You Belong To Me (1941) Barbara Stanwyke and Henry Fonda in a dreadful rom/com that isn't romantic or funny. Fonda is a drip and is worse than I have ever seen him. Babs is always interesting, but she is defeated here by an incoherent script. 5/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034407/usercomments
I See A Dark Stranger (1946) In the USA this film was released with the title "The Adventuress" and is a droll, tongue in cheek telegraphing on what the film is about that you will see. An Irish girl, Bridey (Deborah Kerr) has been brought up to hate all things English. It's the "troubles" again. Maybe it is my just not "getting it" but I was not amused by Bridey's obstinacy. Trevor Howard is the British Officer who falls for her (why I can't tell from this story) and the supporting cast is most of the reason to stick til "the end." 7/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038289/
The Hucksters (1947) Ava Gardner day and she was at her peak in beauty, and her scenes with Clark Gable sizzle. They were a good team. Story of a big advertising agency and what it took to get clients to sign up for big bucks. Things are still about the same, except it is television instead of radio and billboards the ad agency's are fighting over. Adolph Menjou is the agency's top man; and the great Sidney Greenstreet is priceless as an absolutely disgusting client. Clark is just back from WWII, trying to get back in the game by signing rich, proper war widow Deborah Kerr up as a spokesperson for the product. MGM's great production values and 'look' are in evidence in this black and white film. 8/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039477/
Summertime (1955) Kate Hepburn in the classic romance of a school teachers holiday in Venice. She meets shopkeeper Rosano Brazzi and has an affair. That's it. But with Venice never so beautifully filmed, a great romantic score, this story has made more people plan to visit a city than almost any other. A wonderful summertime film about summertime. 10/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048673/
Stage Struck (1958) A fine remake of the Kate Hepburn film, "Morning Glory." This time Susan Strasburg is Eva Lovelace, and Henry Fonda the producer/cad. Wonderful Herbert Marshall plays her first "friend in the theater," and Christopher Plummer is the playwright who loves her. Filmed in NYC in the theater district, the film has some of the excitement and grittiness of the stage life. It ain't all roses and applause. 8/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052235/
American Gangster (2007) Disc 2 Extras Last week I wrote about the film itself, but the extras are just as interesting and you get to meet the real people - the cop and the gangster. 8/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765429/
The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) My type of film! Lots of beautiful scenery; great costumes; lovely score; and very interesting story of Mary Boleyn and what happened to her as part of Henry VIIIs court. A sub-theme is the treatment of women as chattel of their male relatives - fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, all using the youngest and prettiest of their girls to rise as far up the ladder at court as they could. That, in this case, is the ruin of them all. Mary and the young man who she eventually marries, retired to the country as small landowners and lived a fairly long life, quietly away from court and greed.
In the deleted and extra scenes, there is a telling one with Kirsten Scott-Thomas, who says to her husband after Jane and her brother are beheaded, "this is what your ambition has brought us." She had tried all through their rise at court to keep the daughters from harm, but had no power and was brushed aside. Fine film, and for me, I wanted more as the cast list rolled. 9/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467200/
Soon the fall films will be starting at the theaters. I have my list of films for September to watch on DVD and video. So until next week -----
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