrama really is gripping.

I think it sags when we get into the Vedaness of the plot and it kinda spins off into boredom.

Mildred Pierce. Michael Curtiz. 1945.

Popular movies in September 1945 according to IMDB:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	16604	8.0	Mildred Pierce
	337	8.0	Come Out Fighting
	8183	7.7	Dead of Night
	1272	7.6	Our Vines Have Tender Grapes
	2170	6.8	The House on 92nd Street
	3040	6.6	Isle of the Dead

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

!!!

Dum ti dum ti dum…

WHAAAA AYN RAND!

So it this going to be a super-corny schmaltzy ode to objectivism?

It’s a budget movie? It looks like it’s been filmed on the cheapest, most cramped sound stages.

I assume that it ended up in my queue due to block-voting on imdb (I selected movies that had a combination of significant views and high votes).

This is Cyrano de Bergerac repeated not as a comedy, but as a turgid sentimental tragedy of a romantic movie.

It’s twaddle, but some scenes are so awkward that they’re almost great.

Love Letters. William Dieterle. 1945.

Popular movies in August 1945 according to IMDB:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	924	7.4	Pride of the Marines
	1932	7.3	The Southerner
	286	7.3	The True Glory
	211	7.2	Divorce
	1127	7.2	Love Letters
	844	7.1	The Shanghai Cobra
	2863	7.1	State Fair
	1010	7.0	Lady on a Train
	868	6.9	The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry
	2272	6.6	Ziegfeld Follies

This blog post is part of the Decade series.