Barbara Stanwyck, sometimes underrated as an actress (four Oscar nominations and no wins) and always undervalued as a star, shows why she lasted so long - she could do anything. Usually cast as a mobster's tough tart or a hard-luck dame and everything in between, here she plays a first-class lady, a widowed mother of two, a fine upstanding citizen who lives in that Never-Never Land called the Upper Middle Class laughingly depicted by Hollywood as a place where women belong to country clubs, constantly appear dressed in mink and evening gowns, are constantly making grand entrances and exits and are forever worrying what the neighbors will think. Joan Crawford fit right into this nonsensical neighborhood once she joined Warner Bros. and may well have been offered this script but thankfully Stanwyck took the part and created from the ground up another unforgettable performance in a forgettable (but very popular in its day) film. The story is nothing special but oh! how Barbara dominates every scene she's in, and does it without really trying (or so it seems). While Davis and Crawford had a tendency to remind audiences that they were acting, Stanwyck just rolled up her sleeves and got the job done. Such truth in her work! Watching her is an electric experience, she connects with an audience like few stars had or have before or since. Splendid!
Reviews
9 Reviews
50/50
(2011)
Rogen Ruins It
21 October 2011
What could have been a low-key, extra-special slice of life story (featuring as it does a extra-special performance by the always extra-special JGL)is ruined by the unbelievable and crass performance of Seth Rogen who destroys any believability or good-will the story has built up every time he appears on screen. Movie-makers have got to realize a little bit of this fat-friend-with-the-dirty-mind-and-mouth-to-match goes a long way. Rogen has out-stripped his meager talents and worn out his welcome by now, and throwing such a putrid character in such a heart-warming story is a major mistake. Everyone else plays it on a realistic level - Anna Kendrick is wonderful as the therapist-in-training, and Anjelica Houston - well, what can I say? Joseph Gordon-Levitt positively lights up the screen every time he appears, but all too often he appears with the woefully charisma-challenged Rogen and, well, the movie and JGL's performance suffer accordingly.
Ragtime
(1981)
Bitched version of an over-rated book
12 March 2010
There probably was no way to do the multi-leveled story lines justice except maybe in a ten-hour miniseries, but even so, what can account for Mandy Patemkin's daughter never growing older even though he has made three successful films since the start of the movie? Ditto James Olsen's son - both kids stay the same age throughout the picture. What they probably should have done (I hate to remake things as I'm watching them) is told the whole thing through Brad Douriff's eyes. It would have given the audience someone and something to focus on. I did think Elizabeth McGovern was a good choice as Evelyn Nesbit (certainly much better than Joan Collins in the campy 1955 film THE GIRL IN THE RED VELVET SWING)and Harold Rollins was wonderful in a poorly-written part, but Debbie Allen was wasted along with I hate to say it James Cagney, who looked mummified.
Body of Lies
(2008)
They lost me
20 March 2009
This is one of those great looking, plot-heavy, star-driven spy stories that should have been a knock-out, yet they lost me twenty minutes into it and never got me back. Leo is a wonderful actor, a true star, charming, super photogenic and up to any challenge, but let's face it - people don't go to his movies to see him wearing a series of bad wigs while speaking Arabic. And was that a Southern accent that kept reappearing every so often? And Crowe - well, most of his lines (as in most of his movies ) seem to be post-dubbed, and thus this robs his performance(s) of any impact they may have. To have these two actors in the same movie is a good idea, but to keep them apart for 80% of the running time is not.
Caprice
(1967)
She turned down THE GRADUATE for THIS???
30 January 2009
Surely Fox had intended this one for Raquel Welch but dusted it off when Doris needed to complete her three picture deal with the studio. She had saved their necks at Christmas time in 1963 with MOVE OVER, DARLING (the re-tooled SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE), but two years later she was rewarded with DO NOT DISTURB, a second-rate farce based on a third rate play. Then along came this attempt to turn Doris into a go-go mod spy with BATMAN trimmings. Well, Doris is always watchable and there are a few funny and/or exciting set pieces, and the photography is gorgeous, but really, I am shocked that a major MAJOR talent like Doris Day settled for this feeble outdated-the-minute-it-was-released effort. There isn't even a decent ending! The way films were being made and watched and reviewed and studied was changing rapidly (mostly for the good) in 1967, and it is a shame that an iconic performer like Miss Day could not ride the wave to a nice third act to her movie career. Still, this does have the makings of a cult film, and perhaps when viewed in context of the time it was made and released (Spring of 1967) future audiences will appreciate it for what it is rather than what it is not. Watch anyway!
The I Don't Care Girl
(1953)
If you've ever wondered...
30 July 2008
...why Mitzi Gaynor, certainly one of the most talented ladies in the business, never became a major movie star. here's your answer: too many movies like this. Taking a RASHAMON approach to the life of Eva Tanguay is certainly a novel idea, but right from the start post-production butchery is all too obvious and the remaining seventy-nine minutes make little or no sense what so ever. I truly believe someone was trying to do poor Miss Gaynor in with this one. Characters appear and disappear randomly, the score is mediocre at best, and the production numbers - where Miss Gaynor should really shine - are executed in such a sloppy, slap-dash way that it is hard to believe this film was released by a major studio. Gaynor shines during the first rendition of "I Don't Care" which is done in true (movie) vaudeville style and gives some glimpse of what the real Miss Tanguay must have been like as a performer, but the other numbers (I suppose those conceived by Jack Cole)are a mess, totally out of period, including a hep cat version of the title tune that has Mitzi dancing in a chug-chug style that does nothing to display her very real dancing talent. During this number her two male co-stars keep turning up in different guises long after one of them has left the story. Huh? Looking at a quartet of films (this mess, THE BLOODHOUNDS OF Broadway, DOWN AMONG THE SHELTERING PALMS, and GOLDEN GIRL) designed to make Miss Gaynor a star, one wonders what the powers that be were thinking. No wonder Marilyn arrived on the scene shortly there after and staked out the Fox lot for herself!
I Think I Do
(1997)
Horrible!
17 July 2008
I can almost forgive the crappy, wish-fulfillment writing and the amateurish acting, and the fact that they put the great Marni Nixon in a flapper outfit that wouldn't pass muster at a third grade Halloween party. But the cast - what did the producers do - put out a call for the ugliest actors in town? The chick with the dark lips and the horse teeth/face was particularly repulsive, and PS has anyone in this movie ever smoked a cigarette before? Talk about awkward. The "sex" scenes were among the unsexiest I have ever seen, and the whole thing just reeked of home movie-making. I cannot believe so many viewers rated this as a "feel-good" movie. It was puke.
The Long, Hot Summer
(1958)
Faulkner hell! We're in Williams country...
3 July 2008
...and loving it! This movie takes the best of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, SUMMER AND SMOKE, throws in more than a dollop of William Inge's PICNIC, borrows the basket auctioning bit from OKLAHOMA! and the digging-for-treasure-by-the-old-collapsing-house subplot from GOD'S LITTLE ACRE - hell, we even get a variation on the cotton gin burning from BABY DOLL - and somehow delivers an original and unforgettable entertainment, the kind of movie they truly don't make any more. Every member of the cast is superb, with Woodward being a standout and Lee Remmick being gorgeous. How audiences must have swooned in 1958! How many people left the theater thinking they had seen something truly naughty and adult! This film has great dialog, atmosphere to spare, stunning yet understated costumes by Adele Palmer, and gorgeous cinematography. This is all tied together by another fine Alex North score. Check out the scene - lasting no more that 45 seconds - when Newman and Woodward cross a small bridge to share a picnic lunch. This music cue is magical. Jerry Wald produced many high-class soap operas at Fox during the late 1950's, but this one is by far the best. Lansbury shines, Welles hams, and Newman takes his shirt off - what more could an audience ask for? A dreamy title tune crooned over the credits? You got it!
Beloved Infidel
(1959)
A mess, but two stars at the peak of their appeal
13 August 2007
This film has all the earmarks of too many cooks spoiling the stew. Based on Shielah Graham's autobiography, it seems like the powers that be couldn't leave well enough alone. They couldn't decide if this was to be Graham's story or Fitzgerald's story, and also how much they should soft-pedal whoever's story it turned out to be. So a film that could have been a story about two fascinating (Fitzgerald) and notorious (Ms. Graham)personalities becomes a dreary disjointed soap opera about that tells us little about either. Added to this there is absolutely no period feel other than for 1959. Clumsy scene follows clumsy scene and we have no idea where we are in the story or how much time is passing. However - and this saved the film for me - Kerr has never looked lovelier, and Peck is as always a very handsome man. They truly make a beautiful, mature couple, and I only wish they had better material to work with. There is one scene that does work - Scott goes after Shielah while in a drunken state, and to see these two normally refined stars knock each other around is very disturbing and gives some fleeting idea of what goes on in a relationship such as theirs. Other than that, the movie is a wasted opportunity and achieves nowhere near the classic stature of other Wald produced soaps of the 1950 (PEYTON PLACE, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING).
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