Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Reviews of movies I have seen.

The Steel Helmet (1951)

Posted on June 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

The Steel HelmetSteel Helmet Poster
Directed by Samuel Fuller
1951/USA
Deputy Corporation
First viewing

 

[box] Sergeant Zack: Look, Lieutenant, you got nuthin’ out there but rice paddies crawlin’ with Commies just waitin’ to slap you between two big hunks of rye bread and wash you down with fish eggs and vodka.[/box]

This Korean War noir is an ultra-low-budget gem from early in writer-director Sam Fuller’s career.  I love Fuller’s off-kilter style.  This was made in only the sixth month of the conflict.

Sargeant Zack (Gene Evans) is the lone survivor of an attack on his unit.  A South Korean youngster unbinds his wrists and tags along and Zack tries to rejoin his regiment.  They meet up first with a medic, similarly a lone survivor, and then with a ragtag unit who are headed to set up an observation post at a Buddhist temple.  The group trades banter between facing attacks from the North Koreans.

steel helmet 1

This starts out characteristically odd but it soon turned taut and engrossing.  The dialogue is sharp and hard-boiled.  I liked Fuller’s commentary on U.S. race relations.  Fuller was investigated by the FBI for this film when a critique of the detention of Japanese-Americans in World War II and a scene show

Clip

 

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Posted in Movie Reviews, Noir Month

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30 Days of Film Noir

Posted on June 1, 2013 | 7 comments

I take a break from the regularly scheduled programming to enjoy 30 days watching and reviewing little else but film noir beginning today.  I will be going on vacation from June 7 to 15 and won’t be able to post.  I’ll wrap up around July 7.  I’ll review the very few films I have left from 1935 in the next few days and will continue to review the weekly selections from the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Blog Club.

I’m pretty excited about this and hope you will join me.

 

What is film noir?  Clip from the documentary Visions of Light

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Posted in Movie Reviews

Annie Oakley (1935)

Posted on May 28, 2013 | 2 comments

Annie Oakleyannie oakley poster
Directed by George Stevens
1935/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing

 

 

Toby Walker: Well dog my cats!

This well-made romantic biopic exceeded my expectations.   Annie Oakley (Barbara Stanwyck) hunts quail to support her family.  She is famous for being able to kill them with one shot to the head.  When the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show hires world champion sharpshooter Toby Walker (Preston Foster), Toby bets he can beat any comer.  Hotel management, which has been buying Annie’s quail, calls on Annie to challenge him. Buffalo Bill talent scout Jeff Hogarth (Melvyn Douglas) is impressed with Annie’s shooting  and with Annie and hires her for the show.   Annie and Toby become close but an accident enables Jeff to part them.  The movie also features several sequences of acts from the show.  With Moroni Olsen as Buffalo Bill and Chief Thunderbird as Sitting Bull.

Annie Oakley 2

The more movies I see that are directed by George Stevens the more taken with him I am.  He seems to bring something to all his films that makes me care about the characters.  Barbara Stanwyck’s Annie is far softer and more feminine than the character portrayed in Annie Get Your Gun but still quite believable as a sharpshooter.  There is a nice helping of humor thrown in with the romance.

Trailer

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Posted in 1935, Movie Reviews

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Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Posted on May 27, 2013 | 4 comments

Grave of the Fireflies (“Hotaru no haka”)Grave of the Fireflies Poster
Directed by Isao Takahata
1988/Japan
Shinchosha Company/Studio Ghibli
Repeat viewing
#787 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
IMDb users say 8.4/10; I say 9/10

 

[box] Setsuko: Why must fireflies die so young?[/box]

Memorial Day is a fitting time to reflect on all the lives lost to war, including those of the most innocent. American should give thanks that civilians have not suffered the horrors of world war on our shores.  This animated film poignantly brings home the cost of war to children in other parts of the world.

Grave of the Fireflies 3

The date is September 25, 1945.  The place is Japan.  The narrator informs us that he died today.  His name is Seita and he is a young adolescent boy, between about 12 and  14.  The film tells his story and that of his pre-school age sister Setsuko.

Their mother is killed at a shelter in a fire bombing; father is away at war.  The children head for an aunt’s house.  The aunt takes them in but increasingly makes it clear that they are an inconvenience.  Furthermore, she constantly nags Seita about his failure to work in the war industry or fight fires during the air raids.  Eventually, she starts withholding the best of the food from the children on the ground that they are not pulling their weight.

Disgusted, Seita decides the children will be better off on their own and takes his sister to an abandoned shelter in the country.  At first, they live a kind of carefree life but rapidly the struggle for survival takes over.  Seita resorts to stealing but even that is not enough.

Grave of the Fireflies 1

It is fortunate that this film is animated.  A live action film detailing the hardships these poor children must suffer would be just too hard to take.  This is sad enough as it is.  The animation is extremely beautiful, as is the music.  The relationship between the brother and sister is very touching and kind.  The film is not totally downbeat.  There are many lovely scenes of the children playing together.

Trailer

 

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Movie Reviews

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Curly Top (1935)

Posted on May 25, 2013 | 2 comments

Curly TopCurly Top Poster
Directed by Irving Cummings
1935/USA
Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing

 

 

Reynolds: My word, miss. You *are* a package.

This is the kind of movie that gives Shirley Temple a bad name in some circles.  Elizabeth Blair (Shirley Temple) and her grown-up sister Mary (Rochelle Hudson) are orphans living in an asylum.  One day when the trustees are visiting the home, a new, immensely wealthy, handsome young trustee Edward Morgan (John Boles) espies Elizabeth singing “Animal Crackers” to her fellow orphans and it is love at first sight.  He brings the sisters to his Southhampton summer home where everyone, including the servants, goes gaga over the little moptop and Morgan falls in love with Mary.

Curly Top 1

I’m proud to be a Shirley Temple fan but this one is not good.  She is almost too cute and nothing rings true.  The songs are OK, though Boles has a couple of numbers that I could have lived without as well.

“Animal Crackers”

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Posted in 1935, Movie Reviews

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)

Posted on May 24, 2013 | 4 comments

A Midsummer Night’s DreamMidsummer Night's Dream Poster
Directed by William Dieterle and Max Reinhardt
1935/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing

 

 

 Puck: Lord, what fools these mortals be!

This big-screen adaptation of the popular Shakespearean comedy has its plusses and minuses.  The story takes place on the eve of the marriage of the Duke of Athens to the Queen of the Amazons.  Four young lovers congregate in a wood on the same night some rustics are rehearsing for a performance at the wedding feast.  The king and queen of the fairies and their minions amuse themselves by playing tricks on the mortals and each other.  With an all-star cast, including Olivia de Havilland in her stage debut as Hermia, Dick Powell as Lysander, James Cagney as Bottom, Joe E. Brown as Flute, Mickey Rooney as Puck, and Anita Louise as Titania, Queen of the Fairies.

Midsummer Night's Dream 1

This film was not a box-office success and I can see why.  It takes some getting used to.   The production is absolutely beautiful and brilliantly conveys the enchanted world of the fairies.  The film is gloriously scored to Mendelssohn’s incidental music for the play, as orchestrated by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.   The cinematography by Hal Mohr and art direction by Anton Grot are spectacular.

In my opinion, the performances are much less successful.  This film was based on a Max Reinhardt production at the Hollywood Bowl and I attribute some of the truly weird acting choices to Reinhardt.  For example, the fairy characters, and especially Puck, shriek, laugh, and make strange noises to convey their other-worldliness.   It is very odd.  Mickey Rooney’s performance was downright irritating, almost embarrassing, for me.  Cagney and the other rustics are pretty good.  Of the lovers, de Havilland is the standout.

The film won Oscars for editing and cinematography.  Hal Mohr had not been nominated and was the first and only recipient to win an award based on a write-in vote.  It was also nominated for Best Picture.

General Release Trailer

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Posted in 1935, Movie Reviews

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The Little Colonel (1935)

Posted on May 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

The Little Colonellittle_colonel poster
Directed by David Butler
1935/USA
Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing

 

Walker: Looks like this old house ain’t gonna be lonesome no more.

This Shirley Temple film is memorable for a couple of fantastic tap dance sequences with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and a choral number at an African-American baptism.

It is 1870’s Kentucky.  When Elizabeth Lloyd elopes with a Northerner, her proud rebel father (Lionel Barrymore), Colonel Lloyd, disowns her.  Six years later Elizabeth and her husband Jack Sherman go out West to make their fortune and their daughter Lloyd (Shirley Temple) Sherman is made an honorary colonel by an adoring outpost regiment.  Mother and daughter return to Kentucky while father searches for a property to invest in.  Although  the Colonel is still not speaking to his daughter, little Lloyd rapidly wins the old man’s heart.  Can she bring her mother and grandfather together?  With Bill Robinson as Walker, the Colonel’s servant, and Hattie McDaniel as Mom Beck, Elizabeth’s nursemaid and cook.

Little colonel 1

The Colonel is portrayed as a cranky, angry old man and he frequently denigrates Walker, who fortunately responds with perfect dignity.  The general portrayal of African-Americans in the film is of its time.  That said, Hattie McDaniel and especially Bill Robinson are the standouts in the picture, which is worth seeing just to see Robinson dance.  The film ends with a brief Technicolor sequence.

Shirley and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson tap up the stairs

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Posted in 1935, Movie Reviews

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Roberta (1935)

Posted on May 21, 2013 | 6 comments

RobertaRoberta Poster
Directed by William A. Seiter
1935/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
Repeat viewing

 

[box] I won’t dance, why should I?/ I won’t dance, how could I? I won’t dance/ Merci beaucoup, I know that music leads the way to romance/ So if I hold you in my arms I won’t dance —  “I Won’t Dance”, lyrics by by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh[/box]

Astaire and Rogers are fine in supporting roles in this screen adaptation of a Broadway musical penned by Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Otto Harbach.

Roberta is the chicest of Parisian fashion houses.   John (Randolph Scott), a sports hero who knows nothing about fashion inherits it from his Aunt Minnie who founded the business.  He becomes partners with his aunt’s assistant and house designer Stephanie (Irene Dunne), a deposed Russian princess.  The “Countess Scharwenka” (Ginger Rogers) is an important client and leading nightclub entertainer.  It turns out that she is actually Liz, a boyhood neighbor of bandleader Huck (Fred Astaire).  Liz gets Huck work in her act and John and Stephanie fall in love, not without many misadventures along the way.

 

Roberta 1

As usual, Fred and Ginger put a smile on my face.  Ginger is particularly good here as the fake countess, complete with Polish accent.  Irene Dunne is in top form both as an actress and a singer.  Even Randolph Scott cracks a smile and loosens up a bit.  Some beautiful standards came out of this: “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” ; “I’ll Be Hard to Handle”; “Lovely to Look At”; and “I Won’t Dance.”  All the lovely 30’s dresses are an additional bonus.

“I Won’t Dance” – And he can play the piano like that!

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Posted in 1935, Movie Reviews

Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916)

Posted on May 21, 2013 | 10 comments

Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the AgesIntolerance Poster
Directed by D. W. Griffith
1916/USA
Triangle Film Corporation/Wark Producing
Repeat viewing
#5 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
IMDb users say 7.9; I say 5.0

 

Prince Belshazzar: [to his princess beloved] The fragrant mystery of your body is greater than the mystery of life.

My definition of a movie I’m glad I don’t have to see again before I die:  any 3+ hour D.W. Griffith silent epic.  I already knew that bad things happen to good people, thank you very much.  Why did you have to take so long to make your point, Mr. Griffith?

I will dispense with a plot summary.  It is sufficient to note that there are four stories linked by an image of Lillian Gish as the eternal mother endlessly rocking a cradle.  The stories take place in ancient Babylon; New-Testament Israel; 16th Century France; and modern-day New York.  Most of them end very badly indeed for the protagonists. There is a last-minute rescue in one of the stories so we don’t all go out and commit suicide.

Intolerance 1

To be fair, this film obviously represented an important technical achievement for its time. There are also moments of some beauty.  For me these are overshadowed by the general tedium and Griffith’s infantilization of women.

All Griffith’s women leads have been directed to prance around and pull “cute” faces – that is when they are not weeping.  Even the Mountain Girl, who shows some bravery and initiative, behaves more like an eight-year-old tomboy than a woman warrior. I found Mae Marsh particularly annoying, though she can also be very touching as well.  Griffith was lucky to find Lillian Gish, who always rises above her material.

I admit that I am influenced by my prejudice against epics and spectaculars in general.  It seems to me that the more extras appear in a movie the less I like it, with some rare exceptions.  Your mileage may vary.

Restoration Trailer

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Movie Reviews

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If You Could Only Cook (1935)

Posted on May 20, 2013 | 2 comments

If You Could Only CookIf You Could Only Cook Poster
Directed by William A. Sieter
1935/USA
Columia Pictures Corporation
First viewing

 

[box] Joan Hawthorne: Say… can you buttle?[/box]

In this pleasant romantic comedy, Jim Buchanan (Herbert Marshall), a young automobile magnate, is soon to wed a gold-digging socialite.  His innovative designs are being rejected by the Board of his company.  He walks out in a huff and meets Joan (Jean Arthur) leafing through the want ads on a park bench.  Joan assumes Jim is out of work too and when she spots an ad for a cook-butler couple suggests they try for the job.  They are hired and later discover the boss (Leo Carrillo) is an ex-bootlegger gangster.  Naturally, they fall in love but their potential romance is prey to several misunderstandings.

IfYouCouldOnlyCook1

I enjoyed this film, mostly thanks to the charm and appeal of its stars.  I can never help rooting for Jean Arthur.  The DVD is part of the “Icons of Screwball Comedy” set.  I think it is misadvertised, being more of a true romantic comedy with plenty of sentiment and little wise cracking.

In England, Columbia promoted the film as a Frank Capra production. Capra, the top director at the studio sued Columbia for unlawful use of his name. The parties settled.  Jean Arthur went on to star in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, the next film Capra directed at the studio.

Clip

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Posted in 1935, Movie Reviews

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