Robert Mitchum's Sad Eyes: Holiday Affair (1949)

I'm not quite sure how I had forgotten about this film, seeing as its really my most favorite Christmas film, but I did. Luckily, I rediscovered it when TCM had it on rotation and On Demand this month. This absolutely a superb, quiet and heartfelt Christmas movie. The story goes that Howard Hughes wanted to clean up Robert Mitchum's reputation after the whole marijuana/jail scandal. So he took him out of his usual tough guy roles and put him in a sweet romantic Christmas story. Hughes also had a huge crush on Janet Leigh and borrowed her from MGM so that she could be in this RKO film. The result: amazing!! I don't feel that I express my love enough for Robert Mitchum. That is quite a shame because he is by far my most favorite actor ever! There is no one, and I mean no one that tops him in my book. His acting style was so effortless and his charm so intoxicating that anytime I watch one of his films, I feel like I've been privileged to see something very grand. In Holiday Affair (1949), Robert Mitchum plays Steve Mason, a toy shop employee who is saving money to move to California to build sailboats by taking odd jobs in Manhattan. Janet Leigh is the widowed mother of one, who falls for Mitchum, but has to deal with the complicated dynamic of already have a psuedo-fiancee, not being able to let go of her dead husband's memory and her young son's idealism. We get to see wonderful sides of Mitchum here. He is romantic! He is self-sacrificing! He is good with children! He is kind! What more could a fan like me who hearts Robert Mitchum to the nth degree ask for? ::swoon::

The Arrangement (1969)

As the DVD sat snug in its Netflix sleeve, I was reluctant to take the extra step and to put The Arrangement (1969) into my DVD player. Approaching a movie you know nothing about is almost like going on a blind date, there is that internal conflict of either seeking security and safety and not going through with it, in case the experience would turn out to be traumatic, or taking a risk hoping that this time things might work out in your favor. In this case, what I thought might be a strange, weird '60s film that I wouldn't enjoy, would turn out to be a strange, weird '60s film that I did enjoy.

Based on his own novel, The Arrangement (1969) is a lesser-known Elia Kazan classic. Its a film that contemporary film afficianados might enjoy because of its chaotic, psychadelic, A.D.D. type of cinematography. Shots come at all sorts of strange and interesting angles and any remotely chronological timeline is thrown askew my patches of memory flashbacks. Watching this film felt new, fresh and invigorating in a way older films don't usually.

The story is about an ad executive, played by the ever superb Kirk Douglas, who suffers a major mid-life meltdown. He is torn between the life he leads, with his idyllic wife, played by Deborah Kerr, and his current job and the life he wants to lead, as a bohemian free-spirit with his lover, played by Faye Dunaway. The viewer is trapped in his mind, which is terribly chaotic making for amazing sequences.

I don't know how else to intrigue people enough to watch this film. So instead of rambling on and on about its merits, I'll simply leave you with a few crazy shots that I enjoyed in hopes that they might pique your interest.

1) Kirk Douglas hallucinating by the pool with a bunch of grapes which he dangles over the water's surface. In his imagination, the mythic Faye Dunaway emerges from the water to take a bite.



2) Kirk Douglas, again hallucinating, but this time flying an airplane over the city. The scene to which my mother reacted by saying "Ay yay yay! El loco va en un avion!" (Ay yay yay! The crazy guy is flying an airplane!)


3) After Deborah Kerr, tears up the naughty pictures she finds of Douglas and Dunaway at the beach, a neat camera trick shows live action in the scraps of the pictures left behind.


4) Kirk Douglas, hallucinating, (does he do anything else?). But this time its Kirk Douglas dressed as an ad executive, in bed with Kirk Douglas, in the buff as they both smoke cigars!

Breaking the Code Boxed Set: Final Grade

I got an A- in my desktop pub. class. This grade include my class participation, my mid-term project and my final project. I'm happy that I'm in the "A" range (which is only "A" and "A-", no "A+"), although I really wish my grade didn't have that pesky minus sign. This new grade brought down my GPA by about .03 points (boo!). I think that minus is because I didn't proactively seek help or assistance in my project from the professor. I'm sure he probably had ways he would have liked to advise me to improve my various pieces, but I'm sure they would have been changes that I would have just rejected anyways. I guess in the end, what really counts is that I'm really proud of my project and that it is all my own independent work.