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492,741 | 3,280,905 | 194,572 | 10 | The Production I saw on television and on Broadway | In 1984 I was more active in going to Duffy Square in Manhattan and seeing what plays I could get tickets to on Broadway . One that I saw was YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU , which ( as I had seen productions of it in the past ) I was acquainted with . I decided to see it again because this production had gotten good revie... |
491,968 | 3,280,905 | 32,125 | 10 | One Deeply Impressed Yank Gazing At Some Fragments | I have only seen about twenty to twenty five minutes of WHERE'S THAT FIRE ? on You Tube , but I will take a risk and say that if the rest of the film is like these chunks of it it must be extremely funny . Will Hay , Moore Marriot , and Graham Moffatt made six films together in the 1930s and 1940s and they are compared... |
492,386 | 3,280,905 | 39,628 | 10 | One of the First ( and Best ) Christmas Holiday Movie Classics | This work has been a comedy joy for over sixty years now , and has even been redone on television a few times - but the original is still the best . It takes a totally fantastic situation ( the possible existence of Santa Claus ) and looks at it from the real world's point of view . It has been said that the eventual r... |
493,200 | 3,280,905 | 47,278 | 10 | Is Fate Set In Stone ? | Leslie Halliwell in his book HALLIWELL'S HARVEST refers to this as a " smoking room story " , which is the kind of reminiscence tale told between old friends in a club over drinks . It is not given in one shot - all good anecdotes are told slowly and build up . This one ( apparently based on a true incident from the Fa... |
493,113 | 3,280,905 | 39,631 | 10 | I Think Than Henri Desire Landru Would Have Approved | There is a constant effort by the fans of Orson Welles to pinpoint films of importance that he had a hand in even if he did not appear in them or direct them . The two most notable ones are AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS , which was based on a 1946 Broadway musical flop that Welles directed and starred in , and MONSIEUR V... |
492,584 | 3,280,905 | 22,454 | 10 | Himmell ! ! That Throat ! ! ! | Historic note of interest : In the early 19th Century , there was a scandal involving the British General-in-Chief of the Armies ( then fighting Napoleon ) where his mistress was found to have been selling commissions to wealthy , but undeserving men , for high private fees . The General-in-Chief resigned in 1809 as a ... |
492,348 | 3,280,905 | 12,570 | 10 | Keaton's Day at the " American Music Hall " | THE PLAY HOUSE is Keaton showing his growth as a film comedian and director . It is in two sections actually , and they are blended together without much difficulty . We see Keaton as an employee going into a vaudeville house . We eventually learn it is the Keaton Vaudeville House , and everyone in the audience , on st... |
492,175 | 3,280,905 | 80,814 | 10 | The Truth About Heroes | James Thurber wrote the short story , " THE GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD " in the early 1930s , and it still has a tremendously effective kick to this day . Basically the story deals with the following problem : what happens when the man who is a hero turns out not to have the right character ? I don't think Thurber was a... |
491,702 | 3,280,905 | 162,096 | 10 | A Classic Criminal Novel . . . And a Splendid Black Comedy | Dr . Edmund Bickleigh is a man who is very careful and very determined . And he is especially determined to not get caught committing the perfect murder of his wife . In the end he succeeds but then finds circumstances are " agin him " . Francis Iles was an innovative detective story novelist , whose best known work ( ... |
492,412 | 3,280,905 | 93,779 | 10 | A Fairy Tale With Plenty of Bite to It | Grandpa ( Peter Falk ) comes to his grandson's ( Fred Savage's sickbed ) to entertain him - he's going to read the tale of the Princess Bride - a story with fencing , and giants , and all the excitement and adventure the grandson craves , with some love scenes as well . What Savage and the audience do not realize is th... |
493,041 | 3,280,905 | 39,661 | 10 | Ty Power's Proof Of His Acting Ability | Tyrone Power came from a family of stage performers - even stage stars . His great grandfather was one of the best loved " Irish " comic actors of the Jacksonian Era in the 1820s - 1841 ( when his ship was lost at sea ) . His father was a prominent stage star , who came to Hollywood in the silent period , and appeared ... |
491,964 | 3,280,905 | 14,702 | 10 | Better than the 1954 Version | This was a special treat tonight on the Turner Classic Films Channel as they were honoring John Barrymore . Barrymore appeared in this 1924 silent film , which has only just gotten a complete score for the first time since it was released ( the score was quite good - ironically a British version of the Fitch play had a... |
493,377 | 3,280,905 | 27,800 | 10 | A Hodgepodge Science Fiction - Horror Film That Works Well | Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi made many films together , but on the whole ( interestingly enough ) Karloff usually is the better man of the two . The real exception is " The Black Cat " ( 1934 ) where Karloff is playing the evil head of a devil cult , and Lugosi is seeking revenge on him for destroying his life . But m... |
493,293 | 3,280,905 | 33,722 | 10 | The Immigration Problem in 1941 - A Revelation | Billy Wilder knew first hand what it was to be a refugee in the 1930s - he was one of the lucky ones . He came from Austria , originally , and fled in a timely manner before the Nazis ' Anschluss in 1938 . His family still suffered - many perished in the camps . But he was able , due to his stage and film work in Europ... |
492,080 | 3,280,905 | 37,514 | 10 | The Stalking of Jose Iturbi | This film ( like Astaire's ROYAL WEDDING - which was shown after it on Turner Classic Network last night ) is famous for a single musical sequence that has gained a place in Gene Kelly's record : Like Fred Astaire dancing with a clothing rack and later dancing around a room's walls and ceiling , this film had Gene Kell... |
492,637 | 3,280,905 | 37,515 | 10 | The Perfect Murder Mystery ? | I have a theory that all her life Dame Agatha Christie hoped she would plot the perfect murder case mystery . She certainly entertained the world doing so , with way over sixty novels , books of short stories , and plays , most of which actually dealt with homicide in one form or another . Despite the sometimes too per... |
492,893 | 3,280,905 | 80,708 | 10 | A Fine Docudrama about the events of the FDR White House from April 1944 to April 1945 | Jim Bishop was a very good popularizer of history . He wrote several books , concentrating on the events on a critical day ( or remembered day ) in history . His first had been " The Day Lincoln Was Shot " , which was dramatized twice , once with Raymond Massey as Lincoln and Jack Lemmon as John Wilkes Booth , and once... |
492,171 | 3,280,905 | 29,995 | 10 | A Superior Look at the Medical Profession | If you look at my review of the Samuel Goldwyn - John Ford version of ARROWSMITH ( 1932 ) I pointed out that the real hard hitting attack on the worst abuses of the training of doctors in the United States and the ambition , greed , and rivalries that mar the medical profession in this country were discarded for the mo... |
492,736 | 3,280,905 | 54,866 | 10 | Dreams that turn to volcanic ash | In the early 1930s Marcel Pagnol wrote a series of plays concerning the intertwined lives of a set of characters in the city of Marseilles . The plays were each centered on a chief character : FANNY , MARIUS , and CESAR . Fanny is the daughter of a fishmonger Honorine , and has grown up with Marius , the son of Cesar a... |
492,145 | 3,280,905 | 32,176 | 10 | Sometimes Death Can Become The Key To Happiness | This is a remake ( of the William Powell - Kay Francis film ONE WAY PASSAGE ) that actually lives up to the merits of the original . It is rare for remakes to be as good as the films they replace in public circulation ( think of Marlon Brando's and Mel Gibson's two versions of MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY - and THE BOUNTY - an... |
492,346 | 3,280,905 | 29,992 | 10 | Mankind was my business ! | Although I favor the versions of this story with Alistair Sim or with George C . Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge ( and I have not had the luck to see the surviving version with Sir Seymour Hicks ) , I like this one too . It gave an opportunity ( a rare one ) to one of Hollywood's best character actors to have the central rol... |
492,487 | 3,280,905 | 54,867 | 10 | Even Ghosts Need Homes To Live In | Most people think of the burst of creative energy from the Italian cinema after 1945 as mostly serious , in films like " Open City " , " The Bicycle Thief " , " La Strada " , and " La Dolce Vita " . In reality the films of that period included some extremely funny comedies . Even a master of serious ( if fantastic ) ci... |
491,825 | 3,280,905 | 39,477 | 10 | Fear Is Your Foreman ! | Clark Gable made several comedies in his career , some of them quite funny ( such as TEACHER'S PET ) . THE HUCKSTERS was one of the funny ones that still retains it's edge . It is considered dated by some because advertising is taken for granted in the modern day world , but if you consider that mass advertising actual... |
492,668 | 3,280,905 | 35,586 | 10 | The " Sprig From the Tree " Who Saved England and Europe | For Americans , after Yorktown , there seems a vague jump of six years of history we ignore . We know Washington , Lafayette , and Rochambeau defeat Lord Cornwallis but we tend to ignore the period of the Articles of Confederation government - except for the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and Daniel Shay's Rebellion and t... |
493,133 | 3,280,905 | 32,145 | 10 | Emily Bronte's Masterwork | A number of years ago a mystery novel was published that has , as it's secret , the discovery of the complete manuscript of a second novel by Emily Bronte . Unfortunately nothing like that has ever surfaced , so we are stuck with only one book penned by her . If that one book was THE PROFESSOR or SHIRLEY ( Charlotte's ... |
493,048 | 3,280,905 | 41,452 | 10 | The Master in WASHINGTON SQUAR | Because he so identified with England in his last thirty years ( and even became a British citizen during World War I ) people tend to forget that Henry James was an American - as American as his celebrated psychologist / philosopher brother William ( the " good " James Boys , as opposed to their non-relatives Frank an... |
493,260 | 3,280,905 | 32,152 | 10 | That threatened ride on a buzz saw | It is true that Edgar Bergan and Charlie McCarthy were far more effective in their national audience on radio than in the movies . This was due to the close-up affect of cinematography on Bergen's face - he could not hide the fact that his lips moved a little . When on a stage in a nightclub or in vaudeville he'd be to... |
491,958 | 3,280,905 | 43,278 | 10 | Gershwin + Minelli + Kelly + Caron + Levant = Masterpiece | The musicals of the 1940s and 1950s produced by Arthur Freed's unit at MGM gave director Vincent Minelli his claims to being a major film talent of that period . With his background on Broadway , Minelli knew more than simply super choreography ( like his predecessor of the 1930s , Busby Berkeley ) but how to frame his... |
492,544 | 3,280,905 | 98,764 | 10 | A Missed Opportunity for CBS | It is hard to believe that this show was on sixteen years ago for only one season . Carol Burnett's programs have normally been quite successful - her own variety show lasting over a decade . But this half hour show never found a consistent audience to keep it going beyond it's first season . With a regular cast includ... |
492,495 | 3,280,905 | 622,425 | 10 | How Ruthless Is American Business ? | In 1994 there was a series of classic television dramas of the 1950s that were shown in kine-scope versions for the first time in decades . They included the original REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT with Jack Palance , Kim Hunter , and Ed and Keenan Wynn , and THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES with Cliff Robertson . Another of the ... |
492,911 | 3,280,905 | 22,286 | 10 | Hogarth's " Good Apprentice and Bad Apprentice " brought up - to - date . . . in a manner of speaking . | SCARFACE was a study of a truly monstrous , violent malefactor - a kingpin of crime . LITTLE CAESAR too deals with the rise of a criminal to being the head of the criminal organization ( or a leading figure in it ) before he too falls . It has been nicely compared to a modern version of Andrew Carnegie's philosophy of ... |
493,019 | 3,280,905 | 24,473 | 10 | Alexander Korda and his history lessons | Born in Hungary , Alexander Korda became a leading figure in British cinema . He would approach Hollywood in his production , casting , and vision of how movies should be made . And he was quite aware of what he was facing in his struggles . Britain's film industry was never as wealthy as it's American cousin ( or it's... |
493,154 | 3,280,905 | 35,703 | 10 | Taking a Chance On Love | Let's call it a deserved " 10 " but with a sense of trouble for one's conscience . In 1943 it was nearly impossible to consider any film with a predominantly African-American cast as serious by most Americans of Caucasian or non-African-American backgrounds . Typical fare from Hollywood was a series of stereotypes , us... |
493,425 | 3,280,905 | 162,222 | 10 | A Modern " Robinson Crusoe " & " Enoch Arden " Story - Before " Lost " | Tom Hanks movie career has been one of the best things to emerge out of television acting in the last half century . He rarely if ever disappoints . CAST AWAY is one of his best performances - a tour-de-force one man show for most of the movies time on screen . Hanks is Chuck Nolan , an executive official at FED EX , w... |
492,563 | 3,280,905 | 30,044 | 10 | Basil's Satisfactory Revenge On Errol | I have often felt that had history been kinder there would have been no major wars affecting the globe after 1918 . The pacifist spirit that hit most of the states in the west was due to the size of the casualty rates suffered by the major states in the war . It was sufficient to cause massive re-considerations by the ... |
493,426 | 3,280,905 | 102,609 | 10 | The More Sensible Side of Gordon Gecko's " Greed is Good " Theory | Danny DeVito's performance as Larry " the Liquidator " Garfield is a solidly crafted performance of a big time , clever Wall Street operator . The film came out in the early 1990s , and the character was the type of person who was active at the time who bought up fading companies to sell off the assets . A similar char... |
493,202 | 3,280,905 | 47,123 | 10 | The Immortalization of Gladys Glover . . . and introducing Jack Lemmon | Judy Holliday was very lucky that she and Garson Kanin worked together so frequently . He had written the Broadway play BORN YESTERDAY that made her a stage star . He wrote the screenplay for her first major film , ADAM'S RIB , with his wife Ruth Gordon . Aided immeasurably by the directing of George Cukor , their succ... |
492,691 | 3,280,905 | 17,925 | 10 | The Greatest War Comedy ? | It is " generally " ( or should I pun and say " General Lee " ? ) said that the best comedy of the silent film career of Buster Keaton's career was his Civil War epic THE GENERAL . Apparently planned with more care than any of his other film projects , it involved not only researching a period of history some sixty yea... |
492,996 | 3,280,905 | 57,012 | 10 | All For Our Natural Bodily Fluids | It can safely be assumed that DR . STRANGELOVE could not have been made in the Eisenhower years . Even after Senator McCarthy's fall from public support , Ike and the Republicans ( and the Democrats ) were too involved in the politics of the Cold War to consider the ultimate point of containment and confrontation of th... |
491,999 | 3,280,905 | 50,972 | 10 | In Glorious Technicolor and Cinemascope and STEREOPHONIC SOUN | It is Cole Porter meeting Ernst Lubitsch's best recalled film , NINOTCHKA . Up-dated to be sure , but still an affective comedy about rival systems of politics , social structure , and economics . In the original , a Soviet economic mission is trying to use some jewelry that was originally owned by a Grand Duchess to p... |
492,193 | 3,280,905 | 47,119 | 10 | The Last Chance of the Birlings | This was a nice surprise when I saw it in 1977 or so . Alistair Sim had appeared as Inspector Cockerill in GREEN FOR DANGER shortly after World War II , and gave one of his best performances as that droll Scotland Yarder , who just manages to bungle his successful investigation at the conclusion of that film . Here he ... |
492,794 | 3,280,905 | 508,189 | 10 | It may be right under our noses ! | This is supposed to be the best known stunt that Hitchcock ever pulled in any of his films . It may be so , but then it was a thirty minute television episode he directed on ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS , and he had to stick closely to the screenplay , written by the author of the original story Roald Dahl . LAMB TO THE S... |
492,795 | 3,280,905 | 508,176 | 10 | First episode of a single experiment on Alfred Hitchcock Presents | In the years that ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS was part of television the format was stories that were told in half an hour episodes . Later the episodes were expanded to full hour episodes . But only once did the show try to do this format : a three part retelling of the story , which was based on a play by Alec Coppel (... |
491,976 | 3,280,905 | 53,137 | 10 | There is still time brothers ? | I find it fascinating that the films that stressed the end of the world scenario did not start popping up until 1959 , the year of ON THE BEACH . Within a few years ( as pointed out elsewhere on this thread ) , FAILSAFE and DR . STRANGELOVE came out as did the Ray Milland film , PANIC IN THE YEAR ZERO . Why it took so ... |
492,322 | 3,280,905 | 27,884 | 10 | An extremely funny movie - and boy can William Powell land fish ! | LIBELLED LADY is a comedy about the world of newspapers and libel suits . Spencer Tracy is the editor of a leading New York newspaper , and he is about to marry his long-suffering girlfriend Jean Harlow ( they have put off marriage several times in the past due to scoops Tracy had to pursue personally ) . This time it'... |
493,390 | 3,280,905 | 33,740 | 10 | Smart Cop Gone Berserk | Laird Cregar's performances in motion pictures were small in number ( a bit over twenty films ) , but large in ability to hold audience attention and in sheer artistry . Whether Jack The Ripper , George Bone , Clive Oxford , Willard Gates , Sir Henry Morgan , or whoever , Cregar dominates his films , and usually each p... |
493,391 | 3,280,905 | 29,870 | 10 | Cagney's First Screen Award Performance | The rise and fall of Rocky Sullivan , tough guy gangster but square fellow , was the subject of this excellent film by Warner Brothers in 1938 . It has several things going for it that maintains it's high ratings among gangster films and Cagney movies . For one thing , Cagney's brilliant performance as Rocky won him hi... |
492,607 | 3,280,905 | 60,445 | 10 | When the best laid plans don't get off the ground . . . | Any film with Shirley Maclaine and Michael Caine has real potential for being delightful . Add to it Herbert Lom as a powerful , but not really bad fellow for a change , and it is headed for being terrific . What carries it to the top is it's sense of spoofing . For GAMBIT came at the end of the first sequence of crime... |
492,918 | 3,280,905 | 297,702 | 10 | Two tumblers coming to the golden medina , and their older son | Herschel Bernardi had a long career in movies and television - he even starred in a show called ARNIE that was briefly on television in the 1960s . But unfortunately he is rather forgotten today , although usually a very capable performer . I think part of the problem is a resemblance ( to me , anyway ) to Herb Edelman... |
492,603 | 3,280,905 | 52,837 | 10 | The Perfect " Tombstone " | As of this writing , Glenn Ford is still with us , living in retirement . He has never , except from his fans and fellow actors , received the recognition his honest acting abilities in drama or comedy have fully deserved . His performances in " Experiment In Terror " and " The Blackboard Jungle " and " 3 : 10 To Yuma ... |
492,744 | 3,280,905 | 322,634 | 10 | The Forgotten O'Neill Mini - Masterpiece | Whenever one watches A LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT , one sees Jason Robarts as the older son and brother in the " Tyrone " family ( which is based on the real family of Eugene O'Neill , the man who wrote that play . James O'Neill Jr . ( " Jamie " ) was a talented writer like his brother Gene , but he squandered his ta... |
492,654 | 3,280,905 | 37,635 | 10 | It's Deja Vu all over again | This is one of those horror stories that just does not diminish over the years . An architect ( Mervyn Johns , in his best dramatic role ) is invited to the country home of a wealthy man ( Roland Culver ) and from the moment he drives up , he is aware that something familiar , and evil , is involved in this visit . Yet... |
492,266 | 3,280,905 | 93,981 | 10 | The 1946 Alcatraz Revolt | This tightly made television drama dealt with an incident that made national headlines for a week or so in 1946 and then disappeared ( except for some subsequent trials ) from public attention . It was the closest thing to a large scale escape plan from Alcatraz Prison that ever occurred , and left most of the prisoner... |
492,558 | 3,280,905 | 24,184 | 10 | To make the world grovel at his feet . | Spoiler ahead - a well known one though . It was his first major film role , and he only appeared at the tale end of the movie for a minute - as a corpse ! But Claude Rains was made as of that moment , though it would be awhile before he actually ceased being a villain in all of his films . James Whale's THE INVISIBLE ... |
492,539 | 3,280,905 | 47,573 | 10 | Those sinister internal dangers we overlooked in Cold War America | It is one of the funny things about movie making that one can spend millions of dollars bringing a screenplay to the screen that is supposed to be a " blockbuster " and it is a total flop , but one can also have a restricted , low-budget film with a cast of good character actors , and it will turn out to be memorable m... |
492,490 | 3,280,905 | 85,354 | 10 | The Original For " Father's Day " | I wish my memories for LES COMPERES was sharper - but I saw it in Manhattan at the Paris movie house in midtown back in 1983 , so I have to struggle a little . I do know this - the plot for FATHER'S DAY ( which I just reviewed ) is different in several ways , weakening the film's construction a little , but giving an o... |
492,286 | 3,280,905 | 29,855 | 10 | Brilliantly innovative love story | ALGIERS is about a man who is trapped meeting a woman who is likewise trapped . They are perfect together , but their love is not going to get anywhere . For he is a convict on the run from a long prison sentence - hiding in a disreputable " colorful " section of the city of Algiers in ( what was then ) France's North ... |
492,827 | 3,280,905 | 74,587 | 10 | The Greatest Escapologist In the last one hundred years | Except for the 18th Century criminal , Jack Sheppard , who managed to escape from Newgate Prison four times in two years , Harry Houdini is the greatest escapologist ( as an expert in escaping traps or prisons is called ) in modern times . He was an above average magician , and a first rate show-man as well , but the m... |
492,790 | 3,280,905 | 22,268 | 10 | A Comedy with Tragedy around the Corner | It is sad to think of those stars who we know were good but died young or too soon . But the ones we normally thing about are stars who left a rich legacy of film that we have access to : Laird Cregar , Montgomery Cliff , Heath Ledger , Natalie Wood , Judy Garland , Marilyn Monroe , Jayne Mansfield , Judy Holiday , Jea... |
492,433 | 3,280,905 | 280,460 | 10 | Finding a long-lost person : Oneself | Goldie Hawn has played lovable and honest airheads ( CACTUS FLOWERS ) , able bank robbery assistants ( " $ " ) , spoiled brats who find themselves by army service ( PRIVATE BENJAMIN ) , spoiled millionaires who find themselves by amnesia ( OVERBOARD ) , troubled movie stars that gets even - with the help of their frien... |
492,797 | 3,280,905 | 40,970 | 10 | Getting Justice for a Young Boy - in the days of the Bunny Hop | It has been said that the various public sensations in the period before World War I were the last times that public attention and anger could be brought forth in defense of the individual who seemed to be wronged . This was true in France from 1894 to 1906 om the Dreyfus Affair , and in Russia in 1911 - 1913 in the " ... |
491,969 | 3,280,905 | 47,522 | 10 | Somewhere there was someone who was waiting for her | The story of A STAR IS BORN was actually told four times . Three times under the title in 1937 , 1954 , and 1976 , and once earlier in the early 1930s as WHAT PRICE Hollywood ? But the earlier film had the discovery of an up and coming star actress by an alcoholic director on his way down ( the director was actor / dir... |
493,129 | 3,280,905 | 68,062 | 10 | Be Careful Of Whom You Casually Scorn and Dismiss | Margaret Tyzack was one of the lucky ones ( with Martin Jarvis , Michael York , and Susan Hampshire ) out of the original B . B . C . series THE FORSYTE SAGA . These four really managed to build careers not only on television but in the theater and even movies from their roles as Winifred Dartie , Jon Forsyte , Young J... |
491,863 | 3,280,905 | 29,923 | 10 | You're Better Now ! | I hope that when you see this great Laurel & Hardy feature film the print has the actual concluding joke - a bit macabre but fitting as it is . As the film is usually shown today , the joke may be briefly glimpsed ( in some prints ) before the film ends . More about that later . BLOCK-HEADS has some claim to being the ... |
492,498 | 3,280,905 | 35,575 | 10 | He Was the " Yankee Doodle Boy " | Unless you happen to catch a rare showing of THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT , you are not going to see any film that will bring you closer to that long gone Broadway phenomenon named George M . Cohan than this . Producer , Director , Dramatist , Actor , Composer , and super-patriot , he rewrote the American musical theater . If... |
492,232 | 3,280,905 | 24,083 | 10 | Al's greatest film performance - and the only one without " blackface " | I see this film and love it , but I also wish to cry a little . The image of Al Jolson , to this day , is the first star of sound movies who appeared in minstrel make-up . It has damaged his historical record in a way that is hard to question . While Jolson did show up in many scenes in his films without burnt cork on ... |
492,380 | 3,280,905 | 55,184 | 10 | In A Special Category of Film Legend - Following a Star in the Night | This movie has generated a huge following in since it was made due to the acting by it's leads and directing ( John Huston ) , but it is best known as " the final movie " of the stars . It was the final film for Clark Gable . Indeed , it killed Gable due to the scene where he stupidly did his own stunt of trying to res... |
493,340 | 3,280,905 | 22,158 | 10 | Zeppo's best Marx Brother Film | Zeppo Marx is frequently considered with a trace of a sneer : the fourth brother who was not worthy of membership in one of filmdom's two best comedy teams . He was the fourth brother of Groucho , Chico , & Harpo Marx ( and is only slightly better remembered than fifth brother Gummo , who never appeared in any of their... |
493,402 | 3,280,905 | 43,137 | 10 | The Travels of a Magnificent Rifle | In 1942 a film TALES OF MANHATTAN told a set of stories that were basically unrelated , but tied together with a suit of men's evening wear . Each story began when the " tails " were passed from one owner ( Charles Boyer , for instance ) to another ( Ceasar Romero ) . WINCHESTER ' 73 , a superior film , and a great wes... |
492,916 | 3,280,905 | 47,542 | 10 | Old Blue Eyes as a killer | Frank Sinatra became such a legend in his own lifetime as a singer , a symbol , an actor , and a subject of controversy that there is little to really find that is unusual to talk about concerning him . What to add to the singing idol and Oscar winner . Whatever one thought of Sinatra he was larger than life to most of... |
492,644 | 3,280,905 | 27,996 | 10 | The Pixilated Gentleman From Vermont | Although he had earlier successful films ( " American Madness " , " The Bitter Tea Of General Yen " ) , Frank Capra's real success in American movies began with " It Happened One Night " , and was quickly solidified by " Mr . Deeds Goes To Town " . His position of chronicler of little America ( the little man who makes... |
492,331 | 3,280,905 | 33,405 | 10 | If that is death in the afternoon , that is death at evening ! | In English speaking countries we barely recall his name , but in his heyday ( the 1910 - 1920s ) Vicente Blasco Ibanez was one of the most popular novelists in the world . His stories , in particular his tale of bullfighters in Spain ( BLOOD AND SAND ) and his look at the effect of World War I on Europe and on his nati... |
492,572 | 3,280,905 | 89,145 | 10 | There was a man named Michael Finnegan . . . Finnegan , begin again . | Robert Preston's last film was OUTRAGE ! ( 1985 ) which followed this film . Although a central figure in that movie , his part was not as important as several others - I keep thinking his health may have been beginning to fail , so that his role as a murder case defendant was curtailed as a result . He still gave an i... |
492,059 | 3,280,905 | 29,947 | 10 | You throw an olive upward and I end up sitting on my hat ! Why does that sound normal to me ? | Because of its box office failure after one or two other films a bunch of " expert " movie house owners called Katherine Hepburn " Box Office Poison " on a notorious list in the late 1930s . Fred Astaire and Marlene Dietrich were also on that list . One would love to know what other " great " prognostications and viewp... |
491,604 | 3,280,905 | 58,576 | 10 | Can It Happen Here ? | Fredric March is the President of the United States . He has just gotten a nuclear disarmament treaty signed with the Soviet Union's leader , and it has ( barely ) been passed by the U . S . Senate . Both countries agree to get rid of their nuclear arsenals , and to end decades of potential nuclear catastrophe . But th... |
492,063 | 3,280,905 | 85,252 | 10 | The Feud Nobody Really Won | It will be the irony of Robert Blake's decent acting career that despite his stint as Baretta in the Detective Series , his personal life will make people think only of his negative - villainous characters , as in his best performance IN COLD BLOOD and as Jimmy Hoffa in BLOOD FEUD . Fortunately , Blake was such a good ... |
492,057 | 3,280,905 | 35,567 | 10 | When Legends Meet . . . a New Legend is Created | In a personal essay kind of program about her career that she made for television in the 1990s Katherine Hepburn pointed out that technically this was not the first time she was in a film ( in one version or another ) with the man she would appear in movies with more often than anyone else , and the man most romantical... |
493,058 | 3,280,905 | 109,190 | 10 | A Kidnapping Planned by Three Wiley Coyotes | This film never fails to be funny . The plot is simple - a variant on the two McCauley Culkin HOME ALONE films or O'Henry's THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF , except the protagonist is an adorable baby . Three criminals led by Joe Mantegna have been committing fairly successful robberies at convenience stores and even banks . T... |
492,279 | 3,280,905 | 28,010 | 10 | One of these days I'm going to go gorilla hunting | The " screwball " comedies of the 1930s was an attempt to try to lift the depressed feelings of millions of Americans who were out of work and facing near starvation - and a collapse of optimism and belief in the American Dream . Frequently they showed the wealthy were eccentrics who were facing bankruptcy ( THREE CORN... |
492,501 | 3,280,905 | 50,825 | 10 | The Mutinies of 1917 - a fictional variant | Although he did the wonderful crime film THE KILLING before he did this , it was PATHS OF GLORY that brought Stanley Kubrick's talents forward . After PATHS OF GLORY he would make all types of films , but he would basically make them as he wanted to ( although when working with his star here , Kirk Douglas , on SPARTAC... |
492,983 | 3,280,905 | 507,801 | 10 | A Twisty Premonition - Do we only see part of the picture ? | In the best episodes of ONE STEP BEYOND the story had a twist in it that came out of left field - like the end of a story by O Henry or Guy De Mauppasant . Such was the case with this episode , which dealt with foreseeing a horrible tragedy . Not the Titanic or the San Francisco Earthquake this time , but a simple dome... |
493,134 | 3,280,905 | 65,911 | 10 | JANE EYRE - 1970 Version | George C . Scott was one of America's best actors , but the number of times that he did second-rate films hurt his reputation . JANE EYRE was made near the peak of his career , in 1970 , when he won the Oscar for PATTON . It was a superb performance ( on par with Orson Welles in the same role in the 1944 version as Edw... |
492,139 | 3,280,905 | 33,373 | 10 | The Egghead is Mightier Than the Hood | What happens to an ivy tower atmosphere if it is invaded by a sexually alluring siren ? Will it lead to events similar to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from their perfect cocoon of the Garden of Eden ? But the sin of Adam and Eve was tasting of the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge . The eight professors in th... |
492,982 | 3,280,905 | 507,783 | 10 | Does Conscience Make Cowards of Us All ? | An interesting episode on this series which deals with the power of an apparition . Whether it is a ghost or the viewer's conscience is up to the viewer to decide , but it certainly evens the score . Ben Cooper plays Ronnie Watson , an ambitious jockey who will stop at nothing to win a race ( so long as he's not caught... |
492,751 | 3,280,905 | 550,301 | 10 | A touch of Lipski and Maybrick , and a dash of James Berry thrown in | In 1889 Mrs . Florence Maybrick was charged and convicted of poisoning her husband James a cotton-broker from Liverpool ) . The trial was not very good - the evidence was questionable and the judge ( Sir James Fitzjames Stephen ) was suffering from a nervous breakdown and gave a good summation if they had been trying F... |
492,848 | 3,280,905 | 25,878 | 10 | An unexpected boon to Dashiell Hammett | Dashiell Hammett constructed five novels and many short stories , all dealing with crime and detection . They were based on his work as a Pinkerton Detective , which gives them a gritty realism that lifted them from the more forgettable mystery novels of the 1920s like S . S . Van Dine's " Philo Vance " . Up to Hammett... |
492,796 | 3,280,905 | 43,090 | 10 | Really First Rate Film Noir - And Bettger Almost Walks Off With It ! | Looking at the casting and production of this film , and even the title , an informed viewer must wonder about who was the guiding genius behind it . The romantic leads , William Holden and Nancy Olsen , just played the similar leads in a tragically doomed love affair in Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD . The director ,... |
492,091 | 3,280,905 | 94,119 | 10 | A Wonderful Look at a Remarkable Literary Group | This is one of those programs that was shown so frequently at one time ( roughly 1990 ) and is rarely if ever on television or DVD now . Heywood Hale Broun , the narrator , was a sports commentator for most of his career - an elegantly dressed one with a fine looking mustache . His father Heywood Broun , was a leading ... |
492,277 | 3,280,905 | 45,537 | 10 | The Best Back Stage Musical ? | I tend to like " The Band Wagon " more than " Forty Second Street " because while both are instructive about how a musical show is put together , the later movie shows how disastrously wrong-headed some productions become and how they have to be redesigned on the road . While few are as bad as Jeffrey Cordova's version... |
492,275 | 3,280,905 | 37,774 | 10 | That Odd Turn at Albuquerque Goes to the Black Forest | This was the last of the three World War II cartoons shown on the TURNER CLASSIC FILM " Cartoon Alley " show yesterday . This one is of interest because of it's connections with the future Bugs Bunny cartoons . First off , this is the cartoon where Bugs is driven off course in his underground travels by making the wron... |
492,278 | 3,280,905 | 62,767 | 10 | They paid more money than the Germans did in reparations ! | Gina Lollabrigida had the slight misfortune to appear on the scene in Italian cinema at the same time that Sophia Loren did . Between them ( aided by Anita Ekbert ) they dominated the sexual scene in Italian films , but Loren pulled ahead slightly in dramatic fare - and copped an Oscar in 1960 for " Two Women " , somet... |
492,304 | 3,280,905 | 50,815 | 10 | Belatedly Hollywood does Rodgers and Hart's Masterpiece | Lorenz Hart wrote in a different style from his successor as partner to Richard Rodgers ( Oscar Hammerstein 2nd ) . Hart had a more smart alecky type of lyric , less wholesome . But he still was quite a clever and intelligent lyricist . His tragedy was a personal one . Hammerstein had a happy home life . Hart was a tro... |
493,237 | 3,280,905 | 62,765 | 10 | Still the greatest car chase sequence in any thriller ever made | I have found in my life that few films hit me properly from the start . BULLITT ( which I first saw at College ) was one of them . It cemented my high opinion of the cinematic acting ability of Steve McQueen , and it has always struck me as one of the best police " procedural " films in terms of the way the investigati... |
491,963 | 3,280,905 | 22,103 | 10 | The Follow - Up To SVENGALI | When Michael Curtiz directed this odd ballet and horror film he presumably had the recent success of the John Barrymore - Marian Marsh film SVENGALI ( from George Du Maurier's TRILBY ) in mind . That story was based on a novel wherein a great singer is actually controlled ( by hypnosis ) by her impresario . Although Sv... |
492,301 | 3,280,905 | 33,467 | 10 | An American Colossus and the People Around Him | There are now 810 comments on this , possibly the greatest of all American films ( if not all films ) . This review is about an issue I always think about - how horrific was Kane to his country , his associates , and his intimates ? Kane's personality is that of a man desperate to try to hold onto the affections of eve... |
491,857 | 3,280,905 | 29,747 | 10 | Comence A - Dancin ' ! | While Laurel & Hardy made several costume films , most were set in Europe ( BOHEMIAN GIRL , THE DEVIL'S BROTHER , SWISS MISS ) and only one was set in a past American History period : WAY OUT WEST , which with SONS OF THE DESERT and BABES IN TOYLAND represent the highpoint of the boys ' comic feature films . It is thei... |
491,786 | 3,280,905 | 25,919 | 10 | One of the funniest sound movies ever made | If " The Lady With Red Hair " ( about Mrs . Leslie Carter ) gave us a good portrait of theatrical producer / director David Belasco ( in the capable hands of Claude Rains ) , this film shows the ham side . Oscar Jaffe ( John Barrymore ) is based on Belasco , with his less attractive sides . Here is not the man who simp... |
493,325 | 3,280,905 | 52,950 | 10 | What went wrong between Russia and the West ? | Most people will consider that Yul Brynner's greatest performance was as the ruler of Siam in THE KING AND I . Certainly it gave him a wide variety of moods to test his abilities in , from comic , to tragic , from eager to learn to dominating to hateful . It also showed him to advantage as a " talk singer " and a dance... |
493,144 | 3,280,905 | 14,429 | 10 | A Climb to Remember | It has truly said that while THE FRESHMAN , or SPEEDY , or THE KID BROTHER , are better films , SAFETY LAST is the film that everyone who never saw a Harold Lloyd comedy recalls . That is because in one moment on the screen he engraved himself forever into the minds of movie lovers ( something , oddly enough , Chaplin ... |
492,862 | 3,280,905 | 25,907 | 10 | The Best Version of the Best Known Stevenson Story | When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote TREASURE ISLAND in 1883 , he probably thought that it was a good work , but hardly better than his TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY or SILVERADO SQUATTERS or his other coming fiction . It was a good early novel , and that was that . He would grow as a writer , but THE MASTER OF BALLENTRAE , DR . ... |
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