An aggressively standard old school crime thriller (complimentary). Really fun to watch a movie from when they used to actually film in Los Angeles. I’m pretty sure part of this was shot at a motel that’s around the corner from my apartment.
Jane Greer (1634 Vine Street) only has one scene in this. I should have watched something else and saved this until I needed a Joe Don Baker movie.
Fake poster time!
There’s a scene in the first Captain America movie that homages the first scene in this film. David Niven is a pilot who manages to contact a radio officer on the ground. He knows the plane is going to crash and is certain he will die. In the few minutes they have they manage to fall in love. It’s absurd and it works- just like the rest of this movie. Is it a war romance? A medical drama? A study of religion? A courtroom drama? An argument about American and British sensibilities?
Yes it is.
Is it about a crazed fan of a talk show? Nope, but somehow that’s the movie poster I copied.
I was worried when the movie started with a wall of text, then more worried when the Obviously Symbolic Dinosaur appeared, but the movie won me over as it ratcheted up the tension.
Then it started over from a different viewpoint, and it mostly lost me.
The it started over again from yet another viewpoint, and it pulled me back in a bit, but not all the way.
Then it just… ended.
I get what Bigelow was doing with the repetition. The first version is the full bureaucracy angle, showing all of the agencies coordinating to deal with the attack. The second version focuses more on the smaller group of people doing everything they can to avoid escalating the situation, and the third narrows even further to one man deciding whether to start a nuclear war. We see tons of people worrying about the consequences of their decisions, but we never see any of those consequences (and sometimes we don’t even see the decisions).
…but maybe that’s my problem. Tons of people loved this movie. All I know is that I got one of my best/dumbest fake movie posters out of it.
Gary Cooper was forced to make this. He didn’t want to do it because he thought you couldn’t have a western without gunfights. There is one gunfight at the end, and I wonder if that was added to appease him.
…and it’s really more of a love story between Cooper and Walter Brennan, who plays the friendly murderous judge with charm Cooper can’t resist. Oh, you’re supposed to think he loves Doris Davenport, but Brennan’s the one he spends the most time with- and wakes up with in bed.
Fred Stone (Walk of Fame: 1634 Vine Street) plays Davenport’s father. He was best known as a stage performer. He was the first person to play The Scarecrow in a stage production of The Wizard of Oz.
I’m not sure how this movie connects to a movie about an Australian woman obsessed with ABBA and weddings, but here you go:
Two words:
Lee Tracy (star at 1634 Vine Street) plays an obnoxious reporter who saves the day with the power of cheap magic shop pranks.
Today’s fake poster is all about tic-tac-toe.
I think there’s an episode of Leave it to Beaver where someone tells The Beav that he can fake crying by putting his hands on this face and laughing. That what I thought of when The Rock breaks down in this movie. And I kept waiting for Emily Blunt to threaten to take the kids to her sister’s.
Honestly, this movie is fine, but there are at least two wrestlers-turned-actors currently working with stronger acting skills than Dwayne Johnson.
Do you think you can figure out the original version of this fake poster without peeking at the alt text? I THINK KNOTT!
After three movies that went from so bad it’s good to competent but built on racism to just plain bad, it was great to see a movie this good. I do wish the score wasn’t “all zither all the time,” though.
Oh, boy! A fake poster!
This movie is terrible, and not in a fun way. Barely an hour long, but it feels like four. It’s biggest claim to fame is that it’s the last film of Marie Provost, who I only knew as the subject of a not quite accurate Nick Lowe song.
Tom Moore (star at 1640 Vine Street) plays Mr. Corbett, father of the leading man’s romantic interest and inventor of something that has to do with car engines, but because the script is incredibly lazy it never gets a name. Come on, just call it the “Ultra Efficient Spark Inducer” or “Frictionless Piston” or something. No one watching cares if it makes sense, they just want to know what to call it.
I picked the source for today’s poster because it was pretty.
It’s really hard to enjoy a lighthearted comedy based entirely on the idea that the Confederacy was actually a great thing, and everybody got along.
Also: I know there’s been some modern takes on Stepin Fetchit that claim his character is more of a joker than a racist caricature, but it sure doesn’t play positively in this movie.
Tom Brown (star at 1648 Vine) started as a child model/actor, then worked his way up to bigger roles. Here he plays Jerome “Rome” Priest, Judge Priest’s nephew fresh out of law school who only wins his case because of his uncle’s meddling.
Today’s poster is completely unrelated to this movie, but I thought it looked cool so I used it. If that bugs you, send me a self addressed stamped envelope and I’ll return what you paid me for this post.
Bert I. Gordon sure loves “Eat and Get Large” movies.
Marjoe Gortner is a football player who confidently makes bad decisions that get people killed. Pamela Martin plays the woman whose type is apparently “guys who look like scared birds who believe they are always right.” Together they fight giant rats that are actually normal-sized mice or cheap rat costumes.
The lesson I learned from this movie: If you find a mysterious puddle of white goo, you probably shouldn’t eat it.
Today’s fake poster is based on a different exploration of the unpredictable effects of deities on mankind.
