An American Disney animation directed by Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi and James Algar, starring Eric Blore and J. Pat O'Malley, Basil Rathbone and Bing Crosby.
A section of The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame 1908) shows Toad getting into and out of his car trouble. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Washington Irving 1820) is shown.
This is alright I guess. The only reason for me to watch it is the Sleepy Hollow section. I read The Wind in the Willows and it was much longer and better than this. The animation takes a few pages of the plot and uses destructive license to change almost everything. Ichabod is a little more entertaining and complete. The plot includes lots of the original, as opposed to a little bit. My old drummer used to call my Adam's Apple an "Ichabod" because mine looks like the animated character's. My favorite part is the song that Brom Bones sings at the party and the short scene afterward of Ichabod being afraid. Somehow I knew this was not by Wolfgang Reitherman. I rate it tolerable because, even talking about just Disney films, there are so many better ones. It is, however, better than any Disney film made after 2000.
An American crime mystery directed by Joseph M. Newman, starring Dennis O'Keefe and Jeff Chandler.
A woman arrives in a city, looking for her missing sister, who recently had a baby. She meets a detective who helps her in her search and they find a crime ring of baby merchants.
This was very much like many other films of the time. There was apparently a series of "semi-documentary" films made, which covered social issues in a dramatic manner. I know I watched the gay/transvestite one, but don't remember what it was called. Plug in late 1940s film elements here: plot, characters, audio, video. I could hear it, see it, follow the plot and knew who the characters were, so it gets a tolerable rating. I know that's stupid criteria, but I've seen stuff that missed more than 1 of those essential points. There was nothing really bad about it, but definitely nothing good. You mighht not want to watch this.
A Mexican comedy directed by Luis Bunuel, starring Luis Alcoriza.
A rich man is drunk all the time, spends too much money and doesn't care about anything. His family all sit around and do nothing. When his brother hears of the problems going on, he convinces the family to move into a poor neighborhood while Spendy McSloshster is passed out. He eventually figures out that he is being lied to and plays the same joke on his family, saying that he really did lose all of his money.
What a unique plot! That was the best part. I've seen revenge, quests, oh no there are monsters, the Fern Gully/Avatar nature deal, check out my super powers, but joke reversal is not done often. We even had dynamic characters! Pretty much everyone changed from the beginning to the end, except the fat, offended extra woman who got called a man. I can't really say too much about dialogue because of the language difference, but acting was spot-on and convincing. As with most Bunuel films, the costumes and sets/locations were nothing special. What I did like about sets was the window washer's platform where the main character tries to jump off a building. Camera-work and editing were pretty straight forward and old fashioned. Lots of medium and long shots with a few close-ups for variety and heightened emotion. The camera coming into focus when the main character wakes up was very appropriate. Audio was a little on the rough side. All of the dialogue was clipping like the sound effects in an old kung fu movie. IMDb lists a rating of 7.3/10 and Rotten Tomatoes lists an Audience Score of 75% for an average (if you couldn't figure this out) of 74%. Yeah, the Bunuel flick that I like gets a C and all the rest get As. Great. I'm rating this good for being unique instead of the same old horse puckey that gets recycled by every other film and it's sequels. Eventually, people might realize that good movies are not the same as other movies. Being different is what makes them good.
An American western directed by John English, starring Gene Autry.
A cowboy crashes his stagecoach in a race and meets a woman in a ghost town. The woman has been in communication with the ghosts and a plot involving 20 year old treasure, the cowboy's father and a group of bandits is revealed.
The plot and characters were clearly presented. I liked how the backstory got filled in with flashbacks. Another general aspect that I noticed was the romantic interest replacement. There were lots of underexposed shots on the video and the audio had too much dead air hiss. There were some good shots in the stagecoach race, the fist fight and the cowboy jumping onto his horse. Overall, it was a regular western with some good things and some bad things. I rate it o.k.
An American western directed by John English, starring Gene Autry.
A singing cowboy is tricked into thinking that he has killed a man who was about to report an insect problem. The man who is really the killer wants the insect problem to continue so that his lumber operation can harvest the trees that the insects kill. The singing cowboy is found innocent in court and embarks on a job to spray poison to kill the insects while the lumber baron gets another plane and sprays another poison. It's too complicated.
The complex and convoluted plot was filled with characters that were barely identifiable. The poor quality video made matching faces with names even more difficult. The lumber guy has a mustache and a black hat so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say "That's the fuckin' badguy!" and Gene Autry (poison spraying goodguy) wears an ornately embroidered cowboy shirt. Because of how poor the communication was, I'm rating this bad. Only watch it if you want to spend the whole time trying to figure out who is who and what they are doing.
An American drama directed by Joseph M. Newman.
A man marries a teacher and moves to a city. His racing horse is injured, but has a colt that grows up to be fast. The man does not get along with his wife and a farm girl is attached to the horse.
Lame, sappy and boring. I didn't like the plot or characters, although they were clearly presented. The style was very much of the time that it was made. It was nearly painful to watch such a long film that I was not interested in at all. I was tempted to turn it off much of the hour and 35 minute duration. I rate it bad because I just plain don't like it.
An American musical comedy directed by Henry Koster, starring Danny Kaye and Walter Slezak.
An illiterate man from a gang of gypsies incites a riot when he tells an old woman the truth about the magical elixir that they are peddling. The gypsy boss chases him away when he is accidentally carrying an important document. He is arrested in a small town where the local officials think that he is the inspector general in disguise and set him free. His former boss reunites with him as he is about to leave and he is forced to play the role of inspector general.
The plot and characters were interesting, but the music was not. Most of the humor was sitcom style lies, but there was some funny physical humor like throwing wine in a fireplace to create giant explosions. Some of the scenes were physically demanding and involved lots of planning like the military training room. The main characters were easy to keep track of, but there were excessive extras. The video was a little dark and muddy and the audio was pretty standard. I rate this o.k.
An American action drama directed by Stuart Heisler.
A fickle woman lets greed guide her choices in boyfriends and business practices until it is too late to prevent a catastrophe.
The plot and characters kept me interested and the presentation was very clear. The audio and video style reminded me strongly of The Big Trees (1952). The video was a little too bright and the audio was treble-oriented and a little grainy. The pacing seemed to accelerate as the film progressed, which worked out well. I did not like the signature song of the film because I thought it was too hokey. Overall, it's a regular movie from the late '40s. I rate it o.k. You may want to watch it if you liked The Big Trees.
An American political drama directed by Anthony Mann.
During the French revolution, a French nobleman has a book containing the names of his political enemies. He plans to become a dictator by having all of the men listed in his book arrested and executed.
This movie started off looking really interesting. The camera-work was lively and the style looked good. Then it got bogged down in politics and the lies that come with that subject matter. Nobody was who they said they were and everyone had hidden agendas. This is not a thing that can be clearly presented in a 1949 film. The characters became difficult to differentiate and I believe that at least one of them was passing himself off as a man whom he had just killed. Overall, it starts out good and becomes both boring and confusing. I rate it bad.
An American film noir crime drama propaganda directed by Laszlo Benedek, starring Yul Brynner.
The narrator says that top government agents must stop the influx of drugs to our country by finding the men responsible for a stolen shipment of opium.
It says in the beginning that the aforementioned drugs were being shipped in for research legally. It then goes on about how harmful the drugs are and how no good can come of them. Then why research them? Then these top level (and probably top paid) dudes spend tons of time tracking down the guys who stole the fun stuff so more money can be spent by keeping them in jail for an even longer time. All on your tax dollars. I thought that the film was propaganda with a thin plot and some forgettable characters. The style wasn't very good and the thing of having some parts narrated and some parts not was not the best idea. I rate it poor because it didn't cause discomfort and it gave me something to write about.
An American war drama directed by Robert Florey.
A military leader escorts a political leader's daughter to an area where people from his country are forbidden to go. He is surprised when he faces problems on his arrival.
I had to turn the movie off at an hour and twelve minutes. I know it only had a few minutes left, but the clicking/popping sound was just too annoying. This sound was present throughout the duration and either increased in volume or my patience for it decreased. The murky plot and lack of identifiable characters left me nothing else to focus on while viewing. I'm rating this shit because it was a boring movie with an annoying audio artifact.
An American comedy adventure directed by Charles Barton, starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.
Abbott and Costello work at a book store where they threw away a book about Africa. Some people come in looking for the book and offering money for a map that was in it. Abbott and Costello coerce their way into the African safari.
The plot was full of sub-plots, as most comedic films are, and the characters seemed to be repeating their roles from previous work that I haven't seen. There were a few physical comedy acts that I found amusing, but otherwise, nothing special. It's just really good to watch something that isn't kung fu. I rate it poor.
A crime film directed by Raoul Walsh, starring James Cagney.After a gangster robs a train, he turns himself in for a smaller crime committed on the same date by a different man. He thinks that prison will be a vacation, but his lifestyle follows him.This was just another regular old gangster movie. The criminals are bad and the cops always catch them. There was a technique that the cops used to track a moving vehicle that I liked. They mounted a radio transmitting oscillator on the vehicle and set up 2 receivers in other cars to track the location. I'm rating it o.k. for blending in with the crowd.
400th post!!!A fantasy by Cecil B. DeMille.Samson is the strongest man around and when he kills a lion with his bare hands, the ruler of the city gives him his daughter. The bride is killed at the wedding and the ruler's other daughter sets to work seducing Samson. When she learns that his hair gives him strength, she cuts it off and he is imprisoned. His strength returns just before he is scheduled for public humiliation in front of a temple.As much as I sympathize with Samson's attachment to his hair, the movie wasn't all that great. There were some good scenes, but overall it was a little boring. OH! check out the chest-plate on this dude standing with Delilah. Are those guitars I see? I'm rating it poor because it didn't hold my attention.
