I've managed to get myself way behind, so I decided to combine my I recap 2025 with my Q4 post. With five movies in the queue, plus a couple more for WEIW Q1. I need to get back to posting.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Essentially a remake of the superior 1931 film. It didn't work as a horror film principally because it wasn’t one. The gorgeous cinematography, luscious sets, and performances, not to mention the trippy dream sequences, spoke of a period drama. wasn’t filmed much like a horror film and if you go into it with that expectation, you will be disappointed. Viewers of the day were.
The Old Dark House (1932)
I watched this last in the summer of 2011 on VHS. I remembered little of the experience except that the audio quality was rather poor. A youtube video encouraged me to revisit it. I found a much better quality version streaming and enjoyed it quite a bit this time. AMRU 3.5.
The Unknown (1927)
I heard that additional footage was found and professionally restored. I had to take a look. TCM normally runs the most recent restoration and this was no exception. Unfortunately, the only additional footage I noticed was at the beginning, showing a young boy watch people entering the circus. No additional backstory of Alonzo’s crimes, no details of the surgeon’s fate. Apparently additional scenes were lengthened with the return of additional cuts.
The Invention of Cinema: Cinema Finds its Voice (2021)
A pretty good doc about the advent of sound cinema. There are a couple more in the series, so I will keep an eye out.
The Apartment (1960) is better each time I watch it.
Brazil (1985)
I’ve long wanted to watch Brazil and finally took the opportunity to see it when TCM ran the director’s cut. I shouldn’t have waited so long. It’s a master class in world building and its absurdist comedy is next level.
So, how did the year go as a whole? Not too shabby. Surprisingly, I managed four Alfred Hitchcock films with two more in the chamber. Six (I believe) foreign language films and only two silent. Need to watch me some more Buster.
I watched four noir or noir-adjacent films in November. One German, one Italian, one French, and an American. That was perfect. I may have been oversold on The Big Clock, but it was still excellent. I did try to hit some Christmas films in December, but events got in the way. Instead I watched films recorded on my cable provider DVR before I hand it in. They raised the TV portion of my bill by fifteen bucks to a frankly insane $150 per month. I intended to have done this before new years, but, well, life. Soon.
The best film I saw may have been Rebel Without a Cause, which definitely has the highest profile, or perhaps the Japanese horror film Kuroneko. More likely it was Brazil or The Apartment.
I don’t know what the worst film I saw. There were a fair number of weak films but nothing particularly terrible. Hitchcock’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith might have been the most disappointing.
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