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September 25 movie: Munchhausen. No, not the one by Terry Gilliam. This is a German movie about the same character, made in 1943. I haven't read anything about where Gilliam got his inspiration, but he must have at least seen this movie. The two movies are based on the same story so many of the particulars are the same -- the servants who can shoot 100 miles away and run super-fast, the visits to Turkey and to the moon, the cannonball ride, the disembodied lady's head with the hots for Munchhausen, etc.

Even though the movie was made during the height of the war, with government approval, it had pretty much no political content. Robert Osborne said it was intended to be Germany's answer to big budget Allied fantasy movies like The Wizard of Oz and The Thief of Baghdad. It's certainly fanciful, with special effects that were amazing for the time. I was surprised by how sexy the movie was. I would have expected a movie made during the Nazi regime to be prudish. But on the contrary, Baron Munchhausen is quite the ladies man. He gets it on with Catherine the Great, a Venetian princess, and plenty of others. And there's even a scene with topless harem girls frolicking in a pool, which even pre-code Hollywood couldn't have gotten away with.

I was enjoying the movie immensely until the scenes at the sultan's palace in Turkey. There were a bunch of extras played by African actors. I started wondering where a Germany movie company found dozens of Africans in 1943, and what happened to them after filming was over. That soured me on the whole movie.

[ETA: I checked Wikipedia and discovered that our own James Wallis published a game based on the adventures of Baron Munchhausen! Wow!]

September 24 movie: Libeled Lady. I wrote up the basic plot last time, so this time I'll just say that I enjoyed it again immensely, and this time I sympathized mainly with Jean Harlow's character. The movie is kind of sad from her point of view. Both Tracy and Powell prey on her need for affection for their own gain throughout the movie. Then at the end a marriage proposal is supposed to make all that go away.

That makes the movie sound depressing when it's really quite funny. As long as you don't think too hard about Harlow's character.

September 24 movie: Corpse Bride. Best. Movie. Ever. It was fun, funny, touching, and completely put me in the mood for Halloween. I think my favorite character was the maggot who imitated Peter Lorre. We saw a couple of great trailers too, for a Wallace and Grommit movie and the next Harry Potter. Both look fantastic.

We also saw a trailer for a movie that looks like a complete knockoff of Jumanji, and in fact the trailer said it was "from the world of Jumanji" or something like that. Well I saw Jumanji already, and didn't enjoy it the first time, why would I want to see it again with space aliens instead of animals?

September 24 movie: The Magnificent Ambersons. As I mentioned already, I missed the ending because the movie ran over its scheduled time and the DVR cut it off. Damn you TCM! Although actually, I read that the studio screwed around with the movie and completely changed the ending, so maybe it's for the best that I missed it.

This movie had some problems, especially it seemed to come apart near the end, but it also had compelling moments. Especially the scenes with Agnes Moorehead. She was scarily good as the bitter spinster aunt completely losing her shit. Joseph Cotten was also wonderful. He seems to perfectly embody the sense of melancholy & lost opportunity. I've never seen a Joseph Cotten movie in which he wasn't wonderful.

So if anyone knows how the movie ends, please let me know. And if you also know how it was supposed to end, I'd be even more grateful.

September 24 movie: Run Silent, Run Deep. This was a good submarine thriller with an interesting story about conflicting motivations, having all the wrong reasons but still managing to do something good and important. Clark Gable got top billing although the movie's focus was really on Burt Lancaster.

September 19 movie: Basic Instinct. I love good trash as much as the next person, but oh lord did this movie stink. It's about a screwed up freak cop who sleeps with his court-appointed psychologist, who's also a screwed up freak -- or is she? Then he finds true love with a screwed up freak ice pick murderer -- or is she? That's the story in a nutshell.

I only watched it to see what all the fuss was about Sharon Stone's coochie, and what a disappointment! Also she has the fakest, most awful looking breasts I've ever seen. They were immobile. Like two hard little tangerines stuck to her chest. Do men really go for that?

September 18 movie: Watch on the Rhine. Bette Davis stars in this movie based on a Lillian Hellman play. It was made during the war but set just before, about a German anti-Nazi underground fighter who escapes to the US and is then blackmailed. Most of the movie is people standing around speechifying at each other about the importance of standing up against fascism. The sentiments are laudable, but the movie is so preachy that I really can't recommend it.

If anyone reading this has seen The Magnificant Ambersons, could you please tell me how it ends? Please please? The DVR ran out early and I missed the ending!

When it cut out, George had just been injured in a car accident and Joseph Cotten's daughter Lucy said she was going to go to him. What happens next? I'm dying here!

September 17 movie: A Fistful of Dollars. How do I love this movie? So much that I can hardly think of anything to say about it. An interesting trivia note: one of the bad guys is called Rubio, which according to Georg can be translated as "Blondie." Which was the name of Eastwood's character in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Also, in the intro, Robert Osborne mentioned that Kurosawa is never acknowledged or even mentioned in the credits of this movie. We wondered if there were any problems because of that. The Berne Convention has been around for over a hundred years, but I don't know if Japan was always a party to it. It's a pretty clear appropriation: sometimes the Leone version is a shot for shot copy of Yojimbo.

September 16 movie: Designing Woman. Now this was a fun movie. I've written up the basic plot before. This time I was better able to appreciate everything that was going on. Especially the intro, where each main character speaks to the camera. Of course that made little sense to me on the first viewing. Dolores Grey is excellent as the other woman. She was the only good thing in The Opposite Sex, now that I think about it. I wish she had become a bigger star. She had kind of a horsey face, but if that was her own singing voice in Designing Woman, she had talent.

September 16 movie: The Celluloid Closet. I was flipping channels last night and this was just starting. I had only seen in once before, long ago when I hadn't seen most of the movies they talk about. It's interesting and I can't disagree with their conclusions, although I can honestly say it would never have occurred to me to interpret Rebecca in a gay context. Not that I would accuse them of stretching to make their point. Or maybe I would.

I watched the "early Hollywood" section and mainly found myself regretting movies they hadn't included like The Mark of Zorro and Designing Woman. When they got to more current movies I had to turn it off. I was in the mood for a fun movie last night. Marlene Deitrich in white tie? Fun. The Children's Hour or Cruising? Not so much.

September 14 movie: Le Corbeau. Suspense movie about a small French town convulsed by paranoia when anonymous poison pen letters start appearing in everyone's mailbox. This is the third Clouzot movie I've seen, and probably my third favorite. Which means it was merely excellent, not spectacular like Diabolique or The Wages of Fear. I think my only criticism of the movie is that I figured out who did it too soon. Unlike Diabolique, which I figured out just when I thinbk Clouzot wanted me to. Le Corbeau was made during the occupation of France, and though it can be interpreted as an anti-Nazi statement, was at the time roundly condemned by everyone -- the Vichy government, the resistance, the Catholic church, and the post-liberation French government.

September 13 movie: Junebug. Patricia and I saw this together on Tuesday night. We both enjoyed it a lot, although I have to agree with Pinky's assessment that there seemed to be chunks of plot missing. By far the highlight of the movie was Amy Adams as the younger brother's wife. She could have been a cheap caricature, but she made the movie for me. They did capture the flavor of small-town North Carolina life pretty well. During the scene at Replacements, Ltd., Patricia leaned over and whispered "they filmed my family!"

September 11 movie: Follow the Fleet. This isn't Fred and Ginger's best, in fact it's probably one of their weakest, but I still have a fondness for it. It includes the magnificent "Let's Face the Music and Dance" number, and also some great songs, like one of my favorites, "I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket."

It's also got some truly hideous gender politics, including this exchange between Ginger Rogers and Harriet Hilliard:

Hilliard: "I don't know why, I just scare men away."
Rogers: "You look too intelligent. It's not that men prefer blondes; we just look dumber."

Feh.

Now that I've had a few days to process the experience, I can talk a little bit more about Ordet. The title means "The Word" and it's about faith, or lack thereof, in the well-off Borgen family: the father who displays outward piety but is only going through the motions; the eldest son who has gone over to atheism; the youngest son who doesn't care about religion and wants to marry a girl of another faith; and the middle son who is insane and believes himself to be Jesus Christ.

After seeing the movie I did a bit of reading online, and apparently the religious conflict in the movie is based on the situation in Denmark in the late 19th/early 20th century. The Borgen family's faith, described derisively as "bright, happy Christianity," was mainstream Lutheranism. Which was in crisis at the time, with many people giving up religion altogether (like the oldest son in the movie) or converting to dour, evangelical sects, throwbacks to the Reformation, like the one the youngest son's girlfriend belongs to.

Like every Dreyer film I've seen, the photography is stunning. Almost every shot is so perfectly composed it could be hung in a museum. And also like every Dreyer film, Ordet isn't easy to watch. At first because it's slow moving and doesn't seem to be going anywhere, then because it's so emotionally intense. The slow pace builds the tension, and adds to the power of the final sequence. About which I am not going to say anything: I would be quite a spoilsport if I wanted to ruin those scenes for someone else. If you have any intention of seeing this movie, please don't read any reviews beforehand. Some of them do spoil the ending, which is a crying shame.

I'm also not going to say anything about the ending because honestly, my thoughts about it are too emotional and too personal to share. I'll just say this: as powerful of a statement as Day of Wrath makes about fear, oppression and evil, Ordet makes an equally powerful statement about faith and joy. I will be lucky if I ever experience another work of art as transcendent as Ordet.

September 10 movie: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. This came on late and I didn't intend to watch it, but I should have known that I'd get sucked in. It's such a great movie. So many brilliant images, but I think my favorite (this time) is Eli Wallach running through the cemetary, looking for Arch Stanton's grave, running and running until the headstones are a blur behind him.

IFC is also showing a documentary on spaghetti westerns called Spaghetti West, but I didn't see it. I think it's going to be on again next week; I'll try to catch it then.

September 10 movie: The Bandwagon. I can't believe I hadn't seen this movie until now. A later Fred Astaire movie, it costars Cyd Charisse. While the dance numbers weren't as memorable as some of Astaire's earlier films, it's a very funny of Broadway, and well worth watching. There are some great songs too, notably "That's Entertainment" and a song about beer, complete with German accent.

I think Astaire did a dance number about beer in his first movie, the otherwise forgettable Joan Crawford vehicle Dancing Lady. I can't remember if there was also a beer song, but Astaire did wear lederhosen during the beer dance.

September 10 movie: Dangerous Female. This was a 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon. I can't comment on its quality because the Bogart version is so firmly imprinted on my brain, it was impossible to give this earlier one a fair shake. Sam Spade smiles too much, the woman's betrayal is too obvious too soon, and Gutman and Cairo ... no. Just no. The actors (Dudley Diggs and Otto Matieson) weren't bad, but no one can play those parts besides Syndey Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.

The one weird thing was Diggs's performance as Gutman, a bizarrely accurate imitation of Greenstreet's. Bizarre because The Maltese Falcon in 1941 was Greenstreet's first movie, and that was his real voice, not a shtick. So how in the heck did Diggs manage to turn in such a prescient performance?

September 7 movie: The Great Lie. I never see this on "best movie" lists, but for my money it's one of the great melodramas. The focus is conflict between Bette Davis and Mary Astor over George Brent's child. I love both Davis and Brent, though Astor's selfish concert pianist is the best character study in the movie. But they're all great.

September 4 movie: Private Lives. Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery star in the Noel Coward play. It's very funny, but it's basically about two people who stay together because they're so miserably awful that no just world would inflict them on anybody else. The movie takes advantage of its precode date by featuring extended adultery (Shearer and Montgomery are married to other people when they run away and shack up together) and Montgomery hitting Shearer in the face more than once (believe it or not, it's funny).

I read that while this film version is true to the spirit of the play, the dialogue was changed somewhat. It seems to me that if you're going to mess around with Noel Coward's dialogue, why even bother making the movie. But that's just me.

August 24 movie: No More Ladies. Joan Crawford again, this time marrying philanderer Robert Montgomery and then pretending to repay him in kind with Franchot Tone (Mr. Joan Crawford at the time). This movie had a great cast, but somehow failed to come together. It also featured Gail Patrick as the object of Montgomery's adultery, Arthur Treacher (the fish guy!) as the current husband of a woman from both Montgomery's and Tone's past, Edna May Oliver as Crawford's hard-drinking, cheating-at-cards granny, and Joan Fontaine.

August 22 movie: Above Suspicion. I really, really need to write these movies up right when I watch them. It's been two weeks and I've forgotten this one. I have to look it up in IMDB.

Oh right. This is a thriller made during WWII, but set before the war, with Joan Crawford and Fred MacMurray as American tourists who are asked by the British to spy on Germany. They treat it as a fun game at first, but the game quickly turns serious.

TCM also showed a documentary about Joan Crawford, and they showed a clip from this movie as an example of Crawford's first career slump, the one she ended with Mildred Pierce. Fred MacMurray as a costar was definitely a step down from Clark Gable. The thing I didn't like about this movie was that it didn't seem like a Joan Crawford movie. There wasn't anything about her character that made it work for her; it could have been played by anyone. In fact, it wasn't really well-suited to Crawford and the movie might have been better with someone else in her part.

Aug 21 movie: Theodora Goes Wild. The movie opens with Irene Dunne leading a small-town ladies club who are shocked, shocked I tell you, by the local paper serializing a racy bestselling novel. Lo and behold, said racy novel was actually written by pseudonoymous Dunne!

The first half-hour or so I found this movie too much of a conventional romantic comedy and was disappointed. But then the movie does a 180 when, just as the title promised, Theodora goes wild. What was that they say about first impressions? The rest of the movie was unpredictable, hilarious, and even had a point (which I'm surprised they were allowed to make under the Hayes code). I greatly enjoyed this and I would watch it again anytime. Besides Dunne, the movie costars Melvyn Douglas. My favorite supporting actor was the upright & seemingly prissy aunt, who when push comes to shove refuses to judge Theodora, no matter what Theodora pretends to have done.

Sept 8 movie: Ordet. I've been so heartsick over recent events, tonight I felt like I needed to experience something beautiful. Ordet fit the bill. I've been saving it on the DVR for weeks, waiting until I was ready to watch it. It's Dreyer's meditation on faith and it's .. well I can't talk about it. It was profoundly moving, and I'm going to be thinking about it for a long time. That's all I can say right now.