Saturday, April 5, 2025
The Face of Marble
A doctor reanimates the dead. While he does so his wife is cheating on him. It's Poverty Row Studio so you know it's not good. It stars John Carradine, the father of the Nashville star Keith. Although Poverty Row Studio movies aren't good they do have a certain charm to them.
Saturday, March 29, 2025
The Sure Thing
I was disappointed by how few comments this movie got on youtube. I watched it all the time when I was a kid. Yes it's heavily inspired by It Happened one Night but it's fun. Daphne Zuniga plays a stuffed shirt while John Cusack portrays a slacker. They both go on a road journey together since both of them are going to the same destination. Initially they fight but eventually the two fall in love. Cusack originally goes on the trip because his friend Anthony Edwards guarantees he has a "sure thing" with Nicolette Sheridan but Cusack finds he might not want that. Why hasn't Cusack been awarded with an Oscar nomination or something? He's never been given his due.
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Voodoo Man
My twin sister has gotten into Poverty Row Studio movies. They're not good, not even so bad they're good, but they are intriguing low budget movies. In this Bela Lugosi kidnaps girls all with the intention of helping his zombie wife. It was only an hour. I have no complaints.
Saturday, March 15, 2025
King of the Zombies
This was a generic movie from Poverty Row Studios about an island with zombies, voodoo, and hypnotism. The real reason to watch this is for Mantan Moreland's performance. At first I cringed at the racial stereotype Mantan had to portray but he does a really good job. He's pretty funny. He should be more of a name.
Saturday, March 8, 2025
The Monster Maker
My sister wants to get into Poverty Row Studio movies, a low budget horror company of the 1940s. A mad scientist injects the father of a woman he loves with a disease acromegaly that he is reknown for curing. For a while she comes to him pleading for help until the truth comes out. This movie had the potential to be so much more but it felt the need to wrap up things nicely and have a happy movie. This could have been a cool dark movie.
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Claudia and David
This was an old movie I found on youtube. It looked interesting but I found it boring. It's a sequel but I found it easy to follow without watching the original. This finds a married couple going through problems with their three year old child, jealousy, and other trials. Nothing really grabbed my attention although I've always liked Dorothy McGuire.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Hugo and Josephine
This was an ok Swedish film from the 1960s about the friendship between a girl, a boy, and a gardener. The girl Josephine is a loner and welcomes the friendship of a new boy Hugo in town. Hugo's gardener starts taking care of him after his father lands in jail. By the end of the movie the three have formed a bond. The movie is ultimately about childhood although I just thought it brushed on the concepts of bullying.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Apartment for Peggy
This was an ok 40's drama about a suicidal old man whose life is turned around when he rents his apartment out to nineteen-year-old Peggy and her husband William Holden. Peggy has a baby on the way and Holden is an aspiring teacher. But things don't pan out as they seem and Holden thinks about becoming a car salesman since they make better money. Some things happened in the movie that I didn't expect. It didn't change my life but Jeanne Crain was a fine charming actress. It's worth a watch.
Saturday, February 8, 2025
The Blonde Witch
In this 50's movie an engineer falls for the outcast witch of the town, a beauty played by Marina Vlady. Previously in the movie he had been flirting with another female, and the girl doesn't take kindly to being dumped to the side. The end of the movie ends tragically as the villagers' distaste for the witch takes an unexpected turn. I really liked Marina Vlady. I need to watch more of her movies. I watched it free on this cool website https://rarefilmm.com/. You can tell the guy who made it is a real film buff.
Saturday, February 1, 2025
Maria Candelaria
Man Dolores Del Rio was good in this. She plays a saint who can't run away from her mother's prostitute past. Some people who seem good in this film later turn out to be villains. The movie begins with an artist about to paint her picture. I don't want to give everything away but things don't end pretty. This really is a Mexican classic. I wish people would provide more subtitles on youtube. I think maybe people don't think that there is an interest in old Mexican cinema but they're wrong.
Anne of Windy Poplars
This was a movie sequel to Anne of Green Gables starring Anne Shirley. Leonard Maltin was harsh and called it uninspired. I thought it was just ok. It's about Anne Shirley becoming a teacher and her squabbles with the Pringles in the town. I wish that Gilbert was focused more. The real reason I watched this was because of the actress Anne Shirley. She quit stardom all too soon.
Saturday, January 25, 2025
The Vanishing
I watched this when I was a kid and it remained with me. I just ended up watching it again. After a man's wife disappears from a gas station, the guy goes on an obsessive desperate search for answers. The killer teases with him. Eventually the two meet. He demands to know what happened to his wife. At times I couldn't believe the stupidity of the guy. He had to know that he was asking for his doom but obsession gets the better of him. There was an American remake that changed the spooky ending which really missed the point of this movie. I was surprised that it's just on youtube and not available for rent. This is one of the scariest films I've ever seen.
Saturday, January 18, 2025
A Hole in the Wall
This was a short precode. It was one of Claudette Colbert's first movies and the first that starred Edward G. Robinson as a gangster. It was just ok. It's about a girl falsely accused of theft who becomes a psychic. Edward G. Robinson is a gangster who gets involved with her but his association with her leads to his downfall.
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Whistle down the Wind
Hayley Mills stars as a child who believes the criminal hiding out in her barn is Jesus. Soon the other children believe it too. Meanwhile the adults in the movie are looking for the criminal who is kind of baffled at the attention the children are giving him. This was a pretty good movie. Hayley Mills was simply one of the best child actors ever. This was later made as an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.
The Phantom of the Opera
This was an ok film version of The Phantom of the Opera. The problem is that it has too much opera. This is probably because the cast has Nelson Eddy and Susanna Foster, who was one of the many actresses of her time trying to compete with Deanna Durbin. (She does a pretty good job as Christine.) The real winner in the movie is Claude Rains as the phantom though. He was such a great actor. It wasn't amazing but it was acceptable.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)