I Just Watched...

[Bronxgirl48]

I watched Dead Of Winter on Pluto yesterday.
Thanks to Cinema International and others here who mentioned this movie. I had never heard of it, but the comments made me seek it out.

Some of the twists were predictable, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
I had no idea that Mary Steenburgen played three roles in the movie. I knew that she played Julie Ross and the actress hired to "replace" her, but I was surprised to see that she also played Julie's sister. She rocked the hat and the fur coat in that role!
I'm pretty sure that someone else's voice was dubbed in for the early New Years Eve scene where she played Julie in the car with the bag of money.
The movie was directed by Athur Penn, who also directed The Miracle Worker and Bonnie and Clyde.

I also watched Mary Steenburgen in Time After Time recently on Watch TCM. I had no idea that she had been married to Malcolm McDowell, her co-star in that movie. Malcolm McDowell was endearing in the role of H.G. Wells in Time After Time, but I couldn't get his very disturbing work in A Clockwork Orange out of my mind completely when watching Time After Time.

Glad you enjoyed DEAD OF WINTER, Bagel. I do like the way the script (or perhaps it was Mary's concept) doesn't really make the main actress character a necessarily sympathetic figure. She is depicted as coldly ambitious and proud, somewhat of a shrew to her husband and kid brother, fiercely competitive, not the most likeable of women and someone who ultimately will make a very dumb and naive decision in order to further her career.

[Bronxgirl48]

Fear Strikes Out (1957) TCM- 8/10

A bio-pic of Jimmy Piersall (Anthony Perkins) who battled mental illness when playing for the Boston Red Sox.

I always this loved this film, it has Perkins second best performance (after Psycho of course.) Karl Malden is also excellent as Piersall's pushy father. The real Piersall disowned the film, he especially objected to the casting of Perkins, who he said looked more like an ballerina on the field than an major league ball player. He also said it distorted the facts of his relationship with his father, making it look like he was the sole cause of his mental breakdown. Whatever the true facts, the film makes for stark, engrossing drama.

Agree with you Jim about this being Tony's second best performance after PSYCHO. The musical score is excellent as well. Perkins may not have satisfied on the physical side but he definitely captures the emotional intensity of Piersall's mental conflicts.

[HoldenIsHere]

I watched Dead Of Winter on Pluto yesterday.
Thanks to Cinema International and others here who mentioned this movie. I had never heard of it, but the comments made me seek it out.

Yup I watched it last night too!

I enjoyed all the performances, the sets & photography were great-overall it was a fun movie.
The premise however, did not age well.

First off, NO ONE would go on an out-of-town unknown destination audition alone. But that shows the difference between 1987 and 2023. Anyone watching it today would laugh at the heroine's panic of not having a phone!
So the suspension of disbelief you must have for movies will work better for this movie if you're over 30.

It was great to see Mary Steenburgen do some serious acting. (Her 80's clothes were hilarious) I loved her as the villain!
She is so pretty and retains just the tiniest touch of southern accent, her voice & cadence reminding me very much of Andie McDowell's voice.

(After writing that, I looked at Steenburgen's Wiki: "Since 2014, Steenburgen's son Charlie McDowell has had a running joke at her expense, claiming on numerous occasions on social media that his mother is actress Andie MacDowell.[24]"

Last month I re-watched MISS FIRECRACKER where Mary Steenburgen and Holly Hunter play cousins.
It's kind of interesting that . . .
**********SPOILERS*************
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
. . . in DEAD OF WINTER Mary Steenburgen's character loses a finger and in THE PIANO Holly Hunter's character loses a finger.

[Belle]

"Sullivan's Travels", 1941, Preston Sturges, starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. It's a great film and very funny in parts, especially the 'insider' jokes about film directors. I loved the parody of Welles' projection room scene from 'Citizen Kane' very early in the film and the many references to film greats. "Who's Lubitsch?"

[Detective Jim McLeod]

The Seduction Of A Nerd (1970) Tubi-1/10

A nebbish toy maker (Wally Cox) is wanted by toy company executives (Julie Newmar, Victor Buono) to work for them.

When I saw the trio of actors in this, I just had to see it. I wasn't expecting much but it was worse than I thought. The original title was Up Your Teddy Bear. The Wally Cox character is obsessed with following beautiful women so the execs use sexy women to get him to sign up with their company. Newmar is one of the sexiest women who ever lived but we don't see enough her, though she is seen in a bikini. The comedy is not funny, even with skilled performers like Cox and Buono. Buono is seen in drag, I wonder if the producers saw Divine in Mondo Trasho (1969)?

[Cinemaspeak59]

How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968) is similar to Pillow Talk from1959. There’s mistaken identity, deception, the smooth bachelor, the scorned lover and, in an acknowledgment of the times, speeches about women’s rights. It’s quite funny, with a pleasing production design, and the cast of Dean Martin, Stella Stevens, Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach, Betty Field and Jack Albertson is very good.

[BagelOnAPlate]

I watched Dead Of Winter on Pluto yesterday.
Thanks to Cinema International and others here who mentioned this movie. I had never heard of it, but the comments made me seek it out.

Some of the twists were predictable, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
I had no idea that Mary Steenburgen played three roles in the movie. I knew that she played Julie Ross and the actress hired to "replace" her, but I was surprised to see that she also played Julie's sister. She rocked the hat and the fur coat in that role!
I'm pretty sure that someone else's voice was dubbed in for the early New Years Eve scene where she played Julie in the car with the bag of money.
The movie was directed by Athur Penn, who also directed The Miracle Worker and Bonnie and Clyde.

I also watched Mary Steenburgen in Time After Time recently on Watch TCM. I had no idea that she had been married to Malcolm McDowell, her co-star in that movie. Malcolm McDowell was endearing in the role of H.G. Wells in Time After Time, but I couldn't get his very disturbing work in A Clockwork Orange out of my mind completely when watching Time After Time.

Glad you enjoyed DEAD OF WINTER, Bagel. I do like the way the script (or perhaps it was Mary's concept) doesn't really make the main actress character a necessarily sympathetic figure. She is depicted as coldly ambitious and proud, somewhat of a shrew to her husband and kid brother, fiercely competitive, not the most likeable of women and someone who ultimately will make a very dumb and naive decision in order to further her career.

Yeah, Mary Steenburgen's character (the actress) gave her husband a hard time for not printing her recent headshot to use for the audition.
I don't remember if it was explained how the husband broke his leg.

By the way, did gas stations actually give away free goldfishes to customers as that one did in Dead Of Winter?

[Allhallowsday]

THE BOOK CLUB (2018) If you thought 80 FOR BRADY was boring, this one is insufferable. My best friend loved it.

[CinemaInternational]

About a week ago, I went searching online for films rarely seen these days: Fox titles from the early 1930s, before the studio became known as 20th Century Fox, and it was just Fox film. I saw quite a few of these titles, around 50 of them, and it should be noted that the best ones of the bunch were the ones with Janet Gaynor (especially the charming 1933 film Adorable) and Joan Bennett (1932's The Trial of Vivienne Ware is remarkably speedy). Some of the prints of these films were in wretched shape though, and it's clear to see that Fox didn't know what to do with Spencer Tracy as they kept putting him in one dull film after another. Still a fascinating voyage through rare films.

[Bronxgirl48]

I watched Dead Of Winter on Pluto yesterday.
Thanks to Cinema International and others here who mentioned this movie. I had never heard of it, but the comments made me seek it out.

Some of the twists were predictable, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
I had no idea that Mary Steenburgen played three roles in the movie. I knew that she played Julie Ross and the actress hired to "replace" her, but I was surprised to see that she also played Julie's sister. She rocked the hat and the fur coat in that role!
I'm pretty sure that someone else's voice was dubbed in for the early New Years Eve scene where she played Julie in the car with the bag of money.
The movie was directed by Athur Penn, who also directed The Miracle Worker and Bonnie and Clyde.

I also watched Mary Steenburgen in Time After Time recently on Watch TCM. I had no idea that she had been married to Malcolm McDowell, her co-star in that movie. Malcolm McDowell was endearing in the role of H.G. Wells in Time After Time, but I couldn't get his very disturbing work in A Clockwork Orange out of my mind completely when watching Time After Time.

Glad you enjoyed DEAD OF WINTER, Bagel. I do like the way the script (or perhaps it was Mary's concept) doesn't really make the main actress character a necessarily sympathetic figure. She is depicted as coldly ambitious and proud, somewhat of a shrew to her husband and kid brother, fiercely competitive, not the most likeable of women and someone who ultimately will make a very dumb and naive decision in order to further her career.

Yeah, Mary Steenburgen's character (the actress) gave her husband a hard time for not printing her recent headshot to use for the audition.
I don't remember if it was explained how the husband broke his leg.

By the way, did gas stations actually give away free goldfishes to customers as that one did in Dead Of Winter?

I always thought (for some reason) gas stations did things like that in the 1950's.

About the hubby's broken leg, I don't recall any explanation. Maybe (like Jimmy Stewart in REAR WIINDOW) he was careless during a photo shoot...

[txfilmfan]

Yeah, Mary Steenburgen's character (the actress) gave her husband a hard time for not printing her recent headshot to use for the audition.
I don't remember if it was explained how the husband broke his leg.

By the way, did gas stations actually give away free goldfishes to customers as that one did in Dead Of Winter?

I always thought (for some reason) gas stations did things like that in the 1950's.

About the hubby's broken leg, I don't recall any explanation. Maybe (like Jimmy Stewart in REAR WIINDOW) he was careless during a photo shoot...

Gas stations were still giving out promotional items as late as the 1980s. I had a few drinking glasses from Mobil, back in the 1980s. That kind of stuff disappeared when gas stations morphed into convenience stores (or in the case of Bucee's, small supermarkets/delis/restaurants)

[Allhallowsday]

THE SEA HAWK (1940) Just great!

[Detective Jim McLeod]

Skippy (1931) TCM On Demand-7/10

The little son of a doctor makes friends with a poor kid from shantytown.

First time viewing for me and I liked it very much. Jackie Cooper is great in the title role, so much that he got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The thing I liked most about this was how it shows what it is like to be a kid, especially in the early 1930s but still has some timeless quality. All the children in this film seem like real kids, not actors. It has a bit of Our Gang vibe to it, as in the scenes where the kids put on a show and sell lemonade. Cooper and Donald Haines were both members of Our Gang. Haines played a bully in this, just as he did in the Our Gang short The First Seven Years (1930) . Cooper and Haines appeared together in that one too.

Some interesting trivia is that Jackie Cooper was at the Oscar ceremony but fell asleep on Marie Dressler's arm, so he did not hear that he lost to Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul. Norman Taurog, the director did win for this. He was Cooper's uncle (by marriage). This became infamous years later when Cooper revealed that Taurog got him to cry by pretending he was going to shoot Jackie's dog. His crying scene here is heartrending.

This movie is a MUST for Jackie Cooper fans or for anyone who likes sentimental comedy/dramas of the early 1930s.

[Cinemaspeak59]

Blind Date (1934) Ann Sothern keeps coming in second to her workaholic boyfriend (Paul Kelly), who wants to grow his garage, called Fixit & Fetchit. When Ann meets a rich playboy (Neil Hamilton), class differences ensue. Who will Ann choose? Someone from her own background, or Mr. Trust-Fund. Both men are portrayed as good people. There are some good laughs. I liked it.