WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Chit-chat, current events
User avatar
Rita Hayworth
Posts: 10068
Joined: February 6th, 2011, 4:01 pm

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by Rita Hayworth »

IKE Countdown to D-Day
Tom Selleck as IKE ... General Dwight David Eisenhower
Image

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401504/

From imdb:
IKE: COUNTDOWN TO D-DAY depicts the tense 90 days leading up to the D-Day invasion and how Dwight Eisenhower, against all odds, brilliantly orchestrated the most important military maneuver in modern history.

I haven't seen this movie for awhile and watched it today for the second time this year ... It was on the Military Channel today and I think it is one of the best performances of Tom Selleck's career portraying General Dwight David Eisenhower in which he was the chief planner for Operation Overlord ... the invasion of D-Day, June 6th 1944.

What so freaking cool about this movie is about 1/3 away into this movie ... they had a short 2-3 minutes clip of Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly in Cover Girl ... Cover Girl was released on March 20th 1944 and this fit in the parameters of this movie and they actually used real clips of the movie but remastered in black in white. That's was a surprise to me and still is.

Anyway, I highly recommend to any history buff like me to watch this movie and you will not be disappointed in it.

It's historically accurate in many ways more in one, highlights all the key problems of planning it, background players like Patton, Montgomery, DeGaulle, and others were good, Winston Churchill played by Ian Mune was phenomenal. He nailed his persona like no other actor could, and Bruce Phillips as General Bernard Montgomery was excellent ... Anyway ... in closing I love this movie and you would too.
Last edited by Rita Hayworth on August 7th, 2012, 7:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
CineMaven
Posts: 3815
Joined: September 24th, 2007, 9:54 am
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Contact:

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by CineMaven »

Yes I know today under the Stars is Claude Rains' day ( well-deserved ) but Michael Curtiz certainly gave her some glorious close-ups. Ev'ry other time I turned around to the tv, there she was, the most popular, and prettiest of the Lane Sisters...

Read a little about her here:

Image
"You build my gallows high, baby."

http://www.megramsey.com
User avatar
JackFavell
Posts: 11926
Joined: April 20th, 2009, 9:56 am

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by JackFavell »

I thin k she's terribly underrated, Maven. She's quite good playing Betty to so many Veronicas.
User avatar
CineMaven
Posts: 3815
Joined: September 24th, 2007, 9:54 am
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Contact:

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by CineMaven »

I agree with you Jaxxxxon. I was hesitant to mention her b'cuz I thought folks might think she's so passe and has no gravitas as an actress. I love your Betty / Veronica analogy. Very apropos. I've always believed Priscilla Lane. I guess that's my criteria.
"You build my gallows high, baby."

http://www.megramsey.com
User avatar
JackFavell
Posts: 11926
Joined: April 20th, 2009, 9:56 am

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by JackFavell »

That's exactly right, you believe her. She makes it all look easy breezy, but when she's got a broken heart or suddenly realizes something (like her sister is in love with her fiance) you know it hurts.
User avatar
moira finnie
Administrator
Posts: 8024
Joined: April 9th, 2007, 6:34 pm
Location: Earth
Contact:

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by moira finnie »

CineMaven wrote:I agree with you Jaxxxxon. I was hesitant to mention her b'cuz I thought folks might think she's so passe and has no gravitas as an actress. I love your Betty / Veronica analogy. Very apropos. I've always believed Priscilla Lane. I guess that's my criteria.
I think you mistake us for someplace else, CM. This is the shady spot on the internet where we hang out together, just so we can cherish the underrated, the gentle, and the forgotten contributors to the studio era.

Image
Btw, you guys should read Stuart Jerome's anecdote-packed Those Crazy Wonderful Years When We Ran Warner Bros ( Lyle Stuart Publishers, 1983). Highly irreverent and told from the rather sweaty POV of the teenage messenger and his equally base co-workers who worked at WB in the late '30s and early '40s, Jerome later became a writer. The author, a successful scenarist on many television series, including, "Highway Patrol", 'Sea Hunt", 'M-Squad", "Hitchcock","The Fugitive", and "The Rogues" was the son of one of Warner Bros. musical composers, M.K. Jerome. In the book, Stuart describes his first day at the studio when he came face-to-face with the unsettling sight of Priscilla Lane repeatedly blowing a line reading during a shoot--each time exploding with an Anglo-Saxonism that the lad had seldom heard in real life, much less emitted by one of his dream girls. . The book, which one might take with a healthy grain of salt, is readily available on the secondary market and in many libraries.
Avatar: Frank McHugh (1898-1981)

The Skeins
TCM Movie Morlocks
User avatar
JackFavell
Posts: 11926
Joined: April 20th, 2009, 9:56 am

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by JackFavell »

That book sounds great! I'm amazed I never ran across it before.
RedRiver
Posts: 4200
Joined: July 28th, 2011, 9:42 am

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by RedRiver »

DR. EHRLICH'S MAGIC BULLET. Edward G. Robinson in William Dieterle's biopic of German/Jewish scientist who pioneers treatment of infections. I thought I had seen this Warner Brothers film before. But it didn't look familiar. I must have confused it with another "dedicated scientist cures syphilis movie". This is not an exciting story. There's not a lot of drama. But can you not like a mature story, treated with intelligence, in the hands of a great cast? If this is not one of the great movies of the era, that's OK. It has respect for the material and its audience.

Robinson was never less that excellent, and this is no exception. He plays a thoughtful, courageous man who faces challenges both monetary and political, not to mention anti-semitic. Dr. Ehrlich risks his own health and career to do the work he believes in. The story is told as succinctly as possible, without getting bogged down in medical techno-jargon. It's a successful effort in a difficult area. Much like Dr. Ehrlich's research!
User avatar
movieman1957
Administrator
Posts: 5522
Joined: April 15th, 2007, 3:50 pm
Location: MD

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by movieman1957 »

I saw this one so long ago. It must have been early on when I thought Robinson did nothing but gangster pictures. I remember having much the same feeling as you. I think I saw it around the time I saw "The Story of Louis Pasteur." It must have been medical week on whatever channel I was watching.
Chris

"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
User avatar
JackFavell
Posts: 11926
Joined: April 20th, 2009, 9:56 am

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by JackFavell »

That was a perfect review of Dr. Erlich, Red.

I watched another quietly different film from almost the same time period today, H.M. Pulham, Esq., directed by King Vidor. Thanks to Fernando, I had my eyes open this morning at 7:15 in order to get a copy of it.

The story is told through flashback, as a middle aged H. M. Pulham (Robert Young), who has always done the right thing and followed in his family's footsteps, looks back to find out he's not sure if it was worth it. Any movie that ponders whether or not the traditional road is the best strikes me as having gone out on a limb at this time, with war looming right around the corner. The ideas are actually very similar to those in The Razor's Edge, but are told with gentle detail, and attention to the everyday and the common. In fact, one could look at the film as a sort of light version of The Crowd.

The movie starts with Pulham the banker's daily breakfast routine... a glass of orange juice, a soft boiled egg, a piece of toast with the edges cut off (a piece of which is always given as a treat for the dog). Then into his overcoat, loading his pocket with 2 in-the-shell peanuts, and a brisk walk to the office. He stops to feed the squirrels (could Lubitsch have seen this movie and dreamed up Cluny Brown? I think it's possible) along the way and breathes deeply 25 times until he reaches the workplace. This quiet little series of scenes lets us know right from the start that Pulham has followed this same routine every day for 25 years. He's not unhappy, but he does seem sort of... empty.

Through the course of the film, we find out that he was once a more spontaneous young man, how he was brought up, who he loved, and later lost, how he came to be married, and what happened to make him adhere to these silly habits so strongly. It's a lovely film, that actually tackles some difficult questions, not wholly resolving itself at the end. It's sad and funny and true. I found the acting all around exceptionally good, especially the 3 principles, Young, Lamarr and Ruth Hussey, who sets just the right tone throughout the picture, changing from silly chatterbox to sweet young thing, to genuine helpmeet. Lamarr gives an exceedingly good performance, it must have been a relief to play a smart woman for a change, and she shows genuine affection for Young. I really liked her here. Their scenes together are sweet and melancholy, as all memories are. Young portrays a man who has always let things happen to him, he weakly goes this way and that, the way the wind blows. A man who only once did something out of the ordinary, and wonders if he had done it all differently would he have been happy. It was an indefinable experience for me, I find it as charming and inexplicable as the afore-mentioned Cluny Brown... only this film is closer to being told from the viewpoint of say, Peter Lawford's character, or maybe Charles Foster Kane's. "If I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man."


King Vidor is exquisitely good at showing how everyday life can sap the strength out of people, how the little moments escape us and then we realize later how important they were. He shows how time catches up with us all, without preaching or the requisite happy ending, though the film does tie things up in a hopeful way. A fascinating, lovely little film.
RedRiver
Posts: 4200
Joined: July 28th, 2011, 9:42 am

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by RedRiver »

I like this thoughtful movie too, Wendy. It reminds me of some things Robert Donat did: VACATION FROM MARRIAGE, even THE CITADEL, in its questions of duty and committment. In fact, when you mentioned the title, I initially thought of Donat. But Dr. Welby fills the role nicely, his reflective personality fitting character and story.
Last edited by RedRiver on August 6th, 2012, 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
JackFavell
Posts: 11926
Joined: April 20th, 2009, 9:56 am

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by JackFavell »

You are right, it is a very Donat type character, I never thought of that, but it's right on the money.

I love Donat, and I am more and more a fan of Robert Young. He may not have had a huge range but he did some very, very good acting throughout his career; notably as callow characters who must come to terms with their own weaknesses, or as damaged souls who must enter the world again. I find him very empathetic and modern, his characters deal with things in the same way we do today. No one is as good at revealing flaws in his own character and then letting us see it dawn upon him what a heel he's been. :D
User avatar
CineMaven
Posts: 3815
Joined: September 24th, 2007, 9:54 am
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Contact:

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by CineMaven »

[u]JackFavell[/u] wrote:...It was an indefinable experience for me, I find it as charming and inexplicable as the afore-mentioned "Cluny Brown"... King Vidor is exquisitely good at showing how everyday life can sap the strength out of people, how the little moments escape us and then we realize later how important they were. He shows how time catches up with us all, without preaching or the requisite happy ending, though the film does tie things up in a hopeful way. A fascinating, lovely little film.
Oh, I guess it was a year or two ago, I finallllly saw "H.M.Pulham, Esq." after resisting it a thousand times for over a thousand years; I wound up liking it. It wasn't what I thought it would be; Lord knows what I thought it would be, having never seen it. But as one does, I made a judgement w/o all the facts. While dutifully sitting down with it...I had one of those moments that make you say "Hey...". I really have to see it again. I enjoyed reading your account, Wendy. You really do get to the heart of a film...that gets to your heart. How you write it on paper, I envy.
[u]moirafinnie[/u] wrote:I think you mistake us for someplace else, CM. This is the shady spot on the internet where we hang out together, just so we can cherish the underrated, the gentle, and the forgotten contributors to the studio era.
Ha! Can't get by you, Finnie. Again, you gently pull my coattail, and remind me...I am home. :-) It is nice here in the shade.
"You build my gallows high, baby."

http://www.megramsey.com
User avatar
JackFavell
Posts: 11926
Joined: April 20th, 2009, 9:56 am

Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by JackFavell »

Oh, Maven, I think you do a much better job of getting all your emotions out on paper when you write up a movie! But I thank you very kindly for the compliment.
I wound up liking it. It wasn't what I thought it would be
H.M. Pulham Esq. wasn't what I thought it would be either, though I don't exactly know what I thought before I saw it. It's in that limited class of movies that fall between the cracks, genre wise. You just can't place it within the usual movie categories, and who would really want to? There's a place in this world for the kind of movie that is so thoughtful that you simply can't grasp it in one viewing. The only other movie that affected me this way was Cluny Brown. Indefinable. Which reminds me I need to go watch Cluny again. :D
Post Reply