---This week I watched:
The Phantom Of The Opera (1943) Claude Rains, Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster. In this version, the Phantom is a musician with the opera who has been paying for a young singers lessons with a renown coach. He is fired by the maestro and then takes his composition to a publisher who is too busy to be bothered. The man becomes enraged and starts beating the publisher, so the lady assistant throws photographic solution in the composers' face. The poor man is suffering and runs out into the street and finally falls into the water running under the street in the sewer. From this point the story is very like the later version and the original story. Foster and Eddy have two duets and Foster hits her famous C above high C and is very pretty doing it. The two young men in her life are played for comedy and the whole is entertaining. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036261/
Sadly, I just read that Miss Foster died January 20, 2009 in a nursing home in New Jersey. She was 84. She made no films between the late 1940's and 1992 when she was in a remake of "Detour." She fell on hard times and at one time was homeless. Sad for she had an amazing voice and was only 19 when she made Phantom. RIP, dear lady.
Deak Reckoning (1947) Humphrey Bogart, Lizabeth Scott. Another film noir with returning vets getting into all kinds of bad stuff. Bogey has to find out why the hero he is returning with has suddenly gone missing and turns up dead. The guy was supposed to get a medal but runs away and it is up to his friend and officer to find out what has happened. Not a top rated Bogey film but better than most mysteries of the era. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039305/
The Merry Widow (1952) Lana Turner and Fernando Lamas. Fernando does all the songs except for one - the waltz is dubbed Lana - and is surprisingly effective. Not as much fun as the 1933 version, but production values have the MGM lush technicolor, costumes and sets. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044900/
Zodiak (2007) Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr. Rather slow telling of the story of the California serial killings that stretched over more than 20 years. I was immediately put off by Gyllenhaal's cartoonist as some creepy voyeur. Mark Ruffalo's cop was the best thing I've ever seen him do. Downey, Jr. is so watchable that it is a crime. I stuck with it but can't say I was blown away. Since it is based on real people, and the cartoonist wrote the book, I guess the story just wasn't a thrill a minute, but not even one? Worth a look. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443706/
Traitor (2008) Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce. Interesting story of a Muslim man caught up in the world of spys and terrorist plots. Not as exciting or thought provoking as it should have been, but worth watching. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0988047/
One more full month of winter and then we will gradually get to spring. I'm already counting down.
All the news from government is depressing, except we have some hope with the new administration. I pray they get it right for all our sakes.
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