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September 29 movie: AV Geeks: The Modern Housewife. This AV Geeks performance was in Hillsborough, which apparently does a "Last Fridays" thing once a month. Last Friday seems to be exactly like the First Fridays in other towns: stores stay open late, there's a band, outdoor food vendors, people playing chess and kids drawing in chalk on the closed part of the street. And they had an AV Geeks show in the Masonic Temple. Which was a little weird in theory, but in reality it was a pretty decent venue. The chairs weren't comfy, but the display was good. I would rank the Masonic Temple better than Kings in Raleigh (which has smokers and an incredibly crappy screen, and a long drive for me) but not as good as the Documentary Center in Durham (which has nice chairs, a good display screen and no smoking, plus it's about 10 minutes from my house).

The show was great. It rivals the safety series (what was that one called? Safety Last?) for the best AV Geeks performance I've seen. There wasn't a dud in the bunch; every film was hysterical. I had two favorites: first, a short film from the early 60s that encouraged women to wear perfume. Produced by Avon, it featured a woman drenching herself and her home with more perfume than I would have thought possible. All over her body, sprayed on her hair, in her lotion, bath oil, delicate laundry, drawer sachets, even sprayed into the air before a party. She made me think of the scary BPAL slatherers. Not to single out BPAL wearers, I'm sure every perfume line has people who overuse it. I only know about the BPAL slatherers because that's what I wear. One person on the BPAL forum claimed that she goes through a 5 ml bottle in 3 to 5 days. Just to provide some context, my favorite scent is Dorian. I wear it more often than any other single scent. I bought a 5 ml over a year ago and have used about half a bottle. She must be applying at least 50 times more perfume per day than I am. I'm so glad I don't work in the same building as her! (There is someone in the HKB building who slathers perfume to such a degree that we can't ride the elevator if she's been on it recently. When we get a "stinky perfume" elevator we send it on and wait for the next one.)

Anyway, my other favorite short at AV Geeks last night was "Freeze-in." It was a motivational film by Sears, for Kenmore freezer salesmen, based on Laugh-in. It had a couple of the actors from Laugh-in, Artie Johnson and Judy Carne, and was shockingly unfunny. So unfunny that it ended up being really, really funny. Skip only showed us a couple of minutes but I wish he had showed the whole thing. I might have to buy the DVD.

September 18 movie: Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Were we the last two people in America to see this movie? We thought so, but there were 6 other people in the theater, so I guess not. Anyway, I went in with very low expectations as far as plot, character, etc. All I wanted from the movie was a fun adventure with lots of buckles being swashed, and I got that. I enjoyed it very much and I'm glad we saw it on the big screen.

It was fun to watch this after having read all those books about the British Navy, because I knew so much more of the lingo than the first time. I was like, "letter of marque! I know what that is!" It was kind of strange though, to watch a movie in which the pirates are rough around the edges but basically good guys, the Navy are the bad guys, and the East India company are the really bad guys. I only remember pirates showing up once in the Aubrey-Maturin series, and they come off like scary sons of bitches.

September 19 movie: The Crash. No, not Crash (neither the Cronenberg movie from the Ballard story, nor the one from a couple of years ago about racism). This was a pre-code movie about the stock market crash directed by William Dieterle. George Brent plays a rich guy who made his fortune in the stock market, assisted by his wife, Ruth Chatterton, who he whores out by pushing her to seduce market insiders so he can get stock tips. The market crashes and so do they; Chatterton ditches Brent and moves to Bermuda where she goes to work on an Australian sheep rancher who, being Australian, wasn't affected by the market crash.

The ending is kind of lame, one of those "oh, we're at the end of the film, guess that means we should get back together" sort of endings. But still, it was a good movie. An interesting depiction of people who were addicted to the stock market. Even after Brent has lost everything, he never tries to get a job; he just keeps trying the market, eventually resorting to blackmail to get capital so he can buy more stocks.

September 20 movie: Stalag 17. If "favorite movie" is determined by the movies you can watch over and over, this has to be one of my top 3, if not my all-time favorite. With most movies I love, I can't watch them too often or eventually I get tired of them. I can't remember that ever happening with Stalag 17. Every time I stumble across it on TCM, I have to watch the whole thing.

I read a criticism of Billy Wilder's comedy recently, which basically boiled down to "he's not funny." I don't agree with that, but it's true that the humor in Stalag 17 doesn't work as well as his great comedies like Some Like It Hot. There were some gags (mainly focused on the two comic relief characters and their obsession with girls in general, and Betty Grable in particular) that fell a little flat. But still, the movie hangs together so well, maintains the pace and the momentum so perfectly, that I hate to offer even that small criticism. I love the combination of tension and boredom, which I've heard was characteristic of WWII POW camps. I love Sig Ruman as the original Sgt. Shultz. I love how (major spoiler) the tallest, handsomest guy is the villain. And I love how William Holden's character finds his moment to save the day, without changing his basic personality. He's a greedy, abrasive jerk at the beginning of the movie, and he's a heroic, greedy, abrasive jerk at the end.

September 23 movie: Her Highness And The Bellboy. Another silly movie, this one a romantic comedy. Robert Walker plays a hotel bellboy who becomes infatuated with a foreign princess (Hedy Lamarr) staying at the hotel. That part was fun; the annoying part was Walker's perfectly sweet and chaste, sickly, bed-ridden girlfriend played by June Allyson. She lies on a couch making Santa Claus figurines to be sold in gift shops, and smiling through her tears while Walker neglects her for the princess. Give me a break! The character really brought out the saccharine worst in Allyson.

September 23 movie: The Time of Their Lives. Why did I watch this movie? I don't like Abbott and Costello. And that said, why did I enjoy it? Costello and Marjorie Reynolds play ghosts who were falsely accused of treason during the Revolutionary War. Abbott plays a scientist who helps them clear their names so their spirits can rest. It's about as silly as you would expect from that description.

September 23 movie: The Manchurian Candidate. Speaking of movies that are a downer. I couldn't sleep last night so I stayed up and watched this into the wee hours. I'm embarrassed to admit that I had never seen it before. I had heard lavish praise of course, and I must say, it more than lived up to its reputation. Why on earth would anyone want to remake this movie? It's nearly perfect. Even knowing the basic plot, it still managed to shock me several times. The most shocking thing, I think, is how relevant the political commentary is after forty five years. And I can't really say anything more without giving the movie away. Although you probably know the plot, like I did, even if you haven't seen it yet.

September 24 movie: The Front. Why was I surprised that a 1970s black comedy about the 1950s Hollywood blacklist, made by and starring victims of the blacklist, would be bitter and depressing? It was a good movie, though, like I said, bitter and depressing. Woody Allen plays a small-time bookie who agrees to serve as a front for a friend who has been blacklisted from his job as a TV writer. The friend writes the scripts, Allen signs his name, attends meetings with the network, and takes 10%. Everything goes great until, inevitably, everything goes all pear-shaped. Zero Mostel (real life blacklist victim) also stars as a TV actor who is blacklisted. At the end Robert Osborne said it was Mostel's last movie. He also said Mostel had a reputation for being difficult to work with, but he was serious and professional on this film. I guess due to the resonance with his own past: he had had a close friend who suffered the same fate in real life as Mostel's character in the movie.

September 10 movie: No Time for Comedy. Jimmy Stewart is a Midwestern playwright who marries Rosalind Russell, sophisticated New York actress. She stars in his comic plays. Everyone is happy, until a homewrecker comes along and convinces him that he should write Serious Drama.

This wasn't the greatest movie ever, but it was a fun way to spend an hour and a half. Nice to see Charlie Ruggles again today (as the homewrecker's long-suffering husband). Also Louise Beavers is in it. I was all excited because for once she's not a sweet simpleton maid, but a sassy actress. But then the play ends and Beavers goes back to her regular job -- as Russell's maid. I guess some things never do change. Size positive note: when Stewart embraces Russell for the first time, he presses her to him and says admiringly, "Whatever gave me the idea you were skinny?"

September 10 movie: The Rutles. I almost don't know what to say about this. It's one of my all time favorite movies. I finally got it on DVD and tonight I watched the commentary. I must say, Eric Idle doesn't give great commentary. There were some interesting details, for instance I didn't realize that Stig's girlfriend/wife in the movie is played by mod icon Penelope Tree, the actor's wife in real life. And I hadn't known how many of the locations they used were the same as the Beatles has used. But Idle mostly spends the commentary dropping names of famous people he knows, and congratulating himself on the gags he likes. Also he has a dismaying tendency to conflate the Rutles and the Beatles, talking about events in the Rutles' career (like Leggy taking the teaching post in Australia) as if it had actually happened to the Beatles. And more than once he even gets the names mixed up, referring to the real band as "the Rutles" and even calling John Lennon "Nasty."

I had heard a rumor that Idle sued Neil Innes over the royalties for Archeology, demanded songwriting credit for all songs because the original Rutles concept was his (Idle's) idea, and was a total asshole about the whole thing. Which would be completely awful since Innes had already gotten screwed out of royalties on the first Rutles album. But Idle spoke very highly of Innes on the commentary, and even mentioned sympathetically how Innes had been shafted on the songwriting credit for the soundtrack album. I searched online and didn't find anything about bad blood, much less legal action, between Idle and Innes. I really hope that rumor was false. It would really suck.

September 10 movie: Raffles. This movie has been sitting on the DVR for ... weeks? Over a month? I'm not sure. Anyway I finally watched it. It's basically a mystery/suspense movie set in an English country manor, starring David Niven as a cricket star and gentleman cat burglar called "The Amateur Cracksman." I think that description pretty much says it all. I enjoyed it a lot; you probably know already whether you would like it or not, and you're probably right. Olivia de Havilland and Dame May Whitty are also in it.

September 10 movie: A Stolen Life. I love this movie. Bette Davis plays identical twins: the good twin falls in love with Glenn Ford, then the bad twin steals him just because she can. The bad twin dies but everyone thinks it was the good twin. Who decides to maintain the deception so she can get Glenn Ford back. But then she finds out that the bad sister was badder than she knew, and she doesn't really want to inherit her life. But it all turns out right in the end.

The special effects -- pasting the two Bette Davises together -- are extremely well done. I've seen movies made decades later with clumsier effects. Also great supporting work by Charles Ruggles as the two sisters' cousin/father figure, and Dane Clark as an angry starving artist. I looked up Dane Clark on imdb.com. He made dozens of movies and over a hundred TV episodes, but nothing I remembered seeing. I'll have to look for his other movies.

Now, I said that I love this movie and I do, but I have to raise one complaint. I really dislike it when a movie hinges on a love triangle, and the "point" of the triangle -- the person for whom the other two people are competing -- is treated as having no responsibility whatsoever for their behavior. It's usually two women (one virtuous and one vamp) competing for a man who acts like a hapless object. But I've seen it go the other way too.

I mean, yes, the bad twin is clearly the villain, but she couldn't have taken Ford if he hadn't let her. Actually I don't think a person can "take away" someone else's partner, the way a possession can be stolen. What is he, a robot? He had a choice. He abandoned the real connection he had with the good twin, and let himself be seduced by the bad one.It would have been nice if he had apologized for that at the end. But then again, Davis doesn't apologize for impersonating his dead wife. So maybe I'm being unfair.

September 9 movie: Soldiers Three. Three British soldiers in India have wacky adventures, drink a lot, get into comic fights, and then behave heroically. It was kind of Gunga Din Lite, with Stewart Granger instead of Cary Grant. The movie lost me right in the beginning, when the three stars get into a bar fight and beat the kilts off a bunch of Scottish soldiers. Excuse me? Stewart Granger beats up the Scots? Oh, I don't think so.

September 9 movie: Red Ball Express. This was a pretty good movie starring Jeff Chandler about a unit driving supply trucks in France in WWII. I guess you'd call it a docu-drama if it were made now: the fictional story is cut together with lots of newsreel footage of the actual transport division, and narration about troop movements. I love Jeff Chandler. The movie also features a very young Sidney Poitier as a private dealing with racial discrimination, both real and imagined.

September 8 movie: Merrily We Live. A gentleman gets mistaken for a bum and through a hilarious but unlikely circumstance ends up working as the chauffeur for a zany rich family. The mother loves to adopt unscrupulous men as her protege; the father is grumpy and constantly annoyed at his zany family; and the chauffeur/bum/gentleman falls mutually in love with the beautiful daughter. Sound familiar?

If you've ever seen My Man Godfrey you know exactly where this movie is going. It even ends with the daughter pretending to faint, the erstwhile bum dumping water on her, and the daughter yelling "I knew you loved me!" Sheesh, they should have given screen credit to Godfrey.

Merrily We Live doesn't have the sublime wit of Godfrey, nor the social awareness, nor the talent. (Constance Bennett, Brian Aherne, Billie Burke and Bonita Granville are all good, but no match for Carole Lombarde, William Powell, Eugene Pallette, Alice Brady and Gail Patrick.) But I enjoyed it. What can I say, it's a formula that works. The best part is that Alan Mowbray shows up in both movies! He's the long-suffering butler in Merrily We Live, and Powell's Boston friend Tommy Gray in My Man Godfrey.

September 8 movie: My Favorite Spy. This was a very silly comedy starring Bob Hope and Hedy Lamarr. Hope is impersonating a spy in .. Tangiers I think. And Lamarr is the real spy's double-crossing lover. This movie reminded me that I don't much care for Bob Hope. He's funny and all, but a little manic for my taste.

I'm sitting here wondering if I should wait up for Georg to get home from the airport, or go to sleep and see him in the morning. While I make up my mind, how about a few movie write-ups.

September 5 movie: Cactus Flower. Late 60s sex comedy starring Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman and Goldie Hawn. Matthau is bachelor who's dating Hawn, but pretends he's married so she won't make any demands on him & he can break dates whenever he wants. Then he decides to marry Hawn, but she insists on meeting his wife. So he bullies his secretary Bergman into pretending to be his wife. Like all 60s sex comedies, it was sleazy and misogynist. But at least the moviemakers seem to know Matthau's character is a heel. I think we're supposed to emphathize with him (gack) but at least we're not supposed to approve of his behavior. And it was funny enough that I didn't feel like I had wasted my time. It was worth it for Goldie Hawn alone. I've gotten so used to her current scary Botox face that I had forgotten how beautiful she was. Luminous. Her eyes were amazing. Also nice to see her playing a character who wasn't stupid. In fact her character is the most mature person in the movie.