DSL's Movie/TV Reviews and Discussion

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[Dr. Strangelove]

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Rebecca (1940)
d. Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson, George Sanders, Florence Bates

Alfred Hitchcock's first movie made in America was an adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier gothic mystery novel, Rebecca. It was also the only one of his pictures to win a Best Picture Oscar (Also Cinematography)

Joan Fontaine plays a young, poor woman hired by wealthy spinsters to travel with them around Europe. While on a trip to the French Riviera she meets Max de Winter (Olivier), an extremely wealthy widower on holiday. He quickly appears to fall in love with her, makes her the second Mrs. de Winter, and takes her back to England to his estate, Manderly. He lives there alone with two dozen servants, all overseen by the cold & domineering housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. Almost as soon as they return to England, Max's personality seems to change; he snaps a lot and is easily angered. Mrs. Danvers remains cold and distant, even condescending to her. She also constantly tells her about Mr. de Winter's first wife, Rebecca, and how she was the total perfection of womanhood and beloved by the entire household. She warns her that Mr. De Winter has a hot temper.

I don't want to say too much more than that without spoilers, so see below for that. Of the Hitchcock movies in this group I watched, this and Lady Vanishes are my two favorites. Even though this one starts to get a little bit ridiculous when you stop and think about it a bit.

SPOILERIt turns out that Rebecca was actually a horrible person and her malingering presence is kept alive by Mrs. Danvers, who had an obsession with her to the point that it's pretty clear she's meant to be a repressed lesbian. Rebecca cheated on Max continuously, laughing in his face about it, and died when she felll during an argument with him. We find out eventually that she knew she was dying of cancer and was trying to goad him into killing her, thus ruining his life too. But at any rate he panics, sinks the body in the sea, then claims another body at the morgue is her.

Mrs.Danvers for her part increasingly resents Joan Fontaine (her character is never actually named!) to the point of encouraging her to commit suicide because she can never live up to Rebecca in any way. And this is where it gets a little ridiculous...lol, why would you not fire this person at this point?? I think it's sort of implied that Max fears that Danvers suspects he murdered Rebecca and could cause trouble for him but it's never really explained.

In the end a totally deranged Danvers burns the mansion down rather than see the couple be happy there and dies in the fire.

Joan Fontaine is great. Judith Anderson (who plays Mrs. Danvers) is great. I am not crazy about Laurence Olivier, to be honest, but it may just be the character. In the novel, Rebecca doesn't die by accident -- he actually shoots her. Hollywood didn't want a happy ending for someone who had straight up murdered someone, even if provoked, so they altered that part to make it "accidental". Still, he more or less caused her death and between that and all the times he blows his top at Joan Fontaine, he's not a terribly likeable male lead.

"Modern" trailer below

[iam416]

Wait, Rebecca turns out to be awful?????? WTF?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Damn, dude, spoilers.

[THE_WIZARD_]

STFU

shaddup

[Dr. Strangelove]

Less Wizard. More Prophet

[WingsFan]

Kirk Douglas died today - My Favorite movie of this giant actor was 'Strangers When We Meet' RIP

[iam416]

I liked when he knock Mike Tyson the fuck out. Shame. Columbus loses a legend.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I am Spartacus!!

[WingsFan]

Out of the Past 1947 with adversary Robert Mitchum ( one of my favorites of all time) is another Masterpiece. Time to go to TCM and record a ton :-)

[Dr. Strangelove]

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Foreign Correspondent (1940)
d. Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Basserman, Robert Benchley

Johnny Jones, a hard-boiled reporter for the New York Globe, is assigned to go to Europe and cover a peace conference. Once there he meets the leader of a European Peace Party (Herbert Marshall) and his daughter (Laraine Day) who are expecting the arrival of a prominent Dutch diplomat named Van Meer (Basserman). Johnny shares a cab ride with Van Meer who then vanishes after they arrive at a conference. Hearing that Van Meer is supposed to appear at another conference in Amsterdam, Johnny crosses the Channel, but this time when he meets Van Meer, the man has no recollection of having ever met Johnny. Suddenly, an assassin disguised as a cameraman shoots Van Meer at point blank range.

This was the second film Hitchcock released in 1940, after Rebecca, the second film her made in America, and it was also up for a Best Picture award along with that film. That may be a record? The movie was nominated for six Oscars in all but didn't win any.

Foreign Correspondent is a good film but not a warm film. The main characters are not terribly memorable but specific scenes in the movie stand out: The Van Meer assassination scene. The windmill scene outside Amsterdam. The plane crash at sea near the end. Some secondary characters are worth pointing out. Robert Benchley plays a newspaper colleague of Johnny's. Benchley was a well-known humorist in his time (and a frequenter of the Algonquin Round Table in the 1920's) but he's only known mainly to classic movie buffs today. George Sanders (in his second Hitchcock film) is always strong and gets a rare "good guy" role here. Then there's Edmund Gween as a very chatty "bodyguard" for Johnny, who has in fact been hired to kill him.

There's plenty of contemporary politics on display here, more than any of the previous Hitch films I've talked about, and by the end it is a full-on wartime propaganda film (urging the US to stand with Britain). It's worth a view. Criterion has a very nice version with all the usual bells and whistles but it might be available free somewhere.

[Dr. Strangelove]

So this past week I set out to watch a shitty Italian-made James Bond ripoff from the 60's. I remembered it fondly as a Mystery Science Theater episode (one of my favorites) and saw it was available free (uncut) on Amazon Prime. Then I was suggested another shitty Italian-made James Bond ripoff that was ALSO a Mystery Science Theater episode long ago. One I had long forgotten or else never saw. That one was...absolute shit. So let's talk about them in reverse order, bad one first

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Secret Agent Super Dragon (1966)
d. Giorgio Ferroni
Starring: Roy Danton, Marisa Mell, Jess Hahn, Margaret Lee, Carlo D'Angelo

The best secret agent there's ever been, Mr. Super Dragon, is called out of retirement to investigate some deaths on a campus in Michigan.Yep, mysterious deaths in small-town Michigan. It turns out the student body is being poisoned by psychotropic drug-laced chewing gum sold at a local bowling alley.

Does this sound stupid enough yet? Does this sound like a James Bond mission?

When the bowling alley owner is murdered before he can squeal, Super Dragon immediately knows where he must head next: Holland!

There, he investigates a sinister art dealer who's holding a blind auction for some Ming vases that are actually going to carry the drugs to the United States. The art dealer, who is actually the head of an evil organization known as Alpha or Omega or the Triads or something, informs his membership that this batch of PSP (or whatever) will soon allow them to "control the world". Along the way he will face betrayal, a couple boring fights, a chance to use some yoga, and it all reaches the most boring anti-climactic conclusion ever. This movie is shit.

The print available on Prime is bad. The action is bad. Super Dragon gets in a few lame fights before the bad guy inevitably takes cyanide at the end. No quips. A Bond flick needs Bond babes and these are...okay? I guess? The bad guy's plot is incomprehensible. The drugs don't allow them to control people or anything. They just make the people freak out and get violent. How does that further your goals for world domination exactly? Super Dragon's sidekick is like a redneck version of Q.

The entire movie appears to be dubbed but American star Roy Danton was in a fairly solid number of westerns and war movies in the 50's and early 60's before he moved to Italy to get bigger roles in absolute shit. When he came back to the States he mostly transitioned to directing TV. The redneck Q guy I mentioned (Jess Hahn) made an entire career out of playing Americans in European trash for 30 years. The only other actor worth mentioning is probably Marisa Mell, who was briefly a well-known star on the Euro circuit. She plays the "femme fatale" in this

[Dr. Strangelove]

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Operation Kid Brother AKA O. K. Connery AKA Operation Double 007 (1967)
d. Alberto De Martino
Starring: Neil Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Adolfo Celi, Agata Flori, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell

I love this dumb, dumb movie. It boggles my mind that it ever got made.

So if you're going to make a ripoff James Bond movie, why not cast Sean Connery's brother? And why not cast as many people as you can from the actual James Bond movies? Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell are here, essentially playing M and Moneypenny, though they aren't called that. There's an evil, SPECTRE-like organization, headed by Anthony Dawson, who played Prof. Dent in Dr. No and actually played Blofeld before they showed us his face in You Only Live Twice. Playing his No. 1 is...Adolfo Celi!! Who was also No. 1 (aka Largo) in Thunderball. And finally, Daniela Bianchi (the Bond Girl from From Russia With Love) is Celi's henchwoman, but also THIS film's "Bond Girl".

Th plot is sort of immaterial but its something about a device that can destroy anything mechanical within a certain radius. Sort of a steampunk EMP bomb I guess. Pseudo-SPECTRE plans to take over the world with it.

Connery's character is ludicrous. The man can do it all! He's the world's greatest plastic surgeon. But also a champion archer. And also a master of hypnosis who studied under Tibetan monks. And let's not forget, he can read lips!

The music is something else to mention. Right off the bat we start with a hilariously bad song over the credits, trying so hard to imitate Shirley Bassey's Bond songs. Connery has his own theme, the bad guy has his own AWESOME theme, it's great! Super cheesy, brassy music throughout.

A pretty good print is available free on Prime. This flick was always one of my favorite Mystery Science Theater episodes and I'm kind of glad to have finally seen the unedited, uncut film. It's everything that Secret Agent Super Dragon was not. The number of ties between this and real Bond films and the good job imitating 60's Bond overall elevate this above the other ripoffs.

Enjoy the violence-filled, full of spoilers trailer! And don't worry, the version on Prime looks a lot better than this.

[drok]

I'm totally going to watch that. Thanks for sharing.

[froot loops]

It appears the Lois Maxwell vehicle From Hong With Love is also on Prime. In that one she is Moneypenny.