Flickers in Time

Drunken Master (Zui quan)
Directed by Woo-Ping Yuen
Written by Lung Hsiao and See-Yuen Ng
1978/Hong Kong
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Jim Ti-Sam: I’ll break every bone in your body… and send you to hell.

I gave this Jackie Chan kung-fu movie a chance and regretted it.

I’ll be brief.  Jackie Chan plays the skilled and hot-headed son of a master in kung fu.  He gets in a fight with the wrong person and his father punishes him by putting him under the harsh tulelage of a master in drunken kung-fu.  I stopped paying attention about half-way in.

I put this on because I thought it might be amusing given its 7.4/10 IMDb rating.  This is a crass slapstick comedy where pratfalls are substituted with cartoonish martial arts face-offs.  The fights are almost non-stop and although the moves are meant to be funny as well as impressive, they are also over-the-top violent.  Life is really too short.

Death on the Nile
Directed by John Guillermin
Written by Anthony Shaffer from a novel by Agatha Christie
1978/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

Jim Ferguson: You damn froggy eavesdropper.
Hercule Poirot: Belgian! Belgian eavesdropper!

All-star cast plays second fiddle to fabulous cinematography and art and costume design in this fun murder mystery.

As the movie begins, Jaqueline De Bellefort (Mia Farrow) visits her friend heiress Linette Ridgeway (Lois Chiles) and asks her to give Jackie’s fiance Simon Doyle (Simon MacCorkindale) a job on her estate. Linnet agrees to interview Simon. The next thing we see is Linett and Simon emerging from a chapel and setting off on a luxurious honeymoon in Egypt. Jackie stalks them throughout. It would be criminal to reveal any more about the plot though it is a given that everyone is a suspect. Instead look at this supporting cast! Jane Birkin, Bette Davis, Jon Finch, Olivia Hussey, George Kennedy, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, Maggie Smith and Jack Warden all have juicy parts.

For me, neither the plot nor the actors are the high spots of the movie. It is the sumptuous  reconstruction of 1920’s dress and furnishings and the gorgeous color photography by Jack Cardiff that carried me away. To add to my enjoyment, the locations brought back memories of a cruise my husband and I took down the Nile many years ago.

Death on the Nile won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

Piccadilly Jim
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
Written by Charles Brackett and Edwin K. Knopf from a novel by P.G. Wodehouse
1936/US
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

James Crocker, Jr.: Have you, by any chance, formed the wrong impression of me?
Ann Chester: I think not. You’re a typical American – European model.
James Crocker, Jr.: A romantic figure, I trust?
Ann Chester: Oh, very. I think the technical term is a bar fly.

The source material and the stars make this movie a lot of fun.

Robert Montgomery plays the title character, James Crocker, Jr., an American artist known as Piccadilly Jim who draws caricatures of London celebrities. He is accompanied everywhere by his faithful valet Bayliss (Eric Blore). One day he spots rich and beautiful Ann Chester (Madge Evans), who is engaged and won’t give him a tumble. Despondent, Jim shifts from caricature work to drawing a comic strip that parodies, unbeknownst to him, Ann’s own batty family. Will Jim get the girl? With Frank Morgan as Jim’s ham actor father.

The first thing I noticed about this film was its sparkling dialogue. The film is based on a P.G. Wodehouse novel and I imagine they lifted pages worth of the great man’s dialogue. It’s kind of a preposterous plot but surely that should be expected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSPHXMDIxrs

Dangerous
Directed by Alfred E. Green
Written by Laird Doyle
1935/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Joyce Heath: You with your fat little soul and your smug face – picking your way so cautiously through a pastel existence.

Don Bellows (Franchot Tone) is a successful young architect and engaged to marry Gail Armitage (Margaret Lindsay). One day, his crowd spots a derelict-looking woman walking through a hotel lobby.  She will not admit she is the formerly famous Broadway actress Joyce Heath (Bette Davis). Don and his friends discuss how wonderful she used to be. Franchot says one performance of hers so moved him that he decided to go into the creative arts.

Shortly thereafter, Dond  spots Bette getting blotto in a dive. He buys her several drinks and after she passes out he takes her home with him. Bette is far from easy to get along with but eventually Franchot dumps Margaret and he and Bette become lovers.  With A Don’s help she is given a second chance at Broadway stardom but secret from Bette’s past stands throws a spanner in the works.

Davis won her first Oscar for her performance here. Bette did not think she deserved the award which she believed was payback for not even being nominated for her star-making turn in Of Human Bondage (1934). Personally, I can’t see any other reason for the win. The script didn’t help her any.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGKEyUBLrpk;

Love on a Bet
Directed by Leigh Taylor
Written by P.J. Wolfson and Philip G. Epstein; story by Kenneth Earl
1936/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Uncle Carlton MacCreigh: Well the whole idea of the play is ridiculous. You expect anybody to believe that a man can leave New York in his underwear and get to Los Angeles in 10 days? … This boy wonder arrives in Los Angeles in a new suit of clothes, a hundred dollars in his pocket, and engaged to a beautiful girl. Ridiculous! Who’s gonna believe that?
Michael MacCreigh: Remember, this happens in a play, not in a slaughter house. It’s not beef ham and prize-cuts. It’s romance! Adventure! Just what people want to see in a play.

Michael MacCreigh (Gene Raymond) needs money to produce a Broadway show. His uncle wants him to work in the family meat packing business. Michael bets the uncle that he can start out from New York City in his underwear and, without borrowing money or buying anything, arrive in Los Angeles in ten days with a new suit, a fiancee and $100. He will also prove that the plot of his play is not totally ridiculous. With Wendy Barrie as the love interest and Helen Broderick as her no-nonsense aunt.

If you dial up your suspension of disbelief to 11 and like screwball plots, this could be amusing. Gene Raymond, whom I normally find very bland, gives possibly his most animated performance ever.  I thought this was OK but not more.

Ah, Wilderness!
Directed by Clarence Brown
Written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett from the play by Eugene O’Neill
1935/US
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime renta

Richard ‘Dick’ Miller: How are you going to punish me, Pa?
Nat: Oh, well, I… thought of telling you you couldn’t go to Yale.
Richard ‘Dick’ Miller: But, gee, that’s great! Well, then I can get a job and marry Muriel. That’s no punishment, Pa!
Nat: Well, then you’ll go to Yale and stay there until you graduate.

I was charmed by this coming-of-age  comedy and the cast really cannot be beat.

It’s an adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s comedy about coming of age circa 1906. Eric Linden plays O’Neill’s alter ego Richard Miller who is just about to graduate high school and head off to Yale. He’s the kind of know-it-all show-off idealist and romantic that intelligent boys often are. He is also madly in love with Muriel MacComber (Cecilia Parker) who he has not even convinced to kiss him.  He tries to court her with love poems by Swinburne and Omar Kayam and scandalizes her parents.

When Muriel sends Richard a dear John letter, he morosely agrees to a double date with a couple of shady ladies during which he gets quite drunk.  But his large loving family have givend him a grounding that will not let him get too out of hand.

There are some memorable comic scenes – the graduation ceremony, the return of prodigal uncle Sid and his antics at the 4th of July dinner; and a bunch of little boys with big firecrackers.

The rest of the fabulous cast includes: Lionel Barrymore as the newspaper editior father; Spring Byington as the mother; Wallace Beery as Lionel’s ne’er-do-well drunken brother (hilarious), Aline MacMahon as Spring’s sister and Wallace’s long-suffering sweetheart and and Mickey Rooney as the mischievous youngest son.

I thought this was a delight. Recommended.