WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[charliechaplinfan]

I started watching Saboteur tonight, perhaps I'm too tired but so far it's not grabbed my attention like a Hitchcock film usually does, I'm about half way through, I'll finish it off tomorrow, bring a fresh mind to it.

[Rita Hayworth]

Sunday in New York
Starring Cliff Robertson, Rod Taylor, Jane Fonda ... and Company.

It is a delightful film full of comedic twists and turns ... has a romantic charm of its own ... and delightful performances from Jim Backus and Robert Culp too. I enjoyed it now, than I did a decade ago and now its was full of witty humor and some charming scenes of New York City. It a good film to watch ... it's a little bit a farce in a way and I didn't mind it one bit.

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Preview Clip

[JackFavell]

I really like Saboteur, mainly because of the horror aspects of the story - we have the blind man from Frankenstein and the circus performers from Freaks. Seriously, I love the message of the movie, that common folks will always help out and do what's right, seeing who is really sincere and who is not, trusting the democratic process, judging someone innocent till proven guilty...

And speaking of guilty, Sunday in New York is one of my guilty pleasures. I watch it nearly every time it's on, mainly to see how Rod Taylor and Jane Fonda make this movie worthwhile. Add Club Nero to my list of cool 1960's haunts....

[feaito]

Last night I revisited the wonderful George Stevens comedy "Vivacious Lady" (1938) which contains one of the best catfight scenes ever! Including the best slaps ever to be given to an unpleasant character. Ginger Rogers is completely delightful as a showgirl with whom College professor Jimmy Stewart falls madly in love with (after stealing her from bon vivant cousin James Ellison). I chose this comedy for a Saturday movie night with two pals who loved it. And Beulah Bondi almost steals the show as Stewart's very wise mother. Charles Coburn plays Bondi's husband. A WINNER all the way!

Today I saw an interesting British Comedy directed by Terence Young "Woman Hater" (1948) with Stewart Granger as a Lord who loathes marriage and women and meets his match when he plays host (pretending to be someone else) to French star Colette Marly (lovely French actress Edwige Feuillere). Feuillere was the true discovery of this film, although she was 7 years Granger's senior, she looked quite youthful and lively as the ever resourceful and playful Diva. She had a very special charm and I'd definitely like to see more of her. Jeanne de Casalis as her maid is a hoot! Not a perfect romantic comedy, but very worthwhile.

I also saw the good comedy-drama "Lady By Choice" (1934) with May Robson in a kind of follow-up of her famous Capra film "Lady for a Day" (1933). Here she plays an experienced old woman who used to be the toast of Broadway in the early twentieth century and who's ended as a drunken old beggar. "Exotic" dancer Carole Lombard falls for her charm and "adopts" her as a mother as a publicity gimmick, but she becomes really fond of her. Lombard's character reminds Robson of herself when she was young and she sets her mind on helping her. Roger Pryor is Lombard's love interest and Walter Connolly a judge. The first half is very funny, but towards the end it drags a bit into sort of sudsy dramatics.

[movieman1957]

"Vivacious Lady" has always been one of my favorite comedies. This was one of those I stumbled on years ago that was such a delight because I never heard anyone talk about it.

I love the fight but there's plenty of gentle humor as well. I love the scene where Stewart leads the class when he is drunk. Everyone is first rate.

[feaito]

I agree Chris. And that scene when James Ellison arrives to his cousin's (Stewart) home and finds him tucked in bed in that ultra-feminine dormitory that he had intended for him and his wife (Rogers) and Ellison leaves on the pillow the figure of the bride from the wedding cake! There are many great vignettes.

[RedRiver]

SABOTEUR is very precisely shot. The piece of paper floating through the air, the threads popping as the bad guy dangles by his sleeve. And of course, that statue! Wow! The movie is not subtle. It's melodramatic and a little preachy. But this is my kind of suspense. I like the thoughtful, mature variety: REAR WINDOW, PSYCHO, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. But my favorite Hitchcock thrillers are more along the lines of this one. Fast moving, exciting, if not quite as serious.

[JackFavell]

Is there anything more suspenseful than that lipstick written note, Red? Floating down story after story.... I also like Otto Kruger's bland villain with his little granddaughter. Evil can appear anywhere, even in the nicest of settings.

[RedRiver]

Nail biting!

[charliechaplinfan]

I finished watching Saboteur last night, the second half being better than the first half, perhaps I was a little tried when I first watched it however viewing it as a whole it felt a bit of a dry run for North By Northwest, two men seemingly getting on with their lives are suddenly charged with the murder of another man and have to go on the run, Otto Kruger's figure like James Mason's and although Priscilla Lane's character isn't in league with anyone but completely good and wholesome but the whole finish on the Statue of Liberty with Robert Cummings clinging on to Fry. Am I right to draw parellels? was any of it filmed at the Statue itself, I thought the location scenes on the ferry and footage at the Statue were brilliant. There were some suspenseful moments, lots of them, the lipstick note being one, running of with the grand daughter. A glimpse of The 39 Steps with the handcuffs around the steerring wheel pinning him to Priscilla. Good, not a moment spared, worth another view and the dancing, with assassins looking on from all angles, very sexy.

[JackFavell]

I'm with Red, though it is considered a second tier or flawed Hitchcock, I can't help but like it. I never thought of the tie to North by Northwest, but always thought it was more of a retry of The Thirty Nine Steps. I have no problems with directors who visit the same plots over and over again, they always come out different anyway. The funny thing is, I am not crazy about NbyNW at all, though certain scenes are very good and fun. And it's considered one of the top tier Hitches.

I like the wartime movies, celebrations of what makes America or the Allies great, even if they are kind of propagandistic. Very appropriate that a Nazi sympathizer would be done in from the uppermost pinpoint of the Statue of Liberty, just as the common folk in the movie finally help out poor Barry just because they are free to make their own minds up and it's the right thing to do.

[charliechaplinfan]

I really like Lifeboat which is his other war time movie. I like the fact that it's the ordinary folk that help him out, there's a real sinister edge to this upper echelon of society that are Nazi sympathisers, they are the people who will be believed rather than the little people, a bit like in Notorious, one can trace many movies from Saboteur it seems. I can certainly see the similarities with The 39 Steps. The films of the 50s with a couple of exceptions are on their own, they either have James Stewart or Cary Grant in them, they're glossy, the woman is always a blonde and they are frequently played on television, I like them but I've seen them often, Cary brings humour, Jimmy brings a paranoia. Then watch I Confess or The Wrong Man from the 50s and they feel completely different with 2 actors that are actors rather than 2 actors who are presented more as personas. This is simplistic in very few sentences but meant to convey that his movies do feel different although made in the same period, I like them both but recently I've found I Confess and The Wrong Man more satisfying.

[JackFavell]

I totally understand what you wrote and I am kind of in that mode too, though I'm coming back around to the big 1950's glossy Hitchcock films again. For me, I watch Cary move instinctively through Hitch's spaces, and I watch Jimmy think his way along.

I watched Pygmalion last night for the 100th time, and it moved right back up to the number 2 spot on my favorite movies list. Was there ever a more perfect movie made? The writing, of course is superb, but the direction by Howard and the charming Anthony Asquith is breakneck, crackling and very witty. Even the camera angles are witty. The pacing is a dream. The camera set-ups are brilliant, never obtrusive, but extremely mobile, and the editing is genius.

The acting? well, as far as I'm concerned you'll never get a better cast. And no one has ever played Higgins any better than Leslie Howard. Leslie was letter perfect, his every t was crossed and i was dotted in this role. He IS Higgins - 'a bus, all bounce and go and no consideration for anyone'. Even thinking of Laughton in the title role as RO mentioned, I still think Laughton could not have brought any more to the role than Howard did, Howard is diabolically good. Both actors have the gift for creating characters with their foibles showing. Both can be compassionate, but never too far off the humor and satire and humanity that make for fun. This is the only version where I love Higgins, he's exasperating, yes, you can't help wanting him to crack a little. Howard shows those cracks, disarmingly though, and only for a moment, before the humorous pace sets in again. He's deliciously awful. I think maybe Sir Wilfrid in Witness for the Prosecution is Higgins, in old age.

Wendy Hiller, in my opinion, has never been matched for speaking Shaw's lines in the most simple, pleasing and natural way, she's a wonder, and this is only her second film! Her way of pronouncing words as if she were going to say them the wrong way first is tremendously funny, you can see her struggle with her H's. Then later as she's mimicking Howard's upper crust English, she's spot on. At the ball, she's beautiful, even in a gown that does not do her justice, it's her demeanor that carries that section of the film. I almost cried at the exchange (adapted especially for the movie by Shaw) between Higgins and his snoopy former pupil Aristide Karpathy, while watching Eliza dance with the prince:

Aristide: "What do you say, Professor?"

Higgins: "I?...I say an ordinary Cockney flower girl out of the gutter. I place her in.... Covent Garden."

Aristide: "Maestro...Maestro. You are mad on the subject of Cockney dialects. The London gutter is the whole world for you. This girl is undoubtedly a prin...."

Higgins: "A Princess? Well, have it your own way, Maestro.... have it your own way." (The music swells)

And speaking of the music, it's fantastic. The movie and it's accompanying score are the most musically written, directed, and edited that I have ever seen. For me, this is part of the thrill of the film, part of the fun. From Higgins xylophone phrasing ( "How kind of you to let me come" and "Throw him OUT.") to the majestic ballroom scene, every pitch, every word is a song in this film. It's lovely, it makes me weep it's so beautifully orchestrated. It makes what is essentially a treatise on language something so much more entertaining than one could ever believe it would be.

[charliechaplinfan]

It is a great movie Wendy, I loved it although I've only watched it once. What occupies number 1 spot?

[RedRiver]

The movie that most compares to 39 STEPS is the rarely screened YOUNG AND INNOCENT. It's early, British Hitchcock; the "man on the run" theme. To me, these are his two best films.