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Messages - titoli
1
« on: Today at 01:44:57 PM »
But watchable as a crime movie. Still some insists on considering it a noir for unfathomable, to me, reasons. Photographically is a noir only for a couple of minutes toward the end. Plotwise it reminds me more of serials of the '30's. Based on flashbacks, it has got a sustained pace and good dialogues. This is the first movie of the era where I saw a white man courting a black girl (throwing a surefire line in a insecure italian:"I bet you can make a dish of pasta with meatballs"). A good timewaster: 6/10
2
« on: Yesterday at 09:14:00 AM »
Las Vegas Shakedown (1955) Cheapy cheap piece of crap. Grand Motel dubbed it at IMDB. Yeah, a series of melodramatic moronic stories around a fake casino in fake LV. A pity because O'Keefe is as good as usual and Grey as cute too and the first 10 minutes make you believe it could be interesting. 3/10
3
« on: Yesterday at 02:03:28 AM »
King of the Underworld (1939) Probably most moronic (a joke in the movie) gangster movie ever. Actually it plays like a (conscious?) parody of the genre though I'm not sure how much of it was meant to be. What makes it worth seeing are some of the brilliant dialogues which prove how much Bogart was good at comedy: I laughed at 5-6 good ones and this earns this crap 7/10. Kay Francis is not pretty but attractive, never noticed her before.
4
« on: October 14, 2021, 03:32:49 AM »
The other half you can skip it: about deportation, immigration and the romantic side with Mature falling for (and being redeemed by) Terry Moore, about whom I wondered all the time how she ever got the part. But the beginning and the end of the movie are at least original and in noir style shot, and a good casino "hold-up" scene. Except for a couple of minutes entirely shot in studio. Mature is perfect in his usual good bad guy part. Bendix, as the villiain, doesn't convince me (as he never does in any part). 6/10
5
« on: October 14, 2021, 12:03:37 AM »
Contract on Cherry Street (1977) Cop-Mafia TV-movie. You can tell how bad it is by seeing how little screen time was given to Silva, still considered at the time (in the USA not in Europe, where he got lead parts) just a face to fill up the screen. At least an hour (but probably more) cut could have been beneficial, and the job could have made a good time-waster if only to watch the cast (Sinatra, Balsam, Guardino). But nothing more. Too much talk and little action. Still the last crane shot compares with any of Richards FML: only thing worth remembering. CJ could find some NYC exterior worth watching. 4/10
6
« on: October 07, 2021, 01:23:13 AM »
I rewatched it as I couldn't remember a thing about it and still it figured the 2 coolest of the cool. I was too harsh about Mitchum's performance: he's just playing his part as usual. What it was interesting it was the comparison between the 2 main dudes and McDowall about whom CJ says he's miscast as the "evil son". I think he's not miscast, it's the way he acts that is annoying. I don't know or care to know where he learned his trade but compare it to the way Crocetti or Mitchum act. McDowall has got a short monologue in a stable: well, he underlines every line of it with a different, exaggerated facial expression and it comes out as unnatural as hell, even a Dennis Hopper couldn't have done worse. But I raise my rating to 6/10 because a western with those 2 is worth watching anyway.
7
« on: October 06, 2021, 02:45:51 PM »
It has a good start but about halfway the plot gets overcomplicated, some character (Wardley, namely) loses consistence and something remains unexplained (how O'Neal loses conscience after the meeting with the couple and remembers nothing afterward). Photography, music (terrible when Hauser suffers the attack. And what has got Elgar to do with the movie?) and acting (O'Neal and Rossellini just can't do it) are bad with the exception of Tierney, of course and Hauser. Still it is better than most neo-noir which are celebrated here. 6-7/10
8
« on: October 06, 2021, 04:24:42 AM »
LVC, in an interview for a show on italian tv declared he outdrew Eastwood.
9
« on: October 04, 2021, 05:09:03 PM »
Hitler (1962) I came to this reading a Robert Mitchum biography where it said that his brother John played Goering here. Well, one could have a field day listing all the errors and inventions they made here but still I presume this is the only fiction movie which deals with Hitler's sex life. Not many years ago a book was published which argued about H.'s homosexuality from which all of his actions were made to spring from. Here a hint is in a line Roehm says during a confrontation with H. in the night of the long knives, but basically H. is shown as suffering from impotence due to some kind of Oedipus complex. The movie cannot but look like a kind of parody and Basehart reminds me more of Chaplin playing Hitler than H. himself. Still the movie is interesting in the scenes with Basehart and the good looking german actress playing Geli Raubal: as we know little for sure about their relationship they can take liberties and look realistic (but I don't think H. had her killed; rather, like Otto Strasser wrote, I rather believe it was him who did it in a rege fit). The german girl playing Eva Braun is not so good looking and her character just isn't real: but the scene where she "cures" H. from his problem is well done and B. there is even very good. So this earns a 6/10.
10
« on: September 30, 2021, 01:58:08 PM »
11
« on: September 29, 2021, 12:08:11 AM »
Der grosse Koenig (1942) I expected more of this, especially after the brilliant opening with battle scenes which, as to grandiosity, well compare with those of the russian War and Peace of 1965. Unfortunately the following ones are only suggested and the movie concentrates on the King's private happenings, filled with political reasonings and discussions that explain little about the war aims of this guy. Which probably mirrored the contemporary situation about Hitler waging war against the world for no apparent reason. In fact, sometime the king's speeches (and Gebuehr's delivery) seem a Hitler's parody. Probably the german audiences of then (I'm not certain about those of today) could follow the unrolling of the events, but a foreign viewer certainly can't without a recent reading of the history of the 7 year war. How the unattractive Soderbaum got the only relevant female part is another mystery. So I give it a 7/10.
12
« on: September 28, 2021, 08:45:33 AM »
Fridericus (1937) Admittedly not the best of old Fritz movies, it didn't make me know about the subject more of what I knew before. The King of Prussia says he's fighting for peace but nothing explains how and why. So it is an anecdote after another, a suspense scene of a possible kidnapping, a short romance scene. But the final battle is well made, though it probably won't equal the one to be seen on Der grosse Koenig (I'll report on this later: this nazi stuff is all on YT). But the movie has got a fast pace, well-acted (Gebuehr and Minetti, especially. Carola Hoehn is the best looking of a series of not very young actresses). 6-7/10
13
« on: September 27, 2021, 09:21:51 PM »
Hitler - Eine Karriere (1977) Best documentary on the subject, both as to variety of material and soundness of comment (of course Joachim Fest is the greatest Hitler's biographer). 10/10
14
« on: September 27, 2021, 04:30:14 AM »
La signora di tutti (1934) I came to this not because of Max Oph?ls but because I wanted to watch an italian actress about whom I had read as one of the most important in our cinema but that I had not even an idea of what she looked like. Isa Miranda, from Milan, was a homegrown Dietrich-like blonde. She has a good screen presence, quite unusual for italian actress in those times. The problem is her speech delivery, which sounds artificial, highly unnatural (not helped, of course, by a foreign director and by awful lines). The movie is heavy melodrama with a plot that hangs on a spit which often just doesn't make sense. The dialogues are banal or ridiculous and you can save some device by the director (like a 3 layers flashback or some unusual shots). Not worth watching 3/10
15
« on: September 13, 2021, 02:41:03 PM »
Count Dracula (Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht) (1970) I had always steered away from this one, as I detest the director (of which I appreciate only the movies featuring Lina Romay) but having read recently Lee's boring autobiography (mostly about his golf experiences and keeping mum about most of his military experiences) in which he praises it I gave it a try. Well, I have to admit that this would be worth watching only for Kinski's
performance as Renfield: he doesn't speak an (audible) word but it doesn't matter and you know the character anyway. But Lee considers this the most accurate Dracula he played and he's probably right. Unfortunately the action, for budget reasons, is moved from London to Budapest, but even the studio scenes do not compare with those of Hammer (or Corman). Still there are moments of interest and I put it above Coppola's boring rendition. Nicolai's main theme is blatantly modeled on Morricone's Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion of the same year: so you may suspect it was Morricone who stole from Nicolai. Anyway 6-7/10.
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