Shell (2012) 8.5/10
I resaw The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. Featured Boris Karloff. Recently remade starring Ben Stiller but not yet released. The film is based on a story by James Thurber. It's quite a good film but Kaye's The Court Jester is a much better film.
I resaw To Catch a Thief (1955) starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, It's closer to a romance rather than a typical Hitchcock thriller.
A slight connection between the two films. Needless to say Hitchcock made his customary cameo appearance sitting next to Cary Grant on a bus. On the other side of Grant was a woman with a bird in a cage (and in The Birds Hitchcock's cameo is coming out of a shop with a bird in a cage).
In the Walter Mitty film apparently Robert Altman can be seen having a drink. That seems likely to be his debut in any capacity in the film world.
I watched Spirit of the People (AKA Abe Lincoln in Illinois) (1940). Biopic of Lincoln's life from young adult to being elected President. Starred Raymond Massey.
The film may have suffered at the box office as Young Mr Lincoln (starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford) was released less than a year before this.
Raymond Massey was very convincing as Lincoln and in the final scene as he departs you could actually think you were seeing the real Lincoln.
The film was adapted by Robert Sherwood from his Pulitzer winning play and there were times where the film did feel like a filmed play. Lincoln's wife Mary was played by Ruth Gordon. At that time Ruth Gordon was principally a stage actress and that did show. A fascinating role nevertheless and very few film actresses could have done it (Bette Davis, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep ignoring the age of the film).
I watched Fly Away Home (1996) which starred Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin. A pleasant family film about a father and daughter who decide to attempt to lead a flock of orphaned Canada geese by air to go south for the winter. Fictionalised but loosely based on real experiments to help migrating birds.
The father's girlfriend was played by Dana Delany who nowadays is best known as Megan Hunt in the television series Body of Proof.
Originally Posted by El Loro:
I watched Fly Away Home (1996) which starred Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin. A pleasant family film about a father and daughter who decide to attempt to lead a flock of orphaned Canada geese by air to go south for the winter. Fictionalised but loosely based on real experiments to help migrating birds.
The father's girlfriend was played by Dana Delany who nowadays is best known as Megan Hunt in the television series Body of Proof.
I think this is a great film, great performances from Anna Paquin and Jeff Daniels
They starred in another film together in 2005 (The Squid And The Whale) his character was a teacher and her character a student and they have an affair
The Big Clock (1948) 8/10
I watched Baby for Sale (2004) an American television movie based on a true story about a couple trying to adopt a baby and find that the baby is being auctioned off to the highest bidder. They agree to take part in a sting operation and the man responsible is caught.
The film caused outrage in the States and lead to Hillary Clinton bringing in legislation for tougher penalties for baby selling and trafficking.
Haze (Pus) (2010) 8.5/10
The Conjuring (2013) 5/10
I watched Angel on my shoulder (1946) which starred Paul Muni, Anne Baxter and Claude Rains.
Gangster is murdered, sent to Hell, and is persuaded by the Devil to return to Earth to take over the body of a good judge and destroy the judge's reputation.
Written by the same man who wrote the earlier Here Comes Mr Jordan (Heaven can wait). Claude Rains was also in that film, but in Angel he plays the part of the Devil.
Recently on Freeview there has been a new channel called True Entertainment (channel 61). It's not mentioned in the Radio Times programme pages. Looking at the things shown the majority of the programmes are old American series like The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie and American television movies.
However, and this is the reason for mentioning this channel, on Friday evenings at 11 pm they seem to be showing films which may be of considerably more interest and very different to the rest of their output. They are showing European films.
Yesterday they showed The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) which was directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder who was the leading German film director of the 1970s.
Next Friday they are showing The Return of Martin Guerre (1982), a French film which starred Gerard Depardieu (remade in America as Sommersby).
I watched The Lost Moment (1947) which starred Robert Cummings, Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead.
Based on the novel The Aspern Papers by Henry James, a book publisher (Cummings) rents a room in a mansion in Venice where a centenarian recluse (Moorehead who was 47 at the time) lives in order to locate the letters from her vanished lover to publish them. The mansion is run by her niece (Hayward) who is very severe.
It's an interesting film and I felt there was a touch of Orson Welles about the film. Agnes Moorehead is the obvious connection. The ending of the film is a bit like the end of Jane Eyre (in the 1943 version Welles played Rochester & may well have influenced the style of the film).
The film was directed by Martin Gabel. This was the only film he directed and he subsequently became a character actor. It turns out that Martin Gabel had been a member of The Mercury Theatre Company and of course that was run by Orson Welles. I'm not aware of any direct involvement by Welles in this film, but Gabel was certainly influenced by his Citizen Kane in the style of the film.
I rewatched Hans Christian Andersen (1952) after a gap of many years. It starred Danny Kaye with songs by Frank Loesser. The film makes it clear from the start that this is not a biopic but more of a fairy tales built around the stories.
Danny Kaye (in a relatively subdued non-humorous role) and the songs are delightful.
Quite a large proportion of the film involves a ballerina (played by Zizi Jeanmaire) and her husband (Farley Granger) and the staging of a ballet based on The Little Mermaid. The ballerina had been intended to be played by Moira Shearer but she withdrew as she discovered she was pregnant. I am not surprised that Moira Shearer was intended for the part as this part of the film is clearly intended to emulate the likes of the Michael Powell fims "The Red Shoes" (1948) and "Tales of Hoffman" (1951) where she was the actress/ballerina.
I watched Bachelor Mother (1939) which starred Ginger Rogers and David Niven. Very enjoyable and well worth watching. The Radio Times rating of 3/5 is too low. IMDB rating of 7.4 is closer.
Rogers and Niven work well in this film. She works in a department store at a counter where she sells Donald Duck wind up toys, and Donald Duck is in the credits as himself.
I resaw Matilda (1996) based on the Roald Dahl book and directed by Danny DeVito who also appeared in the film alongside his wife Rhea Perlman (best known for Cheers).
Matilda was played by Mara Wilson, quite remarkable considering that she had just lost her mother. Pam Ferris played the monstrous Miss Trunchbull, the headmistress of the school (which I doubt would have passed any OFSTED inspection) and Embeth Davidtz played Miss Honey, who as the name suggests was the very sweet teacher.
Ultranova (2005) 7.5/10
I watched a Russian film Ovsyanki (Silent Souls) (2010).
A quiet reflective film. When Miron's beloved wife Tanya passes away, he asks his best friend Aist to help him say goodbye to her according to the rituals of the Merya culture, an ancient Finno-Ugric tribe from Lake Nero, a picturesque region in West-Central Russia. Although the Merya people blended into Russians in the 17th century, their myths and traditions live on in their descendants' modern life. The two men set out on a roadtrip thousands of miles across the boundless lands. With them, two small birds in a cage. Along the way, as is custom for the Meryas, Miron shares intimate memories of his conjugal life. But as they reach the banks of the sacred lake where they will forever part with the body, he realizes he wasn't the only one in love with Tanya...
Ovsyanki means buntings, the two birds who accompany the men.