blanche-2

Go West, Young Man is a 1936 film starring Mae West, who wrote the script, and directed by Henry Hathaway. Mae's costars are Warren William, Randolph Scott, Lyle Talbot, and Alice Brady.

Mae is movie star Mavis Arden. Thanks to her car breaking down, she and Morgan (William), her publicist, are stuck in the country at a boarding house. Mae falls for a young man on the premises, Bud Norton (Randolph Scott). Panic ensues. Her contract says she can't marry for five years, and a young woman in the household is in love with Bud.

Because the Hayes code is now in force, Mae doesn't have the double entendres dialogue, though she still has some fun lines. Instead of playing a bawdy caricature, she plays it straight, and she's excellent. As usual, she's a man magnet, romancing politician Lyle Talbot, though she's not having any luck getting to meet him in Harrisburg.

As the naive ah shucks hunk, Randolph Scott is gorgeous. You really can't blame Mae.

Isabel Jewell is a riot as a young woman wanting to get into show biz, using her impression of Dietrich.

Enjoyable.

Some trivia. Mae said she paid 20 grand for that car. Today it would cost over 400 grand!

Jimmy Cagney is mean as dirt in a Cagney production, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye from 1950, directed by Gordon Douglas.

The film also stars Barbara Payton. Touted as a great beauty with a wild love life that ended in disaster, I have seen her in other films and never saw her appeal. Here, however, she looks beautiful. Just goes to show you lifestyle reads.

The movie begins with a courtroom scene with a group of people on trial. As witnesses take the stand, the story goes into flashback.

Ralph Cotter (Cagney) and his partner Carleton escape a prison work gang. Carleton is injured, so Cotter finishes him off.

Carleton's sister Holiday (Payton) is one of the people helping Ralph escape. She becomes Cotter's lover. To get established in town and escape detection, Cotter bribes and blackmails the corrupt Inspector Weber (Ward Bond) - he gets a new name, a gun permit, and his wanted poster destroyed.

Arrogant, he gets busy planning s huge robbery and also takes up with a wealthy woman, whose father is very powerful. He pays no attention to warnings not to get mixed up with her.

Meanwhile, Holiday doesn't know about the woman or that Cotter killed her brother.

Cagney's character is probably mentally disturbed. He has a hair-trigger temper and kills without compunction.

Cagney is always good, but the romances have no chemistry, and in fact, he's too old for them or the part. It's obvious Cagney was going through a career transition. He was a great star and came out the other side. To me one of his best roles was in Love Me or Leave Me.

This is a violent movie showing an amoral man corrupting everyone he meets, if they're not corrupted already.

Some trivia - since the film was low budget, Cagney realized people working on the film weren't being paid enough. Therefore he claimed illness and would leave early so they would receive an extra day of pay. Remarkable man - remarkable actor.

This wonderful classic, written and directed by Robert Zemeckis, made 20x its budget on its release in 1985. It remains one of the most entertaining films in movie history.

Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) lives in a small town in California. His dad George McFly (Crispin Glover) is a put-upon underachiever, bullied in high school and still taken advantage of by the same people now.

Marty's mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson) is very puritanical and objects to the time Marty spends with his girlfriend. Marty has a brother and a sister; his mother's brother Joey is in prison.

Marty is more outgoing and confident, and spends time with a crazy scientist, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) who is always experimenting. Marty hears that plutonium has been stolen - it appears Doc has it and is working on a time machine. Doc has asked to meet him at the mall, where he unveils his experiment.

Doc was supposed to deliver a bomb to Libyans but sent a fake and is using the plutonium in his modified DeLorean to get back to 1955, when he first discovered time travel.

The Libyans attack Doc. Marty hides in the car, accelerates it, and winds up in 1955.

In 1955, Marty meets the young version of his parents. Lorraine, his own mother, is crazy about him! He has to work on his dad's confidence and assertiveness to make sure his parents fall in love, or his family won't exist in the future. He has to find Doc Brown and get sent back to 1985 and save Doc Brown from being murdered by the Libyans. He has a lot to do.

Very clever movie, pointing up all the changes in 30 years. Lorraine thinks his name is Calvin Klein because of his underwear; Ronald Reagan is an actor; Pepsi Free doesn't mean he expects it for nothing.

Back to the Future is tough to review. It's perfectly structured entertainment and moves right along, from small impactful moments to big effects as Marty tries to get back home, from warm, sweet scenes to hilarious ones.

Perfect script, perfect cast, perfect direction. A simple story told brilliantly. A fun soundtrack. Not much else to say.