I Just Watched...

[jamesjazzguitar]

"Outside the Wall", 1950 noir starring Richard Basehart. A good tale!! An under-rated actor.

As you note, Richard Basehart was a very good actor and was well featured in late 40s and early 50s noir films: He Walked by Night, Tension, a favorite of mine with Audrey Totter as the femme fatale made the same year as Outside the Wall, and The House on Telegraph Hill (where he meets his wife to be, Italian Valentina Cortese).

He went on to make Italian films, with a standout performance in La Strata in 1954.

Those that only are familiar with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, are missing out.

[LostHorizons]

"Outside the Wall", 1950 noir starring Richard Basehart. A good tale!! An under-rated actor.

As you note, Richard Basehart was a very good actor and was well featured in late 40s and early 50s noir films: He Walked by Night, Tension, a favorite of mine with Audrey Totter as the femme fatale made the same year as Outside the Wall, and The House on Telegraph Hill (where he meets his wife to be, Italian Valentina Cortese).

He went on to make Italian films, with a standout performance in La Strata in 1954.

Those that only are familiar with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, are missing out.

He was in Il Bidone too as one of the conmen. He plays a 20 or 30 something yr old with a kid even though he was well over 40 at the time.

[Belle]

Basehart was in 'Decision Before Dawn" (Anatole Litvak) the following year, 1951. It's a very good film, with a young Oscar Werner in a stand-out performance.

[TikiSoo]

It's nice to see I can use the name of Scorsese's co-programmer here; it was censored on the TCM board!

Haha reminds me of when I first met my in-laws: The neighbors to the east last name was Cox and on the west side lived the Dix family. I said, "Haha You're surrounded by Cox & Dix" .....and was the only one laughing.

[CinemaInternational]

It's nice to see I can use the name of Scorsese's co-programmer here; it was censored on the TCM board!

Haha reminds me of when I first met my in-laws: The neighbors to the east last name was Cox and on the west side lived the Dix family. I said, "Haha You're surrounded by Cox & Dix" .....and was the only one laughing.

That in turn reminds me that I live about 40 miles from a mid-sized city that once (many decades ago) had a mayor named Harry Baals (pronounced balls) right after the tenure of a Mayor Hosey. The city briefly became a laughing stock when they almost went through with a plan to rename a large sport and performing arts auditorium complex "The Harry Baals Colosseum"

[Fedya]

It's nice to see I can use the name of Scorsese's co-programmer here; it was censored on the TCM board!

Haha reminds me of when I first met my in-laws: The neighbors to the east last name was Cox and on the west side lived the Dix family. I said, "Haha You're surrounded by Cox & Dix" .....and was the only one laughing.

Richard Dix probably heard every dick joke you can think of.

[Belle]

"Shock Treatment", 1964, Roddy McDowell, Stuart Whitman and Lauren Bacall. German titles at the opening of the film, but the rest is in English.

[TikiSoo]

Belle - didn't even say if you liked it...hope it was better than this idiocy-

[Bronxgirl48]

IDENTITY UNKNOWN: I did like how, because Richard Arlen was wearing his soldier's suit and mentioned the name of a husband/friend/son, people immediately invited this stranger into their homes for dinner and an overnight stay. Well, to be honest if Richard Arlen knocked on my door I'd let him in too, lol. Need I say more. But not my kind of B-movie (unlike DEAD MAN'S EYES). I found it flat, dull and kind of pretentious. Didn't understand all the praise by the host and guest.

But Inner Sanctum's DEAD MAN'S EYES!! Who does not love Lon Chaney, Jr. and Acquanetta?? Just a delightful little pulpy, creepy mystery thriller! "He took the eyes that were in the bucket" Thomas Gomez, Paul Kelly and Ralph Meeker all add their unique melodramatic talents.

[Belle]

"Shock Treatment" was a cliched story, and it had one too many mental health tropes; screaming girl pulling hair and yelling 'don't touch me' (Carol Lynley), deranged gardener staring and menacing (Roddy McDowell); all of these too conveniently compliant when needed and catatonic when not!! Lauren Bacall as the 'baddie' (I never liked her anyway) and an improbable ending. Seat-of-the-pants saving of the central character, who had been drugged into submission. An improbable scenario from top to bottom.

Some of the film had intriguing elements, but overall it was a third rate experience - which was more worthy of an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" on TV.

[Belle]

"Swamp Water", Jean Renoir, 1941, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan, Anne Baxter. Brennan has the lead role and he's a predictable old coot, even then. A script by Dudley Nichols (no less) couldn't save this film. Huston is hardly in it at all which, coming just a few years after "Dodsworth", is almost a crime!! Anne Baxter had the role of the yokel from the back waters and she must have been embarrassed when she saw the end result on film!! The title of the film was unfortunate, and I can't imagine why a director of the stature of Renoir was convinced this was a job worth doing!!



I was trying to think of an alternate title for the film - to spare it from its terrible name - and the best I could come up with was "Backwaters" or "Outcast".

[Dargo]

"Swamp Water", Jean Renoir, 1941, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan, Anne Baxter. Brennan has the lead role and he's a predictable old coot, even then. A script by Dudley Nichols (no less) couldn't save this film. Huston is hardly in it at all which, coming just a few years after "Dodsworth", is almost a crime!! Anne Baxter had the role of the yokel from the back waters and she must have been embarrassed when she saw the end result on film!! The title of the film was unfortunate, and I can't imagine why a director of the stature of Renoir was convinced this was a job worth doing!!

I was trying to think of an alternate title for the film - to spare it from its terrible name - and the best I could come up with was "Backwaters" or "Outcast".

Combine the two here Belle, and I think you might have it: "Backwater Outcast"

Gotta say here though that contrary to your above review of this film, I've always liked it quite a bit. I think the cinematography is exceptionally atmospheric (in a noir-ish sort of way), the acting is great across the board, it's resonably well-paced and the mystery of the story is hidden and kept vague until the very ending of the film.

(...but hey and as I understand they say down in the swamps of the Okefenokee.."Whatever floats your flatboat", right?!)

[Belle]

Thanks for your enjoyable comments, Dargo!!

The title reminded me of something Emeric Pressburger once said when Conrad Veidt took the British film "Contraband" to the USA where it was re-titled "Blackout". Pressburger apparently said, "I wish I'd thought of that!"

[Dargo]

Thanks for your enjoyable comments, Dargo!!

The title reminded me of something Emeric Pressburger once said when Conrad Veidt took the British film "Contraband" to the USA where it was re-titled "Blackout". Pressburger apparently said, "I wish I'd thought of that!"

Thanks in return here, Belle.

Your second paragraph here now has me wondering what Pressburger might've thought about the American re-title of his (and Mr. Powell's) film 'A Matter of Life and Death'?

(...I still remember my first television viewing as a teenager of that one back in the late-'60s and when it was titled 'Stairway to Heaven' for us Yanks)

[Swithin]

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005)

I sometimes watch movies on my iPad, on the treadmill, in spurts, since I usually spend 25-30 minutes on the treadmill. Although I recently watched Poison (1991), I cannot even begin to write about that strange film yet. Will do so soon. But I just watched Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, a sweet movie with Joan Plowright and an excellent British cast.

Mrs. Palfrey is an elderly English widow who comes to London to live out her last years at the Claremont Hotel, because she liked the looks of the residential hotel in the adverts. It turns out to be a fairly dreary place (although the public rooms like quite nice, to me, anyway). The other guests are all old people in similar situations. It's kind of depressing, until Mrs. Palfrey takes a tumble in the street and is helped by an attractive young man played by Rupert Friend. The movie has been referred to as "Separate Tables meets Harold and Maude." Nevertheless a bond develops between Mrs. Palfrey and the young man, whom she passes off as her grandson, because her real grandson never comes to visit.

It's a touching story of connection between two lost souls. I found the busy-bodyness of the other hotel guests overdone, since English people of that generation would not be so forward. Also there is a tendency for everyone to come into a room whenever there's a conflict or outburst, which reminds me of the worst excesses of 1980s American sitcoms. Also, when they do show up, Mrs. Palfrey's daughter and real grandson are simply awful. It's hard to believe that this lovely woman's family would be so vile. But overall, the movie is touching, well acted, and easy to watch.