Instead of praising our goulash, they're appraising the plays of Willie Mays
Because I did not sleep at all last night and did not end up talking on the phone to the friend I had planned this afternoon, I walked around the block and fried some mackerel and spent the evening more or less prone on the couch with Hestia. At one point I was actually asleep on the couch under Hestia, but then some of the upstairs people came noisily home and she heard them on the porch through the window I had left open for the air which smelled like petrichor and made a claw-assisted takeoff which woke me up. I rewatched The File on Thelma Jordon (1950) on Criterion and Way Out West (1930) on TCM and I still love both of them. I did not love The Seventh Sin (1957) as a version of Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil (1925), but George Sanders makes such an excellently disreputable and trustworthy Waddington that I waive the requirement of the character looking accurately like his 2006 casting of Toby Jones. On Sanders even dissipation looks good, but the tie for a belt is a nice touch. I do not understand how One Way Street (1950) can start with such a banger of an opening as James Mason apparently poisoning Dan Duryea in order to steal $200,000 and Märta Torén with William Conrad and King Donovan looking on and Jack Elam jack-in-the-boxing out of the back seat during the getaway and then flange off into a soft-focus holiday in Mexico that could have undone the Good Neighbor Policy. I feel like I need to apologize to Hugo Fregonese for introducing myself to his films with that one. I am now in search of Philip Stong's State Fair (1932), since ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch and I just watched the 1933 film as a bookend to the 1945 musical which he had shown me earlier this spring, six of Lew Ayres, half dozen of Harry Morgan, if you miss Rodgers and Hammerstein in the pre-Code there's always the roller coaster. I can't see Lake George (2024) until it gets off the festival circuit, but this review immediately made me want to. I also read some books.
spatch and I just watched the 1933 film as a bookend to the 1945 musical which he had shown me earlier this spring, six of Lew Ayres, half dozen of Harry Morgan, if you miss Rodgers and Hammerstein in the pre-Code there's always the roller coaster. I can't see Lake George (2024) until it gets off the festival circuit, but this review immediately made me want to. I also read some books.
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I looked at the write up for Lake George, and it sounds good, but I'm bothered by the fact that a film called Lake George is set in LA! It ought to connect to the Adirondacks's Lake George, a place that when I was a kid growing up outside of Albany, people were always going to during the summer. Not us, ever, until one time when our neighbors invited us to visit for the day in late August or early September. The day was chilly and the lake was warm from a whole summer of heating: mist was rising off it, and I paddled around on some thing that you paddle around standing up in, feeling like I had lucked into a magical world ... George is a common name, though; I'm betting if I look on Google Maps I find out there's a Lake George near LA somewhere.
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Thank you!
It ought to connect to the Adirondacks's Lake George, a place that when I was a kid growing up outside of Albany, people were always going to during the summer. Not us, ever, until one time when our neighbors invited us to visit for the day in late August or early September. The day was chilly and the lake was warm from a whole summer of heating: mist was rising off it, and I paddled around on some thing that you paddle around standing up in, feeling like I had lucked into a magical world ...
It sounds enchanted! Maybe the characters in L.A. dream of a day like that at Lake George.
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I know! It's like two different movies tied together, with only the first half and the last few minutes being good. I like those good bits a lot, but they sure don't make up for the racist ones! :( On the bright side, and speaking of racist bits, at least your first Fregonese wasn't "Savage Pampas", and you definitely have lots of good ones to look forward to and make up for this one!
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And by the time the film gets back around to its proper story, it has spent so long on the Mexican detour that the ending which should snap as inevitably into place as a postman ringing twice feels more like the screenwritter suddenly remembering he hadn't yet dropped the other shoe! I don't even object to it as an ending, I just object to everything in between that took up its time. It was like the problem I had with Dark City (1950) except possibly worse. The second-act divagations of Dark City aren't insulting, just kind of irrelevant. In neither case does it make any sense to me that this even happened.
On the bright side, and speaking of racist bits, at least your first Fregonese wasn't "Savage Pampas", and you definitely have lots of good ones to look forward to and make up for this one!
Savage Pampas does sound like a bullet dodged. And I'm looking forward to the others!
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"Savage Pampas" is *a lot*--I love Robert Taylor, but even I have my limits! XD The original 1940s version is very much worth watching, though!
Some of his other movies have the unfortunate racist tropes of the time, but in some cases they are so much fun that they are still worth watching. Like "The mark of the renegade", which I might have mentioned before because of Cyd Charisse, and at least has Montalbán and Roland actually playing Latinos <3 And I love that some reviews pick up on the homoerotic vibe between their characters!)
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That one I'll keep an eye out for!
Like "The mark of the renegade", which I might have mentioned before because of Cyd Charisse, and at least has Montalbán and Roland actually playing Latinos <3 And I love that some reviews pick up on the homoerotic vibe between their characters!)
I am not sure you mentioned that one! I feel I would have remembered any film with all three of those actors, especially vibes between Roland and Montalbán.
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It's still racist, but it has interesting things to say about gender roles and the concept of patriotism.
I am not sure you mentioned that one! I feel I would have remembered any film with all three of those actors, especially vibes between Roland and Montalbán.
Also racist, but with OTT fun and slashy vibes!
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Complete lack of sleep : >:-(
*hugs*
(Also: inadequate comments! Sorry. ♥)
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Still appreciated!
(I did at least sleep some between this post and now.)
*hugs*
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Thank you! I still want an extra week of June before July hits from my perspective out of absolute nowhere.