evanston_dad

"Conflict" is a kick ass noir that finds Humphrey Bogart offing his wife so that he can bonk her sister but then being so hounded by guilt and paranoia about getting caught that he inadvertently leads the authorities right back to the scene of his crime.

This movie has a ton of atmosphere and a cool visual style. Bogart is boss as usual and the always welcome Sydney Greenstreet gets a good role as his father-in-law, who also happens to be an expert in human psychology.

Some noirs you watch and sort of immediately forget and they fall into a jumble with all the other interchangeable noirs you've seen, and some stand out as ones to remember. "Conflict" is in the latter category.

Grade: A.

I DVR'd this movie thinking it was a film noir, but it's not. That's not the film's fault, but it's still a contributing factor to my being let down by it.

I watched this just a couple of weeks ago and I had to look it up on IMDb to remind myself what it was even about and who was in it. That's how memorable it is.

This is a spy thriller with a convoluted plot involving Germans and Russians trying to infiltrate each others' operations and George Raft somehow trying to untangle all of it. While it's not a memorable film, it does have the benefit of featuring both Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, so there's that.

Grade: C+

"For Me and My Gal" is one of what feels like hundreds of interchangeable films made in the early 1940s that were pieces of war propaganda first and entertaining movies second.

Judy Garland can sell almost anything, but she wasn't enough to keep me completely engaged in this somewhat tiresome film. Gene Kelly is an ass for most of it until he turns things around and proves his bravery by joining the army late in the movie. It happened by accident to be the second movie in a row I watched where George Murphy gets jilted for someone less worthy, and it left me wondering what's so bad about George Murphy.

This movie is prevented from fading into total obscurity by the fact that it nabbed an Oscar nomination, albeit in the category of Musical Scoring, and back in those days the Academy tossed out nominations in the music categories like confetti.

Grade: C.