criterionforum.org

Peacock wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2026 6:21 pm Just announced:

The Lost Patrol* (1934)
Skyscraper Souls (1932)
Dear Heart (1964)
Bundle of Joy (1956)

*A beautiful little Ford that I was hoping would get an an upgrade.

What A Disgrace wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2026 7:18 pm Marked Woman (1937) as well

Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote:Inspired by Thomas Dewey’s indictment of Lucky Luciano—at a trial where many prostitutes who suffered at the gangster’s hands testified against him—this gritty 1937 Warners crime movie is one of the least compromised melodramas of the period in expressing solidarity with women. Co-starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, written by Robert Rossen and Abem Finkel, and directed by Lloyd Bacon, it’s one of the key films discussed in the 1995 video documentary Red Hollywood, and it packs a serious punch. With Jane Bryan, Eduardo Cianneli, and Isabel Jewell.

FrauBlucher wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2026 7:38 pm THE GREAT WALZ (1938) Duvivier
PLEASE DON’T EAT THE DAISIES (1960)

domino harvey wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2013 1:56 am Ryan's Daughter (David Lean 1970) By no charitable meaning could I be accused of being a Lean fan, but I still wasn't expecting this film to be actively awful. Three and a half hours of idiotic narrative that only exists to occasionally show off the Irish seaside. Poor Robert Mitchum is cuckold to Sarah Miles, as she cats around with a British soldier who for some reason is instantly irresistible to Miles despite the fact that he may or may not have been portrayed by one of those lifesize cardboard cutouts from Spencer's Gifts. Trevor Howard's in the mix as a hard-drinking Catholic priest and John Mills keeps alive the Oscars' streak of awarding statues to characters they feel sorry for with his grotesque town idiot. If there has ever been a worse performance that garnered an Oscar, I'd like to know it, because this is my area of expertise and I am coming up blank.

domino harvey wrote: Sat Apr 16, 2011 11:39 pm Boys Town Well, I liked this one more than the rest of you, apparently. Tracy, while not being Oscar-worthy, does respectable work here, and Taurog shows again as in Skippy a talent for directing young performers. The final election in the movie doesn't really make any narrative sense, but I suppose the audience is supposed to be too carried away with the emotions to notice. Whoops. As far as hagiographic Catholic paeans go, you could do a lot worse...

...and the proof is out there: I liked the film enough to check out the Taurog-directed sequel, Men of Boys Town, which was a mistake. Lee J Cobb shows up and is wasted, Tracy relegates himself to a supporting role, and Mickey Rooney is pushed to the center, meaning, unsurprisingly, the film takes a more comic tone than its predecessor. The hamminess of the first half makes the weird switch to "high (melo)drama" concerning reform school dangers in the film's latter half all the more jarring and unconvincing. Also, here is a movie that takes great pains to point out that systematic physical abuse of minors is unacceptable, then gives the audience a running gag about one young character who is so obnoxious that everyone he talks to has to literally stop themselves from assaulting him. Good lesson! Also the film hinges on an audience's ability to forget that the "sympathetic" cripple at the center of the action is actually a convicted murderer.

therewillbeblus wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2026 7:50 pm Please Don’t Eat the Daisies... where are the TV series?

domino harvey wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2026 12:57 am Please Don’t Eat the Daisies is execrable, no wonder it was turned into a sitcom it already was one

therewillbeblus wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2026 8:02 pm Though supposedly Dear Heart is good