blanche-2
Joined May 1999
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Ratings6.6K
blanche-2's rating
Reviews6.1K
blanche-2's rating
The Hour Before the Dawn is a 1944 film based on a Somerset Maugham novel and presented as a propaganda film.
It looks as if Paramount didn't spare expense in the production - a fine cast including Franchot Tone, Veronica Lake, Binnie Barnes, and John Sutton, costumes by Edith Head, Frank Tuttle directing.
However, this film gets a low rating, and Veronica Lake gets most of the criticism. She plays an Austrian living in England who is a nanny to a young boy and involved with Tone, a conscientious objector. In reality, she's a Nazi feeding info to the enemy.
I like Veronica Lake. She had a wonderful presence and the capability of doing noir, light comedy, and drama. Her performance here is cold, stiff, and her accent is not good. She's convincing as a Nazi, but she's supposed to be a caring nanny and in love. I submit she received poor direction and not much in the way of dialect coaching.
This is an American film set in England, and while it has its moments at the end, it really doesn't come off. I thought Binnie Barnes gave the strongest performance.
It looks as if Paramount didn't spare expense in the production - a fine cast including Franchot Tone, Veronica Lake, Binnie Barnes, and John Sutton, costumes by Edith Head, Frank Tuttle directing.
However, this film gets a low rating, and Veronica Lake gets most of the criticism. She plays an Austrian living in England who is a nanny to a young boy and involved with Tone, a conscientious objector. In reality, she's a Nazi feeding info to the enemy.
I like Veronica Lake. She had a wonderful presence and the capability of doing noir, light comedy, and drama. Her performance here is cold, stiff, and her accent is not good. She's convincing as a Nazi, but she's supposed to be a caring nanny and in love. I submit she received poor direction and not much in the way of dialect coaching.
This is an American film set in England, and while it has its moments at the end, it really doesn't come off. I thought Binnie Barnes gave the strongest performance.
A counterfeiter, Bailey, who passes $100 bills manages to con the police in Torchy Gets Her Man from 1938, directed by William Beaudine.
The counterfeiter uses the name Gilbert and passes himself off as a Secret Service agent to McBride (Barton MacLane) and McTavish (Frank Shannon), enlisting their help in catching the fake bills. The idea is that they will let the bills pass until the government is ready to strike.
Actually he's trading the fakes in for real bills under the noses of our trusted officers.
The idea is to keep Torchy (Glenda Farrell) from running any stories about it, but she enlists Gahagan (Tom Kennedy) and a German-speaking dog named Blitzen to follow various people and get the story.
Torchy wears a coat in this that could be worn today - it's beautiful. Her practicing German with Blitzen is a scream. Gahagan as usual feels a poem coming on. And he has a system at the race track involving bad mathematics. "6 x 6 is 36?" he asks, surprised. "Well," Torchy says, "it has been for the past few years." I love her delivery.
Very good and fun entry into the series. One complaint: The brilliant Blitzen is uncredited.
The counterfeiter uses the name Gilbert and passes himself off as a Secret Service agent to McBride (Barton MacLane) and McTavish (Frank Shannon), enlisting their help in catching the fake bills. The idea is that they will let the bills pass until the government is ready to strike.
Actually he's trading the fakes in for real bills under the noses of our trusted officers.
The idea is to keep Torchy (Glenda Farrell) from running any stories about it, but she enlists Gahagan (Tom Kennedy) and a German-speaking dog named Blitzen to follow various people and get the story.
Torchy wears a coat in this that could be worn today - it's beautiful. Her practicing German with Blitzen is a scream. Gahagan as usual feels a poem coming on. And he has a system at the race track involving bad mathematics. "6 x 6 is 36?" he asks, surprised. "Well," Torchy says, "it has been for the past few years." I love her delivery.
Very good and fun entry into the series. One complaint: The brilliant Blitzen is uncredited.
It's a curse, all right.
Wow! Agatha Christie as a character in a new mystery. If you've ever seen anything sanctioned by the Agatha Christie estate, you know what you're in for. And PBS brags about it.
Big bore that purports to tell the story of how Agatha Christie (Lyndsey Marshal) met her second husband, Max Mallowan (Jonah Hauer-King). As if he looked like that.
Some deaths, including the death of a monkey. So gross, especially the dissection of the liver. Missing artifacts, attempted murder, and Agatha researching romance.
Very slow, bland, boring, and disappointing. It was on PBS, and they announced a new Hercule Poirot mystery as part of the incentive for donating, along with three DVDs of movies - including this one. For an organization that just lost its funding, they're pressing their luck.
That sound? Dame Agatha rolling in her grave.
Wow! Agatha Christie as a character in a new mystery. If you've ever seen anything sanctioned by the Agatha Christie estate, you know what you're in for. And PBS brags about it.
Big bore that purports to tell the story of how Agatha Christie (Lyndsey Marshal) met her second husband, Max Mallowan (Jonah Hauer-King). As if he looked like that.
Some deaths, including the death of a monkey. So gross, especially the dissection of the liver. Missing artifacts, attempted murder, and Agatha researching romance.
Very slow, bland, boring, and disappointing. It was on PBS, and they announced a new Hercule Poirot mystery as part of the incentive for donating, along with three DVDs of movies - including this one. For an organization that just lost its funding, they're pressing their luck.
That sound? Dame Agatha rolling in her grave.
