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1
« on: Yesterday at 07:06:59 AM »
I managed to watch an original and great looking copy on youtube and the rating is 8-9/10. Lots of NYC exteriors. Lots of noir shots both of night NYC and strange (for the times) interiors of the theatre in the last performance of the play. Lots of work for CJ.
2
« on: Yesterday at 05:53:25 AM »
I was watching a snippet of the movie in english and noticed that LVC cuts through a loaf of bread as the name is pronounced.
3
« on: February 24, 2021, 03:07:05 PM »
The Bowery (1933) NYC in the Gay Nineties made in California. Still a good recreation, in the first 25' is excellent as to narrative pace and mood of the times capture; then it becomes the usual 30's comedy, with stock characters. Beery is good when he just sticks to grimaces but Raft, praised for his performance, I just can't put up with: I never considered him an actor. Cooper here is tolerable. 7/10
4
« on: February 24, 2021, 03:17:18 AM »
The Connection (1961) This doesn't work fine like The Brig, though being based on a play by the same author and played in a single closed area. The dialogues or monologues have no relevance whatever the characters have no consistency, even for junkies: apparently, they do not have to go to work or steal or con to earn their dose, their connection being a benefactor who services them for free and at home. Actually they all look quite healthy compared to Sinatra whose only drug use was famously Jack Daniels. Clarke made better movies, especially the shorter one Dutchman, which over here was distributed together with Simon del desierto. The jazz playing is badly recorded be-bop which, by 1961 was already outdated. 2/10
5
« on: February 22, 2021, 12:09:35 PM »
I forgot to add that I watched it because of Scorsese's heads-up on movies with images of NYC. And this is paradoxical, as the movie, if I'm not mistaken, shows only a couple of seconds shot of a city street.
6
« on: February 22, 2021, 12:05:38 PM »
So they stuck the noir label on this one too. Bah, heavy melodrama with a kind of Little Foxes turn at the end (was that movie a noir too?). Ryan portrays an irrealistic character with good will but he also makes mistakes (see how he keeps his arms straight and hands joined in fromt of him while he waits for his wife answer: not like a dominating character like he has shown up to that moment but one who doesn't care what answer may come. He should have kept them crossed in front of him showing impatience). BBG is not pretty but plays her no-credible part perfectly (btw, why does she return to Ryan when she knows she's pregnant? And why doesn't she leave when he starts torturing her? Ah, that's melo). Only Mason plays perfectly a credible character. That earns, together with the director's lesson in syle (see his camera's movements) a 7/10.
7
« on: February 22, 2021, 12:56:44 AM »
In the Street (1948) Scorsese gave me the heads up about this in an interview where he names the most important movies about NYC. This shot is not a feature or a documentary but just a series of images caught on not the most elegant streets of the city.
8
« on: February 21, 2021, 09:41:42 AM »
This very first directorial effort by McLaglen is praised unanimously. The screenplay by Burt Kennedy is solid and the direction shows an ability hard to find in the future works (see the sequence of the paid killer looking for Arness). Still what doesn''t fits right with me is the premise: After a hold-up his accomplices leave Arness who's been severely wounded in a cabin and get away with the loot and Angie. So, being caught by a posse, he's looking for revenge: why? What else should they have done? Actually the should have killed him to prevent him from making names. The actor playing the sheriff is the best of a good cast, well supported by Carey Jr. (yeah, this is a Batjac product). "Introducing Angie Dickinson" confirms what I thought when I saw her in Rio Bravo: she must have paid herself a very good surgeon in the years to come. 7/10
9
« on: February 21, 2021, 06:21:59 AM »
A western which manages not to annoy with both the black man and the little girl is worth at least 7/10. It also has those little inventions like the snake as a weapon. And, thank God, the Indians are bad.
10
« on: February 21, 2021, 04:14:04 AM »
Last Boetticher's and Murphy's. I must have seen it eons ago because I remember Murphy's brief appearance. Or maybe it was just what I caught of the movie not bothering with the rest. But one wonders what Boetticher had in mind. Hard to tell. I guess that the parts of Judge Roy Bean, Jesse James and Billy Pimple were those he had started from and then he tied them up with the story of the young one and his bride. Maybe. But anyway the movie doesn't know where it's going all of the time and the duel, with the guns slipping from the hands of the boy, doesn't help. The finale with the new girl arriving in town and starting the cycle again is musty and making little sense of what precedes because there was no story to begin with. 6/10 only because Jory as Bean is not memorable but passable.
11
« on: February 20, 2021, 10:10:54 AM »
Stagecoach in the roman countryside. A gang of about to be hanged criminals manages to escape and starts travelling in a stagecoach. One by one they'll die and only Saxson and Sanchez will survive, Saxson managing to avenge his brother. This would be good thanx to the actors, especially Berti as one of the villains, but Saxson is good too and I do not share in the criticism about him: What one should say about a Steffen, then? I give this a solid 6/10 for the over the top scene of the mexican gang chasing the stagecoach while the occupants play poker and throw dynamite at the bandits without bothering to aim: the kind of action which defines the genre.
12
« on: February 20, 2021, 04:05:17 AM »
Snowy SW shot before The Great Silence. Not that it makes a difference. Another original item is the country-style OST courtesy of a presumably italian duo (or group?). Which wasn't so easy to find at the time at the time. And the friar who blackmails the villain. And finally the the real point of originality which makes this worth a watching: the fact that the protagonist is the villain and he holds true to the movie title: he kills in cold blood and wasting no words about it. But apart from that the rest is the usual sea of ineptitude, only the protagonist resembling an actor and the story making no sense (why the gang waits all that time to get the gold from the mine? And how the "hero" manages to shoot one of the gang who rather looks like he shot himself, as the hero doesn't show a pistol). 5/10
13
« on: February 20, 2021, 01:52:32 AM »
Boring masked avenger Zorro style (but the costume is simply a green poncho) story shot in Rome's countryside. Lots of women here, but only the avenger's girl is worth watching. And at 100' is at least and hour too long. 3/10
14
« on: February 20, 2021, 12:32:47 AM »
As The Last Gun on youtube
15
« on: February 19, 2021, 12:14:51 PM »
Dirty (Half)Dozen meet the 300. This one reminded me of Apache Territory, and the studio built fort inside a creek is the most original part of the flick. The character are the usual stereotypes but the way the confrontations with Peck are lead makes it good viewing. Garfield complains that had it been a B-production would have fared better. I don't know about that. Ward Bond shows that, even if he plays a McLaglen kind of character, he does better without Ford. Peck is at compleat ease when he has got to play an iron officer. 7/10
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