Ben-Hur

 

The remake was much better. This silent version was ok and because of the religious plot it suited the Christmas day I watched it. I like Ramon Novarro but the first half was more interesting. After the chariot race I just lost interest and the movie dragged. The plot concerns the rivalry between a Jewish man (Novarro) and a Roman man named Messala. The two end up racing against each other. This movie was over two hours so I suggest watching it when you have the time. 

Downhill

 This Hitchcock silent is visually stunning but pretty mediocre. Hitchcock was just finding his voice. I guess this movie could show his potential. The problem with this movie is that the character isn't completely likable. I wasn't rooting for him. First he is expelled from school and then later on in the movie his wife goes off with another man and spends his inheritance. This movie also goes by the title When Boys Leave Home. 

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

 

This was just an ok Bette Davis movie. Leonard Maltin gave it 3.5 stars. I think that was too generous. Bette Davis plays Queen Elizabeth and has a thing for the dashing Earl of Essex played by Errol Flynn. (I never realized how handsome he was till this movie.) They have a complicated relationship which is tested when she finds that he has other motivations. This isn't one of Bette Davis' best films. She was a good job though.

The Swimmer

 

I actually like the movie more than the John Cheever short story it's based on. This was my introduction to John Cheever a writer I'm just starting to read. Burt Lancaster plays a man in a mid life crisis. He has this "great" idea that he should swim in all of the houses around his area until he gets home. It's just you discover that his neighbors really don't like him. Some of them seem petty but the woman he had an affair with seems justified. Some of the reviews on imdb.com complained about the movie being boring but I thought it was all right. Burt Lancaster does a pretty good job as a man having a breakdown. 

Father of a soldier

 

When a father discovers that his son has been sent to the front he goes on a search for him. I ended up watching this Russian movie dubbed. I wish that the menu options were more understandable for this movie. It didn't change my world but it was ok.

Park Row

 Samuel Fuller was a great director. You can tell that from his movie Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss but this movie which he wrote was pretty mediocre. It's about two rival newspapers. Not surprisingly the owners are in love with each other. You don't need to watch this to educate yourself about Samuel Fuller. Pass. 

Too Late for Tears

 This frankly was a generic noir movie about a bag of money and what happens between a good husband and his not so good greedy wife. It's worth watching though for Lizabeth Scott's performance. She owns this movie. I've always liked Lizabeth Scott. Hollywood treated her like a second rate Lauren Bacall. She rarely got the time to shine. You can tell she likes playing something different for a change a villain.  

The Phantom of the Monasery

 I watched this pretty cool Mexican horror movie on The Criterion Channel. I never heard of it before but it rocked. It's a 30's black and white movie about three people locked in a monastery and some monks from the past come to life. There's also a love triangle between the wife and her husband's friend and they encounter a similar situation that happened to people from the past. I wish that Mexico would release and subtitle more of their horror films from the past. The Witch's Mirror and this were pretty amazing.   

Eerie Tales

 This Conrad Veidt silent is pretty good. Three figures a prostitute, the devil, and death come out of some paintings in a bookstore to tell horror stories. This movie was probably one of the first horror anthologies so it was one of a kind. The most well known story here is Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat but my favorite was the suicide club one.

Shoes

 This short Lois Weber movie is painful to watch, not because the movie isn't good but because you know the character is going to resort to desperate means. The movie is about a poor working girl. Her shoes are in poor condition and her life could be better if her father would just contribute to the household. The director takes plenty of shots of the shoes and it is obvious to the viewer that they can't last much longer. When the character resorts to desperate means to get a new pair it isn't easy to watch. This movie isn't really about the shoes. It's about poverty and it's a sad statement on what people resort to just to get by.

I knew her well

 

 

The lovely Stefania Sandrelli gives a great performance in what is essentially a female La Dolce Vita. The girl tries to break into the business by attending parties and she's with several men during the picture. She may be shallow herself but she hides her anguish until what eventually she cracks. This movie wasn't as memorable as La Dolce Vita but it does have good atmosphere and a pretty good soundtrack featuring the likes of Mina and Ornella Vanoni. I need to see more movies starring this actress. 

Decision at Sundown

 

This was a pretty good Budd Boetticher western. At a wedding Randolph Scott tries to shoot the groom. The groom had an affair with his wife who later committed suicide. However, Scott learns that maybe his wife isn't worth all that trouble and may be even more flawed than he knew. I liked this psychological westerns. The 50's and 60's made tons of good psychological westerns. There is more to discover in the genre than High Noon.

Illegal

 Edward G. Robinson plays a lawyer whose life falls to pieces when he finds out that a person who was sent to the electric chair was innocent. He becomes a defense attorney instead. The ending is really neat and had me at the edge of my seat. Jayne Mansfield co-stars. 

The Last Sunset

 This western was awesome. I wasn't expecting much when I put it in. Kirk Douglas and Rock Hudson are enemies a sheriff against a criminal. I only cared a bit about this storyline. The one that I was really interested in was about Kirk Douglas and how he can't let go of the love he had for Dorothy Marlone. He finds a new woman in his life with her daughter. However, there are some unexpected plot twists. I love psychological westerns from the 1950s. People talk about how musicals are dead but westerns are the truly gone genre. This one shows the potential of the genre.

The Golden Blade

 This was just all right. Piper Laurie was ok but I like her later performances in Twin Peaks more. In this Rock Hudson has a magical sword and he becomes a heroic figure for princess Piper Laurie. This movie seems to be a waste of Rock Hudson's comic talents but then those movies were just around the corner. 

Has anybody seen my gal?/A Very Special Favor

 

The movies that are on this disc of a Rock Hudson collection are pretty mediocre. But the best of them was Has anybody seen my Gal? is about a single millionaire worried about who he is going to leave his money to when he dies. He rents a room from a family whose grandmother he loved. However, once he gives them the money he sees that they are actually horrible people. I liked that surprise actually. It was the only unpredictable thing in this movie. However, the daughter Piper Laurie is in love with Rock Hudson who works at a pharmacy. The other movie A Very Special Favor has Rock Hudson trying to seduce psychiatrist Leslie Caron. Her father Charles Boyer thinks she's a prude and needs it. There are a couple of jokes hinting at Rock Hudson's homosexuality. The movie is pretty bad and it isn't funny. 

Shockproof

 You would think a movie written by Samuel Fuller and directed by Douglas Sirk would be interesting. This movie is just ok and kind of boring. It's about a girl on parole. Her probation officer (Cornel Wilde) is in love with her but she is torn between the gangster who had her kill in the first place and Cornel Wilde. Leonard Maltin was completely right about the ending which doesn't seem plausible.

Rain

 

This was a flop at the time but it stands up well. Joan Crawford plays Sadie Thompson, a prostitute that tempts a missionary. He tries to get her deported and also tries to save her soul. One person on imdb.com said that this movie can make you uncomfortable at times. I agree. It deals with the nature of good and evil effectively. This was based on a W. Somerset Maugham story. He was a great writer. I read a lot by him during the ages of 12-14. The first thing I'll read will be Rain. There's also Sadie Thompson with Gloria Swanson and Miss Sadie Thompson with Rita Hayworth. This story got remade a lot.  

The Countess from Hong Kong

 

This was Charlie Chaplin's last movie. This movie shows you can take three major talents and still have one boring bad movie. Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando have no chemistry. Apparently, Chaplin wrote this more than thirty years ago before he filmed it. He planned for Paulette Goddard to star in and I think that would have been a better movie. 

Strange Cargo

 

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren star in this Italian comedy that centers around three stories. My favorite one would have to be the one where Sophia Loren discovers that she can legally sell cigarettes on the street if she is always expecting. However, her husband is unable to impregnate their eighth child. Will she have to face jail time? In the first story, Sophia Loren is really plained up. But this is one of the most attractive women to ever grace cinema. The movie was entertaining.

Le Notti Bianche

 

This was a pretty good Visconti movie starring Marcello Mastroianni and Maria Schell. I watched Gervaise lately. This was based on a Dostoyevsky story. Schell plays a woman who can't get over her lover who she hasn't seen in a year. Meanwhile Marcello and her fall in love. However, can she really leave the past behind her.  I wish that Maria Schell's movies were more available. Perhaps these were the best movies of her career?

Gervaise

 

Maria Schell was such a star in this. She gave one exceptional performance in this. She plays a poor woman who runs a laundry. However, her husband is a drunk. Life seems good when a good man comes into her life but she messes this up too. Eventually, Gervaise ends up a drunk. Life has just beaten her down. I see that Maria's brother Maximilian Schell made a documentary about her. I need to watch it along with the few movies of Maria Schell that have been released. 

The Poor Little Rich Girl

 I really love Mary Pickford. She was known as America's sweetheart at the time. Unlike many actresses that have that title today, she truly deserved it. Mary Pickford was a treasure, a talented actress with much charisma. I've been watching her movies on youtube. Nothing much happens in this one though. She has a bunch of temper tantrums and becomes sick in the end. I can't say this is her best work. It's recommended though if you are a fan. 

The Hoodlum

 This was an ok Mary Pickford movie. It's not near her best. The story shows Mary Pickford going from riches to rags. She comes to live with her father instead of her rich grandfather. However, she finds out that her father became poor. Eventually, she adjusts to the lifestyle and makes friends. The movie ends up with her breaking into her grandfather's house to find some papers to clear her boyfriend's name. Yet things end happily ever after. 

Twin Sisters

 

I watched this dvd of two early Chinese movies. I didn't care much for Street Angel but I did like Twin Sisters. (It could be because I am a twin.) In Twin Sisters, a servant gets treated poorly by a rich snob. Once they learn that they are sisters everything changes for the servant and her mother. It was predictable but all right. I would like to learn more about Chinese cinema as I admit I don't know much about the subject. 

The Bad Sister

 This movie wasn't that great but it's worth watching because it was Bette Davis' film debut. She looks plainer than usual in this movie. Bette's character is dull so her potential isn't really shown in this movie. She would show otherwise in movies like "Of Human Bondage." The main star is Sidney Fox a small town girl who falls for a con artist played by Humphrey Bogart. Bogart usually played these types. He wasn't really allowed to show his full range until "Casablanca" and then everyone realized what a brilliant actor he was. This was just ok. 

Dangerous

Bette Davis won the academy award for this and I don't know why. She was good in it but there's nothing exceptional about the movie. I thought it was a filler. It's about a washed-up actress and Franchot Tone sets to make her successful again. However, Bette Davis has a way of destroying the men along her path including her husband. Franchot Tone has a good relationship with Margaret Lindsay but he lets himself go. I thought the ending was a cop-out and it didn't fit what we already have watched of Bette Davis' character. I'm on a Bette Davis kick so I will be rating more movies soon. 

Marked Woman

 

Bette Davis basically lies for her pimp but things change once her sister dies in the racket. Then she teams up with district attorney Humphrey Bogart to bring the man down. Bette Davis did an ok job but I've seen better from her. This was all right but Bette's career was just starting.   

The Avenging Conscience

 This was a pretty cool D.W. Griffith movie. It's obviously influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and it doesn't hide this but embraces it. It starts out as a generic love story. But once the man murders someone it becomes a creepy movie. The character descends into madness. SPOILERS: I didn't care much for the ending. It does the it was all a dream bit.  I didn't think it was necessary seeing as how the character's likability was completely gone once he committed murder. I felt this movie showed a more versatile side to director D. W. Griffith. 

A Woman's Face

 

This is one of Joan Crawford's best movies and it's a stellar performance. She plays a scarred woman. Once she gets plastic surgery she is hired to kill an innocent child but is she as hard as people think she is? The movie takes place in a courtroom. Melvyn Douglas plays the man who says she has no soul but really is in love with her. There's a reason why Joan Crawford still has a following today. Maybe she wasn't all that great of a person but she was a dynamic actress.

Drunken Angel

 

Apparently, this was the first movie Kurosawa did that he was proud of. It's an excellent film about a relationship between a gangster and his doctor. The patient has tuberculosis but it's his brutal nature that brings about his downfall more than his health. Toshiro Mifune and Kurosawa made around a billion movies together. They still remain one of the best pairings in the history of cinema. 

Strike up the Band

 

This was a mediocre Judy Garland movie with Mickey Rooney. It's about some teenagers who want to enter an orchestra competition. Busby Berkeley, Judy Garland, and Mickey Rooney have all done better work. Judy Garland definitely had appeal and could sing well but MGM didn't always put her in the best movies. Pass.

No Regrets for our Youth

 

I love the actress Setsuko Hara. I loved her in Ozu's later movies where she always played a spinster. I didn't know that she worked with even more Japanese directors like Akira Kurosawa. She is at her prettiest in this movie. In No Regrets for our Youth, she plays a daughter whose father is fired for his political beliefs. She falls for a man as well who has been imprisoned for his beliefs and dies a tragic death. If this isn't enough the woman goes to live with her lover's parents. They are going through the nightmare of having their crops destroyed by local people and being called spies. Setsuko remains brave through all these experiences. I liked Hara's performance but I think that she became an even better actress later on. She was more subtle later. Kurosawa made better movies but this was all right. 

Tokyo Chorus

 

Yasujiro Ozu made a ton of silent movies and I'm glad that the Eclipse collection decided on releasing three of them. This was a pretty good movie although it would have been better with a score. This focuses on a father who loses his job and the effect it has on his children and on his wife. The wife is embarrassed by his effort with a job beneath him. The boy throws a tantrum when he realizes he won't get a bike. This isn't a completely depressing movie. It does have a hopeful outlook. I wish that more of Ozu's early movies were available. 

Captains Courageous

 

Freddie Bartholomew is a spoiled brat but a lot of that has to do with the fact that his father is neglecting him. He accidentally falls off a ship and gets rescued. The crew doesn't like him but Spencer Tracy takes him. He teaches the boy responsibility and how to be a man. He also provides something important a good male role model. I liked this movie. I don't like Spencer Tracy but he did a good job with this one. I need to read the Kipling novel.

Harakiri

 

This was a pretty cool Japanese movie about the Japanese ritual suicide harakiri. It's about a hungry man who resorts to harakiri to get some charity. But then his father-in-law comes afterward to get some revenge and he is not a weak man to be messed with. It definitely deserves the Criterion treatment.

Rodan

 

I watched this Japanese monster movie yesterday. It was all right. I've seen more entertaining Godzilla like movies. Still, it was watchable. It's about a mining town and some deadly pterodactyls. The special effects unintentionally come off as cute sometimes.

Red Beard

 Leonard Maltin was harsh on this movie but I liked it. Does every Akira Kurosawa movie have to be an epic?  This is about the relationship between a clinic director (Toshiro Mifune) and a doctor. It also has some pretty interesting side stories about the patients. It was long though over three hours.   

Linda (1929)

I liked this Dorothy Davenport silent. It's about a mountain girl who has to marry an older man. The movie wants you to fall for the two of them getting along but honestly, I felt there was no chemistry between the two. The girl eventually leaves the guy when he is mistakenly taken as a bigamist. She ends up getting together with the doctor we meet at the beginning of the movie. However, it isn't with the knowledge of the old husband coming back to her. This was all right. It's on youtube.

The Hoodlum

 

I liked this movie because it was different from most movies of its kind in that the character has no redeeming qualities. He rapes his brother's fiancee for example. After he is released he is once again planning to commit a crime again. This time it's with a bank. His family tries to help him but it's completely useless. It wasn't the best noir I've seen but it was an ok way to spend an hour.

Sisters of the Gion

 

This is another fallen women movie from the director Kenji Mizoguchi. It deals with two sisters, one is who helping a bankrupt man while the other uses men to raise her position in life. What she doesn't see coming is the vengeance of a former client. This was good but not as great as Mizoguchi's later masterpiece on prostitutes Street of Shame which I reviewed earlier. 

The Monkey's Uncle

 

The best part of this movie is easily the beginning where Annette Funicello sings with The Beach Boys. This is a sequel to the much better The Misadventures of Merlin Jones. I should watch that movie again. In The Monkey's Uncle Annette's nerdy boyfriend helps the football team pass their tests with "honest cheating." He also makes a flying machine. I really like Annette Funicello. She had a wholesome charm.

The Ghost of Rosy Taylor

 This was an all right Mary Miles Minter silent. It's pretty short too. Minter takes on the identity of a cleaning woman Rosy Taylor to get some income without knowing that she is dead. It all starts to unravel when someone recommends Mary Miles Minter for work. Only this is met with shock when the other woman says isn't Rosy Taylor dead. This isn't Minter's best work but it's all right.

A Girl's Folly

 This was a pretty generic movie. There is nothing incredibly unique about it. It's a silent movie about a girl who realizes that getting into movies isn't as easy as she thought it was going to be. She has a crush on Robert Warwick but it turns out he's not all that great. Soon she is heading back home. I saw this on youtube. 

The Pirate

 

I just wasn't impressed by this movie. In this, she falls for an actor pretending to be a pirate. Little does she know the man she is betrothed to marry is an actual pirate. The song "Be a Clown" is easily the best thing in the movie. I've seen better Gene Kelly and Judy Garland movies.

Street of Shame

 

Machiko Kyo was one of my favorite actresses in my early 20's. She was a fabulous Japanese actress who worked with the best directors like Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, and here with Kenji Mizoguchi. This movie is about the prostitutes of a brothel.  In this, she plays a cynical prostitute. For some reason, she isn't the most popular prostitute in the place even though she's the most lively. The scene where her father confronts Machiko about the shame she is bringing to the family is easily the best scene of the movie. This was the director's last film.