7 posts tagged “classic movies”
Originally posted on my old blog on April 29, 2006:
This afternoon we watched The Lady Vanishes, a 1938 Alfred Hitchcock movie. The plot was a little ridiculous, as were the plots of a lot of the movies Hitchcock made, but it was entertaining and worth the time spent. It's essentially a European spy thriller, which made it all the more interesting given the time period.
This is the original Scarlet Pimpernel, 1934. The sound quality was rather poor, but it was still fun to watch. It's a masked avenger adventure along the same lines of Zorro, if you aren't familiar with the story. Set during the time of the French Reign of Terror, this is a story about an upper-class British peer who in his spare time sneaks into France and helps smuggle noble families out before they can be marched to the guillotine.
The Reign of Terror was a horrifically bloody time, in which about 40,000 people were executed in France. It makes you wonder why more fiction hasn't been based on this time period.
I've finally watched To Kill a Mocking Bird, the classic 1962 Gregory Peck movie about racial prejudice in the South. Strix loves this movie, and I'm sure it's not just because she has a crush on the young Gregory Peck. It's actually a very good story. I've seen the play, before, and the movie is better than the productions I have seen of the play.
From a literary point of view, what I like about it is that it tackles a very, very serious and adult subject by diverting the attention away from the adult point of view and focusing on what the children see. This allows the audience to see the story from a child-like perspective. It's a beautiful way of framing the story.
I also greatly enjoyed the performance from Mary Badham, who played the young version of the erstwhile narrator of the story.
It's interesting, by the way, that Ms. Badham hasn't been in a movie since 1966, but she was in a movie in 2005. There is no picture of her on IMDB. I'm interested to watch the movie she was in recently just to see what she looks like now.
Originally posted on my old blog on November 6th, 2004:
Christina and I watched one of our Netflix movies tonight, Paper Moon. Although it came out in 1973, it's filmed in black and white, and has a much older look to it. It's set in depression-era Nebraska and Kansas, with a foray into Missouri at the end, and the feel and look of the movie seem very authentic. It is the story of a relationship between a man who stops at an old girlfriend's funeral and the young daughter of that old girlfriend. He gets convinced to take her to St. Joseph, Missouri, where her aunt lives, but along the way he uses her - and, as it turns out, she uses him - to pull off a series of small con jobs.
Although very slow in some parts, and certainly not a traditional story with a definite flow of conflict-to-resolution, the movie has its bright points, primarily found in the witticisms passed between the man and the little girl, incidentally played by father and daughter Ryan O'Neal and Tattum O'Neal, in her debut role. My favorite line:
Moses Pray : I got scruples too, you know. You know what that is? Scruples?
Addie Loggins : No, I don't know what it is, but if you got 'em, it's a sure bet they belong to somebody else!
Originally posted on my old blog on October 30th, 2004:
Since it is Halloween weekend, we moved Seance on a Wet Afternoon to the top of our Netflix list earlier this week, and watched it today. It is a black and white 1964 thriller set in London, in which a woman who believes she is a medium concocts a plan with her Walter Mitty-like husband to kidnap the little girl of a wealthy citizen. Then, after hiding the girl and the money from the ransom, she could use her psychic powers to help the family find their daughter and the cash, thus increasing her notoriety. Of course, it doesn't all go according to plan, not in the least because the medium is a very cracked woman. The movie is a little slow in places, as most movies from that period seem to be, but the story and acting were very well done, and the dialog was curiously modern, if minimalistic at times.
Originally posted on my old blog on September 26th, 2004:
This was a long movie for its time, but it never felt like it drug on. Humphrey Bogart was, of course, great as he always was, but I was even more surprised by Tim Holt's timeless performance. His acting style wouldn't be out of place on a stage or set today. Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt play down and out Americans in Tampico, Mexico, who team up with an knowledgable but equally down-and-out old prospector, played by Walter Huston who won an Oscar for the role, to go out into the wilds of Mexico looking for gold. They find it, but of course the story doesn't end there. They encounter a number of obstacles between themselves and wealth, not the least of which is their own paranoia and greed.
I just finished watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The influence of this movie from 1939 can be seen in a lot of more modern movies, like The American President and Dave, and it's easy to see why it's had such a lasting effect. It's really just a terrific story, and a brave one too, probably, for the time period. The story a person trying to stand up for what's right in a world of compromise is one a lot of us can relate to.
It's not about being perfect or being right all the time. No one can do that. But it's about not giving up and just accepting what's handed to us. That I can definitely understand.
