I'd say Herzog's documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 21 November 2023 16:35 (one year ago)
Cool I shd see that then
― Tyler Perry's Cystitis (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 16:36 (one year ago)
xps Yeah and I think Dial M was rarely actually shown in 3-D when it was released, most theaters choosing to show the flat version of it.
But I've seen '50s films that do use 3-D very effectively, such as Creature from the Black Lagoon and Kiss Me Kate.
― Josefa, Tuesday, 21 November 2023 16:37 (one year ago)
Foster Hirsch's new Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties is good on the effect of 3D on production.
― stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 16:39 (one year ago)
I just read that book and it's pretty great. Also the chapter on CinemaScope and other wide screen processes is very enlightening.
In fact that book is tied into the recent programming at the Film Forum in Manhattan where they've been showing a bunch of '50s films including 3-D ones. Hirsch has been there introducing some of the films.
― Josefa, Tuesday, 21 November 2023 16:43 (one year ago)
I managed to miss that whole series but I did see Dial M for Murder in 3D back in the 80s at the 8th Street Playhouse, I think. The scissors are the only 3D that I remember.
― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 16:50 (one year ago)
yep the hand reaching out and the scissors is that one effect I was referring to
― Josefa, Tuesday, 21 November 2023 16:52 (one year ago)
Also saw the 3D Dial M for Murder in the 1980s, w/ red and green glasses.
House of Wax has good gimmicky 3D effects.
Godard's Goodbye to Language has the most woozily disorientating use of the 'modern' 3D process I've ever seen.
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 21 November 2023 17:36 (one year ago)
Glad we're all discussing every Hitchcock _except_ the one just posted :)
― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 17:37 (one year ago)
I’m a big fan of Notorious, don’t know what to say about it right now. Claude Rains plays a similar kind of role in David Lean’s The Passionate Friends. Also like the way it is used in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. The long long shot that goes from very wide to a tight tight closeup he liked to do so much is particularly well done in the famous example here.
― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 17:42 (one year ago)
Anyway, Notorious. While I do rank it in the top tier, I think what plax said about Rear Window applies more, with me, to Notorious. Once Hitch's hand is revealed, all that's left on rewatch is the thrill of the mechanics and the admittedly considerable spectacle of Cary Grant in Bastard Mode™.
But obviously that's minor carping. I just give a slight edge to the Hitches that are less in control, is all.
― active spectator of ecocide and dispossession (Eric H.), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 17:43 (one year ago)
a lot of the joy of Hitch is the thrill of the mechanics
it suddenly occurs to me
― Tyler Perry's Cystitis (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 17:57 (one year ago)
Indeed
― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 18:35 (one year ago)
Bergman is sexy as fuck. So is Louis Calhern spreading cheese on crackers in bed.
― stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 18:59 (one year ago)
xp agreed
https://i.etsystatic.com/14442283/r/il/b84a6f/4949951027/il_570xN.4949951027_p761.jpg
― active spectator of ecocide and dispossession (Eric H.), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 19:00 (one year ago)
I'm trying hard to remember notorious. Tbh I misremembered it as spellbound. I'm sure I've seen it but don't remember it right now. I remember it was good though!
The one with Joan Fontaine and cary grant is only okay but I also really like Rebecca because I'm a teenage girl.
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 19:46 (one year ago)
ooh is he *bad* idk I was not riveted
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 19:47 (one year ago)
Spellbound is the one where Dollars cements his normie avant grift
but that one flash is sweet
― Tyler Perry's Cystitis (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 21 November 2023 19:53 (one year ago)
39 steps is the hitch I watch the most. robert donat telling madeline carroll about what a dastardly murderer he is and getting to the bit about the "hare-lip" and mc laughing is just the best. it's also sexy as fuck.
― oscar bravo, Tuesday, 21 November 2023 20:15 (one year ago)
Paradine Case truly is rubbish
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 22 November 2023 10:34 (one year ago)
Yep. And Spellbound.
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 22 November 2023 10:46 (one year ago)
Gregory Peck is the sexiest-dullest psychiatrist ever.
― stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 22 November 2023 10:49 (one year ago)
Maybe classic Hollywood's blandest leading man? Of those that retain a little name recognition anyway.
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 22 November 2023 10:56 (one year ago)
Really a block of wood pretty much every time I’ve seen him.
― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 22 November 2023 12:22 (one year ago)
Like, say, Rock Hudson without the subtext.
― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 22 November 2023 12:23 (one year ago)
He's fine in The Gunfighter, and that shows how his stiff moral rectitude should have been curdled into taciturn moral corruption more often - it seems sort of surprising that Hitch didn't find the same darkness as he did with Grant and Stewart. Perhaps the actor (or his agent) just didn't want to play ball and risk cracking an image.
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 22 November 2023 12:58 (one year ago)
Also quite effectively cast in Twelve O'Clock High.
― stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 22 November 2023 13:02 (one year ago)
i think he's good in roman holiday!
but he was only rarely ever in that manner of movie
in hollywood terms his "thing" was being an unusually outspoken "nice liberal" (spoke out against HUAC and vietnam, for example)
― mark s, Wednesday, 22 November 2023 13:23 (one year ago)
Notorious was good! Though felt like a great episode of a tv show rather than a great film. Act 3 was like 15 minutes in total, not enough. Cary Grant's plan was completely irresponsible and could have gotten her killed, he could have instead asked her to make an impression of the key in soap, make a copy of the key, break in at night, surely? not turn up at their party with a stolen key which happens to also be the place they are keeping the wine so he will definitely notice.
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 23 November 2023 17:08 (one year ago)
He had to humiliate her.
― stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 23 November 2023 17:27 (one year ago)
I did appreciate that he was just an insensitive prick and it didn't mean he was a villain, just that he was an insensitive prick.
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 23 November 2023 17:57 (one year ago)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/It%27s_a_Wonderful_Life_%281946_poster%29.jpeg
It's a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra, 1946Morbsies #81Sight & Sound Critics 133
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 23 November 2023 22:59 (one year ago)
Bit odd to watch this in November I know
Poster isn't notably Christmassy
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 23 November 2023 23:00 (one year ago)
Doesn't seem to be streamable online on youtube etc, the copyright status of the film is insane and unique, however britishers can fine it on the Channel 4 player & can't imagine it's hard to find elsewhere.
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 23 November 2023 23:17 (one year ago)
Wasn’t it out of copyright at some point which was partly why it was so ubiquitous?
― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 23 November 2023 23:29 (one year ago)
I’m about to read the BFI monograph on that one, been saving it for after Thanksgiving
― active spectator of ecocide and dispossession (Eric H.), Friday, 24 November 2023 00:13 (one year ago)
It is truly deserving of its status imo, just a great great film that tries to find comfort within quite a desperate worldview.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 24 November 2023 10:57 (one year ago)
Opening scene p good experimental cinema too.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 24 November 2023 10:58 (one year ago)
the copyright status, via wiki
A clerical error at NTA prevented the copyright from being renewed properly in 1974. Despite the lapsed copyright, television stations that aired it still had to pay royalties because—though the film's images had entered the public domain—the film's story was still restricted as a derivative work of the published story The Greatest Gift, whose copyright Philip Van Doren Stern had renewed in 1971... in 1993, Republic Pictures, which was the successor to NTA, relied on the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Stewart v. Abend (which involved another Stewart film, Rear Window) to enforce its claim to the copyright. While the film's copyright had not been renewed, Republic still owned the film rights to The Greatest Gift; thus, the plaintiffs were able to argue its status as a derivative work of a work still under copyright.
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, 24 November 2023 11:00 (one year ago)
the mr gower/young george scene is so incredibly harrowing.
― oscar bravo, Friday, 24 November 2023 20:16 (one year ago)
The looks Reed gives Stewart while she's decorating the tree and knowing the bottom has truly fallen out are among the most heartwrenching depictions of marriage I've seen, and it's maybe all of 30 seconds of screen time
― active spectator of ecocide and dispossession (Eric H.), Friday, 24 November 2023 21:51 (one year ago)
I've never seen it, I think the only Capra film I've ever seen that I enjoyed is the Clark gable/Claudette Colbert one. I always presumed this was one of the ones where someone makes a speech about the perseverance of the human spirit, I hate that. That said I haven't seen very much Capra, people say the silent ones are good?
― plax (ico), Friday, 1 December 2023 07:02 (one year ago)
Hmmm, "preserverance of the human spirit" I dunno...it's about how community demands you sacrifice your dreams but maybe, just maybe, it will come through for you in exchange for that. Very bleak, which is part of why I love its x-mas film status.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 1 December 2023 08:17 (one year ago)
finished this last night, though I've seen it at least four times before, still a genuinely touching piece of work - the part where they lose the $8000 really grabbed me in particular, that sense of panic at having lost something important is so real to me, been there so many times, nothing quite that important of course, but can't think of any other film that evokes that feeling so well.the restoration really brings home how carefully shot it is, no really experimental shots after the first scene, bit just beautifully put together, giving you such a sense of place.the politics of the film are a great capsule of the time. the focus on family and community, the moral that what you're really looking for at home, it's very much a socially conservative film, especially in the scenes of Pottersville, which is supposed to be hell on earth but actually looks very cool and exactly the place I'd want to hang out if I were transported back to 1946. Jazz and jitterbugging are bad, Frank? but then on the other hand the villain of the film is a personification of robber baron capitalism, and the moral is a repudiation of him and all he stands for. you would be astonished to find someone with this mix of politics in 2023, but having listened to political debates from the 1930s I see a lot that is familiar there.
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, 1 December 2023 10:08 (one year ago)
― plax (ico)
Give him a chance. Watch The Bitter Tea of General Yen, quite erotic.
― stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 1 December 2023 10:27 (one year ago)
i haven't watched IaWL since last year but on that last viewing i was thinking what a mature take on social relationships it has compared to most British films of that era. i definitely don't think of it as a schmalzfest
― Honnest Brish Face (Noodle Vague), Friday, 1 December 2023 12:24 (one year ago)
Bitter Tea is in some ways an atypical outlier but yeah.
― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 1 December 2023 14:36 (one year ago)
Some of Capra's late '30s films are way kitschier and cornier than IAWL.
― stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 1 December 2023 14:42 (one year ago)
Mr Smith Goes to Washington is a complete cheesefest but on balance I still enjoy it.
― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, 1 December 2023 15:07 (one year ago)