An affair is about to be consummated in a planned trip to Venice, but complications ensue when the woman’s husband returns unexpectedly from the Olympics. Cary Grant is the javelin-wielding Olympian in his first feature film. For probably the last time he gets fifth billing behind, among others, a sparkling Thelma Todd and Charlie Ruggles.
Very pre-code in its sensibility, with clear references to Lubitsch.Read More »
from Noir City 17
Quote:
Boozy assistant DA Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey) reels from a stifling marriage into an affair with the mysterious Thelma Jordon (Barbara Stanwyck). He’s so smitten, and besotted, he misses the warning signs: Thelma has a sickly aunt loaded with dough and spends lots of time in the arms of shadowy and sinister Tony Laredo (Richard Rober). Something bad is bound to happen … and when it does Cleve winds up working both sides of the law. Noir master Siodmak does a spellbinding job with a terrific script, and Stanwyck—Queen of Noir—offers a terrific, two-faced turn in one of her most rarely screened films.Read More »
Quote:
Playboy Andy Mason, on leave from the army, romances showgirl Eadie Allen overnight to such effect that she’s starry-eyed when he leaves next morning for active duty in the Pacific. Only trouble is, he gave her the assumed name of Casey. Andy’s eventual return with a medal is celebrated by his rich father with a benefit show featuring Eadie’s show troupe, at which she’s sure to learn his true identity…and meet Vivian, his ‘family-arrangement’ fiancée. Mostly song and dance.Read More »
A late entry from Frank Borzage and hs first “prestige” picture in years, after being cut loose from the Majors during his personal heyday of the 1920s and 30s.
This was Republic’s first Technicolor feature (and Borzage’s second). The color palette Republic concocted for the film is bizarre to say the least – dominant are pinks, purples, wedgewood blues, mauve, taupe, lilac, with highlights of orange aqua and apricot. The general tone of hyperreality is enhanced further with set design that extends to underfurnished rooms, and cavernous spaces and headroom, like the concert hall wiith virtually surreal intrusions of doric columns and poritcos as decorative objects.Read More »
After a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.Read More »
Quote:
In the future, crime is out of control and New York City’s Manhattan is a maximum security prison. Grabbing a bargaining chip right out of the air, convicts bring down the President’s plane in bad old Gotham. Gruff Snake Plissken, a one-eyed lone warrior new to prison life, is coerced into bringing the President, and his cargo, out of this land of undesirables.Read More »
Quote:
On the eve of his third marriage, Caveh tells the story of how his attraction to prostitutes and his compulsive honesty combined to destroy each of his past relationships. The genre-bending mix of camera address, re-enactment, and home movie footage make for a strikingly funny and original film.Read More »
In London, sculptor Ivan Igor struggles in vain to prevent his partner Worth from burning his wax museum…and his ‘children.’ Years later, Igor starts a new museum in New York, but his maimed hands confine him to directing lesser artists. People begin disappearing (including a corpse from the morgue); Igor takes a sinister interest in Charlotte Duncan, fiancée of his assistant Ralph, but arouses the suspicions of Charlotte’s roommate, wisecracking reporter Florence.Read More »
The Three Mesquiteers was the umbrella title for a series of fifty-one B-westerns released between 1936 and 1943. The films featured the characters Stony Brooke, Tucson Smith and Lullaby Joslin or Rusty Joslin as the threesome; played by many B-western stars of that era. In 1938, John Wayne took over for Robert Livingston as Stony Brooke and starred in eight Mesquiteers films between 1938 and 1939, he was joined by Ray Corrigan as Tucson Smith and Max Terhune as Lullaby Joslin for the first six and Raymond Hatton as Rusty Joslin for the last two… all eight films were directed by George Sherman (Big Jake). Read More »