---in films I watched recently:
All seen on TCM:
The Valley Of Decision (1945) Greer Garson, Gregory Peck, Lionel Barrymore, Donald Crisp, Marsha Hunt, Dan Duryea, Preston Foster, Jessica Tandy. Great cast in a story about Pittsburg in late 1800s and two families caught up in the labor strife at the steel mills. One family owns a mill; the others men all work in the factory. The daughter of the Rafferty family(Mary) goes to the big house as a maid. The son Paul (Peck) of the Scott family also goes to work in the steel mills and the two gradually fall in love. Because old Mr Rafferty(Barrymore) hates the Scotts and blames them for his being crippled in a plant accident, there seems no way to bridge the hatred, so Mary goes off to England with the daughter of the house when she marries an English Lord when he visits the Scotts to see their mills. Mary is gone for two years, but old Mr. Scott sends for Mary and she comes home and plans are made for a wedding. Then the workers are having a face to face with management and strike breakers appear and start breaking heads. Old Mr. Rafferty is killed. Mr. Scott is badly hurt and also dies.. Mary says it is because of the curse her father put on her and Paul. She won't see him or marry him. Paul marries childhood friend, Louise Kane(Tandy) from across the road and they have a son. Another 5 or so years pass, and old Mrs. Scott calls on Mary in her dress shop and tells her she is leaving Mary her share of the steel mills because she knows Mary will hold out against the 3 who want to sell and give Paul a chance to hold the mill together. It is a great American story, about immigrants who came to America and made lives and history. Great cast. 9/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038213/
My Name Is Julia Ross (1945) Nina Foch, Dame May Whitty, George Macready. A "B" picture with good performances and the usual creepy old cliff side mansion, locked doors, and people who keep telling you you are married to someone you don't remember or know. Keeps your interest. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037932/
Gun Crazy (1950/ Original title "Deadly Is The Female") Peggy Cummins, John Dall. Two gun nuts find each other and start robbing, stores, banks, payrolls. Not a pretty story. But as a tale of youth, lust and violence it is pretty good. Cummins was darling even if she was a killer. Dall was as good as I've ever seen him. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042530/
Invitation (1952) Dorothy Maguire, Van Johnson, Louis Calhoun. This was a Matinee' Ladies film. Story of a woman who has had rheumatic fever as a child which left her heart damaged. Doctors give her a year to live. Her wealthy father wants it to be a happy year, and knows she wants a husband and her own home, so he propositions one of her friends, offering a job and lots of money if he marries her and she never knows. Of course, things don't go as planned. Good cast does its' best, which is very good. Ruth Roman as the bad gal almost steals the show. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044751/
Trapeze (1956) Burt Lancaster, Gina Lollobridgida, Tony Curtis. Great story of a trapeze artist(Curtis) who want to learn the triple somersault and comes to Paris to the only man(Lancaster) who ever did one, to learn how it is done. He has to talk Mike into being his catcher, but once he does they work day and night. Just about the time they are ready to show their act, Gina(Lola) starts worming her way into the act and getting the two men fighting. Great shots of trapeze work, Gina is worth the price of admission, and the guys are not bad either. I love it. And the circus music! 9/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049875/
The Journey (1959) Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner, Jason Robards Jr., Robert Morley, Anne Jackson, E.G. Marshall. One of my favorite Brynner films. He is Russian Major Surov and when a busload of people who had been at the airport in Budapest trying to leave the country during the uprising, are rerouted to Vienna and have to pass through the border town where he is stationed, he is in charge of seeing that there are no Hungarians in the group trying to get over the border. In checking all of the passports, he takes special interest Lady Diana Ashmore, who speaks for the ill passenger, Paul Kedes, who she has been helping. Over several days, the cat and mouse game continues, until it becomes dangerous and decisions have to be made. The two stars are very good and the sexual tension between them is extreme. A fast paced and interesting story and right out of the headlines at the time it was made and released to theaters. 9/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052950/
Inside Daisy Clover (1965) Natalie Wood, Christopher Plummer, Robert Redford, Ruth Gordon, Roddy McDowell. Story of teen-ager in the 1930's who lives on a California boardwalk in Santa Monica, with her bipolar mother, and makes a record and sends it in to a studio contest. Soon a car and Raymond Swan, head of his Hollywood studio is there taking Daisy away to make her his new little star - America's Valentine. A cynical and devastating look at the studio system when you signed up you more or less belonged to them. I have watched this film a number of times and is it wrong to turn the sound off on those two musical numbers they have our Daisy do? I just can't take it anymore. But I do enjoy the look of old Hollywood and the star system. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059314/
Finally caught up with my viewing of the last two weeks. Onward.....
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