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Caught up with the Arzners on the channel before they expire and really enjoyed dance girl dance, I particularly thought the pacing was superb and Ball knocked it out of the park. Was completely stunned when O’Hara got her big scene with the audience, never expected that. Loved lots of little touches and decisions, like the way she costumes the Russian mentor, or the strategies OHara used to get away from unwelcome sidewalk advances, probably the only Hollywood film of This era where the girl reacts to that with “ew ew ew go away leave me alone” rather than falling instantly in love. And the irony that it’s a fairly gay man who is definitely not trying to proposition her is rather delicious and another neat little inversion that peppers this film.

Also nice was the leading cast member seeing a ballet and deciding she wasn’t that good, rather than just leaping in and instantly being the best.

Just a very fun, fast paced little gem with great dialogue and a lot of fascinating elements.

swo17 wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 7:00 pm Have you guys seen him in The Upturned Glass? He does some great eye acting in that one

I watched this tonight on your suggestion, and didn’t realize until about the 2/3 mark that I’d seen it before. It’s a good film until that mark and then it becomes increasingly better by the minute until it shifts into a perfect blend of all the suspenseful traits of a psychological thriller. The final shot is one for the ages, and despite its bleakness the decisions feel honest, each time emerging as the only possible next stage when actions stacked become fate.

Glad you liked it!

His Girl Friday must have about as much dialogue as any other film... fast-talking, overlapping constant patter: and all of it's brilliant.

I love the reporters' room, showcasing different styles, slants and made-up elements in house style(s).

Hands down my favourite moment is the (ad-libbed?) line from Rosalind Russell when Cary Grant brags about his health. She says "..it was never anything to brag about," and even after an obvious cut, Grant can't keep his face straight after that innuendous line.

The plot is wildly un-PC and very reliant on coincidence, predictive reactions and scurrilous manipulation. But it's also brilliantly crafted - just enough of The Front Page, just enough mugging and a surprising amount of heart.

ntnon wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2019 3:42 am His Girl Friday must have about as much dialogue as any other film... fast-talking, overlapping constant patter: and all of it's brilliant.

The strongest direction of dialogue I can think of off hand. Of course credit must be given to Russell, Grant, and everyone who contributed to the script, but I don’t know how you can make this work even a little bit, let alone perfectly. It’s not my favorite Hawks, but it might be his most impressive film in how flawlessly he executes the task at bringing such a layered screenplay to life.

Fred MacMurray's birthday today... he made around thirty films released between 1940-49.

I know how domino will be celebrating

Ha, while it’s true that I don’t like MacMurray, like at all, in the spirit of the day he did make a great and vastly underseen musical for Fox during the war, Where Do We Go From Here? (1945), which follows MacMurray’s genie-assisted adventures through history after he is rejected by the Army for service. He is admittedly quite good here, and his vaudeville-style physicality is somewhat surprising compared to his usual screen persona, though he apparently grew up near the stage so he probably always had it in his back pocket. Some wonderful long take musical numbers here— really all around one of the best musicals to ever come out of Fox

At 77 minutes I think that’s a digestible dose of the actor, and as a fellow MacMurray-unenthusiast I’ll check it out on your rec. I’m sure this has been said before, but I’ve always loved him in The Apartment precisely because his screen presence is so unlikeable to me yet seemingly liked by so many others. Wilder couldn’t have picked a better actor to play a character with essentially the same relationship in the film, liked by his peers and worshiped by women yet clear-as-day horrible and uninteresting to only Baxter and the audience. It’s like an unintentional meta-evaluation that validates the gaslit perspective on both the suave jerks of the world and MacMurray himself. Or at least that’s how I like to read it.

Still though, it's a shame Wilder's first choice for the role, Paul Douglas, died just before filming started. He'd have brought a different energy for sure, but I think he could hit the smarm notes of MacMurray without the face-punchability-- indeed, his innate likability might have brought a complexity to the triangle in the Apartment that's not really present as-is

Or perhaps all those who are genuinely wooed by MacMurray’s “charms” already get that complex experience from watching the film, and we’ve been watching a different movie all these years! (cue Conspiracy Keanu meme)

Double Indemnity - I don't mind Fred MacMurray, and I do like Barbara Stanwyck. This is not her best film, and both are outclassed by Edward G. Robinson's relentnessless. The plot, despite a lot of intrigues piled upon melodramas seems neither particularly surprising, despite the twistiness, nor plausible, despite the relative inevitability of the A + B + C compounding circumstances.

Topper Returns, albeit without Cary Grant (again). But with Joan Blondell - who shares a birthday with MacMurray - as a new ghostly presence. Roland Young dithers his way through the fairly tepid plot, and Billie Burke is both hilariois and utterly insane (as usual) as incidental - and non-seq - comic relief. The villain is mildly surprising, the stock stereotypical chauffeur gets to face off with a seal and the invisibility special effects are pretty decent.

Scarlet Street - I assume the title refers to the Scarlet letter, and the broad supporting characters are cardboard cutouts of the most facile type. Edward G. really sells his central role as a desperate, lonely, hopeful artist who manages to hit the big time through the most inopportune circumstances, and then noir his way into a mental breakdown by losing everything.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is a much better Stanwyck vehicle, possibly because she's much more torn here between manipulated and manipulative. The fourth side of the triangle is only there to add some kind of tension to the story but is underdeveloped and shallow. The three leads do a good job of being completely lost in the roles they fell into because of circumstances and misfortune. The ending is a little odd, if wrapped up. One wonders how the next morning would play out, however..

Hm. I just counted 130+ 1940s films on The Channel, and at least another 38 on disc... and in theory, they're all "great" films. And that's without non-CC titles. Or shorts. Going to be a busy few months.

Antoine et Antoinette (Becker 1947). This definitely is a piece of fluff like domino wrote in the Cannes list project. The odd thing is that the losing-the-lottery-ticket plot doesn’t start until halfway through. Before then it’s all just about the charm of the characters and their living circumstances. There’s some interest to be had in the pre-New Wave abundance of Parisian exterior shooting, and contextualizing this couple as young working class people struggling in the immediate post-war French society, but it’s not much more than a lightly pleasant trifle.


The Harvey Girls (Sidney 1946). This is a pretty good comedy-in-a-western-setting to begin with, providing a solid foundation for the musical scaffolding. Some of those numbers are extremely creative and ingenious, although the most spectacular occur in the first half. The second part of the film suffers just a bit from occasional lapses in the narrative because of the overabundance of singing or dancing numbers. Garland’s masterful-as-usual performance both as comedienne and singer really elevates this already compelling if very light-hearted material.



I’ve Always Loved You (Borzage 1946). A Pygmalionesque tale involving a famous musical conductor and the domineering control he has over the young concert pianist he “creates”. It’s kind of obvious that Scorsese included this in his Cinetek alternative list given that the parallels with his beloved Red Shoes are so obvious (the music quite takes center stage at one point in the same way the ballet does in the Archers’ film), and because it’s another take on the incompatibility of art and romantic love (see New York, New York). The film is quintessentially Borzagean in that it’s both imperfectly awkward and slightly unhinged, especially in that ending. It’s good to hear there’s a restoration coming because the excessive but pretty colors that are a part of the film’s strangeness deserve better than the print used on the Olive blu-ray (the bad sound is also brutal for some of the piano playing). The three lead actors are definitely stiff and part of the awkwardness, but somehow I found that seemed to fit the tone of this film. Odd but noteworthy.



Good News (Walters 1947). This film just wowed me. Story-wise it’s just this innocuous college romance yarn but right from the start the film is woven by one amazingly smart, energetic and creatively choreographed number after another – you hardly have time to catch your breath before the music starts again -, and it’s a pleasure to watch this narrative unfold by song as much as by dialogue. The songs are clever and tuneful, and even though the pace relents a bit in the second half the script is strong enough to carry the film through. Just really enjoyable candy, and it’s by far the most enjoyable musical I’ve seen so far this decade, and possibly the only one to make my list (with only three left to view for this list project, albeit renowned ones).


House of Strangers (Mankiewicz 1949). Shades of The Godfather here, with this Sicilian immigrant family lording it over the poor neighborhood, and disintegrating into animosity. Strange mixture of a noir and a family melodrama. This was pretty good while at the same time not being completely 100% satisfying in the end, with an intense side love affair involving the always dependable Susan Hayward, and Edward G. Robinson delivering another very solid late 40s performance. Lots of good bits and scenes to enjoy, like the way papa dominates the family dinner with his loud opera. That and other moments made me laugh, without taking me out of the film either.

I recently watched Good News again just to validate its high placement on my own list and I was surprised to find that, while I had felt similarly about the first half being stronger on my initial viewing, I actually liked the second half more this time. Once the ‘problem’ occurs in this pretty predictable plot line, the story should screech to a halt, but as you point out the script is so strong that it actually shifts into quite a good comedy. The entire last half hour basically functions as a series of setpieces or smaller gags that stunt the growth of the plot and stop the film from ending sooner (i.e. the French professor’s unexpected response to the deliberate yet passive attempt to fail) until one brief gag propels it into checkmate (the hilarious script-reading trick on the gold digging ‘villain’). In this way I guess the pacing is off by nature, but compared to other films with generic plot structures like these, often rom-coms, that almost always deliver a final act slowing down hard to focus on the presentation of a ‘problem’ and recovery from that situation, this has to be one of the better and breezy third acts of that lot. I’m glad this film is getting a lot of love in this thread, and yeah it’s only one of two musicals on my list as well.

And it does end of course in song with another terrific high-spirited number.

I'm not familiar with other "college musicals" (what are their titles?) to be able to compare, but I was struck with the parallels with Grease and wondered if this film specifically was an inspiration: boys or girls singing together tunes, the somewhat goody-two-shoes blonde lead, romantic betrayals and on-again-off-again link-ups, the school dance, a slightly sticking out 30-year-old June Allyson playing a teen (Newton-John), Allyson getting her bedroom lament number over the lover-not-yet-in-her-possession (Just Imagine, Hopelessly Devoted to You), etc.

Guess I need to buy Good News... Warner Archive?

Meet John Doe is a powerful - if hackneyed - plea for decency and humanity, albeit wrapped up in deceit and money-making. Which is a fantastic paradox. When Gary Cooper gives his radio speech at the halfway mark, he says "Tear down the fence that separates you. Tear down the fence and you'll tear down a lot of hates and prejudices." In the present era of fractures and wall-building (literal and metaphorical), even if the speech starts as a phoney... it's something that needs to be heard.

Those with the DVD of Good News, be sure to watch the deleted number. If it was in the movie, no joke it would be the second best number of the film behind Pass the Peace Pipe, what on earth was MGM thinking??

Well now I have (an excuse) to rent it a third time to look for that!

RV: Make sure you have Dmytryk’s Broken Lance lined up for next decade, as it’s a western remake of House of Strangers that’s actually better than the original!

ntnon: I love Strange Love Of Martha Ivers and will def be voting for it. I think the ending is beautifully twisted and dark, even for this genre, and the unusually long running time really allows this to have an epic feel.

If you’re looking for another good Robinson movie that’s easier to see than Night Has a Thousand Eyes (which is excellent, as TWBB has mentioned), I recommend another strong PD noir, Delmer Daves’ unusual “teen noir” the Red House. The final death scene is one of the most inspired bits of visual creativity in any noir

21 Days' melodramatic moral soul-searching and ethical debating would perhaps be stronger without the handy convenience of the decision-defying ending. Doing the right thing for the right reasons is an interesting ethical quandary, but being allowed an out undercuts that.

domino harvey wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 11:47 pm Those with the DVD of Good News, be sure to watch the deleted number. If it was in the movie, no joke it would be the second best number of the film behind Pass the Peace Pipe, what on earth was MGM thinking??

Which DVD? Is it on the WArchive disc, or no?

I have the original DVD that came in a snapper case. My understanding with WA DVD-Rs that bring back older OOP DVDs is they are exact replicas of the previous discs in terms of content, but I couldn’t say for certain. Interestingly though, it looks like the DVD-R is OOP too... could it be coming to Criterion?

Yes it is on the Warner Archive (ordered it through Amazon just this last month) - that's the one I watched and saw the deleted number.

Rewatched Heaven Can Wait via Criterion’s stunning disc, has all the usual Lubitsch charm and wit that are also demonstrated in The Shop Around the Corner and To Be or Not To Be, but is this also one of the best shot films of the 40s?

The cinematography and production design are very intricately put together as is the way the colour of the costumes is used together with the colour of the production.

And Gene Tierney continues to hypnotise me.