Hamlette's Soliloquy: mysteries

Showing posts with label mysteries. Show all posts

Thursday, January 01, 2026

My Ten Favorite New-to-Me Movies of 2025

It's that time of year again! Time to sift through the movies I watched over the past year and figure out just which ones I liked best.

I really like that my list this year has movies spanning 97 years. It's a pretty fun mix of genres too -- not shocking, as I am an eclectic and omnivorous movie watcher.

Anyway, here's my list!

1. Conagher (1991) A rough-mannered cowboy (Sam Elliot) keeps crossing paths with a homesteader (Katherine Ross) and her adopted children, often helping them out of some difficulty or other, all while insisting he's going to be leaving the area any day now, he's totally not sticking around to look after her and figure out if her missing husband is ever coming back, nope, he's totally disinterested...

2. The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) A former military intelligence officer (George C. Scott) is asked to investigate a list of people, but before he can, the man who made the list dies mysteriously. And then people on the list start to die, too. What can the connection be? Why do so many of these people have very peculiar faces? How many ways can you disguise Kirk Douglas? SO many questions! Also, I've never found George C. Scott particularly attractive, but maybe I've just been watching the wrong movies...

3. Desperate Journey (1942) A WWII British bomber crew (Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Ronald Sinclair) survive a crash landing behind enemy lines and daringly attempt to sneak their way back to Allied territory. This movie gallops along, flinging our heroes from one tense and worrisome situation to another, but somehow never feels rushed. Instead, it feels like an exciting series of adventures, each one making us more and more invested in the characters.

4. Glass Onion (2022) Quirky and laconic detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) attends a house party thrown by a gazillionaire (Edward Norton) on a private island during the Covid-19 shutdowns. People die. Blanc figures out how and why. There are twists on twists on twists, one of which I loved so much, it bumped this much higher on my list than it would have been otherwise. This is the first movie I've seen that deliberately included the Covid-19 shutdowns in the storyline, complete with the face masks and the social distancing and the special rules for rich people, which was pretty interesting. Because I don't have Netflix, I only got to see this because our local theater showed it on the big screen for a couple of days. So happy that they did!

5. Salty O'Rourke (1945) A gambler (Alan Ladd) needs to pay off a debt fast, so he buys a race horse and hires a jockey and does some dubious paperwork shuffling and falls in love with a school teacher (Gail Russell) and makes a lot of other bad decisions, but it all works out okay because this is a comedy. I especially loved the sidekick played by William Demarest, of whom I grow and more fond with every movie I see him in.

6. The Invisible Man (1933) A scientist (Claude Rains) turns himself invisible and slowly goes mad. This movie makes no secret of the fact that the special effects are the main star of the film, and I am absolutely here for them.

7. The Pirates of Penzance (1983) A band of jolly pirates (but are they?) led by a Pirate King (Kevin Kline) bids farewell (but do they?) to their apprentice (Rex Smith) when he comes of age (but does he?) and decides he will stop being a pirate and become a law-abiding citizen (but will he?). Absolute madcap delightfulness from beginning to end, in the best Gilbert-and-Sullivan-but-make-it-1980s-instead style imaginable.

8. Kim (1950) A British soldier's orphaned son Kim (Dean Stockwell) passes as a native of India to spy for the British, aided and mentored by the mysterious Mahbub Ali (Errol Flynn). It's based on the Rudyard Kipling classic, but streamlined, and with a lot more for Errol Flynn to do than his character was granted page time for in the book.

9. Libeled Lady (1936) A rich young thing (Myrna Loy) is libeled by a newspaper, and the editor (Spencer Tracy) responsible for running the libelous story cooks up a doozy of a plot to convince her not to sue the paper. It involves his fiancée (Jean Harlow) and a slick-talking writer (William Powell), a sham marriage, and all the screwball hijinks the screenwriters could dream up and toss at the characters. I will probably enjoy this a lot more the second time I watch it, but I only just watched it for the first time a few days ago and haven't had time for a second viewing. Still, it wound up on this list, which means I did like it more than most screwball comedies...

10. The Gold Rush (1925) A hapless but plucky prospector (Charlie Chaplin) tries to find gold in Alaska, but mostly finds problems and trouble and a lot of snow. We saw this in the theater with my brother and his family, and it was the first silent film my niece and nephew had ever seen. (My own kids had seen a couple before that, but years ago.) It took them all about ten minutes to get used to the storytelling style, and then they all had a rollicking good time enjoying all of Chaplin's hijinks. And, as a bonus, we all went to Alaska about a month later, and my nephew was able to relate historical things we saw regarding the actual Alaskan Gold Rush to things he saw in this movie. I love it when fiction can bring real history to life for people that way!

Well, that's my list! Have you seen any of these? Did you make a list of favorite films you watched in 2025 too? Please share!

I've been collecting my top ten new-to-me movies in posts like this for twelve years now. You can find all of them at the bottom of this page.

Saturday, June 07, 2025

"Clue" (1985)

When I was a teen, I had three good friends. We were all homeschooled and belonged to the same 4-H club, which is how we met. Like most girls in the 1990s, we loved having sleepovers at each other's houses, which is how we usually celebrated our birthdays, plus any other event we could convince our parents to let us get together for.

And every time we had a sleepover at my friend L's house, we watched Clue (1985). And we usually played the board game Clue after watching the movie. Because, why not?

To this day, watching Clue makes me think of sleeping bags on the floor, nail polish fumes, and the faintly squeaky ceiling fan above us that I once dreamed fell on top of me during the night, ala a certain chandelier in the movie.

This is one of the few movies my husband enjoys watching more than once. That's very rare -- there are maybe a dozen movies he will gladly rewatch, so that puts this in fairly exalted company. I think he mostly likes it for Tim Curry's appropriately zany performance, and for the very unique way the film ends.

Clue is based on the 1940s board game, which is reminiscent of "house party murder mysteries" like many written by Agatha Christie, where a lot of people are at a big house for a few days, someone dies, and a detective (usually an amateur) has to figure out who killed the victim, where, and how. Was it Colonel Mustard in the study with the revolver? Mrs. White in the lounge with the candlestick? And so on.

The movie updates the setting a bit, to the 1950s. Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan), Mrs. White (Madeline Khan), Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd), Mr. Green (Michael McKean), Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull), and Miss Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren) are all summoned by anonymous letters to a dinner party at a huge mansion in the middle of nowhere. They arrive in the middle of a thunderstorm. And each of them drives a car that corresponds to the color of their playing pieces in the board game, which tickles me.

The butler, Wadsworth (Tim Curry) welcomes them. The house is thinly staffed, with only a cook (Kellye Nakahara) and a maid named Yvette (Colleen Camp) to assist him with the dinner party. A certain sinister Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving) shows up partway through and reveals that he is the man who has been blackmailing all six of the guests for years.

The guests at first claim not to know each other, but that naturally turns out not to be true. People die. Bodies pile up. Innocent (?) bystanders get shot. Everyone runs around the house a lot. Literally.

There are really two aspects of this film that elevate it from campy, cheesy, slapsticky, screwball-ish nonsense to something truly hilarious. One of those is the cast. Everyone clearly is aware that they are making something quite wacky, and they have no qualms about being goofy and funny. I always have the feeling that they are inviting me to join the fun and not take anything at all seriously.

And I'm going to spoil the other essential part of this movie in the next paragraphs. Skip to the "Back to 1985" logo now if you haven't seen this movie and don't want to be spoiled about the ending, which is so great that I really, really, really don't want to mess up your first viewing.

For real. Shoo.

Okay, if you're still with me, then you probably have seen this movie and know what I'm talking about. This movie doesn't have an ending. It has three endings. Because every time you play the game Clue, you come out with a different combination of places, weapons, and murderers! So, of course the movie should have options too!

But here's something you might not know: They shot three endings, and on VHS and DVD, you get all three endings with little intertitle cards saying "That's how it could have happened" and so on. But when this was shown at theaters, it was shown with only one of the endings. Each of the endings were used, but they sent different versions to different theaters! Can you imagine seeing this in the theater, then chatting with a friend who lived a couple towns over and discovering that they had seen a different ending? How wild and wacky that must have been! I was only five when this movie came out, so I first saw it on VHS at one of L's slumber parties when I was a teen. But I can only imagine how much fun that must have been, when it was in theaters. I've read that some theaters did advertise whether they had ending A, B, or C -- and if I'd been in my 20s back then, I suspect I would have driven around to different theaters to see all the endings. But I like it best this way, as a sort of movie choose-your-own-adventure.

This has been my contribution to the Back to 1985 Blogathon hosted by myself and The Midnight Drive-In all weekend long.

Oh, is this movie family friendly? Um, I'd say it's probably all right for most teens, but not kids. It has quite a bit of innuendo in the dialog, Yvette's costume is extremely revealing (and she flashes her panties at the camera at one point, for no actual reason), there's discussion of a character being gay and characters have various reactions to that, and (obviously) there are multiple murders. There's a smattering of bad language, too. So, no, not really family friendly.

Saturday, January 11, 2025

My Ten Favorite New-to-Me Movies of 2024

Here we are again, ready to reminisce over all the movies we've watched in the past year and figure out which ones we liked best. If you've done a similar post this year, leave a link in the comments so I can check out what your favorites were!

If you want to see my past lists, I've got ten years' worth at the bottom of this page. Meanwhile, here are my favorite ten new-to-me movies that I watched last year!

1. Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter One (2024) A variety of people have experiences in the Old West, many of them in or around the fictional town of Horizon. It's a sprawling epic with lots of storylines and little or no closure to any of them, and I'm somewhat obsessed with it. So much of it pleases me, from the authentic historical details to the filmography to the storytelling. (I could do without the scene with nudity or the implied sex scene, though. It's not a family friendly movie.)

2. The Train (1964) A bitter and disillusioned member of the French Resistance (Burt Lancaster) helps sabotage a train filled with precious pieces of French artwork that an equally bitter Nazi officer (Paul Scofield) is desperately trying to steal away from Paris before the Allies arrive. My son is particularly pleased with all the very real train-related details, and I'm pleased by all the cool stunts Lancaster does.

3. Murder on the Orient Express (1974) Even though Hercule Poirot is not played by Peter Ustinov or Kenneth Branagh (my two favorite Poirots), but instead by Albert Finney (who gets a bit shouty), this is still such a fun time. That's mainly thanks to the amazing cast: Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Perkins, Richard Widmark, Michael York... are you drooling yet? What a lineup, huh?

4. The Man from the Alamo (1953) A Texan (Glenn Ford) is elected to leave the Alamo to warn the people of his town that something bad is about to befall them. By the time he reaches the town, it's too late, and everyone assumes he ran away from the Alamo because he's a coward. This makes him angry and vengeful, and the storyline took a few turns that surprised me, which I enjoyed.

5. Emma (1996 -- Kate Beckinsale) Yes, it took me this long to finally see this adaptation of the classic Jane Austen novel. I was surprised how much I liked it -- it's never going to rival the other 1996 version that stars Gwyneth Paltrow, but I liked it a lot better than the 2009 and 2020 versions.

6. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) A bunch of military misfits are brought together to stop the Nazis during WWII. Yes, that premise has been used oodles of times. But this movie brings some fresh fun to it -- and it's based on a real people and real incidents, which bumps the whole thing up a notch. I'm particularly fond of how Henry Cavill keeps trading up for better and cooler coats.

7. Love Crazy (1941) A woman (Myrna Loy) suspects her husband (William Powell) is cheating on her and decides to get a divorce. Her husband pretends to be mentally ill so she can't divorce him. I'm not usually a big fan of screwball comedies, but I love Loy and Powell together, and this one never gets daffy enough to annoy me.

8. Anastasia (1956) A con artist (Yul Brynner) uses a mentally unstable young woman (Ingrid Bergman) to try to convince the world that the Russian princess Anastasia is still alive. It's acerbic and twisted and melodramatic... and a lot more like the animated movie Anastasia (1997) than I'd expected.

9. Christmas in the Air (2017) A widower (Eric Close) who designs and makes toys hires a professional planner (Catherine Bell) to help him juggle his Christmastime family activities and work commitments so he won't disappoint his kids by forgetting anything important, but will also be able to help his brother land a big contract for their family-owned toy company. Yes, it's a Hallmark movie. Yes, I will willingly watch it again.

10. My Cousin Rachel (1952) A wealthy young man (Richard Burton) becomes obsessed with his cousin's widow (Olivia de Havilland) because he's convinced she killed his cousin. And then he's convinced she didn't. And he loves her. But he hates her. But she loves him. But she might be trying to kill him. Come on, it's a very young and toothsome Richard Burton growling at a middle-aged and gorgeous Olivia de Havilland -- that's all you really need to know.

Sunday, December 08, 2024

The Christmas Movies Tag

I love Christmas. I love movies. Today, I'm inviting you to join me in combining those two delightful parts of life so we can talk about our favorite Christmas movies!

The Rules:

Fill out the prompts (expound as much or as little as you like)
Tag some friends (however many or few you feel like)
Have fun (this is mandatory)

The Tag:

1. A favorite funny Christmas movie: We're No Angels (1955)

It's only one of the absolute funniest movies I've ever seen, AND it's a Christmas movie! Who can resist the hilarious tale of three escaped convicts (Aldo Ray, Humphrey Bogart, and Peter Ustinov) who set out to rob a storekeeper (Leo G. Carroll) so they can get off Devil's Island and instead end up helping him and his family escape the clutches of a merciless relative (Basil Rathbone). Comedy genius AND Christmastime gold all at once! (And if you think Humphrey Bogart isn't funny, boy, do you ever have another think coming.)

2. A favorite poignant Christmas movie: It's a Wonderful Life (1946) is the perfect blend of darkness and hope. It's remarkably gritty, with enough desperation and anger simmering in it to fuel several noir films, and yet it's also imbued with so much hope and love.

3. A favorite romantic Christmas movie: The Holiday (2006) grows more loveable every time I watch it. Yes, there's a bit of "adult content," but most of it is alluded to, not shown on-screen. But the themes of standing up for yourself, learning who to trust and how to trust them, and caring for others even when you've only just met -- all so good! And "W-i-d-o-w-e-d" never fails to make me tear up. If you know, you know.

4. A favorite feel-good Christmas movie: White Christmas (1954)

Have I seen White Christmas a few dozen times? Of course! Will I be watching it next weekend when it's on the big screen at our local theater? Absolutely! Man, this movie has everything I love in a Christmas movie -- soldiers, war zones, trains, horseshoes, romance, sparkly dresses, earworm songs that make me happy every time I think of them, miraculous snowfalls, and the occasional small, internal muscular hemorrhage. Magic!

5. A favorite movie adaptation of A Christmas Carol: For me, it's a tie between A Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) and A Christmas Carol (1999) starring Patrick Stewart. They both bring me to tears, make me laugh, and make me want to clap. Sometimes I do clap.

6. A Christmas movie you watch any time of year: While You Were Sleeping (1995)

I mean, it's technically a Christmas movie. You have a Christmas gathering and a Christmas tree and a gift exchange and snow and mistletoe. But I watch it any time of year because the fact that it's Christmas is only a sort of backdrop. And also because it was released in April, and I saw it in late spring at the second-run theater with the girls who were becoming my best friends, and... it's so Christmassy, but I almost never watch it at Christmas time ::shrugs::

7. A Christmas movie that surprised you: Holiday Affair (1949)

The first time I watched Holiday Affair, the story and characters kept taking these random left turns that would seem to come out of nowhere, but yet made absolute and total sense. I just could not ever see them coming, and that entranced me. Which is a bit odd, because usually when movies start zigging when I am quite sure they will zag, I start to get frustrated. But every single surprising turn of events made the story So Much Better, and I was spellbound. I now tend to watch this during the week before Christmas after everyone else is in bed, while sitting on the floor in the living room and wrapping gifts. It's a private, cozy little pleasure I look forward to and savor.

8. A favorite "but is it really a Christmas movie?" movie: The Three Godfathers (1948) is kind of hard to describe. It's a John Wayne Christmas movie. You've got three desperadoes and an orphaned baby and a desert and people quoting the Bible, and Ward Bond playing a guy named Perley Sweet... and it's generally considered a Christmas movie, but I am not sure I have ever watched it at Christmastime.

9. The oldest Christmas movie you've seen: The Thin Man (1934), which is one of the most delightful murder mysteries ever filmed. I think we will introduce it to our kids this Christmas season. Nick and Nora Charles are #MarriedCoupleGoals, and I find this movie funnier every time I watch it, which is pretty rare.

10. The newest Christmas movie you've seen: A Christmas Love Story (2019), which was also the first Hallmark Christmas movie I had ever seen! My mom is living with us part of the time now, and we don't have the Hallmark Channel. She was missing getting to watch lots of Hallmark Christmas movies, so I hunted up a few on DVD that sounded like I would also enjoy them, and which were made before Hallmark kowtowed to the pressure to push unbiblical agendas on their audience. We watched this last week, and it was cute and fun. I'm pretty sure my youngest is going to want to see it because it stars Kristin Chenoweth, and my little ballerina was just in a ballet version of Wicked, which led to her being a bit obsessed with all things Wicked at the moment. And you know what? This movie would be totally fine for her watch. Yay!

I Tag:

18 Cinema Lane

I'm Charles Baker Harris (and I Can Read)

Ink Calamities

The Maidens of Green Gables

Meanwhile, in Rivendell...

Movies Meet Their Match

Musings of an Introvert

Phyllis Loves Classic Movies

Sidewalk Crossings

Silver Scenes

Taking Up Room

YOU, if I didn't tag you and you want to play!

Here's a clean copy of the questions, if you want them:

1. A favorite funny Christmas movie:

2. A favorite poignant Christmas movie:

3. A favorite romantic Christmas movie:

4. A favorite feel-good Christmas movie:

5. A favorite movie adaptation of A Christmas Carol:

6. A Christmas movie you watch any time of year:

7. A Christmas movie that surprised you:

8. A favorite "but is it really a Christmas movie?" movie:

9. The oldest Christmas movie you've seen:

10. The newest Christmas movie you've seen:

Saturday, February 17, 2024

"Chicago Deadline" (1949)

On the surface, Chicago Deadline (1949) feels rather akin to Laura (1944). In Laura, a police detective becomes obsessed with learning everything he can about a beautiful dead woman and the people who were part of her life. In Chicago Deadline, a newspaper reporter becomes obsessed with the same basic thing. The ending goes quite differently from Laura, and I think that the newspaper reporter keeps in better mental health during the movie, but in a broad way, there are definite similarities.

Cynical yet compassionate reporter Ed Adams (Alan Ladd) has tracked down a random runaway girl whose parents called his newspaper in hopes of finding their daughter. It's never specified if finding runaway girls is a hobby of Ed's, or if he just drew the short straw that day and got sent out on this little errand, or what. He's certainly good at tracking people down from very slim clues, so maybe he gets assigned these sorts of jobs regularly. He cracks wise with the landlady and the runaway girl, but you can see he is genuinely glad the girl will be going home safely before anything untoward happened to her in the big city.

He's just told the runaway to pack her things when a cleaning woman down the hall screams in terror. Ed rushes over there and discovers a dead woman lying in bed. He peers at her face and diagnoses her as having died of a "hemorrhage," probably from tuberculosis. The audience only gets to see people's reaction to her, not her face or anything more than the back of her head and the vague shape of her body under the covers.

Ed quickly goes through the dead woman's belongings, starting with her mostly unpacked suitcase and proceeding to her handbag. There, he finds her datebook, which he pockets. I suppose, since she appears to have died of natural causes, he isn't actually removing or withholding evidence from a crime scene, but it's definitely not a particularly honest thing to do. Ed also drags that runaway girl into the bedroom and shows her the dead woman, warning her that she could have ended up dying alone in an anonymous bedroom too, if she didn't have parents who called the police and the newspapers and everyone else they could think of to try to find her. The girl is suitably chastised and subdued.

Ed asks the landlady who the dead woman was. She says she was named Rosita Jean d'Ur (Donna Reed), and she'd rented the room less than a week earlier. Ed tells the landlady to call the police, then leaves with the runaway girl in tow, bound for the train station so he can send her back home where she belongs.

Ed goes back to the newspaper office where he belongs and starts flipping through the dead woman's date book. It appears Rosita had a lot of friends, but she didn't supply full names for most of them, only first names or initials. Ed starts calling the numbers, figuring if he learns a bit about Rosita, he can write a human interest piece about her and why she died all alone.

But everyone he calls has very odd reactions to his asking if they knew her. Several deny knowing who she was. One person checks out of her hotel an hour after speaking with him. Others demand he explain how he got their phone number. Ed's newshound nose smells a much bigger story, and he starts digging deeper and deeper into Rosita's past.

By the time he's unraveled the story of her life, he's had run-ins with gangsters and crooks, brushed shoulders with wealthy financiers, interviewed a wheelchair-bound recluse, and gotten tangled up romantically with a lonely socialite.

Ed meets the socialite, Leona Purdy (June Havoc), at a party thrown by someone whose number is in Rosita's book. Leona knew Rosita for a while, and she liked her a lot, so she starts helping Ed try to piece together the story of Rosita's life. Before long, they're doing a little kissing once in a while, too.

I wish June Havoc had made more movies with Alan Ladd because I like her a lot opposite him. They trade quips really well, and they have lovely chemistry. They have a kind of comfortable rapport that I liked very much.

As a bit of a random aside before I resume relating the plot here, one of the reasons I like this movie so much is that Alan Ladd isn't playing a world-weary loner who gradually regains his own humanity after encountering genuinely nice people who help him rediscover his soul. I'm not saying he played that character in all his other film noir outings... but it feels like it. Some of his westerns go that way too. But his character in this has friends, colleagues, and a steady girlfriend. It's really refreshing.

Anyway, Ed is also aided by his friend and fellow reporter, Pig (Dave Willock), who tracks down leads for him offscreen and provides backup during a shoot-out in a parking garage. Have I ever mentioned that I find parking garages very scary? They always make me feel both trapped and exposed at the same time, and that is probably because I have watched so many movies where people get into shoot-outs in parking garages. There's only one parking garage where I don't feel even a little bit creeped out, and that's the one at Colonial Williamsburg because it is bright and light and airy, and it has openings everywhere on the ground and second floor, all the way around, so you can get out literally anywhere you want.

Anyway, Ed tracks down Rosita's brother Tommy (Arthur Kennedy), who is deeply saddened to learn Rosita has died. He fills in a lot of gaps in her life story for Ed, but can't really shed light on why other people keep behaving so peculiarly when Ed mentions her name.

I'm afraid I don't have any shots of Kennedy to add here -- this movie isn't available on DVD. It has recently been released to Blu-Ray by Kino Lorber, which is absolutely wonderful! I've watched it twice this month, and it's been such a delight to have a crisp and clear copy. I watched it once a few years ago, when all that was available was a murky version that looked like (and probably was) someone aiming their laptop webcam at a TV playing an old VHS tape that had been recorded off cable TV. So, I'm really excited that this movie is available legitimately on Blu-Ray now... but I can't get screencaps from a Blu-Ray because my laptop only plays DVDs. Which is why we have this random collection of production stills and lobby cards here. And no pictures of Arthur Kennedy because they don't appear to exist anywhere.

Skip down to below the next lobby card if you don't want SPOILERS because I am going to explain the plot here.

Unlike the detective in Laura, Ed Adams does not develop an unhealthy obsession with the dead woman. He does become pretty obsessive about figuring out why people keep trying to stop him from talking about her, though. It turns out that, after her husband left her in New York City, she returned to Chicago, where she became a small-time gangster's girlfriend, then caught the eye of a wealthy and crooked financier. The latter paid a big-time gangster to rough up her boyfriend until he promised to break up with her so the financier could become her sugar daddy. But the big-time gangster liked holding the leverage of what the financier did to get Rosita over said financier's head, so the financier decided she needed to disappear permanently so she couldn't be used against him anymore. Except the hitman who was supposed to kill her liked her, so he disappeared her instead and told everyone he'd killed her and dumped her body where she couldn't be found.

That's why, when Ed Ames finds her dead in a flophouse and her brother identifies her positively, suddenly creeps are crawling out of the woodwork and shooting each other and committing suicide and shooting at Ed. Because suddenly, the girl who was supposed to be dead already turns out to have been alive and only died just now, and (almost) nobody knows why. Everyone assumes someone else is lying and blabbing secrets, and fireworks commence.

It only took me three viewings of this movie to figure out what is actually going on in it. The whole thing is very convoluted and told in circular flashbacks, basically. But it does eventually make sense.

END OF SPOILERS.

Don't believe the above lobby card, by the way. Like the song says, Rosita is not merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead. Donna Reed never shares the screen with Alan Ladd at all in this -- she only appears in flashbacks. But Reed and Ladd had co-starred the previous year in Beyond Glory (which I haven't seen yet), and I guess the publicity folks wanted audiences to think they had another Ladd-Reed love story in the works. Or something.

Is this a great noir film? No. Is it a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable and rewatchable movie? Yup. I like it a lot.

But, is this movie family friendly? Basically, yes. Rosita's obviously sleeping with the financier, if not with her previous boyfriend, but that's very vaguely implied. Her brother may be incestuously attracted to her, but that's also vaguely implied, and it's possible he never revealed his interest to her. You can kind of read their relationship however you like. Rosita gets slapped offscreen at one point. Alan Ladd gets into a fistfight, and there's the gunfight in the parking garage that I mentioned earlier. And someone commits suicide. But, despite the ominous warning on some of the lobby cards and posters for the film, it's really not particularly unsuitable for children. It's also not intended for kids, though -- I can't see most youngsters being interested in it. Teens, sure.

Today is my 8th Alaniversary! Eight whole years devoted to Alan Ladd... and counting :-D

Sunday, December 03, 2023

"The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959)

This will never be my favorite adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles by A. Conan Doyle (so, fear not, Jeremy Brett!), but it also will never be my least-favorite (sorry, Basil Rathbone). I enjoy this one pretty well, enough to own a copy of it and have watched it more than once.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of my top five favorite books of all time. I reread it this October for the umpteenth time, and it was an absolute delight, as usual. So, I will freely admit that rewatching this 1959 version so soon after having read the book may have made me a little less enthusiastic about this version than I was in the past. But it also made me really appreciate some aspects of this version, particularly the casting for Sir Henry Baskerville.

The story in a nutshell is this: Sherlock Holmes (Peter Cushing) is consulted about whether or not Sir Henry Baskerville (Christopher Lee) should move to Baskerville Hall, which he just inherited when a relative died under mysterious circumstances. Holmes delegates the job to Dr. Watson (Andre Morell), who heads out to Baskerville Hall with Sir Henry, determined to figure out if the last Baskerville's death was as mysterious as it seems.

I don't particularly like Peter Cushing's portrayal of Holmes, as he spends an awful lot of time berating Watson and making shrill proclamations. And Andre Morell's portrayal of Watson is adequate, but kind of bores me. The real highlight of this movie, for me is Sir Christopher Lee. He plays Sir Henry as intelligent, shrewd, curious, and secretly passionate. Sir Henry in the book is fairly brash and bold, which is A. Conan Doyle's assumption about anyone who has lived in North America, but Lee doesn't take the "make lots of loud announcements about your own courage" route that could feel like the obvious choice. Instead, he gives us a Sir Henry who has a lot of strong feelings and opinions, but is self-controlled and keeps a firm hold on himself... most of the time.

The first time we really see this come to the fore is when a deadly tarantula crawls all over Sir Henry and he must keep absolutely still to keep from startling it and making it bite him. Now, if you have ever read the book this is based on, you will know that there are ZERO tarantulas in the book. This movie is a Hammer Films production, and that means it needs to be scary and creepy and thrilling and weird, and the filmmakers seem to have decided that a giant, glowing, spectral hound was not scary, creepy, thrilling, or weird enough, so they tossed in all this nonsense with deadly tarantulas. I happen to loathe spiders and be a total arachnophobe, so I have to close my eyes for most of this scene, but I have watched enough of it between my fingers to know that Christopher Lee plays Sir Henry as being terrified, but also having the supreme self-control needed to not scream like a two-year-old girl and flail madly about, which is certainly what I would have done in his position. That's really great character development, because we are eventually going to see Sir Henry confronted by events that he can't quite control himself so well about, and that will make us see how deeply he's moved by them.

By the way, that will not be his encounter with the spectral hound that haunts his family and scares them into dying, or rips out their throats, etc. No, no, what causes Sir Henry to lose his composure is an alluring girl (Marla Landi). She is a real piece of work, half the time coming on to Sir Henry in the most obvious ways possible, and half the time behaving like the sight of him makes her want to puke. No wonder he eventually is so frustrated by her hot-and-cold nonsense that he can barely restrain himself from just grabbing her and holding her still so he can kiss her back after she unexpectedly kisses him and then switches moods and slinks away from him. The look on his face that says "I am sick and tired of constantly having to lock away what I think and feel" hits me hard.

If you like somewhat lurid horror movies from the 1950s, with lots of "oh no!" vibes and jump scares, and you aren't too picky about your adaptations of classic books (for instance, this one wanders off in the last act and has this huge section that takes place in an abandoned mine and involves a cave-in, and then totally changes up who the villain actually is), this version of this classic story is pretty fun.

This has been my contribution to the Hammer-Amicus Blogathon IV hosted by Cinematic Catharsis and Realweegiemidget Reviews.

If you like blogathons, check back tomorrow for an announcement about one I'll be co-hosting soon!

Thursday, May 25, 2023

What Makes Me Want to Watch It?

I recently posted a list of ten things that make me want to try out a book over on my book blog. I had so much fun figuring those out that I thought I should do the same about movies. What makes me think, "Yup, that is something I would like to watch?" about particular films? I've come up with ten magnets that will always draw my attention.

1. It's a western. I will try basically any movie or TV show based solely on the fact that it is a western. I don't have to know what it's about. I don't have to know or care about anyone who's in it, the director, the composer, anything. It's a western? I'm there. (With the obvious caveat that, if I learn it's skanky, I will either proceed with caution or skip it.)

2. It stars someone I hold dear. For a fairly large number of actors and actresses, not even remotely limited to my top favorites (actors, actresses), I will try nearly any movie or show. Nearly -- I do have some standards, so even top favorites occasionally have made something I will pass on. But the presence of someone I hold dear ties with "it's a western" for the top thing guaranteed to get me to watch something.

3. It's set during WWII. I mean, my top favorite TV show of all time (Combat! [1962-67]) is based in WWII. That should tell you a lot. A WWII-era setting, whether it's a war zone or the home front, will always grab my interest.

4. It's based on a good book. Bonus points if it's a classic book, but yeah, I love movies that are adaptations of books! I often watch them first to find out if I like the characters and story, then go read the book if I do. That makes the book feel like an expanded version of the story, rather than making the movie feel like a condensed version of a book I've read.

5. It has heroes in it. Yes, that includes superheroes, but it includes a lot more than that, too. You throw words like "hero," "rescue," "sacrifice," and "courage" at me, and I am instantly paying attention. I do enjoy superhero movies, but it's heroism in general that draws me to so many action movies, fantasy and sci-fi movies, and so on. Westerns and war movies appeal to me because they so often involve heroes.

6. It's film noir. Got some gritty stories and mean streets and fatally attractive women and weary almost-heroes and murky shadows you could drown in? I'm here for it. Yes, heroes are thin on the ground in this genre, but they're there. And antiheroes abound.

7. It revolves around a platonic friendship. If there are two characters who have or form a close bond of friendship, and that's the main relationship that the story centers around, I am interested right away. So many of my favorite movies and TV shows revolve around either a pair of friends or a group of them! "Found families" play into this -- group friendship bonds interest me just as much as a friendship between just two people.

8. It's set in the 1960s. My husband likes to tease me that I grew up in the sixties. I didn't -- I wasn't born until the eighties -- but when I was growing up, most of the movies and TV shows we watched at home were made in the sixties because that's when my parents grew up, so that's what formed their taste. And so, it's what formed my taste. Whether a movie or show was made in the sixties or later on, if that's when it's set, I want to try it out!

9. Someone I trust tells me I would like it. I definitely will try movies just because specific people tell me I should. My parents, my brother, DKoren, and two or three other people can get me to watch a movie on their recommendation alone.

10. It has a detective in it. Yes, I love mysteries. I particularly love to read them, but I enjoy watching them too. Many of my favorite TV shows revolve around detectives solving crimes, and I like movies about them too.

So, basically, if it has a certain setting or specific types of characters, or simply stars particular people, I'm interested!

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

"Another Thin Man" (1939)

The third movie about Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) is... not one of my favorites in the series, to be honest. I can never manage to remember the plot of this one even though it's based on a Dashiell Hammett story I've read. We just get about twenty minutes into it, and then Cowboy and I will look at each other and say, "Oh, yeah! This is the one with the baby party in it." And that's all I can really remember about it between viewings!

It's always funny to me how the name "Thin Man" has come to refer to Nick Charles, when really the Thin Man in the title of the first film (1934) and the Dashiell Hammett book it's based on is NOT Nick Charles at all, but the murder victim.

Anyway, in this particular movie, Nick and Nora are back in New York City, this time with their toddler Nicky Jr. (William A. Poulson) along, as well as their faithful dog Asta. Where the Charles family goes, trouble is sure to turn up, and aren't we all glad it does? Without trouble, there would be no movie for us to chuckle our way through.

This time, Nick and Nora get invited to spend the weekend at a Long Island mansion owned by Colonel MacFay (C. Aubrey Smith), ostensibly so Nick and MacFay can discuss a lot of business things. MacFay was Nora's father's business partner, and now he's involved in handling the East Coast portions of her fortune.

MacFay is being threatened and terrorized by a charming (note the sarcasm) fellow named Phil Church (Sheldon Leonard) and his pal Dum-Dum (Abner Biberman). He assumes that Nick can put a stop to this somehow. Nick pokes around into various corners, but before he can do much good, MacFay is murdered.

Obviously, Phil Church and Dum-Dum are the prime suspects. Obviously, they can't be the killers because then the movie would be over too soon. Disappearing dead bodies, a bunch of Nick's underworld acquaintances, and double lives all help complicate matters.

One of my favorite parts of the movie involves Nick and Nora both winding up at a night club where Nora is pounced upon by a would-be new boyfriend and dragged out to the dance floor.

Nora holds her own pretty well with the masher, but eventually, Nick has enough and rescues her. It's a really funny, fun sequence that makes the most of Powell and Loy's comedic talents and their wonderful chemistry.

Another thing I love about this one is that Lt. Guild (Nat Pendleton) gets to appear again! He's in The Thin Man too, and having him turn up again lends a wonderful bit of continuity to the series.

The "baby party" that I mentioned earlier is part of the film's climax and involves a whole lot of hoodlums and small-time crooks bringing random babies over to Nick and Nora's hotel suite to have a birthday party for Nicky Jr., with some pretty funny results.

Nick Sr. solves the mystery, as usual, and at the end, he and Nora collapse in their hotel room to get the rest they've been needing ever since they got off the train at the beginning of the film.

Between filming After the Thin Man (1936) and this film, William Powell suffered two pretty serious life events. His fiancée Jean Harlow died, and he was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent surgery and radiation for that. I've heard that when he arrived on set to begin filming this movie, the cast and crew gave him a standing ovation.

I don't know if it's a result of those two things, but I think Powell's portrayal of Nick Charles is just a little softer and more loving in this film than in the previous two. Of course, Nick and Nora still exchange lots of acerbic witticisms between many an onscreen smooch, just like in the first two films, but there seems to be even more affection and kindness laced throughout their interactions. And Nick is particularly affectionate toward little Nicky Jr. in a way I think an earlier Nick might have not quite managed.

Anyway, Nick and Nora Charles remain one of my absolute favorite on-screen married couples. I love the way they they are portrayed as playful, happy, and supportive of each other, and still very attracted to each other. Too many movie and TV married couples show marriage as being unpleasant and a burden, and while it certainly can be, it doesn't have to be (in fact, in my experience, marriage generally is jolly good fun).

Is this movie family friendly? Pretty much. Lots of alcohol use still. Several murders, but none of them are shown graphically. There's also a bit of very mild innuendo here and there.

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

"After the Thin Man" (1936)

After the Thin Man (1936) picks up right after The Thin Man (1934), with Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) getting off the train in California, home again from their jaunt to New York City over the holidays.

Nora is still filled with exuberance over her husband solving a difficult murder, and now she wants him to take another case. Her cousin Selma (Elissa Landi) is desperately unhappy, and Nora fears she's in danger of some sort. Nick is not enchanted with this idea. Nora's wealthy, snobby family mocks and snubs him. And he's going to be plenty busy catching up on business matters after spending time away.

But Nick loves Nora as much as Nora loves Nick, so we all know he'll help her cousin.

Poor cousin Selma! Her feckless husband Robert (Alan Marshal) has disappeared. Again. She calls Nora for help because she's the only person Selma knows who might be willing to help her find Robert. Everyone else in the family would rather he stay lost for good.

Nora convinces Nick to look for Robert, and she also convinces him to take her to her Aunt Katherine's (Jessie Ralph) for New Year's. That was a good call, since it means Nick gets to dress up and look dapper.

Nora's whole extended family has assembled, a sort of family meeting to decide What To Do About Robert. But disguised as a dinner party. They barely tolerate Nick because he's Low Class™ and a Former Detective™. He amuses himself by mocking them when only Nora is looking.

After dinner, who should drop by but David (James Stewart), Selma's former fiance and faithful friend. While Nick and Nora head off to try to find Robert, David stays to keep Selma company.

This is the earliest James Stewart movie I've seen -- isn't he a sweet little choir boy? Robert is quiet and kind and kind of adorkable, like so many of Stewart's characters, especially in the '30s and '40s.

Anyway, Nick and Nora head off to a nighclub that Robert favors. There, we get treated to a pretty lengthy song-and-dance number by Polly (Dorothy McNulty, aka Penny Singleton). Polly is Robert's new gal pal, and we all start to realize that a) Selma is better off without Robert, and b) Robert would be better off without Polly.

Here's Robert, the drip, goggling at Polly and swilling gin or something.

And here's Dancer (Joseph Calleia), owner of this night club and close associate of Polly. I am getting so fond of Calleia! He's in lots of Alan Ladd movies, including The Glass Key (1942), Captain Carey, USA (1950), and Branded (1950). He keeps popping up in noir films for me too lately, like Gilda (1946). I'm always happy to see him, as he never gets boring, but he doesn't overdo things either.

Well, pretty soon, the plot thickens, along with the fog. Dear old David pays Robert a bunch of money to stay away from Selma for good. And then Robert gets himself killed before he can run off with Polly.

Who could have killed Robert? Was it Selma? Polly? David? Polly's "brother" (a very young Paul Fix)? Dancer? Aunt Katherine? The list of suspects is long, and it takes all of Nick's brains and wits and wisecracking to figure it all out.

Of course, he does. The movie ends with Nick and Nora on a train again, taking Selma on a long holiday. There's just one mystery left: what is Nora knitting?

Why, that looks like a tiny sock just the right size for... a baby!

Oh, Mrs. Charles! And Mr. Charles! What a surprise!

I really love this movie series. This second film might be a little better than the first in some ways -- I think it has fewer red herrings, though it also might be a little less funny. Still, the dialog zings, the chemistry between Powell and Loy sizzles, and the plot rolls merrily along. Dashiell Hammett wrote the story for this, though not as a full novel like the first one. It has the same director (W. S. Van Dyke) and screenwriters (Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett). so it matches the first movie really well.

Is this movie family friendly? Basically, yes. No cussing, no racy scenes, no bloody violence. People do get killed, and there's obviously more going on between Robert and Polly besides patty-cake, but that is all implied. There's quite a bit of alcohol getting consumed, just like in the first movie.

This is my contribution to the MGM Blogathon hosted by Silver Scenes :-) It's not as in-depth as I had planned because I'm hampered by this broken arm, but I hope you still get a sense of how fun this movie is!

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