Another roll-up of recently viewed old Turner Classics movies.
The Freshman – 1925 – a Harold Lloyd silent film comedy about a freshman who has seen too many college movies and thinks he’ll be big man on campus. So a college movie from the silent era that already knows about the tropes of college movies… and this movie has a lot in common with more modern college films (so the more things change, the more they stay the same). In fact, the Lloyd estate sued over The Waterboy due to distinct similarities between this movie and that Adam Sandler flick. But besides all that, the film is pretty funny and moved along briskly and has some impressive football sequences.
Where East Meets West – 1929 – one of the last true silent films, directed by Todd Browning and starring Lon Chaney as a great white hunter in French indo-china (basically Vietnam). Chaney plays a father of an Asian girl who wants to marry a visiting white man who Chaney does not trust. The husband-to-be is seduced by the mystical whiles of a mysterious Asian woman (who happens to be the daughter’s mother). Not a great movie… a bit interesting in its setting and use of some Inscrutable Asian tropes.
Blonde Crazy – 1931 – A pretty bad con-man film starring Jimmy Cagney and Joan Blondell. Cagney is playing his bad guy persona a little too well. I think you have to like the confidence men in a good con-man movie but he was far too thuggish.
The Vampire Bat – 1933 – an alleged vampire movie that turns into a mad scientist movie. Pretty sluggish and dull. Co-stars Fay Wray who I haven’t seen outside of King Kong’s hands until now.
Roberta – 1935 – an odd film co-starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers… but they are not the stars of the film…. yet they are obviously the attractions given their usual song and dance numbers. No, instead it stars another fella as an American in Paris who inherits a fashion design house and tries to run it. In between the song and dance numbers, there are extended scenes on the fashion runway. A very confused movie.
Bringing Up Baby – 1938 – a fantastic screwball comedy starring Katherine Hepburn and Carey Grant. I thought I’d seen this one but I was confusing it with Born Wild – a film about a lion, instead of this one which is a film about a leopard. I don’t think I’ve seen Katherine Hepburn play this kooky of a character before – a real flibbertigibbet. She’s charming and likable in a non-abrasive way… and Carey Grant plays the prototypical nerd in glasses… and when he take off the glasses, he’s HAWT (and you thought this was a trope for attractive girls playing nerds).
The Bride Goes Wild – 1948 – A fairly funny comedy with a complete lie of a title. This isn’t about a bride and she doesn’t go wild at all. Instead its about a children’s book writer who hates children, but pays off a local urchin to pretend to be his kid to impress a female teacher. The kid is a major juvenile delinquent. I laughed quite a bit at this silly romantic comedy.
The Fountainhead – 1949 – a Carey Grant film based on the Ayn Rand novel (script by Ayn Rand). People will either love it or hate it depending on your taste in Ayn Rand. Not just her philosophy but also the way she writes her heroes as automatons who spouse her ideals. I really enjoyed this film, regardless and sometimes BECAUSE of how everyone talks like a robot. I don’t agree with Ayn Rand on all points but there’s something fascinating about she turns these unlikable characters into her heroes. The Fountainhead isn’t as aggressively political as Atlas Shrugged and certain this is a far better film than the recent trilogy of low budget Shrugged movies.
A Star is Born – 1954 – the second adaptation of the story of a younger woman who is discovered by a washed-up, drunken older fading star. This one stars Judy Garland (the 70s version stars Barbra Streisand and the upcoming version Lady Gaga) as an actress/singer. Its interesting the newer versions make her a rock or pop star but in this, she’s mainly known for 50s-era musicals… a kind of bridge between the 30s version’s actress and the 70s version rock ‘n roll singer. Anyway, this is a pretty good version of the film that falls apart at the long, dragged out ending.
The Fast and the Furious – 1955 – a Roger Corman movie with an interesting title. No, the later Vin Diesel movie series is NOT based on this film. Other than being about crooks racing cars, there’s no connection. This film is also not very good… a crook kidnaps a female race car driver in order to evade the law during a cross-country race. It’s really neither fast nor furious.
Touch of Evil – A classic film noire written, directed, and starring Orson Welles… and Charleton Heston in a roll twenty years before all the films I know him from (Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, Omega Man). It was a real trip seeing him younger (and mustachioed)… and as a Mexican police officer (to be fair, people point out he doesn’t LOOK Mexican). The film is about crime and corruption on the border with Welles playing a deeply shady and crooked American chief of police who Heston is trying to take down. Heston notes that the US/Mexico border, “one of the longest borders on earth is right here between your country and mine. An open border. Fourteen hundred miles without a single machine gun in place. Yeah, I suppose that all sounds very corny to you.”
Pillow Talk – 1959 – The first team-up between Rock Hudson and Doris Day is a technicolor romantic comedy based around the idea that the two share a party (phone) line because New York doesn’t have enough lines for individuals. Talk about dated… land lines on top of party lines on top of phone lines being a rare resource. Either way, it’s a reasonably charming, somewhat problematic (these days) film – neither knows what the other looks like since they only ever talk on the phone and she hates him for being a womanizing bore using the line to woo women when she needs it for work. When they meet in real life, he pretends to be a good ‘ol boy from Texas who can’t stand these New York womanizers. It’s a little icky but probably didn’t play that way at the time.
It Happened at the World’s Fair – 1963 – An Elvis Presley musical/romantic comedy about a couple pilots who go to the 1962 world’s fair to find work to pay off what they owe on their crop-duster. Elvis meets a pretty nurse and pays kids to kick him in the shin so he can spend time with her. Meanwhile, he has to babysit a little Asian girl who’s dad has gone missing. Lots of singing, lots of corniness. Not a bad little film. Most interesting because it features the Seattle Space Needle which debuted a the ’62 world’s fair so it was brand new in this flick.