au cinéma 1961
The Misfits (dir. John Huston). I dropped it after about forty minutes; it might be more enjoyable if I hadn’t read of its history. The script spends too much of the time exclaiming how wonderful the writer’s wife is. Clark Gable looks like the celeb of the week on a kid show: hold the famous smile for awhile, now frown avuncularly, now cock an eyebrow as fan service for any mothers or grandmothers who might be watching.
The Guns of Navarone (dir. J Lee Thompson). More nuanced than typical war movies of the time. — Gregory Peck has one embarrassing moment: contained fury is not something he sells well.
The Hustler (dir. Robert Rossen). The sequel The Color of Money (1986, dir. Scorsese) led me to expect a caper, not a damn sports-underdog story. I like caper movies.
West Side Story (dir. Robbins/Wise). Did the dances look less absurd when it was new? — I’d never have spotted Rita Moreno, so much younger here than I’ve seen her before.
The Comancheros (dir. Michael Curtiz, John Wayne). Amiably standard Western fare.
One, Two, Three (dir. Billy Wilder). Funny script, but most of the characters are one-note; I get tired of the constant shouting of Cagney (as Coca-Cola’s man in Berlin) and Buchholz (as a fervent young Communist swept up in circumstance).
murder by most famous
Here in the ogre’s cave we watch quite a lot of English detective shows; my housemate orders them from Netflix. The title of this post comes from an observation of hers that – since the biggest role in a detective show, after the regulars, is the criminal – if you see a prominent actor in the guest cast you can bet who dunnit.
When Anton Rodgers (whom you may remember from The Prisoner) showed up as ragged hypochondriac Lord Chetwood in “Market for Murder”, I eagerly hoped the rule would hold, because the dotty old lord rarely gets to have much fun. Alas, it was not to be.
A curious thing about that series Midsomer Murders, by the way: most episodes appear to be intended for widescreen format, but are not letterboxed, so the faces are distorted. My eye adapts to it before the show is half over.
And while I’m up, another curious thing: at the beginning of this episode the detective’s sidekick gets out of a car whose front plate is mirror-reversed. First I thought the shot was reversed; but the driver got out of the correct door. Then I thought perhaps that’s standard in Britain, so that you can easily read the plate of the car that rear-ended you; but no, all the other plates in the episode are normal. Could it be that the only car available for that shot was foreign, with the steering wheel on the wrong side?
does it mean anything?
In Fractured Fairy Tales: The Three Little Piggs (1960 Oct 09), the wolf when first seen is reading Gay Boy magazine.
at the pictures, 1960
La Dolce Vita (dir. Federico Fellini). Plot-free.
Plein Soleil (Purple Noon) (dir. René Clément), the first film version of The Talented Mr Ripley, quite good. The French title means broad daylight; I saw nothing that would explain purple!
À bout de souffle (Breathless) (dir. Jean-Luc Godard). One more Famous Groundbreaking Work of Art checked off.
The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder). Good fun.
The Little Shop of Horrors (dir. Roger Corman). The amateurishness of it all is both amusing and frustrating. — In the first scene we hear Seymour offstage singing “Marble Halls“, a song previously known to me only from Enya‘s third album Shepherd Moons (1991).
Ποτέ Την Κυριακή Never on Sunday (dir. Jules Dassin). Abandoned out of boredom after a few minutes. Remind me not to rent any more foreign movies about whores — or of which I know nothing but the theme tune.
The Magnificent Seven (dir. John Sturges). Contains a line that had stuck in my mind for years, and sometimes bugged me that I could not recall its source:
It’s like this fellow I knew in El Paso. One day, he just took all his clothes off and jumped in a mess of cactus. I asked him that same question: why? — He said it seemed to be a good idea at the time.
Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player) (dir. François Truffaut).
Tunes of Glory (dir. Ronald Neame).
The Entertainer (dir. Tony Richardson). Lawrence Olivier is splendid as a vaudevillian who cannot accept that he’s washed up. Alan Bates’s first movie; for twenty minutes I didn’t spot him, until some distinctive gesture.
a rifled revolver
In the first episode of Have Gun Will Travel (1957), Paladin points out that his custom-made revolver has a rifled barrel, “a rarity in a hand weapon.” Say what?!
movies recently rented
Ballada o Soldate (1959). A Russian soldier wins a brief leave to go visit his mother, and has encounters and mishaps on the way. A simple tale, gorgeously shot.
Anatomy of a Murder (1959). Sex, violence and cross-examination. Includes George C Scott younger than I had seen him. — The defendant, who saw action in Korea, describes the weapon as “a war souvenir, a Luger.” Were Lugers used much in Korea?
Beany and Cecil (1959). I was curious about this tv cartoon partly because it’s by Bob Clampett, creator of Daffy Duck; and partly because some of Larry Niven’s fiction implies that it will be remembered for centuries.
Well, that was a waste of ten minutes.
Operation Petticoat (1959), a likable war comedy.
At Home with the Braithwates (2000), tv series about a housewife breaking out. There are some amusing moments, but not enough novelty to get me to finish the second hour.