First Viewings:
The Easiest Way (1931) Constance Bennett, Adolph Menjou, Robert Montgomery, Anita Page. Poor shopgirl Laura, helps support her parents and sister by working at a store and does some modeling on the side. She catches the eye of a rich ad executive and soon moves into a great apartment with him. Her sisters husband (Clark Gable in a early role) looks down on her and won't let sisters be together. After meeting a a newspaper reporter at a picnic, they eventually fall in love and she moves out of her digs and gives up her cushy life. But her guy doesn't get back from his assignment and she runs out of money and it's back to lover Menjou. Connie wears beautiful fashions, her hair and makeup perfect, which is what her fans demanded. Early precode look at the depression poor, and the wealthy. It wasn't pretty or fun for the people on the lower rungs of the ladder. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021825/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
The Power & The Glory (1933) Spencer Tracy, Colleen Moore, Ralph Morgan, Helen Vinson. Original screenplay by Preston Sturges, who writes this story specifically for Spencer. He plays a rags to riches tycoon, who starts out walking the rail lines, and marries a schoolteacher who teaches him to read and write. His ruthlessness comes through when his wife wants him to rise in his railroad job, and he becomes what she wants, a workaholic who neglects her and their only child. He keeps rising higher and higher and gets richer and richer. But by the time his son is grown, he hardly knows his family and hardly cares. He has become a man who values only power and when he marries his second wife, even she cannot keep him from his ruthless ways. Years before Citizen Kane, this is almost the same story and may have been the model for Orson Welles John Forster Kane. The film itself is disjointed, jumping from the present to the past and bringing the story forward in pieces. Acting is good. 6/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024465/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
The Saint In New York (1938) Louis Hayward, Jack Carson, Sig Ruman, Kay Sutton. Only time Hayward played Simon Templar and he makes him a jaunty fixer for the police. The film is fast and lots of fun with dark rooms, shooting, doors slamming, screams, fist fights, etc. Typical "b" movie stuff but Hayward is fun. Carson and fellow trigger man, Paul Guilfoyle, are sort of dim bulbs that make it amusing talking philosophical as they go about doing the dirty work. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030709/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Never Say Goodbye (1946) Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker, Patti Brady, Forrest Tucker, Lucille Watson, S.Z.Sakall. The couple has been divorced for a year and their daughter is sad and wants them together again. She has been writing to a serviceman, which was encouraged during WWII, but she send a picture of her beautiful mother to the guy who comes home on leave and wants to come see his pen pal. She encourages his interest, hoping to make the ex jealous. It works. Light and fun. 7/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038773/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3
The Racket (1951) Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Ryan, William Talman. In a small role, a voice from radio -Les Tremayne. In my youth, he was on a show almost every day and night. Wonderful radio actor. This film is about crooked cops on the payroll of the mob who are running things in town. Capt. McQuigg is incorruptible and finds one honest cop in his precinct to help bring down boss Nick Scanlon. A good cops and mob story. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043955/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Transit (2012/I) Jim Caviezel. Awful heist movie about a family on vacation getting involved with bank robbers escaping from the law. In the Louisiana swamps, with gators, and viney trees and murky water and - lions and tigers oh! my. Really is a mess and only redeeming virtue is the location filming in Louisiana. 4/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059836/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Tower Heist (2011) Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Casey Affleck, Alan Alda. A group of workers at a high rise luxury apartment are victims of a Ponzi scheme and their retirement funds are gone. Their efforts to pull off a robbery of the financier who was the cause of it, and lives in the penthouse, is the story. Entertaining enough heist film. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0471042/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
The Descendants (2011) George Clooney. Film begins with a woman on water skis suddenly having a horrible accident. How it affects her husband and 2 daughters, and what they find out about her is the story. Clooney as the husband is okay but this is not his best. The best thing in the film is the location filming of Hawaii and the music score. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1033575/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Wanderlust (2012) Jennifer Aniston, Paul Rudd. Married couple lose their jobs so decide to go on a road trip and end up at a commune with some very strange people. Their reactions to the different lifestyles and what they end up doing is the film. Not either stars best work. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1033575/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
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