The Talk of the Town (1942)

A warehouse burns to the ground and a man dies. Professional rabble rouser Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant) is arrested. Realizing he doesn't have a chance in the world, he escapes before his trial. He takes refuge in the cottage of a lovely young schoolteacher, Nora Shelley (41 year old Jean Arthur). She helps Dreamy Leo but things get complicated when noted legal theorist Professor Lightcap (Ronald Coleman) arrives a day early to rent the cottage. Nora passes Leopold off as her gardener.

Every Christmas I get a daily desk calendar. I use them at work because it provides me with lots of paper for notes. This past Christmas I did not get one, so I went out and got myself a Leonard Maltin. Not really a Maltin guy. More a Siskel and Ebert type, but Maltin is what I found. I make two piles: one No the other Maybe. The Talk of the Town was in the Maybe pile.

There are two stories going at simultaneously. First is the legal drama unfolding. Malcontent Dilg has no tolerance for the abstract ideals of Lightcap's world and the fussy professor has no regard for Dilg's emotional notions of law. Reality, as it frequently is, is somewhere in between. Do you think these two could ever learn to compromise and someone become good friends, I mean real good friends? Do ya, huh?

The second story is of the love triangle. Nora is an unwed schoolteacher and therefore needs a man. Who does she choose to be with? That question is not answered until the very end, and don't be so sure. Interestingly, when the camera panned between the three actors, my eight year old said "triangle". The camera panned in the shape of a triangle. Huh.

He also asked when it was going to become funny. While sometimes amusing, it wasn't really a comedy. Talk of the Town is a very well crafted character study and (dare I say it) situation comedy. It didn't drag, it never seemed forced or trite. This is a well done movie. Sharp and focused. It was nominated for seven academy awards, winning ... um ... none.

An IMDb blogger cracked that this was a leftist propaganda movie. Bloggers, they can be so stupid, huh? Well anyways, I tried to fit his thesis into the reality on the screen. Did Cary Grant represent leftist ideals? Kinda, I would say. He name was Leopold Dilg, which sounds Ruskie to me! When posing at the gardener, they called him Joseph. Not Joe or Joey. Joseph. Hmmmm. When the man failed to realize, even if Dilg represented the left and Lightcap the right, both moved to the center. Plus Lightcap declared himself a political independent fairly early on.

Well written, well acted, and entertaining throughout. Jean Arthur is wonderful. I really did care about the characters and their stories. I wasn't totally charmed by this film, but I can see how others could be. I'm glad I watched it. AMRU 3.5.

Chandu the Magician (1932)

Impulse pickup at the library. The DVD cover shows a closeup of Bela Lugosi. I wasn't familiar with it. Bela did so many crappy movies. Chandu the Magician was based on a popular radio program of the day.

Chandu is Frank Chandler, a retired army captain who studied to be a Yogi in the orient. Think The Shadow. The movie begins with Chandler in, I'm guessing, India, taking his final exam. He demonstrates all of the Yogi tricks that he will need in this film. He can mesmerize people by doing a Little Rascals style eyes-wide stare. He can walk through fire, or between two lines of fire when the camera angle is low. And he can do this astral projection thing, which totally comes in handy. He also hears a weird sound when danger is near. Not too handy as everyone else can hear it too.

Chandler is given the Yogi name of Chandu by his Yogi teacher, who for some reason uses King James (thou shalt ...) language. He tells Chandu that he must do battle with the Evil Roxor (Bela). Why must Chandu fight him? Because when looking into his crystal ball he sees ... Dorothy! No, not that Dorothy, Chandler's sister. Roxor has captured Chandu's brother-in-law. Robert Regent created a super powerful death ray that Roxor wants to (somehow) use for evil. Hey, this was before atomic weapons. Personally I think Yogi was just trying to ditch the white dude.

Chandu pays Roxor a visit and rescues old flame Princess Nadja (Irene Ware). Rather than offing o'll Roxor right then and there, he grabs the hot princess and sets the place on fire, so that he can walk through the fire, or between two lines of fire when the camera angle is low.

There is a scene where Regent's daughter is captured. Dad still refuses to tell Roxor how to switch the death ray on, so he is forced to watch as his totally hot daughter is sold into slavery. When brought onto the trading block, she appears to smile and strike a sexy pose, her awesome figure on full display for all. I guess if you are going to be sold into slavery, you want to go for top dollar. Human slavery is such a horrible thing, and all, but if I'm there and that's what's for sale, I'm sorry honey, but I'm emptying the bank account!

I checked online to see what else June Lang/Vlasek has been in. Not too much, but I notice she was born in 1917. Let's do the math, shall we? When the movie was released she was .... fifteen?

Unclean ... unclean ... unclean. Depending on when the scene was filmed, she could have been fourteen. Yikes.

This was a cool action/adventure story. The Yogi magic was silly, and Edmund Lowe made for a very unheroic heroic character (he is downright silly trying to communicate with Robert through a mini travel-sized crystal ball like it was a radio), but the story was cool, the special effects were ahead of their time, and the sets were great. Bela Lugosi was absolutely brilliant as the most evil of villains. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I insisted my sons give it twenty minutes. If they didn't like it, I'd turn it off. But they loved it. Even my wife liked it. A little. AMRU 3.5.

There was a sequel called The Return of Chandu with a totally different cast. Except they promoted Bela from villain to hero. I believe it is a twelve part serial, but I'm not exactly sure. It appears to be in the public domain so I should be able to watch it.

The Monster Maker (1944)

What is it with old movies and caged apes? Did gorillas touch a nerve with the moviegoers back then?

The plot is simple. A creepy old doctor sees a hot chick at a piano concert. She is the very image of his dearly departed wife. So, what's a mad scientist to do? How about send her flowers and letters. And if 'oll dad says a word of complaint, infect him with a disease that slowly turns him into a monster! Sounds like a plan of success.

Irony strikes when Dad goes to the doctor and is refered to a specialist, namely Creepy Mad Doctor. Gosh, I wonder what he wants in return for curing him?

I knew J. Carrol Naish was in the movie, but I wasn't sure where. He was good in Dr. Renault's Secret (starring as the secret, himself) and I was curious to see him in another role. I popped on my blackberry, browsed to IMDB and .... holy crap! He's the Mad Doctor! Subhuman brute to evil scientist. Nice range!

Fair acting and dialog. Not altogether bad. Clearly a low budget movie, but not without it's charm. Pleasantly short. AMRU 3. Oh, yea, and the doctor had a caged ape. Not sure why.

The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)

In this, the second to last Thin Man movie, the Charles visit Nick's parents. Nora is offended by Nick's father's dismissive attitude towards her husband's career choice, so she decides to take action. Everyone in town seem to think Nick is working on a case anyhow, so she decides to "shake the tree" a bit. A case will present itself, and if his father sees how great of a detective Nick is, all will be right in the universe. 

A case is presented when a man is shot to death at their door. Lots of suspects, lots of side stories, lots of hidden information that proves critical. Typical Thin Man stuff. Except, Nick is off the sauce. Apparently the Senior Charles doesn't approve of the Devil's tonic, so Nickie is on the cider. Gone too is Nickie Junior. He stayed home because he loves kindergarten so much. That's right. When visiting the grandparents, they leave the grandchild behind and bring the dog. 

This movie was supposed to have been filmed in '42 but Myrna decided to get married instead. They took up filming when the war and Myrna's marriage were winding down. Here, Loy's character openly pokes fun at the genre, first when describing one of Nick's cases to Dad. She tells how Nick tricked a suspect into revealing that he wasn't really crippled. Dad (a doctor) asked why he just didn't have a doctor check him out, which is what would have happened in real life. Also at the end, when Nick gathers all of the suspects together, Nora chats excitedly about the big pay off. She did that in earlier movies, but it seemed more overt here. 

I think I liked this one more than the previous few. Nothing tops the first, but I do feel the need to see it again. Someday, when feeling rich, I may buy the complete set and watch them back to back. Loy was still hot at the cusp of 40 and Powell was still witty even without the sauce. The move from a stuffy mansion or cityscape to anytown, USA made for a nice change of scenery. It's sad to know there's only one left. AMRU 4.0.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Sitting on a park bench, a man tells a horrible story that happened to him and his fiancee. The man, named Francis, goes to a carnival with his friend Alan, and the lady Jane who the two men share affection for. A strange man named Dr. Caligari claims to briefly awaken the mysterious Cesare from a coma, where he foretells the future. Alan, making a game of it, asks "How long shall I live?" Cesare replies "The time is short. You die at dawn!"

Guess what. He does! That'll teach him to not take creepy carnival acts seriously.

Widely regarded as the first feature length horror film, it was groundbreaking in it's style and influence. The crate paper sets were remarkably stylistic. Dramatic shadows were painted directly onto the sets.

Here's some interesting stuff: Cesare (Conrad Veidt) went on to play Major Strasser in Casablanca. He would do one more movie before dying at age 50. He fled Nazi Germany and made a minor career for himself playing Nazis. He was set to play Dracula, but lost the role to Bela Lugosi.

The "cabinet" the title refers to is the box Cesare is kept in. The twist ending was apparently added by the producers who wanted a less "macabre" story. Cesare is described as a somnambulist, which means sleepwalker. Not sure if that description fits.

The film is available on the public domain, but I would suggest finding the KINO restoration. By no means flawless, it is significantly better in video quality, which is important for a silent film. One note, however. In the special features, you have the option of choosing the score. The default, modern score is awful. I didn't try the traditional score, but it has to be better.

Creepy, if not actually scary, all horror films owe a debt to Dr. Caligari. AMRU 3.5.

Movies of 2009

I went to a theater exactly three times in 2009, all in the first half. When my boys were younger, I used to joke saying I only saw movies about a young wizard. Soon, even that ended. Here is what I got to see:

Race to Witch Mountain. I vaguely remember watching the originals back in the day. A theater in East Providence has bargain matinees and we took advantage of it. This movie cost us five bucks. In total.

In the original, the two magical kids captivated audiences and the actors went on to illustrious careers like playing townsfolk in this turd of a movie. Thing to note: if you are trying to get away from an assassin in a super high-tech flying saucer, all you need apparently is a beat up taxi cab. 

Star Trek. In this installment of the never-ending mission to extract money from geeks, Kirk and friends exist in a parallel time line. See, now we don't have to follow any of the rules of the old series and movies. If they want to kill off Chekov, then KA-POW! In this parallel time line, Uhura is HOT! Go figure. 

Night at the Museum - Battle of the Smithsonian. We liked the original. It had great action and was funny. This was almost as exciting. And almost as funny. In the end, we liked it almost as much. In the film Amelia Earhart likes men and is hot in tight pants. Amy Adams' ass is almost worth the price of admission right there.

That's it. Three visits to a movie theater in one year. I did hit the Providence Public Library, but that doesn't count.

I did watch a few 2009 releases on video. I just know you are dying to find out what I think of them: 

Julie & Julia. Hey, Amy Adams again! Sadly, without her coveted butt. A cooking movie for my wife. We both liked it and she ended up getting the DVD for Christmas. 

Star Trek. Uhura is HOT! Another gift for the wife. 

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. First movie where I didn't read the book first. I declared myself through with the series. A whole lot of snogging going on. Wife wanted this, but didn't get it. 

Inglourious Basterds. Not for the wife. She hates Tarantino, even though we both loved Pulp Fiction. Two-thirds of the movie is subtitled and rather than put them on the black part at the bottom of the screen, they are in the picture. In some cases they were up for an instant even though there were two lines to read. Comeon, Quint! Give me a break!

Fast paced, gratuitously violent, unexpectedly quirky, everything you come to expect from the man. 

Angels and Demons. I liked this book better then Da Vinci Code, but there were a couple plot points that were really stupid. Luckily, Opie Cunningham agreed and they weren't in this film. Never saw The Da Vinci Code movie. This was fair. Seems that Tom Hanks isn't searching for an Oscar vehicle anymore.

Saw some other movies on DVD, but the only one worth mentioning is 2007's The Man From Earth. Consider looking into it.

Film Blog Year in Review

I've been doing this for ten months and have blogged 59 movies. (Dirty secret: some of the early movies were watched months prior!) One entry covered two and one movie spread two entries. My original premise was to do movies of "some distinction" that I hadn't seen before, made before I was born. So, how did I do?

Not too good. March through May went well, 17 of 18 movies that meet my criteria. I had seen Kong before. June and July (busy months for me) I did four movies, only one which fit. I don't know WHAT I was thinking doing The Bad News Bears. Maybe I felt I needed to add content. August had good films, but only one fit the criteria, though Dr. Renault's Secret was very enjoyable. September and October were mixed bags, doing crap films from my Horror collection and rehashing movies I already knew I liked. December started poor but ended well. Overall, I count 37 that fit my intention.

The biggest surprises for me are:
Seven Samurai. I cannot explain why this 3 1/2 hour, black and white, subtitled, actionless action film kept me so entranced. It was simply wonderful.

The Thin Man. The humor holds up very well, the story is complex, and the dialog is as sharp as it gets. I already have the next one on my entertainment center.

It Happened One Night. Never heard of it before, despite it being an Academy Award winner. It was wonderful and loved it when I watched it a second time the following day. I had seen some of the scenes, though. Either from Warner Brother's cartoons or from when I watched That's Hollywood back in the day.

M. Not sure if I will watch it again, but was surprisingly impressive.

Would I change any movie ratings? The A in AMRU is significant. Few things in life are as arbitrary as my rating system. But looking back, I was a little too kind to some movies. I gave many a 2.5 because I didn't want to be too dismissive. Don't know why. Case in point, The Reluctant Astronaut. All that movie had going for it in 1967 was the public's fascination with the space race and Don Knotts improbable popularity. Today, it brings nothing to the table. I have fond memories to the pre-Ralph Furley Don Knotts, but this film is a testament to rose collared glasses.

What have I learned? I've come to notice how things like score and editing can really effect a movie's appeal. I've come to notice good acting a little better. I've come to realize the benefit of Netflix, which I may subscribe to in the near future.

What will I do in the future? I intend on keeping to my criteria a lot more. I'll slide on the year a bit or grab lesser known films, but I hope to keep the total trash (I'm looking at you, Killers from Space!) to a minimum.

At this moment, I'd like to acknowledge my first ever follower. Hi Carl! That was pointless, as nobody else reads this tripe, not even my family. And even Carl may fly the coop when he sees me concentrating on films outside of his interest range. I appreciate your interest.

Whelp, it's been fun and educational. I hope to continue this blog for at least another year. Maybe I'll take a film class. Naw, that'll never happen.