Saturday, August 9, 2008

Guest Blogger: Bob's 12 Movie Meme

Here are Bob's selections for the 12 Movie Meme! He's become my regular guest contributor to the site. Bob also really really likes using all caps, as you'll see below.

And I also want to thank the folks who participated in the tag! Much appreciated to Frank, Steve-O, Carrie, Ginger and Bob (::fingers crossed for Kevin::). Props to Lazy Eye Theater for starting it all and Ibetolis of Film for the Soul for tagging me.

MONDAY
THEME: IT’S NOT SMART TO TAUNT YOUR OPPONENT BEFORE A DUEL.
FILMS & REASON:

THE SEA HAWK (1940) ~Henry Daniell (the arrogant Lord Woffingham) to Errol Flynn (the gallant Captain Geoffrey Thorpe): “This time you won’t be as lucky as you were at Cadiz (referring to Flynn’s escape from the Spaniards, for whom Woffingham, a traitor to Queen Elizabeth, is working).” A minute later, Flynn runs him through.

THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940) ~ Basil Rathbone (the sneering Esteban) to Tyrone Power (the foppish Diego Vega):“You have a champion, Luis – and (his voice dripping with sarcasm) what a champion!” Rathbone still thinks Power is a feckless dandy, which he only pretends to be to conceal his true identity – the dashing Zorro! A minute later, Power runs him through.

TUESDAY
THEME: MY HAM IS SLICED THICKER THAN YOURS.
FILMS & REASON:
THE RAVEN (1935)
Bela Lugosi’s incomparable over-the-top performance as Dr. Richard Vollin, a mad plastic surgeon who has built replicas of Edgar Allan Poe’s torture devices in the basement of his mansion. Vollin lures the woman (Irene Ware) who has spurned his advances and her wimpy boyfriend (Lester Matthews) to his home and imprisons them in a chamber where the walls will slowly come together and crush the love-struck duo. Bateman (Boris Karloff), a gangster on the lam whose face Vollin has deliberately disfigured, is the madman’s reluctant accomplice. (And no, I’m not making any of this up.) Lugosi to Karloff: “What a torture! What a delicious torture, Bateman! Greater than Poe!Poe only conceived it; I have done it, Bateman! POE! YOU ARE …. AVENGED!!!!!!!!”

FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE (1940)
Charles Middleton, gaunt, mean, hatchet-faced; here he plays – for the third and last time – the Emperor Ming, aka Ming the Merciless, the greatest outer space villain in the history of the movies. Confronted by Flash Gordon and his allies, Middleton, who never just spoke his lines if he could snarl them, exclaims: “I’ll release the Death Dust and kill them all!!!!” Need I say more?

WEDNESDAY
THEME: THEY MAY BE KILLERS, BUT THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER MOTHER’S DAY.
FILMS & REASON:
NOTORIOUS (1946) ~When Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), the head of a Nazi cell in South America, discovers that his wife (Ingrid Bergman) is an American agent, he rushes to his mother’s bedside for guidance. His mother (Leopoldine Konstantin) tells him to poison Bergman and then offers this backhanded consolation: “Fortunately, we are protected by the enormity of your stupidity.”

WHITE HEAT (1949) ~Psycho mobster Cody Jarrett (Jimmy Cagney) suffers from excruciating headaches that only his Ma (Margaret Wycherly) can alleviate. He crawls into her lap, and she massages him, all the while encouraging his maniacal impulses: “Top of the world, son, top of the world.” When he finally gets there, it blows up in his face.

THURSDAY
THEME: THEY ONLY GAVE ME $25 FOR SPECIAL EFFECTS.
FILMS & REASON:
THE DEVIL BAT (1940) ~ The “giant” rodent hanging from the rafters in Bela Lugosi’s laboratory looks like a moth-eaten stuffed animal. I’ve seen scarier Beanie Babies.

BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1955) ~Director Ed Wood bought a big rubber octopus from studio surplus, but didn’t have the cash to buy the motor that ran the damn thing. In his climatic death scene, the aging Bela Lugosi had to wrap the beast’s arms around his torso himself.

FRIDAY
THEME: TWO PERFECTLY CAST MOVIES
FILMS & REASON:
THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938) ~ Errol Flynn as Robin, Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian, Basil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne, Alan Hale as Little John, etc.

THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) ~
Bogart as Sam Spade, Mary Astor as Brigid O’Shaughnessy, Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman, Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo, Elisha Cook, Jr., as Wilmer, etc. As Justice Potter Stewart said about obscenity (“I know it when I see it”), you’ll know they’re perfectly cast when you watch these movies.

SATURDAY
THEME: MAD SCIENTISTS IN THE GRIP OF MEGALOMANIA RESORT TO PLAGIARISM
FILMS & REASON:
FRANKENSTEIN (1931) ~ Colin Clive as Dr. Frankenstein, screaming as his creation comes to life: “In the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God!” Charles Laughton as Dr. Moreau in ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932), quietly boasting after giving wild beasts human characteristics: “Do you know what it means to feel like God?”

Thursday, August 7, 2008

The Stolen Jools (1931)


I had the pleasure of watching this 19-minute short filled with a whole slew of MGM stars. The premise of the story is that at a ball the previous night, Norma Shearer's jewels went missing. A detective sets on the case bumping into suspicious MGM stars along the way.

Everyone is a suspect! There are lots of cameos and its fun to watch purely for star spotting. Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Edward G. Robinson, Buster Keaton, Gary Cooper, the Little Rascals, Irene Dunne, Richard Barthelmess (I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw him!) and Barbara Stanwyck among others.

Some of the scenes make sense, but it's a little ridiculous when the introductions are stilted like:

"Hey I know you, you're Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. And everybody knows you! You're Loretta Young!"

Really? Run out of ideas, mayhaps? Besides that, it's campy fun and a pleasure to watch! You'll find it among the Bonus Materials on the Laurel & Hardy DVD The Flying Deuces.


Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Flying Deuces (1939)

When I watch a Laurel and Hardy film, I don't usually laugh. However that doesn't mean their films are not funny. Absolutely not! I enjoy them, along with Buster Keaton silents, Marx Bros talkies and various other forms of '20s and '30s comedy, with a sort of silent amusement. Take The Flying Deuces (1939) for example, which I hadn't planned to watch but Frank had lent me the DVD since it had The Stolen Jools (a short with Norma Shearer in it) as Bonus Material. Its got a few things that I just think make it magnificent. Hardy wants to commit suicide after being rejected by his lady love. But he doesn't want to do it alone and enlists his friend Laurel to join him. Hilarity ensues as they try to drown themselves in the river. But why should they kill themselves when they can join the Foreign Legion. Excellent. More fun follows when they take off to another land far far away. They are miserable and try to escape, with Laurel and Hardy involved in a madcap airplane accident that finds Hardy rising to the heavens as an angel. But its alright, he gets reincarnated into a horse (who wears the signature bowler hat and mustache, of course) to keep Laurel company. He should have stayed on "terra cotta" (as Laurel puts it) in the first place instead of 1) trying to drown himself and 2) trying to escape via biplane. But if that were the case, we wouldn't have had this wonderful film complete with Harpo-esque playing of a bedframe as a harp by Laurel. Supreme.

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