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Jan 31 movie: Mystery Street. Nice little detective movie starring Ricardo Montalban. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Ricardo Montalban? I really do. The later, campy, "KHANNNNNN!" stuff is tons of fun, but I most enjoy his early, serious film work.

No big stars in this B movie, but it's worth watching for a couple of reasons: first, the plot is largely a forensic/procedural mystery, with a Harvard medical examiner helping Montalban find clues to the crime. That's pretty common now, what with CSI (and Quincy!), but unusual fifty years ago.

Second, the racial implications of Montalban as a detective are nicely understated, and not at all patronizing (unlike the subplot about the African American who wants to be a lawyer in In This Our Life). I think it's only even mentioned explicitly once, when an arrogant suspect comments on Montalban's accent, brags about his own position as a pillar of the community, then says "I'm used to being treated with respect." Montalban calmly replies, "So am I!" I expected the movie to be about Montalban overcoming prejudice, but it's actually about him solving a crime. I read an interview once in which Montalban expressed frustration at Hollywood for using him as a sort of "generic ethnic" (Portuguese in this film), and pride at never having played a role that was demeaning. I imagine that must have limited his choice of parts.

Haven't had much time to post the past couple of days, so here's a quick movie run-down:

The African Queen. Can you believe I had never seen this one before? Great movie about Hepburn and Bogart traveling down a treacherous river in Africa with a plan to destroy a German ship during WWI.

Holiday. Starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn and written by Philip Barry and Donald Ogden Stewart, this could be seen as a practice run for The Philadelphia Story. But I must admit, it didn't engage me nearly as much. I can't recommend it unless you're a big fan of Hepburn or Grant.

In This Our Life. Fairly wretched film about a horrible woman (Bette Davis) who steals her sister's (Olivia de Havilland) husband, drives him to suicide, commits hit-and-run manslaughter, frames someone for it, gets caught, then conveniently dies in a car crash. 34 year old Davis was wearing heavy make-up to make her look like a young girl, which lent the film a creepy "Baby Jane" overtone. I almost turned it off mid-movie, except for an interesting sub-plot about an African American man trying to become a lawyer. Progressive stuff for 1942. The other odd tidbit is that Davis and de Havilland's characters are called Stanley and Roy. I'm guessing the movie is based on a book in which this is explained.

Jan 27 movie: The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. A lesser Preston Sturges movie, a bit too zany for my taste. Too many pratfalls and too much yelling. And stuttering for comic effect isn't easy to pull off; too often (as here) it's just painful. Still, it is Preston Sturges, tackling the rather shocking subject of a pregnant teenager who may or may not be married. Betty Hutton is luminous as always, although I was disappointed that she doesn't sing. I'm glad I saw it, but I probably wouldn't watch it again.

Jan 25 movie: The Lady Eve. I'm sensing a pattern in the movie list: I love the screwball comedies. Not that this comes as a surprise. I watch them a lot: the good ones over and over, and even the bad ones usually have something to recommend them at least once.

The Lady Eve is one of the good ones. Barbara Stanwyck plays a con artist with a heart of gold, and Henry Fonda plays the scientist she falls for. I read a book once, years ago, that talked about how the screwball comedies of the 30s and early 40s were uniquely focused on the female stars. (Wish I could remember the title!) The Lady Eve was one of the movies profiled in the book and it's true; the movie is all about Stanwyck, and she's fabulous. Fonda is great too, of course. Nice supporting work also by Eric Blore, Charles Coburn and Eugene Pallette.

I love one scene where a bodyguard with suspicions about Stanwyck poses as a waiter so he can keep tabs on her. He keeps trying to serve from the right, causing much consternation to the well-heeled guests, and eventually drops a roast into Henry Fonda's lap. The first time I saw this movie, I didn't know that formal rule about serving from the left. I could tell it was funny, but I had no idea why. It's interesting how sixty years can completely change the context of a joke.

Jan 24 movie: Bubba Ho-Tep. Don Coscarelli directs a story about Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) and John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis) living in a retirement home in Texas, which is under attack by a soul-sucking mummy. All movies should be like this.

Bubba Ho-Tep was way more funny than scary, but did well at creating a creepy atmosphere. Coscarelli certainly understands the principle that the monster is more effective if you never get a good look at it. I wish all horror directors were down with that concept! We saw it at the Nevermore film festival at the Carolina, in a sold-out show. I missed a few of the jokes because of the noise from everyone laughing and cheering, but the movie was much more fun that way.

Even better, after the movie we went over to Lisa's place for her birthday party. Much fun was had by all. We had lots of cool retro music (we can ride the boogie!), answering machine messages from Latin singers from New Jersey, impromptu knitting lessons, the creation of a new drink (the "frisky," Fresca and whiskey, and no I did not have one), and I hear that after Georg and I left at midnight things really got fun.

Jan 24 movie: Keep The River On Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale. Independant Film Channel has some annoying habits, like running the same movies over and over. But I'm thrilled with them for having done "Reality Night" a couple of days ago, allowing me to see Lost in La Mancha and this documentary about Tobias Schneebaum, the artist/anthropologist who lived with cannibals in Peru and New Guinea in the 60s. The movie shows him returning to the communities he had lived in and meeting people who remembered him; they also show him in his native environment of New York. The movie is compelling because Scheebaum is such a compelling subject. There's a brief allusion to accusations that he compromised his anthropoloical work by "going native," and there's probably another movie there, but for the most part the filmmakers get out of the way and let Schneebaum's nostalgic travels be the focus.

Probably the most sensational part of the movie was Schneebaum's struggle to come to terms with having participated in an attack on another village and a cannibalistic ritual while in Peru. But for me the most affecting moment was his reunion with an old friend/lover in New Guinea who he thought was dead. The man kisses him easily, as if they've only been apart for a few months, but Schneebaum holds back, saying that he couldn't stand the pain of losing the relationship again. Moments like that, with such genuine emotion, are why I love documentaries.

Jan 23 movie: Cold Mountain. When I heard this had been directed by Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) I crossed it off my list. But a friend saw it and spoke well of it, so when my friend Patricia suggested it for our evening out last night, I figured what the heck. And I did enjoy it. It's beautifully filmed (although, boo! on them for filming in Romania instead of North Carolina) and I found it emotionally engaging. The best part of the movie is Renee Zellweger (boy I never thought I'd write those words) who saves it from taking itself too seriously. Philip Seymour Hoffman also has a nice small part.

Possibly the biggest relief of the movie was the younger villain, the blonde guy who might have been albino but I think was actually just very fair. He spent most of the movie with this glint in his eye that screamed "I am going to go medieval and scenery-chewing on y'all's asses in Act 3," but somehow was prevented from doing so. whew!

Jan 23 movie: Lost in La Mancha. Fascinating documentary of Terry Gilliam's doomed attempt to make a movie about Don Quixote. This was an eye-opening look at the practical side of movie-making: scheduling and fund-raising and so forth. It reminded me a lot of the book The Devil's Candy, about the production of Bonfire of the Vanities. But while Bonfire of the Vanities suffered a sort of death by a thousand cuts -- an endless series of small bad decisions which added up to a very bad movie -- the problems that beset Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote are more of a train wreck. It's sad to watch Gilliam go from giggling with joy at his screen test for three burly giants, to waiting helplessly while insurance agents decide the fate of his movie.

(Also, Georg is right: the actor who played Denethor in Return of the King looks a lot like Terry Gilliam. I'm glad I didn't notice it at the time, that would have been distracting.)

Jan 21 movie: The Philadelphia Story. This is another first for the movie list: I'm writing the post before watching the movie. Because I know I'm going to watch it tonight, but I've seen it so many times I don't need to refresh my memory before writing this. The Philadelphia Story is the perfect screwball comedy. The humor is just the right level of wacky, the romance is utterly charming, and the clothes are fabulous. My two favorite moments in the film are 1: little sister Virginia Weidler pretending to be eccentric, speaking French and singing "Lydia the Tattooed Lady"; and 2: drunken Jimmy Stewart bursting in on Cary Grant in the middle of the night and constantly repeating his name. "C.K. Dexter Haven! C.K. Dexter HAAAYYYYVENNNNN!"

I've always wondered if the sleazy tabloid in the movie, Spy Magazine, was the inspiration (in name at least) for the Spy I loved reading during the 80s. And I have nothing else to say about this movie except: if you haven't seen it yet, you're in luck! It starts at 8 tonight on TCM.

Jan 20 movie: Return of the King. This is the first movie of the year seen in a theater. I actually had tickets for opening night, but I was sick as wasn't able to go. Georg and I finally went with Sylvia last night. I enjoyed it a lot. Not as much as the first one, but way more than the second. (Come to think of it, that's how I felt about the Matrix movies too, although ROTK was way better than Matrix: Revolutions.)

I'm not a fanatical devotee of the books, although I have read them. Okay, many times. But I don't object on principle to all changes. Slavish authenticity just isn't possible when adapting a book to a movie, especially not with a rambling epic like Lord of the Rings. I felt like Jackson got the first movie just right: the tone was perfect, most of the characters were just as I imagined them, and the changes made sense. The second installment I found more problematic: it seemed like they jettisoned a lot of material that I wanted to see, in favor of a bunch of junk that didn't make any sense.

This time, I think they did much better. [minor spoiler alert] There was only one change that ticked me off: Frodo believing Gollum and turning his back on Sam. I guess they were trying to show how much the ring had messed with Frodo's head, but it really wasn't necessary, in my opinion, and damaged Frodo's character, made him seem gullible. On the other hand, I think they totally made the right call in dropping the stuff about the destruction of the Shire. [/spoiler]

Sylvia hadn't read the books in a long time, so it was interesting to get a fresh perspective. We agreed that it made us sad when they killed the oliphants. It wasn't their fault, they weren't evil! We also agreed on how sympathetically Gollum was portrayed. I felt glad for him that his last few moments were happy; Sylvia wished that he hadn't died, but had been rescued and redeemed! Can you imagine the hue and cry from LOTR fans if they had made a change like that.

Sylvia also noted that the movie was almost entirely a white man's story. Which is true (Eowyn is the only woman with anything to do, and the only swarthy people we see are the bad guys riding the oliphants), but this was actually much worse in the books so it didn't really bother me.

Jan 20 movie: Harvey. Jimmy Stewart stars as Elwood P. Dowd, an amiable drunk whose best friend is a six foot tall invisible rabbit. The basic sweetness of the film is somewhat undercut by some unpleasant events -- for example when his sister tries to have him committed (which in itself is bad enough), the doctor mistakes her for the patient and has a male orderly forcibly carry her off, lock her in a cell, then strip her clothes off and put her into a bathtub. Still the movie is basically kind-hearted. Stewart is funny and charming, although I heard that he wasn't happy with his performance. Later on he did a revival of the stage play with a darker, crazier edge to the character.

Jan 19 Movie: Midnight. I have a weakness for screwball comedies starring Claudette Colbert, and this is one of the best. Colbert is a golddigger in Paris who somehow ends up posing as a Hungarian baroness, and evading cabdriver Don Ameche, with the help of John Barrymore. Mary Astor also costars, as well as a British guy who should have been Noel Coward but wasn't. Robert Osbourne said that Barrymore had a hard time with this production, even needing cue cards at times. That's sad, but cue cards or no he still brings the funny. The best scene of the movie is Barrymore pretending to be Colbert's sick daughter in Hungary, braying into the phone about alcohol poisoning. This, It Happened One Night and The Palm Beach Story are my favorite Colbert movies.

Jan 18 movie: Night on Earth. This is my favorite Jim Jarmusch movie. It's about five taxi rides that take place simultaneously in five cities: Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki. I guess you could call it a "slice of life" movie because each segment is basically just spending time with the characters, getting to know them. No life lessons or morals are learned, no one changes (well, with one major exception). So it's five slices of life, in five cities. My favorite segment is the one in Paris, with a fed up driver from the Ivory Coast and a harsh blind woman. You think he's learned something from her in a "very special episode" sort of way, but the seconds after he drops her off make it clear that he's exactly the same guy he was before he met her. I love this movie.

Jan 18 Movie: Night and Day. Largely fictionalized Cole Porter biopic is more fun after having read a Porter biography (Noel and Cole), which makes the fictions more glaringly apparent. In the movie Porter is not only a WWI war hero, but a proud, self-made man who refuses the money of his well-to-do family and his millionaire wife Linda (they marry later in the movie than in real life) because he wants to succeed on his own. Hilarious scenes include Porter working at a department store music counter, writing songs on his lunch hour, when at that time in his life he and Linda were actually busy giving and attending parties at their Upper East Side penthouse, their Paris home and their Venice hotel suite. I read that Porter could have been successful much sooner if he'd been more serious about his work and devoted less time to his high society lifestyle. (I wanted to write "jet-set" but I doubt they were called that in the 1920s.)

Alas, having read Noel and Cole made me enjoy the music in the film less. Because apparently the producers had originally planned on cameo appearances by all the Broadway stars to do the songs they had made famous. But then for budget reasons they decided to use no-name studio singers instead. Watching some fairly unremarkable singer do "I've Got You Under My Skin," when I knew it should have been Ethel Merman, kind of stuck in my craw.

Another note of historical revisionism that stuck in my craw: they show the opening night of The Gay Divorce, sans Fred Astaire of course, but the playbill uses the censored movie title "The Gay Divorcee." (Apparently the movie board felt that a divorce could not be a happy event, but a divorcee could be happy about getting one.) I guess when practically the whole movie was made up out of whole cloth I shouldn't waste my time even noticing a tiny detail like that.

There was one bonus in the film though: a small appearance by Alan Hale Sr. as a Broadway producer who rejects "Mrs. Otis Regrets" because "I hear it here" (taps his ear) "but I don't feel here" (thumps his heart). I've been thinking about having an "Alan Hale Sr. Month" sometime this year, and seeing as many of his movies as I can. That would be fun.

On Lisa's suggestion I'm putting all the movie posts into their own entries. That way I can assign them all a separate category which will make it easier to sort them out at the end of the year.

Jan 16 movie: The War Game. Presented by AV Geeks, this 1966 BBC documentary about the aftermath of nuclear attack was the most grim movie I have ever seen. Seriously, I've seen some doozies, and I've been sitting here trying, and failing, to think of one that was more disturbing than The War Game. Basically they took the worst recorded events at Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and other bombed cities, and re-enacted them in gruesome detail in Kent. Burned up children screaming, the worst of the wounded being abandoned or shot, and so forth. Not exactly a laugh riot. The film was banned in Britain, I guess they feared it would cause a panic, but was available in the US and won an Academy Award.

As Skip (our host) pointed out, most Americans have never seen a mid-60s BBC documentary, but we have seen parodies of them. So The War Game resembled nothing so much as an elaborate Monty Python sketch. One with no jokes, but a lot of burned up screaming children. The Monty Python connection provided an element of surrealism that only made it more disturbing. However, I'm really glad Skip mentioned it. Because otherwise I would have thought there was something deeply wrong with me for finding the structure of the film somehow funny.

On the bright side, now I finally feel ready to rent Grave of Fireflies and Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Both of which I've wanted to see for a long time, but wasn't sure if I could handle. But they can't be worse than The War Game.

The AV Geeks presentation also included a couple of shorts: an RKO film called You Can Beat the A Bomb! which, as you can imagine, portrayed a nuclear attack as a minor inconvenience to the daily lives of middle America. After The War Game this was pretty damned funny. Also a Canadian animated short, I think the title was The Great Snit but I'm not 100% sure, about an old couple who argue over a Scrabble game, unaware that nuclear war has broken out. Just as they make up they are killed, turn into angels and go back to their game. Sounds creepy but it was actually funny and sweet.

Also yesterday I thought I had Tivo'ed a mid-sixties Michael Caine crime movie set in London. Which sounded like great fun. But I must have selected the wrong thing because I ended up with After the Fox, a monumentally unfunny mid-sixties Peter Sellers crime movie set in Italy. I'm not counting it as a movie of the day because I gave up before the halfway point.

Jan 14 movie: None! With all the running around and then a new Angel, there wasn't time. We did watch a few episodes of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast from the Season 1 DVD.

Jan 15 movie: Dark Victory. I'll watch just about anything with Bette Davis in it, but I had been wanting to see this again for a long time. It's often described as her best along with Now, Voyager, which is my favorite of her movies. Well on repeated viewing, I don't think Dark Victory is as good as Now, Voyager. But both of them do feature well-developed character studies. This one, a classic weeper, is about a Long Island socialite who gets an incurable brain tumor and falls in love with her brain surgeon. Supporting roles by Humphrey Bogart as an Irish stable manager (!) and Ronald Reagan as an addled but amiable playboy (no stretch there) are more interesting for the novelty value than the acting.

Brent's portrayal of the doctor makes me thank my lucky stars I never needed medical care in 1939. The day of her surgery, Brent categorically refuses to answer Davis' basic questions. Such as, where on her head are they going to cut open, and what exactly are they going to do. All he'll say is "Don't worry, that's my concern." Yeah, it's only her brain, no need for her to worry! I wonder if that was realistic. Then after the surgery, the doctors agree not to tell her the negative prognosis, so her final months will be happy. (I'm assuming -- hoping -- that was not realistic.)

Prurient note: I read in a book on fashion recently that Bette Davis' costumers hated her, because she was busty and refused to wear a bra. So they had to dress her to conceal her bosom. Since reading that, I'm always noticing the design of her costumes. It's true -- they're always loose around the bust, and she's often wearing a bolero jacket or capelet or something.

Jan 13 movie: Man With a Movie Camera. 1929 documentary of "an except from the diary of a cameraman" in the Soviet Union. With no plot, no narrative, no actors and no intertitles they somehow managed to make an incredibly compelling film. The film is unusual even for modern documentaries in that the camera is a near-constant presence. They actually had two cameras, one filming scenes of public life in Odessa and the second filming the first, so we get to see both the "man with the movie camera" and his footage. It's fascinating to see how the cameraman gets a particular shot -- perched on top of the door of a moving car, lying in a trench in the middle of a railroad track, behind the counter of a government license bureau, steering a motorcycle with one hand and turning the camera's crank with the other, etc.

There's also extensive use of special effects like split screens and superimposed images, which I imagine must have been pretty radical, especially in the Soviet Union (Robert Osborne said that the director wasn't popular with the soviet government). But the most interesting moment was seeing a woman at a rifle range, shooting a target that had a little swastika on its head! When she hit the target a sign popped open that said "Father of Fascism." We were surprised that Soviet/Nazi hostility was already so great in 1929.

Unfortunately the movie has a 1995 score by Alloy Orchestra rather than the breathtakingly beautiful score by Cinematic Orchestra. So we muted the TV and started the Cinematic Orchestra album at the same time as the movie. It seems like the CD more or less follows the movie but isn't a perfect match. Sometimes the music seems well suited to the visuals, other times it's woefully out of sync. I'm guessing that we're off by maybe a couple of minutes, though it's hard to tell. Still, I adore this album so I'm thrilled to see the images that inspired it.

I was concerned that I was too tired and would find Man With a Movie Camera too arty, but it isn't at all. It's brilliant. If you ever get the chance to see Cinematic Orchestra perform the score live to the movie, buy a ticket for me!

Jan 11 movie: The Nun's Story. I ended up getting sucked in and watching the whole thing, which I should have known would happen. I'm fascinated with movies about nuns, probably because of the complete lack of religious upbringing in my life except for four years in a Catholic high school. Audrey Hepburn plays a young Belgian nun who works in the Congo as a nurse and wrestles with doubts about her calling. The interesting thing, I think, is the lack of black and white morality (a rarity in old movies about nuns). The convent system is made to seem kindly and loving, if sometimes misguided, but leaving it is clearly the right decision for her. A sharp contrast to Song of Bernadette, where Jennifer Jones glows with beatific light while being tormented by the sadistic mistress of novices. On the other hand, Song of Bernadette has Vincent Price as a sceptical magistrate, which is always a big plus.

Jan 12 movie: The Toy Wife. This movie was awful and I wouldn't have watched the whole thing if I hadn't been too tired after work to get off my ass. It's about a selfish brat named Frou-Frou, in antebellum Louisiana, who marries the man her sister loves, then runs off with another man, who dies in a duel with the husband, and the husband is such a bastard about the whole thing that the sister falls out of love with him, then Frou-Frou gets tuberculosis and dies. But they all forgive each other on her deathbed so it's okay. As an added bonus there were more hideous stereotypes of african slaves than you can shake a stick at. The Toy Wife was kind of like the Bette Davis classic Jezebel except completely wretched.

Jan 11 Movie: The Gay Divorcee. This is one of my very favorite movies, but oddly I don't have much to say about it. Ginger Rogers mistakes Fred Astaire for hired corespondent in her divorce; wacky hijinks and a lot of dancing ensue. The original play, The Gay Divorce, featured Fred and Claire Luce and was considered rather smutty. But Ginger's fresh faced delivery makes the jokes seem less dirty. (The play also had lots of songs by Cole Porter, only one of which -- "Night and Day" -- was retained in the movie.) I've seen most Fred and Ginger movies so many times but I never get tired of them. I'm hoping this movie list will help me figure out how many times I watch their movies in a typical year.

Now I'm watching The Nun's Story with Audrey Hepburn, but I probably won't watch the whole thing so I'm not including it on the list.

Jan. 10 movie: The Wages of Fear. Very good, extremely tense film by Henri-Georges Clouzot, director of Diabolique (another brilliant thriller) and The Mystery of Picasso (which isn't tense at all, but is very very good. It's a documentary of live footage of Picasso at work, using special canvases and ink, with the camera on the other side of the canvas. So the paintings seem to appear of their own accord. [Midway through the film Picasso gets tired of the inks and switches to oils, and from then on they use stop-motion to show the paintings develop.] We coincidentally saw it a couple of weeks ago, and didn't realize it was the same director as this film until Robert Osborne said so). Anyway, The Wages of Fear is about Yves Montand and three other guys driving two trucks full of nitrogylcerin through rural South America. Do they make it? Well, this is a French film.

You know that scene about two-thirds of the way through The African Queen where everyone passes out, thoroughly defeated, and then the camera pulls back to show that they've almost made it? I remember Sean saying a long time ago that if it was a French movie, that would have been the end. The Wages of Fear makes me understand that remark. It wasn't easy to watch, but I enjoyed it immensely. (And managed not to have nightmares about rotten bridges or pits of mud and oil! woo hoo!) I heard there was a 70's Hollywood remake but I couldn't find it on imdb.com. I hope it's not as stupid as the remake of Diabolique.

Speaking of Diabolique, Osborne said that it earned Clouzot the nickname "the French Hitchcock." Which apparently irritated Hitchcock because he had tried to buy the rights to Diabolique, but Clouzot got to it first by only a few hours. I wonder what Diabolique would have been like if Hitchcock had directed it? It already had the icy blonde and the humiliation of women; Clouzot was halfway there.

I remember the climax of Diabolique as one of the most shocking things (in the sense of surprising, not outrageous) I've ever seen in the movies. When I realized what was happening my jaw literally fell open. It's such a shame that movie advertising techniques rob the movies of their capacity to surprise. Why do they want us to know everything about a movie before we see it? It makes no sense.

Whenever I see "best movies of the year" articles, I think about writing my own. The problem is that I watch so many movies, by the end of the year I could never remember enough of what I've seen to put together a "best of."

So I'm going to try keeping a list of all the movies I've seen this year. It probably would be better to keep it someplace private, so I'm not revealing to the entire world (okay, the tiny tiny segment of the world that reads this thing) just how many bad movies I'll sit through. But I know myself well enough to know that if I keep the list anywhere else, I'll stop keeping it in a week or two. Which might happen anyway, but I've got a better shot at sticking with it if it's here.

Now's the perfect time to start, because I was too busy on the 1st to watch any movies (I think), didn't see any while I was in Staten Island, and have been clearing out the shows on the DVR since we got back. So I think the list will be fairly complete even though I didn't start until today. For now I'm only going to write down movies if I saw the entire film (or close to it).

Jan 7: Monsters Inc. : not a big fan of Billy Crystal or John Goodman, but this was very cute and sweet. Maybe not being able to see the actors helped.

Jan 8: Castle in the Sky : Fantastic. I think now we've seen almost all Miyazaki's films. This seemed like more of a boys' story, unlike say, Kiki's Delivery Service which was all about friendships and had almost no external conflict. This one was a ripping yarn with pirates, chase scenes, airship battles and a lot more death than any of his other films I've seen. Still, the violence is at a distance so it seems less violent than the extremely graphic Princess Mononoke. I think girls would enjoy it just as much as boys, and small children might not even realize that people died in the big battle.

Jan 9: The Great Lie : 1941 melodrama with Bette Davis and George Brent raising Brent's child with Mary Astor. The plot was probably racy at the time, but they soften the whole "unwed mother" thing by having Brent and Astor get married, spend one night together and then find out it wasn't legal. I'll watch just about anything with Bette Davis in it (as Georg will attest) but the highlight of this movie is definitely Mary Astor as a self-centered, bratty concert pianist. I've seen this before, which I guess means I'm going to be writing down movies that I've seen before.