The Silver Screen Oasis

kingrat wrote:SINGAPORE WOMAN (1941) was the first Jean Negulesco film, but he was fired in mid-production, according to the imdb bio. Unfortunately, there’s no word about who replaced him. By the way, he next began filming THE MALTESE FALCON, but was replaced by John Huston after a couple of months. Again according to the imdb bio by I. S. Mowis, Anatole Litvak suggested that he film an Eric Ambler spy novel, and this became THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS (1944). The third time was the charm.

SINGAPORE WOMAN seems to me to have some of Negulesco’s style, such some of the visuals from the nightclub scenes. If I hadn’t seen the imdb article, it wouldn’t have occurred to me that this film was a remake of Bette Davis’ hit DANGEROUS, with a very different setting. Mongo’s fave Brenda Marshall stars as the woman who thinks she’s a jinx. Brenda Marshall is quite beautiful, but is willing to look unattractive when necessary, and she seems to have considerable potential as an actress, hitting all the right notes as a woman who’s fallen from high society to sleazy nightclubs. David Bruce is the hero torn between bad girl Brenda and his boring fiancée (Virginia Field, who doesn’t do much with a thankless role). Jerome Cowan --hey, we were just talking about him--boosts the picture whenever he appears as the hero’s best friend and business advisor, Dorothy Tree has a good scene as the wronged wife who puts a kind of curse on the bad girl, and Connie Leon is fun as the Malayan servant Suwa, kind of a cross between Gale Sondergaard and Hattie McDaniel.

If you’re interested in either Negulesco or Brenda Marshall, this may be worth checking out, especially since it’s just over an hour long.

SHOOT! I missed it.

I love Wuthering Heights, it's hard to think that a young parson's daughter could have written it.

My Mum just doesn't like books, she's terribly bored at the moment, she's had her hip replaced a year after having the last one done and she really needs some kind of craft therapy or interest but the only thing she likes doing is housework, this interest has not rubbed off on me. I did have books when I was growing up and they were read and reread, I loved the Famous 5 but only had 3 of the books, today we'd buy the whole set because it would be a much better deal but in the 70s you got them one at once, she didn't like us to spend pocket money either, that was for saving. Libby and now Joe are reading the Roald Dahl books, they're having such fun and I'm so envious, I'd loved to have discovered them first time around. Once I earned my own money I went mad buying books and perusing the classics but there's still lots and lots I've not read.

James and the Giant Peach and Matilda are sooooo good. I didn't read them when I was young, and Alice was not as much of a reader when they were appropriate for her as she is now. She LOVED both movies though.

Kingrat, I should have watched Singapore Woman, if I'd known it had Jerome Cowan in it, I would have been there like a shot!

Jack Conway was a director with talent. A TALE OF TWO CITIES is so good it's astonishing. Fast-paced Dickens? Didn't know there was such a thing! HONKY TONK is not a favorite, though. I, also, like the light, romantic part. The character deterioration drains the excitement from the story. Better adventures pairing The King with fabulous starlets include RED DUST, TEST PILOT and Tay Garnett's wonderful CHINA SEAS.

"Emotion is difficult for me. I don't know how to show emotion,"

Hmmmm...as Maya Angelou says: "WHEN SOMEONE TELLS YOU ABOUT THEMSELVES...BELIEVE THEM."

"HOME BEFORE DARK" is on today. Oh darn it. Wish I had checked the schedule sooner to give more of a heads up to you guys, on this good solid drama ( if you hadn't seen it before. ) JEAN SIMMONS gives a wonderful performance of a woman who's come back to husband, home and hearth from a mental institution...made crazy by the fact that her husband ( Dan O'Herlihy ) is attracted to another woman ( Rhonda Fleming. ) Ha! Better to make her think she's crazy than admit that you want to have an affair. This is a great movie. But hey, don't take my word for it:



Click above to read Miss G's wonderful review of this little-known film. Jean is a blonde...fights for her sanity ( "Gaslight" in reverse )...and the music score should sound familiar to classic film fans. The lesson here: trust yourself, trust your gut, trust what you feel. Don't let anyone convince you that you don't know what you know.

...And if Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. wanders into your room girls...please, don't run away!

Ahhh.... Efrem in a nice cozy fisherman sweater.....

Thanks for the reminder, CineMaven!

JackFavell wrote:Ahhh.... Efrem in a nice cozy fisherman sweater.....

I'll see that and raise you--
Efrem in a nice cozy fisherman sweater...with his hand on Jean's knee...


A fine review of this interesting film by Miss Goddess is here:
http://148bonniemeadowrd.blogspot.com/2 ... -dark.html

Even better!

Yesterday I watched "Bigger Than Life," directed by Nicholas Ray.

I had heard so much good stuff about this movie, that maybe it just couldn't stack up. Maybe I had a problem with James Mason as an ordinary American schoolteacher. But I think my problem with "Bigger Than Life" is that it has been copied so often that even when I was watching the movie for the first time, it seemed like I had already seen the movie.

Initially, I thought "Bigger Than Life" was reminding me of a horror movie, something like "The Fly" or "Incredible Shrinking Man," in which a Fifties marriage comes apart because of the strange science-caused thing happening to Dad. (In some ways, this is a variant of the Jekyll-Hyde story.) However, when the movie was over, I realized that "Bigger Than Life" was really a prototype of the drug addiction/alchololism type movie that they used to show in high school health classes. The difference, however, is that "Bigger Than Life" places its emphasis on the husband, whereas later films would focus on the wife's ordeal as she deals with a husband who is becoming a brute, something like "Sleeping with the Enemy."

Mason is terrific. The scene in which he shoots his mouth off in front of the PTA is a classic, as is the scene in which he bullies his son while playing football. And when he tries to sacrifice his son, he is utterly terrifying. But I couldn't work up a lot of enthusiasm for this film. I have seen the "rot beneath the suburban surface of the Fifties" a lot by now.

You know, maybe it was a good thing I came into Bigger Than Life partway through, and only saw the last two thirds. It made the impact much stronger than you describe. Nicholas Ray is sometimes problematic for me, but I had no problem with this movie, I thought it was excellent. Perhaps the set up was less convincing, but I didn't see it.

I had a similar reaction to yours when I watched The Wild Bunch the first time - it's been copied so many times, those camera tricks that Peckinpah used were such a staple on the TV shows and movies of my childhood that I almost found them laughable, until I realized he was doing them for the first time, to emphasize a point.

Watched, well more like TRIED to watch Japan Sinks which is an early '70s Japanese disaster movie. The disaster is that it's almost ALL TALKING and the subtitles weren't the best.....Oh well maybe the remake is better (i'll watch that at some point)

"Bigger" is not one of my favorites. It held my interest. It's not ridiculous. But it's pretty over stated. I was a little tired of the whole thing before it was over. Mason is outstanding, though. I believe I recall being impressed with the rest of the cast as well.

I remember being impressed with the performances in Bigger Than Life rather than the look or direction of the film. It's one of Mason's finest performances, I completely believe in his torment.